10 replies to this topic

[Victor Morson]

This is something I've thought about before, but while I await a process finishing on my computer, I'd figure I'd rant about it for a moment.

Everyone knows the Jihad. If you're a classic BattleTech player, you probably hate it. The mere idea that the WoB splinter faction could bring the entire IS to it's knees, on their own, was more ludicrous a setup than anything imaginable.

Almost all of the campaigns centered around in and post fiction struggles under just how stupid it was. The fact the WoB could field an army so vast that it could take on the entire IS and ComStar is outright hilariously laughable, even with the tricks described.

But the biggest question, and the one I raise today is.. why did they go this way?

Backing up for a moment, let's look at that Word of Blake had setup: They took over full HPG control in the Free Worlds League. They had a puppet in control. Not only that, but at the moment they struck, the Free Worlds League was one of only two houses untouched by the Clan wars, and the other was both their ally and already battered severely.

With a complete control on the population and their inside man at the top.. see where I'm going with this? The Jihad should have been a Comstar vs WoB shadow war fought through the Successor States.

If the end goal was to bring technology crashing down and wipe out much of the status quo, this would be a believable way to do it. If their puppet refused to comply they could simply HPG his orders anyway. They control the signal, so to speak.

Next thing you know, you could have had the entire FWL armada pouring over the border violating all the rules of war - blowing up shipyards, jump facilities, lasing populations. All while the people in those FWL units were under the impression that they were doing the right thing, because again, Word of Blake controls the news.. including military traffic. They could have fed them anything and backed it with an official seal. In fact there is probably a good story or two about FWL units catching on to what happened.

The rest of the battered, unprepared IS would likely mobilize at this point (No doubt Comstar would be trying to make this happen as well) and respond in kind, going back to Second Succession War levels of nuke-everyone violence. The Warden Clans, who thought it was their destiny to protect the IS from this very thing, would likely push for invasion again, flipping their stance they'd held until that point. By the time the smoke would clear from something like that, everyone would be set back immensely. The HPG network could be near destroyed as could most of Comstar and WoB. Mech factories could be wiped out wholesale, making it impossible to rebuild many variants, making them vital; new chassis could emerge as the remaining parts get shuffled around, far inferior to their originals.

Hell, I could buy Outreach getting obliterated by the entire FWL navy, not that "Nuke on a dropship" crap they came up with.

Long story short? There you have it. A totally plausible version of the Jihad within the spirit of the original BattleTech universe. It practically writes itself, honestly, and would offer countless awesome battles to fight as apart of the succession war to end all succession wars.

[James The Fox Dixon]

I personally disliked the way that the universe unfolded post-3rd Succession War as it was a complete let down from the build up presented in the original House books. The 4th Succession War should be aptly called the Federated Suns/Liao War of 3028-3030 since the only real participants of it were them. The other Houses played a very small role in the overall wedding present from Hanse to Melissa.

The advent of the Helm Memory Core brought about the removal in the decline in technology and went the opposite direction by creating new technology that previously did not exist. The logic of it all didn't make sense since scientists were unable to figure out the basic technology of the 20th century that was lost. It's akin to not understanding astronomy and suddenly you can understand astro-physics without understanding astronomy or physics.

The clans were the most ill-conceived use of the SLDF forces and the fact that the vat born are simply clones of the original mechwarriors would have been an abomination in the eyes of Aleksander Kerensky and the SLDF forces that followed him. Under the Star League, cloning was banned since it was deemed to be unethical and against nature. They could have thrived as they were without the need for Nicholas creating a communist space empire that is the antithesis of what the Star League stood for.

Even from the beginning, you can see that there was a lot of illogical moves on the part of the authors of BattleTech, so it isn't surprising that Jihad was treated the way it was.

[Victor Morson]

While I agree with you to some degree James, in my opinion the universe didn't hit serious decline until the Davion-Steiner civil war. It was horribly handled.

My biggest problem is "fight dirty" Davion suddenly became an entire empire of white hat wearing good guys, while "We just want to party and smooze, we elect our Generals on politics" Steiner suddenly turned into an entire empire of blood thirsty psychopaths willing to violate the conventions of war.

This is to say nothing of the stupidity of having Victor Davion at the front all the time, where he should have died three books in.

But yeah. I can live with the data core. I liked the Clans when they first showed up (before what made them alien got stripped, also during the civil war era). I think the last BattleTech novel before things went into freefall was Bred for War, which also has the single worst CBT novel cover of all time.

The sad part is the Jihad was supposed to clean up and reset all this, and instead, it made it far worse. At least the Civil War had cool tech, factions we knew, and some decent campaigns.

Edited by Victor Morson, 25 April 2013 - 01:24 PM.

[Lucian Nostra]

Victor Morson, on 25 April 2013 - 01:22 PM, said:

While I agree with you to some degree James, in my opinion the universe didn't hit serious decline until the Davion-Steiner civil war. It was horribly handled.

My biggest problem is "fight dirty" Davion suddenly became an entire empire of white hat wearing good guys, while "We just want to party and smooze, we elect our Generals on politics" Steiner suddenly turned into an entire empire of blood thirsty psychopaths willing to violate the conventions of war.

This is to say nothing of the stupidity of having Victor Davion at the front all the time, where he should have died three books in.

But yeah. I can live with the data core. I liked the Clans when they first showed up (before what made them alien got stripped, also during the civil war era). I think the last BattleTech novel before things went into freefall was Bred for War, which also has the single worst CBT novel cover of all time.

The sad part is the Jihad was supposed to clean up and reset all this, and instead, it made it far worse. At least the Civil War had cool tech, factions we knew, and some decent campaigns.

Uhm Im sorry. DRT has the worst cover of all time. nothing to really add to this conversation other than that

Edited by Lucian Nostra, 26 April 2013 - 03:54 PM.

[Karenai]

They did not do it, not realy. They just had to pull something out of their hats, fast.
They went bankrupt thanks to several japanese corporations and their own inability to settle.
FASA closed and the rights went to WizKids, to make room for Clix they had to change the way battles took place. (after that to Topps, after that to The Tornate Company and MDP...)
The Jihad was an afterthought. You can see it not only by how the classic storyline was concluded, but also how they started with DarkAge novels before trying to explain the Jihad itself.

How bad fans reacted to all those changes can be seen by the resurection of FASA in 2012 and that we now have two Mechwarrior games, both set in the pre Jihad era.

As to the "better Jihad" idea. "Ideal War" showed how it could have been. Basicly the Vietnam War in BattleTech, it hints on Word of Blake manipulating everyone to let go of any inhibitions and conducting a by any means war.
It has nukes, slaughter of civis, booby trapped wounded and an overall escalation of force. All that already twenty years ago.
Most fans hated the book, it went too far. I liked it, it showed how fast things can deteriorate in any conflict. It was ahead of its time, the Balkan Wars had just its big massacres and most people did not belive they had happend. For me it seemed like a reaction to the Kuwait and Balkan Wars.
While sensing what was to come in Chechnya, Ruanda, Afghanistan and Irak, it was mirror of the times.

Edited by Karenai, 28 April 2013 - 08:26 AM.

[Karl Streiger]

Oh I really liked "Ideal War" too, same reason why i loved those books by Gressman...They had the same spirit war wasn't fought by shiny knights clad in steel. It was dirty it was brutal and even heros died --> the odds on hesperus II were allready in favour of the GD Legion - and still it were wiped out.

The Jihad has lots of great moments... Look Blakes Word had a real problem with the stabilizing affect of the Wolf Dragons in the Chaos March - so they wiped them out.
But did you read that short novel ... Last Days of Zeta? Thats great that is determination... you know you are going to die, you know that maybe nobody will ever tell you story but still you fight on.

What I didn't get...the Civil War lasted 5 Years...the 4th Succession War only 2 - looks odd to me, too.

[Skylarr]

</h3>

Quote

<h3> Fourth Succession War

Lasting from 3028 to 3030, the Fourth Succession War was the largest conflict since the Second Succession War, over a hundred years prior. The war gave the Lyran Commonwealth and Federated Suns a common border so that they could eventually have one contiguous nation, the Federated Commonwealth.

I totally forgot that the 4th Succession War only lasted 2 years.

Quote

The Federated Commonwealth Civil War (otherwise known as the FedCom Civil War, or simply FCCW for short) was one the most devastating wars to take place in the Inner Sphere. It lasted from 3062 until 3067 and destroyed hundreds of regiments from the former Federated Commonwealth states; the Federated Suns and Lyran Alliance.

I am currently doing the FedCOm Civil WAr in my TT campain. WoW is it brutal.

[Victor Morson]

I have to say my biggest problem with Ideal War was how much of a Mary Sue the main character was. My first unit was actually the Knights of the Inner Sphere, but I was curious about the book for that reason.

But I did like what they were doing with WoB.

I still hold that the fiction was in freefall by the time of the civil war, though, so much of what happened after isn't shocking. Turning Steiner into a bunch of psychotic a-holes while making Davion to be the crusading good guys missed the spirit of the two nations so much it hurts my brain.

[Karl Streiger]

Victor Morson, on 13 May 2013 - 07:54 PM, said:

I still hold that the fiction was in freefall by the time of the civil war, though, so much of what happened after isn't shocking. Turning Steiner into a bunch of psychotic a-holes while making Davion to be the crusading good guys missed the spirit of the two nations so much it hurts my brain.

Wasn't Davion always...the "crusading good guys"
Every Novel and even some of the source books look that way.

You have menslaughtering Mariks, incompetent Steiners, crazy Liaos, and bloodthirsty Kuritas...but are there really some sidenotes of real monsters within the Davion family?
Look Hanse is a superb example of a dictator...making war at all borders... and binding another realm at his person with marrying a child....but does he look that way?

BattleTech is SpaceOpera - any attemp to make it "dark and evil" looks really misguided for me.

[karoushi]

@ post above ~ As for your above post, the darkness that it evolved into may be due to the new generations not preserving the old generations principles and thus all of the known factions degraded into their opposites. Kind of like how rome fell and pretty much any other overbearing conglomerate nation that gets too big for its own good, falls.

Karl Streiger, on 30 April 2013 - 03:08 AM, said:

Oh I really liked "Ideal War" too, same reason why i loved those books by Gressman...They had the same spirit war wasn't fought by shiny knights clad in steel. It was dirty it was brutal and even heros died --> the odds on hesperus II were allready in favour of the GD Legion - and still it were wiped out.

The Jihad has lots of great moments... Look Blakes Word had a real problem with the stabilizing affect of the Wolf Dragons in the Chaos March - so they wiped them out.
But did you read that short novel ... Last Days of Zeta? Thats great that is determination... you know you are going to die, you know that maybe nobody will ever tell you story but still you fight on.

What I didn't get...the Civil War lasted 5 Years...the 4th Succession War only 2 - looks odd to me, too.

Good thing I ditched the entire ordeal and stopped being involved, I love battletech but anything that messes with Wolf's Dragoons deserves to die a lonely death.

Also glad I don't read books, imagine how disappointed I would of been to read that rubbish after buying the book and reading through the series. Time and effort, not wasted.
In my BT universe Wolf's Dragoons lives on and even prospers, Forever.

Edited by karoushi, 14 May 2013 - 05:34 PM.

[Kyone Akashi]

karoushi, on 14 May 2013 - 05:31 PM, said:

As for your above post, the darkness that it evolved into may be due to the new generations not preserving the old generations principles and thus all of the known factions degraded into their opposites. Kind of like how rome fell and pretty much any other overbearing conglomerate nation that gets too big for its own good, falls.

Makes it all the more interesting to me. Each era should feel a little different, no?

Also, Wolf's Dragoons were not "wiped out", merely decimated. Which I don't see a problem with also. Of course this is a matter of taste and personal preferences, but personally, I have a long-standing dislike for armies or characters that can do no wrong and come across as unbeatable Mary-Sues, so getting their ***** kicked even just once actually makes the Dragoons more likable. No-one lives forever and everybody makes mistakes. It's only human, and whilst half of Battletech is about giant mechas duking it out with laser and cannon, the other half is about being human ... with all the frailties that entails, from thirst for power to betrayal to being betrayed all the way to some day facing a superior enemy or even getting shot in the back.

If you'd like to know more about the status of the Wolf's Dragoons post-Jihad, there's currently a thread over on the official BT forums: http://bg.battletech...ic,24169.0.html
I vaguely recall they've started to work for Kurita again, too, something about that rift between them ever since the fallout between Jaime and Takashi having been redeemed. Would have to check the Era Report again to be sure, tho.

[edit] Oh, wait, there we go:
http://www.battlecor...tml?article=773

Just prior to the outbreak of the Fourth Succession War in 3028, the mercenary regiments of Wolf's Dragoons served under the banner of House Kurita against the armies of the Federated Suns. They quickly became the terror of the border, bloodying some of House Davion's most elite regiments. Though their break with the Draconis Combine was hard, it paled beside the carnage of the Jihad.

A century after those fateful battles on Misery, An Ting, and other hard-fought worlds along the Davion border, Wolf's Dragoons have returned to the dragon-head banner of House Kurita. Now, in 3139, the rift between the Inner Sphere's most honor-bound warriors and the Inner Sphere's most elite mercenaries is redeemed.

Redemption Rift is a four-part series of novellas--a full novel's worth of fiction--that will begin publication within days and continue throughout May. It is the largest single block of Dark Age fiction BattleCorps has ever released, and with the publication of Era Report: 3145 and the forthcoming Field Manual: 3145, BattleTech readers have more information than ever to enjoy!

Edited by Kyone Akashi, 15 May 2013 - 04:15 AM.