IrrelevantFish, on 03 February 2013 - 12:44 AM, said:
As a gamer, I don't like the Clans because I think Clan tech will make
MWO more about twitch and less about tactics. With two-crit DHS's, more powerful weapons, and no increase in armor maximums, mechs will end up moving, shooting, and dying a lot faster, leaving less time for deliberation.
(Having said that, I was also concerned about the pace-change brought on by the addition of upgrades, and my concerns turned out to be unwarranted.)
As a fan of the BT universe, I hate the Clans because I find it impossible to suspend my disbelief when it comes to Clan social structure. I only have a cursory knowledge of psychology and my Battletech lore is extremely rusty, but from what I remember, the Clan ruling class consists almost entirely of brave, honor-bound psychopaths (good luck finding even
one of those IRL) reared in a manner almost guaranteed to give a child complex PTSD, who are also chest-pounding warmongers with a deep love of science.
(Having said that, I quite liked the addition of the Clans to the lore. I just wish their inner workings had been left a mystery and the history told solely from the perspective of the Inner Sphere. IMO, the more the Clans were explained, the sillier they got.)
part of the thing with clan culture is you have to understand some 300+ years in the past a very large part of the SLDF up and took off and made their own culture. a vast majority of the people who left were soldiers. so when they settled down they applied their soldier life to home life. creating the caste system which put warriors on top, because at the beginning of the clans The warriors were top dog.
when Kerensky's original dream of a perfect society failed and the clans were made to fix that problem that is when things got a bit out of hand. A big part of the culture is Tank bred warriors to natural born warriors. Tank breds are people cloned from one of the original warriors from the birth of their respective clans. Tank bred warriors actually are not given last names and when they are they are given a last name of one of the original warriors after they earned it in a rite. From what I can gather it is their idea of religion. They worship their founding warriors to the point of their most revered warriors are "descendants" of these original soldiers who founded their way of life and the ultimate honor for these descendants is to bring their ancestors to back to life in a way of thinking by taking on their name.
As for warmongering psychopaths the clans were divided about the whole invasion right out of the gate. The clans are divided into two schools of thought, Wardens and Crusaders. This divide in thought is due to the clans' interpretation of Kerensky's promise to return to the IS. When they were first traveling away from the IS they came across no planets or anything and people began to doubt kerensky so to prevent mutiny or worse he told them all that one day they'd go back to show the IS how they should be as a society. after a few hundred years of dwelling on what Kerensky had in mind the way of thinking was divided between Wardens saying they go back and work with the IS to reform the star league and reunite the nations, and the Crusaders thinking that the IS will never settle their issues and in order to reestablish the star league and reunite the nations they needed to take back terra by force, reform the star league themselves, and break the IS's back and assimilate them back into the star league.
That last bit I would also say ties into their idea of a religion, after a few hundred years Kerensky is a paragon of clan society and his word is followed like law. He said they'd go back and they did, but like any other group of people who try to take meaning out of the words of a legend that were spoken and never fully explained hundreds of years ago or more, some people don't interpret them the same as others. So look at the crusader clans like those who are less like a follower and more like a zealot. Even then the only supporters of the Crusader thought process are the leaders of The crusader clans. Most of the civilian and even some of the warrior caste are indifferent or against the idea, but if the head honcho says jump you do it.
Their technological advantage is easily explained as well. While the IS has spent the past few centuries blowing each other apart their mindset went from technological advancement to 'throw more at the meat grinder'. There are many things that become Lostech just because during one of the wars the IS has ends up destroying a key factory or two that build a mech or part and along with it all the knowledge to build it again and eventually it gets phased out due to the parts or mechs that DO exist getting blown apart as well. The clans however, have dozens of rites in place to have controlled "wars" over everything from technology to resources to land disputes. And their rule is always "winner is correct". Their military doctrine is specifically set up to avoid damage to civilian centers and key infrastructure. They wont fight in towns, they wont risk fighting where civilian centers may take damage unless pushed far enough to (main example I know of is during the assault of huntress after the gene storage center is captured/ destroyed).Given their many measures put in place to prevent degrading into another IS they were able to focus on research and development which was then applied to their military forces, which were never put before scientific advancement. It also helped that a clan's "war" would see a few crippled or damaged mechs, and maybe a (singular) dead pilot. Where the IS is losing mechs by the battalion and casualty rates are enormous. span this out across a few hundred years and the technology gap will obviously be ridiculous.
Their tactics and doctrine are a bit strange to me and I never grasped why they use stars instead of lances. I guess it is simply because originally Kerensky made home on a cluster of 5 planets, and a star represents this by each point representing one of those planets. feel free to pick that apart or correct me if I am wrong.
Personally I find clan culture interesting, from my viewpoint their huge technological advantage is understandable, their tactics are unique, and I am surprised people hate them as much as they do.
I also understand most of what I said is how I view it, It just makes sense that using the original warrior names and having your highest revered warriors be clones of original warriors fits the bill for a religion of a sort and their society seems like an evolution of martial law to a Mongolian style khanate, which is always cool
Edited by UniquePilotName, 01 February 2015 - 03:32 AM.
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