That is more a question for the Scorpion Empire and the ilClan than for CSA and the other HWCs. The main issue is, will the ilClan call for the consolidation of all the abjured (and perhaps also the HWCs) into itself? (At the very least, in the same way that the Camerons called for the consolidation of all the Spheroid and Peripheral states into the Star League.) And, if so, how will the abjured react? If the Scorpion Empire even theoretically aligns itself as part of the ilClan then the HWCs will be drawn into the prospect of facing an ilClan invasion or preempting such with its own invasion. This line of reasoning is complicated by the fact that CGS is not a member of the Council of Six so how the ilClan views the Scorpion Empire is (to my knowledge) just as ambiguous as how it views the HWCs.
From CSA’s POV, war with the Scorpion Empire is essentially inevitable, regardless of the latter’s relations with the ilClan. The Aggressors are obviously chomping at the bit for war. But considering the potential threat projection of the Scorpion Empire by 3140, even the staunchest Bastion supporters will realize that (a) peace with the Scorpion Empire is impossible considering the WoR ideology of IS taint and, given that, (b) there is no possibility of maintaining Homeworlds isolationism without at least permanently crippling the Scorpion Empire.
Thanks to developments in Bastion-Aggressor politics since 3090, it isn’t clear whether the HWCs would wage unrestrained warfare against the Scorpion Empire or elect to fight them according to Clan custom. What I mean here is, what if the ilClan claim triggers another major reconfiguration of HWC politics? Now, this is a huge, open-ended question, but all I mean in this specific context is, if some significant portion of CGS rejects the ilClan claim, there might be room for a partial reconciliation between the HWCs and CGS, as per Crichell repurposing the Trial of Annihilation against Clan Wolf in the wake of the Great Refusal into a Trial of Absorption. From CSA’s traditionally pragmatic POV, if an Annihilation can be thus repurposed then why not an Abjuration?
At this point, it bears keeping in mind the circumstances of CGS’s abjuration. The key proponents were CCC and staunch Bastionists in the other HWCs. As to CCC, there are two important elements: (a) the WoR created a rift between them and CSA and (b) CCC was never fully committed to Bastion politics. As to Bastionists generally, it may be the case that by the 3140-50s, the Aggressors have gained more power and prestige than they had during the 3090s. Furthermore, even despite the consolidation of Bastion leadership at that time, the HWCs did not ruthlessly pursue the Trial of Abjuration against CGS, allowing them on the whole to successfully emigrate to the Periphery. Even at the height of their power, in the wake of the violence of the WoR, the Bastion leadership was not all that secure.
Partially for that reason, I think it is likely that Bastion politics are on the wane in the early 3150s among the HWCs. But, more importantly, as sketched out above, the astropolitical realities of 3140 are reducing the Bastion position to irrelevance. Specifically, the threat of the Scorpion Empire and, more generally, the implications of the ilClan claim mean that even if one wanted to maintain isolationism, some kind of intervention becomes necessary. In other words, the Bastion-Aggressor dichotomy dissolves in favor of the Aggressors. As I said, given the choice of waiting to be attacked by the Scorpion Empire and/or the IS ilClan or seizing the initiative, all true Clansmen must favor the latter.
So what paradigm replaces Bastion-Aggressor? My proposal, given CSA’s dominance among the HWCs, is a Neo-Crusader position drawing on the theories and policies of Cassius N’Buta, a staunch Crusader who argued that only the unified and coordinated might of all the Clans could successfully prosecute Operation REVIVAL. The other Crusaders, lusting after glory for their individual Clans, dismissed his views. On the other side of the Great Refusal and the WoR, CSA Aggressors would likely strongly argue that Cassius had been right all along and that his rivals had only revealed their propensity for taint in opposing him.
But more profoundly, what do Cassius’s ideas really amount to other than the notion that the ilClan is not merely a first-among-equals honorific to be seized by an individual Clan but rather the notion of the Clans working closely together as a single force (i.e., the ilClan) as opposed to more-or-less aligned albeit competitive factions. This is in fact now the same question facing the abjured Clans during the ilClan era and I think their claim to have established the true ilClan by conquest of Terra would perforce trigger this new political paradigm in the Homeworlds, given that from the HWCs’ POV, the abjured have no right to make such a claim.
Within the HWCs, I think there would be broad agreement that the remaining “true Clans” should all cooperate closely to seize the initiative against the Inner Sphere. But there would remain the question of how they should coordinate. Who should be in charge and on what basis? Some would argue that the Grand Council should remain the central organ of Clan politics with the Khan of any “true Clan” able to serve as ilKhan. Others would argue that this structure was not the Founder’s original intent and had only been a practical and temporary compromise in the wake of his sudden death, which compromise unfortunately hardened over time into a permanent institution thanks to the incessant interfactional squabbling among the Clans afterwards. These “ilKhanists” would argue that the failure to centralize authority in one person, as during the Golden Century, was responsible for all the failures of the Political Century onward. Their rivals, the “Conciliarists,” would argue such glory-seeking is exactly the problem that led to those failures.
Now, note that the concept of taint would subtly shift over time, evolving from the WoR-era notion of corrupting contact with the Inner Sphere to a more flexible and insidious notion of corruption that began to set in among the Clans even before Operation REVIVAL, as far back as the aftermath of the Founder’s death. This is the political and philosophical matrix through which an attack against the Scorpion Empire would develop. The Old Guard leadership among the HWCs would favor unrestricted warfare against the Scorpion Empire as just another tainted IS state. The younger Ristars would favor the idea that some elements of CGS remained untainted and thus could be rehabilitated by a Trial of Absorption, which in turn (some would further argue) could lead to their rebirth as a new Clan as per the Clan Jade Wolf scenario (“Clan Star Scorpion”?).
There are at least three other important factors, but I will refrain from discussing them here until the moderators give us clearance to talk about Hour of the Wolf outside of the General Discussion board thread.
