Instead of the Exodus
Exploring a "What If...?" from BattleTech's storyline.
This week’s a little break from the deep dives to answer a question BattleTech fans often ask: what if General Kerensky hadn’t left the Inner Sphere? The standard answer is that the Succession Wars would still have happened, just worse because the weapons of the SLDF would have been thrown into the mix. I think it’s more complicated than that, but we need to survey the background before looking at how things might have played out.
The End of the Star League
The Star League’s High Council had been bystanders during the Civil War. While they were nominally the highest civilian authority in the realm, Aleksandr Kerensky had been Protector of the Star League (a title that seems to have designated him as regent) during the minority of the last First Lord, Richard Cameron. Using that authority, he waged his war against Stefan Amaris without direction or even consultation with the Council Lords. In essence, he continued the policy of the Richard Cameron and ruled as a dictator – though in fairness to Kerensky, his dictatorship was responding to a crisis of the realm rather than creating one. When the High Council reassembled in 2780, it was the body’s first meeting in eighteen years. Kenyon Marik and Jennifer Steiner had never sat in the council before. Barbara Liao’s two years representing the Capellan Confederation before the council was dismissed had been dominated by the so-called “Border War” against John Davion’s Federated Suns.
Unsurprisingly, the High Council struggled to cooperate. They agreed that Aleksandr Kerensky had no further claim to be Protector of the Star League and appointed Jerome Blake to head the League’s Ministry of Communications. Otherwise, they failed to find any other common ground, especially on the question of a new First Lord. Some think that the Council Lords were bent on war from this point on. But it’s worth noting that they spent ten months considering the question of a new leader of the Star League and it would be another five years before Minoru Kurita ended the impasse by unilaterally declaring himself First Lord. (Admittedly, they spent much of this time readying their realms for conflict.) If we condemn the Council Lords for disunity, we should be in mind that it’s not clear what, if anything, Kerensky was doing to bring them together during this time. In absence of specific events, I put a lot on the description of him as “aloof” in the time between his dismissal as Protector and his decision to lead his veterans into exile. It’s also not clear what he was doing instead - there are also references to SLDF engineers helping with reconstruction in the Terran Hegemony, though the General isn’t directly linked to this activity.
That’s a shame, because the Hegemony could have used his help. The realm, once the strongest in the Inner Sphere and the heart of the Star League, had been materially and politically devastated by the Civil War. The Hegemony worlds had lost factories, vital infrastructure, and a generation of higher education. On top of that, traditional elites had mostly been murdered on the orders of Amaris, or collaborated with him enough to lose their legitimacy. When the Succession Wars began, there were a few tragic holdouts like New Dallas but most of the worlds were too weak and leaderless to maintain their independence. Only in the old Solar System from which humanity had sprung did a real remnant of the Hegemony survive, under the aegis of Jerome Blake’s ComStar. Saving Earth from the pillaging of the Succession Wars transformed Blake from a minor hero of the Civil War into a secular saint – and after his death, he would become a figure of genuinely religious veneration.
McKenna 2: the Kerensky Hustle
Long before its pillaging by Amaris, the Terran Hegemony was created by a military dictator, James McKenna, in the early 24th century. At the end of the 28th century, Aleksandr Kerensky was positioned to recreate it – he was personally popular, he enjoyed the loyalty of the SLDF veterans, and there was no other credible candidate for ruler of the Hegemony. If Kerensky had declared himself the new Director-General of the realm, few would have argued with him. Most of the Hegemony’s people would have cheered. So, if we’re going to imagine an alternate BattleTech timeline in which Kerensky doesn’t leave the Inner Sphere behind, it’s probably one in which he becomes the ruler of the Terran Hegemony. How might that play out?
The first hurdles are the High Council and the SLDF. Kerensky needs his veterans to stare down the Council Lords, but he can’t keep them in arms indefinitely. While there are many SLDF personnel who are natives of the Hegemony, the people from other member states would be hearing the call of home – with the notable exception of those raised from the Rim Worlds Republic. Those people don’t really have a home to return to, as the Lyran Commonwealth basically destroyed the Republic and seized dozens of its worlds in an opportunistic war between 2773 and 2775. However, if Kerensky’s managing the demobilization, he can disarm most of the veterans leaving the Hegemony and stockpile their equipment. For those staying, some return to civilian life and add much-needed skilled workers to the Terran economy, while the balance reform as the new “Hegemony Armed Forces” (HAF from now on). While Kerensky would undoubtedly be the supreme military commander, he’d probably delegate the formal title of HAF commanding officer to his good friend Aaron DeChavilier. Some other familiar faces from the early days of the Clans, such as Elizabeth Hazen, no doubt slot into the senior leadership of the HAF.
However, the situation will be tense. Kenyon Marik personally disliked Kerensky due to a perceived slight from before the Civil War. Jennifer Steiner didn’t lead the war on the Rim Worlds Republic, but she will be pressing Kerensky to formally recognize her realm’s gains in that conflict – recognition he can’t give without alienating an important part of his military. And, worst of all, Aleksandr Kerensky doesn’t have a legitimate heir. Maybe you agree with me that the “secret family” is pretty far-fetched and maybe you don’t. For now, let’s run with the idea that Katyusha, Nicholas, and Andery were waiting for General Kerensky back on Earth the whole time. When and if Aleksandr reveals his family to the public, the Council Lords – led by Kenyon Marik – are going to seriously question the boys’ legitimacy and I don’t think the Kerenskys have good answers. The people of the Hegemony might, in the most part, decide that even General Kerensky’s bastard son is better than the alternatives, but the foreign problem will only grow as Aleksandr approaches the age of 100.
More positively, Kerensky can count on the moral and political support of Jerome Blake. Blake felt that Kerensky should have stayed in the Inner Sphere and would have put his considerable talents at the disposal of the Director-General. While this would have compromised the neutrality of the old Star League communication network, Blake’s prestige would have helped solidify the situation not only within the Hegemony but with the Council as well.
On the balance, I think an uneasy peace holds through the last years of the 28th century. Even after some degree of demobilization, Kerensky will still have the guns to keep the Council Lords from rushing the Hegemony, and to some extent his superior firepower stops them from moving against each other, too. So the Council Lords continue to arm themselves. The Hegemony rebuilds. The Star League has practically ceased to function but nobody feels strong enough to shatter the peace and claim the title of First Lord. They carry on meeting every few years to argue over who should succeed the Camerons and very occasionally resolving some minor issue. The peace holds long enough that people start hoping that it will somehow become permanent, but 2802 has other ideas. On the 3rd of May, John Davion, First Prince of the Federated Suns, suffers a stroke. He’s left unable to walk and struggles to speak. Day-to-day control of his realm passes to John’s son, Joshua – John will live to see the New Year before succumbing to another stroke on the 4th of January 2803. But 2802, the Black Year of the Council, still has a lot more work to do. The Coordinate of the Draconis Combine, Minoru Kurita, dies of a massive heart attack on the night of the 18th of July. His son and heir Jinjiro declares that he will mourn for a full year before taking the throne – though the Combine’s efficient public service makes this less disruptive than one might fear. Aleksandr Kerensky ignores his doctors’ advice and plans to travel to the Combine’s capital world, Luthien, to pay his respects to Minoru and attempt to strengthen ties with the incoming Coordinator. Unfortunately, the doctors are right, as they so often are, and the Director-General is struck by his own heart attack after his jumpship arrives in the Dieron system. He is pronounced dead on the 4th of August.
The Terran Succession Crisis
As news of Aleksandr Kerensky’s death filters out to the Inner Sphere, many ordinary people react with simple shock. He was an extremely old man, but he had been a prominent figure in political life for generations. Many simply didn’t know a time before Kerensky. But there are some who do not have the luxury of a mere emotional reaction. In the Terran Hegemony, a loyal military and the bureaucracy that Blake has built up support an orderly succession to Nicholas Kerensky.
Kenyon Marik has other plans. He immediately declares that Nicholas has no legitimate claim to the throne of the Hegemony, calling for elections and proposing to dispatch “inspection teams” from his Free Worlds League. The Archon of the Lyran Commonwealth, Jennifer Steiner, is even more hostile, insisting that her distant cousin Amadeus Steiner has a far better claim to the Hegemony than Nicholas and threatening to press that claim by force. (Amadeus, a basically harmless man drawn into a crisis beyond his comprehension by accident of descent, comes out with a rambling statement in which he assures the people of the Hegemony that he will honor their traditions and change his last name to Cameron.)
On the other side of the High Council, Barbara Liao of the Capellan Confederation urges a diplomatic solution. She doesn’t entirely dismiss the proposals from Marik and Steiner, but the years of uneasy peace have grown comfortable for Liao and she would rather see them carry on. Joshua Davion cautiously supports Liao, a hopeful moment given the bloody history between their families. Jinjiro Kurita gives no statement on the Terran Succession at all – his representatives insist that the Coordinator remains in mourning for his beloved father and request patience.
Patience is in short supply. Steiner begins concentrating forces in the Skye region, close to the Terran Hegemony. Marik also makes military moves – and surprisingly, so does Davion. A report from the Armed Forces of the Federation Suns military intelligence persuades Joshua Davion that Jinjiro Kurita’s talk about mourning is a ruse intended to cover up some form of military operation. Against the objections of his civilian intelligence advisors, Davion orders his Draconis March to a high level of military readiness and moves reinforcements to the theater from elsewhere in his vast realm.
Nicholas Kerensky isn’t patient either. He straightforwardly rejects challenges to his succession as interference in the internal affairs of the Terran Hegemony and immediately prepares a military response. Elizabeth Hazen is given control over the Hegemony’s crack Guards Division and its supporting warships with a brief to stop or slow any moves from the Free Worlds League. DeChavilier is entrusted with directing home guard and recruitment efforts, while Nicholas puts himself in command of the Hegemony’s remaining Battlemech forces, together with a massive warship fleet. The young Kerensky’s objective is a preemptive strike on the Lyran Commonwealth.
For all his energy and drive, Nicholas is playing catch-up. The Lyrans land the first blow, “liberating” Milton on September 14th. The propaganda people manage to find a small crowd prepared to cheer on camera, but the Lyran fleet has nothing to shout about when Nicholas’ armada arrives in system eight days later. A short delaying action by aerospace fighters covers the retreat of outmatched Lyran warships and the occupation force is compelled to surrender. There are stories of Nicholas demanding that the defeated troops swear personal loyalty to him on pain of death, but these are largely dismissed as Lyran propaganda. What isn’t dismissed is the counter-invasion that Nicholas unleashes on the Commonwealth. The younger Kerensky brings back the methods of the Civil War, employing orbital bombardment and other weapons of mass destruction to shatter ground defenses before his highly-efficient ‘mech forces sweep in to finish off the survivors. On the 17th of November, Nicholas shocks the Inner Sphere with a fifteen hour orbital bombardment of the giant mechworks on Hesperus II, completely destroying the massive industrial center and putting so much dust and ash into the atmosphere that the planet slips into a little ice age. News of this atrocity takes time to filter out, but as 2802 closes, opinion is turning on the young Director-General.
By strange coincidence, another major event happens on the 17th of November 2802. The Davion Light Guards begin landing on the Draconis Combine world of Marlowe’s Rift. The Guards find the Third Dieron Regulars ill-prepared and punish the Combine warriors in a three-week reconnaissance in force. While news of his warriors’ success heartens Joshua Davion, his military intelligence specialists have egg on their faces. The giant military build-up they’d “discovered” was nowhere to be found. (This disaster will lead the Davions to unifying their intelligence agencies - the combined bureau might not be called the Ministry of Information, Intelligence, and Operations, but it will draw on the same human resources and no doubt become highly effective.)
On the Hegemony-Free Worlds border, Elizabeth Hazen is operating on a budget. Her campaign is nothing like Nicholas Kerensky’s sledgehammer invasion. Instead it’s a vast guerrilla, lighting up the Marik worlds with pinprick raids. (This cleaner, scrappier war is popular in the Hegemony. One of the enduring images of the conflict is a propaganda poster of Hazen, sword in hand, fighting a giant Marik eagle.) Free Worlds League military stockpiles are destroyed and sometimes even appropriated, totally disrupting Kenyon Marik’s plans to deploy “peacekeepers” to the Hegemony. But Marik is only defeated on one front: the HAF’s incursion gives him the excuse to go before the League Parliament and demand emergency powers to resolve the crisis. The debate is fierce and the vote less than overwhelming, but the measure passes and Kenyon Marik goes into 2803 politically strengthened and ready to marshal the full strength of his fractious nation.
Jinjiro Kurita makes his first public appearance in months on the 8th of December 2802. Dressed in black – a color he will maintain for the rest of his life – he reads a short prepared statement from a sheet of paper held in his own hand. Although his tone is disinterested, the Coordinator’s message is chilling. He declares that House Davion has breached the peace and insulted his family’s honor so greatly that they have forfeited their right to exist. Jinjiro stares at the page for a long moment, then looks up at the vid camera to show the Inner Sphere the light of hatred in his eyes.
The Coordinator’s declaration rallies his people for a total war, but they will have to fight hard to take the initiative back from the Federated Suns. Joshua Davion reluctantly authorizes a full offensive into the Draconis Combine, accepting assessment of his civilian intelligence advisors that Jinjiro will only accept peace if he’s beaten on the battlefield. Hoping to make that peace a lasting one, Davion instructs his generals to strictly abide by the rules of war laid out in the Ares Conventions.
The Lyran Commonwealth ends the year down, but not out. They’ve lost several ‘mech regiments, the Hegemony is occupying a half-dozen Lyran worlds and has bombarded others, but the Lyran Navy has preserved its strength. Jennifer Steiner and her advisors privately acknowledge that they greatly underestimated Nicholas Kerensky’s ruthless determination to fight. The Lyrans resolve to be just as determined. Steiner’s navy concentrates in theater and arms itself with nuclear anti-warship missiles.
And then there’s Barbara Liao. The Chancellor of the Capellan Confederation is 71. She has ruled her interstellar empire for just over four decades – most of the last two spent, as the ancient statesmen of Earth liked to say, “hoping for peace and preparing for war”. As 2803 begins, she is almost out of hope, but Liao makes one last attempt to limit the carnage. Condemning Nicholas Kerensky as “the Wolf” (a nickname that quickly catches on) for his indiscriminate use of weapons of mass destruction, she urges the other Council Lords to unite and throw him down. Liao endorses Kenyon Marik’s proposal for elections in the Hegemony to appoint a new Director-General, calculating that the leader of the Free Worlds League is the pivot point for her planned alliance.
When word arrives that the Captain-General responded by calling for similar elections to be held on the Andurien worlds that Liao and Marik have long contested, Barbara Liao resigns herself to spending the rest of her life at war.
The Bigger Picture
Going through another two centuries of Inner Sphere warfare is more than anyone could handle in one sitting, so let’s zoom out and sketch the course of the future. Of course, there are no Clans and that means the upheaval of 3050 will never occur, but that’s a long way in the future. Kerensky remaining on Earth didn’t stop the outbreak of new wars – not in the long run, anyway – but it did make for some other significant changes.
Other conflicts will blur into the War of the Terran Succession and the Davion-Kurita War of Honor and new conflicts will start. A bloodletting on the scale of the First Succession War is pretty likely, even if it doesn’t go by that name.
Nicholas will fight hard enough to see the Terran Hegemony survive, which means that later conflicts are a contest of six rather than five. Although the Hegemony initially has advantages of population and learning, being pressed on all sides slowly wears them down and each new round of war sees the other five realms in a slightly stronger position. Sometime in the 31st century, one of the other states will make a concerted effort to seize Earth and revive the defunct Star League.
Jinjiro Kurita never becomes an outright villain in this timeline. He employs ruthless means to beat back the Federated Suns and even launches his own bloody, punitive expedition into their territory, but the moral high ground of defending his family’s honor shields him from history’s judgment.
ComStar never forms, though the people of the Hegemony sometimes swear by the Blessed Blake. The Star League’s communications network will be carved up into six smaller networks, occasionally linking up in good times, closed off in bad times. This makes it difficult for new ideas to spread, making the Successor States more inward-looking, but it also makes far-reaching intelligence operations almost impossible. There probably won’t be a Federated Commonwealth, and there probably won’t be a plot to replace a First Prince of the Federated Suns either.
ComStar’s absence from the story has a serious silver lining. The Order was far from innocent in the Inner Sphere’s technological decline, believing that humanity needed to be thoroughly ruined before it could be rescued. To that end, they launched Operation HOLY SHROUD – a series of assassinations and sabotage directed at the scientific community. ComStar also covertly pushed the Inner Sphere into more wars and destruction than they might have otherwise. While our alternate timeline will see plenty of factories and shipyards destroyed, averting the war on science will prevent needless suffering and save countless lives over the centuries.
In case you were wondering, Amadeus Cameron never becomes Director-General of the Terran Hegemony, though he does leave a mark on the Inner Sphere. Increasingly distraught by the horrors of a war that he (wrongly) believes himself responsible for, Amadeus devotes himself to civilian relief efforts. The centerpiece of his efforts is the war orphanage network StarChild, which opens its doors on the Lyran Commonwealth world of Skye in 2818 and - for tragic reasons - rapidly expands across the realm. With the help of Nicholas Kerensky’s brother, Andery, Amadeus also secures permission for StarChild to open war orphanages in the Terran Hegemony. Over time the charity grows in the breadth and depth of its operations, becoming one of the few ties that bind a fractured Inner Sphere.
Last, and by no means least, everybody’s going to be mightily confused when the Minnesota Tribe shows up in 2825 – but that’s a whole other story...