Pht, on 21 October 2013 - 05:34 PM, said:
Uh ... what do you call swapping a clone of someone's child in an attempt to manipulate them, if not bad? ...and the result of a character flaw?
I call it an interesting story, and really part of the prehistory of the battletech universe before Davion became bland. Let's face it, the battletech universe thrives on conflict. We aren't playing a mech parade game where we paint them up nice and march them around in front of crowds of happy children. Even the most casual plot conflicts needs some sort of reason for existing or we may as well be pounding our heads against the wall for the fun of it.
What makes any story interesting is conflict; with the real possibility that good will not always triumph over evil. Even better yet when there is no true good or evil but a mix of grey areas and characters conflicting with understandable flaws, motivations, and relative values. What I don't like about Davion is that essentially everyone else in the Battletech universe has interesting character flaws that make them believable while Davion essentially lacks any negative characteristics or flaws. It wouldn't even be so terrible that they are essentially boring unrealistically capable do-gooders, but they constantly triumph over every faction that brings interesting conflict into the story line. In order for the "Good Guy" plot to work certain battletech authors have decided to write other factions as "Bad Guys", complete with their own versions of Snidely Whiplash and distressed damsel tied to a railroad track.
Davion has become boring to me because it simply defines itself by how "bad" it's enemies are. The entire faction exists simply to beat down on badguys in unbelievably contorted plot twists and trite feel-good endings that belong on a Saturday morning superhero cartoon show. Contrary to human nature, the demands of power, or the needs of authority, Davion only ever reacts to injustice. It's a boring reactionary plot faction that is always set up as the defacto goodguy, whose sole purpose is to end story plots and conflict created by other factions. What makes it even worse is that they typically end an interesting plot that has been developed for years with
"...And Victor Steiner Davion kicked the badguy leader's butt and all the badguys died!" kind of endings.
"Tune in next week as all of the Davion casualties are respawned and we begin another decade long process of building up another villian for Victor to Alphastrike in the face."
And that is why Davion is my least favorite faction. I like pretty much every other faction in the game except them.
Edited by Masterzinja, 22 October 2013 - 08:08 AM.
29
(which is what I assume you were referring to)
but shhh... don' tell anyone.)
