The tides of war rise higher. Sun-Tzu Liao and his son, Daoshen, embark on a campaign of coordinated violence to reclaim their former worlds seized by the Republic. Other conflicts begin to boil over with pockets of fighting in all corners of the Inner Sphere and Periphery. The Second Combine-Dominion War was only the first of many conflicts during this period--the Victoria War, territorial strife between former members of the Free Worlds League, rebellion in the Marian Hegemony, and the ever-present threat of the Clans expanding their occupation zones all conspired to leave Stone's carefully crafted era of peace rent and sundered.