connection/JIHAD CONSPIRACIES/section04: The Hidden 00

The Hidden
 connection/JIHAD CONSPIRACIES/section04: The Hidden

The Hidden
You folks may remember this one from the last time I put forth let’s ask one more time about what happened to some missing
a book’s worth of theories for you. Seems someone didn’t like worlds, and see if the “Shark” comes swimming for me again.
this particular topic and hit me with a crude but amusing binary —Starling
bomb. This time, I’ve taken precautions. So without further ado,
From Atlantis to Jardine, are the Lost really “Lost”?

—Mirjam Torhansson, The Truth Underground, Renegade Press, final assault (example: Rocky, a Hegemony planet that went into a
1 April 3066 premature ice age). Some fell into a fatal tailspin from catastroph-
ic loss of infrastructure and no small amount of neglect from the
The tales are as old as time. Lost places, forgotten societies, a parent government (example: Hegel, which practically starved to
promise of wonder that draws the adventurous or the greedy to extinction amidst a worldwide epidemic).
great lengths, often to disappointing ends. From the mythical un- It is, however, harder to kill a populous world using a few
spoiled lands of Eden (the Garden, not the Clan homeworld), to nukes—even strategics—and/or poison gasses. Tailored bio-
the lost Terran continent of Atlantis (said to have been home to logicals may have better luck, as they can linger a bit longer and
a massive and hyper-advanced civilization), to the golden cities maybe even salt the local ecosystems, but you’d need a LOT to
of Macchu Pichu or El Dorado that drove many an ancient Terran infect an entire planet. Therefore, the only reasons to take such
treasure hunter mad with lust and greed. The legends of lost civili- worlds off the map are because they got wholly depopulated
zations did not end with the drive into space, however. If anything, in the strikes and lost all industrial or strategic value in the bar-
it made the phenomenon thousands of times more pronounced. gain. Or if the world was barely self-sustaining to start with. For
And yet, what are legends without a grain of truth? Sure, we’ve the former, it’d likely have to be a trade-dependent world with a
since learned of the truth behind Eden, Atlantis, Macchu Pichu population numbering no more than, say, ten million. For the lat-
and El Dorado: lost lands and cities that as often as not turned out ter, the world would need to have been marginal all along, which
to be mere fables. But what of the lost worlds of the Inner Sphere? would likely create conditions identical to the former.
Worlds like the Marik planet of Jardine, known to have existed for Yes, they’re possible, but by necessity, such worlds tend to
its most famous export, the felinoid tabiranth, and yet missing be small fry. Admittedly, a few really big worlds also went out
from virtually every astronomical map and record, even going this way, but only because some nation or other gathered up a
back to the days of the Star League? DropShip or five worth of strategics and just pasted the living
Cities may be lost, but worlds? That’s another matter. crap out of it—an act usually reserved for the most heavily indus-
Dear reader, what would you say if I told you that Jardine is not trialized and populated planets, where the attacker would rather
as lost as some may think, or that hidden among the thousands of sterilize the opposition than face an impregnable fortress. (Many
stars where humankind walks are more worlds just like it—still alive, worlds fitting that bill, however, managed to survive for decades
still thriving, and (perhaps most shocking) still a danger to us all? afterward, and quite a few—like Sarna and Caph—remain on the
map today.)
How They Vanish: A Case Study Emigration/Depopulation: This works better with cities than
So what makes a world disappear? Does a magician wave a with planets, but then again, some planets were hellholes even
magic wand, mutter an incantation, and poof, all records are ex- when they were settled (the settlers who hung in there were just
punged throughout history? Or is it more of an elaborate shell too stubborn to admit as much). In this case, whether from war
game, involving a conspiracy of millions to pull off? Well, dear damage or some other situation, the people simply leave (or get
reader, the answer to that one is a bit more variable. In fact, the scooped away by others—hopefully others friendly toward them).
means to make a world vanish are probably as varied as there This may have been common in the Star League era and Age of
have been vanished worlds to start with. Some general possibili- War, when ships were plentiful (heck, Terra itself suffered a hu-
ties, however, might follow a few basic themes: mongous exodus right after the Liberation, with billions taking
Nuked/Poisoned Off the Map: The classic explanation of the flight). But after the Succession Wars blasted anything big enough
first two Succession Wars (and the Age of War), worlds with fairly to have a KF drive, not so much. This type of action also tends
low or overly centralized populations suffered from over-zealous to add planets to the map, rather than remove them—take the
raiders armed with atomics or biological weapons meant to steril- recently discovered Hanseatic League and Nueva Castile, for ex-
ize all human life. Oddly enough, this was a “hit or miss” approach, ample. For that matter, how do you think we got the Clans (or the
as some worlds “died” from these assaults or their aftermaths, but Inner Sphere to begin with)?
others somehow soldiered on. Of those that died, many were ac- This one’s definitely possible, at least as much as the nuking/
tually casualties of freak environmental events triggered by the gassing scenario.
connection/JIHAD CONSPIRACIES/section04: The Hidden 00 / 00

The Hidden

From Atlantis to Jardine, are the Lost really “Lost”? (Continued)

The Big Conspiracy of Doom: We all like this one, deep down. This is the fun one, because our brains can see only a con-
Name your conspirators, be they your own House government, spiracy as having the muscle and the means to hide a world of
some corporate execs, Amaris, Kerensky, ComStar, the Illuminati, a greater importance than an outpost. These are usually separated
sentient and super-advanced alien race—just remember that your from the worlds described in our other two categories by some
group must have been able to change maps throughout history indefinable weirdness, like the feeling you get when you look at
to hide their worlds, to have picked worlds self-sufficient enough an incomplete painting but don’t have a copy of the finished work
to see to their own needs and stay off the trade networks, and to compare it to. This is where our Atlantises and El Dorados come
have the means to ensure that no passing JumpShip considers from.
the world a viable jump route. Oh, and spend centuries ruthlessly And this, apparently, is where at least one Marik world named
keeping the secret from prying eyes… Jardine went…

Piecing it Together ten that very year!) Whether brilliant or simply desperate, this
Torhansson’s essay may not seem all that illuminating—espe- move succeeded in snagging the false Thomas Marik’s attention.
cially as she failed to expound on it much more beyond debating Even as the Inner Sphere plunged into a new war, he dispatched
how one might hide a whole world. She meant well, mind you, but some of his Knights on a “special errand” into Lyran space.
the girl’s just not got the heart for serious conspiracy-mongering. They never returned.
I do, of course, and in the time since our last publication on the Sketchy reports gleaned from a hundred or so local news nets
subject, I actually came across a few more tidbits that shed inter- tell the rest: mysterious, black-clad men sporting exotic weap-
esting new light on the subject of hidden worlds (and Jardine in ons hit Donegal during the Blakist attack there. An inexplicably
particular). superfluous fighter run flattened the University of Chekswa with
an atomic weapon. Search engines across the Lyran Alliance lit
The Stevens Factor up with keywords “Jardine,” “Gabriel,” “Stevens,” “IE,” and “Rim
Just before the Jihad erupted, the story goes, a very angry Worlds.”
Doctor Brooklyn Stevens, commander of a small merc team that Then came the White-Out, and all news stopped.
included at least one ex-black ops specialist and a host of former When the lights came back on, the searches had ended and
Interstellar Expeditions vets, arrived in the Loric system for a meet- Blakist APBs matching Stevens’ description were little more than
ing with the (now late) Doctor Henry Croft (their IE employer). a footnote. A few weeks later, rescue ships in the Nestor system
Stevens, her exec, and an unknown young woman of “distinctly came upon the remains of an Explorer-class JumpShip that had ap-
Polynesian features” confronted Croft on what they perceived as parently been torn apart from the inside out.
a double-cross, and claimed they were being targeted by Word Meanwhile, a series of random “accidents” and overt at-
of Blake operatives. With a final warning that IE had reaped the tacks plagued Interstellar Expeditions, culminating in the death
proverbial whirlwind, Stevens, her crew and their unknown com- of Doctor Henry James Croft, the IE division head who’d hired
panion vanished, making a beeline for Tharkad. Stevens in the first place.
Supposedly, while on the run, they found a way to leave a trail Of course, with fighting erupting on every border—and the
of breadcrumbs for any possible allies to find. (Some hints even League-Alliance front being one of the fiercest—nobody both-
turned up in the second printings of a couple of history texts writ- ered to follow up on any of this.
 connection/JIHAD CONSPIRACIES/section04: The Hidden

The Hidden
The Rim Worlds Connection
The Ballad of Brooklyn Stevens We all know the official story: When Stefan the Usurper
launched his war against the Camerons and brought down the
A records search through The Usual Sources (filtered for Star League, he did so with an army that arose out of the blue. It
our collective sanity, of course) reveals that the Word of was an army carefully poised to strike at the heart of the Terran
Blake launched a funny little manhunt into Lyran and Free Hegemony by a years-long campaign aimed at courting a naïve
Worlds space mere weeks before the start of the Jihad. Their boy’s trust, and driving a wedge between the First Lord and his
“mystery quarry,” it seems, was one Doctor Brooklyn Marie Protector.
Stevens, a Lyran-born mercenary and one-time employee of What followed was said to be a lesson for the ages (the kind
Interstellar Expeditions. humans have to relearn every few centuries or so, when greedy
Stevens was one of those active academics you see mainly in and powerful men make a play to “take it all”). Amaris’ army was
holovid dramatizations—boasting doctorates in archaeology smashed, and his ancestral domain—the Rim Worlds Republic—
and Star League history from the University of Tharkad along was wiped off the map by the SLDF (with maybe a little unasked-for
with an unconventional, off-the-books sort of military training help from the Lyrans, who came to the party only after all the real
that made her equally capable of handling herself in a brawl blood had been spilled). In the Republic’s fiery demise, Kerensky
or on a dig site. Following what could best be described as a made sure everyone knew that Amaris and his family were dead.
“bad breakup” with IE, Doctor Stevens and her crew managed Examples were made of the likes of the Greenhaven Gestapo and
to abscond with an Explorer-class JumpShip, three long-range the 33rd Amaris Dragoons. History recorded Amaris’ name along-
shuttles, about four IndustrialMechs and at least two “black side Adolf Hitler and Jinjiro Kurita.
box” units that apparently make up an undisclosed part of IE’s And somehow lost in the shuffle were billions upon billions of
own communications net. Why IE never followed up that kind lives, the citizens of a realm shattered beyond all repair. The Elsies
of “resignation” with legal action (or lethal force) is a matter of absorbed only half of the Republic’s worlds (the profitable half,
a lot of fun speculation, but it proved convenient enough for of course, with the functioning factories). But in the anarchy that
them when they actually hired Stevens and her runaway crew followed, the outer reaches of the Rim Worlds were simply left to
for a mission: locate (and thereby prove the existence of) the rot, forgotten by the Steiners—history’s ever-wasteful, would-be
planet Jardine. predators.
Astoundingly, within less than four months—armed with In just a few decades (forget centuries!), dozens of “leftover”
little more than a discredited and buried report by an equally Republic worlds vanished from the star charts, many supposedly
discredited and buried exo-biologist named Amanda Holyfield— due to “extreme population decline” (a euphemism old naviga-
Stevens not only returned with a report of her own, but also a tors used to describe a world that wasn’t worth the fuel it cost to
native from Jardine. It was the crowning moment of her career. get there). Sure, a lot were dependent on their neighbors for vital
It was also her death warrant. resources—all now nixed by the utter demolition of their central
The Word of Blake’s manhunt targeted Stevens, her family government and interstellar infrastructure. But unless Aleks K.
and her crew. They tracked down her husband, Professor Tyler launched a few million nukes, bio-chem weapons, and such, the
Stevens, at Tharkad U on Donegal. They blasted her venerable odds of almost a hundred worlds depopulating in less than a fifth
ship apart near Skye, and tracked her deep into Marik space as many years is pretty hard to swallow, don’t you think?
before the fake Thomas Marik managed to whisk her away (if So, okay, if these worlds are being hidden somehow, who’s do-
only for a short time). ing the hiding? And why?
But while Stevens’ greatest triumph may have been her un- The Steiners are an obvious candidate, given their opportunis-
doing, she left behind a legacy that would put half the intel tic land grab, but as much as they crowed among themselves when
masterminds in the Inner Sphere to shame (and, had it come they took the Republic’s heartlands, one would think swallowing
sooner, could even have saved lives). Not only did she locate an entire realm whole would make them downright orgasmic.
the long-lost world of Jardine, she left clues to its existence Heck, the industrial/political clout would be immeasurable! But
and that of a secret cabal who ran it and as many as four more
such “Hidden Worlds.” Considering the evidence, Stevens’ dis-
covery establishes an almost-certain link between these five
worlds and the descendants of Stefan Amaris—a link that, if
true, shows us that the Word of Blake works hand-in-glove
with the heirs of history’s most notorious villain.
connection/JIHAD CONSPIRACIES/section04: The Hidden 00 / 00

The Hidden
their apparent failure to accomplish this public coup makes the I mean, who better? Their government was smashed. Their
Lyrans look a bit unlikely. realm bore the taint of the villain who destroyed a golden age.
The other Houses are more remote, largely due to geography, Their neighbors were engaging in an orgy of nuclear warfare. Why
plus lack of resolve and resources. An outside chance exists that the not, rather than wait for the axe to fall, simply flee the carnage?
Combine and the Free Worlds would’ve considered such moves to If we follow this thread, interesting possibilities emerge, particu-
pincer their mutual enemy, but three centuries of failing to crush larly if we try to imagine where they went. Did they flee deeper
the Steiners would seem to take them out of the running as well. into space, forming the mysterious Deep Periphery realms like the
ComStar, then? Well, the Rim was no friend to Jerome’s band, Hanseatic League and the Umayyad Caliphates? Did some find
but the descendants of the SLCOMNET were still rebuilding an new worlds to settle well off the beaten trade routes, effectively
pulling a Kerensky? Or were some clever enough to hide in plain
HPG network then, identifying worlds that were dying even as
view, occupying worlds deep within the Inner Sphere and playing
they went (kind of like an unofficial post-Star League census). But
possum in our midst all this time?
could they have lied or conveniently “erred” on their assessment
But why? Well, if we follow the Rim hiding itself theory, the
of dozens of former RWR planets, taking them off their maps and
answers are brutally simple: survival…and possibly revenge.
posting advisories that those planets were no longer habitable?
When the Rim Worlds died, a lot of people lost homes, careers,
Certainly possible, but with little more than a Star League cou- livelihoods, trade partners, allies and family. To save what re-
rier fleet and a smattering of ex-SLDF mercs at their disposal, it mained—whether accomplished by the Lyrans, ComStar, or the
would’ve been pretty brassy of Blake to try to claim a swath of Rimmers themselves—hiding the survivors would be a viable op-
worlds along a border still in the throes of an active assimilation tion and would sidestep any unpleasantness that might arise from
effort. (Though, all things considered, marking struggling worlds seeking asylum openly by factions embracing an eternal war.
“dead” would also be a neat way for Jerome to further punish the But if the Rim Worlds’ survivors fled into hiding for themselves?
Rimmers by discouraging merchant travel to their worlds. Cruel, Well, now we have a people who not only shield themselves from
but neat.) prying eyes to avoid someone finishing the job that Kerensky
What if the Lyrans did get bold enough to advance again, af- started—but a people who likely hold a lasting grudge against
ter all? Some, according to old reports, actually did. Likely in the the entire Inner Sphere.
hopes of snagging a bit of overlooked resources, or merely trade
partners among the former Republic territories, some ships went The Five and the Word
out there in the decades after the Star League fell. But very few of So where does that leave us?
these expeditions returned with news of struggling ex-Rimmers Well, for starters, the existence of hidden worlds in our Sphere
eager to reconnect with the Sphere. Indeed, in the few cases is no longer a stretch, but a very likely possibility. Anyone who sur-
where human life was found, it had reportedly regressed to wan- vived on a world bombed to dust could conceivably have eked
dering tribes or—at best—warring city states. These worlds would out a living and spawned a new order while ComStar quietly wrote
eventually be snapped up by the Bandit Kingdoms to come, but them off (either deliberately or due to incompetence).
For another, a vast number of these worlds could’ve included
fthe Lyrans wrote them off as useless. The rest were barren wastes,
the flagging remains of the Rim Worlds Republic, the nation-state
home to dead, empty cities and crumbling, stripped-out factories.
that overthrew the Star League and effectively unleashed cen-
Within less than twenty years, an entire civilization had been writ-
turies of warfare. They may not be the only people who would
ten off and nearly forgotten—recognized only as a cautionary tale
want to live on hidden worlds, but as the so-called destroyers of
on the wages of betrayal and evil. civilization, they’d certainly have a lot of motivation to stay in the
Back to ComStar. Though they are certainly front-runners in shadows.
any scheme to hide worlds, they may still have been hard-pressed Finally, we have a secret kept so long and so well that people
to do so on a scale that the remnant Rim Worlds represented. And even today are willing to kill for it (just ask Doctor Holyfield, Croft
it’s highly doubtful that they evacuated entire planets into the and the Stevens family). And these people seem to include the
bargain. So who, then? Word of Blake.
Why not the Rim Worlds itself? But why the Word, and why now?
 connection/JIHAD CONSPIRACIES/section04: The Hidden

The Hidden

Rim Worlds Outpost #27

In 3055, soon after the rise of the so-called “reformed” ComStar, of his life—exploded in a five-minute rant about Word of Blake
then-Primus Sharilar Mori and her Combine buddy, Theodore “monkey warfare.” According to the poor fellow, Blakist moles in
Kurita, announced the formation of the Explorer Corps (conve- ROM (or the EC itself) planted evidence in their cartography da-
niently ignoring the fact that the organization formally existed as tabase about a nine-star “mini realm” not so cryptically dubbed
a branch of ComStar as far back as 2980). Billing the endeavors of “RWR Outpost #27.” The reasons for this “prank” were many and
this new (or newly outed) allied organization as a concerted effort petty, though a large part focused on demonstrating how fallible
to explore the Deep Periphery for new worlds (and hopefully the ComStar’s info services could be, as well as undermining the trust
Clan homelands!), the Corps was a dream come true to some and between ComStar and its allies.
a nightmare to others. Archaeologists far and wide lauded its sci- But what if it was all a front? Strangely enough, few known
entific research benefits while Spheroid military leaders eagerly expeditions have ever been launched to check out the region de-
anticipated any info on the Clans’ origins. To the average merc, it scribed in this allegedly apocryphal map. Of the few wandering
was a new employment opportunity that fired the imagination traders passing through that region, none ever checked out the
and (hopefully) would bear few risks for excellent pay. But to the local planets—though some odd reports over the past ten years
Clans and the Deep Periphery’s more reclusive realms, it posed claim that at least one system in the RWR Outpost 27 area pos-
a threat. And to the average lostech prospector or fringe groups sessed warning buoys that were “ancient in manufacture, yet still
like Interstellar Expeditions? It was competition. operational.” These quarantine sats (at least two SkyWard Model
Some of you may recall, however, that the first few star maps IXs were mentioned) powered up as the merchants came into
of the Deep Periphery, coreward of the Sphere, were quickly re- range and announced that an unspecified “planet below” was un-
called by the Explorer Corps a mere month or two after they’d safe for travelers in accordance with the “ComStar Safe Transit and
been posted for all to see. “Editorial reasons” were cited, and boy, Astrogation Project.”
they weren’t kidding! When the revised maps came back a month Curiouser and curiouser, eh? So how does ComStar come to
or so later, an entire realm had disappeared. This vanishing realm “discover” and then “lose” again a system they apparently marked
had been named simply “RWR Outpost #27.” “closed” centuries ago? Are these travelers seeing things in the dark
Queries to ComStar by parties within and outside their Explorer depths of space, or have they really passed through a forgotten
Corps either went unanswered or received a pat “we apologize for realm? If their accounts are accurate, why did ComStar quarantine
the error” reply that never explained what would conjure a vague- these worlds, assign them a cluster name and then purge their
ly defined area the size of the Circinus Federation and then—just records after revealing them?
as quickly—expel it from existence. Until one day, a frustrated Or did the Word of Blake somehow “steal” these worlds? Could
acolyte on Pesht lost his patience with the question and—in the truth be even more sinister, even more intertwined?
what surely must have been the biggest Career-Limiting Move —Starling

Amaris and ComStar? mon link that prompted the Free Worlds League (at the very least)
The connection between the Rim Worlds and ComStar may to investigate.
look paper-thin, unless one digs deep enough into the events of According to the rumors, the investigation tracked the entire
early 3057 that many leaders would prefer to forget—specifical- affair back to a man claiming to be—get this—Stefan Amaris VII.
ly, a rash of unexplained raids aimed at almost every House and Working from a secret Periphery base (the rumor places this on
Clan. At first, these raids seemed wholly unfocused, save for the New St. Andrews), “Amaris” managed to gather up close to a regi-
fact that all of them sported colors from other Houses and made ment of BattleMechs made up mostly of bandits and mercs who
a point of leaving witnesses behind to tell the tale. False flags, of couldn’t get honest work if their lives depended on it. How far he
course, are a common enough ploy in many trades, but the timing really stood a chance of succeeding is immaterial; in all likelihood,
of these strikes—coupled with the gory suicides of the few raider “Amaris” would’ve wound up another two-bit bandit king if the
warriors downed in these battles—swiftly demonstrated a com- local Houses didn’t destroy him on general principles.
connection/JIHAD CONSPIRACIES/section04: The Hidden 00 / 00

The Hidden
But his story does have some interesting features that seem to Hiding Planets
link Amaris and ComStar. Consider: So how do you hide a world if you don’t think you have what it
 “Amaris” was actually born Richard Thurston-Moray on takes to lead a caravan of JumpShips over a year’s travel into the
ComStar-occupied Terra. (The name Moray tracked back to a unknown, to hide behind a nebula or two? Well, at this point, let
known mistress of the Usurper who went missing during the me paraphrase Torhanssen’s rather long-winded seminar on the
Liberation, though there seems to be a generation-long gap topic…
in it.) Let’s face it, folks: space is HUGE! And sensors only work so
 At an early age (and with no small degree of prodding by lo- far with any kind of reliability. To begin even looking for a hid-
cal recruiters), Thurston-Moray entered the Order and would den world, one first has to know which one of those millions upon
eventually work as an archivist—the perfect place to discover millions of stars out there one’s quarry is orbiting. Mounting an
his buried lineage. expedition then becomes the next step, which is prohibitively
 New St. Andrews, at the time, was classified as a “recent” dis- expensive—especially in a day and age when only crazy or ex-
covery by ComStar’s Explorer Corps. tremely confident JumpShip captains venture to systems where
 At the time of his great discovery (which included either six no spare parts are likely to be found should the drive core burn
other guys named Stefan Ulkris Amaris who managed to some- out. The good news is, a hidden world will be completely safe
how avoid being burned at the stake long enough to father from casual observation or the idly curious.
kids, or six other direct ancestors he chose to retroactively But say the searching party is a bit more determined and re-
grant the name to), Thurston-Moray also learned that ComStar sourceful. What do you need to do these days to hide from those
had uncovered a secret Terran bank account funded by the prying eyes?
original Amaris during his reign as “Emperor” there. Step 1: Seal the borders. All off-world contact with your
 This secret stash accounted for roughly 6 percent of the trea-
hidden world must be squelched. You can’t have any HPGs or
spaceports (at least none with standing control facilities, surface-
sury of the Terran Hegemony before Kerensky showed up,
to-orbit communications, active radar and ILS networks. Things
siphoned straight from the Hegemony’s taxpayers.
like that are too easily spotted off-planet, and HPG signals from
So, let’s get this straight. ComStar just happens to get an heir
“nowhere” tend to be quite the giveaway.
to Amaris in its ranks? Said acolyte just happens to work in the
Forget about trade. Even local commerce must be strictly
archives? Where he just happens to stumble over data from two
regulated, and your communities need to be self-sufficient. A
major recent discoveries ComStar just happened to come upon—
communal structure is necessary, as commercial competition
discoveries that just happened to provide a key source for a base
breeds industry, which breeds waste, which breeds more chances
world and the resources to hire troops for a major campaign?
to be detected from orbit.
That’s an awful lot of things “just happening,” isn’t it?
Step 2: Radio silence. You also want no planet-bound wireless
The question is, did ComStar create this new Amaris, or was he
communications traffic, at least nothing that a passing ship can
some kind of Blakist plant, either directly or indirectly? Either way, detect. This means no satellite network at all, and no high-capac-
a connection with the followers of Blake and the fallen House of ity broadcast towers. ECM won’t work, as it has its own electronic
Amaris seems incontrovertible. But what exactly is the connec- signature that gives away something afoot. Your people will need
tion, how far does it go, and who is in charge? More important to stick to old-school fiber-optic lines, low-power relays or laser-
than that, what are their plans? LOS transceiving. Tin cans and string work too, in a pinch.
Couple this with the on-again, off-again discovery of the so- Step 3: Population control. This is the fun part. You see, you
called RWR Outpost #27, and the mysterious disappearance of just can’t hide a heavily populated planet. Big cities, sprawling
millions of Rimmies after the fall of the Star League, and a very sin- over continents, with intricate highway and aerospace activity are
ister picture takes shape. Lostech prospectors and other explorers going to get noticed from orbit. Moving them underground (or
have found no sign of the former Republic beyond the bandit underwater) may help, but that kind of thing stifles growth and,
kingdoms that rose in its wake, leaving whole planetary popula- frankly, the waste of your population’s activities will be notice-
tions unaccounted for in the Near Periphery. These people went able.
somewhere, and judging by the Stevens’ discovery and its after- Smaller cities—we’re talking colonial-village scale—are more
math, one distinct possibility is “inward” rather than “outward.” doable, but have to look like ruins from orbit, heavily overgrown
 connection/JIHAD CONSPIRACIES/section04: The Hidden

The Hidden
with vegetation and the like. And you can’t have many of them, or such a fashion is fair game for speculation, though it could be that
connect them with roads more sophisticated than a dirt path. This some of the falling Republic worlds might have been research
means communities have to stick close together, or it’ll take days centers or techno-warehouses.
to coordinate a population when it’s endangered. Underground At the time of the Republic’s fall, the big culprits for helping
mass transit could help, but if you’re going that far, you may as to hide the Rimmers could only have been ComStar and House
well build everything and call it a day. Steiner, or else the Republic had way more help from outside
Any farmlands need to be disguised as random growth, look- sources than we ever could have dreamed. Of these theories, only
ing sparse and untended at all times. Once more, underground ComStar comes close to fitting the bill. But why?
is an option, but optimum produce is always best achieved the One reason stands out: As of the Order’s foundation, it claimed
old-fashioned way. only one ace in the hole, one means to avoid a House Lord’s inva-
Population control allows you to centralize government and sion of Terra: the monopoly over HPGs. If a House dared such a
whatever industry you must have into small areas, but you must venture, however, could HPG dominance truly have spared Terra
keep it controlled at all times. A good size Torhanssen recom- from a full-scale invasion? In the post-Star League era, Terra was
mends is about, oh, ten thousand—all of whom must contribute the ultimate prize, yet the House Lords knew that assaulting the
to daily life, like an early Terran Exodus colony. But unlike the early planet would as likely undermine their claim to the First Lordship
colonies, which encouraged growth and reproduction, a hiding as validate it. So the odds were running fifty-fifty that Terra would
population can’t allow itself to spread out on the surface. And ex- eventually come under some House’s crosshairs.
tensive digging or manufacturing of submerged expansions may If you were ComStar, and you had only one planet to claim
draw attention. So, be prepared to get draconian to maintain an sovereignty over, and that planet was the biggest prize in the uni-
almost zero-growth population. verse for a greedy House Lord, wouldn’t you want a contingency
Step 4: Get help on the outside. Even after all the trouble plan? And here were the remnants of the Republic, desperate for
you’ve gone through, you still need to make sure the secret is kept salvation. What better way to ensure your survival than to gather
way more proactively than simply hiding on your world with no these refugees, promise them that salvation, and set them up on
radio or holovids to speak of. You need to make sure someone a host of worlds at the heart of the Inner Sphere, where nobody
erases you from the maps, seeds your system with warning buoys would ever think to look for them?
(if it was once part of the Star League general census, anyway) and Elaborate? Maybe. But if anyone in this universe of ours has
discourages all traffic from coming anywhere near your hidden been playing the long game here, it’s ComStar.
planets. This kind of task takes a generation or more of diligent …Or is it? Remember that the post-Schism ComStar has acted
work, perhaps, followed by decades or centuries of casual obser- completely unaware of these worlds in the present day, and that
vation. the investigation into Jardine recently ended with the murder of
The goal here is to erase your world from the collective con- its discoverers by operatives apparently from the Word of Blake.
sciousness and maybe even from every printed historical record Could it be that ComStar, so intent on protecting their Rimmer
out there. Naturally, this part takes the real conspiracy, and to hold friends, formed a secret society around the concept that actually
the secret for so long, it would have to be the kind that has a life all went over completely to the Word of Blake? Or could the Rimmers
its own—a secret society, like a cult or a brotherhood. have come out of hiding among the Blakists’ ranks by themselves,
Know anyone who fits that bill? poisoning the breakaway “Order” from within?
Cogitate on that, dear readers, and remember that the mon-
The Big Picture strous behavior and terrible weapons of the Word must have
Aside from the restrictive population demands—which mainly come from somewhere that no Spheroid intel agency could find.
apply only if the locals on the hidden planets enjoy a surface- Remember that, only months before this war, did we first hear the
dwelling lifestyle—the refugees of the Rim Worlds Republic could names of Gabriel and Jardine in the present tense rather than the
have done most of what Torhanssen recommends for concealing past. Shortly before her death, Stevens released one last clue to
worlds, so long as someone helped them disappear in the chaos these hidden worlds, a clue as succinct as it is dramatic:
of the early Succession Wars. Why anyone would assist them in There are at least five such worlds out there.