Touring the Stars with Bertram Habeas
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 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.
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.
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.
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 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.