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Origins and History
After the fall of the Star League, the planets of the Terran Hegemony were
divided up between the Great Houses with the exception of Terra, which became a
neutral ground controlled by ComStar. The worlds of what would someday become
the Chaos March were mostly claimed by the Capellan Confederation, but a few
fell under the sway of the Free Worlds League. Over the years, however, four
violent wars wracked the Inner Sphere, which became known as the Succession
Wars. The Fourth Succession War resulted in the transfer of many worlds formerly
belonging to the Capellan Confederation and Free Worlds League to the control of
the nascent Federated Commonwealth. These worlds were organized within the
Federated Commonwealth as the Sarna March.
In 3057, Chancellor Sun-Tzu Liao and Captain-General Thomas Marik launched a
strike at the Federated Commonwealth in retribution for Victor Steiner-Davion's
Operation Doppelganger, which was a plot to replace Marik's son with a
body-double. This so-called Operation Guerrero was stalled when Katherine
Steiner-Davion seceded the Lyran half of the Federated Commonwealth and
negotiated a separate settlement with Marik that allowed him to achieve his
objective. Katherine ordered home all traditional Lyran units to within the
Lyran state's pre-Fourth War borders, leaving many worlds bereft of defenses.
Because of the secession, the rump Commonwealth lacked the JumpShips necessary
to reinforce the Sarna March. With the League's pull-out, however, the Capellans
lacked the military force to secure the worlds that the Commonwealth had all but
abandoned.
Prior to the offensive, Capellan terrorists had stirred up old Capellan
loyalties amongst the populace, as well as masterminding many terrorist attacks
targeting the infrastructure of these systems. In the absence of national
militaries, many local governors (and other concerned interests) seized the
initiative to restore order. On the worlds were this restoration was successful,
most governments were resentful of the apparent lack of interest by the Great
Houses, and set up their own nations. Some of these minor powers became
influential enough to become multi-world nation-states. The constantly shifting
web of alliances, as well as the rapid rise and fall of planetary-level
governments led observers to dub this area of instability the Chaos March.
Over time, both the Capellan Confederation and the Federated Commonwealth were
able to exert more influence and military pressure on the worlds of the Chaos
March, leading to its shrinkage. Though both would become distracted (the
Capellans by the war with St. Ives and the Commonwealth by the Clans), many
worlds of the Chaos March had been reclaimed by one of the Great Houses.
In the early 3060s, the Draconis Combine annexed the Lyons Thumb, a few worlds
that were a part of the Chaos March, but were to the "north" of Terra.
When the FedCom Civil War broke out in 3063, some Chaos March worlds were caught
in the middle. Indeed, Duke George Hasek was tired of the Capellans constantly
bullying the small nations, so he undertook a campaign to "liberate" some of
them.
The face of the Chaos March changed forever when the Star League General
Senate ratified the 'Terran Security Act' and annexed 6 planetary systems
in the name of the Star League, this added the territorial ambitions of
the Capellan Confederation and the Federated Suns have weakened the March
to only a handful of planetary systems
3077 Update
The Chaos March has ceased to be, it has been divided amoungst the Star
League, Capellan Confederation and the Federated Suns. |
