Moved the history to this page, and rewrote the Battletech / XL facts on the previous page. This was a lot of work so it's nice to see it read.
XL engine history/Timeline- Star League Era - 2570 - 2780. Star League (Inner Sphere as a whole) hits its technological peak. At this time the capabilities of mechs has met near-human qualities. Many mechs hold "detachable" weapons shaped similar to human guns, some mechs can turn into aerospace fighters and back at will. During this time, the Extra Light engine was created in 2579. Its construction required the use of industrial space stations and near-zero-gravity conditions. Field tests prove that XL engines required a new development called Cellular Ammunition Storage Equipment even when the mech doesn't have ammunition, both to protect the pilot and to keep the engine salvageable. This becomes the standard and corporations set their production lines to gradually adapt and produce new models of popular Battlemechs.
- Amaris Coup (2766 to 2780). By this time, XL engines are in wide-spread use. During the Usurper's War to follow, many XL-engine carrying Battlemechs dominated the battlefield right up until their inevitable destruction due to attrition, supply lines and lack of the resources often fought for. Why spend the extra space hauling a few hundred XL engines if you aren't sure if there will be any to replace or repair, when you know there will be thousands of standard engines to fix? That's if you could get your hands on any to begin with and transport them. Even so, there are over 40,000 machines sporting new and used XL engines by the end of this war, virtually all of them controlled by Aleksandr Kerensky's Star League.
- Operation Exodus (July 8th, 2784). Four years after Aleksandr Kerensky and his forces defeated the Usurper and returned an empty Star Lord's chair to the Lords of the Inner Sphere, Kerensky came to the realization that the various Houses would only bicker and fight and soon more war would wreck the Inner Sphere. So on this day, roughly 80% of the entire known universe's Star League forces gathered under the Operation Exodus, setting course for the stars (in the direction "North" of the Inner Sphere Map). With them, a large portion of the many thousands of XL-engine equipped mechs, technicians, scientists, etc. also leave the Inner Sphere. Aleksandr's words at the end of this trek was sent to the Inner Sphere over regular radio, and would not reach Terra for Over several hundred years their decendents would become known as the "Clans", following not Aleksandr Kerensky but his son Nicholas Kerensky's vision of a better, superior society. His words are the Rememberance, a 'poetic' and often twisted form of religious text that the Clans follow (and edit to suit themselves). Of interesting note, one Lauren Hayes has command of a huge amount of what was left of the Star League in the Inner Sphere. Her orders: Obey Blake... effectively, obey what would become Comstar, giving the ministry of communication their own personal army to steal Terra (Earth) right from everyone's noses and instantly declare "We're neutral," while playing the Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel angle of "Capturing and store all technologies" but all secret-like. (Fitting faction for PGI to have control over).
- Succession Wars. (2786 - 3030). During this time, particularly Succession Wars 1 through 3, the Ares Convention was thrown out almost immediately. Civilian targets, factories, nothing was off limits as the weapons blazed and fields burned. There are even several instances of planet-wide genocide such as the Kentares Massacre and some entire planets obliterated through the use of nuclear weapons (Interestingly after the Succession Wars, Clan Smoke Jaguar very nearly does this with an orbital bombardment (See subsection: Operation Revival) on a planet they already won through Batchall.
It is during these wars that many of the remaining factories and mechs were destroyed or otherwise 'lost'. Save for House Marik, whose repitoire of XL-engine-equipped mechs were vast and its factories completely untouched, thus why "M" or Marik variants of all Inner Sphere mechs, such as the Cicada 3M, the Griffin 3M, the Shadowhawk 5M, etc. mostly possess XL engines and often double heatsinks -- which had also become nearly extinct. This is largely due to the fact that House Marik often failed to do any real participation in the Succession Wars, due to democratic red tape while most everyone else had the then-standard monarchies.
It is stated in the Mechwarrior RPG First Edition, that the Inner Sphere had knocked its technological status back to the year 2000, losing over 700 years of technological progress. The only reason Battlemechs still existed at all was automated factories owned by companies still churned them out at a rate of less than 1,000 per year, about equal to the number of mechs completely obliterated on a yearly basis. Many machines are ancient, mysterious. Some have controls that require special gloves and NO Joysticks! Some have 2 joysticks and no throttle stick. Some, like the Catapult and King Crab, rotate the pilot 90 degrees and then launch them sideways THROUGH the Engine when pulling on the ejection lever with a 'modest' failure rate of about 47% where the charges not successfully blowing out a hole before the pilot smacks into it. It all boils down to "We're not even sure how or why they function, just that they do."
The final XL Engine factories were destroyed in 2865, preventing anyone (except Comstar and the Mariks) from being able to produce any more for 170 years.
And if you think that is preposterous, do you remember film picture cameras like Poleroid and Kodak? Do you know how they work? In a few hundred years, do you think anyone would know? Now imagine whole wars and campaigns launched with the specific agenda to wipe out all knowledge about film cameras and film in general + those few hundred years. The
NARC Missile Beacon was completely wiped out of known existence in 2795 and entire campaigns were done just to wipe it out. "But wait!" Shut it, I'll get to it.
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By the end of the Second Succession War, the Successor States' overall technological knowledge had sunk to a level barely above that of Earth in the 21st Century (Ed. year 2000 - 2099). It was no longer easy to build advanced computers, large fusion power plants and starships. Instead, the Warlords of the Successor States began to cannibalize existing equipment for the spare parts to keep their current war machines in working order.
By the third Succession War, a new set of rules came into war.
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At first, the decrease in destruction and bloodshed appeared to be more a function of each army's reduced resources than a philosophical change in tactics. As time passed however, and the exigencies of a scavenger economy took hold, each of the Houses realized it could ill afford further losses of vital resources. Gradually an informal set of rules of war evolved, similar to the Ares Conventions. 'Mech units and armies still fought over possession of operational factories, but neither side attempted to harm the facility itself. (The losers simply told themselves they would win the planet back in the next war.) Major 'Mech battles, especially between mercenary units, were often fought in stages, with both sides allowing enemy techs to enter the battlefield during periods of truce to attend to damaged 'Mechs. Other 'Mech units, again especially mercenaries, revived the old tradition of surrendering to a superior force and paying a ransom to obtain their off-world release.
(Ed. Funny thing is Classic closed beta MWO had this behavior come about very naturally as part of the repair and rearm; a clearly outmatched and losing team would surrender in order to avoid taking further damage and losses of funds. Sometimes this surrender was real, sometimes it was false. I remember lasting a good 3 minutes in guerrilla warfare by powering down among corpses of ally and enemy alike and pretending to be one of the dead, just to power my AC/20 Raven 4x, lob a round at someone's cockpit from the rear access panel (back when it was possible) and then power off before they realize what had happened... only to do it again and score a kill, time and time again to the great amusement of dead team members.)
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(Continuing the same paragraph)
Most Important, everyone recognized the sanctity of any House's JumpShips, and strictly obeyed the prohibition placed on attacking such craft (without which the war for supremacy could not be waged at all).
It goes on to say that during the Succession Wars, fuedalism gave rise to the Houses and monarchs. It fails to mention the special exception of House Marik, though technically even here an elected leader is chosen every so often with almost always being from the same family even if it isn't always the same person. "So which brother, sister, cousin, parent or aunt/uncle will be President this term?"
"But wait, you totally got side tracked from the NARC thing! Aren't we using NARC now?" Yes, we are. Bringing us to the next tidbit.
- The discovery of the Helm Memory Core (3028) is about the only reason any of the following lsited equipment have become available again anywhere outside of House Marik and Comstar though in horrifically limited quantities: ECM (in the form of Guardian ECM; a largely House Liao piece of equipment), BAP, double heatsiks, NARC Missile Beacon, XL engines and more.
- Thus all Inner Sphere XL engines are based on the XL engines designed back in circa 2579 with no improvements, thus the fragility and issues in IS versions of this engine.
- (Operation Exodus onward) While the Inner Sphere -- to coin a phrase from the great George Carlin -- played with their toys in the sand, the Clans stuck to their own version of the Ares Convention. Initiating their wars with Batchalls and conducting their society with the Trials.
- The Clans never lost this technology and in fact adopted it as their standard engine for most of their forces. As such it had been improved both in size reduction and durability.
- It is largely only due to attrition and losses against the Inner Sphere that the 4 (out of the now 12 or 13) Clans began unmothballing old standard engines which received no improveents since they had been abandoned.
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Roughneck45, on 05 July 2016 - 07:40 AM, said:
