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There are a few changes in the storyline that had to be accommodated, but at first, I think the Coalition wouldn’t be that impacted at all. Note that it’s not for around a year until the Word of Blake really pushes the CC into their Jihad, because Capellan Confederation is going it solo and taking the Magistracy of Canopus with them. Meanwhile, allied nations, like the Free Worlds League, and Taurian Concordat are not really attacked. It’s not until the fake Thomas Marik is moving against him that they burn him, in late 3068. That leads to a lot of realms succeeding from the Free Worlds League, some side with Blake, many do not, and that leads to the dissolution of the Free Worlds League, and removes it from being a full-on ally.
So really, the Word of Blake wouldn’t really go after the Coalition. Duke Essex and his team he assembled would likely be left alone at first. Blake is badly distracted, and would have focused on what to do now, and the various fronts it erected. In fact, I’d say that the buddy time we had with Blake would drop considerably.
So my initial view on what would happen is that Blake’s relations would cool a bit, but the planets on the Coalition would not be attacked or blasted. Remember that we make mechs for Blake on Epsilon Eridani, Errai, and Nanking (two of those three are not happening in the standard plot line). We gave Blake mechs from our own garrison. Why burn your bridges? So we are a pseudo-Word of Blake Protectorate.
Now, I do think that, soon enough, Blake will begin it’s Protectorate (which had not existed in this storyline as we did it ourselves.) It’ll begin taking nearby planets as well as important targets like Hesperus II, just as it did before. We just won’t be taken or attacked.
We might get attacked though. For example, one of the first things that happen in the Inner Sphere is that as soon as the jihad begins, numerous independently minded idiots begin to attack neighbors Duke Hasek, almost immediately, launches an attack on the Capellan Confederation that will hammer them heavily. People in the Lyran Alliance will attack the Free Worlds League, the Black Dragon Society attacks Luthien and other places in the combine, and later on, we’ll see the Draconis March hitting some worlds, and the Outworlds Alliance led by clan Snow Raven will launch some attacks, and Jade Falcon and Wolf are going to gobble up many worlds, and Ghost Bear will absorb the remaining worlds of the Free Rasalhague Republic, smaller nations in the Free Worlds League will attack each other, the Taurian Concordat will punch deeply into Suns territory, and so forth. With all of these nearby attacks, I can’t deny that an attack on Nanking by the Capellan March, Errai by the Draconis March, won’t make a bunch of sense. And those attacks would likely continue (Caph and Small World, as an example, were actually part of the Draconis March before 3057. So you might see attacks to bring them back into the fold. )
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