Free Worlds League

Free Worlds League
Capital	Atreus
Official Languages	Most spoken human languages
Size	Over 330 worlds
Head of State	Captain-General
Governmental Structure	Parliamentary Federation
Military Force	Free Worlds League Military

In the Battletech setting, the Free Worlds League is one of the five successor states in the Inner Sphere. Of the successor states the Free Worlds League could be described as the loosest and (at least on paper) the most democratic. Even so much of the leadership has fallen de-facto to House Marik's pockets.

They are notably the only Successor State to have briefly died thanks to the Word of Blake's machinations as well as years of infighting going hot all at once, but then came back again.

Origins

The Free Worlds League started life as several individual worlds and states, most prominently the Marik Commonwealth, The Federation of Oriente, and Regulan Principality, who all came together post-Terran Alliance collapse to mutually form together to face oncoming threats and hopefully spread their burgeoning state through trade rather than conquest, which was immediately set aside once they had needled their immediate neighbor; the dictatorial Stewart Commonality into open war, which thanks to their now combined forces, needed a strong leader to put them all into line. Thus began the creation of the position of Captain-General, and from then on, it was history. What would become the general borders of the Free Worlds would be solidified just before the Age of War, with the planet of Andurien being it's biggest conquest, which in hindsight would become it's biggest headache, as it would have to deal with regular incursions from the Capellan Confederation for much of it's initial existence over this one planet for the next several hundred years.

The first iteration of the Free Worlds League was completely dissolved and disbanded during the Word Of Blake Jihad; as the Captain-General at the time; Thomas Marik, was in-fact also the supreme master of the Word of Blake, and the entire extended Marik family immediately began making claims to the title, leading ultimately to the state balkanizing itself over the course of the Jihad, losing hundreds of worlds to their neighbors.

The current iteration of the Free Worlds League came into being in the 3080's as a result of the hard work of Jessica Marik, the daughter of Thomas Marik’s body double, who had long since dreamed of reforming it after it's dissolution post-Jihad, and worked hard to get the resultant individual states back under the Marik banner. She did it, but the unity of this one is much more fragmented, especially after Clanner refugees were given amnesty in the new FWL's borders.

House Marik

On paper (and to a large degree in practice) the Free Worlds League is run by a Parliament whose members are mostly elected democratically as each world sees fit, though there are a few non-democratic planets. Each FWL affiliated world has a lot of autonomy in that framework. Less formally, power in the League has fallen into the office of Captain-General, the supreme commander of the Free Worlds League military. People are technically appointed as Captain-Generals by parliament. In practice, the office is the exclusive domain of House Marik and parliamentary approval is just a rubber stamp on succession.

While most Mariks are generally considered less of a major pain in the ass than other major noble houses, there is specifically one, the real Thomas Marik, that stands out as obviously the worst one as he was the head of the Word of Blake. Once he got killed, all the cadet branches of House Marik and the regional nobles began fighting amongst themselves in what was basically a “mini-Succession Wars” in League space until Jessica Marik reunified the bulk of the provinces together again with help from the Sea Fox and Spirit Cat clanners (who were seeking safe shores once Grey Monday wrecked the Republic and HPG network).

Society

Life in the Free Worlds League is as diverse as it gets in the Battletech universe, simply because being in the Free Worlds League isn't exactly as enthusiastic about being an autocratic state like the other Successor States, it sees itself in a more democratic light, with no overarching pre-20th century civilization that it apes for cultural significance. Often, the traditions of larger worlds within the League like Atreus, Andurien, Oriente, or Regulus will impose themselves on immediate stellar neighbors due to proximity, but no pre-FTL societal trend is constant within the League. As a result, the people of the Free Worlds League are far more individualistic and varied than your average Inner Sphere citizen, but as a result are also way less loyal to the concept of the Free Worlds League, meaning that sustained war or much open conflict that isn't defensive is enormously unpopular to the average Free Worlder, because that may not be their thing, or more importantly, not very profitable.

Really, if there's any sort of cultural stereotype of the Free Worlds League, it's that they're all money-grubbing business types, obsessed with free markets and are often noted for having trouble understanding philosophy that doesn't involve money in an any way. The average entrepreneur in the FWL is noted for their aggression and often their keen and ferocious business-savvy, meaning industry thrives in FWL space. However, much of that money began life in a less than reputable way; piracy, gun-running, you name it, the FWL probably harbored the criminal that did it. And as a result, many Free Worlders don't really see certain kinds of crime as that big a deal. Notably, they have an open fury towards those who augment their body with bionics. While prosthesis due to injuries are okay, any other augmentics, especially non-essential ones, are considered worthy of ridicule and open violence in some places. This was part of the reason why the real Thomas Marik had to go to ComStar (and later their Blakist schismatics) once he got horrible scarred and rebuild after an accident while the body double had to take over. This did not get any better during the Word of Blake Jihad at all.

Military

The FWLM is a typical Inner Sphere military, split specifically into Federal and Provincal units, of which the latter were much more widespread in the league's history. While the Federal troops were 100% loyal and answerable to the Captain-General, the Provincal units were largely self-supplied, raised, and trained by their respective provinces. While this worked for a time, it inevitably led to an act that allowed Provinces to withhold their troops, and the Captain-General eventually put a stop to it when invasions began causing trouble in their borders from both sides.

The FWLM started out a combined-arms military, with some of the best naval capacity in the Inner Sphere due to the League's founding from an empire of traders. They preferred no specific type of Battlemech, armor, or aerospace fighter, choosing instead to build their units in the boring way of "whatever was best for the job at hand", allowing them to be a good middle ground for the Inner Sphere armies; just good enough to hold their own, but often too spread out and fractious throughout their history to really become major conquerors. Their elite battlemech formations were among the best of the Inner Sphere, and the most openly feudal, what with names like "Knights of the Inner Sphere".

Notable Mechs

• Anzu - The League's unofficial mascot mech built in the 31st century after it's reformation. It's sort of designed as a Shadow Hawk clone with more energy weapons, as well as one scary L-PPC, allowing it to become a dependable mid-range threat and a darling among League Mechwarriors.
• Albatross - A bizarre-looking beakie Assault mech built specifically so that the League could have something that could take out the Clan OmniMechs, since they knew that was probably going to be a big problem for them in the near future. Doesn't really have a set role in any lance, and so it's the Jack-Of-All-Trades Mech; capable of hitting from any distance and dangerous at most of them.
• Awesome - A mech that more than lives up to its name. Its a massive Assault Mech that's armed with 3 PPC's, and a small laser, with good amount of armor and heat sinks to keep in the battlefield for a long time; usually the posterchild for what people consider a "ZombieMech" due to it's incredible ability to take a beating.
• Orion - The League's staple mech from the time of the Star League all the way to the present. While it gets called a poor man's Atlas, that still makes it a pretty solid mech. Has plenty of armor, and a spacious chest cavity means that ground crews adore working in this thing because it's not cram-packed with stuff it doesn't need. The mech was used by Alexander Kerensky's in the war against Amaris. The mech even has a IIC version used exclusively by Clan Wolf.
• Yeoman - a Heavy fire support Mech that consists of a cockpit on legs with two massive missile pods attached to it, it can be considered the FWL answer to the Catapult.
• Grand Titan - An Assault Mech built to be the close-quarters combatant of the future, It has the rather awkward position of being associated with both the League and also the Word of Blake. Nevertheless, it owns it's role as a brawler; carrying an array of pulse lasers in large, medium, and small size, as well as an SRM and LRM system.
• Patriot - A mech designed to be an artillery platform as well as a command mech so that the League wouldn't lose valuable strategic minds over something as stupid as "personal honor" or some crazy bullshit like that, but turned out to be a strong enough design to do well in other roles. It's notably equipped with a guardian ECM suite designed to make sure everyone can hear whoever's jabbering over the sound of it's missile launcher/artillery round left arm blasting things to fucking death.

TLDR

A kitbash of the United States, France, Greece, Israel, Yugoslavia, Austria-Hungary, and the Holy Roman Empire. Every bit as unstable as it sounds.