The Invaders changed because they reconnected with the Inner Sphere; the Homeworlds did not, and due to the Clan way of life, either refused to believe the Invaders' descriptions or warily questioned it. As I saw it, the Homeworlds were in a state of stagnant culture; only a seismic cataclysmic event (or series therein) would bring about change.
Hmmn, I disagree on the stagnant front. Instead I think it's simply a case of FASA created too many factions and there's only so much word count to go around. So the homeworld clans were all defined by a handful of events over hundreds of years that defined their lasting relationships and remained for the most part 2-dimensional characters. The only real air time they got was during the Great Refusal, and even then the role of most homeworlders was to lose regardless of how skilled they were said to be in the field manuals.
It's akin to the Federated Suns and Combine relationship being defined by Kentares, and even the Draconis combine's early image likewise being defined by Kentares. It worked at the time because of the limited amount of words available. Painted DC as the bad guy, etcetera. But then more work was done and they were further fleshed out.
Anyway, if there are too many factions to give all the factions depth then the number should continue to be pruned down in my opinion.
I'm not sure what example you're speaking of, and don't have the time on my lunch break to look it up right now, but in general Clan combat has plenty of avenues to make this happen.
If this battle is being fought under Zell, the bridge collapsing could motivate the Cobras to break Zell (if it wasn't already broken) and start massing fire, enabling them to win more quickly. Even without Zell, seeing so many of your clansmen taken out with a cowardly attack (shooting out the bridge instead of attacking directly after 2 previous direct attacks had failed) would have enraged the Cobras to the point where they did not care what further damage or losses they took, so long as they won. Also, a sudden change in tactics (all-out attack after holding position for a while) could have caught the Scorpions out of position to be able to stop a concentrated attack from the Cobras , even with superior numbers. And lastly, if the Cobras had bid down their forces initially, they could have called in the remainder of their force, deciding that winning was more important than the loss of honor for calling in more forces.
Or, if half a formation was on the bridge and if that bridge was close enough to the frontlines to be hit by Scorpion weapons fire then it implies the two clans are on different sides of the bridge which makes a sudden counter attack by the now stranded Cobras impossible.
In any case I know there are multiple reasons for why it could happen, but the point is from my reading of it there's not enough information to convince me of the implied outcome.
I think my biggest problem with the book is that I just don't get it. I keep reading but I don't know what's going on because there are too many threads happening at the same time and not enough information on any of them. It's written in such a way that I think you need an intimate knowledge of both the homeworlds and the forces of each clan to appreciate what's happening. I suppose it doesn't help that I read the first half of it months ago and am only picking it up again but I don't think that would really affect my perception of it.
It's like there's a naval battle between two factions and ships are lost on both sides, but in some cases the class of the ships aren't even mentioned so I don't know if it's big or small or whether those losses are important relative to the whole fleet. In most cases I don't even know where the rest of the fleet even is.
Heck at one point, there's a paragraph about the Adders being in a tight spot and their choosing not to tell the Steel Vipers. In another instance not long after we hear about the Adders having the luxury of keeping a naval blockade on the dead world of York. Which is odd because I hear about the Burrocks taking some Adder ships with them, and the Adders fighting the Snow Raven or somesuch and the Adders escorting ships to attack Nouveaux Paris or whatnot and we also hear about the Blood Spirit warships running rampant and destroying one of their enclaves from orbit and yet they're still blockading a dead world (which then destroys a Diamond Shark convoy).
So does it makes sense? I dunno, maybe they have a big enough fleet that they'll continue to blockade york regardless of their other problems but without following and tracking every thread, from initial reading it doesn't make sense. And I could pull out the Field Manual and look things up and follow everything that's happening but then I'm researching the facts as they happen rather than be engrossed in the story and that's my main problem with it. I want to be to able to just read a book and get in the zone and understand it without referencing an appendices or other source material because doing that disrupts the experience.
I think Catalyst did the best they could given the word count and the story needed to be told but it's failed to click with me.
