29

Chapter 29

-VB-

The Terran Peace Summit: The End of the Fourth Succession War

Very little happened on the actual summit negotiation tables. When the leaders of states and their representatives gathered, they were more likely to spend half of each session snipping at each other instead of hammering out the details of how they would transition from war to peace. 

That didn't mean that progress wasn't being made. 

Most of the actual negotiations happened behind doors between each individual member. It never happened between each power bloc. 

As we understand it now, there were a few reasons for this. First, relations between the Federated Suns and the Lyran Commonwealth remained amiable and cooperative yet paradoxically strained and reserved. Part of this had to do with the fact that the Lyran Commonwealth's upper echelon blamed the First Prince and his strategists for the loss of many Lyran worlds along its borders while the promised "breaking" of the Capellan Confederation never manifested despite the overwhelming advantages the Federated Suns purportedly possessed. 

Instead, both Lyrans and Suns had lost valuable worlds that had served as border fortresses for a long time.

While we understand with hindsight that First Prince Hanse Davion had not acted without a credible intelligence, great plan, or commendable support, the result mattered more than the actual process, and the result of the Fourth Succession War was that the alliance between the Federated Suns and the Lyran Commonwealth began with a near pyrrhic victory and a shaky foundation.

Second, while the future Federated Commonwealth began to form into a united front, they weren't there yet, and the same was true for the Kapteyn Accords. Each state operated independently of one another with only the vaguest agreement on preventing further advances of the Federated Commonwealth. 

In a way, this was why the backroom deals worked as well as it did because it allowed each member state of the truce summit to exchange under the table deals that would not have been accepted publicly. 

For example, the Capellan Confederation gave lesser copies of the Star League memory core it possessed to both the Draconis Combine and the Free Worlds League and had been what roused the two states to actively pursue war goals during the war and in the peace talks. 

We still don't know what kind of deals were made during the Truce Summits, but two agreements came to be at the end of the summit.

-VB-

Primus Myndo Waterly did not expect this at all.

Of all of the Inner Sphere's Successor States, she did not expect the Capellan Confederation to be the one who respected ComStar the most. 

"You wish to create a Free Trade corridor centering on Terra… where ComStar Order has sovereignty?" she asked incredulously. 

"Yes, and it would mean that the Capellan Confederation would give up its claims over all of the systems that the order would hold, including those currently owned by the Federated Suns," Chancellor Liao replied with a nod. 

She could see why the chancellor was going for this. First off, even Myndo could see that the confederation would not be ready for a long time to fight against the combined might of the Federated Suns and the Lyran Commonwealth. Second. Most of the worlds shown to her on the map weren't particularly profitable or populous anymore as centuries of war for their acquisition had turned them into a husk of their former glory. 

"But why the order?" she asked. 

The chancellor paused before looking around. "I assume your guards here are … in the know?" he asked. 

"In the know, chancellor?" she asked.

"About your Hidden Worlds."

She nearly shot up and pulled out her pistol. Instead, she gripped down on her instinct and held firm.

"I do not understand."

He chuckled. "Come now, primus! I'm the Celestial Wisdom whose Maskirovka have infiltrated the heart of the Unity Palace, pumped everything I need to know about the Steiners from Frederick Steiner, and found out about the Federated Commonwealth's inception before their own people did. There are very few secrets that I don't know. Like how I know about ComStar's Hidden Worlds… and Operation Jolly Roger."

She nearly bit her tongue. 

"Hell, if I released that bit of info, then I think the Draconis Combine and the Lyran Commonwealth just might band together to see you punished."

"Are you threatening us…?"

He raised his hands up. "If I was, then you can be very assured that it would come out of nowhere and hit you like I hit the Federated Suns. I'm not one for subtle threats. No, I'm one for peace and prosperity, and if the order wants to emulate the Hegemony, then it's time it steps out of the shadow and exercises its real power to a degree."

What was he trying to get at here? He revealed information that should have never reached him, and yet he was here demanding that the ComStar Order take up a more prominent position on the international stage. 

"I don't see how that would benefit the order, chancellor. ComStar is but a humble servant of human civilization."

He gave her an unamused look. "Humble servant, right. Primus, I know what ComStar wants. It is the successor of the Terran Hegemony in all but name, holding onto Terra itself. You would be lying if you said that ComStar is not secretly working to eventually pull back the shroud away from the ruins that the rest of the Inner Sphere was driving human civilization down toward, no? To rise up and be the guiding hand of humanity?" 

"... I don't see why you are asking this of us still."

"Because my calculation is very simple. A ComStar Order that finally takes its place within the Inner Sphere as the successor of the Terran Hegemony is one that prevents wars like the Fourth Succession War from breaking out because it would destabilize its place at the top. And a lack of wars that brings ruin to my people is one that benefits me, primus."

Ah, self interest in a roundabout way. 

But no… Even if that was the case, what the chancellor was suggesting was far too bold for Myndo's taste or the order's plans. 

Worse, she couldn't allow the chancellor to live if the knowledge of the Hidden Worlds. 

"It isn't as if the rest of the Inner Sphere's leaders don't know about your Hidden Worlds, though?" 

A pause. 

"What?"

The chancellor looked surprised. "You didn't know?" he asked her in surprise. Genuine surprise.

"What do you mean the rest of them know?" she asked, almost hissing and only her training and discipline kept her from yelling at the leader of a state. 

"There are ComStar and ComGuard members who slip through the cracks," the chancellor revealed. "And they have some very interesting things to say. Like how Vestur Kristoff's agents showed me details about … warships. I long suspected that his agents weren't the only ones to go rogue considering just how many Precentor ROM's the order has changed over the years. Is that not the case?"

Suddenly, Myndo felt cold. That was true. There have been three Precentor ROMs in the past two decades and more than five in the last half century. 

… Was ComStar's secrets truly in jeopardy? Were the other successor states readying themselves to fight against the order? 

"And if I were to refuse…?" she asked with a hiss. 

The chancellor merely smiled. "Then the order is simply not ready. I understand that," he nodded. "The confederation will stand ready to help the order if it does ask, however."

Myndo looked at the chancellor. 

She couldn't tell if the chancellor was genuine about his offer or if all of this was a ploy. 

"... What did you have in mind for this … free trade corridor?" she finally asked after a while. 

He smiled.

She didn't like his smile. 

-VB-

"A trade corridor?" Katrina Steiner asked, and across the table from her, Myndo Waterly nodded. 

"It has come to the order's attention that with the connection between the Federated Suns and the Lyran Commonwealth that the systems connecting your two realms will come under frequent raids by the rest of the Successor States, and Terra will find itself in the middle of a conflict zone."

'That's your problem, not mine,' Katrina thought dismissively but as the leader of a state, she couldn't just ignore a proposal like this. 

"Thus, ComStar wishes to propose to all Successor States for the establishment of a Free Trade Corridor," the primus continued. "This corridor will serve as a neutral ground on which merchants from all Successor States can trade with each other without fearing repercussions, raids, or seizure by a rival state. ComStar would, of course, deploy ComGuard to help maintain this neutrality along with whatever state militaries the Lyran Commonwealth, Draconis Combine, and Free Worlds League would provide."

"But not the Federated Suns?" 

"Why would they be involved?" the primus smiled. "After all, they are planning to hand over all of their gains in the confederation to you, no? As the First Prince said, 'my dear… I give you the Capellan Confederation.'"

It was a reasonable assumption, Katrina supposed. 

"This means that only they and the Capellan Confederation will not be directly involved in this proposal's defense."

"And what makes you think that I would be accepting of this proposal?" she asked. 

"Because it will benefit you."

"How?"

The primus smiled. "You see, it has come to ComStar's attention that the Capellan Confederation has … too much of a technological edge. Enough to help bolster its allies."

"... you believe that the Capellans have willingly shared their advantage with the Free Worlds League and the Draconis Combine?"

"More than believe, archon," the woman smiled. "I know. The chancellor himself has admitted to it. Not the full breadth of the technological advances and recoveries but enough that within a decade, the Lyran Commonwealth and the Federated Suns will be lagging too far behind to make any gains in the future."

"And, pray tell, what did they share?"

"I know for a fact that Endosteel and Ferro-fibrous armor will soon be produced by other members of the Kapteyn Accords."

Katrina froze. 

"You understand then," the primus said with a smile. "This trade corridor will be in your favor because someone will eventually offer up the advanced technologies on the market instead of just selling to their allies. Perhaps it will be because of an economic recession. Perhaps there is a political misunderstanding that leads to break down in trade. Perhaps it's a rogue corporate agent selling secrets for an early retirement. Whatever the case may be… the trade corridor will be that place for them to come for a safe transaction, if not auction."

"... And what would you get out of it?" Katrina asked. 

"The order?" the primus asked. "Not just a further acceptance of the order's control over the HPG network but a security guarantee from all those who would sign the trade corridor agreement."

"... Tell me more." Katrina could at least hear her out, if only to understand what the Primus and ComStar might be thinking.

-VB-

Hanse Davion listened to Katrina Steiner, and he couldn't help it. 

This felt like a Capellan trickery. A ploy to get at him for his part in declaring war. 

The formation of a "Terran Trade Corridor" would, in essence, be everything that the Federated Suns and the Lyran Commonwealth wanted out of the war except on their terms. But with the war now over and a secure corridor achieved, it was a mockery of the war itself. 

And Hanse suspected that may be the point. 

What was the point of it? Draconis Combine and the Free Worlds League didn't benefit from this. They barely traded with each other, and the only other party who would benefit from this added treaty, the Capellan Confederation, would be far away enough from the corridor to not have direct access - and thus lack the protection it would have derived from the treaty for its merchants. 

And Hanse knew that it had to be that clever chancellor who proposed this addition to the treaty. 

In fact, this treaty gave the Federated Suns and the Lyran Commonwealth everything it wanted. Not only would they be keeping everything they conquered from the Capellan Confederation, Draconis Combine, and the Free Worlds League, but they got to also enjoy a combat-free zone where the burden of administration and defense would be jointly handled by them and ComStar's ComGuard.

And Hanse suspected that this was the reason why Katrina was entertaining this. 

Even though it was a mockery of the war. 

He could almost hear the chancellor grinning mockingly at him while saying, 'Look at this. You could have had this without a war. But you had to declare and send millions of good men and women to die, didn't you? Couldn't keep that anger tempered, did you?'

Or something like that. 

"What do you think?" Katrina asked him.

"We gain everything and lose nothing by accepting," he replied with a frown. "But why does it feel like we're still losing by accepting it?"

"Because that's your pride talking," the older ruler replied with a click of her tongue. 

Suffice to say, his mother-in-law was not happy with him. 

"Is it?"

Katrina glanced up from her dinner. "Of course, it is," she replied. "I also want to say no just to spite the Capellans for humiliating us. But I won't. No, we can't."

He sighed as he rubbed the bridge of his nose. 

The truth of the matter was that their shared plan had been for a boom in economic interdependence once the war came to an end. They had hoped to establish a thicker connection between their two realms, but that hadn't come out to be; the League had resisted far harder than they expected and both the Capellans and Combine had stalled his invasions. 

The narrowest part of the corridor was barely two jumps wide. 

A safe passageway between their two realms would be a boon to their economies, especially because his Federated Suns had lost jumpships worth half a decade of production. 

"And what do you think about the deal?" he asked her and his wife, Melissa, who sat between them.

"I think we should accept it," Melissa started after meeting her mother's eyes. "We can spin it as a win. Not only did we gain a large territory out of the Capellan Confederation, we also managed to secure safety for our future subject's economic prosperity."

"I agree," Katrina said plainly but without further explanation or her own thoughts. 

Hanse frowned. 

He really really didn't want to accept it. 

-VB-

The first treaty to come out of the Terran Truce Summit of 3030 was the Terran Truce of 3030.

All participants would retain hold of the worlds they occupied and would set the new borders based on those worlds and other border worlds they held. 

No reparations would be made by any party. 

All hostilities would cease and the Fourth Succession War would come to an end. 

All soldiers and civilians captured during the duration of the war would be released without ransom or further demands. 

All civilians with the means to travel to their home nation would be allowed the chance to do so for a full year starting upon the day the treaty was signed by all parties involved. 

All naval assets acquired during the duration of the war would remain in the hands of their current de facto owners. De jure owners will receive no compensation. 

The Federated Suns' conquest of Tikonov Commonality worlds would be handed over to the Lyran Commonwealth as a wedding gift for Melissa Steiner's hand. 

Effectively, this meant that all gains and losses were publicly acknowledged by all of the states. 

It would have the least public support from the Federated Suns as they would have expanded tens of thousands of mechs, millions of soldiers, and economic prosperity to give someone else more territories. 

Indeed, the immediate aftermath of the Fourth Succession War was an economic recession for the Federated Suns as they tried to fix the damage wrought upon themselves and the theft of jumpships. 

There was a very good chance that there might have been widespread dissent across the Federated Suns if it wasn't for Hanse Davion's wife and future Archon Melissa Steiner. 

While her husband had been frantically busy with the war preparation and then the war itself, heir Melissa had been busy visiting veteran hospitals, raising funds for charities, and donating from her own funds for the sake of the Davion subjects. She did this for the entire duration of the war, and her publicity might have single handedly kept the people calm and continue to trust her and Hanse Davion. It helped that both Archon Katrina Steiner and First Prince Hanse Davion publicly acknowledged that when Melissa and Hanse's children came of age, they would inherit a united Federated Commonwealth and thus the Tikonov gains weren't a "loss" as some Suns media liked to portray it. 

And what about the Capellan Confederation? 

Though it looked like the loser of the war, we can say with certainty with our hindsight that their losses weren't as deep as it might look like on the map. Not only did they retain the industrial powerhouse worlds of Styk and Tikonov, most of the worlds they lost weren't particularly populated or prosperous. 

A good example of this was Terra Firma II. Despite having been colonized for more than six hundred years, its population never broke through a billion. And Terra Firma II was one of the more prosperous and productive colonies in the region. 

And the second treaty was the Terran Trade Corridor Accords. 

-VB-

They were all back at the negotiation table. 

"Then we are in agreement?" Primus Waterly asked the leaders present.

"Aye," Captain-General Janos Marik said. 

"Yes," Archon Katrina Steiner added. 

"Yes," Crown Prince Theodore Kurita agreed. 

"Yes," he, First Prince Hanse Davion, acquiesced. 

And finally…

"Before I say that, I have something else to say." The chancellor turned to look at Hanse Davion with a blank stare. "Specifically to you."

Hanse looked at him. "What are you waiting for?" he drawled. He was tired of the negotiations, backroom deals, and the politics of it all. 

Chancellor William Liao took a small breath in and let it out almost … exasperatedly. "Was it worth it?" he asked. "Was the damage your people took, the anger they felt, the deaths that happened, the paranoia you feel, the weakness you felt, the failures you've engaged in, and the total disintegration of kindness in the face war that you started… Was it worth it?" 

Hanse gritted his teeth.

What other answer did he have to give?

"Yes."

The chancellor looked at him. "Then let me say this for all of the Inner Sphere to hear. You have my permission to broadcast it however you want, primus." With that, his blank stare finally morphed into a glare. "After suffering as much as I have under my father, I had hoped to talk with you. A leader to leader, a sufferer to another sufferer. I had hoped to find common ground upon which to raise humanity instead of bring it down. I had hoped to put an end to the vicious cycle of war that ruined our people. But instead, you turned my envoys away. You turned a blind eye and ears to what I had to say. You turned what should have been a joyous event, a wedding, a union of two people, into a declaration of war. A declaration of untold suffering. 

"If the deaths of your people and mine was worth a few systems that you could have gotten access to with diplomacy that you never tried with me, if the suffering of untold millions who now starve because you had to ferry troops instead of food, if the anger, depression, sadness, and powerlessness is what you champion, and if you feel that all of it was worth it… then I and House Liao will never accept a Davion on the Throne of the Star League.

William stood up from his chair and glared across the table with real vitriolic hatred he kept under control. 

"Even if it is not a Liao but a Marik, I will accept it. Even if it is Kurita that ends up as the ruler of all humanity, I will accept it. But I will never accept a Steiner or Davion. I will start a nuclear holocaust before I see either of you on Terra. I will devise ways to shut off the very stars themselves rather than see you sit on that throne. I hope it was worth it, Davion. You made this personal."

Then he turned to Katrina Steiner. "And you turned out to be no different from everyone else. A hypocrite. You claimed to want peace but when peace could have been achieved, you turned away from it. From this day on, I name you Katrina Steiner the Peace Breaker."

Then he sat down.

"Aye, I agree."

-VB-

The Terran Trade Corridor Accords established a two jump radius centering on Terra itself where hostility was internationally outlawed. No raid, invasion, or blockade could take place, and to do so would mean earning the ire of not just the rest of the Successor States but also of ComStar. 

Within it, anyone could trade with anyone for anything. 

On the surface, this helped the most mercantile nation of the Lyran Commonwealth and its new partner, the Federated Suns, but as time went on, strategists and thinkers began to truly realise that the true beneficiaries were the Draconis Combine and the Free Worlds League. While the former two nations would eventually be able to snipe advanced technologies and even the methods to replicate them through the Terran Trade Corridor, Free Worlds League and the Draconis Combine would trade endosteel and ferro-fibrous armor with each other without anyone to interrupt them. In masses that outpaced anything either nations have traded before, endosteel would leave Castor from the League's side and enter Dieron on Combine side, and ferro-fibrous armor in reverse. 

This began to be known as the Castor-Dieron Trade Route, the safest and most lucrative trade routes for dropship and jumpship captains to run during the mid 31st century. 

But it would not be long before a disgruntled engineer would leave the League would sell the secrets to endosteel production to the Federated Suns, and a fleeing samurai would bring with him how ferro-fibrous was made within the Combine to the Lyran Commonwealth.