MechWarrior Overview

From the 25th century onward, walking humanoid machines Called BattleMechs ruled the battlefields. BattleMechs and their skilled pilots, known as MechWarriors, changed combat forever.

In 2766 the Star League, the unified governing body of the Inner Sphere, was in chaos. A usurper had gained power, and the resulting civil war raged for 13 years until the Star League military under General Aleksandr Kerensky finally defeated him. In the aftermath, however, the five Council Lords of the Star League began to fight among themselves to fill the power vacuum left by the defeat of the usurper.

Faced with the spectre of his beloved Star League military becoming divided against itself and entering into decades of warfare, General Kerensky conceived a daring and fateful plan. He announced that he was leaving the Inner Sphere for parts unknown beyond charted space, to form a new society based on honour and justice. He was willing to take whomever of the Star League military that wanted to come. An astounding 80 percent of the standing Star League military force chose to leave the Inner Sphere and travel out into the unknown. In doing so, they left behind an Inner Sphere still wracked with battle, threatening to descend into a new Dark Ages, and began a journey that 300 years later would bring a rebuilt Inner Sphere to the brink of ruin.

In 3058, the Great Houses of the Inner Sphere convened to create the Star League Constitution, resurrecting with a pen what they had failed to accomplish through the force of arms a new Star League.  

The main impetus of this historic occasion, however, was to end the Clan threat once and for all.  With the Houses united, they could combine their militaries under a single command structure to attack a single Clan and utterly annihilate it, thus proving to the other Clans that the Inner Sphere was a foe worthy of respect. Operation Bulldog, the massive invasion of the Smoke Jaguar Occupation Zone by a multinational force, began in 3059. Far more quickly than any analyst had predicted possible, the Inner Sphere force swept the Jaguars before them. The Star League commander knew, however, that destroying the body would not accomplish their ultimate goal of ending the Clan threat if the head was allowed to live. Using information acquired from a Clan traitor, the Star League hatched a daring plan that required a force to travel through uncharted space to directly attack the home of Clan Smoke Jaguar, the planet Huntress. As Operation Bulldog began, Task Force “Serpent” was well on its way, heading blindly toward its destiny.

Under the command of Marshal Morgan Hasek-Davion, we comprised the backbone of Task Force Serpent. Our three reinforced regiments, transported on 13 JumpShips and 34 DropShips, were the single largest group of forces in the Task Force. As appropriate, our commanding officer, General Ariana Winston, was named second in command of the operation under Marshal Hasek-Davion. During the long trip to Huntress,
Marshal Hasek-Davion was murdered by an assassin who would not reveal his patrons, leaving General Winston in charge of Task Force Serpent.

The plan was simple though devious: a small advance force of the flotilla of WarShips, JumpShips and DropShips (115 vessels in the main body) would approach Huntress using identification codes supplied by the Jaguar traitor. Using a ruse devised to make it appear that the battle armour equipped commando force dropping from orbit was debris from a damaged DropShip, the Huntress orbital defence headquarters was targeted first. The plan worked perfectly, allowing the remainder of the ships to begin the assault on the Smoke Jaguar homeworld. Though ultimately we were victorious on Huntress, General Winston was killed in the last hours of the battle. She stood valiantly with her troops as wave after wave of suicidal Smoke Jaguar warriors attempted to force them out of their defensive position. They were not successful, though the effort cost General Winston her life. Her death was not in vain.