History Characters / BattletechInnerSphere

* QualityOverQuantity: The Fed Suns tend to prefer versatile and reliable JackOfAllStats mechs, like the ''Wolverine'' and ''Centurion'', with lots of dakka. They lack the sheer manpower of House Kurita to field a many FragileSpeedster, nor the economic power of Steiner. Instead, the AFFS likes to practice combined arms. Every man counts for the Fed Suns.

* QualityOverQuantity: The Fed Suns tend to prefer versatile and reliable JackOfAllStats mechs with lots of dakka. They lack the sheer manpower of House Kurita to field a many FragileSpeedster, nor the economic power of Steiner. Instead, the AFFS likes to practice combined arms. Every man counts for the Fed Suns.

* QualityOverQuantity: The Fed Suns tend to prefer versatile and reliable JackOfAllStats mechs with lots of dakka. They lack the sheer manpower of House Kurita to field many FragileSpeedsters, nor the economic power of Steiner. Instead, the AFFS likes to practice combined arms. Every man counts for the Fed Suns.

* WellIntentionedExtremist: Ian wanted to unite all of humanity and guide it into an era of peace and progress, but where negotiation and diplomacy did not work he turned to economic sanctions and even war. Mind you, he was not exactly happy it actually got to this and was furious when some of the more brutal SLDF commanders committed atrocities to make it happen.

* CanadaEh: He was a Canadian, who grew up in the Yukon Territories.

* TallPoppySyndrome: While the "social general" phenomenon is sometimes overstated, the LCAF officer corps' reputation isn't at all helped by the fact that competent commanders sometimes deliberately underperform to avoid drawing the ire of less competent but more influential peers and seniors. Those who don't play the political game with equal acumen to their tactical skill often find themselves either [[ReassignedToAntarctica stuck in dead-end postings]] or leaving the LCAF entirely (sometimes striking out on their own as mercenaries). The reforms of the [=FedCom=] era have gone some way to reversing this trend.

* PayEvilUntoEvil: About the only people who give Amaris the slightest bit of respect are the denizens of the old Periphery realms. They still acknowledge and loathe him as an utterly loathsome, conniving, backstabbing mass-murderer, but given their own history with the Inner Sphere, they tend to see his murder of the Camerons and the resulting devastation of the Civil War as the Star League's chickens coming home to roost after generations of systematic oppression and exploitation of their own homelands.

* DreamingTheTruth: While Sun-Tzu scoffs at his crazy sister's insistence on the mystical import of dreams, he has one that leaves him with a very good idea when he wakes up. Seeing people he knows as he last met them, then as he perceives them to be now, the "now" picture comes up blank when it gets to Joshua Marik. This makes sense to Sun-Tzu, as he hasn't seen Joshua since the boy left Outreach for New Avalon for leukemia treatment during the Clan Invasion. But this give Sun-Tzu the idea to accuse Victor of having replaced Joshua with a body double, even though he knows Victor would never do such a thing.

* BlackAndGrayMorality: Though the Federated Suns preach freedom and liberty, they are not without their flaws, and are an aggressive military power. But then again, on one border they have the Draconis, who are [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy crazed Space Samurai]] hellbent on [[TheEmpire universal domination]], who are [[ButForMeItWasTuesday just as happy to slaughter their own civilians]] as their enemies and who committed the worst warcrime in Battletech history. On the other border, you have an authoritarian [[PoliceState police state]] whose greatest claim to fame are their secret police, ran by scheming [[TheSociopath sociopathic]] nobles with ChronicBackstabbingDisorder and its a [[TheCaligula roll of the dice on just how sane they are.]]

* LetsGetDangerous: For all the flak the Lyrans get for their "social generals," it shouldn't be forgotten that the Lyran Commonwealth has not only survived for centuries next door to the Draconis Combine, the single most overtly militaristic and expansionistic Successor State in the Inner Sphere, but frequently gave as much as they got in their incessant wars. When led by competent commanders who know how to play to their strengths, LCAF's mechwarriors can be downright ''brutal'', especially when up against an enemy expecting them to be just another group of CannonFodder led by lackluster twits.

* TheHeavy: Prior to the Clan Invasion era, the Combine's massive resource base, aggressive militarism, expansionistic jingoism, and virulent xenophobia made them the eight-hundred pound gorilla in the room that the rest of the Inner Sphere (particularly the Federated Suns and Lyran Commonwealth) always had to keep an eye on. This is amplified in earlier lore, where the [=FedSuns'=] ''de facto'' protagonist status meant that we constantly saw them reacting to the Dragon's latest gambit, as the Combine was by far the greater threat of their two neighbors.

* LetsGetDangerous: For all the flak the Lyrans get for their "social generals," it shouldn't be forgotten that the Lyran Commonwealth has not only survived for centuries next door to the Draconis Combine, the single most overtly militaristic and expansionistic Successor State in the Inner Sphere, but frequently gave as much as they got in their incessant wars. When led by competent commanders who know how to play to their strengths, LCAF's mechwarriors can be downright ''brutal'', especially when up against an enemy expecting them to be just another group of lackluster twits.

* StarCrossedLovers: Downplayed with Phelan Kell. They had a brief but intense romance when the Kell Hounds were stuck on Gunzburg, to the point that Phelan offered to get her a spot in the Hounds, but her father's prejudice against mercenaries resulted in her turning him down [[ForWantOfANail (although it did cause her to request and get a transfer to the unit that wound up facing the Clan Wolf flagship that she wound up ramming and stalling the entire invasion)]]. Ironically, her above-mentioned HeroicSacrifice nearly killed Phelan, as he was on the way to the bridge of the [=WarShip=] she rammed her fighter into.

Born in 2983, Hanse Davion was never exepcted to claim the position of First Prince (given that he was SpareToTheThrone, being the younger sibling of Ian Davion, whom everyone expected to have a long and fruitful reign...nobody expected that as a FrontlineGeneral, Ian would be killed in a YouShallNotPass against the Second Sword of Light on Mallory's World), and soon made his own name as a leader and warrior. Shortly after taking the throne, Hanse won the grueling battle of Halstead Station, though losing the love of his life in the process.\\

Hanse would continue to rule over the Federated Suns portion of the Commonwealth[[note]]the Commonwealth proper as an actual unified entity was only to begin once both Hanse and Melissa had died and their heir took over as Archon-Prince, in the event that would be Victor Steiner-Davion (though Katherine would contest him for the title in the [=FedCom=] Civil War)[[/note]] up to the early days of the Clan Invasion, when the stresses of decades of war and high-stakes statecraft finally exacted their toll and he died of a heart attack on June 17, 3052. He died after watching a message from Sun Tzu Liao, who had appropriated Hanse's [[MagnificentBastard magnificant bastardry]] and threw Hanse's nuptial taunts at Sun Tzu's grandfather Maximilian back in Hanse's face, by announcing his marraige of Isis Marik and the simultaneous alliance of the Capellan Confederation and the Free Worlds League.

* VisionaryVillain: On becoming Chancellor, his chief aim was to make his realm whole after it's near-collapse in the Fourth Succession War, then to restore the pride and prosperity of his people. If it means using a deep-cover Maskirovka agent to provoke a war, abusing his authority as First Lord of the second Star League, and pulling every psychological trick to manipulate everyone around him into doing exactly what he wants, then so be it.

* LightningGun: The Combine loves its [=PPCs=]. Several of its signature 'mechs carry one and most Inner Sphere [=PPC=] developments (re-introducing the ERPPC, the light PPC, the heavy PPC and PPC capacitators) were developed in the Combine's labs.

* ObfuscatingInsanity: Pretends to be just as off his rocker as his mother, but is actually completely lucid and extremely cunning. His aunt wasn't fooled, which was probably the only reason [[spoiler: she didn't waste him too when she killed Romano Liao and her lover.]]

* GoneHorriblyRight: Under First Lord Jonathan Cameron, the SLDF pioneered the SDS (Space Defense System), massive networks of drone warships, armed defense satellites, and surface-to-orbit guns meant to keep the worlds of the Terran Hegemony safe from invasion. Unfortunately, he never counted on one of his descendants, Richard Cameron, literally handing the keys over to foreign troops (Stefan Amaris and his Rim Worlds Republic army), who proceeded to hijack the SDS systems of almost all of the Hegemony worlds and turn them against the SLDF during his coup.

** The second attempt, founded by the victorious Alaric Wolf after his conquest of Terra in 3151, seems to have had more staying power, as it still exists in some form as of the latest date mentioned thus far in canon (3250).

** The second attempt, founded by the victorious Alaric Wolf after his conquest of Terra in 3151, seems to have had more staying power, as it seems to still exist in some form as of the latest date mentioned thus far in canon (3250).

** Kerensky himself was interred in a crystal coffin aboard his flagship, the ''[=McKenna's=] Pride'', where he became a symbol of why Nicholas' new society was necessary and the sacrifices made to bring it about.