220 replies to this topic

[Timuroslav]

Ok, so you(Ansel) destroy your most profitable resource, people.

Now it's just a matter of time and logistics against the Clans because you've given the Innersphere a strong reason to kill you.

The Clans could never take on the Innersphere without replenishing Man power. In a Total War scenario, they would get stomped into the ground because each loss of their own would greatly hinder them more than the casualties of the Innersphere.
You didn't even read the posts on the forum
AND you didn't even read the lore.

I've put my evidence on the table, I have yet to see yours.

I dub thee 1diot.

Edited by Timuroslav, 22 October 2012 - 07:35 PM.

[Aaron DeChavilier]

IceSerpent, on 22 October 2012 - 12:17 PM, said:

The whole point of the invasion and conquest of Terra is to unite Clans under ilClan (the Clan that actually takes Terra). Therefore, if Terra is taken, then Clans are united from that point on.

Because once one Clan takes Terra, the rest magically fall into line…like the Wolverines…and the Warden clans back home…like they did in Wars of Reaving…

IceSerpent, on 22 October 2012 - 12:17 PM, said:

I didn't miss it - you are just incorrect. A given House at the apex of its military might had to fight 4 (FOUR) other Houses at the apex of their military might, so chances of any single House conquering IS were slim to none.
As soon as CLans become united, their chances of accomplishing this feat increase dramatically. Mostly due to the fact that at this point in time IS is still divided and is nowhere close to re-forming Star League.

You are deliberately misinterpreting that. It doesn’t matter the number. It could have been 2 great Houses. If 1 Great House at its military apex couldn’t take the 200 Light Years of Inner Sphere, then the Crusader Clans couldn’t either. You still believe that the clans are just going to magically unite and be friends again. Sounds like the same people who attmempted to recreate the Star League. Even then during the first Star League no one was really united. House fought House in ‘shadow wars’ and the Houses fought the Periphery. The clans have actually spent more time fighting amongst themselves longer than they have the Inner Sphere, how’s that for unity?

IceSerpent, on 22 October 2012 - 12:17 PM, said:

Who knows what a bunch of religious fanatics needed or didn't need? For all we know they only needed a few prayers.

Actually we do know because it’s stated in the canon. They use a warship to bombard Tharkad, they virus-bomb the Marik Captial, and they turn Outreach into a fallout-devastated wasteland. According to your line of thinking, none of these tools were needed to cow the related power, rather the Wobbies should have just gone in with their almighty and infallible seraphim omnimechs.

IceSerpent, on 22 October 2012 - 12:17 PM, said:

SLDF = Star League Defense Force. It's an army, not a government - it never controlled anything, let alone all of IS.

SLDF was beholden to the SL. The SL was a governing body with member states. The member states donated their forces to participate in the SLDF. Therefore the SLDF controlled most of the Inner Sphere. Otherwise the Great houses never would have passed that Armament act to increase their personal armies, and the SLDF on the Pentagon worlds would have never devolved into house-based factions.

IceSerpent, on 22 October 2012 - 12:17 PM, said:

Star League collapsed because of Amaris coup, it's not like everybody just decided to "pull their support" out of the blue sky.

And which Great Houses stoody by and let Amaris pull that off? Which Great House stepped in to help Kerensky save the league when it needed help the most? Answer to both: none.

IceSerpent, on 22 October 2012 - 12:17 PM, said:

I take it that you have some sources to back you up on the idea that DC civilians tend to engage in guerrilla warfare on a regular basis when their worlds are taken by Davions?

Only really that Dracs hate Feds, and Feds hate Dracs and the feud has gone on for centuries. What sources say you that the clans would magically Unite just because one took earth? Or that the clans were in a position to pull off something no Great House, or even the original Star League could really do.

IceSerpent, on 22 October 2012 - 12:17 PM, said:

I'll counter that with example from Roar Of Honor, where locals on Toffen didn't mind Ghost Bear invasion at all. Given that CapCon folks are kind of known to be a bit on a fanatical side, I think Milo situation is not the norm for the rest of the IS.

Let’s see, Toffen was part of the Rasalhague Republic and didn’t we establish somewhere further up the discussion that Rasalhague hated the Dracs more than the clans; which makes them a special case, no?

In the end, all I really can do is point to canon as the basis for my arguments. What was the response of the Draconis Combine when Wolcott and Luthien were threatened? They responded with everything they had, pulling valuable troops from the Fedcom boarder to adjust. Gets even better, what did Hanse do because the clans threatened Luthien? He sent the absolute best mercenaries to help defend the planet something no one saw coming. The Clans could never hold the Inner Sphere, and it is a **** dream to think so. Could they hold Terra? Maybe, but they’d have to get past comstars orbital defense installations and Terra’s own defense installations which are geared for full on conflict, not petty set-piece battles that the clans are trained for.

Kerensky had to face the same damn guns on his final attack on the Sol System and it was violent, costly, and bloody. Only reason he won through was because by that time only Amaris fanatics were manning the guns. With clans, it would be comstar fanatics and a lot of Great House Troops. You seriously think the Great Houses, after fighting each other for 300 years over terra and the Star League, would let some upstart invaders from beyond come in and steal their thunder?

Also your belief that all citizens of the Inner Sphere hold no strong ties to their home nation state goes against more than 300 years of game history, which makes you sound like a wishful thinker. The clans never attacked all the core worlds of a Great House. The only time they did, they got their exhaust ports handed to them by the Best of the Best of the IS from all corners.

Final note: from a plot perspective the Clans are the great evil, the tragic villain, they weren't slated to win. One of the major problems with the Ji had era is its just a slight tweak on the Clan invasion scenario, and for reasons I thought were stupid, they take the Inner Sphere. Although I don't agree with the reasons, the reasons themselves are canon. Lastly, Im with Timuroslav on this, as with most clan things its just devolving into fan-wankery so I'm punching out.

Edited by Aaron DeChavilier, 22 October 2012 - 12:55 PM.

[Vodkavaiator]

Realistically and logically the clans should have had no chance of taking over the Inner Sphere.

One has only to consider how large the populations of the IS was to see why the Clan Invasion is essentially a futile gesture.

It would be similar to suggesting that Sweden should be able to take over the entire world by attacking everyone at the same time by simply training our troops to an elite level...

Then one has to consider the matter of local resistance. As we can clearly see in modern times, defeating an enemy in a conventional manner doesn't mean that you will avoid an asymmetrical war(which even has the "superior" military force you are not guaranteed to win).

After that production and supply would be another reason the clans are at a serve disadvantage. Which again, as history as shown us is not a good position. (See Germany vs the USSR)

..............................

The clan chances of success remind me of the "could the Axis have won WWII?", except with astronomically worse odds.

It only really works if you either hand the clans several illogical advantages(ala FASA) or simply decide to stack things in their favor without reason(such as the clans making every single decision correctly and the IS being commanded by a bunch of cats).

Edited by Vodkavaiator, 22 October 2012 - 01:03 PM.

[Ansel]

Timuroslav, on 22 October 2012 - 12:47 PM, said:

Ok, so you destroy your most profitable resource, people.

Now it's just a time of logistics against the Clans because you've given the Innersphere a strong reason to kill you.

The Clans could never take on the Innersphere without replenishing Man power. In a Total War scenario, they would get stomped into the ground because each loss of their own would greatly hinder them more than the casualties of the Innersphere.
You didn't even read the posts on the forum
I dub thee 1diot. Goodbye.

The clans could easly have taken the IS. They didn't because they tried to fight a ground war before destroying the assets that allowed the IS forces to move in space.

If I destroy your only way of moving troops from one planet to another and I have free rein of movement you lose, period. I can leave pockets of heavily defended worlds, like Luthen, alone because they wouldn't be able to move their forces off of the planet.

The clans as depicted would never take the IS, your right about that, but anyone with half a brain could easily take over the whole of the IS just by destroying or capturing their capacity to move troops from planet to planet.

That means I also controll food distribution, how long would Luthen, a factory heavy world, last without food for it's population I wonder.

So nice to see your entire argument devolve into name calling. You can't actualy come up with an argument so I must be the "idi0t" lol.

[Ansel]

Vodkavaiator, on 22 October 2012 - 12:53 PM, said:

Realistically and logically the clans should have had no chance of taking over the Inner Sphere.

One has only to consider how large the populations of the IS was to see why the Clan Invasion is essentially a futile gesture.

It would be similar to suggesting that Sweden should be able to take over the entire world by attacking everyone at the same time by simply training our troops to an elite level...

Correction, it would be like suggesting Sweden being a city on Titan with access to space ships that could wipe out cities on the earth being able to take over the Earth.

[Jaroth Corbett]

IceSerpent, on 22 October 2012 - 12:17 PM, said:

I'll counter that with example from Roar Of Honor, where locals on Toffen didn't mind Ghost Bear invasion at all. Given that CapCon folks are kind of known to be a bit on a fanatical side, I think Milo situation is not the norm for the rest of the IS.

THANKS ICE! That is what I was looking for. I got the people screwed up though. I knew I read it somewhere but I could not remember the book. I will check for the verbatim quote now. Keep it up!

Edited by Jaroth Winson, 22 October 2012 - 01:06 PM.

[Vodkavaiator]

Ansel, on 22 October 2012 - 01:01 PM, said:

Correction, it would be like suggesting Sweden being a city on Titan with access to space ships that could wipe out cities on the earth being able to take over the Earth.

So at what point would the clans decide to go completely against their entire way of life and simply murder everyone in the IS?

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

The problem is not a conventional force or who can blow the most **** up with excessive firepower, the problem is the fact that it is highly unlikely if not naive to imagine that the entire(or even a majority) of the IS population would simply welcome the clanners with open arms. Regardless of whether this would benefit them or not.

Let us look at Afghanistan or Iraq, regardless of how much better the people's lives might arguably be under a Western-backed government, there is still an strong resistance movement active. It doesn't matter if the Western forces are conventionally 1000x stronger because in the end the forces they are fighting are far more determined and willing to do anything to achieve victory. Nor are those inferior forces going to engage except in rare occasions in battles where they are at a disadvantage.

Of course the US/NATO forces could nuke both countries and call it a day, but the fallout from any such actions as well as their own moral beliefs virtually guarantee that will never happen.

Edited by Vodkavaiator, 22 October 2012 - 01:17 PM.

[Jaroth Corbett]

Vodkavaiator, on 22 October 2012 - 12:53 PM, said:

Realistically and logically the clans should have had no chance of taking over the Inner Sphere.

One has only to consider how large the populations of the IS was to see why the Clan Invasion is essentially a futile gesture.

It would be similar to suggesting that Sweden should be able to take over the entire world by attacking everyone at the same time by simply training our troops to an elite level...

Then one has to consider the matter of local resistance. As we can clearly see in modern times, defeating an enemy in a conventional manner doesn't mean that you will avoid an asymmetrical war(which even has the "superior" military force you are not guaranteed to win).

After that production and supply would be another reason the clans are at a serve disadvantage. Which again, as history as shown us is not a good position. (See Germany vs the USSR)

..............................

The clan chances of success remind me of the "could the Axis have won WWII?", except with astronomically worse odds.

It only really works if you either hand the clans several illogical advantages(ala FASA) or simply decide to stack things in their favor without reason(such as the clans making every single decision correctly and the IS being commanded by a bunch of cats).

You keep forgetting this is a COULD scenario. The size of the IS would have no meaning had Revival been prosecuted like Klondike & that is exactly why it was NOT written like that. The coordination of the Clans while fragile & temporary was real under an ilKhan. Remember this is not a single Clan prosecuting it's own campaign but a combined effort of many. I maintain as I always have, Klondike worked because ALL the Clans attacked ALL the worlds. Nobody had a chance to coordinate with each other (like they could have in the first place) because each world was fighting their own Clan invaders.

The FWL would NEVER have been able to supply the mechs & resources to the DC, FC & FRR, if it had its own battles to fight.

Edited by Jaroth Winson, 22 October 2012 - 01:20 PM.

[Ansel]

Vodkavaiator, on 22 October 2012 - 01:08 PM, said:

So at what point would the clans decide to go complete against their entire way of life and simply murder everyone in the IS?

The problem is not a conventional force, the problem is the fact that it is highly unlikely if not naive to imagine that the entire IS population would simply welcome the clanners with open arms. Regardless of whether this would benefit them or not.

Let us look at Afghanistan or Iraq, regardless of how much better the people's lives might arguabley be under a Western-backed government, there is still an strong resistance movement active.

Irrelevent, your thinking in terrestrial terms of combat and holding territory with troops.

The clans wouldn't have to hold a planet throught force of arms, they could set up a pupet government that is exactly the same and move on. The point being whatever they want they get because civilians cannot take the fight into space.

Hell the IS militaries couldn't take the fight into space as they have no warships. The clans do. So the clans can take IS jumpships or destory them, remember how the IS has a hard time producing Jumpships, well the clans don't have that issue.

If there were 5000 battlemechs and no Jumpship on a planet thats well supplied, I could defeat that force simply by bypassing it.

Talking in terms of US and Afgan, the US cannot bypass a threat on this planet and have it mean nothing, they can and do reach our shores.

The civilans of the IS cannot build jumpships, they cannot leave their planetary space, therefore they cannot win a fight that takes place on another planet.

If that other planet provides them food then all the weapons and trained military personal mean nothing.

See where this is going, it's not like a planet scale engagement where one country can reach another by some means.

[IceSerpent]

Aaron DeChavilier, on 22 October 2012 - 12:49 PM, said:

Because once one Clan takes Terra, the rest magically fall into line…like the Wolverines…and the Warden clans back home…like they did in Wars of Reaving…

A society that places high value on honor is unlikely to back off out of the deal - the "rules of the game" were that Clan that takes Terra becomes ilClan and the rest fall into line. Everybody was fine with that, so there's no good reason why one of the Clans would suddenly change its mind.

Quote

You are deliberately misinterpreting that. It doesn’t matter the number. It could have been 2 great Houses. If 1 Great House at its military apex couldn’t take the 200 Light Years of Inner Sphere, then the Crusader Clans couldn’t either.

There was never a situation where a single House had an opportunity to take 200 light years of IS without multiple equally strong Houses opposing the move, so the point is moot.

Quote

You still believe that the clans are just going to magically unite and be friends again. Sounds like the same people who attmempted to recreate the Star League. Even then during the first Star League no one was really united. House fought House in ‘shadow wars’ and the Houses fought the Periphery. The clans have actually spent more time fighting amongst themselves longer than they have the Inner Sphere, how’s that for unity?

Being rivals doesn't imply being mortal enemies. Competing/fighting for the title of ilClan doesn't mean that they won't accept the winner.

Quote

Actually we do know because it’s stated in the canon. They use a warship to bombard Tharkad, they virus-bomb the Marik Captial, and they turn Outreach into a fallout-devastated wasteland. According to your line of thinking, none of these tools were needed to cow the related power, rather the Wobbies should have just gone in with their almighty and infallible seraphim omnimechs.

Once again, WoB are described in the lore as a bunch of religios fanatics. This kind of folks tend to choose course of action that has nothing to do with what's prudent or even makes sense.

Quote

SLDF was beholden to the SL. The SL was a governing body with member states. The member states donated their forces to participate in the SLDF. Therefore the SLDF controlled most of the Inner Sphere. Otherwise the Great houses never would have passed that Armament act to increase their personal armies, and the SLDF on the Pentagon worlds would have never devolved into house-based factions.

Again, SLDF is an army - it can only control something during a war or if martial law is in effect. In all other cases military doesn't have the control function.

Quote

Only really that Dracs hate Feds, and Feds hate Dracs and the feud has gone on for centuries. What sources say you that the clans would magically Unite just because one took earth?

Read the lore - the whole point of taking Terra is to unite the Clans. It's not a "magical" byproduct of the invasion, it's the stated purpose.

Quote

Let’s see, Toffen was part of the Rasalhague Republic and didn’t we establish somewhere further up the discussion that Rasalhague hated the Dracs more than the clans; which makes them a special case, no?

Why would it make them a special case? You either want to participate in armed resistance or not, who else you hate besides the invaders is irrelevant. Besides, FRR is already independent at the time of invasion, so the goal would be to kick Clans out and go back to FRR, not go back to DC.

Quote

In the end, all I really can do is point to canon as the basis for my arguments. What was the response of the Draconis Combine when Wolcott and Luthien were threatened? They responded with everything they had, pulling valuable troops from the Fedcom boarder to adjust.

They used military assets only, no "freedom fighters" were involved.

Quote

Kerensky had to face the same damn guns on his final attack on the Sol System and it was violent, costly, and bloody. Only reason he won through was because by that time only Amaris fanatics were manning the guns. With clans, it would be comstar fanatics and a lot of Great House Troops.

At this point in the timeline none of the Houses really likes ComStar, so presence of House troops is not very likely. Besides, the original premise is that Clans have taken Terra already, which implies that they won on Tukayyid, which in turn implies that ComStar has joined the Clans (remember what was their bid?), and that means that Clans get truckload of intel on the Houses, get access to vast intelligence network (ROM), and most importantly that IS lose their interstellar comms for the most part. Organizing a unified resistance under such circumstances would be tricky at best.

Quote

Final note: from a plot perspective the Clans are the great evil, the tragic villain, they weren't slated to win.

This is where you are very, very wrong - both sides are equally good/evil. In BT there are no good guys / bad guys, each faction has their own reasons/justifications to do what they do.

[Vodkavaiator]

Ansel, on 22 October 2012 - 01:20 PM, said:

Irrelevent, your thinking in terrestrial terms of combat and holding territory with troops.

The clans wouldn't have to hold a planet throught force of arms, they could set up a pupet government that is exactly the same and move on. The point being whatever they want they get because civilians cannot take the fight into space.

Hell the IS militaries couldn't take the fight into space as they have no warships. The clans do. So the clans can take IS jumpships or destory them, remember how the IS has a hard time producing Jumpships, well the clans don't have that issue.

If there were 5000 battlemechs and no Jumpship on a planet thats well supplied, I could defeat that force simply by bypassing it.

Talking in terms of US and Afgan, the US cannot bypass a threat on this planet and have it mean nothing, they can and do reach our shores.

The civilans of the IS cannot build jumpships, they cannot leave their planetary space, therefore they cannot win a fight that takes place on another planet.

If that other planet provides them food then all the weapons and trained military personal mean nothing.

See where this is going, it's not like a planet scale engagement where one country can reach another by some means.

Not every planet is reliant on food or supplies from other planets.

Finally what happens when the clans simply leave a planet? The puppet governments are overthrown and the clans have to fight yet another war once they come back?

Regardless of the ability to bypass planets, at some point the clans would have to commit to holding territory or attacking. Unless of course there plan was to avoid every single planet with a sizable population or ability to survive without external supplies for a longer period of time?

Edited by Vodkavaiator, 22 October 2012 - 01:33 PM.

[GioAvanti]

Timuroslav, on 17 October 2012 - 10:01 PM, said:

They would not be able to hold the Inner Sphere, solely for the fact that you just stated, and that their culture as astronomically out numbered. Clan tech though 'Superior' is fragile due to the lack of heavy metals found Often in Steiner territories, and areas closer to Terra. Although the Clans do have a couple things going for them. Honor, and a society united under the perpetuation of Warriors.

Personally, I think the Clans could get to Terra, but wouldn't be able to hold it because of the Amount of aggressive Capitalistic and Conniving cultures in numerous areas. The closer they would get to Terra the more bogged down they would get because of the increasing distaste for clan Culture, and the amount of enemies they would have to make along the way. There is a reason why many of the clans fail, and a lot of the time it's because of implosions, and internal fighting. The more worlds you control, the more political maneuvering becomes important, and that's something the Clans don't quite understand, because their society is united in respecting the Warrior Class, because of life expectancy of this class, and the burdens they create and resolve.

Keep in mind the lore has been built up for quite a long time, so perception is the key word here. The lore is designed to avoid a blatant Hero System and Evil guy System. They did this to make it kind of an onimous Dark age. Like After the fall of Rome or the after the Fall of the Han Dynasty. Lot's of quarreling in this seemingly apocalyptic post Federal Star League world. They would be seen as Villains and usurpers.

Can you provide some source to your "fact" that clan mechs are more fragile... because that is total BS.

IceSerpent, on 22 October 2012 - 01:25 PM, said:

A society that places high value on honor is unlikely to back off out of the deal - the "rules of the game" were that Clan that takes Terra becomes ilClan and the rest fall into line. Everybody was fine with that, so there's no good reason why one of the Clans would suddenly change its mind.



There was never a situation where a single House had an opportunity to take 200 light years of IS without multiple equally strong Houses opposing the move, so the point is moot.



Being rivals doesn't imply being mortal enemies. Competing/fighting for the title of ilClan doesn't mean that they won't accept the winner.



Once again, WoB are described in the lore as a bunch of religios fanatics. This kind of folks tend to choose course of action that has nothing to do with what's prudent or even makes sense.



Again, SLDF is an army - it can only control something during a war or if martial law is in effect. In all other cases military doesn't have the control function.



Read the lore - the whole point of taking Terra is to unite the Clans. It's not a "magical" byproduct of the invasion, it's the stated purpose.



Why would it make them a special case? You either want to participate in armed resistance or not, who else you hate besides the invaders is irrelevant. Besides, FRR is already independent at the time of invasion, so the goal would be to kick Clans out and go back to FRR, not go back to DC.



They used military assets only, no "freedom fighters" were involved.



At this point in the timeline none of the Houses really likes ComStar, so presence of House troops is not very likely. Besides, the original premise is that Clans have taken Terra already, which implies that they won on Tukayyid, which in turn implies that ComStar has joined the Clans (remember what was their bid?), and that means that Clans get truckload of intel on the Houses, get access to vast intelligence network (ROM), and most importantly that IS lose their interstellar comms for the most part. Organizing a unified resistance under such circumstances would be tricky at best.



This is where you are very, very wrong - both sides are equally good/evil. In BT there are no good guys / bad guys, each faction has their own reasons/justifications to do what they do.

Oh there are plenty of good guys and bad guys... Katrina Steiner is evil...for example. Victor Davion is good. The Society within the Clans is fairly evil. The Smoke Jaguars were evil... ComStar is good... Word of Blake is Evil...

Sorry you're very very wrong.

[Ansel]

Vodkavaiator, on 22 October 2012 - 01:27 PM, said:

Not every planet is reliant on food or supplies from other planets.

Finally what happens when the clans simply leave? The puppet governments are overthrown and the clans have to fight yet another war once they come back?

The ones that are likley to be useless or unable to support other planets with military forces. They are not worth taking or trying to hold anyway.

What war?

Resistance only works when the enemy you are trying to resist is there. If they show up with a dropship that has troops on board along with mechs, that see heat by the way, you aren't going to do anything at all to that.

They also wouldn't likley care if you did kill the apointed gov. what would it matter, they can appoint someone else take what they want to take and then leave.

Civilians can't "follow them" back to their jumpship, they don't have space assets, civilians can't "resupply" a planet you are trying to take, so why would anyone care what they did if they are planet bound.

Edited by Ansel, 22 October 2012 - 01:46 PM.

[Vodkavaiator]

If the enemy that you are trying to fight off isn't there then your resistance movement is rather successful...

Why would the civilians(or soldiers who have survived/avoided capture/etc) have to chase the clanners into space?

A guerrilla force is not primarily concerned with following their enemies back to wherever they came from. Their main goal should logically be to retain some semblance of independence, waste clan supplies/troops/material and let time takes its course.

Asymmetrical warfare does not mean you have to "defeat" your enemy, it simply means you make it cost them so much economically, emotionally and in lives that they eventually decide it is not viable to continue fighting. It doesn't even matter if you are technically losing in those regards as well, so long as you ultimately are willing to endure those loses.

Edited by Vodkavaiator, 22 October 2012 - 01:53 PM.

[IceSerpent]

GioAvanti, on 22 October 2012 - 01:30 PM, said:

Oh there are plenty of good guys and bad guys... Katrina Steiner is evil...for example. Victor Davion is good. The Society within the Clans is fairly evil. The Smoke Jaguars were evil... ComStar is good... Word of Blake is Evil...

Sorry you're very very wrong.

I was talking about factions, not individual characters. Clan society is no more/less evil than IS societies - caste inequality is no worse than class inequality. SJ (assuming that you are referring to Edo) is no more evil than DC for example (Kentares massacre). Casting scheming organization like ComStar as good guys is well... unorthodox for certain.

Edit:

Vodkavaiator, on 22 October 2012 - 01:48 PM, said:

If the enemy that you are trying to fight off isn't there then your resistance movement is rather successful...

It's only successful if you can effectively join another faction (i.e. your original one) or claim independence. Doing either doesn't make much practical sense if you are sitting in the middle of Clan space and have neither mechs, nor interstellar transport.

Edited by IceSerpent, 22 October 2012 - 01:55 PM.

[lsp]

Na.

[Vodkavaiator]

IceSerpent, on 22 October 2012 - 01:50 PM, said:

It's only successful if you can effectively join another faction (i.e. your original one) or claim independence. Doing either doesn't make much practical sense if you are sitting in the middle of Clan space and have neither mechs, nor interstellar transport.

So a landlocked country isn't independent? There are plenty of countries which have no ability to influence or move without facing another country but enough forces or diplomatic aptitude to ensure that they remain a sovereign nation.

Again, a divided IS isn't necessarily a defeated IS.

Edited by Vodkavaiator, 22 October 2012 - 02:02 PM.

[Ansel]

Vodkavaiator, on 22 October 2012 - 01:48 PM, said:

If the enemy that you are trying to fight off isn't there then your resistance movement is rather successful...

Why would the civilians(or soldiers who have survived/avoided capture/etc) have to chase the clanners into space?

If the enemy your trying to fight can come back and resupply at will then your resistance has failed completely, they then have more resources to use to take other planets.

This is why civilian resistance is pointless, if a military force isn't present on a planet to prevent another military force from taking resourses then the "faction" that the civilan presence represents is the one that can use those resources.

The clans could have taken the IS. If they had focused only on removing the IS ability to jump people and resources to the front, if they have no jumpships then every planets resources could be used by the one group that has them, the clans.

Look at it this way, if they had tried to bypass planets that would have gained them nothing and went into the IS with the sole campain to destroy or caputure all jumpships assets before begining the ground operations, no reinforcements could have been brought from the lines established along all of the factions.

Meaning the troop along the FC and DC border wouldn't have been able to move to the clan front.

No operation birddog, no destruction of the Smok Jags.

Can't reach the clan homeworlds without jumpships, can't reach the other planets without jumpships.

If the first thing that the Jade Falcions had done when jumping into Trell had been to destroy or capture the jumpshiop Victor Davion would be dead or a clanner.

Edited by Ansel, 22 October 2012 - 02:03 PM.

[Tsula]

Simply look down the history line. Clan Ghost Bear

They are a now a permanent feature of the Inner Sphere and have remained tranquil, save for a brief war with the Draconis Combine following the latter's attack on their capital, Alshain. Currently they have merged with the Inner Sphere faction Free Rasalhague Republic to form the Ghost Bear Dominion. It was the first true merger between a Clan and an Inner Sphere nation where the citizens treat the Clan Warrior caste as the rulers, but the ruling warriors give free reign to their Rasalhague citizens. The Ghost Bear Khan holds the main power and there is a Prince voted for by the people to control all matters concerning the population.

Skip some year and


In 3103, the Ghost Bear Dominion was renamed the Rasalhague Dominion. Well they are really no longer clan just intergraded into the IS.

Almost all the clans are this way.

[Vodkavaiator]

Ansel, on 22 October 2012 - 02:02 PM, said:

This is why civilian resistance is pointless, if a military force isn't present on a planet to prevent another military force from taking resourses then the "faction" that the civilan presence represents is the one that can use those resources.

You cannot be serious.

A civilian resistance doesn't have to be any way related to a military one nor does the presence of a military force mean one cannot exist. The only thing it requires is a source of discontent and/or other reason for fighting(such as nationalism, religion, etc).

A civilian resistance in turn can ensure that significantly less resources are acquired...cause the military force to lose valuable things trying to secure or restore the ability to acquire said resources.

Which hey is exactly what happens in real life.

Edited by Vodkavaiator, 22 October 2012 - 02:12 PM.