User:Mendrugo

Mendrugo[edit]

A Brief History of Time[edit]

I was introduced to BattleTech around 1986-1987, browsing through TRO:3025, 3026 and 2750 at the Waldenbooks while the rest of the family was cruising the mall. I then received the Crescent Hawks' Inception game (with the Phoenix Hawk LAM mini send-away offer) and was hooked. I ran innumerable BattleTech and BattleSpace games while presiding over D.R.A.G.O.N. (the Davis Role-playing And Gaming Organizational Network) game nights at college, and got proud and loud in defense of the virtues of the Capellan Confederation on the Usenet's rec.games.mecha group.

This paid off when Field Manual: Capellan Confederation came out, and the names of unit commanders were partially drawn from a list of active Capellan Usenet fans. I was most surprised to see myself in command of the Dynasty Guard. When FanPro took over the license for BattleTech and put out the call for demo agents, I sent in an application and became FanPro Commando #8, running demos in northern New Mexico (including at Bubonicon in Albuqerque). Opportunities to run demos were, however, few and far between in Jamaica, Poland and Ukraine (I work for the U.S. State Department at various embassies), so I switched from demo agent to playtester. I'm now on the Catalyst fact check team.

Once I stopped demoing, I began working on developing an online interface to simulate the entire BattleTech universe - a hyper-detailed grand-strategic game set in 3025. Progress rates have varied, and development has been on hiatus since 2012, when I began learning Russian full time in preparation for my next assignment - Tajikistan. However, I plan to resume development work once I get established in Dushanbe. When ready, players will be able to conduct anything from pirate raids to full scale planetary invasions, or they could forget the fighting and build a mighty trading empire. In the course of putting together the database at the core of the simulation, I scoured all the sorucebooks, novels, etc. for data on the setting.

My most recent project has been a chronological review of all BattleTech fiction (http://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php/topic,25780.0.html).

Awards[edit]

Awards Board

Founder's Honorable Mention Award (2018) Founder's Honorable Mention Award (2016)