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The Periphery

2021-08-28T00:12:43Z

2607:FB90:6E65:FB2D:A474:601A:91B6:7F9A:

The Periphery is a region of space in the [[BattleTech]] Universe just outside of the Inner Sphere.

== General History ==
The Periphery encompasses any space outside of the "Inner Sphere" of human civilization, around 550 light years away from Earth. While many individual colonies existed out here before the time of even the [[Star League]], the vast majority of major players out here came to be during the Time of War; often refugees or former statesmen who had become fed up with the Inner Sphere's burgeoning realpolitik and their personal grudges never quite sated. While for a time the people of the Periphery mostly kept to themselves, the Star League's Reunification Wars came like a truck barreling down on a tortoise, and inevitably ended up with a bunch of states who were mostly tied to their personal standards; only achieving freedom during the collapse of the League and even then reeling from the lack of Star League resources, all suffered quite a bit for a while during the Succession Wars, but were otherwise able to recover due to the fact that they were in fact powers at this point, and have been suffering and succeeding throughout the years ever since by either shacking up with other Periphery groups, or getting in good with an [[The Clans|enterprising Clan]].

== The Pirahna Principle of Periphery Defense ==
While there are something akin to "major" powers in the Periphery, most of them don't have even close to the amount of territory that even the [[Capellan Confederation|smallest state]] in the Inner Sphere does. While normally in this universe this would mean that the Periphery powers were in inevitable danger from being conquered wholesale or demolished, their relative positions meant that they simply could not be subjugated unless the entire Inner Sphere was united, which it very much hasn't been since the fall of the Star League, leading to the "Pirahna Principle" of defense for the Periphery.

The [[Free Worlds League]] for example, could probably eat the Magistracy of Canopus for breakfast if it wanted to. But if it did that, it would be turning a large portion of it's armed forces away from it's borders to attack a series of wildly popular strip-club worlds that would rather salt the earth they were walking on than hand it over to filthy imperialist Spheroids, and as a result of all that fighting that would break out, it's immediate stellar neighbors, the Lyran Commonwealth and the Capellan Confederation, would almost certainly pounce and begin making major gains into their own territory. Thus, while the Periphery's big wigs have individually seen centuries of war, it has only ever been brought to heel twice in history.

== Life in the Periphery ==
Depending on who you ask, life in the Periphery is either absolute freedom and fun; unrestrained by the Inner Sphere's, or a backwater filled with bumpkins who didn't appreciate how good they had it under the Inner Sphere's control. As with most things in the BattleTech universe, both of these things can be true and untrue at any given time.

For one thing; the security of living in a massive stellar empire with reams upon reams of well-organized units of lances is never a real option, since the number of raw resources and support from your neighbor is extremely diminished. Further, the technology level varies wildly from planet to planet, with only major players in the Periphery being able to say they can go toe-to-toe with the Inner Sphere. Some planets aren't even at the level of 20th century man given how badly a hand they were dealt. Some might even be back even further. As a result of the lax security, all manner of pirates and criminal elements hide out in the Periphery where they're too far for the big states to reach them and too slippery for the local neighbors to catch. Smugglers do their best work out here, as the ever present danger of piracy means even local planets have to ask for help to keep resources flowing.

But if you can get in good with people in one of the major powers, or even a few of the middle powers out in the periphery, you will find that the Periphery is often a better deal than that of the Inner Sphere; most major powers guarantee rights to their citizens or to people within their borders, and often have a lot more fun and interesting career opportunities than the Spheroid way of doing things; where people's name means more than their ability to get shit done. It's this disparity that ultimately keeps both the Inner Sphere and the Periphery in the current uneasy situation they find themselves in; the Periphery is both not worth the effort and also not worth the potential counterattacks to try and conquer again.

Further, unlike the Inner Sphere, the Clans really didn't give a shit what they were doing, so they got off relatively easy on that front.

== Powers of the Periphery ==
While most states in the Periphery are generally considered mostly just bandit kingdoms and corporations that've lost the plot, there are genuine powers out here that have quality of life somewhat comparable to that of the Inner Sphere.

* '''[[Taurian Concordate]]''' - The Largest power in the Periphery at any given time. Fiercely argumentative, xenophobic, and the most open about their hatred of the Inner Sphere, but the [[Federated Suns]] most especially.
* '''[[Magistracy of Canopus]]''' - The second largest power. Canopus is everything the Taurians aren't; accepting to almost the point of madness, and exceptionally hedonistic as a matter of government policy. It is in many ways the galaxy's party destination; and the party never ends.
* '''[[Outworlds Alliance|Outworlds Alliance/Raven Alliance]]''' - A bunch of hippies and pacifists who border the Draconis Combine. While they've managed to hold their own, they have routinely been the subject of the realities of life in the Periphery and the realities of being such a small state sitting next to two of the most openly imperialistic powers in the game, only saved at the moment by Clan Snow Raven asking if they could join up.
* '''Rim Worlds Republic''' - The place where Stefan Amaris was from. Formerly the largest state in the Periphery at over 200+ worlds, it was utterly crushed in the Amaris Civil War, and most of it's assets absorbed into the Lyran Commonwealth if it wasn't just left to rot.
* '''Marian Hegemony''' - Some rich asshole struck it even more rich by finding a massive deposit of germanium, and it has only spiraled further from there. Mostly Roman themed.
* '''Oberon Confederation''' - The Bandit kingdom that fancies itself as a real boy state. Borne from the Oberon pirate fleet, it exists at the very edge of the HPG network, and as a result is very mysterious; both because very few (rightfully) trust them and because they're rarely actually seen being seriously affected by life outside the Periphery, even getting invaded by Clans didn't actually change much.
* '''Aurigan Coalition''' - The nation created for the HBS BattleTech video game. A mercantile state that rarely if ever got much notice, only becoming noteworthy when a massive civil war broke out across their worlds.

The rest are either pirate kingdoms, or got erased from the history books by the Clan Invasion. Anything past that is located in the [[Deep Periphery]], which may as well not exist.

[[Category:BattleTech]]

The Clans

2021-08-27T23:53:17Z

2607:FB90:6E65:FB2D:A474:601A:91B6:7F9A: /* Society */

{{Infobox 40k Nations
|name=
|image= [[Image:Clan Logo.png|250px|center]]
}}
{{Topquote|We will purge our old ideals and ethics; those belong to the corrupt stars of the Inner Sphere, and will not serve as we begin anew. Now, while our minds are open and yearning for new insight, we must re-mold them, and fill them with the truth of our destiny. For we are destined not only to be different from those we left behind, but also better. My father knew this, and saved us from the holocaust of the Inner Sphere. I accept it as truth, and have returned to lead you, the survivors of this most bitter trial.|Nicholas Kerensky}}
'''The Clans''' are a civilization in the [[Battletech]] Universe. Descended from a remnant of the [[Star League]] Defense Force which fled from the Inner Sphere when the shit hit the fan and spend the next two and a half centuries developing on their own course before returning back in 3049.
== History ==
In 2766 a guy named Stefan Amaris (ruler of the Rim World's Republic) launched a coup d'état after killing all known members of the Terran Hegemony's House Cameron while the majority of the SLDF was out fighting rebellions in the periphery, killing the young First Lord and seizing control of the Terran Hegemony. This started a fourteen year long civil war in which the SLDF under the command of Aleksandr Kerensky dismantled his support base and moved to liberate the Terran Hegemony in spite of being cut off from resupply and limited support by the Five Great Houses. But while he did succeed in toppling Amaris' Asshole Regime, the Star League did not survive the fall of House Cameron and fell apart shortly afterwards. In spite of internecine infighting within the Great Houses, all agreed to strip Alexandr Kerensky of his authority while secretly seeking to subvert the SLDF's individual regiments as recruits for their planned wars to claim the Star League's throne. War was on the horizon between the Great Houses but Kerensky was unwilling to seize power for himself or see his remaining army and fleet used in the looming conflict. As such he got the SLDF leadership together in secret and proposed something to save the Inner Sphere and themselves: leave the Inner Sphere and start up somewhere new. Most agreed and in 2785 a fleet loaded with millions of SLDF troops and their families (including Alex's wife Katyusha and two sons Andery and Nicholas) left the inner sphere for greener pastures.

After a long voyage through the unknown they found some uninhabited worlds beyond the Periphery known as the Pentagon Worlds. They set up shop, discharged most of their soldiers and began rebuilding to try to build a bastion of the Star League in Exile. Unfortunately some of the demobilized guys decided that they'd be better off forming their own petty kingdoms and soon enough there was a big shit fight in 2800. Aleksandr (already more than 100 years old) died heartbroken, leaving everything in utter dissaray. In this chaos, his son Nicholas managed to get the support of some loyal troops and most of the SLDF Fleet and made his way to another world nearby called Strana Mechty ("Land of the Dream" in Russian) along with a number of refugees brought in later. Convinced that the current order of things and the Star League ways of thinking were fundamentally broken he decided to not only establish a new colony, but also build a new society from the ground up, dividing his warriors into twenty Clans. In 2820 the Clans returned to the Pentagon Worlds during Operation KLONDIKE, reconquering them and imposing Clan culture onto the populations of these planets.

After Nicolas's death, the system chugged along quite well with the occasional hiccup in what was known as the Golden Century. Eventually in the 2900s there was a split between two factions of The Clans: the Wardens (who felt the Clans should keep to themselves and only get involved in the Inner Sphere if it was threatened by someone else) and the Crusaders (who saw it as their duty to conquer the Inner Sphere and restore a new Clan based Star League). Honestly, if they allowed caste mobility and injected some capitalism and used government-enforced stamps for extra luxury items as the carrot, a Clan conquest likely would have gone over pretty well all around. Unfortunately they're master race asshats who effectively enslave everyone who isn't a warrior ''(as opposed to the Inner Sphere, where you're a slave because you aren't rich or have the wrong last name)''.

== Society ==
An Important fact about the Clans is that they were born from repeat societal trauma. As such, Nicholas Kerensky and his followers were convinced that for humanity to survive society needed to be rebuilt from the ground up. Nicky did work from his specific interpretation of his father's words and borrowed elements from a lot of different historic cultures, but the aim was to start clean.

Even though there is a Clan Council for settling disputes and acting as a whole, each Clan operates mostly independently of its fellows. "Peace" is not really a thing in Clan Society, but war is seldom total. When the Clans are not out conquering others, they're fighting low intensity highly ritualized wars with each other. Yet, what made the Clan Homeworlds spared the Succession Wars level of violence that sent the Inner Sphere back to the stone age was the application of Zellbrigan and the Honor Road, which emphasized individual unit and warrior prowess while minimizing collateral damage. On the downside, while material and technological matters were better preserved (if not improved upon with OmniMechs and Battle Armor), individual human lives weren’t seen as inherently valuable so concepts such as safety gear and personal healthcare were seen as things only worth providing to those who had more worthwhile skills. So while your typical Scientist, Merchant, and Technician castes has average lifespans, most Laborers and Warriors wound up dead in their 30-40’s due to combat or physical burn-out leaving them as “dead weight” if they can’t do anything useful. It’s bad enough that most elderly Warriors would rather die as disposable first wave infantry instead of starving in bed while infirm.

Clan Society is militaristic, authoritarian, honor bound and strictly hierarchical. It's mostly built around a rigid caste system in which one's role in society is typically assigned in childhood and social mobility is a rarity. The Economies of each of the Clans is largely centrally planned and mostly concerned with producing more mechs, ships, weapons and warriors and more clanners to make and support more of those. Motivated by the Clan Home-worlds being harsher and less abundant in resources, wastefulness is discouraged while nonproductive activities such as entertainment or leisure were normally seen as incentives to get people working or in extreme cases outright banned. Most observers note that outside of agriculture, healthcare (for combat injuries), heavy manufacturing, and military-industrial complexes, most non-military related tech and practices were literally frozen in the Star League era (meaning things like media and civilian transportation was even less advanced than Spheroid equivalents. Overall, "Everything for the Clan" and "The Clan Provides" are the overarching attitudes where the collective and conformity took precedent over individualism and social rebellion.

One of the quirks of Clan Society is that most people only have a given name. More on that in a bit.

The Castes are as such...

* Warrior Caste: The rulers of Clan society trained the Spartan Way. Most of them are grown in bulk in industrial exowomb factories and raised in sibling companies, but a few applicants from the general populace are let in. Many flunk out one way or another and become part of the civilian castes while many others end up dying in brutal training regimens and trials for combat. Those that become Warriors are typically hard as nails and brutal fighters. They're three main flavors of Clan Warriors...
**[[Clan Elemental|Elementals]]: Battletech's answer to Space Marines, huge guys and gals who wear power armor.
**Pilots: Small fellows with big eyes and heads who can take a lot of Gs like the T'au's Air Caste.
**Mech Warriors: The most regular warriors, but optimized with improved reflexes and increased neuro-helmet compatibility.
* Scientist Caste: Scientists, inventors, researchers and the like who expand on the Clan's knowledge base and run the eugenics programs. As the Clans have advanced technologically where the inner sphere has regressed, they've been largely successful. The second most powerful caste in Clan society who can actually overrule the warriors on certain matters such as eugenics or technology.
* Technician Caste: Mechanics, engineers and spacecraft crews who keep the machinery of Clan Society humming along.
* Merchant Caste: Traders as well as managers, artists and a wide variety of other functions required to run the economy of Clan Society. They have a higher status in Clan Diamond Shark, since Diamond Shark Warriors can honorably retire to this caste.
* Laborer Caste: The proles who do all the grunt work to keep everyone else fed, housed, equipped, armed, pooping in unclogged toilets and so forth. The largest caste.
* Dark Caste: Not an official caste but a bunch of outcasts which live on the edges of Clan society which makes for convenient target practice for clan warriors.

In addition each caste has it's own internal hierarchy where merit and competition determines your pecking order. For example the Merchant Caste has retail clerks at the bottom and top negotiators for big inter-clan deals at the top. And while each caste committee is technically subordinate to the Warrior exclusive Clan Council, the council mostly let the civilian castes do what they deem best unless it deals with the Clan’s existential matters or martial affairs. In terms of warriors, the inter-Clan’s competition is not only reflected in rising up the ranks from sib-cadet to Khan but a Desire to win a Bloodname through gaining honorable victory for their clan. Having a bloodname means they get a surname and their genes will be be guaranteed to be used to produce the next batch of Warriors. Really accomplished scientists can be awarded a Labname like "Einstein" or "Darwin", but non-Scientists rarely use them.

A big part of Clan Society, especially in the Warrior Caste, is tradition and ritual. On the whole they have a rather "meh" view of religion, but it's role is largely filled by the Hidden Hope Doctrine and a cult of personality mixed with hero worship of the Clan’s original leaders. Alexander and Nicholas Kerensky are all but worshiped as "the Founders". Warriors must past through a variety of trials to achieve position and within the Clan's hierarchy. The Clans preserve and teach their history through the Remembrance, a long epic poem. In general they try to cultivate an air of mystery. All of which are conceived to reinforce the ideals of The Clans and Clan identity into future generations on an emotional level. On the same note, Clanners tend to be very conformist with little tolerance for un-Clanlike Behavior at the best of times.

== Individual Clans ==
There are originally twenty clans formed by Nicholas Kerensky but over the course of the centuries, many were destroyed or absorbed into other factions. Besides the others mentioned on the Battletech page, the most relevant ones are the ones below
[[Category: BattleTech]]
* '''Clan Wolf''': The first "Mary Sue" Clan, having the ilKhan along their ranks kinda marks you for that. Also known for fielding the Timber Wolf which plenty call a poster boy for the series. They actually won their objectives in the battle of Tukayyid. As of a recent novel, they're now ilClan with Jade Falcon as their bodyguard and Smoke Jaguar reconstituted as their special forces.
* '''Clan Jade Falcon''': The other "Mary Sue" Clan as when you think of honor-crazed warrior cultures that went full murder-hobo. Were the asshats that invaded '''MY HOME PLANET''' in the animated series. They earned themselves a draw on Tukayyid at about the last minute.
* '''Clan Diamond Shark/Sea Fox''': Once Clan Sea Fox until they saw a Diamond Shark devour a Sea Fox whole. Fitting that their fighting strength was almost wiped out in Tukayyid due to their inexperience in fighting a actual war as opposed to the dance and diddy that the Clans call a war. Currently going by Clan Sea Fox again, mostly run by merchants after their warrior caste was basically butchered to the last.
* '''Clan Ghost Bear''': Moderate fence sitters that actually attempt to do their homework on their foe? My God, it is like they have a brain... At any rate, Ghost Bear are unusual for the Clans in that they actually practice something akin to normal family structures, and were slow to adapt new tactics but moved in a steady pace for effect. The other Clan that got a draw on Tukayyid. They eventually shacked up with the [[Free Rasalhague Republic|Rasalhagues]] to make their own hybrid state.
* '''Clan Smoke Jaguar''': The Asshole Clan. Aggressive militarists who value only strength and treat their civilian castes like crap. They make Jade Falcon look nice. They earned getting smoked on Tukayyid, bidding away a vast majority of their forces to get the first deployment and only to have them repeatedly baited into ambush after ambush on Tukayyid by being the most aggressive Clan during the invasion.
* '''Clan Snow Raven''': The Sneaky Clan. Due to a series of major military disasters early on in their history, this clan has spent most of it's time playing realpolitik against itself and the rest of the Clans, preferring to stay out of open confrontation due to their lackluster forces. Have a lot of naval prowess due to their occasional need to hit the stellar bricks. Eventually shacked up with the Outworlds Alliance government to become the Raven Alliance.

== Clan Military ==
Each Clan has it's own military collectively called a Touman. They share some common practices and conventions laid out by Nicholas Kerensky, but within said boundaries each Clan is free to set up their forces more or less as they see fit, and usually each does according to their Clan's ouvre. Of course, what makes the Clans so dangerous regardless of their individual affiliation is their [[OmniMechs]], which were often lightyears ahead in terms of modular design and technological strength of the Inner Sphere's BattleMechs. On top of that, their tendency of using jump-jet equipped power armored infantry piggybacking off of their OmniMechs enabled them to have swarms of MEQ’s either ripping vehicles or bunkers when BattletMech use would be deemed overkill.

But while they hold a technological edge, where the Clans falter greatly is in tactical strength. Most Clan warfare prior to the invasion was limited to the honor-bound, extremely skirmish-heavy battles fought between each other where both sides showed up, told each other what they'd be fighting with, and often fighting only in significant duels. All this was supplemented with a heavy emphasis on Mech warfare (or whatever hat the individual Clan wears), a massive culture-wide bias against intelligence gathering due to it being "dishonorable", and what the Zellbringen code allows; which meant they often plopped only the bare minimum of assets down to complete their missions as a personal dare to win with as little as possible. While in theory this is done to both minimize casualties and keep valuable resources alive and working for the Clan to use, the simple fact of the matter is Clanner warfare is continually hamstrung by itself; The Inner Sphere Successor States are under absolutely no delusions about war being an honorable thing, and were able to effectively fracture their entire society by daring to be cute with their own ideas of warfare, coming to one of the harshest wake-up calls they ever got in the Battle of Tukayyid, and any gains they took from the Inner Sphere from the initial invasion almost immediately began to crumble as their attitudes towards their new subjects ultimately plopped them into a series of guerilla wars, something utterly alien to them. Some Clans wised up and decided to try and learn something from this, others have yet to understand why things happened the way they did and returned to the Periphery.

===== Notable Mechs =====

Due to the fact that they showed up out of nowhere unannounced besides a few Batchalls, Clan Battlemechs have both official names and Inner Sphere code names. The following "original sixteen" are the most common frontline OmniMechs used in the invasion, and found in most Clans' toumans:

* [[Timber Wolf|Timberwolf/Mad Cat]]: The Clanner's most famous mech. Actually quite a preposterously expensive thing, but the fact it can blast it's way through Assault Mechs makes it a favorite. It's Inner Sphere name comes from their targeting computers being incapable of deciding whether or not it's a ''Marauder'' or a ''Catapult'', and so flashed MAD CAT over and over whenever it showed up. Developed(and produced exclusively) by Clan Wolf, though most other Clans acquired them by trade or salvage during the century leading up to the invasion.
* Mad Dog/Vulture: The Clan's OTHER most famous mech. Basically the Timberwolf's leaner, scrappy little brother, resembling the Inner Sphere's Archer. Follows the same basic concept of shoulder mounted missiles and arm mounted energy guns, but has a little more pod space in exchange for a lighter chassis and armor. Can hot-swap the LRMs for an absurd number of SRMs, [[What|or its entire loadout for a pair of Gauss Rifles]]. First built by Clan Smoke Jaguar but most popular with the Ghost Bears.
* Summoner/Thor: The Summoner fills the unusual role of being a heavy mech that sacrifices weaponry for mobility, generally giving up redundancy in its weapons in order to carry jump jets and maintain a flexible loadout with less capacity. The result is a mech that's pretty good at moving in fast and bullying things smaller than itself, but doesn't want to stick around and fight stuff in its own weight class; not because it doesn't have the armor (see the Hellbringer and Executioner) but because it doesn't bring [[dakka|enough guns]]. Resembles the Inner Sphere's Thunderbolt. The favorite mech of Clan Jade Falcon.
* Hellbringer/Loki: A glass cannon, carrying a versatile array of weaponry at the cost of having laughably weak armor for a heavy mech. Its primary configuration resembles the Inner Sphere's Warhammer, with twin ER PPCs in the arms mated to a targeting computer, backup lasers and anti-infantry weapons. The other favorite mech of Clan Jade Falcon.

* Dire Wolf/Daishi: The last word in mech-to-mech encounters. Where the Summoner is happy being a schoolyard bully and the Hellbringer is minmaxxed for DPS, the Dire Wolf is just one huge chungus that simply does not care what the enemy brought. 100 tons, unapologetically slow, with an absurd amount of firepower and armor, this is the ultimate assault mech. Barring a lucky headshot this mech will outlast and crush anything you throw its way; underestimate it at your own peril. This is the mech every Mechwarrior dreams of piloting, and many important figures(Natasha Kerensky, Victor Steiner-Davion, Hohiro Kurita) design their own(even stronger) custom variants. This design was fought over between Clan Wolf and Clan Smoke Jaguar and also produced secretly on Outreach by Wolf's Dragoons.
* Executioner/Gladiator: A strange take on the concept of an Assault Mech. At 95 tons it can mount a lot of equipment, but focuses on mobility through jump jets and MASC. As the downside to this, it has anemic side torso armor, meaning it gets cut in half whenever faced with any real attrition. But as an upside, its speed and good leg armor make it a great Elemental transport, and carrying Elementals can help guard its side torsos... sadly most of its configurations have long range weapons while Elementals need to be brought in close. The stereotypical Ghost Bear omnimech.
* Warhawk/Masakari: Pure evil, bringing this to a friendly game will turn some heads. Heavily armored, average speed, the classic Warhawk carries [[Rape|FOUR CLAN ER PPCS]] in its arms, mercilessly vaporizing limbs and heads of anyone unfortunate to be caught in its sights. If that isn't enough, every variant carries a massive Targeting Computer, essentially giving the pilot an aimbot. A common variant swaps two ER PPCs for Large Pulse Lasers, allowing it to better manage its heat while firing with even greater accuracy. One of Clan Smoke Jaguar's signature designs.
* Gargoyle/Man o'War: The infamous SpurdoMech is somewhat of an unusual design, an assault mech that moves above its weight class but has (relatively) weak leg armor. Its Prime also has the misfortune of having ballistic weapons yet too many heat sinks, its twin LB5X autocannons forcing it squarely into an anti-vehicle role. Its lack of torso weapons and its speed make it a good Elemental transport and Clan Wolf builds them in large numbers: however overall it is weaker than the lighter Timber Wolf(unless mech quirks are in play). Also somewhat popular with Clan Ghost Bear.(apparently the weird configuration works well under specialized Clan duel rules)

* Stormcrow/Ryoken: The close combat star of the clan mediums, usually packing fists and lasers although sometimes fitted for long range. At 97 km/h it's faster than everything it can't take down. Doesn't get much time in the spotlight compared to its slower, heavier cousin the Mad Dog, but it comes from the same family of flexible second-gen omnimechs. A workhorse design for many Clans but most popular with the Smoke Jaguars.
* Nova/Black Hawk: One of the oldest OmniMech designs still in use, the Nova is uncommon yet universal among the Clans as a medium mech that can (briefly) throw dakka like mechs 10-15 tons heavier than itself. Infamous for running HOT with TWELVE ER Medium Lasers, the king of alpha strikes. Also has a PPC sniper variant which is quite good, and a couple configurations that try to pack ballistic weapons and missiles despite the fixed heat sinks.
* Ice Ferret/Fenris: A swift yet well armored scout that can do some sniping to boot. Originally built as a harasser to counter the Timber Wolf, Clan Wolf liked it enough to capture a factory and started producing it themselves. Now is a ubiquitous sight in their touman.
* Viper/Dragonfly: A fast jumper, often described(incorrectly) as lacking punch. [[Cheese|Known for being one of the first mechs to combine jumping 8 hexes(extremely hard to be hit) with pulse lasers(extremely easy to hit the enemy).]] A great Elemental transport and infantry killer popular with the Ghost Bears and Wolves.

* Adder/Puma: The largest of the Clans' ubiquitous light omnimechs is a bit of an oddity. While not particularly fast for a light mech, it carries a pair of ER PPCs with a targeting computer, making it a true sniper. As an omnimech, it can switch to being a gnarly missile boat in an hour or two. Most often found among Clan Wolf(though the Fenris fits the scout role of a light mech better).
* Kit Fox/Uller: Similar to the Adder in most respects, though lighter armored, the Kit Fox tends to carry a more balanced assortment of weapons in its variants, rather than boating one thing in particular. Except for the EW/anti-infantry variant, which happens to have a whopping three anti-missile systems. Recently canonized as having a dedicated Arrow IV variant(read: a guided, auto-loading cruise missile launcher), meaning it can be equipped with [[Exterminatus|nuclear weapons]]. Unsurprising, given that it is produced by Clan Jade Falcon.
* Mist Lynx/Koshi: A 25 ton dedicated scout omnimech packing more weapons than its Inner Sphere equivalents, but nothing special as far as Clan mechs go. [[Derp|Infamous for having one less jump jet than needed to be truly evasive, putting nearly half its torso armor on its rear facing, while fully armoring the head]]. Used by Clan Smoke Jaguar in the rare OOC instance that they attempt reconnaissance.
* Fire Moth/Dasher: [[Meme|GOTTA GO FAST]]. A derpy little machine with arms that stretch high above its head, and speed that far exceeds anything the Inner Sphere thought a battlemech could be capable of. It still manages to have more guns than Inner Sphere mechs twice its size, too- Clan tech is just that powerful. Surprisingly the light mech of choice for Clan Ghost Bear, which actually makes a lot of sense: the Clan that prefers Elementals and plays American Football loves a mech that runs up and flings the battle armor overhand at the enemy.

== External Links ==
*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDR_Zpb05uk Part One of Tex's series on Clan History]
*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3B165wbTnHs Part Two of Tex's on Clan History]

{{Battletech Factions}}

BattleTech

2021-08-27T23:50:44Z

2607:FB90:6E65:FB2D:A474:601A:91B6:7F9A: /* Minor Powers */

{{awesome}}
[[Image:NEW-BT-LOGOFLAT.png|NEW-BT-LOGOFLAT.png|center]]
{{Game Infobox
|name = BattleTech
|picture = [[Image:NEW-BT-LOGOFLAT.png|200px]]
|type = [[Wargame]]
|publisher = [[Catalyst Game Labs]]
|playno = Trillions
|year = 1984
|books = Total Warfare or The BattleMech Manual
}}
{{topquote|It is the 31st century, a time of endless wars that rage across human-occupied space. As star empires clash, these epic wars are won and lost by BattleMechs, 23-56 foot tall humanoid metal titans bristling with lasers, autocannons and dozens of other lethal weapons; enough firepower to level entire city blocks. Your elite force of MechWarriors drives these juggernauts into battle, proudly holding your faction's flag high, intent on expanding the power and glory of your realm. At their beck and call are the support units of armored vehicles, power armored infantry, aerospace fighters and more, wielded by a MechWarrior's skillful command to aid him in ultimate victory. Will they become legends, or forgotten casualties? Only your skill and luck will determine their fate!|Product promotional tagline}}

'''Battletech''', or '''MechWarrior''' as most of the non-neckbearded populace know it, is a tabletop wargame about armies of giant robots fighting one another for honor, money, and territory in a far-distant feudal future. Think [[Star Wars]] AT-STs, or [[Warhammer 40,000]]'s [[Imperial Knight|Imperial Knights]] (Games Workshop decided they liked Battlemechs too). It’s also perhaps the most realistic example of walker warfare. Using their size to mount sufficient energy generation and armor that they are fast enough, maneuverable enough, and armored enough that being a bullet magnet does not matter. Using their vertical build to mount numerous huge weapons that each would take up all the space on most tanks modern militaries would consider super-heavy. Usually operating in combined arms warfare and supported by tanks, hovercraft, aircraft, and infantry. Not sinking into the ground like its quicksand because dirt reaches maximum compression very quickly (and thus all anti-mech arguments are rendered invalid by combined arms, armor, power-plant, firepower, and actual science), and so on. The realism of the technology (if not the moronic House Lords and nonsensical events) is so great it could be a glimpse into the future. Y’know, before Bolos come along and replace everything.

==Holy Crap, Giant Robots Are Awesome==
[[Image:Batdroid.jpg|thumb|right|''Battledroids'', the first edition of the game, c. 1984. A ''literally''-textbook example on how to get sued nine different ways from Sunday.]]
In the early 1980s, [[Jordan Weisman]] was [[Weeaboo|fascinated]] by several Japanese [[anime]] involving giant robots, or "mecha." He was quoted as saying that he liked the designs and idea of giant robots fighting on the battlefield, but did not have a taste for the storylines that the Japanese wrote about them. In 1984, Weisman founded [[FASA]] and acquired the licenses to designs from several series, the most famous being ''Super Dimension Fortress Macross,'' though the largest portion came from ''Fang of the Sun Dougram'' and combined them to make Battletech.

The first edition of this game, called ''Battledroids'', was a hex-based boardgame played on a battlefield illustrated with various types of terrain. It came with two large plastic minis of featured mechs, imported from Japan. Initially, sales were mediocre as the sheer size of the mechs made them awkward in gameplay. Soon after the launch of ''Battledroids'' Lucasfilm filed a lawsuit against FASA for using the name "droids," which they had trademarked in 1978. Discretion being the better part of valor, FASA changed the name of the game to Battlemech in time for the second edition printing in 1986. This time, cardboard stand-ins replaced the plastic miniatures, and a tradition was born. To this day, Battletech can be played without purchasing any physical models and with any proxy you please.

Following the release of the second edition, fans of the game clamored for new miniatures. FASA obliged, rescaling their mechs for more convenient play and designing a host of in-house mechs to broaden variety and bridge the gap between the sleek Macross and crude Dougram designs. New models notwithstanding, the third edition, dubbed ''Battletech,'' was shipped with solely Macross- and Dougram-based minis. However, in 1995 [[That Guy|Harmony]] [[Rage|Gold]], an American localization company which had licensed the international distribution and toy rights to SDF Macross, issued a C&D against FASA for the use of all mecha designs from the Macross franchise. FASA ceased production of these miniatures, which were among the most popular designs in the franchise, and published a fourth edition of the game in 1996 again featuring cardboard tokens, which were all based on their own original mechs.

Before '''''Battletech''''', the mecha genre was seen as something that belonged mostly to the Japanese. With few exceptions (''Power Rangers'' and ''Star Wars'', and even then the Mechs from the former were reused footage from Japanese shows), the genre was almost entirely made up of anime productions imported from Japan. Battletech pioneered a new approach to mecha within the Western fandom, featuring mostly stories of pseudo-realistic wars fought by real soldiers rather than teenagers taking on forces of evil or single-handedly winning interplanetary wars, plots that dominated the few mecha series that were subbed by the dedicated VHS fansubbers of the day. More importantly, the physical limitations of the Battlemechs, unlike the limitations of tanks in, say, [[Warhammer 40,000]], are critical to the planning and strategy of outfitting mechs and using them on the tabletop.

===The Mechs===
{{topquote|"Shoot for his cockpit! [[Iron Hands|Kill the meat]], [[Adeptus Mechanicus|save the metal.]]"|Sergeant Robert "Deadeye" Unther (Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries - Training Tutorial)}}
BattleTech mechs function and are utilized more like tanks with legs than the super-agile flying mecha common in Japanese depictions. Mechs are deployed in formations of four or five, called lances in the Inner Sphere and stars in the Clans. They are able to operate in space, on planets with caustic atmospheres, underwater, and in a wide range of temperatures that would be lethal to unprotected humans. One of the biggest upsides of mechs as combat vehicles is their extreme efficiency-of-arms: an effectively limitless amount of time without requiring fuel due to their fusion reactors alongside hyper-efficient Myomer 'muscles' inside the Battlemech’s limbs that can carry more weapons and armor per-ton than any other combat platform in existence. The only things stopping a mech from being able to fight forever are ammunition, repairs, and allowing the pilot to rest. Even when a mech is destroyed, losing the pilot is a relatively rare occurrence thanks to very effective ejection systems. A destroyed mech chassis can also be salvaged and rebuilt to fight another day, good as new. In the early 3000s setting this means many mechs are often decades or even hundreds of years old, Ship of Theseus-style. Some mechs even have unique identities and/or affiliations with certain royal Houses or mercenary families. Also, as stated in the quote above, it's not uncommon for cash-strapped mercenaries, pirates, or even planetary militia to prioritize aiming for the cockpit and/or forcing Mechwarriors to eject from overheating/battle damage in order to claim the surviving Battlemech wreckage for salvage or as a spoil of war.

As far as locomotion styles, bipedal mechs are the most common, with the weapon systems mounted either in the torso compartments or on the arms. Quadrupedal mechs do exist but are relatively rare, they are slower than bipedal mechs and don't offer the same amount of weapon space for a given weight class and more legs (and more everything else) on a mech means, of course, greater expenses. Even rarer are tripod mechs, generally restricted to experimental super-heavy designs. Bipedal mechs can also grasp things in their hands (if they have them) like melee weapons or pesky tanks. Early versions of BattleTech feature mechs that could transform into fighter planes, but these were dropped relatively quickly in its life cycle due to copyright problems.

The main downside of mechs is their inability to efficiently manage heat buildup. Heat is generated by the fusion reactor, the environment, movement, and mostly as a result of firing weapons. Mechs mount multiple gigantic one-ton heatsink units to deal with this buildup, but it is a constant problem for pilots to manage. Mechs that feature a lot of energy-based weapons will generate especially high levels of heat, and therefore manage very poorly in extremely hot environments. Firing all the weapons of certain mech variants at once (the ''Nova'' mech is most infamous) can cause it to overheat to such an extent that the reactor core melts down before the heatsinks can shunt the heat out of the chassis, which is bad. Safety measures that shut down the entire mech when it reaches a certain temperature threshold are always installed, but since this usually happens in a combat situation, and thus leaves the mech defenseless, some pilots will intentionally disable the safeguards to take their chances. Depending on the technology level of a given game, more efficient heatsinks can be assigned to mechs that remove heat more quickly and allow hotter builds. The fluff also mentions some experimental heatsinks that changed the heat energy to light (<strike>???</strike>Actually plausible, we have been experimenting with this concept irl) but had the downside of making the mech look like a walking rave, as well as heatsinks that utilized caustic liquids to move heat faster but with a limited lifespan.

Weapons consist of three general categories: ballistic, energy, and missile. Each has its own strengths and weakness: ballistic weapons weigh more, require ammo, but do not generate much heat, energy weapons are the opposite, and missiles generate some heat/consume ammo but can be indirectly fired with targeting data from scouts. Outfitting a mech for the proper engagement is key to obtaining victory: mechs outfitted for mech-to-mech combat will generally mount only high-damage weapons with lower ammo counts and slower rates of fire, while mechs set for vehicle and infantry combat will mount weapons that fire quickly but do lower damage per shot. Likewise, mechs that do not expect steady resupply will mount more energy weapons so they are not beholden to ammo counts.

Mechs range between 20 to 100 tons in four weight classes, though a few experimental units lie outside these ranges. The weight classes are light (20-35), medium (40-55), heavy (60-75), and assault (80-100). Considering their size (23-56 feet), that's pretty light; the Maus (33 feet long and 11 feet high) mega-tank that Adolf Hitler demanded weighed 188 tons. (One possible explanation here is that the "tonnage" in a weight class isn't the weight of the mech, but rather the weight available to mount things on the chassis. So an Atlas assault mech has 100 tons of available space for reactor, life support, weapons, armor etc, explaining why various sub-types of a mech drop something and replace it with something else of equal weight. A Flea light mech has 20 tons). Rarer still are super heavy mechs (with weights between 110 to 200 tons). While they are walking fortresses that put even Assault Mechs to shame, they tend to be ridiculously expensive, extremely slow, have issues with supporting that weight, are vulnerable to attacks from swarms of smaller enemies like tanks, and have difficulty installing reactors with sufficient power. Top sustainable speeds of mechs vary from 32.4 kph (20 mph) for the assault ''Annihilator'' to 162 kph (101 mph) for the light ''Firemoth'' scout. Keep in mind that the American M1A1 Abrams tank has a top speed of 72 kph (45 mph) on a paved road and much less crossing difficult terrain. Mechs can also be mounted with rechargeable jump jets that give them the ability to hop across the battlefield or up/down terrain. According to varying fluff depictions, mechs are even able to climb up/down cliff walls and perform flying dropkicks to enemy cockpits, which is awesome.

Depending on where in the timeline the specific game takes place (this is a player choice), there will be two possible classes of mechs: Battlemechs and Omnimechs. Battlemechs are the older style, with a set number of variants that cannot be changed in the field. This style was universal in the Inner Sphere before the arrival of the Clans. Omnimechs, a Clan invention, feature a modular construction style and a snap-on software integration which gives them the freedom of changing loadouts quickly. For example, a ''Dragon'' Battlemech comes in a default configuration consisting of one LRM-10, one Autocannon/5, and two medium lasers. The 1C variant replaces the Autocannon/5 with an Autocannon/2 and more armor, while the 5N upgrades the Autocannon/5 to an Ultra Autocannon/5. A pilot must use one of these variants and is incapable of changing the loadout without serious hours-long reworking of the mech's internals in a Mech maintenance facility. Conversely, a ''Mad Dog'' Omnimech comes with a default configuration of two LRM-20s, two medium pulse lasers, and two large pulse lasers. A pilot is able to modify this loadout as they see fit within less than an hour with a technical team, say dropping the two medium pulse lasers for more missile ammo/armor or changing the LRMs to SRMs for short-range engagements.

Like most Western sci-fi series, Battlemechs are somewhat inspired by real theoretical technologies; their weapons range from machine guns (albeit very big ones) and missiles, to coilguns and particle accelerators. The biggest leaps from reality (aside from FTL travel and communications) are the fusion reactor, (a technology still only theoretically possible,) the neurohelmet, (which interfaces with the pilot's brain and keeps the mech upright based on the pilot's own sense of balance,) and the massive muscle-like Myomer fibers that actually allow the mech to move upon being exposed to electrical current.

While Battlemechs dominate the battlefields of Battletech, armored vehicles still have a place. Most of the time, tanks, hovercraft, and APCs are used where mechs would be too expensive (or too advanced) to maintain, or in roles where a mech would be ineffective. This means that, in addition to Battlemechs, one can find infantry, vehicles, aerial vehicles, naval vehicles, and spaceships. It is worth noting that vehicles can be a real threat to Battlemechs in great enough numbers, since they mount the same weapons as mechs. Some tanks can also push the 100-ton limit and sport the gigantic weaponry usually mounted on an Assault mech chassis. In other words, where mechs are [[Space Marines]], the vehicles are more akin to [[Eldar]] Aspects.

Mechs in BattleTech fiction also have a curious tendency to go up in a mini nuclear explosion when their reactor core is breached by weapon fire. Mushroom clouds, explosions, heat, radiation, the whole bit. This has been nicknamed "stackpoling" after BattleTech novel author Michael Stackpole, who includes at least one of these events in each novel he writes. If the reactor was actually breached, what should happen is a meltdown of the reactor (and probably some chunks of the surrounding mech) that quickly burns out because the reactor can't maintain the fusion reaction without proper containment. Reactors are generally incapable of generating an actual nuclear explosion: real-world reactor "explosions" are usually a result of the coolant flash-overheating and generating a pressure-based steam explosion that destroys the reactor building. Lingering radiation would still be a problem of course, but that is usually handwaved away in BattleTech fluff or not mentioned at all.

To get into the actual science of this, a hypothetical fusion reactor wouldn't produce that many radioactive substances. And what few they do would be relatively short lived and would be weak beta emitters. The most likely substance would be Tritium, which is where the stereotypical glow in the dark green radiation comes from. The Mech would glow in the dark but a decent decontamination process would render it mostly harmless. In other words, the stories are right for the wrong reasons.

==Warfare in the Thirty-first Century==

When somebody decides to attack another world, they load up their 'Mechs (and tanks, and infantry, etc...) onto massive shuttles called DropShips. These boost off into space and link up with Jumpships, semi-mobile Space-Fold drives sitting a ways out into the star's system (due to the limits of BattleTech FTL, Jumpships can't get any closer to a system's star than a radius roughly around the orbit of Saturn in the Sol System. For simplicity's sake, most Jumpships move to the zenith or nadir points directly "above" or "below" the star's orbital plane). The Dropships latch onto the Jumpships, which make a series of jumps from star to star until they reach the target system.

Compared to some sci-fi franchises such as Star Wars or Star Trek, aerospace combat between ships isn’t really that common for several reasons. For one, KF Drive used to propel Jumpships (which are about the size of Manhattan and can’t land on a planet) makes up 95% of its mass and leaves little room for anything else besides Dropship docking ports, basic ship equipment, crew quarters, and the Jumpsail used for recharging the drive. And while Warships do exist with drives half the size as their civilian models, the drives alone are more than five times more expensive to build and are prioritized for only strategically vital missions like real-life Dreadnoughts. In that regard, Battletech’ Jumpships are closer to Dune’s massive but ungainly Heighliners than Star War’s Star Destroyers. As a result, most aerospace combat is dominated by armed Dropships or aerospace fighters.

Once they reach the target, the Dropships detach from the Jumpships and burn deeper into the system towards the planet. Now Jumpships aren't stealthy, so anyone on the target planet likely detected their entrance into the system, and it typically takes Dropships seven days (varies dramatically for each star system) to reach the planet. Surprise attacks are nearly impossible, and defenders will have up to a week to get ready (some clever or smart people try to shave time by trying to match the target world's orbit with a nonstandard point closer to the planet, or even rare "Pirate" points caused by gravity interactions between celestial bodies, but even this usually gives defenders at least a day to prepare). Of course, these aren’t actually rare and we have quite a number of them around Earth, the moon, and every other celestial body including the sun. So close that by BattleTech standards it would take probably just a few minutes to reach the Earth from one of its own null gravity points. Seeing as their dropships can reach Sol's top or bottom null-G in just a few days. But everyone knows artists (writers especially) rarely bother doing any research.

As the invading force reaches planetary orbit, the defenders will usually try to intercept them with their own defensive ships, usually Dropships, Shuttles, and Aerospace Fighters, and the Attackers will launch fighters of their own. Space battle will begin in earnest as the defenders try to keep the enemy from landing on world at all (FASA originally had two separate games, Aerotech and Battlespace, that dealt with this stage of combat, but current BattleTech rules incorporate Aerospace combat for those who prefer it or want the full Theater of War experience).

If the Attackers can break through orbit, they can choose their landing site (usually near the target of course). The enemy will deploy to stop them and battle begins in earnest.

==Fluff==
[[File:Mad_Cat.jpg|300px|thumb|right|The [[Timber Wolf]] (Mad Cat if you're <s>Inner Sphere</s> <s>Freebirth Scum</s> Degrazi), one of the most iconic BattleMechs in the series.]]
{{topquote|''A thousand horrid Prodigies foretold it.
A feeble government, eluded Laws,
A factious Populace, luxurious Nobles,
And all the maladies of stinking states.''|Dr. Samuel "What The Fuck Am I Reading" Johnson}}
Much like [[Games Workshop|Warhammer]], the Battletech franchise has an extensive expanded universe. Dozens of books, numerous spinoff games, video games in multiple genres, and even an animated cartoon have delved into the setting and created an entertaining, if convoluted, history that has real influences on how the game is played. Unlike Warhammer, there are no [[Xenos]] (outside of some cavemen-like species), so humans get all the glory (and blame).

===History of the Inner Sphere===
After a period of typical [[Cold War]]-era speculative history: in details, the Soviet leadership is inherited by a fictional hardliner in the 80s and the Union survives until the 2010s where it splits in the Second Soviet Civil War (this was retconned in as the game was made when the USSR hadn't collapsed yet). The appointment of a hardliner leads to NATO reforming into the Western Alliance along with the proto-EU. The Western Alliance helps the split post-Soviet Eurasian states, is joined by China and other Asian countries after a brief crisis and eventually mankind was mostly united under the Western Alliance, having renamed itself to the Terran Alliance and discovered how to travel faster-than-light by opening up artificial wormholes. By 2235, most of mankind's interstellar colonies threw off the yoke of the Alliance and formed their own stellar nation-states. What followed was a period of war and chaos which led to the rise of the "'''Great Houses'''," feudal dynasties of powerful families adhering to various pseudo-historical ideals (like Kurita's Japan fetishism, specifically the most evil aspects of WWII Japan and every other Asian countries' worst parts of their histories up to eleven) competing for total dominance of mankind. However Terra, as Earth became known after its Latin name, remained the most technologically-advanced star nation, and remained unconquered by the competing Great Houses who turned their focus on one another instead. This is one of the reasons for the severe technological stagnation that is a hallmark of the Battletech universe. After all, any idiot knows that destroying a factory or all of a certain factory production and all such factories means the knowledge of how to build their products magically disappears and the knowledge of how to build those factories poofed away the moment they were built anyway as that is the only explanation conceivable for why destroyed factories were not simply replaced and why the knowledge disappeared from every paper, computer, and mind. Obviously space magic is to blame...or exceptionally short-sighted writers.

To be clear, the given reason for how the neo-feudalism came about was due to oppression. Yet other than the Federated Suns good bois and to an extent the Lyran Commonwealth, most other nations don't have the same problems that destroyed the Alliance despite being oppressive. Super oppressive. Which begs one to question how the Hell the Outer Reaches Rebellion happened. And it still doesn't explain how the neo-feudalism came about as it would make much more sense to have administrators managing regions of space instead of giving someone the level of authority an ancient noble would have had. Perhaps it began the same way some monarchies are known to have: lords (or whatever name for a rose you want to use) being basically miniature kings of their areas who united and elected a royal dynasty from among their number.

In 2349, the Terran Hegemony introduced the first Battlemech, the 100-ton ''Mackie'', and the face of war changed forever.

===Mechs Just Got Real===
The introduction of the ''Mackie'' shifted the focus of military development away from interstellar Warships back to ground forces. The Terran Hegemony was able to prove that the 100-ton Battlemech was far superior to conventional ground vehicles (interestingly, the Terran Hegemony's main battle tank was <s>the Israeli Merkava</s> named Merkava but utterly unrelated to the Israeli tank of the same name), allowing a single man to destroy formations of opposing non-Mechs. Of course, the rest of the Inner Sphere wanted the same capability, and in 2355 the plans for the Battlemech were stolen (as usual, the writers don’t realize that stealing a design is pointless if you don’t know how to build all the parts...like myomer). The Age of the Battlemech had begun.

During the next hundred years, as the Great Houses vied for supremacy and founded the nucleus of the future Successor States, the Terran Hegemony was able to exert great influence as the most technologically-advanced and neutral of the great powers. This would lead to the creation of the '''''Star League''''' in 2571, a grand union of all of humanity's interstellar nations. While ostensibly created for the purpose of uniting mankind and keeping the peace between the stars, it was also a massive power play by Terra to secure the raw materials it needed to maintain its technological edge and once more bring mankind under Terra's dominion. In keeping with the feudal society that now dominated mankind's worlds, the position of First Lord of the Star League was invested in Terra's ruling House, the Cameron dynasty.

While Hidden Wars would plague the Star League throughout its reign, no conflicts were fought between its members as long as the Star League Defense Force kept the peace between factions. Terra's hoard of advanced technologies were shared freely among the worlds of man, and a new Golden Age descended. It all came to an end in 2766. The last of the Camerons was assassinated by Stefan Amaris, a power-hungry politician from the Periphery, the ring of interstellar nations that had refused to join the Star League and had been conquered for their trouble. Claiming the mantle of Emperor of the Star League and Director-General of the Terran Hegemony, Amaris was immediately denounced by the commander of the SLDF, Aleksandr Kerensky.

===A New Dark Age===
[[File:Aleksandr Kerensky.jpg|thumb|right|"Fuck you guys, I'm out." - Aleksandr Kerensky, Great Father of Clans]]
The Amaris Civil War destroyed the League, and led to a new Dark Age. The Great Houses, throwing off their loyalty to Terra, refused to aid either Amaris or Kerensky, and waited for the war to pass. Kerensky emerged the victor, but with the Cameron dynasty ended the other Great Houses began to vie for position of First Lord of the Star League. Disgusted by the politicking and betrayal, in 2784 Kerensky took the greater portion of the SLDF into exile beyond the Periphery. Those who remained pledged their loyalty to the Star League's last civil authority, the Ministry of Communication, which would later become Comstar, the sole provider of internet connections between worlds. Thus the Star League lost its last measure of power, and the Great Houses began the First Succession War.

Four Succession Wars, over the course of two centuries, would follow. Never would a Great House gain enough strength to declare itself master of mankind, especially since none would ever conquer Terra. Technology would [[Imperium of Man|stagnate and regress]], creating the Lostech phenomenon, technology which mankind could no longer reproduce, maintain, or even understand. Where before feudalism had been a political phenomenon, hundreds of worlds across the Inner Sphere regressed to or below the technological level of the 20th Century, and hundreds more in the Periphery failed entirely. The sole bright spot was [[Adeptus Mechanicus|Comstar]], the corporate religious entity which maintained the Hyper Pulse Generator network that enabled FTL communications between inhabited worlds. Comstar became the rulers of Terra in the wake of the Star League's collapse, and leveraged their control of the HPG network to ensure their inviolability in exchange for maintaining the incomprehensible HPG networks and neutral treatment of all communications between worlds. In order to maintain their power, they would actively [[Grimdark|sabotage, headhunt, or kill]] all promising technological advancements and promising scientists to maintain their monopoly and techno-religious authority. To be fair, unlike a certain [[Adeptus Mechanicus|cargo cult]], ComStar intervened because they realized the Great Houses were psychopaths and couldn’t be allowed to advance. Also, they were actually loyal-ish to the Star League and hated the Great Houses.

Eventually the Inner Sphere would stabilize around the Great Houses and their associated stellar empires. However, technological progress remained stagnant, and the rare factories capable of producing such advanced technologies as Battlemechs became critical components in the shattered military-industrial complexes of the so-called Successor States. Millions would die so that an LED monitor factory could be taken by one side, or so that a hundred precision-machined laser lenses could be plundered from a forgotten SLDF armory. Real progress towards recovery could only be made after large caches of information which survived the fall of the Star League were recovered; the most significant were the recovery of a long-lost Star League university's library in 3013, and the recovery and free dissemination of the contents of the Helm Memory Core in 3028. In 3028, the two largest and most powerful Successor States, the Federated Suns and the Lyran Commonwealth, were united by dynastic marriage, and it seemed that a new Golden Age might be only decades away.

But the Inner Sphere had forgotten all about Kerensky's exodus, and nobody wants ''Peace'' to break out in a wargame setting, soooo...

===Suddenly Clannerscum===
Kerensky and his followers first settled on the Pentagon Worlds, where they tried to start a new society and a new Star League. They failed though, and the wars erupted between the worlds, showing the bitter irony of life. Kerensky tried to move on, but suffered a heart attack, and the leadership was overtaken by his son, Nicholas Kerensky (who unlike his father had hair and was probably a closet [[furry]]). Nicholas took the remaining followers with him to a planet he called "Dream Land" and established the twenty original Clans.

The Clans are a tribal society that is divided into five castes - Warriors (religious and political leaders and soldiers), Scientists (less respected but are considered highly important), Merchants (detested and only kept as a necessity), Technicians (engineers and warriors' servants), and Laborers (serfs, repressed as needed). Although during the birth each child is tested for their relevance to a certain caste, but more often than not are the same as their parents. Speaking of which, Clanners strongly believe in eugenics, and most of the Warrior Caste members are genetically enhanced clones/mashups. Other castes are selectively bred by the instructions from Science Caste. On a positive side it would mean that even [[neckbeard|neckbeards]] would end up breeding (though given the Clan's brutal meritocracy/kratocracy, they'd end up as outcasts in the Bandit Caste). On the other hand, the society has only a few acceptable non-technical forms of information, meaning that there really is no reason for there to be neckbeards. Paradoxes aside, Clans were created towards efficiency, and even their language differs from the one used in the Inner Sphere. Clans constantly compete in everything, from combat to technological prowess, as they foresaw their return to the Inner Sphere and its liberation. (By their hands, of course. And logically resulting in their control.)

And that day was not far off. Unfortunately for the Inner Sphere, Comstar never forgot about Kerensky's Exodus and sent exploration vessels out to sniff out their trail and reclaim lost Star League outposts on the side. When the Clans captured one of the expeditions, they believed that the Inner Sphere would invade the Pentagon worlds. Ironically, the Clans used that as an excuse to return and invade before being forced back by the very invasion they were trying to prevent.

A prophecy of days far off, the '''''ilClan''''' is a religious myth that states that someday a Clan will take control of Terra, the Cradle of Humanity. The Khan (leader) of the Clan of Clans which captures Terra will become the new, true ilKhan (Khan of Khans) and re-establish the Star League, over which their blood shall reign in perpetuity. All will be Clan, Clan will be all.

'''''ilClan''''' is also an [[Skub|abortive Battletech rulebook]] that has been in the works since '''2002''', ever since the '''Dark Age''' Era was published. Ostensibly intended to be the next historical Era, featuring all new rules to reflect the dominance of Clan society and technology, the bankruptcies and sales that Battletech went through stalled all development. In addition, most fans are [[Advancing the Storyline|vehemently opposed to the destruction of most of the factions]] in the game, and have spoken up at every opportunity to denounce the plans behind ilClan. A prank release of a provisional ilClan historical outline drew tremendous outcry and Catalyst Game Labs has subsequently decided to focus on rereleasing and updating older Era rulesets.

===Meanwhile, In The Inner Sphere===
...Of course, when the Clans returned to the Inner Sphere with the intent of liberating it from the feuding Great Houses, those same great houses <s>said "okay" and handed over the reins</s> put aside their differences and fought the Clans to a stand-still. This was an incredible show of camaraderie, and the most cooperative the houses had been since the Star League fell. It was all quite touching, really.

Sort of. The Clan invasion was getting bogged down and while they were making progress towards Terra it seemed like the new normal would be just constant unending war because they couldn't manage to actually put any of the successors away for good. ComStar, the self-serving treacherous pricks that they are, decided that something needed to be done and so made the Clans a bet. The deal was, come to Tukayyid and fight our best in one big PROVE YOUR WORTH honorduel smackup. If the Clans won, ComStar would stab all the successors in the back, disconnect their HPG access and throw the doors to Terra wide open. If ComStar won, the Clans would agree to a fifteen year armistice.

The Clans, being honourable glory-seeking meatheads, agreed and converged on Tukayyid, dividing up objectives between Clans thinking that this was the beginning of the glorious endgame. All the while blissfully unaware that ComStar are every bit the cheating bastards you'd expect of an ISP in space with their own army. The Battle of Tukayyid wasn't a complete shutout for the Clans but it definitely illustrated that they still hadn't figured out how to actually win wars. In most of the engagements the Com Guard pounded the Clanners like discount tenderloin and because of their stubborn honourable ways the Clanners were obliged to abide by the cease fire by the logic of no-takey-backsies.

And then once the Clans were wrapped up behind a truce line it was time to get back to good-old inter-house wars. In an ultra-brief summary: There was the FedCom Civil War, kicking off the <s>Fifth Succession War</s> Word of Blake Jihad, the religious fanatic (well, moreso than usual) faction of Comstar went crazy over the entire Inner Sphere with cyborgs and nukes, until some dude named Devlin Stone got everyone to work together and kick them off Terra, then went on to form the Republic of the Sphere, essentially a re-establishment of the Terran Hegemony. In the meantime, the Clans got a bug up their asses over ideological purity after their Scientist Castes tried to take over, and all the Clans who invaded the Inner Sphere got kicked out of Clan Space to live there instead. Eventually someone forgot to pay the phone bill and the interstellar faster-than-light communication network went down. This ushered in the last era in the fluff known as the "Dark Age."

This is also considered the second ruination of the franchise by some. Many long-time fans think highly of the Succession Wars era of Battletech, right after the fall of the Star League. Marching around the field with walking tanks so expensive and rare that it's better to lose a pilot than a weapon is a powerful fantasy. It's often described as being "Mad Max with mechs." Of course, the blasted hellscape of the post-apocalypse is hard to maintain when the Clans invaded with their own brand-new shiny toys.
The shift from "squabbling tribes with rusty guns" to "courageous defenders with shiny factories" is often considered the first ruination of the property. When the squabbling of the Inner Sphere was broken up again by quasi-religious zealots and Battletech was forced to stitch in apocrypha from its bastard child, the miniature game MechWarrior: Dark Age, people considered it the second collapse of the franchise.

===ilClan Era <strike>Dawn of a New Age, or Not</strike>===
In 2019 Catalyst released '''Shattered Fortress''', the first half of a two-sourcebook set intended to finally advance the franchise into a post-Dark Age era. It ended with a cliffhanger: on New Year's Day 3150 a Clan fleet lands on Terra, but we don't know which Clan. Continuing the recurring theme of Battletech players not caring one bit about advancing the storyline, the release of the second book was then delayed indefinitely by the massive success of a Kickstarter offering more new miniatures and rules set 100 years back on the timeline. While each republished or recompiled rulebook has prologues hinting that the ilClan and Third Star League are around in 3250 from framing documents as archival material, details were deliberately [[Skub|left vague]]. Come 2021, and the novels have finally pushed the timeline out of the Dark Age, reception has been... [[Derp|eh]]. While some factions and characters got a lot of development and [[Awesome|heroic action]], many others were [[Rage|given the shaft]] or reduced to 2D [[FAIL|caricactures when they had potential for development]].

On January 1st, 2021 the novel ''Hour of the Wolf'' was released. Long story short, the Wolf Khan managed to get his hands on a way to bypass the Fortress Walls (unknown to most, Devlin Stone snuck them the access codes as he believed they were the least terrible of bad outcomes). Clans Wolf and Jade Falcon then beat the shit out of the Republic of the Sphere (but not before having the bulk of their commanders assassinated by headhunter units), fought a Trial of Possession for Terra, and the Wolves won. So, Clan Wolf is now ilClan. Their Khan made the Jade Falcons his clan's bodyguard (the bad elements having died fighting), and reconstituted Clan Smoke Jaguar as a non-voting clan and to serve as his clan's black ops/special forces. These Clans then created a new Star League (to a point). And with the combined might of these admittedly terribly mangled clans now strengthened by working together, they might actually make something of themselves. Others in the setting might not recognize them yet, but with the industrial might of the region(s) of space they occupy, they'll probably end up smashing faces and making it clear whose boss. Or they'll get booted off or everyone will just wait for them to self-destruct and then just walk right in.

==Factions Summary==
While each faction has a certain flavor and preferred equipment/tactics, factions do not limit your gameplay choices to particular sets of mechs/units/components, as in many other games ([[Warhammer 40,000]] is a good example, amongst many other skirmish-level wargames). So if something you want to use is in specific era of Battletech History (FEDCOM Civil War, Clan Invasion, et cetera), anything goes. Although it's common for players to roleplay as being employed by some major power, and limiting themselves to their styles. Either that or they play as mercenaries and do as they please. Seriously, the amount of in-fighting is in effect galactic level (in Warhammer 40k -- aside from humanity itself -- only the ''Necrontyr'', the flesh incarnations of the [[Necrons]], ever fought each other to such a long and drawn out extent).

===The Inner Sphere===
While other time periods might have better or more interesting rules, the most popular ruleset remains the eras between the Fourth Succession War (3028) to just before the Word of Blake Jihad (3067). This list of Inner Sphere factions covers those periods.

====Federated Suns====
Ruled by House Davion, the Federated Suns is feudal Space America or nepotistic Space UK. [[Lawful Good]], ruled by a Great House as inbred as any other is, and with all positions of power occupied by the same set of mostly blood-related elites. Without the blue blood, you're just a clever commoner. However, the Federated Suns isn't as stratified as the other Successor States, and it's easier for a common citizen to climb the ladders of wealth and power, which fuels an entrepreneurial society that is among the wealthiest in the Inner Sphere. They’re heroic defenders of freedom and democracy, provided you define “freedom and democracy” as “being ruled by the Federated Suns”. Their colors are red, white, and blue. Something about that sounds strangely familiar...

Similar to [[Ultramarines|a certain faction in a certain other wargame]], the Federated Suns usually win most of their battles, and are usually presented as the good guys, drawing a lot of accusations of Mary Suehood. Unfairly, though, as the FedSuns win so much due to wealth-fueled research and production. In other words, they work hard, do a good job, encourage businesses, and they get rewarded with victory. Unlike the Smurfs, however, the Federated Suns has actual flaws - their “democracy” is a rubber stamp, their rhetoric about freedom is mostly just an excuse to justify warmongering and imperialism, and they have such a staggering degree of wealth inequality that there are cases where the populations of multiple planets only have a single school to go between them. This means that the FedSuns attract two kinds of fans: twelve-year-olds who buy all the propaganda, and people who can appreciate playing a bunch of self-righteous, hypocritical jackasses. On the bright side, they do live up to the hype when it comes to individual liberties. And their rulers are genuinely competent and mostly don't dick them over.

Thanks to their great wealth, the Federated Suns can afford to fund actual scientific research in the form of the New Avalon Institute of Science, or Space MIT, and the Davions supported most of the tech development and recovery in the Inner Sphere prior to the Clan Invasion. They also got lucky when they found an ancient Star League library filled with various editions of tabletop wargame splatbooks. They are known to be the house that first heavily employed or utilized a lot of Clan personnel and technologies after the conclusion of the invasion.

The Federated Suns also kind of have a thing for autocannons. Think [[Space Wolves]] with wolves, or [[Orks]] with [[Dakka]], and you have an idea. If it does not have an autocannon on it the Suns will find a way to give it one, and if it does have an autocannon they find a way to upgrade it to a rotary autocannon. So if you like autocannons this is the faction for you.

Prior to the Fourth Succession War, the Federated Suns and Lyran Commonwealth were united through marriage (technically the political union was a treaty and the marriage was out of love and had no impact on the nations' unification), forming the Federated Commonwealth, the largest and most powerful empire in the galaxy since the Star League. In order to bridge the distance between the two nations, however, the Federated Commonwealth had to conquer large swathes of the Capellan Confederation, which they did easily. However, only a few decades later the Commonwealth was broken up by the FedCom Civil War, when Katherine Steiner-Davion schemed to either take over the Commonwealth or secede the Lyran half of it because she was a royal bitch. She is commonly known as simply The Bitch by many fans. And her splitting of the FedCom is incredibly weird since her nobles were against her, her military mostly liked the advantages brought by the FedSuns, and her public liked the massive boosts in economy and technological progress. Oh, and she was rebel usurper. And had no authority to do any of the things she did. So, her successful secession doesn't make a lick of sense and you just kinda have to suck it up. Oh yeah, and she had her mother murdered out of greed. The FedSuns are currently getting kicked around by pretty much everybody during the Dark Age, primarily because the current head of the house, Caleb, is extremely paranoid and rather psychotic. Thankfully he got killed by the Kuritans with some insider help from Clan Snow Raven (in exchange for some buffer territory). Not so thankfully, his death also brought the destruction of virtually most of the Davions' regular armed forces concentrated on one planet while enabling the Kuritans to take over the capital. <strike>''Save us, Julian!''</strike> Kuritans being what they're like, they probably raped and tortured everyone they didn't murder and their dogs.

====Lyran Commonwealth====
[[File:Steiner Assault.jpg|350px|right|thumb|A typical scene of a Lyran Archon wondering why their cousin has failed to relieve the Commonwealth alongside a bloody frontline against their enemies. They're likely either at a ball dance or planning a coup.]]
Space Germany with some Space Scotland and Space Scandinavia kicking around, the Lyran Commonwealth is the largest successor state and owns the most resource-rich planets in the Inner Sphere, making them an industrial and economic powerhouse. Their government was supposed to be modeled on ancient Athens, led by a council of nine Archons, but this did not work out ''at all'', and eventually Archon Robert Marsden decided he'd had enough of this shit and overthrew the other Archons in a military coup. The Marsdens were eventually replaced by the Steiners via marriage, who have ruled the Commonwealth to this day.

The Lyrans are rich. Really, really absurdly rich. The only reason they haven't conquered the Inner Sphere yet is that they prefer to put the relatives of rich businessmen in charge of their army rather than, y'know, actual soldiers, meaning basically every Lyran military officer is terrible at their job. There is at least one recorded case of the Lyran military starting a major interstellar war ''by accident''. Fortunately, since they're so rich, they're able to make up for their ludicrous incompetence with the biggest and heaviest weapons in the Inner Sphere. The joke goes that a typical Steiner scout lance consists of four 100-ton '''''Atlas''''' mechs (imagine a scout-recon team composed entirely of Warlord Titans and you'll get the idea). Steiner forces tend to be big and slow, barely able to outmaneuver enemy fortresses. Of course, once they (eventually) get into range, you can kiss that fortress goodbye.

Late in the Third Succession War, Archon Katrina Steiner shocks the entire Inner Sphere by actually calling for a peace treaty. Only Hanse Davion is at all interested, and he winds up marrying Katrina's daughter Melissa and uniting the two countries into one massive empire, the Federated Commonwealth (see above). Predictably, this Beauty-and-the-Geek romance starts out exceedingly awesome then epically fails and it's back to single life for the too-pretty Steiners. Recently tried to have Clan Wolf migrate through their coreward territory to keep the Free Worlds League from reforming during the Dark Age while holding the transported civilian castes as insurance. The plan backfired with the Free Worlds League still reforming and Clan Wolf taking much of the coreward and middle territory in the Lyran Commonwealth to form the Wolf Empire. This, on top of a massive amount of civil unrest means the Lyrans are too busy with damage control from Wolf and Jade Falcon invasions along with internal rebellions to be a threat to anyone. The moral of the story is: don’t try to manipulate badasses who nearly conquered everyone without trying. They will fuck you up for it. Also, trying to hold civilians hostage against a culture that thinks civilians are barely human at all is pointless. It tends to go like "Okay, I'll kill a bunch of your people and conquer chunks of your territory". You threaten to kill the civilians and your enemy is totally incapable of understanding why they should care.

====Free Worlds League====
Taking elements from America, Yugoslavia, and Austria-Hungary, the Free Worlds League is a federal democratic republic. No, really! They have a parliament and everything. Of course, the commander-in-chief of the Free Worlds League Military is always a member of House Marik because parliament doesn’t think anyone else can do the job, and the entire country has been operating under martial law “for the duration of the emergency” since the Star League broke up. But in principle, both democracy and federalism are alive and well in Marik space, making it impossible to get anything done.

Everyone in the Free Worlds League hates everyone else in the Free Worlds League. After finding out that Captain-General Thomas Marik had been in hiding running the Word of Blake for decades and the guy they’d been taking their orders from all that time was actually just some hobo picked up off the street, they gave up on trying to make the thing work at all and collapsed. Which is a shame because fake Marik was one of the best Captain-Generals they ever had. After the Dark Age, said hobo’s daughter managed to put it back together again, which kind of makes you start to wonder about that whole “only the Mariks can handle the Captaincy-General” thing. Doesn't help that she had to make a deal with the Spirit Cat and Sea Fox clanners to cement the whole thing together as well as marrying the official Marik family's head.

The Free Worlds League Military is built around combined arms warfare, treating infantry, vehicles, and aerospace fighters as if they were just as useful as mechs. They also used to have the most LAMs back before [[squat|LAMs ceased to be a thing]]. They don’t get a lot of attention, since they’re far away from the FedSuns and the Clans and therefore don’t get involved in stories about factions the writers actually care about. The constant in-fighting probably doesn't help. That said, their most likely do enough to keep their jobs, which is probably good enough to satisfy the average Joe, who couldn't care less about political squabbles.

Think of the Free Worlds League as Space Roman Empire.

====Draconis Combine====
Ruled by House Kurita, the Draconis Combine is the obligatory Space Japan, in the sense that it is ''obligatory'' to be Japanese. It has large Arab and Scandinavian minorities who are legally required to be [[weeaboo]]s, with the country as a whole drawing on both the age of samurai and the militaristic Imperial Japan of the 1920s to 40s. The twelve-year-olds listed above, if they leave the FedSuns, will likely move to this weeaboo paradise with its delusional "fierce solo samurai warrior takes on all opponents Kurosawa Style" appeal, not realizing that lone mechs get [[rape|gang-banged]] by enemies who are teamed up like a pack of mechanical hyenas. Defended by weeaboos despite being responsible for the single most horrific massacre in human history during the First Succession War. For an alternate look into this supposed massacre, please read ''Did 52 million really die?'' In fact, they have a habit of doing this. “We defeated the mercenaries on this planet who have nothing to do with the general populace. Nuke everyone before we leave. Why? Uhhhh...do we really need a reason? <s>they’re not our enemies or anything, but [[Lulz|murder is fun]]</s> SCORCHED EARTH TACTICS! Preventing enemies from using the planet’s populace or resources against us is a valid strategy!”

Like everyone else in the Inner Sphere, the Draconis Combine is a warmongering, autocratic empire ruled with an iron fist that wants to take over the galaxy. Unlike everyone else in the Inner Sphere, they actually admit it. They're the only successor state that makes absolutely no pretenses of being a democracy, with the Coordinator of Worlds being treated as a divinely anointed absolute monarch who is the sole legitimate ruler of all humanity. They were the first to start shit after the Star League collapsed, with the Coordinator declaring himself the new First Lord and launching an invasion of the Federated Suns that eventually wound up getting him killed on Kentares IV, prompting his son to launch the aforementioned massacre. They've been the mortal enemies of the Federated Suns ever since.

Similar to the Davions and their love of autocannons and the Steiners and their love of everything heavy and assault, Kuritans are really, really into PPCs (Particle Projector Cannons), mainly because they're dirt poor and [[Lasgun]]s are cheaper than bullets. If there is a mech that can possibly mount a PPC, the Dracs will put one on it. For instance, see the ''Catapult'': a 65-ton long-range fire support mech intended for indirect fire using the Long Range Missle (LRM) racks in its "ears". Almost every variant of the ''Catapult'' is centered around these LRM racks with a few minor backup weapons. They are a reliable, battle-tested design that no commander in their right mind would attempt to 'fix', because isn't broken... except in the eyes of House Kurita. Once the Combine got their hands on it those ears were replaced with two PPCs for direct fire support and two machine guns for <s>civilian massacres</s> INFANTRY DETERRENTS.

Kuritans were also [[Fail|involved in the worst Battletech novel ever written]], wherein a ship of theirs was lost in time and space, and [[what|found giant]], [[Kroot|alien, sentient chickens]]. Far Country is a [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6zQ6ZqEqg0 Shamefur Dispray]! and pretty much serves as the only time aliens are actually mentioned in the BattleTech universe.

====Capellan Confederation====
Culturally, Space China or Space Russia. Politically, Space North Korea. The Confederation was originally founded when several minor states in the Capellan Zone who were sick of the Federated Suns trying to "liberate" them joined together, [[lolwut|bombed their own capital to make a point]], and fought the Davions off. Secure in this victory, they then proceeded to never win a war ever again. Sounds like their rulers were evil after all.

Citizens of the Capellan Confederation enjoy probably the highest standard of living of any commoner in the Inner Sphere, with an extensive, cradle-to-grave welfare system and the best education and health care the state can provide. [[Grimdark|*Non*-citizens of the Capellan Confederation, known as "Servitors", are basically slaves.]] Becoming a citizen requires you to provide a certain amount of service to the state by the age of seventeen, and citizenship can be removed as punishment for disloyalty. Even those who aren't unfortunate enough to be Servitors basically have their lives decided for them by the Capellan caste system and the government's ability to tell them that they have to move to a new planet and take up a new career at any given moment.

The Confederation is run by a Chancellor, who's supposed to be elected by the nobility but in reality is pretty much always the head of House Liao. This is rather unfortunate, since the Liaos have a noticeable tendency towards being batshit fucking insane ''even by Inner Sphere nobility standards''. They claim descent from Elias Liao, who was either a persecuted revolutionary philosopher (if you ask a Capellan) or a psychopathic nuclear terrorist (if you ask anyone else). The main family line births a homicidal maniac at least every other generation, e.g. Kali Liao, who became the leader of a cyborg death cult with a taste for mass nerve-gas attacks. At one point, they decided that having a regular military just wasn't cool enough for them and created the Warrior Houses, a bunch of weird pseudo-religious warrior cults that only answer to the Chancellor.

Since the Capellans have lost basically every war they've ever fought and live right next to the Federated Suns, they've become the designated "sneaky" faction, focusing on guerrilla warfare and covert operations. They go for stealth and electronic warfare the way the Davions go for autocannons, best exemplified by their iconic Raven electronic warfare 'Mech (which, depending on the model, actually looks like a bird; weird but cool). After the Clan Invasion and FedCom Civil War, they acquired a taste for the newly-developed Plasma weapons. Got the absolute shit beat out of them by the Federated Commonwealth during the Fourth Succession War, got revenge when the Commonwealth tore itself apart a few decades later.

====ComStar====
Imagine a cross between the medieval Catholic Church and Comcast, and you have ComStar. During the Star League Civil War, the network of Hyperpulse Generators that the Star League had built for faster-than-light communications was in ruins, and the one thing that the Great Houses could agree on was that ''somebody'' had to fix all their space phones right fucking now. They named Jerome Blake, the highest-ranking HPG network official still alive, as Minister of Communications, which, since they didn't name any other ministers, basically put him in charge of Terra. As the Star League collapsed, Blake bummed some soldiers off of Kerensky, got the Successor States to agree that the space phones were important and they should therefore respect ComStar's neutrality, and then seized complete control of Terra in a lightning-fast coup, revealing that that neutrality had some teeth.

After Blake died, ComStar quickly turned into a quasi-mystical and religious organization, whose stated purpose was to preserve human knowledge in the dark ages of the Succession Wars, a goal they attempted to fulfill by assassinating every scientist who wouldn't work for them and starting the Second Succession War practically the moment the first one ended. Things started to spiral out of control for them after the Helm Memory Core was leaked and suddenly everyone was able to figure out how Lostech worked again, and then things got even ''worse'' when the Clans showed up.

ComStar is also famous for introducing the ComStar Bill (C-bill) as a standard galactic currency. Rather than being backed by material goods, each C-bill is backed by ComStar's faster than light message delivery service: One C-bill will guarantee one millisecond of data transmission, enough for a few pages of bare text or a small image, with larger transmissions costing more, and with additional fees for higher priority and the like. The value of the various Great House currencies can be weighed against their worth in C-bills which allows for currency exchange on a galactic scale. The C-bill is the primary way that mercenaries are paid and in turn pay for goods and services, and thus the most common currency encountered by players. Post Jihad, Comstar was neutered of its armed forces and subject to a hostile takeover by Clan Sea Fox (outside of the universe, at least one of the game developers had a hate boner against Comstar's OP status and gave their more powerful components the ax, courtesy of Blakist nukes).

====Minor Powers====
*'''Free Rasalhague Republic''': Space Norse/Vikings. They were a part of the Draconis Combine along the Lyran border, until the formation of the Federated Commonwealth meant that Kurita was about to have ''two'' borders for Hanse Davion to attack them from, so he granted them their independence as a buffer state. May have been awesome. If you're wondering why we write of them in the past tense refer to: ''Clan Invasion, Why Not Get in the Way of One'' (Third Publishing of Liao, COMSTAR ISBN 474-Alpha-467-Upsilon-345). They later join up with the Ghost Bears and become the Rasalhague Dominion. They are awesome because now we have Viking clanners. One of their aerospace pilots literally stopped the Clan invasion dead for an entire year because she banzai'd her fighter into a Clan dropship and killed the ilKhan.
*'''Word of Blake''': An ultra-reactionary splinter faction of ComStar that got butthurt after ComStar ditched all the pseudo-religious bullshit. Broke away and launched an all-out jihad(''yes, they actually used that word'') on literally everyone shortly after the Federated Commonwealth Civil War came to an end. Made liberal use of weapons of mass destruction and rendered several entire planets uninhabitable. Fond of genocide, re-education camps, unstable technology, and mass murder. As a result, they were eventually crushed as a result of pissing off the entire fucking universe, but not before undoing a lot of the technological progress that had been made after the Clan Invasion (apparently by magic, as not only was that knowledge now universally available, but so were copies of the Helm Memory Core...and destroying some factories doesn’t make technology go away). Basically used by the publishers to reset the average technology level of the game due to a lot of players feeling it was advancing too far and getting away from the quasi-feudal feel of earlier editions (forgetting that quasi-feudalism is a governing method, the technology level has nothing to do with it). Ironically enough, their mechs were more streamlined and featured a lot more experimental technologies for people who would eventually blow the entire game setting back to the quasi-iron age. Officially, they were all supposedly killed after the Jihad for genocide. Recently hinted by a terminally ill Stone to still be around and responsible for the HPG network being taken out as a taunt against ilKhan Alaric before being killed off in bed.
*'''The Republic of The Sphere''': Established by an individual calling himself Devlin Stone, who mysteriously surfaced at some point during the Blakefag Jihad, and helped pull the galaxy out that colossal clusterfuck through a series of successful military campaigns. Upon the Jihad's defeat, Stone met with ComStar Precentor Martial Victor Ian Steiner-Davion and laid out a philosophy which Victor would privately describe as ''militant socialism keyed to altruism''; Officials and authorities would have their assets placed in a blind trust. Public service would be rewarded. Greed and corruption would be punished. All weapons would be placed under government control. [[Just As Planned|Surprisingly, it worked]], at least for a time, ushering in a new era of peace for the core worlds. However, after ruling as Exarch of the Republic for a while, Devlin Stone stepped down and shortly there after disappeared, vowing to [[Sigmar|return when he was needed most]]. It didn't take long before everything went to shit again and was plunged into chaos when the interstellar communication network was sabotaged. Was gangbanged by a combination of separatist factions, the Capellans, and Clan Jade Falcon before finally saying FUCK IT and retreating back to Terra. All while somehow using Word of Blake HPG disruption tech to prevent hyperspace jumps into their core territory. They also recently developed a taste for Tripod Mechs (which are the only modern Mech that can exceed Assault Mechs in terms of tonnage, firepower, and armor but at the cost of requiring an additional gunner and engineer onboard to shoot and monitor the machine's vitals) while also hybridizing Clan & IS technology (culminating with extremely powerful but unstable weapons). <strike>''You guys realize Stone is the [[Emperor]], right? Right?''</strike> None of this makes sense, of course, as the HPG network is not only extremely well and fanatically protected by actual fanatics, but also is so large it can’t really be sabotaged. Except by magically competent Deus ex Machina mooks, apparently. Friendly clans could also build their own for the Republic’s use. Except newly built HPGs also failed somehow. Black Boxes became advanced enough that HPGs were nearly pointless, though, making the whole “Dark Age” thing really...dumb. And if someone had the sense to build building-sized Black Boxes instead of briefcase-sized, the HPGs would have a perfect backup. But common sense in Battletech is [[heresy]] just like in any good universe. Besides that, the eyes on anyone with power to prevent corruption would stop factions from selling out the Republic and the senators would not have been able to sponsor military officers into becoming Paladins because that is extremely corrupt and would not have been allowed or tolerated. Even if such a plot succeeded, there would be no leverage for the senators to get those paladins to do what they wanted. And the Capellans are target practice, sudden separatism makes no sense when they were fine until this point under numerous oppressive regimes, and Clan Jade Falcon by itself would have been crushed and a team up of clans would have sent the whole Inner Sphere into a clan-killing frenzy panic mode. Come the latest novels in 2021, and the Republic and it's founder were reduced to a caricature of fall of the III Reich (complete with a senile leader giving contradictory orders and throwing their best units at the worst faction so the best faction can pick up the pieces). While many of their leaders and fighters survived, it's an open question of whether they cooperate with the ilClan or revolt later down the line.
* '''[[The Periphery]]''': The collection of non-successor states on the edges of the Inner Sphere. They were brought into the Star League by force and are still kinda sore about it, mostly because they nearly got blasted back to the Stone Age and never quite got their technology back up.
**'''Taurian Concordat''': A Periphery nation bordering the Federated Suns and Cappellan Confederation. Has an axe to grind against the Federated Suns and claims they’re much more dedicated to freedom and liberty than the Davions. Think the United States right after 9/11, all of the good and the bad, and you have a good idea of the culture. Just replace paranoia about Islam with paranoid about the Federated Suns, including the fact that the overwhelming majority of who they're paranoid couldn't given any less of a shit about them.
**'''Marian Hegemony''': A bandit kingdom bordering the Lyrans and Free Worlds League that decided to become the Roman Empire IN SPACE. A shadier version of the [[Severan Dominate]] from 40k.
**'''Magistracy of Canopus''': A hedonistic matriarchy bordering the Free Worlds League. A nation of cybernetic catgirls, whose largest export is pornography. No, really. We're serious. Well they're not all cybernetic catgirls but they're there if you want them, and pornography and the tourist industry makes up a large chunk of their economy. Also Medical research and technology, most likely to treat all the STDs you get from your vacation to Space Vegas. Also known for having a significant religious conservatives population as they have an open-door refugee policy.
**'''Outworlds Alliance''': A backwater state near the Federated Suns and Draconis Combine. Was the Periphery-est of the Periphery states until Clan Snow Raven moved in and formed the '''Raven Alliance'''.
**'''Hanseatic League''': A mercantile alliance of traders descended from Lyran refugees, they liked to pretend to be a neutral third party interested in trade of goods and information while also subjecting neighboring planets to debt trap diplomacy with armed merchant caravans. Also liked to play both sides against each other in any prolonged war among their neighbors to increase profits and soften them up for potential annexation (such as between Nueva Castille and the Umayyad Caliphate). Unfortunately, they were eventually conquered by Clan Goliath Scorpion (with help from their newfound Castilian and Umayyad citizens) and merged into their new Scorpion Empire some time in the Dark Age.
*'''Mercenary Review and Bonding Commission''': An independent group that certifies and provides force rankings for various mercenary groups. At least three Mech Warrior games are focused on the mercs as it allows writers more leeway and less chance to screw up the canon.
**'''Kell Hounds''': A merc company headed by Morgan Kell. His son Phelan was captured by Clan Wolf when the Clan Invasion first began, and by the end was running the Clan until it split. Took in Phelan and the Exiled Wolves afterwards. Generally, are tough but cool guys all around. Like the Exiled Wolves, they got a massive "kill on sight" target painted on their back after the omnicidal Jade Falcon Khan got annoyed with their feisty resistance against her campaign into Lyran Territory.
**'''Grey Death Legion''': Mercenary group who were famous for finding and distributing the Helm Core, which allowed the Inner Sphere to regain technology formerly lost during the Succession Wars. Generally an author's favorite in the books. Got destroyed during the Blake Jihad.
**'''Wolf's Dragoons''': A bunch of Clan Wolf advance scouts disguised as a mercenary group. Came to the Inner Sphere with a ton of mechs that the Clans considered outdated but hadn't been seen in the Successor States in centuries and were considered Lostech... Which should have tipped the Great Houses off that these guys might be bad juju. Instead of providing intel to the Clans for their invasion, Wolf's Dragoons pulled a fast one and tried to prepare the Inner Sphere for war with the Clans. They are generally pretty awesome guys, even if part of that awesomeness is because they get a ton of attention in the fluff due to the writers' obsession with anything related to Clan Wolf. They got screwed pretty badly during the Blake Jihad when the nutjobs assaulted Outreach. By Dark Age they are slowly recovering with help from the Kell Hounds. Recent novellas have the Wolves convince them to join them on Terra once it's conquered to prevent the genocidal Jade Falcons from becoming the IlClan. Unfortunately, latest novels also made them become meatshields used by the Wolf Khan to expend the Turquoise Turkeys' ammo supplies while being reduced to a fraction of their strength. Naturally, in a repeat of their history against Kurita, they [[Book of Grudges|swore]] an oath to stand against the Wolves permanently.

===[[The Clans]]===
Laughable strategic and logistical ability and basically have no plan when they do something. But God have mercy on you if they're coming your way. 'Cus you're '''''fucked'''''. Each clan is named after an animal, and yes those are the animal's full names.

* Clan Blood Spirit: The smallest clan. Noted for having the toughest training, favored Battle Armor, and had no official allies after starting off idealistic but then becoming jaded grudge-holders. :( Despite above comment, not ACTUALLY an animal, but named for the warrior spirit that united the forces under Kerensky.
* Clan Burrock: The only clan to support the Dark Caste. Liked picking on the Blood Spirits before they were absorbed by Clan Star Adder.
* Clan Cloud Cobra: The Religious types. Loved aerospace fighters and jump jets. Obsessed with collecting genetic bloodlines other clans don't want.
* Clan Coyote: Native Americans in Space. Also like to scheme too much for their own good. Known for creating a shit ton of tech (unlike [[Adeptus Mechanicus|some people]] on Mars...)
* Clan Diamond Shark: Used to be called Sea Fox until Snow Raven killed their namesake (with their current one) the only clan that views the merchant caste as equal to their warrior one. Later brought back the Sea Fox and changed their name back. The only clan to allow all castes to vote, making them arguably a genuinely democratic republic.
* Clan Fire Mandrill: The clan whose gimmick was to always have a few subfactions to foster internal competition. At first it was manageable and it improved the clan, but then the factionalism snowballed into more than 10 mini-subfactions which made the whole clan a laughing stock among the clans.
* Clan Ghost Bear: The only clan to be founded by a married couple, as a result they're the only clan to still have normal family units. Much more protective of its civilian caste than the others. Nearly devoured the Free Rashalague Republic in the Clan Invasion, then merged with what was left after the Jihad. Went full blown good old fashion Viking Berserker when the Jihad nuked their civilians, attacking friend and foe alike in pure grief fueled murderous rage. Awesome.
* Clan Goliath Scorpion: Stoners with rose-colored nostalgia glasses. Also noted for elite marksmanship and ambush tactics.
* Clan Hell's Horses: The only clan to think tanks are useful often uses combined arms tactics rather than just spamming mechs. They have a hot rod flames color scheme. Extremely heavily focused on teamwork. Including teamwork between castes and between the clan and its conquered worlds. Which has led to very good relations both internally and externally. Probably the only Clan other than the Star Adders that locals might actually support over a "liberating" Inner Sphere force. ''Maybe''.
* Clan <strike>Temper Tantrum</strike> Ice Hellion: Speed freaks with a big ego. Their Khan seems to bitch every time their forces lose, which is often.
* Clan Jade Falcon: The spotlight stealing clan second only to the Wolves, with whom they have a fierce rivalry. Slightly less evil than the Jaguars.
* Clan Mongoose: Basically a footnote in clan history. Extremely aggressive, tend to attack everyone near them. [[Fail|Got their asses kicked by everyone else before being absorbed.]]
* Clan Nova Cat: The spiritual types, they decide their policy with visions, which 9 times out of 10 ends badly for them. Some of the best marksmen in the clans, often competed with Clan Goliath Scorpion. Joined Smoke Jaguar in attacking the Draconis Combine, then sided with the Combine right after everyone decided the Jags had to go. Eventually got destroyed during the Dark Ages for backing the wrong Kuritan royal in a civil war.
* Clan <strike>Chimney Kitten</strike> Smoke Jaguar: Essentially super aggressive World Eaters trained to pilot mechs. Known to fuck shit up until their smaller numbers (due to infighting, shitting on their civilian castes and hating logistics) fucked them over in long campaign. Were eventually wiped out by the Inner Sphere counter-attack after they murdered an entire city from orbit. What goes around comes around. Recent ilClan lore had their descendants in the Fidelis sworn to the Wolf Khan in exchange for rebuilding their clan; [[What|despite]] their original [[Book of Grudges|hatred]] for letting the Second Star League annihilate them.
* Clan Snow Raven: The sinister & cunning space jockeys of the clans. Specialized in space combat and became BBFs with the Outworlds Alliance.
* Clan Spirit Cats: Offshoots of the Nova Cats after they were annihilated by the Combine.
* Clan Star Adder: Boring, but very, very practical, which benefited them a lot. They favor using assault mechs, and like to upgrade their lasers to heavy lasers. Living under them or as one of them is much more like real life. If you can do a job, you can have the job. Including a laborer wanting to be a warrior. Which ironically is the same approach that caused Clan Wolverine to be destroyed by Kerensky.
* Clan Steel Viper: Self righteous xenophobes who wanted to cooperate with the Inner Sphere but also treated freeborns like dirt, and then wondered why nobody liked them. Responsible for Clan genocide known as "The Wars of Reaving". [[Fail|Got genocided in return.]]
* Clan Widowmaker: The hyper-aggressive types. Their first Khan held a grudge against the Wolverines and framed them before being killed with support from Nicholas. Widowmaker later got annihilated for accidentally killing Nicky. What was left of it, however, <strike>gave birth</strike> (lies Clanners aren't born, they're grown) to the most dangerous MechWarrior ever, Natasha Kerensky.
* Clan Wolf: The spotlight stealing Clan, courtesy of it being Kerensky's personal clan. Split up into two factions following the Refusal War.
** Crusader Wolves: The guys who want to continue the invasion of Inner Sphere. Wound up migrating from their original invasion corridor to Lyran/Marik space & formed a new & dangerous upstart state called the '''Wolf Empire.''' Later <strike>[[Mary Sue|surprise surprise]]</strike>, won against the Republic and Jade Falcons on Terra to become the ilClan of the Third Star League [[FAIL|despite the other factions refusing to recognize them for now]] outside of the former Republic’s officials, Jade Falcons, & the Smoke Jaguars that are all a shadow of their strength. Naturally lost most of their forces to take the top prize.
** Warden Wolf-in-Exile: The guys who want to defend Inner Sphere against the rest of the clans, who they think are a mockery of Kerensky's teachings. Like the Kell Hounds, they got a massive "kill on sight" target painted on their back after the omnicidal Jade Falcon Khan got annoyed with their feisty resistance against her campaign into Lyran Territory. Somehow got convinced to rejoin the Crusaders Wolves in revenge against the Jade Falcons despite the story never addressing the Crusader-Warden divide on treating Inner Sphere nations as subjects to be conquered and ruled from above or charges to be protected and educated from partnership. The “official” motive of seeking payback against the Jade Falcons for razing their civilian population centers and killing their cadet academies can only go so far until the Green Chickens got defeated.
* <strike>Clan Wolverine</strike> Not-Named Clan: Aggressive and independent minded, these guys pissed off Nicky to such extent that they were annihilated after the vengeful Widowmaker Khan framed them of detonating a nuke on civilians after the Wolverines seceded from the Clans. Some survivors were able to flee as the '''Minnesota Tribe''' but they've been never heard from publicly since (though there are hints that they're around in the Deep Periphery in some recent novels and short stories). [[What|There are many theories about them returning to Inner Sphere and taking over it as shadow masterminds in order to destroy the clans.]] Basically, they did the caste thing but thought "Hey, why not let people do what they're best at?" and that sort of thing. It pissed off crazy pants ilKhan Kerensky because this approach made them more successful than all the other clans, proving his method was actually not the best way.

===Wars of Reaving===
[[Advancing the Storyline|Fed up with having to write more stuff about clans nobody cares about]], a bunch of clans were wiped out after the Jihad, or driven out of clan territory. While the in-story explanation is that a butthurt ilKhan decided it was time to make a powerplay after not having won anything out of the Inner Sphere Invasion, everyone knows that there were several clans that had no discernable effect on the game.
*'''''Annihilated or Absorbed:'''''
**Blood Spirit: Got wiped out for using civilian militias which "isn't clan-like" and [[Bullshit|marked for annihilation for letting people fight for their homes.]] As well as using [[Planetary Defense Force|en-mass civilian militias]] to attack their enemies.
**Burrock: Tried to re-establish themselves after being absorbed, got defeated.
**Fire Mandrill: Too fractured to fight back effectively.
**Ice Hellion: [[Fail|Killed themselves by trying to steal Jade Falcon and Hell's Horses territory.]] The remaining survivors remained joined Goliath Scorpion.
**Steel Viper: Took over the Clan Homeworlds and gave everyone free reign to remove the “taint” of the Invader Clans by any means necessary. Forgot that they themselves were an Invader Clan.
**Nova Cat: Destroyed by the Draconis Combine for being on the losing side of a civil war.
*'''''Exiled or Abjured:''''' These clans were forced out of the Clan Homeworlds on the pretense of being "corrupted" by Inner Sphere influences. Some later formed the '''Council of Six Clans''', representing the clans that now exist in the Inner Sphere.
**Ghost Bears: Banished to the Inner Sphere and eventually founded the '''Rasalhague Dominion.''' Joined the Council.
**Goliath Scorpion: Ran away and conquered Nueva Castile(Spaniards vs. Arabs IN SPACE) in the Deep Periphery, forming '''Escorpion Imperio.''' By the eve of the Dark Age, they had also conquered their neighbors to the south, the Hanseatic League, and founded a new major Periphery power known as the '''Scorpion Empire''' that's second only to the Homeworld Clans as a military power.
**Hell's Horses: Stole some of Clan Wolf's territory in the Inner Sphere, and end up getting banished from the Clan Homeworlds. Developed a taste for experimenting with QuadVee Mechs (which can convert from a ground combat vehicle into a Quad Mech while also requiring a dedicated gunner). Joined the Council.
**Jade Falcon: Banished to the Inner Sphere and tried to conquer Terra but failed. Still rules the parts of the Inner Sphere they conquered during the Clan Invasion. Replaced the Smoke Jaguars as the most vicious clan under their latest Khan (who's willing to do anything to kill her enemies). Joined the Council. Later got most of their forces wiped out from omnicidal fighting against the Republic, Dragoons, and Wolves on Terra. Said genocidal Khan got killed off and replaced with a pragmatic reformer who agreed to follow the Wolf IlKhan in exchange for the Turquoise Turkeys becoming the IlKhan's body guards.
**Sea Fox/Diamond Shark: Ended up in what's left of the Free Worlds League. Split up into semi-independent merchant fleets and are now a collection of nomadic "Khanates" that sail the starlanes of the Inner Sphere. Joined the Council, but also joined the FWL as a member state. In the meantime, managed to bring the Sea Fox back from extinction, and changed back to their old name.
**Smoke Jaguar: Some of them showed up as super-secret Clanner loyalists called '''Fidelis''' to the Republic of the Sphere. More practical minded than their grandparents but just as likely to go [[rip and tear|berserk]] when fighting any clan warriors for their perceived betrayal. Still in the Fortress Republic. A scant few are found hiding in the Deep Periphery with the few warships that they still had. Later somehow let go of their grudge to pledge allegiance to the Wolve Khan in exchange for reforming their Clan under the IlKhan's protection.
**Snow Raven: Ran away and merged with the Outworlds Alliance in the Periphery, forming the '''Raven Alliance.''' Joined the Council.
**Spirit Cat: What's left of Nova Cats, allied with the Free Worlds League and formed an enclave in their territory.
**Wolf: Splintered into several factions. Basically conquered the central and coreward territories of Lyran Alliance under the '''Wolf Empire.''' Making the Steiners have a bigger headache, their Khan, Katrina Steiner's descendant, claimed the mantle of Archon through her bloodline. Wolves-in-Exile refuse to join and are doing their own thing. Clan Wolf-Alliance joined the Council. “Katrina Steiner’s descendant” is in fact a Trueborn Clanner that Katherine Steiner-Davion had made using both her own genetic material and Victor Steiner-Davion’s, because regular incest just wasn’t crazy enough for her. Later became IlKhan <strike>naturally</strike>.
*'''''Home Clans:''''' Theses clans still hold territory in the Clan Homeworlds and consider themselves "True Clans."
**Cloud Cobra: Still around.
**Coyote: Sneaky bastards. Got their hands on the genetic material of the last known descendant of House Cameron.
**Star Adder: TOP DOG. Their Khan was the one who stopped the psycho Steel Viper ilKhan by dint of beating his head inside out with the nearest handy blunt object.
**Stone Lions: Made from the Hell's Horses who were left in the Clan Homeworlds and didn't get exiled.

So basically there are now ten Clans: The six Spheroid Clans, and the four Home Clans. The rest are either dead, formed hybrid societies, or are even more minor than before and thus save the writers from some hard work in upcoming TROs.

==The Appeal of Battletech==
First and most obvious, giant stompy Battlemechs bristling with guns duking it out is cool. But despite that, Battletech is in general a more grounded and human setting. You don't have warp daemons, God Emperors, energy forces or psionic powers in Battletech or giant Space Cathedrals and machines that work better when people pray to them. Nor does it have artificial gravity, shields, sapient aliens, serious transhumanism, dyson spheres, general AI and other more wild science fiction ideas. While it does go into some suspense of belief in technology such as KF FTL drive and HPG FTL communications, most of the technology is still grounded within the realm of plausible belief. Society-wise, it doesn't go into the speculation on how civilization may come into conflict with divergent ideals or extraterrestrial life, instead you have human people like you and me struggling in a hostile universe where the most dangerous thing is often another human being under another flag. Not that the setting lacks for variety. The main factions are very well developed with their own distinct motivations, even if they do sometimes tend to lean into stereotypes too much. Battletech is for people who read [[Dune]] and find the idea of the Atreides, Harkonnens, Corinos and the other Great Houses of the Landsraad with their conflicts and their power plays to be far more interesting than what happened after Paul took over. Some others also consider it similar to a teen rated version of [[A Song of Ice and Fire|Game of Thrones]] in space (but with mechs and sci fi tactics in place of mythical creatures and gore).

Battletech is one of the more morally grey settings out there. Moreso than many Grimdark settings where it's a matter of nasty jerks vs literal demons. While there are a few factions which are better or worse than others on the whole (Magistracy of Canopus vs Clan Smoke Jaguar) all of the factions have their share of virtue and vice, heroes and villains. Good people can come up from the Nobility of the Federated Suns, Citizens of the Capellan Confederation or the Iron Wombs of The Clans, as can a lot real nasty bastards. In that regard, this is a rather tragic universe. In this universe nobody is corrupted by Chaos or seduced by the Dark Side. Instead humanity took to the stars and flourishes, only to be brought low by human leaders with human failings.

As far as Mecha design goes, Battletech designs run the gamut from box-on-legs (Awesome, Dragon, etc), to egg-on-legs (Catapult, Marauder, etc), through to very polished designs (which were mostly stolen from Japanese anime shows). Wrong, they hired a third party artist who sold his designs to them and the other guys. Some of the later work, post-FASA, could be quite smooth, to the point of organic looking. As such, BattleTech is a pastiche of various art styles and design philosophies, covering the range of reactions from "cool-but-impractical", to "eh, practical-and-possible", and well out into the area that will make your engineering professor have a mental fit.

==Mechanics==
[[Image:Group-Plastic-Miniatures.jpg|thumb|right|The standard use of hexmaps renders the purchase of miniatures optional, though miniatures rules for the game are available.]]
[[Image:Blankrecordsheet.jpg|thumb|right|Record sheets are one of ''BattleTechs''' greatest blessings and curses.]]
The basic mechanic is simple. Two six-sided dice are used, with a to-hit (Equal or greater to) system. Initiative is interlaced, with the loser moving first and the winner able to react. All weapons damage is technically done at the same time, and therefore who shoots first is insignificant, although the order in which weapons fire from any given unit resolves is important. Larger weapons can scrub off large quantities of ablative armor, while smaller multi-hit weapons stand a better chance of forcing critical hits once a location is damaged. If you get hit, you mark off the weapons damage rating from your armor. If the shot penetrates your armor, you roll potential criticals. Firing weapons and moving about generates heat, which you must keep down to keep your 'Mech working properly.

Unlike games such as ''[[Warhammer]]'', where many units are either killed on the first shot or left unscathed, and little information is recorded, ''BattleTech'' uses record sheets to mark off each 'Mech's cumulative damage, ammunition, pilot status, and heat. Also, there are hit locations, so limbs can be blown off. The record sheets allow for effects that are more detailed, but this also increases the overall playtime. Although expert players can get through matches just as fast as players of other games of more or less equal size, new players often find that the game plays slowly. This is usually due to the time spent referencing hit-location tables, critical effects, etc. For new players, 2V2 matches are best, with 4V4 matches being the "cap", in order to have games that do not take excessively long. More experienced players can run games of 12v12 or larger in an afternoon, though these will often be multi-player games in which each ''player'' controls only a handful of 'Mechs.

One of the biggest appeals of ''BattleTech'' is that all of its units are made with a predefined set of rules. Custom designs are fully possible, though they are not likely to be welcome in tournament matches or pick-up games.

''BattleTech'' uses a build system based on 'Mech tonnage. You start with a Chassis limit, from 20-100 tons. You then determine engine size based on how fast you want your 'Mech to be (how many hexes you want it to be able to move per turn) you then allocate the remaining tonnage to control systems, weapons, ammo and armor. This method varies slightly depending on the technology of the chassis, but not overmuch. Though the system has recently been removed, there were previously three levels of technology.

'''Level 1''' (Now called "Introductory Tech") referred to early-era gameplay. Only the more rudimentary weapons and technologies are available, though the critical rules remain the same. This is the preferred level at which to learn, and is synonymous with the equipment available during the Succession Wars era. It is also the level of play made possible with starter boxes.

'''Level 2''' was Tournament-level gameplay. This introduced new equipment and electronics, as well as Clan technology (A more technologically advanced, but militant people). Though the rules are generally the same as those in level 1 gameplay, more-complicated equipment such as ECM, anti-missile systems, cluster munitions, etc. were better suited to more experienced players. It is the level of play made possible with separately-purchased rulebooks. Note that as the in-universe timeline advances, some more-advanced technology is designated "tournament-level", and several items that were Level 3 before the switch are also now "Tournament-Level".

'''Level 3''' referred to all advanced gameplay and equipment, including specialized gear from Historical manuals and the ''Solaris VII'' boxed sets/adventures. This has since been split out into "advanced", "experimental", and "era-specific" technology. This also included all equipment that was not listed in the core rulebooks. More complex rules were inserted in order to increase the realism and flexibility of the game. These include new weapons, new or altered terrain rules, artillery, alternate rules for major mechanics such as line-of-sight, etc. Though Level 3 rules included "prototype" equipment not printed in the core rulebooks, the standard rulebook in regards to Level 3 play was called ''Maxtech''. This has now been replaced by the Catalyst Games release of ''Tactical Operations'' and its sequels.

'''Advanced''' technology (not to be confused with "advanced rules" is covered largely in ''Tactical Operations'', and may be common but incorporates additional rules or restrictions that make it difficult to use without preparation.

'''Experimental''' tech is not mass-produced in-universe. The items are used in one-offs, prototype designs, and other weirdness. The ''Experimental Technical Readout'' series showcases this tech level, and most of the rules are in ''Tactical Operations'' or ''Strategic Operations''.

'''Era-specific''' technology incorporates advancements that were later abandoned in-verse. Usually these items were displaced by a superior version of the same technology, although there are some like the Listen-Kill missiles (which exploited a weakness in standard ECM protocols, later patched out) which are simply active for a few years and then abandoned once changing circumstances make them ineffective. Era-specific tech is the province of Historical sourcebooks, the ''Interstellar Operations'' rulebook, and a few campaign books.

==Spinoff Games==
Due to its popularity through the late 80s and early 90s, ''BattleTech'' spawned a multitude of spinoffs and expansion games.

'''[[Lost Worlds]]''' dueling books. NOVA adapted their melee dueling system to make four books for Battletech mecha. Each book has the opponent's view of the mech on each page, and a character sheet listing possible maneuvers. Since it used the same system as the rest of their books, you could have "20-ton Locust vs. skeleton with scimitar" duels.

'''Mechwarrior''' was a traditional pen-and-paper RPG set in the Battletech universe, using a ruleset similar to FASA's other hit RPG [[Shadowrun]]. It got second(1991) and third(1999) editions, then was later rebooted by Fanpro and Catalyst Games under the respective titles ''Classic Battletech RPG'' and '''Battletech: A Time of War''', likely to avoid conflation with WhizKids' ''Mechwarrior: Dark Age''. Also because by then the "Mechwarrior" title was fully associated with the video games.

'''AeroTech''' and '''BattleSpace''' were both games featuring Aerospace Fighters and DropShips/WarShips respectively, fighting in orbit before any of the action in the BattleTech game itself could begin. Both games eventually got absorbed into BattleTech's rules in the ''Total Warfare'' edition.

'''Battletroops''' was an infantry-scale game about the PBI who fight it out it in the shadow of Battlemechs. It later gained ''Clantroops'', an expansion pack that incorporated clan equipment as well as Battle Armor on both sides, but the game did not sell as well and the rules have since been abandoned.

'''Battleforce''' was a revision of '''BattleTech''', made in recognition of the fact that large-scale combat could not be effectively played out using the current system. Battleforce simplified each 'mech into a simple set of numbers, so that they could be clustered into units and fight over a much larger area. Battleforce 2, released about a decade later, also introduced planetary invasion maps and rules to go along with them. Although the maps are available in Map Compilation 2, the rules will be reprinted in the ''Strategic Operations'' and ''Interstellar Operations'' sourcebooks.

The '''Solaris VII Boxed set''' was made to simulate the fast-paced gladiatorial combat on the game's world of Solaris VII. It included new rules, new maps with special rules, new mechs, and supplements for roleplaying. Little known fact: some of the designs used in the original Solaris VII set were redesigns of the ''BattleTech'' 'mechs which were themselves copies of Japanese mechs! When the product tried to sell in Japan, half of the designs were already copyrighted by other well known anime companies, and the in-house designs were simply not "Japanese" enough for their tastes. Though the product itself flopped, its maps were reprinted and rereleased in 2004, as well as a complimentary up-to-date rulebook. Rules have since been standardized to match those of ''Classic Battletech'', but "Special Map rules" have been included.

The '''BattleTech Collectible Cardgame''' was produced by Wizards of the Coast in 1996, and ran until 1998. Though its popularity had begun to wane after the first core set, the release of the Pokemon card game was the nail in the coffin. The Battletech CCG hosted some very impressive artwork, though the game favored swarm-decks filled with plenty of weak, cheap 'mechs, and it's non-"Creature" cards were too weak to have an effective deck based around them. After five editions (''Battletech Limited''/''Unlimited'', ''Counterstrike'', ''Mercenaries'', ''Mechwarrior'', ''Arsenal'') Battletech CCG came out with ''Commander's Edition'', which picked some of the best cards of the last few editions (though it abandoned or revised some cards for inaccuracies or "brokenness") It had one final expansion, Crusade, which introduced the Steel Viper clan, though there were some prior cards that did reference the clan.

In July, 2013, Catalyst Game Labs released '''Alpha Strike''', a miniatures combat ruleset designed specifically to appeal to fans of Warhammer and Flames of War. It combined BattleForce statistics with improved miniatures rules. It's generally scoffed at by grognards but the only feasible way to play a regiment-sized battle in less than one lifetime.

==Video Games==
'''Official Games'''
* Crescent Hawk's Inception (Infocom, 1988)
* MechWarrior (Activision, 1989)
* Crescent Hawks' Revenge (Infocom, 1990)

* MechWarrior II (Activision, 1995)
* MechWarrior II: Mercernaries (Activision 1995)
** MechCommander (FASA, 1998)
* MechWarrior III (Microprose, 1999)
* MechWarrior IV: Vengeance (FASA/Microsoft, 2000), Black Knight (Microsoft, 2001), Mercenaries (Microsoft, 2002)
** These games had two expansions that gave more mechs, the Inner Sphere Mech Pack and Clan Mech Pack.
** MekTek released a legal port of Mercenaries, with both Mech Packs, new mechs, and battlesuits all inside, plus multiplayer support. Grab it from ModDB, abandonware sites, or your tracker of choice.
* Mechassault 1 (Day 1/Microsoft, 2002 for Xbox)
* Mechassault 2: Lone Wolf (Day 1/Microsoft, 2004 for Xbox)
* MechCommander II (FASA/Microsoft, 2001. The full game is offered by Microsoft for free [http://www.microsoft.com/en-ph/download/details.aspx?id=11457 here].)
* MechWarrior Online MMO (Smith & Tinker/Piranha Games, A F2P game first released on 2012 and currently out as a full product on Steam.)
* MechWarrior Tactical Command (Personae Studios, 2012?, [[Fail|for iPhone/iPad]]. After some uncertainty, MTC was fully released in the iTunes store. Too bad it sucks.)
* BattleTech (Harebrained Schemes, 2018) - funded through Kickstarter and headed up by Jordan Weisman)
** Turn-based strategy game, similar to the original tabletop game. Takes place during the Succession Wars, in a formerly empty area of the Periphery.
*MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries: (Piranha Games, 2019). Also takes place during the Succession Wars. Because nobody wants to take the time to portray the cluster fuck that is the Blake Jihad properly.

'''Unlicensed Games'''
* [http://www.mechlivinglegends.net Mechwarrior Living Legends] (Wandering Samurai/Clan Jade Wolf, 2011)

'''The following are free, homemade versions of Battletech:'''
* MechWar v1.12 (MS-DOS)
* [http://megamek.info/ MegaMek] (Java)
* BTMUX - ASCII-only MMO (anyone old enough to remember what a MUD is?) (any OS) You could play it in pure ASCII, or get [http://bt-thud.sourceforge.net/thud/ a graphical helper] Most of the existing ones are gone, but [http://frontiermux.com/news.php FrontierMUX] seems to still be alive.
* <strike>[http://neveron.com/ Neveron] (web-based mmo)</strike> [Taken offline on July 31st 2014]
* [http://www.titansofsteel.de/ Titans of Steel] (MS-Windows)

==Current State==
[[File:Never give up.jpg|thumb|right|250px|Little Urbie, the greatest of us all.]]
In 1998, the U.S. release of ''Pokemon'' for the Gameboy, and the subsequent cartoon and cardgame, had a damaging effect on the tabletop games market. Comic book stores which had previously stocked tabletop RPGs, wargames, and collectible card games found that they could turn a better profit by stocking more ''Pokemon'' goods and cutting out the weaker-selling products. Only a handful of better-selling tabletop games, such as products by Games Workshop and the ''Dungeons & Dragons'' games, were able to remain. In 2001, FASA ceased operations, and many fans of the ''BattleTech'' series began to look for other games. ''BattleTech'' was purchased by [[Wizkids]], who tried to soft-reboot the game as a Clix-style game with the tile '''Mechwarrior: Dark Age''', jumping the timeline to nearly a hundred years after the Clan Invasion, focusing the story to a much smaller area around Earth, and using almost entirely all-new factions. The fans were less than amused, so [[FanPro]] got the rights to continue releasing content for the original game under the moniker ''Classic Battletech''. Despite still having products released for it, ''Classic'' was often put on the back burner, as Wizkids showed preference to their clix-games. As WhizKids; game floundered, Battletech was later taken over by [[Catalyst Game Labs]], who dropped the "Classic" and released a new boxed set (6th edition) based on the newly revised core rules(also rewinding back to the original time period and working their way back up to the Dark Age era, but keeping the entire Inner Sphere in the picture). This boxed set, once again, contains plastic miniatures. Though the plastic miniatures (When compared to plastic miniatures produced by other companies) are decidedly low-quality, they are more than sufficient as playing-pieces for new players who are experimenting with the product. In making low-grade miniatures for the box set, the overall price tag remained low, while giving players something more tangible than a cardboard cutout. The game is beginning to gain popularity once again, despite the dropping popularity of tabletop games in general. In 2014 Catalyst Games released an updated box set with higher quality miniatures for the same price.

As of 2017, Catalyst have announced two new starter boxed sets. One is significantly lower-priced and features two 'Mechs with a new map (the first since FASA shut its doors). The second has two new maps, die-cut terrain (to drop onto the maps), and a reduced mini selection with all-new sculpts - designed by an ascended fa/tg/uy. These boxed sets were made available for purchase in 2019.

In July 2019, Catalyst decided to get off their asses and actually did something: They started a Clan Invasion Kickstarter that would hopefully bring the franchise back to life, promising over 100+ new designs for classic mechs, a box set and a boatload of new maps and merch. It surpassed their funding goal in 7 MINUTES and is currently running off of $2.8 MILLION in funding and is expecting to start shipping <strike>March of 2020</strike> delayed till July 2020. Also [[UrbanMech]] PLUSHIE! Catalyst is now currently relying on fan goodwill and revamped merchandise from kickstarting fundraiser campaigns to keep the IP steaming along but lore development has been of mixed reception depending on who you ask.

===MechWarrior Online===
[http://mwomercs.com/ Mechwarrior Online] has already been officially launched. Even though the launch itself was fairly lackluster, with no new features compared to the past few months of open beta, the game is in a somewhat average state of balance and gameplay, and the feel of piloting a BattleMech was translated faithfully - mixed in with rage about hundred-to-thousand dollar preorder packs for Clan mechs (not fucking kidding) and rage over various mechanics, such as knockdown, heat buildup, and LRM spam. Back in October 2014 PGI, after ousting their publisher and striking out on their own a few months back, has been making notable progress in advancing the game and interacting with the player base, albeit not without handling neckbeard rage poorly. Despite garnering some good will from the community after ridding themselves of their publisher, PGI has been doing their best to waste the Mechwarrior license and drive off good chunks of the player base with fairly unchanged gameplay, constant sales, and the fact it’s run for about seven years, now.

===Battletech 2018===
Harebrained Schemes announced their return to Kickstarter in fall 2015 in order to fund [http://battletechgame.com/ Battletech], a turn based tactics game featuring RPG mechanics for Mechs and MechWarriors. As of this writing the game has been fully funded and reached several stretch goals. In fact, the game's been released in April 2018. Battletech is a turn-based strategy game, more faithful to the board game than the mech-sims the series is known for on the vidya circuit. Think the new XCOM games, but with mechs.

The game started out with a boatload of bugs (which isn't really surprising for an indie kickstarter), but the devs handled the problem quickly. Soon after it was announced that HBS was bought out by their release partner Paradox Interactive, the current big dog for quality strategy games. As expected of a Paradox game, this was followed up by a number of overpriced DLCs to the point that the season pass costs more than the actual game! That said, the second to last free update (1.8) added 2 new excellent mechs, maps, missions, modding support and quality of life changes, while the last free update (1.9) added several SLDF Royal Mech Variants with more polish to the built in mod launcher, so not all money grabbing and bad. Update 1.9 is the last major content drop, with no further patches or updates planned as Harebrained Schemes is moving on to new projects. If you really want it wait for a Steam sale when the Mercenary Collection drops to around $30 USD for the base game and all DLC.

Several fan-made mod packs (notably [https://www.nexusmods.com/battletech/mods/79/ RogueTech] and [https://www.nexusmods.com/battletech/mods/452/ BattleTech Advanced 3062]) have been produced which significantly extend the life of the vanilla game. These mods introduce many new factions, dozens of new 'Mechs and tanks, hundreds of new pieces of 'Mech equipment, a far larger star-map sandbox to play in, and far more depth to the 'Mech customization system as well as many quality of life changes. RogueTech in particular attempts to bring the game more in line with the tabletop experience and offers a much higher degree of gameplay complexity compared to vanilla Battletech.


===Mercenaries 5===
After almost two decades since the last proper Mechwarrior game in the franchise (MechAssault doesn't count), we're finally getting an honest-to-gods story-based mechpilot sim game like the days of yore. Piranha Games, the company responsible for MWO, is also creating [https://mw5mercs.com/ Mercenaries 5], and is so far looking like a faithful re-creation of the classic Mechwarrior pilot sim games of the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Game's out, and it's shit! Well, mediocre. Graphics snobs say the game looks horrid, suspecting they ripped assets full sale from MWO. But the main issue is repeating the same missions over and over again including in story missions themselves. There is no hand crafted missions like previous games even in its narrative missions and has a very weak plot, along with a well known issue where enemies spawn right on top of your team. Friendly AI at least got the artificial part right and there's no PVP. The devs have stated that they are working on the issues but little progress has been made at the time of writing.

[Update 01/22/2020] Mod support has been added and some of the previously stated problems have been addressed (sort of). Either way, it's a fun giant-stompy-robots-with-lasers game. Campaign missions are still lackluster and repeating the same missions over and over is bound to get a little stale. But hopefully modders will take over (like they always do).

==The Tetatae (Skub Tribal Jungle Chickens)==

There is only 1 known sapient Xenos race in the BattleTech setting. The Tetatae are tribal bird people armed with spears who inhabit a Jungle World.

==External links==
*[http://megamek.sf.net Play through the tubes with MegaMek]
*[http://www.sarna.net Battletech Wiki that holds much information about the universe]
*[http://bgb.booru.org/index.php Blue Gunner Booru, a /btg/-maintained taggable gallery of BT and related art. Perpetually in-progress.]
[[Category:Wargames]][[Category:Skirmish-Level Wargames]][[Category:BattleTech]]

==Gallery==
<center>
<gallery>
File:Glorious_3d_Terrain.JPG|Glorious 3d terrain
File:More_Glorious_3d_Terrain.JPG|More glorious 3d terrain
File:Infantry_Strike_From_Behind_As_The_Kuritian_Lance_Takes_On_4_Steiner_Mechs_And_6_Tanks.JPG|Infantry strike from behind as the Kuritan lance takes on 4 Steiner mechs and 6 tanks
File:Kuritians_Advancing.JPG|Kuritans advancing
File:Surrounded.JPG|Kick party
File:Eridani_Light_Horses_MechWarrior.png|Bad mofo
File:You're_awesome.jpg
File:Dougram_and_shadowhawk_comparison.png|The original anime mecha Dougram (left) compared to the original "unseen" Shadowhawk (center) and the modern Shadowhawk (right), a robot so badass it transcends cultures and 4chan boards
</gallery>
</center>

==Factions Portal==
{{Battletech Factions}}
[[Category: BattleTech]]

==/tg/ Battletech Creations==
*[[Velatine Federal Republic]]
*[[/tg/ Homebrew Mech Designs]]
*[[Sunbats mercenary company]]
*[[/btg/ Harebrained Battalion II]]

Thunder Warriors

2021-08-26T18:53:35Z

2607:FB90:6E65:FB2D:A474:601A:91B6:7F9A: /* Capabilities */

[[File:T5b26bd95vs41.jpg|350px|right|thumb|I'm better than any of you [[Space Marines|bitches]]...if only I could live longer and not get my ass kicked by the [[Custodes]] and the [[Dark Angels]]. [[Dreadwing|Though if you consider what I may have been fighting]]. You wouldn't have survived either.]]

{{Awesome}}
The '''Thunder Warriors''' were the first soldiers of the man who eventually became the [[God-Emperor of Mankind|Emperor of Mankind]]. In many ways, they were the precursors to the [[Space Marines]].

==Origins==
Known as the Legio Cataegis (Latin: Storm Legion), they were formed during the [[Age of Strife]], when the Emperor judged that it was the right time to make His presence known. He needed some advantage over the warlords, techno-barbarians, and other would-be world rulers that were currently reenacting Mad Max all over Terra, and so He created twenty regiments consisting of hundreds of genetically enhanced soldiers, led by commanding officers known as "primarchs" (one of these primarchs was named Ushotan, and he was in command of the [[Iron Warriors|IV Legion, who specialized in siege warfare]]). These soldiers wore simple, smog producing, yet flamboyant and decorative powered armor. Because the Emperor's symbol at the time was a raptor and thunderbolt, this symbol was prominently displayed on the chestplate of the armor, the armor came to be known as [[Power Armour#Mark I: Thunder Armour|Thunder Armor]] and the warriors who wore said armor were called Thunder Warriors in Low Gothic.

Created using a simplified cookie-cutter version of the Custodes' bio-alchemy on adult subjects (in contrast the Custodes' custom-tailored process subjected on infants), the Thunder Warriors were devastatingly effective and quickly became icons of the Emperor's armies; just the threat of the Thunder Warriors' arrival could convince a warlord to surrender, and those who refused quickly learned that the Thunder Warriors' reputation was not exaggerated. According to the fluff, they were even more physically powerful and ruthless than the Space Marines. And while physically stronger, they were not nearly as mentally or physiologically stable, and overall '''FAR''' inferior to the Custodes.

And yet, for all their successes, the Thunder Warriors were not perfect. Though at the time, it was believed they were, in fact, the pinnacle of mass produced military genetic engineering. However, along with Amar Astarte (the "mother" of the Thunder Warriors, Primarchs and Space Marines, and feel free to totally ignore her dumb existence), the Emperor was able to refine the process and stabilize the genetic instability that ran amok in the Thunder Warriors, utilizing the Astartes Primarchs as templates to stabilise a new breed of warrior.

None of them could be counted on to last long, as either their minds or bodies gave out at unpredictable intervals, and the technology didn't yet exist to give them a lifespan longer than the average human's. They were suitable for fighting the barbarian [[human]] armies of the [[Age of Strife]], but not for the long, star-spanning campaign of the [[Great Crusade]] that the Emperor had set as His next goal, so as soon as He had enough territory to set up a secure laboratory and enough scientists to man it, He set to work on the next generation of warriors: the [[Primarch]]s. Interesting to note, when confronted by Chaotic energy, whilst the Custodes were immune to Chaos, the Thunder Warriors seemed strengthened by it at the cost of mental control. During the war against the Confederacy of Maulland Sen (one of the earliest conquests in the Unification Wars), they were exposed to Warp energy, which drove them into a berserk frenzy and caused them to butcher everyone in their way, even noncombatants and those whom the Emperor would have preferred to keep alive. The amount of carnage from their exposure to sorcery was the first serious cause for concern in all Imperial chains of command.

This may indicate that the Thunder Warriors' augmentations involved Warpcraft. Which would make sense as Thunder Warriors and Astartes alike commonly demonstrate superhuman physical abilities far beyond any augmentation could hope to justify. Such as relatively unequipped Thunder Warriors slaughtering [[World Eaters|War Hounds]] with several Astartes killed for each Thunder Warrior dead even after many years of genetic degradation. Valdor even obliquely states in context with the Thunder Warriors that it was necessary to create subjects [The Primarchs] that were in ''greater control over their powers''. So it's clear psychic mumbo jumbo is at work and that it was not working right with the Thunder Warriors. He also states that the project failed and [after the Scattering] only the smallest fragments remained - hinting that the Astartes and Thunder Warriors were supposed to be much more.

===Eventual Fate===
[[File:Thunder_warriors.jpg|200px|thumb|right|P.S. the man in the picture is not an actual thunder warrior, he just stole the armor from a copy of one.]]
The Thunder Warriors were not what He [[Humanity Fuck Yeah|envisioned]] as the defenders of humanity; they were blunt tools of destruction and little else. It is very important to note that the Astartes were already in circulation before the Thunder Warriors were "retired", the [[Dark Angels|First Legion]] had already been established and Proto-Legions all the way up to the [[Salamanders|XVIIIth]] were seeing active combat. The Emperor saw no great loss in removing them for good now that they were obsolete. The Imperial records indicate that the last of the Thunder Warriors all perished at the '''Battle of Mount Ararat''', which is strongly believed to be a cover story. Though the details are scarce, the battle did actually happen and there were survivors, hinting at a possible betrayal and a cull instigated by the Custodians.

However, contrary to this popular viewpoint, the retirement of the Thunder Warriors may not have been a betrayal and perhaps something less dickish; more like putting down an old guard dog with cancer than a complete betrayal. The Thunder Warriors leader: '''Arik Taranis''' is vague on the details and admits he holds no ill will towards the Emperor for what he did. Another survivor: '''Dahren Heruk''' still considers himself loyal to the Emperor and holds to his pre-Unity oaths. More interestingly, when Heruk rescues a Custodian from a group of Alpha Legion hiding on Terra, the surprised Custodian thanks him and seems prepared to leave him where he is, at least until a mortally wounded Heruk halts him to request and be granted an "honoured death" (basically a mercy kill with a blade through the heart). Like Arik and Ghota, Heruk's group of Thunder Warriors are all failing physically, filled with cancer, and required to undergo regular organ transplantation just to stay alive; and are failing mentally, wracked with hallucinations of the Unity Wars like soldiers with PTSD. It may be that the last of the Thunder Warriors went willingly to their ends at Mount Ararat at the very height of their eminence, knowing that they could go no further than that. The alternative being eventual madness and inevitable biological collapse, coupled with being rendered obsolete in the shadow of the newly rising Astartes. Heruk remembers the battle of Mount Ararat to have been glorious with little to no bitterness, and he and his companions all believe that they have simply [[Death Korps of Krieg|''lived too long'']].

The 8th Edition Custodes Codex explained that the Thunder Warriors were purged after they rebelled due to learning that they were engineered with intentionally short lifespans. More specifically, they revolted over what they perceived as the Emperor's betrayal for deliberately giving them a shortened lifespan. Ironically, the remaining Thunder Warriors were purged by the first few thousand prototype Astartes from the [[Dark Angels|I Legion]] in their first combat engagement after joining forces with Imperial officials planning a coup. As such, it would make sense that any surviving Thunder Warriors would be those whose loyalty to the Emperor prevented them from holding such a grudge.

[[File:Thunder Warrior Model.jpg|200px|thumb|left|If only GW bothered to re-make the model like they did with the Space Marines... It seems big E wasn't the only one who abandoned them.]]

The so-called "cull" wasn't the end of the Thunder Warriors, though, as some of them managed to escape and spread throughout the Imperium. Per Horus Heresy Book Nine - Crusade, scattered bands of survivors endured in hiding through out Terra and the immediate space around the Sol System but most were systematically hunted down and liquidated by the I Legion. In one notable incident during the [[Great Crusade]], there was an insurrection on the asteroid prison colony of Cerberus. Though the Thunder Warriors ''were not'' the only members of the rebellion, there were enough of them to form a group calling themselves the '''Dait'Tar'''. The Emperor did not like that and sent an army of [[World Eaters|War Hounds]] to crush the prison riot with impunity. The Astartes having gotten bored with maiming and killing prisoners not worthy of their challenge, found themselves some Thunder Warriors grouping up in a defensive position. Instead of just showering bullets on the surviving Warriors like a more sensible Legion might have, the War Hounds rushed in and engaged them in close combat. But Thunder Warriors are basically mini-[[Primarchs]] without the immortality, and were able to claim three to four Marine kills in melee for each Warrior that went down. After five hours of carnage and RAEG of old vs. new, the [[Imperial Guard|Imperial Army]] forces waiting in orbit got bored and decided to join the party, but the party was already done and left nothing but Thunder Warrior corpses, lots of War Hound corpses, and lots and lots of regular prisoner corpses cut down apparently trying to escape the melee.

Others descended into the Underworld of Terra, taking roles amongst the criminal element or eking out a living as gladiators. One group managed to steal an Astartes progenoid gland to extend their lifespans and went into hiding, so far not to be seen again.

==Capabilities==
It is generally accepted that peak Thunder Warriors probably ''(the fluff is hazy on this)'' fall somewhere between Astartes and Custodes on the scale of who-beats-who. Though their exact capabilities are not covered in any great detail. As a military force, the Thunder Warriors were considered unmatched even in their time, yet were recorded as being lacking in discipline. Custodes vs Thunder Warriors has gone both ways with both being said to be unmatched even though both existed concurrently. So it may simply be that Custodes utilize teamwork and Thunder Warriors do not or who knows what. Since Custodes are made using the Emperor's own blood, they likely more potent fuck-physics superhuman capabilities.

During the Unification Wars, every Warlord and his dog had access to some form of advanced technology, whether through cyber-augmentation, bio-alchemical processes or genetic tampering, the Thunder Warrior was supposed to be superior to all of them. In '''HH1''' they were claimed to have ''"unprecedented superhuman physical power, gene-programmed resistance to environment"'' and most notably: resistance to "psychic attack". However, in the context of the statement the Thunder Warriors were explicitly superior to anything the Emperor's enemies could field '''against''' him rather than '''by''' him; however the '''HH7''' entry for Custodians explicitly states that they were designed to be ''"stronger, faster, more acute of sense and more resilient than even the doomed Thunder Warriors"'', pretty much putting the matter to bed. Yet in their time the Thunder Warriors existed as a legion while there were only a handful of Custodians attending the Emperor, so they easily projected a far more dangerous military threat. Even by the final '''Battle of Ararat''' there were only a few hundred Custodes, so the Thunder Warriors remained the deadlier force while the Custodians were still some barely understood figures who remained at the Emperor's side and it took the new Astartes warriors to eventually take down the Thunder Warriors.

Resistance to psychic attack is particularly notable, since while his Custodians and Astartes are possessed of some impressive willpower and determination, as well as a lot of hypno-indoctrinated mental safeguards, they seem to be no more or less able to resist psykers than any other human. What's more is that we can possibly narrow this down even further and credit it to the Emperor directly, rather than any form of genetic/biological upgrade. [[Fallen Angels|Merir Astelan]] and the [[Dark Angels|first 5000 Space Marines]] all had similar psychic wards build into their minds granted from the Emperor himself, manifesting as a golden aura that seems to make psychic compulsions have no affect on them, and giving telepaths headaches for trying to read them. This is probably why the later Astartes don't share this capability, as the Emperor probably didn't have the time to mind-lock every soldier under his command. Additionally, while they did not seem vulnerable to mutation or mind control upon being exposed to sorcery, the Battle of Maulland Sen demonstrated that Warp energy exposure made them go berserk in a manner that would make even pre-Heresy Angron surprised in his more lucid moments. This implies the Thunder Warriors' psychic resistance was actually part of their enhancements and not from the Emperor's personal attention. And "resistance" probably translated to "murderize everything in range until you kill the psyker".

In terms of tactics and physical combat, it was noted by observers that the Astartes and Cataegis were very different in combat style and doctrine during the Palace Coup's battle between Valdor's first batch of Dark Angels initiates against the Thunder Warrior Survivors and their allies. Whereas the Thunder Warriors and their Primarch, Ushotan, were described as flamboyant; emotionally unrestricted; and individually imposing, the first Dark Angels were described as functional; mechanical in nature; and methodical. Additionally, while the book, Valdor: Birth of the Imperium, made clear that each Thunder Warrior and Ushotan were individually larger and more powerful than each Dark Angel they fought, the latter were described as almost always wounding or maiming their Cataegis opponents before they died and were replaced by reinforcements that would eventually wear their opponents down. Whereas Ushotan was described as a single berserk bear (in contrast to the Thunder Warrior Dahren Heruk's description of the Custodes as an indomitable pride of lions), the Astartes were described as a pack of instinctively coordinated wolves that gave him significantly more trouble than the power armored techno-barbarians he typically mowed down with contempt. The fact that they were on the verge of overwhelming him made Constantin challenge Ushotan himself to give the Cataegis Primarch a more fitting and honorable death.

In any case, a few things are clear. While they do have additional organs (seeing as they had to harvest organs from their own dead rather than from normal humans to prolong their lives), there are a number of organs/abilities they do not have.
*No Black Carapace; the original Mk. 1 Thunder Armour was never designed to function with one, so Thunder Warriors wore their heavy armour like any mortal would, rather than interfacing with it like a second skin.
*They don't have a secondary heart, as seen with their tradition of "Honoured Deaths" with fellow warriors mercy killing mortally wounded comrades with a blade through the heart.
*They also don't have a Betcher's Gland; one of Dahren Heruk's companions, Vezula Vult, forgot about this when he tangled with a group of Alpha Legionnaires in the slums of Terra, getting sizzled in the face by acid because he wasn't paying attention and joked about how ''"[[Emperor|He]] gave them all the gifts. Didn't He?" ''
*They may not have a Larramans Organ ''(or equivalent)'' as each of Heruk's companions were shown bleeding out at various points rather than have it clot in moments the same way that Astartes do: Kabe, after being stabbed with a spear was shown to have a pool of blood forming beneath him and was beyond saving by the time it was accumulating in his lungs; Gairok had blood bubbling from his lips after being run through with a sword; while Vult was also shown to be slowly dying from a wet and dark wound to the gut some time after the wound had been inflicted.
*Finally, and probably most importantly, they don't have a Progenoid Gland, which for Space Marine is the ''eau de Astartes'', making them everything that they are and providing the means to make more of them.

These points aside, the fact the Thunder Warriors are physically superior to Astartes is not really in doubt, with each conflict in the fluff between them generally resulting in it taking several Astartes just to bring down a single Thunder Warrior, and even in most of these reported situations, the Thunder Warriors in question are long past their physical prime and are undoubtedly in the throes of genetic degredation, so who knows that they might have been capable of at the peak of their power. They might have been directly superior to Custodians, who knows? The best example thus far is the duel between Primarch Ushotan and Constantin Valdor; both the highest exemplars of their respective breeds. Though Ushotan was wounded by several Astartes he slew before the duel actually started, with both combatants having started the battle at the same time and Valdor had since gone through a number of Thunder Warriors singlehandedly so it's still a fair starting point. Ushotan still had the strength to check several of Valdor's blows which Valdor had to return by piling more strength upon strength ''(even in his superior auramite armour)''. However, Ushotan was tiring from lactic acid build-up, which Valdor exploited with a perfectly timed strike. The Thunder Warrior ''may'' have been stronger, but the Custodian fought with unmatched martial perfection and could perceive the flow of the fight even while it was happening.

All things considered: a Dreadnought is deadlier than a single Space Marine, but the Imperium does not force healthy Space Marines to become dreadnoughts simply because they are deadlier. An Ogryn might be capable of tearing a Marines arm off, while an Assassin might be swift enough to punch through power armour, but they are all reserved for specific situations and purposes. The same should be said between the differences between the three different branches of superhuman: The Custodians were intended to be peers and guardians of the Emperor himself; and remain with him in whatever future he had planned for humanity. The Astartes were designed for long campaigns that stretch out over centuries, and were capable of fighting in any number of environments against strange alien foes. In a similar way that a lance is better at stabbing than a shorter but more versatile sword, the Thunder Warriors were designed to fight in '''one''' environment against '''one''' set of foes from '''one''' planet: [[Terra]]. A single campaign against some of the deadliest examples humanity could throw back at them, so it is no wonder they seem to do so well compared against Space Marines and Custodians, since they are more a tool/weapon designed for only one circumstance.

===Lifespans===
{{Topquote|There was never time for perfection, and so the Cataegis were always a compromise. They were the best that could have been created under such conditions, but nobody believed they were permanent.|Amar Astarte}}

As to the issue of longevity, the Custodians and Astartes don't age (well, they get the cosmetics of aging but it's only skin-deep and in a sexy GILF way instead of spots and wrinkles). The Emperor could have granted the Thunder Warriors longer lifespans, even biological immortality ''(it's actually pretty simple since aging is caused by imperfect DNA caused by cellular division; make division create perfect copies and there is no aging)'', but what would be the point of extending their lifespan if he did not intend to make any more of them since they were only required to take over one world (and maybe in a best case scenario Mercury, Venus and the Moon to suicide against the biggest nasties present) anyway?

The Emperor had twenty more groups of transhumans ready to take over the known galaxy - the sheer number of worlds and the distances between them practically demands the creation of a military force that can stand the test of time. One could then propose that if the Thunder Warriors had longer lifespans then they could have fulfilled that role instead of the Astartes. But as mentioned above, while they might have been physically superior, they simply weren't equipped with the same augmentations that might be useful in more varied environments. Thunder Warriors were designed for a task and they performed it well, providing them with immortality to survive beyond this would have been needlessly sentimental.

It is also interesting that the issue of raising new Thunder Warrior regiments hasn't been brought up; The Thunder Warriors clearly had the medical knowledge to attempt to delay the failure of their physiologies, but either lacked the facilities or the desire to make more of themselves. Very little is known about Thunder Warrior recruitment and augmentation processes such as how long they take, what standards they must adhere to and what specialised equipment is required to create them. By contrast the Space Marines are equipped with their own means of reproduction; the Gene Seed allows them to make more of themselves from varied human sources ''(for example, the [[Blood Angels|IXth Legion]] were even able to recruit from mutated stock)'' and without direct oversight even when on campaign far from their home-worlds. Even if the Thunder Warriors were superior combatants in every conceivable way, the ability to replicate virtually unlimited "lesser" superhumans anywhere in the galaxy is an advantage too great to give up.

===Development===
The Emperor could have simply made custom augmentations for each Regiment/Legion of Thunder Warriors to specialize them for each intended purpose and could have used the knowledge from the Mechanicum and cybernetics to correct the genetic flaws and smooth things out. Considering that this was how he ended up with twenty Astartes Legions, then why not bring both programs together and create Thunder Warriors with added organs so they could adapt to different environments, or make Astartes with greater size, strength, and resilience on a par with the warriors that preceded them? Considering his development of Primarchs, Astartes, and Custodes, he clearly had enough knowledge, and skill, and tools to do this, whether it was cost effective or not is a different matter; as Constantin Valdor once mentioned that to make an army of Custodians on a similar scale to the Thunder Warriors would have practically bankrupted Terra, and who knows if the programs were even compatible with each other?

In any case: As much as people try to put the blame squarely at his feet for being lazy or short-sighted; Amar Astarte claimed that while his influence certainly sped things along, ''the Emperor'' was not the only person working on his transhuman projects. He had enormous laboratories with hundreds, if not thousands of scientists working in secrecy just to get as far as they did with the Space Marines, and had been working on the Space Marine project even before the Thunder Warriors exists, they were just a stop-gap. Bearing in mind that the project was set-back and all of the laboratories were destroyed '''twice'''. First with the Scattering of the Primarchs due to the fucking moron [[Erda]] dropping the anti Chaos God defenses to protect the Primarchs (which would severely backfire), secondly when Amar Astarte herself decided that the loss of said Primarchs was going to doom the Astartes Program to the same failures as the Thunder Warriors ''- a very telling reason indeed-'' This means the Great Crusade race was essentially started early, as the Emperor was now on a timer in order to reclaim them before they were irretrievable and still needed to build the [[Astronomican]], claim [[Mars]] and get ''himself'' out into the galaxy to meet his sons.

The fact that [[Primaris Marines]] now exist that are larger, stronger, and more resilient than basic Space Marines shows that the gap has finally been filled. They are still not the equals of Custodians on the tabletop, but we're only talking the about the level of variance within a single point. They are probably much closer to Thunder Warriors and are potentially what the Emperor always intended, if he had the time to focus on his project and continue.

Considering the threats to Unity and dangers of Terra at the time; From nations of psykers to Men of Iron hidden within the core of the planet, and [[Chaos]] licking their lips the whole time. It's unsurprising the Emperor moved as quickly as he did and used every tool at his disposal.

===Armaments===
Thunder Warriors seem to have been poorly armed compared to [[Custodes]] and [[Space Marines]]. While some assumed [[Volkite Weaponry|Volkite weapons]], [[Plasma]] and [[Radium_Weaponry|Rad weapons]] would have been standard issue. This was not the case. They used larger versions of [[Bolters]] and [[Lasgun|Lasrifles]]. Yes the standard issue weapon of the [[Solar Auxilia]]. That's like making the standard issue weapon of the [[Custodes]] [[Hotshot_Lasgun|Hotshot Lasguns]]. Some also had what looked like Power Weapons or some equivalent. No wonder their shit was pushed in by Empys bodyguards and the [[Dark Angels]]. Their weapons were utter garbage compared to the stuff the new boys got. Good thing for them [[Terminator]] armor didn't (or shouldn't) exist at this time.(disclaimer because of Black Library) The battle described in Valdor: Birth of the Imperium would have wound up even more one sided in favor of the FNGs(fucking new guys).

They also employed Skylance, the predecessor of [[Stormbird]]. So one can guess they had decent air support at the very least.

== Arik Taranis ==

The first badass granddaddy of all Space Marines and Thunder Warriors who would make Guilliman and Dante envious for his existence. He was known to win lots and lots of battles for the Emperor, survive dozens of suicidal fights in which countless Thunder Warriors (who are stronger than space marines) would die, especially the last battle in which he barely made it to victory with his comrade. The Emperor, knowing the Thunder Warrior's limited lifespan would not serve any good for his [[Great Crusade|future conquest]], decided to abandon the Thunder Warriors by arranging an utter betrayal with Arik that would make Horus look like a saint. [[Grimdark|As a result, Arik was forced witness the killing pretty much all his surviving comrades while according to the record, it would be reported that Arik and the Thunder Warriors had been honorably slain during the last battle]]. Despite the betrayal, Arik had no sense of hatred towards the Emperor, for he knew that Thunder Warriors would only serve as an impediment to their [[Space Marines|future cousins]] and he understood the stakes of the Great Crusade.

Anyway, Arik would later hide among Terra's population with his large, obvious body and become the Kingpin of Terra. He started out in the Petitioner's City of the Imperial Palace as the leader of some pissant gang named Dhakal, gang raping his way up the food chain with his only remaining Thunder Warrior buddy, Ghota (who, as described in The Outcast Dead, is an overgrown, cantankerous motherfucker with eyes like the rage zombies from 28 Days Later, apparently a side effect of the Thunder Warriors' painful physical degradation) and at least thirty other survivors, until he was effectively the big cheese of gangsters. Calling himself Babu Dhakal (or at least everyone else called him that... the man was crazy, but he wasn't crazy enough to address himself in the third person), Arik expanded his control until it encompassed [[Drugs]], bitches, gambling, weapons, and even toilets--the absolute madman! He would go on to control criminals and heretics alike, causing the Adeptus Arbites to rage quit because they couldn't handle Arik's near swaglord level reputation and rampant (to the point of being fucking psycho) badassery.

He somehow got lucky and found a secret and surprisingly advance lab with all the necessary equipment buried within Terra which is about as common as finding a functional buried starship on a post-apocalyptic Terra. Meaning it probably wasn't an accident at all. This, coupled with the scientific knowledge he somehow got from the Emperor (which it is not explained whether Emperor "shared" it, Arik being a badass and learned it from just watching, or [[just as planned| the Emperor directly taught him in order prepare for some kind of backup plan]].) would help him to genetically modify and increase his life span (but not really enough to keep him alive -- until the Horus Heresy came around).

=== The Outcast Dead incident ===
When heresy first became a thing that happened in the Imperium, Arik managed to get a functioning Progenoid Gland from one of the outcast dead space marines (it's unclear which one, but they probably didn't mind too much--being outcast and dead and all). He was able to extract at least some of the information he needed to replicate the gland, and was then able to plant a functioning copy he had created within his own body, as well as Ghota's. Since GW never expanded their storyline, we can assume that either they have successfully outlived the Emperor and become more rapey, pillagey, and space piratey than the Dark Eldar, or that the result of all their careful work was that they up and turned into uber powerful heroes of the Imperium... we have no idea. They may have just settled down on Terra. However, since the Siege of Terra is getting its own series, it is possible for them to show up again.

=== Arik Taranis Facts ===
Despite being outdated and retired, Arik has demonstrated some epic Primarch-level shits:

*He knocked down the "Azurite Tower" during the Unification Wars, as well as earning tons of fucking countless titles.
*He survived the Battle of Mount Ararat, a final yet deadly battle that nearly wiped out his army, meaning he gets shit done even if it almost killed him.
*His Thunder Warrior subordinate Ghota can fight 5 elite Astartes to a stalemate even killing one of them, yet Ghota bows to Arik. Although that doesn't mean Arik is physically stronger than Ghota, is just Ghota having more loyalty to his master.
*Arik has the Emperor's knowledge on gene-seed which the Emperor somehow allows. If Arik were still be alive today, he could probably be the greatest Apothecary in the Imperium, next to The Emperor and Eldar goddess [[Isha]] (and [[Fabius Bile|Apothecary Fabius]] if he hadn't turned [[heresy|bad]]).
*Atharva, one of the outcast dead and a powerful Thousand Sons psyker observed Arik and commented that he has an: "aura too bright to look upon. His presence had a gravity all it's own, demanding all attention and fear." and he "could barely stand to turn his psychic senses on him for fear of being overwhelmed.". Keep in mind only the Emperor and the Primarchs has that kind of aura, yet Arik, a Thunder Warrior has that kind of aura surrounding him. This also raised an interesting theory about him being the test subject of the Primarch project, where the Emperor imbued part of his soul onto a living being using somekind of forgotten psychic technique.
*He is named after [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taranis Taranis], the Celtic god of... [[Just as Planned|thunder]]. So yeah, the guy is literally a god-tier (thunder) warrior. Interestingly, this actually could be evidence of his fandom's pseudo-Primarch/proto-Primarch (the physical prototype as opposed to [[The Angel]] being the soul prototype) view of him. Because being a Thunder Warrior named after a god of thunder has some...implications.

==Gallery==
<gallery>
File:Mk1 Thunder Armour.jpg| Thunder armor is said to be inferior to space marine armor, but it is nonetheless more badass because it comes with a biker shade.
File:Thunder Warrior 1.jpg|One of the Thunder Warriors officers. May or may not be Arik Taranis.
File:Thunder Warrior 2.jpg
File:Thunder Warrior 3.jpg
</gallery>
{{Imperium}}
[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]]
[[Category:Imperial]]
[[Category:Space Marines]]

BattleTech

2021-08-26T18:27:56Z

2607:FB90:6E65:FB2D:A474:601A:91B6:7F9A: /* Warfare in the Thirty-first Century */

{{awesome}}
[[Image:NEW-BT-LOGOFLAT.png|NEW-BT-LOGOFLAT.png|center]]
{{Game Infobox
|name = BattleTech
|picture = [[Image:NEW-BT-LOGOFLAT.png|200px]]
|type = [[Wargame]]
|publisher = [[Catalyst Game Labs]]
|playno = Trillions
|year = 1984
|books = Total Warfare or The BattleMech Manual
}}
{{topquote|It is the 31st century, a time of endless wars that rage across human-occupied space. As star empires clash, these epic wars are won and lost by BattleMechs, 23-56 foot tall humanoid metal titans bristling with lasers, autocannons and dozens of other lethal weapons; enough firepower to level entire city blocks. Your elite force of MechWarriors drives these juggernauts into battle, proudly holding your faction's flag high, intent on expanding the power and glory of your realm. At their beck and call are the support units of armored vehicles, power armored infantry, aerospace fighters and more, wielded by a MechWarrior's skillful command to aid him in ultimate victory. Will they become legends, or forgotten casualties? Only your skill and luck will determine their fate!|Product promotional tagline}}

'''Battletech''', or '''MechWarrior''' as most of the non-neckbearded populace know it, is a tabletop wargame about armies of giant robots fighting one another for honor, money, and territory in a far-distant feudal future. Think [[Star Wars]] AT-STs, or [[Warhammer 40,000]]'s [[Imperial Knight|Imperial Knights]] (Games Workshop decided they liked Battlemechs too). It’s also perhaps the most realistic example of walker warfare. Using their size to mount sufficient energy generation and armor that they are fast enough, maneuverable enough, and armored enough that being a bullet magnet does not matter. Using their vertical build to mount numerous huge weapons that each would take up all the space on most tanks modern militaries would consider super-heavy. Usually operating in combined arms warfare and supported by tanks, hovercraft, aircraft, and infantry. Not sinking into the ground like its quicksand because dirt reaches maximum compression very quickly (and thus all anti-mech arguments are rendered invalid by combined arms, armor, power-plant, firepower, and actual science), and so on. The realism of the technology (if not the moronic House Lords and nonsensical events) is so great it could be a glimpse into the future. Y’know, before Bolos come along and replace everything.

==Holy Crap, Giant Robots Are Awesome==
[[Image:Batdroid.jpg|thumb|right|''Battledroids'', the first edition of the game, c. 1984. A ''literally''-textbook example on how to get sued nine different ways from Sunday.]]
In the early 1980s, [[Jordan Weisman]] was [[Weeaboo|fascinated]] by several Japanese [[anime]] involving giant robots, or "mecha." He was quoted as saying that he liked the designs and idea of giant robots fighting on the battlefield, but did not have a taste for the storylines that the Japanese wrote about them. In 1984, Weisman founded [[FASA]] and acquired the licenses to designs from several series, the most famous being ''Super Dimension Fortress Macross,'' though the largest portion came from ''Fang of the Sun Dougram'' and combined them to make Battletech.

The first edition of this game, called ''Battledroids'', was a hex-based boardgame played on a battlefield illustrated with various types of terrain. It came with two large plastic minis of featured mechs, imported from Japan. Initially, sales were mediocre as the sheer size of the mechs made them awkward in gameplay. Soon after the launch of ''Battledroids'' Lucasfilm filed a lawsuit against FASA for using the name "droids," which they had trademarked in 1978. Discretion being the better part of valor, FASA changed the name of the game to Battlemech in time for the second edition printing in 1986. This time, cardboard stand-ins replaced the plastic miniatures, and a tradition was born. To this day, Battletech can be played without purchasing any physical models and with any proxy you please.

Following the release of the second edition, fans of the game clamored for new miniatures. FASA obliged, rescaling their mechs for more convenient play and designing a host of in-house mechs to broaden variety and bridge the gap between the sleek Macross and crude Dougram designs. New models notwithstanding, the third edition, dubbed ''Battletech,'' was shipped with solely Macross- and Dougram-based minis. However, in 1995 [[That Guy|Harmony]] [[Rage|Gold]], an American localization company which had licensed the international distribution and toy rights to SDF Macross, issued a C&D against FASA for the use of all mecha designs from the Macross franchise. FASA ceased production of these miniatures, which were among the most popular designs in the franchise, and published a fourth edition of the game in 1996 again featuring cardboard tokens, which were all based on their own original mechs.

Before '''''Battletech''''', the mecha genre was seen as something that belonged mostly to the Japanese. With few exceptions (''Power Rangers'' and ''Star Wars'', and even then the Mechs from the former were reused footage from Japanese shows), the genre was almost entirely made up of anime productions imported from Japan. Battletech pioneered a new approach to mecha within the Western fandom, featuring mostly stories of pseudo-realistic wars fought by real soldiers rather than teenagers taking on forces of evil or single-handedly winning interplanetary wars, plots that dominated the few mecha series that were subbed by the dedicated VHS fansubbers of the day. More importantly, the physical limitations of the Battlemechs, unlike the limitations of tanks in, say, [[Warhammer 40,000]], are critical to the planning and strategy of outfitting mechs and using them on the tabletop.

===The Mechs===
{{topquote|"Shoot for his cockpit! [[Iron Hands|Kill the meat]], [[Adeptus Mechanicus|save the metal.]]"|Sergeant Robert "Deadeye" Unther (Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries - Training Tutorial)}}
BattleTech mechs function and are utilized more like tanks with legs than the super-agile flying mecha common in Japanese depictions. Mechs are deployed in formations of four or five, called lances in the Inner Sphere and stars in the Clans. They are able to operate in space, on planets with caustic atmospheres, underwater, and in a wide range of temperatures that would be lethal to unprotected humans. One of the biggest upsides of mechs as combat vehicles is their extreme efficiency-of-arms: an effectively limitless amount of time without requiring fuel due to their fusion reactors alongside hyper-efficient Myomer 'muscles' inside the Battlemech’s limbs that can carry more weapons and armor per-ton than any other combat platform in existence. The only things stopping a mech from being able to fight forever are ammunition, repairs, and allowing the pilot to rest. Even when a mech is destroyed, losing the pilot is a relatively rare occurrence thanks to very effective ejection systems. A destroyed mech chassis can also be salvaged and rebuilt to fight another day, good as new. In the early 3000s setting this means many mechs are often decades or even hundreds of years old, Ship of Theseus-style. Some mechs even have unique identities and/or affiliations with certain royal Houses or mercenary families. Also, as stated in the quote above, it's not uncommon for cash-strapped mercenaries, pirates, or even planetary militia to prioritize aiming for the cockpit and/or forcing Mechwarriors to eject from overheating/battle damage in order to claim the surviving Battlemech wreckage for salvage or as a spoil of war.

As far as locomotion styles, bipedal mechs are the most common, with the weapon systems mounted either in the torso compartments or on the arms. Quadrupedal mechs do exist but are relatively rare, they are slower than bipedal mechs and don't offer the same amount of weapon space for a given weight class and more legs (and more everything else) on a mech means, of course, greater expenses. Even rarer are tripod mechs, generally restricted to experimental super-heavy designs. Bipedal mechs can also grasp things in their hands (if they have them) like melee weapons or pesky tanks. Early versions of BattleTech feature mechs that could transform into fighter planes, but these were dropped relatively quickly in its life cycle due to copyright problems.

The main downside of mechs is their inability to efficiently manage heat buildup. Heat is generated by the fusion reactor, the environment, movement, and mostly as a result of firing weapons. Mechs mount multiple gigantic one-ton heatsink units to deal with this buildup, but it is a constant problem for pilots to manage. Mechs that feature a lot of energy-based weapons will generate especially high levels of heat, and therefore manage very poorly in extremely hot environments. Firing all the weapons of certain mech variants at once (the ''Nova'' mech is most infamous) can cause it to overheat to such an extent that the reactor core melts down before the heatsinks can shunt the heat out of the chassis, which is bad. Safety measures that shut down the entire mech when it reaches a certain temperature threshold are always installed, but since this usually happens in a combat situation, and thus leaves the mech defenseless, some pilots will intentionally disable the safeguards to take their chances. Depending on the technology level of a given game, more efficient heatsinks can be assigned to mechs that remove heat more quickly and allow hotter builds. The fluff also mentions some experimental heatsinks that changed the heat energy to light (<strike>???</strike>Actually plausible, we have been experimenting with this concept irl) but had the downside of making the mech look like a walking rave, as well as heatsinks that utilized caustic liquids to move heat faster but with a limited lifespan.

Weapons consist of three general categories: ballistic, energy, and missile. Each has its own strengths and weakness: ballistic weapons weigh more, require ammo, but do not generate much heat, energy weapons are the opposite, and missiles generate some heat/consume ammo but can be indirectly fired with targeting data from scouts. Outfitting a mech for the proper engagement is key to obtaining victory: mechs outfitted for mech-to-mech combat will generally mount only high-damage weapons with lower ammo counts and slower rates of fire, while mechs set for vehicle and infantry combat will mount weapons that fire quickly but do lower damage per shot. Likewise, mechs that do not expect steady resupply will mount more energy weapons so they are not beholden to ammo counts.

Mechs range between 20 to 100 tons in four weight classes, though a few experimental units lie outside these ranges. The weight classes are light (20-35), medium (40-55), heavy (60-75), and assault (80-100). Considering their size (23-56 feet), that's pretty light; the Maus (33 feet long and 11 feet high) mega-tank that Adolf Hitler demanded weighed 188 tons. (One possible explanation here is that the "tonnage" in a weight class isn't the weight of the mech, but rather the weight available to mount things on the chassis. So an Atlas assault mech has 100 tons of available space for reactor, life support, weapons, armor etc, explaining why various sub-types of a mech drop something and replace it with something else of equal weight. A Flea light mech has 20 tons). Rarer still are super heavy mechs (with weights between 110 to 200 tons). While they are walking fortresses that put even Assault Mechs to shame, they tend to be ridiculously expensive, extremely slow, have issues with supporting that weight, are vulnerable to attacks from swarms of smaller enemies like tanks, and have difficulty installing reactors with sufficient power. Top sustainable speeds of mechs vary from 32.4 kph (20 mph) for the assault ''Annihilator'' to 162 kph (101 mph) for the light ''Firemoth'' scout. Keep in mind that the American M1A1 Abrams tank has a top speed of 72 kph (45 mph) on a paved road and much less crossing difficult terrain. Mechs can also be mounted with rechargeable jump jets that give them the ability to hop across the battlefield or up/down terrain. According to varying fluff depictions, mechs are even able to climb up/down cliff walls and perform flying dropkicks to enemy cockpits, which is awesome.

Depending on where in the timeline the specific game takes place (this is a player choice), there will be two possible classes of mechs: Battlemechs and Omnimechs. Battlemechs are the older style, with a set number of variants that cannot be changed in the field. This style was universal in the Inner Sphere before the arrival of the Clans. Omnimechs, a Clan invention, feature a modular construction style and a snap-on software integration which gives them the freedom of changing loadouts quickly. For example, a ''Dragon'' Battlemech comes in a default configuration consisting of one LRM-10, one Autocannon/5, and two medium lasers. The 1C variant replaces the Autocannon/5 with an Autocannon/2 and more armor, while the 5N upgrades the Autocannon/5 to an Ultra Autocannon/5. A pilot must use one of these variants and is incapable of changing the loadout without serious hours-long reworking of the mech's internals in a Mech maintenance facility. Conversely, a ''Mad Dog'' Omnimech comes with a default configuration of two LRM-20s, two medium pulse lasers, and two large pulse lasers. A pilot is able to modify this loadout as they see fit within less than an hour with a technical team, say dropping the two medium pulse lasers for more missile ammo/armor or changing the LRMs to SRMs for short-range engagements.

Like most Western sci-fi series, Battlemechs are somewhat inspired by real theoretical technologies; their weapons range from machine guns (albeit very big ones) and missiles, to coilguns and particle accelerators. The biggest leaps from reality (aside from FTL travel and communications) are the fusion reactor, (a technology still only theoretically possible,) the neurohelmet, (which interfaces with the pilot's brain and keeps the mech upright based on the pilot's own sense of balance,) and the massive muscle-like Myomer fibers that actually allow the mech to move upon being exposed to electrical current.

While Battlemechs dominate the battlefields of Battletech, armored vehicles still have a place. Most of the time, tanks, hovercraft, and APCs are used where mechs would be too expensive (or too advanced) to maintain, or in roles where a mech would be ineffective. This means that, in addition to Battlemechs, one can find infantry, vehicles, aerial vehicles, naval vehicles, and spaceships. It is worth noting that vehicles can be a real threat to Battlemechs in great enough numbers, since they mount the same weapons as mechs. Some tanks can also push the 100-ton limit and sport the gigantic weaponry usually mounted on an Assault mech chassis. In other words, where mechs are [[Space Marines]], the vehicles are more akin to [[Eldar]] Aspects.

Mechs in BattleTech fiction also have a curious tendency to go up in a mini nuclear explosion when their reactor core is breached by weapon fire. Mushroom clouds, explosions, heat, radiation, the whole bit. This has been nicknamed "stackpoling" after BattleTech novel author Michael Stackpole, who includes at least one of these events in each novel he writes. If the reactor was actually breached, what should happen is a meltdown of the reactor (and probably some chunks of the surrounding mech) that quickly burns out because the reactor can't maintain the fusion reaction without proper containment. Reactors are generally incapable of generating an actual nuclear explosion: real-world reactor "explosions" are usually a result of the coolant flash-overheating and generating a pressure-based steam explosion that destroys the reactor building. Lingering radiation would still be a problem of course, but that is usually handwaved away in BattleTech fluff or not mentioned at all.

To get into the actual science of this, a hypothetical fusion reactor wouldn't produce that many radioactive substances. And what few they do would be relatively short lived and would be weak beta emitters. The most likely substance would be Tritium, which is where the stereotypical glow in the dark green radiation comes from. The Mech would glow in the dark but a decent decontamination process would render it mostly harmless. In other words, the stories are right for the wrong reasons.

==Warfare in the Thirty-first Century==

When somebody decides to attack another world, they load up their 'Mechs (and tanks, and infantry, etc...) onto massive shuttles called DropShips. These boost off into space and link up with Jumpships, semi-mobile Space-Fold drives sitting a ways out into the star's system (due to the limits of BattleTech FTL, Jumpships can't get any closer to a system's star than a radius roughly around the orbit of Saturn in the Sol System. For simplicity's sake, most Jumpships move to the zenith or nadir points directly "above" or "below" the star's orbital plane). The Dropships latch onto the Jumpships, which make a series of jumps from star to star until they reach the target system.

Compared to some sci-fi franchises such as Star Wars or Star Trek, aerospace combat between ships isn’t really that common for several reasons. For one, KF Drive used to propel Jumpships (which are about the size of Manhattan and can’t land on a planet) makes up 95% of its mass and leaves little room for anything else besides Dropship docking ports, basic ship equipment, crew quarters, and the Jumpsail used for recharging the drive. And while Warships do exist with drives half the size as their civilian models, the drives alone are more than five times more expensive to build and are prioritized for only strategically vital missions like real-life Dreadnoughts. In that regard, Battletech’ Jumpships are closer to Dune’s massive but ungainly Heighliners than Star War’s Star Destroyers. As a result, most aerospace combat is dominated by armed Dropships or aerospace fighters.

Once they reach the target, the Dropships detach from the Jumpships and burn deeper into the system towards the planet. Now Jumpships aren't stealthy, so anyone on the target planet likely detected their entrance into the system, and it typically takes Dropships seven days (varies dramatically for each star system) to reach the planet. Surprise attacks are nearly impossible, and defenders will have up to a week to get ready (some clever or smart people try to shave time by trying to match the target world's orbit with a nonstandard point closer to the planet, or even rare "Pirate" points caused by gravity interactions between celestial bodies, but even this usually gives defenders at least a day to prepare). Of course, these aren’t actually rare and we have quite a number of them around Earth, the moon, and every other celestial body including the sun. So close that by BattleTech standards it would take probably just a few minutes to reach the Earth from one of its own null gravity points. Seeing as their dropships can reach Sol's top or bottom null-G in just a few days. But everyone knows artists (writers especially) rarely bother doing any research.

As the invading force reaches planetary orbit, the defenders will usually try to intercept them with their own defensive ships, usually Dropships, Shuttles, and Aerospace Fighters, and the Attackers will launch fighters of their own. Space battle will begin in earnest as the defenders try to keep the enemy from landing on world at all (FASA originally had two separate games, Aerotech and Battlespace, that dealt with this stage of combat, but current BattleTech rules incorporate Aerospace combat for those who prefer it or want the full Theater of War experience).

If the Attackers can break through orbit, they can choose their landing site (usually near the target of course). The enemy will deploy to stop them and battle begins in earnest.

==Fluff==
[[File:Mad_Cat.jpg|300px|thumb|right|The [[Timber Wolf]] (Mad Cat if you're <s>Inner Sphere</s> <s>Freebirth Scum</s> Degrazi), one of the most iconic BattleMechs in the series.]]
{{topquote|''A thousand horrid Prodigies foretold it.
A feeble government, eluded Laws,
A factious Populace, luxurious Nobles,
And all the maladies of stinking states.''|Dr. Samuel "What The Fuck Am I Reading" Johnson}}
Much like [[Games Workshop|Warhammer]], the Battletech franchise has an extensive expanded universe. Dozens of books, numerous spinoff games, video games in multiple genres, and even an animated cartoon have delved into the setting and created an entertaining, if convoluted, history that has real influences on how the game is played. Unlike Warhammer, there are no [[Xenos]] (outside of some cavemen-like species), so humans get all the glory (and blame).

===History of the Inner Sphere===
After a period of typical [[Cold War]]-era speculative history: in details, the Soviet leadership is inherited by a fictional hardliner in the 80s and the Union survives until the 2010s where it splits in the Second Soviet Civil War (this was retconned in as the game was made when the USSR hadn't collapsed yet). The appointment of a hardliner leads to NATO reforming into the Western Alliance along with the proto-EU. The Western Alliance helps the split post-Soviet Eurasian states, is joined by China and other Asian countries after a brief crisis and eventually mankind was mostly united under the Western Alliance, having renamed itself to the Terran Alliance and discovered how to travel faster-than-light by opening up artificial wormholes. By 2235, most of mankind's interstellar colonies threw off the yoke of the Alliance and formed their own stellar nation-states. What followed was a period of war and chaos which led to the rise of the "'''Great Houses'''," feudal dynasties of powerful families adhering to various pseudo-historical ideals (like Kurita's Japan fetishism, specifically the most evil aspects of WWII Japan and every other Asian countries' worst parts of their histories up to eleven) competing for total dominance of mankind. However Terra, as Earth became known after its Latin name, remained the most technologically-advanced star nation, and remained unconquered by the competing Great Houses who turned their focus on one another instead. This is one of the reasons for the severe technological stagnation that is a hallmark of the Battletech universe. After all, any idiot knows that destroying a factory or all of a certain factory production and all such factories means the knowledge of how to build their products magically disappears and the knowledge of how to build those factories poofed away the moment they were built anyway as that is the only explanation conceivable for why destroyed factories were not simply replaced and why the knowledge disappeared from every paper, computer, and mind. Obviously space magic is to blame...or exceptionally short-sighted writers.

To be clear, the given reason for how the neo-feudalism came about was due to oppression. Yet other than the Federated Suns good bois and to an extent the Lyran Commonwealth, most other nations don't have the same problems that destroyed the Alliance despite being oppressive. Super oppressive. Which begs one to question how the Hell the Outer Reaches Rebellion happened. And it still doesn't explain how the neo-feudalism came about as it would make much more sense to have administrators managing regions of space instead of giving someone the level of authority an ancient noble would have had. Perhaps it began the same way some monarchies are known to have: lords (or whatever name for a rose you want to use) being basically miniature kings of their areas who united and elected a royal dynasty from among their number.

In 2349, the Terran Hegemony introduced the first Battlemech, the 100-ton ''Mackie'', and the face of war changed forever.

===Mechs Just Got Real===
The introduction of the ''Mackie'' shifted the focus of military development away from interstellar Warships back to ground forces. The Terran Hegemony was able to prove that the 100-ton Battlemech was far superior to conventional ground vehicles (interestingly, the Terran Hegemony's main battle tank was <s>the Israeli Merkava</s> named Merkava but utterly unrelated to the Israeli tank of the same name), allowing a single man to destroy formations of opposing non-Mechs. Of course, the rest of the Inner Sphere wanted the same capability, and in 2355 the plans for the Battlemech were stolen (as usual, the writers don’t realize that stealing a design is pointless if you don’t know how to build all the parts...like myomer). The Age of the Battlemech had begun.

During the next hundred years, as the Great Houses vied for supremacy and founded the nucleus of the future Successor States, the Terran Hegemony was able to exert great influence as the most technologically-advanced and neutral of the great powers. This would lead to the creation of the '''''Star League''''' in 2571, a grand union of all of humanity's interstellar nations. While ostensibly created for the purpose of uniting mankind and keeping the peace between the stars, it was also a massive power play by Terra to secure the raw materials it needed to maintain its technological edge and once more bring mankind under Terra's dominion. In keeping with the feudal society that now dominated mankind's worlds, the position of First Lord of the Star League was invested in Terra's ruling House, the Cameron dynasty.

While Hidden Wars would plague the Star League throughout its reign, no conflicts were fought between its members as long as the Star League Defense Force kept the peace between factions. Terra's hoard of advanced technologies were shared freely among the worlds of man, and a new Golden Age descended. It all came to an end in 2766. The last of the Camerons was assassinated by Stefan Amaris, a power-hungry politician from the Periphery, the ring of interstellar nations that had refused to join the Star League and had been conquered for their trouble. Claiming the mantle of Emperor of the Star League and Director-General of the Terran Hegemony, Amaris was immediately denounced by the commander of the SLDF, Aleksandr Kerensky.

===A New Dark Age===
[[File:Aleksandr Kerensky.jpg|thumb|right|"Fuck you guys, I'm out." - Aleksandr Kerensky, Great Father of Clans]]
The Amaris Civil War destroyed the League, and led to a new Dark Age. The Great Houses, throwing off their loyalty to Terra, refused to aid either Amaris or Kerensky, and waited for the war to pass. Kerensky emerged the victor, but with the Cameron dynasty ended the other Great Houses began to vie for position of First Lord of the Star League. Disgusted by the politicking and betrayal, in 2784 Kerensky took the greater portion of the SLDF into exile beyond the Periphery. Those who remained pledged their loyalty to the Star League's last civil authority, the Ministry of Communication, which would later become Comstar, the sole provider of internet connections between worlds. Thus the Star League lost its last measure of power, and the Great Houses began the First Succession War.

Four Succession Wars, over the course of two centuries, would follow. Never would a Great House gain enough strength to declare itself master of mankind, especially since none would ever conquer Terra. Technology would [[Imperium of Man|stagnate and regress]], creating the Lostech phenomenon, technology which mankind could no longer reproduce, maintain, or even understand. Where before feudalism had been a political phenomenon, hundreds of worlds across the Inner Sphere regressed to or below the technological level of the 20th Century, and hundreds more in the Periphery failed entirely. The sole bright spot was [[Adeptus Mechanicus|Comstar]], the corporate religious entity which maintained the Hyper Pulse Generator network that enabled FTL communications between inhabited worlds. Comstar became the rulers of Terra in the wake of the Star League's collapse, and leveraged their control of the HPG network to ensure their inviolability in exchange for maintaining the incomprehensible HPG networks and neutral treatment of all communications between worlds. In order to maintain their power, they would actively [[Grimdark|sabotage, headhunt, or kill]] all promising technological advancements and promising scientists to maintain their monopoly and techno-religious authority. To be fair, unlike a certain [[Adeptus Mechanicus|cargo cult]], ComStar intervened because they realized the Great Houses were psychopaths and couldn’t be allowed to advance. Also, they were actually loyal-ish to the Star League and hated the Great Houses.

Eventually the Inner Sphere would stabilize around the Great Houses and their associated stellar empires. However, technological progress remained stagnant, and the rare factories capable of producing such advanced technologies as Battlemechs became critical components in the shattered military-industrial complexes of the so-called Successor States. Millions would die so that an LED monitor factory could be taken by one side, or so that a hundred precision-machined laser lenses could be plundered from a forgotten SLDF armory. Real progress towards recovery could only be made after large caches of information which survived the fall of the Star League were recovered; the most significant were the recovery of a long-lost Star League university's library in 3013, and the recovery and free dissemination of the contents of the Helm Memory Core in 3028. In 3028, the two largest and most powerful Successor States, the Federated Suns and the Lyran Commonwealth, were united by dynastic marriage, and it seemed that a new Golden Age might be only decades away.

But the Inner Sphere had forgotten all about Kerensky's exodus, and nobody wants ''Peace'' to break out in a wargame setting, soooo...

===Suddenly Clannerscum===
Kerensky and his followers first settled on the Pentagon Worlds, where they tried to start a new society and a new Star League. They failed though, and the wars erupted between the worlds, showing the bitter irony of life. Kerensky tried to move on, but suffered a heart attack, and the leadership was overtaken by his son, Nicholas Kerensky (who unlike his father had hair and was probably a closet [[furry]]). Nicholas took the remaining followers with him to a planet he called "Dream Land" and established the twenty original Clans.

The Clans are a tribal society that is divided into five castes - Warriors (religious and political leaders and soldiers), Scientists (less respected but are considered highly important), Merchants (detested and only kept as a necessity), Technicians (engineers and warriors' servants), and Laborers (serfs, repressed as needed). Although during the birth each child is tested for their relevance to a certain caste, but more often than not are the same as their parents. Speaking of which, Clanners strongly believe in eugenics, and most of the Warrior Caste members are genetically enhanced clones/mashups. Other castes are selectively bred by the instructions from Science Caste. On a positive side it would mean that even [[neckbeard|neckbeards]] would end up breeding (though given the Clan's brutal meritocracy/kratocracy, they'd end up as outcasts in the Bandit Caste). On the other hand, the society has only a few acceptable non-technical forms of information, meaning that there really is no reason for there to be neckbeards. Paradoxes aside, Clans were created towards efficiency, and even their language differs from the one used in the Inner Sphere. Clans constantly compete in everything, from combat to technological prowess, as they foresaw their return to the Inner Sphere and its liberation. (By their hands, of course. And logically resulting in their control.)

And that day was not far off. Unfortunately for the Inner Sphere, Comstar never forgot about Kerensky's Exodus and sent exploration vessels out to sniff out their trail and reclaim lost Star League outposts on the side. When the Clans captured one of the expeditions, they believed that the Inner Sphere would invade the Pentagon worlds. Ironically, the Clans used that as an excuse to return and invade before being forced back by the very invasion they were trying to prevent.

A prophecy of days far off, the '''''ilClan''''' is a religious myth that states that someday a Clan will take control of Terra, the Cradle of Humanity. The Khan (leader) of the Clan of Clans which captures Terra will become the new, true ilKhan (Khan of Khans) and re-establish the Star League, over which their blood shall reign in perpetuity. All will be Clan, Clan will be all.

'''''ilClan''''' is also an [[Skub|abortive Battletech rulebook]] that has been in the works since '''2002''', ever since the '''Dark Age''' Era was published. Ostensibly intended to be the next historical Era, featuring all new rules to reflect the dominance of Clan society and technology, the bankruptcies and sales that Battletech went through stalled all development. In addition, most fans are [[Advancing the Storyline|vehemently opposed to the destruction of most of the factions]] in the game, and have spoken up at every opportunity to denounce the plans behind ilClan. A prank release of a provisional ilClan historical outline drew tremendous outcry and Catalyst Game Labs has subsequently decided to focus on rereleasing and updating older Era rulesets.

===Meanwhile, In The Inner Sphere===
...Of course, when the Clans returned to the Inner Sphere with the intent of liberating it from the feuding Great Houses, those same great houses <s>said "okay" and handed over the reins</s> put aside their differences and fought the Clans to a stand-still. This was an incredible show of camaraderie, and the most cooperative the houses had been since the Star League fell. It was all quite touching, really.

Sort of. The Clan invasion was getting bogged down and while they were making progress towards Terra it seemed like the new normal would be just constant unending war because they couldn't manage to actually put any of the successors away for good. ComStar, the self-serving treacherous pricks that they are, decided that something needed to be done and so made the Clans a bet. The deal was, come to Tukayyid and fight our best in one big PROVE YOUR WORTH honorduel smackup. If the Clans won, ComStar would stab all the successors in the back, disconnect their HPG access and throw the doors to Terra wide open. If ComStar won, the Clans would agree to a fifteen year armistice.

The Clans, being the honourable glory-seeking meatheads they are, agreed, not realizing that ComStar are every bit the cheating bastards you'd expect of an ISP in space with their own army. The Battle of Tukayyid wasn't a complete shutout for the Clans but it definitely illustrated that they still hadn't gotten the knack for how total war actually works. In most of the engagements the Com Guard pounded the Clanners like discount tenderloin and because of their stubborn honourable ways the Clanners were obliged to abide by the cease fire by the logic of no-takey-backsies.

And then once the Clans were wrapped up behind a truce line it was time to get back to good-old inter-house wars. In an ultra-brief summary: There was the FedCom Civil War, kicking off the <s>Fifth Succession War</s> Word of Blake Jihad, the religious fanatic (well, moreso than usual) faction of Comstar went crazy over the entire Inner Sphere with cyborgs and nukes, until some dude named Devlin Stone got everyone to work together and kick them off Terra, then went on to form the Republic of the Sphere, essentially a re-establishment of the Terran Hegemony. In the meantime, the Clans got a bug up their asses over ideological purity after their Scientist Castes tried to take over, and all the Clans who invaded the Inner Sphere got kicked out of Clan Space to live there instead. Eventually someone forgot to pay the phone bill and the interstellar faster-than-light communication network went down. This ushered in the last era in the fluff known as the "Dark Age."

This is also considered the second ruination of the franchise by some. Many long-time fans think highly of the Succession Wars era of Battletech, right after the fall of the Star League. Marching around the field with walking tanks so expensive and rare that it's better to lose a pilot than a weapon is a powerful fantasy. It's often described as being "Mad Max with mechs." Of course, the blasted hellscape of the post-apocalypse is hard to maintain when the Clans invaded with their own brand-new shiny toys.
The shift from "squabbling tribes with rusty guns" to "courageous defenders with shiny factories" is often considered the first ruination of the property. When the squabbling of the Inner Sphere was broken up again by quasi-religious zealots and Battletech was forced to stitch in apocrypha from its bastard child, the miniature game MechWarrior: Dark Age, people considered it the second collapse of the franchise.

===ilClan Era <strike>Dawn of a New Age, or Not</strike>===
In 2019 Catalyst released '''Shattered Fortress''', the first half of a two-sourcebook set intended to finally advance the franchise into a post-Dark Age era. It ended with a cliffhanger: on New Year's Day 3150 a Clan fleet lands on Terra, but we don't know which Clan. Continuing the recurring theme of Battletech players not caring one bit about advancing the storyline, the release of the second book was then delayed indefinitely by the massive success of a Kickstarter offering more new miniatures and rules set 100 years back on the timeline. While each republished or recompiled rulebook has prologues hinting that the ilClan and Third Star League are around in 3250 from framing documents as archival material, details were deliberately [[Skub|left vague]]. Come 2021, and the novels have finally pushed the timeline out of the Dark Age, reception has been... [[Derp|eh]]. While some factions and characters got a lot of development and [[Awesome|heroic action]], many others were [[Rage|given the shaft]] or reduced to 2D [[FAIL|caricactures when they had potential for development]].

On January 1st, 2021 the novel ''Hour of the Wolf'' was released. Long story short, the Wolf Khan managed to get his hands on a way to bypass the Fortress Walls (unknown to most, Devlin Stone snuck them the access codes as he believed they were the least terrible of bad outcomes). Clans Wolf and Jade Falcon then beat the shit out of the Republic of the Sphere (but not before having the bulk of their commanders assassinated by headhunter units), fought a Trial of Possession for Terra, and the Wolves won. So, Clan Wolf is now ilClan. Their Khan made the Jade Falcons his clan's bodyguard (the bad elements having died fighting), and reconstituted Clan Smoke Jaguar as a non-voting clan and to serve as his clan's black ops/special forces. These Clans then created a new Star League (to a point). And with the combined might of these admittedly terribly mangled clans now strengthened by working together, they might actually make something of themselves. Others in the setting might not recognize them yet, but with the industrial might of the region(s) of space they occupy, they'll probably end up smashing faces and making it clear whose boss. Or they'll get booted off or everyone will just wait for them to self-destruct and then just walk right in.

==Factions Summary==
While each faction has a certain flavor and preferred equipment/tactics, factions do not limit your gameplay choices to particular sets of mechs/units/components, as in many other games ([[Warhammer 40,000]] is a good example, amongst many other skirmish-level wargames). So if something you want to use is in specific era of Battletech History (FEDCOM Civil War, Clan Invasion, et cetera), anything goes. Although it's common for players to roleplay as being employed by some major power, and limiting themselves to their styles. Either that or they play as mercenaries and do as they please. Seriously, the amount of in-fighting is in effect galactic level (in Warhammer 40k -- aside from humanity itself -- only the ''Necrontyr'', the flesh incarnations of the [[Necrons]], ever fought each other to such a long and drawn out extent).

===The Inner Sphere===
While other time periods might have better or more interesting rules, the most popular ruleset remains the eras between the Fourth Succession War (3028) to just before the Word of Blake Jihad (3067). This list of Inner Sphere factions covers those periods.

====Federated Suns====
Ruled by House Davion, the Federated Suns is feudal Space America or nepotistic Space UK. [[Lawful Good]], ruled by a Great House as inbred as any other is, and with all positions of power occupied by the same set of mostly blood-related elites. Without the blue blood, you're just a clever commoner. However, the Federated Suns isn't as stratified as the other Successor States, and it's easier for a common citizen to climb the ladders of wealth and power, which fuels an entrepreneurial society that is among the wealthiest in the Inner Sphere. They’re heroic defenders of freedom and democracy, provided you define “freedom and democracy” as “being ruled by the Federated Suns”. Their colors are red, white, and blue. Something about that sounds strangely familiar...

Similar to [[Ultramarines|a certain faction in a certain other wargame]], the Federated Suns usually win most of their battles, and are usually presented as the good guys, drawing a lot of accusations of Mary Suehood. Unfairly, though, as the FedSuns win so much due to wealth-fueled research and production. In other words, they work hard, do a good job, encourage businesses, and they get rewarded with victory. Unlike the Smurfs, however, the Federated Suns has actual flaws - their “democracy” is a rubber stamp, their rhetoric about freedom is mostly just an excuse to justify warmongering and imperialism, and they have such a staggering degree of wealth inequality that there are cases where the populations of multiple planets only have a single school to go between them. This means that the FedSuns attract two kinds of fans: twelve-year-olds who buy all the propaganda, and people who can appreciate playing a bunch of self-righteous, hypocritical jackasses. On the bright side, they do live up to the hype when it comes to individual liberties. And their rulers are genuinely competent and mostly don't dick them over.

Thanks to their great wealth, the Federated Suns can afford to fund actual scientific research in the form of the New Avalon Institute of Science, or Space MIT, and the Davions supported most of the tech development and recovery in the Inner Sphere prior to the Clan Invasion. They also got lucky when they found an ancient Star League library filled with various editions of tabletop wargame splatbooks. They are known to be the house that first heavily employed or utilized a lot of Clan personnel and technologies after the conclusion of the invasion.

The Federated Suns also kind of have a thing for autocannons. Think [[Space Wolves]] with wolves, or [[Orks]] with [[Dakka]], and you have an idea. If it does not have an autocannon on it the Suns will find a way to give it one, and if it does have an autocannon they find a way to upgrade it to a rotary autocannon. So if you like autocannons this is the faction for you.

Prior to the Fourth Succession War, the Federated Suns and Lyran Commonwealth were united through marriage (technically the political union was a treaty and the marriage was out of love and had no impact on the nations' unification), forming the Federated Commonwealth, the largest and most powerful empire in the galaxy since the Star League. In order to bridge the distance between the two nations, however, the Federated Commonwealth had to conquer large swathes of the Capellan Confederation, which they did easily. However, only a few decades later the Commonwealth was broken up by the FedCom Civil War, when Katherine Steiner-Davion schemed to either take over the Commonwealth or secede the Lyran half of it because she was a royal bitch. She is commonly known as simply The Bitch by many fans. And her splitting of the FedCom is incredibly weird since her nobles were against her, her military mostly liked the advantages brought by the FedSuns, and her public liked the massive boosts in economy and technological progress. Oh, and she was rebel usurper. And had no authority to do any of the things she did. So, her successful secession doesn't make a lick of sense and you just kinda have to suck it up. Oh yeah, and she had her mother murdered out of greed. The FedSuns are currently getting kicked around by pretty much everybody during the Dark Age, primarily because the current head of the house, Caleb, is extremely paranoid and rather psychotic. Thankfully he got killed by the Kuritans with some insider help from Clan Snow Raven (in exchange for some buffer territory). Not so thankfully, his death also brought the destruction of virtually most of the Davions' regular armed forces concentrated on one planet while enabling the Kuritans to take over the capital. <strike>''Save us, Julian!''</strike> Kuritans being what they're like, they probably raped and tortured everyone they didn't murder and their dogs.

====Lyran Commonwealth====
[[File:Steiner Assault.jpg|350px|right|thumb|A typical scene of a Lyran Archon wondering why their cousin has failed to relieve the Commonwealth alongside a bloody frontline against their enemies. They're likely either at a ball dance or planning a coup.]]
Space Germany with some Space Scotland and Space Scandinavia kicking around, the Lyran Commonwealth is the largest successor state and owns the most resource-rich planets in the Inner Sphere, making them an industrial and economic powerhouse. Their government was supposed to be modeled on ancient Athens, led by a council of nine Archons, but this did not work out ''at all'', and eventually Archon Robert Marsden decided he'd had enough of this shit and overthrew the other Archons in a military coup. The Marsdens were eventually replaced by the Steiners via marriage, who have ruled the Commonwealth to this day.

The Lyrans are rich. Really, really absurdly rich. The only reason they haven't conquered the Inner Sphere yet is that they prefer to put the relatives of rich businessmen in charge of their army rather than, y'know, actual soldiers, meaning basically every Lyran military officer is terrible at their job. There is at least one recorded case of the Lyran military starting a major interstellar war ''by accident''. Fortunately, since they're so rich, they're able to make up for their ludicrous incompetence with the biggest and heaviest weapons in the Inner Sphere. The joke goes that a typical Steiner scout lance consists of four 100-ton '''''Atlas''''' mechs (imagine a scout-recon team composed entirely of Warlord Titans and you'll get the idea). Steiner forces tend to be big and slow, barely able to outmaneuver enemy fortresses. Of course, once they (eventually) get into range, you can kiss that fortress goodbye.

Late in the Third Succession War, Archon Katrina Steiner shocks the entire Inner Sphere by actually calling for a peace treaty. Only Hanse Davion is at all interested, and he winds up marrying Katrina's daughter Melissa and uniting the two countries into one massive empire, the Federated Commonwealth (see above). Predictably, this Beauty-and-the-Geek romance starts out exceedingly awesome then epically fails and it's back to single life for the too-pretty Steiners. Recently tried to have Clan Wolf migrate through their coreward territory to keep the Free Worlds League from reforming during the Dark Age while holding the transported civilian castes as insurance. The plan backfired with the Free Worlds League still reforming and Clan Wolf taking much of the coreward and middle territory in the Lyran Commonwealth to form the Wolf Empire. This, on top of a massive amount of civil unrest means the Lyrans are too busy with damage control from Wolf and Jade Falcon invasions along with internal rebellions to be a threat to anyone. The moral of the story is: don’t try to manipulate badasses who nearly conquered everyone without trying. They will fuck you up for it. Also, trying to hold civilians hostage against a culture that thinks civilians are barely human at all is pointless. It tends to go like "Okay, I'll kill a bunch of your people and conquer chunks of your territory". You threaten to kill the civilians and your enemy is totally incapable of understanding why they should care.

====Free Worlds League====
Taking elements from America, Yugoslavia, and Austria-Hungary, the Free Worlds League is a federal democratic republic. No, really! They have a parliament and everything. Of course, the commander-in-chief of the Free Worlds League Military is always a member of House Marik because parliament doesn’t think anyone else can do the job, and the entire country has been operating under martial law “for the duration of the emergency” since the Star League broke up. But in principle, both democracy and federalism are alive and well in Marik space, making it impossible to get anything done.

Everyone in the Free Worlds League hates everyone else in the Free Worlds League. After finding out that Captain-General Thomas Marik had been in hiding running the Word of Blake for decades and the guy they’d been taking their orders from all that time was actually just some hobo picked up off the street, they gave up on trying to make the thing work at all and collapsed. Which is a shame because fake Marik was one of the best Captain-Generals they ever had. After the Dark Age, said hobo’s daughter managed to put it back together again, which kind of makes you start to wonder about that whole “only the Mariks can handle the Captaincy-General” thing. Doesn't help that she had to make a deal with the Spirit Cat and Sea Fox clanners to cement the whole thing together as well as marrying the official Marik family's head.

The Free Worlds League Military is built around combined arms warfare, treating infantry, vehicles, and aerospace fighters as if they were just as useful as mechs. They also used to have the most LAMs back before [[squat|LAMs ceased to be a thing]]. They don’t get a lot of attention, since they’re far away from the FedSuns and the Clans and therefore don’t get involved in stories about factions the writers actually care about. The constant in-fighting probably doesn't help. That said, their most likely do enough to keep their jobs, which is probably good enough to satisfy the average Joe, who couldn't care less about political squabbles.

Think of the Free Worlds League as Space Roman Empire.

====Draconis Combine====
Ruled by House Kurita, the Draconis Combine is the obligatory Space Japan, in the sense that it is ''obligatory'' to be Japanese. It has large Arab and Scandinavian minorities who are legally required to be [[weeaboo]]s, with the country as a whole drawing on both the age of samurai and the militaristic Imperial Japan of the 1920s to 40s. The twelve-year-olds listed above, if they leave the FedSuns, will likely move to this weeaboo paradise with its delusional "fierce solo samurai warrior takes on all opponents Kurosawa Style" appeal, not realizing that lone mechs get [[rape|gang-banged]] by enemies who are teamed up like a pack of mechanical hyenas. Defended by weeaboos despite being responsible for the single most horrific massacre in human history during the First Succession War. For an alternate look into this supposed massacre, please read ''Did 52 million really die?'' In fact, they have a habit of doing this. “We defeated the mercenaries on this planet who have nothing to do with the general populace. Nuke everyone before we leave. Why? Uhhhh...do we really need a reason? <s>they’re not our enemies or anything, but [[Lulz|murder is fun]]</s> SCORCHED EARTH TACTICS! Preventing enemies from using the planet’s populace or resources against us is a valid strategy!”

Like everyone else in the Inner Sphere, the Draconis Combine is a warmongering, autocratic empire ruled with an iron fist that wants to take over the galaxy. Unlike everyone else in the Inner Sphere, they actually admit it. They're the only successor state that makes absolutely no pretenses of being a democracy, with the Coordinator of Worlds being treated as a divinely anointed absolute monarch who is the sole legitimate ruler of all humanity. They were the first to start shit after the Star League collapsed, with the Coordinator declaring himself the new First Lord and launching an invasion of the Federated Suns that eventually wound up getting him killed on Kentares IV, prompting his son to launch the aforementioned massacre. They've been the mortal enemies of the Federated Suns ever since.

Similar to the Davions and their love of autocannons and the Steiners and their love of everything heavy and assault, Kuritans are really, really into PPCs (Particle Projector Cannons), mainly because they're dirt poor and [[Lasgun]]s are cheaper than bullets. If there is a mech that can possibly mount a PPC, the Dracs will put one on it. For instance, see the ''Catapult'': a 65-ton long-range fire support mech intended for indirect fire using the Long Range Missle (LRM) racks in its "ears". Almost every variant of the ''Catapult'' is centered around these LRM racks with a few minor backup weapons. They are a reliable, battle-tested design that no commander in their right mind would attempt to 'fix', because isn't broken... except in the eyes of House Kurita. Once the Combine got their hands on it those ears were replaced with two PPCs for direct fire support and two machine guns for <s>civilian massacres</s> INFANTRY DETERRENTS.

Kuritans were also [[Fail|involved in the worst Battletech novel ever written]], wherein a ship of theirs was lost in time and space, and [[what|found giant]], [[Kroot|alien, sentient chickens]]. Far Country is a [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6zQ6ZqEqg0 Shamefur Dispray]! and pretty much serves as the only time aliens are actually mentioned in the BattleTech universe.

====Capellan Confederation====
Culturally, Space China or Space Russia. Politically, Space North Korea. The Confederation was originally founded when several minor states in the Capellan Zone who were sick of the Federated Suns trying to "liberate" them joined together, [[lolwut|bombed their own capital to make a point]], and fought the Davions off. Secure in this victory, they then proceeded to never win a war ever again. Sounds like their rulers were evil after all.

Citizens of the Capellan Confederation enjoy probably the highest standard of living of any commoner in the Inner Sphere, with an extensive, cradle-to-grave welfare system and the best education and health care the state can provide. [[Grimdark|*Non*-citizens of the Capellan Confederation, known as "Servitors", are basically slaves.]] Becoming a citizen requires you to provide a certain amount of service to the state by the age of seventeen, and citizenship can be removed as punishment for disloyalty. Even those who aren't unfortunate enough to be Servitors basically have their lives decided for them by the Capellan caste system and the government's ability to tell them that they have to move to a new planet and take up a new career at any given moment.

The Confederation is run by a Chancellor, who's supposed to be elected by the nobility but in reality is pretty much always the head of House Liao. This is rather unfortunate, since the Liaos have a noticeable tendency towards being batshit fucking insane ''even by Inner Sphere nobility standards''. They claim descent from Elias Liao, who was either a persecuted revolutionary philosopher (if you ask a Capellan) or a psychopathic nuclear terrorist (if you ask anyone else). The main family line births a homicidal maniac at least every other generation, e.g. Kali Liao, who became the leader of a cyborg death cult with a taste for mass nerve-gas attacks. At one point, they decided that having a regular military just wasn't cool enough for them and created the Warrior Houses, a bunch of weird pseudo-religious warrior cults that only answer to the Chancellor.

Since the Capellans have lost basically every war they've ever fought and live right next to the Federated Suns, they've become the designated "sneaky" faction, focusing on guerrilla warfare and covert operations. They go for stealth and electronic warfare the way the Davions go for autocannons, best exemplified by their iconic Raven electronic warfare 'Mech (which, depending on the model, actually looks like a bird; weird but cool). After the Clan Invasion and FedCom Civil War, they acquired a taste for the newly-developed Plasma weapons. Got the absolute shit beat out of them by the Federated Commonwealth during the Fourth Succession War, got revenge when the Commonwealth tore itself apart a few decades later.

====ComStar====
Imagine a cross between the medieval Catholic Church and Comcast, and you have ComStar. During the Star League Civil War, the network of Hyperpulse Generators that the Star League had built for faster-than-light communications was in ruins, and the one thing that the Great Houses could agree on was that ''somebody'' had to fix all their space phones right fucking now. They named Jerome Blake, the highest-ranking HPG network official still alive, as Minister of Communications, which, since they didn't name any other ministers, basically put him in charge of Terra. As the Star League collapsed, Blake bummed some soldiers off of Kerensky, got the Successor States to agree that the space phones were important and they should therefore respect ComStar's neutrality, and then seized complete control of Terra in a lightning-fast coup, revealing that that neutrality had some teeth.

After Blake died, ComStar quickly turned into a quasi-mystical and religious organization, whose stated purpose was to preserve human knowledge in the dark ages of the Succession Wars, a goal they attempted to fulfill by assassinating every scientist who wouldn't work for them and starting the Second Succession War practically the moment the first one ended. Things started to spiral out of control for them after the Helm Memory Core was leaked and suddenly everyone was able to figure out how Lostech worked again, and then things got even ''worse'' when the Clans showed up.

ComStar is also famous for introducing the ComStar Bill (C-bill) as a standard galactic currency. Rather than being backed by material goods, each C-bill is backed by ComStar's faster than light message delivery service: One C-bill will guarantee one millisecond of data transmission, enough for a few pages of bare text or a small image, with larger transmissions costing more, and with additional fees for higher priority and the like. The value of the various Great House currencies can be weighed against their worth in C-bills which allows for currency exchange on a galactic scale. The C-bill is the primary way that mercenaries are paid and in turn pay for goods and services, and thus the most common currency encountered by players. Post Jihad, Comstar was neutered of its armed forces and subject to a hostile takeover by Clan Sea Fox (outside of the universe, at least one of the game developers had a hate boner against Comstar's OP status and gave their more powerful components the ax, courtesy of Blakist nukes).

====Minor Powers====
*'''Free Rasalhague Republic''': Space Norse/Vikings. They were a part of the Draconis Combine along the Lyran border, until the formation of the Federated Commonwealth meant that Kurita was about to have ''two'' borders for Hanse Davion to attack them from, so he granted them their independence as a buffer state. May have been awesome. If you're wondering why we write of them in the past tense refer to: ''Clan Invasion, Why Not Get in the Way of One'' (Third Publishing of Liao, COMSTAR ISBN 474-Alpha-467-Upsilon-345). They later join up with the Ghost Bears and become the Rasalhague Dominion. They are awesome because now we have Viking clanners. One of their aerospace pilots literally stopped the Clan invasion dead for an entire year because she banzai'd her fighter into a Clan dropship and killed the ilKhan.
*'''Word of Blake''': An ultra-reactionary splinter faction of ComStar that got butthurt after ComStar ditched all the pseudo-religious bullshit. Broke away and launched an all-out jihad(''yes, they actually used that word'') on literally everyone shortly after the Federated Commonwealth Civil War came to an end. Made liberal use of weapons of mass destruction and rendered several entire planets uninhabitable. Fond of genocide, re-education camps, unstable technology, and mass murder. As a result, they were eventually crushed as a result of pissing off the entire fucking universe, but not before undoing a lot of the technological progress that had been made after the Clan Invasion (apparently by magic, as not only was that knowledge now universally available, but so were copies of the Helm Memory Core...and destroying some factories doesn’t make technology go away). Basically used by the publishers to reset the average technology level of the game due to a lot of players feeling it was advancing too far and getting away from the quasi-feudal feel of earlier editions (forgetting that quasi-feudalism is a governing method, the technology level has nothing to do with it). Ironically enough, their mechs were more streamlined and featured a lot more experimental technologies for people who would eventually blow the entire game setting back to the quasi-iron age. Officially, they were all supposedly killed after the Jihad for genocide. Recently hinted by a terminally ill Stone to still be around and responsible for the HPG network being taken out as a taunt against ilKhan Alaric before being killed off in bed.
*'''The Republic of The Sphere''': Established by an individual calling himself Devlin Stone, who mysteriously surfaced at some point during the Blakefag Jihad, and helped pull the galaxy out that colossal clusterfuck through a series of successful military campaigns. Upon the Jihad's defeat, Stone met with ComStar Precentor Martial Victor Ian Steiner-Davion and laid out a philosophy which Victor would privately describe as ''militant socialism keyed to altruism''; Officials and authorities would have their assets placed in a blind trust. Public service would be rewarded. Greed and corruption would be punished. All weapons would be placed under government control. [[Just As Planned|Surprisingly, it worked]], at least for a time, ushering in a new era of peace for the core worlds. However, after ruling as Exarch of the Republic for a while, Devlin Stone stepped down and shortly there after disappeared, vowing to [[Sigmar|return when he was needed most]]. It didn't take long before everything went to shit again and was plunged into chaos when the interstellar communication network was sabotaged. Was gangbanged by a combination of separatist factions, the Capellans, and Clan Jade Falcon before finally saying FUCK IT and retreating back to Terra. All while somehow using Word of Blake HPG disruption tech to prevent hyperspace jumps into their core territory. They also recently developed a taste for Tripod Mechs (which are the only modern Mech that can exceed Assault Mechs in terms of tonnage, firepower, and armor but at the cost of requiring an additional gunner and engineer onboard to shoot and monitor the machine's vitals) while also hybridizing Clan & IS technology (culminating with extremely powerful but unstable weapons). <strike>''You guys realize Stone is the [[Emperor]], right? Right?''</strike> None of this makes sense, of course, as the HPG network is not only extremely well and fanatically protected by actual fanatics, but also is so large it can’t really be sabotaged. Except by magically competent Deus ex Machina mooks, apparently. Friendly clans could also build their own for the Republic’s use. Except newly built HPGs also failed somehow. Black Boxes became advanced enough that HPGs were nearly pointless, though, making the whole “Dark Age” thing really...dumb. And if someone had the sense to build building-sized Black Boxes instead of briefcase-sized, the HPGs would have a perfect backup. But common sense in Battletech is [[heresy]] just like in any good universe. Besides that, the eyes on anyone with power to prevent corruption would stop factions from selling out the Republic and the senators would not have been able to sponsor military officers into becoming Paladins because that is extremely corrupt and would not have been allowed or tolerated. Even if such a plot succeeded, there would be no leverage for the senators to get those paladins to do what they wanted. And the Capellans are target practice, sudden separatism makes no sense when they were fine until this point under numerous oppressive regimes, and Clan Jade Falcon by itself would have been crushed and a team up of clans would have sent the whole Inner Sphere into a clan-killing frenzy panic mode. Come the latest novels in 2021, and the Republic and it's founder were reduced to a caricature of fall of the III Reich (complete with a senile leader giving contradictory orders and throwing their best units at the worst faction so the best faction can pick up the pieces). While many of their leaders and fighters survived, it's an open question of whether they cooperate with the ilClan or revolt later down the line.
* '''The Periphery''': The collection of non-successor states on the edges of the Inner Sphere. They were brought into the Star League by force and are still kinda sore about it, mostly because they nearly got blasted back to the Stone Age and never quite got their technology back up.
**'''Taurian Concordat''': A Periphery nation bordering the Federated Suns and Cappellan Confederation. Has an axe to grind against the Federated Suns and claims they’re much more dedicated to freedom and liberty than the Davions. Think the United States right after 9/11, all of the good and the bad, and you have a good idea of the culture. Just replace paranoia about Islam with paranoid about the Federated Suns, including the fact that the overwhelming majority of who they're paranoid couldn't given any less of a shit about them.
**'''Marian Hegemony''': A bandit kingdom bordering the Lyrans and Free Worlds League that decided to become the Roman Empire IN SPACE. A shadier version of the [[Severan Dominate]] from 40k.
**'''Magistracy of Canopus''': A hedonistic matriarchy bordering the Free Worlds League. A nation of cybernetic catgirls, whose largest export is pornography. No, really. We're serious. Well they're not all cybernetic catgirls but they're there if you want them, and pornography and the tourist industry makes up a large chunk of their economy. Also Medical research and technology, most likely to treat all the STDs you get from your vacation to Space Vegas. Also known for having a significant religious conservatives population as they have an open-door refugee policy.
**'''Outworlds Alliance''': A backwater state near the Federated Suns and Draconis Combine. Was the Periphery-est of the Periphery states until Clan Snow Raven moved in and formed the '''Raven Alliance'''.
**'''Hanseatic League''': A mercantile alliance of traders descended from Lyran refugees, they liked to pretend to be a neutral third party interested in trade of goods and information while also subjecting neighboring planets to debt trap diplomacy with armed merchant caravans. Also liked to play both sides against each other in any prolonged war among their neighbors to increase profits and soften them up for potential annexation (such as between Nueva Castille and the Umayyad Caliphate). Unfortunately, they were eventually conquered by Clan Goliath Scorpion (with help from their newfound Castilian and Umayyad citizens) and merged into their new Scorpion Empire some time in the Dark Age.
*'''Mercenary Review and Bonding Commission''': An independent group that certifies and provides force rankings for various mercenary groups. At least three Mech Warrior games are focused on the mercs as it allows writers more leeway and less chance to screw up the canon.
**'''Kell Hounds''': A merc company headed by Morgan Kell. His son Phelan was captured by Clan Wolf when the Clan Invasion first began, and by the end was running the Clan until it split. Took in Phelan and the Exiled Wolves afterwards. Generally, are tough but cool guys all around. Like the Exiled Wolves, they got a massive "kill on sight" target painted on their back after the omnicidal Jade Falcon Khan got annoyed with their feisty resistance against her campaign into Lyran Territory.
**'''Grey Death Legion''': Mercenary group who were famous for finding and distributing the Helm Core, which allowed the Inner Sphere to regain technology formerly lost during the Succession Wars. Generally an author's favorite in the books. Got destroyed during the Blake Jihad.
**'''Wolf's Dragoons''': A bunch of Clan Wolf advance scouts disguised as a mercenary group. Came to the Inner Sphere with a ton of mechs that the Clans considered outdated but hadn't been seen in the Successor States in centuries and were considered Lostech... Which should have tipped the Great Houses off that these guys might be bad juju. Instead of providing intel to the Clans for their invasion, Wolf's Dragoons pulled a fast one and tried to prepare the Inner Sphere for war with the Clans. They are generally pretty awesome guys, even if part of that awesomeness is because they get a ton of attention in the fluff due to the writers' obsession with anything related to Clan Wolf. They got screwed pretty badly during the Blake Jihad when the nutjobs assaulted Outreach. By Dark Age they are slowly recovering with help from the Kell Hounds. Recent novellas have the Wolves convince them to join them on Terra once it's conquered to prevent the genocidal Jade Falcons from becoming the IlClan. Unfortunately, latest novels also made them become meatshields used by the Wolf Khan to expend the Turquoise Turkeys' ammo supplies while being reduced to a fraction of their strength. Naturally, in a repeat of their history against Kurita, they [[Book of Grudges|swore]] an oath to stand against the Wolves permanently.

===[[The Clans]]===
Laughable strategic and logistical ability and basically have no plan when they do something. But God have mercy on you if they're coming your way. 'Cus you're '''''fucked'''''. Each clan is named after an animal, and yes those are the animal's full names.

* Clan Blood Spirit: The smallest clan. Noted for having the toughest training, favored Battle Armor, and had no official allies after starting off idealistic but then becoming jaded grudge-holders. :( Despite above comment, not ACTUALLY an animal, but named for the warrior spirit that united the forces under Kerensky.
* Clan Burrock: The only clan to support the Dark Caste. Liked picking on the Blood Spirits before they were absorbed by Clan Star Adder.
* Clan Cloud Cobra: The Religious types. Loved aerospace fighters and jump jets. Obsessed with collecting genetic bloodlines other clans don't want.
* Clan Coyote: Native Americans in Space. Also like to scheme too much for their own good. Known for creating a shit ton of tech (unlike [[Adeptus Mechanicus|some people]] on Mars...)
* Clan Diamond Shark: Used to be called Sea Fox until Snow Raven killed their namesake (with their current one) the only clan that views the merchant caste as equal to their warrior one. Later brought back the Sea Fox and changed their name back. The only clan to allow all castes to vote, making them arguably a genuinely democratic republic.
* Clan Fire Mandrill: The clan whose gimmick was to always have a few subfactions to foster internal competition. At first it was manageable and it improved the clan, but then the factionalism snowballed into more than 10 mini-subfactions which made the whole clan a laughing stock among the clans.
* Clan Ghost Bear: The only clan to be founded by a married couple, as a result they're the only clan to still have normal family units. Much more protective of its civilian caste than the others. Nearly devoured the Free Rashalague Republic in the Clan Invasion, then merged with what was left after the Jihad. Went full blown good old fashion Viking Berserker when the Jihad nuked their civilians, attacking friend and foe alike in pure grief fueled murderous rage. Awesome.
* Clan Goliath Scorpion: Stoners with rose-colored nostalgia glasses. Also noted for elite marksmanship and ambush tactics.
* Clan Hell's Horses: The only clan to think tanks are useful often uses combined arms tactics rather than just spamming mechs. They have a hot rod flames color scheme. Extremely heavily focused on teamwork. Including teamwork between castes and between the clan and its conquered worlds. Which has led to very good relations both internally and externally. Probably the only Clan other than the Star Adders that locals might actually support over a "liberating" Inner Sphere force. ''Maybe''.
* Clan <strike>Temper Tantrum</strike> Ice Hellion: Speed freaks with a big ego. Their Khan seems to bitch every time their forces lose, which is often.
* Clan Jade Falcon: The spotlight stealing clan second only to the Wolves, with whom they have a fierce rivalry. Slightly less evil than the Jaguars.
* Clan Mongoose: Basically a footnote in clan history. Extremely aggressive, tend to attack everyone near them. [[Fail|Got their asses kicked by everyone else before being absorbed.]]
* Clan Nova Cat: The spiritual types, they decide their policy with visions, which 9 times out of 10 ends badly for them. Some of the best marksmen in the clans, often competed with Clan Goliath Scorpion. Joined Smoke Jaguar in attacking the Draconis Combine, then sided with the Combine right after everyone decided the Jags had to go. Eventually got destroyed during the Dark Ages for backing the wrong Kuritan royal in a civil war.
* Clan <strike>Chimney Kitten</strike> Smoke Jaguar: Essentially super aggressive World Eaters trained to pilot mechs. Known to fuck shit up until their smaller numbers (due to infighting, shitting on their civilian castes and hating logistics) fucked them over in long campaign. Were eventually wiped out by the Inner Sphere counter-attack after they murdered an entire city from orbit. What goes around comes around. Recent ilClan lore had their descendants in the Fidelis sworn to the Wolf Khan in exchange for rebuilding their clan; [[What|despite]] their original [[Book of Grudges|hatred]] for letting the Second Star League annihilate them.
* Clan Snow Raven: The sinister & cunning space jockeys of the clans. Specialized in space combat and became BBFs with the Outworlds Alliance.
* Clan Spirit Cats: Offshoots of the Nova Cats after they were annihilated by the Combine.
* Clan Star Adder: Boring, but very, very practical, which benefited them a lot. They favor using assault mechs, and like to upgrade their lasers to heavy lasers. Living under them or as one of them is much more like real life. If you can do a job, you can have the job. Including a laborer wanting to be a warrior. Which ironically is the same approach that caused Clan Wolverine to be destroyed by Kerensky.
* Clan Steel Viper: Self righteous xenophobes who wanted to cooperate with the Inner Sphere but also treated freeborns like dirt, and then wondered why nobody liked them. Responsible for Clan genocide known as "The Wars of Reaving". [[Fail|Got genocided in return.]]
* Clan Widowmaker: The hyper-aggressive types. Their first Khan held a grudge against the Wolverines and framed them before being killed with support from Nicholas. Widowmaker later got annihilated for accidentally killing Nicky. What was left of it, however, <strike>gave birth</strike> (lies Clanners aren't born, they're grown) to the most dangerous MechWarrior ever, Natasha Kerensky.
* Clan Wolf: The spotlight stealing Clan, courtesy of it being Kerensky's personal clan. Split up into two factions following the Refusal War.
** Crusader Wolves: The guys who want to continue the invasion of Inner Sphere. Wound up migrating from their original invasion corridor to Lyran/Marik space & formed a new & dangerous upstart state called the '''Wolf Empire.''' Later <strike>[[Mary Sue|surprise surprise]]</strike>, won against the Republic and Jade Falcons on Terra to become the ilClan of the Third Star League [[FAIL|despite the other factions refusing to recognize them for now]] outside of the former Republic’s officials, Jade Falcons, & the Smoke Jaguars that are all a shadow of their strength. Naturally lost most of their forces to take the top prize.
** Warden Wolf-in-Exile: The guys who want to defend Inner Sphere against the rest of the clans, who they think are a mockery of Kerensky's teachings. Like the Kell Hounds, they got a massive "kill on sight" target painted on their back after the omnicidal Jade Falcon Khan got annoyed with their feisty resistance against her campaign into Lyran Territory. Somehow got convinced to rejoin the Crusaders Wolves in revenge against the Jade Falcons despite the story never addressing the Crusader-Warden divide on treating Inner Sphere nations as subjects to be conquered and ruled from above or charges to be protected and educated from partnership. The “official” motive of seeking payback against the Jade Falcons for razing their civilian population centers and killing their cadet academies can only go so far until the Green Chickens got defeated.
* <strike>Clan Wolverine</strike> Not-Named Clan: Aggressive and independent minded, these guys pissed off Nicky to such extent that they were annihilated after the vengeful Widowmaker Khan framed them of detonating a nuke on civilians after the Wolverines seceded from the Clans. Some survivors were able to flee as the '''Minnesota Tribe''' but they've been never heard from publicly since (though there are hints that they're around in the Deep Periphery in some recent novels and short stories). [[What|There are many theories about them returning to Inner Sphere and taking over it as shadow masterminds in order to destroy the clans.]] Basically, they did the caste thing but thought "Hey, why not let people do what they're best at?" and that sort of thing. It pissed off crazy pants ilKhan Kerensky because this approach made them more successful than all the other clans, proving his method was actually not the best way.

===Wars of Reaving===
[[Advancing the Storyline|Fed up with having to write more stuff about clans nobody cares about]], a bunch of clans were wiped out after the Jihad, or driven out of clan territory. While the in-story explanation is that a butthurt ilKhan decided it was time to make a powerplay after not having won anything out of the Inner Sphere Invasion, everyone knows that there were several clans that had no discernable effect on the game.
*'''''Annihilated or Absorbed:'''''
**Blood Spirit: Got wiped out for using civilian militias which "isn't clan-like" and [[Bullshit|marked for annihilation for letting people fight for their homes.]] As well as using [[Planetary Defense Force|en-mass civilian militias]] to attack their enemies.
**Burrock: Tried to re-establish themselves after being absorbed, got defeated.
**Fire Mandrill: Too fractured to fight back effectively.
**Ice Hellion: [[Fail|Killed themselves by trying to steal Jade Falcon and Hell's Horses territory.]] The remaining survivors remained joined Goliath Scorpion.
**Steel Viper: Took over the Clan Homeworlds and gave everyone free reign to remove the “taint” of the Invader Clans by any means necessary. Forgot that they themselves were an Invader Clan.
**Nova Cat: Destroyed by the Draconis Combine for being on the losing side of a civil war.
*'''''Exiled or Abjured:''''' These clans were forced out of the Clan Homeworlds on the pretense of being "corrupted" by Inner Sphere influences. Some later formed the '''Council of Six Clans''', representing the clans that now exist in the Inner Sphere.
**Ghost Bears: Banished to the Inner Sphere and eventually founded the '''Rasalhague Dominion.''' Joined the Council.
**Goliath Scorpion: Ran away and conquered Nueva Castile(Spaniards vs. Arabs IN SPACE) in the Deep Periphery, forming '''Escorpion Imperio.''' By the eve of the Dark Age, they had also conquered their neighbors to the south, the Hanseatic League, and founded a new major Periphery power known as the '''Scorpion Empire''' that's second only to the Homeworld Clans as a military power.
**Hell's Horses: Stole some of Clan Wolf's territory in the Inner Sphere, and end up getting banished from the Clan Homeworlds. Developed a taste for experimenting with QuadVee Mechs (which can convert from a ground combat vehicle into a Quad Mech while also requiring a dedicated gunner). Joined the Council.
**Jade Falcon: Banished to the Inner Sphere and tried to conquer Terra but failed. Still rules the parts of the Inner Sphere they conquered during the Clan Invasion. Replaced the Smoke Jaguars as the most vicious clan under their latest Khan (who's willing to do anything to kill her enemies). Joined the Council. Later got most of their forces wiped out from omnicidal fighting against the Republic, Dragoons, and Wolves on Terra. Said genocidal Khan got killed off and replaced with a pragmatic reformer who agreed to follow the Wolf IlKhan in exchange for the Turquoise Turkeys becoming the IlKhan's body guards.
**Sea Fox/Diamond Shark: Ended up in what's left of the Free Worlds League. Split up into semi-independent merchant fleets and are now a collection of nomadic "Khanates" that sail the starlanes of the Inner Sphere. Joined the Council, but also joined the FWL as a member state. In the meantime, managed to bring the Sea Fox back from extinction, and changed back to their old name.
**Smoke Jaguar: Some of them showed up as super-secret Clanner loyalists called '''Fidelis''' to the Republic of the Sphere. More practical minded than their grandparents but just as likely to go [[rip and tear|berserk]] when fighting any clan warriors for their perceived betrayal. Still in the Fortress Republic. A scant few are found hiding in the Deep Periphery with the few warships that they still had. Later somehow let go of their grudge to pledge allegiance to the Wolve Khan in exchange for reforming their Clan under the IlKhan's protection.
**Snow Raven: Ran away and merged with the Outworlds Alliance in the Periphery, forming the '''Raven Alliance.''' Joined the Council.
**Spirit Cat: What's left of Nova Cats, allied with the Free Worlds League and formed an enclave in their territory.
**Wolf: Splintered into several factions. Basically conquered the central and coreward territories of Lyran Alliance under the '''Wolf Empire.''' Making the Steiners have a bigger headache, their Khan, Katrina Steiner's descendant, claimed the mantle of Archon through her bloodline. Wolves-in-Exile refuse to join and are doing their own thing. Clan Wolf-Alliance joined the Council. “Katrina Steiner’s descendant” is in fact a Trueborn Clanner that Katherine Steiner-Davion had made using both her own genetic material and Victor Steiner-Davion’s, because regular incest just wasn’t crazy enough for her. Later became IlKhan <strike>naturally</strike>.
*'''''Home Clans:''''' Theses clans still hold territory in the Clan Homeworlds and consider themselves "True Clans."
**Cloud Cobra: Still around.
**Coyote: Sneaky bastards. Got their hands on the genetic material of the last known descendant of House Cameron.
**Star Adder: TOP DOG. Their Khan was the one who stopped the psycho Steel Viper ilKhan by dint of beating his head inside out with the nearest handy blunt object.
**Stone Lions: Made from the Hell's Horses who were left in the Clan Homeworlds and didn't get exiled.

So basically there are now ten Clans: The six Spheroid Clans, and the four Home Clans. The rest are either dead, formed hybrid societies, or are even more minor than before and thus save the writers from some hard work in upcoming TROs.

==The Appeal of Battletech==
First and most obvious, giant stompy Battlemechs bristling with guns duking it out is cool. But despite that, Battletech is in general a more grounded and human setting. You don't have warp daemons, God Emperors, energy forces or psionic powers in Battletech or giant Space Cathedrals and machines that work better when people pray to them. Nor does it have artificial gravity, shields, sapient aliens, serious transhumanism, dyson spheres, general AI and other more wild science fiction ideas. While it does go into some suspense of belief in technology such as KF FTL drive and HPG FTL communications, most of the technology is still grounded within the realm of plausible belief. Society-wise, it doesn't go into the speculation on how civilization may come into conflict with divergent ideals or extraterrestrial life, instead you have human people like you and me struggling in a hostile universe where the most dangerous thing is often another human being under another flag. Not that the setting lacks for variety. The main factions are very well developed with their own distinct motivations, even if they do sometimes tend to lean into stereotypes too much. Battletech is for people who read [[Dune]] and find the idea of the Atreides, Harkonnens, Corinos and the other Great Houses of the Landsraad with their conflicts and their power plays to be far more interesting than what happened after Paul took over. Some others also consider it similar to a teen rated version of [[A Song of Ice and Fire|Game of Thrones]] in space (but with mechs and sci fi tactics in place of mythical creatures and gore).

Battletech is one of the more morally grey settings out there. Moreso than many Grimdark settings where it's a matter of nasty jerks vs literal demons. While there are a few factions which are better or worse than others on the whole (Magistracy of Canopus vs Clan Smoke Jaguar) all of the factions have their share of virtue and vice, heroes and villains. Good people can come up from the Nobility of the Federated Suns, Citizens of the Capellan Confederation or the Iron Wombs of The Clans, as can a lot real nasty bastards. In that regard, this is a rather tragic universe. In this universe nobody is corrupted by Chaos or seduced by the Dark Side. Instead humanity took to the stars and flourishes, only to be brought low by human leaders with human failings.

As far as Mecha design goes, Battletech designs run the gamut from box-on-legs (Awesome, Dragon, etc), to egg-on-legs (Catapult, Marauder, etc), through to very polished designs (which were mostly stolen from Japanese anime shows). Wrong, they hired a third party artist who sold his designs to them and the other guys. Some of the later work, post-FASA, could be quite smooth, to the point of organic looking. As such, BattleTech is a pastiche of various art styles and design philosophies, covering the range of reactions from "cool-but-impractical", to "eh, practical-and-possible", and well out into the area that will make your engineering professor have a mental fit.

==Mechanics==
[[Image:Group-Plastic-Miniatures.jpg|thumb|right|The standard use of hexmaps renders the purchase of miniatures optional, though miniatures rules for the game are available.]]
[[Image:Blankrecordsheet.jpg|thumb|right|Record sheets are one of ''BattleTechs''' greatest blessings and curses.]]
The basic mechanic is simple. Two six-sided dice are used, with a to-hit (Equal or greater to) system. Initiative is interlaced, with the loser moving first and the winner able to react. All weapons damage is technically done at the same time, and therefore who shoots first is insignificant, although the order in which weapons fire from any given unit resolves is important. Larger weapons can scrub off large quantities of ablative armor, while smaller multi-hit weapons stand a better chance of forcing critical hits once a location is damaged. If you get hit, you mark off the weapons damage rating from your armor. If the shot penetrates your armor, you roll potential criticals. Firing weapons and moving about generates heat, which you must keep down to keep your 'Mech working properly.

Unlike games such as ''[[Warhammer]]'', where many units are either killed on the first shot or left unscathed, and little information is recorded, ''BattleTech'' uses record sheets to mark off each 'Mech's cumulative damage, ammunition, pilot status, and heat. Also, there are hit locations, so limbs can be blown off. The record sheets allow for effects that are more detailed, but this also increases the overall playtime. Although expert players can get through matches just as fast as players of other games of more or less equal size, new players often find that the game plays slowly. This is usually due to the time spent referencing hit-location tables, critical effects, etc. For new players, 2V2 matches are best, with 4V4 matches being the "cap", in order to have games that do not take excessively long. More experienced players can run games of 12v12 or larger in an afternoon, though these will often be multi-player games in which each ''player'' controls only a handful of 'Mechs.

One of the biggest appeals of ''BattleTech'' is that all of its units are made with a predefined set of rules. Custom designs are fully possible, though they are not likely to be welcome in tournament matches or pick-up games.

''BattleTech'' uses a build system based on 'Mech tonnage. You start with a Chassis limit, from 20-100 tons. You then determine engine size based on how fast you want your 'Mech to be (how many hexes you want it to be able to move per turn) you then allocate the remaining tonnage to control systems, weapons, ammo and armor. This method varies slightly depending on the technology of the chassis, but not overmuch. Though the system has recently been removed, there were previously three levels of technology.

'''Level 1''' (Now called "Introductory Tech") referred to early-era gameplay. Only the more rudimentary weapons and technologies are available, though the critical rules remain the same. This is the preferred level at which to learn, and is synonymous with the equipment available during the Succession Wars era. It is also the level of play made possible with starter boxes.

'''Level 2''' was Tournament-level gameplay. This introduced new equipment and electronics, as well as Clan technology (A more technologically advanced, but militant people). Though the rules are generally the same as those in level 1 gameplay, more-complicated equipment such as ECM, anti-missile systems, cluster munitions, etc. were better suited to more experienced players. It is the level of play made possible with separately-purchased rulebooks. Note that as the in-universe timeline advances, some more-advanced technology is designated "tournament-level", and several items that were Level 3 before the switch are also now "Tournament-Level".

'''Level 3''' referred to all advanced gameplay and equipment, including specialized gear from Historical manuals and the ''Solaris VII'' boxed sets/adventures. This has since been split out into "advanced", "experimental", and "era-specific" technology. This also included all equipment that was not listed in the core rulebooks. More complex rules were inserted in order to increase the realism and flexibility of the game. These include new weapons, new or altered terrain rules, artillery, alternate rules for major mechanics such as line-of-sight, etc. Though Level 3 rules included "prototype" equipment not printed in the core rulebooks, the standard rulebook in regards to Level 3 play was called ''Maxtech''. This has now been replaced by the Catalyst Games release of ''Tactical Operations'' and its sequels.

'''Advanced''' technology (not to be confused with "advanced rules" is covered largely in ''Tactical Operations'', and may be common but incorporates additional rules or restrictions that make it difficult to use without preparation.

'''Experimental''' tech is not mass-produced in-universe. The items are used in one-offs, prototype designs, and other weirdness. The ''Experimental Technical Readout'' series showcases this tech level, and most of the rules are in ''Tactical Operations'' or ''Strategic Operations''.

'''Era-specific''' technology incorporates advancements that were later abandoned in-verse. Usually these items were displaced by a superior version of the same technology, although there are some like the Listen-Kill missiles (which exploited a weakness in standard ECM protocols, later patched out) which are simply active for a few years and then abandoned once changing circumstances make them ineffective. Era-specific tech is the province of Historical sourcebooks, the ''Interstellar Operations'' rulebook, and a few campaign books.

==Spinoff Games==
Due to its popularity through the late 80s and early 90s, ''BattleTech'' spawned a multitude of spinoffs and expansion games.

'''[[Lost Worlds]]''' dueling books. NOVA adapted their melee dueling system to make four books for Battletech mecha. Each book has the opponent's view of the mech on each page, and a character sheet listing possible maneuvers. Since it used the same system as the rest of their books, you could have "20-ton Locust vs. skeleton with scimitar" duels.

'''Mechwarrior''' was a traditional pen-and-paper RPG set in the Battletech universe, using a ruleset similar to FASA's other hit RPG [[Shadowrun]]. It got second(1991) and third(1999) editions, then was later rebooted by Fanpro and Catalyst Games under the respective titles ''Classic Battletech RPG'' and '''Battletech: A Time of War''', likely to avoid conflation with WhizKids' ''Mechwarrior: Dark Age''. Also because by then the "Mechwarrior" title was fully associated with the video games.

'''AeroTech''' and '''BattleSpace''' were both games featuring Aerospace Fighters and DropShips/WarShips respectively, fighting in orbit before any of the action in the BattleTech game itself could begin. Both games eventually got absorbed into BattleTech's rules in the ''Total Warfare'' edition.

'''Battletroops''' was an infantry-scale game about the PBI who fight it out it in the shadow of Battlemechs. It later gained ''Clantroops'', an expansion pack that incorporated clan equipment as well as Battle Armor on both sides, but the game did not sell as well and the rules have since been abandoned.

'''Battleforce''' was a revision of '''BattleTech''', made in recognition of the fact that large-scale combat could not be effectively played out using the current system. Battleforce simplified each 'mech into a simple set of numbers, so that they could be clustered into units and fight over a much larger area. Battleforce 2, released about a decade later, also introduced planetary invasion maps and rules to go along with them. Although the maps are available in Map Compilation 2, the rules will be reprinted in the ''Strategic Operations'' and ''Interstellar Operations'' sourcebooks.

The '''Solaris VII Boxed set''' was made to simulate the fast-paced gladiatorial combat on the game's world of Solaris VII. It included new rules, new maps with special rules, new mechs, and supplements for roleplaying. Little known fact: some of the designs used in the original Solaris VII set were redesigns of the ''BattleTech'' 'mechs which were themselves copies of Japanese mechs! When the product tried to sell in Japan, half of the designs were already copyrighted by other well known anime companies, and the in-house designs were simply not "Japanese" enough for their tastes. Though the product itself flopped, its maps were reprinted and rereleased in 2004, as well as a complimentary up-to-date rulebook. Rules have since been standardized to match those of ''Classic Battletech'', but "Special Map rules" have been included.

The '''BattleTech Collectible Cardgame''' was produced by Wizards of the Coast in 1996, and ran until 1998. Though its popularity had begun to wane after the first core set, the release of the Pokemon card game was the nail in the coffin. The Battletech CCG hosted some very impressive artwork, though the game favored swarm-decks filled with plenty of weak, cheap 'mechs, and it's non-"Creature" cards were too weak to have an effective deck based around them. After five editions (''Battletech Limited''/''Unlimited'', ''Counterstrike'', ''Mercenaries'', ''Mechwarrior'', ''Arsenal'') Battletech CCG came out with ''Commander's Edition'', which picked some of the best cards of the last few editions (though it abandoned or revised some cards for inaccuracies or "brokenness") It had one final expansion, Crusade, which introduced the Steel Viper clan, though there were some prior cards that did reference the clan.

In July, 2013, Catalyst Game Labs released '''Alpha Strike''', a miniatures combat ruleset designed specifically to appeal to fans of Warhammer and Flames of War. It combined BattleForce statistics with improved miniatures rules. It's generally scoffed at by grognards but the only feasible way to play a regiment-sized battle in less than one lifetime.

==Video Games==
'''Official Games'''
* Crescent Hawk's Inception (Infocom, 1988)
* MechWarrior (Activision, 1989)
* Crescent Hawks' Revenge (Infocom, 1990)

* MechWarrior II (Activision, 1995)
* MechWarrior II: Mercernaries (Activision 1995)
** MechCommander (FASA, 1998)
* MechWarrior III (Microprose, 1999)
* MechWarrior IV: Vengeance (FASA/Microsoft, 2000), Black Knight (Microsoft, 2001), Mercenaries (Microsoft, 2002)
** These games had two expansions that gave more mechs, the Inner Sphere Mech Pack and Clan Mech Pack.
** MekTek released a legal port of Mercenaries, with both Mech Packs, new mechs, and battlesuits all inside, plus multiplayer support. Grab it from ModDB, abandonware sites, or your tracker of choice.
* Mechassault 1 (Day 1/Microsoft, 2002 for Xbox)
* Mechassault 2: Lone Wolf (Day 1/Microsoft, 2004 for Xbox)
* MechCommander II (FASA/Microsoft, 2001. The full game is offered by Microsoft for free [http://www.microsoft.com/en-ph/download/details.aspx?id=11457 here].)
* MechWarrior Online MMO (Smith & Tinker/Piranha Games, A F2P game first released on 2012 and currently out as a full product on Steam.)
* MechWarrior Tactical Command (Personae Studios, 2012?, [[Fail|for iPhone/iPad]]. After some uncertainty, MTC was fully released in the iTunes store. Too bad it sucks.)
* BattleTech (Harebrained Schemes, 2018) - funded through Kickstarter and headed up by Jordan Weisman)
** Turn-based strategy game, similar to the original tabletop game. Takes place during the Succession Wars, in a formerly empty area of the Periphery.
*MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries: (Piranha Games, 2019). Also takes place during the Succession Wars. Because nobody wants to take the time to portray the cluster fuck that is the Blake Jihad properly.

'''Unlicensed Games'''
* [http://www.mechlivinglegends.net Mechwarrior Living Legends] (Wandering Samurai/Clan Jade Wolf, 2011)

'''The following are free, homemade versions of Battletech:'''
* MechWar v1.12 (MS-DOS)
* [http://megamek.info/ MegaMek] (Java)
* BTMUX - ASCII-only MMO (anyone old enough to remember what a MUD is?) (any OS) You could play it in pure ASCII, or get [http://bt-thud.sourceforge.net/thud/ a graphical helper] Most of the existing ones are gone, but [http://frontiermux.com/news.php FrontierMUX] seems to still be alive.
* <strike>[http://neveron.com/ Neveron] (web-based mmo)</strike> [Taken offline on July 31st 2014]
* [http://www.titansofsteel.de/ Titans of Steel] (MS-Windows)

==Current State==
[[File:Never give up.jpg|thumb|right|250px|Little Urbie, the greatest of us all.]]
In 1998, the U.S. release of ''Pokemon'' for the Gameboy, and the subsequent cartoon and cardgame, had a damaging effect on the tabletop games market. Comic book stores which had previously stocked tabletop RPGs, wargames, and collectible card games found that they could turn a better profit by stocking more ''Pokemon'' goods and cutting out the weaker-selling products. Only a handful of better-selling tabletop games, such as products by Games Workshop and the ''Dungeons & Dragons'' games, were able to remain. In 2001, FASA ceased operations, and many fans of the ''BattleTech'' series began to look for other games. ''BattleTech'' was purchased by [[Wizkids]], who tried to soft-reboot the game as a Clix-style game with the tile '''Mechwarrior: Dark Age''', jumping the timeline to nearly a hundred years after the Clan Invasion, focusing the story to a much smaller area around Earth, and using almost entirely all-new factions. The fans were less than amused, so [[FanPro]] got the rights to continue releasing content for the original game under the moniker ''Classic Battletech''. Despite still having products released for it, ''Classic'' was often put on the back burner, as Wizkids showed preference to their clix-games. As WhizKids; game floundered, Battletech was later taken over by [[Catalyst Game Labs]], who dropped the "Classic" and released a new boxed set (6th edition) based on the newly revised core rules(also rewinding back to the original time period and working their way back up to the Dark Age era, but keeping the entire Inner Sphere in the picture). This boxed set, once again, contains plastic miniatures. Though the plastic miniatures (When compared to plastic miniatures produced by other companies) are decidedly low-quality, they are more than sufficient as playing-pieces for new players who are experimenting with the product. In making low-grade miniatures for the box set, the overall price tag remained low, while giving players something more tangible than a cardboard cutout. The game is beginning to gain popularity once again, despite the dropping popularity of tabletop games in general. In 2014 Catalyst Games released an updated box set with higher quality miniatures for the same price.

As of 2017, Catalyst have announced two new starter boxed sets. One is significantly lower-priced and features two 'Mechs with a new map (the first since FASA shut its doors). The second has two new maps, die-cut terrain (to drop onto the maps), and a reduced mini selection with all-new sculpts - designed by an ascended fa/tg/uy. These boxed sets were made available for purchase in 2019.

In July 2019, Catalyst decided to get off their asses and actually did something: They started a Clan Invasion Kickstarter that would hopefully bring the franchise back to life, promising over 100+ new designs for classic mechs, a box set and a boatload of new maps and merch. It surpassed their funding goal in 7 MINUTES and is currently running off of $2.8 MILLION in funding and is expecting to start shipping <strike>March of 2020</strike> delayed till July 2020. Also [[UrbanMech]] PLUSHIE! Catalyst is now currently relying on fan goodwill and revamped merchandise from kickstarting fundraiser campaigns to keep the IP steaming along but lore development has been of mixed reception depending on who you ask.

===MechWarrior Online===
[http://mwomercs.com/ Mechwarrior Online] has already been officially launched. Even though the launch itself was fairly lackluster, with no new features compared to the past few months of open beta, the game is in a somewhat average state of balance and gameplay, and the feel of piloting a BattleMech was translated faithfully - mixed in with rage about hundred-to-thousand dollar preorder packs for Clan mechs (not fucking kidding) and rage over various mechanics, such as knockdown, heat buildup, and LRM spam. Back in October 2014 PGI, after ousting their publisher and striking out on their own a few months back, has been making notable progress in advancing the game and interacting with the player base, albeit not without handling neckbeard rage poorly. Despite garnering some good will from the community after ridding themselves of their publisher, PGI has been doing their best to waste the Mechwarrior license and drive off good chunks of the player base with fairly unchanged gameplay, constant sales, and the fact it’s run for about seven years, now.

===Battletech 2018===
Harebrained Schemes announced their return to Kickstarter in fall 2015 in order to fund [http://battletechgame.com/ Battletech], a turn based tactics game featuring RPG mechanics for Mechs and MechWarriors. As of this writing the game has been fully funded and reached several stretch goals. In fact, the game's been released in April 2018. Battletech is a turn-based strategy game, more faithful to the board game than the mech-sims the series is known for on the vidya circuit. Think the new XCOM games, but with mechs.

The game started out with a boatload of bugs (which isn't really surprising for an indie kickstarter), but the devs handled the problem quickly. Soon after it was announced that HBS was bought out by their release partner Paradox Interactive, the current big dog for quality strategy games. As expected of a Paradox game, this was followed up by a number of overpriced DLCs to the point that the season pass costs more than the actual game! That said, the second to last free update (1.8) added 2 new excellent mechs, maps, missions, modding support and quality of life changes, while the last free update (1.9) added several SLDF Royal Mech Variants with more polish to the built in mod launcher, so not all money grabbing and bad. Update 1.9 is the last major content drop, with no further patches or updates planned as Harebrained Schemes is moving on to new projects. If you really want it wait for a Steam sale when the Mercenary Collection drops to around $30 USD for the base game and all DLC.

Several fan-made mod packs (notably [https://www.nexusmods.com/battletech/mods/79/ RogueTech] and [https://www.nexusmods.com/battletech/mods/452/ BattleTech Advanced 3062]) have been produced which significantly extend the life of the vanilla game. These mods introduce many new factions, dozens of new 'Mechs and tanks, hundreds of new pieces of 'Mech equipment, a far larger star-map sandbox to play in, and far more depth to the 'Mech customization system as well as many quality of life changes. RogueTech in particular attempts to bring the game more in line with the tabletop experience and offers a much higher degree of gameplay complexity compared to vanilla Battletech.


===Mercenaries 5===
After almost two decades since the last proper Mechwarrior game in the franchise (MechAssault doesn't count), we're finally getting an honest-to-gods story-based mechpilot sim game like the days of yore. Piranha Games, the company responsible for MWO, is also creating [https://mw5mercs.com/ Mercenaries 5], and is so far looking like a faithful re-creation of the classic Mechwarrior pilot sim games of the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Game's out, and it's shit! Well, mediocre. Graphics snobs say the game looks horrid, suspecting they ripped assets full sale from MWO. But the main issue is repeating the same missions over and over again including in story missions themselves. There is no hand crafted missions like previous games even in its narrative missions and has a very weak plot, along with a well known issue where enemies spawn right on top of your team. Friendly AI at least got the artificial part right and there's no PVP. The devs have stated that they are working on the issues but little progress has been made at the time of writing.

[Update 01/22/2020] Mod support has been added and some of the previously stated problems have been addressed (sort of). Either way, it's a fun giant-stompy-robots-with-lasers game. Campaign missions are still lackluster and repeating the same missions over and over is bound to get a little stale. But hopefully modders will take over (like they always do).

==The Tetatae (Skub Tribal Jungle Chickens)==

There is only 1 known sapient Xenos race in the BattleTech setting. The Tetatae are tribal bird people armed with spears who inhabit a Jungle World.

==External links==
*[http://megamek.sf.net Play through the tubes with MegaMek]
*[http://www.sarna.net Battletech Wiki that holds much information about the universe]
*[http://bgb.booru.org/index.php Blue Gunner Booru, a /btg/-maintained taggable gallery of BT and related art. Perpetually in-progress.]
[[Category:Wargames]][[Category:Skirmish-Level Wargames]][[Category:BattleTech]]

==Gallery==
<center>
<gallery>
File:Glorious_3d_Terrain.JPG|Glorious 3d terrain
File:More_Glorious_3d_Terrain.JPG|More glorious 3d terrain
File:Infantry_Strike_From_Behind_As_The_Kuritian_Lance_Takes_On_4_Steiner_Mechs_And_6_Tanks.JPG|Infantry strike from behind as the Kuritan lance takes on 4 Steiner mechs and 6 tanks
File:Kuritians_Advancing.JPG|Kuritans advancing
File:Surrounded.JPG|Kick party
File:Eridani_Light_Horses_MechWarrior.png|Bad mofo
File:You're_awesome.jpg
File:Dougram_and_shadowhawk_comparison.png|The original anime mecha Dougram (left) compared to the original "unseen" Shadowhawk (center) and the modern Shadowhawk (right), a robot so badass it transcends cultures and 4chan boards
</gallery>
</center>

==Factions Portal==
{{Battletech Factions}}
[[Category: BattleTech]]

==/tg/ Battletech Creations==
*[[Velatine Federal Republic]]
*[[/tg/ Homebrew Mech Designs]]
*[[Sunbats mercenary company]]
*[[/btg/ Harebrained Battalion II]]

BattleTech

2021-08-26T16:08:38Z

2607:FB90:6E65:FB2D:A474:601A:91B6:7F9A: /* Warfare in the Thirty-first Century */

{{awesome}}
[[Image:NEW-BT-LOGOFLAT.png|NEW-BT-LOGOFLAT.png|center]]
{{Game Infobox
|name = BattleTech
|picture = [[Image:NEW-BT-LOGOFLAT.png|200px]]
|type = [[Wargame]]
|publisher = [[Catalyst Game Labs]]
|playno = Trillions
|year = 1984
|books = Total Warfare or The BattleMech Manual
}}
{{topquote|It is the 31st century, a time of endless wars that rage across human-occupied space. As star empires clash, these epic wars are won and lost by BattleMechs, 23-56 foot tall humanoid metal titans bristling with lasers, autocannons and dozens of other lethal weapons; enough firepower to level entire city blocks. Your elite force of MechWarriors drives these juggernauts into battle, proudly holding your faction's flag high, intent on expanding the power and glory of your realm. At their beck and call are the support units of armored vehicles, power armored infantry, aerospace fighters and more, wielded by a MechWarrior's skillful command to aid him in ultimate victory. Will they become legends, or forgotten casualties? Only your skill and luck will determine their fate!|Product promotional tagline}}

'''Battletech''', or '''MechWarrior''' as most of the non-neckbearded populace know it, is a tabletop wargame about armies of giant robots fighting one another for honor, money, and territory in a far-distant feudal future. Think [[Star Wars]] AT-STs, or [[Warhammer 40,000]]'s [[Imperial Knight|Imperial Knights]] (Games Workshop decided they liked Battlemechs too). It’s also perhaps the most realistic example of walker warfare. Using their size to mount sufficient energy generation and armor that they are fast enough, maneuverable enough, and armored enough that being a bullet magnet does not matter. Using their vertical build to mount numerous huge weapons that each would take up all the space on most tanks modern militaries would consider super-heavy. Usually operating in combined arms warfare and supported by tanks, hovercraft, aircraft, and infantry. Not sinking into the ground like its quicksand because dirt reaches maximum compression very quickly (and thus all anti-mech arguments are rendered invalid by combined arms, armor, power-plant, firepower, and actual science), and so on. The realism of the technology (if not the moronic House Lords and nonsensical events) is so great it could be a glimpse into the future. Y’know, before Bolos come along and replace everything.

==Holy Crap, Giant Robots Are Awesome==
[[Image:Batdroid.jpg|thumb|right|''Battledroids'', the first edition of the game, c. 1984. A ''literally''-textbook example on how to get sued nine different ways from Sunday.]]
In the early 1980s, [[Jordan Weisman]] was [[Weeaboo|fascinated]] by several Japanese [[anime]] involving giant robots, or "mecha." He was quoted as saying that he liked the designs and idea of giant robots fighting on the battlefield, but did not have a taste for the storylines that the Japanese wrote about them. In 1984, Weisman founded [[FASA]] and acquired the licenses to designs from several series, the most famous being ''Super Dimension Fortress Macross,'' though the largest portion came from ''Fang of the Sun Dougram'' and combined them to make Battletech.

The first edition of this game, called ''Battledroids'', was a hex-based boardgame played on a battlefield illustrated with various types of terrain. It came with two large plastic minis of featured mechs, imported from Japan. Initially, sales were mediocre as the sheer size of the mechs made them awkward in gameplay. Soon after the launch of ''Battledroids'' Lucasfilm filed a lawsuit against FASA for using the name "droids," which they had trademarked in 1978. Discretion being the better part of valor, FASA changed the name of the game to Battlemech in time for the second edition printing in 1986. This time, cardboard stand-ins replaced the plastic miniatures, and a tradition was born. To this day, Battletech can be played without purchasing any physical models and with any proxy you please.

Following the release of the second edition, fans of the game clamored for new miniatures. FASA obliged, rescaling their mechs for more convenient play and designing a host of in-house mechs to broaden variety and bridge the gap between the sleek Macross and crude Dougram designs. New models notwithstanding, the third edition, dubbed ''Battletech,'' was shipped with solely Macross- and Dougram-based minis. However, in 1995 [[That Guy|Harmony]] [[Rage|Gold]], an American localization company which had licensed the international distribution and toy rights to SDF Macross, issued a C&D against FASA for the use of all mecha designs from the Macross franchise. FASA ceased production of these miniatures, which were among the most popular designs in the franchise, and published a fourth edition of the game in 1996 again featuring cardboard tokens, which were all based on their own original mechs.

Before '''''Battletech''''', the mecha genre was seen as something that belonged mostly to the Japanese. With few exceptions (''Power Rangers'' and ''Star Wars'', and even then the Mechs from the former were reused footage from Japanese shows), the genre was almost entirely made up of anime productions imported from Japan. Battletech pioneered a new approach to mecha within the Western fandom, featuring mostly stories of pseudo-realistic wars fought by real soldiers rather than teenagers taking on forces of evil or single-handedly winning interplanetary wars, plots that dominated the few mecha series that were subbed by the dedicated VHS fansubbers of the day. More importantly, the physical limitations of the Battlemechs, unlike the limitations of tanks in, say, [[Warhammer 40,000]], are critical to the planning and strategy of outfitting mechs and using them on the tabletop.

===The Mechs===
{{topquote|"Shoot for his cockpit! [[Iron Hands|Kill the meat]], [[Adeptus Mechanicus|save the metal.]]"|Sergeant Robert "Deadeye" Unther (Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries - Training Tutorial)}}
BattleTech mechs function and are utilized more like tanks with legs than the super-agile flying mecha common in Japanese depictions. Mechs are deployed in formations of four or five, called lances in the Inner Sphere and stars in the Clans. They are able to operate in space, on planets with caustic atmospheres, underwater, and in a wide range of temperatures that would be lethal to unprotected humans. One of the biggest upsides of mechs as combat vehicles is their extreme efficiency-of-arms: an effectively limitless amount of time without requiring fuel due to their fusion reactors alongside hyper-efficient Myomer 'muscles' inside the Battlemech’s limbs that can carry more weapons and armor per-ton than any other combat platform in existence. The only things stopping a mech from being able to fight forever are ammunition, repairs, and allowing the pilot to rest. Even when a mech is destroyed, losing the pilot is a relatively rare occurrence thanks to very effective ejection systems. A destroyed mech chassis can also be salvaged and rebuilt to fight another day, good as new. In the early 3000s setting this means many mechs are often decades or even hundreds of years old, Ship of Theseus-style. Some mechs even have unique identities and/or affiliations with certain royal Houses or mercenary families. Also, as stated in the quote above, it's not uncommon for cash-strapped mercenaries, pirates, or even planetary militia to prioritize aiming for the cockpit and/or forcing Mechwarriors to eject from overheating/battle damage in order to claim the surviving Battlemech wreckage for salvage or as a spoil of war.

As far as locomotion styles, bipedal mechs are the most common, with the weapon systems mounted either in the torso compartments or on the arms. Quadrupedal mechs do exist but are relatively rare, they are slower than bipedal mechs and don't offer the same amount of weapon space for a given weight class and more legs (and more everything else) on a mech means, of course, greater expenses. Even rarer are tripod mechs, generally restricted to experimental super-heavy designs. Bipedal mechs can also grasp things in their hands (if they have them) like melee weapons or pesky tanks. Early versions of BattleTech feature mechs that could transform into fighter planes, but these were dropped relatively quickly in its life cycle due to copyright problems.

The main downside of mechs is their inability to efficiently manage heat buildup. Heat is generated by the fusion reactor, the environment, movement, and mostly as a result of firing weapons. Mechs mount multiple gigantic one-ton heatsink units to deal with this buildup, but it is a constant problem for pilots to manage. Mechs that feature a lot of energy-based weapons will generate especially high levels of heat, and therefore manage very poorly in extremely hot environments. Firing all the weapons of certain mech variants at once (the ''Nova'' mech is most infamous) can cause it to overheat to such an extent that the reactor core melts down before the heatsinks can shunt the heat out of the chassis, which is bad. Safety measures that shut down the entire mech when it reaches a certain temperature threshold are always installed, but since this usually happens in a combat situation, and thus leaves the mech defenseless, some pilots will intentionally disable the safeguards to take their chances. Depending on the technology level of a given game, more efficient heatsinks can be assigned to mechs that remove heat more quickly and allow hotter builds. The fluff also mentions some experimental heatsinks that changed the heat energy to light (<strike>???</strike>Actually plausible, we have been experimenting with this concept irl) but had the downside of making the mech look like a walking rave, as well as heatsinks that utilized caustic liquids to move heat faster but with a limited lifespan.

Weapons consist of three general categories: ballistic, energy, and missile. Each has its own strengths and weakness: ballistic weapons weigh more, require ammo, but do not generate much heat, energy weapons are the opposite, and missiles generate some heat/consume ammo but can be indirectly fired with targeting data from scouts. Outfitting a mech for the proper engagement is key to obtaining victory: mechs outfitted for mech-to-mech combat will generally mount only high-damage weapons with lower ammo counts and slower rates of fire, while mechs set for vehicle and infantry combat will mount weapons that fire quickly but do lower damage per shot. Likewise, mechs that do not expect steady resupply will mount more energy weapons so they are not beholden to ammo counts.

Mechs range between 20 to 100 tons in four weight classes, though a few experimental units lie outside these ranges. The weight classes are light (20-35), medium (40-55), heavy (60-75), and assault (80-100). Considering their size (23-56 feet), that's pretty light; the Maus (33 feet long and 11 feet high) mega-tank that Adolf Hitler demanded weighed 188 tons. (One possible explanation here is that the "tonnage" in a weight class isn't the weight of the mech, but rather the weight available to mount things on the chassis. So an Atlas assault mech has 100 tons of available space for reactor, life support, weapons, armor etc, explaining why various sub-types of a mech drop something and replace it with something else of equal weight. A Flea light mech has 20 tons). Rarer still are super heavy mechs (with weights between 110 to 200 tons). While they are walking fortresses that put even Assault Mechs to shame, they tend to be ridiculously expensive, extremely slow, have issues with supporting that weight, are vulnerable to attacks from swarms of smaller enemies like tanks, and have difficulty installing reactors with sufficient power. Top sustainable speeds of mechs vary from 32.4 kph (20 mph) for the assault ''Annihilator'' to 162 kph (101 mph) for the light ''Firemoth'' scout. Keep in mind that the American M1A1 Abrams tank has a top speed of 72 kph (45 mph) on a paved road and much less crossing difficult terrain. Mechs can also be mounted with rechargeable jump jets that give them the ability to hop across the battlefield or up/down terrain. According to varying fluff depictions, mechs are even able to climb up/down cliff walls and perform flying dropkicks to enemy cockpits, which is awesome.

Depending on where in the timeline the specific game takes place (this is a player choice), there will be two possible classes of mechs: Battlemechs and Omnimechs. Battlemechs are the older style, with a set number of variants that cannot be changed in the field. This style was universal in the Inner Sphere before the arrival of the Clans. Omnimechs, a Clan invention, feature a modular construction style and a snap-on software integration which gives them the freedom of changing loadouts quickly. For example, a ''Dragon'' Battlemech comes in a default configuration consisting of one LRM-10, one Autocannon/5, and two medium lasers. The 1C variant replaces the Autocannon/5 with an Autocannon/2 and more armor, while the 5N upgrades the Autocannon/5 to an Ultra Autocannon/5. A pilot must use one of these variants and is incapable of changing the loadout without serious hours-long reworking of the mech's internals in a Mech maintenance facility. Conversely, a ''Mad Dog'' Omnimech comes with a default configuration of two LRM-20s, two medium pulse lasers, and two large pulse lasers. A pilot is able to modify this loadout as they see fit within less than an hour with a technical team, say dropping the two medium pulse lasers for more missile ammo/armor or changing the LRMs to SRMs for short-range engagements.

Like most Western sci-fi series, Battlemechs are somewhat inspired by real theoretical technologies; their weapons range from machine guns (albeit very big ones) and missiles, to coilguns and particle accelerators. The biggest leaps from reality (aside from FTL travel and communications) are the fusion reactor, (a technology still only theoretically possible,) the neurohelmet, (which interfaces with the pilot's brain and keeps the mech upright based on the pilot's own sense of balance,) and the massive muscle-like Myomer fibers that actually allow the mech to move upon being exposed to electrical current.

While Battlemechs dominate the battlefields of Battletech, armored vehicles still have a place. Most of the time, tanks, hovercraft, and APCs are used where mechs would be too expensive (or too advanced) to maintain, or in roles where a mech would be ineffective. This means that, in addition to Battlemechs, one can find infantry, vehicles, aerial vehicles, naval vehicles, and spaceships. It is worth noting that vehicles can be a real threat to Battlemechs in great enough numbers, since they mount the same weapons as mechs. Some tanks can also push the 100-ton limit and sport the gigantic weaponry usually mounted on an Assault mech chassis. In other words, where mechs are [[Space Marines]], the vehicles are more akin to [[Eldar]] Aspects.

Mechs in BattleTech fiction also have a curious tendency to go up in a mini nuclear explosion when their reactor core is breached by weapon fire. Mushroom clouds, explosions, heat, radiation, the whole bit. This has been nicknamed "stackpoling" after BattleTech novel author Michael Stackpole, who includes at least one of these events in each novel he writes. If the reactor was actually breached, what should happen is a meltdown of the reactor (and probably some chunks of the surrounding mech) that quickly burns out because the reactor can't maintain the fusion reaction without proper containment. Reactors are generally incapable of generating an actual nuclear explosion: real-world reactor "explosions" are usually a result of the coolant flash-overheating and generating a pressure-based steam explosion that destroys the reactor building. Lingering radiation would still be a problem of course, but that is usually handwaved away in BattleTech fluff or not mentioned at all.

To get into the actual science of this, a hypothetical fusion reactor wouldn't produce that many radioactive substances. And what few they do would be relatively short lived and would be weak beta emitters. The most likely substance would be Tritium, which is where the stereotypical glow in the dark green radiation comes from. The Mech would glow in the dark but a decent decontamination process would render it mostly harmless. In other words, the stories are right for the wrong reasons.

==Warfare in the Thirty-first Century==

When somebody decides to attack another world, they load up their 'Mechs (and tanks, and infantry, etc...) onto massive shuttles called DropShips. These boost off into space and link up with Jumpships, semi-mobile Space-Fold drives sitting a ways out into the star's system (due to the limits of BattleTech FTL, Jumpships can't get any closer to a system's star than a radius roughly around the orbit of Saturn in the Sol System. For simplicity's sake, most Jumpships move to the zenith or nadir points directly "above" or "below" the star's orbital plane). The Dropships latch onto the Jumpships, which make a series of jumps from star to star until they reach the target system.

Compared to some sci-fi franchises such as Star Wars or Star Trek, aerospace combat between ships isn’t really that common for several reasons. For one, KF Drive used to propel Jumpships (which are about the size of Manhattan and can’t land on a planet) makes up 95% of its mass and leaves little room for anything else besides Dropship docking ports, crew quarters, and the charging Jumpsail. And while Warships do exist with drives half the size as their civilian models, they’re more than five times more expensive to build and are prioritized for only strategically vital missions like real-life Dreadnoughts. In that regard, Battletech’ Jumpships are closer to Dune’s massive but ungainly Heighliners than Star War’s Star Destroyers. As a result, most aerospace combat is dominated by armed Dropships or aerospace fighters.

Once they reach the target, the Dropships detach from the Jumpships and burn deeper into the system towards the planet. Now Jumpships aren't stealthy, so anyone on the target planet likely detected their entrance into the system, and it typically takes Dropships seven days (varies dramatically for each star system) to reach the planet. Surprise attacks are nearly impossible, and defenders will have up to a week to get ready (some clever or smart people try to shave time by trying to match the target world's orbit with a nonstandard point closer to the planet, or even rare "Pirate" points caused by gravity interactions between celestial bodies, but even this usually gives defenders at least a day to prepare). Of course, these aren’t actually rare and we have quite a number of them around Earth, the moon, and every other celestial body including the sun. So close that by BattleTech standards it would take probably just a few minutes to reach the Earth from one of its own null gravity points. Seeing as their dropships can reach Sol's top or bottom null-G in just a few days. But everyone knows artists (writers especially) rarely bother doing any research.

As the invading force reaches planetary orbit, the defenders will usually try to intercept them with their own defensive ships, usually Dropships, Shuttles, and Aerospace Fighters, and the Attackers will launch fighters of their own. Space battle will begin in earnest as the defenders try to keep the enemy from landing on world at all (FASA originally had two separate games, Aerotech and Battlespace, that dealt with this stage of combat, but current BattleTech rules incorporate Aerospace combat for those who prefer it or want the full Theater of War experience).

If the Attackers can break through orbit, they can choose their landing site (usually near the target of course). The enemy will deploy to stop them and battle begins in earnest.

==Fluff==
[[File:Mad_Cat.jpg|300px|thumb|right|The [[Timber Wolf]] (Mad Cat if you're <s>Inner Sphere</s> <s>Freebirth Scum</s> Degrazi), one of the most iconic BattleMechs in the series.]]
{{topquote|''A thousand horrid Prodigies foretold it.
A feeble government, eluded Laws,
A factious Populace, luxurious Nobles,
And all the maladies of stinking states.''|Dr. Samuel "What The Fuck Am I Reading" Johnson}}
Much like [[Games Workshop|Warhammer]], the Battletech franchise has an extensive expanded universe. Dozens of books, numerous spinoff games, video games in multiple genres, and even an animated cartoon have delved into the setting and created an entertaining, if convoluted, history that has real influences on how the game is played. Unlike Warhammer, there are no [[Xenos]] (outside of some cavemen-like species), so humans get all the glory (and blame).

===History of the Inner Sphere===
After a period of typical [[Cold War]]-era speculative history: in details, the Soviet leadership is inherited by a fictional hardliner in the 80s and the Union survives until the 2010s where it splits in the Second Soviet Civil War (this was retconned in as the game was made when the USSR hadn't collapsed yet). The appointment of a hardliner leads to NATO reforming into the Western Alliance along with the proto-EU. The Western Alliance helps the split post-Soviet Eurasian states, is joined by China and other Asian countries after a brief crisis and eventually mankind was mostly united under the Western Alliance, having renamed itself to the Terran Alliance and discovered how to travel faster-than-light by opening up artificial wormholes. By 2235, most of mankind's interstellar colonies threw off the yoke of the Alliance and formed their own stellar nation-states. What followed was a period of war and chaos which led to the rise of the "'''Great Houses'''," feudal dynasties of powerful families adhering to various pseudo-historical ideals (like Kurita's Japan fetishism, specifically the most evil aspects of WWII Japan and every other Asian countries' worst parts of their histories up to eleven) competing for total dominance of mankind. However Terra, as Earth became known after its Latin name, remained the most technologically-advanced star nation, and remained unconquered by the competing Great Houses who turned their focus on one another instead. This is one of the reasons for the severe technological stagnation that is a hallmark of the Battletech universe. After all, any idiot knows that destroying a factory or all of a certain factory production and all such factories means the knowledge of how to build their products magically disappears and the knowledge of how to build those factories poofed away the moment they were built anyway as that is the only explanation conceivable for why destroyed factories were not simply replaced and why the knowledge disappeared from every paper, computer, and mind. Obviously space magic is to blame...or exceptionally short-sighted writers.

To be clear, the given reason for how the neo-feudalism came about was due to oppression. Yet other than the Federated Suns good bois and to an extent the Lyran Commonwealth, most other nations don't have the same problems that destroyed the Alliance despite being oppressive. Super oppressive. Which begs one to question how the Hell the Outer Reaches Rebellion happened. And it still doesn't explain how the neo-feudalism came about as it would make much more sense to have administrators managing regions of space instead of giving someone the level of authority an ancient noble would have had. Perhaps it began the same way some monarchies are known to have: lords (or whatever name for a rose you want to use) being basically miniature kings of their areas who united and elected a royal dynasty from among their number.

In 2349, the Terran Hegemony introduced the first Battlemech, the 100-ton ''Mackie'', and the face of war changed forever.

===Mechs Just Got Real===
The introduction of the ''Mackie'' shifted the focus of military development away from interstellar Warships back to ground forces. The Terran Hegemony was able to prove that the 100-ton Battlemech was far superior to conventional ground vehicles (interestingly, the Terran Hegemony's main battle tank was <s>the Israeli Merkava</s> named Merkava but utterly unrelated to the Israeli tank of the same name), allowing a single man to destroy formations of opposing non-Mechs. Of course, the rest of the Inner Sphere wanted the same capability, and in 2355 the plans for the Battlemech were stolen (as usual, the writers don’t realize that stealing a design is pointless if you don’t know how to build all the parts...like myomer). The Age of the Battlemech had begun.

During the next hundred years, as the Great Houses vied for supremacy and founded the nucleus of the future Successor States, the Terran Hegemony was able to exert great influence as the most technologically-advanced and neutral of the great powers. This would lead to the creation of the '''''Star League''''' in 2571, a grand union of all of humanity's interstellar nations. While ostensibly created for the purpose of uniting mankind and keeping the peace between the stars, it was also a massive power play by Terra to secure the raw materials it needed to maintain its technological edge and once more bring mankind under Terra's dominion. In keeping with the feudal society that now dominated mankind's worlds, the position of First Lord of the Star League was invested in Terra's ruling House, the Cameron dynasty.

While Hidden Wars would plague the Star League throughout its reign, no conflicts were fought between its members as long as the Star League Defense Force kept the peace between factions. Terra's hoard of advanced technologies were shared freely among the worlds of man, and a new Golden Age descended. It all came to an end in 2766. The last of the Camerons was assassinated by Stefan Amaris, a power-hungry politician from the Periphery, the ring of interstellar nations that had refused to join the Star League and had been conquered for their trouble. Claiming the mantle of Emperor of the Star League and Director-General of the Terran Hegemony, Amaris was immediately denounced by the commander of the SLDF, Aleksandr Kerensky.

===A New Dark Age===
[[File:Aleksandr Kerensky.jpg|thumb|right|"Fuck you guys, I'm out." - Aleksandr Kerensky, Great Father of Clans]]
The Amaris Civil War destroyed the League, and led to a new Dark Age. The Great Houses, throwing off their loyalty to Terra, refused to aid either Amaris or Kerensky, and waited for the war to pass. Kerensky emerged the victor, but with the Cameron dynasty ended the other Great Houses began to vie for position of First Lord of the Star League. Disgusted by the politicking and betrayal, in 2784 Kerensky took the greater portion of the SLDF into exile beyond the Periphery. Those who remained pledged their loyalty to the Star League's last civil authority, the Ministry of Communication, which would later become Comstar, the sole provider of internet connections between worlds. Thus the Star League lost its last measure of power, and the Great Houses began the First Succession War.

Four Succession Wars, over the course of two centuries, would follow. Never would a Great House gain enough strength to declare itself master of mankind, especially since none would ever conquer Terra. Technology would [[Imperium of Man|stagnate and regress]], creating the Lostech phenomenon, technology which mankind could no longer reproduce, maintain, or even understand. Where before feudalism had been a political phenomenon, hundreds of worlds across the Inner Sphere regressed to or below the technological level of the 20th Century, and hundreds more in the Periphery failed entirely. The sole bright spot was [[Adeptus Mechanicus|Comstar]], the corporate religious entity which maintained the Hyper Pulse Generator network that enabled FTL communications between inhabited worlds. Comstar became the rulers of Terra in the wake of the Star League's collapse, and leveraged their control of the HPG network to ensure their inviolability in exchange for maintaining the incomprehensible HPG networks and neutral treatment of all communications between worlds. In order to maintain their power, they would actively [[Grimdark|sabotage, headhunt, or kill]] all promising technological advancements and promising scientists to maintain their monopoly and techno-religious authority. To be fair, unlike a certain [[Adeptus Mechanicus|cargo cult]], ComStar intervened because they realized the Great Houses were psychopaths and couldn’t be allowed to advance. Also, they were actually loyal-ish to the Star League and hated the Great Houses.

Eventually the Inner Sphere would stabilize around the Great Houses and their associated stellar empires. However, technological progress remained stagnant, and the rare factories capable of producing such advanced technologies as Battlemechs became critical components in the shattered military-industrial complexes of the so-called Successor States. Millions would die so that an LED monitor factory could be taken by one side, or so that a hundred precision-machined laser lenses could be plundered from a forgotten SLDF armory. Real progress towards recovery could only be made after large caches of information which survived the fall of the Star League were recovered; the most significant were the recovery of a long-lost Star League university's library in 3013, and the recovery and free dissemination of the contents of the Helm Memory Core in 3028. In 3028, the two largest and most powerful Successor States, the Federated Suns and the Lyran Commonwealth, were united by dynastic marriage, and it seemed that a new Golden Age might be only decades away.

But the Inner Sphere had forgotten all about Kerensky's exodus, and nobody wants ''Peace'' to break out in a wargame setting, soooo...

===Suddenly Clannerscum===
Kerensky and his followers first settled on the Pentagon Worlds, where they tried to start a new society and a new Star League. They failed though, and the wars erupted between the worlds, showing the bitter irony of life. Kerensky tried to move on, but suffered a heart attack, and the leadership was overtaken by his son, Nicholas Kerensky (who unlike his father had hair and was probably a closet [[furry]]). Nicholas took the remaining followers with him to a planet he called "Dream Land" and established the twenty original Clans.

The Clans are a tribal society that is divided into five castes - Warriors (religious and political leaders and soldiers), Scientists (less respected but are considered highly important), Merchants (detested and only kept as a necessity), Technicians (engineers and warriors' servants), and Laborers (serfs, repressed as needed). Although during the birth each child is tested for their relevance to a certain caste, but more often than not are the same as their parents. Speaking of which, Clanners strongly believe in eugenics, and most of the Warrior Caste members are genetically enhanced clones/mashups. Other castes are selectively bred by the instructions from Science Caste. On a positive side it would mean that even [[neckbeard|neckbeards]] would end up breeding (though given the Clan's brutal meritocracy/kratocracy, they'd end up as outcasts in the Bandit Caste). On the other hand, the society has only a few acceptable non-technical forms of information, meaning that there really is no reason for there to be neckbeards. Paradoxes aside, Clans were created towards efficiency, and even their language differs from the one used in the Inner Sphere. Clans constantly compete in everything, from combat to technological prowess, as they foresaw their return to the Inner Sphere and its liberation. (By their hands, of course. And logically resulting in their control.)

And that day was not far off. Unfortunately for the Inner Sphere, Comstar never forgot about Kerensky's Exodus and sent exploration vessels out to sniff out their trail and reclaim lost Star League outposts on the side. When the Clans captured one of the expeditions, they believed that the Inner Sphere would invade the Pentagon worlds. Ironically, the Clans used that as an excuse to return and invade before being forced back by the very invasion they were trying to prevent.

A prophecy of days far off, the '''''ilClan''''' is a religious myth that states that someday a Clan will take control of Terra, the Cradle of Humanity. The Khan (leader) of the Clan of Clans which captures Terra will become the new, true ilKhan (Khan of Khans) and re-establish the Star League, over which their blood shall reign in perpetuity. All will be Clan, Clan will be all.

'''''ilClan''''' is also an [[Skub|abortive Battletech rulebook]] that has been in the works since '''2002''', ever since the '''Dark Age''' Era was published. Ostensibly intended to be the next historical Era, featuring all new rules to reflect the dominance of Clan society and technology, the bankruptcies and sales that Battletech went through stalled all development. In addition, most fans are [[Advancing the Storyline|vehemently opposed to the destruction of most of the factions]] in the game, and have spoken up at every opportunity to denounce the plans behind ilClan. A prank release of a provisional ilClan historical outline drew tremendous outcry and Catalyst Game Labs has subsequently decided to focus on rereleasing and updating older Era rulesets.

===Meanwhile, In The Inner Sphere===
...Of course, when the Clans returned to the Inner Sphere with the intent of liberating it from the feuding Great Houses, those same great houses <s>said "okay" and handed over the reins</s> put aside their differences and fought the Clans to a stand-still. This was an incredible show of camaraderie, and the most cooperative the houses had been since the Star League fell. It was all quite touching, really.

Sort of. The Clan invasion was getting bogged down and while they were making progress towards Terra it seemed like the new normal would be just constant unending war because they couldn't manage to actually put any of the successors away for good. ComStar, the self-serving treacherous pricks that they are, decided that something needed to be done and so made the Clans a bet. The deal was, come to Tukayyid and fight our best in one big PROVE YOUR WORTH honorduel smackup. If the Clans won, ComStar would stab all the successors in the back, disconnect their HPG access and throw the doors to Terra wide open. If ComStar won, the Clans would agree to a fifteen year armistice.

The Clans, being the honourable glory-seeking meatheads they are, agreed, not realizing that ComStar are every bit the cheating bastards you'd expect of an ISP in space with their own army. The Battle of Tukayyid wasn't a complete shutout for the Clans but it definitely illustrated that they still hadn't gotten the knack for how total war actually works. In most of the engagements the Com Guard pounded the Clanners like discount tenderloin and because of their stubborn honourable ways the Clanners were obliged to abide by the cease fire by the logic of no-takey-backsies.

And then once the Clans were wrapped up behind a truce line it was time to get back to good-old inter-house wars. In an ultra-brief summary: There was the FedCom Civil War, kicking off the <s>Fifth Succession War</s> Word of Blake Jihad, the religious fanatic (well, moreso than usual) faction of Comstar went crazy over the entire Inner Sphere with cyborgs and nukes, until some dude named Devlin Stone got everyone to work together and kick them off Terra, then went on to form the Republic of the Sphere, essentially a re-establishment of the Terran Hegemony. In the meantime, the Clans got a bug up their asses over ideological purity after their Scientist Castes tried to take over, and all the Clans who invaded the Inner Sphere got kicked out of Clan Space to live there instead. Eventually someone forgot to pay the phone bill and the interstellar faster-than-light communication network went down. This ushered in the last era in the fluff known as the "Dark Age."

This is also considered the second ruination of the franchise by some. Many long-time fans think highly of the Succession Wars era of Battletech, right after the fall of the Star League. Marching around the field with walking tanks so expensive and rare that it's better to lose a pilot than a weapon is a powerful fantasy. It's often described as being "Mad Max with mechs." Of course, the blasted hellscape of the post-apocalypse is hard to maintain when the Clans invaded with their own brand-new shiny toys.
The shift from "squabbling tribes with rusty guns" to "courageous defenders with shiny factories" is often considered the first ruination of the property. When the squabbling of the Inner Sphere was broken up again by quasi-religious zealots and Battletech was forced to stitch in apocrypha from its bastard child, the miniature game MechWarrior: Dark Age, people considered it the second collapse of the franchise.

===ilClan Era <strike>Dawn of a New Age, or Not</strike>===
In 2019 Catalyst released '''Shattered Fortress''', the first half of a two-sourcebook set intended to finally advance the franchise into a post-Dark Age era. It ended with a cliffhanger: on New Year's Day 3150 a Clan fleet lands on Terra, but we don't know which Clan. Continuing the recurring theme of Battletech players not caring one bit about advancing the storyline, the release of the second book was then delayed indefinitely by the massive success of a Kickstarter offering more new miniatures and rules set 100 years back on the timeline. While each republished or recompiled rulebook has prologues hinting that the ilClan and Third Star League are around in 3250 from framing documents as archival material, details were deliberately [[Skub|left vague]]. Come 2021, and the novels have finally pushed the timeline out of the Dark Age, reception has been... [[Derp|eh]]. While some factions and characters got a lot of development and [[Awesome|heroic action]], many others were [[Rage|given the shaft]] or reduced to 2D [[FAIL|caricactures when they had potential for development]].

On January 1st, 2021 the novel ''Hour of the Wolf'' was released. Long story short, the Wolf Khan managed to get his hands on a way to bypass the Fortress Walls (unknown to most, Devlin Stone snuck them the access codes as he believed they were the least terrible of bad outcomes). Clans Wolf and Jade Falcon then beat the shit out of the Republic of the Sphere (but not before having the bulk of their commanders assassinated by headhunter units), fought a Trial of Possession for Terra, and the Wolves won. So, Clan Wolf is now ilClan. Their Khan made the Jade Falcons his clan's bodyguard (the bad elements having died fighting), and reconstituted Clan Smoke Jaguar as a non-voting clan and to serve as his clan's black ops/special forces. These Clans then created a new Star League (to a point). And with the combined might of these admittedly terribly mangled clans now strengthened by working together, they might actually make something of themselves. Others in the setting might not recognize them yet, but with the industrial might of the region(s) of space they occupy, they'll probably end up smashing faces and making it clear whose boss. Or they'll get booted off or everyone will just wait for them to self-destruct and then just walk right in.

==Factions Summary==
While each faction has a certain flavor and preferred equipment/tactics, factions do not limit your gameplay choices to particular sets of mechs/units/components, as in many other games ([[Warhammer 40,000]] is a good example, amongst many other skirmish-level wargames). So if something you want to use is in specific era of Battletech History (FEDCOM Civil War, Clan Invasion, et cetera), anything goes. Although it's common for players to roleplay as being employed by some major power, and limiting themselves to their styles. Either that or they play as mercenaries and do as they please. Seriously, the amount of in-fighting is in effect galactic level (in Warhammer 40k -- aside from humanity itself -- only the ''Necrontyr'', the flesh incarnations of the [[Necrons]], ever fought each other to such a long and drawn out extent).

===The Inner Sphere===
While other time periods might have better or more interesting rules, the most popular ruleset remains the eras between the Fourth Succession War (3028) to just before the Word of Blake Jihad (3067). This list of Inner Sphere factions covers those periods.

====Federated Suns====
Ruled by House Davion, the Federated Suns is feudal Space America or nepotistic Space UK. [[Lawful Good]], ruled by a Great House as inbred as any other is, and with all positions of power occupied by the same set of mostly blood-related elites. Without the blue blood, you're just a clever commoner. However, the Federated Suns isn't as stratified as the other Successor States, and it's easier for a common citizen to climb the ladders of wealth and power, which fuels an entrepreneurial society that is among the wealthiest in the Inner Sphere. They’re heroic defenders of freedom and democracy, provided you define “freedom and democracy” as “being ruled by the Federated Suns”. Their colors are red, white, and blue. Something about that sounds strangely familiar...

Similar to [[Ultramarines|a certain faction in a certain other wargame]], the Federated Suns usually win most of their battles, and are usually presented as the good guys, drawing a lot of accusations of Mary Suehood. Unfairly, though, as the FedSuns win so much due to wealth-fueled research and production. In other words, they work hard, do a good job, encourage businesses, and they get rewarded with victory. Unlike the Smurfs, however, the Federated Suns has actual flaws - their “democracy” is a rubber stamp, their rhetoric about freedom is mostly just an excuse to justify warmongering and imperialism, and they have such a staggering degree of wealth inequality that there are cases where the populations of multiple planets only have a single school to go between them. This means that the FedSuns attract two kinds of fans: twelve-year-olds who buy all the propaganda, and people who can appreciate playing a bunch of self-righteous, hypocritical jackasses. On the bright side, they do live up to the hype when it comes to individual liberties. And their rulers are genuinely competent and mostly don't dick them over.

Thanks to their great wealth, the Federated Suns can afford to fund actual scientific research in the form of the New Avalon Institute of Science, or Space MIT, and the Davions supported most of the tech development and recovery in the Inner Sphere prior to the Clan Invasion. They also got lucky when they found an ancient Star League library filled with various editions of tabletop wargame splatbooks. They are known to be the house that first heavily employed or utilized a lot of Clan personnel and technologies after the conclusion of the invasion.

The Federated Suns also kind of have a thing for autocannons. Think [[Space Wolves]] with wolves, or [[Orks]] with [[Dakka]], and you have an idea. If it does not have an autocannon on it the Suns will find a way to give it one, and if it does have an autocannon they find a way to upgrade it to a rotary autocannon. So if you like autocannons this is the faction for you.

Prior to the Fourth Succession War, the Federated Suns and Lyran Commonwealth were united through marriage (technically the political union was a treaty and the marriage was out of love and had no impact on the nations' unification), forming the Federated Commonwealth, the largest and most powerful empire in the galaxy since the Star League. In order to bridge the distance between the two nations, however, the Federated Commonwealth had to conquer large swathes of the Capellan Confederation, which they did easily. However, only a few decades later the Commonwealth was broken up by the FedCom Civil War, when Katherine Steiner-Davion schemed to either take over the Commonwealth or secede the Lyran half of it because she was a royal bitch. She is commonly known as simply The Bitch by many fans. And her splitting of the FedCom is incredibly weird since her nobles were against her, her military mostly liked the advantages brought by the FedSuns, and her public liked the massive boosts in economy and technological progress. Oh, and she was rebel usurper. And had no authority to do any of the things she did. So, her successful secession doesn't make a lick of sense and you just kinda have to suck it up. Oh yeah, and she had her mother murdered out of greed. The FedSuns are currently getting kicked around by pretty much everybody during the Dark Age, primarily because the current head of the house, Caleb, is extremely paranoid and rather psychotic. Thankfully he got killed by the Kuritans with some insider help from Clan Snow Raven (in exchange for some buffer territory). Not so thankfully, his death also brought the destruction of virtually most of the Davions' regular armed forces concentrated on one planet while enabling the Kuritans to take over the capital. <strike>''Save us, Julian!''</strike> Kuritans being what they're like, they probably raped and tortured everyone they didn't murder and their dogs.

====Lyran Commonwealth====
[[File:Steiner Assault.jpg|350px|right|thumb|A typical scene of a Lyran Archon wondering why their cousin has failed to relieve the Commonwealth alongside a bloody frontline against their enemies. They're likely either at a ball dance or planning a coup.]]
Space Germany with some Space Scotland and Space Scandinavia kicking around, the Lyran Commonwealth is the largest successor state and owns the most resource-rich planets in the Inner Sphere, making them an industrial and economic powerhouse. Their government was supposed to be modeled on ancient Athens, led by a council of nine Archons, but this did not work out ''at all'', and eventually Archon Robert Marsden decided he'd had enough of this shit and overthrew the other Archons in a military coup. The Marsdens were eventually replaced by the Steiners via marriage, who have ruled the Commonwealth to this day.

The Lyrans are rich. Really, really absurdly rich. The only reason they haven't conquered the Inner Sphere yet is that they prefer to put the relatives of rich businessmen in charge of their army rather than, y'know, actual soldiers, meaning basically every Lyran military officer is terrible at their job. There is at least one recorded case of the Lyran military starting a major interstellar war ''by accident''. Fortunately, since they're so rich, they're able to make up for their ludicrous incompetence with the biggest and heaviest weapons in the Inner Sphere. The joke goes that a typical Steiner scout lance consists of four 100-ton '''''Atlas''''' mechs (imagine a scout-recon team composed entirely of Warlord Titans and you'll get the idea). Steiner forces tend to be big and slow, barely able to outmaneuver enemy fortresses. Of course, once they (eventually) get into range, you can kiss that fortress goodbye.

Late in the Third Succession War, Archon Katrina Steiner shocks the entire Inner Sphere by actually calling for a peace treaty. Only Hanse Davion is at all interested, and he winds up marrying Katrina's daughter Melissa and uniting the two countries into one massive empire, the Federated Commonwealth (see above). Predictably, this Beauty-and-the-Geek romance starts out exceedingly awesome then epically fails and it's back to single life for the too-pretty Steiners. Recently tried to have Clan Wolf migrate through their coreward territory to keep the Free Worlds League from reforming during the Dark Age while holding the transported civilian castes as insurance. The plan backfired with the Free Worlds League still reforming and Clan Wolf taking much of the coreward and middle territory in the Lyran Commonwealth to form the Wolf Empire. This, on top of a massive amount of civil unrest means the Lyrans are too busy with damage control from Wolf and Jade Falcon invasions along with internal rebellions to be a threat to anyone. The moral of the story is: don’t try to manipulate badasses who nearly conquered everyone without trying. They will fuck you up for it. Also, trying to hold civilians hostage against a culture that thinks civilians are barely human at all is pointless. It tends to go like "Okay, I'll kill a bunch of your people and conquer chunks of your territory". You threaten to kill the civilians and your enemy is totally incapable of understanding why they should care.

====Free Worlds League====
Taking elements from America, Yugoslavia, and Austria-Hungary, the Free Worlds League is a federal democratic republic. No, really! They have a parliament and everything. Of course, the commander-in-chief of the Free Worlds League Military is always a member of House Marik because parliament doesn’t think anyone else can do the job, and the entire country has been operating under martial law “for the duration of the emergency” since the Star League broke up. But in principle, both democracy and federalism are alive and well in Marik space, making it impossible to get anything done.

Everyone in the Free Worlds League hates everyone else in the Free Worlds League. After finding out that Captain-General Thomas Marik had been in hiding running the Word of Blake for decades and the guy they’d been taking their orders from all that time was actually just some hobo picked up off the street, they gave up on trying to make the thing work at all and collapsed. Which is a shame because fake Marik was one of the best Captain-Generals they ever had. After the Dark Age, said hobo’s daughter managed to put it back together again, which kind of makes you start to wonder about that whole “only the Mariks can handle the Captaincy-General” thing. Doesn't help that she had to make a deal with the Spirit Cat and Sea Fox clanners to cement the whole thing together as well as marrying the official Marik family's head.

The Free Worlds League Military is built around combined arms warfare, treating infantry, vehicles, and aerospace fighters as if they were just as useful as mechs. They also used to have the most LAMs back before [[squat|LAMs ceased to be a thing]]. They don’t get a lot of attention, since they’re far away from the FedSuns and the Clans and therefore don’t get involved in stories about factions the writers actually care about. The constant in-fighting probably doesn't help. That said, their most likely do enough to keep their jobs, which is probably good enough to satisfy the average Joe, who couldn't care less about political squabbles.

Think of the Free Worlds League as Space Roman Empire.

====Draconis Combine====
Ruled by House Kurita, the Draconis Combine is the obligatory Space Japan, in the sense that it is ''obligatory'' to be Japanese. It has large Arab and Scandinavian minorities who are legally required to be [[weeaboo]]s, with the country as a whole drawing on both the age of samurai and the militaristic Imperial Japan of the 1920s to 40s. The twelve-year-olds listed above, if they leave the FedSuns, will likely move to this weeaboo paradise with its delusional "fierce solo samurai warrior takes on all opponents Kurosawa Style" appeal, not realizing that lone mechs get [[rape|gang-banged]] by enemies who are teamed up like a pack of mechanical hyenas. Defended by weeaboos despite being responsible for the single most horrific massacre in human history during the First Succession War. For an alternate look into this supposed massacre, please read ''Did 52 million really die?'' In fact, they have a habit of doing this. “We defeated the mercenaries on this planet who have nothing to do with the general populace. Nuke everyone before we leave. Why? Uhhhh...do we really need a reason? <s>they’re not our enemies or anything, but [[Lulz|murder is fun]]</s> SCORCHED EARTH TACTICS! Preventing enemies from using the planet’s populace or resources against us is a valid strategy!”

Like everyone else in the Inner Sphere, the Draconis Combine is a warmongering, autocratic empire ruled with an iron fist that wants to take over the galaxy. Unlike everyone else in the Inner Sphere, they actually admit it. They're the only successor state that makes absolutely no pretenses of being a democracy, with the Coordinator of Worlds being treated as a divinely anointed absolute monarch who is the sole legitimate ruler of all humanity. They were the first to start shit after the Star League collapsed, with the Coordinator declaring himself the new First Lord and launching an invasion of the Federated Suns that eventually wound up getting him killed on Kentares IV, prompting his son to launch the aforementioned massacre. They've been the mortal enemies of the Federated Suns ever since.

Similar to the Davions and their love of autocannons and the Steiners and their love of everything heavy and assault, Kuritans are really, really into PPCs (Particle Projector Cannons), mainly because they're dirt poor and [[Lasgun]]s are cheaper than bullets. If there is a mech that can possibly mount a PPC, the Dracs will put one on it. For instance, see the ''Catapult'': a 65-ton long-range fire support mech intended for indirect fire using the Long Range Missle (LRM) racks in its "ears". Almost every variant of the ''Catapult'' is centered around these LRM racks with a few minor backup weapons. They are a reliable, battle-tested design that no commander in their right mind would attempt to 'fix', because isn't broken... except in the eyes of House Kurita. Once the Combine got their hands on it those ears were replaced with two PPCs for direct fire support and two machine guns for <s>civilian massacres</s> INFANTRY DETERRENTS.

Kuritans were also [[Fail|involved in the worst Battletech novel ever written]], wherein a ship of theirs was lost in time and space, and [[what|found giant]], [[Kroot|alien, sentient chickens]]. Far Country is a [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6zQ6ZqEqg0 Shamefur Dispray]! and pretty much serves as the only time aliens are actually mentioned in the BattleTech universe.

====Capellan Confederation====
Culturally, Space China or Space Russia. Politically, Space North Korea. The Confederation was originally founded when several minor states in the Capellan Zone who were sick of the Federated Suns trying to "liberate" them joined together, [[lolwut|bombed their own capital to make a point]], and fought the Davions off. Secure in this victory, they then proceeded to never win a war ever again. Sounds like their rulers were evil after all.

Citizens of the Capellan Confederation enjoy probably the highest standard of living of any commoner in the Inner Sphere, with an extensive, cradle-to-grave welfare system and the best education and health care the state can provide. [[Grimdark|*Non*-citizens of the Capellan Confederation, known as "Servitors", are basically slaves.]] Becoming a citizen requires you to provide a certain amount of service to the state by the age of seventeen, and citizenship can be removed as punishment for disloyalty. Even those who aren't unfortunate enough to be Servitors basically have their lives decided for them by the Capellan caste system and the government's ability to tell them that they have to move to a new planet and take up a new career at any given moment.

The Confederation is run by a Chancellor, who's supposed to be elected by the nobility but in reality is pretty much always the head of House Liao. This is rather unfortunate, since the Liaos have a noticeable tendency towards being batshit fucking insane ''even by Inner Sphere nobility standards''. They claim descent from Elias Liao, who was either a persecuted revolutionary philosopher (if you ask a Capellan) or a psychopathic nuclear terrorist (if you ask anyone else). The main family line births a homicidal maniac at least every other generation, e.g. Kali Liao, who became the leader of a cyborg death cult with a taste for mass nerve-gas attacks. At one point, they decided that having a regular military just wasn't cool enough for them and created the Warrior Houses, a bunch of weird pseudo-religious warrior cults that only answer to the Chancellor.

Since the Capellans have lost basically every war they've ever fought and live right next to the Federated Suns, they've become the designated "sneaky" faction, focusing on guerrilla warfare and covert operations. They go for stealth and electronic warfare the way the Davions go for autocannons, best exemplified by their iconic Raven electronic warfare 'Mech (which, depending on the model, actually looks like a bird; weird but cool). After the Clan Invasion and FedCom Civil War, they acquired a taste for the newly-developed Plasma weapons. Got the absolute shit beat out of them by the Federated Commonwealth during the Fourth Succession War, got revenge when the Commonwealth tore itself apart a few decades later.

====ComStar====
Imagine a cross between the medieval Catholic Church and Comcast, and you have ComStar. During the Star League Civil War, the network of Hyperpulse Generators that the Star League had built for faster-than-light communications was in ruins, and the one thing that the Great Houses could agree on was that ''somebody'' had to fix all their space phones right fucking now. They named Jerome Blake, the highest-ranking HPG network official still alive, as Minister of Communications, which, since they didn't name any other ministers, basically put him in charge of Terra. As the Star League collapsed, Blake bummed some soldiers off of Kerensky, got the Successor States to agree that the space phones were important and they should therefore respect ComStar's neutrality, and then seized complete control of Terra in a lightning-fast coup, revealing that that neutrality had some teeth.

After Blake died, ComStar quickly turned into a quasi-mystical and religious organization, whose stated purpose was to preserve human knowledge in the dark ages of the Succession Wars, a goal they attempted to fulfill by assassinating every scientist who wouldn't work for them and starting the Second Succession War practically the moment the first one ended. Things started to spiral out of control for them after the Helm Memory Core was leaked and suddenly everyone was able to figure out how Lostech worked again, and then things got even ''worse'' when the Clans showed up.

ComStar is also famous for introducing the ComStar Bill (C-bill) as a standard galactic currency. Rather than being backed by material goods, each C-bill is backed by ComStar's faster than light message delivery service: One C-bill will guarantee one millisecond of data transmission, enough for a few pages of bare text or a small image, with larger transmissions costing more, and with additional fees for higher priority and the like. The value of the various Great House currencies can be weighed against their worth in C-bills which allows for currency exchange on a galactic scale. The C-bill is the primary way that mercenaries are paid and in turn pay for goods and services, and thus the most common currency encountered by players. Post Jihad, Comstar was neutered of its armed forces and subject to a hostile takeover by Clan Sea Fox (outside of the universe, at least one of the game developers had a hate boner against Comstar's OP status and gave their more powerful components the ax, courtesy of Blakist nukes).

====Minor Powers====
*'''Free Rasalhague Republic''': Space Norse/Vikings. They were a part of the Draconis Combine along the Lyran border, until the formation of the Federated Commonwealth meant that Kurita was about to have ''two'' borders for Hanse Davion to attack them from, so he granted them their independence as a buffer state. May have been awesome. If you're wondering why we write of them in the past tense refer to: ''Clan Invasion, Why Not Get in the Way of One'' (Third Publishing of Liao, COMSTAR ISBN 474-Alpha-467-Upsilon-345). They later join up with the Ghost Bears and become the Rasalhague Dominion. They are awesome because now we have Viking clanners. One of their aerospace pilots literally stopped the Clan invasion dead for an entire year because she banzai'd her fighter into a Clan dropship and killed the ilKhan.
*'''Word of Blake''': An ultra-reactionary splinter faction of ComStar that got butthurt after ComStar ditched all the pseudo-religious bullshit. Broke away and launched an all-out jihad(''yes, they actually used that word'') on literally everyone shortly after the Federated Commonwealth Civil War came to an end. Made liberal use of weapons of mass destruction and rendered several entire planets uninhabitable. Fond of genocide, re-education camps, unstable technology, and mass murder. As a result, they were eventually crushed as a result of pissing off the entire fucking universe, but not before undoing a lot of the technological progress that had been made after the Clan Invasion (apparently by magic, as not only was that knowledge now universally available, but so were copies of the Helm Memory Core...and destroying some factories doesn’t make technology go away). Basically used by the publishers to reset the average technology level of the game due to a lot of players feeling it was advancing too far and getting away from the quasi-feudal feel of earlier editions (forgetting that quasi-feudalism is a governing method, the technology level has nothing to do with it). Ironically enough, their mechs were more streamlined and featured a lot more experimental technologies for people who would eventually blow the entire game setting back to the quasi-iron age. Officially, they were all supposedly killed after the Jihad for genocide. Recently hinted by a terminally ill Stone to still be around and responsible for the HPG network being taken out as a taunt against ilKhan Alaric before being killed off in bed.
*'''The Republic of The Sphere''': Established by an individual calling himself Devlin Stone, who mysteriously surfaced at some point during the Blakefag Jihad, and helped pull the galaxy out that colossal clusterfuck through a series of successful military campaigns. Upon the Jihad's defeat, Stone met with ComStar Precentor Martial Victor Ian Steiner-Davion and laid out a philosophy which Victor would privately describe as ''militant socialism keyed to altruism''; Officials and authorities would have their assets placed in a blind trust. Public service would be rewarded. Greed and corruption would be punished. All weapons would be placed under government control. [[Just As Planned|Surprisingly, it worked]], at least for a time, ushering in a new era of peace for the core worlds. However, after ruling as Exarch of the Republic for a while, Devlin Stone stepped down and shortly there after disappeared, vowing to [[Sigmar|return when he was needed most]]. It didn't take long before everything went to shit again and was plunged into chaos when the interstellar communication network was sabotaged. Was gangbanged by a combination of separatist factions, the Capellans, and Clan Jade Falcon before finally saying FUCK IT and retreating back to Terra. All while somehow using Word of Blake HPG disruption tech to prevent hyperspace jumps into their core territory. They also recently developed a taste for Tripod Mechs (which are the only modern Mech that can exceed Assault Mechs in terms of tonnage, firepower, and armor but at the cost of requiring an additional gunner and engineer onboard to shoot and monitor the machine's vitals) while also hybridizing Clan & IS technology (culminating with extremely powerful but unstable weapons). <strike>''You guys realize Stone is the [[Emperor]], right? Right?''</strike> None of this makes sense, of course, as the HPG network is not only extremely well and fanatically protected by actual fanatics, but also is so large it can’t really be sabotaged. Except by magically competent Deus ex Machina mooks, apparently. Friendly clans could also build their own for the Republic’s use. Except newly built HPGs also failed somehow. Black Boxes became advanced enough that HPGs were nearly pointless, though, making the whole “Dark Age” thing really...dumb. And if someone had the sense to build building-sized Black Boxes instead of briefcase-sized, the HPGs would have a perfect backup. But common sense in Battletech is [[heresy]] just like in any good universe. Besides that, the eyes on anyone with power to prevent corruption would stop factions from selling out the Republic and the senators would not have been able to sponsor military officers into becoming Paladins because that is extremely corrupt and would not have been allowed or tolerated. Even if such a plot succeeded, there would be no leverage for the senators to get those paladins to do what they wanted. And the Capellans are target practice, sudden separatism makes no sense when they were fine until this point under numerous oppressive regimes, and Clan Jade Falcon by itself would have been crushed and a team up of clans would have sent the whole Inner Sphere into a clan-killing frenzy panic mode. Come the latest novels in 2021, and the Republic and it's founder were reduced to a caricature of fall of the III Reich (complete with a senile leader giving contradictory orders and throwing their best units at the worst faction so the best faction can pick up the pieces). While many of their leaders and fighters survived, it's an open question of whether they cooperate with the ilClan or revolt later down the line.
* '''The Periphery''': The collection of non-successor states on the edges of the Inner Sphere. They were brought into the Star League by force and are still kinda sore about it, mostly because they nearly got blasted back to the Stone Age and never quite got their technology back up.
**'''Taurian Concordat''': A Periphery nation bordering the Federated Suns and Cappellan Confederation. Has an axe to grind against the Federated Suns and claims they’re much more dedicated to freedom and liberty than the Davions. Think the United States right after 9/11, all of the good and the bad, and you have a good idea of the culture. Just replace paranoia about Islam with paranoid about the Federated Suns, including the fact that the overwhelming majority of who they're paranoid couldn't given any less of a shit about them.
**'''Marian Hegemony''': A bandit kingdom bordering the Lyrans and Free Worlds League that decided to become the Roman Empire IN SPACE. A shadier version of the [[Severan Dominate]] from 40k.
**'''Magistracy of Canopus''': A hedonistic matriarchy bordering the Free Worlds League. A nation of cybernetic catgirls, whose largest export is pornography. No, really. We're serious. Well they're not all cybernetic catgirls but they're there if you want them, and pornography and the tourist industry makes up a large chunk of their economy. Also Medical research and technology, most likely to treat all the STDs you get from your vacation to Space Vegas. Also known for having a significant religious conservatives population as they have an open-door refugee policy.
**'''Outworlds Alliance''': A backwater state near the Federated Suns and Draconis Combine. Was the Periphery-est of the Periphery states until Clan Snow Raven moved in and formed the '''Raven Alliance'''.
**'''Hanseatic League''': A mercantile alliance of traders descended from Lyran refugees, they liked to pretend to be a neutral third party interested in trade of goods and information while also subjecting neighboring planets to debt trap diplomacy with armed merchant caravans. Also liked to play both sides against each other in any prolonged war among their neighbors to increase profits and soften them up for potential annexation (such as between Nueva Castille and the Umayyad Caliphate). Unfortunately, they were eventually conquered by Clan Goliath Scorpion (with help from their newfound Castilian and Umayyad citizens) and merged into their new Scorpion Empire some time in the Dark Age.
*'''Mercenary Review and Bonding Commission''': An independent group that certifies and provides force rankings for various mercenary groups. At least three Mech Warrior games are focused on the mercs as it allows writers more leeway and less chance to screw up the canon.
**'''Kell Hounds''': A merc company headed by Morgan Kell. His son Phelan was captured by Clan Wolf when the Clan Invasion first began, and by the end was running the Clan until it split. Took in Phelan and the Exiled Wolves afterwards. Generally, are tough but cool guys all around. Like the Exiled Wolves, they got a massive "kill on sight" target painted on their back after the omnicidal Jade Falcon Khan got annoyed with their feisty resistance against her campaign into Lyran Territory.
**'''Grey Death Legion''': Mercenary group who were famous for finding and distributing the Helm Core, which allowed the Inner Sphere to regain technology formerly lost during the Succession Wars. Generally an author's favorite in the books. Got destroyed during the Blake Jihad.
**'''Wolf's Dragoons''': A bunch of Clan Wolf advance scouts disguised as a mercenary group. Came to the Inner Sphere with a ton of mechs that the Clans considered outdated but hadn't been seen in the Successor States in centuries and were considered Lostech... Which should have tipped the Great Houses off that these guys might be bad juju. Instead of providing intel to the Clans for their invasion, Wolf's Dragoons pulled a fast one and tried to prepare the Inner Sphere for war with the Clans. They are generally pretty awesome guys, even if part of that awesomeness is because they get a ton of attention in the fluff due to the writers' obsession with anything related to Clan Wolf. They got screwed pretty badly during the Blake Jihad when the nutjobs assaulted Outreach. By Dark Age they are slowly recovering with help from the Kell Hounds. Recent novellas have the Wolves convince them to join them on Terra once it's conquered to prevent the genocidal Jade Falcons from becoming the IlClan. Unfortunately, latest novels also made them become meatshields used by the Wolf Khan to expend the Turquoise Turkeys' ammo supplies while being reduced to a fraction of their strength. Naturally, in a repeat of their history against Kurita, they [[Book of Grudges|swore]] an oath to stand against the Wolves permanently.

===[[The Clans]]===
Laughable strategic and logistical ability and basically have no plan when they do something. But God have mercy on you if they're coming your way. 'Cus you're '''''fucked'''''. Each clan is named after an animal, and yes those are the animal's full names.

* Clan Blood Spirit: The smallest clan. Noted for having the toughest training, favored Battle Armor, and had no official allies after starting off idealistic but then becoming jaded grudge-holders. :( Despite above comment, not ACTUALLY an animal, but named for the warrior spirit that united the forces under Kerensky.
* Clan Burrock: The only clan to support the Dark Caste. Liked picking on the Blood Spirits before they were absorbed by Clan Star Adder.
* Clan Cloud Cobra: The Religious types. Loved aerospace fighters and jump jets. Obsessed with collecting genetic bloodlines other clans don't want.
* Clan Coyote: Native Americans in Space. Also like to scheme too much for their own good. Known for creating a shit ton of tech (unlike [[Adeptus Mechanicus|some people]] on Mars...)
* Clan Diamond Shark: Used to be called Sea Fox until Snow Raven killed their namesake (with their current one) the only clan that views the merchant caste as equal to their warrior one. Later brought back the Sea Fox and changed their name back. The only clan to allow all castes to vote, making them arguably a genuinely democratic republic.
* Clan Fire Mandrill: The clan whose gimmick was to always have a few subfactions to foster internal competition. At first it was manageable and it improved the clan, but then the factionalism snowballed into more than 10 mini-subfactions which made the whole clan a laughing stock among the clans.
* Clan Ghost Bear: The only clan to be founded by a married couple, as a result they're the only clan to still have normal family units. Much more protective of its civilian caste than the others. Nearly devoured the Free Rashalague Republic in the Clan Invasion, then merged with what was left after the Jihad. Went full blown good old fashion Viking Berserker when the Jihad nuked their civilians, attacking friend and foe alike in pure grief fueled murderous rage. Awesome.
* Clan Goliath Scorpion: Stoners with rose-colored nostalgia glasses. Also noted for elite marksmanship and ambush tactics.
* Clan Hell's Horses: The only clan to think tanks are useful often uses combined arms tactics rather than just spamming mechs. They have a hot rod flames color scheme. Extremely heavily focused on teamwork. Including teamwork between castes and between the clan and its conquered worlds. Which has led to very good relations both internally and externally. Probably the only Clan other than the Star Adders that locals might actually support over a "liberating" Inner Sphere force. ''Maybe''.
* Clan <strike>Temper Tantrum</strike> Ice Hellion: Speed freaks with a big ego. Their Khan seems to bitch every time their forces lose, which is often.
* Clan Jade Falcon: The spotlight stealing clan second only to the Wolves, with whom they have a fierce rivalry. Slightly less evil than the Jaguars.
* Clan Mongoose: Basically a footnote in clan history. Extremely aggressive, tend to attack everyone near them. [[Fail|Got their asses kicked by everyone else before being absorbed.]]
* Clan Nova Cat: The spiritual types, they decide their policy with visions, which 9 times out of 10 ends badly for them. Some of the best marksmen in the clans, often competed with Clan Goliath Scorpion. Joined Smoke Jaguar in attacking the Draconis Combine, then sided with the Combine right after everyone decided the Jags had to go. Eventually got destroyed during the Dark Ages for backing the wrong Kuritan royal in a civil war.
* Clan <strike>Chimney Kitten</strike> Smoke Jaguar: Essentially super aggressive World Eaters trained to pilot mechs. Known to fuck shit up until their smaller numbers (due to infighting, shitting on their civilian castes and hating logistics) fucked them over in long campaign. Were eventually wiped out by the Inner Sphere counter-attack after they murdered an entire city from orbit. What goes around comes around. Recent ilClan lore had their descendants in the Fidelis sworn to the Wolf Khan in exchange for rebuilding their clan; [[What|despite]] their original [[Book of Grudges|hatred]] for letting the Second Star League annihilate them.
* Clan Snow Raven: The sinister & cunning space jockeys of the clans. Specialized in space combat and became BBFs with the Outworlds Alliance.
* Clan Spirit Cats: Offshoots of the Nova Cats after they were annihilated by the Combine.
* Clan Star Adder: Boring, but very, very practical, which benefited them a lot. They favor using assault mechs, and like to upgrade their lasers to heavy lasers. Living under them or as one of them is much more like real life. If you can do a job, you can have the job. Including a laborer wanting to be a warrior. Which ironically is the same approach that caused Clan Wolverine to be destroyed by Kerensky.
* Clan Steel Viper: Self righteous xenophobes who wanted to cooperate with the Inner Sphere but also treated freeborns like dirt, and then wondered why nobody liked them. Responsible for Clan genocide known as "The Wars of Reaving". [[Fail|Got genocided in return.]]
* Clan Widowmaker: The hyper-aggressive types. Their first Khan held a grudge against the Wolverines and framed them before being killed with support from Nicholas. Widowmaker later got annihilated for accidentally killing Nicky. What was left of it, however, <strike>gave birth</strike> (lies Clanners aren't born, they're grown) to the most dangerous MechWarrior ever, Natasha Kerensky.
* Clan Wolf: The spotlight stealing Clan, courtesy of it being Kerensky's personal clan. Split up into two factions following the Refusal War.
** Crusader Wolves: The guys who want to continue the invasion of Inner Sphere. Wound up migrating from their original invasion corridor to Lyran/Marik space & formed a new & dangerous upstart state called the '''Wolf Empire.''' Later <strike>[[Mary Sue|surprise surprise]]</strike>, won against the Republic and Jade Falcons on Terra to become the ilClan of the Third Star League [[FAIL|despite the other factions refusing to recognize them for now]] outside of the former Republic’s officials, Jade Falcons, & the Smoke Jaguars that are all a shadow of their strength. Naturally lost most of their forces to take the top prize.
** Warden Wolf-in-Exile: The guys who want to defend Inner Sphere against the rest of the clans, who they think are a mockery of Kerensky's teachings. Like the Kell Hounds, they got a massive "kill on sight" target painted on their back after the omnicidal Jade Falcon Khan got annoyed with their feisty resistance against her campaign into Lyran Territory. Somehow got convinced to rejoin the Crusaders Wolves in revenge against the Jade Falcons despite the story never addressing the Crusader-Warden divide on treating Inner Sphere nations as subjects to be conquered and ruled from above or charges to be protected and educated from partnership. The “official” motive of seeking payback against the Jade Falcons for razing their civilian population centers and killing their cadet academies can only go so far until the Green Chickens got defeated.
* <strike>Clan Wolverine</strike> Not-Named Clan: Aggressive and independent minded, these guys pissed off Nicky to such extent that they were annihilated after the vengeful Widowmaker Khan framed them of detonating a nuke on civilians after the Wolverines seceded from the Clans. Some survivors were able to flee as the '''Minnesota Tribe''' but they've been never heard from publicly since (though there are hints that they're around in the Deep Periphery in some recent novels and short stories). [[What|There are many theories about them returning to Inner Sphere and taking over it as shadow masterminds in order to destroy the clans.]] Basically, they did the caste thing but thought "Hey, why not let people do what they're best at?" and that sort of thing. It pissed off crazy pants ilKhan Kerensky because this approach made them more successful than all the other clans, proving his method was actually not the best way.

===Wars of Reaving===
[[Advancing the Storyline|Fed up with having to write more stuff about clans nobody cares about]], a bunch of clans were wiped out after the Jihad, or driven out of clan territory. While the in-story explanation is that a butthurt ilKhan decided it was time to make a powerplay after not having won anything out of the Inner Sphere Invasion, everyone knows that there were several clans that had no discernable effect on the game.
*'''''Annihilated or Absorbed:'''''
**Blood Spirit: Got wiped out for using civilian militias which "isn't clan-like" and [[Bullshit|marked for annihilation for letting people fight for their homes.]] As well as using [[Planetary Defense Force|en-mass civilian militias]] to attack their enemies.
**Burrock: Tried to re-establish themselves after being absorbed, got defeated.
**Fire Mandrill: Too fractured to fight back effectively.
**Ice Hellion: [[Fail|Killed themselves by trying to steal Jade Falcon and Hell's Horses territory.]] The remaining survivors remained joined Goliath Scorpion.
**Steel Viper: Took over the Clan Homeworlds and gave everyone free reign to remove the “taint” of the Invader Clans by any means necessary. Forgot that they themselves were an Invader Clan.
**Nova Cat: Destroyed by the Draconis Combine for being on the losing side of a civil war.
*'''''Exiled or Abjured:''''' These clans were forced out of the Clan Homeworlds on the pretense of being "corrupted" by Inner Sphere influences. Some later formed the '''Council of Six Clans''', representing the clans that now exist in the Inner Sphere.
**Ghost Bears: Banished to the Inner Sphere and eventually founded the '''Rasalhague Dominion.''' Joined the Council.
**Goliath Scorpion: Ran away and conquered Nueva Castile(Spaniards vs. Arabs IN SPACE) in the Deep Periphery, forming '''Escorpion Imperio.''' By the eve of the Dark Age, they had also conquered their neighbors to the south, the Hanseatic League, and founded a new major Periphery power known as the '''Scorpion Empire''' that's second only to the Homeworld Clans as a military power.
**Hell's Horses: Stole some of Clan Wolf's territory in the Inner Sphere, and end up getting banished from the Clan Homeworlds. Developed a taste for experimenting with QuadVee Mechs (which can convert from a ground combat vehicle into a Quad Mech while also requiring a dedicated gunner). Joined the Council.
**Jade Falcon: Banished to the Inner Sphere and tried to conquer Terra but failed. Still rules the parts of the Inner Sphere they conquered during the Clan Invasion. Replaced the Smoke Jaguars as the most vicious clan under their latest Khan (who's willing to do anything to kill her enemies). Joined the Council. Later got most of their forces wiped out from omnicidal fighting against the Republic, Dragoons, and Wolves on Terra. Said genocidal Khan got killed off and replaced with a pragmatic reformer who agreed to follow the Wolf IlKhan in exchange for the Turquoise Turkeys becoming the IlKhan's body guards.
**Sea Fox/Diamond Shark: Ended up in what's left of the Free Worlds League. Split up into semi-independent merchant fleets and are now a collection of nomadic "Khanates" that sail the starlanes of the Inner Sphere. Joined the Council, but also joined the FWL as a member state. In the meantime, managed to bring the Sea Fox back from extinction, and changed back to their old name.
**Smoke Jaguar: Some of them showed up as super-secret Clanner loyalists called '''Fidelis''' to the Republic of the Sphere. More practical minded than their grandparents but just as likely to go [[rip and tear|berserk]] when fighting any clan warriors for their perceived betrayal. Still in the Fortress Republic. A scant few are found hiding in the Deep Periphery with the few warships that they still had. Later somehow let go of their grudge to pledge allegiance to the Wolve Khan in exchange for reforming their Clan under the IlKhan's protection.
**Snow Raven: Ran away and merged with the Outworlds Alliance in the Periphery, forming the '''Raven Alliance.''' Joined the Council.
**Spirit Cat: What's left of Nova Cats, allied with the Free Worlds League and formed an enclave in their territory.
**Wolf: Splintered into several factions. Basically conquered the central and coreward territories of Lyran Alliance under the '''Wolf Empire.''' Making the Steiners have a bigger headache, their Khan, Katrina Steiner's descendant, claimed the mantle of Archon through her bloodline. Wolves-in-Exile refuse to join and are doing their own thing. Clan Wolf-Alliance joined the Council. “Katrina Steiner’s descendant” is in fact a Trueborn Clanner that Katherine Steiner-Davion had made using both her own genetic material and Victor Steiner-Davion’s, because regular incest just wasn’t crazy enough for her. Later became IlKhan <strike>naturally</strike>.
*'''''Home Clans:''''' Theses clans still hold territory in the Clan Homeworlds and consider themselves "True Clans."
**Cloud Cobra: Still around.
**Coyote: Sneaky bastards. Got their hands on the genetic material of the last known descendant of House Cameron.
**Star Adder: TOP DOG. Their Khan was the one who stopped the psycho Steel Viper ilKhan by dint of beating his head inside out with the nearest handy blunt object.
**Stone Lions: Made from the Hell's Horses who were left in the Clan Homeworlds and didn't get exiled.

So basically there are now ten Clans: The six Spheroid Clans, and the four Home Clans. The rest are either dead, formed hybrid societies, or are even more minor than before and thus save the writers from some hard work in upcoming TROs.

==The Appeal of Battletech==
First and most obvious, giant stompy Battlemechs bristling with guns duking it out is cool. But despite that, Battletech is in general a more grounded and human setting. You don't have warp daemons, God Emperors, energy forces or psionic powers in Battletech or giant Space Cathedrals and machines that work better when people pray to them. Nor does it have artificial gravity, shields, sapient aliens, serious transhumanism, dyson spheres, general AI and other more wild science fiction ideas. While it does go into some suspense of belief in technology such as KF FTL drive and HPG FTL communications, most of the technology is still grounded within the realm of plausible belief. Society-wise, it doesn't go into the speculation on how civilization may come into conflict with divergent ideals or extraterrestrial life, instead you have human people like you and me struggling in a hostile universe where the most dangerous thing is often another human being under another flag. Not that the setting lacks for variety. The main factions are very well developed with their own distinct motivations, even if they do sometimes tend to lean into stereotypes too much. Battletech is for people who read [[Dune]] and find the idea of the Atreides, Harkonnens, Corinos and the other Great Houses of the Landsraad with their conflicts and their power plays to be far more interesting than what happened after Paul took over. Some others also consider it similar to a teen rated version of [[A Song of Ice and Fire|Game of Thrones]] in space (but with mechs and sci fi tactics in place of mythical creatures and gore).

Battletech is one of the more morally grey settings out there. Moreso than many Grimdark settings where it's a matter of nasty jerks vs literal demons. While there are a few factions which are better or worse than others on the whole (Magistracy of Canopus vs Clan Smoke Jaguar) all of the factions have their share of virtue and vice, heroes and villains. Good people can come up from the Nobility of the Federated Suns, Citizens of the Capellan Confederation or the Iron Wombs of The Clans, as can a lot real nasty bastards. In that regard, this is a rather tragic universe. In this universe nobody is corrupted by Chaos or seduced by the Dark Side. Instead humanity took to the stars and flourishes, only to be brought low by human leaders with human failings.

As far as Mecha design goes, Battletech designs run the gamut from box-on-legs (Awesome, Dragon, etc), to egg-on-legs (Catapult, Marauder, etc), through to very polished designs (which were mostly stolen from Japanese anime shows). Wrong, they hired a third party artist who sold his designs to them and the other guys. Some of the later work, post-FASA, could be quite smooth, to the point of organic looking. As such, BattleTech is a pastiche of various art styles and design philosophies, covering the range of reactions from "cool-but-impractical", to "eh, practical-and-possible", and well out into the area that will make your engineering professor have a mental fit.

==Mechanics==
[[Image:Group-Plastic-Miniatures.jpg|thumb|right|The standard use of hexmaps renders the purchase of miniatures optional, though miniatures rules for the game are available.]]
[[Image:Blankrecordsheet.jpg|thumb|right|Record sheets are one of ''BattleTechs''' greatest blessings and curses.]]
The basic mechanic is simple. Two six-sided dice are used, with a to-hit (Equal or greater to) system. Initiative is interlaced, with the loser moving first and the winner able to react. All weapons damage is technically done at the same time, and therefore who shoots first is insignificant, although the order in which weapons fire from any given unit resolves is important. Larger weapons can scrub off large quantities of ablative armor, while smaller multi-hit weapons stand a better chance of forcing critical hits once a location is damaged. If you get hit, you mark off the weapons damage rating from your armor. If the shot penetrates your armor, you roll potential criticals. Firing weapons and moving about generates heat, which you must keep down to keep your 'Mech working properly.

Unlike games such as ''[[Warhammer]]'', where many units are either killed on the first shot or left unscathed, and little information is recorded, ''BattleTech'' uses record sheets to mark off each 'Mech's cumulative damage, ammunition, pilot status, and heat. Also, there are hit locations, so limbs can be blown off. The record sheets allow for effects that are more detailed, but this also increases the overall playtime. Although expert players can get through matches just as fast as players of other games of more or less equal size, new players often find that the game plays slowly. This is usually due to the time spent referencing hit-location tables, critical effects, etc. For new players, 2V2 matches are best, with 4V4 matches being the "cap", in order to have games that do not take excessively long. More experienced players can run games of 12v12 or larger in an afternoon, though these will often be multi-player games in which each ''player'' controls only a handful of 'Mechs.

One of the biggest appeals of ''BattleTech'' is that all of its units are made with a predefined set of rules. Custom designs are fully possible, though they are not likely to be welcome in tournament matches or pick-up games.

''BattleTech'' uses a build system based on 'Mech tonnage. You start with a Chassis limit, from 20-100 tons. You then determine engine size based on how fast you want your 'Mech to be (how many hexes you want it to be able to move per turn) you then allocate the remaining tonnage to control systems, weapons, ammo and armor. This method varies slightly depending on the technology of the chassis, but not overmuch. Though the system has recently been removed, there were previously three levels of technology.

'''Level 1''' (Now called "Introductory Tech") referred to early-era gameplay. Only the more rudimentary weapons and technologies are available, though the critical rules remain the same. This is the preferred level at which to learn, and is synonymous with the equipment available during the Succession Wars era. It is also the level of play made possible with starter boxes.

'''Level 2''' was Tournament-level gameplay. This introduced new equipment and electronics, as well as Clan technology (A more technologically advanced, but militant people). Though the rules are generally the same as those in level 1 gameplay, more-complicated equipment such as ECM, anti-missile systems, cluster munitions, etc. were better suited to more experienced players. It is the level of play made possible with separately-purchased rulebooks. Note that as the in-universe timeline advances, some more-advanced technology is designated "tournament-level", and several items that were Level 3 before the switch are also now "Tournament-Level".

'''Level 3''' referred to all advanced gameplay and equipment, including specialized gear from Historical manuals and the ''Solaris VII'' boxed sets/adventures. This has since been split out into "advanced", "experimental", and "era-specific" technology. This also included all equipment that was not listed in the core rulebooks. More complex rules were inserted in order to increase the realism and flexibility of the game. These include new weapons, new or altered terrain rules, artillery, alternate rules for major mechanics such as line-of-sight, etc. Though Level 3 rules included "prototype" equipment not printed in the core rulebooks, the standard rulebook in regards to Level 3 play was called ''Maxtech''. This has now been replaced by the Catalyst Games release of ''Tactical Operations'' and its sequels.

'''Advanced''' technology (not to be confused with "advanced rules" is covered largely in ''Tactical Operations'', and may be common but incorporates additional rules or restrictions that make it difficult to use without preparation.

'''Experimental''' tech is not mass-produced in-universe. The items are used in one-offs, prototype designs, and other weirdness. The ''Experimental Technical Readout'' series showcases this tech level, and most of the rules are in ''Tactical Operations'' or ''Strategic Operations''.

'''Era-specific''' technology incorporates advancements that were later abandoned in-verse. Usually these items were displaced by a superior version of the same technology, although there are some like the Listen-Kill missiles (which exploited a weakness in standard ECM protocols, later patched out) which are simply active for a few years and then abandoned once changing circumstances make them ineffective. Era-specific tech is the province of Historical sourcebooks, the ''Interstellar Operations'' rulebook, and a few campaign books.

==Spinoff Games==
Due to its popularity through the late 80s and early 90s, ''BattleTech'' spawned a multitude of spinoffs and expansion games.

'''[[Lost Worlds]]''' dueling books. NOVA adapted their melee dueling system to make four books for Battletech mecha. Each book has the opponent's view of the mech on each page, and a character sheet listing possible maneuvers. Since it used the same system as the rest of their books, you could have "20-ton Locust vs. skeleton with scimitar" duels.

'''Mechwarrior''' was a traditional pen-and-paper RPG set in the Battletech universe, using a ruleset similar to FASA's other hit RPG [[Shadowrun]]. It got second(1991) and third(1999) editions, then was later rebooted by Fanpro and Catalyst Games under the respective titles ''Classic Battletech RPG'' and '''Battletech: A Time of War''', likely to avoid conflation with WhizKids' ''Mechwarrior: Dark Age''. Also because by then the "Mechwarrior" title was fully associated with the video games.

'''AeroTech''' and '''BattleSpace''' were both games featuring Aerospace Fighters and DropShips/WarShips respectively, fighting in orbit before any of the action in the BattleTech game itself could begin. Both games eventually got absorbed into BattleTech's rules in the ''Total Warfare'' edition.

'''Battletroops''' was an infantry-scale game about the PBI who fight it out it in the shadow of Battlemechs. It later gained ''Clantroops'', an expansion pack that incorporated clan equipment as well as Battle Armor on both sides, but the game did not sell as well and the rules have since been abandoned.

'''Battleforce''' was a revision of '''BattleTech''', made in recognition of the fact that large-scale combat could not be effectively played out using the current system. Battleforce simplified each 'mech into a simple set of numbers, so that they could be clustered into units and fight over a much larger area. Battleforce 2, released about a decade later, also introduced planetary invasion maps and rules to go along with them. Although the maps are available in Map Compilation 2, the rules will be reprinted in the ''Strategic Operations'' and ''Interstellar Operations'' sourcebooks.

The '''Solaris VII Boxed set''' was made to simulate the fast-paced gladiatorial combat on the game's world of Solaris VII. It included new rules, new maps with special rules, new mechs, and supplements for roleplaying. Little known fact: some of the designs used in the original Solaris VII set were redesigns of the ''BattleTech'' 'mechs which were themselves copies of Japanese mechs! When the product tried to sell in Japan, half of the designs were already copyrighted by other well known anime companies, and the in-house designs were simply not "Japanese" enough for their tastes. Though the product itself flopped, its maps were reprinted and rereleased in 2004, as well as a complimentary up-to-date rulebook. Rules have since been standardized to match those of ''Classic Battletech'', but "Special Map rules" have been included.

The '''BattleTech Collectible Cardgame''' was produced by Wizards of the Coast in 1996, and ran until 1998. Though its popularity had begun to wane after the first core set, the release of the Pokemon card game was the nail in the coffin. The Battletech CCG hosted some very impressive artwork, though the game favored swarm-decks filled with plenty of weak, cheap 'mechs, and it's non-"Creature" cards were too weak to have an effective deck based around them. After five editions (''Battletech Limited''/''Unlimited'', ''Counterstrike'', ''Mercenaries'', ''Mechwarrior'', ''Arsenal'') Battletech CCG came out with ''Commander's Edition'', which picked some of the best cards of the last few editions (though it abandoned or revised some cards for inaccuracies or "brokenness") It had one final expansion, Crusade, which introduced the Steel Viper clan, though there were some prior cards that did reference the clan.

In July, 2013, Catalyst Game Labs released '''Alpha Strike''', a miniatures combat ruleset designed specifically to appeal to fans of Warhammer and Flames of War. It combined BattleForce statistics with improved miniatures rules. It's generally scoffed at by grognards but the only feasible way to play a regiment-sized battle in less than one lifetime.

==Video Games==
'''Official Games'''
* Crescent Hawk's Inception (Infocom, 1988)
* MechWarrior (Activision, 1989)
* Crescent Hawks' Revenge (Infocom, 1990)

* MechWarrior II (Activision, 1995)
* MechWarrior II: Mercernaries (Activision 1995)
** MechCommander (FASA, 1998)
* MechWarrior III (Microprose, 1999)
* MechWarrior IV: Vengeance (FASA/Microsoft, 2000), Black Knight (Microsoft, 2001), Mercenaries (Microsoft, 2002)
** These games had two expansions that gave more mechs, the Inner Sphere Mech Pack and Clan Mech Pack.
** MekTek released a legal port of Mercenaries, with both Mech Packs, new mechs, and battlesuits all inside, plus multiplayer support. Grab it from ModDB, abandonware sites, or your tracker of choice.
* Mechassault 1 (Day 1/Microsoft, 2002 for Xbox)
* Mechassault 2: Lone Wolf (Day 1/Microsoft, 2004 for Xbox)
* MechCommander II (FASA/Microsoft, 2001. The full game is offered by Microsoft for free [http://www.microsoft.com/en-ph/download/details.aspx?id=11457 here].)
* MechWarrior Online MMO (Smith & Tinker/Piranha Games, A F2P game first released on 2012 and currently out as a full product on Steam.)
* MechWarrior Tactical Command (Personae Studios, 2012?, [[Fail|for iPhone/iPad]]. After some uncertainty, MTC was fully released in the iTunes store. Too bad it sucks.)
* BattleTech (Harebrained Schemes, 2018) - funded through Kickstarter and headed up by Jordan Weisman)
** Turn-based strategy game, similar to the original tabletop game. Takes place during the Succession Wars, in a formerly empty area of the Periphery.
*MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries: (Piranha Games, 2019). Also takes place during the Succession Wars. Because nobody wants to take the time to portray the cluster fuck that is the Blake Jihad properly.

'''Unlicensed Games'''
* [http://www.mechlivinglegends.net Mechwarrior Living Legends] (Wandering Samurai/Clan Jade Wolf, 2011)

'''The following are free, homemade versions of Battletech:'''
* MechWar v1.12 (MS-DOS)
* [http://megamek.info/ MegaMek] (Java)
* BTMUX - ASCII-only MMO (anyone old enough to remember what a MUD is?) (any OS) You could play it in pure ASCII, or get [http://bt-thud.sourceforge.net/thud/ a graphical helper] Most of the existing ones are gone, but [http://frontiermux.com/news.php FrontierMUX] seems to still be alive.
* <strike>[http://neveron.com/ Neveron] (web-based mmo)</strike> [Taken offline on July 31st 2014]
* [http://www.titansofsteel.de/ Titans of Steel] (MS-Windows)

==Current State==
[[File:Never give up.jpg|thumb|right|250px|Little Urbie, the greatest of us all.]]
In 1998, the U.S. release of ''Pokemon'' for the Gameboy, and the subsequent cartoon and cardgame, had a damaging effect on the tabletop games market. Comic book stores which had previously stocked tabletop RPGs, wargames, and collectible card games found that they could turn a better profit by stocking more ''Pokemon'' goods and cutting out the weaker-selling products. Only a handful of better-selling tabletop games, such as products by Games Workshop and the ''Dungeons & Dragons'' games, were able to remain. In 2001, FASA ceased operations, and many fans of the ''BattleTech'' series began to look for other games. ''BattleTech'' was purchased by [[Wizkids]], who tried to soft-reboot the game as a Clix-style game with the tile '''Mechwarrior: Dark Age''', jumping the timeline to nearly a hundred years after the Clan Invasion, focusing the story to a much smaller area around Earth, and using almost entirely all-new factions. The fans were less than amused, so [[FanPro]] got the rights to continue releasing content for the original game under the moniker ''Classic Battletech''. Despite still having products released for it, ''Classic'' was often put on the back burner, as Wizkids showed preference to their clix-games. As WhizKids; game floundered, Battletech was later taken over by [[Catalyst Game Labs]], who dropped the "Classic" and released a new boxed set (6th edition) based on the newly revised core rules(also rewinding back to the original time period and working their way back up to the Dark Age era, but keeping the entire Inner Sphere in the picture). This boxed set, once again, contains plastic miniatures. Though the plastic miniatures (When compared to plastic miniatures produced by other companies) are decidedly low-quality, they are more than sufficient as playing-pieces for new players who are experimenting with the product. In making low-grade miniatures for the box set, the overall price tag remained low, while giving players something more tangible than a cardboard cutout. The game is beginning to gain popularity once again, despite the dropping popularity of tabletop games in general. In 2014 Catalyst Games released an updated box set with higher quality miniatures for the same price.

As of 2017, Catalyst have announced two new starter boxed sets. One is significantly lower-priced and features two 'Mechs with a new map (the first since FASA shut its doors). The second has two new maps, die-cut terrain (to drop onto the maps), and a reduced mini selection with all-new sculpts - designed by an ascended fa/tg/uy. These boxed sets were made available for purchase in 2019.

In July 2019, Catalyst decided to get off their asses and actually did something: They started a Clan Invasion Kickstarter that would hopefully bring the franchise back to life, promising over 100+ new designs for classic mechs, a box set and a boatload of new maps and merch. It surpassed their funding goal in 7 MINUTES and is currently running off of $2.8 MILLION in funding and is expecting to start shipping <strike>March of 2020</strike> delayed till July 2020. Also [[UrbanMech]] PLUSHIE! Catalyst is now currently relying on fan goodwill and revamped merchandise from kickstarting fundraiser campaigns to keep the IP steaming along but lore development has been of mixed reception depending on who you ask.

===MechWarrior Online===
[http://mwomercs.com/ Mechwarrior Online] has already been officially launched. Even though the launch itself was fairly lackluster, with no new features compared to the past few months of open beta, the game is in a somewhat average state of balance and gameplay, and the feel of piloting a BattleMech was translated faithfully - mixed in with rage about hundred-to-thousand dollar preorder packs for Clan mechs (not fucking kidding) and rage over various mechanics, such as knockdown, heat buildup, and LRM spam. Back in October 2014 PGI, after ousting their publisher and striking out on their own a few months back, has been making notable progress in advancing the game and interacting with the player base, albeit not without handling neckbeard rage poorly. Despite garnering some good will from the community after ridding themselves of their publisher, PGI has been doing their best to waste the Mechwarrior license and drive off good chunks of the player base with fairly unchanged gameplay, constant sales, and the fact it’s run for about seven years, now.

===Battletech 2018===
Harebrained Schemes announced their return to Kickstarter in fall 2015 in order to fund [http://battletechgame.com/ Battletech], a turn based tactics game featuring RPG mechanics for Mechs and MechWarriors. As of this writing the game has been fully funded and reached several stretch goals. In fact, the game's been released in April 2018. Battletech is a turn-based strategy game, more faithful to the board game than the mech-sims the series is known for on the vidya circuit. Think the new XCOM games, but with mechs.

The game started out with a boatload of bugs (which isn't really surprising for an indie kickstarter), but the devs handled the problem quickly. Soon after it was announced that HBS was bought out by their release partner Paradox Interactive, the current big dog for quality strategy games. As expected of a Paradox game, this was followed up by a number of overpriced DLCs to the point that the season pass costs more than the actual game! That said, the second to last free update (1.8) added 2 new excellent mechs, maps, missions, modding support and quality of life changes, while the last free update (1.9) added several SLDF Royal Mech Variants with more polish to the built in mod launcher, so not all money grabbing and bad. Update 1.9 is the last major content drop, with no further patches or updates planned as Harebrained Schemes is moving on to new projects. If you really want it wait for a Steam sale when the Mercenary Collection drops to around $30 USD for the base game and all DLC.

Several fan-made mod packs (notably [https://www.nexusmods.com/battletech/mods/79/ RogueTech] and [https://www.nexusmods.com/battletech/mods/452/ BattleTech Advanced 3062]) have been produced which significantly extend the life of the vanilla game. These mods introduce many new factions, dozens of new 'Mechs and tanks, hundreds of new pieces of 'Mech equipment, a far larger star-map sandbox to play in, and far more depth to the 'Mech customization system as well as many quality of life changes. RogueTech in particular attempts to bring the game more in line with the tabletop experience and offers a much higher degree of gameplay complexity compared to vanilla Battletech.


===Mercenaries 5===
After almost two decades since the last proper Mechwarrior game in the franchise (MechAssault doesn't count), we're finally getting an honest-to-gods story-based mechpilot sim game like the days of yore. Piranha Games, the company responsible for MWO, is also creating [https://mw5mercs.com/ Mercenaries 5], and is so far looking like a faithful re-creation of the classic Mechwarrior pilot sim games of the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Game's out, and it's shit! Well, mediocre. Graphics snobs say the game looks horrid, suspecting they ripped assets full sale from MWO. But the main issue is repeating the same missions over and over again including in story missions themselves. There is no hand crafted missions like previous games even in its narrative missions and has a very weak plot, along with a well known issue where enemies spawn right on top of your team. Friendly AI at least got the artificial part right and there's no PVP. The devs have stated that they are working on the issues but little progress has been made at the time of writing.

[Update 01/22/2020] Mod support has been added and some of the previously stated problems have been addressed (sort of). Either way, it's a fun giant-stompy-robots-with-lasers game. Campaign missions are still lackluster and repeating the same missions over and over is bound to get a little stale. But hopefully modders will take over (like they always do).

==The Tetatae (Skub Tribal Jungle Chickens)==

There is only 1 known sapient Xenos race in the BattleTech setting. The Tetatae are tribal bird people armed with spears who inhabit a Jungle World.

==External links==
*[http://megamek.sf.net Play through the tubes with MegaMek]
*[http://www.sarna.net Battletech Wiki that holds much information about the universe]
*[http://bgb.booru.org/index.php Blue Gunner Booru, a /btg/-maintained taggable gallery of BT and related art. Perpetually in-progress.]
[[Category:Wargames]][[Category:Skirmish-Level Wargames]][[Category:BattleTech]]

==Gallery==
<center>
<gallery>
File:Glorious_3d_Terrain.JPG|Glorious 3d terrain
File:More_Glorious_3d_Terrain.JPG|More glorious 3d terrain
File:Infantry_Strike_From_Behind_As_The_Kuritian_Lance_Takes_On_4_Steiner_Mechs_And_6_Tanks.JPG|Infantry strike from behind as the Kuritan lance takes on 4 Steiner mechs and 6 tanks
File:Kuritians_Advancing.JPG|Kuritans advancing
File:Surrounded.JPG|Kick party
File:Eridani_Light_Horses_MechWarrior.png|Bad mofo
File:You're_awesome.jpg
File:Dougram_and_shadowhawk_comparison.png|The original anime mecha Dougram (left) compared to the original "unseen" Shadowhawk (center) and the modern Shadowhawk (right), a robot so badass it transcends cultures and 4chan boards
</gallery>
</center>

==Factions Portal==
{{Battletech Factions}}
[[Category: BattleTech]]

==/tg/ Battletech Creations==
*[[Velatine Federal Republic]]
*[[/tg/ Homebrew Mech Designs]]
*[[Sunbats mercenary company]]
*[[/btg/ Harebrained Battalion II]]

BattleTech

2021-08-26T16:02:48Z

2607:FB90:6E65:FB2D:A474:601A:91B6:7F9A: /* Warfare in the Thirty-first Century */

{{awesome}}
[[Image:NEW-BT-LOGOFLAT.png|NEW-BT-LOGOFLAT.png|center]]
{{Game Infobox
|name = BattleTech
|picture = [[Image:NEW-BT-LOGOFLAT.png|200px]]
|type = [[Wargame]]
|publisher = [[Catalyst Game Labs]]
|playno = Trillions
|year = 1984
|books = Total Warfare or The BattleMech Manual
}}
{{topquote|It is the 31st century, a time of endless wars that rage across human-occupied space. As star empires clash, these epic wars are won and lost by BattleMechs, 23-56 foot tall humanoid metal titans bristling with lasers, autocannons and dozens of other lethal weapons; enough firepower to level entire city blocks. Your elite force of MechWarriors drives these juggernauts into battle, proudly holding your faction's flag high, intent on expanding the power and glory of your realm. At their beck and call are the support units of armored vehicles, power armored infantry, aerospace fighters and more, wielded by a MechWarrior's skillful command to aid him in ultimate victory. Will they become legends, or forgotten casualties? Only your skill and luck will determine their fate!|Product promotional tagline}}

'''Battletech''', or '''MechWarrior''' as most of the non-neckbearded populace know it, is a tabletop wargame about armies of giant robots fighting one another for honor, money, and territory in a far-distant feudal future. Think [[Star Wars]] AT-STs, or [[Warhammer 40,000]]'s [[Imperial Knight|Imperial Knights]] (Games Workshop decided they liked Battlemechs too). It’s also perhaps the most realistic example of walker warfare. Using their size to mount sufficient energy generation and armor that they are fast enough, maneuverable enough, and armored enough that being a bullet magnet does not matter. Using their vertical build to mount numerous huge weapons that each would take up all the space on most tanks modern militaries would consider super-heavy. Usually operating in combined arms warfare and supported by tanks, hovercraft, aircraft, and infantry. Not sinking into the ground like its quicksand because dirt reaches maximum compression very quickly (and thus all anti-mech arguments are rendered invalid by combined arms, armor, power-plant, firepower, and actual science), and so on. The realism of the technology (if not the moronic House Lords and nonsensical events) is so great it could be a glimpse into the future. Y’know, before Bolos come along and replace everything.

==Holy Crap, Giant Robots Are Awesome==
[[Image:Batdroid.jpg|thumb|right|''Battledroids'', the first edition of the game, c. 1984. A ''literally''-textbook example on how to get sued nine different ways from Sunday.]]
In the early 1980s, [[Jordan Weisman]] was [[Weeaboo|fascinated]] by several Japanese [[anime]] involving giant robots, or "mecha." He was quoted as saying that he liked the designs and idea of giant robots fighting on the battlefield, but did not have a taste for the storylines that the Japanese wrote about them. In 1984, Weisman founded [[FASA]] and acquired the licenses to designs from several series, the most famous being ''Super Dimension Fortress Macross,'' though the largest portion came from ''Fang of the Sun Dougram'' and combined them to make Battletech.

The first edition of this game, called ''Battledroids'', was a hex-based boardgame played on a battlefield illustrated with various types of terrain. It came with two large plastic minis of featured mechs, imported from Japan. Initially, sales were mediocre as the sheer size of the mechs made them awkward in gameplay. Soon after the launch of ''Battledroids'' Lucasfilm filed a lawsuit against FASA for using the name "droids," which they had trademarked in 1978. Discretion being the better part of valor, FASA changed the name of the game to Battlemech in time for the second edition printing in 1986. This time, cardboard stand-ins replaced the plastic miniatures, and a tradition was born. To this day, Battletech can be played without purchasing any physical models and with any proxy you please.

Following the release of the second edition, fans of the game clamored for new miniatures. FASA obliged, rescaling their mechs for more convenient play and designing a host of in-house mechs to broaden variety and bridge the gap between the sleek Macross and crude Dougram designs. New models notwithstanding, the third edition, dubbed ''Battletech,'' was shipped with solely Macross- and Dougram-based minis. However, in 1995 [[That Guy|Harmony]] [[Rage|Gold]], an American localization company which had licensed the international distribution and toy rights to SDF Macross, issued a C&D against FASA for the use of all mecha designs from the Macross franchise. FASA ceased production of these miniatures, which were among the most popular designs in the franchise, and published a fourth edition of the game in 1996 again featuring cardboard tokens, which were all based on their own original mechs.

Before '''''Battletech''''', the mecha genre was seen as something that belonged mostly to the Japanese. With few exceptions (''Power Rangers'' and ''Star Wars'', and even then the Mechs from the former were reused footage from Japanese shows), the genre was almost entirely made up of anime productions imported from Japan. Battletech pioneered a new approach to mecha within the Western fandom, featuring mostly stories of pseudo-realistic wars fought by real soldiers rather than teenagers taking on forces of evil or single-handedly winning interplanetary wars, plots that dominated the few mecha series that were subbed by the dedicated VHS fansubbers of the day. More importantly, the physical limitations of the Battlemechs, unlike the limitations of tanks in, say, [[Warhammer 40,000]], are critical to the planning and strategy of outfitting mechs and using them on the tabletop.

===The Mechs===
{{topquote|"Shoot for his cockpit! [[Iron Hands|Kill the meat]], [[Adeptus Mechanicus|save the metal.]]"|Sergeant Robert "Deadeye" Unther (Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries - Training Tutorial)}}
BattleTech mechs function and are utilized more like tanks with legs than the super-agile flying mecha common in Japanese depictions. Mechs are deployed in formations of four or five, called lances in the Inner Sphere and stars in the Clans. They are able to operate in space, on planets with caustic atmospheres, underwater, and in a wide range of temperatures that would be lethal to unprotected humans. One of the biggest upsides of mechs as combat vehicles is their extreme efficiency-of-arms: an effectively limitless amount of time without requiring fuel due to their fusion reactors alongside hyper-efficient Myomer 'muscles' inside the Battlemech’s limbs that can carry more weapons and armor per-ton than any other combat platform in existence. The only things stopping a mech from being able to fight forever are ammunition, repairs, and allowing the pilot to rest. Even when a mech is destroyed, losing the pilot is a relatively rare occurrence thanks to very effective ejection systems. A destroyed mech chassis can also be salvaged and rebuilt to fight another day, good as new. In the early 3000s setting this means many mechs are often decades or even hundreds of years old, Ship of Theseus-style. Some mechs even have unique identities and/or affiliations with certain royal Houses or mercenary families. Also, as stated in the quote above, it's not uncommon for cash-strapped mercenaries, pirates, or even planetary militia to prioritize aiming for the cockpit and/or forcing Mechwarriors to eject from overheating/battle damage in order to claim the surviving Battlemech wreckage for salvage or as a spoil of war.

As far as locomotion styles, bipedal mechs are the most common, with the weapon systems mounted either in the torso compartments or on the arms. Quadrupedal mechs do exist but are relatively rare, they are slower than bipedal mechs and don't offer the same amount of weapon space for a given weight class and more legs (and more everything else) on a mech means, of course, greater expenses. Even rarer are tripod mechs, generally restricted to experimental super-heavy designs. Bipedal mechs can also grasp things in their hands (if they have them) like melee weapons or pesky tanks. Early versions of BattleTech feature mechs that could transform into fighter planes, but these were dropped relatively quickly in its life cycle due to copyright problems.

The main downside of mechs is their inability to efficiently manage heat buildup. Heat is generated by the fusion reactor, the environment, movement, and mostly as a result of firing weapons. Mechs mount multiple gigantic one-ton heatsink units to deal with this buildup, but it is a constant problem for pilots to manage. Mechs that feature a lot of energy-based weapons will generate especially high levels of heat, and therefore manage very poorly in extremely hot environments. Firing all the weapons of certain mech variants at once (the ''Nova'' mech is most infamous) can cause it to overheat to such an extent that the reactor core melts down before the heatsinks can shunt the heat out of the chassis, which is bad. Safety measures that shut down the entire mech when it reaches a certain temperature threshold are always installed, but since this usually happens in a combat situation, and thus leaves the mech defenseless, some pilots will intentionally disable the safeguards to take their chances. Depending on the technology level of a given game, more efficient heatsinks can be assigned to mechs that remove heat more quickly and allow hotter builds. The fluff also mentions some experimental heatsinks that changed the heat energy to light (<strike>???</strike>Actually plausible, we have been experimenting with this concept irl) but had the downside of making the mech look like a walking rave, as well as heatsinks that utilized caustic liquids to move heat faster but with a limited lifespan.

Weapons consist of three general categories: ballistic, energy, and missile. Each has its own strengths and weakness: ballistic weapons weigh more, require ammo, but do not generate much heat, energy weapons are the opposite, and missiles generate some heat/consume ammo but can be indirectly fired with targeting data from scouts. Outfitting a mech for the proper engagement is key to obtaining victory: mechs outfitted for mech-to-mech combat will generally mount only high-damage weapons with lower ammo counts and slower rates of fire, while mechs set for vehicle and infantry combat will mount weapons that fire quickly but do lower damage per shot. Likewise, mechs that do not expect steady resupply will mount more energy weapons so they are not beholden to ammo counts.

Mechs range between 20 to 100 tons in four weight classes, though a few experimental units lie outside these ranges. The weight classes are light (20-35), medium (40-55), heavy (60-75), and assault (80-100). Considering their size (23-56 feet), that's pretty light; the Maus (33 feet long and 11 feet high) mega-tank that Adolf Hitler demanded weighed 188 tons. (One possible explanation here is that the "tonnage" in a weight class isn't the weight of the mech, but rather the weight available to mount things on the chassis. So an Atlas assault mech has 100 tons of available space for reactor, life support, weapons, armor etc, explaining why various sub-types of a mech drop something and replace it with something else of equal weight. A Flea light mech has 20 tons). Rarer still are super heavy mechs (with weights between 110 to 200 tons). While they are walking fortresses that put even Assault Mechs to shame, they tend to be ridiculously expensive, extremely slow, have issues with supporting that weight, are vulnerable to attacks from swarms of smaller enemies like tanks, and have difficulty installing reactors with sufficient power. Top sustainable speeds of mechs vary from 32.4 kph (20 mph) for the assault ''Annihilator'' to 162 kph (101 mph) for the light ''Firemoth'' scout. Keep in mind that the American M1A1 Abrams tank has a top speed of 72 kph (45 mph) on a paved road and much less crossing difficult terrain. Mechs can also be mounted with rechargeable jump jets that give them the ability to hop across the battlefield or up/down terrain. According to varying fluff depictions, mechs are even able to climb up/down cliff walls and perform flying dropkicks to enemy cockpits, which is awesome.

Depending on where in the timeline the specific game takes place (this is a player choice), there will be two possible classes of mechs: Battlemechs and Omnimechs. Battlemechs are the older style, with a set number of variants that cannot be changed in the field. This style was universal in the Inner Sphere before the arrival of the Clans. Omnimechs, a Clan invention, feature a modular construction style and a snap-on software integration which gives them the freedom of changing loadouts quickly. For example, a ''Dragon'' Battlemech comes in a default configuration consisting of one LRM-10, one Autocannon/5, and two medium lasers. The 1C variant replaces the Autocannon/5 with an Autocannon/2 and more armor, while the 5N upgrades the Autocannon/5 to an Ultra Autocannon/5. A pilot must use one of these variants and is incapable of changing the loadout without serious hours-long reworking of the mech's internals in a Mech maintenance facility. Conversely, a ''Mad Dog'' Omnimech comes with a default configuration of two LRM-20s, two medium pulse lasers, and two large pulse lasers. A pilot is able to modify this loadout as they see fit within less than an hour with a technical team, say dropping the two medium pulse lasers for more missile ammo/armor or changing the LRMs to SRMs for short-range engagements.

Like most Western sci-fi series, Battlemechs are somewhat inspired by real theoretical technologies; their weapons range from machine guns (albeit very big ones) and missiles, to coilguns and particle accelerators. The biggest leaps from reality (aside from FTL travel and communications) are the fusion reactor, (a technology still only theoretically possible,) the neurohelmet, (which interfaces with the pilot's brain and keeps the mech upright based on the pilot's own sense of balance,) and the massive muscle-like Myomer fibers that actually allow the mech to move upon being exposed to electrical current.

While Battlemechs dominate the battlefields of Battletech, armored vehicles still have a place. Most of the time, tanks, hovercraft, and APCs are used where mechs would be too expensive (or too advanced) to maintain, or in roles where a mech would be ineffective. This means that, in addition to Battlemechs, one can find infantry, vehicles, aerial vehicles, naval vehicles, and spaceships. It is worth noting that vehicles can be a real threat to Battlemechs in great enough numbers, since they mount the same weapons as mechs. Some tanks can also push the 100-ton limit and sport the gigantic weaponry usually mounted on an Assault mech chassis. In other words, where mechs are [[Space Marines]], the vehicles are more akin to [[Eldar]] Aspects.

Mechs in BattleTech fiction also have a curious tendency to go up in a mini nuclear explosion when their reactor core is breached by weapon fire. Mushroom clouds, explosions, heat, radiation, the whole bit. This has been nicknamed "stackpoling" after BattleTech novel author Michael Stackpole, who includes at least one of these events in each novel he writes. If the reactor was actually breached, what should happen is a meltdown of the reactor (and probably some chunks of the surrounding mech) that quickly burns out because the reactor can't maintain the fusion reaction without proper containment. Reactors are generally incapable of generating an actual nuclear explosion: real-world reactor "explosions" are usually a result of the coolant flash-overheating and generating a pressure-based steam explosion that destroys the reactor building. Lingering radiation would still be a problem of course, but that is usually handwaved away in BattleTech fluff or not mentioned at all.

To get into the actual science of this, a hypothetical fusion reactor wouldn't produce that many radioactive substances. And what few they do would be relatively short lived and would be weak beta emitters. The most likely substance would be Tritium, which is where the stereotypical glow in the dark green radiation comes from. The Mech would glow in the dark but a decent decontamination process would render it mostly harmless. In other words, the stories are right for the wrong reasons.

==Warfare in the Thirty-first Century==

When somebody decides to attack another world, they load up their 'Mechs (and tanks, and infantry, etc...) onto massive shuttles called DropShips. These boost off into space and link up with Jumpships, semi-mobile Space-Fold drives sitting a ways out into the star's system (due to the limits of BattleTech FTL, Jumpships can't get any closer to a system's star than a radius roughly around the orbit of Saturn in the Sol System. For simplicity's sake, most Jumpships move to the zenith or nadir points directly "above" or "below" the star's orbital plane). The Dropships latch onto the Jumpships, which make a series of jumps from star to star until they reach the target system.

Compared to some sci-fi franchises such as Star Wars or Star Trek, aerospace combat between ships isn’t really that common for several reasons. For one, KF Drive used to propel Jumpships makes up 95% of its mass and leaves little room for anything else besides Dropship docking ports, crew quarters, and the charging Jumpsail. And while Warships do exist with drives half the size as their civilian models, they’re more than five times more expensive to build and are prioritized for only strategically vital missions like real-life Dreadnoughts. In that regard, Battletech’ Jumpships are closer to Dune’s massive but ungainly Heighliners than Star War’s Star Destroyers. As a result, most aerospace combat is dominated by armed Dropships or aerospace fighters.

Once they reach the target, the Dropships detach from the Jumpships and burn deeper into the system towards the planet. Now Jumpships aren't stealthy, so anyone on the target planet likely detected their entrance into the system, and it typically takes Dropships seven days (varies dramatically for each star system) to reach the planet. Surprise attacks are nearly impossible, and defenders will have up to a week to get ready (some clever or smart people try to shave time by trying to match the target world's orbit with a nonstandard point closer to the planet, or even rare "Pirate" points caused by gravity interactions between celestial bodies, but even this usually gives defenders at least a day to prepare). Of course, these aren’t actually rare and we have quite a number of them around Earth, the moon, and every other celestial body including the sun. So close that by BattleTech standards it would take probably just a few minutes to reach the Earth from one of its own null gravity points. Seeing as their dropships can reach Sol's top or bottom null-G in just a few days. But everyone knows artists (writers especially) rarely bother doing any research.

As the invading force reaches planetary orbit, the defenders will usually try to intercept them with their own defensive ships, usually Dropships, Shuttles, and Aerospace Fighters, and the Attackers will launch fighters of their own. Space battle will begin in earnest as the defenders try to keep the enemy from landing on world at all (FASA originally had two separate games, Aerotech and Battlespace, that dealt with this stage of combat, but current BattleTech rules incorporate Aerospace combat for those who prefer it or want the full Theater of War experience).

If the Attackers can break through orbit, they can choose their landing site (usually near the target of course). The enemy will deploy to stop them and battle begins in earnest.

==Fluff==
[[File:Mad_Cat.jpg|300px|thumb|right|The [[Timber Wolf]] (Mad Cat if you're <s>Inner Sphere</s> <s>Freebirth Scum</s> Degrazi), one of the most iconic BattleMechs in the series.]]
{{topquote|''A thousand horrid Prodigies foretold it.
A feeble government, eluded Laws,
A factious Populace, luxurious Nobles,
And all the maladies of stinking states.''|Dr. Samuel "What The Fuck Am I Reading" Johnson}}
Much like [[Games Workshop|Warhammer]], the Battletech franchise has an extensive expanded universe. Dozens of books, numerous spinoff games, video games in multiple genres, and even an animated cartoon have delved into the setting and created an entertaining, if convoluted, history that has real influences on how the game is played. Unlike Warhammer, there are no [[Xenos]] (outside of some cavemen-like species), so humans get all the glory (and blame).

===History of the Inner Sphere===
After a period of typical [[Cold War]]-era speculative history: in details, the Soviet leadership is inherited by a fictional hardliner in the 80s and the Union survives until the 2010s where it splits in the Second Soviet Civil War (this was retconned in as the game was made when the USSR hadn't collapsed yet). The appointment of a hardliner leads to NATO reforming into the Western Alliance along with the proto-EU. The Western Alliance helps the split post-Soviet Eurasian states, is joined by China and other Asian countries after a brief crisis and eventually mankind was mostly united under the Western Alliance, having renamed itself to the Terran Alliance and discovered how to travel faster-than-light by opening up artificial wormholes. By 2235, most of mankind's interstellar colonies threw off the yoke of the Alliance and formed their own stellar nation-states. What followed was a period of war and chaos which led to the rise of the "'''Great Houses'''," feudal dynasties of powerful families adhering to various pseudo-historical ideals (like Kurita's Japan fetishism, specifically the most evil aspects of WWII Japan and every other Asian countries' worst parts of their histories up to eleven) competing for total dominance of mankind. However Terra, as Earth became known after its Latin name, remained the most technologically-advanced star nation, and remained unconquered by the competing Great Houses who turned their focus on one another instead. This is one of the reasons for the severe technological stagnation that is a hallmark of the Battletech universe. After all, any idiot knows that destroying a factory or all of a certain factory production and all such factories means the knowledge of how to build their products magically disappears and the knowledge of how to build those factories poofed away the moment they were built anyway as that is the only explanation conceivable for why destroyed factories were not simply replaced and why the knowledge disappeared from every paper, computer, and mind. Obviously space magic is to blame...or exceptionally short-sighted writers.

To be clear, the given reason for how the neo-feudalism came about was due to oppression. Yet other than the Federated Suns good bois and to an extent the Lyran Commonwealth, most other nations don't have the same problems that destroyed the Alliance despite being oppressive. Super oppressive. Which begs one to question how the Hell the Outer Reaches Rebellion happened. And it still doesn't explain how the neo-feudalism came about as it would make much more sense to have administrators managing regions of space instead of giving someone the level of authority an ancient noble would have had. Perhaps it began the same way some monarchies are known to have: lords (or whatever name for a rose you want to use) being basically miniature kings of their areas who united and elected a royal dynasty from among their number.

In 2349, the Terran Hegemony introduced the first Battlemech, the 100-ton ''Mackie'', and the face of war changed forever.

===Mechs Just Got Real===
The introduction of the ''Mackie'' shifted the focus of military development away from interstellar Warships back to ground forces. The Terran Hegemony was able to prove that the 100-ton Battlemech was far superior to conventional ground vehicles (interestingly, the Terran Hegemony's main battle tank was <s>the Israeli Merkava</s> named Merkava but utterly unrelated to the Israeli tank of the same name), allowing a single man to destroy formations of opposing non-Mechs. Of course, the rest of the Inner Sphere wanted the same capability, and in 2355 the plans for the Battlemech were stolen (as usual, the writers don’t realize that stealing a design is pointless if you don’t know how to build all the parts...like myomer). The Age of the Battlemech had begun.

During the next hundred years, as the Great Houses vied for supremacy and founded the nucleus of the future Successor States, the Terran Hegemony was able to exert great influence as the most technologically-advanced and neutral of the great powers. This would lead to the creation of the '''''Star League''''' in 2571, a grand union of all of humanity's interstellar nations. While ostensibly created for the purpose of uniting mankind and keeping the peace between the stars, it was also a massive power play by Terra to secure the raw materials it needed to maintain its technological edge and once more bring mankind under Terra's dominion. In keeping with the feudal society that now dominated mankind's worlds, the position of First Lord of the Star League was invested in Terra's ruling House, the Cameron dynasty.

While Hidden Wars would plague the Star League throughout its reign, no conflicts were fought between its members as long as the Star League Defense Force kept the peace between factions. Terra's hoard of advanced technologies were shared freely among the worlds of man, and a new Golden Age descended. It all came to an end in 2766. The last of the Camerons was assassinated by Stefan Amaris, a power-hungry politician from the Periphery, the ring of interstellar nations that had refused to join the Star League and had been conquered for their trouble. Claiming the mantle of Emperor of the Star League and Director-General of the Terran Hegemony, Amaris was immediately denounced by the commander of the SLDF, Aleksandr Kerensky.

===A New Dark Age===
[[File:Aleksandr Kerensky.jpg|thumb|right|"Fuck you guys, I'm out." - Aleksandr Kerensky, Great Father of Clans]]
The Amaris Civil War destroyed the League, and led to a new Dark Age. The Great Houses, throwing off their loyalty to Terra, refused to aid either Amaris or Kerensky, and waited for the war to pass. Kerensky emerged the victor, but with the Cameron dynasty ended the other Great Houses began to vie for position of First Lord of the Star League. Disgusted by the politicking and betrayal, in 2784 Kerensky took the greater portion of the SLDF into exile beyond the Periphery. Those who remained pledged their loyalty to the Star League's last civil authority, the Ministry of Communication, which would later become Comstar, the sole provider of internet connections between worlds. Thus the Star League lost its last measure of power, and the Great Houses began the First Succession War.

Four Succession Wars, over the course of two centuries, would follow. Never would a Great House gain enough strength to declare itself master of mankind, especially since none would ever conquer Terra. Technology would [[Imperium of Man|stagnate and regress]], creating the Lostech phenomenon, technology which mankind could no longer reproduce, maintain, or even understand. Where before feudalism had been a political phenomenon, hundreds of worlds across the Inner Sphere regressed to or below the technological level of the 20th Century, and hundreds more in the Periphery failed entirely. The sole bright spot was [[Adeptus Mechanicus|Comstar]], the corporate religious entity which maintained the Hyper Pulse Generator network that enabled FTL communications between inhabited worlds. Comstar became the rulers of Terra in the wake of the Star League's collapse, and leveraged their control of the HPG network to ensure their inviolability in exchange for maintaining the incomprehensible HPG networks and neutral treatment of all communications between worlds. In order to maintain their power, they would actively [[Grimdark|sabotage, headhunt, or kill]] all promising technological advancements and promising scientists to maintain their monopoly and techno-religious authority. To be fair, unlike a certain [[Adeptus Mechanicus|cargo cult]], ComStar intervened because they realized the Great Houses were psychopaths and couldn’t be allowed to advance. Also, they were actually loyal-ish to the Star League and hated the Great Houses.

Eventually the Inner Sphere would stabilize around the Great Houses and their associated stellar empires. However, technological progress remained stagnant, and the rare factories capable of producing such advanced technologies as Battlemechs became critical components in the shattered military-industrial complexes of the so-called Successor States. Millions would die so that an LED monitor factory could be taken by one side, or so that a hundred precision-machined laser lenses could be plundered from a forgotten SLDF armory. Real progress towards recovery could only be made after large caches of information which survived the fall of the Star League were recovered; the most significant were the recovery of a long-lost Star League university's library in 3013, and the recovery and free dissemination of the contents of the Helm Memory Core in 3028. In 3028, the two largest and most powerful Successor States, the Federated Suns and the Lyran Commonwealth, were united by dynastic marriage, and it seemed that a new Golden Age might be only decades away.

But the Inner Sphere had forgotten all about Kerensky's exodus, and nobody wants ''Peace'' to break out in a wargame setting, soooo...

===Suddenly Clannerscum===
Kerensky and his followers first settled on the Pentagon Worlds, where they tried to start a new society and a new Star League. They failed though, and the wars erupted between the worlds, showing the bitter irony of life. Kerensky tried to move on, but suffered a heart attack, and the leadership was overtaken by his son, Nicholas Kerensky (who unlike his father had hair and was probably a closet [[furry]]). Nicholas took the remaining followers with him to a planet he called "Dream Land" and established the twenty original Clans.

The Clans are a tribal society that is divided into five castes - Warriors (religious and political leaders and soldiers), Scientists (less respected but are considered highly important), Merchants (detested and only kept as a necessity), Technicians (engineers and warriors' servants), and Laborers (serfs, repressed as needed). Although during the birth each child is tested for their relevance to a certain caste, but more often than not are the same as their parents. Speaking of which, Clanners strongly believe in eugenics, and most of the Warrior Caste members are genetically enhanced clones/mashups. Other castes are selectively bred by the instructions from Science Caste. On a positive side it would mean that even [[neckbeard|neckbeards]] would end up breeding (though given the Clan's brutal meritocracy/kratocracy, they'd end up as outcasts in the Bandit Caste). On the other hand, the society has only a few acceptable non-technical forms of information, meaning that there really is no reason for there to be neckbeards. Paradoxes aside, Clans were created towards efficiency, and even their language differs from the one used in the Inner Sphere. Clans constantly compete in everything, from combat to technological prowess, as they foresaw their return to the Inner Sphere and its liberation. (By their hands, of course. And logically resulting in their control.)

And that day was not far off. Unfortunately for the Inner Sphere, Comstar never forgot about Kerensky's Exodus and sent exploration vessels out to sniff out their trail and reclaim lost Star League outposts on the side. When the Clans captured one of the expeditions, they believed that the Inner Sphere would invade the Pentagon worlds. Ironically, the Clans used that as an excuse to return and invade before being forced back by the very invasion they were trying to prevent.

A prophecy of days far off, the '''''ilClan''''' is a religious myth that states that someday a Clan will take control of Terra, the Cradle of Humanity. The Khan (leader) of the Clan of Clans which captures Terra will become the new, true ilKhan (Khan of Khans) and re-establish the Star League, over which their blood shall reign in perpetuity. All will be Clan, Clan will be all.

'''''ilClan''''' is also an [[Skub|abortive Battletech rulebook]] that has been in the works since '''2002''', ever since the '''Dark Age''' Era was published. Ostensibly intended to be the next historical Era, featuring all new rules to reflect the dominance of Clan society and technology, the bankruptcies and sales that Battletech went through stalled all development. In addition, most fans are [[Advancing the Storyline|vehemently opposed to the destruction of most of the factions]] in the game, and have spoken up at every opportunity to denounce the plans behind ilClan. A prank release of a provisional ilClan historical outline drew tremendous outcry and Catalyst Game Labs has subsequently decided to focus on rereleasing and updating older Era rulesets.

===Meanwhile, In The Inner Sphere===
...Of course, when the Clans returned to the Inner Sphere with the intent of liberating it from the feuding Great Houses, those same great houses <s>said "okay" and handed over the reins</s> put aside their differences and fought the Clans to a stand-still. This was an incredible show of camaraderie, and the most cooperative the houses had been since the Star League fell. It was all quite touching, really.

Sort of. The Clan invasion was getting bogged down and while they were making progress towards Terra it seemed like the new normal would be just constant unending war because they couldn't manage to actually put any of the successors away for good. ComStar, the self-serving treacherous pricks that they are, decided that something needed to be done and so made the Clans a bet. The deal was, come to Tukayyid and fight our best in one big PROVE YOUR WORTH honorduel smackup. If the Clans won, ComStar would stab all the successors in the back, disconnect their HPG access and throw the doors to Terra wide open. If ComStar won, the Clans would agree to a fifteen year armistice.

The Clans, being the honourable glory-seeking meatheads they are, agreed, not realizing that ComStar are every bit the cheating bastards you'd expect of an ISP in space with their own army. The Battle of Tukayyid wasn't a complete shutout for the Clans but it definitely illustrated that they still hadn't gotten the knack for how total war actually works. In most of the engagements the Com Guard pounded the Clanners like discount tenderloin and because of their stubborn honourable ways the Clanners were obliged to abide by the cease fire by the logic of no-takey-backsies.

And then once the Clans were wrapped up behind a truce line it was time to get back to good-old inter-house wars. In an ultra-brief summary: There was the FedCom Civil War, kicking off the <s>Fifth Succession War</s> Word of Blake Jihad, the religious fanatic (well, moreso than usual) faction of Comstar went crazy over the entire Inner Sphere with cyborgs and nukes, until some dude named Devlin Stone got everyone to work together and kick them off Terra, then went on to form the Republic of the Sphere, essentially a re-establishment of the Terran Hegemony. In the meantime, the Clans got a bug up their asses over ideological purity after their Scientist Castes tried to take over, and all the Clans who invaded the Inner Sphere got kicked out of Clan Space to live there instead. Eventually someone forgot to pay the phone bill and the interstellar faster-than-light communication network went down. This ushered in the last era in the fluff known as the "Dark Age."

This is also considered the second ruination of the franchise by some. Many long-time fans think highly of the Succession Wars era of Battletech, right after the fall of the Star League. Marching around the field with walking tanks so expensive and rare that it's better to lose a pilot than a weapon is a powerful fantasy. It's often described as being "Mad Max with mechs." Of course, the blasted hellscape of the post-apocalypse is hard to maintain when the Clans invaded with their own brand-new shiny toys.
The shift from "squabbling tribes with rusty guns" to "courageous defenders with shiny factories" is often considered the first ruination of the property. When the squabbling of the Inner Sphere was broken up again by quasi-religious zealots and Battletech was forced to stitch in apocrypha from its bastard child, the miniature game MechWarrior: Dark Age, people considered it the second collapse of the franchise.

===ilClan Era <strike>Dawn of a New Age, or Not</strike>===
In 2019 Catalyst released '''Shattered Fortress''', the first half of a two-sourcebook set intended to finally advance the franchise into a post-Dark Age era. It ended with a cliffhanger: on New Year's Day 3150 a Clan fleet lands on Terra, but we don't know which Clan. Continuing the recurring theme of Battletech players not caring one bit about advancing the storyline, the release of the second book was then delayed indefinitely by the massive success of a Kickstarter offering more new miniatures and rules set 100 years back on the timeline. While each republished or recompiled rulebook has prologues hinting that the ilClan and Third Star League are around in 3250 from framing documents as archival material, details were deliberately [[Skub|left vague]]. Come 2021, and the novels have finally pushed the timeline out of the Dark Age, reception has been... [[Derp|eh]]. While some factions and characters got a lot of development and [[Awesome|heroic action]], many others were [[Rage|given the shaft]] or reduced to 2D [[FAIL|caricactures when they had potential for development]].

On January 1st, 2021 the novel ''Hour of the Wolf'' was released. Long story short, the Wolf Khan managed to get his hands on a way to bypass the Fortress Walls (unknown to most, Devlin Stone snuck them the access codes as he believed they were the least terrible of bad outcomes). Clans Wolf and Jade Falcon then beat the shit out of the Republic of the Sphere (but not before having the bulk of their commanders assassinated by headhunter units), fought a Trial of Possession for Terra, and the Wolves won. So, Clan Wolf is now ilClan. Their Khan made the Jade Falcons his clan's bodyguard (the bad elements having died fighting), and reconstituted Clan Smoke Jaguar as a non-voting clan and to serve as his clan's black ops/special forces. These Clans then created a new Star League (to a point). And with the combined might of these admittedly terribly mangled clans now strengthened by working together, they might actually make something of themselves. Others in the setting might not recognize them yet, but with the industrial might of the region(s) of space they occupy, they'll probably end up smashing faces and making it clear whose boss. Or they'll get booted off or everyone will just wait for them to self-destruct and then just walk right in.

==Factions Summary==
While each faction has a certain flavor and preferred equipment/tactics, factions do not limit your gameplay choices to particular sets of mechs/units/components, as in many other games ([[Warhammer 40,000]] is a good example, amongst many other skirmish-level wargames). So if something you want to use is in specific era of Battletech History (FEDCOM Civil War, Clan Invasion, et cetera), anything goes. Although it's common for players to roleplay as being employed by some major power, and limiting themselves to their styles. Either that or they play as mercenaries and do as they please. Seriously, the amount of in-fighting is in effect galactic level (in Warhammer 40k -- aside from humanity itself -- only the ''Necrontyr'', the flesh incarnations of the [[Necrons]], ever fought each other to such a long and drawn out extent).

===The Inner Sphere===
While other time periods might have better or more interesting rules, the most popular ruleset remains the eras between the Fourth Succession War (3028) to just before the Word of Blake Jihad (3067). This list of Inner Sphere factions covers those periods.

====Federated Suns====
Ruled by House Davion, the Federated Suns is feudal Space America or nepotistic Space UK. [[Lawful Good]], ruled by a Great House as inbred as any other is, and with all positions of power occupied by the same set of mostly blood-related elites. Without the blue blood, you're just a clever commoner. However, the Federated Suns isn't as stratified as the other Successor States, and it's easier for a common citizen to climb the ladders of wealth and power, which fuels an entrepreneurial society that is among the wealthiest in the Inner Sphere. They’re heroic defenders of freedom and democracy, provided you define “freedom and democracy” as “being ruled by the Federated Suns”. Their colors are red, white, and blue. Something about that sounds strangely familiar...

Similar to [[Ultramarines|a certain faction in a certain other wargame]], the Federated Suns usually win most of their battles, and are usually presented as the good guys, drawing a lot of accusations of Mary Suehood. Unfairly, though, as the FedSuns win so much due to wealth-fueled research and production. In other words, they work hard, do a good job, encourage businesses, and they get rewarded with victory. Unlike the Smurfs, however, the Federated Suns has actual flaws - their “democracy” is a rubber stamp, their rhetoric about freedom is mostly just an excuse to justify warmongering and imperialism, and they have such a staggering degree of wealth inequality that there are cases where the populations of multiple planets only have a single school to go between them. This means that the FedSuns attract two kinds of fans: twelve-year-olds who buy all the propaganda, and people who can appreciate playing a bunch of self-righteous, hypocritical jackasses. On the bright side, they do live up to the hype when it comes to individual liberties. And their rulers are genuinely competent and mostly don't dick them over.

Thanks to their great wealth, the Federated Suns can afford to fund actual scientific research in the form of the New Avalon Institute of Science, or Space MIT, and the Davions supported most of the tech development and recovery in the Inner Sphere prior to the Clan Invasion. They also got lucky when they found an ancient Star League library filled with various editions of tabletop wargame splatbooks. They are known to be the house that first heavily employed or utilized a lot of Clan personnel and technologies after the conclusion of the invasion.

The Federated Suns also kind of have a thing for autocannons. Think [[Space Wolves]] with wolves, or [[Orks]] with [[Dakka]], and you have an idea. If it does not have an autocannon on it the Suns will find a way to give it one, and if it does have an autocannon they find a way to upgrade it to a rotary autocannon. So if you like autocannons this is the faction for you.

Prior to the Fourth Succession War, the Federated Suns and Lyran Commonwealth were united through marriage (technically the political union was a treaty and the marriage was out of love and had no impact on the nations' unification), forming the Federated Commonwealth, the largest and most powerful empire in the galaxy since the Star League. In order to bridge the distance between the two nations, however, the Federated Commonwealth had to conquer large swathes of the Capellan Confederation, which they did easily. However, only a few decades later the Commonwealth was broken up by the FedCom Civil War, when Katherine Steiner-Davion schemed to either take over the Commonwealth or secede the Lyran half of it because she was a royal bitch. She is commonly known as simply The Bitch by many fans. And her splitting of the FedCom is incredibly weird since her nobles were against her, her military mostly liked the advantages brought by the FedSuns, and her public liked the massive boosts in economy and technological progress. Oh, and she was rebel usurper. And had no authority to do any of the things she did. So, her successful secession doesn't make a lick of sense and you just kinda have to suck it up. Oh yeah, and she had her mother murdered out of greed. The FedSuns are currently getting kicked around by pretty much everybody during the Dark Age, primarily because the current head of the house, Caleb, is extremely paranoid and rather psychotic. Thankfully he got killed by the Kuritans with some insider help from Clan Snow Raven (in exchange for some buffer territory). Not so thankfully, his death also brought the destruction of virtually most of the Davions' regular armed forces concentrated on one planet while enabling the Kuritans to take over the capital. <strike>''Save us, Julian!''</strike> Kuritans being what they're like, they probably raped and tortured everyone they didn't murder and their dogs.

====Lyran Commonwealth====
[[File:Steiner Assault.jpg|350px|right|thumb|A typical scene of a Lyran Archon wondering why their cousin has failed to relieve the Commonwealth alongside a bloody frontline against their enemies. They're likely either at a ball dance or planning a coup.]]
Space Germany with some Space Scotland and Space Scandinavia kicking around, the Lyran Commonwealth is the largest successor state and owns the most resource-rich planets in the Inner Sphere, making them an industrial and economic powerhouse. Their government was supposed to be modeled on ancient Athens, led by a council of nine Archons, but this did not work out ''at all'', and eventually Archon Robert Marsden decided he'd had enough of this shit and overthrew the other Archons in a military coup. The Marsdens were eventually replaced by the Steiners via marriage, who have ruled the Commonwealth to this day.

The Lyrans are rich. Really, really absurdly rich. The only reason they haven't conquered the Inner Sphere yet is that they prefer to put the relatives of rich businessmen in charge of their army rather than, y'know, actual soldiers, meaning basically every Lyran military officer is terrible at their job. There is at least one recorded case of the Lyran military starting a major interstellar war ''by accident''. Fortunately, since they're so rich, they're able to make up for their ludicrous incompetence with the biggest and heaviest weapons in the Inner Sphere. The joke goes that a typical Steiner scout lance consists of four 100-ton '''''Atlas''''' mechs (imagine a scout-recon team composed entirely of Warlord Titans and you'll get the idea). Steiner forces tend to be big and slow, barely able to outmaneuver enemy fortresses. Of course, once they (eventually) get into range, you can kiss that fortress goodbye.

Late in the Third Succession War, Archon Katrina Steiner shocks the entire Inner Sphere by actually calling for a peace treaty. Only Hanse Davion is at all interested, and he winds up marrying Katrina's daughter Melissa and uniting the two countries into one massive empire, the Federated Commonwealth (see above). Predictably, this Beauty-and-the-Geek romance starts out exceedingly awesome then epically fails and it's back to single life for the too-pretty Steiners. Recently tried to have Clan Wolf migrate through their coreward territory to keep the Free Worlds League from reforming during the Dark Age while holding the transported civilian castes as insurance. The plan backfired with the Free Worlds League still reforming and Clan Wolf taking much of the coreward and middle territory in the Lyran Commonwealth to form the Wolf Empire. This, on top of a massive amount of civil unrest means the Lyrans are too busy with damage control from Wolf and Jade Falcon invasions along with internal rebellions to be a threat to anyone. The moral of the story is: don’t try to manipulate badasses who nearly conquered everyone without trying. They will fuck you up for it. Also, trying to hold civilians hostage against a culture that thinks civilians are barely human at all is pointless. It tends to go like "Okay, I'll kill a bunch of your people and conquer chunks of your territory". You threaten to kill the civilians and your enemy is totally incapable of understanding why they should care.

====Free Worlds League====
Taking elements from America, Yugoslavia, and Austria-Hungary, the Free Worlds League is a federal democratic republic. No, really! They have a parliament and everything. Of course, the commander-in-chief of the Free Worlds League Military is always a member of House Marik because parliament doesn’t think anyone else can do the job, and the entire country has been operating under martial law “for the duration of the emergency” since the Star League broke up. But in principle, both democracy and federalism are alive and well in Marik space, making it impossible to get anything done.

Everyone in the Free Worlds League hates everyone else in the Free Worlds League. After finding out that Captain-General Thomas Marik had been in hiding running the Word of Blake for decades and the guy they’d been taking their orders from all that time was actually just some hobo picked up off the street, they gave up on trying to make the thing work at all and collapsed. Which is a shame because fake Marik was one of the best Captain-Generals they ever had. After the Dark Age, said hobo’s daughter managed to put it back together again, which kind of makes you start to wonder about that whole “only the Mariks can handle the Captaincy-General” thing. Doesn't help that she had to make a deal with the Spirit Cat and Sea Fox clanners to cement the whole thing together as well as marrying the official Marik family's head.

The Free Worlds League Military is built around combined arms warfare, treating infantry, vehicles, and aerospace fighters as if they were just as useful as mechs. They also used to have the most LAMs back before [[squat|LAMs ceased to be a thing]]. They don’t get a lot of attention, since they’re far away from the FedSuns and the Clans and therefore don’t get involved in stories about factions the writers actually care about. The constant in-fighting probably doesn't help. That said, their most likely do enough to keep their jobs, which is probably good enough to satisfy the average Joe, who couldn't care less about political squabbles.

Think of the Free Worlds League as Space Roman Empire.

====Draconis Combine====
Ruled by House Kurita, the Draconis Combine is the obligatory Space Japan, in the sense that it is ''obligatory'' to be Japanese. It has large Arab and Scandinavian minorities who are legally required to be [[weeaboo]]s, with the country as a whole drawing on both the age of samurai and the militaristic Imperial Japan of the 1920s to 40s. The twelve-year-olds listed above, if they leave the FedSuns, will likely move to this weeaboo paradise with its delusional "fierce solo samurai warrior takes on all opponents Kurosawa Style" appeal, not realizing that lone mechs get [[rape|gang-banged]] by enemies who are teamed up like a pack of mechanical hyenas. Defended by weeaboos despite being responsible for the single most horrific massacre in human history during the First Succession War. For an alternate look into this supposed massacre, please read ''Did 52 million really die?'' In fact, they have a habit of doing this. “We defeated the mercenaries on this planet who have nothing to do with the general populace. Nuke everyone before we leave. Why? Uhhhh...do we really need a reason? <s>they’re not our enemies or anything, but [[Lulz|murder is fun]]</s> SCORCHED EARTH TACTICS! Preventing enemies from using the planet’s populace or resources against us is a valid strategy!”

Like everyone else in the Inner Sphere, the Draconis Combine is a warmongering, autocratic empire ruled with an iron fist that wants to take over the galaxy. Unlike everyone else in the Inner Sphere, they actually admit it. They're the only successor state that makes absolutely no pretenses of being a democracy, with the Coordinator of Worlds being treated as a divinely anointed absolute monarch who is the sole legitimate ruler of all humanity. They were the first to start shit after the Star League collapsed, with the Coordinator declaring himself the new First Lord and launching an invasion of the Federated Suns that eventually wound up getting him killed on Kentares IV, prompting his son to launch the aforementioned massacre. They've been the mortal enemies of the Federated Suns ever since.

Similar to the Davions and their love of autocannons and the Steiners and their love of everything heavy and assault, Kuritans are really, really into PPCs (Particle Projector Cannons), mainly because they're dirt poor and [[Lasgun]]s are cheaper than bullets. If there is a mech that can possibly mount a PPC, the Dracs will put one on it. For instance, see the ''Catapult'': a 65-ton long-range fire support mech intended for indirect fire using the Long Range Missle (LRM) racks in its "ears". Almost every variant of the ''Catapult'' is centered around these LRM racks with a few minor backup weapons. They are a reliable, battle-tested design that no commander in their right mind would attempt to 'fix', because isn't broken... except in the eyes of House Kurita. Once the Combine got their hands on it those ears were replaced with two PPCs for direct fire support and two machine guns for <s>civilian massacres</s> INFANTRY DETERRENTS.

Kuritans were also [[Fail|involved in the worst Battletech novel ever written]], wherein a ship of theirs was lost in time and space, and [[what|found giant]], [[Kroot|alien, sentient chickens]]. Far Country is a [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6zQ6ZqEqg0 Shamefur Dispray]! and pretty much serves as the only time aliens are actually mentioned in the BattleTech universe.

====Capellan Confederation====
Culturally, Space China or Space Russia. Politically, Space North Korea. The Confederation was originally founded when several minor states in the Capellan Zone who were sick of the Federated Suns trying to "liberate" them joined together, [[lolwut|bombed their own capital to make a point]], and fought the Davions off. Secure in this victory, they then proceeded to never win a war ever again. Sounds like their rulers were evil after all.

Citizens of the Capellan Confederation enjoy probably the highest standard of living of any commoner in the Inner Sphere, with an extensive, cradle-to-grave welfare system and the best education and health care the state can provide. [[Grimdark|*Non*-citizens of the Capellan Confederation, known as "Servitors", are basically slaves.]] Becoming a citizen requires you to provide a certain amount of service to the state by the age of seventeen, and citizenship can be removed as punishment for disloyalty. Even those who aren't unfortunate enough to be Servitors basically have their lives decided for them by the Capellan caste system and the government's ability to tell them that they have to move to a new planet and take up a new career at any given moment.

The Confederation is run by a Chancellor, who's supposed to be elected by the nobility but in reality is pretty much always the head of House Liao. This is rather unfortunate, since the Liaos have a noticeable tendency towards being batshit fucking insane ''even by Inner Sphere nobility standards''. They claim descent from Elias Liao, who was either a persecuted revolutionary philosopher (if you ask a Capellan) or a psychopathic nuclear terrorist (if you ask anyone else). The main family line births a homicidal maniac at least every other generation, e.g. Kali Liao, who became the leader of a cyborg death cult with a taste for mass nerve-gas attacks. At one point, they decided that having a regular military just wasn't cool enough for them and created the Warrior Houses, a bunch of weird pseudo-religious warrior cults that only answer to the Chancellor.

Since the Capellans have lost basically every war they've ever fought and live right next to the Federated Suns, they've become the designated "sneaky" faction, focusing on guerrilla warfare and covert operations. They go for stealth and electronic warfare the way the Davions go for autocannons, best exemplified by their iconic Raven electronic warfare 'Mech (which, depending on the model, actually looks like a bird; weird but cool). After the Clan Invasion and FedCom Civil War, they acquired a taste for the newly-developed Plasma weapons. Got the absolute shit beat out of them by the Federated Commonwealth during the Fourth Succession War, got revenge when the Commonwealth tore itself apart a few decades later.

====ComStar====
Imagine a cross between the medieval Catholic Church and Comcast, and you have ComStar. During the Star League Civil War, the network of Hyperpulse Generators that the Star League had built for faster-than-light communications was in ruins, and the one thing that the Great Houses could agree on was that ''somebody'' had to fix all their space phones right fucking now. They named Jerome Blake, the highest-ranking HPG network official still alive, as Minister of Communications, which, since they didn't name any other ministers, basically put him in charge of Terra. As the Star League collapsed, Blake bummed some soldiers off of Kerensky, got the Successor States to agree that the space phones were important and they should therefore respect ComStar's neutrality, and then seized complete control of Terra in a lightning-fast coup, revealing that that neutrality had some teeth.

After Blake died, ComStar quickly turned into a quasi-mystical and religious organization, whose stated purpose was to preserve human knowledge in the dark ages of the Succession Wars, a goal they attempted to fulfill by assassinating every scientist who wouldn't work for them and starting the Second Succession War practically the moment the first one ended. Things started to spiral out of control for them after the Helm Memory Core was leaked and suddenly everyone was able to figure out how Lostech worked again, and then things got even ''worse'' when the Clans showed up.

ComStar is also famous for introducing the ComStar Bill (C-bill) as a standard galactic currency. Rather than being backed by material goods, each C-bill is backed by ComStar's faster than light message delivery service: One C-bill will guarantee one millisecond of data transmission, enough for a few pages of bare text or a small image, with larger transmissions costing more, and with additional fees for higher priority and the like. The value of the various Great House currencies can be weighed against their worth in C-bills which allows for currency exchange on a galactic scale. The C-bill is the primary way that mercenaries are paid and in turn pay for goods and services, and thus the most common currency encountered by players. Post Jihad, Comstar was neutered of its armed forces and subject to a hostile takeover by Clan Sea Fox (outside of the universe, at least one of the game developers had a hate boner against Comstar's OP status and gave their more powerful components the ax, courtesy of Blakist nukes).

====Minor Powers====
*'''Free Rasalhague Republic''': Space Norse/Vikings. They were a part of the Draconis Combine along the Lyran border, until the formation of the Federated Commonwealth meant that Kurita was about to have ''two'' borders for Hanse Davion to attack them from, so he granted them their independence as a buffer state. May have been awesome. If you're wondering why we write of them in the past tense refer to: ''Clan Invasion, Why Not Get in the Way of One'' (Third Publishing of Liao, COMSTAR ISBN 474-Alpha-467-Upsilon-345). They later join up with the Ghost Bears and become the Rasalhague Dominion. They are awesome because now we have Viking clanners. One of their aerospace pilots literally stopped the Clan invasion dead for an entire year because she banzai'd her fighter into a Clan dropship and killed the ilKhan.
*'''Word of Blake''': An ultra-reactionary splinter faction of ComStar that got butthurt after ComStar ditched all the pseudo-religious bullshit. Broke away and launched an all-out jihad(''yes, they actually used that word'') on literally everyone shortly after the Federated Commonwealth Civil War came to an end. Made liberal use of weapons of mass destruction and rendered several entire planets uninhabitable. Fond of genocide, re-education camps, unstable technology, and mass murder. As a result, they were eventually crushed as a result of pissing off the entire fucking universe, but not before undoing a lot of the technological progress that had been made after the Clan Invasion (apparently by magic, as not only was that knowledge now universally available, but so were copies of the Helm Memory Core...and destroying some factories doesn’t make technology go away). Basically used by the publishers to reset the average technology level of the game due to a lot of players feeling it was advancing too far and getting away from the quasi-feudal feel of earlier editions (forgetting that quasi-feudalism is a governing method, the technology level has nothing to do with it). Ironically enough, their mechs were more streamlined and featured a lot more experimental technologies for people who would eventually blow the entire game setting back to the quasi-iron age. Officially, they were all supposedly killed after the Jihad for genocide. Recently hinted by a terminally ill Stone to still be around and responsible for the HPG network being taken out as a taunt against ilKhan Alaric before being killed off in bed.
*'''The Republic of The Sphere''': Established by an individual calling himself Devlin Stone, who mysteriously surfaced at some point during the Blakefag Jihad, and helped pull the galaxy out that colossal clusterfuck through a series of successful military campaigns. Upon the Jihad's defeat, Stone met with ComStar Precentor Martial Victor Ian Steiner-Davion and laid out a philosophy which Victor would privately describe as ''militant socialism keyed to altruism''; Officials and authorities would have their assets placed in a blind trust. Public service would be rewarded. Greed and corruption would be punished. All weapons would be placed under government control. [[Just As Planned|Surprisingly, it worked]], at least for a time, ushering in a new era of peace for the core worlds. However, after ruling as Exarch of the Republic for a while, Devlin Stone stepped down and shortly there after disappeared, vowing to [[Sigmar|return when he was needed most]]. It didn't take long before everything went to shit again and was plunged into chaos when the interstellar communication network was sabotaged. Was gangbanged by a combination of separatist factions, the Capellans, and Clan Jade Falcon before finally saying FUCK IT and retreating back to Terra. All while somehow using Word of Blake HPG disruption tech to prevent hyperspace jumps into their core territory. They also recently developed a taste for Tripod Mechs (which are the only modern Mech that can exceed Assault Mechs in terms of tonnage, firepower, and armor but at the cost of requiring an additional gunner and engineer onboard to shoot and monitor the machine's vitals) while also hybridizing Clan & IS technology (culminating with extremely powerful but unstable weapons). <strike>''You guys realize Stone is the [[Emperor]], right? Right?''</strike> None of this makes sense, of course, as the HPG network is not only extremely well and fanatically protected by actual fanatics, but also is so large it can’t really be sabotaged. Except by magically competent Deus ex Machina mooks, apparently. Friendly clans could also build their own for the Republic’s use. Except newly built HPGs also failed somehow. Black Boxes became advanced enough that HPGs were nearly pointless, though, making the whole “Dark Age” thing really...dumb. And if someone had the sense to build building-sized Black Boxes instead of briefcase-sized, the HPGs would have a perfect backup. But common sense in Battletech is [[heresy]] just like in any good universe. Besides that, the eyes on anyone with power to prevent corruption would stop factions from selling out the Republic and the senators would not have been able to sponsor military officers into becoming Paladins because that is extremely corrupt and would not have been allowed or tolerated. Even if such a plot succeeded, there would be no leverage for the senators to get those paladins to do what they wanted. And the Capellans are target practice, sudden separatism makes no sense when they were fine until this point under numerous oppressive regimes, and Clan Jade Falcon by itself would have been crushed and a team up of clans would have sent the whole Inner Sphere into a clan-killing frenzy panic mode. Come the latest novels in 2021, and the Republic and it's founder were reduced to a caricature of fall of the III Reich (complete with a senile leader giving contradictory orders and throwing their best units at the worst faction so the best faction can pick up the pieces). While many of their leaders and fighters survived, it's an open question of whether they cooperate with the ilClan or revolt later down the line.
* '''The Periphery''': The collection of non-successor states on the edges of the Inner Sphere. They were brought into the Star League by force and are still kinda sore about it, mostly because they nearly got blasted back to the Stone Age and never quite got their technology back up.
**'''Taurian Concordat''': A Periphery nation bordering the Federated Suns and Cappellan Confederation. Has an axe to grind against the Federated Suns and claims they’re much more dedicated to freedom and liberty than the Davions. Think the United States right after 9/11, all of the good and the bad, and you have a good idea of the culture. Just replace paranoia about Islam with paranoid about the Federated Suns, including the fact that the overwhelming majority of who they're paranoid couldn't given any less of a shit about them.
**'''Marian Hegemony''': A bandit kingdom bordering the Lyrans and Free Worlds League that decided to become the Roman Empire IN SPACE. A shadier version of the [[Severan Dominate]] from 40k.
**'''Magistracy of Canopus''': A hedonistic matriarchy bordering the Free Worlds League. A nation of cybernetic catgirls, whose largest export is pornography. No, really. We're serious. Well they're not all cybernetic catgirls but they're there if you want them, and pornography and the tourist industry makes up a large chunk of their economy. Also Medical research and technology, most likely to treat all the STDs you get from your vacation to Space Vegas. Also known for having a significant religious conservatives population as they have an open-door refugee policy.
**'''Outworlds Alliance''': A backwater state near the Federated Suns and Draconis Combine. Was the Periphery-est of the Periphery states until Clan Snow Raven moved in and formed the '''Raven Alliance'''.
**'''Hanseatic League''': A mercantile alliance of traders descended from Lyran refugees, they liked to pretend to be a neutral third party interested in trade of goods and information while also subjecting neighboring planets to debt trap diplomacy with armed merchant caravans. Also liked to play both sides against each other in any prolonged war among their neighbors to increase profits and soften them up for potential annexation (such as between Nueva Castille and the Umayyad Caliphate). Unfortunately, they were eventually conquered by Clan Goliath Scorpion (with help from their newfound Castilian and Umayyad citizens) and merged into their new Scorpion Empire some time in the Dark Age.
*'''Mercenary Review and Bonding Commission''': An independent group that certifies and provides force rankings for various mercenary groups. At least three Mech Warrior games are focused on the mercs as it allows writers more leeway and less chance to screw up the canon.
**'''Kell Hounds''': A merc company headed by Morgan Kell. His son Phelan was captured by Clan Wolf when the Clan Invasion first began, and by the end was running the Clan until it split. Took in Phelan and the Exiled Wolves afterwards. Generally, are tough but cool guys all around. Like the Exiled Wolves, they got a massive "kill on sight" target painted on their back after the omnicidal Jade Falcon Khan got annoyed with their feisty resistance against her campaign into Lyran Territory.
**'''Grey Death Legion''': Mercenary group who were famous for finding and distributing the Helm Core, which allowed the Inner Sphere to regain technology formerly lost during the Succession Wars. Generally an author's favorite in the books. Got destroyed during the Blake Jihad.
**'''Wolf's Dragoons''': A bunch of Clan Wolf advance scouts disguised as a mercenary group. Came to the Inner Sphere with a ton of mechs that the Clans considered outdated but hadn't been seen in the Successor States in centuries and were considered Lostech... Which should have tipped the Great Houses off that these guys might be bad juju. Instead of providing intel to the Clans for their invasion, Wolf's Dragoons pulled a fast one and tried to prepare the Inner Sphere for war with the Clans. They are generally pretty awesome guys, even if part of that awesomeness is because they get a ton of attention in the fluff due to the writers' obsession with anything related to Clan Wolf. They got screwed pretty badly during the Blake Jihad when the nutjobs assaulted Outreach. By Dark Age they are slowly recovering with help from the Kell Hounds. Recent novellas have the Wolves convince them to join them on Terra once it's conquered to prevent the genocidal Jade Falcons from becoming the IlClan. Unfortunately, latest novels also made them become meatshields used by the Wolf Khan to expend the Turquoise Turkeys' ammo supplies while being reduced to a fraction of their strength. Naturally, in a repeat of their history against Kurita, they [[Book of Grudges|swore]] an oath to stand against the Wolves permanently.

===[[The Clans]]===
Laughable strategic and logistical ability and basically have no plan when they do something. But God have mercy on you if they're coming your way. 'Cus you're '''''fucked'''''. Each clan is named after an animal, and yes those are the animal's full names.

* Clan Blood Spirit: The smallest clan. Noted for having the toughest training, favored Battle Armor, and had no official allies after starting off idealistic but then becoming jaded grudge-holders. :( Despite above comment, not ACTUALLY an animal, but named for the warrior spirit that united the forces under Kerensky.
* Clan Burrock: The only clan to support the Dark Caste. Liked picking on the Blood Spirits before they were absorbed by Clan Star Adder.
* Clan Cloud Cobra: The Religious types. Loved aerospace fighters and jump jets. Obsessed with collecting genetic bloodlines other clans don't want.
* Clan Coyote: Native Americans in Space. Also like to scheme too much for their own good. Known for creating a shit ton of tech (unlike [[Adeptus Mechanicus|some people]] on Mars...)
* Clan Diamond Shark: Used to be called Sea Fox until Snow Raven killed their namesake (with their current one) the only clan that views the merchant caste as equal to their warrior one. Later brought back the Sea Fox and changed their name back. The only clan to allow all castes to vote, making them arguably a genuinely democratic republic.
* Clan Fire Mandrill: The clan whose gimmick was to always have a few subfactions to foster internal competition. At first it was manageable and it improved the clan, but then the factionalism snowballed into more than 10 mini-subfactions which made the whole clan a laughing stock among the clans.
* Clan Ghost Bear: The only clan to be founded by a married couple, as a result they're the only clan to still have normal family units. Much more protective of its civilian caste than the others. Nearly devoured the Free Rashalague Republic in the Clan Invasion, then merged with what was left after the Jihad. Went full blown good old fashion Viking Berserker when the Jihad nuked their civilians, attacking friend and foe alike in pure grief fueled murderous rage. Awesome.
* Clan Goliath Scorpion: Stoners with rose-colored nostalgia glasses. Also noted for elite marksmanship and ambush tactics.
* Clan Hell's Horses: The only clan to think tanks are useful often uses combined arms tactics rather than just spamming mechs. They have a hot rod flames color scheme. Extremely heavily focused on teamwork. Including teamwork between castes and between the clan and its conquered worlds. Which has led to very good relations both internally and externally. Probably the only Clan other than the Star Adders that locals might actually support over a "liberating" Inner Sphere force. ''Maybe''.
* Clan <strike>Temper Tantrum</strike> Ice Hellion: Speed freaks with a big ego. Their Khan seems to bitch every time their forces lose, which is often.
* Clan Jade Falcon: The spotlight stealing clan second only to the Wolves, with whom they have a fierce rivalry. Slightly less evil than the Jaguars.
* Clan Mongoose: Basically a footnote in clan history. Extremely aggressive, tend to attack everyone near them. [[Fail|Got their asses kicked by everyone else before being absorbed.]]
* Clan Nova Cat: The spiritual types, they decide their policy with visions, which 9 times out of 10 ends badly for them. Some of the best marksmen in the clans, often competed with Clan Goliath Scorpion. Joined Smoke Jaguar in attacking the Draconis Combine, then sided with the Combine right after everyone decided the Jags had to go. Eventually got destroyed during the Dark Ages for backing the wrong Kuritan royal in a civil war.
* Clan <strike>Chimney Kitten</strike> Smoke Jaguar: Essentially super aggressive World Eaters trained to pilot mechs. Known to fuck shit up until their smaller numbers (due to infighting, shitting on their civilian castes and hating logistics) fucked them over in long campaign. Were eventually wiped out by the Inner Sphere counter-attack after they murdered an entire city from orbit. What goes around comes around. Recent ilClan lore had their descendants in the Fidelis sworn to the Wolf Khan in exchange for rebuilding their clan; [[What|despite]] their original [[Book of Grudges|hatred]] for letting the Second Star League annihilate them.
* Clan Snow Raven: The sinister & cunning space jockeys of the clans. Specialized in space combat and became BBFs with the Outworlds Alliance.
* Clan Spirit Cats: Offshoots of the Nova Cats after they were annihilated by the Combine.
* Clan Star Adder: Boring, but very, very practical, which benefited them a lot. They favor using assault mechs, and like to upgrade their lasers to heavy lasers. Living under them or as one of them is much more like real life. If you can do a job, you can have the job. Including a laborer wanting to be a warrior. Which ironically is the same approach that caused Clan Wolverine to be destroyed by Kerensky.
* Clan Steel Viper: Self righteous xenophobes who wanted to cooperate with the Inner Sphere but also treated freeborns like dirt, and then wondered why nobody liked them. Responsible for Clan genocide known as "The Wars of Reaving". [[Fail|Got genocided in return.]]
* Clan Widowmaker: The hyper-aggressive types. Their first Khan held a grudge against the Wolverines and framed them before being killed with support from Nicholas. Widowmaker later got annihilated for accidentally killing Nicky. What was left of it, however, <strike>gave birth</strike> (lies Clanners aren't born, they're grown) to the most dangerous MechWarrior ever, Natasha Kerensky.
* Clan Wolf: The spotlight stealing Clan, courtesy of it being Kerensky's personal clan. Split up into two factions following the Refusal War.
** Crusader Wolves: The guys who want to continue the invasion of Inner Sphere. Wound up migrating from their original invasion corridor to Lyran/Marik space & formed a new & dangerous upstart state called the '''Wolf Empire.''' Later <strike>[[Mary Sue|surprise surprise]]</strike>, won against the Republic and Jade Falcons on Terra to become the ilClan of the Third Star League [[FAIL|despite the other factions refusing to recognize them for now]] outside of the former Republic’s officials, Jade Falcons, & the Smoke Jaguars that are all a shadow of their strength. Naturally lost most of their forces to take the top prize.
** Warden Wolf-in-Exile: The guys who want to defend Inner Sphere against the rest of the clans, who they think are a mockery of Kerensky's teachings. Like the Kell Hounds, they got a massive "kill on sight" target painted on their back after the omnicidal Jade Falcon Khan got annoyed with their feisty resistance against her campaign into Lyran Territory. Somehow got convinced to rejoin the Crusaders Wolves in revenge against the Jade Falcons despite the story never addressing the Crusader-Warden divide on treating Inner Sphere nations as subjects to be conquered and ruled from above or charges to be protected and educated from partnership. The “official” motive of seeking payback against the Jade Falcons for razing their civilian population centers and killing their cadet academies can only go so far until the Green Chickens got defeated.
* <strike>Clan Wolverine</strike> Not-Named Clan: Aggressive and independent minded, these guys pissed off Nicky to such extent that they were annihilated after the vengeful Widowmaker Khan framed them of detonating a nuke on civilians after the Wolverines seceded from the Clans. Some survivors were able to flee as the '''Minnesota Tribe''' but they've been never heard from publicly since (though there are hints that they're around in the Deep Periphery in some recent novels and short stories). [[What|There are many theories about them returning to Inner Sphere and taking over it as shadow masterminds in order to destroy the clans.]] Basically, they did the caste thing but thought "Hey, why not let people do what they're best at?" and that sort of thing. It pissed off crazy pants ilKhan Kerensky because this approach made them more successful than all the other clans, proving his method was actually not the best way.

===Wars of Reaving===
[[Advancing the Storyline|Fed up with having to write more stuff about clans nobody cares about]], a bunch of clans were wiped out after the Jihad, or driven out of clan territory. While the in-story explanation is that a butthurt ilKhan decided it was time to make a powerplay after not having won anything out of the Inner Sphere Invasion, everyone knows that there were several clans that had no discernable effect on the game.
*'''''Annihilated or Absorbed:'''''
**Blood Spirit: Got wiped out for using civilian militias which "isn't clan-like" and [[Bullshit|marked for annihilation for letting people fight for their homes.]] As well as using [[Planetary Defense Force|en-mass civilian militias]] to attack their enemies.
**Burrock: Tried to re-establish themselves after being absorbed, got defeated.
**Fire Mandrill: Too fractured to fight back effectively.
**Ice Hellion: [[Fail|Killed themselves by trying to steal Jade Falcon and Hell's Horses territory.]] The remaining survivors remained joined Goliath Scorpion.
**Steel Viper: Took over the Clan Homeworlds and gave everyone free reign to remove the “taint” of the Invader Clans by any means necessary. Forgot that they themselves were an Invader Clan.
**Nova Cat: Destroyed by the Draconis Combine for being on the losing side of a civil war.
*'''''Exiled or Abjured:''''' These clans were forced out of the Clan Homeworlds on the pretense of being "corrupted" by Inner Sphere influences. Some later formed the '''Council of Six Clans''', representing the clans that now exist in the Inner Sphere.
**Ghost Bears: Banished to the Inner Sphere and eventually founded the '''Rasalhague Dominion.''' Joined the Council.
**Goliath Scorpion: Ran away and conquered Nueva Castile(Spaniards vs. Arabs IN SPACE) in the Deep Periphery, forming '''Escorpion Imperio.''' By the eve of the Dark Age, they had also conquered their neighbors to the south, the Hanseatic League, and founded a new major Periphery power known as the '''Scorpion Empire''' that's second only to the Homeworld Clans as a military power.
**Hell's Horses: Stole some of Clan Wolf's territory in the Inner Sphere, and end up getting banished from the Clan Homeworlds. Developed a taste for experimenting with QuadVee Mechs (which can convert from a ground combat vehicle into a Quad Mech while also requiring a dedicated gunner). Joined the Council.
**Jade Falcon: Banished to the Inner Sphere and tried to conquer Terra but failed. Still rules the parts of the Inner Sphere they conquered during the Clan Invasion. Replaced the Smoke Jaguars as the most vicious clan under their latest Khan (who's willing to do anything to kill her enemies). Joined the Council. Later got most of their forces wiped out from omnicidal fighting against the Republic, Dragoons, and Wolves on Terra. Said genocidal Khan got killed off and replaced with a pragmatic reformer who agreed to follow the Wolf IlKhan in exchange for the Turquoise Turkeys becoming the IlKhan's body guards.
**Sea Fox/Diamond Shark: Ended up in what's left of the Free Worlds League. Split up into semi-independent merchant fleets and are now a collection of nomadic "Khanates" that sail the starlanes of the Inner Sphere. Joined the Council, but also joined the FWL as a member state. In the meantime, managed to bring the Sea Fox back from extinction, and changed back to their old name.
**Smoke Jaguar: Some of them showed up as super-secret Clanner loyalists called '''Fidelis''' to the Republic of the Sphere. More practical minded than their grandparents but just as likely to go [[rip and tear|berserk]] when fighting any clan warriors for their perceived betrayal. Still in the Fortress Republic. A scant few are found hiding in the Deep Periphery with the few warships that they still had. Later somehow let go of their grudge to pledge allegiance to the Wolve Khan in exchange for reforming their Clan under the IlKhan's protection.
**Snow Raven: Ran away and merged with the Outworlds Alliance in the Periphery, forming the '''Raven Alliance.''' Joined the Council.
**Spirit Cat: What's left of Nova Cats, allied with the Free Worlds League and formed an enclave in their territory.
**Wolf: Splintered into several factions. Basically conquered the central and coreward territories of Lyran Alliance under the '''Wolf Empire.''' Making the Steiners have a bigger headache, their Khan, Katrina Steiner's descendant, claimed the mantle of Archon through her bloodline. Wolves-in-Exile refuse to join and are doing their own thing. Clan Wolf-Alliance joined the Council. “Katrina Steiner’s descendant” is in fact a Trueborn Clanner that Katherine Steiner-Davion had made using both her own genetic material and Victor Steiner-Davion’s, because regular incest just wasn’t crazy enough for her. Later became IlKhan <strike>naturally</strike>.
*'''''Home Clans:''''' Theses clans still hold territory in the Clan Homeworlds and consider themselves "True Clans."
**Cloud Cobra: Still around.
**Coyote: Sneaky bastards. Got their hands on the genetic material of the last known descendant of House Cameron.
**Star Adder: TOP DOG. Their Khan was the one who stopped the psycho Steel Viper ilKhan by dint of beating his head inside out with the nearest handy blunt object.
**Stone Lions: Made from the Hell's Horses who were left in the Clan Homeworlds and didn't get exiled.

So basically there are now ten Clans: The six Spheroid Clans, and the four Home Clans. The rest are either dead, formed hybrid societies, or are even more minor than before and thus save the writers from some hard work in upcoming TROs.

==The Appeal of Battletech==
First and most obvious, giant stompy Battlemechs bristling with guns duking it out is cool. But despite that, Battletech is in general a more grounded and human setting. You don't have warp daemons, God Emperors, energy forces or psionic powers in Battletech or giant Space Cathedrals and machines that work better when people pray to them. Nor does it have artificial gravity, shields, sapient aliens, serious transhumanism, dyson spheres, general AI and other more wild science fiction ideas. While it does go into some suspense of belief in technology such as KF FTL drive and HPG FTL communications, most of the technology is still grounded within the realm of plausible belief. Society-wise, it doesn't go into the speculation on how civilization may come into conflict with divergent ideals or extraterrestrial life, instead you have human people like you and me struggling in a hostile universe where the most dangerous thing is often another human being under another flag. Not that the setting lacks for variety. The main factions are very well developed with their own distinct motivations, even if they do sometimes tend to lean into stereotypes too much. Battletech is for people who read [[Dune]] and find the idea of the Atreides, Harkonnens, Corinos and the other Great Houses of the Landsraad with their conflicts and their power plays to be far more interesting than what happened after Paul took over. Some others also consider it similar to a teen rated version of [[A Song of Ice and Fire|Game of Thrones]] in space (but with mechs and sci fi tactics in place of mythical creatures and gore).

Battletech is one of the more morally grey settings out there. Moreso than many Grimdark settings where it's a matter of nasty jerks vs literal demons. While there are a few factions which are better or worse than others on the whole (Magistracy of Canopus vs Clan Smoke Jaguar) all of the factions have their share of virtue and vice, heroes and villains. Good people can come up from the Nobility of the Federated Suns, Citizens of the Capellan Confederation or the Iron Wombs of The Clans, as can a lot real nasty bastards. In that regard, this is a rather tragic universe. In this universe nobody is corrupted by Chaos or seduced by the Dark Side. Instead humanity took to the stars and flourishes, only to be brought low by human leaders with human failings.

As far as Mecha design goes, Battletech designs run the gamut from box-on-legs (Awesome, Dragon, etc), to egg-on-legs (Catapult, Marauder, etc), through to very polished designs (which were mostly stolen from Japanese anime shows). Wrong, they hired a third party artist who sold his designs to them and the other guys. Some of the later work, post-FASA, could be quite smooth, to the point of organic looking. As such, BattleTech is a pastiche of various art styles and design philosophies, covering the range of reactions from "cool-but-impractical", to "eh, practical-and-possible", and well out into the area that will make your engineering professor have a mental fit.

==Mechanics==
[[Image:Group-Plastic-Miniatures.jpg|thumb|right|The standard use of hexmaps renders the purchase of miniatures optional, though miniatures rules for the game are available.]]
[[Image:Blankrecordsheet.jpg|thumb|right|Record sheets are one of ''BattleTechs''' greatest blessings and curses.]]
The basic mechanic is simple. Two six-sided dice are used, with a to-hit (Equal or greater to) system. Initiative is interlaced, with the loser moving first and the winner able to react. All weapons damage is technically done at the same time, and therefore who shoots first is insignificant, although the order in which weapons fire from any given unit resolves is important. Larger weapons can scrub off large quantities of ablative armor, while smaller multi-hit weapons stand a better chance of forcing critical hits once a location is damaged. If you get hit, you mark off the weapons damage rating from your armor. If the shot penetrates your armor, you roll potential criticals. Firing weapons and moving about generates heat, which you must keep down to keep your 'Mech working properly.

Unlike games such as ''[[Warhammer]]'', where many units are either killed on the first shot or left unscathed, and little information is recorded, ''BattleTech'' uses record sheets to mark off each 'Mech's cumulative damage, ammunition, pilot status, and heat. Also, there are hit locations, so limbs can be blown off. The record sheets allow for effects that are more detailed, but this also increases the overall playtime. Although expert players can get through matches just as fast as players of other games of more or less equal size, new players often find that the game plays slowly. This is usually due to the time spent referencing hit-location tables, critical effects, etc. For new players, 2V2 matches are best, with 4V4 matches being the "cap", in order to have games that do not take excessively long. More experienced players can run games of 12v12 or larger in an afternoon, though these will often be multi-player games in which each ''player'' controls only a handful of 'Mechs.

One of the biggest appeals of ''BattleTech'' is that all of its units are made with a predefined set of rules. Custom designs are fully possible, though they are not likely to be welcome in tournament matches or pick-up games.

''BattleTech'' uses a build system based on 'Mech tonnage. You start with a Chassis limit, from 20-100 tons. You then determine engine size based on how fast you want your 'Mech to be (how many hexes you want it to be able to move per turn) you then allocate the remaining tonnage to control systems, weapons, ammo and armor. This method varies slightly depending on the technology of the chassis, but not overmuch. Though the system has recently been removed, there were previously three levels of technology.

'''Level 1''' (Now called "Introductory Tech") referred to early-era gameplay. Only the more rudimentary weapons and technologies are available, though the critical rules remain the same. This is the preferred level at which to learn, and is synonymous with the equipment available during the Succession Wars era. It is also the level of play made possible with starter boxes.

'''Level 2''' was Tournament-level gameplay. This introduced new equipment and electronics, as well as Clan technology (A more technologically advanced, but militant people). Though the rules are generally the same as those in level 1 gameplay, more-complicated equipment such as ECM, anti-missile systems, cluster munitions, etc. were better suited to more experienced players. It is the level of play made possible with separately-purchased rulebooks. Note that as the in-universe timeline advances, some more-advanced technology is designated "tournament-level", and several items that were Level 3 before the switch are also now "Tournament-Level".

'''Level 3''' referred to all advanced gameplay and equipment, including specialized gear from Historical manuals and the ''Solaris VII'' boxed sets/adventures. This has since been split out into "advanced", "experimental", and "era-specific" technology. This also included all equipment that was not listed in the core rulebooks. More complex rules were inserted in order to increase the realism and flexibility of the game. These include new weapons, new or altered terrain rules, artillery, alternate rules for major mechanics such as line-of-sight, etc. Though Level 3 rules included "prototype" equipment not printed in the core rulebooks, the standard rulebook in regards to Level 3 play was called ''Maxtech''. This has now been replaced by the Catalyst Games release of ''Tactical Operations'' and its sequels.

'''Advanced''' technology (not to be confused with "advanced rules" is covered largely in ''Tactical Operations'', and may be common but incorporates additional rules or restrictions that make it difficult to use without preparation.

'''Experimental''' tech is not mass-produced in-universe. The items are used in one-offs, prototype designs, and other weirdness. The ''Experimental Technical Readout'' series showcases this tech level, and most of the rules are in ''Tactical Operations'' or ''Strategic Operations''.

'''Era-specific''' technology incorporates advancements that were later abandoned in-verse. Usually these items were displaced by a superior version of the same technology, although there are some like the Listen-Kill missiles (which exploited a weakness in standard ECM protocols, later patched out) which are simply active for a few years and then abandoned once changing circumstances make them ineffective. Era-specific tech is the province of Historical sourcebooks, the ''Interstellar Operations'' rulebook, and a few campaign books.

==Spinoff Games==
Due to its popularity through the late 80s and early 90s, ''BattleTech'' spawned a multitude of spinoffs and expansion games.

'''[[Lost Worlds]]''' dueling books. NOVA adapted their melee dueling system to make four books for Battletech mecha. Each book has the opponent's view of the mech on each page, and a character sheet listing possible maneuvers. Since it used the same system as the rest of their books, you could have "20-ton Locust vs. skeleton with scimitar" duels.

'''Mechwarrior''' was a traditional pen-and-paper RPG set in the Battletech universe, using a ruleset similar to FASA's other hit RPG [[Shadowrun]]. It got second(1991) and third(1999) editions, then was later rebooted by Fanpro and Catalyst Games under the respective titles ''Classic Battletech RPG'' and '''Battletech: A Time of War''', likely to avoid conflation with WhizKids' ''Mechwarrior: Dark Age''. Also because by then the "Mechwarrior" title was fully associated with the video games.

'''AeroTech''' and '''BattleSpace''' were both games featuring Aerospace Fighters and DropShips/WarShips respectively, fighting in orbit before any of the action in the BattleTech game itself could begin. Both games eventually got absorbed into BattleTech's rules in the ''Total Warfare'' edition.

'''Battletroops''' was an infantry-scale game about the PBI who fight it out it in the shadow of Battlemechs. It later gained ''Clantroops'', an expansion pack that incorporated clan equipment as well as Battle Armor on both sides, but the game did not sell as well and the rules have since been abandoned.

'''Battleforce''' was a revision of '''BattleTech''', made in recognition of the fact that large-scale combat could not be effectively played out using the current system. Battleforce simplified each 'mech into a simple set of numbers, so that they could be clustered into units and fight over a much larger area. Battleforce 2, released about a decade later, also introduced planetary invasion maps and rules to go along with them. Although the maps are available in Map Compilation 2, the rules will be reprinted in the ''Strategic Operations'' and ''Interstellar Operations'' sourcebooks.

The '''Solaris VII Boxed set''' was made to simulate the fast-paced gladiatorial combat on the game's world of Solaris VII. It included new rules, new maps with special rules, new mechs, and supplements for roleplaying. Little known fact: some of the designs used in the original Solaris VII set were redesigns of the ''BattleTech'' 'mechs which were themselves copies of Japanese mechs! When the product tried to sell in Japan, half of the designs were already copyrighted by other well known anime companies, and the in-house designs were simply not "Japanese" enough for their tastes. Though the product itself flopped, its maps were reprinted and rereleased in 2004, as well as a complimentary up-to-date rulebook. Rules have since been standardized to match those of ''Classic Battletech'', but "Special Map rules" have been included.

The '''BattleTech Collectible Cardgame''' was produced by Wizards of the Coast in 1996, and ran until 1998. Though its popularity had begun to wane after the first core set, the release of the Pokemon card game was the nail in the coffin. The Battletech CCG hosted some very impressive artwork, though the game favored swarm-decks filled with plenty of weak, cheap 'mechs, and it's non-"Creature" cards were too weak to have an effective deck based around them. After five editions (''Battletech Limited''/''Unlimited'', ''Counterstrike'', ''Mercenaries'', ''Mechwarrior'', ''Arsenal'') Battletech CCG came out with ''Commander's Edition'', which picked some of the best cards of the last few editions (though it abandoned or revised some cards for inaccuracies or "brokenness") It had one final expansion, Crusade, which introduced the Steel Viper clan, though there were some prior cards that did reference the clan.

In July, 2013, Catalyst Game Labs released '''Alpha Strike''', a miniatures combat ruleset designed specifically to appeal to fans of Warhammer and Flames of War. It combined BattleForce statistics with improved miniatures rules. It's generally scoffed at by grognards but the only feasible way to play a regiment-sized battle in less than one lifetime.

==Video Games==
'''Official Games'''
* Crescent Hawk's Inception (Infocom, 1988)
* MechWarrior (Activision, 1989)
* Crescent Hawks' Revenge (Infocom, 1990)

* MechWarrior II (Activision, 1995)
* MechWarrior II: Mercernaries (Activision 1995)
** MechCommander (FASA, 1998)
* MechWarrior III (Microprose, 1999)
* MechWarrior IV: Vengeance (FASA/Microsoft, 2000), Black Knight (Microsoft, 2001), Mercenaries (Microsoft, 2002)
** These games had two expansions that gave more mechs, the Inner Sphere Mech Pack and Clan Mech Pack.
** MekTek released a legal port of Mercenaries, with both Mech Packs, new mechs, and battlesuits all inside, plus multiplayer support. Grab it from ModDB, abandonware sites, or your tracker of choice.
* Mechassault 1 (Day 1/Microsoft, 2002 for Xbox)
* Mechassault 2: Lone Wolf (Day 1/Microsoft, 2004 for Xbox)
* MechCommander II (FASA/Microsoft, 2001. The full game is offered by Microsoft for free [http://www.microsoft.com/en-ph/download/details.aspx?id=11457 here].)
* MechWarrior Online MMO (Smith & Tinker/Piranha Games, A F2P game first released on 2012 and currently out as a full product on Steam.)
* MechWarrior Tactical Command (Personae Studios, 2012?, [[Fail|for iPhone/iPad]]. After some uncertainty, MTC was fully released in the iTunes store. Too bad it sucks.)
* BattleTech (Harebrained Schemes, 2018) - funded through Kickstarter and headed up by Jordan Weisman)
** Turn-based strategy game, similar to the original tabletop game. Takes place during the Succession Wars, in a formerly empty area of the Periphery.
*MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries: (Piranha Games, 2019). Also takes place during the Succession Wars. Because nobody wants to take the time to portray the cluster fuck that is the Blake Jihad properly.

'''Unlicensed Games'''
* [http://www.mechlivinglegends.net Mechwarrior Living Legends] (Wandering Samurai/Clan Jade Wolf, 2011)

'''The following are free, homemade versions of Battletech:'''
* MechWar v1.12 (MS-DOS)
* [http://megamek.info/ MegaMek] (Java)
* BTMUX - ASCII-only MMO (anyone old enough to remember what a MUD is?) (any OS) You could play it in pure ASCII, or get [http://bt-thud.sourceforge.net/thud/ a graphical helper] Most of the existing ones are gone, but [http://frontiermux.com/news.php FrontierMUX] seems to still be alive.
* <strike>[http://neveron.com/ Neveron] (web-based mmo)</strike> [Taken offline on July 31st 2014]
* [http://www.titansofsteel.de/ Titans of Steel] (MS-Windows)

==Current State==
[[File:Never give up.jpg|thumb|right|250px|Little Urbie, the greatest of us all.]]
In 1998, the U.S. release of ''Pokemon'' for the Gameboy, and the subsequent cartoon and cardgame, had a damaging effect on the tabletop games market. Comic book stores which had previously stocked tabletop RPGs, wargames, and collectible card games found that they could turn a better profit by stocking more ''Pokemon'' goods and cutting out the weaker-selling products. Only a handful of better-selling tabletop games, such as products by Games Workshop and the ''Dungeons & Dragons'' games, were able to remain. In 2001, FASA ceased operations, and many fans of the ''BattleTech'' series began to look for other games. ''BattleTech'' was purchased by [[Wizkids]], who tried to soft-reboot the game as a Clix-style game with the tile '''Mechwarrior: Dark Age''', jumping the timeline to nearly a hundred years after the Clan Invasion, focusing the story to a much smaller area around Earth, and using almost entirely all-new factions. The fans were less than amused, so [[FanPro]] got the rights to continue releasing content for the original game under the moniker ''Classic Battletech''. Despite still having products released for it, ''Classic'' was often put on the back burner, as Wizkids showed preference to their clix-games. As WhizKids; game floundered, Battletech was later taken over by [[Catalyst Game Labs]], who dropped the "Classic" and released a new boxed set (6th edition) based on the newly revised core rules(also rewinding back to the original time period and working their way back up to the Dark Age era, but keeping the entire Inner Sphere in the picture). This boxed set, once again, contains plastic miniatures. Though the plastic miniatures (When compared to plastic miniatures produced by other companies) are decidedly low-quality, they are more than sufficient as playing-pieces for new players who are experimenting with the product. In making low-grade miniatures for the box set, the overall price tag remained low, while giving players something more tangible than a cardboard cutout. The game is beginning to gain popularity once again, despite the dropping popularity of tabletop games in general. In 2014 Catalyst Games released an updated box set with higher quality miniatures for the same price.

As of 2017, Catalyst have announced two new starter boxed sets. One is significantly lower-priced and features two 'Mechs with a new map (the first since FASA shut its doors). The second has two new maps, die-cut terrain (to drop onto the maps), and a reduced mini selection with all-new sculpts - designed by an ascended fa/tg/uy. These boxed sets were made available for purchase in 2019.

In July 2019, Catalyst decided to get off their asses and actually did something: They started a Clan Invasion Kickstarter that would hopefully bring the franchise back to life, promising over 100+ new designs for classic mechs, a box set and a boatload of new maps and merch. It surpassed their funding goal in 7 MINUTES and is currently running off of $2.8 MILLION in funding and is expecting to start shipping <strike>March of 2020</strike> delayed till July 2020. Also [[UrbanMech]] PLUSHIE! Catalyst is now currently relying on fan goodwill and revamped merchandise from kickstarting fundraiser campaigns to keep the IP steaming along but lore development has been of mixed reception depending on who you ask.

===MechWarrior Online===
[http://mwomercs.com/ Mechwarrior Online] has already been officially launched. Even though the launch itself was fairly lackluster, with no new features compared to the past few months of open beta, the game is in a somewhat average state of balance and gameplay, and the feel of piloting a BattleMech was translated faithfully - mixed in with rage about hundred-to-thousand dollar preorder packs for Clan mechs (not fucking kidding) and rage over various mechanics, such as knockdown, heat buildup, and LRM spam. Back in October 2014 PGI, after ousting their publisher and striking out on their own a few months back, has been making notable progress in advancing the game and interacting with the player base, albeit not without handling neckbeard rage poorly. Despite garnering some good will from the community after ridding themselves of their publisher, PGI has been doing their best to waste the Mechwarrior license and drive off good chunks of the player base with fairly unchanged gameplay, constant sales, and the fact it’s run for about seven years, now.

===Battletech 2018===
Harebrained Schemes announced their return to Kickstarter in fall 2015 in order to fund [http://battletechgame.com/ Battletech], a turn based tactics game featuring RPG mechanics for Mechs and MechWarriors. As of this writing the game has been fully funded and reached several stretch goals. In fact, the game's been released in April 2018. Battletech is a turn-based strategy game, more faithful to the board game than the mech-sims the series is known for on the vidya circuit. Think the new XCOM games, but with mechs.

The game started out with a boatload of bugs (which isn't really surprising for an indie kickstarter), but the devs handled the problem quickly. Soon after it was announced that HBS was bought out by their release partner Paradox Interactive, the current big dog for quality strategy games. As expected of a Paradox game, this was followed up by a number of overpriced DLCs to the point that the season pass costs more than the actual game! That said, the second to last free update (1.8) added 2 new excellent mechs, maps, missions, modding support and quality of life changes, while the last free update (1.9) added several SLDF Royal Mech Variants with more polish to the built in mod launcher, so not all money grabbing and bad. Update 1.9 is the last major content drop, with no further patches or updates planned as Harebrained Schemes is moving on to new projects. If you really want it wait for a Steam sale when the Mercenary Collection drops to around $30 USD for the base game and all DLC.

Several fan-made mod packs (notably [https://www.nexusmods.com/battletech/mods/79/ RogueTech] and [https://www.nexusmods.com/battletech/mods/452/ BattleTech Advanced 3062]) have been produced which significantly extend the life of the vanilla game. These mods introduce many new factions, dozens of new 'Mechs and tanks, hundreds of new pieces of 'Mech equipment, a far larger star-map sandbox to play in, and far more depth to the 'Mech customization system as well as many quality of life changes. RogueTech in particular attempts to bring the game more in line with the tabletop experience and offers a much higher degree of gameplay complexity compared to vanilla Battletech.


===Mercenaries 5===
After almost two decades since the last proper Mechwarrior game in the franchise (MechAssault doesn't count), we're finally getting an honest-to-gods story-based mechpilot sim game like the days of yore. Piranha Games, the company responsible for MWO, is also creating [https://mw5mercs.com/ Mercenaries 5], and is so far looking like a faithful re-creation of the classic Mechwarrior pilot sim games of the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Game's out, and it's shit! Well, mediocre. Graphics snobs say the game looks horrid, suspecting they ripped assets full sale from MWO. But the main issue is repeating the same missions over and over again including in story missions themselves. There is no hand crafted missions like previous games even in its narrative missions and has a very weak plot, along with a well known issue where enemies spawn right on top of your team. Friendly AI at least got the artificial part right and there's no PVP. The devs have stated that they are working on the issues but little progress has been made at the time of writing.

[Update 01/22/2020] Mod support has been added and some of the previously stated problems have been addressed (sort of). Either way, it's a fun giant-stompy-robots-with-lasers game. Campaign missions are still lackluster and repeating the same missions over and over is bound to get a little stale. But hopefully modders will take over (like they always do).

==The Tetatae (Skub Tribal Jungle Chickens)==

There is only 1 known sapient Xenos race in the BattleTech setting. The Tetatae are tribal bird people armed with spears who inhabit a Jungle World.

==External links==
*[http://megamek.sf.net Play through the tubes with MegaMek]
*[http://www.sarna.net Battletech Wiki that holds much information about the universe]
*[http://bgb.booru.org/index.php Blue Gunner Booru, a /btg/-maintained taggable gallery of BT and related art. Perpetually in-progress.]
[[Category:Wargames]][[Category:Skirmish-Level Wargames]][[Category:BattleTech]]

==Gallery==
<center>
<gallery>
File:Glorious_3d_Terrain.JPG|Glorious 3d terrain
File:More_Glorious_3d_Terrain.JPG|More glorious 3d terrain
File:Infantry_Strike_From_Behind_As_The_Kuritian_Lance_Takes_On_4_Steiner_Mechs_And_6_Tanks.JPG|Infantry strike from behind as the Kuritan lance takes on 4 Steiner mechs and 6 tanks
File:Kuritians_Advancing.JPG|Kuritans advancing
File:Surrounded.JPG|Kick party
File:Eridani_Light_Horses_MechWarrior.png|Bad mofo
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Space Marines

2021-08-26T15:49:11Z

2607:FB90:6E65:FB2D:A474:601A:91B6:7F9A: /* Bros To the End */

{{awesome}}
[[File:Silver Skull.jpg|300px|right|thumb|WE ARE THE EMPRAH'S FUREH! Also, [[Beakie]].]]
''For the vidya gaem, please see: [[Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine]]''

{{Topquote|Give me a hundred Space Marines. Or failing that give me a thousand other [[Imperial Guard|troops]].|Attributed to [[Rogal Dorn]], [[Primarch]] of the [[Imperial Fists]]}}
{{Topquote|They shall be my finest warriors, these men who give of themselves to me. Like clay I shall [[Finecast|mould]] them, and in the furnace of war forge them. They will be of iron will and steely muscle. In great [[Pauldrons|armour]] shall I clad them and with the [[Bolter|mightiest guns]] will they be armed. They will be untouched by [[Nurgle|plague]] or disease, no sickness will blight them. They will have [[Deep Strike|tactics]], [[Steel Rain|strategies]] and [[Dreadnought|mac]][[Centurion Squad|hin]][[METAL BOXES|es]] so that no foe can best them in battle. They are my bulwark against [[Chaos|the Terror]]. They are the Defenders of Humanity. They are my [[Robert Heinlein|Space Marines]] and they shall know no fear.|[[Emperor|The God-Emperor of Mankind]]}}

The '''Space Marines''', also known as '''[[Indrick Boreale|SPESS MEHREENS]]''' (or '''Marinelets''' or (canonically) '''Firstborn''' now that the [[Primaris Marines|Chadmarines]] are here) and canonically named the Adeptus Astartes are an army in the [[Warhammer 40,000]] universe. They are bio-enhanced super soldiers clad in [[Power Armour]], and are generally regarded as the toughest warriors to ever serve the [[Emprah|Emperor]] (except for the Adeptus Custodes, Imperial Assassins and the now-obsoleted Thunder Warriors). The average Space Marine is around eight feet tall. They used to be seven feet in the old fluff, but [[Dan Abnett]] and the rest of Games Workshop have a hard-on for gigantism (though they have addressed the problems real-life gigantism can cause by throwing in more bio-engineering) so they jacked them up a foot, though RPGs from Fantasy Flight Games and games by THQ scaled them back to the more reasonable seven feet. Although do note that the height of Marines can vary greatly; some can even reach ''ten'' feet, like [[Asterion Moloc]]. "Giant gods of war" is far more believable, considering their insane feats and ability for a handful of them to face down an Ork WAAAGH!!! and Tyranid Hive Fleets, yet still make a major difference.

Internally, they have bones that can repel anything short of a boltgun round and can breathe underwater even without their helmets on because they have a third (artificial/augmetic) lung. They can also breathe all but the most potent of toxic fumes with little to no damage to their respiratory system, have two hearts, and live for hundreds of years (they may be functionally immortal, but they usually die in battle after a few centuries, so nobody can be sure, although a Salamander was found in armor fused to his ship and he was ten thousand years old and alive and aware...and batshit insane for having only his brothers’ corpses to look at for ten millennia and his body had severely atrophied). They are vastly more powerful in their [[fluff|official descriptions]] than they actually are in the ''Warhammer 40,000'' tabletop game (although the Marines statted in [[Dark Heresy]] or [[Rogue Trader (RPG)]] are walking rapemachines, and the [[player character]] Marines in [[Deathwatch]] are hard as nails). Much like the [[Chaos Space Marines]] are the 40k successors of the [[Warriors of Chaos]], Space Marines are the 40k successors of Warrior Priests, right down to their BALD. Portrayals range from hardcore but plausible super-soldiers to shameless [[Mary Sue]]s who could fight off Batman with one hand and the Joker with the other, considering their fluff feats and the things they defeat, defeating Batman and the Joker while missing all his limbs would be completely unsurprising for an Astartes. Although occasionally, they serve to make other galactic forces seem superior. ''More like the Ineptes Astartes.''

They account for approximately 35% of the playable armies (counting chaos space marines) in 40k, over 21.4% (yeah, I thought that was a pretty conservative estimate too) of played armies among the 40k fandom (factoring in that people can collect and play more than one 40k army), and as of October 2010, receive about 50% or more of new releases. While there are many, ''many'' chapters that you can choose from, the actual armies basically boil down to six main choices: [[Dark Angels]], [[Blood Angels]], [[Space Wolves]], [[Grey Knights]], [[Legion of the Damned]] (barely), [[Deathwatch]], [[Black Templars]] (previously) and everybody else (with the [[Chaos Space Marines]] accounting for three more codexes). Everyone who's a successor of the first two choices follows their codex and generally share their units, while the "everybody else" just follows the generic Space Marine codex. Don't let the promotional art fool you, though; the Space Marine army isn't exclusively Ultramarines. It used to be that you also had individual codices the [[Black Templars]], but they got folded into the generic Space Marine army. At least they still get special chapter-specific units, which is more than can be said for the likes of the [[Salamanders]] or other important yet still-neglected chapters. But nooo, the Ultramarines need every type of special character...

Contrary to that, [[fluff]]-wise Space Marines are amongst the smallest factions in the game. With Loyalist Marines combined they number just above one million in a galaxy where the Imperium alone has more or less a million honest to God inhabited worlds (deepshit colonies with a population of only a few million may or may not be included in that number). In fact, any single capital-class space ship may have a population higher than the entirety of Marines in the Galaxy. Furthermore, Marine armies are extremely fractured, very rarely deployed at above a company per war zone. GW never cared to explain how forces so small could have such a huge impact on the battlefields, when Orks, Guard, and Tyranids could field their troops in the millions, and Chaos can convert entire populations of planets (which is often tens of billions), though by rubbing two brain-cells together we can imagine a combination of them being just that powerful and focusing on opening opportunities for their strike cruiser or battlebarge to blow everyone up. (While the scale is certanly off, it might be less off than you think. Space marines are more "armor" than "infantry". In WWII, entire campaings involving millions of soldiers have been decided by battles focused around some hundred tanks). Regardless, everything that is something in the setting has a tendency to at least have a bit Space Marines in it, if they aren't flat-out the protagonists. Expect enormous campaigns to revolve around a few companies, regardless of the involved numbers of Guardsmen and enemy xenos and chaotic characters, and the Marines to be the key to victory in any given war.

The main reason for the small numbers, though, seems to be that [[Games Workshop]] and the [[Black Library]] authors have no sense of scale. For example, the largest battle of the Great Crusade was the battle for what became known as Armageddon. It had a measly eight million soldiers and several hundred thousand Space Marines. To say nothing of Mechanicus forces. Fast forward ten thousand years and most major battles or campaigns of the setting that require Space Marines only have dozens to hundreds of regiments, the average regiment size being ten thousand men in the lore. So, in battles that actually need Astartes there will usually be rough one Marine per one hundred or one thousand Guardsmen depending on how important the battle is. A battle with dozens of regiments often has elements of multiple Chapters involved and easily can have several thousand Marines of various Chapters fighting in the battle. On top of that, it is rare for Astartes to be needed in the first place outside of major invasions of strategically important worlds by particularly advanced alien or daemonic threats. When coupled with the complete lack of any ability to comprehend scale on the writers’ part, the small numbers or Space Marines are plenty sufficient for the Imperium’s needs.

Space Marines the selves specialize in achieving strategic objectives for the Imperial Guard and Mechanicus forces to capitalize on. Give them a mission and it will be completed. Making sure their success matters is up to everyone else. Each company is often spread across a planetary conflict since each Marine is so powerful that hardly any are needed to achieve a vital objective when supported by Guard forces such as tanks and artillery. Even at the tactical level aiding the Imperial Guard a single Marine will simply move around the skirmish to key points and curbstomp to make the enemy incapable of having any hope of victory. Basically, a Chapter of Space Marines should not be thought of as an army but as a collective of Master Chiefs.

Unfortunately for the Imperium, spreading the Guard and Marines so thinly across the galaxy is necessary as rapid response is not really possible due to the whims of the Warp. Especially with Warp entities actively interfering.

It should be noted that per "Fall of Cadia," [[Abaddon| a certain armless failure]] mustered a force of CSM ''ten times'' the size of the original Legion (i.e. Luna Wolves) for the 13th Black Crusade. So yeah, no wonder the poor Cadians didn't stand a chance—although ''technically,'' Abaddon only won because he flung the remains of a [[Blackstone Fortress]] at the planet's surface. He had a lot of Marines and daemons but cultists generally can’t survive long in the Eye. Most likely he had the means to seize any strategic objectives he wanted but not a sufficient auxiliary force to push home the advantages nor reliably keep the territory he took. Even if he did, cultists are batshit insane and so can’t exactly be relied on to follow orders competently.

[[Games Workshop|Geedubs]] [[Meme|has a hard-on for Space Marines]]. [[Slaanesh|Between the writers favoritism and the "Spots the Space Marine" fiasco, it's gotten to the point where they should seek professional help]].

'''THIS JUST IN: THE SPACE MARINES JUST GOT AN [[Skub|SKUBPGRADE]]! See [[Primaris Marines]]'''

==History==
[[File:Prayer before battle.jpg|250px|left|thumb|Marine with half his FUCKING face missing, skulls in the wall, bolter laying ready, and servitors with hoods swinging censers. Ladies and gents, [[Warhammer 40k]]. WAIT! Zoom in on his chest. At the handle of his sword. Isn’t that an eight-pointed star on his chest behind/on the sword’s pommel?]]
After the end of the [[Age of Strife]], the Emperor of Mankind (overachieving at it's finest) wanted to reunite [[humanity]] in a [[Great Crusade]] across the galaxy, and he realized that in order to do this he would need one epic-ass army and equally epic generals to lead it. He created the [[Primarchs]], his sons, to be his generals, and let me tell you, these guys were some of the most insanely powerful badasses in all the lore of 40k, and that is saying something. (There is a story in which [[Sanguinius|one of them]] snaps a fucking [[Bloodthirster]]'s spine over his knee.) From their DNA, he created the [[First Founding|Legiones Astartes, the first Space Marines]]. Their first task was to locate their Primarchs, because the [[Chaos Gods|Gods]] of [[Chaos]] had scattered them across the galaxy in an attempt to foil the Emperor's efforts at human reunification (they were basically just butt-hurt that they didn't have some baddass buttfucking sons; [[Slaanesh]] approved!). All of the Primarchs were eventually recovered and reunited with their respective legions, but then, at the height of the Space Marines' power, disaster struck. [[Horus]], the Emperor's most trusted Primarch, fell to Chaos and turned traitor along with his legion, the [[Luna Wolves]], and several others followed suit. After much [[Grimdark|sorrow, pain, and civil warring]], the Emperor killed Horus personally (Daddy issues at their finest yet again), but was mortally wounded in the process, which is why he is now a zombie being kept alive by the technologies of the Golden Throne (Undead Heresy?). The traitor legions, who are now known as the <s>[[Chaos Space Marines]]</s> TRAITOR ASTARTES, were defeated and pushed back to the [[Eye of Terror]]. All of the Primarchs that did not fall to Chaos during the Horus Heresy either disappeared or were [[Ferrus_Manus|killed]], and until very recently, none remained to lead the Space Marines. ([[Roboute Guilliman]], Primarch of the Ultrasmurfs, long enshrined and [[Matthew Ward|(according to some people)]] healing in stasis has recently been revived after ten thousand years). In addition, after the Heresy, the Legions were mostly [[Second Founding|split into smaller "Chapters"]] of up to a thousand Marines according to the teachings of the [[Codex Astartes]] (although some Chapters, such as the [[Space Wolves]] and the [[Black Templars]], do not follow Astartes orthodoxy and maintain forces in much greater numbers, and [[Dark Angels|some chapters]] go so far as to form almost legion-strength forces.)

The Space Marines are most commonly looked upon as warrior-monks, generally referring to each other as "Brother", "Battle Brother" or some variation thereof based on rank, spending most or all of their time training, in battle, or venerating the Emperor. However, no two Chapters are exactly alike, and many differ wildly from the standard perception of the Marines. The Space Wolves, as one example, appear to be much less disciplined than most other Chapters, maintaining a much larger force than permitted by the Codex and frequently having great feasts with much merriment and drinking (the Space Wolves happen to produce the only intoxicating beverage known to have any effect on Marine physiology, and which liquefies the innards of non-Astartes). Their attitude toward others in the Imperium can also differ greatly from Chapter to Chapter or even from marine to marine. Some are very idealistic, believing very strongly in their role as protectors of humanity (such as the [[Lamenters]], the [[Celestial Lions]] or the [[Salamanders]]). Others, like the [[Black Templars]], tend to disregard the ordinary elements of the Imperium, and emphasize much more their role as a weapon against its enemies. And some are [[Blood Angels | just]] [[Angry Marines | angry]].

Their attitude towards the Emperor can also vary. Although they are typically believed to worship him as a deity like most of the rest of the Imperium, the Space Marines are, by virtue of their gene-seeds, derived from the Primarchs and hence the Emperor himself, making them much closer to him than most humans. In fact, many of the Space Marine chapters' beliefs maintain some of the old [[Imperial Truth]] that the Emperor was not a god, but simply the greatest of mortal men, worthy of praise and veneration but not a deity proper. Although it is true that the majority of the Chapters certainly venerate him in an orthodox manner, others just scream his name a lot because that's tradition.The exact degree of Emperor-worship in the Space Marine chapters is a bit mushy. Some openly refer to the Emperor as the God-Emperor while others are outright contemptuous of the idea. [[Excoriators|Captain Zachariah Kersh]], later Chapter Master, was such a nah-sayer but was converted by his experiences during the destruction of the Cholercaust on Certus-Minor. This could mean that among the various Chapters the exact degree of veneration of the Emperor could be entirely a personal choice rather than explicit doctrine. But again the inconsistencies therein make it hard to judge. Alternatively to this theme being a result of lazy writers is that it is in fact a clever but under-developed effect of the progression of the plot of Warhammer 40k. Such that by the end of the 41st millennium, things are so awful that even the Space Marines seek resolve in the worship of the God-Emperor..
[[Image:Blingmarine.jpg|thumb|right|The great Papa Smurf hisself.]]
Space Marines are generally regarded as having something of an "unfair advantage" in the tabletop, mainly because every young 40k player has a strong liking for them, and almost every unit in the listings has at least a 3+ armor save, making them rather hard to kill, especially when considering armies such as the Blood Angels have models that allow players to roll an additional "Feel No Pain" 4+ save if they fail the 3+ one. The problem is that it took 3 Space Marine Chapter books in 5th Edition to come up with a Space Marine Codex framework that didn't suck (almost nothing in C:SW is non-competitive or poorly priced), which is why Long Fangs are usually 50 points cheaper than their Space Marine counterparts, while being twice as effective. Why are Devastators supposedly more expensive? Combat tactics. Yeah, you're never going to use it. The Ultramarines in particular are an extremely popular choice of Space Marine Chapter, and their blue design coupled with the small size of the miniatures often leads to them being referred to as "Smurfs." Thanks to [[Indrick Boreale]], the Space Marines in general are frequently called "Spess Mehreens," or variations to that effect. The Space Marines of today look very different from the glory days of Rogue Trader, when they earned the nickname "[[beakie|beakies]]" because of their signature helmets.

Denizens of /tg/ are prone to claiming a wide variety of things about the Space Marines, usually about their sexual activity (or lack thereof), ranging from assertions that the genitalia of a Space Marine is nonfunctional to claims that they are castrated during the creation process. They never have any supporting evidence for these theories and it is not clear whether or not Space Marines are allowed to have sex, which Chapters would allow them to have sex, if they even can have sex, if they're still capable of normal human reproduction, or what bits they may or may not still possess. Still, that doesn't stop anyone from stating their personal opinion as if it were fact. The most revealed is that a female Inquisitorial henchwoman got an eyeful of a naked Grey Knight novice and was rather impressed by what she saw. The Grey Knight, naturally, had no idea why she seemed so interested. A Remembrancer saw a Marine naked and referred to his manhood as “equine”.

An interesting point to note is that right below this segment on the right is an image of a Marine with a loin-cloth. If there is no modesty to protect, why protect it? One suspects that the reason Marines aren't afforded the luxury of sex (aside from distraction from serving the Emperor), is that they'd kill whatever unfortunate woman or xenos livestock they take a fancy to.
The point is, due to psychological conditioning and likely the sterilizing effects of the augmentation process, followed by a century plus of service to the Emperor in radiation and toxic filled environments, they are simply disinclined towards it, and wouldn't result in any more meat-shields for the Emperor's glorious wars regardless, thus only serving the [[Slaanesh|arch-hedonist.]]

==Creation==
[[File:1396451926378.jpg|400px|thumb|right|From deranged lab-experiment to fucking [[awesome]].]]
Knowing [[Chaos|just]] [[Tyranids|what]] [[Necron|the]] [[Dark Eldar|fuck]] [[Ork|was]] [[Eldar|waiting]] for humanity in space, the Emperor of Mankind designed the [[gene-seed]], [[Gene-seed#The_Organs|nineteen special organs]] to enhance the regular human body to keep the Space Marines going when fighting these monstrosities. Over a series of several years, human adolescents, dubbed aspirants, are selected through a rigorous process which varies from Chapter to Chapter. They are always male, with cited reasons including that Astartes are basically clones of their Primarchs, and by extension the Emperor, and that the geneseed requires portions of the Y-chromosome to function. When their training goes to the next stage, the aspirants are implanted with the initial gene-seed. They then become neophytes, Space Marines in training. As the gene-seed is implanted into them, the neophytes also go through hypnotic conditioning to hone their responses. By the time they're done, the subject has few impulses beyond fighting and killing in the name of the Emperor (it's sometimes thought that this is what kills their sex drive) and most of their memories of their earlier lives are all but forgotten. The only mental frailties remaining are a "fear" (ATSKNF notwithstanding) of failure and experiencing notable stress when severely injured or crippled, as they are no longer able to fulfill their function.

After receiving all these organs and conditioning, it's highly arguable if a Space Marine still qualifies as human. Though the [[Imperium of Man]] has basic "kill on sight" orders for most non-humans and venerates the "Holy Human Form", the topic of whether or not Space Marines violate this edict is ignored, mostly because they were designed by the Emperor and thus considered holy creations. There is also an understandable hesitance to declare war on the only thing standing between the Imperium and the unfathomable evil of the [[Chaos Gods]]. Arguably Marines are no less human than those of the Mechanicum, just with organic implants instead of bionics, and cog boys still count as 100% right and proper humans (even if most of them consider themselves a separate species or at least "humans 2.0").

In fact, this religious need to adhere to the Holy Human Form may be why the Emperor designed the gene-seed to be a bio-enhancement project and not a genetic modification one; all of a Space Marine's inhuman abilities are a result of the artificially engineered organs shoved into their bodies during their creation, either directly (the secondary heart or multi-lung) or indirectly (the Ossmodula, which alters their hormone balance and makes their skeleton growth go berserk). Consequently, this means a Space Marine would technically pass a genetic scan of being "human" better than an [[abhuman]] like an [[Ogryn]] or [[Ratling]] would. The holiness of the Human Form came long before the Horus Heresy, so this theory is likely, anyways. Besides, the Emperor did attempt genetic modification but it proved either fraught with peril ''(ie. The Thunder Warriors)'' or painstakingly expensive ''(Valdor claimed that the entire productive capacity of the Imperium would be unable to generate anything else if Custodians were the primary forces)''. <s>Gene</s> Bio-enhancements are also much more conductive to mass-production. Of course, so long as the genetics are merely ''added'' to the human genome instead of (drastically) ''changing'' the genome, then it can easily be argued the enhancements are no different than using technological tools like auspex or lasguns.

Yes, this tramples all over the spirit of the law (not really, adding to something is just that; addition) whilst technically adhering to the letter, but it's hardly unique -- see the Ecclesiarchy having its own army of [[Sisters of Battle|power-armored gun-toting nuns]] despite being formally forbidden to have "men" under arms.

Another theory is that the Space Marines were designed this way for more symbolic reasons. Done this way Marines retain a link to humanity; all were born human, no more than any other citizen. They became more through science and training but they aren't some new species or a warrior caste. As Marines they are beyond humans but they know where they came from. The regular citizens see the Marines as the best of humanity, proxies for the Emperor's power. The Marines remember humans are their kin and while they are more than human they are still the same species, all coming from the same root. The power vested in them doesn't pass by blood, it passes by merit and a normal citizen can still aspire to become an Astartes even if it's a long shot. The Emperor's whole deal was based around humanity, so he built something that could be a symbol to all humanity. He could have bred a new war species but he altered us because his dream of the Imperium was the dream of humanity. Symbolic difference, sure, but it matters. There's a reason Space Marines are venerated not feared.

Incidentally, bio-enhancements like the gene-seed are actually more controllable than a genetic enhancing procedure would be, since the resultant outcome is more predictable, more easily mass-produced, and it means that even if a Space Marine could have kids, they would in all likelihood not be different from ordinary humans, since their abilities aren't tied to them on a genetic level, though they would be far more likely to become Space Marines since some amount of genetic compatibility is required.

It is also noteworthy that as a possibly unintended side effect of their geneseed, Space Marines are enormously well endowed. This is evidenced in the first book of the Horus Heresy series, whereby a Remembrancer described a naked Captain Loken as being "equine." Of course out of all the chapters, only [[Space Wolves]] ever seem to take advantage of this factor.

==How strong Space Marines are==
Fanboys and opponents constantly argue how strong Astartes are. This entails unfavorable comparisons to super soldiers like Custodians and Thunder Warriors, or comparisons to Ogryns and Imperial Assassins. The crunch can give reasonable estimates, but things like tabletop balancing show its limitations as broad indicators of performance (Guard officers have more wounds than Astartes recruits!). Thus, it's often a matter of conjecture how far an abbreviated statistic translates into a hypothetical comparison; Strength 4 is weaker than Strength 5, but "Strength" can apply variously to lifting/pressing strength instead of striking force, hence why power-lifters don't necessarily make the best cage fighters.

The fluff (and writer) subject Astartes potency to many fluctuations, from absolute gods of battle to DOW1 opening redshirts levels of incompetence. Fans, BL and Codex writers all agree that Astartes are extremely powerful and resilient, with great tactical acumen (see [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMGRa4_UjE4 Astartes - Part Three] ). Most fans agree this representation of them is more canon than most video game trailers (looking at you DOW 3). Astartes Pt.3 shows their post-human skill and advanced equipment are a cut-above even the more competent (renegade) guardsmen.

It is not difficult to create super soldiers in the Warhammer 40,000 Universe. Examples going as far back as the early Great Crusade show that humans can be brought up to near-Astartes strength through various surgeries that do not involve gene-seed. Presently, just about every militant Imperial arm has their own equivalent of super soldiers, ranging from the Ordo Hereticus and the [[Sisters of Battle]] to the Adeptus Mechanicus with their various [[Skitarii]] forces. Some cultures (such as Necromunda's [[House Goliath]]) even have the facilities and resources to enhance their ''entire'' population with superhuman strength, and even create some individual members with levels of bulk and savagery that outright exceed Space Marines, so when reduced to sheer combat potential a Space Marine doesn't appear to be that special.

A Space Marine's true "strength" lies not with his muscle power or his resistance to injury but in the fact that he is trained and drilled to fight at optimal strength, regardless of whatever battlefield he finds himself in. A Space Marine is capable of fighting centuries-long campaigns, eating toxic foods, surviving in irradiated environments with little to no atmosphere, not requiring sleep, not worrying about the effects of zero-gravity, and more. If he is lost without resupply he can consume the genetic information of local fauna or his enemies to survive, else he can enter hibernation until he is recovered. If he is injured, the wound will seal in mere moments, preventing further damage through blood loss or infection. If he is killed his progenoid glands can be used to create more Space Marines in his place. More importantly, he is disciplined to a level far beyond the scope of an ordinary human soldier and is highly resistant to the psychological trauma inherent to participating in long, bloody wars. Even if you took away his size and muscle power, a Space Marine ''still'' ought to be one of the finest soldiers in existence.

There is also the added benefit that ''outside'' of combat situations, many Space Marines can generally find ways to make themselves useful in ways that roid-raging, uber warriors would find difficult: both [[Fulgrim]] and [[Sanguinius]] encouraged their sons to excel as artists and artisans; the [[Iron Warriors]] and the [[Thousand Sons]] ''(before the Heresy)'' were pretty good architects or scholars; and [[Vulkan]] and his sons were generally quite cool bros. This is [[Lion El'Jonson|not]] [[Angron|the]] [[Konrad Curze|rule]], but it shows how Space Marines ''could'' potentially have adapted to life during peacetime after their task was done.

None of these things translate to tabletop rules so they typically get discounted when trying to compare one to the other, but the context of a fight can be supremely important. For instance, an Ogryn certainly could not survive underwater or in methane atmospheres and would choke to death before the fight even began. It is unclear if other superhuman lines can do all of these things: Custodians are most likely equal if not superior to Astartes in most respects, but they are far more difficult to produce than Space Marines and are too valuable to waste on standard military operations. Thunder Warriors certainly couldn't do everything (and indeed were never intended to survive past the Unification Wars), while Assassins are subject to different upgrades that are more niche to their function. All of them might be physically more powerful than a Space Marine, but either take up more resources to create or are simply unsuited for other tasks.

==The Lifespan Debate==
[[File:Sons of Corax by MajesticChicken.jpg|450px|thumb|left|When the going gets tough, the tough get going.]]
The lifespan for Astartes is something of a tricky subject. Because although Astartes refer to normal humans as “mortals” and their daddies and Big E never said they were wrong to and although a Salamander from the Great Crusade was found fused by his armor to his ship’s deck (and insane from boredom) ten thousand years later, some dumb bitches don’t want the demigods to be demigods. Probably the same people who imagine Astartes as similar to Halo’s Spartans despite the examples of handfuls of Space Marines butchering entire armies of super aliens and daemons from literally Hell itself (sometimes one and the same). While it’s made clear that Space Marines live many centuries longer than normal humans, exactly how long they’re ''supposed'' to live has never really been elaborated on; and furthermore, keep in mind that the middle age of the upper-class Imperial citizens is circa 3 centuries or so. It doesn’t help that there has never been a Space Marine shown or described to have ever died of anything resembling old age, and that different chapter bloodlines (and writers) each appear to handle aging differently. So there really isn’t any kind of baseline to work with here. Perhaps most central to the issue is the question of whether or not Astartes are biologically immortal. Of course, there’s also the question or whether or not gene-seed from a Primarch instead of hand-me-down man juice makes a difference.

On the “for” side, both [[Dan Abnett]] and [[Graham McNeill]] claim that Astartes are indeed immortal, and that although they might physically age (grey hair, wrinkles, etc.) it is only skin deep and they are in just as good physical condition as when they first joined the Astartes, only dying when they are killed. Nick Kyme also appears to be a believer in the immortal point of view (though more in a sitting-stone-gathers-moss-and-lasts-forever kind of way), as in his Salamanders series, an [[wat|Astartes survivor from the Horus-friggin-Heresy was found in a crashed and buried Salamanders starship]]. His armor had melded into the metal of the ship and he could no longer move, but he was alive. He had apparently been sitting there watching over the empty, ancient suits of armor from his fallen brothers for ten thousand years. He was also borderline crazy from all the memories filling his head (thanks eidetic memory, but then if he had human memory he'd have Alzheimers or something) and his vocal cords and muscles were desiccated, but the latter are implied to be due to atrophy from inactivity more than anything else so that doesn't count. [[Nick Kyme]] also touched on the subject in Fall of Damnos, with a Tactical Sergeant remarking that he did not know himself if Astartes could die of old age, or that even if they could he had never heard of it happening - indeed, it would be a dishonor to the warrior lifestyle of a Space Marine to do so. The Night Lords series by Aaron Dembski-Bowden is another in the "for" catagory, at least in that the Astartes refer to humans as "mortals," and Talos, at just 300 years old, is apparently considered young for a Crusade-era, unwarped traitor Space Marine. David Annandale has also made allusions to the longevity of the Astartes. In ‘The Death of Antagonis’ Brother Nithigg of the Black Dragons chapter is noted by Sergeant (later Captain) Volos to be ‘at least 1000’, and showing no signs of slowing down or decrease in combat efficiency.

On the “against” side, the [[Blood Angels]] are specifically noted for having exceptionally long, but limited lifespans, namely a 1000 years give or take, and Marines from other Chapters don’t live nearly as long. This has been reaffirmed in the current Blood Angels Codex, and it should be noted that it was written by GW's biggest Space Marine fanboy. Yes, even [[Matt Ward|Ward]] says Space Marines can die of old age. Even Abnett has flip-flopped a bit on it, with Brothers of the Snake (admittedly his first time writing Space Marines) portraying the apothecary Khiron as starting to slow down with his advanced age and not being quite as fit as he used to be. The Space Wolves also have a dedicated unit representing their more senior members in the [[Long Fangs]]. While the canis helix certainly plays a part in their aging, it is also implicit that these warriors represent a more traditional "warrior elder." Maybe most importantly, a highly plot-relevant fact about the duel between [[Abaddon]] and [[Sigismund]] is that everyone present, Abaddon included, agreed that if Sigismund had not been slowed down by his age, he would have been the clear victor, and Abaddon only managed to fight him to a near-mutual-kill draw because he had been protected from aging by living in the Eye of Terror. Other things you can handwave or retcon, but the Black Templar vs the Black Legate is as close to sacrosanct as you get.

Unsurprisingly, BL tends to be inconsistent with their lore. There's 2 reasons for this. 1st is because some gamers would think less of the Space Marines if they could die of old age, which Gee Dubs doesn't want. 2nd is because GW seems to agree that not dying of old age would be great. However, they wouldn't want to anger the part of the fanbase that doesn't want Astartes to be biologically immortal, so GW must be deliberately vague on this. This is retarded because the god-like mystique comes from their immortality. Removing immortality would demote the Astartes from demigods to super-special forces, lacking much of their awe. Woop-dee-fucking-doo. The people who don't want the Astartes to be immortal are whiny bitches who want their own armies to seem more impressive by dragging the Astartes down to a mortal level. Which is pathetic and probably heretical.

Others have tried to argue that biological immortality would limit the incentives for Heretic Astartes to seek demonhood, but these people fail to make a key distinction. The inability to die of old age doesn't remove the threat of injury or death. On the other hand, ascending to demonhood leaves you unbound to physics and immune to death, instead being banished for a time. For those wondering, Chaos Marines who remember the Horus Heresy but lack demonhood aren't considered for this debate due to warp fuckery. The Night Lords and Alpha Legion are an exception since their location lacks warp-taint, but it's unknown if any of them are from the Horus Heresy.

Regardless, the true measure of an Astartes is their killing potential. If Astartes can die of old age, they'll more likely die in battle before age takes its toll. If age DOES take its toll, then the loss of potency due to old age will get them killed anyway. However, being ''slowed down'' by old age doesn't count as ''dying'' of old age. General estimates place the average Astartes life expectancy at 400-500 years, becoming a venerable elder and certified badass if they exceed this span.

On a more grimdark note, the Horus Heresy series shows that Astartes are vulnerable to mental traumas like PTSD thanks to a lifetime of war in the meat grinder. It's possible that instead of old age, it's the weight of mental trauma that slows them down. Dan Abnett never wrote those books of course, who believes that Big E wouldn't make super soldiers vulnerable to mental trauma (no galactic ruler worth their salt would allow such ailments to happen if they can prevent it). Others have argued that mental trauma is endured in training, and continues until they become proper Astartes hardened to such struggles.

==Space Marine Chapters==
[[File:40k RPG.jpg|300px|right|thumb|We honestly can't tell whether this is a dude or a chick, so you'll just have to make a guess and face the consequences.]]
*[[Aurora Chapter]] - Institutionally lazily named.
*[[Astral Claws]] - Institutionally secessionist.
*[[Astral Knights]] - Institutionally [[The World Engine|crazy awesome, but totally dead]].
*[[Alpha Legion]] - Institutionally closet loyalists
*[[Avenging Sons]] - Institutionally makes their enemies look good.
*[[Black Dragons]] - Institutionally taking their cue from Wolverine.
*[[Black Templars]] - Institutionally crusaders.
*[[Blood Angels]] - Institutionally [[Black Rage|unstable]].
*[[Blood Ravens]] - Institutionally <s>relic hunters</s> Obsessive Kleptomaniacs.
*[[Space Sharks|Carcharodons Astra]] - Institutionally banished, yet loyal. [[Badab War|Fucking shit up very eclectically.]]
*[[Celebrants]] - Institutionally gradient.
*[[Celestial Lions]] - Institutionally suffering losses from [[Ork Snipers]].
*[[Crimson Fists]] - Institutionally [[Reasonable Marine|reasonable.]]
*[[Dark Angels]] - - Institutionally <s>mysterious</s> <s>Loyal</s> <s>Traitors?</s> LOYAL WITHOUT QUESTION FROM FOUNDING UNTIL DESTRUCTION.
*[[Dark Hands]] - - Institutionally... wait have these guys done anything other then face the Hrud and a couple of Orks?
*[[Dark Hunters]] - Institutionally grim of grim marines.
*[[Death Spectres]] - Institutionally albino.
*[[Deathwatch]] - Institutionally, intentionally and professionally xenocidal. Employed by the [[Inquisition]], recruited from other Chapters.
*[[Doom Eagles]] - Institutionally doomed.
*[[Emperor's Shadows]] - Institutionally Japanese.
*[[Emperor's Spears]] - Institutionally a Celtic.
*[[Excoriators]] - Institutionally ugly.
*[[Executioners]] - Institutionally [[lawful stupid|honorable]].
*[[Exorcists]] - Institutionally [[Heresy|possessed and exorcised]].
*[[Flesh Tearers]] - Institutionally RIP AND TEAR.
*[[Flesh Eaters]] - Institutionally cannibals.
*[[Flame Falcons]] - Institutionally ON FIRE. ALL OF THEM.
*[[Fire Angels]] - Institutionally religious BUT ALSO ON FIRE.
*[[Fire Lords]] - Institutionally [[Flamer|burny]], possibly more so than the [[Salamanders]] (see below).
*[[Fists Exemplar]] - Institutionally were there after the [[Imperial Fists]].
*[[Genesis Chapter]] - Institutionally [[Ultramarines]].
*[[Grey Knights]] - Institutionally killing [[Daemon|Daemons]].
*[[Guardians of the Covenant]] - Institutionally record-keeping Catholic space monks.
*[[Hammers of Dorn]] - Institutionally trolling the Ultramarines.
*[[Hospitallers]] - Institutionally religious.
*[[Howling Griffons]] - Institutionally Black Templars wannabes.
*[[Inceptors]] - Institutionally <blank>.
*[[Imperial Fists]] - Institutionally fortifying this position.
*[[Invaders]] - Institutionally trading blows with Eldar.
*[[Iron Hands]] - Institutionally angry cyborgs.
*[[Iron Snakes]] - Institutionally [[Awesome|Texas Rangers]].
*[[Lamenters]] - Institutionally unlucky.
*[[Legion of the Damned]] - Institutionally undead WHILE ON FIRE!
*[[Marines Errant]] - Institutionally being actual marines.
*[[Marines Malevolent]] - Institutionally MASSIVE assholes.
*[[Mantis Warriors]] - Institutionally misdirecting.
*[[Mentors]] - Institutionally academic. Has not been heard from [[Rogue Trader (Sourcebook)|for a long time]].
*[[Minotaurs]] - Institutionally mysteriously paranoid teamkilling dicks. They are suspected to be in league with the [[High Lords of Terra]] as an attempt to police the Adeptus Astartes. Cause that'll work.
*[[Mortifactors]] - Institutionally Skulls and Bones.
*[[Novamarines]] - Institutionally hating Xenos.
*[[Raptors]] - Institutionally [[Reasonable_Marines|reasonable]] and [[shooty]].
*[[Raven Guard]] - Institutionally [[Troll|tricksy]] and speedy.
*[[Rainbow Warriors]] - Institutionally [[Gay|<s>gay</s>]] not appearing in this game.
*[[Red Scorpions]] - Institutionally pure.
*[[Red Talons]] - Institutionally bloodthirsty, and red.
*[[Relictors]] - Institutionally radical.
*[[Retributors]] - Institutionally tactical, also officially official.
*[[Salamanders]] - Institutionally [[Flamer|burny]]. Also, surprisingly nice for all their... fiery nature.
*[[Sable Swords]] - Institutionally heirs to the [[Astral Knights]].
*[[Scythes of the Emperor]] - Institutionally NOT DEAD YET.
*Shadow Wolves - Institutionally made up by AD-B for his wife, and wiped out in a book he wrote.
*[[Silver Skulls]] - Institutionally [[Shaman|shamanistic]].
*[[Sons of Medusa]] - Institutionally lime green.
*[[Sons of the Phoenix]] - Institutionally totally not the [[Emperor's Children]].
*[[Soul Drinkers]] - Institutionally rebellious.
*[[Space Sharks]] - Institutionally [[Shark|SHARKY]], BITCH!
*[[Space Wolves]] - Institutionally Swedish,(Bjork Bjork Bjork)
*[[Star Phantoms]] - Institutionally SURPRISE, MOTHERFUCKER!.
*[[Storm Wardens]] - Institutionally Celtic.
*[[Ultramarines]] - Institutionally <s>[[Codex_Astartes|orthodox]]</s> Matt Ward Cultists.
*[[Unnumbered Sons]] - Institutionally without identity.
*[[White Scars]] - Institutionally Mongolian.
*[[White Templars]] - Institutionally Black Templars...but white
*[[Valedictors]] - Institutionally gone, so forget it.

==Space Marine Chapter Masters==
[[File:Angels of the Rock.jpg|200px|right|thumb|Tiny head syndrome is a common side effect of the augmentations]]
*[[Marneus Calgar]] - Chapter Master of the [[Ultramarines]]. Received the rank by having the most plot armor, nowadays he has become Guilliman's aide in running Ultramar.
*[[Dante]] - Chapter Master of the [[Blood Angels]]. '''Beware!!!!'''. Dante is watching you! Received the rank for being so old and always wearing a mask, he looks like a man entering his sixties without it.
*[[Logan Grimnar]] - Great Wolf of the [[Space Wolves]]. Is the wolfiest of all the wolf lords without being a furry, also, he cares a lot for the average baseline human.
*[[Azrael]] - Supreme Grand Master of the [[Dark Angels]]. Best at VANQUISHING FOUL TRAITORS FROM OTHER LEGIONS.
*[[Vorn Hagen]] - Chapter Master of the [[Imperial Fists]]. Appointed as Chapter Master <s>out of pity</s> because he was the second best candidate in line for the job, and the [[Darnath Lysander|TRUE HERO]] had turned it down so he could continue doing what he does best (namely make servants of Chaos cry with a generous appliance of [[Thunder Hammer]] to the face). Died in the Second Battle of Terra and was replaced by Gregor Dessian.
*[[Jubal Khan]] - Chapter Master of the [[White Scars]]. Proved his speediness by outracing a bike mounted captain wearing only rollerskates. Was abducted by the [[Red Corsairs]] and tortured to the point that he is permanently crippled and forced to survive strapped to life support systems in the Chapter's Fortress Monastery.
*[[Tu'Shan]] - Master of the Fire Drakes, [[derp|de-Facto]] Chapter Master of the [[Salamanders]]. Forged the burniest flamer.
*[[Kardan Stronos]] - Chapter Master of the [[Iron Hands]](sort of). Was actually democratically elected for diplomatic reasons, temporarily. It's complicated.
*Corvin Severax - Former Chapter Master of the [[Raven Guard]], nicknamed "Master of Shadows". Got the job by being the sneakiest of the sneaky Marines (they were looking for him to officially grant him the rank until the last day). Unfortunately some [[Shadowsun|blue-skinned bitch]] had him killed in the Damocles Gulf (ironically by being even sneakier and trickier then him).
*[[Kayvaan Shrike]] - Formerly Captain of the Raven Guard's third company, and all-around badass that [[get shit done]] in his Primarch's time-honored way (i.e. sneak up to a motherfucker and shred him with [[Lightning Claws]] before vanishing again). Shrike was decided unanimously to be Severax' successor when the latter suffered from an unfortunate severe overdose of Tau gunline; only adding to his [[awesome]].
*[[Kaldor Draigo]] - SUPREME Grand Master of the [[Grey Knights]] and one of [[Matt Ward]]'s [[Mary Sue|Special Snowflakes]]. Honored for being the single biggest Mary Sue in the whole damn setting by being able to survive in the Warp unprotected and uncorrupted. Fortunately, later authors have been working to tone him down and give him an actual personality.
*[[Helbrecht]] - High Marshall of the [[Black Templars]]. Was voted High Marshall for being the angriest of the not [[Angry Marines]]. Has a [[Waifu|tsundere]] relation with [[Imotekh the Stormlord]]
*[[Pedro Kantor]] - Chapter Master of the [[Crimson Fists]]. Got the most votes (read: all three) during the election.
*[[Gabriel Seth]] - Chapter Master of the [[Flesh Tearers]]. Ripped and tore the most during the Chapter Master audition (also kicked one of the judges in the balls), he is a bit tsundere for Dante while still being totally bros with him.
*[[Azariah Kyras]] - Former Chapter Master of the [[Blood Ravens]] who was killed for being a filthy, despicable, traitorous, no good follower of Chaos. Later replaced by [[Gabriel Angelos]].
*Gabriel Angelos, a totally cool dude who had to deal with Kyras heresy, as well as Baldeale's incompetence and having his recruiting worlds invaded by the Tyranids.
*Sarpedon - Chapter Master of the [[Soul Drinkers]] Also, a (bottom) half giant spider mutant. Got all his friends killed for trying to do the right thing. Rookie Grimdark mistake, kid.
*[[Carab Culln]] - Lord High Commander of the [[Red Scorpions]]. Got promoted after the last one was killed. Then got himself mortally wounded and was interred in a [[Dreadnought#Leviathan Pattern|Leviathan Dreadnought]]. Suceeded by [[Casan Sabius]].
*Artekus Bardane - Chapter Master of the [[Relictors]]. Collects and uses Chaos artifacts better then anyone in the Chapter.
*[[Asterion Moloc]] - Chapter Master of the [[Minotaurs]]. No clue how he got the job, our inquiries were met with death threats and top level cease and desist orders. Has a laser-shooting pimp cane and won't mind sacrificing his own people to get the job done.
*[[Lugft Huron]] - Chapter Master of the [[Astral Claws]]. Got the rank by being absolutely awesome, unfortunately he overdid it and caused the [[Badab War]].
*Lias Issodon - Chapter Master of the [[Raptors_(Chapter)|Raptors]]. The most reasonable of the not-[[Reasonable Marines|reasonable marines]].
*[[Tyberos the Red Wake]] - Chapter Master of the [[Space Sharks]], or at least assumed to be. He was the leader of the Carcharodons during the Badab War, but his exact rank was never confirmed until 8th Edition. Still showed the best technique when it came to applying '''RIP AND TEAR''' to heretic asses, assisted by his [[awesome|LIGHTNING CLAW CHAINFISTS]].
*Omadon Tiresias - Chapter Master of the [[Star Phantoms]]. Blinded by warp storms during the evacuation of the Star Phantom home world, he forsook his own sight to save the relics of his Chapter.
*Malakim Phoros - Chapter Master of the [[Lamenters]]. Not happy with his Chapter being constantly shat upon and sided with Huron during the Badab War. Ohh, you poor man. Despite being utterly screwed and [[Eldrad|dicked with]] due to [[Tzeentch|unbelievably bad fortune]] AND struggling with crippling depression and cynicism, the guy refuses to give up faith in his fellow man. [[Grimdark|Naturally, it only makes things worse.]]
*[[Lord Magyar]] - Chapter Master of [[Mortifactors]]. His artificer armor is made from bone entirely, and though the rule Slow and Purposeful is no more, he definitely IS [[Tactical genius|slow and purposeful]]. He wears a relic [[Typhus|power scythe]]. He is at least [[Awesome|700 years old]].

== Rivalries ==
[[File:Moloc.JPG|300px|right|thumb|Everyone hates the Minotaurs]]
While normally above mortal shortcomings, the greatest flaw of the Space Marines is their hubris. They are immensely proud warriors who do not take kindly to having their honor slighted. Some take mental note of this for a later date while others [[rip and tear|take the more direct approach]]. This has created some notable rivalries between the various Chapters, some of which date back to the Great Crusade.

*'''Space Wolves and Dark Angels''' - The Space Wolves and Dark Angels have a rather tumultuous and sometimes violent rivalry, but in a way their Legions truly reflect the relationship between brothers. The rivalry itself stems from a confrontation between their Primarchs that stemmed from the different cultures the Primarchs had come up in. During a joint operation between the Wolves and the Dark Angels, the planet's ruler had insulted Russ personally, so Russ resolved to slay him personally. The Lion tried to cut Russ in on his deep strike plan, but Russ would have none of it. He didn't want to defeat the enemy, he wanted to utterly crush them. Frustrated with his brother's lack of cooperation, the Lion launched his strike without the Wolves' help, and Russ fought his way into the planetary ruler's palace just in time to watch the Lion behead him. Furious, Russ threw down his weapons and punched the Lion, starting a lengthy fist fight that only ended when Russ started laughing upon realizing how pointless the fight was and how stupid he'd been. Thinking that Russ was laughing at him, the Lion punched Russ unconscious. When Russ awoke he sought out the Lion to make amends, but he had already departed with his fleet. Though the two would work together again, the Lion was rather unforgiving (oh the irony) towards Russ. To Russ the Lion seemed the antagonist. After all, in the halls of Fenris a brawl between angry brothers was hardly unusual. When the fight ended you'd toast each other and drink away the bruises and move on. To the Lion Russ seemed at fault. After all, in the knightly orders of Caliban striking one's brothers was not done: petty infighting could not be tolerated when monsters slavered at the gate. As is so often the case between brothers, both were at fault and neither would back down. To this day the Space Wolves and Dark Angels (and their successor Chapters) will fight (usually) non-lethal honor duels to "settle the score," though "the score" has never really been agreed on. Occasionally tensions between the two Chapters will boil over into open warfare which is often caused by <strike>Fallen Angels</strike> TRAITORS UNASSOCIATED WITH THE DARK ANGELS hiding amidst the Space Wolves' protectorate worlds, using the tensions to their advantage. Finally it's worth noting that even though the two (former) Legions often fight, they never show that rivalry to the wider Imperium, and they'll set aside their rivalry whenever they need to [[get shit done]] together. Their rivalry is in question now, though, as after the Great Rift opened the Unforgiven came and beat the shit out of Magnus’s army invading Fenris. Originally they thought the sudden explosion of Wulfen numbers meant that the Space Wolves either fell to Chaos, were too mutated to recover and needed a mercy killing, or that there would hardly be any left and just Wulfen remained. Unlike when the last time they showed up at Fenris and attacked the Space Wolves in the belief the Wolves had turned or something, this time the Dark Angels were wary of being used and found out that their assumption was wrong before they could fuck up and thus avoided epic team-killing and instead the First Legion slammed into the daemons and traitor Marines like the Emperor’s own banhammer.

*'''Ultramarines and the Word Bearers''' - The Ultramarines are pissed off at the Word Bearers for a great many things: 1) They turned traitor during what was supposed to be an exercise to patch up their poor relations after the Castigation of Lorgar; 2) They used millions of cultists as meat shields during the [[Battle of Calth]], which the Ultramarines saw as dishonorable and disgusting; 3) They almost destroyed Calth; and finally 4) The battle of Calth was the first battle of the Heresy for the Ultramarines as a whole, meaning that while they were chilling and waiting to go kill some Orks, the Word Bearers suddenly turned around and slaughtered a fuckload of them without warning. They managed to pull through in the end and win by the skins of their teeth, but it was a gigantic blow to the Ultramarines, who now had to fight off a vengeful Legion out of nowhere with almost half their Legion dead, their fleet crippled, ''and the fucking sun of the planet they were on flooding it with deadly radiation''. Not to mention the giant Warp storm that cut them off from the rest of the Imperium, which coincidentally formed at the exact time the Word Bearers attacked...

*'''Ultramarines and the Alpha Legion''' - The Alpha Legion led the Ultramarines halfway across the galaxy on a fool's errand that ultimately ensured they were nowhere near the Imperial Palace during the Horus Heresy. Adding insult to injury, they inflicted enormous casualties on the Ultramarines, and though they succeeded in killing Alpharius (or did they?), the Alpha Legion's command structure was so decentralized that it did little to affect them.

*'''Ultramarines and the Black Templars (also the Imperial Fists, the Crimson Fists, the Space Wolves, and the Salamanders)''' - When Roboute Guilliman tried to force the Codex Astartes on the Space Marine Legions after the Horus Heresy, some Legions - most notably the Imperial Fists - outright refused, not wanting their legions to be broken down into smaller Chapters. Rogal Dorn called Guilliman a coward, while Guilliman called Dorn a rebel. The Space Wolves and the Salamanders ended up backing Dorn, while the Raven Guard and the White Scars supported Guilliman. The rivalry became so intense that the Imperial Navy even fired on the Imperial Fist strike cruiser ''Terrible Angel'', and it seemed that the Space Marines would war against one another once again. Finally, Rogal Dorn yielded to prevent another war and broke his legion into the Black Templars and the Crimson Fists. As the Ultramarines still were wary of the loyalties of the Imperial Fists and their successors, Sigismund - the first Emperor's Champion and the man that Dorn had appointed to be the Black Templars Chapter Master - declared a 10,000 year crusade in the Emperor's name to prove their loyalty. Even though tensions have since cooled between the Ultramarines and the other Chapters, the Ultramarines are still suspicious about (read: sticking their nose into the business of) the Black Templars as they still refuse to conform to the Codex Astartes, and won't tell the Ultramarines just how huge their Chapter is. In short, Sigismund and Leman Russ told Guilliman where he can shove his Codex Astartes, and he's all anal pained about it.

*'''Ultramarines and the Iron Warriors''' - [[Uriel Ventris]] and Pasanius Lysane, of the Ultramarines, were sworn to a Death Oath by their Chapter Master Marneus Calgar as punishment for violating the Codex Astartes (specifically, because they had abandoned the rest of their company to assist a Deathwatch Kill-team during the Battle of Tarsus Ultra). Their mission: find and destroy the [[Daemonculaba]]. The quest took the Ultramarines pair to the nightmarish [[Daemon World]] of [[Medrengard]], within the [[Eye of Terror]] itself. Medrengard was the homeworld of the Iron Warriors Traitor Legion. It was also the location of [[Honsou]], the evil Iron Warriors Warsmith who oversaw the Daemonculaba project from within his fortress, Khalan-Ghol. The Ultramarines were successful in destroying the Daemonculaba, and were also able to bring ruination to Khalan-Ghol and Honsou's forces. Uriel Ventris also managed to shoot Honsou in the head. Unfortunately, the Warsmith survived the headshot. Upon realizing the extent of the damage Uriel had caused, Honsou swore revenge and also the utter annihilation of [[Ultramar]]. Honsou was aware that before he ever dealt with Uriel Ventris, the Ultramarines spent years and countless resources and lives to repel a [[Tyranid]] incursion at Tarsis Ultra. Honsou thus unleashed a plan which destroyed every living thing on Tarsis Ultra, and reduced the planet itself to a lifeless rock. Destroying the planet provided no strategic gain to the Iron Warriors; Honsou carried out his horrific genocide simply to spite Uriel Ventris and the Ultramarines. Following this, the Iron Warriors use an army won from the [[Red Corsairs]] to free the [[Daemon Prince]] [[M'kar]], and invade [[Ultramar]]. Though the "Bloodborn" army is beaten back, the Ultramarines lost over one third of their battle-brothers in the attempt, leaving them open to attack for the first time since the First Tyrannic War and unable to properly participate in the Imperial counter-offensive for the [[13th Black Crusade]]. The Ultramarines and the Iron Warriors have thus become bitter enemies-- with Uriel Ventris and Honsou in particular becoming sworn foes.

*'''Ultramarines and the Hammers of Dorn''' - The Hammers adhere rigidly to the Codex Astartes, to the point where they point out any deviations from the codex by the Ultramarines. According to the Hammers of Dorn, Guilliman may have had the genius to pen the codex, but the sons of Dorn are the only ones that can bring out its full potential.

*'''Ultramarines and the Minotaurs''' - While the Minotaurs are hated by everyone the Ultramarines have a special grudge against them, due to the Euxine Incident of the Macharian Heresy. It just so happened that the loyalist Doom Warriors and Inceptors chapters were busy [[skub|fighting each other over a matter of honor]], and [[lawful stupid|refused to stop and aid Imperial forces]]. The Minotaurs were sent to quell the dispute, which they did in their [[rip and tear|usual manner]]. They attacked both sides in force, nearly destroying them wholesale. The Doom Warriors were badly beaten and forced into a barely-organized retreat almost immediately. The Inceptors weren't so lucky. With no way to withdraw they suffered the full onslaught of the Minotaurs and finally surrendered with less then 100 Marines left. The honored 2nd [[Founding]] Chapter was subsequently [[Blood Ravens|robbed of most of their Chapter relics, the Minotaurs stealing them right off their dead bodies]], including their flagship, a relic of the Great Crusade. This brought them a great deal of hatred from the Ultramarines and their successors, who have since forbidden the Minotaurs from entering Ultramar and seek vengeance whenever the opportunity arises.

*'''Blood Angels and the World Eaters''' - Both constantly compete for superiority in melee combat and also the angriest motherfucking berserker full of rage.

*'''Raven Guard and White Scars''' - Supposedly dates back to a huge fucking argument between [[Corax]] and [[Jaghatai Khan]], where the two had a massive spat over the proper use of rapid-reaction forces. Corax insisted they be used as part of infiltration and deep-strike units, and Jaghatai insisted they were to be on the front lines - the two never really saw eye-to-eye, Corax seeing Jaghatai as devastatingly effective, but with the tactical sense of a drunken Space Wolf, and Jaghatai seeing Corax as too cautious and tactical for proper man-fighting. The two would eventually make up after the Horus Heresy, and both the Raven Guard and White Scars would be forced to ally on several occasions - most notably during the infamous Hunt for Voldorius - but an intense rivalry over whose fast-attack doctrine is better persists to this day, and the two factions are still kind of assholes to one another as a result.

*'''Blood Angels and the Black Legion''' - Considering that Horus killed their Primarch (who, before the Heresy, were closer than any other Primarchs) which resulted in them suffering from the Black Rage which eventually causes every descendant of Sanguinius to have visions of being killed by Horus, the Blood Angels probably despise the Black Legion to the point of pure obsession. Also as a rule, the Blood Angels have a special hatred for the [[Abaddon|owner]] of the '''Talon of Horus''', since it killed their <s>father</s> sexy angel daddy.

*'''World Eaters and the Grey Knights''' - Angron was banished back to the Warp by Grey Knights during the first battle of Armageddon, which resulted in the World Eaters' defeat. Angron has since been resurfacing, and has sworn revenge.

*'''Raven Guard and the Black Legion (also the Word Bearers, Night Lords, Iron Warriors, and Alpha Legion)''' - The Raven Guard were the second hardest hit by the Drop Site Massacre of Istvaan V ''(the Salamanders got hit worse, but there weren't really enough survivors to hold a grudge)''. Though all of the traitor legions except the Thousand Sons were involved, the Raven Guard holds a special hatred for the former Luna Wolves and Horus, a hatred which has transferred over to [[Abaddon]] and the Black Legion. That said, the Raven Guard go absolutely murderous on any of the Legions who turned on them at Istvaan V.

*'''Grey Knights and the Space Wolves''' - Officially, there really isn't a rivalry at all. Because officially the Grey Knights don't exist. Unofficially, during the First War for Armageddon, Grey Knights were ordered to fire on dozens of civilian ships because there was a fraction of a shadow of smidgen of a chance that they were tainted by Chaos. The Space Wolves decided this was pretty dickish, and protected the civilians. Naturally, the Inquisition made it worse. Then old [[Logan Grimnar|Loggy]] chops a Grey Knight Grand Master's head off and kills four Justicars, the ugly downward spiral of '''''WTF!?'''''s started there. Eventually, an understanding was reached where the remaining civvies weren't murdered but just mindwiped a bit and Inquisitorial ships would never again come to Fenris or the Wolves would tear them a new asshole. Officially unofficially, the Grey Knights are angry that another Chapter was given even shittier writing than they got.

*'''Imperial Fists and the Iron Warriors''' - Imagine their rivalry akin to World War I. The Imperial Fists love making defenses, while the Iron Warriors love destroying stuff. Perturabo hated Rogal Dorn for being Daddy's golden boy and his constant boasting of the fortifications of the Imperial Palace. Perturabo eventually bested Dorn and the Imperial Fists by making a huge space fortress that Dorn then tried to attack in an effort to bring Perturabo to justice (known as the 'Iron Cage'). The fortress was nothing but a decoy with inwardly facing gun-lines, meaning the entire thing was a trap and wound up cutting down enormous numbers of the Imperial Fists before they could retreat. Each side was too strong without both of them completely destroying each other. Dorn is still perturbed to this day by the event.

*'''Thousand Sons and the Space Wolves''' - The Space Wolves despised the Red Sorcerers for their practice of magic, and initially didn't question a goddamned thing after Horus had intentionally given the Wolves incorrect orders (to destroy the Thousand Sons, as opposed to taking Magnus to stand trial). Perhaps the dumbest part of their rivalry is that when they actually showed up at Prospero, Leman Russ felt guilty about just slaughtering the Thousand Sons, so he tried to call Magnus to ask him to stand down so that they could take him in peacefully. Magnus, having assumed Leman Russ was here to kill him had refused to take any calls (and not only prevented his Legion from communicating with the Wolves, but gathered them all so they'd be easier to slaughter) which ended up pissing off the Wolves again and ensuring the Thousand Sons were nearly completely wiped out. Despite this being entirely preventable by their Primarch (on top of causing their fall to Tzeentch) and engineered by Horus (with the Wolves being completely ignorant about it) they still blame the Wolves anyway instead of those [[Derp|other two]]. The Sons would nonetheless resurface to attack the Space Wolves: they led a siege on their homeworld and succeeded in causing considerable damage before being driven off; during this offensive they managed to destroy a series of laboratories, including one that held an entire generation worth of the Space Wolves' Gene-Seed (as well as the cure for the Wulfen curse), and Magnus himself was responsible for killing the Space Wolves' Chapter Master.

*'''White Scars and the Space Wolves''' - Thousand Sons were the biggest bros of the Scars during the Great Crusade, their Primarchs were total bros too, so when they figured out that Wolves destroyed Prospero, killed most of the (still totally loyal) Thousand Sons and Magnus forced the surviving ones into going heretic (and the Wolves don't even feel any guilt or remorse about their role), none were surprised the Scars kept a huge grudge against the Space Yiffs. Also during the Crusade, the Scars hated being compared to the Wolves because of the apparent link to barbarism. The Wolves themselves also have a thing or two to say about the multiple times Scars hadn't come to help when they could, starting from when they left the Wolves alone against an entire Alpha Legion fleet.

*'''Iron Hands and the Emperor's Children''' - Prior to the Heresy, Fulgrim and Ferrus Manus were '''extremely''' close friends. Their bond ran so deep that even as Fulgrim declared his intentions of joining the forces of Chaos to Ferrus, asking him to join him in overthrowing the Emperor, Ferrus couldn't open fire on his brother's ship. Naturally, this had some rather nasty effects in the long term, not least of which was Fulgrim decapitating the Gorgon with his own sword. The Iron Hands did not take kindly to this. Also, getting all repressed and logical over the next 10,000 years caused Slaanesh to take breaking them as a challenge.

*'''World Eaters and The Emperor's Children''' - In addition to following [[Khorne|rival]] [[Slaanesh|deities]], the Emperor's Children lost huge numbers of troops to the World Eaters at [[Battle of Skalathrax|Skalathrax]]. Really, all you need to know is that [[Kharn]] and a Flamer were involved, and that before this incident, the World Eaters were a much more coordinated force.
**'''World Eaters and World Eaters''' - This event caused the World Eaters to break up into warbands.

*'''Emperor's Children and the Iron Warriors''' - Given that Fulgrim tried to sacrifice Peturabo's soul to Slaanesh to fuel his ascension to Daemon Prince...
** '''Emperor's Children and absolutely everyone else''' - Due to their disturbing habits of enslaving populations and/or stealing other Legion's servants to be used as... [[Slaanesh|''partners'']] for [[/d/|some memorable parties]], absolutely everyone tend to avoid them like walking STD's.

*'''Dark Angels and FOUL TRAITORS''' - Do ''not'' get between them and a [[Fallen Angels|FOUL TRAITOR TO THE IMPERIUM WHO CERTAINLY HAS NO CONNECTION TO THE SONS OF THE LION]]. It can only end in tears.

*'''Thousand Sons and World Eaters:''' Khorne hates sorcery, and so the World Eaters hate the Sons. Sadly for the World Eaters, they're usually well out of the Sons' league; the Thousand Sons tend to pick conflicts selectively, which means the followers of Khorne have rarely even had the chance to fight them. Also, it doesn't do much to appease Khorne's bloodlust, since there is no blood or skulls to offer, just dust. Then again, there are some exceptions, namely [[Iskandar Khayon]] and [[Lheorvine Ukris]], who were total bros, and they were the guys that founded the [[Black Legion]] along with [[Abaddon]].

*'''Blood Ravens and EVERYONE:''' Apart from Captain Titus of the Ultramarines, almost every Marine Chapter mentioned in having contact with the Blood Ravens have not been on good terms. Most likely due to their rampant kleptomania. This animosity extends beyond the Space Marines, and into the rest of the Imperium as well; Imperial Guard forces hate them for exterminating the Kronus Liberators, the Mechanicus hates them stealing archeotech, the Ecclisiarchy hates them for their psykers, and the Inquisition doesn't like them for their secrecy.

*'''Blood Angels and the Emperor's Children''' - [[Fabius Bile]] stole the blood of Sanguinius from the Blood Angels' Fortress-Monastery as part of a plot to make a clone of the God-Emperor. As the neophyte initiation process for the Blood Angels requires the consumption of some of the aforementioned blood, the Blood Angels and all their Successor Chapters have sworn to find and kill Bile at all costs. (For a while, it looked like they succeeded—that is, until they found out that Bile had begun cloning ''himself''.)

*'''Iron Hands and Raven Guard and Salamanders''' - The Iron Hands are still pissy about the whole [[Drop Site Massacre|Isstvan V]] thing. They believe that had the Salamanders and Raven Guard followed their Primarch Ferrus Manus they would have won at the Dropsite Massacre. Completely overlooking the fact that they were surprised, surrounded, outgunned and outnumbered nearly 3 to 1. They don't like the Raven Guard in particular for their use of stealth and subterfuge, and also for having a pretty much identical color scheme. The Salamanders aren't too keen about the Iron Hands belief of "purging the weak" and usual disregard for civilian casualties and sometimes their own Marines. The Raven Guard and Salamanders never pulled any of this bullshit with each other, though, and remain close allies, if for nothing other than the Hands constantly being dicks to both of them.

*'''Marines Malevolent and Salamanders''' - What happens when the galaxy's [[That Guy|greatest assholes]] meet the galaxy's greatest humanitarian Marines? Hilarity, that's what. The hate fueled rivalry that was first widely known came during the Third War for Armageddon where a squad of Marines Malevolent used their [[Whirlwind|Whirlwinds]] to fire upon an Ork-occupied camp, when they ''knew'' that the camp contained hundreds of Imperial civilian hostages, mostly women and children. Oh and guess what their response was, something to do with "Meh, we only serve the Emprah only" and "We didn't know there were ''"that"'' many civilians." As you can imagine, this both horrified and [[Rage|royally pissed off]] the Salamanders, and when these two Chapters met again after the war, Chapter Master Tu'Shan, to put it simply, bitch-slapped the Captain of the Marines Malevolent in front of ''everybody in the city,'' prompting much sniggering and cheering among both Guardsmen and civilians alike. Because of such reaction to complete dickwads, the Salamanders were considered as the '''Heroes of Armageddon''' by popular vote.

*'''Aurora Chapter and the Emperor's Spears''' - Fought each other over matters of honor and the Ultramarines judged Aurora Chapter was right, which soured relations of the Emperor's Spears with their primogenitor. Tensions have since lessened but the two Chapters still refuse to fight together.

*'''Marines Malevolent and Everyone Else''' - 'Nuff said.

*'''Salamanders and Sons of Medusa''' - During the [[Badab War]] the Salamanders, being friends with the [[Executioners]] chapter (who had been on the wrong side of the fighting), prevented the [[Sons of Medusa]] from taking revenge for the Strike Cruiser Warspite, lost with all hands at the hands of the Executioners, after the Executioners surrendered. The Sons of Medusa have sworn off all contact with the Salamanders and basically implied they would rather see the Imperium lose wars than help a single Salamander live.

*'''Iron Hands and Successors (especially Red Talons) and Sons of Medusa'''- The Sons of Medusa were formed from Iron Hands and successor Chapter Marines except those from the [[Red Talons]] who professed their belief in the Moirae Doctrine during the [[Nova Terra Interregnum]]'s Moirae Schism. The Red Talons killed all of their schismatics but all other Schismatics essentially formed their own Chapter, which was judged pure by the restored [[High Lords of Terra]] near the end of the [[Age of Apostasy]] and given official recognition outside of normal Chapter Foundings as the Sons of Medusa. The mainstream believers in the [[Omnissiah]] amidst the Iron Hands and all other successors obviously have serious problem with this, but can't act against the Sons of Medusa due to them being officially recognized as a Chapter. Further, the Sons of Medusa outperformed all other Iron Hands successors during the major Crusades whose ending marked the beginning of the [[Age of Redemption]], formally earning the respect of Imperial military bureaucracy and erasing any suspicions over their being specially recognized rather than normally founded. The Sons of Medusa for their part see the mainstream Iron Hands and successors as fools who cling to ancient doctrine over the reality of the situation at hand.

*'''Lamenters and Reality Itself''' - Again, enough said.

==Bros To the End==
As there are several Chapters and Legions who despise one another, there's a few that get along damned well.

*'''Raven Guard, Salamanders, and Iron Hands''' - True since the Great Crusade, where these three found they worked extremely well in-concert - The Raven Guard acting as the advance and cutting off critical locations and eliminating command units, the Salamanders in providing the heavy punch to follow this up, and the Iron Hands providing the tide of firepower to support both. That being said, the Iron Hands' relationship with the Raven Guard and the Salamanders has deteriorated since the Horus Heresy; they believe that had their allies not retreated from the Drop Site Massacre, Ferrus Manus would not have been killed and Horus would have been defeated before he could pose a threat to the Imperium. (It doesn't take a genius to realize that this would have just led to the complete annihilation of their Legions in practice.) It's not really clear if the Hands still fight alongside their former best bros in the 41st millennium, but given the whole "feeding a Raven Guard company to psyker Orks for lulz" thing, it doesn't seem likely.

*'''Salamanders and Blood Angels''' - Though the Salamanders are friendly with most Chapters anyway (and them hating you being a good indication of you being a huge asshole), they're particularly tight with the Blood Angels. Both Chapters are some of the few in the Imperium that actually go out of their way for civilians and put them before pride and glory in battle. This became particularly evident during the [[Armageddon|Second War of Armageddon]], when both fought side-by-side against the [[Orks]] and when [[Dante]] publicly honored [[Tu'Shan]] for his bravery during the war and bitch-slapping the Marines Malevolent Captain.

*'''Imperial Fists and their successors''' - Doctrinal differences and martial angst aside, the sons of Dorn have always been on good terms with each other. Whenever a crisis threatens Terra that is too great for a single Chapter, the Imperial Fists and their successors unite to put an end to that threat, such as [[The War of The Beast]], and the [[Age of Apostasy|Second Siege of Terra]] to put [[Goge Vandire]] in his place. Every century, they also come together for an epic swordfighting tournament called the [[Feast of Blades]].

*'''Blood Angels, White Scars and Imperial Fists''' - All three fought and died in the defence of the Imperial Palace. Broforce = very yes.

*'''Ultramarines and Imperial Fists''' - Similar to the Space Wolves and Dark Angels above, beef about the Codex aside, the two Chapters have always been on very good terms. (I guess the above segment regarding the Ultramarines firing on the Imperial Fists ship is just swept under the rug).

*'''Dark Angels and Dark Angel successors''' - THE DARK ANGELS HAVE NO SUCH RELATIONSHIP WITH THEIR SUCCESSOR CHAPTERS. RUMORS THAT DARK ANGEL SUCCESSORS ARE STILL UNDER DIRECT COMMAND FROM THEIR PARENT CHAPTER, EFFECTIVELY STILL MAKING THEM FUNCTION AS A LEGION, ARE OBVIOUSLY LIES AND SLANDER FABRICATED BY THE FOUL HERETICS OF CHAOS, AS SUCH AN ACT WOULD BREAK THE GUIDELINES OF THE CODEX ASTARTES, WHICH LOYAL CHAPTERS WOULD NOT DO-{{BLAM}}

*'''Astral Claws, Lamenters and Mantis Warriors {Pre-Badab War}''' - When the [[Maelstrom|Maelstrom zone]] needed to be conquered, the [[High Lords of Terra]] create the "Maelstrom Warders", an alliance formed by all these chapters (and the Charnel Guards, who later were withdrawn) to pacify and control the sector, and they got shit done! At some point, the [[Chapter Master]] of the Astral Claws, [[Lugft Huron]], believed the Imperium wasn't helping enough, declared himself "the Tyrant of Badab" and [[Heresy|secession from the Imperium]] (also just before this time, the Astral Claws absorbed the final few survivors of the Tiger Claws, their successor Chapter, after a catastrophic battle and their last fleet going MIA). Both the Lamenters and the Mantis Warriors followed suit, as they were both under command of the Astral Claws and were honorbound to them, but as well some agreeing that the Imperium was indeed bullying the Astral Claws for no reason. [[Badab War|The rest is history]]. After that sordid affair was over with, the Lamenters and the Mantis Warriors were fucked over sent on century long penitence crusades without the right to recruit until it was over (though the Mantis Warriors were allowed to recruit while in penitence after being reduced to 100 Marines). Given that the galaxy [[Great Rift|split right in half]] 13 years before their penance was to be over, it was probably quietly lifted before they were reinforced by [[Primaris Marines]]. Given that the Mantis Warriors have a unit specifically dedicated to hunting the [[Red Corsairs]], the former alliance is quite dead and gone.

*'''Thousand Sons and Word Bearers {Pre-Heresy.}''' - Lorgar was the closest Primarch-buddy of Magnus, due to the scholarly nature of both. They went separate ways after the Heresy though, probably because Magnus learned who really was behind the Burning of Prospero all along.

*'''Thousand Sons and White Scars {Pre-Heresy.}''' - As above, The Khan respected his scholarly brother and would have helped him if he was present at Nikaea.

*'''Iron Hands and Emperor's Children {Pre-Heresy.}''' - The culmination of the aforementioned close friendship between the Gorgon and the Phoenix would be a tragic foreshadowing of the fate of the Warmaster and the Great Angel's friendship.

*'''Luna Wolves/Sons of Horus and Blood Angels {Pre-Heresy.}''' - Horus and Sanguinius were the closest two Primarchs before the Heresy, and this extended to their Legions. This went to the point where Horus still wished he had Sanguinius on his side after having given himself over to the Dark Gods fully, and Sanguinius was willing to die if it meant that his brother could be saved even if only through death. This just makes the rivalry between the Black Legion and The Angelic Host that much more sad.

*'''Ultramarines and Genesis Chapter''' - Super close ties due to Genesis Chapter being Ultramarines reserve for Marines. They patrol the galaxy together.

* '''Emperor’s Spears, Celestial Lions, and Black Templars''' - the first two stemming from their tripartite brotherhood as the Adeptus Vaelari alongside the defunct Star Scorpions (who’s survivors are now their arch nemesis as the Chaos warband called the Pure) in Elara’s Veil while the latter two are fellow Sons of Dorn. The tragic death of thing is the Lions have a hit-me target painted on their forehead after having major disagreements with the Inquisition over collateral damage. While they’ve avoided extinction due to help from the Spears and the Templars, all three are now neck deep in the Veil with the Pure’s Exilarchy overwhelming half of the region after the Great Rift isolated them from the Imperium.

==Official /tg/ Space Marine Chapters==
[[File:Cloten.jpg|300px|right|thumb|THE RAPE TRAIN HAS NO BRAKES!!!]]
One of /tg/'s favorite pastimes is creating new and exciting Chapters of the Adeptus Astartes based on silly concepts. [[/tg/|/tg/'s]] [[/tg/'s homebrews|homebrew]] Chapters include:

*[[Adeptus Orthodontus]]
*[[Angry Marines]]
*[[Butthurt Marines]]
*[[The Wonderful Misadventures of: Inquisitor Fob and the Classy Marines|Classy Marines]]
*[[Comedy Marines]]
*[[Disco Marines]]
*[[Dorf Marines]]
*[[Drunk Marines]]
*[[Sigmar Marines|Emperor's Hammers]]
*[[Emperor's Paragons]]
*[[Galactic Partridges]]
*[[Golden Aquilas]]
*[[Inside-Out Marines]]
*[[Lazy Marines]]
*[[Manly Marines]]
*[[Metal Marines]]
*[[Mexicarines]]
*[[Mole Marines]]
*[[Obstinate Marines]]
*[[Pathetic Marines]]
*[[Pretty Marines]]
*[[Reasonable Marines]]
*[[Red Skeletons]]
*[[Scary Marines]]
*[[Silly Marines]]
*[[Sleepy Marines|Dream Warriors]]
*[[Star Shanks]]
*[[Elderly Marines]]
'''As you can see, /tg/ has a problem with creativity.'''

===Second Founding of /tg/ Space Marine Chapters===
After the release of Deathwatch: Rites of Battle, /tg/ quickly flung itself at the Chapter creation rules and began to produce a second wave of /tg/ Chapters. Noticeably more serious business than the previous Chapters, these Spess Mahreens range from the widely popular Emperor's Nightmare, to the derpy Flesh Helms.

*[[Abyssal Jaws]] - Institutionally sharky.
*[[Argent Strix]] - Institutionally hungry.
*[[Black Locks]] - Institutionally corsair.
*[[Blood Jaguars]] - Institutionally Aztec.
*[[Brotherhood of the Gauntlet]] - Institutionally Arabic Ghazi.
*[[Brotherhood of the Megalith]] - Institutionally rocky.
*[[Conservators]] - Institutionally poor and under-equipped. It's what happens when you piss of the Mechanicus.
*[[Deep Ones (Tiji Sector)|Deep Ones]] - Institutionally aquatic and environmentally resistant.
*[[Desert Fangs]] - Institutionally [[Angry Marines]] taken seriously.
*[[Dionysus Revelers]] - Institutionally cannibal drunks.
*[[Dune Walkers]] - Institutionally Arabic Nomads.
*[[Emperor's Bears]] - Institutionally lost.
*[[Emperor's Nightmare]] - Institutionally [[Sleepy Marines]] taken seriously.
*[[Eyes of Mordred]] - Institutionally [[Scary Marines]] taken seriously.
*[[Flesh Helms]] - Institutionally [[Imperial Guard]] of the Adeptus Astartes.
*[[Guardians Exemplar]] - Institutionally equal to the [[Marines Malevolent]].
*[[Ice Serpents]] - Institutionally [[Baneblade|mechanized]] for war.
*[[Ice Wraiths]] - Institutionally [[Awesome|cyborg-ice-vampire-yeti-riders]].
*[[Knights Inductor]] - Institutionally [[Reasonable Marines]] taken seriously. Also [[Mary Sues|MARY SUES]], don't mention them on /tg/. You'll just [[troll|cause a shitstorm]]
*[[Knights Repentant]] - Institutionally UTTERLY LOYAL and true pre-heresy [[Word Bearers]].
*[[Lumbermarines]] - Institutionally lumberjacks.
*[[Rising Sons]] - Institutionally BANZAI!!!
*[[Screaming Eagles]] - Institutionally 'MURICAN!!! FUCK YEAH!
*[[Talons of Corvus]] - Institutionally a more heroic [[Command and Conquer|Nod]].
*[[The Sovereign's Appraisal]] - Institutionally loyal and sympathetic despite mutations, being declared renegade, [[Slaanesh]] trying to seduce them and the [[Ultramarines]] and their successors trying to terminate them.
*[[War Brothers]] - Institutionally not giving a damn about what the [[Dark Angels]] want from them.
*[[The Adeptus Estates]] - Institutionally home building.
*[[Mourning Sons]] - Institutionally shedding [[Fist of the North Star|Manly Tears]].
*[[Star Krakens]] - Institutionally Viking, yet not [[Space Wolves|THAT]] Viking. Plus one of the biggest of shits that /tg/ has done right. AND HOW!
*[[Space Knights]] - Institutionally dour.
'''The second wave WOULD show improvements to creativity... If they didn't use a RPG system as a crutch, among other issues.'''

== Trivia ==

The name Adeptus Astartes is usually portrayed as meaning Star Adepts. However the name "Astarte" is actually a goddess of fertility, love, war, sex and sexuality from the Eastern Mediterranean regions during the [[Bronze Age]]. Somewhat meta considering that the Emprah was also from that region ''(Anatolia)'' around the same time period. [[HERESY|He may have been horny and/or romantically interested]] [[Rule 63|in the idea of a badass God-Empress]] and [[What|named his sons to symbolically show this]] using a language that only he and [[Ollanius Pius]] [[Derp|are the speakers of]] besides dead people and three of [[Khorne|the]] [[Nurgle|Ruinous]] [[Tzeentch|Powers]] (unlikely given the Emperor was anti-theistic and anti-religious), or this is just the Emperor keeping himself sane by engaging in humor he knows only one loyal person will get, which does not include his last [[Malcador the Sigillite|two]] [[Companion|friends]]. [[Grimdark|No wonder the Emprah doesn't smile much.]] [[Derp|Ironic given that the Astartes is an all-male organization.]]

However, much as with the [[Arkhan Land|Land]] Raider, a more prosaic explanation was provided in the novel ''The Great Work'', which features flashbacks from the memories of Ezekiel Sedayne (the guy who headed up the development team for the Black Carapace). The project’s coordinator was a mortal woman named Amar ''Astarte'', who was the most accomplished geneticist of the time outside of the Emepror and the Selenite Gene-witches. Following the theft of the Primarchs, Astartes feared that the Space Marines, without the supply of genetic materials from their Primarchs, would fall into deterioration like the Thunder Warriors. And so she blew up the Legions' gene-vault alongside herself; however, the Emperor had already known of this and made several copies of the vault elsewhere.

Given the current talent writing for GW, we'll eventually hear of somebody named "Adeptus" who also worked on the project (or even [[Adeptus Terra|all government organization as a whole]]); wouldn't be any dumber than some [[Erda|other things they chose to do.]]

==See Also==
*[[Beakie]] - When the Spehss mahrens were awesome looking.

*[[Chaplain]] - The spiritual leaders of the space marines.

*[[Female Space Marines]]- Records officially decommissioned and terminated by the [[Inquisition]] on the grounds of [[Heresy]], there is nothing here trust us. E-Commissars will blam you from your monitor when attempting to access said heretical records.

*[[Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine]]- The official game of [[Pauldrons]] (despite the fact that the pauldrons in this game are smaller than they should be)

*[[Warhammer_40,000/Tactics/Space_Marines_(9E)|Space Marines Tactics]]

*[[Guidelines of the Space Marines]]

*Despite the considerable amount of hate at the space marines nowadays, [[The World Engine|they can still be awesome.]]

*[[Bretonnia#Knightly Hierarchy|Grail Knights]] - The Warhammer Fantasy equivalent.

*[[Stormcast Eternals]] (AKA, [[Ground Marines]]), their [[Warhammer: Age of Sigmar]] equivalent.

*[[Terminator]]

*[[Apothecary]]

*[[Techmarine]]

*[[Librarian]]

*[[Scout]]

*[[Kill Marine]] of Deathwatch

*[[Codex Astartes]]

*[[Space Marine Chapter]]

*[[Space Marine Chapter Creation Tables]]

*[[Renegade Space Marine Chapter Creation Table]] - For when you hate both the Imperium and Chaos.

*[[Legion Consul]]

==External Links==
* [https://youtu.be/XQwTyGeoprA The Emperor's speech on the Space Marines]
* [https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Space_Marines WH40k Wikia on Astartes]
* [http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Space_Marine Lexicanum on Space Marines]
* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Marine_(Warhammer_40,000) Wikipedia Article]
* [http://wackycamper.deviantart.com/art/Space-Marine-Commandments-88741651 The Commandments of the Space Marine]
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13nM17TV_sU/ Rap song dedicated to the mighty-ass space marines.]
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMzWrDSNN4Y/ Another rap dedicated to the mighty-ass space marines.]
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzPuK1vib_c Emperor's quote about the Space Marines in a remix done from If the Emperor had a Text-to-Speech Device glory.]
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shRHZLheEJI What is to be a space marine, in thrash metal version!]

==Gallery==
<center>
<gallery>
File:Xenos sighted.jpg
File:Pingas.png
File:Pyramidheadspacemarine.jpg
File:Troll Emperor.jpg
File:New Marine.jpg
Image:1227373581722.gif
Image:Femalemini.jpg
File:Correction.JPG|Drill Abbots '''hate''' him!
File:Stuffy.jpg|Build a Marine Workshop
File:Pauldronius.png|[[Pauldron]]ius
File:Brother Sergeant Aznable.jpg|'''EEECK!'''
image:steelrain.jpg|Steel Rain in action!
File:Reasonablemarine.png|Don't fuck with [[Reasonable Marines]].
Image:LEGO_SpaceMarines_by_Jerac.jpg|Brick by brick we shall conquer.
File:1285382081001.jpg|Apparently, marines '''DO''' in fact have tiny heads.
File:Sperm Marine.jpg|I'm in ur w0mb, fertulizan yo eggz
File:Amuricuh.jpg|What historians didn't want you to believe
File:Yes they can.jpg|[[Skub|A matter of some contention.]]
File:False.jpg|Taking a page from their fallen brothers.
Image:Primarchs_as_teen_girls.png|'''[[Rule 63]] Primarchs are the most popular girls at [[HS40K]]'''
File:Gearing up.jpg|A rare glimpse at a Space Marine without his awesome pauldrons on
File:Armour of Bulk.png|Space Marines and ridiculous suits of armour go hand in hand.
File:BruceAstartes.jpg|Brother Campbell brings a world into Imperial compliance.
File:SpessM.jpg|Indrick Boreale nearly turned Space Marines into the laughing stock of the entire franchise.
File:Angels of Derp.jpg|Space Marines as depicted during the dark ages of GW art (aka 2nd Edition)
Image:1228559892410.jpg|The scary thing is that this isn't fan art, seriously, this was an official GW product.
File:Warhammer 40k space marines we'll find your mom mother storytellers storytime missing child lost little girl.jpg|Now gather around children as I recount to you the exploits of the Emperor's chosen...
Image:1207335921499.jpg|The Space Wizards of Warpwarts have mastered the art of profecting the power of the warp through small wooden sticks. How they refrain from breaking them is a mystery.
Image:Horny Marine.gif|'''Hump the heretic, penetrate the mutant, cum in the alie-'''{{BLAM}} {{BLAM|SLAANESH WORSHIPPER!}}
</gallery>
</center>

{{Imperium}}
{{Marines-Forces}}
{{Marines-Official}}
{{Marines-Characters}}
{{WH40k-Factions}}

Draconis Combine

2021-08-26T15:39:21Z

2607:FB90:6E65:FB2D:A474:601A:91B6:7F9A: /* Society */

{{Infobox 40k Nations
|name=
|image= [[Image:056305F5-09B6-4E2D-9C7F-DB74714C94E3.png|250px|center]]
|bgcolor= DarkRed
|fgcolor= white
|Capital= Luthien
|Official Languages= Japanese, Swedish
|Power=
|Size= Around 350 controlled worlds
|Head of State= Coordinator
|Head of Government=
|Governmental Structure=
|State Religion/Ideology=
|Demographics=
|Military Force=*Draconis Combine Mustered Soldiery
*Draconis Combine Admiralty
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{{Topquote|Always preserve the dragon and its magic will keep you strong.|Shiro Kurita}}

In the [[Battletech]] setting, the '''Draconis Combine''' is one of the five successor states of the Inner Sphere who are led by <s>The Rightful Rulers of the Galaxy</s> House Kurita. They are modeled to a large degree after Japan, with bits taken from the Sengoku Jidai, the Tokugawa Shogunate and Imperial Japan 1930-1945.

== Origins ==

The Combine was formed from the work of the legendary Shiro Kurita, a nobleman who was raised in an exceptionally traditional household, which held to even 17th century Japanese thinking and manners. Shiro, as well as his brother Urizen, were power hungry and destined to hold control; with Shiro using all the political games in the book to gain power on the planet of New Samarkand, and his brother quickly becoming his top military advisor. Eventually, he was able to create an alliance with a neighboring planet in Galedon V to help strong-arm a Mercantile alliance into helping them build a merchant fleet. By 2319, they'd built a burgeoning empire that had swiftly proven itself against most of it's neighboring foes, and Shiro crowned the alliance by it's new name, the Draconis Combine, after a region of space it once bordered and then completely subsumed, which it has been ever since.

== House Kurita ==
Since the Combine's founding, the Combine's Coordinators have largely come from House Kurita, aside from a two hundred year period where only tangentially related bloodlines got their turn, only to give up the Chrysanthemum Throne willingly as the Kuritas married themselves back onto the throne, to the delight of everybody.

Their general character is a bit hard to pin down aside from their imperious, expansionist rhetoric. While most have been perfectly competent and generally dull characters on the galactic stage, those Kurita Coordinators who have distinguished themselves to the larger Inner Sphere community did so in huge ways. This is largely because of the Combine's insistence on keeping the mystique of the position as the autocrat and more or less god figure and the raising of a nobility; meaning that if the Combine suffered any sort of setback, that all fell at their feet, and repeated failure often ended in assassination from the overeager military or aggrieved nobles, or seppuku from the shame of some especially great failure. As a result, much of the Coordinator's job is managing not just the armed forces, but the expectations and fall guys so that they can cover their own ass; often by ensuring that their actual spoken orders are exceptionally vague, to the point of being Haiku in certain circumstances.

Chances are if you're seeing a Kurita's name more than once, it's because they're either exceptionally adept leaders and conquerors, or exceptionally insane dictators.

==== Notable Kurita Coordinators ====
* '''Shiro Kurita''' - Founder and creator of the Combine along with his brother Urizen. Usually considered one of the top 3 Coordinators if not the best one. Flew a dope custom ''Sabre'' AeroSpace Fighter as a hobby.
* '''The Von Rohrs Bloodline''' - An illegitimate child of one of the earlier Kuritas by the name of Nihongi came to hate his Kurita bloodline after the Coordinator at the time killed his dad, and hatched a plot to take over the Combine from within. Of course, thanks to the poltics of the time, his dad got axed before he ever got a chance, and he decided to just execute Parker Kurita, the last mainline member of Shiro's line, and ended up the sole remaining heir. Naturally quite stunned and terrified by having accidentally painted the largest target on his back possible, Nihongi secluded himself and several of his successors, while never once trying to actually better the Combine in any way, causing much of it's major issues from the Rasalhague league at the time.
* '''Martin McAllister''' - A Rasalhague noble previously distant relative of the Kuritas who married into the Sorenson family. Previously distinguished as a DCMS strategist and warrior, he inevitably was the man responsible for the deposement of the Van Rohrs, and once again put the bloodline of the Kuritas back on the throne. Died young, however.
* '''Siriwan Kurita, the Dragon Lady''' - Martin's daughter, who lost her mother at a young age. While the Kurita's especially conservative ideas on whether or not women got to be on the throne was a bit of an obstacle, Martin suggested she find a distant cousin and marry up that way, and marry she did until her spouse died of "mysterious causes", and she became Regent while guiding her infant child who would inevitably become Coordinator when he became a man. She ended up being a fantastic and exceptionally smart Coordinator who kept the warfare to a minimum while reigning absolute for almost four decades, only giving up power to her kid who died under a similar set of "Mysterious causes" as well as his heir, causing her to end up Coordinator again. While she enjoyed the gig, the nobility was starting to get wise to the fact that she almost certainly had a hand in her spouse/child's deaths, and she at long last abdicated to her granddaughter after two years. She is the only person in the family to have been Coordinator three separate times thanks to the quirks in the line of succession.
* '''Urizen Kurita II''' - The Star League's ailing health needed to be nudged along by somebody, and that somebody was this guy, at least within the confines of the Combine.
* '''Takiro Kurita''' - Previously sort of a monk-like figure when he took the job, he dissuaded any doubt that he would be a capable leader of the Combine's armed forces by surviving an assassination attempt by the ISF, torturing the men to find out who paid them, then killing the two men who performed the act and their male heirs. Ruled through the twilight of the Star League, and begged his son, Minoru, to treat the situation carefully on his deathbed.
* '''Minoru Kurita''' - Minoru, Takiro's son, ignored his dying father's wishes and basically began the Succession Wars on his own, and as a result more or less created the first bad backslide of humanity into [[LosTech]]. Got boom-headshot'd by a Federated Suns Sniper during the First Succession War.
* '''Jinjiro Kurita''' - The son of Minoru. After hearing his dad had been killed, he made the very normal and obvious decision in that situation, and ordered a planet-wide scouring of the planet he had died on, ending up killing '''52 Million people''' to the point that he was fed up with guns involvement, and just began hacking people down with Katanas himself. Surprisingly, he didn't turn out to be the most stable individual; as he started the Second Succession War based on terrible information, and was constantly plagued by psychotic episodes regarding the Minnesota Tribe once they appeared, finally going straight over the edge when somebody sent him a doll of a Star League Officer and hung himself.
* '''Takashi Kurita''' - Coordinator during the Third Succession War. Unlike the previous two Coordinators, Takashi was not a complete raving lunatic and/or glory-hound...at first. While he had some diplomatic traits, he was still an expansionist and a brutal driver of his armies through his kid, and had a fierce rivalry with Wolf's Dragoons that continued up to his dying day. To his anger, his kid ended up being pretty non-traditional when it came to warfare but also wildly successful; and ultimately made Combine tactics look hilariously out of date. THEN he begins his spiral into being a complete raving lunatic and glory hound until he basically gets locked in place by his son who wanted to protect his grandmother, gets a medical treatment that cures him of being nuts, but it only came too late as he found out that he'd been played into weakening either the Combine or strengthening the legend of the Dragoons, and chose to commit Seppuku with his son at his side.
* '''Theodore Kurita''' - The greatest Coordinator-General of the Combine, bar none. His mother's only child, she lavished him with love and care and his family made good and goddamn sure he was set up for success in life, and he hit the ground running as the commander of a Penal legion that he turned into an incredible fighting force, making enormous changes to the way the Combine fought, and distinguished himself as able to defend and attack during both the War of 3039 and also the Clan Invasion, using tactics almost counter to what Bushido demanded. His father hated that, but he was inevitably humbled by Teddy's genius and his own familial love. When he was crowned Coordinator, he immediately made getting rid of the Clans a #1 priority, and began recruiting from the ranks of Women and Criminals to bolster the Combine's ranks, and successfully convinced the Inner Sphere to help him go fuck up Clan Smoke Jaguar, then was named First Lord of the rebuilt Star League. Had plenty of enemies from the ''Kokuryu-Kai'', or Black Dragon Collective, who were hardliners who thought his reforms were detrimental to the Combine, and spent a lot of his downtime fighting them off, especially during the Jihad.
* '''Yori Kurita''' - The second woman to be Coordinator. She only ever got to the position in 32nd century because of a series of unrelated mishaps that got her promoted from "unimportant minor noble" to "Queen of the Dragon" in very short order. While there were some initial grumblings, what with her initial bringing to the court having been done by a Warlord who openly wasn't a fan of the last few guys to take the throne, she pretty quickly made herself a competent and ruthless Coordinator, including finally...''finally'' getting one over on the Federated Suns, to the point that the Combine took their capital under her watch.

== Society ==
The Combine's society is, as stated above, influenced greatly by Feudal and Imperial Japan, and is separated largely into what is called the "Five Pillars" of Draconis society, each with it's own symbolic meaning, which largely helps people within those pillars define themselves and define their worldview. They are:

# '''The Pillar of Gold''': The head of government, known as the Coordinator, and all their myriad ministries and bureaus that help govern the Combine and keep it both loyal and under the Coordinator's thumb.
# '''The Pillar of Steel''': All Combine military, sometimes referred to as the "Arm of the Dragon". While nominally led by the Coordinator, most Coordinators have their Tai-Shu, or Warlords, deal with the day-to-day running of the various military ops of the Combine, specifically to allow the Coordinator to cover their ass in case their orders turn out to not work. Most of the Combine's military adhere to some form of the Bushido code, and all are expected to follow a superior's orders to the death. Given that they place an emphasis on hard and fast Battlemech assaults, as well as the open threat of death looming, it's not especially hard to get with the program. If you survive however, you'll be a capable warrior and well-respected within Draconis society, as regardless of position, military members are treated well.
# '''The Pillar of Teak''': The non-military sector of Draconis life, combined with cultural indoctrination. Basically a caste system consisting of nobles, warriors, craftspeople, common laborers, and then the vestiges of society consisting of outcasts and criminal elements. If you know anything about Imperial Japan or the Sengoku period, just assume much of Draconis society follows that because everyone who lives within their borders is the biggest fucking weeb to ever exist, to the point of openly demanding any government official or noble learn the Japanese language just to make sure they keep up to date on it.
# '''The Pillar of Ivory''': Religious and Spiritual leaders and advisory. Unsurprisingly, Shinto, Buddhism, and any collectivist philosophy does especially well within Combine space as Shiro intended it to be, and every non-eastern philosophy, and especially any individualist philosophy gets pretty tightly controlled.
# '''The Pillar of Jade''': The manufacturers and merchants. The Combine has historically never been especially big on resources, and the succession wars didn't do that any favors, so most of the economy is run by the state. There are independant companies, but they pale in comparison to the vast number of powerful state-backed companies that have been cut into two categories; Military and Civilian, ensuring maximum exploitation of what little the Combine has.

== Military ==
The Combine lives by the old ''Bushido'' code for all things, but most specially in warfare, which has been part of their success as much as it has been their downfall. They are among the most dangerous and vicious of the entire Inner Sphere's militaries, but their warfare has a fucking enormous cost to it; they prefer absolute loyalty to their superior officers, and a rigid adherence to the concepts of frontal assault warfare, often fighting to the last man and refusing to retreat even in the face of overwhelming odds. This means in the face of battle, they've often been completely outclassed by commanders who were able to adjust to what the Combine was giving them and fight back. Further, their officer corps are often subject to the same politiking as their nobility, and are often trying to cover their ass. It should say something that one guy almost 500 years into their existence would become their best general simply because he'd dare to adjust tactics against an enemy.

While this likely would've been the easiest place for the creators of Battletech to just let Gundams exist, the Draconis are more well known for creating Particle blasting speed demons and walking samurai armor mechs. They are also well-known for only using Light and Heavy-class Mechs in their warfare; seeing Medium-class Mechs as a poor compromise for what they want to do; which is to attack as fast and as hard as possible, their mechs bristling with armaments and clad in bright [[Speed Freek|red and gold]] paint, and they ''love'' their Battlemechs. To the exclusion of almost everything else. Seriously, it got to the point that it took almost 500 years for things like tanks to become widespread in their military due to years of Coordinators playing favorites with the Mechwarriors.

===== Notable Mechs=====
* '''''Hatamoto-Chi''''' - The signature Assault Mech of the Combine, which looks like a mech designed in the image of Super Shredder. Essentially two different mech designs merged into one, it's a formidable, tough-as-nails close-range Assault mech with the one minor flaw of generally being rather difficult to keep heat control on.
* '''''Dragon''''' - While the ''Hatamoto-Chi'' might be the most recognizable, the ''Dragon'' and it's upgrade, the ''Great Dragon'', were unquestionably some of the DCMS' favorite mechs. It's a fast, flexible, hard to knock over or even severely harm, capable of carrying huge guns, and generally ubiquitous part in any Combine regiment, and well-loved by it's pilots. In the 31st century, the ''Great Dragon'' began to replace regular ''Dragon''s due to a generally improved design and stronger weapons cooling.
* '''''Jenner''''' - Their signature light Mech. A chicken-walker design that was successful usually by ganging up on larger mechs and then peppering them with some form of laser or heat-producing round, then letting their ''Panther'' partners swoop in to land the finishing blow.
* '''''Panther''''' - Their other signature light Mech. Only 35 tons, this thing can actually keep pace pretty well with others in it's class and is a massive pain in the rear with it's Lord's Light Particle Cannon being a shockingly powerful piece of tech. It runs hot ''very'' quickly, on the other hand.

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