Volume XLIII: Living on the Edge—Origins of the Periphery

The Periphery. Few in the Inner Sphere like to think about it. Fewer still ever want to visit it. To them, the very term is a catchall for the dregs of humanity, a haven for pirates and lost mercenary commands, an untamed expanse of stars and worlds filled with untold dangers. To these people, one region of the Periphery is no better than any other, and even some otherwise astute historians often point to these regions as the cause—and the ultimate result—of mankind’s follies.

Of course, like many popular notions, this one, too, is rooted in overgeneralizations and plain ignorance. The nations and worlds of the Periphery are a diverse lot, perhaps even more diverse than those of the Inner Sphere. They range from the political and industrial powerhouse of the Magistracy of Canopus, to the Clan-Periphery hybrid state of the Raven Alliance, to the fragmented, frontier-like nation-worlds of the Barrens. While most of the rumors of pirates and privateers roaming the Periphery may be true, they are no less true within the boundaries of the Inner Sphere. What truly unifies the Periphery is not its level of barbarism; it is the collective spirit of freedom embraced by its people, a spirit that has kept the mighty empires of the Great Houses from swallowing up these fringe regions for centuries.

It’s strange to think of the Periphery as part of the Inner Sphere. For so long, we’ve prided ourselves on not being any such thing. To a lot of people out here, “Inner Sphere” still means the Great Houses that made the Star League, imposed it on us, and then broke it when they got tired of it. Wherever they run things, an ordinary person can’t call her soul her own. Or so thought plenty of our forebears, who struck out for the Periphery in search of freedom from rules and regulations and bureaucrats. —Naomi Centrella, Canopian Military Coordinator, The Inner Sphere, ComStar Press, 3063

By its very nature, there is no historically defined foundation date for the Periphery. Instead, what historians refer to when discussing the formation of the modern Periphery is the settling of a few key worlds, which would then rise to become some of the most powerful nations in the region. Apollo, Alpheratz, Canopus, Taurus—these worlds would become the capitals of new states. Their alliances formed—one way or another—from the same spirit of independence that created the Successor States, in reaction to the excesses of the Terran Alliance, but driven further outward as their founders disagreed with even these nascent governments.

The Taurian Concordat, for instance, began when Samantha Calderon, inheritress of a substantial fortune from a husband killed during the Outer Reaches Rebellion against the Alliance, financed and led an expedition to the Hyades star cluster. Over the years that followed, the new world would prove so resource rich that other colonies would follow, creating a small league of colonies known as the Taurian Homeworlds, until the Taurian Concordat was formally founded in 2335.

By way of comparison, the Rim Worlds Republic, centered on Apollo, was founded by a band of freebooters led by Hector Worthington Rowe, an Alexandria native who harbored a deep grudge against the Terran Alliance, and who personally launched a renegade war with the Alliance even as its power waned. Fleeing coreward, and resorting to piracy to sustain his forces’ supplies and manpower, he would eventually settle on Apollo, to found a nation created along his own warped interpretation of Plato’s Republic.

By contrast, the Magistracy of Canopus and the Outworlds Alliance, nations formed in reaction to the Age of War, were both created by fugitives and deserters from the nearest major powers. In the case of the Magistracy, its founder, Konstance Centrella, led numerous dissidents and fellow soldiers from the Free Worlds League away from that realm to found a place where like-minded dissidents could gather. Meanwhile, the Alliance was forged when Julius Avellar, a prominent FedSuns naval officer, disgusted by the excesses during the Age of War, retreated to his own sanctuary, and became a reluctant leader when his critical denouncement of war and military adventurism attracted a following that included the antitechnology Omniss philosophical sect.

Thus did the four great realms of the Periphery form, to escape the excesses and the restrictive governments of the rest of the Inner Sphere. There were hundreds of other colonies in these days, of course, but either through fortune, or wisdom, these four centers of power grew over the years that followed, even as the six mighty powers closer to Terra turned their energies upon one another. The Age of War allowed most of these smaller fringe realms to expand, growing in territory, prosperity, and stability, until each came to possess the strength of a smaller Great House. Defense needs, made apparent by the infighting throughout the Inner Sphere, led all of them to create defense forces, increasing their appeal to nearby, unaffiliated worlds, which then joined them in turn. Of course, this prosperity only lasted as long as they posed no threat to the nearest Great House, which actually made the end of the Age of War and Ian Cameron’s efforts to forge a new humanity-unifying mega-alliance a foreboding omen.

Who is to say what would have happened next if Cameron hadn’t come along? It took his efforts at diplomacy to help bring an end to the Age of War, and it was his diplomatic savvy that paved the way for the formation of the Star League, which mainly focused on the six Great Houses. Meanwhile, the Periphery states were out there, growing. The Piranha Principle—a suggestion that the Periphery powers, like a school of piranha, would be too difficult to overpower, because doing so invited attack from other corners—no longer applied when all the Great Houses became friends.

Thus, when the League formed, and First Lord Cameron officially declared an end to inter-House warfare, the Inner Sphere may have celebrated, but those living beyond the boundaries of the Great Houses’ influence knew better.

There are many different reasons why the Star League, so soon after its founding and allegedly dedicated to peace across the stars, turned its attentions toward conquest of the Periphery. The ones sold to the people, for instance, included such high-minded ideals as enlightenment, or civilizing, of these supposedly lawless regions, since the Star League’s goal also included securing the peace for all of humankind. Others justifications that caught on focused on local issues, such as the alleged “aggressions” of Periphery states—the Taurian Concordat in particular—against Star League members (though plenty of evidence suggests the naval engagements between the Davions and the Taurians boiled down to honest misunderstandings). Piracy, of course, was yet another excuse, though in many cases, the alleged Periphery “pirates” were, in fact, hirelings or even agents of the Great Houses themselves, used to continue settling scores left over from the Age of War. But the truth, of course, was far more sinister, and yet ludicrous at the same time, for the Cameron Dynasty realized it could not cement its power over the newborn League without focusing its members on some unifying threat. Sooner or later, they realized, the House Lords would turn their ambitious eyes toward taking over the mighty empire they had built. It was thus that the Camerons hit on an elegant concept: If they were to outlaw war amongst the Houses, then the Houses would have to fight a new foe. And the Periphery made a perfect scapegoat. —Sir Hedgewick P. Rothchild, Deconstructing the Golden Age (Fifth Edition), Canopus Free Press, 3110

The stubborn refusal of the Periphery states to join in the Star League reached a head in 2574, after the four major Periphery nations once more refused to bow to diplomatic and economic pressures imposed by the League and clung to their independence. The following year, with his infamous Pollux Proclamation, First Lord Ian Cameron effectively declared war on the Periphery. If they would not join his League willingly, then they would do so at gunpoint. The next twenty-two years came to be known in the Inner Sphere as the Reunification War, and would see the four proudly independent realms on the fringes of human-occupied space brutally crushed beneath the combined weight of the Star League and its member states.

In the next installment of our special six-part look at the Periphery, we’ll see how the fall of the Star League, the Succession Wars, and the beginnings of a revival affected these frontier nations. Join us as our tour of the stars continues! I’m Bertram Habeas.