honestly, i think the version we got, even with all its flaws, is the better story.
i mean, hijacking a warship, that just happens to have the entire route to the homeworlds in it, then figuring out that all the clans (most of which hate each others guts) all miraculously just have one spot in common they're all willing to work together for, then oh hey lets just drop a few RCT's to hold this one spot in a honorless non-zellbregin assualt, then hold off the entire clans because they'll fight using honor and shit that removes all their advantages. then despite the fact even the most honorable clans have been shown to lie, cheat and fight dirty when faced with such situations in previous books, they'll all just march in to be slaughtered until they sue for peace.
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it sounds like the kind of overly simplistic deus ex machina i would have writen in junior high.
the version we got is much more grounded in reality. you have an idealistic clansman who grows disaffected with how clan society is evolving. which makes him fertile ground for an Ex-comstar agent to turn. the IS finally gets its act together and figures out that with the truce almost over, they gotta hang together or they certainly will hang seperately, and lacking any better framework, invent a new star league to make teamwork an easier sell. (and the power politics over who will lead it and what they can do being a big issue). since the clans respect power, a demonstration campaign plan with the destruction of an entire OZ becomes the destruction of an entire clan once the comstar info is applied, a much more effective demonstration anyway. resulting in a two pronged operation (serpent and bulldog), which shows the IS is not the pushover it was 15 years before. using that lesson to get the rest of the clans to pay attention, they then arrange the trial of refusal, where the IS not only shows they can kick ass using the clans own restrictive rules, but can also play clan style politics. the end result being the total shattering of the clans assumption of military superiority.
narratively it's a more sensible story.
politically it's a more sensible story.
strategically it's a more sensible story.
and setting background wise it's a more sensible story.
about the only thing i'd have wanted to see from the original pitch as described in the blog was the bit about Greyson caryle getting so horrified by the type of warfare he was forced to conduct that he retires. frankly, adding the Grey Death Legion to operation bulldog (not serpent, they already had the knights of the inner sphere to take on that narrative role, although they were not really used for that purpose), and growing so upset that he disbands his unit after the OZ is retaken and 'walks off into the sunset' (retires to a world as a private citizen and is never heard from again)
thus making a great ending for the grey death series of novels, while leaving an opening for a 'new grey death legion' under one or more of the old hands to spring up later if so desired by the sourcebook writers, basically rebooting the GDL into a much less munchkinistic form.
