2 replies to this topic

[Katotonic]

I am currently re-reading all of the BT books and am now on Highlander Gambit. Fun book (and I am only a bit more than halfway through it so maybe there is an answer further on) but something I don't really understand:

The regiment brought into hold Northwind for the Federated Commonwealth (to keep the Highlanders from declaring independence) is the 3rd Royal Guards RCT. Given that Katrina Steiner-Davion had recently declared quasi-independence and formed the Lyran Alliance, why is the 3rd Royal Guards RCT (about as traditional a Lyran unit as possible) on a mission to theoretically support Victor Steiner Davion and the Federated Commonwealth/suns side of the split? I would have expected them to quickly "jump ship" and head for Alliance territory. Furthermore, no one in the book seems to question this.

On a side note with information brought in from other books, with the Federated Commonwealth/Suns side of the split fighting the Free Worlds League and the Cappellan Confederation one of the things we hear about the issues the Commonwealth/Suns can't hit back is that it is lacking jumpships to move troops. But the 3rd Royal Guards RCT has enough jumpships to have both their own transport and a "dummy" fleet to draw the Highlander aerospace units out of position. Plus the Highlander unit Stirling's Fusillers has transport back to Northwind (granted these might be Highlander units not available to the FC)... my point is, there seems to be plenty of transport available for what seems to be a minor dispute in the face of an invasion by Marik-Liao forces. What is up with that?

Sorry for the wall of text. Please don't worry about giving away plot spoilers in answers. I just want to know and don't mind.

Thanks in advance.

[Metus regem]

Well, for the most part, to my understanding that is, the choice to go back to the Alliance or Suns was mostly left up to the units.... For example the 10th Lyran guards, stayed with Victor as his personal unit.

As for the other question, plot.

[Tyrnea Smurf]

It could simply be a contrivance of the plot.

Or Northwind was considered a part of Hanse Davion's wedding gift of worlds to Melissa Steiner, and thus a claim for Katrina. (doubtful, but a possibility)

Or that no matter the political splits between the royal family, for the commoners on the ground, they had to deal with the military units assigned to Northwind, no matter what that units internal political sympathies would be. (which in BattleTech fiction could frankly be anything from decent loyalists to burning ambitionists to form a local star empire) And that in the early days of the split, there was no concrete way of knowing who was in whos camp, and then dealing with it.

EDIT: on your side note... The Royals had all those Jump assets because I guess they were Katrinas boys, and she made sure her boys had the toys....

But yes the transport issue rearing its ugly head again. BattleTech fiction have real problems with its logistical shipping/ship numbers. (as in there really should be 10 to 20 THOUSAND jumpships operating at any given time around the Inner Sphere, with about 100 THOUSAND dropships hauling cargo if not far more than that - depending on how interstellar - the trade between worlds is in the 31st century.)

Edited by Tyrnea Smurf, 10 December 2014 - 10:40 AM.