I appreciate the thought, but I don't agree with the cat and mouse game as he wrote it. Had Deneb, Vland and Antares Domains supported him Lucan would've been through or running to another sector. Margaret would've jumped onboard in a heartbeat. A counter to Lucan's orders would've been fine. Controlling the Vland Domain fleets would've brought it to a head.
While I liked the original WoCo outline, I always had an issue that the timeline assumed the Imperium would eventually regain its prewar boundaries and reasonably quickly at that. It smacks too much of "return to the status quo." If that's people's implict dream, then it works, but at that point I don't really think there's a Wounded Colossus at all, actually.
It's more like "The Colossus Stumbles A Little."
The Rebellion would honestly end really soon if Strephon announces himself in 1116. I doubt it'd even be remembered as a Rebellion, more like "Dulinor's Putsch." GDW (and a lot of players) I think consistently don't take into account the changes into people's thinking that news taking months to get to them from Capital would do to the thinking of nobles in an Imperium that has stood for 1,000 years. There'd be a tremendous amount of "wait and see."
None of the internal factions, save Dulinor's and Lucan's factions would have ever arisen in a formal manner if he announces himself in 1116. The later factions arose from the stress of the civil war. In 1116 and much of 1117 a lot of these potential factions are still in shock and probably have a "wait and see" attitude. Strephon announces himself (or there are rumors of it) and these meta-factions are going to send out a lot of agents to see if they cannot verify them. If one of the major core factions (Vland, Margaret, Craig, Antares) declares for Strephon, it's likely all of them be receptive; convincing one of the factions (likely Vland) to support him will be Strephon's biggest hurdle, perhaps requiring concessions of Imperial authority - they'll know he needs their support and will want something in return.
Once Strephon has one of the meta-factions behind him, Lucan's powerbase is likely to crumble and quickly. While the nobles who support Lucan are going to be more concerned about their positions than their lives, a lot of the Imperial military who supported Lucan are likely commoners or upjumped commoners (those who went from commoner -> noble in their lifetimes). People like that are likely to see if they "help" take Lucan down, they might get away with their lives and perhaps even a "quiet retirement to the frontier" instead of imprisonment or execution. A side note is Strephon might not reveal the whole assassination of Varian to the public; he doesn't need to and it might even hurt his cause - that he is the Emperor should be enough. If Strephon keeps the murder a secret, he can use it to get Lucan to step down: "Step down from the Throne, claiming that you held it as nobody else would. Now that the real Emperor is alive, you can abdicate gracefully. In return, you'll live a quiet life on Capital, and provided you remain quiet, nobody will ever know about what you did to Varian, your own brother."
Given all that, I suspect that Dulinor would have fallen pretty quickly. Dulinor's assassination plot really didn't have a backup plan. Once the Ileish fleet is defeated, Dulinor might have even accepted surrender and execution (especially if the deal was that Isis would be allowed to keep some titles) claiming he was surrendering to preserve the lives of his people who would otherwise be "spent in a pointless war for them."
I've always found the behavior of the Solomani in the Rebellion to be a little odd and their actions in the realm of the unreasonable. The organization of the Solomani has always been suggested to be monolithic yet because of this bureaucratic and sort of slow to act. While hotheads in the Solomani Confed would want the kind of war that is described in the Rebellion, I'd actually think the Solomani would have held off.
While the assassination of the Emperor is
interesting I think the Solomani, like many parts of the Imperium would have adopted a "wait and see" attitude. Trinoc doesn't want jump the gun on an war, and being the head of SolSec, he can pretty effectively silence opposition. The cost of starting a war (that the Solomani are well-aware they can't win against a united Imperium) is too great if the whole "Dulinor thing" turns out to be a burp, or not even a burp, just an "uncomfortable-momentary-shifting-in-the-seat of an Imperium of a Thousand Years."
I think the Solomani would wait to invade: 1) When the border fleets are withdrawn from the Solomani front and these fleet can be reasonably confirmed to have been destroyed in combat and civil war conditions have degraded to the point where it no longer seems likely that the Imperium will be able to sustain a war against the Solomani; this would probably be around 1118 possibly 1119. 2) When more solid factions appear in the Imperium than just "the guy on the Iridium Throne" versus Dulinor (Norris doesn't count for this). If Strephon announces himself, the Solomani see there's two "guys on the Iridium Throne" and are likely to wait to see how that turns out. If Lucan gets deposed "quickly" (keeping in mind the communication lags for jump couriers), they're likely to do nothing.
Now, perhaps to appease hotheads, Trinoc would likely allow a certain number of Solomani units selected from certain areas to invade Terra. If things go well, they'll be the vanguard of the Solomani liberation. If things go badly, Trinoc can abandon them, claiming that "due to the Confederation's structure, there's always a risk that certain local polities will be overcome by passion and act on their own" - the actions would justify further increases in power for SolSec. The victorious Strephon and the Solomani would know what's up, however, they'd maintain the political fiction to avoid fighting an expensive war.
For that matter, the fact the Aslan
ihatei never seemed to be a problem for the Imperium before the Assassination shows the Aslan have a tighter grip on these guys than might be apparent. Again, while the death of their ambassador would be a pretty dire thing, I think the Aslan would adopt a "wait and see" attitude. By 1117 you might see some ihatei, but once Strephon consolidates power that's going to pretty much solve itself.
Similarly, Vargr are going to be a thorn in the Imperium's side since there's no one faction of Vargr to deal with. However, once the Imperium starts whipping some of the more powerful Vargr pirate fleets / navies, the Vargr are going to start demonstrating some emergent behavior and skulk back across the border before the same happens to them.
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