Volume XVI: Turkina’s Chosen – Clan Jade Falcon Today

Fact Sheet: Clan Jade Falcon Occupation Zone
Founding Year: 3050
Capital (City, World): Hammarr, Sudeten
National Symbol: A jade falcon, clutching a katana, soaring against a blue and gray rectangular field.
Location (Terra relative): Coreward, between Lyran Commonwealth and Clan Wolf
Total (Inhabited) Systems: 44
Estimated Population (3130): 145,200,000,000
Government: Clan (Caste-driven, Warrior-dominant hierarchy)
Ruler: Khan Jana Pryde
Dominant Language(s): English (official)
Dominant Religion(s): None
Unit of Currency: Kerensky (1 kerensky = 5.13 C-Bills)

The city of Borealtown, on the planet Wotan, is a sprawling metropolis located on a large hill in the middle of the Boreal Heights. The view, on a clear day, is nothing short of breathtaking, overlooking not only some of the finest examples of 31st-century architecture, but an almost unspoiled valley below. Off to the east, on the shores of the large Lake Borea, one can just barely make out the towers of Oslo, the city that is home of the Jade Falcon Occupation Zone’s largest MiningMech producer, a Clan-run factory once known as Wotan Mining Systems.

Today, Borealtown basks in the glow of its noon-day sun in eerie silence, the streets empty, save for a few utility vehicles and the odd merchant or warrior caste guardsman. Several sections of the city are little more than empty warehouses or patches of rubble. The largest structure is an administrative building, a half-domed complex over ten stories high, bearing the green broad-winged insignia of Clan Jade Falcon. This structure can hold over two thousand Clansmen easily, but today, a mere 57 laborers, technicians, and administrators perform their daily duties within.

The signs that Borealtown was once the heart of the Jade Falcon empire remain just evident enough to give a visitor the impression that he is standing in a ghost town. The site of a brutal, final battle between the Jade Falcons and the Wolves during the Refusal War, at which the Falcons ultimately claimed victory, this city was ravaged, but the waste-conscious Clan saw to its renovation and revitalization. Once centrally located in the Occupation Zone, the Hell’s Horses invasion and the aftermath of the Jihad placed this world perilously close to one hostile border, and too far from the others to coordinate defense. Forced to relocate, the Falcon leadership moved its command centers to Sudeten.

Though this world no longer has the prominence it once did, the Falcons still station heavy guard here. Like all Clans, sharing a handful of worlds with oft-hostile neighbors for centuries has taught them to make the most of every square meter of soil, no matter how inhospitable or mundane. In and around the cities of Borealtown and Oslo, automated turrets lazily track every vehicle moving along the highways, and Elemental foot soldiers make irregular patrols. Occasionally, a pair of Donar assault helicopters fly overhead, backed up from time to time by a pair of Ares medium strike tanks.

More recently, the shorelines of Lake Borea, north of Oslo, felt the tremors of a BattleMech’s footfalls, when a mixed force of Jade Falcon troops squared off against a Hell’s Horses vehicle Star. The prize of this Trial of Possession: the contents of Oslo’s IndustrialMech warehouses. Though the battle was intense, with no less than seventeen warriors killed or wounded from both sides, witnesses – most of them Falcon technicians – say the action was just a shadow of the greatness that once characterized Clan Trials.

“It was as if the warriors were merely actors upon a stage,” said Myomer Specialist Rusl, who claims that he washed out of the Clan’s strict training protocols. “They played at war, but there was no heart in it, for either side. Naturally, the Falcons carried the day, but even the Horses seemed to regard the challenge as a mere formality.”
“This is what decades of imposed peace bring the Clans,” said Marek, a third-level Actuator Specialist employed at the same facility as Rusl. “We engage in wasteful, empty Trials, as Spheroid barbarians watch and laugh, forgetting what it was like in the days when the Falcon soared over all, when BattleMechs marched across the plains of dozens of worlds, trampling all who would oppose them. The Inner Sphere forgets just how nearly victory lay within our grasp.”

They are the words and thoughts of a frustrated people, a people trained for war, yet hamstrung by peace. The familiar pressures of the citizens, the lower castes, to whom Kerensky implied the warriors were beholden, once more rise up in anguish. Though it is a voice colored by those native to the Inner Sphere itself, that voice once more cries out against the Inner Sphere.

And it is a voice that is growing ever louder…

In the nearly empty city of Borealtown, people from all castes gather tonight, to witness another Trial of Grievance. The combatants are one of the planet’s warrior administrators and the local emissary, himself a warrior. The scene, we are told, is played out almost weekly, and Wotan is not the only world where it goes on.

As the combatants grapple in their Circle of Equals, under the hot lights of the nearby street lamps of a broad – yet mostly empty – parking lot, those in the back of the surrounding mob can watch only through the closed-circuit holovid set up for the occasion. The entire scene is reminiscent of a Lyran prize fight, but with a far more informal feel.

In solemn tones, Star Captain Alis, the local emissary – her post regarded as an affront to the younger, more hot-blooded warriors of her Clan – is the challenged. The Grievance against her is one of politics, another subject that sickens the Clans, but which all acknowledge as a necessary evil. As an ominous hush settles across the crowd, her challenger, Star Commander Kynnet, proclaims his reasons for the Trail:

“I, Star Commander Kynnet, of the Borealton Garrison Star, do hereby declare this to be my Trial of Grievance against the Spheroid-lover before me,” he snarls. “In clinging to your Wolf-like views of charity to the barbarians of the Inner Sphere, and for her disgraceful lack of ambition, I shall prove that no aging, dezgra ‘emissary’ can speak for the honor of the Falcon! In this solemn matter, let none interfere!”

Alis bears each insult in silence, though hatred burns her face ever-brighter shades of red with each verbal lashing. As Kynnet finishes, the crowd roars its approval, then it is her turn to speak:

“I, Star Captain Alis Jadefalcon, welcome the challenge of this surat-spawn, Kynnet, in the name of the honor of Clan Jade Falcon,” she cries. “We are Falcons, and the blood of Kerensky flows through us all! Let none of the feral claims of this rabid vulture before you sway your hearts, and know that it is his own dishonor which shall bring him to his knees this day! In this matter, none shall interfere!”

The cheer on Alis’ behalf is noticeably softer, punctuated only by both combatants shouting “Seyla!” as they drop into defensive stances, eyes locked only moments before the first warrior lunges, sword flashing in the light.

It is fought, some say, with more heart than the Horses’ attack earlier this month, and in a blinding display of swordsmanship, Alis is dropped to one knee, her uniform in tatters, blood flowing from a gash in her belly. But it is her final thrust that carries the battle, nearly severing Kynnet’s sword arm even as he prepares the final blow. Both warriors will be in the infirmary for days, but Alis has won.

The crowd, however, is not with Alis. Groans of disapproval fill the air as Kynnet drops to the pavement. Though the rights of the Clan say Alis has won her Grievance Trial, the issue remains a source of contention for warriors of every stripe. As the pressure builds, one cannot help but wonder how many more Trials will warriors such as Alis be forced to fight, while warriors like Kynnet continue to push for another showdown against the Inner Sphere.

In our next four-part series, our tour through history and cultures of the Inner Sphere will take us back to the Successor States, to House Liao’s Capellan Confederation, a controversial – yet intriguing House . Please join us as we continue our tour of the stars! I’m Bertram Habeas.