[center][color=Silver][b]C O M M A N D   I N T E L[/b][/color][/center]

[hider=Gawain's Green Knights][center][img]https://i.imgur.com/eLoQcAy.png[/img][/center]

[center][color=Silver][b]Gawain’s Green Knights[/b][/color][/center]

Founded in 3018 during the closing years of the Third Succession War, Gawain’s Green Knights is a small mercenary command owned and operated by Colonel Gaius Wayne. Originally envisioned as a pirate-hunting outfit, The Green Knights were composed mostly of light and medium Battlemechs, backed by a small handful of fast-moving hovercraft and helicopters to run down and dispatch raiders along the Rimward Frontier. While small and unremarkable, they quickly established their reputation as efficient and reliable mercenaries.

In 3022, the Green Knights had been working for the Aurigan Coalition, protecting worlds owned by House Arano when their rival family, House Espinosa, staged a coup. Now caught up in what would spiral into the Restoration War, Colonel Wayne led the Green Knights into fast and deadly fighting against Espinosa’s troops. After three years of hard campaigning and heavy losses, House Arano was restored to the throne, and Gawain’s Green Knights given accolades for their accomplishments. Despite being offered a knighthood by High Lady Kamea Arano, Colonel Wayne declined, opting instead to venture back into the Frontier worlds and rebuild the Green Knights.

Over the next three years, the Green Knights recruited new members, gaining experience fighting border skirmishes for the Magistracy of Canopus and the Free Worlds League. While under contract for House Marik, they encountered particularly vicious fighting against the Marian Hegemony, a brutal raider kingdom. While they fulfilled their contract, Gaius Wayne lost his left arm in the fighting, rendering him unable to pilot his Mech. In the aftermath, the Green Knights took time to heal their wounds, signing on for what they believed to be an easy contract: garrison duty for the Capellan Confederation.

Operating at full strength, Gawain’s Green Knights consist of two Lances of four Battlemechs apiece, and another lance of armored vehicles, three platoons of infantry, and a small handful of aerial units for support. This puts their roster of combat personnel at just under a hundred people, but when including the crew of their Dropships, the technicians and astechs, medics, cooks, logistical support, administrative staff, and all of their spouses and children, the number of people under Colonel Wayne’s care is nearly five times that amount.

[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/PxeW256.jpg[/img][/center]

[center][color=Silver][b]DropShips[/b][/color][/center]

The primary DropShip of the Green Knights is a [i]Union-[/i]class DropShip called the [i]No Leaf Clover.[/i] Effectively a mobile fortress, it is capable of carrying up to a full combat company of Mechs, vehicles, and personnel. Bristling with particle cannons, ballistic autocannons, and long-range missiles, the [i]Clover[/i] can be a substantial force-multiplier on the battlefield. However, because it is also the Green Knights’ primary headquarters and home, Colonel Wayne would never risk it unless absolutely necessary, choosing to field it defensively as a base of operations. The captain of the [i]No Leaf Clover[/i] is the hard-drinking and smart-mouthed Captain Sally Roth.

Since the Green Knights have no land-hold and no quarters on usual mercenary hub worlds like Galatea, they have to bring their civilian contingent along with them, typically landing their ship as far from the front lines as possible. The civilians travel in the [i]Dittohead[/i], a smaller but still substantially-armored [i]Mule[/i]-class freighter captained by the perpetually irritable Captain Reggie Myrick.

Currently, both DropShips have been claimed by the New People’s Democratic Public of Espia, and their captains and crews are being detained by the state.[/hider]


[center][color=Silver][b]L O C A L   I N T E L[/b][/color][/center]

[hider=Espia][center][img]https://i.imgur.com/jteaGb8m.jpg[/img][/center]

[center][color=Silver][b]ESPIA[/b][/color][/center]

[color=Silver][b]XY COORDINATES:[/b][/color] -16.91, -389.694 (Andurien Commonality)
[color=Silver][b]GRAVITY:[/b][/color] 0.96 G
[color=Silver][b]ORBITAL CYCLE:[/b][/color] 2.7 Standard Years
[color=Silver][b]ROTATION CYCLE:[/b][/color] 34 Standard Hours
[color=Silver][b]POPULATION:[/b][/color] ~10,283,000
[color=Silver][b]LOCAL GOVERNMENT:[/b][/color] The New People’s Democratic Republic of Espia
[color=Silver][b]RULER AS OF JANUARY 3030:[/b][/color] Premier Hyun-Woo Federov

A relatively forgotten system in the Andurien region of the Capellan Confederation, Espia is a verdant, Terra-like planet with two primary land masses (East and West Seungli) divided by the vast Vyzov Ocean. Over 80% of the planet is covered in extremely salty water, with no natural freshwater to be found, making it difficult for the world’s inhabitants to expand too far inland away from the massive desalination plants along the coasts. Its most interesting natural resources are large deposits of neodymium, a rare-earth element used in advanced electronics, such as those found in the CCAF’s new [i]Raven[/i] Battlemech.

Espia’s population– ethnically a mix of Korean, Slavic, and Polynesian–had never felt any particular loyalty to Capellan Confederation, having long ago lost faith in the capabilities of the ‘Celestial Wisdom’ of House Liao, but had never had the capability to effectively secede. A small garrison force from the CCAF remained on planet to prevent uprisings, primarily infantry and conventional armored vehicles, bolstered by Battlemech support from mercenaries such as Gawain’s Green Knights. With the outbreak of the Fourth Succession War, CCAF forces abandoned Espia for the front lines, leaving the Green Knights the only forces on planet nominally affiliated with the Confederation. When news of the Capellans’ defeat reached Espia, the already dissatisfied population broke out into open rebellion.

Gawain’s Green Knights did their best to maintain the peace, but with Colonel Gaius Wayne refusing to open fire on civilians, there was little that a Battlemech company could do without committing outright war crimes. The local Espian Guard denounced the mercenaries as weak, and declared a coup against the government they had allegedly sworn to protect. To everyone’s surprise, the Espian Guard was backed by a full company of Battlemechs that had never been seen on-planet before. Now outnumbered and outgunned, the Green Knights were forced out of the capitol city of Balya Gora, cut off from their Dropship and most of their supplies, and regrouped in the nearby Eunsan mountain range.[/hider]

[hider=Local Factions][center][img]https://i.imgur.com/Iasy8M0m.jpg[/img][/center]

[center][color=Silver][b]The New People’s Democratic Republic of Espia[/b][/color][/center]

Established by the Espian Guard in the wake of the coup, the New People’s Democratic Republic of Espia is in fact an authoritarian dictatorship, where the acting government leader, [b]Premier Hyun-Woo Federov[/b], is little more than a figurehead and a puppet for the military commander, [b]General Grigori Konala[/b]. The NPDRE has nationalized all major industries, seizing the assets of the upper class and relegating the lower-class citizens to little better than state-owned slave labor. While little more than a militia by the standards of a Great House, the Espian Guard is fairly potent for the standards of a planetary defense force, with fortified locations and missile sites over most of the world’s valuable locations.

[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/5fMugHDm.jpg[/img][/center]

[center][color=Silver][b]The Crimson Fists[/b][/color][/center]

When the Espian Guard began their coup, the surprised everyone with the reveal of an entire company of twelve top-of-the-line Battlemechs, which they dubbed ‘The Crimson Fists.’ For a backwater border world, twelve Mechs is a substantial amount of firepower, more than the Green Knights could effectively engage in a stand-up fight. The NPDRE has kept the identities of the Crimson Fists a tightly-wrapped secret, but comms chatter has identified their commanding officer, call sign [b]“Crimson King,”[/b] as the pilot of an 80-ton [i]Battlemaster.[/i]

[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/e1eP4Bqm.png[/img][/center]

[center][color=Silver][b]Espian Free People’s Movement[/b][/color][/center]

In response to the coup and the brutal tactics of the NPDRE, various insurgent groups began to appear, quickly organizing into the Free People’s Movement. A hodgepodge of cells ranging from student protestors to Espian Guard defectors, the Free People’s Movement fights to topple the NPDRE government, which it sees as illegitimate and corrupt. They claim no public leadership, though [b]Councilor Ben Kahale[/b], one of the planet’s wealthiest private individuals, has been accused to collaborating with the insurgents.

[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/r7EDpodm.jpg?1[/img][/center]

[center][color=Silver][b]The Free People’s Army[/b][/color][/center]

A decentralized collection of militia groups, the FPA are fighting a losing battle, but one they consider worth fighting. Unable to match the Espian Guards or the Crimson Fists head-on, the FPA survives using hit-and-run tactics. Primarily consisting of volunteer infantry, the Free People’s Army also has a few light armored vehicles, and a handful of cobbled-together “Frankenmechs” made of civilian IndustrialMechs with a few guns and plates of armor bolted on.

[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/crrlmyWm.jpg?1[/img][/center]

[center][color=Silver][b]The Heavenly Sword[/b][/color][/center]
While the Free People’s Movement can be said to be either an organization of freedom fighters or a destabilizing terrorist group, depending on whom you ask, the same cannot be said of the Heavenly Sword. A group of fanatical Capellan loyalists, the Sword are definitively and openly terrorists, committing heinous acts against military and civilian targets alike with the goal of forcing the government to swear fealty to House Liao. With no organized military force to speak of, the Heavenly Sword resorts to using suicide attacks, bombings, shootings, and other acts of random violence to terrify the population. Both the NPDRE and the Free People’s Movement have denounced the Heavenly Sword, but are too caught up in fighting each other to deal with them.[/hider]