Neo-Crusader

The Neo-Crusader ideology is an evolution of the original Crusader movement which spurred Operation REVIVAL and effectively disappeared in the early 3060 after the Great Refusal. It concerns itself more with the ideals rather than the form of the Star League legacy and sees the symbolic ownership of Terra as secondary to the acts and deed of bringing enlightenment and prosperity to as large a portion of far-flung humanity as possible. It seeks to defend humanity from barbarism and darkness, but by taking direct and decisive action in this sense rather than as some sort of meek shepherd as the Wardens would have. Clan Ashen Corsac is the initiator of the Neo-Crusader ideology and its main proponent.

## History

### Origins

Throughout the 3050s, the group that would go on to form Clan Ashen Corsac became increasingly staunch supporters of the Crusader ideal, although that support largely remained hidden due to the unit nominally swearing allegiance to the Inner Sphere. The reason for such an apparently counter-intuitive or self-defeating thing was that the proto-Clan was largely disgusted with the widespread depredations that the Great Houses visited upon one another during the Succession Wars. It was widely believed that there was an undeniable need to clean the house, both figuratively and literally.

By the time Clan Ashen Corsac was officially formed however, the Crusader movement was effectively on its deathbed following the Great Refusal, a notion that the Neo-Crusaders found inherently farcical. If one could issue a Trial of Refusal in order to permanently prohibit another party from ever contesting it again, then the precedent was set for the quagmire where Clans could deadlock one another into a net of Refusals that would ban all further conflict, resulting in the most bizarre, chafing and tenuous 'peace' ever conceived. Nevertheless, the Clans for one reason or another generally abided by the outcome of the Great Refusal, and the Crusader cause seemed doomed to disappear rapidly, especially as it became replaced by the divide between the Invader and Homeworld Clans.

From its founding in 3064, the Corsacs presented themselves as being the Neo-Crusaders, a new ideological movement that claims to exist to extinguish barbarism and abuse. They then proceeded to use this cause as a driving engine towards the reunification of scattered Near-Periphery worlds and an open, ongoing war against the pirate kingdoms and general roving banditry that infested the north-western quadrant since the beginning of the Succession Wars.

### The Reavings

Prior to the Wars of Reavings, the Corsac Neo-Crusaders were relatively isolationist in the fact that they did not care about the Drive for Terra and preferred to stick to their anti-pirates/bandit action in the Periphery than try to take chunks of the Lyran Commonwealth or their nominal allies the Jade Falcons.

This state of affair changed steadily but drastically throughout the Wars of Reavings. Khan Hannah Faust had journeyed to the Clan Homeworlds in order to curry favor and legitimacy towards her newly formed Clan, intent on showing the Grand Council that Warriors born of the Inner Sphere were just as capable of following their ways and of doing so impeccably. Unfortunately for her, the timing couldn't have been worse, as from 3070 through 3075, the Homeworld Clans descended into what could only be called madness, obsessing over a perceived and hollow notion of purity and blinded by a hatred of all things Inner Sphere. So boiling was their hatred that all other Invader Clans were abjured, expelled by force, or both, and countless acts of barbarism and atrocity were committed.

Upon her return to Corsac space with the battle-weary remnants of Alpha Galaxy, Khan Hannah Faust declared the Homeworld Clans to be utterly lost and no longer worthy of the label of 'Clan', going so far as to suggest before the newly formed Council of Six that they should be the target of a trial of annihilation, before they grow bored of playing tyrant in their backyard and bring their genocidal ways back to the Inner Sphere. The motion was rejected in favor of taking care of the more immediately urgent Word of Blake Jihad, to which the Neo-Crusaders gave their unconditional support, but the idea of annihilating the Homeworld Clans would remain an ongoing goal of the Corsacs through the following decades. Simply put, through the Wars of Reaving, the Homeworld Clans had committed atrocities that put them higher on the list of barbaric despoilers than even the Great Houses themselves, and their destruction became a priority second only to that of stopping the Jihad.

## Rationale and Controversies

Early on, there was considerable amount of ridicule leveled at the Corsacs for focusing their efforts outward rather than inward, and some of their political opponents even went so far as to say that they were cravenly avoiding confrontations with real worthy foes that could fight back. Khan Faust's answer to those criticisms was to resurrect the Pollux Proclamation of the First Lord Director General Ian Cameron. The Proclamation stated that it was the responsibility of Star League to bring protection, education and prosperity to all far-flung colonies of mankind. It had also been used as an unofficial declaration of war by the Star League to conquer the Periphery, and the casus belli had effectively never ended. Therefore, the Ashen Corsacs are merely enacting the enduring will of Star League.

This outward focus did not prevent the Corsacs from making pushes inward, and would start do so with increasing ferocity and regularity as the Dark Ages began and barbarism became more and more frequent, worst of which within their own long-time ally the Falcons. The Inward realignment of the Neo-Crusaders also finds backing into ancient records, though this time it would be the apocryphal records of general Aaron DeChavillier, who is said to have suggested Kerensky should use the SLDF's might to subjugate the overly-ambitious House Lords after the dissolution of the first Star League.