10 replies to this topic

[Xaxtan]

I'm new here, but I have a question about bred for war. I know Ulric wanted to hurt the Falcons, and so, went to war with them, but, wouldn't he have been able to exert more control by staying ilkhan?? He lost the grand council vote by a ratio of 1 to 1.25. At the time, if he would have demanded a trial of 4 on 5 with his 4 being himself, natasha, phelan and ranna, I don't know of any 5 falcons that could have taken them. Ulric stays ilkhan and keeps the others in line. If he loses, he goes on with his plan of demanding refusals whenever the grand council tries anything to resume the invasion.

[Bombast]

He did demand a Trial of Refusal. Unfortunately, he knew that even if he won, he couldn't hold the Clan's back forever - His own Clan was a hairs width away from open revolt, and even if he could hold it together the other Clans would overwhelm him sooner of latter. So he started the Refusal War instead, effectively hobbling the two most aggressive and effective Clans, Jade Falcon and Wolf. This effectively ended the threat of a serious invasion, as the homeworld Clans were in no position to push inwards, Ghost Bear and Nova Cat weren't interested in opening an Invasion anyway, the Crusader faction of Clan Wolf was heavily neutered, and Jade Falcon would take years to recover,

[Xaxtan]

I know, I get all that, I am just reasoning that if he fought a 4 on 5 trial, I’m fairly confident he would have one. A trial of refusal is the highest court of appeals in the clans so his guilty verdict would have been overturned. Because all the clans voted, this should have effectively kept them from rebringing the charges. He would remain ilkhan and forced the truce to be maintained. Nd again, IF he lost the trial, he (or a surrogate) could maintain the plan of crichell becomes ilkhan... refusal.... bring in other clans... refusal.... resume the invasion... refusal...

[Bombast]

Xaxtan, on 03 July 2018 - 06:35 PM, said:

I know, I get all that, I am just reasoning that if he fought a 4 on 5 trial, I’m fairly confident he would have one. A trial of refusal is the highest court of appeals in the clans so his guilty verdict would have been overturned. Because all the clans voted, this should have effectively kept them from rebringing the charges. He would remain ilkhan and forced the truce to be maintained. Nd again, IF he lost the trial, he (or a surrogate) could maintain the plan of crichell becomes ilkhan... refusal.... bring in other clans... refusal.... resume the invasion... refusal...

Because he wouldn't have a 5 to 4 fight for very long. As soon as the other Clans realized what he was doing, they'd all steam roll him. He opted to avoid that and get on with it in a way that allowed him to save the Wardens in his Clan, and bring a stop to the Invasion for the foreseeable future.

[Xaxtan]

Again, steamroll him how. If he won a small refusal, then he isn't guilty of genocide. Further, by remaining ilkhan, the other clans cannot force him to repudiate the truce or they would have done it by now. And, by winning the refusal it could not be brought against him again.

[Bombast]

Xaxtan, on 05 July 2018 - 03:47 PM, said:

Again, steamroll him how. If he won a small refusal, then he isn't guilty of genocide. Further, by remaining ilkhan, the other clans cannot force him to repudiate the truce or they would have done it by now. And, by winning the refusal it could not be brought against him again.

Again - If he held the position of ilKhan, and continued to try and stonewall Clan efforts, they would have very quickly steamrolled him. They would have either maneuvered him into a position where he could not possibly have fought off the outside clans because the odds were too bad, or he would have been challanged over and over by his own Clan until he was dead or forced to capitulate.

Ulric could not have held his position, or his Clans, in place for that long. He chose to act while he still had some choices open to him and his Clan was still in one piece and following him.

[Chris Lowrey]

You are assuming that even if he won his Trial of Refusal against the Grand Council that he would be free to keep them in line.

The truce was seen as a death kneel for the Crusader's cause. 15 years would see the existing Crusader's chance at glory snuffed away and passed to the next generation of warriors at a minimum. Their primary goal was the invalidation of the Truce. And this was a battle Uric wasn't just fighting with the Grand Council, but also from crusaders within his own ranks as Clan Wolf was a very philosophically divided clan (as many clans where.) With Crusader Wolves assisting the Grand council to bring charges against Uric, he more then likely saw the writing on the wall. Even if he won a refusal against the Grand Council, he still would have been challenged through Crusaders within his own Clan which would have seen the post Tukkayid position of Clan Wolf rot away through internal conflict while the other clans re-positioned themselves to renew the invasion once he was out of the picture.

Seeing that he would have to fight both the external threat of the Grand Council, and the internal threat of the Crusader half of his clan didn't put him at winning odds. So he basically decided that burning his own house down and dragging the Falcon's down with him, while attempting to spirit away the elements of his clan that would serve as a buffer for any renewed Clan aggression against the IS was better then risking a loss trying to maintain the Grand Council while the other clans still maintained a position of strength that would have resulted in a new invasion.

[FLG 01]

Chris, you really should post more like this: interaction with the community (greater than Twitter-snippets) and discussions about lore, and more. This shows PGI cares about the BattleTech-Universe and its rich lore.

[Karl Streiger]

There are some logical flaws in the whole plot.

I usually have an issue with those Clan Tests in general - on one hand they prefer decision making by combat and are honour bound to the outcome on the other hand they don't give a damn.

take Tuk for example - the Crusader should have contested Ulrics decision for this combat trial before fighting it - of course this would have made the whole idea of a ilKhan void.
But after loosing that fight badly telling that the trial was not binding is the behavior of a child (sure clans have the maturity of children mixed with genes of tyranns and psychos - different story)

same as with the combat trial in the refusal war - if other crusaders could show up after the trial was won by the Wolves why to fight the trial at all?
On a more interesting side node - could Ulric made more impact in allowing the Jadefalcons to pass their issue and call for a new invasion - but sucker punch them in allowing all home-clans to bit for their own invasion corridor.

So first the home clans might fight against each other for a good place - after that they fight the Invasor clans to get their planets, and at least you might have some clans that are fighting some adsorption tests afterwards.

[Storyteller]

Humans are logically flawed in fiction ... and reality, Karl.

I always found this nonsense of "limited war" of the clans vs. "all out war" of the IS was not thoroughly thought. If you want to win a quick war with limited casualties, you don't hold a significant part of your forces back. You throw, except for some reservers, all in to overwhelm the opponent. Especially when the clans are thinking of making maximum use of their available ressources, so why don't use them to the max?

Next there would be this throw away of your most experienced warriors into Solahma units? I mean, battlefield experience is an extremly valuable ressource and the clans are using elder warriors only for 2nd line units and the education of sibkos?

Or the reliance on ammo fed weapon systems ... what a waste compared to energy based weapons like lasers and PPCs on the long run.

In the end most of the clan system was made up for drama. And in a way, it reflects reality pretty good, because all human societies in real life have big design flaws. ;-)

[Tesunie]

Karl Streiger, on 06 July 2018 - 02:19 AM, said:

There are some logical flaws in the whole plot.

I usually have an issue with those Clan Tests in general - on one hand they prefer decision making by combat and are honour bound to the outcome on the other hand they don't give a damn.

take Tuk for example - the Crusader should have contested Ulrics decision for this combat trial before fighting it - of course this would have made the whole idea of a ilKhan void.
But after loosing that fight badly telling that the trial was not binding is the behavior of a child (sure clans have the maturity of children mixed with genes of tyranns and psychos - different story)

same as with the combat trial in the refusal war - if other crusaders could show up after the trial was won by the Wolves why to fight the trial at all?
On a more interesting side node - could Ulric made more impact in allowing the Jadefalcons to pass their issue and call for a new invasion - but sucker punch them in allowing all home-clans to bit for their own invasion corridor.

So first the home clans might fight against each other for a good place - after that they fight the Invasor clans to get their planets, and at least you might have some clans that are fighting some adsorption tests afterwards.

Ulric didn't want to destroy the Clans (which is the action you suggest might do), nor get more Clans to the IS. His goal was to stop the invasion, and only that. By having the Crusader portions of his faction fight the Jade Falcons, he effectively stopped the invasion while keeping the Clans as a whole intact and functional.

He also didn't want a single Clan to come out on top. If, as you said, absorption may have happened after the home Clans fought for corridor rights and planets, it would lead to one Clan becoming more powerful than the others, and then that Clan could find some reason to overturn the truce and continue the invasion, which still was counter to Ulric's goal.

By burning as much of the Crusaders out (and recall, Nova Cats didn't care too much, and the Ghost Bears went from Crusader to Warden after the truce), Ulric made it so only the Smoke Jaguars would remain as a crusader threat, and they where not powerful enough to continue the invasion nor challenge it's stance, especially with the Nova Cats (who did not like Smoke Jaguar by the way) heckeling them in their occupation zone.

Storyteller, on 10 July 2018 - 07:31 AM, said:

Humans are logically flawed in fiction ... and reality, Karl.

I always found this nonsense of "limited war" of the clans vs. "all out war" of the IS was not thoroughly thought. If you want to win a quick war with limited casualties, you don't hold a significant part of your forces back. You throw, except for some reservers, all in to overwhelm the opponent. Especially when the clans are thinking of making maximum use of their available ressources, so why don't use them to the max?

Next there would be this throw away of your most experienced warriors into Solahma units? I mean, battlefield experience is an extremly valuable ressource and the clans are using elder warriors only for 2nd line units and the education of sibkos?

Or the reliance on ammo fed weapon systems ... what a waste compared to energy based weapons like lasers and PPCs on the long run.

In the end most of the clan system was made up for drama. And in a way, it reflects reality pretty good, because all human societies in real life have big design flaws. ;-)

Clans had limited resources, and thus did everything they could to reduce resource waste. Limiting combat action and damage was one way to do this, thus the trial systems. The Clans where also based upon the memories of the fall of the Star League, where Ameris did some rather horrible things and a lot of mass killing. So, a lot of their trials was also to prevent lose of civilian lives. They also had a bit of "Might makes right" mentality. If you could beat them, then you where right.

The reason they had the trials as live combat was to whittle out the weak from their ranks and keep live combat around. They knew and planed to go back to the IS, and the IS would abide by mock simulator battles, so they had to keep them as live combat.

Some of your other points came about as the Clans grew and evolved on their own after their ground work was laid. Originally, the Clans didn't have Solahma units, but as they favor "might makes right", it's a lot easier for a younger person to physically win a fight against an older person. Being more physically fit and having faster reflexes tend to be huge aids in a fight. A really good Clan warrior could continue to fight well past what might have been considered their prime, but they would have to prove it.

As for ammo based weapons, they fill in a lot of gaps where energy weapons are more limited. They tend to hit harder and produce less heat, making even their ammo expenditure acceptable rather than a waste.

Any story has elements created just for drama. In relation to the Clans though, I'd suggest you read the early Clan history. It's actually rather interesting.