Volume XIII: Turkina’s Children – Birth of the Jade Falcon Clan
Sudeten is a fairly dry planet, with only about 40 percent surface water. Much of its interior lands is covered in rocky mountains and deserts. For centuries, its people mined the earth for common metals, and supported themselves with only sustenance-level agriculture. Once upon a time, this world was a backwater in the Tamar Pact, and a stop-over point on the trade routes to the Free Rasalhague Republic. That, of course, was before the Clan invasion, before Jade Falcon came.

Today the spaceport in Hammarr, the last city to be claimed during Jade Falcon’s conquest of this world, is abuzz with activity. Clan merchant ships rise into the pale blue sky on pillars of flame, escorted by a squadron of Clan aerospace fighters. Falcon warriors stand guard outside the city and in the spaceport itself, ever vigilant, eyeing everything and everyone with suspicion, their weapons always in view. BattleMechs and armored Elementals make regular patrols, strictly enforcing the peace.

Today, the raptor-and-katana banner of Clan Jade Falcon flutters in a dry breeze over the domed Clan Council Chamber in Hammarr, seat of the military government of the entire Jade Falcon Occupation Zone since the Jihad.

Unlike most flags and battle standards, the Jade Falcon’s banner is more than a mere abstract symbol of the Clan’s power. The falcon it depicts, an example of the genetically altered peregrine falcons from which the Clan takes its name, is named Turkina. Falcon legend tells an extraordinary tale of Turkina, the magnificent bird that returned from the dead to give its mistress, Elizabeth Hazen, the drive to fight on through the darkness of the Pentagon Civil Wars. The katana, clutched in Turkina’s claws, became the instrument Hazen used to defeat her enemies even after her ’Mech was shot out from under her. As fanciful as it sounds, within the halls of the Jade Falcon Clan Council, the sword of Turkina is said to reside as proof of this tale’s truth.

Elizabeth Hazen went on to become the Jade Falcon’s first Khan, after that terrible day when all she had lived for appeared lost in the fires of war. The Falcon’s history begins with Hazen, who infused her Clan with the need to excel above all others, and her devotion to Nicholas Kerensky, the founder of the Clan way of life, but the same could be said of all Clans at the beginning. It was the fateful events following Operation Klondike, the Clans’ liberation of the Pentagon worlds, which truly set the Falcons apart.

“It is with great pleasure that I announce which Clan shall become home to my heart and the hearts of those Kerenskys who will follow. The Clan I have chosen possesses a collective intelligence I admire, the burning passion of true hunters that I desire, and, above all, is blessed with a spirit that will serve as a beacon to all the rest. I choose to mingle my blood legacy with Clan Wolf.”
--IlKhan Nicholas Kerensky, 2822

Nicholas Kerensky’s decision to join the Wolves disappointed Jade Falcon more than any other Clan. Though all had fought hard to reclaim the Pentagon, the Falcon warriors had grown convinced during their training and the fighting on Eden that their victories would be the most glorious, and their strength would be most prized by their ilKhan. Though Khan Hazen initially tried to head off this vocal despair by suggesting that the Wolves needed Kerensky’s guidance more than Jade Falcon, growing discontent and a sense of malaise took hold of her people. When that discontent verged on treasonous thoughts, such as Jade Falcon striking out on its own, Hazen and her saKhan, Lisa Buhallin, enacted “the Culling,” a brutal inquisition and purge of the Clan’s ranks.

Although the Culling brought Jade Falcon rank and file in line, lingering resentment over Nicholas Kerensky’s perceived favoritism remained, feeding into what even today is a longstanding rivalry between the Jade Falcon and Wolf Clans. Since the Culling, Jade Falcon strove to follow the traditions and laws set down by Nicholas Kerensky to the letter, in opposition to the Wolves’ seeming eagerness to “bend the rules” as it suited them. Even after Kerensky’s death, and the so-called Golden Century that followed, the Falcon’s way was to keep all castes under tight control, even as the Clans expanded among the worlds of their Kerensky Cluster.

Over the centuries that followed, Jade Falcon developed a reputation for rigidity and conservatism unmatched by any other Clan, denying their lower castes the relative freedom from Clan restrictions that those of other Clans enjoyed. Though in some cases such strictness prompted the lesser castes to rise up, swift and brutal punishment was dealt out by the Clan’s warrior caste, reinforcing the tenets of Kerensky.

For all the alleged oppression that took place, some scholars think it’s a miracle that Clan Jade Falcon didn’t simply shatter from its own social pressures during the century following Nicholas Kerensky’s death. What these scholars often fail to realize, however, is that the Clan system was still forming, and many of the new Clan populations were at least the immediate survivors of those who lived through the Pentagon Civil Wars. The horror of the warlords and the promise of the Clan system to bring order made even the perpetual martial law of the Clan way much more appealing. And the Falcons, who followed these draconian measures to their limits, were simply one of 19 variations on the same theme. The only alternative to it, for most, was exile into chaos, and in the resource-starved Kerensky Cluster, that simply wasn’t an option.

But Falcon leaders also had another reason to keep their people in line. Competition between Clans – particularly between the Falcon and the Wolves – increased during the Golden Century. This provided incentive for “loyal” Clanners to redouble their efforts to toe the party line. Thus, the constant threat of the Wolves’ rising power provided excellent motivation among the lesser castes – as well as justification for any draconian means to attain it by the warriors. This, too, was the Clan way.
--Dr. Lanz Rettig, PhD., Professor of Inner Sphere History, University of Academia, Kessel

The strict adherence to the words of Kerensky and the occasionally excessive reinforcing of it among the lesser castes prevented Jade Falcon from expanding its territory as much as some other Clans, but did not impede its ability to stage effective Trials for new technologies and resources. At the same time, Falcon merchants worked on the overlooked aspects of intercaste trading, and became instrumental in the economic boom of the Golden Century. Accomplishing this while remaining strictly within the guidelines established by the Founder was a challenge, but one that paid enormous dividends in the years to come. And so the Falcon rose to prominence second only to the Wolves themselves – all without ever absorbing or annihilating another Clan to do so.

“Because we adhere strictly to the words of Kerensky, all caste members, from the least-skilled laborer to the best warrior, hold only one opinion on the Crusader question.”
--Khan Yvonne Hazen, addressing the Grand Council, 2980

Curiously, the decades of expansion and growth in the shadow of Kerensky’s legacy caused attitudes toward the Inner Sphere to change. More and more, the harsh life of the Clans led to a rising feeling, beginning among the lower castes but eventually infecting the warriors, that the worlds of the Inner Sphere were paradises, left in the hands of callous barbarians. Among the Falcons, who claimed that Kerensky himself intended the Clans to return one day, this changing attitude quickly gave rise to the Crusader movement. The rigid interpretations embraced by Falcon leadership soon guaranteed their leadership in the Crusader political movement that would eventually lead to Operation Revival.

In part two of this series on Clan Jade Falcon, we’ll explore the way of the Clans, Falcon style! I’m Bertram Habeas.