The Hand of Starling – Anastasius Focht Still Alive, Jihad Architect? 2/17/3134
INN - Interstellar News Network
SHADOW: Well met, Truth-seekers! Once again, the Hand of Starling returns to the
airwaves with the show the Republic doesn’t want you to see! I’m your host,
Shadow. With me as always are my faithful sidekicks and fellow illuminati, Phantom
and Wraith.
PHANTOM: Sidekicks?!
WRAITH: That’s just wrong!
SHADOW: Hahah! Welcome, gents. No offenses intended. Before we begin today’s
topic: “Anastasius Focht: Dead Hero or Living Villain?” our question of the week here
comes from a viewer using the on-line nick of Vesuvius. She (or he) says: “Shadow,
I totally love your Hand of Starling show--” Why, thanks, Vesuvius!
WRAITH: Hey! Why’re they only talking to you?
PHANTOM: Yeah! We do most of the talking on this bloody show!
SHADOW: Because I’m the host. Now be quiet, guys; it goes on. “However, I can’t
believe you haven’t yet delved into the really big question on everyone’s mind: Are the
governments of the Inner Sphere in general (and the Federated Suns in particular)
hiding evidence of intelligent aliens from the public? Are these aliens behind the HPG
crisis, a prelude to some kind of alien invasion of the Inner Sphere that our leaders
knew was coming all along?”
WRAITH: Ambitious guy, ain’t he?
SHADOW: Yeah. Well, Vesuvius, this, of course, was one of the first and biggest
stories that we ever broke here on Hand of Starling, but apparently the archives were
lost in a mysterious file deletion along the way, which we are still investigating. The
conclusion of our initial report was that there are, in fact, intelligent aliens, and they
are among us already. Some of them are large, with superhuman strength, while
others are small and quick, with superior eyesight, still others are both physically
stronger and faster than the average human, as a compromise between their larger and
smaller kin. Their culture is so bizarre that it has no direct analog to any other in
history. Of course, these folks are known as… ALL: The Clans!
SHADOW: Right. Now, come on, Vesuvius! Get a life! All of this is kid stuff.
Everyone knows the aliens are battling the remnants of the Wolverine Clan even as we
speak, over control of the lost world of Atlantis, only known source of the mystical
crystals of power!
PHANTOM: Hahaha! I love teasing the newbies!
SHADOW: Me too! Now! Onto the topic at hand: Anastasius Focht. According to
history books, he was the valiant leader of ComStar’s fearsome and elite—and today,
allegedly quite extinct—Com Guards which battled the Clans on Strana Mechty and
helped forge a new Star League to end the Clan threat for all time. Not enough nice
things could be said about the guy with a record like that, but is it the truth? Or is the
real story much, much more dark and twisted? In fact, today we question not only if
Focht was or was not a saint, but we also find ourselves asking: Is he even dead?
Gentlemen? Anastasius Focht, dead hero or living villain?
PHANTOM: Living villain! Definitely!
WRAITH: Villain? Yes. Living? I don’t know; he’d be well over 170 by now, if he’s
who some are claiming him to be. I vote “dead villain”.
SHADOW: Back it up, folks.
PHANTOM: Me first! Gents, I submit to you item one, the fact that Anastasius Focht
was, in fact, not born under that name. In fact, until he showed up in ComStar’s
ranks, literally bursting on the scene as head of the then-supposedly-pacifist Order’s
massive Star League-vintage military, nobody even had a record of this man’s
existence. Even some declassified records from the Clan invasion era hinted that the
Clanners didn’t believe him to be who he claimed, and enough folks since have dug
through the records to tell us his real identity was most likely that of Frederick
Steiner, a failed would-be Archon who was sent off to get himself killed in the Fourth
War.
WRAITH: Ah, tabiranth spit, Phantom! He was Anton Marik! Same song, different
state.
PHANTOM: What?
SHADOW: Wraith, you get the floor next. Let Phantom speak.
WRAITH: Very well. This should be good…
PHANTOM: Hrmph! Moving along, the case is simple. Frederick Steiner is captured
by Combine forces, who then make a deal with ComStar for Star League tech before
the FedCom war machine can try to finish them off in 3039. ComStar, always the
meddling force, sees an opportunity to take over the biggest of the Inner Sphere
powers, and—recognizing Steiner’s military brilliance and his ambitions—they arm
him to the teeth for the job. Of course, this eventually exposes the Com Guard to
everyone, but Steiner has by now assumed the identity of Anastasius Focht—a name
that roughly translates as “the warrior who will rise again”. Now, flash forward to the
Clan invasion. ComStar pulls out an elite army to defeat the Clans, an army they
intended to use against the FedCom when the time was right. But even in battle,
ComStar and Focht realize that the time has come to bring the Inner Sphere to its
knees….
WRAITH: I see where you’re going here, Phantom, and it meshes with my own
theory on all but the identity of the man. Focht, by now, is a major partner in
ComStar’s plans, which also allow for the possibility of failure. Operation Scorpion,
the communications interdiction of the entire Inner Sphere, is carried out in hopes that
chaos will shatter everyone, but when it doesn’t, Focht initiates a fall-back plan to
keep ComStar in the Sphere’s good graces while preserving the integrity of the Order,
choosing half its number to play the bad guys and establish a secondary power base
elsewhere…
SHADOW: Word of Blake?
WRAITH: Exactly…
PHANTOM: Right. With the Word serving as an obvious scapegoat for a failed
Scorpion, and his ComStar now seeming to be the heroes for defeating the Clans,
Focht spends the next several years building alliances in the Inner Sphere. He’s not
looking to conquer, any more, but to subvert nations to his will. Eventually, he
brokers the formation of the Star League, with the Com Guards as the core of its de
facto military force. Instantly, ComStar is at the heart of the new League, where it
can do what it does best: control the Inner Sphere from within.
WRAITH: Meanwhile, plans are gradually underway to reintegrate the “splinter
group” known as Word of Blake, by making them a member of the new Star League,
even while maintaining the image of hostilities between them. These plans are set to
reach fruition at the 3067 Whiting Conference, when--
PHANTOM: Bam!
SHADOW: So, the Jihad is actually the doing of Anastasius Focht?
WRAITH: Yes. Focht and his ComStar cronies made a critical mistake here. They
trusted the Inner Sphere leaders to maintain the Star League they had fought for
centuries to reclaim, using the ever-present Clan threat as an incentive from without
and the Word of Blake as an incentive from within. The leaders of the Inner Sphere
had too much free reign in the matter of choosing the next Star Lord and debating
Star League policies, based on the assumption that they would never give it up again.
When they voted to disband instead—
PHANTOM: It basically shattered decades of carefully laid plans. Once more denied
his moment of victory, and feeling his advanced age—remember that he’s already
well into his nineties by now—Focht needs to bring it all crashing down. He calls on
his faithful minions in the Word of Blake, slipped into key systems with ComStar
support, to strike at everyone even while his own operatives stage a much more
successful variant of Operation Scorpion, practice having made perfect.
SHADOW: But why did the Word and ComStar battle it out—often to the death—
throughout the Jihad, if it was all staged?
PHANTOM: Ah, because who was calling the shots for the Com Guard by then?
Victor Steiner-Davion, a cult of personality if ever there was one, and just the kind of
man to bring out the good and noble in everyone—or so the story goes. Victor’s
leadership basically weeds out the Com Guards who’d never have bought into Focht’s
plans anyway, and they wage a war of terror against each other. Those Com Guards
loyal to Focht still, and their “Blakist” partners in crime, appear to destroy one another
in nice, public battles, while the rest of their armies simply go to ground.
WRAITH: Once more, after it’s all over, ComStar emerges, lily white for having
played the martyred heroes against their evil brethren, and the Inner Sphere is turned
upside down. Enter Devlin Stone, a new variable to the equation, but one perhaps
allowed to do what he does as a unifying influence with a long-range vision that can
be incorporated into the great plan.
SHADOW: The great plan?
PHANTOM: The forced weakening of all Inner Sphere factions to a size manageable
by the surviving forces of Focht’s army. Focht goes into seclusion, faking his death
from old age, even though he now has access to Clan rejuvenetic treatments, and has
quietly rebuilt his army ever since—remember those unfound secret ComStar bases?
Can you say Ross 248, Luyten and others! —skimming from the profits of the
supposedly pacified ComStar, even as the Inner Sphere powers watch over their
HPGs. Immortal now, he can bide his time, waiting for the day when mankind is
lulled into a sense of false security, then strike again…
WRAITH: At this point, we diverge, I think, Brother Shadow. I still hold that Focht
was Anton Marik, who faked his death when the Wolf’s Dragoons came for him in
3016. I also think he’s quite dead, and that Stone could have stumbled upon this plan.
That would explain the tie-in with the Knights of the Sphere…
SHADOW: Aha! Still, you’re both suggesting, in either event, that the fall of the
communications grid now are part of the overall plan initiated by Anastasius Focht,
who actually led the Jihad?
PHANTOM: Well, yeah. Essentially that, Brother Shadow. Steiner or Focht, the
motivation for universal conquest is there, as is the support base and the deviousness
to carry it out. The Knights we talked about before, and they could easily be in league
with this conspiracy to bring mankind to his knees again. Why, even now, Focht’s
hidden legacy of troops could surface anew to finally conquer what could not be
conquered the last two times, as Operation Scorpion and the Jihad.
WRAITH: A masterful plan, on so many levels!
SHADOW: Indeed, but still unclear who’s really pulling the strings. Focht? Stone?
The Knights themselves? And is Focht really alive and luring in the shadows? Or has
he died, leaving a worthy successor, like Stone or Redburn, to carry on the work?
Where does it all end? These are topics for another time, dear truth-seekers, but rest
assured, the Hand of Starling will lift that veil of secrecy and expose the truth for all
to see!
INN - Interstellar News Network
SHADOW: Well met, Truth-seekers! Once again, the Hand of Starling returns to the
airwaves with the show the Republic doesn’t want you to see! I’m your host,
Shadow. With me as always are my faithful sidekicks and fellow illuminati, Phantom
and Wraith.
PHANTOM: Sidekicks?!
WRAITH: That’s just wrong!
SHADOW: Hahah! Welcome, gents. No offenses intended. Before we begin today’s
topic: “Anastasius Focht: Dead Hero or Living Villain?” our question of the week here
comes from a viewer using the on-line nick of Vesuvius. She (or he) says: “Shadow,
I totally love your Hand of Starling show--” Why, thanks, Vesuvius!
WRAITH: Hey! Why’re they only talking to you?
PHANTOM: Yeah! We do most of the talking on this bloody show!
SHADOW: Because I’m the host. Now be quiet, guys; it goes on. “However, I can’t
believe you haven’t yet delved into the really big question on everyone’s mind: Are the
governments of the Inner Sphere in general (and the Federated Suns in particular)
hiding evidence of intelligent aliens from the public? Are these aliens behind the HPG
crisis, a prelude to some kind of alien invasion of the Inner Sphere that our leaders
knew was coming all along?”
WRAITH: Ambitious guy, ain’t he?
SHADOW: Yeah. Well, Vesuvius, this, of course, was one of the first and biggest
stories that we ever broke here on Hand of Starling, but apparently the archives were
lost in a mysterious file deletion along the way, which we are still investigating. The
conclusion of our initial report was that there are, in fact, intelligent aliens, and they
are among us already. Some of them are large, with superhuman strength, while
others are small and quick, with superior eyesight, still others are both physically
stronger and faster than the average human, as a compromise between their larger and
smaller kin. Their culture is so bizarre that it has no direct analog to any other in
history. Of course, these folks are known as… ALL: The Clans!
SHADOW: Right. Now, come on, Vesuvius! Get a life! All of this is kid stuff.
Everyone knows the aliens are battling the remnants of the Wolverine Clan even as we
speak, over control of the lost world of Atlantis, only known source of the mystical
crystals of power!
PHANTOM: Hahaha! I love teasing the newbies!
SHADOW: Me too! Now! Onto the topic at hand: Anastasius Focht. According to
history books, he was the valiant leader of ComStar’s fearsome and elite—and today,
allegedly quite extinct—Com Guards which battled the Clans on Strana Mechty and
helped forge a new Star League to end the Clan threat for all time. Not enough nice
things could be said about the guy with a record like that, but is it the truth? Or is the
real story much, much more dark and twisted? In fact, today we question not only if
Focht was or was not a saint, but we also find ourselves asking: Is he even dead?
Gentlemen? Anastasius Focht, dead hero or living villain?
PHANTOM: Living villain! Definitely!
WRAITH: Villain? Yes. Living? I don’t know; he’d be well over 170 by now, if he’s
who some are claiming him to be. I vote “dead villain”.
SHADOW: Back it up, folks.
PHANTOM: Me first! Gents, I submit to you item one, the fact that Anastasius Focht
was, in fact, not born under that name. In fact, until he showed up in ComStar’s
ranks, literally bursting on the scene as head of the then-supposedly-pacifist Order’s
massive Star League-vintage military, nobody even had a record of this man’s
existence. Even some declassified records from the Clan invasion era hinted that the
Clanners didn’t believe him to be who he claimed, and enough folks since have dug
through the records to tell us his real identity was most likely that of Frederick
Steiner, a failed would-be Archon who was sent off to get himself killed in the Fourth
War.
WRAITH: Ah, tabiranth spit, Phantom! He was Anton Marik! Same song, different
state.
PHANTOM: What?
SHADOW: Wraith, you get the floor next. Let Phantom speak.
WRAITH: Very well. This should be good…
PHANTOM: Hrmph! Moving along, the case is simple. Frederick Steiner is captured
by Combine forces, who then make a deal with ComStar for Star League tech before
the FedCom war machine can try to finish them off in 3039. ComStar, always the
meddling force, sees an opportunity to take over the biggest of the Inner Sphere
powers, and—recognizing Steiner’s military brilliance and his ambitions—they arm
him to the teeth for the job. Of course, this eventually exposes the Com Guard to
everyone, but Steiner has by now assumed the identity of Anastasius Focht—a name
that roughly translates as “the warrior who will rise again”. Now, flash forward to the
Clan invasion. ComStar pulls out an elite army to defeat the Clans, an army they
intended to use against the FedCom when the time was right. But even in battle,
ComStar and Focht realize that the time has come to bring the Inner Sphere to its
knees….
WRAITH: I see where you’re going here, Phantom, and it meshes with my own
theory on all but the identity of the man. Focht, by now, is a major partner in
ComStar’s plans, which also allow for the possibility of failure. Operation Scorpion,
the communications interdiction of the entire Inner Sphere, is carried out in hopes that
chaos will shatter everyone, but when it doesn’t, Focht initiates a fall-back plan to
keep ComStar in the Sphere’s good graces while preserving the integrity of the Order,
choosing half its number to play the bad guys and establish a secondary power base
elsewhere…
SHADOW: Word of Blake?
WRAITH: Exactly…
PHANTOM: Right. With the Word serving as an obvious scapegoat for a failed
Scorpion, and his ComStar now seeming to be the heroes for defeating the Clans,
Focht spends the next several years building alliances in the Inner Sphere. He’s not
looking to conquer, any more, but to subvert nations to his will. Eventually, he
brokers the formation of the Star League, with the Com Guards as the core of its de
facto military force. Instantly, ComStar is at the heart of the new League, where it
can do what it does best: control the Inner Sphere from within.
WRAITH: Meanwhile, plans are gradually underway to reintegrate the “splinter
group” known as Word of Blake, by making them a member of the new Star League,
even while maintaining the image of hostilities between them. These plans are set to
reach fruition at the 3067 Whiting Conference, when--
PHANTOM: Bam!
SHADOW: So, the Jihad is actually the doing of Anastasius Focht?
WRAITH: Yes. Focht and his ComStar cronies made a critical mistake here. They
trusted the Inner Sphere leaders to maintain the Star League they had fought for
centuries to reclaim, using the ever-present Clan threat as an incentive from without
and the Word of Blake as an incentive from within. The leaders of the Inner Sphere
had too much free reign in the matter of choosing the next Star Lord and debating
Star League policies, based on the assumption that they would never give it up again.
When they voted to disband instead—
PHANTOM: It basically shattered decades of carefully laid plans. Once more denied
his moment of victory, and feeling his advanced age—remember that he’s already
well into his nineties by now—Focht needs to bring it all crashing down. He calls on
his faithful minions in the Word of Blake, slipped into key systems with ComStar
support, to strike at everyone even while his own operatives stage a much more
successful variant of Operation Scorpion, practice having made perfect.
SHADOW: But why did the Word and ComStar battle it out—often to the death—
throughout the Jihad, if it was all staged?
PHANTOM: Ah, because who was calling the shots for the Com Guard by then?
Victor Steiner-Davion, a cult of personality if ever there was one, and just the kind of
man to bring out the good and noble in everyone—or so the story goes. Victor’s
leadership basically weeds out the Com Guards who’d never have bought into Focht’s
plans anyway, and they wage a war of terror against each other. Those Com Guards
loyal to Focht still, and their “Blakist” partners in crime, appear to destroy one another
in nice, public battles, while the rest of their armies simply go to ground.
WRAITH: Once more, after it’s all over, ComStar emerges, lily white for having
played the martyred heroes against their evil brethren, and the Inner Sphere is turned
upside down. Enter Devlin Stone, a new variable to the equation, but one perhaps
allowed to do what he does as a unifying influence with a long-range vision that can
be incorporated into the great plan.
SHADOW: The great plan?
PHANTOM: The forced weakening of all Inner Sphere factions to a size manageable
by the surviving forces of Focht’s army. Focht goes into seclusion, faking his death
from old age, even though he now has access to Clan rejuvenetic treatments, and has
quietly rebuilt his army ever since—remember those unfound secret ComStar bases?
Can you say Ross 248, Luyten and others! —skimming from the profits of the
supposedly pacified ComStar, even as the Inner Sphere powers watch over their
HPGs. Immortal now, he can bide his time, waiting for the day when mankind is
lulled into a sense of false security, then strike again…
WRAITH: At this point, we diverge, I think, Brother Shadow. I still hold that Focht
was Anton Marik, who faked his death when the Wolf’s Dragoons came for him in
3016. I also think he’s quite dead, and that Stone could have stumbled upon this plan.
That would explain the tie-in with the Knights of the Sphere…
SHADOW: Aha! Still, you’re both suggesting, in either event, that the fall of the
communications grid now are part of the overall plan initiated by Anastasius Focht,
who actually led the Jihad?
PHANTOM: Well, yeah. Essentially that, Brother Shadow. Steiner or Focht, the
motivation for universal conquest is there, as is the support base and the deviousness
to carry it out. The Knights we talked about before, and they could easily be in league
with this conspiracy to bring mankind to his knees again. Why, even now, Focht’s
hidden legacy of troops could surface anew to finally conquer what could not be
conquered the last two times, as Operation Scorpion and the Jihad.
WRAITH: A masterful plan, on so many levels!
SHADOW: Indeed, but still unclear who’s really pulling the strings. Focht? Stone?
The Knights themselves? And is Focht really alive and luring in the shadows? Or has
he died, leaving a worthy successor, like Stone or Redburn, to carry on the work?
Where does it all end? These are topics for another time, dear truth-seekers, but rest
assured, the Hand of Starling will lift that veil of secrecy and expose the truth for all
to see!
| February 17, 3134 |
