Interesting Points In Battletech History

I'm going to do something a bit different this time.  I don't have any new models or terrain to post so I thought I'd dig into a point in Battletech history and explore it a bit.  We're going to look at the 2nd Hidden War, or as it was also known, the War of Davion Succession.  This took place between 2725 and 2729 between House Davion and House Kurita.

 

In 2696 Mary Davion fell in love with Soto Kurita.  They married 2 years later and she went to the Draconis Combine to raise their children.  To avoid potential heirs who had been raised as Kuritans, Prince Roger Davion passed the Act of Succession in 2700 removing that line from being able to assume the title and rulership of the Federated Suns.  She signed this after a couple years and all was sane and well.  When Roger died a few years later, Mary's younger brother became ruler instead.  After she died in 2715, the current Coordinator of the Draconis Combine, Takiro, claimed she never signed it and her son should be ruler of the Federated Suns.

Not wanting to see a fight between two of it's member states, the First Lord of the Star League, Jonathan Cameron, stepped in to mediate and appointed a committee to investigate the succession.  After eight years, it had achieved no results or conclusions and Kurita ran out of patience and attacked the Davions.  Both sides launched deep strikes that achieved a lot of destruction, some border changes, and not a lot else.  The Star League refused to get involved and had some intrigue of it's own by the head of the Star League Defense Force to try and remove First Lord Jonathan for his sister to get him to make a decision.  Davion's current leader was killed in action leading to a series of victories by Kurita before the SLDF finally got involved and forced them back to roughly the original borders and denied Kurita's claims to the Davion throne.

Now the part I want to explore is what if  Jonathan Cameron hadn't been so hesitant?  If instead of tying up the committee's progress in various side issues, they were allowed to make a decision or had even committed troops earlier if it had gone that far still?  By waiting so long to intervene, especially as it was after the death of Prince Joseph, it caused a major rift between the Davions and the Camerons which lead them to participate in undermining the Star League later down the road.  Because it took so long and had so much invested in it after 8 years of pursuing the claim and then 4 years of war, being denied and pushed back also alienated the Kuritans leading to them to being to actively undermine the Star League as well.  All of which started the path of destruction that would come.

On the other hand, this war also showed that Kurita had been violating the Council Edict of 2650 and had built their household army well beyond what was allowed.  This started the other houses to begin to use various loopholes to build their forces as well.  The cost of this would lead to the later increased taxes on the Periphery to pay for all of this, which also leads to the coming destruction of the Star League.

Anyway, hope you all found this interesting and if so I'll see about doing some more of these.  Have a great one and I'll see you all next time.