97 replies to this topic

[Hardcover]

GreyTemplar, on 26 May 2012 - 04:07 PM, said:

And being an Ice Cold Queen c**t that rivals Cersei Lannister, even going so far as to have an inbred "trueborn" child!

Are you kidding? Cersei Lannister practically is Kathrine Stiener-Davion. Kathrine, at least, doesn't [BLEEP] her [BLEEP]ing brother. (Both also have the distinction of being fictional characters I'd happily shoot if given the chance.)

[Rustic Dude]

Hardcover, on 27 May 2012 - 12:56 AM, said:

Are you kidding? Cersei Lannister practically is Kathrine Stiener-Davion. Kathrine, at least, doesn't [BLEEP] her [BLEEP]ing brother. (Both also have the distinction of being fictional characters I'd happily shoot if given the chance.)

In a certain sense of the word, she also does it.

George R. R. Martin is a copycat.

[Stahlseele]

Yeah, Kathrine had the clans make her a baby with Victors Genes . .

[KANE LIVES]

Sun-Tzu Liao. HE IS AN [*REDACTED*].

Edited by KANE LIVES, 27 May 2012 - 05:43 AM.

[Victor MacGregor]

Conrad Toyama

He should have been content with ComStar being recognized as a neutral entity within the Inner Sphere. ComStar was well on its way to forming a standardized currency system. ComStar had uncontested control of the cradle of humanity. There was no reason to do anything more then was strictly needed. But no...that was all Blake's doing, and Toyama just had to meddle.

EDIT: He even got Blake to change the name to ComStar...shouldn't that be enough?

Edited by Victor MacGregor, 27 May 2012 - 09:01 AM.

[Stern ES]

I couldn't stand Kai Allard-Liao and his confidence problems. Destroys 5 enemy mechs, gets a scratch on armor, "Am I really any good?"

Candace Liao for not shooting Sun-Tzu in the face. That whole bit never made sense to me. Always reminded me in stories when the villain says they will act good after being defeated, hero lets them go because they are the "good guy", villain goes back to being evil and kills heros friend/ally. That was such an implausiable stupid decision I couldn't get over.

Sun-Tzu - Machiavellian super genius, yet so blatantly obvious he wasn't stupid. The whole ***** act didn't work on paper, I couldn't imagine anyone but naive *** Victor buying it. He was not a bad character, but I hated that bit of the write up on him, and coupled with the dumb decision NOT to kill him, certainly felt silly at times.

Hated that they named the guy who would go to Clan Wolf, Phelan. Reminds me of Harry Potter where they named the werewolf Lupin. A bit heavy handed on the foreshadowing. Why Morgan Kell didn't let Phelan kill Katherine is beyond me. Seriously pissed me. "Oh hey, I know you killed my wife, but we need evidence.....".

Katherine - Her evil planning didn't make any sense. If she really wanted Victor dead, they couldn't arrange a training accident? Some misfire by a Lyran who shoots him in the cockpit. In the end, instead of being some mastermind, she comes off as a brat who can barely see two moves down the road, and really seems pretty dim and petty. Also, why the hell does no one just send an assassin and kill her? All we hear about is how awful she is, everyone knows, borrow some Spirit Cat assassins and buy Hohiro some sake after it is over. I just felt like she was plot armored for no reason. Instead, didn't they send some after Lincoln Osis IIRC? Also, what is with the dues ex machina of Vlad showing up to take her? Plus why would they use HER genetics with Victor's?

Galen Cox - Zero personality. Fricking C3PO in the flesh.

Edited by Stern ES, 27 May 2012 - 09:51 AM.

[Dymitry]

Kathrina and Vlad...That is a couple of crazy-*** pillocks!

[Atlas3060]

Malvina Frickin' Hazen.

I mean with Anastasia Kerensky sure we had some Smeagol/Gollum moments from a different writer, but at least she is reasonable.
Hazen is practically Blood for the Blood God! I actually, god I hate saying this, feel bad for the Jade Falcons now. *Goes to shower off this filth feeling*

The Falcons are supposed to be prissy yet fierce fighters and yet somehow this one just goes off her rocker.
I hate her so much that I honestly will nominate whatever character that kills her as my favorite for the Dark Age, past actions be damned.

[Loose]

Can I go one step further and nominate all Jade Falcons?

The Aiden Pryde trilogy kills my soul, as do the JF-centric books that follow. They really just make me want to punch every character in the face. I have to skip them every time I reread the novels lest the furious anger bleed out of my deeply furrowed brow, twitching eye, and white knuckled rage-grip on I am the Way of the Freebirth Falcon Guard Rising and set my BT library on fire. Stackpole has his leanings, clearly, but Thurston borders on obsessive madness.

It makes me miss the Jags.

[Adridos]

Stern ES, on 27 May 2012 - 09:50 AM, said:

Candace Liao for not shooting Sun-Tzu in the face. That whole bit never made sense to me. Always reminded me in stories when the villain says they will act good after being defeated, hero lets them go because they are the "good guy", villain goes back to being evil and kills heros friend/ally. That was such an implausiable stupid decision I couldn't get over.

"Your nephew will maybe get a bit of your property when you die. Go and kill him.

You're such a fool you didn't grab a gun and go kill him right now... "


Now tell me, does this sounds more real than actually letting him live, because he never did anything to you?

Also, he let her rule her nation and live. World of Blake killed her with some Davion assistance.

[Chuggernaut]

We spend so much time seeing it written that Victor is this amazing General. And yet, he runs everything he's put in charge of into the ground. He does a great job as a #2 guy, because you can pop him in his mech somewhere important and he can run around and shoot things like he likes to do, and it makes everyone else feel more confident. But without someone's coattails to grab, like him being Focht's deputy in Bulldog, or having Morgan Kell and Ardan Sortek to do the strategic planning in the FCCW, he just totals anything you give him the keys to. And yet we keep being told he's amazing, but we never see anything to back it up. I know it's hard to write a convincing military genius in novels, because you can't really be smarter than the author if you're a novel character, but Victor falls flat even in sourcebooks.

He's also a pretty static character who never the less keeps being the main character of novels despite ending his growth arc long before. With so much focus on him and his Super-Friends, the universe seems a lot smaller than it would have been if they'd gone the Malicious Intent route every time and built stories around new characters.

Edited by Chuggernaut, 29 May 2012 - 11:03 AM.

[Munchausen]

All of these characters and more. The good thing about the Battletech universe is that it's not Star Wars: there is no Skywalker family around whom everything revolves. The bad thing about the Battletech universe is that it's written by authors who WANT it to be Star Wars, and they're each convinced that their favorite character should be the Luke (or even the Anakin) of the universe. All the "plot armor" complaints stem from the fact that authors are essentially trying to make the case for hero status for particular characters.

So much of the history seems to be written almost as a story-trading exercise between people who hate each other. Just consider the constant back-and-forth between Victor and Katrina. Sometimes Katrina looks completely weak and insane (dealing with the Clans), but other times she pulls off brilliant political maneuver (snagging the FedCom throne from Yvonne). Sometimes Victor looks like this brilliant tactician (just about always), and sometimes he's an utter bonehead who can't diplomacy his way out of a paper bag (operation doppleganger).

For my own sanity, I have decided to view each Battletech novel as a biased account rather than a simple history, and then part of the fun is figuring out whose propaganda it is.

[Adridos]

Munchausen, on 29 May 2012 - 11:22 AM, said:

All of these characters and more. The good thing about the Battletech universe is that it's not Star Wars: there is no Skywalker family around whom everything revolves. The bad thing about the Battletech universe is that it's written by authors who WANT it to be Star Wars, and they're each convinced that their favorite character should be the Luke (or even the Anakin) of the universe. All the "plot armor" complaints stem from the fact that authors are essentially trying to make the case for hero status for particular characters.

And who writes Star Wars novels from all the BTech authors? You guessed it, Stackpole.

[MilitantMonk]

All of the Jihad era and into the Dark Ages. Seriously it's some eye gouging reading anytime Devlin Stone and his cronies show up.

Also the WoB as this Sphere-wide threat is just nonsense. How can you go from a ragtag group of war weary soldiers with battered machinery to the largest army in the galaxy in 10 years. I get the allusion with the Jihad (Succession Wars = Cold War stand off that was the '80s and WoB are the terrorists of this current era), but where do you get the 'mechs (Comstar almost exhausted their surplus during the Great Refusal), the support personel, and the logistical support to wage a war on this scale? It takes days to make one mech. It takes at least a dozen support personel to get a single mech into the fight, and where did all these jumpships to deliver this army come from let alone crew them? I get that technology is precious and life is cheap so people are available, but where do you find so many fanatics?

Edited by MilitantMonk, 29 May 2012 - 11:33 AM.

[Smellyshoes]

____________ Davion


fill in the blank.

[Arctic Fox]

MilitantMonk, on 29 May 2012 - 11:30 AM, said:

Also the WoB as this Sphere-wide threat is just nonsense. How can you go from a ragtag group of war weary soldiers with battered machinery to the largest army in the galaxy in 10 years. I get the allusion with the Jihad (Succession Wars = Cold War stand off that was the '80s and WoB are the terrorists of this current era), but where do you get the 'mechs (Comstar almost exhausted their surplus during the Great Refusal), the support personel, and the logistical support to wage a war on this scale? It takes days to make one mech. It takes at least a dozen support personel to get a single mech into the fight, and where did all these jumpships to deliver this army come from let alone crew them? I get that technology is precious and life is cheap so people are available, but where do you find so many fanatics?

54 understrength Divisions is far from the largest army in the galaxy, and is actually pathetically small when compared to capacity of a faction that holds Terra, Gibson, numerous hidden facilities, a directly controlled population that numbers at least a dozen times that of the whole Clan Homeworlds and has been taking tons of resources and money from the Free Worlds League for decades. As for being a Sphere-wide threat, the Word of Blake only become one under a combination of several other factors...

As for my most hated character, I think right now that would have to go to Alaric Wolf Ward Steiner-Davion Ward. He utterly ruins the Commonwealth and then actually goes and claims he is the legitimate Archon? Not to mention the immense fiat he posesses. I hope somebody puts a bullet in his brain soon. Hmm, maybe he and Malvina Hazen can go fight each other and then somebody will drop a nuclear bomb on the site...

Edited by Arctic Fox, 29 May 2012 - 11:46 AM.

[Pht]

Kathrine S-D. *SPIT* no holds barred, katherine. *SPIT*

THE

Spoiler

you didn't think I'd really use that word on the forums, did you?

of ALL time in the BTU.

She is one evil, sick ... ... and she revels in her perversity.

Quote

She became an ally of Ryan Steiner and Galen Cox's lover. She then contracted an assassin to kill her mother, which he did by means of a bomb in 3055. Katherine subtly implicated Victor and ascribed to him the motivation that he wished to become Archon-Prince.



She was also able to manipulate her brother Peter into a self-imposed exile on Zaniah, though she did not know where he disappeared to.

And she caused a civil war... and she tried to become first lord of the star league by gross politicking with sun-tzu liao, and she slithered her way into taking over the davion half of the realm by exploiting her younger sister, and she approved of her brother arthur's assassination, oh, and just to top it off, after having stolen victors realm, she had his lover (who was carrying victors child at the time) assassinated.

... and that's just what we know!

That she outlives victor is disgusting.

[DerMaulwurf]

Aero Slasher, on 26 May 2012 - 07:21 AM, said:

why?

he was assainated but still ended up hurting the assassin as an old man!
and he took his bi$ch of a sister out of power that enought to like him.

Why?

Because he sucked as a civilian leader. I admit that he fell victim to Stackpole's Warriors vs. Politicians trope, but a canny politician could have prevented his sisters rise to power. Could you imagine Sun-Tzu losing power to Kali?

I get that BT is a wargame about war and warriors, but politics is part of leadership. Catherine has a mitigating factor by being severely insane. Being displaced by said insane person, means you fail at your job. He had the most powerful faction since the fall of the Star League in his hand and lost it.

Although there are reasons to hate Victor, my hatred focuses on Conrad Toyama for turning ComStar into a religious cult.

[Stern ES]

Adridos, on 29 May 2012 - 10:34 AM, said:

"Your nephew will maybe get a bit of your property when you die. Go and kill him.

You're such a fool you didn't grab a gun and go kill him right now... "


Now tell me, does this sounds more real than actually letting him live, because he never did anything to you?

Also, he let her rule her nation and live. World of Blake killed her with some Davion assistance.

1) Candace father was insane. Romano was insane. Kali was insane. Sun-Tzu looks good compared to that. However, last time I checked his kid Daoshen has a baby, with his SISTER.

2) It hardly matters what someone did to you, it is if they are a threat. I don't believe Omi Kurita was a threat to anyone either. If you know five years down the road this is going to be a problem, resolve it now.

3) Candace has/had the resources to rule effectively. She was able to get into Sian with no trouble and get aid from allies to get there.

4) He didn't LET her do anything. The St. Ives Compact existed since he was 8.

5) I guess you forgot that he attacked the St. Ives Compact in 3060. You know, once he got into a stronger position.

6) What about HER son? Kai technically has a line on the throne. Sun-Tzu knows it. Shouldn't she be a LITTLE concerned for her kid?

7) I don't get the laziness. She could have easily led, and all that hog wash about being to close to the Davions or whatever didn't really fly. So have a break from them. She was clearly a capable leader, ended up ruling her own area, but couldn't be bothered to lead everything? Bah, it just doesn't sound right. Then on top of it she hands the reigns over to him and says, good luck? Oh, and she says leave Kali alive?

For the record, I don't hate the Sun-Tzu character, just the fact that they let him get put in that situation. Why not have him off world and him miss her killing everyone. To have a gun pointed at someone you know you can't trust, and then say I will be back if you don't be good, well the first thing they will think is a: Not if I get you first and b: I won't let you get this close again.

Edited by Stern ES, 30 May 2012 - 07:15 AM.

[KANE LIVES]

Victor MacGregor, on 27 May 2012 - 08:46 AM, said:

Conrad Toyama

He should have been content with ComStar being recognized as a neutral entity within the Inner Sphere. ComStar was well on its way to forming a standardized currency system. ComStar had uncontested control of the cradle of humanity. There was no reason to do anything more then was strictly needed. But no...that was all Blake's doing, and Toyama just had to meddle.

EDIT: He even got Blake to change the name to ComStar...shouldn't that be enough?

I'm gonna get my fellow WoBbies to nuke you.