BattleTech 101: The Great Houses of the Inner Sphere -

[@CanadianFabe]

Anyone else disappointed He didn't stick around for the Ads?

[@WolfHreda]

It's one of those things. If he watches more from the BPL, he'll probably figure it out.

[@csmead209]

Very

[@shilohbane2957]

It's a trend in those reacting to the BPL videos. Reactors have trained themselves that at the first hint of credits, they end the watch through

[@reecedignan8365]

Great to see more people getting into Battletech. As to answer some of your question and theories and such: 1. The Draconis Combine didn’t actually start out with a very feudal shogun/imperial Japanese type style at the start. Actually it was due to one of their early coordinators that they took on that style. During one of his days out going through the streets of Luthien, the coordinator spotted a small banzai tree from his car window and stopping went over to talk to the man who raised it in hopes of buying it - this guy was as one could in modern days say… a full on weeb - however, as he was buying this, his car exploded due to a bomb that had been planted to assassinate him. As such from that day forth he decreed that the Draconis Combine in saving of his life should honour the culture that had saw it preserved. As such from that day forth the DC have forever held a very feudal/imperial Japanese astetic. Also best way to describe the Draconis Combine is, while everyone else will heavily dispute having committed a warcrime, the DC just goes “yup would you like to experience it too” 2. The Federated Suns for all their amazingness (note that’s my faction when I play) does have its… downsides. One major one, in the FC the split between the common citizen and the nobility is quite… well think old world Britain and France. In addition they can be considered a bit of a military state too (well more the marches anyway) as being on both the boarder regions of the Draconis Combine and Capellan Confederation the two main marches (The Draconis March and Capellan March respectively) are in an almost constant state of readiness for invasion and war and their two main dukes are constantly pushing the First Prince into invading their most hated neighbours. The crucis march at the centre of the two however doesn’t suffer as much from these threats as such sees a better state of life for its citizens which can cause some disgruntlement between the other marches. Oh and they do have a cultural bias against people of Asian origins due to the whole succession wars and the casualties caused by the Draconis Combine and Capellan Confederation who are more culturally Asian (tho the FedSuns also have a large Indian population that actually does quite well and is treated extremely fairly - and even then the bias is less “kill em all” and more “give you a bet he’s a cappy spy”). 3. It’s a common verbiage amongst capellans that they essentially flip a coin for their chancellors and their sanity. And sadly it’s mainly flipped poorly for them on most occasions however they do get the occasional flash in the pan. The CC are also one of the biggest users of mercenary’s in the Inner Sphere as they use to them to bolster their weakened military forces. It became so normal standard that many of the Merc commands they have in bill have served them for generations and many of their pilots actually have landholds and positions of influence within the Confederation to the point that I think in 3065ish they brought many of their mainline units such as McCarrons Armoured Cavalry and the Forth Tau Ceti Ranger in as honoured house forces with the full shibang. 4. The joke of “the biggest threat to a Marik is a Marik, glory to Marik” is due to the number of internal civil wars fought between rival members of the Mariks family - literally one of the setting first introductions to them which is set in 3025 with the first books is that they are in the middle of another civil war - as such it’s become a bit of a meme for Marik to constantly be at Civil War with itself. However, for all this they also are one of the main forces of providing good amounts of technology in the later years of the setting and are quite capable warriors in the battlefield even if they don’t get to show it much - they are also one of the big users of combined arms alongside the Capellan Confederation (mostly due to lack of equipment/mechs) and Federated Suns (who reformed to use an Regimental Combat Team system - I.e. 1 mech regiment, 2-5 armoured regiments, 2-5 infantry regiments, 1 aerospace wing and 1 artillery battalion with all of them falling under the primary name of the mech regiment) - and this is due to their smaller number of large mech production facilities which actually means they don’t have as many Assault mechs as other nations do. As such to make up for this they produce more heavy and medium mechs to compensate. 5. The joke of steiners over excessive scout lances comes from the fact that in universe they have actually sent scout forces comprised entirely of assault mechs to recon an area. As such it’s become a fan favourite meme to play Steiner scout lances (4 assault mechs - usually 4 100 Ton Atlas mechs). This is the same as how many players love to play the Urban Patrol which is made up of 4 Urban Mechs the pretty much official mascot of the fanbase community - yes it’s essentially a wobbly trashcan on feet that moves at a snails pace compared to its fellow mechs but… it’s like a pug, it’s cute, it’s derpy but it can be a surprise for everyone when it unloads its autocannon and head caps a assault mech in 1 shot. 6. This may not have been best said but Rasalhague was its own independent nation back during the early days of the Age of War and actually stood with its own boarders to the Draconis Combine and Lyran Commonwealth however during the age of war was invaded and brought under the banner of the Draconis Combine. It remained there for centuries with its own population forming many major links to the DC as a whole however there was still a large number of people who wished to be an independent nation once more. As such after the events of the 4th succession war, Thedore Kurita convinced his father Takashi Kurita (the coordinator at the time) to create a neutral buffer zone between the Draconis Combine and Lyran Commonwealth as to help prevent the future 2 sided attack by the newly forced Federated Commonwealth (a marriage alliance between the Federated Suns and Lyran Commonwealth). This was already a big ask as father and son didn’t see very eye to eye and had a quite heated relationship however Takashi relented and released his part of Rasalhague which forced Steiner to do the same (tho the Steiner Dutchy of Skye tried to resist releasing some of their worlds which soured Rasalhague relations with them in small ways) and when many of his nobles their resisted and tried to maintain the Dutchy as part of the combine he went in their and as Tex says “gave them the belt” - essentially they rebelled because they were losing all their connection and power as combine nobles as such decided it was either better to fight to remain or die warriors. The vast majority met the later. As such the Free Rasalhague Republic war restored… for about 2 decades in full and 4 decades overall (2 decades after 3050 as no more than the small blip you saw). After joining Ghost Bear they now formed the Ghost Bear Dominion which started off white ruler over serf by the clans however soon became extremely liberated with both clanner and rasalhague citizens very much united as Clan Ghost Bear leadership began to work in cooperation and unity with the citizens of Rasalhague vs as overlord; to the point it got renamed the Rasalhague Dominion. 7. As to where to continue from here. I highly suggest Tex’s two part series on the Fall of Star League/The Amaris Civil War. In many ways this is the “main” starting point for the universe with the Age of War being a very extended by good prologue, the Star League being the beginning tragedy and everything after being the main fallout and consequences for all parties involved.

[@jamesmccrea4871]

^^ I approve this message, but I have to stress Sven van der Plank, especially if you are a fan of deep dives and military history. He also has a 101 style primer, but he's not been a fan nearly as long as Tex, and it's not in character, so it's a bit drier on the fun and more academic.

[@avsbes98]

To be fair, iirc the "Steiner Scout Lance" actually came about because a somewhat competent Steiner Commander found out that their planned Troop Movements had been leaked to the enemy - so they made some last minute adjustments and instead of the normal scouting party that would have walked into an ambush and been completely annihilated, an Assault Lance showed up and stomped the ambushing units (of the FWL iirc?) into the ground. Either that, or this was made up at some point to basically backexplain the Steiner Scout Lance's introduction into Canon or at least Apocryphal content. I don't remember where i read this though.

[@logandarklighter]

Basically - when you get to the Free Worlds League? A good "Thumbnail" sketch of the place would be - It's just like the Inner Sphere as a whole - just in microcosm. You could theoretically run an "Intro" campaign for a gaming group of Mechwarrior characters that did nothing but deal with internecine conflict inside the Free Worlds League before ever stepping out to the wider Inner Sphere as a whole and encountering the Forces and Mercenaries working under and for the OTHER great houses!

[@WolfHreda]

Glory to Marik.

[@joshthomasmoorenew]

30:20 Those are manned by the way, imagine two Abram tanks guarding the President of the USA in the White House, that the kind of guaridng we are talking about.

[@magni5648]

The thing with the Davions is that... well, they *are* genuinely trying to be the good guys. Most of them, anyway. And sometimes, they even manage to succeed at it. They can also be absolutely ruthless motherfuckers if they believe it's necessary and/or justified. And yeah, they can be kinda full of themselves.

[@thehammer4607]

The setting can be very simplified as game of thrones in space but better, also with mechs

[@TheRumChum]

that's how I describe it lol

[@refurbishedtechpriest9076]

33:01 ... I really hope Tex does a talk about this lady at some point. She's a special kind of evil and crazy...

[@larslaufer301]

You mean Katherine Morgan Steiner-Davion ? Oh yes that would be awesome.

[@bthsr7113]

The next one to watch is one of 3 videos, The Awesome (the very first video), Tukayyid, or The Amaris Civil War

[@avsbes98]

I hope you'll be reacting to the Tex talks Battletech Series (and when you're done with that there's Sven van der Plank, BigRed40Tech, and many others who make great videos on Battletech). The Battletech game on Steam (mostly called HBS Battletech after the Company that made it, Harebrained Schemes, as the entire setting is called Battletech or sometimes Mechwarrior) is basically a pretty good looking but simplified version of the Tabletop game ( though there are Mods to more or less undo that simplification). I like it a lot and would recommend playing (and potentially streaming/let's playing) it.

[@brothersgt.grauwolff6716]

there's also Mechanical Frog & The B33F which are also good channels for Battletech/Mechwarrior content

[@vinter5256]

Solaris 7 is basically space las vegas and there an arena and betting there.

[@thehammer4607]

Comstar was formed by Jerome Blake what remained of SL ComNet, the Communication Network of the Star League.

[@brothersgt.grauwolff6716]

Praise be unto Blake

[@bthsr7113]

I can see why you'd compare them to the Imperium, but frankly the Clans would be utterly disgusted with the Imperium. For example, the Clans historically shunned melee, and their entire way of combat is built around minimizing resource consumption so as to replace as few losses ass possible.

[@kazekamiha]

To answer your question on those videos; no they're not jokes, he made them They're over an hour long *each*. Good watch though.

[@kereminde]

Yeah, while this is a good primer it's incomplete in a lot of fashions. I'll try to answer/cover some things which I haven't seen posted yet. - The early half-dozen or so videos are very different, close to "semi-sh_tpost" territory. Then the series took off, because BattleTech hadn't had something like THIS. Just some channels which would do readings from books or wiki pages, and maybe editorialize a tad. One of the channels mentioned is pretty good about detail, and there is "Big Red 40k" who does videos semi-regularly too. Catalyst Game Labs have made a video in-universe about one of the major mercenary groups, but I'm guessing time has not been there to keep them going. - A lot of this is written sorta "in character", from inside the universe. Therefore there is some gleeful bias on display. Also a lot of injokes from previous videos wind their way in. - The two "tapes" shown are a pair of videos on the Black Pants Legion channel. They are a pair of VERY long... but good... videos about the collapse of the Star League and why the Inner Sphere started having issues. A second two-part video covers the whole "Clan" thing. The short form is: someone managed to worm their way into the confidence of the last First Lord of the Star League and then killed him to take power after the military was busy elsewhere. When the usurper asked the military to join him, General Kerensky (the guy in charge) said no and proceeded to scrape together what he had left to turn around and take care of the problem. This took... a while, because he was THOROUGH in dismantling the new empire. After that, there was no Star League, he had no job, and the five Great Houses decided to each call dibs on being in charge. Yes. This is the SHORT version. - This is revolving around a... okay, the official designation remains "A Game of Armored Combat". It's not a board game, because the 'board' is variable. It's not a miniatures game because you *technically* don't need miniatures. It's also VERY OLD - it predates Warhammer 40k by a few years. The heart of the rules have not really been changed except for some 'obvious rule patches' here and there, so designs from 1985 are still able to be used on the table *TODAY*. There is a storyline about history which goes from basically "the 80s" into the year 3152 currently. (And hints about stuff in 3250 which may or may not actually see use... we'll see.) Said storyline was started almost at the same time as the game in a line of novels which DO show their age, but are still readable. (Your Mileage May Vary on that, depending on many things.) I think the books are largely print-on-demand, except for a few where contracts get in the way. And I say revolving around the game, because the books serve to set the stage for the game and what's going on in that fictional reality. It is very rare for the game to have things dictated by the novels, because the authors and game developers used to regularly meet together and hash out the rough plans before going ahead. - You'll hear about legal problems which almost killed the game, and this is not a BIG exaggeration. To put it bluntly, there were a few lawsuits and lawyers are kind of expensive. These legal issues are a story unto themselves, suffice it to say it's left the game in a current state of "several different companies own the rights for various parts". If you get down the line and wonder why nobody's made a movie or series (after the animated one in the 90s)... this is why. This is also why games aren't exactly as prolific, because companies have to license the rights from Microsoft. Right now, the matters which opened up this can of worms have been (mostly) closed and so things are getting spun up again. - The current company developing the tabletop game is Catalyst Game Labs, and they more or less are interested in keeping the game alive while slowly advancing the storyline. They are basically six people in an office park building doing their best, so... understand as big as this all may seem it's currently in the hands of what amounts to an indie publisher. (They only JUST picked up someone to handle their social media presence.) - The BattleTech PC game is an adaptation of the tabletop game, a turn-based strategy game involving people who were involved in the game *before* things became a mess. (Much like Catalyst is in the hands of people who were working on the property before too.) I recommend it, but I also backed it so I'm biased.

[@666kingdrummer]

I recommend Big Red-40KTECH for more lore. He mostly makes a lot 1 topic BattleTech videos, mostly on the mechs themselves, but they're easy to digest.

[@ArcLightShock37]

The government in Starship Troopers doesn't treat their non citizens nearly as badly as the Capellan Confederation do theirs. Not even close.

[@hellsing507]

If you want a good run down on this history of earth watch the two parter Amaris Civil War to see how everything went to shit

[@WolfHreda]

16:00 No, it is only a mount for a medium laser, but it is a staple implement for that battlemech, and woe befall any engineer or tech who thinks to remove it. I love customizing my mechs, but the only thing that ever goes in that mount is a medium laser, an extended range medium laser, or a medium pulse laser. It's part of what makes the Wolverine such a good trooper mech.

[@leechowning2712]

Welcome, dear mortal... to one of the deepest rabbit holes to ever exist. About 45 years of real time, 8 centuries in game, building on a history written by sci-fi nerds with history degrees and all the time in the known universe. Honestly even deeper than the 40K verse, because of one annoyance... they keep changing companies. Where Warhammer is controlled by a single entity, with an actual goal... Battletech has gone through 3... and while the lore and ruleset has stayed the same, it means there is so much "there" there, that you can quite easily make a channel just on it. There are about 2 dozen out there.

[@jamesmccrea4871]

Ok, my dude. Welcome to the rabbit hole. Allow me to be your guide: 1. Tex of the BPL does not usually go in order, and most of this stuff is a semi-serious take on mechs and a deadly serious take on the military industrial complex, one chassis at a time. He has no other "101" videos. 2. If you want a COMPLETE history of Battletech, there are about 15-20 hours (give or take) of videos by Sven van der Plank (channel of the same name) who is doing the history of Battletech IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER, and is currently between the 1st and 2nd Succession Wars. This means he's about halfway through the total history of Battletech... Also, Sven puts out videos piecemeal and then releases the entire set as one video, so you may see 10-15 videos of 15-30 minutes length, followed by a video of several hours. This is so you have the option of vegging out or nibbling at the topic. 3. I recommend you watch Sven's videos first until you get to the Star League (or Amaris) Civil War. Then watch Tex's videos on the Amaris Civil War for the fun stuff, and Sven's stuff for the "shit your pants at the casualties" academic stuff. 4. If you want to skip WAY past Sven's current location on the timeline and learn about the Clan assholes, watch Tex's two-part Primer on the Clans, and THEN watch his video on Tukayiid AFTER the Clan videos. 5. The rest of Tex's videos can be watched in any order, but he will drop names and events like he did the 101 video, so watching Sven's timeline order videos is VITAL if you want to know what the hell's going on. Enjoy, I hope you love Battletech as much as we long time fans do, not just for the big stompy robots, but for the absolutely rich lore, with no magic, aliens, or fantasy in sight. (Mostly... you may stumble upon the Jamie Wolf thing and at some point you will hear about the Far Country novel... just... don't worry about it right now... just don't. Please don't.)

[@brothersgt.grauwolff6716]

I would also suggest BigRed40Tech on individual Mech videos

[@Papercut337]

18:30 Scions, not Psions

[@joshthomasmoorenew]

You need to look up the Blackwath in Mechwarrior, those guys are biggest badasses in the setting the best bodyguard unit to exsist in fiction. Remember Nukes are merely inconvenient.

[@dustindussault2864]

then mechs are under powered untill the 3050's load outs are also way less flexible until 3050.... that is when omnimechs come out thats when mechs gain tactical choices like gundam and macross.

[@jrwilliams7534]

Welcome to the the Sphere. Just "Remember Kentares" if you need a reason to dislike/hate the Draconis Combine.

[@hellsing507]

Oh my god I just found this, all good you took your time to watch this and sorry it took me 3 weeks to notice 😂

[@silviadragoness5904]

Look into the "Tex Talks Battletech" playlist; for major setting lore, look at the Amaris Civil War/Fall of the Star League two-parter, and then the Exodus to Elementals two-parter.

[@Acecombatfighter]

Unless your an Ace Mobile Suit Pilot, good luck even trying to disarm a Zaku, or a GM. Doubly show for aces disarming aces.

[@Cothfotmeoo]

Some pretty wild stuff in that universe, sounds like. XD Seems very much like Warhammer but just with more mechs. :P Well played.

[@Fort_Master]

Oh definitely!

[@themisspultone]

Ahh Tex, I see you have good taste

[@warlok363]

Glory to the Confederation!

[@Dunstan3]

Great video! :)

[@Fort_Master]

Thanks man!!

[@michaelkenny7314]

In Battletech it's a very involved process of partial taking the your mech apart to install a new weapon and if it uses ammo you have to find places to put the ammo bin (which can explode inside your mech if it's hit) and putting everything back together. Even with plug and play OMNI pods it's an invloded process that can take hours or days. In gundam A new weapon comes from the factory good just pick it up and you're good to go.

[@SpielkindFR]

Without several minutes of "yeah... uhm" at the starts its not a propper reaction video.

[@Civlover21]

hey, ther more no more 101´s but the meckworier play list that tex has well fill you in pritty good thode sorry for bad englis, im deislexk

[@gallendugall8913]

Citizenship in the Capellan Confederation entitles you to legal rights such as redress of grievances and full retirement, as best as the state can afford, which after all the war is not so great. Still, it's probably the best of the states to be an ordinary citizen in. By contrast an ordinary citizen in the Federated Suns has a lot of rights that can be ignored by any noble, after the fact, by invoking the current state of emergency without requiring any evidence or justification, and yes, sadistic children of nobility exploit this to terrorize ordinary citizens for amusement.

[@AORaiMechWork]

WATCH HIS INTERMISSION AND HIS FAKE ADS!!!!

[@thesmilyguyguy9799]

A:{ D