Free Worlds League

Free Worlds League
Capital	Atreus
Military Force	Free Worlds League Military

The Free Worlds League is one of the five successor states in the Inner Sphere. Of the successor states the Free Worlds League could be described as the loosest and (at least on paper) the most democratic. Even so much of the leadership has fallen de-facto to House Marik's pockets. Briefly died, and then came back again.

Origins

The Free Worlds League started life as several individual worlds and states, most prominently the Marik Commonwealth, The Federation of Oriente, and Regulan Principality, who all came together post-Terran Alliance collapse to mutually form together to face oncoming threats and hopefully spread through trade rather than conquest, which was immediately broken once they had needled the warlike and dictatorial Stewart Commonality into open war, which thanks to their now combined forces, needed a strong leader to put them all into line. Thus began the creation of the Captain-General, and from then on, it was history. What would become the general borders of the Free Worlds would be solidified just before the age of warfare, with the planet of Andurien being it's biggest conquest, which it would have to deal with for the rest of it's time as a state.

The current iteration of the Free Worlds League came into being in the 3080's as a result of the hard work of Jessica Marik, who had long since dreamed of reforming it after it's dissolution post-Jihad, and worked hard to get the resultant individual states back under the Marik banner. She did it, but the unity of this one is much more fragmented, especially after Clanner refugees were given amnesty in the new FWL's borders.

House Marik

On paper (and to a large degree in practice) the Free Worlds League is run by a Parliament who's members are mostly elected democratically as each world sees fit, though there are a few non-democratic planets. Each FWL affiliated world has a lot of autonomy in that framework. Less formally, power in the League has fallen into the office of Captain-General, the supreme commander of the Free Worlds League military. People are technically appointed as Captain-Generals by parliament. In practice, the office is the exclusive domain of House Marik.

Society

Life in the Free Worlds League is as diverse as it gets in the Battletech universe, simply because being in the Free Worlds League isn't exactly an autocratic state like the other Successor States, as it sees itself in a more democratic light, with no overarching pre-20th century civilization that it apes for cultural significance. Often, the traditions of larger worlds within the League like Atreus, Anduriel, Oriente, or Regulus will impose themselves on immediate stellar neighbors due to proximity, but no pre-FTL societal trend is constant within the League. As a result, the people of the Free Worlds League are far more individualistic than your average Inner Sphere citizen, but as a result are also way less loyal to the concept of the Free Worlds League, meaning that sustained war or much open conflict that isn't defensive is enormously unpopular to the average Free Worlder, because that may not be their thing, or more importantly, not very profitable.

Really, if there's any sort of cultural stereotype of the Free Worlds League, it's that they're all money-grubbing business types, obsessed with free markets and are often noted for having trouble understanding philosophy that doesn't involve money in an any way. The average entrepreneur in the FWL is noted for their aggression and often their keen business-savvy. That, and a bizarre open fury towards those who augment their body with bionics. While prosthesis is okay, any other augmentics are considered worthy of ridicule and open violence in some places. This did not get any better during the Word of Blake Jihad at all.

Military

The FWLM is a big and typical Inner Sphere military, split specifically into Federal and Provincal units, of which the latter were much, much more widespread. While the Federal troops were 100% loyal and answerable to the Captain-General, the Provincal units were largely self-supplied, raised, and trained by their respective provinces. While this worked for a time, it inevitably led to an act that allowed Provinces to withhold their troops, and the Captain-General eventually put a stop to it.

The FWLM started out a combined-arms military, with some of the best naval capacity in the Inner Sphere due to the League's founding from an empire of traders. They preferred no specific type of Battlemech, armor, or aerospace fighter, choosing instead to build their units in the boring way of "whatever was best for the job at hand". Their elite battlemech formations were among the most openly feudal of the entire Inner Sphere however, what with names like "Knights of the Inner sphere" and the like.

Notable Mechs

• Anzu - The League's unofficial mascot mech built in the 31st century after it's reformation. It's sort of designed as a Shadow Hawk clone with more energy weapons, as well as one scary L-PPC, allowing it to become a dependable mid-range threat and a darling among League Mechwarriors.
• Albatross - A bizarre-looking beakie Assault mech built specifically so that the League could have something that could take out the Clan OmniMechs, since they knew that was probably going to be a big problem for them in the near future. Doesn't really have a set role in any lance, and so it's the Jack-Of-All-Trades Mech; capable of hitting from any distance and dangerous at most of them.
• Orion - The League's staple mech from the time of the Star League all the way to the present. While it gets called a poor man's Atlas, that still makes it a pretty solid mech. Has plenty of armor, and a spacious chest cavity means that ground crews adore working in this thing because it's not cram-packed with stuff it doesn't need.
• Patriot - A mech designed to be an artillery platform as well as a command mech so that the League wouldn't lose valuable strategic minds over something as stupid as "personal honor" or some crazy bullshit like that, but turned out to be a strong enough design to do well in other roles. It's notably equipped with a guardian ECM suite designed to make sure everyone can hear whoever's jabbering over the sound of it's missile launcher/artillery round left arm blasting things to fucking death.