SIRC-1

=Richard the Belligerent=
----
Chapter Index - Next Chapter>>
----
==Chapter 1==
The Reign of Richard the Retard by Doctor Arnhot, re-published 2899, Tharkad.
It was said that the Star League, more than anything else, needed a First Lord that would:
 A: Survive long enough that they didn't destabilize the Star League by dying.
 
 B: Not rock the boat and keep the enormous ship that was the Star League on a steady course.
 
 C: Have a firm hand to guide mankind to its destiny.
 
 D: Be a rational actor that understood the basic realities of the human condition.
Should these conditions be met, it was likely, that the Star League could continue surviving and thriving. For mankind to continue their era of greatness, one that would ensure everyone would prosper and there would be glorious future whereupon there would be nothing in the stars that could prevent that growth.
 
The Star League had, in its short time of existence, had brought upon a stability and prosperity that was unmatched in all of human history. A prosperity that was a result of the unfettering of the forces of industry and human ingenuity, a stability that was the result of the flow of money throughout the economies of the Star League member states.
 
Economic benefits led to peace, and peace led to prosperity.
 
It was into this golden age that Richard Cameron was born, it was into this that Richard Cameron shattered the gold and revealed he was rusted iron the entire time.
 
Richard Cameron's actions during his time as First Lord ensured that never again could the Star League reach the heights that were promised.
Through this work, we will analyze the reality behind Richard Cameron's reign and prove, definitively, he was the worst First Lord to have ever existed.
----
Analysis and rebuttal of The Reign of Richard the Retard by Professor Jericho, 3025, New Avalon Press
Needless to say, Doctor Arnhot was not, despite his qualifications as an economist, someone that should be writing textbooks for impressionable young thinkers of the modern age. This may be a shock to my economically minded colleagues, but economies are not isolated systems with anonymous inputs and clearly defined outputs.
Rather, they are systems that rely on humans, and humans are unpredictable. Anyone who says otherwise has never left the vaunted halls of academia and ordered breakfast at the corner store.
Doctor Arnhot's lack of qualifications aside, his writing served as the basis of Richard Cameron's academic, and thus, popular culture perception in the time following his reign. Such was the effect that even now, nearly two hundred years after he became First Lord, the name of Richard is synonymous with idiot, fool, bullheaded, and stubborn.
It was not without some reason of course, but such one-sided representations of reality represent the one-sided perceptions of economics as a subject matter and why, despite it calling itself a Hard Science, was never taken seriously by other fields of academia.
It might also partially be Richard Cameron's fault for throwing the chief economists of the Star League's various departments out of Terra and appointing a social sciences professor as head of the Star League's Department of Economic Relations.
Such actions may explain Doctor Arnhot's vitriol to the First Lord. For he, despite The Reign of Richard the Retard being published on Luthien. Was the former head of the Department of Economic Relations.
Never before has an individual poisoned the academic well as deeply as Arnhot unless one were to look back in time, millennia back in time, at the vaunted individuals such as Basil Henry Liddell Hart. Whose lack of qualifications did not stop him from writing the most definitively incorrect assessment of World War 1, and suppressing authors that sought to use facts, figures, and interviews to reject his perspective. Contradicting Generals and somehow being seen as correct despite his lofty rank as Captain.
It was only 20 years after his death that more nuanced understandings of the First World War emerged. A period of 80 years in which the poisoned chalice of World War 1 scholarship had taught millions erroneous and insulting facts regarding their forefathers.
Or perhaps we look a few decades later to George Robert Acworth Conquest, whose historiography on the USSR poisoned the minds of every student who went through academia. His books being the standard from which university courses were taught and prejudiced an entire generation against an ideology and a people.
The far reaching effects of such leading to the creation of the Capellan Confederation and numerous, smaller, yet shorter lasting stellar nations.
Professor Judas Arnhot is such an individual. From his position as head of the Economics department of the University of Luthien (now defunct). Utilizing his reputation as the former head of the Star Leagues Department of Economic Relations. Arnhot's perspectives on the reign of Richard Cameron the Second has tainted centuries of scholarship regarding, perhaps, the greatest First Lord ever born
Not because of great strategically brilliant maneuvers or political schemes. But because Richard Cameron was the First Lord that the Star League needed in a time when it looked as if it were about to fracture apart into warring states. Each with fleets of warships and weapons of mass destruction poised at each other's throats.
A conflict or series of conflicts that would end the lives of trillions if not stopped.
Already, by the time that young Richard took the throne, there was the understanding, in simple terms, that the Star League was fracturing. Bills passed by different Star League member states, such as Directive 41, which saw the Periphery states stripped of their Star League protections against economic rape by the Inner Sphere Powers.
Already the Great Houses had passed directives in the High Council allowing their militarizes to balloon in size. Not that it would have changed much as their own 'secret' forces were already rampaging through the Inner Sphere. The directives merely allowed them to turn those bandit forces into legitimate regiments.
On the other hand, the inaction of the SLDF or the Star League as a whole during the Hidden Wars, or the inaction leading up to the War of Davion Succession led to many losing faith in the institution. Nominally existing to provide support and a platform of negotiation for its member states. The total inaction of the SLDF during the Marik Civil War further emphasized the weakness of the First Lord as head of the SLDF.
 
Into this, a boy of 8 was thrust, his father dying during an effort to bring peace to the Inner Sphere. A peace that would have lasted by a few months of course, showing the flag with a battle group of a hundred warships might be effective at quelling local protests, but does nothing to address the underlying concerns that led to said protests to begin with.
A young boy who preferred to sit in his room and build models of Battlemechs, walking around Unity City and eating.
His two main concerns in life were his hobbies of building models, and the many different types of food available on Terra. A quick journey to a newly discovered hole-in-the-wall restaurant was often accomplished by using his private DropShip to transit across the entire planet in a matter of minutes. Just in time, for the lunch break, and then back to Unity Palace for a nap.
 
Such was the life of Richard Cameron, the child of Simon Cameron. Sixth First Lord of the Star League, 20th Director General of the Terran Hegemony.
 
That did not change when, through sheer force of will, he refused to allow a Regency for the post of Director General of the Terran Hegemony.
 
Prime Minister Jens Pinera might have achieved the record of shortest time as Director General with how fast Richard kicked him out.
 
And when the leaders of the Five Great Houses as well as the leaders of the Periphery States were summoned to Terra. Ostensibly to decide upon a regency for the boy-Lord, Richard stared them down and said the words that would define the rest of his reign.
 
"Which one of you killed my dad? Who do I need to bomb back into the stone age? Because, let me tell you. I want to nap, I want to eat, I want to not have to deal with people doing stupid things and getting stupid rewards. So, let's get the stupid out of the way early, tell me who I need to get the SLDF to nuke."
 
The High Council never managed to discuss a regency for the First Lord. Not when he, in the words of his life-long friend, Matthew Rake, 'threw a really big fucking rock into the kiddy's pool'.
 
For, after dealing with neutral or disinterested First Lords for decades, the arrival of an active, nay, belligerent First Lord to the High Council led to shockwaves through the rest of the Inner Sphere.
It is safe to say, with centuries of hindsight, none were prepared.
----
The Beginnings, as told by Matthew Rake. Friend, Confidant, and Fellow Food Critic of Richard Cameron. Published 2789, Unity City Press, Terra
It all started when me and Richard, as we always did whenever there was some free time, went to get a snack.
Now, I don't know how Richard never got fat. I suspect Terran Hegemony super science, but even at eight years old, I was a chonky boy. I used to slap my gut and watch the ripples you know, like dropping a rock into a lake and just watching as all the ducks squawk at you angrily.
Then running away because there were 'Harmony Geese' there to help calm children down, because, clearly, geese are calming. Adding the word Harmony to it just made them more calming I guess. Did I ever tell you of the time I hired ex-SLDF soldiers to find the person who created the Harmony Geese policy and beat the shit out of him?
Because I did.
 
Fuck Geese.
Delicious though.
 
Anyway, me and Richard, two buddies were trying something new for the first time. Meat Lettuce Samosas. A great little place that's still around you know? Knottingham Place, at the end of the cul-de-sac, goes by "Harvest's Harvest".
Great name.
Now, I know what you're thinking dear reader, Meat Lettuce? All the way from Harvest in the Lyran Commonwealth? How expensive were these?
Well, there was a reason dear reader why I always went for lunch with Richard. It might have something to do with his unlimited wallet, wink wink.
But, in any case, I was there, we were about to bite into the Samosas when it happened.
SLDF soldiers, not Terran Hegemony mind you, SLDF soldiers broke into the restaurant. Broke, as in, they kicked down the door and rushed in, guns pointed at everyone else inside. Sure there were the plainclothes guards we had, but nobody was making a big deal out of it.
This was Terra, this was a high class restaurant, they even had a room for all the plainclothes bodyguards to wait in. We had dignitaries out the wazoo you know? It's Terra, centre of the universe, you don't want to leave.
No, you want to come.
Later I learned it was because they all figured with the First Lord assassinated on that podunk mining colony, someone would try the same with Richard. So they were panicking... because me and Richard didn't exactly get permission to go out to Scotland for a meal. And, well, they couldn't find us at Unity Palace.
When we went outside later, there was a full division just parked there, taking no chances they were.
Anyway, they come in, rifles up, there's a big panic, and then, a big guy. Colonel Summers stands right in front of us and looks down his face at us.
Remember, we were kids back then, they had to give us booster seats for the chairs. We were short-stuff and Summers was as big as he was then as he is now.
 
We couldn't see anything past his mustache, that was even bigger back then than it is now if you can believe it. Couldn't even see his eyes he was so damned tall.
Or we were just that short.
But, I'm going off topic here. Colonel Summers is there, he's looking down and then he says, "Lord Cameron, I am sorry to inform you that you are now the Director General of the Terran Hegemony, and First Lord of the Star League."
 
Which.
 
Um.
Was a wow moment right?
 
I'm sitting there, trying to sneak a bite out of my Samosa when he's talking, and next thing I know, my clothes have Meat Lettuce juice all over them.
Richard just looked like he had no idea what was going on.
 
He's just sitting there, mouth open, eyes are twitching. You know, like when you have pollen in your eyeball and it's irritating the fuck out of you. You can't blink because it will just send the stuff into the back of your eye, and then you need surgery to get it back out, and how did you know I had to get surgery?
 
But Richard didn't have pollen, he just got hit with news that changed everything.
 
There's no going back after that.
I know I would have panicked if I was told I was going to be inheriting Krupp right that moment because the old man bit the dust.
That's just me though.
Richard had his moment, put his hands in his face and said, "for fuck's sake. I told dad he was going to get himself killed."
And that, dear readers, is where it all began. I was there with him the whole time.
Did you think running the Star League stopped him from enjoying the good food of the realm?
Hell no.
That said, there is still something, all these years later that bugs me. As much as he liked to say 'for fuck's sake', I never did learn who fuck was. Every time I asked he would just look at me and frown.
He's a dick like that and edits for spelling and book titles.
----
SI of Richard Cameron - Next Chapter>>
Category:Richard the Belligerent Chapters