62 replies to this topic

[Buzzkill72]

Kill the Infidel!! Blake-est.............no thats cool!! WoB have some SWEET Deadly mechs durring the Jhiad along with there Battle Armor vary nice!

[Oggii]

I think the word "jihad" just got kicked around and overused by the guys writing the canon stuff when the whole WoB thing started happening and they probably were trying to get into the 40K market. But PLEASE, I live real life every day, I have political discussions with people I actually know and are bound by the "social contract" to not get stupid in those discussions. I prefer my wars HERE, in game, where I can play at politics that don't have a real consequence. Please, don't take that away by bringing real politics into this.

[_Comrade_]

Word of Blake are like the Knights Templar of Battletech. In that they are awesome

[Haroldwolf]

Catharsis, on 16 March 2012 - 11:07 PM, said:

I was thinking today...
Would it not be awesome if, down the road, when the Wobbies decide to go apeshit on the galaxy, ALL the players could organize, much like how the Clans started working with the Houses, and fend off an unstoppable horde of NPC Jihadists?

This would be pretty far down the road time-wise, and so it might be a great break from constant PvP to have an EPIC PvE battle for the HPG Network, Terra, and the whole galaxy?

I know this is the House Davion forum, but I cannot find a better place to mention this. The only page in the BT Universe forum is for Clan discussions.

So! Let me know your thoughts. Do you think the Word of Blake was a good plot point for the series canon, or did you find it a contrived way of adding a new dimension to the galactic conflict?

All things related to the Jihad and Dark Age should be purged from the Battletech Universe.

Edited by Haroldwolf, 09 August 2012 - 12:56 PM.

[Evinthal]

Tadakuma, on 17 March 2012 - 05:29 AM, said:

No, the Word of Blake Jihad is a horrible storyline. It reads like a bunch of sub-literate geeks got together and had a meeting to decide what the most "AWESOME" and "EPIC" events would be in the BT universe. Unfortunately they wrote a bunch of sense that makes as much sense as a Michael Bay movie.

How much of it have you actually read?

Tadakuma, on 17 March 2012 - 05:29 AM, said:

In the space of 5 years they attack every major capital home world, destroy the Wolves Dragoons and take Hesperus. Meanwhile they're sowing weapons of mass destruction like candy seeds of destruction while causally committing war crimes and genocide across the inner sphere.

Nothing that the so called "Great" houses of the Inner Sphere, or Comstar themselves haven't already done. This is the pot calling the kettle black.

Tadakuma, on 17 March 2012 - 05:29 AM, said:

They do this without maintaining any real strategic position or real manufacturing base and using a bunch of second rate outlawed mercenary units who can suddenly stand up to units like the Wolves Dragons, the Northwind Highlanders or Kell Hounds.

Wrong.

They controlled Terra, and thus SoL (i.e. Mars, and other planets in our solar system) All of these planets had MASSIVE production facilities. Including Warship yards.

You want someone to blame it on, look to the Precentor of Comstar at the time who though that the Clans posed more of a threat to the Inner Sphere than the Blakists did. They felt no need to try and reclaim Terra from the Blakists.

Also they subverted House Marik, who by the way, had a massive collection of mothballed warships, and facilities to produce them. Not to mention the only economy/production line in the entire Inner Sphere that was bigger than the Lyrans.

They also had control of the HPGs and created a white out of communications, effectively paralyzing any flow of information between armies, excluding the black boxes in use by Davion. But even those had to be jumped into the system they wanted to send a message to and then jumped back to the other system in order to relay the reply.

Tadakuma, on 17 March 2012 - 05:29 AM, said:

I can honestly say that for me the Battletech timeline ends in 3062 (maybe 3067 if I'm feeling generous)

Fair enough, and I can accept that.

Oggii, on 08 August 2012 - 10:19 PM, said:

I think the word "jihad" just got kicked around and overused by the guys writing the canon stuff when the whole WoB thing started happening and they probably were trying to get into the 40K market. But PLEASE, I live real life every day, I have political discussions with people I actually know and are bound by the "social contract" to not get stupid in those discussions. I prefer my wars HERE, in game, where I can play at politics that don't have a real consequence. Please, don't take that away by bringing real politics into this.

Technically Jihad IS the correct term for it, as it was theocratic in nature.

Haroldwolf, on 09 August 2012 - 12:56 PM, said:

All things related to the Jihad and Dark Age should be purged from the Battletech Universe.

Your opinion has no bearing on the fact that it is and will remain canon.

The only thing people that dislike it will get is that is is done and over with, and Catalyst is doing the magic hand wave of "it has already been covered" for the preceding Dark Age plot that follows after. They are picking up the story line after that next year sometime

Edited by Evinthal, 09 August 2012 - 01:14 PM.

[Serevn]

Whats this about changing lore? The Federated Suns and the Lyran Commonwealth shall still burn in the FedCom civil war. Meanwhile we take back our territory, and Sun-Tzu Liao becomes First Lord of the New Star League.

[Oggii]

Evinthal, on 09 August 2012 - 01:09 PM, said:

H


Technically Jihad IS the correct term for it, as it was theocratic in nature.

You obviously missed my point altogether.

[Evinthal]

Oggii, on 10 August 2012 - 07:11 PM, said:

You obviously missed my point altogether.

No I didn't miss it, you were saying that the Jihad was drawn as a close parallel to real life events which were/are happening at the time (i.e. Iraq War, Afghanistan War, Al-Qaeda, ect.) and you would have preferred that it hadn't been called that due to what was/is going on in the real world. You would prefer for your game world to not draw from real world events too much.

I can understand that, and respect it, but that doesn't make "Jihad" the wrong term to use, even if it does carry a negative connotation to it within Western Civilization.

Is that about right?

What if it had been called a Crusade? Would that change how you feel about it?

Edited by Evinthal, 11 August 2012 - 10:57 AM.

[SakuranoSenshi]

Jihad is the wrong term because it doesn't mean what you think it means. It means 'religious duty' not 'fanatical religious warfare'. The current usage applied to various wars comes from a perversion of Islam which teaches that violent opposition to nations who don't follow the same version of Islam is a, you guessed it, religious duty - Jihad.

[Evinthal]

SakuranoSenshi, on 11 August 2012 - 11:48 AM, said:

Jihad is the wrong term because it doesn't mean what you think it means. It means 'religious duty' not 'fanatical religious warfare'. The current usage applied to various wars comes from a perversion of Islam which teaches that violent opposition to nations who don't follow the same version of Islam is a, you guessed it, religious duty - Jihad.

Jihad as defined by merriam-webster.com, specifically the second example: "A crusade for a principle or belief"

Wikipedia: "In western societies the term jihad is often translated by non-Muslims as "holy war".Scholars of Islamic studies often stress that these words are not synonymous. Muslim authors, in particular, tend to reject such an approach, stressing non-militant connotations of the word."

and

"In Modern Standard Arabic, jihad is one of the correct terms for a struggle for any cause, violent or not, religious or secular"

also courtesy of religioustolerance.org

"Others use the term as a synonym for a struggle of any type. This reflects the origin of the word from the Arabic verb "jahada" which means to struggle or fight."

Jihad when it comes right down to the bear bones of it just means a struggle.

It does mean what I think it does.

edited for additional information.

Edited by Evinthal, 11 August 2012 - 01:02 PM.

[SakuranoSenshi]

Struggle to do your duty or overcome something or whatever, not fight in the sense of warfare. So, no, it doesn't mean what you implied at all. It can, however, be applied (as it was, by Muslims) but that's not its only or even underlying meaning at all.

Attempting to live a 'good life' according to the precepts of Islam is 'jihad'. Really.

[Evinthal]

SakuranoSenshi, on 11 August 2012 - 01:20 PM, said:

Struggle to do your duty or overcome something or whatever, not fight in the sense of warfare. So, no, it doesn't mean what you implied at all. It can, however, be applied (as it was, by Muslims) but that's not its only or even underlying meaning at all.

Attempting to live a 'good life' according to the precepts of Islam is 'jihad'. Really.

*sigh* right which is why I included the section about a struggle for any cause, violent or non-violent, religious or secular. Jihad has several meanings and can be applied in many ways.

As I said, it can be any form of struggle, not just in a warfare sense, yes that includes attempting to live the good life as you have said. But I am failing to see how it doesn't mean what I am implying it to mean.

I have provided sources, you have not. Please do so, or let us just agree to disagree.

[SakuranoSenshi]

I think we're talking at cross purposes now and it's probably my fault for making an assumption, in what I wrote, at least, that you were only aware of the 'commonly understood' meaning of 'fanatics screaming about god just before they die/kill you'.

[Evinthal]

No problem. It is common to assume that most people only know that meaning for it due to recent events and how the media uses it. I know it has other meanings so it is all good.

[Oggii]

Evinthal, on 11 August 2012 - 10:54 AM, said:

No I didn't miss it, you were saying that the Jihad was drawn as a close parallel to real life events which were/are happening at the time (i.e. Iraq War, Afghanistan War, Al-Qaeda, ect.) and you would have preferred that it hadn't been called that due to what was/is going on in the real world. You would prefer for your game world to not draw from real world events too much.

I can understand that, and respect it, but that doesn't make "Jihad" the wrong term to use, even if it does carry a negative connotation to it within Western Civilization.

Is that about right?

What if it had been called a Crusade? Would that change how you feel about it?

No, you did miss my point completely. I was actually making a direct reference to someone who actually did politicize the term further up. Now yes, the term Jihad does get kicked around too much, but that was more of a cursory eye-roll than any scathing criticism.

[Evinthal]

Oggii, on 11 August 2012 - 04:48 PM, said:

No, you did miss my point completely. I was actually making a direct reference to someone who actually did politicize the term further up. Now yes, the term Jihad does get kicked around too much, but that was more of a cursory eye-roll than any scathing criticism.

Ah, my misunderstanding then. Since you were probably speaking to another person I don't think I caught it. Sorry about that. Still Jihad is probably the best term for it, even if it is over used.

[Glare]

Lots of good posts in this thread. Lots of bad ones too. I think Evinthal managed to cover most of the facepalm-worthy misconceptions on the first page, but I'll put my two cents here anyway.

The Word of Blake during the Jihad wasn't simply the Word of Blake, it was also the Free Worlds League, subverted into being the WoB's allies during the conflict, as well as dozens of mercenary commands.

1) The WoB controlled Sol, the single largest manufacturing center in existence at this point. Forget Hesperus II, the Sol system, which includes the facilities that have been producing material for over a thousand years on Terra itself, as well as the prodigious manufacturing on Mars, as well as several other high-output facilities in systems like New Earth, incorporated into the Word of Blake Protectorate very early.

2) The Free World's League had arguably the largest navy in the Inner Sphere at the time of the Jihad. The Word of Blake's was similarly sized. The two combined were a fleet that the Sphere hadn't seen in 300 years, since the time of Kerensky's March on Terra.

3) The reason the WoB wiped out the Dragoons was because the Dragoons pissed them off, and invited the entire Jihad by themselves. The entire reason the Jihad was launched so early, or even at all, is because the Dragoons attacked Mars. They saw things the Word of Blake had that no one was allowed to see, and to protect that, they nuked Outreach. Unfortunately, it's not so easy to stop the flow of information, and by that time the assault had to be continued. The Dragoons as a meaningful entity ceased to exist for the better part of 50 years, as did dozens of mercenary commands on Outreach when the attack hit. Dozens more received a "join us or die painfully" ultimatum from the Word.

4) The WoB made no strategic holdings beyond the Protectorate because that wasn't the objective. The objective, as short sighted and forced into action decades early as it was, was to remove the ability of the Successor States to fight back against the Word. They could keep the planets and territory all they wanted, the Word didn't care, they just didn't want powerful rivals.

[KANE LIVES]

MUAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!

Edited by KANE LIVES, 15 August 2012 - 11:26 AM.

[Soup_Bug]

W.O.B. loyalists UNITE!

[Taemien]

SakuranoSenshi, on 11 August 2012 - 11:48 AM, said:

Jihad is the wrong term because it doesn't mean what you think it means. It means 'religious duty' not 'fanatical religious warfare'. The current usage applied to various wars comes from a perversion of Islam which teaches that violent opposition to nations who don't follow the same version of Islam is a, you guessed it, religious duty - Jihad.

Just a FYI. Jihad is an Arabic word. Arabs have been around much longer than Islam. It is NOT a perversion of Islam as not all Arab speaking people are Muslims.

Just like the word Crusade is not a Christian word, but an English one. Its also used in works of fiction to describe non-Christian struggles. World of Warcraft is a good example, they had a crusade of the Church of Holy Light, not a Christian Crusade.

The World of Blake Jihad is a similar thing. Word of Blake calls it a Jihad even though it has nothing to do with Islam. Though Arabic is a language used in the BattleTech universe.

English also has a tendency to pick up words from other languages and modify their definition. Right now Jihad is an English word that describes a Holy War committed by religious fanatics.

Its simply a word used into two different languages. It has a different meaning in both languages (I know it means Struggle in Arabic). It has Nothing to do with a specific religion. There's no perversion of any religion going on here.