Battletech Alt-History

[Dahmin_Toran]

What if the Word of Blake had been given a seat on the Second Star League and unveiled their cyborg army to destroy the Clans. Would the Star League allow them to do that? Would the WOB eventually turn on ComStar? Would they eventually turn on the Inner Sphere?

[SteelRaven]

Would they eventually turn on the Inner Sphere?

Violently psychotic fanatics who's only plan for the Clans was suicide soldiers and straight up genocide just to eventually achieve the same goal as the Clans? Yes. How things actually turned out illustrates that the WoB as ran by their most fanatical believed mass murder was the solution to everything.

Don't think anyone would 100% agree with the WoB plans to use WMDs on the Clan knowing the catastrophic civilian causalities and the insane counter offensive right after creating a fragile trues nor would anyone 100% trust anyone who built such a army in secret considering the existing history.   

[Sartris]

On the other hand it strikes me that the houses’ attitude might reflect a political cartoon I saw from after Op Barbarossa kicked off with hitler and Stalin attacking each other with axes - the caption read “may they both be equally successful”

Whoever won you could plan a contingency to snuff out the victor

[VensersRevenge]

I think it would depend on how the WoB presented their crusade. The Lyrans and Combine both have a pet clan, and neither Theodore or Peter are going to support an all out crusade against Clans, although both would support the removal of their neighbouring Clans, as would the FRR. Their is no way Victor/Focht would support the destruction of the Clans in general, but Comstar only votes on ties so it doesn't really matter, but I doubt Yvonne would support a massive war in 3067, especially because she has little control over her March lords. Sun Tzu would likely support it to get Victor out of the way to reclaim more planets just like he did in 3059, and Thomas would likely support it, at least until it got too genocidal.
TLDR: If the WoB didn't target the Exiles or Cats, and kept their genocidal plans under wrap until everyone got too caught up in events, I think everyone except Comstar and maybe the Suns would support them.

[SteelRaven]

The fact that the WoB hardly bothered with the Clans until they started their own offensives tells me that the crusade against the clans was simply a pretext for their army. Would they fight the Clans and would needs weapons to counter theirs? Most likely but I believe they simply wanted to return to having the scariest secret army they could have and old SLDF weapons didn't do the job anymore.

[beachhead1985]

What if the Word of Blake had been given a seat on the Second Star League and unveiled their cyborg army to destroy the Clans. Would the Star League allow them to do that? Would the WOB eventually turn on ComStar? Would they eventually turn on the Inner Sphere?

I have found that most satisfying way to answer these questions is to make an AU of your own and explore the ideas yourself. :)

[Renard]

I feel like WoB was a missed opportunity. The Successor States and Clans are at best morally grey by any reasonable standard; that's what keeps the setting interesting. If WoB went full God Emperor of Dune and made the case that humanity was going to extinguish itself through all the wars and conflict so it had to take control in a benevolent but totalitarian way, it could have been pretty interesting. Instead, WoB was pure chaotic evil whenever I ran into them. In Embers of War, they're just mindless zealots and assassins that reviled in a scary version of Catholic Integralism.  I never got a sense that Blake's God Emperor vision of the future was truly terrifying and motivated them to do what had to be done to save humanity. They just seemed like another faction that wanted to take Terra and be the ilComcast of communications service providers.

If, instead, WoB presented a vision of the future that was genuinely likable, and their utopia was destroyed by an alliance of war-mongering successor states and clans who wanted Terra for themselves, they could have been a tragic hero in a more interesting way (at least to me).

[Hptm. Streiger]

Read the "diary" entrys of Geoffrey Zucker (Epilouge of Isle of the Blessed), I think it helps a lot to understand whats going on.

I think most BT players never ever thought twice about the Third Transfer, they did take Stackpoles Toaster Lover for granted and did not think twice about it. Mindless zealots, well novels are just a single PoV and its important to have a "clear" foe, as such they are not that great for getting an idea about the mindset.

Sure some elements within WoB were pure psychopaths, but this is true for most "Leaders" of the IS and even more Clans as well. Heck that Minamoto gui, bombed Kairo out of spite, they have beaten the Brian Castle already, there was nothing to win with that act of terror, same as the glazing of Gibson or Circinus IV, were those acts of noble heroes?

WoB as the tip of the spear of the SDLF would have been quite a force to deal with the Clans. Who said they would be the only force fighting? All in all WoB still had enough troops to compete with what Snake and Bulldog did throw against the Smoke Jags, also the core of the new WoB milita had lots of veterans of Tukayyid.