Volume XI: The Fox and His Legacy
In 3013, Prince Ian Davion, ruler of the Federated Suns, died in battle with Draconis Combine forces on Mallory’s World. Because he was a bachelor prince with no wife or child to succeed him, it fell to his brother, Hanse Davion, “the Fox,” to lead his nation out of a war that had already run for nearly a full century and a half. Though he was never raised for statesmanship, Hanse Davion would nonetheless become a pivotal leader in the history of the Federated Suns, both for his skill and infamous luck on the battlefield, and for the political savvy that would soon change the face of the Inner Sphere forever.

Though some have credited such wisdom to Jerome Blake, there is an old Terran adage that says, “It is better to be lucky than good.” In the case of Hanse Davion, that phrase perhaps rang truest. Though unquestionably brilliant in the affairs of all things military, and a gifted diplomat even in his youth, no small amount of pure, dumb luck characterized his entire career, often turning certain defeat into total victory.

For example, no sooner did Hanse step off the DropShip on New Avalon after being named First Prince, than an assassin (hired by his rival Michael Hasek-Davion) just missed killing him, burning off a part of the bulkhead behind the new ruler of the realm at the very second he stooped to adjust an errant boot spur.

That Hanse Davion was also a man of astute leadership and keen foresight is undeniable, of course, but anyone who thinks he made his mark on the universe by skill alone fails to give credit to the divine whims of Fate itself.
--Arthur Luvonne, The Long, Dirty History of the Federated Suns, Commonwealth Press, 3100

Even before assuming responsibility for the Federated Suns, Hanse Davion took an active interest in learning and refining House Davion’s military edge. He personally spearheaded an initiative to reform the crumbling state of military competence on the Capellan front during the closing years of the Third Succession War, an effort that helped turn the tide of battle on that border.

He also led a daring assault on Halstead Station, an airless rock where House Kurita forces were massing supplies in advance of a new invasion. While hardly extraordinary events in and of themselves, these successes would set the Federated Suns in good standing by the war’s end in 3025.

Of course, the most famous of Hanse’s decisions as ruler of the Suns was his alliance with Katrina Steiner, Archon of the Lyran Commonwealth, after her Peace Proposal of 3020. This momentous event forged the first true formal bond between Successor States since the collapse of the Star League, an alliance that, upon its consummation, would ignite the Inner Sphere in the shortest and most dramatic of the Succession Wars.

“Husband, in honor of our marriage, in addition to this cake, I give to you a regiment of BattleMechs and the means to support them in perpetuity.”

“I thank you for the gift, beloved. Wife, in honor of our marriage, in addition to this morsel, I give you a vast prize. Here, my love, I give you the Capellan Confederation!”
--Archon-Designate Melissa Steiner and First Prince Hanse Davion, upon their wedding night, 20 August 3028, Hilton Head Island, Terra

As any school child knows, the marriage of First Prince Hanse Davion to Melissa Steiner, designated heir to the Steiner throne, heralded the start of the brutal, two-year war between the united Steiner-Davion realms and the rest of the Great Houses. Bearing the brunt of this invasion was the Capellan Confederation, which lost roughly half its territory to the war machine of the Federated Suns, but both Houses Kurita and Marik also suffered losses in the highly organized, lighting-fast blitzkrieg. Despite a loose alliance of their own, the Draconis Combine, Free Worlds League, and Capellan Confederation could not coordinate an effective defense against the Davions and Steiners, who had spent the past six years preparing for the campaign.

When it was over, a bridge of worlds cut through the Confederation and League to link the Federated Suns and the Lyran Commonwealth in a new entity known as the Federated Commonwealth, and Lyran troops tore deep into the Combine’s Rasalhague Prefecture. Even a ComStar interdiction failed to impede the victory that Hanse Davion and Katrina Steiner declared in the final days of 3029.

In the two decades that followed that conflict, the Inner Sphere continued to reel from the effects of Hanse Davion’s alliance, which produced the largest, most powerful military and economic force since the Star League. Though efforts to finish the job begun with the Fourth Succession War fizzled, such as the abortive War of 3039 against House Kurita’s Draconis Combine, and though internal unrest spiked from the ongoing efforts to integrate the realms, the reality of the unified Steiner-Davion realm became more and more a fact of life.

That was, at least, until 3049, when the luck of the Fox – and the Inner Sphere at large – finally ran out.

Who knows what might have happened if the Clans had not shown up when they did? Some have linked the FedCom Civil War to the strain of fighting the Clan invasion, which bore down more heavily on the Lyran half of the Commonwealth than on the Davion realm.

Others, however, believe that even without this impetus, the alliance would have crumbled anyway. After all, the Commonwealth was in a state of simmering turmoil, a hotbed of unrest from separatist groups, made louder and bolder as the economy stumbled its way toward equilibrium. The Skye region even tried to secede during this time, until Archon Melissa Steiner-Davion settled the matter with surprising level-headedness.

But if the Clans had not come, what then would have been the straw to break the proverbial camel’s back? What pretext of tension would lead Katherine Steiner-Davion, sister of Hanse and Melissa’s heir Victor, to assassinate their mother and launch a propaganda campaign to tear the realm in half and seize the two thrones for herself?

--Dr. Lorenzo Torres, PhD., Professor of History, University of Thorin

Hanse Davion died of a heart attack shortly after the Battle of Tukayyid, leaving his wife, Archon Melissa Steiner-Davion, and heir-apparent Victor Ian Steiner-Davion, to guide the united realm through the turbulent times ahead. Unfortunately, Melissa’s subsequent assassination in 3055 at once gave official birth to the Federated Commonwealth and marked the beginning of its end.

Victor (unlike his father), trained for warfare and poorly skilled in the affairs of diplomacy and politics, proved unable to stem the rising tide of chaos. Though he would one day lead in the final campaign to defeat the Clans, and later on win back both the Davion and Steiner realms from the rule of his treacherous sister, Katherine Steiner-Davion, he destroyed the destiny to which he had been originally born and bred. Victor Steiner-Davion would be a hero to his home realms and the Inner Sphere at large once again, fighting alongside Devlin Stone to defeat the Word of Blake and their brutal Jihad, but the dreams of a Star League under the Davion standard were lost forever in the fires of the FedCom Civil War.

“We must never forget the awful price we have paid to finally win this peace. The Commonwealth my parents once forged from both nations is lost forever, so I ask this of the Lyran Alliance and the reborn Federated Suns: May we never turn down this path again.”
--Public address by Victor Ian Steiner-Davion at the end of the FedCom Civil War, 24 April 3067

In our final installment on the Federated Suns, we’ll look at House Davion’s Federated Suns as it stands today, after the triumphs – and the tragedies – of the 31st century. Please join us as we continue our tour of the stars! I’m Bertram Habeas.