VOTGW-8

=Chapter 8=
==Vignettes of the General War==
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===The Rest of the Periphery===
Report of the Fleets of the Inner Sphere & Periphery, February 1, 2580:
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It is difficult to imagine that the rest of the Periphery could or will have much affect on the growing crisis in the Inner Sphere. Aside from the periphery states already discussed, there are only two known interstellar states beyond the borders of the Inner Sphere, the Outworlds Alliance and Illyrian Palatinate, and neither state has any sort of capital ship fleet, or the capacity to build one.
Of the two, the Outworlds Alliance is definitely the larger, but also in the weakest position on the naval front. The Draconis Combine has had the Alliance largely under occupation since 2573, actually using the Alliance's weakness (and inability to prevent the transit of smugglers and pirates) as justification for their actions. And while the Combine has faced resistance from partisans both on the ground in space, for the most part they have the entire Alliance effectively locked down. 
The Illyrian Palatinate, on the other hand, has considerably better relations with its closest neighbors, but also relatively little to offer. The tiny nation is home to a small trading cartel, which operates possibly as many as a dozen small primitive Jumpships used to trade raw iron and finished steel to the Free Worlds League for finished goods. While they have ships, they lack anything but the most basic of industries and maintenance capabilities, rendering them essentially no threat to their neighbors. Along with these states are numerous independent worlds and the independent merchants, free traders, and pirates that roam the spacelanes, openly operating under no banners but their own. 
In general, none of these independents have ever been considered to be of significance. As a general rule, even if an independent world had any sort of heavy industry, it could be assumed that this industry would be nowhere near as advanced or capable as that possessed by even one of the Periphery States, and independents by necessity had to rely on older, often painfully obsolete JumpShips which relied on a Deimos pattern jump core (what we regard today as a primitive core), with possibly only a handful of worlds outside of a House's control where they could receive maintenance and repairs. Certainly, it was assumed, there were no worlds outside of the control of an interstellar power with the ability to build new ships.
Various incidents have caused analysts to re-evaluate those assumptions. Reports of rogue WarShips, missing WarShips, and WarShips disguised as primitive jumpships have been increasingly common along the Rim Worlds border and within the Outworlds Alliance, many of them deemed credible enough by the various powers to raise concern, and the conclusions reached by many of the Great Houses have only established how little is actually known about the space not directly under the control of an interstellar power. However, there are certain areas of concern that have been highlighted for specific attention.
The first of these is the border regions of the Rim Worlds Republic. The violently unstable territories of the Republic are a natural breeding ground for piratical and other outlaw behavior by groups that either nominally align themselves with one side or another or have taken this opportunity to strike out on their own. Most unsettlingly, the Republic is possibly the most likely place for capital WarShips to slip out of government control. Even before the civil war, the Republic's record keeping of its fleet, particularly those vessels stored in mothballs or built for export seems to have been intentionally vague, and the production records at their shipyards over Apollo have never lined up with the actual numbers of ships that have been seen in service, and with the current chaos of the civil war, even the most conservative estimates suggest there are as many as five capital ships that were once in Rim Worlds Republic hands that cannot currently be located, while more alarmist estimates put the number closer to twelve. While most of these ships could have either been scrapped or destroyed in the past without proper documentation, there is strong evidence that at least one ship, possibly more, are currently operating as independents in the border regions, alongside normal piratical and rebel activities.
The space around the Outworlds Alliance is another area of concern, though the mysteries here have a much more likely explanation. Though the Combine holds Alliance space largely uncontested, reports very similar to those coming out of the Rim Worlds have also been coming from Combine occupation forces, particularly of ships disappearing, disguised merchant raiders or full on WarShips attacking supply convoys, or long range missile attacks from no known source targeting Combine ships and orbital installations. Though the Combine has yet to produce a smoking gun, they lay the blame squarely at the feet of the Federated Suns, a claim that the Federated Suns has not seen fit to even answer, and most of the other powers regard as very likely. Even so, neither side appears willing to escalate things to full scale war at this time, and the Combine has instead concentrated on aggressive sweeps of nearby unclaimed space, searching for bases these raiders may be operating from, while the Federated Suns has been sending out small patrol sweeps into their own spinward periphery regions, more interested in traffic between the Combine and its suspiciously located mining colony in the Micanos system. 
A much more broadly defined area of concern being watched in particular by the Terran Hegemony are what are know variously as the "Free Stars", "Free Folk", or just "The Folk". Easy to mistake for typical free traders, the Free Folk seem to actually be a loosely aligned coalition of full time spacers who as a general rule recognize no national flag and share a unique cultural and social identity. Despite their association with the Periphery, the Free Folk seem to have little real regard for borders, and can be found in every state as well as beyond them. As a rule, the Free Folk seem to avoid settling on planets, or anywhere deep within a system's gravity well, instead concentrating on asteroids, moons, and other places in the fringes of a star system. This allows them to exist even in widely settled or developed star systems with little or no contact with the systems other residents. This of course, assumes that these groups choose to settle at all. Many Free Folk instead live as virtual gypsies, constantly on the move from system to system conducting trade or exploration, and only stopping for extended periods at certain trusted ports of call for extended maintenance and repair of their often ancient spacecraft.
And this seems to be the crux of the Hegemony's recent interest. The Free Folk travel everywhere, share rumors, news, and stories amongst each other, have somehow maintained a coherent spacefaring culture for almost five centuries now... and they seem to be leaving. Hegemony records, port logs, and intelligence that HCID may or may not have collected from neighboring states shows that groups affiliated with the Free Folk are gradually migrating away from Terra. While this is nothing new, the rate with which they are doing so has picked up markedly over the last three years, with Free Folk visits to Terran affiliated yards or other yards within two hundred and fifty lightyears of Terra down almost fifty percent, and a reduced focus on regular maintenance when they show up in favor of full overhauls typically done before a period of extended operations. And more and more, these ships seem to be running armed, with both visible weapon upgrades and indications of additional hidden weapon mounts, and as the PQX-117 incident indicated, these refits are not simple popguns, but may include capital weapons to a degree sufficient to be a threat to a small capital WarShip. The obvious implication is that this sphere wide loose collective has shared enough news and rumors about what is going on in the Inner Sphere that a great number of them have decided that the correct response is to both arm themselves and to get away from the Inner Sphere, and this has not just the Terran Hegemony Government, but civilian trade firms and free traders alike very nervous. Even among those JumpShip crews that wouldn't describe themselves as members of "the Folk", the Free Folk hold a certain degree of prestige, to the point where even those who don't believe in ridiculous stories of portents and prophecies in jump dreams are likely to take what a member of the folk say seriously. So far, the affect has been small, but a number of independent traders and small trading firms seem to be following the Free Folk's lead. This has even impacted larger trading firms to a degree, with an overall small decrease in crew retention and the loss of smaller contractors that cut ties to be somewhere else instead. These losses are not expected to have a significant affect on the Interstellar economy, but they are clear signs of the tension currently gripping the Inner Sphere as the Arms Race heats up. 
And this brings up the final area of concern, the other independent worlds of the Periphery. The real lesson of the Malagrotta War wasn't just that a Periphery state could grow to challenge a Great Power, but that the Periphery is still growing. Currently the newest interstellar power, the Magistracy of Canopus, is only thirty years old, and has already grown to a point where it its a substantial economy and a military power that not only possesses, but also builds its own capital WarShips, and while it did not spring into being fully formed, it did achieve this growth by absorbing other worlds that had already been settled and developed. There are possibly hundreds of independent colonies beyond the borders of the Inner Sphere. Some live up to the image we normally have of the periphery as backwater farming communities just trying to get buy, but others are old, heavily populated, and well developed, ready to serve as the core worlds of new interstellar states, and while they might not have the technical sophistication or wealth of a Great House, it's really only a matter of time. At present, The most recent mathematical projections by the Terran Hegemony are that there may be anywhere from a half dozen to a dozen worlds outside the boundaries of the Great Houses who might possess some ability to manufacturer jump capable spacecraft using a Deimos pattern core. And if the PQX-117 incident is any indication, possibly even one able to construct a capital grade compact core, along with capital weapons to go with it. As the Great Houses struggle for naval dominance amongst themselves, the threat of new powers rising up to challenge them is something they cannot ignore.
After all, this conflict began with the Periphery. It may have to end there as well. 
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