By now, the populations of most of the worlds of the Inner Sphere must know about the upcoming marriage between Hanse Davion, First Prince of the Federated Suns, and the lovely Melissa Steiner, Archon-Designate of the Lyran Commonwealth. The wedding, currently set for the 20th of August, 3028, promises to be the single most important and momentous event of the century... possibly of all time. News of the wedding, reported by BattleTechnology's news service in our last issue, has drawn paeans of praise and fusillades of foreboding. Never in the history of Man, it seems, have so many people held such diametrically opposing viewpoints as to just what this one, single event might herald for the future of the race. Why all the fuss over one wedding? Any wedding between the heads of two major houses must be viewed with an eye to the political aspects of that union. Marriage for love, at least among heads of state, is still a relative rarity, though by all accounts the Steiner-Davion match has its romantic aspects. (Interested readers might seek out The Sword and the Dagger, by Ardath Mayhar, a novel published by FASA which touches on the relationship between the First Prince and the Archon-Designate.) In any case, the marital union of Hanse Davion with Melissa Steiner can only herald the political and military union of House Steiner with House Davion. In a single stroke, two of the most powerful of the Great Houses of the Inner Sphere will have doubled their respective territories, their resources, and their military might. House Kurita, in particular, must dread such an alliance, since the Draconis Combine lies squarely between the two. It is not hard to imagine the havoc House Steiner might wreak on the Combine by drawing defensive forces off from the Davion Marches with raids and feints, just in time to weaken that border for a stroke by Hanse Davion's units. It is this basic fact of military logistics which has caused the stir among observers in each of the major houses. Steiner and Davion sources tend to wax optimistic in their belief that the Davion-Steiner alliance will make possible a true and lasting peace... either because the other major houses will seek to join what is obviously a lasting and beneficial alliance in the best interests of all, or because the Davion-Steiner alliance will be so overwhelmingly powerful on the battlefield that the other houses will be unable to stand up to them for more than a very short time. Observers within Houses Marik, Liao, and Kurita, on the other hand, view the coming wedding as a provocation, an attempt to enforce Federated Suns/Commonwealth will on the entire population of the Inner Sphere. Such provocation, these observers warn, can only lead to war on a scale so vast and so devastating that civilization itself might not survive. The Inner Sphere, of course, has been almost continually at war for centuries. Military experts point out, however, that the skirmishes, raids, counter-raids, and limited invasions traded among the Great Houses over the past several decades represent a relatively low level of hostilities, that the wedding could, in fact, trigger a new round of all- out warfare on a scale undreamed of since the height of the Age of War centuries ago. Whichever is the correct answer, it is liable to be decisive. Peace across the Inner Sphere could herald a new age of prosperity and technical achievement for all Mankind. A Fourth Successor State War could well doom Mankind to eternal barbarism as he loses completely the ability to repair the shattered remnants of now largely- vanished technologies. Peace... or war? Our next issue of BattleTechnology will examine this question in greater detail, as we cover the wedding on Earth and the prospects for a lasting peace. We at BattleTechnology are optimists. As this issue of the magazine goes to press, we look forward to the dawning of a new age of peace and understanding, of cooperation between the worlds, of new vistas of interplanetary commerce, growth, and prosperity. But... uh... keep your lasers dry.  Back to BattleTechnology 5 Table of Contents Back to BattleTechnology List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 1988 by Pacific Rim Publishing. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com