32 replies to this topic

[John Martyr]

First of all, I dropped the font.


@SamualGraves
I like the references you guys are posting, but I don't have much time to read pages after pages. That's why I've been asking for summaries. However, I've bookmarked this PDF, and I will read it on one of my days off.

@KravenKor
I assume the galactic design is more logical than Star Wars. The political aspect of that has me interested, and I love the word "periphery worlds". Is there some form of hyperspace travel?

And, I'd like to understand more about the lore. Three search terms I should 100% wiki. Three things I should deff know.

@KyoneAkashi
That map is great, thank you. I remember once I tried to draw my own Star Wars map on 20 blank sheets of paper I taped together and tacked on my wall.. I got about 70% and figured out there was already a map online. (This was a long time ago). This Solaris planet is interesting, I love the idea of a mech arena.. Furthermore, thanks for those 3 search terms.

And yes, I would prefer, FOR NOW, to know what's going on in the current MW era.

@FlowingBlade
I understand the universe is hella detailed. I figured a post like this would help me, and the community. I'm sure a decent thread is hard to come by.. like most forums. You mentioned Hyperpulse and Jumpships? Perhaps this answered my question above about hyperspace travel.

And thank you for the summary.

Edited by John Martyr, 06 October 2012 - 05:57 AM.

[Wolfhound3060]

Just to respond to some of your questions in detail in your last post.

The PDF has some good information. The map on page 12 is where the borders stand when the game starts in 3049.

Intersteller travel is accomplished by Jumpships that can only travel in space. To land on a planet, you need a Dropship that is carried by a Jumpship. Intersteller travel is slow. Each Jumpship can move 30 light years in a single jump and then it takes about a week to recharge to jump again. The Inner Sphere (the area occupied by the main factions, really the entire map in the PDF) is about 200 light years in diamater, so travel can take months to cross it.

There are hundreds of settled worlds in the Inner Sphere. I think just the Draconis Combine alone has about 80 worlds or so.

The Federated Suns and the Lyran Commomweath are currently joined to form the Federated Commonwealth but they are seperate enough by culture to be unique factions in Mechwarrior Onilne.

As for what's going on right now; the last major war was about 10 years ago in 3039 between the Federated Commomwealth and the Draconis Combine that ended in an draw. Right now, all the factions are engaged in raiding and skirmishes for control of the worlds on the borders. There are rumors of unusual activity in the Periphery (the area outside of the Inner Sphere, mostly small nations, independent planets and pirates), but you'll have to read the history to find out about that or wait till March.

I hope that helps.

[John Martyr]

@Wolfhound3060
Thanks! Good summary. I love how the current era has nothing beyond, unlike Star Wars, how you sort of piece together bits and pieces and there's no "Current Date" that's canon. That's great.

I assume "Hyperpulse" is the technology that allows for interstellar travel?

Edited by John Martyr, 06 October 2012 - 06:37 AM.

[Wolfhound3060]

John Martyr, on 06 October 2012 - 06:34 AM, said:

@Wolfhound3060
Thanks! Good summary. I love how the current era has nothing beyond, unlike Star Wars, how you sort of piece together bits and pieces and there's no "Current Date" that's canon. That's great.

I assume "Hyperpulse" is the technology that allows for interstellar travel?

Well, there is a cannon timeline that goes beyond when the game starts. It's how us old vets know whats comming in 3050...
The timeline runs until the late 3060's. After that, things get... weird and would take way too long to expain.

You're correct that hyperpulse is what allows for intersteller travel. Basicly, a temporary wormhole that can "jump" a ship and the dropship it carries 30 light years in a few seconds.

Hyperpulse is also how messages and information are transmitted between planets. Comstar, who control Terra and maintain all the Hyperpulse Gerators on most worlds, control the flow of information in the Inner Sphere. All the Inner Sphere News post that show up each day would come from Comstar, in-universe.

[RagingOyster]

Wolfhound3060, on 06 October 2012 - 06:57 AM, said:

Well, there is a cannon timeline that goes beyond when the game starts. It's how us old vets know whats comming in 3050...
The timeline runs until the late 3060's. After that, things get... weird and would take way too long to expain.

You're correct that hyperpulse is what allows for intersteller travel. Basicly, a temporary wormhole that can "jump" a ship and the dropship it carries 30 light years in a few seconds.

Hyperpulse is also how messages and information are transmitted between planets. Comstar, who control Terra and maintain all the Hyperpulse Gerators on most worlds, control the flow of information in the Inner Sphere. All the Inner Sphere News post that show up each day would come from Comstar, in-universe.

Not quite. Hyperpule generators (HPGs) are used for FTL communication. The Kearny-Fuchida drive is what allows FTL travel. Hyperpuls tech spawned from the KF drive though, and is basically a variant that transmits signals rather than warping space to allow matter to cross vast distances.

As for the OP, if you do not want to read a ton of fluff here are a few search terms that will get you acquainted with the Inner Sphere:
Factions
-Star League
-Successor States
-ComStar
-Mercenary
People
-Aleksandr Kerensky
-House Davion, Steiner, Liao, Kurita, Marik
Places
-Terra
-Outreach
-the Inner Sphere
-the Periphery
Technology
-JumpShips, WarShip, DropShip
-Battle Mech, Battle Armor
-Heat sink
-Weapons
-Laser
-PPC
-LRM, SRM
-Autocannon
-Gauss weapons
the Clans
-Operation Exodus
-Operation Revival
-Nicholas Kerensky
-Omnimech

[DieselCat]

I'm glad this topic was posted. Many great responses with information & links for community discussion. Come on DLO, don't be so harsh, this is good stuff to talk about
*+

[John Martyr]

Well, folks, I'm officially interested in the lore. RagingOyster, thanks a lot for those links. I'll be reading through them quickly as soon as I get the time.

I have a few questions to ask to keep the topic alive, because I think plenty of people genuinely enjoy ranting about the lore they love so much.

1. Is there any superweapons or planet-destroying weapons?
2. Are there any non-human sentient races?
3. Is there any sort of metaphysical or unexplained things associated with the canon lore?

[Kyle Hawkins]

Hey, kudos to the helpful people in here! I've learnt stuff I was vague on or ignorant of beforehand. I've known of Sarna since before MWO, but with enough written work to fill a phone book, merely on bios, characters and the history of famous figures alone, you never quite know which bits are the more key parts you should be reading.

I've still not been able to figure out a House to swear allegiance to when the community/territorial warfare element comes to the game though. That's a tricky one as ever. Might come down to grouping up with friends when it arrives, but I would love to be able to take part in some of that light hearted (it is right?) in character trash talking I've seen around here and occasionally in game.

I got to see this at the beginning of one game recently.
[Maximilian Liao has disconnected]
Unknown Player: "He abandons his men before the battle is even joined? Liao leadership at it's finest."
~~~~~: "lol"
~~~~~: "Haha!"
(etc)

Edited by Kyle Hawkins, 06 October 2012 - 01:30 PM.

[Wolfhound3060]

Just a few quick answers off the top of my head.

John Martyr, on 06 October 2012 - 09:31 AM, said:

1. Is there any superweapons or planet-destroying weapons?
2. Are there any non-human sentient races?
3. Is there any sort of metaphysical or unexplained things associated with the canon lore?

1. There's no Death Stars in the Battletech universe, but a WarShip (a heavily armed and armored type of Jump Ship, extinct in the Inner Sphere since the fall of the Star League) has enough firepower to level cities. Nuclear and biological weapons are regarded with disgust by most people in the Inner Sphere due to memories of the horrors of the Successions Wars.

2. In the Inner Sphere there is no alien life more intelligent than around Australopithecus level of creatures. Plenty of alien plants and animals, but nothing intelligent. There is an early novel, Far Country, that describes an alien race, but it happened well outside the Inner Sphere and the offical status of the book is, "Yes, it happened, but we're never talking about it again."

3. The closest that come to mind is the Phantom Mech ability that was described in some of the novels. Several main caracters such as Morgan Kell and Yorinaga Kurita had it. It rendered a pilot's mech invisible to all sensors so the mech was impossible to target or hit with any weapon. It was described in some early novels and materials, but the developers at the time decided that it didn't really fit the universe and just stopped talking about it in later materials.

[John Martyr]

@Wolfhound
So, essentially, the MW universe is more practical and political than it is fantasy. I like. Currently, I'm reading through Oyster's search terms. I can see why this world is so captivating.

[Kraven Kor]

John Martyr, on 07 October 2012 - 05:25 AM, said:

@Wolfhound
So, essentially, the MW universe is more practical and political than it is fantasy. I like. Currently, I'm reading through Oyster's search terms. I can see why this world is so captivating.

Yes.

The technology is "near fantasy" in some senses, but there is an attempt at internal consistency in regards to making the unbelievable tech at least easier to believe.

Here and there in the fiction, it strays from this, but generally only early on. Like the "Phantom Mech" thing, I think they eventually explained as some LosTech thing those pilots had like the Null Signal System or whatever.

[Flowing Blade]

To be honest though, it really was freaky when you combine the untargetable mechs with stories on dead pilots.

I'm actually thinking that is was something more like a variant of the Guardian ECM than Null Sig. There is a mech signature, it's just that the computer refuses to accept it as a target.

Some other interesting background for you regarding travel.

Jumpships

Jumpships can only jump from a place where there is little gravitic interference, so they tend to "park" far above/below the poles of a planet "nair/zenith jumppoints", though very good charts can allow ship captains to use temporary grav neutral "pirate points". This is very dangerous in practice though (oops, forgot to calculate for planet X's gravity? Too bad...). Since Jumpships do not venture deep into a gravity well, they tend to be poorly armoured. Think of them as the LPHs/LPDs of the space age. Warships are a different story which we'll not cover.

One method used to speed up travel in the Inner Sphere is the Jumpship relay chain. Since Jumpships need a week to recharge their K-F drives before they can jump, some organizations like House military or tour lines have Jumpship relays where they handoff their Dropship cargo to another already charged Jumpship at their destination, which will then jump and handoff to another fresh Jumpship at the next destination. You'll need a lot of ships for that, but it does speed things up much faster.

Dropships

Traffic between Jumpship and planet is carried out by "Dropships". Unlike weakly armoured Jumpships, Dropships often find themselves in battle and are often huge fortresses of armour and weapons. There is a pic of a dropship in the upper right corner of the banner (looks like a small Union Class. Which should give you a hint on how big the bigger ones are).

Hyperpulse Generators

As mentioned above, HPGs are the primary means of communications in the BT Universe. They can push up to 50 L.Ys as opposed to the 30 L.Ys of a K-F jump, but 50 LYs still isn't much when explored space is >200 LYs wide, so they use a message passing system similar to the Jumpship relay. Most HPGs rotate on a fixed schedule as they need to be aligned to work (every 12-24hrs), so HPGs bulk batch their messages for a single burst transmission. ComStar charges by the byte, so text and small pics are fine. Video is for those with too much money.

[Kyone Akashi]

Wolfhound3060, on 06 October 2012 - 04:54 PM, said:

Nuclear and biological weapons are regarded with disgust by most people in the Inner Sphere due to memories of the horrors of the Successions Wars.

I think this disgust is actually a remnant of the Ares Conventions which aimed to reduce the loss of civilian lives and forbade use of weapons of mass destruction. Ironically, the Star League itself rescinded the Ares Conventions via Addendum II of 2579, four years after Cameron's Pollux Declaration announced the forceful annexation of the Periphery Realms into the Star League's fold by forces of both the SLDF as well as the Great Houses.

However, the principles of the Ares Conventions are still regarded as inofficial guidelines to this very day, and few commanders would act against its articles, much less the Successor Lords (whose consent would be required to develop WMDs or even "star killers") who generally have little interest in escalating the idea of "limited warfare", both due to economical gains (why fight for a planet when the loser just blows up your prize?) as well as because of a certain knightly ideal amongst the feudal realms of the Inner Sphere.
There are of course occasional exceptions - most notably the Kentares Massacre of 2769...
... and then there will be the Robes.. err, the Blakists later on, but that last bit is far, far in the future and not relevant for MWO.

An interesting read: http://www.sarna.net/Ares_Conventions

John Martyr, on 07 October 2012 - 05:25 AM, said:

So, essentially, the MW universe is more practical and political than it is fantasy. I like. Currently, I'm reading through Oyster's search terms. I can see why this world is so captivating.

That's exactly how I felt, too. It is somewhat ... "gritty", perhaps?

Edited by Kyone Akashi, 08 October 2012 - 07:24 AM.