35 replies to this topic

[Major Rampage]

Shamsterdam, on 13 March 2012 - 02:43 PM, said:

• Stefan Amaris was then killed by a military coup.

Stefan Amaris was killed by a task force for the liberation of Terra and the return of the Star League to sane rule. Kerensky never sought the political leadership, and didn't want it either. I can see the confusion though, it's not well specified on Sarna.net. The Star League sourcebook is very helpful though.

[Stormwolf]

Major_Rampage, on 14 March 2012 - 10:09 AM, said:

As for the K-F drive, because of the advanced physics involved larger drives are significantly harder to build. Smaller drives are build able, but they take forever and aren't very efficient. Nothing on the scale of a Jumpship can be produced in the timeframe that the game will be based in. The New Avalon Institute of Science is working on it, and will eventually succeed enough to make a few new ships, but largely it is based on the scientific difficulty around creating the technology.

To expand on this, warships are essentially extinct in the Inner Sphere and most jumpships are hundreds of years old.
Comstar was capable of building jumpships (they didn't share this knowledge ofcourse). The Magellan class for instance was a design fielded in 2960. Comstar was also capable of building and fielding warships, but those things remained hidden untill the late 3060's.

The Successor States didn't field any working warship prototypes untill atleast 3055 with actual production types coming out in 3058. Please note that most of these early warships are no match for what the Clans were fielding at the time (high-end Star League ships often outfitted with new technologies and completely new designs).

[guardiandashi]

Shamsterdam, on 13 March 2012 - 02:43 PM, said:

Number 1 is a big one. The encyclopedia @ www.sarna.net is your best bet.
Here is my cliffnotes version. Its not perfect, but I did read all the novels and can give you a quick run-down:

• There was once a Star League with a bunch of different houses, ruled by House Cameron.
  
• House Cameron was killed off by Stefan Amaris.
  
• Stefan Amaris was then killed by a military coup.
  
• The Clans were the front line combat units, who decided that instead of fighting in a civil war to see which Great House would take over for the Camerons, they would leave the Inner Sphere.
  
• The communication companies that ran the interstellar communications network then decided to merge together to create a neutral organization. They called it Comstar.
  
• All the great houses then fought each other in a series of civil wars known as the Succession War's, essentially bombing themselves into the dark ages. The different factions blew up each others production facilities, hospitals, and libraries to the point that the only working equipment was the old junk the Clans left behind.
  
• In the meantime, a man named Conrad Toyama took over Comstar and turned it into a religion.
  
• Comstar basically traveled the galaxy searching for all the surviving technology and squirelled it away to create a secret army they could use to one day take over the galaxy.
  
• Eventually, some of the surviving tech (a big old hard drive) was found by the Gray Death Legion, who then sent it around the galaxy so that Comstar couldn't keep it secret.
  
• This allowed the different great houses to start building quality stuff again.
  
• Eventually, the Clans came back. Most of the great houses took their shiny new mechs and used them to slow the Clan invasion long enough for Comstar to mobilize their secret army.
  
• Comstar made a bet with the Clans that if they beat them on the planet Tukayyid, the Clans would stop invading towards Earth and would be happy with the territory they conquered for at least 15 years.
  
• The Clans accepted the bet, didn't deploy enough forces or fought badly (think honorable knights in shining armor vs snipers in the trees), and eventually lost to Comstar.
  
• Comstar then decided to take its shiny new army out and use it take over the galaxy since everyone else was ravaged by the Clans.
  
• At that point, the leader of Comstar's army assassinated the ruler of Comstar because that was kind of a mean thing to do.
  
• All the religious nutjobs then left Comstar in protest and made the "Word of Blake".
  
• Comstar and the rest of the Inner Sphere then spent the next few years sharing technology, learning from the Clan stuff they captured, and generally improving tech by leaps and bounds. All while raiding Clan territory and killing off Clan Smoke Jaguar, since they were trying to find a way around the bet they lost against Comstar.
  
• Eventually, Clan Nova Cat, Clan Ghost Bear, and half of Clan Wolf join the Inner Sphere, and Clan Diamond Shark sold tech to the highest bidder, providing even more knowledge.

Then Mechwarrior 4 starts and the Clans and the inner Sphere are pretty much even.


As far as a Lore Forum, that would be sweet.

a few neuances amaris was killed off by the general of the star league military appointed by the cameron house I believe he had also been appointed to the position of being the guardian of the cameron heir (in the sense of parental stand in) but the heir sent him off to do military duties in favor of his "friend amaris as soon as he got his majority" amaris has a really bad rep in the innersphere and the clans as they look upon him as a back stabbing traitor that ended the "golden years" of the inner sphere and the star league.

• Comstar basically traveled the galaxy searching for all the surviving technology and squirelled it away to create a secret army they could use to one day take over the galaxy.

comstar was taking COPIES of everal tech database they could get their hands on and destroying them to deny them to everyone as they had a prophacy (that they were trying to fufil ) that when things got bad enough they would take over and lead mankind into a new golden age.

the helm memory core was retrieved in ~3028 ish and the grey death GAVE copies to everyone they could get to accept them as the leader of the unit had a "thing" about the fact that mankind was still loosing technology and he felt it was the responsability of all "right thinking people" to do everything they could to stop it.

re the factories most mech factories were manual production there was as far as I know only 1 fully automatic factory still running in ~3025 and that was the davion valkerie factory. there are other factories that are partially automatic in that certain stages of assembly are automated but in general no.

the smoke jaguars were chosen as the clan to be anhiliated by the inner sphere leaders because of the "atrocity" they committed of using orbital bombardment on a city that was continously rebelling against the jaguars and refused to accept their takeover so they litterally blew the city off the map in frustration.

there are a lot of additional points and frankly the computer games are NOT a good source of the lore,
if you are interested http://bg.battletech.com/ and click on universe has some references that can explain it better. the problem you will run into is there are litterally 20-30+ books that contain big chunks of the lore, even if it is only a chapter or 2 in some books, other books like the "house books" can be over 100 pages dedicated to in universe lore

[Thorn Hallis]

Major_Rampage, on 14 March 2012 - 10:13 AM, said:

Stefan Amaris was killed by a task force for the liberation of Terra and the return of the Star League to sane rule.

Well, THAT depends on everyones point of view.

[Aidan Ramsdell]

Ok. The NAIS (New Avalon Institute of Science) had started to make head way up in the tech development. For example, during the Third (Maybe fourth, yeah I think it was near the fourth) they developed Triple Strength Myomer. Then sometime around that era (give or take a couple of years) The Grey Death found the Helm Memory Core, spreaded the love for tech, and that got the bandwagon rolling again.

[Hans Von Lohman]

I think the main reason there isn't a lore section is simply because there are already so many other websites that do have a lore section you can read. The official BattleTech website for example, or even wikipedia.

[HighlandWolf]

Stormwolf, on 13 March 2012 - 03:16 PM, said:

MW4 isn't all that big on the backstory, you've only seen the Fedcom Civil war play out in those years (10+ years after the invasion)



The Inner Sphere was originally pretty advanced, however the constant wars bombed them back to the Dark Ages. A memory core with tons of lost technology (Lostech) was found a couple of years before the Clan invasion. Most advanced tech came from that core. Recovered Clan tech helped pave the way for a number of newer technologies.

The Clans on the other hand never lost any of the technology from the Star League era, they even improved on the tech from that timeperiod.



There's a number of novels that revolve around this timeperiod but I'll give you a shortened recap.

The ancestors of the Clans left the inner Sphere after the fall of the Star League. Those guys went to a unknown part of space where they would found Clans and improve the tech they had.

The Inner Sphere houses all wanted to rule the Inner Sphere and fought four massive wars called the Succession wars.

The Inner Sphere los the ability to produce more advanced tech after a few centuries of constant war. A remnant of the Star League communication network (now known as Comstar) was hoarding tons of tech from that era and maintained the knowhow to produce that level of tech.

Meanwhile, the Clans split into two camps, the Wardens and Crusaders. The Crusaders wanted to invade the Inner Sphere to establish a new Star League. The Wardens wanted to return to the Inner Sphere when the Inner Sphere was ready, they would go as teachers and protect them inside or outside threats.

This ofcourse strained relations of both camps. Clan Wolf proposed to send a scout unit to see the state of the Inner Sphere first hand (they only scouted the undeveloped border worlds prior to that). That unit would be known as Wolf's Dragoons. The Dragoons collected information for decades, but they eventually got new orders from the Clan Wolf leadership. They were to prepare the Inner Sphere for a invasion, they were also told to ignore any further orders.

Fast forward a couple of decades, the Helm memory core was discovered as I explained earlier.
The Federated Suns and Lyran Commonwealth (house Davion and Steiner) merged into the Federated Commonwealth (they eventually split again in MW4). A Comstar exploration ship (the Outbound light) misjumped and ended up in Clan space, they had to misfortune to run into the most hardcore Crusader Clan (Clan Smoke Jaguar).

The Smoke Jaguars fabricated the "evidence" that the Federated Commonwealth was the first step in the formation of a evil Star League and that they would attack the Clans once they were strong enough. It was put to a vote to invade, only Clan Wolf voted against a invasion. Clan Wolf even contested the vote with a trial of refusal, but the odds were so stacked against them that they couldn't win.

The leader of all Clans (Ilkahn) was elected from Clan Smoke Jaguar, they wanted to shame Clan Wolf even further by having them participate in the invasion (reasoning that they should invade because the founder of all Clans was attached to Clan Wolf).

Fast forward one year, the Clans arrived in the Inner Sphere and smash right through any and all opposition. Clan Wolf takes a Inner Sphere warrior named Phelan Kell as a bondsman and introduce him into Clan Wolf (to the dismay of the Crusader Clans). A recall of all Wolf's Dragoons was ordered, only one of them arrived (Natasha Kerensky, the most badass Clan warrior ever).

At any rate the Inner Sphere win a few battles and hold a few planets near or behind the Clan lines. Clan Smoke Jaguar does the unthinkable and destroy a city with a one of their warships from orbit (a big no no in the Battletech universe). This cements the image that all Clans evil and makes the Inner Sphere even more resentful of them.

But luck has it that the Ilkahn got killed and the Clan Wolf Khan got elected to Ilkhan (a Crusader plot to install a Crusader minded Wolf warrior in the Khan position). This backfires when Natasha Kerensky gets promoted to Khan (you don't get more Warden then her).

Ilkhan Ulric Kerensky then hatches a plan a with a likeminded Comstar leader to halt the invasion for 15 years so the Inner Sphere can close the technological gap a bit more.

This issue was resolved in a proxy battle for earth know as the battle for Tukayyid. This essentially ended the invasion until the Great Refusal at Strana Mechty.

There is a ton more backstory to the this, I've only covered 1% of the big picture here.



The Inner Sphere didn't stop the original invasion, Clan Wolf, Comstar and to a lesser extent Wolf's Dragoons did.

Now the Great Refusal is another story.


I'm really tired right now and I didn't spellcheck

Basically this post has all the right plot points correct..i was basically going to write up the same thing..thanks for saving me the time haha

[HighlandWolf]

Major_Rampage, on 14 March 2012 - 10:09 AM, said:

New factories can actually be built, however since it's a huge factory it's a big target. Most facilities get bombed out of existence before they ever complete a mech. The time, skill and expense to build a new factory is incredibly hard to get.

I don't think that factories are on autopilot, at least not for everything, otherwise there would be no personal techs for mechs. The workers probably know how to do their job, but nothing beyond that. The information is so tightly kept that no House is willing to risk it getting out, even though they largely have the same hardware. Autopilot factories would also prevent modifications from being made to an assembly line.

Most military technology was created by private firms. Several different brands of weapons that all do the same thing but in different ways. Often these firms would get bought out, sold to cover debt, or blown out of existence. Liao in particular has had difficulties in keeping manufacturing locations functioning and producing.

So, to reiterate, new factories can be built, but they are a huge target and a tremendous pain in the *** to do so.

As for the K-F drive, because of the advanced physics involved larger drives are significantly harder to build. Smaller drives are build able, but they take forever and aren't very efficient. Nothing on the scale of a Jumpship can be produced in the timeframe that the game will be based in. The New Avalon Institute of Science is working on it, and will eventually succeed enough to make a few new ships, but largely it is based on the scientific difficulty around creating the technology.

most of the older mechs couldnt be built anymore because of lost technology, they had bombed themselves back that far by destroying so many factories and places of knowledge so early in the first couple of succession wars, factories normally wouldnt be attacked because theyre too expensive and valuable to damage. Also, K-F drives were lost tech, by that i mean they didnt know how to build them anymore..shipyards that made them were targets in the first 2 succession wars , same with space stations

[HighlandWolf]

Stormwolf, on 14 March 2012 - 11:28 AM, said:

To expand on this, warships are essentially extinct in the Inner Sphere and most jumpships are hundreds of years old.
Comstar was capable of building jumpships (they didn't share this knowledge ofcourse). The Magellan class for instance was a design fielded in 2960. Comstar was also capable of building and fielding warships, but those things remained hidden untill the late 3060's.

The Successor States didn't field any working warship prototypes untill atleast 3055 with actual production types coming out in 3058. Please note that most of these early warships are no match for what the Clans were fielding at the time (high-end Star League ships often outfitted with new technologies and completely new designs).

i wasnt including comstar in this as we know that comstar basically kept all the good tech they could, which is a very good thing they did or there would have been noone to stop the clans at tukayid, because you just know that comstar would have been a target in the first couple of succession wars for their technology. Though i dont like them destroying stuff so others couldnt have it

[Tadakuma]

This is actually a fairly complex topic, the reasons why the Successor States were behind the Clans in terms of technology has been covered fairly well by other posts so I'm happy to give you a breakdown of why the clans were so successful.

On a basic level it can be broken down into three main reasons, equipment, who they fought and how they fought but each of these can be looked at in further detail.

In terms of equipment the clans have a clear advantage, if we tale the quintessential clan Omnimech the Timberwolf/Madcat you have a mech that is as fast as the innersphere heavy scouts (wolverine/griffin/shadowhawk), has as much armour as an upper end innersphere heavy mech (Orion/Archer) and more firepower then an innersphere assault mech (Awesome/Stalker).

When you combine this with superior weapon range and a complete lack of minim range restrictions on most clan weapons, it's easy to see how this mech can destroy anything the innersphere had to offer.

If we do a match up between a Madcat Primary Variant and three of the innersphere's top mech you can see just how devastating this advantage was.

1) lets look at an Atlas VS Madcat duel, the Atlas is a short range brawler with massive armour, but it is slow. This allows the Madcat to dictate the terms of the Battle and maintain it as a long range duel, this a battle between the Madcat's 2x LRM 20 and 2x Er Lg Lasers Vs the Atlas' single LRM 20.

Result, the clear victor here is the Timberwolf/Madcat

2) Awesome Vs Madcat, once again the Madcats speed enables it to dictate the terms of the battle, here it is able to use it superior speed to close distance and get inside the minimum range of the 3x PPCs while It's armour is heavy enough to withstand the damage. Once inside minimum range it has a massive fire power advantage because the clan LRMs don't have a minimum range it can use all of it's main weapons to quickly bring down the awesome.

3) Finally we have the Madcat Vs the Warhammer, this isn't even a contest the Madcat beats the Warhammer on every level, it has more firepower, more mobility and better armour. There is nothing a warhammer pilot can do to even out the situation.

This pattern is repeated across the entire range of common omnimechs and it's very difficult for an innersphere commander to engineer a situation were this can be neutralised.

On top of that the fact that omnimechs are customisable means that they will be optimised to fight in what ever environment or opponent you want to engage.

The original TRO 3050 advised that there were additional advantages due to the modular nature of omnimechs battle damage was easier to repair, this meant that damaged machines could be made more battle worthy more quickly.

The second part of the reason for the clans success was who they fought, the average clan pilot was a better pilot then the average Innersphere pilot, the clan mechwarrior was equivalent to a veteran innersphere mechwarrior and they had a higher concentration of elite pilots.

On top of this disparity the clan rarely face off against the crack innersphere units during the invasion, during the first few stages of the invasion they were attacking worlds on the periphery of the innersphere, the best innersphere units were stationed on the borders of the successor states closer to the core worlds.

Once the invasion was under way and they had the opportunity to move reinforcements around both the FedCom and Draconis Combine made a concious choice to save their elite units for counter attacks and offensive actions and used their regular and green units to slow down the clans while they upgraded their crack units.

Were the clans did fight crack innersphere regiments the results were a lot closer (these tended to Mercenary units like the Grey Death Legion on Sudetan and Pandora, the Kell Hounds on the Rock).

The Rasalhague republic being a second rate power (no offence meant to our FRR colleagues on the forum) actually had fewer Elite troops, worse equipment and less planets then the DC or FC so they were the worse hit. Ontop of that they fought the Wolves who were the most effective clan during the invasion.

The final reason for the clans success comes down to how they fought, the clans practiced a form of Blitzkrieg style warfare. They use highly mobile mech's with large amounts of firepower.

In the Draconis Combine, they fought a force that still place a strong emphasis on single combat and as you can see from the quipment breakdown the clan edge in equipment meant that it would be a very rare event for an innersphere pilot to best his clan counterpart.

Once again were the clans faced units who followed Theodore Kuritas reforms the results were better then those units who were traditionalists.

While in the FC they were facing off against units with a mainly Lyran pedigree, while reforms were taking place these units still had a bias towards heavy and assault mechs and their officer corp was still not as good as the Federated Sun counterparts. The clans style of combat would have been well suited to fighting this style of warfare and their combination of mobility and firepower would have given them an edge over their opponents,

I hope that helps most of this is taken from my encyclopaedic knowledge campaign source books, technical readouts, field manuals and from the novels.

[soulfire]

Hopefully the game will spark enough reinterest that they print some of the books that have been out of print for long time.

[HIemfire]

Ansel, on 14 March 2012 - 09:42 AM, said:

It is also the reason that the Aries-conventions were put in place. To ensure that the production facilites and populations that maintain them were preserved.

As requested. Ares Conventions were nolonger in place during the Succession Wars as an enforceable treaty, just an ideology that could be thrown at political rivals. By the time of the first shots of the Succession Wars the Star League itself had largely begain ignoring them.
The Sarna URL for the basic outline of the Ares Conventions and information pertenant to when it was written off: http://www.sarna.net...res_Conventions

[Kael Tropheus]

Clans never lost the technology that the IS lost. The Clan philosophy is one of absolute efficiency. The IS was fighting the Succession Wars and as stated factory worlds were fought over constantly and the know-how to fix them fizzled over the centuries. Many IS mechs running around today were still functional a couple hundred years before. Occassionally some one would get a bright idea and figure out how to copy enough to design a new mech like the Wolfhound. As stated the Grey Death Legion in a huge battle discovered a Star League cache which not only included hundred of SL era mechs but a huge hard drive with all the info needed to restart technology.

The clans on the other hand never lost this. They realized they had limited resources and so established a set of rules to minimize loss. Zellbringen. Here commanders bid the minimum amount of force needed to satisfy a trial. The winnings were part of the bidding process and could include salvage of course but also entire worlds and the people on them. Boundaries were set for the battelfield to keep the fight from spreading into occupied areas thus minimizing collateral damage, something the IS never blinked an eye at. At its roots a every clanner as a child is continually tested both the freebirths and the genetically engineered children. Warriors are are ultimate result but only a small number make it from each class of students. Those that are weeded out get further tested to enter the other less valuable castes. The scientist caste is the next most valuable caste and these are dedicated people who spend their lives designing things for their own prestige and the prestige and advantage of their clan. Unlike in the IS, clan scientists do not have to worry about their labs being attacked and hve the full backing of the clans when making improvements usually. They can continually advance their craft in relative peace although their flags might change.

All this comes down to when the clans assaulted the IS, the had stuff the IS never heard of that scared the crap out of the IS. Omni-mechs that changed their weapons every encounter(this is why I am against IS cutomization), infantry that was actually a threat to IS mechs in the form of Battle Armor teams, and weapons familiar but far more devastating than their IS equivalents.

In the IS's favor, they figured out how to trick the clanners and their honor games. They also had mass numbers. Another thing the IS had in advantage over the clans was experience in long term campaigns and wars of attrition. The clans have trials of combat. One unit challenges another. The other states what he is defending with. Attacker bids the least amount of troops needed. Defender tells the attacker what the boundry of the battlefield is and when to be there. None of the guerrilla fighting and long term stuff the IS does. Whats a supply line? They arent combatants therefore they arent targets, that would be silly and dishonorable from a clan point of view. Also on the onset of battle, each clan mech picks a single opponent that only they can shoot. If one side has more than the other then they have to sit it out until an opponent becomes available. If a mech is however hit by someone else, even if by mistake, then a grand melee ensues and everyone is free to engage everyone else on the other team. Kind of easy to take advantage of this, especially when the clan will always be out numbered. A point of elements(five guys/girls) counts as a mech when picking a target.

[Soviet Alex]

The official Battletech background site offers a good crash course in history & technology. You'll find that all of us on a forum like this will offer our own personal take on the game history, from an in-character point of view. Or just troll you.

http://bg.battletech.com/?page_id=23

[Stormwolf]

Soviet Alex, on 25 March 2012 - 05:23 AM, said:

The official Battletech background site offers a good crash course in history & technology. You'll find that all of us on a forum like this will offer our own personal take on the game history, from an in-character point of view. Or just troll you.

http://bg.battletech.com/?page_id=23

I think that the universe guide is the best starting point:
http://bg.battletech...iverseGuide.pdf

[Temu]

one of the early wins was when the batchal was sent to the planet, they responded with the Units ID number, making the clan forces think it was a untested unit, but instead it was one of the houses Elite Regiments. Clan leaders bid way lower then they would have otherwise.

At the time of the Battle of Tukayyid, the rest of the Innersphere had unlocked quite a bit of the tech Comstar had, But the win was due to heavy practice of mixed forces (Mech, Aero, Infantry, Conventional) and wise tactics (and poor tactics on some clanners) Wolf faired best, but also was used to making sure they DIDN'T undersestimate the IS. In the end, Comstar lost 40% of their entire military. Smoke Jaguar took heaviest losses at 32%, Wolf faired the best and was the only clan to win both objectives and had 20% losses. But it bought 15 years for the Inner Sphere to regain the Star League level of tech, and then improve on how to use it.