Volume XLIV: The Periphery’s Long, Hard Climb from the Abyss

The Star League’s war against the Periphery was actually four smaller wars rolled into one. In the Rim Worlds Republic, League troops, with House Steiner support, were actually putting down a rebellion that had usurped a nominally pro-League government, ruled by House Amaris. In the Taurian Concordat, the war was more a Davion-led campaign to crush a defiant and well-armed neighbor, one willing even to resort to the use of weapons of mass destruction and scorched earth to secure its liberty. In the Magistracy of Canopus, the war’s theme ranged from severe fighting against an impressively well-equipped army to a rather comical effort to resist the seductive ways of the nation’s hedonistic culture, and atrocities here were lessened by House Marik’s leadership and insistence on “a clean fight.” In the Outworlds Alliance, despite the largely agrarian nature of its people, Kurita-supported League troops quickly grew frustrated at the determination of the resistance, and resorted to mass executions in an effort to gain compliance. This served only to drag the war on for years as the Alliance ranks swelled, rather than diminished. In the end, however, all four realms were forced to capitulate, with the Alliance surrendering in 2585, the Magistracy in 2588, and the other two states succumbing to Star League rule in 2596. By the following year, all four nations were placed under virtual Star League military rule, branded as Territorial States of the League.

In the century and a half that followed, the Territorial States did eventually come to recover, with some survivors of the Reunification War coming to realize that maybe—just maybe—life under the Star League wasn’t so bad after all. But all of that would come crashing down again in 2751, when First Lord Simon Cameron was killed in a freak accident on New Silesia. The First Lordship passed to his juvenile son, Richard, under the regency of General Alexandr Kerensky, and suddenly the five House Lords were in effective political control of the Star League. They wasted no time in consolidating their power, and even went so far as to pass taxes on the Territorial States, placing a heavy financial burden on the conquered lands of the Periphery.

During this time, the young Richard Cameron was seduced by Stefan Amaris, leader of the Rim Worlds Republic, the only one of the Territorial States that did not openly complain about the unfair taxes. In the years leading up to his final ascension to the Throne, Cameron fell more and more under the spell of the charismatic Amaris, and came to see the other House Lords as jealous rivals. How many of Cameron’s edicts were really the work of Amaris may never be known but, by the time he was of age to claim the First Lordship, he had already been convinced that General Kerensky and the House Lords were all against him, and he had alienated virtually every one of these leaders. Worse still, a crippling tax levied by the First Lord himself set all Periphery realms but the Rim Worlds Republic into rebellion, with several Taurian planets among the first to secede. In response, Cameron mobilized the bulk of the Star League Defense Force, under Kerensky’s direct command, leaving the Terran Hegemony with a skeleton garrison, augmented by supposedly loyal House Amaris troops.

What happened next, one fateful December day in 2766, would mark the beginning of a time so dark for all of mankind that only the Jihad, over three centuries later, could compare.

“General: I, with my infinite skills and aided by my loyal subjects, have struck, with a swiftness given only to the righteous, a blow that has corrected decades of injuries and slights to my family. I rule where the Camerons once called home. I control the Cradle of Humanity. All within the Hegemony have bowed before me; those who didn’t are dead. Join me, General Kerensky. Become my sword arm and help me impress my word and wisdom upon the other realms. I’ve no reason to hate you; I wish only peace between us. Join me and convince your men and women to follow you, and I will give you power second only to mine. But should you dare turn a blind eye to the wisdom of my offer and decide not to join, then heed my warning: I control everything the Hegemony has. All its defenses, all of its fortifications, are now manned by people loyal to me. Should you try to attack, every inch of Hegemony soil will be stained with the blood of the fallen, and every drop will be a burden upon your soul, which must already be heavy with guilt for allowing me to accomplish the complete control of your homelands.” —Communiqué to General Alexandr Kerensky from “Emperor” Stefan Ukris Amaris, 16 May 2767

Kerensky’s war to liberate the Terran Hegemony began with the effective annihilation of the Rim Worlds government as he withdrew his forces committed elsewhere to smash the power base that made Amaris’ coup possible. In the thirteen years that followed, Kerensky and Amaris turned their energies fully upon one another in a devastating war of attrition. By the time it was over, the Terran Hegemony was a collection of charred cinders and hopelessly shattered industries, and the Star League had effectively died.

In the Periphery, the fall of the League met with mixed feelings; an age of prosperity—but one that had been forcibly imposed—had come to an end, freeing the surviving realms to go their own ways. As the Inner Sphere states turned on one another, go their own ways these realms did, rarely interacting with their counterparts in the Great Houses (and then only at great cost). Still, freed of the constraints of the Star League, these nations grew, though at a far slower rate, thanks to the predations of waves of pirates and occasional infighting between neighboring realms, both ancient and newborn.

Having started off hobbled by the Star League, the Periphery’s technological level remained below that of the Inner Sphere throughout the Succession Wars era, though in some areas these nations excelled even beyond the capabilities of their interior neighbors. The Magistracy of Canopus, for instance, gained a reputation for medicine that rivaled—and in some cases, even exceeded—the capabilities of the Great Houses. The Taurians, meanwhile, boasted a remarkably high literacy rate. The Outworlds Alliance, eschewing BattleMechs and mercenaries for much of its existence, raised a highly adept aerospace defense force, completely homegrown and capable of fending off pirates and Great House raiders alike.

As the thirty-first century dawned, new Periphery states had even begun to form, many of them from among the bandit lords who had, for generations, preyed on the borders of the Inner Sphere. The Marian Hegemony, a pirate realm with a government based loosely on ancient Rome, and the Circinus Federation, a loose coalition of agrarian worlds ruled by pirates and mercenaries, are perfect examples of these “bandit kingdoms” that earned a semblance of respectability over time. Others, such as Morgraine’s Valkyrate, the Confederation of Oberon, and the Tortuga Dominions, also formed from pirate bands, but remained truer to their origins. Still others, such as the Fiefdom of Randis, the Niops Association, and the Rim Collection, formed along more benign lines, creating realms founded on ideals, rather than force of arms, adding more color to the sociopolitical tapestry of the Periphery.

The trickle-down from the technological renaissance of the mid-thirty-first century further boosted many of these powers, making the larger, more industrial realms, such as the Magistracy and the Concordat, true players in the universe. Of course, as the balance of power would shift in the Inner Sphere, both due to the recovery of lostech and the political changes caused by the short-lived union of Houses Steiner and Davion, so too would the realms of the Periphery suffer an upheaval from these new events. Somewhat surprisingly, it would be the Magistracy of Canopus that would first bring the nearly forgotten Periphery back into the minds of the denizens of the interior worlds, in a bold move that would have ramifications for decades to come.

In part three of our special series on the Periphery, our spotlight shines on the Magistracy of Canopus, one of the Periphery’s most powerful realms, and its trials through mankind’s darkest hours. Our tour of the stars continues next week. I’m Bertram Habeas.