Volume LI: Light and Darkness—ComStar’s Triumph and Tragedy

For good or for ill, ComStar remained the sole keeper of interstellar communications for the Inner Sphere and Periphery through the three centuries that followed the collapse of the Star League. Founded on the principles of Jerome Blake, and given a spiritual bent by successors such as Conrad Toyama and Primus Raymond Karpov, the Order grew increasingly mystical and secretive. Its influence in international affairs was both subtle and extreme, depending on the needs of the moment, and yet it retained the veneer of neutrality and peaceful intent as the guiding light for all of mankind—until the Clans appeared in 3048.

One of the greatest ironies of the Clan invasion, perhaps, is the very event that supposedly triggered it. Although the Clans had already spent perhaps a century debating the matter of whether or not to invade and conquer the worlds Kerensky left behind, the Warden faction—advocating a protectionist hands-off policy toward the Inner Sphere—had managed to keep the pro-invasion Crusaders at bay. Societal pressures might have eventually forced the issue anyway, but it was the arrival of a ComStar Explorer Corps JumpShip in Clan space that lit the proverbial fuse. Citing that the Inner Sphere had now found a way to the home worlds, the Crusaders gained enough momentum through fear and paranoia to win a majority; the invasion became a measure of self-defense against the inevitable arrival of barbarian hordes from the Inner Sphere. But what truly made the event ironic was that ComStar’s explorer corps was created specifically because a past Primus, Adrienne Sims, had a vision of invading monsters from beyond the Periphery. That Sims’ dream-inspired creation of an arm of ComStar to explore the depths of space actually brought about the very holocaust she sought to avoid has at once affirmed and damned the Order’s mystic practices in the eyes of many historians. —Rene Alosano, Broken Promises: The Legacy of the Jihad, Republic Press, 3127

As it happened, the Clan invasion began during the Primacy of Myndo Waterly, a devout follower of the Word of Blake as interpreted by Conrad Toyama. Fully dedicated to the prophesied time when mankind would turn to ComStar to be lifted from the ashes, she saw the Clans as the force that would bring about the much-anticipated Armageddon. Playing a dangerous political game, Waterly advocated ComStar’s alliance with the invaders, under the guise of ComStar neutrality, offering the warlike Clans her Order’s services in administering their captured worlds while they continued to advance. Though this decision did not sit well with all members of the First Circuit, ComStar did in fact facilitate the invaders for the opening years of the invasion.

Until, of course, it became clear the Clans were after Terra itself.

What followed was one of the most epic BattleMech clashes ever fought on a single world at one time. Precentor Martial Anastasius Focht, leader of the long-hidden ComStar Guards (shortened to Com Guards) challenged the invaders to a proxy battle for control of Terra on the Rasalhaguian world of Tukayyid. An elite-grade military commander—though many historians have speculated on where Focht received such training and expertise in an armed force that had not seen the light of day in centuries—he studied the Clans at length, and squared his forces off against those of all seven invading Clans in a grueling twenty-one-day war, with the fate of mankind in the balance.

The battle of Tukayyid was an unqualified success for the Inner Sphere, but even as Focht and his warriors battled the invaders, Waterly launched an attack of her own—against all of the Inner Sphere. Attempting to bring the Inner Sphere and the Clans to their knees in one fell swoop, Waterly ordered all HPGs throughout the Inner Sphere to shut down, a command only a small portion followed. Warned in advance, many Inner Sphere powers managed to secure numerous HPGs to keep the communications lines open, minimizing the damage done in Waterly’s ill-fated Operation Scorpion. All at once, ComStar had become both humanity’s saviors and its greatest betrayers. The event also triggered the Schism, and created the Word of Blake as an actual faction.

The story goes that Precentor Martial Focht and Waterly’s own protégé, Precentor Dieron Sharilar Mori, staged a coup within ComStar immediately upon Focht’s return from Tukayyid, removing Waterly and immediately announcing the Order would begin shedding its mystical trappings and trying to help the Inner Sphere. In Mori and Focht’s minds, the Inner Sphere needed a unifying force willing to help stand up to the Clans, and they were determined to do so as partners, rather than as manipulators. The plans, of course, were far too progressive for most. Centuries of ingrained training and dogma could not change overnight, after all. Over the next few years, over half of ComStar defected, joining other hard-liners, such as Precentor Blaine of Gibson, and First Circuit members, such as Precentor Demona Aziz, in self-imposed exile within the Free Worlds League. Proclaiming Marik their Primus-in-Exile, the Word of Blake, a collection of various ComStar sects united in their belief that the old mystical ways of ComStar presented the true vision of Jerome Blake, would eventually rise again; first by reclaiming Terra in 3058, and later by launching the most horrendous war in human history.... —Rene Alosano, Broken Promises: The Legacy of the Jihad, Republic Press, 3127

Indeed, the saga of the Word of Blake/ComStar Schism, initially regarded as an internal affair by most of the Inner Sphere, would become the most fateful development of the Clan Invasion. The majority of ComStar’s ROM intelligence service defected with the other hard-liners of the Order, along with close to half the Com Guards, many of whom felt betrayed by Focht for so quickly embracing secularity after their hard-fought victory in the name of the divine Blake on Tukayyid. Despite this, ComStar insisted on regarding the Clans as the true threat, and helped broker the formation of the new Star League in order to counter that threat in the late 3050s. Even the loss of Terra, regarded as merely a symbolic prize by this point, did not seem to concern ComStar, which had made a home of its headquarters on Tukayyid, overmuch. As a result, the rest of the Inner Sphere also seemed oblivious to the danger.

Then came the fateful November day in 3067 when the assembled leaders of the Inner Sphere finally acknowledged that the new Star League was little more than a means to an end already realized. With the various House Lords too tied up in internal affairs spawned by the last two decades of near-constant conflict, the Star League dissolved, incidentally destroying a prophecy that all of the Word of Blake had lain in wait to see revealed. . . .

Exactly what the “prophecy” was that the Word of Blake’s “master” hoped to see revealed is a matter of much debate, especially since almost all of the Word’s top-secret records and journals of this mysterious shadow leader vanished in the nuclear fires on Gibson and Circinus. What is largely believed is that, with the “third peaceful transfer of power” (a reference to the Fourth Whiting Conference on Tharkad, where a new Star Lord was to be chosen), the Word of Blake was set to become a fully active member of the new Star League. Lying in wait in several key systems, ready to demonstrate its ability and willingness to uphold the Star League as guardian of all its members, the Word was hoping to be hailed as a savior, easily on par with its estranged kin in ComStar. In some cases, a much more aggressive stance was assumed and plans for military actions were even laid—as on Outreach, where the Wolf’s Dragoons had long maintained an anti-Word military campaign, and were thus deemed a real threat—but all evidence suggests the Word merely intended its emergence from the shadows of space over all Inner Sphere capitals as a celebration of it—and the Star League’s—greatness. Instead, the League had fallen into disarray. Its moment had been lost, stolen by petty House Lords who could not comprehend the effort and the dedication that had gone into this very moment. What came next was a tantrum on a scale the human race had never known.... —Vladimir Toolippi, Enlightening the Dark Age: A ComStar History, New Avalon Press, 3125

And so, with a wave of WarShips, nuclear weapons, biochemical attacks, and raging hordes of BattleMechs, the Word of Blake, deprived of an ultimate glory promised them during their long years in self-imposed exile, fueled by over three centuries of pent-up anticipation for a collapse of humanity that Blake had prophesied, yet which had never come, began a holy war against the universe. Trillions would die, planets would be shattered, and entire nations would collapse into anarchy before the flames of the Jihad finally burned themselves out, leaving behind an Inner Sphere forever changed.

Join us next week for our final look at ComStar today, after the horrors of the Jihad that nearly destroyed the keepers of interstellar communications, as we continue our tour of the stars! I’m Bertram Habeas.