a 5 year old with an Uzi, on 20 July 2025 - 10:48 AM, said:
Those very politics are why CSJ launched the invasion and the other Clans continued it even after it was clear as day that the Spheroids were in no position to invade their homeworlds. A proactive defense of the homeworlds was a flimsy pretext and once they were in the Sphere roflstomping they stopped pretending altogether. It was a race to conquer Terra. They were a bigger threat to one another than ComStar or the Great Houses were to them.
As predatory and evil as ComStar is/was they likely would have had to fall back on keeping the Clans away from the Inner Sphere by hook or crook in the unlikely event they had not gotten waylaid. ComStar maintains a sizable force of SLDF-tier materiel but moving enough out there in a rapid enough fashion to threaten the Clans without raising eyebrows amongst the Houses at some point was simply not going to happen. The logistics of that kind of invasion are a nightmare the Clans got to experience. Information warfare and such are more ComStar's forte anyhow.
CSJ did not start the invasion and the other Clans joined in. CSJ didn't launch their touman into the Inner Sphere and the other Clans said "oh why should they have all the fun. let's join in." It did NOT happen like that. As I stated before and both you and void can evade all you like, the SOURCE MATERIAL is what matters.
Sure Leo Showers was ambitious and used it for his own gain but the points stands. The Wardens had the Crusaders locked up for DECADES. That is a matter of FACT. in 2980 the Crusader movement gained enough traction that a formal vote for invasion was put on the table and was UNSUCCESSFUL. When they tried again in 3000, the Wardens got them to compromise by sending the Dragoons. The matter was still deadlocked UNTIL the Outbound Light's appearance. THAT is what tipped the scales. Again it's a matter of record. You can argue until you are blue in the face, that's what the SOURCE MATERIAL says and since they are the people who created the BTU, I'll go with them.
The fact remains that the Dragoons switched sides and had stopped sending in updates. According to The Clans: Warriors of Kerenesky pg. 17, "The capture of the ComStar crew gave the ambitious Jaguar Khan the first solid information on the Inner Sphere in
decades. Armed with it, he forced the Grand Council to
vote on the
long-postponed invasion."
It continues on pg.17 into pg. 18, "Faced with the prospect of
Inner Sphere vessels discovering the location of the Clan homeworlds, and the very real prospect of an Inner Sphere dominated by the technologically advanced Federated Commonwealth, the Clans had little option. On 21 November, 3048, they
voted to invade the Inner Sphere."
The Dragoons stopped transmitting back to the Clans around 3019 so they wouldn't have known that the Federated Suns and the Lyran Commonwealth would have merged into a "super" Great House. Invasion was OFF the table since 3000 when the compromise was accepted and it got voted down back in 2980. There was a stalemate UNTIL the appearance of the Outbound Light.
THAT event is what kicked things off and EVEN then, the most Showers could have gotten from it was not a blanket, "LET'S GO GET 'EM!", it was forcing the motion (the vote) back on the table and in light of the vessel breaching Clan space, not even the Wardens could be against invasion and ALL the Clans except Clan Wolf
VOTED for invasion.
So in conclusion, if there was no Outbound Light, there would have been no invasion. The stalemate would have continued.
Edited by Jaroth Corbett, 21 July 2025 - 06:52 AM.