Honestly: I wouldn’t mind if they kept up smaller stories like that. However I’d LOVE a BoI style novel of where they are at now: of course everyone would. Hell I’d love a continuation of BoI from Trish Ebons perspective.
Yes, the story of the 2nd Exodus needs to be told. No idea why they couldn't green light a few books like BoI that tell a good story but still leave things mysterious. I always felt like the story of why the Wolverines chose the stops they did and what they were going for would be a good one. They almost assuredly didn't just randomly stop on planets to grab a handful of supplies & break out some random Kuritan political prisoners - they would have only acted very deliberately in 1) making their presence known to the IS (and via that, eventually, their survival to the Clans), and 2) risking confrontation of any sort (which they could ill afford). The risk/reward must have been incredibly high because they had successfully escaped and any contact would eventually expose their survival to a society hell-bent on destroying them. Despite that, they still made the raids they did. My theory to explain that was that the Kuritan prison was potentially either 1) not a prison, 2) held the families of a group of people the Kuritans wanted to keep in line, or 3) had a prisoner/prisoners who knew things of great value to the Wolverines. The easiest explanations for those scenarios that spring into my mind - 1) the Kuritans rounded up a bunch of former SL scientists (or merely kept a SLDF complex running that pre-existed) and either had them keep working at the "prison" or perhaps kept their families at the prison to keep them in line (& the Wolverines picked up the scientists on a prior raid then went to grab their families). OR - 2) some old SL person or people were held prisoner that knew something very valuable - the Kuritans may not have known those people were valuable, but the Wolverines did. The scientists or knowledgeable people (in addition to likely being valuable by themselves) may have been targeted due to their knowledge of old SL installations the Wolverines needed to get their hands on (manufacturing, equipment, supplies, home bases, potentially even worlds to settle) and/or perhaps even the holy grail of knowledge - the location of the backup Prometheus Database of the Cameron's. This was only 41 years after the Exodus, key people and scientists would have still been alive from the SL - especially given extended lifespans. How would the Wolverines know who to look for? Perhaps McEvedy's father was in a position to have the knowledge needed, perhaps it was teased out of SLDF data files by the Wolverines, or perhaps Franklin Hallis' trip to the McKenna's Pride had a primary mission of locating this sort of information Aleksander may have left in data files onboard and the bombardment was the secondary mission/cover. They then went looking in the Combine.
Redemption & Malice - that was a good read. I liked how it started innocently enough and then slowly layered in the breadcrumbs. I think we have to assume that Mr. Pardoe intended for them to be Wolverines and it had enough plausible deniability to get approved by CGL. The Bloodright connection isn't a possibility IMO - no reason for an Inner Sphere survivor of House Hallis affiliated with a mysterious group operating around the Periphery to call Alexsander Kerensky the Great Father all Clan-style (let alone the Clave & Circle bits).
Moving onto the even more fanciful discussion of Wolverine tech in 3148 as it relates to the story - I'd guess it's unlikely the Wolverines are operating purely at the level of salvaging frankenmechs - ie not operating as a scavenger culture - they are clearly after "salvage" and there to "find parts the Clave needed", but they never said that the 400 year old battlemechs, parts, and vehicles they were salvaging was their primary goal - could just be a hobby or side project. Notably, they arrived in an unmarked dropship of unusual design (hardly a sign of a scavenger-level culture), and discussed actual fights in Battlemechs in Circles - a waste of gear not likely in an equipment-scarce society. The entire trip there was a right won and was called a "pilgrimage". You can do a ton of speculating on that stuff - 1) the Wolverines could be artifact seekers much like the Goliath Scorpions, 2) they could test warriors constantly by giving them nothing on missions & the warriors are tasked with being successful with what's on hand leading to the improvising in creating frankenmechs & salvaging those items (very Red Dawnish!), 3) they have a specific use for the SLDF stuff - possibly in the context of ritual or training combat in historical gear, or 4) of note they didn't comment on the value of the Union they captured - which would theoretically be a much greater boon to a scavenger society than some mech parts or frankenmechs AND they clearly gave away some of the mechs the pirates had - so that seems to discount a scavenger culture - it's possible they were salvaging other things not at all seen or mentioned in the story (ie why was the SLDF and Rim Worlds on that world to begin with? - they may have been looking for & salvaging from a base, a storehouse, manufacturing stuff, etc). It's also unlikely that the Wolverines would have not pursued their own manufacturing capabilities and it's also unlikely they could maintain a warrior culture (with lots of Circle combat apparently) based on scavenging small amounts of parts via 2-person teams off ever dwindling amounts of ~400 year old periphery Reunification War battlefields.
All of the above in mind, the Malice & Redemption story does make me wonder a bit more about the Green Ghost potential linkages with the Wolverines. The Green Ghosts clearly mimic units and re-use equipment. Probably to help them remain undetected. The known members of the Green Ghosts may, in-fact, just be purposeful red-herrings or perhaps the Green Ghosts are an auxiliary force for them - ie a foreign legion if you will - to avoid detection but allow more visible action than the low level stuff they've apparently been doing. The Ghost's known use of a Colossus dropship plus the specific mention in the story of a dropship of unknown origin - a Colossus might fit. The Green Ghosts notably using combined arms formations & the 331st game rules on combined arms bonuses, etc. All interesting.
