Was Ulric a traitor?

[Sid]

I'm saying that he didn't, and even if he had been working to undermine the Crusader agenda, it wouldn't have constituted treason.

If it didn't constitute treason, then why didn't he?  He's supposedly a Warden, afterall.

[Arkansas Warrior]

Because not participating in the invasion means those worlds get conquered by Crusaders who don't have his concern for the people's well-being?  Because he figured that, since the vote had been lost, the best way to advance the Warden cause was to get to Terra first and become ilClan?  Because at some point machismo took over and he just felt obligated to beat the Falcons, Jaguars, et al to prove he was better than them, even if it wasn't a game of his choosing?  Any of those, or some combination of them, will probably work.

[Sid]

Because not participating in the invasion means those worlds get conquered by Crusaders who don't have his concern for the people's well-being?  Because he figured that, since the vote had been lost, the best way to advance the Warden cause was to get to Terra first and become ilClan?  Because at some point machismo took over and he just felt obligated to beat the Falcons, Jaguars, et al to prove he was better than them, even if it wasn't a game of his choosing? 

As ilKhan he is supposed to lead all the Clans to victory as he's acting as the 'Khan of Khans'. 

Aside from that, none of what you listed conflicts with forcing the other Clans to underbid on Tukayyid and lead the Wolves to be the sole victor of Tuakayyid on the Clan side, yet you stated that he tried to help all the Clans win and conquer the Inner Sphere.

Speaking of which...

Any of those, or some combination of them, will probably work.

Do you not have a source which states that backs up those reasons?  We'd know then which would 'probably work'.

[Arkansas Warrior]

I don't think Ulric was ever a POV character, so we don't really have direct access to his thoughts, but I'll see what I can look up when I get back to my books.

[solmanian]

For every clanner, regardless of position:
First priority: Personal glory.
Second priority: glory of the clan over other clans.
Third (and distant) priority: glory of all clans over spheroid scum.
In that order, agreed?

If the glory of your clan is better served by letting another clan be humiliated by spheroids, than that what you do. You point and laugh, and say "I guess they're not as good a clanners as my clan of badasses...".
That's just being a clanner mean. Doing otherwise, would make you no better than spheroid scumbags.

[Archangel]

For every clanner, regardless of position:
First priority: Personal glory.
Second priority: glory of the clan over other clans.
Third (and distant) priority: glory of all clans over spheroid scum.
In that order, agreed?

Nope.  Personal glory is only a high priority in the Warrior Caste and possible Scientist (scientific success, new tech, etc) and Merchant  (good deals, etc) castes.  It is far less important for those in the Technician and Labor castes especially those who go to bed members of one Clan and wake up the next morning members of another Clan.  The Crusaders rank the glory of all clans over spheroid higher than the Wardens. You left out at least three major priorities that I can think of - survival of the Clan (was a high priority for warriors of Clan Blood Spirit who were expected to sacrifice their personal honor for the sake of their Clan), Bloodname House survival and glory (important in Snow Raven politics) and glory of the warrior's chosen political faction (Crusaders vs Wardens).

[Arkansas Warrior]

I don't think Ulric was ever a POV character, so we don't really have direct access to his thoughts, but I'll see what I can look up when I get back to my books.

Ok, that's not correct, he is at times a POV character in Lost Destiny.  in the second part of Chapter 27, Ulric, Natasha, Phelan, and Ranna are discussing the bidding.  I'm not going to post pages of text here, but the tone seems quite genuine.  I don't pick up any indication that Ulric is lying when he tells them that the other clans wanted the Wolves to stay out for two weeks but he "managed to whittle it down to five days."  If he'd wanted them to lose, he could easily have held the Wolves out longer.  Ulric also says talks about the other clans as idiots for bidding away so much of their strength and discounting ComStar's conventional assets and is described as sounding "weary". Phelan says "We will defeat ComStar, quiaff?" and Ulric basically shrugs, says "I don't know", and drinks some more Timbiqui Dark.  At no point do any of these prominent Wardens even broach he possibility of losing intentionally, they seem genuinely intent on winning, Natasha especially says as much.


In the aftermath (chapter 42) Focht and Ulric are meeting and Focht questions Ulric on acting only as the Wolf commander.  He says, among other things "it was determined that control of the individual operations would fall to the Clan Khans."  Also, that he "was permitted to review all data coming up from the planet" but wasn't required to pass it along or offer advice unless specifically requested, and no one asked for his input.  Focht's thoughts: "So, they forced you to act on your own and you let them twist in the wind."  So it would seem that I was wrong about him giving the other clans good advice.  They tied his hands in advance and never asked for his advice.  He did what he was allowed to do, which was apparently just leading the Wolves and reading everyone else's reports.  It does raise the question of who determined these policies, but I would suppose it was a Grand Council vote, the implication is certainly that it wasn't Ulric's choice.


There is one other instance, in Chapter 37, where Ulric and Conal are discussing the Wolf campaign.  Ulric has reined in Conal's Galaxy, and Conal is pissed about it.  Their conversation is essentially as follows (paraphrased because I'm leery of quoting too much text at a time):


Conal: But we were wining!
Ulric: And using up twice the allotted supplies.
C: So what?  You're just trying to disgrace me and mine.
U: BS, I'm proud of you and bragged on your guys to all the other Clans.
C: So why do we have to wait for Natasha?
U: She's not using up supplies too fast and you, sir, are no Natasha Kerensky.  Besides, she's being held back too.
C: ComSar are a bunch of dirty cowards, why don't they stand and fight?
U: Because they know we're not used to drawn out battles, and already used that to beat the Jags, and we don't have the supplies to waste here.
C: Bull, we could win tomorrow if you'd turn us lose.
U: You're wrong, and if you don't figure that out it's going to get you killed.


I was probably misremembering "don't use up supplies too fast, prepare for drawn out battle, etc etc" as Ulric's advice to other clans, rather than to his own Crusader elements.  My mistake, it's been years since I read the book last.

[solmanian]

Nope.  Personal glory is only a high priority in the Warrior Caste and possible Scientist (scientific success, new tech, etc) and Merchant  (good deals, etc) castes.  It is far less important for those in the Technician and Labor castes especially those who go to bed members of one Clan and wake up the next morning members of another Clan. 

An that would be relevant to Ulric, how?

The Crusaders rank the glory of all clans over spheroid higher than the Wardens.

Oh, not really. At the time REVIVAL most clans warden or crusader, agreed that spheroids are scum; the argument was about how those scum be treated...

And you aren't really trying to say the crusaders "placed the greater good" of the clans over their own and their clans? Because if that were the case, the Jaguar ilKhan (leader of the crusaders, and scare-monger extraordinaire) wouldn't have spent his time trying to hamper the wolf onslaught toward Terra... And the crusader Khans wouldn't have elected a warden ilKhans...

You left out at least three major priorities that I can think of - survival of the Clan (was a high priority for warriors of Clan Blood Spirit who were expected to sacrifice their personal honor for the sake of their Clan

I didn't bother with the basic stuff. When you do a to-do list for the day, do you write "Don't Die" at the top?

Bloodname House survival and glory (important in Snow Raven politics)

glory of the warrior's chosen political faction (Crusaders vs Wardens).
[/quote]
Meh. Most clan warriors probably didn't care much about politics beyond "let me shoot something. Anything.". The sole reason for the rise of the crusader faction of the wolves, was the thought that an entire generation might pass without shooting someone. Nobody felt bad about that someone being a green turkey.

[rebs]

Ulric was a traitor for one simple reason. The IS is huge and clan warriors are few.

He feared that invading the IS would destroy the clans in the long run:

" the clans would run over the IS and then die a slow unglorious death"

So he sabotaged the invasion at every opportunity that presented itself to save the clans as he knew them.

From a clan perspective that is treasonous, however looking at the state of the clans in 3145 I feel a strong need to say: "Ulric was right ".

I agree with a lot of this, except the the main point.   :) 

Because it was not treachery to the Clans, it was doing what he could to keep the Clans from driving headlong at the will of the Crusaders who had taken political control of the Grand Council.   

Also, as discussed, and at tremendous length and breadth (and breath), Ulric's primary mode of treacherous shenanigans seemed to be offering proper advice on adapting to their new foes.  Advice that the Crusader Clans failed to heed.  That's hardly every step. 

Basically, you can't really effectively betray what has already doomed itself.  So indeed, Ulric was right.  He knew the outcome, no matter the timescale, warfare unending, stretched across the inhabited stars.  He knew that the Clans would come to a slow demise, fighting endless wars to keep collective control of all humanity, something that will not rest long under one banner, no matter how controlling or forceful the fist that holds that banner might be. 

Literal interpretation of the Kerenskys, Ulric's forebears, as carried out by the Crusaders, would have mostly earned the hatred of those that they sought to control through their bizarro Star League.  Everyone has heard the Star League line from every successor state army that ever passed through their neighborhood.  The Clan version would not be perceived as any better than the worst of those. 

Or that's my take, at the least.  Ulric was not a traitor.  But as I said, I respect your take too.   

[Maingunnery]

Ulric's primary mode of treacherous shenanigans seemed to be offering proper advice on adapting to their new foes.  Advice that the Crusader Clans failed to heed.  That's hardly every step.

As long as he wasn't IlKhan he wasn't obligated to make sure that the operation succeeds. And when he did became IlKhan his record is filled with weak/lacking leadership, and counter productive manipulations.

Basically, you can't really effectively betray what has already doomed itself.  So indeed, Ulric was right.  He knew the outcome, no matter the timescale, warfare unending, stretched across the inhabited stars.  He knew that the Clans would come to a slow demise, fighting endless wars to keep collective control of all humanity, something that will not rest long under one banner, no matter how controlling or forceful the fist that holds that banner might be.

Pretty weak excuse for making the situation even worse for the Clans.

[Arkansas Warrior]

All four invasion-era ilkhans made things worse for the other clans (well, maybe not Crichell, he didn't really reign long enough to do anything).  Ulric was probably the best of that lackluster company.  What did he do that compares to Showers micromanaging the Wolves, or Osis who retained khanship of the Jaguars even as ilKhan?

[A. Lurker]

Pretty weak excuse for making the situation even worse for the Clans.

Who needs an excuse? Whatever he did, the other Khans essentially let him get away with it.

And that's what ultimately counts in Clan politics, right? As long as you get away with what you're doing -- preferably while scoring some nice flashy victories in the process --, that proves you were morally right all along. (And even if you do trip up, as long as you have the good grace to die nobody'll dwell on the past overmuch either. Clan warriors have no time for that sort of sentimentality.) This whole bellyaching years after Ulric Kerensky's death about whether or not he should be considered a traitor by some arbitrary standard or other...simply doesn't strike me as something most Clan warriors would even think to engage in. The man did what he felt was necessary and ultimately died honorably enough; end of story, what's news today?

[Archangel]

Oh, not really. At the time REVIVAL most clans warden or crusader, agreed that spheroids are scum; the argument was about how those scum be treated...

Since when?  If they viewed spheroids as "mere scum" then why would they offer them the honor of the batchall?  Why bother with bidding?  Many warriors, few of them Crusaders, did see honor in the way the spheroids fought.

And you aren't really trying to say the crusaders "placed the greater good" of the clans over their own and their clans? Because if that were the case, the Jaguar ilKhan (leader of the crusaders, and scare-monger extraordinaire) wouldn't have spent his time trying to hamper the wolf onslaught toward Terra... And the crusader Khans wouldn't have elected a warden ilKhans...

Huh?  Where did I say that?  Where did I even imply that?

I didn't bother with the basic stuff. When you do a to-do list for the day, do you write "Don't Die" at the top?.

Some of what you left out was more than basic stuff and I limited myself to broad categories.  If you didn't want your list evaluated  then you shouldn't have asked for it.

Meh. Most clan warriors probably didn't care much about politics beyond "let me shoot something. Anything.". The sole reason for the rise of the crusader faction of the wolves, was the thought that an entire generation might pass without shooting someone. Nobody felt bad about that someone being a green turkey.

So are you stating that most clan warriors never dream of becoming Khan?  At least understanding politics is a requirement to rising to high office in the Clans.  (Note: I said 'understanding' which is not saying that they have to be skilled at it.)  During the Harvest Trials, many crusaders placed personal glory AND glory of the crusaders above loyalty to their Clan while others remained loyal to their own Clan.  Do you think any of the other Clans really cared whether the Wolves got to shoot something or not?  The Wolves and their Falcon allies had to persuade the other Clan leaders why it was in their interest to see Ulric removed and they accomplished that task through politics.  They could just as easily attempted to remove him through force in a trial but they chose to attack him in the political arena.

[solmanian]

The average young warrior probably pictures the position of khan as something like this (only with more battlemechs)


As they rise through the political ranks, they'll be in for a rude awakening, as it turns out to be more like this

Only with less battlemechs.

No one fantasizes about deliberating zoning laws.

[SteveRestless]

Personally, I always thought Conan was at his most miserable when he was saddled with the responsibilities of the throne. I also agree with your metaphor. I think both conan and a warrior of the clans is at his happiest at mid-level command. Where they have enough prestige to impress and get their way, but not so much responsibility that they never get to revel in the joy of combat.

[Maingunnery]

All four invasion-era ilkhans made things worse for the other clans (well, maybe not Crichell, he didn't really reign long enough to do anything).  Ulric was probably the best of that lackluster company.  What did he do that compares to Showers micromanaging the Wolves, or Osis who retained khanship of the Jaguars even as ilKhan?

Or the worst. Of the four he was the most competent, but he didn't use that competency for the operation.

[solmanian]

He did his job; at times, maybe the bare minimum required, but he did his job. You can't call a guy a traitor for not pursuing a path that he finds morally objectionable (a path that was forced upon him, as has been said repeatedly) with sufficient zeal.

The crusaders knew exactly what they were getting when they forcibly elected a warden ilKhans. They were proably expecting him to be a lot worse. That he will try to sabotage the invasion at every turn, and that they will he have to drag him kicking and screaming to victory.

Instead he settled for outperforming them at every turn. And as we know, among the clans martial superiority is moral superiority.

[Archangel]

Or the worst. Of the four he was the most competent, but he didn't use that competency for the operation.

I don't know.  After all, he did achieve both his initial goal of seizing the reigns of the invasion from the Crusaders and his primary goal and that of the Wardens of stopping the invasion, while his predecessor achieve neither his goals for either his Clan  or the Clans as a whole of conquering the Inner Sphere and reestablishing the Star League with the Smoke Jaguars as ilClan.  Everything else are just minor details.   ;)

[Arkansas Warrior]

Or the worst. Of the four he was the most competent, but he didn't use that competency for the operation.

I'm sorry, but I don't see what you mean.  How did he not use his competence for the operation?  Do you have an example?

[rebs]

Indeed, Ulric attempted to prepare the Clans for battle with the Com Guards, according to sources from the BoK novels to Wolf Clan Sourcebook.  All Khans agreed to Tukayyid  and then proceeded to ignore Ulric's advice on preparing for a long campaign, as opposed to quick pitched battles.  It is not a weak excuse at all I should say.  It's entirely the Crusader Khans' doings that caused Tukayyid to be a decisive victory for Comstar. 

From another point of view, even before Ulric was elected ilKhan, Clan Wolf outperformed all other Clans.  Ulrics's ascension was marked by his abandonment of the plan for waves, and freed all Clans to race toward Terra.  All of the Wolves' competitors were taxed to attempt to keep up with them anyways. 

The Crusader Clans could scarcely follow the Wolves example at any step, on top of their leadership's incredibly foolhardy political maneuver of kicking Ulric Kerensky upstairs to lead their invasion on the notion that this would somehow politically neutralize him and swing his Wolves to the Crusader cause, then they ignored his attempts at "leadership" (since he must keep his hands out of every other Clans' affairs, how can he be anything except the head of a confederation of warriors, and not a leader of a true army by Star League standards stretched beyond any known reasoning?  :) ).  It was not a well thought-out plan, and not following the most successful Khan's advice for conducting the largest battle the Clans had ever fought compounded their sorrow. 

[Maingunnery]

When the Crusaders forcibly elected Ulric to be ilKhan, they didn't expect that he would sabotage the Clans as a whole like he did. Normal IlKhans promote their own Clans but always try to go for success of the operation. So from their cultural context it makes sense, they thought that they would get a competent IlKhan and that IlKhan would have mostly have to get his glory from the general success of the operation (because the wolf corridor was light on glory oppertunities).

Glory in the Clans is connected with benefiting the Clans. A warrior that earns glory is a strong warrior. That warriors genes will then be added to the next generation, making the Clans stronger. And a normal Wardens still see themselves as part of the Clans and thus will seek glory (and the benefit to the Clans in the end). From a normal Warden perfective it would be best if the Clans 'reformed' the IS with a Warden IlClan at the head.
The big problem was that Ulric isn't an average warden, he was an extremist warden. From a Clan perspective Ulric was quite an out-of-context monster.

Ulric didn't bend the system, he worked against the system.

While he was Ilkhan he didn't do the work that he was responsible for. Ulric knew what was needed and how to implement it with force and manipulations (from his experiece with his own Crusaders). But he didn't do it for others and left them without the needed leadership. This way he managed to preserve more troops then the other Clans. At the end of the invasion this would allow him to either win Terra or to turn his troops against the other invading Clans (weakening/stopping any follow up invasions). 

He could have easily have activated all the other Clans and gave them new invasion corrodors to unbalance the Houses, as was his right as IlKhan, but he only activated a couple after being pressured into it and then knowingly put enemies together in the same corridors to prevent them from properly cooperating.

In short he did what he could to make the invasion fail and prepared for its failure. The reason why he didn't do absolutely nothing is that he was smart enough to know that if he had done absolutely nothing then he would be replaced.
 
In the end he did permanent damage to the position of IlKhan and he abused the positions of Khan and IlKhan to harm the Clans as a whole. That is what makes him a traitor.

Some might say that the Crusaders that initiatialized the 'minimal force' invasion were traitors, but they actually believed that the Clans would win, which makes it foolishness.

In the long term Ulric's actions (which I am not sure that he could have predicted) didn't actually save anybody but ended up promoted maximum conflict.

[Arkansas Warrior]

When the Crusaders forcibly elected Ulric to be ilKhan, they didn't expect that he would sabotage the Clans as a whole like he did. Normal IlKhans promote their own Clans but always try to go for success of the operation. So from their cultural context it makes sense, they thought that they would get a competent IlKhan and that IlKhan would have mostly have to get his glory from the general success of the operation (because the wolf corridor was light on glory oppertunities).

Like how Leo Showers spent the invasion in the Wolf corridor micromanaging them?  Was that promoting his clan?  Like hoe Lincoln Osis didn't give up Khanship of the Jaguars?  How could that possibly have furthered success of the invasion?

Glory in the Clans is connected with benefiting the Clans. A warrior that earns glory is a strong warrior. That warriors genes will then be added to the next generation, making the Clans stronger. And a normal Wardens still see themselves as part of the Clans and thus will seek glory (and the benefit to the Clans in the end). From a normal Warden perfective it would be best if the Clans 'reformed' the IS with a Warden IlClan at the head.
The big problem was that Ulric isn't an average warden, he was an extremist warden. From a Clan perspective Ulric was quite an out-of-context monster.

Glory in the clans is connected with a lot of things, most of them individualistic, not collective.  For example, being the first clan to terra.  /do you have evidence was an "extremist warden"?  He seems to be a perfectly normal Warden to me.  He certainly wants a Warden IlClan, that much is evident from his leadership of the Wolves before election to Ilkhanship.

Ulric didn't bend the system, he worked against the system.

I've yet to see any evidence that he worked against the system any more than (or even as much as) other Invasion-era IlKhans.  If anything, he seems to have abided by the system more than Showers or Osis.

While he was Ilkhan he didn't do the work that he was responsible for. Ulric knew what was needed and how to implement it with force and manipulations (from his experiece with his own Crusaders). But he didn't do it for others and left them without the needed leadership. This way he managed to preserve more troops then the other Clans. At the end of the invasion this would allow him to either win Terra or to turn his troops against the other invading Clans (weakening/stopping any follow up invasions). 

  What did he not do?  He seems to have been doing everything he could to me.  If there's anything he didn't do, it's mostly because the other Khans limited him.

He could have easily have activated all the other Clans and gave them new invasion corrodors to unbalance the Houses, as was his right as IlKhan, but he only activated a couple after being pressured into it and then knowingly put enemies together in the same corridors to prevent them from properly cooperating.

Had he tried, he'd have been denounced as a coward and stripped of office.  The Clans entire bidding system is based around winning with the least force.  Tripling the size of the invasion force would surely have been sen as cowardice in the extreme.  As for putting rivals together; the clans are driven by competition.  Shouldn't the pairing with a clan you don't like merely drive you to outdo them, thereby promoting faster progress?

In short he did what he could to make the invasion fail and prepared for its failure. The reason why he didn't do absolutely nothing is that he was smart enough to know that if he had done absolutely nothing then he would be replaced.
 
In the end he did permanent damage to the position of IlKhan and he abused the positions of Khan and IlKhan to harm the Clans as a whole. That is what makes him a traitor.

Some might say that the Crusaders that initiatialized the 'minimal force' invasion were traitors, but they actually believed that the Clans would win, which makes it foolishness.

In the long term Ulric's actions (which I am not sure that he could have predicted) didn't actually save anybody but ended up promoted maximum conflict.

Ulric did more to help the invasion succeed than any other invasion-era IlKhan.  He even negotiated with ComStar for an early trial against Terra, rather than fighting all the way there and showing up with considerably less force.  It isn't his fault that the Khans bid away too much force in the name of glory and decided each one would run their own front instead of allowing the most proven commander to command.

[solmanian]

In the long term Ulric's actions (which I am not sure that he could have predicted) didn't actually save anybody but ended up promoted maximum conflict.

Maximum conflict?
The Jihad was Maximum conflict.
In the big picture, Ulric's time, was relatively mild by comparison. Especially after he promoted the "no warships" rule.

[rebs]

And excuse my hyperbole regarding Tukayyid being entirely the fault of the Crusader Khans collective decision making by that point in the Clan invasion.  Because Precentor Martial Focht would have words with... someone, I guess, after he had a Demi-Precentor step on me. ;D