The BattleTech universe is a diverse place, spanning more than a millennium of history and several thousand light years of space. From the nation states of the twentieth century up to the Republic of the Sphere of the thirty-second century, BattleTech spans myriads of places and trillions of people. Interstellar, succession, and civil wars, as well as fragmentation and infighting gave birth to countless factions, of which most are noted below.

History

Beginning with the establishment of the Alliance Space Command in 2016, humanity began moving out into the solar system. The first lunar settlement was established in December 2016, and the first manned mission to Mars launched the following year. The advent of fusion power in 2020 led to the first fusion-powered interplanetary spacecraft, the AS Columbia, which launched from Crippen Station on October 12, 2027. Colonies were soon established on Mars and the Moon, and automated probes launched to neighboring star systems which returned evidence by 2050 of nearby habitable worlds.

By the beginning of the twenty-second century the Western Alliance had grown to become the Terran Alliance, and despite discontent from some of its poorer constituents pursued an agenda of rapid technological development. Faster-than-light travel, the theories of which were first postulated by Thomas Kearny and Takayoshi Fuchida in the early 21st century, were realized on September 3, 2107 with the successful voyage of the first FTL spacecraft, the TAS Pathfinder, which made a 12-light year jump to the Tau Ceti star system.

Beginning with the establishment of the first extra-solar colony on New Earth (Tau Ceti IV) in 2116, a wave of colonization began that continued for centuries. By 2235, some 600 colonies had been established within 120 light years of Earth, but the difficulties maintaining authority over such far-flung worlds sparked the first rebellion against the Terran Alliance. Known as the "Outer Reaches Rebellion" and led by the colony world of Denebola, it precipitated the downfall of the Alliance Parliament's Expansionist Party and swept the Liberal Party into power. The Liberals announced that the Alliance would withdraw to a thirty light-year radius (or two-jump) sphere surrounding Earth, thus granting the outer colonies independence. Numerous small kingdoms rapidly formed, most of which quickly conquered or merged with their neighbors leaving a handful of larger nations.

Political corruption and instability, and the economic strain of supporting its colonies, eroded support for the Terran Alliance, and in 2314 it descended into civil war. The Alliance Global Militia under the direction of Navy Admiral James McKenna imposed an end to the conflict in 2315, dissolved the Parliament, and established in its place the Terran Hegemony, with McKenna elected as its first Director-General the following year. During McKenna's 23-year tenure the Hegemony sought to reassert its authority over the outer colonies, but though achieving some early successes the effort was ultimately a failure and galvanized resistance to the Hegemony; McKenna's successor, cousin Michael Cameron, concentrated on establishing more peaceful international relations.

One of Cameron's most lasting legacies was a system of aristocratic rule, originally based on individual achievement but later conferred by heredity, which he introduced in 2351. The ranks of nobility created by his Peer List led to the formation of numerous feudal ruling families and was the foundation of many of the Great Houses of later centuries.

Emerging from the new military restrictions set by the Ares Conventions, huge robotic war machines known as BattleMechs were developed by the Terran Hegemony in 2439 and first used in combat against the Draconis Combine in 2443. Both powerful and intimidating, BattleMechs drew attention away from space combat and onto the ground, and remained the most high-profile military units throughout all subsequent BattleTech history. The design secrets of the BattleMech were stolen during a raid by Lyran Commonwealth commandos on a Terran 'Mech factory and subsequently spread by trade and conquest to all the other Great Houses.

With the major combatants exhausted, the Age of War wound down in the mid-twenty-sixth century.

Star League

Near the ending of the Age of War, Ian Cameron led the formation of the Star League with help of the Free Worlds League and the Capellan Confederation. Then after the two supporting states, the future Star League gained the willing support of the Houses, Ian Cameron formed the Star League. The formation of the Star League in 2571 led almost immediately into The Reunification War. The attempt to force the periphery states into the League lasted for twenty long years. This fighting would impact the history of those realms for the next several hundred years.

n the mid 28th century the current First Lord of the Star League died suddenly and tragically in an accident; Richard Cameron, then still a boy and unready to rule, was thrust onto the throne. Commanding General Aleksandr Kerensky was appointed as regent of the Star League. The Star League Council, composed of the five Great House Lords, saw themselves as the true rulers of the Star League. Upon reaching maturity, the son of the deceased First Lord sent out edicts limiting the house armies, while also placing higher taxes on the Periphery states. This started the Border War, occupying much of the League forces with quelling civil unrest. Taking advantage of this unrest, Stefan Amaris (the leader of the Rim Worlds Republic) first became a personal friend of the First Lord, then Stefan Amaris killed all of the Cameron family—even the First Lord himself—and claimed the title. This was truly the beginning of the end for the Star League. The Amaris Coup touched off thirteen years of fighting as the Star League Defense Force fought its way from the Periphery to Terra. General Alexander Kerensky's effort to remove the usurper claimed nearly three quarters of the SLDF. Still suffering from recent battles and unable to hold back the Houses and the coming darkness, Kerensky began an exodus of all willing troops to leave known space, thus leaving the way open for the Succession Wars.

Succession Wars

In 3022, the Lyran Archon, Katrina Steiner, sent out a proposal for peace and alliance to the other Houses, who until then had been fighting on all fronts for essentially the entirety of their post-Star League history. Three of the Houses (Kurita, Liao, Marik) reacted suspiciously, but the First Prince of the Federated Suns, Hanse Davion, responded favorably and the two sides eventually agreed to an alliance. Within a few years, the terms had been set - Hanse would marry Katrina's daughter Melissa, and their two nations would merge into the Federated Commonwealth when one of Hanse and Melissa's children took the throne - until then, they would merely be allies. After this alliance was announced, ComStar brokered the Concord of Kapteyn, a shaky alliance between the three other Successor States.

In 3028, all five Successor Lords met on Terra, for the first time since the fall of the Star League, at the marriage of Hanse and Melissa. However, they were in for a surprise. At the reception, while the bride and groom were exchanging gifts, Hanse gave his immortal line "My dear... I give you the Capellan Confederation!", stupefying the head of the Confederation, Maximilian Liao, who was one of the Successor Lords present. Thus began the Fourth Succession War. FedSuns units began to systematically dismantle the Capellan Confederation, as Lyran forces and a few elite mercenary regiments held off the other two prongs of the Marik-Kurita-Liao alliance that had been formed in the wake of the announced Steiner-Davion marriage. However, ComStar, alarmed at the course of events, faked a FedSuns attack on one of its HPGs, and placed the FedSuns under Interdiction, cutting off all communications services. At this point, the attack began to falter, as long-range communications and attack coordination became nearly impossible, although the Capellans were still unable to force back the FedSuns. After a few more months of war, the two sides agreed to an uneasy truce, and the Interdiction was lifted.

With the end of the Fourth Succession War a long stream of short but violent wars sprang up across the Inner Sphere due to public outcry, opportunistic leaders, and even the want of freedom from oppression. There would be no major fighting until the later invasion by the Clans.

During this time period a momentous discovery had been made. The mercenary unit Gray Death Legion discovered a functional Star League-era memory core on the planet Helm in the Free Worlds League in 3028. The Grey Death Legion made the unheard of gesture of freely and openly giving a copy of the memory core to all the great houses instead of keeping it to themselves. This triggered a technological renaissance. After a few decades, Star League weaponry and systems started to become available again, and 'Mech technology eventually advanced back to near the point it had been three hundred years earlier. And it was just in time. The rediscovered technology gave the FedSuns-Lyran alliance, with their technological and numerical advantage, supremacy over the other Successor States.

Clan Invasion

In August of 3049, the Inner Sphere began to hear of mysterious invaders using advanced technology, beyond that of even the Star League, in the reaches coreward of the Free Rasalhague Republic. Small periphery realms disappeared from contact and mercenary units were annihilated (including a detachment from the elite Kell Hounds). In March of 3050, the invaders struck at the Inner Sphere proper. The invaders, known as the Clans, cut a swathe through the Lyran half of the Federated Commonwealth and Draconis Combine and absolutely devastated the Free Rasalhague Republic. Using their technological superiority and impressive combat prowess, over a hundred planets fell in the first year. Four Clans rolled into the Inner Sphere that year. Clans Wolf, Jade Falcon, Smoke Jaguar, and Ghost Bear. While some counterattacks succeeded, they failed to stop their advance.

It took the suicide attack of Kapten Tyra Miraborg, a pilot in the Free Rasalhague Republic's KungsArmé, to do what entire regiments had failed: stop the Clan advance. Her suicide attack with her Shilone AeroSpace Fighter hit the bridge of the Clan flagship, killing ilKhan Leo Showers instantly. Under Clan law, a new ilKhan could only be selected on the Clan homeworld of Strana Mechty, which was almost a year's travel time from the location of the Clan forces in the Inner Sphere. So, for more than a year, the Clans halted their invasion as their individual leaders returned to their home planets to regroup and select a new ilKhan, and then returned to continue with the invasion. This allowed the nations of the Inner Sphere some much-needed time to recuperate and plan for the expected resumption of the invasion, and it was time that they used to great effect. Aside from ending their conflicts and uniting against the threat, they also gained valuable insights into the nature of the Clans. The leader of Wolf's Dragoons revealed that his mercenary unit was, in fact, a reconnaissance mission sent by the Clan leaders, and explained the history of the Clans to the leaders of the Inner Sphere.

On the Dragoons' homeworld of Outreach, the leaders of the Inner Sphere (and their heirs) trained to work together against the Clan threat. When the invasion finally resumed under former Wolf Khan Ulric Kerensky, the forces of the Inner Sphere were much better prepared to combat them. Ulric activated two reserve Clans, the Steel Vipers and Nova Cats, though this was as much to cause strife within the Clan Occupation Zones as it was to aid the invasion by pairing them up with hated rivals, the Jade Falcons and the Smoke Jaguars.

The spirit of cooperation that had been forged on Outreach bore fruit when Prince Hanse Davion sent Wolf's Dragoons and the Kell Hounds to the Combine's capital, Luthien, upon hearing of an imminent Clan assault upon the system. With the help of the FedCom mercenaries, the Combine was able to repulse the joint Jaguar-Nova Cat assault. Despite the limited victories the Inner Sphere forces were able to win, however, the true turning point in the war came when ComStar learned of the Clans' goal: Terra.

Terra, the cradle of civilization and only holding of ComStar, was the goal of each of the Clans. Whichever Clan captured Terra would become the ilClan, the supreme Clan. Until then, ComStar had been covertly aiding the Clans through their Precentor Martial, Anastasius Focht. It was only when Primus Myndo Waterly met with the ilKhan that she discovered their intentions. Since neither side wanted to damage the birthplace of humanity, they agreed to fight a proxy battle on the Rasalhagian world of Tukayyid. If the Clans won, then ComStar would grant them Terra and become the Clans' administrative arm in the Inner Sphere. If ComStar won, then no Clan could advance beyond Tukayyid for fifteen years.

For the battle, Ulric activated the third reserve, Clan Diamond Shark. Focht threw almost the entirety of the ComGuard at the Clans on Tukayyid. ComStar acted as the defender in the battle, and each Clan had to conquer two cities from the ComGuard forces to be successful. The battle started on May 1, 3052. Focht exploited a weakness in Clan strategy. The Clans favored quick battles between small forces, so the ComGuard dug in for a protracted campaign. At the same time, Primus Waterly initiated Operation Scorpion, which depended upon a complete, Sphere-wide communications blackout to force all the Inner Sphere leaders to bow to ComStar. Ultimately, Clan Wolf was the only clan to complete their objectives, though the Ghost Bears and Jade Falcons managed to take one of their objectives, forcing a draw. The Falcons reached a draw because their destruction of many ComGuard units by the Falcon Guards, the Ghost Bears by their taking of one of their objectives. Which meant that the ComGuard was victorious, though at a stupendous cost. Once the battle ended five days later and Focht learned of Waterly's duplicity, Focht assassinated her and placed a known (to him) Combine spy in her place. Thus, the Clan Invasion ended.

3052 saw other upheavals as Chancellor Romano Liao assassinated Justin Allard and then was in turn assassinated by his wife, her own sister, Candace, and Prince Hanse Davion died of a heart attack upon learning of the betrothal of Romano's heir Sun-Tzu to Thomas Marik's illegitimate daughter, Isis. Within ComStar, Focht and Primus Sharilar Mori's efforts to reform ComStar of its pseudo-religious trappings led to a backlash from Precentor Atreus Demona Aziz. Aziz led a splinter faction to the Free Worlds League known as the Word of Blake and received protection for Thomas Marik, who had been a member of the Order.

In 3055, Archon Melissa Steiner was assassinated by her daughter, though the blame was laid at the feet of her son Victor, who succeeded her and officially inaugurated the Federated Commonwealth as its first Archon-Prince.

World of Blake Jihad

At the Whitting Conference of 3064, the Free Worlds League nominated Word of Blake for membership in the Star League. A radical sect of Blakists known as the Sixth of June believed that this was their path to power. Their hopes were dashed, however, when the 3067 conference resulted in the collapse of the Star League as the Capellan Confederation, Lyran Alliance, and Federated Suns all removed their support. The angry Blakists' attempt to force the recalcitrant nations back into the League resulted in a war that engulfed every major faction. The Jihad represented a return to total war in a way that even the FedCom Civil War did not match as the Word used orbital bombardments and nuclear and biological weapons, and wantonly attacked civilian targets.

They were able to corral most leaders on their capitals, forcing regional leaders to take a more active role. They also disabled the HPG network, further complicating the attempts of sovereigns to control their countries. In addition, they were able to foster wars between many neighboring states by manipulating these regional leaders. The most stunning success was in the Free Worlds League, where the nation actually broke into its constituent parts.

The Jihad wreaked untold havoc on the Inner Sphere as military units were smashed, factories annihilated, people slaughtered, and whole planets wiped out. This apocalyptic war was finally stopped in 3081 when Devlin Stone led a coalition of forces to victory over the Blakists on Terra.

Factions

From the nation states of the twentieth century up to the Republic of the Sphere of the thirty-second century, BattleTech spans myriads of places and trillions of people. Interstellar, succession, and civil wars, as well as fragmentation and infighting gave birth to countless factions, of which most are noted below.

Inner Sphere

The Inner Sphere is a region of interstellar space surrounding Earth to a radius of roughly 450 - 550 light-years, generally demarcated by the outer borders of the "Great Houses." Within this region of about 2 million stars, there are approximately 2000 inhabited planets. Beyond the Inner Sphere is the Periphery.

The Star League

Over the course of fifteen years, from 2556 to 2571, Cameron managed to sign deals with the other five Houses to establish an organization known as the Star League. Headed by House Cameron, though with the other five Houses given a place on the ruling Council, the organization promised an end to inter-House war (as well as some massive incentives to sign on to the deal, ranging from military support to technological aid). However, Cameron was as much power-hungry as visionary, and he was therefore not content to be the universally accepted leader of the bulk of humanity. When the Star League had finally been assembled in 2571, among his first actions was attempting to get the lesser nations of the Periphery into the Star League. When requests and negotiation failed, he moved to trade sanctions, and when those failed, the Reunification War began. Thought by the Star League powers to be a war that would cost little, it actually took over twenty years to pacify the last of the Periphery holdouts, as well as unthinkably large losses to the Star League Defense Forces and the various House armies and navies. However, the Star League was by far the more powerful of the sides, and their victory was probably inevitable, despite the heavy losses they suffered to win. When the Taurian Concordat's last bastion of defense (a heavily mined nebula that wreaked havoc on SLDF navies for years) finally fell in 2596, the Reunification War was over and Ian Cameron had achieved his dream of reuniting the whole of humanity under one banner, as it had been united during the early days of the Terran Alliance.
During the nearly two hundred years that the Star League endured and relative peace reigned, technology bloomed. 'Mech and WarShip technology continued to advance at a rapid pace, and the first Hyperpulse Generator (HPG) went online in 2630, providing humans a way to communicate between planets without the need for moving JumpShips to transmit messages. The golden era of the Star League would, however, come to an end in a way few expected.
In 2767, following a series of rebellions in the Periphery that drew the bulk of the SLDF forces away from the central areas of the Star League, Stefan Amaris of the Rim Worlds Republic, supposed friend of First Lord Richard Cameron, assassinated the entire Cameron family and proclaimed himself new First Lord. The SLDF, under the command of Aleksandr Kerensky, regrouped quickly, drove inwards, and liberated the entire Inner Sphere from Amaris' clutches in a long and bloody 13-year war, culminating in the conquest of Terra. However, the SLDF, having been massively depleted in this war, no longer had the strength to hold the fractious Houses together, and eventually abandoned the Inner Sphere entirely in the great Exodus of the entire SLDF to the deep Periphery, not to be heard from again for three hundred years.

Word of Blake/ComStar

ComStar is the successor to the Star League's Ministry of Communications, and runs all of the Inner Sphere's HPGs, maintaining essential communications between every pair of star systems. Formed by Jerome Blake, the last Minister of Communications, after the fall of the Star League, ComStar has slowly morphed into an organization as much religious as practical, believing in everything from the need to pray to the machines they run to an eventual apocalypse that would engulf the Inner Sphere even more thoroughly than the fall of the Star League and the ensuing Succession Wars. Early in the First War, ComStar occupied Terra and has preserved it as both neutral ground and headquarters since. As well as their obvious communications duties, ComStar is also the Inner Sphere's most important bank and money-mover, runs the Explorer Corps to catalog the deep periphery, runs the Mercenary Review and Bonding Commission, and keeps a massive force of over seventy regiments of Star League-era 'Mechs, the Com Guards, and the only fleet of space going WarShips hidden in case of a future crisis.

Alexander Kernoff	Cameron St. Jamais	William Blane

Longinus

Heinrich St. Louis	Sister Aliette	Sister Annette	Sister Claudette	Sister Colette

Sister Ginette	Sister Henriette	Sister Jeanette	Sister Maurette

Successor States

After the fall of the Star League and the Exodus of the SLDF, the five great houses' respective leaders claimed to lead the Star League, with no formal directive of succession as the Cameron family was unable to produce an heir. This caused the houses to wage war to see who would be the heir to the throne. With most of the Star League forces gone what was left was forces loyal to the houses that they were either formed at, stationed, or even the case in a rare circumstances still believed in the ways of the Star League, still flying the banner of the Star League, only dealing with the houses as a nicety to survive.

The Periphery

The Periphery refers to the region of space surrounding the Inner Sphere. The border between "the Periphery" and the "Inner Sphere" is generally 450 - 550 light years away from Terra. The Periphery is surrounded by the Deep Periphery, though the borders for this region of space are more nebulous. The Periphery is littered with small colonies and a handful of interstellar nations, legitimate or not.

Deep Periphery

Deep Periphery refers to the depths of unexplored space and/or human colonized space located beyond the (known) coherent human sphere of influence, namely the Inner Sphere and the adjacent Periphery realms. Due to the vague nature of the term "Deep Periphery", there is no clearly defined beginning nor are there any boundaries.
Though largely uncharted, the Deep Periphery is far from uninhabited. The Deep Periphery is littered with abandoned or failed colonies, small outposts, and even interstellar empires. Many periphery and Inner Sphere factions also maintain hidden bases in the Deep Periphery. The Clans have established numerous garrisons, depots and cargo waystations between the Clan Homeworlds in the coreward periphery and the Inner Sphere, sometimes by occupying an already inhabited system.
Excepting Clan space, no established HPG communication network exists within the Deep Periphery; communication is only possible via courier ship. While this is also true for the greater part of the near periphery, the distances involved mean that many Deep Periphery settlements are isolated from the rest of humanity.

Clans

The Clans were originally descended from the self-exiled remnants of the Star League Defense Force (SLDF), who had departed the Inner Sphere after Stefan Amaris brought about the downfall of the Star League. General Aleksandr Kerensky led his forces to a hidden destination far from the Great Houses because he believed that a catastrophic war was inevitable, one that even the once mighty Star League army would be powerless to stop. After much infighting between the members of the former SLDF, Aleksandr's son Nicholas Kerensky took command of the exiles, reorganizing them into twenty Clans of warriors leading and protecting their attendant civilian castes.
While the Inner Sphere was mired in the destructive Succession Wars, the Clans experienced a technological renaissance. When they returned to the Inner Sphere, 250 years after their ancestors' departure, the Great Houses were mostly powerless to stop the massive Clan Invasion. But after their loss at Tukayyid, internal tensions within the Clans and an alliance between the Great Houses drew the invasion to a standstill.