Faction Lore: The Grey Death Legion

[@WastelandSeven]

One wonders if the Inner Sphere would have survived the Clan invasion if it hadn't been for the Gray Death distributing that memory core. Without Grason Carlyle I suspect the Inner Sphere would have folded before the battle of Tukayyid. The Gray Death literally saved the entire Inner Sphere.

[@Vulpine407]

Agreed. Because Carlyle and Lori spread copies of the core throughout the Inner Sphere, Comstar's espionage arm (ROM) couldn't find and destroy them all fast enough. Eventually, their operatives in the Federated Suns had to give up when the NAIS was seeded with enough counter-espionage agents to force ROM to back off or risk exposing themselves. This allowed the Federated Suns to start developing bits and pieces of the "los-tech" as it was referred to. Other houses also finally got enough cores into their military industrial complexes long enough to start re-developing the tech. By 3039, a LOT of the tech (at least that with military applications) was in production. It also helped that COMSTAR went a bit "moderate" on it's stance on keeping advanced tech out of the great house's hands. But, yeah. Without the Helm memory core's dispersal throughout the Inner Sphere, the great houses would have had almost no chance against the clans. Now Wolf's Dragoons would have undoubtedly still sounded the alarm. And they may well have started sharing tech with the houses from their own databases (hidden in their caches along the periphery) -but there would have been far less time to get such tech in production and distributed to house units and sold to mercenaries before the clans stormed across the bandit kingdoms and into the Inner Sphere along the "Northern" rim. History would likely have been very different. And I have little doubt that the clans would have conquered the Inner Sphere. They definitely would have taken Terra and probably eliminated COMSTAR since their own technical caste would have been more than sufficient to manage the HPG networks. I'm guessing that it would have been a throw-down between the Wolf, Falcon and Jaguar clans as to who would have become the Ilclan. My money would have been on the Jade Falcons. Not because they would have been better, but because many of the military disasters they suffered during the invasion would likely not have happened in this alternate history. OTOH, clan Wolf would have been a bit hamstrung by the fact that Wolf's Dragoons most likely would have still fought for the Inner Sphere. Without the Battle of Tukayyid, and the truce period it won the Inner Sphere, it would be unlikely that Natasha Kerensky would ever return to clan Wolf. This, along with other differences in this timeline would have made clan Wolf weaker in the long-run. So, while I'm not a fan of the Jade Falcons, I think they would have had the best chance of winning the Batchalls (spelling?) over the right to take Terra and become Ilclan of all the clans.

[@Mauther]

Yeah, to Adventure Jones point, watch the pronunciation. Some of the in game names are open to debate, Liao being one, others are pretty important. Sirius in an actual star, and is pronounced like the "serious". Sudeten is based on a real location and pronounced (sue det'en). In story, Grayson's middle name is pronounced like teeth. Supposedly its family name. In the first novel he is teased over the name and repeatedly tries to correct people.

[@BattleBound]

Mauther With Liao, I always have pronounced the iao "OW", like the sound you make when something hurts.

[@stormraven8484]

What about the Wolf's Dragoons could you do a video on them ?

[@TheMiteyPirate]

I think that would be a great idea.

[@juancholo7502]

It's like they used the Word of Blakers to get rid of as much of the old canon units as possible.

[@Black-Knyght]

Love to see a bit on Cranston Snord's Irregulars!

[@jimmysexton5634]

if you want to do one on Natasha Kerensky that might make for some interesting research not to mention Jamie Wolf

[@ventarfield7115]

I've been getting back into battletech latley and my first lances are gray death command, battle and fire lances. 🔥 I just got the commanders edition of alpha strike and they have included such a setup. Now im wondering if it's cheese and I should build a different merc group. Still love gray death, though.

[@roguerifter9724]

What makes you think Alexander died during the Jihad? Everything I've read indicates he survived with some of his descendants later forming a second Grey Death Legion

[@jimmysexton5634]

Wolf's Dragoons please

[@Vulpine407]

Ahh, the early years of Battletech. Back when we were marveling at the tales of the Black Widows and the Grey Death Legion. And ever one of us was waiting for the day when Hanse Davion was going to kick Maximillian Liao's balls up between his ears. Unless, of course, you _liked_ house Liao. In which case, sorry, not sorry. 😅

[@VaciliNikoMavich]

Awwr..poor guys :(

[@Maddog3060]

It's "HESS-per-us".

[@9mmhobbes]

nice work on the research, but you really need to work on your pronunciation. you got so much wrong.

[@grassygnoll3345]

Ruined Battletech. Author had to much freedom to allow power creep that was then taken up in the game itself. The book weren't bad.