No, but they could have retconed darkage..to make it fit the game inplace e of retconing the old setting to make it fit darkage. Most of the big retcons are long after wizkids death
And they retconed alot of DA anyhow...sigh.
Still, I see Wizkids/Dark Age being blemed for things that are not their fault.
Agreed, I would have just not used the DA timeline at all rather then remake the whole setting. Reminds me of the 4e realms alot in a way.+1
Still, I see Wizkids/Dark Age being blemed for things that are not their fault.No, but they could have retconed darkage..to make it fit the game inplace e of retconing the old setting to make it fit darkage. Most of the big retcons are long after wizkids death
And they retconed alot of DA anyhow...sigh.
Humm how? The guy that owned Wizkids was known to hate all storyline development after 3025. So he whole scale rewrote it with darkage.
Have you even read some of the old darkage stuff? It simply makes no sense.
So catalyst had to change things to make it kinda , maybe, halfway fit. Coarse they have also reworked alot of darkage it seems sense wizkids death.
Darkage and wizkids are to blame for a great deal of this, as it forced the issue and put time stamps on when and how it was to happen.
The current jihad is tiny next to what it was listed as like in the early DA stuff however.
Have you even read some of the old darkage stuff? It simply makes no sense.So catalyst had to change things to make it kinda , maybe, halfway fit. Coarse they have also reworked alot of darkage it seems sense wizkids death.
Darkage and wizkids are to blame for a great deal of this, as it forced the issue and put time stamps on when and how it was to happen.
The current jihad is tiny next to what it was listed as like in the early DA stuff however.
I'm not sure about his pronouncements on Jordan Weisman, but with regards to the original fiction, this man speaketh the truth. The original Dark Age fiction by Stackpole was many many time more drastic in scale than the actual Jihad.
Still, I see Wizkids/Dark Age being blemed for things that are not their fault.No, but they could have retconed darkage..to make it fit the game inplace e of retconing the old setting to make it fit darkage. Most of the big retcons are long after wizkids death
And they retconed alot of DA anyhow...sigh.
Humm how? The guy that owned Wizkids was known to hate all storyline development after 3025. So he whole scale rewrote it with darkage.
Have you even read some of the old darkage stuff? It simply makes no sense.
So catalyst had to change things to make it kinda , maybe, halfway fit. Coarse they have also reworked alot of darkage it seems sense wizkids death.
Darkage and wizkids are to blame for a great deal of this, as it forced the issue and put time stamps on when and how it was to happen.
The current jihad is tiny next to what it was listed as like in the early DA stuff however.
Intriguing.
Hah! Found it and the mailer card to go along.
19 August 3132Leestand
Altuna, Fortymile
Carmack’s Prefecture, Federated SunsHe felt his mother’s presence well before he could have heard her. He kept working with the sputtering arc-welder, hoping the harsh, searing light would keep her at bay. He was pretty sure it would have, but the sense of guilt growing inside him conspired with her. It exploded within him as her hand landed on his left shoulder, causing him to turn the welder off.
The metal tine from the reaper that he’d grafted clawlike on to the agromech’s left hand slowly dulled from a molten red to the dark blue of a hammer-hit fingernail. Jeremy Lee lifted the smoky visor that shielded his face and turned toward his mother, lowering his eyes and the welder at the same time. “I can explain.”
He’d expected to see disappointment in her eyes, and it did flash through, briefly, for a heartbeat, but understanding replaced it. Her voice remained low and soft, raised barely above a whisper that never reached the tin walls of the cavernous mechbarn. “You’re not the one who needs to do the explaining, son.” She reached a hand out for his, and he shucked the glove before taking her hand.
“I don’t understand.” Jeremy turned back toward the hulking, hunched-over agromech. “I had to do this, I had to modify it because they’re coming. I knew it was no use telling dad that.”
“I know, son, I know.” His mother, a slender, dark-haired woman whose graceful transition into middle age had not yet eroded her youthful beauty, reached up and pressed a finger to his lips. “Come with me, Jeremy. I need to tell you some things.”
He walked with her, looking about as he left the building. He loved his mother dearly, but the idea of anyone seeing him walking hand in hand with her as if he were six years old, not three times that, sent a shiver through him. The coast was clear however and she surprised him by leading him off on a path that took them away from the house.
A path that took them toward the haunted silo.
“Jeremy, I know you have heard a lot of rumors, most of which are scarier than the reality of the world.” His mother’s voice remained soft yet had a commanding tone. “There are things you need to understand because there is a crisis brewing, a grave crisis—one that will demand much from you and others like you. It’s grown out of a past that most barely remember, and fewer want to remember. Because much of it has been forgotten, the disaster that looms could consume us all.”
A jolt ran through him as she spoke. He’d always known she could be very serious, and she certainly read a lot, but her advice and homilies always ran to things dealing with family and the concerns of the farm. The farm had remained an isolated domain outside the town that bore his family’s name, and his parents had done all they could to insulate him and his siblings from the greater world.
Her words, softly though they came, stripped away that insulation. “A long time ago, Jeremy, the way of the universe was one of war. I know you’ve seen the holovids...”
“Mom, I...”
She fixed him with a sidelong glance. “Jeremy, there’s not a boy alive, not a girl alive, who has not seen them and felt a thrill. I did when I was your age, your age and younger. Your father and I don’t like you watching them, but don’t think we’re so stupid to think that you haven’t.”
“I don’t think that, mother.”
“I know, honey.” She smiled as they walked through the twilight. “Those stories, with all the fire and courage, good and evil, they are meant to thrill but they don’t show the reality. The reality was horrible, which is why people try to forget it. In a holovid, lasers reduce BattleMech armor to molten droplets. Missiles blast it into shards. Machines stumble and fall with their limbs torn off, their cockpits crushed, while heroic music rises and evil is vanquished.
“The evil they show did exist, Jeremy. Decades ago, generations, after the Clan Wars and the Civil War, the Word of Blake struck. They believed they were to be the salvation of mankind. They fought to tear civilization down so they could rebuild it. In doing so they were the salvation of mankind, but not in the way they imagined.”
She pointed toward a bright star burning at the edge of the horizon. “That’s Kittery. When the Blakists struck, they gathered some people there and placed them in a re-education camp. It was a horrible place, a brutal place. They broke them down, then retrained them. They made their prisoners over into the image of the perfect person, stripping away everything they had been. Or so the Blakists hoped. They failed in some cases, and the peace we have known is the result of their failures.
“One man, Devlin Stone, he was one of their failures. They trained him to be a MechWarrior, and he took to it so well. No one knows if he had been trained before or not--no one knows who he had been. Devlin Stone is the name they gave him, though some claim he was the Devil, and his heart was of stone, hence his naming. Whoever, whatever he was, he did bring hell to the Blakists. He escaped from their camp, freed friends and returned with enough 'Mechs to smash the Blakist forces on Kittery. In short order he and his comrades liberated a dozen worlds and created the Kittery Prefecture--the first prefecture.”
Jeremy sighed. “I know history, mother.”
She gave his hand a squeeze. “You know some history, son, but not all of your history.”
They approached the haunted silo, but could barely see it for the tall trees that ringed it. Jeremy’s father had always said they would use the silo when they brought the north field or south field into production, but some field always lay fallow so its capacity was never needed. Just as well, as the trees grew thick enough that they’d have to be cleared to allow access, and the ivy that tightly wrapped the cylindrical building would have to be torn away.Through the trees his mother led him, and to the base of the tower. From her pocket she slipped a silvery card. She lifted leaves and slid it into a slot. Deep within the tower the boom of metal on metal echoed, and a round green button suddenly burned to life.
Jeremy jumped back as if the tower were truly haunted. “What’s going on?”
His mother continued speaking, but not exactly to him. She seemed to be addressing herself to the silo and the ghosts that laired within. “In those days, in fighting the Blakists and then in fighting their allies, and the tyrants who had risen as their power was smashed, terrible things were done. Whole cities were laid to waste. 'Mech companies were broken. Ruling families were deposed and exiled. Social orders were overthrown. It was a time of complete and utter chaos, and would have been the armageddon the Blakists desired, save for one man: Devlin Stone. He had a vision for the future, and his people made it come true. Those who opposed him were slaughtered, and those who helped him were exalted.
“Stone did more than fight evil, he looked to prevent it from rising ever again. Almost a century and a half ago, right here on Fortymile, MechWarriors who were little more than bandits were destroyed, but the sort of excesses that the power of BattleMech made possible still existed. Pettyminded men in powerful machines were capable of anything. MechWarriors were once honorable but had devolved. Stone purged their ranks of the corrupted. Being able to pilot a 'Mech became more than a job, more than a vocation. It became more than a right: it was a responsibility, one that you could not fail at.”
She glanced down. “Since you were a child, Jeremy, you have had an affinity for 'Mechs. You’ve had the skill. The 'Mechs you’ve driven are powerful, but they sow and reap, repair and build. They do good things, they help us here, they are tools that make our lives easier. While powerful, they don’t have fusion engines as the war machines did. They are hobbled in that way, so they don’t tempt those who are weak.”
His mother pushed the green button. More metallic ghosts boomed from within the tower. Musty, dry air hissed out as a hidden door opened. Vines snapped and sagged, showing him a shadowed oval he’d never imagined had existed. “You’re not weak, Jeremy, which is why I’m going to show you this.”
She took his hand again and led him into the darkness. Once he’d stepped through the portal, she pushed a green button on the inside of the silo and the door clanged shut. She let the echoes of its sealing die before she spoke again.
“Your father never knew war. It is true that he was born during Stone’s Reformation of the Inner Sphere, but he came of age too late to fight. He would have, he would have done his duty. His mother knew that, but she was happy there was no need and that he had the family farm to make fertile. And your siblings, Bradley and Amanda, like your father, never knew war, and this is good. They were here to hold him together after their mother was slain.
“But your grandmother, Grandmother Lee, she knew you were special. You don’t remember her well, I suspect, but she lived long enough to see your fifth birthday, and by then there was no question. Your red hair, those blue eyes, you had them from her, as well as the skill.”
“What skill?” Jeremy frowned unseen. The only holographs he’d ever seen of his grandmother showed an older woman, gray of hair, slight of stature. Of her, he could only remember little. Mostly it was just her watching him, constantly, probing, but for what he never knew. “What are you telling me?”
“Before I married your father, your grandmother came to me and told me many things. To me she bequeathed the Lee family honor and traditions--not because your father wasn’t worthy of them, but because he had no desire to be a part of them any more. He never thought himself worthy after his first wife was killed, and the loss of his arm made things moot.
“When you were born...” Her voice fell silent for a moment and a tremor ran through her hand. “Your father, he held you in his arms: one flesh and blood, one steel. You grasped his metal thumb and you held on. Your grandmother saw that and she knew. She looked your father in the eye and just said, ‘He’s mine.’”
Jeremy felt his mother raise his hand to her lips and kiss it. “This is what she meant.”
Another click and light flooded the silo’s interior. He raised his free hand to shield his eyes, then slowly lowered it. “Oh, my God.”
“No, son, not a god, just your heritage, grand and terrible.”
Jeremy slowly looked up, starting at the BattleMech’s broad feet and stout legs, and further up to the torso. The humanoid ’Mech had two arms, but one, the right, ended in the muzzle of an autocannon. Other weapons bristled from it, and the blackened glass cockpit port looked down upon him mercilessly.
The boy knew instantly that this BattleMech was called a Victor, but its essence was more than that. The ’Mech had been painted with a most fearsome aspect. It was covered in black from head to toe, save where skeletal, ivory bones had been painted onto the limbs and body. Half-hidden in the silo shadows, it looked like an undead creature ready to stalk the night.
And there, on the nearest foot, near the ankle, identification had been stenciled. “Colonel Belle Lee, Stone’s Lament.” Jeremy barely breathed the words, refusing to believe.
He looked at his mother, blinking. “Grandma Lee was Belle Lee? She fought with Stone? She commanded Lament?”
His mother slowly nodded. “Seventeen years, from Kittery through Fortymile’s liberation and then some. At one point she decided she’d had enough of killing and returned here to have your father.”
“How did I not know?”
She took his chin in her hands. “You didn’t know because she hoped this day would never come, Jeremy. We hoped that, too, but it has come. Communication from beyond the stars is gone, and old hatreds have risen anew. It is your time, son, and your duty. Peace is your legacy, and this is how you will defend it.”
Once they decided to go with that awful time line, at lest they cleaned it up and made it, well make a bit more sense.
I'll give em that anyhow.
GOOD SHIZNIT
DA FOREVER!!!
GOOD SHIZNIT
DA FOREVER!!!
But... you can understand how it sent the rest of us into hysteria, no?
I actually enjoyed MechWarrior as a game (until it became VTOLTech and TankDropWarrior, but that's a different story altogether)... but even way back then as a Commando who was tasked with keeping an open mind, it still seemed a bit... much.
Especially since when they introduced the factions, they made it clear that they were supposed to replace the Houses and Clans we'd grown to love (and hate... hate Clans... HATE... *FROTH*... Ahem.).
The subsequent novels and dossiers which compromised a bit with the status quo and downgraded the Republic to a state and the factions to cranky separatists made the whole leap a bit more easy to stomach.
GOOD SHIZNIT
DA FOREVER!!!
But... you can understand how it sent the rest of us into hysteria, no?
I actually enjoyed MechWarrior as a game (until it became VTOLTech and TankDropWarrior, but that's a different story altogether)... but even way back then as a Commando who was tasked with keeping an open mind, it still seemed a bit... much.
The subsequent novels which compromised a bit with the status quo made the whole leap a bit more easy to stomach.
Don't get me wrong- just because I love DA to pieces doesn't mean I don't understand how it would worry and upset others. I just draw the line at some of the behavior I encountered IRL and even online(I tend to take everything online with the barest grain of salt).
[EDIT]- And yeah, I know what it's like to field a mixed force and end up with people who field NOTHING but helis and VTOLs and such- it's BS.
The Manassas is obviously attempting to jump again...
It never gets where it is going.
Yet another unrelated note.
I have always just loved BT jumps ships. I love the whole set up, the slow recharge, the limited set jump distance. Weeks of travel from the jump point.
I just really like the style of it.
One of the things that is little appreciated in fan circles is just HOW MUCH work is needed to make a game universe internally consistent with a continuity that works.
See my prior post about "leave margins that fans can interpret their way..." for a start.
Now, I want you to imagine that you're Donna Ippolito. You're managing a publication schedule that's putting out 20 books a year across multiple lines. One of your jobs is maintaining continuity consistency with all new freelancer and outside writing for BattleTech. That includes checking the novels, checking source books, checking new products.
And every year, the number of books you have to check for consistency grows by two or three 130,000 word novels, plus outlines (which, if you're lucky, the writer followed), plus scenario outcomes in organized play, plus somewhere around 30,000 words of tech readouts and sourcebooks (including RPG releases).
The FASA incarnation of BattleTech had almost 5 million (!) words of continuity that needed checking on. And every year, it grew by about half a million words. Most of it is horribly indexed.
You've got a rabid fan base, who love the product. The only ones you hear from are the Old Guard nerd raging about things you changed from the High Holy Writ.
This is something you have to fit in with the other 30+ hours per week of production work you need to do every week to keep the company going.
Its not cleaning things up that is the issue. I mean FASA was bad about consistency. But when your changes then need to make more changes and more changes to fit...that is an issue.
The jihad made them start changing things to make sense..a lot of things, but everything they "fixed an error" then had to go back and fix another, and another and another to make it work.
Now FASA started this with the unseen/2750 goof..that was bad..but then this war of 39 stuff changes the whole of the history from 39 onward..which is the majority of the BT setting most people knew.
The Invasion just does not work with the retcons,both in tone and the way it played out. I am not sure how they retconed it in 3052 era report but an sure they tried something. Just not sure it 'works"
If they don't change it up, they sell product to an aging customer base, and don't get new kids playing the game. They want to capture the players coming in from ClickyTech.
If they do change it, they get Nerd Rage from the Viciferous Old Guard, who don't play, but will tell everyone to get the hell off of their lawn before they unleash a REAL G!!@&%ned MAD-3R on their punk-ass AgroMech drivin' butts. :)
Games catch new players in their mid to late teens, and lose them in their early 20s.
Some of the people who keep playing a particular game after their early 20s do so out of dedication, or because they don't have a wife, mortgage and kids.
Some of the people who come back to a game line in their mid 30s (after the divorce court gave the ex wife the kids and the mortgage) want everything to be like it was when they had free time and no money and spent 8 hours a day shoving 'Mechs around at the game store.
And sadly, that likely isn't possible.
Honestly that has nothing to do with the retcons. New people who like your new era still buy it, but the people who liked the other eras..which you are putting books out for, are not buying because you are not selling what you say you are.
I bought some of those era books..and was upset a bit as they are not the ERA's they say they are. They are a new history for a new setting saying it is the old setting. I feel burned as they sold me not what it said it was but version 2.5 of the revised and changed history.
I am sure people that hated FR and never played FR liked the new FR. Smae thing here. I got 39, and I got a few others because I am not interested in the new time line..bu I stopped as they are not selling stuff for the eras i play but say they are.
Some folks love the reboot, which is what it is. I just wish they were honest about it being a reboot.
Agreed, I would have just not used the DA timeline at all rather then remake the whole setting. Reminds me of the 4e realms alot in a way.+1
** spoiler omitted **
:)
Now FASA started this with the unseen/2750 goof..that was bad..but then this war of 39 stuff changes the whole of the history from 39 onward..which is the majority of the BT setting most people knew.The Invasion just does not work with the retcons,both in tone and the way it played out. I am not sure how they retconed it in 3052 era report but an sure they tried something. Just not sure it 'works"
I don't get your hostility to the FanPro War of 3039 book.
In the wake of the 4th Succession War, Comstar panics and rearms the Draconis Combine with Star League era machines. The Federated Commonwealth, flush with success after the 4th Succession War attempts to flex its military muscle again and curbstomp the Draconis Combine. Hohiro Kurita's brilliant masterstroke of unleashing the Ghost Legions in a counter-invasion terrify the FedCom into thinking the DCMS is many times larger and more well armed than it truly was. Hanse Davion, outfoxed, pulls troops away from the border.
What changed?
ComStar provided the DCMS limited access to Lost-Tech, which in turn far outstripped what the Federated Commonwealth could produce.
FASA had already retconned in the SLDF era 'Mechs into TRO3025 to fill space after the Unseen debacle which in turn made the internal consistency of the universe go haywire. But it wasn't just this.
The old universe could no longer justify the fact that the Cappellan Confederation was actually deploying BJ-3 Blackjacks during the 4th Succession War.
"After performing well in the Fourth Succession War, most of the Blackjacks and their upgraded technology were given to House Davion as part of a peace proposal"
The old universe could no longer justify terrifying the FedRats with new never seen before BattleMechs if the introductory Technical Readouts basically pretend those 'never seen before' machines never went away at all?
After the fall of the Star League, the Sentinel appeared most often in the vanguard of the Steiner and Marik armies. In this position, the Sentinels took disproportionate losses. Currently only a handful of Sentinels remain, more heirlooms than weapons of war.
The old universe could no longer justify that the Federated Suns has been mass producing Star League era Devastators since 3048.
"Norse-Storm has been producing a moderate number of Devastators at their Loxley facility for the past ten years."
These are basic inconsistencies just off the top of my head. Instead of everything suddenly going into mass production in 3052 after the Dragoons sit down and explain everything in little words to the assembled House representatives. The current explanation is to just roll with the FASA era problems and fix them so that there appears to be at least some universal consistency.
To explain the FASA era problem, they went with the explanation that the DCMS reverse engineered 'Mechs and technology from the ComStar loan equipment (See the Command BattleMaster Debacle) while the NAIS commandeered Lost-Tech Cache salvage (like Galtor) and reverse engineered technology from them.
Note that I said reverse engineer, not produce efficiently. If you want an example of this go look at the 12+1d6 Heat DCMS ER Large Laser and the Explode on a 2 AFFS Gauss Rifle in Starterbook Sword and Dragon.
The Grey Death Legion and the Helm Memory Core is now the "Great Equaliser" which spreads info to all the Houses equally, so scattered unequal development (For instance the FWL could produce prototype LB-10X fairly early, while the Cappellans had monopoly on Freezers for quite a bit) turns into a level playing field.
If a player wants to wallow in an era where technology is 'gone'. There is still 3025. They've left the original 3025 starting point untouched. Like it or not, 3025 the original era BattleTech players are supposed to be the most familiar with. Not the War of 3039, which besides 'Heir to the Dragon' and the '20 Year Updates', was never touched on in detail. Pristine. Instead, they rolled forward to 3039 and started patching the technology growth problems from there.
Okay. So by 3049, with the Helm Memory Core, they've got most of the kinks worked out. I wonder what...
CLAN INVASION HOO!
So what about the Gauss Rifles, the ERPPCs, the LB Autocannons? What are the ubermensch invaders from beyond space and time going to do?
Fear not Super Munchkins! HOO!
DCMS, FedCom and FRR upgrade columns have a 28%, 17% and 8% chance of fielding upgraded BattleMechs. And before the chance of a vaguely fair fight ever crosses anyone's mind, try taking the fight to the Clans with a 25 percent chance of "upgrading" to a stinker like the FedCom JM6-DD JagerMech and VL-5S Vulcan and the Combine PNT-10K Panther and DCMS-90X-D Daboku. XL Engine Wasted Tonnage and Single Heat Sinks galore! HOO!
You can smell the slaughter from orbit.
Fear not Clanbassadors. The Inner Sphere players are still going to take it painfully... but at least their elite regiments can now shoot back. Shoot back, overheat and die. HOO!
The slaughters are intact. The routing of the 12th Star Guard at Icar, the slaughter of the Drakøns on Rasalhague, the butchering of the Tamar Jaegars on Tamar and on countless other worlds remain.
The Inner Sphere gets to look forward to not losing on Wolcott, Twycross and Somerset. Yes. That Somerset. Information is Ammunition HOO!
So. What's changed?
Well... for one, there are the odd few BattleMechs that could possibly give a Clan player pause for at least a moment like the Banshee, Caesar and Katana. But Clan War players had those in TRO 3050. The Random Assignment and upgrade tables are capricious and brutal if you're not a Clanner, but we knew that already. The Com Guards are still around, but for all the good it does, a Thug is no Warhawk and we all know that.
Dedicated Clan Killer toys like the Devastator and Falconer are barely a glint in their designer's eye and exist in so few numbers that they don't even deserve a mention on the table.
Battle Armor development covers Elementals and how they spurred the rapid development of the ISBA Standard, Gray Death, Gray Death Scout, FedCom Infiltrator and Sloth (Quad) and ComStar Tornado powersuit. None of which can match the original.
Inner Sphere aerospace pilots are better. Makes more sense in that the Clans are 'better bred' but the front line non-militia Inner Sphere pilots are all either elite or dead. Apparently Catalyst decided Battlefield Selection > Eugenics given the Clan tendency to bid away their Aerospace assets at the drop of a hat.
Lawful Stupid HOO!
So, what has changed in Era Report 3052? Status quo - in a spiffy new book which takes consideration earlier problems but moderates them so they don't affect development as a whole. Good enough for me.
And for some incomprehensible reason, I suspect I was channeling Masaki Sumitani as I typed that.
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Does the Turtle Bay massacre still occur? If anything is to be retconned away, that would be something I would not mind see going. Sure it shows just how ruthless the Clans are, but it also does not fit with the way that they were presented. Either that or have there be an explicit mention that the Smoke Jaguars petioned for a Trial of Annihalation against the planet.
In the Draconis Combine, the events of Turtle Bay would galvanize the Draconis Combine and shake the last vestiges of the old guard tactics from the Mustered Soldiery. Hohiro Kurita, grandson of the Coordinator, was captured by the Smoke Jaguars and imprisoned in a Combine prison. Through the actions of the yakuza, he was freed from the prison in a humiliating raid. The Smoke Jaguars responded to this affront (and the active Combine resistance) by unleashing the sun-like fury of their WarShips on the planet. In an action not seen since the darkest days of the early Succession Wars, hundreds of thousands perished under the orbital bombardment. The Jaguars proved that a new war was being fought and old tactics no longer applied."
"The Ryugawa-gumi, a group of yakuza on Turtle Bay, stages a jailbreak from the Kurushiiyama prison. Hohiro Kurita is rescued in the process. The Smoke Jaguars, upon learning of this, decide to withdraw all their troops and stage an example. The WarShip Sabre Cat razes the city of Edo. Hundreds of thousands are killed. All the other Clans condemn this attack as cowardice or—worse—criminally stupid. Clan Wolf declares it will never again bid naval support during the invasion."
Honestly the whole feel of an entire era has changed. I did say the goof started with Fasa, but in place of retconing a simple change {the TRO 2750 Mechs being common} They chose to retcon about a 100 other things in place of the simple fix.
The clans are not unknown..comstar knows them..and where the homeworlds are{if the wolverine being comstar is to be believed}..the IS was not caught off guard by unknown tech as it was the same stuff they had..just a bit better. The house lords and crack units had super tech, they KNEW what double heat sinks, LBX canons and ER laser were.
This is a massive feel changer. I didn't play clan back then so no its not because I am a clan player, but our characters had no freaking clue what any of this stuff was..no one did outside of some top secret weapon research labs, even heirs to the IS thrones didn't know what the hell any of it was.
We fought the clan with base 3025 tech and we liked it. Now if this was done under the new time line we would fight the clans with 3050 tech and you can't sit and tell me it would feel the same.
Well at least it was condemned by the other Clans. That at least shows that the Jaguars were acting against the Way of the Clans.
Man from what I recall at the time, no other clan approved up it. However the Jags were brutal and it was their right to do so. If it happened alot some clans may have brought it up in the council, but they owned the planet , the city and the people.
They had the right to annihilate any of those things as it was theirs. Other clans do not get involved in another clans inner clan actions, such as annihilating a member of any caste, a whole bloodline or a city.
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Well at least it was condemned by the other Clans. That at least shows that the Jaguars were acting against the Way of the Clans.Man from what I recall at the time, no other clan approved up it. However the Jags were brutal and it was their right to do so. If it happened alot some clans may have brought it up in the council, but they owned the planet , the city and the people.
In Blood of Kerensky the only mention of it was when the were bidding on the assault of Rasalhauge when Phelan recommends bidding away the Dire Wolf, and even that is to win the hearts and souls of the people rather than because of there being anything wrong with what happened on Turtle Bay. At least that is how I remember it.
As I said. The SJ owned Turtle Bay and everyone in it. They had every right to declare an annihilation upon people of any caste they own. A whole city was a bit much, but nothing in clan law disallows it.
Other clans may have found it distasteful, but none thought it outside of the rights the SJ had.
Interesting stuff
Very interesting indeed.
So, in a real sense, the changes are:
A) A slight narrowing of the technology gap between the Clans and the IS forces on first hostilities.
B) A reduction of the "Wolf Dragoons Christmas Gift-A-Thon" deus ex machina.
C) Replacement of a number of the Unseen designs with 2750 tech that wasn't downrated to 3025 vintage tech.
With ripple effects. Including explaining how the DCCS managed to beat Hanse Davion and the Super Friends in '39.
Sounds to me like Catalyst tried to make everything more consistent and better thought out.
No wonder the NerdRage is fierce!
This is a massive feel changer. I didn't play clan back then so no its not because I am a clan player, but our characters had no freaking clue what any of this stuff was..no one did outside of some top secret weapon research labs, even heirs to the IS thrones didn't know what the hell any of it was.We fought the clan with base 3025 tech and we liked it. Now if this was done under the new time line we would fight the clans with 3050 tech and you can't sit and tell me it would feel the same.
Yes I can.
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"Who the hell are these people? I've heard rumors about some newfangled tech that the glory boys have strapped to their tin cans, but the brass says it's bigger, badder and hurts us the hell further away."
"What the hell are those things? Machine Guns are bouncing right off it. Oh lord... I've got one on me... It's pulling apart my cockpit! GET IT OFF! GET IT OFF! GET IT..."
"Seismic scans say its an 95 tonner... But the screens say it's clocking 85 kliks... That's gotta be a mistake..."
"They cut them apart before they even got to missile range... The brain boxes back home say its some kind of laser. Never heard of anything like it before. Dear sweet mother of God... Here they come..."
"Sir, we are closing with the missile boats... Higgins is down sir! That thing just let him have it with both racks! Point blank... like those damn things didn't have to arm...!"
"Johnson is not responding. Don't know why. His 'Mech doesn't look that bad... Oh my God... there's just a neat cluster of holes in his torso and his engine's gone."
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The Davion Guards would be something like 16% "upgraded". The Sword of Light would be something like 28% "upgraded". Joe Schmo of the Dustball Planetary Militia... still riding pappy's old 'Mech and used to plinking shots at the odd Bandit, Snake or Plague Pigeon? To him, that'd be like the devil himself had come out of the ground to eat his soul.
I see the current "Long slow crawl to recovery" as a lot more realistic than the retconned away "3047... Nothing... 3048... Nothing... 3049... Nothing... 3050... Nothing... 3051... Nothing... 3052... MASS PRODUCTION!"
"the IS was not caught off guard by unknown tech as it was the same stuff they had..just a bit better"
You say it as if a PPC that hits 50% harder, rapid fire Heavy Autocannons, Large Lasers that can cut 'Mechs to pieces from beyond missile range, Missiles with no Arming Range, Targeting Computers able to track moving machines with precise accuracy... etc, is peanuts.
Never mind those things milling around the feat of those monstrous machines that can tear armor from a 'Mech with their bare hands.
The clans are not unknown..comstar knows them..and where the homeworlds are{if the wolverine being comstar is to be believed}..
ComStar probably knews that the Clans are out there. Not enough, and definitely not rank and file knowledge. Maybe the Wolverines didn't have fixed charts. They did run away from that society quite a while ago. Who would know. Some high level cabal of Precentors right at the top. The ones who would look at Focht's reform as a betrayal. The ones who saw the Wolverines as their secret ace in the hole. The ones who hoped the Clans would come back and that both they and the Inner Sphere would destroy each other in the process leaving Comstar ascendant. The ones who still saw Comstar as the would be conquerer of all mankind.
The cabalists who would become the Word of Blake...
Your free to think what you want. I totally disagree and am far from the only one to do so..
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I guess we have to agree to disagree then. After mulling the idea over in my head for awhile last night, I do think that the Clan invasion still goes off pretty much the same in both scenarios. One just has to look at World War II to see that. The Clan used blitzkrieg tactics when they first invaded the Inner Sphere. Germany proved that such tactics are hard to defend against even when you are on the same footing technology wise. They ended up rolling up half of Europe before finally getting bogged down in Russia. Had the St. Petersburg campaign gone according to plan, they could have even overcome the Russian winter and rolled up the rest of Europe. Now, add in 50% better technology and you have a recipe for disaster for the Inner Sphere. Remember that the only thing that saved the Inner Sphere is that the Clans pulled back because of the death of the Ilkhan and gave them a chance to get organized. Even then, it just slowed the rate of the advance until Tukayyid, rather than stopping it. Even ComStar, who always had all the toys in both timelines only won by attacking with overwhelming force and "cheating."
I guess we have to agree to disagree then. After mulling the idea over in my head for awhile last night, I do think that the Clan invasion still goes off pretty much the same in both scenarios. One just has to look at World War II to see that. The Clan used blitzkrieg tactics when they first invaded the Inner Sphere. Germany proved that such tactics are hard to defend against even when you are on the same footing technology wise. They ended up rolling up half of Europe before finally getting bogged down in Russia. Had the St. Petersburg campaign gone according to plan, they could have even overcome the Russian winter and rolled up the rest of Europe. Now, add in 50% better technology and you have a recipe for disaster for the Inner Sphere. Remember that the only thing that saved the Inner Sphere is that the Clans pulled back because of the death of the Ilkhan and gave them a chance to get organized. Even then, it just slowed the rate of the advance until Tukayyid, rather than stopping it. Even ComStar, who always had all the toys in both timelines only won by attacking with overwhelming force and "cheating."
I'm still thinking the IS would look a hell of a lot different than it currently does even in DA time if this had happened "realistically". At the very least the Periphery would not exist in its current form. I'm thinking I might do that for a homebrew/fanfiction, although it would hurt...
Heh, last campaign I played we had all 17 clans invade.......... Honestly Under that scenario the IS can't win. Was a hella lot of fun however.
Heh, last campaign I played we had all 17 clans invade.......... Honestly Under that scenario the IS can't win. Was a hella lot of fun however.
That's why I'm thinking there was a retcon.
That's why I'm thinking there was a retcon.Heh, last campaign I played we had all 17 clans invade.......... Honestly Under that scenario the IS can't win. Was a hella lot of fun however.
Humm man all 17 did not invade..just 4{to start with}. If all 17 had or say they had not elected Ulric to be the ilkhan, then the IS would have been toast. Not an uphill fight just no fight at all.
Even with the current retcon on tech and the retocn about clan ASP, if all 17 had came..there would be only 1 outcome. And if the IS played dirty..the clans are not above glassing cites full of bandits.
Well... for one, there are the odd few BattleMechs that could possibly give a Clan player pause for at least a moment like the Banshee, Caesar and Katana. But Clan War players had those in TRO 3050. The Random Assignment and upgrade tables are capricious and brutal if you're not a Clanner, but we knew that already. The Com Guards are still around, but for all the good it does, a Thug is no Warhawk and we all know that.
You forget the Axman and Hatchetman.
Grandfather's* will be done.
*Yes, I'm the grandson of one Doctor Banzai of NAIS. ;)
I'm still thinking the IS would look a hell of a lot different than it currently does even in DA time if this had happened "realistically". At the very least the Periphery would not exist in its current form. I'm thinking I might do that for a homebrew/fanfiction, although it would hurt...
The Anti-Spinward Periphery is entirely Clan Occupation Zone, which is sad, because I no longer get to make "Butte Hold" jokes.
I don't think the invading Clans have enough military material to spread out and disturb the Spinward or Coreward states.
The rest of the Periphery out of reach of the Clans is still there. Why wouldn't they be?
You forget the Axman and Hatchetman.Grandfather's* will be done.
*Yes, I'm the grandson of one Doctor Banzai of NAIS. ;)
Against the Clans, Axman if I'm feeling generous. Hatchetman... definitely not.
I'm still thinking the IS would look a hell of a lot different than it currently does even in DA time if this had happened "realistically". At the very least the Periphery would not exist in its current form. I'm thinking I might do that for a homebrew/fanfiction, although it would hurt...The Anti-Spinward Periphery is entirely Clan Occupation Zone, which is sad, because I no longer get to make "Butte Hold" jokes.
The rest of the Periphery out of reach of the Clans is still there. Why wouldn't they be?
Against the Clans, Axman if I'm feeling generous. Hatchetman... definitely not.
You forget the Axman and Hatchetman.Grandfather's* will be done.
*Yes, I'm the grandson of one Doctor Banzai of NAIS. ;)
Maybe I'm approaching it from the wrong angle, but I'm having a hard time seeing anything as out of the reach of the clans if they are nearly as advanced as I'm thinking they are.
A Clan has approximately 5 Galaxies worth of forces. A Galaxy is 5 Clusters. A Cluster is 5 Trinaries. A Trinary is 3 Stars. A Star is 5 'Mechs.
That's approximately 1875 BattleMechs. About 10 Inner Sphere Regiments.
They don't have enough force to cover a spectacularly large area. There are only so many 'Mechs/Tanks/Elementals to spread around.
And getting to the other Periphery states would mean 'going around' the Inner Sphere, which is a logistical nightmare if you think about it, worse given the Clans were never all that good at logistics.
They have weapons with 50% more range that hit 50% harder and they're right grand in an offensive operation, but the Clans never did quite understand this whole "Hold your ground" thing.
And the Periphery isn't exactly pushovers either. An example of this is the Dark Age era Raven Alliance. The Outworlds Alliance Air Corp impressed the Snow Ravens so much they proposed a union of states.
Maybe I'm approaching it from the wrong angle, but I'm having a hard time seeing anything as out of the reach of the clans if they are nearly as advanced as I'm thinking they are.
I'm still thinking the IS would look a hell of a lot different than it currently does even in DA time if this had happened "realistically". At the very least the Periphery would not exist in its current form. I'm thinking I might do that for a homebrew/fanfiction, although it would hurt...The Anti-Spinward Periphery is entirely Clan Occupation Zone, which is sad, because I no longer get to make "Butte Hold" jokes.
The rest of the Periphery out of reach of the Clans is still there. Why wouldn't they be?
Against the Clans, Axman if I'm feeling generous. Hatchetman... definitely not.
You forget the Axman and Hatchetman.Grandfather's* will be done.
*Yes, I'm the grandson of one Doctor Banzai of NAIS. ;)
Axes, melee in general, and triple strength myomer in close combat (particularly urban settings) counted for a lot in overcoming the clans systemic advantages. An atlas that can punch for 20 damage with each hand on the punch chart (1 in 6 chance of a head shot) when TSM kicks in is a game changer. At least it was in our game. ;)
Axes, melee in general, and triple strength myomer in close combat (particularly urban settings) counted for a lot in overcoming the clans systemic advantages. An atlas that can punch for 20 damage with each hand on the punch chart (1 in 6 chance of a head shot) when TSM kicks in is a game changer. At least it was in our game. ;)
I ride the Hatchetman hard because it's got design flaws that continually irk me. Like 6.5 tons of armor on the 3F and single heat sinks, an XL engine and one ton of ammo for the LB-10X on the 5S.
Problem I have with melee is that so few designs are geared to take advantage of it. There are no real canon TSM CQB designs until House Liao unveils the Ti Ts'ang.
BT designs as a whole are often flawed things. The well put together designs really stand out and are often disliked as "munchkin rides"
Often those mechs are like that for in game reasons. Can't afford x or can't gain it or something of the like. Often times mechs are not part of a group build but one company trying to get all the parts and such. So often things are not as good as they could be.
Look at the 3050 clan mechs for example. Many of those have large flaws and wacko weapon configs.
On the hatchetman, 1 ton of ammo was not all that odd back in the day and for a mech that is made for city fighting and to always be near the ammo supply it isn't as big a deal as it seems. To the designers anyhow.
Also Clans have real issues in melee and in city fighting, for the most part. That is where you want to get em {as long as they don't deploy el's} you cut down the range advantage and close in to what they do not like to do.
You never fight on the enemies terms if you can help it.
BT designs as a whole are often flawed things. The well put together designs really stand out and are often disliked as "munchkin rides"
Often those mechs are like that for in game reasons. Can't afford x or can't gain it or something of the like. Often times mechs are not part of a group build but one company trying to get all the parts and such. So often things are not as good as they could be.
Look at the 3050 clan mechs for example. Many of those have large flaws and wacko weapon configs.
On the hatchetman, 1 ton of ammo was not all that odd back in the day and for a mech that is made for city fighting and to always be near the ammo supply it isn't as big a deal as it seems. To the designers anyhow.
Also Clans have real issues in melee and in city fighting, for the most part. That is where you want to get em {as long as they don't deploy el's} you cut down the range advantage and close in to what they do not like to do.
You never fight on the enemies terms if you can help it.
1 ton of ammo for an LBX which can use variable ammo is a fairly serious design flaw.
Not really disagreeing, but ya need to look at it in game...most of this stuff is like life..someone designed it, someone else changed it, a 3rd person pushed for including this new weapons and change x, a 4th person changed x, a 5th person changed weapon brands and so on.
I am ok with flawed mechs. I Do not know if I have the machine he is talking about in my books, but many changes are field "upgrades"
EDIT: He is thinking the 5s not the 3f {which is pure 3025 tech} Again this is one of those things those retcons make illfitting.
The 5s was like many 3050 mechs a rush job, put into service with little though other then adding new tech. The LB-X was added to save wight and range, not multipul shell types. It was like many mechs at the time a rush job to get new tech out to the field.
With years of pre invasion build up the 5S makes zero sense really.
I also want to point out the LB-X refit was common, not for different shell types but range and tonnage. Hell with diff shells if I can get better range and an extra ton to play with.
XL Engines and Single Heat Sinks annoy me. As in RAGE! *FROTH AT THE MOUTH* annoy me.
Not because of efficiency, but because it directly counteracts universal fiction that the reason XL engines are lighter but bulkier is because they incorporate superior double strength expanded cooling technology - aka Double Heat Sink technology.
As for the pre-invasion buildup, imperfect implementation of technology (See the hilarious Daboku Debacle with it's faulty impact sensitive CASE) is one thing but to insist that the Houses sat on the Helm Memory Core for 25 years without trying to understand it is a bit much to ask. The HCT-5S makes sense because the Federated Commonwealth was still rushing the design to the field. Not to fight the Clans, but to fight the FWLM and DCMS.
Even the original Wolf Sourcebook points out that the Federated Commonwealth was building up to 'finish the job' started by the 4th Succession War, which was one of the reasons cited in favor of the invasion.
If the Clans hadn't turned up, the 5th Succession War would have broken out.
The Daboku Debacle I mentioned refers to the the hilarious first attempt by the DCMS to duplicate Cellular Ammunition Storage systems from the Thug on a it's new Daboku BattleMech (which was itself a remodelled Awesome).
Though the installation was successful, DCMS designers lacked the technology to calibrate the sensor technology to a different armor profile. The result was a that any sudden impacts on the lower front torso would cause the Daboku to automatically dump ammunition out the rear CASE panels and eject the MechWarrior.
FedCom troops snapped up large numbers of Dabokus as battlefield salvage during the early days of the War of 3039 and pressed them into frontline service, but were unaware of the 'sweet spot' problems. This led to a hilarious engagement between the Third Dieron Regulars and Fourth Lyran Regulars on Konstance where Busosenshi Nakisawa Eldersage thundered his Cyclops into a reinforced Lance of Lyran Dabokus providing fire support and proceeded to disable them all with punches to the chest plate that sent their pilots rocketing skywards.
XL Engines and Single Heat Sinks annoy me. As in RAGE! *FROTH AT THE MOUTH* annoy me.
Not because of efficiency, but because it directly counteracts universal fiction that the reason XL engines are lighter but bulkier is because they incorporate superior double strength expanded cooling technology - aka Double Heat Sink technology.
Since when? The xl engine could always have any type of heat sink and used to NOT be linked to type of engine. What made it lighter was the lighter but bulker engine shielding material not heat sinks. This is what the books I have say at any rate.
It never had a thing to do with heat sink type. Not including double heat sinks in what is a rush job in any way you look at it fits. Later on they became common, back then it was new tech and just maybe they had not figed out just how to use em in the 180 engine they produced.
The 5S is kinda crap, but it is crap that makes perfect since for the time, it is a pure rush job throwing as much new stuff as they could fit in it into the field, flaws and all
The did alot with the charger, but ya see the charger is one of those oh so silly flawed mechs that was made that way in game for reasons. It does not make sense in game, but once ya read the fluff your like" Oh yea, red tap and someone has an agenda other then buying good mechs"
Many of BT's flawed mechs are like the charger, not great mechs that got put into production due to red tape and greasing of palms