Silly man, it's difficult not to attack individuals if there's only one of you :p


I think it's safe to say that the Dark Age-era background has been refined enough from the various personal accounts, vague descriptions, and general rumors that we started with to say that Stone's sweeping reforms for largely illusions. Yes, mech production has continued throughout the 'years of peace' following the Jihad (not to mention a few more wars involving the Republic) and yes, all houses and clans still maintain considerable standing armies.

The problem lies simply with the Republic and their silly military cutbacks (which are really biting them in the rear now)

There have only been two cases where the prevalence of clan omni-mechs and IS mechs has bothered me. A) the elite CJF spider and B) the LE Liao Warhammer IIC. I can get over the spider, but I still can't grasp as to how a Cappie mechwarrior got his hands on a WHMIIC.

As to what all the splinter Republic factions have, just think of the current military hardware in the Republic being split half and half between Clan and IS tech. That makes it a lot easier to swallow, rather than, say, thinking that the Swordsworn should have more FedSuns designs within their ranks.

EErrmmmm, they bought it from the Foxes?? Old-salvage from the 3060s (Liao units were part of Bulldog and Serpent, or they got it from the FedCom war)?? Many ways mechs could get anywhere. The problem is prevalence of mechs outside their factions (Clan mechs in the IS with very few belonging to Clan factions.

Well, where have you been hiding all this time? We've got, what, four of them now!


As to the Clans having fewer Omnis...

Not every Clan 'Mech is an Omni, only frontline designs that need the flexibility of easy refit. The Kodiak and Mad Cat Mk. II, for example, are full-blown BattleMechs, not a bit of Omni about them (regardless of what MW4 says). I don't think the Clans have had that many Omnis to begin with...I want to say 50/50 or 40/60 Omnis and regular 'Mechs. Maybe even higher ratios of BattleMechs to Omnis. Conquer a planet with the Omnis, garrison with BattleMechs, move the Omnis on to the next planet. That's the only reason all the IS ever saw (initially) were OmniMechs...Omnis are the first on the battlefield because they don't need as much maintenance/repair time as a BattleMech. Just grab a new arm and go.


And as to the Clanners bringing over their BattleMechs, a lot can change in 80 years. Maybe the converts bartered for their 'Mechs (Clanners don't use money that often) or, to get around the system, have a Republic soldier shoot them down and claim them as bondsman with their 'Mechs. Perhaps their Khans let them go. Maybe they just brought a 'Mech with them, since no Clan MechWarrior actually owns his own 'Mech (Vlad switched from a Timber Wolf to an Executioner at some point in the Blood of Kerensky trilogy). And remember, there isn't anything a Trial of Grievance can't resolve.

Finally, we don't know what kind of standing the Clanners in the Republic have in their home Clans. For all we know, they stole the 'Mechs and made like mercs to get to the Republic. So if we ever see a home Clan (like the Wolves) invading to take out their little cousins, we can assume the Clans don't like deserters very much. The Spirit Cats seem to have been forgiven, though (remember, Kev Rosse used to be a Republic politician).

On the other hand, information storage and dissemination wasn't nearly at the level during those times as they are now, much less what they would be in the 28th century. Scientific knowledge, and production methods are no longer passed down as secrets from master to apprentice - they are written down, published and shared. That makes a huge difference when it comes to how easily knowledge is lost.
Besides, even if they can not make them in the exact same way, having the technology around and the equipment and know-how to reverse engineer would allow them to at least make the same things using different techniques (we can certainly build pyramids today using modern technology, even if we aren't sure exactly what techniques the ancient Egyptians used).
Finally, I've always had a problem with the types of technology that were lost versus what they kept - targetting computers are ridiculously easy compared to bipedal locomotion. 20th Century America could build targetting computers for massive weapon systems that fit in a space smaller than the glove box in a car, for a small number of ounces. Yet 31st Century humans that have interstellar spaceships, bipedal battlemechs, and faster than light communications can't seem to make one that weighs less than a ton... sorry, I don't buy it. But I'll just shake my head and move on, since I enjoy the game ;)

I still maintain that they did not regress far enough, technologically, to lose the kinds of information that CBT has always claimed they did. Otherwise they'd never even be able to fix 'Mechs, much less build new ones.

Best justification I've heard so far. Kind of insane for the Clans to let any of their Mechwarriors escape to the Republic with their mechs--handing out military hardware (especially mechs, which have always been considered the heart of the Clan military) to a nascent power sound like a bad idea. You are just asking for it--and making yourself more vulnerable.

You sure can ride that bycicle, you may even be able to fix it if it breaks.

But can you build a bycicle?

A bicycle is far less complex than a battlemech, for one. It's kind of like the difference between fixing an old car and a new one. Old cars were fairly easy for the layman to maintain an repair. It wasn't even too difficult to make new parts as necessary to replace what was needed. Modern cars are a bit different. Sure, a lot of maintenance can still be done by a laymen, but once there's something wrong with the electronics, things get dicier. And if any of the electronics fail, there is no choice but to purchase a replacement part. Making replacement electronics requires knowing how they work.
Now, a Battlemech is going to be vastly more complex than a modern car - controlling motors to the degree necessary for bipedal locomotion requires quite a bit of electronic control and very complex programming. Keeping that working is more like maintaining a Cray Supercomputer rather than maintaining a car. Sure, you may be able to login to that Cray terminal, but can you even perform maintenance on it without a good deal of knowledge, much less build one?

Now, let's look at CBT. They actually _do_ build Battlemechs. That absolutely _requires_ knowing how they work. This brings us back to where I started ;)

Oh, your problem was with mechs, I thought it was with technology in general for CBT. If that's the case, then yes, they knew how mechs work since they could build it. They just didn't have much funds for R&D, until the Clans came. And even then, many of the first models were based on the core found by the GDL. Now if we're talking about KF drives, they could only do basic maintenance, and not build new ones, until the core came back. One of the reason why ComStar became neo-religious, because they 'prayed' the tech would work (explained slightly in Ideal War, methinks).

Not to mention myomer musclules. I'd like to see you brew that with common household ingredients.

Okay, bad analogy.

Consider the inability of the Successor States to build new jumpships circa 4th succession war as not simply the lack of knowledge to build them, but infeasibility of it.

Sphere-wide, the economy was in ruins. Yes, battlemechs were still in production, but the dwindling numbers of production plants made the availability of brand new mechs and parts to be low. Many designs simply ceased to be produced. Parts were mainly found on the battlefield and by cannibalizing their own mechs, aside from what small stockpiles were available from the state's remaining production plants for specific designs. Though TRO3025 showcases all of the designs and varients existing in the time-period, if you actually comb through the book you will notice that while some designs are commonly used and still produced (or have been produced in the thousands from the star league era) others were rarities on the battlefield, as all existing production runs had been destroyed or discontinued. I would argue that one of the major reasons why the Successor States remained in the condition that they were in was due to the great effort mechwarrior family put in to maintaining and taking care of their personal machines (something that is lacking, these days)

Things were better and worse, in actuality. Mechs were being produced, parts were in availability, but most production facilities were destroyed and the ability to PRODUCE certain parts and weapons simply wasn't there. The Successor States simply didn't have the resources to build whole new production plants, while staying at a constant state of preparedness for war for a few hundred years.

Throw in the fact that the first succession wars brought the destruction of the majority of mech production facilities and (seemingly) all jumpship production facilities (####, they're big and juicy targets) through the liberal use of WMDs, and you have a mighty deep hole in that the Inner Sphere had dug themselves in to.


Jumpship production facilities are priceless. They aren't easy to make. They aren't cheap. Before the stability that the formation of Federated Commonwealth brought, they simply didn't have the resources to replace those that were lost. It wasn't that the technology just wasn't there.

I hope that's a bit more specific that my stupid little analogy ^^;

in short, bow down before the almighty C-Bill.

Infeasibility, I'll buy. Unfortunately, while I've seen many a rationalization by fans, all I've ever seen from the actual CBT fiction has been that technology was actually outright lost. Including technology for Battlemechs. Part of the problem, I suppose, is that I've actually done some robotics in the past. So I know that many of the technologies they seem to have lost are far simpler than the ones they haven't... (such as: they seem to have lost the ability to make cruise missiles, small targetting computers, etc, but they have the ability to make 'Mechs walk, and PPCs... something just doesn't fit there to me ;) ).
Anyway, I'm just beating a dead horse at this point. I like the game and the fiction, so I'm willing to just shrug my shoulders at this point, and accept that this is a quirk of the CBT/MWDA fiction ;)

Many Successor states could build jumpships even into the 4th Succession War. The problem isn't resources to build them or even cost. Its the numbers that can be built. House Davion's Kathil factory could build about 4 jumpships a year + spare parts. Each jumpship can carry from 1-4 dropships. Each drop ship can carry from a lance to a Battalion of troops. That means in order to move The 3rd Fedcom RCT which consists of 1 regiment of mechs 3 Regiments of Vehicles 5 regiments of Infantry you would need Upwards of a Dozen Jumpships. It will take months of jumps to get them into position for attacking a planet.

Now there are warships which are of course built at a snails pace of 1 every few years. This is where the Jihad really falls apart. Its almost impossible for a single successor state to go to war with every other one at the same time. For the Word of Blake to succeed they would need Thousands of jumpships and even more drop ships as well as Several Hundred Regiments of Troops. Its fairly sad to say they would need an army larger then even the SLDF to be able to succeed. I seriously doubt they could amass so many troops in so short a time.

Definately. The whole Word of Blake storyline was a weak one in my opinion. I mean, how did the citizens of the worlds the Blakists conquer feel about them? Youd think there would have been insurrections on par with those that occured during the Clan invasions.