Advancing the Timeline, Take II

[Commander Garrett Garland]

Yeah if you can start with the trilogy before the Warrior Trilogy, the Grey Death Legion Trilogy - I think that embodies the battletech universe better than any other set of books. The reason being is that it eases you into the political situation of the Inner Sphere instead of throwing you into it in the Warrior Trilogy. It’s just cool how things start out small in the GDL trilogy and then get big at the end, one man turns into an entire army!

[Captain Adam "Gunman" Wolf]

Awesome, I like the idea of a 1-3 year jump better, since that will jump us to about 3072 which, I believe, is around the time that everybody starts working together against the WoB, but I dont think its completely organized or whatever, so we could still run some OPs without the WoB for a break every once in a while. Thanks for the info about the construction and forestry 'mechs not coming til 3080 or so, as long as we dont jump that far, it all sounds good. Of course I'll be on here as much as I can no matter how far, or short, we jump into the future, or whether we do it or not at all.

[Captain Benjamin Maxwell]

Alright - the feedback we've gotten concerning the 'jump' has been mixed, and I very much agree with the concerns about character development losses. To that end, I think we'd be fine jumping only a year ahead, and the planners for this Op (Garland and Rhodes) have been given the green light to start construction of the basic arc.

We're trying something new this time - all the other planners will just be RP'ing this time, with no 'behind the scenes' knowledge - and so the only thing I can advise regarding the new Op, really, is that we're taking a week off, with Op VII to commence Wednesday, October 12, 2005! It promises to be interesting.

See you all in the forums!

[Morgan Blake]

OK, I've found some more info re 'official' timeline events. This comes from the Wizkids "Technology of Destruction" book which was published in 2003.

3067

end of the Fed-Com civil war,
new star league is disolved,
WoB start their Jihad, take over all HPG communications
WoB slowly take gain ground.


3071 - 3078

"after long years of war, a hero named Devlin Stone arises from the ashes." this is a direct quote and doesn't clearly state when Stone appears, but I guess towards the end of the above mentioned time period.


3081

Republic of the Sphere is born with the guidance of Devlin Stone. Decrees that battlemechs be decomissioned.


3081 - 3085

republic of the sphere thrives


3085

all but house liao formally acknowledge RoS


there is further conflict between RoS, house Liao and Marik but this is further down the track.


I believe that it shows a jump to the mid 3070's would have definitely cut short the long term prospects of the Legionnaires if the official timeline is followed.

There is nothing to say that we need to follow the official timeline either. I know that alot of tabletop battletech players have expressed the view to either not incorporate the Jihad at all or to have different outcomes in their campaigns.

The group that I game with have gone back to 3025 to play our campaign and when that runs out eventually, we might go back to the third succession war for some fun.

[Captain Benjamin Maxwell]

PROFILE: Devlin Stone, Founder
by Mace O’Ronnell, Stellar Associated

Best estimates and extant Word of Blake files captured near the end of the Jihad put Devlin Stone’s birth year in late 3042 or early 3043, and a more exact date is unlikely to ever be known.

For Devlin Stone, life began in a Word of Blake reeducation camp (RBMU 105) on Kittery in 3070. This was one of the Jihad’s darkest years, with the shattering of the Free Worlds League and the passing of Combine Coordinator Theodore Kurita. Why Stone was assigned to the camp, how he lost his memory, and what the Word of Blake’s plans were for him remain a mystery. Even his name is likely not his own, to better disassociate him from his previous life and connections.

Whatever the Word of Blake’s plans were for Stone, they would never come to pass. In 3071, Devlin Stone escaped from the camp in the company of Professor David Lear, the son of famous warrior Kai Allard-Liao and later known as Stone’s Architect. Stone and Lear organized a local resistance, and later that same year managed to destroy the Word of Blake organization on Kittery. By 3072, Stone led a widespread organization that liberated a number of nearby worlds from the grip of the Jihad. These worlds eventually formed into the Kittery Prefecture, and became a model for the government reforms Stone would one day implement as he created the Republic.

Late in 3073, David Lear introduced Devlin Stone to a number of Inner Sphere statesmen and generals who continued to oppose the Word of Blake. Among these were Victor Steiner-Davion, Precentor-Martial of ComStar and brother to the rulers of the Lyran Alliance and Federated Suns. Taken with Stone’s grand ideas of reform, Steiner-Davion made further introductions, championing Stone’s proposals as a solid means to end the perpetual cycle of war that had for so long plagued the Inner Sphere. As more great leaders rallied to the call, the Word of Blake was thrown back until finally defeated in the Terra system in 3081.

With the Jihad finally brought to an end, Devlin Stone immediately called for the creation of the Republic of the Sphere, a new interstellar nation with control over all worlds within one hundred twenty light years of Terra. With the backing of such men as Victor Steiner-Davion, Hohiro Kurita and Anastasias Focht, and riding the groundswell of support within the military and civilian populations on nearly every world within the Inner Sphere, the Republic was created in December of 3081. Most worlds joined voluntarily. Various leaders ceded others to Stone, and some few had to be removed from the grips of petty warlords who looked on Stone’s efforts as a means to divest them personally of power. The Capellan Confederation was the largest holdout, with internal factions resisting Stone by military force until then-Chancellor Sun-Tzu Liao was brought to the negotiating table and encouraged to sign the Tikonov Treaty of 3085.

By this time Devlin Stone had already begun the two social programs that would become historically linked to his name. First was the Resettlement Act of 3082 (his first official decree as Exarch of the new Republic). This program began to mix the variety of cultures that existed within the Republic’s claimed space, erasing old hatreds and biases by resettling key elements of specific populations from one world throughout the towns and cities of several others. This program took decades, but was the end of the factionalism so often thought responsible for outbreaks of war within the Inner Sphere.

The second program was the Military Materiel Redemption Program, which grew out of the Citizenship Priority Decree of 3083. This plan worked to decommission BattleMechs and other tools of warfare, downsizing armies and removing any such materiel from the hands of private individuals, in exchange for the rights of citizenship and other socio-economic incentives. The economic prosperity that resulted from the program was so great that different flavors of the MMRP spread to the rest of the Great Houses and were encouraged even within the Clan-occupied territories.

The building of the Republic took years, not all of them peaceful but most of them calm. Exarch Devlin Stone called the first Senate meeting to order on Terra in 3085 and officially formed the Knights of the Sphere in 3088. By 3091 the hierarchy of government was firmly in place with Prefecture borders settled and most world governments towing the line to create an enviable state among the Inner Sphere nations. The calm lasted until 3104, when an internal struggle within the Capellan Confederation spilled over the border and Exarch Stone was eventually forced to send Republic troops into the Capellan territories. These sporadic conflicts plagued Stone for nearly a decade, until the peace efforts of 3113 finally stabilized the region.

This began the Golden Era, or the “Generation of Peace” as Stone himself called it, an entire generation of citizens and residents who has not known warfare except in history lessons. Exarch Stone considered this his crowning accomplishment and, in 3130, finally announced his retirement and withdrawal from public life. After many speeches and parades, and the personal endorsement which saw Damien Redburn elevated as the first term-limited Exarch, on 10 August 3130, Devlin Stone made his final promise to return if he was truly needed.

And then, he vanished.

[Captain Adam "Gunman" Wolf]

Cool, sounds to me like a jump to 3070 or 3071 would be great to get us started in the counter attacks against the WoB jihad, plus if we wanted to, we could even incorporate the Legionnaires into some way either meeting with Stone, or aiding in his escape and/or liberation of Kittery?

Plus the short jump doesnt sacrifice too much in the way of character development, plus it still leaves us several years in which the Legionnaires could thrive before the eventual Military Material Redemtion Program of 3083 which, from the sounds of it, would force the Legionnaires to mothball most if not all of their military assests.