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His_Most_Royal_Highass_Donkey
09/19/15 11:04 PM
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Quote:
ghostrider writes:

Actually, in the one novel, they talk about the higher tech equipment they brought to the innersphere and they left it in an uninhabited system.



That would be Battletech #4 Wolf Pack Chapter 14 starting on page 127. I just happen to be reading that book and just read that chapter today at work.
Why argue if the glass is half full or half empty, when you know someone is going to knock it over and spill it anyways.

I was a Major *pain* before
But I got a promotion.
I am now a General *pain*
Yay for promotions!!!
ghostrider
09/20/15 03:04 AM
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The way they make it sound, ALL weapons were exactly the same damage in their class.
But the fluff of some units had the caliper size of the shell different. The 185 jetchem ac 20 on the original demolisher was different then the ac on other units, (I know is a different size, just don't remember the unit) for an ac 20.

There was some fluff about gauss rifles in the gunslinger saying the shared design used generic parts so both fedcom and combine would use the same specs as they used a common set of gauss rifles.
So yeah. Equipment would not fit different mechs from different manufacturers. If they did the concept of the omni pods would not have been so difficult to come up with.
Hell the fluff for them mercury even suggested they were all differing, since it states the medium lasers used in it was pair to run the same mounting brackets. Implying that was not the case in other units.
happyguy49
09/20/15 07:53 AM
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RE: Comstar

Considering the revelation of Comstar's shenanigans during and after the Clan invasion, and ESPECIALLY the horrors of the Blakist's jihad, I see no way in hell that any great or even minor power would allow them to continue their monopoly. To me it is one of the bigger plot holes in the Dark Age timeline. Grey Monday is something that shouldn't have happened in the first place! Because at that point Comstar would be a memory.. with the Houses, periphery powers, big corporations, even larger mercenary units owning and operating their OWN private HPGs.

Also, read up on the Black Boxes... the speed at which they communicate would actually be perfectly fine for most applications. It isn't useful for fast person-to-person communication.. but general alerts about an attack, prices of goods/commodities, data on shipping, planetary news, interstellar news, all that basic stuff, would be fine to send via black box. Kind of like an interstellar "news ticker". Why arent Black Boxes ubiquitous? Every inhabited world and ship should have several; aren't they the size of a fax machine or briefcase? Unless they are somehow stupendously expensive?

http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Black_Box
ghostrider
09/20/15 01:01 PM
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I would agree after their operation Scorpion went into effect, the houses would have moved against them. It was the Prime Martial that was able to prevent that from happening. There are other factors that did play a part, such as back water worlds did think comstar was the savoir of the innersphere. Sounds stupid, but they did have complete control over what information they got.

And I agree. By that time, the black boxes would have been on more fedcom worlds then what it was. When Luthien was attacked, the combine admitted they had the black box technology as well, since they had sent a text stating the clans had shown up in system. Granted novels, but it seems the canon updates supported that fact.
And even being expensive as hell, having a command express of them to the capitals of the marches as well as important worlds would override the expense to keep them safe,. Kathil and Galax come to mind.
Akirapryde2006
09/21/15 06:36 PM
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I had this really nice long rant about Plot Holes regarding WOB and Comstar during the Jihad Era. However somehow my subject line got removed and the entire post disappeared as I tried to respond with my post.

So here are my (limited) thoughts on the matter.

Since the creation of the Word of Blake, the authors had expected the readers to take large leaps of faith in this story arc. The authors had not only violated their own canon regarding to the SDS of Terra and the massive increase of forces that WOB built up in such a short period of time. But they also disregarded standard battle concepts in regards to WMD's within the universe as well as the Geo-Political between factions.

As for the Black Boxes and Comstar/WOB's HPG Network, this is another massive hole in the entire Dark Ages plot let alone the Jihad Era. With their respective White Out and Black Out plot drivers, how did the powers somehow loss the ability to communicate with these devices in play. Again, its like the authors expect the readers to take another leap of faith. Being a former military vet who's career was in communication, I know that one of the best ways to restore communication was simply Shut the system down. Change the channel and reboot the system. By the time both of these events occurred, there were enough scientists around to protect military communications.

I just wish someone would right a Errata stating that the Authors would like to apologize for the crap that has become the Jihad Era and the Dark Ages. Then rewrite this section of Inner Sphere History. *sighs* But I am sure this wont happen.
Karagin
09/21/15 08:15 PM
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Well we can dream for something like that to happen.
Karagin

Given time and plenty of paper, a philosopher can prove anything.
Akirapryde2006
09/21/15 08:30 PM
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@Karagin: I am surprised that others feel the same way as I do about these two periods of time within the game.
ghostrider
09/21/15 08:50 PM
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Plot holes? What plot holes?

You mean those people that worked on hpgs for their entire lives had no idea how to fix them with simple software failures?
That they didn't have some sort of back up for all the hpgs? or at least the major ones?

That some how, wob was able to disable all hpgs in the innersphere and I would assume the clan worlds as well, since they didn't seem to wipe out the infidels living in it while they couldn't communicate, yet their warships had hpgs?

And as you said, some how managed to grow an army of units without ever training them and never set off any ones interest or spys?
And the stupid thing is, it was authorized by the developers, otherwise the game would not have followed/lead to the story line. I guess too many issues pop up when everyone isn't in the dark ages fighting. Things like being able to coordinate hundreds of mech regiments as well as thousands of armored ones, and not being able to stop invaders?

This isn't the game you are thinking of.. Move along.
*waves hand*
Akirapryde2006
09/21/15 10:06 PM
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@ ghostrider: LOL So so true....

But my favorite is the Battle Mars (Dragoons vs WOB)

I love how Victor, the leader of the ComGuards forgot to mention the very unimportant fact that Terra was protected by a SDS. I mean being the leader of the ComGuards would have known that the ComGuards were in charge of these systems while they controlled Terra (which was mentioned in the Comstar Source Book). But I can see how such a minor fact like that could have been over looked by Victor.

However if we acknowledged these mysterious sites than the entire invasion of Terra by WOB would be drawn in to question.
ghostrider
09/22/15 10:46 AM
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I guess I missed the part where comstar or someone else invaded earth to take it back from wob after operation scorpion. Or did they forget that fact and have then invade again?

Like I said, my knowledge of most of the story line isn't really there after the time before the treaty of tukiyudd expired.

If I recall, wob used the cover of the 21st century lancers as the way to get to the planet to 'surprise' the defenses there, while Fosct (?) focused on the clans. I know the houses formed the starleague, but really didn't read how they got earth back. So that tells you the last part of the history I do know.

And with that, I don't know how the FWL handled being with WOB or the IS in that one.
I assume the IS/comstar won earth back, so how was wob able to survive afterwards to become the boogie man in the jihad?'

If house Davion was soo good at keeping the factions in the FWL at odds, they damn sure should have been able to see wob forces hiding there. But I guess you could say communications would be the issue to that. Still sounds like a stretch. Then again, this is coming from the same people that tell you the house could not find ppc manufacturing plants in their territory or secret factories for mechs as well.
Akirapryde2006
09/22/15 12:19 PM
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Ghostrider, don't feel lost. Trust me, I know the feeling. I took a extended break due to family issues from gaming. When I came back, Dark Ages was in full swing and I was like what the hack is going on!

Here let me enlighten you. During the Jihad Terra system was attacked not once but three times.)

The Battle of Mars (between Wolf's Dragoons and WOB) in 3067
http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Battle_of_Mars

Then a year later Comstar under Victor Davion launched Case White:
http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Case_White_%28event%29

However what I can't believe is how uniformed Comstar was that allowed them to loss nearly ninety percent of their entire fleet ( http://www.sarna.net/wiki/ComStar_WarShip_Fleet )

But the authors again wants us to believe that the very people who build and manned these SDS systems prior to the fall of Terra ten years before knew nothing of the scope of the defenses. Or that maybe WOB was so rapid in expanding them that they out paced even the Clans in building up this system.

But don't worry, the authors of this roller coaster gives us hope. There is the third and final invasion of Terra led by Devlin Stone.

http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Operation_SCOUR#Liberation_of_Terra

I know I am sounding a bit grumpy about all this. I don't mean to discredit the actually work that these Authors had put in to the material. Some of it is really remarkable reading. But it is the passage of logic that they take to reach these ends. They knew what they wanted in the end, a massive war for Terra and the final end of WOB as a Inner Sphere power. But the way they went to get there, in my opinion, was just wrong.

Because of this, we are stuck with a canon universe that defies not only military logic and reasoning but forces the die hard fans like myself to really make some serious leaps of faith because this is what they created.

Akira
ghostrider
09/22/15 03:27 PM
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Just read those wiki links. Very interesting that not a single person in the innersphere besides the Blakists knew those systems were working.
Also, when the clans invaded, comstar didn't even think of setting them up in Terra incase the clans made it that far.

And the fact the clans had no clue how to defeat the systems, despite the fact they had that information when they left the innersphere.

But then that destroys the ultimate weapons the 'good' guys have to fight in order to win. And the fact the planets took only a week or two to capture?
As well as the indiscriminate use of WMD the Blakists used. Along with their ability to build things that it seemed the rest of the innersphere could not build in centuries were done in a decade or so?

That is just garbage. It would be like someone plopping down a fully built base in the middle of new york, that no one knew about in a month, then taking over the eastern seaboard, and fortifying it with a death star by the end of next year. Continuity doesn't seem to exist in these story lines.

And this doesn't even extend to the double agents in ROM that comstar had in the WOB ranks. Really.


Edited by ghostrider (09/22/15 03:29 PM)
Karagin
09/22/15 08:30 PM
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We can beat the dead horse of the WoB and their supernatural ability to pull off everything from taking Terra to building a super munchkin army without anyone know or caring till we have exhusted ourselves and you will find as I did that the powers that be aka the main staff at Battletech really don't care that many of us don't like the storyline or the out come, they only care about sales, and you guys will also find the rabid supports of the Jihad storyline who will attack and bash and insult etc...a person till they push them away from the game or away from the main BT sites.

No matter what is said as to how impossible the actions of the WoB are, the supports of the Jihad storyline will always answer with the following, they Terra and the Sol System, thus that allowed them to use all that is there to build their army, they had Gibson and the FWL and it's money gained from running the HPGs, (noting nothing is said of the HPG stations that didn't automatically side with the WoB in the FWL), then comes my favorite they were skimming money and tech from the weapons and tech companies, someone would have noticed this a lot faster then most other things and noticed the trail etc..., then if that hasn't convinced you to just give up, then comes the hidden worlds and how those allowed them to do things.

Really it comes down to this, TPTB wanted to clean house, the game was bloated, folks were losing interest, and they had to merge things with the Click Tech game, so off we go on the adventure from hell, no more Uber merc units, no more Uber Clans, no more Uber Houses, boom back to smaller more control able elements.
Karagin

Given time and plenty of paper, a philosopher can prove anything.
Karagin
09/22/15 08:32 PM
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As for the Dragoons attacking Mars, yeah that made as much sense as anything else in the whole Jihad deal, the Dragoons had the intel and knew they would not stand a chance, but I guess hero's death ride makes more sense.

CASE WHITE...aka the Invasion of Poland only done up with a Battletech feel and theme and the reversal of who is the powerhouse.
Karagin

Given time and plenty of paper, a philosopher can prove anything.
CrayModerator
09/22/15 08:56 PM
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Quote:
Akirapryde2006 writes:

The authors had not only violated their own canon regarding to the SDS of Terra



If you're referring to the SDS in the Jihad, not really. The SLDF gutted Terra's SDS centers at the end of the Star League Civil War. Centuries later, Terra didn't have much to work with to deal with WoB's invasion or ComStar's Case White. The SDS of the 31st Century was a shadow of its 28th Century self and wasn't much of a factor.

Quote:
and the massive increase of forces that WOB built up in such a short period of time.



There was no massive increase, and you need to be careful of internet rumors that say there was. WoB built forces at a slower rate than any House, let alone ComStar's post-Tukayyid recovery. The numbers and rates of WoB's military expansion are spelled out in Jihad Secrets, p. 11-14, and they aren't exceptional.

Akira, you need to be careful about your information sources. The published version of the Jihad is often at odds with what internet forums describe about the Jihad. A classic example are WoB forces. If you believe teh interwebs, WoB suddenly unleashed 200 regiments with no warning on the Inner Sphere in its quest to eat all human babies.

If you read the books, you'll find that WoB didn't suddenly attack everyone but rather took years (to c3071) to really get its Jihad started, and that the WoB militia wasn't terribly large - it was effective because the Inner Sphere and Clans were busy killing each other and ignored a minor faction in the middle of that conflict.

Quote:
But they also disregarded standard battle concepts in regards to WMD's within the universe



Nope, we paid a lot of attention to the use of WMDs in BT, both historical and in the Jihad. Firstly, we made sure that WMD in the Jihad was far lighter than in the First and Second Succession Wars. The Houses and WoB used WMDs here and there, but there was nothing like the repeated pole-to-pole nuclear exterminations of the early Succession Wars. One of the deadliest bioweapons, the Plague of Galedon, was actually an accidental release from a House stockpile that had nothing to do with WoB.

Second, those early Succession Wars did result in a 150-year cessation of WMD usage, but that was six generations without seeing firsthand damage from nukes. The historical trend is that humans are likely to go about one or two generations without major wars or use of terrible weapons between old foes before they forget how bad war was and try again. Six generations was an exceptional gap. The dam was bound to burst at some point.

For example, I'm sure you remember that after the bombardment of Turtle Bay by the Clans, Hanse Davion was came within a hair of unleashing nuclear weapons against the Clans - in 3051. The Ghost Bears came within a hair of killing billions of Rasalhague citizens by orbital bombardment in c3052 when they couldn't control revolts on occupied FRR worlds. The WMD genie finally got loose again in the mid-3060s, at the hands of Davion loyalists in the FC Civil War. See: Atomic Annie. WoB was late to the WMD game, and only started using WMDs when Wolf Dragoons struck at the Terran system.

WoB had well-enumerated reasons for its WMD usage. Besides the pre-Jihad bombardment of Outreach, WoB was planning to take on the Clans c3067, and the Clans had larger and more technologically capable military forces. (In fact, any two Clans outnumbered WoB - again, see Jihad Secrets.) The Clans also had many more WarShips, which could arguably act as WMDs, and many of WoB's ComStar veterans had been traumatized fighting the Clans on Tukayyid. So, WoB planned to use WMDs against the Clans. It was a logical outgrowth of trends in the universe, but most of the Jihad was fought conventionally.

There was over fifteen real world years of writing to set up WoB's WMD use, starting with the Clan Invasion and its orbital bombardment (pub. 1990), going to the ComStar schism (again, c1990), and then the FedCom Civil War. Novels and sourcebooks together set up increasing WMD usage and new generations of combatants who'd forgotten the lessons of the early Succession Wars. I'm sorry if you missed all that work, but it wasn't a case of writers ignoring BT's ground rules that applied in just the Third Succession War.

Quote:
as well as the Geo-Political between factions.



The original conflicts in the Jihad strictly followed old factional conflicts. The Jihad kicked off at the collapse of the New Star League in 3067 when WoB orbitally bombarded two cities on Tharkad and New Avalon and then went off and mostly sulked for several years. WoB was not effectively involved in the Jihad until almost 3070. What happened next was:

1) The FedSuns' Capellan March blamed the Capellan Confederation for colluding with WoB to attack Tharkad, because the Confederation had been receiving aid from WoB and the Capellan March had centuries of hate for the Confederation. It didn't take much to set off the March's invasion of the Confederation. The Confederation, which had actually just blown off WoB, responded angrily, but entirely per its usual "geo-politic."

2) The FedSun's Draconis March declared that the Draconis Combine was holding Davion prisoners of war and went to rescue them by invading the Combine. The Combine, per its usual character, responded angrily to the unsupported March.

3) The Lyran Federation of Skye declared that the presence of FWLM ships in WoB hands meant that the FWL was aiding WoB in attacking Tharkad, so Skye invaded the FWL singlehandedly. The FWL responded angrily, but entirely in character to a Lyran attack.

4) Ultra-conservative Combine forces, the Black Dragon society, started a private war with the Ghost Bears because they were sick of the nambly-pambly Coordinator and his lack of total universal domination. If you read any book about House Kurita, you'll note there's a substantial fraction of the Combine that isn't happy if it isn't trying to conquer the universe. The Ghost Bears' holding of Combine worlds was unacceptable.

5) Asteroids suspiciously bombarded the capital of the Taurian Concordat (this was a WoB false flag operation; WoB was angry with the Federated Suns). In proper Concordat fashion, they ignored any contradictory evidence and instead decided the Federated Suns was responsible, and invaded the Suns.

6) The Jade Falcons saw the Lyran Alliance was distracted with the FWL and exhausted from the FedCom Civil War. It invaded the Lyrans. Unless you know something I don't about the Clans, its strictly in their geo-politics to try to conquer the Inner Sphere, especially since the Tukayyid Truce ended in 3067.

7) Some Homeworld Clans, like the Hellions, wanted in on the Inner Sphere action and invaded the Inner Sphere Clans' corridor. Again, that's normal Clan behavior.

8 ) It shouldn't be forgotten that two major factions, the Lyran Alliance and Federated Suns, were exhausted from a multi-year, WarShips-and-WMDs civil war when the Jihad started.

By about 3070, those conflicts were winding down and the various factions realized only group was still pounding war drums: WoB. All WoB's sideshow, pinprick attacks in the late 3060s - talking a core planet into seceding here, destroying a factory there - were something that could finally be noticed.

These conflicts followed long-standing hatreds, political pressures, and factional behaviors in the BT universe. Unless there's some obscure BT publication about the mid-31st Century Years of Total Peace, Harmony, and Forgiveness that writers forgot.
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.
CrayModerator
09/22/15 10:47 PM
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Quote:
ghostrider writes:

I guess I missed the part where comstar or someone else invaded earth to take it back from wob after operation scorpion. Or did they forget that fact and have then invade again?



Terra's timeline around the Jihad went like this:

1) ComStar was one big, happy family until 3052, but it should be noted it was a crazy, loony cult that was also the biggest banker, biggest phone company, and had about the 10th largest military. In 3052, it won the epic Clan trial at Tukayyid.

2) ComStar's loony cult leaders decided that was the perfect time to launch Operation Scorpion, which would bring down the Inner Sphere and Clans and let ComStar march in to victory. Most of ComStar refused to play along, and the chief of the ComGuards shot the cultish ComStar Primus. He installed a secular new administration over ComStar.

3) The cult-like chunk of ComStar personnel fled to the Free Worlds League and were given shelter on Gibson, a very tolerant and multi-cultural planet. These ComStar expatriates felt they were upholding the teachings of ComStar's founder, Blake, and decided to call themselves the Word of Blake.

It should be noted that many people who remained behind in the new, improved ComStar were incredibly sympathetic to the cultists who ran off. After all, the Inner Sphere had spent centuries treating Blake's teachings like a religion and many planets spent more time worshipping toasters than in churches.

It should also be noted that Terra, after centuries under old ComStar, had its Blakist fans. See JHS:Terra for a summary of Terrans' opinions.

(Amusingly, the varied and tolerant Gibsonites got fed up with the proto-WoBblies and tried to nuke them over a decade before the WoBblies started doing the same thing. Yes, WMDs were in play before the Jihad and before the FedCom Civil War.)

4) WoB started a serious diplomatic push, arriving at House Lords' doors with pamphlets about Blake's Teachings and goodies like WarShips and lostech. The Free Worlds League fell for that hook, line, and sinker, and got the largest WarShip navy outside the Clans. The Capellan Confederation was much more cynical in its alliance with WoB.

5) TERRA: Finally, I'm getting to Terra. In 3057, WoB was back on its feet. Meanwhile, the ComGuards were up to their necks in Operation Bulldog and the Great Refusal off in the Clan homeworlds. It was at this point that WoB jumped for Terra, and you find out why I talked about points 1 to 4 before talking about Terra.

WoB "invaded" Terra in the sense that it sent troops there and fought some ComGuard personnel opposed to it. However, its many Terran sympathizers allowed its troops to get through a lot of Terran space traffic control, and the ComGuard sympathizers paralyzed the already-anemic SDS reaction. See: The Fall of Terra, which provides a lot of detail on how understaffed Terra's defenses were and how the Blakists compromised them before the shooting started.

6) The Word of Blake tried to set up a new Terran Hegemony in the Chaos March. It viewed these worlds as classic examples of Blake's teaches: battered, mauled, and gutted by machinations of Amaris in the House. Since everything was going so well in the Inner Sphere - the Star League had been reborn! - it was time for WoB to get diplomatic and help out those abandoned core worlds. As discussed in JHS:Terra and JHS:Reckoning, WoB did this by letting the Terrans do their thing. It wasn't robe-wearing, toaster-worshipping Blakists that built the Protectorate, it was Terran businessmen and leaders selling the vision of a revived Hegemony.

Except there were they jerks on Outreach that kept attacking Blake as it was trying to bring peace to the Chaos March. They wanted war. They made money from war. They used perverted technology into killing. All of that was against Blake's teachings, so the Dragoons had to go. WoB felt pretty clever, too: it hired a bunch of disgruntled mercenaries already on Outreach to wipe out the Dragoons. Poetic justice and all that. This attack on Outreach did kill many Wolf Dragoons, but Dragoon regiments elsewhere figured out WoB was responsible and attacked Mars. (Terra was too tough for a few regiments was the Dragoon thinking.)

Mars turned out to be too tough for the Dragoons, too, since that was the WoB secret HQ. Everyone would attack Terra, right? But the attack on Mars convinced WoB that the Dragoons were a lot scarier than they were, so WoB counter-counterattacked by nuking one of Outreach's continents. For the record, that conflict is not considered part of the Jihad.

7) Then the new Star League collapsed. WoB had a hissy fit against the factions responsible. It bombarded Tharkad, invaded New Avalon but was defeated easily, and sulked for several years doing raids here and there and expanding the Protectorate slowly while the Houses and Clans were busy killing each other.

8 ) TERRA: ComStar, meanwhile, saw the bombardment of Outreach and attacks on Tharkad and New Avalon, and decided it was time to reclaim Terra. It had planned for this, Case White. If all that had mattered was Terra's military defenses and still-pathetic SDS, ComStar would've won a messy victory. Instead, several of its critical WarShips had pro-Blakist mutinies or suffered sabotage. Vital troop ships were blown up by those traitors and the few revived SDS ships WoB had mustered. ComGuards on the ground found not all Terrans welcomed them as liberators, but ratted them out. So, Case White failed just short of victory.

9) About ten years later (c3076) when the Coalition arrived at Terra to wipe out WoB, the Terran SDS was in much better shape, but the Coalition was well prepared for those defenses. Likewise, Terrans - who were not brainwashed toaster worshippers - had figured out WoB were jerks and helped undermine the SDS defenses.

Quote:
And with that, I don't know how the FWL handled being with WOB or the IS in that one.



The Free Worlds League's leadership was pro-WoB; some of its recent leaders had served in pre-Schism ComStar. Then WoB worked hard at being diplomatic with the FWL, offering a lot of technological aid that help the FWL keep up with Lyran competitors. For example, the FWL's WarShip forces and shipyards got a big boost from WoB aid.

When WoB was identified as a serious boogieman to the FWL and the Captain-General was found to be a former WoB/ComStar agent, the House sort of came apart. The Free Worlds was already the most fragmented and factional of the Houses - it even had individual continents (like New Olympica) that got representation in the Free Worlds parliament. Its major member-states like Andurien and Regulus liked to think of themselves as independent nations that just happened to be allies of convenience under the Marik banner. Different contending leaders fought to be Captain-General, then just gave the whole thing up.

Quote:
I assume the IS/comstar won earth back, so how was wob able to survive afterwards to become the boogie man in the jihad?'



ComStar lost its battle at Terra in 3067, the infamous Case White, as discussed above.

However, WoB didn't rush out and attack everyone with an imaginary giant army. Instead, the Inner Sphere started a free-for-all brawl of border wars, like I described in my other post today. WoB sort of sulked after the fall of the new Star League. Its only coherent actions before 3070 were primarily to keep helping Terrans build the new Blake Protectorate out of the disgruntled, abused core worlds of the Inner Sphere.

While the Houses and Clans were kicking each other's butts, WoB sort of ran around that barroom brawl, picking a pocket here, nuking a factory there. WoB's antics didn't amount to much when (for example) the Free Worlds League had briefly conquered a dozen Lyran worlds, or when the Ghost Bears destroyed a half dozen Combine regiments. I mean, the Federated Suns just pulled itself out of a civil war to watch two of its three provinces run off to start wars with other entire Houses. WoB? They were something to deal with later.

WoB became the boogie man when all the OTHER wars of the Jihad started settling down and everyone started noticing their wallets were missing and they had nuclear craters spelling out "WoB wuz here" on some of their vital factories. The Houses' core worlds, the ones the Houses had rightfully and brutally seized from the Terran Hegemony 300 years earlier and then spent 80 years nuking into rubble, were turning up in this new Blakist Protectorate thing. This moment of recognition was around 3070-3072.

Quote:
If house Davion was soo good at keeping the factions in the FWL at odds, they damn sure should have been able to see wob forces hiding there.



House Davion had nothing to do with keeping FWL's factions at odds. See JHS:Dawn of the Jihad, JHS:3070, JHS:3072, and JHS:3076.

It would be really worthwhile to read p. 11-14 of Jihad Secrets. EVERYONE knew WoB was building a secret army. The mistake by every intelligence agency in the Inner Sphere was in two parts:

1) No one foresaw the House leaders dismissing the new Star League - the leaders didn't consult with their intelligence agencies before they cut out an expensive, useless part of their budget. (The new Star League existed to fight the Clans. They won in 3058. The Star League's purpose was done.) It wasn't really a question for intel agencies to get involved with.

2) Since no one could foresee point 1, no one knew to run the scenario, "What would WoB do if the new Star League collapsed?"

Even if they knew to ask those questions, WoB was a minor threat in the late 3060s. The Houses and Clans went at it hammer and tongs in a way that hadn't been seen since the original Clan invasion.

Quote:
But I guess you could say communications would be the issue to that. Still sounds like a stretch. Then again, this is coming from the same people that tell you the house could not find ppc manufacturing plants in their territory or secret factories for mechs as well.



I'm not sure I follow the point. When did a House ever have secret PPC or 'Mech factories in its borders?

If you're referring to WoB's hidden worlds, the problem is that the Inner Sphere has about 2 million stars but the Houses only occupy about 2000 of them, leaving 1000 uninhabited system for every inhabited system. Further, by the Third Succession War JumpShips only numbered in the thousands and those were all very busy keeping interstellar civilization alive. There were none to spare to scout the hundreds of thousands of uninhabited stars in each House.

BattleTech also has no miracle sensor to remotely monitor star systems - see Explorer Corps and Strategic Operations for sensor rules. The longest-ranged sensors are jump detectors that can't cover an entire star system (only a few astronomical units), let alone light-years.

Further, because of the catastrophic losses of JumpShips in the Succession Wars, no one is willing to travel through those millions of uninhabited systems. A JumpShip that suffers a mechanical failure in an uninhabited system will have no hope of rescue because its radio signals will take years to reach civilization and no one else is likely to pick the same uninhabited star for transit.

This situation means those 2 million uninhabited systems of the Inner Sphere are essentially impossible to monitor. The only reason some of WoB's "hidden worlds" were found is that they were based on known, abandoned systems, ones that used to be on the maps but were nuked off them.
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.
DavidG
09/22/15 11:38 PM
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Cray, thank you very much for all the info on how the WoB achieved what they did. I have been out of Battletech until recently. You explanation was great. It filled in a lot of what has happened in the BT universe for me.

David
ghostrider
09/23/15 12:45 AM
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In the older books, it was said that several ppcs factories in the FWL were making ppcs that the Mariks did not know about. I want to say Anduriens were doing it, but would have to break out the books to say where it was at.

Now with WOB owning terra and it seems implied the entire network of hpgs, what did comstar use for money to not only maintain their items, but build/buy new ones?

Now considering the fact the developers used the ideas that the rest of the innersphere did not have the resources to upgrade squat for decades, only to have WOB pop the stuff up is a sticking point with this.
I understand Sol have the sds system being disabled and restarting it, but the other worlds outside the sol system comes to question.

It also calls into question that jump ships and even normal traders would have visited more then just the Sol system and no word what so ever got out to others? This would include what Comstar knew was there to begin with. And having unihabited systems does not mean jump ships would not or do not visit those systems as they go about the trading routes. Yes, range is a factor. I can see why they removed the bug eyes since it destroys that concept of not sitting at a pirate point and actually scanning a system with.. I don't know.. Telescopes and such. And that goes counter to WOB agents spying on comstar, yet not a single person in WOB ever defected or was a double agent? Not a single person with some information jumped ship in a house territory?

And this is even ignoring the fact everyone knew WOB had it out for Comstar, which goes back to how Comstar kept money flowing if they did not run any hpgs.
Also with your example of Gibson revolting, you are saying they never got any idea of the future expansion plans from WOB bases they were in?
This is just too much of one side can wave a wand and do what ever it wants to, but the other side can't even forge a sword from a lack of iron and coal.

And then someone was able to shut down the entire comms network a short while later and nothing could be done with it at all? I find that very inconsistent with the way WOB could do things, but the rest of the universe could not.
ghostrider
09/23/15 12:52 AM
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Maybe we should move this to a different thread, since there are other things in this one, I would like to keep open for discussion.

And in some of the source books, during the 4th war, it said Janos Marik started gaining support from the factions in the FWL because of the comstar interdiction cut funding from Fedsuns to provactuers in his state. Was that in error, or did they change all of that on a whim to keep from having to keep continuity?

And I agree, they had to destroy a lot of the 'named' units. Hard to keep the money in house when you have to pay royalties for units that were old.
Which also leads to the question about the Dragoon raid. Why is it hard to believe they did NOT know about the sds system in Sol?
More then a few were star league historians according to the scenario packs. I believe the original Cronstans irregulars had that in there. Anything dealing with star league history should have referred to that system.
ghostrider
09/23/15 12:59 AM
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and one more dumb question. Which clan became the ilclan as they were the first to land on Terra?
I doubt they gave up that dream just because they were part of a coalition of forces to liberate it.
Karagin
09/23/15 06:39 AM
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David all Cray is doing is defending stuff he worked or helped with. He expects, actually no I think it is more hope then expecting, us to believe, as do the PTB, that the WoB goes from a splinter group with the loony bin nut cases of ComStar into an over night as far as the BT universe goes, super group that can rebuild warships, aguement humans into cybrogs, build and support mechs,vehicles, infantry, power armor, etc...all without anyone knowing or caring and he will quote the Jihad books day and night. What he is failing to mention is it took folks like me, Cadet and others to question things and point issues for anything to come about on HOW they (WoB) did anything. And it also took a lot of arguments and insulting bickering to even get this far. I again point out the cost of a single mech to include spare parts, ammo etc...and Cray does expect us to believe that WoB can cover these things easily, yet we see enough through out the BT plethora of novels, sourcebooks etc...about how the cost of upkeep etc...is even hard for a House to do, but some how WoB is able to man and support high tech regiments and warships etc...with realitive ease while staying one to two steps ahead of the rest of entirety of the House Lords and the Clans.

Cray hopes his take on things is enough to keep the topic dead or at lest less of an issue, some of the "fixes" are good ones, but again something on the scale that the WoB is said to have done would have been noticed soon and changed the focus of many intel units to keep more of an eye on if not out right try to stop things. It also seems that the PTB took the idea that folks believe their enemies to be 10 feet tall, which is a good thing to assume since that means you prepare like they are, even though you know really they are not, keeps thing interesting.

WoB's Jihad was nothing more then a chance to clean up the BT universe, the authors and writers and design staff used it to smack down the super groups and it was also used to blend in the Dark Age stuff that had to have a home.

And Cray there are NO Internet rumors, there are just a group of fans who did not drink the flavor aid and put on the rose color glasses late 1990s early 2000s and just accept the whole of the Jihad unquestioned so please how about you accept that and stop trying to marginalize things.
Karagin

Given time and plenty of paper, a philosopher can prove anything.
Karagin
09/23/15 07:02 AM
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Now IF ComStar had from the end of the war against Amaris to aftermath of Tuykaid (sorry about spelling), to even build up their military, again based on remaining SLDF units that sided with Blake after Kerensky left, why would they ignore or not repair the SDS in the Sol system? It's not like they forgot how, and as has been so repeated over and over again, this is the Terran system, where high tech is present and they would know how to do things.

The SDS is the one thing that gives ComStar and WoB an edge, it means they don't have to worry about their home base being attacked, we are told that the WoB got around it using subterfuge and insider agents to turn it off and allow their main force to land after the Lancers are found out to be fake.

So why would they ignore the SDS? And the Titian Shipyards, what about those? See the issue I am getting here is we don't know have info on the Terran system, in that we hear a lot about it but yet there is next to nothing actually written about it in the detailed hey here is what they have kind of thing.
Karagin

Given time and plenty of paper, a philosopher can prove anything.
ghostrider
09/23/15 12:07 PM
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Did comstar have the sds running when WoB attacked? I thought someone said it was not working at the time.
And there is a big issue with it working that I would like cleared up. Being automated, does that mean after they designate a target or is it like iff and fires on anything that doesn't send the friendly code?

I remember one of the weapons manufacturers being based on Terra that sold weapons to the rest of the innersphere and periphery. I wanted to say it was Aldis industries, but in the quick look, can't find it. That would mean non comstar/wob ships would be entering earths orbit without the iff, or that it would be on ships that could be boarded or copied.

And one more thing comes to mind. It was said ecm played a roll in keeping the Dragoons and later comstar from doing much, but does that mean the invaders didn't have their own ecm going?

And as for using WMD. WoB used as many as the entire succesion wars in a mater of like 25 years. It was stated they used it in attacking other worlds as well as defense. They use of them alone would have had the houses primed to remove wob at any cost and would have set off the attacks as soon as the clans were dealt with. It even states they used nukes to destroy the Dragoons on Outreach.
Or did I miss something there?
CrayModerator
09/23/15 07:35 PM
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Quote:
ghostrider writes:

In the older books, it was said that several ppcs factories in the FWL were making ppcs that the Mariks did not know about. I want to say Anduriens were doing it, but would have to break out the books to say where it was at.



The House Marik Sourcebook noted that the FWL was starved of PPC production and had to trade with the Capellans to get them, not that it had secret PPC factories. It painfully knew how few PPCs it was building and where all the factories were.

Quote:
Now with WOB owning terra and it seems implied the entire network of hpgs, what did comstar use for money to not only maintain their items, but build/buy new ones?



The implication is incorrect on a couple of levels. The minor point is that WoB only profitably ran the FWL's HPGs, and sometimes HPGs in the Chaos March and Periphery states. ComStar continued to operate most HPGs.

More importantly - as described in the ComStar Sourcebook, Fall of Terra, and A Time of War - ComStar and its splinter were not just "the HPG guys." They ran the largest bank in the Inner Sphere, the one that was guaranteed to be neutral (har har) and protected throughout the Succession Wars. Everybody banked with ComStar because when a neighboring House invaded your planet, you didn't have to worry about your money disappearing in the hands of the conquerors. That's why the C-bill was the universal currency: it was backed by the largest financial institution around.

Its said that General Motors is a bank with a car-building hobby. The same applies to ComStar and WoB: HPGs are a hobby on the side for a mammoth financial and media institution.

Further, they weren't just the largest bank and HPG operators. ComStar had spent over 200 years becoming the largest telecommunications company in the Inner Sphere. When a planet got nuked in the Succession Wars, ComStar (the bank) showed up to finance reconstruction and ComStar (the telephone/TV/internet guys) showed up to rebuild telecommunications. Their telecommunications business was an enormous vertical monopoly: they built the holovid sets, telephones, computers, music players, and noteputers; built the networks that supported them; ran a lot of the media companies; and (as a trivial side thing) provided interstellar communications. The ComStar Sourcebook and ATOW's "Touring the Sphere" chapter addresses some of the ways that ComStar abused this to make epic cash and cripple the Inner Sphere's technological recovery.

With that sort of cash, the ComGuards were just an advertising expense. ComStar probably spent more on office supplies than the ComGuards.

WoB had the benefit of taxes from Gibson and Terra, and financial aid from the FWL.

Quote:
Now considering the fact the developers used the ideas that the rest of the innersphere did not have the resources to upgrade squat for decades, only to have WOB pop the stuff up is a sticking point with this.



Resources weren't a problem for the Inner Sphere's upgrades. Cash and raw materials were plentiful. The problem was lack of knowhow, lack of factories, and lack of experience. You don't simply throw a trillion C-bills at your engineers and their 24th Century technology and yell, "Learn 28th Century Star League **** in a year!" As the saying goes, you can't make a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant. Some things simply take time: years to train up scientists and engineers; years to practice building lost technologies; years to retool factories.

The Inner Sphere jumped from the 24th/25th Century in 3030 to the 28th Century in 3050. It did damned good to cover 300-400 years in 20 years. You think Da Vinci could get his workshop building stealth bombers in 20 years?

WoB, on the other hand, had a world of people who understood Star League technology. Terra had never lost its technology to the Succession Wars. Hell, it had mothballed SLDF military factories instead of destroyed ones. Even so, it took WoB 10 years to really start benefiting from Terra's factories because they took time to dust off and get running. And, heck, ComStar had started the process in 3052 after Tukayyid. The ComGuards plundered the last Terran SLDF warehouses to rebuild from Tukayyid and realized that it was time to turn on Terra's factories. The factories weren't doing much by 3057 when WoB took over, but were enough to start fitting out WoB in the 3060s at a rate much slower than any House's industry.

While Terra got up and running, WoB still had plenty of knowhow it could share with its buddies. Its engineers shaved a few years off the FWL's WarShip programs, but didn't work super-duper miracles. The FWL, like the Federated Commonwealth, had started a WarShip program in the 3040s and was building shipyards in the 3050s. The FWL ended up with 40 WarShips to the FC's ~20 in the 3060s, but that lead wasn't going to be around forever. Things like the FedCom Civil War interrupted the FC's shipbuilding juggernaut.

Quote:
And having unihabited systems does not mean jump ships would not or do not visit those systems as they go about the trading routes. Yes, range is a factor.



Oh, uninhabited systems get used. Definitely they get used. Some core systems in the Lyran Commonwealth are more than a jump from their neighbors. However, the 2 million stars of the Inner Sphere don't all get visited because it's bad practice. Hence, no one spots WoB's secret worlds.

Quote:
I can see why they removed the bug eyes since it destroys that concept of not sitting at a pirate point and actually scanning a system with.. I don't know.. Telescopes and such.



The BugEye is in the game. It was recently republished, and TacOps had the subcompact drive introduced specifically to make the BugEye possible. However, the BugEye could never sit at a jump point and watch a whole system. Read TR:2750 and TR:3057: the BugEye would slip into planetary orbit disguised as a DropShip. Explorer Corps and StratOps simply codified what had already been codified about the BugEye: it had to get close to spy.

Quote:
And that goes counter to WOB agents spying on comstar, yet not a single person in WOB ever defected or was a double agent?



That's incorrect. As I explained yesterday - and gave you the necessary book and page reference - every House and ComStar had a pretty good intel picture on WoB. That calls for defectors, among other intelligence activities.

Quote:
Not a single person with some information jumped ship in a house territory?



Yes, they did jump ship, which is why the Houses and ComStar had a pretty good idea of WoB's capabilities in 3067. Not perfect, and they certainly had no idea what WoB would do if the new Star League collapsed since no one saw that coming, but they had a reasonable understanding of WoB's capabilities. That's why Case White almost worked.

As I explained yesterday, the problem is that no House intelligence agency was warned that the new Star League was going to be abandoned. They EXPECTED WoB to use its "secret" military against ComStar. They didn't see the Inner Sphere and Clans going at it in a "global" war, or that the Star League would be sundered, and thus didn't see WoB going off in a weird direction.

Ghostrider, do you have specific questions about Jihad Secrets p. 11-14?


Edited by Cray (09/23/15 07:47 PM)
Akirapryde2006
09/23/15 08:47 PM
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I am going to go out on a limb here with this statement, but you (Cray) are a contributor or writer for the Universe. If this is true, then I envy you for your work will help create a the universe that we all love and enjoy. It is because of this, that I do hold you to a higher standard than I would others in such conversations. I am not attacking your work. As if it were to stand alone, it would be great work. I love some of the details that you have created. There is some really good plot and story arcs you have created. But it is the holes in the plots and the loss of continuity within the Universe as a whole that I have issues with. Please allow me to respectfully explain.


Quote:
Cray writes:

If you're referring to the SDS in the Jihad, not really. The SLDF gutted Terra's SDS centers at the end of the Star League Civil War. Centuries later, Terra didn't have much to work with to deal with WoB's invasion or ComStar's Case White. The SDS of the 31st Century was a shadow of its 28th Century self and wasn't much of a factor.



There is no written support to this claim in any of the FASA books covering the exodus. In fact in the original Star League Source book it states that the majority of the supplies they took were food stores. While it did state that they took other supplies with them, the Comstar Source book states that what remained of the Terra SDS was left in the hands of Comstar. I do not argue that the system was badly damaged and in need of repairs. That being said…..

While not a war monger, Blake knew the importance of military might. He accepted former SLDF Units that had promised to support Comstar (thanks to a special request from General Kerensky to SLDF Units remaining behind). Blake used military force to secure Terra during the final phase of Operation Silver Shield. Blake also sent Comstar dropships to New Earth to pick clean the SLDF Headquarters of everything (nothing was mentioned that the Headquarters of the SLDF was gutted, further disproving your claim). Everything Blake did during these critical months after the Exodus reflects that Comstar had a clear understanding of the importance of military might.

Quote:
Cray writes:

Nope, we paid a lot of attention to the use of WMDs in BT, both historical and in the Jihad. Firstly, we made sure that WMD in the Jihad was far lighter than in the First and Second Succession Wars. The Houses and WoB used WMDs here and there, but there was nothing like the repeated pole-to-pole nuclear exterminations of the early Succession Wars. One of the deadliest bioweapons, the Plague of Galedon, was actually an accidental release from a House stockpile that had nothing to do with WoB.

Second, those early Succession Wars did result in a 150-year cessation of WMD usage, but that was six generations without seeing firsthand damage from nukes. The historical trend is that humans are likely to go about one or two generations without major wars or use of terrible weapons between old foes before they forget how bad war was and try again. Six generations was an exceptional gap. The dam was bound to burst at some point.

For example, I'm sure you remember that after the bombardment of Turtle Bay by the Clans, Hanse Davion was came within a hair of unleashing nuclear weapons against the Clans - in 3051. The Ghost Bears came within a hair of killing billions of Rasalhague citizens by orbital bombardment in c3052 when they couldn't control revolts on occupied FRR worlds. The WMD genie finally got loose again in the mid-3060s, at the hands of Davion loyalists in the FC Civil War. See: Atomic Annie. WoB was late to the WMD game, and only started using WMDs when Wolf Dragoons struck at the Terran system.

WoB had well-enumerated reasons for its WMD usage. Besides the pre-Jihad bombardment of Outreach, WoB was planning to take on the Clans c3067, and the Clans had larger and more technologically capable military forces. (In fact, any two Clans outnumbered WoB - again, see Jihad Secrets.) The Clans also had many more WarShips, which could arguably act as WMDs, and many of WoB's ComStar veterans had been traumatized fighting the Clans on Tukayyid. So, WoB planned to use WMDs against the Clans. It was a logical outgrowth of trends in the universe, but most of the Jihad was fought conventionally.

There was over fifteen real world years of writing to set up WoB's WMD use, starting with the Clan Invasion and its orbital bombardment (pub. 1990), going to the ComStar schism (again, c1990), and then the FedCom Civil War. Novels and sourcebooks together set up increasing WMD usage and new generations of combatants who'd forgotten the lessons of the early Succession Wars. I'm sorry if you missed all that work, but it wasn't a case of writers ignoring BT's ground rules that applied in just the Third Succession War.



I will concede that the Clan Invasion ushered in a new era in warfare. However even among the Clans such behavior was considered dishonorable. Like the Inner Sphere, the Clans were able to see firsthand the effects of such brutal forms of combat during the Exodus Civil War. Prior to the return of the Clans, such use of WMD was considered the ultimate act against humanity. Within the Clans and Inner Sphere no one dared even consider their use.

So let’s look at the first recorded use of WMD by the Clans. Turtle Bay was during the first wave of the Clan Invasion. The capital of the world was orbital bombarded by Clan Smoke Jaguar. The act triggered backlash across the entire Clans and even the hardest of the Hardliners of the Crusaders saw the act as cowardice. There is no evidence within any of the Clan Source Book that supports the clam that this act was accepted within the entire Clan Society or even within the Smoke Jaguars. It was viewed as nothing less than sheer barbarity. In doing so, Galaxy Commander Perez lost his command and honor because of Turtle Bay. The act brought an end to Clan warships being used in future combat roles (Invading Clans, page 58). So the use of WMDs by the Clans was not something that was accepted as you suggest. In fact the opposite has been proven in a number of novels and in the Clan Source Books.

Quote:
Cray writes:

(Amusingly, the varied and tolerant Gibsonites got fed up with the proto-WoBblies and tried to nuke them over a decade before the WoBblies started doing the same thing. Yes, WMDs were in play before the Jihad and before the FedCom Civil War.)



I read the book covering the birth of the Knights of the Inner Sphere. I have it here somewhere in the house, so given the reason I can even give you a page number on this. It was WoB that used Davy Crockets. Thomas Marik was so outraged at the WoB, he threatened to cast them out of FWL space and turn them in to Inner Sphere Refugees. This only happened once and remaining weapons on Gibson were destroyed by the Knights under the explicit orders of Thomas Marik.

As for Marik’s close relationship to WoB, that was well known to everyone. He was even offered the position of Primus of the WoB, though he did end up rejecting it. So I don’t see how this could have caused the FWL’s to fall apart when it was common knowledge for nearly a decade prior to this.

Quote:
Cray writes:

The original conflicts in the Jihad strictly followed old factional conflicts. The Jihad kicked off at the collapse of the New Star League in 3067 when WoB orbitally bombarded two cities on Tharkad and New Avalon and then went off and mostly sulked for several years. WoB was not effectively involved in the Jihad until almost 3070. What happened next was:



I thought about going through and item by item explaining how each of your line items were not practical. However it is as if the authors wanted to hit the entire universe with a hammer and get things stirred up. As you said, no one foresaw the end of the Second Star League coming. Sure there were minor signs of strife but nothing that could not be dealt with. I mean after all, it wasn’t like the Clan Threat was gone (as proven during serval events that happened just before the end of the Second Star League and afterwards). Bringing an end to the Second Star League was done so only to open the door to more conflict within the Inner Sphere.

But the death of the Second Star League had to happen to ensure that the following events were allowed to occur. Are the events that you presented possible? Yes, but unlikely. Throughout Inner Sphere History, there had been rare times when units and entire regions of space acted on their own thus drawing the entire Power in to a war with another power. So you do have some historical support to this fact. However since the 4th Succession War, these rogue powers had been brought in to greater control. This played out perfectly during the Duchy of Andurien Crisis within the FWL.

Can events like this happen, yes they could happen. But on this scale? So soon? This is what I find hard to believe. It was like you guys went from a universe filled with great hope and promise for tomorrow to a universe once more filled with war and destruction. And what happened to cause these events, a series of “prefect storms” engineered by the authors to explain it. For me, and only my opinion, it’s too much too soon.

If you guys wanted to turn the universe back to war and created the Dark Ages, then do so. But give the Universe some time to breathe and recover before throwing it to the wolves again. Why couldn’t the Second Star Leagues have ushered in a new era of peace? A second golden age of peace for humanity. Yes I am sure there could have been a few sparks of conflict here and there for the Star League to deal with. But these sparks could have slowly caused the core to erode. Those large units and factions you wanted to do away with could have just passed with time. This could have given life to a story arc that was much richer than the one that currently exists.

In giving the universe this era of peace and a new golden age new heroes could have risen up. Where the old factions would have broken apart which was the universal trend (We saw this in the St Ives Compact, FRR, Nova Cats and Ghost Bears and even across the Chaos March), new factions could have risen from their ashes. Some heroic units might have survived but even this is doubtful after a century of growth. New technology, new units, new heroes could have risen in a universe where the possibilities were endless.

Instead you pressed forward with the worse of humanity and taking away all that had been built up for during nearly two decades of novels. Truthfully, in reading the books covering the great refusal war I really wanted to see Victor become the next First Lord of the Star League. He had the support and love of the people across the Inner Sphere and respect from even his enemies within the Clans. Though becoming Precentor Martial was a great move, it was only a step along the way to becoming First Lord. As I read what the Authors created in the Jihad and Dark Ages, I am left feeling like Victor got cheated. I often consider what an Inner Sphere would look like under his leadership.

Look, while the authors’ works are done well. It is clear to me that they all (including you) have a creative mind. But these actions have turned some longtime fans like me against the canon universe now. I hope you understand what I am saying. Even if you can’t agree with me, I hope you understand my points.
ghostrider
09/24/15 12:52 AM
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Am I missing something, or does it sound weird that the great houses would not be preparing for someone building up arms even if their is such a thing as the star league in effect?
That would be saying the the united nations is in effect so we are not worried that Iran is looking ot make nukes, or that north Korea has them. Since the UN is here, there will be no issue with them using it. In the successor states, I would think any idea of that would never be trusted given the history of the IS, especially Comstar.
But maybe that is just me.

Using the UN example. that would mean that the US and Russia issues don't exist because that are both part of the UN, as well as China and a lot of the Asian countries having sea border conflicts with it.
I don't care weither they were told or not, it would be unbelievable for them not to continue worrying about other nations and what they are doing. Lioa's use of star league forces in the St. Ives Compact should be more then enough to show it was not reliable. Even with the use of the nerve gas, it didn't do much besides hamper the defenders. Yes, Sun Tzu was in charge at the time, but that should have definitely shown it was not going to work.

Now you said WoB hit the fed com capitals in 3067, but didn't get into the jihad until 3070. Who was running the jihad during that time?
Maybe I am missing something here as well.

As for reading the secrets, not everyone has the updated books, so some of that is unlikely to be done. And I forgot they changed history to allow the new facts to play to the current story.
I will have to read the older books for the information. I may be getting some novels mixed up with the canon books. The developers really need to get the writers to stick with the canon story line.
ghostrider
09/24/15 01:18 AM
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Ok On page 114 of the House Marik book printed in 1988 right column third paragraph has the information about the ppc factory. I was wrong, it is not a secret factory, but one that was shut down, and they suspect the Andruriens had been using it to stockpile ppcs in secret. They say ROM and SAFE agents reported the Andurien troops had a large number of new ppcs during their maneuvers on Xanthe III.

I am thinking I misread that to be a secret facility as no one knew it was running. They probably removed that in the latest version of Marik history.


And a stupid thing popped into my mind about WOB and the WMD. Did they build new ones?
It sounds like Comstar didn't stockpile any, but that might be just a mis thought on my part.
Akirapryde2006
09/24/15 08:30 PM
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Quote:
Cray writes:
ComStar, meanwhile, saw the bombardment of Outreach and attacks on Tharkad and New Avalon, and decided it was time to reclaim Terra. It had planned for this, Case White. If all that had mattered was Terra's military defenses and still-pathetic SDS, ComStar would've won a messy victory. Instead, several of its critical WarShips had pro-Blakist mutinies or suffered sabotage. Vital troop ships were blown up by those traitors and the few revived SDS ships WoB had mustered. ComGuards on the ground found not all Terrans welcomed them as liberators, but ratted them out. So, Case White failed just short of victory.



Okay I have to ask this question because no one else is asking it. Which is canon in regards to the demise of Comstar’s Case White under the command of Victor Steiner-Davion?

That Case White was stopped by the SDS of Terra. A system that Comstar, in the face of the Clan Threat and hundreds of years of wars and combat around them, never deemed important to rebuild or repair (Despite the fact that FASA’s Comstar Sourcebook disputes this claim). So the planners of this operation never thought that WoB would have used this system against them. That they didn’t even bother to plan for this system’s presences within the Terran System. That Comstar’s ROM didn’t have spies within Terra warning them of the defenses of Terra. I mean after all FASA’ Campaign Sourcebook the Fall of Terra, stated that Comstar had supporters on Terra after WoB took over the Earth.

Or

That Case White was stopped by, as you stated, “pro-Blakist mutinies or suffered sabotage.” The very same kind of pro-Blakist actions that cost them Terra. So you mean to tell me that Comstar didn’t purge Pro-Blakist from their ranks after the fall of Terra. This is a leap of faith that I can’t accept. That Victor, who was a brilliant military leader and a study of History didn’t see the threat of Pro-Blakist threat within his own ranks. I am after all, it was this very threat that cost Comstar Terra.

So which one of these is canon? Because none of them makes any military sense.
ghostrider
09/24/15 10:08 PM
98.150.102.177

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There are a few questions that run with those ones Akira. With having help on Terra, how is it they not only failed to warn the incoming ships about the system, there was nothing done to shut down or sabotage the sds from those very supporters?
OR turn the system against WoB forces themselves?

Another part of me wonders how the Dragoons could use the Seventh Kommados to strike at the MAC in retaliations for what they did the Dragoon, but the there is no rebuilt Kommandos to infiltrate the Comstar facilities on Mars to pave the way for the rest to land.
If they had, the entire process of the Dragons demise would not have happened. Since

A) The Kommandos would have encountered the system and have left something to show it was there,
OR
B) Warned them as they got in system about it.

It isn't like they didn't know how to get into an hpg and use it, nor where the facilities to control it were. That would be a priority target once it was learned it was in uses. Power would be a key to any defensive systems including scanners such as Radar.

The lack of anything like this is completely against the way Jamie Wolf worked.


One a side note, we are not suggesting Crays work in the game is at fault. We do appreciate that they still have the game going, but we do like to understand the background and why things were done they way they were. It seems we said so is the key and they needed the innersphere to be in the stone ages to keep the war going. Some fact of life seemed to have been overlooked in this.
Karagin
09/24/15 11:53 PM
72.176.176.175

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So ComStar blindly jumps into the Sol System all because they want to stop the Word and forgets ALL military thinking and planning etc...yeah sorry but that Cray is insane even for the BT universe.

Then it just happens, one would think ComStar would have rooted out or at least marginalized questionable folks by this point given, that Blake agents just once again, get the upper hand, and can mutiny etc...and all of this is a surprise to ComStar? I guess when the authors want to clean house and remove the warships and other large ticket items from the playing field this is how it's done. I mean at every turn WoB knew what the ComStar forces had planned, one would have thought that earlier efforts would have shown that things weren't quite right, guess this would be the case of the WoB having the Enigma deal over ComStar to draw the analogy.

And Victor goes from the decent battlefield commander with a decent staff, to this blundering idiot who blindly attacks a fortified system that they have no hard intel on and have already seen that the Word doesn't care about mass destruction as weapon of use and choice, yeah okay and you wonder why many of still question the whole Jihad storyline.

The Dragoon attack on Mars goes against everything the Dragoons would do, even when they razed New Delos they did so with intel and a plan, not this let's just go kill Blakist cause they killed Jamie. That kind of thing is 100% against the grain of the Dragoons how they worked, unless folks should have picked a better faction like the Jaguar fans were told once.

We all do apperciate Cray's work, just not understanding his fanatical support of the Jihad and all that goes to it.
Karagin

Given time and plenty of paper, a philosopher can prove anything.
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