OBT Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

News:

Welcome to OurBattleTech.com - A BattleTech Fan Site

Pages: [1] 2   Go Down

Author Topic: Free State Alliance of Arkon  (Read 9532 times)

0 Members and 3 Guests are viewing this topic.

CJvR

  • Fanjunkare
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 267
Free State Alliance of Arkon
« on: March 28, 2017, 02:43:46 PM »
Some background on my old house faction...


Early Times                                          
In 2565 a Terran Hegemony exploration mission to the Ring Nebula does a detailed survey the Arkon system, then known simply as "Fleet survey MW-2565-234" for the first time. Among the interesting finds in the system is a silicon-based form of life on Arkon I, the planet closest to the local star. Three years after the initial exploration mission a Hegemony science outpost was founded on the first planet supported by a small colony on the fourth planet, a water world of large but relatively shallow oceans. The system, ARC-ONE - or Advanced Research Centre 1, soon began to attract immigrants from the crowded world of the Hegemony despite being a kept secret and off the maps. It rapidly became a self-sustaining colony supported by light industry and underwater farming. Most of the immigrants were technicians or scientists who settled in the system during their work contract and sent word for their families and relatives to move out and join them.
Later the SLDF took note of the system and in 2604, in the aftermath of the Reunification Wars; a permanent base was established to support future military operations and further exploration in the deep-periphery. The excellent position and natural resources of the system, now generally known as Arkon, soon resulted in the base growing with the establishment of a military maintenance yard at the Lagrange point between the twin worlds known as Dustball (Arkon-III) and Hellsgate (Arkon-II). The military presence created a market for industry and mining both to help build the facilities and maintain the units based there, both of the nearby twin worlds were colonised to fill the demand for manufactured products and raw materials. The Military presence increased the influx of people, many personnel that had been deployed on Arkon for a long time ended up settling permanently on the pleasant world of Arkon IV and even more retired there when their tour of duty was up.
The SLDF gradually expanded its presence and established several military bases and training facilities around the system such as the Arkon S.C.A. on Arkon V-Beta to train pilots and ship crews and the Firing Ranges on Dustball for ground combat training. The well-protected Citadel naval base replaced the open and exposed old maintenance yard and attendant habitats and orbital factories grew around it. The sheer distance from the Hegemony made developing local resources more attractive than shipping in components and parts all the way from the distant core of the League. Major spaceports were built on all three inhabited worlds in the system and like many Hegemony worlds Arkon was outfitted with a SDS, although one limited to a squadron of M3 drones and their command station along with a few ground batteries around the Capitol city on Arkon-IV. Armed jumpship recharge stations were built at the Zenith and Nadir jump points. The Arkon system had gradually become one of the SLDF's main bases of operation outside the Inner Sphere, a hub for all the operations in the March Worlds region, but despite this level of activity the system remained almost completely unknown to most of the galaxy. The reasons for the systems rather extreme obscurity was partially that very few people left the system but mostly because its location was not publicly revealed by the SLDF or other League authorities. Also most of what was produced in the system, other than raw materials that were sent back to the Hegemony on military transports, went into its own growing infrastructure, or into maintaining the SLDF military and scientific assets based there. Interaction with the outside universe was limited to providing services to the SLDF and this was done behind the traditional veil of military secrecy.
Arkonians during this era generally considered themselves to be a Terrean Hegemony colony, albeit one with extensive home rule, and parted from the home nation by almost a thousand light years of space. The system was never plagued by the virulent separatism typical in the periphery or penalised by the extra taxes levied against the other periphery systems during the later SL era.
Logged

CJvR

  • Fanjunkare
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 267
Re: Free State Alliance of Arkon
« Reply #1 on: March 28, 2017, 06:40:40 PM »
Fall of the Star League                                       
In 2766 the population in the Arkon system had grown to almost 250 million, mostly of Hegemony origin but with a sprinkle from most other nationalities as well. After the New Vandenberg revolt and during the war in the periphery when most naval assets were re-deployed the SLDF rapidly upgraded the old planetary defences to improve the security of their ground installations and the major population centres on Arkon IV. The Arkon system was to far away from the front lines to support the war effort directly but a steady stream of damaged ships and wounded troops trickled back from the front lines and supply ships left daily with water, food, ammunition and spare parts for the SLDF field armies fighting the rebellious periphery worlds.
When the Amaris coup took place Arkon was miraculously spared an outright invasion. It was too far from the Rim Republic to be a critical military target, yet close enough to the active campaigning in the periphery to warrant a substantial SLDF garrison. Amaris didn’t want to attract attention to the region by initiating a military build up strong enough to outright invade the system there. Once the coup was launched in the Hegemony Amaris no longer had the resources to spare to strike Arkon. This was fortunate both for the locals and the SLDF since Arkon, by virtue of being one of the few Terran assets still intact and under Terran control, became a major supply centre for the SLDF invasion of the spinnward arm of the Rim worlds and later the preparations to recapture the Hegemony.
With the SLDF cut of from the Hegemony's industrial base and the reluctance of the great houses to lend aid the support of the few remaining Periphery bases still loyal to the League still loyal to the League became critical and the largest of these facilities was the Arkon system. Many of the extensive maintenance facilities were upgraded to full production status in preparation for the liberation of the Hegemony. Since most Arkonians considered themselves Hegemony citizens support for the war, SLDF and Kerensky was very high and there was hardly any objection to the crippling taxes and labour conscription imposed on the system to support the huge war effort. Arkon mobilised it's entire economy and over a hundred thousand men and women joined up to fight for the SLDF and liberate the Terrean Hegemony from the usurper Amaris. It is estimated that 5% of the SLDF supplies during the SLDF Rim Worlds campaign came from Arkon and perhaps 2% during the liberation of the Hegemony. In addition Arkon housed the only SDS system under SLDF control and it was used extensively for training purposes and tactical analysis in preparation for the coming fight against the SDS systems in the occupied Hegemony.
As Kerensky's Terran campaign slowly ground on, liberating world after world the true devastation of the war became more and more obvious to a horrified humanity. Supply ships from Arkon that transported the tools of war to the haemorrhaging SLDF fighting on the Hegemony worlds also lifted hundreds of thousands of refugees to safety on Arkon far from the bombed and burnt out worlds that had been some of humanity's most developed colonies.
The civil war ended with the bloody assault on Terra, claiming the lives of over 30.000 Arkonian soldiers fighting under the SLDF banners. Those who had hoped for peace and a return to the stability and prosperity of the Star League once Amaris was defeated would be cruelly disappointed though as the Council Lords, without the stabilising influence of the Camerons and the industrial and military might of the Hegemony, could not agree on anything other than discharging General Kerensky and pushing for his or her own personal elevation to First Lordship.
Logged

CJvR

  • Fanjunkare
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 267
Re: Free State Alliance of Arkon
« Reply #2 on: March 28, 2017, 09:11:47 PM »
The Exodus                                          
The first major strain between the SLDF and the people of the Arkon system was over the Arkon SDS system. General Kerenski’s orders to exterminate every trace of the SDS technology did not go down well on Arkon which was protected by a small but potent SDS system. Fortunately cooler heads prevailed before things came to blows between the SLDF and the local citizenry. Unknown to the SLDF several SDS control units survived the purge, although all the drones themselves were destroyed their control units were salvaged.
However there were some things the unity between the SLDF and the Arkonian people could not survive. When the surviving remnant of the SLDF started planning for the Exodus it was leaked to the Arkonians and it shattered the political unity between the SLDF and Arkon which had existed since the Amaris coup. The Arkonians did not intend to leave their homes even if the General had invited them, which he didn’t, and most viewed the decision of the SLDF as outright treason and desertion. Though even the General’s fiercest critics eventually recognised the futility of trying to keeping the great houses from each others throats many still hoped the SLDF would keep the Hegemony worlds out of another round of brutal warfare while the various houses settled the succession matter on the battlefield.
Despite the differing opinions the Arkonians aided the SLDF in its preparations for the Exodus and the SLDF in return did it's best to assure the safety of its loyal Arkonian allies after the Star League army had left. The SLDF troops erased all references of Arkon from every navigation database they could find and spare military material was shipped to Arkon to provide equipment for a planetary militia. Even the SLDF units who had elected to remain in the Inner Sphere participated in covering the tracks to the Arkon system and although ComStar knew of Arkon's existence the exact location of the system was not known until the Arkonian isolation was broken in 3035, and even then it took over two decades for the location to become general knowledge.
The Citadel shipyard repaired any SLDF ship suited for a long voyage and vast shipments of food, water and prefabricated housing and factory units left Arkon, so vast were the efforts that rationing was required in periods. In return the SLDF handed over all its installations in the system to the Arkonians without stripping them to the bone as was otherwise quite common. Large numbers of refugees were also sent to Arkon on the returning supply ships, people who didn't want to stay on what were probably going to be battlefields yet again but didn't want to, or were not invited to, join the great Exodus of the SLDF and jump into the unknown. That these efforts went largely unnoticed was surprising but the great houses intelligence networks was mainly focused on the General's efforts with the main SLDF army and less concerned with people leaving on empty transports.
When the SLDF’s preparations were complete the ships of the Star League left Arkon for the final time from the Nadir jump point. The Arkonian jump control wished them luck in finding their safe haven and the SLDF ships wished the Arkonians to stay safe in their chosen haven, the lines spoken are preserved in the Snow Raven version of the Remembrance.
The SLDF left all the bases and planetary defences intact and operational along with two heavy brigades worth of combat equipment, although most of that needed repair. In addition the League navy left three flotillas of Avenger and Achilles class assault dropships, two refitted old Vigilant class corvettes and one ex-Lyran Mako class corvette. Eleven small Scout class jumpships were also left in the Arkon system along with a variety of civilian transports but no military transports.
The departure of the SLDF also altered the legal status of Arkon. Having been a colony under the Terrean Hegemony the Freeport of Arkon now became the Free State Alliance of Arkon with a democratic federal constitution, with a strong executive branch under a Governor-General, excluding none of its inhabitants, not even the newly arrived immigrants and refugees, whom were generally considered fellow Hegemony citizens, from the political process.
Logged

Shadow_Wraith

  • Lojtnant
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 282
Re: Free State Alliance of Arkon
« Reply #3 on: March 28, 2017, 09:30:34 PM »
 :)
Logged

CJvR

  • Fanjunkare
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 267
Re: Free State Alliance of Arkon
« Reply #4 on: March 29, 2017, 08:17:15 AM »
The First Succession war                           
When the SLDF left New Samarkand for parts unknown in late 2784 the Arkonians continued their efforts to evacuate Hegemony civilians from the increasing tension in the Inner Sphere. Some of the Arkonian soldiers who had left to fight Amaris had remained on the Hegemony worlds and acted as agents in organising transports for desperate refugees. This activity did not go entirely unnoticed by the successor states but there were simply so many people running from the frontlines that the Arkonian efforts mostly vanished in the sheer scale of the mass migration of desperate people looking for a safe and sane corner of the galaxy to hide in during the chaos and carnage of the First Succession war.
The jumpships of the Free State slipped through the Free Worlds League and Lyran Commonwealth in various disguises, mostly as Draconis Combine or Federated Suns registered merchant ships. Although there were great risks in these missions there were never a shortage of volunteers. Drastic steps had to be been taken to assure that the ships could not be traced back to Arkon. The location of the home system and the surrounding stars had deliberately been erased from the Navigation-computers and ships returning home had to wait in a pre-determined unpopulated star system for the final jump parameters to be brought to them by a ship that never ventured close to the Inner Sphere itself.
The outbreak of the First Succession war exponentially increased both the danger and the urgency of these mercy missions. The Arkon rescue effort saved hundreds of thousands of people from the ghastly battlefields of the unrestrained First Succession war but not without cost. To speed up the missions and improve the long range endurance of their Scout-class ships the Arkonians installed some light defences, a gravdeck and a Lithium-Fusion battery system. These improvements aroused the suspicions of FWL troops at Pollux and they attempted to seize the ship causing the ship's commander to detonate a thermonuclear scuttling charge before the ship could be captured.
Once the war erupted in earnest the casualties skyrocketed. One ship was caught in the League-Lyran crossfire over the Bolan thumb and destroyed; Kuritan fighters hunted another down over Ingelsmond. The Mako-class corvette FSAS Arkon, operating under false Lyran colours, since it was a Lyran design originally, was destroyed along with an Avenger class assault ship by a FWL raiding force harassing Lyran shipping in 2812 as part of the Bella I campaign. Despite these losses the operations continued and millions of people were saved from the horrors of the First Succession war.
During the war other FSAAS ships regularly swept the systems surrounding Arkon looking for refugee ships that might have sailed in the direction of the Free State and also to keep an eye on habitable planets nearby that might attract both refugees from war and fugitives from the law. Several nascent pirate bands were crushed before they grew large enough to become truly dangerous.
In 2814 a pitched battle was fought over a world that would later become known as "the Port" when a deserting mercenary unit intent on setting up a base for future illicit operations ran into the FSAS Dustball, a refitted Vigilant-class corvette, and it's escorts. The battle cost the Free State Admiralty it's two Achilles-class assault-ships and the Dustball was heavily damaged by massed aerospace fighter attacks, but the would be pirates were utterly destroyed while their jumpship and two civilian transports were captured by Arkonian boarding parties. The operation ended up freeing hundreds of FWL civilian and military captives and, since they had no knowledge of the identity of their liberators, they were all sent back to their home worlds on the captured pirate jumpship.
Other times though meetings in the periphery were more peaceful. Refugees that were encountered were re-directed to Arkon under escort when they had no clear goal in mind and appeared sympathetic. Others, less sympathetic or determined to go somewhere else, were sent along deeper into the unknown with a warning that pirates were operating in the area so that they avoided the worlds around Arkon. Towards the end of the war over a dozen ships had arrived in the Arkon system, either recruited in the Inner Sphere or intercepted and invited by the patrol forces.
When the savage war finally ended the Arkonian evacuation efforts ground to a halt. Without the confusion and chaos of the war the missions to the Inner Sphere became too dangerous to continue as the feuding states started to reorganise and put their shattered houses into some form of order. Particularly the outright nationalisation, or at the very least close monitoring, of all jumpship assets made travelling inside the Sphere increasingly difficult. The surviving intelligence network inside the old Hegemony was also fragmenting, most of the remaining agents operating to organise the transports wished to return home after decades of service on the war torn Hegemony worlds and there were few people trusted enough to replace them. One of the greatest rescue efforts in human history ended in the same unnoticed silence as it had operated in. During the long war the Arkonian lifeline is estimated to have evacuated more people than Kerensky's exodus fleet had lifted out in one go.
Logged

CJvR

  • Fanjunkare
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 267
Re: Free State Alliance of Arkon
« Reply #5 on: March 30, 2017, 12:04:55 PM »
The Second Succession war         
   
As tension again started to mount between the Successor states there were strong internal political pressure in the Arkonian Parliament to restart the lifeline rescue effort. The main push came from the refugees that had been brought to Arkon during the First war and who in many cases had family and friends remaining in the Inner Sphere. When open warfare again erupted in the Inner Sphere the Arkonian parliament reluctantly decided to restart a more limited effort to bring out mainly relatives of the earlier immigrants.
It was also decided to further improve the system defences by introducing new military hardware to replace the aging Star League materiel the Free State had once inherited. Aerospace assets was the priority of this build up and several new types of fighters and dropships were introduced to make up for attrition losses and the creeping metal fatigue of the inherited and patched up old SLDF designs.
The improved security efforts in the Inner Sphere caused serious problems for the second lifeline operation, as most jumpships were now state owned or tightly controlled due to the fact that the numbers of these vital assets had dwindled to alarmingly low levels during the carnage of the first war. In the end less than a dozen successful deep retrieval missions were carried out by the FSAAS during the Second Succession war. Refitted Scout-class ships travelling along pre-planned routes of uninhabited systems before they popped out at their destination and docked a covertly hired dropship scheduled to fly somewhere else according to their filed flight plans. Most Inner Sphere states put these activities down to piracy or covert ops from their rivals but the ever suspicious ISF in the Draconis Combine actually managed to compromise a mission, nearly capturing an Arkonian Scout class ship over Altair, but the ship jumped before the DEST team could secure it and the hasty jump procedure initiated by the desperate crew caused a disastrous miss-jump that completely destroyed the ship.
Another disaster happened over Graham IV during the ComStar communications blackout of the FWL in 2837 when the Lyran renegade Colonel Grimm commandeered the evacuation dropship and possibly tortured the existence and rough location of the Arkon system out of the crew. It is not certain that Grimm learned about Arkon but Grimm's escape route from both Lyran and Marik troops was aimed straight at the Arkon system. Fortunately the renegade was never able to find the exact location of the Arkon system despite a lengthy search in the area. Grimm’s forces eventually left the March World region and set up a pirate operation elsewhere.
The Grimm incident and the eventual lifting of the ComStar communication interdict put an end to the Arkonian rescue efforts in the core worlds. A botched mission had focused the attention of not just a madman but also of two powerful Successor states on the Arkon region of space and that was the last thing the Arkonians wanted. Even the loud voices of the now aging immigrant lobby fell silent when it became obvious how close to disaster the Graham mission had come. A few more minor missions would be undertaken but for the most part the few remaining agents and the people they were evacuating would travel by themselves to the rim of the Inner Sphere and be picked up by Free State jumpships posing as independent periphery traders.
The time of isolation for the Arkon system is generally considered to have started with the Grimm incident. With the exception of the Navy, which gave it's ancient corvettes a second refit, and a few aging operatives the interest in the affairs of the Inner Sphere died out while recognition grew that the safe haven of Arkon could be disastrously compromised by any extra-system activities. When the Second Succession war slowly ebbed out in 2863 due to exhaustion among the combatants the Free State took advantage of the brief lull in the fighting and extracted all remaining operatives wishing to return home and any remaining Inner Sphere relatives that could be found and who were willing to relocate simply by paying for tickets to outback systems near the rim of the Successor states or to Canopus and then pick them up there under the disguise of periphery traders.
Logged

CJvR

  • Fanjunkare
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 267
Re: Free State Alliance of Arkon
« Reply #6 on: March 30, 2017, 12:07:32 PM »
The Third Succession war

When war erupted again in 2866 the Arkonian evacuation efforts were in their final stages. A few incidents did occur when House militaries attempted to commandeer jumpships but since these incidents mostly took place in backwater systems along the periphery borders where the house troops were spread thinly no ships were seriously endangered, in the more serious incidents the Lithium-fusion batteries mounted in all the Arkonian ships operating near the Inner Sphere allowed them to escape without losses.
The few reports coming out of the Inner Sphere during this era revealed an even greater danger to the Free State, the declining technology level of the successor states. The Free State now had well over half a billion inhabitants as well as a fully functioning Star League level educational and industrial infrastructure. While many of the immigrants had been brutally traumatised victims of war most had been well-educated people with important skills for the growing nation.
During the First Succession war Arkon wouldn't have been that big a target, even if its existence had been known. But if Arkon was to be discovered now it would be an immediate target for both the Lyran Commonwealth and the Free Worlds League, a target of conquest if possible or destruction if not. It would be important for the Successor States to simply to deny the enemy the system and the advanced technology still available there. Everything generations of Arkonians had built could be destroyed if the eyes of the Great houses were to spot the Free State. In the debate on isolationism held in the parliament following the return of the last evacuation ships the Arkonians decided to abandon all interstellar operations, the Navy had already restricted it's corvettes to system duty to avoid drawing attention to the area after the battle of Hesperus II in 2853 destroyed the last Inner Sphere warship assets.
The Arkon system had transformed beyond recognition in the century since the Amaris coup. The population had more than tripled and the economic growth was even greater despite the hardships endured during the civil war and the build up to the Exodus. The fact that Arkon, unlike most other periphery systems, was largely self-sustaining system, a side effect of the effort to support the SLDF forces based there, meant that it never suffered as badly from the disastrous technological and economic collapse that crippled the more specialised worlds in the Inner Sphere and Periphery.
The Large cities on Arkon IV had become huge mega complexes as population grew and immigrants poured into the system. The underwater farms had grown to become huge habitats growing vast amounts of food. Enormous fusion powered mining machines, massing tens of thousands of tons, rolled over the vast open pit mines of Hellsgate and Dustball to feed the factories and construction efforts around the system. The yards of the Citadel had filled the system space lanes with dropships carrying goods and people from world to world, or to the space habitats in the asteroid belt servicing the mining operations there. Orbital factories produced advanced alloys and other products that required zero-g manufacturing.
The decision to abandon interstellar operations didn't affect the system the slightest, in fact the era following this decision would be known as the Good Times and it would last well into the next millennium.
The numerous jumpships available were jumped in system to the Citadel's LaGrange point for long term mothballing. Their helium tanks were drained, disabling the Kearny-Fuchida drives to prevent theft. The two Corvettes remaining in the fleet were kept operational mostly as system patrol ships for forty and forty-two more years before they too were mothballed and replaced in that duty by cheaper missile boats. The periodic sweeps of nearby habitable worlds by the fleet stopped as the flow of people from the Inner Sphere seemed to have essentially ended. The mothballing of the Navy’s corvettes were mainly due to increasing metal fatigue in their main structural components and plans for replacement ships were cancelled, both for economic reasons and as a result of the new isolationist policies. The recharge stations were kept on-line for close to sixty years as early warning outposts before they too were eventually mothballed and suspended from a balanced solar sail to permanently keep them in their positions at the Zenith and Nadir points.
To defend the system the Arkonians maintained extensive system defences, the core of this force was the eight remaining Avenger-class assault ships as well as the new Nike class missile boats. The planetary defences on Arkon protecting the main island and the Capitol was also maintained and some of the old SLDF bases and training facilities were also used, particularly the S.C.A. was used to train civilian ship crews and shuttle pilots as well as military pilots, although even with the inclusion of civilians the facilities were not used anywhere near their peak capacity. The FSAAS, Free State Alliance Armed Services, maintained two reinforced combined arms brigades and five aerospace wings. A force estimated to be more than enough to deal with any pirate group.
Logged

CJvR

  • Fanjunkare
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 267
Re: Free State Alliance of Arkon
« Reply #7 on: March 30, 2017, 12:17:30 PM »
Arkon System                                           
Location                Pop     Climate                           
Arkon I                 ~100    0.1g hot barren
Research station
Hellsgate (Arkon II)    5M      0.7g hot barren with light atmosphere, tidal locked with Arkon III.
A harsh mining world where huge strip-mining machines roll across the hellishly hot irradiated surface in search of minerals to mine and deliver to one of the few spaceports.
Dustball (Arkon III)    22M     0.8g barren with an atmosphere of about ½ the pressure of Terran standard.
Mining and industrial world frequently ravaged by vast global duststorms.
The Citadel             ~3500   Space Station Naval base and shipyard built at the Lagrange point between the tidally locked twin worlds of Hellsgate and Dustball.
The yards at the Citadel has been maintaining the combat ships of the Arkon fleet as well as producing civilian ships. It is also the location for the cache jumpship fleet.
Arkon (Arkon IV)        1150M   1.1g waterworld oxygen/nitrogen atmosphere.
Main world and capital of the Arkon Free State. It is a planet with large brackish oceans that cover 94% of the planetary surface. Most of the population is concentrated in the vast megaplex city of Landing located on the only major landmass, but there are settlements all around the planet and huge underwater habitats in shallow waters as well.
Asteroid Belt           ~150k   Micro gravity asteroids
The Arkon System have a thin asteroid belt that is host to several small space habitats involved in deep space mining operations.
Arkon V                 none    Gas giant
S.C.A.                  ~2000   0.35g cold barren
Located on and above the second moon of Arkon V this old SLDF training facility have served as the primary training facility of the Arkon navy and Fighter commands since the founding of the Free State.
Arkon VI                none    Gas giant
Arkon VII               none    Gas giant
Arkon VIII              none    Cold barren
Logged

CJvR

  • Fanjunkare
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 267
Re: Free State Alliance of Arkon
« Reply #8 on: March 30, 2017, 12:34:17 PM »
End of an era                                          

As the almost two centuries long raiding and skirmishing that was the Third Succession war finally ended the Arkon system had a population of about a billion people and a gross system product per capita almost rivalling that of ComStar ruled Terra itself.
The long period of peace experienced by the Free State during the era of the Good Times had unfortunately corroded the once very effective system defence force and external events would soon put the Arkonian defences to the test. As a thunderbolt from an almost clear sky the Fourth Succession war came and went and did in a few years what the three previous wars had failed to do in centuries of savage warfare, namely smashing down a Successor state to the point where its very survival was in doubt. Although the war didn't affect the March Worlds region immediately the shockwaves of this monumental event would reach Arkon a few years later and put an end to the isolation and the Good Times era of the Free State.
During the Third Succession war several defecting units as well as refugees fleeing the war had strayed into the area surrounding Arkon. In 2911 Lyran refugees accompanied by a small militia unit settled on Tirana and built a small mainly agrarian society. Like so many other quickly created colonies Tirana was not self-sufficient and soon faced critical shortages of vital supplies and like so many other worlds in similar situation they turned to raiding to survive and the raiding soon degenerated into outright piracy. The Tirana pirates were a small but fairly stabile outfit that had a secure base of operations populated by a largely loyal population. A similar symbiosis developed on Tirana as in the Circinus Federation where the pirates deliver the goods and the civilians don't ask inconvenient questions. The Tirana pirates raided the edges of the Free Worlds League and the Lyran Commonwealth when the succession wars heated up and the safer periphery targets when it cooled down.
The primary target in the periphery was the nearby world of Purgatory where another band of pirates had established a temporary base in 2881 before they ended up getting wiped out in deep space by one of the last anti-piracy patrols made by the FSAS Hellsgate and its battlegroup. The Tirana pirates soon annexed the remaining settlements on Purgatory and turned it into a true hellhole where they could act out all their baser instincts while playing respectable entrepreneurs on Tirana. Slavery and minerals were the main business of the Tirana pirates as Purgatory was relatively rich in marketable minerals and slave labor kept the primitive mines running with more profit than one might suspect, if one does not count the human cost that is.
Capellan and League refugees, captured in the periphery by the pirates during their raids, told them of the monumental events in the Inner Sphere during the Fourth Succession war and as a result the pirates concentrated more efforts into sweeping the surrounding systems for loot rather than draw attention and risk reprisals from the powerful houses idle militaries. So it came to be that in 3035 the pirates of Tirana stumbled on what for them seemed to be the mother lode, the poorly defended and for a periphery pirate gang unfathomable wealthy Arkon system.
Logged

Gabriel

  • General
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1,689
  • We the Swift,Quiet and Deadly Bring Forth Death
Re: Free State Alliance of Arkon
« Reply #9 on: March 31, 2017, 10:43:52 PM »
Hmmmm Interesting  :)
Logged
Fear is our most powerful weapon and a Heavy Regiment of Von Rohrs Battlemech's is a very close second.-attributed to Kozo Von Rohrs
Will of Iron,Nerves of Steel,Heart of Gold,Balls of Brass... No wonder I set off metal detectors.Death or Compliance now that's not to much to ask for,is it?

CJvR

  • Fanjunkare
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 267
Re: Free State Alliance of Arkon
« Reply #10 on: April 03, 2017, 01:10:20 PM »
The Pirate wars
                                          
The first raid
The first warning the Arkonians had that something was amiss were the three Union-class ships burning on an unauthorised vector towards one of the main industrial centres on Dustball. Unfortunately the space control didn't sound the alarm until two hours later when the ships were only minutes from touchdown. The Pirates hit the spaceport hard and their aerospace fighters strafed the Arkonian fighter wing based on Dustball, keeping it grounded, until the pirate mechs showed up to deal with the defenders, a whole squadron of FSAAS Aerospace fighters were captured intact and two more squadrons where damaged or destroyed on the ground. The Pirates started looting any nearby production facility and storehouse, two civilian Mule-dropships were captured in the spaceport and packed with loot as well as thousands of confused Arkonian civilians that were rounded up around the spaceport, too surprised by events to even try to run when the raid hit.
The Arkonian army's attempted counter attack was a bloody and disastrous failure as the surprised and inexperienced troops were hastily thrown into action against the battle hardened veteran raiders without any plan or support. The defeat resulted in further calamity as the pirates now also salvaged several mechs and combat vehicles from the battlefield. Having packed their ships to the bulkheads with loot the pirates blasted off and detonated demolition charges in many parts of the spaceport and surrounding buildings, destroying what they couldn't steal.
On the way out of the system the pirates started vectoring towards the Citadel and the mothballed jumpship fleet stationed there but the ships of the 1st Heavy Strike Division and the fighters of the 3rd fighter wing were alerted and scrambled which forced the raiders to abandon any designs they might have had on hitting that facility as well.

The aftermath
For the Tirana pirates the Dustball raid was the most profitable raid ever. Indeed the ships intended to blast off to fetch more loot as soon as they were unloaded, along with every able bodied man that could be rounded up for a second raid. Fortunately for the Free State the sheer success of the initial strike delayed the follow-up raid by several weeks as squabbles over the division of the spoils and the targets of future raids heated up on Tirana. When the second raid was finally launched the faction favouring the ambition to hit the capitol city on Arkon IV, conquer the entire system and install the pirate band as the ruling nobility of Arkon, had won the argument over the faction which merely wanted to raid and loot the system down to bedrock.
The Arkon Free State had been plunged into a state of complete shock and political chaos by the raid, not only had the secret of the system been uncovered but the long neglected system defences had failed miserably to protect the people of Dustball. The savagery of the raiders struck terror into the hearts of the population which demanded action. In a hastily called session of parliament an emergency defence act was passed to rebuild the military and destroy the pirates, the only alternate proposal was from those that favoured bribes, that perhaps the pirates could be bought off, at least until the military was prepared to take them out permanently.
Arkonian re-armament started quickly. Several civilian dropships were taken into dock to be armed, the plants that had built small crafts for the civilian market suddenly had to dust off their old aerospace fighter designs and the navy yard at the Citadel started to reactivate the old corvettes and Scout II jumpships that had been deactivated and mothballed generations earlier. Many civilian miner and loader mechs operating on Dustball and Hellsgate were hastily armed and their pilots drafted into the military. The FSAAS raised two additional brigades of reserve troops from retired military personnel and recruits in training. Even some of the massive mining machines on Dustball and Hellsgate were armed with surplus capital missile tubes for orbital defence.
A quick survey of the system revealed that the attack had struck the mothballed Nadir recharge station before burning in system to hit Dustball. The emergence detectors on the station, which should have triggered and sent a warning to the FSAAS in-system, had malfunctioned long ago and the ransacked station was now in a decaying orbit that had to be corrected before the station fell too deep into the system to be saved. Suspecting that the pirates would probably hit the Zenith station on their next raid the FSAAS based the entire Heavy Interceptor division there along with two fighter squadrons in an ambush. Unfortunately the FSAAS miscalculated as the next raiding force arrived at an in-system pirate point.

The Second raid
The Arkon preparations for war had barely started when the Tirana pirate gang returned in force. Five weeks after the first raid four jumpships jumped in at a pirate point not far from Arkon IV. The first raiders had noted the EM radiation from the fourth planet and the illuminated cities dotting the night side during their first raid and interrogation of the people captured on Dustball had revealed the rest. Now they were going to hit the population and administration centres of the Free State hard. The force assembled was the largest single raiding force the Tirana pirates had ever mobilised, two Invader and two Merchant-class jumpships brought four Union, two Leopard, the two captured Mules and a Seeker-class dropship to the Arkon system. The pirates made a quick high-g burn for the city of Landing on Arkon IV catching the widely dispersed space combat assets of the FSAAS badly out of position.
The swift Seeker ship detached itself from the main body and went hunting for cargo dropships in transit between the Arkon worlds instead of attempting to join in making planetfall with the rest of the force, it would capture two ore carriers, kidnap almost a thousand civilian mine workers and their families and destroy a small habitat in the asteroid belt before escaping by a pre-planned rendezvous with a jumpship in the outer reaches of the Arkon system.
As the main strike force vectored for the capital on Arkon IV the eight ships spread out to land around the city in an effort to encircle it. They had tortured the information on much of the FSAAS ground forces out of their military captives. But that the city was still defended by the massive guns of the planetary defence system built by the SLDF almost four centuries earlier still remained unknown to them and none of their captives volunteered that information. The nervous green gun crews manning those ancient defences unfortunately lost their nerve and opened fire too soon. The massive particle guns lit up the first Union coming into range rather than waiting for more ships to enter the kill zone. The ship was reduced to fiery fragments that rained down on the city causing a few casualties and fires. The remaining pirate ships were too close to the planet to outright abort their landing but they were still able to avoid the kill zone as they desperately vectored away from the space defence guns to land further away from the capitol.
The pirate raiders were savage wherever they touched down in revenge for the destruction of their fellows but also a sense of fear had crept into the gang over the hidden strength shown by Arkon’s defenders. In addition to looting, raping and pillaging they also destroyed everything they couldn't take with them. This spree of wanton destruction and barbarism included the destruction of an underwater habitat which caused the drowning of over 2000 people, they finally blasted off before the Arkon garrison could engage them; taking care to stay well away from the orbital defences. The FSAAS ships and fighters pursued but were not strong enough to make a decisive attack before the pirates jumped out and escaped with more captives and loot.
Logged

CJvR

  • Fanjunkare
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 267
Re: Free State Alliance of Arkon
« Reply #11 on: April 03, 2017, 01:57:47 PM »
Expanding the war
With over ten thousand Arkon citizens taken captive or killed in less than two months the Arkonian parliament took drastic steps to defend the Free State and authorised the use of weapons of mass destruction against the pirates if it would deal them a decisive blow. Images of the Orca anti-shipping missiles being loaded onto the fleet’s missile boats  fot the first time in a century sent a powerful message to all Arkonian citizens that their government would do whatever it took to secure the system and the citizens, though unfortunately the Free State had never built very many of those ships. Desperate measures were taken all over the Arkon System to speed up the re-arming process as well as finding a way to take the war to the enemy.
For the pirates the rapidly hardening resistance was most frustrating, not only had it thwarted their dream of outright conquest and lordship but it would probably soon eliminate the golden opportunity to extract amazing riches from a still relatively soft target. The first effort to outright conquer the Arkon system had failed because they had grossly underestimated the sheer size and resources available to the Free State as they set out to attack it. But with their new-found wealth they could afford to gather more forces to their cause. In the last months of the year several other smaller pirate groups were invited to join in the looting of Arkon and a few very disreputable mercenary units operating in the region were contracted for the next strike. It was an ungodly collection of some of the worst scum in the galaxy that docked to the eleven jumpships on the Purgatory Nadir point for the New Years Raid on Arkon. The pirates might have been the scum of the universe but they were far from weak and for this strike they had amassed over a regiment worth of battlemechs with even more infantry and other support units, normally such an alliance would not hold together past the first tavern brawl but this time the lure of the wealth of the Arkon system served as the glue in holding the otherwise rivalling bands together.
Before the Pirate fleet could jump out a lone Scout-class jumpship jumped in some distance from the jump point, normally this would be nothing more than a tasty snack for the pirates but the ship jumped out again so fast that the pirate dropships detached to intercept never even got close to engage it. The Scout was the second jumpship made ready for interstellar flight by the FSAAS and the Citadel shipyards and sent out into the galaxy to track down the source of the attacks. The Free State navy had kept the knowledge of interstellar navigation alive, despite not having operated jumpships for over a century, and now the old scout ships were being dispatched to check the nearby habitable systems for pirate activities. Unfortunately the Scout's rather inexperienced crew made a few navigational errors and they didn't return to Arkon with their warning about the pirate fleet until after the conclusion New Years Raid.
The Pirate armada jumped into an uninhabited system and started to lay the final plans for the coming battle. A massed assault on Arkon IV had been rejected since the presence of the planetary defences made such an operation to dangerous. Ultimately a consensus was reached for a three pronged assault against Dustball and Hellsgate as well as the Zenith recharge station. The purpose of the Zenith station operation was to establish a base inside the system, if possible, while the main force captured or destroyed the factories that would be needed for the Arkonian rearming, as well as conducting the normal pirate activities of stealing and looting.
The Battle
The force detached to hit the Zenith station was the first to arrive, a Scout-class ship with an Intruder-class dropship filled with boarders. The Zenith station however was far from defenceless, most of its systems had been reactivated and a company of marines and a fighter squadron was permanently stationed there. The pirates fought their way through the fighter screen and docked with the station but were forced to disengage when the mounting damage to their ship became alarmingly severe and the Arkon marines held their boarding party at bay.
The main force arrived at an in-system pirate point close to the twin worlds and immediately divided into two groups of about twelve ships each and started to burn for their targets. A few dropships remained behind to protect the recharging jumpships. The double threat left the FSAAS with a difficult choice in where to deploy its reserve, consisting of the Heavy Interceptor division, from the Citadel. Ultimately it was decided to send it against the Dustball strike since that world was more exposed due to the destruction of the Fourth fighter wing and the decimation of the local garrison there in the first raid.
The space battle on the approaches to Dustball was long and furious with the Arkonian Avengers destroying several fighters and a Leopard dropship despite fierce resistance from the pirates. When the Pirates started to close in on the planet several armed transport ships lifted off to reinforce the remaining Arkonian interceptors, among them an auxiliary carrier with a squadron of aerospace fighters detached from the First Fighter wing. A pitched battle raged over Dustball for several hours claiming three of the converted Arkonian ships as well as one of the Avengers before the pirates broke off the assault and retreated, leaving three more wrecks behind.
The Hellsgate strike force was made up mainly of the new pirate groups and the hired help and that force had more success on its approach and managed to land almost intact, only Arkonian fighters of the Third Fighter wing contested the landing and splashed a few pirate fighters. Once on the ground the pirates soon found themselves rolling in riches they could hardly have imagined, even from the tales told by the earlier raiders as they looted storehouses and factories. However the battle of Hellsgate had only just started, the Arkonian defenders superior fighter strength slowly decimated the pirate coalition’s flimsy and disorganized air cover and eventually started to make strafing and bombing runs at the pillaging ground forces. To make matters worse for the pirates the FSAAS brought up a heavy artillery battery to shell their grounded dropships. When the few remaining pirate fighters were ordered to silence the guns they were forced to fly far outside the covering fire of their dropships and were slaughtered in short order. The Pirate ground forces were reluctantly forced to halt their looting and organize for battle. Once in position they made an attack on the artillery position but the guns were well defended by the Second Brigade's as well as a large number of volunteers in armed civilian mechs. Despite destroying more than twice the mechs they themselves lost the pirates failed to break through the Arkonian lines and destroy the artillery battery and when the news hit that a dropship full of loot had been destroyed and that the Dustball force had been repelled the pirates broke off the attack and retreated off world before a wing of missile ships detached from Arkon IV could engage them them.
Logged

CJvR

  • Fanjunkare
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 267
Re: Free State Alliance of Arkon
« Reply #12 on: April 06, 2017, 08:27:28 AM »
Counterstrike                                          
            
Following the hard fought New Years raid the fragile pirate unity shattered, the abysmal failure of the Tirana band in not even making planetfall was a harsh blow to their claims of leadership of the ramshackle coalition of cut-throats and their heavy military losses exposed them to predation from their former comrades in arms. The infighting among the pirates over the loot and slaves gained in the earlier raids gave Arkon some much needed time for further preparations. Despite a few minor raids during the following months that did limited damage the worst crisis seemed to be over. The newly reactivated corvettes left the Citadel for their shakedown cruises and the first batch of new Interceptor-class assault ships and Nike-class missile boats were slowly approaching completion and numerous other defensive measures were also starting to bear fruit. A fifth reserve brigade was mustered from retired veterans and civilian mech pilots and two regular battalions were broken out of the First and Second Brigades to form independent specialist units to widen the capabilities of the FSAAS.
Purgatory and Tirana are both almost 60 LY distant from the Arkon system. There is only one star system between those three systems that is within the 30 LY range limit of a hyperspace jump that can be reached from all of them. This system enables jumpships to cross the interstellar distance between the stars in just two jumps rather than three. With the intel brought back from their scouts the FSAAS decided to establish picket force in that system, which was nicknamed “Midway” by the FSAAS. This attempt to blockade the easiest route to Arkon was the first step to strike back at the pirate confederation in 3017. The FSAS Dustball spent three months lurking on the Zenith and Nadir jump points along with a few missile and interceptor dropships. During that time the taskforce destroyed two small pirate bands, captured a jumpship and liberated over a hundred pirate captives. Despite the success of this patrol the Arkon system was raided nine times by lesser pirate forces. The targets of these raids were mainly various asteroid mining facilities, in-system shipping and more remote areas of Hellsgate and Dustball as well as the mothballed jumpship fleet and the Zenith and Nadir stations. Several of these raids did serious damage even if the Light Interceptor Wing hunted down several pirate ships they were usually too late to prevent them from doing damage. Fortunately the raids didn't touch the armament industry other than by causing marginal disruptions in the flow of raw materials.
In June the FSAAS decided to finally make a serious effort to take the war to the pirates, a taskforce with both the corvettes, two Scout-class jumpships and a LF-battery equipped Tramp-class jumpship, carrying two Avengers and a converted carrier dropship with an aerospace wing onboard, were dispatched to hit the pirate jumpship fleet at Purgatory. The operation got of to a good start when the Scouts, which made quick recognisance jumps into the system, returned and reported that there were six ships on the Purgatory Nadir jumppoint.
The FSAAS taskforce immediately jumped in and attacked the pirate fleet, which put up a stubborn fight despite their poor position and weak escort. Three pirate jumpships were destroyed by the guns and missiles of the Arkonian fleet, two more were captured and only the last ship managed to jump away and escape. Unfortunately poor timing would tarnish the great victory. Before the Arkonian forces could reorganise and depart the system four more pirate ships jumped in. These ships were fully loaded, carrying many military dropships and over a wing of aerospace fighters.
The resulting battle was costly for both sides, the pirates liberated one of their jumpships and destroyed the other one. The Arkonian corvettes stubbornly protected their own jumpship as it docked its dropships and jumped out. Desperate for some breathing space to charge their KF-drives and make a jump to safety the corvettes ran for deep space slowly outrunning the pursuing pirate dropships and forcing the remaining pirate fighters to break of the pursuit due to fuel shortages. Once clear of their dogged pursuers however it became obvious that FSAS Dustball would never jump again due to some unfortunate KF-core damage so the crew was evacuated and the ship scuttled with a nuclear bomb to prevent it from falling into the hands of the pirates.
Despite the debacle in the Purgatory raid, 3037 was a successful year in the pirate war. Seven pirate jumpships belonging to various groups had been captured or destroyed along with over a dozen dropships. The shortage of jumpship assets would seriously limit the mobility of the pirates as well as their ability to continuously pressure the Arkon defences. The pirate ground forces had lost over a battalion worth of mechs and probably over a regiment in conventional troops as well as almost two full fighter wings in the various raids and battles of the year. In the Free State new and improved weapons started to become available and the green recruits filling the growing ranks of the army were beginning to learn their trade properly. The reactivated military academies were now operating at full capacity. A military version, the Challenger-class, of the locally designed Conestoga-class transport was laid down in large numbers to provide the army with a proper heavily armed and armoured military transport and the plans for a new military jumpship design were about to be approved.
The immediate danger that Free State would be outright conquered by pirates ended in 3037 but the war to purge the surrounding  region of the Periphery from the scourge of piracy was far from over.
Logged

CJvR

  • Fanjunkare
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 267
Re: Free State Alliance of Arkon
« Reply #13 on: April 07, 2017, 02:46:38 PM »
The Purgatory Campaign                                    

The FSAAS started the campaign of 3038 by resuming the blockade of the Midway system, now formally named so by the Free State, where they eventually built a small fortified base at the zenith jumppoint with com-relays connected to surveillance satellites around the major planets in the system and on the nadir jump point. The facilities there were expanded many times during the year to support the coming ground assault on the pirate home systems.
The Tirana pirates too had learned lessons from the fighting in 3037 and now they tended to avoid the Midway system on their raiding runs. The stiffening defences and their declining abilities reduced the pirates to surprise attacks on the asteroid mining facilities but the lure of the riches of Arkon continued to be irresistible. In October a daring assault on the zenith recharge station met with great success when a supply ship loaded with high tech parts and weapons intended for upgrades on the station was captured and the station itself was looted of everything valuable and the crew brutally murdered. The Arkonian navy eventually managed to save the station but it would be over a year before it was repaired and back in operations. The Tirana pirates and their allies knew very well that the party would soon be over but they were determined to squeeze everything they could out of Arkon before they would have to cut and probably run.
In 3038 the FSAAS decided to shift its tactics from chasing and targeting enemy dropships to actively hunting for hostile jumpships instead. The first such operation was unfortunately not a great victory. A Pirate ship returning from a raid on an asteroid belt mining station were turning over and breaking for their ride home when a pursuing Nike missile boat doglegged around them. Reaching the waiting pirate jumpship first the Nike made one quick strafing pass which disabled the ship, stranding the pirates in system where they were slowly hunted down and destroyed by converging FSAAS forces. Unfortunately it was this operation which weakened the jump point patrol enough to allow the pirate raid on the zenith station through.
In late 3038 the Arkonian military began preparations for an outright attack on the main pirate bases on Purgatory. The Arkonian army had tripled in size in the three years since the war began despite its losses in the earlier battles. The Arkonian army now had three regular brigades as well as two specialist regiments in the first line. The second line forces consisted of two reserve brigades and the Arkon IV planetary defence system as well as training cadres that had been formed around the front-line brigades. New and improved equipment, some of it based on the advanced old Star League technology that the Free State had rarely used before, were also being delivered in ever growing numbers. Battlemechs based on the old Marauders and other successful SLDF mech designs entered into service as well as new versions of the venerable Harpoon Aerospace fighters, new AFVs and modified deep sea diving suits serving as primitive powerarmor and inspired by the SLDF’s use of armoured exoskeletons reached the troops in the field - a decade before the Inner Sphere would encounter the Clan equivalents.
It was decided to send one of the regular brigades to invade Purgatory along with the two specialist regiments. The lack of experience in organizing a major interstellar spacelift operations as well as the lack of military transport assets delayed the operation and it was postponed no less than twelve times until it was finally launched in early 3039.
Operation Inferno opened when taskforce Dante hit both the Zenith and Nadir jumppoints of the Purgatory system simultaneously. Unfortunately the pirate jumpships in the system were holding station at pirate points deeper in the system and all of them jumped out when they detected the approaching taskforce. With local space superiority secured the invasion force was ordered to proceed from the HPG mounted onboard FSAS Hellsgate, the last surviving warship in the fleet. Many pirates had fled the system on the jumpships but about two mixed battalions of battle hardened veterans remained on the planet to stiffen the spines of a few militia regiments raised from the slave owning locals and their overseers. The landings of the Arkonian invasion force were unopposed but the advancing Arkonian troops soon found themselves fighting through a nightmare as the desperate pirates used every dirty trick imaginable including booby trapped slaves, suicide bombers (slaves who's families were held hostage), chemical weaponry and human shields (quite literally since some Arkonian captives were chained to pirate mechs and tanks before they went into battle).
As the Arkonian army advanced it started to liberate some of the local people. The brutally traumatised population of Purgatory could testify to the reign of torture, rape and murder their former masters had practised. The Arkonian troops resorted to trying incapacitating chemical weapons to limit the carnage but it was mostly in vain. It took six long gruelling months to clear out the cities on Purgatory and by then over 90% of the regular Arkonian army had been cycled through the nightmare as front-line troops desperately needed rest from the nightmarish hell on Purgatory. Justice was often swift for captured pirates during the campaign; many were simply handed over to their former slaves where they were very lucky to get a quick death.
The slaves of Purgatory, when they realised that the invaders were something other than a competing band of cut-throats, finally dared hope for salvation and rose up in revolt with all the passionate sadistic brutality that only abused former slaves can manage. This revolt at last forced the pirates and their supporters to retreat to their last line of defence. Surrounded by a few hundred slave hostages in the industrial area around the planetary spaceport where the last of their dropships and much of their loot from the Arkon raids were stored the pirates tried to strike a bargain for off world transport and a jumpship. Rather than negotiating the Arkoinan navy delivered a bit of precision orbital bombardment before the army stormed the place wiping out this foul nest of vipers once and for all.
The experiences of the Purgatory campaign would dictate Arkonian military doctrine for a long time. The nightmare for many Arkonian slaves was finally over and they could return home. Once there they spread the tales of the horrors they had endured throughout the civilian population of Arkon and they revealed that many of their fellow captives had been sold to other slavers on other worlds. The search for the lost people of Dustball and Hellsgate would go on for decades and lead to one of the greatest purges of pirates and slavers ever in March Worlds.
The future rule of Purgatory was put to a vote among the local population once the situation had stabilised. The population was given the choice of ruling themselves, as an independent state, or becoming a protectorate under the Free State. Despite a strong desire for independence on Purgatory the voters realised that their future safety and continued liberty depended on Arkonian guns and the election ended with a 68% majority for protectorate status.
Large portions of the Purgatory population however were to compromised by their dealings with the old pirate overlords to remain among the general population. Leaving them and their families on Purgatory would lead either to mass murder and civil unrest or both. To resolve the problem a special penal colony was founded by the Free State.
Originally simply called the “Prison Colony” it rapidly became known as “Roads End”, this world at the edge of the Ring Nebula would become the high security prison colony of the Free State. Roads End is a small, lifeless, dusty, dry world scarred by vast canyons dozens of miles deep. The surface is uninhabitable but the deepest canyon bottoms form marginally habitable islands and are frequently rich in small but high valued mineral deposits. It was on this dismal world that small groups of convicts and exiles from the Pirate War were deposited. A typical colony was given shelter, air processors, tools and enough food and water to survive for a year. Anything above the basics they had to pay for with ore when a supply ship returned a year later. Surprisingly several of these colonies have become thriving little mining societies despite their origin while others remain nothing more than harsh camps were shifting gangs of inmates prey on their fellow inmates to the best, or worst, of their ability.
Logged

CJvR

  • Fanjunkare
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 267
Re: Free State Alliance of Arkon
« Reply #14 on: April 10, 2017, 08:21:55 AM »
The Tirana Campaign                                       
After the hell on Purgatory the FSAAS was anxious that the remaining pirate bands should be decisively broken on Tirana. The location of Tirana and the relation between the Purgatory and Tirana systems had been discovered by the FSAAS during the Purgatory campaign. The FSAAS decided to first target the remaining pirate jumpship assets before mounting any invasion. During late 3039 and early 3040 Arkonian ships hunted pirate jumpships in and around the Tirana system. During the naval campaign two more Avenger interceptors were lost in action and the Arkon fighter force suffered heavy casualties as well. These operations were very dangerous as the Arkonian naval vessels often found themselves spread very thin in an effort to cover more space. In mid-3040 the Arkonian fleet finally managed to corner the remaining pirate jumpship fleet. Trapped with uncharged KF-drives at a pirate point in the Tirana system most of the remaining pirate ships that hadn't fled the region were destroyed by a squadron of Arkon navy missile ships in a decisive battle.
The Tirana pirates had many problems other than the vindictive Arkonian military hunting them. The sudden influx of other pirate gangs and disreputable mercenaries to Tirana exposed the darker sides of the planetary merchant nobility in an undeniable fashion to the population in general. The planetary militia regiments clashed frequently with various armed gangs involved in criminal activities and the militia frequently came out second best in those fights. Desertions and defections had reduced the Tirana pirates order of battle to about one mech battalion and two mixed regiments of armour and infantry. It was against this depleted force that the FSAAS were about to hurl two reinforced brigades.
The FSAAS had selected the First brigade and the new Third (Light) brigade to spearhead the operation. The invasion, like the Purgatory invasion, was initially unopposed and when the Arkonians finally met resistance it was only from a couple of local militia battalions. The battle hardened Arkonians, experienced from the hell on Purgatory, hit the green and demoralised militia like the hammer of an angry God and shattered the battalions in minutes. The only effective opposition afterwards came from scattered mech companies trying to bolster the disintegrating militia formations.
The Arkonian brigades rapidly closed on the capital but there the defence hardened, the surviving militia units were now defending their homes, that bolstered their determination to put up a fight, those that did not improve had pirate units stiffening their resolve with a few executions. In addition the FSAAS fought harder and dirtier than it had to as a result of their Purgatory experiences which contributed to stiffening the resolve of the militia to resist. Ultimately all the defences didn't matter as the Arkonians stormed the last strongholds relying on their power suited infantry to infiltrate the enemy positions before unleashing the brute strength of their heavy formations, absorbing the casualties in order to eradicate the pirate scourge once and for all.
Unlike Purgatory, where the situation was normalised as rapidly as possible, the FSAAS initiated a formal occupation of Tirana. Martial law was enforced as Arkonian security forces ruthlessly hunted down anyone with any connection to Purgatory and the old regime. The citizens of Tirana also had the past misdeeds of their ruling oligarchy thrown in their faces when the Arkonians started to hold very public trials regarding the atrocities committed by the "respectable" merchant clans of Tirana. Most of the leaders where convicted and hanged in public while many of the lower ranks were sent to Roads End. It took many years for the situation on Tirana to stabilise and, unlike Purgatory, Tirana was never given a choice regarding its future status. Even a decade after the war the local autonomy of Tirana is much more limited than that on Purgatory.


The Post-war era      
                                 
The end of the war did not signal a return to the isolationism of the previous era. Despite the military's best efforts several smaller pirate and mercenary bands had escaped to spread the word of Arkon and its location. Hundreds of Arkonian citizens were still held in slavery somewhere among the March Worlds. The era where secrecy and isolationism could secure the Free State was over.
The FSAAS was tasked with building up and patrol a perimeter around the Arkon system, for this purpose they established bases on some of the more hospitable worlds within two jumps from the home system where their ships could re-supply for their patrol sweeps. Two of these bases grew into real colonies. Base-3 which would be renamed Eden had splendid Terran like conditions and wide open ranges that drew heavy settlements from the rather cramped cities of Arkon IV. On Base-10 three jumps from Arkon the Free State established a trading outpost for dealing with other groups in the periphery without letting them into the Arkon system. This system would become known in the region as the Port and evolved into an important centre of trade in the periphery.
In addition to the ongoing military build-up and territorial expansion there were also intense efforts underway to find the still missing people take captive during the Pirate War. Parallel with these efforts there was also the need to gain access to reliable intelligence on the situation in the Inner Sphere.
The news from the Inner Sphere was not particularly encouraging; a fourth devastating war had dramatically redrawn the map of the Sphere and created the huge colossus of the Federated Commonwealth that could be a serious threat to Arkon. In addition undercover missions by small units once again masquerading as periphery traders revealed that the Inner Sphere was undergoing a technological renaissance. While this increased the military capabilities of the great houses it also lessened the threat of a major Inner Sphere launching a tech raid on Arkon.
In the local region around the Free State the piratical nature of the Marian and Circinian regimes made the Arkonians more likely to go to war with the local regimes than opening any formal relations with them. The Arkonians did however contact the clans of New St Andrews for limited trade and the Wanderers, the Wanderers in particular was a fountain of vital information on resent events in the periphery and the Inner Sphere. The Arkonians and the Wanderers shared the same hatred for pirates and rapidly entered a very profitable partnership, the Wanderers provided information and bought high tech goods for trade around the March Worlds and effectively gave the Arkonians access to an instant intelligence network in exchange the Arkonian military sponsored the Wanderers with military hardware and access to shipyards for much overdue service,repairs and upgrades. The Wanderers also proved skilled in securing the release of many of the still missing slaves taken in the raids on Arkon, in the end Wanderer traders bought the freedom of more slaves than the numbers that was tracked down and liberated by force by the FSAAS.
Logged
Pages: [1] 2   Go Up
« previous next »