Over all I thought it was a pretty solid bit, while it was a novella it really felt too short. I wish we had been able to get one of the Roughriders from the lance pack get a name drop!
The Second Lancer's intelligence blunder, and especially the coronet's attitude about TMI vs ROM sources (just where does she think TMI gets a lot of their information?) could be ripped from many battles through history. The idea the Roughriders would still be drunk . . . the Lancers' command staff planned poorly and got the expected results.
While the Lancer mechs might have been scrap, the Roughriders- or the FS depending on the contract- should have come out with a few new dropships . . . pair of Mules, Overlord, maybe a Triumph or Union.
For the Roughriders going forward, what bits we get of them in MWDA fiction, the personnel seem to have recovered from the scars of the Bromhead incident.
The other part that kept coming to mind with the FS characters . . .
. . . Hansen's was not committing a war crime. They were acting in reprisal for a war crime which is a different thing.
A reprisal is an enforcement measure under the law of armed conflict consisting of an act which would otherwise be unlawful but which is justified as a response to the unlawful acts of an enemy. The sole purpose of a reprisal is to induce the enemy to cease its illegal activity and to comply with the law of armed conflict1.
The TC denied the Lancers engaged in a war crime and took no action against the unit involved, thus leaving the Roughriders to take up enforcement as the TC was not charging their personnel. Now, would the Roughriders keep wiping out Taurian forces if the TC admitted to the war crime? If yes, THEN the actions become a war crime.
