Comstar question

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JacobP
10/31/22 05:14 PM
98.172.207.52

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Alright, i know basic stuff on Comstar, before the Clanners invaded they manipulated things in the shadows utilizing their monopoly on communication among other things. However, I am curious on something I haven't come across just yet. Do they have any investment in the entertainment industry? I mean I would think so, but I have not seen what it would really be beyond clients broadcasting on the network. It would make sense that they might say create their own shows as propaganda and an additional way to justify someone giving them money for services.
Thank you in advance!
Requiem
10/31/22 05:31 PM
1.158.155.157

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Consider the following

https://www.sarna.net/wiki/ComStar_News_Bureau

and

https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Interstellar_News_Network

and

https://www.sarna.net/wiki/ComStar_Archives
Get thee to Coventry … Now is the winter of our discontent, made glorious by this daughter of Tharkad … Our army shall march through. Well to New Avalon tonight.
Karagin
10/31/22 09:26 PM
70.118.172.64

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I am sure they had some, given that they had the monopoly on the HPG network and all. They would have their own stations and such in the Sol System, and I am sure they had their own network for news and such. Well, their version anyways.
Karagin

Given time and plenty of paper, a philosopher can prove anything.
ghostrider
11/01/22 12:54 AM
45.51.181.83

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I would think they would have their hands in a lot of things dealing with broadcasting, even if it is just third party investments into broadcasting companies.
I would not be surprised if they actually owned a majority of the large companies, as it would allow them to 'filter' actual news that might be really damaging to Comstar itself.
We do know they manipulated the 'attack' on the Sarna HPG to make it look like Davion did it in the 4th war.
I have never even heard of an accusation that they were part of any attacks on private citizens, such as those researching into HPG tech and other things.
As news can be moved thru other ways, other then the HPG, this shows a concentrated effort to stop anything like a bad or even slightly accusing tone for them.

As for printed information, I don't have most of the books. There might be some information in the wiki, though some of the 'newer' books might have some data in them. As the last book I bought was just after the clan invasion, that leaves a whole lot of information and retcons that I don't have information about.

As a side note, I would also assume most of those that have Comstar investors would not want this information let out, so they would try to suppress this information from all.
CrayModerator
11/01/22 07:02 PM
50.89.124.116

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Quote:
Alright, i know basic stuff on Comstar, before the Clanners invaded they manipulated things in the shadows utilizing their monopoly on communication among other things. However, I am curious on something I haven't come across just yet. Do they have any investment in the entertainment industry? I mean I would think so, but I have not seen what it would really be beyond clients broadcasting on the network. It would make sense that they might say create their own shows as propaganda and an additional way to justify someone giving them money for services.
Thank you in advance!



As noted in the ComStar Sourcebook, ComStar was FAR beyond just "the interstellar radio guys."

For one thing, ComStar's currency was the international and domestic currency of choice for the Inner Sphere. The scale of banking behind that makes HPG business look like a joke. Take the biggest bank you can imagine on Earth today and scale that to 2000 planets.

Going back to communications, ComStar reached into many, many aspects of communications. HPGs were the interstellar transmission and reception service for all the interstellar programming delivered to a planet's TV and holovid networks, so ComStar naturally branched into running holovid, TV, and computer networks for a planet.

Notably, ComStar loved to help planets in the early Succession Wars - the planets that had been nuked silly and lost all their Star League-era offworld telecom hardware suppliers - get back on their feet with complete reconstruction financing, HPG service, and turnkey planetary telecommunication networks. Which means that ComStar got to decide what kind of technology was restored to a planet. As discussed in A Time of War p. 365, ComStar nerfed that restored technology.

Quote:
The collapse
of technology, knowledge and education that accompanied
the Succession Wars—not to mention ComStar’s opposition
to the rebuilding of an information-rich society—meant that
communications often devolved to relatively simple, purpose-built
devices. As a result, most Succession Wars-era noteputers
cannot directly connect to communications networks; homes
retained separate personal computers, vid-phones, and trivids;
and even as late as the 3050s, a personal communicator
that featured a vid-screen and simple camera was five times as
expensive as standard communicators, which in turn had fewer
functions than personal communicators of the Terran Alliance



ComStar even ran the postal service on many planets.

Yes, ComStar was a major generator of entertainment programming - it's an obvious way to diversify business when they control interstellar and planetary communication grids. Interstellar Players 2 p. 63 notes the predicament of the Terran system's Belters when it comes to entertainment: "“5000 channels of Terran brainwashing or 50 channels of crap from Metis.”" They could listen to the endless stream of high production value shows riddled with ComStar/Blakist teachings, or low budget crap from their capital.
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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