Editing Clan Elemental (section)

== History ==
There were two developments which lead to Clan Elementals, first of all was the development of a powered exosuit for deep sea mining by Clan Goliath Scorpion in 2842. The second was Clan Hell's Horses developing a line of bulked-out soldiers. Clan Wolf wanted a slice of both of these actions. First their merchants bought the schematics for the Diving Suit designs in 2860 and soon had their Scientists began to adapt them for combat. These were ready for service in 2868 and were a nasty surprise for Clan Nova Cat. Hell's Horses challenged Clan Wolf for their new power suits and after some negotiating had their set of combat trials for the rights to manufacture the armor in exchange for the gene-tech. In the end, both sides got the others tech and they were happy with this as they both came out ahead, though other Clans would go out of their way to acquire both for themselves in the next few years. Another breakthrough for Elementals was the creation of the OmniMech’s universal docking ports. While originally made for swapping out weapons, it didn’t take too long to realize that Elementals could piggyback off of OmniMechs by mounting onto chassis docks to recharge their weapons and move along with the BattleMech units for mobility. So while reverse engineered Battle Armor by Spheroids was initially restricted to defensive warfare, Elementals were able to be on the offensive alongside their MechWarrior brethren.

For the next 180 years, the Clans would field forces of Elementals in various inter-Clan conflicts. Seven generations of Elementals would be grown, raised and tested against Mechs, conventional infantry and each other and over that time they were honed to a fine edge. Both as individual soldiers and as elements in larger Clan formations.

=== Inner Sphere Debut ===
[[File:Ghost Bear Elementals.jpg|400px|thumb|left|Some Comparison for scale on these bad boys/girls]]
When these guys [[Clan Invasion|showed up in the Inner Sphere]], they were a bloody nightmare. Imagine being a regular Federated Commonwealth grunt garrisoning some border world in 3050. You signed up at age 18 and got a couple months of basic training. You have a uniform with a helmet and a bullet proof vest and either an autogun or a laser rifle in a platoon with similar gear. You've been trained to fight guys with pretty much the same gear marching under banner of the Red Kuritan Snek, Green Liao Machete, or the Purple Marik Birb. You might also have some specialists in your platoon with either C4 satchels and jump packs or alternatively rockets launchers and up-gunned APC to take on your occasional BattleMech, Jet Fighter, or tanks. Not that you expect to face any of those out here. At worst there would be occasional pirate or criminal gang causing trouble at the edge of civilization.

Then out of of nowhere you hear that some strange guys have showed up and are landing troops, the officers muttering confusions about "Batches of Chalk" and you're deployed to face these strangers. Then you see a group of three meter tall broad bulky figures jetting into view and crashing down. Your company tries to light them up, but you might as well be shining [[Lasgun|flash-lights]] on them. They, on the other hand, hose your platoon down with laser cannon fire like a scythe through wheat. Someone gets close and tries in desperation to bayonet the monstrosity, with has about as much effect as trying to carve up a car with a butter knife, and is tossed aside like a doll. Grenades do little more than annoy them. While you call in tanks and helicopters to take them out, they either jet pack on top of the vehicles before shooting the cockpit out with a laser cannon or shoot them out of the sky with shoulder-mounted missiles. Eventually the squad panics and flees in all directions. You stumble and desperately dump your power cell into one of the strange figures, which succeeds only in messing up the Wolf Logo on the shoulder. It walks over and picks you up to inspect you. Staring into the visor, you can just make out the rough image of a pair of eyes inspecting you. That's the last thing you see. The last thing you hear is a slightly tinny voice saying "Your courage is commendable little freebirth, but foolish". Now imagine that it's a bit later and you're another FCAM grunt who's heard stories of these mechanized monster troopers used by The Clans who've now jumped into your system. There's a good chance you'd need to change your underwear.

This trauma, as well as the their foreign appearance alongside unknown BattleMech designs convinced initial defenders that the Clans were an invading force of aliens. Eventually as the invasion continued, the means of engaging Elementals successfully were worked out. Mainly with the usage of vehicle-mounted heavy weapons, defensive gun emplacement, or the usage of mines. Later, heavy man-portable autocannons, gauss guns, and flamers were created but were still restricted to defensive combat. Even then, in most situations they could still cut a bloody swath through conventional soldiers while they can swarm an unsuspecting BattleMech and tear it apart like a pack of piranhas.

Eventually the remains of Elemental power armor was salvaged and sent off for study. Not long after Inner Sphere managed to devise their own Battle Armor systems and rushed them into production. This did even the playing field a bit, though the advantage was still with The Clans. Early Inner Sphere Battle Armor were rush-jobs with a lot of bugs, arrived in a trickle and were and operated by inexperienced users without doctrine to make the most of them as opposed to elite soldiers trained from childhood to fight in it and how to deal with it. Not many of the early IS Battle Armored troops that faced elementals came back alive to share notes and those that did faced the dilemma of either leaving the front to teach new recruits but reducing immediate manpower or dying at the front without passing on their experience. Battle Armor was also hard to reverse engineer from a culture that refined it over three centuries. As an example of how harsh of a learning curve Battle Armor development for the Inner Sphere was, they never completely figuring out how to integrate jump packs and shoulder-mounted rockets simultaneously on their own designs all the way to the IlClan Era with the closest being disposable rocket launchers that are fired before they can jump.