Zaodai posted:

You could also consider it being that you destroy their means to make war on a planetary scale. It's going to require taking out the warriors, that's for sure, and even if you imagine they'll use CapCon level Warcrimes I'm not sure how they plan to pull that off. But I do find it interesting that you consider "everyone in the faction trying to genocide us is reduced to farming now" is actually worse than "civilians under occupation being nuked out of spite".

If the Amaris line has proven anything, it's that the straightforward answer for what you think they're going to do probably isn't what they're actually going to do. Oribtal strikes are already out since he said that's why he wouldn't use jump torpedos. Virus bombs just kill everybody. Straight scorched earth warfare would get them crushed before they made it through two Clans at BEST. Maybe the Wolverines clued him in on how Scientists are treated in the Clan worlds and he's hoping to arrange a Society-esque uprising. If you blow up the mech factories and the only people who understand what a factory even is are gone because they hate the Warrior caste, them bam, you get your agrarian society. I honestly don't know how they're going to do it, but from the section you quoted I read far more into the "I’m trusting you to keep the Wolverines’ desires in check.” part of that line than reducing them to being an agrarian society as a warcrime. I personally don't consider the end goal itself a war crime at all depending on how you get there, but there isn't really an objective measure for that.

Strobe posted:

There's not really a way, in BattleTech, to reduce a civilization past the point it can wage war without functionally destroying that civilization. You'd have to destroy or otherwise render inoperable every single vehicle of any stripe, destroy or confiscate most industrial scale fertilizers, and destroy or confiscate most industrial scale pesticides (if you're being actually serious about it; that poo poo's all nerve agents).

If you think that removing all that from the Homeworlds would leave them capable of supporting life it'd be pretty loving hard.

Zaodai posted:

I'm suggesting that Battletech runs on magic bullshit at its core, most of the people in the Sphere are already literal dirt-farming peasants, and that between the two it wouldn't take anything more than PTN saying that they didn't all die because maaagically they had the means to feed themselves without their war machines to actually accomplish that goal without it being the holocaust. Even if it did, I still wouldn't put it on the same level as nuking civilians resisting occupation when it comes to warcrimes.

We already accept a million different things about the setting that don't work like the real world. They're already using magical bullshit tech to even make the strike in the first place. Accepting one more thing not working exactly like real life shouldn't suddenly break the setting.

Not that I actually care if they all die, mind you. The Clans started this poo poo, so gently caress 'em. I just choose to believe (for the time being) that the intent of Amaris' words there was that he has a plan that doesn't involve starving out the Clan homeworlds, because if he wanted to kill everybody there are easier, faster ways he could use and is electing not to. Even in Warcrimes, the universe still runs on Battletech stupidity. Think about it, when the Death Commandos were trying to execute unarmed women and children in the Caballeros campaign, they actively failed to murder people they were trying to kill when they already had them under armed guard in buildings they had already rigged to explode and they could detonate. Why? Why would one of the most elite military units in the Inner Sphere, who are easily the most comfortable at murdering unarmed women and children without any qualms, handle their warcrime so poorly?

Because its a universe that runs on narrative magic, and the story said they didn't just detonate the bombs and kill everybody with no chance to be stopped.

Fraction Jackson posted:

Out of respect for PTN, the work he has put in, and my desire to not poo poo up his thread too much more, I'm just going to say that I shouldn't have been surprised that something like this would be your response, and go on my merry way.

Fraction Jackson posted:

This is what I've been trying to get at. Not to mention you'd have to kill anyone with any decent experience in the sciences, destroy texts (or computers/data), and so on.

It would not be a pleasant thing.

Zaodai posted:

As the designated thread villain, I applaud the care you crafted this response with. It simultaneously takes cheap shots at me on a personal level, while implying any response I make is disrespecting PTN and the thread directly.

I don't even mean that sarcastically. Well played, sir.

Defiance Industries posted:

Or just blow up their shipyards and JumpShips.

Technowolf posted:

Except the Clans can rebuild those.

Technowolf posted:

Except the Clans can rebuild those.

paragon1 posted:

I gotta say though it really doesn't make a lot of sense to me to paint a whole faction with the brush of their 300 year dead nominal founder.

It'd be like judging everyone in France based on the actions of Louis the XIV.

Defiance Industries posted:

Not if they don't have any germanium mines

thiswayliesmadness posted:

It's a big universe and a 'miss' could toss them all kinds of odd places.

berryjon posted:

We do not speak of Far Country in these parts.

dis astranagant posted:

You must be new here.

Azathoth256 posted:

Fraction Jackson posted:

This is what I've been trying to get at. Not to mention you'd have to kill anyone with any decent experience in the sciences, destroy texts (or computers/data), and so on.

It would not be a pleasant thing.

mercenarynuker posted:

You have a point in that if this were the real world where we have to worry aboit political fallout affecting our own nation(s) when we go in with military strikes, yes. We can be REASONABLY ASSURED that Amaris' intent is not nation-building or winning hearts and minds with this ploy. That said, this is a thread filled with fictional stompy-bots, genetically engineered redneck cargo-cult samurai, a romance between a man and a woman and an office chair, a "Lyran" Mech reporter, and a near-literal Randy "Mecho Man" Savage, and a mission where Hogarth fought a ghost behemoth (replete with exploding boxes)

We saw Team Warcrimes with the incineration of the HPG, pretty sure the players had a mission or two that were, uhhhh, not strictly above board, so heading to take out a belligerant's warmaking capability is well within the scope of the thread. As mentioned earlier, there's easier ways to genocide the clans. As someone who hopefully has some kind of handle on PTN's GMing style, I really doubt he'd draw up a mission where the objectives are to turn your flamers and machine guns on as much of the civilian populace as possible. Will it suck for the Clanners? Yeah, for sure. Are warcrimes going to happen? Probably. But they aren't real, and the players are unlikely to be the direct cause of said warcrimes.

Even if you want to approach this from the perspective that "our participation bloodies our hands." PTN has stated that events can still happen without us choosing them, they just have a chance modifier attached. So those warcrimes could still happen (unless the Wolverines get counter-wiped out, which will probably be no less war-crimey). And EVEN THAT is a result of the thread's actions on prior missions allowing this to even be an option to have pursued. We're no less culpable by remaining on Andurien with King Dadlas or choosing zealous second-wave Clanners, simply because the primary reason Amaris' plan worked so beautifully was Goons executing it.

Tl;dr: fictional probable warcrimes doesn't get my hackles up because those are going to happen off-screen one way or the other. Also gently caress Clanners

wiegieman posted:

I like it when the red robot punches the other robots.

wiegieman posted:

I like it when the red robot punches the other robots.

mercenarynuker posted:

You have a point in that if this were the real world where we have to worry aboit political fallout affecting our own nation(s) when we go in with military strikes, yes. We can be REASONABLY ASSURED that Amaris' intent is not nation-building or winning hearts and minds with this ploy. That said, this is a thread filled with fictional stompy-bots, genetically engineered redneck cargo-cult samurai, a romance between a man and a woman and an office chair, a "Lyran" Mech reporter, and a near-literal Randy "Mecho Man" Savage, and a mission where Hogarth fought a ghost behemoth (replete with exploding boxes)

We saw Team Warcrimes with the incineration of the HPG, pretty sure the players had a mission or two that were, uhhhh, not strictly above board, so heading to take out a belligerant's warmaking capability is well within the scope of the thread. As mentioned earlier, there's easier ways to genocide the clans. As someone who hopefully has some kind of handle on PTN's GMing style, I really doubt he'd draw up a mission where the objectives are to turn your flamers and machine guns on as much of the civilian populace as possible. Will it suck for the Clanners? Yeah, for sure. Are warcrimes going to happen? Probably. But they aren't real, and the players are unlikely to be the direct cause of said warcrimes.

Even if you want to approach this from the perspective that "our participation bloodies our hands." PTN has stated that events can still happen without us choosing them, they just have a chance modifier attached. So those warcrimes could still happen (unless the Wolverines get counter-wiped out, which will probably be no less war-crimey). And EVEN THAT is a result of the thread's actions on prior missions allowing this to even be an option to have pursued. We're no less culpable by remaining on Andurien with King Dadlas or choosing zealous second-wave Clanners, simply because the primary reason Amaris' plan worked so beautifully was Goons executing it.

Tl;dr: fictional probable warcrimes doesn't get my hackles up because those are going to happen off-screen one way or the other. Also gently caress Clanners

Fraction Jackson posted:

I don't think that PTN would make us do a mission that would literally be committing that level of warcrimes, no. We agree on that. And, I don't particularly think that writing about fictional space nations committing warcrimes is bad, so long as it is made clear that said actions are bad. Part of the point of a sci-fi setting without aliens, as Battletech is, is often that it centers around the idea that technology and progress do not necessarily make people less lovely unless they use it as a reason to be less lovely. It does not happen on its own. I think PTN understands this very well and his writing shows it, and BTech is a very good setting to play with that idea. Everyone is an rear end in a top hat at some point in the canon timeline. It comes with the territory of BattleTech.

What bothers me is the insistence of the thread for cheering on certain things if they meet the criteria of it happening to a faction they don't like. I might even be guilty of it, but I am more conscious of it now. If people stayed on the track of it being just a game even if it leads to Bad Things, and we get cool scenarios and expertly-written fluff, that would be fine. I mean, poo poo, I could literally not care less about the welfare of the Clans either in the PTN canon or the regular one, but when you have people calling for blood the way they do in this thread sometimes, and when you're living in this time and place where it's impossible to tell what's sincere and what's irony and what's irony that leads to eventually being unironic...

I guess the long and short of it is that fictional people being horrible is fine, but sometimes it worries me the extent to which people approve of that horribleness.

goatface posted:

Going in with only half a plan and without an exit strategy is very battletech.

vorebane posted:

I'm not putting it past Steve to put an extra jump drive on all his ships.

Friend Commuter posted:

Are you talking about the Clans or the Rimworlders? Because the Clans are pretty big on worshipping the very ground their 300-year-dead nominal founder walked on and seeking to emulate/avenge him (depending on which Kerensky you're talking about), so tarring them with his brush makes perfect sense to me.

paragon1 posted:

I am referring to the Rim Worlders, who do not seem super eager to push the Satan+Hitler envelope in emulation of Stefan Amaris I

Lemniscate Blue posted:

Don't the physics of the BT universe make it clear that two K-F drives in close proximity is a Very Bad Idea?