The Wolverines

The Wolverines are the descendant of Clan Wolverine, chased and hunted away by the Clans. While a number of them would have fled under saKhan Trish Ebon, the ancestors of who would become “The Wolverines” apparently came from a different group, mostly labor, merchant and scientist caste, who had fled in a different direction. Without actual direction or leadership, this civilian group floated between different worlds and space, where they were hunted down by “dark caste” warriors which were affiliated with the main Clans. Only due to the sacrifice of a group of 26 unnamed warriors, each represented by a letter of the phonetic alphabet, were they able to flee further away.

The Wolverines State Profile

• Founding Year: 2823
• Capital (City, World): Spires, Sarah (Beauty system)
• National Symbol: A Wolverine head
• Location (Terra relative): Rimward-counter spinward quadrant
• Total (Inhabited) Systems: 9
• Government: Artistocratic Caste system
• Ruler: Khan Foxtrot Whitfield
• Dominant Language(s): Wolverine English
• Dominant Religion(s): Ancestor Worship
• Unit of Currency: Doublon

The Wolverines History

Meeting the Exiles

Through this heroic sacrifice, and after a year of jumping towards seemingly uninhabited space, the Wolverines were out of resources and forced to land on a world they had identified as at least passably livable. With higher-than-average gravity and thick atmosphere, the planet which would later be known as Sarah was not much. After landing, however, they noticed terraforming equipment on the planet, working on thinning the atmosphere and making the local water sources good for human consumption. Without asking questions, the renegades established a small colony around the terraforming equipment. 6 months later, they were met with a group of scientists from what they would learn was the Periphery Republic, which welcomed them happily to this world.

Technological exchange between the two parties led to the creation of a large array of iron wombs in an underground location which was dubbed “Sarah’s Heart”. Over the next 30 years, the population of the colony exploded thanks to this network of artificial children. At the end of that period, the Wolverines met, for the first time, the actual leaders of the Periphery Republic, the Amaris family.

Joining the Republic

The Amaris-in-Exile offered other worlds to the Wolverines in exchange for their iron womb technology and know-how. Very few of the Wolverines even cared that their benefactors had been their old enemy from the Star League era, many of them welcoming them as other exiles from “polite society”. In 2856, a formal agreement between the Wolverines and the Rim Worlds Republic In Exile was signed, where the Wolverines would keep their independence in exchange for providing military know-how to the Republic. While both organizations would have their own military, the Wolverines would “take the lead” on most military matters as their warriors were, inherently, superior thanks to genetic engineering.

Other iron womb arrays were built on other worlds which were given to the Wolverines, along with establishing some on RWR worlds to help bolster their population. The Wolverines were quite happy to assist their allies, which had superior knowledge in terraforming and ship construction.

A three-layer society

While the Wolverines had more or less abandoned the caste system which Nicholas Kerensky had imposed on the Clan, a new form of society grew over time with the established iron womb networks. At the very top of the society were the “true descendants” of the original Clan Wolverine citizens, who were usually called “bloodborn”, born of the blood and in the blood of an actual mother. Under them were the “trueborn”, which were the genetically engineered “warrior caste” following the MechWarrior or Elemental phenotype. Not being born of blood, they were regarded as second-class citizens but won respect through their actions.

At the very bottom of the society were the “vatgown”, genetic mismatch made in the Iron Wombs to fill up population quotas, have enough workers for farms, mines and factories and serve underneath either the bloodborn or trueborn. With a major population explosion, the Wolverines did grow their military in proportion of what they were doing, both as a measure to reduce unrest, but also to be ready for any assault from Clan forces.

Golden Age

From 2900 to 3000 is viewed as the golden age of the Wolverines, where they advanced genetic engineering technology to new levels, combined with dealing with their close friends in the Republic to design new weapons. While Trueborn population growth was careful monitored and directed, basic vatgrowns became the backbone of the Wolverines. Wealth was concentrated in the bloodborn families, while military power landed in the hand of the trueborn, who viewed themselves as the shepherd of the nation.

Outside of fighting the occasional pirate and unrest, the military had no real challenges in that period, as they mainly played in wargames with one another. Exercises against the Republic Armed Forces were the most complex either armies had to deal with.

A Plan In Motion

As the early 3000s started, the Wolverines had sent some infiltrators to spy on the Homeworlds, where they learned of the early plans to invade the Inner Sphere. The Khan of the Wolverines at the time, Juliet Sobral, met with Fangshi Amaris of the Republic and the two settled on a long running plan to destabilize both the Inner Sphere and the Clans as a mean to exact revenge against the Clans, and reclaim what was rightfully theirs for the Amaris. Over the course of the next 20 years, a whole generation of vatgrown were trained and equipped for infiltration of the other powers to gather information and cause trouble from the inside. By the start of the 4^th Succession War, most political and military apparatuses had a few Wolverine or Republican agents reporting back to Sarah and the Rim Worlds Capital.

Two Worlds Clash

The next step in the Wolverines’s plan was to make sure that the Clans would never succeed in their invasion of the Inner Sphere. With agents on both sides of the border, the Wolverines allowed information to leak from the Clans into the Inner Sphere, a lot of it into the hands of ComStar. However, the Wolverines also made sure the Clans received information which would damage the Inner Sphere significantly as well, directing the Jade Falcons and Smoke Jaguars to attempt to capture the heirs to the Draconis Combine and Federated Commonwealth before the Inner Sphere powers could react.

Another important element of the time was the Wolverines and Republic work at recruiting disgruntled, disenfranchised and desperate citizens of the Clan and Inner Sphere to their cause at the time, further growing their network but also their “genepool”, which they used to produce ever larger numbers of vatgrowns.

Second Star League

After the Battle of Tukkayid, the Clans had a bloody nose and the Inner Sphere was trying to join forces to make them pay. The Wolverines were rather pleased by this situation but talk of a “Second Star League” made them pause. Making sure that the whole organization would not stand the test of time was the primary goal of the Wolverine agents in the Inner Sphere at the time, but they also supported Operation BULLDOG and SERPENT as a mean to further weaken the Clans.

Clan Burrock and the New Adoption

By 3059, Clan Burrock was facing issues due to their association with the Dark Caste. While Clan Star Adder forcefully worked on absorbing the Burrocks, the Wolverines provided a massive “underground railroad” for any Burrocks who wanted to survive or keep their own culture. This “new Clan” did not want to renege on their culture but were given three worlds in the “outer Rim” where they could settle and rebuild. While distrustful of the Wolverines, the possibility of surviving an absorption and annihilation was enough for many to join in. This would become a standard procedure for the Wolverines and the Rim Worlds Republic going forward, allowing broken factions and organizations to relocate to their territory in order to expand their alliance.

War of Reaving and Rescue

The next Clan “rescued” by the Wolverines was Clan Fire Mandrill, which was falling apart long before Cloud Cobra and Society worked on defeating them. The Wolverines made sure their agents gave ample opportunities to the fractured Kindraa to “step away”. Like the Burrocks, the Fire Mandrills were given a trio of worlds in the Outer Rim. More aggressive, the relocated Fire Mandrills did challenge both the Wolverines and Rim Worlds Republic to various trials, letting them develop more military knowledge.

Large swaths of Clan Ice Hellion were also given opportunities to join the Wolverines instead of Clan Goliath Scorpion. Three other worlds were set aside for them, but the small number of survivors originally only needed one. The Burrocks, already growing massively thanks to Iron Womb Arrays, challenged the Hellions for possession of one of those worlds, but the Hellions won the trial decisively, growing their confidence.

Facing annihilation, Clan Steel Viper survivors were given the opportunity to settle on 3 worlds reserved for them by the Rim Worlds Republic and Wolverines. While the Star Adders and Coyotes massacred civilians and non-combatants on New Kent, massive groups of technicians, scientists and warriors relocated in the Outer Rim.

The last group rescued by the Wolverines were the isolationist Clan Blood Spirit. Most of them refusing assistance, the Wolverines forcefully relocated genetic material, scientists and labourers to worlds set aside for them in the Outer Rim. Before the destruction of the Blood Spirit, a Galaxy’s worth of warriors had tracked down the Wolverines, attempting to reclaim “what was theirs”, only to learn of the devastation of Mount Schmitt from the Wolverine Khan.

Readying For War

With 5 new Clans allowing them to train forces, along with the Republic having rescued remnants of the Word of Blake and Society, the Wolverines and the Republic started getting ready for an actual war with the Inner Sphere and Clans. Drastic development in genetic engineering creating the first generation of bioroids, the Wolverines started arming with for an upcoming conflict. The Republic of the Sphere serving as a destabilizing element within the Inner Sphere, the Wolverines waited for all the local powers to be at their weakest to strike.

Unfortunately for them, the worlds in the Inner Rim were all affected by the local quasar moving to a new cycle of its life, which rendered most Inner Rim worlds impossible to grow plants “naturally” on. While the original plan was to strike in the early 3130s, this development slowed things down, leading to the complete disintegration of the republic of the sphere and the potential rise of a third Star League, which they had no control over.

The Wolverines Naming convention

To make a clean break from the Clans and Nicholas Kerensky’s madness, the Wolverines that found refuge with the Rim Worlds Republic in Exile changed their naming convention. The concept of bloodname was abandoned, with all citizens being allowed to have a family name. Generally, most reverted to their previous family name before the founding of the Clans, but some created new ones as well. The original Wolverine bloodnames were kept, and those who carried them were generally viewed as the “nobility” of their faction. The real major change, however, was with how first names would be picked. In honor of the nameless warriors who had saved them from extinction, the new Wolverine children, either trueborn or freeborn, would be named using the phonetic alphabet for their first names. With the further development of vatgrown individuals, family names once again became honorifics in the Wolverine Culture, as vatgrowns were only given a batch number for their last names.

Example names:

Trueborn:

Foxtrot McEvedy

Golf Whitfield

Quebec Sobral

Zulu Gao

Freeborn:

Alpha Smith

Sierra Turner

Mike Sotomayor

Vatgrown:

Bravo MC-116

Hotel HG-173

Yankee YY-11

The Wolverines Military

Originally poorly drilled and trained due to lack of conflict, since the inclusion of new Clan assets in the Union, the Wolverines were able to develop a competent military. The Wolverines have no started mass-producing omnimechs, concentrating instead on the Republic’s X-series machines, allowing for bioroid control by a command ‘mech.

Trueborn warriors are the core of the Wolverines military, with them being trained from birth as officers and MechWarriors. While Elemental phenotypes do exist, even they are generally trained as officers, meant to lead infantry units composed of vatgrown “grunts”. MechWarriors are highly regarded as specialists and are all trained to be able to take full control of a military unit in case of a break in command structure. While not the “greatest warriors” even compared to the other adopted Clans, a Wolverine junior officer’s words holds much more weight and strength than any Star Colonel in Clan Burrock, as an example.

Naval Assets

The Wolverines, along with the Rim Worlds Republic, has a massive navy composed of a combination of “semi-warships”, “pocket warships” and long-range jump ships. Recharge and jump stations are established on any stellar objects the Wolverine plan on using for staging, accelerating the recharge of their Super Jump Drives. Hydrogen ramscoops can also be deployed in conjunction with jumpsails to recharge the warp drives quicker. This allows the Wolverine military to be mobile beyond the wildest imagination of regular Inner Sphere or Clan powers.