Arcadia
Single star system
Spectral type: G4V
System Position: 3rd
Moons: 1, Artemis
Surface Gravity: 1.02 g
Atmospheric pressure: Standard (breathable)
Equatorial temperature: 35 degree Celsius (Temperate)
Surface water: 76%
Highest native life: Mammals, avians, reptiles, aquatic
Founding: 2230
Ruler: Duchess Sara-Marie Proctor, March-Princess of the Free March
Capital: Roslyn (Planetary), Laughlin Capital District (Free March)
Population: 4.08 Billion (3030 Census)
Socio-Industrial Levels: B-B-C-B-A
First explored by Henry Sinclair of Skye in 2229, the planet's raw appeal as a garden world and breadbasket prompted its naming after the classic image of unspoiled Greek wilderness. Arcadia was initially a trading outpost of Skye. The initial settlers were of Gaelic extraction - Scots and Irish - but quickly joined by North Americans primarily from New England and Nova Scotia and a concentration of Greek settlers. The main continent, named Islay, enjoys several fertile river valleys and concentrations of fisheries off all coasts save the Arctic coast. Islay stretches from the Arctic to twenty degrees south of the equator, a continent of a land mass on par with Eurasia. Across a two hundred kilometer strait to the southwest is the primary continent of the Southern Hemisphere, Munster (originally South Uist), a continent equal to both Americas in proportion but entirely below the equator save for an equatorial peninsula formed by the northern extension of the continent's primary mountain range, the highest on Arcadia. A second continent named Mull, about one and a half times the size of Australia, is to the east of Munster, while the secondary continent of the Northern Hemisphere, Constantine (originally North Uist), is to the north and off the western coast of Islay. The largest sea, the Arcadian Ocean, is to the west of Constantine, north of Mull, and east of Islay, and is home to a number of volcanic islands, although it does not have the "ring of fire" that the Pacific basin has on Terra.
In terms of population, Islay is the most populated. The bulk of the population is on the east coast, where the planetary capital of Roslyn and the major commercial and cultural city Sannazaro are the main metropoles. To the northeast of Sannazaro, the Plymouth Peninsula juts out into the Arcadian Ocean and is a colder temperate region that's home to North American-descended settlers with cities named for New England cities. In the heart of the continent rich farmlands fed by several river systems give the planet the bulk of its wheat, barley, oats, and other grain production, including grains native to Arcadia. The Pan River, the longest river on the planet, is central to several of these systems, with the largest network of tributaries, and the city of Mantinea to serve as the center for the agricultural areas. West of Mantinea the population of Anglo-Scot Arcadians diminishes compared to the Greeks. Constantine, along with the districts on Islay's western coast, are the homes of Arcadia's Greek population and their largest city, Arcas, while Munster has the largest Irish-Arcadian population. Mull, due to the weather patterns and mountain layout, is primarily arid and semi-arid high plateaus with some lush farmland on the eastern and northern coastline. The interior of Mull is inhospitable desert, the worst on the planet, but home to some of the best concentrations of strategic minerals and resources Arcadia has, retaining their richness even after nearly seven centuries of extraction. The interior population is almost entirely transient to provide for the mines, although settlers from Ethiopia, Somalia, and similar lands of East Africa have made several small towns and cities to support their agrarian lifestyle. The Afro-Arcadians provide a significant share of the military volunteers from Arcadia by proportion of population. They and a small population of Melanesians and Anglo-Arcadians provide the majority population for the various Arcadian Ocean island chains. The most unique of these are the Iaukean Islands, an archipelago of tropical and subtropical islands equal in biodiversity and size to the Indonesian and Philippine archipelagos on Earth. They were initially settled by American Pacific Islanders and Hawai'ians but since joined by Balinese and Papuan peoples. Over the centuries a unique culture has formed among the island dwellers, who speak both English and a particular patois of English, Hawai'ian, Samoan, various Papuan languages, and Balinese, making Iaukeans one of the most unique ethno-linguistic ccmmunities in the entire Inner Sphere.
Arcadia remained a world of the Federation of Skye until the formation of the Lyran Commonwealth. Over the centuries it remained a border system with the Free Worlds League, becoming a battleground for a time during the Age of War. Under the Star League the system flourished, becoming a designated SLDF supply world with an SLDF-subsidized shipyard built in orbit of Artemis to take advantage of the moon's rich veins of minerals, including germanium. Star League technology enabled the automation of mines in the Mull interior, allowing the mineral wealth of the planet to be extracted without subjecting Human beings to the temperature extremes there, where in the daytime temperatures could spike into the lower fifties (Celsius) while at night they plunged to zero and below.
At the fall of the Star League House Marik's troops made repeated raids, damaging the Artemis Yards and on-planet military facilities, although Arcadia was spared the use of nuclear weapons that ravaged other worlds. Nevertheless, the planet's economy suffered severely in the coming decades, as the First Succession War quickly gave way to the continued horror of the Second. Skye's separation from the Lyran Commonwealth in 2849 began a period of chaos that came to Arcadia with the collapse of House Steiner's authority. The ruling family of the time, the Duncans, had increasing difficulty keeping order as pirates multiplied in the absence of organized military authority. Mercenaries, mostly the broken remnants of LCAF and FWLM units gone rogue, were hired to supplement the Duncans' house forces.
This ultimately proved disastrous. The mercenaries known as Lange's Lashers, under their commander Norman Johns, grew discontent with working for the Duncans. Conspiring with mercenary units across the planet, Johns suddenly and with great violence sacked Roslyn and the Ducal Palace, killing the Duncan family to the last child. He proclaimed himself ruler and immediately started warring with the other nobles of the planet and mercenaries who were jealous of his rise, each side raiding one another for access to resources. When this raiding led to the destruction of the Star League-era mines in Mull and numerous other assets, the planet's economy collapsed.
This began what Arcadians would later lament as "The Age of Chains". As the technology for resource extraction declined, raw manpower became necessary to see to the farms and mines. Johns and his peers among the mercenary warlords and the nobility began conscription of labor in their holdings. This conscription grew in scope and in duration, with allies often selling the labor of their talented workers to one another. It didn't take long for this to outright escalate to chattel slavery. Raids were soon targeting the planetary population as much as their food and minerals, especially for those warlords who controlled mines in Mull that now had to be operated by manpower, not machines.
The Age of Chains defined two generations, considered as roughly beginning around 2870 with Johns' "Labor Decree". By 2890 ownership of another human being was a mark of privilege among the warlords and their officers, whether they came by military compulsion or from desperate Arcadians selling themselves to provide for their families. History would know these warlords as the "Slaver Lords", a title they obviously never adopted among themselves. Only on Constantine and the Greek-majority districts of Islay did this system never take hold, and in Mull and the Iaukean Islands the local nobility and population sustained a decades-long guerrilla war against the Slaver Lords' forces.
By this time, Norman Johns was dead, killed in a 'Mech duel by an ambitious young officer in Lange's Lashers, Carl Tabot. A MechWarrior of consummate skill and the owner and pilot of an SLDF ZEU-5T Zeus Assault BattleMech, Tabot seized control of Johns' holdings, using assassination and murder to eliminate rivals in the Lashers while expanding his control to include the Plymouth Peninsula as well as the eastern districts of Islay. Taking the title of "the Prince of Sannazaro" and making the northern metropole his capital, "Prince Carl" was ruthless in expanding the forced labor system and the institutions of slavery, which he saw as the natural conclusion to the feudalism gripping Arcadia and the rest of the Inner Sphere. From 2888 to the 2920s, he expanded his holdings to include all of Mull's interior mines and half of Munster, declaring himself "High Lord of Arcadia" in 2921. He was without reservation a tyrant, and a bloody-handed one. Every year thousands of people, Arcadians and captives from neighboring worlds, perished in the mines of Mull from heatstroke, dehydration, exposure, or from the wounds inflicted by the cruel punishments of Tabot's taskmasters. Towns and cities that resisted the yearly culling of conscription were subjected to the equivalent of a medieval sacking, their populations carted off into slavery.
The bloodshed was about to get worse. In 2921 the nobility of Constantine refused to submit to his demand to recognize his proclaimed sovereignty and provide their citizens as slaves to Tabot's holdings. In retaliation he employed a DropShip-carried force that sacked the continent's second largest city, Levidi, and took the citizenry into slavery, including the Count of Levidi's entire family. This sparked a savage war against the rest of the Greek enclave that tied up the majority of his forces for the next five years. For all their inferiority in resources, including BattleMech and Aerospace weaponry, the Greeks fought with courage and delayed Tabot's advances repeatedly, suffering great cost in human life as they did. By 2926, their Islay holdings had fallen, as had half of Constantine and most of the outlying New Cyclades Islands. The fall of the city of Maui cost them access to the support of the Iaukean nobility, who continued their own bloody struggle as best as they could. Tabot was at the cusp of subduing all of Arcadia.
The turning of the tide came from an unexpected source. In February 2926 a fleet of DropShips arrived in-system and burned in, the largest grouping of incoming forces seen since the collapse of the Lyran Commonwealth. At the head of the armada was an unassuming cargo DropShip called the Melanie, and her master was a daughter of Arcadia's Plymouth Peninsula and, as chance would have it, an escaped household slave of Tabot himself. That woman was Sara Proctor, a traveler and adventuress of some fame to the Inner Sphere. Now wealthy from the proceeds of her adventures and the trading expeditions of the Melanie, she invested most of that wealth in the armada at her back, bearing with them an army of trained MechWarriors and combat troops from across the Inner Sphere, including the bulk of the legendary Warrior Monks of St. Cameron. When challenged by the system traffic controllers, Proctor openly broadcast her intent to destroy the forces of the Slaver Lords, end Tabot's rule, and "restore peace, freedom, and tranquility to our mother world". Enraged at her impertinence (and remembering her as one of his escaped slaves) Tabot ordered a fighter strike, but his three wings of run-down aerospace fighters soon found themselves in mortal combat with her aerospace contingent, led by a wing of the famed Heaven's White Ascenders. Tabot lost the bulk of his air power in a single engagement while the Greek-Arcadians broadcast their willingness to host Proctor's troops.
Instead of merely landing in their territory, however, Proctor's forces struck from orbit, hitting the occupied city of Leuktra on Islay's western coast. The battalion of BattleMechs and attached armor and infantry left by Tabot to inhabit the major city fought a ferocious action, but with the heroism of the Warrior Monks and Proctor's personal advance on the field piloting her Crusader 'Mech, they fell in two days of fighting. Not only did the battle result in the liberation of Leuktra and the annihilation of Tabot's forces there, it first demonstrated to the people of Arcadia that the commander of the Liberation Army was a skilled MechWarrior in her own right.
This was the opening shot of the Liberation War, a two year struggle for control of the planet's vital points between Tabot's forces and Proctor's. Tabot rallied mercs to his side as well and won support from the Duke (or Amir) of Dar-es-Salaam, who assigned a battalion of his personal 'Mech regiment to Tabot's aid. Proctor, her war chest enlarged by the Greeks and by the admiring Duke of Gienah, Mordecai Shaltiel, maintained her own mercenary forces while purchasing weapons and equipment off the Inner Sphere markets for Arcadian volunteers.
The conflict raged on every continent as Proctor's fleet of ships allowed her to deploy rapidly against Tabot's key assets, while Tabot used lightning raids and retaliatory massacres to cow the populace from openly supporting her. The first great blow for Tabot came in October 2926 with the loss of the McCreary Germanium Mines in Munster, giving the Liberation Army a new source of income and denying it to Tabot. At the start of 2927 Tabot attempted a hammer blow on Arcas itself, looking to crush the center of the Greek-Arcadian lands, but a stout defense by the Greek forces and the newly-arrived Douglas' Highlanders mercenaries not only saved Arcas, it tied down Tabot's forces long enough for Proctor's troops to launch a large-scale offensive on Mull, liberating thousands of suffering slaves from the mines and cutting off Tabot's main source of several valuable raw materials. With his resources cut and his troops in shambles, Tabot was compelled to withdraw past Mantinea on Islay and take all of his garrisons from Munster and Mull. In April he lost his positions in the Iaukeans, losing the city of Maui to a combined force of local guerrillas and the Warrior Monks.
Yet he wasn't beaten, as among other things, he still had the Rayhan Cavalry's battalion of heavy and medium BattleMechs as a reserve. With them he delivered a harsh blow to a feeler attack against his positions that May. When Jonesburgh, one of the cities in Southern Islay, rose up against him, he sent them to crush the city as punishment, while ordering other troops to move to Mantinea and executed the former slaves there. Proctor's main forces saved Jonesburgh and compelled the Dar-es-Salaam troops to withdraw, but that left them unable to aid the former slaves in Mantinea. They would have been slaughtered by the thousands if not for the Warrior Monks of St. Cameron. Two battalions of Monk MechWarriors met four times their number at Mantinea, backed by tanks, airbreathing jet craft, and mechanized infantry, and repelled them repeatedly until, after several hours of intense fighting, the last Monk fell to Tabot's troops. Regardless, their sacrifice saved Mantinea, as Proctor's forces arrived by DropShip to repel the battered Tabot troops before they could commence the slaughter. Their losses proved so significant that in an act of daring, Proctor bypassed their positions in the interior plains and landed a force at Roslyn, the former planetary capital. Her troops swiftly secured the city and surrounding area, giving them not only a foothold in Eastern Islay but forcing a complete withdrawal from Southern and Central Islay by Tabot's forces. He'd taken a potentially crippling foe.
The liberation of Roslyn also brought with it possession of the old Kong Interstellar Defense Works of Roslyn, a Star League-era factory complex contracted to build Black Knight BattleMechs and Zero light aerospace fighters for the SLDF. While the fighter construction machinery was damaged and couldn't be restored at the time, by the end of the year a volunteer engineer from Terra and other experts had the Defense Works producing the Black Knight for the Liberation Army. Proctor was given the first machine off the line, although she still piloted her Crusader.
With potential defeat staring him in the face, Tabot decided the quickest way to end the war was to kill his personal nemesis. After gathering his troops, he launched a massive assault on Plymouth Peninsula, declaring that unless Proctor surrendered he would kill every living being and burn down every town. His troops hit with enough force to brush aside Nathaniel Proctor's Light Horse of New Salem regiment, although the skirmishers did take the lives of several Tabot officers in the fighting, and readied to enact the decree.
Proctor took the field with the bulk of her army. In the Battle of Worcester, the Liberation forces and Prince Tabot's armies met in a savage brawl that left the city mostly destroyed and inflicted severe losses on both sides. While Tabot's troops were forced to retreat ultimately, Tabot nevertheless nearly managed his victory. During the battle, his command unit sent repeated attacks on Proctor's personal unit, weakening her command company, and allowing Tabot and his SLDF-era Zeus to ruin her weakened BattleMech. Only by the self-sacrifice of a companion and the efforts of the bodyguard company of the Baron of Kalios, Ioulianos (Julian) Kalides, saved her life after her Crusader was left utterly destroyed.
Yet she did survive her injuries, and the victory cut yet further into the lands held by the most powerful, and now last, of the "Slaver Lords". Tabot was reduced to Poussin and Sannazaro along the eastern coast. But these two metropoles still had significant industry, including a factory complex for building BattleMechs, and the Murray Mountain Range served to limit the points of advance. With a defense in depth and heavy employment of anti-air, Tabot could buy time, and indeed tried to, seeking more aid from the ruler of Dar-es-Salaam and the loyalty of pirates and mercenaries desperate for plunder. If given time, he could rebuild his forces and yet drive back Proctor's army.
As it was, it took Proctor two months to recover from her wounds at Worcester, but after she did, she took the field again and, with the Greek commanders, hatched an offensive plan. In March, her troops struck at and seized several locations within Tabot's defensive perimeter, laying siege to his lines from multiple directions with her superior DropShip assets.
Yet Tabot felt confident. Just as his resources were waning, the sheer number of troops necessary to garrison the planet were exhausting Proctor's. He saw the attack as a desperation bid to overwhelm him by forces too spread out to do so effectively, and upon hearing Proctor's unit was within his defensive perimeter, set out with his own personal unit to finish what he started at Worcester. He considered himself the superior MechWarrior and strategist: it was time to kill his would-be usurper and take back the world that was his by right of his martial power and skill.
Unfortunately for him, Proctor anticipated his reaction. As soon as he came down on her troops and the remaining Warrior Monks, they fell back on the defensive to draw him in. Tabot, determined to kill her - by then unhinged by the very mention of her, witnesses claimed - drove on… and right into her trap. Reserves hidden from his troops came in and trapped his unit, subjecting it to deadly fire from all sides. In the fighting Proctor challenged him again, this time in her new Black Knight. Though her machine gave up five tons on his, it was still another SLDF machine, and the two were close enough that talent told. And hers, in the end, proved the superior talent. At the town of Parnon west-southwest of Sannazaro the self-proclaimed "High Lord of Arcadia" was slain by his own former slave. The Age of Chains was over.
The death of Tabot was the effective end of the war. While his son Matthew and his most loyal officers fled the planet with the aid of the Dar-es-Salaam troops rather than surrender, many of his troops preferred a hope of amnesty instead of guaranteed death with further resistance. Across the planet celebrations broke out at the success and the end of the Age of Chains. Sara Proctor, now widely known as "The Liberator", was the most beloved woman on the planet.
With the full support of her allied nobility, as well as the leaders of Jonesburgh and other cities and towns saved by Proctor, Sara was declared the Duchess of Arcadia by acclamation in the first Arcadian Council of Nobles meeting in decades, overcoming resistance from traditionalists in the Islay and Munster nobility. To assuage the protocol officers and the sentiments of those traditionalists, the rightful Count of Plymouth, a returned exile named Randolph Carter, named her the Baroness of New Salem first. In a political move to consolidate support among the nobility, she accepted the Baron of Kalios as her husband. Their first son, named for her slain companion William who died at Worcester, was born in 2931, and they would have two more children - Jacob and Zoe - to round out the ruling family.
Duchess Sara looked to the rebuilding of Arcadia, cutting military spending as far as she could while still retaining two veteran regiments, the Arcadian Guards and Arcadian Rangers, to see to pirate attacks and planetary defense. Her first decade was a time of recovery and rebuilding the destroyed cities, finding homes for war refugees, and other necessary works to revitalize the planet, and while it led to the exhaustion of the planet's wealth, the Arcadian economy was on the rebound by the late 2930s. An indebted world, Arcadia's nascent industrial sector soon exported to less industrialized worlds while her plentiful agricultural bounty fed worlds as far as Bolan, providing C-bills for her treasury to repay reconstruction loans before they broke the planet's credit. Investment ensured the shipyards at Artemis were brought back online enough to resume civilian DropShip and JumpShip production, funneling more C-Bills into Arcadia's recovery coffers. By 2956, Arcadia was the greatest economic power among the independent worlds between Bolan and Hesperus, and her cities grew with immigrants fleeing the chaos and strife of the rest of the Inner Sphere.
This economic and growing military power attracted attention, and interest. Diplomatic talks began and in that same year, soon after her 66th birthday, Duchess Sara was named ruler of the newly formed Arcadian Free March, taking the title of March-Princess.
Much of the history of the following decades is the history of the Free March, not simply Arcadia itself. Nevertheless Arcadia has flourished as the capital of the Free March. It barely had a population of one and a quarter billion by the end of the Age of Chains, but a post-war baby boom and immigration brought it past three billion by the end of the Liberator's life in 2986. The population boom has waned since, but it still grows, with the Arcadian population ticking in at just over four billion at the 3030 census. To the rest of the Inner Sphere, Arcadia is a vibrant planet with a prominent and advancing industrial sector, and an agricultural bounty that has not failed.
There is hope that advancing technology will yet see a reactivation to the Star League-era automated mines in Mull, providing rich resources to reduce reliance on imports from the rest of the Free March.
A sense of destiny pervades the myriad peoples of Arcadia, be they ranchers in the semi-arid steppe of Mull or the humble townships and farmers of Plymouth. The Age of Chains and the Liberation have shaped Arcadian society, giving them a firm commitment to the principles of liberty they consider a God-given right and a refusal to bow to the whims of tyrants ever again. The motto of their rulers is the motto etched in the hearts of every Arcadian: Audemus Jura Nostra Defendere. "We Dare Defend Our Rights". The planetary flag's re-design best reflects their view of their experiences of the 29th and early 30th Centuries: a fiery phoenix with wings spread set against a forested, snow-capped mountain.
Single star system
Spectral type: G4V
System Position: 3rd
Moons: 1, Artemis
Surface Gravity: 1.02 g
Atmospheric pressure: Standard (breathable)
Equatorial temperature: 35 degree Celsius (Temperate)
Surface water: 76%
Highest native life: Mammals, avians, reptiles, aquatic
Founding: 2230
Ruler: Duchess Sara-Marie Proctor, March-Princess of the Free March
Capital: Roslyn (Planetary), Laughlin Capital District (Free March)
Population: 4.08 Billion (3030 Census)
Socio-Industrial Levels: B-B-C-B-A
First explored by Henry Sinclair of Skye in 2229, the planet's raw appeal as a garden world and breadbasket prompted its naming after the classic image of unspoiled Greek wilderness. Arcadia was initially a trading outpost of Skye. The initial settlers were of Gaelic extraction - Scots and Irish - but quickly joined by North Americans primarily from New England and Nova Scotia and a concentration of Greek settlers. The main continent, named Islay, enjoys several fertile river valleys and concentrations of fisheries off all coasts save the Arctic coast. Islay stretches from the Arctic to twenty degrees south of the equator, a continent of a land mass on par with Eurasia. Across a two hundred kilometer strait to the southwest is the primary continent of the Southern Hemisphere, Munster (originally South Uist), a continent equal to both Americas in proportion but entirely below the equator save for an equatorial peninsula formed by the northern extension of the continent's primary mountain range, the highest on Arcadia. A second continent named Mull, about one and a half times the size of Australia, is to the east of Munster, while the secondary continent of the Northern Hemisphere, Constantine (originally North Uist), is to the north and off the western coast of Islay. The largest sea, the Arcadian Ocean, is to the west of Constantine, north of Mull, and east of Islay, and is home to a number of volcanic islands, although it does not have the "ring of fire" that the Pacific basin has on Terra.
In terms of population, Islay is the most populated. The bulk of the population is on the east coast, where the planetary capital of Roslyn and the major commercial and cultural city Sannazaro are the main metropoles. To the northeast of Sannazaro, the Plymouth Peninsula juts out into the Arcadian Ocean and is a colder temperate region that's home to North American-descended settlers with cities named for New England cities. In the heart of the continent rich farmlands fed by several river systems give the planet the bulk of its wheat, barley, oats, and other grain production, including grains native to Arcadia. The Pan River, the longest river on the planet, is central to several of these systems, with the largest network of tributaries, and the city of Mantinea to serve as the center for the agricultural areas. West of Mantinea the population of Anglo-Scot Arcadians diminishes compared to the Greeks. Constantine, along with the districts on Islay's western coast, are the homes of Arcadia's Greek population and their largest city, Arcas, while Munster has the largest Irish-Arcadian population. Mull, due to the weather patterns and mountain layout, is primarily arid and semi-arid high plateaus with some lush farmland on the eastern and northern coastline. The interior of Mull is inhospitable desert, the worst on the planet, but home to some of the best concentrations of strategic minerals and resources Arcadia has, retaining their richness even after nearly seven centuries of extraction. The interior population is almost entirely transient to provide for the mines, although settlers from Ethiopia, Somalia, and similar lands of East Africa have made several small towns and cities to support their agrarian lifestyle. The Afro-Arcadians provide a significant share of the military volunteers from Arcadia by proportion of population. They and a small population of Melanesians and Anglo-Arcadians provide the majority population for the various Arcadian Ocean island chains. The most unique of these are the Iaukean Islands, an archipelago of tropical and subtropical islands equal in biodiversity and size to the Indonesian and Philippine archipelagos on Earth. They were initially settled by American Pacific Islanders and Hawai'ians but since joined by Balinese and Papuan peoples. Over the centuries a unique culture has formed among the island dwellers, who speak both English and a particular patois of English, Hawai'ian, Samoan, various Papuan languages, and Balinese, making Iaukeans one of the most unique ethno-linguistic ccmmunities in the entire Inner Sphere.
Arcadia remained a world of the Federation of Skye until the formation of the Lyran Commonwealth. Over the centuries it remained a border system with the Free Worlds League, becoming a battleground for a time during the Age of War. Under the Star League the system flourished, becoming a designated SLDF supply world with an SLDF-subsidized shipyard built in orbit of Artemis to take advantage of the moon's rich veins of minerals, including germanium. Star League technology enabled the automation of mines in the Mull interior, allowing the mineral wealth of the planet to be extracted without subjecting Human beings to the temperature extremes there, where in the daytime temperatures could spike into the lower fifties (Celsius) while at night they plunged to zero and below.
At the fall of the Star League House Marik's troops made repeated raids, damaging the Artemis Yards and on-planet military facilities, although Arcadia was spared the use of nuclear weapons that ravaged other worlds. Nevertheless, the planet's economy suffered severely in the coming decades, as the First Succession War quickly gave way to the continued horror of the Second. Skye's separation from the Lyran Commonwealth in 2849 began a period of chaos that came to Arcadia with the collapse of House Steiner's authority. The ruling family of the time, the Duncans, had increasing difficulty keeping order as pirates multiplied in the absence of organized military authority. Mercenaries, mostly the broken remnants of LCAF and FWLM units gone rogue, were hired to supplement the Duncans' house forces.
This ultimately proved disastrous. The mercenaries known as Lange's Lashers, under their commander Norman Johns, grew discontent with working for the Duncans. Conspiring with mercenary units across the planet, Johns suddenly and with great violence sacked Roslyn and the Ducal Palace, killing the Duncan family to the last child. He proclaimed himself ruler and immediately started warring with the other nobles of the planet and mercenaries who were jealous of his rise, each side raiding one another for access to resources. When this raiding led to the destruction of the Star League-era mines in Mull and numerous other assets, the planet's economy collapsed.
This began what Arcadians would later lament as "The Age of Chains". As the technology for resource extraction declined, raw manpower became necessary to see to the farms and mines. Johns and his peers among the mercenary warlords and the nobility began conscription of labor in their holdings. This conscription grew in scope and in duration, with allies often selling the labor of their talented workers to one another. It didn't take long for this to outright escalate to chattel slavery. Raids were soon targeting the planetary population as much as their food and minerals, especially for those warlords who controlled mines in Mull that now had to be operated by manpower, not machines.
The Age of Chains defined two generations, considered as roughly beginning around 2870 with Johns' "Labor Decree". By 2890 ownership of another human being was a mark of privilege among the warlords and their officers, whether they came by military compulsion or from desperate Arcadians selling themselves to provide for their families. History would know these warlords as the "Slaver Lords", a title they obviously never adopted among themselves. Only on Constantine and the Greek-majority districts of Islay did this system never take hold, and in Mull and the Iaukean Islands the local nobility and population sustained a decades-long guerrilla war against the Slaver Lords' forces.
By this time, Norman Johns was dead, killed in a 'Mech duel by an ambitious young officer in Lange's Lashers, Carl Tabot. A MechWarrior of consummate skill and the owner and pilot of an SLDF ZEU-5T Zeus Assault BattleMech, Tabot seized control of Johns' holdings, using assassination and murder to eliminate rivals in the Lashers while expanding his control to include the Plymouth Peninsula as well as the eastern districts of Islay. Taking the title of "the Prince of Sannazaro" and making the northern metropole his capital, "Prince Carl" was ruthless in expanding the forced labor system and the institutions of slavery, which he saw as the natural conclusion to the feudalism gripping Arcadia and the rest of the Inner Sphere. From 2888 to the 2920s, he expanded his holdings to include all of Mull's interior mines and half of Munster, declaring himself "High Lord of Arcadia" in 2921. He was without reservation a tyrant, and a bloody-handed one. Every year thousands of people, Arcadians and captives from neighboring worlds, perished in the mines of Mull from heatstroke, dehydration, exposure, or from the wounds inflicted by the cruel punishments of Tabot's taskmasters. Towns and cities that resisted the yearly culling of conscription were subjected to the equivalent of a medieval sacking, their populations carted off into slavery.
The bloodshed was about to get worse. In 2921 the nobility of Constantine refused to submit to his demand to recognize his proclaimed sovereignty and provide their citizens as slaves to Tabot's holdings. In retaliation he employed a DropShip-carried force that sacked the continent's second largest city, Levidi, and took the citizenry into slavery, including the Count of Levidi's entire family. This sparked a savage war against the rest of the Greek enclave that tied up the majority of his forces for the next five years. For all their inferiority in resources, including BattleMech and Aerospace weaponry, the Greeks fought with courage and delayed Tabot's advances repeatedly, suffering great cost in human life as they did. By 2926, their Islay holdings had fallen, as had half of Constantine and most of the outlying New Cyclades Islands. The fall of the city of Maui cost them access to the support of the Iaukean nobility, who continued their own bloody struggle as best as they could. Tabot was at the cusp of subduing all of Arcadia.
The turning of the tide came from an unexpected source. In February 2926 a fleet of DropShips arrived in-system and burned in, the largest grouping of incoming forces seen since the collapse of the Lyran Commonwealth. At the head of the armada was an unassuming cargo DropShip called the Melanie, and her master was a daughter of Arcadia's Plymouth Peninsula and, as chance would have it, an escaped household slave of Tabot himself. That woman was Sara Proctor, a traveler and adventuress of some fame to the Inner Sphere. Now wealthy from the proceeds of her adventures and the trading expeditions of the Melanie, she invested most of that wealth in the armada at her back, bearing with them an army of trained MechWarriors and combat troops from across the Inner Sphere, including the bulk of the legendary Warrior Monks of St. Cameron. When challenged by the system traffic controllers, Proctor openly broadcast her intent to destroy the forces of the Slaver Lords, end Tabot's rule, and "restore peace, freedom, and tranquility to our mother world". Enraged at her impertinence (and remembering her as one of his escaped slaves) Tabot ordered a fighter strike, but his three wings of run-down aerospace fighters soon found themselves in mortal combat with her aerospace contingent, led by a wing of the famed Heaven's White Ascenders. Tabot lost the bulk of his air power in a single engagement while the Greek-Arcadians broadcast their willingness to host Proctor's troops.
Instead of merely landing in their territory, however, Proctor's forces struck from orbit, hitting the occupied city of Leuktra on Islay's western coast. The battalion of BattleMechs and attached armor and infantry left by Tabot to inhabit the major city fought a ferocious action, but with the heroism of the Warrior Monks and Proctor's personal advance on the field piloting her Crusader 'Mech, they fell in two days of fighting. Not only did the battle result in the liberation of Leuktra and the annihilation of Tabot's forces there, it first demonstrated to the people of Arcadia that the commander of the Liberation Army was a skilled MechWarrior in her own right.
This was the opening shot of the Liberation War, a two year struggle for control of the planet's vital points between Tabot's forces and Proctor's. Tabot rallied mercs to his side as well and won support from the Duke (or Amir) of Dar-es-Salaam, who assigned a battalion of his personal 'Mech regiment to Tabot's aid. Proctor, her war chest enlarged by the Greeks and by the admiring Duke of Gienah, Mordecai Shaltiel, maintained her own mercenary forces while purchasing weapons and equipment off the Inner Sphere markets for Arcadian volunteers.
The conflict raged on every continent as Proctor's fleet of ships allowed her to deploy rapidly against Tabot's key assets, while Tabot used lightning raids and retaliatory massacres to cow the populace from openly supporting her. The first great blow for Tabot came in October 2926 with the loss of the McCreary Germanium Mines in Munster, giving the Liberation Army a new source of income and denying it to Tabot. At the start of 2927 Tabot attempted a hammer blow on Arcas itself, looking to crush the center of the Greek-Arcadian lands, but a stout defense by the Greek forces and the newly-arrived Douglas' Highlanders mercenaries not only saved Arcas, it tied down Tabot's forces long enough for Proctor's troops to launch a large-scale offensive on Mull, liberating thousands of suffering slaves from the mines and cutting off Tabot's main source of several valuable raw materials. With his resources cut and his troops in shambles, Tabot was compelled to withdraw past Mantinea on Islay and take all of his garrisons from Munster and Mull. In April he lost his positions in the Iaukeans, losing the city of Maui to a combined force of local guerrillas and the Warrior Monks.
Yet he wasn't beaten, as among other things, he still had the Rayhan Cavalry's battalion of heavy and medium BattleMechs as a reserve. With them he delivered a harsh blow to a feeler attack against his positions that May. When Jonesburgh, one of the cities in Southern Islay, rose up against him, he sent them to crush the city as punishment, while ordering other troops to move to Mantinea and executed the former slaves there. Proctor's main forces saved Jonesburgh and compelled the Dar-es-Salaam troops to withdraw, but that left them unable to aid the former slaves in Mantinea. They would have been slaughtered by the thousands if not for the Warrior Monks of St. Cameron. Two battalions of Monk MechWarriors met four times their number at Mantinea, backed by tanks, airbreathing jet craft, and mechanized infantry, and repelled them repeatedly until, after several hours of intense fighting, the last Monk fell to Tabot's troops. Regardless, their sacrifice saved Mantinea, as Proctor's forces arrived by DropShip to repel the battered Tabot troops before they could commence the slaughter. Their losses proved so significant that in an act of daring, Proctor bypassed their positions in the interior plains and landed a force at Roslyn, the former planetary capital. Her troops swiftly secured the city and surrounding area, giving them not only a foothold in Eastern Islay but forcing a complete withdrawal from Southern and Central Islay by Tabot's forces. He'd taken a potentially crippling foe.
The liberation of Roslyn also brought with it possession of the old Kong Interstellar Defense Works of Roslyn, a Star League-era factory complex contracted to build Black Knight BattleMechs and Zero light aerospace fighters for the SLDF. While the fighter construction machinery was damaged and couldn't be restored at the time, by the end of the year a volunteer engineer from Terra and other experts had the Defense Works producing the Black Knight for the Liberation Army. Proctor was given the first machine off the line, although she still piloted her Crusader.
With potential defeat staring him in the face, Tabot decided the quickest way to end the war was to kill his personal nemesis. After gathering his troops, he launched a massive assault on Plymouth Peninsula, declaring that unless Proctor surrendered he would kill every living being and burn down every town. His troops hit with enough force to brush aside Nathaniel Proctor's Light Horse of New Salem regiment, although the skirmishers did take the lives of several Tabot officers in the fighting, and readied to enact the decree.
Proctor took the field with the bulk of her army. In the Battle of Worcester, the Liberation forces and Prince Tabot's armies met in a savage brawl that left the city mostly destroyed and inflicted severe losses on both sides. While Tabot's troops were forced to retreat ultimately, Tabot nevertheless nearly managed his victory. During the battle, his command unit sent repeated attacks on Proctor's personal unit, weakening her command company, and allowing Tabot and his SLDF-era Zeus to ruin her weakened BattleMech. Only by the self-sacrifice of a companion and the efforts of the bodyguard company of the Baron of Kalios, Ioulianos (Julian) Kalides, saved her life after her Crusader was left utterly destroyed.
Yet she did survive her injuries, and the victory cut yet further into the lands held by the most powerful, and now last, of the "Slaver Lords". Tabot was reduced to Poussin and Sannazaro along the eastern coast. But these two metropoles still had significant industry, including a factory complex for building BattleMechs, and the Murray Mountain Range served to limit the points of advance. With a defense in depth and heavy employment of anti-air, Tabot could buy time, and indeed tried to, seeking more aid from the ruler of Dar-es-Salaam and the loyalty of pirates and mercenaries desperate for plunder. If given time, he could rebuild his forces and yet drive back Proctor's army.
As it was, it took Proctor two months to recover from her wounds at Worcester, but after she did, she took the field again and, with the Greek commanders, hatched an offensive plan. In March, her troops struck at and seized several locations within Tabot's defensive perimeter, laying siege to his lines from multiple directions with her superior DropShip assets.
Yet Tabot felt confident. Just as his resources were waning, the sheer number of troops necessary to garrison the planet were exhausting Proctor's. He saw the attack as a desperation bid to overwhelm him by forces too spread out to do so effectively, and upon hearing Proctor's unit was within his defensive perimeter, set out with his own personal unit to finish what he started at Worcester. He considered himself the superior MechWarrior and strategist: it was time to kill his would-be usurper and take back the world that was his by right of his martial power and skill.
Unfortunately for him, Proctor anticipated his reaction. As soon as he came down on her troops and the remaining Warrior Monks, they fell back on the defensive to draw him in. Tabot, determined to kill her - by then unhinged by the very mention of her, witnesses claimed - drove on… and right into her trap. Reserves hidden from his troops came in and trapped his unit, subjecting it to deadly fire from all sides. In the fighting Proctor challenged him again, this time in her new Black Knight. Though her machine gave up five tons on his, it was still another SLDF machine, and the two were close enough that talent told. And hers, in the end, proved the superior talent. At the town of Parnon west-southwest of Sannazaro the self-proclaimed "High Lord of Arcadia" was slain by his own former slave. The Age of Chains was over.
The death of Tabot was the effective end of the war. While his son Matthew and his most loyal officers fled the planet with the aid of the Dar-es-Salaam troops rather than surrender, many of his troops preferred a hope of amnesty instead of guaranteed death with further resistance. Across the planet celebrations broke out at the success and the end of the Age of Chains. Sara Proctor, now widely known as "The Liberator", was the most beloved woman on the planet.
With the full support of her allied nobility, as well as the leaders of Jonesburgh and other cities and towns saved by Proctor, Sara was declared the Duchess of Arcadia by acclamation in the first Arcadian Council of Nobles meeting in decades, overcoming resistance from traditionalists in the Islay and Munster nobility. To assuage the protocol officers and the sentiments of those traditionalists, the rightful Count of Plymouth, a returned exile named Randolph Carter, named her the Baroness of New Salem first. In a political move to consolidate support among the nobility, she accepted the Baron of Kalios as her husband. Their first son, named for her slain companion William who died at Worcester, was born in 2931, and they would have two more children - Jacob and Zoe - to round out the ruling family.
Duchess Sara looked to the rebuilding of Arcadia, cutting military spending as far as she could while still retaining two veteran regiments, the Arcadian Guards and Arcadian Rangers, to see to pirate attacks and planetary defense. Her first decade was a time of recovery and rebuilding the destroyed cities, finding homes for war refugees, and other necessary works to revitalize the planet, and while it led to the exhaustion of the planet's wealth, the Arcadian economy was on the rebound by the late 2930s. An indebted world, Arcadia's nascent industrial sector soon exported to less industrialized worlds while her plentiful agricultural bounty fed worlds as far as Bolan, providing C-bills for her treasury to repay reconstruction loans before they broke the planet's credit. Investment ensured the shipyards at Artemis were brought back online enough to resume civilian DropShip and JumpShip production, funneling more C-Bills into Arcadia's recovery coffers. By 2956, Arcadia was the greatest economic power among the independent worlds between Bolan and Hesperus, and her cities grew with immigrants fleeing the chaos and strife of the rest of the Inner Sphere.
This economic and growing military power attracted attention, and interest. Diplomatic talks began and in that same year, soon after her 66th birthday, Duchess Sara was named ruler of the newly formed Arcadian Free March, taking the title of March-Princess.
Much of the history of the following decades is the history of the Free March, not simply Arcadia itself. Nevertheless Arcadia has flourished as the capital of the Free March. It barely had a population of one and a quarter billion by the end of the Age of Chains, but a post-war baby boom and immigration brought it past three billion by the end of the Liberator's life in 2986. The population boom has waned since, but it still grows, with the Arcadian population ticking in at just over four billion at the 3030 census. To the rest of the Inner Sphere, Arcadia is a vibrant planet with a prominent and advancing industrial sector, and an agricultural bounty that has not failed.
There is hope that advancing technology will yet see a reactivation to the Star League-era automated mines in Mull, providing rich resources to reduce reliance on imports from the rest of the Free March.
A sense of destiny pervades the myriad peoples of Arcadia, be they ranchers in the semi-arid steppe of Mull or the humble townships and farmers of Plymouth. The Age of Chains and the Liberation have shaped Arcadian society, giving them a firm commitment to the principles of liberty they consider a God-given right and a refusal to bow to the whims of tyrants ever again. The motto of their rulers is the motto etched in the hearts of every Arcadian: Audemus Jura Nostra Defendere. "We Dare Defend Our Rights". The planetary flag's re-design best reflects their view of their experiences of the 29th and early 30th Centuries: a fiery phoenix with wings spread set against a forested, snow-capped mountain.