Dietrich Mathers

Dietrich Mathers
Profile
Position(s)	Professor Emeritus
Profession	Professor

History

Professor Emeritus Dietrich Mathers was a professor from the Lyran Alliance who wrote and taught about the historical role of BattleTech and TransporTech on human history. In 3070 he was a Professor at the Stuttgart School of Defense on Kaumberg. At some point he transferred to Tharkad University as an Assistant Professor where he commonly filled in for Professor Readly. During his time in Tharkad University he sometimes quoted Danger Dave and the Amazon Express on aerospace operations to point out various inaccuracy in the fictional presentation, as compared to real life on a spaceship.

He wrote Unsung Technologies, Crippen Station: Reassessed, as well as the in-universe history on the Battle of Tukayyid.

Notes

Attempting to date the lectures gets a little wonky but that is because the author Mike Miller has said that he only created Mathers as an excuse to introduce humor into otherwise dry recitations of canon technology. The author indicated no effort was made to keep Mathers closely tied to the timeline since the character was not tied to any plot or storyline, hence the issues discussed below.

From self-referential clues, the order likely goes BattleMech Tech: A Primer, Unsung Technologies, Aerospace Technologies, and then Aerospace Operations. The BattleMech lecture is dated 12 May 3070.

Next appears to come Unsung Technologies, with a quote "I’m the one who mouthed off on a live, publicly broadcast lecture about both our esteemed nobles and honorable democratic agitators [likely Democracy Now], and so I’m the assistant professor," indicating his job title change from Professor to Assistant Professor might not be just because he lost tenure when transferring universities. Democracy Now was active and peaceful in the period of 3067-3071, providing us a potential date window.

Aerospace Technologies references the Word of Blake attack on Alarion yet speaks of Galax Industries in the present tense, despite both being obliterated on the same day: 12 April 3069. News lag about Galax could account for this, placing this lecture as far out as June 3069, which predates the first lecture.

Aerospace Operations gives us a pretty solid date: "1,114 years ago today, Yuri Gagarin became the first human to enter orbit." Thus, that's 12 April 3075. Unfortunately that's far enough past the previous lectures so that the internal references to each other no longer make sense.

Bibliography

• BattleTech: Battle of Tukayyid
• Strategic Operations
• Tactical Operations: Advanced Units & Equipment
• TechManual