70 replies to this topic

[ice trey]

I enjoy reading through the Battletech fluff, and have a shelf filled with a wealth of Battletech books. I've read many of them, but still have many more to go through.
Currently powering through the Handbook: House Steiner. Already finished House Marik, House Liao, and Major Periphery States, as well as the whole Jihad series, Historical: Operation Klondike, Historical: Reunification War, The Wars of Reaving... I can't remember if I actually read Historicals: War of 3039 and Brush Wars cover-to-cover, but I know I've used them for reference so often that the covers have begun to show wear.

I might be able to give someone a better idea of the goings on inside of a particular faction, but if you gave me a date and asked me who did what for a faction, I'd not be able to give you an answer. I was terrible at history in high-school, and that doesn't change just because it's for a franchise I like.

I could, on the other hand, tell you which TRO a mech can be found in.

[Curon Hifor]

The only indication of my knowledge of BattleTech canon is the fact that I'm legitimately making those "PPC" mixed drinks (alcohol). Davion version, if anyone was interested, though I might try the Steiner version tonight.

[Johannes Falkner]

CoffiNail, on 13 April 2012 - 04:20 AM, said:

You must have sigs turned off, or it would be pretty clear which Clan I call family. I was more purposing you make an additional poll answer. As I know more lore of the Clans than I do of the Inner Sphere. I have read the 1980s House Books but that is all so far.

This what happens when you reply to a thread from your phone with sigs off for bandwidth reasons...

[Trevnor]

I've read most of the Roc Novels. Haven't touched any of the WizKids books, cause I didn't like where that stuff headed.

[Stone Profit]

Curon Hifor, on 13 April 2012 - 07:08 AM, said:

The only indication of my knowledge of BattleTech canon is the fact that I'm legitimately making those "PPC" mixed drinks (alcohol). Davion version, if anyone was interested, though I might try the Steiner version tonight.

Cappellan march style with Tequila? Or Draconis March style with Saki?

[Curon Hifor]

Stone Profit, on 13 April 2012 - 07:35 AM, said:

Cappellan march style with Tequila? Or Draconis March style with Saki?

I prefer Cruxis March style (which is the one with Bourbon), though I've tried all three. Not sure why, but the Saki one always tastes odd, though the Tequila is surprisingly good.

Note: Drink responsibly! PPCs can hit your BAC something fierce.

[Adridos]

Mason Grimm, on 13 April 2012 - 04:37 AM, said:

Everything I learned about Battletech I learned from the House Liao sourcebook.

Does that mean you belong to the first category?

It was made by a ComStar spy as it turned out later in the handbook.

[Mason Grimm]

Adridos, on 13 April 2012 - 07:58 AM, said:

Does that mean you belong to the first category?

It was made by a ComStar spy as it turned out later in the handbook.

For real? I have a copy of it but have never read cover to cover to be honest. I'll have to skin along I suppose just to educate myself.

[Vexgrave Lars]

Versed enough to know when to go look things up.

[Stone Profit]

Adridos, on 13 April 2012 - 07:58 AM, said:

Does that mean you belong to the first category?

It was made by a ComStar spy as it turned out later in the handbook.

All the sourcebooks are written by Comstar for the most part. Information is Ammunition - Jerome Blake

[wwiiogre]

Have all the novels, have all the tech books, have all the resource books, have the new editions, etc. etc. etc. and most of the sheets for tabletop.

and have played most of the MW series not mechassault as I feel that is not a BT franchise and I have never played anime or mecha titles I also have skunkwerks and mech pro series of programs that allow you to build and print all the mechs, vehicles, aero, and maps for BT.

chris

[Rorik Thrumsalr]

I know it well (been playing since the 3rd edition boxed set) but I stopped and won't go past 3085 lore wise.

[Sal Trebov]

Stone Profit, on 13 April 2012 - 08:04 AM, said:

All the sourcebooks are written by Comstar for the most part.

Yeah, it comes up whenever the books refer to Jerome Blake as "Blessed Blake".

So far, I've read Marik's Handbook, and started skimming over Steiner's. In a lot of ways, there's a lot of overlap (Duh, half of the FWL's wars were with the Commonwealth). Is anyone else impressed with the depth and detail that these books had? For creating background fluff for a wargame, they cover a LOT of ground.

[Links432]

I have only read some of the Novels. I am not sure off hand how many I have but I just try to keep going with the order from where I started. I played some of the computer games and that is about it.

[Alizabeth Aijou]

Vandul, on 13 April 2012 - 05:17 AM, said:

Just keep the shipping lanes open and the PPC bores hot, and we are golden.

Heh, funny.
A FWL-er talking about PPCs.
Didn't know they still had any.
Other than on the Awesomes.

Quote

Information is Ammunition - Jerome Blake

That was Adam Steiner, actually.

[Wyzak]

read almost all of the classic era novels, and about a half dozen of the Dark Ages.
Also read the Jihad sourcebook and some of the online novellas about the destruction of Outreach.
Played all the computer games, though I wasn't very good at Crescent Hawks or Mechwarrior 1 (gave up cause they didn't seem to work right on modern computers)
Watched the animated series...

[El Loco]

I am between "I passed Inner Sphere History 101" and "I am a well educated citizen of [insert capital world her] and I know the history of my world, my house and the IS at large". My in depth knowledge is inequally distributed between the Houses and some Clans... and there are things I never cared about. But, because I know a lot more than the general history of the IS and Clans in the 31st century, I chose "I am a well educated citizen...".

[HeIIequin]

I used to only know that there were these things called mechs that shot at each other, but when I heard about MWO, I started to make a (minor) concerted effort to begin learning things. Basically, I've progressed slightly past:

StompyMcGee, on 13 April 2012 - 04:55 AM, said:

All I really know is people spread out, started fighting each other, stopped fighting each other, some guy died, they started fighting each other again, other people decided "screw you guys, we're outta here, but we'll be back", the fighting continues, the "screw you" guys come back, and there's more fighting. Much of the fighting involves giant stompy robots.

Went and visited the local Chapters store (big book store), since I had seen BT novels there before, but apparently they don't stock them anymore. I could have ordered them in-store, or online, but I'm lazy, and haven't bothered to yet =( .

[Gremlich Johns]

CoffiNail, on 12 April 2012 - 07:31 PM, said:

I am a Warrior of [insert Clan name] and I know the history of our founding and of the Home Worlds.

Clan Blood Spirit (a no show in MWO)

[TeaL3af]

My (limited and incorrect) knowledge of BT universe:

Loads of slightly implausible technology appears in the space of a couple of hundred years and humanity spreads throughout the galaxy. Then, some stuff happens with the Star League and BattleMechs turn up. The important worlds are collectively called the Inner Sphere.

Despite being a fairly dumb (but cool) idea Mechs are apparently the "ultimate weapon" and are basically the Nuke of their era, I'd have though it'd be more efficient to buy a **** ton of helicopters and tanks for the same price but whatever.

Then some kind of "great retardation" occurs which makes everyone stupid and they forget how to build all this cool stuff, they also move back about 3000 years socially and start acting like it's 1400. This event is caused by some war or something and the only smart people get in their spaceships and fly off to uncharted space.

The dumb Inner Sphere guys fight each other for a few hundred years, meanwhile the smart people decide to split up into 20 factions for some reason and then fight amongst themselves, these are the Clans. They also move back thousands of years socially too, but they still have the knowledge to build cool mechs and bigger lasers.

Eventually the Clans stop fighting for long enough to try and conquer the Inner Sphere. They almost succeed but get beaten in a duel and fall victims to their own honour system. So now everyone just goes back to fighting or something, I dunno.

Yeah... that's probably wildly inaccurate, but I'm here for the Big Robots.