Kerensky was kind of a selfish dude.

[JadedFalcon]

I'm also on board with the Empire Aflame analysis. Kerensky dying sooner than later would have probably saved lives.

Let's look at Kerensky's score card: He happily skipped off to wreck the Periphery after the First Lord he "mentored" effectively dissolved the divided Star League council. After taking Terra, he left the divided Inner Sphere to tear itself apart. And when he died, he left his divided SLDF to tear themselves apart.

Kerensky was great at trashing things, but clueless on building things like stable governments, peaceful transitions between leaders and events, and consensus between powerful leaders (both within the IS and under his own Pentagon rulership). He was a fist, and the second he didn't have an insightful or vaguely benevolent politician to point him in the direction that would do the most good, he became nothing but an agent of destruction and harbinger of death.

I could even make the argument that Kerensky should have supported Amaris as the new ruling line of the Hegemony.  That might have saved the Star League, at least for maybe 1 more generation. 

Maybe an entirely different discussion, but a more politically minded and ambitious SLDF leader could have eroded the Amaris Star Empire from within before initiating their own coup. Different from the wholesale destruction that Kerensky brought with him. And if Kerensky had sided with the new regime, how long would Stefan Amaris last with someone like Jess Cole around?

[Nerroth]

One of the key aspects of the two Historical: Liberation of Terra volumes, and of Historical: Operation KLONDIKE, is how important Aaron DeChavilier was in terms of taking Kerensky's ambitions and aspirations and then setting them into motion.

Unfortunately, DeChavilier also unwittingly proved the wisdom of Kerensky keeping his family life a well-guarded secret; while Katyusha, Nicholas, and Andrey were able to survive the long years of Amaris' occupation of Terra, the listing of the DeChavilier family on the public record proved disastrous for Aaron's kith and kin.

As noted in a recent post, Kerensky's martyrdom at the creation of the Empires Aflame timeline was one thing; but one could argue that no-one was in a more capable position to effectively channel the rage and grief of this loss into decisive military and political action than the man who would become the founding First Lord of the Terran Supremacy. Which makes it ironic that after Aaron's death, "House DeChavilier" became, in essence, House Kerensky-Cameron(-Amaris?)...

[Liam's Ghost]

This point has been debated at some length.  The general consensus is that we will never know.

No such consensus exists, as indicated by this thread actually continuing.

[PurpleDragon]

By that point in time, anything Kerensky did would have been a political action, even the Exodus.  If he had truly been tired of politics, he could have chosen at that point to retire and put up a successor in his place that would be willing to make the hard choices among the House lords.

except that, then, he would have had to live in the realm, under the consequences, of doing nothing.  His own conscience could not allow him that.

[The Eagle]

The reason, I think, that the SLDF sticking around and protecting the Hegemony would not work (and my biggest issue with Empires Aflame) is that once the SLDF establishes itself as the defenders of the Hegemony, they're no longer the SLDF.  They're the Hegemony Armed Forces at that point, and I feel that the majority of non-Hegemony members would have jumped ship back to their home nations....and we get the desertions and defections that helped ramp up the 1SW to begin with occurring anyway.

[False Son]

No such consensus exists, as indicated by this thread actually continuing.

We'll get there.

[Paladin1]

The reason, I think, that the SLDF sticking around and protecting the Hegemony would not work (and my biggest issue with Empires Aflame) is that once the SLDF establishes itself as the defenders of the Hegemony, they're no longer the SLDF.  They're the Hegemony Armed Forces at that point, and I feel that the majority of non-Hegemony members would have jumped ship back to their home nations....and we get the desertions and defections that helped ramp up the 1SW to begin with occurring anyway.

With the exception of the jointly administered worlds, the SLDF was the Hegemony Armed Forces.  I mean, look at the deployment zones.  If you remove the jointly held worlds and the periphery, all that's left is the Hegemony.

I know that they're supposed to be a multi-national force, but for all intents and purposes they're really nothing more than the HAF on a huge scale.


Edited to say: You know, I just went back to FM:SLDF and I was completely wrong.  I thought that the deployment was just along the borders, but they were in almost every area.  That's going to change a LOT of my thoughts on the subject of HAF=SLDF.

Mea Culpa

[Nerroth]

Whatever lingering sentiment there was in the SLDF towards their home realms was not enough to prevent those who took part in the Exodus from leaving them behind in the "Prime" timeline.

One real problem with the Exodus was that there was no concerted effort to do what Nicholas did during the Second Exodus: to actively sell a new vision of what a post-Exodus society would be, and then to implement policies aimed at turning this vision into reality. Without some means of transitioning towards a new social and political framework, the old nostalgia and hatred was able to bubble under the surface across the Pentagon worlds.

Which is one reason why I don't see it as a coincidence that Empires Aflame had Aaron DeChavilier establish his new title as First Lord of the Terran Supremacy, not as Director-General of a now-defunct Hegemony. The creation of the TSDF was arguably intended to make a break from the HAF legacy; those who would remain in service would not be trying to wind the clock back to the Age of War, but rather to forge what in their minds would be the true "Successor State" to the Star League itself. Over time, the Supremacy would mature into a "traditional" realm in its own right - but by then, the majority of those running it would have been born and raised under its aegis.

Actually, I do wonder how many ex-SLDF recruits would have gone (or had been sent to) Rim Federation space, as part of the establishment of the FAF. Since both the Supremacy and the Commonwealth had a hand in its creation, it would make sense for each fostering realm to want to bring in soldiers willing to sign up to this new project, without undue levels of irredentism towards the former Rim Worlds Republic territories lying beyond the Federation's borders.

[mitchberthelson]

No such consensus exists, as indicated by this thread actually continuing.

Yep, and new books add new wrinkles, or explain old ones in sufficient depth to reignite the discussion.

There are things in Klondike and Liberation of Terra that show just how polarizing Kerensky and his invasion were in a Hegemony that partly supported Amaris. They also show how an entire generation of soldiers (much of the rank and file of the Exodus movement) reached their majority in training camps during a time of seemingly endless war, knowing a "normal life" only as some far off dream that would be realized if they followed Kerensky to the end....and then that dream was denied by House Lords that they knew mostly as fence sitters or suspected collaborators. Add on battle fatigue, mixed reception from the populace, problems with pay and stability, and the fact that the SLDF contributed to the economic destruction of the IS in order to finance its war, and you can see how the Exodus movement developed.

I personally believe that their reasoning was tragically flawed, but I think TPTB have done a great job of letting us see, in these new books, how it could have evolved organically among a group of real people, rather than just being a case of the dreaded "Author Fiat." Based on this, I can also see why some fans actually agree with the Exodus.

There are also new facts, on the other hand, that make one much less likely to forgive Kerensky.

For example, pg. 13 of First Succession War indicates that Kerensky's own journal seems to say that John Davion was amenable to Kerensky being First Lord. It also explicitly states that Barbara Liao was sympathetic, but refused only because the situation was too far gone. Jennifer Steiner was also supportive, but she could not give back the RWR worlds her brother had taken and Kerensky couldn't let that slide (IMO that was Alex's fault for not leaving a garrison).

I can see now that had Kerensky worked early for Capellan AND Davion support, plus giving more aggressive support to Blake and a hefty chunk of the Steiner populace that hated what Richard had done, and then spent more time doing things like undermining the supposed legitimacy of Amaris' election (part of the reason a fair bit of the Hegemony populace believed his war was illegal), he could have pulled it off. Even better if he had left a garrison in the Rim Worlds to deter Richard rather than trusting someone proven to be so selfish and unreasonable.

However, taking power would have required him to WANT to pull a James McKenna and he explicitly did not want power. He believed it was wrong to take it. Instead, in my opinion, he pulled a Ned Stark, and here we are.

[False Son]

Yep, and new books add new wrinkles, or explain old ones in sufficient depth to reignite the discussion.

Which still lead to Kerensky's plan C, avoid responsibility.  All of this is meant to get you thinking about something in hindsight.  Truth is, for Kerensky to have chosen something other than the Exodus would have required him to have been a different kind of person, the kind of person that would have made all his detailed qualities different.  Everything happened exactly how it should have happened. 

[Kit deSummersville]

He was born in Moscow.

Moscow?

[mitchberthelson]

Which still lead to Kerensky's plan C, avoid responsibility.  All of this is meant to get you thinking about something in hindsight.  Truth is, for Kerensky to have chosen something other than the Exodus would have required him to have been a different kind of person, the kind of person that would have made all his detailed qualities different.  Everything happened exactly how it should have happened.

Absolutely. Like I said. He believed taking power was wrong and he was both a fanatical idealist and a terrible judge of character. There's not really another outcome, given those issues, unless he's removed from the equation. I believe what he did was wrong. However, there's no way he could have done anything else, given who he was.

[False Son]

Absolutely. Like I said. He believed taking power was wrong and he was both a fanatical idealist and a terrible judge of character. There's not really another outcome, given those issues, unless he's removed from the equation. I believe what he did was wrong. However, there's no way he could have done anything else, given who he was.

Hey, i'm all for "what if?" scenarios.  But, it is all speculation.  The detailing of history after the fact is fun because it gives people weight on either side of the stay/leave argument. 

[sillybrit]

Basically Kerensky was just a massive fan of The Clash and he simply took their lyrics too much to heart... and Terra just didn't let him know.

[abou]

*groan*

[Maingunnery]

Absolutely. Like I said. He believed taking power was wrong and he was both a fanatical idealist and a terrible judge of character.

Maybe deep down he knew that he was incapable of leading a nation.

[Liam's Ghost]

We'll get there.

If you're expecting a bunch of guys on the internet to reach consensus, you'll be here for a very long time.

Personal thoughts: Troop strengths and the houses tendencies and desires to fight each other tells me that the Hegemony had a very good chance of holding together, if Kerensky had stayed. The notion that the houses would band together and destroy them is flawed on its face by the idea of the houses doing anything together willingly. And even facing a fight from every direction, there were a lot of SLDF troops, and the houses had to watch all their borders simultaneously.

Conclusion: Kerensky put the good of his army over the good of billions of people his army was sworn to protect (And yes, they were, every citizen of the Hegemony was also a citizen of the Star League), without even an attempt to protect them. Guy was a traitor and a dick.

[mitchberthelson]

Maybe deep down he knew that he was incapable of leading a nation.

That makes the Exodus mess even more tragic because that was all about him trying and failing to lead a nation.

[Scotty]

Personal thoughts: Troop strengths and the houses tendencies and desires to fight each other tells me that the Hegemony had a very good chance of holding together, if Kerensky had stayed. The notion that the houses would band together and destroy them is flawed on its face by the idea of the houses doing anything together willingly. And even facing a fight from every direction, there were a lot of SLDF troops, and the houses had to watch all their borders simultaneously.

If, and only if, the defections stopped and House Troops remained with the SLDF, which they had no real reason to do after the Star League was formally dissolved.  Even on the Exodus, house troops quickly reverted back to killing each other instead of furthering the goals of the Star League, to the tune of millions dead starting with a much, much, much smaller population.

Expecting it to hold together was impossible.  Empires Aflame is a fun "what if" that is not canon and cannot be assumed to be a canon-except-for-X scenario.  It's an April Fool's joke product, not the proof that the SLDF could have held together.

[ColBosch]

I am firmly behind the hypothesis that Kerensky acted selfishly at the end. If he couldn't save the Star League, he at least could've acted to protect the Terran Hegemony and Rim Worlds Republic. History is often kind to those who assume tyrannical powers to preserve their nations, as with Caesar, Lincoln, and McKenna. His forces - even those technically on loan from the other Great Houses - were loyal enough to follow him into the Deep Periphery, so I don't doubt that he would've had their support to preserve the Hegemony, perhaps by declaring a "Star League-in-abstentia." Davion, Steiner, and Liao wouldn't have pushed him, Marik really wasn't that strong at the time, and Kurita wasn't so stupid as to invade against overwhelming odds.

But Kerensky was tired of fighting, and he would have had to fight. That he would've won is irrelevant to him. Look at his overreactions to the Prinz Eugen mutiny and the outbreak of civil unrest in the Pentagon cluster, or even how he condoned crippling the THAF bureaucracy after the Amaris Civil War. Those were not the actions of the once-great general and student of history, but instead those of a tired, frustrated old man. I have nothing against a combat-weary veteran wishing for nothing more than to retire, but when the lives of trillions are at stake, one should show more intestinal fortitude. He didn't even appoint someone to represent the Terran Hegemony at the final Star League conferences!

No, when history demanded more from him than an ability to lead troops in battle, he folded and ran away.

[JadedFalcon]

If, and only if, the defections stopped and House Troops remained with the SLDF, which they had no real reason to do after the Star League was formally dissolved.  Even on the Exodus, house troops quickly reverted back to killing each other instead of furthering the goals of the Star League, to the tune of millions dead starting with a much, much, much smaller population.

The Pentagon Worlds didn't have an external threat to unite them. Many citizens from the great houses joined the SLDF during the Amaris war because of their belief in the Star League, and had the SLDF stayed and continued to fight for what they believed in, they would've had a reason to focus, a struggle to overcome. Instead of sitting around with nothing to do, spoiling for a fight while the senior military leaders argued and played power games.

The Terran Hegemony had a chance of existing, even if it meant losing planets to invading house forces. Millions, if not billions died because of Kerensky's decision take DeChavilier's frustrated comment to heart, and skip town. He was the wrong person to have that much power with no one to tell him what to do with it. And his ego prevented him from handing control over to a more capable leader who could have made compromises to protect their citizens.

[Maelwys]

If, and only if, the defections stopped and House Troops remained with the SLDF, which they had no real reason to do after the Star League was formally dissolved.  Even on the Exodus, house troops quickly reverted back to killing each other instead of furthering the goals of the Star League, to the tune of millions dead starting with a much, much, much smaller population.

They weren't House troops. They were citizens of one of the Great Houses who decided to join the SLDF. It wasn't like it they were Davion regiments seconded into the Star League, like it was in the Reunification War, unless I'm missing something. The exodus had the problem of "Well, now that we're not really the Star League anymore, how do I identify myself." And the answer was unfortunately, "Well, those people over there speak the same language I did when I was home, so lets get together with them."

[Nerroth]

At the risk of splitting hairs, I might note that Empires Aflame was a Halloween product, rather than an April Fool's Day release.

Which still means that everything that takes place in EA after the misjump is non-canon - but I was under the impression that Halloween products were intended to be at least marginally more feasible than AFD ones.

And while it represents but one of any number of alternative scenarios to that which played out in the "Prime" timeline, it happens to be one which works for me. Not that I would expect it to do so for anyone else, of course.

[marauder648]

A little what if, instead of doing the original campaign, Kerensky and the SLDF just bulldozed its way directly to Terra instead of slowly constricting on the world.  The SDS did most of the damage to the SLDF and gutted its navy. by ignoring most of the worlds and trying to cut the head off the snake so to speak in a shorter war, could that not have helped out? A less damaged SLDF would be a more fearsome prospect and if Kerensky had not gone "Sod it!" and still done EXODUS, could he or someone else have held it together?

[Decoy]

How do you get a less damaged SLDF?  There was a LOT of prepwork involved in taking down Terra's automated defenses.  Furthermore, Amaris could possibly escape and then you'd STILL have to fight a harder, more grueling Rim Worlds campaign. May as well say that "What if Kerensky used a spec ops team to kill Amaris while he was on the john." Lots of whatifs. We can only discuss what is written as canon.

As far things go, I feel kind of vindicated by the release of Touring the Stars: Brownsville. The Brownsvillians sided with Amaris and later joined the Confederation on their own terms. Brownsville surely wasn't the only planet to make those kind of deals.

[Vition2]

We can only discuss what is written as canon.

False, this thread in particular is filled with speculation and what ifs.  Marauder's reorientation of the topic could have been done in another thread, though this one has been fallow for a day or two.

[Warclaw]

Honestly, if it wasn't for his military acumen, he should be hardly remembered.  And to think that Victor Steiner-Davion gets a hard time from fans.

What military acumen?  Throwing overwhelming force at an objective regardless of casualties/cost is hardly the mark of a military genius.

Yes, the League military won the Wars of Oppression in the periphery...at great cost, and taking FAR more time and casualties than even the most pessimistic projections....though it is easier to amass a winning record when you start with a military force orders of magnitude larger than your opponents.

The best real-world comparison I can come up with is Marshal Zhukov from the WWII Soviet army.  Effective, yes, but wasteful of his troops and uncaring of the costs of his chosen tactics.  (Basically a meat-grinder, attrition based strategy.)  "So what if I pay  dozen troops to each one of my enemy's?  I have them to spend, he does not."

[Foxx Ital]

I think the Great Father was correct in his decision for leaving those tainted freebirths to wallow in their own filth.

 I like that we have more information on him and hes not some mythical being who can and did no wrong. I like this version of kerensky!

[Mohammed As`Zaman Bey]

  Simply put, Kerensky did not have the legal authority to run off with any of the SLDF forces. He decided to incite a mass desertion and engaged in a conspiracy to steal property that belonged to the Houses, who were the actual authority of the Star League and its assets. Some people claim "There was no Star League" and while that may be, when a store closes its doors the employees do not have leave to loot the shelves. The assets belong to its shareholders and executors, in this case, the House Lords, who removed Kerensky from his post. Intentions, good or ill, have no bearing in this case -Kerensky, having failed to raise Richard Cameron, failed to administer the Star League, failed to defend the Terran Hegemony, and finally failed to oversee the Terran Hegemony's reconstruction, finally chose to flee the IS to set himself up as a bandit king, dragging his followers with him.

[Alexander Knight]

Well technically, the SLDF should have fallen under the authority of the Ministry of Communications, being the last element of the Star League government still functional.