No Mercy for the Tremere - An Alternative Schism War

[Aurelius]

@Vortigern

@Wanderer

This is an exercise of Hermetic Alternative History about the Schism War.

The Point of Divergence is the timely arrival of the Ex Misc Primus to the emergency Grand Tribunal at the beginning of the Schism War, when the issue of the Diedne-Tremere infighting is to be decided (Lineages, p. 41). The pack of proxy sigils that the Ex Misc Primus carries throws the decisive vote in the favor of the Diedne, that are absolved of all accuses of diabolism and human sacrifice. The Tremere are harshly punished for having broken the peace of the Order and bound to peace with the Diedne. The Tremere Primus refuses to heed the sentence, accusing the mages that voted for the Diedne of having fallen prey to their "corruption". House Tremere is Cast Out for having started a war against another House and having endangered the Order. House Flambeau, always eager for a good fight, House Guernicus, reluctantly seeing the need to sacrifice a House to save the precarious unity of the Order, and House Tytalus, eager to redeem their disgrace, join the war against the Tremere. House Ex Misc and Merinita support their Diedne allies. House Jerbiton and Mercere secretly provide some covert aid to the Tremere, but refrains from official support. The other Houses mostly stay out, even if several mages join the fight on an individual basis. After much fighting, the order vanquishes and exterminates the Tremere (even there are persisting rumors that pockets of Tremere escaped and took refuge in the most remote corners of the world) through the decisive efforts of the unlikely Diedne-Flambeau alliance (and secretly, through dark Guernicus rituals).

What happens next ?

Honestly I have a hard time finding this flow of events believable for a few different reasons. If your initial POD is the successful arrival of the EM Primus, as others have stated, assuming that they would have block voted in favor of Diedne would be IMO another 'large' possible POD.

However for these purposes if we assume that they did then what follows is not, IMO, a logical flow of outcome/results from the proceedings.

Based on what it says in HoH: Societates, p102, I have a very hard time accepting the idea that Primus Basilicus would have cast his vote and all the proxy votes he was carrying in House Diedne's favour. Firstly because it says he wanted to keep House Ex Miscellenea out of trouble as much as possible, and secondly because a lot of magi Ex Miscellenea were emphatically not allies of House Diedne. It's mentioned that they did in fact kill a lot of Diedne magi in Britain. I suspect, therefore, that at least some of the magi Ex Miscellenea who gave Basilcus their sigils told him to vote against House Diedne, and failing to use a directed proxy according to the magus's instructions is a high crime. I also think it's possible that Basilicus never actually intended to reach the Grand Tribunal in time for the vote, as an excuse for not taking one side or the other. I mean, he might not have cared very much for House Tremere's view himself, but what if most of his fellows were actually in favour of kicking House Diedne out?