Tribble 586This stemmed from a couple of comments made on the Spacebattles forum in a general BT thread. I'll repost for context:
gyrobot said:
So in a hypothetical universe where Tukiyyad ended with the more militant clans winning (aka smoke Jaguar, Diamond Shark, Steel Viper and Nova Cat ) winning or stalemating and Ghost Bear, Jade Falcon and Clan Wolf losing badly against the forces. How does that affect the clan political climate as smoke jaguar argues that the progressive clans caused the downfall of the Clan Invasion?
Captain Orsai said:
I can't really see how that would happen, as it would require the rabidly Crusader Jaguars to acknowledge that the Wolves have a better idea of what's going on than they do; and not only hold their bidding to the same level as Ulric Kerensky's, but fight vastly, vastly more cautiously than they have ever demonstrated the ability to.
So, yeah, first we gotta establish just how the hell that happens.
I think the most likely way for this to happen is for Leo Showers to survive the ramming attack.
The Inner Sphere doesn't have breathing space to move troops around and for Theodore and Hanse to come to an agreement. As a result, the Smoke Jaguars hit Luthien without reinforcements from the Nova Cats but also with no Wolf Dragoons & Kell Hounds, leading to the Theodore being defeated - although he batters the Jaguars pretty well and manages to evacuate enough of the Combine government, surviving military forces and key Luthien Armor Works equipment and personnel that the Combine is just badly hurt not mortally wounded. Takashi dies gloriously but as a last gift to his son accepts all responsibility for the defeat so Theodore can survive the political impact of losing Luthien (relocating to New Samarkand).
Considerably over-estimating the damage to the Combine and now aware Terra is a target, Waterly turns to Focht who unveils his plans to fight a proxy battle. Waterly approves and Focht takes the offer to Ulric Kerensky. Kerensky sees this as a chance to stall the Clan invasion and takes it to the Grand Council where he finds a surprise ally: the ilKhan Showers. With his own clan having taken serious losses but unwilling to accept a reserve clan being activated to share their corridor, Showers sees this as a chance to win the war and 'be the ilKhan who took Terra'.
For the sake of argument, assume that the battle takes place on Tukkayid again but about a year earlier than canon. The ilKhan gets the support of the three reserve Clan's khans by assuring them of a place in the battle: he assigns the honour of landing in a 'first wave' under Ulric's command, while the four main clans will land two days later - Ulric takes an honour guard in the First Wave, but Garth Radick leads the bulk of the Wolves in this Second Wave.
While the ComGuard forces are no smaller, they have had a year less to train and to accumulate supplies. The first wave of landings are shut down hard but tie up enough forces that when the second wave lands there aren't enough reserves left to handle them the same way. Focht keeps his eye on the ball: there are fourteen objectives and he only needs eight of them to win. The Nova Cats, Diamond Sharks and Steel Vipers never get near their targets and only heroic efforts by Ulric leading a galaxy of Clan Wolf committed as his 'honor guard' (Showers allowed this since it means Clan Wolf is much less likely to do well against their assigned targets - and something that surprised Focht, letting Ulric get away with that) manages to extricate about half the Nova Cat and Diamond Shark forces. Six points for ComStar - but ashamed of this disaster the six khans don't make this clear to the ilKhan (while Ulric is rather happy to let the other Clans fail to grasp the scale of this failure - for now).
Of the second wave, the four clans charge for their targets, still eager to gain glory. However, Showers has learned some lessons and coordinates the push between the Jade Falcons and Smoke Jaguars, sharing data on where the ComGuards are. This lets them suddenly divert from their targets and crush three ComGuards divisions between them, weakening defenses to the point that the two Clans are able to take the cities they're after. Four points for the Clans.
So it all comes down to Clan Ghost Bear and Clan Wolf. The former aren't pushing incredibly fast, instead making a deliberate approach with some caution and intent on landing a concentrated punch against resistance. While this lets them crush everything in their path at first, reaching their first target, it also takes long enough that Focht can redeploy and reinforce the other city turning into a nasty looking stand off.
Clan Wolf, under Radick (and effectively Conal Ward) however is out to show that they can do better than Ulric - meaning not using his 'cowardly' tactics. And forgetting that these tactics work. Also not coordinating with the other Crusaders, because as we've often seen, the Wolf rivalry with the Jaguars and Falcons always takes precedence. As a result, the main crusader faction within the Wolves runs right into forces that Focht had focused serious resources, expecting to be up against Ulric's best. It's a slaughter for both sides but the ComGuards can afford that - and the Wolves can't.
Showers finally realises that things are in the balance. He needs the Ghost Bears and Wolves to take all their targets - or at least three, which will make this a draw and effectively go into overtime so he can negotiate with the other Khans to redeploy and take additional targets. Clan Ghost Bear look at their likely casualties and don't see why they have to take these losses for the sake of Showers. The Wolves have lost many of their available leaders and when Showers calls Ulric back, he gets a testy reply that the Khan's currently fully engaged in extricating the survivors of the first wave and is tying down an estimated half of the ComGuards with hit and run attacks from only a single galaxy. If he withdraws, not only will the three landing zones be overrun before the other Clans can evacuate but Focht can also throw a dozen more divisions at the second wave.
Showers tries to personally take command and force the remaining Wolves to push on at their two targets, taking one but breaking the back of the remaining Wolf Crusaders. (No small number of wardens die in the process, but they are assigned 'less glorious' roles that oddly leave them with a lower casualty rate. Faced with reality, Leo Showers is forced to accept the outcome: two clan victories, two draws and three defeats, a total of 8 ComGuard victories, and the 15 year truce that Focht bargained with.
In the aftermath, Showers is politically vulnerable since he's been defeated but he does have some personal glory. The Smoke Jaguar losses are less brutal than in canon and they're facing a much weaker Combine. He is able to 'compensate' the reserve Clans by granting them the right to trial for worlds in the occupation zones of the decimated Clan Wolf and Clan Smoke Jaguar - but avoids the poisonous pairings of canon, with Vipers moving into the Smoke Jaguar OZ and the Cats into the Wolf OZ. The Diamond Sharks can reinforce the Jade Falcons and the Ghost Bears but wind up with only tiny holdings - which they are happy with since it lets them use the enclaves as trading holdings as the OZs transition to long-term Clan rule.
Ulric avoids most of the blame for the defeat since he and Natasha Kerensky were scoring the only 'victories' the Wolves have to work with. With the Wolf Crusaders mostly dead, Ulric uses Phelan (not bloodnamed in this scenario) as point-man for recruiting Inner Sphere warriors into the Clan and rebuilding their ranks as a 'short term measure' until new generations of trueborn warriors can be raised. With the Jade Falcons smarting at the outcome of Tukkayid while still ebullient over their own successes there, there's potential for a very nasty conflict on that frontier so the Wolves can't afford even short-term weakness.
On the other side of the divide, the AFFC has finally redeployed to stall an invasion that now doesn't appear to be coming. They have breathing space and Hanse Davion is still in control (a full year before his canonical death which may potentially be handwaved). The Combine is weakened and effectively a buffer-state against the Clans (while Hanse recognises he could smash Theodore right now, that then leaves him occupying hundreds of hostile worlds and having to face the entire Invasion when it resumes in 3066 (fifteen years from the earlier date of the battle). With no one year lull, the leaders of the Inner Sphere couldn't leave their capitals for a conference on Outreach and the Wolf Dragoons didn't save Luthien so right now Jaime Wolf is on rather thin ice. Also the Free Worlds League isn't selling arms to the Federated Commonwealth on credit.
If Romano does assassinate Justin as in canon (possible but less likely without the arguments on Outreach to spark her to actual action) or perhaps actually kills Candace too, it's likely the Federated Commonwealth can mobilise and crush them quickly. Whether this leads to annexation, an Allard-Liao ruled Confederation as an ally or dividing Capellan worlds between the FedCom and a larger St Ives Compact is an open question.
And Myndo Waterly still winds up getting shot in the face by Focht, because I can't see her not attempting Scorpion.
