Chronological BattleTech Fiction Review - The Succession Wars

[Mendrugo]

----- 1 Month Later -----

Date: August 28, 2823

Location: Strana Mechty

Title: Betrayal of Ideals – Treachery’s Stage

Author: Blaine Lee Pardoe

Type: Serialized Novel (BattleCorps)

Synopsis:  As promised, the Jade Falcons have brought the issue of the Tiki Cache before the Grand Council (still in temporary quarters as work continues on the massive Great Hall).  The Khans sit around a massive table engraved with each of their emblems, not unlike the Knights of the Round Table.  IlKhan Kerensky sits next to the Wolf Khan, reinforcing his ties to the Clan that holds his genetic legacy.  McEvedy feels tension in the room as the other Khans file in, and muses that Nicholas has taken a tight-knit band of equals and turned them against each other.

Falcon saKhan Lisa Buhallin opens the session with a formal protest that the Wolverine claim to the cache has no basis, and that the Trial of Possession was contrived and unjust.  Buhallin notes that the cache contains weapons of mass destruction, which have in the past been carefully controlled by the Grand Council.  McEvedy ponders how Buhallin could have this information when the Wolverines have barely begun to catalog the cache’s contents.  McEvedy responds that the Trial was legitimate, and that the Falcons intentionally created the incident.  She questions, if the Falcons knew about the cache when it was on their territory, why they didn’t report the WMDs to the Council immediatey?  McEvedy proposes that the Council postpone a decision on the cache until its contents can be properly inventoried.

After the session, McEvedy confronts Buhallin and asks her what has caused the Falcons to become so hostile to the Wolverines.  Buhallin says that she’s received information that the Wolverines have been spying on the Falcons and other Clans in an effort to become the dominant ilClan.  The Falcon saKhan also chastises McEvedy for not thinking of the wider ramifications when she tried to liberalize her civilian caste strictures.  She tells McEvedy that the internal unrest sparked by rumors of Wolverine reforms forced the Falcons to put down labor unrest by force.  She also expresses resentment that the Wolverines have been keeping their new BattleMech and weapon system designs to themselves, rather than presenting them to the Grand Council.

Notes:  This scene mentions that Nicholas censored or banned much of the reading material originating in the Inner Sphere (purging anything that might lead to personal ambition).  This helps to explain why Horse is so freaked out by Aidan’s secret cache of books in the Jade Phoenix trilogy.

Historical: Operation KLONDIKE notes that internal dissent in the Jade Falcons arose after Nicholas elected to give his genetic legacy to Clan Wolf, rather than Jade Falcon.  A number of hardliners within the Falcons called for secession, but the Falcon Khans took decisive action to forestall Nicholas’ wrath – executing the ringleaders (10 warriors from the Jae-Hyouk, Ustone and Yont bloodhouses) and sending others into exile on long-term exploration missions or other harsh duties – an event in June-July 2823 (two months before this story) known in Clan history as the Culling.  Having already had to kill off a portion of her own Touman to silence Falcon demands for greater autonomy, Buhallin is understandably predisposed to dislike such stirrings in other Clans.  Having to use her warriors to suppress her civilians would have futher embittered the Falcon leadership towards “corrupting external influences.” 

McEvedy tells Buhallin that she wasn’t spying on other Clans and that she stepped up the Wolverine’s intelligence capabilities only to guard against infiltration by other Clans and by Nicholas’ Watch.  However, to herself, she worries that Buhallin’s people might have captured and interrogated one of the Wolverine agents in the Jade Falcons, so it seems that Hallis’ counterintelligence efforts went somewhat beyond just screening out other Clans’ spies within the Wolverines.  (Or perhaps Buhallin caught onto the Wolverines’ trick with the satellite networks.)  Buhallin’s righteous indignation about spying is pretty hypocritical, to my mind, since one of the spies identified in Hallis’ sweep was a former Jade Falcon medical technician, as were a number of other Jade Falcon bondsmen who were sending encoded information back to the Watch.

Buhallin herself is profiled in the Jade Falcon sourcebook.  She came from a poor farming family on Trondheim, but managed to get into Pacific Lutheran University on Terra.  She joined up with Elizabeth Hazen’s Ghosts of the Black Watch resistance group during the Amaris Civil War.  She was greviously wounded during the assault on Dagda’s Black Brian, but recovered and rose to become saKhan of the Jade Falcons.  Her early work as a writer led to her taking charge of composing large sections of The Remembrance, and advising Nicholas on the wording of new laws and regulations to enforce his vision of Clan society.  She’s characterized as a hardcore Nicholas supporter, and a true-believer in his social engineering campaign.

[Mendrugo]

----- Meanwhile, on Circe… -----

Date: August 28, 2823

Location: Circe

Title: Betrayal of Ideals – Treachery’s Stage

Author: Blaine Lee Pardoe

Type: Serialized Novel (BattleCorps)

Synopsis:  Star Captain Trish Ebon oversees the cataloging of the Tiki Province cache.  It consists of two large rooms filled with BattleMechs and gear, as well as access tunnels to a number of exit points that had been obscured by forest growth decades earlier.  Trish is impressed with the amount of history on display – uniforms from the 82nd Royal Jump Infantry Division, the 29th Royal Dragoons, and the 331st Division.  She recalls that Khan McEvedy’s father commanded the 331st, and that the Wolverine touman includes a 331st Battle Cluster.  Trish notes that the ‘Mechs are in good shape, but the stored munitions have deteriorated, and spilled solid rocket propellant mixed with water leaking into the cache (due to clumsy Jade Falcon excavation attempts) have made recovery operations in the cache dangerous.  The real prizes in the cache, in Ebon’s opinion, are six nuclear-tipped Killer Whale missiles – specialized ship killers.  The missiles have become useless due to age and corrosion, but the warheads were carefully stored and are still active.  Several empty racks suggest that the Jade Falcons may have taken some of the nukes during their initial explorations into the cache.

However, in the woods outside, two Widowmaker warriors named Driss and Arvin are hauling the missing nuclear warhead to a concealed cargo truck, dressed as Wolverine technician caste-members.  So disguised, they managed to sneak the warhead out under Ebon’s nose.  As they reset the warhead’s detonation code, Driss and Arvin debate the honor of the mission, with Arvin complaining that stealing is more for bandits than warriors, while Driss reminds him that they are serving their Clan, and were promised advancement if successful.

Notes: The 82nd RJID is descended from the American 82nd Airborne Division.  It was part of the 15th Army, XXIII Corps.  The 29th Royal Dragoon regiment was part of the LXI Corps in 20th Army.  The 331st Royal BattleMech Division was part of 11th Army, V Corps.  Both the 82nd and 331st had strong ties to the old United States of America.  It’s odd that Trish considers the uniforms to be holy relics of a bygone era.  A lot of the warlords and their troops on the Pentagon worlds were probably wearing similar SLDF-issue uniforms when they fought the Clans just two years earlier.  Granted, Trish is a second generation Clan warrior and the Star League was just a tale she heard growing up, but there are still plenty of people around for whom the Star League existed in living memory.

What’s more astounding is how badly deteriorated the munitions in this cache have become.  In the following chapter, McEvedy reports that the ‘Mechs are also in terrible condition – with most fit only to be scrapped for parts (contradicting Trish’s initial assessment in this chapter).  The spare parts have suffered damage from moisture and rot as well.  Unless all the damage is due to the Jade Falcon-caused water leaks, Kerensky’s engineers really fell down on the job when putting this stuff into storage.  The SLDF-in-exile had all sorts of military specialists who were logistical geniuses, and who’d had decades of experience in keeping machinery and supplies moving smoothly through a massive bureaucracy.  At some point in its 200 year history, the SLDF had to have put to paper standard operating procedures for proper storage of munitions.  If this was intended to be a hidden Brian Cache, intended as an emergency fallback for loyalists in case of a betrayal, then sending in regular maintenance crews would risk exposing its location, so the goods there should have been given special treatment for long-term storage.  (Volatile fuel drained, anti-corrosion treatments applied - even something as simple as coating them in layers of protective grease, etc.)  It’s clear that it was within SLDF capabilities to do so – the ‘Mechs recovered from the Nagayan Mountain cache on Helm proved serviceable enough after being in storage for 300 years.

I suppose that it’s possible that this was a regular cache that was simply forgotten about as warfare broke out on Circe.  I’m somewhat surprised that the local foliage would have grown up enough to obscure the cache in only a few years.  Circe is described as having an arid, desert climate, in general, with only a few native plants and genetically engineered Terran flora (like the Circian oak) growing there.  The trees are noted (in the Warriors of Kerensky Circe profile) to be regularly torn out of the ground by intense “hell storms,” that can fell even the oldest trees.  Thus it seems odd for the cache to have been overgrown.  In terms of location, perhaps something about Circe’s geography prevented the Star League-in-exile from doing what they did on Eden, and building caches at regular intervals in straight lines radiating out from the cities.  (The idea on Eden, I suppose, being to ensure that, no matter where enemies landed, there would be strongpoints loaded with supplies within striking distance of their LZ.)

The evidence of the Falcon excavations shows that my earlier theory about the cache being a fake planted by the Fire Mandrills was incorrect.  However, this means that either the Jade Falcons discovered it and kept it quiet, then came back for it at this point…or that the Fire Mandrills discovered it (perhaps just Kindraa Sainze, which then would have kept it secret from the rest of its own Clan), then lost it to the Wolverines and (in accordance with Karrige’s plan) leaked the information about the cache to the Jade Falcons, who swooped in and began to excavate.

[Mendrugo]

----- 2 Months Later -----

Date: October 6, 2823 [See Notes]

Location: Strana Mechty

Title: Betrayal of Ideals – Treachery’s Stage

Author: Blaine Lee Pardoe

Type: Serialized Novel (BattleCorps)

Synopsis:  Reviewing Trish Ebon’s preliminary assessment of the cache’s contents, Khan McEvedy thinks back to her father, the 331st’s final commander – Major General James McEvedy.  She recalls him as a kind, gentle and caring man, and finds Nicholas a poor father figure by comparison.  McEvedy worries about one discrepancy – Ebon’s report lists six nuclear warheads, whereas Buhallin claims her search team found seven.  She hopes it’s just an oversight.

McEvedy reports the wrecked state of the ‘Mechs, and says that only the nuclear warheads are worth discussing.  Nicholas suggests equitable disposition of the cache contents, to prevent shifting the balance of power, with possession determined by Trials of Possession for the nukes and ‘Mech Stars.  McEvedy objects, noting that the Wolverines defeated the Falcons for the cache, and that the other Clans have no claim to it.  Nicholas takes this as grounds for a Trial of Refusal.  The Widowmakers win the right to defend the Council decision, pitting two of their warriors against the Wolverine Khan and saKhan.

Notes:  Historical: Liberation of Terra records that Major General James McEvedy led the 331st against the Rim Worlds Republic capital of Apollo, seizing two Castles Brian in under three days.  He’d risen to the rank of full General by the time of the assault on Terra.  The 331st also took part in the invasion of New Earth and played a role in the liberation of Moscow.

There’s no datestamp on this scene, and it’s intercut with the inventory scene on Circe and the theft of the nuclear warhead.  However, Nicholas calls for the Trial of Refusal to take place “the following day,” and the Trial is datestamped October 7, so the Council meeting must be on October 6.

I’m curious about the number and nature of Brian Caches.  This story gives us the only known breakdown of an intact cache’s contents.  The use of Brian in the title, to me, is an indication of the construction techniques, rather than any particular size.  The Castle Brian section of the Star League sourcebook says that an “average” Castle Brian could host two brigades of troops, but notes that there wasn’t a standard size and they could be larger or smaller.  On the other hand, Mini-Castles could accommodate just one regiment, so Castles Brian probably didn’t get that small.  Castles Brian probably ranged in size from holding one brigade (3 regiments) to one division (nine regiments).  The Brian Caches appear to have covered a range of sizes, but uniformly used Castle Brian-class structure strength (since the ones on Arcadia withstood nuclear strikes).  The smallest known cache was the Tiki Province cache which held just two companies, while the largest is Castle Brian IV (also referred to as a Brian Cache) which “contained enough weapons to outfit an army.” (So….a division-sized cache?)
 
H:OK describes the Brian Caches as “massive fortifications where the extra weapons and military equipment from the demobilized units would be stored.” (However, the Tiki cache doesn’t seem particularly ‘massive.’)  On Arcadia, “the world’s Brian Caches had done their duty – though seriously damaged by multiple direct nuclear strikes, most nevertheless survived long enough to give some measure of protection to the world’s defenders.  Military power largely remained in the hands of just a select few groups that had managed to secure the Brian caches for themselves.”

The numbering system doesn’t really add clarity.  The ones on Eden appear to have been sequentially numbered with Roman numerals, and Castles Brian IV and V are featured in Fall From Glory.  The one surviving depot on Arcadia was named “Brian Cache 17,” while the surviving depot on Dagda was named “Brian Cache Dag-92-906.”  This could be read to mean as few as five Castle Brian-class caches per planet, or as many as 1,000 per world.  With 686 regiments to cache, if they all went into Tiki-sized caches, that would be 3,087 caches.  If they all went into divison-sized caches, that would be 76.  My best guess is that there were 1,000 caches in total, 250 per world, of varying sizes (perhaps making the ‘Black Brian’ the 92nd of 250 on Dagda and the 906th of 1000 overall).  Just as the SLDF’s main Castles Brian were surrounded by supporting mini-castles, the main Brian Caches (such as Castle Brian IV, Castle Brian V, and the Black Brian) may have been surrounded by supplementary caches ranging from two companies to a brigade’s worth, depending on what the local geography would support.  The big ones were mostly wiped out by the start of Operation KLONDIKE, while the smaller ones had largely been overrun and emptied out.  Tiki may have been typical of the smaller caches, but was unusal in that it was overgrown and forgotten.

Known Brian Caches include: 

Arcadia:  The sturdy Brian Caches were seized by a small number of powers, who used them to survive the initial frenzy of nuclear exchanges.  Most appear to have been subsequently overrun and destroyed by rival factions or simply cleared out and abandoned.  The Dragon’s Republic controlled the last functioning Brian Cache on the planet (Brian Cache 17).  Clan Star Adder destroyed or disabled all the entrances with mining equipment, explosives, direct weapons fire, and atomic demolition charges, trapping Republican forces inside until they surrendered en-masse after 47 days of siege.  The Adders collapsed the unstable structure after they cleared it out.

Babylon: The Callandra “Mountain People” helped the SLDF build a Brian Cache in the mountains where they lived, and took control of it after the Second Exodus.   However, they lost or traded away most of its contents during the wars.

Circe:  The small Tiki cache was apparently forgotten and lay undisturbed for the duration of the Exodus Civil War.  It contained two companies of BattleMechs, seven nuclear warheads, and substantial supplies of parts (including actuators and fusion engines), munitions, and uniforms.

Dagda: The Black Brian on San Biagio (official designation “Brian Cache Dag-92-906”) was very heavily defended.  It was one of Aleksandr Kerensky’s original depot sites and followed a standard Star League design.  It was controlled by the Brotherhood of Donegal almost from the beginning of the Exodus Civil War, and survived numerous attacks while all the other depots on the Dagda were overrun and consumed by various factions.  Unlike Castle Brian IV on Eden, which had defenses limited to security cameras and pressure plates wired to alarms, the Black Brian had a full complement of gun turrets (though these may have been added once the wars started).

Eden:  The New Capellan Hegemony claimed Castle Brian IV (often referenced as the Brian Cache where DeChavilier died, and the one where General Carson was accused of having been involved in arms smuggling).  That depot was said to contain enough weaponry for an army.  Andery describes the construction of “a chain of Brian Caches marching off across the continent to the west.”  To me, this implies a chain of caches running from Novy Moscva to the settlement of Yang’s Bazaar, which is the only thing marked on the map to the west of Novy Moscva.  It is implied that Andery can see several of the caches in the chain as his helicopter flies over the city center, so they’re probably placed close enough to be mutually supporting (a Long Tom has an effective range of 10.2 km, so putting the caches about 20 km apart would allow them to cover the surrounding terrain with artillery without leaving any gaps for enemy ground forces to move through).  Nicholas’ forces staged their Second Exodus out of Castle Brian V, near Vesta.

Strana Mechty:  There was a Brian Cache on Strana Mechty, though it isn’t clear whether Aleksandr built it, or whether it was built to hold the equipment from the two divisions that followed Nicholas on the Second Exodus.

[Mendrugo]

----- 1 Day Later -----

Date: October 7, 2823

Location: Strana Mechty

Title: Betrayal of Ideals – Treachery’s Stage

Author: Blaine Lee Pardoe

Type: Serialized Novel (BattleCorps)

Synopsis: The Trial of Refusal commences, pitting McEvedy (Guillotine) and her saKhan Dwight Robinson (Black Knight) against two Widowmakers piloting King Crabs.  Sarah has been using the Guillotine since the Clans were formed on Strana Mechty (she previously piloted an Excalibur in “Fall From Glory” during the Second Exodus rearguard fighting).  She wishes Andery were present, and remembers how close they were, and how he was able to stand up to Nicholas when nobody else could.  The Widowmakers stun the Wolverines by double-teaming saKhan Robinson, who goes down fighting (trying to beat one of the King Crabs to death with his own ‘Mech’s severed arm as a club) as McEvedy overheats trying to save him with an alpha-strike.  Despite her best efforts, McEvedy can’t stand against two King Crabs, and she goes down.  Nicholas declares the Widowmakers the victors, upholding the Grand Council decision to split the cache among various Clans.

Khan Joyce Merrel of the Snow Ravens visits McEvedy after the fight, informing her of Dwight’s death.  She expresses relief that the inter-Clan dispute has been resolved, but McEvedy says that it won’t end so easily.  She tells the Snow Raven Khan that the Widowmakers won’t rest until the Wolverines are absorbed or crushed.  McEvedy tells Joyce that she’s considering secession in the hopes of being able to live independently.  Merrel responds that the ilKhan won’t stand for it, but acknowledges that the Snow Ravens, Goliath Scorpions and Ice Hellions have been entertaining similar thoughts of late.
 
McEvedy’s next visitor is Franklin Hallis, whom she appoints as the new Wolverine saKhan, replacing Robinson.  She tells him that she is contemplating a secession from the Clans, and expects the others to come after the Wolverines in full force.  She asks Hallis to begin to work with the leaders of the castes and begin to concentrate all the civilians in order to facilitate the Clan’s wholesale departure from Clan space, as well as visiting the fleet caches and preparing transports.

Notes: Strangely, despite having long-ranged weaponry, better speed, and plenty of room to maneuver, the Wolverines immediately close to knife-fighting range with the King Crabs, allowing the assaults to bring their paired AC/20s into play early and often.  Technically, Robinson’s clubbing maneuver is against the boardgame rules – ‘Mechs need two hands to use improvised clubs such as severed limbs, so you can’t pick up your own arm and use it one-handed.  McEvedy would have probably done better in her original ride, an Excalibur, since its Gauss Rifle/LRM-20 arsenal and excellent ground speed for a heavy ‘Mech would have allowed her to outmaneuver the Widowmakers and pick them apart at range (though the King Crabs probably would have had enough armor plating to absorb every shot in an Excalibur’s ammo bins and keep coming, unless she got a lucky hit in).

Here we get proof that Nicholas’ radical experiment in social engineering is on the verge of coming apart at the seams.  The Jade Falcons have already instituted a brutal internal Culling to end secessionist sentiments, motivated by fear of the ilKhan’s retribution.  And now the Wolverines, Snow Ravens, Goliath Scorpions and Ice Hellions are all thinking of independence.  Nicholas may have been a manipulative bastard, but he was dead on correct that drastic action was needed to head off mass defections from his march towards his ideal new society.

In her hospital bed, McEvedy gives Hallis a noteputer with extensive planning documents for her Third Exodus, implying that she began working out specifics for the plan well before the Trial of Refusal.

[Mendrugo]

----- 1 Day Later -----

Date: October 8, 2823

Location: Strana Mechty

Title: Betrayal of Ideals – The Switchback Directive

Author: Blaine Lee Pardoe

Type: Serialized Novel (BattleCorps)

Synopsis:  The Grand Council reconvenes in the wake of the Wolverines’ defeat in the Trial of Refusal.  McEvedy, though still recovering from her wounds, attends and notes that the Khans, once united as a family, are now filled with hatred.  As Nicholas makes a motion to begin planning the redistribution of the Tiki cache contents, McEvedy levies a fresh protest, that the Grand Council’s interference with internal Wolverine affairs violates Clan law and sets a dangerous precedent for the future.

Laying everything on the table, Sarah tells the Grand Council that other Clans have been spying on the Wolverines, as has Nicholas’ “Watch” organization.  She claims that her failure in the Trial of Refusal is a direct result of such espionage.   Nicholas (correctly – see Notes) answers that the Watch had no bearing on the outcome of the combat trial.

While the Smoke Jaguars and Widowmakers speak in support of Nicholas, claiming that the Wolverine path of action threatens rule of law within the Clans, McEvedy warns that they would think differently if they were facing the threat of being stripped of resources.
 
McEvedy realizes that she cannot win this debate in the Grand Council.  The other Clans have turned on the Wolverines – either out of fear of being dominated by them or desire to claim such advantages for themselves.  What few allies she might have (Snow Ravens, Goliath Scorpions, Ice Hellions) are unwilling to speak up.  She rises and announces her withdrawal from the Council session, rejecting Snow Raven Khan Merrell’s attempt to help her save face.  Nicholas asks her not to let matters end like this, and McEvedy responds that the matters are, in fact, just beginning.

Notes:  McEvedy muses on Nicholas’ failings – he’s wildly temperamental, throws things, screams, berates his Khans, suffers sudden mood swings, and engages in ritual fasting and meditation.  She has seen the other Khans ignore or accept such behavior, owing to Nicholas’ nearly godlike reputation among the people of the society he’s created.

While Karrige is angling for the complete destruction of the Wolverines over a still-unexplained incident in the past, Nicholas appeared to hope that his decision to break up the cache more or less evenly would chastise the Wolverines and make the other Clans satisfied.  The situation now facing the Clans is not unlike that facing the Exodus Fleet, except that the Wolverines are now cast in the role of the Prinz Eugen.  Through the absolute destruction of any faction that tries to leave his new society, Nicholas will be able to instill sufficient fear in the others to prevent future attempts.  Unlike the Prinz Eugen mutiny, it doesn’t appear that Nicholas is intentionally manipulating events towards this end, though Karrige is manipulating him to create such an outcome.  The Jade Falcons clearly saw the parallels and undertook their own Culling to avoid becoming a cautionary example for the rest, but McEvedy’s pride won’t let her take a similar route.  From Merrell’s earlier comments, we can see that the danger of the Clans falling apart is very real, and all it would take would be one Clan successfully going rogue for others to follow in their footsteps.

McEvedy blaming espionage for her failure in the Trial of Refusal seems like an odd argument to make.  The Wolverines lost because they were outgunned, overconfident, and because they fought poorly.  Who in their right mind tries to close to short range against a pair of King Crabs when they have a vast area in which to maneuver?  (Had they stayed out beyond 270 meters, the battle would have been a sniping contest between Large Lasers, PPCs, and LRMs, where the King Crabs’ superior armor would have been balanced by the better mobility of the lighter units.)  And how would espionage have affected that battle in the slightest?  For that matter, in a battle of such importance, why weren’t the Wolverine Khans fielding Pulverizers?  Given room to maneuver and superior long range weaponry, the Wolverines could have served the Widowmaker King Crabs up with butter.

[Mendrugo]

----- Meanwhile, at the Norfolk Boneyard -----

Date: October 8, 2823

Location: SLS Bismark – Norfolk Boneyard – Strana Mechty System

Title: Betrayal of Ideals – The Switchback Directive

Author: Blaine Lee Pardoe

Type: Serialized Novel (BattleCorps)

Synopsis:  SaKhan Hallis leads a Wolverine team to the Norfolk Boneyard in the Strana Mechty system, using Scientist Caste software to neutralize automated sentry satellites and gambling (successfully) that no fighters or WarShips regularly patrol the cache.  With the intent of reactivating enough ships to evacuate Clan Wolverine from Nicholas’ regime, Hallis begins aboard the Texas-class SLS Bismarck.  Despite having languished in the caches for a generation, regular maintenance has ensured that the ships are in good condition, and the work to get them jump-ready is easier than expected.

McEvedy checks in, gets a status update, and transmits a secured file with the details of Operation SWITCHBACK.  Hallis is impressed by the plan’s scope, which goes well beyond Admiral Votok’s “cut and run” plan for the Prinz Eugen and her escorts.  McEvedy notes that she has already pre-positioned command circuits of JumpShips to take Hallis where he needs to go to set SWITCHBACK into motion.

McEvedy tells Hallis that SWITCHBACK is just a contingency plan, and that she still hopes to head off the coming catastrophe, but that if it goes badly, the Wolverines will need to move very quickly if they are to survive.

Notes:  Hallis notes that Exodus Fleet Station Five (The Norfolk Boneyard) is “far out in the Strana Mechty system.”  However, only a day earlier, Hallis was in McEvedy’s hospital suite on the surface of Strana Mechty.  Even if he left immediately for the cache, he couldn’t be more than a day out from Strana Mechty by this point – less than 11% of the time required to reach the zenith or nadir jump points – so “far out” may be somewhat relative.  One possibility is that he took a shuttle to a charged Wolverine JumpShip in Strana Mechty near-orbit (at a pirate point) and had it jump out to the Norfolk Boneyard in the far reaches of the system.

Hallis notes that the SLDF created ten naval caches for the mothballed ships of the Exodus Fleet.  Strana Mechty appears to have hosted #5.  The Arcadia cache was in orbit around the system’s fourth planet and, aside from playing host to some squatters, had largely been left alone after two factions’ WarShips destroyed each other while trying to claim it.  The Babylon cache was the largest, and was hidden in the asteroid field circling Babylon V.  (Our last, best hope for peace… :) )  The Circe cache had been heavily looted, losing 2/3 of the ships that had been stored there.  The Dagda cache had been in/around the SLDF-in-exile’s only naval shipyard, and both shipyard and cached ships were just drifting debris by the time the Clans arrived.  The Eden cache was hidden within one of Eden II’s smallest moons, and hadn’t been disturbed.  H:OK speculates that Nicholas’ Second Exodus forces took the time to visit several caches and either take more ships or render the ones left behind inoperable before departing the Pentagon for Strana Mechty.  The BattleSpace sourcebook says that the Remembrance records the destruction of approximately one hundred WarShips in the Exodus Civil Wars.  This probably includes both the ships taken and used by the factional forces, the ones looted from the Circe cache, and (primarily) the ones lost when the Dagda cache was destroyed.  So that’s six of the ten naval caches accounted for.  Where would the other four have been?

The Wars of Reaving sourcebook mentions naval caches in the Vinton, Priori, Niles and New Kent systems, but it’s not specified whether these were original SLDF-in-exile naval depots or ones created later by the Clans.  They would nicely round out the ten-count, however.  Hallis is at Fleet Station Five, aka “The Norfolk Boneyard,” but also mentions that another Wolverine team is busy looting the “San Diego Boneyard” at the same time.  It’s not clear whether the San Diego Boneyard is another cache in the Strana Mechty system, or whether it’s a code name for one of the other Fleet Stations (which could be anywhere except Dagda, where the cache was totally destroyed).  My guess is that “San Diego” is the cache in the Circe system, since that’s where the Wolverines seem to be primarily based at this point.

Getting ships jump-ready is one thing – getting them supplied for a two year journey is another.  Aleksandr Kerensky laid in supplies on New Samarkand for more than half a year in order to provision the Exodus fleet, and it took Nicholas months to get his Second Exodus ready.

[Mendrugo]

----- 1 Day Later -----

Date: October 9, 2823

Location: Strana Mechty

Title: Betrayal of Ideals – The Switchback Directive

Author: Blaine Lee Pardoe

Type: Serialized Novel (BattleCorps)

Synopsis:  Hallis and McEvedy meet again at the Wolverine enclave on Strana Mechty, where Hallis can see that the Clan’s castes are already beginning to mobilize.  Sarah has been busy while he was out at the naval cache.  So far, Hallis and Ebon’s anti-Watch security protocols seem to have kept other Clans from noticing the Wolverines packing their bags.  Sarah lays out the full scope of SWITCHBACK:
 
Six Wolverine enclaves on five worlds cannot be defended, so four will be abandoned and destroyed (so other Clans won’t gain the resources), and their inhabitants concentrated on the two main enclaves on Strana Mechty and Circe.  The Wolverine touman will launch an attack on Strana Mechty to draw the others' attention to the Clan capital while the fleet evacuates the civilans from Circe.  A fleet will then extract the surviving Wolverines from Strana Mechty.  McEvedy expects any Wolverines that choose to stay to be Absorbed into other Clans.  Those that can’t get to the transports in time will be instructed to disperse and blend into the Dark Caste or try to infiltrate the castes of other Clans.

McEvedy doesn’t want to repeat Vostok’s mistake by making a beeline to the Inner Sphere.  She plans to take a circuitous route out of the Clan homeworlds, allowing pursuers to get ahead of the Wolverine ships, and then rendezvous at the Barbados system, halfway to the Inner Sphere.  Without time to properly supply the ships, the Wolverines will need to restock food and water there.  McEvedy speculates that the Wolverines may be able to link up with whatever portion of the Star League Minister of Communications Jerome Blake managed to preserve, if any.

Realistically, McEvedy expects Nicholas to come after the Wolverines with everything he has – all Clans – without mercy or pity.  She reminds Hallis that Nicholas was the driving force behind the Prinz Eugen incident.

Meanwhile, in the Widowmaker enclave, Khan Karrige reviews the progress of his own plans.  He’d hoped McEvedy would die in the Trial of Refusal, and her continued existence irks him.  However, his manipulations have generally borne fruit – Nicholas and Sarah are at each other’s throats, and the ilKhan now sees the Wolverines as an existential threat to his society.  Karrige’s plans depend on the Wolverines overreacting and launching an unprovoked attack.  However, if they fail to rise to the bait, his agents and their purloined nuclear warhead on Circe can manufacture the necessary “overreaction” that will bring the Wolverine Clan to its untimely end.

Notes:  McEvedy’s plan has merit, but if the issue is the need to resupply mid-route, she might be better served by trying to make contact with the Dark Caste.  At this point, the Dark Caste largely consists of independent spacers who successfully fled the Clan fleets at the outset of Operation KLONDIKE.  Those spacers would almost certainly have extensive knowledge of the surrounding star systems, including resupply spots unknown to Nicholas’ forces.  While there would be some wariness about collaborating with a Clan, McEvedy might have been able to arrange sanctuary in exchange for weaponry and intel, and then departed for the Inner Sphere with more supplies and better charts.

Looking at Karrige’s motivations, it appears that, beyond simple revenge against McEvedy for a slight suffered decades earlier, he wants to become the power behind the throne.  Rather than seeking independence for his Widowmakers, he dreams of running all of Clan society.  Nicholas responds poorly to direct challenges, but Karrige has shown exceptional skill in manipulating Nicholas – taking advantage of his “quirks” (aka brain damage from the Curse of Eden).

[FedSunsBorn]

Anyone else find it ironic that the man who manipulated events for years to create the Clans and stop revolts is now being manipulated by one of his very own followers?  ^-^

[Mendrugo]

----- 1 Day Later -----

Date: October 10, 2823

Location: Strana Mechty

Title: Betrayal of Ideals – The Switchback Directive

Author: Blaine Lee Pardoe

Type: Serialized Novel (BattleCorps)

Synopsis:  The Grand Council convenes again and introduces Hallis as her new saKhan.  Nicholas is suspicious, since he normally attends the Trials of Position to select new Clan leaders.  The other Khans find McEvedy’s appointment of Hallis to the role a dishonorable breach of Clan tradition.  Nicholas refuses to allow Hallis to sit on the Council, since his elevation to saKhan wasn’t presided over by the sitting ilKhan – a rule he just made up on the spot.  McEvedy calls him on it, and he falls back on claims of “tradition.”  Franklin departs, and the other Khans berate McEvedy.

As Nicholas brings up the distribution of the Tiki cache, McEvedy announces her intent to fight any Clan that tries to take possession.  Nicholas appears gracious and conciliatory, and asks McEvedy to stay and discuss the matter, but instead she rises and makes to depart.  She asks the other Khans to recognize Nicholas’ offer to discuss matters as a farce, and invites them to leave with her.  None do.  She departs, unmolested, despite Franklin Osis’ call to arrest her.

McEvedy resolves to try one last time to head off disaster by confronting Nicholas personally.  However, she has little hope of success, and instructs Hallis tell Trish Ebon to strip the Tiki cache bare except for the nukes, and defend the facility.

Notes:  This scene was outlined first in Phelan Kell’s report The Clans – Warriors of Kerensky, which quotes from Grand Council security footage dated October 8, 2823.  So the datestamp on the footage is wrong, to begin with.  The dialogue also diverges substantially at points, which it wouldn’t do if it were an accurate recording.   For example, in the security footage, the Mongoose Khan says “Khan [CENSORED], you go too far,” in response to McEvedy accusing Nicholas of not living up to his father’s ideals.  In this scene, the Mongoose Khan says the same line, but in response to McEvedy announcing her intent to defend the Tiki cache against all comers.  Other elements of the “October 8” tape appear to come from a separate meeting on October 11.  Moreover, McEvedy leaves on her own, with Kerensky rejecting a call to arrest her, rather than the security tape’s version that she pulled a pistol to fend off Nicholas’ guards (Ebon Keshik?) and left with Wolverine soldiers covering her retreat.

To me, this implies that the “security footage” Phelan viewed was recut (with new elements filmed on a holo-soundstage) as part of an effort to create revisionist history following the Wolverine Annihilation.  We know that many records were purged or heavily edited, but this is evidence that new false records were created to fill some of resulting gaps.

There’s some evidence that many of the “official” reports dealing with early Clan history have been substantially whitewashed.  A corrupted message fragment snuck into Historical: Operation KLONDIKE by parties unknown can be interpreted to read:  “Don’t interrupt - there’s not much time. History as you know it is a lie, a fabrication made up by Nicholas Kerensky. The Wolverines were framed and their lives sacrificed to megalomania. Rumors of their survival are well-founded; the exiles were rescued by ComStar and became its masters. The Outbound Light’s discovery of the homeworlds was no accident, nor was the invasion. They’re still there at the order’s heart, pulling strings; this war [the Jihad] is an attempt to finish what Waterley tried with SCORPION.”  This reinforces the idea that “Betrayal of Ideals” is the real story, while The Clans – Warriors of Kerensky contains unreliable source material on this matter.

[Mendrugo]

Anyone else find it ironic that the man who manipulated events for years to create the Clans and stop revolts is now being manipulated by one of his very own followers?  ^-^

Maybe...maybe not.  Stay tuned for tomorrow's installment.  >:D

[Mendrugo]

----- 1 Day Later -----

Date: October 11, 2823

Location: SLS McKenna’s Pride – Strana Mechty Orbit

Title: Betrayal of Ideals – The Switchback Directive

Author: Blaine Lee Pardoe

Type: Serialized Novel (BattleCorps)

Synopsis:  McEvedy meets with Nicholas aboard the McKenna’s Pride, in the fomer officers’ mess where Aleksandr Kerensky has been entombed.  The ship remains ready for action, with engines and weapons fully functional, though only a skeleton crew of honor guards remains aboard.  McEvedy chose the venue, knowing that memories of his father will unsettle the ilKhan. 

Without the interference of the other Khans, McEvedy addresses Nicholas as an old friend, asking for advice on how to avoid the coming conflict.  Nicholas tells her that Wolverine technological advances and combat prowess are admirable, but has also made her Clan a threat to the rest.  He says that he’s aware of the manipulations of other Khans, but assures McEvedy that he has not been guided by their actions.  He tells McEvedy that the Clans are stagnating without enemies, that peace has led to calls for a relaxation of the caste system.  In his view, the Wolverines represent a possible future, but one that doesn’t fit into Nicholas’ vision for his ideal society.  Kerensky tells McEvedy that other Clans will move against her in an attempt to absorb the Wolverines.  Nicholas intends to grant such an action legal authority, and, in the process, teach the other nineteen Clans the folly of straying from rigid adherence to his will.

When Sarah tells Nicholas that she can’t accept that, and will fight back, he answers that he’s counting on just that.  A new war against a dangerous foe will unify his people behind him.  Sarah suggests that she could resign as Khan, but Nicholas counters that such a lesson must be reinforced through pain, suffering and war.

Notes:  With this scene, Nicholas somewhat redeems his strength of character in my eyes.  To this point, “Betrayal of Ideals” has characterized him as an obsessive compulsive semi-schizophrenic puppet, dancing to Karrige’s tune.  This conversation confirms that Karrige’s pretensions of being a puppet-master are false, and that this is the same Nicholas who orchestrated the Prinz Eugen mutiny, forcing his father to crush it and thereby dissuade other ships from thoughts of return to the Inner Sphere.  The same Nicholas who may have had a hand in inflaming Capellan/Davion tensions and touching off the Pentagon Civil Wars to head off growing civilian demands for an elected representative civilian government, rather than the hereditary military governorship that Nicholas stood to inherit.  The same Nicholas who may have arranged for General Carson and even his own brother Andery to be assassinated in order to provide pretexts for crackdowns and remove potential restraints on his absolute rule.  He’s running exactly the same playbook he used in the Prinz Eugen mutiny, and with precisely the same outcome in mind.

Even better, this time around, he gets the outcome he wants without having to get his own hands dirty.  If the scheme goes awry, or if Karrige begins to get pretentions of empowerment, Nicholas can simply cite Karrige's underhanded dealings (he's the one that's been plotting and scheming with the other Khans, after all) and walk away clean, having pinned all the blame on Karrige.  The Widowmaker Khan wouldn't even be able to protest that he was framed, since as far as he knows, this whole thing has been his idea.

Characters in the post-Second Exodus stories keep talking about how Andery was the only one able to stand up to Nicholas.  We didn’t see any of that in “Fall From Glory,” so it must all have taken place in the other ClanGrunder novels.  However, from what I can see, Nicholas pushed through the formation of the Clans through live-fire trials, forced incorporation of all civilians (even those who didn’t elect to join the Second Exodus) into rigid castes, mandatory fostering of all children, book burning, and laws/traditions that promote a culture of constant conflict purely for the purpose of keeping the Warrior caste from thinking about big-picture concepts.  So what policies did Nicholas propose that Andery successfully talked him out of?
 
 :D Nicholas:  “I have it!  New rule! In order to gain a place in the touman, every warrior candidate has to eat a labor caste baby!”

 :o Andery: “What?!!”

 :D Nicholas: “Half a baby?”

 :P Andery: “No!”

 :D Nicholas: “How about paired candidates fight to the death for a slot?”

 :-\ Andery: “Well, that is slightly less horrible, I guess…”

The only policy I could find that got walked back was a short-lived requirement that all Clan warriors take drugs to kill their sex drive, but that got replaced with simple contraceptives once the iron womb program got going full speed, allowing warriors to couple whenever they felt like.

[Wrangler]

Nick is smarter and eviler Stephen Amaris.

[Mendrugo]

----- Meanwhile, on Circe… -----

Date: October 11, 2823

Location: Circe

Title: Betrayal of Ideals – The Switchback Directive

Author: Blaine Lee Pardoe

Type: Serialized Novel (BattleCorps)

Synopsis:  Trish Ebon commands the defense of the Tiki cache, with instructions that all rules of engagement are suspended.  Her sensors pick up inbound forces from the Jade Falcons, Ghost Bears, Wolves, Coyotes, and Steel Vipers.  A grand melee ensues, and all the attackers except the Wolves are knocked down, leaving Trish with 7-8 ‘Mechs.

However, a late Wolf advance in force batters the remaining Wolverines and begins to turn their flank, and with the survivors of the other Clans returning to the fray, Ebon commands her forces to withdraw and leave the cache, now cleared of everything except for the six nuclear warheads, to the other Clans.

Notes:  Training in Clan single-combat tactics must be hard to break.  Trish was given a Trinary of reinforcements and clearance to use any and all methods to fight the other Clans.  However, there’s no indication in the story that Trish did anything beyond failing to respond to a batchall and maneuvering to pit her entire force against each incoming Clan, rather than doing the traditional Clan scatter for individual duels.  Granted, they didn’t have much time to prepare, but after her big speech about total war, I was sort of expecting the Wolverines to stage ambushes, gang up on lone enemies, etc.  (My inner Capellan was screaming “Where are the minefields? Where are the concealed pits?  Where are the artillery barrages?  They’ve got six perfectly good nukes in the bunker and “anything goes” orders, and they haven’t put the two together?”)

Mid-battle, while fighting the Jade Falcons, the Wolverines engage along Wombat Ridge.  Given the dearth of proper names for other terrain features in the region, I can’t help but believe that this is a shout-out to one of the more prolific posters here on these boards. 

[Mendrugo]

----- Meanwhile, Back on Strana Mechty -----

Date: October 11, 2823

Location: Strana Mechty

Title: Betrayal of Ideals – The Switchback Directive

Author: Blaine Lee Pardoe

Type: Serialized Novel (BattleCorps)

Synopsis:  In the aftermath of the battle at the Tiki cache, the Grand Council assembles, reporting a Wolf victory and complaining that the Wolverines failed to adhere to the rede of combat.  The discussion halts as McEvedy enters the chamber to make a final statement. 

She tells the assembled Khans what Nicholas told her aboard the McKenna’s Pride, that the Wolverines have been set up for destruction as a cautionary example against disobeying the will of the ilKhan, who plans to use a war against the Wolverines as a unifying measure for the remaining Clans.  McEvedy announces that the Wolverines are seceding, and invites any others who desire freedom to join them.  None do.  She goes on to warn them that the Wolverines will use any and all means at their disposal to defend themselves.

The Grand Council erupts in an uproar.  The Ghost Bears call her a traitor, and the Smoke Jaguars call for a Trial of Absorption, which Nicholas moves to consider as McEvedy walks out of the chamber.

Notes:  Yet more evidence that the “security footage” upon which Phelan's account in Warriors of Kerensky is based is a forgery.  Statements made in separate meetings on the 10th and 11th have been spliced together and given a datestamp of the 8th.  McEvedy also fails to pull a gun on the assembled Khans in this meeting, and leaves without any threat of detention.

By way of confirmation, the section on the Wolverines in Jihad Secrets: The Blake Documents notes that “the version of events detailed by Phelan Kell are a distortion of reality, presumably manipulated by Nicholas and his supporters to cast their actions in the best possible light.”

[Wrangler]

I wonder if the Blake Documents were based on Mr. Pardoe's work.   Its hard form me since i've never got chance to read  Betrayal of Ideals.   Are there signs that serialized novel's moments reflect into the Blake Document's section on the Wolverines?

[Mendrugo]

I wonder if the Blake Documents were based on Mr. Pardoe's work.   Its hard form me since i've never got chance to read  Betrayal of Ideals.   Are there signs that serialized novel's moments reflect into the Blake Document's section on the Wolverines?

The "Wolverine Diaries" in the Jihad Secrets book contain some notable intersections with Pardoe's Wolverine novel, but on the whole, they're a mismatch for the chronology and details, leading me to assume that the diary is a fake, but one (in-universe) written by someone with at least partial knowledge of the real events.

[Mendrugo]

----- Meanwhile, on Lum… -----

Date: October 11, 2823

Location: Lum

Title: Betrayal of Ideals – The Switchback Directive

Author: Blaine Lee Pardoe

Type: Serialized Novel (BattleCorps)

Synopsis:  Star Captain Douglas of Clan Mongoose leads an attack against the Wolverine enclave of Williamsport on Lum, after successfully outbidding the Widowmakers for the honor of leading the first Grand Council-sanctioned attack with the goal of seizing the laboratories where the Wolverines developed their enhanced ER PPCs and new ‘Mechs. 

However, upon reaching Williamsport, Douglas finds that almost every building in the enclave, including the research laboratories, have been burned to the ground, leaving only a few scattered residential structures for those Wolverines who opted to remain loyal to the ilKhan.

Notes:  Douglas notes with disdain that many among the lower castes of his and other Clans view McEvedy as a hero, and that graffiti supporting the Wolverines has been spotted on buildings in many enclaves.  One wonders what the state of mass media was at this point?  I would have thought that information control would have been one of Nicholas’ priorities.  I can see Khans sending out missives to their Touman commanders, but what Warrior in their right mind would share information about caste reforms within the Wolverines with their own lower castes?  Clearly, if graffiti is popping up, Nicholas hasn’t yet managed to apply content censorship to the Clan HPG network.  (I suppose it’s possible that the ChatterWeb might already be up and running, given the plethora of portable HPG systems the SLDF took with them, and that the lower caste chat-rooms have been buzzing with gossip and rumors.  Is there a firm date for when the Sea Foxes set up the ChatterWeb?)

[Alex Keller]

I think caste members from different clans have opportunities to interact and word of mouth travels quickly.

[Hammerpilot IIC]

And if Nicholas is setting this up, then having agents provocateur spreading rumors or writing graffiti would definitely fit in.

[Mendrugo]

And if Nicholas is setting this up, then having agents provocateur spreading rumors or writing graffiti would definitely fit in.

That's interesting.  I hadn't considered that Nicholas might have wanted to foment unrest among the lower castes.  That's exactly what he appears to have done with the Triptych Soliloquoy (leading to the Prinz Eugen mutiny) and the Cinco de Mayo/Chinese New Year pogroms (inflaming Davion/Capellan tensions that led to the New Capellan Hegemony).

Those schemes, however, were undertaken as part of a plan to undermine the existing power structure and allow him to raise his profile in the ensuing crisis.  At this point, he is the power structure in the post-KLONDIKE society, and it's clear that he won't stand for any challenges to his authority.  The Jade Falcons have already undertaken a painful internal purge to quash dissent and avoid becoming Nicholas' target.  Nicholas as much as told McEvedy that her idea of allowing flexible re-assignment of lower castes to enhance job satisfaction and productivity was a viable and effective path, but not the one he wanted for his people, and as such it presented an existential threat. 

Therefore, I just can't see Nicholas trying to stir up unrest among the lower castes of the various Clans, since several (Nova Cats, Snow Ravens, Goliath Scorpions, etc.) were already on the verge of breaking away.  In the top-down structure of his 'ideal society,' he had no need for widespread popular support - just the backing of the Warrior caste and the fear of the lower castes, most of whom are still shell-shocked by the Pentagon Civil War and KLONDIKE and willing to sacrifice personal ambition for stability.

[Mendrugo]

----- 11 Days Later -----

Date: October 22, 2823

Location: Circe

Title: Betrayal of Ideals – The Switchback Directive

Author: Blaine Lee Pardoe

Type: Serialized Novel (BattleCorps)

Synopsis:  Khan McEvedy supervises the evacuation operations in the main Wolverine enclave on Circe – the city of Great Hope in the Tiki Province.  She notes that many of her Clan have informally renamed the settlement in her honor, calling it the city of McEvedy.  Wolverine WarShips maintain positions in orbit overhead, and twenty-four DropShips (Mules are mentioned, specifically) ring the settlement to facilitate rapid loading.

McEvedy discusses the evacuation with Dr. Vaun, one of the scientist caste’s leading geneticists, who informs her that the primary samples of the Bloodnamed Wolverine warriors are aboard the evacuation ships, while sufficient reserve material has been held back for use in a contingency plan to ensure that the Wolverine Warriors continue to live on even if the evacuation plan fails.

Meanwhile, on Circe’s Rooster Plains, Khan Breen leads the Steel Vipers’ 80th Fang in an assault a Wolverine sibling company in the midst of a thunderstorm, but the attackers end up on the defensive after running afoul of a minefield and coming up against the Wolverines’ more powerful new ‘Mechs.  The Wolverine sibcadets abruptly withdraw, and the Vipers pursue them through the grounds of their training facility, just as the facility itself detonates.  In the resulting chaos, the Wolverines maul the 80th Fang, and the Viper Khan signals a retreat.

As the Vipers face defeat, the Widowmakers begin an attempt to capture Wolverine mines in the Tiki Province, on the outskirts of Great Hope.  The Widowmaker siege is complicated by the threat of orbital bombardment from the Wolverine ships in orbit, and only a grant of safcon allowed his force to land at all, while hit-and-fade Wolverine attacks have kept the Widowmakers from gaining the initiative since departing their LZ.  As insurance, however, Karrige had his agents secrete the purloined nuclear warhead inside Great Hope, and has rigged up a remote detonator from his ‘Mech’s cockpit.  He intends to give Nicholas a great show.

Back in Great Hope, the last of the Wolverine DropShips are preparing to depart.  With the city having been burned to the ground, her command post is aboard the bridge of the Overlord-class Huron.  Zeta Galaxy has been serving as the evacuation’s rear guard, harassing the Widowmakers with gusto.  Most are SLDF veterans who fought in KLONDIKE.  10,000 civilians chose to stay and remain loyal to the ilKhan.

Karrige detonates the hidden nuke, re-destroying the already devastated City of McEvedy/Great Hope and vaporizing his hapless agents in the process.  When Nicholas asks him for a sitrep, Karrige tells him that the Wolverines must have detonated a nuke, killing those citizens who opted not to leave.  Kerensky, stunned that McEvedy would do such a thing, announces that the Trial of Absorption will be changed to a Trial of Annihilation in order to purge the Wolverines from the Clan genepool.

Notes:  This won’t be the last time her Clan names a place after McEvedy, though the world they later designate “McEvedy’s Folly” seems somewhat less reverential.  Speaking of names, my guess is that the “Rooster Plains” are Pardoe’s shout out to another prolific BattleTech contributor to these boards – Roosterboy.

Strategic Operations rules state that steerage passengers require five tons per person when putting in quarters.  Applying this calculation, the Mules could each carry about 1,628 steerage passengers, if no other cargo was put aboard.  Leaving room for supplies, let’s assume a cap of 1,500 passengers per Mule.  That implies that the 24 Mules could take about 36,000 people off Circe.  For supplies, people will need 1 ton of consumables per day per five people in such conditions.  (It’s 1 ton for 20 people in purpose-built crew compartments, but for steerage in the holds, more supplies have to be brought to compensate for ship recycling systems not designed for long-term use by passengers in cargo bays.)  This means that a Mule with 1,500 passengers leaves room for roughly 1,000 tons of consumables, which will be consumed by the passengers in about 3.3 days.  Yikes!  Since we’re looking at an eight month trip before they can resupply at Barbados, they’ll need to pack 240 days worth of supplies  – which works out to roughly 50 tons per person.  With that estimate, the 8,500 ton cargo capacity of the Mules means that they can only bring along about 150 people per ship (3,600 for all 24 Mules) if they want them the live all the way to the destination.

And, of course, the mysterious “Plan B” referenced by Dr. Vaun will be further expounded upon later, much to the Ghost Bears’ dismay.

My inner Capellan rejoiced at the tactics being demonstrated by the sibling company against the Vipers – minefields and booby-trapped buildings.  Where were these guys when Trish Ebon was defending the cache?  It reinforces the idea that once battlefield traditions and rituals become ingrained, it’s hard to shift gears and change tactics.  The young warriors were able to more fully realize the potential of McEvedy’s “anything goes” orders, whereas Trish, having fought in the ritualized format for longer, wasn’t able to successfully make the transition, something that we’ll see as the ritualized Clan warfare grinds to a halt against Spheroid tactics in the 3050s, laying waste to those Clans which fail to adapt.

Karrige’s actions place him squarely into the “mustache-twirling villainy” pantheon of BattleTech characters, along with Jinjiro Kurita, Stefan Amaris, The Master, Kalvin Liao and Caleb Davion.  Aside from personal pique causing him to desire McEvedy’s destruction, I can’t see why a Trial of Annihilation would serve the interests of the Widowmakers any more than a Trial of Absorption.  Moreover, if the goal was to boost the power of the Widowmakers, isorla Wolverine lower castes would boost the labor pool and bring along some of the sought-after technical knowledge of how to make prototype “gutbster” ER PPCs.

I was initially mystified about the stolen Tiki Cache nuclear weapon and how it managed to wipe out an entire city.  The blast fit the profile of the Peacemaker system (from Jihad Hot Spots: 3070) which has a blast radius of about 6 km and a secondary effect (EMP, radiation) of about 12 km.  This fits with Karrige being 12 km away (per his long range sensor readings) and still getting radiation alarms and feeling a shockwave.  However, JHS:3070 lists the Peacemaker weight as 100 tons, which would be somewhat difficult for the Widowmaker agents to have put into a bag, smuggled out of the cache, and then carried 10 km to where a small truck was waiting.  Fortunately, in the Ask the Writers section, Cray clarified that the Peacemaker weight of 100 tons is mostly the delivery system (the missile fusellage, fuel, guidance system, etc.), and that the warhead itself is very light by comparison.

[Mendrugo]

----- Meanwhile, on Strana Mechty… -----

Date: October 22, 2823

Location: Strana Mechty

Title: Betrayal of Ideals – The Switchback Directive

Author: Blaine Lee Pardoe

Type: Serialized Novel (BattleCorps)

Synopsis:  Trish Ebon oversees the evacuation of the Wolverines from Strana Mechty in a mini-Exodus that has allowed many to make orbit discreetly.  However, a Smoke Jaguar attack is imminent, and Trish is determined to hold them back long enough for saKhan Hallis to extract her with the rear-guard forces.

The Jaguars call ahead and berate the Wolverines for their honorless actions on Circe.  Ebon is shocked by the news of a nuclear detonation in the Wolverine enclave, and tells the Jaguars that she will fight with honor.  With some reluctance, the Jaguar commander accepts her word and comes in, guns blazing.

Notes:  Widowmaker disinformation spreads quickly.  The Clan HPG network must have been blasting the news all over the Kerensky cluster.  Interestingly, despite McEvedy’s public exposure of Nicholas’ secret manipulations and evidence of a wide-ranging conspiracy against the Wolverines, everyone seems quite inclined to take reports that the Wolverines blew themselves up with a nuclear weapon at face value.  From the ilKhan’s lips to their ears, I guess… 

Critical thinking about messages from above has never really been the Clans’ strong suit.  Heck, even Trish starts to have doubts when she hears the news, despite her protest that there must be a mistake.

[Alex Keller]

I love reading these on my morning bus rides to work. Thanks!

I really wish Betrayer of Ideals was in paperback.

[Mendrugo]

----- Meanwhile, in Circe Orbit… -----

Date: October 22, 2823

Location: SRS Avalanche – Circe Orbit

Title: Betrayal of Ideals – The Switchback Directive

Author: Blaine Lee Pardoe

Type: Serialized Novel (BattleCorps)

Synopsis:  Khan Merrell is horrified by the images of the nuclear devastation where Great Hope once stood, and can’t understand what drove her former friend, McEvedy, to do such a thing.  Nicholas has ordered the Snow Ravens to retaliate for the Wolverines’ use of WMDs, and has formally characterized the conflict as a war rather than a Trial.  She dispatches a flight of fighters to nuke the stubborn Wolverine sibko that had been thrashing the Steel Vipers on the Rooster Plains.

However, as the fighters launch, the Texas-class SLS Bismark, now in Wolverine hands, jumps in at a pirate point and dispatches DropShips to retrieve the sibko.  Detecting the radiological eminations from the Raven nuclear payload, the Bismark engages the Avalanche, then tries to shoot down the Raven fighters.  With horror, Merrell’s crew reports that the Raven missile went off target and hit 40 km away from the Rooster Plains – almost dead center over the Snow Raven capital of Dehra Dun.

Notes:  FM: Warden Clans describes the Avalanche as a Sovetskii Soyuz-class vessel, which has slightly better broadsides than the Texas, but vastly inferior fore and aft weaponry, and less than a third of the Texas’ armor plating.  Not to mention that the Texas is actually 50% faster than the lumbering Soyuz.  It’s clear that the Avalanche is no match for the Bismark. 

The nuclear strike has, in most prior Clan source material, been described as a Wolverine attack against Dehra Dun.  This scene reveals that story to be self-serving Clan propaganda, with a horrible tragedy utilized to make the Wolverines seem more villainous while covering up an inexcuasable error by the Snow Ravens.  The fake account (upon which Phelan based his “secret history of the Clans” in Warriors of Kerensky) is that Snow Ravens [Steel Vipers] acted on their own initiative [Nicholas’ orders] to attack the Wolverines on October 10 [October 22], but were smashed when the Wolverines counterattacked and sacked the city of Dehra Dun [defended their training camp on the Rooster Plains].  Upon being forced out of Dehra Dun as Mongoose and Nova Cat forces approached, they cleared the city of civilians and detonated a low-yield nuclear weapon to destroy the Raven genetic repository [the Snow Ravens accidentally nuked their own city trying to hit the cadets].  Given the description that “a tornado of fire rose up, stabbing into space,” I’m guessing “low-yield” isn’t an accurate assessment of the warhead’s power.  (Since it was fighter-carried, it was almost certainly Alamo-class.)

The Avalanche mounts enough Naval Lasers and Naval PPCs to have turned the entirety of the Rooster Plains to a flaming expanse of death, without even having to change station.  Thus, I can only conclude that Nicholas wanted a nuke dropped on the Wolverine sibko as a symbolic response to the detonation in Great Hope (which he mistakenly attributes to the Wolverines, and thinks was intended as an assassination attempt on his person).  Following the Trial of Annihilation, I think one of the reasons for purging the histories of most references and calling them the “Not-Named Clan” was to prevent uncomfortable information from coming out about what Nicholas, Karrige and Merrell did during this period.  “The first rule of Wolverine Annihilation is you don’t talk about Wolverine Annihilation.”

[FedSunsBorn]

Makes sense.

Blame the losing side for every atrocity but it is all really just a cover up for their own mistakes.

[Alex Keller]

Wow, this makes me hate the clans even more.

[Mendrugo]

----- 2 Days Later -----

Date: October 24, 2823

Location: Strana Mechty

Title: Betrayal of Ideals – The Switchback Directive

Author: Blaine Lee Pardoe

Type: Serialized Novel (BattleCorps)

Synopsis:  Back at Wombat Ridge [see notes], Trish Ebon and her Wolverine forces battle the Star Colonel Stanton Osis’ Smoke Jaguars.   As the Jaguars close in, backing the surviving Wolverines up against the impassable ridgeline, Trish fervently wishes for the arrival of Hallis’ promised extraction fleet.  As the Wolverines prepare for a last, desperate charge, the Jaguar lines are obliterated by an orbital bombardment from the McKenna’s Pride, now under Hallis’ control.

While Trish’s troops move to nearby plains for extraction, Hallis directs the Pride’s batteries to annihilate the Grand Council meeting hall, and the Halls of the Widowmakers, Smoke Jaguars, Snow Ravens, Ghost Bears, and Jade Falcons.  Hallis has seen media reports of nuclear detonations in Dehra Dun and Great Hope, both of which are being blamed on the Wolverines.  He knows that they are innocent, and has decided to exact revenge now that, as far as he knows, McEvedy died in the nuclear fires of Great Hope, making him the Wolverine Khan.

As Clan interceptor forces scramble towards the Pride, Hallis departs to oversee the evacuation of the remaining Wolverines from Lum and Marshall.

Notes:  Either the Clans really, really liked naming geographical features after marsupials, or there’s been some confusion in the writing process.  Wombat Ridge was first mentioned as being in the vicinity of the Tiki Cache on Circe, where Trish Ebon battled assorted Clan detachments.  However, in this scene, Trish Ebon is battling Smoke Jaguars on Strana Mechty, also on Wombat Ridge.  Does every planet in the Clan Homeworlds have a Wombat Ridge? 

There does appear to be mass media in the Kerensky Cluster.  Hallis references news reports he’s seen of events that happened only hours earlier in the Pentagon Cluster, so this is probably how word about the Wolverines got out to the Clan populace in general – triggering lower caste unrest.  The news getting out is, of course, Nicholas’ party line, but Clanner civilians (many of whom were Star League citizens in living memory) are probably adept at reading between the lines.

There's something of an oddity in the datestamp of October 24th.  Trish Ebon notes that her forces have only managed to take out a Star of the Jaguar forces.  If the fighting started on October 22nd, you'd think that the vaunted Wolverines would have been able to rack up a higher body count.  Perhpas there had been a number of skirmishes over two days of running battles, and she was referring to the progress of this final one.  Hallis also notes that he just heard about Dehra Dun "hours ago," implying recency.  However, he does mention that he got his information from news broadcasts, and there may have been a delay of several days while Nicholas made sure that the "right" story was being broadcast.

Author Blaine Lee Pardoe concludes this section with a great author’s note that he’d come up with the idea that Kerensky was entombed aboard the McKenna’s Pride in orbit over Strana Mechty.  Based on that, Bill Keith pitched the idea that the Task Force SERPENT assault would be against Strana Mechty and that Victor Steiner-Davion would, at a critical juncture in the battle, transfer his flag to the McKenna’s Pride and use its guns to turn the tide.  The Twilight of the Clans storyline went in a different direction, but Blaine wanted to honor Keith’s idea in “Betrayal of Ideals.”

[SCC]

Mendrugo, I think I understand why there is confusion about Wombat Ridge, when did Trish leave Circe? If I'm confused about it likely the writer is as well, which would explain why he mucked up

[Mendrugo]

That's a good point.  She was seen on Circe defending the empty Tiki Cache on October 11, and then next sighted on Strana Mechty defending the Wolverine enclave there on October 22.  The plan was to concentrate most of the Wolverine Touman on Strana Mechty to draw the other Clans away from the Wolverine civilians while they boarded the evacuation ships.

It's about nine jumps from Circe to Strana Mechty, so she could have made it only via a command circuit.  The Wolverines probably had enough ships for that, after they looted two of the orbital caches.

My guess is that Blaine rewrote the battle scenes a few times, and then grabbed a chunk of the battle scene off Circe and put it on Strana Mechty once he came up with the idea to incorporate Bill Keith's McKenna gambit, but forgot to scrub off the reference to Wombat Ridge.

[Mendrugo]

----- 1 Day Later -----

Date: October 25, 2823

Location: Circe [See Notes]

Title: Betrayal of Ideals – Asunder

Author: Blaine Lee Pardoe

Type: Serialized Novel (BattleCorps)

Synopsis:  Karrige and Nicholas Kerensky survey the irradiated ruins of the former Wolverine city of Great Hope.  Nicholas uses the scorched waste as a backdrop for a holovid broadcast to the rest of the Clans.  He calls the Wolverines a threat to the Clan way of life, and says that their rebellious spirit has been corrupted by ego.  He tells the Clans that the Wolverines announced their independence and punctuated it by attacking both Nicholas (unsuccessfully, obviously) and Dehra Dun with nuclear weaponry. 

Karrige chortles at Nicholas’ masterful manipulation of the facts in his disinformation campaign, and notes that all the members of the Grand Council are complicit in the deception, well aware that the destruction of Dehra Dun was an accident caused by the Snow Ravens themselves.

Nicholas decrees that the Wolverines are to be annihilated as a Clan, and carrying their blood will be a death sentence.  The Wolverines’ lands, properties and lower castes are to be seized, and their symbols scoured from all displays.  Their warriors shall be given no quarter, no honor, and no peace until they are run to ground and killed.

The assembled Khans congratulate Nicholas on his speech and report a string of successful operations against the Wolverines on Brim and Lum.  However, Nicholas says that the Wolverines have fled with thousands of people and much of their equipment, and that they surely intend to seek sanctuary in the Inner Sphere, gather allies, and return before the Clans are ready to invade/liberate the Inner Sphere.  He orders the Grand Council to gather their WarShips into a Grand Fleet, which will set out in pursuit of the Wolverines along the Exodus Road (leaving a reserve in the Clan Homeworlds in case the Wolverines double back).

A small band of Wolverine loyalist refugees approaches the assembled Khans, pledges loyalty to the ilKhan, and asks for medical assistance.  Nicholas orders the warriors executed immediately, and tells the Jade Falcons to take the civilians as isorla and then have them chemically sterilized.  He wants all traces of the Wolverines expunged from the Clan Homeworlds within a generation.

Notes:  Nicholas shows very similar behavior patterns to Aleksandr.  Karrige notes that he’s seemed indecisive and weak since the end of KLONDIKE (possibly due to the removal of his driving motivation of reclaiming the Pentagon worlds, or possibly due to the emotional damage of Andery’s death – whether or not he was involved in causing it), but now, faced with a military threat, his mantle of leadership has become re-energized, and his charismatic air of command is restored.  Andery noticed exactly the same phenomenon about Aleksandr after DeChevilier’s death during the attempt to retake Castle Brian IV from the New Capellan Hegemony on Eden.  The carnage resulting from Aleksandr’s restoration was recorded in history as the DeChavilier Massacre.  Nicholas’ restoration will be known as the Wolverine Annihilation.

It’s clear that Nicholas’ claim to have taken the Council’s advice into consideration and worked out a plan to respond to the Wolverine secession is patently false.  He’s demonstrably making things up as he goes along.  During his holovid address, he commands all the Wolverine civilians to be taken as isorla, but changes his mind after seeing the refugees and comes up with the requirement to sterilize them on the spot, shocking the Jade Falcon Khan.  I guess this might have been the kind of impulse that Andery would have been able to counter, had he been alive. 

If the hints dropped over the course of several sourcebooks have any basis in truth,some of the Wolverines did exactly what Nicholas was afraid of – they returned to the Inner Sphere, allied with ComStar (or at least with the secret leadership cabal), and orchestrated the Outbound Light incident, which provoked Operation REVIVAL and, thereby, triggered the chain of events that caused the elimination of half the Clans.

The datestamp at the header of the chapter indicates that this is taking place on the outskirts of the ruins of Great Hope on Arcadia.  However, previous chapters have placed Great Hope on Circe, so the Arcadia reference appears to be a typo.