605 replies to this topic

[Jaroth Corbett]

How was The Great Father a traitor when he saved the Inner Sphere from Stefan Amaris?

[Himmelganger]

GrimReality, on 04 February 2015 - 05:10 PM, said:

I always think of it like this....

The Inner Sphere is the collection of city-states that make up the ancient Greek peninsula, and the Clans are the Persian Empire. Now, the Greek city-states were all happy with the world they had, warring against each other when the weather permitted, it wall all good fun. Then these punk Persians had to come along and try to invade.

"What?! Clans? Ah, Hell no, Bro! THIS...IS...INNER SPHERE"

This is a very bad analog, if you where to use that timeframe, the one better suited would be when Alexander invades the persians. In any case they are both very poor analogs. A better one from classical period is the germanic invasions of the roman empire in late antiquity, but even this analog falls way short of what the clan invasion is.

In some sense the best historical analog I can think of is the norman invasion of anglo-saxon England. The anglo saxic tribes came from Denmark and northern germany. They are genetically and culturally cousins of the later vikings, who the normans are decended from through Gange-Rolv, who got Normandie from the french King. The normans where technologicly superior in regards to warfare through their heavy cavalry, and use of castles (moat and baily) as fortified bases. They were culturally very alien to the anglo-saxons due to their french language, and customs. Also they did not conquer the whole of the island, this sort of simulates that the clans did not take the whole of IS, though who wants Scotland anyway?

Edited by Himmelganger, 07 February 2015 - 06:54 AM.

[Alexander Steel]

Jaroth Corbett, on 06 February 2015 - 08:26 PM, said:

How was The Great Father a traitor when he saved the Inner Sphere from Stefan Amaris?

They are talking about his leaving the IS instead of trying to save it.

[CyclonerM]

Alexander Steel, on 07 February 2015 - 11:47 AM, said:

They are talking about his leaving the IS instead of trying to save it.

What should have they done? Fight all the Houses with their SLDF ? They would have tried to absorb it or chunks of it, and war would have sparked and be even more destructive than the Succession Wars.

Edited by CyclonerM, 07 February 2015 - 02:14 PM.

[Alexander Steel]

CyclonerM, on 07 February 2015 - 02:14 PM, said:

What should have they done? Fight all the Houses with their SLDF ? They would have tried to absorb it or chunks of it, and war would have sparked and be even more destructive than the Succession Wars.

I think the best thing he could have done was picked one of the Successor Lords and said, you... you are now the new Star Lord of the Star League.

1 House + SLDF would have been more than enough to claim the IS. Considering that when Alex K left he left with 1/2 of the military force of the IS. Once one was picked at least 1 or 2 of the other 4 would have fallen in line, even more so if he put in some sort of rotating leadership.

That said I don't see how it would have been worse, planets were nuked, an entire planet of people slaughtered by a mad Kurita Leader, and the tech falling back hundreds of years.

Of course it's not like the people who left with Alex K did much better to start. They had their own rebellion and forced pacification. I wonder if the the fact that the Clans had a "Glorious" history of fleeing their new home and then later returning and forcing those left behind to bend knee and obey had some influence on how they thought the invasion of the IS would go.

Edited by Alexander Steel, 07 February 2015 - 02:43 PM.

[CyclonerM]

At least the exiled SLDF, after a single bloody war, understood that they had to change something and ritualized warfare to avoid useless loss of life and technology...

Who should have Kerensky chosen? The House leaders were power-hungry men ready to sacrifice countless lives for their dreams of ruling the Sphere. I am not looking right now at the numbers in each House's army, but who can say that if Kerensky had chosen, say , the Draconis Combine Coordinator to be the new First Lord, the other Houses would have not banded togheter for some time to fight against them? Who could say there would have been no more rebellions?

Maybe you are right, it would have lasted as long as Kerensky lived.. But then? Chaos. And hundreds of WarShips and so many divisions of 'Mechs, tanks and infantry.. All thrown in a massive Sphere-wide carnage. It could have been worse i think.

Anyway, i love this theorycrafting

Edited by CyclonerM, 07 February 2015 - 03:00 PM.

[Tank]

I don't understand Clans only in one thing - they could live in Periphery until end of times, prospering and growing. Eventually their powers and influence would grow to force Inner Sphere to abide their ways with truly minimal loses - making any resistance futile, this is how I would had done things.

I'm not found of IS lords, would rather gladly fight resistance against hegemony of kings and nobles making planets free of their rule. Confederations in cooperation is the way of peaceful prospering future for such place like an Inner Sphere.

[Alexander Steel]

Quote

At least the exiled SLDF, after a single bloody war, understood that they had to change something and ritualized warfare to avoid useless loss of life and technology...

That's because somebody "Won", completely and totally with no room for any doubt. Interestingly enough his son basically formed a religious cult with his father as one the central figures, with a culture that was alien to anything that had come before it. He broke up families, ((With the notable exception of the Ghost Bear leaders)) and the like.

So yeah, sort of the Comstar route.... if Comstar had been more aggressive and instead of watching the IS burn around it and waiting it acted fairly rapidly.


Now all that said the one thing we know is that if that's the route that happened with Kerensky staying and the like that it wouldn't have worked for one simple reason... a universe at peace and not fighting itself doesn't need giant stompy robots blowing each other to shreads.

Quote

Who should have Kerensky chosen? The House leaders were power-hungry men ready to sacrifice countless lives for their dreams of ruling the Sphere. I am not looking right now at the numbers in each House's army, but who can say that if Kerensky had chosen, say , the Draconis Combine Coordinator to be the new First Lord, the other Houses would have not banded togheter for some time to fight against them? Who could say there would have been no more rebellions?

So what your saying is that an outside force trying to force the entire IS to play by it's rules and get along is doomed to failure? Heh... lesson for the Clans.

Edited by Alexander Steel, 07 February 2015 - 05:27 PM.

[Alexander Steel]

Tank, on 07 February 2015 - 03:24 PM, said:

I don't understand Clans only in one thing - they could live in Periphery until end of times, prospering and growing. Eventually their powers and influence would grow to force Inner Sphere to abide their ways with truly minimal loses - making any resistance futile, this is how I would had done things.

I'm not found of IS lords, would rather gladly fight resistance against hegemony of kings and nobles making planets free of their rule. Confederations in cooperation is the way of peaceful prospering future for such place like an Inner Sphere.

They could have called themselves "The Foundation". And the game could be about "Foundation and Empire" or maybe "Forward the Foundation".

[CyclonerM]

Alexander Steel, on 07 February 2015 - 05:22 PM, said:

So what your saying is that an outside force trying to force the entire IS to play by it's rules and get along is doomed to failure? Heh... lesson for the Clans.

The Clans have OmniMechs

[Jaroth Corbett]

Alexander Steel, on 07 February 2015 - 11:47 AM, said:

They are talking about his leaving the IS instead of trying to save it.

But he did save it......................

Wait Jade Falcon now? I can't keep up with all these changes.

[Gyrok]

Here is the best analogy I could give to anyone.

The united states disbands and declares all states are now countries and a war for a new government starts. Each state has some form of National Guard units, etc. however, the active duty US forces decide to abstain and take off to hawaii for a while and sip drinks with little umbrellas while we sort it out (not exactly the clan exodus, but you get the gist).

A year goes by, the United States is now torn to shreds, most NG units are now at 50% or less efficiency, and here comes the US Military back from sun and sand for a while. They have decided the best way to deal with this is a military coup and instate their own system to handle things, some of which sounds good, some of which does not.

[Malcolm Vordermark]

The introduction of the Clans turned a universe, beloved by many, on its head. It depends on when you were introduced, I suppose. I was introduced to Battletech through Mechwarrior 2, which was all about the Clans. So I love everything associated with them since it is all very nostalgic. It is probably similar to how many dislike the dark ages stuff.

Edited by Rouken, 10 February 2015 - 07:18 AM.

[Gyrok]

Rouken, on 10 February 2015 - 07:17 AM, said:

The introduction of the Clans turned a universe, beloved by many, on its head. It probably depends on when you were introduced, i suppose. It is probably similar to how many dislike the dark ages stuff.

I honestly love the toys, the new mechs, etc. in Dark Ages. However, I hate WoB, and the fanatical cultists basically screwing over most of the universe that comes during the Jihad.

Edited by Gyrok, 10 February 2015 - 07:18 AM.

[Malcolm Vordermark]

Gyrok, on 10 February 2015 - 07:18 AM, said:

I honestly love the toys, the new mechs, etc. in Dark Ages. However, I hate WoB, and the fanatical cultists basically screwing over most of the universe that comes during the Jihad.

I love everything up to just after the end of the Great Refusal. Just the way the Clans are afterwards bothers me. They seem to lose their status as a looming threat and parts of them feel like just another merc group or great house.

It is very strange though, I love the set up and the way everything plays out, but the state of the universe at the end isn't as interesting to me. So while the Jihad and Dark Ages stuff seems cool, I'm looking at it through the lense of "I miss the way things were during the invasion."

Thats probably how some feel about the introduction of the Clans. Not to mention balance issues.

Edited by Rouken, 10 February 2015 - 07:44 AM.

[Alexander Steel]

Jaroth Corbett, on 10 February 2015 - 02:18 AM, said:

But he did save it......................

Wait Jade Falcon now? I can't keep up with all these changes.

Meh, today's failures and traitors are often yesterday's heroes.

As for Falcon my goal is to fight for every faction.

[Saint Scarlett Johan]

Why do I dislike the Clans?

Well, I don't really. I love Jade Falcon. I just love the LC more.

I do dislike two things about the Clans though:

First, the derptastic level of powercreep that, if you're crafty, REALLY hurts the Clans if you can game the hell out of BV2.0. In mech vs mech, clans win every time (with a handful of exceptions). In the overall scheme of things, I prefer the cheaper IS infantry, armor, artillery, and air assets with only a few mechs (I usually only had 2 to 4 total). But the tactics utilizing those units required patience and tactical understanding, which leads me to my second point.

Secondly, I hate the people that play as Clammers. You think certain Clammers on the forum whining about the TDR-9S with their 13th topic on how it's "S00p3r OP Gais" and then want their Timberwolf buffed in the same paragraph are bad? Then you've obviously never seen a grown-ass 40 year old man throw TT minis across the room screaming death threats at you because you killed a Warhawk and a Timberwolf with a Demolisher or SRM Carrier or some infantry legged a Stormcrow. Never once have I had TT minis thrown at me or death threats shouted at me from someone playing with IS forces. I've only ever witnessed ManChild behavior from the men playing as Clans.

And while I know it's not that way often, it has colored my perception that when I see Clammers on the forum complaining about the asinine things I just can't help but roll my eyes.

[Alexander Steel]

Lord Scarlett Johan, on 11 February 2015 - 03:58 PM, said:

Secondly, I hate the people that play as Clammers. You think certain Clammers on the forum whining about the TDR-9S with their 13th topic on how it's "S00p3r OP Gais" and then want their Timberwolf buffed in the same paragraph are bad? Then you've obviously never seen a grown-ass 40 year old man throw TT minis across the room screaming death threats at you because you killed a Warhawk and a Timberwolf with a Demolisher or SRM Carrier or some infantry legged a Stormcrow. Never once have I had TT minis thrown at me or death threats shouted at me from someone playing with IS forces. I've only ever witnessed ManChild behavior from the men playing as Clans.

Worst Meltdown I've ever watched at a battletech table, was when a Clanner had the leg of his Dashi taken out, fell, and the next turn killed his mech trying to stand up with a critical. He flipped the gaming table over.

He was the only guy I know of that to this day was ever kicked out of that game store and banned for life.

[CyclonerM]

Alexander Steel, on 11 February 2015 - 06:53 PM, said:

Worst Meltdown I've ever watched at a battletech table, was when a Clanner had the leg of his Dashi taken out, fell, and the next turn killed his mech trying to stand up with a critical. He flipped the gaming table over.

He was the only guy I know of that to this day was ever kicked out of that game store and banned for life.

LOL. #ragequit

[Harper Steel]

I did something like that when my lil brother hugh got my shiny new timberwolf first a head shot( double 6) and then for the Crit again double 6s and finally for the crit location he rolled a 6= Cockpit

first erppc shot of the game....... and he also had a timberwolf

I chased him out of the store to my car where he locked himself in until I promised not to beat him...