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Inner Sphere Factions


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#1 mooneyboys

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Posted 07 October 2014 - 01:34 PM

Hi there, I'm trying to get a friend i know interested in mechwarrior online and he wants to know more about the Inner Sphere factions so he can consider joining one when he can get a computer that can run MWO. I would tell him but the only one I know is House Kurita. If anyone can help me out that will be greatly appreciated. It can be a simple summarizing sentence of each faction or more in depth if you wish. Thank you in advance

#2 Cascal

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Posted 07 October 2014 - 02:10 PM

House Davion: Anglo-french goodguys in space with plot armor. Prefers autocannons.

House Steiner: German merchants (in space). When it comes to warfare bigger is better.

House Liao: Communist underdogs. Uses sneaky tactics like electronic warfare, mines ect. Invents stealth armor later in the lore.

House Marik: The balkans, india and a lot of other nationalities in a big love/hate relationship with eachother. Mech preference as varied as its peoples, but generally few assaults and ppcs.

House Kurita it sounded like you got covered :)

#3 Egomane

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Posted 07 October 2014 - 02:39 PM

Ok... let's see...

Federated Suns
Ruled by the First Prince. Title is inherited and the Prince has absolute power of his realm. The davion family is the ruling family. There is a High Council, a somewhat democratic, that officially rules the state, but actually has little to no power.

The Suns are the most powerful of the successor states. They field the biggest army and their soldiers are well trained. The same can not be said about the common people. The further away from the industrial and cultural centres an individual lives, the lower are his chances to ever get any form of meaningfull education.

Later on, after the rediscovery of the starleague memory core, the New Avalon Institute of Science will be one of the leading technology centres.

In most of the novels they are depicted as the "good guys". Their motives are never questioned and always for the greater good of the inner sphere. If you look closer, this image easily falls apart.


Lyran Commonwealth
Ruled by the Archon. Again a title that is inherited. The Steiner family is ruling over the state.

This is a wealthy nation. Most citizens are well educated and production capabilities are high. Their military, while strong in numbers, is not as well trained as those of the Suns. There is also a problem with high military ranks being awarded to nobility, which is not always the best choice.



Free Worlds League
Ruled by the Captain-General. This is an elected leader, which makes this the successor states resembling a democracy the most. For some reasons, most Leaders in the past centuries came from the Marik family.

The FWL struggles with unrest in their own midst. There are plenty of opportunistic parties at work and several parts of the realm strive for independence. Despite that, the FWL held together for several centuries, fighting of external foes as well as internal ones. In the rare cases where the FWL works together, they can field a sizable army and have good production capabilities. Their military prefers combined arms tactics and they field the largest navy in the inner sphere.


Confederation Capella
Ruled by a chancellor from the Liao family. It is the smallest successor state. There is a big asian influence in this nation.

While somewhat communistic, this nation has the best education for it's citizens in the inner sphere and a complete healthcare system. Every child will get an education best fit for it. You need to prove your worth to the nation to gain citizenship. This can be done with art, science, serving your time in the military or other ways. Failing to prove your worth, will result in not being considered a citizen and not getting the support from the nation. A child from a non-citizen will still be educated like all others. Even the chancellor and his family is bound by this ruling.

The citizens are fanatically loyal to the nation and so is the military. While the smallest in the inner sphere, the military stood toe to toe with the much bigger one of the Federated Suns and beaten them back several times, so they can be considered well trained in strategy and tactics. The nation is still consistently shrinking due to attacks from both davion and marik forces.

Their science department is second to none. The confederation was the first nation to really construct a new mech desing after several centuries and they started recovering lost technologies, even before the starleage memory core was recovered and distributed throughout the inner sphere.

In the novels the capellans are mostly pictured as the bad guys. In large parts, due to their leadership showing signs of madness. Maximillian might have been driven into it by betrayal (from his daughter Candace and a davion spy). His daughter Romano is clearly mad. Her son Sun Tzu is a (slightly) mad genius.


Draconis Combine
Ruled by Coordinator as a military dictatorship. The ruling family is Kurita. The military has strong ties to a form of bushido, the "way of the warrior" and the nation itself resembles a traditional japan.

Their military is well trained and highly loyal to their leadership. Most citizens do not have rights, they have duties.

For more details on Kurita you need to consult yourself. It's been a long while since I read their housebook. They have some interesting details, that make my short description rather bland, but I can't seem to remember them right now.

#4 Alaskan Nobody

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Posted 07 October 2014 - 03:34 PM

View PostEgomane, on 07 October 2014 - 02:39 PM, said:

Maximillian might have been driven into it by betrayal (from his daughter Candace and a davion spy).

Not often I call you out for being outright wrong - but Max was going nuts LONG before the Allards got to him.

Or did you miss what caused the Davion's to send Justin after him in the first place? :o

#5 9erRed

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Posted 07 October 2014 - 06:47 PM

Greetings all,

Here's a link to a Pdf called, Touring the stars.
- It's a historical storyline about all the Factions, how they started and progressed throughout the BattleTech timeline.

http://bg.battletech...tars.pdf?28cf69

It's 105 pages of the history of every Faction.
- and covers everything up to the 'Dark Age'.

9erRed

#6 fluffypinkbunny

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Posted 07 October 2014 - 07:20 PM

you guys didn't mention the FRR :(

#7 mooneyboys

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Posted 12 October 2014 - 05:14 PM

Gee thanks guys. You made me realize i actually know next to nothing about House Kurita. All I know about them is that they follow the way of the samurai so they are literally space samurai

#8 Bespoke Cheese Cake

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Posted 18 October 2014 - 02:27 AM

Maybe go to Sarna http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Main_Page
Heaps of stuff on that site

#9 Sadistic Savior

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Posted 29 October 2014 - 02:41 PM

View Postmooneyboys, on 07 October 2014 - 01:34 PM, said:

Hi there, I'm trying to get a friend i know interested in mechwarrior online and he wants to know more about the Inner Sphere factions so he can consider joining one when he can get a computer that can run MWO. I would tell him but the only one I know is House Kurita. If anyone can help me out that will be greatly appreciated. It can be a simple summarizing sentence of each faction or more in depth if you wish. Thank you in advance


There is no way to distill them into a single sentence IMO, because they all have aspects of each other in lore.

None of them have only one culture. They are all a mix, but some cultures are more dominant than others. Keep in mind that the houses and the states are not the same thing. Davion is the house that rules the Federated Suns (which is now part of the Fed Commonwealth). While it has ruled it for a long time, Davion does not = Federated Suns.

Davion was the house that controlled the Federated Suns, and is seen as the leader of the "good guys" in Battletech. They are highly militaristic and kind of analogous to the modern day US IMO (minus the democracy...they are definitely a monarchy of sorts). They tend to be heavy on the freedom aspect in their society (free speech ect). The federated suns controlled the largest portion of the inner sphere and had the most resources. Though seen as the good guys by most players, in Lore Hanse Davion was kind of an ***hole, and did a lot of (some would say) morally ambiguous stuff while rationalizing it (again, like the modern day US does).

Kurita is the House that controls the Draconis Combine, and used to be considered the chief bad guy. They are heavily authoritarian and analogous to WW2 era Japan in most ways. Takashi Kurita was basically a stereotypical dictator and fully lived up to the Bad Guy role. After the Clan invasion he mellowed a lot and his son is even more liberal. So the "modern" DC is a lot more open than it used to be. The Clan invasion humbled them a great deal and they arn't as arrogant as they used to be.

Liao controls the Capellan Confederation, and was basically a Kurita lapdog. Their leaders were insane (literally) and abusive and xenophobic. Their society was even more authoritarian and abusive than Kurita, and probably most analogous to Communist China. Liao controls the fewest resources in the inner sphere. Liao is probably the sneakiest and most underhanded of the major IS powers. They are generally seen as weasels, or evil underdogs. There is a branch (a 'sane' branch) of the family that turned traitor and sided with the Federated suns against them. Kai Allard Laio is a legitimate successor to the Liao throne, and is arguably the best mechwarrior the Inner Sphere has ever produced, comparable to Natasha Kerensky herself. And now just as much a legend as she was.

Steiner was another of the good guy powers, and their big thing is loyalty. They rely on politics the same way that the Federated Suns relies on militarism. I would liken them to the EU...their society has a heavy German/Nordic feel to it. Steiner eventually merges with the Federated Suns via political marriage to become the Federated Commonwealth. Victor Steiner-Davion was one of the key heroes who prevented the Clan invasion of the IS, and Katherine Steiner-Davion was the chief IS villain in lore. I think during the time period of this game Katrina Steiner is still in power, and she is probably the closest thing to a real good guy in the game (even more than Hanse Davion).

Rasalhague was once a part of the Steiner Commonwealth and gained independence from them. They have suffered the most from the Clan invasion, and are the closest thing to a true democracy in the Battletech Universe. They don't like Steiner much and hate the Draconis Combine for various war crimes and offenses. Unlike the others I think they are a real democracy and do not have a ruling house. Rassalhague has a heavy Nordic feel, even moreso than Steiner.

Marik is the house that leads the Free Worlds League, which is actually a federation of lots of independent worlds that would be analogous to "city-states". Though they look like a democracy on the surface, they really arn't. I would say they are more analogous to the UN; Lots of little powers with a few big ones making the "real" decisions, and the individual powers are not necessarily democratic at all. They are more neutral than any other IS power, and have allied (and gone to war with) with all the others in the past. The Marik House has been elected to their leadership for several generations, but their society is a lot more Chaotic than the other IS powers, so they are a lot easier to manipulate. Culturally, they have a heavy east-Indian feel to them.

These are all just vague summaries. If you want to know the specifics, I agree that Sarna is a good resource.

Edited by Sadistic Savior, 29 October 2014 - 02:42 PM.


#10 Sadistic Savior

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Posted 29 October 2014 - 03:03 PM

View Post9erRed, on 07 October 2014 - 06:47 PM, said:

Greetings all,

Here's a link to a Pdf called, Touring the stars.
- It's a historical storyline about all the Factions, how they started and progressed throughout the BattleTech timeline.

http://bg.battletech...tars.pdf?28cf69

It's 105 pages of the history of every Faction.
- and covers everything up to the 'Dark Age'.

9erRed


Just...wow....

Was reading about Kurita on the first page of that PDF. The progenitor of the Kurita bloodline was Admiral Takeo Kurita...a REAL LIFE admiral in the Japanese Navy in world War 2! They are basing their entire fictional dynasty on an actual guy that actually existed in the real world.

That is just so cool to me. Attention to details like this is why I love Battletech lore so much.

#11 Mech42Ace

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Posted 29 October 2014 - 08:38 PM

View PostSadistic Savior, on 29 October 2014 - 03:03 PM, said:


Just...wow....

Was reading about Kurita on the first page of that PDF. The progenitor of the Kurita bloodline was Admiral Takeo Kurita...a REAL LIFE admiral in the Japanese Navy in world War 2! They are basing their entire fictional dynasty on an actual guy that actually existed in the real world.

That is just so cool to me. Attention to details like this is why I love Battletech lore so much.


Dang, that is amazing just amazing. I wonder if he ever knew this or not?

#12 Sadistic Savior

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Posted 30 October 2014 - 01:01 PM

View PostMech42Ace, on 29 October 2014 - 08:38 PM, said:

Dang, that is amazing just amazing. I wonder if he ever knew this or not?


Sarna has more information.

This is really weird, because I consider myself something of an expert on Battletech lore. I've been reading it since the 80s. But I never knew about this. It is incredibly cool.


Quote

Takeo Kurita is one of the few real-world historical persons in BattleTech with a fictional component, in this case his line of descendants—in BattleTech, he is held to be the ancestor of Shiro Kurita, who was the founder of the Draconis Combine.

The following biographical section is segregated because it is nonfictional real-world information, canonical [to] the BattleTech universe from an off-hand mentioning in Experimental Technical Readout: 1945 and implicitly also because the BattleTech timeline only begins to substantially deviate from the real world timeline in ca. 1986 according to an official ruling by the BattleTech Line Developer made in regards to this Technical Readout, establishing its status as fully canonical.

Takeo Kurita (28 April 1889—19 December 1977) was a Vice Admiral in the Imperial Japanese Navy during World War II, and, with the famous super-battleship Yamato as his flagship, the commander of arguably the most powerful fleet in human history.

Real World History

Vice Admiral Takeo Kurita is best known for being Commander-in-Chief of the 2nd IJN Fleet from 1943 on, which included the Yamato and her sister ship, Musashi (famous for being the heaviest battleships ever constructed), 3 other battleships, 10 cruisers and 13 destroyers (but no aircraft carriers). After his flagship, the cruiser Atago, was sunk by an American submarine six days prior to the Battle of Leyte Gulf, forcing Kurita to swim for his life, he transferred his flag to the Yamato.

In the Battle off Samar (central part of the Battle of Leyte Gulf), Kurita's fleet ran into American task force "Taffy 3", composed of escort carriers and destroyers, 30 minutes after dawn. Believing he had chanced upon the carriers of the enemy 3rd Fleet, Vice Admiral Kurita ordered an immediate general attack although his ships were just in the process of changing their steaming formation from nighttime to air defense formation. His vastly superior force thus attacked in an uncoordinated fashion, exacerbated by the flagship Yamato falling far behind while avoiding an aerial torpedo attack. Kurita effectively lost tactical control of the battle. Facing dogged resistance from Taffy 3 (with additional air support from Taffy 2), Kurita mauled Taffy 3 but suffered relatively high losses in return and ordered his forces to regroup after about two and a half hours. Upon learning of the destruction of other nearby IJN forces, he decided to retreat.

After the war, he found work as a scrivener and masseur. It was not until late in his life that he talked about the war; he told his biographer that he withdrew because he felt the war was lost, and did not believe in wasting the lives of his men for a futile effort.

Source - http://www.sarna.net...urita_(20th_c.)

Edited by Sadistic Savior, 30 October 2014 - 01:04 PM.






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