Faith McCarron, on 19 May 2015 - 06:54 AM, said:
The Heavy Metal was supposed to be the mech of Rhonda Snord.
The pilot of the Pretty Baby was a female.
Per the original material:
3025 Technical Readout said:
Mechwarrior Danielle Peterson
A member of Delmar's assault lance, Tagaki's Batallion(sp) of House Davion's Chisholm's Raiders, Danielle does not look the part of a MechWarrior. Blond(sic) and beautiful, she has what many of her comrades call "the knack". Though joking and friendly outside of her 'Mech, when Danielle buttons up in her Awesome, she seems to become one with the machine, able to react as if it were her own skin. This has saved her on more than one occasion when surrounded by enemy 'Mechs. In one instance, she literally skipped aside with her Awesome, the Pretty Baby, to avoid an incoming missile strike aimed at her. Danielle is famous throughout the Successor States for her skill in piloting the usually unmaneuverable Awesome.
Faith McCarron, on 19 May 2015 - 06:54 AM, said:
I believe the IV-four had a female pilot as well.
3025 Technical Readout said:
MechWarrior Ivy Upsalom
The head of Upsalom's Support Lance of Redjack Ryan's pirate 'Mech force, Ivy is also known as "The Ladykiller". During a raid, she monitors the enemy tactical frequency and picks up on the female MechWarriors, challenging them to personal combat in her Quickdraw, the IV-Four. Upsalom claims she is the best woman MechWarrior in or out of the Successor States, and no one has lived to prove her wrong. The Ladykiller has more than 30 combat kills to her credit.
I'm very fond of my old TRO 3025, most of all because every 'mech has a Notable Pilots listing, something missing for the most part from later TROs, at least through the 3060 TRO.
A few interesting points come to light looking at these short pilot blurbs, which theoretically involved less thought than novel-writing, but come direct from the makers of the franchise rather than filtered through (often questionable quality) writers.
In the Assault and Heavy categories, there are about half as many Notable Pilots who are female as there are male. In Lights, the Notable Pilot division is nearly even. In Medium class 'mechs, though, there are far fewer female Notable Pilots, virtually all of them driving the more heavily armed Medium 'mechs, especially ones with a predilection to long range weaponry, and aren't listed at all for the faster, more agile ones.
I think that's more an oversight matter than anything else, as the pilots seem to be assigned more or less randomly.
What's considerably more interesting to me is that a good two-thirds of the pilots, both male and female, are assigned quirks and traits (no, not game mechanics ones) that could easily have been used to develop them into interesting and valuable characters for novels. From Patricia Wellsely (Urbanmech pilot, collects teapots and has bizarre reading habits, but is exceptional at city defence), Jenny Circi (Battlemaster, noted for being small, personally tending to her 'mech's maintenance and very proud of receiving it as part of a promotion, and tactics that earned her the nickname 'The Hawk', which implies certain methodologies) and Lib Argust (Wolverine, described as 'likable', skilled at rudder-bat and basketball, and a very competitive, risk-taking attitude) to Rodney Van Klevin (Atlas
Boar's Head, known for being a very personable aristocrat, and especially noteworthy for stomping around all over the battlefield to terrorize the enemy, resulting in several land grants that are later retracted when he overheats and shuts down on the battlefield), "Dashing John" MacAllister (Thunderbolt
Toujours L'Audace utter Napoleonophile, plays French martial music when he fights
a la Rhonda Snord, has inspired his underlings in the Eridani Light Horse to also adopt Napoleonic uniforms or at least parts of them), and Richard Timms (Vulcan, a wounded, sterile, incurably ill pilot who is last of his line and has thus sold his family lands to keep his 'mech in perfect condition- while his commanding officers see little use for him given his pending death by disease, he has apparently made a name for himself, implying he's dedicated to putting what time he has left to good use), there are a lot of potentially very interesting three-dimensional characters just waiting to be fleshed out who were never touched.
I find this discussion very interesting myself, having never read any of the novels- just the TROs and core rulebooks- due prevailingly to my age in the '90s and lack of spare cash the rest of the time.
It's always interesting to see what people make of settings when given the opportunity to work with them such as by writing novels, and to see what other people make of that when they get the opportunity to read or otherwise experience it.
Given what I've seen in the TROs and core rulebooks, I'm inclined to think that the majority of any inequality between the sexes in terms of representation in Battletech material is down to the people writing the novels; the source material is clearly slanted a bit originally, but mostly in a purely incidental way that would require the people creating it to have had a different focus than 'make this a good and relatively balanced game'.
I for one think it's a good idea to discuss such things, even if the whole conversation ends up being entirely theoretical, because it's something that we, as people, should try to be aware of, particularly in ourselves. Self-awareness leads to opportunities for improvement, after all. An actual discussion on such topics can then lead to better understanding of different viewpoints garnered by differing perspectives on the same material (such as Cassie as discussed above).
At the same time, it's worth noting that the title of the thread is 'gender equality'. So I'd like to pose this question: Has the treatment of male characters in the fiction surrounding the Battletech franchise been fair either? I ask this not as a challenge, but of curiosity, because I don't
know at all. I suspect this is also a fair question because of the nature of inequalities socially- if a society declares certain traits as attaching to a certain sex, then the other is being restricted as well, since they aren't 'allowed' to express these traits any more than the first is 'allowed' to express diverging traits.
Faith McCarron, on 19 May 2015 - 06:54 AM, said:
As for the community manager thing, there might be some of what you say, but I think a lot of it has to do with personality. Tina is a soft-spoken little mouse. Compare that to Garth, who could be pretty snarky, or the guy that banned a whole bunch of people. It's kind of natural to be nicer to one than the other. Plus, they have been a lot more engaged under Tina as well.
Personally, I'm much more inclined to credit this to the fact that Tina is
seen to be doing things, which previous managers were.... not so much.... combined with the fact that she is more soft-spoken, which is really something you kind of need in a proper community manager. A gentler tone is more conducive to people feeling like they can talk to you without yelling, after all.
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