Volume XXXI: Challenging the Void—Clan Sea Fox Ascendant

From its inception among the often-desolate and resource-poor worlds of the Pentagon and the Kerensky Cluster, the Sea Fox Clan has striven to amass material wealth, equating riches and resources with survival. As the Sea Fox Clan, it forged an economic empire, less dependant on Trials than on deals, but the inevitable rivalries forced it to change, to evolve into the Diamond Sharks, a Clan more democratic in nature, yet often guided as much by the passions of war as the lure of opening new markets. With the invasion of the Inner Sphere, the pendulum once more swung slowly back to the nature of the Sea Fox—less bloodthirsty, more honorable, but still a predator to be feared and respected. It was, however, an evolution, as should be expected, that would take several decades to complete.

[Clan Diamond Shark/Sea Fox] was an enigma during the early years of the Clan invasion. To the citizens of the Sphere, they were the invaders who were never seen. To the other invaders, they were more like remoras than sharks themselves, parasites swimming with the real predators of the deep. Yet few among the Clans could say the Sharks had no place in their society. As each Clan functions under the collective efforts of the five castes—warrior, scientist, merchant, technician, and laborer—so the Clans as a whole had their castes—those who led as warriors, and those who served, as the Shark merchants did so well. But the Sharks were a democracy compared to the martial nature of the other Clans, and in a democracy, even the common folk have a voice in their destiny. So it was for the Sharks. Born, bred, and raised to seek strength through profit and wealth, they brought with them to the invasion that same sense of manifest destiny the more warlike Clans embraced. In their view, however, there were other ways to get there. The Clan’s failure at Tukayyid became stark evidence of this, and with the resulting decline of Khan [Ian] Hawker, the Crusader mentality burned itself out in favor of a new Warden philosophy. If the Sharks couldn’t beat the Inner Sphere on the field of battle, they would carve their own conquests in the marketplace. Much like spoiled children, the warrior Clans, of course, protested the Sharks at every turn, but the Sharks won all the right Trials and said all the right things. They sold their services to Clan and Inner Sphere patrons alike. Ironically, however, serving both would lead to the choice of one over another during the dark years of the Jihad. —Sean Lasko, PhD, Professor of Clan Society and Politics, University of Thorin

The early 3060s saw waves of fighting in both the Clan home worlds and the Inner Sphere. With a Clan destroyed, another Abjured, and still another entirely relocated to the greener pastures of the Inner Sphere, a massive power vacuum was created which all the remaining home Clans tore into each other to fill. The Wars of Possession, as they were known, would take years to burn themselves out, even as the Inner Sphere erupted in the fires of several wars, ranging from the Capellan–St. Ives war to the FedCom Civil War. But even as the initial conflicts ended, new ones began. The Word of Blake Jihad was launched in 3067, turning the war-ravaged Inner Sphere upside down once more, and as the Spheroids fought for their very way of life, the Clans, too, felt the strain.

The match that lit the fuse came from an unexpected source, however. Clan Hell’s Horses, an ascendant home Clan, which had recently been forced out of its briefly held Inner Sphere occupation zone, initiated its own plans for an invasion, aimed at the Crusader Wolves. Recognizing the long journey ahead, and having learned from their earlier failures, the Horses recognized the need to relocate at least a healthy portion of their support structure with their armies. To assist in this endeavor, they turned to the Diamond Sharks as their nemesis, Clan Ghost Bear, had done a decade before. Unlike the Bears, however, the Horses’ move was not subtle enough to be overlooked, and the apparent wholesale departure of yet another Clan may have ignited the chaos in the Clan home worlds that followed.

The lack of hard details on what some historians have called the Clan Civil War has led to many prevailing theories on what exactly happened in the 3070s and 3080s. The massive upheaval that apparently followed the Horses’ relocation, and the brief Ice Hellion incursion, evidently led to the severing of all effective contact between the invading Clans and their brethren back home. However, the exact details are still a secret jealously kept by those Clans in the Inner Sphere. What is known, however, is that one of the many results was the loss of the Diamond Sharks’ enclaves back home, forcing a truncated Clan to remake itself once again.

With only three worlds to stage from, and the entire Inner Sphere at war, the Sharks saw a unique opportunity, even in the grip of disaster. Fleets of their JumpShips, arriving in the Inner Sphere with whatever they could carry, became an instant lifeline to other factions in the Inner Sphere; their supplies sold at bargain prices, often in exchange for raw materials and components the Clan itself had lost. As the Jihad continued, and security issues became paramount, the Foxes included their WarShips—the troops’ attachment only a short time before proving almost prescient—leaving the balance of their Touman to guard their market worlds.Military and logistical needs hastened these changes, and crystallized the Aimag-and-Khanate organization used today, including the creation of additional saKhans to oversee each Khanate fleet, as well as the institution of the formal rank of ovKhan (Aimag leaders). As the last of the Blakist holdouts fell to the coalition of Inner Sphere forces, Clan Sea Fox began to morph into the four roving Khanates (spacefleets) seen today—Spina, Skate, Tiburon, and Fox—each led by a saKhan, under a fifth (the ilKhanate), that is led by the Clan Khan. Though it would take until the dawn of the thirty-second century for the Sea Fox to fully blossom into their current incarnation, there can be no doubt that the Jihad proved a catalyst which shaved decades off of what would otherwise most likely have been a century-long transformation. As the new century began, to signify their own new beginning and win over additional Spheroid markets, the Clan leaders voted to change the Clan’s name back to Sea Fox in 3100.This event was pulled off with nowhere near the inter-Clan fighting that had erupted before the invasion years, as the Grand Council simply was in no position to refute them. Though derided by their fellow Clans as mere gypsies, the Sea Fox Khanates proved themselves an effective adaptation to the chaos of the Jihad and its aftermath, and a natural extension of the Foxes’ evolution. We should all learn such lessons, and implement them so well. . . . —Petiri Nova Cat, Survival of the Fittest: Clans of the Inner Sphere, Commonwealth Press, 3127

Reorganized, and revitalized, even as the rest of the Inner Sphere dealt with the horrifying aftermath of the Jihad, the Sea Fox Clan could make its presence felt anywhere in the Sphere that a new market beckoned. The arrival of their modified WarShips (today known as ArcShips and CargoShips) soon became a welcome sight, signifying the presence of a Khanate in one system while its five attendant JumpShip fleets (Aimags) extended their offer of goods and services to other nearby worlds, often supporting worlds left stranded by Blakist attacks. During the final days of the Jihad, and the first decade following, these JumpShip fleets claimed only a small percentage in profit for their services, but the sheer volume of markets opened by these nomadic Khanates created the single greatest boon to the Clan’s economy since the creation of its Chatterweb. Thus, the Aimags and Khanates assured their own continued existence with their proof of profitability, bringing the wealth, prominence, and of course glory of the mercantile Clan to Inner Sphere—and even Periphery—markets, wherever they might be found.

In the last part of our look at the ways of Clan Sea Fox today, our tour will take us inside the gypsy ArcShips and CargoShips of the Sea Fox Clan. Come join us as the tour of the stars continues! I’m Bertram Habeas.