359 replies to this topic

[Gremlich Johns]

Hunson Abadeer, on 18 July 2012 - 07:14 AM, said:

Let's be clear, however, as most instances of voting only allow the warrior caste to vote. For example, it was strange that Khan Damon Clarke allowed non-warriors to vote on the name change from Sea Fox to Diamond Shark (Invading Clans, 135-136). 36).

Strange indeed - Proof that the BT fiction, vis-a-vis the Clans, was poorly conceived and written.

[Hunson Abadeer]

Gremlich Johns, on 21 July 2012 - 09:46 AM, said:

Strange indeed - Proof that the BT fiction, vis-a-vis the Clans, was poorly conceived and written.

I am not sure I follow you on that one. The Clans were conceived of and written as villainous plot devices. Their society reads like a totalitarian oligarchy that most people would find repulsive in reality, but the typical Clanner finds it idyllic because they always play as the rulers rather than the ruled. They were inducted by the video games in the mid-90s, which did not delve into much, so their perception is naturally different than a person reading the Clan source material without a specific focus on the "trueborn elite."

[Stormwolf]

Hunson Abadeer, on 21 July 2012 - 10:00 AM, said:

I am not sure I follow you on that one. The Clans were conceived of and written as villainous plot devices. Their society reads like a totalitarian oligarchy that most people would find repulsive in reality, but the typical Clanner finds it idyllic because they always play as the rulers rather than the ruled. They were inducted by the video games in the mid-90s, which did not delve into much, so their perception is naturally different than a person reading the Clan source material without a specific focus on the "trueborn elite."

Well actually, MW2 had a archive with texts lifted from the Wolf and Falcon sourcebooks, you could read up on this stuff in there.

[Hunson Abadeer]

Stormwolf, on 21 July 2012 - 10:14 AM, said:

Well actually, MW2 had a archive with texts lifted from the Wolf and Falcon sourcebooks, you could read up on this stuff in there.

I played MW2, but it was necessarily shallow due to the limited venue. Of course, both the Wolf Clan and Jade Falcon sourcebooks were also shallow as most of their pages are concerned with the invasion and Tukayyid rather than delving into the substance of the factions as could be done with the Inner Sphere. I always took the Clans to have been a plot device that took on a life of their own. FASA only produced three sourcebooks about the Clans from 1990-1994. They did not return to them again until 1998. All told, FASA only put out about 7 books on the Clans compared to about two dozen for the Inner Sphere. There are some Clanners that delve deeper into the lore, but the fact remains that the average Clanners are trueborn, of the three Clans depicted in MW2 and its expansion pack, and do not dig any deeper than the terminology.

BattleTech always had an element of identifying with a particular faction. That is why a Steiner in 1988 is a Steiner in 2012. I was a Kurita back then, and I am a Kurita now. Clanners often say they identify with the "honor" and "style" of the Clans, which is fine (I like some of the Clans), but I never see Clanners saying they identify with the totalitarian oligarchic society. If the average Clanner went deeper than just the "trueborn elite" level of the lore, I think most would identify with the more liberal Clans that rarely anyone likes because they are not the ones that win the grand victories in the lore.

People are free to like whatever faction they choose, but no one should try painting the Clans as Utopian societies full of honor and nobility. They are brutal societies that are typically only as honorable and noble as they can be while still getting their way. No one would want to be a non-trueborn anything in the typical Clan society.

[Baenlynn]

Whoa... This takes me back, and I know this thread is getting a little old but lemme see what I can pry loose from the old memory files...

The failure of the clan invasion is actually a lot more complex than a single cause and there were a number of events and forces at work that ultimately stopped it cold.

First off: the Ghost Bears. While yes they were an invading clan, at the time of the invasion crusader factions within their own clan were in control of the leadership, the larger and more traditionally warden faction worked behind the scenes to slowly restore itself to power. Clan politics if you will. After Tukayyiid they began to return to their warden ways, culminating in their bowing out of the great refusal. The Invading clan forces then lost their largest military asset in any renewed forward push.

Second: IlKhan Ulric Kerensky.
After IlKhan Leo Showers was killed at the battle of Radstadt, a few political movers and shakers decided to push a puppet into the IlKhanship: Ulric Kerensky. Ulric proved to be more savvy than his backers however and quickly crippled nearby rival clans by adding the Steel Vipers, Nova Cats, and Hells Horses forcing them to pair up and share territory with their rivals the Jade Falcons, Smoke Jaguars and Ghost Bears respectively. Ulric knew this would cause problems for the rival clans and give his own clan an advantage when the hostilities resumed.

Third: The Refusal War.
In the wake of Tukayyid the Clans stood waiting for the truce to expire and Clan Jade Falcon brought charges of Genocide against Ulric Kerensky. As a member of the Clan warrior caste to live past the age of 35 was to be seen as past one's prime, and be demoted to a second-line unit. An entire generation of Clan warriors in the invasion corridor would share this fate because of Ulric. When the Clan council of Khan's found Ulric Guilty he declared a trial of refusal and bid the entire military force of his clan, the Jade Falcons responded in kind. Throughout the war however the Wolves were not just fighting against the Jade falcons but also each other as Ulric had given secret instructions to Phelan Kell (formerly of the Kell Hounds) to take as much of the warden faction of the clan as he could to the Inner Sphere. In the aftermath of the refusal war Vlad Ward, leader of the Wolves' crusader faction found his military at half strength. He then engaged in a political manouevre to futher cripple his rivals in the Jade Falcons forming an alliance of the clans known as the Jade Wolves. Which was brief, violent and accomplished little beyond further blunting the military presence of Jade Falcon in the Inner Sphere

Fourth: Clan Nova Cat
From their injection into the invasion the Nova Cats worked against the goals of the crusader clans. Secretly collaborating with the Draconis Combine to harass the hated Smoke Jaguars, this would prove to be their undoing when it was discovered by the rest of the clans during the great refusal.

Fifth: Clan Smoke Jaguar
Clan Smoke Jaguar always talked harder than it could fight, and always fought harder than it could afford to. Proud and arrogant to a fault (though not without skill) Clan smoke Jaguar was decimated at Tukayyid and never fully recovered. Forced to scavenge mechs and materiel from the Draconis Combine they even tried to steal genetic legacies from other clans to bolster their own failing Touman (MW2: Ghost Bear's legacy).

So there you have it, a brief account of the many reasons why the invasion faileld. But the key points are: infighting, politics and overextension. In the end the only crusader clans left in the inner sphere in any shape to fight were the Jade Falcons and Crusader wolves, but they'd been reduced in effectiveness to such a degree that a return to open warfare would have destroyed them, and when your neighbours are just as big a threat as the enemy you can't really afford to get into wars on too many fronts (what did the Smoke Jaguars in)

So that's just a small and incomplete list but I'm sure there are plenty of old hats to flesh out and argue the details.

Edited by Baenlynn, 21 July 2012 - 11:15 AM.

[TANTE EMMA]

Baenlynn, on 21 July 2012 - 11:13 AM, said:

Whoa... This takes me back, and I know this thread is getting a little old but lemme see what I can pry loose from the old memory files...

The failure of the clan invasion is actually a lot more complex than a single cause and there were a number of events and forces at work that ultimately stopped it cold.

First off: the Ghost Bears. While yes they were an invading clan, at the time of the invasion crusader factions within their own clan were in control of the leadership, the larger and more traditionally warden faction worked behind the scenes to slowly restore itself to power. Clan politics if you will. After Tukayyiid they began to return to their warden ways, culminating in their bowing out of the great refusal. The Invading clan forces then lost their largest military asset in any renewed forward push.

Second: IlKhan Ulric Kerensky.
After IlKhan Leo Showers was killed at the battle of Radstadt, a few political movers and shakers decided to push a puppet into the IlKhanship: Ulric Kerensky. Ulric proved to be more savvy than his backers however and quickly crippled nearby rival clans by adding the Steel Vipers, Nova Cats, and Hells Horses forcing them to pair up and share territory with their rivals the Jade Falcons, Smoke Jaguars and Ghost Bears respectively. Ulric knew this would cause problems for the rival clans and give his own clan an advantage when the hostilities resumed.

Third: The Refusal War.
In the wake of Tukayyid the Clans stood waiting for the truce to expire and Clan Jade Falcon brought charges of Genocide against Ulric Kerensky. As a member of the Clan warrior caste to live past the age of 35 was to be seen as past one's prime, and be demoted to a second-line unit. An entire generation of Clan warriors in the invasion corridor would share this fate because of Ulric. When the Clan council of Khan's found Ulric Guilty he declared a trial of refusal and bid the entire military force of his clan, the Jade Falcons responded in kind. Throughout the war however the Wolves were not just fighting against the Jade falcons but also each other as Ulric had given secret instructions to Phelan Kell (formerly of the Kell Hounds) to take as much of the warden faction of the clan as he could to the Inner Sphere. In the aftermath of the refusal war Vlad Ward, leader of the Wolves' crusader faction found his military at half strength. He then engaged in a political manouevre to futher cripple his rivals in the Jade Falcons forming an alliance of the clans known as the Jade Wolves. Which was brief, violent and accomplished little beyond further blunting the military presence of Jade Falcon in the Inner Sphere

Fourth: Clan Nova Cat
From their injection into the invasion the Nova Cats worked against the goals of the crusader clans. Secretly collaborating with the Draconis Combine to harass the hated Smoke Jaguars, this would prove to be their undoing when it was discovered by the rest of the clans during the great refusal.

Fifth: Clan Smoke Jaguar
Clan Smoke Jaguar always talked harder than it could fight, and always fought harder than it could afford to. Proud and arrogant to a fault (though not without skill) Clan smoke Jaguar was decimated at Tukayyid and never fully recovered. Forced to scavenge mechs and materiel from the Draconis Combine they even tried to steal genetic legacies from other clans to bolster their own failing Touman (MW2: Ghost Bear's legacy).

So there you have it, a brief account of the many reasons why the invasion faileld. But the key points are: infighting, politics and overextension. In the end the only crusader clans left in the inner sphere in any shape to fight were the Jade Falcons and Crusader wolves, but they'd been reduced in effectiveness to such a degree that a return to open warfare would have destroyed them, and when your neighbours are just as big a threat as the enemy you can't really afford to get into wars on too many fronts (what did the Smoke Jaguars in)

So that's just a small and incomplete list but I'm sure there are plenty of old hats to flesh out and argue the details.

That pretty much sums it up. Well, there is much more, but that would take ages to explain....

[RedShirtPhenom]

I have no doubt this is more than answered by now, but I'll throw my hat into the ring as well.
First - the technological advantage was quite huge at first, but with the year to regroup and prepare that the death of the ilKahn (Leo Showers i think) granted, coupled with the refit packages and other knowledge that the Wolf's Dragoon's were able to provide when they called the Leaders of the IS in to discuss the Clan invasion.
as for the "superior troops" of the clans, Yes they are designed to be good warriors, yes they train for years to become what they are, but a captured IS merc named Phelan Kell of the Kell Hounds eventualyl was adopted into the Wolf Clan and eventualyl won the Ward Bloodname, and was elected Kahn, (which i would say proves that the Clan way isn't quite as good as they think it is). Also I would say that the same Year that i mentioned earlier was enough for the Great Houses to shift troops up to the regions bordering the Clan invasion Zone.
Also, suprise doesnt quite work as well when the invading Forces have as strict RoE's as the Clans do (what with the bidding, the traditions and their preference for a straight up fight rather than using subterfuge)
I would say that The Clans had one big weakness brought about by their war doctrine, which is that they are all Shock-and-Awe. They prefer quick, decicive engagements, where the IS troops have learned - after 300 years of taking a real stab at seeing what the Stone Age was all about - that real warfare is more about denying the effectiveness of the enemy that actually killing him. This translated to the Mass fire tactics that IS mechwarriors are familliar with and that infuriate most Traditionalist Clanners, to mobile forces using ambush tactics and focusing on the terrian to lower the tech edge that the Clan mechs have (Valleys and forests are real great at making up for a difference in weapon ranges)
The short answer to your question is... The Clans weren't flexible, they didn't learn, they completly underestimated their enemies and they weren't really a united front. Whereas the Inner Sphere governments pulled together (most of them anyway), they learned about the Clans, adjusted their tactics to expliot weakness and to deflect strength, and innovated to close the technological gap.

[Jaroth Corbett]

Sorry I took so long, but to looking at the length of your posts, I knew I would not have the time to deal with it during the week. TGIS.

Quote

I want to reiterate this point. The line between samurai and peasant was much blurrier for most of their history. Peasants could also serve as ashigaru (soldiers) alongside the samurai, and upward mobility was possible as in the case of Toyotomi Hideyoshi. As I said, Hideyoshi was the one that created strict lines between the two and disarmed the populace except for the samurai in 1588. Hideyoshi died in 1598, and it was his efforts that laid the foundation for the ultimate rise of the Tokugawa shogunate, which ushered in the Edo-jidai in 1603.

When the culture was established does not negate the fact that it was established. Samurai > everybody else. It happened & as you also seem to be a fan of the samurai culture ( ) I did not have to give you the details.

Quote

My point about ritualistic fops was about the samurai of the Edo-jidai, so you are only pointing to my own point. The same thing took place in Europe. The royalty and nobility were once soldiers, but they became ritualistic fops once they were no longer expected to actively fight in near constant wars. Abuses of the lower classes then followed as pomposity and ritual replaced the social contract that had existed between lords and vassals. "It is written in history. I can give you direct quotes if you like."

Warfare changed over time & nobody wanted the slug-it-out-in-the-mud where two sides hammered each other. As always there were disagreements but they were settled with individual duels. An offense would be dealt with in the same manner as a Trial of Grievance, where two knights would battle each other, or in the case of lords, they selected a champion to fight in their stead. As I showed in the example of The Cid, Trials of Possession were also fought this way. They have major families & minor ones. (Bloodhouses). Did they work the exact same way as other minor families regarding being vassals to major ones? No, but the major Bloodhouses exerted their influence in the Clan as other major families in a kingdom/empire.
And again you keep bringing up the marriage bit, when I told you before, this was done way before a trueborn came out of an iron womb.

[Ashla Mason]

There are several reasons that the clans Lost, including (but not limited to)
1. The loss of ilkhan Leo Showers. The death of the ilkhan during wartime required a meeting of the grand council of khans, and in order to perform such a feat, the Khans of the invading clans had to return to Clan space. Such a journey required a full year to complete, and gravely delayed the clan's invasion timetable.

2. The stupidity of clan smoke jaguar. The jaguars (in a move motivated by pride and envy more so then sound judgement) launched an invasion of Luthien that resulted in critical losses, and these losses gravely harmed their capabilities on tukkayid.

3. Unification of the inner sphere. For the first time in centuries the great houses of the inner sphere put aside their squabbleing and maintained a truce. this freed up considerable numbers of troops from borders not in contact with the clans, and allowed the Free Worlds League to mass produce war goods for the engaged nations.

4. Attrition. The clan method of warfare esteems efficiancy above all else, and as a result they were used to battles being resolved within a day or two and thus utilized munitions far more liberally then they should have. Further, the clans found themselves dealing with partisan resistance for the first time since operation Klondike and were forced to come up with new policies while in the field, further delaying the invasions advance.

5. Numerical supperiority. The inner sphere powers (with the exception of rasalhague) could afford to pour bodies into the woodchipper far more easily then the clans.

6. Intelligence warfare. The nature of inter-clan warfare render intelligence gathering a moot point, since (while capable of deception) the clans routinely disclose all relevent information to each other during the batchall. As a result, they were effectively naked against the wrath of DEST, LOKI, yakuza and nekogami.

7. Observation. Anastasius focht had access to every last scrap of information on the clans when he planned his defence on tukkayid, and knew exactly how to fight and win against the clan juggernaught.

More or less, this is my observation on why the invasion failed. However, there is a point that I feel is worth making to all the smug IS buggers who despise the clans so much and are filled with glee everytime they can crow about the weaknesses of the clans. If the clans had launched the invasion with not 4 but all 17 clans, their is not a doubt in my mind that they would have been able to smash through the IS in probably less then a decade.

[Hunson Abadeer]

Jaroth Winson, on 22 July 2012 - 05:25 AM, said:

When the culture was established does not negate the fact that it was established. Samurai > everybody else. It happened & as you also seem to be a fan of the samurai culture ( ) I did not have to give you the details.

Japanese culture as pertains specifically to the feudal society in question stretched back for centuries upon centuries before the Edo-jidai. The samurai were not limited to those in that one period, and what occurred in a snapshot in time that was not representative of the whole history cannot be used to justify something else completely unrelated to said society. Clan society being a totalitarian oligarchy is not negated because many samurai became ritualistic and brutal over the course of less than three centuries. As I have said, the same thing occurred in Europe, but the ritualistic and foppish nobles of the Renaissance were not representative of the whole history.

Jaroth Winson, on 22 July 2012 - 05:25 AM, said:

Warfare changed over time & nobody wanted the slug-it-out-in-the-mud where two sides hammered each other. As always there were disagreements but they were settled with individual duels. An offense would be dealt with in the same manner as a Trial of Grievance, where two knights would battle each other, or in the case of lords, they selected a champion to fight in their stead. As I showed in the example of The Cid, Trials of Possession were also fought this way. They have major families & minor ones. (Bloodhouses). Did they work the exact same way as other minor families regarding being vassals to major ones? No, but the major Bloodhouses exerted their influence in the Clan as other major families in a kingdom/empire.

And again you keep bringing up the marriage bit, when I told you before, this was done way before a trueborn came out of an iron womb.

First, the Clans are not a feudalistic society. There may be limited similarities here and there, but the Clans are oligarchies based on a caste system. In Warriors of Kerensky, we are told that there are only 110,000 warriors out of 1,150,000,000 people. That means that less than 0.0096% of the population votes on issues, and the other 99.9904% of the population typically just has to accept it. The overwhelming majority of the Clans' populace are little more than slaves to the system, and they have no upward mobility or say in their lives. They are told their occupations, who to marry, and so on, which has nothing to do with feudalism.

On a more basic level, the Clans are not a feudalistic society as there is no lord-vassal relationship and thus land is not held in fee. Feudalism requires that the primary lord provides land to his immediate vassals in exchange for services, but the land still belongs to the primary lord. Those vassals then divide their land among their own vassals and so on from royalty to the peasantry. The kingdom still belongs to the king, but the various levels of vassals offer some sort of service or goods in exchange for benefiting from a given tract of land. The Clans are not feudalistic regardless of whether or not the warrior caste has similarities to noble houses.

The Clans combine an oligarchy with totalitarianism and a bigoted caste system. None of those things are actually popular with anyone except for the people in charge. Just ask anyone that was ruled under such systems.

Second, the marriage issue is important because it gets to the heart of the totalitarian nature of the Clans, and it is not negated by removing the trueborn-freeborn relationship. Being told what your occupation will be, who you will marry, where you will live, and so on has nothing to do with feudalism. There is no upward mobility as can be found in most feudalistic societies as a person cannot simply choose to change their caste, and that is the only way to truly move up in society. Even freeborns that make their way into the supreme caste are still second-class citizens.

[pnaksone]

We have to look at one issue that helped the clans was that they invaded from a direction that was relatively lightly guarded. The bulk of the best trained and equipped troops where along the major national boarders or at quick redeployment points near the borders. The speed during the first part of the invasion hindered the quick redeployment of these forces.Unless you know where to send them and you can get thier first it is point less to move them. Then you have to add that the governments may not have want or been able to move units away from know enemy borders just in case they decide to take advantage.

The year of peace gave the IS time to rest, refit, relocate,rebuild, replace, and train units. It also gave time for the diplomats to hammer out treatise to at least for the duration of the clan invasion allowing the best borders units to be relocated to the clan front. It allowed time for the industrial base to ramp up production to we need it yesterday levels.

Replacing equipment is often the easy part replacing the trained and experienced warm bodies is harder.

The clan warrior eugenics program created babies in the iron wombs not full grown clones it still took years for them to reach training age. The average age of a entry level warrior was twenty.

The clan system of warriors was good for producing very good level troops at a steady level but was hard pressed to ramp up production. Best guess we have is that of 100 babies in a sibko only 20 make it to training.Of which only four or five world pass the final test. The rest are either dead or washed out. I can not remember in which source book but it was stated that it was not unusual for an entire sibko of 100 to be wash out. To become a clan warrior you had to be trained and tested. Freebirths had it worse.


When push came to shove the IS placed anyone they could grab in the military. If you where taller then the rifle (not always need) you where given the rifle . If you could see over the dashboard and reach the petals of a tank at the same time you could be placed in a tank. If you could reach all of the controls of a mech and see over the dashboard you could be trained to pilot one. The combat abilities of such troops will never be great but the can bleed an enemy to death. Of course any who survived long would become very good very fast.

Only the border populations tend to be numb towards who was ruleing them as they frquently changed hands but most worlds where loyal to thier "state" .

[Dimestore]

pnaksone, on 29 July 2012 - 01:12 AM, said:

Only the border populations tend to be numb towards who was ruleing them as they frquently changed hands but most worlds where loyal to thier "state" .

I am surprised how few people notice this issue. Occupation consumes WAY more resources than conquest. For an army already short on manpower the strains of occupation are crushing. Think US in Iraq but without the Kurdish region that kinda likes them.

The clans were made to attack, not hold. That is why they failed. Their leaders paraded around announcing mission accomplished and all of the conquered freebirths messed with them every way they could. It was sort of like a scorched earth policy except the massively reduced planetary outputs due to sabotage and morale problems were exacerbated by outright sabotage and insurgencies. The clans could not conceive of non-warrior castes resisting their orders or even raising arms against them, nevermind freebirth non warrior caste being competant at it.

How many clan mechs sat in repair bays 10 times as long as they needed to or left with onboard gear wired to explode the first time any kind of weapon hit them?

[Vodkavaiator]

Hunson Abadeer, on 21 July 2012 - 10:00 AM, said:

Their society reads like a totalitarian oligarchy that most people would find repulsive in reality, but the typical Clanner finds it idyllic because they always play as the rulers rather than the ruled.

This, Clan society is cool because no one imagines themselves as some oppressed merchant caste member.

[pnaksone]

Hax DB Header, on 29 July 2012 - 01:54 AM, said:

I am surprised how few people notice this issue. Occupation consumes WAY more resources than conquest. For an army already short on manpower the strains of occupation are crushing. Think US in Iraq but without the Kurdish region that kinda likes them.

The clans were made to attack, not hold. That is why they failed. Their leaders paraded around announcing mission accomplished and all of the conquered freebirths messed with them every way they could. It was sort of like a scorched earth policy except the massively reduced planetary outputs due to sabotage and morale problems were exacerbated by outright sabotage and insurgencies. The clans could not conceive of non-warrior castes resisting their orders or even raising arms against them, nevermind freebirth non warrior caste being competant at it.

How many clan mechs sat in repair bays 10 times as long as they needed to or left with onboard gear wired to explode the first time any kind of weapon hit them?

Funny thing is this is one of the major reasons why the The Draconis Combine gave up thier section of what would become the Free Rasalhague Republic. They no longer had to spend resources trying to keep the area in line and forced it the Lyran Commonwealth to put thier money where thier mouth was and give up the Free Rasalhague Republic worlds in thier terrtory. The Free Rasalhague Republic became a buffer state between the Draconis Combine and the Lyran Commonwealth.

Edited by pnaksone, 29 July 2012 - 07:49 AM.

[Auga]

I'm surprised no ones talking about Wardens and Crusaders,
Basically Ilkhan from Wardens provided fighting chance to IS.

[Stormwolf]

Auga, on 02 August 2012 - 10:24 AM, said:

I'm surprised no ones talking about Wardens and Crusaders,
Basically Ilkhan from Wardens provided fighting chance to IS.

The difference between Wardens and Crusaders is lost on a lot of people. Many people think that all Clans are like the Smoke Jaguars.

[Uncle Totty]

Stormwolf, on 02 August 2012 - 02:08 PM, said:

The difference between Wardens and Crusaders is lost on a lot of people. Many people think that all Clans are like the Smoke Jaguars.

*looks at Hunson Abadeer*

[Vodkavaiator]

Stormwolf, on 02 August 2012 - 02:08 PM, said:

The difference between Wardens and Crusaders is lost on a lot of people. Many people think that all Clans are like the Smoke Jaguars.

Meh, even the Warden clans are to me socially abhorrent.

Sure they are on the "right" side but the parts of their culture I find disquieting remain.

Its another great parallel to the Soviet Union during WWII, sure they were a useful ally, but in general the other Allies disagreed with their policies and way of doing things.

Edited by Vodkavaiator, 03 August 2012 - 11:07 AM.

[Aaron DeChavilier]

Stormwolf, on 02 August 2012 - 02:08 PM, said:

The difference between Wardens and Crusaders is lost on a lot of people. Many people think that all Clans are like the Smoke Jaguars.

yes because when the call came to invade, the warden clans stuck to their principles and all voted no....

[Jaroth Corbett]