The inferno round has had mention in the Ares Conventions. The Federated Suns-Lyran Commonwealth protocols of 3021 are only the latest to reaffirm that infernos are forbidden by the Convention's clause against "causing undue suffering; methods meant to maim rather than to kill." Yet infernos are cheap to produce; they are highly effective, and they are the only possible weapon a non-armored unit can use with effect on a Battlemech or tank. Not even the restraints against biological warfare are as continuously ignored as the restrictions on inferno rounds. The only real restraints are the safety difficulties of transport and storage of the volatile flammibles. Using infernos has in some times and places been illegal. Making them has never been. Engadin is high in naturally occurring phosphorus and petroleum deposits. It is rich in little else. The two resources of Engadin combine very well in the making of infernos. The Hades Works and the Red Devil Manufacturing Company compete as the two top employers of Engadin. -- Atlas of the New Free Republic of Rasalhague, Sisu Press, Stanzach 3038 These are the Invasion Waves of the Clans to the present date as they affect Rasalhague: The First Wave, March-April 3050 Rasalhague loses two planets to the Ghost Bears and eight to the Wolf Clans, for a total of ten. Among the lost are Alleghe, The Edge, New Caledonia, Outpost, Skallevoll, Balsta, and St John. The Second Wave, May 3050 Rasalhague loses six more planets. Lost are Csestreg, Leoben, Lovinac, New Bergen, Rodigo, and Verthandi (The Second Battalion of the Second Kell Hounds was used here, together with the Third Battalion of the Second Rasalhague Drakons; the first real cooperation of Rasalhague regular troops with mercenaries in two decades.) The Third Wave, June-July 3050 Rasalhague loses eight planets, including the capitol world of Rasalhague. Bruben, Hermagor, Kirchbach, Liezen, Feltre, Harvest, Moirje, and Rasalhague are lost. Elected Prince Haakon Magnussen escapes on the Norseman. The Fourth Wave, July-October 3050 Rasalhague loses fourteen more planets. Lost are Dawn, New Oslo, Unzmarkt, Basilano, Ferleiten, Hohenems, Kufstein, Engadin, Kandis, Svarstaad, Moritz, Skokie, Stanzach and Radstadt. WHAT WILL RASALHAGUE DO? WE'LL CONSIDER THIS LOSS LIKE BATTLEFIELD SURGERY. WE'VE LOST A PART OF US, LIKE LOSING A LEG OR SOMETHING. BUT WE'RE STILL ALIVE. WE STILL HAVE PLANETS TO STAND ON , AND ARMS TO FIGHT WITH. IN TERRAN DAYS, IF THERE WAS NO MEDIC AND YOU LOST SOMETHING THAT NEEDED CUTTING ON THE BATTLEFIELD, THEY SLIPPED A LEAD BULLET BETWEEN YOUR TEETH SO YOU'D HAVE SOMETHING TO BITE AGAINST TO HELP BEAR THE PAIN. RASALHAGUE JUST HAS TO BITE THE BULLET, THAT'S ALL. WE DON'T EVEN CONSIDER WHETHER THERE'S A CHOICE ABOUT GOING ON. WE WILL CONTINUE, AND WE WILL WIN. --GENERAL TOR MIRABORG, VALDHERRE OF GUNZBORG Rasalhague is fighting for its life. We have always been a small fish surrounded by large mouths with teeth in them. The rest of the Inner Sphere can afford to sit on their high moral thrones while they lose spare planets. We do not consider any of our people to be spares. Stanzach has taught us that our peoples must work together to defeat the invaders. Citizens of any ancestry will not be discriminated against by any other citizens. Mercenaries working with our forces will be treated as honorable allies. I have in the past implored my fellow citizens to show understanding. Now as supreme commander of our fighting forces, I command it. Civilian or military, abandon this behavior or be shot. Radstadt is the last planet to fall, following a panicky improvised defense as the Norseman, containing the Elected Prince, arrives in systern just as Radstadt comes under serious attack. The Drakons' aerospace fighters made a suicidal attack to keep the Wolf Aerospace fighters away from the Norseman while she powered up her lithium-fusion batteries to get off system. The House Leader made his escape as the Drakons died to defend him. Drakon Flight Leader Capten Tyra Miraborg seems to have flown directly into the bridge of the Wolf flagship as the last move of her severely damaged fighter. That's thirty seven worlds out of seventy gone. Rasalhague is severely damaged. Can she go on? Or with the Clans concentrating their attack on this small state, will their next attack be the end of Rasalhague? Inferno Attack Late in November of 2411, on the planet Tintavel, poorly disciplined militia attacked battle weary regulars with homemade inferno rounds, provoking a three-day massacre in retaliation. Civilian casualtes totaled 400,000. Every leader in the Inner Sphere professed to be shocked and horrified. One really was. Chancellor Aleisha Liao of the Capellan Confederation found the pictures of dead children, ruined homes, destruction of expensive technology "horrifyingly familiar -- and that familiarity was even more horrifying." She devoted her considerable intellect for the next several months to drafting a preliminary agreement to make war less barbarous. She drew on some of the old Mercenary's Professional Association contracts, and called the best minds of her realm to aid her. The Confederation had the least industrial base of the Successor Houses; it was therefore the first to see the impact which high-tech warfare could have on the industrial future of a planetary system. In summer of 2412, eight realms met in the city of New Olympia on the planet Ares. As Captain General Peter Marik put it, he was afraid that "these rules would transform warfare into a kind of pavane better suited to ballerinas than to soldiers." After weeks of argument, of passion and counter passion, The Terran Hegemony, House Steiner, the Free Worlds League, the Draconis Combine, the Federated Suns, the Outworlds Alliance, the RimWorlds republic, and of course the Capellan Confederation signed agreements limiting the atrocities of warfare. The 80-page document requires battles to occur away from population centers, and attempts to force warfare away from massive destructive force. It also gives conditions for mercenary exchange, for treatment of captured troops, limitations on certain methods of war, etc. It is worth noting that this was seventeen years before the trial of the first BattleMech. Over the years the agreements have been modified. The mercenary forces which are so often the straw that tips the balance in a major war enforced the Conventions in the interests of their own survival. Whatever the Clans are, they did not sign these agreements. Of course, neither did Rasalhague, which was then technically an independent state... --Marina Kingsley, Auburn Scholar, Sanglamore Military Academy First Cadet BattleTechnology News From the Front Rasalhague Bites the Bullet First Photographs from the Clan Front Wolf Summons Inner Sphere Leaders! A Letter to the Archon Back to BattleTechnology 16 Table of Contents Back to BattleTechnology List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 1992 by Pacific Rim Publishing. This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com