Volume I: Rise of the Dragon – the Beginnings of the Draconis Combine

The Draconis Combine was officially “born” in 2319 after a long, brutal military campaign by its founder, Lord Shiro Kurita, First Citizen of New Samarkand and Director of the Galedon Alliance. The founder of the Kurita dynasty, however, did more than single-handedly establish an empire. He also imparted his will and his beliefs onto this new realm, a spirit that lives on even now, eight centuries later. More than any other nation, the Draconis Combine reflects the culture and personality of its Coordinator and ruling family, House Kurita; but where did it all begin? How did a man born to a fractured world of city-states rise to create a nation today known at once for boundless beauty and harsh determination?

The rise of House Kurita and the creation of the Draconis Combine can actually be traced all the way back to the 2236 Outer Reaches Rebellion against the Terran Alliance, long before Shiro Kurita’s birth in 2270. The two-year Rebellion ended with the collapse of the Alliance government and the near-total isolation of its former colonies. All cohesion between the far-flung worlds of the Inner Sphere shattered, as every world suddenly found itself unsupported and left to its own devices. Filling the void and maintaining a semblance of trade were numerous mercantile alliances. The most powerful of these in the Galedon region was the Ozawa Mercantile Association, a loose – but pervasive – trading coalition united under the Ozawa family of Terra’s Japan. The OMA enjoyed unrivaled dominion in the “northeast” quadrant of human-occupied space, controlling all trade among the struggling colonies.

Motivated purely by profit, though certainly unafraid to use their influence to extract favors from local governments, the Association focused less on consolidating control and more on expanding their influence and stifling competition. The excessive arrogance of the Association’s merchants, however, and the flouting of their wealth in the faces of those who barely managed to eke out an existence, led to widespread bitterness among the peoples and governments of the region. Into this age of simmering resentment came Shiro Kurita.

Shiro Kurita may well have been an extraordinary individual, but like every such person, he was also a product of his environment. His father, Yamaro Kurita, was a prominent statesman in Yamashiro, one of New Samarkand’s biggest city-states. He was also a strict disciplinarian, a follower of 17th century samurai traditions, which were en vogue on New Samarkand at the time.

Now, factoring in the post-Rebellion state of the Inner Sphere at the time, which was pretty much like Terra’s Soviet Union, Shiro and his brother Urizen are growing up in an age of chaos. Their world is divided, and the Ozawas, who had built up a trading empire, are everywhere, rubbing the natives’ noses in their affluence. It was even more personal for the Kuritas, however, who crossed paths with the Ozawas as far back as the second Terran World War. The Kuritas believed their family honor was stained by the Ozawas in that conflict, when Admiral Jisaburo Ozawa’s fleet was destroyed at the battle of Leyte Gulf, leaving Admiral Takeo Kurita unsupported and forced to retreat in the face of an American task force.

Shiro Kurita, raised – and dare I say indoctrinated – by his father to revere his family’s martial history, took all this to heart. He actually felt it, and that’s what gave him the drive to do what followed.
--Dr. Lorenzo Torres, Professor of History, University of Thorin

Shiro Kurita took an active interest in politics as he grew, following in his father’s footsteps and far exceeding the elder Kurita with his relentless drive to unify the planet under his rule. He and his brother Urizen embarked on a campaign of diplomacy, blackmail, and even assassination. By 2296, at only 26 years of age, Shiro realized his goal, crowning himself first citizen of New Samarkand. This conquest would not, however, be enough. The Ozawas, after all, were a power to be reckoned with throughout the quadrant. Tackling the Association, however, was beyond the means of a single planet. Shiro Kurita wanted – needed – more.

Galedon V was a logical next step for Shiro Kurita in many ways. First, the planet offered a heavy industrial base, a definite plus given the relatively resource-poor world of New Samarkand. It was also nearby, and its population also chafed under the perceived domination of the Ozawa clan. Wealth, productivity, and resentment were all tools Shiro needed to expand his influence and ultimately oppose the OMA directly. Playing to the collective ego of the Galedonians, he named his proposed coventure the Alliance of Galedon, and “humbly” offered to assume the “duty” of administering the technological and military resources of both worlds to oppose the Ozawas. Ever the eloquent speaker, it wasn’t long before Shiro had the Galedonians eating out of his hands, and they signed onto his new alliance, allowing him to use their resources and gather manpower. Already eyeing his next conquests, Shiro went right to work raising an army – on New Samarkand.
--Doctor Lorenzo Torres

In 2302, the Alliance of Galedon became a reality. Soon thereafter, other worlds began to join at almost breakneck pace, swayed by Kurita’s oratory gift and their own bias against the Ozawa clan. When the alarmed Ozawas raised their rates to Alliance worlds, the tide turned firmly in Kurita’s favor. Though the Ozawas attempted to rally, Shiro Kurita’s agents dealt the Association a death blow in late 2303, firebombing every known office within the Alliance – a violent reaction that has become a hallmark of Kurita leadership. Less than a month later, Shiro Kurita launched his next step in building an empire with history’s first interplanetary assault. His target: the neutral world of Sverdlovsk.

If anything, Shiro Kurita was a man of action, not words. The OMA’s metaphorical body was barely cold when he took the army raised under the blessings of the Galedon Alliance and began invading his neighbors. Like many worlds of that era, Sverlovsk was fragmented, and could not muster an organized response to Shiro’s well-trained army. The action also served as a warning to the rest of the Alliance to stay in line – a message that came through loud and clear that he could do the same to others what he had to Sverdlovsk.
--Dr. Lanie Dresdenova, Professor of Military History, University of New Earth

Over the following decades, Shiro Kurita would combine his golden oratory, iron will, and the threat of military force and its occasional use to absorbing those worlds around him or binding them to his Alliance. Though some protested, they quickly felt his military might, and were brought to heel. By 2319, the collection of worlds sworn to Kurita’s rule spanned almost from Terra to the Draconis Rift, and up to New Samarkand. Declaring this new empire the Draconis Combine, and assuming as its standard the symbol of the dragon, Shiro proclaimed himself Coordinator, establishing at once the title, the state, and its ruling dynasty. The following decades would see the expansion of the Combine until it met the borders of House Davion’s Federated Suns, the Terran Hegemony, the Lyran Commonwealth, and the Principality of Rasalhague. The Dragon had truly risen.

When Shiro died in 2348, he left behind a legacy that endures even today, an empire of more than 60 star systems, tens of millions of citizens strong. More than that, he forged a society, and through his daughter, Omi Kurita, even established the code of conduct – the Dictum Honorarium – which still pervades Combine society. Though successive generations might be credited for the Combine’s wholehearted adoption of the ways of the samurai, Shiro Kurita, the first shogun of the modern era, cannot be overlooked. Above all this, he established the Way of the Dragon, the immortal spirit of strength and power that cannot be separated from the nation. In his own words to his son, Tenno:

I have chosen the dragon as our standard and our symbol, reflecting many facets of our existence. We must never forget the ancient Terran heritage of our line, with its samurai greatness. I remind you, too, that in many mythologies, the dragon is feared and respected for its strength, cunning, and willingness to destroy for the sake of its own power. Always keep the virtues of the dragon in mind, and use them to defeat your opponents.

Always preserve the dragon, and its magic will keep you strong.
-- Shiro Kurita to his son, Tenno, 2319

Join us next week, friends, as the saga of the Dragon continues into the glory days of the Star League. I’m Bertram Habeas.