Part 138: State of the Clans 3032
Since someone asked for a Successor State Analysis, but I've got nothing else to say about them, I instead present you with my notes on the Clans and their current motives:State of the Clans (Alternate Universe, 3032)
Clan Blood Spirit
Motives: remain calm, defend the status quo
The Blood Spirit’s active touman consists of nothing but bloodnamed warriors. Although they keep their eugenics program active, replacements are selected directly from sibkos and anyone not selected for a bloodname is relegated to another caste. The Blood Spirits are isolationists, who believe that Kerensky’s will was to keep the SLDF out of any wasteful wars. They also serve as the overall lorekeepers for the Clans as a whole. They’re considered sacrosanct by the other clans, and move between them to mediate disputes. They have no holdings, and rely entirely on their role as mediators. Clan law actively forbids attacking them. Their ‘homeworld’ is a Leviathan-class warship. Their votes in the Grand Council are meaningless and often ignored.
Clan Burrock
Motives: Rival the Sea Foxes economically, remain ever loyal to the Kerenskys
A quiet if staunchly Crusader clan, the Burrocks regularly find themselves at the mercy of Clan Sea Fox. Due to their role in Operation: Klondike, they consider themselves the bodyguards of the Kerensky bloodline. They quietly wish to make up for their failure to protect Nicholas Kerensky and the Wolf Clan from Widowmaker treachery. They also have an unusual dichotomy, as they attempt to fill the trading void left by a more militant Clan Sea Fox.
Clan Cloud Cobra
Motives: Prepare. For what, they don’t know, but it doesn’t involve a triumphant return to the Inner Sphere.
Extremely religious, Clan Cloud Cobra views combat as a way to strengthen their spiritual bonds. They believe that Kerensky was preparing the Clans for battles in the ‘next world,’ rather than this one. They quietly suspect that they were lead out into the great dark to die. They’re theoretically Crusaders, but it’s possible the Steel Vipers pressured them into voting.
Clan Coyote
Motive: We love ‘Mechs! Wee!
Clan Coyote could’ve been a real powerhouse in Clan politics, if they cared to be. The problem is, they really don’t. More prone to entering into combats they’d find ‘enjoyable’ rather than for the sake of ‘things they want,’ the Coyotes are seen as erratic by the other Clans. Their training is especially rigorous, but intended to bring ‘lesser’ warriors up to speed rather than weeding them out. Their Touman is reasonably extensive, and they make fair use of tanks and other ‘Dezegra’ machines.
Clan Sea Fox
Motive: Make money, make life interesting for everyone, be friends with the Ghost Bears and Snow Ravens.
Staunch allies of the Ghost Bears and Snow Ravens, the three form a political power block that only Clan Widowmaker can rival. Part of the Holy Trinity of clans, they’re less angry about not winning a place in the invasion than the Ghost Bears and Snow Ravens. The three Clans are so close their territory and many of their resources are shared, and their Toumans often engage in battle in tandem.
Clan Fire Mandrill
Motives:
The Fire Mandrills are just as fractured and ineffective as ever.
Clan Ghost Bear
Motives: Don’t fuck with us or we’ll fuck you up, protect our family.
Clan Ghost Bear is extremely supportive of its allies, the Snow Ravens and Sea Foxes. They consider the other Clans to be Family (a word that is anathema to most Clans). They hold no real stigma for freeborns, although they don’t often allow them to serve in the military. They believe that Trueborns exist to protect Freeborns and their way of life, and allow their Freeborn populations by far the most autonomy of any Clan.
Clan Goliath Scorpion
Motives: Protect the Inner Sphere
The only other Isolationist Clan, the Goliath Scorpions believe they are the last true vestiges of the Star League Defense Force. Willing to employ nearly any tactic to secure a victory, they’re feared and often despised by the other Clans (who no longer understand what motivates the Goliath Scorpions). Not satisfied with restoring the past, they would have been the first to advocate for a return to the Inner Sphere had the Steel Vipers’ plan been chosen. Instead, they fight tooth and nail with the Widowmakers, and have launched numerous attacks against Widowmaker garrison forces in the occupation zones in an effort to slow down the Widowmaker invasion.
Clan Hell's Horses
Motives: Win. Protect and educate captured populations to improve their standard of living.
Like canon, the Hell’s Horses have an affinity towards tanks and normal infantry. Quietly appalled by the living conditions they’ve found in the Inner Sphere, the Hell’s Horses have called for a wave of scientists, doctors, and laborers from their home territories to establish schools on every world under their control. Although they do seek sovereignty over territory they’ve taken, they’re actually surprisingly lenient on populations who have never known the joy of being Clan.
Clan Ice Hellion
Motives: Movefastmovefastmovefast
The Ice Hellions, ever thrilled by the rush of fast movement and combat, are the most openly aggressive of the Clans. Always teetering on the brink of self-annihilation, the other Clans quietly wonder if absorbing or annihilating the Ice Hellions will be necessary. Prone to ‘recreational’ drug use, the Ice Hellions are pioneering neural-implants as well as in-combat pharmacologicals to give their warriors an even greater edge in combat. They trade heavily with the Steel Vipers, Goliath Scorpions, Nova Cats, and Widowmakers for the substances they require for their new combat stimulants.
Clan Jade Falcon
Motives: RESPECT US, FOR WE ARE AWESOME!
One of the loudest advocates for the invasion of the Inner Sphere, the Jade Falcons are an oft-frustrated Clan. Disliked by nearly everyone, and strong enough that it doesn’t matter, they have a fierce rivalry with the Steel Vipers, but their constant agitation annoys the other Clans immensely. They also consider themselves the ‘victims’ of Clan Blood Spirit, since their frequent conflicts often require mediation.
Clan Mongoose
Motives: Survive
Decimated by conflicts not long after the formation of the Clans, the Fighting Mongooses hidden shame is that they very nearly employed a nuclear attack against Clan Wolverine’s genetic repository. Vindicated by later Wolverine treachery, their quiet support of Clan Widowmaker has enabled the Mongooses to survive many crises which likely should have meant their end. Their loyalty to the Widowmakers is fierce, but not endless, and they fear they may become a target with so much of Widowmaker’s touman away from the homeworlds.
Clan Nova Cat
Motives: Learn the future, Troll the Smoke Jaguars.
Space hippies and mystics prone to 'vision quests,' the Nova Cats are obsessed with the past and the future and spare very little time on the present. Another extremely religious clan, they spend most of the time they're not drugged up or fasting Trolling the Smoke Jaguars because to the Nova Cats, the only joke bigger than a Smoke Jaguar is an enraged Smoke Jaguar.
Clan Smoke Jaguar
Motives: Be assholes to pretty much everyone, hate anything that isn’t another Smoke Jaguar warrior.
Still space assholes.
Clan Snow Raven
Motives: Control all of space with our big-ass navy! Also, fly around WEE!
Controlling the only Naval shipyard in Clan space, the Snow Ravens are quietly feared by many other Clans. Fortunately, their aggressive, combative nature appears to be softened by their alliance with the Ghost Bears and the humility they gained after their attempt to drive all of Clan Sea Fox’s totem animal to extinction with the introduction of the genetically-engineered Diamond Shark backfired horribly. Originally fearing the Sea Foxes would call for their annihilation, they were instead surprised with an Alliance. Presently, all three Clans are nearly inseparable and, the other Clans fear, likely unstoppable.
Clan Star Adder
Motives: DO SCIENCE AT IT!
With their scientist caste elevated to near Warrior-levels of respect, the Star Adders believe strongly in science; and would like to assure you that they have found precisely no traces of alien ghosts in Tom Cruise’s blood.
Clan Steel Viper
Motives: Fuck the Star League, let’s bring about peace through negotiation and assistance.
Steel Viper training is oft considered the most brutal of any of the Clans (barring the Blood Spirits), and they have a strong anti-freeborn bias. They seek to create the absolute best humanity has to offer, both genetically and intellectually. While many would expect the Steel Vipers to hope for the annihilation of the Inner Sphere, their initial plan for Return called instead for the Clans to work with the Great Houses and offer them advanced technologies and knowledge in exchange for forging an extended peace with their neighbors. Although their goals are naïve, their intentions are genuine. They wish to lead the Inner Sphere to peace precisely because the Kerenskys call for its destruction.
Clan Widowmaker
Motives: Become IlClan, restore the Star League, dissolve the Clans and reform the Star League Defense Force. Alternatively, break the Clans.
Strong opponents of the creation of the Clans, the Widowmakers remain a power largely because they are the only bearers of the Kerensky bloodname. Leveraging every ounce of political clout they can, their leader Natasha Kerensky is as earnest as she is unscrupulous. Quietly frustrated and fed-up with a way of life that denies her the company of the man she loves, she’d rather doom the Clans to eventual annihilation than allow the status quo to continue. Kerensky’s decision to limit the invasion to only four Clans, rather than simply allowing all the Clans to sweep the great houses from the Inner Sphere in a storm of steel and fire may be her final contingency: if the Widowmakers fail to win, then the others will be brought down with them.
Clan Wolf
Asshats. Absorbed by Clan Widowmaker
Clan Wolverine
Annihilated by Clan Wolf