Fragmentation
by Kickaha is a BattleTech fanfiction that starts during the Marik Civil War (circa 3014), wherein Cranston Snord of Snord's Irregulars gets an offer that sounds Too Good to Be True, from a mysterious businessman who knows far too much about The Irregulars and Wolf's Dragoons. But Mr. Broker's motivations may fall in line with the Irregulars' and Dragoons' own mission against a common enemy to the entire Inner Sphere. And Broker's backers, Executive Outcomes, have some intentions that may make business very interesting very quickly.
Unlike many BattleTech stories, Fragmentation focuses more on the politics of the Inner Sphere than the warfare aspect, while doing a good job at keeping everything in character.
Is still ongoing as of 2014, albeit slowly..
Tropes:
- Actually Pretty Funny: During an intelligence briefing, where Quintus is explaining to Hanse Davion the inability of any intelligence agency to infiltrate EO, Hanse is rather amused at what happened to the spies his Federated Suns and the Lyran Commonwealth sent, the former stranded in a Canopan Pleasure Circus, the latter stranded on a planet renowned for their luxurious spas, both cases fully paid up, but with no available transport away for over a month.
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: The Captain-General confronts ComStar's stand-in for their ambassador when he is called back to Terra about a series of 'rumors' that came along with the return of his treacherous cousin Anton to his custody. All of them being absolutely true.Janos: Rumors that ComStar is experimenting with drugs to pacify entire populations, that ComStar intends to recreate the Terran Hegemony with itself as the ruling party, that it was responsible for that recent nasty pirate affair between the Lyrans and the Combine, and, of course, the deeply disturbing slander that ComStar is conducting human experimentation to produce Super Soldiers for the ComGuard. That the Primus intends to recreate the Star League with himself as the First Lord. And, of course, the usual age-old accusations that ComStar reads the mail we send that they might profit from private communications. Such base rumors about the noble couriers who carry our mail never seem to die. Human nature, I suppose.
- Company Town: Janos Marik repeatedly tries this on Snord's Irregulars, Wolf's Dragoons and any other forces he can get his hands on, throwing them against his brother's forces so that if they win, they'll be so battered, they'll be forced into debt to him for repairs, and if they lose, it keeps his own loyal forces in good shape. Broker's offer throws a Spanner in the Works repeatedly by giving them enough materiel to keep in shape, and giving them a ride off planet when Snord's forces take immense amounts of salvage that Janos was relying on, and later on rescuing the Dragoons' hostages when Janos attempts to blackmail the Dragoons into becoming his own forces.
- Crazy Enough to Work: ComStar's plans are a horrifying version of this. In canon, the Capellan Confederation, with ComStar's support, attempted to replace Hanse Davion with a brainwashed duplicate. In this story, ComStar planned to do so with the leaders of all five nations. In addition, they planned to re-introduce 'fosterage', which is, in essence, allowing ComStar to raise and Brainwash the heirs of the leaders of the Inner Sphere, thus making them totally loyal to ComStar alone. This was seen as this trope by several people, though lampshaded as bad melodrama if it wasn't so possible.
- For Want Of A Nail: Executive Outcomes ends up preventing the deaths of Joshua Wolf and the Dragoons' hostages by Anton Marik during the Marik Civil War.
- Groin Attack: A Dragoon soldier receives one of these as an 'accident' after he started a bar fight by groping a Kyphon woman who had some unusual gene mods that the former mistook for a costume.
- Honor Before Reason: Averting this is one of Executive Outcomes' sales pitches among periphery nations, where they sell masses of inexpensive low-tech vehicles such as the Pike to overwhelm BattleMechs.
- Little Bit Beastly: A not-uncommon gene mod for bored Kyphon, including the woman in the above-mentioned Groin Attack.
- Mini-Mecha: The Guardians offered to be an analogue to Elemental suits are considered this in comparison to Elementals or BattleMechs.
- Outside-Context Problem: Executive Outcomes comes across as this to the various factions of the Inner Sphere due to them supposedly being a security firm, yet producing enough jumpships and military vehicles to sell across the entire Inner Sphere, as well as their unusual philosophies.
- This is taken even further when EO deliberately allows ComStar to get a hold of a small amount of their technology, frustrating ComStar when they learn they can't reproduce it in any great amounts due to the advancements and incredibly expensive materials.
- Simple, yet Awesome: Despite Executive Outcomes’s advanced technology, some of the things that shock the Irregulars at first are very simple ways to use current technology in ways nobody ever conceived of. One of the earliest examples is using dropships carrying only massive battery arrays to rapidly recharge jumpship drives to get around the one to two jump per week limitations involved with recharging drive batteries. It limits the capacity of the jumpship but allows you to get from point A to point B almost as quickly as you can attach and detach your battery ships.
- Shout-Out: A couple here and there.
- The Kyphon's philosophies contain shoutouts to Objectivism and Discordianism, the former even lampshaded by an Executive Outcomes jumpship named the Ayn Rand.
- Executive Outcomes creates a diversion for ComStar by attacking their Hyperpulse Generators on several worlds in the guise of the Dread Pirate Roberts, demanding the return of Princess Buttercup.
- One loudmouth once challenged procurement to make Ovalkwik. He asked for it, he got it.
- The Singularity: The Kyphon are considered having encountered this due to having surpassed the Inner Sphere and even the Clans, both being on the receiving end of Lost Technology.
- Too Dumb to Live: A ComStar mole was wanted in four out of the five Successor States for child molestation, particularly in the Draconis Combine where he picked the wrong target...Broker: Seriously? The idiot had the audacity to try to molest a member of the Kurita family? I was aware Kneiss was stupid from your briefings, but I was under the impression the genetrash still had some basic survival instincts.
- Transhuman: The Kyphon dove straight into this, originally out of necessity to weed out genetic flaws due to their relatively low population and solar radiation, and only continued on from there.
