Mori Invites Leaders
to 'Peace Summit'

BattleTechnology News

by Hilary Ayer

Terra March 3053

ComStar Primus Sharilar Mori sent a priority message today inviting Inner Sphere leaders to a ace Summit to begin at the end of this month. After suitable honorifics, the text of all these messages was the same.

"in these trying times, enemies will take advantage of any split between us. Perhaps there are disagreements; perhaps there are distrusts. Com Star has made its mistakes. ComStar has also given of its dearest and best, shed gallant blood to save you.

We deserve the right of discussion with you. We feel that you deserve the courtesy of knowing our plans. Accommodation will be provided for you and any number of staff you wish to bring."

It is rumored that ComStar intends to open their files of Inner Sphere history for the benefits of Inner Sphere leaders. It is also rumored that the dates of these files, but NOT their contents, accompanied these invitations.

The Word of Blake faction believes passionately what ComStar has always held in private; Jerome Blake was divinely inspired to make technology, and communications technology in particular, a 'trade secret' ' Blake's chosen instrument was to keep the secrets until the inevitable collapse of the Inner Sphere. At that time, ComStar was to come forward to take its appointed place as ruler. They believe that Primus Waterly was killed by Anastasius Focht, and that Primus Mori is his puppet.

The majority faction, 4/5 of ComStar as it was, believes just as passionately in the true vision of Jerome Blake. Not 'the Blessed Blake, but Jerome Blake the complex and committed man. Recent documents, especially HPG Technology Readout 102-13: Hyperpulse Principles and Applications, written by Blake during the years he was founding and consolidating ComStar, make it clear to them that Jerome Blake wanted an organization that would keep technology alive, an organization that was strong enough to ensure its own survival, butan organization which remained politically neutral.

Political theory says that an organization becomes a self-perpetuating organism, that it comes to place its own survival above the purpose for which it was created. It can come to directly violate that purpose in order to ensure its own survival, while still claiming to serve that purpose. The creation of ROM, the secret espionage wing of ComStar, was originally meant to preserve ComStar. Instead, ROM seems to have subverted ComStar. Often, the heads of ROM have taken action which is directly contrary to the Primus' will. On one occasion, ROM is said to have replaced the entirety of the First Circuit! Certainly ROM's spearheading of Operation Scorpion, breaking treaties as it did, is the action of an enemy to the governments of the Inner Sphere.

So on the one hand, ComStar did maintain communications for the Known Sphere, and monitor mercenary contracts, and regulate the value of our money. And on the other hand, covertly, it started the Second and Third Succession Wars and assassinated several House leaders. More importantly, ComStar helped the Clans against the Inner Sphere until the invaders targeted their own territory. Remember how hard it was to get military information from the Clans front? Communications between battle leaders and house leaders were disrupted as part of a deliberated plot by ComStar. ComStar's neutrality wasn't just compromised, it was destroyed!

Yet, to be blunt, ComStar still has the communications equipment that links the far-flung systems of the Known Sphere, and nobody else can do the job.

The Word of Blake is trusted only by Thomas Marik. ComStar is trusted by the Federated Commonwealth, the Draconis Combine, and the remnants of Rasalhague - to a limited extent. 90% of ROM went with the Word of Blake. That may be the only thing that keeps anyone in the Inner Sphere trusting the majority faction. That and the personal reputation of Anastasius Focht.

For what it's worth, BattleTechnology feels that Focht and Mori mean to keep their word, to make most of the past information available to the Inner Sphere, not to take over the Inner Sphere, and to serve us as a bulwark against the Clans. If the Clans didn't exist, we'd have much stronger reservations about trusting ComStar, ever again. Remember that tendency of an organization to put survival above all else?

But the Clans do exist. And ComStar is committed to fighting them. So most of the Successor Houses will come to an understanding with ComStar to fight the Clans.

As of April 15,3053, ComStar opened a new office at their Hilton Head Compound on Terra. The 'Retroactive Information Office' opens ComStar historical files to House historians and archivists. Suites of rooms are reserved in the compound for each House's nominees to study the files in depth. Study parties are arriving weekly; even the Free Worlds League is sending a party. The Federated Commonwealth has nominated two investigative groups of scholars, one from NAIS, and an independent group headed by Countess Mischa Auburn Redburn, Court Historian to the court at Tharkad. Access to scientific or technological files is on a case-by-case basis.

A reliable source close to BattleTechnology has given us a few tidbits of recent history. For example: toward the close of the Fourth Succession War, Duke Morgan Hasek-Davion had a dramatic confrontation with a certain Warrior House unit of the Capellan Confederation on Kathil. A day later, that same unit took part in a raid on NAIS on New Avalon. This is the famous raid which was beaten off by Prince Hanse Davion in his BattleMaster and MechWarriors from Team Banzai fighting on foot. In wartime, contradictory information comes in sometimes. at BattleTechnology, we fit the news as we receive it, so we did. We trusted that artier information would make clear which units had actually been where. The two locations are two Jumps apart, three jumps if you stayed within Liao territory; it was simply impossible that the same unit could have been in both places.

There were many similar contradictions; after the war was over, new information cleared most of them up. This was one which had never been explained.

It turns out that the NAIS raid was made by a disguised ROM team. The purpose was to recover the Grey Death Legion memory core which was being studied there. It will be remembered that only the research wing was targeted; production was left alone. It seems that if the raid had been successful, agents in place in the Draconis Combine would have stolen their version; an 'unfortunate accident' would have occurred to the Grey Death's facilities, and ComStar would again have been the only keepers of Star League technological data.

Another shocking revelation concerns the several times when ComStar knew of an assassination or kidnap attempt on a head of state - and did nothing. The 3029 attempt upon Katrina Steiner's life was known by ROM; primary source documents suggest that ROM may have encouraged the assassins. Whatever the truth about that, it is definite that no attempt was made to stop that.

One of the most extreme examples of do-nothing appears in the biography of Hanse Davion elsewhere in this issue. The Capellan Confederation kidnapped him and held him prisoner for a year's time while they... but read the article. ComStar possible involvement is limited to feeding the suspicions of Chancellor Maximilian Liao after Prince Hanse Davion made it clear upon his accession that he was eager to discuss a lasting peace with Archon Katrina Steiner. The alliance which eventually became the Federated Commonwealth was frowned upon by the Word of Blake faction which holds that Blake forecast the Inner Sphere would not unify, but would war until it fragmented into tiny factions. Then the True Believers would step in to unify the Inner Sphere under ComStar's rule. If Hanse Davion's intentions could be derailed by a little judicious hinting, ComStar would be happy to provide those hints.

It's hard in telling these sordid old stories to distinguish between the covert, our-ends-justify-any-means politics of the old ComStar, and the ComStar faction now headed by Anastasius Focht and Sharilar Mori. This reporter feels that their good intentions are genuine, but suspects both their ability to 'clean up' the system, and the purity of their intentions once they have rubbed up against real politics in the changed world of the mid-Century.

BattleTechnology News

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