Volume XXX: The Shark and the Fox, Evolution of a Clan

Baking beneath a large, white-hot star, this world of sand and windstorms was once the capital of the Trellshire Province of the Lyran Commonwealth’s Tamar Pact. Today, however, the low, fat buildings of Camora, one of this planet’s larger cities, surround a sprawling outdoor marketplace. Here, holographic monitors and computer terminals stand beside low-technology booths where live merchants in homey attire peddle their wares and make a fine art of haggling. In the nearby spaceport, no less than five massive, ovoid skyscrapers stand a silent vigil, constantly loading and offloading cargo, which is taken into massive, subterranean warehouses, and is always under the heavy guard of the finest Clan-made military hardware any currency can buy. Emblazoned on the ’Mechs, the DropShips, and even the troopers who see that all transactions and businesses run smoothly, is the ever-alert image of the Sea Fox, coiling up from the waves and bowing, at once honoring and pouncing upon its prey.

The gathering of material wealth is supposedly beneath the Clans, who value martial glory over all other pursuits. The only honor comes through victory in a fairly fought Trial, where equally matched opponents put their lives on the line to prove their worth and their way is superior. But what does that say about the mercantile nature of the Sea Fox Clan? Does their relentless pursuit of commodities, information, and wealth make them less of a Clan? Do they demonstrate the same kind of honor in combat? Do they believe in the vision of Kerensky?

Like the Ghost Bear Clan, the Sea Foxes have adapted to life in the Inner Sphere, but theirs was an evolution already underway before they even arrived. Granted freedoms beyond those of other Clan civilians, the Foxes’ merchant caste grew to dominate the politics and policies of their Clan. Driven by the guidance of Karen Nagasawa, one of the Clan’s founding Khans, the Foxes sought material gain before all other objectives, in hopes of quickly assuring their continued survival in the relatively resource-poor worlds of the Kerensky Cluster. Yet in their quest to expand, the Sea Foxes never truly violated the codes set down by Nicholas Kerensky. Instead, they merely tested the limits of their flexibility, amassing wealth, resources, and power in the bargain. However, the worlds of the Kerensky Cluster were few.

What’s perhaps most ironic about the Diamond Shark/Sea Fox Clan is how they came to be in the Inner Sphere to begin with. Preferring the bargain to the Trial, they always sought to avoid long-standing feuds, yet, in time for the go-vote, they were in the Crusader camp. Some theorists suggest that this was due to pressures from within—the merchant caste, smelling new markets the way their totem could smell blood in the water—but the anomaly in that theory is that their leader at the time was a rare warrior caste elitist. Thus, as the merchants were finally gaining access to the untapped riches of the Inner Sphere, they were brutally oppressed, their rights stripped away. And yet the disastrous results of this leadership would ultimately pave the way for success. Under Khan [Ian] Hawker, the Diamond Sharks would suffer from a bad showing during the invasion—so bad, in fact, that he would be forced to again relinquish control to the stifled merchant caste, in order to rebuild and avoid absorption. Thus, in effect, the Diamond Sharks’ decision to join in the invasion would prove to be both their greatest mistake and their greatest boon. It would simply take many more years before they truly swam their own path . . . —Sean Lasko, PhD, Professor of Clan Society and Politics, University of Thorin

Indeed, in the wake of the Clan Invasion, the Diamond Sharks’ merchants suddenly found their opportunity for the growth their Clan craved. The markets of the Inner Sphere gradually opened to accept Clan-made goods, first on a sort of black-market level, with smaller items in trade for Inner Sphere goods. Because Clan military and engineering technology was forced for so long to rely on fewer resources, practical tools and weapons made using Clan techniques were better than their Inner Sphere counterparts and thus highly prized. But the Clans lacked luxuries and conveniences that the Inner Sphere had long developed for its own use, even in the poorer realms. Trade blossomed, gradually expanding to the point where even BattleMechs were among the commodities exchanged. Though other Clans voiced alarm that the Sharks were trading away their military edge, the Shark merchants noted that Inner Sphere technical parity was inevitable ever since the invasion began, and trading obsolete models of military hardware hardly did anything to upset the balance of power.

At almost the same time, the Sharks bartered their transportation services as well, first to the Ghost Bears, and later to the Hell’s Horses, assisting in the relocation of whole colonies aboard their surplus JumpShip fleets. As tensions rose in the Clan homeworlds, these relocations would expand to include many Diamond Shark holdings as well. It would not be until 3067, when Diamond Shark prominence in the Inner Sphere became so great that they could seize and hold their own worlds from among the other Clan Occupation Zones, that their fellow Clansmen realized what was happening. For all intents and purposes, the Sharks were migrating to the open seas, leaving behind the shallow depths of the home worlds.

It was also during this time that the Clan began posting permanent, large-scale forces to its WarShips; a strange, but apparently insignificant change at the time that would eventually demonstrate itself to be a precursor to radical sociopolitical changes for the Clan to come.

The upheaval caused by a new generation of Clans leaving the home worlds apparently proved too much to bear for those left behind. Though even the Sea Foxes today won’t part with that kind of information, the rumors and reports of a massive conflict engulfing the home worlds for over a decade have proven too persistent to simply disregard. Whatever occurred there, the result was a hasty, enforced relocation of the remaining Diamond Sharks to the Inner Sphere; a process made easier by the trading alliances built up over the years and by the gradual relocation of much of the Clan’s merchant and labor castes to support their recently won trading worlds.

Worlds such as Twycross in the Jade Falcons’ Occupation Zone, Trondheim in the then-Ghost Bear Dominion, and Itabiana, among the Nova Cat holdings in the Draconis Combine, all became holdings of the Diamond Sharks. These worlds were transformed into the Clans’ clearing houses, bases of operations not for military conquest, but for the perpetuation of trade, the Diamond Sharks’ single greatest occupation. Yet inviting off-worlders to come and trade on these few planets would not be enough to sustain an uprooted Clan. Newer markets had to be opened, without making enemies of them. Though each world had been won by the rules of the Trial, the Sharks knew their intended markets—those of the Inner Sphere—would not be receptive to the warrior ways of the Clans. To open new markets, the Clan would have to expand without conquest. Thus began the rise of the aimags, and the Khanates they serve, and thus also did the Sharks reclaim their original name, presenting to their new markets a face no longer sullied by the reputation of a failed invader, but honoring their ties to the noble sea fox.

Night falls on Camora, and the markets are closed for the day. As the last rays of the sun, cast in red by a distant sandstorm, fade off to the west, one begins to realize how cold the desert wind has become. The city itself is not yet asleep. Children still play in the streets, under the glow of lamps, engaging in games that mimic the bargaining techniques of their elders. This is a merchant’s city, and even the warriors do not interfere; their BattleMechs stomping off in an endless patrol around the spaceport. The towering ovoid buildings are fewer now, however, with only one left behind as the last departing drive flare rises into the nighttime sky. With good binoculars, one can make out the waiting vessel, an oblong form, its metal hide gleaming as the last rays of sunlight reflect off it. Though WarShips hovering in close orbit have in the past been a harbinger of invasion, on Twycross few people notice, for the Sea Fox ArcShips are merely a harbinger of business as usual, and on this night, the ArcShip of the Skate Khanate is preparing for its next “fishing expedition,” the eternal quest for new markets, perpetuated in the vastness of space itself.

In our next volume, our tour of the Sea Fox will examine how the Jihad made possible the unexpected but no less inevitable rise of this nomadic Clan of warrior merchants. I’m Bertram Habeas.