icehellion Sun Apr 19, 2009 2:11 pm
Excerpts from On the Clans, Ordo Libraconis
The Clans....
Whenever an inhabitant of the Terran Hegemony hears their name, he can’t help but feel a shiver creep up his spine at the mention. Even today, centuries after the end of the Terran Crusade, mothers still use mention of the Clans to threaten unruly children when they are bad.
But the truth of who the modern Clans are since they joined the Terran Hegemony is a far cry from the Clans of old. Does anyone remember when last their Senators raised their voices only in the interest of their people? The answer is as simple as it is surprising: no one. Yet, there are many members of the Hegemony that do not trust the Clans, their secretive ways and their peculiar customs.
This general wariness towards the Clans finds its roots in the distant past, during the legendary period of the Terran Crusades. And for these very reasons the Hegemony as a whole does not know a great deal about the Clans and their early history. However, it is our duty in the Ordo Libraconis to try to bring light to the shadows of history for the greater good of all.
What is now commonly agreed upon is that the Clans did not exist prior to the end of the Crusade and it was the actions of one legendary man (or woman): Ooïnn, who created the modern Clans as their exist today.
The origin of those who would become the Clans can be traced originally back to several post-Age of Strife « tribes » living in the few habitable areas of Northern Europe, on Terra. These hard people managed to survive the early years of the Age of Isolation and the resulting Civil Wars because of the remote areas of their habitation were difficult to access and held nothing of interest to various warlords and petty dictators that scavenged over the remains of Europe’s surviving resources. These early tribes were known to have transient populations in the regions known as Alba, Éire, Skaðinawjo, and Gallia Belgica.
Editor note: It is rather unlikely that these places really existed. What is known is that many of these areas of legend contained common denominators that joined the Clan ancestors together.
These ancient forefathers of the Clans seemed to have enjoyed very few advanced resources but managed to thrive in the semi-arctic north as either nomadic hunter-gatherers or nomadic pastors, trading goods amongst themselves. The harsh conditions and the general upheaval of southern Europe kept the northern tribes isolated and separated from the other populations of Earth, coupled with a fierce defence of their traditional territories, the only things important to the Tribes were their independence and their honour, the real currencies of these simple people.
Thus, when the Cult of Terra finally came to the lands of the Clans, they found a group of fiercely independently minded people who did not find reason in following the hollow precepts of preaching zealots. The Clans only wanted to remain left to their own devices. Unfortunately, this simple request would not be honoured. As with any religion preaching unification and superiority through survival, the Cult of Terra could not let any pocket of heretics, even the smallest one, survive outside of the flock.
The first missionaries sent to these feral regions returned to their homelands frustrated and spurred away, but vowing to return.
They did return, but came back not with honey combed words of salvation or prosperity, but with threats and curses of damnation. Never ones to abide dissidents or trouble makers, these fiery missionaries were quickly dispatched or expelled, quickly becoming martyrs to their cause, while fuelling the boiling hatred of the Cult of Terra against those deemed unbelievers.
What followed was a bloody war or attrition between the Cult of Terra and the Clans. The Cult, utilizing their larger size and superior arms launched their armies against the outnumbered inhabitants of the remote north. As could be expected when a technologically superior and religiously motivated nation fights a smaller, less advanced nation struggling for independence from the other, the war was devastating. Surprisingly, the nomads (this is what the Ordo refers to the Clans pre-Hegemony, but post reclamation.) survived, even bloodying the forces of the Cult of Terra by using superior knowledge of their homeland to offset their smaller numbers and simple technology. A close study of previous conflicts would have made the outcome of this fight rather obvious to most observers, but the nomads were not fighting a regular war but a vicious guerilla war for their very survival, the kind of war they were most suited to fight.
Seeing that the war was not going as well as first conceived, the Cult of Terra began to send additional forces to what was considered a rather unimportant front. Eventually some of the highest ruling members of the Cult of Terra began to believe that these endless conversion campaigns were a waste of precious resources and that alternatives might prove more lucrative for the Cult.
Although some disagreed with any other approach other than war, these reformists managed to gain a voice in the High Council, enabling them to launch a new policy of conversion and reclamation. This new policy began by unexpectedly withdrawing all military forces from the embattled Nomad Regions. As an uneasy peace settled over the area, Cult emissaries were sent by the High Council to open peace talks with the remaining Nomad tribes.
The emissaries’ new offer was completely contrary to their earlier attempts at conversion. The offer itself was quite simple: access to technology and supplies in exchange for the personal service of all their most able bodied warriors in the service of the Cult. Rather than forceful conversion the Cult hoped to exchange the Nomad’s strength into their own, perhaps gaining conversion through sustained exposure. To help ensure that this new treaty would be respected, several High Inquisitors would be left as hostages in the tribal settlements. Although many tribal members were at first sceptical and hostile to the idea, the hostage stipulation won them over. In their naivety, the Nomads believed that they had won. In truth, the so called “hostages” were actually tasked with converting from within.
For the Cult of Terra the new agreement proved to be extremely beneficial as warriors from the selected tribes were sent in other parts of the world where resistance to the Cult was extremely fierce. Fighting in small units actions, these warrior units earned great glory for their behaviour and sent news to their home the great deeds they were doing. As these stories of honour and glory attracted more and more Clan youngsters from the neighbouring tribes into service, the Cult of Terra began to slowly increase its military presence in more and more areas while offering other tribes the same agreements. Soon, tribal lands were quietly depopulated of nomad warriors and slowly filled with Cult soldiers. This process continued until there were only a few pockets of resistance, unable to represent a serious threat to the Cult of Terra or their new order.
Then began the he most important part of the new conversion system: the indoctrination of the remaining members of the Nomads. Thanks to their access to high technology and their wisdom, the High Inquisitors of the Cult slowly began to educate the children of the Nomads, thus slowly increasing the influence of the Cult in the Clans until it was officially embraced by the vast majority of the population.
Eventually, the Nomad Warriors became the ethos of the archetype Terran Crusader: utterly fanatical, and utterly loyal to the Cult of Terran. Although the first warrior reinforcements deployed by the Cult were little more than highly skilled fighters, they quickly became the most fanatical believers of the Cult having been converted from within to be true believers. Within only a few generations, the roots of the now famous Ceithernn units, which proved integral to the Cult’s final conquest of Terra were set.
