General Pete, on 18 May 2014 - 09:03 AM, said:
Thanks, ErikModi! I pretty much agree with your post, my only comments are my opinions on motives and practical use of definitions.
As for motives, you're right Ulric couldn't 'feed the invasion force to the meat grinder', but that's where my comment on reverse psychology comes in- there's nothing saying he had to keep the clans from voluntarily (even spitefully) walking into one. Basically I am saying he played a subtler game than the others around him were able to recognize and got his way through subtle manipulation. For example, let's say you're Ulric- you know the smoke jags and the nova cats hate each other's guts real bad. So... pair them together, make them work together, on your own authority? Why do that? It looks like you're punishing both Clans and trying to stick it to them. What friend, what political capital, do you get doing a thing like that? None, but you make sure they both hate you more and are less likely to do what you want later on, like give you complete command at a thing like Tukkayid, or even pull out and retreat when you suggest it. That could goad them into staying to fight- and that's just what the smokes did, wasn't it? Age and treachery will always beat youth and enthusiasm, and Ulric is good proof.
As for practical definitions, this is more a question I have than a statement. Was what happened to the Wolverine clan a trial? Sure it's what the Clans call a trial, but a whole clan wiped out... looks more on a scale of a war to me.
Or Operation Bulldog/Serpent. You can call that a trial of refusal, but... damn, that was an operation as big as the IS has ever seen. How about after that, where the Star Adders are working to wipe out the Blood Spirits. Yes, it's a 'Trial of Absorption', but planet-wide fighting? I read in the Crusader Clan sourcebook that the Blood Spirits ignore zellbrigin completely when defending their homeworld, and they pride themselves on being the most 'clan-like' clan...My question is, when do you call a spade a spade and not a trial?
Well, true enough. Ulric was certainly not interested in the other Clans liking him, since they didn't already and probably wouldn't no matter what he did. I don't think he was outright planning to "reverse psychology" them into the Tukayyid meat grinder from day one, though when the opportunity arose, he certainly took advantage of it. I think that, at the beginning, his assignment of rival Clans to the same invasion corridors was to hamper their efforts and give the Wolves an easier push towards Terra. I don't think Ulric had a plan to stop the invasion, the best he was hoping for was to make his Clan the ilClan and parlay that influence into the re-ascension of Warden philosophy. However, when Tukayyid was in the offing, Ulric realized it was a chance to not only stall the invasion, but to demonstrate to the other Clans what the real price of their invasion would be, on themselves and the Inner Sphere they were supposed to be "bettering." But even Ulric Kerensky wasn't fully prepared for the true horror of all-out war. This is pretty clear in that closing exchange between him and Anastasius Focht, where they are both stunned by how much the battle consumed, not only in equipment and materiel but lives. Ulric knew there was a harsher reality to war than the Clans as a whole were willing to believe, but even he was rocked by visualization of it.
As for larger-scale Trials. . . well, there you indeed have a point. The Annhilation of Clan Wolverine was a long time ago, though, before the Clans really forgot what "war" really means. Trials of Absorption are somewhat different, as the only legitimate targets are still other warriors, and the outcome is determined by who wins a stand-up battle, not who must successfully destroys his opponent's capacity to wage war. After all, if you eliminate everything that lets the Clan you're trying to absorb function, what's left for you to absorb? The point i'm trying to get at here is, even in an all-out Trial, the fighting itself is still contained and ritualized (zellbrigen or no.) If my Clan Prancing Samoyed wants to absorb your Clan Fuzzy Lemur, I don't have to physically take every single one of your "civillians" and forcibly put them in Prancing Samoyed uniforms. My warriors fight a battle against your warriors, and if my warriors win, your personnel come over to my side. While the battles will certainly be more hard-fought, they are still ultimately only contests between warriors. Once the Trial is over, your Fuzzy Lemur Clansmen are now Prancing Samoyed Clansmen, loyal to their new Clan. No guerrilla warfare, no sabotage, no attempts to bring Prancing Samoyed down from within in revenge. It's still a far cry from actual warfare, where people defending their homes will give their lives en masse to stop the invading army, even after all reason says the invaders have won.
This is due in part to how Clan society is structured. Everything is differed to the Clan. All sense of loyalty, honor, and home comes from Clan identity. To rebel against a Clan that has successfully Absorbed yours would be to dishonor the bonds of loyalty to both your new Clan, who provides everything you need (and nothing you don't), and your old Clan, which lives on in your new Clan.
As for Operation Bulldog and Serpent, pretty much the whole point was demonstrate to the Clans that messing with the Inner Sphere would be way more costly than they were prepared to pay. Not only retaking worlds the Clans had taken in the invasion, but choosing to Annhilate Clan Smoke Jaguar was all intended to send the message to the Clans that the Successor States were not going to go down quietly, that they had the will and the means to fight the Clans with everything they had, and that, if nothing else, they would inflict catastrophic damage on the Clans on their way out. To use your bully analogy, it was turning around and giving the bully a solid sock on the jaw. Loosen a few teeth, split a lip, maybe even break a nose, and you let that bully know that you will not make of yourself easy prey. The bully then has two choices: keep fighting and risk getting hurt, or back down. Operations Bulldog and Serpent were not battles of the Clans' choosing, so they didn't follow the Clans' Trial structure, which was again part of the point. To illustrate to the Clans what warfare really was to the Inner Sphere, and what kind of warfare the Clans would have to fight if they wanted to see their invasion through to the end, and ask if they were really ready to take that on.
They were not.
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