In 3028 the armies of Prince Hanse Davion of the Federated Suns accomplished a feat unknown to Inner Sphere armies since the departure of the Star League Defense Force almost a quarter-century before. In a series of sharp, intense waves the Armed Forces of the Federated Suns rolled over the defenders of the Capellan Confederation and captured roughly half their worlds. In an era when the capture of only one world was a significant event, the capture of two entire Capellan commonalities shocked the Inner Sphere to its core.
The Fourth Succession War, of which Davion’s Operation Rat was the opening salvo, lasted for only two short years but reshaped almost the entire Inner Sphere. The Federated Suns’ allies, the Lyran Commonwealth, captured more than fifty worlds from the Draconis Combine. A corridor of worlds captured from House Marik’s Free Worlds League connected the two realms, laying the groundwork for the massive superstate that would be called the Federated Commonwealth.
But of course, beneath these levels of grand interstellar politics and military battles, hundreds of billions of people had to adjust to new ways of life, and not only civilians. Soldiers had to deal with new methods of warfare. Corporations had to adapt to vastly different rules of operation and consumer bases. States had to adapt to radically different tax bases. And hundreds of millions of families had to deal with the deaths of hundreds of thousands.
Thus ended a vicious war begun with a husband’s wedding toast to his wife. “Here, my love. I give you the Capellan Confederation!”
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Yay! This has to be my favourite BattleTech period in terms of literature.