Something went wrong or as some would later say a lot of small things went wrong.
The first mistake was when General Kerensky decided eager to earn some peace decided to authorise the grouping of people according to their former nations back in the Inner Sphere.
Why did he do that? We'll never know but perhaps he thought that it could recreate the Star League thanks to the core of loyal soldiers devoted to him and to its ideals or perhaps the death of his wife was too much for him.
The results were immediate as whole planets began to ask for independence and/or more resources but the real shock came when a couple of towns on Eden declared themselves independent and looted a Castle Brian to protect themselves against what they knew was coming.
This ended with the DeChavillier's Massacre and the rise of more and more rebellions on the different worlds.
Before he could launch his counter-strike, General Kerensky died with his son Nicholas claiming the leadership of the SLDF only to be rebuffed by most of the other commanders.
A couple of months later, Nicholas and his followers left for a Second Exodus on Strana Mechty while the other commanders pledged their loyalty to the different new States that were rising.
The second point that went wrong is Operation Sable Sun. How could the brave space-farers doing these reconnaissance runs be so wrong and failed to notice that the naval caches had been reactivated and that people were working on them?
The truth is that few teams made it to the Pentagon Worlds and even fewer came back, giving a really small and distorted picture of what was happening there but Nicholas Kerensky believing in his own destiny only listen to what he wanted to hear.
The truth was that having united their worlds and with the help of the former SLDF soldiers, the Pentagon Houses (as they called themselves) knew that a storm was coming and had managed to reach an agreement between themselves to first deal with the “little one†before getting back to try to find out which one of them should be the First New Lord.
The initial plan called for a strike against the naval caches but they were manned and protected by Warships and Assault Dropships.
The combination of the fixed defences and the naval assets proved to be too much for the invading Clans and most of their fleet was destroyed in fierce battles.
Sticking to the original timetable, Nicholas Kerensky ordered the launch of the invasion, resulting in a turkey shot over the different planets, until the invading Clans decided to retreat, having lost more than 40% of their strength and almost all their leadership, including the two sons of General Kerensky.
Not willing to let them breath, the Pentagon Houses followed the retreating Clans to Strana Mechty, leaving them with only a couple of days to reorganise their units, plan their defences and evacuate the civilians.
Sacrificing themselves, the survivors of each Touman and the gathered “militia†(with each unit being roughly 1.5 BattleMech Clusters, 2 Infantry Clusters and 1 Tank Cluster strong) tried to buy time to allow for the evacuation of these civilians before trying to leave under their opponent pressure.
The few survivors (barely a Cluster for each Clan and a 10th of the original population) met in an uncharted planetary system unable to decide what to do and where to go.
