BattleTech Lore & History - First Succession War: Peripheral Vision (MechWarrior Lore)

[@spychain]

I think a lot of people, both long-time players and people just getting into Battletech, don't know or forget exactly how fleshed out and bloody the lore is and how it still shapes the modern day of the Battletech universe. Thank you for embarking on such an expansive and detailed history that gives a great resource for people to reference and learn from about this amazing setting.

[@SvenVanDerPlank]

You're welcome. The goal is to one day have a complete history of the setting, allowing any new fan to "quickly" get up to speed with four decades of material so they can start reading/playing in the ilClan era (or whatever comes next) if they chose. I feel like the Dark Age especially is seen as a barrier for a lot of people so it'd be good to have a condensed history one day, even if that's still literally years away.

[@HalIOfFamer]

I honestly know very little of what happened between the fall of the star league and the 3025 setting. Everybody usually does this: 1. Age of war 2. Unification 3. Civil war 4. Clans 5. 3048 6. 3060+ eg. Bad lore.

[@Steven-dt5nu]

The history of this game is what makes it so good!

[@ZombieX13]

​@@HalIOfFameryeah I'm not a fan of how it "ended".

[@Dracobyte]

His Chanel deserves more views and subs!

[@SvenVanDerPlank]

Hello everyone. Bit of a shorter episode today at just 14 minutes. Happy to say I've just completed work on the penultimate chapter. It's going to be a two-part finale, so whether that is next weekend or not depends on if I can find time to complete the series this week, which is looking very busy already. I'll let you know.

[@Archangelm127]

Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast. We're not going anywhere, Sven. ❤

[@Dracobyte]

Ok do not sorry, your lore videos are great!

[@Echo1608.]

Holy SHIT! The fact that so many Periphey worlds were just abandoned or left to die is just terrifying. 0.o'' That final line about how some worlds may have been completely forgotten and still kicking is incredibly inspiring though, especially at this stage of Battletech's history! Wonderful video.

[@ThatSlowTypingGuy]

I think the story about Van Zandt went that it was removed from the maps twice?

[@marsar1775]

Honestly i get the feeling the peace treaty was only signed so quickly because both sides were failing so miserably they just wanted to forget it "we will never speak of this again" "agreed"

[@SvenVanDerPlank]

You may be on to something.

[@ryank5424]

Really feel sorry for those independent worlds out there that just want to be left alone that aren't or get screwed over in some other way.

[@robdead4550]

Many thanks for this Sir. As a long-time supporter of the Turian Concordat it saddens me to see how far they had fallen since the reunification of war of the Star League era with petty power grabs and pointless loss of lives.

[@MoreEvilThanYahweh]

Everything that happened to the Concordat starting with the Trinity Alliance and afterwards are one reason why I dislike and try to ignore the later eras.

[@SvenVanDerPlank]

Generational trauma doesn't do it justice. It's been looming over them for centuries.

[@MoreEvilThanYahweh]

@@SvenVanDerPlank It's almost tragic when I've had real discussions with SL fans that the Taurians are villains (because of their actions post-Clan Invasion) who "used up their sympathy points" by "refusing to let go" over what happened to them over the centuries. I point out that unlike real history in regards to various former colonies and genocides, the perpetrators in BT never faced proper justice (there's a difference between a murderer getting hit by a car years later and being caught/facing prison time) nor make amends to the victims let alone even admit wrongdoing. It doesn't help that many of them seem to compare the SL to the USA or contemporary western democracies rather than some analogue to the Roman Empire, the HRE or some other feudal arrangement.

[@roland2690]

@@MoreEvilThanYahweh That's because Star League had some ''American'' colonies in its core (areas settled by people from the leading western nations, such as but not limited to, United States), but that's as far as it goes. FedSuns have some similarities but I'd say they also are too diverse to really pinpoint, and at least the ruling class tries to emulate the Arthurian court. I'd say the closest thing to USA in BT are the Fronc Reaches.

[@Szoki86]

"Let them fight." - The Periphery, probably.

[@SvenVanDerPlank]

'Quick, while they're distracted, let's fight!" - The Periphery, actually.

[@Szoki86]

​@@SvenVanDerPlank what irritates me the most is that I'm not even surprised.

[@jasonashman9534]

Man, Sven just keeps on cranking out the quality videos. Although it's a very different approach- Sven does the macro view, while others talk about individual events or mechs- the military-doc delivery style and sheer amount of storey-telling has quietly crept him into the "Tex" tier of quality BT video creators, which is a VERY short list indeed. Well done. 👍

[@SvenVanDerPlank]

Thank you very much for the praise. I'm always trying to refine what I do and improve where I can.

[@dashiellgillingham4579]

Excited for this. Been stuck in America’s god-awful public transport network all day and I need some escapism.

[@SvenVanDerPlank]

Glad I can provide you with a distraction.

[@entr0physt]

I always wondered if the Periphery states fully realized that the piranha principle was in effect for the great houses, since they’d already seen it in action with each other via conflicts like the TDF-vs-MAF. Since the great houses were already strained with their own problems, the Magistracy and Concordat could have banded together and raided the FWL or CC and been largely free of reprisals, so long as they didn’t appear as a threat to both at once.

[@lorefox201]

the taurian canopian war was like when your little brother sees you fight with a guy so they pick a fight with THEIR little brother. Also the Coalescence of several generations of awful choices from both sides.

[@SvenVanDerPlank]

They're learning bad habits from watching the Inner Sphere.

[@declanellery8500]

Man even after leaving the Star League the Periphery still suffers from all the crap going on in the inner sphere.

[@SvenVanDerPlank]

Maybe if they knew their place and helped support the Star League instead of inciting rebellion this never would have happened 😜

[@afitz34]

@@SvenVanDerPlank never trust the motives of a bib-wearing bald guy.

[@axinite2545]

Taurian Independence forever!!!@@SvenVanDerPlank

[@soupcake3092]

@@SvenVanDerPlank explode.

[@thedocklighter]

Taurian & Magistracy: Yeah, let's have us a war just like the big Inner Sphere Houses...! .... .... [Sheepishly] Yeah, um, nm.

[@SvenVanDerPlank]

"On second thoughts, let's not go to Succession War. 'Tis a silly place."

[@Fanatic808]

Talk about an unmitigated disaster lmao. Great video as always Sven.

[@SvenVanDerPlank]

Independence could not have come at a worse time for them, but I guess it was that or get dragged down with it. God knows what would have happened if Kerensky tried to stage his forces out of their periphery bases.

[@jmullner76]

That beginning crawl still gets me every time. Keep up the great work.

[@derekburge5294]

"-No small amount of meddling by the Lyrans." I should say so! The Finmark FR was nuked into oblivion by the Lyrans.

[@SvenVanDerPlank]

The FFR nuked them first. The Lyrans just wanted to extend them a friendly invitation to join the Commonwealth or else.

[@BigRed40TECH]

Embarassment and Concordat go hand-in-hand!

[@SvenVanDerPlank]

Like when they embarrassed the Star League for two whole decades.

[@BigRed40TECH]

@@SvenVanDerPlank Peak Concordat. Because they were definitely a 1 and done XD

[@MoreEvilThanYahweh]

@@SvenVanDerPlank Much as I love them, it's a near constant downhill slide for the TC from their Reunification War peak for the entirety of the setting. The Liao-tainted Magistracy is now the Periphery superpower at present, that's how messed up the ilClan era is for the Periphery and setting as a whole. It's authorial malice at this point.

[@NomicFin]

IIRC the Outworlds Wastes was an area mostly colonized with funding from Fedsuns and Combine corporations, with the corporations given free reign to manage the worlds despite them nominally being part of the OA, and when the Succession Wars started and maintaining said colonies became uneconomical or downright impossible the corporations just packed up their stuff, took what people they could (or cared to) with them, and left the rest to rot.

[@Doribi117]

Wait, so many worlds no longer on the map thanks to Comstar...custom Periphery nation potential has been increased

[@yecnay25]

Feel like opportunities were missed in the Taurian Canopian War, especially when the next few Centuries were characterized by them raiding each other incessantly. Also feel like we should have had a proper Bandit Kingdom arise in the Outworld Wastes made of former Terran Hegemony Citizens who’d have a burning hatred of everyone around them.

[@SvenVanDerPlank]

A breakaway nation did form during the 2ndSW, chiefly to stave off pirate attacks, though they did initiate raids of their own. They didn't even make it to the 3rdSW though.

[@yecnay25]

@@SvenVanDerPlank Trader's Domain and Wynn's Roost yeah.

[@MoreEvilThanYahweh]

Hegemony settlers and those unhappy with government nonsense like Omniss vetos did break off from the OWA, but they fell victim to pirates and terraforming becoming lostech

[@thomasrose4523]

Always a good day when we get more BattleTech lore! I've been getting back into MW5, did all the DLC quests and other side quests before starting the campaign proper. I used to never give machine guns credit, but using the Otomo variant of the Mauler, with 6 of them? Never again lol. Hope you're doing well tonight!

[@SvenVanDerPlank]

I've heard the MGs can be a lot of fun, especially when dealing with fast vehicles and VTOLs.

[@entr0physt]

Heh, back in the OG Mechwarrior (1989), you could bring down a Battlemaster with a single Locust, just by staying in their Six and shredding one of its legs with sustained mg fire.

[@jamesperkins191]

A single round of a Mech-scale machine gun is 5kg, still nothing to sneeze at!

[@Gungadin4077]

As a new player to the setting, I love these pieces. I've even picked up a few things they didn't know 😂.

[@SvenVanDerPlank]

Glad you're finding them useful.

[@Bluehairedgirl89]

Thank you so much for all the time and effort you put into this video. It’s really good and it’s nice to see the periphery getting attention.

[@SvenVanDerPlank]

My pleasure, glad you enjoyed it.

[@dukoth6552]

props to the periphery for trying their hand at expansion, seeing the results for the foreshadowing that it was, and deciding to douse the powder keg with water instead of gasoline

[@SvenVanDerPlank]

Yeah at least they both backed down when they saw which way it was going. The Inner Sphere is stuck in a vicious cycle of sunk cost fallacy.

[@TheKeyser94]

I was a little naive by taking jobs from the independents when I began to play Mechwarrior 5, I didn't realise that were two factions of independents, the Comstar and the civilians that wanted go by without the attacks of pirates or the nobles houses, I was dumb enough to take some jobs from Comstars, but now, every-time that I see a guy in a suit, I reject the job, the noble houses may be bad, but Comstar are just greedy and equally ruthless.

[@Brannok812]

Great work! Thank you for taking the time to create and share these videos/stories. I played the game in the 1980's and 1990's. I agree with some of the other comments regarding the lore and world building created one of the strong attractions. The "Dark Ages" feeling to the early game settings was intriguing and fun.

[@SvenVanDerPlank]

Thank you, you're welcome. We're just getting into the original "dark ages" period. By the end of the next great war, there's barely anything functional left and that's what leads to the classic setup of "MechWarriors piloting the family BattleMech that's been with them for generations."

[@ThatSlowTypingGuy]

I was wondering why that one whole section of the Outworlds Alliance was just simply gone on later maps. Would have figured they'd have a chance to rebuild with the Star League gone. Of course most of their jump ships disappearing and Comstar screwing with the maps apparently had a major impact.

[@SvenVanDerPlank]

A lot of those colonies were very new at the time of the Star League collapse. They were more reliant on funding and material flowing from the Terran Hegemony more than the weak economy of the Outworlds Alliance to which they belonged. When the former collapsed, the latter had no chance of supporting them.

[@andrewrose3748]

Love the periphery getting some attention

[@SvenVanDerPlank]

There isn't much to say about them for most of the Succession Wars. Baring a few incidents, they mostly just quietly crumble in the background for a few centuries.

[@tomrowlette9573]

Thank you for making this. The periphery is actually my favorite region(s) overall, and when I start painting miniatures they're going to be Canopian colors.

[@Shuedre]

I love all your videos on Battletech's universe! :)

[@Ironclockwork]

The concept of so much of settled space disappearing from the map makes for some amazing narrative potential. Here's hoping there's some official story focus on some of this untouched territory some day.

[@moriskurth628]

There is one nation like that, the Niops Association. They were originally a Star League research outpost with a small SLDF garrison, and was cut off from the rest of the Inner Sphere when Amaris launched his coup. When refugees from the Capellan Confederation arrived, fleeing the First Succession War, the leadership decided they were better off hidden, and existed as an isolated micornation that held a single system until they made themselves public, profiting from their scientific prowess and high technology base, before getting absolutely mauled during the Word of Blake Jihad. They likely won't survive the Dark Age.

[@daltonamo]

I just binge Listened to the entire series up to now.This has been excellent, And now i'm really looking forward to the second and third succession wars!

[@SvenVanDerPlank]

Thanks, I'm glad you've enjoyed it. Just put out the final instalments today. Work on the 2ndSW is already underway.

[@MrKazyFreak]

Love the content. By far my favorite BT series. Learning alot about the history and how much Lore is really in this universe. Looking forward to the Aurigan Reach video as I'm coming up with a short campaign using the house book. I also need to paint up some Periphery mechs.

[@SvenVanDerPlank]

Thank you, I'm glad you're enjoying it. Still got to get through the 2ndSW before I look at the history of the Aurigan Reach but I'll get to it eventually.

[@liljenborg2517]

As prone as I am to jump to the "it was all Blake's fault" and cite his spite for marooning the populations of periphery worlds on planets the couldn't support that population - I don't think it was. If Blake and Toyama had the time and resources, they could have worked to supply those worlds and built pockets all around the fringes of the Inner Sphere and the warring houses, that Blake really _did_ hate tremendously, that were utterly loyal to ComStar - the way the Word of Blake would ultimately control the Free World's League (and their five hidden worlds). They would have essentially owned the Outworld's Alliance (and a much bigger OA than there is now) as a complete puppet state before the First Succession War ground to a halt. But Blake, at the time of the first succession war, was still struggling to rebuild the First Circuit (and gathering the resources, especially the Germanium, to actually build all those HPGs, often clandestinely, burned a lot of their resources), establish his credibility as a "neutral party" (so that no one would suspect how much he was actually trying to keep them all at each other's throats until they'd all but killed one another), forge agreements with the successor houses that would open communications (and get Rom's fingers into all their pies), and holding in reserve his own secret fleet and SLDF remnants against someone like Liao or Kurita making a run at Terra to claim some sort of "high ground" in their bid to be the new First Lord. So he didn't have the ships he'd need to make those supply runs himself. He didn't have the supplies (all he really had at his disposal was Terra itself, and it was a burned husk of it's former self that couldn't actually feed its own population, Venus was dying because Amaris had broken the sun shield that kept it habitably cool trying to make a Doom Laser to stop Kerensky, and Mars had been all but razed in passing as Kerensky invaded Earth. If it was intentional on Blake's part that ComStar erased still inhabited systems from the nav charts, it might have been as some sort of "mercy killing" - just getting the suffering over. It could have been that's just how broken interstellar communications had become. But I think it was most likely because the budding ComStar religion Blake and Toyama started actually believed the Succession War would be over "soon", the five great houses would have wiped one another out so thoroughly that none of them could effectively resist ComStar stepping forward to take over - and then those worlds could be "rescued" and they would credit ComStar for their salvation, and be that much more loyal to the new reigning ComStar regime because of it instead of the thorn-in-the-side they'd always been to the League.

[@corinthianimperialstudios704]

Gud vibeo Out of curiosity, given that this entire series so far has been presented as a pre 4th succession war documentary, have you given any thought as to how you'll present those events to us (I assume you'd still use your at this point world famous starmaps but like...) or is it still too far out for you to think about it? Why I ask is because of your map-based presentation style, how might you go about presenting maps of a war that is ongoing? Unless you just... say the 4th succession war series is a post-war documentary series in universe.

[@SvenVanDerPlank]

Great question, one I ask myself every week. Answer is: I still don't know. There are details I want to include that a "current events" framing wouldn't work for (not without being omnipresent). So any future series will be post-conflict. The question though is how far do I go? Do I say it's just ended, or do I go to the end of era and look back? The biggest issue one way or the other are certain characters who aren't what they seem. Do I maintain the mystery or do I explain it all? Sometimes their identity isn't revealed until decades later, multiple eras in the franchise history. I originally wrote the Star League Civil War series to not explain what Amaris had really been doing to maintain the façade right up until he pulled the trigger, then I went back and explained everything that he'd been doing behind the scenes. That presented so many issues with what I could and couldn't explain that I completely rearranged my script about two thirds of the way through after concluding it was a bad idea. The audience has no way of knowing what I've missed and what I deliberately left out.

[@devalk_]

Very much enjoying the series, Surprised the Armageddon is getting close to coming to a close already

[@SvenVanDerPlank]

We've been powering through much faster than before. There's only a short pause before it all kicks off again with the 2ndSW.

[@JasanQuinn]

"Taurians, why did you two randomly start a war with your neighbour?" "Well the Great houses are having a war, so we wanted one too!" "If the Great Houses jumped off a bridge, would you-" "The Great Houses are jumping off a bridge!? I'm there!"

[@MysteryMastery69]

As always, amazing video,thank you!

[@SvenVanDerPlank]

You're very welcome.

[@thomascraiker6449]

Thanks for covering this. Great job👍

[@dmaxcustom]

That the Periphery is so dependent of the IS economy, makes no sense they wanted to be independent of the SL. Even if ideological, it makes no sense if you cant survive without them. Have to admit, that detail cracks my suspense of disbelief to an extent. However, I still love these videos and the universe.

[@SvenVanDerPlank]

I maybe didn't stress it enough in the video, the periphery industry was orchestrated by the Star League. What technologies and factories they had operated "with permission" from the League, and functioned as a part of that larger economy. A lot of what they might have liked to build to help make them more self-sufficient wasn't given the go-ahead because the League knew it would give them a stronger footing to demand independence.

[@ArawnNox]

Brexit was a bad idea for all involved but it still happened.

[@dmaxcustom]

@@SvenVanDerPlank So. they have virtually zero capacity for self function and still went up in arms against the SL? Doesnt that make it worse?

[@SvenVanDerPlank]

A desire for freedom from tyranny outweighs any potential future hardships said freedom would bring. What they could not have anticipated was the complete collapse of interstellar trade brought about by the Fall of the Star League and onset of the Succession Wars. So yes, they could have been better prepared, and yes the writers could have given more diverse reasons for the decline other than "everyone relied on trade" but like many things in BT, sometimes you've just got to take the given explanation at face value.

[@MoreEvilThanYahweh]

@@SvenVanDerPlank That's why there's the conjecture that the SL/Hegemony went so far as doctoring textbooks, sabotaging the Periphery's academic infrastructure and blackboxing elements of their factories such that the independent Periphery could not even return to their self-sufficient Reunification War-era techbase. Because seriously, better to have manufacturing capability for primitive jumpships and warships than have none at all like they did in the canon 3000s. This also extends to the great houses as well, though Holy Shroud played a role in that.

[@Valkanna.Nublet]

These videos are great.

[@SvenVanDerPlank]

Thanks, glad you think so.

[@ebla83]

Sven, excellent work as always!

[@LmC_Gh0STjt]

very good, as always👍👍🔥🔥

[@SvenVanDerPlank]

Thank you, glad you thought so.

[@sanguiniusonvacation1803]

Wait...I thought Lorey Kalmar said she was from the Oberon Confederation?

[@SvenVanDerPlank]

She is (from the planet Sigurd). The colony on Oberon still exists but the Confederation has broken down. Later on in the 29th Century they'll get an influx of material that'll allow them to re-establish their microstate.

[@sanguiniusonvacation1803]

​@@SvenVanDerPlankoh ok. Thanks!

[@Dracobyte]

Another cool lore video!

[@michaelman957]

Poor Outworlds.

[@wandilismus8726]

Only 2 more Succesion wars till Hanse 😉

[@zapdragon23]

honestly, considering the state of the periphery, I suspect the successor states didn't see much worth taking in the first place

[@SvenVanDerPlank]

Perhaps so, but the problem they've got is that they're incapable of seizing the juicier targets without bringing mass destruction to the planets in the process. By this point, all the border worlds are in an awful state, and suddenly those small periphery industries look more tempting.

[@misterk9301]

Keep up the good work

[@TheThinKing23]

To someone who knows the lore better: did any of those colonies removed from the Comstar map make a reappearance in the rest of the lore? Or is it just a cute little mystery?

[@SvenVanDerPlank]

The last sentence of this chapter was deliberate foreshadowing. Hidden worlds play a big part in Word of Blake shenanigans.

[@TheThinKing23]

@@SvenVanDerPlank ahhh yes, I did know about hidden worlds in WoB but didn’t realize they dated back this far!

[@SvenVanDerPlank]

The very first pops up early in the next video, though I only mention the cover story and not the reality so it's easy to miss if you don't know it by name.

[@connorflaherty175]

I get the feeling that the supposedly dead worlds are where the clans hid at in preparation for their invasion.

[@Tzilandi]

5:04 - After what must be close to 20 hours of documentary content, the heroes of the setting finally appear.

[@SvenVanDerPlank]

They did get a mention at least twice before in Ep.2 of both the Civil War and 1stSW series. And jesus, pretty soon we're going to pass a literal DAY of BT Lore & History.

[@roland2690]

With the region between the Taurians and Canopus (which will later be known as the Aurigan Reach) mentioned, will there be a mention and overview of the nascent Aurigan Coalition once the timeline moves on to the 30th century?

[@SvenVanDerPlank]

I explained in my outro that I plan to do a video on the history of the Aurigan Reach after the 2ndSW because it's earliest history begins in 2870.

[@roland2690]

@@SvenVanDerPlank Ah, I must have not catch that. Well, thanks for reply!

[@krinsbez]

Man, the Outworlds just CANNOT get a break, huh?

[@endoftheworldgaming7547]

Jerome Blake looks like Jeremy from "The Quartering"

[@jiriz0r]

So many worlds that ComStar conveniently “lost”, so many worlds that dropped of the map. So many worlds hidden from the rest of humanity. Hmmm, Hidden… Worlds… that sounds oddly familiar. Oh well probably just my imagination, too bad they’ll never become relevant in the story of BattleTech ever again!

[@SvenVanDerPlank]

Got to set up that foreshadowing, even if the payoff is literally years away, lol. Who knows if we'll ever make it to the Jihad.

[@lexington476]

After the first war are you doing the second war or moving on to something else?

[@SvenVanDerPlank]

I'm spending December writing the scripts for the Second Succession War next, but I'm also considering maybe starting another lore & history series for a different franchise. I'm just undecided on which one.

[@novatheorem]

If you switch to another franchise, I might recommend the Forgotten Realms from D&D fame. Not many people doing the history of the realms and with the movie having come out - there might be some interest. That said, more BattleTech please!

[@SvenVanDerPlank]

Thanks for the suggestion but it's got to be something I'm familiar with. Not just looking for views, it's got to be something I'm passionate about already.

[@floriangallus7760]

Semyon, Kenyon. Coincidence? I don't think so...

[@SvenVanDerPlank]

He's just a pale imitation of the real thing.

[@swiftmatic]

Attending a history lecture in 3177😎

[@Spackentim]

"Take him to Detroit!"

[@kiepyon1]

is faster then i through

[@thekaiser3815]

Well they got what they wanted, but lost what they had

[@SvenVanDerPlank]

That's a pretty succinct way of summing up the fallout from Star League independence.

[@thekaiser3815]

@@SvenVanDerPlank history is full of the same story. Most rebels always Lose more than they gain.

[@Wildcat144]

Do you happen to have any socials or discord? Would love to chat with you about a potential project I'm trying to gather talent for.

[@SvenVanDerPlank]

I do have a Discord. If you're on the Sarna one or BigRed's then you can probably search for me through there. Alternatively, you can send me an email linked on the channel's About page. Would be happy to hear what you're planning.