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| “ | You will fight to the last soldier, and when you die, I will call upon your damned souls to rise and speak horrible curses at the enemy. | „ |
| ~ Stefan Amaris to his soldiers defending Terra on January 15th, 2779 |
Stefan Amaris, also known as Stefan the Usurper, is a major antagonist from the mecha themed tabletop game BattleTech. He was the President of the Rim Worlds Republic, before the completion of his plan which saw him turn the Star League into a despotic empire with himself as Emperor. His actions are the ultimate catalyst for many events after his bringing low of the League, including the technological degradation of Inner Sphere humanity in the Succession Wars as well as the eventual departure of the Star League Defense Force into deep space where they would become The Clans.
History[]
Early life[]
Stefan was born in the Rim Worlds Republic on the 28th of August, 2717, heir to the ruling House Amaris. Due to his birthright, he was quickly indoctrinated into Republic politics and ideology, as well as the deeds of his ancestors. This would make Amaris believe he had a destiny to fulfill, as would be noted in his diary. This destiny would evidently be bringing low the Star League which had imposed its will on the Periphery many decades ago, in the Reunification War.
By the time Amaris had entered adulthood, he had gained a firm grasp on Star League politics, which would greatly aid him in his infamous usurpation of power. He also kept an eye on important figures within the League; ironically, this would include the man who would be the death of him: Aleksandr Kerensky, then just the aide to the Commander-General of the SLDF of the time.
Stefan would assume his birthright of being President of the Rim Worlds Republic in 2738; he would also be given the title of Duke of Apollo.
Corrupting Richard Cameron[]
The Usurper's chance to achieve his destiny would come when the unexpected death of First Lord Simon Cameron in what appeared to be an industrial accident during a tour of a mining world (later proved to be an assassination, but it is unclear if Amaris played a hand in it as the culprit was never found) resulted in his son Richard II being put into the position after a brief period where he was not of age. Amaris realized that the boy was bereft with experience due to his father not being able to prepare him for the role, as well as socially isolated. This would leave him vulnerable to manipulation, an opportunity he could not ignore.
Beginning in 2753, Amaris would begin currying favor with Richard Cameron, sending gifts as well as renaming Apollo to Terra Prime to "honor" him. After he had gotten sufficiently close, Amaris would begin his manipulations. First, he persuaded the First Lord to remove all SLDF troops from the Rim Worlds Republic, having their bases handed over to the Rim Worlds Army. Subsequent manipulations during an encroachment on Richard's power by the other Great Houses in the League would result in him drafting the highly illegal Executive Order 156, which would have forced the disbanding of all Great House militaries. It obviously failed due to the Houses' protests as well as Kerensky, now Commanding General of the SLDF, rightfully calling out the bill's blatant disregard for the laws of the Star League; however, it allowed Stefan to isolate Richard even further by convincing him that the other Great Houses and Kerensky were his enemies. These manipulations would result in Richard developing despotic tendencies, causing his rule to become unpopular.
Things would begin to come to a head with the Taxation Edict of 2763, which significantly increased taxes levied on the Periphery; this was all part of Amaris' plan, as it was intended to be justification for a rebellion he had convinced the other Periphery states to participate in so as to distract Kerensky from his endgame. He would also offer have Rim Worlds Army troops assist the League by garrisoning bases, allowing him cover to build up forces on key worlds of the Terran Hegemony, the head state of the Star League. By the time Stefan Amaris finally put everything into motion, Rim Worlds troops outnumbered the SLDF on those worlds.
The Coup D'état & Rise of the Amaris Empire[]
Stefan kills Richard Cameron II, initiating the fall of the Star League and dooming humanity to centuries of violence and decay.
The culmination of Amaris' machinations would occur on the 27th of December, 2766. While in the Star League High Council chamber, Stefan would present Cameron with a jewel-encrusted pistol before promptly turning it on him and shooting him in the head. With the First Lord dead, Amaris gave the order to his troops to take over the planets they were stationed on, and 95 of the Terran Hegemony's 103 planets - including Terra itself - fell in the first day alone.
Amaris would also have all members of House Cameron detained and brought to the throne room. In a brutal display of bloodthirstiness, cruelty, and sadism, he would give them the false hope that they could live if they swore fealty to him...until the 21st member of the bloodline agreed, which led to Amaris shooting him and ordering his guards to execute the rest - the Camerons would try to use their now-forefeit lives to rush Amaris to no avail. Such it was that House Cameron was wiped out, and Amaris would order the throne room sealed to prevent the act from being revealed to the public. Another cruel act would be detaining Drago Kurita and his family without reason, effectively kidnapping them for leverage over the Great House of Kurita and the Draconis Combine they ruled.
After these two simultaneous deeds, Amaris would hold a sham election for the position of Director-General of the Hegemony (but not First Lord, as he was not a Cameron). He would undermine his two opponents by having one of them have their own corrupton exposed and the other being forced to attend to "family matters" after Amaris ordered their family to be shipped to a gulag in Africa. To add icing to the cake, he would also have the vote completely rigged, making the votes go 70% in his favor with a turnout of 85% while projections anticipated an actual turnout of 10%. The various governors of the Hegemony that were still alive and able were forced to uphold the vote by Amaris' troops having them under duress. The coup complete, the Usurper declared himself Emperor and that the Star League was now the Amaris Empire.
Amaris Civil War[]
Aleksandr Kerensky, distracted with the Periphery rebellion, did not learn of the coup until Amaris himself contacted him. The self-styled Emperor tried to court the commander of the SLDF into his camp, wishing for him to "become his sword arm and help impress his word & wisdom upon the other realms". However, Kerensky was not foolish, afraid, nor hungry for power, and so declared Amaris an usurper - giving him the nickname that he would go down in history under - and quickly declared peace with the other Periphery powers so the SLDF could fight the coup. Amaris realized that agreement with Kerensky was impossible, and thus had his forces entrench themselves for battle. The Amaris Civil War had begun, and would rage for 13 years.
During his reign and the civil war Amaris would quickly establish himself as a wicked tyrant, ordering the mass execution of any who protested against his rule and would commit various atrocities. Said crimes include the destruction of the Vatican and murdering the Pope (via the 'Greenhaven Gestapo' mercenaries), and the widespread usage of weapons of mass destruction. The latter would lead to him being responsible for rendering many words inhospitable, including Venus after he tried to move its solar light-deflecting mirror to use as a 'death laser'. He would also waste resources on various wonder weapons, including the infamous "Amaris's Folly": the first Superheavy BattleMech, the 110-ton Matar, which could not propel itself under its own power.
Defeat and Death[]
By 2777, Kerensky and the Star League Defense Force were on Terra's doorstep to invade, having decimated the Rim Worlds Republic, reclaimed much of former Hegemony planets from the Amaris Empire, and destroyed the Empire's orbital defenses in the Sol system. Stefan would order his soldiers to fight to the last man standing, and that they would - ensuring Operation LIBERATION, the liberation of Terra, would be a grueling affair that would last 2 years. Even with that fact, it was clear that Amaris' defeat was inevitable.
Europe and Asia would be captured by Kerensky by 2779. The General would then go for a killing stroke in North America, hoping to end Amaris' despotism once and for all without any more unnecessary devastation to Terra itself. Amaris, at this point clearly afflicted with some sort of madness, commanded the defense personally but was ineffective due to the degradation of his mental faculties. He would order a suicidal no-retreat defense of Unity City, before promptly turning around and fleeing to the Imperial Palace he had ordered constructed in the Canadian wilderness. Around this time he would also order Drago and his family to be executed wholesale. Kerensky and his forces would pursue after taking the city, and on September 30bth Kerensky would personally kick down the doors to the palace with his Orion BattleMech. Stefan immediately surrendered, ending the Amaris Civil War.
While Amaris and his men were initially treated with some degree of dignity, the discovery of his massacre of the entire Cameron bloodline would seal his fate. Kerensky would order his death for this and other uncovered atrocities, and after the barest sham of a trial for high treason and crimes against humanity to legally ground the order - his guilt obvious to all without a shadow of a doubt at this point - he and his collaborators would be summarily executed by firing squad on the 25th of November. His body would be donated to the University of New Samarkand of the Draconis Combine, denying any sympathizers to his cause a place of pilgrimage while also providing easy-to-produce irrefutable evidence that the Usurper had not survived. He would eventually be buried when, due to the Succession Wars Amaris indirectly started, the morgue's advanced cryogenic freezers became lost technology - relegaing the man who doomed humanity to centuries of brutal violence to an unmarked grave.
Personality[]
Amaris was a cruel, vindictive, and ambitious man with a great hunger for power, as evidenced by his words and actions.
Legacy[]
| “ | As a citizen of the Outworlds Alliance and a descendant of the Rim Worlders, I had hoped that in the course of our research on this volume I might find some mitigating factor to modify history's judgement of my most famous countryman. I regret to say that I have found none. As far as Amaris is concerned, the ancient slogan applies: Ig fallou blaos, dem ressensu glottuo. ("What you see is what you get," or, literally: "if you catch this, you will have to eat it.") Amaris may have been worse than even past historians have claimed. | „ |
| ~ Anastasia Marcus, Historical Director, Davion Research Project, ComStar Research Archives, Terra, 3028 |
Many of the devastating conflicts of the Succession Wars and beyond can have their ultimate origin traced to Stefan Amaris' coup and tyranny. More immediate was the collapse of the Terran Hegemony and the Star League, which would cause the remaining Great Houses to fight amongst themselves in the catastrophic Succession Wars that would see much of humanity's progress lost. It would also result in Aleksandr Kerensky and the SLDF leaving the Inner Sphere for deep space (indirectly causing the fall of the Hegemony due to it now having no leaders), where events would conspire to create the hyper-militaristic and eugenicist Clans. It would also result in the formation of ComStar, whose esoteric directives would lead them to actively exacerbate the technological decline and would eventually spawn the extremist Word of Blake that would wreak even more untold destruction upon the Inner Sphere.
Amaris's actions would also sour the Inner Sphere's perception of Periphery states even more than they had been previously. It also resulted in the dissolution of the Rim Worlds Republic into a lawless realm of various bandit kingdoms due to its devastation by the SLDF and a subsequent seizure of its core systems by the Lyran Commonwealth. In general he solidified the reputation that the Periphery and beyond were a 'wild west' of sorts, a realm where tyrants had free reign and a sanctuary for various forms of scum and villainy.