Damn it, Marthe, you're supposed to be smarter than that...
She's smart enough to recognize a game-changing situation, the loss of a fleet, and the Wolverines being 'out and alive' in front of the Inner Sphere.
at this point, the Clans collectively would run out of ammunition before they can kill all the witnesses (and that's assuming everyone stands in nice, neat lines to be murdered, and doesn't fight back).
and that's also assuming she could somehow get all of the collective might of the Grand Council, plus every Brian Cache, plus all the warrior failures in the lower castes, together to operate the guns.
from ALL the clans.
And, so far, they don't know where the Not-Named are actually mustering, only that they showed up and caught the Spheroids by surprise. (Suggesting, broadly, that the Lyrans, at least, didn't know they were out there.)
By being all 'alive in public and not annihilated' the Wolverines have created a significant dilemma for the Clans of Kerensky as a collective whole. Doing so in front of the inner sphere, and having that fact broadcast to every successor state's government...
There's no convenient 'damage control' possible and if she turned out to know about it and not said anything before the rest find out on their own? well...
That can be BAD.
it's created a 'what to do?' situation; The Grand Council accepted the Annihilation as having been completed. This is clearly not the case. Someone misplaced a
McKenna Class Warship, not to mention whatever else might be missing/not accounted for. The Wolvies can send a small fleet, and have allies, both of which the Clans have zero hard data on how many or where, but they have expeditionary capability and have demonstrated some of the same (or similar) game-changing technologies that Kowloon's put on display hammering first the Steel Viper incursion,a nd then, the Jade Falcons.
That is a serious security threat to the Clan Homeworlds-the Wolverines jumped a
warship into orbit over Kowloon, it even got seen by Clan sensors and is not a bluff-they did,iow something theoretically so impossible Clan science didn't think it was possible at all, this rewrites the naval doctrine, shreds it, rewrites it again.
Further, it's in a place that has demonstrated no hesitation at deploying ship-to-ship nukes, and the ability to do so suddenly and without warning, making a massive risk to any invading force in a system that's hard to navigate into with a large force undetected.
Means finishing the annihilation, even with the combined might of the Clans, is a project for 'after we close the technology gap'.
She's getting in front of the problem, which puts the Jade Falcons in a higher position to host the IlKhan, the situation itself opens issues as well-they
Know their histories are edited, with this many witnesses, the basis of the Annihilation can, and will, be called into question and information control is going to be steadily less likely the more successfully they hold the invasion corridors.
makes pulling back to a warden stance look safer? not quite.
See, the Wolverines are doing diplomacy with powers that outnumber the Clans centillions to one. Because Marthe is
not an idiot she knows she needs to find a way to stall for time if she wants to preserve the Clan society, ease them through the shocks, and, well...not face being annihilated by trillions of people who have, over the last four years, gained a reason to really hate the Clans, and have at least two sources showing where the Clans keep their stuff.
She's also aware that the powers of the Inner Sphere are really, really experienced at making wholesale slaughter-the very thing Nick's rules of warfare were meant to prevent, and they have a history of doing so, especially when united, and finally, the last game changer, is that the Star League has been reformed. a mutant, evil, dark star league from her perspective, but it means infighting and mutual suspicion aren't going to be working to the advantage of the Clans when, not if, this new Star League, with thousands more factories and a vastly superior population base to send, come knocking with attack ships that can be on top of your bases or capitals before the detection grids even hint they're on the way.
she's buying time, and looking for some way to come out on top. Roshak's plan gives her a leg up on doing that.
