359 replies to this topic

[SteelWarrior]

Riffleman, on 01 July 2012 - 08:51 PM, said:

To those who know the lore, how did this work. How did the inner sphere manage to hold on? Did they outnumber the clans in general? The clans had huge advantages:

1. Suprise. Struck hard and fast before the inner sphere even knew of their existance.

2. suposedly superior troops. Bred to wage war, with superior genes.

3. Far more advanced technology. Everything that the clans had was superior to the inner sphere version, and had technologies lost to them.

So how exactly did they survive that first war?

The clans culture is what lead to them losing. When the attack a world they use a bidding system to deploy the least amount of resources to take the planet as possible. This process forced them to fight hard and well because they couldnt just mass swarm their enemies. Where this started to back fire is when the Inner sphere used it to their advantage. House Kurita and the Federated Commonwealth developed a good understanding of clan tatics and took some of their elite units and forged new units with fresh histories. So during the bidding to see what forces the clans would deploy they went into the battle expecting to face Green troops and they actually were fighting the Inner sphere elite.

Further more there was a divide in the clans. 2 factions called the Wardens and the Crusaders. The wardens didnt want to fight the inner sphere but the crusaders wanted to conquer them. A political infight lead to some major stalls in the clan push, allowing the Inner sphere to prepare. Ultimately what held the clans back was when Comstar intervened and pulled out a massive army of Lostech machinery they hard secretly stored. The fight was negotiated using the clan bidding system and the penalty for the clans failure was to not advance into Innersphere space for 10 years. Some elements of the clans force had an ego complex and pushed in too far too fast and were utterly destroyed. Of all the clans only Wolf actually succeeded in its objectives.

The clans were excellent 1v1. However group warfare was more balanced. Alot of the Clans failure was believing that freeborn mechwarriors were inferior.

[Renaissance]

The Clans simply were not up to the task of maintaining a protracted war. The Crusaders thought it would be easy. They surprise the IS, cut deep into the territory, annihilate or cripple the factions, and take Terra. Then they would have been greeted as liberators and superior combatants with superior technology and the IS would have recognized how wrong they were and would have willingly changed their ways under the leadership of the Clanners.

Unfortunately, reality does not work like that. If a foreign invasion force shows up and starts playing King of the Hill... regardless of whether or not you're satisfied with your current government or political climate, you'll hate them even more and will put your current business on hold to take care of these outsiders. You won't greet the Clanners as liberators who can show you the proper way to live your life, you won't accept their form of society as your own -- and even if you did, you'd more or less be subservient to the vat babies and become part of the peasantry, or a second-class citizen at best.

The IS did not share the Clanners' views of honor and breeding and whatnot. Those who live by the sword, die by the gun. Even if the Clanners conquered Terra, the IS would not shrug their shoulders and admit the Clans were superior. They would have done every thing conceivable to drive them away, even if it meant attrition or salting the earth so they wouldn't even be satisfied with holding Terra.

Tukayyid was another massive reminder that the Clans under-estimated the IS while they were caught up in their own superiority complex out in the Pentagon Worlds. The ComGuard was not something they were expecting, and the ComGuard did not suffer from the technological degradation the rest of the IS did during the Succession Wars, where infrastructure and manufacturing were primarily targeted and people simply became unable to hold onto the knowledges, sciences, and skills needed to operate the [formerly] advanced technology. As a result, the ComGuard not only had superior numbers, tactics, and strategy, their LosTech they had access to put them on par against ClanTech, especially since the IS had a very long time to study the Clans and how best to counter them.

The Clans simply did not have a chance. They were extremely out-of-touch with the rest of the IS. They created their own little reality inside their heads regarding their beliefs and convictions, and their society nurtured that. Unfortunately, that still meant they were out-of-touch. They could never conceivably take and hold territory. It was always going to come down to the Clan Invasion being a flash in the pan, the only variable would have been just how big the flash was. They did not have the numbers, the logistics, or the strategies needed to dominate the Inner Sphere. They were self-righteous Zealots who believed in a reality that didn't exist.

All that really mattered was the IS getting to know the Clans. Sure, the first blitz devastated. But once the IS started getting their hands on ClanTech, started reverse-engineering it. Once they started getting prisoners to interrogate, and started finding out more about the Clans. Once they really started to know their enemy, they exploited every weakness they could. And they won.

The Clanners are a classic example of what happens when delusional leaders brainwash their people into starting a war, and expect to win based entirely on their delusions. You bring up a society that steadfastly believes 2+2=5, and will viciously murder millions of people for those beliefs, then you pick a fight with the rest of reality who knows 2+2=4... and you're going to lose no matter what kind of resources you have.

They simply could never have won, and even in the impossible situation where they would win militarily? Their idea of victory conditions simply would never have been met. Noone in the IS would have accepted the test tube babies as their overlords.

[Remarius]

Comstar gathered information on the clans then caused a cease fire by winning a massive proxy battle using star league era technology. That ceasefire gave the Inner Sphere 15 years to reverse engineer salvaged tech, design new tech, steal tech plans.... and train arm up their key regiments. It also forged alliances never seen before like the Federated commonwath and the Draconis Combine so suddenly the clans weren't facing piecemeal battles but massive armies. In the meantime the clans squabbled between Warden/Crusader and Invaders/Home factions. Then the Inner Sphere responded with a massive campaign across not the handful of worlds each clan had struck but across the entire north of the Inner sphere. With the individual clans unwilling to mend differences they were pushed back. That was all a feint though to hide a warship/jumpship convoy carrying the cream of the elite and upgraded tech regiments in the Inner Sphere in secrecy to the clan homeworlds, whose location had been given away by a disillusioned clansman. They challenged the Clans to a battle for Strana Mechty (the clans shared capital world) and won. Oh and somewhere in there they utterly destroyed the Smoke Jaguars but I can't remember the specifics.

[Insidious Johnson]

Ok, the painfully obvious has to be brought up. The Vat born egomaniacs reproduced by eugenics. Natural births were frowned upon as not '1337'. They were all virgins for life. Tell me that had no effect to their ability to think clearly. What sticks in your head more, something you are forbidden to think about or what you are supposed to think about? By definition, they can't get no satisfaction.

The process for over torquing a clanner into stupidity is the same as for teenagers. For all you clanners out there, don't think about this:

Edited by Insidious Johnson, 01 July 2012 - 11:23 PM.

[King Curt]

Why? Fatty foods ...

[sakkaku]

Damascas, on 01 July 2012 - 09:37 PM, said:

I am pretty sure they went so far as to directly engage clan forces.

The reason the Dragoons were so active in the fight with the clans is because by the time of the clan invasion almost all the original Dragoons were dead, the vast majority of the Dragoons were in fact spheroids themselves.

The Dragoons withdrew to their home on Outreach when the invasion began. They then invited the heads of the houses to discuss the clans, share the technology they brought from the clans and the tactics to counter them (this happened after the first ilkhan died and as such there was a lull in the fighting as the bloodnamed withdrew to the clan homeworlds). Later, when House Davion learned that Luthien (the capital of the Draconis Combine) was going to be invaded he sent the Kell's Hounds and Wolf's Dragoons to assist House Kurita (he sent the mercs because it would not violate the non aggression pact in place).

So the dragoons didn't enter the fighting until relatively later.

[Beazle]

There are a lot of theories on this, but the simple truth is they were rapidly approaching my home turf, so I told them they better quit while they were ahead (and still had their heads) and they wisely agreed.

'Nuff said.

[sakkaku]

Insidious Johnson, on 01 July 2012 - 11:19 PM, said:

Ok, the painfully obvious has to be brought up. The Vat born egomaniacs reproduced by eugenics. Natural births were frowned upon as not '1337'. They were all virgins for life. Tell me that had no effect to their ability to think clearly. What sticks in your head more, something you are forbidden to think about or what you are supposed to think about? By definition, they can't get no satisfaction.

They were not virgins. They were VERY active sexually. But the act of sex itself was disassociated with a permanant mate (marriage) and childbirth. In the sibkos (starting with groups of 30? or so) it was common for them to have sex among themselves even though some of them belonged to the same batch of genetic material. It wasn't frowned upon to have sex but rather the act of childbirth.

Aside from a few bouts with rouge scientists the rest of clan scociety wasn't trashborn like the warrior cast and was much like the rest of the inner sphere. But it was common for warriors who failed in their training to enter other casts so their genetic material would "trickle down".

Edited by sakkaku, 01 July 2012 - 11:33 PM.

[Groundpound Devalis]

Kaheli, on 01 July 2012 - 08:59 PM, said:

I think mostly because Clans weren't used to the way IS wages war, and the way IS wages war is often deceitful and devious. Clans rank honor above everything, and that was what caused their downfall i think.

John Kerensky, on 01 July 2012 - 08:59 PM, said:

Surprise only lasts so long, and they had a LOT of worlds to slough through on their way to Terra.

They did have superior troops, but they were trained for honor duels, not actual real war.

They had superior tech. Heck, they even out-classed what the ComGuards had, but again, the whole honor duels versus actual real war threw them for a loop.

Also they were vastly out numbered. Even so, they could probably have cut much more deeply into the Inner Sphere probably conquered the whole shebang (or at least up to Terra) if not for the Deus Ex Machina that is the Great Refusal of Tukayyid (which shouldn't have even happened, since those who declared it were not of the Clans, and thus had no right initiating such a trial).

EDIT: My mistake; it was a Trial of Possession (for Terra), which I guarantee you the IS would not have honored had they lost.

Uh when the clans actually go to war, it isn't pretty it is total annihilation, just like the IS.

LunarWind, on 01 July 2012 - 09:03 PM, said:

Numbers.
As I understand it, the clans live further from the galactic center on less hospitible planets which cannot sustain massive populations.

I would guess that the Inner Sphere has greater numbers of pilots as well as vast amounts of natural resources and an industrial infrastructure to exploit them.

As a point of reference, you ever hear of the Imperial Guard from Warhammer 40K?
They have the worst troops, the worst equipment, and never surprise anyone, ever.
They also outnumber just about everyone else by at least 10 to 1. Sometimes more like 1,000 to one.

I don't care how well you aim your gun, or how great your gun is, or how long you had to prepare the gun to shoot me.
You've got X number of bullets and I've got X+2 friends.

Part right yes

BenEEeees VAT GROWN BACON, on 01 July 2012 - 09:16 PM, said:

Infighting between the clans as well?

Also, they ran out of bacon mid way and had to eat that freebirth crap. It really lowered morale.

Minus the bacon thing even their politics we war.


First only a handful of clans actually invaded, on top of that due to their warrior way they couldnt fully commit as they had to watch out for the clans not involved. Mix in every inch you take had to be defended through trials of rivals and raids from IS. Getting the local populace stable and under control takes a lot of effort as well. Think of our planet here... if you take a country by force it takes generations to fully assimilate. Multiply that hassle on a planetary scale and all in the span of a couple of years not generations. The whole point was to grab Terra become the one and only super clan then turn the entire trueborn people against the rebelious IS and truly beat them into submission.

The ilKhan worked his turtle tactic perfectly to ensure Freebirth independence. Rules of engagement and infighting purposely thrown into the fray. The only way the invasion would have worked is if the original 4 clans would have been able to go at it without CNC and CSV being plopped in there to be an obstruction rather then help lol. My money would have been Smoke Jaguar sadly, they had no problem scorching the earth behind them to move forward at a faster pace. Don't get me wrong Ghost Bear could dominate if they wanted to superior numbers over every clan and massive military numbers.

[MarshmallowRampage]

One, their idea of warfare was built upon individual duels just in larger scale, things like air support, artillery support and everything preached by Sun Zu was disgusting to them as a whole. Real war doesn't work like that.

Two, while the clans have near unbeatable warriors, they have no soldiers. Yes, there is a vast difference there.

Three, numbers. While the clans have vastly better technology they do not have the same numbers that the inner sphere has, the clan home worlds are a dozen or so worlds, vs the hundreds and thousands of the inner sphere.

Four, supply lines, the inner sphere had much shorter supply lines.

Five, outside threat. Nothing gets old enimies working together than an unknown outside threat that threatons to destroy everything that they know.

[MadCatKP]

Like what most have said the clans were over confident that they were superior to the inner sphere mechs and mechwarriors. They also were not flexible to change their strategy and tactics as the IS use deception and trickery. But that's part of the game in any war. There was also trouble within the clans between the wardens and the crusader which had the wolf clan sent to spy on the IS join up with the cause of the inner sphere. Remember it was a clanner who showed the way into the clan homeworlds. This allowed Prince Victor to lead a Task Force in Operation Bulldog and Serpent of the IS Star League composed of various IS house units to invade the clan homeworld specially the Smoke Jaguars home planet of Huntress. I think the "batchall" was their defeat.

[Bombast]

Insidious Johnson, on 01 July 2012 - 11:19 PM, said:

Ok, the painfully obvious has to be brought up. The Vat born egomaniacs reproduced by eugenics. Natural births were frowned upon as not '1337'. They were all virgins for life. Tell me that had no effect to their ability to think clearly. What sticks in your head more, something you are forbidden to think about or what you are supposed to think about? By definition, they can't get no satisfaction.

False. Clan warriors arguably got nailed far more often then inner sphere mechwarriors, who had many social constrants against them, as a good portion of them were nobles, who, in many cause, were not free to go banging about the town.

Clan warriors were allowed to have relations with other warriors, as long as it didn't compromise the Clan way of life. In fact, the Clan equivalent of Drill Sergeants were free to order trainees to have sex with them, and any superior officer could make the same claim against their lessers (Though its frowned upon to force such things).

Even elementals, massive genebreed Space Marines got in on the act.

[Insidious Johnson]

sakkaku, on 01 July 2012 - 11:28 PM, said:

They were not virgins. They were VERY active sexually. But the act of sex itself was disassociated with a permanant mate (marriage) and childbirth. In the sibkos (starting with groups of 30? or so) it was common for them to have sex among themselves even though some of them belonged to the same batch of genetic material. It wasn't frowned upon to have sex but rather the act of childbirth.

Aside from a few bouts with rouge scientists the rest of clan scociety wasn't trashborn like the warrior cast and was much like the rest of the inner sphere. But it was common for warriors who failed in their training to enter other casts so their genetic material would "trickle down".

Way to kill a good time with facts. Those were thrown out the window 3.5 years ago as being out of step with the times. Roll with it and mess with the clanners.

Bombast, on 01 July 2012 - 11:34 PM, said:

False. Clan warriors arguably got nailed far more often then inner sphere mechwarriors, who had many social constrants against them, as a good portion of them were nobles, who, in many cause, were not free to go banging about the town.

Clan warriors were allowed to have relations with other warriors, as long as it didn't compromise the Clan way of life. In fact, the Clan equivalent of Drill Sergeants were free to order trainees to have sex with them, and any superior officer could make the same claim against their lessers (Though its frowned upon to force such things).

Even elementals, massive genebreed Space Marines got in on the act.

And you get sloppy seconds..

[sakkaku]

Groundpound, on 01 July 2012 - 11:31 PM, said:

Uh when the clans actually go to war, it isn't pretty it is total annihilation, just like the IS.

No. The clans rarely engaged in destruction of resources. For instance if you did a trial of possession against a clan they would (typically) not destroy the resources on the planet during the trial or if they lost. Only the most grievous of crimes warranted a trial of annihilation.

[CptBob]

they didn't work as a unit but a bunch of individuals in a battle, restricted by their honour code to pair off against only 1 enemy to the death, no combined fire, no unit coordination, no common sense, where the inner sphere concentrated fire as a unit and killed them that mech before moving onto the next mech in the unit. a bit like this game is going to be when a team of people who work together come across a team that doesn't lol

[Theodor Kling]

Insidious Johnson, on 01 July 2012 - 11:19 PM, said:

They were all virgins for life. Tell me that had no effect to their ability to think clearly. What sticks in your head more, something you are forbidden to think about or what you are supposed to think about? By definition, they can't get no satisfaction.

Not true. Trueborn Clanners heve Sex like freebirths ..they just don´t fancy parenthood.

But back to why they lost: Apart from the other big issues already mentioned here there is one more: They did not value experience. Military rank was dependent on personal skill with a mech, basicly nothing else. Your ability to lead people, to form good plans of battle, to predict enemy movements ( something that needs the experience ), to plan your logistics... all what makes a good commanding officer was a secondary concern at best. Sure some IS Generals got their posts by politcs, but all the political feuding made them better strategists, no matter how bad they were in a mech.
By the time of Operation Bulldog most Clan warirors that had been high ranking officers in the first wave and knew how the IS fights, were already solahma. And doomed a failure anyway because the ISbeat them. So new , green, warirors took their place thinking: We can do better by beeing even more clan then those old, probably febirth scum. A notion doomed to fail like many of the above posts already pointed out.

But to be fair: Some clans adapted better then others. Clan Wolf did patially on the battlefield and also in an aspect most other clansshunned: intelligence. Their Watch is sadi to bethe best of all clans.
Clan Ghost Bear also adapted, actually moving it´s population to their new IS holdings, aranging themselves with the locals and apart from the small, terrorist attack induced, war with the Draconis Combine were peacefull neighbous until the Jihad.

[John Kerensky]

Groundpound, on 01 July 2012 - 11:31 PM, said:

Uh when the clans actually go to war, it isn't pretty it is total annihilation, just like the IS.

The last Trial of Annihilation was a long, long time ago, and besides, everyone in them is on equal footing with very limited melee (that's clanspeak for "free-for-all fighting, one side against another") experience. It is not something for which they train their warriors.

On the other hand, that is exactly how the Inner Sphere MechWarriors train, including ambushes, hit-and-run, and all manner of other 'dishonourable' tactics.

[Renaissance]

I think we're also forgetting that the IS 'mechs had hula-girls in their cockpits. The clans did not believe in the power of the cockpit hula-girl. They were doomed before they ever encroached on IS territory.

[MrMasakari]

As said. The Clans rather than go for broke and spend all their resources attacking, they tried to use as minimal as possible due to their culture. Id probably say that was one of the main reasons, alongside the fact that theres a lot more MWers in the IS. Pilot skill can only take you so far, espescially once an entire system is united against you and the element of suprise is lost.

Then once the IS salvaged some of their tech, learned what they could from it, that was pretty much it.

Edited by Artaire, 01 July 2012 - 11:56 PM.

[LegionZero]

Because clans are kinda like inbreed rednecks? loads of fathers and only one mother... ah, sry... petridish