39 replies to this topic

[Richard Hazen]

So I'm new to the Mechwarrior lore and I've been reading up as much as I can, but there's seems to be a lot. However it's my understanding the clans are really just the descendants of the former star league that was disposed of by treachery and instead of returning to normal service they left the Inner Sphere and found a new home with the hopes of returning to defend the Inner Sphere.

So now the clans have returned and there's several houses in control are any of them really bad guys, have any of them done anything so evil they could be considered the bad guy or are they simply different factions lead by a different types of ideology?

So is any one truly bad or is every one in grey areas of morality? I chose an Adder for my first mech and Clan Ghost Bear for my first faction cause I liked their honourable outlook but I'm about to start exploring the Inner Sphere and there mechs to try and get a grasp on the differences (you know to better know my enemy ) However there seems to be a lot of hostility (rp like I guess) in several threads I've visited and I'm just trying to understand the reasons for it.

[Spike Brave]

You're correct to say that, on the outside looking in, there is no bad guys. Sure sometimes a faction gets a leader who a royal jerk or insane and does stuff, but by and large it's ideology. Now from an in-universe standpoint, it's real easy to make any of the factions a bad guy. If you grew up in the Clan Invasion Corridor, you would have seen the Clans destroy your way of life. You would have lost friends and family, been relegated to slavery in the lower castes, or taken as a bondsman. Pretty easy to make the Clans bad guys there. If you grew up on Kentares, it's easy to make either Kurita or Davion the bad guy. They like to massacre the population of the planet when it switches sides. House Liao has a history of mental illness in the ruling family and they do so spectacular things to everybody, including their own people. So when you see hostility between faction members it's just nationalism.

[B0oN]

Every faction is a different shade of grey ... there is no white knight or black devil ^^
Have fun looking for the grey you like

[Leone]

Closest you can come to a 'bad guy' side is Smoke Jaguar. In lore, when Turtle Bay revolted after being conquered, the Jags glassed the capitol from orbit. Lotta hate from that choice.

~Leone.

Edit: Corrected by Sug. Gah, I need to read the books again.

Edited by Leone, 03 May 2015 - 11:20 PM.

[Nightshade24]

Closest you can find to good guy I would say is the FRR (was formerly the most peaceful part of the IS before clan invasion) and the clan ghost bears (only clan to have families \o/ )

One thing I find interesting though is IS politics, how there is mountains of propoganda against the Free worlds Leagues and Capallen confederation.

[MechWarrior3671771]

No no. The bad guy is YCSLiesSmith or something. If you see him, leg him

[Shalune]

Yes and no.

Battletech is generally not a tale of good vs evil, but simply chronicling political conflicts, often from a personal perspective. That said, the way the stories were told in the books there were some occasions of people or factions painted almost entirely as 'bad guys.'

The biggest one is Clan Smoke Jaguar. Even among the clans they don't get much love for their overly aggressive behaviour. The one time I can think of a Smoke Jag being deeply characterized in the books it was to show him being ostracized as a major plot point (Mechwarrior Trent.) They're generally painted as not just aggressive and war-like, as many other clans are, but actively malicious. There are multiple examples of them specifically targeting civilian centres.

In the Inner Sphere the stand out in the books is House Liao. Their leadership is generally painted as power hungry, unsympathetic, authoritarian, and just this side of insane. When they are involved in the story it's often part of a power grab, or dubious political wrangling. They are contrasted against the separatist St Ives Compact who are almost always portrayed as innocent populists.

It's not a side per se, but once Katherine Steiner-Davion becomes a major focus of the story she quickly becomes the villain to her brother who is arguably the central protagonist of all of the later books (not counting Dark Age which I consider a separate canon.) She's power hungry and conniving. Though this is portrayed to suggest that her people were victims of manipulation more than they were willing participants, and/or knowingly part of any dictatorial culture.


As for the hostility on the forums, it comes from 2 sources:

1: It's people RPing it up a bit. While there's no or few real bad guys, there's no love between warring factions.

2: It's people angsty over perceived balance issues in the game. I think objectively the game is very well balanced between IS and clans right now, but both sides love to rail on the other claiming that their respective strengths are over-powered.

[Levi Porphyrogenitus]

Bad Guys, in something close to descending order:

Liao
Smoke Jaguar
Jade Falcon
Kurita
Marik
Steiner
ComStar
Wolf
Ghost Bear
Rasalhague
Davion

[Nightshade24]

Levi Porphyrogenitus, on 02 May 2015 - 07:11 PM, said:

Bad Guys, in something close to descending order:

Liao
Smoke Jaguar
Jade Falcon
Kurita
Marik
Steiner
ComStar
Wolf
Ghost Bear
Rasalhague
Davion

^ remember guys what I said about IS politics and propoganda? =P

[SethAbercromby]

If anyone gets the bad-guy hat it's the Word of Blake. Fanatic lunatics the whole lot of 'em.

I remember Clan Ghost Bear being the most human Clan, while Jaguars are the most Clan-like Clan and generally not very good in public relations. Gets stabbed in the back by the other Clans and destroyed by the Star League as a result. Clan Ghost Bear doesn't do too well and later merges with the FRR remains to form Clan Ghost Bear Dominion. Some other smaller clans get either destroyed or merge with others in the aftermath of the invasion.

In terms of IS politics Davion is America, big on money and propaganda. Most of the Lore looks at Davion in a positive light, but they do their fair share of scumbag moves throughout the history and did their best to kick several of the Susccession Wars into motion. Has one of the biggest military force in the IS without too many flaws in their overall composition and skill avarage of the soldiers.

Kurita is Edo-Japan, very big on isolation-politics and makes its warriors follow the code of Bushido, warrior poets with a unhealthy dose of honor and devotion to the Emperor. Large military force with very skilled, but often reckless Pilots.

Steiner is Germany, with a powerful industry. Commanders tend to not be too skilled and use significantly more Heavy and Assault 'Mechs than other haouses in an attempt to make up for it (resulting in the Steiner scout Lance jokes). Troops are generally distrustful of their commanders as a result and often lose due to poor planning and logistics.

Liao is China and and on not very good terms with Davion. Small, but their regular bouts with Davion have made them one of the most skilled forces in the Inner Sphere.

FRR is the only democracy in the IS. At the time of the Clan Invasion, its military was fairly small and used a lot of mixed forces and usually deploys a lot of tanks in addition to their Battle Mech regiments. Gets almost annihilated during the invasion and later merges with the weakened Clan Ghost Bear.

Marik is very European with its space divided into a lot of smaller territories. Tends to develop new technologies very fast due to the high internal competition. This however caused it to fall into a civil war during the fourth succession war, but managed to recover and provided a lot of its industrial assets to the other nations during the Invasion. Highly favors combined arms tactics involving BattleMechs, tanks, arerospace infantry and even naval vessels. Gets thrown back into internal conflict during the Jihad and ends up highly fractured with the provinces only cooperating when the situation calls for mutual defense.

[Fobhopper]

Deimos Alpha, on 02 May 2015 - 04:33 PM, said:

So I'm new to the Mechwarrior lore and I've been reading up as much as I can, but there's seems to be a lot. However it's my understanding the clans are really just the descendants of the former star league that was disposed of by treachery and instead of returning to normal service they left the Inner Sphere and found a new home with the hopes of returning to defend the Inner Sphere.

So now the clans have returned and there's several houses in control are any of them really bad guys, have any of them done anything so evil they could be considered the bad guy or are they simply different factions lead by a different types of ideology?

So is any one truly bad or is every one in grey areas of morality? I chose an Adder for my first mech and Clan Ghost Bear for my first faction cause I liked their honourable outlook but I'm about to start exploring the Inner Sphere and there mechs to try and get a grasp on the differences (you know to better know my enemy ) However there seems to be a lot of hostility (rp like I guess) in several threads I've visited and I'm just trying to understand the reasons for it.

Clan Smoke Jaguar is full of shitbags, which is why when Clan Nova Cat gets into the invasion, they kick the crap out of jaguar. They are a pretty terrible clan from almost all perspectives.

When it comes to IS, Kurita can also eat of bag of {Richard Cameron}. Their whole history is frought with repeated betrayals and backstabbing of everyone. Hell even Clan Nova Cat, which left the clans to join the IS in the Kurita area were eventually betrayed and wiped out by kurita.

Edited by Fobhopper, 03 May 2015 - 03:15 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

Leone, on 02 May 2015 - 05:28 PM, said:

Closest you can come to a 'bad guy' side is Smoke Jaguar. In lore, when Luthien revolted after being conquered, the Jags glassed the capitol from orbit. Lotta hate from that choice.

~Leone.

So Nerve gas used to kill your former fiance's citizens and soldiers on victory parade does not count?

[Aegic]

IS FREEBIRTHS WHO SULLIED OUR HOME ARE THE BAD GUYS

[Karen Supreme]

To be honest I never liked Kurita.....

[800]

..somebody has written books about MechWarrior?! Seriously? I have never heard about this nor seen any of them in libraries or book stores.

[T0rmented]

800, on 03 May 2015 - 04:13 AM, said:

..somebody has written books about MechWarrior?! Seriously? I have never heard about this nor seen any of them in libraries or book stores.

Not specifically mechwarrior books, but battletech books, so there are lots of mechs:
http://www.sarna.net...ttleTech_novels

[Gemhadar]

gemhadar bad guy

[Richard Hazen]

As someone from the UK I think I'm drawn to Marik and the Free Worlds League, I'll have a read about them.

[Sug]

Leone, on 02 May 2015 - 05:28 PM, said:

Closest you can come to a 'bad guy' side is Smoke Jaguar. In lore, when Luthien revolted after being conquered, the Jags glassed the capitol from orbit. Lotta hate from that choice.

~Leone.

I stopped reading the books after End Game but I thought they glassed Turtle Bay. Luthien wasn't conquered before the Jags were destroyed.

[KuroNyra]

They destroyed Turtle Bay yes... And did some other stuff like attacking village to destroy resistance.
In the Clans Side, The Smoke Jaguar are by far the most agressive and dangerous one...

Until they became the Smoked Jaguar.


From the IS. The Liao are pretty much the bad guys, but the Steiners with Katrina is also pretty... Well... Machiavelic.

But the true Bad Guys are Comstar, and more specificly, the Word of Blake.

Edited by KuroNyra, 03 May 2015 - 05:12 AM.