We began on Terra, millions of years ago. Today, mankind stretches out among the
stars of the Milky Way, touching thousands of worlds, as far from our home as Clan
space, more than 2,000 light-years distant. Yet who are we, really? What have we
become in our relentless push outward and onward? I’m Bertram Habeas, and tonight,
let’s find the answers to these and many other fascinating questions together, as we
tour the stars!
Volume L: Mystic Technocracy—The Ways of ComStar
Today, many peoples throughout the Inner Sphere look upon ComStar as an enigmatic
order, a peculiar mix of high technology and quasi-religious spiritualism. Their
organization is the curious mix one might expect if a profit-conscious corporation and
a silent and secretive brotherhood of monks ever joined forces. The evolution of this
mystical technocracy has had its extremes, of course, as anyone who remembers or
knows the history of the Jihad could tell you. But while the extreme ways and
philosophies of the Word of Blake may have soured the image of ComStar for
contemporary and future generations, their origin and the development remain evident
in the order even today.
Various theories have sprung up in the centuries since Conrad Toyama, ComStar’s
second—and final—Prime Administrator—took office. Some claim he hastened the
demise of his beloved master soon after the aging founder of the order began to
succumb to illness and age, seeking only to seize power for himself. Others say he did
indeed receive an epiphany when he visited Jerome Blake on his deathbed in 2819.
Regardless, few stood in his way when he ascended to the head of the First Circuit.
Soon afterward, based on his own fanatic interpretations of Blake’s journals—and,
some say, after a short-lived rebellion and subsequent purge made possible by ROM
agents throughout the organization—Toyama instituted sweeping changes in ComStar’
s style and focus. Almost overnight, the First Circuit became the pinnacle of the
ComStar Order, the Prime Administrator became known as the Primus, and planetary
administrators became known as Precentors. Support staff for the Precentors
consisted of Demi-Precentors, while technicians became known as adepts, and
trainees became acolytes. ROM, the corporate security force, became all-pervading,
its new mandate now included that it ensure total obedience to the dictates of the First
Circuit and the Word of Blake. Membership in the Order became a lifelong
commitment rather than a mere job, to ensure that none of the precious secrets and
technology ComStar protected, developed, and maintained could fall into the hands of
outsiders.
To justify these changes, Toyama made the Word of Blake required reading for all
levels of the Order. These reprints of Blake’s journals now included annotations by
Toyama himself, interpreting what he—and others—saw as divine inspirations,
prophecy, and a holy mission for ComStar. By the end of Toyama’s reign, the
transformation’s effects were unquestionable. ComStar was as the monasteries of
Terra’s European Dark Age, a secret and ostensibly neutral order of chosen men and
women charged with the sacred task of preserving knowledge for the day when
mankind would again awaken from its folly and welcome the Order as its proper
saviors.
Indeed, many of Jerome Blake’s “prophecies” did come to pass as the Succession
Wars dragged on. Ignoring the Ares Conventions, the House leaders assaulted worlds
using biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons en masse, destroying factories, cities,
and entire planets if they could not capture and hold them. WarShips and JumpShips,
critical to transporting men and supplies to a battle zone, became favored targets, with
the former dwindling to extinction in the first two conflicts, and the latter so depleted
that the ability to even make war—let alone maintain any semblance of commerce and
trade—became threatened after a time.
Through all this, ComStar maintained its control over the knowledge and technology
of the fallen Star League, enshrouding its command over the advanced interstellar
communications grid with rituals as bizarre as chanting an incantation before working
a transmitter, or praising Blake for every successful jump of its spacecraft. To
outsiders, after generations of war and the general decay of civilization on hundreds of
worlds, the adepts and precentors of ComStar seemed less and less like a cult and
more like real-life magicians as time went on. Many joined the ranks of ComStar to
receive the benefits of its enlightenment.
To further emulate the religious aesthetics supposedly called for by the Word of Blake,
the members of ComStar took to wearing robes, and their members often shunned
direct contact with the peoples of the worlds outside their stations. The hyperpulse
generator compound became a modern monastery; its technicians and administrators
became its monks and abbots. To be one of ComStar’s enlightened required one to
surrender all material wealth and titles, but that did not stop many House scions and
minor nobles from joining the Order.
When threatened by outside forces, either politically, financially, or militarily, ComStar
could even use its control over communications as a powerful tool, threatening—and
in some cases, executing—a complete shutdown of interstellar transmissions. Such
“interdictions” would affect the offending realm until ComStar’s demands for
compensation or repentance were met, carrying more political power even than
excommunication had during the Dark Ages of Terra’s European continent. They also
served as an ideal means of maintaining the Order’s sanctity without resorting to its
long-hidden and vast supply of Star League–era war machines.
But while ComStar’s self-imposed mysticism did help preserve its secrets and the
integrity of the Order, it also served as a breeding ground for some of the worst
crimes in human history. Indeed, many historians today claim that the roots of most
of the Succession Wars and the decline of technology can be traced to the
machinations of ambitious ComStar Primuses, acts that perhaps even foreshadowed
the inevitability of the Word of Blake and its holy war against mankind.
In our third installment on ComStar, we will look at the greatest and darkest moments
of ComStar’s history. The Clan Invasion and the Jihad are our focus for next week’s
Tour. Won’t you join us? I’m Bertram Habeas..
stars of the Milky Way, touching thousands of worlds, as far from our home as Clan
space, more than 2,000 light-years distant. Yet who are we, really? What have we
become in our relentless push outward and onward? I’m Bertram Habeas, and tonight,
let’s find the answers to these and many other fascinating questions together, as we
tour the stars!
Volume L: Mystic Technocracy—The Ways of ComStar
Today, many peoples throughout the Inner Sphere look upon ComStar as an enigmatic
order, a peculiar mix of high technology and quasi-religious spiritualism. Their
organization is the curious mix one might expect if a profit-conscious corporation and
a silent and secretive brotherhood of monks ever joined forces. The evolution of this
mystical technocracy has had its extremes, of course, as anyone who remembers or
knows the history of the Jihad could tell you. But while the extreme ways and
philosophies of the Word of Blake may have soured the image of ComStar for
contemporary and future generations, their origin and the development remain evident
in the order even today.
- Though many have claimed that Jerome Blake was a mystic, the fact remains
that it was not until the reign of Conrad Toyama, his greatest devotee and chief
administrator of the Dieron HPG station, that the organization would become
the quasi-religious power itnow is. In fact, until Toyama, ComStar maintained a
very corporate hierarchy, headed by a CEO (Prime Administrator), who held
the strongest position over a board of directors (the First Circuit
administrators), and which issued letters of credit, maintained its own
corporate security force (known as ROM), dedicated to securing the
organization’s neutrality against outside interference.
In Conrad Toyama, Blake found his most fanatical believer, a man willing to do
anything to achieve what he saw as the ultimate goals of ComStar, as Blake
allegedly foresaw them. Prior to Blake’s death, the charismatic and ever-loyal
Toyama was a wellspring of support, who is even credited with coining the
order’s name from the names of the companies once employed to support the
Star League’s department of communications. His beliefs bordering on
fanaticism, Toyama would turn to Blake’s journals after the death of ComStar’
s founder, and it was from these that he founded the order’s quasi-religion, the
“Word of Blake.”
—Vladimir Toolippi, Enlightening the Dark Age: A ComStar History, New
Avalon Press, 3125
Various theories have sprung up in the centuries since Conrad Toyama, ComStar’s
second—and final—Prime Administrator—took office. Some claim he hastened the
demise of his beloved master soon after the aging founder of the order began to
succumb to illness and age, seeking only to seize power for himself. Others say he did
indeed receive an epiphany when he visited Jerome Blake on his deathbed in 2819.
Regardless, few stood in his way when he ascended to the head of the First Circuit.
Soon afterward, based on his own fanatic interpretations of Blake’s journals—and,
some say, after a short-lived rebellion and subsequent purge made possible by ROM
agents throughout the organization—Toyama instituted sweeping changes in ComStar’
s style and focus. Almost overnight, the First Circuit became the pinnacle of the
ComStar Order, the Prime Administrator became known as the Primus, and planetary
administrators became known as Precentors. Support staff for the Precentors
consisted of Demi-Precentors, while technicians became known as adepts, and
trainees became acolytes. ROM, the corporate security force, became all-pervading,
its new mandate now included that it ensure total obedience to the dictates of the First
Circuit and the Word of Blake. Membership in the Order became a lifelong
commitment rather than a mere job, to ensure that none of the precious secrets and
technology ComStar protected, developed, and maintained could fall into the hands of
outsiders.
To justify these changes, Toyama made the Word of Blake required reading for all
levels of the Order. These reprints of Blake’s journals now included annotations by
Toyama himself, interpreting what he—and others—saw as divine inspirations,
prophecy, and a holy mission for ComStar. By the end of Toyama’s reign, the
transformation’s effects were unquestionable. ComStar was as the monasteries of
Terra’s European Dark Age, a secret and ostensibly neutral order of chosen men and
women charged with the sacred task of preserving knowledge for the day when
mankind would again awaken from its folly and welcome the Order as its proper
saviors.
- . . . Once the Great Houses have beaten themselves senseless and bloody, we
can emerge, offering a new chance to recover what they have tried to hard to
destroy.
All that saved mankind during its last so-called Dark Age were the churches
and religions. These were havens for humanity’s learning and they stood alone
as beacons in the darkness and foulness that humankind had become. . . . If
ComStar is to survive into the future, it must look to these religions as a
blueprint for surviving the wars that are unfolding around us. [Salvation 4:18–
24]
(In this one passage, Blake has laid the foundation for the mission of ComStar,
to thrive and relight the lamp of civilization for mankind. Blake also foresees
that by creating an oligarchy as the basis for ComStar, the organization’s
survival is guaranteed during the war of succession that the House Lords
currently wage. Only by patterning ourselves after those religions that survived
in the past will ComStar live on to the future.)
—From The Word of Blake, First Edition, ComStar Press, 2820 (Original
remarks from Blake’s journals. Parenthetical remarks were interpretations and
explanations added by Conrad Toyama)
Indeed, many of Jerome Blake’s “prophecies” did come to pass as the Succession
Wars dragged on. Ignoring the Ares Conventions, the House leaders assaulted worlds
using biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons en masse, destroying factories, cities,
and entire planets if they could not capture and hold them. WarShips and JumpShips,
critical to transporting men and supplies to a battle zone, became favored targets, with
the former dwindling to extinction in the first two conflicts, and the latter so depleted
that the ability to even make war—let alone maintain any semblance of commerce and
trade—became threatened after a time.
Through all this, ComStar maintained its control over the knowledge and technology
of the fallen Star League, enshrouding its command over the advanced interstellar
communications grid with rituals as bizarre as chanting an incantation before working
a transmitter, or praising Blake for every successful jump of its spacecraft. To
outsiders, after generations of war and the general decay of civilization on hundreds of
worlds, the adepts and precentors of ComStar seemed less and less like a cult and
more like real-life magicians as time went on. Many joined the ranks of ComStar to
receive the benefits of its enlightenment.
To further emulate the religious aesthetics supposedly called for by the Word of Blake,
the members of ComStar took to wearing robes, and their members often shunned
direct contact with the peoples of the worlds outside their stations. The hyperpulse
generator compound became a modern monastery; its technicians and administrators
became its monks and abbots. To be one of ComStar’s enlightened required one to
surrender all material wealth and titles, but that did not stop many House scions and
minor nobles from joining the Order.
When threatened by outside forces, either politically, financially, or militarily, ComStar
could even use its control over communications as a powerful tool, threatening—and
in some cases, executing—a complete shutdown of interstellar transmissions. Such
“interdictions” would affect the offending realm until ComStar’s demands for
compensation or repentance were met, carrying more political power even than
excommunication had during the Dark Ages of Terra’s European continent. They also
served as an ideal means of maintaining the Order’s sanctity without resorting to its
long-hidden and vast supply of Star League–era war machines.
But while ComStar’s self-imposed mysticism did help preserve its secrets and the
integrity of the Order, it also served as a breeding ground for some of the worst
crimes in human history. Indeed, many historians today claim that the roots of most
of the Succession Wars and the decline of technology can be traced to the
machinations of ambitious ComStar Primuses, acts that perhaps even foreshadowed
the inevitability of the Word of Blake and its holy war against mankind.
- “The peace of Blake be with you.”
For centuries, these words accompanied nearly every utterance of the acolytes
and adepts of ComStar (and its Word of Blake splinter group). Even during the
Jihad, both sides would intone this phrase as if in response to centuries of
conditioning. These same words also hinted at ComStar’s underlying
philosophy, and the man the Order has revered among all others as its founder
and greatest teacher. Jerome Blake saw a glimmer of hope among his followers
that humanity would one day benefit from ComStar’s efforts to preserve the
lines of communication and maintain the knowledge they seemed fit to destroy
in centuries of pointless warfare. This was the “peace of Blake” of which
ComStar often spoke.
Unfortunately, Blake’s followers, over the centuries, began to corrupt that
same vision, building a religion around the basic principle of preserving
knowledge. As successive Primuses saw, in the Inner Sphere, the ultimate
prospect of control according to their interpretation of Blake’s wisdom, some
believed in helping the collapse of civilization along a little. In the end, is it any
wonder that the most fanatical and reactionary among these children of “Blake’
s Word” launched the greatest and most vicious war mankind has ever known?
Sadly, today, the phrase “the peace of Blake be with you” has become yet
another casualty of that terrible era, when the interpretations of fanatics
transformed it into a curse spoken just before the pulling of a trigger or the
detonation of a nuclear weapon. You’ll not catch a ComStar adept or acolyte
uttering the phrase today, as the hateful glares of those who remember only the
worst in mankind have burned it away, proving that people can miss the
message.
—Rene Alosano, Broken Promises: The Legacy of the Jihad, Republic Press,
3127
In our third installment on ComStar, we will look at the greatest and darkest moments
of ComStar’s history. The Clan Invasion and the Jihad are our focus for next week’s
Tour. Won’t you join us? I’m Bertram Habeas..
Touring the Stars with Bertram Habeas
