News & Information from Across the Ages (TBG)

==Description==
This is a collection of news shorts and information articles from the The Bull and the Genie universe. They are from specific time periods of the universe, which includes in the future.
Note: News articles / Information Articles segments presented here can be spoiling for events of the main story. 
*Wiki Editor Note: Originally, the segments appearing here were blended into thread story was original, they are taken in order presented. Commentary from read do not apply to the story are not shown here. 
----
===Piracy and the Periphery===
Reign of Terror
Pirates and the Periphery
Taurus Press, 3075.
The average inner sphere citizen has a somewhat inaccurate view of the scourge of piracy. To them, piracy is landing Battlemechs, platoons of soldiers looting towns, even slavery, but usually for the kind of manual labor that looks good on trivids.
 
The fact of the matter is, had that been the limit of piracy the periphery would be far less damaged than it was. However, two factors made piracy the scourge that made it nearly impossible for the periphery to recover, even though no major Inner Sphere state turned its armies on the periphery worlds during the succession wars. 
 
The first was the nature of the target for pirates. Most pirate bands were former military units or mercenary units. Even those bands that saw themselves as kingmakers were ill-prepared for life on their own, and they raided for high technology and the workers needed to maintain it. Individual periphery worlds saw everything from power plants to water systems taken, along with the staff needed to maintain them. 
 
Indeed, the low tech so dominant in the periphery was at least partially a reaction to that—after all, a coal plant would be useless to pirates, where a fusion based infrastructure would bring them like locusts.
 
The second factor was the reliance on terror and WMD strikes. Even a Mule Dropship could deorbit enough mass from its cargo holds to destroy a substantial part of a city and many pirates used this as a tool to hold over worlds that might resist. Being far outnumbered by periphery forces, unable to repair Battlemechs that might be damaged, these bands utilized terror, not pure military force. Worlds which refused to surrender often found their infrastructure hammered flat, gaining "victory" in the sense they had nothing left. Worlds which did surrender, or even made the pirate's life easy did better—until another band of pirates showed up.
 
 
Finally, slavery, while overstated in numbers, had a tremendous impact on the psychology of the periphery. Pirates did not demand laborers—they wanted technicians, doctors, beautiful and handsome concubines. In other words, the sort of human capital that was most vital to a world's ability to sustain high technology, and like locusts, pirates assumed there would always be another world. Many worlds eventually abandoned anything more than the most decentralized educational systems after one too many campuses became the site of a pirate raid. It also led to a number of social practices decried by the Inner Sphere as barbaric, such as the ritual scarring of females at the onset of puberty on McConnal, the result of several notorious raids in the first decade of the 31st century, which saw unfortunate victims trafficked as far as the Lyran Commonwealth.
 
In the long run, these events had two effects.
 
Firstly, the periphery at best disliked the Inner Sphere, and at worst, hated them. The Inner Sphere had ignored, then conquered, then oppressed the periphery, and finally had created the surge of piracy that had smashed nearly every attempt to recover outside of the larger states.
 
Secondly, Comstar found itself gaining many recruits from the periphery. It was one of the few ways for periphery citizens to see the world, and was one of the few organizations that generally benefited the periphery.
 
This of course has led to a substantial minority of Comstar having a somewhat hostile view of the House Lords and the Inner Sphere—just as, it must be noted, was expected.
 
Needless to say, the revelations in the late 3050s regarding Comstar's covert operations with pirate groups led to a massive schism within the organization itself...
-----
===The Union MK II===
One of the first "new" ships fielded by Taurus was the Union MK II. Initially just a standard Union with the same crew and life support facilities that had been common before the First Succession War, the MK II included a large amount of modular systems designed for ease of use and modification, taking the already flexible Union and making it easy to fit it out for different roles in the shipyard (these ships were not "modular" in the sense of being modifiable in the field), while maintaining a commonality of parts. As the Unions were already being produced in the Concordat, one of the benefits of the Prometheus Core (although this was kept secret until the Clan Conflict, with most nations believing that the Concordat had first found a SLDF repository and then gained a copy of the Helm Core) was improvements in industrial processes allowing cheaper construction of Dropship systems. 
 
For these reasons it was decided to make the Union the standard "medium" drop ship hull for the Concordat with new new designs allowing for Troop carriers, armored unit carriers, and for police action, combined arms transports. Rather rarer models included disaster relief Unions and pure carrier variants. A capital missile armed variant was produced as a strategic force by the Concordat, but remained secret until the Clan Invasion. 
 
By 3025 the Concordat had added two production lines for its Unions and had licensed the design to TAG-Manufacturing in the Lyran Commonwealth with the proviso that no completed ships be sold to the Federated Suns. Unknown to the Concordat, Hanse Davion knew of and agreed with the limitation. The Fox believed that a Concordat tied to the Lyran Commonwealth by business agreements would be just as neutralized in terms of being a threat to the future rulers of the Federated Suns (and Later Federated Commonwealth) as any number of DropShips in his arsenal could make it. 
 
The most notable improvement was the rationalization of DropShip parts and maintenance training. Instead of a dozen hulls for a dozen different purposes, the TDF obtained one base hull that most mechanics would be able to work on with little difficulty, even if they were transferred to a different variant. 
 
In the aftermath of the Helm Crisis, and the signing of the Pan-Periphery Security Protocols in 3030, new shipyards were established at Canopus IV, Mechdur, and Detroit (the Outworlds Alliance proved to be unable to support a full shipyard until the 3050s). The Clan Invasion saw export and licensing restrictions abandoned, and soon nearly thirty shipyards in the Inner Sphere were producing the modified variants, all of which were contractually required to have at least 90 percent parts commonality with other ships of the same design. 
 
Today, the Union MK II is simply known as the "Union" and is the primary mid-range DropShip used by most modern states as well as the forces of the Union of Sovereign States, the organization descended from the Grand Alliance against the Clans.
 
Starships and Spaceships Through History,Tharkad Press 3120.
*Wiki Note: This is a pure fluff ship, no stats available.
-----
===Concordat RCT(M)s===
The twin conflicts of the Arugian Reach and the Tortugan worlds taught the Concordat an important lesson. Sometimes, regiments of mostly heavy 'mechs were too much, not too little. Years of preparing for the inevitable Davion invasion had led to doctrines that were inflexible and assumed massive clashes of heavy mechs and armored units. The expanding colonial and military interests of the Concordat demanded faster, more flexible units. 
 
The Medium Regiment, later becoming the Medium RCT was a product of this. Unlike most Taruian units, a Medium regiment was a mixture of Battlemech and conventional units, made up of on Battalion of medium and light 'mechs, and two battalions of mechanized troops. In addition, each regiment included a company of air mobile special forces troops, and V/STOL transport and strike capabilities. Depending on the situation, such units were sometimes issued Aerospace fighter support, but that normally remained part of the higher command. 
 
The Medium RCT included four medium regiments, supporting artillery units and a single regiment of mechs, although due to the Medium RCT's emphasis on speed and maneuverability, most battlemechs were medium or faster heavy designs, (Dragons tended to be fairly popular) with no assault Battlemechs being used. In addition, an organic battalion of jump troops, supported by V/stol and small craft insertion units, was assigned where needed. By the 3040s, these units would become priority recipients of the first Taurian PA(L) and BA suits.
 
Notably different from regular Taurian units, the Medium RCT had a high percentage of smaller DropShips, most of them spherical, with rough landing capability. This allowed them to quickly parcel out forces and cut off pirate raids. In addition, they had organic Aerospace units, although never enough for their commanders (a common complaint of every unit, it must be said). These units also included an above average logistical "Tail" unit, as they might be called upon for long-range deployments with little warning. 
 
Lastly, the unit included the ability to deploy communication and recon satellites over a world. While obviously dependent on having space superiority, this allowed the units to maintain awareness of the operational theater. 
*;Training and doctrine:Every regiment worked together, with mechwarriors and infantry being part of the same unit. While this made the units more vulnerable to attrition, as it took time for replacements to fit in. Generally, the entire RCT didn't function on the same battlefield, often parceling them out among several worlds. The mech regiment would often be divided among it's independent regiments, although it might be held as a single, hard-hitting reserve.The doctrine focused on maneuver warfare, attributing enemy units gradually, rather than destroying them in a single fight. Arrow IV missiles and VTOL transported armor killer teams were a major part of this doctrine, and was another reason for the intense training and focus on interunit cohesion—a commander from a regular RCT or regiment might attempt to force the Medium RCT to act as a standard unit—to its great sorrow. 
 
 
Individual units:
 
*;RCT(M) 01:Slogan: First In!Established: 3026The First RCT(M) to be produced by the TDF, the unit quickly gained a name for itself by playing a role in Edward Calderon's "open hand" diplomatic initiatives. As a "Friendship" gesture, the Unit was deployed to the Edge of Lyran space, to hunt down raiders from Butte Hold, as a sign of unity against the barbarian pirates. In truth, secret agreements between Edward Calderon (with the approval of his brother) and Katherine Steiner involved the transport and sale of Taurian freezer technology, while Katherine worked as a go between for the Taurian's and Davions to come to an agreement to at long-last open diplomatic and economic relations between the Suns and Concordat, in return for a joint statement agreeing that the Reunification War had not been provoked by the Periphery and had been an act of aggression. This would be done by 3030, and by 3031, a new peace treaty, replacing the one imposed upon the Concordat, would be signed, normalizing relatoins between the Concordat and Federated Suns (and later Federated Commonwealth).The 1st, under General Cheng, would go on to make life heartily miserable for most of the pirates in their region, bringing a sudden and permanent end to Butte Hold. The start of the Fourth Succession War saw the Lyrans publicly state that the 1st was only there for piracy suppression, an excuse the Draconis Combine took, as in the aftermath of the conflict, they were now buying mechs from the Taurians.The Unit would be deployed to Lyran (now Commonwealth) space once more, to fight the clans, making their lives miserable by avoiding the set piece battles the Clans loved so much. By 3053, by the decision of the Commonwealth, any soldier who was honorably discharged from the 1st, could, if he or she so desired, become a Lyran citizen.
 
*;2nd RCT (M):Slogan: Want the Horns?The 2nd RCT(M) was formed in 3028 and seemed to be cursed from its beginning, as its commander was killed in a vehicle accident right before taking command. It was part of the Concordat's attempts to stabilize the Outworlds alliance, and during that period, the troops found themselves holding OA citizens in increasing contempt for their unwillingness to fight for their own nation. The wave of pirates created by the Fourth Succession War, while nowhere near as serious as previous times, made life difficult for the 2nd, especially given the many demands to protect everything. With the Concordat wanting to pull out of the morass (without being seen to pull out) and the collapse of the last remains of OA central governance, the 2nd found itself managing things as best it could, including the supervision of the handover of Ramora to a joint commission of the Draconis Combine and Federated Suns, a somewhat odd arrangement, but one that defied the odds and kept the world protected. Conversely, anti-government and Concordat riots on Sevon saw the heavily armed force retreating with its metaphorical tail between its legs, shackled by ruinous ROE's put in place as a result of events in the Arugian reach. Meanwhile, an increasing tide of refugees saw the unit being forced to protect humanitarian organizations, while dealing with governments who were fine with accepted technicians from Remora—but weren't interested in Farmers from Dante.The Nadir of its reputation came with the order with withdraw from all worlds save for Quatre Belle and a few other worlds. The complete collapse of the central government and the realization that the Taurians were not staying led for a scramble to get on the last ship—and the video of a family clinging to the landing gear of a TDF Union before it lifted off was shown across the sphere. (A later inquest came to the conclusion that the pilot had not known the fences had been breached, and that civilians were in the danger zone.).The Clan War saw the 2nd RCT's luck hold. Where the first was allowed to function as it was designed, a Clan head-hunting team killed the 2nd's leadership and they were replaced by a Lyran general, who while competant, had spent most of his careers with heavy and assault mechs and set piece battles. The 2nd RCT was effectively destroyed as a combat unit by 3052. Rather than reconstitute it, the Concordat decided to retire its colors and form another Unit, the 5th RCT(M).
-----
===Clan Logistics Command===
How the fuck are they doing this? Magic?
 
Victor Stiener-Davion in the Aftermath of the Tharkad Raid. 
 
For over a decade before the kick off of Operation Revival, by order of the Clan Council, Jumpships were off limits for any trials. The Liberator class Jumpship had been designed to be simple, capable of carrying up to 8 DropShips, but with few frills--no LF battery system, for example. It was designed to be able to move things and move things it did, and Clan Shipyards churned them out by the score. 
 
And these ships were actually the first to enter the Inner Sphere, setting up logistics points around red dwarfs and planetless suns, where they could jump at demand. There were enough that not having an LF battery system wasn't a defect--pony express style chains were doable.
 
The Liberators never showed up to invade. Clan Warshps and combat Jumpships (those tasked with directly assaulting worlds) traveled to them. the Clan Council considered the existence of the Liberator network one o their greatest secrets. 
 
It was a secret that would cost the Inner Sphere dearly. Clan units vanished, and then appeared far away from where they should be. Clan forces obtained supplies from... nowhere. For much of the early Clan Invasion the generals of the resistance effort assumed that the Clans had made some KF drive breakthrough, one that allowed clan forces to vanish from the Combine and then appear deep in Lyran space. Counter offenses stalled out as reinforcements just seemed to appear, and weak points were savaged by the seemingly magical ability of the Clans to move their forces. 
 
This had several effects. For one thing, the Inner Sphere overestimated how many front line forces there were among the Clans, which led to paralysis on the part of many military commands. In addition, the fear of being pinned down and destroyed (as happened in the opening stages of the invasion), led to many worlds simply being abandoned, while other's were stuffed to the gills with defending troops, becoming fortress worlds. 
 
It was not until 3053, with the seizure of the Coventry Logistics Database from the Clan Occupational HQ on Coventry, that the nature of the Clan network became plain. This allowed the military forces of the Inner Sphere to examine the weaknesses of the network, and focus on broad, wide-front assaults, as opposed to the earlier attempts to create small, local breakthroughs. 
 
Ironically, the attempts to find out how the Clans were making their "impossible" jumps led to the Inner Sphere, devising the Very Large Jump Detection Array (VLJDA), Quick Charge LF system, and lastly (in 3065) the "super jump" drive, showcasing the advantages of the Inner Sphere's more diverse R&D establishment over the Clan's hyperfocused military-industiral complex.
-----
===The Clans and the Inner Sphere===
Every enduring system has its own strengths and weaknesses. The Clans more so than most. The hope of Kerensky was that his new system, replacing house loyalties with loyalties to caste, would unify the Clans, while providing a controllable outlet for the violence that he had concluded was endemic to human nature. And most of his people agreed—the Pentagon Civil Wars had been, in their own way, as traumatic as the Succession Wars, and the way of the Clans offered a path and cause. 
 
 And yet it also placed Clan Warriors in a delicate position. Clearly the rulers of Clan space, they still were utterly dependent on the other castes. And those castes had their own identities to rally around—and potentially form a nucleus of revolution. The various Clans dealt with this in varying ways, from the somewhat egalitarian nature of Clan Diamond Shark to the oppressive (and often derided by the other clans) rule of Clan Smoke Jaguar. In many cases, the solution was separation. A warrior could, in theory, demand nearly anything of a lower caste member, but going too far could see other warriors take offense, and in any case, bullying a laborer did not prepare one for the pressure cooker challenges of the Warrior system, where "up or out" wasn't so much a motto as a holy writ. As a small minority of the population, it was entirely possible for laborers, traders and scientists to have little interaction with warriors on a daily basis, something that was actively encouraged. 
 
It must be said, this made attempts to upend the clan structure as a whole very difficult, and was probably one of the reasons Nichola's set up the system as he did—and why attempts to break this system were so completely rooted out (see Clan Wolverine: File 22a). 
 
But the greatest power the Warriors had was that of their destiny—to return to the Inner Sphere. Every trial, every challenge, was, in theory at least, designed to hone the Clans for the day when they would return to Terra, restore the Star League and begin a shining new era of human achievement—under the Clans. It was an ideological cause that united both Laborer and Warrior—as close to a religion as you got in the largely secular clans. 
 
But by the early 3000s, there was grumbling, and not just from the Crusader clans. In chat rooms and workspaces, other castes were starting to quietly wonder if the Warriors were ever going to actually get off their asses and carry out the duty. The Wardens said it wasn't time, and they were to protect the Inner Sphere. (from what, some would ask.) The Crusaders blamed the Wardens for holding them up, but… Even among the Crusaders, some pointed out that if the plan went awry, the Inner Sphere would be able to bury the clans, no matter their technological advantage in bodies. More importantly, the grumbling was sowing seeds of doubt in the very justification of the Clans—and the Clan System. That was exacerbated by the Clan system of training warriors. Every warrior knew they had a strict time limit, after which, if they were not lucky enough to become a Khan or officer, they would be shoved into less and less prestigious positions. The solution for that was to return to the Inner Sphere, where there would be glory enough for all—and a Khan most definitely had to take his or her warriors into account when making political decisions. 
 
Ironically, the last Dragoon contact with the Clans in 3019 led to even more concern. A number of Clans considered the fact that the Inner Sphere, at least according to the last report, had largely ceased the full scale conflict of the first and second wars. That put the Clans on a time limit—even an Inner Sphere that was limited to Star League era equipment, combined with their vast numbers would render the crusader cause moot. Worse, the Scientist caste argued that despite their lower level of technology, the vastly larger population made it far more likely that the Inner Sphere might see a fundamental breakthrough of some kind. This, coupled with concern that the Dragoon Compromise was failing (due to the end of communications with Wolf's Dragoons), saw several Clans secretly launch their own expeditions into the near periphery, with Clan Snow Raven, Ghost Bear and Diamond Shark most notable among them with Clan Diamond Shark pulling a merchant version of the Wolf's Dragoons, with several "tramp" freighters entering the fringes by 3023. 
 
It is uncertain what would have happened, but the apparent return of the Not-Named clan in 3025 sent shockwaves through clan space. Those who could have most easily debunked the news were unwilling to admit to flagrantly violating the spirit and letter of the Dragoon compromise, as well as showing that Kerensky's division of the exodus road coordinates was worse than useless. Anyone with records of Terra's sky, and a good telescope didn't need a path back, after all. 
 
Shockwaves that would be redoubled by Clan Jade Falcon's "discovery" of a pirate body, that just coincidentally seemed to share a genetic ancestry with some of the purged bloodlines of the Not Named Clan. Such a discovery, it must be said, was remarkably convenient for the Crusader faction…
 
The Clans: Prelude to Invasion.3074: Nova Cat Clan Press. Nova Roma, Alphard, Nova Cat Confederation
-----
===The Long Jump system===
One of the great achievements of the Clan invasion was the increasing collaboration between the various powers of the Inner Sphere. Labs that had once been deep, dark secrets now exchanged data with their former enemies, leading to such developments as the Very Large Jump Detection Array.
 
More would follow. In 3077, researchers detected anomalies with the VLJDA systems protecting Terra and gained permission to use them in a variety of tests. 
 
This test found that busy jump paths seemed to show a minuscule "weakening" of jump space, forming, according to one researcher, "a little dirt road." In 3080, permission was granted to try to create this phenomena, using two purpose-built HPG generators, both situated in deep space. It proved that by consistent use of the HPG burst, a "trail" could be formed, allowing for longer ranged Jump's by jump ships that knew the proper place to jump. The expense would be immense, and the theory argued that two, 2. million ton HPG units, working together, might be able to create a path of up to 180 light years long, which normal Jumpships could use. 
 
Unfortunately, the terminus points had to be at least a light month from any large object, and it would take about two years for the HPG units to prepare the ground, although the theory indicated that once established, the path could be permanent. 
 
In 3090 the first jump route was started, linking Terra to Taurus. Over the next 30 years, similar links would link every major capital world with Terra, although most required more than one 180 LY "long jump" path.
 
Ultimately, the network would be completed in 3110 with the successful linkage of Strana Mechty to the line. When combined with the Union of Sovereign States (founded 3060), the Common Monetary Convention (3066), and the Open Borders Convention (3070), the long jump network would successfully knit the Inner Sphere, and much of the of human space into one polity, albeit one where the member states enjoyed great autonomy. 
 
None the less, it established a sense of unity within the Inner sphere. There the old Star League had been an agreement between the mighty, while the USS was increasingly seen as a body representing the people, and the ability to travel and meet each other through open borders played no small role in that.
 
By 3130, the distance a long jump path could cover had been extended to 360 light years, and plans were in progress to create new paths, far into what had formerly been known as the deep periphery to allow for easier exploration and trade.
-----
===Logistics, the God of War===
One little known factor is how weak the "tail" of most Inner Sphere and Periphery units is. Many units had very little in the way of organic repair and logistics capabilities, with the demands of salvage rights attesting to just how bare many a merc and house units cupboards were.
 
In part, this was due to the devastation of the Succession Wars, as well as the distrust many house lords had for their vassals. 
 
But in larger part it represented a fundamental blind spot in war, one that saw conflicts as short, sharp battles. Indeed, of all the SLDF's advantages, being one of the few powers with both the desire and means to maintain a strong "tail" ratio, was far from the least. While the growing economic prosperity of the 3020s saw a change, the fact of the matter was, as much as they would claim otherwise, few successor states were capable of truly deep operations—another reason why Hanse Davion's wedding surprise would come as such a rude shock. 
 
With the long deployment of the RCT(M), the Concordat faced the same issue—only the Concordat had never engaged in deep range operations. This required them to study the books of the hated SLDF and adapt them for their own use. The first deployment had gone well, but enough defects had been seen, that the TDF general staff agreed for a reworking of the concept.
 
The RCT(M)s that were deployed after the Wolverine Incident were somewhat different from their predecessors. For one thing, they had far more supplies, with their units, under ideal conditions, being able to engage in at least sixty days of consecutive combat before needing resupply. 
 
In addition, every battalion had its own company-sized support unit, usually based on a DropShip, including mechanics, medics, and other support personnel. Each regiment had a higher level maintenance unit, based on modified DropShip hulls, capable of depot-level repair and refitting. Lastly, the RCT itself included two transportable space stations, capable of repairing DropShips and JumpShips to a limited degree. 
 
This permitted even battalions to engage in long-term independent operations, without needing to withdraw, something quite important for anti-piracy sweeps, where many pirates had simply tried to wait their pursuers out. 
 
Organizationally, the stress on independent operations saw the RCT(M)s equipped with a wide range of energy weapons, with most projectile and missile weapons limited for special uses, such as guided bombardment. The greater than normal logistics arm also made the RCT(M) the natural choice for large scale deployment of the Trooper and Sergeant class powered armor (PA(L) and medium BA, respectively), in 3030. 
 
This did not come without a price—the Concordat had to cut plans to add several conventional regiments to their forces, although the increased safety of the Concordat's borders, along with the fact that their military was still substantially larger than it had been in 3020 moderated the loss. 
 
As did the fact that by 3030, the Capellan Confederation was no longer a serious factor in Inner Sphere politics. 
 
The resultant creation became a nightmare for Pirates, pursuing them longer than most other forces could, and simply waiting them out. This became especially devastating in 3032, and the sharing of Black Box technology between the Taurians and the Federated Commonwealth, allowing their forces to more effectively coordinate with each other. (The price for this, although phrased in terms of brotherhood, was the assistance of Concordat engineers in the Fedrated Commonwealth's jumpship program. The speed with which the Concordat's R&D sector seemed to understand the Helm Core would not be understood for a number of years…)
 
By the Clan Invasion, the wide ranging RCTs had contacted a number of regions, and were in fact in negotiation with several periphery polities. While the RCTs were utterly unable to stand in the path of the Clan Juggernaut, their independence and supply advantages allowed them to start raiding behind the lines. The number of Clan forces they pinned down insured that a trickle of supply and reinforcements would keep them operating through most of the war, although General Cheng was forced to evacuate back to Terra due to her appointment to CINC of allied forces. 
 
For their part, the Clans declined to take the bait and slow their advances, rather, accepting the losses to raiders. In a case of making lemonade out of lemons, the Ghost Bears, Wolves, and Jade Falcons picked out regions of high raiding activity and rotated new warriors through them to get experience in lower intensity warfare before being thrown into the cauldron of the Inner Sphere front. 
 
Years later, even though the Periphery region is now a highly developed and peaceful part of human space, it is not uncommon to come across a small graveyard, tucked behind a church, with a Taurian flag fluttering overhead, a memorial to the long dead soldiers who remained on the worlds they defended…
Distant Thunder: The Conflicts that Molded the Present,3190, Strany Mechty Academic Press.
-----
===Immigration===
The Third Immigration Boom 3030-3100
 
 
 The periphery had long been isolated from the Inner Sphere by the lack of jumpships and the general reputation of the periphery. The Taurian tech boom, now fueled, we know, by the Hegemony Core, started boosting immigration to the region but it was not until the 3030s that the first massive wave to the region occured. That was sparked by a number of factors. New jumpships, larger dropships, and the increasingly successful antipiracy operations in Taurian space, were combined with the Periphery Common Market and the Pan-Periphery Security protocols (at this point, it must be stated, limited to the Magistracy, Concordat and minor states in their region, with the largely unrecognized rump government in the former OA also signing), all combined to create a greater sense of security in those regions and many worlds were quite happy to entice skilled Inner Sphere workers to their shores.
 
 But the biggest driver was the Fourth Succession War, and the subsequent conflicts. The unparalleled scope of the conflict resulted in many border populations digging up old books about the First Succession war, and wondering if they were going to see similar horrors. The generally good reputation of the Concordat saw people booking passage from worlds across the Inner Sphere. 
 
 It did not always go smoothly as the 3033 anti-Davion riots on Samantha showed. This also saw the Periphery States decide to unify immigration under the Pan-Periphery Ministry of Immigration and Colonial Support, which among other goals, attempted to avoid creating ethnically unified worlds. After the Collingswood riots in 3035, it was modified. While diversity would be maintained, the ministry avoided settling people who hated each other next door to each other. 
 
 Ironically, once again the Concordat found help in the Prometheus core created by their greatest enemy—many of these colonies were established using Hegemony standard governance and economic development systems. 
 
 It was well that the system was established—with the arrival of the Clans, and the fragmentation and destruction of the Draconis Combine under the twin hammer blows of invasion and Civil War, a tide of immigration unseen since the days of the Terran Alliance struck the Periphery. Well-organized evacuations of businesses were mixed with dropships packed to and beyond the safe level, as jumpships streamed through the Inner Sphere. 
 
 Perhaps the most pathetic were the millions, then tens and hundreds of millions of souls fleeing the Draconis Combine, as the Black Dragons engaged in "purifications" that called to mind the worst atrocities of the Amaris regime. Hanse Davion, understanding the potential social consequences of huge numbers of former Draconis Combine citizens settling among those raised to hate them, worked with Comstar and the Periphery states, to establish medical and care waystations for the migration paths through the Federated Commonwealth. 
 
 There were many differences between these migrations and the ones that had come before. For one thing, there was some organization, and factories churned out simple, but rugged tools and equipment for colonization. For another thing, there was a wealth of experience among the periphery when it came to doing more with less.
 
 Ultimately, many immigrants came to live among more established Periphery powers—in some cases, there was quite the bidding war to get skilled immigrants, with the Arugian Reach scoring quite the coup with the faculty, students and families of the New Samarkand University establishing itself in their worlds, along with other educational professionals fleeing the "Purge of Thoughts Hostile to the Dragon". 
 
 Other worlds were settled from scratch, although here the Concordat and its associates worked to ensure that every world would eventually have at least a few million—enough to hold off pirates and establish a self-supporting economy, as the TDF and other Periphery states didn't want to have to protect a hundred barely populated worlds. 
 
 Perhaps the oddest immigrants were Clan Sea Fox, split off from the Diamond Sharks in a bit of maneuvering that fooled nobody. The Merchants of the Clans saw the burgeoning worlds as an opportunity, and the presence of their trade and commerce protection fleets were (with some caution) seen as a badly needed boost to the region's security. 
 
 By 3100 the full scale waves of immigration had stabilized and more importantly with many newly populated and prosperous worlds, new immigrants tended to just book a flight to their world after filling out paperwork. While few of the new worlds were heavily populated, a world of 100 million people in 3100 had all the amenities one expected from a core world—along with plenty of elbow room. 
 But even today, the history of these worlds has continued to have an impact. Founded by those fleeing the wars born of the Ancient sins of the Star League and the Greed of the nobility, largely organized along democratic or republican models, the children of Lyran businessmen and Combine Unproductives looked to each other and outward for their destiny. As many as five hundred new worlds, ranging from neighboring the Concordat to as nearly far away as the Clan Homeworlds, represent a mixture of the children of humanity, a diverse set of populations born from the flames of war kindled in the final death of the Dream of the Star League. 
 
Where Did We Come From?''': A history of Periphery Immigration PatternsNew Luthien Press, 3140. 
-----
===Youth And War===
From 3025 on, a trend started to develop—younger soldiers were achieving higher ranks. Mary Cheng might be most publicized, but she was far from the only one. 
 
The reasons were simple—for nearly the past century, most conflicts had been defined as "economy of force" operations. With the ability to easily replace losses a dream of the past, every commander had to ruthlessly balance gains with costs, and with the loss of transport assets, more and more battles saw battlemechs as the primary decider of battle, rarely accompanied by large infantry and armor, units, a far cry from the days of the Star League.
 
But peace brought the ability to accumulate resources, and gradually, new (or old) concepts were introduced, such as the growing emphasis on combined arms in the RCT (although officially formed in 2876, in truth, many units were unable to use the concept to its full benefit, due to a lack of resources). Repair teams slowly started changing from men focused on scavenging wrecks to mechanics who were able to depend on shipments from behind the lines. 
 
Slowly, then quickly in the Fourth Succession War, a more aggressive form of battle was demanded of officers, one that more than a few older officers were unable to adapt to, and they were replaced by younger officers.
 
This trend was accelerated by the discovery of the Helm Core (at least officially the only Star League Data Core to the recovered). Increased prosperity allowed for more training, and units which formerly might engage in "full press" training once every few years were doing it on a yearly basis now.
 
Then came other developments—the fielding of Taurian PAL and Battle Armor suits in the 3030s did not remain a Concordat monopoly for very long, and that added another factor to the cauldron of conflict. 
 
But it was the Clan Invasion and Draconis Combine Collapse that truly changed war. Hit by technologically superior invaders, every Inner Sphere force, and later, the Combined Military of the USS had to scrape out every tactical and technological innovation they could. For the Clans part, they found themselves fighting the battle they had, not the one they had trained for, and had to adapt, especially in terms of policing their conquered populations. The fact that the Clans hadn't thought about the dangers of removing the only forces keeping ethnic tensions from boiling over led to more than a few laughs, and at least one semi-serious offer by Clan Wolf to give a world plagued by religious conflict back to the Lyrans. 
 
But every force found itself prone to this winnowing process—leaders who could change with the times, who could adapt continued on, while those who couldn't either died or were cashiered, and this gradually saw younger officers come to the fore. The youngest regimental commander, albeit due to extensive casualties from Clan head hunter squads, was a twenty-year-old PAL trooper in the Davion 4th (Provisional), heavy mechanized infantry regiment. By the end of the conflict, she would be commanding one of the Brigades of the Third Division of the Union of Sovereign States.
 
Of course one factor allowing this change was the refusal of the Clans or most of their enemies to consider the use of WMD's as had been the case in earlier conflicts. While many soldiers died, civilians were not so touched, and factories continued to provide their bounty—at least on the Clan front. While WMD's were used in space, on the ground, they were off limits, and while it was allowable to destroy factories, neither side used scorched earth tactics against civilian infrastructure. 
 
That dishonor would be left to the Black Dragons, who in the Scouring of Dabih (only distinct in scale, not kind from other atrocities they inflicted upon the dying corpse of their nation), used both salted nuclear warheads and biological weapons, managing to achieve the rare feat of seeing the forces of the Inner Sphere and Clans join together, to help carry out the Clans Trial of Annihilation (the term actually caught on even among Inner Sphere forces, some of them having the odd experience of being transferred from fronts where fighting against the Clans was still going on, into the Combine, where they found themselves working with the same Clan unit they had been fighting earlier!)
 
But the officers that had grown up in that cauldron of war were hard-eyed veterans who had successfully learned the lessons of a changing battlefield, and had paid the price. By the late 3050s, an Inner Sphere regiment of just 30 years before would have as much luck as a WWI force going up against the victors of WWII, as they confronted the survivors of a conflict that in terms of scope and deployed military forces was unmatched by anything other than the First Succession Conflict. 
 
There was one ironic twist to this: The average age of Clan warriors went up. Despite the losses, and in fact in part because of their losses, the Clans were forced to relax some of their standards, especially as regarded older warriors, and soon, much to the dismay of some of the more traditional clans, found out that age and treachery did count on the battlefield. This process was only accelerated as more and more new recruits from non-Clan sources were brought into the Clans. This process would not simply impact Clan performance on the battlefield, but Clan success in digesting their new possessions as the generation of new blood named included men and women who were far more flexible and pragmatic in their thinking, willing to make changes and compromises that would have been unthinkable in the heady days when REVIVAL was first launched. 
 
There was one last change, this one political and cultural. Many of the soldiers had battled against a deadly enemy, albeit one that played by many of the rules of war, and many more had turned to fight in the abattoirs created by the Black Dragon Society, where it seemed that the ghosts of Amaris and Forlough stalked every silent street, radioactive crater, and mass grave. 
 
Many of these soldiers returned, heartily sick of war, and uninterested in fighting for the rights of kings or princes to declare themselves lords of all. War did not stop. But the attitude regarding war had changed, changed dramatically. 
 
 
From 3045-3075, Thirty Years That Changed EverythingBlake Press, New Dallas 3130
-----
===Decon Teams===
Decon Teams (or Hell Troopers)
 
Nearly all of the major factions abided by the general prohibition of the US of WMDs on planetary surfaces with the exception of "low collateral damage" systems such as lasers. 
 
That is, with the significant exception of the Black Dragons. Not only did they make use of nuclear weapons, both against enemies without and revolts within, they often used deliberately dirty weapons. As their lines collapsed, the Black Dragons resolved to punish those who had failed the Dragon, or worse betrayed the Dragon. Nuclear weapons were deployed, and in some cases used on old fission reactors or storage repositories, with the intent of casting hundreds or thousands of tons of long-term fallout into the planetary ecosystem, rather than the short-lived fallout that was the norm. In addition, they used the Combine's reserves of Chemical and biological WMD's with abandon. As a whisper from the past, the infamous "Three Alls" order was issued to ensure that the sacred body of the Dragon would not be defiled by those who had failed it. 
 
As monstrous as it was, it slowed operations and bought the Black Dragons a few more months of life--Clan and Inner Sphere forces alike found themselves forced to stop, and make preparations for humanitarian relief. Chief among these preparations were the Decon Teams, known as Hell Troopers . While not specifically oriented for combat, their mission profile often saw them running up against hold outs, booby traps and bandits, as they were sent into the worst of the contaminated cities to either move civilians out, or seal structures so that they could wait until an evacuation could be arranged. In addition, they were to seal off contaminated sites, burying them or spraying them down so that they could be kept safe until a more permanent solution could be found.
 
Because of their duties, the Hell Troopers had very few BattleMechs, mostly modified variants to move rubble. Their troops were almost universally equipped with battle armor, PALs and protomechs, the smaller units more suitable to moving through the ruins. In some cases, troops remained "sealed up" for days or weeks at a time.
 
The Decon Units had a very diverse membership. Clan warriors who had been rendered unfit for combat, retired Inner Sphere warriors, doctors, all joined the Hell Troopers, including oddly enough a number of pacifists, with just over 25 percent of some units made up of troopers morally opposed to violence but who would work to rescue those suffering from the consequences of the slaughter, which often led to interesting team ups. 
 
The Decon Units suffered high casualties, working in environments where a suit breach might be a death sentence, as well as being targeted by some Black Dragon units. By the end of the conflict, some units saw a nearly 150 percent turnover of troops. In addition, due to their duties, they were close to the worst atrocities of the conflict, leading to numerous cases of PTSD and higher rates of suicide, even compared to the regular line units. For years after the war, solemn funerals would be held for "those who fell at last." 
 
In 3095 Veterans of the Decon Units founded The Order of the Ploughshare, a secular order open to veterans who desired to rebuild what war had destroyed. In the years since, the Order has gained a reputation as an effective and skilled organization, providing relief efforts in concert with local and interstellar relief organizations... 
 
From: Poison Air, Dead Ground: The Kuritan Theater and an Age Of Atrocity.London University Press, 3099.
-----
===The VLJDA===
When the Clans first invaded, it was assumed they had some system of super-fast jumps, which led to panicked research, as everyone, politician and military officer alike, knew that a better KF drive meant the Clans would almost certainly win. The fact that the Clans were actually making use of better logistics planning, was not learned until the "KF Panic" was well underway.
 
And ironically, that research, including unsealing the archives of the Hegemony's theoretical research into jump space, along with later work on the part of comstar, and literally thousands of labs across the Inner Sphere (ironically, theoretical work on jump space had continued even while the practical ability to produce KF drives was almost non-existent) led to the development of what would become the Very Large Jump Detection Array (VLJDA), with the first prototype being fielded in 3058.
 
Essentially, two sensitive KF detectors could be used to triangulate the site of a jump ingress or egress and most importantly, could determine, with some accuracy, the destination or origin of a jump. 
 
That being said, the system was far from perfect. The two detectors needed sensor arrays nearly 40KM in diameter, and the use of fusion, KF Drives or HPG systems would derange them. Fusion plants could be used if they were more than 250KM from the sensor units, while KF and HPG systems could derange the sensor system if they were closer than one light day. Finally, they had to be far from any local primary. This meant that the sensors had to tight beam their information to a HPG unit located at least a light day away, meaning that the initial models had, at the minimum, a 24 hour delay in getting information to the primary computer system, which would take the information and make sense out of it.
 
Lastly, the range of the system was approximately 160 light years, although, by 3085, that would increase to 320 light years, requiring a number of units to adequately cover a front, and given that each sensor and computing element was comparable in cost to a warship, initial production was slow. It wasn't until 3060 that a way to "daisy chain" several sensors to one computing unit was solved, but even so, the initial introduction of the unit allowed the Inner Sphere to start to get a better look at the Clan Logistics system, and lead to several punishing attacks against "secret" logistics points, before the Clans started to take countermeasures, including a commando raid in 3060 that led to the seizure of some of the plans. However, it proved to be a sign of things to come, as the Clans, while still holding the advantage in incremental improvements to weapons, found themselves falling behind in terms of paradigm changing developments. The need to counter this, saw the conservative clans' plans for the social transformation of the liberated regions put on hold in favor of the more "hands off" clans plans to make use of their human capital, a "temporary" adjustment that would gradually become permanent, especially given the tiny minority of Clan members residing among their conquered populations. 
 
Long after the Clan War, the VLJDA systems, and their ability to detect the massing of jumpships or warships, would have a massive impact on politics. Today, while many youth think of the SETI project, a long-term project to turn the VLJDA systems into an array capable of detecting alien KF drive use within the Milky Way, its major impact remains in the ability to track and detect local KF traffic for both civilian and military purposes.
War of the Scientists: The Clan Invasion and the Inner Sphere Technological Revolution: 3049-3065.
-----
===Crab Buckets, crabs and getting out of the bucket===
IF there is one event that marked humanity, it was the failure of democracy and representative government during the Alliance, and it's subsequent conquest by McKenna. This had two effects.
 
The first was the general discrediting of democratic forms of government, save for systems that were not threatening to the overall rulership of the nation. Cities, and later, even planets could be democratic, but with a very few exceptions, most of the burgeoning star nations took their cues from the Alliance and Hegemony. Under the shiny veneer of democracy a stark truth would hold-- The ruling class could not be challenged in any serious way. Even Amaris, faced no serious popular challenge, at least until his atrocities forced people to it. Granted, how this worked out depended very much on where you lived. The rulers of the Federated Suns and Free Worlds League had a far different approach to their people than the Draconis Combine, And in many cases, the conflicts of the mighty barely impinged on the day to day lives of those people.
 
But the second, and more serious change was the seeing of politics in a zero sum game. There was no reason why the great houses had to fight each other for resources--not with thousands of worlds, many of them only recently inhabited. If the Sol system, home to mankind for tens of thousands of years, could support itself, there should have been no problem. But the truth was, the Alliance, and later governments, along with the tendency of warriors rather than statesmen to rise to power, produced a mindset that it was easier to take, one that led to the never ending rumble of conflict during the Age of War.
 
It was no surprise that the Star League was accompanied by the bribe of the entire Periphery, free to be conquered and looted by the Inner Sphere. And it was equally no surprise that the first reaction to a prostrate Hegemony, prostrate in large part because of the failure of the House Lords to aid it, was to attempt to loot the corpse.
 
There is no loyalty in the crab bucket, after all.
 
Although primary school books attribute the changes in the latter 3000s solely to the Concordat and periphery, that is a very simplistic view of things. The truth was that the very wars that had smashed the Star League and so reduced intersteller commerce had seen a rise in various forms of democracy, as well as a rumbling of discontent. Nobles who spent their time at court on Tharkad, or who served the Dragon as warriors, were not present at home. And unlike the days of the Star League, intesteller commerce was difficult enough that many worlds were only peripherally connected to the centers of power.
 
This remained a subtle undercurrent until the Fourth Succession War. While Border regions had many groups that cheered the great victories (for those houses that had victories), just as many feared the return to general war, while regions far from the fields of battle either wondered why their sons might be sent off to die, or, in the case of the Outback, wondered why they were dealing with horse drawn wagons while armies of Battlemechs were marching.
 
Despite the chaos of the 3030s and 3040s, it is unknown whether this would have become a major movement, or just remained a flash in the pan, until the Clans invaded.
 
Genetically engineered supermen who desired to conquer humanity (and take the prettiest and most handsome back to slave away in their harems, at least according to a tide of lurid propaganda books and movies) in the name of the SLDF, the clans smashed House forces, putting them on the defense. The formation of the Unified Military Command, first as a paper command to facilitate cooperation between the defenders, and later, as an actual unified military command encompassing the Comguards, and numerous former mercenary forces as well as new units recruited from across human space, not only was untainted by the history of most house units, it became synonymous with brave last stands and desperate victories (it would be some time before any victory against a clan was anything other than "desperate".)
 
Where the House Lords were seen to squabble with each other (the famous bribes demanded by the FWL to provide equipment came to mind), the UMC served humanity, although most propaganda films of the day glossed over the difficulties of merging citizens from realms that had been hostile. 
 
As the UMC grew, more and more worlds followed their exploits, and the PR teams carefully crafted a narrative of the common people fighting, not nobility or genetically engineered soldiers (although both fought for the UMC). Taking yet another cue from a long-ago war, a new cartoon series was started, Tom and Sally, supposedly distant descendants of Willie and Joe, and like them, a pair of anonymous and unimportant PA(l) troopers whose sarcastic commentary and day-to-day experiences enthralled people from Terra to Samantha.
 
But the greatest transformation came due to the violent death of the Draconis Combine. While the war between the Clans and Inner Sphere was continuing, it was swiftly overshadowed by the horrific humanitarian catastrophe (keeping in mind that the Clan front had seen no nuclear weapons used against civilian targets, whereas they were used with abandon by the Black Dragons), leading to first unofficial truces and later official truces, as the Clans carried out their Trial of Annihilation against the Black Dragons, going so far as to agree to not use the conflict as a way to gain ground in their quest for Terra, while the UMC joined in Operation PROTECTIVE SHIELD, the securing of various combine worlds and the expulsion of the Black Dragons (if simply killing them wasn't possible), and Operation HEALING HAND, which included both humanitarian relief and the transport of refugees.
 
Put Bluntly, in their attempt to restore the old ways, the Black Dragons forever tainted them, with very few of the successor states having any interest in returning to the days of a ruling military caste. As the rumbling collapse of the Combine ended, many worlds, embraced various types of representative governments with the fervor of new converts. (those that didn't collapse into ethnic conflict, or general disorder, at least). 
 
But the rulers of the Federated Commonwealth would find themselves under stress, if not as severe as the Combine, more severe than they had expected, especially since simply shooting dissidents was not an option. There were enough stories about incompetent nobles that it was easy for discontent to gain sway, especially as some pointed out that the wars that had so devastated the Inner Sphere had been over what ruler would sit on a throne of a far away world, rather than who could best care for their people.
 
The decision by Katherine Steiner-Davion to renounce her claim to the throne of the Federated Commonwealth in order to become the popular figurehead and leader of the Constitutionalist Party was either a patriotic decision to move beyond an outmoded system, or a cynical realization that she could more easily gain power with popular backing, depending on who you ask. But one thing was certain, it let the nobility of the Federated Commonwealth know in no uncertain terms, that the ground they stood on was not nearly as firm as they thought it had been.
 
But ultimately, we of Taurus played a role, but in many places it was a secondary role. Had the people not been ready for a change, the only thing the Helm and Prometheus cores would have done would have provided more toys for the rich and powerful. It would be a pity if we of the Periphery found ourselves denying the Inner Sphere of the agency they so eagerly attempted to take from our worlds.
 
From: The Changing Face of Humanity: A History Primer For High School students.Published in 3120, and noted in the top ten school books challenged by the Taurian Patriotic Front.
-----
===The Military Career of Katherine Steiner-Davion===
Katherine's objections to many of Victor's decisions were well known. More focused on the Lyran side of the new nation than Victor, she believed (honestly, most sources agree) that Victor's rule would be a disaster, fulfilling his Davion need to be a warrior prince at the cost of the Lyran side of the Commonwealth. 
 
When she joined the infantry, many assumed that it was a sign that her mother had finally lost patience with her, or that Victor had triumphed in the family squabble. The truth was far more nuanced. Katherine was always more politically astute than Victor, and while not as good a general as he was, she perceived quickly, that this conflict would soon be far more than a mere battle between nobility, with infantry and other supporting arms relegated to the sides. More importantly, she also knew that she could not match Victor's skill with a Battlemech, and any attempt to follow in his steps would merely result in unfavorable comparisons.
 
So Katherine entered the powered infantry, a rapidly growing field, one that required skill and creativity. equipped with license built Taurian PA(L)s, and BA models, mech-infantry units were rapidly becoming the unsung heroes of the Clan front, able to be moved quickly, and put bluntly harder to destroy than 'mech and armor heavy units, especially when the time came to go to ground. Most importantly for the politically astute Katherine, these units were full of the middle class. Powered Armor was not something that could be tossed at the untrained or stupid, but needed education to effectively use and manage, and yet the wealthy often found themselves moving their children into battlemech units, or keeping them safely behind the lines--a point that Katherine took advantage of. 
 
Despite accusations of favoritism, by all accounts Katherine was an effective leader on the battlefield, starting as a trooper in the 221st Provisional Mechanized Infantry Regiment, which would, by the end of the war, become part of the 4th Commonwealth Mechanized Infantry Division, yet another sign of the vast expansion of the Military during the conflict. Lightly injured twice, once against the clans and once against the Black Dragons. 
 
Katherine parleyed that in to a reputation for being "Part of the nation" culminating with her renunciation of her position as heir, playing up her close friendship with many in her unit, few of whom would have ever seen her before. As part of this, Katherine seldom wore her wound badges, arguing that her minor injuries shouldn't be compared to the great sacrifices others had made for their homes. She, however, never had the quite minor cosmetic surgery that could have removed the facial scar one of those wound badges represented. As always, Katherine Steiner-Davion was very astute politically. 
 
There have been persistent rumors that Katherine was considering forcing Victor to step down in favor of a civilian government, or even launching a coup. There is no way to determine the truth of this, but when the 4th was deployed to New Samarkand, she was confronted with world where over 50 million civilians had died in the crossfire between loyalist and Black Dragon forces, with nearly 100 million homeless and needing immediate aid. It is, in fact telling that for all Katherine's use of her military experiences in the political arena, she remained reluctant to talk about the mission to the Kuritan world for the rest of her life. 
 
What is known is that it left her with a horror of civil unrest, and led to a number of subtle, but notable changes. However, whatever her initial thoughts, Katherine would soon find that there was no need to consider civil conflict, as she became the darling of the Constitutionalist Movement, especially as her Brother found himself unsuited for the challenges of peacetime...
 
From: From Heir to Prime Minister, Katherine Steiner-Davion and the Forging of the Modern CommonwealthLondon Press, 3140
-----
===Tools of Nightmare===
The Kuritan theatre Eclipsed every other theater of war for sheer savagery under the Black Dragons. Unfortunately, their coup included a number of "politically reliable" officers who had been in charge of the Combine's WMD stocks and they soon developed the capability to produce more. What was worse, most of these weapons were used, as much or more against the "unproductives" of the Combine, which by this time had come to be anyone who opposed the Black Dragon Society. It should be noted, this list is not exhaustive, and does not include "legitimate" WMD's, such as long-range missiles, that could be used against warships. 
 
The Productive Militias:
 
Taken from the Unproductives, schools, and members of the Henin class offered a chance at glory, the Productive Militias were often armed with antique weapons or even just satchel charges, being used in human wave attacks against mechs. They actually managed to throw back some attacks (either because combine pilots fighting for other factions were unwilling to murder their fellows in job lots, or because Clan and UMC pilots were equally unwilling to wade through an ocean of the dead).Ultimately, the Productive Militias met with little success. Without any effective armor, crowd control gasses, LRAD style projectors and simply going around them made them ineffectual in most areas, and growing demoralization saw more and more of the militias simply melt away, save for those who turned on their own political officers and killed them.Save for those members implicated in specific war crimes, all members of the militia were covered under the USS amnesty proclamation, unlike soldiers fighting for the Black Dragons who had to provide affirmative proof they had not been involved in any atrocities, nor had stood by while such atrocities were conducted.
 
Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) 
 
*; The Dragon's Righteous Claws (Elias) : First utilized by light infantry against Clan forces, the Elisa 5 Decaton nuclear demolition charge proved to be a severe threat to Clan and UMC forces, whether utilized as a land mine or as part of a swarm attack, often covered by the Dargon's Teeth (irregular civilian units called up and armed with whatever could be spared). While obviously ruinously expensive in terms of loss of civilian life, they slowed Clan units, as well as creating a second tactic, where crowds of "unproductives" would be forced at gunpoint to attack Clan (and later, UMC units) moving to bring them down. More than a few massacres were sparked by pilots and soldiers unwilling to trust that nobody in the mob heading for them was carrying nuclear death. 
 
;The Dragon's Droppings: One of the last weapons deployed before the elimination of the Black Dragons, the Dragón's droppings were simply an Elias (or in some cases, Davy Crocket), warhead wrapped in cobalt or other material to produce long-term radioactive contamination. Not as many were used as had been feared (by the time the Three All Command had been issued the Black Dragons had lost any ability to function as a united force), but those that were caused horrific casualties in the cities where they were deployed, saddling the invading forces with the need to decontaminate and care for civilians. 
 
*;The Salted Fields of Retribution: Only used three times across the Combine, each time to deprive the Clans or UMC of a strategic target, the Salted Fields of Retribution required a large fission reactor with a large custom-built warhead, of 25 or more megatons built under it. When detonated, the warhead created an immense amount of long-term fallout from the fuel rods of the reactor. While an atrocity that saw the Clans declare a Trial of Annihilation against the Black Dragons, as well as seeing most of the remaining natural powers start contributing supplies and troops, it was very effective, not simply in denying the better part of three continents to well, anyone, but leaving the invading forces, no matter their intent, faced with the need to first secure any plants that might be used in such an atrocity, thus funneling allied forces into kill zones. The sole bright point was that the Combine, due to years of industrialization, had relatively few fission plants. 
 
Chemical Weapons:
 
*;Compound VII: A compound developed and later discarded by Star League researchers, compound VII was a horrifying terror weapon. The gas was designed to primarily attack the mucus membrane and the soft tissues of the eyes, causing them to literally dissolve in the victim's eyesockets, rendering it impossible for them to seek assistance as their lungs filled with blood and pus.More or less useless against modern troops, especially those in powered armor, Compound VII was first used against civilian uprisings against the black dragons in the first days of the Coup. During the conflict, it was used to purge cities that were insufficiently zealous in the service of the Dragon, often used as a threat to keep militia forces fighting due to the threat to their families.While technically Combine units using Compound VII were to be arrested and transported for trial, both Clan and Inner Sphere units generally shot any soldier found with Compound VII or the equipment used to disperse it out of hand, saving everyone the trouble of a trial that would have only one outcome.Interestingly, the vast number of blinded civilians sparked increased research into treatments, and the Magistracy Institute of Medicine, in collaboration with John Hopkins (Terra ) and NAIS developed a vastly cheaper and faster method of cloning and implanting cloned organs, resulting in a quantum leap in medical treatments across human space. 
 
*; Rash : A harassment weapon, Rash caused a massive allergic response in people exposed to it, leading to pustules rising on the skin and a nearly irresistible itch. While not fatal in and of itself, Rash could be incapacitating. Rash was mainly used as a civilian suppressant weapon, forcing victims off the street and to seek medical assistance, where they could be arrested. Rash was only used a few times, as civilian riots quickly moved beyond the ability of this gas to suppress, especially as a number of "home" remedies of varying levels of effectiveness were spread.Ironically, many who bear the scars of Rash bear them with pride, as it is proof positive that the individual took part in the first uprisings against the Black Dragons, before the rest of the Inner Sphere joined in. 
 
Biological weapons:
 
The Black Dragons did not utilize many biological weapons, due to their hopes to secure victory--and biological weapons could easily render entire planets uninhabitable. By the time they were considering this, Comstar, the Clans, and the UMC had managed to, by sharing intelligence, pin down most of the production sites and destroyed them, in at least two cases with nuclear weapons. The rumor of "Unstoppable biological weapons" remained an urban myth for years after the destruction of the Black Dragons, with tabloids regularly finding people who 'remembered' labs being evacuated just before the final assault on this or that planet. 
 
Ultimately, such stories proved to be just that--stories.
-----
===The LAM and QuadVee's return and strange fate===
During the conflict with the Clans and later, the conflict with the Black Dragons, many new systems were used. Some more successful than others.
 
Land-Air 'Mech (LAM) and on the Clan side, QuadVees, turned out to be a "less successful" attempt. Jacks of all Trades, but masters of none; The first newly built LAMs were either used as fighters that could walk or Battlemechs that could fly by officers with little real experience, which proved disastrous at both roles. Space constraints kept them under armed and armored, while a short range compared to Aerospace fighters made it difficult for them to compete in the air.
 
Ultimately the UMC cut production of LAM units, and shuffled off their few remaining forces to irregular and scout units--where they enjoyed somewhat greater success. As a guerilla unit, A LAM's strengths were greater than its weaknesses, as no intelligent guerilla got into an even right to begin with. As long range scouts and raiders, LAMS focused on hitting poorly defended targets, rather than heavy units--and the best way to deal with that, was to have LAMs of your own. 
 
Another use for LAMs was as high speed engineering units. the "John Henry" was a Pheonix Hawk LAM with much of its armament replaced by engineering tools, which could quickly move to where it was needed to assist with improvised fortifications or disaster relief. 
 
Quadvees, introduced towards the end of the Clan Invasion, had the advantage of being able to patrol a city without destroying its streets, the larger surface area of the treaded or wheeled vehicles putting less stress on the street. This combined with their faster speed, made them effective civil defense units, leading to the eventual design of a proto-mech quad-vee design. 
 
Nonetheless, these units remain strictly niche units, despite the continual confusion on the part of amateurs as to why the "mech that can fly" didn't dominate the battlefield. 
 
As the Combine collapsed, these LAM units had one last point of glory--moving quickly to secure and hold suspected or proven WMD repositories until UMC units could remove or destroy them. This sometimes led to battles against superior forces, where the LAM units acquitted themselves with great bravery--and lost many of their soldiers. It also saw the short-lived deployment of the Dragon LAM, the heaviest LAM in existence, and a last-gasp attempt to produce a LAM that could fight with heavy battlemechs. The design prototypes were rushed into combat where the concept was proven fatally flawed from a combination of inadequate transformation systems and high maintenance. 
 
By the end of the war, taking a leaf from the ProtoMech design, some light mechs were equipped with "lifter systems" allowing them to engage in low-level VTOL flight. While not fully as capable of a LAM, they paid less for the advantages and started to supplant the more complex LAMs. 
 
But LAMs and Quadvees would both have a resurgence in the post-war era. In a time period where colonies were expanding, and pirates were more likely to be a ragged band than a marauding army, the LAM's ability to go anywhere suddenly became very important. Demilitarized LAMs were fitted with cockpit space for paramedics, their weapons replaced with storage spaces and emergency equipment, and could be anywhere on a planet in less than half an our, whether it was to fight a fire or help with a collapsed building. 
 
For QuadVees, the ability to have a mech's strength but not destroy the city streets led to them being a common choice for civil defense and emergency units. The Diamond Shark's unveiling of the Patrolman line, a series of Quadvees with modular fittings for the needs of the city that purchased them, became a very popular line, with the Blue and White hulls being a common sight from Samantha to the Clan Homeworlds. 
 
Ultimately, while remaining a footnote in military terms, Quadvees and LAMs continue to have an impact on the civilian populations of the Human Sphere, an interesting fate for what was once expected to be just another, albeit unusual, line in humanity's tools of destruction. 
 
Triumphs and False Starts, Secret Military Projects of the Clan War3120, UCR Press, Riverside, Terra
-----
===A Report on Economic Issues Involving the Police Zone===
A document from the Taurian archives, unsealed in 3100. The hand written components are believed to be, but not confirmed to be from Undersecretary Georgia Wright, one of the "new guard" of economic professionals who rose to prominance in the years after the discovery of the Prometheus Core. While undated, the fact that no reference is made to the Sirius atrocity, the Comstar Schism and Reformation, or the Helm Data Core indicates it occured at some point in 3028 or early 3029. 
-----
 
From Taurian Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning 
 
RE: The Police Zone.
 
While the Police Zone is not to be occupied by Taurian forces, we will be ensuring that it remains safe from piracy and external aggression. While the military and diplomatic issues have been covered by their respective departments, this report will focus on the possible economic consequences.
 
Edward, the next time you dump a collection of worlds that are actually larger than the Concordat in terms of population and GDP into our lap, it would be nice to give us some warning. I will remind you, the Fox's Wedding president is not an aspirational goal. 
 
Trade. 
The disruption of trade between the Police zone and the rest of the Confederation makes it likely that extensive trade will be started between the Concordat and Police Zone. 
 
The problem facing us is that as a centrally planned economy, most decisions were made by Sian—often with little consideration for low level economic factors. There are factories on Victoria that should have been shut down for maintenance years ago, but keep operating by pulling resources from the civilian sector—while all the while declining in output due to overuse and poor maintenance. 
 
The breakdown of this centrally planned economy could see major economic, and resulting social disruptions. Fortunately, little military action occurred on these worlds, and the standard of living of most Liao citizens in the region is acceptable, so we're not facing the potential of starvation. We should focus on helping local companies set policies that make sense for their own worlds and immediate trading partners, while offering short and medium term loans to tide over companies that are suffering from temporary financial issues. 
 
Edward, I know our big businesses are slavering at the chance to buy properties at fire sale prices, but I can't think of anything more likely to lead to long-term resentment. Also, to be blunt? Our economy is in danger of becoming overheated. Employment is too high, there's too much money in the system, and there's only so much colonial operations can do to keep inflation at bay. This may give us a way to put some of that of that money to good use without going on a buying spree. 
 
 
Possible trade links:
 
While well provided (relatively) in terms of heavy industry, the status of their consumer goods sector doesn't bear talking about. Everytime Max wanted a new toy or something broke down, that was the sector that got looted. We're not just talking about microwave ovens, but just about everything. In addition, local infrastructure isn't… bad. But it also is neglected, depending on the attention of the local nobility. This presents an immediate trade opportunity, as well as an employment opportunity for the populations of the world, as they rebuild local businesses. 
 
I don't envy you. I mean, we can say we're going to be hands off all we want, but what happens if some noble looks like he's going to start a famine? Also, half the locals have been conditioned to not say "boo" without a signed order and personal blessing by the Celestial Wisdom. The people here aren't bad, and they've done a lot of work, but we're talking about a situation where the kind of order they've lived all their lives with just doesn't exist. Sorry Edward, as much as you want to be hands off, we're going to need financial and economic advisers, unless we want little problems to blow up into big problems. 
 
The Police Zone as an intermediary for foreign trade. 
 
It is likely that the Police Zone will drastically increase trade, both the Concordat and the Arugian nation, drastically increasing both exports and imports. Preliminary estimates indicate that such trade may eventually come to exceed 10 percent of our current GPD, especially with funding in Police Zone world economies. 
 
I'm going to say it Edward, privately so I don't get lynched. We're trading with the Davions. There are already holding companies being established, and I'm certain half of them are going to be reboxing Davion goods, and Taurian goods and sending them into the respective nation. Just remember—if this keeps up, in ten years we won't be able to disengage with the Suns without a lot of financial pain. I know you think this is a good way to stop war, but no matter how well our… progress has gone, the Federated Suns, and when they have kids who inherit, Federated Commonwealth could eat our entire economy for lunch. Don't forget the dangers of getting Clever. There's a guy who got clever waiting for his trial.
Military Expenditures:
 
The need to deploy the Fourth RCT(M) to cover the region, along with specialized space control units, will increase our budgetary demands, but as most worlds have sufficient resources to provide basing and we are not considering actual occupational duties, the costs are likely to be low, especially in light of our need to continue practicing long-term deployments. This will allow us to fold some of these activities under the training budget, and thus leave the combat operations budget alone.
 
The transfer of McCarron's Armored Cavalry to our service in order to "stabilize" the region is going to put some holes in our budget, especially as they're specifically directed to maintain the territorial security of the Police Zone worlds, a not too subtle point to our friends in the Free Worlds League. However, you've probably also had the military staff mention that hiring them for OpFor practice is not a violation of our agreement and that we need it, because we've actually fought precious few conventional engagements and we can't always rely on our enemies being surprised, or being idiots. My people went over Big Mac's losses to the Federated Suns, and I think we can pay them in hardware to rebuild their forces, which will be less expensive than regular C-bills or Bulls and might tie them to us in the future. 
 
It's not my place to say, Edward, but the people who met the merc unit agree, and so did our military liaison. They have a powerful hate on for the Suns. Normally, I wouldn't consider that a flaw, but we don't need them going off the reservation. Maybe pay one regiment to play opfor and have the others glaring at Janos' people?
 
Conclusion: 
 
Ultimately, the Police Zone is likely to provide both challenges and benefits to the Concordat. Increased trade immigration and a safe border will almost certainly outweigh any negative consequences as we emerge from yet another example of the Inner Sphere's addiction to conflict. 
 
Edward, this can work. But please, I know you aren't a god, but do your best to keep people from rocking the boat. With all the crap that has happened, some of my people are suffering early male pattern baldness. 
 
Georgia
 
-----
===Powered Armor and the Clan Invasion===
Powered armor remained inferior to Clan designs until well into the Clan Invasion. Put bluntly, after several dramatic failures, the Concordat had given up on anything other than their PAL designs, with limited attempts to engineer "super heavy" armor, which was actually light battlearmor. Quad support armor was seen more as a small vehicle than BA, and by the clan invasion, most engineers believed heavier designs were simply chasing a dream. 
 
However, this still left the Inner Sphere with a knowledge that battle armor was possible--and left mech pilots and infantry alike well aware of many of its advantages and disadvantages. A PA(L) pilot coming face to face with a toad was likely to have a short, exciting life--but he knew what it was. Additionally, and perhaps more importantly, his fellows were supporting him in large numbers.
 
Most importantly, especially given the dramatic circumstances surrounding the unveiling of the TDF's suits, every nation had put a great deal of thought into what head-hunters could do, and how to protect them. Command posts were well defended, and most subordinate officers had policies in place for what to do if command devolved on them due to power armor hunter-killer teams. In the field, mech and vehicle pilots had trained to handle PA, ranging from the emplacement of machine guns on mechs, to having PA(L) bodyguard teams (though the Inner Sphere never thought of having powered armor ride mechs--that was something they stole from the Clans). 
 
It did not change the material benefits of the more advanced Clan armor. But it ensured that in most cases, there was no panic. A toad might be more deadly than PA(l) suits, but it was a difference in degree, not kind. 
 
And because PA(L) suits had been designed and fielded as infantry units, most Inner Sphere designs had far more endurance than Clan battle armor, which had been designed, doctrinally and technologically, around the short, sharp engagements that favored the Clan way. But many units that were scattered in the initial Clan thrust reformed, using caches and local supporters, and an augmented soldier, even an elemental, was little match for a squad of power armor troopers ambushing them at a checkpoint. This, combined with the continual demands on Clan frontline troops, left more than a few worlds essentially under the control of the Inner Sphere, save for the space port, and not even that. In other cases, Clans such as Ghost Bear and Clan Wolf proved more capable of devising an effective COIN strategy, one rooted in a ruthless analysis of what needed to be secured now, and what could be left until the end of the conflict. As usual, the Smoke Jaguars went for brutal and often unjustified retaliation, which saw regular protests and demands in the Grand Council. On the other hand, the Smoke Jaguars were consistently slow in advancing, because they did spark such resistance, something the other Clans did not mind. 
 
While Battle Armor would eventually be fielded by the Inner Sphere, Inner Sphere strategists retained a preference for lighter models. the PA(L)s were relegated to the rear areas, but they were replaced by light armor, again as a regular infantry suit, with medium battle armor serving as heavy support units. Heavier models existed, but tended to be restricted to local militias and security forces that didn't expect to have to move, while the USS military held that the PA(L)/BA(L)/BA(M) mix provided the ideal combination of speed, firepower and protection, and that heavy and super heavy armor was a dead end. 
 
Among the Constitutionalist Part in the Federated Commonwealth, powered and battle armor soldiers were held up as the ideal, not fighting like a sole noble (a claim that had little basis in fact), but as part of a society, who would hang up their armor and return to their homes and businesses, rather than continue to lord it over their "lesser." Katherine Steiner Davion* in fact, used her fortune (her resignation of the position of heir did not include becoming a pauper), to develop the militia BA(L) Cincinnatus suit, in the name of "those who answer the call both for war and peace." 
 
In the years after the Black Dragon atrocities, many of the successor states to the D[aconis combine focused on battlearmor formations and vehicles, an visceral hatred of battlemechs being widely spread across the nation. Unlike the USS and Lyrans, many designs of powered armor, battle armor, and protemech systems (Often called proto's to avoid the "mech" association), were fielded and a number of developments saw post-war heavy armor becoming far more useful than the USS believed it would have been. 
 
Lastly, the relatively peaceful era after the titanic conflicts of the Clan and Draconis war, saw a greater demand for peacekeeping and special forces operations--both of which were far more easily handled by powered armor, especially if you wanted to avoid civilian casualties.
-----
===The TCN White Elephant Class===
*See White Elephant Class DropShip
-----
===Protector's Vengeance Class Combat Dropship.===
When the Protector's Vengeance made its debut in the Capallen conflict, it led to a number of loosened bowels across the Inner Sphere. Especially since the Taurians didn't bother to tell anyone that the four examples of the class in the skies over Sian were the only examples serving, going so far as to refer to each ship as part of a different flotilla and/or fleet, and even bemoan the difficult of crewing so many new ships. If any didn't believe them, nobody decided to test them, at least then. 
 
Learning from the mistakes of the Union Combat ship (White Elephant), the Protector's Vengeance class was a beefy 18,000 tons, and while not as fast as some dropship at 2gs standard acceleration, it possessed (at the time) the best armor in the Inner Sphere, along with no fewer than six AR-10 launchers, fed from substantial magazines, along with 12 SubCapital lasers, fitted into batteries of four, which proved quite deadly against Capellan fighters during the Sian Incursion. Secondary armament was made up by 30 large lasers, backed by 178 double heat sinks. Plans for a more diversified weaponry set had been Vetoed by Buships, which had quite the fight with BuWeaps, but eventually the advantage of an entire secondary armament that could be fed from one spares bank won out. 
 
The design was not without flaws. The heavy armament led to spartan crew quarters, although a large common room, gym, and entertainment section was provided, while a single small craft bay made it impossible for the ship to operate independently, as did its small cargo bay. That was seen as acceptable by the Admiralty, which considered the Protector's Vengeance class to be part of a fleet, rather than an independent combatant. The other defect, the lack of massive anti-fighter/missile capability was seen as acceptable in the light of the lack of other nations with capital missile armed ships. By 3035, the flight II refits would remove two sub-capital lasers in order to add an effective anti-missile and anti-fighter fit. 
 
The Protector's Vengeance hull became the base for a wide range of variants, including carrier, escort, and direct combat variants. During the Clan invasion the design was proliferated to shipyards across the inner sphere, and a number of advanced and experimental variants were built. 
 
Protector's Vengeance ships were named for citizens of the Concordat who had been killed illegally by foreign invaders, usually those who had distinguished themselves before their death. In other cases, they were named for massacres against Concordat Citizens. It was a sad footnote that no conceivable increase in the fleet would see them running out of names:
Sandra Davidson 
Brisbane Secondary School #221 (Go Tigers!)
Marantha Calderon
Woods Creek
Tanya Green (The Hundred Martyrs)
 Protector's Vengeance
 Type: Military Spheroid
 Mass: 18,000 tons
 Technology Base: Inner Sphere (Standard) 
 Introduced: 3027
 Mass: 18,000
 Battle Value: 14,560
 Tech Rating/Availability: E/X-X-X-D
 Cost: 472,668,000 C-bills
 
 Fuel: 500 tons (15,000)
 Safe Thrust: 4
 Maximum Thrust: 6
 Heat Sinks: 178 (356)
 Structural Integrity: 16
 
 Armor
 Nose: 258
 Sides: 217/217
 Aft: 177
 
 Cargo
 Bay 1: Small Craft (1) 1 Door 
 Bay 2: Cargo (854.5 tons) 1 Door 
 
 Ammunition:
 60 rounds of AR10 Killer Whale ammunition (100 tons), 
 60 rounds of AR10 Barracuda ammunition (60 tons), 
 60 rounds of AR10 White Shark ammunition (80 tons)
 
 Escape Pods: 0
 Life Boats: 7
 Crew: 7 officers, 1 enlisted/non-rated, 23 gunners, 5 bay personnel 
 
 Notes: Mounts 57.5 tons of standard aerospace armor.
 
 Weapons: Capital Attack Values (Standard)
 Arc (Heat) Heat SRV MRV LRV ERV Class 
 Nose (136 Heat)
 5 Large Laser 40 4(40) 4(40) 0(0) 0(0) Laser 
 4 Sub-Capital Laser (SCL/1) 96 4(40) 4(40) 4(40) 0(0) Sub-Capital Laser
 RS/LS Fwd (196 Heat)
 3 Capital Missile Launcher (AR10 Launcher) 60 6(60) 6(60) 6(60) 6(60) AR10 
 AR10 Barracuda Ammo (30 shots)
 AR10 Killer Whale Ammo (30 shots)
 AR10 White Shark Ammo (30 shots)
 5 Large Laser 40 4(40) 4(40) 0(0) 0(0) Laser 
 4 Sub-Capital Laser (SCL/1) 96 4(40) 4(40) 4(40) 0(0) Sub-Capital Laser
 RS/LS Aft (40 Heat)
 5 Large Laser 40 4(40) 4(40) 0(0) 0(0) Laser 
 Aft (40 Heat)
 5 Large Laser 40 4(40) 4(40) 0(0) 0(0) Laser
-----
===Pike Militia Tank===
*See Pike Militia Tank
-----
===The Little Corvette that Could===
The RX-78 project was seen as an expensive Vanity project by the TDF, one unable to match their concept of using the superior strategic mobility of pocket warships. (although that term was not commonly used). Another example of the Inner Sphere's obsession with biggest and best, especially given the failure of the pirate raids using a Potemkin. 
 
And then the Clans attacked.
 
And then a Taurian pocket warship group went up against a properly supported Snow Raven McKenna Battleship group including a proper screen of DropShips and fighters. Confidence turned to panic over night, especially since unlike the Inner Sphere, the Snow Ravens (and to a lesser extent the other clans) knew how to handle fleet-scale capital ship engagements. 
 
The TDF turned to the concept of parasite warships--large ships, bigger than any modern dropship, sporting capital armor and weapons. It was a plan that was "just about" to come to fruition for most of the clan war, the first successful Parasite Warships only showing up in the last few years. Plans were made to rebuild Concordat Frigates and larger ships, but outside of the Comstar fleet, there was one warship class that was both ready and tested--the RX-78 project. Cramped, uncomfortable, and not the best design that could be made, the RX-78 was the best design available because it could be produced, and the TDF swallowed its pride when parts and tooling were provided by the Federated Commonwealth, with the first Taurian RX-78 slipping its moorings over Samantha just two years after the design had been provided. 
 
Produced in the FWL, Concordat, Terran shipyards, and Federated Commonwealth shipyards, the RX-78 became the first warship since the Star League to be churned out as a mass production ship, with most ships incorporating components from all over the allied states, and other ships, most notably the Concordat II frigate, while better for some roles, were never produced in equivalent numbers simply because the RX-78 was "good enough." 
 
The RX-78 continued to be upgraded and improved during its tenure, with a number of different sub-classes, such as the RX-78E mod, where most of the capital weapons were replaced by anti-fighter and missile systems, in order to serve as a close-in escort for larger craft, or the RX-78G mod, which incorporated the "Quick Charge" system in two of its drop collar systems. Ultimately, approximately 250 ships were produced during the war years, although combat losses ensured that the number in service at any given time were much smaller. 
 
The Clans were never able to match the speed of production of the Inner Sphere and so focused on fewer, larger ships, but Clan warriors came to respect the tough little vessels, despite their nickname "Cockroach Cars", referring both to the fact that you never faced just one, and the fact that the could never stomp them out. At least four RX-78s were captured by the Clans, where they provided yeoman service to the invading forces. 
 
After the Clan War, and Combine Civil War, the majority of these ships were assigned to the USS fleet, although in the relatively peaceful era that followed, the majority were placed into the ready reserve fleet, as their focus on combat operations made them less than useful compared to more multi-purpose systems, while their cramped crew quarters and austere fit made them less suited to operations in frontier regions.
-----
===Squad Support Weapons===
Powered Armor Class Support Weapons:
 
It has been said the Clans and the governments that would eventually form the USS came at the question "What role does Power Armor fill?" from opposite directions. The Clans consider their Elemental suits to be, if not mini-mechs, then in five warrior points to be an effective substitute for a mech, particularly before Operation Revival/The Clan Invasion. Thus the focus on heavy armor, significant integral weapons, and the size to carry a useful amount of both.
 
While in the Sphere and Periphery powered armor was from it's modern combat debut in the famous "Serving of Sian" seen as ultra-heavy infantry. While its introduction and spread meant that soldiers issued powered armor would often be anti-mech trained, and indeed its continued spread made unarmored infantry anti-mech attacks increasingly rare? Suited soldiers were still seen as infantry.
 
It didn't take long till the pioneers in the field outside of the Clans, the Taurians, to take the next logical step. If powered armored infantry was still infantry? What would become their squad heavy weapons?
 
Given the strength of even early PA(L) suits allowed one to be equipped with a machine gun, flamer, or laser that would typically be a two soldier squad heavy weapon for non-armored troops? The designers felt they could consider weapons that soldiers cynically call "Jeep Portable". That is often mounted on a light vehicle and considered 'man portable' only in the sense it can be dismounted and dragged a few dozen meters to a concealed trench by most of a squad.
 
There were many candidates used by various militaries between the 4th Succession War and the Clan Invasion. Some tried designing "ultra-heavy machine guns" of the classic Gatling pattern. The belief was logistics could be simplified by using a common caliber round for both suit and squad machine guns. However this often forced a compromise choice that seldom served either weapon well.
 
Eventually most settled on the Heavy Support Laser of various manufactures for the same reason the Taurians deployed it as the first power armor squad weapon during the Helm Crisis. Ease of logistics, since recharging is to powered armor infantry what oil was to warfare in Terra's Second World War. Thus 'resupply' could come from the same fusion engines and chargers already being assigned to such units. Indeed the Lyran, later AFFC standard Rommel and Patton tanks were refitted in the 3040s with power bank attachments to be used for milchkuh (milk cow) duties in recharging the power packs of armored infantry.
 
Only heavy infantry mortars remain a common alternative heavy weapon for battle armor. Though the typical mix usually favors heavy support lasers as the primary heavy weapons, with the mortars being fewer but often concentrated into one platoon per company or a company per battalion. The general wisdom among powered infantry officers is the ammo dependency and extra logistical load is worth paying to have your own 'hip pocket artillery'.
 
While initially HSL were simply the infantry/light vehicle weapon taken from existing stores, designers soon recognized for power armored weapons they could afford to expand the mass budget to deal with soldier complaints. Most commonly this took the form of more robust capacitors and cooling systems to allow a greater rate of fire.
 
Even in the original form, the HSL gathered several affectionate, if highly optimistic nicknames. Bug Zapper. Tank Thumper. (The) Equalizer. Later in the Clan Invasion, it was called "The Toad Popper."
 
In the early Clan invasions, while sometimes not enough to stem the tide, powered armor that managed to get their support lasers and mortars into the fight often made the fight much bloodier for the invading Clan. Enough so that rather than the Clan expectation of being able to face two or even three to one odds with the expectation of victory without major casualties, Clan infantry often had to gather Elementals at closer to parity or better to carry a position held by their lighter armored enemies.
 
This led Elementals to put their own names to USS armored support weapons. Of the few printable, the most common were related to the casualties assaulting such a position carried. Not even an Elemental in armor could weather many heavy support laser hits, and they seldom faced them one at a time.
 
Most commonly the HSL was called the "Bloodright Booster" a reference to the casualities causing a bloodnamed soldier to die and open his spot for a replacement. Another common one was the "OathBastard", a portmanteau only possible where the two sides are exchanging high velocity steel and energized photons. A combination of "Oathmaster", the Clan official that oversees major Trials such as a Bloodright to pick a new Bloodnamed warrior, and Bastard, an insult picked up from USS soldiers they faced.
 
Despite the praise, and Immortal Warrior depictions, there are limits to the usefulness of Powered Armor Support weapons. Not even Elemental suits can pick up a HSL and fire it from the hip. It can be repositioned, but redeploying support weapons means some delay before it is in action. So if the fight goes mobile, it can be rendered ineffective. Something later Clan tactics sought to exploit. Even with leap frogging USS powered armor often found they had to leave their support weapons behind to cover them from a distance when on the attack. But this was less often an issue when the Clans first invaded and when the support weapons gathered their most fame from both sides.
-----
===The TDF Sherman===
The TDF Sherman was their own redesign of the Rommel class tank, which was produced by TTI under license. Taking a typical Tuarian attitude, the changes to the Rommel fitted their own needs. 
 
First of all, the armament reworked with an Class 10 autocannon paired with a Partikill PPC, the TTI engineers argued that a five barrel LRM launcher was too light to effectively damage enemy tanks, especially given the danger of an ammo cook off, and while the loss of smoke rounds was annoying, other tanks in the unit could mount such units. Most importantly, the PPC and autocannon both had similar damage potential, while the PPC ensured that no matter what happened to the ammunition trucks, the tank would always have something to shoot. The fact that this came at the cost of reducing the ammunition load to two tons lead to several discussions. When one TTI engineer sweetly enquired if, unlike the artillery pike, the crews of the tanks would be willing to give up their machine-gun pacificers in return for more ammunition, a "Frank exchange of views was held." 
 
More specifically a brawl broke out in the board room. 
 
The front mounted machine gun stayed. 
 
The Sherman stayed a mainly Taurian innovation, ironically for reasons of logistics--the Lyrans preferred to use mixed Rommel/Patton tank formations, which although they did require two different types of armor, did not require techs trained on both PPCs and autocannon. What tanks they did buy were generally assigned to formations that included battlemechs armed with PPC's, adding to the workload of the long-suffering battlemech techs. Another factor was that while ferro-fibrous armor was produced by the Tuarians, in sufficient quantities to add it to their armored vehicles most other nations of the period had much larger militaries, and focused on providing refit kits for their battlemechs, and without the advanced armor, the compromises needed to fit the armament in resulted in an unacceptable loss of protection. 
 
By the time of the Clan invasion, a number of militias had bought these tanks, not having the same logistics issues of their home government (and the extra survivability was a selling point to the families of the home militias), but they proved unequal to their enemies. A few tanks survived, and there the PPC came in handy, but fundamentally they were too weak to face the Clan forces head on, and too obvious and limited in mobility to serve as a guerilla unit. 
 
While several refitted designs were issued, by the end of the Clan War, it was felt that the Sherman (and other Rommel/Patton variants) had reached the limit of possible upgrades and they were replaced, the remaining survivors going back to militia vehicle pools, where in the general pace that followed the Clan and Kuritan conflicts, they mostly spent their time drilling and participating in parades.
*See TDF Sherman Tank
-----
===Clan Unity City Troopcarrier===
As the conflict between the Clans and Inner Sphere grew in intensity one factor became increasingly common—dropships were no longer safe, especially for contested insertions, with pocket warships, SDS batteries and enemy warships all gunning for them. Inner Sphere generals congratulated themselves on being faster on their feet than the Clan rulers, while others wondered if the Clan's might return to the First Succession War method of neutralizing such defenses.
 
Both proved wrong with the Appearance of the Unity City class. An asture design it confused the first observers, being fast, but not armed to any standardized format. That changed with the first invasion where it was used. The Unity City was heavily armored, carrying 75 mechs, 24 squads of battlearmor and 12 small craft for general support. It's weapons were designed not so much for space combat, as orbital combat, missiles, NPPCs and lasers allowing for pinpoint bombardments of strong points without undue threat to surrounding communities (Especially since by this time both sides had located SDS defense sites well outside of city boundaries save for a few notable exceptions). The Unity City was not, as the Nightlord was, designed as a battleship that carried mechs, but a ship whose entire purpose was to bring a force into orbit, land them in the face of opposition, and then support them with accurate NPPC, missile and laser fire until a hole had been opened up in the planetary defenses allowing larger clan forces to land. That was one reason for the odd placement of some of its weapons, which made more sense in the context of a ship that ideally would spend more time shooting at the ground than targets in space. 
 
The ship's accommodation were austere primarily because, outside of the crew, it was not intended for long-term occupation. Ground forces were embarked immediately before a mission, rather than being expected to spend weeks or months on board, and the cargo capacity was tiny compared to other ships—because the Unity City was not expected to ever operate as an independent ship. The single dropship collar was not intended to have a dropship permanently assigned, but to make cargo and troop transfers easier.
 
 The one weakness proved to be its AMS systems, the advanced laser based systems being less effective than their designers anticipated. A number of Unity City class ships received field expedient refits, with conventional AMS systems being added to redress this perceived lack. Some also added extra conventional antifighter weapons, but the designers argued that as Unity Cities would never operate alone, their tonnage was best dedicated to the tools to let them accomplish their mission. 
 
The Unity City was very expensive for a troop ship and a number of the Clan Khans opposed it. But its ability to "pave the way" for follow up dropships endeared it to many Clan warriors and the honor attendant to being 'first in' ensured that there was never any lack of volunteers for the Unity City's mech cubicles, especially among the Freebirth Clans.
 
Among the defenders, finding out where Unity City class ships were became a high priority as it gave a good idea as to where the next Clan offensives would fall. 
 
Of the 27 Unity City troop cruisers built during the war, less than half survived, due to the fury of the defenders attention. But even there, they can be said to have achieved their mission, as every beam fired at them was not being used against their follow up forces, and in at least two cases, Clan commanders sent Unity cruisers ahead—with empty bays and skeleton crews, precisely to distract the defenders without risking their own forces. 
 
 
From Jane's Warships and Dropships of the Clan Invasion, 5th Edition RevisedLondon Press, 3104.
*Unity City Class Assault Cruiser - MegaMek File
* Unity City Class Assault Cruiser - Record Sheet
*Unity City Class Assault Cruiser - Alpha Strike Data Card
-----
===The Angry Burro===
One problem the Taurians had with their PA units was bringing heavy fire power and supplies to their fights. Vehicles were useful, but ran into the problem that the environments that most suited powered armor were least suited to vehicles. Attemtps to scale up their armor were unsatisfactory and it would not be until two years into the Clan Invasion that reverse engineered toads opened up the possibility of medium and heavier armor. Quad armor ran into the problem that many pilots disliked it, for a number of reasons.So, the Burro, a light civilian unmanned four-legged exo, designed to move material around rough worksites was adopted as an unmanned weapons platform.It was not a drone, not in the sense most believed, and in fact was operated by a "burro driver" a tasked trooper who could run it either via radio link, or a 50 meter cable link, depending on the ECM environment. The Angry Burro, was a 2000KG drone, with the ability to mount a range of heavy support weapons, while it's partner the "pacifist Burro" (officially a militarized burro) could carry a goodly amount of supplies, or transport injured troopers (especially those who could not be extracted from their armor).During the Clan Invasion, the first sightings of the Burro's caused consternation among the Clans, who initially believed that the Inner Sphere had successfully produced autonomous ground combat vehicles.Although by the mid 3050s, that belief would be realized in the "Smartass Burro" drones a number of early teething troubles, including some blue-on-blue events when the compact AI became confused, left many units with standing, albeit unofficial orders that save in the most clear cut situations, the assigned "burro wrangler" would maintain control over his charges.A common, and highly unauthorized, form of hazing was to have "bucking burro" contests, where the engineers would modify a burro to attempt to "buck" an armored trooper off the burro. After a number of angry demands that the practice stop, frustrated commanders (who were unwilling to give up any chances to improve morale during the generally dark days of the early Clan conflict), classified the hazing as "combat reflex training" and went so far as to commission actual "Saddles" for the assigned, "training burro."
 
*; The 1st Provisional Tharkad Burro Cavalry: After the Clan Invasion of Tharkad, a number of infantry units were forced to retreat to the rugged mountain regions. Without many vehicles, the teams raided several depots and obtained a number of civilian and military burro's, which were used to help transport regular and PA infantry across the nearly impassible regions, causing no end of grief for the the Clan invaders. Because of that, there are a number of post-war celebrations that prominently feature the history of the Burro, despite the admittedly minor impact of the 1st. (The clan forces generally sent new warriors in need of seasoning, and discipline problems against these forces, as they could not threaten the Clan's hold on the most valuable planetary real estate.).
 
-----
===Frederick Pattern LCRs===
Light Combat Regiments
 
Frederick (Clan Ghost Bear) had a huge region of space to patrol, nearly a third of the Lyran Commonwealth and Draconis Combine, and not much to do it with. The LCR's were one of his innovations. 
 
The Clans had captured a number of PAL factories and a few of the light BA lines that were replacing the PAL suits. Frederick took them, repaired them and used them to bulk out his forces, especially with the factories from several worlds, including Coventry
 
Sidebar: Dealing with the devil. 
 
Frederick was able to avoid much sabotage by one simple expedient. Investing in the factories, and making agreements with their homeworlds that the Clans would take no role in their governance. Furthemore, should the Inner Sphere invade, he made an agreement to withdraw rather than fight, and not destroy the factories on the way out. 
 
For Frederick, it was an easy agreement to make—if the Inner Sphere managed to retake Coventry, the war was lost, after all. For the Inner Sphere intelligence agencies, the chance to get a look at even second line Clan assembly lines was also worth it, so the order went out to not molest the factories—although a common joke among employers was that you were supposed to leave a place on the form for what intelligence agency new hires worked at.
 
LCR's had one battalion of mechs, and two of mechanized infantry, usually PAL, light BA and Elemental suits. Most of them were staffed by recruits from the periphery and Inner Sphere, with more reliable units left facing possible Inner Sphere raids. The patriots, or units that he wasn't certain about, Frederick sent to the periphery to face the pirates, on the quite reasonable assumption that a Lyran patriot wouldn't let a pirate raid a world just to spite the clans.
 
Mobility was, in lucky units, handled by small craft and modified fighters, such as the TDF Victory fighter, whose design had been in production before the conflict and which Frederick co-opted for his own. Unlucky units had to make do with VTOLs, WIGs, and hover craft. 
 
Most notably, they quickly reversed engineered some of the infantry mobile artillery and rocket systems the Taurians had introduced, making them considerably more dangerous, especially dug in, than they would first appear. 
 
Their command structure usually involved a mix of recruits and clan Solahma infantry officers, many of whom jumped at the opportunity to not be used as glorified cannon fodder. In fact, quite a number came from more traditional clans, such as Smoke Jaguar and after a sometimes rough period of adaptation, came to treasure the fact that they were no longer seen as useless, but valued officers. 
 
Training and tactics were based off of SLDF pattern manuals, stressing the importance of maneuver and unit coordination. After some rough starts, they became quite effective in both policing the zone and throwing back Inner Sphere raids. 
 
Their reception among the larger Clans varied. Traditionalist clans looked down on the infantry units with contempt, to the point where friendly fire was sometimes an issue. Liberal clans saw them as an effective way to bulk out their forces and give old warriors a chance to contribute and Solahma soldiers from Nova Cats, Snow Ravens, Wolf and Ghost Bear often requested transfers, up until those clans started forming their own "Frederick Pattern" LCRs. 
 
Ultimately, and ironically, the greatest battles the LCRs would fight were not with the UMC, but with the Black Dragons. After the Trial of Annihilation had been declared in the aftermath of the New Samarkand atrocity and the Scouring of the Azami, the Clans found themselves fighting individuals who would order mobs with suicide bombers carrying manpack decaton hand grenades to assault omnimechs. The LCRs were sent in, along with UMC units, to root out fanatical resistance and evacuate civilians from poisoned and burning cities. The LCRs that had been recruited from the captured portions of the Combine proved to be the most fanatical, some of them taking (when replacements were counted) nearly 300% casualties.
 
After the Liberation of the Draconis Combine, a number of LCRs remained as part of the armistice agreement, working with UMC units to protect humanitarian relief efforts and stabilize the region. A number of them remained in the aftermath and became part of the Combine Republic Defense Force. 
Sample LCRs:
 
*; 1st Regiment (The Mutts) : The first regiment was part of the First Division of Frederick's corps, and as such was very active, bouncing from place to place before the Black Dragon affair distracted everyone. One of the few LCRs to eventually be equipped with clan-spec hardwar, the 1st took a special glee in hitting and taking targets that Clan forces had failed to do so, often flaunting their defiance of traditional Clan traditions. After one particularly unfortunate meeting, Frederick was forced to tansfer them to the Nova Cats who made use of the 1st in hunting down remaining Marian and Circanian pirates, a task that they took to with unnerving glee.Today, the 1st Regiment is stationed on Circanus, providing security as well as serving as OpFor for various units that cycle through. Units that are former clan, or boast of a "glorious history" get an especially enthusiastic reception. 
 
 
*; 4th Regiment (Death Seekers) : The 4th Regiment was recruited normally, but after the Black Dragon's coup, soon found itself with a majority of Azami soldiers. After the bombardment of Algedi V, and the resultant death of nearly 120 million people, the 4th became the primary destination for those who had lost everything. The 4th was known for never asking or granting quarter to Black Dragon forces and repeatedly asking for the honor of being first in any assault. "Transferring to the Fourth" became slang among Clan and UMC forces for someone seeking an honorable form of suicide.The 4th Regiment was the first infantry regiment to land on Luthien, and by the end of the conflict, had been reduced to a force smaller than a company of soldiers, but had still won every conflict they'd been thrown into.After the end of the conflict, the 4th Regiment eventually transferred to the new forces of the Azami Republic, becoming the core of the 1st RCT. Smaller groups "retired" from the regiment, joining the "Dragon Hunters," groups of private individuals seeking out any Black Dragon officials or officers who had escaped justice. Today, the 4th is considered an elite, if rather driven unit. Members of the 4th also mount guard over the Tomb of the Innocents, as well as provide the embassy guards for the Azami delegation to the USS.
-----
===Booms in War===
For those expecting the same kind of economic collapse as occured during the First and Second Succession Wars, the Clan invasoin was surprising. On the one hand, war was happening.
 
 On the other hand, both Clan and Inner Sphere forces abided by limits on strikes. 
 
 And most importantly, only a tiny fraction of worlds were seeing conflict, while at the same time, every state, along with Comstar, had opened the taps of economic stimulus. 
 
An example of this was the Aurigan Coalition, a minor state that had managed to survive until the Clan Invasion. While a jumpship line had been built at Mechdur, the desire to expand facilities, lead to the shipyards being vastly expanded with four warship production berths, no less than 20 jumpship production berths and numerous subsidiary companies, with the seed money coming from Comstar. The primary victory wasn't just the money, but the fact that about 25 percent of the jumpship production was reserved for internal commerce. The ability to now have dependable space lift saw the growth of export industries on worlds that had never seen it before, in addition to economically minor but culturally important increases in tourism. This, combined with the number of immigrants fleeing conflicts in the Inner Sphere, especially during and after the Black Dragon's took power in the Combine, so both economic booms and the growth of a population that could make use of their new resources. 
 
Similar booms took place across the Sphere, and while the release of the core had started the boom, the immense infusions of money boosted it to levels undreamed of even a few decades ago. 
 
It is perhaps an irony, that later calculations by the Lyran Institute of health conclusively demonstrated that the benefits in healthcare and standards of living that were being spread out across the Inner Sphere during the clan invasion insured that combat casualties never came close to exceeding the lives saved by wartime investments in medical facilities and long-term health care.
 
Sadly, the same could not be said for the cataclysmic end of the Draconis Combine and the Kuritan dynasty. 
 
3120: A brief economic history of humanity.
-----
===Dual Cockpit Mechs===
One of the more unusual, albeit common sense innovations of the UMC were dual cockpit mechs, generally assigned to battalion (sometimes company) commanders. 
 
War had become more complex and now a mech commander might have to juggle air support, allied units, a dozen different things, and more than a few battles had been lost because the commander had to take time out of his job to fight his mech.
 
Dual cockpit mechs were intended to solve this problem, having a driver/gunner, and the commander, the latter in a cockpit designed for command, not direct fighting. Most unusually, the mechs were designed to appear no different on the outside, with fake gun muzzles masking where weapons had been removed (usually anything that used ammunition to eliminate the second greatest reason why commanders weren't giving orders). 
 
While less efficient than a dedicated command post, the Clan's notorious habit of sending out head hunting units made forward command posts risky and defended command posts couldn't keep up with a fluid battle, save on a regimental level. 
 
Although not fielded universally until the Combine conflict, the Clans found them both infuriating--and impossible to duplicate as no Clan commander would accept being sidelined in such a way. Not even the Clan occupational units adopted the concept, though they had a hard enough time just equipping their troops with mechs, so the oversight was understandable. 
 
Although met with doubt at first, units using the Dual cockpit mechs suffered fewer casualties and were often able to defeat larger units that were less organized, so the concept soon became accepted. 
 
There were some variants, such as the "drone wrangler" model that could handle the recon and combat drones of an entire battalion, or the FAC carrier, a rarer variant designed to coordinate with air and artillery assets across an entire battalion front line. 
 
While not ranked with the more flashy developments of the war, the proliferation of dual cockpit command mechs vastly improved the UMC's combat capabilities and is now a universal standard among serious militaries. 
 
Janes All the World Mechs, Introduction, 3090 edition.
-----
===UMC infantry regimental organization===
UMC infantry regiments were based on TDF organization. 
 
Every platoon was made up of four squads of six PAL or BA(L) suits, three infantry squads, and one command squad that included medica and platoon mechanic. 
 
Each company was made up of three platoons, plus a heavy weapons platoon which would be distributed among the squads, and a command squad. The heavy weapons platoon normally included direct fire anti-armor weapons, as well as a mortar element. Artillery was held at the battalion level. 
 
A battalion was made up of four companies, three line companies and a command/special deployment company, usually including an RPV recon unit, and Angry Burro mounted artillery. 
 
The regiment was made up of three battalions, a command/speciality company, along with the regimental transport element, which depending on the unit and mission could be V/stols, Wigs, or aerospace craft. mechanized regiments would have an attached APC/IFV element, as well as tank and mech destroyers. Mechanized regiments (battlemech) would ride mechs into battle, but these units were rarer than common units, as well as often using heavy and even the rare assault armor designs, where the lower mobility wasn't an issue, but greater protection was as they were to be deployed directly against enemy units. 
 
While a base design, more than a few units had variations, either deliberately, or picked up unofficially during the clan and BDS wars. in some cases, orphaned units would just remain with another unit until they could be returned to the general pool, while in other cases they could become part of the unit, leading to Frankenstein units that caused the logistics officers great distress, but made line troopers happy, such as the 56th infantry unit, which picked up (and kept) a company of Zeus mechs being upgraded to advanced technology that they had liberated from a Clan Storage site. 
 
Powerful enough to be useful, cheap enough to be replaced, the infantry regiment became the face of much of the war, and as the UMC became the primary force against the clans, it was not unusual to see individual members hailing from across the Inner Sphere and beyond. 
 
The infantry units missed the general draw down in forces after the end of the BDS conflict. Many of them were used in the occupation and restoration of civil government, where the primary change was teh transformation of one battalion into non-powered armored "civil assistance" troops who would provide a range of services, while not being equipped with the somewhat intimidating armor their companions wore. 
 
Today, most worlds use the model for their own militia forces, being both less intimidating and more useful than battlemechs, especially when one considers the economic impact of stationing thousands of troops who will spend their leave money in a town, compared to a few dozen mech pilots.
-----
===The Snow Raven Multi-role Transport===
In the runup to Operation Revival, the Snow Raven's confronted a serious problem. While much of their transport operations could be handled by conventional jumpships, the forward front would risk confrontations with Inner Sphere warships and dropships—and an assault warship could destroy a conventional jumpship with ease.
 
Potemkin class Transport Cruisers were hard targets, but they were also expensive, and required KF cores and transit drives that were slated for use on capital ships.
 
However, in a surprising move, the Snow Raven's found a very old design.
 
The Dreadnought Class Battleship, first WarShip
Although mainly known for its combat record, the design had several advantages. First of all, it was an old design, and while replacing older systems with modern systems did not provide much of a weight saving, the increased space would make maintenance far easier. Secondly, the secondary cargobay, originally used for dropshuttles, was modified for modular units. While incapable of mounting weapons (at first), this allowed any given ship to be, within a month, prepared for a number of roles, ranging from escort carrier to fleet support ship via the use of collapsable dock units for dropships and smaller warships.The new design included collars for no fewer than 12 dropships, and cut down on the ship's former weapons fit. Most autocannons were removed and replaced with longer-ranged lasers, suited for a mission role where it was assumed that most threats would be long range strikes, and escorts would handle close in assaults. An extensive AMS suite was intended to stop leakers. The armor was upgraded to modern ferro-fibrous composites, while the limited fighter complement was modified to fit with Clan doctrine.Within a few months of the first ships being deployed, the Snow Raven Khans realized that they had a winner on their hands, and several other modified designs were constructed.
 
 
*; Flight II combat cruiser : The combat cruisers lost 6 of their dropship collars, and regained a suite of NAC-20 triple mounts, along with a number of Naval Lasers. Plans to include particle beams were cancelled due to weight of the weapons, which the Snow Ravens believed would lead to an under armed ship. The modular bays remained, but were normally equipped with a mixture of cargo and fighter/small craft bays. In some cases, missile launchers were fitted to the bays as a semi-permanent modification, but the Snow Ravens felt that missles, in addition to the ammunition hungry NAC's would lead to an unacceptable decline in endurance. The rest of the cargo bays were reduced in return for greater hull reinforcement, along with a suite of anti-missile and fighter weapons.Later, after Clan intelligence had obtained the blueprints for the subcapital weapons used by the Inner Sphere, many of these weapons would be replaced by SCL and SCC weapons, in addition to some subcapital missile launchers.
Combat history:
 
Without the noble linage of the SLDF ships in Clan fleets, or the certainty of combat that the Nightlords and other capital ships had, the multi-role transports were not seen as a plum assignment. The more pragmatic clans were their most common users, with the Snow Ravens, Diamond Sharks, and Nova Cats having the majority of the hulls in their service. The Ghost Bears had a few but primarily used them as transports, preferring larger warships in their forces.
 
On the other hand, as a warship that was more replaceable than a Potemkin, the multi-role transports often led raids, and UMC intelligence took careful stock of where they might be, especially the repair and refit models.
Notable ship:
 
*; CSR Victorious : The Snow Raven transport had one of the odder careers for a clan warship. In the first days of the Black Dragon coup, it lost the majority of its dropship and troop complement to the use of multiple ground and space nuclear weapons.A month later, the Victorious, still without troops or dropships, found itself picking up the remains of the 23rd UMC Mechanized Infantry battalion. Who had lost its jumpships to a similar Black Dragon attack.
 
While withdrawing, the CSR Victorious became the odd example of a Clan Warship, at war with the UMC and Inner Sphere, hosting a Inner Sphere unit, which raided the military of a nation technically at peace with the Inner Sphere (Technically, there was never a "war" with the Black Dragons, merely a peacekeeping operation to restore the recognized government). For their part, the crew and officers of the Victorious evidently decided a Trial of Annihilation trumped a mere conflict.The Victorious continued operations with its ad hoc group until the final assault over Luthien, when the warship descended into low orbit, in order to make up for holes torn in the dropship cover by Black Dragon forces, and provided anti-missile and ground support for the beacheads.Struck by multiple nuclear weapons, the CSR Victorious survived, but was declared a constructional total loss, and remained in orbit over Luthien until 3110 when it's KF core was repaired to allow it to make one last journey to the Terran War Museum, where it remains to this day, technically the only Clan warship to have entered orbit around Terra.
*; MegaMek Ship Files : Dreadnought Class Multi-Role Transport Warship, Flight I - MegaMek FileDreadnought Class Multi-Role Transport-Fighter Carrier Warship, Flight I - MegaMek FileDreadnought Class Multi-Role Warship, Flight II Combat Cruiser - MegaMek File
*; Record Sheets : Dreadnought Class Multi-Role Transport Warship, Flight I - Record SheetDreadnought Class Multi-Role Transport-Fighter Carrier Warship, Flight I - Record SheetDreadnought Class Multi-Role Warship, Flight II Combat Cruiser - Record Sheet
-----
===Autocracies and Nobilities===
One of my problems is that since the PTB are very allergic to dramatically shifting canon, even though the original btech was mad max in space, with automated factories being so valuable because nobody else could make mechs, a lot of things haven't aged well, and some patch jobs are well, not satisfactory IMO.
 
One of the claims in the RPG is that most individual worlds are, more or less democracies of one type or another, while not all, at least enough that it's not surprising. 
 
The problem with that is... why would a world that benefits from a liberal democracy tolerate, or support the nobility? It's like King Charles being able to declare a crusade and the British people following him. The very concept of "democracy" and "Warlords" well, I won't say they won't always work, but in general, they don't. 
 
And with my history hat on, this requires a deep dive. Early colonies were either run by officials from earth, often corrupt, given teh history of the Alliance, or by locals--and in many cases, these locals had to be strong men. The Alliance, while keeping the outer view of democracy, essentially shits all over it (and if it seems similar to Niven and Pournelle's Codominum universe, well, that was popular reading at the time the stories were written...) to the point where democracy and republican forms of government are largely discredited. 
 
McKenna might have been able to restore it, but he chose not to, using big guns to trump the law. Maybe he had to, maybe he didn't, but at the very core of human space, the Hegemony was formed and legitimized by a coup. 
 
So in the btech universe, power, be it economic, or military, was seen as flowing down from the rulers to the people, not from the people to the rulers, whatever was said. The Periphery might have had a different view, but well, we know what happened. 
 
And because of that, most worlds are authoritarian. Maybe not totalitarian, but you still know who is in charge. That's why Katrina's rise to power was so unusual-- a transfer, a peaceful, yet unwilling (on the part of the ARchon) transfer of power was nearly unheard of. But even there, it takes time to percolate down through the ranks and so there are many, many worlds where the local lord runs things, and unless things blow upbadly enough to need help, he can get away with a lot--like putting an incompetent in charge. 
 
A few things have changed this--1. the Clan invasion killed an awful lot of the warrior nobility. 2. Frederick in the OZ got rid of some more, both for moral reasons and well, "hanging the lord technically in charge" gives you a damned good reason not to open the rear door for said lord's son to come back. 3. the rise of powered armor as a force is seeing more and more middle and lower class groups get into the fight and well, if one has the burdans of military service shouldn't you have the rights? 4. Candace dropped out of the fight and the Confederation is going better than ever. Why should we listen if Hanse demands we have a fifth succession war so he can get the shiny seat. (those with similar views in the DC keep them very quiet). 
 
This doesn't mean revolts are rippling through human space, but it does mean that the various authoritarian groups, be they nobility or entrenched wealth, may find their thrones getting a might unsteady as time goes by. One hopes a politically astute lady with a proven combat record would understand her role is to stand with her noble peers...
-----
===The Prosperous War===
The Clan Invasion was seen as teh greatest threat to the Inner Sphere, and yet... Between the unveiling of the Helm Core and the end of hte Black Dragon Conflict, the GDP of the Inner Sphere (less The Combine) had increased by over 5 times. 
 
The first reason was the simplest--the Helm Data core and it's distribution by the Concordate saw an explosion of economic activity across the Inner Sphere, one spurred by the Truce agreed on between the Federated Commonwealth and the Draconis Combine at the meeting of the "Star League High Council". Old Star League facilities were rebuilt and new facilities were built, and in taking a lesson from the periphery, worlds that could not afford cutting edge systems, could build Age of War era vehicles, factories and power systems that allowed them to increase their GDPs. 
 
Just as one example, industrial water purifiers, the single most important system for many worlds, dropped in price, between 3025 and 3050 by nearly seventy percent, which did not tell the entire story--before 3025 in many places you couldn't get a water purifier for love or money. 
 
But this was matched by an increase in education. Broken Wheel, which in 3025 had few educational centers beyond high school and vocational centers, had, in 3060, enough "community college centers" to graduate nearly a million students in that year, with several institutes of higher education providing advanced degrees. While "building from scratch" was not without pitfalls, as the core, while providing information, didn't provide experienced teachers, the rise of an educated class made it vastly easier for these worlds to take advantage and improve upon thier bounty.
 
And the War went further--the Clans, with a few exceptions on the part of the radical Crusaders, avoided infrastructure strikes and the Inner Sphere forces, and later the UMC, did the same. The Clan OZ was policed enough to keep the Inner Sphere forces out, but Frederick and his staff's hands off nature, in general left the local civilian economy free, while the construction of advanced Clan forward factories actually improved the economy of some worlds (and gave the Warden Clans, some bargaining power during negotiations). 
 
Most notably, while trade was reduced, civil trade never ceased entirely between the OZ and "Inner Sphere held portions, save for some worlds that were heavily invested, such as Tharkad. The common joke was that in some places, the only sign a war was going on was the need to slap a Clan sticker on a shipping crate. For this reason, at no point during the war did the allied nation's GDP decline and as the conflict continued, despite being higher in absolute numbers than at any point in the past, the military budget used to fight the war actually declined as a percentage of the total Inner Sphere GDP. 
 
The two losers in this were the Draconis Combine, and the Clan Homeworlds. 
 
The Combine, while seeing an increase in its productivity was hamstrung by its culture and resistance to Theodore and Takashi's reforms. The BDS conflict, seeing the mass targeting of groups seen as disloyal, tore out the heart of the Combine's merchant and technological classes, with many who survived fleeing to the surrounding states. As late as 3070, the successor states of the Combine were still receiving foreign aid, over half coming, ironically from the Federated Commonwealth where First Prince Victor Steiner-Davion and Prime Minister Katherine Steiner-Davion, in a rare moment of agreement, cooperated to ensure that the Commonwealth wouldn't end up with a mass of failed states on its border. 
 
The Clan Homeworlds, starting out with technologically superior systems, soon found themselves outcompeted and out produced by the UMC. Their conservative and inward-looking leadership, unlike those groups which remained in the Inner Sphere and came to various arrangements with the region, saw scientific progress and merchant policy still strictly controlled by the warriors. The Clan Homeworlds increasingly fell behind, as the Inner Sphere and other periphery states moved beyond the bounty of the core, exceeding the old Star League not simply in degree but in truly original discoveries. 
 
While the USS had forgone the right of invasion, Even the Homeworld Clans could not ignore the fact that the UMC could move in whenever it wanted, which lead to increasing dissension among the Clan populations, and ultimately, the agreement in 3080 that the "right of immigration" to other worlds on the part of Clan castes would not be refused, which led to a growing brain drain among the Clans. Ironically, instead of becoming the leaders to bring the Inner Sphere to a new era, the most traditional clans found themselves becoming a footnote in history...
-----
===Pinto Fast Escort===
When the first plans for Fast CV groups were on the drawing board, a problem quickly came out--such ships would need escorts. Dropships were one possibility, but if a fast group wsa engaged, it would be left with the choice of abandoning the dropships or dying. While the Automated Drone ships were one avenue, they were not the only one.
 
The second problem was that Even the UMC didn't have an infinite amount of shipyards, and heavy duty warship transit engines took time to build. But General Cheng wanted her offensive ready and that meant that the New Syrtis class Carriers, and New Avalon class fast cruisers needed escorts. 
 
The Pinto class had been designed to be easily built, with many components sharing commonality with dropships, largely to facilitate the covert construction of a battlefleet.
 
Few companies were ready to take up the challenge, pleading that they were fully engaged in other challenges. one company took up the challenge, seemingly unconcerned with the fact that they'd never built an aerospace fighter, let along a warship.
 
Quikscell Company was ready for the challenge, and almost before the UMC's logistics department had recovered from their bout of insanity had sent agents scouring the Inner Sphere for dropship components from shipyards, scrapyards...and more than a few crash sites. The company didn't use formal berths for it, simply throwing up zero-g facilities wherever it was conveneint. Perhaps fortunately for generations of military crew, Quikscell Company had to contract with TMI and other businesses for the KF cores, KF batteries, and lifesupport systems repurposed from civilian dropship liners. The transit engines were removed from dropships, and it was a joke that one could tell what dropships had been scrapped in a certain area by checking the Pinto Fast Escort's engines. 
 
While bearing a stronger hull than it's forebearer, the Pinto Fast Escort was still very lightly armored. Armament showed Quicksells inexperience with space conflict. 48 ER large lasers gave coverage on all fronts while 24 SCL-1s gave a longer range hit. However, due to the mixture of the firing arcs, concentrating fire was difficult. 3 NL45's mounted in the nose allowed for longer range attacks. Lastly, 8 manta ray subcapital launchers provided yet another anti-fighter weapon. Lastly an impressive number of 96 AMS systems, provided close in support. In truth, Quikscell engineers, facing continual issues with AMS quality control, simply stuck enough on the ship that something would be working in any given arc. 
 
Because the design was tasked with escorting larger ships, the fighter complement was replaced with small craft, 12 of them including rescue, EW, and close in Anti-missile birds. Due to their design, the could stay "in space" somewhat longer than common fighters. 
 
None of this made the crews like them. The life support system alternately froze and baked it's crews, on one ship, the UMCS "Upchcuk" a vibration due to the misalignment of the grav deck led to continual nausea on the part of the crew. 
 
On the other hand, nobody flying a fighter wanted to be anywhere near a Fast Escort, and its speed, coupled with it's "all arcs" weapons, meant that there was no safe avenue of assault, while it's screen launcher often allowed it to prevent long range attacks on the ships it was designed to escort. The single dropship collar was rigged for fast charge units, which would be swapped out for Avenger or Pentagon fast combat craft when about to enter combat. 
 
By the time of the Black Dragon Coup, only 12 of these ships were ready for action (two more had been downchecked by the UMC, declared "unsafe for anyone not actively suicidal") and would join the CVBG group headed up by Colonel Wolf on his tour through the Combine, where four would be destroyed and two rendered into a total constructional loss--but they would reap a truly impressive toll on Combine squadrons, especially the late war suicide squadrons. 
 
After the war, the remaining six ships were not even put into the reserve as their hulls were already showing severe signs of wear (possibly because some of their hulls were not, actually welded properly). Three were scrapped, and three became museum exhibits at the Terran War Museum, the Taurian Naval Science Museum, and the New Avalon Military History
 Pinto Corvette (2502) 
 Mass: 160,000 tons
 Technology Base: Inner Sphere (Advanced)
 Introduced: 3140
 Mass: 160,000
 Battle Value: 20,529
 Tech Rating/Availability: F/X-X-X-F
 Cost: 9,375,610,000 C-bills
 
 Fuel: 5,000 tons (25,000)
 Safe Thrust: 5
 Maximum Thrust: 8
 Sail Integrity: 3
 KF Drive Integrity: 5
 Heat Sinks: 800 (1600)
 Structural Integrity: 35
 
 Armor
 Nose: 29
 Fore Sides: 25/25
 Aft Sides: 21/21
 Aft: 15
 
 Cargo
 Bay 1: Cargo (10943.0 tons) - Door 1 
 Bay 2: Small Craft (12) - Door 1 
 Bay 3: Cargo (143.0 tons) - Door 1
 
 Dropship Capacity: 1
 Grav Decks: 1 (45 m)
 Escape Pods: 10
 Life Boats: 10
 Crew: 25 officers, 68 enlisted/non-rated, 45 gunners, 60 bay personnel, 28 marines
 
 Ammunition: 1,152 rounds of Anti-Missile System [IS] ammunition (8 tons), 121 rounds of Manta Ray ammunition (2,718 tons), 24 rounds of Screen Launcher ammunition (10 tons)
 
 Notes: Equipped with lithium-fusion battery system and 112 tons of ferro-carbide armor.
 
 Weapons Layout
 Nose (357 Heat)
 3 Anti-Missile System, Anti-Missile System Ammo [IS] (144 shots)
 6 ER Large Laser
 3 Sub-Capital Laser (SCL/1)
 3 Naval Laser 45
 FRS/FLS (147 Heat)
 3 Anti-Missile System, Anti-Missile System Ammo [IS] (144 shots)
 6 ER Large Laser
 3 Sub-Capital Laser (SCL/1)
 RBS/LBS (231 Heat)
 3 Anti-Missile System, Anti-Missile System Ammo [IS] (144 shots)
 6 ER Large Laser
 3 Sub-Capital Laser (SCL/1)
 4 Sub-Capital Missile Launcher (Manta Ray), Manta Ray Ammo (61 shots)
 ARS/ALS (147 Heat)
 3 Anti-Missile System, Anti-Missile System Ammo [IS] (144 shots)
 6 ER Large Laser
 3 Sub-Capital Laser (SCL/1)
 Aft (167 Heat)
 3 Anti-Missile System, Anti-Missile System Ammo [IS] (144 shots)
 6 ER Large Laser
 2 Screen Launcher, Screen Launcher Ammo (24 shots)
 3 Sub-Capital Laser (SCL/1)
-----
===Coalition standards on POW treatment===
From: Office of the CINC. 
 
To: All commands.
 
The following orders are to be followed in regards to all Combine POWs and civilian detainees. 
 
 1. All individuals, regardless of status are to be held in humane conditions, as laid out in FM 2205. 
 
 2. It is to be emphasized that no collective punishments are to be carried out. Civilians may be detained and searched for security purposes, but no hostage taking or punishments are to be levied against those who have not carried out direct attacks. 
 
 3. Draconis Combine military officials are to be classified according to the following list. 
 
Class A. Black Dragon political officers, civilian security forces and Covert operations officers. 
 
Class B. Draconis Combine officers who swore an oath of allegiance to the BDS, or carried out their orders previous to the coup. 
 
Class C. Draconis Combine officers who carried out atrocities (see list) independently or under the command of BDS officers.
 
Class D DCMS officers who are not currently accused of engaging in direct atrocities, and who swore their oath of allegience after the coup. 
 
Class E: Enlisted men and women. Although they may have taken part in atrocities, the degree of culpability will be determined later, as due to BDS discipline, the question of their willingness remains open. 
 
Class F: Civilian leaders who continued to manage their businesses and or agencies under BDS command. 
 
Class A, B, and, C are not to be considered legitimate soldiers and are not protected by the laws of War. Any captives will be turned over to the UMC Judge Advocates office and will be transported to segregated facilities for later trial in civilian court as civilian criminals. They are under no circumstances to be permitted interaction with any other categories of POWs or detainees due to the danger of intimidating their fellows. Furthermore, due to incidents of suicide bombing in the past, they are to be taken prisoner if, and only if, such an action will not impact the safety of any officers or men in the UMC detachments. 
 
Class D officers are to be granted the courtesy's of POW status, however, they remain "under suspicion" until their status can be verified. Officers who are verified by higher authority as not having participated in atrocities may be domiciled with Class E POWs and serve as their representatives, under the observation of the JAG. 
 
Class E prisoners are to be evaluated on a case by case basis. While following orders is not an excuse for atrocities, the consistent use of the death penalty for actual or perceived disobedience throughout the history of the DCMS must be taken into account. Prisoners who are found to be suspected of atrocities will be held and tried at a later date, in courts set up for that purposes. 
 
Class F civilians may be allowed to remain in thief positions if they satisfy the following criteria:
 
 1. Vital to the operation and health of the civilian population.
 2. Were not a member of the BDS before the coup. 
 3. Did not engage in BDS atrocities, or participate in internal security operations.
 4. Cooperate with UMC forces in rooting out BDS supporters. (this last measure should be only when more than one source can corroborate their testimony.)
 
Class F categories will only remain in their position until it is possible for new leaders to be chosen by the freely expressed will of the people in their region. 
 
At all points, the conduct of UMC soldiers in occupied zones will be in accordance with the standards put out in FM 2204, Occupational Policies and Discipline. Soldiers and officers who fail to conduct themselves, will be subject to penalties, up to and including General Court Martials. 
 
General Mary Cheng. 
 
From: Planning for Victory: The UMC and the Largest Occupation in Human HistoryNew Avalon Press, 3130
-----
===Frederick's POW orders===
From: Star Captain Frederick (brevet commander)
 
To: All Units in OPERATION PURIFICATION 
 
RE: DCMS captives. 
 
 1. Officers and political officers of the BDS are to be terminated. They have tainted themselves beyond recovery. 
 
 2. Enlisted and NCOs may, if they have not engaged in atrocities be offered Bondsman status , if their performance merits it. However, those who refuse will be transferred to POW camps without prejiduce. All offered Bondsman status are to be informed that Bondsref does not mandate suicide.*
 
 3. Civilian officials are to be allowed to continue in their duties so long as they have not actively participated in BDS atrocities. 
 
 4. The BDS, showing their Dezgra nature, have conscripted many civilians into combat operations. In such cases, any POWs are to be repatriated as quickly as possible. However, any officers and NCOs with these units are to be terminated. 
 
 5. When interacting with civilians, remember that the Great Father was always their protector. Conduct yourselves with honor, and do not be hasty to take offense at statements or actions that may be made in ignorance. For example, among Spheroids talking about family is often seen as a way to make casual talk, and should not be considered an insult by any trueborn. 
 
*Those of you who are newly transferred from the Homeworlds, understand: The Inner Sphere does not see Bondsmen in the same way we do. If you have not already, remember that you are ordered to read Clan and Inner Sphere customs: A primer, which will allow you to better understand the Inner Sphere. It has been written by both Clan and Spheroid individuals and will greatly assist you in working with Inner Sphere citizens.
-----
===Why?===
Why is this so lugly? None of those kids are going to have a single solitary impact on a battle, except to raise the butchers bill. Depending on the mood of their adversries, none will get close enough on open terrain and in the cities--well, they'll do more damage to thier homes than their enemies. 
 
 It's because one of the tropes I HATE is the "good Germany." It was born, both of hollywoods need for relatable antagonists, and frankly, an atrocious amount of Whitewashing of the Wehrmacht's activities. If you say: "I do not fight for Hitler, but Germany" you are... fighting for Hitler. 
 
 And because of that, the kind of people who rise to power among groups like the Nazis, the BDS, Pol Pot, are the kind of people who enshrine hatred, either because they enjoy it, and finally have their license to use it, or because they are fanatics in the service of their twisted ideology. I don't like books that portray the "noble" dictatorship, where all the evil is grand and glorious gestures. They don't exist. the real dicatorships are the places where the local bully kisses up to the leader and returns with a shiny uniform and license to be a worse bully than he ever dreamed possible, tearing down things and people that took centuries to build, and that he could never equal--because now he has the power to do so. No greater reason.
-----
===OZ Picket Corvette===
*See OZ Picket Corvette
-----
===The Atrocity Class===
The Atrocity class was a name for a wide range of dropships used by the Black Dragons to deploy WMD's against planetary targets. The WMD's were wareheads with minimal maneuvering capability which would be "pushed out" of the cargo bay when the dropship had achieved the proper vector so that they could hit the target. More advanced versions had automatic launch systems, which allowed a faster launch process. 
 
The platforms were named atrocity class for the simple reasons that 1. the warheads were completely useless against any maneuvering target. 2. Their poor targeting systems meant that they were generally only useful against large area targets--cities. 
 
Lastly many warheads were of the "salted variety." 
 
Ironically the only successful uses of the atrocity systems were against targets in the combine. The BDS had assumed they would be as effective as similar systems during the First Succession War, missing the fact that naval forces among both the Clans and UMC forces were fully capable of repelling the attacks while the increasingly effective jump detection system of the UMC proved able to track them.
 
Ultimately, the primary defense became the stationing of a single jumpship beyond the jumplimit of the system with pre planned jump points so that it could intercept any attempt to use atrocity classes, deploying faster pocket warships or assault ships. Advanced point defense systems would stop the "leakers" especially as their exact trajectory would be known. while expensive, both the UMC and Clans could afford it. 
 
The UMC considered anyone crewing an Atrocity modified ship or the JumpShip carrying it to have provided proof of their participation in the planning and execution of warcrimes. The Clans merely skipped the formality of a trial and executed the crews when captured (which was not often). 
 
The Atrocity Class did benefit the BDS--by some estimates major strikes into the Combine were delayed by as much as nine months, as defenses were set up. The post-war inability to find a Starlord with six mules led to consistent legends of a secret plot to strike back at their enemies until the remains of the unit were found by a prospector in the New Earth system, evidently the victim of a misjump. 
 
Some argue threat was in fact the primary purpose for the Atrocity, in order to give the Combine time, but given the numerous war crimes perpetrated by the BDS, this seems to be giving them far too much credit. 
 
Today, there are only two hulls remaining, a modified Mule class and Modified Union class. The Mule remains at the Mars War Museum, while the Union Class is part of the orbital annex of the Luthien History Museum. 
 
Relics of War, A guide to unusual exhibitsNew Avalon Press, 3090. 
-----
===When Mechanics Ruled===
The Clan Conflict, and Black Dragon war were marked by something that had never occurred, not even during the First Succession War. not even the height of the Star League.
 
Protector Edward's decision to release the data cores, beyond any hope of suppression, saw an explosion of knowledge across the Inner Sphere. Where once much information was either controlled or suppressed (such as the hegemony's suppression of battlesuit technology), where corporations focused on securing or sabotaging friendly and foreign labs, where put bluntly, it was easier to classify something than publish it, now it was free--literally. While pure military technology was restricted, and those cores only granted to certain groups (Edward was not stupid, and there was good reason to keep SLDF biological weapons out of most hands) civilian and theoretical knowledge--all of mankind's knowledge up until the last years of the Star League was available for free at many libraries--or for a 500 Cbill charge for the physical core at any Taurian embassy.
 
The Consequences were very close to dropping a crystal into a supersaturated solution. Now, every world, and every town could avail themselves of the vast breadth of human knowledge, for the first time since the First Succession War, neatly referenced and provided. The Core had even included expert library systems, based on Terran Alliance colonial data bases that could use a question and answer session to find information most suited to the current issue.
 
Better manufacturing processes, some of them quite simple when they were looked at led to increased production and reduced costs, which could be poured into more facilities and the general feeling of prosperity in the run up to the Clan war, saw extensive investment activity--something that had been rare in the years prior as many people feared investing in a factory that might go up in a fire ball. Small community colleges and larger universities might not match the vast schools in the Golden Five, but for the first time in as long as anyone could remember, the Skid Row worlds were starting to graduate engineers--and better yet, the investment atmosphere, with companies looking for cheaper land and unexploited markets saw those engineers staying on their homeworlds.
 
Most importantly, much of this was not military--where a few cores would have seen their bounty restricted to carefully vetted laps, the Taurian Gift saw everyone attempting to make use of them, not just for those projects approved of by their governments. Some were successes--the Baxley WIGE Transport Company produced civilian WIGE transports that by 3045 were becoming a stable of low population Skidrow worlds. Others, such as the LAM motorbike police vehicle, designed by Future Industries... were notable failures, mostly known for the fact that the royalties from "Greatest Test failures" vid actually kept the company from going bankrupt and eased it's transition into comedy media.
 
Even the Clans benefitted from this change; Frederick's OZ would never have been able to build the force it did, save for the fact that he inherited a plethora of near Star League level facilities that had been built as part of the industrial growth (and were quite willing to work with him when they were bribed by some beyond Star League tech from the clans).
 
Of the Inner Sphere nations, the Federated Commonwealth was the most productive, although their issues with the Clan Invasion led to disruptions. The Free World's League was known for pushing for cutting edge tech, producing less but higher quality, and often challenging the Concordat and Terra. The Capallen Confederation focused on more modest gains, seeking to undo generations of mismanagement and equalize the living standards of its population, while the Concordat, despite its head start, remained a smaller fish in a very big pond, with many Concordat industries working in partnership with Inner Sphere businesses--even, at several removes, the Davions.
 
This, coupled with the lack of general strikes on industry or civilian population centers during the Clan War, saw the development of perhaps the most advanced military machine in history, in the form of the UMC forces. While they were not equal to the best of the Clans, the immense industrial machine led to the general proliferation of technology in a way that even the Clans were unable to match by the end of the conflict. For one example, while the Toad battlearmor was superior to line UMC BA, and even the heavier support armor...
 
All UMC soldiers were equipped with BA. All UMC infantry units included air mobile transports, robotic support units, and medical systems, provided by Canopus, that combined the best technology of the Data Core and Canopian researchers alike to provided impressive medical care even by Clan standards.
 
And this technology was backed up by a logistics system that was only matched by the old SLDF. Where in 3025 mechs might go into battle with half their parts crudely prepared, now mechs could expect daily checks with factory fresh components ready to go in at even a hint of damage.
 
There have been many theories of what would have happened had Mary's juggernaut been unleashed on the OZ zone--while some fans argue that Frederick would have pulled something out of his sleeve, others feel that even Frederick knew the war was hopeless, and had already started pulling back his lines to save what could be saved.
 
It was not to be. But in the last days of the conflict, the BDS didn't just face dedicated and well-trained soldiers. They faced the best equipped military that had ever been deployed into combat, even compared to the days of the SLDF.
 
The Black Dragons proclaimed that determination and Honor would win.
 
On the UMC front, Mary and her Generals bet on training and technology.
 
From: War of the Mechanics. Economics, Technology and the Last Great WarDavid Kerenksy, History Department, Strana Mechty Liberal Arts University, 3138
-----
===Guidelines for the handling of Underage POWS===
From General Mary Cheng
 
To: All Commands
 
RE: Treatment of Underage individuals pressed into Combine service
A growing number of POWs are underage, ranging between twelve and 17, both as soldiers and conscripted laborers. For this reason, and keeping in mind the limitations of military law, the following modifications to normal POW processes will be undertaken. 
1. All children taken into custody are to be immediately segregated from any officers or NCOs leading them, and any such adult officers and NCO's are to be removed and investigated for war crimes. 
 
2. Children are to be segregated, as much as possible, by age and sex, and are to be supervised, if possible, by soldiers with experience in the handling of children. UMC forces will be deploying Civilian Care Teams (CCT) staffed by trained professionals in this field, but field commands cannot expect immediate assistance. 
 
3. Medical authorities are to examine any child POWS and provide the following:
 
A. Care for immediate injuries suffered during and after battles. 
 
B. Examination for physical and/or sexual abuse suffered during their impressment within units of the Black Dragons. 
 
C. Treatment for any short or long-term psychological issues, including but not limited to, suicidal ideation, Post Traumatic or Acute Stress Disorders.
 
3. Although all children are to be interviewed by war crimes investigators, the decision has been made to not try them under military justice. Any individual suspected or confessing to war crimes will be held until competent civilian courts, skilled in this particular issue can be constituted. 
 
4. If possible, the commanding authority of any detention facility should seek to provide educational and leisure activities for the detainees. After vetting for possible Black Dragon sympathies, local educational professionals may, under supervision, assist in this area. 
 
5. If the parents or custodial families of any of these individuals can be found, after interviewing them and at the discretion of the commanding authority, they may be remanded to the care of their families. 
 
6. While is it allowable to direct POWs to conduct labor activities under the limitations of Chapter IX on POW treatment, , this is explicitly not permitted for underage POWs. 
 
7. While the cessation of hostilities will allow adult prisoners, depending on their category to be released, this is not the case with child POWs. Commanders are explicitly forbidden from releasing them until:
 
A. Civilian housing can be provided to them. This includes food supplies and educational support.
 
B. Competent custodial adults can be found and verified.
 
C. Medical care, especially psychological, can be provided. 
Records attesting to the satisfaction of items A, B, and C, must be kept by the commanding authority for later review by Occupational authorities. 
In general, any supervising authority of underage POWs should attempt to apply the most forgiving standard possible to their detention and supervision, being aware that in the vast majority of cases, they were forced into service. 
Signed: 
 
Mary Cheng, CINC, UMC. 
 
ADDENDUM ON INVOLUNTARY SEX WORKERS. 
 
The Draconis Combine has long placed a high degree of emphasis on the woman's duty to her family, especially when it comes to her 'purity'. There is an extremely strong societal prejudice in the former worlds of the Combine against those who have engaged in sex outside of acceptable channels, especially women, regardless of their role in the affair. This is especially the case when applied to individuals who have become pregnant out of wedlock or due to rape. Occupational authorities should be aware that this societal prejudice is present even among political opponents to the Black Dragons. 
 
The Commanding General has noted cases of underage sex slaves being ostracized, driven from their homes, and in some cases, killed. For that reason, the UMC, and any succeeding organization will operate "In Loco Parentis" for these individuals, until it can be proven that they will not be exposed to abuse. 
As the Combine military started to collapse the UMC found itself occupying dozens of worlds. While in most cases the populations offered little real resistance, the consequences put the UMC through some difficulty, especially the collapse of the militia and irregular units, dumping hundreds of thousands of conscripts, many prisoners or dissidents, along with a vast number of children, into their laps.
 
Part of the issue was that in scale, little compared save for the occupation of the Periphery after the Reunification war, and for obvious reasons, few wished to repeat that experience. 
 
It was this that led to a flood of orders and memos, as the UMC transitioned from a conquering army to an occupying one—and worked to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past…
 
Learning by Doing: The Occupation of the CombineNew Avalon Military History Press, 3130
-----
===Katherine's Dress Uniform===
Remember when I said the UMC had picked uniforms from the WWII era, mainly to avoid any complaints about preferntial treatment. 
 
Here's what Katherine's uniform would look like with the addition of modern fabrics and electronics. So this is the Uniform she shows up in, around all the super gaudy wealthy and nobility at court:
-----
===The End of the Era of Mercs===
Mercenaries had been a major factor of conflict since the First Succession war saw a torrent of house and former SLDF units go "Freelance" either as mercs or pirates. By the beginning of the Clan war, some units, such as Wolf's Dragoons and the Eridani Light Horse outmatched some smaller state's militaries and were widely seen as forces on the par of a house Lord's forces, often noted for being more skilled.
 
Few Survived the Clan War and BDS War. The reason wasn't simply casualties, although those had a factor, but the fact was, whereas a Marauder built in 2800 was entirely competitive in 3025, a Marauder built in 3025 was a relic in 3067, akin to putting a WWI armored car up against a late War Sherman or Tiger tank. The proliferation of battle armor made even infantry units quite capable of standing off many Mercenary units, while the battle hardened UMC forces were equal to just about any combat mercenary command. 
 
But that was not the only factor that ended them.
One was cost. "Keeping up with the Joneses" in an era of anti-artillery laser systems, drone combat units, cruise missles, and ortillery was a hobby that only a large, centralized state could afford. Mercenary units needed to make a profit, and the modern battlefield was an increasingly lethal--and expensive place. 
 
The second was the sheer size of the battlefield. In an era where maneuver units were increasingly numbered as Divisoins or even Corps, the average mercenary unit had to be skilled indeed to merit special consideration. 
 
And this led to another factor. Mercenary units had Long had a mixed reputation in the Inner Sphere and (especially) Periphery. As they became redundant, many nations ceased offering them special treatment, which forced them to find what contract they could, which were either poor paying or borderline illegal, or both. Combined with the economic boom, many former recuits disdained entering their service. 
 
Some groups saw the writing on the wall. The Eridani Light Horse and Wolf's Dragoons, both ultimately were folded into the UMC command. Others, such as Waco's Raiders, attempted to remain independent, but few were able to maintain this status. Waco's Raiders, after a string of working for shady clients, was dissolved in 3079, Owners and officers arrested, and the regular employees let go with compensation for the mechs and Assets the USS seized and marketed off. 
 
Some attempted to go pirate, but the jump tracking system, combined with an Inner Sphere no longer unable to spare forces to hunt pirates down, made ths a short-lived, albeit exciting, career choice. 
 
Today, "Mercenary" Units still exist, but they are a shadow of what came before. In general, they are divided into two groups--small, elite forces, usually made up as veterans, who serve as advisers and cadre, or very rarely elite strike units. These groups are seldom larger than a company in size, not counting supporting units. Larger units are hired for light security or large scale training, and can have units as large as a regiment, although they are usually lightly armed and armored. 
 
As a last note, the Private Arms Limitation Treaty (PALT), signed by all major and many minor powers heavily restricts the private ownership and use of weapons. The most notable restrictions are a ban on purpose built combat warships, both compact core and parasite designs, a ban on any system capable of directly striking a planetary surface from orbit, and a ban on any WMD's for space or planetary use. In addition, directly owned (as opposed to provided by the employer) mechs, vehicles and fighters cannot exceed 65 tons in weight. 
 
While there will always be a place for private military corporations, it is unlikely that we will again see the day when national governments negotiated with mercenary commands as equal...
 
From: The Privatization of War back to Monopoly of Force: Mercenaries, Spies and Revolutionaries, 1945--3090UCLA Academic Press, 3095
-----
FINI--
--<Return to Main Story Page>>--
--
[Category:Works by Fabius Maximus|Glimpses from the Future]]
Glimpses from the Future