Clan Invasion
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The Clan Invasion (officially called Operation REVIVAL by the Clans themselves) was a massive incursion into the Inner Sphere by the forces of The Clans between 3049 and 3052.
It is one of the most significant events of BattleTech history, as well as one of the (if not the) most explored parts of the setting.
Prelude
In Clan space in the early 31st century, after two centuries of growth, there was a fracture in the culture of the Clans. While they'd always had their own little traditions that they'd been adhering to, two philosophies on the Clans' ultimate stated goal of returning to the Inner Sphere had emerged; the Wardens, and the Crusaders. The Wardens took a moderate approach, seeing themselves as the silent watchful guardians of the Inner Sphere, and didn't feel the need to charge ahead to go in and fix everything. Additionally, the Crusader movement had a strong support base from the civilian castes due to the Inner Sphere being seen as a resource rich Promised Land in contrast to the resource-deprived worlds in the Periphery. The Crusaders on the other hand, saw it as the supreme duty of the Clans to return to the Inner Sphere, conquer Terra, and subjugate the backwards Spheroids. And over time, increasing pressure by the Crusader Faction to return to the Inner Sphere and restore the Star League as promised by the Kerensky's centuries ago had begun to mount. The Warden faction had managed to stall efforts through various means, from sending the Wolf's Dragoons to spy on the Inner Sphere to simple trials of refusal or emphasizing Clanner politics or simple matters of logistics. Given that even the Capellan Confederation still outnumbered the totality of the Clans by a significant margin, these were reasonable arguments to make for the Wardens, and if they were going to attack the Inner Sphere, they needed to be in top of the line shape and have the ratio narrowed. Nevertheless, both sides of the Clanner aisle kept badgering each other about the issue before things came to a head in 3048.
One of ComStar's many side projects was the Explorer Corps, a fleet which probed beyond the Periphery in part to see what happened to the Exodus Fleet. The Explorer Corps ship Outbound Light eventually found the answer to that question in the worst way, having stumbled not only into Clanspace, but also onto the capital system of Clan Smoke Jaguar, who were both staunch Crusaders and even stauncher assholes. They captured the exploration ship and then interrogated her crew. Using the information and selectively choosing key pieces of info from ComStar's database, they told the council that the Inner Sphere had found them, were on the verge of creating their own faux Star League under the Federated Commonwealth, and would inevitably launch an invasion of Clan space. Clearly, it was the time to act.
Of course, that meant that there needed to be an all-out tournament arc among the seventeen Clans as to who actually got to go invading the Inner Sphere; as was/is Clan tradition for the Clans to do politics and also basic military strategy through ritual combat. The only guaranteed spot being that of Clan Wolf's, who it was decided had to be among them, which surprisingly made almost everyone happy; for the sentimental among the Clans, it meant that Kerensky's Bloodname would finally return to the Inner Sphere as the rightful ilKhan and rebuild the Star League. For the Crusaders, most of whom didn't care for Clan Wolf's moderating (read: overwhelming and often brutal) Warden presence, it felt like appropriate retribution after forcing them to wait so goddamn long.
After two days of bidding, a number of combat trials began among six Clan finalists, which were then whittled down into Smoke Jaguar, Ghost Bear, and Jade Falcons, all of whom would follow Clan Wolf into the Inner Sphere along three separate corridors in order to conquer enough worlds to destabilize the Inner Sphere, and inevitably conquer Terra. The Clans would be coming in waves behind them, but often found they were sending more vanguard than even the first wave was expecting to bring as their warriors became too overexcited.
Invasion
The invasion began in the "northern" Periphery if looking at the map of the universe from top down, though most of the gains there were minimal at best, and most of the key powers they could've interacted with (and almost certainly wipe out in a matter of months) were lightyears away, and any resistance they actually ended up meeting was token at best, sometimes only a few MechWarriors or aerospace fighters using horrifyingly outdated materials. As they cleaned up and resupplied for the journey into the Inner Sphere proper, they ended up in contact with ComStar. Since they were both megalomaniacal and planning on taking complete control of man's destiny through the forceful re-implementation of the Star League, they actually ended up getting along famously, and through careful negotiation, a devious plan was hatched: ComStar would jam communications coming and going from Clan-targeted worlds, and the Clans would give up some of the worlds conquered by them and stay out of their way. While not everybody was on board, it seemed to fill both side's agendas perfectly fine.
Wave One: The Clans draw first blood
Clans Wolf, Jade Falcon, Ghost Bear, and Smoke Jaguar entered the Inner Sphere for the first time in March of 3050, using ComStar's blackout as their cover. Each of which had it's own invasion corridor moving in from the "north" down "south". At one end Jade Falcon's Corridor pushed into Lyran space at the "east", as did the Wolf's. The Ghost Bears pushed into the Free Rasalhague Republic with the Smoke Jaguars on the west pushing into the Draconis Combine.
With their attention focused against each other ever since the Succession Wars started 300 years ago, the sudden arrival of a massive force on a backwater frontier with token defenses was a nasty surprise for the invaded nations. The fact that these invaders had with them had with them power armored shock troops, BattleMechs with LosTech and piloted by genetically enhanced warriors trained from childhood that could take on multiple 'Mechs and win, and fleets of WarShips on top of that was such a shock that many thought they were fighting aliens. Dozens of worlds fell rapidly as the invaders pushed from system to system.
Which was not to say that everything was entirely smooth sailing for the Clans. They soon found out that the Inner Sphere did not play by their rules and did not fight fair. They still had an overwhelming advantage at this point, but sometimes they faced nasty costly surprises.
Among the most notable developments was that on the planet Turtle Bay in the Draconis Combine, Clan Smoke Jaguar managed to capture Hohiro Kurita, the heir of House Kurita though they did not know this at the time. By the time they found out, he'd managed to sneak out with assistance of the locals. In retaliation the jerks blew up the city of Edo, killing a million people. Even the Clanners considered this a dick move. As mentioned before, the Smoke Jaguars were assholes.
Wave Two: The Inner Sphere catches on
As the second wave began in earnest, the Inner Sphere at long last recognized that this particular problem was not going away, and was in fact getting much, much worse with each passing month, and while the Clans initially didn't see any major changes in their battle plans yet, they found that the Draconis Combine and the Federated Suns had struck an unprecedented truce to directly ignore each other and focus down on the Clanners, starting with all of it's very most elite units suddenly showing up on the Clanner side of their borders.
Further, the Clans were running into a big problem, Ghost Bear and Smoke Jaguar especially; it was becoming a logistical nightmare to drag all the supplies they needed into the Inner Sphere for what was increasingly becoming a longer term invasion. While the Rasalhagues were tied up in indecision that ultimately led to their downfall, the rest of the Spheroid planets, especially the ones conquered by the Clans, began all-out guerilla wars to try and return to their old masters, something that blindsided the over-honorable Clanners, forcing them to drag valuable Stars back into territory they already had control over and try to keep order. But still the Clans marched forward, hampered slightly, and starting to lose momentum, but still gaining world after world.
And there was one Clan who was going for the gold.
Wave Three: Clan Wolf's Vengeance
Clan Wolf had no intention whatsoever to actually get involved in the invasion as previously mentioned. But now that they were there, they decided that they were going to play to win; and that was a huge problem for the rest of the Inner Sphere. Unlike Smoke Jaguar and Jade Falcon, Clan Wolf had plenty of steam left to go finish off the Free Rasalhague Republic entirely, and they were planning on making good on that right away; doubling up on the worlds conquered by them. This was blown off by the other Clans, naturally, who thought that Clan Wolf was overextending itself and would eventually run into the same problems they were dealing with, but soon they had a much bigger problem to face; the FRR capital world of Rasalhague. While obviously the FRR as they were planned on fighting to the last, but Clan Wolf had the problem of Clan Ghost Bear's invasion route happening to dive right through it, and as such there needed to be a throwdown for it.
Clans Wolf and Ghost Bear spent months bidding for the right to invade Rasalhague, and eventually Clan Wolf managed to win the bid after a fierce process, finally ending with Clan Wolf only having three Clusters to use to beat the KungsArmé (FRR's military force). Nobody thought that they'd be able to actually cap off their aggressive tactics with a big win here of all places, but a big win they got; forcing the Elected Prince into exile, taking Rasalhague, and finishing the third wave with eleven more planets than they'd started; a massive lead in attempting to take earth.
The other Clans, naturally, were pissed about this.
Wave Four: Wraths of Khan
This was in many ways the turning point of the entire invasion, even if the real pivotal moment had yet to be drawn up.
The ilKhan and the Clan Council had sent Clan Wolf to the Inner Sphere hopefully to get slaughtered, and were now suddenly deeply concerned that the Clan that'd spent the most time against this course of action was now so aggressively and successfully taking world after world; in a clear lead that Smoke Jaguar, Ghost Bear, and Jade Falcon simply weren't reaching. Ghost Bear did fine, capturing eight worlds at a snails pace and otherwise calling it a successful wave, but Smoke Jaguar and Jade Falcon were getting hammered by all sides, and were the first Clans to actually give up ground to the Spheroids. The first was Jade Falcon, who's elite Falcon Guard caught the full brunt of a FedCom assault to take back the planet of Twycross and fell against all odds, and Smoke Jaguar got suckered into bad play after bad play by Theodore Kurita, ultimately defending the planet Wolcott, and getting the Combine valuable looks at Clanner technology they could begin to repurpose. While the Clan Council tried to stymy Wolf's advance, they could ultimately do little but bitch and moan as the Clan actually getting shit done led the way.
Smoke Jaguar's Khan who was also ilKhan, was naturally quite unhappy with the way this whole thing was going after such a good start, declared a big meeting to be situated on the mothership of Clan Wolf; the Dire Wolf, over the freshly conquered planet of Radstadt. Ulrich Kerensky agreed, but only if the rest of the Clans brought ships smaller than the Dire Wolf, which was agreed upon. Everything was good for about four hours, right up until the Rasalhague Elected Prince, as well as a big fleet of Rasalhague ships, showed up to crash the party. It was complete chaos over Radstadt as Clan Wolf's precautions had ultimately allowed the Rasalhaguers a fighting chance to get a modicum of revenge after getting their entire section of space eaten for breakfast. The Elected Prince for his time fought his way off of Radstadt and out into orbit, where he managed to escape the Clanners and vow to fight another day, but not before his Drakons fighter unit pulled off one of the ballsiest suicide missions of the war; ramming an aerospace fighter directly into the bridge of the Dire Wolf, which resulted in the death of the ilKhan, but not Clan Wolf's Khan, crippling the advance considerably.
As the Clans tried to assess the damage, they realized this whole thing was only ever going to work if there was an ilKhan, which required all Bloodnamed warriors to be present during the election, something quite hard to do when most of the Bloodnamed were fighting Davion and Kurita forces. The Council winced at the idea, but ultimately chose stability over further battle, dragging every last Bloodname warrior back to Clan space in the Deep Periphery, delaying the fifth wave considerably, while giving the Inner Sphere about a year's time to lick it's wounds.
Wave Five: ComStar's wakeup call
After what became known as the "Year of Peace" with a new ilKhan and a drive to finish the job, the Clans showed up bright and early in October of 3052 ahead of schedule. Clan Wolf was on a mission to finish this before anyone else got the chance to tell them off, Ghost Bear moved at a ponderous pace but still picked up some valuable worlds out of the deal, and Jade Falcon got into a spat with Clan Steel Viper over their shared invasion pathway, and ultimately neither side benefited from this game of grab-ass to the point that both did terribly in this particular wave. Smoke Jaguar and Nova Cat meanwhile, had decided that after getting humiliated as badly as both had been, they were going to put any of their bullshit aside and just try and catch up with Clan Wolf, starting by pounding the Combine as hard as they could until they opened a path to the Draconis capital world of Lucien. The Combine didn't take that lying down, and threw everything including the kitchen sink at Smoke Jaguar and Nova Cat until both Clans were finally beaten away, leaving both furious and desperate for better results. But these were small victories, and by this point the Inner Sphere didn't need small victories, they needed territory back.
See, for all the back and forth battles they were now having (as opposed to the earlier waves where they mostly got curbstomped), they were still not gaining any ground and ultimately losing more of it than they were defending, and the prospect of gaining ground back was a pipe dream. Nobody had an easy answer, but an incredible stroke of luck happened to fall in their favor as ComStar's Primus, Myndo Waterly, had decided to go see what Ulrich Kerensky's ultimate goal was now that they had all this territory, and she was given the very rudest wakeup call imaginable; the Clans were in a race to go after Terra, the cradle of human civilization and also current home of ComStar. ComStar was naturally horrified by this realization. Primus Waterly and Precentor-Martial Anastasius Focht - formerly one Frederick Steiner, a phenomenally gifted military mind by any measure (who somehow sprung out of the Lyran Commonwealth of all places) and supreme commander of ComGuard - immediately went to the First Circuit, who came to the realization they would have to figure this out quickly or risk putting ComStar in jeopardy.
Waterly, now having to deal with the consequences of her actions and more than likely realizing that if this kept up their involvement in the Invasion would cause the Inner Sphere to tear them limb from limb, decided to listen for once to advice from Focht (who had studied Clans' culture and military carefully) and have him try a daring plan; he would use the Clan's own societal norms against them.
He would begin a Trial of Possession with the Clans on the planet of Tukayyid.
The Battle of Tukayyid
The Battle of Tukayyid was a massive Trial of Possession with not just Terra, but the fate of ComStar and the Inner Sphere as a whole up for grabs. ComStar designated fourteen objectives that they would defend on the planet of Tukayyid, of which the Clans would be attacking. If the Clans took the majority of them; they'd be given free reign to finish the race to Terra, and ComStar would willingly merge with the Clan who reached it first, forfeit the Inner Sphere's rights to any HPG Network usage, and become administrative staff. But if ComStar managed to hold the line, then the Clans would have to agree to a fifteen year truce and conquer no worlds closer to Terra than Tukayyid. Given that ComStar themselves had offered the fight, pretty much every Clan was more than willing to jump onboard to fight under these rules, barring the ilKhan himself, who repeatedly cautioned that the Inner Sphere hadn't done this before and was suspicious as to why they'd suddenly be so willing to do it now. The other Clans, sick of Ulrich's bullshit, basically told him to mind his own business. Naturally, the bidding process got ferocious among the Clans, who saw ComStar's religious trappings as like taking candy from a baby, and eventually created an order of operations for the battle: Smoke Jaguar got to land first and attack the two largest cities on the planet, then Nova Cats, then Ghost Bear, then Steel Vipers, then Diamond Sharks, then Jade Falcons, and finally Clan Wolf; who would be given the "least glorious" task of beating whoever was left at two of the smaller settlements on the planet, five days after Smoke Jaguar showed up.
That was the plan anyway, but ComStar was under no compulsion to actually follow such a thing through to the end.
ComStar hadn't chosen Tukayyid for no reason; it was an agricultural planet with lots of wide open, flat space that ultimately meant there were few places to hide, and fewer places to bunker down to repair and resupply; something that the Clan OmniMechs desperately needed. After months of analyzing the Clan's strategies and their attack patterns, it was discovered that Clanner warfare had a major weakness; one that only Clan Wolf had tried to learn from. Clanners attacked fast to try and win fast thanks to the concept of Zellbringen; to the point that none of the Clans had ever really fought wars of attrition, and that inexperience was exactly what ComStar was banking on to win the day. Further, with the Clans deciding to each attack their own objectives without networking, ComStar was at a significant advantage where Focht could basically lead the entirety of ComGuard from a single Bunker and coordinate his forces, making sure everybody knew their part in the battle before the bickering and posturing Clannerscum ever hit the ground. Just to make sure, most of the area around the objectives became a maze of deathtraps and pincer points, designed to drag out the fighting as long and as hard as possible before aerospace fighters and artillery could soften up the Clans just enough to receive the killing blow. Finally, Focht ensured that there were more than enough supplies out of Clan reach to keep the ComGuard going for over a month of sustained fighting.
How did it go? The easiest way to put it is that Focht played most of the Clanners like a goddamn fiddle.
- Smoke Jaguar had gotten reamed as you no doubt learned, and were more than eager to try to regain their lost glory, but in the process of bidding to be first on the ground had undercut their entire forces by a third. Further, they thought the two Galaxies of troops/'Mechs were more than enough to attack the very largest city on the planet, and by the time they had found that the initial attack was a cover for two whole divisions to crowd the valley that the city was in, it was already too late. They spent their time getting suckered into bad loss after bad loss until the ilKhan called them off. One Galaxy saw the writing was on the wall and left without incident, but the other was incensed by what they thought was Clan Wolf cowardice that they vowed to fight to the death, after which they were pretty easily routed. While they only lost 30% of their forces, Smoke Jaguar lost over 80% of the materials they had brought to the planet in order to win what they thought was going to be a pretty easy fight.
- Clan Nova Cat's strategy of dive-bomb into position with DropShips, dump all the troops from atmosphere without the use of a drop pod was countered hard by Focht basically ensuring that the DropShips couldn't get near the planet surface, and their Alpha Galaxy was almost completely taken out by a pilot going on a suicide run to blow up their principal DropShip, forcing most of Nova Cat's landing into a quagmire of minefields and surprise attacks. Nova Cat would finally begin to push against ComStar's stoic defense, getting tantalizingly close to the targeted cities and managing to get some much needed supplies...only to find themselves attacked by the entire garrison in one of the cities in a brave gambit, forcing them and all the other Nova Cat forces off the planet by hammering them as hard and as fast as possible; taking the win for ComStar.
- Ghost Bear was the first Clan to actually gain some real ground against ComStar, as they'd been fighting in Rasalhague space for awhile, and were more than aware that the Inner Sphere probably didn't give a shit about the Zellbringen code, telling their troops to advance slowly and just attack both cities they were expected to face at once. While the fighting was fierce, they were able to take one, but then ComStar closed ranks and turned the other city into an impregnable fortress. Both sides sieged the other, battering and bruising each other until the Preceptor in-charge offered the chance to call it a partial victory, since the defeat of other Clans on the surface meant that any of her not-broken down lances and divisions could be moved elsewhere. Ghost Bear, a conservative Clan that was more than willing to stop fighting if it meant they didn't have to expend any further resources, took the agreement happily and left the planet; satisfied with their small victory.
- Steel Viper, a hard and fast Clan, got to fight in a not-so-open space; getting stuck in the worst toxic mudpit in the entire planet. While they naturally tried their damnedest to not go through the pit, ComGuard artillery eventually forced them into the mire, and when they began to slow down, ComGuard's trap was sprung; forcing them into the mudpit had ultimately negated all of their advantages in technology and speed, and ComGuard's positioning was like that of a beartrap. And just before they considered retreat, the Preceptor in charge got on Xbox Live to tell the Viper's Khan that her mother was fat and they should fight about it. Not taking that lying down, they tried to divebomb into ComGuard territory with further resolve, but had their supply lines cut off, and had to expend almost all of their reserve Galaxies' work to fight their way across the mire... right into the arms of two untouched divisions, who had been waiting for them to show up. Both of their Khans were wounded in the attack, but the Vipers took plenty of ComGuard down on their way to their defeat.
- Diamond Shark had shown up late to the invasion, and were desperate to show that they meant business. However, they had also chosen two of the cities that were closest from each other, meaning that their defense might as well have been one gigantic megacity with a road in between both sides. While Diamond Shark took their time setting up, ROM spent their time making sure they knew exactly what was coming, and it had disastrous consequences for the Clan; while they put up a grand old fight, their leadership made the critical mistake of focusing down on One division that had particularly insulted them, leading to them being completely overwhelmed when the forces that had finished up fighting Ghost Bear and Steel Viper showed up as support. The resulting melee was so devastating and so destructive to Diamond Shark that much of their Warrior Caste was decimated in the fighting, leading to their leadership transitioning to the Merchant Caste, and inevitably back into becoming Clan Sea Fox.
- Jade Falcon managed to get a higher kill-death-ratio than the ComGuard and briefly managed to take one of the two cities they were supposed to capture before overwhelming reinforcements pushed them back. With the ComGuard focused on taking on Clan Wolf, the Precentor Martial was more than willing to declare the match a draw. Ironically, while the Jade Falcons had won, it was due to a disgraced unit led by a maverick warrior by the name of Star Colonel Aiden Pryde, who managed to think outside the box. Unfortunately, he wound up dead covering the Jade Falcon's fighting retreat but not before killing many of ComGuard warriors in the process, but also turned him into a fucking legend in Jade Falcon and the Clans as a whole.
- Clan Wolf,
Mary Sues of Mary Sues that they were, were fed up with their brother Clans basically telling them to kick rocks even though they were the only Clan doing any actual winning by this point, and decided that they would bid to be last in line to see what ComStar did. It worked out fantastically for them, as they basically beat Focht at every possible turn, easily grabbing the two cities and by extension, their objectives. In a twist, this would make them into victims of their own success, as the Clan Wolf now had an excess of young warriors; mostly of Crusader leanings, being effectively barred out of advancing in ranks with the current old leadership surviving and managing to hold onto their positions, and would become one of driving reasons of the Refusal War and the splitting of the Clan.
Aftermath
ComStar's victory was more or less absolute, and as a result the Truce of Tukayyid was signed. It devastated both sides of the conflict, unsurprisingly. The Clans had lost tens of thousands of good soldiers at minimum, and some Clans had to replace their Khans. Further, it more or less broke their entire society, and both of the ideologies that were prevalent, simply by seeing just how willing the Inner Sphere was to protect themselves from their influence, and now that they were stuck, they had to deal with what would become years of guerilla warfare from the conquered populace, and the wrath of the Inner Sphere, who had then been "gifted" OmniMech technology and Clanner strategy by ComStar. By this win, the Inner Sphere was allowed to fortify to the point that any Clan that had a hope of trying to invade again would be stymied almost immediately. Further, with their defeat, the Second Star League was founded under the Machiavellian eye of Sun-Tzu Liao, and they began a massive counteroffensive to punish the Clans, but Smoke Jaguar specifically for their treachery and brutality, ultimately wiping them out completely, snuffing out any hopes that a Clan Invasion could feasibly restart, all ending in the Great "Trial of Refusal", which ended the invasion for good. Such abrupt denial of the Clans’ Manifest Destiny to reclaim Terra for a new Star League (and petty jealousies and suspicion by purists at some other Clans adopting questionable Spheroid tactics) led to the Wars of Reaving.
However, it was not without pain for the Inner Sphere. For one thing, the Clans were never told to piss off from the territory they had gained, ensuring that the Clans would always have a presence in the Inner Sphere from now on. The Free Rasalhague Republic, once a necessary border-state, was now a mere eight worlds large, the Combine and the Lyran Commonwealth had lost dozens of worlds to Clanner hands, and as the dust settled, it was clear that the rebirth of the Star League was an alliance of convenience rather than that of a genuine want to reform. Further, ComStar was terrified of their secret of having helped the Clans at all to have come out, and thus attempted to secularize and purge elements that might've attempted to enforce the issue.