Imagine an alternate history, one where your Clan, (pick one) picks up the Ball of Revival, and enters along the flank of the Falcon zone. and imagine your first inner sphere target is a world with a history of resistance and uprisings. Imagine the forces you would need to bring. The cluster or galaxy you would assign from the pre-reaving Clan of your choice.
Now, imagine that first target, that very first world to be reclaimed...is broadcasting a quarantine alert. Imagine the first local ship your force comes across, let's say something visibly pathetic, under-armed or under-gunned or out-technolgied by the worst of your naval reserve's mothball ships...but it approaches, and halts, holding position at your arrival, with teh following message:
"...attention Star League vessel, this system is under level zero biohazard quarantine. your safety can not be guaranteed if you proceed further. please charge your drives and leave as soon as you can...and god be with you."
You're not going to take THAT seriously, right? level zero? a world-ending plague?? surely it's a ploy of some kind!
So you send a boarding party after they fail to react to a warning shot.
and the party finds a ship full of dead men-men who died at their stations, horribly, in obviously agonizing pain.
Well, it can still be a trick, right??
so you proceed forward anyway.
There are no more fighters or other ships rising to meet you. There ARE wrecked jumpships in the system's orbitals, and plenty of signs of violence. you make orbit.
there are only recorded warnings. The cities are mostly standing, but some are burned. Telescopes show roads choked with abandoned vehicles, and aside from what must be automatic systems, the lights on the night side of the planet? are out. the radio is silent.
what do you do now??