Volume V: Kerenskys’ Legacy--Rise of the Clans

Tamar is a large, high-gravity world with a thin ozone layer unable to shield it from much of the ultraviolet radiation that constantly bombards its surface. The brutal heat has transformed an entire equatorial continent, Sahara, to desert; the planet’s heat and gravity have prevented the rise of any native life more complex than short, gnarled oak trees. People native to Tamar are rugged, often stout and muscular, blushed almost crimson by the solar rays. Visitors, obviously, find this world a challenge to their endurance. With these features in mind, it is little wonder that the Wolf Clan, the self-proclaimed chosen of Kerensky’s descendants, have made Tamar the seat of their power in the Inner Sphere. No doubt the Clans, who honor strength and revel in hardship, would use this place to proclaim their dominance.

But before becoming home to the Wolf Clan, Tamar was a provincial capital in the Lyran Commonwealth, a center for trade and industry. The Wolf Clan did not originate here; they originated far beyond the borders of the Inner Sphere. Like all the Clans that arose from the fires of war and betrayal, the origins of the Wolf lie nearly two thousand light-years from Terra, and four centuries in the past.

Where nature’s laws threatened the weary,
When food, water, and even air itself ran low,
It took just a command, a word, a smile,
From the General to light the way.
He was comfort, stern courage, compassion
To our sires as he led them from the fires
That grew and fed on those they left behind.
--The Remembrance (Clan Wolf), Passage 2, 14:18 - 24

After a 12-year struggle to liberate Terra from the grip of Stefan Amaris, the Usurper who single-handedly destroyed the Cameron dynasty and tore the once-mighty Terran Hegemony asunder in wave after wave of horrible war, General Alexandr Sergeyevich Kerensky, Protector of the Star League and Regent of a slain First Lord, could not have imagined a worse fate for humanity’s greatest experiment. Over a hundred million lives lost, four hundred million more wounded, and over a billion homeless were the toll for freeing the Hegemony and bringing down Amaris’ empire. Even killing the Usurper himself could not extinguish the nuclear fires raging on dozens of worlds, or cleanse the air of others choking beneath lingering clouds of poisonous gas. The SLDF itself was broken; of the 412 BattleMech and infantry divisions and affiliated regiments that went in, only half came out alive--a mere shadow of the international defense force at its peak. The industrial base of the Hegemony, core of the Star League itself, was in shambles, and the interstellar communications grid was in ruin.

In spite of Kerensky’s hard-fought victory--or perhaps because of it--the various House Lords, in one of their last demonstrations of solidarity under the aegis of a mortally wounded Star League, ordered General Kerensky, its Protector, to step down. They further ordered the SLDF disbanded. In the three years that followed, Kerensky labored in vain to stitch back together the shattered League, ignoring calls by some of his comrades to depose the House Lords and claim the First Lordship for himself, even after the League officially dissolved in 2781. When House leaders, scrambling to upgrade their own armies against one another, attempted to recruit the few remaining SLDF troops, Kerensky finally gave in to the inevitable.

On 5 November 2784, he issued his single-word order--“Exodus”--to a fleet of over 1,300 JumpShips and more than 400 WarShips, which had steadily gathered over New Samarkand, original capital of the Draconis Combine. The House Kurita leadership, though relieved at the fleet’s departure just when an overwhelming assault seemed imminent, nonetheless wondered--as did the leaders of every nation in the Inner Sphere--where they were all bound. The Exodus, planned since February of that year, amassed over seven hundred modern-day line regiments from the former SLDF. Over two million troops and another four million civilian dependents--all loyal to the dream of the Star League and willing to follow its most loyal son, Alexandr Kerensky--vanished into the unknown.

“ . . . we have left behind the only homes we have ever known to place the destructive capability of this armada beyond the reach of those who would use it, not for defense, but for conquest. Perhaps, with the might of our ’Mechs and ships out of their reach, the leaders who now grapple with one another will relinquish their dreams of subjugating their neighbors and learn to live in peace with them.
“Perhaps, one day, should mankind step back from the brink of the abyss, we, our children, or our children’s children will return to once more serve and protect and guide the Star League in mankind’s quest for the stars . . . ”
--General Alexandr Kerensky, 2786, recorded by the ISS Invisible Truth on 11 January 3060.

Whether General Kerensky truly considered the possibility of one day returning to the Inner Sphere to rebuild the fallen Star League is a matter of considerable debate. Indeed, as his exodus fleet traveled for more than a year in space, eventually landing on five marginally hospitable planets dubbed the Pentagon Cluster, his words to his followers, often urging them onward, have been interpreted many different ways. His Hidden Hope Doctrine, for example, also known as General Order 137, began by saying “Return to the Inner Sphere is impossible for us,” but then ended by saying, “When we return, and return we shall, our shining moral character will be as much our shield as our BattleMechs and fighters.” Many have speculated that Kerensky himself didn’t know his ultimate goals for the exodus fleet, which settled the five Pentagon worlds and underwent a forced demobilization that thinned the military’s ranks for the sake of domestic productivity.

Alas, nobody may ever know what the man whom the Clans call “the Great Father” had intended, for he died shortly after his so-called “Star League in Exile” turned its collective back on him and descended into the same bitter feuding that was even then engulfing all five Successor States. Into this growing torrent of unrest, Nicholas Kerensky, Alexandr’s son and chosen successor for command of the pared-down SLDF, rose to command a shaky alliance of loyal troops and civilians.

From Kerensky’s Stars came the eight hundred
Beneath a banner of Truth and Righteous Light
To lift up those who had suffered and to smite down
With fearful vengeance those who had ruled
In the name of Vanity or Greed.
The thunder of their BattleMechs’ feet, the lightning
From their weapons, and the blood spilled in their name
Created the Clan Spirit, the forge upon which
We have fashioned ourselves to be the weapon
Of the resurrected Star League,
Honed to a razor’s edge by Trials,
By the Remembrance, and by the Words
Of the Great Kerenskys, our sires, our saviors.
--The Remembrance (Clan Wolf), Passage 98, 24:8 - 20

Although history records Nicholas Kerensky as a visionary, many would-be detractors came to regard him as merely another result of his times. Having grown up on Terra, hiding his identity as Amaris shock troops laid waste to anything connected to the SLDF or the Cameron dynasty, Nicholas saw the very worst side of humanity. In his later years, among his father’s exodus fleet, he would witness the depths of human divisiveness as the forcibly downsized military force and a people struggling for identity reclaimed their old loyalties to the Successor States they left behind. As the Pentagon worlds erupted in civil war, and the conflict drained away the last of his father’s life, many believe that Nicholas, suddenly thrust into a position of authority over the tattered remnants of his father’s loyal troops, simply snapped.

But was it insanity, or a stroke of inspired brilliance that led Nicholas Kerensky, the man the Clans all acknowledge as their Founder, to lead his loyal eight hundred officers and their dependents on a second Exodus? Was it the lingering mental scars of the Amaris years that drove him to create the ritualized, stratified society of the Clans, or was it the well-learned lessons from history? The cause may never be known, but the effects will likely resonate throughout all time.

In the next installment of our four-part series, we will examine the ways of the Clans as Nicholas Kerensky conceived them, as honored by the Wolves today. Please join us as we continue our tour of the stars! I’m Bertram Habeas.