Marian Hegemony

Founding Year	2920
Capital world:	Alphard
Official Currency	Talent
Official Language(s)	English and Latin (official), German, Spanish, Greek

General national information

Head of State

Caesar of the Marian Hegemony
(formerly Imperator)

Government

Army	Marian Hegemony Armed Forces (MHAF)
Military Intelligence	Ordo Vigilis

Military information

The Marian Hegemony is one of the larger periphery power, even though it is also one of the more recent ones. Founded in 2920 by Johann Sebastian O’Reilly, it was long regarded as mainly a pirate haven and bandit kingdom. Mineral wealth was at the center of the Hegemony’s existence, with untold amounts of the very precious germanium being located within the Alphard system. This mineral trade, especially with ComStar, gave legitimacy to the “New Roman Empire” of the O’Reillys.

History

By the time of Operation REVIVAL, the Marian Hegemony was “powerful” enough to have been in the various Watch handbooks. The Marians consolidated their control over their region of space by invading both the Lothian League and Illyrian Palatinate in during the 3050s to 3060s. The locals feared they would all be put into slavery. Strangely, the Hegemony let citizens apply to become plebs or even patricians depending on their wealth and power.

Jihad

During the Jihad, the Marian Hegemony faced off against the Blakist proxy state of the Circinus Federation. This is despite the Hegemony originally having been rather friendly with the Blakists, especially the Sixth of June faction. It is possibly due to the change in leadership amongst the Word of Blake that these arrangements changed. The Marian Hegemony invested a lot in the development of their state industries during this period. They started production of BattleMechs and putting down the basis of their Battle Armor production.

The conflict did cause the former Lothian League to break away from the Hegemony. The Legions being busy with the fight against the Federation, the Lothian “took back their independence”. This movement was likely financed by foreign powers, which Ordo Vigilis suspected was the Magistracy of Canopus.

Dark Age

Ignatius O’Reilly ascended to the title of Caesar in 3128. His first act was to officially recognize the independence of the Lothian League, which had been contested by his father. Following this, Ignatius Caesar worked tirelessly to increase the trade surplus of his nation, even marrying Adrijana Vouk from the Rim Commonality to secure more access to their market. Unlike previous Caesars, Ignatius was happy to increase the Marian sphere of influence “naturally” rather than militarily. His only problem was the presence of the powerful Duchy of Tamarind-Abbey, which fought against Marian influence at every turn. The ambitious Fontaine Marik was generally seen as the counter to the Caesar’s laissez-faire attitude.

Culture

The O’Reilly family had a bit of an obsession with the Roman Republic and Roman Empire. Having setup their personal fiefdom over the original core of mineral rich worlds of what would later be known as the Marian Expanse, they turned these worlds into Roman lookalikes. While religious freedom is pretty high in the Marian Hegemony, the national holidays are now all based around Religio Romana (which often line up with Christian holidays).

The O’Reilly family has made “roman trapping” very popular with the local population, with togas, tunics and other simple clothing being the most common. Patrician women love high quantities of make-up and fancy hairdos. Even plebians will spend part of their small fortune “to look good”. National media always try to have men depicted as hyper masculine and virile, where jewelry like necklaces, bracers and headbands are rather popular. Only the Caesar is allowed to wear a crown of golden leaves, however.

Class system in the Hegemony

The Hegemony’s population is split between 3 major groups, with the first two being the citizens (Patricians or Plebs) and the last one being the slaves. Foreigners and foreign entities are not given voting rights and are considered outside this class system. Every citizen is expected to serve a minimum of 5 years in the Armed Forces or in civil service for the state before having their rights recognized. For most plebs, this generally starts at the age of 17 in the military. Patricians, on the other hand, have the chance to complete their higher education usually before they join a comfier civil service position.

The Patricians used to be only considered as those who owned lands in the Hegemony. However over time this has become a hereditary position for many. The Patricians have voting rights and can be elected to senatorial positions. They can also advance in the military beyond the lower ranks. Many patricians will own slaves to maintain their estate and provide them support.

The plebs (or plebians) are non-land holding citizens, generally renters on Patrician’s land or in state-owned housing. While they can participate in the Plebian Tribunate, they cannot hold senatorial office or vote for the Senate. On average, they can only hold the lowest ranks in the military, but those who make it a career often can settle in low-ranking officer positions with a decent revenue. The richer or more powerful plebs will own slaves, but it is not a certainty.

Politics

Ignatius O'Reilly, Caesar of the Marian Hegemony

The Caesar holds supreme power over the Hegemony, with the ability to veto or propose any bill in front of the senate. Only a third of the senators need to support any bill proposed by the Caesar for it to be approved.

Senate is elected yearly, allowing for incompetent leadership to be quickly cycled through. The commanders of the various legions are also given senatorial roles without election. The Senate used to meet twice a year, but this has increased to 6 times a year in recent times. Senators can send aides to serve for them in those meetings when they are unable to be present themselves. Senators are also required to work on various committees, where they are named by the Caesar. They do need to be ratified by the rest of the Senate.

The lowest ranks in the citizens have access to the Plebian Tribunate. Positions in the tribunate are elected for 4 years, and they serve as advisor to the Senate, Senate committee and Caesar. The Tribunes also serve as mayoral and local politicians, managing local budgets for national infrastructure.

Slavery in the Hegemony

Unlike most states in the Inner Sphere, slavery is fully legal and encouraged in the Marian Hegemony. While a inherited state for many, the Hegemony is known for buying slaves from the Magistracy of Canopus, Rim Territories or minor pirate groups. Another source of slaves are prisoners captured during military operations. While they have very limited rights, there are multiple protections in Marian law for them. Slave owners are required to feed, clothe, house, provide medical care and protection. Failure to do so will have the owner facing monetary penalties. These can range up to the loss of ownership of his slaves. Slaves are also guaranteed freedom of religion and a number of rest days a years, which have increased since Ignatius O’Reilly took power.

A slave can buy his freedom over time, or by senatorial liberation. Slaves who are viewed as “essential to the state” will receive a senatorial stipend, which they can save to buy themselves (or a member of their family) out of servitude.

Education

Education has become the best mean for someone within the Marian Hegemony to escape their pre-established caste. Legally, even slaves have access to free primary and secondary education. While the establishments providing such education are varied depending on the class, there are standardized testing which all are expected to complete, as per Adrijana Vouk, the wife of the current Caesar.

This education reform led to a growth in the quality of the education to the lower classes, where even slaves are now literate and understand basic mathematics, finance and history. This education system has developed into a system to provide the military, corporations and government with the best pupils to develop themselves. The top 10% are given opportunities for permanent careers in these various positions. The establishment of post-secondary education by the Marian government, rather than sending prospect to the Magistracy of Canopus or Timbuktu Collective, as improved national pride. Even people from the slave class can elevate themselves if their results on standardized testing are good enough.

Economy

While a lot of Inner Sphere powers (and other Periphery powers) try to depict the Marian Hegemony as a slaver state, this is far from the truth. The Hegemony built its wealth around a germanium deposit on Alphard, which is still being mined to this day. The Alphard system also features other germanium deposits on other worlds and in the asteroid belts. This has been sold heavily to ComStar, the Word of Blake, Lyran Commonwealth and Free Worlds League for both HPG construction and to build JumpShips.

Other natural wealth of the Marian Expanse include massive deposits of lithium, necessary for construction of fuel cell engines and lithium-fusion batteries, especially on Illyria. Pompey III has massive deposits of diamonds (generally used in industrial processes) along with fire opals (for jewelry and laser focusing arrays). New Venice has recently opened a high-quality graphite mine, which is used in manufacturing fusion power plants. The majority of the people employed in the mining industry are plebs, unlike what is said by other nations.

As a small periphery nation, the Marian Hegemony also has multiple larger military industrial corporations. Compared to the Filvelt Coalition, as an example, the Hegemony features 3 major weapons manufacturer rather than 1. Marian Arms is the largest of the three, focusing on a lot of heavy weaponry with a renewed focus on Battle Armor and BattleMechs. The Caesar’s own Alphard Trading Corporation does manage a lot of the mining operations in the Marian Expanse. They have grown to produce many advanced pieces of hardware after a partnership with Kali-Yama. Hadrian Mechanized Industries is the smallest of the three but have recently started producing DropShips and expanding into new markets.

Military Assets

See Marian Hegemony Armed Forces.

Production

The Marian Hegemony is known for having created the modern Rocket Launcher, so a lot of ‘Mech refits built for them have featured these. In more recent years, however, they have concentrated on more advanced and reliable weapon systems comparable to what the Successor States and Clans have been building. The heaviest ‘Mechs in production in the Hegemony are a copy of Blackwell Industries Marauder II, a copy of the old Terran Hegemony Emperor and a stolen copy of Robinson’s Sagittaire. While not produced in large quantities, the fact a “minor periphery power” is able to arm itself with such advanced weapons is surprising.

The majority of the ‘Mech production of the Hegemony, however, concentrates around medium ‘Mechs. The Centurion was the first “home built” model for the Marians, originally as “retrotech” machines. With deals with Kali-Yama, the Alphard Trading Company has started building Hunchbacks and Quasimodos, which are often styled like roman soldiers as well. For light ‘mechs, the MHAF has been relying heavily on the classic Locust and their own refit of the Commando. Hadrian Mechanized Industries has started building their own version of the Panther recently as well.

Most recently, however, the MHAF has started buying old OmniMechs from foreign powers, as well as building some of their own through their dealing with Kali-Yama. This is mainly due to how many Battle Armors have been produced in the Hegemony recently, with multiple plants producing the locally created Marauder Battle Armor, Ravager and the traditional Inner Sphere Standard.