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Battletech: The Ghost Who Walks (Battletech Isekai)

Discussion in 'Creative Writing' started by Imperator Pax, Jun 5, 2021.

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  1. Extras: FAQ Format Page Universe Details
    Imperator Pax

    Imperator Pax Talon Master

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    FAQ Format Page
    Universe Details

    Subject to updates​
    1 Timeline, and Canon
    Now what I mean by that is I am predominantly using the source books, but that admittedly runs head long into the cliche fasa-economics problem. There is also the issue of having not just FASA books, but Fanpro, and Catalyst. Now on Video Game usage, as a I said I'll be using HBS's introduced faction of the Aurigan Coalition, though Auriga has been canonized with their own source book. This story will attempt to organically explain a variety of things in cannon, and rationalize some of the information that we're explicitly told.

    It is however currently the Late Succession Wars. [Specifically its the 31st century i.e. the late 3rd Succession War period]

    2 Tech

    Technology has been on the backslide. For example the Marauder carries a single small pulse laser, which is a weapon that is currently extinct. It is however a weapon that went extinct in 2950, what that generally means in canon is that is when the last factory producing the part is thought to have been destroyed. So it isn't unfathomable to have mechs show up with them as 'lostech'.

    In this I'll be hewing more towards RPG standards, though not quite Video Game standards. I have rolled several results for loot gen using Drakensis's lootboxing for example to generate various treasure finds.

    This brings us to the bigger issue, the majority of the human population in universe lives more or less at a technological subsistence level that we would consider primitive. Now what I mean by that is that that is in one part the fault of the succession wars, but also the fault of both colonist movements who intentionally left earth, or left other worlds later, as well as intentional policies of the Terran Hegemony and later Star League. So the majority of the universe doesn't live anywhere close to 21st century western living standards. This is in no way just ComStar's Holy Shroud's fault, because again people left Earth canonically to get away from the tech, left for religious reasons, as well as then were effected by conflict, disaster, and the machinations of the Terran Hegemony.

    But also the Terran Hegemony, and Star League buried caches literally everywhere.

    3 Population.

    Detroit has two billion people. This is because its an earth like world. Its basically ideal for human inhabitation, and it was originally colonized by people who came in looking to set up a farming community away from what they were leaving behind, and then afterwards was invested in by mining and industrial concerns that built up the industry. Not everywhere is as amenable to human settlement.

    Aquagea in this would have been doing better if not for a couple of problems. Firstly it was sparsely settled to begin with. Its very American south west writ large in terms of geography but the Capellans didn't really settle it too heavily. Still at the end of the Star League it had a much bigger population than it did now, but unlike Detroit it was subject to in particular the second succession war where the Marik's came in and destroyed a bunch of infrastructure causing catastrophic flooding, wrecked agriculture, and just generally made a mess of things. So the planet again to use the south west example is about the same level of population as the late Old West.

    Both of the above examples are planets where you don't need lots of infrastructure to keep things sustainable and that leads us to another reason that the Inner Sphere has some oddities.

    4 Infrastructure
    So House Davion has a Star League era Black Box Facility (and this is not their only one) on New Avalon which is an automated factory (Hesperus II (Lyrans) has several of these types of factories as well, etc). What makes House Davion special is that it, this one hands off factory, can produce a hundred light mechs annually. Yeah these are Valkyrie but that is a hundred plus mechs in the 'present' safely tucked away on their capital as opposed to Quentin, or Coventry or Hesperus. That is huge.

    The problem is that this facility is, much like some of the lines on those named planets is effectively magic. They produce large volumes of mechs for the modern era but they have to be heavily protected because they can do that, especially since no one knows how to fix them in the present day.

    Its not just complicated war machines either. Plenty of worlds after the Star League collapsed or were at least greatly reduced because their environments were tainted or just inhospitable to life without Star League era terraforming or environmental cleaning technology. This could be biological toxins, or heavy metal poisoning from tainted whatever, but the Star League era water filtration systems basically ceased being available and that wrecked worlds. The Star League heavily controlled JumpShips, and then the Succession Wars wrecked the majority of shipyards as well as for a long time JumpShips being fair game to blow up.

    In terms of decay the institutional knowledge loss is not the only factor that creates the conditions on the ground in the setting.
     
    Last edited: Jun 16, 2021
    forbin, Bear Ribs, JohnMK2 and 21 others like this.
  2. Extras: Descriptions
    Imperator Pax

    Imperator Pax Talon Master

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    Extras, descriptions

    "and his laughter shook the trees, and he turned to the huntsman and cried, "Ride on my gallant huntsman, when must I come again, for you should never want for a fox to chase all over the glen." The highlander crowed to bunch of drunk or near davion troops and mercs.

    - Davion Defender's celebration after the defense Elidere

    --
    The original Marauder before the DHS and Ferro Fibrous does indeed remove the AC / 5 found on the 3R. It mounts ten additional regular (single) heat sinks, a centrally mount small pulse laser intended to deal with infantry, and jumpjets. I have a sheet somewhere in the format of the Drost IIA custom up above somewhere from where I've used this marauder version in campaign, but its not on this computer. Post Aquagea refit is the change over to double heat sinks full ferro fibrous armor, and the installation of two additional medium lasers for improved close in firepower. This culminates in the mech being much more crab like in appearance, even though the armored gauntlets of the Marauder don't actually contain pincers. The ferro fibrous armor creates a more 'brutalist' shape to the mech in a sense, it makes the Marauder look less lanky in form than the usual versions, especially without the shoulder gun in RT. Technically this refit leaves some free tonnage behind, but on the matter of appearance it makes the mech look more sinister especially in dark colors.




    As for Gene himself, at this point the best descriptive would be young, dark haired, early teens. He's probably five five five six in height slim build. Referencing the above much much later quote, For example in the Elidere scene as it is presently written has 'Bard' describe Gene the titular Black Fox with 'eyes like molten gold', which is some artistic license. Clothing wise, Gene has mostly dressed thus far in a featureless (that is sans patches) gray uniform frock coat, imagine some like the US WW 2 uniform but in gray, the common US state police uniform in gray but with a dress coat, and 'cavalry style' boots. The alternate suit featured here can be best imagined as like Heero Yuy of Gundam Wing's Zero pilot suit complete with the Wing Zero style bird helmet.

    I will try and include more physical descriptions, though normally I tend to focus on movements or when its relevant to how someone is speaking or acting.
     
    Last edited: Jul 9, 2021
  3. Extras: The Jolly Roger Affair
    Imperator Pax

    Imperator Pax Talon Master

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    The Jolly Roger Affair
    Sarna's Canon article for reference: https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Jolly_Roger_Affair

    So I'm going to start on a tangent. The fandom, or parts of the fandom, like to describe the combine as Feudal Japan in Space. This is 'wrong'. Air quotes are necessary, and I'll get to that. This is because the Combine is basically Imperial Japan in Space, through the lens of the eighties and as a result of being future eighties, and neo feudal future in many parts there is a distortion. In many ways the Combine is an improvement on Imperial Japan, for all the fucked up shit the Combine does it actually has some notable step ups from WW2 Japan, and also it does hew closer to a kind of Imperial Japan's romanticized view of feudal Japan than Imperial Japan actually managed, especially Imperial Japan of World War 2. However the DCMS is a more professional military than the IJA was, now what I mean by that is that the Combine doesn't suffer the same problem of you have junior enlisted officers going around starting shit in neighboring countries to advance what they think is the correct national policy. [Combine leadership doesn't really need help in that department any way] You don't have an Inanzo Nitobe in the Combine having to explain in the successions war (or ever that I can find) explaining stuff like the Manchuria incident in space, or what not. Yeah, and ontop of that is that the 1st and 2nd Succession wars meant there isn't a need for things like Washington Naval treaty (of which you could potentially argue there existed an equivalent of if not as high profile during hte STar League era). However this is the thing the combine is a much more centralized, arguably more effective Imperial Japan. Its an Imperial Japan with the Japanese Golden Year Keiretsus running business without any of the nuance of real life.

    This is important I think before we talk about the Jolly Roger affair, because the way I see it, ComStar has many parallels to the problem of the Imperial Japanese Army, and what I mean by this is the following. The Jolly Roger affair basically occurs because the First Circuit feels that the third succession war is slowing down, can't have that. Now, this doesn't absolve Primus Russenstein anymore than it absolves any Japanese Prime Minister after *insert your preferred date here* and so the robes make the brilliant idea of giving Rom orders to '3001 to enact a plan to supply pirate forces in the Periphery with combat equipment as well as financial and logistical aid to set up pirate operations in various isolated parts of the Periphery to stir up and escalate military conflict in the general area.' Now this isn't explicitly Imperial Japan, though they did supply arms to competing warlords in China. They weren't the only imperial power to provide weapons to advance an agenda. The point though is not to draw parallels or attempt to draw parallels.

    Anyway the goal is to get the Combine and the Lyrans back to fighting one another. Well 'In 3004 two of the Jolly Roger bandit kings, "Black" Jack McGirk and Darleen Dunson, became lovers and joined forces. Between them, they fielded almost a regiment of BattleMechs and support forces, constituting an unusually strong force by Periphery standards which they used to conduct a series of lightning-fast raids. Following their example, other pirates also joined forces to gear up on choice targets.' So earlier I remarked that here ComStar's experience with the Jolly Roger affair went worse for them in Canon. Now think back to tabletop lore the size of the Magistracy Armed Forces that I quoted earlier, this is what canon has to say: ' they fielded almost a regiment of BattleMechs and support forces'. This is just those two, you'll note it also says other pirates did the same. Again in canon in 3025 the MAF had 10 Regiments of Mech strength (10 Regiments, 2 battalions, including mercenaries). So ComStar made it so that these two pirates getting together were fielding almost a tenth the strength of the armed forces of a major periphery power, that's not 'unusually strong' that's what the fuck were you thinking?

    So how did this end in canon for ComStar? 'McGirk's forces achieved a 2.3 to 1 kill ratio against the inexperienced ComStar Guards...' oh and this too 'Although he really had little personal responsibility for the affair, the failure was laid at the feet of Primus Rusenstein rather than on the actual sponsors of the plan, and severely damaged his position and authority. '

    Spoiler alert I already stated that here it went worse. Here ComStar didn't even do that well, because I've talked about this with friends, and the general consensus that we have is that ComStar probably ambushed McGirk. Regardless of the other possible explanation of how it went in canon, (i.e. ComStar brought SLDF Royal equipment for example) here they lost.

    McGirk and those other pirate kingdoms weren't destroyed in or around the year 3005. Here McGirk and his 'renegade pirates' basically murdered 1st ComsGuards in open battle and went off to keep doing pirate shit. He's not the only one and that is why pirates are a long running perceived threat in this story in the periphery or at least a contributing factor. ComStar cracked open their stockpile because some members of the first circuit talked the rest into this would be a good idea and gave out battlemechs, asf, dropships, and hard currency among other support to try and egg on the third succession war, and it didn't accomplish the objective they were looking for and blew up in their face. It doesn't result in a return to the level of Lyran Combine hostility that was the original goal, and I don't see how it was supposed to achieve that. ComStar gave a bunch of pirates in the periphery border between the two a bunch of equipment to agitate between the Lyrans (who wanted to throttle back), and the Combine who wanted to focus on the Fed Suns. If the goal had really been to increase tensions why not inflame the FedSuns and Combine against each other harder... anyway...

    Then of course the Wolfs Dragoons show up.
     
    Last edited: Aug 12, 2021
  4. Extras: The Wolf Dragoons
    Imperator Pax

    Imperator Pax Talon Master

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    The Wolf Dragoons
    Unlike with the Jolly Roger Affair this lot shouldn't need any introductions, but they are tied to it. 'Formed' in 3004 the Wolf Dragoons arrived in the Inner Sphere at the end of the Jolly Roger Affair, well "The Jolly Roger Affair, together with the unexpected appearance of the five regiments of pristine 'Mechs of Wolf's Dragoons seemingly out of nowhere, led to Primus Rusenstein's forced resignation from office a year later." They would enter into the service of the Federated Suns, and are at the present of the story in the employ of the Free Worlds League. As everyone should know the Dragoons were a clan recon mission to scope out the Inner Sphere staffed largely by free births, and brought with them a number of unique things to the Inner Sphere. People have already mentioned the Marauder II, an Assault Mech inspired by the venerable Marauder, and produced under exclusivity agreements with Blackwell Industries, and we'll get to that along with other things the Wolves would bring in.

    'They were equipped with what the Clans erroneously believed to be an average lineup of outdated BattleMechs, supposed to make them appear wholly inconspicuous: Five regiments of 'Mechs, including designs that were either essentially extinct in the Inner Sphere (such as the Flea, Falcon, and Hoplite) or had never before been seen there (such as the Imp and the Annihilator), complemented with likewise extraordinary support units, DropShips, and JumpShips. The Dragoons also had Hephaestus Station, a (mobile) space station with a BattleMech assembly line for the Dragoons' exclusive ARC-2W subvariant of the Archer.'

    Now this quote is important for a number of reasons. A lot of people like to zero in on Hephaestus for example as just a battlemech assembly line, but Hephaestus also permitted the dragoons to manufacture Endo-Steel which is much less cost prohibitive (for a given value of fasanomics) to manufacture in orbit rather than planet side. However arguably the more important factor is a fact it shows in the Early Clan history. See like the Atlas and King Crab were the result of design requests from Aleksander Kerensky the Imp was a product of his son Nicholas who is responsible for much of the clans idiocy. The Imp is in many respects in line with the role played by the Atlas. However the Imp is originally from 2793 well into the Exodus, while the Annhilator is actually an SLDF design its earliest known model dates from 2779 before Kerensky relieved of command of the SLDF and before the Exodus. Thus it wouldn't be impossible to think that the Inner Sphere might have had the later, but given Nicholas's importance to the clans and the mythology of the Exodus why would they think the Imp would be around?

    This brings us to something that is not necessarily canon per se, though it does have some support, is that the clans during Nicky's reign, or more Nicky himself and his immediate supporters heavily censored recordings of history, and probably outright destroyed competing historical records with much caught in the crossfire. Clan historical records are simply inaccurate, or outright propagandist fabrications? Maybe. Whatever the case the Wolves showed up with a lot of things that wowed the Inner Sphere upon their arrival, and would do a lot of other things early on during their employment with House Davion.

    This is where we will talk about Blackwell Industries, but first a minor side bar. The Merlin (the mech piloted by Septim)debuted in 3010 in the Lyran Commonwealth. 'The Merlin was hailed as a technological marvel at the time it was released, as it was the first completely new design to be developed in over 100 years.' The Marauder II debuted two years later, having only been in development since 3010. The Marauder II the hundred ton Marauder is not the only Blackwell product produced largely exclusively for the Dragoons even though it often overshadows the rest. The Dragoons (including Snords Irregulars here) would go on to furnish Blackwell with plans for a wide range of equipment including OmniVehicle Technology.

    Omni Vehicle technology are largely overshadowed (looked down upon) by the clans but were developed by Clan Hell Horse. The wolves partnered with Blackwell in 3007 and in 3008 the Badger rolled off the production line for the first time. Now the explanation for why this didn't attract more attention is that one it was an infantry carrier, and two it was produced under the same sort of agreement that the Marauder II would be produced under. Omni Technology was not a Star League development. The road towards it did begin with the Mercury BattleMech, and we are told that Clan Wolverine would develop the Mercury II which would be the basis for the Clan Coyote Coyotl the first Omni Mech. Omni Vehicles though would only be developed in the late 2900s (though MUL claims 2884 for the Epona) by the clans meaning the Bandit if the 30th century is correct arrived in the Inner Sphere relatively quickly and in a much cheaper form. Because the other OmniVehicle Blackwell would produce the Bandit is supposedly directly inspired by the Hell Horse Epona. The Bandit also entered production in 3008.

    The Merlin, these two Omni Vehicles, the Marauder II all emerged back to back, and while the Merlin was independent of the Wolf Dragoons or clan influence it does sort of undrecut the popular fanon that Comstar and its Holy Shroud shenigans were particularly effective. It is important to remember that in canon Holy Shroud 1 was occuring simultaneous with the great houses pursuing a similar campaign of assassination and bombing of vital enemy infrastructure. Holy Shroud II was deemed within ComStar itself a failure. It would certainly be very easy to handwave Blackwell Industries as plotshields, but then there is the Merlin, and other equipment including other Vehicles, and new versions of Mechs that begin to emerge in the early 31st Century completely indpendent of the Wolves.

    It is very clear that ComStar was alarmed by the Wolf Dragoons, and attempted to discern their origins, it does not appear however in canon that Blackwell or the Merlin's creators were subject to reprisal by Comstar (until the World of Blake Jihad at least). Comstar simply didn't have the resources or frankly the experience to successfully carry out Holy Shroud II because by that point the Inner Sphere and its great houses had learned to take appropriate measures. Did ComStar still try? Yes but this was more limitted to technologies like JumpDrives, or attacks on efforts by the Lyrans, and then later FedSuns research efforts into the HPG. The Dragoons introduced a technology for Vehicles which should have quickly been noticed that if you can do this for Vehicles why not do it for Mechs...

    and we'll get to that.
     
  5. Extras: The Federated Suns
    Imperator Pax

    Imperator Pax Talon Master

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    The Federated Suns

    Often oversimplified or derided as the Good Guys, the Federated Suns are one of the five Successor States, which of course everyone should know. As I've already mentioned in this series of extras they were also the first employers of the mysterious Wolfs Dragoons, and are also the home polity of Blackwell Industries. (As previously stated Blackwell Industries is on New Valencia which is part of the Federated Suns.) Well in any event we will get to that but first we should go ahead and discuss the situation. The Wolf Dragoons, who have as of 'current' in story time passed into the service of House Marik, were originally hired on by Ian Davion the then prince of the Fed Suns...

    Unfortunately he died, leaving his younger brother Hanse to the throne, and Ian's death was part of an increasing trend of belligerence in the third succession war between the Draconis Combine and the Fed Suns, which had begun to show in the late 30th century. This is touched on as ComStar for whatever reason, or rather members of its First Circuit, were concerned by the Lyran lack of aggression on the Combine front and instituted what would become the Jolly Roger Affair which would canonically dovetail into the arrival of the Dragoons.

    Now as I have mentioned previous in 3017 there will be an engagement on Elidere IV. A Combine Raid on a Fed Suns world, specifically part of a string of raids by the Combine conducted by the 19th Galedon as part of a wider Combine cross border. This conflict in canon is not well documented, but it does have a canonical basis, and the offensive thrust seems to have been partially successful, however in the strategic sense in canon this year would also mark the loss of several near Terra (that is close to Earth) worlds that the Combine had held to the Federated Suns. In short the Combine would in 3017 be launching raids while the Fed Suns would begin a string of planetary conquests. Now canon is unclear but it does seem as if the Combine started these raids in 3016, but that is made on the assumption that the battle for Mallory's world that year was related to those raids, which is something I'm skeptical of as Mallory's world is much closer to Terra.

    It is also possible that the Fed Suns conquest of near Terra worlds was in response to that incursion and Combine JumpShips being tied up in cross borders raids, which is based off FASA Numbers for JumpShips. There are other explanations, but we move on. Indeed 3017 presents a unique issue in that there, there is an inclination to try and be involved in too many canonical events in the Fed Suns. For example in July Candance Liao leads a raid on Spica which ends with her canonical future husband injuring her to the point she can't pilot a mech anymore. Now Spica is one Jump from St Ives.

    So lets move on to discuss what contracts are currently outlined in 3017 related to the Fed Suns if we're already aware of the Elidere IV Battle if not the details. Part of this is an IE related contract, 'something something star league depot'. The other though is the Davion conquest of near terra worlds from the Combine,. It is Elidere and the surounding raids of the Galdeon Regulars that I assume take place early in the year and that is how the current draft is progressing.

    Now from 'Bard's' quote, and the ballad I'm sure some have already guessed towards the outcome of the Combine Raid by the Regulars. Now as I've suggested Elidere is not just the Galedon Regulars being lead for a merry chase, and then finding out they've bitten off vastly more than they can chew and then getting run all the way back to the starport, but that is a good summation of it. Is that enough for House Davion to nudge Blackwell? Maybe.

    An expansion on that might also be, 'well since your contract with IE is done, want to hire on and invade some combine worlds closer to Terra since youre going that way anyway, especially since you need to buy and hire more people?' /AFFS Merc Liaison

    This is still a work in progress, but moving into 3017 we move into the waning years of the third succession war, and ever closer to Archon Steiner sending out her peace proposal to the other Great Houses.
     
  6. Extras: Dramatis Personae
    Imperator Pax

    Imperator Pax Talon Master

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    Dramatis Personae
    [Pending Updates]

    [I'll add some more later, and build from there over time]

    Severus 'Septim' Alexander
    Nationality: Lyran Commonwealth
    Mech: Merlin, Merlin Cavalry
    A veteran of the Lyran Guards, working under an assumed name this scion of minor Lyran nobility comes from a well to do family but is plagued by prophetic visions of future battles often dominated by various totem animals. His father is on an appropriations committee within the lower chamber of the Lyran government

    Gladys 'Bubbles' Chang
    Nationality: Capellan
    Mech: Hunchback, Atlas-Samsonov
    Chang is a veteran of a larger Detroit based Merc unit the Iron Dragons who left due to changes in leadership, looking to stretch her wings, make a name, and ultimately do the right thing and have a good time while doing it, an accomplished urban brawler her Hunchback is a good fit for her piloting style. Has a younger sister serving in the red lancers back home.

    Beauregard Alexander
    Nationality: Free Worlds League
    Mech Dervish
    A native of Atreus Beau is a large man he was a veteran of the now disbanded 3rd Marik Militia having only entered the mercenary profession, registering with the MRB, on his arrival on Detroit in 3015.

    'Hanzo' Ishida
    Nationality: Combine descended periphery native.
    Mech: Cicada Variant (c.3018)
    A man of few words, and one betrayed by the Combine mission to pursue the Azami. He has a deep interest in the study of bushido and its various incarnations of political thought.

    Professor Abner
    Nationality Lyran
    Mech: Atlas II
    A jolly old soul 'Lord William' or Professor Abner is a wealthy and eccentric Lyran noble enjoying his retirement years adventuring and exporing his true passion LosTech prospecting, and seeking answers to great mysteries of the succession wars. Has a number of legitimate and illegitimate children, very well connected.

    --
    [Forthcoming]

    Naval Assets: The JumpShips
    --
    Maguanac Corp
    Armor, and Support Personnel of the Sam Houston

    --
    Hammer
    Mechanized Infantry and Tankers recruited from Detroit

    --
    Claymore
    Lieutenant Colonel Angus MacIntyre
    Nationality: Northwind (Federated Suns)
    Mech: Highlander
    Previously a senior NMA Instructor MacIntyre is a heavyset man familiar with the political conditions of both sides of the Capellan March. He generally recommends attacking hard and fast and not trusting the enemy to abide by any social niceties .

    Major Julius 'Root' MacKay
    Nationality: Northwind (Federated Suns)
    Mech: Highlander
    The XO of Claymore Battalion and previously an instructor at the Northwind Military Academy. A foil to his commanding officer Root's call sign reflects his preference as a defensively oriented preferring to anchor a defensive line and use the assault and heavy mechs comprising his lance to break the enemy at range.
     
    Last edited: Jan 9, 2023
    glocknar, Least Devotee, Omni and 6 others like this.
  7. Extras: MAF Luxen Notes (Early 3020s)
    Imperator Pax

    Imperator Pax Talon Master

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    Son of Sam Era​

    2nd Luxen Volunteers (MAF)
    Regiment/Regular/Reliable

    Primary Force Strength 2 Reinforced 'Mech Battalions
    Additional Force Notes: organic DropShips, organic armor battalion, attached Infantry Battalion

    [Total 4 Battalions Organic to the Regiment.]

    The two BattleMech battalions of the recently reestablished 2nd Luxen Volunteers [The original Luxen Dragoons were dissolved due to lack of materiel in the early succession wars] are established under a 48 Mech model designed to deploy from Leopards and Union DropShips built by the Magistracy of Canopus. These Battalions utilize so called 'platoons' of BattleMechs, over strength Lances, of Six Mechs usually consisting of six identical Mechs. A company consists of 4 Platoons, two of these companies are then supported with a regimental organic armor attachment of two armor companies. [This report's attached documents detail the organic, and attached other combat arms. See ROM attachment A #s 1-3]. The core of this shape takes the form of a pair of battle or line platoon usually structured as Twelve BattleMechs of the same make, supported by a Scout Platoon, typically Light or Medium 'mechs, and a Reinforcement Platoon often serving as the Company Command section.


    'the Luxen Dragoons'
    1st Btn / 2nd Luxen
    Easy Company
    2 plt (Vindicators)
    1 Scout Platoon
    1. 2 Phoenix Hawks,
    2. 4 Locusts
    1 Reinforcement Platoon
    1. 4 Shadow Hawks
    2. 2 Ostroc
    Weight of Force: Light: 4 Locusts [20], Medium: 12 Vindicator [45], 2 Phoenix Hawk[45], 4 ShadowHawk [55], Heavy: 2 Ostroc [60]

    It is strongly believed that the Ostrocs are rebuilt machines from the 3016 Battle of Luxen captured from forces fighting under the banner of Black Jack McGirk and are therefore originally SLDF Machines. All other Machines comprising Easy Company are BattleMechs either produced by the Magistracy of Canopus or as the case of the Vindicators acquired from the Capellan Confederation during the past several decades. Easy Company is notable for being the original test bed of the BattleMech Platoon model of organization.

    * Addendum: It has been suggested that the Locusts and Phoenix Hawks, given the suspected origins of the Dervish BattleMechs of 1st Company, present may actually originally be former DCMS Machines captured or taken as salvage during the Battle of Luxen (3015, that is the year before the acquisition of the the Ostrocs)

    1st Company

    2 Line Platoons [Charger]
    1 Scout Platoon [Cicada]
    1 Reinforcement Platoon [Dervish]

    Weight of Force: 6 Cicada [40], 6 Medium Dervish [55], Assault: 12 Charger [80]

    It is believed that the six Dervish BattleMechs of 1st Company's Reinforcement Platoon are rebuilt salvage from the 3015 Battle of Luxen against suspected Arkab Legion deserters from the DCMS, though this has not been adequately substantiated. Further 2nd Battalion of the 2nd Luxen's arrangement of forces is commented on below with regards to its differentiation from 1st. The Cicada, and Chargers present in 1st Company will be addressed there as well.

    2nd Btn / 2nd Luxen
    2nd Company
    2 Line Platoons [Charger]
    1 Scout Platoon [Cicada]
    1 Reinforcement Platoon [Merlin]

    3rd Company
    2 Line Platoons [Charger]
    1 Scout Platoon [Cicada]
    1 Reinforcement Platoon [Merlin]

    Weight of Force: Medium: 12 Cicada [40], Heavy: 12 Merlin [60], Assault: 24 Charger [80]

    Unlike 1st Battalion which has mixed machine units (addendum at the Platoon level within Easy company) the 2nd Battalion features twelve Lyran Commonwealth built Merlins that were delivered sometime in late 3018 or early 3019. The Merlin is to be recognized as the first newly designed mech of the modern era, and this appears to be the first significant foreign export of the machine. These Merlins are known to be the 1A Model, not the 'Merlin Cavalry' Model reported to have entered production. Regardless of exact delivery date the Merlin's providence is established.

    The origins of the 36 Chargers are unknown at this time, however it is suspected this is only part of the total inventory of machines. The origins of the Cicada are similarly opaque the current working theory is that they, and potentially the Locusts, may all originally have been part of SLDF ranks and recovered from some depot within the Magistracy dating to the SLDF Occupation (Addendum that is following the New Vandenburg Uprising, this theory has not been substantively proven nor has it been adequately disproven). It is the most probable explanation to the number of machines in MAF service and potentially supported by the reported date of manufacture of certain machines.

    MAF Chargers in use by the Luxen Dragoons demonstrate the following characteristics, first and foremost these machines have been re-engine-d, apparently using Pitban 320 of the Cicadas (see following section). This appears to have been a standard procedure of downscaling the engine in both models. Chargers received 320s and Cicadas were downscaled to use the commercially available VOX 280. The MAF appears to have experimented with a number of small batch refits using domestically built particle projector cannons to dramatically increase the firepower of the Charger over its original configuration with close range support being provided with either 4 or 6 tube SRM launchers.

    The MAF Cicada models found in 1st-3rd Companies Scout Platoons comprise eighteen re-engine-d (with the Vox 280) Cicadas aptly described as larger Jenner / bug mechs. These machines appear to be part of a variant design that traces its origins to the 3015 Battle of Luxen and subsequent iterations. The 'standard' Luxen Volunteers Cicada caries 4 6cm Martell Medium Lasers built by Majesty Metals on Canopus IV, supporting a Holly 4 tube SRM launcher. The initial Holly 4 launchers are believed to have been imported from ST Ives in the Capellan Confederation though appear to have entered domestic production on Luxen.

    Thus far the Luxen Dragoons have demonstrated a reasonable degree of effectiveness as a house military unit, serving admirably against first Black Jack McGirk, and thus far against the purported 'Neo Rim World Republic' / 'New Amaris Empire' of the alleged Stefan Amaris within the rimward periphery The Moniker Dragoons is a historical appellative though can be considered accurate to an extent due to the 36 Assault BattleMechs, and 14 Heavy BattleMechs [12 Merlin 1A, 2 Ostroc] present across the two battalions of mechs.

    --
    EDIT: Out of Universe: The refounding/reestablishment of the Luxen Dragoons is to comment basically an overcompensation to the both real threat and perceived threat against Luxen proper as well as the nominal /vestigial province. It is rated as Regular and Reliable during this period because it is a new ish unit, in comparison to say Raventhir's Curassiers or the Canopians Highlanders who are also engaged against Black Jack and then the would be Amaris Empire and its 'restoration'
     
    Last edited: Jan 27, 2023
    glocknar, Least Devotee, Omni and 8 others like this.
  8. Extras: Highland Faire Notes
    Imperator Pax

    Imperator Pax Talon Master

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    Highland Faire Notes
    Yes, Bard should know that yes attack a completely pants on head target like northwind is exactly the sort of thing that happens in Inner sphere warfare (In fact IIRC Jaime wolf even comments that these kinds of suicide attacks get launched because thats what defines the succession wars, though I'd argue canonically the Star League and great houses before the league during hte age of war already had a habit of doing this kind of thing anyway)


    Spoilers:
    The following is spoilers, I'm warning here, even though yes to an extent there have been warnings. Highland Faire has been a long time coming and has featured a couple of potential versions, obviously the big three are the possibilities of House Marik attacking, House Liao attacking, or the Combine and each of thos were ideas I looked this alluded to in part nine and went through several versions

    FWL:
    Sitting in my draft folder is a non canon / alternate timeline where Marik does for whatever reason decide to try and drop the Dragoons on the Faire, which culminates in the revelation that the Dragoons are descendants of Kerensky's Exodus... remember that Dante has been given access to Tristan's reports and data, including Kerensky loyalists opened fired on HAF troops at Fort St George on Elidere. There is also a version where the Fifth Defenders are launching a raid, but the main tangent of a Marik move would be introducing the Dragoons early and potentially outing them either to at least the FedSuns but also potentially the Inner Sphere at large as descendants of Kerensky's Exodus

    Now that has the potential to go a couple of ways, for example in canon, and what will show up later is that there are other Rim World remnants than just the von Strangs, technically the Amaris bloodline is extant and there will be fights against sharky boys [see below], but Gene and friends don't know that so they can't tell Jaime and thus they can't tell the clans, so instead, the clans can be told 'we know Amaris was given SLDF positions by Kurita' this would be a distinct resolution from the 'Whoops there goes the HPG network' alternate timeline in a number of points
    CC:
    There are actually a couple versions of House Liao. Not all of which are invasions, these iterations follow general ideas there is of course a MacCarron's Armored Cavalry launch an invasion on Mad Max's behalf, there is a Northwind Highlander version, but there are also versions where both of those companies are visiting peacefully, MacCarron shows up to talk shop and run his mouth, this avenue also had the potential of being opportunity to use House Liao showing up at the faire to introduce not just MacCarron, but Pavel Ridzik, or the Liao children not all of which are directly confrontational
    DC:

    a couple potential versions, not as many as Liao, one version involved the sword of light showing up under Yorinaga, and ends with his very unfortunate death due to all of the SRMs at close range from a Marauder II variant being shown off in Highlander 9. That'd be a hell of a marketing advantage, but yes that version would be the 2nd sword of light drops in.

    The other thing is canonically, and he's only in his what forties, Takashi Kurita (the sitting Coordinator) is still leading combat operations during this period so another alternate timeline is of course the Otomo and the coordinator dies in glorious battle leading a bunch of men in a defiant death ride, because canonically Takashi thinks its appropriate to go raid Lyran planets with the wolf dragoons in 3022 (IIRC) I think its an attack on Hesperus, but I'd have to look it up. [and of course in the current iteration of 'Whoops' Takashi has a tragic stroke and Teddy has conclusive [proof that ComStar] is not to be trusted... but thats another alternate timeline]

    But yeah at the moment the Combine is doing a lot of war crimes o'clock stuff so what is actually going on:

    So the final iteration, the one ultimately settled on is that these are the much hinted at Azami exodus addition, and Rasalhague freedom fighters coming to davion space. OBviously Rasalhague's ultimate goal is an indepdenent rasalhagagian state the azami are a mix of exodites (wanting to go to the deep periphery, we'll get to dropship composition soon) but coming with more word combine atrocities and repression.


    Also
    I recommend, if you haven't seen this
    here is EP1 of Hired Steel ft Tex of the Black Pants leagion, its set in 3041 but


    Well this is from Ep 2: timestamp 1:20
    pay attention to what he says.
    --
    Force Arrangement ahead of the Faire:
    Sam Houston DROSTIIA variant (refer Here)
    1 Battalion of Infantry (10 Platoons)
    2 Light Vehicle Squadrons (i.e. lance i.e. 4 vehicles)
    1 Heavy Vehicle Squadron

    Baffins Union Combine Arms variant
    Company of Infantry

    San Saba Triumph Undergoing modifications.
     
    Last edited: Jan 8, 2023
  9. Extras: Extras Blurb Shepherd's Highlanders Report
    Imperator Pax

    Imperator Pax Talon Master

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    Precentor New Avalon,

    As per your request this report was compiled by the MRB office on the Planet Northwind dated February 3018 it details the establishment of a new Mercenary subunit of the company your eminence had previously expressed interest in retaining for actions to be undertaken against piracy in the RimWard Periphery.

    Shepherd's Highlanders, a new subunit within the Shepherd's Company umbrella command, appears to be a capstone course of sorts for Graudates of the prestigious Northwind Military Academy. It may represent the Northwind Governments attempt to evaluate products developed by Blackwell Industries in conjunction see attached documents (A1). Its precise relation to the new armor subunit and infantry subunit are unknown but can be reasonably assumed to be tied together.

    It is comprised of One Company of confirmed Veteran MechWarriors under the command of Senior NMA Instructor Lieutenant Colonel Angus MacIntyre, with his XO position being filled by Major Julius MacKay. At present two companies recruited from the graduating class of the Academy appears to be standing up. The MRB is required to accord these two companies as Green, no particular pilots standout though the company appears to be furnishing them with BattleMechs from inventory which includes at least one lance of 'Marauder II' Assault BattleMechs. Document (A1) contains the information on this BattleMech.

    Shepherd's Company has berthed the Mech Battalion aboard an Overlord-class DropShip. See attached Document (A2), Attached Documents (A3) and (A4) detail the MRB profile of the Northwind recruited Armor and Mechanized Infantry comprising the Curassiers.

    Shepherd's Company timetables suggests the unit will reach a fighting strength of 36 BattleMechs by the end of the month (February 3018). At this time no Command Lance has been specified with the Commanding Officer, and XO also serving as Lance Commanders within the 1st Company. Otherwise the Battalion is configured to roughly correspond to Star League Dragoon Classification favoring Heavy, and Assault BattleMechs.

    Claymore Battalion, Ancients Company

    MacKintyre
    1. Highlander
    2. Grasshopper
    3. Warhammer
    4. Victor

    MacKay
    1. Highlander
    2. Archer
    3. Crusader
    4. Thunderbolt

    Sorbel
    1. Highlander
    2. Awesome
    3. Griffin
    4. Catapult

    ...
    --
    Notes: this is just an extras blurb I'll be putting up an actual Highlander Battalion Force Sheet and Mech Breakdown at some point. A breakdown of the Shepherd's Company assets at large will also follow as well and be updated before the Invasion of Dieron commences.

    Obviously Bardiche will have its own right as will the Maguanac Corp's Tactical Groups, which are loosely based off of my RP groups attempt to make French Tactical Groups in BattleMech with giant stompy robots while cosplaying Wing Pilots.

    EDIT: and as an expansion

    Cadet Company
    1x Lance Marauder II
    1x Lance Archers
    1x Lance Thugs

    Cadet Company
    1x Lance Pillagers PLG 1N
    1xLance Archers
    1x Lance Thugs

    Spoiler: Battalions B&C Post Dieron

    Bardiche

    Bardiche Battalion Dragoons

    Sigurd
    1x Lance Marauder II
    1x Lance Pillagers PLG '1D'
    1x Lance Archers

    Tyr

    1x Battalion Command Lance under Soren Holmgren
    1x Lance Archers
    1x Lance Crusaders

    Waldemar
    1x Lance Crockets
    1x Lance Archers
    1x Lance Crusaders

    Claymore
    Ancient Company post Royal Upgrade
    MacIntyre
    • Highlander
    • Crockett
    • Crockett
    • Thug
    MacKay
    • Highlander
    • Archer
    • Crusader
    • Crusader
    Sorbel
    • Highlander
    • Awesome
    • Archer
    • Archer

    Dieron Highlanders after 3019

    The Dieron Highlanders are a sub unit of Shepherd's Highlanders, forming a second battalion in Davion employ with direct sanction from the Duke of Robinson. It is a green rated BattleMech Battalion comprising graduates of the Northwind Military Academy.

    Totaling 52 Mechs in Spring of 3021 the Dieron Highlanders represent a concerted effort by House Davion to secure their recent prize, as well as the first Davion effort to field Mech Platoon units (See 2nd & 3rd Company Order of Battle). Unlike Other examples of Shepherd's Company formations, or the six mech series the Dieron Highlanders at full strength include a battalion command lance providing veteran Northwind Leadership to the unit.

    The Highlander Battalion is built along Dragoon Lines of weight allocation, and is supported by armor units from graduates of the Northwind academy as well as the RBA operating a mix of Von Luckner tanks as well as newer Blackwell industries vehicles.

    Battalion Command Lance
    [Highland Command Lance]

    1st Company
    1x Lance Marauder II
    1x Lance of Archers
    1x Lance Marauder II Variants

    The Dieron Highlanders, alternative 2nd Battalion Shepherd's Highlanders are a mix of operation standards. There is some confusion over whether 1st Company is a testing an evaluation program for Blackwell Industries Marauder II models or functioning as a control group for the Mech Platoon Structure supplementing the Command Lance.

    2nd and 3rd Company / 2nd Battalion are uniform composites of the same models, where as while Archers are present in 1st Company the 100 ton Marauder II Assault mech is fielded with differing versions particularly in its 3rd Lance. The formation has also been noted to deploy into two Platoons splitting the lances each in half to form Six Mech units, though this does not appear to be standard practice. The 1st Company is typically the Dieron Highlander's main offensive unit launching the opening attack supported by other sub units.

    2nd Company
    2 Platoons Crockett BattleMechs (12 Mechs)
    1 Platoon Archers (6 Mechs)

    3rd Company
    2 Platoons Crockett BattleMechs (12 Mechs)
    1 Platoon Archers (6 Mechs)
     
    Last edited: May 14, 2023
  10. Extras: Highland Faire January Force notess
    Imperator Pax

    Imperator Pax Talon Master

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    Not counting Bardiche, and the expansions on the Maguanac corp (which I will get to), and the naval side of things, the main thing I've really screwed up on is the independently attached armor.

    Command Company (Nominal) January 3017 Northwind Arrival

    Gene: Marauder
    Bahar: Mongoose
    Septim: Merlin
    Chang: Atlas
    Beauregard: Dervish
    Ishida: Cicada

    Maguanac Group 1 (aboard the Sam Houston)
    1 Daimyo Command HQ
    Refitting at time of arrival on Northwind [Extra Vehicles being carried aboard the San Saba]
    + Infantry Company (Aboard Baffins)
    + Independent Armor 'Hammer' which is also Nominally on paper a company.

    Claymore Battalion (Standing up) late January 3017
    Ancients Company: https://forum.questionablequesting....-battletech-isekai.15094/page-28#post-6422537
    Cadets (Nominal)

    Attached Davion sourced Pilots (Active: 8 Rapiers; 2 + 6 Moving to 12 in two wings in the overlords)

    --
    This doesn't currently mark out the expanded Infantry and Armor or Bardiche that will stand up shortly
     
  11. Extras: BT Production sites 3rd Succsion War Canonical List crosspost
    Imperator Pax

    Imperator Pax Talon Master

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    The following from the QQ main BT thread is useful and relevant canonically to the third succession war to this story as well as to a lesser extent essence wielding social general:

    https://forum.questionablequesting....discussions-thread.4740/page-216#post-5873538
    (Note bob is reposting this from the bt forum. It was originally posted by Cazaril on the Battletech forums here. )
    Some excerpts:



    Draconis Combine – House Kurita

    Al Na’ir
    Scarborough Manufactures
    - TRO:3039
    * Saladin Assault Hover
    * Saracen Medium Hover
    * Scimitar Medium Hover
    * Maxim Hover Transport
    * APC – Hover (Speculation)
    - Objective Raids
    * Saladin Assault Hover
    * Saracen Medium Hover
    * Scimitar Medium Hover
    * Maxim Hover Transport
    * APC – Hover

    Yori ‘Mech Works
    - TRO:3039
    * AS7-D Atlas
    - Objective Raids
    * AS7-D Atlas

    Notes – TRO:3025 states the Manufacturer is “Al Na’ir, Quentin, Hesperus”. Since these are worlds, not companies, assumption is it meant Yori ‘Mech Works,

    Alshain
    Alshain Weapons
    - TRO:3039
    * PNT-9R Panther

    Notes – (Speculation/Assumtion) Alshain Weapons is a subsidiary/division of Gorton, Kinsley and Thorpe Enterprises. The name is used for branding purposes, and only exists on former Alshain Weapons buildings and products.

    Joint Equipment Systems
    - TRO:3039
    * Skulker Wheeled Scout
    * Scorpion Light Tank
    * LRM Carrier
    * SRM Carrier
    * APC – Tracked (Speculation)
    * APC – Wheeled (Speculation)
    - Objective Raids
    * Skulker Wheeled Scout
    * Scorpion Light Tank
    * LRM Carrier
    * SRM Carrier
    * APC – Tracked
    * APC – Wheeled
    * Hetzer Wheeled Assault Gun

    Quikscell
    - TRO:3039
    * Hetzer Wheeled Assault Gun

    Avon
    Matabushi Corporation
    - Objective Raids
    * Overloard Dropship
    * Union Dropship
    - Dropships and Jumpships
    * Overloard Dropship
    * Union Dropship

    Chatham
    Stellar Trek
    - Objective Raids
    * Invader Jumpship
    * Merchant Jumpship
    * Monolith Jumpship
    - Dropships and Jumpships
    * Invader Jumpship
    * Merchant Jumpship
    * Star Lord Jumpship

    Tomori Trans Industrial
    - Objective Raids
    * Vengeance Dropship
    - Dropships and Jumpships
    * Vengeance Dropship

    Wakazashi Enterprises
    - HK/DC 3025
    * SL-17 Shilone
    - TRO:3039
    * SL-17 Shilone
    - Objective Raids
    * SL-17 Shilone
    * LCF-16K Lucifer II

    Dover
    Hinsdale Electronics
    - Objective Raids
    * Condor Dropship
    - Dropships and Jumpships
    * Condor Dropship

    Wakazashi Enterprises
    - HK/DC 3025
    * SL-15 Slayer
    * Conventional Reconnaissance Aircraft
    - TRO:3039
    * SL-15 Slayer
    - Objective Raids
    * SL-15 Slayer

    Hachiman
    Tanadi Computers
    - HK/DC 3025
    * Communications Systems
    * Targeting/Tracking Systems

    Irece
    LexaTech Industries
    - HK/DC 3025
    * STG-A5 Stinger LAM
    - Objective Raids
    * STG-A5 Stinger LAM

    Jarett
    Alshain Weapons
    - Objective Raids

    Notes - Entry states they had to destroy their Jarett plant to avoid the Clans capturing it, but doesn’t say what was produced. Assuming it was the Gorton Kingsley and Thorpe Enterprises facility

    Gorton, Kingsley and Thorpe Enterprises
    - HK/DC 3025
    * PNT-9R Panther

    Kessel
    Diverse Optics, Inc.
    - Objective Raids
    *Diverse Optics brand Lasers

    Krenice
    Alshain Weapons
    - Objective Raids
    * PNT-9R Panther

    Notes – (Speculation/Assumtion) Alshain Weapons is a subsidiary/division of Gorton, Kinsley and Thorpe Enterprises. The name is used for branding purposes, and only exists on former Alshain Weapons buildings and products.

    Lapida II
    Nimakachi Fusion Products Ltd.
    - TRO:3039
    * SDR-5V Spider

    Luthien
    BBP Industries
    - Objective Raids
    * Excalibur Dropship
    * Intruder Dropship
    * Triumph Dropship
    - Dropships and Jumpships
    * Excalibur Dropship
    * Intruder Dropship
    * Triumph Dropship

    Buda Imperial Vehicles
    - HK/DC 3025
    * 135-K Coolant Truck
    * Towugawa Medium Tank
    * 67-K Daimyo HQ Unit
    - TRO:3039
    * 135-K Coolant Truck
    - Objective Raids
    * 135-K Coolant Truck
    * Towugawa Medium Tank
    * 67-K Daimyo HQ Unit

    Luthien Armor Works
    - HK/DC 3025
    * CGR-1A1 Charger
    * QKD-4G Quickdraw
    * DRG-1N Dragon
    - TRO:3039
    * CGR-1A1 Charger
    * LNC-25-02 Lancelot
    * QKD-4G Quickdraw
    * DRG-1N Dragon
    * JR7-D Jenner
    - Objective Raids
    * CGR-1A1 Charger
    * QKD-4G Quickdraw
    * DRG-1N Dragon
    * JR7-D Jenner

    Notes – According to 3039, LAW acquired the Lancelot plans after the Second Succession War, and kept the Mech in limited production.

    Matabushi Computing Equipment
    - HK/DC 3025
    * Communications Systems
    * Targeting/Tracking Systems
    - Objective Raids
    * Communications Systems
    * Targeting/Tracking Systems

    New Oslo
    Alshain Weapons
    - TRO:3039
    * PNT-9R Panther

    Notes – (Speculation/Assumtion) Alshain Weapons is a subsidiary/division of Gorton, Kinsley and Thorpe Enterprises. The name is used for branding purposes, and only exists on former Alshain Weapons buildings and products.

    Gorton, Kingsley and Thorpe Enterprises
    - TRO:3039
    * PXH-1 Phoenix Hawk
    - Objective Raids
    * ARC-2R Archer
    * PXH-1 Phoenix Hawk
    * PNT-9R Panther

    Notes - (Speculation/Assumtion) Objective Raids merged Alshain Weapons and Gorton, Kingsley and Thorpe Enterprises together for this entry.

    New Samarkand
    Nav Hull
    - TRO:3039
    * Monitor Naval Vessel

    Notes – According to Sarna.net’s citation from Objectives: Draconis Combine, NH also produces the Mauna Kea Naval Vessel at this location.

    New Samarkand Metals
    - TRO:3039
    * Demolisher Heavy Tank
    * Schrek PPC Carrier
    - Objective Raids
    * Behemoth Tank
    * Demolisher Heavy Tank
    * Schrek PPC Carrier

    Yan Manufacturing
    - Sarna.net
    * Peacekeeper VTOL
    * Soar VTOL

    Orestes
    Odin Manufacturing
    - Sarna.net
    * Puma Assault Tank

    Proserpina
    Bulldog Enterprises
    - TRO:3039
    * Bulldog Medium Tank
    - Objective Raids
    * Bulldog Medium Tank
    * Manticore Tank
    * Tokugawa Tank

    Guided Technologies
    - Objective Raids
    * SRM Launchers

    Qandahar
    Dow-Nexus Fusion Products
    - Objective Raids
    * GM Fusion Engines

    Rasalhague
    Gorton, Kingsley and Thorpe Enterprises
    - TRO:3039
    * ‘MechBuster Conventional Aircraft
    - Objective Raids
    * ‘MechBuster Conventional Aircraft

    Rasalhague Armor Works
    - Objective Raids
    * Armor
    * Lasers
    * PPCs

    Satalice
    Gorton, Kingsley and Thorpe Enterprises
    - TRO:3039
    * ARC-2R Archer
    - Objective Raids
    * ARC-2R Archer

    Schuyler
    Dharma Hyperspace
    - Objective Raids
    * Scout Jumpship
    - Dropships and Jumpships
    * Scout Jumpship

    Galileo Instruments
    - Objective Raids
    * Achilles Dropship
    * Behemoth Dropship
    * Triumph Dropship
    - Dropships and Jumpships
    * Achilles Dropship
    * Behemoth Dropship
    * Monarch Dropship

    Magnon Aeronautics
    - HK/DC 3025
    * SL-21 Sholagar
    - TRO:3039
    * SL-21 Sholagar
    - Objective Raids
    * SL-21 Sholagar

    Notes – Magnon Aeronautics was purchased by Wakazashi Enterprises sometime before mid-3049 (Clan Invasion). In Objective Raids, WE has a facility on Schulyer. This is assumed to be the old Magnon Aeronautics plant.

    Spittal
    Benson and Bjorn
    - TRO:3039
    * Scorpion Light Tank
    * APC – Tracked (Speculation)
    - Objective Raids
    * Scorpion Light Tank
    * APC – Tracked
    * Vedette Tank

    Trondheim
    Amau Electronics
    - Objective Raids
    * Communications Systems
    * Targeting/Tracking Systems


    Federated Suns – House Davion

    Addicks
    Johnston Industries
    - HD:FS 3025
    * Goblin Medium Tank
    * Large Lasers
    * PPCs

    Axton
    Wangker Aerospace
    - HD:FS 3025
    * CSR-V12 Corsair
    * EGL-R6 Eagle
    * THB-D36 Thunderbird
    - TRO:3039
    * CSR-V12 Corsair
    - Objective Raids
    * CSR-V12 Corsair
    * EGL-R6 Eagle
    * THB-D36 Thunderbird

    Belladonna
    Cal-Boeing of Dorwinion
    - HD:FS 3025
    * Ferret Light Scout VTOL
    * Wild Weasel VTOL
    * Marten VTOL
    - TRO:3039
    * Ferret Light Scout VTOL
    - Objective Raids
    * Ferret Light Scout VTOL
    * Wild Weasel VTOL
    * Marten VTOL
    * Boomerang Spotter Conventional Aircraft

    Notes – According to Sarna.net’s citation from TRO:3050U, C-BD also produces the Ripper VTOL at this location.

    Crofton
    StarCorp Industries
    - TRO:3039
    * LGB-0W Longbow
    - Objective Raids
    * LGB-0W Longbow

    Delavan
    Dynamico Ltd.
    - Objective Raids
    * Avenger Dropship
    * Buccaneer Dropship
    * Exostar brand Lasers
    * Marten brand Lasers
    - Dropships and Jumpships
    * Avenger Dropship
    * Buccaneer Dropship

    Universal Air
    - Objective Raids
    * Invader Jumpship
    * Star Lord Jumpship
    - Dropships and Jumpships
    * Invader Jumpship
    * Star Lord Jumpship

    Errai
    Maltex Corporation
    - Objective Raids
    * Tiegart brand PPCs

    Exeter
    Galtor Naval Yards
    - TRO:3039
    * Neptune Submarine
    - Objective Raids
    * Neptune Submarine

    Filtvelt
    Cal-Boeing of Dorwinion
    - TRO:3039
    * Boomerang Spotter Conventional Aircraft
    - Objective Raids
    * Boomerang Spotter Conventional Aircraft

    Notes – According to Sarna.net’s citation from TRO:3050U, C-BD also produces the Ripper VTOL at this location.

    Galax
    Federated-Boeing Interstellar
    - HD:FS 3025
    * Overlord Dropship
    * Union Dropship
    * Leopard Dropship
    * Leopard-CV Dropship
    * Gazelle Dropship
    * CargoMaster Dropship
    * CargoKing Dropship
    - Objective Raids
    * Overlord Dropship
    * Union Dropship
    * Leopard Dropship
    * Leopard-CV Dropship
    * Gazelle Dropship
    - Dropships and Jumpships
    * Union Dropship
    * Leopard Dropship
    * Leopard-CV Dropship

    Galax Launch Systems and Satellites
    - HD:FS 3025
    * Satellites

    Galtor III
    Galtor Naval Yards
    - TRO:3039
    * Neptune Submarine
    - Objective Raids
    * Neptune Submarine

    Gulkana
    Yefters Weapon Factory
    - Objective Raids
    * Mydron Autocannons

    Johnsondale
    Notes – Valiant Vehicles is a joint subsidiary of Wunderland Enterprises and Valiant Sysyems, based on Johnsondale. It is unclear if the design is jointly owned, or if there is a jointly owned facility. TRO:3039 appears to say there are two facilities (one for each parent company), while Objective Raids gives the impression of a Jointly owned facility.

    Valiant Systems
    - TRO:3039
    * Striker Light Tank
    - Objective Raids
    * Striker Light Tank

    Wunderland Enterprises
    - TRO:3039
    * Striker Light Tank
    - Objective Raids
    * Striker Light Tank

    Kathil
    General Motors
    - TRO:3039
    * MAD-3R Marauder
    - Objective Raids
    * MAD-3R Marauder

    General Motors of Kathil
    - HD:FS 3025
    * Production not specified
    - Objective Raids
    * Darter Scout Car
    * Jeeps
    * Other Support Vehicles

    Kirklin
    Kallon Industries
    - TRO:3039
    * Partisan Heavy Tank
    - Objective Raids
    * Partisan Heavy Tank

    Layover
    Quikscell Company
    - TRO:3039
    * Scorpion Light Tank
    * LRM Carrier (Speculation)
    * SRM Carrier (Speculation)
    - Objective Raids
    * Scorpion Light Tank
    * LRM Carrier
    * SRM Carrier
    * Vedette Tank

    Salvatore Inc.
    - Objective Raids
    * Seeker Dropship
    - Dropships and Jumpships
    * Seeker Dropship

    Marduk
    Norse BattleMech Works
    - HD:FS 3025
    * WVR-6R Wolverine
    * GRF-1N Griffin
    - TRO:3039
    * WVR-6R Wolverine
    - Objective Raids
    * WVR-6R Wolverine
    * GRF-1N Griffin

    Notes – Captured during the 4th Succession War and renamed Victory Industries. Since this has not happened in 3025, all references to Victory Industries are considered to be Norse BattleMech Works.

    Mendham
    Mendham Electronics
    - HD:FS 3025
    * Communications Systems
    * Targeting/Tracking Systems
    - Objective Raids
    * Garret brand Communications Systems
    * Garret brand Targeting/Tracking Systems

    New Avalon
    Achernar BattleMechs
    - HD:FS 3025
    * PXH-1 Phoenix Hawk
    * LCT-1V Locust
    * WSP-1A Wasp
    - TRO:3039
    * DV-6M Dervish
    * ENF-4R Enforcer
    * PXH-1 Phoenix Hawk
    - Objective Raids
    * DV-6M Dervish
    * ENF-4R Enforcer
    * PXH-1 Phoenix Hawk
    * LCT-1V Locust
    * WSP-1A Wasp

    Corean Enterprises
    - HD:FS 3025
    * VLK-QA Valkyrie
    - TRO:3039
    * VLK-QA Valkyrie
    * CN9-A Centurion
    - Objective Raids
    * VLK-QA Valkyrie
    * CN9-A Centurion

    Lycomb-Davion IntraTech
    - HD:FS 3025
    * STU-K5 Stuka
    * LTN-G15 Lightning
    * HCT-213 Hellcat
    * APCs
    * Artillery
    - TRO:3039
    * STU-K5 Stuka
    - Objective Raids
    * STU-K5 Stuka
    * LTN-G15 Lightning
    * HCT-213 Hellcat

    New Ivaarsen
    Galtor Naval Yards
    - Sarna.net
    * Seahorse

    New Syrtis
    New Syrtis Shipyards
    - HD:FS 3025
    * Upgrading
    - Objective Raids
    * Monarch Dropship
    * Mammoth Dropship
    - Dropships and Jumpships
    * Gazelle Dropship
    * Monarch Dropship
    * Mammoth Dropship

    New Valencia
    Blackwell Industries
    - TRO:3039
    * MAD-4A Marauder II
    - Objective Raids
    * MAD-4A Marauder II
    - Wolf’s Dragoons
    * MAD-4A Marauder II
    * Badger Tracked Support
    * Bandit Hovercraft
    * Kestrel VTOL
    * Peregrine VTOL

    Notes – According to Wolf’s Dragoons and cross referenced with the CGL’s MUL (and some help from Sarna.net), the Badger, Bandit and Kestrel all entered service 3008. The MAD-4A Marauder II entered service in 3012 and the Peregrine VTOL entered service in 3021. All five are the result of Wolf’s Dragoons interaction with Blackwell Industries.

    Ozawa
    General Dynamics
    - TRO:3039
    * KTO-18 Kintaro
    - Objective Raids
    * KTO-18 Kintaro

    Wunderland Enterprises
    - Objective Raids
    * Wunderland brand Communications Systems
    * Wunderland brand Targeting/Tracking Systems

    Panpour
    Challenge Systems
    - Objective Raids
    * Monolith Jumpship
    - Dropships and Jumpships
    * Monolith Jumpship

    Jalastar Aerospace
    - HD:FS 3025
    * SPR-H5 SparrowHawk
    * CN9-A Centurion
    * Manticore Heavy Tank
    - TRO:3039
    * SPR-H5 SparrowHawk
    * Meteor Heavy Conventional Fighter
    * Manticore Heavy Tank
    - Objective Raids
    * SPR-H5 SparrowHawk
    * SB-27 Sabre
    * CN9-A Centurion
    * Manticore Heavy Tank

    Quentin
    Independence Weaponry
    - HD:FS 3025
    * AS7-D Atlas
    * VTR-9B Victor
    * MAD-3R Marauder
    * JM6-S JagerMech
    - TRO:3039
    * AS7-D Atlas
    * VTR-9B Victor
    * MAD-3R Marauder
    - Objective Raids
    * AS7-D Atlas
    * VTR-9B Victor
    * MAD-3R Marauder
    * JM6-S JagerMech

    Robinson
    Valiant Systems
    - Objective Raids
    * Armor
    * LRM Launchers
    * SRM Launchers

    Salem
    General Motors
    - TRO:3039
    * Behemoth Heavy Tank
    - Objective Raids
    * APC – Wheeled

    Schedar
    Rander Communications Equipment Inc
    - HD:FS 3025
    * Communications Systems
    * Targeting/Tracking Systems
    - Objective Raids
    * Rander brand Communications Systems
    * Rander brand Targeting/Tracking Systems

    Talcott
    General Motors
    - Objective Raids
    * GM Fusion Engines

    Talon
    Kallon Industries
    - HD:FS 3025
    * JM6-S JagerMech
    * RFL-3N Rifleman
    * GRF-1N Griffin
    * ENF-4R Enforcer
    * Partisan Heavy Tank
    - TRO:3039
    * JM6-S JagerMech
    * RFL-3N Rifleman
    * GRF-1N Griffin
    * HNT-151 Hornet
    - Objective Raids
    * JM6-S JagerMech
    * RFL-3N Rifleman
    * GRF-1N Griffin
    * ENF-4R Enforcer
    * HNT-151 Hornet

    Periphery – Taurian Concordat

    Brinton
    O/P Computer Electronics
    - Objective Raids
    * O/P brand Communications Systems
    * O/P brand Targeting/Tracking Systems

    Illiushin
    Vandenberg Mechanized Industries
    - The Periphery
    * Union Dropship
    * GRF-1N Griffin
    * COM-2D Commando
    * STG-3R Stinger
    - Objective Raids
    * Union Dropship
    * GRF-1N Griffin
    * COM-2D Commando

    Laconis
    Taurus Majoris Mining
    - Objective Raids
    * StarSlab brand Armor

    Macleod’s Land
    Pinard Protectorates Limited
    - The Periphery
    * LCT-1V Locust
    * STG-3R Stinger
    - Objective Raids
    * LCT-1V Locust
    * STG-3R Stinger

    New Vanderberg
    Vandenberg Mechanized Industries
    - The Periphery
    * CHP-W5 Chippewa
    * MAD-3R Marauder
    * ARC-2R Archer
    * STG-3R Stinger
    * Hunter Light Tank
    - TRO:3039
    * CHP-W5 Chippewa
    * ARC-2R Archer
    - Objective Raids
    * CHP-W5 Chippewa
    * MAD-3R Marauder
    * ARC-2R Archer
    * STG-3R Stinger
    * Hunter Light Tank

    Organo
    Pinard Protectorates Limited
    - The Periphery
    * SB-27 Sabre
    - Objective Raids
    * SB-27 Sabre

    Perdition
    Pinard Protectorates Limited
    - The Periphery
    * THB-D36 Thunderbird
    * WSP-1A Wasp
    * Rommel Tank
    * Vedette Tank
    * J. Edgar Light Hover
    - TRO:3039
    * J. Edgar Light Hover
    - Objective Raids
    * THB-D36 Thunderbird
    * WSP-1A Wasp
    * Rommel Tank
    * Vedette Tank
    * J. Edgar Light Hover

    Pinard
    Pinard Protectorates Limited
    - The Periphery
    * MAD-3R Marauder
    * Munitions
    - Objective Raids
    * MAD-3R Marauder
    * Martell Lasers

    Pinard-Dicolais Electronics
    - The Periphery
    * Communications Systems
    * Targeting/Tracking Systems
    - Objective Raids
    * Communications Systems
    * Targeting/Tracking Systems

    Vandenberg Mechanized Industries
    - TRO:3039
    * WHM-6R Warhammer
    - Objective Raids
    * WHM-6R Warhammer
    * TDR-5S Thunderbolt
    * Vedette Tank

    Wingman Enterprises Limited
    - Sarna.net
    * Bat Hawk Conventional Fighter

    Sterope
    Sterope Defense Industries
    - Objective Raids
    * Diverse Optics brand Lasers
    * Sunglow brand Lasers
    * Donal brand PPCs
    * Hotshot brand Flamers
    * Pontiac brand Autocannons
    * Delta Dart brand LRM Launchers

    Taurus Territorial Industries
    - The Periphery
    * Union Dropship
    * SYD-21 Seydlitz
    * Hunter Light Tank
    * Static Gun Emplacements
    - Objective Raids
    * Union Dropship
    * SYD-21 Seydlitz
    * APC – Tracked

    Notes – According to Sarna.net’s citation from TRO:3058, TTI also produces the Maultier (Basic) at this facility.

    Taurus
    Magna
    - Objective Raids
    * Magna brand Engines
    * Magna brand Lasers
    * Magna brand PPCs
    * Star League brand Interplanetary Drives
    * Warrior brand Fusion Engines

    Taurus Territorial Industries
    - The Periphery
    * Leopard Dropship
    * THB-D36 Thunderbird
    - TRO:3039
    * WHM-6R Warhammer
    - Objective Raids
    * Leopard Dropship
    * LTN-G15 Lightning
    * MAD-3R Marauder
    * WHM-6R Warhammer
    * TDR-5S Thunderbolt
    * LCT-1V Locust
    * WSP-1A Wasp

    DC – Aix-la-Chapelle
    * Diplan ‘MechYards
    DC – Altair
    * Long Life Company – (Possible Product – M.A.S.H. Trucks)
    DC – Alshain
    * Alshain BattleWorx
    * Alshain Naval Yards
    * Bergan Industries – (Not until after 3040)
    DC – Dieron
    * Luthien Armor Works
    * Terada Warship Yards
    DC – Dover
    * Dover Shipyards – (Possible Product – Invader Jumpship, Merchant Jumpship)
    DC – Grumium
    * Grumium Creations – (small company producing various military parts and sub-systems)
    DC – Hun Ho
    * LexaTech Industries – (Possible Product – Archer, Grasshopper)
    DC – Irece
    * LAW-Barcella – (Was this a LAW plant taken over by the Clans, or built after they arrived?)
    DC – Kagoshima
    * Nissan General Industries – (Possible Product – Fusion Engines)
    DC – Kimball
    * Ceres Metals Industries
    DC – Luthien
    * Defiance Motors – (Listed in Sarna.net’s “Luthien” entry. Seems unlikely)
    * Focke-Achgelis Motorworks
    DC – Midway
    * DeHuego & Freshet Warship Design
    * Midway Shipyards
    * Telfar BattleMechs
    DC – New Oslo
    * DeHuego & Freshet Warship Design
    * Galileo Instruments – (According to HK/DC, they existed, but are they still a military provider?)
    Notes - According to Dropships and Jumpships, Galileo Instruments builds dropships... Assumption would be that this is done on Schuyler (which is suggested by Objective Raids), so the New Oslo office appears to be Corporate Headquarters/Home Office and none military goods.
    DC – New Samarkand
    * Wakzashi Enterprise
    * Luthien Armor Works
    * DeHuego & Freshet Warship Design
    DC – Nirasaki
    * New Age Systems Incorporated – (Was Spad factory destroyed? shut down? Not exist until after 3025?)
    DC – Nykvarn
    * Luthien Armor Works
    DC – Savinsville
    * Luthien Armor Works
    DC – Schuyler
    * Galileo Instruments – (Seems to have been built post 3025)
    Notes - Dropships and Jumpships suggest this existed and produced Achilles and Monarch Dropships. Moved to the confirmed section.
    DC – Soul
    * Blankenburg Technologies – (Possible Product – Crockett.. When was it built? Sarna.net entry states “During Independence Weaponry's revamp of the old Blankenburg facility on Soul”, which should place revamp after 3040. But is it newly “old” or Star League “old”?
    DC – Togura
    * Togura Shipyards
    DC – *Unknown*
    * Unknown – (Possible Product – Deuce-and-a-Half knock-off)


    FS – Augusta
    * Corean Enterprises
    FS – Benet III
    * Johnston Industries
    FS – Broken Wheel
    * Quikscell
    FS – Cahokia
    * Achernar BattleMechs
    FS – Caph
    * Lang Industries Incorporated (Possible Product – Shadow Hawk)
    FS – Carmacks
    * Federated Industries – (Possible Product – Personal Body Armor)
    FS – El Dorado
    * General Motors
    FS – Layover
    * Kallon Industries
    * Sacrado Industries – (Possible Product – Seeker Dropship, K-1 Dropshuttle, S-7A Bus)
    FS – Macintosh
    * Apple Computer Interstellar – (Unlikely. They only sell personal computers in 3025, not military)
    FS – New Syrtis
    * Johnston Industries – (Not until after 4th SW)
    FS – Northwind
    * Bulldog Enterprises – (Seems improbable)
    * Cosara Weaponries – (Was anything left?)
    FS – Novaya Zemlya
    * Corean Enterprises
    * Federated Industries – (Possible Product – Federated Autocannons and Missile Launchers)
    FS – Panpour
    * Joint Equipment Systems
    FS – Talon
    * Mercy Industries of Talon – (Possible Product – M.A.S.H. Trucks)
    FS – Tancredi IV
    * Precision Weaponry – (Lasers produced are LosTech, but did they produce standard?)
    FS – Torrence
    * Veridian Dynamics – (Possible Product – Tiger Medium Tank)
    FS – *Unknown*
    * Pintel Corporation – (They exist, but where?.. Manufacture Pintel Heavy Combat ATV)
    * Unknown – (Possible Product - Deuce-and-a-Half)
     
  12. Extras: Grin Reaper's DroST Custom (From SB)
    Imperator Pax

    Imperator Pax Talon Master

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    So as we move forward I figured I would share something:
    This was something Grin Reaper at SB https://forums.spacebattles.com/thr...domini-rule-frails-drool.220143/post-76856401 posted for someone else, and I thought it was a cool design. The DroST is in general a cool ship and old enough to have been modified by everyone in the Inner Sphere

    Base Model: https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Drost_IIA

    And another version
    I like this one a bit better. Just to reiterate that these are in Platoons of Infantry, hence the comment 'all that infantry'.
     
    Last edited: Feb 18, 2022
  13. Extras: 3-3016
    Imperator Pax

    Imperator Pax Talon Master

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    On paper work Gene owns two JumpShips though they're incorporated separately from the Merc Company proper, imagine like a conglomerate or other large business venture where there is a shipping department that has nominally the same owners, but different officers. The JumpShips crew, like the armor company are all Azami, and the Lebanon is originally an Azami JumpShip.


    Lets see if I can make I make the forum do something approximating what I want or if I'm going to have to subject you all to my horrible handwriting... yeah no thats not working

    Current Order of Battle (Canopian Cadre)
    c. March 3016
    Strategic Mobility
    Lebanon Liberty-class JumpShip [Originally an Azami JumpShip]
    Colorado Leviathan-class JumpShip [Originally an Alexandrian JumpShip]

    Ground Forces

    Canopian Experimental Company 'Easy' sans attached Mercenaries
    [Note that this is March of 3016, before the unit receives any Phoenix Hawks, as they will in later life. These are all stock Mechs.]
    Abel Platoon
    6x Vindicators

    Baker Platoon
    6x Vindicators

    Charlie Platoon / Company Reconnaissance Section
    2x Locusts
    2x Wasps


    Delta / Company Headquarters/reserves
    2 Shadow Hawks
    2 Stingers

    Luxen Scratch Company Veterans
    6 MechWarriors.
    Currently detaching Beauregard and Schiffer to Charlie Platoon [Dervish, and Cicada respectively]
    Currently detaching Septim and Bubbles to Delta Platoon [Merlin, and Hunchback respectively] [Septim is defacto Company level CO, captain equivalency to 'Easy']

    Armor Company [Azami formation]
    Company HQ
    Tank Section (2 Heavy tanks)
    Support Battery (2 LRM Carriers)
    2x Light Vehicle Lances tasked for recon and harassment

    That leaves Gene, and Bahar in their respective mechs as defacto Light Combined Arms Battalion CO and XO on paper and the Sam Houston as formal Battalion Headquarters and support, but in actual practical battle means that in traditional doctrine the Mercenaries can fill out all base Six unit formations in Easy Company in addition to fielding another full lance of Mechwarriors [So six Mech normal mech Lances total plus a vehicle company, plus a dropship, though no ASF]

    This brings us back to Laxard's question on Septim's position in the company, meaning the Merc Unit as a whole. He's defacto CO over Easy company, and also the other five veterans of the scratch company who signed on with him to run the original cadre after gene left. Effectively a Captain's billet. Bahar technically has command authority over the DropShip, and the armor as well if Gene isn't around and thus is a Major equivalent. She might theoretically out rank Septim, but they're two distinct commands in the unit.
     
    Last edited: Aug 15, 2021
  14. Extras: Septim Scrap #1
    Imperator Pax

    Imperator Pax Talon Master

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    Septim Scrap #1
    Septim hadn't been able to sleep... at least this time it wasn't the animals again. He had seen ravenous wolves and green birds prowl across the surface of Terra too many times in his nightmares the last few years. Those same greens birds he'd seen tearing at corpses of men who had worn the same Lyran Guards uniform he had worn. The dreams that had haunted him when he'd been a lieutenant on Orkney.

    The Dreams had started almost a decade earlier. Not always the animals though... like this time it had been a black flag waving in the sky. The last six month on Luxen had been some of the best of the lot... it wasn't like being in the Commonwealth's Armed Forces he had finally shaken off the feeling that Azami were just going to come back and completely steamroller them.

    They hadn't, and it wasn't as if he'd had dreams about that. So was he supposed tell someone? Who the fifteen year old who was probably a marksman ten times over? Yeah right. He had left the guards because he had hated the political game that was the LCAF. He had only wanted to pilot his mech, hang out and drink beers with the guys not not get dragged constantly down into the mire of every social plot and counter plot, or watch generals try and determine the price of a mile on some far off planet.

    No this was hands down the best unit he'd ever been with, and risking that on superstitious bad dreams that could have been caused by the curry the night before was insane. If he was ever going back to Tamar it would be as a big famous mercenary looking to come back and retire when he was old and gray. Or that was the dream anyway... that was what he told himself he was working towards... wasn't it what every dog of war said the dream was? Get rich go home and show it off to everybody back there that they had made it big?

    It was a lot easier just being a singular mechwarrior making two thousand c bills a month living on a stead y corporate paycheck than it was being an officer dealing with politics. The contracts thing by itself had about killed him, cause it had been everything wrong with his life today magnified, when he should have been happy for what it signified. He'd talked a bunch decent guys together into sticking around and taking a good paying job.

    Then he'd been stuck dangling there as the man at the top worrying when someone was going to run him off of the job. He had never had it happen before, but he'd heard about it happening. This was the first contract where it might be worth enough to have someone try it.

    By the time Septim had dragged himself down the mess he was awake enough that they were apparently starting to run out of the good coffee. Not that the local luxen coffee was bad, it was caffeine after all, but he was little surprised Abner was up and mobile far more than his frame might have suggested. The old doctor waved at him to come and sit. "Ah Mr Alexander, welcome, welcome do sit down."

    "Thank you professor."

    "Didn't sleep well?"

    He shrugged, "Something like that," Septim deflected.

    "Don't trouble yourself over that drone business now. Its not anything to worry about, though admittedly I very much would like to find Amaris's fabled crystal palace. There are no records of the SLDF ever finding it, but Amaris allegedly constructed a kind, palatial castle brian for his family. I would expect that such an expenditure would have included countless priceless treasures of the rim world republic at its height.

    Truthfully he hadn't even been thinking about the Drone comment from the day before. It had been a weird exchange especially who was probably pushing seventy and someone half Septim's age, but then, "The commander didn't seem thrilled at the prospect of it happening again?" He was fishing now.

    "No I imagine not," Abener looked off in the distance dreamily reliving some archaeological adventurer months, "Star League era sites are so interesting, all sorts of things in them that tell us so much about things were back then. Oh my biggest concern is that due to how much water is on the planet any potential rim world facilities on the planet may have actually been built under the seas you know. The Rim World Republic had a history of doing that, I couldn't even begin to fathom how long it might take to organize never mind conduct a search, never mind the reduced sea level due the ice age." The doctor stopped himself coming a up a little short for breath, "I do terribly apologize MR Alexander I do let the topics sometimes get away from me at times."

    "Hey, you're signing the check right, anything that might help uphold my end of the job." Septim chuckled. "Its just business."

    "Yes, yes quite right. I suppose Mindy is technically signing the checks. She'd be utterly delighted if she could find some treasure trove. A BattleMech production line of Marauders is what I think she most desperately wants to find." Septim commented that the Magistracy already had one, "Yes, it was liberated by the SLDF and then refurbished from Amaris's army. Its been in service ever since, but really its the performance of Mr Shepherd's Marauder. Really I think any battlemech factory at all, never mind a heavy one, would a big enough feather in her cap. Any kind of salvageable industry found on this trip would more than pay for it. I just wish we could restore the planet to how it had been. Find some DOME outpost somewhere and fix this horrible ice thing."

    "How would that work?" He regretted the question just as soon as it left his mouth.

    "Well the best way would be two fold of course, you see the Star League manufactured solar mirrors that were easily transportable by jumpships to reflect more sunlight onto a planet, and the second way would be that they'd build big atmospheric adjusters. Those would be much harder to find of course, but they were used for planets like Lone Star. The Star League was terraforming some planets in this stretch of well what we regrettably must call the Canopian ruins. Even just a few solar mirrors would let us help the planet heat back up to more temperate conditions."
    --
    Commentary: This was not the one I was originally going to write, and even this got side tracked by two other BattleTech pieces of fiction set during the clan invasion, which we will talk about in a minute. So this a scrap, it is kind of nominally canon. The whole Septim has visions of the Clans thing thats 'canonical' for the story itself. Even though its not explicitly spelled out those 'visions' also tie in the Wolfs Dragoons arrival in the sphere. Septim isn't the only person in this story or in canon who have these kinds of prophetic warnings about not just the clans but other threats. Is this a major part of the story, no not really, I know recent BattleTech (relatively speaking maybe,) has tried to play down the supernatural aspects but I don't care we're gonna have Ki abilities, and other stuff and what not crop up from time to time. As for the visions the cult of st cameron is a thing, Comstar has visions of the clan from time to time. The Clans do visions sometimes. Its fine.

    Moving on:

    So we've wrapped back around to the clans for this story we will get to our first encounter in due time, but one of the ideas I was had considered was something brought up in SB. A break up, a great balkanization of the Inner Sphere. Lets get out in front of this. Nicholas Kerensky was a lunatic, and quite frankly even he didn't just come out and insanely declare that whichever clan got to Terra would get to be IlClan that is some crazy that the clans themselves decided to adopt right before the invasion... and you know I've said here, if we ever get to the point where the clan's are invading Gene's whole attitude of 'the star league is dead, or the Star League died with house cameron and its never coming back' would be controversial. to say the least.

    And taking Terra is not going to get the Inner Sphere to accept clan overlord ship because Terra has been under Comstar 'stewardship' since what 2780? Terra doesn't really mean anything to the Great Houses strategically or as political importance, and speaking of ComStar having a clan show up and declare itself IlClan is very likely to result in the Wobbies early or in ComStar as a whole going nuts at their own delusional mythos being proven wrong and nukes. ANd of course there is the fact that most likely any clan who got to Terra first would inevitably get stabbed in the back by other clans who 'dispute' their getting to Terra.

    Anyway and its this idea that leads to me having this clan invasion era prompt of where you don't have the great houses any more (or the great houses exist but in a much more rump state) so much as everything has reduced down a level, to the provinces. The Clans are still around but are exhausted their warship fleet having allowed them to sunder the great houses but there several hundred warships eventually attritted by not only fights with other warships but destroyed by just ASF fighters being desperate. Worlds have been destroyed. Terra is gone.(Maybe ComStar nuked the planet rather than let the 'sldf returnees' have it, maybe Jade Falcon threw a tantrum at not being ilClan) Its just duchies and what not and now you need more mercenaries than ever because even the clans have splintered into their galaxy commanders trying to become khans of little fiefdoms in the Inner Sphere or periphery.


    Like as an opening something like this idea, that I will probably not use.
    All the Khans get to Terra, basically we'll just say Gene but it could be someone else, but the idea was Phantom MechWarrior OP, Gene gets the drop on them with *insert armed infantry power armor turned elementals whatever* troops and has all the Khans at gunpoint. And tell thems bluntly the Star League is gone, and it doesn't matter that they have terra. Then goes "but tell you what I have this perfectly good Dire Wolf A. Since you have come here and caused this much trouble go pick your mech I will kill each of you in single combat for all of your troops to watch."

    And then since Phantom MechWarrior you get some straight Kell or Yorinaga bullshit and they can't hit the side of barn while he's putting Gauss through their cockpits. End of it all the Khans are dead and this has been broadcast to the whole of the inner sphere and being beamed back to the clans.

    Then Gene just fucking leaves for the periphery. and the Clans just completely splinter. Some of them over run the last great house resistance but can't hold ground against local forces. Opening / prologue over, and it picks up a few years later with the new status quo
    Now part of this as an idea hinges on a more complete invasion corridor, you need a minimum of two clans invading for the other two states. (The capellans, and FWL) Or you need an explanation of why the FWL isn't intact as a result, maybe the capellans just finally bought it from residual pressure of the war
     
  15. Extras: Nominally Canon The Starport
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    Nominally Canon: The Starport
    Everyone had to do their bit, and as nice as a shower would have been there was still a lot to go... but thankfully, most of it would be opening doors, and turning on machines... and Tristan promised that he could handle most of the command and control. They had finally switched from emergency lighting to the facility's normal lighting. The AI had been able to patch up the Outpost Castle magnificently. You'd have never guessed that there was a battle there. The same was mostly true for the Star Port. Mostly.

    "Be still my heart." Ford murmured exhaling and looking around as the guide lights lit up, and smiled. It was beautiful. The Star League's idea of star port had blended in perfectly with the natural surroundings, someone had decided to plant the trees for Arbor day, whatever that was. And well... he'd seen the ghastly security feeds of what had happened. The majority of the starport was underground though, and even now...

    ... and Tristan had a handful of anti personnel drones still skulking through the corridors. He heard every so often a rapid series of scurrying clicks as they rushed from position to position. More than once he'd turned around expecting them to have moved to some previous position just to see one hanging from the ceiling dim red optic glowing... but they were useful for looking around. He had needed their search lights to work.

    "If only the Combine hadn't attacked Mustafa, we would be getting so much more done." He told the Azami senior tech for probably like the tenth time. He sighed and looked over the internal tram way. "I wish we had found this place," so many toys to play with as it were, "sooner," Again something he had said before, but really... so much was here.

    Tristan had summarized what had happened.

    If the combine hadn't attacked... or that hadn't been that ghastly business in the command center... which he still wasn't sure what that had been about, but later... later. If the combine hadn't attack Ford was sure that they'd have been able to explore the 63rd Mechanized Infantry Division's garrison as well.

    Tristan's anti aircraft fire against the escaping DropShips had destroyed the fleeing vessels over the ocean... well really it was more of a sea, but same difference. The SLDF units whose breadcrumbs he had managed to suss out, the records of communication ultimately had lead to Elidere, and it was disappointing to have learned that Kerensky didn't seemed to have had a plan at all... beyond just leaving the Inner Sphere of course.

    The Triumph left to sleep in the hangar had been built in 2735 by a now defunct Terran firm which had not survived Amaris's tyranny... never mind lived to see the horrors of the succession wars. A hundred twenty nine meters long the aerodyne dropship managed to still look small in its slip. The Dropship slips were intended to as needed accommodate Titan or Vengeance class ASF carriers, which were both such behemoths that either were wider than than Triumph was long.

    But for what they were going to do, well they needed something that would be able to move an entire armor battalion to Ander's Moon. Mustafa plugged a terminal into a port. "Its going to take us a couple of days."

    Tristan's voice came over the speaker, "I've already a series of recommendations based on data from Ander's Moon. I will forward those to Commander Shepherd."

    "How many vehicles can this carry?"

    "Forty five heavy vehicles, plus two lances of lights," Mustafa answered.

    "Forty five, that's a bit odd of a number." Ford complained shaking his head, "Okay then what do we need to do from here?"

    "Pre flight checks, I can bring some astechs in, we'll check fuel, the intakes and the drives." Mustafa looked down at his terminal, "this looks promising, but we'll need to refuel, and do manual inspections."

    "I'll go back to the central terminal and see about getting the beacons lined up." The lift back was designed to allow a quick step into a transparent aluminum ... casemate, bubble or sorts that gave one a protected view of the inside of the individual hangar bays that connected to a central area, that could be closed off by bays. Apparently it had been designed to allow safety, advertised as a way to prevent fires from spreading.

    Nearly nothing of the facility was above ground. The old access roads had been completely overgrown and demolished and ... well all of the conveniences, the terminal stores, and duty free shops and so on... had been abandoned for centuries within the star port's subterranean sprawl. None of those had been touched.

    Contemporary Elidere was asplash with ornate gables, wrought iron fencing around gardens, two and three storey buildings ending steeples or adorned with towers. The interior of the starport had plenty of arches, but was a network of of angles and glass, and clean white walls.

    Now that the fusion reactor was safely powered on everything was now well lit, and he couldn't even see the recessed ports for the red emergency lighting. The hallways would have once been filled with people, but by the time of the fall of 2785 fewer and fewer people were making regular jumpship travel. The house lords had already been preparing for the first succession war by that point... and of course it would be long that without people tending to the facility that it would be forgotten as the horrors of the first succession war had erupted.

    The elevator dinged as it opened leaving in a control chamber completely unlike the ones that predominated the contemporary inner sphere. Most spaceports built in the first and second succession wars, never mind after had been thrown up on the surface of a planet, sometimes, often, several hundreds of square kilometers in area with multiple control towers poking into the sky. There were more computers, and control systems that could minimize the number of personnel needed to run a facility this size, and yet this was capable of directing and shuttling emergency traffic and diversions from the entire hemisphere if it had never needed to.

    A holographic map of the solar system the size of a duke's feasting table showed Elidere IV in precise detail along with all of the major stellar objects in the solar system, including cleanly the Jumpships. As if reading his thoughts Tristan's voice projected through one of the spidery drones that had managed to sneak in after him, "Unfortunately with the degredation of Elidere's air defense network we cannot rely on this projection exclusively for detecting enemy air assets."

    "We can't?"

    "Theoretically conventional 'air breathers' would likely be able to avoid detection, detection of ASF powered by fusion drives and smaller dropships might also be able to exploit the gaps in coverage to mount an attack."

    "But the combine doesn't even know we have this," He pointed.

    "To the best of our knowledge," Tristan reproved, "I am obliged to apprise you of the conditions as I observe. The enemy could exploit vulnerabilities in system coverage. A Triumph class dropship is not designed to make a landing in contested airspaces." A pause, "orbital entry, and final touch down will depend on when exactly we depart, the enemy will have some degree of warning, though precisely how much will be dependent on their own command and control's ability to monitor. It will be imperative we secure a landing site before attempting to bring the Triumph in."


    The AI's pause was more pronounced this time, "Tristan?"

    "Apologies, the enemy regimental commander is dead, artillery going out now." The machine declared.

    "Well thats good right, cut the head off the snake," No pun intended, "And all that?" He didn't get an immediate response, "Well I'm sure you're busy." There was that whole other battalion on approach.
    --
    Notes, so what in theory this should have entailed, is a section several days earlier dealing with Ford having access to resources, for lack of better description a directory, and then a follow on of taking a team up to actually acess the star portbut as I said this was originally cut from Staff interlude.
     
    Last edited: Feb 15, 2022
  16. Extras: Extras H. Davion
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    EXTRAS
    The First Prince ft Dr Banzi
    New Avalon September 3017

    The protected transit had taken them south of the capital where what had been christened the New Avalon Institute of Science had been erected, "What am I looking at doctor?" As far as the prince could tell it was just an animated spiral.

    "DNA molecules, your highness." The frazzled looking man replied. He gave a sudden cheeky grin and tapped the keys with a rapid series of loud clacks as a result, "And an anomaly. You have to appreciate people who actually tell their doctors the truth.... well I'm getting ahead of myself." The image sort of changed, the base was similar but not identical "This is Miss Kerensky's blood sample, and you see similar markers from Colonel Wolf, but not as pronounced."

    ... and like that he was lost, "I thought you were talking about Colonel Shepherd." The First Prince replied.

    "Oh I am, I'm getting to that. You see Colonel Shepherd reported to the Magistracy he'd spent time in a stasis pod." The man adjusted his glasses, "Even reported some of the symptoms of memory loss associated with it in some persons"


    "So he's another," He paused, "Clancy?"

    "Probably." Banzai waved a hand, "But no that wasn't what I was getting at, it was the similarities in phenotype presentation."

    The Buckaroo was known for the cheekiness but Hanse really would have preferred to be in on whatever 'the joke' so to speak was, "In English doctor."

    English in this case was speculation over who might have kept access to Star League era medical technology besides the Canopians. A fact that the Dragoons had been bad about concealing. They'd figured out that the Star League was gone, that the great houses were at war, but they'd terribly misjudged what equipment would be common never mind how quality of life had declined in other ways.

    "As I said there are similarities in the expression of certain factors." The doctor shook his head, "I think it explains his age."

    "How so?"

    The was a cluck, "The Hegemony, like the Alliance let people with the right connections in even before the peerages. James McKenna was sponsored into the Naval Academy, and was by his eighteenth birthday commanding an entire fleet. Given the disaster of the Amaris I'd guess that our colonel... I would guess had his parents pull him up the ranks to lead either nepotism or because he was considered politically reliable enough or something... but then something happens and he's shoved into a stasis pod... in the vernacular," He grumbled "and then sleeps for two hundred years."

    Hanse Davion, Duke of New Avalon and First Prince of the Federated Suns nodded. "You said something about expression characteristics."

    "There is a certain degree of talent, skill expression. There is no mechwarrior gene, per se its more about different neurological functions. Kerensky, and Wolf, and Shepherd all show varying overlap in their expressions. The Hegemony was known to play god like that, and there were always rumors about what House Cameron did to themselves, and what rich Terrans could go and pay for. Why wouldn't you give your children the absolute best advantage they could have?" The doctor shrugged, "The Hegemony probably put thousands of officers into stasis tubes, or had that many otherwise flee into the reaches." Blue eyes seemed to ripple in the changing light, "That, " he indicated the dna strands, "It and the fact he seemingly has valid SLDF codes that are gene locked tells me either he's the genuine article or his parents were. Someone went to a lot of trouble to raise a mechwarrior of superb skill, ignoring anything else."

    "Yvonne thinks the Combine did something."

    The doctor shrugged, and with an exaggerated exasperation snorted, "I'm just a doctor, Hanse not some int wonk." He ran a hand through his hair. "Ask him about it when he gets here, in fact send him in for a physical. I want to see if there is actually something to synch ratios and all of this genetic determinst stuff like those books you gave me talked about."

    Hanse's lips set into a thin line as he thought about Halstead station. The discovery of the 63rd Mechanized Infantry Division depot after centuries on Elidere had been a windfall, and of course he'd been promised through intermediaries that there were other boons that could be offered. Not that nobles weren't usually quick to promise more than they could hope to deliver in hopes of winning favor, but thus far more than he'd have expected had already been delivered.

    His champion had confirmed that much. There was a clamoring, which had really begun with his brother's death for revenge against the combine, that he very much felt... but actually pursuing it had seemed difficult. "He should be on his way," It had been over three months since the news over the defeat of the 19th Galedon regulars.

    The duke of Elidere's ability to pay ComStar to keep the line of communication open mostly to his immediate overlord Lord Aaron, had not precluded him from the expense of a direct real time report on that matter that had had to be broadcast through the Kestrel HPG, before one more transmission it reached New Avalon.

    It was behavior in general somewhat unheard of. Perhaps in the Star League's day where the SLCOMNET had apparently been both faster, more reliable, and also cheaper then the call would have been one thing. The Duke of Elidere's call was unusual in other ways, but the events on Elidere had also spread through through the realm as a result. Initial fears of a combine incursion, then swelling as the tide turned, and of course ComStar's local chief of station had been taken hostage by agents of the dragon, that had gotten out as well around the same time as confirmation was delivered of the damage done to 19th, before confirmation of the Galedon Regulars destruction.

    By the time that destruction had been confirmed Precentor New Avalon had already been demanding the data roms to promulgate throughout the realm.

    Hanse Davion had never planned on being first prince. That had been Ian's responsibility. He had been brought up to support his brother's reign, and he'd worked towards that end until Ian had been killed. Then all of a sudden he was first prince, and the war with the combine, the conflict that had existed for some three hundred years particularly who counted the Combine's insertion of themselves into the Davion succession crisis of the 28th century, was not much closer to home. It was impossible to tell the people to wait, or to consider how best to game this out for the greatest strategic benefit. There was too much going on, but it was impossible to miss that ComStar's apparent signal and facility issues were so much less of a problem when they had their own personnel threatened.

    ... and while not every world in the Federated Suns had been told immediately the Precentor New Avalon had made it a point to insure the dissemination of the news of the Battle on his own remit... and if Yvonne was right that news was spreading through the Combine as well... and that could ... would likely have significant repercussions.
    --
    Notes: Extras, so among other details this touches on a number of different things which have either been referenced to have happened or ideas I had considered relatively early on, and some of those ideas were later transferred to the drafts for Essence Wielding Social General. For example in EWSG Odin is a MechWarrior Phenotype now in that I have decided if that means he actually 'True Born' i.e. Did his parents stick the zygote into an iron womb or is he more like Jaime Wolf who has a 'true born' father but was a conventional pregnancy by his mother. That's explicitly a character detail.

    Gene is probably / not definitively, but the implication in this snippet is that he's probably the product of mama was too busy to carry a baby to term so he was artificially gestated in what the clans would call iron wombs. Maybe there is some Hegemony Gene modification there, because that was what rich hegemony parents did.

    This brings us to is Gene SLDF or not. Thats one of things where this story has had other idea that came together. I've left it vague. Gene has credentials that say that, and in one early iteration of the story it was the AI generated them before Gene woke up, where as in another version the idea was well its the blending of one transmigratory soul into the stasis body of someone put in the tube.


    Admiral Clancy has been a thing in this for a while in the drafts, in terms of posted content he gets mentioned in the Highland Faire extras regarding castle northwind from a couple months ago. And on that, one of the following snippets to come is a Marauder and other SLDF units fighting Rim Worlders and that could be a flashback or not. [and of course in Tristan's backstory that was itself an adapation of another idea where Gene ends up in the stasis pod as a result of a mutiny, so I generate a lot of various ideas, too many ideas.] There are some other things, obviously yes ComStar stuff I don't know if that really needs to be covered.


    Spoiler
    In EWSG if it hadn't already started to show depending how much you want to read into it, but some people have suggested is Odin actually a Cameron? And that might not be an unreasonable assumption to Odin's bodyguard choice for some people to leap at
    Spoiler
    Bloodname Steiner.

    Now note that that was always in the plan after rolling Phenotype and Lyran, it was too easy to pass up and has already been hinted at with Freddy's musing, but Gene was never intended to be a Cameron scion and I already had a McKenna character on the books to reuse that idea. Now that being said given how popular the Golden Blood trope is, for example see the other BattleTech Isekai Cyoa, it was certainly idea i've toyed with in other places.

    Link for 'This is the Inner Sphere': https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YENKovt8urgqgK-38PiSfl3Sb8el9v1U/view?usp=sharing
    In other news, Let me take a moment to reiterate how much I despise Windows 10 and its 'we're going to restart now, fuck whatever you were doing'.
     
    Last edited: Jun 28, 2022
  17. Extras: Extra 3030s
    Imperator Pax

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    Trying to stop the clan invasion

    ... maybe going to botch it up.


    The hpg transmission wavered as it bounced off so many satellites to get to wherever it Kerensky had runaway to. He didn't know the location of the clan homeworlds, but he might if he got out of this alive. "Assuming you still have your ciphers, you be able to validate my identity chit's encryption, just as you should likewise be able to validate Kerensky, and Jerome Blake's receipt of the HPG recording of Stefan Amaris being adied by the then Coordinator Minoru Kurita. Kerensky was a coward, incompetent, and a traitor promoted far beyond his ability. A competent mechwarrior yes, an accomplished tactician yes, a fine strategic mind, but he wasn't promoted for any of these things... he was promoted for who his friends at court were... and in this failed in his responsibilities to House Cameron, and the Hegemony which is why he lead your ancestors not to the Hegemony boltholds deep in the rimward periphery but to the worlds you eventually colonized. If he had taken you there, Alexander Kerensky would been cashiered and then shot for treason. He was protector of house cameron, regent and still permitted Lord Cameron to associate with Amaris despite repeated warnings from both the Hegemony and Star League Intelligence services of moves by the rimward republic... but thats another matter..."

    He let the holovid play, which took a while given the timelag.

    "Kerensky permitted Minoru Kurita to come to Terra, and didn't kill him on the spot. Thats treason. He permitted a member of a treasonous plot by a member of the star league ruling council, and a man he knew had collaborated with Amaris to deny him not just access to Kuritan staging grounds, but who had actively fed Amaris information on SLDF positions to continue to breathe. So instead of standing and fighting against a clear enemy he ran away, and concealed the truth. So let me tell you the truth. There will be no IlKlan, there will never be a Star League again." He gave a sigh, and took a breath before pressing on, "That died with House Cameron and the Star League only existed because of they, and the economic might of the Terran Hegemony. Taking Terra is irrelevant its just one pretty little world, that still quaintly divides itself into nation states. You come here you'll bleed to death of a million cuts."

    He left the final frame of the HPG recording frozen on Minoru and the rearing dragon he wore facing Stefan Amaris.

    "Colonel Wolf," He declared, "Thank you for your time, what you decide to do from here is on you." He glanced to the blanched image of 'Khan Ulric's' face as he digested the information. It was time to leave, hopefully before Ulric realized Dante had included an HPG virus into the transmission back to clan space. If Ulric were too attempt to sit on the HPG recording the malicious code in the HPGs computers would broadcast the conversation between Amaris and Kurita continuously and across any comms platform it could reach until it burned the Germanium cores of the HPGs out.

    It was even designed to look like someone had done so locally. It wouldn't use Ulric's credentials but the code would find someone's to use.

    "What are you going to do?"

    "The same thing I've been trying to do since I climbed out of that stasis pod." He replied to the sudden question, "Try and make things a little better at a time. I hope your people don't come, the Sphere is a mess as it is. We have enough assholes with delusions of grandeur. We sure don't need any more. I guess we will find out in a few years." He thought ... he had known Wolf was going to make the transmission back to clan space. The Wolfs Dragoons had proven sloppy in a number of ways... simple things really... and if there was anything he was concerned with it was that it would be from their side that word would get out about his 'origins'.

    Hanse Davion had presided over the creation of a Federated Commonwealth, which was why he had made sure that Dante had placed such an emphasis on Kurita collaborated with Amaris. If the clans invaded he wanted Kurita to be target number one. Wolf had completed a rotation in each of the great houses... and they had been on the same side in the Fourth Succession war when that had come, and which still continued....

    And he felt bad about that, Gene knew that the Combine would be the most likely major target of any clan invasion anyway, but an attack on the federated commonwealth would have to come through Lyran space... and that was a distraction that they couldn't readily afford. Not when they still had to rely on ComStar for most of their communications... the HPG network was hard to work around.

    "Commander."

    General Shepherd looked at the marine as he reboarded the Qin Shi Huang, "Standby to jump." The wonder of a Lithium battery. As soon as the two ships moved to a safe distance they vanished in a pulse that dropped them far away from the Wolfs Dragoons and their meeting response. "Did we get it?" The maneuvering to insure safe separation of the ships was long enough to receive the data, and to safely shut the AI in a safe space from the rigors a jump.

    "We did commander. I would have preferred that we had been able to wait until Colonel wolf received a response," The AI complained, "But we have it." The location of the Clan Homeworlds... or at least Clan Wolf. They could work the others out with spectral telescopes and all the datacrunching as necessary.

    The AI had preferred an original plan of just burning out all the HPGs in their network but that wouldn't have been functional. The clans obviously could do what they still couldn't, and build HPGs enough to fill their needs and as a result while it would be a set back it wouldn't be nearly as catastrophic as it would have been in the Inner Sphere.

    The truth was of course more complicated than Dante or the General would have preferred. Kerensky had been a tired old man. Tired of war. He had graduated from the Nagelring, and in fifteen years become the highest ranking officer the in the Star League... and in those fifteen years he had bypassed other more senior officers on the basis of connections more than actual ability. Kerensky had made meaningful reforms, and contributions to the SLDF. A dozen years after that appointment he instead of retiring had tried to juggle, and ultimately failed to do so, the responsibilities of that rank and as regent of the Star League.

    Was that really cowardice? Or just mortal frailness?

    In the view of the AI it was cowardice. The duties and responsibilities laid out to officers of the Star League Defense force was supposedly unswerving commitment to the institution and to the honor Kerensky had under League Ethos a requirement towards bravery and gallantry against all enemies foreign and domestic. The AI, Dante, considered Kerensky's refusal to fight a treacherous house lord like Minoru as treasonous and cowardice. Other Ais didn't agree a hundred percent but the promulgation of of what had happened on Terra after Amaris's fall had slowly circulated to enough of them that there was a consensus that the Star League was dead... and that it had no successor.

    ComStar were a collection loony cultists, and Kerensky had had no right to appoint a middle manager like blake to the rank and that the final council meeting had of course been illegitimate by lacking a member from House Cameron... why on Earth, pun intended, would Terran Hegemony AI accept the recommendations of four house lords, never mind a fifth who was a confirmed traitor. Not when the situation with the Capellans and Mariks had been what it had been before the situation...and the Lyran political situation... but the biggest factor was the lack of an Heir to house cameron.

    ... and of course that was the problem. That was the balancing act. All it would take would be one Hegemony AI who didn't want to listen and had an active HPG uplink with the right codes... and them deciding that since the Hegemony was dead to burn out every HPG in the Inner Sphere as Dante had wanted to do to the Clans.

    Damn the consequences.

    Fuck that. The Inner Sphere was enough of a mess without losing the HPG network it would be even harder to do what needed to be done... even if Comstar was a mess, and nightmare.

    You may remember the somewhat tongue in cheek 'ah you may think getting to Terra will magically fix things, I've got a dire wolf all of you line up I'll fight you one on one in order' duel comment yeah this is related to that. It is still non canon to the main story, but I'll be happy to take commentary on it.
     
    Last edited: Jan 26, 2022
  18. Extras: Extras Blood on the Sand (Spring 2765)
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    Extras Blood on the Sand (Spring 2765)
    A warm desert sun beat down... not really hot for the planet, and the day in addition to being dry was supplemented by a decent wind moving in from the north east. It would have been by local standards been a nice day all things considered. Ideal for light maneuvering through the northern countryside

    Chatter through the Network had turned from good natured banter to abrupt calls for aid from the regulars forcing them to hike down through the river bed, and by that point the fighting was already underway. The MMI threw up magnified images of the engaged units. Regular Army units in tan with painted Corp idents badges, followed by projected Medium and Light enemies painted black and tans with shark badges... that looked familiar

    The Marauder's dark tan and lighter streaks were the same paint job as its lance mates.. The Archer initiated their advance bringing fire salvo-ing its paired set of twenty tube launchers. A moment later the lance's two medium mechs added another twenty tube and then the 2H's five tube Holly.

    The lance divided into teams pairing a lieutenant with each forming a direct assault unit equipped with jumpjets, and a a medium and heavy missile boat pair that lacked jumpjets. The Commline linking into the Marauder's Dalban HiRez. A system capable of running battalion or regimental level command directives feeding targeting data into the medium mech on the other end's Artemis IV suite.

    The five by five signal strength was good as even being walked in as the second team poured sixty LRMs into the enemy didn't change the fact that the enemy had them heavily outnumbered... and from all indications from orbit... the Navy wasn't doing much better the Taurian forces seemed to have popped off a small galaxy's worth of new stars. Whether or not the Black Lion and her escorts leading the detachment moving to reinforce the 11th fleet would survive would depend on the tenacity and guts of the spacers.

    There was nothing to be done though about the fight in space. How the Taurians had managed to get this far, and with this many troops was a question for after the fighting had been settled. The HiRez didn't pain a pleasant picture of what the situation at L1's Jump Point looked like.... the Navy had had the advantage that the enemy had had to jump in from Nadir rather than risk hitting the much smaller point, in astronomical terms, between Planet and Solar gravities. At least the Hegemony computers seemed to have maintained that advantage over the periphery rebels despite the latter someone how managing to put together a mind bogglingly massive number of mechs to throw at what was supposed to be just a relatively minor garrison.

    Speaking of Garrison apparently the Capellan House Troops were defending the planetary capital to the south, their ASF hopefully doing a good job staying on the bulls just in case they decided to start popping cans of instant sunshine within the gravity well.

    There was a flash in the upper atmosphere, too dim to be a blink and you miss it for the naked human eye but the computer registered the log. The Essex class SLS Malvern Hill was gone, the nukes snapping the warship's spine. Other detonations and reports of damage echoed Kearsage's fighter wings unloading their own nukes

    Battalion traffic began to increase, as the Regulars were rebroadcast, "Sunray-Minor reporting massing contacts. Relaying." The Regulars XO was scrambling to consolidate his Army Battle Regiment as it was, and that meant order a shift laterally 'down'.

    Talos warbook data flashed. At least those would stand out compared to the Dervish and Wasps his computer had already tagged. If the Bulls were reinforcing their already existing 3:1 numbers advantage this was going to get substantially worse as those mechs came through the productive farmland south of the river.

    The LX Corp units moved to counter the advancing medium mechs, and if his Dalban was reading right the shark mechs were bee lining straight for the lance. It must not have just been him him, "Are they?"

    "Assault Mechs coming, Rampage."

    LRMs cycled towards the incoming, but for little good. Carrying fourteen tons of armor and loaded with heat sinks in its torso the inbound black and tan company cresting the hill apparently hadn't appreciated their harrassing their smaller relatives. "Headshots, Headshots."

    The Marauder steadied legs locking as he found the lead mech in his reticle. A breath eased out and twin bursts of ball lightning echoed from his PPCs. The multifaceted cockpit assembly melted and the machine went down stumbling over its own walk, pitching into a heap that the mech behind it had to jink to the side before it tripped over.

    With little better to do the Archer in their lance reoriented to rear security and firing on the Wasps they had started engaging at the beginning of their participation. The Kyudo's Extended Range Large flared white in his sensor's thermals as it fired. The Kyudo's targeting suite unlike the Archer had was equipped with Artemis IV and a second return the missiles followed the bath of the targetting laser as well as the Sorenstein's damage. The Shadowhawk didn't have that advantage. It was probably the case that the two lieutenants in the lance were equipped with Standard Hegemony pattern Archer and Shadowhawk models as a result of rank. They were support, and wingmen to the more senior pilots... and he supposed they were supposed to be showing them how it was done.

    This wasn't the Combine front so the chance of one on one mech duels were slim.... but they'd been here to keep the periphery rebels in line... and if that was their mission... well they'd never expected whole regiments of TDF to show.

    The niggling feeling he was missing something clicked even as his PPC's continued cycling warned him that they couldn't keep this up. Sharks... these weren't just Taurian rebels... the whole damn periphery was rebelling.

    "Command positive warbook identification, Rampage, Amaris Dragoons in the field. We are engaging mixed Rim World Republic and Taurian forces." He wasn't sure the message went through and they couldn't hold this hillock from an entire assault company even after bleeding it. They simply didn't have the weight. He didn't wait for a response either, he tagged his wingman, "Lieutenant Sanders pull back I'll cover," A wave of LRMs came in and started to sandpaper the unfortunate Shadowhawk. "Go now." He ordered. "Walker," His machine obliged switching to the direct line with the Kyudo, "We're bugging out, maintain fire and cross for the rail line," The MMI highlighted an extraction root that they could circle around to join the rest of the massing Terran Mech Battalion moving to reinforce the regulars, but they needed to get clear the Vox 280 that powered the Earthwerks Archer was powerful enough to get the other heavy mech away from the assaults, but they needed to get a head start and get space if they were going to link up with other Terran units.

    He safed the Magna Hellstars to let them cool, and adjusted the gauntlets firing three of his medium lasers into the armored glass of the nearest enemy mech sending it tumbling backwards, before triggering his jump jets to send him flying back away from the approaching enemy.
    --
    Notes: Extras this is an older segment, it was something that got written, and yeah not necessarily canon. This would be early in 2765 if it happened, basically right as the Periphery uprising occurs but it wasn t written to conform 1:1 necessarily with the actual Amaris crisis canon events as we know.
    On Sunday, the usual update day, we will resume definitively canon material to the prime timeline.
     
  19. Extras: Extras: Unknown World
    Imperator Pax

    Imperator Pax Talon Master

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    Extras: Unknown World

    The facility dated to the end of the League... at least it had been abandoned by the time the Star League had fallen. There were questions. He couldn't be sure if this had originally been hegemony or if Amaris had simply been using an abundance of Terran equipment and the raid that had put its staff out of commission hadn't demoed the place.

    He suspected based on limited evidence, since they hadn't started full SSE and tried booting any of the computers, that this had been some Terran mad science project... but he hadn't said as much. If that was the case then chances were good that the Rim World had found out about it tried to take the facility over and then lost it later.

    The JumpShip abandoned seemingly intact wasn't a good sign either. They hadn't gone aboard it, but it showed no thermal signatures active. The fusion reactor was shut down... and he expected probably by a master override command... and a while ago... but they wouldn't know until they went aboard.

    He swept around and looked through an office space. They'd start checking to see if there were papers soon, they didn't appear to be locked and would be less likely to be tied to the security systems. The fusion reactor worked and was running normally... something was drawing power. There was no sign, no branding, that this was a DOME project. No zodiac umbrella marking but the complex medical systems were definitely late star league medical equipment akin to what had been assigned to Sagittarius Umbrella, or Frobisher, but that didn't necessarily meant anything. It strongly suggested a correlation with the DOME's own research, but not DOME ownership. The Department of Mega Engineering would have been laid out differently... and wouldn't have looked less like a military hospital than a dedicated research facility.

    That was the comparison he'd been trying to figure out. His radio chirped. "We have fusion reactor control, and diagnostics running now." The tech declared.

    "Good." He swapped channels. "Eisenhower, standby to link Dante to the command control network if we find one." He hoped this was a terran facility, and that hadn't had its network wrecked by the Rimworld it would be so much faster to have an AI run through the mass of data that they didn't have the personnel to manually parse.

    He more or less wandered around the facility. Coming to stop to look out over a hangar that in itself was a standard protected configuration facility, but its contents were unusual. He recognized the designs from the New Dallas data package, which suggested either one of two things. "They're shiny aren't they?" Septim asked.

    They were that, either, "Probably prototypes, do we have a date on when this facility was stood up yet?"

    "I think, ... I think I will let Dante tell you." Septim replied, earning him an annoyed look.

    So he cued his radio, and looked up at the nearest security camera on the assumption that the mobile AI was capable of seeing them, "What is it about this facility is it that I'm not going to like?" He asked, and looked back to the silent white gray royal war machines. Prototypes most likely. Amaris wouldn't likely have shipped these off world... this was a hegemony facility that the Rim World had attempted to suborn.

    "Facility data implies, that does not conclusively state this dates to a Gunslinger project annex," Here the AI were using the vernacular, mixed with official terminology for a support project. "I would estimate that the original facility was stood up no later than 2700, however it seems to have been repurposed and expanded in direct response to the Second Hidden War, probably under orders from General Fredrasa, but then continued under his successor. The program was further authorized after 2738 by Aleksandr Kerensky then General Commanding." Kerensky would not have been thirty eight by that point that he succeeded Fetladral. "However much of the system's annex and orders are partitioned. It would require two authorizations."

    That was never a good sign. It was not necessarily a protection against AI. Two command level officers could mean ... well a Major, "Is that the branch of the facility where the primary command center is located?"

    "No, Commander, I believe it is the main facility itself."

    "Excuse me," He made a point of looking around, "This isn't the main facility?" BY itself this trip had already turned up enough lostech that any prospector could have retired to Tharkad and sent their grand kids to ring knocker school. No wonder the machine spirit had suggested he wasn't going to like it. "Hold off on touching those JumpShips. Dante should I assume there is another AI here?"

    "Given the security precautions of the facility, that is likely the case." There was a pause, "I have already prepared a briefing packet if that is the case." He looked back to the Land Air Mech. It was one of the staples of specialist mech design of the late SLDF that he had never intended to reintroduce. The Combine, and Free Worlds League apparently still maintained a handful of LAM units spread across their respective realms but that was talking Lances at brigade level... unless the Cobmine was dramatically under reporting its LAM production.

    "Get Bahar, and put everyone on alert."

    There was an approximation of a cough, "The access door is mech scale, commander."

    "I'll be in my Marauder," he replied without blinking.

    Four hours later he dismounted from the white war machine, and looked up at a corridor junction, a street basically, that was labelled 1980. The facility was still coming alive, but the fact that there were two separate fusion reactors running the inner and outer systems was not that surprising. That was oversight that they should have considered looking for a second facility.
    --
    Gene should have known something had gone wrong. This whole situation had felt off besides, but the first warning that things had gone sideways after the call in that they'd found a naked guy wandering around should have been warning enough that he should have gone to his mech, or failing that doubled up trying to find the actual command and control center.

    There had been a lot of medical equipment, a lot of stasis pods. He'd known what he'd been looking at without Harry telling him they were artificial wombs.

    He backpedalled the mech felling the resistance as he stepped on a ferrocrete retainer in the backpedal. The other mech stepped and he slammed one armored gauntlet down on the other mechwarrior's machine. The 2R wobbled under the blow, but didn't fall.

    That would have been too easy he supposed. He was getting the feeling that this was what most of his opposition felt like running into him. As it was the other Marauder had been trying to walk medium lasers on to him rather than waste ammo for the Whirlwind. That wasn't an option now... but it wasn't an option for either of them. He'd taken the risk banking on being close enough to try and bring his own weapons in point shots, not really expecting a flat out charge of medium lasers... that had largely went either wide or low as the machine closed in, but his own shots had gone left, scouring the wall behind the 2R... and that was what had brought them into fisticuffs.

    He'd been a little surprised the other pilot had wanted to get in close enough to do that, he'd been banking the other pilot wanted to shoot it out, and Gene had been on the back foot, but his link through the neurohelmet was shifting his mechs weight. The 2R body shifted again as the armored gauntlet of the other arm came down on the leg join assembly and even though he couldn't read the damage he could run the calculations through his machine's own systems.

    His 3R was only different in that he had Thompson's prototype LBX Whirlwind, but other than that they were basically the same ferro fibrous DHS, ER Hellstars. He stepped forward, know that he was risking a lot, if the other Marauder didn't fall there was a good chance that his would he was banking that the computer's calculations were right and he'd hit the actuator without actually using his sensors... but he need the weight to shift...

    ... and so the two 75 ton Heavy BattleMechs wrestled. The white machine kicked there was a screech of metal, and the other limb moved out of position... he floored the acceleration pushing the Marauder forward and physically driving, dragging the other machine back into a body of water that he hoped was deep enough to take the machines out of the fight.

    It was the best plan he could foresee on short notice. He wasn't as if he planned to fight other phantom mechwarriors... maybe he should start planning for that.

    --
    The red head in the form fitting Hegemony pilot suit glared at them, which would have been a lot more threatening if she'd still been in the marauder.

    Gene certainly wasn't going to apologize.

    The suits were waterproof.

    Even now a pair of recovery machines were winching out both Marauders. "How's callahan?" He asked turning away from the sulking teenager even as her narrowed PPC blue eyes continued to try and burn a hole in his chest.

    "He's got a concussion from where he punched out," They were after all inside of a building, and he'd skidded the sled along a wall, "he's fine though." Septim replied, "Did she really?"

    "Yeah," He replied

    "Is she?" Then asked a little lower.

    "A Gunslinger, maybe." Or a program candidate tossed into a pod. He suspected that the red head was probably the same age as he'd been when he'd come out of the pod on Aquagea, but her rank insignia was that of a Terran Lieutenant.... it was possible she was younger. It was equally possible that she a little older, but certainly mid teens. "I'm glad she knee capped most of the others." He was glad no one was dead... but he suspected that was because the AI of the facility had been feeding her targeting information.

    Gene had no idea what the two AI were talking about. Dante had warned them about the drones coming online apparently he'd misjudged where the real command facility was, and that his failure to find the AI to talk to initially had prompted the Northwind Machine Spirit to order the smart systems into diagnostic mode... and well... things had gone from there.

    "The naked guy says his name is Goshiro, he says he's an ASF pilot... or more correctly that he prefers to be an ASF pilot. His credentials say he's a 'mech pilot as well."

    Leaving that information aside... "And he was naked why?"

    "Stasis tube... doc says that he was disoriented coming out, and that he just happened to stumble into our guys before he could figure out what was going on, and put his clothes on." Gene nodded. There really wasn't much more to say then... he'd get a written report later... whether he wanted to or not. "What's a a CAAN?"

    "Hmm, oh they're marines." He shrugged, "Designed for combined arms operation in naval enviroments on planet's surface." He paused, trying to remember what the acronym stand for. "Cavalry, armored, air and Naval, something to that effect. They were special operations, sof regiments..."
    --
    Notes: Some extra content for down the road this is not the entirety of events, there may be a follow on segment down the road for this, there is no time stamp on this because I'm still attempting to plot which details are going to be canon and which aren't.
     
    Last edited: Feb 6, 2023
  20. Extras: 3018 Dragoon Reaction to Elidere
    Imperator Pax

    Imperator Pax Talon Master

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    3018 Dragoon's Learn of Elidere
    (I)
    Jaime Wolf waited for the trivid battle footage to conclude before he addressed the others. It was a recent acquisition to their library of media, but he had watched it before he had summoned the other officers of the Wolf's Dragoons. The conflict between the Federated Suns and the Draconis Combine had occurred last year, but they had been on the opposite side of the inner sphere.

    The dragoons were currently in their third contract with a great house, operating as mercenaries for the Free Worlds League under House Marik. The contract had not been much different, Natasha Kerensky was hardly unique in her contemptuous disdain for the blight ridden decay that covered the Inner Sphere.

    Every so often though something came up that was interesting. The initial footage that they had seen clips of was mostly just reiteration of what they already knew. Though it was not zellbringen the Draconis Combine practiced a more honorable form of battle between mechwarriors where possible. They had learned that first hand in their first contract. That was not to say the combine did not discard dueling, any more than the clans themselves did, when it was required but the combine's dueling like those of the clans of Kerensky expected honorable combat to take place at range between individual mechwarriors, and from what they had seen as far as averages went the Combine fielded the best warriors of the Inner Sphere

    At least in terms of averages for the successor states. The simple proofs did not work as well for smaller samples. Mercenaries were a common profession but there was a tremendous variance in skill levels that made it impossible to make a judgment like that. There was simply too much difference... and the Dragoons had just witnessed a demonstration of that.

    The actual battle footage was over, had ended with a pan out over the scenery of Elidere IV, over the strewn remains of a Combine BattleMech company. It faded to black and then began projecting a scrawl of numbers... the tallying of the battle.

    A tally that was ridiculous in its lopsided value. That wasn't the only thing.

    The white Marauder was certainly a 75 tonner... but its equipment... Jaime Wolf was willing to wager that it was the royal model that had lead to the creation of the 85 ton Assault Frame Clan Marauder II. Though they were considered second line units the original iteration of the IIC machines had often bee developed from existing designs in use by Terran Hegemony divisions of the SLDF. He suspected that he was not the only one of their number to recognize that, and that would raise questions.

    That was of course speculation... much as he was willing, would be willing to voice such... there were other matters to discuss among them. The news was coming just as the Widow's company had just made it back from another round of cattle raiding the Lyrans on behalf of House Marik. In theory what House Marik had been having the Dragoons as a larger unit doing and what the 19th Galedon Regulars had been doing for the Draconis Combine, even though the latter was a regular house unit.

    The devastation was complete. 115 mechs, a handful of aerospace fighters in comparison, a couple of dropships even. All lost to the combine in the span of a month's fighting. Fighting, between BattleMechs, that was meticulously available through MRB office's provision of the BattleRoms, but shorter clips had been making their way across space already due to the ComStar run new service.

    Korsht, commanding officer of Gamma regiment, was watching the scrolling text as it listed the allocated kill tally of mechs, and other materiel to the defending, victorious, Davion side. "Andrei would you have tried to fight this?"

    The large BattleMaster pilot paused, before giving a barking laugh. "I wouldn't fight like that at all. Would I fight yes. This is more like you, Willy I think." Shostokovitch replied. He laughed again, and glanced to Jones, and Weisz the commanders of Beta, and Delta Regiments respectively.

    Delta regiment's commander squinted at the hologram and withdrew the control unit to rewind. The BattleRoms focused on BattleMechs and their onboard recording. It did not include footage from the perspective of CV, or DropShips. It was something that only painted part of the picture, except really on the subsequent battle ... the duels on Ander's Moon.

    Natasaha might have ordinarily scoffed at watching some 'small' merc unit fight, but that wasn't the case here. It did not matter that she was just a captain. Not for a true born warrior of a blood name. She had earned her spurs, and not speaking her mind would have been shameful to the wolf pride.

    Jones turned away from the reply, "Jaime this is interesting, but we are not likely to fight the Combine, or these people, and not any time soon." Beta's commander remarked even as the footage rewound peeling through deciduous trees and burning light mechs. He was correct so far as it was unlikely that House Marik would pivot to face House Davion, and if they moved on schedule to House Steiner they were unlikely to move against the Federated Suns, if the Wolf Net's analysis was correct... but the Wolf Net report on the footage raised other issues... issues that he felt hi might need to report to the Khan of Clan Wolf, and he might in turn bring to the Clan Council.

    It was one thing for the Eridani Light Horse to maintain Star League Traditions, and of course the MechWarriors of the Combine had proven themselves brave warriors who fought with honor. The White machine's torii gate and bird moved as the footage resumed. "Willy?" Shostokovitch questioned.

    "This is a Hegemony deep battle double envelopment." She declared, and looked to the other colonels of the regiment. "Its a textbook execution of a Terran Hegemony Combined Arms attack on a numerically superior enemy force." Clan Goliath Scorpion would be pleased that their lessons on the league had been so well remembered.

    "So the kid can read a book. You might have noticed he can drive a mech as well."

    .... which the dismissal of the attack as just the maneuvering of gear heads was .... expected. Had there perhaps been members of Steel Vipers, or certainly Clan Hell Horse then the action would have attracted more discussion. Goliath Scorpion, and Nova Cat would have talked about the doctrine, or what it meant, but it was in conjunction with the BattleMech contact which came to mind.

    If it had been just a decade earlier Jaime might have agreed, but they were coming up on a report, and the truth was the attrition of materiel the Dragoons were suffering was something that had been discussed. They needed to resupply. It was true that they were not using frontline cluster, modern clan weaponry, but second line, and solahma troops would be either, and any invasion of the inner sphere would likely involve the bidding process to minimize collateral damage... a prospect that he doubted the modern inner sphere was likely to respect.

    "And the uniform?" Weiss questioned.

    If it had been an SLDF a regular army uniform like his subordinates, that might have warranted less reaction. The MRB preferred, did not quite require, but made it essay for mercenary units to adopt SLDF rank structures, and their supply stores provided generic SLDF pattern uniforms. The Eridani and other SLDF successor units likewise used league uniforms often based on their last duty station, or variants reflective of their current posting.

    It was still possible it was nothing. Terran manuals, might be found with Terran uniforms, but both, with a Terran mech, three coincidences all in the hands of a pilot capable of fighting as well as any true born of Kerensky's clans. It was suspicion Jaime Wolf had that something about all of this simply failed to add up. They had been able to convince the Inner Sphere of their good fortune by simply claiming that they had found a cache of the Star League, "Cranston what do you think of all of this?"

    The eccentric true born glanced up from the paper book in his hands, he reached for his bookmark and closed it, "I have read everything they have. Including the drop he made into an invasion force on Luxen." With exaggerated motion he moved to pull data slates containing BattleMech data that seemed to no longer exist in the Inner Sphere.

    It confirmed for Jaime his initial suspicion. Though the IIC had been later modified for mass production to carry three extended range PPCs it had begun life as an evolution of the Royal Marauder of the Terran Hegemony. A few 3Rs had survived the Battle of Terra, and the knowledge of the LBX class 5 had gone with the clans on the Exodus, and eventually had become a part of the clan arsenal. As they had been clearly marked Royal division machines the 3R had not been included with the Marauders brought by the Wolf Dragoons, though they had brought some of the machines that had passed to the regular forces of the SLDF that had been used by commanders who had made the exodus.

    Snord toyed with his sunglasses and Jaime was obliged to play a long with the game. Cranston Snord was the opposite of Natasha Kerensky in many ways. "Is there something on Elidere?"

    "Haven't," he pointedly contracted the word, "you heard, Colonel?" Sounding like a news broadcaster from one of the marik news channels that had been lurking around the dragoon garrison. A little too like the reporter, really, "The colonel opened up the 63rd Mechanized Infantry Division's depot for House Davion."

    There was a pause through the room. There was no reason such information would have been included in BattleRom footage, but Cranston had certainly beaten Wolf Net to delivering the news to Alpha Regiment's commanding officer. "There is more?" He asked as all eyes fixed on the true born slumped comfortably back into the low couch.

    Cranston toyed with his sunglasses even as Natasha started to get visibly impatient with the needling. "There are some rumors coming out from Robinson. The Draconis March Militia suddenly has a significantly heavier mech quota from what I'm," Natasha ground her teeth, "hearing. As if, they might have also found something. If I were to guess, I would figure that that the 100th Battlemech Division had a depot that hadn't," again with the intentional contraction, "been opened before this."

    --
    Notes: As threadmark implies this is nominally canon, but not for sure. I don't have a perfect handling on the Dragoon main leadership so this is an Extra. In particular as far as canon goes, I don't understand how WolfNet / Dragoon intelligence is supposed to be as good as it is in canon, its very plot device / MC syndrome / whatever you want to call it that their int service does this especially given what HSII implies about the effectiveness of the successor states intelligence services, which is to say they're not incompetent. However Cranston (he's probably supposed to be a freebirth in canon, he's a true born here solely because he's such an odd duck) is an excellent option for handling int wonk business, and also putting things together, in this case digging through the archives to identify Gene's mechs and their official designations.

    Regarding the Mad 3R designation, that isn't canon, but I am using it to explain Mad IIC and as a way to refer things to the wolf dragoons, basically on that end, its a data point. Canonically the MRB wants you to use SLDF ranks (probably either because well Star league obsession, but also because paper work) for your merc companies, and the MRB does .... intermittently operate its own stores (its probably just select worlds) though they can also just refer you stores as well. So it makes sense that if you're buying from an MRB recommended or operated store, they'd sell you mass produced star league style uniforms, its cloth. Its not Star League tech, but it evokes the SLDF's memory, and that probably sells them well enough.

    Nominally canon, though this takes place after Highland Faire, but before Dieron is taken by House Davion, this is early spring 3018 in terms of calendar. Pointedly this is of course before the Dragoons find out about things like Blackwell providing equipment because they're a davion company.
     
  21. Extras: Non Canon Scrap Timestamp 3018 / Davion 1 #2
    Imperator Pax

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    Highland Fair

    5 January 3018
    Federated Suns
    Northwind
    Gene didn't quite understand the cultural diaspora that had created the inner sphere. Part of it was probably simply a matter of money. He wondered how many worlds had been settled by people with enough money to get off Earth with the equipment to survive just because they had disagreed with some stupid talking point. Thousands of worlds had been settled.

    It was odd how many were Irish, or Scots Irish. The Gaelic revival in the 21st and 22nd centuries and the great diaspora must have made the Irish Diaspora to America and the British colonies like Australia look like a joke.

    The kilted man sat down, "Do you know what this is?" He put the thistle beside the gun resting on the table.

    Sillybum. "The Milk Thistle. Nemo me impune lacessit."

    "Boss." Septim protested to Hanzo's obvious annoyance.

    He ignored the Lyran's complaint. "I'm not Black Watch," The men started from around the table at the comment. "You broadcasted an 191st IFF to the Marauder, that pings back to a Hegemony handshake. The mech and its identification,"

    Campbell bit his lip and tilted his head, "Aye, my highlander. You barely look twenty Lieutenant Colonel Shepherd." He produced a silver tin box with a reader on it. "Place your hand on it." He reached up and pulled the dog tags from his neck, and put it on the reader, and then rested his hand on the reader. Campbell swallowed as it flashed green. "My ancestor was given that box by Captain Hazel from Colonel Schmitt two hundred and fifty years ago. He was a fresh lieutenant in the regiment then."

    "And you've been white shielded for those two and a half centuries." Campbell blinked, "Your parents passed down a Hegemony log key to enlist their children with their credentials... the dragooning process was common during the war with Amaris, its a program that predates the age of war. It was never intended to authorize for that long." Just so teenagers could fight long enough to receive official acknowledgement from Terra. You could make lieutenants out of it, but without an authentication for it, say an AI like Tristan to validate promotions, captain was probably the highest that had been approved in a very long time by a system that was now long dead.

    "Come with me, colonel." Campbell stood up, the fifty something year old man collected the diary that had been in the locked box his ancestor had been entrusted. "Your friends will be fine... something else to show you. There is another door we cannot open." He lead him deep inside the Castle, modern construction gave way to Star League era reinforcings laid bare. Gene glanced at the blue circle on the floor, and the recessed laser cannons mounted in the ceilings... but he supposed the hallway was big enough for light vehicles... probably a tramway on the other side... might have linked to a Port complex if he had to guess. "Can ye open it?"

    ... assuming the reader wo-, the thought died as a synthetic voice powered up. "Authorized user detected." Unlike with Tristan, the turrets activated dropping down, or raising from their housing to cover the hallway's approach.

    "Tell them to stay back." He grunted as the guns oriented, ignoring Campbell, and himself and pointing down the hall. Gene stepped up into the ring on the floor and placed his chit on the reader and hand on the scanner and felt the prick taking a blood sample.

    "Standby." The artificial voice ordered in a brogue tone. "Authenticated. Welcome lieutenant colonel Shepherd, I am Dante. It has been 177 years since an officer of the Central Intelligence Directorate has accessed this facility."

    He blanched as the massive doors opened and stepped out of the circle snagging his keys, "I understand, can you prepare a briefing of this facilities, actions and evaluations."

    "Wait, Colonel Shepherd."

    "A hundred and seventy seven years ago would have been fifty five years after Kerensky's Operation Exodus." He snapped striding through the door way. The turrets didn't move to track him.

    "Yeah I can do math." Campbell was following. "But that was also the year the Davion's took the planet."

    "Colonel." The AI inquired.

    "I want a catalog report of any CID data transmissions, and accesses to any facilities in system, and any confirmed communiques coming in after the Liberation of Terra, most recent first." holograms snapped up in the air.

    Shortly before the AFFS had launched their attack a Rear Admiral of the Hegemony, apparently promoted twice since the fall of the Star League by time in grade, had arrived with a retinue of picked men and accessed the castle.

    Northwind was two jumps from Sol, they had been put here because Hanse Davion wanted to hit Dieron and make the Combine bleed, but... one of the files added in 2841 was...

    "Colonel, you look white as a ghost-,"

    "According to Admiral Clancy's log left here, Fortress Dieron is intact." He'd read about it in Tristan's files on SLDF facilities operated by the Hegemony within Combine base, but he'd assumed it had either been destroyed by Amaris or looted. That expectation had been supported by Pasha's report that Dieron had been brutally savaged by the Satan Amaris.

    "That is correct colonel. The facility should be securely locked down, with access to sensitive sections prohibited to unauthorized personnel."

    Shepherd pulled a data chit from his vest pocket and placed it into a holographic projector. "Verify, authenticate data and credentials."

    "Authenticated."

    "Play HPG recording."

    Minoru Kurita, and Stefan Amaris appeared to give Dante, and Campbell the shock of their respective lives. While he stared at the specifications of Fortress Dieron as of its last reported status the world he and the Eridani Light Horse, along with some Davion regulars had been planning to invade with the intended goal of proving the combine to not be invincible... per the briefing from Hanse Davion's number two man.

    Dante's sudden string of invectives startled him out of staring at the topographic display and the holographic onion map of Fortress Dieron's layers as it spread out in front of him. Dante no longer had an HPG uplink it had been destroyed in order to prevent it from falling into the hands of the Republic forces, but not before it had received and transferred other updates and a backlog of movements and orders.

    Dante had probably been curating them, splitting his attention as he processed the HPG recording, because a series of orders signed by Kerensky appeared ... and being countermanded by local Terran militia forces, and CID personnel. Not just here, but on other worlds, including New Dallas.

    --
    Commentary: So this is currently non canon for a couple of reasons the trip to Northwind is still planned to take place but there are details about this which are still up in the air.

    The AI Dante was referenced in the 3030 segment, but in particular as this continues... I had originally planned for the Dobrev to lead back to a Wolverine colony fleet in stasis though I'm less set in that particular direction right now. Thats not the only issue, but finding the Wolverines is looking more and more like an idea I think I'm going to use somewhere else. Part of the original outline had been putting the McEvedy up in either Magistracy or the Aurigan Coalition, post civil war, as a newly installed noble house.

    Moving on, the end of I Davion in 3018 also runs into the problem of Dieron falling now, because Hanse's outlined plan is to drop the Davion Heavy Guards, Eridani and others onto the planet... and while Sun Zhang does graduate the most mechwarriors of any school Gene really needs to stop killing graduates of the school, they're going to develop a complex... before long he's going to get blamed for the deaths of the cadre on Elidere when the davion's took over Elidere IV at this rate.

    Comments: I said we'd get the Ford Scene, I was wrong, so have this one instead. I'll see about posting the Ford scene next week.
     
    Last edited: Feb 12, 2022
  22. Extras: Teaser: February 3018
    Imperator Pax

    Imperator Pax Talon Master

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    [Scrap Misc Scenes pre Dieron]​
    Teaser: February 3018
    [Something of a follow on to Interlude 7-8]​
    By modern Lyran film making standards the clip would have been considered a little unpolished. For all but the highest budget productions of the Inner Sphere though the clarity of the holographic footage and sound quality was superlative. The footage lacked the post production effects that would have been found in a propaganda reel. Nor was it the sort of quality one would have associated with a spy's, or a private investigator's, clumsy recording devices. After all why would House Davion not use very excellent devices for their own historic recordings of the day's proceedings.

    The Star League Vintage cameras had been given an excellent vantage to do their work, and given the business of the Faire it had been easy for not one, not two not three, but quite a number of intelligence services to splice into the original feeds and insure they received copies to private terminals... and of course for those personnel of intelligence agencies who hadn't wanted to gamble on such obvious bait a few found it much easier to simply borrow a copy of the footage from a film aficionado at the MRB who had found a copy.

    It would still take time to disperse the recording of the day's proceedings. The Combine had known something was going to happen, but by the time the word had gotten out there were other complicating factors. The ISF was already busy ... busier than normal ... and the voice of the dragon had done an alarming capable job of convincing the the DCMS that the New Avalon Hussars had been responsible for the losses at Galedon... a unit of whom supported by elite mercenaries and other Davion troops had already begun the invasion of Altair...

    Really the recording came too late to warn against the strike on Dieron even if commanders would have been willing to question official combine propaganda. The recording lacked any details that would have telegraphed future Federated Suns strikes, in the following years...

    .... the raid at Galtor, which had yet to be planned at the time of the recording

    or

    ...the liberation of Tancredi, which the Federated Suns had already been planning and revising for decades now.

    "Everyone gathered in this hall has accepted a unique risk. In many ways this operation is beyond the standards of basic soldiery or practice of arms. Regardless of past or present experience this coming battle is different." The speaker was a younger mercenary colonel standing in front of a marauder painted in white and gray parade colors. The great ibis that dominated the machine's crest prophetically devouring a snake.

    The primary body of the speech laid out in no uncertain language what was to be expected. Every soldier, and every mercenary expected to risk life and limb facing the enemy. It wasn't even unusual for commanders or political leadership to speak of liberating foreign worlds.

    "To those most recent cadet graduates gathered here, this is a distinct opportunity to participate in something beyond oneself. When we make planet fall in this coming campaign you will be among the striking force. You will not be relegated to a bench warming for attrition or a mech to be freed up or provided due to casualties or a later advance. Each and every one of you gathered today will spend the following day training in a heavy or assault battlemech that will carry you on the field when we begin combat operations."

    The final weeks on Northwind ahead of the early spring of 3018 were to be an interesting time. The speech at the end of its just more than fifteen minute run concluded with the expectation and that nothing less than full victory would be accepted. That might have been dismissed by observers coming from other speakers as simply bravado or even an impossible demand. If the recording had circulated around before the invasion it would have been more or less ignored by the other successor states.

    Instead it made the rounds among the other great houses coinciding and viewed through the lens of not just Dieron falling to Davion hands, and the monster that prowled the battlefield on their behalf... but that point at least within the Inner Sphere the MRB had up to date roster information for the Dieron battle.

    That information was supposed to be for the purposes of considering whether or not a mercenary company was suitable to a specific employers need. The MRB was supposed to be a neutral arbiter of disputes of course.

    Twenty four recent graduates of the Northwind Military Academy filled the ranks of would become Battalion C, Claymore, Shepherd's Highlanders would distinguish themselves on the shores of the Kazakh river west of San Martin. A distinction of action with the hundred hour whirlwind of battle that had prompted the MRB office to rate an otherwise freshly raised BattleMech battalion as Veterans, raising their approximation over Regulars, to reflect participation in the destruction of 1st Battalion / 5th Sword of Light and the subsequent capture of the planetary capital.

    But on that February afternoon all of that was still in the future. Indeed a few days earlier Precentor New Avalon had only just received a report he had requested on paramount importance. After all, what had not yet made the news, had not become public knowledge, was an attack over the Davion border in the periphery and the loss of an HPG station at the hands of a revenge addled warlord with Star League warmachines of his own. Huthrin Vandal had decided it was in the best interests to bypass discussions with the first circuit using options he didn't need their permission for.

    That was to say, money, lots of money. It was a very lyran solution to the problem the Precentor New Avalon would have admitted, but the problem of Black Jack McGirk had been ongoing for over a decade by this point and the arguments over how to deal with a pirate king who had destroyed the 1st division of the ComsGuard Militia. A destruction that had included, to add insult to injury, the pirate absconding with the remains of the 1st division as salvage. It was a problem that had dragged on entirely too long. They simply could not afford the loss of any more HPGs they couldn't replace the ones that had already been destroyed in the periphery as it was.

    They had dithered to long within the first circuit and Huthrin Vandal had decided enough was enough, and measures had to be taken. Vandal would bullishly declare such to the rest of the first circuit as attacks in the rimward periphery expanded as McGirk saw increasing forces attacking and carrying off of ComStar personnel.
    --
    The holographic image was of a stern looking blond woman in the uniform of a Terran Admiral. She could have been in her late late twenties if not for the service ribbons which suggested thirty plus years in service with the HAF. Admiral Krennick was long dead of course... she had been killed during Amaris's attack on the capital of the Star League and the Hegemony.

    Still the Admiral looked impressive, formidable. The black naval dress uniform fit Talia Krennick well... like a glove. The personnel jacket of the Terran Hegemony listed two divorces. A single son who had in contrast to his mother had joined the HAF Army. Not really a surprise Krennick while apparently still on amicable terms with her divorced partners, given they were still marked on her file's emergency contacts had both been naval officers as well.

    The Field Marshal suspected that Terran medicine being what it was Krennick and her ex husband had probably still looked quite young when they had died. This holographic image floating in front of the field marshal was dated a year before the usurpation and massacres on Terra.

    She had seen the picture of the son an amber eyed mechwarrior with close cropped dark hair who wore the insignia of a Terran Major, and the gunslinger tab on his uniform jacket... that was a better than ninety percent match of a picture taken two years earlier in the Magistracy... which raised other questions

    It suggested a great deal but proved nothing. She turned to the MIIO officers who had entered. "tell me you have them?"

    "A couple of SAFE operatives thought they were being clever." The man's partner elbowed him in the ribs, but she waved off the man's lackadaisal response, "Sorry ma'am. We identified potential couriers from other intelligence services. We are still tracking those there is a potential combine agent at large, but from his previous behaviors we suspect he'll turn up in the morning."

    "Do tell?"

    "He's very predictable ma'am. Standard patterns of behavior for his cover identity. Frequently moves to ingratiate himself with large corporate entities."

    "Where all has he been?"

    There was a pause, and The prince's champion frowned. "He's been to several of the demonstrations of the Marauder II BattleMech. He's basically ignored the Blackwell industries presence with their combat vehicles, which is why we didn't catch it originally,"

    She could understand that. The Marauder II had attracted quite a lot of attention... and she could guess why they were so confident that there was going to be an appearance tomorrow. 'Wonders of the Star League'. The King Crab had been distributed to the Great Houses as a 'gesture of House Cameron's benefice' shortly after its debut. Not in any significant numbers of course, but also as notation to the other house lords surely that the Hegemony's new Commanding General was of astute mind when it came to BattleMechs.

    Cosara Industries of the Terran Hegemony had created a vicious close range combatant at General Kerensky's request. The King Crab had been licensed to GM and who had continued to produce it until they had lost the ability to do so as a course of the succession war.

    The conversation winded away, and eventually she dismissed them directing the countess to be shown in. The Duke of Errai was unsurprisingly proving a problem. The Thug had been such a ubiquitous mech in Terran service there was no way they'd be able to avoid his learning of additional machines. The Thug predated the start of the reunification war, and the introduction of machines like the modern version of the Wolverine; in its 6R configuration.

    Admiral Clancy's files had proven... not especially helpful. Thankfully the admiral had made a searchable database but not a complete one. It hadn't answered many of her questions. She had plugged in the various alpha numeric data entries and only received partial matches. There were tantalizing suggestions to answers.

    And, places to look. She opened with a rhetorical question, "You said the DropShip's name was the Argo?" There was a perfunctory nod from her lady in waiting, "I haven't spoken to Galax's people but it did make its way into the periphery ahead of the New Vandenburg uprising. It disappeared, presumed lost and I don't imagine even Admiral Clancy though knew much of it, but we do have confirmation that it and a sister ship had been planned."

    Unfortunately that was really as far as her information extended for the time being.
    --
    Notes: For the first half of this this is much closer to canon excerpt of what will happen after the Hussars step off to go take Altair, and the Highland Battalion gets stood up. The second half is still tentative other than Yvonne baiting traps to catch foreign spies. Alright, this coming week we will be attempting to return to the standard update schedule, Wednesday Luxen II, Thursday I will probably post another teaser/extra/side timeline something, Sunday will be the regular update.

    --
    To go back to the Azami elders back and forth, or specifically the bit in the post script of Yvonne asking the Azami why they think everything is their fault. She hasn't been told or shown the recording.... but if she were

    Azami Elder on why Gene was shown the footage: "I am sure that the intention was to inspire caution."

    YD: "Instead you spawned a rampage of revenge that has killed or mission killed entire Combine regiments."

    Azami Elder looking a tad sheepish: "Yes, w-"

    YD: "Brilliant, I can work with this."

    and also there is an alternate draft of the second scene instead set post Dieron with access to ISF documents which would have either implied Combine duplicity / ISF leaks of SLDF positions that results in the destruction of Krennic's ship. (And this would be without Yvonne knowing about the Amaris HPG recording)
     
    Last edited: Feb 12, 2023
  23. Extras: Notes and stuff going into Dieron
    Imperator Pax

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    Notes Segment before we return to the usual updates:

    These canonical things may be useful
    [​IMG]
    https://cfw.sarna.net/wiki/images/1/1c/Terran_Hegemony_2764.jpg?timestamp=20121115192657
    I'm including the Sarna Link for use if it doesn't show up. This is the Hegemony before the Amaris coup, with military positioning [which admittedly doesn't count Hegemony militia/pdf whatever but still doesn't make much sense, but this is canon] That Northern most province is the Province of Lone Star.
    [​IMG]
    https://cfw.sarna.net/wiki/images/3/3c/Dieron_Planetary_Map.png?timestamp=20211227220627

    This is the canonical map of Dieron. Most of our action will take place in Eastern Mateo. I am sorry this is a small map.

    Anyway on to Assault Mechs
    Bristol has happened, though it will take some time for it and other finds to produce, but what will happen is when we get to the new Gunslinger school basically new Devastators and an Atlas model that is derived from Samsonov's version.

    With the devastators the initial versions, because here, producing XL engines isn't yet possible, but ferrofibrous can be it'll be FF, DHS, standard PPCs, Gauss rifles and then because of the Fury we will get later a version with C3 technology to go along with the Atlas's that role that out, but thats further down the road

    and thats all the notes I have for today.
     
  24. Extras: Dieron 1 Teaser I (3018)
    Imperator Pax

    Imperator Pax Talon Master

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    Teaser​
    I Davion 3 (Scraps)
    3018 Invasion of Dieron +36 Hours

    'On Hire for Swiss or Swede,
    be me christian be me heathen
    the devil to the sabre i shall put,

    With crack flanking
    I'm an uhlan alles uber
    striking terror into regiment of foot.'

    He watched as the SLDF communications gear broadcast its hailing signature... and then to see if the encrypted signal received a response from anything in what most people just dismissed as one of the continents mountain ranges on a planet with lots of those to begin.

    When there was nothing, he moved on to higher ground to observe the fight ahead as the command vehicles fed him data from across the advance... he picked one area and marked where he needed to be and set off pushing his Marauder forward into a sprint


    Ahead of rolling tides of iron came the steel rain as three lances of thumpers screamed against the sky, The regiments of foot infantry were planetary militia, who were where they were supposed to be. That wasn't the problem. So much as there were just a lot of them. A lot of infantry

    The invasion of Dieron had temporarily swollen the company ranks giving them the added firepower needed to fight at this level That would be in exchange for conducting a second exodus trip out to Alamut when they shipped back to the periphery. He wasn't sure exactly how confident Alexandra Cunnhingham, the young Davion noblewoman who'd been appointed their liason, was with the expanded magunac corp, but so far there had been no issues. There probably wouldn't be if they managed to pull this off.

    Maguanac 1-1, the original and still delivered by Sam Houston was now actually understrength compared to 1-2 and 1-3 deployed from the similar Drosts', registered as Crockett and Boone. Both dropships were deploying with their own Mech Lances as a combined arms formation that he was referring to as a tactical group.

    The three DroSTIIA had served as the original element of planet fall ahead of Baffins covering San Saba. They were now on the surface and deployed as the far flank of the general davion invasion force centered on the Davion Heavy Guards. It was them, some others, and the Eridani Light Horse forming the invasion force. Hanse Davion's goal to tweak the Combine's nose good.

    Against them the day before had stood the planetary militia who were supporting the Fifth Sword of light on one flank, and a Sun Zhang cadre on the other. The plan was to take their advantage and pin in place who they could and fight. If they could destroy their direct opposition and swing into the enemy force, that would presumably mean the Eridani swinging into the Gold Dragons while the Davion Guard aimed to seize the capital against the hopefully reduced forces holding San Martin

    So that had been the plan. The plan which did not appear to be surviving contact with the enemy. The problem was apparently that the Combine had decided to redeploy in the night using their infantry regiments as ablative armor. The fusion signatures he was detecting were a company of mechs from the Fifth Sword of Light.

    His Marauder's Dalban started cataloging mass and signals throwing up war book identifications that ran from light mechs through to the single Assault eight five tonner that was putting out too much signals for the mech's health. Most of the enemy force though weighted in as mediums or heavy Battlemechs a stark contrast to the expected Sun Zhang light mech cadres they'd been expecting to punch through and engage. It could have meant that this independent company had been thrown in front of them while, he assumed, the Kuritan's attempted to use the fast swarm of fresh meat to launch a suicidal banzai charge against the Guards, or the Light Horse closer to the capital of San Martin.

    Or they could have been doing something else entirely.

    "One-Two, One-Three break left of my position along the salient." He received a perfunctory acknowledgement of the order and a pair of jenner 7As from the One Two Tactical Group's mech lance zipped past his marauder churning through the dusty red sands. Following after them were a mix of Harasser, and Saracen LRM hovers. Machines that if they could pull this off, he expected he'd be able to replace wholesale with Bandits, but first they had to get through this.

    The other machines of the combined armed units followed.

    The good news was that their intelligence appeared valid. The entirety of Fifth Sword of Light wasn't present. Intelligence had said One battalion was off world. Of course that meant that if they did win the Regiment would survive, but it meant they would have to fight one less battalion of enemy mechs. Normal Azami doctrine was oriented towards lighter, and where possible less ammunition dependent raiding and strike forces, but that had its limitations... and of course here that role was largely already being filled by the Eridani Light Horse.
    --
    The radio intercepts had thus far been more or less the expected. Nothing really actionable. "We are Samurai!" The pronouncement brought a banzai cheer from the ranks of combine mechwarriors more than a dozen strong, a company and its command element. If his intercepts of their IFF was right a forty something year old DCMS Major.

    Gene grunted, rolling his eyes, before keying the comms to the unit at large, a series of holographic projections manifested, "That one is mine," He ordered into the mike highlighting the offending Combine Mechwarrior's heavy battlemech in the battalion wide tactical network through his Marauder.

    He received a series of affirmatives, before a brogue voice cut in, "So how long are you going to need, cause," The Volunteers commanding offficer, Bard Cameron, cut off in a fit of static, before his image reasserted, "Yeah we're taking intermittent LRM contacts."

    "Can you identify their position?"

    "Nothing, just the general direction of fire." He would have killed, probably literraly, for an effective ground based tracking radar but with all of the countermeasures going out there was too much interference. "We're scouring the hills for light mechs or vehicles that might be spotting for them, but nothing so far."

    "Weight of throw?"

    "I'd guess ground based hover vehicles. Fives and tens, but" The image shuddered, "Definitely not LRM carriers, but we're getting pecked."

    Gene nodded, and prepared to finish orienting troops into position before an overhead observation plane spotted a bigger problem. "Bard, Break contact and pull back." He didn't get an immediate response, he switched channels to the Service Company ordering them to bring trailers up, and then cycled through the roster for the fastest vehicles they had in situation with the intention to send them as couriers to physically bard to drop back from where he was in advanced contact.

    The holographic display of the planet's geography as it spread out through the broad shallow river valley that fed down into the great lake that was really a freshwater inland sea given its size presented them something of a tactical and operation bufferzone to one side.

    "Commander?" An Azami Tech asked within the Daimyo HQ vehicle, "We're moving the devestator now." The trailer containing the hundred ton assault mech needed to be moved to as close to the hill he had highlighted in the mech display.

    He acknowledged but was already running up how quickly artillery could be brought on line... the thought of how limitted their stockpiles of chaparal... the arrow IVs were but the vehicles that had been pulled out of a brian cache intended to fight the combine. H'ed need machines to lase targets for missile bound artillery strikes as well... that meant he needed to remain in the Marauder until the last possible transfer time... switch machines climb up the rest of the hill and hope the topographics were right and then expend as much of the machine's forty gauss rounds as he could before the enemy could rush in.

    It was a pity the devastator hadn't been built with command and control in mind. The Atlas was too generalist for his taste. He somewhat regretted at the moment handing over the Ought 10 King Crabs from the Northwind find... but he had had no idea they'd be in this position. He flipped a switch to tag his movement to the illuminated waypoint and turned the Marauder to move while keeping the nose of the machine oriented towards the horizon where the enemy were coming from... if he was right then Bard was being peppered Sun Zhang cadets being fed at him piece meal and that there was probably a battalion of sword of light behind them as well...

    ... which just raised the question of whether or not the intelligence was wrong. Was the the whole regiment here? Or had the Combine simply consolidated more of their forces?

    The Combine Commander may have assumed that if he smashed them and turned and rolled up the flank he'd be able to sweep through the DMM and then face the Eridani or the Davion Guards in an encirclement... which only made combine was going deepthroat on the whole elan vitale concept.... or in its Japanese concept Kokutai.

    It was probably that. The Combine expected to start a rout... and that just wasn't going to let that happen. He reached up and flipped the toggle, and punched in a key series, and waited for their ASF detachment to move to standby.

    Seven minutes later he was starting the boot sequence on the Devestator, and then moving it up the rise to the crest of the hill moving the master arm switch to on, and transferring power to the Gauss rifle capacitors... while still trying to field questions from the countess of Kestrel on what was about to happen, and why he'd pulled Bard back into the main formation.

    The Marauder had been left on standby... if he had time, if he could expend his ammunition and do enough damage he'd swap back to the command mech... but that wasn't a sure thing. The Marauder's targetting data fed 'mr samurai's position as the man's parade paint heavy mech as it crossed nine hundred meters.

    He ran the ballistic calculations, and started plotting the spread and displacement of the other mechs in the hostile company including the lead mech's wing man and the other lancemates. He let a breath as they continued to come on. The reticle resolved and went green. The sixty ton mech's head disolved in slow motion in the video feed, but he was already adjusting the left gauss rifle onto a catapult k2 and preparing to let fly.

    Without the Marauder's dalban he could no longer manage regiment wide command structures down to individual tank and infantry platoons. The last orders to finalize positions and prepare support ppcs, and inferno loaded srms ahead to break any following action would be the last orders those units had received. The tanks needed to be prepared to fire from protected positions and then move back if anything came through.

    With more time, with more warning, he'd have tried to maneuver fury and alacorns to enfilade the oncoming attack before directing the mechs to attack... but this banzai charge had been screened at first as a probing action rather than what was looking like a human wave assault... in hindsight that made sense doctrinally.

    This was obvious a prepared counter attack as opposed to a probe. A counter attack after their own meeting of the DCMS infantry earlier this morning.

    --
    Notes: The lesson obviously is don't be combine infantry, being a pbi is not a good experience anyway, but this is a teaser of the events of spring 3018's main battle.
     
    Last edited: Feb 16, 2023
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  25. Extras: I Davion 3 (b)
    Imperator Pax

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    I Davion 3 (b)
    'Its time to switch to whisky, we've been drinking beer all night.'

    The hoppers lifted the kinetic penetrators in between the first set of charged rails that formed the 'breach' of his gauss rifle. There was a pulse of dust as the mass of metal accelerated down range several times the speed of sound. The K2 skidded down in a lopsided manner its front glass shattered as the machine rolled to a stop on its side.

    The radio crackled giving him the bad news that Bard had found that other Combine Mech Battalion, that it was the sword of light was coming down. He reached up to flip the controls as the left the left Gauss roared tearing into the side torso of a humanoid walking war machine. Gene hissed in incandescent fury against his harness, "MacIntyre." He ordered into the throat mike, the other lieutenant colonel's image flickered into his cockpit, "go pull the volunteers out of that mess, and then put your Thugs and Highlanders where they can do the most good."

    He ignored comments about cadets earning their spurs. The other gauss rifle snarled and he adjusted the left to delimb another mech sending it crashing into the ground as it attempted to pick up speed. The Combine was couldn't rely on non smart thermals effectively. Too many other heat sources, and while his VLAR was running the capacitors were highly heat effective.

    The display greened. Hoppers dropped rounds as they cleared under five hundred meters. The gauss rifles fired. A dragon's fusion signature died as a couple hundred pounds of tungsten allow ripped in and out front to back.

    Twenty three rounds left, eventually became twenty three rounds expended and returns on his machine's sensors confirmed contact further north as the battalions other companies continued to throttle up the engines intended to commit to battle. Not realizing that they were already too late as the last of their lead company dissolved at just over three hundred meters to the bloom of man made lightning of his PPCs converging on the machine's head.

    He registered Chang's Marauder steadily trundling forward , and not the only relatively slow mech pushing up. A Fury flash cabled a text update by lasercom of the archers starting to pour fire into the advance element that had been harrassing Bard and hold his attention while the Sword of Light came along. Grasshoppers and Quickdraws among them.

    The display updated, and he ran the math, and ordered Bardiche to swing into reinforce the position the DMM troops were supposed to be vacating. "Anyone able to tell me what the Eridani are doing?"

    "Still contacting infantry, and armor. Dug in support PPCs, and inferno missiles, to the east they haven't been able to break through and reach the capital." A voice answered from the command vehicle.

    That suggested but didn't conclusively prove that the Combine had divided between conventional assets and Mech forces after this morning, if they hadn't already had that underway with something like this kind of attack in mind. He swapped channels, "MacIntyre, divide that battalion and drive them towards the lake when I signal."

    "Whats the signal colonel?"

    He hit the mike, and started cueing their aviation assets with orders to the DroSTs to prepare to dust off and potentially put their small craft in the air. He watched the battalions as they continued to advance on his broader arrangement of forces.

    This was going to get very messy very quickly and do so from west to east. Most likely the combine had expected that first company to hold their attention, while the DMM had been held in place or potentially even pushed by the Sun Zhang cadre, that was even now trying to push into close quarters where mech combat was often the most lethal in normal engagements.

    ... but what he suspected, and what his own Azami officers had reached consensus on, was that this was a combine trial by fire for its green troops as disposable meat shields to soak ammunition ahead of a more elite, or really one of THE elite units of the DCMS to launch a concerted attack.

    The devastator registered the boosting fusion signatures of the aerodyne dropships, small craft and ASF as they started preparations. He didn't much longer to watch as his computer informed him that he was less than half of his combat load as the other mechs began to resolve into extended ranges against their counter measures.

    Seventeen rounds was going to go fast. If they could pull this off it would cement a Davion victory at Dieron, because the combine in committing to a decisive battle were facing not a large mech force, but also one with better equipment.

    "What are we doing?"

    Bard's voice was a distraction he didn't need, "Colonel Cameron I am pulling you from the rotation, and redeploying you to screen the pivot we will execute towards San Martin." He ignored the protest that the enemy was right in front of them. That it was true didn't change things, he had wanted to pull the combine units further forward, and spread them out originally... that had been the entire reason to pull the Volunteers back. In terms of average overland speed the DMM troops would be faster to redeploy along the line, after that even accounting for the presence of cache machines in what constituted the battalion was, Bardiche with Claymore being the slowest Mech Battalion in relative terms.

    The Gauss rifle tore a leg off of an advanced mech as the conversation played out.

    An argument they were still carrying on when the computer warned him he had ten rounds remaining and still a full company pushing forward but he didn't care about that third company so much as the nearer remains of the second. The gauss rifle continued on down the lances and then draining the capacitors to the gauss rifle as his PPCs began to flash.

    "Bard I am switching machines, standby." He ordered as a machine died to man made lightning, and he took the assault mech a step backwards, and down the hillside and walked it back to the crouched form of his Marauder. He looked at the Azami techs. "Get it loaded, and bug out, we won't use it again today." He ordered stepping of the ladder to make for the dust and mud caked 75 tonner machine, before starting a full on sprint to the machine.

    Start from Standby and bringing the Marauder to full power took ninety seconds to make sure the ER PPCs were live, and that the Thompson gun was good to go. He blinked through the message from testing and evaluation command. The 120mm hopper told him he had ammunition in the chamber. The VLAR 300 pushed the machine into a sprint of its own even as heard the 185mm chemjet thunder from an assault auto cannon. The enemy were now in close quarters with Chang's screening force, as more AC/20s opened up all along the line.

    The familiar connection through the MMI to the Dalban's mass of data was reassuring. He could perceive the whole battlefield spiritually process the presence of Chang's Marauder, or Beau Dervish their brawlers, or missile boats respectively. The Kazakh river was just north of them to the east lay the planetary capital. He stared at the holographic display, a blinking indicator in what ordinarily would have been his peripheral vision.

    A handshake from a Terran Hegemony Command.

    Not now.

    When the Snakes were dead. The Machine crested the hill and his ER PPCs opened up even as his sensors processed the PPC visual returns to the west towards the lake where Thugs were wading into battle. If any of the combine had gone to thermals he knew his 75 must have looked like a small sun from the waste heat of the extended range model Hellstars.

    --
    Notes: This is (b) and together they approximate a rough outline of the main and iconic in universe action on Dieron, with a significant emphasis on how aggressive, to the point of wastefulness combine doctrine is when they aren't engaging in individual duals, and this is based off of the IJA's doctrine, which was itself like the Russian infantry doctrine based off late Napoleonic ideas of infantry doctrine pioneered by french thinkers.

    And in Battlech canon we see this with the Combine attempting to grind the dragoons down as well as elsewhere. Dieron as an arc, especially in terms of how much it effects the geopolitics of the Inner Sphere, being right in Terra's back yard, is a comparatively short Arc in terms of outline. Actual combat is as suggested by these two snippets is limited to a relatively short, very brutal engagement in a limited geographic environment. Now I expect the actual Dieron chapter to be ten to twelve segments, with the rest of Dieron being post combat events. In short Dieron was written in a similar fashion to Elidere was just kind of in a different order. Its the deployment on the planet its Bard's perspective, Gene gets in the Devastator, Hanzo, Bahar, Septim, Kiyone, interludes, Glimpses at the combine perspective, and in short order Dieron falls to the Davions.

    I expect to start Dieron as a chapter in March. Highland Faire as a chapter is fairly large, its kind of necessary because of everything it sets the stage for, but the Jump to Dieron should go up in March as a main chapter story

    Then after Dieron probably this summer there will be the summer 3018 'side quests' as they're in my notes before the return to the periphery as the escort of the exodus fleet and the shooting phase of the pirate wars.


    And speaking of the pirate wars with all the talk about magistracy nobility there was another non canon snippet I was considering putting up, as I've already mentioned in the span of the davion section Yvonne's pretty incredulous by the Magistracy not trying harder to keep Gene on station, now admittedly that was all pre Elidere and certainly elsewhere but we will get to that in the Pirate wars and some of how the Magistracy has noble politics, and pirates that need killing. That snippet is more expressly non canon but does contend with some of the facets of the magistracy that have been on the books for a very long while but that the canopians are probably leery of actually practicing on foreigners because well they like trade with their neighbors and not being pariah states (I'm looking at you roman cosplaying lyrans).
     
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  26. Extras: Non Canon Scrap Timestamp 3018 / Davion 1
    Imperator Pax

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    Non Canon
    Scrap Timestamp 3018 / Davion 1
    Gene grimaced at the question, "As annoying as Bard's rendition of Black Fox is," and despite the silly idea having been used to pester him at nearly every turn while they'd been on leave, and in particular after the Eridani had shipped offworld, "I'm not prepared to declare Clan Fox to be a thing," It had been a long twelve months and he ignored the protest from one of the kilted men that Clan Fox sounded like a quite proper idea as he fished out the dossier in printed paper and handed it over to the Sandoval Duke. Gene sat back in his chair and waited.

    There were the rufflings of the thick paper as Aaron Sandoval, Duke of Robinson and Field Marshal of the Draconis March smiled. He had browsed the papers and flipped them over as he read, "The order of the golden kite," He declared. "I think this would be just the sort of thing Lord Nicholas would be looking for, sure to tweak the combine's nose."

    The historical abstract he had included for the briefing had been designed to maximize that. He had done what the duke had asked and provided an organization name, but also the historical backdrop included the specification that the historical golden kite had been a degree higher, and military only, to the order of merit that Takeo Kurita a distant Kurita ancestor had held. The cultural ties, the use of specific language, history, and so on were somewhat modified by the new proposed device. The golden bird would be holding a daisho in its claws underneath a Torri gate, but would be fixed on a european style shield.

    The proposed designed raised a quirk of the eye from the legless duke, "Would have expected, if on were to be honest, Colonel, the Cameron Starburst. I think that would be better."

    Gene had consciously been trying to avoid Star League iconography in the the device, or the in the proposed documentation to accompany awards. He'd made a point of neither mentioning the Star League, nor House Kurita. That was part of the whole couching of the packet.

    After Elidere... hell technically after the Kuritans had routed on Elidere IV they had been under contract with the Davions for operations since Ander's Moon, but that didn't mean the Kuritans were going to be shy about how they felt. That would have been a problem without doubling down on it by signing on with the FedSuns for their romp through Near Terran Space over the last year.

    The 19th Galedon Regulars, that was to say an entire Combine BattleMech, Regiment along with most of the supporting DCA assets had been destroyed in detail for what amounted to no cost to the Armed Forces of the Federated Suns. They hadn't been able to achieve a repeat of that peerless victory, but that was less important to the fact that the AFFS in combination with other mercenaries had been able to not just take other worlds, but savage other Combine Mech Regiments.

    This was the Draconis Combine March's opportunity to rub salt in the wound so to speak. Not that they really needed to... but it wasn't going to stop them from doing it... and given the enmity that existed he didn't expect them not to use the opportunity to do.

    He didn't want to stick around, even though the AFFS was hoping to turn the mercenary units involved in the campaign, not just them but in particular the Eridani Light Horse, into what amounted to House Troops.
    --
    "What's wrong with Clan Fox?" The hunchback driver had thought it had been a good idea.

    ... well there were actually a number of reasons... and even discounting the sheer degree of political brown nosing it might have been interpreted as he had other reasons. He sipped at his drink and glanced at the command staff who were looking from Chang to him waiting for an answer, "It conveys the wrong sort of distinction. Evoking an order, a military honor like this may not be a formal structure but it allows a delineation in rewards that a lodge wouldn't be as good as formally conveying. This isn't a knightly order, or a warrior house the Draconis March wants to be able to provide recognition for command ability, leadership, and bravery in the field. The duke wanted a proposal he could put to New Avalon," And apparently the head of MIIO, "I expect that it will be sent off and either they'll reject it or rework it as necessary as either a Federal award or that Lord Aaron will issue as a Draconis March specific award."

    ... but it would have been a bigger tweak if Hanse Davion, as First Prince was the issuing party awarding people golden birds with heavy shinto symbolism and references to the Nihon Shoki. It was probably the sort of slap in the face to the combine's claims, historical and present, regarding manifest destiny that the First Prince might like to present to the Inner Sphere.

    "So we're going back to the periphery?" Septim's question had been accompanied by a look being thrown in Bahar's direction. The fighting over the last year had been concentrated in near earth space. While original Azami settlement worlds like Markab had not been conquered, nearer worlds like Galatia had fallen to the Davions, Dieron's regulars had suffered losses, and the result, subsequently had been a wave of Azami migration that would be heading to the periphery.

    The fighting was an excuse... or additional justification to ferry another load of colonists far into the periphery to settle on Alamut in the Lighthouse worlds. Pasha shook his head, reached up and toyed with his long grey mustache, "Admittedly it is not so glamorous but it will be down time that is sorely needed. Returning to the periphery will not be so bad will it?"

    They were pulling off the front for a number of reasons not the least of which was that they'd be going to a Magistracy garrison and training contract for Raventhir... or rather that was what Raventhir was to claim. Something about Ur Cruine and the pirates was causing enough of a stir that the money was now there to see to some kind of expansion, such that Detroit was willing to spend money.

    Black Jack McGirk was still running around reaving from apparently the Tortuga Dominions all the way round to the Magistracy border. That meant he was hitting the Davions, the Taurians, the Aurigans and the Canopians... as well as all the free holding worlds in between at times. The simple truth was no one had expected a pirate with... what some reports went so far as to claim was a division worth of Star League Defense Force equipment. Whether that was an exaggeration or not didn't matter, McGirk had a mountain of hardware and he was willing to rampage wherever he liked, and trash whoevers stuff he liked, and pay his men with the booty. That meant he had no shortage of bastards willing to fight for him.

    "I want to talk about the conversion work being done on San Saba," To carry BattleMechs, "I've been assured that Blackwell has our order completed and we should be taking delivery on that soon."
    --
    Commentary: Again this is not necessarily going to be canon, its probably more likely to be close to or share a great deal with the final draft than the 3030 segment, but that's also because at the moment, well Elidere IV takes place in Spring of 3017 and this takes place the year following.

    This obviously foreshadows the 3019 Pirate operations alongside the Aurigan Royal Guard under Montgomery Raju, among other things admittedly as this is Battletech and we are talking about hundred of light years some of that time will be skipped over due to it being travel times.
     
    Last edited: Feb 4, 2022
  27. Extras: Whoops don't mind the HPG network.
    Imperator Pax

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    Extra Content: Note NON CANON.
    [Also this is a rough draft, but that's another matter, for kioras ]

    Whoops don't mind the HPG network.
    3018 Lyran Commonwealth, New Kyoto
    Gene looked up from his plate as the news broadcast suddenly cut off, digital noise squealing through the speakers of the eatery. He bit down an expletive.... the most likely explanation was that the Civil Defense sirens were about to start wailing, and the planet was about to be invaded. The possibility seemed to have occured to other people as well. Men, and women were starting to get up from their tables, and through the transparent aluminum windows he could see people frozen in the street like deer in headlights.

    Then all the screens changed, a crest appeared and a line of digital code, and then the authentication certificates that meant nothing to probably anyone but ComStar in the modern era. Jerome Blake. Alexander Kerensky. The HPG recording he must have seen a dozen or more times by now started to play... and he doubted it was just New Kyoto. It had been months since he had talked to a Star League AI... and both Dante, and Tristan had had their HPG uplinks destroyed and so hadn't been able to pipe in... so it couldn't have been them.

    The Azami maybe. Maybe one of them had grabbed an override stick, and gotten into a class A, and used to it jack into the emergency broadcast system from the SLCOMNET. New Kyoto had a class A station, but he doubted it... not given the data telemetry and feeds in the bottom of the HPG footage that wasn't normally there. This was being broadcast through the entire network with presumably some kind of override into all local media... that meant some kind of malicious code.... but then given how few people had bothered to actually remove the JumpShip, and DropShip network systems override from their computers that didn't surprise him. The Star League override were in probably easily ninety percent of all JumpShips that were plying the routes ... as he had found out inspecting the nav computers on one of the Combine JumpShips that had since been ransomed back to the DCA after Dieron had fallen to the Fed Suns.

    The problem here though was that those overrides only shut the system down until it could rebooted or a Star League override was provided on the lock. There was no direct harm. The numbers in the bottom stream were things like heat monitors on a cpu... and not good numbers. IF Gene were to guess from the Network Connections numbers this was the first time in possibly centuries that ComStar had had the whole network connected in one stream... and their modern network simply wasn't built for that.

    If Gene were going to guess those dropping connections were probably Cat B stations out in the periphery who's stations were used to... the other possibility was it was the spoke stations connecting out to multiple stations beyond the middle rim... but the problem....

    "Does that say this is broadcasting from Terra?" Chang asked.

    "I, yeah I think so." Septim replied. "I thought maybe that was for where Amaris was broadcasting from,"

    ... but no the lag made sense for it be originating from Terra... and it would make sense that whatever upload and proliferation into the comms net would broadcast from Terra and radiate outward along the modern network. The numbers along the bottom were changing quicker now, which was probably a good thing... because the HPG recording was finishing up.

    ComStar's modern A stations connected in normal operation sequentially to each B station in range every day, or some every twelve hours. That would have been ridiculous in the Ministry of Communication's day which would have had near constant uplink to critical Hegemony worlds most of the time, and links to the great houses', the capitals of the member states available too. In the Star League 12 hour connection was the norm for B stations to transmit... in the modern the norm was for every few days.

    The HPG recording froze as it finished showing Stefan Amaris's unmistakable visage staring at the then Coordinator of the Combine, in the latter's obvious finery. Then it cut to black and a diagnostic started running. Whole swathes of the HPG network had burned out all to show a video that wasn't even twenty minutes long, of Minoru acquiescing to Stefan Amaris's demands for SLDF deployment locations, and force strengths.
    --
    Primus Julian Tiepolo almost stumbled back into his chair within the heart of the blessed order. His left arm felt numb, shriveled, his mouth dry, any hope that this was someone's poorly thought out attempt at a jest ... a prank... had vanished what seemed like hours ago. "The damage?" He managed."

    "The," Germanium "core burned itself out, primus." Someone had betrayed the order. It was the only logical explanation. Julian knew he had been a compromise candidate after Russtein's tenure as head of the order. He was terrified of the prospect. "That was the last of the HPGs on Terra, we're still investigating the secondary broadcast that started but it infected all of our stations and as a result burned out the cores." The robed man's report was growing increasingly shaky as he started to repeating himself.

    The primus waved for him to shut up. Starting to panic wasn't going to help. The loss of Terra's HPG was bad, but not utterly catastrophic. "Were we able to confirm the diagnostic?"

    "It appears to be a valid diagnostic of the network." Never mind it had been of a kind that the Primus, nor anyone else here had seen... it wasn't mentioned at all in the Blessed Blake's recordings on HPG functions. The Entire network transmitting at once... apparently that wasn't supposed to happen for good reason. "The damage doesn't seem to have been intentional, a byproduct of running so many connections at once... we can reasonably speculate that the transmission involved both distribution of the media, as well as playing it through the uplink across connected networks. The diagnostic suggests that a disproportionate number of HPG stations that ceased to return 'ping' function of the test were in the Draconis Combine."


    --
    Luthien was in chaos. There could be no other description. The harmony of the palace was shattered... and even with the order to invoke martial law it would take time to restore it. Kurita Takashi was livid behind his stone cold mask of court... he had had to act quickly as they had figured out what was taking place.

    The DCMS had taken too long to bring artillery up, forcing him to rely on the even less elegant solution of leaving matters to the DCA... but the HPG station of Luthien was now destroyed. His Otomo, and other units of the ISF were even now roving through the capital, and soon across the planet looking for any more traitors. The Admiralty had orders to impound all jumpships and execute any member of ComStar summarily.

    He had seen the footage before of course, the former Primus of ComStar had lied claiming it was the only copy... why it had taken the treacherous vermin this long to act escaped him... but it was now out there. The Combine would need every JumpShip, ever dropship and every BattleMech and every loyal samurai to do their duty the war against the dragon was so much greater than any previous conflict.
    --
    Note: This was not a planned update, this is a case of I'm bored, I'm going to post a scrap of something that I know I'm not going to use its just extra content. Sunday there will be a normal update.
     
    Last edited: Mar 19, 2022
  28. Extras: NON CANON: Whoops Part 2
    Imperator Pax

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    NON CANON: Whoops
    Part 2
    Gene kept pacing. The combat boots clicking against the linoleum tiles of the New Kyoto office building. It had been several days now, so the transmission itself wasn't the problem. It was the consequences of the message's content. It had been long enough that Rasalhague separatists on Skye had sent a message by Fax machine relaying a general call to arms against the Combine now while the Dragon was distracted. A rebellion that very likely would be echoed by the Azami in response to the transmission if as reported it had been transmitted everywhere with an HPG.

    That had been a star le... a Hegemony data control override, it probably wasn't accurate to call it a virus so much as a backdoor, and maybe some aggressive malware, but that was irrelevant. That didn't answer the question of who was responsible. "You are going to wear a hole in the floor."

    He glanced at the doorway with the JumpShip captain, "I give it good odds that Kurita, or a subordinate commander with launch authority goes nuclear sooner rather than later. The Sword of Light potentially has launch authorization," Or at least they had during the Star League era, but then there had been warships back then... and well there weren't now. "The Otomo almost certainly does, the ISF might, the Five Pillars command well, see the matter with the Otomo probably having that... you back a dog into a corner with no way out it tends to bite."

    Pasha nodded, "Yes, I concede that we will see desperation from the Dragon's servants. The victories at Elidere, and at Dieron... and that is why, I must advise you to return to the Federated Suns and allow us to fight with them against the Dragon." He paused, "Unless you have come to some arrangement with the Commonwealth."

    "No, I haven't spoken with the Lyran authorities, getting a meeting with the Daimyo has been a pain." Part of that was ... comstar being cagey about the status of the HPG. The one here might or might not have been fine, but the computer script running at the screen, a recording of which he'd been going over almost daily... had shown it had gotten dangerous overclocked and hot. The core might or might not have burned out... but given the network numbers a large chunk of the network had probably burned out under the strain of an inner sphere wide broadcast. "I was going to go to the MRB today," and try and sus out if they'd admit anything about the HPG network's status "I was under the impression that the plan was to help your people migrate to the periphery, to avoid any retaliation."

    "I would like to see my sons again, but I feel this is the path god has put us on. Two JumpShips will not meaningfully impact the exodus, and assisting the suns is something they will repay."

    "I'll convene the staff, make sure we have everything needed for leaving... and I'll need you to send a message with the second wave for the Magistracy."

    "The canopians?"

    "I need them to find a job for out two marooned guys out there, unless Majesty Metals wants to permanently stick them on that dust ball." It wasn't really levity, not given the situation. "I have no idea how the periphery is going to react to this assuming that they got this broadcast,"

    "There is little chance that it would change day to day life. The biggest threat is likely to remain pirate activity, if anything the periphery may be safer with the successor states given a clear reason to focus on the Draconis Combine."

    That was certainly true. "Just so we're clear, I can't promise being able to talk the Federated Suns into trying to liberate Markab," or that they wouldn't want to install their own rulers or administration on it in place of the Kuritan authorities, but it was just a single jump from Galatia. "And we'll need a jump route to Davion space."
    --
    He put the receiver down having gotten off the phone finally with one of Abner's colleagues at the Kyoto College.

    Septim had looked like he had a rough night, which was a potential issue. The ruling noble of new Kyoto utilized the title Daimyo... in strictly speaking a somewhat more sensible use of the word than the Combine did.... which was ironic given the Commonwealths Scotts-irish German smorgasbord. "We're going back to fight the snakes?"

    He raised an eyebrow. "We're going back to Davion space, how did you find out?"

    "I-"

    "Those dreams again? Do you have a Cameron in the family tree," He muttered, and shook his head pushing on, "What'd you see?"

    "I don't know, just" The Lyran shook his head, "I saw wolves and horses fighting snakes," Septim paused... some times his dreams didn't happen. Sometimes there were cases where he was seeing totems of belligerents who wouldn't fight for years... or maybe not even at all.

    "Right, grab a shower, and some coffee I need to give something to the duke of the planet before we leave."

    "Thought you said they kept pushing you back."

    "They're going to squeeze us in, but I need you to get ready." Septim left, and Gene got up from behind the desk. Wolves and Horses... the latter was obviously the Eridani. Septim had seen their totem mustang before, the black horse at different intervals. The wolves... the dragoons... that they'd recontract with the Davions wasn't outlandish. He walked around and grabbed the computer core case Septim had completely ignored when he'd walked in. Another copy of the Volgadon Medical school, like he'd given Alamut's Azami colonists. What the Duke and Kyoto college did with it would be on them but they'd be off world soon.

    They took a convoy ride into the city, a standard precaution since the broadcast the previous week and the resulting panic and limited civil unrest that had struck New Kyoto's capital of Hirihito. Capital security was being provided by a Merc Unit in long term Lyran employ, which provided the BattleMech component. They were being backed up by Lyran Armor and Infantry, the latter of which were on display throughout Hirihito's streets. A far cry to the planet just two weeks earlier when the streets had been filled with pedestrians shopping and sight seeing and what not.

    "So what are we doing boss?"

    "IN theory, we're trying to make friends we can fall back on," He replied as the armored vehicle slowed to a halt, and prepared to let them disembark. "In practice, we're trying to undo a little bit of the damage the succession wars caused, and make life a little better."

    Endo Musashi, Daimyo (Duke) Kyoto had allocated them twenty minutes, which was really about fifteen minutes given the formalized introduction. He hadn't really expecting much, and really only agreed on the advice of one of his retainers who sat on the board of Kyoto College. To say he hadn't really expected much to come out of the meeting with a mercenary had been an understatement.

    Doctor Yamanaka on the other hand, "Do you know what you're handing over?"

    "Yeah," Gene shook his head, "I know you're in a better position to use it than I am, and I'm shipping off world. " The consequences of that Spring day in 3018 wouldn't manifest, statistically for several years. The Lyran Commonwealth had all through the succession wars maintained a high standard of living disproportionately greater than the rest of the successor states. It had still suffered, but it its quality of life had not lost the basics of a social welfare that provided for the very lowest and frail of society even as it encouraged them to do ascribe to a bismarkian notion of greatness and aspiration to do better for themselves and their family.

    It would take time for Kyoto College to digest and promulgate a new class of doctors on lost star league medical techniques, even longer for pharmacologic, amd machinery in the field to become available... and from New Kyoto it began to disperse out through the Lyran medical system. This did consequently effect the wealthiest and most influential first.

    Within a decade on a routine physical utilizing Star League medicine an anomaly was detected in Archon Katrina Steiner, the early stages of cancer. If it hadn't been caught that early with techniques lost centuries earlier it would have certainly continued to lay undetected until it would have been terminal. In the nascent FedCom union between the great states the return of previous medicines and later other additions would play... other life saving, and life improving measures.

    --
    Notes: Tentatively, Essence will update in a week, Luxen II will update the 21st. This is apart of the non canon 'Whoops' set which is why we don't get more of Endo Yamanaka other than a brief blurb here. If this were canon this would probably be a longer segment, because we would have to contend with the fallout of handing a Lyran duke that sort of thing.

    Septim's very disappointed father "You did what, and didn't think about how it might benefit the family."

    "Papa, I wasn't exactly told what we were doing before we went and did it."
     
    Last edited: Apr 8, 2022
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  29. Extras: Non Canon Whoops Part 3
    Imperator Pax

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    Non Canon
    Whoops Part 3
    3018

    There were purely practical reasons why the HPG network had superseded the fax machines. A hundred light years was three jump, and HPG network was faster to get a message across that distance... especially as the SLCOMNET had existed in the days of the Star League. Even for ComStar's slower speed to transmit it had been long enough that they should have been getting some news

    There was nothing out of Combine Space hitting the air ways officially. The Comstar run News networks simply hadn't broadcasted anything, and having spent literally a couple of days parsing the code with a highlighter Gene could guess why. "The ending network diagnostic well," He pushed over a piece of carbon paper with circles around it, "It looks like several HPGs on Terra were burning themselves out." They looked like they were trying to boost the signal they were generating , but he had no idea what that meant, they might have been trying to reach the SLCOMNET satellites in deep space... which presumably didn't exist anymore or did exist and were so degraded that the old Hegemony ring couldn't get a clear signal. Another piece of paper showed where Combine HPGs were doing the same, but those were pushing out some kind of signal override through emergency services channels... he wondered if the same thing had happened on Terra and he just hadn't found it.

    He sort of suspected that the override was probably realm specific the Hegemony Worlds infrastructure being different than the combine, being different from the Commonwealth...

    Whatever the actual case was they were shipping off from New Kyoto today, Pasha was checking the last and then they'd jump out. They were basically going to back track to Dieron... "I'd guess that ComStar might not be able to actually talk to Terra. That might have been because of Terra's HPGs all burning out... or because you needed a minimum of HPG stations to transmit to get a message between Earth and New Kyoto. There was no telling how many stations in the Commonwealth were down... but ComStar was shut down on New Kyoto and not doing business last they'd checked.

    Whether that was true else where would be a matter of asking when they got there. They were basically going to Dieron blind without any word from or through the HPG network. If they were lucky they'd be able to get something through the Black Boxes or even better if they got really lucky they'd actually run into an Azami merchant JumpShip along the way... but they would have to see for themselves if any of the other HPG systems worked. "What about any of the ComStar flagged JumpShips?"

    New Kyoto to Terra was five jumps.

    The younger of the two Azami captains shook his head, "There isn't really a change. None, that I have observed. Its true that ComStar has a merchant fleet but while they use the C bill, they are largely staffed by merchant marines rather than members of the religious order themselves. The captains are generally precentors but not always." So they might not know any more than anyone else did.

    "And they would have a a schedule to keep,"

    "Not running the HPG ... ComStar is probably hemorrhaging money." Gene replied, and blew a breath out between his teeth before reaching for his coffee, "Thats another problem, if the HPG network is unreliable its going to tank the C-Bill, we're probably going to want to take pounds if we sign on with the Davions." It would have been nice if they had had an existing fund, or reserve of Davion House Bills to draw off of until they figured something out. Even though it predominated in the Mercenary trade for a variety of bureaucratic and organizational reasons, most normal commerce was conducted in the bills and currencies issued by the Great Houses. Perhaps roughly ten percent of all exchanges in the Inner Sphere occurred using the C-Bill as a medium, "What do you think?"

    Pasha stroked his beard, and so began the last stage of figuring out what they could feasibly do, and plan for without access to FtL communications with a real time component.
    --
    The Precentor New Avalon had been summoned to Hanse Davion just as soon as the ... raw breath of what they had witnessed had become clear. The First Prince looked to his advisors. The truth was the Precentor had either been unwilling or unable to tell them anything useful... possibly a mix of the two.

    "We have contingencies in the event of being interdicted," Which of course so too must the Combine and ... given the contents of the recording. "We need to put those command circuits in place as soon as possible."

    Which of course would be deleterious to the economy unless it ended quickly. They couldn't afford to grind the Federated Suns' economy to a halt, but neither could they compromise the nation's defense either. "Yes, make it so." The First Prince replied, "What resources can we bring up to the Combine border?"

    Yvonne frowned, "Truthfully only limited ones, we brought in what assets we could," The Eridani Light Horse refused to settle down and become house troops even if they were still under Davion contract, but they needed to consolidate their gains of the past year.

    "IF we had known -"

    She cut the general off, before the blust could well and truly get started, "We didn't. Someone else engineered this. Someone who knew enough about the HPG system to broadcast across the entire Inner Sphere even if that meant damaging it." And they didn't know how extensive that damage was. "We don't have the resources in place for a land grab,"

    "What, Lady Yvonne, now is exactly the time to strike."

    "And that is exactly what the other successor houses will say." Hanse rebutted stepping into the conversation. "We have just been shown incontrovertible proof that the same Coordinator of the Draconis Combine who ushered in the successor wars by attempting to usurp the mantle of Star Lord had also knowingly conspired with Stefan Amaris by providing him the locations, positions and strengths of the SLDF as well as refusing to allow the SLDF passage through the Combine. Even assuming that the Free Worlds League and the Capellan Confederation don't try and move to attack Yorii or Altair it would be highly remiss of them not to try and exploit any perceived distraction." They were exposed. "The only forces we can really muster are those of the Draconis March," which would be across too wide of a front, "or some limited force of the Crucis March."

    "Or Mercenaries." Yvonne replied, "It might be worth trying to poach the dragoons from the Mariks, certainly its worth trying to see if they'll bite." It was ridiculous to assume that they'd choose to become AFFS regulars, or even just somewhat more tightly associated mercenaries, but she suspected that the change might be enough to get them to come over and fight on the border... but they would have to see, "After the performance of Blackwell industries we haven't had time to tool up production." which also included the Devastator, and Fury designs other producers in the Federated Suns had been planned to license out... or experiment with, "They simply don't have the production volume, and convincing other producers required the victory on Dieron and promises of contracts." To produce another company's designs under license with royalties on the line.

    There were other problems though, coordinating with the Draconis March would be one thing... it would be one hurdle to clear. Robinson was five jumps from New Avalon. New Syrtis was eleven jumps one way. The Capellan March would also be a much wider front if anything happened on that front... and Yvonne Davion was fully prepared to use the excuse of a communications lag as grounds to reestablish a Terran March if it came to that... but it wasn't quite the time to go that far yet. They were going to need a world in between the terran corridor that could liase with New Avalon Robinson was simply too far to administer, and most of those worlds besides fell under the auspice of the Crucis march to begin with.

    "We'll need to find out what is happening in Combine Space."

    "We should send merchants in first, try and determine the situation, if we send mercenaries it will look like we're invading before we're prepared to commit," Yvonne replied to another AFFS flag officer looking to get a word in edgewise, "Its going to take months," Just because there had been plans for the robes cutting the Federated Suns out of interstellar communications wasn't the same thing as being able to instantly transition over to dealing with no longer having access to the HPG network to coordinate interstellar trade between worlds more than a single jump distance between worlds.

    --
    Notes I had been planning to post the next part of this for a while now, and given plans this weekend I figured i'd either do this or the first snippet for the 'The Last Gunslinger' series. Notably this does not include the follow up to the Lyrans of the last segment, largely because not enough time has passed.
     
    Last edited: May 8, 2022
  30. Extras: Whoops Part 4 [Non canon]
    Imperator Pax

    Imperator Pax Talon Master

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    Whoops
    (Branch Timeline)
    Part 4

    Gene bounced the ball off the wall. They were under spin gravity, but still much lower than he was used to. It was probably easier on Pasha since he was older, but the transition as they extended the sails to recharge the drives was always tedious... boring. New Kyoto back to Dieron would be six jumps. "You look troubled?" The old man remarked, "I meaen to be frank I'm glad its not serious enough you're not cleaning a pistol or something."

    "Las pistol maintenance is different process, you don't use hoppes and most of the internal hardware is sealed up." SLDF Laser Pistol, indeed like the ones they had recovered from the sealed tomb of cadets, were fully functional even after several hundred years.

    "That is not actually reassuring." Pasha remarked, "Are you having second thoughts about handing over the medical core?"

    "What, no, why would I be?"

    Pasha shook his head stroked his beard in contemplation, paused to reach for and take a sip of his tea, "I admit I am surprised."

    "What are you surprised about?"

    "I am shocked they let us actually leave the planet after that." The Azami captain declared. Truthfully to himself at least Pasha recalled conversations with the elders before they had departed Alamut in the deep periphery. The memory core's contents was an impossible to put a price on treasure, "As much as we need to be in the Davion's good graces, I would not advertise it , unless we have to, I understand the reasoning, and the need for... what did you call it, a bolt hole?"

    "A fall back position works too, but yes, what about our course?"

    "We will remain in the Lyran Commonwealth's territory until we jump to Dieron." Pasha paused... "Do you plan to detach at New Earth?'

    "I was considering it, but its not a priority." There would be little reason to make planet fall and then have to turn around just as soon as the drives were charged. "I picked up what we needed." And truthfully he shouldn't have been surprised the bunkers on Bristol had survived. "Its true that some of sheltered complexes are probably also intact," He bounced the ball against the wall again and caught it, "From what I understand short of going to somewhere like Coventry, well Hesperus would be closer, there isn't much we can do with the prototype data. So no we'll stay aboard and charge the drives, and then jump to Dieron."

    "And we'll dismount at Fotress Dieron?"

    "We'll hold off on that, until we talk with the planetary governor." The fortress was intact, but well even that was a misconception. Dieron's fortress was not a single complex even though the they were linked... it was one of those Hegemony defensive fortifications on planet, and how the surface to orbit weapons had not been turned on against Amaris, or used against subsequent invaders... wasn't something he understood. He'd looked at the logs, and it seemed like Tellman had done ... something, but he wasn't sure quite what. The logs were incomplete... and of course it was possible the answer might have had something to do with the nukes the Rimworld forces had used against the planet. "In theory its supposed to be configured to support an entire brigade, but, there were parts of the facility that were locked down.."

    "And we could have problems."

    To put it mildly.

    --
    It had been a month since the core had come into the College's possession... longer still since the HPG network collapsed, even if they were still talking months it felt like longer still. The Duke perhaps of anyone involved still seemed to like the understanding of what Star League era medicine would mean. The technological decline in the inner sphere had started with the financial crisis two hundred fifty years earlier. The damage of the first and second succession wars that had started in 2786 had simply added to the shortage of material as it expanded to affect trade of goods, and movement of people between Star League member states.

    The devastation of of unrestricted warfare not even including the use of nuclear weapons, and the cost in lives of skilled professionals pushed into dealing with the realities of a total war economy had thrown them back a thousand years.

    It was unfortunate there for that he had to contend with where the state's priorities lay. He was attempting to argue to military officers that the medical core was a national treasure, when even his duke who was the most receptive, was more interested in the military acumen of the person responsible for its recovery. With that in mind he supposed that he should have felt grateful that the army was allowing him to remain given how much they overvalued their profession's experience than that of his.

    With the HPG network inoperable they couldn't reach out to anyone. Any message to a distant star system had to be, as it had been before the star league had invented and built the network, carried by courier jumpship. Thus they were on their own, dependent on information that had already been available. The limitations of the K-F drive meant that even with the modern HPG network's own limits the MRB's records were almost never outpaced by jump travel, to that end the battle of Elidere IV dominated the duke's personal holotheater.

    "I thought you said he's only been a mercenary for a few years, that he couldn't be more than twenty." Some general muttered harshly in lyran German a couple of seats away. The white Marauder standing against the rise the field before it and its lancemates and their supporting armor strewn with the remains of a Combine BattleMech company.

    "These Galedon regulars," A snort, "an entire battalion of Fifth Sword of Light was slaughtered on Dieron," A mustachioed man declared. Not that Dieron's seizure by the FedSuns had really altered the politics between house Davion and House Steiner. New Earth, or Rigil Kentaurus were both a single jump from the Federated Suns world of Caph so technically the two realms had been touching.

    "Footage I'm afraid we don't have," The duke's major domo replied, "Only static," Non video, printouts, "Documents." Hardly a thrilling prospect compared to watching hundreds of tons of armored warmachines shoot at each other.

    Even under ordinary circumstances it would have unusual for a non contracting party to request those BattleRoms. Not completely unheard of, but the MRB would then take the request, and of course charge, and bill the request before sending it through comstar to another MRB office to get the footage which could take months even... and of course that was in normal instances where the HPG network was working and not broken.

    The conversation side barred again into 'letting him get away'.. but of course the 'colonel' had not been introduced on his Davion credentials, but academic connections, on his ties to Lyran nobility. They had agreed to the meeting because they knew Abner, and had letters of introduction from the old doctor... and even that had only just barely been able to get them squeezed in given everything else that had been going on.

    "He must be returning to the Davions."

    "Indeed," His grace Endo Musashi concurred. The Daimyo of New Kyoto didn't break his expression from watching the battle. The indicated lettering in the corner of the hologram said that this particular clip of the battle came from a Wolverine, from the point of view of an actual AFFS pilotted mech. "I notice the Marauder's emblem carries a torii gate, does that mean anything to anyone."

    "Its no mercenary unit I know of."

    Which should hardly have been surprising so many failed to live past their first year. What it was not was the company insignia. It was simply found on that unit. "Personal arms perhaps?"

    "I would not think so."

    The duke took his attention away and nodded, as if he'd been intending to invite someone anyone to actually disagree with him. Yamanaka knew there were times when his patron became irate at the prospect of being surrounded by yes men... especially if he felt that such conditions had lead him to making a mistake. "It must have some history," And he wanted to know it, "what of his compatriots, surely we must know something about them?"

    "Most we can say little about. But,"

    "But?"

    "One of his staff officers is under an assumed name," Not unusual for mercenaries, "He honorably separated from the Guards after his tour, his father is on the steering committee." but of course Tharkad was two months, nine jumps, without the HPG network. Any contact with the father would require the use of previous jumpships.

    --
    Notes: We're updating this because my schedule is all screwed up, in point of fact I'm just saying here that it won't be until June I get back on a fully pre planned update schedule for the month. The main regular canon whatever timeline probably won't update until the 22nd. Anyway moving on, so I've mentioned previously during the Magistracy contracts that Septim is operating under an assumed name, a nom du guerre. Septim is a lesser member of the Lyran aristocracy they're not real high up but they have enough money to buy battlemechs... which they're lyrans so battlemechs are manufactured and up for sale more so than elsewhere.

    So this is the ball rolling on lyran responses to things, but of course this being battletech the primary focus is the military rather than the oh he gave you lostech knowledge and will not start paying dividends until down the road.

    The goal right now tentatively is finish Davion 1 in July. We'll get through Part 9 this month, there is some Azami stuff, and so forth and there is an interlude on Bristol where as hinted at Devestator and Furys will be queued up to come out to play for Dieron.
     
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