Hiigara orbits its sun at aproximately 1.25 AU, and has two moons, named Angel and Seraph.  Between the two of them, they are about 15% more massive the Luna, Earth's own satellite.

Situated third from the sun, Hiigara is a gentle world, and indisputably better suited for human life then Earth itself, attributed by many of the Kiith to the previous civilization that went extinct some 10,000 to 100,000 years ago, based on chronometric analyse of ruins on the western coast of Belle, the southern most and smallest of Hiigara's three continents.  Terra Grande, the largest and northern most, is host to the Clan's largest settlements, including the Capital, built into the side of a mountain.

The planet features diverse life, and pains have been taken to keep alien species off the planet.  A feline located on the plains of Avalon, the second continent, bears an remarkable physical and genetic resemblence to the terrestial tiger, beyond its plains adaptations and coloring.  The more rare Black Plains Tiger was adopted as the device that is found on everything from ship hulls to uniform patches.

Orbiting Hiigara is the Shinohara Fleet Yards, the oldest and most extensive of the Clan's starshi production facilities.  It was from here that the Clan began its colonization effort after Foothold began to fail for the final time.  Even the mega-scale starship, Motherhome, was launched from this august construction yard.  

Hiigaran System Date:
Star: G2 (Helios)
Planets: 6
Helios I: Mecury type
Helios II: Mars type
Hiigara: Gaian
Helios IV: Gas Giant (2 jupiter masses)
Asteroid Belt 1 of 3
Helios V: Gas Giant (1 Jupiter mass)
Asteroid Belt 2 of 3
Helios VI: Gas Giant (Mid Saturn mass)

Clan Black Tiger's government is composed of the Diamid (a term with the same origins as Hiigara).  Its composition is made up of representatives from each family group (called Kiith).  Each Kiith has two representatives sitting in the Diamid, regardless of size.  THe Diamid is chaired by the Khan and SaKhan, similiar in purpose to those positions in other clans.
The Diamid meets once every 6 local months to discuss matters, work out intraclan disputes, pass new laws and review old laws.  The military high command reports directly to the Diamid, although the SaKhan acts as Commander in Chief, whereas the Khan, acts almost as a autocratic entity.

Operation Hellstorm grew out of a basic need to keep outposts closer to the Inner Sphere and Clan control zones, with Black Tiger's territories being thousands of lights away from even the outermost worlds of the Pentagon.

The other reasoning behind Hellstorm was to provide a external, unifying force for the Inner Sphere and Clans to focus on.  The Capellan Confederation was chosen in part because it was deemed to the the easiest to be taken, with its focus being away from Confederation space at large.  Deep Range Base Beachhead was constructed immediately adjacent to a rare, stable space fault just beyond the rim of Confederation space.  As luck would have it, the fault would also lay just far enough above the galactic plane as to be unlikely to be stumbled upon by ComStar or Perpheriary ships.

The basic plan consisted of three waves.

The First wave was made up entirely of combat starships with little or no ground forces onboard.  They were tasked with clearing the local airspace of anything larger then a shoe box.  They would warp in, smash everything on sensors and destroy the local hyperpulse generator installations, then move on to their next assigned target.

Wave Two was the follow-up, consisting of mixed forces.  They mopped up what aerospace resistance might be left and scoured the system for ships that might have been able to avoid detection.  This wave simultaneously would land pacification forces on the planet, and proceed to neutralize ground based resistance and remove any local governments

Wave Three was the true ground forces.  Their task was to complete the job of taking the planet and then stablizing and rebuilding infrastructure to support further clan gains.

A informal fourth wave followed along, gathering up prisoners of war for transport back to clan space until such time as Operation Hellstorm was completed.

Clan planners, when laying out Operation Hellstorm, allowed for very intense fighting, and planned around the assumption that they would have to fight for every light-minute of territory taken.  As such, casualties were suprisingly light, with resistance only hardening as the Clan neared its final goal.

The end goal was to drive toward Earth as hard and as fast as possible, but not quite reach it, giving the impression that the Confederation was only just able to halt the advance.

To muddy the water, only those ships whose design fell into the Roddenberry design linage were employed, and second line battlemechs (anything not designed by the clan, in otherwords) were not used.  THe clan tried to give the utmost impression for as long as practical that humanity, innersphere and clans of kerensky branches, were faced with truly alien attackers.

To keep the other great houses nailed down, a secondary goal was set.  A combat task force of 60 starships went deep into Federated Sun territory and razed the New Avalon Institute of Science to the ground, sending the message that they could reach anywhere without warning, as well as reduce the Inner Sphere's ability to inovate on observed technologies on the battlefield.

After Hellstorm came to a close, a tight quarentine and neutral zone was observed, with anything breaching the zone attacked and destroyed without warning.

By the time the Great Houses and the Clans of Kerensky knew what was really going on and who was really attacking, Black Tiger had become to firmly entrenched to be easily pried off.  The Attack on the NAIS was effective, as the great houses scrambled to deploy forces to protect other vital assests.  

The end result: the Capellan Confederation had all but ceased to exist, and Clan Black Tiger settled in for the long but patient work or converting those captured worlds in Clan holdings.