Once the least prosperous and influential of the large Periphery realms, the
Outworlds Alliance has begun an economic recovery based on the success of
the recently instituted Long Road program. One small but important piece of
this program is the expansion and improvement of Alliance ground forces, a
dramatic reform for this highly peace-minded nation.
An accidental Beginning
Unlike every other state currently in existence, the Outworlds Alliance
wasn't initially intended to be a lasting political power. Appalled by the
state of war among the Inner Sphere powers, Admiral Julius Santiago Avellar,
a minor naval official, decided in 2413 to retire to the backwater world of
Alpheratz, planning to spend the rest of his life writing tracts decrying
the warlike mentality of those in power. These tracts changed Avellar's life
in a completely unexpected way. Readers of Avellar's philosophies formed a
sect called the Omniss, which rejected all technology that was not used for
the preservation of life. Omniss members and other radicals then began descending
on Avellar's Alpheratz home in incredible numbers. Despite all attempts to
drive them away, the near-hermit Avellar's small colony became a haven for
political and social dissidents.
As the number of Avellar's supporters continued to grow, quickly reaching
the tens of thousands, they began to leave the now-crowded area of Avellar's
home. Some moved farther out onto the surface of Alpheratz, but the majority
began colonizing the worlds nearby. After several more years, Avellar came
to a conclusion-the people surrounding him who had given up their former lives
to follow his teachings, were suffering due to the anarchy of their existence.
Avellar resolved to do what he hated most: to form a government to care for
his unwanted followers. In 2417, the Alliance Charter was ratified, forming
the basis for the government of a new state: the Outworlds Alliance. Avellar's
attempt to withdraw from the universe and decry war had, amazingly, resulted
in the formation of a new government.
The end result of the Alliance Charter was a government that barely functioned,
leaving most of the power in the hands of the people, instead of a single
ruler. While this fit in perfectly with what Julius Avellar desired, by organizing
his nascent government this way he handicapped his new realm for centuries
to come. The Alliance is only now beginning to come into its own as a Periphery
power, and there is still a long way to go, as the current President Mitchell
Avellar was well aware when he named his reform program the "Long Road."
Enter the Star League
The agrarian Alliance nation existed peacefully for over a century,
slowly expanding and relying on volunteer soldiers to protect its members
from bandit activity-a standing military was declared too warlike. This peace
lasted until the newly formed Star League turned its attentions to the Periphery.
In 2572, the Alliance was forced to accept Star League "garrisons"
of Draconis and Hegemony troops, ostensibly to protect them from bandits.
The peaceful Alliance could do little but comply. Though the Hegemony troops
were circumspect in their search for BattleMechs rumored to be there, the
Draconis Seventeenth Galedon Regulars forces assigned to the world of Santiago
destroyed buildings and ruined businesses in the capital of Santiago City.
These actions angered the populace, who soon made a game of throwing things
at the lumbering BattleMechs as they passed. This led to an explosion of temper
by one MechWarrior on 14 December 2572, who sprayed a rock-throwing child
with coolant. Nearby citizens rioted and attacked the 'Mech. Twenty-seven
civilians were killed when the pilot opened fire. This incident, known as
the Santiago Massacre, triggered anti-Star League riots on dozens of worlds
throughout the Periphery and was a major factor in inciting the Reunification
War.
In 2575, the Star League issued its Pollux Proclamation, an ultimatum to which
the Periphery powers responded poorly. This gave the Star League the excuse
it needed to attack the Periphery, thus beginning the Reunification War. The
Alliance still managed to avoid conflict until 2581, when Star League and
auxiliary Draconis troops began lining up across the border. Then-President
Grigori Avellar, in a desperate move, sought help in an unlikely place. He
approached House Davion through the Prince's son, offering "Protectorship"
of twelve rich Alliance border worlds in exchange for overt and covert help.
Davion agreed, sending three regiments of his Household Guard under the name
of the "Pitcairn Legion," to interfere with Star League actions
in the Alliance.
The Pitcairn Legion trained Alliance troops and engaged Star League forces;
doing considerable damage to each unit they came across before disappearing
to strike somewhere else. They were re-supplied by House Davion and proved
a constant threat to the invaders. At the same time, the Federated Suns began
occupying those worlds and causing problems for the Star League once again
as many of those planets were intended to be re-supply worlds for the attacking
force. In many cases, House Davion refused to even allow the Draconis troops
to land on these worlds, tying them up with paperwork and bureaucracy when
they did.
It was after a defeat by the Pitcairn Legion on the world of Budigen that
the Fourth Rasalhague Brigade went berserk in early 2582, destroying buildings
and massacring civilians. General Forlough, the brutal commander of the Star
League troops, responded to the Brigade's defeat as well. On at least twelve
worlds, he ordered the deaths of ten percent of the civilian population as
a message to the Alliance. Enraged Outworlders poured into recruitment centers
by the thousands, becoming a major opposition to the Star League troops after
training with Pitcairn Legion members. In 2585, after the war had bogged down,
the Alliance and the Star League signed the Peace of Cerberus, which allowed
the Alliance to govern itself under Star League supervision. The war was over
for the Alliance.
Following the Reunification War the Alliance prospered, making use of the
League's advanced technology. By playing the Davion and Kurita leaders against
each other, the Outworlders were able to remain largely uninvolved in the
Succession Wars that followed the collapse of the Star League, though a standing
military was organized in the mid-2800. Discontent with the Avellar leadership
began to grow, however, as poor leadership took its toll.
Discontent and ComStar
With the rise of Neil Avellar to the presidency in 3015, conditions
in the Alliance began to decline. Neil was a reluctant president, and though
he attempted to rule the Alliance well he simply did not have the skill for
it. Planets began to seriously consider secession from the Alliance. His only
real aid came in the form of deals made with the Draconis Combine and Federated
Suns, as well as the entrance of ComStar, who began opening schools to increase
literacy and building HPG stations on various Alliance worlds, providing work
for needy Alliance citizens. This was ComStar's attempt to form a lasting
bond with the Alliance, an attempt that succeeded as the Alliance opinion
of ComStar rose and record numbers of citizens began to join. This remains
true even now, with few Alliance citizens willing to join the ranks of our
Order instead.
Neil helped increase the literacy rate of his state even more when he began
an Educational Exchange program with the Federated Suns, a program which brought
numerous Davion teachers and educational specialists into the Alliance. Neil's
wife, Rebecca DeSanders, made this program possible. She was a Federated Suns
diplomat with close ties to the Davion family, and she was able to use her
connections to bring this program about.
The combination of ComStar's efforts and the work of the Davion teachers brought
the level of literacy in the Alliance back up to a point it had not reached
since the time of the Star League. Even so, Neil's trade negotiations and
plans to increase Alliance prosperity failed for the most part, giving most
citizens the impression of a particularly ineffective president. The help
from ComStar bandaged the Alliance's wound, but did not cure it. Indeed, the
increased communication provided by the HPGs made organizing calls for Neil
Avellar's resignation easier and more prevalent than before.
With the onset of the Clan invasion, what little help the Alliance was receiving
from Houses Davion and Kurita dried up. This was balanced by a large drop
in bandit activity, as the bandits took advantage of the distracted Houses
to raid the wealthier Inner Sphere realms instead. So while the Alliance's
prospects remained poor, they did not become non-existent. Even following
the Truce of Tukayyid, Davion and Kurita were distracted from their economic
initiatives in the Alliance by the seemingly permanent presence of the Clans.
A New Era
In March of 3056, Neil Avellar declared that he felt his son was ready
to succeed him and retired. His successor, Mitchell, quickly secluded himself
with his advisors, emerging with a new plan. He began a series of governmental
initiatives and trade packages he called the Long Road program. The convoluted
nature of the Alliance government has made enacting this program a slow job,
but it has begun paying off more quickly than anyone imagined. The Alliance
economy has rebounded to a near-prosperous level. An order for expansion of
the military has provided results as well, bringing the Alliance ground forces
up to the approximate size of the Aerospace Arm.
Mitchell has expanded upon the two most successful ventures his father made.
The first, a deal with the Davions to allow them to mine certain areas in
Alliance space in exchange for a share of the profits and a promise to use
Alliance workers, was expanded by Mitchell during talks with Victor Steiner-Davion
before the Archon-Prince left for Clan space. Recent governmental changes
in the Federated Commonwealth have not really affected this agreement, and
it is still quite profitable for both powers.
The second, an agreement with the Kuritans to allow the construction of several
aerospace production facilities in Alliance space in exchange for a percentage
of all craft produced and a promise of jobs for Alliance citizens has also
been expanded. Thus, the Alliance is now receiving aerospace-related Star
League technology from the Draconis Combine as well. In a goodwill effort,
the Combine has also begun subsidizing Alliance-run aerospace factories. This
agreement shows the Outworlders' realistic viewpoint-despite several past
atrocities committed by Kurita troops, the Alliance needs the help and business
the Combine provides and is willing to put aside any past differences in the
name of survival.
Mitchell has also been in talks with the other two major Periphery realms
since the Canopian-Taurian Concordat Alliance. This has resulted in military
aid and some Star League-era technology from the Concordat, in exchange for
allowing Alliance citizens to work in the colony regions of the Periphery.
Though technological aid was delayed for quite some time, Mitchell was finally
able to pressure the heads of the two Periphery realms to follow through on
their promises and bits of information began arriving in 3062. Thus far, little
of the technology has been military, which suits the Alliance just fine as
the technical and medical advances being delivered will see more use among
Outworlders than weapons.
Mitchell's only real opposition has been from Barnabas Huard, chairman of
the Baliggora Planetary Parliament and leader of the Separatist movement.
The Separatists feel that the Alliance should no longer exist as a cohesive
state. Instead they advocate the dissolution of the Outworlds Alliance, allowing
the settled worlds to succeed or fail on their own. The success of the Long
Road program has silenced the Separatists somewhat, but they continue to cause
problems for the reforming President.
Organization
Organized differently from any other military in existence, the Alliance
Military Corps has developed haphazardly over the years since it was created.
Many of the tasks performed by high-ranking officers in other militaries are
instead the responsibility of the Military Review Board and other political
groups; as a result, a basic understanding of the Alliance political structure
is required to comprehend how the AMC functions.
Political Knots
The Alliance government relies heavily on the voice of the people
to function. The Executive Parliament, which is the chief governmental body
for the Alliance as a whole and is responsible for all foreign and internal
affairs, is made up of one representative for every full ten inhabited worlds
within the Alliance. These representatives are chosen by the various Courts
of Appeal from names put forth by each Planetary Parliament. The Parliamentary
President, who heads the Executive Parliament, is always a member of the Avellar
family and is the closest thing to an official leader that the Alliance has.
Anything put before the Executive Parliament must pass unanimously or it is
not enacted, making the creation of new legislation a long and arduous process.
In addition, each planet has its own Planetary Parliament, with one member
per ten thousand inhabitants. These representatives are chosen annually by
popular vote and have full authority to pass any legislation required to govern
their worlds. Because of this, they are only nominally subject to the Executive
Parliament in many areas. Similarly, several Courts of Appeal exist on each
planet, with one five-member Court for every five thousand inhabitants. These
Courts have the power to declare even Executive directives unconstitutional
and therefore null and void in that Court's jurisdiction. What this means
to the average traveler is that checking the laws for each area before visiting
is a must, as they are likely to differ from planet to planet and even on
different areas of the same world.
The final part of the convoluted Alliance government is the Military Review
Board, a body added to the Charter in mid-2800 when it was decided that a
standing military was required. Until this point, the only defensive organization
was a strictly volunteer corps, with little or no military organization within
the Alliance. The Board is made up of four members, chosen from each of the
Alliance's provincial capitals and ratified by representatives of the Courts
of Appeal. It is responsible for reviewing the organization and deployment
of Alliance military forces and has the power to veto Executive Parliament
decisions regarding any use of the military in order to prevent a military
dictator from arising. The only exception to this veto power is during an
Executive-declared Alliance-wide emergency.
Structure of the Corps
The Alliance Military Corps is divided into three distinct branches.
Duties normally performed by other branches in Inner Sphere militaries are
the responsibility of political groups in the Alliance and so further subdivisions
are unnecessary. The nominal head of the AMC is the President, but his aide
and second-in-command manages matters. That aide is Senior Chairman Maurice
Avellar, Mitchell Avellar's second cousin and one-time commander of the Avellar
Guards.
Entry into the AMC is determined by lotteries held on each planet. It is the
duty of every able-bodied citizen to serve four years in the military if his
number is chosen. Volunteers are also welcome, and citizens who choose to
serve longer may do so. Officer ranks often denote administrative duties,
with officers serving for a minimum of five years. All promotions to an officer
rank require a nomination from a commanding officer or Planetary Parliament
and must be ratified by the Military Review Board.
Alliance Aerospace Arm
Unlike in most militaries, the Alliance Aerospace Arm (AAA) is considered
to be the most important part of the AMC. When the AMC was first established,
citizens voted to include large numbers of aerospace assets in the Corps,
under the mistaken impression that the purchase and care of aerospace fighters
was cheaper than that of BattleMechs. This became the basis for the current
AAA, which is responsible for being the Alliance's first line of defense.
The Aerospace Arm has long received the lion's share of AMC funding, and only
recently has the Ground Defense Arm begun to even come close to matching that
budget.
Unlike the conventional troops and MechWarriors of the Corps, pilots in the
AAA are some of the best-trained and highly skilled known to man. Indeed,
other Periphery realms often request permission to borrow AAA officers to
improve their own aerospace effectiveness. Retired officers are in high demand
at military colleges throughout the Inner Sphere and Periphery. Most Alliance
citizens think of BattleMechs as "Inner Sphere tools of hate," an
opinion left over from the mass destruction of the Reunification War. They
give aerospace pilots the same respect and admiration that other states grant
to MechWarriors.
A reflection of this preference for aerospace fighters over ground units is
the odd relationship between units. Unlike standard doctrine, units from the
AAA are given most assignments. Units from the Ground Defense Arm are attached
to them for support instead of the other way around. This works very well
for defense but is a strategically poor organization for offense, a policy
that fits the Alliance mentality of peace unless attacked.
The AAA is composed of five wings, each of which is made up of three regiments
of three squadrons each and a command squadron. It should be noted that the
Alliance diverges from the standard, in that the traditional composition of
wings and regiments is reversed. This appears to have been a calculated decision,
possibly intended to confuse enemies that may have intercepted military communiqués.
This puts each wing at sixty fighters, with the entire AAA at a nominal strength
of three hundred active fighters, an incredible number for a Periphery state.
Though some of these craft are salvaged, many are at most a generation old
and a good twenty percent of them use Star League technology obtained from
House Kurita. Many of the fighters in service are Kurita designs, but there
are also quite a few Davion-made designs in use in the AAA.
A relatively small fleet of JumpShips and DropShips, including two highly
prized Vengeance-class vessels, provides transport for the large quantities
of fighters. These ships provide transport for the Alliance Mechanized Corps
in addition to the AAA.
The current head of the AAA is Chairman Paul Murphy, a one-time banker who
joined the AMC to help protect the Alliance from bandits and ended up making
a career of it. His experience in the world of finance has helped immeasurably
when dealing with budgetary issues, and his kind demeanor and natural talent
for flying has made him quite popular among his subordinates as well.
Alliance Ground Defense Arm
Until recently, this arm of the AMC was given little funding or support.
It languished as a poorly equipped and often derided part of the Corps. This
began to change with Mitchell Avellar's Long Road program.
Not only did the program call for improved equipment and training for the
AGDA, but it also contained plans for expansion. The Alliance Mechanized Corps,
the main branch of the AGDA, was only three regiments in size when the program
was begun; it has now grown to full five regiments of BattleMechs, vehicles
and infantry. These two new regiments, named the First and Second Long Road
Legions after the program that brought them into existence, were formed around
mercenary units.
Although the Alliance Charter specifically prohibits the use of mercenaries
by anyone within Alliance space. Mitchell Avellar pushed through legislation
that would suspend that restriction temporarily. He hired several small mercenary
units, looking for the best he could find who would be willing to become part
of the AMC permanently and then evaluated their performance. Of the ones he
hired, only Bammer's Bunch, Thermo Police and Simpson's Sisters were chosen.
The first two became the heart of the First Long Road Legion, with Simpson's
Sisters becoming the foundation for the Second. The mercenary restriction
has since gone back into effect.
The other branch of the AGDA that is even larger in sheer numbers than the
Mechanized Corps is the Planetary Militia. On every world in the Alliance,
except the Omniss homeworld of Dante, there is an active militia unit ranging
in size from two to four battalions of troops; many worlds also have a number
of reserve units as well. These are citizen militias consisting only of vehicles
and infantry, designated strictly for home defense. Their job is not to defend
the world, but to stall invaders until reinforcements can arrive.
The biggest problem facing the AGDA currently is the low level of morale found
in nearly every unit. Many AGDA soldiers joined only because they could not
meet the high testing standards of the AAA. There is a widespread opinion
among the units that ground forces are inferior and, in a philosophical way,
more barbarous, than their aerospace pilot brethren. This has led to a high
level of self-degradation which impedes the AGDA's performance overall. The
President has begun attaching psychologists to the various ground forces,
but little change has been seen as yet.
Chairman Rumiko Nitta is an oddity in her position as head of the AGDA, not
because she is female but because she was born in the Draconis Combine. Her
family moved to the Alliance when she was a child to run one of the Combine's
aerospace facilities and she became a citizen. After twenty years in the Mechanized
Corps, first as an infantryman and later as part of a vehicle crew, Rumiko
knows the ways of ground warfare well. Even more importantly, she knows how
to keep aerospace and ground missions coordinated so that they all run smoothly.
Alliance Service Arm
The final part of the triad that makes up the AMC, the Alliance Service
Arm, includes all of the noncombatant services found within standard militaries,
including quartermaster services, training, research and intelligence. The
Medical Corps receives the bulk of the ASA's funding currently, due to recent
changes originating with the Long Road program. The Medical Corps also provides
civilian medical services for the worlds on which they are stationed, in an
effort to lighten the load on strained civilian doctors.
The ASA has its own small fleet for transportation, made up of three JumpShips
and seven DropShips. While the AAA fleet carries various units' supplies,
everything else involving the ASA travels on these ships.
The head of the ASA is Chairman Vasily DeMille, a medical doctor born in the
Federated Suns who obtained his degree from the celebrated NAIS University.
He has since sponsored several promising members of the ASA for membership
at the NAIS, and the information and training they brought back have helped
immeasurably.
With the abundance of Planetary Parliaments and the incredible layers of bureaucracy
that seem to fill the Alliance, it is often difficult to determine who is
actually important at any given time. The three people I have listed here,
however, seem perpetually influential and thus worth noting.
President Mitchell Avellar
The reformer and apparent savior of the Outworlds Alliance, Mitchell
became President at the youngest age ever in the Alliance-he was only twenty-one
when his father stepped down. Even now at twenty-eight, his age often causes
foreigners and even members of his own government to underestimate him. In
reality, Mitchell is a shrewd politician and a patriot, dedicated to doing
whatever must be done to ensure the survival of the Alliance. He is a practical
man, preferring the blasphemy of ComStar to the truth of our Order, and rarely
lets his feelings interfere with his decisions.
Mitchell also possesses a genius-level intelligence and extensive knowledge
of both Alliance history and the differing needs of the people on each planet
within his realm. These factors have helped him counteract the fact that he
is somewhat socially inept, along with his relative inexperience. In an attempt
to seem more human to Alliance citizens, Mitchell has become a successful
aerospace pilot, a maneuver that has begun to reap benefits across the Alliance.
Mitchell's Long Road program and its overwhelming successes have put the people
of the Alliance solidly behind him. After years of inept and incompetent leadership,
the Alliance finally has a strong person at the helm and the people are delighted.
In the few short years since Mitchell became President, he has already eclipsed
everything his father ever accomplished and seems likely to continue on in
that fashion for the rest of his life.
Senior Chairman Maurice Avellar
The President's second cousin on his father's side, Maurice, is the
latest in a long and well-respected line of military leaders belonging to
the Avellar family. He began his military career as the commander of the Avellar
Guards regiment-a position he owed to several favors called in by his father.
Right away, this alienated him from the soldiers in his unit, who believed
him to be a "daddy's boy" politician who would get them all killed.
Maurice made it his first priority to prove to his men that he deserved his
command, living with them and participating in field exercises. It was in
the field that he won his soldiers over, when his natural tactical and strategic
talents shone through and impressed even his most ardent detractors.
Maurice went on to command the Avellar Guards for several more years, until
his cousin Mitchell became President and named him second in command of the
AMC. Once again, he found himself in the position of needing to prove to everyone
that he deserved a position that appeared to be the result of nepotism. His
biggest detractor was Chairman Paul Murphy, commander of the AAA, who felt
that putting a ground pounder in charge of the AMC was a big mistake. Eventually,
Maurice won Murphy over and the two have worked well together since.
As a long-time ground trooper, Maurice is keenly aware of the problems the
AGDA faces and has made it his priority to fix what he can. His was the most
influential voice when it came to the military aspects of his cousin's Long
Road program, and it is only because of Maurice that the AGDA was expanded.
His current focus is the low morale that permeates the ground forces. In hopes
of bolstering morale, he has personally begun visiting each unit in the AGDA.
This has had some effect, though not as much as Maurice hoped, forcing him
to look for other methods.
Precentor Kalvin Greig
Born on the planet Ramora in the Alliance, Kalvin learned to read
in a ComStar school and made the decision to join ComStar as soon as he was
old enough. His natural talents led him to membership in the Com Guards and
his inborn prejudices carried him to become an aerospace pilot. He served
in that capacity for over a decade, until the Battle of Tukayyid. During combat
with Clan Wolf fighters, Kalvin took a devastating hit to the cockpit, plunging
to the ground below. When he regained consciousness, he was in a ComStar hospital
and had suffered neural damage that would prevent him from ever piloting a
fighter again.
Instead of transferring to one of the other branches of the Com Guards, Kalvin
decided that fighting was pointless unless he was flying. He therefore transferred
to the diplomatic corps. Seemingly a strange choice for a warrior, it soon
became obvious that Kalvin saw diplomacy as just another kind of combat, and
that he was quite good at it. Following several successes in the Chaos March,
Kalvin was promoted to Precentor and assigned to Alpheratz as head diplomat
to his home state in 3061.
Quickly adjusting to the changed Alliance, Kalvin has continued to strengthen
the ties between ComStar and the people of the Alliance, ensuring that the
goodwill between them will continue. He is also respected by the military
as a one-time pilot and has made several friends within the higher echelons
of the AAA. These connections allow him to keep up on the military status
of the Alliance. Often, he receives word of any battle there within days of
its occurrence-sometimes even before the President hears of it. An astute
and well-liked man, Kalvin is one of the biggest problems our Order might
encounter in the Alliance.