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I know, I know, two dimensional representation of three dimensional space, but it certainly looks like the Amaris clan was planning their defense against the clans for a long time. There are scattered outposts all around the periphery. They're either listening posts so Stefan can track clan movements, or staging grounds to screw with resupply attempts. Either way, some clanners are in for a surprise.
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Feb 4, 2016 04:40
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Zaodai posted:... annnnd that just put them at the top of the Star League's poo poo list. They better finish summoning Space Godzilla quick. It does also make it look like their initial operations against Comstar were intended to identify what kinds of safeguards and booby-traps they could expect from their facilities.
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Feb 4, 2016 04:45
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Tran posted:I know, I know, two dimensional representation of three dimensional space, but it certainly looks like the Amaris clan was planning their defense against the clans for a long time. There are scattered outposts all around the periphery. They're either listening posts so Stefan can track clan movements, or staging grounds to screw with resupply attempts. Either way, some clanners are in for a surprise. Yeah, even assuming the vast majority of that territory isn't settled, it's explored and most likely prepared. And this is assuming the Clans get the intel they need so they aren't going in completely blind. Recall how many unsettled and unmarked systems and planets dot just the Inner Sphere alone.
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Feb 4, 2016 05:02
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Tran posted:I know, I know, two dimensional representation of three dimensional space, but it certainly looks like the Amaris clan was planning their defense against the clans for a long time. There are scattered outposts all around the periphery. They're either listening posts so Stefan can track clan movements, or staging grounds to screw with resupply attempts. Either way, some clanners are in for a surprise. Defense against the Clans? Oh no, Amaris doesn't want to simply fight them off: he wants to win the fight his ancestors started. A fight Ducan and Friends just brought him one step closer to finishing, thanks to the formation of the new Star League. Poor Duncan; I do so hope he gets to shoot Amaris in the face before all this is over, because the FWL keeps getting used, abused and beaten to the punch. I bet Duncan will have a real fun time drawing up his plans to take over all the FWL Comstar facilities from scratch, now that the Cappellans have taught Comstar that their facilities could use some defensive upgrades. Poor bastard. At least he got Carlos back...
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Feb 4, 2016 05:03
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Also Erik "Kevan Lannister" Kerensky being the guy behind it all is not something I expected to see.
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Feb 4, 2016 05:05
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T.G. Xarbala posted:I'm getting the feeling that re: the characterization of the Kerenskys in this timeline, Aleksandr was a lot more of an rear end in a top hat while his crazy son Nick was a bit more sane. Still enough of an rear end in a top hat to create the Clan system, but deep down he'd rather have a Clan Empire ruling the Sphere rather than see it all burn down the way his dad wanted. This is fully accurate. In canon, as I believe I exhaustively covered in this long, detailed post about the Clans earlier in this thread, Aleksandr was at least arguably a great tragic hero and Nick was an egomaniacal jackass at whose feet can be laid most of the problems, IC and OOC, with the Clans. Here, it seems things may be rather reversed. Which... I have given PTN some sass about his treatment of the clans thus far, but I am willing to keep seeing where he is driving. Also: quote:"But first,” Asa hissed, raising a finger towards an empty seating section in the back corner of the room, “can anyone tell me where the Cloud Cobras have gone?” gently caress and yes. Go Team Snake Alliance!
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Feb 4, 2016 05:09
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Mukaikubo posted:Aleksandr was at least arguably a great tragic hero and Nick was an egomaniacal jackass at whose feet can be laid most of the problems, IC and OOC, with the Clans. I've always felt many of Aleksandr Kerensky's problems are of his own making. His need to directly control things created the opening Amaris needed to buddy up to the First Lord while Kerensky was off leading armies as well as the collapse of the Star League-in-Exile when he failed to invest anyone in an idea beyond Follow Aleksandr Kerensky. For a guy commanding such a huge army he was never really able to voluntarily give someone else top-level control. During the wars in the Periphery, he gave his commanders broad latitude mostly because he needed to command one of the theaters personally. Of course they massaged all the flaws out of him in the intervening three hundred years. I mean, they were doing that with Melissa Steiner-Davion while she was actively in the process of undermining her mother's work modernizing the Lyran military and rendering the Federated Commonwealth untenable.
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Feb 4, 2016 05:17
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Defiance Industries posted:I've always felt many of Aleksandr Kerensky's problems are of his own making. His need to directly control things created the opening Amaris needed to buddy up to the First Lord while Kerensky was off leading armies as well as the collapse of the Star League-in-Exile when he failed to invest anyone in an idea beyond Follow Aleksandr Kerensky. For a guy commanding such a huge army he was never really able to voluntarily give someone else top-level control. During the wars in the Periphery, he gave his commanders broad latitude mostly because he needed to command one of the theaters personally. I get the impression he is not a very politically-savvy person. Or he just does not like to get involved. Which is a bad flaw when you are the commanding officer of an army whose nation is surrounded on all sides by other potentially hostile nations.
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Feb 4, 2016 06:29
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Weissritter posted:I get the impression he is not a very politically-savvy person. Or he just does not like to get involved. Which is a bad flaw when you are the commanding officer of an army whose nation is surrounded on all sides by other potentially hostile nations. Stefan Amaris held the throne for 13 years before Kerensky finally deposed him. I'd also point out that the other Great Houses were willing to accept this without batting an eyelash, and Aleksandr Kerensky mostly got butthurt because he was acting regent for Richard Cameron (and the entire Star League) at the time.
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Feb 4, 2016 06:33
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PoptartsNinja posted:Stefan Amaris held the throne for 13 years before Kerensky finally deposed him. That's a standard term of office in Jefferton. It's fiiiiine.
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Feb 4, 2016 06:35
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Wasn't Kerensky's main beef that he wasn't made superdictator forever?
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Feb 4, 2016 06:44
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PoptartsNinja posted:Stefan Amaris held the throne for 13 years before Kerensky finally deposed him. True, though most of those years were spent fighting to reach Terra. I meant that if he had been more politically savvy, maybe he would have more support from the Houses (though to be fair they did not help Amaris out either), or prevented Stefan Amaris from getting so close to Richard Cameron.
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Feb 4, 2016 06:48
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Also among those hidden NRWR listening posts/"pirate" staging grounds scattered across the periphery, there's one funny little blob of blue in the RWR's original territories right outside the Lyran Commonwealth.
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Feb 4, 2016 07:24
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thetruegentleman posted:Defense against the Clans? Oh no, Amaris doesn't want to simply fight them off: he wants to win the fight his ancestors started. A fight Ducan and Friends just brought him one step closer to finishing, thanks to the formation of the new Star League. Poor Duncan; I do so hope he gets to shoot Amaris in the face before all this is over, because the FWL keeps getting used, abused and beaten to the punch. Carlos and his Crusaders are gonna kick Stefan's teeth in. Amaris will be all "Muah hah hah my Xanatos Gambit has worked perfectly" and then Carlos will burst out from cover with Caesar Steiner and the newly-hired Randy Montaigne at his side and crush that fucker. ...look, I can dream, okay?
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Feb 4, 2016 07:33
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PoptartsNinja posted:Gray Death Legion  you know just what to say, PTN
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Feb 4, 2016 07:40
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I'm still hoping the NRWR have managed to perfect superheavy tech so we can finally see the Matar in action.
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Feb 4, 2016 07:40
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Night10194 posted:Wasn't Kerensky's main beef that he wasn't made superdictator forever? TBH it seems like he was genuinely hurt and upset that the House Lords couldn't pick a new First Lord without one hegemonic (get it?) state keeping major territorial gains off the table. Like he read about the time in the golden age of the Star League where the Lyran Commonwealth said "hey if we have a Star League what do we need a government for? We should just merge with that!" and thought that was what people genuinely would do even though that vote failed.
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Feb 4, 2016 07:57
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Weissritter posted:True, though most of those years were spent fighting to reach Terra. I meant that if he had been more politically savvy, maybe he would have more support from the Houses (though to be fair they did not help Amaris out either), or prevented Stefan Amaris from getting so close to Richard Cameron. At least in the original canon, most of the Great Houses actually did give some aid to the SLDF, just not very openly. Minoru Kurita was publicly very frosty towards Kerensky, but it's implied he also allowed/arranged for a good amount of special forces and black ops stuff to aid the SLDF. John Davion didn't outright offer combat forces, but he did open up facilities to the SLDF and MP/garrison detachments to let the SLDF free up more frontline troops. Barbara Liao and Robert Steiner both at least allowed some degree of transit rights and so on, though the Lyrans also "helped" by occupying most of the RWR after the SLDF had already ground most of it to dust. The only state that didn't at least do something was the Free Worlds League, and that was mostly because Kenyon Marik just simply hated Aleksandr. ("No u" being the motto of House Marik, after all.) It makes sense, of course - no one really trusted Amaris by that point, but there was the possibility that the SLDF could lose, so the Great Houses didn't really want to risk being too closely tied to it. Morally dubious, but logical. There likely isn't much Kerensky could have done to change that state of affairs by the time everything went down, so his main failing is simply being so politically outflanked by Amaris in the first place. We know that for PTN's canon, that the divergence roughly corresponds to the assault of Terra, so it's interesting to wonder whether the Great Houses may have taken a different role in this timeline as well, or if there are other changes that led to Kerensky's failure to complete his mission. Defiance Industries posted:TBH it seems like he was genuinely hurt and upset that the House Lords couldn't pick a new First Lord without one hegemonic (get it?) state keeping major territorial gains off the table. Like he read about the time in the golden age of the Star League where the Lyran Commonwealth said "hey if we have a Star League what do we need a government for? We should just merge with that!" and thought that was what people genuinely would do even though that vote failed. I think that's part of it. I think he also simply couldn't conceive of the possibility of the Great Houses risking another huge war so soon after the liberation of Terra, so that when they started arguing over everything he genuinely had no idea what to do at all. Fraction Jackson fucked around with this message at 08:14 on Feb 4, 2016 |
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Feb 4, 2016 08:12
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Fraction Jackson posted:I think that's part of it. I think he also simply couldn't conceive of the possibility of the Great Houses risking another huge war so soon after the liberation of Terra, so that when they started arguing over everything he genuinely had no idea what to do at all. I think that he also didn't realize that for most of the House Lords, the SLDF wasn't this super-great army that protected all of them, it was the instrument that the Terran Hegemony used to keep them all in place. For the Kuritans and Davions it was the reason they couldn't buttfuck their neighbor, and for the Lyrans and Capellans they were the guys who kept them from retaliating against "pirate" raids that were very clearly DCMS/AFFS troops with "pirate" paint jobs. And probably to House Marik they were the reason he couldn't nuke everything because that motherfucker escalated the First Succession War to an apocalypse.
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Feb 4, 2016 08:25
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Fraction Jackson posted:At least in the original canon, most of the Great Houses actually did give some aid to the SLDF, just not very openly. Minoru Kurita was publicly very frosty towards Kerensky, but it's implied he also allowed/arranged for a good amount of special forces and black ops stuff to aid the SLDF. John Davion didn't outright offer combat forces, but he did open up facilities to the SLDF and MP/garrison detachments to let the SLDF free up more frontline troops. Barbara Liao and Robert Steiner both at least allowed some degree of transit rights and so on, though the Lyrans also "helped" by occupying most of the RWR after the SLDF had already ground most of it to dust. The only state that didn't at least do something was the Free Worlds League, and that was mostly because Kenyon Marik just simply hated Aleksandr. ("No u" being the motto of House Marik, after all.) Fair enough about the covert aid, though at the end it comes down to him being terrible/not interested in politics. PTN: Any chance you get to write in the TROs or FMs as well? I really like your writing style in general.
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Feb 4, 2016 08:33
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Defiance Industries posted:I think that he also didn't realize that for most of the House Lords, the SLDF wasn't this super-great army that protected all of them, it was the instrument that the Terran Hegemony used to keep them all in place. For the Kuritans and Davions it was the reason they couldn't buttfuck their neighbor, and for the Lyrans and Capellans they were the guys who kept them from retaliating against "pirate" raids that were very clearly DCMS/AFFS troops with "pirate" paint jobs. And probably to House Marik they were the reason he couldn't nuke everything because that motherfucker escalated the First Succession War to an apocalypse. Yeah, while there was a non-negligible minority in the overall population that thought the SLDF was cool as hell, the actual governments - Great Houses and Periphery both - saw the Hegemony as less of a stabilizing force and more of an impediment to extending their own influence. It's actually one of the best, and funniest, things about Battletech as a setting, honestly. Basically everything from the beginning of the fluff is centered around this sort of hero worship of the Star League in one way or another. The Successor States vie for its throne. The big shot mercenary units that aren't author favorites are all ex-SLDF regiments. Their technology was better than everything, and there's an entire faction dedicated to worshiping what's left of that technology. And when an even more powerful threat shows up, surprise - it's actually the descendants of the SLDF. And all of these various powers have flaws a mile wide. There's basically no good guys, just different flavors of jerks in a broken post-Golden Age. And that's the joke, because of course they're jerks, because the Camerons were too, and the Golden Age never really was. The Star League that people look back on isn't the one that existed. The fall of the Star League is tragic because of the brutality of what followed, via Amaris, Kerensky's counteroffensive, and then the Succession Wars - but they weren't the good guys either, keeping the Star League together by threats and technological superiority. Really, by the end of the Cameron reign, the best you can say about their relationships with the rest of known space is that some states saw them as just an inevitable complication to whatever they wanted to do instead of just outright hating them. Fraction Jackson fucked around with this message at 08:48 on Feb 4, 2016 |
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Feb 4, 2016 08:43
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Oh man, the Capellans doing all their cloak and dagger poo poo, the reformation of a new Star League, the Homeworld Clans denouncing the first Crusade and beginning a second one, and Amaris being Amaris as only Amaris can. Dis poo poo is gonna be gooooooooood.
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Feb 4, 2016 11:57
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Yeah it's going to be great. Hope those two idiots realize Demon Hawks is just terrible though or else get mocked mercilessly for it. 
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Feb 4, 2016 12:06
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So looking at that map, is Amaris positioned to be the current Big Bad Guy with a huge secret empire, powerful weapons, and a grudge against pretty much every other faction that he has a border with (and some that he doesn't)?
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Feb 4, 2016 13:32
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SynthOrange posted:Yeah it's going to be great. Demon Hawks is what we get for never voting for the Kalma-Youngblood Company, LLC. 
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Feb 4, 2016 13:38
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lilljonas posted:So looking at that map, is Amaris positioned to be the current Big Bad Guy with a huge secret empire, powerful weapons, and a grudge against pretty much every other faction that he has a border with (and some that he doesn't)? Except that he hasn't done anything but manipulate the Free Worlds League into letting him have a fight he wants. That's just about how you say hello in Battletech politics.
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Feb 4, 2016 13:38
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I'm having trouble tracking down the relevant update/s, so perhaps somebody could help me out: Natasha Kerensky's order to disregard Amaris' statement, was that a real thing or something that clan Wolf straight-up faked to usurp her?
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Feb 4, 2016 16:36
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Fraction Jackson posted:We know that for PTN's canon, that the divergence roughly corresponds to the assault of Terra Happens a fair bit before that, actually, but that was the first major sign that a divergence had taken place. Weissritter posted:PTN: Any chance you get to write in the TROs or FMs as well? I really like your writing style in general. I have not been asked.
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Feb 4, 2016 16:46
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Fraction Jackson posted:Yeah, while there was a non-negligible minority in the overall population that thought the SLDF was cool as hell, the actual governments - Great Houses and Periphery both - saw the Hegemony as less of a stabilizing force and more of an impediment to extending their own influence. I think that they sometimes attempt this in the current timeline (see: their treatment of Melissa Steiner-Davion, depictions of Devlin Stone compared to when we see him in a first-person narrative) but sometimes it's just that authors aren't smart enough to write what they want characters to be (Victor being a "great strategist")
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Feb 4, 2016 19:20
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I imagine that an earlier difference would have been the Successors States-to-be being unwilling to help Kerensky under the table the way they did in normal BT Canon. No free passage though state territory, no use of the SLDF facilities, no information 'lost' to the SLDF army. Would explain why, while he did manage to kill Amaris, Kerensky was unable to dislodge the RWR forces from terra and got driven out of the Inner Sphere vowing revenge.
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Feb 4, 2016 19:23
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PoptartsNinja posted:Happens a fair bit before that, actually, but that was the first major sign that a divergence had taken place. Well that's an interesting bit of information for sure. Is it something we know about in the thread yet, or is it as-yet-to-be-revealed? Defiance Industries posted:I think that they sometimes attempt this in the current timeline (see: their treatment of Melissa Steiner-Davion, depictions of Devlin Stone compared to when we see him in a first-person narrative) but sometimes it's just that authors aren't smart enough to write what they want characters to be (Victor being a "great strategist") Yeah, you can see sometimes what they were trying to go for with someone like Victor, but the execution just never landed at all. Fortunately that's no longer an issue in this timeline.
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Feb 4, 2016 19:29
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lilljonas posted:So looking at that map, is Amaris positioned to be the current Big Bad Guy with a huge secret empire, powerful weapons, and a grudge against pretty much every other faction that he has a border with (and some that he doesn't)? I wouldn't be so sure: see those 4 purple dot minor powers that create a big gap in the RWR territory? They must either be too powerful for Amaris to risk taking by force and too organized for the RWR to easily subvert, but at the same time, not dangerous enough to concern Amaris, since he's willing to leave his 'back' open to them while he fights in the Inner Sphere. On top of that, all of the major production/population centers would be close to the Inner Sphere, unless the Amaris family has been building state-of-the-art factories too far back in their territory to be useful in war, for some reason. So basically, most of that 'territory' would only be useful for gathering materials for use back near the Inner Sphere, with one exception: notice that bit of RWR territory on the back of the Lyrians? If the RWR have been massing forces there, and if the Lyrians send their forces to Skye, the RWR could take almost everything with little resistance. Alternately, the RWR could wait for the second invasion to catch the Lyrians off guard, and then offer an "alliance" in exchange for military help. The Lyrians would take it, trying to buy time, only for RWR troops to show up as soon as the ink is dry to help the Lyrians "reinforce" their war-critical planets. Either way, I don't envy the Lyrians... Edit: Rorahusky posted:Would explain why, while he did manage to kill Amaris, Kerensky was unable to dislodge the RWR forces from terra and got driven out of the Inner Sphere vowing revenge. Wait...what happened to Amaris body, if Kerensky killed him without taking Terra? Could the new Amaris actually be a clone of the original, and not a descendant? Think of how the clans would flip their poo poo at that. thetruegentleman fucked around with this message at 19:37 on Feb 4, 2016 |
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Feb 4, 2016 19:33
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Fraction Jackson posted:Well that's an interesting bit of information for sure. Is it something we know about in the thread yet, or is it as-yet-to-be-revealed? Well, it basically started when the Star League Explorer Corps started actively sabotaging potential colony worlds to keep humanity from expanding too quickly and to force those planets to be reliant on their neighbors (and the ice fleets) for basic necessities. Whether that's a true divergence from what happened in canon or not is probably up for debate.
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Feb 4, 2016 19:54
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Feb 4, 2016 20:59
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Psion posted:
He's just doing this so it's an even bigger surprise when they come back to save the day at the last second.
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Feb 4, 2016 21:24
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thetruegentleman posted:I wouldn't be so sure: see those 4 purple dot minor powers that create a big gap in the RWR territory? They must either be too powerful for Amaris to risk taking by force and too organized for the RWR to easily subvert, but at the same time, not dangerous enough to concern Amaris, since he's willing to leave his 'back' open to them while he fights in the Inner Sphere. On top of that, all of the major production/population centers would be close to the Inner Sphere, unless the Amaris family has been building state-of-the-art factories too far back in their territory to be useful in war, for some reason. I don't think the big gap is necessarily a sign of unconquerability or strength in this case. The current Amaris seems to be cultivating a public reputation for benevolence. You don't get that reputation if go around poo poo stomping random one world minors for their mud dung huts. Any world he can take peaceably (by offering them industrial aid, which itself strengthens the NRWR) gets them new members AND makes them more appealing to the neighbors of the newly added world. If the NRWR is not hurting for resources right now, why would they go out conquering a bunch of backwater planets? They can afford to let those planets warm up to them over the years, as it's not like they're competing for worlds with any other major power.
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Feb 4, 2016 22:13
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Okay, I have to ask: What exactly happened with the first Star League and why is Amaris the Devil to the Clanners? I think I got an incorrect summary of what the haps were from someone else, because the impression I'd gotten was that Kerensky was a frontier general for brutal space rome that came back to declare the Emperor incompetent, started a civil war, tried to become Emperor himself, got told to gently caress off, and went off to make his own space rome that would be ruled by Strong Military Men Like Alexsandr Kerensky. Is that entirely off base?
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Feb 4, 2016 22:51
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Zaodai posted:I don't think the big gap is necessarily a sign of unconquerability or strength in this case. The current Amaris seems to be cultivating a public reputation for benevolence. You don't get that reputation if go around poo poo stomping random one world minors for their mud dung huts. Any world he can take peaceably (by offering them industrial aid, which itself strengthens the NRWR) gets them new members AND makes them more appealing to the neighbors of the newly added world. If the NRWR is not hurting for resources right now, why would they go out conquering a bunch of backwater planets? They can afford to let those planets warm up to them over the years, as it's not like they're competing for worlds with any other major power. Think of it this way: why would a small group of minor powers refuse to join or ally with the Rim Worlds Republic in the first place? If the worlds are backwards or oppressive, the RWR could enter as liberators even with a small force; if the worlds are more advanced, why wouldn't they join the RWR for the economic and military benefits? Basically, the best explanation is that the Rim Worlds Republic is weak in that area, which likely means that most of the Rim Worlds Republic territory isn't nearly as valuable as the territory that exists in the Inner Sphere. Otherwise, why would a big chunk of the Free Worlds League break off to join them peacefully, but not a small group of minor powers?
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Feb 4, 2016 22:52
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In PTNverse, every clanner is perpetually seconds away from bursting a blood vessel.
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Feb 4, 2016 22:52
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thetruegentleman posted:Think of it this way: why would a small group of minor powers refuse to join or ally with the Rim Worlds Republic in the first place? If the worlds are backwards or oppressive, the RWR could enter as liberators even with a small force; if the worlds are more advanced, why wouldn't they join the RWR for the economic and military benefits? People in the FWL are already in a similar aggregation of individual worlds, so the concept isn't foreign to them. Also, they're used to ownership of their planets changing on paper and then nothing really changing about their daily lives, because that's how the Inner Sphere rolls. Also, the citizens of the Inner Sphere probably see the NRWR differently than the people in the middle of nowhere who have no source of news, or politics, etc. One world minors are more likely to have the mindset of the stereotypical hillbilly militia. "Space Government is coming to take my freedoms and give it to foreigners!" So they don't want to join, they'd lose control of their planet and the guys in charge would no longer have power. Their planets are probably not rich enough in resources to be worth fighting over and losing a bunch of public good will for. Or maybe those planets are barely habitable at all? Some dirt farmers live on a radiation blasted rock in the middle of nowhere. Would you travel across the stars to conquer Death Valley, no matter how easy the victory or cheap the price? Hell no, there's nothing of value to offset it. If the NRWR believes they could fight multiple Clans (plus probably at least one IS house) simultaneously, there's not going to be any one world that is too strong or organized for them to fight. If there was, those worlds would have already expanded into their own faction. It makes more sense that the NRWR simply has no need to fight for land when people can give it to them for free and it keeps their general public in line by making them appear benevolent and kind.
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Feb 4, 2016 23:02
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