GHOST BEAR

HISTORY

Totem Animal
The ghost bear of Strana Mechty is a truly awesome beast. Though similar in appearance to the polar bear of Terra's arctic region, the ghost bear is larger and stronger, some specimens having been recorded a standing more than five meters tall when reared up on their hind legs. Unlike the polar bear's fur, which shows a yellowish cast, the ghost bear's coat is pure white. Even the ghost bear's eyes and nose are a pale gray that appears nearly white, and its coloration makes the bear practically invisible against snow, even when running at full speed. Its size limits the ghost bear's ability to pursue its prey for any length of time, and so rather than running down its quarry, the bear lies in wait on the fringes of its prey's territory, using its keen sense of smell to locate likely hunting spots. The ghost bear then buries itself in the snow to enhance its camouflage, remaining completely motionless, often for days at a time. The bear apparently enters a state of semi-hibernation while awaiting a potential meal, conserving energy but remaining acutely aware of its surroundings all the while. The ghost bear takes its name from both its coloration and from its apparent ability to materialize from nothing.

Nicholas Kerensky chose this seemingly brutish animal as the namesake for one of his Clans for more than its physical prowess. He also admired the loyalty it showed its family; ghost bears mate for life and maintain a tenuous connection to their offspring, a trait almost unknown in the animal kingdom. Nicholas also believed that the ghost bear represented a strong respect for tradition. He characterized ghost bears as clinging stubbornly to their instincts, only reluctantly changing their habits and behaviors to adapt to environmental and situational changes. The ghost bear survives its apparent lack of adaptability with an extremely hardy constitution and high birth rate.

Like its namesake, Clan Ghost Bear has also survived, often in spite of itself, by virtue of its methodical persistence and the success of the Clan breeding program. The traditions of strength and stability on which Clan Ghost Bear prides itself can be traced back to its founders, the only married couple to help establish a Clan. The founders of Clan Ghost Bear receive equal reverence from it warriors, so much so that most believe that neither Sandra Tseng or Hans Jorgensson could have forged the Clan alone.

The Ghost Bears have the distinction of being the only Clan formed by a husband and wife. Hans Jorgennson and Sandra Tseng helped found the Bears after ilKhan Nicholas Kerensky rescinded an order forbidding marriage. The two fostered many Ghost Bear traditions, but most importantly, they imbued a strong sense of family to the Clan. Few Clans have as high a regard for all caste members as the Ghost Bears.

Their family strength, however, has cost the Ghost Bears dearly in the past. Their thoughtfulness and unwillingness to rush into new things has prevented them from being on the leading edge of many new technologies. The Ghost Bears were amongst the last Clans to adopt OmniMechs, a decision which cost them several key genetic legacies, cities and bases. In spite of this, the Bears are highly resourceful and flexible in their combat training. Many others have noted that their combat techniques resemble those of the Wolves and the Inner Sphere.

Dragoon Compromise In 3003, Ghost Bear Khan Nadia Winson, a staunch Crusader, pushed the issue of invasion in the Grand Council. Although Crusader sentiment ran high in the Council, Wolf Khan Kherlin Ward proposal to send a reconnaissance force in first won over the Council instead. The debate concerning the size and composition of the unit continued until it was decided that a multi-regiment expeditionary force would be sent in. Many Khans wanted to send an all-trueborn force, but others did not send such a large number of their elite warriors into battle at that time. Eventually, it was decided that the regiments would be comprised of talented freeborns and a few trueborns. Leading the force would be two Wolf warriors, Jaime and Joshua Wolf. Amongst the few trueborns in the force was a young and fiesty Natasha Kerensky. Thus, was created Wolf's Dragoons.

For twenty years, Wolf's Dragoons sent back reports that shocked the Clans. The information obtained by the Dragoon's that, in many cases, the Clans' belief about the collapse had come true. What was even more disturbing were reports that the Successor States were on the road to recovery. It was during the mid-3020's that the Dragoons stopped sending reports. Evidence began to mount against the Dragoons - stating that the Wolf forces had changed sides and given their loyalty over to the Inner Sphere.

In 3048, the Outbound Light, a ComStar Explorer Corps jumpship, strayed into Smoke Jaguar territory and was swiftly captured. Jaguar Khan Leo Showers had the crew interrogated. He then presented the information gleaned from the crew and convinced the Grand Kuraltai that the Inner Sphere was on the verge of discovering the Clans.

The Ghost Bears were amongst the Clans who battled Clan Wolf in a Trial of Refusal for the invasion. The Wolves eventually lost the battle but not before killing both Ghost Bear Khans. Given the momentous events occurring, the Ghost Bear warriors used the opportunity to elect new Khans. Breaking with tradition, the Bears opted to elect Khans from outside the Tsang and Jorgensson Blood Houses. They chose Karl Bourjon and Theresa DelVillar to become Khan and saKhan, respectively.

The Bears survived the first round of bidding for a place in the invasion by dropping their bid from twelve front-line Galaxies to just three. The Third Bear Guards won the Clan the Draconis Combine/Free Rasalhague Republic corridor. Though not as prestigious as the other corridors, the Ghost Bears were nonetheless ecstatic over returning to the Inner Sphere.

Invasion
The Ghost Bears were eager participants in the early stages of the invasion. Their leaders quickly dismissed reports from Clan Wolf that the Inner Sphere forces were more formidable than they appeared.

The Bear Khans soon realized that the Wolves had been right in their assessment of Inner Sphere forces. Although the Bears won every world they invaded, the cost was always much higher than anticipated. The Free Rasalhague and Draconis Combine troops made every battle a costly victory. Additionally, partisan groups caused considerable amounts of damage as they fought back with guerrilla tactics.

In an effort to slow down Clan Wolf's advance, ilKhan Leo Showers convinced Khans Bourjon and DelVillar to make a bid for the right to assault Rasalhague, the capital world of the Free Rasalhague Republic. However, during the Bears' assault on Last Frontier, saKhan DelVillar was severely injured and left comatose. Khan Bourjon secured Last Frontier and immediately convened a meeting of all available Bloodnamed warriors to elect a new saKhan. Aletha Kabrinski, the current Oathmaster, won the title against stiff odds. Her first act as saKhan caused another change within the Clan. Citing Khan Bourjon's lack of leadership skills, saKhan Kabrinski called for one of the assembled Bloodnamed to challenge the Khan. Star Colonel Bjorn Jorgensson was selected and defeated Khan Bourjon in a one-sided battle in the tropical jungles of Last Frontier's equatorial region.

Together, Khans Jorgensson and Kabrinski carried on with the Clan's plan to bid for Rasalhague. The bidding for Rasalhague has been cited as a classic example of how the bidding system should work. The Ghost Bears lost the invasion rights, but left the Wolves with only three Clusters to assault the planet. They were later chagrined to hear that the Wolves were able to conquer Rasalhague without resorting to breaking their bid.

The Ghost Bears continued their wave of conquest, assimilating many new worlds in both the Free Rasalhague Republic and the Draconis Combine. Their rate of advance lagged behind the other Clans, however, and the Khans were forced to contract forces from Clan Steel Viper to help defeat the many guerrilla forces on their worlds.

In late 3050, the Ghost Bear Khans received a summons from ilKhan Leo Showers. All available Khans were to rendezvous aboard the Clan Wolf flagship, the Dire Wolf, at Radstadt to convene a Grand Kurultai. When Khans Jorgensson and Kabrinski arrived, though, they found chaos. A Free Rasalhague military convoy appeared at the same time the Wolves were launching their attack on Radstadt. The aerospace fighters from the FRR convoy launched an immediate, surprise attack on the Wolf warship, the Dire Wolf. In the resulting battle, the FRR forces were driven off, but at great cost to the Clans. ilKhan Leo Showers and many others were killed when a Rasalhague pilot rammed her Shilone into the Dire Wolf's bridge.

The Bloodnamed of the Clans returned to Strana Mechty to elect a new ilKhan and settle a few scores. At first, the Crusader Khans tried to put Wolf Khan Ulric Kerensky for unClan-like behavior, but the testimony of several Bloodnamed warriors caused the charges to be summarily dismissed. The Crusaders got their revenge when they forced the election of Khan Kerensky to the post of ilKhan. Though he had been pushed into the role, Khan Kerensky proved more capable an opponent than the Crusaders had ever imagined.

ilKhan Kerensky ordered the Nova Cats to join forces with the Smoke Jaguars and the Steel Vipers to work with the Jade Falcons. Khans Jorgensson and Kabrinski were relieved that they were not forced to share their corridor with another Clan. The Steel Vipers and Jade Falcons had long hated each other and that spilled over into the Trials of Possession for worlds the Vipers needed to stage their operations from. The Nova Cats and Smoke Jaguars likewise reviled each other, but the Khans came to an early understanding to avoid unnecessary bloodshed.

Tukayyid
Khan Jorgensson made the official bid of three Galaxies for the Ghost Bears' right to invade Tukayyid, and won the right to descend in the fifth hour of combat. The Ghost Bear targets would be the twin cities of Spanac and Luk. Khans Jorgensson and Kabrinski laid out a simple and direct battle plan designed to crush the ComGuards quickly, confident that the strength of their forces would carry them to victory.

The Ghost Bears drove straight for their target cities opposed by the ComGuards' First Army and the reserve Fourth Army. As the senior commander, Precentor Katherine Luarca deployed her First Army to engage the Bears upon their landing, leaving only her veteran 103rd Division (Truth in Communication) to defend Spanac. Fearing that the green troops of the Fourth Army would break facing Clan OmniMechs in the field, she assigned the Fourth to garrison Luk.

The Ghost Bears split their forces, landing Alpha Galaxy in the hills above Spanac and Beta and Delta near Luk. Both forced landed unopposed, but suffered hit-and-run attacks as they advanced. The First Army's 308th Division (Clarity of Thought) did little to slow the veteran forces of Alpha Galaxy, and Beta Galaxy decimated the 121st Division (Gray Backs). The Ninety-First and Twelfth Divisions of the First Army fared better, trapping Delta Galaxy's Twentieth Polar Bear Attack Cluster in the outskirts of the Holth Forest and inflicting heavy losses on the Clan troops. This skirmish turned the tide in the Bear's push for Luk and forced Beta and Delta Galaxies to withdraw. The Ninety-First Division then fell back to assist in the defense of Spanac, but just managed to enter the city before Alpha Galaxy took up positions in the suburbs. The Bears settled in to hold Spanac under siege until reinforcements from the failed attack at Luk arrived. Unfortunately for the Clans, the ComGuards' Twelfth waylaid those reinforcements in a brilliant ambush, setting fire to the Holth forest and attacking Beta Galaxy's Seventh Bear Guards as they fled from the burning woods. When the exhausted Seventh finally broke free of the inferno, they ran down wide paths cut through the woods to the hills beyond. By entering these corridors, the bears fell to devastating short-range fire from the dug-in forces of the Twelfth. To a man, the overheated Ghost Bear 'Mechs died in the forest.

Meanwhile, the ComGuards had trouble on other fronts. The troops of the Ninety-First Division failed to achieve a proper defensive position in Spanac, and the arrival of Beta and Delta Galaxy troops at the siege enabled the Ghost Bears to overrun the Ninety-First and capture most of its supply caches intact. Predicting the imminent fall of the city, the Precentor Martial ordered Precentor Luarca to pull her 103rd Division out of Spanac.

The Ghost Bears took the city, but soon faced a counterattack from the two divisions of the Fourth Army. Garrisoned at Luk, the Fourth Army divisions had seen little combat in the battle on Tukayyid and so arrived at Spanac fresh and ready for action. With the Fourth Army raining artillery fire on the city and the remnants of the Ninety-First and Twelfth Divisions raiding in the suburbs, the Bear Khans chose to leave Beta and Delta Galaxies to hold Spanac while Alpha Galaxy mustered for an assault on Luk.

At Luk, Alpha Galaxy tore into the remaining divisions of the Fourth Army with all the ferocity of Clan Ghost Bear's namesake. Despite the ComGuards' superior numbers, the Fourth came close to breaking until Precentor Luarca redeemed herself by leading her 103rd Division and the remaining elements of the 308th in an attack against Alpha Galaxy's supply depot. The assault forced the Bears to pull back to defend their supplies; though the Fiftieth Striker Cluster managed to enter Luk's suburbs, the Clan troops lacked the force needed to take the city. Alpha Galaxy fought off a raid by reinforcements from the First ComGuard Army, but they suffered such high losses in doing so that the Bear Khans reluctantly ordered a withdrawal back to Spanac.

At this point, the ilKhan declared an end to the Ghost Bear campaign. Knowing that they lacked the strength to take Luk from the fresh ComGuards troops stationed there, the Bear Khans raised no objection. The battle of Tukayyid had already ended in defeat for several of the other Clans, and so if the Bears continued to fight, the ComGuards could easily shift enough forces from other combat theaters to drive the Clan from Spanac. Rather than lose all that they had gained, the Ghost Bears withdrew while they could still claim victory.

The Precentor Martial also welcomed the end of the Bear campaign. Though the ComGuards had lost to these particular Clan opponents, their forces' departure from Tukayyid left the First and Fourth Armies free to turn against the hard-fighting Jade Falcons. Because the Ghost Bears captured Spanac, breached defenses at Luk, and inflicted somewhat greater losses than they sustained, ilKhan Kerensky and Precentor Martial Focht agreed that the Ghost Bears had won a marginal victory over the ComGuards.

Post-Tukayyid
Unfortunately for the Inner Sphere, the Ghost Bears have undergone little of the turmoil that has plagued other Clans since the Truce of Tukayyid was signed. Aside from a few minor raids by the Smoke Jaguars and Nova Cats, the Ghost Bears forces have been pretty much unmolested. Even the Draconis Combine stages few raids against the Bears occupation zone.

The waning power of the Wolves and the Jade Falcons has created a power vacuum among the invading Clans, leading to further instability as other Clans in the invasion force jockey for power. At present, the Ghost Bears seem the most likely to lead a renewed invasion. The Bears have bolstered their troops with reinforcements from the Clan homeworlds, a development that poses a grave threat to the Draconis Combine worlds that lie above the truce line.

Kurita raiders have staged near-constant raids against Clan Smoke Jaguar in recent years, which have prevented that Clan from effectively recovering from the heavy casualties it suffered on Tukayyid. Nova Cat raiders have begun harassing Smoke Jaguar forces recently as well, further hampering the Clan's attempts to rebuild. As a result, the Smoke Jaguars seem unlikely to challenge the Ghost Bears for leadership of the Clans. Clan Smoke Jaguar's weakness has filled its warriors with frustration and a fierce desire to prove they are still a force to be reckoned with - which makes the Jaguars a potentially dangerous enemy for their Clan brethren and Inner Sphere powers.

Neither the Steel Vipers nor the Nova Cats have the strength to challenge the Ghost Bears, but both Clans are far from harmless. The Viper Khan, Perigard Zalman, has shown remarkable restraint while patiently rebuilding his Clan, which marks him as a canny and dangerous leader. Meanwhile, the Nova Cats continue to rebuild following their losses on Luthien and Tukayyid. Their weakened condition, however, has not prevented them from raiding worlds located above the truce line.

In an attempt to weaken both the Ghost Bears and Smoke Jaguars to give themselves time to recover from the refusal war with Clan Jade Falcon, the then-Jade Wolves set into motion a complex plan, with layers of plots and misinformation blaming both Clan Smoke Jaguar and the forces of Phelan Kell's Clan Wolf in Exile for the theft of genetic material of the Clan Ghost Bear founders. The Ghost Bears, through a series of raids and information gathering missions, discovered the true nature of this deceit.

Although discovering that the blame lie with the Jade Wolves and not Clan Smoke Jaguar, the relative weakness of Clan Smoke Jaguar has left that Clan open to raiding and perhaps a trial of absorption by Clan Ghost Bear. Whether the Ghost Bears take advantage of this opportunity or not is left to be seen.

Finally, with their long standing ties with the Wolves and Diamond Sharks, the Ghost Bear Khans voted against the election of Elias Crichell of Clan Jade Falcon to the post of ilKhan.

The recent Inner Sphere invasion has put all Ghost Bear Clusters in the occupation zone on a higher readiness status. Though the SLDF has made no move yet to attack, the Ghost Bear Khans are well aware of what a concerted Inner Sphere attack could to their forces.

Death of a Clan
With the defeat of the Smoke Jaguars in the Inner Sphere and on Huntress, the Clans found themselves with the unprecedented prospect of an Inner Sphere invasion of Strana Mechty. The Star League Defense Force soon challenged the Clans to a Trial of Refusal over the invasion. If the Inner Sphere won, the invasion was over and the invading Clans would retain the worlds they had conquered. If the Clans won, the invasion would resume. In a surprising move, however, the Ghost Bears switched their allegiance to the Warden faction. After much deliberation, the Clan had decided that continued hostilities with the Inner Sphere was fruitless and doomed to failure.

The Ghost Bear Khans were relieved when the SLDF troops won the Trial of Refusal. Though Clan Wolf declared itself independent of the Trial verdict, Wolf Khan Vlad Ward stated his intentions of conquering Terra when the time was right.

The transition of the Ghost Bears over to the Warden faction drastically altered the power structure of the Clans. The Ghost Bears are the mightiest of the invading Clans. Only the Jade Falcons have the strength to stand against the Ghost Bears, but recent events precipitated by the Steel Vipers may change things once again.

The Remembrance
The Remembrance is an ongoing heroic saga detailing Clan history from the time of the Exodus from the Inner Sphere to the present day. The Remembrance is continually expanded to include contemporary events. Each Clan has a slightly different version reflecting their own opinions and experiences. All Clan warriors can quote whole verses of this marvelous epic from memory, and it is common to see passages from the book lovingly painted on the sides of OmniMechs, fighters, and even battle armor.

The General's intent was clearly stated,
To depart and never return.
He forced none but swayed many;
This compassionate, brilliant man
Had led thousands to victory,
And he would again lead the long march.
-- The Remembrance (Clan Ghost Bear), Passage 8, Verse 6, Lines 12-17

Now is the time
To prove
What we know to be true:
That we shall conquer all.
-- The Remembrance (Clan Ghost Bear), Passage 155, Verse 2, Lines 45-48

Drawing strength from each other, they survived;
Tseng and Jorgensson emerged from the snow,
And forged a Clan in the ghost bear's mold;
Unity of purpose and strength of spirit,
No task undertaken lightly or left half done.
To these ideals we hold true until we all shall fall.
-The Remembrance (Clan Ghost Bear), Passage 45, Verse 6, Lines 13-18

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