Not exactly accurate. The Federated Sun Catholic Church isn't an anti-pope situation where the FedSuns claim their Pope is the proper Pope and the Pope in Rome is a false Pope, rather, when the Star League fell and communications went to shit there was a serious communication mix-up where the Cardinal of New Avalon honestly thought he had been appointed, effectively, pope in exile, while the normal pope fled persecution by Aramis. Since he was a bit of a reformist, the Cardinal of New Avalon made a bunch of reforms and once the dust settled and the actual situation was made clear, the differences between New Avalon Catholicism and Roman Catholicism were to great to be easily brought back together. As such they basically agreed to separate while still being in communion to a degree (much like how Greet Orthodox and Roman Catholics today are separate but in communion).
As to religion proper, New Avalon Catholicism isn't a State Religion of the FedSuns, as in fact, the Federated Suns actually has a Constitution that supersedes local planetary governments (and on paper even the First Prince, but in practice...) that ensures Freedom of Religion. The Six Liberties are:
- Right to Personal Liberty (including Freedom of Religion)
- Right to Own Personal Property
- Right to Own Arms
- Right to Fair Treatment under the Law
- Right to Privacy (also covers Freedom of Religion)
- Right to Participation in Government (this also includes the right to overthrow nobles whom act tyrannical... no I'm not kidding)
This makes the FedSuns actually somewhat unique in that unlike every other Successor State it's legal system is more founded on the concept of Natural Rights and Liberties more akin to the Anglo-American tradition.
For those saying the Lyrans are better, maybe they are economically more powerful, but they lack any checks and balances on the government like the FedSuns ostensibly have. Further, everyone here has failed to mention that the LyrCom is as susceptible to totalitarian leadership as the Draconis Combine, including one of the most brutal "secret police" (really state-sponsored terrorists) forces in the Inner Sphere:
Loki that while it's supposed to be focused on enemies of the Lyrans, has been turned against the people of the Commonwealth multiple times throughout its history.
No... and the idea that the clans have just two paragraphs on them is stupid. There's been multiple sourcebooks going into considerable detail on the culture and ideals of every Clan. The Goliath Scorpions, especially, have an interesting culture that is focused on finding and preserving historical information especially from the Star League. And not just military stuff, they consider cultural data to be just as, if not more, important than weapons and the like. Their main capital is half museum-half military base and they have a complicated system of adventuring archeologist warriors called Seekers who go out from Clan space to recover artifacts and information from across the Periphery.
Want more on them and the importance of the Goliath Scorpions? Well, when sending a unit of warriors to infiltrate the Inner Sphere to gather intel disguised as mercenaries, the Clans knew their way of warfare would not work, so they needed to train this unit on older Star League tactical doctrine... except, none of the Clan really had kept those records... except the Goliath Scorpions, who quite eagerly trained up the cadre of Clan Wolf volunteers for this expedition.
Yes, the Goliath Scorpions trained the Wolf Dragoons. Meaning that the reason for how elite the Wolf Dragoons were wasn't because they were Clan Wolf, but because they had been extensive trained and drilled in Star League era combined arms and tactical doctrine by the Goliath Scorpions.
. . . Again, no? There are EXTENSIVE details on exactly how the Cobras are super religious. In fact, unlike other Clans, where the Bloodname Houses are the primary identifier and political factions that drive inner-clan politics, in the Cloud Cobras what matters is what Church... I mean Cloister... you are a member of. We even have details on the major Cloisters of the Cloud Cobras, with there explicitly being Christian, Muslim, "New Age", and even "future space religion" Cloisters. Further, one of the major aspects of the Cobras is that the Cloisters are not exclusive to the Warrior caste, unlike the Bloodname houses, and due to the expectation that warriors be members in good standing of their cloisters, this means that the typical Cloud Cobra actually will have greater social interaction with the lower castes than most other Clanners. This means that a Cobra warrior who's a member of, for example, a Christian cloister will go to Sunday service, sit next to a laborer caste freeborn family who's also attending service, share worship and communion with them, probably chat a bit, and generally socialize with others. And the designers of BattleTech also took into account what this level of socialization means, the Cobras have some of the higher tolerances for Freeborns of any of the Clans.
The idea that every Clan has two sentences is a dumb meme and does a disservice to the creativity of the folks who've written BattleTech over its lifetime.