182 replies to this topic

[DFDelta]

I'd like to bust in here and mention that Allesandro Steiner died of radiation poisoning.
He suffered a reactor breach somewhere at the beginning of his Archon time, and started to show delayed effects shortly after Katrina dethroned him.
He reveals that to Ryan Steiner in one of the novels.

[Protection]

Gendou, on 26 May 2012 - 07:39 PM, said:

'Mechs over 100t.

Three legs... What? Why? Three??! What ***** designed that?

Also, Dark Ages. I know it's been said like 20 times so far, but that isn't enough. I wont be satisfied until the current owners of the Battletech licence issue a complete recall on every book/model/product that takes place after 3063, declare the whole Dark Age as a mistake and non-cannon, and expunge all evidence that it ever existed from history.

[Eruthis]

Protomechs alwasys seemed out of place, also why did they all look like monsters or mythical creatures. Sure the clans had totems but their mechs still looked like mechs. They just feel like they belong in a completely different game.

[Xaks]

Haakon Valravn, on 28 May 2012 - 07:34 AM, said:

The loss of technology and the associated excuse of ROM's 100% success rate.

In real life, covert operations rarely go entirely to plan. And when they do, it's more dumb blind luck than anything. And just as often as that dumb, blind luck smiles on the covert operators, it also frowns on them. ROM would not have been as successful as they apparently were and subsequently, with the Ares Conventions, ComStar would rapidly find every Successor State turning on them. They made themselves redundant and offended everybody by killing their best and brightest.

The religiosity of ComStar and the Word of Blake doesn't make any sense, either.

Oh. And hands on 'Mechs. And melee weapons. We've spent billions of C-bills developing the Penultimate King of the Battlefield, in an age when humanity can travel hundreds of lightyears in the blink of an eye, and now we're going to arm them with swords and axes! And rather than spending time and money to improve the targeting computer, we're going to waste time and energy developing a computer program to mime the impossibly fine delicate motorskill of the human hand, so that instead of punch the enemy with a hyper-sonic gauss slug, like you should, you can put your multi-million C-bill machine into a knife fight (the golden rule of knife fights is this: No one wins a knife fight).

Excuse me sir.

But, and this is totally picking nits, I know.

But, really, the KF drive can only go around 30 light years per jump, IIRC. The hens-teeth rare jumpship with double batteries can back to back jump, but then takes twice as long to recharge via the solar sails. Then we sit around for a week or so.

So, to be honest, we can only go 25-35ish light years in a blink. Not hundreds.

Otherwise, carry on.

Edited by Xaks, 28 May 2012 - 03:39 PM.

[Gendou]

Protection, on 28 May 2012 - 11:23 AM, said:

Also, Dark Ages. I know it's been said like 20 times so far, but that isn't enough. I wont be satisfied until the current owners of the Battletech licence issue a complete recall on every book/model/product that takes place after 3063, declare the whole Dark Age as a mistake and non-cannon, and expunge all evidence that it ever existed from history.

Why stop there?
Why not reboot the entire franchise?

[Haroldwolf]

All the different memory cores...
Helms Memory Core
Hegemony Memory Core
New Dallas Memory Core

[Arctic Fox]

Haroldwolf, on 28 May 2012 - 05:53 PM, said:

Hegemony Memory Core
New Dallas Memory Core

Both of these are the same thing...

Edited by Arctic Fox, 28 May 2012 - 05:57 PM.

[GrimFist]

Hmmm,

I'd say where to I start but all the early and mid years of BT lore are pretty good with small nits here and there that don't add up.

So I'll start with the end.

Who in the hell put the writers in charge or wrecking everything. I mean really, it seemed like there was the rush to create content and they gave people license to go crazy. Word of Blake in the begining was a good idea to have a splinter group, for it to end the way it did drove me away from BT, they broke a good saga.

They could of expanded the BT universe so much more by focusing on expansion of kinds of tech without runing battlemechs or killing off characters. They could of brought the navy back. More about aerospace assets. More planets, lost tribes. Wolverine, aka Minnesota tribe. All kinds of cool thing that would not have to result in terra getting blown to bits again.

I've written small bits on BT lore here and there. Sad to see it go where it did.

But perhaps things will change in a few years.

[Yeach]

Protection, on 28 May 2012 - 11:23 AM, said:

Three legs... What? Why? Three??! What ***** designed that?

Also, Dark Ages. I know it's been said like 20 times so far, but that isn't enough. I wont be satisfied until the current owners of the Battletech licence issue a complete recall on every book/model/product that takes place after 3063, declare the whole Dark Age as a mistake and non-cannon, and expunge all evidence that it ever existed from history.

Maybe we can get Hanse Davion to "wake" up from his stroke (at the end ot Blood of Kerensky's Trilogy) and think "man did I have a terrible dream."

And continue from there.

[CaveMan]

Yeach, on 28 May 2012 - 06:15 PM, said:

Maybe we can get Hanse Davion to "wake" up from his stroke (at the end ot Blood of Kerensky's Trilogy) and think "man did I have a terrible dream."

And continue from there.

BRILLIANT!!!

[Evinthal]

Protection, on 28 May 2012 - 11:23 AM, said:

Three legs... What? Why? Three??! What ***** designed that?

Also, Dark Ages. I know it's been said like 20 times so far, but that isn't enough. I wont be satisfied until the current owners of the Battletech licence issue a complete recall on every book/model/product that takes place after 3063, declare the whole Dark Age as a mistake and non-cannon, and expunge all evidence that it ever existed from history.

Probably never going to happen.
Also the Ares were not the first 'mechs over 100 tons, though the three legs is damn silly.

Amaris was toying with a 'mech over 100 tons but it was flawed and couldn't move.

The Blakists had a 150 ton 'mech called Omega that had 3 gauss and 2 lbx/10. I think 3 of them were used in the battle for Terra.

Want something sillier? The weaponized HPG CANNON on Apollyon's Shootist 'mech that created tin black holes. Yeah...chew on that one for a while.

Edited by Evinthal, 28 May 2012 - 06:37 PM.

[Arctic Fox]

Evinthal, on 28 May 2012 - 06:36 PM, said:

Want something sillier? The weaponized HPG CANNON on Apollyon's Shootist 'mech that created tin black holes. Yeah...chew on that one for a while.

First, weaponizing HPGs predate that by a long time. See Null Set. Second, Apollyon's supposed HPG Cannon is another in-universe rumour which is both never actually confirmed and implied to be complete nonsense.

[Btech]

I'm in the process of reading all the books up to the evil time (dark ages). Some of the plot holes through the books really get on your nerves. My major annoyance was wondering why no one ever took to pencil and paper and came up with new designs more often after the Exodus? Granted, the Succession Wars did much to destroy the Star League and many Lost Tech items, but couldn't someone just try and come up with new things? Newer designs, from what I've read (up to book 58), nothing too new had been made for decades leading up the the Grey Death Memory Core.

Also, a slight side note, I would of enjoyed finding out how things went after the events of Far Country. If you haven't read the books please do! Granted some of the writers make you want to claw out your eyes with the bland way they wrote, but others you'll be angry you're near the end of the book!

[Ouranos]

Zakatak, on 26 May 2012 - 09:05 AM, said:

The idea that you could just lose 500 years of knowledge is completely ridiculous to me. How do you lose every blueprint, every scientist, every idea, every instruction manual, and degrade to 21st century technology within a matter of years after the fall of the Star League? You think somebody within the 300 year time period that was the succession would have the education and intelligence to make something new, but no. New mechs weren't being produced until 3025.

Ever hear of the Library of Alexandria? It had a bit of a fire, kinda slowed us down abit? If not for that ONE event, Columbus would have been the first man on the moon and Neil Armstrong, first on Mars. Now imagine if somebody, today, did something that took electricity down. Entirely. Every plant gone everywhere. How many people in this world know enough to get it back up and running? THAT ARE ALL IN ONE PLACE AT THE SAME TIME? We kinda rely on our engineers across disciplines to be able to work together. If they can't communicate and work as a team, nothing can be done. Just the fact that they're able to repair a mech and operate it at all is ASTOUNDING. The complexity of these things is so far beyond what we should understand it's absurd. While the tech should have recovered much faster then it did, constant war made that tough.

[Chunkymonkey]

Dark age....it goes from battles of 50 mech regiments, to 2 agromechs fighting with a hatchet and infantry on the ground...???

Also that the way they depict the ranges, early in the series, they blame it on lostech tageting computers. Then the clans come with advanced technology yet they still have a range?

Whats up with having Kathrine as a sweet character and then suddenly changing her personality?

[Evinthal]

Arctic Fox, on 28 May 2012 - 07:01 PM, said:

First, weaponizing HPGs predate that by a long time. See Null Set. Second, Apollyon's supposed HPG Cannon is another in-universe rumour which is both never actually confirmed and implied to be complete nonsense.

From what I have gathered Null set was required both the attacker and the target to posses an HPG am I wrong in this? To clarify the hpg cannon was a point at anything weapon. The target did not have to have an hpg.

Also being as it is in a printed book that is part of the considered canon it is canon...

Edited by Evinthal, 28 May 2012 - 08:09 PM.

[Chunkymonkey]

Yeach, on 28 May 2012 - 06:15 PM, said:

Maybe we can get Hanse Davion to "wake" up from his stroke (at the end ot Blood of Kerensky's Trilogy) and think "man did I have a terrible dream."

And continue from there.

I liked the Great Refusal and Fed Com civil war....Why not have Lori Kalmer wake up from a coma from the grenade that hit her? Or have some random citizen on Tharkard who died in the jihad wake up...its simple

[Artifice]

Everything to do with the Word of Blake.

The writers spent all of those years building a rich universe, and then just took a giant dump all over it. I can only assume it was different writers, I don't even have the inclination to look it up.

Any player with some sort of WoB callsign, company, whatever - I will destroy you.

I'm also butthurt over the Age of Destruction(or Dark Age, whatever don't care), but that was all caused by frikken Blakists anyway.

Edited by Artifice, 28 May 2012 - 08:14 PM.

[Evinthal]

Artifice, on 28 May 2012 - 08:13 PM, said:

I'm also butthurt over the Age of Destruction(or Dark Age, whatever don't care), but that was all caused by frikken Blakists anyway.

See this is the point I have been trying to make. People are so butt hurt over the Dark Ages when it came about all beacuse of the Jihad and they over look that all of this has been done before though on a smaller scale.

The Jihad happens and the Blakists get things done, ******* off a lot of people, then Delvin Stone the white knight comes along and bands everyone together to fight them off (oh hey look clan invasion all over again) and forms the Republic of the Sphere, which is just basically another star league. Wait...wasn't that the reason the Blakists started the entire Jihad?

So in a round and about way the Blakists actually won, at least for a little bit.

Then Delvin Stone dissappears saying he will be back when the Republic needs him the most...wait...that is almost like he was a second Aleksandr Kerensky. Huh, history seems to repeat itself even in battletech fiction.

[Vtack]

Really? All this time and no one mentions the weird mystical force users of the battletech universe. Morgan Kell and Yorinaga Kurita are both depicted as having some type of odd mystical connection to their rides. This never shows up again in the battletech lore, even when these characters move on past Mallory's World and are depicted as fighting in other battles (sans mystical connection to their mechs), and it is never really mentioned in BT lore again other than brief sort of "yeah that happened" type quotes. What everyone attributes to be a better pilots in Kai Allard never has any freaky "using the force" moments in his mechs. It was just odd and confusing and I thought it was going to pull the series in a strange shadowrunish type direction.

It was an odd misstep in a such a sort of gritty sci-fi universe. I mean if you read those books which were very early on in the BT life cycle you really had this feeling that there was more to this whole piloting a mech thing. One could also make the argument that this odd mystical aspect did show up again in the Jade Phoenix trilogy but that is sort of stretching it.