So your of the opinion that Kerensky's path to hell was paved with the best intentions?
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I think there's no doubting the elder Kerensky's sincerity. Considering the destructive potential of his forces taking it out of the Succession Wars was a sensible move.
His son is a whole different issue. The big question there is did he genuinely believe in his odd Utopian project or was it all just an exercise in megalomania?
Both can be true, there is no conflict there.
Could have also been a simple move out of desperation. If the troops would have remained, there would have been a heckload of Military and Soldiers without a real allegiance. Yes, A lot might have sticked with there house loyalties, but a lot of them might have not. Thats the material mercenarys and banditlords are made of, and that on SLDF scale.
Considering 80% of the SLDF followed Kerensky into the wilderness with no clue as to their destination and without letting the word out, I think we can assume they would have followed him if he chose to stay on as some sort of Lord Regent of the Terran Hegemony
At least the original write up had Kerensky seeing the Exodus as a temporary measure. He wasn't looking to create a separate society. He wanted to remove the largest military force in the hope that it would mitigate to some extent the damage done, and then be able to bring them back to help restore peace. But his timeline was measured in decades, not centuries.
Thanks a lot SkyShadowing!! I still haven't read the last part, but the first 4 have been very illustrative (for the Houses origins, their behaviour and policies...), that may help creating the character in the game, if I manage to remember the names. Thanks a lot!
As a complete newcomer to Battletech, I strongly agree with that. For dummy I understand someone like me, who never read any book or played any BT game... You lost me with the parallel universes and the descendants of Kerensky... I assume it has some relation with the Clan wars (although I know nothing about that, just read some mentions and questions in some streams and threads), therefore no need to tell me if I'm right or (most probably) wrong, too much information already.
Thanks a lot SkyShadowing!! I still haven't read the last part, but the first 4 have been very illustrative (for the Houses origins, their behaviour and policies...), that may help creating the character in the game, if I manage to remember the names. Thanks a lot!
As a complete newcomer to Battletech, I strongly agree with that. For dummy I understand someone like me, who never read any book or played any BT game... You lost me with the parallel universes and the descendants of Kerensky... I assume it has some relation with the Clan wars (although I know nothing about that, just read some mentions and questions in some streams and threads), therefore no need to tell me if I'm right or (most probably) wrong, too much information already.
Yeah the Clans are the "Children of Kerensky." They show up about 20 years from game start.
Short (hopefully "for dummies" level) explanation:
Kerensky led his troops waaaaay "North" on the map. Along the way he had to put down a mutiny but eventually he got to a place with five close systems that had habitable planets. They called these the Pentagon worlds, and decided they were far enough that they could settle down.
Since his colonists were almost entirely military, he had to demobilize most of them into civilian jobs. He stored a lot of his military surplus in Brian Caches, like the Castles Brian in the Inner Sphere. Things were rough for the first few years, but eventually people settled into a prosperous society that Kerensky called "The Star League in Exile."
That really should have been a red flag.
Like the original Star League, they had high tech and a good standard of living, and explored around the region to find more planets. But Kerensky's troops had come from all parts of the original Star League, and sure enough they started fighting amongst themselves.
Not even 20 years after arriving a mini-succession war broke out between Capellan and Federated Suns colonists. Even old Alek Kerensky couldn't stop it. So he set out the word for everyone still loyal to him to rally toward him to try and deal with the situation.
But then he had a heart attack and died.
His son and Heir Apparent was Nicholas Kerensky. He's the one who truly started the Clans proper. Whatever his father's plans might have been, he decided to take a page out of Daddy's playbook and lead a Second Exodus away from the Pentagon Worlds. He took his hardcore loyalists to a distant, harsh planet called Strana Mechty, in the Kerensky Cluster.
Nicholas basically decided the only way to break the cycle of rationalism was to tear society down to the foundations and start from scratch. He split his followers into 20 Clans, all but one named after dangerous wildlife that served as symbols of something. The other was the Blood Spirits, but tbh they aren't important.
The best way to describe the Clans is that Nicholas took the Mongol empire, Sparta, Nazism, and some others, and put them in a blender. Along with maybe some hallucinogens and crack cocaine. The result was a super-militarized caste system where basically everything is decided by trials by combat. The Spartans would probably tell the Clans to chill a bit. But it actually worked out for them. Nicholas Kerensky built the Clans into enough of a force that he conquered the Pentagon Worlds.
There was an incident where one of the Clans, Wolverine, rebelled against Nicholas and his whole social project. There was a lot of scheming and shenanigans, but the result was the Wolverines were hit with a Trial of Annihilation. Every single member was to be killed, any children with Wolverine genes. Also their name was erased from history, and they are only referred to as the Not-Named-Clan.
Some survivors escaped to become a group dubbed the Minnesota Tribe, who raided some Draconis planets then vanished, never seen by either Clanners or Spheroids again.
After that there's what the Clans call the Golden century. They made big tech advances, which are why their mechs are by and large better. They refined their system of combat trials into a super ritualized concept of Zellbringen, which all but eliminated collateral damage. They also adopted a "bidding" system that encouraged commanders to use the absolute minimum possible amount of troops. As a result while the Clans were pretty much always fighting they actually weren't doing much damage to each other, and they maintained a Great Council as their overarching government.
They also got WAY into eugenics. They invented the "Iron Womb" to brew up custom babies. Clanners don't have families, they have Sibkos (sibling company) raised in a fashion that would have Leonidas of Sparta call child services. Kids who survive and pass their trials get into the warrior caste. If they are really skilled/lucky, they can win a Bloodname. These are limited in number and are matrelinially traced back to someone who followed and fought for Nicholas Kerensky. Bloodnamed warriors get their genes used for the next generation.
Selected breeding and genetic engineering created distinct 'breeds of Clanners for their specific roles. Hulking ridiculously muscular Elementals for powered armor infantry. Tiny Aerotech pilots with ridiculously fast reflexes. Basically every Clanner has a role from birth, and is theoretically bred for it. They call this being Trueborn.
Of course some babies are made the old fashioned way. These are called Freeborn, and it's considered a huge disgrace and a massive insult, at least among the Warrior Caste. Most of all the other Castes are Freeborns. Some clans are more accepting of Freeborns than others, and skilled Freeborns warriors can earn Bloodnames and even become Khans, but it's like being a bastard in Game of Thrones.
There's tons of other stuff, and it's interesting and all if you dice deep into it, but we'll push on ahead from the Golden Century to what the Clans call the Political Century. Two parties started to form, represented at different degrees in different Clans. The issue was what their role was in regards to the Inner Sphere.
Wardens believed that they should remain desperate from the Inner Sphere, perhaps protecting them from any outside threat. Crusaders believed that the Clans were destined to conquer the Inner Sphere and restore the Star League. This question kept coming up in the Grand Council. It was generally accepted that an invasion would need to go through that body, since it was an issue that would involve all the Clans.
Clan Wolf became the leading Warden Clan, with Jade Falcon and Smoke Jaguar being leading crusaders. The Wardens managed to shoot down the invasion vote the first few times. The Crusaders had a back up argument though, "What if the Barbarians in the Inner sphere find us first? Better to be the invasers then the targets!"
When there Wolves looked like they were going to loose, they came up with a clever ploy. Essentially they said, "We don't know what's been going on back there. We can't invade blind anyway, let's send some Freebirths in posing as Mercenaries with some old outdated equipment and then see."
This was known as the Dragoon Compromise. No points for guessing that it was the Wolf Dragoons that got sent. What the Clans thought was a smallish force with outdated equipment turned out to be way better than was average in the Inner Sphere.
The Wolf Dragoons sent back reports. But they quickly came to like being elite respected Mercs better than being second-class citizens. So they downplayed how big and dangerous the successor states were and played up how much Lostech had happened, generally reassuring the folks at home that there was no cause for alarm.
This worked fine... until a Comstar exploring Jump ship happened to blunder into Smoke Jaguar territory. "Ha! See, the Barbarians are at the gate!" The Smoke Jaguars said. This time the Crusaders won handily.
So the Clans went on the March, even the Warden ones, equipped with their better-than-lostech weapons and geneticly engineered warrior caste.
I'll stop it there, since that covers most of the bases.
One correction that I'll make is that the Dragoons didn't betray the Wolves. On one of their resupply trips their Wolf Khan covertly changed their orders to start preparing the Inner Sphere for the invasion that was coming. When the Clans arrived and recalled the Dragoons only one person answered the call- Natasha Kerensky.
When the Crusaders accused the Dragoons of betraying the Clans they revealed their altered orders and were found innocent since if there's one thing the Clans hate it's betraying orders.
When the Crusaders accused the Dragoons of betraying the Clans they revealed their altered orders and were found innocent since if there's one thing the Clans hate it's betraying orders.
I thought the Dragoons decided that on their own. But I was working off memory.
Nope, it's talked about in the Blood of Kerensky trilogy when Natasha Kerensky is on trial of some sort.
Because the Dragoons can do no wrong. They are the most awesomest of awesome, and are all descendants of Chuck Norris. Doesn't matter that they worked against the Inner Sphere by spying for the Clans or worked against the Clans by training and equiping the Inner Sphere (but only after the invasion had started and dozens of worlds had fallen). No one can hold them against it, because they are just the bestest. All men want to be them, all women want to be with them.
Yeah, TBH it always bugged me that nobody held it against the Dragoons that they didn't warn them about the Clans until after the invasion was well underway.
Clan Wolf is infected with a bit of Mary Sue-ness, but I don't hold it much against them given that that's mostly because of Ulric and Ulric is never portrayed as anything other than a master politician who knows how to manipulate any situation to his advantage. The Clans are, after all, stupid and Ulric is not.
Phelan is a bit worse even if most of his rise to glory is because of the machinations of Natasha and Ulric, and once they're both gone he doesn't really do much that I know of. I admittedly didn't read the novels post Twilight of the Clans.
Vlad also gets hit with the Suestick after the Refusal War. In a much bigger way.
Obviously, though, certain characters on the Inner Sphere side (coughvictorcoughkai) are far, far, FAR worse about the Mary Sueness.
Phelan is a bit worse even if most of his rise to glory is because of the machinations of Natasha and Ulric, and once they're both gone he doesn't really do much that I know of. I admittedly didn't read the novels post Twilight of the Clans.
Vlad also gets hit with the Suestick after the Refusal War. In a much bigger way.
Obviously, though, certain characters on the Inner Sphere side (coughvictorcoughkai) are far, far, FAR worse about the Mary Sueness.