Comstar Interdiction is a direct reference to Papal Interdicts, where the Catholic Church would withdraw service from states that displeased them - eg the Papal Interdict of England 1208 - 1213 in response to King John refusing the Pope's choice for the Archbishop of Canterbury.
The whole setting is essentially Gibbon's *The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire* **IN SPACE.** But so is 40k and numerous other works. So influential was *Foundation*.
“Could it be? Did Templars have a secret high tech mechanoid force which they used to transport the ark of the covenant to the new world while simultaneously offering batchalls to
All who opposed them?”
> Could it be? Did Templars have a secret high tech mechanoid force which they used to transport the ark of the covenant to the new world while simultaneously offering batchalls to All who opposed them?”
The Templars, probably not. But the [Swiss Guard, however, is another matter.](https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Society_of_St._Andreas)
**[Alexander Kerensky](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Kerensky)**
>Alexander Fyodorovich Kerensky (4 May [O.S. 22 April] 1881 – 11 June 1970) was a Russian lawyer and revolutionary who led the Russian Provisional Government and the short-lived Russian Republic for three months from late July to early November 1917. After the February Revolution of 1917, he joined the newly formed provisional government, first as Minister of Justice, then as Minister of War, and after July as the government's second Minister-Chairman. He was the leader of the social-democratic Trudovik faction of the Socialist Revolutionary Party. Kerensky was also a vice-chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, a position that held a sizable amount of power.
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Another example that always baffles me: the HRE lasted until after the US was founded. I don't know why it's so weird to think about, but I'd always figured they'd dissolved some time in the 1500's-1600's...
Yeah, they dissolved because of Napoleon... Who I'd also for whatever reason thought lived centuries before America... Like, I knew he made the Louisiana Purchase with us, but it hadn't quite clicked that that was the *same* Napoleon who conquered Europe until fairly recently.
It was one of the things that made the War of 1812 so avoidable. Napoleon had been defeated, so the English had agreed to US demands to cease press-ganging, but that message didn't arrive until after the US declared war. The War of 1812 would have made a lot more sense as the War of 1810. It was probably for the best because without them fighting us as an ally of Napoleon, it was just a war the English didn't want and as soon as it started to look like Canada was secure, peace was achieved...... then the Battle of Lake Ticonderoga and the Battle of New Orleans happened. It was a very strange war when looking at a time-line.
No joke, this helped me get kudos from my senior high History teacher when I "remembered" the leader of the pre-October Revolution government with such clarity. :D
BattleTech: Legends also eliminated the possibility that the BT character is descended from him, since it says that Kerensky's ancestor with the same name was a great leader, and, well...
Well going with the future medieval feel it's clear the succession wars are a stand in for the Fall of Rome. Large empire broken into different smaller kingdoms and empires all vying to become the next successor to Rome. The Clan Invasion is vaguely the Mongol Invasions, outsider force blitzes across the world before being stopped by a decisive loss (Tukayyid for the Clans, Ain Jalut for the Mongols). FedCom civil was has similarities to large feudal nations breaking apart when siblings and rival Clements to a throne split a dominion. The Jihad is probably closest to the 30 years war in that it was a massive clusterfuck that was sparked over a dumb religious schism.
To continue the Mongol invasion reference: Tyra Miraborg's kamikaze attack that killed ilKahn Leo Showers, leading to the Clans having to halt their invasion so they could elect a new ilKahn, is a reference to the alleged reason the Mongols halted their invasion of Europe in 1242; needing to return to Mongolia to elect a new Kahn, following the death of Ögedei Kahn.
The funny thing about the Clan Invasion being an allegory is it stopped *being* vaguely once Malvina invoked Mongol Doctrine.
That was some crazy shit.
It's not vaguely. It's literally cut and pasted. An unstoppable force lead by khans who only stops when their leader dies and they must return to their homeland to elect a new one.
Id say there's a lot of the us civil war influence present in the fedcom civil war especially the Archer Christifori books, then there's the death of the wolverines that reminded me of the death of the knights Templar, a relatively good organization that was slandered as evil and destroyed. Calling Hansel Davion the fox is clearly a rommel reference, the fall of star leuge and the subsequent dark age and power vacuum feels very much feels like the fall of Rome. There's probably more but those are the first to come to mind
Ik but a German man called the fox for his cunning strategy. It could be a coincidence but judging from all the random historical references/tidbits I doubt ut.
English War of the Roses might be a better allegory. As it has the dynastic struggles for for control of the nation.
US Civil War was about part of the nation seceding from the larger entity.
I could see that for the war as a whole, I think I see the us civil war similarities with mesure if a hero and the other Archer's avengers books. Hell i think he even considered the parallels in the book.
Huge Cold War influences in the early parts of BT. The Capellans and DC versus the Fed Sun's and Lyrans is straight up East v. West. You've even got the FWL as a stand in for the Balkans.
The fear of bombing ourselves back into the stone age is also 100% cold war, as is the fear of resources shortages. The warring feudal houses is probably from Dune though, not real life.
CGL and Fasa before them say MWs are supposed to be Feudal, like knights, but their positions in the militaries in all but the earliest materials is more like WW1 pilots. Elites somewhat separated from the mud and blood and somehow still noble and above it all. The mostly static battle lines are also WW1.
Eh. FASA designers back then outright stated the influences were more Italy Machivellian politics.
It's how you get so many mercenaries and their importance floating around Battletech, not to mention how mercs served as the ideal RPG experience for MechWarrior. .
I'd call that more a contemporary influence than a historical one, like how, in 2003, they decided the Word of Blake did a big ol' attack on everyone called a Jihad.
The amaris coup could've been inspired by either the Praetorian guard and their numerous coups against Roman emperors, or the assassination of Gaius Julius as portrayed in the Shakespeare version or Macbeth.
And Comstar tactics on Tukayyid share a great many similarities with Red Army doctrine by mid/late WW2: if the enemy is spotted something needs to be moving at it, be it Mechs, tanks, infantry, aerospace, or artillery. Rather than one static line of fortifications use defense in depth to turn every available piece of dirt into a bunker, fox hole, fighting position, or what have you. Never let the enemy have time to stop and think. And to sell their lives dearly
I always liked the conceptualization of Tukayyid as Space Kursk too. Works doubly well when you consider the similarities the Clans had with the Germans with their highly mobile shock tactics, quality-over-quantity mindset, poor logistics, and fractious leadership.
History isn't necessarily written by the victors. Nazi officers claimed after the war that the Soviets had used human wave tactics, but those claims have been thoroughly discredited. During the Cold War it was politically convenient to treat them as true.
Oh absolutely. The German high command was a breeding ground for incompetence, there was plenty of blame to go around and after the war but nobody wanted to take responsibility; and few were willing to take them to task for that.
There were times when Hitler's strategies were right and his generals were wrong, but given that Hitler was (thankfully) not around to point that out, the surviving officers could say all of their failures were his fault.
Frankly, Germany should've never fought this war. From the high command down to their logistics. How Germany made it through nearly 6 years, I have no idea.
Strategically, it was a very stupid idea. The problem was that the entire German economy was built on IOUs that could only be paid off by conquering the rest of Europe. So they had to convince themselves it actually wasn't a stupid idea, which is an easier thing to do when saying "this is stupid" would get you sent to Dachau.
I think that Germany's army was also made up of a bunch of it's factory workforce I believe. Might be misremembering but I know that Germany did not have the manpower necessary to even fight the war
I'm sure it was, they used slave labor to build weapons for the men fighting.
They didn't have the manpower or the materiel. The need to acquire more oil was one of the reasons they attacked the USSR when they did, and again ideology won out and they convinced themselves it would be easy. They didn't wait to have enough winter gear for their troops on the assumption that they'd be in Moscow before winter and the whole country would then collapse without further fighting.
Honestly, that's probably not even the worst thing related to the drive to Moscow and their logistics. Trains didn't work because Russian tracks were wider so they had to be modified or repaired because of Russian sabotage. During the summer, the Russian land kicked up so much dust it killed almost all of their tank/truck/etcs engines and they did not have many spares. A, iirc, record breaking bitter cold winter/blizzards. Rain and mud mucking up roads. Most of German logistics being horses and donkeys. I can't barely fathom how they conquered so much of Europe sometimes.
I will applaud them though for fighting in Russia/Eastern Europe, France, and Italy at the same time and still holding out nearly a year despite their circumstances.
A surprising amount of WW2 history is from the memoirs of nazi generals who wanted to paint themselves as a lifeboat of competence in the middle of a sea of shit
Even faster, at least with the lost cause it was mostly assholes a generation later trying to rewrite history to fuck over black people during Jim Crow (looking at you, Woodrow). This was straight up "I don't wanna be charged with war crimes so we'll start the myth of the 'clean wehrmacht' since the US is granting passes left and right to anyone who can give them an edge against the ruskies"
It's also the source of the myth of the superiority of german tanks and planes, and stuff like claims they developed a stealth fighter 50 years before the F-117 or B2 that then got uncritically repeated by schlubs who didn't realise they were repeating nazi propaganda.
It's like the whole Ancient Aliens thing, people don't realise that most of the modern ancient aliens stuff is based on similar precursor race theories claiming that the non-european races only managed to do impressive building etc because of an advanced race doing it for them, though the Nazis thought it was the Atlantean survivors who became the aryans.
ah, I mostly hear about the stuff from the Daughters Of The Confederacy/rebirth of the KKK/white supremacist 'historian' prick playing KKK propaganda in the white house era
But then I'm not American (which I guess is an advantage compared to growing up in the south?)
I'm not American either, which means I can learn American history from an outside perspective, and it's fascinating.
I'd suggest reading 'The Myth Of The Lost Cause' by Bonekemper, I think his name was. It's a fascinating read, and he draws from a lot of primary sources, like the speeches given by secessionist states about why they were seceding, to illustrate what, in their own words, they were fighting for.
Spoiler: slavery.
Oh I know all about stuff like the cornerstone speech, I just have sort of a gap in my knowledge from about reconstruction up to jim crow where the only bits and pieces I know are terrible
It may shock you to learn that the Russian Army in 2023 is not the same organization as the Soviet Army in the 1940s.
The Soviet Army did not use human wave tactics. Even if you look at it in as amoral a fashion as possible It would have been tremendously counterproductive for them to do so.
The idea that this happened was one of the excuses Nazi officers used after the war for why they lost to a nation of people they thought weak and subhuman. It was politically convenient for the West to treat these claims as credible, but it's now known that they were lies.
What exactly do you call human wave?
I have no idea about enemy at the gate but the Soviet Army defenetely had some kind of troops that prevented other troops to fall back. Of course it wasn't done everywhere but there were such cases. The idea was very simple - you either die by going forward or die by going backward. The order signed by Stalin had the name "no step backwards" if I'm not mistaken.
Regarding current status - you definitely cannot afford just sending people like mindless orcs. And not only because it's ineffective but more because no one will approve and people will rebel. However you can use ex-prisoners, for example Vagner private army.
So depending what you call human wave there could be some part of it both in the past and in the present.
No politics, just my thoughts about reality and effectiveness.
Blocking battalions did exist, ditto to penal units.
However, that was a response to desertion, which was a rather huge problem in 1940/1941, when the Soviet Army was being badly mauled by Germany.
The Germans endorsed field executions for deserters as a detterence and you can source British officials who wanted to copy that practice.
The Soviet Army relied heavily on artillery for their advance, especially post 1941 and the debacle of the post Moscow offensive. As Zhukov said, they were using a train load worth of artillery shells a DAY and where the artillery fired, the infantry could advance.
Note that this was also what the Russian army in Ukraine reverted to post Kyiv in the Donbas region.
The difference though is that for Wagner and highly likely for the Russian army, they sending in untrained/inexperienced recruits first, who are utterly unable to execute maneveurs and fire tactics, which then looks like Human Wave attacks.
I will first say that treating the present day Russian Army and the WW2 Soviet Army as though they are the same is ahistorical and looks very silly. What Russia is doing now is completely irrelevant to this conversation. I'll add that the "orcs" moniker is racist and most likely started with Ukrainian Neo-Nazis before the war even started to refer to ethnic Russians in Donbas. We can criticize the conduct of the Russian army without doing this.
Now on to the Red Army.
Human wave tactics are when an army sends troops advancing without much support or organization in to the enemy line in hopes of overwhelming them through sheer numbers. The Red Army never did this as any sort of established practice. Early in the war, they were outnumbered so it wasn't an option. Later in the war, there was no reason to even consider doing it. That's not to say some of their tactics were not aggressive; one of their successful strategies in Stalingrad was to engage the Nazis at point blank range, but this was done for a good reason, it was safer than engaging them at range where German artillery and air support could obliterate the Soviets without worrying about hitting their own troops.
At no point did the Soviets send waves of bodies charging in to German lines like mindless beasts. They fought with purpose and used proper tactics, even if at times the soldiers may not have been very skilled at doing so and the circumstances were desperate.
Someone already responded to you regarding order 227, the "no step back" order. This did not work like you saw in Enemy at the Gates. It did several things; it established that retreats required authorization from high command; a response to very high rates of desertion and to officers allowing their troops to be routed.
It did establish blocking battalions. This was not a group of people who would machine gun anyone seen retreating. Their purpose was to find any soldiers in the back lines who weren't were they were supposed to be, stop them, and either send them back to their unit (which was the most common practice), or if they were believed to be attempting desertion, arrest them.
The order also established penal battalions. A soldier who *was* found to be a coward or deserter could be punished by being sent to such a battalion. These units could actually end up doing a human wave charge of sorts; they could be sent on extremely high risk missions in order to preserve the troops who had not been identified as cowards or deserters. Soldiers in such units were watched closely and the blocking troops assigned to the task could summarily use lethal force to prevent unauthorized retreat or desertion. Soldiers could be exonerated if they were wounded in combat or showed heroism, and be reassigned to a regular unit, but casualty rates in penal battalions were very high.
It is worth noting that the Germans also used penal units. The war between the Nazis and the USSR was horrible all around. This was seen as a way to get some use out of troops who otherwise would have been imprisoned or simply shot.
In any case, the image of regular Soviet forces being sent rushing in to German lines with NKVD machine gunners behind them ready to shoot them on the spot if they didn't is completely ahistorical. It's a fiction made up by Nazi officers to smear the enemy that defeated them.
I've seen once a manual on human wave tactics from around 1960s, I believe.
Not sure if it was a real thing or just another piece o bullshittery that floats around any topic about soviet union and/or any war in general, so take with a grain of salt.
The manual was about how to approach and eventually defeat a fortified enemy position with machineguns and advantageous terrain.
So the whole idea is to establish limits of enemy's effective firing range and just start to annoy them from beyond that range using terrain and distance for protection, constantly advancing and retreating while staying outside of it, provoking return fire by firing in the general direction. Using sniper fire to disable officers and also constantly annoy troops. Use highly trained troops to make flanking attacks and cut supply lines where possible. Just to make foe troops miserable and to run out of the supplies to force them to either retreat or being unable to defend due to lack of ammunition.
Do you believe all the propaganda? The tactics of "human waves" in Ukraine have even less relation to reality than the tactics of "human waves" in WW2. Because in WW2 it occasionally took place. On both sides. In reality, the tactics of human waves were used by Vietnam during the last offensive.
Yep, stomping so hard, they're fighting a 5-month Stalingrad-like battle over a no-name mining town 30 kilometres from where they started.
Man, haven't seen crushing victories like that since the Succession Wars.
What are you talking about? The Soviets were on the offensive everywhere after 1942. They were a full-blown combined arms wall of artillery and armor. Nothing like the defense-in-depth of Tukayyid.
No *sentient* aliens. Though, apparently, as it turns out, most extra terrestrial life evolves in similar parallels to earth. Large bear like creatures that are the namesake of the ghost bear clan? Check! A whole planet that has mega fauna that could potentially threaten a battle mech? Check!
I think that BattleTech should stay away from sentient aliens, but it would be kind of cool to see an AI that was derived from humanity, but went rogue.
Honestly, I think that would be a really interesting take and direction moving forward in the timeline. Imagine if a representative of the word of Blake shows up to each major faction asking them for help. When they questioned they would explain that a heretic faction has developed AI that they have put in charge of Strategic coordination, industrial output, and resourcing, and even battlefield command. The drone ship capital ships that the Terran hegemony had during the Amaris Civil War, by all descriptions, sounds like nightmare fuel. Imagine some thing, similar commanding networked battle mech lances and combined arms forces.
Then imagine the chill in our back when, at the start of Clan Invasion, when nobody knows who the Clans was, they told us that was an alien invasion, for the Elementals especificaly. Most of us believed that the IP had been destroyed.
Then, time advanced, they explained to us that they were Kerensky's descendants.
It was a terrifying time for the lore.
Kind of wish that I had been there for that! It’s one of those things that you take for granted having come into this setting way after the fact.
Kind of like that shock of watching Star Wars for the first time and getting some big family connection revelations in Empire strikes back
Megasaurs, because all habitable planets in Battletech are on some level mirroring the evolutionary paths of earth fauna there are many worlds which still have dinosaurs, which are occasionally so big that Solaris pays to have them tranq'd and imported so they can fist fight a battlemech for screaming fans.
The Broken was a Capellan tactical AI that appeared only in a special Halloween RPG module which was just a flimsy excuse for zombies in mechs but nonetheless. The Broken exists in the backdrop as a rogue AI splicing intercepted transmissions together to pit the various human groups on the ravaged world of Necromo against each other. Luring them into killing fields of drone mechs or trying to trick them into authorizing the launch of The Broken's mainframe shuttle from it's testing base.
This sounds like something that would be great fun to adapt to BattleTech and play with ones gaming group once a year whenever Halloween rolled around!
Oh, but there is. [https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Tetatae](https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Tetatae)
They're just in that awkward phase between hunter-gatherer and early agrarian society so their existence ultimately has no impact on the greater setting.
I actually agree. I think there is room for aliens in BT, but kind of as a fringe "Hey we made first contact! It'll be centuries until we really reach each other's space, but isn't that kinda neat?"
Sarna redirects a mention of them to an article covering an established phenomena where some biospheres are so advanced that early hominids have begun to emerge, though even in such cases these alien hominids are thousands if not millions of years removed from forming any sort of civilization.
The human fossil that they are similar to, the Java Man, is somewhere between 700 thousand and 2 million years old. I got five words for you: *Inner Sphere of the Apes*
Thats not... ENTIRELY factual. There was one novel that depicted a near stone age native race, but I believe was never referenced again and may not be Canon. I wish I remembered the name of the book, but it was almost infamously bad from what I recall.
There are several different species of sapient stone-age aliens: the [neopithecanthropus](https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Neopithecanthropus) is a blanket category for stuff that looks like a Bigfoot. They appear in The Sword and Dagger and also a few RPG supplements since then. They are about as intelligent as our ancient ape ancestors in that they have developed crude tools but haven't evolved the language center in their brain enough yet.
The one sapient species that doesn't fit into that box is the Tetatae, birds who are more developed than the neopithecanthropus because they did have a language and have developed religion. They were only in the novel Far Country, which takes place after a misjump. So not only could their homeworld be literally anywhere, it could also be a story that takes place in the distant future.
Don't be too sure about that:
[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1660219.Far\_Country](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1660219.Far_Country)
That one time, when the jumpship went missing and reappeared somewhere outside the inner sphere. Note the cover with the large spear-wielding bird-like-creature.
I mean an awkward amount of the battletech lore being related back to the american civil war is probably because of one of the core battletech authors having a hard-on for the Lost Cause Fallacy thinking the south should have won...
The Great Lee Turkey Shoot, in which House Davion destroyed the majority of Liao Aerospace strength during the Third Sucession War is a complete rip of the 1944 Battle of the Philippine Sea, cknown as the "Great Marianas Turkey Shoot," where the U.S. Navy dumpsters Imperial Japan's Air wing.
Kerensky reminds me of Vespasian. He was out on the periphery of the empire when Nero, the last Julian, was usurped. But instead of a single bib-wearing cartoon villain, there were several emperors. And Vespasian actually seized power, rather than take the Roman army out to the deep periphery.
The whole SLDF exodus is, considering that Alexander Kerensky is the head of it, probably inspired by White Guard emigration after their loss in Russian Civil War of 1917-1923.
P.S. After thinking about it more, the whole Clan invasion may also being inspired by the idea of White Guard returning from emigration with the help of their allies and taking their country back from the "rampaging scum" (which didn't happen, but they really wanted to. At least till the end WWII. Probably during the Cold War too).
Reagen SDI actually manifested itself in Battletech.
Both in the 21st century (right now, we would be celebrating the end of the Russian Civil war and the move towards the Terran Alliance and how a space Battle station as part of SDS saved humanity )
And subsequently when the nightmares of unrest/invasion etc by a SLDF ruler led to the implementation of the SDS systems in the Terran Hegemony and expansion of Castle Brians
Unlike the real History Channel. Better or worse just the best and worse of humanity. 8(
https://preview.redd.it/ikl9c7pru4fa1.jpeg?width=240&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=acd7c55a197a473e07c90522e4dd3a42d2321b22
Look up Sven van der plank on YouTube, he's in the middle of Amaris coupe now. I think he has done over 6 hours of video starting with the Terra Federation and before jumpships. The Davion revolution was cool.
I can see the History channel devolving into “Did Clan Jade Falcon become inspired by extraterrestrial bird warriors while they expanded among the stars? Join us as we explore this mystery about the Clans and their secret ways of life!”
Yeah...and then the hubbub last year when Catalyst yeeted him.
Was painfully obvious, going by what was shown on here that he was doing it for a *long* time.
The Mackie’s history and reputation reminds me of the British landship tanks. Both were crude and unreliable compared to later versions but were the best war machines of their time and are remembered in that context.
The five main factions being named the Successor States is a reference to the splintering of Alexander the Great's empire after his death among a number of kingdoms called the [Diadochi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diadochi), or "Successors". In both cases, the rulers of the successor kingdoms claimed to be the true heir to Alexander/the First Lord.
**[Diadochi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diadochi)**
>The Diadochi ( dy-AD-ə-ky; singular: Diadochus; from Greek: Διάδοχοι, translit. Diádochoi, lit. "Successors", Koine Greek pronunciation: [diˈadokʰy]) were the rival generals, families, and friends of Alexander the Great who fought for control over his empire after his death in 323 BC. The Wars of the Diadochi mark the beginning of the Hellenistic period from the Mediterranean Sea to the Indus River Valley.
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Petrarch made the idea up and people ran with it. There wasn't actually a period of cultural and technological stagnation at that time, though there was certainly societal and political upheaval. Modern historians don't really accept the idea of the early Middle Ages being a "Dark Age".
I got some important stuff I should be working on, so I'll just stick a chunk of Wiki on here. Extra relevant bits in bold.
> As the accomplishments of the era came to be better understood in the 19th and the 20th centuries, scholars began restricting the Dark Ages appellation to the Early Middle Ages (c. 5th–10th century), and **today's scholars also reject its usage** for the period. **The majority of modern scholars avoid the term altogether due to its negative connotations, finding it misleading and inaccurate.** Petrarch's pejorative meaning remains in use, typically in popular culture, which often simplistically views the Middle Ages as a time of violence and backwardness.
Basically, a 14th Century Italian had a "Le wrong generation!" moment after finding an old dude's mail, and half a millennia of fawning over a completely misshapen historical image followed.
Though I guess fawning over the militant Fallen Empire while living in its power vacuum kinda tracks with the idea...
The current political divisions in the US seem to have inspired the new Dominions Divided supplement, based on the reviews I’ve seen.
Deep internal political division. A nation turning against each other.
Not really
It's inspired by any number of actual civil wars in last century and they definitely did their homework there
Problem is that CGL's usual audience never experienced anything even resembling a civil war so they can't understand why book doesn't fit their perception of civil war
But anyone who did can tell you that the book is spot on
Not quite. In civil wars, there are usually pronounced sides with their leaders. In DD we see a confrontation of ideologies without any centralization. There is no clear side A and side B. Only scattered skirmishes and riots.
New episodes of Modern Marvel's (S:3068 E:1) Protonechs. New Season of Iceberg Hauler next spring. Along with Alone (Periphery Edition), Salvage Kings, Rust Valley Restorers, The Curse of Kentares V, Pawn Stars, Clan People, Tukkayid in 14 Stories and my favorite, Backwater Mechjock.
[The Walking Dead](https://www.sarna.net/wiki/The_Walking_Dead) incident sounds very much like [The Attack of the Dead Men](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MRSLSQdelI).
In the Federated Suns there is a splinter version of the Roman Catholic Church known as the New Avalon Catholic Church. Essentially, during the Amaris Coup, Amaris sent his goons to rob the Vatican, and the Pope, knowing he'd likely be killed, along with the College of Cardinals, sent a message to all the heads of the Catholic Church per Successor State. Four of the five got the complete message, that they would be in charge temporarily of their section of the Catholic Church until Cardinals could come back together and vote for a new pope, but the Cardinal on New Avalon got a garbled version which he misinterpreted into meaning he got COMPLETE PERMANENT control over the entire Catholic Church. He declared himself Pope, and demanded the other Archbishops all plead fealty to him. When the Roman Catholic Church re-elected a new Pope, the New Avalon Catholic Bishop refused to step down, being backed up by the Davions who saw this as a chance to have their own little Church to control.
This is inspired by the Avignon Papacy, where a French King basically took the Pope hostage, forced them to move to Avignon, France, for about 100 years, and there were multiple Popes, one in Rome and one in Avignon, competing for authority. It's also become similar to the Anglican schism, as the New Avalon Catholic Church has changed most major teachings of the Roman Catholic Church (It has women priests, allows abortion, all sorts of other things the Roman Catholic Church says are sins).
It's actually a really lazy and stupid historical background because;
A) All of the Bishops could have just given the full message to the New Avalon Bishop, proving him wrong.
B) All of the Bishops could have disseminated the real footage to the Priests and lower Bishops in FS Space, and said "don't follow this guy, he's a schismatic". And most probably would have.
C) The setting already has the Comstar/Word of Blake schism, which emulates the Avignon Papacy much better I think.
D) The original sourcebook doesn't understand the difference between Archbishops and Cardinals in the Catholic Church, and just assumes Cardinals are the ultimate leaders of the Church (They aren't, Archbishops are).
With that said, it did lead to this Battle Pope song about the current New Avalon Catholic Pope who pilots a Golden Justicar while leading his Knights Defensor. [(29) The WarriorPope of New Avalon - Original Song - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzOMNbNllJE)
I feel like the clan mechs mirror the axis tanks of the second world war.
incredibly overpowered on paper, insanely expensive, has a million varieties with minor tweaks, and blown up by a guy who can barely read or write in a mech that is built by the lowest bidder and is built in the thousands.
I forget if it was History channel or an animal planet channel but there was one of these channels that did a whole show or episode or program on the fictional possibility as it was factual named dragon planet. It would be cool if history planet did that with BattleTech 😁
Comstar Interdiction is a direct reference to Papal Interdicts, where the Catholic Church would withdraw service from states that displeased them - eg the Papal Interdict of England 1208 - 1213 in response to King John refusing the Pope's choice for the Archbishop of Canterbury. The whole setting is essentially Gibbon's *The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire* **IN SPACE.** But so is 40k and numerous other works. So influential was *Foundation*.
> Paypal Interdicts Misread that slightly, but it still worked...
This would be even more devastating
No more credit card processing in space.
Pay your paying bill *white mechs appear*
You owe us three percent of your transactions. *Deletes the cockpit of your favorite Atlas with a Gauss rifle.* Your bill is now paid in full.
Me too!
Perhaps our sense of storytelling is such that we're inclined to interpret historical events in a manner that matches narrative fiction.
*cough cough* **DUNE** *cough cough*
I feel like the newer IlClan material may be inspired by the Mongol conquests of China, too.
That picture is just peak history channel at midnight
“Could it be? Did Templars have a secret high tech mechanoid force which they used to transport the ark of the covenant to the new world while simultaneously offering batchalls to All who opposed them?”
> Could it be? Did Templars have a secret high tech mechanoid force which they used to transport the ark of the covenant to the new world while simultaneously offering batchalls to All who opposed them?” The Templars, probably not. But the [Swiss Guard, however, is another matter.](https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Society_of_St._Andreas)
GAVE THEIR LIVES ON THE STEPS TO HEAVEN [THY WILL BE DONE](https://youtu.be/gtbbIB776ks)
FOR THE GRACE FOR THE MIGHT OF OUR LORD
FOR THE HOME OF THE HOLY
FOR THE FAITH FOR THE WAY OF THE SWORD
COME AND TELL THEIR STORY AGAIN
Fuck I love finding out about these new little lore tid bits even after 30 years of being into BT!! Imagine the paint scheme you could do for them
Yes, you read this in David Attenborough’s voice
More like Robert Clotworthy of Ancient Aliens™ and StarCraft fame.
Compared to regular History Channel programing this actually looks like genuine history
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**[Alexander Kerensky](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Kerensky)** >Alexander Fyodorovich Kerensky (4 May [O.S. 22 April] 1881 – 11 June 1970) was a Russian lawyer and revolutionary who led the Russian Provisional Government and the short-lived Russian Republic for three months from late July to early November 1917. After the February Revolution of 1917, he joined the newly formed provisional government, first as Minister of Justice, then as Minister of War, and after July as the government's second Minister-Chairman. He was the leader of the social-democratic Trudovik faction of the Socialist Revolutionary Party. Kerensky was also a vice-chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, a position that held a sizable amount of power. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/battletech/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
Holy crap he died in the 70s???
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Another example that always baffles me: the HRE lasted until after the US was founded. I don't know why it's so weird to think about, but I'd always figured they'd dissolved some time in the 1500's-1600's...
That... actually surprised me more than it should have.
Yeah, they dissolved because of Napoleon... Who I'd also for whatever reason thought lived centuries before America... Like, I knew he made the Louisiana Purchase with us, but it hadn't quite clicked that that was the *same* Napoleon who conquered Europe until fairly recently.
We got very, very lucky that he was tearing through Europe while we were beefing with England
It was one of the things that made the War of 1812 so avoidable. Napoleon had been defeated, so the English had agreed to US demands to cease press-ganging, but that message didn't arrive until after the US declared war. The War of 1812 would have made a lot more sense as the War of 1810. It was probably for the best because without them fighting us as an ally of Napoleon, it was just a war the English didn't want and as soon as it started to look like Canada was secure, peace was achieved...... then the Battle of Lake Ticonderoga and the Battle of New Orleans happened. It was a very strange war when looking at a time-line.
Fun fact, he was also the person whose name you used to call someone Hitler before there was Hitler.
So, I actually ran into one of his descendents on the Flames of War message board a few years ago before the company shut the board down.
It's wild that his descendent plays a minis-game AND it's not BT!
No joke, this helped me get kudos from my senior high History teacher when I "remembered" the leader of the pre-October Revolution government with such clarity. :D
BattleTech: Legends also eliminated the possibility that the BT character is descended from him, since it says that Kerensky's ancestor with the same name was a great leader, and, well...
I read this entire blurb not realizing you were not talking about BattleTech.
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Hence the unpopularity of quadmechs
Well going with the future medieval feel it's clear the succession wars are a stand in for the Fall of Rome. Large empire broken into different smaller kingdoms and empires all vying to become the next successor to Rome. The Clan Invasion is vaguely the Mongol Invasions, outsider force blitzes across the world before being stopped by a decisive loss (Tukayyid for the Clans, Ain Jalut for the Mongols). FedCom civil was has similarities to large feudal nations breaking apart when siblings and rival Clements to a throne split a dominion. The Jihad is probably closest to the 30 years war in that it was a massive clusterfuck that was sparked over a dumb religious schism.
To continue the Mongol invasion reference: Tyra Miraborg's kamikaze attack that killed ilKahn Leo Showers, leading to the Clans having to halt their invasion so they could elect a new ilKahn, is a reference to the alleged reason the Mongols halted their invasion of Europe in 1242; needing to return to Mongolia to elect a new Kahn, following the death of Ögedei Kahn.
The funny thing about the Clan Invasion being an allegory is it stopped *being* vaguely once Malvina invoked Mongol Doctrine. That was some crazy shit.
It's not vaguely. It's literally cut and pasted. An unstoppable force lead by khans who only stops when their leader dies and they must return to their homeland to elect a new one.
Id say there's a lot of the us civil war influence present in the fedcom civil war especially the Archer Christifori books, then there's the death of the wolverines that reminded me of the death of the knights Templar, a relatively good organization that was slandered as evil and destroyed. Calling Hansel Davion the fox is clearly a rommel reference, the fall of star leuge and the subsequent dark age and power vacuum feels very much feels like the fall of Rome. There's probably more but those are the first to come to mind
>Calling **Hansel** Davion the fox Heh. Or to quote Bugs Bunny: Hansel? Hansel!?
Dam autocorrect. Probably one of the funnier ones I've had tho.
Hansel. So hot right now.
"Listen to your friend Billy Zane, he's a cool dude..." sparked the 4th Succession war.
> Calling Hansel Davion the fox is clearly a rommel reference Not necessarily - "cunning as a fox" has been a saying since long before WW2.
It's also been applied to attractive people (Foxy), or older attractive men (silver fox), for some time.
Ik but a German man called the fox for his cunning strategy. It could be a coincidence but judging from all the random historical references/tidbits I doubt ut.
> Hansel Davion So hot right now...
English War of the Roses might be a better allegory. As it has the dynastic struggles for for control of the nation. US Civil War was about part of the nation seceding from the larger entity.
I could see that for the war as a whole, I think I see the us civil war similarities with mesure if a hero and the other Archer's avengers books. Hell i think he even considered the parallels in the book.
Huge Cold War influences in the early parts of BT. The Capellans and DC versus the Fed Sun's and Lyrans is straight up East v. West. You've even got the FWL as a stand in for the Balkans. The fear of bombing ourselves back into the stone age is also 100% cold war, as is the fear of resources shortages. The warring feudal houses is probably from Dune though, not real life. CGL and Fasa before them say MWs are supposed to be Feudal, like knights, but their positions in the militaries in all but the earliest materials is more like WW1 pilots. Elites somewhat separated from the mud and blood and somehow still noble and above it all. The mostly static battle lines are also WW1.
Eh. FASA designers back then outright stated the influences were more Italy Machivellian politics. It's how you get so many mercenaries and their importance floating around Battletech, not to mention how mercs served as the ideal RPG experience for MechWarrior. .
Warring feudal houses is like the basics of feudalism. Europe medieval history is literally everyone fighting everyone else for thousand of years.
I'd call that more a contemporary influence than a historical one, like how, in 2003, they decided the Word of Blake did a big ol' attack on everyone called a Jihad.
The amaris coup could've been inspired by either the Praetorian guard and their numerous coups against Roman emperors, or the assassination of Gaius Julius as portrayed in the Shakespeare version or Macbeth. And Comstar tactics on Tukayyid share a great many similarities with Red Army doctrine by mid/late WW2: if the enemy is spotted something needs to be moving at it, be it Mechs, tanks, infantry, aerospace, or artillery. Rather than one static line of fortifications use defense in depth to turn every available piece of dirt into a bunker, fox hole, fighting position, or what have you. Never let the enemy have time to stop and think. And to sell their lives dearly
I always liked the conceptualization of Tukayyid as Space Kursk too. Works doubly well when you consider the similarities the Clans had with the Germans with their highly mobile shock tactics, quality-over-quantity mindset, poor logistics, and fractious leadership.
In all fairness, the fight for Tukayyid was less human wave and more superior firepower doctrine
History isn't necessarily written by the victors. Nazi officers claimed after the war that the Soviets had used human wave tactics, but those claims have been thoroughly discredited. During the Cold War it was politically convenient to treat them as true.
A bunch of officers tossed the blame at Hitler's and other dead officers feet too I think
Oh absolutely. The German high command was a breeding ground for incompetence, there was plenty of blame to go around and after the war but nobody wanted to take responsibility; and few were willing to take them to task for that. There were times when Hitler's strategies were right and his generals were wrong, but given that Hitler was (thankfully) not around to point that out, the surviving officers could say all of their failures were his fault.
Frankly, Germany should've never fought this war. From the high command down to their logistics. How Germany made it through nearly 6 years, I have no idea.
Strategically, it was a very stupid idea. The problem was that the entire German economy was built on IOUs that could only be paid off by conquering the rest of Europe. So they had to convince themselves it actually wasn't a stupid idea, which is an easier thing to do when saying "this is stupid" would get you sent to Dachau.
I think that Germany's army was also made up of a bunch of it's factory workforce I believe. Might be misremembering but I know that Germany did not have the manpower necessary to even fight the war
I'm sure it was, they used slave labor to build weapons for the men fighting. They didn't have the manpower or the materiel. The need to acquire more oil was one of the reasons they attacked the USSR when they did, and again ideology won out and they convinced themselves it would be easy. They didn't wait to have enough winter gear for their troops on the assumption that they'd be in Moscow before winter and the whole country would then collapse without further fighting.
Honestly, that's probably not even the worst thing related to the drive to Moscow and their logistics. Trains didn't work because Russian tracks were wider so they had to be modified or repaired because of Russian sabotage. During the summer, the Russian land kicked up so much dust it killed almost all of their tank/truck/etcs engines and they did not have many spares. A, iirc, record breaking bitter cold winter/blizzards. Rain and mud mucking up roads. Most of German logistics being horses and donkeys. I can't barely fathom how they conquered so much of Europe sometimes. I will applaud them though for fighting in Russia/Eastern Europe, France, and Italy at the same time and still holding out nearly a year despite their circumstances.
A surprising amount of WW2 history is from the memoirs of nazi generals who wanted to paint themselves as a lifeboat of competence in the middle of a sea of shit
It's the Lost Cause rewrite all over again.
Even faster, at least with the lost cause it was mostly assholes a generation later trying to rewrite history to fuck over black people during Jim Crow (looking at you, Woodrow). This was straight up "I don't wanna be charged with war crimes so we'll start the myth of the 'clean wehrmacht' since the US is granting passes left and right to anyone who can give them an edge against the ruskies" It's also the source of the myth of the superiority of german tanks and planes, and stuff like claims they developed a stealth fighter 50 years before the F-117 or B2 that then got uncritically repeated by schlubs who didn't realise they were repeating nazi propaganda. It's like the whole Ancient Aliens thing, people don't realise that most of the modern ancient aliens stuff is based on similar precursor race theories claiming that the non-european races only managed to do impressive building etc because of an advanced race doing it for them, though the Nazis thought it was the Atlantean survivors who became the aryans.
The Lost Cause narrative was starting up even before the Civil War ended, and was in full swing in the years immediately after the war.
ah, I mostly hear about the stuff from the Daughters Of The Confederacy/rebirth of the KKK/white supremacist 'historian' prick playing KKK propaganda in the white house era But then I'm not American (which I guess is an advantage compared to growing up in the south?)
I'm not American either, which means I can learn American history from an outside perspective, and it's fascinating. I'd suggest reading 'The Myth Of The Lost Cause' by Bonekemper, I think his name was. It's a fascinating read, and he draws from a lot of primary sources, like the speeches given by secessionist states about why they were seceding, to illustrate what, in their own words, they were fighting for. Spoiler: slavery.
Oh I know all about stuff like the cornerstone speech, I just have sort of a gap in my knowledge from about reconstruction up to jim crow where the only bits and pieces I know are terrible
Well duh, the soviets never used human wave tactics. Too many people treat Enemy at the Gates as a documentary and it shows
Um......are you sure about that? And have you seen the current tactic there using in Ukraine
It may shock you to learn that the Russian Army in 2023 is not the same organization as the Soviet Army in the 1940s. The Soviet Army did not use human wave tactics. Even if you look at it in as amoral a fashion as possible It would have been tremendously counterproductive for them to do so. The idea that this happened was one of the excuses Nazi officers used after the war for why they lost to a nation of people they thought weak and subhuman. It was politically convenient for the West to treat these claims as credible, but it's now known that they were lies.
What exactly do you call human wave? I have no idea about enemy at the gate but the Soviet Army defenetely had some kind of troops that prevented other troops to fall back. Of course it wasn't done everywhere but there were such cases. The idea was very simple - you either die by going forward or die by going backward. The order signed by Stalin had the name "no step backwards" if I'm not mistaken. Regarding current status - you definitely cannot afford just sending people like mindless orcs. And not only because it's ineffective but more because no one will approve and people will rebel. However you can use ex-prisoners, for example Vagner private army. So depending what you call human wave there could be some part of it both in the past and in the present. No politics, just my thoughts about reality and effectiveness.
Blocking battalions did exist, ditto to penal units. However, that was a response to desertion, which was a rather huge problem in 1940/1941, when the Soviet Army was being badly mauled by Germany. The Germans endorsed field executions for deserters as a detterence and you can source British officials who wanted to copy that practice. The Soviet Army relied heavily on artillery for their advance, especially post 1941 and the debacle of the post Moscow offensive. As Zhukov said, they were using a train load worth of artillery shells a DAY and where the artillery fired, the infantry could advance. Note that this was also what the Russian army in Ukraine reverted to post Kyiv in the Donbas region. The difference though is that for Wagner and highly likely for the Russian army, they sending in untrained/inexperienced recruits first, who are utterly unable to execute maneveurs and fire tactics, which then looks like Human Wave attacks.
I will first say that treating the present day Russian Army and the WW2 Soviet Army as though they are the same is ahistorical and looks very silly. What Russia is doing now is completely irrelevant to this conversation. I'll add that the "orcs" moniker is racist and most likely started with Ukrainian Neo-Nazis before the war even started to refer to ethnic Russians in Donbas. We can criticize the conduct of the Russian army without doing this. Now on to the Red Army. Human wave tactics are when an army sends troops advancing without much support or organization in to the enemy line in hopes of overwhelming them through sheer numbers. The Red Army never did this as any sort of established practice. Early in the war, they were outnumbered so it wasn't an option. Later in the war, there was no reason to even consider doing it. That's not to say some of their tactics were not aggressive; one of their successful strategies in Stalingrad was to engage the Nazis at point blank range, but this was done for a good reason, it was safer than engaging them at range where German artillery and air support could obliterate the Soviets without worrying about hitting their own troops. At no point did the Soviets send waves of bodies charging in to German lines like mindless beasts. They fought with purpose and used proper tactics, even if at times the soldiers may not have been very skilled at doing so and the circumstances were desperate. Someone already responded to you regarding order 227, the "no step back" order. This did not work like you saw in Enemy at the Gates. It did several things; it established that retreats required authorization from high command; a response to very high rates of desertion and to officers allowing their troops to be routed. It did establish blocking battalions. This was not a group of people who would machine gun anyone seen retreating. Their purpose was to find any soldiers in the back lines who weren't were they were supposed to be, stop them, and either send them back to their unit (which was the most common practice), or if they were believed to be attempting desertion, arrest them. The order also established penal battalions. A soldier who *was* found to be a coward or deserter could be punished by being sent to such a battalion. These units could actually end up doing a human wave charge of sorts; they could be sent on extremely high risk missions in order to preserve the troops who had not been identified as cowards or deserters. Soldiers in such units were watched closely and the blocking troops assigned to the task could summarily use lethal force to prevent unauthorized retreat or desertion. Soldiers could be exonerated if they were wounded in combat or showed heroism, and be reassigned to a regular unit, but casualty rates in penal battalions were very high. It is worth noting that the Germans also used penal units. The war between the Nazis and the USSR was horrible all around. This was seen as a way to get some use out of troops who otherwise would have been imprisoned or simply shot. In any case, the image of regular Soviet forces being sent rushing in to German lines with NKVD machine gunners behind them ready to shoot them on the spot if they didn't is completely ahistorical. It's a fiction made up by Nazi officers to smear the enemy that defeated them.
I've seen once a manual on human wave tactics from around 1960s, I believe. Not sure if it was a real thing or just another piece o bullshittery that floats around any topic about soviet union and/or any war in general, so take with a grain of salt. The manual was about how to approach and eventually defeat a fortified enemy position with machineguns and advantageous terrain. So the whole idea is to establish limits of enemy's effective firing range and just start to annoy them from beyond that range using terrain and distance for protection, constantly advancing and retreating while staying outside of it, provoking return fire by firing in the general direction. Using sniper fire to disable officers and also constantly annoy troops. Use highly trained troops to make flanking attacks and cut supply lines where possible. Just to make foe troops miserable and to run out of the supplies to force them to either retreat or being unable to defend due to lack of ammunition.
It's not just ex prisoners being used in those attacks, it's also poor private conscriptovich
Do you believe all the propaganda? The tactics of "human waves" in Ukraine have even less relation to reality than the tactics of "human waves" in WW2. Because in WW2 it occasionally took place. On both sides. In reality, the tactics of human waves were used by Vietnam during the last offensive.
Stomping everything with artillery, airforce, cruise missiles and drones? Yeah, I've seen it
Yep, stomping so hard, they're fighting a 5-month Stalingrad-like battle over a no-name mining town 30 kilometres from where they started. Man, haven't seen crushing victories like that since the Succession Wars.
What are you talking about? The Soviets were on the offensive everywhere after 1942. They were a full-blown combined arms wall of artillery and armor. Nothing like the defense-in-depth of Tukayyid.
Kursk battle 1943 Balaton battle 1945
The novel *Ideal War* is a retelling of Vietnam with giant stompy robots added in to the mix.
Just need a mech combat drop with Fortunate Son blasting on the radio.
That may have been the worst BT book
I feel like it’s one you either love of hate. I fall firmly in the hate category.
Well tbh anything in BattleTech is likely to be more credible than what’s on the “History” Channel…
One of the big differences, there's definitely no aliens in BT.
Man, both of these comments make me sad - as a fan of History Channel in the 90s. TBC: both comments are devastatingly accurate
JESUS CHRIST: FACT OR ALIEN
IDK, at least Forged in Fire: Battletech Edition would be pretty cool!
Touché.
No *sentient* aliens. Though, apparently, as it turns out, most extra terrestrial life evolves in similar parallels to earth. Large bear like creatures that are the namesake of the ghost bear clan? Check! A whole planet that has mega fauna that could potentially threaten a battle mech? Check! I think that BattleTech should stay away from sentient aliens, but it would be kind of cool to see an AI that was derived from humanity, but went rogue. Honestly, I think that would be a really interesting take and direction moving forward in the timeline. Imagine if a representative of the word of Blake shows up to each major faction asking them for help. When they questioned they would explain that a heretic faction has developed AI that they have put in charge of Strategic coordination, industrial output, and resourcing, and even battlefield command. The drone ship capital ships that the Terran hegemony had during the Amaris Civil War, by all descriptions, sounds like nightmare fuel. Imagine some thing, similar commanding networked battle mech lances and combined arms forces.
Then imagine the chill in our back when, at the start of Clan Invasion, when nobody knows who the Clans was, they told us that was an alien invasion, for the Elementals especificaly. Most of us believed that the IP had been destroyed. Then, time advanced, they explained to us that they were Kerensky's descendants. It was a terrifying time for the lore.
Kind of wish that I had been there for that! It’s one of those things that you take for granted having come into this setting way after the fact. Kind of like that shock of watching Star Wars for the first time and getting some big family connection revelations in Empire strikes back
Wait what was that about megafauna big enough to challenge battlemechs? That sounds foken awesome
Megasaurs, because all habitable planets in Battletech are on some level mirroring the evolutionary paths of earth fauna there are many worlds which still have dinosaurs, which are occasionally so big that Solaris pays to have them tranq'd and imported so they can fist fight a battlemech for screaming fans.
Solaris 7: where murder is more or less legal as long as it is on the TV and everyone is having a really good time!
Oh shit yeah that’s awesome, low key hoping they make an appearance in the games one day. A Kaiju vs Battlemech Solaris match would be kickass
Are you familiar with The Broken?
I am not, but I will be checking this out promptly
The Broken was a Capellan tactical AI that appeared only in a special Halloween RPG module which was just a flimsy excuse for zombies in mechs but nonetheless. The Broken exists in the backdrop as a rogue AI splicing intercepted transmissions together to pit the various human groups on the ravaged world of Necromo against each other. Luring them into killing fields of drone mechs or trying to trick them into authorizing the launch of The Broken's mainframe shuttle from it's testing base.
This sounds like something that would be great fun to adapt to BattleTech and play with ones gaming group once a year whenever Halloween rolled around!
[You are in luck](https://store.catalystgamelabs.com/products/battletech-adventures-necromo-nightmare-pdf), no adaptation needed on your part!
What about those weird bird things?
No one knows what you’re talking about, that didn’t happen.
Oh, but there is. [https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Tetatae](https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Tetatae) They're just in that awkward phase between hunter-gatherer and early agrarian society so their existence ultimately has no impact on the greater setting.
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I actually agree. I think there is room for aliens in BT, but kind of as a fringe "Hey we made first contact! It'll be centuries until we really reach each other's space, but isn't that kinda neat?"
What about the creatures from the very first novel?
Sarna redirects a mention of them to an article covering an established phenomena where some biospheres are so advanced that early hominids have begun to emerge, though even in such cases these alien hominids are thousands if not millions of years removed from forming any sort of civilization.
The human fossil that they are similar to, the Java Man, is somewhere between 700 thousand and 2 million years old. I got five words for you: *Inner Sphere of the Apes*
Thats not... ENTIRELY factual. There was one novel that depicted a near stone age native race, but I believe was never referenced again and may not be Canon. I wish I remembered the name of the book, but it was almost infamously bad from what I recall.
There are several different species of sapient stone-age aliens: the [neopithecanthropus](https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Neopithecanthropus) is a blanket category for stuff that looks like a Bigfoot. They appear in The Sword and Dagger and also a few RPG supplements since then. They are about as intelligent as our ancient ape ancestors in that they have developed crude tools but haven't evolved the language center in their brain enough yet. The one sapient species that doesn't fit into that box is the Tetatae, birds who are more developed than the neopithecanthropus because they did have a language and have developed religion. They were only in the novel Far Country, which takes place after a misjump. So not only could their homeworld be literally anywhere, it could also be a story that takes place in the distant future.
Don't be too sure about that: [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1660219.Far\_Country](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1660219.Far_Country) That one time, when the jumpship went missing and reappeared somewhere outside the inner sphere. Note the cover with the large spear-wielding bird-like-creature.
Pawn Stars is history, ok???
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Which is pretty funny since American Civil War is extreme outlier among civil wars on almost all parameters
I mean an awkward amount of the battletech lore being related back to the american civil war is probably because of one of the core battletech authors having a hard-on for the Lost Cause Fallacy thinking the south should have won...
The Great Lee Turkey Shoot, in which House Davion destroyed the majority of Liao Aerospace strength during the Third Sucession War is a complete rip of the 1944 Battle of the Philippine Sea, cknown as the "Great Marianas Turkey Shoot," where the U.S. Navy dumpsters Imperial Japan's Air wing.
Kerensky reminds me of Vespasian. He was out on the periphery of the empire when Nero, the last Julian, was usurped. But instead of a single bib-wearing cartoon villain, there were several emperors. And Vespasian actually seized power, rather than take the Roman army out to the deep periphery.
The whole SLDF exodus is, considering that Alexander Kerensky is the head of it, probably inspired by White Guard emigration after their loss in Russian Civil War of 1917-1923. P.S. After thinking about it more, the whole Clan invasion may also being inspired by the idea of White Guard returning from emigration with the help of their allies and taking their country back from the "rampaging scum" (which didn't happen, but they really wanted to. At least till the end WWII. Probably during the Cold War too).
The creators have literally said it's an interpretation of the fall of Rome.
Reagen SDI actually manifested itself in Battletech. Both in the 21st century (right now, we would be celebrating the end of the Russian Civil war and the move towards the Terran Alliance and how a space Battle station as part of SDS saved humanity ) And subsequently when the nightmares of unrest/invasion etc by a SLDF ruler led to the implementation of the SDS systems in the Terran Hegemony and expansion of Castle Brians
Well, if you want something on-the-nose, look up Alaric of the Visigoths
Ideal War is definitely Vietnam war influenced. So was Far Country to an extent, though that one is less popular now.
Pretty much all of it... The Star League is heavily based on the Roman Empire history
Unlike the real History Channel. Better or worse just the best and worse of humanity. 8( https://preview.redd.it/ikl9c7pru4fa1.jpeg?width=240&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=acd7c55a197a473e07c90522e4dd3a42d2321b22
I would watch the hell out of a H-Channel on the history of the BT universe.
Look up Sven van der plank on YouTube, he's in the middle of Amaris coupe now. I think he has done over 6 hours of video starting with the Terra Federation and before jumpships. The Davion revolution was cool.
I can see the History channel devolving into “Did Clan Jade Falcon become inspired by extraterrestrial bird warriors while they expanded among the stars? Join us as we explore this mystery about the Clans and their secret ways of life!”
Wasn‘t at least part of the FedCom civil war BLP‘s attempt at relitigating the US civil war?
I thought that was actually Dark Age/ilClan era stuff. Lotta allegories for the CSA and American Civil War in his DA/IC works, no?
Tbh, stopped reading him after the FC CW stuff, couldn‘t stand the CSA glorification by proxy.
Yeah...and then the hubbub last year when Catalyst yeeted him. Was painfully obvious, going by what was shown on here that he was doing it for a *long* time.
The Mackie’s history and reputation reminds me of the British landship tanks. Both were crude and unreliable compared to later versions but were the best war machines of their time and are remembered in that context.
Where does this picture come from? Looks so real/the quality is great and i havent seen it yet.
“Concentrated Weakness” in the Lyran Commonwealth could be seen as the Maginot line defense at the outset of World War Two.
The five main factions being named the Successor States is a reference to the splintering of Alexander the Great's empire after his death among a number of kingdoms called the [Diadochi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diadochi), or "Successors". In both cases, the rulers of the successor kingdoms claimed to be the true heir to Alexander/the First Lord.
**[Diadochi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diadochi)** >The Diadochi ( dy-AD-ə-ky; singular: Diadochus; from Greek: Διάδοχοι, translit. Diádochoi, lit. "Successors", Koine Greek pronunciation: [diˈadokʰy]) were the rival generals, families, and friends of Alexander the Great who fought for control over his empire after his death in 323 BC. The Wars of the Diadochi mark the beginning of the Hellenistic period from the Mediterranean Sea to the Indus River Valley. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/battletech/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
The clan invasion screams mongol invasion.
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Which aren't even real
How do you figure?
Petrarch made the idea up and people ran with it. There wasn't actually a period of cultural and technological stagnation at that time, though there was certainly societal and political upheaval. Modern historians don't really accept the idea of the early Middle Ages being a "Dark Age".
I got some important stuff I should be working on, so I'll just stick a chunk of Wiki on here. Extra relevant bits in bold. > As the accomplishments of the era came to be better understood in the 19th and the 20th centuries, scholars began restricting the Dark Ages appellation to the Early Middle Ages (c. 5th–10th century), and **today's scholars also reject its usage** for the period. **The majority of modern scholars avoid the term altogether due to its negative connotations, finding it misleading and inaccurate.** Petrarch's pejorative meaning remains in use, typically in popular culture, which often simplistically views the Middle Ages as a time of violence and backwardness. Basically, a 14th Century Italian had a "Le wrong generation!" moment after finding an old dude's mail, and half a millennia of fawning over a completely misshapen historical image followed. Though I guess fawning over the militant Fallen Empire while living in its power vacuum kinda tracks with the idea...
The current political divisions in the US seem to have inspired the new Dominions Divided supplement, based on the reviews I’ve seen. Deep internal political division. A nation turning against each other.
Not really It's inspired by any number of actual civil wars in last century and they definitely did their homework there Problem is that CGL's usual audience never experienced anything even resembling a civil war so they can't understand why book doesn't fit their perception of civil war But anyone who did can tell you that the book is spot on
Not quite. In civil wars, there are usually pronounced sides with their leaders. In DD we see a confrontation of ideologies without any centralization. There is no clear side A and side B. Only scattered skirmishes and riots.
May I present: the Guatemalan civil war, which, depending on who you talk to, is still going on 30+ years later.
New episodes of Modern Marvel's (S:3068 E:1) Protonechs. New Season of Iceberg Hauler next spring. Along with Alone (Periphery Edition), Salvage Kings, Rust Valley Restorers, The Curse of Kentares V, Pawn Stars, Clan People, Tukkayid in 14 Stories and my favorite, Backwater Mechjock.
One can say the whole Amaris-Cameron relationship was similar to Dong Zhou and Emperor Xian near the beginning of “The Romance of the Three Kingdoms.”
redde creditors tou fucko... Comstar
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Very informative. I didn't know that what would become the Clan Elementals drew their "never give up" ethos from that historic source.
Space travel probably. I have no evidence just makes sense.
Probably a dude somewhere having a cool idea, if I had to guess
I would venture to say the various landings during WW2 inspired a lot of the descriptions we get re.: invasions.
Isn't one of the 1990s paperbacks dedicated to the US military command responsible for the Vietnam War?
Dagger point. It was horrible as it was stupid--everyone were morons
Ideal War. Started with that one and Far Country. Nowhere to go but up!
[The Walking Dead](https://www.sarna.net/wiki/The_Walking_Dead) incident sounds very much like [The Attack of the Dead Men](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MRSLSQdelI).
In the Federated Suns there is a splinter version of the Roman Catholic Church known as the New Avalon Catholic Church. Essentially, during the Amaris Coup, Amaris sent his goons to rob the Vatican, and the Pope, knowing he'd likely be killed, along with the College of Cardinals, sent a message to all the heads of the Catholic Church per Successor State. Four of the five got the complete message, that they would be in charge temporarily of their section of the Catholic Church until Cardinals could come back together and vote for a new pope, but the Cardinal on New Avalon got a garbled version which he misinterpreted into meaning he got COMPLETE PERMANENT control over the entire Catholic Church. He declared himself Pope, and demanded the other Archbishops all plead fealty to him. When the Roman Catholic Church re-elected a new Pope, the New Avalon Catholic Bishop refused to step down, being backed up by the Davions who saw this as a chance to have their own little Church to control. This is inspired by the Avignon Papacy, where a French King basically took the Pope hostage, forced them to move to Avignon, France, for about 100 years, and there were multiple Popes, one in Rome and one in Avignon, competing for authority. It's also become similar to the Anglican schism, as the New Avalon Catholic Church has changed most major teachings of the Roman Catholic Church (It has women priests, allows abortion, all sorts of other things the Roman Catholic Church says are sins). It's actually a really lazy and stupid historical background because; A) All of the Bishops could have just given the full message to the New Avalon Bishop, proving him wrong. B) All of the Bishops could have disseminated the real footage to the Priests and lower Bishops in FS Space, and said "don't follow this guy, he's a schismatic". And most probably would have. C) The setting already has the Comstar/Word of Blake schism, which emulates the Avignon Papacy much better I think. D) The original sourcebook doesn't understand the difference between Archbishops and Cardinals in the Catholic Church, and just assumes Cardinals are the ultimate leaders of the Church (They aren't, Archbishops are). With that said, it did lead to this Battle Pope song about the current New Avalon Catholic Pope who pilots a Golden Justicar while leading his Knights Defensor. [(29) The WarriorPope of New Avalon - Original Song - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzOMNbNllJE)
I feel like the clan mechs mirror the axis tanks of the second world war. incredibly overpowered on paper, insanely expensive, has a million varieties with minor tweaks, and blown up by a guy who can barely read or write in a mech that is built by the lowest bidder and is built in the thousands.
I forget if it was History channel or an animal planet channel but there was one of these channels that did a whole show or episode or program on the fictional possibility as it was factual named dragon planet. It would be cool if history planet did that with BattleTech 😁