ComStar

ComStar was The Friendly Neighborhood Phone Company a faction in the BattleTech universe.

Origins

In the early 27th century, Star League scientists developed the Hyper Pulse Generator (HPG). First deployed in 2630, HPGs could send messages faster than the speed of light. Just like the introduction of the Telegraph or Radio back on old earth this was a big deal, even if a network of relays was required due to range limitations and the high cost of building and repairing these complex mechanism. The Star League Department of Communications managed this big infrastructure project and everything was dandy, until the Ameris Civil War.

Surprisingly much of the HGP network survived the conflict and when the ashes cleared of the Civil War and among the most prominent civilian Star League figures left alive was Jerome Blake, a Department of Communications pencil pusher. While Star League was basically dead at this point, all of them still wanted the HGP network running and none of them wanted it in the pocket of the other four. Combined with some behind the curtains dealings with Kerensky to let Operation Exodus happen without a hitch, Blake was able to get things basically back into order on that front. Rebranded ComStar, they held control of Terra and officially declared their neutrality.

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.

ComStar generally avoided conflict whenever possible, given that it was both badly outnumbered, held little territory of it's own, and it's influence came from being useful to the bigger powers providing services they could not. This did not meant that ComStar was a passive party who ignored the rest of the galaxy so long as they were left alone. 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 later while the Coordinator could better Coordinate his forces 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 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 it's time as a major power not only as your ISP, but also a secretive religion; believing that ComStar 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 internal schism, and ultimately their dissolution afterwards.

Military

This is not to say that ComStar could not throw down when it needed to.