Remove ads

The heirs of Kerensky

What is your opinion of the Clans?

  • They are a good part of their universe

    Votes: 15 23.8%

  • They are an okay part of their universe

    Votes: 23 36.5%

  • They are a bad part of their universe

    Votes: 17 27.0%

  • I am not a BattleTechnician, I do not have interest in this universe in general

    Votes: 8 12.7%
  • Total voters
    63
Zor

Zor

More of a Zor than You
​

What is your opinion of the civilization which had it's origins in Alexandr Kerensky's evacuation of the Star League Defense Force in the aftermath of the Ameris Civil War (Operation Exodus) in 2784, the settlement of the Pentagon Cluster in uncharted space in 2876, the breakdown of Star-League-In-Exile into Civil War in 2801, Nicolas Kerensky's Second Exodus to Strana Mechty, reconquest of the Pentagon Cluster and total societal reconstruction which returned to the Inner Sphere in 3049?

Zor
 
The Clans were badly conceived. They make no sense as a society. But then, this is the same people who gave us FASAnomics, so .....
 
The Clans work as part of Battletech, but that's only because Battletech is already high up on the 'dumbest shit on earth' rankings. Just remember that Jade Falcons actually squawk like birds when they go into combat, and you can never take them seriously again, if you ever could.
 
Okay-ish now that they mostly adapted to the IS.

EDIT: Honestly though, I like Sea Foxes and Ghost Bears, even the Wolf Empire, because they represent changes in the Clan in response to prolonged contact with the IS.
 
Last edited:
Personally, I don't mind the Clans that much - or at least I didn't, but the current metaplot direction is sure doing a lot to try and get me to hate them (with the exceptions of ones wiped out - the Nova Cats - or not involved in events in the Inner Sphere - the Goliath Scorpions).
 
A Mongol Empire-themed LARP that got way, way out of hand but somehow kind of worked for a while, but then the guy who's idea it had been in the first place completely lost his shit when someone told him he was wrong about something to his face and it was all downhill from there. Somehow it took them another couple of hundred years to implode completely.

On the plus side, if they didn't exist then there's a strong possibility that Nicholas Kerensky would have become First Lord of the Star League and that would have made the Clan Invasion look like a minor inconvenience.
 
Zor said:
Those guys fucked up the Inner Sphere worse than the Clans did.

Zor
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
For a time. The Wobbies caused mayhem, but then they also were gone again. Meanwhile, Tamar is still occupied. And indeed, going by the setting is going "currently", the clans are wreaking more havoc on the Sphere than the Jihad ever did.

I would call the Clans the greater evil by far, and seeing how the narrative wants us to believe in good and honourable clans, they thus fuck up the narrative on a Doylist level as well.
 
Last edited:
hghwolf said:
The Clans work as part of Battletech, but that's only because Battletech is already high up on the 'dumbest shit on earth' rankings. Just remember that Jade Falcons actually squawk like birds when they go into combat, and you can never take them seriously again, if you ever could.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Remember kids, this is the franchise that SB Vs. Debates Forum goers would during the 00s insist is totes more 'realistic' (and therefore better in every possible way) than Gundam. These Jade Falcons are the warrior that it would be more realistic for a serious series to follow than young people getting caught up in a war. SQUAWK.
 
tankdrop24 said:
Remember kids, this is the franchise that SB Vs. Debates Forum goers would during the 00s insist is totes more 'realistic' (and therefore better in every possible way) than Gundam. These Jade Falcons are the warrior that it would be more realistic for a serious series to follow than young people getting caught up in a war. SQUAWK.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Let's not summon the 'I'm gonna be generous and assume a Beam Rifle is equivalent to a PPC...' crowd okay ?
 
tankdrop24 said:
Remember kids, this is the franchise that SB Vs. Debates Forum goers would during the 00s insist is totes more 'realistic' (and therefore better in every possible way) than Gundam. These Jade Falcons are the warrior that it would be more realistic for a serious series to follow than young people getting caught up in a war. SQUAWK.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
It is not logical to stipulate that humans making a specific sound well within the range of normal human vocalization is somehow unrealistic.

Zor
 
Zor said:
It is not logical to stipulate that humans making a specific sound well within the range of normal human vocalization is somehow unrealistic.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I give you the Rebel Yell.

BattleTech was never realistic, nor did it ever even really make sense, but before the Clans came along it felt like it expected you to want it to make sense, and to do things that made sense with it. The Clans arrived and okay, right, we're just here for the giant stompy robots, got it.
 
They're fine.

I mean I don't really expect them to get out alive in most fanworks and that's okay, because they probably shouldn't, but they're fine. They make more sense than most people will admit, as an extremely insular society without external referents for the majority of their history. North Korea wishes it was the Clans.
 
I dislike the fact that the Clans were Kerensky's legacy. He deserved better than that, but I guess nobody wanted to write Star League Military in Exile coming back as a threat.
 
I have a soft spot for them because all of the games in the IP's heyday revolved around the whole Clan Invasion period. I didn't give that much of a toss about the fiction unless it lined up somewhat with what the VGs said. Imagine my surprise at all the grognards being mad at them for some reason...
 
RangerKarl said:
I have a soft spot for them because all of the games in the IP's heyday revolved around the whole Clan Invasion period. I didn't give that much of a toss about the fiction unless it lined up somewhat with what the VGs said. Imagine my surprise at all the grognards being mad at them for some reason...
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Is it really so shocking? People who play the tabletop game, and thus not only read all the detailed lore that the video game spin-offs have tended to skip over but hacve to put thought into how the setting works because they're encouraged to create their own content within the setting, tend to actually care about things like internal consistency. Especially because as tabletop wargaming fans they often have at least a passing interest in military history.

We're not asking a lot of the writing staff, just that they put as much thought into official canon content as we players do into our fanmade stuff.
 
After some time and exposure to the greater fandom, not really. But keep in mind, this was pre-mass Internet penetration in Malaysia. We didn't even know it was a board game, mostly! It just had cool robots and stuff. Hence why I have a softer opinion on them, the Clans, like it or not, were the face of BattleTech back then.
 
I dunno about what timeframe you're talking but for the longest time the face of Battletech was the Timber Wolf/ Mad Cat, not people that made it.
 
Terra Novan said:
EDIT: Honestly though, I like Sea Foxes and Ghost Bears, even the Wolf Empire, because they represent changes in the Clan in response to prolonged contact with the IS.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Sea Fox/Diamond Shark, Ghost Bear, Hells Horses, and Nova Cat are all interesting in part because they varyingly moderate the normal insanity of clan culture in their own ways.
 
tankdrop24 said:
Remember kids, this is the franchise that SB Vs. Debates Forum goers would during the 00s insist is totes more 'realistic' (and therefore better in every possible way) than Gundam. These Jade Falcons are the warrior that it would be more realistic for a serious series to follow than young people getting caught up in a war. SQUAWK.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Turning Mechwarrior into a glorified tank sim was probably the worst decision since it made the mecha more grounded than the actual setting depicts them (I get it was because they quite literally used Battletanx as an engine base). But as the years went by and companies like HBD gave us a game with an properly depicted setting that we see what they can and cannot do
 
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top