Editing BattleTech (section)

===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, already mistrustful of the heavy-handed Alliance, threw off the yoke of the Alliance in the '''Outer Reaches Rebellion''' 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 [[Terra|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.

Shortly after the eve of this '''Age of War''', once the Terran Alliance left the far-off colonies to fend for themselves, its bickering political parties were subject to a coup by the charismatic Admiral James McKenna with support from the populace. He reformed the Alliance into the Terran Hegemony and eventually, his titles were inherited by a distant cousin in House Cameron. In addition, both the colonies and Terra began placing more emphasis on nobility-based peerage to handle planetary governance, education, and manufacturing instead of the loathed vote-buying that defined the corrupt Alliance. 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 [[wat|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]]; after all, universities and libraries can still preserve knowledge while remaining civilian institutions. Obviously space magic is to blame... or [[Derp|exceptionally short-sighted writers]] who’ll wave it off as [[Medieval Stasis|neo-feudalism in space]].

The main reason for the lack of tech was due to the Terran Hegemony hoarding most of the good tech for themselves and the Star League Defence Force. ER Lasers, XL Fusion engines, Pulse Lasers and so on were all SLDF exclusives, and the vast majority of advanced tech was only produced in the Terran Hegemony, which was utterly wrecked in the [[Amaris Civil War]]. Universities and libraries were nuked alongside military targets, and the BattleTech universe lacks a true internet expy, making dissemenating information even by HPG a slow, expensive process. Any advanced tech factories or research institutes left after the Amaris Civil War vanished in the nuclear firestorm of the First Succession War. It took 80 years of more or less constant warfare before the great houses decided that blowing up civillian targets wasn't such a good idea. AND THEN, [[ComStar]] decided that [[Adeptus Mechanicus|nobody but them should have nice things so they started assassinating anyone who might make things better and stealing their research]].  Nobody really bothered trying to build a new university for actual research until 3015, when the Davions built the NAIS and the moment it looked like the NAIS might actually make some progress in reversing the technological decline, ComStar tried to blow it up.  They failed, and the Federated Suns figuring out that ComStar was behind the attack marked the start of the decline in ComStar's influence.

To be clear, the given reason for how the neo-feudalism came about was due to oppression, social inertia, and interstellar communication lag. Before the invention of the HPG in 2630 (5 centuries after the KF Drive) it took weeks and months for planets to send updates on their status to their national capital and the entirety of the nation. 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 outside of the same tension that tore the Star League apart later. And it still doesn't explain how the neo-feudalism came about as it would make much more sense to have technocratic administrators selected by merit to manage regions of space instead of giving someone and their offspring 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 local areas who united and elected a royal dynasty from among their number to handle external affairs beyond their national borders.

In 2349, the Terran Hegemony introduced the first BattleMech, the 100-ton '''[[Mackie|MSK-6S Mackie]]''', and the face of war changed forever.