Prolog

I wrote this fan story years ago, posting it in the Battletech forum. Work, family and a very serious illness hindered me from completting it. I want to complete it if time allows. I am in the process of reworking what is already written and so I post it here for you to read. Have fun!

This story is an alternate Battletech Universe, diverging from canon in the year 3020. I started it because I became fed up with the main storyline since the FedCom Civil War. Not to speak of such „heights" like Jihad or the Dark Age, where the official authors let the idiot ball go on a merry go around.

This AU goes back to the Third Succession War, starting directly after Katrina Steiner´s Peace Initiative. In canon, only Hanse Davion reacted positively to the Archon´s try for a cease fire and more. What happens when somebody else comes „to the party" too?

A look back in time

Waldorff-Recharge Station, Waldorff-System

Trellshire Military Prefecture

Lyran Commonwealth

14. April 3145

"Welcome back to Talk on Waldorff-Station. For our new viewers after the advertisement break, I am Saul Pickwick, moderator of our twice-a-week show and like every sunday evening, our guests are the 'Literary Trio', reviewing a couple of new books, hopefully getting your appetite for more reading stuff wet.

Tonight we review the newest book by the 'Wizlyst Pen Studio', called "A Bonfire of Worlds". It is the latest book in a series, among titles like 'Riposte', 'Warrior Caste' or 'Heir to the Dragon', to name a few. This series describes an alternate version of the Inner Sphere, Periphery and Clan Space. It is controversial in it´s depiction of the universe and so I am proud to introduce retired court historian Marius Auburn as our history expert today."

"Thank you, Saul! This book series makes a couple of things really right and a couple of things really wrong. To show our viewers what is plausible alternate history and what is unneeded dramatisation, let us look back where the Wizlyst book series and history branch off."

Imperial Palace, Luthien

Draconis Combine, Kagoshima Prefecture

9. March 3020

Evening was falling over Imperial City, the "Black Pearl" of the Combine. The last sunlight becoming dimmer by the minute. But in his office Coordinator Takashi Kurita spared just a short look at the beautiful sundown, he would still be working for some hours. He might be the absolute ruler of the Successor State, but unlike his inept father, whose rule had hurt the nation, he saw himself as the first samurai of the Combine and had the duty to work hard for the betterment of the realm.

In the morning a diplomatic note had reached his desk, a cease-fire and peace proposal from the Lyran Commonwealth. None of his aides had heard his internal snort of amusement when he read it. But Takashi knew they would joke about the note between them as well.

Lyrans! They where merchants to their core, not Samurais. Soft and weak, their pillar of Steel more a pillar of rust! Granted, they could be stubborn and still stood against the Dragon, the rightful first Lord of the Star League, but it must be the motherly instinct of the Archon, why they tried for a peace or cease-fire at least. The Lyrans were not made for such a test of honour and mettle as the Succession Wars were.

He and his inner Circle had dismissed the note directly, but he still had it laying on his desk, for some amusement during a pause.

The rest of the day had been less fun, a sheer endless stream of reports, requests, proposals... he was a Samurai, not a desk warrior, but it was a duty to be done, no matter his feelings. Some reports were about his son Theodore, who still rebelled against his position as heir of the Dragon. Takashi was a hard father to equalise the lavish love his wife Jasmine poured on their only child, to make him hard enough for the position as future Coordinator, but he loved his son dearly. So while on the outside unmoved, internally the Coordinator felt unease about some younger messages. The ISA agents watching Theodore reported that he was sadder than they had ever seen him in years, but no matter how thorough they searched, the reason for this sadness evaded them.

For a moment Takashi thought about collectively exchanging these useless fops, but he calmed himself. They had been handpicked from among the best ISA Agents, if they could not find out, others would not be better at it.

So what could make his son this sad, especially since his petitions and proposals for reforms of the Combine had come at even greater frequency these last months? The Coordinator was sipping from a cup of tea, he had been thinking about Theodore for two hours, when it hit him. Heartache over the end of a romance! Could it be? All hints were there. Takashi had been a young man himself once and while he had known he had to marry useful for the dynasty, he had had some romances and all that came with them.

Takashi was a bit proud of his son. Carrying on a secret romance under the eyes of an unknowing ISA, was an accomplishment. Theodore had surprised his father with that. Takashi was sorry for his son, but pleased that this dalliance was obviously over. And as hard as it sounded, some of Theodore's reform proposals in the last time were really well thought through, his sadness seemed to hone these works. Some were far too radical for Takashi´s taste, but some had real merit.

The Coordinator would never be caught saying it, but even he himself had seen the need for several reforms. And what his son up to now did not know, was that Takashi himself had already made some small, unobvious reforms.

"I have to reign Theodore in, so he does not go overboard with his ideas, but we might reconcile over this reforms. Who would have thought that?"

Making a memo on his compad, to have a long talk with his son as soon as possible, Takashi then went back to the other reports waiting. He was making overtime, even his aides Takashi had already sent home.

It was close to 2 a.m. on Luthien, when the Coordinator laid the last report on the desk. Some of them had been forecasts on several topics. Unfortunately grim forecasts in some vital areas like the economy. The Draconis Combine was strong -still-, but if these forecasts could be trusted, it would not remain so. The economy in special was in dire jeopardy, if the current level of warfare would go on for more years.

Nearly all reports in the last 3 hours had been rather grim in outlook, never in all the years as Coordinator Takashi could remember such a string of bad news in one day. For the first time he got the feeling that some reports and forecasts were filtered before reaching his office. Only that he had to get some things by himself, since he was the only one still in this part of the palace, had given him input from sources he would normally never know about.

Takashi felt anger rising in him. He knew why some parts of the Combine bureaucracy preferred to bring mostly good news, it was a political and cultural thing, but in the end the Coordinator should know the real state of the Combine.

With the Federated Suns getting more cocky in the last years, like at Halstead Station or on Galtor, testing the defences of the Combine, correct information was vital. Takashi tried to "unthink" the sentence which had shot through his brain. "Maybe Theodore is right in pressing for more far reaching reforms."

Nonsense. The Draconis Combine was the nation which should lead the Inner Sphere and the small mistakes in it could be corrected. But seeing the paperwork before him, Takashi could not shake the feeling that his son might be right in principle, if not the size of the potential reforms.

He was a warrior, no economist, but he knew enough about it to know that such a predicted downslide was not the product of bad luck and happenstance. Many things had to be gone wrong for something like this. If the predictions were halfway right, the Combine might fall not through superior enemies, but from rot internally.

How could he stop this horror scenario? For a second time this evening, he frantically tried to scratch a thought he had, after seeing the verified compad with it's armoured Gauntlet seal, lying on the far end of his desk. "No...no, not this! I'm tired, yes, too tired to think clearly."

Despite his being rebelling against the action he was making, Takashi´s mind prevailed. He once again took the compad he had put down with a chuckle in the morning and went over it´s content. He hated what he was doing, but "I´m not my father. My feelings have to retreat in the face of duty to the Draconis Combine.", he thought to calm himself.

Reading it, Takashi after some time got the gist of it. It was even a shrewd proposal by Archon Katrina Steiner. Practically a cease-fire on lyran terms. It raised the draft a small notch in his mind. A leader has to look out for his or her realm. While the warrior in him was upset, the politician in Takashi ruled for the moment. The Lyrans were masters when it came to the Pillar of Jade, exactly what the Combine needed the most...

Another thing was that this proposal would surely been seen by the Suns to be a possibility to put more pressure on the Combine, if ratified. From what he knew, Marik and Liao had already made inacceptable demands for a ratification, so this proposal was dead in these cases, but Davion, the Fox, had made a tame rebuttal. Subash had already informed him, that the ISA believed that a secret envoy was made ready for a trip to Tharkad. Davion knew what positives could come his way, if he got the Lyrans on his side.

This time Takashi Kurita did not try to scratch the thoughts running in his head, but he did something rather "undignified" for the always regal Coordinator, since nobody else was present. He took a bottle of Sake and downed it in one go.

Now calm again, he made the rough outlines of his counter-proposal. Two could play this game. He would test the Archon. "Katrina, let´s see how soft you are and how well you take surprises."

Then he called two of his most trusted aides. One got the order to send a secret urgent message for Theodore to come to Orestes´s zenith jump point as fast as possible, then he should give the Coordinator´s personal courier this verigraph paper, with the order to bring it to Tharkad with the utmost speed. The other was ordered to organize the preparation of his personal Dropship and the needed jump routes. In addition, the Otomo and the 1. Sword of Light should prepare for departure as well.

No Comstar was to be used without the highest developed and best codes and as much as possible done without using the Order. Takashi Kurita did not trust many persons and Comstar was not on that short list. Far from it. Even without the "accident" on New Samarkand one year back, which cost the lives of 4 of the Combine´s best Hyperspace and Hyperpulse experts, Comstar was too powerful and secretive for the Coordinator´s liking. Takashi and the ISA were sure, that it was not an accident. Nor were several other strange "events", when it came to brilliant scientists.

In this Age, where recovery of lost tech was a major factor for all successor states, it was simply idiotic to consider the other houses responsible for more than 1 or 2 incidents. Knowledge was too precious for all Houses to loose what one had. Good Scientists were too important to kill. So only one major player remained and that was Comstar. Not that one could easily act on that, Comstar´s monopoly on interstellar HPG communication made them a force to be reckoned with.

It was after 4 in the morning, when Takashi finally laid down for several hours of sleep, while on several spaceports preparations began for a very unusual flight.

The Triad, Tharkad

District of Donegal, Lyran Commonwealth

19. March 3020

It had been a rather normal day for the Archon and her closest friends and allies. Eating a Dampfnudel (a South-German dough dessert) with vanilla and wine sauces as a sweet snack during the afternoon, they conversed about important and less important topics of state, sometimes interrupted by bantering and joking as only good friends could do. Still, despite the good humour and bonding, politics were made.

When the draconian courier arrived and delivered the diplomatic note from the Coordinator, naturally it became the main focus. After the courier departed and the note had been read, all persons present were surprised and electrified.

Archon Katrina really wanted to recover more of the Golden Age of the Star League, bringing humanity back from the brink of falling into pre-Spaceflight times into a technological Age. And without Comstar´s "help".

And Peace in the Inner Sphere, since after centuries of near constant wars, the Great Houses were exhausted. The bloody stalemate had to end. Katrina´s peace proposal was not much more than a cease-fire on her terms with the possibility of something else, but it was a serious attempt to end the Succession Wars, which were slowly, but surely bringing humanity closer to a really dark Age.

Considering all that had happened in the last few centuries, the Archon did not have that much hope for a success of her attempt to end the hostilities, but had proposed nevertheless. Despite having calculated with a dismissal, it was a bit of a letdown when the first answers came in. Katrina and her advisors had thought that maybe the Mariks or the Davions would be open to at least some talks.

That Max Liao´s answer was more a "I wish this and that" and predicted as such, was no surprise. Janos Marik´s answer equally full of demands, was not a surprise per se, but the foreign relations chancellery had hoped for something that would at least coalesce into a temporary cease-fire. So much for that. Liao "out", Marik "out".

But the real letdown was the diplomatic, but still negative answer from the Federated Suns. Katrina and the Inner Circle of advisors had had quite some hope invested into talks with the Davions. Coordinating attacks against their common enemy the Combine and better, easier trade as possible outcomes had led to the assumption the Fox could be interested.

The Suns, less than the Combine, which did not really care, but significantly more than either the FWL or the Commonwealth, the two largest economies in the Sphere, had earnest problems with their interstellar trade. There was huge potential, but a combination of factors, including long jump routes and too few JumpShips for the needs of military and civilian traffic, hampered the FS. Not to forget a shortage of money.

Considering that First Prince Hanse Davion, got his nickname "the Fox" not for nothing, the presumption of at least talks had been a sound one, but it seemed that had been a mistake. Grafina Eddies, foreign relations Chancellor, however believed that the Federated Suns might be willing to talk later or in secrecy, pointing to the explicitly diplomatic tone of the answer from House Davion. Still, the Suns would have to make the first step now, planning would go on without inclusion of the FS.

Nobody on Tharkad had seriously thought about a positive answer from the Combine, which had not made an interstellar political treaty with the other Houses in 250 years, so the silence from the Dragon was not even commented on.

So the surprise about the arrival of the Draconian courier had been rather substantial.

"This is a trick or the Kurita idea of a joke! The Coordinator willing to come to Arcturus under the 'flag of truce for talks about Your Peace Proposal'? No way!"

"Can it be true? If it is, why does he do it now? What is his Achilles Heel we do not see? There has to be a reason, if the Combine is genuine about that. Or does anybody here believe Kurita does it out of the goodness of his heart?"

A short stint of chuckling and soft laughter sounded in the room.

"I think it is ploy for a raid on Arcturus, to get the troops there without being attacked by us until it is too late."

More ideas, assumptions and guesses were made, until when the Archon spoke.

"I think it is genuine. This is so far away from typical Combine behaviour, that it is more likely to be true. A specific coded return message to be sent to Orestes, obviously to get by under the 'Radar' of Comstar, the direct fact that he will be coming with a military escort...

Even if the Kuritas begin the rest of their journey to Arcturus the moment they get a return answer, they have to know we can reinforce the System faster than their potential raid can attack, if it is a trick. No, it might be a bit of gut feeling, but this is too absurd to be a trick from the Kuritas. If coming from Liao or the Fox, it could well be one. Takashi Kurita might be a Snake bastard, but he is too drunk on his Bushido codex to pull off such a manoeuvre with his name directly attached to it."

Katrina Steiner held up a hand to stop the comments already forming in several mouths.

"I know what you want to say. Certainly he is sneaky and intelligent enough for such trickery and might well have used it already somewhere, but that was cloak and dagger games. Here his name is openly involved and if Simon´s report about the few facts we could verify on Kurita´s personality is even halfway correct, Takashi Kurita feels the NEED to be a great Samurai, using such a trick would taint his 'honour'. The Combine´s situation is not so desperate, that they would send their Bushido overboard.

I´ll take the risk that all will be ending without a treaty or cease-fire, but here might be a seldom chance to get the Kuritas to agree to something. I take the 1. Royal Guard with me, we will inform the Militia of Arcturus. These will be delicate negotiations, if the Kuritas are this cautious about leaks, so we keep it small as well. Edward, please organize a fast jump transit to our old Capital. Harry, as soon as I´m underway, send the Code message to Orestes. Let us see if it is a Giant or simply the long shadow of a Dwarf."

Zenith Recharge Station, Tharkad-System

District of Donegal, Lyran Commonwealth

2 May 3020

"I am truly sorry, Minister, that you have made this long journey without being able to meet the Archon."

Harrison Bradford, Duke of Coventry, had actually been on the way to the JumpShip which would bring him back home for some weeks, before returning to Tharkad, but the message that on the recently arrived FS JumpShip a high dignitary of the Davion government had made the journey to the Lyran Capital, changed his short term plans.

The likeable Duke, a close friend of the Archon, "mutated" into an informal welcome committee after hearing that the minister was a woman. Bradford, an incorrigible Casanova and blessed with Charm not only in that area, had been asked by the Foreign Ministry to soften the blow of a voyage for nothing, knowing him to be still on the station. And the Duke could not resist, besides it was a little favour for his long-time friend Katrina.

When he met the envoy, Harrison was pleased. The Davion minister for foreign relations, Duchess Olivia Fenlon, was an attractive woman and Bradford turned on his legendary charm.

"The Archon has left Tharkad just two weeks ago and with the various businesses to attend on her voyage, we do not estimate her arrival back here sooner than late June or early July. If you want to wait, the Triad will have prepared Guest quarters to your liking when you arrive on planet."

The dark haired Duchess was not pleased, but the charming and harmlessly flirting Duke kept her anger from rising. Missing someone by just a few days happened sometimes, especially with long journeys. To keep the reason for the long trip from New Avalon under wraps, nobody had forewarned the Lyrans. For the masses, the Prince had to reject the lyran proposal, no "weakness" could be shown to the other Great Houses. But in private, she and Hanse himself had seen the possibilities of the Lyran foray. What it could mean for the long time goals of the Federated Suns. They had developed a starting position for negotiations with the Steiners. In all secrecy and speed, Olivia had made the voyage to Tharkad to use this chance to bring the FS closer to being the hegemony in the Inner Sphere. Damn, bad luck in action, but nothing was really lost. What she and her entourage, including some of the best MIIO agents, already had gathered in information during their stay on the station, was that both the Free Worlds and the Capellans had sunk their chances for talks. No danger from that corner. The Dracs had not even bothered to reply. So the Federated Suns had all the time in the Sphere to get the Lyrans on their side.

Olivia estimated that she would have to make the trip to Tharkad again sometime in the Winter of 3020 or early Spring 3021 for eye-to-eye talks with the Archon. A bit later than hoped for by Hanse and her, but it could not be changed. Katrina Steiner simply was not here.

"Unfortunately, Harrison, I cannot wait this long. I will leave our diplomatic proposal for the Archon to read, when she is back. I can assure you, it is interesting for the Commonwealth. I hope to return soon to Tharkad to show our intentions in person."

Many historians, hobby or by profession, have made the "What if" question about many events. From the Stone Age back on Terra to the Clan Wars and the aftermath. What if something happened differently? The most popular events in younger times for this question took place in 3020. What if, the Davion delegation had been right about the Draconis Combine not responding to Katrina´s Peace Proposal? What if, the delegation under Duchess Fenlon would have had the means to arrive before the Archon left for Arcturus?

The Inner Sphere would have developed vastly different. As laughable it might seem for the youngest Generation, considering the events of the last half-century, back then an alliance between Commonwealth and Suns would have been extremely possible.

It would be a History without the Arcturus Accords of June 3020, which saved the Inner Sphere more than once. Detractors often point out that the Accords were one, maybe THE main reason for the Fourth Succession War, but what they do not want to understand is that a Fourth Succession War had been unavoidable, no matter the political fault lines.

In addition, while the Accords were an important reason for the , given the developments set in motion by them, most articles were kept a secret for over two decades to mislead the other Powers. Granted, by 3030 the latest all other Great Houses and the citizens of the two Star nations knew about the treaty between Commonwealth and Combine, but not the full extend, which turned out to be a bonus during the fighting in the Fourth SW.

More in our next lesson. Have a nice day!

-Prof. Dr. Misha Auburn, recording of her lesson "The 4. Succession War - Reasons and Results", Katrina Steiner University, 5. October 3070