World Name: New St. Andrews
Star Type: G4V
Position in System: 4
Time to Jump Point: 7.98 days
Recharging Station: None
Political Ruler: Various Clan Chieftains
ComStar Facility Class: None
ComStar Representative: None
Population: 212,000
Percentage and Level of Native Life: 10%,
Reptile
Description:
New St. Andrews is a temperate world with vast mountain ranges
extending the length of the northern and middle continents.
Descendants of Scottish-lrish refugees, the inhabitants face
overpopulation and dwindling resources (largely due to poor
husbandry techniques). This lack of resources has sparked a
series of clan rivalries over fresh water sites and grazing
lands. The social order remains unstable, and lacking immediate
aid from offworld sources, more than half the population can be
expected to die within the next decade either because of warfare
or famine.
New St. Andrews was settled by the four surviving clans of the
Stewart Confederacy, a six-world nation established by people of
Gaelic ancestry and absorbed by the Free Worlds League in 2293.
Refugees from that conquest sought shelter in the Rim Worlds
Republic before Stefan Amaris betrayed First Lord Richard
Cameron, and when General Kerensky pitched the entire force of
the Star League Defense Force against the Republic in retaliation
for Cameron's death, the Brannigan, MacGregor, Sterling, and
Stewart clans fled again, this time choosing a more remote
Periphery world. Able to collect only the barest minimum of
technology with which to establish their new colony, the clans
built an agrarian society based on subsistence farming, raising
sheep, and breeding horses. As the population increased, each
clan struck out for new territory and, like their Terran
ancestors, fought bitterly for land and water rights. These
disputes once again divided the clans among family lines and
precipitated a series of destructive border wars that threatened
to quickly reduce the people of New St. Andrews to barbarism.
Several exploratory missions from nearby Periphery states
investigating the potential for mineral exploitation and a number
of punishing bandit raids prompted the MacGregor and Stewart
clans to reconsider their problems with each other in light of
possible outside intervention. At last recognizing that they were
in danger of losing all semblance of community, the two clans
pulled up stakes and moved across the mountains dividing the
northern continent, re-establishing a single settlement away from
the other, still-warring families. Also learning from their
mistakes in resource management, the clans carefullly governed
crop and grazing land rotation and preserved the sources of fresh
water.
Around the same time that the MacGregor and Stewart clans
gained a measure of prosperity, the Brannigan and Sterling clans
finally abandoned all pretense of self-reliance and traveled over
the mountains in search of the departed families. Nothing more
than small, marauding bands of thieves, the Brannigans and
Sterlings preyed on the other clans, stealing what they could and
destroying what they could not. Because they had anticipated such
predations from the moment they decided to make a fresh start,
the MacGregors and Stewarts suffered few truly damaging losses.
Though the situation on the planet appears in manyw ays to
serve as a microcosm of the Periphery itself, the population of
New St. Andrews offers a twist: rather than seeking ways to
destroy the bandits plaguing them, the MacGregors and Stewarts
seem determined to find a way to absorb and rehabilitate them
into useful members of their society. With this goal in their
sights, it will be many years, perhaps generations, before the
citizens of New St. Andrews look to their neighboring planets for
trade and other opportunities. In our estimation, because New St.
Andrews lacks any viable mineral resources, it will be at least
as long before the world has anything of value to offer.
New St. Andrews has changed little since 3056, still plodding
along with their agrarian lifestyle and fighting to survive the
rough life that brings. Unlike their neighbors in the Inner
Sphere, the Clan invasion has not affected the residents in the
slightest way.
[Back]
Battletech ® is a Registered Trademark of FASA
Corporation. Original Battletech material Copyright © 1994 by
FASA Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Used without permission.
Any use of FASA Corporation's copyrighted material or trademarks
in this archive should not be viewed as a challenge to those
copyrights or trademarks. BattleTech ® is a registered trademark
of FASA Corporation.