The Clans
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The Clans are a civilization in the Battletech Universe. Descended from a remnant of the Star League Defense Force which fled from the Inner Sphere when the shit hit the fan and spend the next two and a half centuries developing on their own course before returning back in 3049.
History
In 2766 a guy named Stefan Amaris (ruler of the Rim World's Republic) launched a coup d'état while the majority of the SLDF was out fighting in the periphery, killing the young First Lord and seizing control of the Terran Hegemony. This started a fourteen year long civil war in which the SLDF under the command of Aleksandr Kerensky dismantled his support base and moved to liberate the Terran Hegemony in spite of being cut off from resupply and limited support by the Five Great Houses. But while he did succeed in toppling Amaris' Asshole Regime, the Star League did not survive and fell apart shortly afterwards. War was on the horizon between the Great Houses but Kerensky was unwilling to seize power for himself or see his remaining army and fleet used in the looming conflict. As such he got the SLDF leadership together in secret and proposed something to save the Inner Sphere and themselves: leave the Inner Sphere and start up somewhere new. Most agreed and in 2885 a fleet loaded with millions of SLDF troops and their families (including Alex's wife Katyusha and two sons Andery and Nicholas) left the inner sphere for greener pastures.
After a long voyage through the unknown they found some uninhabited worlds beyond the Periphery known as the Pentagon Worlds. They set up shop, discharged most of their soldiers and began rebuilding to try to build a bastion of the Star League in Exile. Unfortunately some of the demobilized guys decided that they'd be better off forming their own petty kingdoms and soon enough there was a big shit fight in 2800. Aleksandr (already more than 100 years old) died. In this chaos, his son Nicholas managed to get the support of some loyal troops and most of the SLDF Fleet and made his way to another world nearby called Strana Mechty along with a number of refugees brought in later. Convinced that the current order of things and the Star League ways of thinking were fundamentally broken he decided to not only establish a new colony, but also build a new society from the ground up, dividing his warriors into twenty Clans. In 2820 the Clans returned to the Pentagon Worlds during Operation KLONDIKE, reconquering them and imposing Clan culture onto the populations of these planets.
After Nicolas's death, the system chugged along quite well with the occasional hiccup in what was known as the Golden Century. Eventually in the 2900s there was a split between two factions of The Clans: the Wardens (who felt the Clans should keep to themselves and only get involved in the Inner Sphere if it was threatend by someone else) and the Crusaders (who saw it as their duty to conquer the Inner Sphere and restore a new Clan based Star League).
Society
Even though there is a Clan Council for settling disputes and acting as a whole, each Clan operates mostly independently of its fellows. "Peace" is not really a thing in Clan Society. When the Clans are not out conquering others, they're fighting low intensity highly ritualized wars with each other.
Clan Society is militaristic, authoritarian, honor bound and strictly hierarchical. It's mostly built around a rigid caste system in which one's role in society is typically assigned in childhood and social mobility is a rarity. The Economy of each of the Clans is largely centrally planned and mostly concerned with producing more mechs, ships, weapons and warriors.
One of the quirks of Clan Society is that most people only have a given name. More on that in a bit.
- Warrior Caste: The rulers of Clan society trained the Spartan Way. Most of them are grown in bulk in industrial exowomb factories and raised in sibling companies, but a few applicants from the general populace are let in. Many flunk out one way or another and become part of the civilian castes while many others end up dying in brutal training regimens and trials for combat. Those that become Warriors are typically hard as nails and brutal fighters. They're three main flavors of Clan Warrior: Elementals (Battletech's answer to Space Marines, huge guys and gals who wear power armor), Pilots (small fellows with big eyes and heads who can take a lot of Gs) and Mech Warriors.
- Scientist Caste: Scientists, inventors, researchers and the like who expand on the Clan's knowledge base and run the eugenics programs. The second most powerful caste in Clan society who can actually overrule the warriors on certain matters.
- Technician Caste: Mechanics, engineers and spacecraft crews who keep the machinery of Clan Society humming along.
- Merchant Caste: Traders as well as managers, artists and a wide variety of other functions required to run the economy of Clan Society. They have a higher status in Clan Diamond Shark.
- Laborer Caste: The proles who do all the grunt work to keep everyone else fed, housed, equipped, armed, pooping in unclogged toilets and so forth.
- Dark Caste: Not an official caste but a bunch of outcasts which live on the edges of Clan society which makes for convenient target practice for clan warriors.
In addition each caste has it's own internal hierarchy, for example the Merchant Caste has retail clerks at the bottom and top negotiators for big inter-clan deals at the top. For warriors this is not only reflected in rising up the ranks but a Desire to win a Bloodname throught gaining honorable victory for thei clan. Having a bloodname means they get a surname and their genes will be used to produce the next batch of Warriors. Really accomplished scientists can be awarded a Labname like "Einstein" or "Darwin", but non-Scientists rarely use them.
Individual Clans
- Clan Wolf
- Clan Jade Falcon
- Clan Diamond Shark
- Clan Ghost Bear
- Clan Smoke Jaguar: The Asshole Clan.
External Links
Part One of Tex's series on Clan History Part Two of Tex's on Clan History