#161
In 3035, a small, rag tag flotilla of JumpShips arrives in the Commonwealth, clustered around a battered, battle-scarred and barely functional WarShip. The fleet is made up of descendants of veterans of the Pentagon Civil Wars and Dark Caste renegades, under the command of the scion of a Davion cadet branch who's ancestor was a SLDF officer who originally joined the Exodus.
At first disbelieved, they share a tale of survival and escape, with the crew of the cruiser fleeing the maddened forces of Nicky's cult into uncharted space. A missjump stranded the WarShip in a distant system, which fortunately had a habitable world. It took decades of work, half-cannibalising the ship and a lot of luck to build up an industrial base to repair it, work that was sped up by the arrival of a group of renegades similarly fleeing the Clans.
Introduced to a distant relative with an incredible story, Hanse and Melissa take the refugees in and are horrified by what is lurking in the Deep Periphery. The War of '39 is called off, because the Commonwealth suddenly has bigger problems. The WarShip and all remaining Star League tech, as well as the crews, are escorted to Tharkad where a crash program of reverse engineering is launched.
Melissa picks up phone and calls LIC.
MS: "Simon? HPG Justin and co-ordinate with him - one time pads only please. I want Jamie Wolf here. Within a fortnight".
*pauses as there is talk on the other end of the line*
MS: No, I don't care
what shipping you have to reroute, just get the man shoved onto a Dropship with Natasha Kerensky and get them here. At once".
*another pause as a voice loudly complains down the line*
MS: "If he doesn't? Then tell your people to tell
himexactly this; 'We have a pressing need to discuss the weather reports from Strana Mechty".
In all serious though, its an interesting tribble.
No 3039 war could actually be a bad thing for the Inner Sphere.
Its
bad for the FedCom, because without getting drubbed (actually Hoodwinked but they don't find out for ages) by the DCMS in the 3039 war, all those problems with the AFFS and LCAF working together may well go undetected, as well as all the major kinks in the chains of command and so on, that led to the early adoption and integration into the combined AFFC. They won't be humbled and come down from the cocky high of the 4th Succession War, ESPECIALLY in the Stenier side of the Commonwealth, which
really will not do them any favors when the Clans come calling. The Sandovols will probably scream loudly at not being able to have their crack at the Combine, firmly thinking that the FedCom will do to them what they did to the Cappies back in '28, might even start their own push hoping to drag Hanse and Melissa in anyway. Which could be bad.
Its not sunshine for the DCMS either. Theodore made his name in the 3039 war, its the basis of the power and authority had in the 3050s to fight the Clan invasion and do what had to be done, being the 'savoir of the Combine' and all that. Without that victory to his name, its not impossible his reforms will get bogged down and eventually reversed, ensuring the DCMS is a much softer target when the Clans come running in. ComStar will probably push them to take the offensive if the FedCom refuses to attack, and Myndo isn't exactly subtle. She may well stage attacks / trick units into attacking to get a war going if no-one else will.
As for reverse engineering the technology, at this point (by fluff, although the Novels of course disagree dramatically) NAIS and the FedCom are starting to get most core Star League technology into either prototype testing or even serial production. I don't think you can speed it up that much more, I mean I'm sure R&D are already throwing everything but the kitchen sink at the wall to get forward progress. But I suppose you could potentially shave off a few years by having working examples to look at as well as the engineering data.
