Battletech BattleTech discussion thread: May the light of Hanse Davion guide us

[Bear Ribs]

The fact that they made the anthology free is telling, it's a virtue signal they expected to lose money on, so it's best to make it free so they look good by not sinking much money into it. Worse, they've used the reaction as a cudgel to affect the takeover of a few fan groups on Reddit.

And in some idiocy I saw online...



I hate to tell them something, but Battletech at it's heart is a wargame. Something that big and that garish on a table is going to *draw fire* and the owner of said 'Mechs is going to whine about it. Well, dude don't show up with a 'Mech that is a) an eyesore, and b) a color or series of colors that's going to draw my eyes to it faster than you can say "pop up target."

Eh... I can't really agree in all fairness. They're eyesores but plenty of canon 'mechs are, Rhonda Snord tools around in a neon pink Highlander with external speaker racks mounted on it to blast Elvis Presley songs in battle, those 'mechs aren't any worse than that. The Kell Hounds go for an extra-edgy 80s red-and-black scheme, and a few others are pretty bright.

 

[Robovski]

Personal merc companies use basically whatever the player feels like but I'm just not about to get prissy about painted minitaures in Battletech, I started with cardboard standees from the original box set and substitutes.

 

[PsihoKekec]

 

[Spartan303]

Can't...stop...laughing!

 

[ShadowArxxy]

TBF an Atlas with a rainbow shoulder or a merc company with a rainbow emblem would be fine.

r/Battletech would ban any pictures of it as disallowed political content (they have done this in the past, for paint schemes that required quite a bit of logical gymnastics to assert any connection at all to RL politics), but I think most actual players wouldn't kick up a big fuss one way or the other.

 

[Skitzyfrenic]

but I think most actual players wouldn't kick up a big fuss one way or the other.

This.

If you come to play big stompy robots, or talk big stompy robot lore, 99.5% of us won't really give a shit.

Who cares if your pilot is gay as fuck? It's not going to stop me from shooting them.

And then in the lore, the people we actually give a shit about, don't really care about LGBTQ+ shit unless it impacts combat ability or is a politcal lever. It's so far from what LGBTQ+ Pride shitheads want that it's pointless to do anything than a quick rainbow post of 'BT is for everyone.'

BT is for wargamers who like big stompy robots and space operas. That's really it. Like sell the product your selling, assholes, to the people who like it. The Pride people would rather do meth and fist each other on top of a Uhaul in broad day light than roll 2d6 over and over again for five hours.

 

[ShadowArxxy]

The Pride people would rather do meth and fist each other on top of a Uhaul in broad day light than roll 2d6 over and over again for five hours.

*snorts*

For the record, literally all of the LGBT people I personally know are tabletop gamers of one sort or another, most of them are nerdy enough to start debating the dice system itself if you let them get going, and half of them will take the dice-system debate to the level of pulling out statistics textbooks.

 

[Husky_Khan]

Do they also constantly remind everyone around to take pride in their niche sexual orientation and identity issues and not just tolerate the oversaturated marketing of their sexual and gender identities but also to accept it, celebrate it, defend it and proselytize it... and pull double duty for it during Pride Month?

 

[Skitzyfrenic]

*snorts*

For the record, literally all of the LGBT people I personally know are tabletop gamers of one sort or another, most of them are nerdy enough to start debating the dice system itself if you let them get going, and half of them will take the dice-system debate to the level of pulling out statistics textbooks.

Ah, I tried to specify with the Pride people bit. It's hard to make the divide between 'regular people except gay' and 'fucking assholes who are a hollow person with a rainbow shell.' Without, actually explaining it like that. You know the incredibly vocal shitheads who have probably never even seen a table set up let alone rolled dice in a war game.

And would rather do meth and fist each other on top of Uhaul in plain sight in the baking sun than roll 2d6 for five hours.

Edit: I don't actually care about LGBTQ+ very much. But Pride people are something else. Like holy shit. And I really would feel much better if LGB went over here and the TQ+ went over there. Most of the homosexual and bisexual people I've met through the years were fine. 99% of the trans and queer people I've met have been awful, and that 1% was professional over the phone on one phone call.

 

[ShadowArxxy]

Edit: I don't actually care about LGBTQ+ very much. But Pride people are something else. Like holy shit. And I really would feel much better if LGB went over here and the TQ+ went over there. Most of the homosexual and bisexual people I've met through the years were fine. 99% of the trans and queer people I've met have been awful, and that 1% was professional over the phone on one phone call.

Counterpoint: all of the stereotypically horrible LGBTQ people I'm personally aware of are white gay men or lesbians.

 

[Skitzyfrenic]

Counterpoint: all of the stereotypically horrible LGBTQ people I'm personally aware of are white gay men or lesbians.

Not really sure how that's a counter point?

Or why it needed a counter point?

I lived in a very white part of the USA so that really jives with my lived experience. And you know, most people in the USA are white, so it would follow on that most LGBTQ people would be white. Most of the news I see for bad faith actors from the LGBTQ community comes from the TQ or the TQ supporters/'allies,' and they're almost always white.

I didn't even bring up race, why does white matter?

You counterpointed my anecdotal bit, it feels really weird. Like, not that I think LGB should separate from the TQ, but that my experience with Pride people is somehow not valid because of your experience?

Sure, I mean, stereotypically horrible is a great way to say Pride people. And that most of the bad rainbow people you've met were LGB and not QT.

I'm sorry that my post and subsequent clarification caused some sort of offense? I guess.

 

[Bear Ribs]

Counterpoint: all of the stereotypically horrible LGBTQ people I'm personally aware of are white gay men or lesbians.

The percentage of white people in the US is 71%. The percentage of LGBTQ is around 7-7.5%. Consequently, the percentage of nonwhite LGBTQ is going to be near 2%, barring averages being different by race.

You must know a staggeringly large number of people to have reasonable odds of even knowing a single nonwhite LGBTQ, much less so many of them that you can make generalizations about how many are stereotypically horrible by race.

 

[Husky_Khan]

Is there a ranking of Wokeness/Gay Prideness in regards to Inner Sphere Successor States?

 

[PsihoKekec]

Compared to Murder Furries they are cisgender as fuck.

 

[Skitzyfrenic]

The Murder Furries might not be cisgender but they aren't trans, IMO.

Clannerscum have a gender of [Caste]. Warriors are Warriors not men, not women. When they use men and women as words, it's linguistic left overs. Scientists are Scientists, Laborers Laborers. There is no space for anything resembling modern gender identities.

And no clanner really gives a shit if you fuck someone of the same sex, so long as you breed when told to.

What matters is things like group morale, conduct becoming or unbecoming, etc. So if some Clanner wanted to be all like 'It's ma'am!' they'd get a trail of grievance or nine and die. Hormone meds are wasteful, and so is gender affirmation surgery since that'd take you out of your job for a long time and it's all voluntary.

So, like, LGB doesn't matter to them, and TQ is functionally irrelevant, except when it starts being disruptive. Because it isn't really a thing for them. The lore accurate experience is so far from what the stereotypically horrible people want that they'll call it gay baiting or some shit.

Canopus is the most 'modern LGBTQ+' "friendly." Except, you know, low key ciswomen uber alles. So gay men (who would turn down attractive and powerful women because they aren't into that ish) and transwomen (esp those who force their way into women's spaces) might have some subtle or nto so subtle issues.
Then it'll probably be FWL (Because it's planet by planet) >= Concordat (muh freedom) >= Lyrans (that's great are you rich?) > FedSuns (that's great does it help you kill Dracs?) > OWA (That's too advanced, the Omniss veto it) > Capellan Confederation (Caste based society) >= Draconis Combine (Kills or enslaves people for being different all the time) > Rest of the Perihpery (too busy fighting pirates or scratching a living out of dirt) > Deep Periphery (see previous but even more so) > Clanners (Basically a military and only cares about military effectiveness and their eugenics programs).

 

[Bear Ribs]

I don't think there's any such list. Battletech in general isn't very LGBTQ friendly because bloodlines and lines of descent are very important to the setting, the Star League literally fell apart because there were no more members of the Cameron bloodline left. The Taurian Concordate schismed and the Calderon Protectorate formed because Grover Shraplen wouldn't recognize an illegitimate son who was descended from the Calderon family and thus continued the bloodline. Basically, anything that isn't strongly pro-family and pro-genetic-kids goes against one of the most foundational themes of the setting.

Assuming you made one...

Probably the Canopians on top given being "space Vegas but with even moar Blackjack and Hookers, plus all Femdom all the time" is their thing. I doubt they'd like men turning into women though, it might be seen as a power grab.

All the clans except Blood Spirit would come next, not only do they strongly encourage cheap, meaningless sex with all genders, they encourage it heavily within the same Sibko (Sibling Company) so there's a pretty strong incest focus*. Pretty much every clan except Blood Spirit are also furries. It's also worth noting that without their iron wombs, I expect the clans would have a tremendous hate for LGBTQ for messing with their bloodline breeding experiments.

Blood Spirit breaks with that tradition and expects kids to be raised by their parents, even trueborns, and their military uniform looks like they're cosplaying as M. Bison rather than wearing fursuits. They get a low deviancy score in comparison.

Pretty much nobody else has much of their sex life discussed outside of "X got married and had kids." Wolf's Dragoons should get an honorable mention for creating a clone of Jamie Wolf except genderbent to create Maeve Wolf so that could be construed as trans support if you tilt your head sideways and blink repeatedly.

At the bottom of the list, Given their cultures, I kinda feel like the Combine and Taurians are probably the closest to Superstraight. The Combine I could see tolerating somebody gay as long as they're in the closet, but said closeted gay person better get with the program and marry and have kids who will fight for the glory of the Dragon in the open. If they don't stay in the closet? The nail that sticks up gets hammered.

Taurians, well they're the American West + Paranoia. While Cowboys are a gay stereotype, my particular observation has been that actual farmers and ranchers are almost never gay, gay cowboys are city slickers cosplaying as the real deal. Additionally, due to their distrust of any outsiders, I think the Taurians would react to, say, a modern-style pride parade poorly. If they tolerated such a thing at all they'd likely suspect it was an attempt by perfidious Davion to destroy their wholesome Taurian culture.

*In the wishy-washy "We're step-siblings so it's not blood incest" porn sense except some of the Sibko could well be blood-related too and there's no indication the clans give a fig.

 

[S'task]

*sighs*

The Clanners are not Furries. That implies they identify with/as their Clan's Totem. They don't, they use the Clan totem in their ceremonial uniforms in much the same way traditional native cultures would use animal totems, or how modern countries use certain animal totems to symbolically represent themselves in symbols and iconography. Further, the Clan Ceremonial uniforms are like the Winged Hussars uniform, they integrate the animal totem to look badass. They're not fursuits and aren't described as such.

IE, if the United States were a Clan, it would be Clan Bald Eagle. Otherwise nothing else would change. We use the Bald Eagle throughout the government and military as a symbol in much the same way the Clan Totem animals are used.

 

[Bear Ribs]

*sighs*

The Clanners are not Furries. That implies they identify with/as their Clan's Totem. They don't, they use the Clan totem in their ceremonial uniforms in much the same way traditional native cultures would use animal totems, or how modern countries use certain animal totems to symbolically represent themselves in symbols and iconography. Further, the Clan Ceremonial uniforms are like the Winged Hussars uniform, they integrate the animal totem to look badass. They're not fursuits and aren't described as such.

IE, if the United States were a Clan, it would be Clan Bald Eagle. Otherwise nothing else would change. We use the Bald Eagle throughout the government and military as a symbol in much the same way the Clan Totem animals are used.

The ceremonial uniform consist of leather and synthetic wolf fur trimming with an enameled wolf mask.

The standard uniform for those who lack a Bloodname, is an emerald green jumpsuit with knee-high black boots and a Jade Falcon ceremonial mask - an oversized replica of a jade falcon head made from Kevlar. For those that have a Bloodname, a three-quarter-length cape is worn, made from jade falcon feathers.

The ceremonial uniform of the Cloud Cobra consist of a tight bodysuit, shaped to resemble the scales of the cloud cobra and woven with ballistic cloth forming the basis of the garb. Rank insignia may be displayed like the dress uniform. An enameled mask shaped like a cloud cobra's head completes the uniform.

No, the clans totally wear fursuits. Snow Raven is probably the least so (aside from Blood Spirit) as they wear a helmet with a visor shaped like a beak rather than a full-on furry mask, but even they incorporate dressing up like an animal into their uniform, not just a picture on one of their patches. Further, the clans go into the furry lifestyle by trying to model their activities after their chosen animal totem's behavior, Smoke Jaguars are extremely fierce and aggressive with no mercy just like they perceive the animal while Clan Wolf is much more prone to pack tactics and Ghost Bears make familial bonds the center of their society the way the Ghost Bear animals do in their own groupings.

Americans absolutely don't have military officers wearing feathered capes and eagle masks as part of their uniforms, nor do they think they should use the eagle's hunting strategies as a basis for military tactics and it's mating practices for how society should be run.

 

[Culsu]

I suppose the reason why there until recently was no real impact of LGBTQ+ issues in Battletech is that the setting's creators and those who kept the universe afloat and progressing for the longest time shared the implicit understanding that, in a setting defined by warfare and dynastic bloodline, your duty was always more important than your desires. Just as there must have been countless nobles in real life that were homosexual, but married and had children because that was what their duty demanded, so the same must be said for a primarily feudalistic setting like BTech. Was there a gay as fuck Kurita? Probably. Did it matter? Absolutely not, since he married and sired children. Also, he was a psycho badass in a mech. Him as a hypothetical Kurita being gay has no bearing on the setting or his legacy. Same for all other noble houses actually trying to survive. Your sexuality does not define you in Btech. Your actions do. Your legacy does. And because it does, something like the Pride Anthology and the pandering by Catalyst simply are... redundant. I wish the sparkle trolls had enough sense to understand that.

 

[ShadowArxxy]

Not really sure how that's a counter point?

Or why it needed a counter point?

It's a counter-point as in, "Let me also share my experience which is very different from yours, as a matter of contrast and *not* an accusation that you're wrong about your own experience."