Battletech Story Brainstorming

ShadowArxxy

Well-known member
Comrade
The thing is, ComStar didn't become the WoB we know and love until several coups later. If, say, the 'Realists'/'Foundationists' -i.e. those that stayed true to Blake's wishes/read the Foundation series and decided to work along similar lines- then half the shit that happened in canon never happens.

To be honest, I find it infuriating that protagonist-centered morality and several generations of blatant author wank of (insert favorite faction here) pretty much flanderizes ComStar from being the only sane adult in the room to space Jihadis.
 

Aaron Fox

Well-known member
To be honest, I find it infuriating that protagonist-centered morality and several generations of blatant author wank of (insert favorite faction here) pretty much flanderizes ComStar from being the only sane adult in the room to space Jihadis.
From what I understand, the 'Space Jihadists' were always there, just a minor faction until they went Japan Impearlists on the 'Foundationists' within ComStar. To give you an idea, Imperial Japan had two factions, and by WW2 the Imperialists won the power struggles of the 1920s and 1930s via a mix of murder, assassination, and some literal gangster shit. I see ComStar having the same problem. :(
 

Bear Ribs

Well-known member
From what I understand, the 'Space Jihadists' were always there, just a minor faction until they went Japan Impearlists on the 'Foundationists' within ComStar. To give you an idea, Imperial Japan had two factions, and by WW2 the Imperialists won the power struggles of the 1920s and 1930s via a mix of murder, assassination, and some literal gangster shit. I see ComStar having the same problem. :(
This. Remember a ComStar Precentor murdered an entire planet with nukes just to frame the Gray Death Legion, on the off chance that Grayson might be smart enough to find the Helm Cache that ComStar wasn't even sure existed. He hadn't found it yet, he didn't even think there was a cache on the planet at the time, but said Precentor figured it was better to be safe and kill an entire world than risk that he might find a piece of lostech.

This was some of the first and oldest BT lore, evil crazy ComStar's always been there.
 

Aaron Fox

Well-known member
This. Remember a ComStar Precentor murdered an entire planet with nukes just to frame the Gray Death Legion, on the off chance that Grayson might be smart enough to find the Helm Cache that ComStar wasn't even sure existed. He hadn't found it yet, he didn't even think there was a cache on the planet at the time, but said Precentor figured it was better to be safe and kill an entire world than risk that he might find a piece of lostech.

This was some of the first and oldest BT lore, evil crazy ComStar's always been there.
Yeah, people like that only came into power after a few coups too. Prevent those coups, then you'll have what is essentially The Foundation...
 

ShadowArxxy

Well-known member
Comrade
This. Remember a ComStar Precentor murdered an entire planet with nukes just to frame the Gray Death Legion, on the off chance that Grayson might be smart enough to find the Helm Cache that ComStar wasn't even sure existed. He hadn't found it yet, he didn't even think there was a cache on the planet at the time, but said Precentor figured it was better to be safe and kill an entire world than risk that he might find a piece of lostech.

To be fair, ComStar was absolutely correct that the discovery of the Helm Cache led to a catastrophic escalation in "Great Houses mass murdering everyone with advanced tech".

Bluntly, executing an equivalent of the Morgenthau Plan on every single Great House and then having ComStar control not only HPGs but also all JumpShips is and always has been the only remotely realistic path for peace in the Battletech Universe. Of course, that'll never happen for out-of-character reasons.
 

The Whispering Monk

Well-known member
Osaul
To be fair, ComStar was absolutely correct that the discovery of the Helm Cache led to a catastrophic escalation in "Great Houses mass murdering everyone with advanced tech".

Bluntly, executing an equivalent of the Morgenthau Plan on every single Great House and then having ComStar control not only HPGs but also all JumpShips is and always has been the only remotely realistic path for peace in the Battletech Universe. Of course, that'll never happen for out-of-character reasons.
This just made my eye twitch, but I'm headed to bed and will respond in more detail tomorrow.
 

PsihoKekec

Swashbuckling Accountant
To be fair, ComStar was absolutely correct that the discovery of the Helm Cache led to a catastrophic escalation in "Great Houses mass murdering everyone with advanced tech".
What escalation? Wars with Level 2 tech were no more devastating then the wars with Level 1 tech, not to mention that the 3d and 4th Succession wars were less deadly than the Comstar machinations, as they were killing billions by murdering anyone who tried to rediscover techs like water purification and various vaccines.

Bluntly, executing an equivalent of the Morgenthau Plan on every single Great House and then having ComStar control not only HPGs but also all JumpShips is and always has been the only remotely realistic path for peace in the Battletech Universe. Of course, that'll never happen for out-of-character reasons.
So you would kill more people than all previous wars combined in order to create an universe where entire humanity is oppressed by a theocratic regime? It would make an interesting setting though, as the plucky rebels rise against the Terra tyranny and fight against terrible odds to set humanity free, with almost forgotten Successor Lords being venerated as beacons of freedom and tolerance from an ancient golden era.
 

Aaron Fox

Well-known member
What escalation? Wars with Level 2 tech were no more devastating then the wars with Level 1 tech, not to mention that the 3d and 4th Succession wars were less deadly than the Comstar machinations, as they were killing billions by murdering anyone who tried to rediscover techs like water purification and various vaccines.
Here's the thing, the Successor Houses had practically nuked the entire Inner Sphere back into the steam age. Twice.

That's how bad the first two succession wars are.

ComStar was actually properly paranoid that, once the Helm Core was distributed and the industry reestablished, the Successor Houses would go back to going with the first two succession wars MO of just total war. Remember, everyone in the Successor Houses has a laundry list of reasons and the willingness to go back to that MO. The only problem is industry and specific war material. If the Clans didn't arrive when they did, the successor houses might have gotten to Succession War 5: Warcrime Nuclear Bangolo.
So you would kill more people than all previous wars combined in order to create an universe where entire humanity is oppressed by a theocratic regime? It would make an interesting setting though, as the plucky rebels rise against the Terra tyranny and fight against terrible odds to set humanity free, with almost forgotten Successor Lords being venerated as beacons of freedom and tolerance from an ancient golden era.
Well, if the coups didn't happen, ComStar would be, essentially, Battletech's Foundation...
 

PsihoKekec

Swashbuckling Accountant
Here's the thing, the Successor Houses had practically nuked the entire Inner Sphere back into the steam age. Twice.
And those capabilities still existed during 3d and 4th SW. NBC weapons were not the lostech. Rediscovered weapons technologies didn't increase the destructiveness by any significant margin, while rediscovered civilian technologies saved many lives. Comstar could have let the rediscovering of civilian technologies slide, but they choose not to, because saving human lives was only allowed if it increased their prestige, they were perfectly ok with murdering billions, while hiding behind their mask of benevolence, with end goal being power for the sake of power, just like the Successor Lords. And let us not forget that 2nd Nuke Fest started due to Comstar manipulating Succesor Lords into open warfare.
 

ShadowArxxy

Well-known member
Comrade
And those capabilities still existed during 3d and 4th SW.

No, they didn't. What the Great Houses used to nearly annihilate all of humanity were WarShips throwing indiscriminate orbit-to-surface bombardments, and that capability no longer existed as the end of the 2nd SW with the last handfuls of WarShips destroyed. Other forms of WMDs still existed, but not the ones that actually brought humanity to the precipice.

Comstar was right. They're not the *good guys* in any absolute sense given how ruthless they are, but they are literally the only adult in the room, the rest are squabbling children with weapons of mass destruction.

while rediscovered civilian technologies saved many lives.

What "rediscovered civilian technologies", and which Great Houses actually produced any of that shit as opposed to devoting their balderdash economies to their endless squabble over the corpse of the Star League?
 

Bear Ribs

Well-known member
What "rediscovered civilian technologies", and which Great Houses actually produced any of that shit as opposed to devoting their balderdash economies to their endless squabble over the corpse of the Star League?
There're a few specific cases, though granted the number of instances in print are dwarfed by the number of weapons, it is a wargame after all. While not a Great House, the Magistracy used the rediscovered civilian technologies to create their prosthetics and cybernetics... granted they also proceeded to make catgirls with it... but the improved medical abilities certainly helped many.

On the NAIS front, Justin Allard presumed he'd never pilot a battlemech again when he lost his arm in 3026 but advances in medical technology meant his new arm worked as well as his old one.

Cerulean Waters Inc is a specific example of civilian water purification getting back on the table after the Helm Core let them rediscover how their systems worked.

The Ministry of Energy in the FWL is called out as improving civilian energy sources using the Helm Memory Core.

A strategic department, the Ministry of Energy has a broad remit. At the routine level it is responsible for encouraging League citizens to conserve energy, including the promotion of fuel- and power-efficient homes and transport as well as licensing power plants and refueling stations across the League. At the opposite end of the spectrum, the MoE handles the surveying and extraction of strategic fuel resources, including fuels used in spacecraft, as well as sourcing the rare materials used in the creation of K-F drive cores. The sub-ministry responsible for developing new energy
technologies has grown immensely since the discovery of the Helm memory core
.
-Handbook House Marik pg 85
 

Knowledgeispower

Ah I love the smell of missile spam in the morning
Not to mention all the terraforming tech that was previously Blackboxed thanks to how the Hegemony and thus the Star League did things was now understandable. Also and I can't stress this enough prior to the Clans showing up while there was theoretical work for warship design by basically every successor state being done no one was willing to build the things. Plus there's the fact that when massed WMDs did get unleashed on the Inner Sphere it was the crazy part of ComStar that did it and they destroyed a solid half of all jumpship production and maintenance capacity in the entire Inner Sphere which would have lead to countless deaths in the Long run from a massive variety of causes
 

PsihoKekec

Swashbuckling Accountant
No, they didn't. What the Great Houses used to nearly annihilate all of humanity were WarShips throwing indiscriminate orbit-to-surface bombardments, and that capability no longer existed as the end of the 2nd SW with the last handfuls of WarShips destroyed. Other forms of WMDs still existed, but not the ones that actually brought humanity to the precipice.
Warship bombardment was only a small part (if widely publicized) of Succession War destruction. Air and ground launched nukes did a lot more damage and were still a thing in lvl. 1 tech. Planet killing bioweapons were also still around after 2nd SW, as were chemical weapons, the main difference that WMDs were locked away in central depots instead of assigned at regimental level. Similarly most jumpships were killed (another big factor in the decline of IS) by ASF and dropships instead of warships.
 

Bear Ribs

Well-known member
No, they didn't. What the Great Houses used to nearly annihilate all of humanity were WarShips throwing indiscriminate orbit-to-surface bombardments, and that capability no longer existed as the end of the 2nd SW with the last handfuls of WarShips destroyed. Other forms of WMDs still existed, but not the ones that actually brought humanity to the precipice.
Helm, at least, was specifically bombarded with nukes and most of it was still Radioactive during the Gray Death Saga. Warships would probably actually be less destructive because at least having the place melted with Naval PPCs wouldn't have left radioactive fallout for hundreds of years after.
 

The Whispering Monk

Well-known member
Osaul
Comstar was right. They're not the *good guys* in any absolute sense given how ruthless they are, but they are literally the only adult in the room, the rest are squabbling children with weapons of mass destruction.
Ummm...no, they weren't. Comstar's biggest problem is that they believe they are the only one's capable of having a good idea. ANYTHING outside of that has been stolen, blown up or assassinated.

The Successor States themselves were the ones to pull back from wholesale slaughter. That's why it became Knights on "Horseback" fighting over planets instead of full-scale military aggression.

In fact, it was Comstar that kept certain Houses intact (despite those Houses being a straight bag of psychotic cats. I'm looking at you Liao circa 3025 and Kurita in '39). How much better would the Inner Sphere be if the Liao's had been completely removed from power? How bout the Kuritans and their Black Dragon followers? Structures should be allowed to fall when they are about to collapse on their own. If they can be saved from the inside, excellent, let that happen too.

Comstar became responsible for so many BAD THINGS once they decided they were the puppet masters of all. Space AT&T should have been busted up centuries ago.
 

namar13766

Well-known member
_battletech__minors_to_majors_labeled_by_lazurez_dexy9g3-fullview.jpg

What sort of events would have to play out that this is what the modern IS looks like circa 3025?
 

The Whispering Monk

Well-known member
Osaul
_battletech__minors_to_majors_labeled_by_lazurez_dexy9g3-fullview.jpg

What sort of events would have to play out that this is what the modern IS looks like circa 3025?
The death of Comstar as a political faction, and the privatization of HPG tech and operation.

May have to add to it the failure of the Star League to overwhelm the Periphery States, or even a failure to try.
 

PsihoKekec

Swashbuckling Accountant
Terran Hegemony does not expand through military power but through diplomacy, so there is less of impetus for other statelets to merge and once they hit the limit of their expansion they use combination of diplomacy, trade and espionage to keep the Inner Sphere divided, so no hegemon arises. Probably also few smaller PODs, independent of the main one.
 

bullethead

Part-time fanfic writer
Super Moderator
Staff Member
_battletech__minors_to_majors_labeled_by_lazurez_dexy9g3-fullview.jpg

What sort of events would have to play out that this is what the modern IS looks like circa 3025?
Probably requires FTL comms to be developed earlier in the setting, but with significant range limitations, so that smaller regions have more time culturally unify.

Maybe gate/relay style FTL where its faster to connect to planets within a certain area, but traveling outside that takes way longer?
 

Bear Ribs

Well-known member
My guess would be the Star League doesn't limit the periphery after a much gentler Reunification War and then Amaris beats down Kerensky after he musters all the Great Houses to his side (Possibly Amaris got the CASPAR system under full control).

The first means all those small periphery nations have significant and powerful WarShip fleets and still bear a grudge over the Reunification War even if it didn't hit as hard as canon. Meanwhile, each of the Great Houses get their fleets beaten into scrap. Amaris is unable to continue his advance because although the CASPARs protect his captured worlds, those ships can't jump and invade anyone else, so he settles for the next best plan of making sure his enemies are destroyed and unable to build a second invasion fleet. Standing over the cooling wreckage of Kerensky's Orion, Stefan Amaris calls for open season on the oppressors and the Taurians, Outworlds Alliance, and Magistracy spring into action and rip bloody chunks out of the Great Houses. The battered Great Houses strip their garrisons to the bone to try to stem the tide, fruitlessly. Unbeknownst to everybody else, SLDF loyalists still on Earth uncover access codes to the CASPARs and cause the entire system to self-destruct, removing his trump card though not his surviving human-crewed ships. Amaris's dream of creating a new Star League under himself is stymied but the old one is dead and gone.

Previously, the rump SLDF and Great House fleets suffered the "Great Exodus" as hundreds of surviving units went AWOL rather than get killed in hopeless fights against CASPARs, and a smaller but significant number of Amaris units fled battle when they were badly outnumbered. These form murderously capable, excessively well-equipped pirate bands that have WarShips, fleets of DropShips and JumpShips, and multiple regiments of Battlemechs at their disposal. With many worlds defended by little more than the good ol' boy's hunting club, no small number of them decide that rather than continue on as pirates, they'll make the locals an offer they can't refuse and rip their own territories out of the Great Houses' interior where there are no defenses due to their militaries being rushed to protect their borders from the periphery. Others feel the pickings are better scooping up individual worlds on the Periphery and form their own new nations there.

When the dust settles the Rimworlders, Taurians, and Canopians hold as much territory as the Davions and Kuritas have left, and there are many dozens of small nations split among their borders, all staring enviously at each other's stuff. The time has never been better to be a mercenary.
 

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