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PoptartsNinja posted:The Jenner IIC, Urbanmech IIC, and Kraken aren't Omnimechs (the Kraken's arms are very prominent and contain most of its weapons), the Fire Falcon is a post-invasion scout 'Mech designed by the Jade Falcons who get increasingly squirrely over time, and the Naga is a punishment design intended to deter the user from getting stuck into a fight. In short, art direction exists for a reason. Edit: Welp, may as well put the associated rant on the new page.
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Dec 11, 2017 22:51
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In the case of the Clans, the art direction has always spoken volumes about their character. And of course, you might say "It does a thing, that's enough right?" The Clans are a utilitarian military junta, after all! Except it's not, because they're not. What I'm about to say is going to ruin the Clans forever for anyone who sort-of likes them (sorry) and for those who hated them but can't really put words to why? This is why. The Clans are Militant Objectivists. They are a society lead by literal Randian Übermenschen who exploit the masses mercilessly and for whom showing themselves to be superior to those around them makes them legally and literally better than the people they have beaten. To the Clans, it's not enough for a thing to simply do a thing. It has to look like it can do that thing, and their aesthetic choices match that beautifully. I can't promise this was intentional from the word go, but there are very few deviations from it as a general rule. It doesn't help that BattleMechs already do this in general, but the Clans were formed by the son of the man who designed the Atlas: everything about their aesthetic is exaggerated to fit what they perceive as the ideal role for the 'Mech. Case in point is the Ha-Otoko, a 'Mech the Diamond Sharks designed to sell to House Kurita. If they'd designed something boxy and utilitarian, nobody would've batted an eyelash and a box full of Clantech would've been just as easy to sell, but a 'Mech's appearance has to match its designer's intent.  "If we're selling it to House Kurita, we have to make it look like a Kurita 'Mech!"It's both hilariously naive and shortsighted because not only is the intent so obvious that even the Jade Falcons picked up on it, but the Diamond Sharks actually unintentionally made it harder to sell in other parts of the Inner Sphere. It also helps explain why, after they killed all of their scientists, the Jade Falcons stopped building awesome things like the Turkina  and started building things that were just a touch more blatantly insane.     "downplay all the weapons, make it look like a bird!"Like the Roughneck, I love the Dark Age Jade Falcons to death. They are (and what they say about the Falcons is) fantastic. 
PoptartsNinja fucked around with this message at 23:36 on Dec 11, 2017 |
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Dec 11, 2017 23:31
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If one of your design goals is "let me cosplay as honorable bird warrior", then building a mech that looks like a bird is a sensible design decision.
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Dec 11, 2017 23:35
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PoptartsNinja posted:In the case of the Clans, the art direction has always spoken volumes about their character. And of course, you might say "It does a thing, that's enough right?" The Clans are a utilitarian military junta, after all! Both of those mechs are awesome. The Turkina looks like a bigger Cauldron Born, and that's just fine with me. The other one, for some reason reminds me of something that would be at home in the Godzilla universe. Which, understandably, is also fine with me.
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Dec 12, 2017 00:00
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Seeing as I was introduced to Battletech by Mechwarrior 2 and Ghost Bears' Legacy, and much of the in-game wiki (which was so fantastic) is written from Comstar's perspective, I still think of the Clans as good guys. They've gotten messed up along the way because of the second Exodus War, but they're still better than the bastards of the Inner Sphere. Subsequent games and reading the novels did little to dissuade me that the IS is little more than a snake's den of scheming, back-stabbing politicians... except Liao, who are hilarious when they're insane, and awesome when they're not.
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Dec 12, 2017 00:26
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If there's anything you can count on about the Liao, it's that they're probably not going to backstab you. They might burn down your house and shoot any survivors, or stab you in the front, but they won't backstab you. ... Mostly because as evil schemers they're not allowed to be competent OR likable enough to join up with someone so they can backstab them in the first place, and if they do, it's with the other side knowing full way that you "can't trust a Cappie" and they'll pull their HEROIC DOUBLE-CROSS first. That said, the Clans are nothing but a snake den of scheming back-stabbing politicans too. Being a politician is an enormous part of the Warrior caste life. It's probably more important to be a good politician than a good warrior until you get directly to Khan. It's just you can make up for a lack of political accumen if you're so good at fighting that you can take all comers.
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Dec 12, 2017 00:38
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It's not so different from what I've heard about our army. Upto the rank of Brigadier, your prospects of promotion are dependent on your performance and tests (not combat tests, by the way, which would have been awesome). Subsequent promotions to the various ranks of General is dependent on politics, on knowing the right people, and being able to manipulate them. You're going to have politics either way. I just admire a system in which you can call out your political opponent to a fight to the death (Re: Vlad and the Jade Wolf saga).
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Dec 12, 2017 00:52
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Sure, but if the combat were a wargame scenario or something instead of just 1v1s with no tactics, it might hold more value. As it is, it makes their command staff tremendously unprepared for a real fight, which is why they got their asses kicked despite allegedly superior genetics and objectively superior tech. If they had made the trials more about actual battlefield command instead of pure piloting and gunnery, it would have been more interesting (in-universe). Also, if you sucked at the political game, you're probably going to face a lot of rigged trials out to kill you, so you have to be SUCH a good warrior that you can legitimately fight whatever they throw at you, traps or otherwise.
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Dec 12, 2017 01:09
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PoptartsNinja posted:The Jenner IIC, Urbanmech IIC, and Kraken aren't Omnimechs (the Kraken's arms are very prominent and contain most of its weapons), the Fire Falcon is a post-invasion scout 'Mech designed by the Jade Falcons who get increasingly squirrely over time, and the Naga is a punishment design intended to deter the user from getting stuck into a fight. PoptartsNinja posted:In the case of the Clans, the art direction has always spoken volumes about their character. And of course, you might say "It does a thing, that's enough right?" The Clans are a utilitarian military junta, after all! I really, really appreciate these mech visual design breakdowns. In a, "actually taking notes" kind of way.
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Dec 12, 2017 03:46
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painedforever posted:It's not so different from what I've heard about our army. Upto the rank of Brigadier, your prospects of promotion are dependent on your performance and tests (not combat tests, by the way, which would have been awesome). Subsequent promotions to the various ranks of General is dependent on politics, on knowing the right people, and being able to manipulate them. Having your ENTIRE RULE OF LAW based on having violence be the ultimate arbiter of correctness seems to miss the point of law.
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Dec 12, 2017 04:40
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Defiance Industries posted:Having your ENTIRE RULE OF LAW based on having violence be the ultimate arbiter of correctness seems to miss the point of law.
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Dec 12, 2017 04:52
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It doesn't matter whether you're correct or not, you just have to be incorrect violently enough that no one dares question it.  Also I loving love Dark Age Jade Falcon designs, because they are utterly insane no matter how you look at them.
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Dec 12, 2017 05:33
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Strobe posted:It doesn't matter whether you're correct or not, you just have to be incorrect violently enough that no one dares question it. Always remember that Asa Taney is what Nicholas Kerensky thought the ideal leader should be.
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Dec 12, 2017 05:51
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Defiance Industries posted:Having your ENTIRE RULE OF LAW based on having violence be the ultimate arbiter of correctness seems to miss the point of law. I think the Clan philosophy on the subject basically presumes all law and government innately rely on force or the threat of force to exist, and so they try to cut out the middleman. Either that, or since violence is "inevitable" try to have rules to put it in government rather than coups and such (kind of a "if you want to fight to have your way, fine, you do it this way" thing). In practice, treating violence as a natural component of government rather than a response to a breakdown in government... doesn't have terribly good results really. PoptartsNinja posted:The Sun Spider is a disappointment because they completely missed the point. I always got the impression the "weapons always in arms" thing was probably something of a subtle nod to the fact if you have an Omnimech it would realistically be easier engineering-wise to swap out weapons if most of them were on arm pods. Wouldn't surprise me if the original Omni rules were going to be a swappable hand weapons thing that got changed to the current setup.
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Dec 12, 2017 05:52
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MadDogMike posted:I think the Clan philosophy on the subject basically presumes all law and government innately rely on force or the threat of force to exist, and so they try to cut out the middleman. Either that, or since violence is "inevitable" try to have rules to put it in government rather than coups and such (kind of a "if you want to fight to have your way, fine, you do it this way" thing). In practice, treating violence as a natural component of government rather than a response to a breakdown in government... doesn't have terribly good results really. Much like everything else about the Clan system, it makes sense as the product of a brain-damaged manchild's imagination, but not as something people would voluntarily live under.
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Dec 12, 2017 06:19
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MadDogMike posted:I always got the impression the "weapons always in arms" thing was probably something of a subtle nod to the fact if you have an Omnimech it would realistically be easier engineering-wise to swap out weapons if most of them were on arm pods. Wouldn't surprise me if the original Omni rules were going to be a swappable hand weapons thing that got changed to the current setup. There's at least one mech that has this as a gimmick later on with a bunch of different hand-held weapons. There's also the Dark Ages era which introduces jettisonable weapons, several of which are shown as being hand held in the art. The Atlas III is the one I remember offhand, with a RAC/2 in its right arm portrayed as having a handgrip and just sort of mounting to the underside of the forearm.
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Dec 12, 2017 06:20
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The Clans are pretty much the same as the TNG/DS9 era Klingon Empire. Both are militaristic cultures that profess to be about honor and military virtues, but are actually run by scheming bastards who manipulate the loopholes in the system to their own advantage.
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Dec 12, 2017 06:31
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I think the key thing to keep in mind is that the systemic violence is restricted to a warrior caste, and that governance is also restricted to that same warrior caste. E.g., the clanners in possession of battlemechs are the government, and the formalized system of violence is a succession mechanism. Essentially, in Clan space, challenges, duels, and their fatal results, are a form of voting. (In a system where only specific elites are allowed to vote, of course.) With this in mind, as insane and unrealistic as it may be (and it is insane and unrealistic), the clan system does not violate a basic premise of "what law is." The functions of law mostly boil down to: codifying rules of social conduct, in order to permit trust between strangers within the society; and, preserving the state's monopoly on power. Being able to challenge and destroy your leaders would seem like a violation of that second premise, but, it's really not much different from a candidate challenging and defeating an incumbent in an election, or a noble family replacing the incumbent dynasty as kings. Bearing in mind that I'm no Battletech scholar, I'm drawing a lot of inferences from what I've learned in this thread about how Clan society functions.
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Dec 12, 2017 06:57
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Zebulon posted:There's at least one mech that has this as a gimmick later on with a bunch of different hand-held weapons. There's also the Dark Ages era which introduces jettisonable weapons, several of which are shown as being hand held in the art. The Atlas III is the one I remember offhand, with a RAC/2 in its right arm portrayed as having a handgrip and just sort of mounting to the underside of the forearm. You're probably thinking of the AXM-6X Axeman, which is also notable for being the testbed for Defiance Industries Furillo's production line of Clan XL engines. The Quickdraw and the Incubus II also did this but let's be honest, you weren't thinking about them. Leperflesh posted:I think the key thing to keep in mind is that the systemic violence is restricted to a warrior caste, and that governance is also restricted to that same warrior caste. E.g., the clanners in possession of battlemechs are the government, and the formalized system of violence is a succession mechanism. Essentially, in Clan space, challenges, duels, and their fatal results, are a form of voting. (In a system where only specific elites are allowed to vote, of course.) In the sense that creating a system of currency where food is the currency is like having space bucks, I guess. It still feels like missing the point if at any time you can change a person's vote by beating the poo poo out of them so they are FORCED to vote the way you want them to, and if you can't beat up enough people to make the vote go the way you want, you can just beat up someone else and say that the vote didn't matter. Defiance Industries fucked around with this message at 07:14 on Dec 12, 2017 |
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Dec 12, 2017 07:01
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Defiance Industries posted:You're probably thinking of the AXM-6X Axeman, which is also notable for being the testbed for Defiance Industries Furillo's production line of Clan XL engines. It's a great system (for you) if you're in charge of the army and have the best fighters. Oh look, the guy who came up with it was in charge of the fanatical fighters.
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Dec 12, 2017 07:03
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wiegieman posted:It's a great system (for you) if you're in charge of the army and have the best fighters. Oh look, the guy who came up with it was in charge of the fanatical fighters. Even more unbelievable than FASAnomics is the idea that anyone would willingly follow Nicholas Kerensky.
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Dec 12, 2017 07:05
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Defiance Industries posted:Much like everything else about the Clan system, it makes sense as the product of a brain-damaged manchild's imagination, but not as something people would voluntarily live under. I mean, it is insanely warped, but when you get down to it, it's not that far removed from some philosophical systems even beyond what PTN's suggested. For instance, if you replace "monarch" with "warrior caste" the whole thing, from the bottom up, starts to look fairly Hobbesian. Bizarre social contract, state monopoly on violence, the whole thing being created based on Kerensky's conception of the state of nature, etc. You can even rationalize the trial system as a variant of the idea that an unjust monarch should be deposed. It's not a huge leap, and people have lived under weirder systems. On the other hand, I never really liked Hobbes, so I'm not really disagreeing with you either.
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Dec 12, 2017 07:11
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Defiance Industries posted:Even more unbelievable than FASAnomics is the idea that anyone would willingly follow Nicholas Kerensky. Like I said, he had the crazy people. Or, more accurately, he inherited the crazy people who could be talked into going off into the wilderness to train for 5 years or whatever it was. The Clans were nothing more than a formalization of the rule by force the SLDF exodus were already living under, anyway.
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Dec 12, 2017 07:57
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Defiance Industries posted:Even more unbelievable than FASAnomics is the idea that anyone would willingly follow Nicholas Kerensky. People follow insane, inept leaders all the time.
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Dec 12, 2017 08:05
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Defiance Industries posted:Even more unbelievable than FASAnomics is the idea that anyone would willingly follow Nicholas Kerensky. I am really curious how Clan Wolf (at least pre Great Refusal) turned out as... moderate as it did considering Nicholas K chosen them as his clan.
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Dec 12, 2017 08:13
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painedforever posted:I just admire a system in which you can call out your political opponent to a fight to the death (Re: Vlad and the Jade Wolf saga). Everyone admires that kind of system right up until they get shot in the face by their political opponents. The thing about violence being the final arbiter of Right and Justice is that sometimes the bad guys are better fighters. Defiance Industries posted:In the sense that creating a system of currency where food is the currency is like having space bucks, I guess. It still feels like missing the point if at any time you can change a person's vote by beating the poo poo out of them so they are FORCED to vote the way you want them to, and if you can't beat up enough people to make the vote go the way you want, you can just beat up someone else and say that the vote didn't matter. It's funny - the spirit of Arthurian Knighthood was probably captured more faithfully by Clan government than by any of the IS factions, despite "Mechs = Knights" being the primary philosophy behind the setting; knights in the old romances were all about kicking the poo poo out of people because God was on their side, and the expectation - which was kinda shockingly widespread - was that if you lost a fight it wasn't just that the other guy was a better fighter, it's that he was more favored by God, which is why you get stories like Sir Palomides the Saracen converting to Christianity after getting his rear end handed to him by Christian Knights a couple of times. Hell, even the Clans' elevation of the Warrior Caste to all positions of power is very reminiscent of the old medieval idea that one person in a thousand (ex mille electus) was chosen by God to be a Knight (miles), the most strong, noble, and courageous, and that knighthood was carrying on the tradition of Enlightened Noble Heroes that included figures like Alexander and Julius Caesar and King David. This is a thing that people actually thought, once. It's a crazy-rear end backwards idea, but it's not a crazy-rear end backwards idea that humanity hasn't tried before, is what I'm getting at. Weissritter posted:I am really curious how Clan Wolf (at least pre Great Refusal) turned out as... moderate as it did considering Nicholas K chosen them as his clan. I figure it's because they got a better look at Nicky than anyone else, honestly; once he died they probably all turned to each other and said "Right, let's not be like that rear end in a top hat," while all the other Clans only really knew him in formal or military settings, so they could idolize him. They never had to watch the dude slurp his soup at dinner, basically.
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Dec 12, 2017 08:45
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I'm learning more about history and government from this thread than I ever did in college.
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Dec 12, 2017 08:56
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paragon1 posted:People follow insane, inept leaders all the time. So loaded, that line. There's so much that I would love to say, but this isn't the time, and this isn't the place. So let's talk about Battletech instead! I like the Clans, and I like their crazy-weird society. I'd be the first to be euthanized, I'm sure, but I like it (from a distance). I always felt sorry for the Blood Spirits, but I loved the religious divisions of the Cloud Cobras and the spaced-out Goliath Scorpions. I wanted to know more about the Wolverines (which I guess was the point), but also because I liked the descriptions of what they (supposedly) did when retreating from Clan space. The Smoke Jaguars were built up as comedically villainous, but I felt sorry when they were wiped out by the Inner Sphere (because I really didn't like the Inner Sphere). I didn't much like Nicholas though. Isn't that strange? I agree with the implications in the source books that something was terribly wrong with him, even before the Exodus. Was it Anastasius Focht who was thinking about what Nicky must have gone through during the occupation of Earth? I'm pretty sure it was in the second series of books (narrated by Phelan) which spoke about how Nicky also caught a fever which was usually fatal, but always caused madness.
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Dec 12, 2017 11:54
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paragon1 posted:People follow insane, inept leaders all the time. Yeah, people following the psycho with the fanatical murder squad isn't exactly unusual, considering the sum total of human history.
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Dec 12, 2017 14:10
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Yeah I mean people don't usually model their whole society after his ideas, but then people don't normally form societies wholecloth out of exiled giant robot militaries either so 
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Dec 12, 2017 16:14
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Weissritter posted:I am really curious how Clan Wolf (at least pre Great Refusal) turned out as... moderate as it did considering Nicholas K chosen them as his clan. Inverse Capellan Rule: there has to be a Clan Goodguy, and nerds love wolves.
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Dec 12, 2017 19:46
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The Ghost Bears are Clan Good Guy. They're big on teamwork, and heavy firepower, and they end up befriending Space Vikings. Clan Wolf is just Clan Protagonist. 
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Dec 12, 2017 19:49
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The Ghost Bears only became the good guys after they made an unexpected Warden Swerve. Before that they were basically just the Jade Falcons but quieter.
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Dec 12, 2017 20:07
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Khan Bjorn Jorgensson testing into aerospace always amused me too.
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Dec 12, 2017 20:24
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PoptartsNinja posted:The Ghost Bears only became the good guys after they made an unexpected Warden Swerve. Before that they were basically just the Jade Falcons but quieter. Eh. They were always about teamwork and unity. They may not have always been friendly towards the Sphere, but they were always (on a relative Clan scale) Good Guys.
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Dec 12, 2017 21:05
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Zaodai posted:Eh. They were always about teamwork and unity. They may not have always been friendly towards the Sphere, but they were always (on a relative Clan scale) Good Guys. I guess, but a lot of that was filled in later. Remember in BoK, how Ulric bids away his WarShip assets because he wants to make sure Bjorn Jorgensson won't orbitally bombard Rasalhague if he starts losing? It's the only characterization that they get in that series. Falcons are treacherous, Wolves are honorable, Jaguars are angry and Ghost Bears... don't like losing? Early on, they're just The Clan The Writers Have Nothing For.
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Dec 12, 2017 21:14
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Ghost Bears are stoic-ish and Clan Superior Firepower. They're the Big Guy of the group. I guess I always just saw the way they handled things as being more relentless and determined than crazed and war-crimey, but nobody has ever accused me of being overly sensitive about my favorite factions causing collateral damage.
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Dec 12, 2017 22:28
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The only word that can be used to describe the Ghost Bears prior to Mechwarrior 2: Ghost Bear's Legacy is "inept" They got fleshed out a lot after that, and the Steel Vipers got saddled with the "inept" mantle and the "schemers" mantle the Jade Falcons lost after Marthe took over. Then after the Vipers ineptly schemed themselves to death, the Ice Hellions inherited both and promptly ineptly schemed themselves to death as well. Then the Star Adders picked up "schemers" and I have no idea who became the inept faction after that.
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Dec 12, 2017 23:03
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PoptartsNinja posted:The only word that can be used to describe the Ghost Bears prior to Mechwarrior 2: Ghost Bear's Legacy is "inept"
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Dec 12, 2017 23:08
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AAAAA! Real Muenster posted:Was it the Ghost Bears who completely dropped the ball on supplying their invasion forces and had a phase where they took almost no planets, then after they got their poo poo in gear they went hog wild? Eyup.
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Dec 12, 2017 23:19
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