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Forgive me if this has already been posted before. On the comstar site, the Hand of Starling just put up an interesting article that accuses the knights of taking out the HPG network. Their reasoning is this: The Exarch of the Republic is selected from the council of paladins, effectivly making the Exarch a puppet of the paladins. The proplem is, Redburn has forgotten his "loyalty" to the Palandins and knights, and has essentially taken control (negotiating free trade with the lyrians and such). This has made the knights...discontent. Utilizing the incredible resoursed at their disposal, probably including some of the Ghost Knights ( but not all, since Dunne is a Ghost Knight and seems to know nothing about it), they disabled the HPG grid to teach Redburn a lesson. As I am sure we have all seen, Redburn is a joke when it comes to true political skills. Since the HPG crash, he has done nothing but claim that the RotS's recovery is imminent. He is fkorced now to either risk the trust and respect of the people, or, relay more heavily on the advice of the paladins, giving them, and the knights they represent, even more power than they already have. This whole thing has essentialy been a coup.
That's all the article says. At first, I didn't really beleive it because in all of the books, the knights seem to have no clue whats happening. Then I figured it out. It is only the paladins and a few knights and ghost knights that have taken part in this. Problem is, they significantly underestimated both the level to which the social factiions of the republic would go, and how long it would take to fix the grid. The lost control of their plan. So now, all of the knights are literally trying to regain control, lest they should lose their credibility along with the exarch, and they are having a hard time doing it (relaying on the Highlanders to garison several worlds why the military is moved to conter threats from the other factions and houses.
To sum it up: they knights are the true bad guys that coused all of these problems in the first place, but now they are legitimatly trying to fix things.
What if the Word of Blake is at it again? Think about it. Devlin Stone escaped from a Blakist reeducation camp after the loss of his memory. He met with others, started a revolution, and created an era of peace which is so easily exploited by anyone who was prepared. WHAT IF Devlin Stone was actually following the orders programmed into him at that re-education camp?! What if he, or his seeeeccreett masters are the ones behind the blackout?!
WHAT IF HE'S A CYBORG DOUBLE?!
Okay, actually, those are all a little far fetched. But where's Glorious Leader when we need him?
Gee, and I had just been thinking that my beloved Jacob Bannson may be behind the HGP Blackout since reading the beginning of Truth and Shadows. I mean he would/could benefit very nicely and get back at those that have opposed him and/or still do hate him. though I have thought the knights could have a hand ion the blackout too, I just never put the peices together the way they were put together in this thread. Hmmmm will have to think about all this and read more of the books. ;)
Banson may be a creepy little prick of a man, but I don't think he's got what it takes to knock down the HPG.
I think it's got to be a Comstar thing. Or a group that infiltrated Comstar somehow.
I tihnk Banson also has the most to lose by dropping the HPG. Yes he can gain political power but his companies will lose significant money erroding his power base financially.
Bannson has to be losing money with the net down. Plus, Jack Farrell, Dagger Di, Stefani Ehli, Barry Segal, etc...don't come cheap. Yes, he's taking full advantage of the black out, but he's not behind it.
I don't think it's Mason Dunne, Janella Lakewood or Victor Steiner Davion either. I DO think it's a faction of the Knights of the Sphere. Think about it, the Rogue Knights secretly build a massive army(for example: the Irian Factory), take down the HPG network with Comstar's help, wait for all of their enemies to come out of the woodwork AND then they'll open up a can of MECHWARRIOR WHOOP ARSE! They're only problem is that their fellow Knights won't be down with that program.
Any way you slice it, the Republic doesn't survive the Dark Age as it was before. If anything, the Republic will be a super-power in the Sphere whether or not my "Knight conspiracy theory" plays out.
I found something interesting when going through the Republic of the Sphere "O5P Report" included in the "MW:DA" starter set.
"Research Note: The O5P has reason to suspect that there are more Knights than is officially reported. Research into this matter continues."
I thought that might be relevant. I mean, sure, we all found out that there were officically Ghost Knights working under Republican orders. But what about the end of that statement? What are the O5P's "reasons" to believe in the existence of the Ghost Knights?
One possibility: Devlin Stone himself is behind the blackout, as part of a plan to set himself up as the head of a reconstituted Star League -- AND come out smelling like a rose in the process.
Here's a thought (although I admittedly haven't read the books so I'm not sure if anything in there contradicts this): a con artist extraordinnaire and reasonably competent MechWarrior sees potential in the (otherwise disorganized and vulnerable) Word of Blake movement to cause chaos beyond what the Inner Sphere has previously seen. He covertly aids the WoB to make them seem more powerful than they really are (perhaps by betraying those who fight against them?) and to intensify the fighting. He then infiltrates a WoB re-education camp with his "heroic escape" already planned out, as a suitably epic starting point for his "legend." Once he escapes and begins gathering followers, he continues to secretly betray those resisting the WoB who aren't directly under him so that he appears to be the only one who can beat the WoB. He eventually defeats the WoB (relatively easily, since it was only his secret intelligence support that allowed the WoB to defeat the other opposing parties, AND he may have inside information on the WoB to facilitate their defeat) and cements his legend in the minds of the people. However, he doesn't come out of the Jihad with quite as much political and military support as he first intended -- he can only form the Republic, not a new Star League. His Plan B? Lather, rinse, repeat. Stone establishes a period of peace that will make the coming violence seem far worse by comparison, while weakening the Houses militarily. Stone then departs (leaving a comparatively weak successor), and shortly afterwards sabotages the HPG grid. As predicted, feudal warfare returns, this time plunging a previously prosperous and peaceful people into a war they're not quite emotionally prepared for. Meanwhile, Stone covertly expands the Knights behind the scenes.
My guess is that once the chaos in the Inner Sphere reaches a point where the general populace is in total despair and could turn on the Great Houses and other factions, Stone will stage his Second Coming with an expanded Knights of the Inner Sphere, lead the people in a popular uprising against the feudal houses that he will publicly blame for the people's misery, and (he expects) be "reluctantly" proclaimed the head of a new Star League.
Extreme and conspiratorial? Sure. But not entirely impossible, at least in fiction.
ElvenWarrior: That is in the "O5P Classified" files included in the ORIGINAL starter sets, NOT the Premiere sets (though I imagine it's in there, too).
mechaddict: You should talk to werehippy sometime about your theory. He also thinks that Stone could be behind the blackout for some similar reasoning, but his justification isn't quite so negative (no offense).