21 replies to this topic

[NimoStar]

I have read all there is about Blake and the Word of Blake in Sarna to understand the "jihad", and it doesn't ring any bells. There is no actual explanation to the fundamentalism.

Maybe in the novels it is different, which is why I ask.

What I got is that there was a more Secular aspect of ComStar, and then a more religious aspect, which stated the Johad on the name of the "Word" of the founder Blake. But Blake himself didnt seem to have this aspiration and there are no quotes attributed to him that would explain the Jihad? Most religious aspects of Comstar seem to have emerged after his death...

The internal power struggle over ComStar hardly seems the motivation to plunge the entire galaxy into darkness, much more when this is precisely the opposite of what Comstar communications and the neutrality of Terra were made for.

Again, this is what I could get from the wiki, would be happy to get corrected with primary sources.

[Bombast]

It's supposed to be ambiguous as to how far Blake was actually willing to go to safeguard humanity. He had two obvious mandates:

1. Preserve technology
2. Protect humanity from ultimate destruction at the hands of the Successor States

ComStar (post split) thought that they were supposed to be helping the Inner Sphere come to terms with technology, and help the Successor States realize their problems and restore the Star League. The Word of Blake thought that the Successor States couldn't be trusted with technology or power, and tried to take control of both personally.

You may recognize that the Clans had the same problem, only their philosophical leaders are less ambiguous. The Warden's follow Alexandr Kerensky, who left the Inner Sphere to remove the weapons needed to make the Succession Wars truly apocalyptic, and who wanted to come back in peace once everything had been sorted out; the Crusaders follow Nicholas Kerensky, who was an ******* and wanted to take over everything because **** you, that's why.

Also of note: Pre-Focht Comstar actually was closer to the Word of Blake than what ComStar became.

Edited by Bombast, 01 May 2018 - 04:18 AM.

[Metus regem]

Officaly the word is, the WoB is a splinter group of ComStar and Free Worlds League... they didn't like ComStar being in support of the new Star League.

That being said, I once heard an interesting theory, that when you take into account the history of ComStar and what they did to hinder the tech growth of the IS, makes a lot of sense. The theory went along the lines that the WoB and Jihad were a false flag operation by ComStar to reestablish ComStar's technological edge over the houses of the IS as well as put them in a power position over the Clans that had become Sphere Clans.

[FLG 01]

Bombast, on 01 May 2018 - 04:18 AM, said:

Also of note: Pre-Focht Comstar actually was closer to the Word of Blake than what ComStar became.

If we are talking 50ies WoB, yes. The early WoB is basically pre-Focht ComStar with competing philosophies which led to bloody infighting. That, in turn, is not unlike the early ComStar itself. The crucial difference is that the radical elements in early ComStar lost the power struggle. As terrible as Operation Holy Shroud and other ComStar meddlings were, it could have been a lot worse.
And in case of WoB, it got a lot worse. Had the moderates won, the Word would have continued to be a brutal rival of ComStar but nothing like the Jihad. And even during the Jihad the infighting never really stopped; Manei Domini attacking regular WoB Militia forces etc irrc.

Pre-Schism ComStar and WoB have a lot in common but they represent different developments. And I actually liked the early WoB for being such a mix of different people, many of whom were simply principled honourable men like Trent Arian. Too bad they lost, for late WoB is just a cartoonishly evil caricature.

Oh, and post-Schism ComStar... yeah, that was poor storytelling. The ComGuards were just set up to die as much as possible, the leadership was utterly inept if well meaning, and ROM became a joke (though there is some justification for it). Nah, not my ComStar anymore.

Metus regem, on 01 May 2018 - 07:36 AM, said:

That being said, I once heard an interesting theory, that when you take into account the history of ComStar and what they did to hinder the tech growth of the IS, makes a lot of sense. The theory went along the lines that the WoB and Jihad were a false flag operation by ComStar to reestablish ComStar's technological edge over the houses of the IS as well as put them in a power position over the Clans that had become Sphere Clans.

I am not sure but at least it would explain why the ComStar leadership was so dreadfully incompetent at almost all levels. The ComGuards were an exception, but then they were mostly outsiders due to their rapid expansion under Waterly. The ComStar homegrown Terran ComGuards probably were the first to defect to the WoBM.

Edited by FLG 01, 01 May 2018 - 08:02 AM.

[Metus regem]

FLG 01, on 01 May 2018 - 08:02 AM, said:

I am not sure but at least it would explain why the ComStar leadership was so dreadfully incompetent at almost all levels. The ComGuards were an exception, but then they were mostly outsiders due to their rapid expansion under Waterly. The ComStar homegrown Terran ComGuards probably were the first to defect to the WoBM.

Exactly, if ComStar was serious about dealing with the WoB, they would've crushed them before they became a serious threat... ROM was one of the better intelligence services and I'm sure they would've found the WoB if they really wanted to.. that leads to either surgical assassination, military deployment or dusting from orbit depending on the level of WoB supporters present. Hell they could've leaked the info to any of the major houses that were around the FWL that House Marik was planning on doing something bad to each of their realms and then stood back as the Great Houses invaded and crushed the FWL...

So many ways ComStar could've dealt with the WoB before they became a serious problem, if they really wanted too, that is.

[Leone]

So, what you're seeming to miss is that the Word of Blake is comstar. Focht and his cohort were the left wing radicals to the classical illuminati style long term stranglehold Comstar was trying to keep the InnerSphere in. Look back at the whole Davion communications embargo that ended with Comstar getting the okay to field mechs to 'defend' every HPG generator, i.e. place a garrison on every settled planet important enough to have one. This was back during the third succession war.

Comstar deliberately destroyed any lostech they couldn't secure because they didn't want anyone getting any more power. They actively campaigned behind the scenes to break the great house into more disparate components, like Rasalhauge and the Saint Ives compact. The Wobbies just went extreme after the split without a more restraining half to keep 'em in check. But they were always the crazy's willing to bring the end times in order to keep their stranglehold on technology.

~Leone

Edited by Leone, 02 May 2018 - 06:52 AM.

[Karl Streiger]

NimoStar, on 01 May 2018 - 02:19 AM, said:

The internal power struggle over ComStar hardly seems the motivation to plunge the entire galaxy into darkness, much more when this is precisely the opposite of what Comstar communications and the neutrality of Terra were made for.

You clearly have read the wrong lines and more obvious listened to the wrong people.

There was no motivation to put the Galaxy to the flame. This was the doing of Victor Steiner and his clique of power hungry lords with the maturity of a small child.
You see that the Star League once (after his brutal founding) did allow freedom of violence and freedom to live for the cost of some other freedoms, at least for the core.

The Second Star League should have been similar too (but without a central hegemony seat). But the first two lords were unable to ignore their national bounds and the last was just a puppet not able to stop the Civil War, that ravaged the IS.

So in the end of the Civil War the Star League looked back on two warmongers and a powerless lord. With the 4th witting conference - there was obviously now only one guy able to take the seat. Thomas Marik. Simple because VSD removed his sister (who might have been the most able person for this seat) - his Brother and Sister were puppets of him - Liao and Kurita already had abused their power - so Marik was the only choice.
And obvious his first act would have been to arrest VSD for crimes against humanity, rebellion and piracy - the process would have been simple and the result the predictable execution of this criminal.

But still before the start of the conference, before WoB and several of the periphery states were able to became members of the council - they used their power to dissolve the 2nd SL.
Can you imagine the combined outcry of the people of the IS. There is a criminal that can do as he likes by changing the rules?
Of course he know this would backfire - so he has a plot in motion.

A agent - we think Loki - was able to slip into a WoB warship and fired upon the Tharkad (and hit a hidden nuclear device. Together with a faked transmission- VSD was able to present a smoking colt - and could say they are using WMDs.
This would have worked if not for the fact that WoB had a present for the free inner sphere - first there were several jump ships underway to rebuild parts of the formerly FedSuns - also division of troops to “loan” the house lords to restore and secure the safety of their peoples. Last not least the hidden divisions - of elite warriors that sacrificed their humanity to become monsters, to deal with the other monsters. The Manei Domini were created for the ultimate goal - the destruction of the Clan Military.

And so things came apart - unable warmongering house lords to put the safety of their people first would never stop their doing. So things as they were needed to end. WoB attacked first already knowing that the path VSD had already chosen for them could only ended in defeat decay and the memory of being criminals. But when the war was terrible enough, maybe just maybe something could grow out of the ruble and ruins.

The Republic of the Inner Sphere.

[MischiefSC]

Word of Blake was a deus ex machina to try and fix the utter cluster **** that was the Clan tech imbalance. It was a set of events that pretty much nuked everything and everyone and started wrapping the Clans I to the IS and evenly distributing tech everywhere. By the Dark Ages setting every successor house could and did home produce pretty much all the "Clan" tech.

It was a three finger reset presented as a huge faction of planets worth of suicidal sociopaths bent on just destroying everything.

[Joshua McEvedy]

In a nutshell, the Word of Blake was the fanatical arch-Conservative faction that split from the reformed and secularized Comstar in the aftermath of Operation Scorpion and Focht's execution of Primus Waterly in 3052. The impostor Captain-General Thomas "Halas" Marik allowed the WoB faction to settle on Gibson in the Free Worlds League, where it's "Master," the real Thomas Marik (who controlled the impostor) then began plotting a genocidal war against the Clans, using FWL wealth and resources to build a massive lostech Militia, the Shadow Divisions, and the cyborg Manei Domini. When the 2nd Star League fell apart in 3067, the WoB felt betrayed and turned its new war machine (originally meant for attacking the Clans) against the Great Houses and Periphery States and devastated most of the Inner Sphere, using Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological weapons.

In the end, the Inner Sphere rallied and under the overall command of a "Mary Sue" character named Devlin Stone (coming out of nowhere) teamed up with Clans Nova Cat and Ghost Bear to defeat and disperse the WoB by 3081. The Master himself (the real Thomas Marik) was nuked by the Regulans on Circinus in April 3081, but numerous WoB units remained unaccounted for in the years afterward.

Like Mischief said above, Catalyst tried to use the Schism and Jihad to do a hamfisted reboot of the entire MechWarrior universe by wiping out many of the old units (Wolf's Dragoons in particular), characters, mechs, and even factions (the Free Worlds League). The Comstar Comguards were largely destroyed too in the holocaust, but a de-militarized version of the communications agency itself survived to run the HPGs and still exists in the 3145 era. This is how we got the Republic of the Sphere and then the Dark Age.

One wrinkle in all of this is the later suggestion that the Word of Blake was secretly dominated by descendants of Clan Wolverine/Minnesota Tribe, as described in Jihad Secrets: The Blake Documents. The account therein is very murky and has been described as misinformation or propaganda meant to pull the Clans into the fight against the WoB, especially the Ghost Bears, who harbor a centuries-long grudge against the Wolverines stemming from Nicholas Kerensky's 2823-2824 Annihilation campaign. But a teaser story in Interstellar Expeditions ("Shades and Spirits," pages 4-7) hints that it may be true, or at least some portion of it.

Hope this helps.

Edited by Joshua McEvedy, 02 May 2018 - 04:07 PM.

[NimoStar]

Karl Streiger, on 02 May 2018 - 12:02 AM, said:

You clearly have read the wrong lines and more obvious listened to the wrong people.

There was no motivation to put the Galaxy to the flame. This was the doing of Victor Steiner and his clique of power hungry lords with the maturity of a small child.
You see that the Star League once (after his brutal founding) did allow freedom of violence and freedom to live for the cost of some other freedoms, at least for the core.

The Second Star League should have been similar too (but without a central hegemony seat). But the first two lords were unable to ignore their national bounds and the last was just a puppet not able to stop the Civil War, that ravaged the IS.

So in the end of the Civil War the Star League looked back on two warmongers and a powerless lord. With the 4th witting conference - there was obviously now only one guy able to take the seat. Thomas Marik. Simple because VSD removed his sister (who might have been the most able person for this seat) - his Brother and Sister were puppets of him - Liao and Kurita already had abused their power - so Marik was the only choice.
And obvious his first act would have been to arrest VSD for crimes against humanity, rebellion and piracy - the process would have been simple and the result the predictable execution of this criminal.

But still before the start of the conference, before WoB and several of the periphery states were able to became members of the council - they used their power to dissolve the 2nd SL.
Can you imagine the combined outcry of the people of the IS. There is a criminal that can do as he likes by changing the rules?
Of course he know this would backfire - so he has a plot in motion.

A agent - we think Loki - was able to slip into a WoB warship and fired upon the Tharkad (and hit a hidden nuclear device. Together with a faked transmission- VSD was able to present a smoking colt - and could say they are using WMDs.
This would have worked if not for the fact that WoB had a present for the free inner sphere - first there were several jump ships underway to rebuild parts of the formerly FedSuns - also division of troops to “loan” the house lords to restore and secure the safety of their peoples. Last not least the hidden divisions - of elite warriors that sacrificed their humanity to become monsters, to deal with the other monsters. The Manei Domini were created for the ultimate goal - the destruction of the Clan Military.

And so things came apart - unable warmongering house lords to put the safety of their people first would never stop their doing. So things as they were needed to end. WoB attacked first already knowing that the path VSD had already chosen for them could only ended in defeat decay and the memory of being criminals. But when the war was terrible enough, maybe just maybe something could grow out of the ruble and ruins.

The Republic of the Inner Sphere.

That's a nice piece of fanfiction / WoB revisionist propaganda take but we all know Victor Steiner-Davion is intended as a "good" guy and WoB and House Marik as the antagonists of this part of the story :V

Though I do think ComStar is often presented in its conspiratorial guise as secretly "evil" (at least pre-split), one could just as well argue that the Great Houses were the ones that kept humanity from progressing with their Space Feudalism interests and ComStar was all about making them weaker.

MischiefSC, on 02 May 2018 - 10:36 AM, said:

Word of Blake was a deus ex machina to try and fix the utter cluster **** that was the Clan tech imbalance. It was a set of events that pretty much nuked everything and everyone and started wrapping the Clans I to the IS and evenly distributing tech everywhere. By the Dark Ages setting every successor house could and did home produce pretty much all the "Clan" tech.

It was a three finger reset presented as a huge faction of planets worth of suicidal sociopaths bent on just destroying everything.

Well, yes, that might be a valid reason off-universe.

But doesn't give a well though out in-universe explanation.

Although other ones come closer:

Quote

The Word of Blake thought that the Successor States couldn't be trusted with technology or power, and tried to take control of both personally.

This seems to make sense initially, but isn't consistent with their actions. They create many lostech mechs and equipment, and use Clan technology, which has to be produced in industrial and inner sphere facilities - inb fact, as the other poster recognized, the Word of Blake is the direct catalyst of widespread mixed tech and the advancement of inner sphere technological prowess. This is inevitable not only due to the production and leaking of blueprints but also the battlefield salvage of destroyed Word of Blake mechs and equipment. So it seems their very existence does the opposite of what they would be suppossed to.

All the while the "moderate" comstar faction was being actually sucessful in preventing the introduction of new tech and the discovery of the old one, for the most part.

[evilauthor]

Joshua McEvedy, on 02 May 2018 - 11:55 AM, said:

Like Mischief said above, Catalyst tried to use the Schism and Jihad to do a hamfisted reboot of the entire MechWarrior universe

Not Catalyst. Wiz Kids was the one that tried the whole reboot thing when they had the franchise in order to try to sell their "clickytech" version of the game. Catalyst just got stuck with explaining what the hell happened in between when they acquired the franchise from Wiz Kids because for some reason, they felt honor bound to keep the Dark Ages setting canon instead of just tossing it out like many fans wanted.

[NimoStar]

Well, it seems like this hasn't worked out very well for the franchise, since every new computer game made or spinoff is set in either Invasion era or pre-Invasion era... no Jihad, no Republic of the Sphere and no Dark Age.


(Plus I'm sure some outside people both progressive and conservative would get "triggered" by the mere use of the "jihad" word even if in context it had nothing to do with islam, try to explain that...)

Edited by NimoStar, 05 May 2018 - 02:36 AM.

[Karl Streiger]

90% of those guys that don't like Dark Age neither have read any source material or listened to guys that said they know things.
Each of the Source Books made by Catalyst (Dawn of Jihad was still FASA I think) is surplus in granting a solid and logical basis.

Sure the Davions got crushed but that is not something that is illogical. Ever looked on the star map.
Davion was the only big player fighting at two fronts .
This might be true for all big players but considering history and the political balkanisation of the former FedSuns the crushing blow dealt by CCAF and DCMS make sense.

[Metus regem]

Karl Streiger, on 05 May 2018 - 04:40 AM, said:

90% of those guys that don't like Dark Age neither have read any source material or listened to guys that said they know things.
Each of the Source Books made by Catalyst (Dawn of Jihad was still FASA I think) is surplus in granting a solid and logical basis.

Sure the Davions got crushed but that is not something that is illogical. Ever looked on the star map.
Davion was the only big player fighting at two fronts .
This might be true for all big players but considering history and the political balkanisation of the former FedSuns the crushing blow dealt by CCAF and DCMS make sense.

By the CCAF and DCMS, sure no issue there. But by a minor power, not so much...

Edited by Metus regem, 05 May 2018 - 11:24 AM.

[SmokedJag]

NimoStar, on 05 May 2018 - 02:35 AM, said:

Well, it seems like this hasn't worked out very well for the franchise, since every new computer game made or spinoff is set in either Invasion era or pre-Invasion era... no Jihad, no Republic of the Sphere and no Dark Age.


(Plus I'm sure some outside people both progressive and conservative would get "triggered" by the mere use of the "jihad" word even if in context it had nothing to do with islam, try to explain that...)

Well the WMD happy psychotics screaming JIHAD was "funnier" before 2014...

Overall though, when one essentially kills off all the factions, characters and even tech that the playerbase is familiar with, yeah, probably not going to be well received.

[Steel Raven]

Short answer: Fanatics that had a unattended parallel with real world fanatics

Long answer: ComStar always had a fanatical members who believed that the words of Jerome Blake was gospel (similar to the following of Muad'Dib only without super powers with allot of inspiration Catholic Church's history during the Dark Ages) and there order was the only ones enlighten enough to lead humanity into the next golden age. They 'protected' technology of mankind by assassinating scientist and researchers, engaged in espionage for their own gain and eventually split with the more moderate members of IS who actually wanted to help the rest of the IS and renamed them self The Word of Blake.

Parts of WoB was directly inspired by the Spanish Inquisition, Herb made direct parallels between the WoB and the {Godwin's Law} but there are other real world example I won't get into here.

[Joshua McEvedy]

evilauthor, on 04 May 2018 - 07:16 AM, said:

Not Catalyst. Wiz Kids was the one that tried the whole reboot thing when they had the franchise in order to try to sell their "clickytech" version of the game. Catalyst just got stuck with explaining what the hell happened in between when they acquired the franchise from Wiz Kids because for some reason, they felt honor bound to keep the Dark Ages setting canon instead of just tossing it out like many fans wanted.

I stand corrected. The IP transfers over the years can be quite confusing.

Thank you!

Edited by Joshua McEvedy, 05 May 2018 - 01:42 PM.

[Joshua McEvedy]

Steel Raven, on 05 May 2018 - 12:15 PM, said:

Parts of WoB was directly inspired by the Spanish Inquisition, Herb made direct parallels between the WoB and the {Godwin's Law} but there are other real world example I won't get into here.

Yeah, "crusade" is a much better descriptor for the WoB's campaign of annihilation (as suggested in the name of its first post-3052 assault mech, the Grand crusader). But for some strange reason, the word "jihad" was used, which perhaps make sense only in a post 9/11 context.

[Bombast]

Joshua McEvedy, on 05 May 2018 - 01:46 PM, said:

Yeah, "crusade" is a much better descriptor for the WoB's campaign of annihilation (as suggested in the name of its first post-3052 assault mech, the Grand crusader). But for some strange reason, the word "jihad" was used, which perhaps make sense only in a post 9/11 context.

They used Jihad because at the time that was a bit more 'exotic.' Ended up being kind of an... unfortunate choice.

[Steel Raven]

Plus they already used Crusaders for the Clans.

Good money they got the idea from Dune though now discussing the Word of Blake and their Weapons of Mass Destruction probably means most BT/MW sites have been ear marked by Homeland Security search algorithm for certain key words used repeatedly lol