House Liao The Capellan Confederation

Although perceived as the weakest Successor State, House Liao's Capellan Confederation is still a wily; treacherous, and formidable foe. Ruthlessly dominated by the cunning Maximilian Liao, the Confederation schemes to pick up the pieces of the shattered Inner Sphere and declare itself leader of a new Star League.
From their tremendous library containing the knowledge of the universe, ComStar has complied this dossier on House Liao and the Capellan Confederation. Included are dozens of full-color illustrations depicting Confederation personalities, daily life, and military regalia. Classified documents on Confederation armed forces, the Warrior-Houses, military structure, and political intrigues are also provided. In addition, the large history chapter stretches from Franco Liao's unification of the Confederation to Maximilian Liao's devious plotting to control the Inner Sphere.
The rulers of the other Successor States do not consider Liao a threat - Maximilian Liao just sits back and smiles.

[@mathewkelly9968]

The Best house doing really well in the ilkhan era . Even got Chesterton back .

[@yourseatatthetable]

Liao was long overdue for a come back in my mind.

[@juancholo7502]

Thanks, this is interesting. There are pdfs of the text only versions of the House books that were available a while back and it is nice to see the art that was included in the originals. I wish that I had bought them when they were still cheap and easy to find.

[@yourseatatthetable]

I'm glad I hung on to them. A lot of people grew out of this or that system and gave or threw them away. That and the old FASA books fall apart easily, even when they were new. As for wishful thinking, I wish that I had kept collecting the stuff as it came out. I've missed a few after 2002.

[@yourseatatthetable]

I'm planning on starting to review the Periphery next, starting with the Taurian Concordat - "Space Texas! As if!!! Anyone who compared the Concordat to Texas never read squat about how the Concordat functions...heh.

[@pentultimatearsehole9190]

Keep sharing the lore, the new vanguard will love and respect it. Unless they're clanners...

[@yourseatatthetable]

Blasted clanners...

[@matthewpena3932]

This was very interesting as a newer player all you get is liao are the bad guys full of evil Chinese pushing stero types to the extreme.

[@yourseatatthetable]

Which I think is really doing the Confederation a injustice. When you look deeper into all the Houses, hell, any given Faction throughout BT history, none of them can honestly wear a white hat.
In addition to all that, the Confederation has well earned its reputation as a scrappy player (that little dog syndrome) as throughout most of it's history, it's always had to contend with bigger, more powerful (in their ways), and/or richer opponents.
Yeah, House Liao has done more than it's share of sneaky, questionable acts in it's pursuit of survival and existence, but who hasn't? Most would point at House Davion, and on the surface, that might seem true, but dig deeper and you find a large House whose majority of worlds are barely more advanced then Earth is now, and in many cases, far worse off. Plus various Davion's through history have pulled some sneaky, underhanded actions to further their agendas.
Honestly, I have yet to read a later produced work about the Confederation that shows a more honest look into life and politics than the original work does.

[@yourseatatthetable]

Correction (About 18:32). Victor Davion used a double to cover the death of Thomas Marik's son, Joshua, not a clone of the Captain-general himself. His son had been terribly sick with leukemia. Thomas had sent him to the NAIS in hopes that the best medical specialists in the Inner Sphere could cure him. This was part of a deal during the one year lull in the clan war when the house leaders met on Outreach to plan strategy. Thomas agreed to tool up League factories to produce mech/tank refit kits for the Federated Commonwealth (and others) to better fight the Clans technological superiority. Hanse feared that Thomas would renege on the deal when the truth of his sons death was revealed. Eventually the scheme was revealed with some serious ramifications. There was also a cadre within NAIS and the FC that concluded, based upon Joshua's DNA, that the 'sitting Thomas' was a double, himself. As best as I know it was suspected to be a plot of ComStar but it hadn't been proven yet when I tuned out of the story.

[@dustinnabil798]

Huh, didn't know south east asia also made up house Liao

[@yourseatatthetable]

I've heard it come up over the years, outside of this particular sourcebook.