Editing ComStar (section)

==Organization and Ideology==
Unusually for a Battletech power, there was no dominant dynasty in ComStar, because Cable companies do better when you don't know who's running them. The head of ComStar was [[Alpharius|the Primus]] along with the First Circuit as a legislature/board of directors. A Primus could name their successor, but the First Circuit had to confirm it. 

ComStar only held one inhabited Star System as it's own territory, a fact which was somewhat off-set by the fact that it's Sol. Terra in BattleTech is not a [[Holy Terra|Sacred Ecumeonopolis]] like how it is in [[Warhammer 40,000|another universe]], but it is a populous world with a lot of symbolic value. As far as the Successor States were concerned, letting ComStar have it was the least bad option when compared to A: letting one of those other Four Jerks take it or B: taking it and risk having it be laid waste in the fight, earning your House a particularly egregious black mark. Beyond that there were a lot of ComStar bases, outposts and operations scattered around the Inner Sphere and Periphery. Many overt and legit, others less so.

ComStar generally avoided direct conflict whenever possible, given that it was badly outnumbered and held little territory of its own. Its influence came from being useful to the bigger powers, providing services they could not do themselves, and being a proxy for those occasions where they did not want to blow each other up. This did not mean that ComStar was a passive party who ignored the rest of the galaxy so long as they were left alone and the cable bills were paid, however. Having a monopoly on FTL communication as well as banking gave them considerable influence; their own minted money in C-Bills was and still is considered the Battletech universe's universal currency, and their ability to allow you to use their services was just as dangerous as their ability to turn it off on you. The last thing you wanted was for ComStar to suspend services so that the Draconis Combine could invade your frontier, with word arriving at your court weeks after the dropships began unloading their mechs while the Coordinator could better organize and reinforce his armies, all of which he could fund with low-interest loans. And all of that is ''before'' the fact that the ComStar guys were reading your mail months ahead of time.

Of course... that's all the typical [[Megacorporation|ultracorp]], surface-level stuff. A major, secretive part of ComStar's end-goals came from a secret directive from Blake himself, which slowly got warped over and over and over again until ComStar for much of its' time as a major power was not only your ISP, but also a secretive, mystical religion; believing that ComStar and Comstar alone had a holy duty to save Humanity from itself by taking control of all knowledge, and therefor all power. This meant that they often "rediscovered" centuries-old technology and only introduced it back into society when they believed it was "ready" for it, and this level of religious zeal became the bat that ComStar used to keep hitting the beehives of the Inner Sphere into further [[Succession Wars]], all of which finally came to a head with an [[Word of Blake|internal schism]], and ultimately their dissolution afterward. 

Compare this to say, another wargame's [[Adeptus Mechanicus|leading "tech-first" faction]]. The Mechanicus are also the beating heart of humanity's technological achievement and preservation, with a deeply religious bent with a penchant for hoarding potentially life-changing tech for selfish reasons, but there is a big difference between the Mechanicus does and what ComStar does; The Mechanicus will only ever horde stuff they deem especially interesting or valuable to ''them''. If the Mechanicus finds some form of large agricultural vehicle, they will ensure that it isn't chaos tainted, make sure they can produce it, and then fart it out onto any Agri-world they can because agriculture doesn't interest the Mechanicus at all and helping the Imperium as a whole A: looks good and B: helps them by proxy. ComStar meanwhile, if put in the same situation, would still horde that agricultural vehicle. Because according to them, only ''they'' get to decide when Farmers from Frog Nuts get to do large-scale agriculture.

The reasoning for this, at least from ComStar's perspective, is that they feel that the Great Houses are a bunch of power hungry assholes (they are) who would ruin the Inner Sphere out of greed and hatred (they did). Similarly having one of them win and establish a twisted order which they'd dominate from a pyramid of Skulls is not a desirable outcome, being not only at best a cruel mockery of Star League but one that would have all of the original's weaknesses plus some new ones that would likely fall apart in a few generations leaving a new set of Successor States to arise from the Victor's Nobility to ruin things and setting affairs back to square one. To rebuild Star League, and do it right, the five Great Houses don't just need to be eliminated but brought to heel, put into line and their systems of power systematically destroyed for the greater cause of lasting peace and stability.

The starting premise was pretty reasonable, the methods of bringing it about were... less so. ComStar would retain the wisdom of Mankind's Golden Age while warfare would continue at a purposefully unsustainable though not apocalyptic level, causing hundreds of millions of untold deaths but not burning worlds. Technological progress would be held in check for their eyes, and actively stagnate or slide backwards away from their borders. The Balance of Power would be maintained and gradually the Great Houses would be brought to the point where they could be maneuvered into forming a new proper Star League without a bunch of feudal assholes with their own armies and petty grudges (instead they'd have a cult of [[High Lords of Terra|corrupt telecom execs calling the shots]]), at the cost of that same throne of skulls previously mentioned being built from the Inner Sphere's citizenry.