Venom
07/01/06 07:26 PM
63.241.182.3
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Do you think we have seen the last of them? They could be used as an excellent plot device to bring the universe out of this dark age crap.
But first a few thoughts.
-How would their technology evolve away from the Clans? They left before Omnis, Battle armor, eugenics(?) or other Clan tech. The constant warring of the Clans stimulated weapon development, without that could they develop weapons as good or better?
-Would McEveredy chose to push the remnants of the Wolverines in the same direction as the Clans? Or would they revert to a more IS like society? Granted they are starting with a fraction of the people that Kerensky had, and likely nowhere near the resources, but it has been 300 years...
-Speaking of resources, they would not have the capability to produce WarShips, and very likely DropShips as shipyards are huge and not easily mobile, and the Wolvies left in a hurry. Not to mention EndoSteel that requires an orbiting factory. For that matter, a 'mech factory can't be something you just pick up and move. Same with weapons labs and armor production. So would they have what they left with or do you think they could get something running in 300 years?
-People are neccesary to keep a war machine moving. Breeding produces people, yes but it is a time consuming process. Could the Wolverines make occasional runs to the IS and pick up Succesion war orphans? Or IS technology for that matter?
Or are they destined to be a foot note in the BT universe? I doubt it, people thought they had seen the last of Kerensky, but they came back. Or was all my typing for naught becasue FanPro already revealed them as a Periphery state or Merc command?
Just thought it would be a nice topic for discussion.
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Cray
07/01/06 08:09 PM
68.204.247.59
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Do you think we have seen the last of them? They could be used as an excellent plot device to bring the universe out of this dark age crap.
How could they alter much of anything?
Clan Wolverine broke away from the Clans before the Clan culture - let alone military technology- was well-developed. They had a tiny population, probably a few hundred thousand refugees, who managed to get away from the nascent Clan culture.
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But first a few thoughts.
-How would their technology evolve away from the Clans? They left before Omnis, Battle armor, eugenics(?) or other Clan tech. The constant warring of the Clans stimulated weapon development, without that could they develop weapons as good or better?
I doubt they'd even sustain Star League technology. They had to leave in a hurry, so they wouldn't take much industrial material with them and maybe not even much of their civilian population.
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Would McEveredy chose to push the remnants of the Wolverines in the same direction as the Clans? Or would they revert to a more IS like society? Granted they are starting with a fraction of the people that Kerensky had, and likely nowhere near the resources, but it has been 300 years...
The Wolverines broke from the Clans because the Wolverines were behaving in an Inner Sphere fashion. When they acted all Star League-y and nuked an abandoned Raven town, they were targeted for Annihilation by the new Clan society. I really doubt they'd have ANY urge to imitate the Clans.
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So would they have what they left with or do you think they could get something running in 300 years?
If they're at tech level C, I'd be impressed.
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-People are neccesary to keep a war machine moving. Breeding produces people, yes but it is a time consuming process. Could the Wolverines make occasional runs to the IS and pick up Succesion war orphans? Or IS technology for that matter?
I bet they'd have a population in the millions or tens of millions.
Wolverines picked up a little more coverage in Interstellar Players Guide.
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer
Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.
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Venom
07/01/06 08:46 PM
63.241.182.3
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Never heard of the Interstellar Players Guide. What does it have?
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Toontje
07/02/06 03:34 AM
84.24.165.226
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There is always the possibility they were a creation by thentime Comstar to stop the Kuritans from claiming the top spot on the food chain...
The handing over of that SL soldier doll to the almost nutty Coordinator, pushing him into full nuttyness, could very well have been an early ROM operation.
Rather to blow up, then.
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Cray
07/02/06 08:15 PM
70.118.43.50
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Never heard of the Interstellar Players Guide. What does it have?
It's a lot of rumored power groups akin to the "Threats" and "Threats 2" books in Shadowrun. ISP covers potential, rumored groups for gaming groups to explore, like the Illuminati (obvious bull), the Genecaste (radical Clan expatriates that abuse Clan genetic engineering technology), the Corporate Cabal, and several others. They're fun things for GMs and players to experiment with and see if they fit into their campaigns.
Among the interstellar players is a group of interstellar archeologists and explorers, some of whom hunt after the Wolverines. While they haven't found the Wolverines, they have been founded by some mysterious mech unit (the Green Ghosts, IIRC) as they (think they) get closer to their quarry. The ISP entry on the explorers did address the suspicious star system, McEvedy's Folly, but the inhabitants claim no historical records on their origins.
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer
Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.
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Karagin
07/05/06 04:19 PM
214.13.130.100
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No Cray the left AT THE BEGIN of the culture that Nicky was setting up. SO they would have some of things that the Clans would use, aka the iron wombs etc...
Who is to say they didn't have some scientist that could push their weapons tech and other engieenering and consturstion tech forward...
It's nice to see you once more shooting down this topic. Wow...at least you didn't bring up their fighting off the alien hoards etc...
Karagin
Given time and plenty of paper, a philosopher can prove anything.
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Cray
07/07/06 09:04 AM
147.160.136.10
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No Cray the left AT THE BEGIN of the culture that Nicky was setting up.
Cool, we're on the same page. I said the same thing:
"Clan Wolverine broke away from the Clans before the Clan culture...was well-developed."
In other words, at the beginning of the new Clan culture.
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SO they would have some of things that the Clans would use, aka the iron wombs etc...
Most of the breakthrough Clan technology was developed in the later 29th Century, not in the 2820s when the Wolverines fled. I'd recommend reading "Mechwarrior's Guide to the Clans" or "Warrior's of Kerensky" and focus on "The Golden Century."
Though Iron Wombs...searching...yes, Iron Wombs were available when the Wolverines fled. The first Clan kids from Iron Wombs were born in 2816, though the kids weren't mature when the Wolverines left Clan space (2823). The Wolverines could have iron wombs.
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Who is to say they didn't have some scientist that could push their weapons tech and other engieenering and consturstion tech forward...
They could have plenty of scientists. I'd be surprised if the Wolverines did not focus on evacuating key personnel like scientists.
But scientists have trouble introducing wundertech when they're too busy farming and building homes for a living on some isolated planet because most Wolverine civilians are stuck on the Clan homeworlds, being sterilized by the victors of the Trial of Annihilation. The few thousand people liberated from the Draconis Combine won't fix that labor deficit.
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It's nice to see you once more shooting down this topic.
It's interesting to see that you endorse the Wolverines' ability to reach some level of military power and technology, but that the "small" Word of Blake (which has a much larger population than all the Clan homeworlds put together) cannot achieve the same. Isn't that hypocrisy?
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Wow...at least you didn't bring up their fighting off the alien hoards etc...
That's reserved for players who have been over this topic before, and can take a joke.
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer
Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.
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Karagin
07/08/06 04:29 AM
214.13.130.100
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Cray the Wolverines had a small base for the population, but at the same time, they wanted to be left alone to do things their way. So if done right, they could have set up a cluture and weapons/tech research that meet their needs. I am not pushing nor endorsing uber tech for the Wolverines. I don't think they would have massive armies, divisons maybe but not like the crap that we have to believe the Word of Blake has since they are attacking everyone and can make it look like someone else and wait has nukes that they are willing to use repeatly. The Wolverienes used one maybe two nukes against one enemy not everyone else in the Clans. And the Blake has 1 world for sure, a single world that you believe everyone on it fully supports, and then they have 3 other worlds that "support" their cause if you call a government tied to the Blakes cause a friendly to common people. So where is the actually WoB population base? Wait another part of the age old manpower question again slams the Jihad storyline to the ground. Talk about hyocrisy...
The Wolveriens, had the same acess to the Tech base that the Clans had at the time of the Annihlation. So it is possible that they could advance something and not others. And I think you may want to read those same books again since I do recall that in the Kerensky one, there is talk between the Khan of the Wolveriens and her SaKhan about what is going and who as well as who is staying behind. So it's very likely that key personell did go out on the "first transports".
The Joke as you like to call it was and is the sign that some folks in the inner circles of TPTB don't like it when fans want something and ask for it if it differs from their (the writer or LD) ideas or thinking and it's really sad that it's used as away to end the topic here in discussion or the comment made to those who liked the Smoked Jaguars...things like this speak volumes and tranishes the repuation of the folks running the game for a long time and will as long as the one who spoutted both comments is still writing books for BT and has a part in the future growth of the game.
Bottomline, the Wolverienes have a better chance of setting up a socitey and reseach base and gain some advances then the Blake group does, mainly since they the Wolverienes have a population base that isn't going to be brutilized or forces to do things one way. Maybe you should re-read what the Wolverienes believed and WHY Nikky wanted them gone...
Karagin
Given time and plenty of paper, a philosopher can prove anything.
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Venom
07/08/06 09:15 PM
63.241.182.3
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I kind of see where WoB has a decent production base. They have the birthplace of humanity.
-First off, every continent on Earth(except Antarctica) is well developend indutrialy now, not to mention over a thousand years from now. That in and of itself makes Terra an industrial superpower that probly can't be rivaled in Clan or IS space.
-Secondly, Terra has not experienced the damage of the Succesion Wars. True, the recent fall of Terra could not have been good for the infastructure, but they have had over 300 years to repair damage from when Kerensky took Terra back. The rest of the IS never even had a hundred years between wars to repair and expand.
-Thirdly, Terra was not locked in a downward technological spiral for 300 years like the rest of the IS. Fully automated factories-a rarity in the IS-are SOP for Terra.
-Fourth, Terra is likely the most heavily populated planet in the universe. Most planets-from what I have read-have a few large cities, but the vast majority of the land is not used. Even the major planets only utallize land area equal to a large state or possibly an average country. With as much land that is developed now, fast forward 1000 years and you have a huge production capacity as well as a huge work force.
All that makes Terra a production power house. But I do see a LARGE problem.
Resources. They are finite and they have been being tapped by humanity for millenia. Earth is probly tapped out as far as fossil fuels(not sure if they have a synthetic alternative or not), metalic ore(need metal for 'mechs), rare minerals(used for weapons, propulsion, etc...), concrete, etc... All those things need to be imported from off-world. The ability to produce food for the huge amount of people is also a question mark but they would likely need to import food as well.
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Cray
07/08/06 09:41 PM
70.118.43.50
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I kind of see where WoB has a decent production base. They have the birthplace of humanity.
-First off, every continent on Earth(except Antarctica) is well developend indutrialy now, not to mention over a thousand years from now. That in and of itself makes Terra an industrial superpower that probly can't be rivaled in Clan or IS space.
-Secondly, Terra has not experienced the damage of the Succesion Wars. True, the recent fall of Terra could not have been good for the infastructure, but they have had over 300 years to repair damage from when Kerensky took Terra back. The rest of the IS never even had a hundred years between wars to repair and expand.
-Thirdly, Terra was not locked in a downward technological spiral for 300 years like the rest of the IS. Fully automated factories-a rarity in the IS-are SOP for Terra.
-Fourth, Terra is likely the most heavily populated planet in the universe. Most planets-from what I have read-have a few large cities, but the vast majority of the land is not used. Even the major planets only utallize land area equal to a large state or possibly an average country. With as much land that is developed now, fast forward 1000 years and you have a huge production capacity as well as a huge work force.
All that makes Terra a production power house.
It's not just Terra.
No individual Clan - avg. population 75 million - could've built up their 3050 military strength in isolation. But the Clans didn't grow up in isolation, they grew up amongst the Clan homeworlds. Even the most isolationist Clans traded. And that allowed them to grow to their 3050-era strength.
WoB isn't in isolation. It's building its strength among an industrial base of 4 TRillion people. If it doesn't have a battlemech knee ball bearing factory on Terra, that's cool. It can just order out. Like during the Cold War, the US built SR-71s out of Russian titanium and the Russians craved US corn and IBM computers. Acquisition was just a matter of setting up shell companies who could acquire the goods without alerting the opposition, and sometimes you could buy on the open market (e.g., the USSR's purchase of US grain). WoB has buddies in the Inner Sphere who won't mind selling goods to WoB for any purpose - the entire FWL, for example.
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Resources. They are finite and they have been being tapped by humanity for millenia. Earth is probly tapped out as far as fossil fuels(not sure if they have a synthetic alternative or not), metalic ore(need metal for 'mechs), rare minerals(used for weapons, propulsion, etc...), concrete, etc... All those things need to be imported from off-world.
Sure, like from the Asteroid Belt. One largish (10km) metallic asteroid would meet the resource needs of the entire INNER SPHERE for millennia. Titan would meet any organic resource needs.
That's ignoring the option of recycling. 1300 years of Industrial Age junk didn't just disappear into the ether, it's still on Terra. Terra's 3070 population is a bit smaller than today's. Stick a fusion reactor in a landfill, shovel stuff through a plasma arc, and you can separate out 1300 years of industrial-era elements into useful, raw formats needed by industry. Some imports from the asteroid belt would cover any needs.
I mean, have you noticed how the raw material needs of the entire WoB ground forces are smaller than, say, a single modern oil tanker or two? It's not like the WoB MILITARY is going to strain any resources.
And if WoB needs resources beyond the Solar System for some bizarre reason, it has plenty of trading partners beyond the Solar System. There are countless billions of people in the Inner Sphere who are friendly to old Comstar/WoB. Some FS planets put the image of a Comstar acolyte on their flag in 3025, as they liked Comstar more than the FS. The FWL has been corrupted from the top-down, and both the Combine and Confederation have ties to WoB due to technology exchange and military aid. Many Periphery planets are just WoB whores.
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The ability to produce food for the huge amount of people is also a question mark but they would likely need to import food as well.
Terra has a population of 6 billion, 0.5 billion less than today. Food's a non-issue. North America can still feed everyone, and there are more farms than just on North America.
Anyway, put the typical Clan Wolverine/Minnesota Tribe in that context. It's hiding out in the Deep Periphery, without the mutual support of other Clans or the industrial base of the Inner Sphere. It starts off not with millions of people and the looted wealth of the Star League (like the Clans), but rather some hastily loaded jumpships and tens of thousands of people (divide the SLDF expatriates by 20 Clans - you get a few hundred thousand per Clan, and Wolverine didn't evacuate much of its population). What's the Minnesota Tribe going to evolve into?
Niops, if it's lucky.
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer
Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.
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Karagin
07/09/06 03:57 PM
214.13.130.100
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Wow...Terra isn't the damn holy grail. But then again TPTB never really seemed in a hurry to explain anything about the WOB and it's uber army.
Terra wasn't set up to build armies, yet now it is...funny things like oh bring factories out of mothball cost money, take time and resources, yet again WoB can do in mere days it seems and have the manpower to make the mech, pilot them and support them...sorry Venom but you like Cray aren't selling this too me.
Either TPTB give us concrete believable answers that explain everything fully or they won't and folks will still pick apart the Jihad and the current storyline. Maybe some have missed it but this whole Jihad to MW story line has caused more arguements and folks to leave the game then anything else.
Nice try though on defending the offical line of reasoning, I am sure that Cray will be happy that you are taking this line of thinking.
Karagin
Given time and plenty of paper, a philosopher can prove anything.
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Karagin
07/09/06 04:01 PM
214.13.130.100
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And they can add water to nothing and get huge armies that don't cost them a dime, that they can feed and arm and man without having to pay the same cost as the rest of the Inner Sphere and the Clans...wow I guess for the WOB even Fasaphysic don't apply nor does common sense.
And they can do all this while being missed by every House and Clan intel agency...next you will be trying to sell us a bridge in New York or a tower in Paris...
Is PT Barnum working for the WoB or is Houdini?
Karagin
Given time and plenty of paper, a philosopher can prove anything.
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Toontje
07/09/06 07:16 PM
84.24.165.226
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Well.. they have at least 1 planet hidden (Gabriel), likely more going from HS:3070, the thermo nuked planet core. (Well.. the lava covered planet, anyway. Could be Gabriel anyway, after all it is the angel of fire.)
Asuming 1:100 planets was lost in the SW's, that is about 50 planets out there in the middle of the IS, with only antique records that they were ever settled, with potentially each a couple million pop from natural growth.
Not that much manpower, but it is extra room to store/train divisions.
Now manpower is not truely an issue for fanatics.. Enough disgrunted people everywhere ready to Join The Cause, even in peacetime, even when the populace at large is happy.
Rather to blow up, then.
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Venom
07/09/06 07:25 PM
64.12.116.134
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Terra was set up to produce armies. The fluff in 3058 makes it quite clear that ComStar brought a number of facilities out of mothballs. Then the WoB took Terra. They have lots of support in the Periphery, as well as followers all over the IS. Those followers make it to Terra, or a as yet unknown base of operations and get the training they need. I am not arguing that there are holes, but should the LDs decide for the defeat of the WoB, the first order will be to determine where all the men and machines are coming from.
On an aside, I need to know which book to buy to get the most of the jihad fluff. I am going on the little that I pick up on the internet, which makes me a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest when trying to argue points.
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Cray
07/09/06 07:45 PM
68.200.109.191
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Terra was set up to produce armies. The fluff in 3058 makes it quite clear that ComStar brought a number of facilities out of mothballs. Then the WoB took Terra. They have lots of support in the Periphery, as well as followers all over the IS. Those followers make it to Terra, or a as yet unknown base of operations and get the training they need.
Don't forget 6 billion people on Terra who have been brainwashed by Old Comstar (i.e., the source of WoB) for 2.5 centuries. That's more than enough people to fill out WoB's ranks.
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I am not arguing that there are holes, but should the LDs decide for the defeat of the WoB, the first order will be to determine where all the men and machines are coming from.
The Houses apparently have a fairly good idea of what WoB was up to with its "Sekret Armies." Unlike previous wars, though, there's a lot more confusion. It took the US months to get up to speed against Japan in WW2; imagine the US trying to mobilize against Japan with the confusion of Canada invading New England and Texas invading Mexico. That's kind of the situation that just the FS is in during the opening rounds of the Jihad.
Still some holes to be plugged in the plot, though, but there's time for that.
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On an aside, I need to know which book to buy to get the most of the jihad fluff. I am going on the little that I pick up on the internet, which makes me a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest when trying to argue points.
The opening stuff is covered in "Dawn of the Jihad." An equal concentration is found in "Hotspots: 3070." You'd need both books to be fully up to speed.
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer
Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.
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Venom
07/09/06 07:57 PM
64.12.116.134
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Crap. I just spent almost a hundred bucks on TRO revisions, mappacks and the like. Oh, well might as well push it over a hundred. BT is still a cheaper hobby than shooting IPSC any day. 
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Karagin
07/11/06 01:03 PM
214.13.130.100
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And Terra can make armies form thin air...wow...so they have a couple of factories, great...but where are they getting the troops, the ammo, the maintiance parts etc...all of that is the part they seem to have forgotten about, yet when the subject get's brought up we hear all kinds of reasons why it can but none of them explain away the issues they skirt around them.
Terra helps sure, the FWL links help sure, the idea that they have other outstide support help but they don't expalin things completly and believiably, thus the issues.
Karagin
Given time and plenty of paper, a philosopher can prove anything.
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Karagin
07/11/06 01:07 PM
214.13.130.100
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Right 6 billion people who rush to sign up for the WoB...right and all the food to feed them daily as well as the other things folks need.
Right okay do you have any thing that actually explains all of this on a scale that is believable? Or are we stuck hearing the same answers over and over that don't answer anything?
Karagin
Given time and plenty of paper, a philosopher can prove anything.
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Karagin
07/11/06 01:16 PM
214.13.130.100
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Right the hidden/lost SL bases again and again and again...then 50 planets cut off from everything as Cray likes to say would have pop ulation problems, so again where are the soliders coming from???
More to the point, if they want hidden armies, then they need to do things better story wise.
With the Minnesota Tribe, they have the chance to do something, they have the time and they have the need. The WoB has roughly 20 to 30 years to do something and they are able to do it so wonderfully and so prefectly and so great etc...yet nothing is explain it's just expect to be believed and accpected.
Karagin
Given time and plenty of paper, a philosopher can prove anything.
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Toontje
07/11/06 07:18 PM
84.24.165.226
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Right the hidden/lost SL bases again and again and again...then 50 planets cut off from everything as Cray likes to say would have pop ulation problems, so again where are the soliders coming from???
More to the point, if they want hidden armies, then they need to do things better story wise.
With the Minnesota Tribe, they have the chance to do something, they have the time and they have the need. The WoB has roughly 20 to 30 years to do something and they are able to do it so wonderfully and so prefectly and so great etc...yet nothing is explain it's just expect to be believed and accpected.
Hmm, a 'hidden' planet in the IS is not ompletely cut off for a long time. I expect that after the 1st succession war, maybe 2nd, comstar exploration vessels were visiting these. At latest at the foundation of Explorer corps. What would that be, 100, 150 years of isolation? Not even a lot of people need to know of transportations, either, just think of the goods being shipped IS-wide, not too hard to hide excistance of 'funny' transoprts, especially for comstar.
I do not say these have manpower/production facilities/SL bases, but have a small population, maybe a mill or 2, that can support a division with R&R, food and such.
Also, an exodus like the unnamed were forced to do, brings problems like lack of farmers as noted. An already existing colony, even very marginal, has a better manpower and survival knowledge base.
Rather to blow up, then.
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Cray
07/12/06 08:37 AM
147.160.136.10
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Hmm, a 'hidden' planet in the IS is not ompletely cut off for a long time. I expect that after the 1st succession war, maybe 2nd, comstar exploration vessels were visiting these.
That's probably the case. And since the Comstar personnel who were familiar with the hidden worlds went with WoB, WoB (i.e., Old Comstar) effectively had a couple of centuries to do...whatever...with these hidden worlds.
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At latest at the foundation of Explorer corps. What would that be, 100, 150 years of isolation? Not even a lot of people need to know of transportations, either, just think of the goods being shipped IS-wide, not too hard to hide excistance of 'funny' transoprts, especially for comstar.
There's several ways for Old Comstar to hide transport to and from hidden worlds.
Notably, space is big. Habitable planets are rare, and the range of sensors (10AU) guarding those habitable planets is negligible on the scale of space (63,240AU per light-year, with several light-years between most stars). There are plenty of routes to any planet that can avoid other habitable worlds.
For example, jumpships can pop into deep interstellar space - the standard jump points just mark the CLOSEST that a jumpship can normally approach a star, pirate points excepted. The jumpship would need to bring extra fuel to recharge, but one Mule's worth of fuel is 20 recharges for a Monolith. It would be highly unusual, since SW-era jumpship captains hate leaving habitable systems, but technically feasible. No one's going to spot you when you're 10,000 times beyond system defense sensor range.
Alternately, there are about 1-1.5 million stars in the Inner Sphere, or about 750 uninhabitable systems per habitable system. Transit through those gives Comstar the back-up of solar sail charging, and also gives Comstar almost perfect stealth. Few captains, Succession War-era or Star League-era, left habitable systems. Comstar also has a track record of using uninhabitable systems. One of its fleets operates from Ross 248 near Sol.
Not that WoB needs those hidden worlds. Terra alone should have several times the industrial capacity of the pre-invasion Homeworld Clans, just on a comparison of the populations (6 vs 1.15 billion) and tech levels (Star League-era industrial tech in both cases - the Clans didn't innovate outside of the military).
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Also, an exodus like the unnamed were forced to do, brings problems like lack of farmers as noted. An already existing colony, even very marginal, has a better manpower and survival knowledge base.
Indeed. And a planet "bombed off the map" like Jardine opens some interesting looting potential. Nukes probably didn't get everything, and if bioweapons helped eliminate the population, you've probably got even more industrial base waiting for re-use. The scrambling survivors of Clan Wolverine wouldn't have that much with them, and a few thousand political refugees aren't going to make up their shortage of manpower.
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer
Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.
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Karagin
07/12/06 01:55 PM
214.13.130.100
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SO they start from nothing and grow...it makes more sense then having all the best from the get go and gaining things so fast that the basics are left out...The Wolverines have time and space to do what ever they end up doing. Even if all they have are 3 to 5 planets colonized that means they followed even the basics for BT colonization set forth in the original house books etc...now if they are getting the best toys and the most advanced tech without a need, then no. There has to be a balance and that is one of the things missing with the WoB and it's uberism etc...
IF all the Wolverines have are 1 SOLAR SYSTEM under it's control and several small colonies on moons and other planets then that too would be believable, given the amount of time that has passed since they were last heard from, more so then anything currently put out about the WoB and it's rise from factional group to super power...
Karagin
Given time and plenty of paper, a philosopher can prove anything.
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Karagin
07/12/06 01:58 PM
214.13.130.100
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Great...and over the years I have spent $1000s on the hobby...from books, to minatures to comics, to one off shot things to t-shirts to stickers to blueprints back to books to videogames to buying stuff of folks who wanted to sell their collections...but really non of this matters since the folks who tell FASA/WK/FP/TOPPS what folks are buying don't take into account the older fans and what they spend their money on.
Karagin
Given time and plenty of paper, a philosopher can prove anything.
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Toontje
07/12/06 04:09 PM
84.24.165.226
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Aye, tech base would suffer. I am not saying isolated, or comstar-only worlds would thrive techologically. Wolverines could also start out with enough population, but they need yet another exodus from clan space, which was not yet fully recovered from the warring, so supplies would be hard. Tech base would suffer, as you need a lot of people to maintain a tech base.
All in all, without ISP handy to check with cannon, at best wolverines/minesota would inhabbit a system or 2, with periphery tech base.
I disagree on biowarred worlds ever to be inhabitable btw. Spores of the biowarfare agent are bound to remain. A couple in the face of some people exploring a cellar, and the world is emptied again.
Rather to blow up, then.
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Cray
07/12/06 05:18 PM
147.160.136.10
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Quote:
Aye, tech base would suffer. I am not saying isolated, or comstar-only worlds would thrive techologically. Wolverines could also start out with enough population, but they need yet another exodus from clan space, which was not yet fully recovered from the warring, so supplies would be hard. Tech base would suffer, as you need a lot of people to maintain a tech base.
Wolverines, yes. IMO, backslides are unavoidable unless they found some way to get their population into the hundreds of millions, if not billions.
Comstar-only worlds...well, that depends on how much support Comstar shipped to them.
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I disagree on biowarred worlds ever to be inhabitable btw. Spores of the biowarfare agent are bound to remain. A couple in the face of some people exploring a cellar, and the world is emptied again.
I disagree for several reasons.
First, sometimes weapons aren't designed to linger. Maybe they were designed to clear a planet's resistance for future occupants, or maybe they were meant as a control method - "Obey your conquerers or you don't get the vaccine."
Second, live weapons that can linger may mutate into harmlessness.
Third, the bioweapon may be known and have a vaccine. The Inner Sphere has had centuries to deal with multiple bioweapons. I'd expect cures for at least some of the threats. Surely not every world hit by bioweapons succumbed.
You could have uber super germs, but I suspect many can be dealt with.
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer
Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.
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Toontje
07/12/06 05:38 PM
84.24.165.226
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Hehehe. Supervirus, and Son of Super Germ. 
There are several scenario's. And these are highly dependant of the goals of the attackers as you stated.
Still would be queasy when leaving the sealed environment.
Rather to blow up, then.
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Greyslayer
07/12/06 06:42 PM
216.14.198.49
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Tech base would suffer, as you need a lot of people to maintain a tech base.
That is a huge assumption. You would need a fairly large population to improve technology admittedly, with the need to research and the allocation of personnell away from more immediate concerned of well getting enough food to eat etc. What would be their greatest threat would be that of replacing lost parts through an industrial base, which could have been done when the 'tribe' pillaged through Kurita. Not the lost parts but the gathering of materials for a increase in industrial capacity to maintain technology levels. If they find an agriculturally stable planet than in one or two generations (even without iron wombs) the population could be of a suitable size to being not only rebuilding a technology base but expanding on it through research.
If a diverse group such as the exodus fleet was desparate enough to follow the lead of a man like Nicholas to reform themselves so radically then imagine the potential of a smaller more initially manageable group who are even more desparate following the lead of another?
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All in all, without ISP handy to check with cannon, at best wolverines/minesota would inhabbit a system or 2, with periphery tech base.
I would say without a serious civil war (which only come about if say food was scarce or resources low) even settling only one viable planet they could maintain a technology of level 2 after a couple of hundred years easily and be making their own breakthroughs (not to the level of the clans with their level of competition, there is something to be said of competition bringing the best out of things ... can be true but it can also bring sabotage as well).
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I disagree on biowarred worlds ever to be inhabitable btw. Spores of the biowarfare agent are bound to remain. A couple in the face of some people exploring a cellar, and the world is emptied again.
Cells can be 'time defined' easily enough so that after so many copies are made, them and the copies, die. Much like the overall timeline of the human body itself... it degrades with each cellular split.
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Toontje
07/12/06 07:27 PM
84.24.165.226
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Quote:
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Tech base would suffer, as you need a lot of people to maintain a tech base.
That is a huge assumption. You would need a fairly large population to improve technology admittedly, with the need to research and the allocation of personnell away from more immediate concerned of well getting enough food to eat etc. What would be their greatest threat would be that of replacing lost parts through an industrial base, which could have been done when the 'tribe' pillaged through Kurita. Not the lost parts but the gathering of materials for a increase in industrial capacity to maintain technology levels. If they find an agriculturally stable planet than in one or two generations (even without iron wombs) the population could be of a suitable size to being not only rebuilding a technology base but expanding on it through research.
If a diverse group such as the exodus fleet was desparate enough to follow the lead of a man like Nicholas to reform themselves so radically then imagine the potential of a smaller more initially manageable group who are even more desparate following the lead of another?
You can store knowledge on data. To be able to replicate this knowledge as technology, you will need tutoring. To be able to get ahead in a field, you need a lot of dedicated scientists before something usefull comes out. Synergy and such.
Also, for things like precision products, you need advanced factories, and an industrial base to supply the advanced factories with base stuff. Some processes are only efficient on large scales. How many people are we talking about here, start of the clans, for a single clan? 1000? 10.000?
These are just too few to maintain production of high tech stuff, as demand is too low to set up facilities in the supply product. (what you need germanium for, when main demand (jumpships and semiconductors) is in the kilo range instead of tonnes?) You can do it in generic labaratorea, but production will be very, very slow.
Now basic stuff is a completely different story. Iron can be made into tools, without extensive purification. 19th, early 20th century tech you could conceivably maintain with a populatioln of 100.000. But any higher is unlikely in my opinion. In a balanced society. Unbalanced, toward science, a good example there is the Niops Association. No real progress to export, after hundreds of years, due to lack of people giving one another fresch ideas.
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I disagree on biowarred worlds ever to be inhabitable btw. Spores of the biowarfare agent are bound to remain. A couple in the face of some people exploring a cellar, and the world is emptied again.
Cells can be 'time defined' easily enough so that after so many copies are made, them and the copies, die. Much like the overall timeline of the human body itself... it degrades with each cellular split.
Cell auto death is subject to mutation as any other part of the DNA/RNA. If I am not mistaken, only multi-cellular organisms posses the specific gene for programmed cell death. (Not a microbiologist, so I can be wrong on this)
From gazillions of viri/bacterea, there will be mutations anyway. Usually to less harmfull, as in dropping population numbers only slower strains will be able to infect new victims.
Rather to blow up, then.
Edited by Toontje (07/12/06 07:30 PM)
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Venom
07/12/06 07:33 PM
63.241.182.3
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There has been alot of talk of how long it would take to set up a tech base and civilization. Perhaps a perspective from the canon. THe book Far Country talks about a civilization that became lost when they mis-jumped, around the time that 'mechs first appeared. By 3025 they had set up a reasonable civilization, even tanks. But they were almost exclusively warriors and support personel, and they lacked the ability to trade or even leave the system, as well as the lack of heavy metals. By the time the second group of people arrived, it was about 600 years later(I could be wrong). The Wolverines had space travel, technicians and if a world did not have what they needed, they could get it elsewhere.
Another possibility is that they stumbled upon a former Star Leauge outpost. That does not seem far-fetched to me, as the Tanite worlds near the Pentagon worlds are much further-flung. That would give them a population base to start with, as well as the trappings of civilization.
Thoughts?
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Cray
07/12/06 07:36 PM
68.200.109.191
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If they find an agriculturally stable planet than in one or two generations (even without iron wombs) the population could be of a suitable size to being not only rebuilding a technology base but expanding on it through research.
I disagree. Niops reached a population in the 10s of millions and it hasn't been able to progress. The Wolverines could only have 10s of thousands during their exodus, plus some liberated prisoners. With an extremely generous 4% growth rate, two generations (~50 years) would only take them into the low hundreds of thousands at best.
The low hundreds of thousands isn't near to Niops (or the aggregate Clan homeworld population 2 generations after the Wolverines left, when the Clan tech breakthroughs really started.)
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If a diverse group such as the exodus fleet was desparate enough to follow the lead of a man like Nicholas to reform themselves so radically then imagine the potential of a smaller more initially manageable group who are even more desparate following the lead of another?
Lots of potential to fail, small potential to excel greatly. It's not hard to find people willing to flee a dictatorial leader. Mad St. Nick used Maoist techniques to subjugate the Pentagon worlds, like public-interaction torture of former leaders to bind the "liberated" peoples in a web of collective guilt. For the people of the enlightened Star League, that'd be worth fleeing even if your new leader is a guy who wears captain's hats made of newspaper, carries a rubber ducky at all times, and can't lead sailors to a whorehouse.
I mean, honestly, I'd take the first jumpship out of the homeworlds when Nicholas Kerensky started up with the torture stuff of a defeated populous. So long as the captain was smart enough to not screw up the KF drive, I'd follow him.
And quasi-evidence that Khan McEvedy wasn't a great leader: the planet McEvedy's Folly, mentioned in ISP as a suspected stopping point for some of the Minnesota Tribe. It's a backward farming planet, not a Periphery power house.
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I would say without a serious civil war (which only come about if say food was scarce or resources low) even settling only one viable planet they could maintain a technology of level 2 after a couple of hundred years easily and be making their own breakthroughs (not to the level of the clans with their level of competition, there is something to be said of competition bringing the best out of things ... can be true but it can also bring sabotage as well).
I think that's overly generous.
Sometimes you needs hundreds of millions, even billions of people to sustain a given level of technology. Many military-critical US electronic components are not built in the US; there's simply no domestic market to sustain them. Instead, the factories are supported by many different nations. In other cases, like in some sonar and hydrodynamics research facilities, the US military simply subsidizes the facility even though the research contracts and equipment produced by the facility are of smaller value than the cost of operating the facility.
Further, the finest US nuclear labs (national population: 300 million) are now looking at "supercritical water nuclear reactors," with hopes of substantially improving the cost of reactors and their safety features. We can design and engineer these reactors, develop every individual component, but...the US, with 100 million tons of annual steel production, can't build steel pressure vessels large and strong enough for the reactor. We'd have to go to Japan, the only nation on a planet of 6.5 billion people that has the ability to build the necessary pressure vessels.
The higher tech you go, the bigger the pyramid of industry is that supports the technology. 18th Century technology could be sustained by a large town, from gunpowder making to iron mining and blacksmithing and barrelmaking and all the rest. 19th Century technology took cities to handle all the specialized skills - boilermaking, gear manufacturing, telegraph wire production, pottery, mining, etc. By the late 20th Century, the mountain of industry required to get from a score of different mines (gallium, arsenic, silicon, etc.) to a microchip was daunting, and horribly expensive. Something like a "simple" fiberglass factory can be a Billion-dollar investment that not every nation will pay for.
The developmental potential of isolated groups has been discussed ad nauseum on soc.history.what-if, as a result of Stirling's "Isle in the Sea of Time" series.
Example discussion about Australia in 1950
It's not authoritative, but it hits on the relevant issues and illustrates the shortcomings of an advanced, First World population of 30 million. Verifiably: no jet fighter factories, next to no microchip production, inability to build parts for its military, etc.
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer
Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.
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