Voice of Kerensky

Category: misc
  • Last modified: 1969-12-31
  • Contributed by: PTW
See Also:
Kerensky, Aleksandr
Pentagon Worlds
Task Force Serpent

After nearly two and a half years of travel into the Deep Periphery, General Aleksandr Kerensky's Exodus fleet arrived at a group of five marginally-inhabitable worlds on 24 August 2786. Knowing that his people were exhausted from their long journey, the General declared that these worlds, known thereafter as the Pentagon worlds, were to be their new home.

Initial surveys of the Pentagon worlds were performed from orbit before anyone was allowed to make landfall. By early September, however, Kerensky was ready to begin the settlement of the five worlds. On 9 September, in an speech to all of the Exodus fleet and broadcast out into the darkness of interstellar space by broadband microwave transmission, the aging General addressed the peoples that they had left behind in the Inner Sphere. He set forth the rational for his Exodus decision and his hopes for peace:

To all citizens of the Inner Sphere do I, Aleksandr Kerensky, send greetings.

Know that I have taken the remnant of the Star League Defense Force which has remained true to its purpose beyond the boundaries of the Inner Sphere, beyond the Periphery. I have done this, neither out of disappointment with those whom we leave behind, nor out of spite or disdain, as some will say. No, we have left the Inner Sphere because we love it too much to see it destroyed. In the wake of the Usurper's coup, and the long, bitter fighting that came with it, I fear that my forces would do incalculable, possibly irreparable, harm to our society. We are sworn to ward the Star League and its subjects, not destroy it.

Thus, we have left the only homes we have ever known to place the destructive capability of this armada beyond the reach of those who would use it, not for defense, but for conquest. Perhaps, with the might of our 'Mechs and ships out of reach, the leaders who now grapple with one another will relinquish their dreams of subjugating their neighbors and learn to live in peace with them.

Perhaps, one day, should mankind step back from the brink of the abyss, we, our children, or our children's children will return, to once more serve and protect and guide the Star League in mankind's quest for the stars.

Farewell.

With that, the colonization of the Pentagon began.

Kerensky's message propagated throughout the empty regions between the new homeworlds of the Star League-in-Exile and the Inner Sphere for decades. Due to the distances involved, it would be approximately 770 years before the "Voice of Kerensky," as the broadcast came to be called, would be heard by its intended audience, reaching the Inner Sphere/Periphery boundary nearly eight hundred years after the General spoke his words of hope.

Due to an unforeseen set of circumstances, however, people from the Inner Sphere would actually hear the Voice much sooner than anticipated. By the mid-31st century, Kerensky's descendents, the Clans, had decided to return to the Inner Sphere as a force of conquest. In late 3058, the nations of the Inner Sphere, united in opposition to the invading Clans, had reformed the long-dead Star League with the sole purpose of destroying one entire Clan and bringing an end to eleven years of warfare. As part of their plan, the Star League had sent an expedition to Clan space, the location of and route to those mysterious worlds having been given to them by a Clan traitor. Moving slowly through the Deep Periphery, the ships of Task Force Serpent were paused in their journey when, on 11 January 3060, their communications arrays picked up a strange transmission. The men and women of the task force were awestruck to hear the voice of the legendary General Kerensky, the man who had fled his home at the head of four million soldiers and civilians rather than watch as the nation they had fought so hard to defend was torn apart by chaos and greed. The irony was that whereas Kerensky's message spoke of his descendents returning to the Inner Sphere in a gesture of peace, the troops of Task Force Serpent were on their way to bring war to the homeworlds of the Clans.

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