Chapter Twenty Four: We get it Alaric, you had a serious bromance with the War Bear. Your occasional bouts of grief might be meaningful if they didn't feel like token attempts at pathos.
The Clans once again lecture the Inner Sphere on honor, though it is also used as a chance for Stone to get a shot in at Malvina. Alaric, of course, dominates the conversation, essentially dictating the surrender and the terms of the trial with the Jade Falcons, while Malvina is mostly there to get prickly and talk about ripping out people's hearts. Because she's a plot device at this point rather than a person. She exists entirely to establish why Alaric is the chosen one.
Stone once again agrees he was dastardly with his headhunting attack and tries to once again weasel into Alaric's good graces, but our designated protagonist is having none of it, because why would he? I suppose it's in character for what we've seen of Stone at this point to angle for treacherous vizier, but... come on man, it's time to stop.
Also, hi Cynthy.
Interlude: Okay, so this was mentioned by Alaric in the last chapter and I just assumed it was typical posturing, but then Daoshen says (or rather thinks) the same thing, that everybody's been trying to claim Terra all this time.
But it's bunk. The Great Houses haven't been trying to take Terra all this time. In fact, aside from a few hiccups they've been content to respect the neutrality of Comstar while it held Terra, and even the Word of Blake until they went Jihadin'.
Sure, if one of the great houses had gained real supremacy during the Succession Wars then they would have inevitably turned to Terra, but that never happened, and each house had literally a thousand other things to care about rather than Terra. Terra's safety was so taken for granted that Comstar got by with no publicly disclosed defense force for a significant part of its existence.
To suggest that suddenly Terra is the big prize everybody wants feels like a clunky attempt to add punch to Alaric's inevitable victory.
