457 replies to this topic

[Ken Fury]

Ashla Mason, on 02 February 2013 - 01:59 PM, said:

I don't think anyone can reasonably dispute that in the real world this wouldn't work out so well. Good thing we're discussing a fictional universe.

Well there still is a high failure rate in the process from Geschko to the Trial of Position.

[Ashla Mason]

Tank Boy Ken, on 02 February 2013 - 02:11 PM, said:

Well there still is a high failure rate in the process from Geschko to the Trial of Position.

If the Sibko's were collectively only turning out 3 or 4 warriors a year, you might have a point.

[caid]

In my view these canon sources are simply too shallow and totally disregarding mathematics. Inner Sphere has about 2000 worlds and as far as I could google it seems its total population is 6 trillion, what is about 3 billion per world. Clan Jade Falcon had its total population about 116 million in 3060 in Clan space only, but its force was only about 47 clusters - not more than 3000 mechs at most, although it has to be much less, because of infantry, aircraft and vehicle units are listed separately (why the hell has BT no infantry carrying mechs I don't know). Russia, a country of similar population, has in its stocks about 20 000 tanks plus a similar number of other armored vehicles... so the great crusader clan, going so far as considering the truce signed by Wolves to be a "********" because of wasted genes of their warriors, couldn't muster more than Communist-era Czechoslovakia?

That makes me really think about the effects of inbreeding in their military planning circles. Or corruption and wasted finances for army development, about which the canon remains silent The whole invasion was surely a cover-up for these shady activities of the responsible industrial and political management.

[Cik]

fil5000, on 02 February 2013 - 01:45 PM, said:

Ashla points out they've got handwavey magic genetic engineering techniques to wave the problem away, but in the real world if you have a population of 500 people and you constantly select for particular traits then you're going drain the gene pool very quickly and your entire population is going to die to something that they're all genetically predisposed to.

simply remove the thing they are genetically predisposed to. there, i fixed the problem

[Cik]

caid, on 02 February 2013 - 03:29 PM, said:

In my view these canon sources are simply too shallow and totally disregarding mathematics. Inner Sphere has about 2000 worlds and as far as I could google it seems its total population is 6 trillion, what is about 3 billion per world. Clan Jade Falcon had its total population about 116 million in 3060 in Clan space only, but its force was only about 47 clusters - not more than 3000 mechs at most, although it has to be much less, because of infantry, aircraft and vehicle units are listed separately (why the hell has BT no infantry carrying mechs I don't know). Russia, a country of similar population, has in its stocks about 20 000 tanks plus a similar number of other armored vehicles... so the great crusader clan, going so far as considering the truce signed by Wolves to be a "********" because of wasted genes of their warriors, couldn't muster more than Communist-era Czechoslovakia?

That makes me really think about the effects of inbreeding in their military planning circles. Or corruption and wasted finances for army development, about which the canon remains silent The whole invasion was surely a cover-up for these shady activities of the responsible industrial and political management.

though the inner sphere outnumbers the clans to a ridiculous degree, clan technology supremacy makes them number far more relatively, and ESPECIALLY the fact that their communications, warships and jumpships are better. besides, you must account for the fact that the inner sphere cannot send everything they have to deal with the clans, because they must watch their truly massive borders against each other (and make no mistake, the clans do fight each other often, just that they do not really 'sneak attack' so most worlds don't have to be garrisoned much.) besides the total population does not matter, only relative military strength, of which the clans have plenty to smash large portions of the inner sphere if they desire it. you may as well compare the might of WWI conscript russia with 1990s america and say "the russians would win bro, they outnumber the states by a massive margin!" and you would be ******* wrong, because technology is a very, VERY large force multiplier.

Edited by Cik, 02 February 2013 - 04:16 PM.

[Gammanoob]

Asymmetric warfare and resistance from the civilian population are certainly underestimated factors in cannon which are often in the IS's favor.

Edited by Gammanoob, 02 February 2013 - 05:41 PM.

[Epsilon X Sigma]

I like the clans for this reason: In 1995 when I was 12 years old, I saw this picture as part of an advertisement for the upcoming release of Mechwarrior 2. From that moment on I was an instant fan without having any prior knowledge of Mechwarrior or Battletech. Iv'e read some very well written posts about why the clans are totalitarian crusaders hell bent on enforcing their way of life no matter what. And as an adult, I agree. In reality I would never support such a group. But as a kid I didn't care about any of that. All I saw was "Wow! A whole galaxy of people with giant robots bristling with armaments! And, there's a group calling themselves the Clans that have the BEST giant robots bristling with armaments!" So nostalgia is my reason, but my adult ideals wont keep me from getting into the cockpit of a MadDog (everyone loves the MadCat but I miss the vulture/MadDog) and fighting for the clans though. Sorry if that was a long winded reason.

Edited by Epsilon X Sigma, 02 February 2013 - 05:50 PM.

[dal10]

guardian wolf, on 01 February 2013 - 09:07 AM, said:

Jaroth is correct on all counts. You have to think like a strategist. The IS has a strategically disadvantage, that was mitigated by the writers making it possible for them to win. In any war game simulation, of which I could probably set up, the Clans would literally crush the enemy beneath them. Even in a long drawn out campaign against the might of the IS as a whole, the Clans would win, due to a number of factors. These include: better quality mechs, higher quality standard pilots, better supply lines, more ships of war, better ships of war, etc. etc. I literally could list about thirty things that the Clans had going for them, all advantages. The IS had tactics, and numbers when we only account for the Clans that actually invaded and were successful (Jade Falcon, Smoke Jaguar, Ghost Bear, and my personal favorite, Wolf). Granted, that's why I liked the stories of the Clan Invasion, because of the fact that all the odds were against the IS, but, little by little, the tide turned to their favor, especially as the Wardens began doing what they could to help them. I personally am of the Wolf Warden philosophy, so I probably belong with the rest of the Wolves in Exile. Jaroth and I do not agree on many things, but on this, he has my support and concurrence.

no offense guardian, but the clans excelled on the personal level, were horrible on the tactical level, and ok on a strategic level. give me a battalion in an entrenched position and i could easily do a 2-1 possibly even a 3-1 kd against the clans. the only thing the inner sphere could not counter was the warships, and their supply lines were definitely not better than the inner sphere's

Edited by dal10, 02 February 2013 - 07:07 PM.

[fil5000]

Cik, on 02 February 2013 - 04:03 PM, said:

simply remove the thing they are genetically predisposed to. there, i fixed the problem

Well that's rather the point. In that post I was specifically talking about what would happen without magic handwavey super genetic engineering. Which means you wouldn't be able to isolate these flaws and remove them.

Unless you're actually talking about removing the disease or sickness they're vulnerable to from the environment - which would also be tricky as you wouldn't know what it was until most of your population was dead from it.

Again, I was illustrating why five centuries of breeding within a small gene pool and practicing selective breeding within that small gene pool is a bad idea with our current understanding of genetics. In canon, the magician scientist caste do magic manipulate genes to make this go away,

[Gammanoob]

guardian wolf, on 01 February 2013 - 09:07 AM, said:

Jaroth is correct on all counts. You have to think like a strategist. The IS has a strategically disadvantage, that was mitigated by the writers making it possible for them to win.

Best satirical post in this thread hands down.

If anything the only reason the Clans are even a threat is because the writers wrote them in as the "magically, superior, invading force."

In regards to logistics, tactics and strategy the Clans would in any realistic portrayal be dead from the start.

Edited by Gammanoob, 03 February 2013 - 03:33 AM.

[Ragor]

Epsilon X Sigma, on 02 February 2013 - 05:48 PM, said:

I like the clans for this reason:
In 1995 when I was 12 years old, I saw this picture as part of an advertisement for the upcoming release of Mechwarrior 2. From that moment on I was an instant fan without having any prior knowledge of Mechwarrior or Battletech. Iv'e read some very well written posts about why the clans are totalitarian crusaders hell bent on enforcing their way of life no matter what. And as an adult, I agree. In reality I would never support such a group. But as a kid I didn't care about any of that. All I saw was "Wow! A whole galaxy of people with giant robots bristling with armaments! And, there's a group calling themselves the Clans that have the BEST giant robots bristling with armaments!" So nostalgia is my reason, but my adult ideals wont keep me from getting into the cockpit of a MadDog (everyone loves the MadCat but I miss the vulture/MadDog) and fighting for the clans though. Sorry if that was a long winded reason.

QFT, great post.

Only difference between us:
Me is too deep in the lore -> my 'adult ideals' are blocking my ability to crawl into a clanners cockpit.

But kudos, your argumentation is one of the very few examples which are ok with me why someone chooses the clans as the favored faction.

Edited by Ragor, 03 February 2013 - 03:35 AM.

[Jimskiavic]

I think these two threads would be more amicable & constructive if the question was rather 'why do you prefer the Clans/SS/other?'.

The Clans and SS both have plenty of flaws, and aspects of their culture/behaviour that people may disagree with/dislike/find distasteful/etc. Equally, I would say they both have certain areas in which they are 'better' than the other. And of course that is an over-simplification in itself, because the Clans and SS are hardly homogenous groups (nor are individual Clans or SS!).

Personally, I quite like the ideal that the Clans strive towards of efficiency, minimising waste, and 'trying to put war in a nice neat box', as well as the theoretical meritocracy. At the same time, I find some of their attitudes and beliefs incredibly frustrating: the primacy of nature over nurture (little respect for experience, pensioning off warriors in their 20's, discrimination against and dismissing of freebirths and others with 'inferior genes'), linking personal martial prowess with leadership (both military and political), and the elitism/class-warfare of the caste system (whereby the achievements and opinions of those not in the warrior caste are little valued). The little we see of the non-warrior parts of the Clans suggests (at least to me) that those problems are significantly less prevalent outside of the warrior caste, but some of them are entirely systemic.

Comparatively, there is much about the Fed Suns that appeals to me, in that they have a lot of similarities to Western culture, and so have that comfortable familiarity and sub-conscious approval, and they have a lot of characters that I like from the novels. But then they are effectively a hereditary dictatorship, which I dislike. They have been 'lucky' in that they have had a succession of 'good' leaders who are viewed/presented quite favourably, but this doesn't justify the system. Further, they are aggressively expansionist justified by a sort of 'Davion exceptionalism'.

(I could go on about each of the SS but, well, you get the point)

After all that fence-sitting though, I will say that 'I prefer the Clans'. I feel that the Clans (or at least, some of them) have more potential to evolve towards an 'ideal' culture/governance/etc (do not ask me what that is, but suffice to say it would take some aspects of the Clans and some of the SS) than the SS do. The evolution of CGB, into the Ghost Bear Dominion is an excellent example of this, as I believe GBD is an excellent combination of the two cultures (though still not perfect of course!).

Mind you, my preference might be retconned to fit in with the fact that through my personal 'Mechwarrior journey' I was introduced to BT through MW2 and then GB in SL.

[caid]

Federated Suns isn't even a sci-fi, that's a copy of Reagan/Bush sr.-era rhetorics and "assertive policy". Yes, Smoke Jaguars had to be annihilated, their children would become the same menace, they already gave up humanity, yes, yes...

But really, I don't like the canon the outcomes of wars should have been decised at BT tournaments, not in the heads of field manual writers.

[CoffiNail]

caid, on 04 February 2013 - 01:41 AM, said:

But really, I don't like the canon the outcomes of wars should have been decised at BT tournaments, not in the heads of field manual writers.

Actually it is my understanding (Now this is what I have been told by someone who says they worked at FASA) was that a good portions of core stuff got RP'd a bit, and many battles were done through TT, and then written in. Only a rumor, but if true, damn cool... and damn fun!

[Stormwolf]

CoffiNail, on 04 February 2013 - 04:56 AM, said:

Actually it is my understanding (Now this is what I have been told by someone who says they worked at FASA) was that a good portions of core stuff got RP'd a bit, and many battles were done through TT, and then written in. Only a rumor, but if true, damn cool... and damn fun!

I know that William H. Keith, Jr. did this for the battles in his books.

[Jaroth Corbett]

Gammanoob, on 03 February 2013 - 03:26 AM, said:

Best satirical post in this thread hands down.

If anything the only reason the Clans are even a threat is because the writers wrote them in as the "magically, superior, invading force."

In regards to logistics, tactics and strategy the Clans would in any realistic portrayal be dead from the start.

Gammanoob, on 03 February 2013 - 03:26 AM, said:

Best satirical post in this thread hands down.

If anything the only reason the Clans are even a threat is because the writers wrote them in as the "magically, superior, invading force."

In regards to logistics, tactics and strategy the Clans would in any realistic portrayal be dead from the start.

And the other Clans learned after the third wave.......well almost all of them (glances @ the Jaguars )

As far as tactics & strategy goes, I suggest you read some novels.

[Gammanoob]

Sadly, I don't have the money to buy some of the novels and I haven't been very impressed by the ones I have read.

However, whilst I know in cannon the clans make sense my point stands that if you look at with any sort of realistic understanding of logistics or military operations of the last 100 years it is easy to see why the Clans don't make much sense. Just taking the population disparity you have major, major problems for the Clans to overcome in an invasion.

Granted in a story they can make sense and be a fun faction.

So again, I am not trying to argue in that in Canon the Clans are not a seemingly unstoppable juggernaut, but merely that the only reason they are is because the writers for some reason found it necessary to create a "Mary Sue" faction to mix things up. I.e. it can be explained by lore logic but it doesn't mean one can't call it for what it is.

Edited by Gammanoob, 04 February 2013 - 03:28 PM.

[Ashla Mason]

Gammanoob, on 04 February 2013 - 03:20 PM, said:

Sadly, I don't have the money to buy some of the novels and I haven't been very impressed by the ones I have read.

However, whilst I know in cannon the clans make sense my point stands that if you look at with any sort of realistic understanding of logistics or military operations of the last 100 years it is easy to see why the Clans don't make much sense. Just taking the population disparity you have major, major problems for the Clans to overcome in an invasion.

Granted in a story they can make sense and be a fun faction.

So again, I am not trying to argue in that in Canon the Clans are not a seemingly unstoppable juggernaut, but merely that the only reason they are is because the writers for some reason found it necessary to create a "Mary Sue" faction to mix things up. I.e. it can be explained by lore logic but it doesn't mean one can't call it for what it is.

Dude, as soon as you try and apply IRL logic to battletech the whole thing falls apart.

[CoffiNail]

Ashla Mason, on 04 February 2013 - 04:17 PM, said:

Dude, as soon as you try and apply IRL logic to battletech the whole thing falls apart.

Battletech is all about sci-fi... not RL

Hell in 3025 people are still dying of Cancer.

[IceSerpent]

Aaron DeChavilier, on 02 February 2013 - 01:11 PM, said:

but if your genes are just the product of 2 of the original 500 genetic lines, you're not actually adding anything new.
mmmm....recursion.

The part you are missing is called Genetic mutation.