41 replies to this topic

[tankermottind]

One thing that has always bugged me about the Inner Sphere its its completely fixed frontiers. The line where the Inner Sphere ends and the Periphery begins hasn't moved in eight hundred years since the Terran Alliance fell apart. That's eight hundred years of people reproducing and migrating and moving around, and the majority of the human species is stuck in the same little blob of space. Why doesn't the Inner Sphere grow? It would make more sense if the Inner Sphere were slowly but inexorably expanding and the Periphery kept being pushed further and further outwards, and it would give more opportunities for stompy robit combat as Inner Sphere factions push outwards into the Periphery to conquer much softer targets than their fellow Successor States.

And that's not getting into the Great Houses. I can certainly believe that the Successor States are many hundreds of years old, but not that their ruling dynasties are. In real monarchies, dynasties came and went and even a couple of bad monarchs could cause a dynasty to fall and be replaced by another--it's frankly absurd that the Capellan Confederation nobility continue to put up with House Liao instead of having them all killed and passing the crown to someone else (internal succession war optional). That's another thing about real monarchies--they couldn't rule without the assent of their nobility.The opinion of Joe Farmer may not matter, but the opinion of a guy who calls himself Duke and literally owns three regiments of mechs does. BattleTech misses a lot of opportunity for cool feudal intrigue and Crusader Kings-style murdertreachery that would give the Successor states more flavor. Only the Federated Commonwealth actually seemed to behave (somewhat) like a feudal monarchy with the personal union and the two halves of the united dynasty trying to be more equal than the other, until the FedCom civil war ended and the 3025 status quo was restored (boring!).

Catalyst should take a wrecking ball to the power dynamics of the Inner Sphere. Depose a Great House, or two, or three. Have new dynasties and new leaders appear in their place. Have the Inner Sphere start to eat the Periphery, and explore the consequences of the invasions, colonizations, and migrations that result. Imagine how many good stories you could write if the Inner Sphere eventually managed to expand so far it began to encroach on Clan territory. How would the Clans react to the threat of being surrounded by the Inner Sphere or invaded and absorbed entirely? How would that affect the Crusader/Warden split or whatever that's become after the Wars of Reaving? Even if the Inner Sphere never sends a single mech into the Kerensky Cluster, their mere proximity, and the resulting influx of media, culture, and material goods from the Successor States, would irreversibly alter the Clan way of life and stoke conflict. You, Clanner, might not be interested in the barbarians, but the barbarians are interested in you. Your ancestors may have left to get away from their corruption, but now they're here, right next door, they vastly outnumber you, more of them come every year, and they're not going away.

And you don't need to have a magic handwave blow up the entire HPG network to do it. Just have people behave like people and states behave like states.

Edited by tankermottind, 04 April 2018 - 04:42 PM.

[SMDMadCow]

go post this on the CBT forums and see what kind of response you get:

https://bg.battletec...orums/index.php

[Koniving]

Pop open Megamek HQ. Start in the year 2400.

Look around.

Change it to year 2500.

Look around.

2600.

Look around.

2700.
2800.
2900
3000
3100.

Sure the position of planets doesn't change, but sometimes planets disappear. The HPG network if enabled does change drastically. As does who owns what planets.

Its pretty interesting.

The IS borders are pretty small in earlier years, too.
Though some planets are apparently bugged or not set correctly, as some that are a long ways away from existing borders in the 2500 and 2400 are still flagged as belonging to factions that don't even exist yet. So its a work in progress.

For the most part things expand until 2600, after that very little changes in 2700, and then 2800 has little change, and then 2900 a cluster-quacker happens and there are huge changes... and then it stagnates into dozens upon dozens planets changing hands and borders kinda teeter-tottering back and forth until 3000, where between then and 3100 another huge cluster-quack happens...

Considering that a lot of things went back into a metaphorical stoneage following the vents of 2800 and 2900, and only leave the stoneage between 3000 and 3100... during which a "dark age" happens anyway... Yeah not much expansion happens in between those years and it seems understandable.

[Metus regem]

Looks to me like a bunch of things shift of the map...

[tankermottind]

Do the same comparison for Europe for a similar time period (say AD 200-1000) and the changes are vastly, vastly greater. An entire civilization straight up disappears and is supplanted by multiple new ones with almost wholly different traditions and lifeways. Gothic goes from a language spoken by a few tribes of indigenous people to one of the dominant languages of Europe to total extinction in a few centuries. Entire ethnic groups pack up and moved hundreds or even thousands of miles, often replacing the original inhabitants of their new territory. Countries emerge, grow, and disintegrate--not minor powers, but the leading ones. And each of these "countries" is not a nation state like we think of today, but a patchwork of feudal domains that are constantly being born, dying, merging, and splitting. Vulgar Latin and Proto-Germanic split into dozens of mutually unintelligible languages.

"Dark ages" are actually times of enormous change, not stagnation. Just because there are no written records doesn't mean things didn't change. The Succession Wars are five empires frozen in time playing rock 'em sock 'em robots for three hundred years, but not much actually happens until Hanse Davion launches the Fourth Succession War and history slowly, slowly starts moving again. What keeps these big sprawling superstates together? Why don't they fall apart or change leadership? What's so damn special about Davions or Kuritas or Steiners anyway? They're just rich warrior jerks who could easily be replaced by other rich warrior jerks.

Edited by tankermottind, 05 April 2018 - 11:40 AM.

[Bombast]

Battletech isn't about exploration, for one. For two, 'that's not how it works in real life' is about as bogus a complaint as I can think of in this particular instance.

As for the rest of it... I'm not even going to bother. Based on your combative tone, I don't think it's worth it.

Edited by Bombast, 05 April 2018 - 12:12 PM.

[Brain Cancer]

It's honestly because of value. The further out you go, the more effort it takes to maintain and control a world, simply due to transit times. Remember that the K-F drive for all that it allowed for expansion only goes so far, so fast- likewise communication via HPG. Add in that there's dozens of smaller realms bordering the outer edge of the Houses, and there really hasn't been an effort to do much since the original Star League. Not that there hasn't been at least some long, LONG distance survey work done- that's how the Clans came to be, and Comstar was still doing the occasional survey into the early-mid 3000's.

(And that data in turn is and was probably used for what would become the Word of Blake's "hidden worlds", and might well have ended up some level of colonization of other clusters that just didn't want to be bothered.)

[tankermottind]

That doesn't pan out either--if a centralized authority couldn't control that much territory, there would just be the birth of more factions as Inner Sphere factions overextended (empires always overextend, they can't help themselves. Just ask George W. Bush) or Periphery factions developed further and transitioned into being Inner Sphere factions with large militaries and power projection. Ghost Bear actually kind of did that by eating the FRR and merging with it gradually over time, which leads into...

The Clans, on the other hand, actually do have a pretty interesting and dynamic history with lasting and irreversible consequences from their failed invasion, which leads to more events with their own consequences. There's competing ideologies and interests, multiple perspectives on the same events, Clans rising and falling, merging and splitting, certain Clans (especially Ghost Bear) starting to increasingly resemble Inner Sphere factions from extended contact, and some even being destroyed. That's the sort of stuff that deserves to be applied to the Successor States.

[Koniving]

Those maps aren't even including the periphery. Marian hegemony isn't on there and those guys are pretty important. There is basically nothing on the periphery worlds which is where the is exploration elements are happening. The Marian hegemony is where "H and H2 refits are made. So a good chunk oonthe inner sphere isn't even shown on these.

[Karl Streiger]

tankermottind, on 05 April 2018 - 01:35 PM, said:

That doesn't pan out either--if a centralized authority couldn't control that much territory, there would just be the birth of more factions as Inner Sphere factions overextended (empires always overextend, they can't help themselves. Just ask George W. Bush) or Periphery factions developed further and transitioned into being Inner Sphere factions with large militaries and power projection. Ghost Bear actually kind of did that by eating the FRR and merging with it gradually over time, which leads into...

The Clans, on the other hand, actually do have a pretty interesting and dynamic history with lasting and irreversible consequences from their failed invasion, which leads to more events with their own consequences. There's competing ideologies and interests, multiple perspectives on the same events, Clans rising and falling, merging and splitting, certain Clans (especially Ghost Bear) starting to increasingly resemble Inner Sphere factions from extended contact, and some even being destroyed. That's the sort of stuff that deserves to be applied to the Successor States.

People that are not satisfied strife for change.
The majority of the Inner Sphere consists of happy people. Happy people that can go to the next MacDonegal or have enough energy to play another round on their PlayStation Mk. 340 - will not look at the outer boundarys. They will live their life and thats it.

All the changes in Europe in history was more or less based at some "external" event. Those might be applied to single planets but hardly a larger region. Of course you have mad tyranns like Hanse Davion for their own hubris they slaughter millions - than you have strife, then you have "movement".

But this is the exeption another issue.... movement into the periphery.... oh boy you can't settle a new planet and call it a day.
You need a complete infrastructure - streets, fuel depots, you might need some terra forming devices (most planets of the IS are more or less terra formed), or you need horses.... lots of horses - and to transport horses becomes expensive so you need pionierrs that accept the rest of their life hardship and a early dead..... so that after some centuries that planet can be habitated.

You don't find much pioneers in the IS society, heck you would not find much in the "western" "modern" world either.

[visionGT4]

The limiting factor in the post SL IS has always been jumpship availability (and docking collars for dropships).

Theres no point in expanding to exploit natural resources if you cant truck the resources back to the refineries and then onto the factories.

[evilauthor]

visionGT4, on 06 April 2018 - 02:48 AM, said:

The limiting factor in the post SL IS has always been jumpship availability (and docking collars for dropships).

Theres no point in expanding to exploit natural resources if you cant truck the resources back to the refineries and then onto the factories.

Not only that, the House Lords have been too busy trying to attack and take worlds away from each other. Why do the hard work of settling new worlds when you can just swipe a (more or less) fully developed world from your neighbor? A new colony is a money sink. An already colonized world can pay taxes right away AND is no longer paying their taxes to your enemy.

With the Jumpship shortage, House Lords are basically have to choose between one or the other, and frankly, conquest pays more. Or looks to pay more.

Besides which, many worlds in the Successor States are in pretty poor condition as far as infrastructure is concerned and have fairly low populations. If you knew how to colonize a world (and build the associated infrastructure), you'd also know how to fix up the infrastructure of the worlds you already owned. The Successor States would be better served fixing up their existing worlds rather than colonizing new ones... which is more or less what happens once the Helm Core becomes public.

[Koniving]

Dropships and Jumpships, alongside Mechwarrior RPG 1st edition... the age of "expansion" lasted for about 300, ending largely in the 24th century largely due to a severely limiting issue; a lack of water. The need to have constant shipments of water as many planets did not natively have this resource severely limited future expansion, alongside numerous other issues... including the development of new 'states" run by some of the wealthiest heads of large corporations, which eventually became the Great Houses.

By the time independence from this constant requirement came about... there was no longer funding for those that desired to continue expansion, and when funding was there the desire to venture into the unknown was effectively lost. Effectively, the starry-eyed dream of "OMG Space! Lets travel into the unknown" and lack of aliens (no, seriously it's specifically mentioned the "Feeling of being alone in the universe was the final nail in the coffin.") basically killed any further desire to expand.

Periphery states keep expanding, mostly so that pirates have hiding places, so that people can get away from the wars, or in one specific case, so that he can start a psuedo Roman-inspired culture with slavery, guards with broom-hats and so many togas. ....Even the very few mechs in their possession were so decorated.

[Koniving]

The Marian Hegemony is a particularly cool expansion into the Periphery by former Lyrans. Its pretty cool because apparently they're important enough to have the distinction "H" and "H2" on mech variants, denoting that refits are coming specifically from the two important worlds in the Marian Hegemony. H being from the Hegemony in general, and H2 from a specific planet there.




Un-ironically... That is the system in which the "Roman" ideals took root.

Edited by Koniving, 09 April 2018 - 11:13 AM.

[Hauptmann Keg Steiner]

More ironic than you'd think, especially since they named themselves after one of the leading figures in the downfall of the Republic.

Making matters worse as far as the stagnation of the IS goes, there's a real sense of status quo. Borders shift and shift right back. The same five 'noble' families are the most important things in the entire Inner Sphere, with only a few breaks in lineage (and wasn't the FWL at least pseudo-democratic?).

The 3025-era changes were walked back especially fast. The FedSuns and Lyrans merge into one nation? Katrina Steiner shatters that a few decades later. St. Ives becomes an independent buffer state in the wake of the Fourth Succession War? They get reabsorbed barely 30 years afterwards. Sun-Tzu Liao's whole reason to exist seems to be (other than Making Capella Great Again) giving Liao someone competent enough to recapture their old borders. Rasalhague is tired of being under the Kuritas' thumb? ComStar engineers their existence as a buffer state... only for Clan Ghost Bear to devour them during the invasion. The Clans invade from their exile... and the homeworld Clans eventually cut themselves off from their 'tainted' brethren and go right back to isolation punching each other in the face for however many centuries they feel like. The ones that stuck around at least did convolute the landscape somewhat.

Edited by IdToaster, 12 April 2018 - 04:46 AM.

[evilauthor]

I really feel that by the 3150s, the tech bases should have homogenized somewhat. Or hell, since they were effectively rebooting the whole setting for the Dark Ages, why not reboot the tech base too? New armor and new weapons replace the Inner Sphere and Clan tech base, but are balanced in such a way that they look suspiciously like the original TRO3025 weapons and equipment list with new names and technobabble behind them.

I mean hell, both Hardened Armor and Ferro Lamellar reduce damage from current BT weapons in a manner reminiscent of the way standard armor reduces the damage from "primitive" Rifles. It'd be easy to write that by the 3150s, the flaws of those armors were corrected or whole new armor was invented that eliminated their flaws, followed by a new generation of weapons to defeat those new armors.

[MeiSooHaityu]

One thing I think worth keeping in mind is that the Inner Sphere wasn't expanding past the Periphery because the Inner Sphere, from the time of the Star League until maybe the discovery of the Helm Memory Core in 3028, was in constant state of regression and destruction. The Houses of the Inner Sphere (and the Periphery States as well) were just trying to hold on to what they had as technology fell apart around them (mostly due to the 1st and 2nd Succession Wars).

That is why a lot of the following wars were mostly border disputes. They couldn't afford full scale invasions because it left them open to an invasion by another house.

Jump Ships necessary for travel and exploration were a fixed commodity that couldn't be replaced. Because of this, they were probably too busy performing regular travel, and not exploring. Besides, who would pay them to explore?...Would a valuable Jump Ship be worth the risk if it went missing? Again, the Houses were just struggling to hold on to what they already had with aging forces, and Battlemechs that couldn't be replaced.

As for the Periphery States, they were generally poorer and worse off. They are fierce fighters though and it has been shown that even the Inner Sphere houses are leery about engaging the Periphery (seeing as it often lead to great loss).

Overall, with aging and non-replaceable tech, and territory sizes they could already barely support, they were more concerned with holding on to what they had and if they felt cocky, trying to take a world or two on the border of their neighbors.

Edited by MeiSooHaityu, 18 April 2018 - 06:54 AM.

[evilauthor]

In addition to what everyone else has said, I think a Successor State of ~500 worlds or so is about as large a political unit that can exist in the BT universe without running into size-management problems with the existing government system. States simply can't grow larger without adding another layer of government on top.

Sure, there were the Star Leagues and the Federated Commonwealth, but they were less a single state and more a confederation/alliance of multiple states that never really unified at any place other than the top.

[MechaBattler]

Can't you blame most of the IS' stagnation on Comstar murdering every scientist that attempted to improve technology? Locking the factions into an evenly matched struggle that just served to bleed them dry for Comstar's goals of dominion. Hard to explore space when the homefront is being encroached upon by bakaboys. And the technology to build most advanced tech is seemingly forgotten.

Edited by MechaBattler, 18 April 2018 - 09:39 AM.

[MeiSooHaityu]

MechaBattler, on 18 April 2018 - 09:38 AM, said:

Can't you blame most of the IS' stagnation on Comstar murdering every scientist that attempted to improve technology? Locking the factions into an evenly matched struggle that just served to bleed them dry for Comstar's goals of dominion. Hard to explore space when the homefront is being encroached upon by bakaboys. And the technology to build most advanced tech is seemingly forgotten.

Yeah, I totally ag...ZZZzzzzZZzzzz.....Pffftttttt.....

Of course not. Comstar is just your friendly, benevolent long distance service provider. Helping to build a brighter tomorrow, uniting the Inner Sphere one HPG Relay at a time*.

*This message brought to you by your local Precentor in conjunction with the Comstar Public Relations Department*

...zzzzzZZzzzZzzzz.....Pfffft....

So yeah, that is how I see that.

Edited by MeiSooHaityu, 18 April 2018 - 11:12 AM.