----- Meanwhile, on Strana Mechty… -----
Date: June 12, 2822
Location: Strana Mechty
Title: Betrayal of Ideals – Foundations of Fate
Author: Blaine Lee Pardoe
Type: Serialized Novel (BattleCorps)
Synopsis: Wolverine Khan Sarah McEvedy surveys the construction of the Great Hall of the Clans at the center of Katyusha, on Strana Mechty. She muses on the changes she’s seen begin to emerge in the Clans – once a brotherhood of warriors united under Nicholas’ banner, and now beginning to form secret alliances and making back-room deals. She prides herself in having kept the Wolverines aloof from any such politicking.
With the fall of the Black Brian on Dagda two weeks earlier, she notes that the Khans of the Clans have begun to chafe in the absence of the war they were engineered for – a warrior people without a foe. Though Nicholas has stepped into the role of “great father” once occupied by his father, Aleksandr, McEvedy feels that the future has become harder to see since the death of Andery Kerensky on Eden during the mopping up against the Levic Ascendancy. She has nagging suspcions that Nicholas may have had something to do with Andery’s death. She also feels that Nicholas has none of Aleksandr’s warmth.
To replace battlefield losses from Operation KLONDIKE, new warriors have been inducted into each Clan, and McEvedy finds that this new generation lacks the common bonds that knit the original Clans together.
She goes to the temporary command center to join Nicholas for dinner, and notes that the officers’ mess this night hosts a number of other Khans: Jason Karrige of the Widowmakers, Franklin Osis of the Smoke Jaguars, and Joyce Merrell of the Snow Ravens. McEvedy counts Merrell as a friend, but views Karrige as being unpleasantly extreme in his views. She recalls that relations between the Wolverines and Widowmakers have been strained since an unspecified incident during the Pentagon Civil War.
In the IlKhan’s private dining room, McEvedy muses on Nicholas’ numerous quirks – any violation of his protocols results in temper tantrums that proceed nearly to the point of requiring a Circle of Equals. Nobody is allowed to sit before he does, and eats his steaks unseasoned, nearly raw. Conversation may not begin at the table until he finishes his meal and rests his arms on the table. Those close to him have learned his foibles to avoid setting him off.
This night, Nicholas has an agenda – he chastises McEvedy for allowing social mobility between castes in the interests of efficiency. Though this has resulted in record productivity from the Wolverine enclaves, it undercuts Nicholas’ goal of removing personal ambition by imposing rigidly defined caste roles and eliminating most opportunities for social mobility. McEvedy muses that many of Nicholas’ extreme measures imposed during the crisis of the Pentagon Civil War and Second Exodus are now becoming permanent, and serving as the basis for even more extreme social engineering.
Regretting that Andery is no longer around to restrain Nicholas’ impulses, McEvedy accedes to his demand that she undo her reforms and deal with any resulting social unrest – harshly, if necessary. However, to satisfy her own sense of honor, she demands to know which other Khans brought her reforms to the ilKhan’s attention, so that she may challenge them to a Trial of Grievance. Nicholas denies her request.
After McEvedy departs, Nicholas informs Widowmaker Khan Karrige that he has dealt with the Wolverine situation of which Karrige had complained. However, he criticizes Karrige's use of intrigue by placing a spy in another Clan – a major breach of etiquette by Nicholas’ standards. Karrige expresses gratitude for Nicholas’ assistance, and takes another tack – characterizing the Wolverines as demonstrating a pattern of violation of Nicholas’ regulations that encourages competition among the lower castes, rather than leaving the resolution of all conflcts exclusively to the Warrior caste.
Karrige and Osis tell Nicholas they are worried that their own lower castes will demand reforms similar to those enacted by the Wolverines. Nicholas tells them that, should any disputes arise, the Circle of Equals is the proper venue for their resolution. He tells the two disgruntled Khans to step up their Trials against the Wolverines and prove the rightness of their claims on the field of battle. However, given a spate of defeats in the Circle at Wolverine hands, Karrige instead suggests that Nicholas authorize enhanced monitoring of the Wolverines, to better detect further violations of Clan ideology.
Nicholas agrees, though he specifies that such a new intelligence gathering organization will monitor all the Clans for violations of his doctrine, and bring them to his attention for proper resolution in a Circle of Equals.
Notes: Though it was never published in hardcopy format, Pardoe's four-part chronicle of the Wolverines' true story runs 231 pages in total, which puts it in novel territory as far as I'm concerned. Thus, I've categorized it as a "Serialized Novel" in my reviews.
McEvedy notes the discrepancy in goals between Nicholas’ vision of the future (as epitomized by the Great Hall) – one trying to appear austere and plain, and the other trying to be wonderous and monumental. This is emblematic of Nicholas’ conflicting ideas about the Clans themselves – that the strongest should rule and thrive, but that all non-Warrior elements of the Clans should be held back to the level of progress of the slowest. I suppose that this might have been an effort to remove external factors from the equation and let each Clan rise or fall solely on the skill of their Warriors.
McEvedy’s view of the Clans as a united “band of brothers” during Operation KLONDIKE doesn’t quite square with the reality of the situation. Numerous Clans slighted each other in the competition for glory, and Coyote Khan Dana Kufahl intentionally withheld battlefield support from Clan Sea Fox at a critical juncture, leading to a number of completely unnecessary casualties, including their Khan.
Khan Karrige is the clear villain of this piece, plotting and scheming with enough gusto to put a Liao to shame. Karrige is portrayed as a glory-seeking warmonger in Historical: Operation KLONDIKE. His pre-invasion address to his Clan includes such passages as “we are the immortal warriors for all time” and “we will strike and give no mercy, no quarter, to those that oppose us.” Karrige’s bio notes that he was born on New Syrtis and was brought along on the Exodus with his father, who unfortunately sided with the Prinz Eugen mutineers and was executed, stigmatizing young Jason. He tested into the Eden Academy in 2793, but encountered prejudice based on his father’s actions and couldn’t advance past Major. Nicholas appreciated his drive, and gave him a second chance on Strana Mechty. H:OK notes that the Widowmaker civilian castes bore the brunt of the Warriors’ post-KLONDIKE frustration, treated with contempt and brutalized by the Warriors.
Historical: Operation KLONDIKE doesn’t offer much clarity in what the Wolverine-Widowmaker incident during the Pentagon Civil War could have been. In Operation KLONDIKE, the Widowmakers were assigned to Dagda and interacted mostly with the Goliath Scorpions and Burrocks, while the Wolverines were on Circe sharing an operational area with Clan Snow Raven. H:OK repeatedly states that the purging of Wolverine-related records made it difficult to determine their exact actions during KLONDIKE, but it does say that the Wolverines were not considered as reinforcements for the Widowmakers on Dagda (in the siege of the Black Brian). Thus, the incident must have stemmed from something that happened between the Widowmakers and Wolverines on Strana Mechty, while the Clans were staging for KLONDIKE.
Nicholas’ dinnertime quirks and fits of rage are, I feel, clear evidence that he did suffer some brain damage from his bout with the Curse of Eden. Demonstrated disorders include paranoia, obsessive compulsive behavior, and inability to control his temper. Perhaps Andery sat down too early at a final, fateful dinner and/or overcooked/overseasoned Nicholas’ steak.
In Warriors of Kerensky, Phelan Kell opines that, in creating the Clans, Nicholas wanted to break all pre-existing ties, including those of the divisions that had journeyed to Strana Mechty. He used strong-arm tactics to force through his reforms, including threats and even violence. Historical: Operation KLONDIKE hints that several people who opposed Nicholas’ societal changes were ostracized (forced to live off scraps), imprisoned, and even executed.
The creation of a “doctrine police” monitoring agency within the Clans, of course, presages the creation of the Watch. With the full support of the ilKhan and the Clan enclaves being relatively open and close together, such an agency wouldn’t have to be particularly stealthy – probably part of what made the Operation REVIVAL-era Watch so inept through the 3050s and 3060s.
It’s interesting that McEvedy feels that Aleksandr Kerensky had personal warmth. That didn’t really come through in his other appearances (“Destiny’s Call,” “Destiny’s Challenge,” “Way of the Champion,” “Living Legends,” “Hard Justice,” and “Fall From Glory”) I’d place him more as introverted, intellectual, stern, and excessively reliant on quotations from historical figures (Russians, mostly) to score philosophical points in debates, rather than letting his emotions carry any weight.