An Introduction to ComStar

More than BattleTech's phone company

This one probably should have happened earlier. I’ve written about Tukayyid in the past and name checked ComStar quite a few times without properly discussing the order. To tell the truth, the original concept for the newsletter was “the Secret History of the Clan Invasion” and even after changing titles I still had it mind to only reconstruct their side of the story. But plans change, and often for the better! As we have the Wolves of Tukayyid DLC swirling around and recently discussed the end of the Star League, this seems like a pretty good time to finally talk ComStar.

Before starting, a quick note on the scope here. ComStar’s a complicated topic and I don’t want to race through it. This is the starting point, meant to clarify how they formed and giving a “good enough” idea of the organization up until the coming of the Clans. I think most readers know that ComStar undergoes significant upheaval as a result of Operation REVIVAL and – as I’m finding myself saying a bit too often – that will be discussed in due course. Also, if you voted for an issue on Jerome Blake as a hero of the Inner Sphere in the November poll, this isn’t that. The Blake-centered issue is coming out next week, to coincide with the character’s birthday on January 11^th.

A Prophet with Dirt Under His Nails

Still, we will be talking a lot about Jerome Blake today, and I should point out some unusual things about him as a BattleTech character. He wasn’t born into great fortune and he spent his life as a civilian. Outside of his successors in ComStar and its splinters, it’s hard to think of another prominent BattleTech character who one can say that about. Honestly, even the list of notable non-noble civilian characters outside of the tradition Blake founded is short and largely confined to scientists like Professor Gregory Atlas. Of course, as pointed out last week, this reflects the perspective of the Inner Sphere’s elite – no doubt the Human Sphere has an awful lot of people (artists, journalists, etc.) that we might think significant even if they go beneath the notice of neo-Feudal aristocrats. But I need to get down to business. Let’s talk some Blake.

He was born on the 11^th January 2739 in small-town Illinois. As a child, Jerome Blake was identified as a mathematical and scientific prodigy and pushed to succeed – and unlike most child prodigies, he prospered in this pressure-cooker environment. Blake graduated university at the age of sixteen and was recruited into the Star League’s Department of Communications to work on the vital Hyperpulse Generator (HPG) network. Due to a quirk of fate, Blake was among the senior technicians who escaped the Amaris Coup and he volunteered to assist the Star League Defense Force in maintaining their communications during the ensuing civil war. He was wounded on Dieron and had the opportunity to meet General Kerensky during his convalescence. Historical: Liberation of Terra II (the main source for this biographical section) tells us that the two got on well but had differences in perspective due to Kerensky’s attachment to “honor and passion”.

These different worldviews played an important part in the post-war period. Whether you buy my version about why the House Lords disdained Kerensky or not, the General’s honor led him to respond in an aloof manner that… I’ll be charitable and say that it did not improve the situation. Meanwhile, Blake’s focus on the practical task of restoring HPG communications saw him nominated and confirmed as the dying Star League’s new Minister of Communications. The subsequent transformation of that Ministry into ComStar was partly driven by necessity. The rest of the League’s bureaucracy and the regional government of the Terran Hegemony was in ruins. Blake was the only Star League Minister left and with the High Council indifferent to the Hegemony’s fate, he was the only person with the authority and brief to do anything for the people of the Inner Sphere’s core. Thanks to the Ministry of Communications being at least partly functional and bringing in revenue from HPG traffic through the center of the Human Sphere, Blake was able to allocate funds for reconstruction and humanitarian efforts – and a kind of “mission creep” solidified these into governance.

But there was also an intentional and planned aspect to ComStar’s founding. In particular, after Kerensky’s departure from the Inner Sphere, Blake went to each of the Great House capitals in turn to plead the case for the HPG network’s neutrality. (I have to point out here that’s it’s impossible to imagine the “honorable” Aleksandr Kerensky going to plead his case to the House Lords, no matter what that meant for ordinary people.) Blake’s diplomatic style seems to have been inspired by experience dealing with petty tyrants in middle and upper management. When the Lyran Commonwealth’s Archon Jennifer Steiner put the mission in peril at its first stop, saying that she would sign up to respect communications neutrality if only the other Great Houses would do the same, Blake simply lied to her. He claimed that he already had the private assurances of her rivals and implied that if the Lyran Commonwealth really wanted to be the “odd man out”, then the Ministry of Communications would have to find a way to carry on their work without House Steiner. The ruse might not have been on the level of the Arthashastra, but Blake chose the right moment and right reason to cash in his reputation as straightforward, verging on naive.

Of course, mere words only go so far. The Great Houses were slowly gobbling up the worlds of the Terran Hegemony – and plundering them to make good revenues lost from when the civil war tipped the Inner Sphere’s economy into a nosedive. Troops from several of the Houses were even stationed on Terra, under the pretense of “security concerns”. Blake was no fool and knew where this was going. He’d seen the aftermath of Kerensky’s battles on his homeworld, and should Terra become a battlefield for the Great Houses there would never be a real pause for rebuilding. In 2788, two years into what would become known as the First Succession War, he played his last card. The remnants of the SLDF, led by General Lauren Hayes and kept secret for years after Kerensky’s departure, were ordered to secure the Solar System. These forces were more than enough to chase out the House troops on Terra and bring to heel other rebels under the sun’s light – and perhaps a little more, but Blake wasn’t prepared to up the stakes on this gamble. He announced to the Great Houses that humanity’s home system was under ComStar’s protection and would stand neutral in the wars to come.

How Religious are these People?

After Jerome Blake’s passing, we’re told that ComStar became increasingly religious. Blake’s body was embalmed and displayed at ComStar’s headquarters at Hilton Head. We’re given a range of explanations of how this happened; some versions have Blake suffering from hallucinations due to his injuries in the civil war, some have his successor Conrad Toyama playing an evil genius role. These work well enough, though I wonder if we can live without a great man with a great plan here. Can we imagine the leaders of an organization quoting the words of their legendary founder as precedent, and the habit continuing down through the generations until it became dogma? Indeed, some readers might be thinking of real-world situations that could take the place of imagination here!

In the ComStar sourcebook we get a few fragments from Jerome Blake’s writings and glosses attributed to his successor Conrad Toyama that address the relationship between ComStar and religion. The first, Blake’s view that humanity was heading into a Dark Age, was likely made during the First Succession War and is little more than an observation. In the second, he makes an explicit connection:

“All that saved mankind during its last so-called Dark Age were the churches and religions. These were havens for humanity’s learning and they stood alone as bastions in the darkness and foulness that humankind had become, to preserve the history and knowledge… if ComStar is to survive into the future, it must look to these religions as a blueprint for surviving the wars that are unfolding around us.”

Now, I can’t let this pass without some criticism. Blake seems to know enough to talk about a “so-called” Dark Age – but when he imagines “humanity”, his horizons don’t go much beyond Europe’s troubled early medieval period. China’s prosperity at that time, under the Tang dynasty, is simply off the map! (For the record, we don’t need to blame the real-world writers for any of this: it reads like something written by a STEM prodigy who skimped on the humanities and never systematically approached history. That’s consistent with the Jerome Blake character.)

As for ComStar using religion as a blueprint, the visual language certainly looks the part: we get shown ComStar adepts dressed in robes like those of medieval monks and nuns. Sometimes their trademark white gives the look a certain resemblance to the Carthusians, sometimes technology and ornamentation steers them away from that Order’s simplicity. It’s not clear to me that the look is meant to call the Carthusians in particular to mind, but I’m flagging this in case readers more familiar with Christian monasticism have more to say. In another nod to the monastic life, we’re told that ComStar’s members intone prayers while doing technical work – though I can’t say this was ever shown in detail. Still, we have been shown members of ComStar referring to “the Blessed Blake” with great reverence and (despite his death) speaking of doing as he wills. Their holding at Terra, seat of the old empire, can’t help but suggest the medieval Papacy and the power of Interdiction (a ban from accessing the HPG network) recalls the Pope’s Excommunication (refusal of the Christian rite of communion). But there’s a difference in substance. Those banned from HPG communications are not being put at spiritual peril. They are denied a material good and – in the case of the Inner Sphere’s wealthiest – have their fortunes put in danger. Wrap this in as much mumbo-jumbo as you like: the Interdiction has power whether you believe in it or not, while Excommunication in itself means very little to an atheist.

Returning to the ComStar sourcebook, Blake’s words a final salvation are similarly secular:

“I believe a day will come when the fighting ends and we can emerge as saviors… The victories will come for us one world at a time – then one House at a time – until we control everything. Mankind will not resist but will invite us to help rebuild, as we have done with blessed Terra.”

Of course, that “we control everything” formulation is pretty interesting because it’s in a text that otherwise presents Blake sympathetically and uses Toyama as the fall guy. But I’m more struck by this quote as part of the ComStar creed of final salvation. Blake predicts no miracles. The gloss attributed to Toyama adds the notion of “divine foresight” into the mix – though we’re not told which divinity! If that line is meant to tell us that ComStar has a god (a technology god?) then to some extent I think the sourcebook is written the right way, because their Inner Sphere audience would know all about the ordinary stuff. Educated Spherers who’ve used HPG networks would have heard the name of ComStar’s god each time they had to send a message, and surely don’t need to be told it again. But drawing this assumption from one line – really just one word – is going a long way.

Maybe It’s Not About Religion

If you’ll forgive me for closing on another tangent, ComStar’s religiosity often seems like more of a comment on real world events than something fully worked out in itself. While many of the Order’s trappings recall the medieval Catholic Church, others have quite a different heritage. Blake’s body being displayed for the masses by a devious successor seems to be a point back to Lenin’s corpse meeting a similar fate. We’re out of time, so I’ll leave this as a question: is it possible that the depiction of ComStar just reworks the old idea that Socialism is a kind of religion?