I spent a while in Battletech-related introspection recently and had a realization.
I'm a Falcon.
Now, I'm still originally and primarily a Horse, and that's likely gonna stay that way; but more and more I find myself valuing and respecting the Falcons. This is probably more surprising to me than it ought to be given that I've been posting under a Falcon bloodname since I started on these boards 10-odd years ago, but I've had a complicated relationship with the Clan of Hazen ever since I first came in contact with this universe.
My first Battletech experience was Mechwarrior 2, in which I initially picked the Wolves because I thought the logo looked cooler. Then, I switched to the Falcons because they got earlier access to heavier mechs. Then, I read about the Refusal War in the in-game codex and decided the Falcons were jerks. A while later, I read the Legend of the Jade Phoenix, and while that gave me a really interesting look into Clan society and such... it really didn't endear me to the Falcons. (Side note: because of the direction I came to the game in, it was a long time before I realized the Clans were not actually the primary protagonists. ;D)
I dismissed the Falcons for a long time, considering them stuck-up, arrogant, hidebound jerks with no sense of humour. I picked my screen name not because of any actual liking for them; I just didn't like the sound of any of the Wolf bloodnames, and didn't really know anything about the other options.
However, in the past year or so my feelings have changed about them. My perception of them hasn't changed at all; I still think of them as being the same honour-obsessed stuck-in-the-past ****** who wouldn't recognize a sense of humour if it flew down and lobbed a katana at them, but but how I feel about them has.
What I've realized: I like the Falcons. They represent the heart of the Clans, to me; not the best of the Clans, necessarily, but the most important parts. Not the Jaguars' hamfisted heavyweights and their scream and leap philosophy, not the Wolves' scheming practicality, not the Bears'... whatever the Bears have. The Falcons embody the base essence of a Clan warrior: speed, fury, skill and pride; and their refusal to compromise their honour codes and beliefs even when everyone around them is cheating their honourless asses off really endears me to them, because they realize that that means they have to work twice as hard and be twice as good as everybody else, and they believe they can pull it off.
And so the Mongol Doctrine is really poignant to me because it's the cauldron boiling over on one hundred years of the Falcons' frustration and rage that no matter how hard they work and how good they are, they cannot beat their opponents and achieve their goals while staying true to their code. And in that moment, I think, part of the clan decided without really realizing, that they valued their code more than their goals... and I respect the hell out of that. But the other part, that cast it aside and followed Malvina... I want to see them win. I want to see Malvina tear Alaric Wolf's body out of his cockpit on Terra's blood-soaked sands and cry out in victory.
I don't think it'll happen, but I hope it does.