What if... The Fleeing remnants of Clan Wolverine joined the up with the ELH?

[Daryk]

Forever alters the future isn't in question.  The situation puts the Lyrans and Kuritans in a particularly hard place compared to the other three.  It gives the other three tremendous bargaining power, not that the Federated Suns could possibly come to any accommodation with the Combine.  Really, the Capellans are the ones in the cat-bird seat...

[billtfor3]

I think the ELH leadership would have been really torn in their loyalties between the peoples of the Inner Sphere and the SLDF-in-Exile/Wolverines.

Revealing the fate of the SLDF to the Houses would have exposed the Wolverines and the ELH themselves to gawd knows what kinds of political machinations, covert ops, and outright assaults by the Houses and ComStar.  For the safety of their own and the Wolverines, the ELH leadership might have maintained the secret.  If they did, then I think little changes in the BT universe.  Even after Operation Revival hit, the ELH/Wolverines would have had even less impact than Wolf’s Dragoons, being a couple centuries removed from the development of Clan culture and technology.

If the ELH leadership decided that the needs of the many outweighed the needs of the few and revealed the fate of the of the SLDF to the Inner Sphere, that’s a universe-shaking revelation.  With the knowledge that Kerensky’s army is still out there, that it is developing into a rather alien threat, and even where it is approximately located, the House leaders and ComStar are going to act very differently.  Some may seek to bring Kerensky’s army to their side, some may seek to ally and gird against the alien threat, some may seek to neutralize the threat at its source before it becomes too big, etc.  But whatever happens, the Succession Wars are fundamentally altered, if they continue at all, and Operation Revival never happens or occurs much earlier.  Revealing and confirming the true origins of the Wolverines circa 2825 forever alters the BT timeline and universe.

Sounds like all kinds of fun!

[grimlock1]

I think the ELH leadership would have been really torn in their loyalties between the peoples of the Inner Sphere and the SLDF-in-Exile/Wolverines.

Revealing the fate of the SLDF to the Houses would have exposed the Wolverines and the ELH themselves to gawd knows what kinds of political machinations, covert ops, and outright assaults by the Houses and ComStar.  For the safety of their own and the Wolverines, the ELH leadership might have maintained the secret.  If they did, then I think little changes in the BT universe.  Even after Operation Revival hit, the ELH/Wolverines would have had even less impact than Wolf’s Dragoons, being a couple centuries removed from the development of Clan culture and technology.

If the ELH leadership decided that the needs of the many outweighed the needs of the few and revealed the fate of the of the SLDF to the Inner Sphere, that’s a universe-shaking revelation.  With the knowledge that Kerensky’s army is still out there, that it is developing into a rather alien threat, and even where it is approximately located, the House leaders and ComStar are going to act very differently.  Some may seek to bring Kerensky’s army to their side, some may seek to ally and gird against the alien threat, some may seek to neutralize the threat at its source before it becomes too big, etc.  But whatever happens, the Succession Wars are fundamentally altered, if they continue at all, and Operation Revival never happens or occurs much earlier.  Revealing and confirming the true origins of the Wolverines circa 2825 forever alters the BT timeline and universe.

One of the earlier Primuses... Primii.... HMFIC's of Comstar was known for having visions, including one of an invasion of beasts that sounded a lot like the Clan totems.  Ah, found it.  It was Adrienne Sims, 2947 – 2979. So unless we want to say it's a stunning coincidence that her hallucinations/dream/psychotic episode matches up with the Clan insignia, that suggests to me that the Comstar has intel on the Clans.  On the other hand, stranger things have lined up.  Sarna says that cannon rumor attributes this to contact with Clan Wolverine, " or from otherwise clandestine contacts with the Clans."  What other contacts could Comstar have had with the Clans?

Also, last I checked, the the Dragoon Compromise was the first Grand Council sanctioned foray back to the Inner Sphere.  Has that changed? 

[Luciora]

Canon rumors are still rumors.  Unproven statements until proven by TPTB.  Sims visions are no less mystical, invalid or wrong than the Ghost Bears, Nova Cats or Goliath Scorpion visions which came true, via interpretation.

Remember the one Nova Cat Khan that got restrained and tossed out for attacking Foch, claiming he was the downfall of the clans.

Its just a neat way of foreshadowing as part of a historical peice in the fiction.

[billtfor3]

Canon rumors are still rumors.  Unproven statements until proven by TPTB.  Sims visions are no less mystical, invalid or wrong than the Ghost Bears, Nova Cats or Goliath Scorpion visions which came true, via interpretation.

Remember the one Nova Cat Khan that got restrained and tossed out for attacking Foch, claiming he was the downfall of the clans.

Its just a neat way of foreshadowing as part of a historical peice in the fiction.

Clanners later:  "Man I wish we had listened to that crazy ass Nova Cat..."

[Wolf72]

Clanners later:  "Man I wish we had listened to that crazy ass Nova Cat..."

"Aff, brother"

[Mohammed As`Zaman Bey]

  We're looking at about fifty years after the Exodus. The Star League is barely a memory, and nobody in the ELH or even the returning ex-Clanners would even remember what the Star League was, except through the various (and varied) historical accounts.
  It would take some time, even years for the ex-Clanners to hole up somewhere to do their research concerning the many SLDF regiments that remained behind, they will also have to be able to get over the prejudices that they were doubtless taught in Clan schools about the units that refused to follow A. Kerensky. All of these units eventually joined the Houses, who were reviled by the Clans as causing the downfall of their beloved Star League, although...they would also be exposed to countless historical documentaries that would show more than enough blame on all parties present at the time, including Kerensky. After the cleaning up the mess caused by initial heads exploding, anything could happen:
 
  If Terra was so holy, the first stop would be Terra. Since subtlety was never a Clan trait, they could be less than cautious and broadcast their identity and intentions for everybody to hear. Then ComStar would welcome them with open arms and they'd never be heard from ever again.

  If they took the Dark Caste route, they might successfully contact one or more ex-SLDF units and be shocked. These are not really SLDF members, they are another generation or two down the line, they are SLDF fanboys and cosplayers, with absolutely no interest in restoring the Star League because they know it isn't possible.
Sure, the Houses fight over succession but even the Houses know it's a joke -nobody has the strength to conquer ALL the competition.
  They were told that there'd only be people living in caves when they returned, yet the IS is in recovery. The Star League may be looked upon as a golden age, but for the Houses, and worse, the Periphery nations, they were vile oppressors...what else did the Clans lie about? If they ran into ANY Dark Caste, they would realize they were lied to a lot...and exposure to the IS would be a major eye-opener.

  Their problem would be, the massive amount of readily available information for them to sift through, before making a decision based on knowledge, which is why the Minnesota Tribe chose to continue on their way -they didn't like what they saw.

[Daryk]

50 years after Exodus?  "Middle aged" troops at Exodus wouldn't even be 100 yet, and Hegemony life expectancy (at least) was well over 100...

[Mohammed As`Zaman Bey]

50 years after Exodus?  "Middle aged" troops at Exodus wouldn't even be 100 yet, and Hegemony life expectancy (at least) was well over 100...

  At seventy, they won't be front-line troops or even working...and worse off if they were Clan, if allowed to live that long. If current life expectancy is 78 (US), people will still retire at mid 60. I retired at 59 and bought a house. My friends in the military served 20-25 years and the younger ones still work because their retirement isn't enough. Those BTU people will not be "Middle Aged" just because they last years longer as seniors, they will be seniors for more years. A thousand years ago, somebody at 40 wasn't a doddering old man, he just had less of a chance to live long enough to be one. Even AToW's Aging Table has players over 50 years on a downward slide, hemorrhaging hundreds of XP to stats.

[Daryk]

AToW doesn't account for Terran Hegemony life spans.

[billtfor3]

The ELH upheld all the traditions and values of the Star League, they never joined a House, though many SLDF units did so.  The Wolverines were fleeing partly because they didn't like the way Nicky was going away from those ideals.

[Mohammed As`Zaman Bey]

The ELH upheld all the traditions and values of the Star League, they never joined a House, though many SLDF units did so.

  I suppose those values including violating their agreement with the Combine and subsequently going on a rampage on civilians after hostages were executed. The ELH behaved as they wanted, when they wanted, until necessity prompted them to negotiate with the Houses, in order to survive. The ELH does underscore the fact that no military unit is sustainable without the support and orders from a civil government, no matter which government it may be, and what traditions and values they may have.

The Wolverines were fleeing partly because they didn't like the way Nicky was going away from those ideals.

  Even Alexander realized that the SLDF still had the national prejudices of the IS, which were the primary cause of the Exodus Civil Wars. The early Clans were still expected to be a military unit under a guy in charge with no active command experience, which just added more fuel to the rebellion when real commanders refused to recognize Nicholas as leader.
  Dividing into separate factions is as old as humanity and the key cause of warfare. The Clans were no different. Once they separated into political factions they opened themselves up to political disagreement, even with their king. Seeing the writing on the wall, the leaders of Jade Falcon held a purge of dissidents among their ranks. While some in the Clans feared Nicholas might become a despot, it was already too late.
 
  The greatest error Clan Wolverine committed was telling everybody they were going to leave, and it cost them dearly. That kind of naivete would cost them if they returned to the IS, because they would not be dealing with other Clanners or even with the Star League, they would be dealing with IS people who know the IS, where the "ideals" of the Star League were proven to be lies to fool the sheep of the TH.
  Those Wolverines that fled were mostly civilians with some second-line troops, as much as any military force might welcome the troops, it would be a different matter with a larger number of dependents.

[Hellraiser]

  I suppose those values including violating their agreement with the Combine and subsequently going on a rampage on civilians after hostages were executed. The ELH behaved as they wanted, when they wanted,

No, behaving when you want would be going on a rampage of civilians when no hostages had even been taken.
(Or you know, taking civilians hostage to stop a SLDF unit from leaving your world when its not a unit under your command)
Vigilante-poetic justice might not be law abiding, but, it wasn't un-instigated.
Nor was it a rampage on civilians.

There, in a week-long campaign, the battalions hunted down and slaughtered every political officer and Draconis Combine 'Mech they could find.

Support forces from the Combine appeared but, once they learned of the administrator's actions, they quickly withdrew.

Even the DC reinforcements clearly felt that the actions of the units involved were horrible.
They turned around & left when they found out why the ELH were justifiably upset.

[Mohammed As`Zaman Bey]

Even the DC reinforcements clearly felt that the actions of the units involved were horrible.
They turned around & left when they found out why the ELH were justifiably upset.

  Political officers are civilians.

  Sure, a DC unit makes its own call after DC units were destroyed, civilians killed, and let the perpetrators go. How often does that happen on the Combine? I'd say, never...No House would allow that kind of lawlessness go without an investigation and all parties involved held until cleared. 

[Daryk]

The civilian or military status of zampolits depends on how close the state and party are.

[HodgePodge]

A Wolverine/ELH merger would certainly be interesting, given the broad similarities in their institutional experiences. Both had attempted, in the face of pressure from the top, to retain certain philosophical and/or ethical aspects of their previous Star League Defense Forces identities. Both formations attempted to adjust to their individual circumstances, until a point was reached beyond which their leaders would not go, resulting in Khan Sarah McEvedy's break with IlKhan Kerensky in particular, and his Clan society in general, and Colonel Ezra Bradley's decision to remove the ELH from Combine space as a result of the news of the Kentares Massacre. Both then suffered heavily for their loyalty to those leaders. This would, I think, give the survivors of both groups some similarity in perspective that could have bridged the gap and made such an integration possible.

[billtfor3]

The ELH was not under contract with Kurita. "The unit tried to remain as independent as possible, but Minoru Kurita threatened to cut off all trade with the unit, forcing it into a mutual defense and nonaggression pact. When Minoru Kurita was slain in a failing campaign against the Federated Suns, Colonel Bradley realized they would have to deal with his psychotic son, Jinjiro Kurita. Jinjiro had avenged his father's death by massacring fifty million civilians on Kentares IV in what has been called the Kentares Massacre.

Upon learning of the massacre, the unit began plans to move to a more hospitable location. By June of 2798, most of the unit had started to move off-world. The 8th Recon and 50th Heavy Cavalry Battalions were awaiting the departure of their dependents from Sendai[4], when they learned that the administrator of the planet had taken the families hostage unless the 8th Recon and 50th Heavy Cavalry surrendered and turned themselves over to him. The units refused and, when the deadline passed, the administrator had all of the hostages executed. Once the 8th Recon and 50th Heavy Cavalry found out, they immediately returned to Sendai. There, in a week-long campaign, the battalions hunted down and slaughtered every political officer and Draconis Combine 'Mech they could find. Support forces from the Combine appeared but, once they learned of the administrator's actions, they quickly withdrew." 
As I see it the Dragon got what the Dragon deserved!  Seems like something the Wolverine's would respect even more, so I can get the thread back on track.

[Mohammed As`Zaman Bey]

The ELH was not under contract with Kurita. "The unit tried to remain as independent as possible, but Minoru Kurita threatened to cut off all trade with the unit, forcing it into a mutual defense and nonaggression pact.

  A pact is a contract. In fact, legally a pact has the status of a treaty between nations, which meant the ELH was granted political status, which they unilaterally violated.

This would, I think, give the survivors of both groups some similarity in perspective that could have bridged the gap and made such an integration possible.

  While the Wolverine military assets would have been welcome, they also had a huge number of refugees, which the ELH would be incapable of absorbing and few Houses would consider worth sheltering.

[billtfor3]

Mohammed As`Zaman Bey I'm sorry, but your arguments are really weak in most cases. "Oh the Coordinator of the DC just massacred 50 million civilians, but we have a Pact, so we just have to accept that..." Kind of illogical to a very Honorable group of Soldiers.  The act was so Dishnorable that the DC was losing Soldiers to suicide and defections... So yeah.

[HodgePodge]

    While the Wolverine military assets would have been welcome, they also had a huge number of refugees, which the ELH would be incapable of absorbing and few Houses would consider worth sheltering.

Quite likely. This is why the ComStar connection seems the most plausible of all the "in-universe" possibilities. ComStar not only had a similar SLDF pedigree (a la General Lauren Hays, the 151st Royal BattleMech Division, and others), but both the logistical capacity and the intelligence/counterintelligence capability to not only absorb the Wolverine civilian castes, but to keep it quiet. Information security on this operation would have been excruciating- one lower-caste civilian running his or her mouth to the wrong person could have sparked enough interest from the House Lords to result in the ELH being bombarded with attempts at infiltration or data penetration. And as a combat command, not an SLI outfit, their counterintelligence capabilities would find it challenging to maintain security. Particularly against, for example, ComStar.

[Natasha Kerensky]

  A pact is a contract. In fact, legally a pact has the status of a treaty between nations, which meant the ELH was granted political status, which they unilaterally violated.

This is utterly untrue.  The DC and ELH mutually entered a _non-aggression_ pact.  The DC administrator of Sendai unilaterally violated that pact by first kidnapping and holding ELH civilians against their will and then again by killing those ELH civilians.  The ELH unilaterally violated nothing.

[Elmoth]

Considering thr wolverines already skimmed the inner sphere (and fiought the dracs in the process), if they had so many dependents, they could settle one of the many planets in the periphery that were out of anybody's interest (outworlds wastes or ex-amaris empire, can't remember the name right now, seems likely). that are not just dependents. It is also highly educated parts of a population, with knowledge that is being lost in the inner sphere at the time as matter-of-fact technical knowledge. In a few decades they can have a thriving planet quite easily. Maybe some mech production lines as well.

Who said the dependents need to be a burden and not a boon?

[Hawkeye Jim]

Let me throw something else out. What if the Wolverines had settled on one of the OA worlds as a base. Many of them were sparsely settled, with very little off world traffic and might have welcomed whatever the Wolverines had to give. Then they could have worked out their next moves almost unnoticed.

[Wolf72]

Let me throw something else out. What if the Wolverines had settled on one of the OA worlds as a base. Many of them were sparsely settled, with very little off world traffic and might have welcomed whatever the Wolverines had to give. Then they could have worked out their next moves almost unnoticed.

Ravens? Not sure what dynamic would happen if the Raven Watch was able to piece together credible rumors (oxymoron!) about them.

[Mohammed As`Zaman Bey]

Mohammed As`Zaman Bey I'm sorry, but your arguments are really weak in most cases. "Oh the Coordinator of the DC just massacred 50 million civilians, but we have a Pact, so we just have to accept that..." Kind of illogical to a very Honorable group of Soldiers.  The act was so Dishnorable that the DC was losing Soldiers to suicide and defections... So yeah.

  Immaterial. Kentares was an internal matter and had no bearing outside of the DCMS. Breaking a contract is still illegal, no matter how contrived the excuse. Of course, the DC should have expected treachery.

 

The ELH unilaterally violated nothing.

 
  The ELH unilaterally attempted to flee over a matter that never concerned them, which prompted the DC authorities to make arrests and legally detain people to prevent further violations of the contract. 

[Natasha Kerensky]

Breaking a contract is still illegal

It wasn’t a contract.  It was a pact.

Nothing the ELH did broke the pact, certainly nothing that warranted kidnapping and killing ELH civilians.

 
The ELH unilaterally attempted to flee over a matter that never concerned them

Relocation does not violate a nonaggression pact.

which prompted the DC authorities to make arrests and legally detain people to prevent further violations of the contract.

As foreign citizens per the existence of the pact, the ELH civilians would not have been subject to DC law.  And it’s improbable that the ELH would have signed a pact that gave the DC the right to arrest/detain ELH civvies. 

The DC administrator and his forces committed kidnapping, hostage-taking, and ransoming against citizens that did not belong to their state.  These are the acts of international terrorists. 

And then they murdered these civilians.

[billtfor3]

Natasha Kerensky, we're beating a dead horse.  Not sure what's going on, but I agree with you and others in the DC/ELH beef.

[Daryk]

A war crime is a war crime, carried out on your own territory or any other.

[2ndAcr]

 When the stuff went down, the Eridani Light Horse and Draconis Combine were in a Mutual Defense Treaty and Non Aggression pact. Not a mercenary contract. Coordinator Minuro Kurita forced them into it. Kentares Massacre pretty much told the Eridani Light Horse it was time to get away from crazy Jinjiro Kurita.

 Since Sendai is on the Lyran border, the Mutual Defense Treaty was probably within X number of jumps from Sendai.

[Mohammed As`Zaman Bey]

A war crime is a war crime, carried out on your own territory or any other.

  What's your point? The DC was the only valid authority. I'm not here to argue how invalid "war crimes" are but the ruling authority at the time saw no "war crimes". Even the Star League knew the Ares Convention was a joke.

Not a mercenary contract.

  Immaterial. There was still a legal agreement.

Coordinator Minuro Kurita forced them into it.

  They could have left then and there but chose to AGREE to the terms. Also immaterial.