Primer: The Lyran Alliance (House Steiner)

[General John "Aegis" Murlance]

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The Lyran Alliance
Formerly the Lyran Commonwealth
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If there is a weakness in how the Steiner family rules, it is that they show too much intelligence and imagination. Let something happen to a Steiner Archon, whether it be an assassination or the most mild but incapacitating illness, and the entire realm comes to a screeching halt. the Steiners might be good at making others feel an important part of the government, but don't be fooled. They rule the Commonwealth with an iron hand.

Hervsas David, Political Advisor to Hanse Davion
as quoted in The Federated Suns
Lyran Commonwealth Alliance
An Intelligence Report by ROM, ComStar, 3024

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Full version:
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[General John "Aegis" Murlance]

House Steiner

Five years is a brief time in which to judge the character of a nation. The Lyran Alliance has existed for five years and a few months, hardly long enough to define itself on its own terms. The Alliance is not like other nations, however. It stands on the shoulders of its predecessor, the Lyran Commonwealth-a realm renowned for thriving commerce, free and prosperous citizens, and a deep desire for peace. Katherine Steiner-Davion, the Alliance's creator and ruler, intended this young nation to resurrect the Commonwealth's glory days, when the great Katrina Steiner presided over immense Lyran wealth and corresponding power; when three Succession Wars had come and gone, with the fourth as yet un-guessed-at; when Lyran prestige gave its rulers the strength fate conceive of an Inner Sphere beyond war, and to offer an olive branch instead of a PPC barrel to its fellow Successor States.
That nation, which aspired to bring peace and a better life to the Inner Sphere at large, no longer exists on any map. Neither does it exist in the Lyran Alliance, though much of what was good in it survives here. The Whitting Conference of 3058, which saw the rebirth of the Star League, represents the truest embodiment of the old Commonwealth in the new Lyran realm. The Lyran people have always valued peace; war for its own sake makes no sense to us. The Whitting Conference promised to end the greatest threat of war the Inner Sphere had ever known, by bringing all the Successor States together to battle our common enemy. From that kind of union, others can grow. Katrina Steiner understood that equation back in 3022, when she signed the treaty that would lead to the creation of the Federated Commonwealth. Her granddaughter understood it too, however briefly. Ironic that Katherine Steiner-Davion, who brokered peace throughout the Inner Sphere just four years ago, has brought war to her own realm since.

If the old Lyran Commonwealth truly exists anywhere, it is in the minds and hearts of ordinary Lyrans, who want what they have always wanted-peace and prosperity for themselves and their children. The ordinary Lyran realizes, as often his rulers do not, that he cannot have these things unless others have them as well. And now this ordinary Lyran faces a civil war that need never have happened, whose causes he doesn't truly understand, but which threatens to change his life forever. In the Federated Commonwealth they helped to create, Katrina Steiner and Melissa Steiner-Davion bequeathed the Lyran people a dream of peace made real. Melissa's daughter chose power instead, and we Lyrans must live with the consequences.

The Lyran Commonwealth was a nation brimming with confidence, secure in the strong economy that made it a realm to be reckoned with. That confidence enabled us to contemplate joining our fate to that of another powerful realm, the Federated Suns, without surrendering our own identity. For more than twenty years, we managed this difficult feat. Then came the Clan War, the first blow to our pride. The invading Clans tore a bloody chunk from Lyran territory, while the combined military might of what had once been two armies stood helplessly by. The next blow was the murder of Archon Melissa Steiner-Davion in 3055, just five years after the Clans crossed our borders. The assassin's bomb that cut her down took with it the best part of the Lyran Commonwealth-the capacity for faith in the future that enabled us to triumph over any setback. Without that faith, we could not overcome our own fears and the Federated Commonwealth could not survive. It was not the warmongers of House Davion that doomed Katrina's and Melissa's dream, but our own crisis of hope.

[General John "Aegis" Murlance]

The Lyran Alliance was born of that crisis. Approved history books may blame Victor Steiner-Davion, the bloodthirsty monster alleged to have murdered and replaced a sick child in order to keep his beloved engines of war running. But that man is not the eldest son my friend Archon Melissa knew, and his actions were merely the excuse for a break that had already happened. By 3057, the mass of the Lyran people no longer believed in the bold alliance our parents had forged. We lost courage along with our worlds and Melissa. By proclaiming the birth of the Lyran Alliance, Katherine Steiner-Davion merely acknowledged that reality. No longer the old Lyran Commonwealth or a proud partner in the Inner Sphere's bravest experiment, the new Lyran realm had to find its own way amid a universe fraught with perils.

In its first year, the Alliance could claim to be a worthy successor to the Lyran Commonwealth. True to Lyran traditions of peace, we stayed out of the Liao-Marik offensive against the FedCom. Less than twelve months later, the Lyran capital of Tharkad saw the rebirth of the Star League, humanity's greatest monument to peaceful co-existence. On the home front, Archon Katherine continued the rebuilding of Skye and the slow healing of the nation's economy after the losses to the Clans. Our former prosperity would take far longer than a year to regain, but we were taking the first steps in the right direction. In 3059 and 3060, the proud contribution of Lyran military units to the defeat of Clan Smoke Jaguar paid tribute to another Lyran tradition-fighting hard when we needed to, with no quarter asked or given. Clouds, however, were beginning to form on the horizon. As the nation recovered its economic health, a growing share of profits from various enterprises found its way into a few noble pockets-nobles who happened to be among the Archon's most faithful supporters. Wages stalled across the Alliance, even as planetary stock exchanges exploded with wealth from new trade agreements with the Capellans and the Free Worlds League. Tax revenues earmarked for Tharkad took a sharp jump upward, while monies sent back to individual worlds remained stagnant or declined. The Alliance's recovery, initially so promising, halted in its tracks-with Archon Katherine apparently doing little about it.

In 3061, we began to see why. With Prince Victor Steiner-Davion fighting the Clans on their own ground, Katherine usurped his throne. Since then, the Archon has continued to reward her backers at the expense of the realm, slowing the engines of our prosperity even further. Katherine forgot the foundation on which Lyran fortunes have always rested: trade rather than takeover, connections rather than conquest. We didn't fire a shot to conquer the Federated Suns, but we took it over just the same. That act betrayed our deepest roots, the essence of what it means to be Lyran-all the more so because the mass of Lyran people have yet to profit from it. If anything, they have lost ground over these past two years-not just economically, but politically as well. Demonstrations of support for Victor, sporadic in Alliance space even before the takeover, blossomed briefly in the FedCom before Katherine's government began cracking down. The spirit of censorship has since spread through the Alliance, until now any public questioning of the Archon's actions risks reprisals from higher authority.

For a people accustomed to speaking their minds, this development is tragic. Since the murder of Duke Arthur Steiner-Davion and the resultant outbreak of hostilities, Katherine has either denied increasing acts of repression or justified them as necessary. Many of us question, however, the necessity of mass arrests on Thorin in Skye Province. Or draconian punishments for curfew violations on Muphrid, whose major cities broke out in riots just days after Duke Arthur's death. Surely there is some fairer, more just way of calming fears and restoring order. But the Archon seems more concerned with consolidating her own power than with using it to the benefit of her subjects. Once hailed as a peacemaker and a healer of breaches, she has become a catalyst for war, division and repression. At what cost to the Alliance, only time can tell.

Some of Katherine's backers hail the FedCom takeover as the harbinger of renewed Lyran greatness. They applaud it as representing the true Lyran spirit by bringing peace, prosperity and good government even to those they think neither want nor deserve those things. The rising specter of civil war confirms their view that the people of the Federated Suns don't know their own good. The fighting and the bloodshed are their fault, these partisans say. What else can you expect from a bunch of war-crazed Davions?

And then there are people like me, who grieve for what we might have become while seeking to preserve what we are. The Federated Commonwealth, bright dream that it was, is gone. If a new one arises from the ashes of the coming war, we must found it on the bedrock Lyran value too many of us seem to have forgotten: respect. Respect for the gifts of others and respect for ourselves, for that strength in us that permits us to tolerate-even delight in-the many differences of humanity. We are not the Draconis Combine, rigidly enforcing the boundaries of one narrowly defined way of life. Our fellow humans may not share all our values, but so what? Their differences are no threat to our integrity. Our common human longings outweigh any divisions between us. We all need decent shelter and enough food on the table, we all want comfort and security and a little beauty in our lives. Merchants understand this common ground. The Lyran Commonwealth-a society based on honest dealing to mutual benefit-made such common interests its foundation and rose to interstellar pre-eminence. The Lyran Alliance took what it wanted, and thereby betrayed the core of that proud heritage. Assuming it survives the year, it can only buy that survival at the price of our deepest Lyran values. Defeat will end the Lyran Alliance as a politically viable state. Victory will end it in another, more lasting way. Lyrans will no longer be a people of peace, but a nation of war.

-Misha Auburn
Royal Court (Lyran) Historian

[General John "Aegis" Murlance]

Origins and History

Though a new realm in name, the Lyran Alliance is essentially a new incarnation of the old Lyran Commonwealth. It lies within roughly the same borders, its people share the same mercantile outlook, and it embodies many of the same strengths and weaknesses as its famous predecessor. Prominent among the former are hardheaded pragmatism, an instinct for a good deal and a genuine commitment to peace as the best guarantor of prosperity. Like the Commonwealth it replaced, however, the Lyran Alliance possesses a weak military relative to its fellow Successor States. Though sufficiently strong to defend its territory, the Lyran Alliance Armed Forces remains plagued by a persistent lack of ability among its high-level officers. Questions of loyalty have added to its military troubles; in the wake of secession from the Federated Commonwealth, unimpeachably pro-Steiner attitudes are frequently given more weight than competence among the soldiery. With a civil war now catching fire, the Alliance faces its gravest threat and starkest test. Whether and how it survives will determine the future of the Lyran people for years to come.

[General John "Aegis" Murlance]

Founding Families

House Steiner, though long identified with the Commonwealth over which it ruled, played no role in its founding. That achievement fell to three other families with far greater prominence in the region at the time: the McQuistons, the Marsdens and the Tamars. The McQuiston clan presided over the Federation of Skye, an interstellar nation built on the profitable Skye Traders mercantile conglomerate. The Marsdens similarly ruled the Protectorate of Donegal, a collection of resource-rich planets held together by the merchant vessels of the Donegal Freights and Goods Company. The Tamars gave their name to the domain they created, the Tamar Pact-blessed with fertile farming worlds and protected against the scourge of bandits by the best-trained soldiers throughout that region of space.

Like other Inner Sphere nations born in the twenty-third and twenty-fourth centuries, the states that became the Lyran Commonwealth formed against a backdrop of turmoil on humanity's homeworld, Terra. Unlike most of those other nations, the people of these regions did not fear Terran military conquest; the threat they perceived was economic. The Tamar Pact came into being in 2235, just two years before the political upheaval of 2237 that drastically shrank Terra's sphere of colonial influence.

Sensitive to the ebb and flow of political tides that could make or break them economically, the merchants of the Tamar worlds saw the Terran pullback coming and took steps to insure their own survival in a suddenly chancier universe. The Federation of Skye and the Protectorate of Donegal, formed in 2299 and 2301 respectively, came into being during the twilight years of the Terran Alliance-a little more than a decade before the Alliance government's violent collapse. Having lived for years under Terra's benign neglect, the leaders of these young nations knew they could not hope for positive change while problems in the Alliance worsened. If their worlds were to prosper, they had to band together.

The rise of the Terran Hegemony in the early twenty-fourth century posed no military threat to Skye, Donegal or Tamar territory. The latter two realms were too far from Terra to make easy targets, and Skye-controlled planets near Terra lay in the opposite direction of the Hegemony's initial conquests. By the 2330s, Hegemony leader James McKenna had begun to realize the futility of attempting to forcibly reunite all human-occupied worlds, and so shifted toward diplomacy. The three Lyran realms benefited hugely from subsequent Terran attention, using monies from healthy trade to finance development and colonization efforts. The Tamar Pact and the Protectorate of Donegal vastly expanded their borders, while the Federation of Skye developed its existing worlds to become a major industrial power.

Throughout the 2330s, the three regions also deepened their ties to one another. Each had resources or capabilities the others found useful-the factories of Skye increasingly depended on the Protectorate of Donegal's abundant natural resources, and both relied on the Tamar Pact as a nearby source of foodstuffs. The Tamar Pact in turn bought finished goods from the Federation of Skye, largely made with Donegal's raw materials. Military concerns also played a role, particularly for the Tamarese. Their worlds lay nearest to the Draconis Combine, which had flexed its expansionist muscles by invading the Principality of Rasalhague in 2330. Rather than become the Combine's next victim, in 2339 Kevin Tamar proposed a merger of their three states to Robert Marsden of the Protectorate of Donegal and Thomas McQuiston of the Federation of Skye. The three leaders met on Arcturus in 2340; near the end of that year, they formally united their territories into a single realm. In early January of 2341, the Director-General of the Terran Hegemony officially recognized the Lyran Commonwealth and welcomed it into the family of interstellar nations.

[General John "Aegis" Murlance]

A Less than Perfect Union

The founders of the Lyran Commonwealth had envisioned it as a means of securing their own and their people's future prosperity, through an elaborate plan for economic integration and a delicately balanced political system of nine co-equal ruling archons. Instead, the Commonwealth's formative decades were marked by economic chaos and political corruption. The blueprint for merging three interstellar economies that had looked eminently workable on paper proved disastrous in practice, leading to wild fluctuations in planetary economies. The archons were in a unique position to exploit these shifts for personal gain. Many of them, long accustomed to small-time graft as the price of doing business, could not resist the temptation to play on a larger scale. While they added to their fortunes, ordinary Lyran citizens suffered. The archons' reluctance to alter this status quo further extended the young Commonwealth's economic troubles. Robert Marsden, the only archon not involved in currency speculation, insider trading and other forms of corruption, could do little but watch as his nation slowly headed toward collapse. Without cooperation from his fellow archons, he was powerless to effect any change.

In the late 2360s, with the Lyran economy still lurching from boom to bust, the neighboring Draconis Combine launched a massive industrial development program. By 2373, the fruits of this activity were beginning to show in a slow but steady military build-up on the Combine-Commonwealth border. When the Lyran central government raised taxes to pay for a build-up of its own, political hell broke loose. Protesters on countless worlds took to the streets, while wildcat strikes and work stoppages threatened a new round of economic woes. Some activists in the Tamar Pact even suggested seceding from the Commonwealth and seeking a treaty with the Combine. The Commonwealth seemed about to implode, until Archon Robert Marsden took action.

Leader of the Protectorate of Donegal and a signatory to the original Commonwealth articles, Archon Robert refused to preside over the collapse of the nation he had helped found. In early 2375, he turned the resources of his office toward collecting evidence of his fellow rulers' dirty dealings. In the meantime, he embarked on an extended tour of Commonwealth worlds. Ostensibly on a fact-finding mission for the next round of economic development meetings, Marsden used the tour to seek out and consolidate political support among planetary government leaders. He also revived old contacts from his days in the Donegal military, and through them built a network of loyal units in the Commonwealth army. By August of 2375, Marsden was ready to move.

The nine archons met on Arcturus that month, as usual. The meeting accomplished little, except to confirm in Marsden's mind the rightness of his course. When the other archons left Arcturus, Marsden stayed behind. Once they were en route to their homeworlds, and therefore safely away from any private armies or boltholes, Marsden broadcast across the Commonwealth the details of their corrupt activities. He then formally stripped them of their powers and declared himself the nation's sole ruling authority. Marsden ended his extraordinary broadcast with a personal pledge that he would not play tyrant, nor continue the mismanagement and outright thievery of the past thirty-odd years. Instead, he promised the Lyran people significant local autonomy and a say in their own government, along with the prosperity so long denied them. In exchange for their support, he guaranteed them all a decent life and a brighter future.

Marsden got the mandate he wanted, fueled by outrage over the other archons' abuses of power. His own reputation for honest dealing added to his public appeal; there was little outcry when Marsden's troops arrested the other Archons and marched them off to life imprisonment. The formation of the Estates General in December of 2375 confirmed for many Lyrans the rightness of their choice to support the sole remaining archon. This parliament-like body included representatives from more than half the planets in the Commonwealth, the first time individual worlds had an official voice in their own government. Its first act was to inaugurate Robert Marsden as Archon Basileus over the entire Lyran Commonwealth.

During the first weeks of his reign, Marsden drafted a new constitution and forwarded a copy to each Commonwealth world. The Articles of Acceptance guaranteed virtually complete autonomy in local affairs for member worlds, provided that each world agreed to honor all reasonable military demands made on it for the common defense and to contribute a portion of planetary gross income for the maintenance of a standing army. The Articles also made the Archon supreme commander of the Lyran Commonwealth Armed Forces and any private armies existing in Commonwealth territory. Most planets had no trouble with the former provisions, but the latter raised strident objections from a few. Between 2376 and early 2378, all but twenty-two planets signed the Articles. Some of the holdouts wanted independence from the Commonwealth; others feared the concentration of power in the Archon's office. Pointing to Marsden's control of the military, they argued that the Estates General were an insufficient check on the powers of what amounted to a military dictator.

Marsden's subsequent actions reinforced this view of him. Planets whose governments opposed him soon found themselves blockaded into submission by ships from the Commonwealth Navy. In the face of slow starvation, all but eight dissenting worlds swiftly caved in. The remaining planets were self-sustaining, and so could resist the blockade indefinitely. The Archon, however, did not allow them that chance. Throughout the rest of 2378, Commonwealth armed forces invaded Tamar, Skye and the six other dissident worlds. Hard fought and bloody, the campaigns ultimately unified the Lyran Commonwealth while sowing the seeds of schisms to come. The planet of Skye saw some of the bitterest fighting; its people, largely of Irish and Scottish descent, swore never to forget the violence done to their homeworld. Their descendants would hold to that pledge down the centuries, often with tragic results.

[General John "Aegis" Murlance]

Coming of Age

The sudden transformation of the Commonwealth government set the stage for a near-miraculous economic recovery, fueled by the Archon's policies to revitalize Lyran commerce. Fifteen years after nearly collapsing, the Lyran Commonwealth was manufacturing goods for export throughout the Inner Sphere and had won lucrative contracts to equip the Terran Hegemony military. The Hegemony connection gave the LCAF access to cutting-edge Terran military technology, which it used to equip its own expanding numbers. The Lyran army's material abundance, however, masked a flaw that would cost the nation dearly time and again over the centuries to come.

Every Inner Sphere realm with a noble class has had its share of blue-blooded incompetents cluttering the higher officer ranks, but the LCAF suffered in addition from the presence of an ambiguous class known as "social generals." In the early days of the Commonwealth, the rank of general was bestowed as a courtesy on influential but untitled individuals-political power brokers, wealthy industrialists, bankers and such. Before long, these ersatz generals sought the accoutrements of their "military" station, as well as increasing contact with the genuine article. In turn, more than a few real military generals picked up a taste for the high life from their social compatriots. By the last decade of the twenty-fourth century, a Lyran general's expertise at elegant conversation and fashionable card games had become as important as his skill on the battlefield. Devotion to such un-military pursuits mattered little during the Commonwealth's first few decades, when the quality of its weapons and the availability of other targets kept its neighbors' armies busy elsewhere. In the 2390s, however, the militarization of the entire Inner Sphere took a quantum leap forward. The Age of War was about to rear its head, and the Lyran Commonwealth would pay a high price for the social graces of its upper echelons.

The Age of War reached Lyran space in 2407, when Draconis Combine units overran a Commonwealth border region between the provinces of Skye and Tamar. The Combine vanguard then struck out toward the Lyran capital of Arcturus, cutting a deadly swath through the LCAF. Though far better equipped than the invaders, the defending Lyrans lacked a coherent battle plan. Commanders more comfortable with social than military strategy ordered hopeless last stands and wild death-or-glory assaults, or stood by paralyzed while their junior officers tried to impose order on the chaos. The tide did not turn in the defenders' favor until Archon Alistair Marsden, himself a capable military officer, dismissed the commanding generals and personally took control. In late summer of 2407, Archon Alistair led his troops to a resounding victory on the world of Morningside.

Several Combine units remained on nearby planets, however, within striking distance of the capital. With the approval of the Estates General, the Archon relocated the government to his own homeworld, the wintry planet of Tharkad. Shortly after the move, in the first weeks of 2408, the LCAF struck the Combine planet Vega and crippled the massive secondary invasion force assembling there. That victory was swiftly eclipsed by the loss of the Archon, killed on the desert world of Menkent in a frontal assault on a dug-in Combine position. With the Lyran leader dead and the Combine invasion force shattered, the crisis of 2407-08 came to an abrupt end. The peace would prove fleeting, however.

Over the next three and a half decades, Draconis Combine forces steadily encroached on Commonwealth space through seemingly endless border skirmishes. The LCAF, still saddled with too many incompetent commanders, proved no more of a match for the invaders than it had in the earlier conflict. By 2445, the Combine had absorbed a fifth of the former Tamar Pact. The Commonwealth was also losing worlds to a new enemy, the Free Worlds League. To halt the slow hemorrhage of its territory, the Lyran Commonwealth needed a miracle.

In 2455, it finally got one. Twenty-odd years earlier, the Terran Hegemony had begun developing the BattleMech, a weapon destined to forever change the face of war. Even before the first 'Mech's unveiling in 2439, prominent Lyran military suppliers to the Terran Hegemony suspected the existence of a top-secret Hegemony project. As good Lyran patriots, they reported what they knew or guessed to then-Archon Katherine Steiner. The first Steiner Archon ordered the Lyran Intelligence Corps to infiltrate the nearest site believed to be manufacturing BattleMechs: Hesperus II, then a Hegemony world. (Ironically, this same planet would one day become the crown jewel of Lyran 'Mech production.) The LIC had limited success, however. Not until the reign of Katherine Steiner's son Alistair would the Lyran Commonwealth finally acquire the deadliest weapon in humankind's arsenal.

Before becoming Archon, Alistair Marsden-Steiner had led an elite LCAF commando unit. In early 2455, while Draconis Combine and Free Worlds League forces continued to gain Lyran ground, the Archon gathered a top team of Special Forces operatives and sent them to Hesperus II. Using classic Trojan Horse tactics, the LCAF commandos entered the BattleMech facility and copied virtually all the information necessary to engineer a working 'Mech. Four years later, the LCAF fielded the first results of that raid in a fierce battle for the world of Loric. The invading armies of the Free Worlds League shattered like a glass lance against the Lyrans' armored behemoths, one of which crushed the League's Captain-General to a bloody pulp. Lyran forces had won their first real victory after years of fighting-brought not by tactical acumen or strategic brilliance, but by overwhelmingly superior technology.

This battlefield edge lasted less than three years, by which time the remaining realms of the Inner Sphere had all acquired their own BattleMechs. The merchant-minded Steiners managed to profit handsomely from one such acquisition, selling their stolen data for a fat sum to Prince Simon Davion of the Federated Suns in 2457.

[General John "Aegis" Murlance]

In one of history's ironies, the woman who shaped an enduring vision of a Commonwealth at peace and founded a dynasty committed to that vision became Archon in the midst of a war. Katherine Steiner, widow of Archon Alistair Marsden, ascended the Commonwealth throne in 2408, mere months after her husband's death in battle. She inherited a realm full of tensions between its three component states, exacerbated by ongoing Lyran military defeats. In the Tamar Pact, murmurings of secession had never entirely died out since Robert Marsden's coup. Creeping gains by the Draconis Combine gave new impetus to these sentiments, which the leaders of the Tamar region exploited in order to enhance their own power. Skye was likewise potentially rebellious, its people still seething over the assaults of thirty years earlier. Though neither of these regions was prepared to secede outright in the face of Combine and Free Worlds aggression, regional leaders eagerly used secessionist sentiment to jockey for greater power within the central government. Katherine Steiner shrewdly co-opted these potential opponents by offering them influential positions and a greater say in policy. The dukes of Tamar and Skye were among the members named to Katherine's Commonwealth Council, a body of eight advisors on whom the new Archon implied she would rely.

Having temporarily won over these two potential rivals, Katherine Steiner engaged in a deft piece of emotional manipulation that has since become a hallmark of the most politically gifted Steiner leaders-including the present ruler of the Lyran Alliance. During the very session of the Estates General that confirmed Katherine Steiner as Archon, she announced her intent to streamline or eliminate many of the trade restrictions between the Skye, Tamar and Donegal realms that continued to impede economic growth and foster regional tensions. At that point, a nurse brought Katherine's small son into the room. The boy was dressed in a soldier's uniform, a tiny replica of the one worn by his dead father. Katherine cradled young Alistair in her arms and spoke movingly of the Lyran Commonwealth she wished to help build-a strong nation at peace with itself and its neighbors, "where my son may play soldier, but need not grow up to be one."

The image of the strikingly beautiful widow holding her child and speaking of peace-an image swiftly spread throughout the Commonwealth via videotape-went far toward winning Katherine Steiner the loyalty of her citizens. Massive government programs to rebuild war-torn worlds turned that loyalty into profound personal affection, which only grew deeper over Katherine's thirty-seven-year reign. Colonial expansion, spearheaded by the creation of the Commonwealth Scout Corps in 2413, further enriched the realm while providing a safety valve for overcrowded Lyran planets. When Katherine Steiner stepped down in 2445, she left behind a richer and more unified Lyran Commonwealth. Though incursions by the Draconis Combine and the Free Worlds League continued, the Lyran people met these military setbacks with a greater sense of hope and national pride.

The belief that the tables would eventually turn proved true just fourteen years later, when the LCAF became the first army outside the Terran Hegemony to field BattleMechs. Exclusive possession of these huge war machines enabled Lyran forces to drive the invaders off most captured worlds during the 2460s. Its prewar borders largely restored, its possessions greatly expanded through colonization and its people enriched by vigorous internal trade, the Lyran Commonwealth of 2468 seemed to embody Katherine Steiner's vision. That vision of a prosperous nation dedicated to strength through peaceful trade rather than war would persist throughout centuries of conflict and political intrigue. Katherine Steiner-Davion recently invoked it in creating the Lyran Alliance, six hundred and fifty years after her namesake first attempted to make it a reality.

Unfortunately, the Commonwealth's newfound peace and prosperity proved as vulnerable as all human achievements to catastrophic events. In 2468, Archon Alistair Steiner was assassinated by pawns of a disgruntled Tamar Pact nobleman in an ultimately failed attempt to ruin a prominent Tamarese duke. Three years later, a major earthquake in Tharkad City killed the wife of Archon Michael Steiner along with sixty-seven members of the Estates General. The grief-stricken Michael abdicated in favor of his brother Steven and returned to active military service. Mere months later, he died fighting a Combine invasion force on the planet Nox. Had Steven Steiner been a less malleable ruler, he might have restored the stability the nation so desperately needed. Instead, this weak-minded Archon presided over two and a half decades of rising internal intrigue. Regional power plays, virtually moribund since early in Katherine Steiner's reign, rose to fill the vacuum left by Steven's ineffectual government. Along with them came separatist leanings that would soon plunge the Commonwealth into civil war.

[General John "Aegis" Murlance]

A House Divided: Rebellion in Skye

Since the Lyran Commonwealth's earliest decades, when several planets in the Federation of Skye fought Robert Marsden's assumption of power, the Skye region has been a persistent source of political turmoil for the ruling Lyran dynasty. The worst outbreak of Skye secessionist fever resulted in outright civil war at the turn of the twenty-sixth century, when the dukes of Skye and Tamar backed Steven Steiner's wife Margaret as his successor in lieu of his nephew, Robert Steiner. Though Margaret's partisans ultimately lost, the conflict cost the Commonwealth dearly. Its most pernicious legacy was a renewal of bitter separatism throughout the Skye region, an undercurrent of popular resentment against the Steiners of Tharkad that future aspirants to power would exploit again and again.

Very likely schizophrenic, Margaret Olson Steiner had for years claimed to hear voices and experience mystic visions. As the consort of an indecisive and emotionally dependent Archon, she soon became the power behind the throne. After Steven's death in 2501, Margaret proclaimed herself his successor-much to the delight of many Commonwealth nobles, who had grown rich from war profiteering and also militarily powerful during Steven Steiner's lackluster reign. In a stunning example of narrow self-interest, the dukes of Tamar and Skye had convinced Steven to repeal the law-forbidding nobles to maintain personal armies larger than the LCAF garrisons on their worlds. With that statute consigned to the ash heap, the arms race was on. Before long, several nobles even owned BattleMech units. Backing Margaret promised to continue this status quo, with the Archon a figurehead while the nobles ran the realm to suit themselves.

Robert Steiner, by contrast, was apparently sane and highly intelligent. The illegitimate son of Steven's sister Tatyana, Robert had become an ace aerofighter pilot stationed on the world of Poulsbo. At first disinclined to challenge his aunt for the throne, he soon changed his mind. Two years of the nation's rapid decline while the Tharkad court degenerated into a carnival of dementia made a strong impression, as did the pleas of a contingent of LCAF officers who arrived on Poulsbo to pledge Robert their unconditional support. They begged him to claim his rightful place and save the Lyran realm before it was too late.

In 2503, Robert Steiner arrived on Tharkad with seven divisions at his back. Margaret Olson and several of her supporters had fled the planet days before, ultimately going to ground in the Federation of Skye. A relieved Estates General approved Robert's claim to the Archonship, and the battle lines were drawn. Over the next year, Robert Steiner led his loyalist forces in skirmish after skirmish against Skye troops, drawing ever closer to the regional capital where Margaret and the Duke of Skye had chosen to make their stand. Units loyal to the Duke of Tamar came to the rebels' rescue as the Steiner forces closed in; their savage attack delayed the loyalists long enough for Margaret and the Duke of Skye to escape. The rebel pair fled to Tamar, where they fought their last battle against Robert Steiner's exhausted troops. The timely intervention of soldiers from Fatima, led by that world's duke, saved the day for the battered loyalist forces. The dukes of Tamar and Skye were ultimately executed for treason, their families stripped of their titles and their worlds given to new rulers-the Kelswa and Lestrade clans, both distinguished by impeccable loyalty to the legitimate Steiner line.

Though the final battle of the civil war was fought on Tamar, the Federation of Skye suffered far greater damage. Most of the battles took place on Skye worlds, where countless families lost loved ones to the vicious fighting. Though Robert Steiner personally made reparations for war damage in the ensuing years, his generosity made little lasting impression on many Skye natives. Already primed to distrust Tharkad's government, the average citizen of Skye had little use for the Steiners after the bizarre excesses of Steven's rule and the carnage of Robert Steiner's war. In the years to come, separatist-minded denizens of Skye kept the memory of the civil war alive while conveniently forgetting who financed the peace. A little over five centuries later, this view of the conflict would serve one branch of the Steiner family in its plots against the other.

[General John "Aegis" Murlance]

Successors to Separatism

Until almost the mid thirty-first century, the separatist movement in the Federation of Skye remained a largely unorganized, inchoate mass of anti-Commonwealth and anti-Steiner feeling. All too often, the actions of various Archons stoked the secessionist fires. Archon Viola Steiner, who led the Commonwealth into the Star League and its troops in the Reunification War, went on a crazed rampage that decimated the 25th Skye Rangers because of baseless rumors that the Duke of Skye was involved in the kidnapping of Viola's son Kevin. Nearly three centuries later, Archon Elizabeth Steiner failed to halt a Draconis Combine invasion that claimed several Skye worlds and nearly cost the region its capital. That an enemy nation could come so close to capturing the planet Skye, emotional home of billions in the Federation as well as literal home to its natives, seemed to confirm in many minds the Steiner clan's utter disregard for the Skye region and its people.

In the absence of fresh grievances, leading separatists stressed the Steiner family's German ancestry in sharply negative contrast to Skye's overwhelmingly Scots, Irish and English heritage. They also appealed to the average Skye citizen's instinctive distrust of the government on Tharkad, a light-years distant authority best known for collecting tax revenues and imposing irritating regulations. In the early years of the thirty-first century, however, several events occurred that would ultimately transform Skye separatism into a potent political force with a Steiner at its head.

The change began with Archon Alessandro Steiner, a tactically gifted but arrogant man who lived for military action. His first major victory, a deep raid on six Free Worlds League planets in 2987, cost him much of his own high command's trust because he neglected to inform them of the true extent of the mission. Ten years later, Alessandro's overconfidence in his own judgment nearly cost the Lyran Commonwealth Hesperus II, site of several major BattleMech factories. That near-debacle convinced many throughout the LCAF that their Archon was a dangerously stubborn fool whose arrogance could cost the nation dearly.

The Archon's decision in 3002 to reinforce the Free Worlds border with garrison troops stripped from interior planets deepened this rising distrust. Though no one publicly objected, several higher-ranking officers privately feared that the Archon's "concentrated weakness" strategy was a military catastrophe waiting to happen. Among these officers was Alessandro's niece Katrina, a general in the LCAF's Strategies and Tactics Division. With the threat of attack looming from the Free Worlds League and the Draconis Combine, however, no one in the high command wanted to provoke an open break.

In 3006, the concentrated weakness policy imploded under a bold assault by the Free Worlds League. League troops bypassed the heavily reinforced border worlds and struck deep into the Commonwealth interior, hitting planets whose garrisons had been moved to the border for an attack that never came. An appalled Katrina Steiner swiftly took action. Having spent the past few years quietly garnering support from various quarters, she announced her intention to depose Alessandro "for the good of the nation." The Estates General backed Katrina with a resounding vote of no confidence in the Archon; the LCAF high command likewise threw its weight behind her. Bereft of virtually all-political and military support, Alessandro Steiner prudently resigned in Katrina's favor in July of 3007. He did not, however, give up his dream of one day returning to power.

Alessandro spent the next twenty years living quietly on his homeworld of Furillo, while discreetly seeking potentially useful allies among Katrina's opposition. He found one in Aldo Lestrade, Duke of Summer in the Federation of Skye. A sleepy backwater planet, Summer was too small a canvas for Lestrade's vaulting ambition. He wanted power, and so turned to the nearest tool at hand-the separatists of Skye. By 3024, Aldo Lestrade had built fragmented pockets of secessionist agitators into a genuine, coherent movement. Just such a core of diehard supporters was exactly what Alessandro Steiner needed-provided he could convince the Skye separatists to accept a Steiner in their midst. Over the course of several visits during the 3020s, the former Archon convinced the ambitious duke that they had a common interest in power and a common enemy in Katrina. In exchange for the backing of Lestrade and his movement, he promised to grant Skye its long-cherished independence once he regained the Commonwealth throne. Though it remained unspoken, both men understood that a free Skye would belong to Aldo Lestrade.

Confident of eventually reclaiming power with Lestrade's help, the childless Alessandro sought an heir among his younger relatives. He found one in Ryan Steiner, a young LCAF fighter pilot recently given a government post. Ambitious and a fast learner, Ryan swiftly became a major player in the Skye separatist movement. The deaths of Aldo Lestrade and Alessandro Steiner soon afterward-the former murdered by his own son, the latter claimed by cancer-left Ryan in charge, a position he exploited at the earliest opportunity.

Ryan's chance came in 3034, when official recognition of the Free Republic of Rasalhague sparked widespread civil unrest throughout the Skye region. Garrison troops on troubled worlds, many of them formerly attached to the Armed Forces of the Federated Suns, cracked down harshly on local dissent. Ryan Steiner successfully brokered a peaceful solution to the mini-uprising-an act of clever politicking that allowed him to regain control over his own separatist agents, reinforce his credibility with the movement and paint the largely Davion soldiery involved as the enemy of Skye and Lyran interests. For the first time in Skye's history, Ryan Steiner implicitly linked the interests of the secessionists with those of Lyrans everywhere, and presented the ruling Steiners on Tharkad as neglectful of both. This skillful tapping of general unease with the formation of the Federated Commonwealth made Ryan a formidable threat to the new nation's stability and breathed new life into the Free Skye movement.

Secessionist fever simmered in Skye throughout the next two decades, but never quite boiled over. The linkage of anti-FedCom feeling with Skye notions of independence began to work against Ryan Steiner as well as for him; it brought new recruits to his cause, but also prompted many activists to focus their ire on Hanse Davion rather than on Ryan's rival Melissa Steiner, who began her reign as Archon after Katrina Steiner stepped down in 3039. The arrival of the Clans in 3049 threw the entire Inner Sphere into turmoil, forcing Ryan to put his schemes on hold until he saw what use could be made of the invasion. Hanse Davion's fatal heart attack in 3052 left Melissa the sole ruler of the two realms, but Ryan found it difficult to erode her long-standing popularity throughout the realm. In mid-3055, Melissa fell victim to an assassin; less than a year later, so did Ryan Steiner. Bereft of its leader, the Free Skye movement floundered. The rank and file spent their furies on wild spasms of violence that prompted the FedCom's new ruler to send in the troops. Unable to calm the political firestorm, Archon Prince Victor Steiner-Davion appointed his sister Katherine as regent over the Lyran half of the FedCom and entrusted to her the settlement of the turmoil in Skye. This act would later prove to be the first step, not to Skye's independence but to the creation of the Lyran Alliance.

[General John "Aegis" Murlance]

Lyran Society

Despite the looming shadow of civil war and other ongoing internal stresses, the Lyran Alliance remains very much what its predecessor was: a realm blessed with abundant resources, hardworking citizens and a degree of political and economic freedom that make it a still-formidable mercantile power. The loss of several Tamar Pact worlds to Clan Jade Falcon and Wolf initially sent shock waves through the Lyran economy, but the business community has largely adjusted over the past decade. The Lyran people have been somewhat slower to recover. The formation of the Lyran Alliance helped bolster them through the difficulties of recent years, but the economic disruptions of the Clan War made many Lyran citizens question for the first time their bedrock belief in their nation's primary source of power. Everyday life for the average Lyran is little different today than in the days of the old Lyran Commonwealth; what has changed is the average citizen's perception of his nation and its place in the universe.

[General John "Aegis" Murlance]

Winds of War

Mere months old, the FedCom civil war has already begun to affect daily life in the Lyran Alliance. Even on planets far from the flashpoints of conflict, war jitters are making themselves felt in various ways. The surge in confidence among average Lyrans in the wake of the Alliance's birth masked an unspoken fear of a suddenly unsettled future, largely prompted by the economic upheavals of the Clan War. Several planetary economies in the Tamar Pact region remain severely disrupted by the loss of neighboring worlds, and even the larger economy has yet to fully recover. To a people accustomed to taking prosperity for granted, even a temporarily shaky economy came as a profound shock. Now, with several Alliance planets already battlegrounds in the nascent civil conflict and the prospect of a Davion invasion imminent, ordinary Lyrans' fear of economic chaos have broadened to include other distressing possibilities. Some fear Victor Steiner-Davion's armies; others fear the war's effect on an economy already weakened by Clan conquests and the loss of weapons markets to the humming arms machine of the Free Worlds League. Archon Katherine's recent relocation to New Avalon, capital of the Federated Suns, has done nothing to settle these questions. Indeed, it has raised others in some minds, though these are rarely voiced except in private. Some Lyran citizens are beginning to wonder if their Archon has placed her own desire for greater power ahead of her people's welfare-a deeply unsettling thought for those used to seeing Katherine Steiner-Davion as a Steiner icon.

The habit of confidence remains strong among the Lyran people, however; most Lyrans rarely display their uneasiness outright. Instead, buried fears manifest in subtler ways. Hoarding is increasingly common, accompanied by overly hearty assurances that the war will surely be over by summer. Recycled lines from anti-Davion broadsides have become part of the public conversation, some of them well on the way toward clichédom. Citizens of worlds far from both the battleground planets and the likeliest invasion route tend to be the most genuinely complacent. Throughout most of its history, the Lyran Commonwealth was a bastion of prosperity and freedom adequately defended by the Inner Sphere's best-equipped army; these heirs to that legacy see no reason to believe that anything will change. They have always been safe and comfortable; surely they always will be. That bedrock faith, to those who still have it, is the essence of being Lyran.

Others are less sanguine. The most apprehensive are those on worlds bordering the Jade Falcon occupation zone. Already suffering from the conquest of their neighbors, the people of these struggling planets rightly fear that civil war between the two halves of the former Federated Commonwealth will doom any prospect of local economic revival. Most are also well aware that Clan Jade Falcon does not consider its invasion over. With the Lyran Alliance Armed Forces busy fighting off Davion assaults, the Jade Falcons could hardly ask for a better opportunity to pick off still more Lyran worlds. War fever on many of these planets is running high, with anti-Davion propaganda a mainstay of the local media. Anti-Davion rallies are equally frequent and vociferous. Despite the best efforts of pro-Katherine local authorities, opposition rallies have also begun to take off in recent weeks. Some are pro-Victor, hailing him as the only person who can adequately defend Inner Sphere worlds against Clan attackers. Others are anti-Katherine, gatherings of Lyrans bitterly disappointed by their Archon's assumption of the FedCom throne. Many of these once counted themselves among Katherine's most fervent loyalists, until the FedCom takeover made them question her commitment to their welfare.

Pro-Davion demonstrations have gradually increased on Lyran worlds ever since the Coventry campaign of 3058, in which Victor Steiner-Davion led a combined force from all the Successor States to a virtually bloodless victory over a Clan Jade Falcon strike force. The Star League triumph over the Clans less than three years later gave new impetus to Victor's supporters in the Lyran realm, burnishing his image as the hero of his age. Now, with Victor poised to take back the Federated Commonwealth throne, these Davion partisans are working overtime to increase their support. On Coventry and the four other worlds briefly claimed by the Falcons, pro-Davion demonstrators generally play to more sympathetic audiences. On other worlds near Jade Falcon territory, voicing support for Victor is a calculated risk. A timely declaration in Victor's favor by the commander of the Eighth Deneb Light Cavalry on Kikuyu turned a potentially ugly clash into a massive show of pro-Victor feeling. On nearby Mogyorod, a similar rally degenerated into a riot when pro-Katherine counter demonstrators surged out of the crowd and clubbed the rally's organizers off the platform. The sole survivor among the latter faces trial and possible execution for sedition.

Despite the publicity given the Mogyorod incident, most Lyran citizens remain unaware of the extent of the crackdown on pro-Davion activity. Though many would likely support it in the face of war, forcible suppression of political dissent runs counter to the very freedoms on which the Lyran Commonwealth was based. In the Alliance as in the Commonwealth, ordinary Lyrans are accustomed to having their say. Dictatorial tactics rarely sit well with these passionate and vocal people, most of whom are deeply interested in politics because of its intimate connection with commerce. Even those who believe strong measures may be necessary prefer not to know too many details. Voltaire's famous dictum about free speech- "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" -is near and dear to many a Lyran heart, fostered by centuries of leaders who believed in such freedom as a necessary social safety valve.

[General John "Aegis" Murlance]

Loyalty and the Military

Divided loyalties among: former FedCom troops, starkly polarized by the opening clashes of the civil war, have given a new twist to age-old Lyran military problems. Historically, the LCAF suffered from too many incompetent higher-ranking officers promoted for their connections rather than their ability. Now the Alliance armed forces must contend with questions of loyalty to the Archon as well. After thirty-odd years of serving a united Lyran/Fed Suns realm, units that had begun to think of themselves as part of a FedCom army were suddenly asked to revert to simpler and narrower loyalties: pro-Davion or pro-Steiner. Katherine's call for traditionally Lyran units serving in Fed Suns space to "come home" to the Alliance further complicated this delicate situation. The political bent of a unit's commander did not always reflect that of his troops, and vice versa. The resultant massive reshuffling of the newly christened LAAF left the Alliance desperately vulnerable to the Jade Falcon strike of 3058, which temporarily cost it five worlds. Only the timely arrival of Victor Steiner-Davion and his multi-House task force turned that defeat into victory.

Katherine's 3061 takeover of the FedCom vastly expanded an already enormous administrative headache. Pro-Victor, pro-Katherine and neutral units are so thoroughly interspersed, particularly in Fed Suns space, that civil war was virtually a foregone conclusion. Meanwhile, the upheaval is taking a toll on the soldiers and their families. Abrupt reassignments halfway across the FedCom, strain between different political factions in the same unit, and increasing pressure for Katherine's loyalists to report "suspicious" pro-Davion or neutral political leanings are among the fallout, all intensifying as the civil war heats up. More than a few Lyrans, military and civilians alike, worry about what will happen when the conflict finally explodes. Though most believe in eventual Lyran victory, they are beginning to wonder what price they might pay.

[General John "Aegis" Murlance]

The Skye Question

Even in the best of times, Skye separatism remains a force in Lyran politics. In times of turmoil, it becomes a major factor in the lives of Skye's citizens, who comprise a sizable portion of the Lyran population. The late Duke Ryan Steiner's marriage to Morasha Kelswa, Duchess of Tamar, linked the much smaller Tamarese separatist movement to its larger Skye counterpart while giving both the resources of the Tamar Pact to draw on. Clan inroads in Tamar territory somewhat blunted the impact of the latter, but the remaining Pact worlds still serve Free Skye as an alternative power base. The rise to prominence of Ryan Steiner's son Robert, Duke of Porrima and presumptive duke of Tamar, joins the secessionists of both regions in a single, charismatic leader. Without Victor Steiner-Davion to serve as a lightning rod, separatist feeling is once more turning against the regime on Tharkad, thereby enhancing Robert Kelswa-Steiner's appeal as an alternative.

Archon Katherine's recent move to New Avalon has only intensified rising sentiment against her. The people of Skye tend to remember injuries far longer and more vividly than reparations, as generations of Steiner rulers discovered to their cost. Largely forgotten in the current climate are Katherine's efforts toward rebuilding in Skye in the wake of the abortive 3056 rebellion. Like her ancestor Robert Steiner, who personally paid damages for the destruction he wrought in Skye, Katherine directed vast sums of investment capital into the region's schools, industries and infrastructure between 3056 and 3060. By forming the Alliance and becoming its sole ruler, however, Katherine also made herself a target for regional dissent. The resurgence of anti-government feeling crystallized with the takeover of the Federated Suns. To the average Skye citizen, already turning somewhat skeptical about "those German busybodies on Tharkad," Katherine's power grab stands as proof that she cares little about their interests. Fears of Lyran absorption by the huge Federated Suns have flared up with a vengeance, this time focused on Katherine Steiner-Davion rather than a convenient "Davion" ruler.

For the ordinary resident of Skye, the raging tides of local politics combine with the threat of war in both blatant and subtle ways. Some residents of border worlds near the Draconis Combine-a frequent candidate in the local rumor mill for the Davion army's staging base-are sending their families to presumed safety on planets deeper in Skye, or even out of Skye altogether. Favorite destinations are Alarion and Coventry provinces, both comfortably far from expected invasion routes and from Tharkad. Other natives of these worlds are staunchly staying put, refusing to "run like rabbits from that jumped-up little Davion dictator." Disruptions in delivery of various goods and foodstuffs, mostly prompted by sporadic hoarding across the Alliance, are reviving local grievances between Skye and its neighbor regions. In shops and streets and taverns, outspoken locals often grouse that their province is once more going short to profit more loyalist worlds. Scots and Irish rebel songs harking back to ancient Terra ring from many a roadside pub, with Victor or Katherine equally likely substitutes for the villains of those ancient ballads. Thus far, the gathering clouds of war have kept anti-Steiner sentiment at a simmer. The successes or reverses of the next several months could dampen secessionist fires once more or spark them into a conflagration.

The separatist movement itself is divided into two factions. One advocates immediate action against the Tharkad regime for its alleged betrayal of Skye and Lyran interests; the other is backing a cease-fire in this perennial political conflict, lest internal dissent weaken the entire Alliance and hand it to the man many still sneeringly call "the Davion princeling." Supporters of the second faction believe that a victory for pro-Davion forces would permanently snuff out Skye's prospects of freedom, whereas triumph for Katherine would leave that door open. The two factions claim roughly equal strength among the people; only the course of the war will tell which side eventually wins out.

[General John "Aegis" Murlance]

Daily Life

Occasional eruptions of war jitters aside, everyday life for most Alliance citizens is little different from life in the heyday of the Lyran Commonwealth. The national economy has largely absorbed the jolts of the Clan War; though poverty is somewhat higher by historical Lyran standards, most people remain comfortably off. Increasing rapprochement with the Free Worlds League and the Capellan Confederation continues to strengthen markets for Lyran consumer goods and agricultural products, compensating considerably for economic changes wrought by the Clan invasion. Even the civil war promises an economic boost of sorts; military manufacturers hit by Marik encroachment stand ready to raise production quotas and profits should the conflict with Victor's forces last any appreciable time.

This general material comfort helps to counterbalance uncertainties about the future, publicly denied but often privately voiced by people throughout the Alliance. Citizens of interior planets, farthest from the Clan border and other hot spots like the shrinking Chaos March, tend to express genuine confidence that the war will soon pass over without greatly disrupting their well-ordered lives. A typical middle-class Lyran on such a world can point to several proofs of his convictions: the plumbing still functions, the lights work, the high-speed maglev trains still run on time and he still earns a regular paycheck. In bustling cities, crowds still fill the cafés and brauhauses with idle chatter about business or the local sports team, with the war only occasionally intruding. In smaller towns and on less developed worlds, the sleepier rhythm of local life likewise goes on. Just as in the old Lyran Commonwealth, these worlds are the envy of many poorer Inner Sphere states, blessed with the abundant material wealth that is the hallmark of Lyran life everywhere outside Lyran borders.

On planets near the Jade Falcon occupation zone and in more troubled regions, like Skye and the remnant of Tamar, the view of life is grimmer, though often the details are not. Here, too, the building blocks of everyday existence continue to function reasonably well. Yet because the people of these worlds feel more fearful about their future, even minor disruptions to the daily routine take on immense significance. To take just one example, the temporary disappearance of imported Donegal apple-pears from market shelves in Chahar's capital city sparked a wave of panicky rumors that Donegal had fallen to a Davion blitzkrieg assault. In fact, the prized fruits had fallen victim to a late freeze that decimated much of the early crop. Their reappearance weeks later at slightly higher prices, accompanied by reassuring government press releases, soon settled the wilder stories. Bolstered by a long tradition of political openness, Lyrans are accustomed to trusting their leaders. Yet unease remains, awaiting only another small incident to bring it out.

Writing Credits:
Inner Sphere Source Book: Lyran Alliance - House Steiner
Diane Piron-Gelman