[Релиз]Handbook: House Kurita

[DeJaVu]

For almost a millennium, the symbol of the Dragon has struck fear into the rest of the Inner Sphere. The fearless dedication of its warriors, the devotion of its people, and the awesome ambitions of its Coordinator: House Kurita has been more reviled than any other power. Yet a new leader has arisen in the last decades, bringing about a host of reforms and reigning in the realm’s most rapacious desires. Such rebirth comes at a price, as various shadowy influencers fix their eyes on reigniting the Dragon’s glorious past. Only time will tell which path the Dragon will follow….
Handbook: House Kurita cover the pivotal history, politics and cultures of the Inner Sphere’s most feared Great Houses. Not just a sourcebook, Handbook: House Kurita covers rules for both BattleTech and A Time of War game play, including such areas as personal equipment, support vehicles, creatures and more.

[DeJaVu]

Бен нас, право, балует... Книга переносится на 2013 год


“Devotion to the Success of the Combine Through Proper Work”
(Dictum Honorium VII, 215-216)

Devotion to duty, perfected through greater self-discipline, leads to an improved state of personal freedom and sense of joy focused on fulfillment in one’s work.
[Commentary: Business is war on the field of numbers. Financial ruin from poor decisions and improper decorum is as deadly as badly considered tactics and unconsidered strategies. In the great machine, one faulty gear can create a catastrophe; one poorly maintained part could destroy a company. It is the duty of the worker to give all he is to the success of his endeavor. For the smallest part plays the largest role in the success or failure of the greater purpose.]



So I found myself in possession of a few minutes today and decided to post an update (of sorts) on my progress with Handbook: House Kurita. Suffice to say, the first draft is not yet complete due to a myriad of factors. But with only two sections remaining to be completed (later history and a mini-atlas), it’s nearing completion. Unfortunately for those waiting, this means the book will not see publication until early 2013.

The book has been a true exploration of the BattleTech universe’s most misunderstood and maligned factions. Grossly sketched as the “evil empire” early on in the game’s creation, the Draconis Combine has turned into one of the most dynamic and culturally rich realms in the current setting. This particular stellar empire survives on the sheer force of will of its ruling House, the Kurita clan. As the family went, so did the Combine.

Anyway, one of the earliest sections I’d completed was the chapter describing the Pillar of Jade – the economic structure of the realm. One of the key pieces within this chapter are the corporate sketches of the Combine’s industrial might. For the Combine, industry is divided along two lines – those that support the military, and everything else. The Draconis Combine’s reliance on the military is a major cornerstone of its existence and key to its continued survival.

Within the military industrial sector, one corporation has dominated since the early years of the realm’s formation: Luthien Armor Works, also known as LAW. As a treat, I present the (to-edit) draft of LAW’s entry in the upcoming Handbook: House Kurita…

Luthien Armor Works
Headquarters: Tokyo Island (Luthien)
CEO: Shogun Hoek Botterfield

Main Products (Dieron; LAW—Dieron): Grand Dragon BattleMech, BattleMech refits
Main Products (Enif; LAW—Enif): BattleMech and combat vehicle armor plating
Main Products (Luthien; BBP Industries): Bara no Ryu, Excalibur, Intruder, Nekohono’o, Okinawa, and Triumph class DropShips, BattleSat System Defense Stations
Main Products (Luthien; Guthry Island OmniMech Production Facility): Avatar, Black Hawk-KU, Blackjack, Firestarter, Owens, Raptor, Strider, and Sunder OmniMechs
Main Products (Luthien; Primary Factory): Charger, Daikyu, Daimyo, Grand Dragon, Jenner, Komodo, Mauler, O-Bakemono, and Quickdraw BattleMechs; Kage, Kanazuchi, and Raiden battle armor
Main Products (Saffel; LAW—Saffel): Grand Dragon BattleMech
Main Products (Yori; LAW—Yori): Grand Dragon BattleMech
Main Products (Al Na’ir; Yori Mech Works) Atlas, Catapult, and Hatamoto-series BattleMechs
Main Products (Al Na’ir; Scarborough Manufacturers): Pegasus, Saladin, Saracen and Scimitar hovertanks, Maxim, heavy and standard hover APCs
Main Products (Oshika; Nimakachi Fusion Products Ltd.): Bishamon, Spider and Venom BattleMechs
Main Products (Izunami; Izumi JumpShip Yard): Chimeisho class JumpShip
Main Products (Altair; Kurita Combine Munitions Corp): Riever Aerospace Fighter
Main Products (Kessel; Diverse Optics, Inc.): laser weaponry
Main Products (Qandahar; Dow-Nexus Fusion Products): various fusion engines
Main Products (Galtor; Galtor Naval Yards): NeptuneSubmarine, civilian cargo submarines, various watercraft
Main Products (Proserpina; Guided Technologies): Missiles, missile launchers and missile guidance systems
Main Products (Jeanette; Jeanette Naval Yard): Triton class missile submarine
Main Products (Hanover; Saxe-Heidelberg Heavy Industries): Shuriken Spotter Plane, Graf-Tengu Air Transport, various civilian aircraft
Main Products (Benjamin; Whitworth Specialty Manufacturing): BattleMech repair and modification services

Profile: The biggest corporate conglomerate within the Combine and considered the Dragon’s iconic BattleMech manufacturer, LAW is a foundational lynchpin of the Kuritan empire. LAW’s primary loyalty has always been to the Kuritan throne, structuring its hierarchy and business plans to the whims of the Coordinators. Nothing during its centuries of existence has truly threatened the massive corporation. It is the DCMS’s largest weapons manufacturer, supplier, and the sole economic engine on several Combine worlds.

Over the centuries, LAW has absorbed or acquired several of its former competitors. Typically, LAW’s board of directors leaves the assimilated company’s internal structure intact; often, many of its new employees are not even aware of the transition of power. LAW senior executives continually challenge several of its subsidiaries to compete for contracts and in the corporate arena; they believe such activity only strengthens the corporation as a whole.

When Sanethia Kurita authorized and designed the transformation of Luthien, she allotted several million square kilometers for LAW to build upon. The corporate designers selected two major island formations off the coast of the future site of Imperial City. Major reconstruction transformed the shallow bay, diverting millions of metric tons of water back into the Obsidian Sea. The result was two massive plateaus that towered over the landscape: Tokyo and Guthry Islands. LAW engineers then sculpted each into an organically centered arcology, containing worker housing, manufacturing facilities, production areas, and smelting pits. Personal transportation rails interconnected the two islands and nearby Imperial City. In 3052, LAW built their massive OmniMech complex in and around the bases of both towers, covering much of the former bay floor. Despite the sheer amount of machinery and people in such a small area, the heavily populated LAW City maintains a harmonic feel that pleases the eye, if not the nose. Pollution is a perennial problem, one that LAW engineers are still working to resolve.

The second-largest LAW facility is its administrative division, located in LAW City on Pesht. It employs nearly fifty million workers to handle the monolithic company’s internal bureaucracy.

[DeJaVu]

The highest ideals to which the subjects of Lord Kurita can aspire are Purity and Harmony.

By Purity is meant freedom from all that might come between the citizen and their duty to their Lord and government.

[Commentary: Purity does not mean avoidance of bodily functions such as sex. Rather, it refers to using those functions to increase one’s contribution to the Dragon. To combine with one of the opposite sex to produce a child is therefore praiseworthy if the new life is dedicated to the service of House Kurita. Purity does not mean all avoidance of uncleanliness. If one must immerse oneself in uncleanliness in work or combat for the Lord Kurita, this is praiseworthy and no violation of Purity.]

By Harmony is meant synchronizing life, action, and thought to the higher purposes of one’s society and one’s Lord.

[Commentary: Birth is painful, sickness is painful, wounds in battle are painful, old age is painful, death is painful. This is the noble truth that leads to the cessation of all pain: the meaning of life will not be found through individual striving, but by becoming part of the web of society. One’s life, one’s happiness, one’s strength are really the strength, the happiness, the life of the whole. Likewise, one’s pain, one’s wounds, and one’s sickness are the sickness, the wounds, and the pain of the whole. If one craves life, happiness, and strength for oneself alone, then one’s pain, sickness, and wounds must also attach to oneself alone, and one’s death takes on the terror of the end of all things. In reality, one is not single. One is part of the whole, and when one dies, one knows that the whole never dies, but goes on always to serve and increase the glory of Lord Kurita.]
—Dictum Honorium, v. II, 17–23

I’ll be attempting to continue blogging about writing the upcoming Handbook: House Kurita; this is the second entry in the series. (Read about LAW in the inaugural post.) My purpose is twofold: 1. To keep me honest and push through the final hump in completing the book, and 2. To increase awareness of the Handbook to the point it beats out Handbook: House Davion as the most popular book in the series.



Can I be brutally honest? This sourcebook is exceptionally difficult to write. It’s worn me down, dulled my brain, and provided a healthy dose of angst in trying to complete it. (As I was told by two other CGL authors: welcome to the pain and misery of the Handbook series.) Once this is complete, I’ll be taking a hiatus from BattleTech writing for a while.

As difficult as it is to slog through, however, writing this particular book has also been eye-opening. It’s given me insight into the depth of story contained within this universe. I’ve had so many ideas spin off to the side, I feel confident I could step away from BattleTech and craft my own universe setting with ease. And maybe that’s in my future…but that’s for later. Right now, it’s House Kurita, all the time. (Except when I’m playing XCOM, that is.)

My current thought is to post a blog entry roughly every week to ten days, teasing out small segments of already-written material to build up anticipation. This isn’t like Wars of Reaving, however – no truly “original” storyline here. But I’m confident not a lot of fans of the BattleTech universe are familiar with the true history of the Draconis Combine – aside from the long-suffering fans who’ve bought and read every sourcebook ever written about the universe. So while some of this may be “old hat” to a few, I’m hoping it’ll be “new” for a lot of fans. If anything, it provides continued depth and context about this very complex and much-maligned Great House – and maybe swing a few noncommittal fans into the Dragon’s sway.

Today’s peeks deal with the Pillar of Ivory, one of the five fundamental pillars of Combine society. This pillar describes the Kuritan ideals of philosophy, providing the shell for Kuritan perspectives on religion, honor, conduct, and…vendetta. As always, this is pre-edit text, so there may be some slight changes before publication. Note that not all of my posts will have this much sneak material; it will vary on my mood and time commitments elsewhere.

Enjoy.



Excerpt from “Religion and Philosophy”

The Doctrines of Shiro

Less than ten years after Shiro Kurita became First Coordinator, he had taken the role of spiritual as well as governmental leader of the Combine. Once he had demonstrated that strength of character could achieve sweeping victories over formidable enemies, his people responded enthusiastically. They felt that Kurita’s successes owed much to the sustained effort and a certain set of mental attitudes—something Shiro actively implied—and that his followers could produce similar, if less spectacular, results. His ability to capture the people’s imagination was no accident. Shiro had learned as a talented young kendo student that the strength of the sword came from the ki of the fencer extended through the length of the blade. It was his intention to weld together the people of Yamashiro Prefecture, then all the people of New Samarkand, and eventually all the people and resources of the galaxy into one mighty weapon. The ki controlling that mighty blade would be his own.

To control the people and to channel them, Shiro realized that he must mandate a person’s ideology, their view of the universe, and how they related to it. Shiro laid down the fundamental values that would inform all of Draconis society: Purity and Harmony. These principles appeared, in one form or another, as part of Shintoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism—the religions of ancient feudal Japan. Though purity and harmony may seem benign and transcendent in the abstract, what they came to mean in Draconian practice was harmony with the interests and intentions of the Kurita state, and purity from any thoughts that contradicted those of the First Coordinator.

Excerpts from “Kurita Codes of Relationships and Conduct”

“On Proper Behavior Toward Enemies”

The opposing fighter must be presumed to have the same code of death or victory as the Kurita warrior. It would be disrespectful of the enemy to hold him to a lesser standard than we hold for ourselves. In the face of the enemy, our objective is to destroy him utterly, and there must be no hesitation or lack of resolve in this regard. It is true that fighters from other Houses hold to weaker standards than do the warrior of House Kurita. Nevertheless, we deal with them in battle as we expect to be dealt with ourselves, even though they may not actually deserve this honor.

The Clans are generally treated with respect equal to that of a Kurita warrior, unless the situation demands tactics and decisions that will work for the benefit of the Dragon. On the battlefield, honor is extended to the Clan enemy as best can be provided. The honor and standards of the Combine are to be upheld above the Clan enemy, which may mean an abandonment of the enemy’s strict code of warfare.

“On Proper Behavior When Among Enemies”

Draconians from time to time find themselves in the presence of enemies without being in a state of war. This occurs when they serve as diplomats, delegates, traders, or as exchanged hostages. Such individuals must never allow enemies to learn of House Kurita’s strengths, as these lessons must come as surprises on the field of battle. Enemies must not learn of House Kurita’s secret plans for the future, for a premature revelation may bring an end to the plans.

It is too much to expect of enemies that they follow the proper path of virtue. Even animals and the Clans have their own diluted forms of honor, inferior though they may be. Draconians must always be conscious of preserving and maintaining honor when possible. This means that enemies should also be treated as if they were people, unless there is evidence that they are not worthy of such treatment or swear allegiance only to the Clans.

Excerpt from “The Art of Vendetta”

Vendettas Within a Class

The right of vendetta operates only within the aristocracy and within the military. Within the merchant class and among the workers and Unproductives, individuals do not possess such a level of personal honor that can be offended or require the satisfaction of revenge.

Among the lower orders, however, individuals do retaliate for insults or injuries. These actions tend to be impulsive. The middle class, obsessed with upward mobility, parodies with deadly seriousness the customs of its betters. As financial and trading dynasties have gained more clout within the Combine, House Kurita has tolerated these “plastic” vendettas without granting them official recognition. Middle-class vendettas tend to fall into two categories: the socially pretentious aping of noble codes of honor, or the serious elimination of business competition.

Again, exceptions apply when the situation is dealing with members of Clan Nova Cat. The Clan’s labor, technician, and scientist caste are seen as a common Kuritan laborer in this regard. The Clan’s merchant caste apes that of their Kuritan counterpart; if a Clan merchant is the aggrieved party, they may choose to conduct a formal Trial of Grievance against the aggressor or simply ignore the situation, which is turned over to the proper authorities. Warriors of Clan Nova Cat in the position of the aggrieved are required to conduct a formal Trial of Grievance, though if the affronting person is not of military position, the warrior is disallowed the option of augmented combat.

Nobles and warriors have an obligation to maintain their personal purity unsmirched. They have a higher calling to preserve the harmony of their relation to the will of Lord Kurita. The obligation of purity must never be allowed to interfere with that of harmony. When a family or an individual requires satisfaction to cleanse their honor, the vendetta must first be registered with House Kurita and cannot proceed without permission. If the vendetta would contradict the interests of the Coordinator, the impurity can be removed by royal decree.

If an offended one puts personal purity ahead of the obligation of harmony, they must not trouble the Coordinator further once the impurity has been removed. Rather, they must take the initiative in restoring harmony by removing themselves from the Coordinator’s sight. The best guide for resolving these dilemmas continues to the be the Chushingura (Tale of the Forty-seven Ronin) from medieval Terran Japan.

The rules of vendetta do not apply to civilian women. (Only recently have the rules of vendetta been opened to women serving in an active DCMS command.) A woman has no right or obligation of revenge for a slight from another woman. If a man of another offends a woman of one family, the offense is not to her, but to her husband, father, or older brother. Though a man might be obliged to kill the woman in his own family—he cannot restore balance by killing a woman in the other family. Vengeance must be directed against the offending male. If a younger brother of the offending male is killed, balance is not completely restored. If an older brother or the father of the offending male is killed, a new imbalance is created.

Inasmuch as the impurity attaches to the persons of family members, they alone can cleanse it. Others, especially not hired strangers, cannot accomplish revenge. This rule has given rise to the practice of “adopting” honorary members into a family unwilling or unable to exact the blood price personally. The adoptee is given a “gift of obligation” for carrying out the unpleasant duty. Thus, the lowest levels of society came to contain more and more “members” of the noblest Kurita families. Competition for these lucrative gifts was soon monopolized by three guilds of professional assassins: one predominantly Rasalhagian Nordic, another predominately Sverdeloskian Russian, and a third predominately Dover Irish. (It is assumed without question that noble Kuritan Asians would not stoop to such work.) Members of these populations had spread throughout most of the Combine that gave them the freedom of anonymity on practically any world held by the Dragon.

Within the military, no distinction is made in terms of balance between junior officers. Balance can be restored by a duel to the death between the two principals. The same holds true among senior officers, with the proviso that vendettas must be registered with the Coordinator, who can choose to restore balance by decree.

Excerpt from “Minority Religions”

Off-Brand Sects

One cult that surfaces from time to time, despite repeated (and violent) eradications carried out by the ISF and O5P is the Church of Starry Wisdom. The cult takes various forms depending on what world it surfaces upon, but its core tenets are the same. Each group has what they call a “Shining Trapezohedron” used to summon a dark being called the Haunter of the Dark. Because the cult requires a number of human sacrifices in order to receive the “limitless knowledge of the universe,” it is the first suspect by Kuritan authorities when a rash of mysterious disappearances crop up in a Combine community. The cult’s bloody practices prey upon the average Combine citizen’s Shintoism and belief in the supernatural; rumors of a group surfacing in an area has been known to paralyze a community for weeks. As such, the ISF has a small bureau of agents tasked to deal with the Church of Starry Wisdom when they receive news of its reappearance.

[DeJaVu]

Work on HBHK continues apace, though last week was largely interrupted due to my work’s massive annual conference. Since I handle all of their communications…all extraneous writing was suspended for most of the week as I spun the media web. The entire conference was a huge success, however, and I’ll be returning to my work on this Kuritan epic later this week.

In the meantime, a small section from the Government chapter for your perusal.

Interstellar Relations

Few Draconians travel, unless they are part of the military. Those who trade with other nations are watched carefully for signs of cultural weakness—and they are aware of the surveillance. A common saying among corporate travelers sums up their attitude well: “The eyes of the Dragon are like a mother watching a child in the street.” Those who are tempted to stray too far from fealty to Kurita and the Dictum Honorium should be thankful for the reminder not to stray and for the chance to return to the Dragon’s protection. Those who are not grateful flee to the other Houses and are considered dead by their fellow citizens. Such actions put the fugitive’s families under heightened ISF scrutiny, often with the patriarch being invited to see their ancestors for failing to instill proper decorum and integrity in their progeny.

Travel under such tense circumstances—the slightest interest in another culture is often reported as treasonous—is not conducive to the understanding of other cultures and is not meant to be. Military duty will rarely afford any true understanding of the worlds invaded. Even mercenary units who have served other states are segregated from raw Kurita troops to prevent the spread of “confusing” ideas about other worlds and cultures. This lack of contact keeps most Draconians in the dark about the other stellar nations and receptive to whatever propaganda the government wishes to spread.

The official descriptions of the other nations in the Inner Sphere are caricatures emphasizing the worst possibilities of each culture. For example, the Federated Suns is described as a collection of licentious perverts who wish to spread their seed across settled space, corrupting all humankind with their lazy, dissolute, immoral ways. Such behavior would cause civilization to collapse from the “cult of the individual” and mindless self-indulgence. The Lyran Alliance is described as a group of greedy sensualists and capitalists, concerned only with acquiring wealth and its poisonous trappings. They secretly wish to conquer the Combine so the Dragon’s worlds can be stripped of its natural wealth and the populations enslaved to do the work Lyrans refuse.

Though the Combine’s higher levels of nobility recognize the differences between the various Clans, not so the common citizen. To many, the Clans are an alien civilization, perverted from the ideals of the Star League, feasting on babies and the youth of the Combine so they can destroy the Dragon through poisoning its honor and integrity. Their worship of various animal totems shows their barbarism and love of senseless violence. These ideals stand as a direct opposite to the tenets and pillars of the Dragon and must be resisted.

[Siberian-troll]

Улита едет, когда-то будет....
Надеюсь, к следующему кону эта крайне актуальная книга с новостями за 67 год все-таки появится.
Как раз уже 3200 на носу будет.

[DeJaVu]

Ever Forward the Dragon Creeps

And we’re back with the next installment of HBHK, letting you peek behind the Dragon’s curtain at the mysteries within.
Or something like that.
Anyway, progress continues forward. I’ve pulled some material for preview; the selections this week are scattered across multiple sections.

From History of the Nation
Theories
Several theories exist as to why the Coordinator waved off an assault on the Tamar Pact, though only two may be close to the truth. Rumors of secret envoys from the Tamar Pact visiting New Samarkand in 2329 briefly swirled through the nobility. While a trade vessel did visit the world at that time, there was no record of any visits to the Coordinator’s residence or the diplomatic halls. Curiously, there was a brief uptick in technological research shortly afterwards. Many historians theorize that the Tamar Pact had exchanged newly acquired (or stolen) Hegemony technology for a limited non-aggression period, carried out under the cover of a standard mercantile visit.

The more favored theory—at least by Combine citizens centuries later—is that Warlord Urizen suffered a personal challenge to his honor by a Rasalhagian noble during one of Shiro’s world tours in the early 2300s. No concrete details exist about any such encounter nor of a possible visit during that time frame. The theory holds little evidence; the thought of Urizen convincing his brother to authorize a war simply to assuage his honor fits the Combine citizen’s more romantic view of the First Coordinator and his family.

—Hindsight History: An Armchair View of the Inner Sphere; Geneva University Press, 3002

The Bloody Knot of Von Rohrs
As far as it mattered to the average citizen of the Dragon, the eighty-nine year reign of the Von Rohrs could have been under a single man or a dozen different ones. For most, the period was a bloody blur of misery with no tangible changes from one tyrant to the next. Even court observers on New Samarkand had difficulty determining exactly who was in charge or when one man’s term ended and another began.

This confusion was largely due to Nihongi’s disuse of his first name within a year of his ascension. Throughout the rest of the period, the tyrants went only by their surname. Always fearful of retaliation, Nihongi and his descendants lived out their lives in the strictly guarded seclusion of the New Samarkand palace grounds.

The court chain of command during the Von Rohrs period was confusing and convoluted. Presumably, subordinates would report to their superiors, who would, in turn, report to theirs. After passing through three, four, or even five levels of administration, a message might reach one of a half-dozen persons who actually knew and met regularly with the incumbent leader. Or, in some cases, someone whom they thought was the tyrant.

Such confusion spread in full after Nihongi’s death. Kozo Von Rohrs was never seen in public and his closest aides were the only persons in all of human space who know what he looked like. For over sixty years, Combine subjects could have met their Coordinator on the surface of any world and no one would have recognized him. Paranoia enshrouded the upper levels of the Combine government.

To historians’ best estimation, Nihongi ruled from 2421 until the mid-2400s. It is not known how many offspring he had; he was known to have a sizeable sexual appetite that ranged across both sexes and beyond. One son, Kozo, is believed to have ruled next, from approximately 2450 until the late 2460s. Kozo apparently had several sons and daughters.

According to an exhaustive research study conducted by the Benjamin University of Ancestry, Yama was next, serving until approximately 2520. Some court accounts indicate a proxy rule by Yama’s sons Ullysses and Nii before his brother Kruger officially took over around 2510. Because there is no hard evidence for any of the Von Rohrs progeny serving on the throne save Nihongi, Kozo, Yama, and Kruger, they are considered the Fifth through Ninth Coordinators in the line of succession. Several of the Von Rohrs spawn—most illegitimate—served in DCMS line units, out of the presence of their hyper-paranoid patriarchs.

Regardless of their order, few Combine citizens today refer to any of the Von Rohr tyrants as Coordinator, believing they are not worthy of the honorable title and all it implies.

—The Bloody Torment; Benjamin University Press, 2940

From The Pillar of Steel (DCMS)

Academies

Sun Tzu School of Combat
Often overshadowed by the Sun Zhang MechWarrior Academy, the Sun Tzu School of Combat offers a remarkably diverse range of courses. A large percentage of its graduates go on to officer training at a university. The school offers training in all branches of combat, and in a departure from DCMS tradition, emphasizes the ways in which each branch supports the others. This emphasis reflects the reforms instituted by Theodore Kurita and is one reason for the favorable attention it receives. Ten years after a sizable grant from the DCMS, the school has expanded to three different campuses and a satellite facility on Kagoshima built specifically for battle armor training.

The Sun Tzu school teaches a “team play” attitude, stressing greater equality between differing branches of warfare. The competition for positions in the school’s conventional forces programs is steep, as this is the only school in Combine space where conventional soldiers can receive samurai swords. The school teaches the philosophy of bushido along with loyalty to House Kurita. Instructors use the precepts of bushido to reinforce the notion that cadets must put aside personal pride and work together for the good of the Combine. Attrition tends to be highest among MechWarrior students, who fail to abandon the opinion that MechWarriors are a step above other branches of warfare and entitled to special consideration.

Medals and Decorations

Honor Tree
The Honor Tree is awarded to a Luthien citizen who acts in an extraordinary manner that benefits the Combine in a significant fashion. The Keeper of House Honor presents the citizen with a special cutting selected from her garden; typically, it is a bonsai tree but on several occasions has been a different species of tree, the meaning of which known only to the Keeper and the honored citizen. These trees are jointly cared for by both the Keeper’s staff and the citizen, for the life of the tree.

The oldest known Honor Tree is 218 years old, given to Honorable Citizen Iago McMurphy. His groundbreaking research in optics led to a breakthrough in miniaturization production, saving the Combine billions of K-bills annually in manufacturing costs.

From The Pillar of Jade (Economy)
Important Indirect Service (Civilian) Corporations

Interstellar Harvesters
Headquarters: Kiley (Tuscarawas)
President/CEO: Daimyo Dorothy Liu
Main Products: KIC-3 Harvester Ant, Plowshare Transport Landtrain, Orange Blossom PickerMech
Profile: Begun as a simple agricultural implements manufacturer, Interstellar Harvester has experienced solid growth for over three hundred years. Originally founded on Cusset, IH was on corporate life support after the Clan Invasion swallowed it up. What remained of the staff—only twenty-eight employees managed to escape the Wolf advance—wound up at IH’s development facility on Tuscarawas. Unable to fulfill their government contracts, the company filed for “bankruptcy stasis” under the Committee of Resource Management’s emergency bailout fund and closed its doors for eight years.

In 3060, IH reopened business, having built several new manufacturing and processing centers on Tuscarawas. What vaulted IH into the black was their limited partnership with Kong Interstellar Corporation to produce the KIC-3 Harvester Ant. Sales of the newly acquired design—built from Combine resources and priced for the Kuritan economy—soared, helping IH recoup eighty percent of its losses in less than five years.

Kinkakuji Enterprises
Main Headquarters: Newton (Kirei na Niwa)
CEO: Daimyo Werner Jacobsen
Main Products: Manazuru Air Transport, various other civilian aircraft
Profile: Built from a merger of two other conventional airframe manufacturers in 2950, Kinkakuji stormed the civilian aerospace market, producing three variable interplanetary airliners that, though ugly, were reliable and cheap to maintain. Once established financially, the company then branched into conventional luxury aircraft for the Combine nobility.

What makes Kinkakuji airframes so durable is the extensive testing they undergo during the development phase. The main plant is located on a large plain battered by severe and unpredictable windstorms rolling in from the surrounding needle-like mountains. The hostile weather allows aircraft to be tested under the most hostile of conditions for takeoff and landing.

[DeJaVu]

HBHK: Arrogance in Character

Been a few weeks, so I thought I’d share a bit more from the ongoing HBHK project.

One of the biggest challenges to this particular book is trying to convey the arrogance of the Kuritas (as it’s from the perspective of a Combine historian) without sounding overdone and silly but still convey important information. The trick is to use the proper turns of phrase and word choice, which makes the entire process a tad challenging. By a factor of ten.

The only other option is a textbook-style read, which is, to be frank…BORING. With the difficulties this series already faces, I’ll do whatever I can to boost this last installment’s success.

Initial feedback from my reviewers has indicated I’ve been pretty successful in hitting that arrogant-yet-informative balance I want. Hopefully those who do read it in full will agree.

Okay, enough rambling.


From History of a Nation

Jason Kurita: Force in Motion
“As many of you are aware, the Free Rasalhague Republic—Republic for short—did not begin in 3034. While the name is new, many students of Combine history recognize the Republic as the proud descendant of the ancient Principality of Rasalhague, which lasted seventy years before Coordinator Shiro Kurita began to absorb the nascent kingdom in 2330.

“During the long process of slowly bringing the Principality into the Combine, Shiro and his descendants used the low-level conflict to unify the entire realm into a cohesive power to rival the nearby Steiner empire and the Federated Suns, with only the Terran Hegemony a stronger stellar nation.

“It could be argued that independence-minded rebels within the newly named Rasalhague District caused the turmoil and ill will between the Combine and Rasalhague people over the next several decades. The most infamous example of this being the bombing of Vladimir Kurita’s estate in 2375, killing Coordinator Tenno’s sister and causing a chain of events that lead to many years of brutal tyranny among the Rasalhagians due to Jason Kurita’s personal sense of revenge over the death of his father and family.

“Yet it can also be argued that because of the rebels’ action, those events led to Daniel Sorenson’s birth (from Oma Kurita—Jason’s sister) and subsequent exile among the Rasalhague public, bringing to light the awful truth of Jason Kurita’s tyranny. Daniel’s reign as Lord of Rasalhague and Warlord of the District helped heal the rift between the Combine and its people. More importantly, it set the stage for the McAllister Rebellion against the Von Rohrs line and saved the Combine from madness—and destruction.

“In 2510, the Principality formally joined the rest of the Combine and enjoyed peace under Siriwan McAllister-Kurita for the first time in decades.”

—Lecture notes from The Ronin Crisis; Tai-i Chris Wheeler, Sun Zhang Academy

From Pillar of Teak; Universities and Other Higher Learning Institutions

The Imperial Institute of Technology
This is as high-level as Kurita technology studies get, though for three centuries it played catch-up to its counterparts in Houses Davion and Steiner. Over the last few decades, IIT has benefited greatly from the data recovered in the Helm Memory Core along with the large amount of Clan salvage and technology recovered from former Jaguar and Nova Cat worlds. The influx of technology requires an increase of scientific and technical minds and instructors, a position IIT officials are more than happy to find themselves in.

Only the best and brightest, with high science and math aptitudes, will be tracked through the Draconian school system to arrive at the institute’s main campus on Xinyang. Cadets at a few academies may elect to spend a year at IIT before graduation if they pass the institute’s stringent application battery of tests.

From Pillar of Gold; Sociopolitical Structure

RULE 2832.10
If conducted at Unity Palace, seppuku can only be performed in the Courtyard. A raised dais of teak, measuring ten meters square, is placed seventy meters from the north end of the plaza border and can be no closer than eighty-eight meters to the Throne Room entrance. The dais is to be one meter in height and the front faces to the east.

Thirty minutes before the ceremony, four one-meter wide shoji panels made of Imperial rice paper are placed around the dais at a distance of ten meters; they are placed at the cardinal points of direction. The south panel contains the name and flag of the recipient’s homeworld. The west panel contains the emblem of the recipient’s service unit or government branch. The north panel contains the recipient’s family crest. The east panel contains the emblem of House Kurita. Behind each panel, a single stick of incense is to be lit.

The implements used are placed on the dais fifteen minutes before the start of the ceremony. Witnesses and other participants enter the Courtyard from the east entry arch to the single stroke of a bronzed gong. The gong is struck with an ivory staff no larger than 50 cm in length.

The honored recipient enters the Courtyard from the west entry arch. His body, after the ceremony, will leave on a steel bier covered in a white cloth through the east arch. His head will exit the Courtyard through the north arch, to be placed in a location to show the wisdom of the Dragon. Witnesses and other participants will exit through the east arch, after the honored recipient.

The ceremony will be conducted at the appointed hour with no delay.

—Written Guide to the Court and the Servers, Volume I; Unity Palace, 2714

The Two-Headed Snake

This will be the last update on Handbook: House Kurita for 2012. Principal writing is winding down and during the upcoming holiday week, most of the book will be (hopefully) completed. I’m also hoping to start seeing some of the art soon; it’s been far too quiet on that front.

One of the primary things that has struck me about the Draconis Combine is the stark divide between the two societal classes – noble and worker. While each has several subdivisions within them, the main divide is exceptionally noticeable within the Kuritan realm. Of all the Great Houses, the Combine’s society and economy is the most “realistic” when it comes to reconciling “real world” theories against the sci-fi pulp universe of BattleTech. The worker class is truly poor within the Dragon’s realm and the nobles are truly wealthy. It explains much as to why such cultural iconography (namely, the “Japanification” of the House) is deep-seated within the society. Adherence and reverence for the Kuritan ideals is indelibly strong within the poor classes; it’s the one thing they can well and truly grasp to live for. The reverse is true of the nobility (of which the merchants reside on the lower tiers); they are more adept at manipulating the cultural norms to get what they want, while showing the face of subservience to the Imperial throne.

Isn’t it interesting, then, that the Black Dragon Society finds most of its members within the nobility…

***

So before I share one sidebar from the history section, here’s a nice juicy tidbit:

In HBHK, we reveal the identity of Snow Fire.

Chew on that little nugget for a bit. When you’re ready, look at a little bit of foreshadowing from a sidebar in the History of a Nation section:

The Deadly Double Cobra

Scientists and medical experts from systems near the affected prefectures were called in by the Coordinator to combat the “Albiero Consumption.” Using samples gained through strict protocols, this special medical task force—coordinating across eight different systems and facilities—finally struck success in 2904. As a result, millions of people were spared a lingering death from the fast-spreading virus. Removing the quarantine kept the Dragon’s stretched economy from going under completely.

The DCMS special warfare labs also benefited from the research. After the crisis had passed, the medical facilities were closed down, except for two. Research moved from vaccinations and public health into that of biowarfare. While not a common option used during the previous Succession Wars, the DCMS High Command considered it an avenue in the event of an overwhelming assault by its neighbors.

After several months of extensive testing, a weaponized version of the plague was created. The new virus, called the “Double Cobra” for its two transmission vectors, was capable of infecting an entire planet within weeks, depending on extraneous environmental factors. The Double Cobra was theoretically more lethal than any other chemical or biological weapon posited during the height of the Star League era. When the full range of the virus and its effects were disclosed to Coordinator Shinjiro, he immediately ordered the samples sealed and locked down. Only in a case of extreme emergency—such as the imminent downfall of the Dragon—would such a weapon be unleashed.

The DCMS High Command placed the Double Cobra in a buried vault complex in a sparsely populated region of Galedon. The district capital world was chosen for its proximity to the Federated Suns border, as the Dragon believed that if any enemy was capable of pushing the Combine to the brink, it would be the realm of the hated Davions. If that inconceivable situation happened, the Double Cobra would be ready for use.

—Bunker SX-RT3; Luthien Court Library, 2933

Life Amongst the Dragon’s Stars

One of the more popular bits of the Handbook series is the Touring the Realm section, which provides a wide look at various worlds in the interstellar nation. Each author picks the worlds listed in the book for various reasons. I selected mine based on a few criteria. Each planet fits at least two from the following list:

Randall listed it in the original outline
It’s a District / Prefecture capital world
It has a role of some sort in the history of the Combine (mentioned in the History section)
It showcases a slice of life within the Combine borders
I wanted a ‘fresh’ world to tinker with
So what we have are the four military districts with six to eight worlds highlighted from each area.

Rather than sneak a couple of the complete atlas entries, I’ll do something a little different. I’ll give a couple sentences from various entries, to whet the appetite. This is still a work-in-progress, as I’m still finishing it – along with finalizing editing notes on the other sections and bugging Randall for the opening fiction.

Luthien

The crown jewel is the sprawling Imperial City, home of the ruling Kurita family. It is a virtual fairy-tale of a city, surrounded by verdant gardens and hectares of natural forest. The impressive Unity Palace, which contains the seat of Kurita power, appears to hover on the horizon. Each of the five towers that form the palace is distinct, built along the aesthetics of a different architectural period from ancient Japan.

Bjarred

Evidence was presented that although exports were re-routed to Jaguar worlds, those raw materials were of much lesser quality and quantity. More importantly, a high percentage of smelted metals and manufactured steel contained numerous defects and weak spots. This created a substandard product that increased breakdowns and other trouble spots in Clan equipment and materials fashioned from Bjarred exports.

Irece

The response was overwhelming; the Bureau of Friendly Interior Comfort and Concerns constantly processes requests and handles the transport of citizens to designated worlds in the Bjarred and Qandahar prefectures. Because of the situation, the Bureau formed “resident zones” on all other systems in the prefecture. These zones are nothing more than large, sufficient enclaves under the domain of the Clan. Combine citizens are not permitted on the grounds unless they possess proper documentation and authorization.

Matamoras

Founded during the Age of Colonization by Soviet expatriates, Matamoras has never been considered more than a collection of mines and heavy industry. Few choose to travel to the world; fewer still remain to eke out a living. For a time, the DCMS maintained a prison facility on Siberia, the southernmost continent. Notorious for its small guard detail and highly corrupt administration, the complex was abandoned in the mid-2700s—with over three thousand male and female prisoners still locked down within.

Aix-la-Chapelle

The most famous is the Diplan Mechyard near Belnet. The factory uses an architectural design and construction similar to a Castle Brian and easily holds up against Class 9 storms (425+ kph winds). Such facilities were built with typical Kuritan foresight, as they easily serve as defensive bulwarks during times of crisis.

Proserpina

A series of industries centers around the study, capture, processing, and research of this tenacious predator. The blood limpet is indirectly responsible for scientific breakthroughs in such technologies as battle armor, MASC systems, genetic therapy, synthetic fabrics, and anesthetics. Regardless of industry, civilians who work with the blood limpet undergo a year’s worth of intensive training on the reptile.

Xinyang

The oyabun, Sean O’Clannahan, declared a vendetta against Robert Ivankov. The conflict escalated out of hand very quickly. For the next fifty years, several yakuza clans—headed by the Fuji Snow—invaded Xinyang and systematically pushed the vory v zakone from power. By 2960, the yakuza dominated the Xinyang underworld and remained in control despite two subsequent attempts from outside mafia families.

Galedon V

The hills of Paphos are renowned for its wine industry, often preparing vintages served in the Imperial Court. The volcanic chain—Steps of the Dragon—that border the eastern coastline of the continent is the source of valuable Galdeonian black and red diamonds. Strict security measures keep a tight grip on the production and export of these gems, making them one of the rarest and most expensive diamonds in the Inner Sphere.

Enif

Enivians dislike “the Newcomers” as they feel their pace of life is challenged and belittled. Loyal to the Kurita family and steadfast supporters of the Dragon, these citizens are nonetheless mocked for their simplistic lifestyle and nonconfrontational attitudes by the Newcomers. Because of Enif’s chronically poor educational system—even by lower class standards—Enivians are rarely accepted into military academies and few find their way past the lower ranks of the DCMS.

Hachiman

Partly due to the influence of its unofficial lord Chandrasekhar Kurita, Hachiman is considered the place to find everything from forbidden Steiner entertainment discs to shadowy mercenary assassins. The Coordinators of the Combine have allowed this well of depravity to exist within the Combine’s walls, primarily as a funnel for foreign spies and malcontents. With the superior electronics produced by the planet’s hard-working citizenry over the centuries, the Kuritas have permitted Masamori’s existence as a form of stress relief.

In Kurita Space, No One Can Hear You Complain

HBHK writing is in the winding down stage; I would’ve been done the other day except I completely forgot the role playing notes in the Rules Annex. A little shock there when I discovered I still had a bit more to write.

But then again, it covers more of the “general life” of a Combine citizen, by region…and that promises to be fun. So I’ll continue pecking away at it. Almost there…

In the meantime, the remaining chapters are complete and in various stages of factchecking and editing. The last piece of the puzzle is the short fiction story for the intro. Because Randall has been a huge factor in the Combine’s story for many years before handing the line off, I felt it only right to offer him the chance to write that story. Now, if I don’t get something from him soon… I will say, the original story he pitched was pretty sweet – but it was different than the pattern we’ve established with the other five handbooks. So we’ll see.

Obviously, you’re here not to listen to me ramble, but to devour more hints and teases from the book. And it’s time I oblige. Here’s some random stuff:

From History of the Nation

In 2620, Sanethia resigned as Coordinator on the same day Urizen II celebrated his thirtieth birthday. The Nineteenth Coordinator inherited his mother’s ambitious program on Luthien. Though Urizen was ultimately credited with the rise of Luthien as the jewel of the Combine, the project’s success came largely from both Sanethia and Siriwan’s oversight. The two “advisers” were tasked by Urizen to shepherd the project, leaving only the most major of decisions to the Coordinator. When it was completed, Imperial City would become the most ambitious, most expensive, most energy-consuming project ever undertaken by the Combine. The two women were also responsible for the placement of several other city locations on the planet and crafting the infrastructure design that persists today.

The project was plagued with problems from the start. It took five years to drain the enormous swamp that occupied the designated location for the new capital city. More than ten million laborers and craftsmen from all parts of the Combine were tasked with construction. Due to Sanethia’s original plan, the entire city was built without the use of modern construction technology. For inspiration, Siriwan and Sanethia patterned the city’s architecture and design elements after that of ancient Japan. Unity Palace was modeled after Himeji Castle on Terra and much of the outlying buildings maintained elements from the Azuchi-Momoyama period. Sections of the city remain dedicated to various Japanese styles throughout the millennia, including the neo-Fujimoto facades of the twenty-third century.

Most of the laborers employed in the construction of Imperial City comprised of low-echelon members of the Kuritan military or chain gang criminals. As the project progressed, many of the lower castes on other Combine worlds clamored to join volunteer labor groups that were brought in to bolster the workforce. Because of the insistence the city be built without modern machinery, the brute labor jobs were dangerous. It was a good day if less than 500 workers were killed from accidents or other related incidents.

The massive project created an economic boom across the realm and bolstered the flagging spirits of the populace. Archaic building materials such as teak, granite, marble, and mosaic tile were in great demand. Progress reports became highly anticipated news items on other worlds.

The flow of materials and labor to Luthien prompted the need for lesser cities around the capital, a situation already prepared for by Sanethia and Siriwan. These support cities and infrastructure followed the careful planning and guidance of the Coordinator’s advisors, keeping order amidst the growing chaos. Within ten years of the first block being laid, Luthien’s population blossomed to fifty million and showed no sign of slowing.

From Pillar of Gold

Son of deceased Donal Kurita and grandson of the treacherous Marcus Kurita, Graeme is the planetary chairman of Multan in Qandahar Prefecture. Graeme was dishonored when the Black Dragons manipulated his son Angus into a failed plot to assassinate Theodore in 3057. By decree of the Coordinator, Graeme’s bloodline is no longer eligible for the throne. The governor has opted to remain celibate as an act of penance for his son’s choices.

From Touring the Realm

Founded during the twenty-seventh century, Matamoras has never been considered more than a collection of mines and heavy industry. Few choose to travel to the world; fewer still remain to eke out a living. For a time, the DCMS maintained a prison facility on Siberia, the southernmost continent. Notorious for its small guard detail and highly corrupt administration, the complex was abandoned in the mid-2700s—with over three thousand male and female prisoners still locked down within. A NSM shuttle made an emergency landing at the prison in 2913 and discovered a small but thriving community. The citizens of Krasnogorsk were welcomed back into the fold; the Red Clay yakuza clan made its presence known shortly thereafter.

New Samarkand Metals is the primary employer on Matamoras, with more than two million workers scattered across fifty mine and processing sites. Tozama Daimyo Voskoboynikov is the CEO of NSM’s Matamoras operation and is known to be fair and partial when carrying out official state business. He recently awarded a major contract to Deep Ores, which struck a large gold vein in the Black Urals in 3065. Rumors of Voskoboynikov’s affiliation with the Red Clay yakuza are still under ISF investigation.

From Rules Annex

In the mid-2900s, People’s Protection introduced the H-T Spec-5a, a low-cost, light sub-machine gun built for security personnel and private protection details. The -5a was popular despite its horrible reliability; the firing mechanism needed replaced every forty to fifty rounds. The latest version of the widespread SMG is the -7a, which debuted in 3053. Using composite materials, the weapon is extremely light, small, and sturdy. A self-enclosed magazine holds seven bullets in the grip. The bull-pup design includes an integral flash and sound suppressor, making it a favorite hold-out weapon for intelligence agents and important personages. Reloading is a bit complicated, as it requires sliding off the grip and then seating a new clip.

Rumors broke in early 3052 that People’s Protection were using Clan-occupied worlds as a test bed for the design. The rumors were proven true when the company used footage taken from Schuyler showing several children wielding the -7a in a firefight with a Clan police squad.

The Dragon’s Potpourri

The final chapter of Handbook House Kurita is still somewhat stuck, largely due to me losing an evening’s worth of writing earlier this week. Typically I hit CTRL-S every few minutes to save my work as I write but for some reason, I didn’t the other night. When I went to close down, I got a “do you wish to save the recent version” message and, thinking it was for a new document I’d opened to facilitate some shuffling, hit “Cancel.” And it closed the document I’d been working on. I didn’t catch it until 30 seconds later…and by then it was too late.

Ah well. That’s the writer’s risk at times.

So in recreating the content, I think I strengthened what I had. It’ll all work out.

Here’s a snippet from a critter and a vehicle entry, and two sidebars from the history section for this week’s sneak peek. Enjoy.

From Rules Annex

Kaosu/Chi no Hebi
Kaosus reproduce asexually based on the amount of food it digests. Infestations can quickly spiral out of control if not contained early. Several industrial pesticides and electricity traps are available on the market and found at nearly every spaceport and station in the Combine.

A mutated version of the kaosu has been reported, though rarely. Found mainly on derelict vessels and in abandoned ruins, these chi no hebi enter through any available opening on an organism. The chi are drawn towards bone marrow. While feeding, the worm secrets a poisonous enzyme that burns nerve endings. The victim feels as if they are burning from the inside out; death comes within seventy-two hours. Rumors that the ISF uses chi no hebi as part of a torture regimen are unfounded.

Hoshiryokou
Initially conceived as a standard cargo and passenger hauler, the Hoshiryokou served passably in the role. Its modular cargo containers were interchangeable with utilitarian passenger versions. The Dragonstar succeeded where the Hoshiryokou failed to deliver in amenities, comfort, and space. Kintetsu Stellar Systems faced bankruptcy when Yakima Enterprises’ offering pushed the Hoshiryokou out of the market. Rather than fold, Kintetsu found a new way to use its cargo hauler using extensive grants from the Combine government.

The structure of the Hoshiryokou was reinforced and a space tug adapter fitted to its front. Free upgrades to all owners of the vessel sent Kintetsu into deep debt to the government. Isesaki Shipping bought the company for little more than a handful of ryu and a two-hundred year agreement to produce the space tug for the DCA under cost.

From History of the Nation

Jinjiro Kurita: A Study in Calm Violence
The Heir Designate to Coordinator Minoru Kurita during the opening moves of the First Succession War, Jinjiro Kurita suffered during his upbringing. The son of a concubine—Minoru’s first wife Clarissa was barren—Jinjiro spent most of his early years embroiled in the center of heated Court politics.

His mother’s maiden name has been lost to the mists of time, though her adornment name (customary for royal concubines) was Heaven’s Gate. She was a native of Radstadt whose non-Oriental features made her popular in the ukiyos (pleasure districts) until Minoru bought her contract. After Jinjiro’s birth, Heaven’s Gate used every persuasive art—and some apparent blackmail—to get Minoru to adopt the child and make him the legal heir. Her access to the Imperial Court allowed her to poison the other contracted concubines with chemical that forced miscarriages. (It is also suspected that one strong overdose caused Clarissa’s death.) Believing the fates and his ancestors against him for his failure to save Drago Kurita and his family from Amaris, Minoru recognized ten-year-old Jinjiro as his son and heir just before learning his second wife, Yvonne Toshi, was pregnant.

A whispering campaign within the Court suggested that the Coordinator was under the charms of his concubine. True or not, the rumors were relentless until Yvonne, days from giving birth to Zabu Kurita, shoved Heaven’s Gate from the parapets of Unity Palace in the middle of the night. Jinjiro discovered the bloody, broken form of his mother early the next morning. She had survived the night and died in her son’s arms.

Combine historians and psychoanalysts believe this was the catalyzing event that began Jinjiro’s slow slide from sanity. The pain and shock of witnessing such an event was enough to push the sensitive child along the road to madness and eventually, planetary atrocity.

—The Bloody Coordinator: Seeds of Kentares; Proserpina Publications, Ltd., 2971

Fall of the Cherry Blossom
Tai-shu Tomoe Sakade entered the Combine-Dominion war through less than auspicious means. Reassigned to the position by the Coordinator—also her husband—she faced not only the ferocity of the Ghost Bear assault but also lingering prejudices inherent to the Combine’s culture. A woman had never before been promoted to the prestigious position of warlord of a military district, and many under her command did not know how to take the promotion.

Sakade was a capable commander and a superb tactician. She was also very outspoken, though played the part of the Coordinator’s wife well. She was previously the military commander of the Kagoshima Prefecture, a position given to her by Theodore partly to assuage her warrior spirit. The honor of being entrusted with the protection of Luthien was not lost on the former tai-sho. By several accounts, she actually resisted Theodore’s command to step into the tai-shu’s role after the death of Teyasu Ashora.

The Ghost Bears penetrated into the Combine in their initial wave, striking Schulyer and ten other worlds in the Albiero Prefecture. With limited defensive forces available, Sakade knew another push by the Bears would easily swallow the rest of the district. The Tai-shu proposed a daring plan, one the Coordinator was intimately familiar with: strike back into the teeth of the Clan’s assault and fool the Bears into thinking the Combine was stronger than it was. This plan was identical in theory and in general operation to the one Theodore had carried out in the War of 3039.

Sakade targeted several Dominion worlds for the counterattack, using ISF and O5P data to select areas where sizable manufacturing centers or military depots were located. On 25 December 3062, most of the forces assigned to the Pesht Military District jumped out and struck twelve Dominion systems. The DCMS units were to hold their assigned targets for as long as they could and then retreat before receiving more than twenty-five percent losses.

The plan was solid and could have succeeded, save a few critical factors. Many of the commanders under Sakade believed her plan was flawed. As such, they took liberties to amend their assaults—including timing—to incorporate what they deemed more “honorable elements.” Others refused to believe a woman could come up with any type of strategy and found ways to stall or circumvent their orders.

Whatever the reason, only half of the operation went off as planned, leaving several regiments without appropriate support or needed firepower. Those forces that did follow orders were not enough to stop the Bear advance cold, though it did contribute to the Bears’ reconsideration of launching the second wave. Nonetheless, Tai-shu Sakade’s forces were severely damaged by the botched operation, which her enemies used as evidence of her unfitness for command.

Shamed by the actions of her subordinates, Sakade returned to Luthien to discuss the situation with the Coordinator. The Courcheval Challenge was the Tai-shu’s idea, along with several other small mini-offensives designed to keep the Bears in stalemate. Knowing she could not return to her command without the full respect and honor due her as warlord, she opted to take the samurai’s path out. By committing seppuku, she opened the way for the Coordinator to salvage the situation with a new warlord at the helm. Her honorable death also proved her detractors wrong; shamed, they were awarded the Honor of the Wakizashi at the end of the conflict.

The Coordinator named Tai-shu Tomoe Sakade as the first female recipient of the Glory of the Fallen Samurai in 3064.

—The Dragon’s Tears Flow in Many Forms; Imperial Press, 3065

The Dragon’s Honorable Daimyo

Some more sectional peeks at HBHK. This go-round, we’ve got a district overview, a vehicle of history, and a look at a planetary crossroads.

From Pillar of Gold

Galedon Governmental District

As the birthplace of the Draconis Combine, the Galedon Governmental District had its days of glory but now suffers the lingering aftereffects of the Succession Wars. This combination of special history and bloody suffering has instilled great pride in the Galedonians. No district is truer to the Combine and none, save the former Rasalhague District, has so much pride in its own region.

The Tabayama, Kaznejoy, and Matsuida Prefectures have only recently begun receiving back former citizens who were relocated into Pesht due to the severe Davion assaults of the Third and Fourth Succession Wars. Citizens from Alshain and Benjamin were also relocated back into these three prefectures, providing a small boost to local economies and general well-being. With rumors of Clan Snow Raven taking over the Outworlds Alliance, many citizens are nervous—not from imminent attack, but from another round of relocations.

The New Samarkand Prefecture maintains a not-so-friendly rivalry with the Kagoshima Prefecture. Many citizens of the New Samarkand worlds hold fast to their place in Combine history. Claiming both Shiro Kurita’s birthworld and the home of the Combine’s beginnings within their borders, the people of New Samarkand believe their prefecture is the jewel of the Combine. Residents in Kagoshima, of course, believe they are deserving of the honor because of Luthien’s presence. Several planetary chairmen have used this rivalry to great effect by pitting militias against each other in yearly war games on several prefecture proving grounds. The more emotional contests occur on Miyada, Sighisoara, and Worrell ever since they were reabsorbed within the Pesht Governmental District.

Of the district’s five prefectures, Oshika is the tamest. Several longstanding industrial facilities remain operational within the prefecture. The recent boom in naval construction and technological developments have made this prefecture a more appealing location for the Combine’s brighter minds.

From History of the Nation

The Honor of the Daimyo

Under Jinjiro’s orders, the ISF conducted an intensive investigation into the matter of who provided ComStar with the data footage that made its way out to the other Houses. The inquiry lasted less than a week, as the transmission’s video data contained coding that was traced back to the crew of a Daiymo HQ 67-K. The crew was arrested and brought before the Coordinator, who killed each of them with a single laser pulse to the brain.

During a standard maintenance routine in 2910, mechanics from the Second Sword of Light discovered the headquarters vehicle in a motor pool on Luthien. The vehicle had been transported without record from the bloody fields of Kentares and left on the capital world, possibly as some disagreeable officer’s quiet notion of rebellion.

The vehicle was reclaimed and refitted for duty and its battle history made known to the Second Sword’s command staff. From then on, the regiment used it in every campaign as a distinct reminder of Sworder history. Crews volunteered for assignment to the mobile HQ, knowing full well the dishonor that came with its operation.

In 3051, the Daimyo was an active participant in the defense of Luthien from the Smoke Jaguar and Nova Cat assault. During the later stages of battle, both Takashi Kurita and Shin Yodama commanded from the vehicle as the Combine successfully repelled the invasion.
After the battle and seeing the crew operate with no regard for their personal safety as they assisted the Coordinator in his command, Takashi declared the vehicle cleansed from its historic stain. The Coordinator personally paid for the vehicle’s repair and refurbishment and it proudly occupies a place in the Second Sword of Light’s order of battle.

—Quirks of the Kuritan Army; Orestes Public Press, 3062

From Touring the Realm

Isesaki

Planetary Ruler: Shugo Sophia Franklin
Star Type (Recharge Time): Close Binary M0V (196 hours)
Position in System: 1
Time to Jump Point: 5.89 days
Number of Satellites: 5 (Hoshide, Yui, Furukawa, Onishi, Yamazaki)
Surface Gravity: 0.80
Atmospheric Pressure: Standard (Breathable)
Equatorial Temperature: 25° C (Temperate)
Surface Water: 80 percent
Recharging Station: Zenith, Nadir
HPG Class Type: A
Highest Native Life: Mammal
Population: 9,320,000
Socio-Economic Levels: B-A-D-A-D

A single world orbiting a close binary, Isesaki was surveyed in 2281 and then promptly ignored, as it was deemed of little value to the resource-hungry Combine at the time. Though its surface is primarily water, the oceans contain a heavy amount of poisonous bacteria and alkaline compounds. Fluctuating tides caused by the small, close moons made coastal settlements extremely difficult and costly. The small amount of fresh water on the continental surface comes from underground springs and is difficult to access in large quantities.

In 2612, Isesaki Shipping sponsored and built the first colony on the surface of the lone planet. Taken by the world’s vast aquatic beauty, dazzling views of the binaries and moons, and the hundreds of rich, verdant forest islands and atolls, Uchio Randolph, Isesaki’s founder, petitioned the Coordinator for corporate possession of the entire system. Within two centuries, the corporation built two JumpShip yards, several zero-G manufacturing facilities, and converted an entire island into a small spacecraft manufacturing complex. The system became a major transportation hub for Combine traffic traversing the Rift and vaulted Isesaki Shipping into the top tier of commercial corporations in the realm.

The main continent of Uchio is home to all of the planet’s residents. The two smaller continents, Isoroku and Matsubushi, have remained unsettled and wild to provide a peaceful retreat for Isesaki employees. Both located along the equator, they are covered in verdant forests, rolling hills, and sparkling springs. Several lodges dot the landscape, most crafted in a minimalist style, to keep the focus on the natural beauty of the area. The more magnificent palatial compounds are hardwired to the planetary network. Security protocols keep these locked down so that executives are forced to spend time away from their workplace, refreshing their body, mind, and spirit.

Due in part to the spectacular solar display in the sky, citizens of Isesaki are obsessed with spaceflight and exploration. One of ComStar’s major Explorer Corps administrative hubs was located on the outskirts of the Toyohiro Akiyama Spacecraft Complex. With ComStar’s recent abandonment of the site, Isesaki employees have petitioned that it be converted into an astronomical observatory and historical library.

The capital city of Ukonsoi dominates the central plains of Uchio. Its architecture is a blend of Rasalhagian, Shōwa, Buddhist, and neo-Qing designs centered around the four towers of Isesaki headquarters. The entire eastern sector of the city contains rows upon rows of massive warehouses. These facilities hold products and shipments from across the Inner Sphere under heavy security. Bulk items are stored here for varying durations as determined by the Isesaki Transportation Control Division. (Items of perishable or critical importance are transferred at one of the two spacedocks located near the system’s recharge stations.) Roku Royal trains steadily crawl through the sector in a complicated but efficient balancing act; despite the intense traffic flow, there have been only two collisions in the last fifty years.

Several Combine and corporate administrative clusters dot the rest of Uchio’s surface. Each cluster is surrounded by residential and commercial districts, laid out in concentric patterns. At night, the lights from the continent’s surface give the impression of perfectly placed scales, symbolic of the Dragon’s ever-present influence on Isesaki and its employees.

[DeJaVu]

Secret Police and Colored Dragons

[Quick note: the BattleTech LEGOs you've seen here on my blog are the work of other LEGO fans on Flickr. I'm using the photos of their amazing creations under the Creative Commons license. If you like them, click on the photo to check out their other sets. I'd love to claim their creativity as mine, but I'm not quite that good a LEGO creator yet.]

I’ve taken notice of an interesting discussion on the official BattleTech boards lately, as fans of the Combine debate the current “modern era” purpose of both the Internal Security Force and the Order of Five Pillars (ISF and O5P, respectively). Setting aside some of the more…obtuse…arguments, I decided to kick out one more post with “preview content” from the upcoming-but-in-a-holding-pattern HBHK.

Before I do that, however, I have to say one thing: When you argue from a position where you’re using your own assumptions as fact and then relentlessly bludgeoning others with such a position, you’re doing it wrong. Egregiously so. Conducting effective nerd debates about fictional game history is all about using only established published canon to lay out your theory so others can debate it. (Key word: debate. There’s no ‘winning’ or ‘losing’ in nerd debates about a fictional game universe.) It’s not about taking your stand and then wielding your constructed argument as “the Hand of Inarguable Fact.” Because all you’re doing is annoying everyone and, possibly, trolling.

I, the current shepherd of various factions and crafter of stories and plots involving such factions, sometimes step in to correct such mishandled material. It’s amusing when I get told I’m wrong… The humor in such irony is, unfortunately, sad.

Anyway, I wanted to lay down some information for fans or the curious bystanders wanting to know more about the ISF, the O5P, and the Kokuryu-kai. Note that this information is being presented from the fictional year of 3067.

Internal Security Force [from the Pillar of Gold]

The ISF is not under the jurisdiction of any ministry. Its doings are shrouded in such secrecy that it officially does not exist. No one branch of government can claim control over the ISF, as its agents are everywhere, and their first and only allegiance is to the Coordinator.

Subdivided into five main branches, all of which operate independently of one another, the ISF has no central administration outside the director. This arrangement helps foster internal security among the various branches by compartmentalizing operations.

Currently, the ISF’s primary mission is to locate and destroy the surviving elements of the Black Dragon Society while simultaneously protecting the Combine against external threats. The Clan and Federated Suns fronts remain hotbeds of activity for the latter activities, which suggests that Theodore does not fully trust his neighbors.

It should be noted that recent efforts by the Coordinator to strengthen Japanese culture among his people has led to an influx of new Japanese names for agencies previously tagged with generic labels. Curiously enough, the ISF and DEST entities have not received this treatment, most likely because their names are recognized and feared even in foreign space.

[and from the Pillar of Steel]

Citizens of the Draconis Combine rarely mention the ISF, but they all think about it constantly. Responsible for many abductions, killings, and interrogations, the secret police fosters fear, paranoia, and devotion to the state. Those who follow the way of the samurai have little to fear from the ISF, however, unless their honor conflicts with the honor of the Draconis Combine.

Few members of the ISF are visible to the general public. Most agents belong to other groups or governmental departments, and few know about these operatives’ affiliation with the secret police. The ISF has infiltrated every organization in Kurita space and many others in the other Great Houses. Its reach is even longer, as citizens may collect a reward for reporting treasonous activity or talk by others. When military operations are called for, the ISF can take command of any Special Forces unit as needed, even without notifying that district’s Warlord.

Inside the secret police is an even more secret society. Called the “Sons of the Dragon,” the society is a group of agents who are more loyal to the Director of the ISF and the Coordinator. Few beyond the ISF, high-ranking officials in the Order of Five Pillars, and the Coordinator’s family are aware of the existence of the group, though many rumors persists in varying form among the common people.
[Please refer to the more extensive information on the ISF in the Pillar of Gold section, as the agency does not fall under the command or purview of the DCMS. —MK]

Order of the Five Pillars [from the Pillar of Gold]

The O5P is a curious agency, neither officially part of the Combine’s intelligence apparatus nor technically opposed to it. The Order is a self-sufficient organization that maintains the dual roles of protecting the spiritual honor of House Kurita while at the same time keeping watch over its people. This quasi-agency falls under the purview of the Ministry of the Court but answers directly to the Coordinator. The Order’s ministry ties exist so it can requisition materials and work with the various Court bureaus to provide assistance as needed.

In order to facilitate its own goals, the O5P has evolved its own bureaucracy and intelligence network that pervades all of Combine space and possibly beyond. They have the ear of many of the Dragon’s officials.

[from the Pillar of Ivory]

Modern Day

The ISF remains wary of the Order’s infiltration of all aspects of Combine society, a situation that rivals the secret police’s own machinations. Agents have attempted to infiltrate the O5P and compete with the quality of its training. Because of the ISF’s lack of women—many O5P adepts and illuminati are female—and the Order’s own counter-penetration of the agency, ISF success has been limited. This rivalry continues unabated, lasting more than five centuries, but neither side will openly admit to such disharmony. Such an admission could have disastrous ramifications on the Combine, a situation neither agency wishes to see occur.

Nonetheless, during the Keepership of Constance Kurita, efforts to reconcile differences between the two agencies were initiated. The détente continued under the Keepership of the Coordinator’s daughter Omi, who tested both sides when she asked them to relay a message to the Dragon’s enemies during the Clan Invasion. Her request sought help in freeing the Heir-Designate trapped on Teniente. Emboldened by the mission’s success, Omi continued to build on that alliance of expediency through the rest of her years.

Tragically, Omi’s death at the hands of an assassin in 3064 seems to have shattered the fragile alliance. While the two agencies might have cooperated individually with the Coordinator’s son Minoru in tracking Omi’s killer, such reports cannot be independently verified. It remains unclear at present exactly how Minoru found and executed the assassin and avenged the Dragon’s loss.

The current head of the Order and Keeper of the House Honor is Miyako Kurita, daughter of Isoroku Kurita, the Warlord of the Dieron Military District. The Abbess is Tomade Yamiro, who was recently under rigorous investigation by the ISF for possible links to the Black Dragons. Ultimately proven innocent, the Abbess has since cut the Order’s ties with the agency, forming a crack in the already tattered alliance that neither group can afford at this time.

The Kokuryu-kai Enigma [from History of the Nation]

Not all within the Combine’s nobility agreed with the changes enacted by Coordinator Takashi and his son. The Dragon’s newfound focus and more liberal policies were at odds with those of many hardline, conservative nobles. Within this environment the Kokuryu-kai—the Black Dragon Society—grew exponentially. Originally confined to the mad fancy of Combine nobles wrapped in the trappings of history dominated by Shinjiro and Hohiro Kurita, the Black Dragons found prestige, money, and strength. Bolstered through this renaissance of thought, these elder nobles found new life in their younger protégés and began suborning those who could assist them in standing against the Coordinator. Not even our own people were immune. Echoing shreds of the past, we found ourselves divided once again, though such an ideological division would not surface for several years.

In 3054, Coordinator Takashi Kurita suffered a severe stroke that would end his life, leaving Theodore as his heir. Despite the new Coordinator’s uncharacteristically open and public testimony, supported with reports from within this agency, many subversive Combine news agencies began circulating rumors that Takashi had not gone to his death willingly. These independent sources, a product of the Combine’s loosening strictures over the last few decades, bolstered the Black Dragons’ cause through persistence and casting a modicum of doubt among the populace. These reactionary elements sought a premature return to the Combine’s original doctrine of conquest and glory, before Theodore’s reforms could destroy the honor and prestige of the DCMS and the Combine.

The Kokuryu-kai claims six grievances with the Coordinator:

The continuing détente with the Federated Commonwealth.
According common soldiers equal honors alongside noble officers.
Building BattleMech regiments out of yakuza and other criminals, insulting the well-born and properly bred citizens.
Permitting the secession of the Rasalhague people.
Opposing the noble and heroic efforts of Marcus Kurita and his followers in their attempt to redeem the Combine’s honor.
When examined thoroughly, the Black Dragons are simply using a myopic view of the past in order to claim authority over the Draconis Combine. Because this ideology is against the purposes and integrity of the Dragon, it is the ISF’s duty to completely oppose it.

—Memo attributed to Ninyu Kerai from Subhash Indrahar, 3058; Imperial Court Archives, 3067

[and from Pillar of Gold]

The ancient Black Dragon society, with roots as far back as Richard Kurita, is considered the greatest internal threat to the stability of the Combine since the Shadow War of the previous century. The Kokuryu-kai has always moved in the shadows, influencing nobles and other officials as needed to protect the Dragon from harming itself. Only in the last few decades has this society moved in a more overt manner, bringing bold violence into the realm.

The Black Dragons’ first blatant militaristic move was an attack on the Davion world of Towne, launched after the FedCom split apart in the face of a Marik-Liao invasion. Although hoping to bring back the Combine’s glory days with this unsanctioned invasion, the Society found its plans thwarted by mercenaries employed by the Coordinator’s cousin, Chandrasekhar Kurita. After the incident, a purge of the DCMS was believed to put an end to the secretive sect, but two months later, the Kokuryu-kai struck again with an assassination attempt on the Coordinator.

The 3058 incident was aided by a large number of sympathizers within the ISF and Otomo, including General Hohiro Kiguri, head of DEST. A second, more widespread purge, including within the ISF, attempted to destroy the Black Dragons for good. The ISF’s vital role in the operations to destroy the Smoke Jaguars and end the Clan crusade showed few indications that any of the Kokuryu-kai had survived. One incident, an attempt on Victor Steiner-Davion’s life during his visit to Luthien, has not been officially linked to the Society, though many among the nobility believe it to be so.

After the Clans’ defeat, much of the ISF assisted the reclamation of the worlds liberated by BULLDOG. Nearly a decade of rebellion against the occupying Clans produced planetary populations grown accustomed to resistance, which made it nearly as difficult for the ISF to assimilate these reclaimed worlds as it was to bring the remains of Clan Nova Cat into the Combine. The resource drain on both the agency and the overall economy of the Combine created a great deal of internal dissent that once again awakened the Black Dragons, who moved forward a few years later with their most ambitious plans yet.

In just a handful of isolated incidents, the latest actions attributed to the Black Dragons have provoked some of the hardest fighting and the most terrible tragedies in recent years. With the renegade attack on Alshain by the Alshain Avengers in 3062, the Society instigated the biggest conflict on the Clan front since BULLDOG. Along with the DCMS seizing worlds in the Lyons Thumb after Lyran and mercenary troops struck Combine garrisons, the Federated Suns’s Draconis March launched their own assault over the border.
These conflicts savaged the Combine military and stretched thin the already-depleted ISF resources. To save face among his people and forestall any more “renegade” adventurism, the Coordinator annexed territories along the Lyran and FedSuns borders and redistributed the DCMS among several hostile borders. Tensing for the next dissident attack, the Combine stands on the verge of losing most of the reforms the Coordinator has spent his life putting into effect for the nation’s own survival.

—Star League Intel Briefing 53-1; Office of the Star League Intelligence Command, 3065

[DeJaVu]

Самый долгоожидаемый книг после Клондайка)

For a variety of reasons this is a book that has been a long, long time in coming…it’s wonderful to see the art flowing in fast and furious as we get close to sending this to print.
Here’s two pieces…will share more on future days…

[acefalcon]

Судя по картинкам, книга будет шикарная. Но почему пехотинцы рядом с "Пантерой" напоминают мне Петруху и и Саида из небезызвестного фильма?)))

[KolbunD]

The Deadly Double Cobra

так вот,что погубило федералов, куритян и космическую звезду воронов ...

[Бойцовый кот]

Но почему пехотинцы рядом с "Пантерой" напоминают мне Петруху и и Саида из небезызвестного фильма?)))

Может, рисовал поклонник этого фильма? Они там оказывается тоже наше кино смотрят (о чем я узнал с немалым удивлением), например, http://www.imfdb.org/wiki/White_Sun_of_the_Desert_%28Beloye_solntse_pustyni%29).

[DeJaVu]

[DeJaVu]

Немного арта



И целый ББ
Devotion to duty, perfected through greater self-discipline, leads to an improved state of personal freedom and sense of joy focused on fulfillment in one’s work.

[Commentary: Business is war on the field of numbers. Financial ruin from poor decisions and improper decorum is as deadly as badly considered tactics and unconsidered strategies. In the great machine, one faulty gear can create a catastrophe; one poorly maintained part could destroy a company. It is the duty of the worker to give all he is to the success of his endeavor. For the smallest part plays the largest role in the success or failure of the greater purpose.]

—Dictum Honorium VII, 215–216

Too many years in the making, the advent of Handbook: House Kurita is nearly upon us. The last of the critically acclaimed—but low-selling—Handbook series, it marks the end of the 3067 “era” and provides a comprehensive view of one of the BattleTech universe’s most misunderstood and maligned factions. Grossly sketched as the “evil empire” early on in the game’s creation, the Draconis Combine has turned into one of the most dynamic and culturally rich realms in the current setting. This particular stellar empire survives on the sheer force of will of its ruling House, the Kurita clan. As the family went, so did the Combine.

Anyway, one of the earliest sections I’d completed back in 2011 was the chapter describing the Pillar of Jade—the economic structure of the realm. One of the key pieces within this chapter are the corporate sketches of the Combine’s industrial might. For the Combine, industry is divided along two lines—those that support the military, and everything else. The Draconis Combine’s reliance on the military is a major cornerstone of its existence and key to its continued survival.



Also important in this particular section is a look at the Combine’s economy (specifically, how it is based almost entirely on the success and failure of its military tradition), monetary system, corporate structure, trade, and business perspective. All of these aspects are critical to understanding why the Pillar of Jade is such an important cornerstone to the Combine’s success despite its restrictions, especially compared the (relatively) free markets of the Lyran Commonwealth and Federated Suns—House Kurita’s chief rivals in the struggle to become First Lord of the original Star League.

One of the more difficult aspects of writing this book was making sure that information and secrets later divulged in the fires of the Jihad are not revealed. Sometimes, this meant some form of obfuscation or, in a couple of cases, outright “lies,” that are couched in the perspective of the book’s narrative voice. If the reader looks closely at various areas, especially those touched by story elements in the later Jihad plot books, then the foundation of those arcs can be seen.

But like all things Kuritan, truth is often outed through the perspective of the beholder—after much contemplation, of course.

Enjoy these two corporate previews from the Pillar of Jade.

~Ben H. Rome
BattleTech Assistant Line Developer

Midway Shipyards
Main Headquarters: Orbital (Midway)
CEO: Lawrence Maas
Main Products (Midway; Midway Shipyards): Inazuma-class, Kirishima-class, and Kyushu-class WarShips
Main Products (Schuyler; Dharma HyperSpace) Scout-class JumpShip
Profile: Considered the Combine’s experts in WarShip construction, Midway Shipyards began originally as a JumpShip manufacturer. Its first slips, still in orbit around the planet Midway, produced Star Lord- and Invader-class vessels for the Dragon. Midway-built JumpShips were known for their solid construction and had fewer breakdowns and repair issues than other similar class vessels.

Midway was given the DCA’s contracts for the Inazuma-, Kirishima-, and Kyushu-class WarShips based on their exemplary record. The contracts included a massive series of grants to increase the Midway yards, tripling the company’s size in less than four years. Midway’s increase in fortune has trickled down to the planet proper, providing a level of comfort and satisfaction rarely found among other corporations of the same size.

The shipyards produce an average of one to three JumpShips a year as resources are reallocated to the WarShip program.



Isesaki ShippingIndustry
Headquarters: Ukonsoi (Isesaki)
CEO: Daimyo Ernest Machida
Main Products: Interstellar shipping, small craft, cargo modules, Roku Royal land train, Tramp-class JumpShips
Profile: Isesaki Shipping dates back over five centuries. Though the firm has undergone changes and restructuring over time, Isesaki holds a royal patent to trade anywhere in the Inner Sphere. Turbulent relations between the Combine and its neighbors have sometimes made these operations difficult, but Isesaki’s agents and extensive contacts with “independent” traders have always allowed the company to find a way to its goals.

Rumors among Imperial courtiers typically place Isesaki’s free-rein mandate in league with ISF operations beyond the Combine border. While no evidence has ever surfaced that the transport company is simply an extension of the security force, the ISF has been known to place agents on more far-reaching routes.

In addition to its primary business concern of interstellar shipping, Isesaki has branched into other related products and services. The company is the primary domestic shipping provider on the bulk of the Combine’s planets. Isesaki’s manufacturing arm produces several types of all-purpose cargo modules, the popular Roku Royal land train, and a handful of Tramp-class JumpShips every few years. These vessels are built directly for the company; retired JumpShips are often sold at auction to independent buyers and some small shipping concerns.

Currently, the company is wrapping up construction on its new orbital manufacturing facilities over Luthien. The interlinked stations are slated to produce Isesaki’s new Roku Royal II tracked land train.

[DeJaVu]

[DeJaVu]

Reflecting the Pillar of Gold

One of the more interesting sections to write with Handbook: House Kurita was that of the Pillar of Gold, or the Government arm of the Dragon. It encompasses the politics, policy, nobility, court, and of course, the ever-present Combine bureaucracy. It’s a lot of seemingly disparate parts that form the whole of the Great House’s leadership. An archaic blend of old rituals and new ideologies, the Kuritan government prides itself on the steel grasp of the past while warily looking to the future.

Divorcing myself from the events of the Jihad, at which we were wrapping up at the time of writing this chapter, was a little difficult, as I knew what was already in store for this venerable House. But it was also a playground chapter to lay several ‘seeds’ for the Jihad arc, and possibly putting a little spin on what was already known to readers of that Era.

The most challenging, however, was including the Combine’s rather interesting relationship with Clan Nova Cat. What foundations were put in place here would have ripples and ramifications far past the Jihad Era and stretch well towards the Dark Age. Even though the sections dealing with the Clan are small, I put a lot of research under my belt before writing it. I saw the relationship between the two powers as something very similar to my own ancestral history, so it proved especially poignant to write. To see a people and culture penned into place, pressed on all sides to assimilate and conform, yet nobly refusing despite the intolerance arrayed against them, was somewhat of a challenge to do without getting emotionally attached. I will say that after reading these parts, some scattered in other relevant sections, the death of the Nova Cats later in the fictional history of this universe makes a much more emotional statement.

And to think, this is but one of the many complex facets that make up this glorious, yet sadly troubled, Great House. I hope I have done it justice.

From the Pillar of Gold section:

The Nova Cat Penned
It has been less than a decade since my people have been placed within these “reservation zones.” I am not like my fellow Clansmen: I do not believe we share a spiritual heritage with these Kuritans or that they have any desire to embrace us as kinsmen. We are, at best, tolerated by our wardens—and a sop when the Ghost Bears come raging across the border again.

Our enclaves feel more like prison barracks than refugee enclaves. In most cases, we were thrust into harsh terrain among the open areas of worlds within our Irece Prefecture. In some instances, such as ready-made industrial zones, Kuritan civilians were removed and as such despise us for taking their homes. View a Nova Cat enclave alongside a Kuritan city and the differences are obvious. Armed security watches our every move. Suspicious eyes avoid our gaze. Kuritan police and ISF bureaucrats demanding to see identification at any time. All this, despite the claim by the Combine that the Clan has nearly autonomous control over the prefecture.

While the Combine’s society is very similar to our own, it is not compatible. With so much of our lower castes ravaged from our flight, we are heavily dependent on the Kuritan civilian to provide us with infrastructure, support, labor, and a multitude of other services that we, as Clansmen, have taken for granted. Our situation has laid bare our predicament and possibly sown the seeds for our destruction.

The warriors do not see the plight of their lower castes.

Those who were Clansmen were transported to these enclaves and distributed among the systems of Irece Prefecture. Many, many more of our “caste” were suborned Combine citizens, most of whom were happy to remove the yoke of “Clan oppression” from their shoulders. Because so few of our people escaped from the Homeworlds, citizens of the Combine surround our Clan. Citizens who well remember the oppression and abuse of the Clans not so long ago. To them, it does not matter who their captors were. Nova Cat, Smoke Jaguar, Ghost Bear—we are all still “the Clans” to them. And as such, worthy only of their scorn, hatred, and derision.

Indeed, the only Combine citizens who seem genuinely happy we are here are the nobles. Why not? Clan governance is different from the harsher extremes of the Combine. To them, we are downright lenient in our dispensation, which is an advantageous situation to them.

Our warriors ignore this. They do not see the difficulties placed upon our lower caste brothers and sisters. High prices for common goods. “Missing” shipments. Outright refusal of service. Mockery. Even if the Dragon’s citizenry is polite, you can simply look into their eyes and see their mistrust, their anger, their disgust.

Therefore, we stay within our designated zones, among our own people. We avoid the confusion, the culture clashes, the misunderstandings that might lead to beatings or incarceration. We find protection behind the shield of being Clan. It saddens me that these downtrodden citizens cannot see beyond their xenophobia and paranoia to all the good the Clan brings to their lives. Better technology. Higher standard of living. An open and honorable way of governance not dissimilar to their own. And most importantly, we respect and observe the rule of the Coordinator, to whom we owe our very existence.

As I understand it, this is not what the Coordinator wanted when he first proposed this arrangement with our exalted khans. However, it has become our reality. With corporate agents, ministry officials, and military officers carrying out the “will of the Coordinator,” using and abusing us for our technology and treating us worse than the Combine’s own Unproductives, we have no reason to believe the Coordinator has our best interest in mind. It is as if the Dragon did not wish to waste further resources on destroying another Clan, opting instead to let us wither on the vine. The addition of the Coordinator’s freeborn son into our ranks is an insult to the Way of the Clan. Our warriors may think it is an honor, but we of the lower castes know the truth: he is simply another weapon to kill our culture.

Our situation deteriorates. Only our Clan’s honor props us up. And I fear our warriors will soon kick that prop out from under us. We will wither and die, ground under the heavy bulk of the Dragon’s scales until we are but dust.

—Personal Notations, 041667; Technician Factor Jarvis Novacat

Until next time,

Ben H. Rome
Assistant Line Developer

[DeJaVu]

Absolutely giddy to see this long-await sourcebook nearing completion. Thinking 2015 is gonna be a great year for getting several long-ancitipated books out the door!

[rcw_hardcore]

The essence of religion is faith, a belief strictly independent of intellectual comprehension. Your religion, then, provides a complete ideological apparatus that is devoid of content. The content must come from elsewhere, from the reality of man’s interaction with the material universe. And because the state is the means mankind uses to mediate this interaction, the content of religion in every era must reflect the ideological requirements of the state that rules in that era and the leading class that controls that state.

—Analects and Commentaries of the Fifth Era; Sacred Works (O5P), 2817


Women and Titles
Through centuries of continued veneration of males and the subservience of females, titles and other practices use the male pronoun or imply the male gender. Even as these attitudes are slowly changing, centuries of tradition preclude any instant change of title structure. As such, though a planetary chairman may be a woman, she is still referred to as “chairman.”

—Kurita Etiquette Primer, Appendix A-2; Benjamin District Press, 3061

Non-Japanese Culture in the Draconis Combine

Although the general Kurita culture is closely based on that of Terran Japan, the majority of Combine citizens are not of Japanese ancestry. Especially on planets where one non-Japanese people predominates, there are definite strands of other cultures discernible.

The official Kurita tolerance for “foreign” cultures varies. At this time, under Jasmine Kurita’s advocacy of the arts, multicultural study and display is actually encouraged. The School of Cultural Investigation on Al Na’ir is dedicated to exploration of the different cultures “from which we took the best elements, to forge together the superior way of living known as Kurita culture,” according to Dean Hamin Gemal. Students of cultural investigation apply history, geography, anthropology, sociology, art history, and other disciplines to discover the hidden heritage of the non-Japanese Draconis Combine. The school even formed a task force in 3064, sending several instructors and researchers to observe and live in the Clan Nova Cat reserve areas.

While most cultural aspects—education, class structure, titles, and modes of address, for example—display the mainline Japanese-influenced culture of Kurita, arts and crafts on different planets still reflect the individual spirit and local cultural influences. For example, the architecture of the School of Cultural Investigation shows distinct references to the building style of the Terran Middle East and northern Africa.

Artists studying at Cultural Investigation, or influenced by its philosophy, follow their interests in one of two ways: reproducing the artistic forms of past times or adapting these forms to the present. Examples of the first include Philip Valenzuela’s translations of ancient Spanish authors—such as Marquez, Neruda, and Borges—and Marion Tsevernasky’s popular renditions of Russian, Ukrainian, and Martian folk music.

Examples of the adaptive school rank among the most exciting artistic work being done in the Combine today. The broad, cliff paintings of Bruno O’Leary are directly influenced by the Renaissance works of Monet, da Vinci, and Renoir. The neon kabuki performances by Isolde Gunnedottir reflect the mid-twenty-second-century, three-dimensional operatics of Jurgid and Tommes. Michi Kirosawa’s extremely popular trivid action cinema are directly influenced by the ancient monster telefilms of the Shōwa period.

The only major gap in the wave of interest in other cultures is that of the Azami people. Because of their unique status as allies of the Dragon rather than subjects, they are often viewed with a veil of mistrust. Some inroads have been made in trying to understand and elevate the Azami culture—especially to Kurita enclaves on Azami worlds and neighboring systems—but their own reluctance to open up their closed culture to outsiders has hampered efforts. The epic Sands of Fire, a harrowing tale of the Azami wildegort herders who helped the DCMS defend against a Davion raid on Dabih, is one of few current exceptions. Director Mohammed Lakhdar’s Second Succession War-era biopic has met critical success on several worlds, including Luthien and New Samarkand.

In the xenophobic atmosphere of House Kurita, the only way to sell the studies of other cultures is by stressing the superior way of the Combine and the benefits of incorporating the best of other cultures. It is likely that if Kurita suffers a major setback either internally or on the battlefronts, these foreign elements will be banned. Those studying these cultures know they are taking a great risk and, more than most, truly suffer for their art.

—The Struggle of Culture Amongst the Dragon’s Stars; Proserpina Press, 3066

Ben H. Rome
Assistant Line Developer

[Florean]

Разъяснение сложившейся ситуации ("этот проект получился слегка проклят, но все будет") и три страницы из книги: http://catalystgamelabs.tumblr.com/post ... ita-layout

[DeJaVu]

имхо, он вышел бы раньше, но господа укатили на пакс...