DoppelKat Theory: Am I Wrong?

[Cyclone]

Pretty new to BT, first off, for... *cough* reasons.

<_<
>_>

Anyway, read the first three GDL novels, Sword and Dagger, and the Warrior trilogy.  Got partway through Wolves on the Border before I got distracted.

Discussing the FCCW with friends more familiar with the setting than I am, and I pitched a theory.  Surely, there was something in canon to prove this theory wrong, or I'd have at least heard of it or seen fanfics based on the concept, right?

Except that's not what they're telling me, any of them.  Even tossed the idea up on Spacebattles framed up as a 'fic idea, and no one seemed to think it contradicted canon.

So, uh, anyway.  The theory is pretty simple.  Sometime in the early 3050s, House Liao abducted and replaced Katherine Steiner-Davion with a doppelgänger, much like they almost did to Hanse.  And the rest is history.

Is there anything in canon that definitively proves this idea wrong?

[Tai Dai Cultist]

Setting a standard of a negative having to be disproven is a logical failure.

Kind of the same thing about the Ancient Aliens stuff.

Yeah there's no proof it didn't happen.  But that doesn't eclipse the fact that there's no proof it did.

[Cyclone]

I'm not trying to prove it right.

I am, in fact, looking for proof that it's wrong.  As I said.  I'm just trying to see how plausible this theory is.

As for evidence, when I suggested this to various people, the responses I kept getting were along the lines of "an awful lot of Krazy Kat's actions did conveniently help the CapCon or fit in line with the idea of deliberately hurting the FedCom or helping the CapCon" and "it makes her actions make more sense than canon and would make her motivations line up better with her actions."

*shrug*

[Tai Dai Cultist]

Well the Capellan motive might certainly be there.. Katrina withdrew the newly christened Lyran Alliance from the FedCom and in doing so helped the ultimate reclamation of the worlds lost in the 4th SW.

However a Capellan ability to pull it off is doubtful. Honestly, pulling it off the first time was a miracle given how thoroughly Davion intelligence compromised House Liao.  There's an even slimmer chance it'd work without the sheer insanity/surprise factor.  Davion/F-C security services would be on the lookout for that particular "unimaginable" scenario after seeing it happen once already.

But honestly the stake in the theory, for me, is it's unnecessary to explain her actions.  There's no sudden turn to evil to point to needing an explanation such as being replaced by a pod-person-clone.  Besides, Steiner-based anti-FC sentiments were baked in pretty much from the get-go. It's not like Katrina engineered all that up to serve Liao's ultimate interests.

[The_Caveman]

Well the Capellan motive might certainly be there.. Katrina withdrew the newly christened Lyran Alliance from the FedCom and in doing so helped the ultimate reclamation of the worlds lost in the 4th SW.

However a Capellan ability to pull it off is doubtful. Honestly, pulling it off the first time was a miracle given how thoroughly Davion intelligence compromised House Liao.  There's an even slimmer chance it'd work without the sheer insanity/surprise factor.  Davion/F-C security services would be on the lookout for that particular "unimaginable" scenario after seeing it happen once already.

But honestly the stake in the theory, for me, is it's unnecessary to explain her actions.  There's no sudden turn to evil to point to needing an explanation such as being replaced by a pod-person-clone.  Besides, Steiner-based anti-FC sentiments were baked in pretty much from the get-go. It's not like Katrina engineered all that up to serve Liao's ultimate interests.

There is certainly precedent in-universe for rulers being replaced by doubles.

Katherine (she doesn't get to call herself Katrina) would be an odd pick, though. She was second in line for the throne and any abduction/brainwashing/replacement would have had to take place before 3049, when it wasn't entirely clear that Victor had an aptitude for playing Richard the Lionheart that would keep him away from the throne for long periods making a coup possible.

And I can't for the life of me think how assassinating Melissa benefited House Liao.

If anyone was going to replace a Steiner-Davion following Max Liao's descent into madness, it would be Comstar. Comstar in the Tiepolo/Waterley era had good reason to see the Fedcom fail and the resources/means to make it happen.

It's possible that some ROM brainwashing was implanted when Katherine was a teenager and that triggered her psychosis, but it was obviously never activated because of Focht killing Waterley--and if it did exist I think it's doubtful that WoB's version of ROM wouldn't have seized the opportunity to use it, or that Focht wouldn't have told Victor about it, assuming he knew, which it's hard to imagine he wouldn't.

[Elmoth]

Sometimes people are like that. No need for dopplegangers.

The only "proof" you are going to find is that it is never revealed in any official material at all, or referenced. It is a major thing, so it would have been said in the official line if this replacement had happened.

Her actions helped the capellans, but only indirectly. It is just that helping herself she made it easier for the capellans.

Cheers,
Xavi

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

I'm not trying to prove it right.

I am, in fact, looking for proof that it's wrong.

Which is going about it backwards.  The fact is still that there's absolutely nothing to support such a hypothesis and such a convoluted plot isn't necessary to explain her actions.  She was just a self-centered demagogue who was good at manipulating her way into power but utterly inept when it came to actually wielding it.

[Deadborder]

Between the various FCCW novels, we get a good amount of Katherine's thoughts/inner dialouge/etc. There's enough there where she refers to Hanse as her father, Melissa as her mother and Victor as her brother.

[Mecha-Anchovy]

Which is going about it backwards.  The fact is still that there's absolutely nothing to support such a hypothesis and such a convoluted plot isn't necessary to explain her actions.  She was just a self-centered demagogue who was good at manipulating her way into power but utterly inept when it came to actually wielding it.

Occam's Razor doesn't apply to RPG or plot design.  ;)

Canonically speaking, no, there is no reason to believe this.

But if you want to have a successful Operation Doppelganger in a game or piece of fan fiction or anything else - sure, why not? It doesn't contradict any available evidence. It's actually a good deal less improbable than a bunch of the other crazy conspiracy plot bunnies in BattleTech (cf. both ISP books, or this sort of weirdness), so go nuts. That'd be a perfectly fine plot for heroes to uncover in a game or story.

[Major Headcase]

"Battletech doesn't need such convoluted plots" (paraphrasing)
Have you MET Battletech?!?!?! 🤣
No it doesn't need evil master plans within evil master plans! And yet, the fluff is so ckock-full of cunning machinations and evil twisted plots so poorly planned and utterly designed to fail and be unmasked, they could start their own line of "Suprise! Plot twist!" Greeting cards!!! 😂😂😂
I'll up the anty and posit that it was not a Capellan plot but a MARIK plot, helped along by their WoB bedfellows!! To destabilize the FC and bring civil war to their oldest enemy, the hated money-grubbing Stieners!! Maybe even with the outcome of destroying both hated realms!! (Insert evil laugh here)
And it all would have worked, too, if it hadn't been for those meddlesome kids and their stupid dog!!

[Frabby]

Between the various FCCW novels, we get a good amount of Katherine's thoughts/inner dialouge/etc. There's enough there where she refers to Hanse as her father, Melissa as her mother and Victor as her brother.

What he said.
This is canonical proof that Katherine Steiner-Davion herself didn't think she was her own doppleganger, and thus answers the OP's question.

[Mecha-Anchovy]

This is canonical proof that Katherine Steiner-Davion herself didn't think she was her own doppleganger, and thus answers the OP's question.

To be fair, the Hanse doppelganger didn't believe he was a doppelganger. There's no reason a hypothetical Katherine doppelganger couldn't be brainwashed to believe she's the real Katherine.

[AlphaMirage]

While an entertaining theory (I like the Marik angle personally but SAFE is way to incompetent to make that happen.)  I don't think Canon Kat needs to be a doppleganger to serve Sun-Tzu and the Confederation's interests.  If you look at it from a high angle view Kat wanted to be First Lord, she made a deal with Sun-Tzu to hurt her brother and in exchange he would provide her support to make that happen.  It didn't happen and she was pissed.

She was good at manipulating opinions (got people to call her Katrina, was put in charge on Tharkad by trashing her brother's reputation and making deals with Anti-FedCom interests, initiated a smear campaign against her sister till she begged her to come and fix it) but not so good at empire management.  Not that a single person could have reasonable managed the Federated Commonwealth (it really needed all five Steiner-Davions to hold it together but that never happened for various mostly undetailed reasons) but she was particularly inept.

I still think it was the Dobrowski Depression-A that runs along the Steiner line that caused her change in behavior.  Still my favorite character in the novels however (and in Clover Spear, and *shameless plug*, my FanFic).

[Colt Ward]

Actually your best proof IMO is in some of the MWDA novels, and definitely in Bonfire of Worlds.  Katherine revealed the secret of Alaric's origin, Alaric had the proof (which would show how close the DNA was from both parents), and the Wolf leadership knew of his abomination in exact test-tube mixing.

Additionally, I do not think there are any suspect periods for Katherine to have gone missing EXCEPT after she had already separated the Lyran portion- which was when she went to see Vlad on accident.

Now for the plot . . . taking a ruler is not the only path- if you want to suppose she was abducted (your POV character in the FCCW has a Conspiracy Theory trait?) her actions to break up the FedCom from '55 onward could be attributed to such a operation.  (The real Katherine was abducted on Solaris VII before Melissa died by assassination, Plotter XYZ knew Melissa would be able to figure out the double had been put in place so that is why she had to be killed.  Letting the fake Katherine cast a slur at Victor about not caring was just icing on the cake.  Plotter XYZ wanted to break up the FedCom to get rid of the superpower for Reason ABC, so they could- take the Lyons Thumb, launch Guerrero, Do Something Big, etc.  They never expected her to be able to oust Yvonne, you can tell Plotter XYZ lost control of their puppet by that point.  Victor learned the truth when he captured the fake Katherine, that is why she was sent into exile with the Warden Wolves.  Kell arranged to hide the evidence with his friends in the part of Wolf Clan that stayed on the worlds they occupied.  Victor wanted her out of reach so no one could prove a fake had caused all those problems while he looked for his real sister.  I tell you man, its all a cover up b/c the *whoever* do not want the common man to know the truth!  But the Truth is out there!)

I understand what Ogre is saying, but when encountering Conspiracy Theories, you do have to prove the negative . . . consider all the people that want you to prove that Hitler/Elvis/Tupac really died when they were reported to have died.  You have to prove the CIA did not assassinate JFK.  You have to prove that it was not a alien ship in Roswell.

[AlphaMirage]

Now for the plot . . . taking a ruler is not the only path- if you want to suppose she was abducted (your POV character in the FCCW has a Conspiracy Theory trait?) her actions to break up the FedCom from '55 onward could be attributed to such a operation.  (The real Katherine was abducted on Solaris VII before Melissa died by assassination, Plotter XYZ knew Melissa would be able to figure out the double had been put in place so that is why she had to be killed.  Letting the fake Katherine cast a slur at Victor about not caring was just icing on the cake.  Plotter XYZ wanted to break up the FedCom to get rid of the superpower for Reason ABC, so they could- take the Lyons Thumb, launch Guerrero, Do Something Big, etc.  They never expected her to be able to oust Yvonne, you can tell Plotter XYZ lost control of their puppet by that point.  Victor learned the truth when he captured the fake Katherine, that is why she was sent into exile with the Warden Wolves.  Kell arranged to hide the evidence with his friends in the part of Wolf Clan that stayed on the worlds they occupied.  Victor wanted her out of reach so no one could prove a fake had caused all those problems while he looked for his real sister.  I tell you man, its all a cover up b/c the *whoever* do not want the common man to know the truth!  But the Truth is out there!)

I understand what Ogre is saying, but when encountering Conspiracy Theories, you do have to prove the negative . . . consider all the people that want you to prove that Hitler/Elvis/Tupac really died when they were reported to have died.  You have to prove the CIA did not assassinate JFK.  You have to prove that it was not a alien ship in Roswell.

+1

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

I understand what Ogre is saying, but when encountering Conspiracy Theories, you do have to prove the negative . . . consider all the people that want you to prove that Hitler/Elvis/Tupac really died when they were reported to have died.  You have to prove the CIA did not assassinate JFK.  You have to prove that it was not a alien ship in Roswell.

Actually you don't, and more the the point you really can't because a conspiracy theorist will always just add another layer of "that's what they want you to think" to the pile no matter how ridiculous or absurd it is.  No matter how many you shoot down, you can't "prove" it's not true.  That's why the burden of proof is on them to prove that it is (and why anyone who says "prove me wrong" automatically loses the argument).

[The_Caveman]

Elvis is still alive in the 31st century. He's the real Bounty Hunter.

[Colt Ward]

Lol, I thought my sample of conspiracy theories would be taken to understand you cannot-  in a logical world, Occam's Razor should lance the boils of conspiracy theories.  Which one is the simplest solution- Hitler committed suicide in a bunker as he was losing or he found a body double, doctored records, took a sub to Argentina, lived off the stolen wealth of Europe, was never found by Israeli Nazi hunters in all those years and died of old age?  The Razor says his ego would never have let him sit quietly in the weeds nor would Stalin have left any chance he was alive.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

You assume that you're dealing with rational explanations.  Conspiracy theories are by their very nature irrational, and any attempt to disprove them via rational explanations will be hand-waved away, such as claiming that Hitler's behavior was all part of a carefully constructed facade as part of the "master plan" by the Illuminati or something.  Since the conspiracy theory isn't based on something logical to begin with, the conspiracy theorist will reject any attempt to counter it with logic.  And then you realize that you've spent hours arguing against something that doesn't make sense from any angle you look at it and no rational person would have believed in the first place.

[Colt Ward]

Oh I agree, I listen to a overnight radio program when I stay up late for the laughs about people really believing that stuff.

[DOC_Agren]

Now for the plot . . . taking a ruler is not the only path- if you want to suppose she was abducted (your POV character in the FCCW has a Conspiracy Theory trait?) her actions to break up the FedCom from '55 onward could be attributed to such a operation.  (The real Katherine was abducted on Solaris VII before Melissa died by assassination, Plotter XYZ knew Melissa would be able to figure out the double had been put in place so that is why she had to be killed.  Letting the fake Katherine cast a slur at Victor about not caring was just icing on the cake.  Plotter XYZ wanted to break up the FedCom to get rid of the superpower for Reason ABC, so they could- take the Lyons Thumb, launch Guerrero, Do Something Big, etc.  They never expected her to be able to oust Yvonne, you can tell Plotter XYZ lost control of their puppet by that point.  Victor learned the truth when he captured the fake Katherine, that is why she was sent into exile with the Warden Wolves.  Kell arranged to hide the evidence with his friends in the part of Wolf Clan that stayed on the worlds they occupied.  Victor wanted her out of reach so no one could prove a fake had caused all those problems while he looked for his real sister.  I tell you man, its all a cover up b/c the *whoever* do not want the common man to know the truth!  But the Truth is out there!)

:thumbsup:

Oh I agree, I listen to a overnight radio program when I stay up late for the laughs about people really believing that stuff.

Coast to Coast??  if so it was better with Art Bell as the host  8)

[RunandFindOut]

There are several of those programs they tend to be regional or local.  There's one I listen to whenever I have to work through the night after all the other radio stations go off air.  It's actually pretty nice to haul something down empty roads through the night listening to one radio station after another sign off till you're left listening to people call into a show and tell you how they know the "real truth."  About the great conspiracy to keep people from finding out that the President is really a series of robots operated by a bunch of alien yetis who secretly control the Earth and run it as a place for other bored aliens to come have a vacation messing with the primitive humans and doing things to them illegal back home.

[Cyclone]

I'm not quite sure what part of --

I'm not trying to prove it right.

I am, in fact, looking for proof that it's wrong.  As I said.  I'm just trying to see how plausible this theory is.

-- was difficult to understand, but from what I'm getting is that the idea is silly, but there's little direct evidence against it, all of which had already been brought up in previous discussions elsewhere.

Which is cool.  I'll be sure to let the people who seem intent on developing an AU based on this theory know.

Thank you, those of you who chose to actually address the question at face value.

[RunandFindOut]

Ah but the question is whether it actually IS silly.  And it isn't really on the face of it.  This is a setting where dopplegangers have been used before by multiple parties.  As has brainwashing.  And frankly starting with the FCCW and the events leading up to it, events and characterization got some serious whiplash.  So it's not far fetched at all to think that it's possible for the Katherine from the FCCW to be different somehow from the earlier one due to those sudden changes.  Personally I'd say it would be more likely given later events for brainwashing or induced mental illness rather than outright replacement.  Given the known capabilities of more than one intelligence service it would not be outside the realm of possibility.  Either for an agent to have introduced her to something that would make her more prone to developing a mental illness already in the Steiner family background.  Or given time to just play on her personal flaws and lead her to follow her own worse impulses into wackyland.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

I'm not quite sure what part of --
 

-- was difficult to understand, but from what I'm getting is that the idea is silly, but there's little direct evidence against it, all of which had already been brought up in previous discussions elsewhere.

Of course there's very little direct evidence against it.  It's a line of reasoning that's a complete tangent to the actual plotlines that were being written.  Authors typically don't spend time putting in tons of details to disprove random fan speculation that they'd never even considered.  There's no evidence disproving it, but that doesn't really matter because there's no evidence supporting it.

[Cyclone]

Of course there's very little direct evidence against it.  It's a line of reasoning that's a complete tangent to the actual plotlines that were being written.  Authors typically don't spend time putting in tons of details to disprove random fan speculation that they'd never even considered.  There's no evidence disproving it, but that doesn't really matter because there's no evidence supporting it.

I get that, but better to catch any unintentional evidence against it while still in the development stage of something that depends on this theory.  Hence, this thread.b

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

If your goal is to create an AU, whether or not there's evidence against it in the canon universe doesn't matter as much.

[Cyclone]

If your goal is to create an AU, whether or not there's evidence against it in the canon universe doesn't matter as much.

Considering the intent is "canon would have happened (with this theory being true) except for this divergence," I'd have to respectfully disagree.

Hence, this thread.

[PsihoKekec]

When she was captured in New Avalon she probably undervent all sorts of medical checks and if there was a shred of suspicion that she might be a doppelganger she would have her DNA tested and the results would be gleefully published to shut up the remaining loyalists. As matter of fact they most likely did the test to be certain it's really her and not a surgically altered double.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

There's also the question of who could have done the replacement.  If it were the work of the Capellan Confederation, it would have ahd to have occurred after Sun Tzu was in charge: Romano never would have bothered, she'd have just had Katherine killed in order to hurt Hanse.

[Kidd]

Never mind Clan DNA tech, a doppelganger would never pass a verigraph - a simple biometric reading chip that checks the DNA of the user, used to secure everything from Comstargrams to documents to personal identification.

[ANS Kamas P81]

I can only think of three times doubles were used in canon, though I'm no great Knower Of Odd Knowledge.  False Hanse, discovered and used as an excuse to start the 4th SW.  Melissa's stand-in during her trip with Hanse; that failed IIRC because Heimdall realized what they had and snuck her away - and so did the Kuritans, ask Patrick Kell how that turned out.  And last, the Marik kid, and that was discovered quickly enough and led to Guerrero.

You could say Galen Cox was a successful inverse double, of sorts...kinda somehow.   

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

It was the beard.

[Thatguybil]

I always thought it was funny that Victor was mostly raised on Lyran culture and that kat was mostly raised on Davion culture any yet Victor was seen as his fathers son and Kat was seen as her mothers daughter.

Why did Katherine go down the road of having her mother killed. If she would have just waited she would have been named regent soon rather then latter.

[Tai Dai Cultist]

When people do things based on what they want,  rational logic doesn't have to figure in. 

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Kathrine didn't want to be regent, she wanted to be queen.  She had to be the one with absolute authority and make it clear so that everyone else would acknowledge her superiority to them.

[glitterboy2098]

Kathrine intentionally wrapped herself in the lyran elements though, as a way to cultivate connections to the Lyran half of the realm when the lyran portion started seeing unrest after the clan invasion. she saw a path to power and took it, intentionally playing up her lyran heritage over her davion. (to the point of adopting her grandmother's name)

Victor on the otherhand got viewed as a "davion" largely because Kathrine adopted a lyran persona.. since Victor was in charge, and the Lyrans were getting more fed up with the davion half (which hadn't been hurt directly by the clan invasion), anyone supporting the Status Quo would inevitably end up viewed as "anti-lyran." since Victor wasn't going to elevate the lyran half above the whole of the decom, yet he wasn't pro-kurita, marik, or Liao, "davion" became the label of choice. something kathrine encouraged after the split.

her manuevering bit her in the ass though after she finally got the throne of the fedsuns half as well.. the way she'd built herself up as a "lyran princess" and tried to use that power base to control both sides of the fedcom alienated the fedsuns populace, and her fixation with being in control of the fedsuns side also started alienating her lyran supporters.

honestly the way she went about getting control, the fedcom civil war was inevitable.

[Jonathan Cyr]

Somewhere in the Periphery, Port Krin Entertainment is airing an "Unsolved Mysteries" special theorizing the same thing!  ;)  ;D

Actually makes for a good 'alternative universe' thread but I would second the comments made about her internal dialog as it appears in novels. It wouldn't seem to fit.