Kerensky was kind of a selfish dude.

[abou]

Reading our new First Succession War book and it keeps striking me how awful Kerensky was. Certainly this is a fair amount of fodder to bring up with a Clan warrior as well, but I just cannot get over how miserable of a person he could be. To be fair, this fits within his character as more of a melancholy idealist than a realist, but his abandonment of the Hegemony after the civil war is inexcusable.

Even if the SLDF was a shadow of its former self, it was still large enough to quash any challenger. The dissolution of the Star League was not a dissolution of the Terran Hegemony. Even if Kerensky could predict the coming conflict and chose to leave the Inner Sphere so as not to drag the SLDF into yet another war, he willingly abandoned many of the worlds that depended solely upon his army for protection. Hell, the core military units of the SLDF were originally Hegemony units.

Even if Kerensky's continued presence in Inner Sphere could not prevent the 1st SW, he could have protected the Hegemony worlds. The sheer size of the SLDF could have made it an island of safety amidst the storm. I doubt any of the House Lords would have challenged him militarily. A firm, deliberate hand could have prevented the collapsing morale of the SLDF and prevented worlds from leaving the Hegemony; stopped the various House Lords' shenanigans; units from leaving for "greener pastures"; and more importantly prevented several worlds from dying.

Depressed, exhausted, or whatever excuse Kerensky had, it doesn't change the fact that he was a selfish jerk who abrogated his obvious duties to the Hegemony once the First Council got dissolved the Star League.

EDIT: And yes, I am aware that Kerensky's leaving is critical to the metaplot of BattleTech. A stabilizing force such as Kerensky and the Terran Hegemony would radically change the history of the game.

[Nerroth]

If you haven't seen it already, I might suggest taking a look at the Empires Aflame PDF, which takes a look at an alternate timeline in which the Exodus didn't occur.

It should be noted, however, that the EA timeline splits from the "prime" BT universe in such a way that Kerensky, himself, is not the one to choose the alternative option... In fact, it's the nature of Kerensky's premature death which enrages the surviving SLDF, enough to set the events in motion which lead directly to the establishment of the EA timeline's Terran Supremacy.

[PurpleDragon]

*snip*

I beg to differ.  I have not read the book you have; however, I was introduced to Battletech back in 1988, when it was just getting started under that name (well, within a couple of years anyway).  I have read the old Star League source book.  Honestly, the impression I got was that it was a good thing Kerensky left and took 75% of the standing military and their scientists with him. 

The squabbling houses were starting to turn their eyes to him and if he had not left, they were eventually going to unite against him.  Sure he could take on any one or maybe two of the houses at one time.  But not all five.  Which was his concern.  Had he stayed, eventually, the five houses would have gotten their hands on the weapons he had available at the time; and, they would not have survived the first succession war.  ComStar would not have become an entity.  Communications would have broken down.  And, the dark ages would have started at that time, without an ares conventions to reel in the use of WMD.  Humanity would have destroyed itself all in the name of (insert whichever house you support here)'s self appointment to be the First Lord/Star League. 

So, you see, he was actually being quite selfless when he left, taking the destructive forces and their scientists with him, so as to have a gene pool to re-establish the human race within the bounds of its home.  I have not read the EA AU PDF.  I think it might be interesting to see what they did. 

(Edited: changed the word "unit" to the intended word "unite").

[Scotty]

The SLDF could quash any one challenger.

The problem: there was more than one challenger.  The Succession Wars would have started anyway.  There would still have been nukes, there would still have been planets depopulated.  Nothing would have changed, except the planets depopulated and nuked would have been predominantly Hegemony worlds while every House fought against a battle-hardened, veteran SLDF for every inch.

Kerensky's Exodus ensured that the planets that died in the 1SW were mostly not Hegemony worlds.  The Exodus was arguably the single most effective life-saving measure anyone in the Hegemony every did.

[abou]

I just don't see why any House Lord would even consider trying to take a Terran Hegemony world if the SLDF was still present. The House Lords had grievances mostly with each other rather than the Hegemony. What's more, you are talking about the presence of an army and navy much larger than any neighboring state in a much, much smaller area; ergo, the density of units is much higher. On top of that, the defenders would be dug in with significant defenses -- assuming the attackers could get past naval defenses.
 
To take a Hegemony world would be a tall order compared to a softer target across another border.

[Scotty]

Just because you don't see it doesn't mean they wouldn't.  When the Lyrans launched the 1SW against the FWL, they targeted the most heavily defended world in the Bolan Thumb.  There were plenty of softer targets, but they didn't hit them.

Hegemony worlds were jewels among the stars in many cases, sporting facilities and factories that the Successor States could not easily match.  They would be targets of opportunity, and they would be attacked.  If multiple Successor States ganged up on the Hegemony, it would fall, and the death toll would have been an order of magnitude larger in the first war.

[Giovanni Blasini]

Reminds me of chanman's thoughts on the topic.

[abou]

Even what was on Bolan paled in comparison to what the SLDF had -- especially if they were to get the SDS on planets restored. And all five Houses? The FedSuns were very unlikely to attack. Barbara Liao expressed regret at the dissolution of the Star League. The Lyrans would be much more interested in the economics of a continued and viable Terran Hegemony.

The only two I see attacking would be the Free Worlds League and Draconis Combine, which would leave them open to predations from their neighbors. Once you factor in the will of the population, it just seems less and less likely that the Terran Hegemony would be attacked by ALL five neighbors.

Even then, you still have the fact that Kerensky left the Hegemony defenseless. They abandoned their duty. Considering what happened on several planets during the course of the first two Succession Wars, I just don't see it being any worse to the Hegemony with the SLDF staying.

[Nerroth]

From a logistical perspective, it is difficult for any one House to rapidly re-deploy the bulk of its assets from one front to another. One of the reasons why the Combine was so heavily focused on the invasion of the Federated Suns is because most of the ground work had been done on this front beforehand. Even in the "Prime" timeline, it would have taken a massive effort to uproot the regiments, transports, and WarShips primed for action on the Davion front to, say, make a march on Tharkad. And on the opposite end of the scale, the heavy AFFS deployments on the Capellan front were quite difficult to wind down, even as the DCMS bore down on New Avalon itself.

In the Empires Aflame timeline, these efforts were compounded by the effects of Operation BLACK SHIELD, which disrupted the Houses' access to the HPG grid during a critical period of expansion and consolidation by the soon-to-be-TSDF. While there were a lot more JumpShips in service at that time, establishing courier lines and command circuits would have been a hefty challenge, not least when the ones doing the disrupting had full access to their own HPG network.

Plus, it is notable that the degree of commitment within each House varied. The Lyrans were the first to the negotiating table, and they even assented to the establishment of the Rim Federation (albeit as a joint Terran-Lyran enterprise). The Federated Suns soon followed, while the Capellans renounced their claim to the first Lordship in alt-2808.

Interestingly, there is no actual date set in the EA timeline for any sort of treaty between the Combine and the Supremacy. One wonders if that means the Combine still does not officially recognize the existence of the Supremacy, and still claims the mantle of First Lordship as of alt-3095...

[abou]

I think I have Empires Aflame kicking around on my computer. I'll have to dig around for it and read it. It was one of those books I believe I downloaded and just never got around to reading it.

[Nightgaun7]

Nobody named Kerensky has ever been good for much.

If Kerensky and the Star League had stuck around, you have to figure that it would be more than a military influence. A hundred scenarios arise, from Kerensky putting himself as new head of the Star League, to picking one of the Lords and throwing his weight behind them, to enforcing a rotating lordship, to having them pick someone totally new to replace the Camerons, and so on and so forth.

[Decoy]

I think we need to stop viewing the worlds of the Terran Hegemony as tormented angels repressed by cruel devils under the Amaris regime. Many of them collaborated with Amaris. Many signed up to join his forces. Heck, if he got no help from the Hegemony itself, the Amaris Civil War would've been over A LOT quicker. In a large part, the worlds had the moral flexibility to do as they must during the Amaris regime. They had the moral flexibility to cut themselves a good deal when the houses came calling. They could protect themselves just fine, unless they decided to be stubborn (looks at Lone Star). Basically, the remains of the Terran Hegemony were not Kerensky's circus or monkey anymore. He could, however, protect the ideals of the Star League and the SLDF in his own way.

[abou]

What choice did they have but to accept Amaris at the start? The economy was in trouble because of Richard Cameron and much of the Hegemony's garrison was now composed of RWR troops. They didn't have the choice Kerensky did when he left.

[Maelwys]

One also has to realize that the plotline has somewhat shifted over time. Originally, it seemed to have been written that the Hegemony was practically a wasteland after the Amaris Crisis, and removing the military was seen as an option to prevent fighting. If there's no SLDF on planet, then there's no need for whichever House is conquering the planet to fight over the planet, destroying more infrastructure.

It was probably a naive hope, as nothing would stop 2 Houses from fighting over a planet, but when they only had to destroy regiments instead of Divisions, perhaps Kerensky hoped the fighting would be more limited, and perhaps he hoped that any Hegemony planets would be negotiated over, much like we see happening early on when the Houses scooped up Hegemony planets before the fighting started.

It was naive, but it could be understood perhaps.

With the latest fluff, the Exodus becomes much more monstrous. The Hegemony planets aren't mostly wastelands, some of them are fully functional and thriving, and in some cases, producing high tech armies of their own for defense. Planets aren't reliant on the SLDF for protection, so removing the SLDF isn't going to stop the Houses from having to fight when they show up.

His decision to leave becomes much more evil in the light of the most reason fluff about the era.

Technology is also an interesting take. IIRC, the early fluff had him leaving in order to keep advanced weapon technology out of the hands of the Successor States (or trying to). With the fluff pushing the introduction of advanced technology to the other factions back to as far as the Reunification War, there's no technology really for the SLDF to try to prevent the Houses from having. They already have most of it. There's some technology the Houses don't have sure, but its limited compared to what it used to be.

[massey]

Reading our new First Succession War book and it keeps striking me how awful Kerensky was. Certainly this is a fair amount of fodder to bring up with a Clan warrior as well, but I just cannot get over how miserable of a person he could be. To be fair, this fits within his character as more of a melancholy idealist than a realist, but his abandonment of the Hegemony after the civil war is inexcusable.

Even if the SLDF was a shadow of its former self, it was still large enough to quash any challenger. The dissolution of the Star League was not a dissolution of the Terran Hegemony. Even if Kerensky could predict the coming conflict and chose to leave the Inner Sphere so as not to drag the SLDF into yet another war, he willingly abandoned many of the worlds that depended solely upon his army for protection. Hell, the core military units of the SLDF were originally Hegemony units.

Even if Kerensky's continued presence in Inner Sphere could not prevent the 1st SW, he could have protected the Hegemony worlds. The sheer size of the SLDF could have made it an island of safety amidst the storm. I doubt any of the House Lords would have challenged him militarily. A firm, deliberate hand could have prevented the collapsing morale of the SLDF and prevented worlds from leaving the Hegemony; stopped the various House Lords' shenanigans; units from leaving for "greener pastures"; and more importantly prevented several worlds from dying.

Depressed, exhausted, or whatever excuse Kerensky had, it doesn't change the fact that he was a selfish jerk who abrogated his obvious duties to the Hegemony once the First Council got dissolved the Star League.

EDIT: And yes, I am aware that Kerensky's leaving is critical to the metaplot of BattleTech. A stabilizing force such as Kerensky and the Terran Hegemony would radically change the history of the game.

Why would he do any of that?

Kerensky wasn't a general of the Terran Hegemony.  He wasn't born in the Terran Hegemony, he was Lyran.  He didn't join the Hegemony military.  He was a STAR LEAGUE general.  He had no more duty to the Hegemony than he did any of the other houses.

The Successor Lords stripped him of his title as Protector of the Star League, and then they disbanded it.  He was 84 years old when he left.  Many of his forces were already defecting to one House or the other.  Kerensky wasn't going to live too much longer, you think things would have been better?  We see what happens when the SL army arrives at the Clan homeworlds.  Within a generation, Kerensky's son has to have yet another Exodus, so that his dad's army can get down to the business of killing each other.

[abou]

I know he studied at the Nagelring, which was a Star League university, but I don't remember where it was stated that he was born in the Lyran Commonwealth. Wasn't his ancestor a guard on Terra to the First Lord? His family was on Terra during the coup as well.

As Maelwys said, in light of recent fluff, he showed straight up dereliction of duty. The SLDF's foundation was the Hegemony military. It makes sense to me that protecting the Hegemony would be the next priority after the Star League (ie. defending the one state without a standing, organized military). Furthermore, Kerensky ended up living another 17 years after the Exodus. Heck, on the back of the Star League sourcebook it mentions how much the human lifespan had been increased.

Had Kerensky been the leader much of the earlier fiction lead us to believe, much of the problems the Inner Sphere has had would never have been. He certainly fits the archetype of the Shakespearean tragic hero: noble and overall well-intentioned, but brought down by his own hubris and selfish avoidance of problems rather than dealing with them.

Kerensky's life seems to be summed up as, "A stitch in time saves nine." He ignored his duties as Regent and Protector of Richard Cameron. Where did that get him? He ignored his responsibility to the citizens of the Terran Hegemony and ran away from the Inner Sphere. Where did that get him? He then ignored his responsibility to the Exodus, allowed problems to fester until they boiled over causing another civil war.

Honestly, if it wasn't for his military acumen, he should be hardly remembered.  And to think that Victor Steiner-Davion gets a hard time from fans.

[roosterboy]

I know he studied at the Nagelring, which was a Star League university, but I don't remember where it was stated that he was born in the Lyran Commonwealth.

He was born in Moscow.

[Maelwys]

Had Kerensky been the leader much of the earlier fiction lead us to believe, much of the problems the Inner Sphere has had would never have been. He certainly fits the archetype of the Shakespearean tragic hero: noble and overall well-intentioned, but brought down by his own hubris and selfish avoidance of problems rather than dealing with them.

I don't know about that. Staying doesn't guarantee anything, even if you ignore the plot idea that it has to happen. If Kerensky secures the Hegemony, then he's going to have to stay put in the Hegemony. The Houses had already been flouting the Star League's control by having "Bandits" fighting, even before the Amaris Crisis. Without the threat of the SLDF, its going to pick up. Kerensky also had trouble with units defecting, and that's going to continue, even if you manage to convince the SLDF that they still have a job to do. We see the SLDF-in-Exile splitting along Faction lines in the Pentagon worlds, can you imagine the trouble with SLDF soldiers trying to defect when they see the FedSuns getting beaten by the DC?

Staying put may be slightly more moral than leaving, but it certainly doesn't mean everything is smooth sailing.

[abou]

True, there could be something else to come along and tear the SLDF apart. And that gets into the various scenarios of how the universe would move forward.

My argument is mostly that Kerensky's abandonment was amoral to the Hegemony. He could have done a lot of good for those worlds with his military and moral superiority as guardian of that state. Part of the reason for defection of units was the poor morale and lack of decisive hand in the face of collapsing central power. You would have thought Kerensky would have learned something from all those morose Russian authors he was so fond of.

I know I'm sounding very vociferous, but I just find Kerensky more and more annoying the more I read. That, I think, is what TPTB intend. He is inconsistent and not the strong patriarch we were previously told.

[Scotty]

Amoral is not immoral, they are different concepts.  Amoral is correct, immoral is debatable.

Let us also keep in mind that one does not have to agree with decisions for them to be good/bad/right/wrong.  You don't agree that Kerensky did the right thing.  Great.  I think he did, because frankly the idea of a 1st Succession War plus three hundred Regiments of 'Mechs and 500 WarShips is a terrifying prospect.

[Natasha Kerensky]

Even the duty of the most moral soldier has to be tempered by reality. 

The canon sources don't make much of this, but before the Exodus decision, the SLDF had fought no less than three major wars (Periphery uprising, conquest of the Rim Worlds, reconquering the Hegemony and Terra) nearly back-to-back over the past 20-something years.  After all that, it's arguably unrealistic to expect the SLDF to then fight some, most, or all of the Great Houses in what became the First Succession War.  That's like expecting a 20th-century military to fight Vietnam, the first Iraq war, and WWII back-to-back, and then expecting that same military turn around and fight WWIII.  There's a certain amount of "get real" that needs to injected into such a proposition.

There's also the question of who pays the SLDF to go to war with the Great Houses, which the canon sources do go into a little.  The Star League is no more, so there is no Inner Sphere-wide tax base to support the SLDF's massive payroll and logistics.  The Terran Hegemony is leaderless, but even if it still had political decision makers, would this hypothetical Hegemony government be able to support the SLDF on its own after what Amaris did to its worlds and economy?  And would this hypothetical Hegemony's leadership want to support the SLDF given other priorities like reconstruction?  And after getting decimated by Amaris's forces, would this hypothetical Hegemony leadership really want to go to war with multiple Houses?

Given that the SLDF had been fighting almost non-stop for a generation and given that the SLDF had no real means of supporting another generation of warfare against the Houses, it's very reasonable that the SLDF's leadership (Alex K, DeChevy, and on down) decided that the best they could do was to ensure that their massive weapons stores did not fall into the hands of the House militaries and that their exhausted soldiers and families had a safe place to go to live out their remaining lives.

In that light, it's hard to see any option other than something like the Exodus.

My 2 C-bills... YMMV.

[Iracundus]

Kerensky could have played kingmaker.  By throwing support behind one House Lord, there might have been a new First Lord.  Alternatively, he could have put one of the distant Cameron cadet family lines into power as a new Cameron line for the Hegemony.  Now granted, this might have still provoked war and maybe also internal revolt within the SLDF.  Perhaps it might only at best have delayed the final death of the Star League given how partisan and biased the individual House rulers were.

Alternatively one could view Kerensky taking the same sort of neutral "make no choice favoring any side" policy as the Camerons did as why the Star League was doomed regardless of the Amaris coup.  By dithering and not taking sides in any disputes between the Houses, the Camerons' authority and that of the Star League was eroded.  By the time the Camerons did act, their intervention ended up pleasing no sides. 

Ultimately though Kerensky was a bad ruler and administrator.  The sources and recent Touring the Stars releases mention how the Hegemony's collapse was made inevitable by the decision to dismiss any civil servant that had served during Amaris's rule, which effectively gutted the government at a time when coordinated government was needed for rebuilding. 

[GoGo Yubari]

He could have played Kingmaker, but then he would have had to make a political choice. I don't think he saw good alternatives and more importantly, I don't think he wanted to get into politics. Putting himself as the leader of a government would have made him a military dictator. I don't think he wanted that, either. He was willing to play ball if everybody else carried their weight, but everyone was looking at their own interests.

So, I don't think he was selfish. On the contrary, even. However, whether it was a good idea to go, is another question which I find more difficult to answer. It is nuanced, which is great about it. In the end, he followed his own moral compass, which was made of a lot more honorable stuff than the House Lords who plunged the Inner Sphere into war.

Also, I think it is important to consider that after so many wars and years of service, he was probably reaching "War never changes/stops" kind of position, so he suspected they were damned if they do, damned if they don't, so he opted out. You could say that there is some selfishness in that, but I don't think it is purely that, when he is also doing that to save lives and worlds by removing a big military from the picture (which was, it is very important to note, hemorrhaging units to the Houses).

[Paladin1]

The SLDF could quash any one challenger.

The problem: there was more than one challenger.  The Succession Wars would have started anyway.  There would still have been nukes, there would still have been planets depopulated.  Nothing would have changed, except the planets depopulated and nuked would have been predominantly Hegemony worlds while every House fought against a battle-hardened, veteran SLDF for every inch.

Kerensky's Exodus ensured that the planets that died in the 1SW were mostly not Hegemony worlds.  The Exodus was arguably the single most effective life-saving measure anyone in the Hegemony every did.

Actually the numbers don't bear this out.  The SLDF ground forces were, roughly, the same size as the combined ground forces of all five of the Houses.  In a purely defensive situation, that makes the Hegemony worlds a no-go area for the other five Houses because of the inability for a House unit to achieve at least a 3:1 ratio of troops, not to mention how that the SLDF was a veteran army at this point and fighting on their home turf.  That is NOT the kind of fight you want to undergo at anything less than 6:1 odds.  Now I'll grant you that the Navy was only as powerful as the two largest Nations, but even this is deceiving as all of those SLN ships would be veterans of the Amaris War as well and you're going to be hard pressed at 5:2 odds against a veteran opponent.

The truth is that Kerensky caused more harm than good by abandoning the Inner Sphere.

[False Son]

The truth is that Kerensky caused more harm than good by abandoning the Inner Sphere.

This point has been debated at some length.  The general consensus is that we will never know.  Kerensky could have stayed and could have helped, but he'd have needed to be the sort of military dictator he would have hated.  Kerensky was not fond of politics, and as his Pentagon Worlds experiment shows, wasn't sympathetic to or capable of leading civilians.  He was doing this in pretty much a political vacuum, whereas the Inner Sphere had it's fair share of plotters.  People might dismiss that Kerensky knew he was unable to hold it together by force of arms alone and hedged his bets by taking the one group of people he thought he could control away from the people that would lure them away. 

[Iracundus]

Actually the numbers don't bear this out.  The SLDF ground forces were, roughly, the same size as the combined ground forces of all five of the Houses.  In a purely defensive situation, that makes the Hegemony worlds a no-go area for the other five Houses because of the inability for a House unit to achieve at least a 3:1 ratio of troops, not to mention how that the SLDF was a veteran army at this point and fighting on their home turf.  That is NOT the kind of fight you want to undergo at anything less than 6:1 odds.  Now I'll grant you that the Navy was only as powerful as the two largest Nations, but even this is deceiving as all of those SLN ships would be veterans of the Amaris War as well and you're going to be hard pressed at 5:2 odds against a veteran opponent.

The truth is that Kerensky caused more harm than good by abandoning the Inner Sphere.

Don't forget however that the SLDF had members from all the Houses and their ties to their homelands were never entirely cut (as the subsequent post-Exodus revolts and infighting in the Pentagon worlds showed).  If Kerensky turned into purely promoting and safeguarding the Hegemony (as opposed to the idea of the Star League), I think there would have been defections as individuals and units refused to fight against their homeland (or heeded their homeland's call to arms), so I wouldn't use those ratios as absolute ones. 

By that point in time, anything Kerensky did would have been a political action, even the Exodus.  If he had truly been tired of politics, he could have chosen at that point to retire and put up a successor in his place that would be willing to make the hard choices among the House lords. 

[sillybrit]

Now I'll grant you that the Navy was only as powerful as the two largest Nations, but even this is deceiving as all of those SLN ships would be veterans of the Amaris War as well and you're going to be hard pressed at 5:2 odds against a veteran opponent.

It could be argued that the Exodus SLDF were more than twice as powerful as the next two largest navies in 2786. The House navies mostly fielded light WarShips, so while their numerical strength might individually appear to be a third to a half that of the SLDF, their actual strength would be lower in comparison, even before considering the experience issue you mention.

Size matters in WarShip combat and the SLDF still had a lot of big ships. The House numbers in 2786 also includes some deserters, and those desertions may not have occurred if Kerensky had opted to stay.

It's true that if Kerensky had opted to stay that more desertions might have occurred, it again falls under the category of Things We Will Never Know. Personally, I believe the biggest problem for the SLDF and Hegemony is that Kerensky did not provide a strong, clear direction until he finally decided to fold and flee, and by then - for some troops - it was already too late.

How many troops would have stuck to the SLDF, telling the House recruiters to go hump themselves, if Kerensky had declared much earlier that the Star League still stood and the SLDF still had a mission to do? How many troops deserted because they were suffering from the disappointment and perhaps even feelings of betrayal after they'd fought a long, brutal war to defeat Amaris and then there didn't even appear to be a step 4 in the plan? Give them a continued cause from a leader that they'd followed through hell, and that's a big appeal for them to stay loyal.

Even the non-Terran SLDF troops could have cause to stay loyal. These are people who had chosen to join the SLDF instead of their own House military. In some cases, this would have no doubt be seen as a betrayal of their mother country, but they still chose to join, to perhaps have to leave behind everything they'd known. That's a high level of commitment. With Kerensky not providing strong direction and reassurance about the future of the Star League and the SLDF in the early years after Amaris was defeated, and with the Houses trying to tempt every breathing trooper, it's little wonder that some opted to jump ship.

[Iracundus]

Even the non-Terran SLDF troops could have cause to stay loyal. These are people who had chosen to join the SLDF instead of their own House military. In some cases, this would have no doubt be seen as a betrayal of their mother country, but they still chose to join, to perhaps have to leave behind everything they'd known. That's a high level of commitment. With Kerensky not providing strong direction and reassurance about the future of the Star League and the SLDF in the early years after Amaris was defeated, and with the Houses trying to tempt every breathing trooper, it's little wonder that some opted to jump ship.

That's what I meant with my earlier post.  If Kerensky had provided some vision or some action to show that he still fought for the Star League, and some glimmer of hope that the Star League was not defunct and beyond hope of salvaging, then there would have been fewer defections.  We saw that some units stayed behind because they did not agree with the Exodus abandoning the Inner Sphere.  If Kerensky showed himself to be partisan and just promoted the Hegemony then there would have been some more defections as it might have signaled to more personnel that the Star League was truly dead.  However I think some defections were inevitable by that point no matter what Kerensky did. 

I could even make the argument that Kerensky should have supported Amaris as the new ruling line of the Hegemony.  That might have saved the Star League, at least for maybe 1 more generation. 

[sillybrit]

I just thought of another reason to effectively boost the SLDF's naval strength compared to the Houses: bracketing.

The Houses didn't have this technology, and that gives the SLDF a big advantage in long and extreme range fights.

[Giovanni Blasini]

He would also have, in addition to what became the Exodus Fleet, the majority of what would become the Com Guard Navy, minus new construction.

In the end, I think Empires Aflame shows, though, that the best thing Kerensky could have done would be to become a martyr the SLDF could rally behind.