Lyran Commonwealth

Lyran Commonwealth
Capital	Tharkad
Official Languages	German
Size	Roughly 300
Head of State	Archon
Governmental Structure	Constitutional Monarchy
Military Force	Lyran Commonwealth Armed Forces

The Lyran Commonwealth is one of the five successor states of the Inner Sphere ruled by House Steiner. It is typically influenced by Imperial Germany.

History

The Commonwealth came into being through three trade empires coming together: the Protectorate of Donegal, The Federation of Skye, and the Tamal Pact. The initial charter asked for the Commonwealth to have nine Archons to rule, but the impracticality of it made it that a coup otherwise ensured that one Archon would have complete control.

House Steiner

House Steiner is the traditional noble house that has held a deathgrip on the head of state position in the Lyran Commonwealth; the Archon. The Commonwealth nominally is a constitutional monarchy, with The Archon and Estates General (parliament) sharing equal power, with the Archon only able to ascend with the Estates' permission, though in reality the Archon is the one in charge. The Steiners themselves are pretty chill, thankfully; only ever suspending rights or privileges in the most dire of circumstances and making sure their heirs are properly educated. But as a very large noble house among many in the Commonwealth; they are prone to inviting other more aggressive or crazy houses into their midst or one Steiner becoming more popular than another, leading to several Steiner Civil Wars throughout the centuries.

Almost all of them will have been in a Mech by the time they hit the throne, as is tradition for the Commonwealth.

Society

The Lyran Commonwealth fucking loves Germany. House Steiner loves Germany so much they decided that Space Germany needed to be as German as humanly fucking possible; the state language is German, the nobility is set up like Imperial Germany's, the army's entire nomenclature comes from German, and at every available opportunity, the classical German society is attempted to be followed.

Sounds impossible? It mostly is! As opposed to the platonic ideal of everybody in the Commonwealth being a native German displaced from earth, the reality is that the Commonwealth takes and has taken people from all ethnic backgrounds to be part of their iron fisted grasp. While you'd think they'd be at each other's throats, the Lyran's take a different approach; giving the subtle hint to all that it was the descendants of Germany that managed to lift them up from the chaos of the Star League, and bring them to the prosperity they live in now, as well as a dedicated language that they can use for trade, politics, and for leisure, uniting them all under one banner. As a result, discrimination based on race or background is basically unheard of; freedom of expression is allowed more or less uninterrupted, and for now only Classism reigns as the supreme form of Prejudice, and that is quite a potent form of societal control within their borders.

For you see, the Lyran Commonwealth is the single richest overall state in the entire Inner Sphere, boasting moneyed nobles out the ass and even the average commoner boasts a quality of life far and away better than that of the rest of the Inner Sphere thanks to the generous amounts of money being thrown around. Due to the sort of lassaiz-faire way in which the Steiners dictate on how member worlds govern themselves, many have a deep independent streak to the point that some consider themselves members of their homeworld first, and a Lyran second, which doesn't always end well for everybody, and occasional mini-wars are fought to put their member worlds back into line.

Also, Lyran women have a tradition for having glam-rocker "Jem"-style makeup for whatever reason.

Military

The Lyran Commonwealth is all about living large and swinging their big, turgid moneydick around, and their warfare is no different. Their most basic and common battle tactic is to swarm the field with enormous Assault or Heavy-class Mechs and simply pound a target into dust with the combined fire of their massive death machines, to the point that any mech under 50 tons is described by commanders as "obnoxious" at best and "Useless" at worst. The common in-universe joke of a scout lance for the Commonwealth being a herd of Atlas is only somewhat an exaggeration. So obsessed with their big stompy boys that the Lyran Commonwealth parks a pair of fucking Griffin BattleMechs in the throne room to guard the Archon. Each Mech regiment is supported by three regiments of armor, artillery, and infantry in what is known as a Combat team, with the Mech unit's commander being in charge of everything. While the Mechs are quite important, it is their Armor divisions that have often found themselves winning the day, since the Commonwealth can shit tanks out with regularity, and their commanders noted how useful they were in that they did not have to be fucking enormous mechs in order to accomplish their mission, and often found themselves doing the kind of tactical gruntwork that the Mech commanders weren't going to bother with.

The biggest disadvantage of the Lyran Commonwealth Armed Forces is that it has a very bad habit of giving high ranks and promotions to noticeably undeserving people simply because they are wealthy, from prominent noble houses, or well-connected politically rather than for actual qualification. While this may not be a uniquely Lyran problem (you can straight up buy your way into the officer corps in Canopus), it is definitely at it's most pronounced in the Lyran military. Some of their officers are competent, but the vast majority more are failson noblemen who are more concerned with keeping up appearances, fending off fellow failson officers, and seeking glory than ever leading effectively, and so it is often that the Lyran Commonwealth gets completely overran because they simply do not have the tactical know-how to adequately counter certain strategies, especially if they happen to come from lighter mech lances than what they brought to the table.