Captain Orsai
Davion Heavy Guards Captain
I did say that they weren't doing a very good job of making the Capellans look better, yes?
The heirs of Kerensky
- Thread starter Zor
- Start date
I did say that they weren't doing a very good job of making the Capellans look better, yes?
- Location
- Singapore
- Pronouns
- Singular They
To be honest, I voted "good part of the universe/setting" with regards to the Clans, not because I like them, but simply because I find them much better than the endless backstabbing and wars that is Inner Sphere politics.
I should also admit that I'm not very versed in Battletech, so I only know the bare surface of the lore (mainly through browsing the Sarna wiki). But just looking at the 3025 era seems like it's full of pointless war without end, for no greater purpose than to decide which member of which branch of which family will be technically in power over a small region of space for a brief several months. The Clans at least helped shake up the setting enough that there was, last I managed to see, some movement towards "okay, we need to actually figure out where to go from here".
I should also admit that I'm not very versed in Battletech, so I only know the bare surface of the lore (mainly through browsing the Sarna wiki). But just looking at the 3025 era seems like it's full of pointless war without end, for no greater purpose than to decide which member of which branch of which family will be technically in power over a small region of space for a brief several months. The Clans at least helped shake up the setting enough that there was, last I managed to see, some movement towards "okay, we need to actually figure out where to go from here".
Chloe Sullivan
Subdefective
- Location
- 1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale CA
... the setting is "pointless war with no end" in literally every timeframe.
- Location
- Singapore
- Pronouns
- Singular They
But for a brief period of time surrounding Tukayyid, the war at least had some kind of point.
Ivan the Not-so-Terrible
AH MEW CHEEKI BREEKI I V DAMKE
- Location
- Mikonyan’s USSR
The Clans are fun but most people don't go hard enough with their inherent camp. Gimme those constant nonlethal Trials over everything and make every Star a dysfunctional polycule and rock those fursuit dress uniforms dammit.
Triggerhappy
Stick with Trigger and You'll Make it Through
- Location
- SoCal
Which in fact reminds me.
Internet fandoms are marvelously ignorant of their own history given that fanart like this :
Exists in a franchise with authorized parody like this :
The clans are definitely front and center in most of notable games released up unil very recently. Battletech and Mechwarrior 5 are the first time since MW 2 that they or their mechs didn't appear in some capacity.
I think a big chunk of that is that until fairly recently the clans had the majority of the setting's spiffiest looking mechs, not counting the old unseen. I'm guessing because they were a later addition to lore after FASA could pay for decent art. It's only been with the dedicated effort to rejuvenate older designs that IS mech reliably provide something interesting to look at and latch the imagination to.
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- Location
- Los Angeles
That's very true, though the new wave of models from the clan invasion kickstarter really shows that even the clan mechs benefited from a similar rejuvenation.
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Triggerhappy
Stick with Trigger and You'll Make it Through
- Location
- SoCal
While true. Let's just say . . . The inner sphere had further to climb.
There are some pretty crappy interpretations of clan mechs. -cough- viper -cough- and a LOT of carboard box men in the old inner sphere.
Night
Widow Null
- Location
- Hoff
'bout that...both games include pretty substantial references to them? Heavy Metal even has a lot of proto-clan equipment.
Triggerhappy
Stick with Trigger and You'll Make it Through
- Location
- SoCal
Fair enough, my familiarity with both games is only in passing so far. But is it fair to say they don't feature nearly as heavily as they have up to Mechwarrior 4?
- Location
- Elsewhere
The Clans annoy me more in execution than concept. As out-of-context villains introduced to shake up the status quo of the setting? They're fine. The thing is, they were intentionally set up to fail... only for The Powers That Be to ultimately decide against truly going through with it (probably because they're marketable). Tukayyid, the Great Refusal, the Wars of Reaving... in the end, only temporary setbacks. Presently, Clan Wolf has just conquered Terra and claimed the title of ilClan, and it seems that they're destined to unite the Inner Sphere under the banner of the Third Star League by 3250.
Seriously, TPTB went through such contortions to break up the Federated Commonwealth because they didn't want a faction to "win", only to hand victory on a silver platter to these assholes?
Seriously, TPTB went through such contortions to break up the Federated Commonwealth because they didn't want a faction to "win", only to hand victory on a silver platter to these assholes?
Captain Orsai
Davion Heavy Guards Captain
Hey, look on the "bright" side - it seems like by 3250 the Wolves have been eaten from the inside by the Jade Falcons. Isn't that great? 🤢
(this really annoys me because, not only has the current metaplot involved a lot of groups and characters I like being thoroughly done dirty - with a horrible undertone that I'm supposed to be cheering on the IJA Cosplayers (DC & CC); and an even more horrible one that the only mistake the Smoke Jaguars made after Turtle Bay was not doubling down - a whole lot of cool gear that the Republic was developing is now just gonna vanish 'cause it's stuff that the Clans don't like)
- Location
- Los Angeles
I think the thing that also irks me about the ilClan stuff is that Wolf's Dragoons and Clan Wolf-in-Exile decided to forget everything they stood for and team up with Clan Wolf. Compounding that is they've decided to also use this to reverse the most iconic thing about the Great Refusal, the annihilation of Clan Smoke Jaguar.
Though as a side note I don't think the Wars of Reaving were ever really intended to be a "loss" for the clans, as the Invader clans just lost their clan homeworlds holdings and otherwise made it off scott-free. The real purpose was to do some housekeeping and trim down the number of relevant clans (Which is a shame because we lost Fire Mandrill and Blood Spirit while keeping Cloud Cobra and Star Adder, two clans I literally could not tell you the differences between).
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Are you actually referencing something, or just confused about Goons playing MWO?
Weird but true: the artist who redesigned all the IS mechs for MWO is the same guy who drew the furry murder pics.
PS: 1st Somerset Strikers (holovid series) vs Clan Spaniel (holovid series). Discuss.
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hghwolf
Bird of contempt
Why do you think Goons do it ?
- Pronouns
- He/Him
...So you saw someone type "squawk" into a multiplayer game chat and just assumed that was clan behavior?
The joke is actually that they're playing tetatae, which are tribal bird aliens who appeared in one novel in 1993.
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hghwolf
Bird of contempt
No. I haven't played MWO in my lifetime.
Goons do it because Jade Falcons do it and because it became a meme in their BT community.
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- He/Him
Well, I have. When I ran into some goons during a match, I asked why they were typing squawk and they explained that they're tetatae.
...The meme is that they're tetatae. They made images about it and everything, one of which I posted already.
The 2018 game even referenced it:
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prometheus110
Join Cayman-Global & be part of the 1E-9 percent!
- Location
- La Ballena City Raft
- Pronouns
- He/Him
They're the heirs Kerensky deserved. Don't @ me.
hghwolf
Bird of contempt
Ralson, it's a thing they do in combat. You can read about it in Battletech novels. IIRC there are even Jade Falcon clanners who are reknowned for having a particularily good one, because of course the Jade Falcons would care about that.
It's not directly related to the bird aliens.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I've never heard of this, but I also haven't read all 80+ books, so once again I ask: What actual specific thing are you referencing, if anything? Did a guy yell and the author compared it to a falcon's cry? Did a character describe them as squawking in order to insult them? Throw me a bone here.
When I google for Jade Falcons squawking, the only relevant result is this thread.
The meme you cited is 100% related to the bird aliens.
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hghwolf
Bird of contempt
It's been a bit, but just off the top of my head it's referenced in Bloodname and A Rending of Falcons, definitely elsewhere too. Plenty of stuff being likened to screams and falcon screams specifically of course, but it's explicitly a thing they learn in Sibko.
Night
Widow Null
- Location
- Hoff
So just out of curiosity I did a quick scan of the Jade Phoenix Trilogy since I had no memory of this.
No you can't. It ain't there.
Triggerhappy
Stick with Trigger and You'll Make it Through
- Location
- SoCal
They're the heirs Kerensky deserved. Don't @ me.
The question is as always . . . which Kerensky?
Now to be fair to Nicholas, the brain fever may have resulted in him mixing his Barnes and Noble pop-history coffee table books with his memories of youth soccer camp when he was designing the clans.
