Lothian League

The Lothian League was a small Periphery realm composed by six ice-and-snow planets located beyond the outer reaches of the Free Worlds League near the Marian Hegemony.

Beginning
To avoid capture by the Star League, a group of patriots from the Taurian Concordat fled into deep space. In 2691, under the leadership of Angelina Logan they settled on the planet Lothario, which was later discovered to be rich in metals. Over time the League expanded deeper into the Periphery to form a seven-member confederation. With the Logan family at its head it slowly grew into a small Periphery state.

On the brink
The only serious threat to the League's existence came in 2933, when renegade mercenaries from units shattered in the latest round of Succession War fighting stumbled upon the League quite by accident. For four years, both sides conducted a series of raids and counter-raids until, at long last, the mercenaries left to seek easier prey elsewhere. These actions cost the League its few JumpShips and damaged what little industry on Lothario it had managed to develop over the last three centuries. This destruction forced the ruling Logan family to renew trade ties with other planets of the Periphery in a desperate effort to avoid economic ruin.

Development
During the last century, the League became a major supplier of iron and copper ores to the Magistracy of Canopus and the Taurian Concordat, receiving in return agricultural and mining equipment to sustain its fragile existence. Also exported were furs. Indeed, its trapping industry created impressive revenues as demand for the rich pelts has grown in the last century.

Recent affairs
Dame Lorelei Logan was the ruler of the League by 3025 and ruled until the Marian conquest in 3055. A descendant of Angelina Logan she was nicknamed "the Ice Maiden". Though on good terms with her fellow leaders in the Illyrian Palatinate and the Circinus Federation, the Ice Maiden wanted little to do with the Great Houses of the Inner Sphere. Nevertheless she maintained limited contact with the Inner Sphere, mainly to hire small mercenary bands to defend Lothian worlds against raids from the Marian Hegemony. The Lothian League employed two mercenary battalions, though the identity and quality of these units is unknown.

Defeat
Throughout 3052 and 3053, Caesar Sean O'Reilly of the Marian Hegemony launched several raids on Lothian planets, gradually wearing down the mercenary units defending them. The attacks increased in frequency and ferocity as the months wore on, followed by a full-scale invasion by the Marian Legions on 3054.

The Lothian League proved a hardier opponent than the Caesar expected however, holding out for more than a year against the Marian assault. Dame Lorelei Logan dipped deeply into the Lothian treasury to hire additional mercenary units, and her daughter Liesel led a small Home Guard BattleMech unit against the invaders with astonishing success. By early 3055, however, the Legions' superior firepower began to overwhelm the Lothian League's defenders. Dame Logan made a desperate appeal to the Taurian Concordat for any troops it could spare, but Protector Thomas Calderon refused to send help, citing the need to keep his troops on alert against the danger of an imminent Federated Commonwealth attack.

Caesar Sean himself led the assault on Lordinax, the last League planet to fall. He destroyed the Home Guard, killing Liesel Logan. Upon his triumphal landing on Lothario, the League's former capital world, the Caesar ordered the imprisonment of Dame Lorelei and her surviving family. However the Logans managed somehow to escape and to hide themselves.

The Marian Hegemony conquest was opposed by active and passive resistance from Lothian citizens. Caesar Sean O'Reilly installed two-thirds of his Second Marian Legion across the seven League planets to deal with the insurgents, but the Legion forces barely held their own against their guerrilla opponents. Further, Marian government officials installed to enact Caesar's policies had to repeatedly deal with blatant disregard for their imposed authority.

ROM discovered that Lothian freedom fighters received covert assistance from the Magistracy of Canopus, interested in keeping the Caesar and his Legions too busy for further conquests. The resistance fighters may also have received small amounts of money and supplies from the Illyrian Palatinate.

Nevertheless the ambitious Caesar later tried to conquer Astrokaszy but was forced to retreat. Returning to Alphard he was confronted with the news that his new Lothian "subjects" were on the brink of open rebellion. The Third Legion was sent to the Lothian worlds.

Caesar's son Julius, a recent graduate of the Collegium Bellorum Imperium, had been recently promoted to command a century in the First Legion. He quickly gained the attention of several powerful anti-Caesar military leaders and Senators, who built up a power base centered around the young heir.

An angered Caesar transferred Julius in June of 3060 to command a cohort of the Second Legion on Lordinax. The unit was highly demoralized from the constant Lothian raids. The war was a cycle of death, as recruits poured into the Second Legion at a quick rate and Lothian civilian casualties steadily mounted due to the Caesar's bloody reprisals. Julius' unit was sent on a series of punitive raids against several settlements suspected of harboring anti-Marian rebels; Sean hoped that this experience would either harden his son or cost his life.

Julius began to openly question his father's path of conquest, covertly building a power base within the Second Legion, to whom he promised an end to the Lothian troubles.

Julius was successful in hunting down and capturing the leader of the Lothian resistance, Elena Logan, daughter of Dame Lorelei Logan. Disobeying an order to execute her, presumably sent by his father, Julius began to negotiate.

The two managed to reach an acceptable agreement; Elena agreed to cease the brutal guerrilla war in exchange for a cessation of reprisals, a position of Senator in the Hegemony government, and a position as an adviser on Julius' personal staff.

Within a year of arriving, Julius had successfully ended the resistance, and was ready to make his next move. In January 3063, Julius O'Reilly led both the Second and the recently arrived Fourth Marian Legions, as well as the Third Legion's First and Third Cohorts, away from Lordinax. The fact that he was leaving only auxiliaries and the Second Cohort of the Third Marian Legion behind to garrison the League was of little concern to Julius-if Elena Logan had reneged on her agreement, Julius would have simply returned to Lordinax and levelled every building.

After later usurping the throne from his father Julius officially declared the former Lothian League as a united territory within the Hegemony, granting the former nation voices within the Senate. He further granted Lordinax and Lothario to Elena Logan in fief after accepting her as a personal advisor on civil matters. All inhabitants were granted Marian citizenship and granted three-year exemptions from conscription.

The Dark Age
THe Lothian League officially regained its independence - however tentatively - in 3128, after decades of unrest and conflict with the Marian Hegemony. The Lothian League of the Dark Age bore little resemblance to the free state that had existed a century before; however; the leader of the League adopted the title Grand Mistress, and ruled over the League with the assistance of a Senate consisting of three representatives from each of the six member worlds in a very Marian style.

The ruler of the League, Grand Mistress Clarissa Logan, attempted to abolish slavery in the League in 3134, a step that nearly bought the League and Hegemony to open combat once more as those Marians trading in the League or operating industries protested. Logan managed to defuse the situation by amending the proposal so that it only applied to citizens of the League, and further requiring that any slaves who received manumission serve in the Lothian military before obtaining true freedom. Those measures staved off an invasion by the Marians, defusing the tensest situation between the League's independence and 3145.

Although the League had gained a measure of independence, it remained lacking in the resources to support a large military organically; a new training academy, the Lothian Combat Academy, was established to train armor crews and anti-tank infantry, and a single small Alphard Trading Corporation plant producing a small number of tank designs. The League had no choice other than to import BattleMechs to support its military.