Free Worlds League 3058 Update

Perhaps the most important event in the years after 3056 was the death in that year of Joshua Marik, heir to the Free Worlds League's Captain-General Thomas Marik. For years the young heir had remained at the Federated Commonwealth's New Avalon Insitute of Science for treatment of his leukemia, an arrangement that had prevented Thomas Marik from launching any type of military action against the Federated Commonwealth. When the heir died, Prince Victor Steiner-Davion inserted a double in the boy's place. Capellan Chancellor Sun-Tzu Liao learned of this deception the following year, and proposed to Thomas Marik a joint Marik-Liao invasion of the Sarna March that would simultaneously punish Steiner-Davion for his treachery and recapture former Marik and Liao worlds.

In 3057, Marik and Liao forces invaded the Sarna March. The Liao invaders quickly captured many former Liao worlds, aided by Marik-backed mercenaries. Marik forces enjoyed wide success as well, taking several former Free Worlds League planets. Almost immediately, Katrina Steiner-Davion announced the formation of the new Lyran Alliance, declared Lyran neutrality in the invasion, and called for all Lyran military units to withdraw from Federated Commonwealth possessions in the March. Marik took advantage of this development to settle for a separate peace with Katrina.

The Free Worlds League is currently the largest employer of mercenaries in the Inner Sphere. The League's current position of strength in the Inner Sphere has made it more attractive to the many merc commanders who previously shied away from League contracts because of the realm's seemingly inherent instability. Currently, the League is using most of its mercs to hold the worlds it retook from the Federated Commonwealth until regular forces can be shifted to those planets.

Thomas Marik's posture of non-aggression toward the Lyran Alliance, as well as his partnership with the Capellan Confederation, has secured most of his borders. The only missions the League assigns within the Chaos March are garrison duty and pirate hunting; the steady increase in pirate raids in the March has made the latter particularly important. The Free Worlds League is currently uninterested in additional conquest of the Chaos March, though that may change.

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