Community Outreach – Honoring The Purple Bird With Big Red-40Tech

Welcome back to Community Outreach, the Sarna series where we reach out to BattleTech creators and creatives to learn more about their work. This month we sat down with Big Red-40Tech, a YouTuber with a curious name who dives deep into the lore behind some of the most popular and not-so-popular ‘Mechs. I start us off by learning the interesting origins of his name before diving into the meat of the matter: how the only thing powerful enough to defeat the Free Worlds League is the Free Worlds League. Yes, Purple Bird is indeed strong (and I’m not just saying that because the Spirit Cats are currently refugees hiding out in the League).

Sean (Sarna): Alright, the recording is on, let’s get this show on the road!

Big Red-40Tech: Now the disaster can truly begin.

Sean: Oh, well, let’s hope not! But before we can begin this disaster, perhaps we should allow you to introduce yourself. Who are you, and what’s with the name Big Red-40Tech?

Big Red-40Tech: There is actually a story there. So first of all, I’m a professional moron on the internet. However, I’m more known for making BattleTech content videos. My name is of course, as you mentioned for the purposes of YouTube, Big Red-40Tech. My name is this way because I used to livestream War Thunder as a channel called The Big Red Bear ‘cause I ran the Soviet tech tree. Nobody watched my stuff and it was okay. Then I ended up becoming a moderator for a Warhammer 40,000 channel for a couple of years; a great friend of mine was the person who runs that channel. And the name kind of stuck.

When I started YouTube up again doing briefly Warhammer 40,000, I stayed as The Big Red Bear, but people kept assuming that meant I was a communist. So I don’t get into politics on my channel; people are very animated about those subjects.

Sean: Oh, trust me, I know.

Big Red-40Tech: But I will give you the honor of answering that I am not, in fact, a communist. So then after that, I changed over to Big Red-40K for literally a week before I started covering BattleTech. I won’t get into it, but the other company basically made some changes that I didn’t really appreciate (and that’s okay).

You know, I actually don’t have a big chip on my shoulder about GW. I think they run a very successful business. They just happen not to be making products I’m currently interested in. So I ran for like a year as Big Red-40K until the BattleTech: Essentials review came out because Randall and Ray sent me BattleTech: Essentials to review and I had already planned on changing the channel name, but I was waiting for channel art to be developed first, which was lagging months behind.

I pulled the trigger on the name change early for no other reason than it would be incredibly awkward for poor Catalyst because they were putting it on their website that I was reviewing it. Even I was like, I’m not going to have it where they call me Big Red-40K on their website for their sake. It’s such a bad look.

Sean: Yeah, really bad optics. But then the switch to BattleTech from Warhammer 40,000 seemed to go really well for you.

Big Red-40Tech: Yeah, I didn’t really anticipate that. I was actually getting ready to wind down my YouTube channel around the time I started covering BattleTech. I only started covering it because I was just like, you know what? The channel’s fine, I could probably do this for a while, but because I’m kind of not interested in covering 40K anymore, I’ll just cover some BattleTech. No one cares about this franchise. That was the feeling I had because it was pretty muted locally and even online at the time. This was prior to the Mercenaries Kickstarter; it was still growing, but I hadn’t realized it.

I’ve been a BattleTech fan my whole life, but being a BattleTech fan is often—at least traditionally in the 2000s—a lot of struggle to find other BattleTech fans. Especially ‘cause I’d been a mod in the 40K community, anytime I brought up BattleTech people would be like, “boo, hiss!” So I put out a BattleTech video called ‘BattleTech: What is a Battlemech?’ and it did really well for my channel at the time. 

So that’s weird. And then I just started putting out more videos and people watched them. That’s really what it boils down to. 

Sean: It sounds like maybe the Warhammer 40K content creator market was a little saturated, but BattleTech fans were desperate for videos.

Big Red-40Tech: I suspect so because one of the reasons why I didn’t think anyone was interested is there were only really two channels at the time with any relevance that covered BattleTech. And yes, I know there’s more. I know that people would immediately be angry if they had a preferred curator who they were watching. I’m saying that in terms of big view counts, there was only one or two channels at the time that really covered BattleTech at all.

One of them, of course, is The Black Pants Legion but not everybody is the Black Pants Legion.

Sean: For sure, Tex and the Legion make some of the best BattleTech content around. 

Big Red-40Tech: Oh yeah, they’re an absolutely amazing crew of people who make amazing things.

Sean: So let’s check your BattleTech bonafides. What parts of BattleTech do you play? 

Big Red-40Tech: I got into BattleTech through the tabletop game. So, I did not start with the video games; I was brought in by my friend Jeremy when I was like seven years old because his older brother had a bunch of BattleTech stuff and had gone to college. And so we misused and abused his rule books and models. 

I started with tabletop BattleTech, which we played wrong for two years, but then started to play more correctly for a longer period of time. I also played a lot of the video games, like MechWarrior 2, Ghost Bear’s Legacy, MechWarrior 2: Mercenaries, MechCommander, MechCommander 2, and MechWarrior 4. I played MechWarrior 3, but I didn’t like it. 

Sean: Yeah, MechWarrior 3 was my least favorite too. They were trying to do new things by letting you move the arms with your mouse. I wound up needing to use a joystick for the torso, pedals for the legs, and then the mouse for moving the arms, and it was just a bit too much to coordinate.

Big Red-40Tech: That’s a lot for the average PC gamer!

Obviously MechWarrior 5, HBS’ BATTLETECH, and in the 2000s I also played thousands of games of MegaMek on several prominent MegaMek servers. You’d have hundreds of people at the time in those campaign servers—like at any time you’d log in, there’d be 100 to 300 people. And that was during the Dark Age. 

I did not Indulge in MechWarrior: Dark Age, and not because it was a Clix game—I played HeroClix. It’s because my main factions at the time were the Free Worlds League and ComStar, and they were both either sidelined or dead. So it’s just like, you can play either these proxies for all these states or this state no one’s ever heard of before, but can I play the Free Worlds League or ComStar? “No.” I’m like, oh, okay, well then this game can climb a rope.

When I found out the Free Worlds League was dead, I actually became one of those people who said the timeline ends at 3067. I was just like, yep, no BattleTech beyond this date. That changed after one of my friends locally informed me about the book To Ride The Chimera, which came out in the late 2000s. There are parts of that book that I don’t like. I hate the Halases, which anyone who’s on my live streams knows I despise the Halases, but it’s still my favorite faction. I’m still really excited for the direction they’re going to take the Free Worlds League into the new era, but that’s what dragged me outside of the 3067 ecosystem and into the future. I’m like, well my favorite faction’s not dead anymore. So Let’s let’s see what happens.

Sean: A lot of people fell out during the Dark Age. I played MechWarrior: Dark Age, but I never liked how it seemed to emphasize tanks and infantry over ‘Mechs. 

Big Red-40Tech: No one fielded ‘Mechs in that game! Even with Age of Destruction—because I had a lot of friends who played it and were like, “Oh, yeah well, they buffed ‘Mechs!” I’m like, they didn’t buff them enough!

Sean: Dark Age did bring about my current favorite faction, the Spirit Cats, at least.

Big Red-40Tech: Speaking of Spirit Cats, we’ve been getting a lot of art generated on the channel by some great artists. I work mostly with Alan Blackwell, but I also work with Bruce Pannaud and Eldonious, and someone who does portraits for me named Koala. And they’re all great artists. Absolutely love them. 

The plan right now is actually to get a Spirit Cat art piece done, which is going to be of a Nova Cat OmniMech painted in Spirit Cat colors, and it’s going to be a great scene. 

But just watch, it’s going to be like crayons. I’m like, guys, we couldn’t get Alan to do this, so I scanned this.

Sean: I’m sure whether Alan paints us a great piece or you wow us with your pastel skills, it’s going to be incredible. Let’s move on to perhaps the most important question: what’s your favorite ‘Mech?

Big Red-40Tech: The Wolverine.

Just because during my MegaMek period I mostly played Succession Wars, I mostly fought for the Free World’s League and became thoroughly acquainted with the WVR-6M. Every campaign cycle got dozens of kills without any of them dying; it was just absurd. The funniest thing is I know they put a bounty out on me—one of the Houses—because I just kept on killing a lot of their stuff with these Wolverines and they’re just like, “Whoever kills these stupid Wolverines, we’re going to pay you out.”

Sean: I got no complaints about the Wolverine. It’s a great ‘Mech in any era. 

Big Red-40Tech: They did get me eventually. They did get me. 

Sean: You just ran into the Steiner Scout Lance?

Big Red-40Tech: Headshots. No headshots, man. Yeah, like what’s the term? A puncher’s chance. 

Sean: Well, when it’s all dice rolls, sometimes you lose. 

Big Red-40Tech: This is true. I also played a lot of MechWarrior Online, I forgot to mention that before. Not anymore. Not because I don’t want to, I just don’t have the time.

Sean: I still dabble in MWO to check out the new stuff, but yeah, every game has a bit of a shelf-life. Plus, I got too stressed out with it being a 100-percent PvP game. I much prefer MechWarrior 5.

Big Red-40Tech: No, I’m the worst when it comes to that. Like I remember when I played Company of Heroes, Dawn of War 2, or even MWO, I’m like, I wanna be the best. I’ve learned since the late 2000s that that level of competitiveness was bad for me. 

And it also eventually made me stop enjoying a lot of games I otherwise loved, you know, tabletop or video games. And it helped me have this fundamental change in character in terms of like, what do I enjoy about these games and why do I enjoy it? I used to love it.

Sean: So you’re more about the tabletop these days. What’s your tabletop BattleTech army?

Big Red-40Tech: I’ve got multiple tabletop armies. On my desk right now, I’ve got the Com Guards I was painting up. I’ve not painted in way too long though, because I basically spend all my time making content. But there are plans this summer or fall to finally finish getting my lighting set up on my desk so I can do paint streams with people.

I have a Free Worlds League force that’s finished and ready to go. I’ve got a Steiner force that I finished. I always do custom forces for the record; I don’t do official units, but I’ve got some blue and white Steiner guys. And then I’ve got a Capellan Confederation force ready to go, and my  Com Guards are almost ready to go.

I’m planning on building a Jade Falcon ilClan force, and I’m planning on building a Rasalhague Dominion for both Ghost Bear and the KungsArmé. And I am planning on doing a Word of Blake force when the Celestials come out.

Sean: Blake be praised.

Big Red-40Tech: Praise Blake.

Sean: I’m very much looking forward to the new sculpts they announced. Still not sure how they’re going to make a lot of these janky Dark Age and Jihad-era ‘Mechs look cool though.

Big Red-40Tech: Scroggins will find a way.

Sean: Most likely. Moving along, what’s your favorite BattleTech book?

Big Red-40Tech: Ooh. I mean, I just read this stuff basically every day, right? That’s a really tough one. I know my favorite novel is Michael Ciaravella’s Damocles Sanction. But, I actually tend to like the source books more. So that’s actually like a much more fierce competition in my mind.

I’m going to say Operation Klondike and probably the reason why is only because it’s the sourcebook I’ve had to reference most for like the last year. The original plan on the channel was for me to cover everything in order from Succession Wars through to 3060.

I was just gonna do every ‘Mech in order from the Locust through to whatever. And that changed with 3055 because people didn’t really care for 3055. So I’m like, we’re pivoting the channel—we’re pivoting! But Operation Klondike, I referenced it so much during my Clan ‘Mech videos. Often in my videos, I end up having to go over historical facts that led to certain things.

And so I’ve just reread Operation Klondike dozens of times at this point. I can basically quote you the exact page number from that and Succession Wars.

Sean: Sounds good. Any favorite BattleTech personalities, either living or dead?

Big Red-40Tech: You know what, as a Purple Bird fan and as I’m sure there’s going to be a lot of people who don’t even like this answer in general, I’m actually going to say Toranaga Matsuhari, the Gunji-no-Kanrei from the Dark Age. I love Toranaga. He’s amazing. He shows up in a few novels briefly outside of Damocles Sanction, but the thing I loved about him was you could see how all the plans come together that he has between all the different era reports and sourcebooks. And technical readouts too because they reference key events, like people trying to assassinate him in one of the battle armor articles.

But the fact that he not only—actually, I do want to apologize in advance, Sean, because this one’s going to hurt—not only does he defeat the armed forces of the Federated Suns, not only does he coup the Draconis Combine and wipe out the original line of House Kurita, replacing them with Yori Sakamoto, but he also goes and annihilates Clan Nova Cat when they tried to overthrow him.

Sean: Gah, you wound me. Look how they massacred my boys!

Big Red-40Tech: I love the Nova Cats; we’re gonna coup the government for the right reasons! You’re just like, “Oh, I don’t know if you guys know this about the Draconis Combine, but a real coup d’etat has never been tried before. They play for keeps, guys.”

I actually really want to see the Spirit Cats get the spotlight. I actually think that with the main branch of Clan Nova Cat being gone, they have an active successor. That’s more important. And I think going forward the Spirit Cats should be the main emphasis of that faction now. I don’t think that will happen for branding purposes, but I really think the Spirit Cats should be the replacement. 

Sean: And you never know, maybe the Nova Cats will pull a Smoke Jaguar and rise from the dead.

Big Red-40Tech: As a Smoke Jaguar fan, I refuse to call whatever abomination on Terra Smoke Jaguars. They’re not Smoke Jaguars, and I will never refer to them as Smoke Jaguars. I love Smoke Jaguar, they’re my favorite Clan, but whatever is pretending to be Clan Smoke Jaguar on Terra is Clan Smoke Jaguar in name only.

Sean: Well, maybe we’ll read about how they redeem themselves during the ilClan era. 

Big Red-40Tech: Know that them redeeming themselves would mean them dying.

Sean: Seems harsh but fair. Let’s change tack a bit and talk about your videos. How do you go about selecting what ‘Mechs to cover? You said you started in order but that didn’t really work out.

Big Red-40Tech: Well, no. Full disclosure, nobody really cared at all about the 3055 ‘Mechs. I covered some pretty little-known 3050, 3025, and 2750 ‘Mechs that—like, people watched those videos. As soon as I started covering the Dart and the Daimyo and stuff, no one cared.

Sean: That’s a shame. The Dart is a tight little ‘Mech.

Big Red-40Tech: And for the record, my favorite TRO is 3055, so I was so excited to hit 3055. I’m like, Oh, we’re finally doing it. I love the Succession Wars designs, I love the Clan designs, but we’re finally getting to 3055. This is so exciting! And then nobody watched.

I hate to say it, but at a certain point, you can only run uphill for so long. You’ve got to pivot towards something the audience is more interested in or is willing to keep an eye on. So I’m still covering 3055 ‘Mechs, but not in the traditional way I was before where everything was getting covered in order. But also to be fair, a lot of people don’t pay as much attention after 3052.

This is not in any way critical; this is what people enjoy. A lot of people love what comes out from 3025, 2750, and the initial Clan designs. I think the Clan designs get a little bit more credit in the later stuff, but for the Spheroid ‘Mechs, there’s a lot less love except for the stuff that shows up in video games.

Sean: Such as the Firefly and Starslayer from MechCommander 2. And both are coming in the Mercenaries Kickstarter!

Big Red-40Tech: And it looks super cool! Yeah, I can’t wait to get my stuff, man. I can’t wait.

Sean: So, I have to say, I’ve noticed a trend in your videos. Most of them are around 20 to 30 minutes long, and then you have some videos that go on four-hour odysseys. How can you talk about any given ‘Mech for so long?!

Big Red-40Tech: So when I do a ‘Mech video like that, those are not the norm. I know some people are like, “That’s all he makes.” I’m like, I’ve made like three videos longer than an hour. Out of 300, you know? 

When you’re looking at a video like that, I call them hybrid videos. So the Stone Rhino is the most popular one, and the Warhammer IIC is the most recent one. Those videos are about the entire history of the ‘Mech in its connection with the faction that made or is currently making it. I don’t go over the entire history of those factions, nor do I go over the entire history of certain tangential elements that get attached. Still, they’re all there to try to give context to what was happening around the ‘Mech’s production, what was happening around its deployments, and why it mattered.

In the case of the Warhammer IIC, for instance, you have obviously its origins. It emerges in 2829, a year after the Marauder IIC. It emerges from Sheridan, the capital world of the Star Adders. So from that point, I was like, I can turn this into something where I talk about where it would have been deployed. And because we know it’s a IIC ‘Mech and we know it was a backline ‘Mech, and we know it was one of the frontline machines at the time prior to the OmniMech, and we know that the Star Adders get the absolute piss beaten out of them by Clan Mongoose‘s initial invasion with OmniMech. This thing got driven into the ground. 

Well, that creates a narrative. That creates an idea: these things aren’t valued very much. And there’s even a specific entry in TRO: Project Phoenix where they point out that its value surges in the preamble to the Wars of Reaving because of its battlefield performance in York. There, Clan warriors begin to see value in this ‘Mech and that creates a really interesting exploration for you to go through. This thing emerged as an updated Inner Sphere design just before the OmniMech, and then OmniMechs take over, and then you go over to its resurgence hundreds of years later because of the deployments of Clan Star Adder, the people who made it in the first place fighting the Blood Spirits on the Blood Spirit homeworld. I thought that was just a fascinating thing. 

It also let me talk about second-line Clan warriors. There’s a whole section on there in terms of who the people who would receive this ‘Mech are, where it would be deployed, and why it would be deployed in that way.

It also let me go over its deployment in the Battle of Tukayyid. Not only is there art confirming that it was deployed in the Battle of Tukayyid in the original Battle of Tukayyid book but also there are explanations that, you know, the Clans were running out of equipment. 

Also, we know that freebirth warriors were used by the Diamond Sharks. Most particularly, if not willingly, in the Battle of Tukayyid where Khan Hawker was a complete clown.

Sean: And the Diamond Sharks lost pretty badly. 

Big Red-40Tech: He lost for lots of reasons and he deserved to lose. But you know, it let me really explore the ‘Mechs’ deployment and the honor and dignity in the way that this thing is allotted because it participated in these events.  

The main thing that actually pushed that video over is that it was also related to Clan Star Adder. I thought that it was only appropriate that I explain Clan Star Adder’s outro and, you know, the Wars of Reaving.

And by the way, I cut 45 minutes worth of stuff out of that video, all Wars of Reaving-related. It was really tough to do that. I didn’t even realize how big the video was going to end up being at the time. I was just like, man, I can’t have this be like a four-and-a-half-hour video or whatever. And then it still ended up being a four-hour video.

Sean: It’s one of your best videos in terms of views though, so maybe your audience wants more?

Big Red-40Tech: How about a five-hour video? “No, Big Red, no!”

I didn’t want it to be four hours, just to be clear. And I don’t think you’ll ever see another four-hour video for me. That was a unique case where I got kind of trapped in my own creation,

Sean: Which video has been your favorite to produce so far? 

Big Red-40Tech:  Warhammer IIC. It let me really flex a lot of muscle that I hadn’t flexed in a long time in terms of my ability to go over stuff and examine things and let me deep dive things a little bit more. They feel like more complete pictures, whereas a lot of the other videos are kind of vertical slices.

I would have said the Executioner would make it there too, but the Executioner‘s development was a huge mess, so I remember that video for the complete disaster it was to make. I know the audience can’t see it, but you can see the sound panels on the back wall. I had just renovated the office to remove all the shelving and all this 40K stuff I wasn’t using anymore before I did the recording for that video. So I was doing multiple things at once, and while I was taking stuff out I hadn’t realized I destroyed the acoustics in the room. 

I recorded the Executioner video. It was a six-hour recording, between bad takes or alternate takes and whatnot. And I had to go through and parse through all of this. All of the audio was junk. I had to order all these sound panels for the room, and I had to put the sound panels up. And each time I’m doing it, I’m ordering in more panels because I would record for like 10 minutes and see what happened.

So I managed to get the audio to the point where I used to be, but by that point, I was exhausted. The video ran three weeks over its time budget, in terms of my input into it, and there are also two major mistakes in that video, which anger me to no end.

I love Clan Ghost Bear and I love the Executioner. So I was like, this is a passion project for me, and it ended up just being this huge trash fire.

Sean: Well, maybe you’ll revisit the Executioner someday like you are in the upcoming Banshee video. 

Big Red-40Tech: Yeah. The Banshee‘s actually where the channel started to take off. It was the first time where I kind of just didn’t go over the ‘Mech’s basic components and I talked a little bit about even just the importance the ‘Mech has in many ways.

When you pick up TRO 3050, it’s the first real Clan buster. If you take a look at just how all of the other ‘Mechs in 3050 were, everybody knows the notoriously substandard TRO 3050 upgrades for most of these ‘Mechs. It’s like, “Hey guys, we upgraded the Atlas. It now has a severe heat problem, an XL engine, and can’t fire most of its primary weapons. It’s better now!” 

It’s not better. You’ve been sitting there holding your head, looking at this, like, who designed these things? I could ramble for days, but if you look at the Banshee-5S, it’s the first real Clan buster. It’s got two ER PPCs, it’s got a Gauss rifle. It’s the first really effective ‘Mech that you could put on the table and be like, I am willing to fight a Clan heavy. If you have a Summoner, I will fight your Summoner, and there’s a very good chance that I will kill your Summoner. 

Sean: I won’t fight your Dire Wolf, but a Summoner should be okay.

Big Red-40Tech: Yeah, no. But you gotta understand from an Inner Sphere military perspective—not just in-universe, but even for the player base—it gives you some teeth that at the time, especially back in the ‘90s, you didn’t really get until TRO 3055 came out. It’s the prototype for what you would honestly call a Clan buster. 

So I managed to do a very big video on that at the time: 15 minutes. It was during a very early portion of my style, but it was the evolution of how my videos started to evolve because from the Banshee the Atlas was a further evolution of the Banshee. And then I did a few other videos similar to the Atlas video. And then I hit the Marauder II, which ended up being a really advanced version of what I had been doing at the time.

It’s kind of the first real breakout video after the Atlas that I did. You can actually see the prototype. It covers Wolf’s Dragoons and it covers the Marauder II. And then after that, I did one or two similar videos before I hit the Stone Rhino, and the Stone Rhino was the current template I use when I do these really big, expansive ‘Mech videos.

Sean: And what’s your next big, expansive ‘Mech video going to cover?

Big Red-40Tech: The Nova Cat, which will cover Clan Nova Cat and splinter faction Spirit Cats funnily enough. 

Sean: Ooh, my spirited kitties!

Big Red-40Tech: Yeah. Like the fact that you’re a Spirit Cat, man. I love the Nova Cat ‘Mech because I always wanted to see what happens if you try to burn your own pilots alive.

Sean: I mean, there was always the Nova for that.

Big Red-40Tech: Yeah, but you can’t do it in a Clan heavy, man. Look, I want my coffins to be more than 50 tons, thank you very much.

Sean: The Hellbringer has entered the chat.

Big Red-40Tech: I’ve got some terrible news for you: that Hellbringer will die before it gets a chance to overheat.

I like the Hellbringer. I think it’s a cool ‘Mech. I actually like the overwhelming majority of ‘Mechs. I like it even when they’re flawed or anything like that. There are some ‘Mechs I despise like, you know, the Shadow Hawk, but generally, I like 99 percent of the BattleMechs in the game.

Sean: Shots fired. Man, even I haven’t gone after the Shadow Hawk. 

Big Red-40Tech: Oh, people love the Shadow Hawk, and I am one of those vocal minority. It’s one of my favorite videos I made early on because I basically unironically described it as a fireworks display. I’m like, you don’t field this thing to be battlefield effective; you field this thing to enhance morale. It’s got one ton of ammunition in every torso, so much ammunition that you’ll never run out of it.

Sean: Ah yes, an ammo explosion just waiting to happen. Did you ever find a particular topic or video challenging?

Big Red-40Tech: I would say the most challenging topic to cover for me personally is the FedCom Civil War because I just don’t like it. I don’t care that the Federated Commonwealth had a civil war. I don’t like the overall plot of it or the character twists that happened at the time. I still dislike it to this day. 

The funny part is sometimes as you get older, you’re like, oh, I’ve come to appreciate this in ways that I didn’t necessarily appreciate before. That is not true for the FedCom Civil War.

Honestly, 25 years later, it’s still bad. So it’s a challenge for me to cover it just on the basis that because I don’t like it so much. I tried to do my best to give things a fair outing. I know not everybody agrees that I do that, but in all sincerity, when I try to cover these things, I’m like, what is the fairest outing I can give this thing, whether I like it or don’t like it?

The other really big one is I don’t really like the Wolves.

Sean: Does this dislike ever come out in the videos you make?

Big Red-40Tech: It affects the content in that I like to make positive videos. I know that people don’t always believe this, but I only have about six or seven videos where I really tear stuff down. Overwhelmingly, I like to make things that are fun and positive, even if the overall tone of my videos is drab because the world of BattleTech doesn’t have a lot of happy endings. I don’t really like to make things where I’m like, this sucks.

I’ve canceled video projects where I’ve been like, guys, I can’t really release this one. You know, I finished the script in the editing process, there’s no way I can make this script better than it currently is, and the script is just too negative. And so we’re just not going to do this one. As a result, people have been asking me to make a Jade Falcon video, and I love Jade Falcon, but I just can’t find a way to make something like the Stone Rhino video or the upcoming Nova Cat.

Sean: Have you ever considered tackling these negative topics from a more humorous angle?

Big Red-40Tech: It’s just not my MO. We’re joking around here and stuff, so clearly it’s my MO for talking in person, but it doesn’t match the way I do my videos, which have a very serious tone. There are some dad jokes in there every now and then, but for the most part, I try to keep my videos in a way that is not me just kidding around about everything.

And if my Jade Falcon video is a comedy piece, it would stand out a lot. You just go over the Stone Rhino via this drab story about the descent of Clan Smoke Jaguar. What’s the next video if you hear ‘March of the Gladiators’ playing in the intro? It’s just not a good look.

Sean: Here’s a question I’ve asked a few people now: why do you think BattleTech still has helicopters? And how—as in MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries—do you think has been produced to allow choppers to operate in zero atmosphere conditions?

Big Red-40Tech: So, for the record, I love the fact that helicopters have been discovered to be able to operate in an environment with basically no atmosphere. I think that is an incredible leap forward in helicopter technology. 

So I think they patched it where they have little jets on the side of them instead of helicopter blades on airless moons. I think that’s what they did. I could be wrong, but they changed the model around a bit so that they make a bit more sense. 

Why do I think helicopters still exist in BattleTech? Purely for tabletop reasons. I tell people this all the time, and it’s not always the most positive answer, but BattleTech is a game first and foremost. That’s why you don’t take the weapon ranges all that seriously. And not only that, it’s literally a setting where people are walking around in giant robots. Now, there is internal consistency in terms of how the world itself works, and I take that a bit more seriously, but in terms of why they still use helicopters? They still use helicopters because it adds an interesting gameplay dimension and because it doesn’t visually contradict how other things in the setting kind of work. 

Sean: It’s interesting you bring up the range thing since the Warrior was initially armed with an AC/2 so it could be a fast-response craft that plinks away outside the ranges of most light ‘Mechs. And the Yellow Jacket is kinda scary. 

Big Red-40Tech: Oh, the Yellow Jacket is incredible. You know, I want to relive the Clix Dark Age by fielding an army of Savannah Masters and Yellow Jackets. You’re picking them apart at range with the Yellow Jackets, but then you’re spamming the field with dozens of Savannah Masters. Trust me, you will never get another tabletop game. Even if you lose, you will be so mean that your opponent will just be like, “I’m not going to play you anymore.”

Sean: Well, you’ll soon be able to test his plan. Savannah Masters are coming in the Mercenaries Kickstarter. 

Big Red-40Tech: Oh, I’m so excited. I made a Savannah Master video when we found out that was coming. That is one of the videos where I have a bit more comedy in it because I actually openly denounced the latest version of it for having an ER medium laser because that makes it more expensive. I’m like, how dare they! Think of how many more Savannah Masters you could have if they didn’t do this.

Sean: Like, maybe one-and-a-half more Savannah Masters? But you’ve also covered more than just the Savannah Master. I see we’ve got LRM and SRM Carriers, the Mobile Long Tom cannon, and even the Warrior. 

Big Red-40Tech: Demolisher, Patton, I covered the Manticore too. So the reason why I covered those vehicles in the first place was actually because of the Mercenaries Kickstarter; they were all going to be in it. I decided it was topical at the time.

When I make content, I also kind of look at what’s happening in the community. So why did I make the Stone Rhino video? I saw Alex Iglesias’s beautiful Stone Rhino art for MWO. And you know, the same thing rings true for why I covered these vehicles. I planned this ahead of time because they let us all know when it was happening. 

I actually did not finish all of them. The Pegasus was originally planned, but I got sick. I wanted to have a hover vehicle covered as well to kind of give people a taste of everything, but that didn’t happen. You know, life is short and you can’t really worry about these things long-term.

But the reason why I covered missile carriers is I think that they’re some of the best vehicles in the game and I did not get a chance to cover them during the Kickstarter. And the Savannah Master of course was dropped because again, we heard about those arriving. We had tons of jokes about the Savannah Master swarm being the ultimate weapon. They’re actually cheaper than some of the high-yield bombs in BattleTech, so just drop the Savannah Masters from orbit.

I would like to cover more vehicles in the future. People like the vehicle videos, which is good, but I also have to make sure that the vehicles I cover are really interesting enough in terms of being a battlefield asset and interesting enough in terms of their lore to make it worthwhile.

Sean: Would something like the Schrek meet those requirements?

Big Red-40Tech: Yeah, absolutely. I’d cover the Schrek, but it’s a matter of time too, right? The worst thing I’ve discovered—and this is what happens to almost all YouTubers—is I started making very basic videos I could produce a lot of and now that I am doing these different videos I can produce fewer of. I’m aware that some people would say that they’re not the most sophisticated videos, but for me, they’re much more sophisticated than they used to be.

And each level of that takes more time. It doesn’t just take more script time; it takes more editing time. I have to create more onscreen assets. I actually fought the audience for a while when they were like, “We really want onscreen text.” I’m like, no, you don’t guys, you’re getting three videos a week right now. You’re asking me for two videos a week. 

It’s sort of like mission creep. Each video becomes visually more distinct. I also developed a much more obvious style. So if you look at how I depict the ‘Mechs now when I’m doing technical overviews, like the glowing outline and stuff like that, these are all things that became kind of a style. Doing all of that—I know this sounds crazy—takes more time. And the more time and effort you put into something, the harder it is to keep that high-content output. 

That’s kind of the trap I fell into, but really, I’m more proud of the videos I make now. They’re better researched. They’re better written. They have better overall visuals. Before I was just, let’s just put this together and see what works, and now that’s evolved into something that I view as much more sophisticated.

Sean: What kind of BattleTech media would you like to see in the future? 

Big Red-40Tech: Well, funnily enough, Mechanical Frog recently secured something that I had thought of doing very briefly and then never, never dared pursue; he started to cover planets. So huge props to Mechanical Frog. 

I said it earlier, but I’m a professional moron on the internet. I do my best to make content and just stuff that I hope people will enjoy, but there are incredible content creators out there. You’ve got Sven van der Plank, you’ve got Mechanical Frog, obviously the Black Pants Legion. There are other up-and-coming content creators as well.

I don’t keep tabs on everything quite as much as I would like to because, to be quite frank, I’m usually working all the time. But like, there are so many people making things now compared to even two years ago. And there are going to be more people who find more of these niches to kind of fit into right now.

Let’s be very honest. For the people kind of floating around the view and subscriber level that you’ll see for the most prolific video creators right now, which are obviously Sven, Mechanical Frog, myself, and a few others, everybody’s got very unique styles and takes on things and that’s actually what you really need.

It means that you’ve got a healthy plethora of content for everybody to consume. And as the hobby grows—because BattleTech is still growing as far as I can tell, quite significantly in terms of tabletop and video games. I suspect it will boom when MechWarrior 5: Clans arrives. I  expect to see more focus on content coming out of the MechWarrior side, which will pull more people into the general BattleTech ecosystem.

I expect Battletech to grow for a while, and it’s just a good thing that there will be more content creators and more people exposing others to the hobby. I recently did a review of the BattleTech Universe book, which goes out tomorrow, funnily enough.

Sean: Or several weeks ago, depending on when I get this interview out. 

Big Red-40Tech: I also had the fortune of meeting Jordan Weisman at KerenskyCon. When I read through his section of The Remembrance, as well as meeting him in person, the thing he loves the most about BattleTech is that so many people have so much passion, energy, and love for it.

He also mentions in The Remembrance that the longest relationship he has had outside of his wife and kids is BattleTech. I actually agree with that; BattleTech has been with me functionally my whole life. There are a few franchises that have had impacts on how I view things narratively, not just BattleTech of course, but in terms of where a lot of my love for sci-fi, a lot of my love for complex political machinations and whatnot, all stems from BattleTech. 

I just want to see BattleTech do well. Content creators on YouTube do eventually fade with time. This is the truth. I’m sure I’ll be very lucky if in five years I continue to do this, not because I don’t like doing it—I love doing it—but audiences move on, things change, and you always have to be willing and open to change with the times.

But you know, at the end of the day, I just want people to love BattleTech the way I do. And that actually means something more to me than just making YouTube videos. I really do have the sincerest love for this thing, and I just hope people find their way to it.

It is overtly stronger than ever, and I expect it to continue to grow for years. But you know, these things can change. If you asked the average tabletop war gamer in 2008 where they thought Warmachine was going, they would tell you Warmachine would never vanish. I think BattleTech has a lot more resilience built into it than something like that though, because there’s no addition changes. Yes, there are, but they don’t fundamentally change the way that battle tech operates. BattleTech is at its core the same game that it was in the 1980s.

Sean: Unless you count something like Alpha Strike.

Big Red-40Tech: Alpha Strike is only played by dogs! I kid: I love Alpha Strike for the record. I actually started playing it on Six Sides Of Gaming with Tommy and Paul; I’d never played Alpha Strike before that. Anytime I’ve picked it up, I thought Alpha Strike was incredibly intuitive and a great game.

Sean: Alpha Strike games are also a lot shorter than Classic BattleTech.

Big Red-40Tech: Oh, that’s not true. I can get through a two-hour game, hour-and-a-half game of lance on lance if you’re playing with mediums. 

Sean: Maybe if everyone knows the rules.

Big Red-40Tech: And if everybody knows the rules. I want to stress, if everybody’s going back to the rulebook, you’re looking at a three-hour game, my friend.

Sean: Let’s wrap up the serious questions with some advice. What would you tell a new content creator looking to dive into BattleTech?

Big Red-40Tech: So a lot of what worked for me was luck. Make no mistake. YouTube is a marketplace of ideas, but it is also dependent on luck, just like anybody and anything. When I started making content, it was made at the right time. I didn’t know it was the right time; I actually thought these videos would fail spectacularly. I just want to make that very clear. It wasn’t like I had this plan for BattleTech all along. I did not have confidence in it. 

The main thing I would say is don’t immediately be discouraged if something doesn’t do well. But when you’re making a video, more important than anything else is to make sure your audio is good. Audio is probably the biggest factor. This is all my opinion, but it’s based on just what I look at from other channels in terms of what climbs and what doesn’t. Have good scripts, good audio, and the visuals matter too, but fundamentally, 50 percent of the people watching are probably listening rather than watching. So at the end of the day, make sure your audio is good. 

I’m going to give you guys something very cruel, and it is not meant to be discouraging, but if you listen to a lot of the channels that do okay on YouTube—this is not just BattleTech, this is YouTube in general—they all tend to have voices that work for it. Part of the reason why I suspect my channel did okay is the fact I have a voice you can listen to. I don’t actually like my voice very much, but this is something I’ve just been told by other people. 

I’m not saying this to be discouraging to anybody or anything, but the voice actually matters a lot in terms of what people will listen to. This is not BattleTech YouTube, this is YouTube in general. If your videos are going to be based on anything read or spoken, you have to have the voice for it.

Sean: Alright, I guess I’ll stick to writing then. Let’s quickly talk about that April Fools gag you got in with Jason Hansa. How did that all come together?

Big Red-40Tech: So I actually don’t know the whole story myself. I was steeped in ignorance. I had no idea that any of these things were happening. Jason had actually been working with people before we did that interview. I got roped into it at the last minute because I met Jason Hanson at AdeptiCon. We were hanging out and he’s just like, “Hey, wanna do a joke podcast for April 1st?” I’m like, oh, that’s cool. Yeah, we can do that. And I brought some microphones and stuff just in case I was going to interview anybody while I was there. 

But for my part, I’m like, we’re going to sell this as hard as we can by not just going into what Farther Country is. We’re going to start with you, we’re going to talk about you like it’s a sincere interview. And so I’m like, who are you? And what do you do for BattleTech? And we went over some of his history with everything, and then at the seven-minute mark in that 15-minute monstrosity, I just asked, so what project are you most looking forward to? And then just… terrible, awful. It was done on purpose to go off the rails, but I also still tried to sell it at that point.

We ad-libbed that whole thing. And he even told me after the fact, “I did not expect you to tell me that you thought it was awful. I had to really think on my feet with that.” I’m like, well, what else am I going to say? I’m not going to say that sounds awesome. But by the end of it, of course, I jokingly said that he sold me on it when we could potentially have samurai Tetatae.

Sean: This question comes from Hansa himself: what’s your favorite Free Worlds League state to play, and favorite state to read about? 

Big Red-40Tech: My favorite Free World State to play is the Marik Commonwealth. Because I actually side with the man. I don’t believe in any of this, “Let’s rebel against the central authority.” No. Purple Bird is House Marik. House Marik is strong. All the Bretts, all the Halases, all of these other minor houses, they gotta get in line. Purple Bird is strong and Purple Bird is House Marik.

So my favorite state to read about is the Free World’s League, but there’s not a whole lot on them. So if we’re going to say about my favorite thing to read about that is getting prolific content out there at the moment, I would actually say it’s Clan Jade Falcon. Of course, everyone who believes I secretly dislike the Clans will now believe It’s all part of his psyop.

But in all sincerity, I think that Bryan Young has done an incredible job with the Jade Falcons in the ilClan era, and that’s actually the stuff I’m most excited about. In terms of stuff that’s coming out, that’s at the top of my list right now. Oh, it’s going to be awesome. If it’s not awesome, I will let Brian know. I’ll just jump on Twitter and be like, why did you make this book? But no, in all sincerity I loved A Question Of Survival, so I’m hoping that we get some really interesting stuff out of Without Question.

Sean: And last of all, I know you’re a dog lover: what ‘Mech would your dog pilot?

Big Red-40Tech: Well, the thing is, Ares (who’s my dog) is a beautiful coward and I suspect that he would pilot whatever is the fastest thing possible so that he could run away. So he’d be in a Fireball, probably the one that’s upgraded to be so fast it would let him take off at like 400 kilometers per hour. He would run away as fast as he could because that is the type of dog that Ares is. Ares is a lover, not a fighter.

Sean: Alright, that’s all I had! If there’s anything left you want to talk about or if there’s anyone you want to shout out, the floor is yours. 

Big Red-40Tech: Oh man. So first of all, I hope that the interview was not a complete trash fire. We had fun. Well, I had fun. 

The first thing I’d like to do is I’d like to just thank everybody who enjoys the content I make. I really mean it. I find it uncomfortable when sometimes people use the title of Loremaster or whatever; I just read a lot. Obviously, I have some information just from aggregating for years in the setting, but like, I do my best to just try to try to give people the best content I can.

And the channel is literally nothing without the audience. So I just want to thank people who like my stuff. I want to thank people who have passion for the stuff that I put out. But I also want to have a big shout-out and thanks to the people who made BattleTech and are currently making it even.

As I mentioned, BattleTech has been probably the longest thing I’ve followed in my life. I just have a sincere level of love and appreciation for it. I’m humbled by the fact that people have watched my stuff in the thousands and I can’t thank them enough for doing so.

Oh, as another quick aside, a huge shout out to other content creators who will be coming after me. As I mentioned earlier, nothing is forever. I hope to do this for a long time, but there will be new people who come on the scene, and I just want to say a huge shout-out to you guys as well, especially to those of you who feel the way that I do about your love of the setting. I hope that you guys continue to find the same level of response from the audience or greater.

Thank you, Big Red, for taking the time to talk to Sarna about your work. You can subscribe to Big Red-40Tech over on his YouTube channel here.

And as always MechWarriors: Stay Syrupy.