13 replies to this topic

[Sug]

Two book questions:

#1

Just started rereading my BT novels and I noticed that in the first 6 or so books (Warrior Trilogy, Gray Death Saga) there are a ton of references to previous events. Ian Davion's death, Red Corsair, formation of Kell Hounds, Archon Katrina's coup, Marik Civil War, appearance of Wolf's Dragoons, etc.

Are these events only ever depicted in flashbacks and references or are there any books that go into more detail?

#2

We have the first 8 books where the Hanse Davion/Takashi Kurita generation of characters is established from about 3023 to 3028, then Heir to the Dragon goes back and shows the last 20 years from Theodore Kurita's point of view, then the next books are the Blood of Kerensky trilogy in 3049.

They went from Melissa Steiner Davion being pregnant with Victor to Victor's college graduation. The rest of the series, about 40 books, focuses on Victor's generation.

Why did the books skip ahead 20 something years and skip a bunch of major events?

Edited by Sug, 24 June 2015 - 02:12 PM.

[Nik Reaper]

Well , these were/are accompanied with book called tehnical readouts that cover events and mech specifications and the first readout was for 3025 , so everything before is just the setting , not sure how much details there is in between as I didn't read those readouts just a few from the jihad era.

Edited by Nik Reaper, 24 June 2015 - 12:55 PM.

[Tyrnea Smurf]

The novels primary purpose was to help sell the game, mostly in its table top form.

From a game sales standpoint a new era ment new mechs, vehicles, aerospace fighters ect to be sold as miniatures, and technical readouts. Plus it allowed them to add new factions in the form of the clans.

From the lore standpoint the big jump was partly because the lore had placed itself into a bind - the union of the Lyran Commonwealth (most dynamic economy) to the Federated Suns (largest most powerful Inner Sphere military) ment that sooner or later the new Federated Commonwealth would conquer the Inner Sphere. Plus they had Superior Leader Hanse Davion.

Really all that they were left with was either a superior leader in one of the 3 remaining factions being able to reverse the expansions of the formidable Super House that has been created in the Steiner-Davion axis, or the new Super House civil warring against itself, or someone stronger showing up to knock them off their high horse.

They chose 3, 1, and 2 in that order. (The Clans, Sun Tzu Liao, and Victor vs Kathrine - the Grudge match of the 31st Century!).

As for events before any of the novels proper, no, many of the things you mentioned could have been good places to build stories around, in fact Battletech has a hugely rich lore with hundreds of places coherent book plots could be written from. Off the top of my head:

The founding of the Star League
The machinations of Stafan Aremis resulting in the End of the Star League.
A novel following the life of Alexandr Kerensky
A novel following the Cameron family dynasty.
A novel detailing the political compromise that led to the creation of Wolfs Dragoons, and the early years of that famed unit.
Something about the first succession war (you go from a people who really hadn't seen war in generations to a people who can't kill each other fast enough - would everybody buy in, or would there have been attempts to end the slaughter?)
The Marik Civil War.
Any number of infamous pirate/merc units.

Ect.

Edited by Tyrnea Smurf, 24 June 2015 - 02:29 PM.

[bad arcade kitty]

ugh, isn't red corsair it's 3055 or so? she is also one of the main heroes of 'natural selection'

also the list of books with descriptions
http://www.sarna.net...ttleTech_novels

[Tyrnea Smurf]

The original Red Corsair was Katrina Steiner who took up that persona while she was in exile/hiding from her uncle Archon Alessandro Steiner. The Red Corsair from Natural Selection was a Clan Jade Falcon MechWarrior who was using the legend of the Red Corsair to hype her hit and run attacks on Commonwealth worlds to try and undermine the Comstar Truce.

2 different Red Corsairs, in 2 entirely different stories.

Katrina Steiners rise to Archon in the early 3000's would also make a fairly good Battletech pop fiction book.

[El Bandito]

There should have been novels about the 3039 Davion-Kurita War.

[SnagaDance]

El Bandito, on 09 July 2015 - 08:25 PM, said:

There should have been novels about the 3039 Davion-Kurita War.

There is one, and only one. Heir to the Dragon: http://www.sarna.net...r_to_the_Dragon

Quite a good book too IMO, compared to the other BattleTech Novels.

[SYKOJAK333]

A lot of valid points so far. I would say the biggest reason why they kept moving the timeline forward, because of the first sourcebooks, they already had the past written. They did not want any writer to contradict the Canon already produced. So it was easier to give the authors free licence set into a new time frame.

Let's not forget that there was a lot of fan stories that may or may not have been considered Canon at that time before the arrival of the clans. From there, the game developers kept pushing the timeline forward a few years every half decade or so.

[Alan Davion]

This is relevant to many points raised here.

http://bg.battletech...oming-releases/

[El Bandito]

SYKOJAK333, on 24 July 2015 - 05:08 PM, said:

A lot of valid points so far. I would say the biggest reason why they kept moving the timeline forward, because of the first sourcebooks, they already had the past written. They did not want any writer to contradict the Canon already produced. So it was easier to give the authors free licence set into a new time frame.

Let's not forget that there was a lot of fan stories that may or may not have been considered Canon at that time before the arrival of the clans. From there, the game developers kept pushing the timeline forward a few years every half decade or so.

But the past is so cool! I want to read a novel about the Exodus of General Kerensky and his followers. I want to read about the annihilation of Clan Wolverine from a first person perspective, etc...

[M4rtyr]

El Bandito, on 11 August 2015 - 01:49 AM, said:

But the past is so cool! I want to read a novel about the Exodus of General Kerensky and his followers. I want to read about the annihilation of Clan Wolverine from a first person perspective, etc...

Yeah so many storylines that would be nice to have novels on.

[SpiralFace]

They skipped 20 years mostly because Battletech's fiction tends to center around when there is Mech based conflict.

The war of 3039 was the last major military incursion before the clan wars. After 39, the states where in a "consolidation" period after the end of the 4th succession war. Not to mention the release of the Helm memory core after the events of the "Price of Glory" Greydeath novel series kinda turned the entire IS upside down.

With the release of all of the old tech specks, and most importantly, information that lead to the re-discovery of what was at that point lost star league technology, Nearly all of the IS powers suddenly found themselves in an arms race trying to consolidate their tech bases and re-invest in the re-discovery of the formally lost technology, which lead to essentially a 20 year long "cold war" between the nations. Lots of raids, maneuvering, and backroom dealings that where meant to impede each other from the Star League tech arms race going on. But for the most part this was a moot point. Because RIGHT when they started making discoveries and headway into re-introducing Star League tech on a wide spread basis, the Clans invaded. (Only a few select units had mechs equipped with re-discovered League tech before the clans arrived.)

So there really wasn't much going on in the novel series. In fact, they wrote a book specifically meant to "fill in the gaps" as to what went on in the 20 years that passed between the novels (And this was the LAST source book released right before the introduction of TRO 3050. Sure there was a ton of fiction going on between then, but the novels still squarely focused on mech combat. Not much there when most of the work leading up to the clan wars was intelligence and espionage stories. (would be awesome if they still made a few books that DID'NT revolve around mech combat, but sadly, thats what most people come for in Battletech.)

The novels always revolve around some kind of "conflict." For the most part, after the war of 3039, there really wasn't that much going on unless you where REALLY into the fiction.

As to the fiction before the Warrior trilogy. This is simply to make the BT universe "lived in" and alive.

Its like the Baratheon / Targaryan Civil war in the Ice and Fire / Game of Thrones series. The entire Series and show pick up nearly 12 years after Robert's Rebellion, but a MASSIVE amount of whats going on in the series revolves around the aftermath of that conflict that you never really see on the page as anything more then oral history.

Its the same with the BT universe. A LOT of the history of battletech can be traced back to the source books. The novels came out after there was already a VERY hefty amount of history established from the original battletech source books.Like this one for the Kell hounds WRITTEN by Stackpole before the novels ever existed.(The Kell Brothers, and Salome Ward on the cover)

I will say though, if your interested in the formation of the Kellhounds / the Death of Ian Davion (since those two are connected,) have your wallet at the ready. Stackpole is coming back to write the novelization of that entire story arch.

Edited by SpiralFace, 08 September 2015 - 06:27 AM.

[SnagaDance]

SpiralFace, on 08 September 2015 - 06:23 AM, said:

Its the same with the BT universe. A LOT of the history of battletech can be traced back to the source books. The novels came out after there was already a VERY hefty amount of history established from the original battletech source books.Like this one for the Kell hounds WRITTEN by Stackpole before the novels ever existed.(The Kell Brothers, and Salome Ward on the cover)

Need to change that link's '...2' to 'm'.

[SpiralFace]

Hmm, weird.

Lets try the direct link:

http://www.amazon.co...2/dp/1555600697

This is the original source book written by Stackpole before the BT novels where ever a thing. This is where most of the original history of BT came from, from books like this, the Black widow company, and Snord's Irregulars.