Brian Cameron (24th c.)

This article is about the former First Lord of the Star League. For the Wolf's Dragoons communications officer, see Brian Cameron (31st c.).

Brian Cameron (b. 2351 - d. 2403) was a House Cameron noble, diplomat, and 5th Director-General of the Terran Hegemony.

History

Early Life & Career

The second oldest of Margaret Cameron's children, Brian grew up to become a diplomat. During his mother's reign, he acted as the Hegemony's ambassador to the Draconis Combine. There he saw first hand the kind of people they were. Despite their leader Nihongi Kurita's peaceful rule, his experience with them lead him to believe that it would be only a matter of time before the people of the Combine would revert back to war.

The Scandalous Affair

When Brian's mother retired as Director-General in 2382, she appointed his older brother Raymond as her successor. After the High Council approved and the citizens of the Hegemony voted, his brother would be anointed Director-General of the Terran Hegemony.

Brian's brother focused so hard on keeping the Hegemony secrets safe from the other nations that he forgot about giving any attention to his wife, Katherine McQuiston. Due to the neglect Raymond gave to his wife, she began an affair with Brian that went on secretly for five years. The affair was exposed when Katherine became pregnant with Brian's child late 2387.

Raymond, who through the years had become more emotionally erratic, had Brian arrested. It was believed by nearly everyone in the Hegemony that he would be tried and sentenced with Treason. The Hegemony's High Council attempted to convince his brother to change his mind, but he would not be swayed. Shortly after the meeting, Brian's brother would be found dead in the Halls of Justice. Doctors would soon announce after examining the body, that Raymond had died from a massive heart attack induced by his medications.

With Raymond's death, the High Council scrambled to stabilize the situation. Half of the Hegemony population suspected that Brian was responsible for Raymond's death. The other half of the public felt that he had nothing to do with it and that all charges should be dropped. While Brian was still under arrest and awaiting judgement from his brother's death, his son Richard would be born.

The high council was unable to find any relative of the Camerons that were fit to rule. Needing to bring stability to the situation and with no other choice, the high council installed Mitchell Dukirl, son of the Terran Congress President, as Director-General Pro Tem until the situation could be resolved. The decision to anoint a non-Cameron as ruler, even temporary, proved to be hotly sensitive topic.

The councilors proceeded to investigate the cause of the late Director-General's death. They used rambling inserts from Raymond's diary as evidence to submit to Hegemony's Supreme Court as evidence to help Brian. The court threw out the diary entries stating that the ramblings were too weak to prove anything. The councilors then published their findings to the public in hopes their evidence would find traction with the people and aide Brian's plight. The ramblings from Raymond's diary proved enough to save Brian Cameron in the public's eye. The public came to view that the only crime that Brain committed was to have an affair with his brother's wife.

Two months after his brother's death and incarceration, Brian was nominated and voted in as Director-General of the Terran Hegemony by a slim margin.

As Director-General of the Terran Hegemony

Creation of the Castle Brian

Brian's reign as Director-General would be most noted for his increase of the Hegemony's military. His years of being the ambassador to House Kurita showed him that it was only a matter of time before their interstellar neighbor would return to the ways of war. At his direction, he had a series of massive military complexes to be built on the border worlds along the Draconis Combine. These massive fortresses would be his method of keeping the enemy from controlling the planet once they invaded. Events within the Inner Sphere showed that a massive conflict was coming and no one argued the tremendous cost it took to build these installations. These massive facilities would later be named after Brian, the Castle Brian.

The Succession Bill of 2392

Years after being anointed as Director-General, Brian never forgot the trouble that lead to his ascendance. He introduced the Succession Bill of 2392. This document became a guide for the Terran Hegemony's High Council in matters of succession. The document used legal finesse to make any candidate outside of the Cameron family to be elected as a successor virtually impossible.

Seven years later, in 2399, Brian would marry Margaret McQuiston as his wife and legally claiming Richard as his son and heir.

Final Years and Death

Brian took a tour of a newly acquired world of Elbar, which was purchased from the Federated Suns, in 2403. Brian wanted to take a tour of the planet as its newly created ecosystem began to blossom. The newly built farms and ranches brought good memories of his youth to him as he toured. Fate, however, paid him a visit as he passed by a ranch. An enraged bull broke from his stall and rammed head on into his hovercraft goring the Director-General before his bodyguards could react and kill the enraged animal. Lying in pain, Brian had the rancher brought to him and asked him what the value of the bull was to him. The rancher told him that the bull was his ranches' only bull and his ranch's survival depended on it. Cameron had his bodyguards pay the Rancher for the bull, told him that he bore the rancher no ill will towards either him or the bull. Brian requested the bull head to be sent to his home on Terra so that he could remember the bull. Brian would die due to his wounds before he would be able to reach medical care. The Rancher fulfilled the Director-General's final request, cut and mounted the bull's head with blood of Cameron still on its horns. It was shipped back to Terra with a plastic coating in order to seal the blood to the horns. The Cameron family received the head with the apology from the rancher; they had it mounted in Cameron Castle in Glasgow, Scotland.

His son being too young to rule, was skipped over for Brian's sister Judith who would be chosen as the next Director-General of the Terran Hegemony.

Family & Legacy

Brian survived by his wife, his sister, and his son Richard.

Brian's lasting legacy is the creation of the Castle Brians on the Hegemony controlled border worlds.

Bibliography

• Star League Sourcebook