VonBruinwald, on 15 May 2019 - 12:47 PM, said:
I've always wondered if Jerome and Aleksander were in it together.
Aleksander leaves and Jerome remains to manufacturers a situation where the SLDF can return as saviours and re-establish the league. For all we know the Jihad could have been part of their plans, what better time would there have been for the SLDF to return. If you want "human tyranny so vile that it transcended the bounds of decency" then the Jihad had it. It's just a shame the Crusaders messed it all up by invading before their time.
The Crusaders invaded because they realized they had already been rendered obsolete. That is to say, their time had already passed, the Inner Sphere were not the barbaric stone-age tribes the Clans thought they would be. To save face and not shame their legacy, in their eyes, they had no choice but to invade. The Wardens, to try and blunt the aggression of the Crusaders, invaded with them (but still invaded, mind you).