33 replies to this topic

[TychoTheItinerant]

Star League (pre-Exodus): Kind of a "Galaxy Police/Peacekeeper" thing, dedicated to keeping the Great Houses from completely ruining the Sphere.

Star League (new): Basically the Inner Sphere's spearhead against the Clans.

Clans: Inbred space-furries with varying degrees of animistic hocus-pocus mixed in, a huge superiority complex and a really weird "code of honor" which they suspend at the drop of a hat if dealing with the IS.

The Warden clans are ok folks, I guess. Ghost Bear, Nova Cat and Snow Raven all eventually integrated into the Inner Sphere in varying fashions.

Edited by TychoTheItinerant, 03 October 2013 - 02:23 PM.

[Sadistic Savior]

Rowanas, on 03 October 2013 - 10:17 AM, said:

I haven't gotten to read everything posted here, but you guys are being a bit hard on the clans. You paint them as utterly utilitarian at best, and outright callous at worst.

Because they are. They are structured as an Oligarchy, with one class at the top that maintains exclusive control over everyone else's labor and liberties. There is no way to sugar coat that.

At best, the lower castes are pets. Some Clans take better care of their pets than others.

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I would put forth the argument that they're simply survivalists

The warriors are survivalists...at the expense of the lower castes.

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the freeborn, while second-class citizens, live good long lives

..at the suffrance of the Warriors. Smoke Jaguar practically used them for sport. The lower castes have no recourse at all...there is no oversight to how they are treated. They are completely at the mercy of the warriors (or, more specifically, the bloodnamed warriors).

Really, it is no different from a feudal society. Titles are inherited rather than earned (that is what bloodnames are....and as with nobility, they are tied to ancestry).

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Now, i'm not going to defend what we do here in the west, but the crusader clans are basically just doing what we do to developing nations.

Not even close. The Crusader clans effectively want to enslave the Inner Sphere. There is not even an implication of egalitarianism. They want to subjugate the people of the Inner Sphere in exactly the same way that they subjugate their own lower castes.

By contrast, there is at least the pretense of egalitarianism today. Iraq is not ruled by the US, even though the US defeated the previous government. That would never happen with the Clans. Local governments would be completely replaced by the Clan government.

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We go over there, kill the last despot and try to institute our systems over the top.

..under local control. We may have imposed a system, but we are not electing their leaders for them. We do not dictate their laws.

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The largely meritocratic society (as long as you're not mixing true/free borns) seems a lot nicer than the strict feudal system imposed in the Inner Sphere.

...as long as you happen to have the right ancestry. You will never make the rules if you do not have the right ancestry. All leadership is open only to bloodnamed individuals...even among freeborns. There are no exceptions, even among the most liberal Clans.

Phalen Kell was only bloodnamed because he had Ward ancestry. Without that, he never would have risen in Wolf ranks. Diana Pryde likewise had bloodname ancestry, even though she was freeborn. The Clan system is no different from any feudal system. Titles (control) pass only through the family.

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P.S. Pht, they distribute the wealth of the workers

LOL, no they don't. The workers have no say at all about their labor. The warrior caste tells them what to do, and they do it. The warrior caste distributes wealth...not the people who produce the labor.

And if you think that wealth is distributed evenly, you are dead wrong. You really think a common laborer lives as comfortably as a Scientist or Warrior does? Not a chance.

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Socialism isn't evil, and is thus a terrible argument against the Clans.

If you are using the Clans as an example of socialism, it is certainly not going to help promote socialism as egalitarian. There is nothing at all egalitarian about the Clans.

Btw - I personally like the Clans a lot more than the Inner Sphere. I am simply making the argument that they are in no way egalitarian. They are the opposite. They are much worse than most IS governments.

Edited by Sadistic Savior, 03 October 2013 - 03:07 PM.

[TychoTheItinerant]

Should be noted that the IS is not one single entity, and life in the Combine is a LOT different than life in the FedSuns. Clans are all pretty similar in behavior and thought processes, with very few exceptions (Fire Mandrill's Kindraas, Hell's Horses' greater acceptance of combined-arms doctrine and better treatment of freeborns being examples) and those who fail to conform get eliminated (Clan Wolverine being the greatest example). Clans are much more collectivist and totalitarian than even the most iron-fisted IS star-nations (like the Combine).

[Atlas3060]

Marack Drock, on 03 October 2013 - 02:29 PM, said:

So really in reality of BT there is no right or wrong actually. And in that light I must actually agree with the fact both sides are equal.

Most sensible thing I've read in any forum all day.
Well bargained and done.

[Rowanas]

Heh, I don't have the time to reply to everything

Guess we'll settle it the old fashioned way, on the field. (Thinking like a clanner)

Edited by Rowanas, 05 October 2013 - 09:14 AM.

[dal10]

Rowanas, on 05 October 2013 - 09:14 AM, said:

Heh, I don't have the time to reply to everything

Guess we'll settle it the old fashioned way, on the field. (Thinking like a clanner)

isn't the old fashion way to start beating each other with sticks until one person gets their skull cracked open?

[SuomiWarder]

I think you're trying to overthink things too much. The game was about battling robots so the game world was made to have persistent fighting. The original authors wanted tech level tobe down (while still having space flight ironically) so centuries of war was their answer.

Then when they wanted to pump sales they invented to Clans to up the pace and destruction with better weapons and heat management.

Various authors wrote novels that reflected thier interests and bias and eventually we got a real mess that didn't hang together too well. Especially the Dark Age. I mean really....a faction of ComStar has the military might to do what none of the houses could do - take over most of the Inner Sphere.

So anyway, stripped down to looking at action over honor claims, the Clanners are race supremisests, ancestor worshipping, slave holders who live by a "might is right" code. I guess they are the Spartans of ancient Greece with space ships, cloning and BattleMechs.

The IS govermenst are reflections of various turn of the 19th century, pre WWI earth governemnts written large. ComStar is probably a reflection of the fear of a Corporation too big for any goverment to control.

And I can't resist responding to something waaaayyyy up the lists of posts here about the US using nuclear weapons during WWII. It is not that "everyone was okay with it". It was far more a matter of everyone else - including the Japanese - were working on a nuke and the cost in lives to invade Japan would have been astoromical. Japan might not even have survived as a culture or country if the Allies had to invade and basically level the place with conventional weapons. More people died in the fire bombings of Tokyo than either atomic blast. Especially as the Soviet Union was chomping at the bit to attack Japan again and make territorial claims. Using atmic bombs was the lesser of two main evils facing allied and US planners at the end of the war.

[Graywar]

Marack Drock, on 03 October 2013 - 01:06 PM, said:

Tell me this Atlas. If I.S. leaders would be tryed for crimes then: Why didn't Victor and the New Starleague get punished for breaking the treaty in 3062 after Tukyaaid. No matter what his intensions he still commited a crime and was never put up to trial for it.

They didn't break the treaty at all. The treaty of Tukayyid means only one thing: the Clans can't approach any closer to Terra than Tukayyid. Nothing more, nothing less. In fact, the clans could attack any IS world that's above the "Tukayyid line". The treaty has no effect on the Star League Defense Forces, they can still attack the Clans wherever and whenever they want.

[TychoTheItinerant]

Graywar, on 14 October 2013 - 12:45 PM, said:

They didn't break the treaty at all. The treaty of Tukayyid means only one thing: the Clans can't approach any closer to Terra than Tukayyid. Nothing more, nothing less. In fact, the clans could attack any IS world that's above the "Tukayyid line". The treaty has no effect on the Star League Defense Forces, they can still attack the Clans wherever and whenever they want.

Except for the duration of time the Treaty was in effect the Star League was in no way capable of waging a full-on war against the Clans. The purpose of the Great Refusal was to avert continued Clan aggression somewhat by impressing them on their terms, while avoiding an all-out and costly war. Operation Bulldog was a very surgical attempt to cut one of the sharpest teeth out of the Clans' mouth (CSJ) to further minimize the threat posed. The Inner Sphere and the new Star League are doing a very delicate dance with the Clans in an attempt to dissuade another massive invasion. Meanwhile, some of the Clans have figured out that it's actually better to use a combination of diplomacy and integration (Ghost Bear, Snow Raven).

[CarnageINC]

Most entertaining...and civil discussion on the sociteies of the IS and Clan perspectives! Thank you Atlas3060 and Marack Drock and others for having it. Great read IMO

[Sadistic Savior]

TychoTheItinerant, on 15 October 2013 - 12:20 AM, said:

Except for the duration of time the Treaty was in effect the Star League was in no way capable of waging a full-on war against the Clans.

They might not have been able to invade them, but they definitely could repulse an invasion indefinitely. The great refusal demonstrated that the Clan Eugenics program offered little or no advantage to the Clans...that their only real advantage was their technology.

And by the Great Refusal, the Inner Sphere had largely caught up with the Clans. So it was only a matter of time before they started producing this technology in quantity, and once that happened, they could take on the Clans easily due to their greater numbers and resources.

The Clans attempted a Blitzkrieg in the initial invasion, but once they stalled at Tukayyid, it was basically over. The IS got a chance to catch up.

[Sadistic Savior]

SuomiWarder, on 14 October 2013 - 10:35 AM, said:

I think you're trying to overthink things too much. The game was about battling robots so the game world was made to have persistent fighting. The original authors wanted tech level tobe down (while still having space flight ironically) so centuries of war was their answer.

Then when they wanted to pump sales they invented to Clans to up the pace and destruction with better weapons and heat management.

I think the Clans were intended from the beginning. I remember reading about Kerensky's exodus in sourcebooks in the mid-80s in school.

[Graywar]

Sadistic Savior, on 15 October 2013 - 07:07 AM, said:

I think the Clans were intended from the beginning. I remember reading about Kerensky's exodus in sourcebooks in the mid-80s in school.

While Kerensky's Exodus was always part of the lore, the Clans definitely weren't intented from the beginning. I own a book called "Battletech: Die Welt des 31. Jahrhunderts" (Battletech: The World Of the 31st Century, only availabe in german), which is pretty much a summary of events, people and technology of the Inner Sphere up to the year 3063. It features an Interview with Mike Stackpole, where he explained how the Clans came to be. He said that he was talking with Jordan Weisman about Natasha Kerensky and how she could be related to Aleksandr Kerensky. He then had the idea of Wolf's Dragoons actually being "Wolf Dragoons" and thus the Clans were born. That happened in march 1988, the first four novels were already released at that point.

Edited by Graywar, 15 October 2013 - 07:35 AM.

[Pht]

Rowanas, on 03 October 2013 - 10:17 AM, said:

I haven't gotten to read everything posted here, but you guys are being a bit hard on the clans. You paint them as utterly utilitarian at best, and outright callous at worst. I would put forth the argument that they're simply survivalists, and with good rea son, too!

... "Survival" ... the excuse of dictators, madmen, and murderers since the dawn of time.

No, the clans had no rationally valid reasons for the evils of their socities. Yes, it's proper to understand WHY they made the decisions they made, but not to agree with their failings.

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The whole "no art, no culture" thing is a pile of steaming I.S. A lot of work goes into the military-industrial complex, i'll grant you that, but the freeborn, while second-class citizens, live good long lives, with music, art, non-military science and generally all very similar to the way we would expect any civilisation to live. They have an instinctive aggression and survivalism about them, but it's quite clear that not every Clanner considers everything but fighting a "waste".

I don't think that any informed person in this discussion would say that the clans have NO art or culture.

What is proper to say about them, I think, is that on the whole, all of the clans have devalued those things that are good in art and good in culture and instead put at the ideal pinnacle - the thing they expect everyone to strive for or support - what they (falsely) consider to be the warrior culture.

The clans sourcebooks and novels simply attest over and over that the clans, especially their warrior caste, are uncultured clods - and not in the good sense of that phrase.

Those indivduals in the clans and those clans that have any sort of value for non-warrior culture are well known simply because they are out-liers in clan society. If non-warrior culture was held up in clans, for example, there would really be no reason that the CGB's warrior's individual art pieces would not "stick out" very much at all... and they do, for just that reason.

I suspect they may ironically not even have the trappings of warrior culture as exists in, say, the DC or the CC; sun-tzu and bushido; or the knightly version of those things. I'm not sure much of the older warrior cultures with things beyond "go kill people and break stuff" got into the clans.

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Now, i'm not going to defend what we do here in the west, but the crusader clans are basically just doing what we do to developing nations.

I don't have any love at all for the idiotic messianic stream that runs in the western and especially american military culture, but this comparison is simply wrong in that you're just making an uniformed blanket statement; and thus you have validly implied that ALL western/american military ventures in any developing nations have ALWAYS been as you're saying they have... and they have not.

It was not until George Washington's advice on foriegn affairs was ignored that this started happening.

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We go over there, kill the last despot and try to institute our systems over the top. The largely meritocratic society (as long as you're not mixing true/free borns) seems a lot nicer than the strict feudal system imposed in the Inner Sphere.

The clan system is not meritocratic.

It's a caste system. The two are not the same thing. Society determines what cast you get stuck in, and if you don't get the one you want, you can pretty much forget any upwards mobility.

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P.S. Pht, they distribute the wealth of the workers to ensure that everyone gets what they need.

That's the PR spin and the pretty mask. Functionally if you're not a warrior you are a second class citizen; you're not viewed as a human being but as a resource, to be spent as the current leaders of your clan decide. Even the scientists have suffered under this when they get too far out of line.

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Socialism isn't evil,...

By definition it involves theft.

It's evil.

Edited by Pht, 15 October 2013 - 08:14 PM.