The Aurigan Renaissance [A BattleTech Isekai]

Imperator Pax · Jun 1, 2023

The Aurigan Renaissance
Chronicles of a Periphery Warlord (An Essence story)
The Pirate War Years

1.1 The Darkening Clouds
[September 3016]
Heron Arsacid stared at the holographic display. By design, or by happenstance the frozen image was of a rampaging orion that had had its SLDF camo grafitti-ed with the totenkampf... the grinning death's head. Not that he needed any additional indication that these were the bad guys.

He didn't watch ComStar's news service very often... despite two years in this era, this universe there just never seemed to be time to do so. That was compounded by his distrust of ComStar... and the lack of benefit to their coverage... except that latter caveat wasn't true.. not in this instance.

ComStar had the HPG network, broken, and inefficient as it was they still had a monopoly on Inner Sphere ftl communication linking human space. Thus, they could carry news of things from across light years it was just normally death and destruction that warranted coverage to the periphery were the battles between the successor states. ComStar covering pirate attacks was unusual.

"... Black Jack McGirk continues his rampage..."

That was the headline plastering the main 'screen'. Other holograms bolstered the news headline. The map wasn't the clearest it was obviously showing somewhere on the Davion Taurian border and the pirate was probably hitting both... but this had been going on... he divided the numbers into years and blinked... this had been going on for years.

Years before he'd gotten here... his first thought was that it could have been another person from another world... that was a little concerning given how mad for power Black Jack's rampage seemed to be but... as exploitable as the essence was if that were the case then... well things would have been much worse... and the name was familiar. Canonical, but nothing came to mind other than yeah pirate... and ComStar ... the name Jolly Roger Incident wouldn't click immediately... but it was just a blurb... another example of the supposedly neutral organizations duplicity a reiteration not to trust that he didn't really need... but Black Jack represented a threat in the Rimward periphery.

"You mean to tell me this psychopathic manchild has been running around for over a decade, and no one has been able to pin him on a planet and kill him." Or hell, for that matter not get mutinied by his own pirates... they were a pirate band it wasn't as if Black Jack had started out as some pirate king in the periphery with semi legitimate control over the planet and even then that wouldn't have prevented some enterprising sub captain decided he'd make a better king of the pirates... "I would have expected given his apparent resources," Including what he could tell from the recordings included Royal technology, or late star league experimental tech like snub nosed PPCs, "That the Great Houses might have considered this a pressing concern."

There was a clink, as a crystal wine glass sat down on the granite surface of the table, "They didn't." Lord Karosas remarked simply. "The Lyran Commonwealth was probably just happy he decided to go else where." The old man spared a glance towards the Combine representative, a overly floral dressed young ojou-sama in a very bright kimono, but didn't explicitly call out why the Combine hadn't gone after him. He shook his head, "I believe the Magistracy of Canopus wished to address the development, so I will yield the floor to the ambassador."

Ana Marie Centrella stood up. "Black Jack has temporarily settled in the Tortuga Dominions, we say temporarily because there seems to be some friction between him, and the existing pirates, but he is using it as a base. Given the number of JumpShips that can be linked to his pirates we assume that these raids in the Rimward periphery mean he'll be moving this way."

No one visibly panicked, and no sudden current went through the room... most people must have expected that was coming, either from their own sources, or just from instincts about the situation... he didn't need the elaboration that the recent destruction of the Pirate Clans on Fjaldr or Grim Sybil's forces while preventing Black Jack from recruiting those did also create a vacuum of pirate spheres of influence in the area. Heron had no proof but he suspected that a lot of the itinerant freebooters of the Rimward periphery were not just long ranging commercial tradesmen but might well have dabbled in if not direct piracy than... passing along information to pirates in exchange for a slice of the profits, and fencing the goods.

He couldn't prove that but it was certainly the implication that Sybil and Fjaldr's networks might soon be looking for a new patron to work for. It was obvious that Black Jack had more firepower than the 'Dame Murderess extraordinaire' the pirate ruler of the Tortuga Dominions, and that if Black Jack was moving this way and picking up new followers they were going to be an issue.

Heron surveyed the room. He knew that the Magistracy, and the Taurians had a lot of b ad blood between them. The most likely realpolitik explanation was that the Taurians raiding was that the taurian high command recognized that for all the bluster that if they attempted to raid House Liao, or House Davion, the very probable response of a post Star League 29th or 30th century Capellan Confederation or Federated Suns would have been to salt and burn Taurian worlds in response ... and thus the pattern of habitual raiding canopian worlds over the past century. He doubted the Canopians were entirely innocent but he suspected the Concordat was largely the responsible party... and both of them were present... as were the other diplomatic envoys of other powers.

Transparency and openness weren't exactly what Heron would have described diplomatic relations between interstellar states as. Far from it, secret diplomacy was the norm, and had been for well... since the realities of interstellar travel had become apparent, if not potentially before that.... and yet there was probably a benefit to doing this publicly. A hope, against hope that, common ground could be established and cooperation against a pirate could be... or maybe the intent was to show that the coalition was doing something and that trade was still a viable worthwhile prospect even in the face of such a crisis.

It also explained the insistence of attending in person.... Black Jack McGirk had been active as a pirate for over twenty years but what went rather under emphasized was not so much how he'd gotten started but how he'd struck it begin. The trip he'd made from the Lyran Commonwealth to reach the Taurian border would have taken years given the bastard had gone across the frontier... it wasn't after all like he could have come straight rimward. That explained some of the time that had passed, but it missed the bigger question of where the fuck had he found all that...

... and he supposed that question might well have been obfuscated by the dragoons showing up so soon after he had left the Lyran frontier and starting working his way around.

Lord Espinosa paused to take a sip from his own wine glass, "We have been informed," He remarked in a refined and practiced orator's tone looking around the room, "that Black Jack's core fighting force is a regiments worth of Heavy BattleMechs of Star League vintage. Without wasting time on pointless bluster, I think I speak for everyone that we should be grateful the pirate hasn't massed his forces on any single target, but we must consider what would happen if he were to do that."
--
Santiago Espinosa was holding out hope that Tamati wasn't just being overly optimistic. Fjaldr's destruction had been unilateralist, as had hunting down Grim Sybil... but even the usually obstinate Karosas had recognized that after Katinka the Arsacid probably had just looked at any nearby pirate bases and proceeded to hit them. That might very well have explained the Margravate expanding to take Tarragonna ... Black Jack though was moving into the region, and internal Coalition arguments were pale in comparison to arguments between the Canopians and the Taurians, and the Reach and the Taurians... and neither Santiago nor his sister were ignorant of the Magistracy sniffing around.

... and unfortunately Lady Centrella was presently getting an unfiltered first class viewing of his daughter Victoria ranting about pirates pilfering the tombs of star league soldiers... even though more likely Santiago expected that Black Jack had merely deciphered some sort of ancient computer cartouche that had lead him to a storage depot... or perhaps a derelict jumpship laden with supplies. Not that he wouldn't have put it past the blackguard to loot the dead of a long forgotten battlefield it just seemed like a lot of work and McGirk had entirely too many Star League mechs for such a thing to be plausible. Black Jack's equipment had to have been in storage somewhere before appearing early in the century.

The truth was it was optimistic to assume that the Successor States, the Great Houses of the Inner Sphere were any more inclined to proactively hunted pirates. Though Santiago was entirely assume there were exaggerations it bore in mind that the rumors surrounding the current reigning archon, and the Lyrans were supposed to be the most staid of the old Star League. He expected no help from the Inner Sphere with their problem, but it would have been nice if Tamati could prove him wrong and convince the Taurian and Canopian ambassadors to work together.

More practically though, given the Taurian complaints about Aea and the other margravate worlds springing up on their border.. never mind in theory complaints they might have about other former 'taurian' worlds Santiago expected they would have to settle with cooperation with the Canopians, and working to build an alliance of sorts with the other rimward frontier worlds.
--
Notes: Short introduction. I've got a bunch of links I need to throw up, but I wanted the thread opened, I'll also add tags shortly. What I will probably do for links is when my BT misc thread goes up I will link there so one doesn't have to go searching through the general BT thread, but this is as the title should make clear the Aurigan centric Essence story where for to outward investigators conclusions the Aurigans get an influx of time displaced SLDF and their dependents in 3015 who establish the 'Aurigan March' and join the Aurigan Coalition for trade and civil relations benefits in exchange for providing military protection

Imperator Pax · Jun 1, 2023

Cimbri said:
BATTLETECH ISEKAI CYOA

You and three of your friends are stuck in the ass-end of nowhere in the Periphery in 3015. Normally this would be a short trip to ignoble poverty and death but you're lucky. So lucky that you are all Isekai protagonists! This means that fate is on your side and gently tips the odds in your favour. By using some metaphorical Fate points to adjust things in your favour! Well its not all in just your favour. The more Fate is changed the more opposition to this change appears in the form of luck and abilities of others native to that Universe. So your little intrepid group of friends start with Two Fate Points and may earn more in the progress of choosing your starting position and opposition.

You wake up in what appear to be Star League Cryo pods in an abandoned base. It was in the past a:

[ ] A ruined bunker. There's nothing there aside from the pods and your rides and some food. Enough for a week. Make sure you're able to pilot the mechs by then. Have fun! +1 points.

[ ] Listening outpost. 0 Points. It has the bare bones needed to stay hidden and resupplied with a hangar that can fit a shuttle and four mech bays. There is living space for up to a dozen people with enough MREs to last a good while. It also comes with sensors capable of passively watching almost everything that occurs in the system.

[ ] Star League Intelligence Supply depot. 1 point. The main difference is in the size of it with the hangar now being capable of welcoming a Leopard and a small craft or two. It also has twelve mech bays ready for use. The barracks can hold up to a hundred people in relative comfort with four apartments for officers or VIPs also present. The depots warehouse is sadly empty but can hold roughly ten thousand tons of cargo. Aside from that it retains every capability the Listening outpost possessed.

[ ] Outpost Castle. 2 points. It is a facility capable of holding a mech battalion with the facilities to match. Its hidden hangars holds room enough for at least three Aerodyne Dropships and six small craft bays stand ready for use. The well appointed living spaces are enough for not just the hypothetical battalion and its support personnel but also a fair amount of possible VIPs and perhaps dependants. The mech bays also comes with a well appointed workshop capable of machining almost anything under two metres in length (If someone competent is there to do the work at least). Its sensor coverage are comparable to some of the best in the Inner Sphere.

[ ] ~~Castle Brian.~~No sorry not sorry.

You somehow managed to die out of reach of Truck-kun and as such we failed to retrieve your body. Luckily we still have your DNA on file and can make you a new one free of charge! But we can always tweak you a bit if you feel that those points you have are starting to burn a hole in your pocket... Still these are mostly cosmetic changes so maybe save your points for more important stuff. Or pick as many choices as you want, as long as they don't contradict each other its fine. Well you can skip this if you remember Truck-kun hitting you.

[ ] Vanilla clone. What it says on the tin; just your original body although without that old football injury that slowed you down. 0 points.

[ ] A famous face. This is the choice if you want to look like Sean Connery or whoever. Kinda creepy in a way but its not like they'll be around to sue for using their likeness. 1 point.

[ ] Minor corrections. Use this option to fix your eyesight, allergies, asthma or similar problems. Its a way to start fresh although most of these are fixable in one of the better hospitals on Canopus. 1 point.

[ ] Idealised body. Pretty self-explanatory this is the choice to be the best version of you: As if you'd had coaches looking over your diet and exercise schedule your whole life. Well its a kind of all-rounder body so it doesn't excel in any one thing and its up to you to keep it trim. This choice doesn't fix any underlying faults though... 1 point.

[ ] Gender-bender. Okay so you want to walk a mile in someone else's shoes? See how the other side manages things? I guess it can be accommodated we'll even make sure that there's no body-dysphoria! 1 point

[ ] Narcissus. This just makes you into a ten out of ten nothing else. But with that said there's a power in that; beautiful people are both catered to and allowed to get away with more. It also makes you into a target and not really in any way forgettable. People will remember seeing you anywhere you go. 1 point

Fate would have liked to give you powers for free but sadly Fate is a bitch (Wait what?). So pick four powers for your little group. Those unpicked will go to someone else who might or might not end up as your enemy. Although she does give all of you the equivalence of basic mech training raising you to the same level as "Green" pilots.

[ ] The "Phantom Mech Ability" You may use this in any vehicle you pilot to disappear from any and all sensors. It doesn't work on the mark one eyeball sadly. It can be used at will and will remain as long as the user is conscious and wills it so.

[ ] "Luck of Heroes" This ability simply makes its owner very lucky. It could manifest as finding great finds in antique shops and markets or your enemy stumbling just as they're about to finish you off. To explain it in nerd terms you get a plus ten on loot rolls and a reroll if you're about to bite it. Or want to stay hidden etc. Probablitity is on your side and you always win at games of chance. Of course there are times when all the luck in the world can't help you...

[ ] "Precognition" A truly terrifying ability where its wielder can see the future and all his possible actions. Luckily its restrained to one minute into the future and no further. Use it to become a discount Jedi.

[ ] "Empath" You can feel the emotions of those around you in a radius of five kilometres. An excellent way to determine friend from foe. It can even be used to predict the actions of others in a general way if its user trains it enough.

[ ] "Telekinesis" The wielder of this power can move anything below five hundred kilograms in a two hundred metres radius around themselves. Its only weakness is the ability to concentrate and lasers. Mostly lasers.

[ ] "Telepathy" You can send and receive thoughts from those around you within fifty kilometres as well as sense those within range in general. But you cannot read minds, you need only to concentrate on who you wish to send your thoughts to and a connection is established. This power can either be used to coordinate a group of fighters or if you're evil... Drive someone mad with intrusive thoughts as they remain unaware of your power.

[ ] "Shapeshifting" You're Mystique essentially. You can turn into anyone at anytime for as long as you want. Gender is no barrier as you naturally don't suffer from dysphoria. Its a great ability for a spy since even DNA tests fail to reveal your duplicity.

[ ] "Technopathy" Well now this allows you to control any electronic system or device. As long as you are within five metres of it. Use it to make purchases or vent the atmosphere of a ship I don't care. Just be careful you aren't left on an uninhabited planet because you switched the shower to cold one too many times on your buddies.

Now for the bad part. Please roll a D20 four times to determine who gets the leftover powers. If you roll the same number several times? Then congratulations on creating a menace with up to four powers. Hope it wasn't Liao...

1. Romano Liao
2. Kyone Akashi
3. Red Jack Ryan
4. Paula Trevaline
5. Kamea Arano
6. Natasha Kerensky
7. Joshua Wolf
8. Justin Allard
9. Ed Corbu
10. Subhash Indrahar
11. Yorinaga Kurita
12. Aldo Lestrade
13. Gray Noton
14. Therese Marik
15. Kristen Marik
16. Thomas Calderon
17. James Sandoval
18. Nondi Steiner
19. Frederick Steiner
20. Jessica Chernovskaya

Sometimes your friends might miss getting hit by the Isekai truck and then its good to get some people to sub for them. These are persons of import that you might recognise that at a certain point in their life got asked if they wanted to leave their current situation and said yes. They sadly lack their native powers more often then not but don't underestimate them. These people are still the outliers of humanity in one way or another and they do get one of the four powers you've picked. In some cases they're even locked into one power or another as the closest substitute of their original one. Oh and while they've agreed to get Isekai'd they never agreed on who'd be in charge... Please choose up to three characters.

[ ] The greatest goth to ever quip sarcastically on screen. Raven or Rachel Roth is the daughter of an evil demon and a mortal woman. She chose to accept the deal of disappearing from her Earth to protect it from her fathers machinations as she lacks her original powers and connection to her father in this new world thus freeing her from that burden. Still under her prickly exterior beats the heart of a hero and she'd never leave an innocent to suffer if she can help it. The power she did gain in this new world is a lesser form of empathy; at least compared to her original strength. (requires taking Empath)

[ ] Katarina Claes is the densest protagonist in the known multiverse. She is also a cinnamon roll that might not have completely understood just what she agreed to do. Still she'll be your friend as long as you're hers in return although it might not be completely voluntary for your part. She might fall in love with the possibility of piloting giant robots but it is doubtful she'll ever want to actually bring harm to anyone unless it is to protect others. Her power is that of the "Luck of Heroes" and she might well need it. She's a glutton and not the most gifted academically but she might also befriend anyone and anything that stands still long enough to get caught in her gravitational pull. (requires luck of heroes)

[ ] Tanya von Degurechaff jumped on the chance of leaving "Being X" behind as well as the grinding warfare of the Great War. She might also have preferred to go to a more civilised era but beggars cannot be choosers and she's well aware of this fact. Still be wary of this little bundle of violence and twisted logic as she might inadvertently draw you into violence especially if you fail to take the leadership position of your little crew. Still she's a competent soldier and commander and you'd be a fool to discount her aptitude for war and logistics. She gained the power of telekinesis which is a significant step down from those she wielded earlier but without any of the drawbacks. (requires telekinesis)

[ ] Reagan Ridley overworked genius and gaslighted daughter of one of the largest douchebags this side of Desaad. Her judgement might have been slightly impaired when she chose to leave her world behind but goddammnit she'll fucking blow your brains with her brilliance now that she's here. The future of the eighties won't know what hit it and neither will you if you don't shape up. She's caustic with several undiagnosed alphabet disorders but she is at heart a good person if a bit petty at times. She gained the power of Technopathy just to make her even more terrifying. (requires technopathy)

[ ] Adam Jensen is not quite a broken man but he left his Earth behind to find a new start after everything that went down on Panchea. He's a skilled operator even before receiving his cybernetic enhancements and with them he's close to unstoppable. Still it is by his will alone that they are directed now and he wont follow orders from someone he doesn't trust. He's a rarity as an honest and upright man in a society mired in conspiracy. With that said he's been ground down a bit by the world and its bullshit. He never asked for it but he still wont throw away this second chance.

[ ] Helga Sinclair was given the choice of either getting hit by a burning wreck of steel and canvas or another go at making something of herself. She chose life and is now in the far future in a world that is very similar but still very different to the one she left behind. Still she's a resourceful woman willing to do what it takes to get ahead and skilled enough to leave most in the dust. With that said she's a bit burned out on amoral superiors especially if they're after some kind of ancient super weapon in such cases she'll be more likely to shoot first and ask questions never. Although she still has a certain kind of loyalty; the kind that exists between thieves and mercenaries so she'll fit right in in this war torn era.

[ ] Sakura Hibiki got accidentally hit by a truck delivering dumbbells to the gym she was training in. As a consequence she perished before her time but received a chance for a new life. A life in the far future where mechs are commonplace and scantily clad pilots shows off their bodies/~~muscles~~! She is an uncomplicated young girl with a love for action movies and food. She is also naturally gifted with strength and a body easily trained up. Too bad for her that the enhanced metabolism also makes her easily gain a bit of fat if not looked after. She is the equivalent of having a five year old going over your plans as her common sense is developed enough to see flaws that might be overlooked by supposed "geniuses".

[ ] Taylor Hebert died a hero, something that was rewarded with her deeds being attributed to others and a painless death at the hands of the one person who could have saved her. Strangely she's not bitter about it and is at most sad because she left her friends behind. A determined tactician capable of improvisations that turn almost certain defeats into victories no matter the cost. It is easier to convince her to change targets than to stop her and she is a natural leader with a terrifying kind of charisma. She will naturally seek to overturn those in power if she perceives them as unjust or incapable.
She gained telepathy as her new power and her experience with multi-tasking makes her an excellent battlefield coordinator. (requires telepathy)

[ ] Obi-Wan Kenobi did not in his own opinion truly "die". He did shuffle the mortal coil but as long as the Force persists so does he. He does feel that he completed his journey and managed to do some good along the way but when asked to do more he simply answered "yes". Perhaps it was a lingering feeling of having failed Anakin or maybe just the knowledge that someone felt that he was needed was enough to motivate his choice. Whatever the reason he now moves to aid the troubled peoples of the galaxy, as a Jedi and as a man.
Obi-Wan brings many talents to the table being trained as a Jedi knight and picking up various talents along the way, such as piloting, diplomacy and sass. He lost his active connection to the Force coming to the Inner sphere but gained a small talent in precognition. (requires precognition.)

You have at the very least one mech each. Are they Royals though? Or were they perhaps used as deniable assets by Star League Intelligence. Lets pick how much tonnage you have to play around with and what technology level.

[ ] You have one hundred tons of mechs to tool around with. Its enough for four twenty five tonners if you're keen on being absolutely fair. +1 Points.

[ ] A hundred and fifty tons is enough to almost reach medium mechs for all of you but sadly at least one of your crew will be forced to toddle around in an Urbie or something. 0 point.

[ ] At two hundred tons you can all comfortably cruise around in fifty tonners. Perhaps a quartet of Enforcers? 1 point.

[ ] At two hundred and fifty tons all of you squeak into the Heavy category. Please watch where you walk okay?. 2 points.

[ ] Three hundred tons of heavy metal gives your crew a lot of tonnage to play around with. Seventy five tons each. At the top of the category. 3 points.

[ ] Three hundred and fifty tons. Would Sir and Madam care for a Battlemaster? Or perhaps a Stalker? 4 points.

[ ] Look Four hundred tons is enough to give each of you an Atlas or King Crab each. You can't ask for more than that. Super Heavies are off limits. 5 points.

Now are they Royals or not? It will cost you to have the shiniest mechs but perhaps you think its worth it.

[ ] Regular mechs are fine ma'am. 0 points.

[ ] Royals! Royals! Royaaaaaaaalsssss! 1 point.

You are in the Periphery and far from any exciting action as you wake up. That is not to say that the neighbourhood is very safe though...

[ ] Astrokaszy. You better be prepared for the fight of your life. Seriously its a pirate infested shithole while still being close enough to the Inner Sphere that any hint of Lostech will result in an invasion. +1 points.

[ ] Aquagea is home to a small population in the low millions. It holds a grudge against the Free Worlds League and is currently under threat from not only pirates but also its neighbours in Zathras. 0 points.

[ ] Gillfillan's Gold. A small population in the low millions the planet is a temperate one inhabited by stubborn descendants of the Rim Republic. They are regularly attacked by bandits. This prevents any prosperity from blooming. 0 points.

[ ] Herotitus or space Vegas is a terrestrial planet close to the Inner Sphere and the Taurian Concordat as well as the Aurigan Coalition. It is mostly known for being a place to lose your money in various entertaining ways but also boasts of a thriving agricultural export industry and as a port of call on the trade lanes it straddles. 1 point.

[ ] Katinka is a planet belonging to the Aurigan Coalition although this is disputed by the Taurian Concordat. It suffered during the Periphery uprising as a mass driver was used on a local SLDF facility causing vast damage to the local eco system. Today the system is mostly known for agriculture and mining with the economy supported by the steady stream of Lostech prospectors who comes there to strike rich. 1 point.

[ ] Detroit. Rock City! It is an excellent starting point for adventure as its both independent yet with a robust industry and large population it desperately needs defenders that might be willing to pay in things other than hard currency to get them... 1 point.

Some weeks after your arrival your small group either notices a pirate force approaching the planet. You ride out to defend the locals. Or if you had the bad luck to land on Astrokaszy the pirates sees you and attack. How many are there and how well equipped are they?

[ ] They are terrifying with a full company of mechs. Four light mechs, four mediums, two heavies and two assaults. They are backed up by a pair of Eagle Aerospace fighters that was brought along on their Union. +3 point.

[ ] You are lucky enough that the pirates at least lack Air support but four lights, four mediums, two heavies and two assaults are terrifying enough. +2 points.

[ ] They are coming out of a Union with six lights, four mediums and two heavies. Can you take them? +1 points.

[ ] Well Eight light mechs and four mediums sounds doable surely? 0 points.

[ ] Look twelve light mechs trundling towards you isn't that threatening. 1 points.

Well there might be some local support. Or perhaps they've been crushed in a preceding raid.

[ ] Nope not a dang single militia man is available. +2 points.

[ ] There's a company of infantry armed with rifles. They travel on a pair of flatbed trucks and might be handy in case you're taking any prisoners. +1 points.

[ ] You're backed up by a infantry company and a pair of Scorpions so buckle up! 0 points.

[ ] A single infantry company backed up by a lance of Scorpions will make things nearly equal. 1 points.

[ ] A lance of scorpions backed by a pair of Strikers are usually enough to make a pirate lance at least hesitate. The infantry company is really just gravy. 2 points

Well did you find any loot looking around at your starting location? Even if the bunker is destroyed it might hold something of value...

[ ] You found negative value as one of your mechs got their arm blown of by some rusting mine it managed to trigger somehow... +1 points.

[ ] Eh nothing really. A vintage porn magazine was all you found in the end. 0 points.

[ ] A noteputer with some standard armour schematics. Also a few bars of germanium worth roughly fifty thousand C-bills. 1 points.

[ ] The noteputer you found held not only the information needed to make standard armour but also myomer bundles! Oh and you found Literal gold bars worth a hundred thousand C-bills. Now you just have to get them to a buyer... 2 point.

[ ] A personal computer you found held the knowledge on how to make not only armour and myomer but also the Core Tek 275 fusion engine! The Literal treasure chest filled with jewels kinda pales in comparison despite being worth two hundred thousand C-bills. 3 points.

[ ] You found one ST-46 shuttle. It looks fully functioning and it carried a computer with the secrets of standard armour, myomers, the VOX 280 and the Magna Hellstar PPC! 4 points.

[ ] A ST-46 shuttle is a fine price but it is the computer core sitting pretty in the cargo bay with plans for how to build a Wolverine WVR-6R in it that's the real price. 5 points.

Sometimes luck just doesn't smile on you. Well she does so she'll make it up to you in other ways but the dice still fucked you over this time. Whether it was gaining a bounty on your head for stepping on the wrong toes or having the bad luck to look like someone else you'll still have to bear the consequences of rolling Snake Eyes!

[ ] There is a bounty on your head since you accidentally stole the date of a highroller on Hirotitus. Although it isn't the highest and you wont get the Bounty hunter after you for it its still annoying as hell. (Gain a fifty thousand C-bill bounty on you in the Capellan Marches and 1 Fate points)

[ ] You're attacked by pirates a second time two months later. This time its a full company of mechs with six lights, four mediums and two heavies. They also have two Centurion aerospace fighters flying support.(Gain 1 fate points)

[ ] Its kinda sad to be banned from a whole province but you've somehow managed to piss off Catherine Humphreys. Enough to be blacklisted on every planet under her rule. On the bright side she hasn't been able to charge you for anything officially and as such is unable to bring her full might to bear against you. Still look out for snobby assholes with smiles that makes you want to punch their teeth in. Oh and the cheaper kind of mercenary I guess. (Gain 1 fate points)

[ ] You sadly share DNA with James McEvedy marking you as a child of his. Should the Wolves ever find out you're shit out of luck. With that said the risk is manageable as long as you don't get too famous. Uh look just don't get known as a hotshot mechwarrior? Or alternatively don't trashtalk the trashborn. With that said things like this tends to come up a the worst of times. (Roll a 1d100 quarterly after reaching interstellar fame comparable to such luminaries as Morgan Kell or Gray Noton if you get five or below then Wolfnet will start to investigate. Also gain 2 fate points.)

[ ] A year into things and you find out that Lady Death wants you. Its unclear why but at least she specified "Alive and unspoiled" which doesn't make things much better. So now pirates know that if they want her favour they can just take you to her. At least she didn't specify any reward aside from it being "substantial". (Activates 3016. gain 2 fate points.)

[ ] You have a gift for pissing off people in power or maybe just people in general. You have in any case managed to piss off Ivan Fontral the newly risen general of The Dismal Disinherited as well as Timothy Nels the colonel in charge of The Dioscuri. Yeah they'll gladly sign off on raids targeting any planet you happen to be on. This does make the Federated Suns look askance at your little ragtag team. Don't expect them to stick their head out for you unless you're worth more than the goodwill of several regiments. Oh and I'd avoid any planet within two or three jumps of these people. ( gain 2 fate points)

[ ] One of your companions has... Drawn the eye of both Alexandria Cunningham (countess of Kestrel) and Alban Stieglitz-Bradford (a Lyran Graf). Both of these wealthy nobles are now vying for their attention, this is a problem because it has started to attract attention from both their friends and their foes. You've been stumbling over spies and overambitious pirates and mercenaries ever since. The gifts are nice though. (Gain 2 fate points and roll a 1d20 to see what you encounter on this list every month:

1. Nothing happens this month hallelujah.
2. Alban sent a beautiful piece of art worth five thousand C-bills at least... Too bad you can't sell it.
3. Alexandria sent some of the the latest New Avalon fashion as a gift. Please wear it and send a Tri-vid!
4. The not so dread pirate Rob Anybody is sending his worst company to kidnap your companion. They're all piloting wasps... You're pretty sure he's just fucking with you by now.
5. Merita Plex the most annoying "journalist" in the Inner Sphere managed to track you down and is currently managing to raise your blood pressure through the roof. As well as revealing your current location to the whole world.
6. The "Elite" mercenary Lucas "Broodhard" Smith is facing you down with his lance of mercs. They're in heavy mechs and at least rated regular/questionable by the MRB. He's hoping to deliver your companion to his employer who remains unknown at this time.
7. Alexandria managed to catch enough free time to visit. It would be incredibly uncouth to show her the door. Especially as she brought flowers.
8. Alban has crossed the Sphere to spend time with your companion. He brought gifts and is dressed to impress most importantly he's a gentleman about it. You can't show him the door surely?
9. A team of DEST commandos has managed to track you down. They're actually planning to kidnap Alexandra and Alban so you better track them down before either of them visits.
10. There's a beautiful white horse grazing outside. Correction there's a herd of beautiful white horses grazing outside and a message from Alban that waxes lyrically about how their beauty and strength is nothing compared to the one who makes his heart beat. You're pretty sure that they're worth their weight in germanium... Although it would break Albans heart if you simply sold them all off.
11. Look apparently a cousin of Alexandria is in trouble on Herotitus if you could just swing by and escort them to the Fedsun border? There are bad people after them and she'd be oh so grateful! (Its Broodhard again he has managed to scrape together a new lance of medium mechs and is hot on the Cunningham cousins heels.) She'll gladly cover any costs incurred.
12. Alban hates to ask this of you but apparently someone managed to get nude pictures of Katrina Steiner from her time in the Periphery and is holding an auction for them on Herotitus. If you could just swing by and retrieve the pictures and flatten the auction house he'd be ever so grateful! Oh and the Commonwealth would of course reward you with a couple of million C-bills for services rendered.
13. Another day another attack by Rob Anybody. This time he's sending his fifth cousin Bob Anybody to take you down. Be prepared to face a pair of medium lances backed up by a lance of Strikers LRM vehicles. They're actually competent?
14. The Hessian Dragoons (Regular/Reliable) are preparing to attack you. Be ready to face a company of fast medium mechs. They've been hired by Loretta von Haas who's been pursuing Alban romantically for a while now and who suffers no rivals for his affection!
15. Jeremiah Rand-Davion is calling your companion out for a duel! He seeks the affection of Alexandria Cunningham and wishes to show his superiority by defeating your companion in a mech duel. He's an elite mech warrior and an honourable although hot headed young man. He'll face them in a Victor to gain victory! And Alexandria's affection of course.
16. The KISS mercenary band based out of Detroit is according to rumour preparing to face you down to kidnap your companion and auction them off to the highest bidder. They're adding a mech every month to their already strong lance of Assaults so it might be wise to pre-empt them and face them sooner rather than later.
17. Rob Anybody enticed a band of pirates to attack you! They're coming for you in a busted up old Union with a short company of ten medium mechs. They're uh not green but certainly not the veteran warriors they present themselves as.
18. Alexandria ever conscious of your sometimes precarious situation has sent you ten tons of your preferred ammunition, a Jonah Gold apple tree and a Ripper VTOL.
19. Both Alexandria and Alban has come to visit your companion at the same time. You're pretty sure that the ambient temperature dropped when they spotted one another. Of course the Maskirovka chose this moment to drop a company of heavy mechs on you. You'll have to hold them off although both Alexandria and Alban were wise enough to bring a lance each as bodyguards so at least the numbers are even.
20. Both Hanse Davion and Katrina Steiner has become aware of the situation and is receiving a briefing on it at this very moment. Only time will tell what comes of this... (Can only happen after three other events has occurred so if less reroll).

[ ] It sucks but it seems like the Draconis Combine has marked you for death. Good luck with that as they'll send progressively more people to do you in if the initial attempts fail. With that said they're unlikely to poison you or just blow you up in orbit. No for the offence of looking exactly like and seemingly sharing the exact same DNA as one of the Gunslingers that humiliated a relative of the Coordinator during the late Star League era you've been marked to fall in combat to an honourable samurai. (Gain 3 fate points and prepare to meet ever increasing amounts of people wielding glorious Nippon steel against you).

[ ] You know what's rough? Having a fifty million C-bill Dead or Alive bounty on your ass and not knowing why. Perhaps you sneezed on a Liao, maybe you deflowered Melissa Steiner in a drunken one night stand or maybe someone just doesn't like your face. Still once you pop up on peoples radar they'll go after you. At least in the Inner Sphere since it seems like that's were your bounty originates from. Your only hope is to track down the source and make them retract it somehow. Good luck with that. Oh and this is something the Bounty Hunter is willing to cash in on. (Gain 3 fate points. Roll a 1d20 every time you interact with someone who travels a one or a twenty means they recognise you.)

A/N Well I shat this out in a couple of hours as I'm stuck on other things. Don't know how balanced it is but well any feedback is welcome.

[I'm still looking for my build for this but the start location is Katinka] Also you should go do builds for Cimbri's CYOA of your own in the BT General thread

Original Build link here: https://forum.questionablequesting....discussions-thread.4740/page-345#post-6882345

Ramble said:
An essence specifically for Battletech or if you want to insert battletech into other settings. I added more stuff to it, and then I thought I might as well make it available here.

Essence of MegaMekLab
You get access to the Megameklab, which looks and functions pretty similarly to the normal megameklab.

-The application can either be downloaded onto a computational device with an appropriately advanced GUI, or can simply be projected out onto the air in front of you. You can expand, minimize, rotate, and toggle the transparency of the screen. You can even make it so other people can see and interact with it if you'd like.
-You add 25 BV to your pool per day and can spend them on whatever you like. You can also use regular money in order to buy something at a rate of 1 dollar to the C-bill. The amount would automatically be deducted. Don't think too hard about where the money goes.
-Upon purchasing an item, it will appear either in front of you, in a safe spot near you, or in a safe orbit above you. Upon purchase, you may chose to instantly gain basic proficiency with the purchased equipment, rating approximately as "Green" initially.
-You may also purchase a specific historical item if you'd like. For instance, you can simply buy a Mckenna-class battleship but you can also buy the SLS Mckenna's Pride if you'd like. The history doesn't cost anything extra.
-Battletechnology is effectively durable enough to need minimal maintenance work at all assuming it's not outright abused or neglected, but you may also choose to gain enough basic proficiency to perform most rudimentary repairs to any equipment you buy. You may also spawn in spare parts for the cost of the Battle Value of each individual part, but a number of components will require a requisite hulk to pull from.
-Any units you buy will come fully fueled and fully loaded with ammunition. Ammunition can be purchased through the MegaMekLab, and fusion reactors can crack water into hydrogen fuel, but petrol, alcohol, and natural gas to feed internal combustion engines will be a continuing issue.
-Any item you buy can also come already crewed if you'd like. These crew start absolutely loyal and you can customize their appearance, personality and backgrounds, but after they spawn in, they become actual people and will have their own opinions, thoughts, and morals. For example, if you spawn in some Eridani Light Horse and tell them to massacre civilians, you're going to have a mutiny on your hands.
-When purchasing an infantry unit, you may chose to get only kit or gain soldiers wearing it.
-You can toggle "normalization" off and on. This makes it so that people will simply shrug and accept machines or people popping up out of thin air or anything anomalous that happened as a result of the Essence. The default is "on".
-Spawned in humans will conform to the physics of the world and any changes that you've made to the world. You may also chose if they need to eat and other facts of life, though this needs to be set from the start and can't be toggled afterward
-Bays and compartments don't come already filled. You need to buy an infantry unit to put it in an APC and you need to buy a mech to put it in a mech cubicle.
-If you'd like, support personnel can also be purchased for one BV each.

Campaign Operations ruleset

-In the case of pairing this essence with a CYOA, you can, before starting the CYOA, pick or build a single unit at the very beginning at no cost. It is recommended that you use this to obtain personal conveyance, but it's not necessarily required.
-Once at the very beginning, you may also use the infantry menu to customize your starting loadout, as well as any advanced gear, implants, or training (anti-mek, marine, Xenoplanetary Conditioning, etc) Your starting skills still count as "Green" though. This is free but you will not get the opportunity again.
-Should it be necessary, your starting personal conveyance and units you spawn in will start with the minimum necessary provisions to last until you reach a place where normal resupply becomes possible.
-You may at the beginning of your journey initiate a "campaign mode" of sorts in order to build up resources and forces more quickly than simply waiting for a long time to wait for the BV pool to fill. This is not necessary, but it could be fun.
-Spawned in humans may also be modified using parts of any cyoa which allows you to construct your or a companion's body/skills/personality (eg. Be the Girl, Big Beefy Husbando, Battle Maid etc.)
-"Campaign Mode" unlocks a "modifier" which forces all units other than capital units or dropships to spawn inside bays. Depending on difficulties or exact settings in the Interstellar Operations rule section, this can also be applied even to dropships and capital units other than space stations.
-"Campaign Mode" can also unlock an MRBC from which you can pull contracts even in universes in which an MRBC does not exist.
-You can toggle automatic repairs/maintenance, meaning the machines will simply maintain themselves. Normally Battletechnology is rugged enough that they don't need a lot of maintenance and repairs are easy even after the machine gets shot to bits. This however makes it so that repairs and maintenance are wholly unnecessary.
-You can toggle automatic Ammunition/Fuel so that both are replenished the moment a unit enters an appropriate unit bay.
-It is possible to buy units in a bulk package should you obtain the necessary resources or have saved up enough BV to do so. These units may be spawned in already grouped up into a unit with a set unit culture and shared values.

Interstellar Operations ruleset (WIP, non-functional currently)

BattleValue is by design a fairly scarce resource in order to encourage careful use and management, however it is understood that it is not necessarily suitable for waging or interstellar wars. Thus, the Interstellar Operations ruleset addon allows for an industrial manufacturing system almost independent from BattleValue.
As land based factories or even land based structures are not covered by MegaMekLab, it is not possible to create land based structures. The standard building blocks of the MegaMekLab Essence industrial ruleset are the 1000 ton machinery space/cargo bay of the MML default small space factory equipped with an SRCS (referred to as "small factory unit" or SFU) and the 6900 ton machinery space/cargo bay of the MML default medium space factory equipped with an SRCS (referred to as "medium factory unit" or MFUs).
SFUs are able to handle the production of simple things such as refining ores, or machining relatively simple components such as armor panels, myomers, spark plugs, mechanical actuators, and steam engines.
MFUs are able to handle manufacturing or assembly of more advanced components using materials from 4 or more SFUs such as "complex" engines, chassis, electronics, and neurohelmets. MFUs are also required for final assembly of a completed unit, assembling the components produced by multiple factory units into a finished unit. Note that a final assembly MFU cannot be used to produce components at the same time.
It's also possible to design additional factories and separating the cargo bay into SFU and MFU units.
In order for a shipyard to manufacture a spacecraft, it must be supported by a constellation of 25 SFUs and 15 MFUs for a dropship, and 50 SFUs and 30 MFUs for a jumpship (either a "normal" jumpship or a warship).
Factories can also optionally be manned, though it does not necessarily confer any sort of bonus.

-It is possible to also set the spawn limitation to also include capital vessels and dropships as well, leaving space stations as the only units which can be spawned into thin air after the initial personal transport spawn.

Errata- LAMs
As it's an extremely divisive topic, you can chose to use the default ruleset or you may modify them in the following ways
>Cancel Advanced technology penalties - use advanced technologies (DHS, Endosteel, Ferro Fibrous Armor) like any other mech
>+2 free thrust (to bring fighter mode in line with normal fighters)
>free wing pylons for drop tanks or bomb munitions
>Transformation time becomes a non-issue

Imperator Pax · Jun 7, 2023

1.2

He stood amidst the tactical operations center of the DropShip that was functioning as a briefing room. There was more than a dozen officers and several times that in terms of enlisted personnel, all heavily caffeinated and and most occasionally steeling handfuls of snacks to keep their energy up over the course of the work. He was hoping that this meeting would manage to yield something which could be put in front of the lords of the Aurigan Reach, and the visiting dignitaries.

ComStar's news reports weren't really that helpful. Big Pirate Big Gun. Lots of mechs. The news service simply didn't deal with hard facts so much as sensational news bulletins. The MRB was slightly more useful since people issued bounties on pirates, and as a result they had nominal tables of known sub units but he could appreciate that some people wer incredulous that the pirate king had so many mechs.

CID and the Regular Military Intelligence wonks weren't sure what to make of the footage. They were willing to admit given the mixed lances, the use of different models as the norm instead of the exception, might have have been skewing data... but it was hard to make heads or tails of anything other than surface level information. There was however a consensus that the story could not be as simple as it was claimed.

Black Jack McGirk had historically piloted an Orion. Fair enough. It was venerable classic hegemony design even without one of star league provenance it made sense for him to have an 'Orion', and then to potentially have to refit or change to another one over his long career. Indeed in the logic of the Terran Hegemony it was better for the pilot to survive and give him a same mech or an improved version than need to star from scratch... but he was a pirate... and there were details that didn't add up.

Black Jack's original Orion at the turn of the previous century digging through the archives available to them seemed typical succession wars era periphery hinterland fare. In or about around 3001 that seemed to have changed. Black Jack's forces had begun to expand showing significantly better equipment. Star League equipment.

It didn't take much to figure that the attack records of the next several years had to have been launched from someone using more complete star charts than what were commonly available. That wasn't per se surprising, but it was noteworthy. The problem that occurred was in the timeline from there. Something had happened in or around 3004. The pattern of activity changed.

There was a probable explanation for that. Sometime before Black Jack's forces had expanded. That was an anomaly not because he had expanded but because the expansion was atypical in its composition. It had reached regimental strength, that was unusual for a periphery bandit kingdom. The most likely explanation for the post 3004 change in behavior was probably some degree of infighting, and political reorienting.

Shortly thereafter however McGirk's equipment composition changed qualitatively again. Again, it improved, and his numbers expanded. Footage from 3006 as he had definitively begun making his away across the Combine's periphery frontier showed his new Orion carrying definitively Star League Royal equipment.

The presence of which, while not impossible, did render the usual explanation of cache find improbable. The snub nosed PPC while seeing initial testing during Jonathan Cameron's reign simply could not have been present in anything other than select royal units... most of whom had likely been sent into the meat grinder of the Hegemony Campaign.

Heron suspected few people had questioned this because Black Jack remained on the move... and because in 3005 the Wolfs Dragoons had appeared with five regiments of pristine battlemechs of their own with the almost certainly bald faced lie that they'd gotten all their stuff out of a cache.

"Suggestions in the event of an attack?"

A naval officer raised his stylus, "Aero Wing deploys and shoots them down in transit. A couple flights of rapiers supported by Wasps come in for gun runs."

He nodded at the response. "And if we have to fight them on the ground?"

Another man shrugged, "It would give us the opportunity to pull their machines internals, figure out where these machines came from. Right now we're working from little more than hearsay."

"Theories on that?" The officer of the watch shook his head, deferring the question, they just didn't have enough data. "Really nothing?"

"Two hundred plus years colonel. Their appearance in the coreward periphery is by itself an anomaly. They are definitively SLDF machines, there is no excuse for why a Brian cache, or a castle would have held some of those items. Its like he unboxed standard equipment at first, and then a few years later finds a ton of Royal gear, sir." The hegemony officer replied.

That was exactly what it was like.

A CID Outpost Castle wouldn't have explained the numbers, and also the AI in a castle shouldn't have given someone like McGirk access... and speaking of access they needed to finish work on restoring the Argo.

--
The Aurigan Coalition had no unified military command except during joint operations. Each noble house provided their own troops, and the House Lords voted on whether they wanted to act collectively to respond to something, or rather in theory how they wanted to respond. To that end, he understood the subtext of the man's question "Well, what do you think of our chances?"

"I was under the impression that the council had voted to hire mercenaries to protect Mechdur?"

"Yes, Markham's Marauders." Espinosa replied. "Commander Markham is a reliable mercenary and he will be supported by house troops from House Gallas at least for the foreseeable future."

There was a rotation schedule for House Decimis, and two other Houses of the Coalition but if there was a serious threat those troops might well be kept at home. "If the planetary government is willing to make accommodations, I can task a ground aero wing of Rapiers to reinforce them." Mechdur was a major hub world you could jump from it to eleven other Aurigan worlds. "In the short term ground assets are going to be limited. Unless the Council wants to reduce defenses around Coromodir VI?"

"No, the council does not support such a move." House Espinosa certainly wouldn't vote to reduce defenses against its sister world when it was a short dropship flight to Coromodir V if they were attack, "Perhaps you could provide, more conventional forces perhaps?"

The Coalition produced its own domestic design of armor vehicles that weren't just copies of the SLDF equipment downteched, "I can provide hovercraft, but things like Maultiers will need to be provided with infantry complements to get the most out of them. Same with Turhan APCs.

The truth was he'd expected more potential trouble from the Combine sending ronins down here to cause trouble, than a potentially conventional fight against SLDF equipment... not sense Zarantha Calderon didn't seem spoiling for a fight... and the Taurians had been the only real considered hostel force given their initial belligerence.

There was a pause, "I'll need time to reallocate forces, and personnel but the plan had been to expand habitation on Katinka and I'm against reducing our force presence on Aea, especially since it would look provocative when we they return home."

"That is a reasonable decision." Espinosa replied. In truth that ended up being the correct call for other reasons. Black Jack would eventually launch a thrust against Aea deliberately targeting the ComStar HPG and attempting to carry off the ComStar presence as presumably slaves. That was another problem... and one potentially faced elsewhere as a reality of periphery warfare. "Do you have any idea how soon that might change? You were able to deploy forces against Fjaldr and to the doorstep of the Magistracy of Canopus after all."

Heron's eyes scanned the throng of Aurigan magnates, nobles, and business oligarchs. In his mind though he was thinking about the contents of Castle Nautilius. Outpost Castles were designed to support an SOF BattleMech Regiment and its supporting forces, and in theory that included DropShips. Nautilius had been left fully intact waiting for a return, but with her stocks intact... why? The question remained, and with no good explanation. He made a vaguely affirmative noise in the back of his throat, and let his eyes slide over the ambassador from House Centrella to the Coalition, thankfully she was busy talking to Tamati's daughter and heir apparent. "A few months at least, ideally March," he said after a moment, "But more practically I may be able to spare forces from Artru, and Tarragona to other worlds by December. Unless you're referring to deployments beyond the Reach, that would be trickier we don't have enough information about McGirk or how he's been able to amass his forces and I'd be lying if I didn't admit that was more than a little worrying."
--
Notes: For sharing: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1UUdhNDI1R_Qkl08LhUezgAxyiiVIy1NDnTubLGqH2Kc/edit#gid=0

Imperator Pax · Jun 15, 2023

1.3

Ana Marie Centrella knew it was important to cultivate close relations with the next generation of planetary leadership. Coromidr was an important world on its own, but there was every indication that Tamati Arano would pass his throne to his daughter, and the formation of the Aurigan March showed no signs of changing that succession. The Aurigan Coalition was just that. It was, and had grown out of a trade partnership and that still reflected in the internal relationships, and the new relationship between the core and the march coming together as a growth of that trade partnership, and free trade area.

That relationship was important for the Magistracy of Canopus to pay attention to, even without the pirate threat currently dominating the news spheres. Pirates typically didn't like attacking well protected targets, and it was rare for a known pirate, and established pirate to mount an attack that was going to draw repercussions unless he was being paid to do so or he needed to bolster his reputation. Out of the blue attacks were more typically associated with pirates who needed to make their bones... and even they were unlikely to mount an attack on a heavily reinforced planetary garrison... but that was no reason to relax.

Black Jack had demonstrated he wasn't the typical sort of pirate. The threat he posed was precisely the sort of thing that required the magistracy to build ties with other periphery nations, and open trustworthy channels of communication... especially since the bastard seemed to be going out of his way to burning HPG stations that prevented word from being beamed out of system and thus spreading warning that his pirates were operating in a given area.

Whether he was typical or not, he was successful and that meant that he'd be attracting all the lesser pirates looking for the prestige of success, and table scraps. The Magistracy's concern was that with the relatively recent raid on Luxen, and before that Detroit in 3015, plus other region instability was that the pirates would come down in force like locusts. That would strain an already over stretched, and limited MAF and so the diplomatic corp had its responsibilities.

She was about to refuse, as a result of those responsibilities, a direct invitation from the heir apparent of the Coalition to the March's ruler. Heron's eyes swept over both of them as he looked up from the table mounted holographic globe. It was an aurigan relic the table, a holdover from the star league era, and it had always been a curiosity that cult of St Cameron wasn't more established in the Aurigan Coalition, which had always been more pro star league than the most post Concordat contraction worlds.

Lord Espinosa hovered over the edge of the table looking at the dots representing worlds. "This is important Kamea," He lectured his niece, "the fate of worlds hangs in the balance. The whole of the coalition could be threatened." The reality was, though of course she was polite enough not to mention it, that as tentative a grasp, as precarious the balance that governed periphery states were any significant pirate force could be a disaster ... Black Jack's force were at least a level exponentially worse than just catastrophe.

"As I was telling your uncle," The other man remarked, "This is a current projection of where we have forces stationed at present. That there are limitations of what can be done. It had been my intention that,"

That his forces could largely be mobilized. That the massive volume of military materiel and especially the conventional ground forces personnel tens of thousands of personnel would be able to be furloughed to set up homes, shops, and work out new civilian lives. Instead whatever they had been planning had to contend with a war against a pirate king.

It was an atypical priority, but on the other hand the composition of forces that made the Aurigan March viable stood out by the nature of its atypical structure. All of it had arrived seemingly with full strategic, that was jump capble, mobility in addition to DropShips.

By demobilizing those troops it would free up a significant volume of JumpShips that would have meant trade flowing between the two rebels. "As it is I'll have to remobilize the 60th Brigade and that may take a few months." He stated without concern for the prospect of a unit of that nomenclature.

Because this was not a discussion of a historical unit that was now a component of political organization rather than regular military deployments. Then the other shoe dropped. It had been established months ago that there were six BattleMech Regiments and an unclear number of supporting other combat arms, and also the necessary droppers and JumpShips.

It was no wonder the Taurians were upset the force based on Aea while comprising a single BattleMech Regiment was supported by two regiments of armor plus mechanized infantry battalions and additional ASF forces.

She watched and counted the other two squares with small 'x's above them appeared. One at Regis Roost, and the other at Katinka. It was information she had been hoping to purloin not information she had expected to just be provided for. The details though were alarming for other reason. There were six marcher worlds

Aea, Regis Roost, Katinka, Artru Qalzi, and the odd one out, the separate, distant Tarragona. She had wondered why, Tarragona but it may have simply been part of the deployment of forces sent out on anti-pirate operations more broadly. A whole regiment had gone out after Grim Sybil, uprooting her from a base on a moon entirely too close to Canopian space, another had dropped on Fjaldr.

He indicated a key calling up the last of the Mech Regiments in question, "Our Light Horse Regiment dropped on Fjaldr to clear out the clans there, but I maybe be able to retask the units of that regiment with others to respond better to our current crisis." Ana Marie assumed that would entail deploying the regiment as part of its constituent battalions... the normal behavior of the succession wars. He continued on, "With Tarragona secured, and the pirates eliminated I can probably accelerate their remobilization, but that will have to be sometime in the new year. I've already said that to Lord Espinosa."

The the older man shrugged.

The summation was that they wouldn't move the forces on Aea it was better they remain and it made sense. She wouldn't have put it past the Taurians to complain that a return to garrison by the forces deployed there currently would be a 'provocation' if they had to be deployed anti spinward, or even potentially just rimward.

"I don't understand you said you needed to remobilize them," Kamea observed.

It was the Taurians. Remobilization of the brigade's supporting units was to insure that the Taurians didn't try and jump the border while other forces were elsewhere. "And beyond that unpleasant realpolitik, Blackjack seems to be aiming to burn down the HPG network, it seems like he's got some grudge with ComStar from the way he goes after them but whether personal or simply murderous pragmatism, Aea has a ComStar HPG on it... besides the Taurians its very likely that Black Jack might mount an attack there."
--
Heron wished that it were that simple. The truth was he couldn't trust ComStar not to be up to something, and he couldn't trust the Taurians either... despite the surprising lack of insanity out of the Taurian current leadership... but they were on the precipice of a larger conflict... and risking the attention of the successor states.

He didn't want to abandon Tarragona but it might come to that, which meant they needed to consider stripping the world... and that was going to be complicated. The larger priority for the forces nominally based on Tarragona was the recovery of the Dobrev and any material related to it.

That would take potentially longer than he claimed, but he hoped it didn't. Getting it done by December would be good, maybe not ideal, but the Dobrev had the potential to be useful in other ways. It would potentially allow them to help prepare the Inner Sphere for the conflict with the Clans... and if the machinery aboard the Dobrev was intact it might also be useful for the Aurigan Coalition to expand its own military industrial complex without being dependent on machinery he generated via essence either c-bills or BV. The intermediary weapons between star league and mature clan production models would be useful for scientists to look at.

Both the existing Aurgians and people who were Star League era personnel.

"What do you make of the report?"

The gray haired man pinched his nose, and took a breath, "With all due respect colonel the comparison between this, Dire Wolf thing you provided me, and the things pulled out of the Dobrev." He paused... "I don't understand why they're not further along. Most of these weapons are incremental improvements of things we already had. Alright the Omni-Mech is impressive, no doubt but these Omni-Vehicles and I would assume that there is an Omni Air equivalent," There was but he'd also only shown the Badger and Bandit vehicles that the Wolf Dragoons had had blackwell introduce, "I would assume they'd have more to show for it if Kerensky's people had two hundred plus years on us."

"Thats a valid point."

There was a timeline projected. Kerensky's flight from the Inner Sphere, and the Dobrev's flight from the clan homeworlds. They had a timeline of the improved models being introduced in what would be called the 'early clan' period... and then what did they have to show for it.

"My bigger concern..."

"Sir?"

"My larger concern is not so much their lack of progress, but the advantage that they may retain in naval tonnage... Intelligence suggests that the Inner Sphere can no longer construct capital scale drives,"

"Hell sir, the intelligence says they can barely build standard JumpDrives. Once our yards are online we'll probably have more JumpShips coming- Oh." He grunted.

"Exactly we're going to need to take precautions, not just against Keresnky's people but against other potential enemy actors. I want us to focus on production of Blackwasp ASF and Pentagon based drone protection systems. I want jump points heavily reinforced as soon as possible."

"Yes sir."

Imperator Pax · Jun 15, 2023

Hegemony Armed Forces/SLDF* (HAF) Organization: *
https://i.4pcdn.org/tg/1471638023717.pdf
(HAF/SLDF BattleMech Organization)
4 Mechs to a Lance
3 Lances + 1 Fighter Lance to a Company*
3 Companies to a Battalion*
3 Battalions to a Regiment
* Platoons/Lances and Companies of Jump Infantry, Vehicle, and Artillery were also attached to each BattleMech battalion & each Company.

(HAF/SLDF Vehicle Organization)
4 Vehicles to a Platoon 3 Lances to a Company 3 Companies to a Battalion 3 Battalions to a Regiment

(HAF/SLDF Infantry Organization)
7 Troops to a Squad 4 Squads to a Platoon 3 Platoons to a Company 3 Companies to a Battalion 3 Battalions to a Regiment

(HAF/SLDF Aerospace Organization)
2 Fighters to a Lance 3 Lances to a Squadron 3 Squadrons to a Wing 3 Wings to a Regiment

(HAF/SLDF Strategic Group Organization)
3 Regiments to a Brigade 3 Brigades + 3-6 Regiments of support units such as artillery to a Division 3 Divisions + to a Corp

(HAF/SLDF Brigade* Organization)
Regular (Most Common) (Battle, Dragoon, or Ranger) Brigade –1 Medium BattleMech + 1 Medium Vehicle + 1 Mechanized infantry Regiment
Heavy Assault (Heavy Cavalry) Brigade – Heavy/Assault BattleMech Regiment + 2 Heavy Armor and Artillery Regiments
Horse (Chasseur, Lancer, or Hussar) Brigade – 1 Light BattleMech Regiment + 2 Jump Infantry + 1 Artillery Regiments.
Light Horse Brigade – 1 Light BattleMech Battalion (All Jump Capable) + 1 Artillery Battalion + 7 Special Forces Battalions (Trained as Combat Engineers and Commandos)
Vehicle Brigade - 3 Vehicle Regiments
Vehicles Division - 9 Vehicle Regiments

* The standard unit of the HAF/early SLDF was the Combined Arms Brigade, made up of 1 BattleMech + 1 Vehicle + 1 infantry Regiment

(Special HAF/SLDF Regiment Organization)
Striker Regiment - 3 Medium BattleMech Battalions + 1 Combined Arms Support Battalion
Light Horse Regiment – 2 Light Battalions + 1 Heavy Mech Battalions

Imperator Pax · Jun 23, 2023

Chapter 1.4

They were in yet another temporary adjournment even as September came to its end. He couldn't stay on Coromodir for much longer, but the Conference continued to just circle unproductively. The dignitaries, both Aurigan lords and high officials, and foreign ones continued their holding patterns. He wasn't really happy about it but there was little that could be done... since truth be told his presence on Coromodir's biggest issue was that it made the use of his Essence difficult.

On Katinka or on another 'marcher world' they could conceal new material. Here that wasn't an option. That was doubly true with so much scrutiny ongoing in the conference. "We suspect this conference could lasts weeks sir."

Potentially longer. Coromodir had an HPG connection, and regardless of the state of the network, or whether Comstar was playing games or a combination of that it was still possible to get messages to and from Taurus.

That meant in theory the Taurian state could send word to its people... and of course in theory so could the canopians. The latter didn't seem as a likely. The Canopian diplomatic mission seemed to have potentially significantly more latitude about discussions in regards to the pirate threat, and that meant greater coordination was potentially going to be possible.

"We're going to need to restructure certain units." Heron remarked. "I want to prepare for a division of assets we have available in order to respond." He didn't want to have to abandon Tarragona because there was the Mother program there, and limited SLDF assets there otherwise besides the orbital platform... it would have been nice if they could feasibly jump the platform to Katinka, or Artru but that seemed like a serious potential hurdle... and it assumed that Mother Bear could be safely prepped for a jump involved... so for now that was all sitting in limbo while they sat here.

To that end at least they could start the paperwork on their options were. IN the case of a light horse regiment the planning was simple enough. Especially in the context that a Dire Wolf cost just short of 30 Million c bills... it really made the prospect of simply pairing off battalions to add hovercraft and some mech infantry coupled with artillery support. He didn't necessarily need the essence for that, surely the Aurigans had thumpers in service and could provide mech infantry that would be good, but it was going to be something to discuss later... and hopefully wouldn't be something that became hopelessly bogged down in committee meetings.

That really was the great weakness of the Aurigan coalition... but Heron hoped that their mere presence had butterflied away any idea that Espinosa might have had of considering a coup. That was the last thing they needed... but he didn't get that vibe from the man... maybe he just wasn't desperate enough yet... maybe in canon Tamati and Serena's death had just been the straw that broke his back. Santiago was frustrated by the indecisive mire of the high lords and their dithering but he didn't seem to be at the breaking point.

It was something to watch though, but on the other hand it was hard to miss that Santiago had a point on the vulnerabilities the dickering of the council had. The challenge it presented to the security of the coalition.

There was a pause, and Heron looked at the SLDF officer, "What do you suggest?"

"While cooperation with the Taurians is inadvisable , might we be able to spare a battalion as trainers and advisors? The Canopians aren't nearly as uncivilized." The officer remarked.

"That's a potential option," He admitted. He certainly found cooperating with the Magistracy of Canopus a bit more palatable but that would require negotiations and it would take time.

He had idly been considering standing up mech production lines inside the coalition. Dragon, and Griffins at Panzyr and Smithon but there were obviously problems with that, not the least of which was that would be painting a target on both former Capellan worlds. The last thing they needed was at this stage was to bring the sick man of the inner sphere into the periphery and worse potentially draw the attention it would bring if they drove the capellans back out. That would have to go on the back burner for a while.

Heron sighed and flipped through some of the other ideas, but they were limited to either the coalition council managing to find a mild enough solution everyone could agree to, or delaying any unilateral action until after they could return to Katinka and the safety it provided.
--
Lord Tamati was a little shocked by the sudden proposal. "Realistically you're already hosting a battalion of the mechs in question." The colonel remarked looking out over the castle's defensive field. "The Thunderbolt is a fine mech." He continued.

Coromodir was the system at the heart of the Aurigan Coalition. It was considered to be inner sphere civilization, it housed a large population, in the safety of the biosphere terran worlds. There was already manufacturing based in the system. The population were not illiterate techno-barbs.

Santiago, his brother in law, looked torn between outright salivating at the prospect of expanding the Espinosa family mechworks to actually be in a position to do more than just refit battlemechs. They were talking about constructing new battlemechs.

It was being described as an operational solution though. Coromdir could begin reinforcing its forces domestically for the coalition. "What about you?"

"If the current schedule holds Archer production should begin in December," He turned away from the window of the former Taurian fortress, "You may want to consider refurbishing and restoring the defenses here as well. Assuming that that can be done without involving the council at large. Beyond that most likely I'll pull the two Light BattleMech Battalions that were deployed on Fjaldr, and attach organic artillery, if you can provide a couple battalions each of MechInfantry that should be able to provide some coverage elsewhere."

It had taken the council several months to consider, contemplate, coordinate and so on to get the mercenary contract for Marhkam's marauders to protect Mechdur. They had lucked out that it hadn't dragged out much longer otherwise the mercenary battalion likely would have been snapped up by the Magistracy, or potentially the Taurians as the scope of the threat became clear. Mechdur was a critical world for the Coalition, but it wasn't the only world, and trying to further reinforce it might create arguments in council.

"House Decimis or House Karosas."

"Both," Espinosa replied to his brother in law. "Decimis, Panzyr has a ComStar presence its HPG station may be a target, leaving aside the that we cannot permit the schools and academies operated by House Karasos to be attacked so Smithon must also be protected."

The colonel turned raising an eyebrow at the mention of the two worlds in question, but didn't argue with Santiago's logic.

"We have to be vigilant." Santiago continued, "I admit that Tyrlon is a potential target and that House Gallas surely presents a tempting target to conventional pirates, but that is the problem. They are all tempting targets to conventional pirates, and Black Jack has proven to be anything but. If we are to begin construction of domestic battletech industries we must insure that House Karosas can train new engineers for the reach, and we cannot afford to lose our connection to the wider HPG network."
--
Kamea Arano, and her cousin Victoria had always known the third succession war. Indeed the Aurigan Coalition was a state that had only been established as the 3rd Sucession war had dragged on. The official founding of the coalition dated to 2910, and ties with the Magistracy of Canopus had begun shortly thereafter, but even before it had become an independent stellar nation it only dated to after the war had begun.

The Aurigan Coalition had only ever known the 3rd succession war. It was therefore after 150 years of low intensity conflict to consider that in a decade the 3rd succession war would be recognized to over. It certainly didn't seem that way to anyone in 3016. It didn't seem that way with the pirate threat looming.

Coromodir was not the most populous system in the Reach, but it wasn't sparsely populated either, especially not by the standards of the Periphery. Coromodir was at risk from a pirate threat. That gathering cloud was just the beginning of what would be obscured by later threats, by the great catastrophes of the 31st century. For historians of the Rimward periphery this era would come to be known not as the last years of the 3rd Succession War, but rather by another more regional name. The Pirate Wars, but in the latter half of 3016 such a pronouncement would have seemed a bit absurd certainly while their parents had discussed the pirates on Fjaldr and they had been glued to holo news presentations of Grim Sybils escapades across the rimward periphery frontier they weren't prepared for what would play out over the next few years.

The Pirate War would give way to a resurgence in prosperity. A renaissance, and flowering of a great state in the rimward periphery. Even if as a state it would be overshadowed by the growing power and prestige of the Federated Suns, and the subsequent union of the Suns and the Commonwealth that promised its own Renaissance.

Imperator Pax · Jun 29, 2023

Chapter 1.5

Heron stared at the data... not that he hadn't been looking at it all morning. Given the limitations of jump travel ... without even factoring in other limitations it was hard to make sense of the historical entry. What sense if any did the Taurian Canopian war of the early 29th century make? It didn't matter. It was history, and it was really the worlds in question that were the more important concern.

The Herotitus Crisis had entailed details of spheres of influence, possession even of four worlds. The worlds were Herotitus, rather obviously given the alternate name for the conflict, Detroit, Portland, and Spencer.

The parcel of worlds weren't even within a single jump of one another. Shouldn't they have had better things to fight over? Still the history was a potential complicating factor to their problem. The Taurians really shouldn't have had any leverage or grounds to complain, in 2813 the Aurigan Coalition had not existed. The four worlds in question along with many others had all been independent of Taurian overlordship for more than a century, but the Taurians had complained about Aea and others.

On the other hand Tamati, and the Canopian ambassador were right about the security vulnerabilities. It was unlikely that Black Jack had come all this way to try and set up his own little pirate kingdom in the middle of the rimward periphery he'd made too many enemies for that. If he tried to set up within such easy distance of the border with the Inner sphere well he'd potentially get some kind of mercenary force mustered after him.... but he could feasibly use those planets as temporary bases.

Or create enough chaos that semi friendly bandit kingdoms with some degree of legitimacy took root. The Canopians were concerned about worlds like Astrokazy or worse if Black Jack turned his attention towards their other border the one opposite Aurigan space. Apparently there were some roman cosplaying Lyrans who had set up something called the Marian Hegemony.

Of course given the limits of interstellar travel he doubted that they would have had much concern. Or at least far less of one... 'they' being the Aurigan Coalition. On the other hand part of Tamati, and the Ambassador's point had merit, ignoring the problem, and ignoring their neighbors wouldn't be productive in the situation they were faced with.

The problem was it wasn't two hundred years ago. It wasn't back when the Magistracy and the Taurians had enough hardware left over from the SLDF and Kerensky's march on Terra and subsequent dissolution of the League to get in such slap fights. For Herotitus the closest basing world would be Panzyr, which would also have the benefit of not being right on the border with the Capellans. That Panzyr met Lord Espinosa's criteria as well for its HPG presence was another reason to plan for it.

The problem was trying to cover Portland if they were going to reduce forces at Tarragona. The worlds of Detroit and Spencer just simply could not be covered by forces based in the Coalition. The Magistracy couldn't cover either of them by the same metric... which was a problem because Detroit was almost surely a tempting target.

A few hours later he had turned his attention to other technical reports. XL versions of the VLAR 300 had existed in the Star League era, but they hadn't been common. Even if they had he doubted they would have survived the war with Amaris much less the succession wars. The XL versions of Fusion Engines of the Star League were too fragile subject to damage, but if there was one thing he could say it was the Clan spec XL significantly reduced that vulnerability.

They certainly weren't as robust as a heavier standard fusion engine, but the XL in the Dire Wolf made a lot possible. It was true that coupled with DHS and a smorgasbord of weapons the Dire Wolf couldn't effectively mount Ferro-fibrous protection... but he was more interested in the report of what SLDF technical personnel made of the clan spec systems.

Not that he could introduce those at this stage. He figured he had some leeway for introducing Star League era equipment. Even endo-steel frame mechs like the guillotine wouldn't necessarily warrant as much attention as suddenly producing the Dire Wolf... especially since it had only entered production after the Dragoons had arrived.

Moving production of a heavy battlemech to the Aurigan capital was going to raise eyebrows from the outside looking in, but he'd already decided on that course of action. Once production was in progress they could even begin plans to draft a version of the Catapult with major parts commonality in mind with the Thunderbolt. They'd need to among other things standardize on Medium Lasers, and engines, and missiles launchers.

If they hadn't already been fielding large numbers of Thunderbolts he might have considered more seriously the suggestion to forget the Catapult project and instead of the Thunderbolt contemplate a variant Crusader, but at this stage that was bit too far. The Catapult's inclusion was also a further carrot to increase Aurigan military exports. Introducing one mech might have a limited effect, but he was counting on that the Magistracy, and some of the worlds in between would be interested in spending money on military expenditures and the Thunderbolt might not meet everyone's interest.

It was nominally a longer term investment.

He flipped through the secure packet until he reached the information on the 90 ton assault mech. The Pulverizer had been one of those designs aboard the Dobrev. It was most interesting because it carried clearly intermediary tech, systems half way between standard royal technology of the 28th century and the systems aboard the Dire Wolf. That was useful for the techs to look at, even if the Pulverizer was otherwise nothing special as command mechs of the late star league went. Of course the Dobrev had also carried that Bullshark thing, among other mechs. All of that would need to b e carefully secreted away; including the Dobrev herself.

None of this material could leave the DropShip... and the sooner they were back on Katinka the better, because there was a lot of this sort of thing.
--
Ana Marie Centrella watched the force structure animation as it changed. The noble houses of the Aurigan Reach had been feudatory structures. The ruling house lords had been able to call upon their battalions for military service, and in consensus rally themselves to face threats.

Heron Arsacid had the loyalty of an army. She didn't recall the exact wording he had used with Santiago Espinosa but it had involved something along the lines of given a few months he could pull Rhinos and Maultiers out of storage and ship them along with trainers to begin preparing Aurigan troopers for their use. Apparently one of the first things that had been done was to start preparing to mothball those vehicles as Arsacid's forces had started settling the worlds in the March.

... but also that there was to be an upgrade program for the Aurigan indigenous Vargr and that the Aurigan March would be transferring the machinery to produce 240 grade Fusion Engines in the next year. The same engine which powered a number of Gray White Hellcats that had been deployed to the Aurigan Capital as part of a Ground Aero Wing.

It was a long list of terms and machines that taken all together should have been in the history books not a contemporary report. The most obvious explanation was that Black Jack wasn't the only one who'd had a real lucky strike when they'd found a cache and the comparisons to the Wolf Dragoons wrote themselves.

The problem was the Cobmine's reaction, it had always been the Combine's reaction to Arsacid personally. The Combine probably did care about that amount of metal, but there were the Davions and Taurians, and really the capellans between them and the Colonel's six 'Mech regiments.

"Hypothetically, though I'd advice against it at this stage, is that a Striker Regiment could be subdivided into three smaller Medium BattleMech Regiments by attaching regiments of vehicles, and mech infantry...."

The reason that wasn't an option was that the Aurigans didn't have the manpower for that. The Aurigan council immediately made clear that they couldn't conscious such an expenditure in the short term. That deadlocked the conversation. It was about money, and manpower, and materiel... and Ana Marie instantly saw the other potential pitfall.

Santiago Espinosa wasted no time excoriating some of the hold outs on the council. He had clear allies among the councilors were supportive of his military expenditure proposal. It didn't work, but she suspected the lord of Coromodir V had done it for the chance to engage in the theatrics of rhetoric. The councilors constituted a legislative body, and in all likelihood Espinosa likely expected that once the March worlds elected their representatives to the council he would have the votes to force through a military spending bill.

The Arsacid Margravate contained five world, bringing the total number of systmes comprising the coalition to 23. That meant once they were seated Heron's elected representatives would represent just over a quarter of the worlds in the reach, and there was little doubt given his outline of joint forces they would vote for affirming the proposal. Add those five worlds voting to the Coromodir votes and House Parata's opposition party could levy the votes to deadlock the matter of supporting the spending of central revenues, and the need for taxes, to support conventional forces being called up on a likely permanent basis...

--
Notes: I need to get back into my rewatch of Eminence in Shadow I have an update that was supposed to go up tuesday but certain IRL shit happened and fucked my free time

Imperator Pax · Jul 6, 2023

Chapter 2

The Aurigan attempt to gather its neighbors had resulted in data packets being generated on the various independent worlds, but by the time the gathering had been adjourned indescivively the next big event had taken place on the subject matter. Luxen had suffered a second pirate raid, and this one definitively associated with Black Jack McGirk's band of pirates.

The raid had been successful though it did suggest somewhat less clear control, more typical of the usual control a pirate king had on his followers. Luxen's precentor had managed to beam out a final message pleading for aid a message which had ended with Olaf Fredericksen getting clubbed in the head by a strung out looking pirate before dragging the Precentor off camera.

The Pirates had done a lot of damage and then left.

Precentor Fredericksen might be alive, he might be dead. There was no way to be sure.. but at least he had gotten a word off even if it had been a shot in all directions through the network. Not that he knew exactly what worlds it had bounced through, but it didn't really matter. The point was it had happened, and fuck if ComStar wasn't going to play up this horrible thing since they couldn't conceal that it had happened.

It was all the more reason that Espinosa demanded reforms be undertaken. That the need for unanimous consensus among the council to deploy forces federally simply was not practical. That the threat being what it was was not something that could be solved by proposed half measures of creating federal regions ala the Davion March system... but even that which was the closest to be accepted was unpopular.

The councilors in opposition still maintained that the expense entailed supporting such forces was too much to yield. Heron wouldn't have minded a constitutional solution if he thought there was time to work one out... but the attack on Luxen could have been anywhere in the Reach. There was also the fact that the previous Aurigan Coalition JumpShip situation was no longer a valid complaint to raise to stymie large scale military deployment... though paying, training, and equipping troops was.

The opposition under House Parata wasn't being contrary just for the sake of being contrary. There was a very real issue of funding a large scale expansion of the Reach's military. Pay roll and training weren't going to be cheap and nor would procurement and acquisition contracts even if they weren't to Aurigan businesses.

Thus they remained deadlocked, stuck at a seeming insurmountable difference of opinions. He had no good point of comparison to make the political deadlock. Nothing immediately sprang to mind because the Aurigan state was young and small.

The New Dallas native shook his head, his stetson resting on his knee, "We have no options. Remobilization is not practical." A mech company in theory was capable of operating in the field with about sixty people total. That included support like techs and logistics. That wasn't true even of HAF Infantry that operated with small seven man squads, and it certainly wasn't true of tank companies where a squadron was 4 vehicles each of which had a crew to contend with. Furloughing troops and demobilizing them was a key part of colonizing the March worlds. They certainly couldn't be recalled quickly to then redeploy off world, especially since part of that demobilization had been the planned reallocation of their units space lift capacity for commercial purposes.

Castle Brians were unfeasible at this stage, but fortifications didn't have to be full Castles on that scale. "We could make improvements on the Outpost Castles. Significantly reinforce their turret layout, admittedly." The Nirasaki native shook her head, "If we begin deploying ground combat vehicle drones someone is bound to notice but autonomous weapon platforms were intended to maximize the value of every terran soldier on the field. That more than ever is a maxim we should consider."

There was no disagreement from around the table.

Aea was the first obvious choice for that option. Katinka and Artru already had existed Castle Outposts built by CID that would help them conserve resources. The addition of Tarragona raised the number of Aurigan Coalition worlds to 23, but once operations there were completed they could trade the world for consolidated space for the interim... so Aea first.

Regis Roost, and Qalzi after.

Expand the defenses of Katinka beyond what were in place following that, as time and resources allowed them to muster. The problem was Black Jack was either authorizing attacks across the Rimward periphery expanding to include targets like Luxen in the Magistracy of Canopus... or his command and control was insufficient to prevent attacks from being carried out by individual sub units within his kingdom of cut throats.

Both of those were bad in different ways.
--
For Santiago Espinosa his opposition to the proposed codification of the March System was no that it was an attempt to emulate the Federated Suns. Rather, his opposition stemmed from that it established a poor precedent to work from. The Arsacid March made sense. It was true he was mildly jealous prospect of someone who could call on that kind of military power using personal forces. That wasn't the problem. The problem was that any attempt to create a northern march would inevitably reward bad behavior by worlds that did not meaningfully contributed to the coalition military...

... that wasn't to say that Santiago believed the Mechdur was a drain on coalition resources far from it, but that it made the most sense for a central planning position. Guldra provided a better Jump point than Coromodir... so no he opposed the proposed compromise of Federal Military deployment, but he especially opposed it without a realistic expansion of the Coalition's military budget. It was patently absurd that House Parata could not see these things, and it was ridiculous to expect that the full burden of military deployment and the majority of funding to support troops should fall to those worlds with noble lords at their helm.

An argument, that he personally found convincing was that of a defense in depth. That Coromodir, and also Katinka could be used as staging points. They were three jumps from each other, and each three jumps from Mechdur. He understood Mechdur's unwillingness to tender full control of its planetary defenses to federal control, but the merchants should have seen it was obvious that they couldn't lead the defense.

A compromise might be found in a mercenary commander of experience. Commander Markham seemed competent enough to fill this roll. The alternatives were limited. His niece Kamea as heir apparent to the realm did not have the age or experience, the same problem effected his daughter Victoria. Sir Raju as head of the Royal Guard, and royal tutor, was not option as he was needed on Coromodir.

His brother in law had jokingly suggested he take up the post of command but that was absurd. Santiago would have been ready to throttle the intransigent planetary rulers within a week he was sure... they were expected to make too many compromises, regardless of how reasonable some of them seemed on their face the threat they were faced with made such dangerous.

"Well what do you think Santiago?"

"Hmm," He stopped pacing, "Markham is really our option. I am concerned about how beholden he would be to Mechdur's leadership, even if it is the federal government signing his paychecks," So to speak, and his sister smirked at his turn of phrase, "but we have no one else really." Santiago shrugged throwing his cape back, "He has your confidence, he is really our only option."

"Is that the only problem?" Serena questioned.

"It is the only major problem," He replied. There were other worlds they were going to need to consider, but those could be kept out of council decisions. They could be made between noble houses. The protection and mutual defense of Karsosas could be conducted between noble houses... and frankly, "It will be easier to shield Karosas, and Decimis its almost ideal really Victoria and Kamea both could do with some seasoning to see the military trade." They could be deployed together or separate but it would be almost ideal to have them take the opportunity to prepare them for command... when they were adults.
--
Heron's ambitions were not in ... there was not a plan for an Aurigan Renaissance. If anything he rather disliked the very idea the renaissance as a pop culture impressment on history if not out and out propaganda, but that wasn't the problem. The March needed to be strong enough to be self sufficient, not in an autarkic sense, but rather in the broadly economic sense.

What he had in mind was the sort of state hood that the Mother Doctrine was supposed to prevent... and certainly what Holy Shroud was opposed to. He hadn't contended with his fledgling colonies having to face the pirate threat... or more correctly having to face this pirate threat... and all the attention it would inevitably invite.

The data didn't add up. There weren't enough pieces, but either Black Jack had gotten much better about smashing HPG stations or ComStar was lying about the damage the pirate king had done on the Lyran Periphery. There was an ... blank space ... in activity a gap in time where it didn't seem like Black Jack had been active. He didn't seemed to, or at least there were no reports of significant activity on the Draconis periphery until 3007, and even then it was his reappearance as he continued to move rimward along the periphery borders of the great states. He had most likely hit in the outworlds alliance after but that was hard to prove... and from there eventually made his way to Tortuga.

Sometime between those points the attacks against ComStar installations had begun to tick up... with the attack on Luxen being just the most recent and most especially blatant. It was the attack on Luxen that was the particular concern. The Province of Luxen in the Magistracy of Canopus was vestigial now, like most states Canopus had been forced to shed and abandon worlds and consolidating in the regression of territorial expansion as the league came apart at the seems.

Logically if they were going to start distributing trainers then they should have gone to an Aurigan military academy first, but there was no Aurigan military institute of higher learning. The Aurigan Coalition Military had a standard -ish military curriculum which was based off of the star league manuals adapted to contend with the realities of succession war tech decline and the limits of what the economic sustain but there was no formal academy of military science.

He might have wanted to address that... but now wasn't the time.

The solid light manifested into an array of status screens.

There was an easy exploit to the Essence... well there were actually several, but he did often wonder where if anywhere sold goods ended up. The Ground mobile HPGs had no BV value but were exorbitantly expensive... and while it would noticeable if he had to summon a whole regiment of mechs... and depending on how closely they had been watching they would likely notice new units... but... he needed more Hegemony troops ... the question was what units?
--
Notes: This sets up for Blackhearts equivalents, and also 'survivors' of / a revived Royal Scotts Dragoons (if you read Ghost Who Walks this is the unit killed there on Northwind during the Amaris Crisis) and thats relevant down the road. Indeed this timeline and GWW operate using a lot of the same fluff just from different perspectives and to different results.

For example Heron's hated by the Combine status will be getting addressed soon in both stories from different angles.

Imperator Pax · Jul 6, 2023

Bofors40mm said:
Honestly at this point got to wonder just how much of Comstar's warship fleet or at least its active one is trying to hunt down Black Jack

One of the key differences here rather than Ghost is that the Battle for Luxen in September 3015 is that in Ghost Gene & Friends kill the pirates, the ComStar compound doesn't get breached Olaf doesn't get abducted, the HPG doesn't get smashed

Here? Well as we just had stated, Gene isn't on Luxen in September, there are mercenaries but there [that is in GWW] is significant command and control and better defensive position to meaningfully stop the pirates before the damage gets done.

and of course in terms of divergence:

The loss of the HPG and recording of the abduction and the well publicized video of the abduction of a precentor is a big deal, but also ComStar has to deal with, what Black Jack knows, what he might know and other factors related to Jolly Roger, but also

There is Kristofur running around.

There is the fallout from the Vandenburg white wings, that will crop up.

There is fallout / investigation of Tarragona and the Dobrev, first by Inner Sphere but also ComStar and the Wolfs

There is a certain Vincent Corvette

There is a mass driver equipped warship of Rim World Origin that will make an appearance.

So yes unlike in Ghost ComStar's first circuit is much more in the likelihood of wanting to go big sooner rather than wanting to deescalate the risk to themselves

Imperator Pax · Jul 12, 2023

Chapter 2.2

There were certain realities thousands upon thousands of Hegemony personnel had to come to a reckoning with.

First and foremost was the issue of recognizing that the Star League was gone. There was no Star League and thus no nominal ties of suzerainty of a central command. The Magistracy of Canopus was a potentially friendly nation yes, but they were not working from within the Star League structures. Any military assistance or military assistance command was also going to be beholden to other facts on the ground of the post League political order.

The Magistracy needed to be treated, and interacted with a a political equal. It was an independent state... and frankly given their situation they could not afford the chauvinism that the Inner Sphere still seemed to have retained in the face of their own decline.

Theoretically, discounting that it was splashed presumably all over the news, Luxen was far enough out of the way from the Successor States that they wouldn't have to contend with undesirable attention from Marik, or Liao.

... on the other hand there was the recent Marik civil war, and the incoming rumors of posturing from both states during the conflict. Marik and Liao though didn't seem to have been effected by the pirate attacks, but moving anti spinward it seemed Black Jack had launched attacks on the Taurians and on the Davion frontier.

"Best guess of course given the raids is that they're still based out of Tortuga. The units that attacked Luxen might or might not be SLDF machines, we are at this time, thinking they were, but they were certainly not built for Hegemony use."

That report wasn't so much of a relief, especially not with the ending statement. It was good news per se, but also akin to saying it was only a 'small' hurricane that had hit Luxen rather than a class five, or some other analogy. There were some other anomalies. The previous, apparently unrelated attack on Luxen had been connected to the attack on Detroit...

... and well they'd finally gotten a reasonably accurate, they believed run down, of what all had been taken. Coupled with the minimal civilian, not none, casualties it raised other questions. The only reason they had looked twice was the prescence of SLDF designs, and specifically configurations among the light mechs used by the attackers.

They hadn't come to a sufficiently convincing answer though for those attacks. Conventional Piracy, raiding state sponsored or otherwise made little sense for the attack on Detroit. The structure of the two attacks besides broadly speaking general direction of apparent origin ... well the latter seemed to be coincidental. That was actually more of a headache really.

"Why do I get the feeling that suggests that we have other problems."

The original Jenner had been a scout fire support platform. Of sorts. It was a mech intended to scout forward and fire its large laser but otherwise keep itself out of the way. A large laser was a credible threat to smaller machines, and its speed should have allowed the 7A version designed for the star league to remain at range, to kite, and to direct missiles over the horizon even without target acquisition gear or narc launchers or the like.

The Jenner in its original configured should have been uncommon, but it was a Jenner the machines weren't unheard of. The holographic image of the other mech, projected up into the middle of the table, though... that was a whole other issues.

"This is a gunslinger's mongoose, what's worse, is that we have copies of the signal intercepts recordings. Whether or not anyone has the encryption material to break the signal, we can't be sure, but the Mongoose in question are certainly League, and Hegemony machines. This GX series is not the only one but we can confirm Nirasaki deployed units, Altair, a couple of Alpha Centauri machines."

Centauri was the odd one out of that trio. Sometimes referred to as Rigil Kentaurus the world had been added into the Lyran Commonwealth according to modern maps. Nirasaki and Altair were occupied presently by the Draconis Combine. The combine's official story was that the 'pirates' who had attacked Detroit and then apparently moved on to hit luxen were deserters from the Arkab legions... which seemed plausible... but it did raise other questions.

The Combine had seen fit to send a relatively sizable force of JumpShips with substantial corporate backing to make a nuisance of itself in the periphery over the matter. Heron thought about the Catapult pilot who'd thought it was the height of honorable to insist on a duel to the death against him... him and his NightStar

... they were going to have problems with the Combine. At least, thankfully they weren't right on the Combine border... from all reports about jumpship capability there just weren't enough. The idea that warships had completely disappeared was baffling, the technological backslide even accepting the Hegemony and its scientists and infrastructure were gone regardless of how backward and authoritarian some of the member states had become it seemed a strange twist of fate... but the dream of house Cameron was dead.

They had to accept that. There was no legitimate successor, and even if there had been without the economic core how could the league exist without the hegemony. "Well our first priority is going to be securing the frontier, we will have to contend with an additional challenge. Frankly not just these pirates and their stolen machines. What are our options there?"

"In theory, assuming we had an AI and the correct codes we could broadcast a command override. I'm willing to wager money that those machines aren't being piloted with proper credentials."

"Would that work?" Someone down the table from the engineer asked.

Another engineer shook his head, "No, it wouldn't." An argument started to brew, "What he's proposing might succeed against machines with correctly configured security systems, but I've seen how the locals have been doing to their machines. These people think technology is fucking magic. These ComStar people are toaster worshippers for god's sake."

"That's all the more reason it should work," The first engineer grunted. "Without properly configured credentials an emergency override command from an AI should tell the computer to shut down."

"M-2500." An artillery major announced interjecting between the two, "Forget the computers we outfit headhunter units and just saturate any position. Yes the hits on the mech's cockpit will seriously reduce potential elint gains but it would allow us to minimize the threat."

"Those aren't reliable. Heaven forbid one of these lunatics is-" The mechwarrior trailed off as Heron held up a hand to stymie his outburst... and the man slowly sat back down, "What I am protesting is that the 2500 is not reliable even discounting certain conditions beyond the missiles parameters the HHMs either hit or they don't, they consume space and the slightest bit of ecm means they tend to miss. If they're fielding Hegemony mechs they probably have that, and AMS. No we need to deploy hunter seeker teams, this is a mechwarrior problem."

"Oh right." An ASF regiment commander snorted, "Boss my boys will make sure they never even get dirt side... and if I'm wrong the ones who do yeah they'll be easy pickings." He boasted.

The staff devolved from there with each combat arm readily wanting their branch's favorite solution to be the one chosen.
--
The Noble Court of the Draconis Combine stood in painful silence as the reigning Coordinator ranted. The Coordinator's aunt, and the keeper of house honor had been permitted to sit while everyone else stood. Only his lifetime childhood friend dared stand close to him... but it had also been Indrahar who had confirmed independently the findings of the order of the five pillars and the keeper of honor. Florimel's confirmation would have been enough though to shame the dragon.

... Arsacid would have the most dangerous of knowledge in the universe. He had to have it in his possession ... and that he had appeared so close to where they had lost track of the traitors who had absconded with a fragment of such an incriminating nature was entirely too suspicious. It could not be mere coincidence it smacked of treason... some one with the Combine had found the demon lord's tomb in the periphery and freed him from whatever accursed eternal slumber he should have remained forever in.

... and so the ranting continued, nervously waiting for either someone, preferably someone else, to become the target of the coordinator's wrath or for Florimel or the ordinarily smiling bespectacled command to guide the coordinator into a less fearsome repose.

There was only one thing that could be done.

No one protested the writ granting ronin leave to face the demon king. It was a call to honor after all... and all samurai would be honored to serve House Kurita. Heroes would go forth into the periphery to hunt the demon... but even Takashi admitted that their chances were slim. They faced certain death in honorable battle since as it had been two and a half centuries earlier scrawled in the diary was the fond recountings of the destruction of life, and a love for the carnage the Marauder pilot had unleashed in battle against his enemies.

... and by itself that would have been something hardly worth remembering... but then the Amaris crisis had erupted, and choices had to be made.
--
Notes: So like I said this is relevant (The kuritan side of things) to Ghost and ghost's details are relevant to this they're just from different perspectives. Note that while Arsacid pilots a Nigthtstar currently he would have been piloting a royal Marauder at the time of departing for the periphery to fight the rebels.

That's relevant because this will be expounded on in later updates.

Anyway, this is going up today, theoretically july updates Eminence in Shadow should get updated Friday, I hope. My drow cyoa fic should hopefully get updated next week ... i've been slacking next week hopefully update emberverse and out of the dark (weber) stuff as well [plus this and rabid fox] but thats tentative for those first three. [Rabid fox is at least ready to go indeed we're moving into chapter 3 at the moment]

Imperator Pax · Oct 3, 2023

Chapter 2.3

The holographic image were of a series of garishly painted JumpShips. Prominent among their number were the star and crescent, and split sword motifs of the Azami sect, which put them quite a ways from the original worlds they had settled during the first exodus from Terra.

"We should track them down."

Heron weighed the response to that statement. "That seems impractical, Delaney." He informed the other man after a moment. The naval officer didn't seem particularly deterred by that observation. "They went off into the deep periphery. Given what they took with them I think we can hypothesize that they mean to find some life sustaining world in the deep rim and set up a colony off the books."

They didn't have the manpower for that even in the best of situations. Delaney was right it had the potential to be a security risk. "Even if we assume the best of intentions they'll still be out there."

"Yes, yes they will, but we don't have the resources for a wild goose chase. We can't go chasing combine deserters into the black, regardless of what they might able to tell us. Our priority at the moment is preparing the defenses, we can't spare JumpShips, the request is denied."

They moved on. The parts of the periphery that they knew what it looked like in the modern day... which worse than it had been during the the early 28th century... if one were being honest. Damn Amaris... but he supposed the core of human civilization had made its share of mistakes as well... the Ares conventions had meant well of course but they had been about protecting civilized combatants. One side using nukes abrogated any restrictions moral or otherwise to not retaliating... and in some cases that was just the excuse some commands had been looking for to put down less advanced societies so they could enrich themselves at their expense.

Whatever the case, no one wanted to be put in a situation where nukes came back into play, but it was late in the year 3016, and the Star League had been dead for hundreds of years, "We have to assume likewise from what we know of the Dobrev that there was a civil war between Kerensky's deserters enough that these Wolverine people split off as well." It hadn't been hard to learn about the famous interstellar mysteries like the Minnesota tribe or the Vandenburg white wings.

Never mind all of hte political important stuff that had cut through the Inner Sphere, and the Member States of the League in the time since House Kurita had inaugurated the Succession Wars. For Heron Arascid it was the tipping factor as more and more ships were 'offloaded', and personnel 'de iced'.

If they were to push forward with what originally had been on the list then sooner or later it wouldn't just be the pirate king or the Taurians it would be the modern sick man of the Inner Sphere, and they weren't ready to face the capellans. "We can reasonably infer that McGirk will prioritize the HPG stations first but we cannot assume he will ignore targets in preference to waiting." Vendetta against ComStar or not he was a pirate, he was probably after loot... and space was not a flat plane.

It was the Inner Sphere not the Inner disk after all, even if there was only so far up or down from the 0,0,0 coordinates of Terra before the logistical hurdle imposed by that distance created its own set of problems.
--
In the strictest sense the neo feudal order of human society had begun with idealism. In the division of labor and the idealism of settling new worlds that were not Earth. The practical aspects of feudalism in space continued to exist alongside various forms of selecting leadership and a myriad of beliefs but the realities of transport and communications imposed factors on emerging human societies... after all plenty of people left the nascent Terran state explicitly with the intention of getting away from Earth, and within a century or so depending on when one wanted to measure the exodus from the first generation of colonies entailed people leaving those for differences.

With almost a thousand years of common fusion power behind humanity for the most part governments could take the shape of any combination of different parts that might have struck a late 20th century audience as anachronistic, but the 31st century very little was too strange, especially in the periphery.

To that end from a political perspective, it was only the attention that the Combine was paying to the events in the Rimward Periphery that attracted attention from the other great houses. Simple distance though prevented the Combine's interest from stirring greater response from the Lyran Commonwealth, and House Marik of the Free World's League were still reeling from their recent civil war, but unlike the others House Marik was the current employer of the already renowned throughout the inner sphere the wolf dragoons mercenary corp.

The latter of whom were paying attention.

For House Davion a potential counterweight against Taurian aggression and raiding in the periphery was always an interest from within the Foreign service. The Taurians were a perennial thorn that always seemed to rear their head whenever they thought their betters were distracted by the real business of politics in the inner sphere.

It couldn't be ignored that the Combine was taking this seriously, and that was enough to warrant Federated Suns interest at the level of the office of the Prince's Champion. "This is what we know," Yvonne Davion concluded having laid out the reported estimated troop strengths of the regiments that provided the martial, and materiel skeleton to safeguard the Arsacid Marquisate in the space between the Aurigan Coalition and the Taurian Concordat.

Her initial reports, the amalgamation of information coalated by the DMI2 had assembled a picture that at first looked like that of the Wolf Dragoons. Now that did seem to be quite the case. The earliest reports dated two years earlier had misleading similarities regarding Arascid's force composition, but there was no indication of the Dragoons odd habit in the early years , and occasional reversion to a base five unit organization.

What was worse was the volume of air power in addition to the LosTech machines, and the degree of uniformity, but that wasn't what seemed to be bothering the Combine.

"Do we have diplomatic relations with the coalition?"

"We do not."

That went back to the previous two First Princes. Andrew and Ian. Andrew, Her cousin and of course Ian and Hanse's father During Andrew's rule there had been no guarantee that the nascent Aurigan coalition would even survive. Andrew's rule had also had other matters and the Aurigans had been far away. Ian had come to power at the very end of the 30th century, and his time as first prince had been focused on diplomatic talks with the Lyran Commonwealth and further combine aggression... combine aggression which had thus far defined Hanse's rule as Ian's legitimate successor.

Ian nodded, "Then we should correct that, and in that diplomatic mission we should be able to see both what they have, and also why the Combine views this emergent periphery state in the way it does." Beyond that, "Lord Arascid represents a force equivalent to roughly half of the TDF's total mech strength," Which included 3 regiments of Mercenaries on long term contracts, "He maybe a useful friend to have in the region..." Hanse Davion paused and looked around at his closest friends and advisors. "What should we expect from the combine?"

"Most of the initial response to the memorandum with effect the worlds around Luthien, the ISF chatter is high still," Yvonne remarked, "But the first ronin will most likely be the old and retired mech warriors, or the very young. Most likely we will see instructors from Sun Zhang leave their posts in the next few months and then other Combine schools..." This would really only apply to mech warriors but that was simply natural in the inner sphere at large. "Some of the chatter we're seeing suggests that Combine regulars approaching retirement will be given dispensation to go in the next several months but that is something we will have to wait to confirm."

"I saw the footage of the catapult," The battle rom footage hadn't been anything approaching a fair fight. An assault mech in few hundred meters? "Is that what we can expect?" Ardan asked.

"Most likely, the duel in question was conducted according to Combine traditions the range was agreed to, and the pilot of the Catapult had to know what he was getting into. If that is going to be the case then, most of these men are going to their deaths." She paused, "From what we understand from speaking with the remains of the manufacturers and their historical records the Nightstar was specifically built because a Marauder wasn't survivable enough in open combat against the Usurper's forces, it mounts eighteen and a half tons of armor." The only thing that came to Hanse's mind in terms of more protection was his brother's Atlas.

--
Notes: I will be trying to update Eminence in Shadow a few times before I start watching the new season so theoretically that means a couple updates this month, but probably not starting this week.

Anyway this follows on the previous segment, and ties in to current ghost who walks updates, as we move into dealing with the inner sphere response to the combine, and to a lesser extent the dragoons, while we haven't actually had Kristofur Kelly show up yet that is also forthcoming.

Imperator Pax · Oct 26, 2023

Chapter 2.4

Santiago Espinosa watched the heavy machinery move. The large stamping arm driving down, and back up as it shaped the metal. He felt surprisingly little jealously at the machinery, not given what it represented. What it really represented was a flourishing of industry in the Reach, an expansion of who they were as a nation. For the Reach to be strong they needed industry, and especially, as their ancestors had proven the ability to manufacture their own weapons of war... BattleMechs had been beyond the ability of the impoverished descendants of the SLDF to construct. They had been reduced merely being able to refit and repair the machines that comprised the Aurigan patrimony passed down from the 28th and 29th centuries.

Santiago considered that very important, because he could trace his family back more than a thousand years to ancient Terra's Kingdom of Spain where his ancestors had been officers in the old territorial kingdoms on earth divided, and who had in turn been officers and, admittedly minor, nobility of the Terran Alliance and the Hegemony after.

A certain amount of pride, but he wasn't so foolish he could ignore reality... how far they had fallen, and it in particular the fallen Hegemony, the fallen star league made him prickly to any loss of momentum to the Aurigan Coalition. They were on the periphery of civilization admittedly some of his despair at their poor condition had been of late alleviated by providential developments such as this, but now he had to reconsider the possibility of rapproachment with the Concordat.

The realpolitik that had dictated accommodation with the older more established periphery state was less important now and Santiago wasn't stupid. It did make more sense to prioritize trade in the opposite direction, and pivot towards the Magistracy of Canopus... and especially if they were going to be capable of moving into heavy industry of their own, within the Aurigan Coalition especially.

--

Heron Arsacid watched the numbers swirled around him, the motes of light and data. His head hurt, and that headache was further irritated by ComStar's news service delivering news about Black Jack's piracy, but the lack of the news service's parent organization willing to do anything proactive... they didn't seem to be in any event. Then on top of that there was the Taurian problem, with Terran born officers in certain regiments rather explicitly preferring a hard nose approach and enforced separation from Taurian relations.

That wasn't practical.

He did agree there was little reason to trust the Bulls, but there weren't reasons to actively distrust the Taurians right now. The officers had a point though that the Taurian worlds of Brinton, and Girondas.

Brinton was the real problem, the real source of his headache. In part because the Taurians weren't the only issue of it. He blinked minimizing the display of augmented reality, and regarded officers of the defunct Terran Hegemony, "The reports are accurate?"

"Yes sir."

"And the Capellans have some idea?"

"We believe their intelligence is misleading, they believe its a rim world hidden army weapons cache, which is technically true." Technically true in the sense that the evidence that the CID had was that the Rim World had stockpiled WMDs on Brinton for the rebels to use in atrocity attacks against civilian zones occupied by the SLDF. Amaris and his sycophants hadn't been really looking to help the periphery but rather simply to install themselves at the top of the pyramidal order of human space, so Taurian casualties of any stripe hadn't really been a concern either.

"What are the chances if all three of us know its gotten out to other parties?"

"Realistically sir, its a wonder no one found these things before now... so I would say pretty good," The University of Volgadon graduate drawled. The consensus was to act first. Drop fast and hard on the world, damn the consequences and land before Black Jack McGirk made for Brinton, or the Taurians, or the Capellans made a move, secure the weapons and then safely destroy them.

That sounded nice.

That sounded clean.

It sounded like a good way to start a war.

They could not in any circumstance tell the Taurians the weapons were there. That would raise questions, and frankly he didn't trust them enough with what those weapons were supposed to be... and if he came in and attempt to broker a settlement for a multinational destruction of the weapons... it would advertise what the weapons were and likely start a fight over their existence, or their provenance... and the officer was correct it was a wonder they hadn't been found before hand.

"Sir?"

"Leave me, I have to consider what options are even available to us due to the geopolitical consequences." The other officers in the room looked disappointed to not be at least heard out, but his eyes were focused on the Rim World Republics badging and data of the report, and not on them. He had to wonder what would happen... but he could sort of guess Brinton would become a battlefield even if they did nothing.

Even if they did jump in destroy the weapons, and then leave, then what? The Taurians would be pissed... but most likely the Capellans on any kind of validation of the mere existence of the weapons would likely still jump the border and hit Brinton blitzing any remaining Taurian defenders or Taurian Relief Forces that had arrived in hopes of finding anything that had been missed.

That they might miss something was a very real cause for concern.

Then of course was if they acted it would likely prompt hostilities from the Taurians, and also possibly the Capellans who might assume that the 'honorable third party' intervention was a 'claim jump', modern parlance, taking advantage of the situation to abscond with league era weapons.

His desk computer chimed reminding him that he still had a meeting with the ambassador for the Magistracy of Canopus who presumably wanted a word about their own security concerns. The Precentor of Luxen had been abducted in mid broadcast ... and there was still no word if he was dead... but that was itself an issue. He didn't understand why ComStar hadn't sunk money into hiring mercenaries, but he was kind of glad they hadn't as small as the margravate was he didn't want a ComStar presence in his pentarchy of worlds.

Maybe ComStar had some internal argument about who to hire, maybe they wanted some really big name unit to do their dirty work and they just weren't interested in taking some job of indeterminate length in the periphery ... maybe there was some other feature or combinations of factors or actors involved in the mess... but ComStar was being reactive, and failing to protect its assets and that simply couldn't go on forever if it was true that Black Jack was making a habit of making an example of torturing senior Comstar adepts for the cameras, which from the rumors and the news going around was precisely what the pirate king was doing.

He hit the key, "Inform Lady Centrella that my schedule is free to see her now, and then clear the rest of my schedule for the day." He ordered the Lieutenant Junior Grade, naval, manning the front office. The motes of light in the mean time reappeared shaping into the suits of playing cards for him to contemplate.

--
Anna Marie Centrella returned to her apartments in Coromodir city's diplomatic megaplex that housed the Magistracy's embassy with less than she had wanted, but still reasonably satisfied with her progress in terms of negotiations.

The documents from the Magistracy's intelligence services were ancient. They had been dug out of secret archives sheltered from the ravages of the successor wars and carefully protected some enterprising muckraker had coined the nickname 'war breed' for the most elite of 'mech warriors during the hidden war, as Combine and Terran pilots had saddled up to one another.

To the periphery it had just been another case of Inner Sphere Hypocrisy until those pilots had begun arriving in the periphery as expressions of Terran, and then Star League authority, because the SLDF had deployed Terran and Combine pilots side by side against rebel forces.

All the same she pressed play on the battle rom...

... and recoiled as the flashes of gunfire started and the perspective camera shaking. The Marauder and its lance mates had dropped from orbit, the classic feet first into hell attack of SLDF elites and had begun engaging Hidden Army forces, the rom was dated 2766 a few months into the New Vandenburg revolts. The Straios who had composed the report had identified that the Command Company arriving were the HQ element, each lance supported by two heavy weight ASF, of a Terran Special Operations Force Regiment... and in this case the Marauder in question was piloted by Colonel Arsacid.

Not that they had a still image from the campaign. The SOF Regiment had landed in force, and annihilated hundreds of Rim World and Taurian machines gathered as part of a nominal Hidden Army division fighting in the rebellion with the aid of, clearing the way for arriving SLDF regular units.

The image of the Colonel in question was from the occupation of the Magistracy's capital in the same year. He didn't look any different in the three dimensional rotating hologram of the Magestrix's palace than when she had met him this afternoon. Tall, clean shaven aquiline features eyes that were appropriate for a dangerous avian.

... and that was the detail that was concerning. The data, well she knew she wasn't the first it had been sent. It had only come to her after first being evaluated by the modern Magistracy's intelligence and foreign service in an attempt to decide on what to do. The Aurgians were one thing, they were descendants of SLDF personnel, or at least a number of their noble houses were and their nobility... but that didn't seem to be the case.

One of the reports further down in the packet indicated significant certainty that the drops against Grim Sybil's pirate warren and action on that desolate moon had been an SLDF conducted operation with SLDF numbers involved for the unit in question.

Arsacid in just the war in the periphery had a kill count to warrant the moniker and the ridiculous absurd poetry the combine had concocted for him of demon king. There were excerpts of it in the report not the least of which was the Combine's official minister to the Magistracy wasn't nearly as discrete as the man thought he was.

Imperator Pax · Nov 22, 2023

2.5

Kamea's mother had outlined why rapprochement with the Taurians had been considered desirable, détente certainly was still desirable... but even to just last year they were in a different position. It seemed like if Serena was making that point then Victoria was hearing it even more so from her father, Kamea's uncle.

That had unintended consequences since while rapprochement had been considered critical to Aurigan Foreign Relations, the coalition government particularly the five worlds of the Arsacid Margravate that had taken shape viewed the situation as more stable now. 3017's political calendar was more ... angled at improving foreign relations with the canopians, and watching carefully at what the great houses of the Inner Sphere did.

"This is so boring." Victoria complained in a harsh whisper... it hadn't helped that uncle Santiago had taken here to see the Thunderbolt factory that was going to be the new heart of Coromodir VI's industrial center, or at least the new pride of the capital. The battlemech factory overshadowed the discussions of trade, and cajoling, and favor trading that made society function.

"I know," Kamea agreed trying to whisper back... but her father had assured her that the committee on foreign relations was arguably the most important thing that the Coalition had.

House Paratas was the hold out. Not necessarily because of dislike of the Canopians, but out of concern it would worsen the situation with the Taurians as a by product. The argument being that they were moving too fast. That a sudden pivot would just further agitate the Taurians.

There was a snort from Minister Shakwat , a harsh and unladylike gesture from the woman who was at least the age of Kamea's grandmother. The admission of the Margravate, the five contiguous worlds plus Tarragona, were represented by a proxy represenative for Arsacid in his chief minister. She was the most regular presence of the new worlds of the coalition since 'demon king of the sixth heaven', which Kamea thought was a ridiculous over the top absurdly grandiose thing to call someone you didn't like but it was what the Combine's representative called Heron Arsacid instead of his name.... which Kamea thought was stupid.

The Taurian representative though had been particularly quiet of late, since the confrontation between the combine mechwarrior ... the guy in the catapult and Arsacid's Nightstar... which had been over and done with in the first exchange.

Minister Shawkat stood up, "I suppose then that Lord Parata's suggestion is we greet the pirates with hugs and smiles yes?" Uncle Santiago bit down a snort of laughter as her mother glared at her brother in disapproval, "After all we wouldn't want to offend them rashly. What nonsense is this, that peaceful, open trade between two polities is a concern for a third, especially when the trade doesn't even go through the third state. It is trade which is the life blood of stable governments, open and free trade, and the flow of commerce which facilitates healthy relationships."

Calling out the Prime Minister of Tyrlon aside Shawkat turned her address of the council into a topic on economic liberalism and a thousand years of economic theory dating back to before humans had even invented flying machines... and it wasn't really interesting. Trade sounded great, it really did and there had been shortage of lectures growing up about how important the Aurigan Trade pact had been or how important the JumpShip assets of the founding families, and the maintenance yards were to Aurigan prosperity.

More trade was supposed to equal more growth, but she recognized it was probably more complicated than that.
--
The holographic image rotated, a sixty five ton tank built around a gauss rifle and a Magna 260 engine.

"I don't believe that the Aurigans can produce this sir."

"No, I don't imagine they can either," Heron replied, but that wasn't the point, the Pershing was for all intents and purposes a Star League tech Rommel Gauss, with different electronics suite, "here," The Engineering officer slotted the chips into the free spaces of the projector, "Those on the other hand," The Patton and Rommel tanks while fusion powered were something that the Aurigans could using the Thunderbolt engine plant presumably produce. "Those should discourage this pirate from making any ambitious attacks against the world." He wished he could, internally at least be more confident about that the statement being true... the truth was there was no real way to discourage Black Jack from attacking except by killing the pirates, "We want the Aurigans to begin production of a fighter, but I'll leave that to you captain."

"Sir." There was a pause, "About the Canopians sir?"

"Discussions are still ongoing with regards to a foreign aid mission."

It was the awkward feeling, the quiet about how they were supposed to look at things. Earth had reverted to having nation states rather than a unified planetary government. The HPG network was in tatters...

The Hegemony was gone. Kerensky had fled with the fleet.

That was the ... the work of a growing network of amateur histiographers going through what they could piece together of how the Star League had gone to hell... and it lead them to the unfortunate nagging idea of being the Hegemony in Exile... which so far as Arsacid was concerned didn't work... the Hegemony had worked because it was the cradle of humanity and the oldest most developed colonies with the industry and scientific infrastructure and centralized control that went with that.

They were a successor state to the Hegemony at best, a post star league state like the Aurigan trade association that had had formed the modern Coalition and no amount of magic changed that. He also knew there were Star League facilities throughout the periphery... and there was the issue of the Vandenburg White Wings as well. They needed a functional defensive plan moving forward, before they could do anything else. "With regards to air assets, I'll need time."

He refrained from rebutting that they didn't have time. There was a limit on fusion engine production... you need fusion engines for ASF, and BattleMechs. You could downtech tanks to run off of the venerable internal combustion engine, but that disgusted him to an almost irrational idea... and speaking of fusion power there was a report on the canopians on his desk that'd only found the time to get half way through before other matters had dragged his attention away from it. "You wanted to talk about the canopians, then."

The naval officer gave a sharp nod, "yes sir. With regards to Canopus and Dunianshire, They're disaster sites, I wrote you the report on the... they still burn coal for gods sake,"

"I was told the Canopian education-"

"They're, this is the periphery sir their education system is abysmal. It shouldn't even be called school. Some of them learn in log cabins..." The engineer fell silent his brain finally catching up to his runaway mouth, "I apologize sir. That was out of line... but the conditions on the ground in hte present,"

"Things have fallen significantly from the Star League, we can blame Amaris for that, but the Rim World is dead and rotted." He replied, "And the truth be told I am given to understand there has been a significant decline in the conditions of the Inner Sphere." There was no home to go back to, and while he hoped that that log cabin crack was just a periphery tall tale... a joke, hopefully hyperbole, fusion power something that they could export out, but they could in no way afford to have Hegemony officers, or other ranks fall into the habit of making cracks about how backwards the periphery was regardless of what degree of truth there was in the observation. "To that end, I do not want to hear the words civilizing mission, am I understood?"

"Yes sir. It won't happen again."

--
Notes: Shorter than I had planned, which will probably be a similar case when I post dogs of war's opening for EWSG but an update. We will get more with Kamea and Victoria, particularly regarding some of the other houses and Aurigan politics as well as particularly the Magistracy as we move into the next chapter.

Anyway, due to relatives deciding to show up a day earlier, I am expecting to update AH tomorrow to save me a headache, and nominally update Viltrumite come friday ah saturday, ghost sunday, pathfinder monday, rabid fox tuesday, ideally EWSG.

Imperator Pax · Dec 29, 2023

2.6 [Chapter 2 Conclusion]

His expression was numb. A bland acceptance of the information in front of him.

Numbers ... resources... the floating tab of inventory, and commands. It was from his essence he could direct commands across the variety of units, and their garisons... in short he could circumvent the distance of space where they had built facilities for appropriate units.

Heron drummed his fingers as the 'lights' in the display changed. He had no way of knowing that the disposed of ground mobile HPG which provided the funds that he was pouring back into the essence to build the scotts unit up to strength would end up in the possession of Aldo Lestrade... and even if he had known he wouldn't have cared about that.

... well about that particular ground mobile HPG. Given some of the others... well that was a different story, but it was just and example of information that had he had it, he might have been a bit more cautious.... or maybe not. The truth was, with the HPG network in the condition it was in, and limited information about the state of the inner sphere the real consequences were not readily apparent.

He wasn't exactly clear on why ComStar had not rebuilt more of the network, why capability had degraded so... and he hadn't considered how badly they would react. Or how the former member states would react to HPGs of a mobile sort being up for grabs would react... but in the waning months of 3016... that crisis was still a ways off... and he had another one much, much more immediate to contend with. The 'HPG Crisis' of the Inner Sphere would not be his problem.

The holographic display.... the one unrelated to his essence, was a news clip frozen showing another defaced former SLDF mech. Another khaki machine with the grinning death's head scrawled over the shoulder the problem was it was an eighty ton Spartan.

A machine that most certainly shouldn't have been stored away in some brian's depot. It was absurd to think that.... and somehow Black Jack had gotten his hands on them... and other instances of Royal technology. Technology denied or restricted to the member states... not that it hadn't stopped them from beginning to produce some systems aimed at being restricted. The improved cooling technologies like DHS... the Combine had gotten ahold of Marauders... but there was a difference between then.... and now when the state of technology had fallen so far and yet this lunatic was running around.

It was that that really made the decision.

Some of it was a visceral emotional reaction with his gut... maybe it was irrational. Would, would the pirate even go after the weapons, he was making a mess of things but ... but he couldn't take the chance that it would be so simple as Black Jack dismissing the opportunity. Besides, they had no way of knowing no one else seem to be aware of the nature of the weapons on Brinton... it was a crisis.

... and one with a very narrow window of time... so he'd order the scotts into action... they would deal with the WMDs make a public statement about the objectives of the raid.. and if there was fallout there was fallout. Much as he didn't like they needed to deal with this, and they needed to deal with it imminently... as it was... the obviously former SLDF machines being painted with graffiti like sprawls of paint of rim world images pissed a lot of the men under his command off... and well they were pirates and slavers on top of that. There could be nothing but loathing, and disgust elicited from officers, and the ranks, and the civilian populace.

... and that was something Heron hadn't been readily thinking about, the civilian populace, including the demobilized SLDF personnel were now a consideration in the political discourse of a nascent periphery state... that being the march, and that was going to have repercussions on inside the Aurigan Reach as a whole... probably sooner than he might have liked.

He had made the comment that the Rim World was dead and rotted not too long ago... and... and it certainly didn't feel like that with the string of crimes against humanity being perpetrated by pirates wearing their colors. Brinton wasn't that far though. Two jumps from Katinka. The Royal Scotts Dragoon Guards would drop hard and fast.

The Battle of Brinton, when news of it did break was to be a case of confusion. The multi sided conflict ended up involving a sizable number of combatants. The Taurian defenders, the nominally Aurigan attackers, mercenaries, pirates... the Capellans even got in on the action... It was ComStar's precentor fearing for his life at the hands of Black Jack's pirates who made the situation even more confusing.

Not that the existing Aurigan Reach situation hadn't already been confusing enough. Precentor Kepler's ability to live broadcast the events on Brinton V was able to reach Mechdur. It was able to reach Zanzibar. It was able to broadcast footage to New Vandenburg. All of that was to have consequences, not the least of which was it provided a front row vantage of a conflict no one expected, it allowed real time view to citizens ... but it was their governments that really took notice of the conflict on Brinton in the early months of 3017 consumed the attention of the participants as well as their neighbors... even though with the limits of HPG technology, the network and JumpShips ferrying news by the time fighting was over word had gotten out.

Even though the Magistracy of Canopus, the Free Worlds League, and Federated Suns didn't participate in the fighting on Brinton V they found themselves with a vested interest in its outcome, and the discussions that emerged from it... and in the fact that a precentor of a periphery world was able to broadcast in such a way that the panicked transmission could go out across the range of HPG stations in reach, and make live streaming of the news during a crisis.

The fact that ComStar refused to make this service available, or when it was available through certain stations it was for an exorbitant upcharge... only created other problems down the road... even if strictly speaking the fighting on Brinton was a contributing factor to Successor State awareness and dislike of the status of the HPG network, and its services.

Atrocities after all were already a known factor of the succession wars, of wars between successor states of the star league... even though the motivations of Black Jack's pirates which had begun in a simple quest for revenge had metamorphesized into something worse over the course of what history would record as the pirate wars. In the mean time his attention largely turned back to the matter of the expansion of tank, and infantry equipment production to defend worlds that normally could only rely on militia troops to defend their scattered settlements.
--
Notes: Frankly this probably should have been attached to 2.5, and its a bit short but it directly feeds into the start of chapter 3.

Imperator Pax · Jul 5, 2024

Chapter 3.1
3017 The Periphery

Massing ninety tons the Highlander was powered by a common General Motors 270, the ten ton heavier Pillager ran off an extralight version of the very common VLAR 300 series. It allowed the two 26th century assault mechs to keep pace with one another and both carried jump jets for added mobility. It allowed them to move fast in engagement with foes and stand off at range.

The machines all carried their standard SLDF era load outs and bore SLDF camo schemes.

He couldn't hear the Gauss Rifles.

Heron sat in his office apprised of the proceedings without the need of an HPG or Fax Machine through his essence. It wasn't the same as being in the cockpit, or leading from the front but he could authorize objectives and direct movement. The troopers on the ground, and those in the air were feeding him information he could base those decisions.

In terms of strategic operations he was not dependent on local communication resources and thus the enemy could not jam or intercept his orders. That was critical in a situation such as the one they found themselves embroiled in.

It was like an RTS game... if one where he was trying to manage planet scale and the orbital conflict at the same time. The Taurians weren't taking this well... and they were behind schedule. The jump to Brinton had presumably come in from the Capellan world of Larsha but they couldn't be sure, but whatever the case this was turning into a four way with the pirates present as well.

A four way free for all... civilian strapped in the middle and WMDs the prize for winning.

He drummed his fingers on the table, "This Kepler? He managed to get a message out?"

"Yes sir," The Pilot in the command mech replied in a scottish brogue, jovial despite his unit's engagement with multiple enemies, "Apparently he's scared out of his wits of this Kommando Kelly fella." The Royal Scotts Dragoon Battalion commander declared. "We've got them checked in a ridgeline with our Fury's running Air Defense, but from his maneuvering he knows something about hte Rim World bunkers here."

He nodded. That update was information that he already knew, but that the ComStar's biggest concern was the pirate leader... was personally the pirate leader was an interesting detail. He regretted that the Capellans had managed to launch as well. That was a problem. The Capellan incursion, and their leadership suggested a mix of arrogance, greed, and desperation that were always an unflattering combination... a part of him was glad that their position in the Rimward periphery did not place him wherea Combine incursion was likely.

He was already going to dislike the conversation he would have to have with the Canopians. The Duchess Raventhir, and the wider Centrella dynasty had every reason to watch so many children of the Hegemony lost out of time... for good an ill. This incursion, and its delays as a result of enemy action... were going to force him to undertake things that the Earth that was wouldn't approve. The Mother Doctrine was irrelevant now, the periphery needed schools, DOME would have to be reconstituted as best as was feasible and the Rimward periphery made livable as they cleaned up after Black Jack's rampages. "Tell me about Kelly's actions?"

There were only really broad strokes total. Kelly was probably himself a competent pilot... but didn't fight as if he had ever been a professional soldier... he was apirate he might not have ever been a solider... from his movements he had a goal in mind, and was intelligent... and there was the lingering concern that he was a fanatic... but what really all they did know well that was limited, "He knows about the bunkers...and while I haven't seen it myself we suspect that he must have some kind of Rim World tech, probably cipher keys to try and get them open, but I definitely think he's got a map, and probably a good one. I can stop him Colonel, that's not a problem, but I've the bulls and the Capellans going on as well."

New Vandeburg was a jump away.

This conversation was going on in real-time.

He mulled a display of a JumpShip and its carried contents waiting for an order, "Do you need reinforcements to complete the mission?"

"No sir. I have things under control, once we've safely finished the charges, we're sure we can clear the hazard of the bunkers. My Dragoons will keep the enemy off the engineers until the work is done, sir." The other man replied.

Heron hoped that was not empty bravado. "Publicly disclose what you are doing to the populace. To everyone on World," He ordered, "This is a humanitarian intervention aimed at preventing a catastrophe, affirm the provenance of those weapons, and make sure everyone there knows it."

"Sir we are a Hegemony Special Operations Force operating in a Territorial State that is actively shooting at us."

"And I will send you reinforcements if you need them, but your mission is to prevent a disaster, whether that is to the civilian population of the planet or to the population centers that other people might use those weapons against." He blew out a breath, "So you haven't seen any incidence," He remarked changing the subject and guiding the conversation away from an argument from his man on the ground... "Of Rim World machines?"

He wanted to avoid the argument, because if it came to it... the benefit of this RTS like display was that he could order a force to jump into the lagrangian 'pirate' point with precision... bringing an entirely fresh force into orbit... but to do so... would show the Taurians... and the Capellan sand demonstrate to everyone else watching the kind of force they were dealing with... but then again that implication was already there. ComStar's Precentor on the scene, had turned his station to live broadcast as the fighting had echoed... the man had panicked in hopesof receiving help against black jack's local commander... which given Kelly's apparent fondness for using flamers against civilians and in particular members of the man's order... wasn't so unreasonable.

"Machines? No sir. We've got plenty of reports of 'mechs slathered with paint, but I suspect that they came out of a cache. They're all in good condition, but they're ours. Its not like the other guys are greenies, but nothing we can't deal We can deal with them, especially with our airpower."

Heron nodded blinking slowly in acknowledgement as he processed his own thoughts and dictated instructions through the mind machine interface of his circlet. "I have forces prepared, and a window of calculations prepped to jump into lagrangian points, if the situation detiorates we will drop feet first into hell to come get you. Neutralize those weapons, and makeall best efforts to protect the civilian populace from the pirates, and make sure everyone knows what you are doing."

... and well when this footage did make it back to the Inner Sphere... well that was a matter for another day... and well when that day came it would for the Dragoons and the Eridani to ask questions about what was going.

As for his statement to the Highlander, there were no objections.
--
Notes: a short update.

Imperator Pax · Jul 19, 2024

Chapter 3.2

The fighting on Brinton would take time to resolve itself. A part of him wanted to simply make the jump into the pirate point personally... but that had been discussed and was out of the question ... it was feasible but not practical... it didn't establish a good pattern to lead by... but neither did jumping the border whatever their good intentions. The Taurians were going to be furious regardless ... and it was going make any kind of conversation with the capellans that came out of this fraught in other ways. They needing to be realistic about the situation, and the truth was everything was a mess.

That was the realistic outcome of all of this. The destruction of the WMDs could be accomplished but in all likelihood no one on the opposing sides would believe that was all of the lost weapons. There was a chance that the Capellans would try and bully the Taurians off the planet, if they could, that the pirates would mount another raid in force after they left.

... and what if they were right? Then there would b e a catastrophe.

... or at least a larger one, but if they had succeeded then it was just the Taurians and Capellans fighting over another periphery world. One too close to too many other worlds. Brinton was what was called a hub world. That was to say, that in Brinton's case you could jump from Brinton to a dozen plus worlds that had been colonized. Conquering Brinton would have been a bridge too far... they didn't have the economic might of the hegemony to draw on and launching a war of conquest was not the objective.

As it was Arsacid had his hands full beyond just the local precentor on Brinton panicking and make sure that everyone had a front row seat to the chaos. There was so much else to do... so much else to do. "Can it be repaired?"

"Yes," The gray haired engineer nodded, much more comfortable with this question than with his earlier, months earlier analysis of the Dire Wolf, "we should be able to expand production for both."

The Griffin was a venerable old mech. The Aurigans original colonial settlers had probably arrived in the 26th, or late 25th century so they hadn't necessarily built the first colonies with BattleMechs... and the original settlers in the Reach were not the same political founders as their eventual assimilation into more modern polities, never mind the contemporary coalition. The Griffin though had been old by the time of the New Vandenburg Revolt... the latter too painfully fresh to most of the men... something he had taken increasing notice as operations on Brinton had circulated around his staff.

The Dragon was not... but that went to the present leadership of the Aurigans and their descent from the SLDF. House Kurita had for most likely reasons of vanity wanted to produce a BattleMech for trials by the SLDF and so there was a black box factory way out here in the Rimward periphery that the quartermaster corps had used to keep units supplied at the front...or what had been the front.

There was nothing wrong with the Imperator-A class 5 Auto cannon that the machine carried. It was a good choice. Two tons of ammunition for it, plus the LRM 10 gave the Dragon respectable enough firepower. If however those lines had been under Arsacids control simplifying down to refitting the Dragon with a PPC would have been the next step. Getting as much parts commonality in place was still something he would probably recommend even if House Karosas brindled at his suggestion... but it would have helped the Coalition as a whole.

If it was ignored that was fine. He had too many other things he needed to see to in the interim. As he had told Tamati months earlier the Thunderbolt was a fine mech, and they had since begun production of the Archer before actions had begun onBrinton. He had five worlds that were all at least in near proximity to one another that he was directly responsible for even without the conflict on the door step, and Aea was the world they had both made the jump from, and from where reinforcements could be deployed ifthings escalated. Artru had the benefit of its own AI, and CID outpost Castle defending it wasn't a concern given the resources there. At least in the short term, Aea and Qalzi were too close tothe Taurian border but they had known that from the beginning... theywere still mulling the question of remobilization but the truth was he needed a stable political base to work from.... even before Brinton that had been the priority for the year.

There was a chime that tore his attention away from the holographic map, as well as the engineer with whom he'd been speaking to regarding other matters, an interruption that could only indicate bad news. The patched in ComStar News service broadcast was clearly in answer to, or directly related to the Brinton conflict, but it was coming from Girondas another Taurian world a jump away.

Part of Black Jack's modus operandi was to support lesser pirates... he probably didn't give them much choice, but they had to prove their bona fides in attacks on ComStar installations. This also prevented them, if they weren't by previous actions from potentially leaving the pirates after... there was obviously a certain degree of violence that Black Jack was expecting dished out. Violence that mad men like Kelly clearly had no compunctions against... and there was nothing they could do for Girondas.

Jumping the border to a second Taurian planet would have almost certainly push the Taurians to a war regardless... the action on Brinton might well be setting them up for that anyway... and hence his previous concerns about Aea, and Qalzi. Had the Star League still existed it would have been different, even if it was the Taurians they were talking about, stopping the pirates would have been justified under laws that legally bound the territorial states... but those laws were no longer in effect, the Star League was gone... and so all ComStar was really doing, by broadcasting it was showing how nasty and brutish the periphery was.

"Turn it off," He stopped, "and turn it over to the analysts, if there is anything we can learn then we will deal with it..." which wasn't true Heron knew... dealing with was something that wasn't ... going to be so easy. The pieces they had just didn't add up. The grievance that Black Jack had had with the toaster worshippers was an anomaly, never mind the sudden or seemingly sudden abundance of Rim World Republic iconography. Things were degenerating, threatening to degenerate further, "Now what else can we do?"

The engineer shook his head, "Without the broader Reach," the 'astrological region' or at least the coalition as a whole, "making a commitment to defense spending, not much we can do. The best that I think we could accomplish is to restore what DOME couldn't do on Coromdir in hopes of deterring an invasion. Most of the hard work is done, and its just a matter of fitting weapons with the fortresses in friendly hands that would bean option... but," In order to do more, to be better prepared, "the Coalition would have to approve a larger budget. If they were willing to do that, while I accept it would not be to the Colonel's liking, more cheap ICE powered tanks and mech infantry would be the best solution." Even then that was a build up that would take years ... but if it was going to show results needed to be started.

Arscacid nodded without much fuss. There was no point contesting the statement. The Coalition needed manpower. They couldn't trust the Taurians. More so than the Aurigans no one in his command, no one in the Margravate was going to trust the Taurians... not after New Vandenberg... they were two centuries more than two centuries out of time, and while these weren't the same Taurians there were still too many questions, too many open wounds...and still too much damage in the periphery from the uprising, from the Rim World and the SLDF coming to blows. "So my best option is to either direct Shawkat to lobby for that or to go myself." He replied. "Is there anything else?"

"We're still processing what we found on Fjaldr," And on that front the Intelligence personnel attached to the Light Horse Regiment really thought they had managed to dodge a bullet by hitting hard and fast there, before the clans on Fjaldr could really start to get mobilized... but that had still been a near thing... Fjaldr could have been a lot messier than it had been if they had waited... but there had still been equipment there in the hands of the pirates that they shouldn't have had. "Its old tech to be sure, reunification wars some of it, but some of it was probably Rim World equipment."

Imperator Pax · Jul 24, 2024

3.3

House Karosas was what after a fact passed for academics among the great families of the Aurigan Reach, and the Coalition. They were the 'tech people' after a fashion. Which was a whole other matter... they were on the frontier of space... and even before these beginning these succession wars well...

All of it went back to the beginning. There had been some people who had enthusiastically talked about science, and progress and quotes like 'The Earth is the cradle of the mind, but one cannot eternally live in a cradle.' had been readily banded about but the truth was that the great migration of relatively inexpensive flight from earth and later early core worlds had been different. There were high minded academics looking for the exploration of pure scientific topics quoting men like Tsiolkovsky to justify exploration for the sake of exploration and for pure sciences' sake There had been research chemists eager to study new worlds.

More than all of those though were those looking to flee earth and to throw back things to harken back to earlier ideas. People who fled earth willingly forsaking the flowering of Terran and human scientific technology, or who established new worlds that simply weren't capable of supporting industrial resources to build fusion engines or the like. Across many frontier worlds they brought cattle, they returned to inefficient forms of animal labor to built rustic lives on their new homes.

That had been true of the through the centuries to the founding of new worlds even into the star league and on frontier worlds were there could be factories that loaded up their goods on unpaved worlds into ox and horse drawn wagons to take to ports; space or air transport, or the age old standby of water. And, there were even more worlds were the absence of self powered machines meant that similar measures were used to bring goods too and from star ports. Men and draft animals, scenes like that were so common it had blended in on footage of the periphery in the 28thcentury.

He didn't know why it vexed him from time to time seeing it so frequently. It had nothing to do with the conflict on Brinton, but everything to do with life in the periphery. It was a facet of life. It was how people lived, a choice their ancestors had made centuries ago, and that continued to be a practical choice by how to eke out a hardscrabble life far from the successor states. Though he supposed, maybe the people on Brinton didn't feel they were quite far enough from the Inner Sphere, at least given the circumstances.

It was lucky worlds that had railways, even though as Delaney had noted so many of those still burned coal in order to power the trains, or burned coal dug out of the ground to generate electricity which wasn't much better. It was however a fact of life.

The men filed into the room and the door shut. "You're not going to like it." The young CIDofficer remarked in his characteristic New Dallas drawl putting his Stetson on the table. They had had the conversation months earlier that the numbers just weren't there, that remobilization simply wasn't feasible. "Our best option is to harden Aea's defenses in anticipation of a Taurian counter. If New Vandenburg moves."

That was the problem.

Tit for tat would have been well established political exchange between member states maybe there would have been some attempt at plausible deniability but the problem was when you weren't dealing with cut and dry and political actors. The Taurians weren't likely to just settle for saving face ... and any incursion from new vandenburg would prompt ... a knee jerk reaction from the rank and file troopers. The only nominally good news was that the analysts considered it very unlikely that the Taurians strike out against somewhere else. Attacking Katinka would have been something even the Bulls recognized would be suicidal.

"Are you sure of that?"

"The Taurian ambassador is aware that we have six battlemech regiments, and that the besides the Striker regiment we could have the Light Horse can be split into three regiments from its battalions. We've talked about that enough with the Aurigans." The neo texan replied finger moving around the rim of the hat, "Aea has a regiment there full time, once the Dragoons are back on Katinka even if they swung for the fences it'd be for nothing."

The mumbling around the table of Hegemony born officers though was obviously, ultimately the same question. Were the Taurians rational enough, calm enough to make the recognition. "There must be something else?"

"Karosas has friends... Azami friends asking around. A lot of Azami friends, its too much to be a coincidence. They know about the dragon machine."

"You're sure?"

"Yes."

The automated production facility for the dragon was a very interesting thing of course. The problem was its location so close to the capellan border. "Expectations?"

The stetson moved slightly on the table surface, "None. The Combine legation to the periphery is acting squirrely... we know they're expecting some bunch of modern day ronins to show up. The problem is that that has davion chatter allover the place. We're going to get questions."

Shawkat was pointedly absent. She was on coromdir filling his place on the coalition council and they were too far. Katinka to Gangtok, to Guldra. They were going to inevitably get questions from the Coalition council as well... and then of course the Canopians on the opposite side, and for that matter there was still the pirate question, "What do you think?"

"I don't think the Azami are acting as cut outs for the Order of Five Pillars, the ISF, or directly for the keeper of house honor. Karasos is what passes for an archaeologist its just the things he digs up are from the Star League... the problem from the intercepts is that we were what he was looking for, what the Azami are looking for."

"Do you have a name?"

"Dara, he's O5P or was we think he skipped the combine and is either in the periphery or heading this way."

"Why?" Arsacid regretted asking the question. The New Dallas native had warned him walking in that he wasn't going to like this conversation. The hologram on the table shifted. Kerra McAllister wore the insignia of a Combine Colonel a non descript uniform of the Sword of the Light. The irony being that it was the same cut of uniform that would prompt a Davion sniper to take the shot that killed her half brother on Kentares.

... according to the records though that they had sourced Kerra had cut her own throat several years before... the alternative having been to attempt a coup d'etat against her brother's actions... of course by that point a war was already inevitable. "One more thing... before we start that," The New Dallas man paused... "We've already discussed things got messy after Kerensky cut and run... well that's an understatement. I think the O5P left instructions for what to happen if the Hegemony's failsafe protocols were activated, if we started going into stasis tubes... I think the Azami were looking to wake us up... but I believe Dara was looking for you personally."

Arsacid cocked his head at the younger officer, that was concerning, "Any particular reason for that supposition?"

"There was an attempt by the Coordinator's court to pressure Minoru Kurita into supporting the SLDF, Minoru refused, and continued to refuse even as information of what Amaris was doing reached the public... and then," and then less publicly that Amaris was putting pressure on the Combine for more support. We think he gave it to them... and we think that was the reason why those combine deserters came out here. I think they're chasing a Hegemony bolt hold... they may be trying to make all the way to the california nebula." But that was still an assumption. It wasn't proof, there was a lot of supposition based on limited hard data.

Imperator Pax · Jul 31, 2024

3.4

There was a world of difference, no pun intended between Artru and its nearest inhabited neighbors. Brinton had been a Taurian administrative center during the time of the Star League, but the rebellion had devastated the eleven worlds in its orbit... and no one considered it coincidental that the administrative center had also held a rim world bio weapons stockpile. The people living on Brinton didn't deserve to die because of that... but destroying those weapons, keeping them from falling into pirates hands was critical.

The contents of those lockers could not be allowed into pirate hands... or Taurian hands... or capellan hands. The objective was their safe destruction... and then to bring their people home, back over hte border.

They could keep saying that until they were blue in the face... and it wasn't going to change that there was still going to be political fallout.

Arsacid accepted that. He didn't have a choice but to accept that.

The Terran AI on Artru hated the Taurians. The Locura hated the Taurians, what was worse was the AIwas apparently the first AI who could readily make jumps through FtL awake without needing a crew, or at least a full one. Or maybe for the tests Locura had just been lucky... it didn't matter the AI's warship body had been damaged beyond repair and the core relocated here to Artru along with the cached equipment of an SOF Regiment.

What only contributed to Locura's malice was that doctrine had been to move pilots and personnel and have equipment on standby in most cases so that there was a smaller footprint. That you could just open up a cache issue men new machinesand send them into the fight. The Taurians had killed Locura's regiment in space, dozens of light years away in a fight that the mechwarriors hadn't been able to do anything about.

And the AI had seethed about it for centuries. Seethed about it and had had standing orders to preserve the secrecy of the complex and had tried its level best to enforce the Hegemony Shadow Command's authorization of bands of no fly zones on Artru. For good reason Artru was a wealthy world in terms of mineral wealth... it was unpleasantly cold on the surface and subject to extreme windstorms across areas, but the Hegemony had wanted to use it as a forward base for operations further in the Rimward periphery. There had been an SLCOMNET facility here, which had barely managed to avoid a Taurian nuke in the fall of 2765 during the revolt, but ComStar had maintained a presence and seemed...unfortunately to have been continuing to run their explorer corps through the station in the system.

Arsacid didn't care for that but it did help explain the situation some.

"I am not authorizing a further engagement with the Taurians." He told the AI. Not at this time in any event.

The Locura's digital wave form rippled in protest. Artru was unlikely to be attacked. He noted the protest, but reiterated his reasoning to the AI. The Taurians just didn't have a good reason to target the planet for a retaliatory raid... which still didn't make it impossible. The AI was hoping for that, that the Bulls would be irrational. Cold dispassionate logic was not what drove the focus of domestic public opinion or of the governments which ruled over them.

If he was what remained of the Hegemony then that made Artru and the other marcher worlds Hegemony worlds. Beholden to the laws, and conduct expected of the Hegemony, and that was a heavy burden, would have been a heavy burden even if they hadn't been out here on the frontier of human space. Then again...the Hegemony was gone... the Inner Sphere according to reports could only produce a handful of JumpShips a year... even during the star league the production of JumpShips had been the great bottleneck to interstellar trade regardless of the longevity of ships. That longevity was probably the only reason that interstellar trade still continued to exist, continued to bring prosperity to worlds.

That should have been the priority. It was why Artru had been important to the interests of the hegemony of the rimward periphery and was important to them now. Artru was a source for germanium, germanium that would feed katinka's shipyards. Artru had also nominally been a part of the Brinton Union the administrative unit that Brinton had been the capital of.

It was thereby, the map from 2750, the AI had a perfectly 'reasonable' justification for why the Taurians might launch an incursion against Artru... even though it was according to dispassionate logic 'stupid' and 'rash'.

The Taurians could bawk loudly with revanchist rhetoric of lost territories to their home constituencies, and thump their chests to agitate for war... and it was clear to Arsacid that was precisely what the AI hoped the Bulls would do.

The conversation... or whatever one wanted to call the flurry of images, and sound bites, and other information as the door chimed signaling the entry of another officer into the Castle Outpost's inner sanctum. Nautlius's Command Center was functionally identical to its sibling on Katinka, the difference was that the space defense systems on Artru were in much better condition... in that the surface to orbital batteries had survived the Taurian uprising. Katinka's had not, the SLDF facility had only barely survived the mass driver strike by the combined rebel fleet... unlike Artru Katinka was better suited to colonization and resettlement being larger and capable of supporting its own natural agriculture across a largely terran biosphere.

"It appears you are needed back."

"It would seem so," He stated in reply to the AI's statement, "That Artru was nominally claimed by the Brinton Union, is a valid historical detail. Taurian revanchism," Arsacid stated in a flat tone, "Is indeed a problem. I will take such under consideration, and once resources are available begin the process of bringing your defenses back up to strength." He could hardly tell the AI he planned to use the essence to recycle for example the lance worth of royal spiders and some of the other equipment for their bv and replace them with new machines that would also provide pilots.

If it wouldn't have attracted too much attention he might have considered recycling all of the stored metal immediately and going from there... but the truth was he could already guess that Katinka probably had guests from ComStar potentially even the Capellans regarding actions on Brinton of course the Founder's council on Coromodir, and potentially also the Magistracy's representative... there were downsides to a JumpShip circuit.

"You have put your finger in the Taurians eye," The AI continued, "And of course there is the Magistracy's accusation that they are supporting the pirates."

An accusation that they could not substantiate. It was highly doubtful that Ambassador Centrella was lying when she had relayed the claim... but for the AI it didn't care if the support Black Jack was receiving was from private taurian citizens supporting Black Jack McGirk's pirates... especially not now that there were a plethora of sightings of rim world republic symbols in the man's ranks. It seemed unlikely, regardless of how callous the Taurians were that they would have sent Brinton's defenders into action on Brinton against Pirates their government was supporting given that if they wanted the weapons then they could have made a move on them them much sooner and in a much more safe fashion. To that end he expected Locura was hoping the Taurians were really that stupid, but it was probably not the case.

Imperator Pax · Aug 9, 2024

3.5
Katinka in contrast to Artru was entirely capable of supporting its population without any kind of complex environmental controls. Katinka's ecosystem had sustained damage from the mass driver strike, but that took the effect of several degrees of global cooling that in turn had trapped moisture at the poles which while not a full on glaciation event had been bad for the agriculture that had been established north and south of thetropics before 2765. Without outside help it would have been feasible to adapt crops and farm plans for agriculture that needed tobe more cold tolerant and need less water... but the Star League had collapsed and by the 30th Century the Taurians had had withdrawn any presence on the planet.

With mechanization they would put thousands of kilometers of wheat because frankly Katinka's northern main continent was suited for it. Geographically when the first colonists had arrived in the 26th or 27thcentury they had brought with them the flora of North America's midwest, and that had meant conifers and deciduous trees had thrived over the intervening centuries.

The cattle, and dairy operations of the pre crisis era hadn't fared nearly so well, though there were still some herds. They hadn't had to actually reimport anything like cows, chickens, rice, or such... it was just a matter of providing the assistance and organization to expand.

That should have been Arsacid's ...that should have been the material dominating his morning reports...the agriculture that would feed planets, millions of tons of grain that would be made into bread, and so forth. Cattle, chickens, and their by products. Rice, and peanuts, and so forth and so on... those reports were pushed down to lower level authorities in the face of a conflict with the Taurians. "Lets start from the top shall we?" He remarked, largely rhetorically. He would have liked, he certainly would have preferred if Brinton could have somehow been resolved without potentially pushing things towards a shooting war.

"The capellans have been very quick to claim that the Taurians are supporting Black Jack," Which was the same accusation the Canopian ambassador had thrown at the Bulls, but the evidence was circumstantial. More likely the latest recrimination was the Capellans justifying their actions on Brinton, it was a theatrical declaration "We know McGirk had jumped the border, but between his direct forces and the pirates he's strong armed he's all over the rimward periphery all the way to the Davion frontier."

"And what do you make of that?"

"I would guess that there were Hidden Army depots we missed," There was a pause, "I don't think its feasible he could be just operating out of Tortuga, not with as far spinward and anti-spinward as he's ranging."

Arsacid nodded, and of course there was the lingering question of why McGirk hadn't tried to legitimize himself. The Marian Hegemony opposite side of the Canopians were slavers and pirates with a roman theater flare but they had been trying to carve out something of a niche of respectability... at least enough so that the Free Worlds League didn't have a reason to pay them attention. So far McGirk had left them alone but there was a lingering question if the reason he hadn't hit them was the lack of a ComStar presence... which just raised other questions. "And the robes?" He asked after a moment. The nickname, and a not a flattering one, was one he wasn't quite sure when he'd started using to refer to comstar but it was something had quickly become popular through out the mass of displaced across time hegemony citizens...whatever ComStar's people were expecting rolled eyes was generally the most benign response to their presence, and snide comments and sneers were the majority of responses.

It was true they had HPG Network... but the SLCOMNET was in tatters. There was so little of the network left... and so much of it was trashed they hadn't yet allocated jumpships to start looking for the deep space network's condition...which given the Tripitz's loss was something they were going to have to look into... "Besides the expected they're not happy with the Taurians either."

The sooner the troops were off of Brinton the better. There was no higher authority though to appeal to. They were sure that the stockpiles had been safely destroyed but all sides were still in something approaching a mexican stand off in Brinton... but no one had started shooting at the other parties jumpships. He was pretty sure that from the last report from the dragoons that the Capellans and Taurains both were hoping to turn something up that had been missed.

... the actual pirates notwithstanding.

No nukes had flown... and for the moment they weren't actually at war. He wanted it to stay that way. The assembled officers had all been present the previous September where he had questioned why someone hadn't managed to kill Black JackMcGirk previously... a decade long rampage.. and yet this chaos was still unfolding hundreds, thousands of light years from where it had begun... and getting worse by the day.

That conversation had also been before the JumpShip Yards had come online or the BattleMech production facilities for the Archer. Still that had in part been on the expectation that the Aurigan Coalition Military would receive an expansion, be allocated more funding to contend with things. There were still talks ongoing but those were stalled in endless committee meetings according to Shawkat, and Espinosa both writing from the coalition's capital. Neither expected a break through, and at the moment the coalition's industry was largely focused on domestic production of wheeled and tracked vehicles not hovercraft.

That might well mean it would fall to them to push forward... but it still wasn't likely to fix the problem. Pinching the bridge of his nose Arsacid took a breath and glanced at the other Hegemony officers. The legislative deadlock on coromodir was a problem of course, but one that he was growing somewhat used. "What do I need to know about them?"

"The Robes?" There was a pause, and a ruffled series of loose leaf sheets being thumbed through again, "Officially ComStar expects both its neutrality to be respected, and insured by host governments, it claims that the Taurians aren't doing this." There was another pause, "Our analysts suspect its more about the mistrust of the Taurians have for what's left of the COMNET, the robes are condescending toaster worshippers and the Taurians have no love lost for the Inner Sphere given the situation the accusations regarding the pirates, and the WMDs are just an excuse to push the issue. On our end. Aea has an HPG station."

Katinka didn't. He tapped his fingerson the desk, "And?"

"Their best offer so far has beento act as a neutral third party between us the bulls, and thecapellans , which might well be in good faith or they could be up tosomething... but however it is the precentor made it sound like hewas doing us a favor and how we should be falling over ourselves toaccept his saintly aid." The New Dallas native drawled.

Arsacid nodded. "Have the capellans actually made direct contact?"

"No, the most we've gotten from Brinton is that we're both agreed to let each other leave once the drives are charged and everyone is one board." Not that the drives weren't already charged. They had arrived before the capellans, the scotts Dragoons though had needed to insure that the rimworld weapons had been safely destroyed... and that had been time consuming to say the least. The Capellans had stuck around looking, hoping to turn up stuff, and had exchanged some rounds with the Taurians, but the actual governments seemed to have both devolved to the officers on the ground.

He returned to pinching the bridge of his nose.... this was the headache he'd been hoping to avoid "Bring our people home, and in one piece, I suppose we will have to contend with the Capellan response whenever they actually decide what they're going to do," But from the sound of it, from the reports he had received thus far that was most likely going to require word to actually get to the Capellan capital and then for word to transmit back... and if the news from the Inner Sphere was accurate there was a lot more going on in the Free Worlds League that outweighed a dust up on a periphery world.

Imperator Pax · Aug 14, 2024

Chapter 4

As the Duchess of a canopian world she had been born into a privileged position. That didn't mean she had done nothing to earn that.. in theory the Magistracy's aristocracy was a merit based system... but her surname was Raventhir.

She had made the attempt after all to protect Luxen, unsuccessful as that was. Risked greatly to try and protect the planet. The handful of mercenaries and young volunteers had tried to protect the capital... and at least most of them had survived.

It was why her father had committed to an expansive expenditure here in the periphery had come bringing battlemechs for her to find pilots for. Raventhir knew he meant well, but what she really needed was for the magistracy to have more than just an old lyran duke's largess. Well meaning as it might have been.

... and it wasn't as if William Abner, her father, was just her to play doting father to favorite child ...Interstellar Expeditions wasn't oblivious to the developments anymore than the Magistracy was. The tall Azami man had a henna dyed beard, a bright orange color as he stood next to the aging Atlas pilot. "Terran Hegemony Royal Scotts Dragoons." Abner remarked expansively, "Mindy, yes do you see those. Royal series Highlander BattleMechs." An entire company of them no less, the Battalion had dropped in force against the Taurians.

The Azami's eyes turned downwards, "Men whose brothers were murdered by the Satan Amaris as they prayed to almighty god's mercy." He remarked.

"Yes, the Christmas Massacre on Northwind." The Lyran man nodded, "A great atrocity." and one of many, one of so many, "Katinka was struck by a mass driver during the rebellion." The statement made her want to ask about Pioche, if there wasn't something more that they could do there, but it was not practical.

"Yes. To little avail. The running dogs clearly failed to penetrate the protective bunker complex," What in the floral literary writings of the combine's mostly poetic court language would have been referred to as invariably the border of the afterlife, or such or in more laconic terms a 'tomb'.

"Indeed," The holographic image shifted to one she was more familiar with.

Heron Arsacid was a tall man, good looking. He could have easily been one of her instructors when she had attended the Nagelring. The Assault BattleMech pilot's NightStar was not however how the Magistracy of Canopus or its intelligence service the MIM remembered him from 2765. The Terran officer had accepted the Canopian surrender on behalf of the SLDF ... not that the Canopian part of the Hidden Army or its support for the Rim World had been particularly expansive... and the truth was that while there had been periphery first supporters back then... Miranda Raventhir hoped that once word had reached of the Rim World was doing, and the Taurians for that matter that her people had recognized they had been wrong.

The Magistracy had done its best afterwards to survive the breakdown of interstellar trade, but it had still meant that had retreated from other worlds. Luxen had gone from an important provincial capital to edge of the canopian frontier in the rimward periphery of vastly less importance.

"The bunker complex? Like on Pioche?" She managed... even if that had been a Hidden Army facility... that was to say while built with technology of Terran origin had been used by the other side.

The old Lyran tilted his head, "Yes, though given the numbers I would say most of the facility were able to reach their assigned stasis tubes."

The Aurigans had since they had arrived on the interstellar scene always been fond of the Star League. More culturally close in disposition to the Inner Sphere than their proximity to the Concordat would lead one to believe. For most people that was an eccentricity, and a largely harmless one, in the Periphery.

Even without the mounting security threat of Black Jack McGirk Magistracy strategic policy had been to deep trade and relations with ... the truth was that despite being half the size... in number of planets the Magistracy only really had Majesty Metals to rely on in terms of large scale weapons manufacturing. They'd been undersupplied in terms of the military for decades, simply because the budget and the supplies weren't there.

Trade with Aurigans, and friendly relations would also serve as a realpolitik blocking space against any further conflicts with the Concordat... even though official direction from the Magestrix remained an open policy of nominal trade and open convivial relations. The Aurigans for all the fondness they expressed for the Star League had never gone so far as the most recent change in the strategic picture. The Arscacid Margravate contained five core worlds plus Tarragona but that latter outlying world was treated differently. The rapid establishment of government were in the policy of the Terran Alliance and Hegemony. There were already students at the university of Luxen, for which her father occasionally lectured, writing on those comparisons from Katinka's promulgated constitution and historical examples of worlds in the 23rd century far closer to the cradle of humankind.

Arscaid had demobilized a brigade the 60th according to the MIC and the diplomatic corp in expectation of peace. Other units of the old SLDF lost out of time had been demobilized as well leaving primarily a reported force of readied BattleMech regiments, but there were questions of whether or not such a small realm could maintain such numbers.

Abner nodded, "What do you think Mister Dara?"

"The Dragon's," He meant the Draconis Combine, which was far away, so as to have basically no formal relationship diplomatically with the Magistracy, "Ignorance of the situation is, has concerned me... I did not realize when Black Jack fled a decade ago it was to go come to this. His mischief then was a trifling thing, beneath the contempt of the Dragon and he did not wear such accursed colors at that time... the coordinator's court will be alarmed to have such outlaws in Amaris's colors facing the demon king of the sixth heaven... perhaps even more so with the Highlander battalion with him."

She didn't understand, well in that she understood that combine enjoyed applying flowery names to everything, and the longer and more pretentious the better. Calling a BattleMechAce a Demon King was entirely within their habit. It was just that this wasn't a modern Davion Ace, or a famous mercenary... and while there had been stories told, while there was always the popular urban legend and fascination that the Kerensky Exodus of the SLDF might one day return to the Inner Sphere it wasn't quite the same thing to actually see the sudden return of SLDF units...

Not their descendants but the abrupt reemergence of men born in the 28th Century, Abner was quick to reiterate he was a scientist, "The stasis tube while amazing, awe inspiring even is not magic. These men went to sleep as part of a planned action, something that the Hegemony thought about and considered before undertaking."

"Watched over by a machine spirit, and guarded by powerful mechanical jinn wielding the weapons of Old Terra," Dara replied, "Yes, the Hegemony of old hoped its sons would survive catastrophe but the world they awake to is one that has been irrevocably tainted by Amaris's crimes." The Azami warrior replied. "Crimes which the coordinator, and his heirs abetted, and concealed their complicity."

Imperator Pax · Aug 23, 2024

Chapter 4.2
Heron Arsacid finished drying his face, and really only needed to put his boots back on. The Taurian delegation had had the misfortune to arrive alongside the Ebon Dragon... apparently the old men who had arrived with the combine delegation both the diplomatic personnel and the merchants had been given leave from the Combine.

If they succeeded their rewards would have been prolific... one man had boasted the night before his death that he would ask the Coordinator for the honor of commanding a reborn Sword of Light Regiment in his master's service. Heron was familiar, more familiar than ever with the Dragon BattleMech, and had wasted no time in dispatching his Ronin opponent.

It had been such that the Taurians had arrived too. The dueling culture between gunslinger and Ronin returned after centuries of hiatus. He supposed, after a minute that that might not be entirely accurate... from what he understood the Combine's dueling culture and its emphasis had survived but remained largely directed inward amongst the samurai.

Heron didn't regret killing the man, the heavy battlemech favored by the combine simply hadn't been the equal of his Nightstar. It was the pageantry that concerned him, since it had been carried out in clear view of the Taurians. It would have been less of an issue had the combine visit not overlapped with the arrival of the latter.

"Colonel," The Scotts Dragoon questioned from the doorway of the expansive, and luxurious Turkish baths which were available to the officers.

"I'll be there in a moment." He replied. A part of him wanted to know about the other states in the mix. The Combine and the Taurians sat on opposite borders of the Federated Suns, and then there were the Capellans as well to consider. He supposed eventually they would draw the attention of Kenyon Marik's descendants and House Steiner's Lyran Commonwealth.

The dragoon officer didn't budge, "Ah, sir, this isn't about the bulls, sir."

Heron turned. He was taller than the other Terran native. An inch or two, though the other man was heavier set built more for the rugby pitch. They both piloted assault 'mechs, an eponymous Highlander of course, the machine which formed the core basis of the Royal Scotts Dragoons as a formation. "Then the Combine?" He questioned

"Probably after a fact, seeing as they've had to open their mouth to get the Ronin to come around." The other man replied shaking his head as Arsacid strode forward. He stopped only long enough to collect his boots from the entryway and walked down the hall as the Highlander continued to fill him in, "Minister Shawkat fired off a message to the MRB, a portion of SLDF turned mercenary," The ones who hadn't joined Kerensky on his exodus, and the ones who hadn't joined one of the member states," But if I were to guess she means to do more than that."

Heron's face remained placid as they moved through the government complex of Katinka and into a meeting room that could have been any core world of the hegemony's center of planetary business and administration. It was a small creature comfort that had been allowed as they had constructed the margravate,"Do tell?"

"I believe she means to hire on mercenaries to reinforce our existing flank. We could use it to secure Targonna even even if with just tanks and poor bloody infantrymen," Which was nominally within her remit as his prime minister. He had not seriously considered the prospect of mercenaries being hired, despite the Aurigans retaining Markham's Marauders... in part was simply his lack of familiarity with the modern arrangement that had become the norm of the succession wars. The willingness of the Aurigans to rely on such was probably a strong factor in its consideration... from what he understood the Taurians also employed a sizable number of mercenary battalions, which likely impacted the decision making of his chief minister.

He had no adequate response to the news, and would have to think about it. Ultimately Shawkat probably had a point, they needed stabilization of their forces and the truth was not just against the Taurians, there were the pirates as well. Pirates would have likely been a concern, but Black Jack's materiel advantage was an anomaly. Someone had obviously provided the pirate with the metal, and then per the recordings from some distant world in the coreward periphery far far to the North of Terra made the mistake of sending green troops against hardened killers.

The battle recordings they had pulled from salvaged royal machines was concerning, but it corroborated recovered data from the standard machines that had been recovered that had been present. It raised questions since the prevailing theory was that all the machines regular army and Hegemony machines had to have come from equipment put away after Kerensky had departed the inner sphere. One estimate, though not currently proven, was that they were probably had gone into storage in the 29thcentury, which was controversial since from what they understood of post League history that should have been the height of the first succession war.

The Hegemony had been gone by that point. That was always something he was reminding himself of.

Heron walked around the massive holographic sphere display. Its center point was much as Unity Palace's had been... even if Katinka's government center was nearly as grandiose it harkened back to the Terran Hegemony that no longer drew breath. The Margravate would follow Earth's policy of a contiguous boundary of worlds as possible. Ideally the relationship with the Coalition would be more equitable than that of the Star League... but the Margravate was neither the Hegemony nor the Aurigan Coalition the Star League... those assemblies were gone... but he could not help but see the similarities as his staff worked to knit five core worlds into a functional government, and also to integrate an open and fair trade based economy with still other neighboring worlds.

There were other displays but not one so large as the display of inhabited space around them. There were others though that showed more tactical information. The one he moved to next was of the system proper.

He still would have liked had the Brinton Crisis not unfurled but it certainly could have been worse ,and he knew that as well. "How are the Taurian delegation responding to the combine's presence?" He inquired, and half a mind to ask how well ComStar was responding to the imperious delegation of high born samurai too many of whom had graduated from Sun Zhang. Most of the first wave of arrivals were older men, those who had reached retirement age in the DCMS for whom this was a last chance for glory.

The Taurians had had to watch them directly petition for the opportunity for battle. Some men had made challenges directly... this morning's opponent in the Dragon, other ronin had challenged other Hegemony Gunslingers. This was not the war of davion succession there was no longer anything approaching a technological parity. All of the ACMS Program Graduates in the Highlander battalion were running -b series Highlanders. Most of the Gunslingers were operating royal battlemechs... and those that weren't were running Marauders or Orions. All of whom were survivors of the conflict against Amaris here in the Rimward Periphery.

"Not well I'd suppose. They've got the Davions between them sure, but so far as the bulls are concerned they're not going to forget any time soon how popular Kerensky was with the DCMS units on secondment to the SLDF, or how happy those lads were to put the rebellion on New Vandenburg down." Kerensky from what they had gathered had been very popular with the SLDF line units by the end of the war, enough that units which might have otherwise sided with Minoru Kurita had not backed his claim to the throne, and had instead of obeying Kerensky's removal from his post as commanding general had decided to go along with the Exodus thathad tracked coreward, and far from the California nebula in the rimward periphery. "The combine for their part view the Taurians as barely civilized."

One might have though, though Arsacid didn't mention it to the lieutenant colonel addressing him, that the Combine had not realized it was the 31st century and that the Taurians had not been a territorial state of the star league because the Star League was defunct and had been for two and a half centuries. "Is that going to cause a problem during their stay?"

"I don't imagine so. The ronin are here to fight, but if they start something to break etiquette ...well I don't see that happening." That was probably the advantage of the combine sending old men who weren't quite as 'useful' to the front line instead of a rash bunch of youths... but that was something likely to happen. "Breaking the peace outside of things, would mean an invitation to water the garden sir. Of course its always possible that loud mouth Ostergaard will throw the first punch, he's a young fella and I don't think 'military attache' or not," admittedly a junior one, he had superiors along, "what the hell is going on." There was a pause and the kilted man came to a halt at his elbow as they looked up at the constellation of world the lines formed by jumpship routes, "The Robes don't know what the devil they're looking at either... and they're looking at the work the industrial 'mechs are doing and scratching their heads."

It was through that confluence of routes which control could be maintained. Artru, and the previously mentioned further distant Tarragona were the only worlds of the Margravate that were not one jump away from the others. Aea, and Katinka both were placed in the heavens where they could be jumped from towards several other worlds. Two of those were of course Regis Roost and Qalzi.

It was therefore easy for a jumpship circuit to travel between the margravate worlds. The Taurians had as with the combine only arrived through a straight shot, but they'd probably seen enough that way. Sitting in plain view above Katinka were the massive shipyards that had been unfurled. All of which, all of the space facilities in the Margravate carried a variation of the Terran Hegemony Starburst... the Cameron starburst in white gray.

It was a reminder of who they were. Those facilities were off limits to outsiders of course but you could not meaningfully hide what a shipyard was. Those too formed constellations, and buzzed with activity that at least could have been mistaken for worker shuttles.

Some of those even were... but this was the Taurians first official visit to the system. The Combine was getting its first look. Assuming that the ISF still retained access to documentation from the Star League era they would be able to recognize the shipyards as designs facilities which had disappeared as Kerensky had apparently absconded with the majority of the black box systems when he had left on the exodus... the ones he hadn't taken, or destroyed himself, had been wholly lost it seemed by the second succession war.

What the combine probably did not know was that the shipyards were capable of constructing or maintaining compact or standard jump cores. The Taurians would know them as JumpShip yards, constructing Star Lord-class JumpShips. It was something that the Aurigans knew, and that the Canopians would likely be told. "You said the robes didn't understand the situation?"

The holographic display of in system traffic dominated an area that was equivalent in area to a crew quarter aboard a jumpship, a comfortable crews quarter not steerage. It allowed officers, and other ranks to stand around and watch the live feed. It allowed them to watch the JumpShips of foreign flagged vessels, of free traders, and the like as they sat in system... but the overwhelming majority of traffic were carrying that Cameron starburst.

"We don't worship technology," The highlander remarked, but his tone was more irritated to suggest that he wanted to be a little less polite as what he said. "We have schools sir. It was one of the first things we built were children's creches," The sudden shock of awakening in a new world, and the need to demobilize a mixed gender army that was two centuries out of time had lead to a minor baby boom after all. There had been talk about social psychology and how people had responded to the environment they had woken up to but Katinka was a Terran world, and there had been the need to provide for the emerging society, "For the next generation, we had men and women who retired to become teachers for them. I don't think they've ever seen that before."

Heron made a noise in the back of his throat. "That might become a problem," The colonists, involuntary as they might have been, hadn't had to worry because the essence by selling off HPGs in the Essence system allowed him to buy Hegemony black box factory units which didn't require people to work. So they could focus on building Katinka's government center, and also bringing farms under cultivation, growing vast quantities of wheat. Grain that would help support the other smaller colonies of the margravate all around. "The Earth that was, the Hegemony is gone, and while the HPG network is useful to have, I want those people watched." It had gone without saying no one was going to offer the Taurians an invitation of any of the industrial facilities... never mind that the battlemech facilities in the city south of the planetary capital were producing Archer BattleMechs already, but he suspected that the issue was going to be more than that. "Tell Ridgely that he's to be on his toes for any visitors." There was already a monitored, and protected exclusionary zone around the shipyards, some of that were of course piloted ASF, but voidseeker drones were already up and running.

He had assured Locura after all that he would take precautions to protect this last remnant of the Terran Hegemony's Armed Forces. "I will sir,"

"This meeting needs to go smoothly." He remarked, even though he shouldn't have had to say as much, it should have gone without saying, but things were surreal and complicated.

Imperator Pax · Aug 29, 2024

4.3
He spared a look through the massive, but transparent ferro-aluminium bubble of the government center. Katinka's government in keeping Terran traditions was protected from attack, while still appearing visually impressive... it was designed to impress; in a way that was not present or at least not to this scale for the other worlds of the margravate. Unity on the Puget Sound had been modelled on the ancient Terran castle of Neuwachenstein and its imitators built over theintervening centuries, and that included a tradition of carefully tended greenery. Katinka's more northern latitudes would easily support wheat and corn agriculture, and to the south there was sufficient rain for rice, but the capital, in no small part to further obscfucate the presence of the castle outpost he had gone into stasis in and its AI had had tea plants carefully laid out around the impact crater's remains on the surface.

That had not been a consideration of the Combine. If they wanted to consider that it was fine, there was no point disabusing them of such notions. This would be the first meeting of the week on foreign policy. He had made sure to check that his engineers, and the DOME personnel among others were aware that the security procedures were not mere suggestions. He wanted them to exercise caution.. just as he would exercise caution when contending with either, with any of their visitors. That had meant still at least agreeing to talk with the delegations.

He had no interest in refusing any attempts at dialogue. That would have been true even if he had a full Corp behind him, which of course he did not. That would have been a risky proposition at the best of times, and one likely to all to easily be misread misconstrued as a belligerent action. "Centrella is here as well?"

"Yes sir."

"Is it going to be an issue seating her at the table?"

"No, in terms of precedence her credentials as official ambassador give her clear seniority," The aide a naval lieutenant declared, "and its not like we told them where they would be seating, so just a matter of moving the seating around.

He would have liked if Coromodir was more directly accessible to Katinka It would have likely made his life simpler, and certainly it would have made direct participation in Aurigan politics easier. It was only a few jumps, but even that given everything necessitated passing it off to Shawkat, which was itself a reminder of the life span difference of Hegemony citizens and the modern inner sphere. His chief minister, and for that matter his minister for defense, had both been born on Terran worlds in the 27th Century both being in their eighties at the time of the crisis in Christmas of 2765 and the downfall of the Camerons.

That had also lead to leadership being overly cautious at times. The hidden war had proved that, as the current star lord had been surrounded by courtiers who didn't want to rock the boat... the same sentiment that the star lord had himself championed even for the damage it did by undermining the league and went against Hegemony interests... but that had been a long time ago, and he had not been in any position to act then.

None of that really mattered here and now, and it didn't effect the presence of Anna Marie Centrella who was the Canopian Ambassador to the Aurigan Coalition. They were going to need to thread a careful foreign policy program, and one that had to consider the broader circumstances of the Aurigan Reach. Something that even though Canopus was relatively distant, especially given the state of JumpShip resources, had to be aware of.

He doubted Luthien cared about the Canopians. The present Coordinator was would have from what they understood too busy with the Succession Wars his ancestor had inaugurated by attempting to declare himself heir to House Cameron. There were days that Arascid wondered, quietly and to himself if he had not gone into stasis if he wouldn't have then had to make a choice of siding with House Davion against the Kuritas ... or executing the fall back plan into the Rimward periphery. He had been one of a handful of Terran officers that had hoped the Shadow Ministry would do more, that Sister Cameron would do the right thing, right in their opinion and take more assertive action... but that hadn't happened.

He still didn't understand Kerensky's choice to go north not south... but there were too many other questions to be had about the last days of the League. They were not, he would be the first to admit, the margravate, the Star League in Exile. Heron turned away from the expansive verdant view over the plateau and of tea plants that expanded across it, and made for the great door of the chamber, cognizant of its white and black check, and the starburst of House Cameron.

As a flag it would have been unnecessary to comment on it. It followed the common practice ofhegemony worlds. As an ensign it would have been easy for most to confuse it with any number of worlds in an around the Earth. That Earth that had been.

The chambers were functional, admittedly the chairs were designed for comfort in that the room was expected to be in use for long periods of time... not that Heron was all that sure he wanted to spend long afternoons with the Taurians or the visitors from the Combine, but he accepted it was a possibility.

The room itself also included a number of the protective anti personnel drones within. Katinka's Outpost Castle AI had control of those and while Heron wasn't worried about himself, it was ultimately a safeguard over any attempts to repeat the Amaris coup against House Cameron. He moved from the doorway to the head of the table as the other door on the other end opened to admit the arriving delegation. Open covenants arrived at by open negotiations, it was an old idea, over a thousand years old ... and it was still an idealistic one, but the point of having all here was to dissuade or dilute paranoia, and lack of trust... whether it would work, Arsacid couldn't be sure. If the Capellans did show up late they'd be offended, the Combine was probably offended they weren't being given preferential treatment, and worse being made to share a table here with the Taurians, but there were inevitably going to be bilateral talks.

... but of course that was the thing, no one had actually come out and laid out a foreign policy statement. They were all of them, just here. They had shown up. That was true of the Combine mission, with its ronin in tow, and it was true of the arrival on the Coromodir circuit of Ambassador Centrella.

Centrella was the easy one. She had formal diplomatic credentials. The combine had not actually attempted to provide an official ambassador, and their representative was a young lady of noble birth, but was here as a representative of the combine's merchants and their pillar of Jade... she was a title official with the Bureau of Interstellar Trade. That was to say the young lady was probably a spy who was here to spy on foreigners, themselves, or to watch the merchants in the capacity of a less obtrusive political officer. The Taurian contingent seemed itself strained and internally divided... the current protector had been in power long enough that her conservatism and caution were rankling the more aggressive reactionary factions.

That concerned him. The representatives of territorial interstellar states as the Combine, Concordat and Magistracy of Canopus were, were joined by the small gathering of secondary but still necessary functionaries, but also by the last party to these discussions. The robe clad representatives of ComStar, the religious order who had inherited the mandate of maintaining the SLCOMNET after the down fall of the Star League. As a gathering they were an odd collection, and made perhaps even more so by the unmentioned to the visitors presence of the Hegemony AI resident of Katinka's Castle Outpost.

On balance the majority of the delegation were men, but it wasn't that lopsided in total. The Canopian, and Combine delegations were both officially headed by women even if there was perhaps ten years or more between them. The Taurian chief negotiator was even older than his canopian counterpart being in his late fifties. The comstar precentor perhaps a decade young than him, and had originally hailed from the free worlds league from his accent. It was in dress where there was a much greater display of national costume. The Taurians ironically were the closest to business attire, while the Canopian ambassador wore light blue, the Magistracy national color, airy dress that was probably fashionable in her homestate. The elaborate kimono, and its layers worn by the young lady were par for the course, her retainers wore similar styles of clothing. At least the retainers trousers were somewhat practical, the nickname robes was not without reason. The technology worshipping order had apparently canonized some middle management type .... which Arscaid supposed he couldn't really fault given the canonization of House Cameron but most of his subordinates were after having slept away two and a half centuries not nearly as indulgent of the world.

Arsacid turned, "Very well young lady, you asked for this meeting, and I'm rather curious as to why given I believed our relationship between by men and the ronin you brought with established where we stood."

Tomoe nodded, "The periphery is full of great dangers, and invites many bandits, and outlaws to its frontiers. Among those were men who deserted and fled from their duty to the Dragon."

He raised an eyebrow, "The Azami fleet that appeared over Luxen in 3015, I had heard about. They have slipped away from you," he replied not maliciously but it wasn't something he had missed either, "As I understand it there are a number of Azami who have fled rimward, but they have not joined with black jack... and nor would I expect them to given he has taken to painting his machines in the colors and markings of the Rim World Republic Army," And that, god in his heaven, that was one of the pieces from Brinton that had given them pause even though they had been on the watch for it. The Brinton crisis had potentially rekindled so much bad blood.

The ISF agent, or that was his working assumption spread her hands, "It is so, but even so they are deserters and pirates who have fled justice and the combine has placed bounties on all of them, and to those who shelter them. This is the decree of the Coordinator of All Worlds." It was at this that the Taurians ruffled slightly in protest, but nothing so gauche as to overturn tables or call out, but they were clearly in objection of the ruler of the Draconis Combine's traditional title and its implied claim over all human space.

Imperator Pax · Aug 30, 2024

4.4
The room sat there for a moment after the remark regarding the deserters. He wasn't sure that the man had a response prepared for that but it was clear the phrasing had rankled the Taurian envoy. The Combine, not being hereabout Brinton, made sense. They might have cared about the existence of the chemical and biological weapon stockpiles on the planet and indeed about any caches of star league era if not provenance weapons but the Combine itself dismissing the crisis out of hand probably had not occurred to them.

Admittedly it hadn't properly occured to Heron for the simple fact that the Brinton Crisis had been so forward in all thoughts , and news. He knew about the Azami movement through the periphery and the arrival of the combine presence shortly thereafter but he had also awakened only recently thereabouts and he had been forced to engage Black Jack's pirates. By the time he had been in a position to do anything the Azami had disappeared far into the rimward expanse of the periphery... and he had had to order his officers that no, that was not a viable use of their still limited resources.

They simply had not be the time or the resources to chase after them.

If the combine cared so much as to make issue of it here as their first and foremost issue... well that said something and that whatever that something was it was more than just pride. Perhaps they misconstrued that he'd be disinclined to shelter the Azami because of either their former DCMS service, or because ofthe piracy. The latter was more of the immediate issue, but an amnesty proposal really in the present situation was not out of the realm of possibility. The truth was there was a massive difference between the first and second battles of Luxen which had been about a year apart. If given the opportunity the Canopians might well have accepted their need for manpower and have the Azami change sides if it gave them protection for one of their former provincial capitals against a repeat of the rampage that the second battle of Luxen had turned into.

That was the degree of desperation he understood the various planets and polities across the rimward periphery to be in.

The room slowly found its footing. "Black Jack is something of a common foe," Heron remarked as felt out the positions of the room, "Your deserters seemed to have disappeared from the periphery," Or at least the public eye, "I will make no commitments there, but I will exercise caution in dealing with them." To do otherwise would have been stupid. "If they should reappear, if they are your only item perhaps we should table it in favor of moving to discuss Brinton."

"You invaded Taurian Space."

"I did." He replied to the envoy, "A necessity given the situation, the Rim World biological weapons program would have been catastrophic if released by accident, never mind a willful use of it. Brinton at a minimum would have been rendered uninhabitable... so yes I ordered my Scotts Dragoons to violate Taurian sovereignty, for which with the downfall of the Star League I had no legal right to do." Which was true, the council of state was gone, there was no legal. The Taurians were independent and not a territorial state, "But it is not to be misconstrued as policy to infringe upon Taurian independence, "Even though that was exactly what he had done, and that in the faceof such things he would probably have done again, and that would make him a liar. "The representative of ComStar has suggested that we can make remunerations in c-bills for damaged caused by my troopers to civilian property."

What the ComStar representative probably hadn't realized was that the C-Bill was something Arsacid could easily acquire. He had no need to consider loans from the religious order's banking establishments he could simply hand over the payment, and hope that fixed the problem. If reparations for civilian damages fixed the problem, well that would be have been great, but he had only outlined willingness to accept damage his scotts had done, and even that would be inevitable to turn into an argument over culpability for the fighting between Capellan, Pirate, Taurian Defenders and his forces.

"Money?"

"Financial compensation, yes." He replied. It was obvious, it had been obvious that the more revanchist Taurians wouldn't like that resolution, "I would like a good neighbor policy, but we're not going to trust each other, and yes Brinton is as good of a reason as any, so I can hardly propose we work together against Black Jack, but I am willing to extend reparations of if not monetary payments then the equivalent value in raw materials if the Concordat government would prefer that, but a cash payment is the most expedited solution." For which he didneed ComSTar's banking apparatus even if he didn't need to borrow the money from them. "Let me be clear my understanding is that Black Jack before uncovering the Hidden Army Depot had put together on the order of three hundred SLDF battlemechs, including over a hundred Hegemony machines with royal technology." What he wasn't telling the Taurians were those estimates from the intelligence staff officers were tentative, and we quite a ways in assuming that Black Jack had been able to keep his forces in fighting shape... but he was aiming to drive home the threat the pirate posed. Therefore he didn't mind risking overstating the pirate's personal forces... and of course it was true Black Jack was bolstering his forces, and seemed to be operating far and wide from either side of the Taurian border... which had probably encouraged the Capellans to accuse publicly the Concordat government of supporting McGirk.

He wasn't prepared to make a similar accusation because he really didn't have any proof, and avoid deliberately antagonizing the Taurian delegation, but the offer of money really was the easiest possible solution. The holographic display shifting, saved him from the necessity of so gauche a comment that any resources the Taurians might try and spend on a border dispute with the Aurigans would leave them vulnerable to theCapellans, and in theory House Davion. Realistically it was also quite possible that any Capellan belligerence might well be aimed atthe coalition. That was the complicating aspect of the situation was that this was a multi-polar environment where either side opened themselves to raids by a third party in the form of the capellans.

The pirates complicated things further still. He could make no suggestions over trade without the pirates nolnger, or were greatly reduced in their ability to menace trade.

The Star League was gone. He could [police his own borders, but he couldn't spare the forces especially now to go over to his neighbors worlds. Certainly not without some status of forces entailed, and that wasn't going to happen with the Taurians. The Canopian border was too far away to do more than provide an effort that advisory, and even best limited to a planet like Luxen... which was a world that ComStar 's presence there had already been hit hard.

ComStar's meagre presence at periphery stations of vehicles and infantry was not enough. The espoused neutrality would not cover it, and instead the robed monks who reported back to a leadership far off on Terra and a council made up of nominal representatives for each successor state's HPGs insisted on host nation protection. At Brinton, in the face of that not being readily provided that had turned to demands for protection from any military force. That detail likely contributed to the acrimonious feelings between ComStar and the Taurian government both local and national. ComStar did not want a fight in the periphery, if only out of self interest that a fight which stripped resources from major worlds for offensives would leave its stations woefully undefended.

So thus, ComStar wanted a truce, if nota more formal détente... or at least to avoid the Taurians moving to a formal declaration of war.

For that, the current Protector was unlikely to do, at least so long as there was no expected continuation of hostilities. Protector Zarantha Calderon did not want open hostilities, especially not if she had to still worry about an aggressive successor state on her borders... and at the moment the Cappellan Confederation had declined to join any talks.

Imperator Pax · Sep 4, 2024

4.5
The room was dominated by the holographic display, and for the sea for the stars and jumpship lanes it might well have been missed the star date upon the legend. It read 2765, under the auspices of the defunct Star League, and while it had been updated to reflect modern political boundaries it held no shortage of worlds in the Periphery that had largely disappeared from maps for disuse or depopulation.

It painted a picture that Black Jack had no shortage of worlds to hide. For that Ana Maria Centrella hadn't needed it, it was a lesson that she didn't need. She had known it all too well. Arsacid showed the map freely as he outlined that while in theory they could discuss a common front, there was no trust between them after the events on Brinton, if there had even been some before. "I will be blunt in saying this, the League died with the murder of House Cameron, and the disaster that befell the Hegemony." The Terran remarked resigned, and perhaps cynical, that his long gone and now distant empire to which he had dedicated so much of his life had overstretched itself, and placed its trust poorly. "Any cooperation must reflect the facts on the ground, even if that cooperation is just the recognition of our real borders, which is what I ask. If we can engage in equitable trade, and enterprise then so be it, but the basics must be recognized."

Arsacid was a tall man. He had never known privation common across the periphery or the inner sphere worlds were the war had devastated the local environments. It would have been all too easy to contemplate the words as honey, and the speaker soft... but history showed that the Hegemony while it had made mistakes and whose hubris had brought about its own destruction had not been soft. The Combine had bestowed a ridiculous absurd epithet in their flowery language in the hidden war over the Davion Succession, and then when the SLDF had gone out to the periphery it had been Hegemony troops and troops recruited from the Combine which had fought alongside one another.

The DCMS soldiers had loved Terran officers as heroes. Not because they were suddenly disloyal to the combine, but because Samurai ethos, and the books that the combine produced emphasized personal loyalty. The SLDF had been recruited from across the Inner Sphere, and also the periphery 'territorial states' of the era. Arsacid had seen the end of that era, watched it disappear. For that Ana Maria Centrella had no doubt that made 'the demon king of the sixth heaven' impossibly dangerous, the straios warnings, and historical footage were reiterations much as the legend on the map was.

It was similar in thoughts to the Combine. For Tomoe Lady Florimel's warning was especially poignant, Arsacid had lived a warrior's life. He was as much of a ronin as any who could be, for he had outlived House Cameron. To deny him Samurai status was unconscionable as he was a living remnant of what had once been. What was potentially calamitous was that Arsacid held command of a fragment of House Cameron's loyal soldiers now long displaced from the Hegemony. Florimel's caution was that while the coordinator's respect was to be conveyed, it might be preferable if the demon king were left to tend to matters in the periphery far far from the Combine's splendor.

For ComStar, the considerations were however all together different. Arsacid's martial prowess was not the farthest thing from their minds, but that he came from an era where the original Stefan Amaris had lived, and what they could not readily broach was Black Jack's partnership, through Kristofur Kelly, the alias of a disgraced precentor ROM, of a man who was heir to Amaris legacy... which would be more than simply embarrassing to Blake's blessed order if it came to light.

It was the Taurians most concerned with the violation of Brinton, and Taurian territorial sovereignty who were most focused on the present... and far less concerned about the walking ghosts of the hegemony. That was not however to say that didn't concern them, but Zarantha Calderon's government was modern, moderate, and interested in peace and trade and investment, not in making war on its neighbors.

For the Taurians, Ana Maria recognized her presence, ComStar's presence, and perhaps especially that of the Inner Sphere state sitting at the table were still an unwelcome intrusion on bilateral discussions over the border dispute. Given the 'after the facts' statements that had come out of Brinton the Combine might well have attempted to participate if they had believed their ronin could have somehow secured 'star league era weapons'... but the Combine hadn't had the luck to hear about Brinton before the fighting was already done. There was nothing they could have gained by trying to mount a lostech claim jump even if the lostech hadn't been potentially unstable wmds. Especially as unlike the Taurians, Pirates, and Capellans Arsacid's highlanders had arrived to destroy the weapons, and the bunkers they were in with massed incendiary and scuttling charges meant to extinguish any possibility of the biological or chemical weapons surviving the effort.

That Star League era was technically true, but that they had been Rim World bio weapons on a Taurian world, in a conflict where pirates were now seemingly as a matter of routine wearing Rim World colors was not a good look for the Taurian government. The press in the conversation came in the rolling together of the idea of reparations, in conjunction with the Taurains, and nominally the Aurigans, recognition of the border positions as they existed by ComStar. ComStar who at the same time also hoped to as apart of the treaty wrangle concessions from not just the two recent belligerents, but those present at the table. Concessions on security of HPG stations Ana Maria didn't necessarily have the power to make even with plenipotentiary powers.

Arsacid paused at the priest, his eyes calculating, as his fingers moved around the papers, "Your existing Level IIs, such that I understand are a gendarmes for all intents and purposes." Which obviously could no longer suffice, "A combination largely of infantry and armor," He added, "I can't speak for the broader Coalition, but as I understand it your Level II is something of an understrength company equivalent. I will allocate for a company's worth of BattleMech air lances," An air lance being 4 'Mechs, and 2 ASF, which was by itself a hideous expense, "along with attaching their headquarters force to the existing planetary presence on Margravate worlds with existing HPG stations." The holographic trick was part of the demonstration... Ana Maria expected this was Arsacid's normal working space the larger trick was in what it implied, and what matching the offer would require.

The Margravate hosted class B HPG stations on Aea, Regis Roost, and Artru. That was in theory half the margravate but still only three companies in addition to the existing planetary forces. For the Concordat allocating a 'mech company to every world with a class b station was logistically impossible if the Concordat hoped to have any offensive striking capacity left over. The same was true for the Magistracy, her home country lacked the ability to spare such forces just to reinforce the vulnerable HPG stations across the two larger periphery states.

The Combine representative kept a placid expression but given the looks the robe was sending her didn't like the proposal either. That didn't stop the representative of ComStarfrom pressing, and had there been a representative able to speak for the entire coalition, not necessarily Lord Tamati but certainly Ana Maria suspected they would have tried to finagle an agreement. The Robe's efforts quickly overshadowed the entire conversation of reparations as Arsacid sat back to let the ComSTar representative argue for an unrealistic commitment of forces from the states as if silently sharing in a joke with some unknown other party in the room.

Imperator Pax · Sep 6, 2024

4.6
They had agreed to briefly adjourn for lunch. Adjourned was something of a strong word, really since it had entailed stopping ostensibly for food but really and excuse to keep the precentor from badgering for demands of protection. What the precentor had made clear he wouldn't have accepted was a matching in volume, all the HPG stations had needed to protected in the respective polity. That had eventually, as he had expected it to, to turn into a push for him to speak for the entirety of the Aurigan Reach.

What of course the precentor didn't realize was that Arsacid had run the numbers already. What he needed was political sanction to move the resources he gathered from Artu and build small bases across the Reach in order to justify those companies. Shawkat probably wouldn't appreciate the commitment or the need to pressure it, but he was already envisioning pulling infantry and armor from a coalition federal commitment to the worlds with HPG stations not under his charge.

He'd need to speak to both his chief minister, and Lord Espinosa, but Coromodir coupled with Katinka could manufacture Thunderbolts and Archers and there were the Dragons and Griffins which would make an impressive presence to rally around as their numbers expanded in the next few years, but what they would really need was to expand the federal militias of tanks and infantry as a deterrent... not so much against the pirates but against meddling by the other 'successor states' as was the term of the day.

Artru's materiel stockpile fed into his essence and then recycled meant he had a select reserve. There was however the use of the term 'Aurigan Reach' which was potentially a legal pitfall. There were independent worlds apart of the Reach who were not members of the Coalition. It was legal fencing, they were going to have establish terms, and definitions... but he planned to send off a message to Coromdir and inform Shawkat sooner rather than later. It was the least he could do given the potential headache this was for his prime minister.

The break had also given him time to pull previous recommendations from his staff. The Naval Officer who wanted schools built was an option, sending a company of 'mechs along with them was something he could afford... but not to Canopus. He had other officers who had questions, Delaney hadn't brought it up sense, but the officer still had questions... and the Combine bringing up the fleet that had slipped away from Luxen was going to cause his staff to raise those questions even if Delaney didn't suggest mounting a search party.

Arsacid wished that the Hegemony had made better success in the aeroscout automated ftl drones for exploration... but no, there were things in hyperspace that drove machines mad if they lacked a human crew, and even then it was safest for the AI to be asleep and secured in their berths than to make the Jump.

"The parties are ready to resume." He nodded to the ensign, and passed his instructions along. He wasn't going to make suggestion either to the staff now, they were perfectly capable of reading and reviewing, or executively making the proposal to Ana Maria Centrella in her capacity as Canopian Ambassador either now or in the span of the next few days. The entire point of having a staff was to check your work, and draw up proposals based on ideas like this... it was also to tell him if something was out of line. The same reason for not allowing Delaney the resources to go haying off into the dark,

An advisory mission to babysit some doctors and scientists and educators well well, roll that all into one maybe they could manage to see if any strange Azami merchants showed up..... but he doubted that much, the first few items might do some good, serve some higher cause of state. "Very good, make sure that is passed along," Shawkat's absence was always a headache. It was easy to rely on much older Terrans to do things when they had generation of experience by normal standards... that was likely to be especially true given the health care, and life spans expected of the modern age they found themselves in. Heron stood and made his way back through the door, leaving the ferro aluminum bubble overlooking the tea plantation behind.

The noise was already starting to build in the room. "Something on?"

"The Precentor," A voice whispered through his neural link, "Might have accidentally let slip details of attacks that have yet to be made public. Information transmitted through the SLCOMNET, most likely in real time transmissions." An apparently near unconscionable expense for when people wanted to use the service... apparently that cost didn't apply when the priests needed. "It may indicate they have a more effective use of the network than previously surmised."

He made a sub vocal affirmation, unnecessary since the mind machine interface of his circlet made it very easy to communicate acknowledgement to the Katinka AI, and turned towards his chair, and pulled it out. He had only caught part of the conversation for the din, but the young lady from the combine had seemed openly contemptuous the flash of dismissive malice most appropriate to the schoolyard hanging there as she harangued the robed precentor, he contempt barely veiled for both the priest, and for the 'the Capellan's misfortune'.

The details of that misfortune did help explain the agitation for commitments to defense of ComStar's stations, that had also included the Combine's commitment to defending the stations. Realistically Black Jack was unlikely to wheel around and start attacking ComStar in the Draconis Combine but if the Combine were to commit to security contingent then the Capellans might be pressured into agreeing to such.

Truthfully Arsacid didn't care about that. His intention to speak to Shawkat on what they could do to bolster the security presence on Coalition worlds, the potential legal ramifications of terms like 'Aurigan Reach', all of that could be discussed in committee. If Black Jack were hitting the Capellans then that had other implications, more immediate security implications for the state rather than ComStar's concerns over the HPG network... but the implication that ComStar was perhaps making the network seem less available than it was, even if they had perfectly valid reasons was a data point that couldn't be overlooked... especially given McGirk seemed intent on breaking up the HPG network for his own reasons.

He had no reason therefore to stop the argument. Letting the Combine representative argue with the precentor suited him just fine. It was the best option to let them air their grievances in public, let them argue among themselves while he watched, and got a feel for them. According to her credentials Lady Ana Maria Centrella had been born on Canopus in 2984, her Taurian counterpart had been born to a well established Taurian family coreward in the late fifties.

The two of them were content to let House Kurita protest on their behalf, even if that wasn't the Combine's intention. They had no intention of either provoking the combine to turn attention, nor to let the precentor harangue them for their government's limited resources.

It did however give him yet further reason not to bring up at this juncture any talk of schools and teachers in Canopian space. It had occurred to him, given the importance of House Karosas's efforts that he risked a quite parochial fight if he rushed forward with schools staffed by DOME men stood down in the reach... and also that he was probably going to need those men available for other duties on worlds like Fjaldr or Weldry both which needed maintenance of terraforming equipment to make them not quite so bitterly cold and unpleasant. The problem with that was precisely the thing to which the young lady and the precentor were arguing about... doubly so if Black Jack were jumping the border.
--
Notes: Formatting correction pending.

Imperator Pax · Sep 12, 2024

4.7
As conferences went this lacked much of the formal ceremony of the League era that had been consigned to oblivion with the death of House Cameron. The canopians being the only state represented by an ambassador no doubt put Ana Maria Centrella in something of a bind. The Margravate was a member state within the Aurigan Coalition... which was in not quite historical terms somewhat rather like the articles of confederation of America, or the north German trade union prior to the unification of Germany on ancient terra.

Lord Tamati had limited powers over the other states. The states, in typical terms, the member worlds and their ruling houses more directly were represented and agreed to free trade, and to not make war on one another... beyond that though there were few significant powers binding on the membership of the coalition. That had made it appealing to join as a trade pact, and the need of collective defense a generation previously had been another.

The coalition around House Arano's leadership had been a relatively recent thing as many people Arsacid had personally spoken to, and even more saw fit to comment upon in writing the Aurgian Coalition, and the 'Aurigan Trade Partnership' before it were post Star League, post 1st Succession War even. Such things were hastily brought forward in discussions among many many sidebars that had derailed the conference.

That was something that authors writing regarding the rimward periphery whether citizens of the inner sphere and its successor houses, or denizens of the periphery commented on. Though, as Arsacid understood it was a bias formed from the basis of many other states. States founded in the aftermath of the devastation of the first succession war rose and fell with alarming frequently, typically because they were so often established by deserters or pirates. It was also the chauvinism of age, Taurian authors were quick to speak of how old the concordat was in relation to more junior states, and the canopians frequently ignored Cassandra's piracy and coercive measures to establish the Magistracy. For that, the Aurigan Coalition were upstarts.

It was not all together unusual inhuman diplomatic history. Arsacid understood that, but it was quite surreal to be on the receiving end of, regardless of how often the Combine had liked to pretend itself the heir to an incalculably ancient tradition of the old feudal Earth... not that he had been so crass as to tell the young lady from the combine that... but truthfully he imagined more than a few of his officers were thinking quite similar thoughts.

All of these factors imposed on the proceedings a certain difficulty, and though ComStar had stated its intention was here to mediate Heron would have been lying to say he didn't think they were prioritizing their own interests over talks of Brinton, even while they trotted out the facts of the recent crisis... at least the pirates in any event. The slip by the precentor of events over the border with the Capellan Confederation were another matter that hung over the table, both because there was no capellan representative but also for the surly mistrust that ComStar had not informed either the Taurians or the Magistracy of this most recent spate of violence on the Inner Sphere' border with the rimward periphery.

"The situation on the Capellan frontier is unfortunate," Heron stated from where he stood at the head of the table, his eyes moving over the seated delegates and their aides, and functionaries, "it is not however news that should be all together surprising." Less restrained and in more jovial company would have entailed some one inevitably criticizing Liao as the sick man of the Inner Sphere... it was he supposed funny how many idioms of geopolitics that dated from before human flight had survived, where as the idioms of the interim had by and large not. He understood why, it had by the assertion of Terran will, the establishment of the hegemony, and made more feasible by the Star League that a return to a more coherent cultural empire, again to the French assertion of an 'American Empire' after the onset of the coldwar of the 20th century, that idioms and ideas had become commonplace in the inner sphere spreading lexicon of people. He settled on the ambassador, "The Aurigan Coalition is only alittle more than a century old," Such that of the Terrans whomhe had ... there were dignitaries, and doctors, and scientists who'd been born on Hegemony worlds who had lived and had careers longer than the Coalition had existed as a state, but he had no need to mention that. He had no one after all older than ComStar ... at least in terms of lives actually lived, the time in a stasis tube didn't count, "The pirates are a worsening problem I think this body can take the news from the Capellan frontier and agree to that, and agree that we should all look at our respective present holdings, and recognize that any with value are likely to attract black jack's predations." Of those gathered, it was only the Combine who really didn't need to but the Combine felt the need to be included in these proceedings, they had made that much clear even as it attracted insistent, strident even demands for commitments from ComStar regarding the latter's security. "So I will ask what options exist by which to bring Black Jack to heel?"

There was silence in the room.

He was sure that everyone had asked themselves the question before... but space was a vast place. The Combine had loudly demanded that the Azami who had fled to the periphery be treated as deserters but no one could afford to antagonize potential sources of arms against Black Jack... when the latter was so readily festooning his forces with Amaris's colors.

That certainly was a concerning trend. Heron had noticed how modern people reacted to those colors, more viscerally, more ingrained into their social psyche than his own men... but for good reason.

The precentor, the middle aged Free Worlder, was obviously torn in between wanting the commitment of forces he had been finagling all morning, as it was now approaching four in the afternoon, for to sit and defend ComStar installations... and having to consider agreeing in principle to the young lady from the Combine's solution that hunting down blackjack and cutting the head off the snake might best address the problem. Leaving aside that killing black jack would result in his captains, and officers of note would likely split apart like Alexander's successors to rampage across but they might be more manageable.

Heron wasn't actually asking for a solution. He was looking for a reason to adjourn again in order to speak to the Canopian ambassador so that they might talk about trade, and thus consider the creation of a convoy system between the Aurigan and Canopian frontiers. He understood that niceties imposed on warfare as a result of the succession war prohibited attacking JumpShips but Pirates were as outlaws not bound by such norms.

It wasn't something he intended to conceal per se. Just not advertise he was going to propose such an arrangement. Once the convoy was in place, with protective air cover and dropships, they were talking about a procession of jumpships making dozens of jumps across the periphery. There was a world in the middle already, Detroit, and there was of course the moon, and the system it was in, nearby as a sort of southern route, but there was also a 'middle passage' outline that could jump from Joppa to Bonavista... but that would entail wiping out the pirate presence on the artic world there... the original colony having collapsed as a result of the periphery wide uprising that had erupted with New Vandenburg. From Bonavista though it would be easy to jump to Cate's Hold, to Duianshire, and then to Luxen... if that was where the Canopians wanted their terminus to be. All of that would depend on the progress of bilateral talks.

The objective thought would be to make space travel safe. To deter piracy on those space lanes... and for that those space lanes, across the frontier to the Magistracy had a double edged factor. The magistracy was far enough away they had more reason to be trustworthy relative to even a liberal taurian government as seemed to be presently in power... and of course a detente and open relations with the concordat could be welcomed but they needed to actually get back to talking about whether reparations and thus a sum for civilian damages could repair relations. A topic that seemed unlikely with the talks being sidelined at every opportunity to discuss the pirates which in ComStar's own recounting had 'provoked' the raids in the first place... Arsacid however wasn't necessarily confident that they would have been more productive in talks held between the Taurians and Margravate or with the Combine insisting at a seat with the ambassador of the Canopians also here. It was better to speak of open covenants in hopes that the talks might buy them time for cooler heads to prevail, the longer the conversation at large lasted the less likely he suspected the Taurians were to make an aggressive over commitment of forces.

The objective was to play for time. and work on things slowly

--

Notes: While it will probably not getits own thread, at least any time soon, the first part of or introduction chapter of the combined universe timeline will probably debut in the junkyard thread tentatively as 'Down from the mountain'. This will remain in my Battletech snips thread because we are talking about a timeline where Clay saves Ian, so Ian remains first prince,where the Azami wake Arsacid up and we get the development of theArsacid Magravate similar to this story, and Gene wakes up on aquagea early enough to be the shooting star of luxen, before most of ghosts events play out similar.

And well there is a Rim World fleet that is used to menace civilized space before the end of the 3rdsuccession war, indeed in Mountain that is what marks the end of the3rd succession war is everyone stepping back because ofAmaris's warships appearing.

Imperator Pax · Sep 18, 2024

5.1

Arsacid kept a watchful eye on the reports notification, but it remained without any indication that something had changed. He supposed he wouldn't until he stopped expecting it. As host it was likely only a matter of time before one of the delegates tried to open bilateral talks... which was exactly what he wanted to push forward with the Canopians. Then of course on top of that there were all of the usual day to day issues of being on Katinka.

Delaney was doing the best he could, but again it was always, "We don't have the personnel," Then after a moment, "With all due respect sir, the Hegemony's fall back plan was always optimistic," But that was the tendency towards plans for desperate measures, they were often a bit mad." Falling back into the periphery , starting new colonies the manpower requirements were vastly underestimated." The texan continued, "And even if can find out the fall back positions from that derelict which I'm not sure I can get fully operational, but at least the data core looks intact, we still won't have the personnel assuming all of them succeeded."

This was a private aside meeting, and the man was right. The Hegemony had had wildly optimistic about their chances... which was why Heron hadn't been trying to make a completely new Hegemony, they weren't the Hegemony, "I am aware that is unlikely the personnel never reached their stasis tubes, but that isn't what I asked you."

"Yes sir." He replied taking a breath, and a moment to play with his stetsin, "I can have troops rotated on schedule, the care package is easy."

"Luxen from what I'm told has one of the Canopians remaining universities," He replied, "We're not starting from scratch. The objective is to expand the magistracy's civilian services," In an ideal world precipitously, but what they really needed was to buttress the Canopians so that they could secure a flank of sorts. "I'm going to tentatively agree with Shawkat's proposal... I don't imagine we will get any of the larger units to fall back into the periphery," But there were more than a handful of units who traced their lineage back to the SLDF... and frankly the money in c-bills didn't really concern him. "Our objective is to try and stabilize the region at large."

Delaney shook his head head, "You saw it with Fjaldr Colonel and that was right in our backyard the periphery. There is no authority sufficient on most planets to stop pirates on something as big as a planet, and if they've got moons the resources just aren't there... and Luxen is a long way off sir to be trying to establish schools."

But the truth was the mission schools were being done for other motives than just international good will. It was true they had set up children's creches as part of the first infrastructure of the margravate but by establishing schools in places that needed them now they could train up teachers and get them real world experience with the world as it was now for when it came time to rotate them back to the worlds here to run formal school for an expected post decanting population boom, "We're going to run a similar program closer at home on Tarragona, and have similar schools elsewhere for the populations that were already here."

"It can be done sir, but it won't be easy."

"You don't believe the Canopians will go for it?"

"I don't think they have a choice but to agree, but that could breed its own share of resentment. Pulling the Highlanders off Katinka a gamble as well, shipping themto the magistracy could be misinterpreted to the Taurians. The bulls could do something stupid if they think we're stood down, I've heard that Ostegaard kid talk," Delaney leaned back, "He's never had a real fight in his life, and he's rearing for one."

"He's one young officer, I'm sure there are plenty like him," He told him not to sweat it too much, "Just keep him away from Pike, the last thing I need is one of my MechWarriors deciding to put the Taurian Military Attache in a triangle choke."

"Shit, Colonel, I'd pay good money to watch the Lieutenant put that boy on the deck." His expression darkened, and the engineer grumbled, "I know, you might have sir been better off sending the lieutenant to the Canopians."

"And why would that be?" Heron shook his head. "Besides I'm considering posting Pike to Artru the drone BattleMech program there is something of apriority."

Delaney continued to play with his hat, "Yeah, I talked to Locura, and read the files, they were expecting a batch worth from Terra, some baby faced Major was due in..." His voice pitched, "you know the Taurians nuked Malvern Hill, and parts of the 11th Fleet over Aquagea with most of the regiment aboard... but they managed to get a signal off."

Parts of the command had already been engaged on the surface of the Capellan world at the time, he had also read the reports. "And if we are lucky the survivors managed to get to the stasis tubes on Aquagea." He replied as evenly as he could manage given the discussion's somber turn even as Delaney's volume increased, "But the Taurians who participated in the rebellion are long dead. I cannot and will not prosecute the re opening of hostilities with the Taurians over the events of the last one."

The engineer nodded, "But the plan is to make nice with the Canopians so we only have to look one way...what about the Azami, they're still out there, the Combine wouldn't have brought them up if they weren't scared. Something is going on, an Azami combat element just lights out for the periphery with their dependents... I don't buy it. Something went bad wrong and they made a run for it..."

But they couldn't go chasing -,"Delaney we don't have time for it, and I'm not going to senselessly bait the Combine into a problem for us. Finish unpacking that data core about those installations, we're going to need to consolidate, if Black Jack is pulling material out of caches I'm going to need senior personnel on those recovery missions."

The Stetson came to a rest on the man's finger, "Boss, you know there are going to be SLDF facilities in the Magistracy... and probably rimward of the concordat. If we poke around its going to be a problem. The Protector might accept that yeah Brinton was a disaster waiting to happen, and if those bioweapons had gotten lose there is not telling how many people would have died, but SLDF depots are going to have material."

"And they might have Terransoldiers." He paused, "Our objective is to recover those sites, and the material and anyone in stasis." Heron glanced at his message indicator, still nothing, "Well at least there hasn't been a fight out there, Delaney I recognize we have a manpower problem... and recognize that the Aurigans have a porous frontier...but we have to worry about the Capellans, who still haven't deigned to join us at this table. I need that settlement with the Taurians to get reached.so its one less thing I have to worry about."

"Kerensky's exodus sir?"

"That too." He replied standing up, and reaching for the hitherto mug of coffee, it was now cold but he downed the rest of it quickly, "Come on, we'll worry about these wolf people when we have to, just keep scrounging over that Dire Wolf mech, and the machinery from the Taragonna site."

"And the other AI?"

"If not for the pirate problem I'd prioritize it as a fall back position on the rimward, for now tell mother bear we're working on it. This conference though might last another week," Longer if the delays about broader action kept forcing adjournments.

--
Notes: For those of interest check out the BattleTech Junkyard thread.

Imperator Pax · Sep 25, 2024

5.2
It was just another morning. There was nothing special about it as talks remained stuck in an unproductive, but at least not counter productive holding pattern. A week was looking optimistic as most focus had turned to the latest news of atrocities from the Inner Sphere.

Delaney expected that he could have the data core processed faster with Erineyes help, but that included being sure there were no remaining safety features in the data before... the Argo as a ship had been sent off right before things had dropped into the pot and so they needed to take precautions. It was also far from his only job, like most of the Terran officers he was responsible for several different groups of men and women all handling the burgeoning colonies.

The operational directorate for the Margravate was built along the lines of the Terran Hegemony and was staffed by a mix of regular military intelligence and CID personnel. Officially Arsacid himself had been sheep dipped to CID and that was part of the reason he had likely remained in command of a special operations capable regiment rather than a rotation back to Earth to assume a leadership and policy role... a role that he might have been able to impact policy under Kerensky... and of course a staff position on Earth might have meant being caught during the crisis... like the command capital ship officers of note.

"So, what are the chances that the Vandenburg White Wings are our people?"

Heron snorted, and Delaney glanced at the captain who asked the question, "Slim to none." The Texan replied, "Their IFFs weren't properly configured, and before you suggest that that could be obfuscation we considered that." It was true that they had considered it possible been but it didn't add up. The ship scuttling didn't add up... and if not for where the ship had gone down and the mess that Brinton had made maybe it would been worth trying to chance the gravity well with drones... but "the Trips lost." Delaney remarked plainly to the other man.

Tripitz had been sunk by concerted airpower in the gravity well of a gas giant. "Tripitz may have accessed the SLCOMNET but there is very little of the network left." The naval officer remarked downturn of mood tinging his voice, "Some of that appears to be from intentional scuttling. Possibly when Kerensky pulled out of the concordat but that's just speculation at this point. We'd need to find one intact enough to have a data uplink..." and they weren't likely to be that lucky.

The operations directorate was staying silent on the possibility of Triptiz having made the run from Terra to the rimward periphery and then not made it to Kerensky. There was speculation but Heron was afflicted with a trepidation of actually asking what might have been the reason....any communications that had been logged in the database for the Tripitz had probably not survived. They might be able to push through a remote access search but the chances were slim, Heron had been told that that as unlikely to yield much, especially since for the time being the margravate was not actively looking for any surviving satellites in deep space.

A chime sounded, "Delaney keep an eye on the guests."

"The magistracy?"

"We will see how that goes," He replied. Ambassador Centrella had retired early yesterday to her guest house with her staff... and presumably to speak with her attaché from MIC, the Canopian intelligence service but that was unlikely to generate as much of a problem as having trouble with the other visitors. They were still waiting for a number to come up for Brinton... but that might well take weeks especially if ComStar's representative wanted to continue to bandy around security commitments and other ComStar business in place of discussions of Brinton. It was frustrating but part of him accepted that an international multi state settlement was less likely to be reneged on short of full blown war.... and if ComSTar wouldn't well he had an alternative possibility

"Do you want me to move forward on the contingency?"

There had been protests to demobilizing more pilots but without access to the broader Hegemon's resources....or the Star league they were going to be short people. The people who had come out of stasis tubes had a hard time acclimating to that. "Yes." Heron replied turning to leave Delaney and the staff as he made his way back into the access corridor which return him to the main government complex of Katinka's capital.

His pace was unhurried. There was no point in rushing. He didn't at present have the resources to do as much as he would have liked, and that would have been true even without the Brinton crisis having complicated things... but crisis occasionally presented opportunities that most might overlook. As long as things didn't worsen he could afford to bring this out over the weeks, but he didn't have a reason to draw it out either.

The official government center let him conduct business publicly, and it allowed the government center to advertise what the margravate strived for, and was building towards. He could only hope that helped to build a favorable impression with the Magistracy, and its ambassador. The cafe spaces were less florid than he imagined the magistracy's upper class venues were. That wasn't to say form what he'd seen of the Coalition, Coromodir liked its vistas and its bright colors. Too much of his recollections of the Magistracy had been tarred by the seemingly vapid condition of the well to do of the aristocracy. Even those impression while based on what his own eyes had been able to see in 2766 had also been impacted by pre war impressions, pre war reports of the disparity in how the Canopians carried on, and even popular media.

An impression that continued even into modern media on the stereotypes of nations. Over the course of time, of the two plus centuries that had passed them by as they had slept, all the member states of the old star league had changed... and while he wasn't going to publicly repudiate the Mother Doctrine basic humanitarian technologies like water purification and atmospheric stabilization systems could be put out there to make worlds easier to live on, industrial machinery for mining ventures in the reach of space between the Magistracy and Coalition borders ... potentially joint investment of capital if not necessarily colonial ventures were all sorts of efforts that wouldn't require him to involve the Coalition's council to bring about a tedious parliamentary procedure to vote on like authorizing the ACM to act federally against pirate havens... especially the pirate havens distant from the Aurigan Reach as had been the case for criticism for the expedition that had dropped on Axylus. That criticism had been non binding of course, and he hoped potentially earned some good will from Canopus, but it remained something the council had grumbling misgivings about on Coromodir.

But for those complaints the he supposed 'anti war' or 'federalist' faction agitated with, their own position left with nothing to do but to complain as his troops were used as he deemed fit. The coalition's federal powers were weak and carefully safeguarded member states as mostly independent worlds from federal overreach. Heron Arsacid was prepared to exploit those latitudes for trading in particular where he could, and also providing military aid to the Canopians if they could reach an agreement. That meant examining whether something could be meaningfully done about Luxen's position on the rimward frontier, and there would be those who would sneer about it... but Luxen was on the frontier... and beyond its provincial borders the 'canopian ruins' were Terran facilities or the ruins of.

"Ambassador Centrella, am I to understand your government has empowered you to negotiate a settlement," there was already an existing treaty of peace trade and friendship between the Coalition and the Magistracy so there was no need for such formalities... and since ComStar's representative seemed less than inclined to focus on the issue of reparations it made sense to approach a nominally neutral third party periphery state to make recommendations on such monetary costs as civilian damages might amount to.

Imperator Pax · Oct 9, 2024

5.3
From the veranda Ana Maria Centrella understood very well that her country was eager for the possibility of benefitting from the situation. It had been part of the pressure to be seen doing something in the Aurigan Reach, and enjoyed minister plenipotentiary powers as ambassador. That didn't make her any less wary. The first visible efforts of the Arsacid regime had been martial ventures, including the distribution of heavy machinery to the coalition.

The Aurigan Coalition had already been by periphery standards rather well armed and provisioned to produce its own military equipment. Griffins and Dragons were being complemented by Archers produced on the Margravate capital of Katinka, and a Thunderbolt BattleMech line having been set up on the Coalition capital.

The Straios on her staff representing the Magistracy's state intelligence service had equivocated on what this meant... Heron had launched lightning strikes at pirate bases as far as the Magistracy's border and all of that had been prior to the ascertaining of pirates using Rim World symbols, never mind actual battlemechs. The prevailing hypothesis, and what drove her her need to act was that that Terrans were all from the late 2760s long frozen in time, left in stasis tubes expecting to have been woken up, and for whom the war against Amaris was recent... and there was significant concern what that would mean with relations to the Taurians.

That had been before the Brinton incursion... which of course was made all the more complicated by the Concordat's tangling with both pirates, and the Capellan's own incursion on to the planet. So being asked to suggest a settlement price for the damage done to civilian homes and businesses was hard to contemplate... because it risked entangling her government , and yet it was still a gamble that Ana Maria Centrella was willing to roll on. Canopians liked to gamble after all.

The problem so that she saw it was that the target of Arsacid's scotts landing on Brinton had been based off of the presumable latest intelligence from the Hegemony or Star League. They had landed on bunkers long forgotten offloaded heavy combat engineers and moved to destroy stockpiles of WMDs. There had been damage to civilian property but the damage had relatively minor compared to the stomping around of mechs engaging in the general free for all between the other sides... thus to taurian irredentists it was going to look as if she was pitching the ball underhanded for an easy return.

That wasn't true, she wasn't in a hurry to tweak the bulls by the nose especially not in such a blatant fashion but public reactions did not always respond to the facts so much as the impression given. Canopus would be happy that it had been the Magistracy that the Aurigans had turned to in this situation and without need to expend blood or treasure to achieve that.

That still left her required to ask the mousy woman the Straios attached from the MIC the product of a rigorous, insane even, schooling procedure for which most failed out but even wash outs from the program still made geniuses, and doctors of a caliber uncommon in the modern era, "What can we expect from here on out?" What would be the next step that the Margravate would take.

"A formal visit at this stage is unlikely." Full blown war at this stage was unlikely... and in truth the Taurians might have had the numbers but Arsacid's terran veterans would likely have bled the Taurians white in defiance...leaving them vulnerable to pirates, or the predations of territorial ambitions of House Liao and or House Davion.. "The Margravate does seem favorably disposed towards House Davion, inquiries and small talk establish a great many of the mechwarriors in Arsacid's senior most warriors are veterans of the Star League Intervention during the Davion Succession Crisis... and most seem to believe that the Hegemony hadn't gone far enough."

That would have been ancient history in her opinion until very very recently. It was still a historical event but one few in the Magistracy of the present day would have needed to concern themselves with. The MIC had redoubled its efforts to put together their best picture of what they knew had happened... but that wasn't all that useful to the situation. House Kurita had argued that their candidate for First Prince was eligible, the reigning Star Lord had declined to bring the Hegemony or the Star League into the conflict, until his sister had forced the issue. The 'second hidden war' had lasted four years and resulted in no territorial changes... but in hindsight had showed the fractures in the Star League and should have been a clear warning of the dangers of House Kurita's megalomania.

It was also the reason the Combine was so upset with the Terran Colonel. Takiro Kurita had scrambled the best the Combine had had, and had acquitted themselves well as MechWarriors. Those same warriors had also gone out against the Periphery to fight under Star League colors with their Terran rivals. As the MIC understood it, Takiro Kurita had had plenty of blood in the fight, not just campaigning for the rights of his nephew Vincent to assume the title of first prince but also by directing his favorite granddaughter to seek out and engage the very best of the Terran Hegemony... along with a host of other members of the ruling dynastic house.

Takiro had died of a heart attack not long after the onset of the Amaris crisis. The ambassadors to the Star League at the time had been Vincent Kurita's son and his family... who had been butchered by Amaris's troops. Ana Maria wondered if Heron had been informed that the Davion-Kurita pretender had been killed in action in the course of the First Succession War. She doubted at least that the Kuritan envoy or the 'ronin' who had arrived would have brought it up, or that it had been brought up with the Combine diplomatic party.

There was a chime at the door, which told her she didn't have much time left. It was time to sweep away the last of the documents, and prepare for the arrival. She had silently found herself agreeing with the Straios's assessment. Arsacid was unlikely to directly visit the Magistracy, was unlikely to visit Canopus any time soon. The chattering of soldiers was an interesting data point, but it risked her getting ahead of everything. They received a final informing tone as the Arsacid made his way through the common area of the cafe, and in moments with a velvet grace the tall warlord passed through the transparent doors to the veranda terrace. It was a reminder that the Terran was taller than she was, or the combine representative to the point that he all but towered over them them but that his proportions were almost sylvan, otherworldly in close proximity, and it was immediately to business, "Ambassador Centrella, am I to understand your government has empowered you to negotiate a settlement,"

She nodded, reiterating the existing treaty of friendship, peace, and trade which defined the Magistracy's relations with the broader Aurigan Coalition, "And you want me to fix a price on the losses on Brinton."

"I am prepared to pay for the damages that actions undertaken by my troops might be held liable for causing during the course of a military operation," He replied, "If it will settle this," And settle it quickly went unsaid. She'd been well aware that the Margravate's BattleMech reserves were a handful of models... she'd seen the Marauders, and also the machines identified as Crab, and King Crab, and the totem mech of Scotts in Highland colors both from ROM footage as well as present here on Katinka. The majority of Hegemony designs, that had largely faded from the scene were present in entire units full of machines that had come through the succession wars as their pilots had slept away the centuries.

Imperator Pax · Oct 17, 2024

5.4
They settled for coffee. Centrella's chief aide produced a comprehensive looking list of damaged that had been provided by ComStar Heron had come to suspect that someone inComStar's leadership had abruptly thrown their weight around to to push matters more towards the agenda of protecting ComStar's existing facilities ... but he'd yet to have that substantiated.

It was a plausible explanation, that or there had been a very good bait and switch game being launched in calling for these talks. It didn't matter if ComStar didn't want to participate as the third party he wasn't opposed to pushing for a periphery state from participating as arbiter.

For ana marie centrella there was however something which the Magistracy had to ascertain, the matter which perhaps in certain circles of foreign policy took precedenceover contemporary relations with modern states. "With respect Colonel Arsacid, you are an officer of the Star League Defense Force, you and all of your men are from another era."

Of that, he paused before speaking, but in that brief moment there a flash of grief. That it didn't matter if they had slept two hundred, or even a thousand years. He spread his hands, one hand occupied by the steaming coffee from the nearby carafe, "I am an officer of the Terran Hegemony, but that, like the League died with the murders and atrocities committed by Amaris, and the war he ignited." Heron replied, "The Hegemony and its creations were a fallible institution, it is absurd that anyone should look back on the League and argue that were too competent, too brave or too caring. We are all human, and the only thing we can do is to stand up when we fall." The last thing he wanted to contend with was the optimism of what a Star League returned should be, that there was an ideological belief that existed in the descendants of the Star League, "I am prepared to make compromises where necessary, and deal with the Taurian Concordat on equal footing as a sovereign state."

The Hyades cluster was too close to the Aurigan Reach. The Taurian core was right next door to be dismissed as the Hegemony had in part due to the Capellan and Federated Suns sitting between them. He didn't have the luxury of a buffer state, nor was the gulf in interstellar space such that he could rely on it to shield him... if anything he was the buffer state between the Taurians and the interior Aurigan Coalition worlds, and the Aurigan Reach served such for the Canopians

"So you have attested to throughout these negotiations," She paused, "So I would like to ask what happens if the Concordat accepts the settlement?"

"It buys time," It was just money after all, "ideally it is the opening opportunity to affirming the common frontier, and legal recognition of how things are."

"That a Hegemony in Exile controls worlds Taurian Partisans will claim are Taurian."

It was possible. "Yes, there will be a lobby that will likely make that claim." but he was never going to win them over, "But those same partisans are likely to agitate against any Aurigan possession of the worlds include the Aurigan capital of Coromodir, or for that matter worlds that have been apart of the Federated Suns for longer than they were apart of the Concordat. It is not my position to negotiate with extremists especially ones not in government." He stated, "What I want most from these negotiations is a demonstration that we can reach reasonable negotiated conclusions that respect the current border, and that can lead to peace along the frontier going forward... and I am working on the basis that the Taurians can accept that and are unlikely to engage in escalation or military adventurism on the basis of having to contend with their other neighbors, or as ComStar is most focused on, on the threat posed by the pirates."

"Who have Star League Machines of War."

A well established fact about Black Jack's forces, "They also have stocks of Rim World weapons, and alleged Taurian conspirators as such as I understand the Magistracy's claim regarding Black Jack's forces."

"Which would suggest that the Taurians are supporting the pirates."

"It would suggest some wealthy or connected persons in the Concordat are doing so, but the evidence is weak, so weak I'd hardly even call it circumstantial." Hereplied, "As it is, Its not even worth bringing it up in these discussions with the Taurians." The pirates were a concern of course to his government but while accusations had been bandied about... for Hegemony officers who could remember instances where 'pirates' and support for 'pirates' had really been 'privateers' covertly supported by governments had lead to accusations between member states... it wasn't a priority at this. "If the Taurians were supporting Black Jack, it would have to substantiated by evidence, evidence of Taurian material being sent to Black Jack, or Taurian naval personnel providing assistance, or communications. I don't expect a Taurian declaration of neutrality," They weren't dealing with a rogue state here, "but Taurian nationals joining terrorist organizations is not relevant to the recognition of the border, and even in an ideal situation going forward I doubt we'd ever make much progress in a crack down on those renegades."

"But you acknowledge there are Taurian nationals reported with the pirates."

"Yes, because ComStar does publish bounties on known pirates," Which buoyed if not outright substantiated Canopian claims... those claims were somewhat undermined by opposing claims by the bulls that made much the same accusations... but there were canopian nationals who likewise engaged in piracy and who were known to operate from the Tortuga dominions as well as other less infamous pirate havens across the rimward periphery. "But my concern, the concern of my state is the affirmation of foremost a ceasefire, then armistice and perhaps thena more formal recognition of peace between the concordat and the Aurigan Coalition more generally." A treaty like the one between the Coalition had with the Magistracy of peace, friendship, and trade.... was unlikely and had been unlikely under Tamati to begin with, it would have required significantly different conditions than what existed. "So regardless of whether or not there are individual taurians involved I want this settlement to go forward...because at the minimum it should buy me time."

Time really was all Arsacid absolutely needed. The hegemony was gone. And for the Canopian Ambassador the segue way into that history, and those ambitions were to shield her own political position from complaints at home, or accusations from competing positions that she had rushed into this position. That she had somehow acted imprudent or otherwise endangered the Magistracy by taking sides in an interstellar conflict. It was also to establish on the record that they weren't dealing with unrealistic, or outrageous political goals.

The Aurigan Renaissance [A BattleTech Isekai]

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