BattleTech - The Board Game of Armored Combat
BattleTech Game Systems => General BattleTech Discussion => Topic started by: RichardC1967 on 31 May 2011, 23:08:55
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will the Battletech Universe ever see an alien invasion from deep space, which will force all the Houses and Clans to band together to fight a common foe, or will they just continue to fight each other for the NEXT 25 years?
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will the Battletech Universe ever see an alien invasion from deep space, which will force all the Houses and Clans to band together to fight a common foe, or will they just continue to fight each other for the NEXT 25 years?
Battletech already had an Alien Invasion from deep space. They were called "The Clans"
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Battletech already had an Alien Invasion from deep space. They were called "The Clans"
not talking about human invaders that left and came back..something like a Predator/Aliens type invader that uses biological constructs
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Jumping the shark.
While the shark is jumping through a flaming hoop.
Being held by a ProtoMech.
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will the Battletech Universe ever see an alien invasion from deep space, which will force all the Houses and Clans to band together to fight a common foe, or will they just continue to fight each other for the NEXT 25 years?
not talking about human invaders that left and came back..something like a Predator/Aliens type invader that uses biological constructs
Well, the reason here is probably because BattleTech's focus is on human versus human conflict, not 'aliens invade, everyone fights back' like 80% of sci-fi settings out there. That's why the universe is so human-centric, with most alien life being non-sapient and non-sentient, barring the Tetatae who are effectively a non-issue due to their being completely off the grid.
At this point, I'd have to say the chances of seeing an alien invasion (which completely takes away the one difference between BattleTech and most other games save Heavy Gear) is lower than BattleTech deciding to completely ditch Mechs in favor of PeaceTech where people don't fight, and we see huge starships plying the stars using warp drives and without money, greed, or psychotic idiots with more power than sense waging war on one another.
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Hello, this problem has been solved already. Check these two threads, especially the first one:
http://www.classicbattletech.com/forumarchive/index.php/topic,69865.0.html (http://www.classicbattletech.com/forumarchive/index.php/topic,69865.0.html) (16 pages)
http://www.classicbattletech.com/forumarchive/index.php/topic,41475.0.html (http://www.classicbattletech.com/forumarchive/index.php/topic,41475.0.html)(7 pages)
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Jumping the shark.
While the shark is jumping through a flaming hoop.
Being held by a ProtoMech.
...with Ted McGinley.
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will the Battletech Universe ever see an alien invasion
NO.
Not having aliens is what makes BattleTech, BattleTech. There are plenty of other sci-fi verses out there if you crave aliens, or if you feel so inclined you can brew something up for your own little storylines.
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not talking about human invaders that left and came back..something like a Predator/Aliens type invader that uses biological constructs
Well if you do that what you are speaking of you ruin one of the things that makes BT unique. IE no E.T.'s On top of that you gain really nothing in using them that you can't get with humans.
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Hello, this problem has been solved already. Check these two threads, especially the first one:
http://www.classicbattletech.com/forumarchive/index.php/topic,69865.0.html (http://www.classicbattletech.com/forumarchive/index.php/topic,69865.0.html) (16 pages)
http://www.classicbattletech.com/forumarchive/index.php/topic,41475.0.html (http://www.classicbattletech.com/forumarchive/index.php/topic,41475.0.html)(7 pages)
Hey I remember the 16 page one
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OK, so I get the point..but hypothetically if the Developers at BT decided to add an Alien storyline all of the sudden, then how many of you guys would stop playing BT? or at least not buy the new line of TRO's or miniatures?
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"What I wanted was a universe that had a taste of the alien, but did not contain aliens."
Jordan K. Weisman - Shrapnel, Fragments from the Inner Sphere
Quote from: HABEAS32
Other things not in BattleTech:
Magic (some strange shit happens, yes, but most of these can be played off as near-death experiences and hallucinations)
Telepathy/telekinesis/clairvoyance (Face it guys, the Nova Cats just smoke some weird shit, and those Nekakami guys just have fun bags of tricks)
Sentient aliens (Sorry; we remain committed to a strictly man-vs-man universe, at least as far as everyone can tell)
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OK, so I get the point..but hypothetically if the Developers at BT decided to added an Alien storyline all of the sudden, then how many of you guys would stop playing BT? or at least not buy the new line of TRO's or miniatures?
Well, that'd probably go over even worse than intial Dark Ages release with converted AgroMechs and hordes of vehicles... especially since there are far better-developed settings for mecha and aliens. Or big robots and aliens.
Warhammer 40000, Robotech, RIFTS, GURPS: Mecha, the various Star Wars RPG's and tabletop games (looking at the d20 and West End Games versions), WarMachine all come to mind immediately for tabletop. I can name more anime, sci-fi series, novels, and video games with mechs and aliens if you prefer.
I can only think of two games where mechs and humans only play a big role, which I've already named above... and Heavy Gear's Gears are more power armor or ProtoMechs than BattleMechs.
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There are plenty of Stone Age tech aliens already. I say we have an easy war with them first before we step up to advanced non-human genocide.
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I just wanted to put my 2 cents in...
Aliens are acceptable in the form of life (ie there are "alien" versions of animals, but not sentient to the point of humanities level) in BT. I do not mind reading about some alien version of a dog ferret mix or whatever.
But Sentient Aliens are not acceptable. This just (like so many have said before) would make BT like every other sci-fi game... I would stop supporting the game if it did add sentient aliens. I almost did so when I read about the Blakist gene cast things, I will never put them into a game I play - they are too alien for me. I will never play one and never play a game with them involved (though WoB enemies are fine and even using the Celestials that are supposed to be piloted by the gene caste guys, but I wont use the rules or play in a game where they are used)... But that is just me.
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Genecast are clanners, thus the cast part. Just throwing that out there. And I think a war of annihilation against them persecuted by the Ravens or some such would be a nice little event to throw in the late 3100's.
And there are plenty Neanderthal level sapients out there. It's in all the fluff. There's no sport in killing cavemen though. And if you give the cavemen spaceships, it's just not Battletech anymore.
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OK, so I get the point..but hypothetically if the Developers at BT decided to add an Alien storyline all of the sudden, then how many of you guys would stop playing BT? or at least not buy the new line of TRO's or miniatures?
I would either stop playing or ignore everything they did going forward. Which would mean not buying products. Heck I am thrilled they are not going to spend much time on MWDA and move past it to new stuff. Because I will not buy the DA stuff. Most likely ignoring what they did going forward
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Here is the the real question. Why would you want to add aliens? What would you actually gain that you can't get with humans?
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I wouldnt care. Just means more things to kill, more challenges and so forth.
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Here is the the real question. Why would you want to add aliens?
The real question, guys, is why are you re-inventing a wheel. Everything you could think out is included in those aforementioned threads. Everything you could say has been already said in those threads. Now try a real challenge: Come with something that hasn't been discussed here before. :)
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The real question, guys, is why are you re-inventing a wheel. Everything you could think out is included in those aforementioned threads. Everything you could say has been already said in those threads. Now try a real challenge: Come with something that hasn't been discussed here before. :)
You know that can be said about 90% of the threads on this board.
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I'll definitely stop caring about Battletech the very moment humankind establishes a contact with sentient alien species. I've always seen Battletech as a tale of basic human flaws, that plague our existence no matter how far in space we go and no matter how advanced our technologies become. So while I welcome 'alien' societies and cultures (like, the Clans, Manei Domini or Genecaste, because they still represent the extension of these flaws to one or other extreme), I feel that aliens have no place in the BTU.
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The real question, guys, is why are you re-inventing a wheel. Everything you could think out is included in those aforementioned threads. Everything you could say has been already said in those threads. Now try a real challenge: Come with something that hasn't been discussed here before. :)
How am I supposed to know this was discussed last year and again in 2008, I'm still fairly new to the boards and I'm just trying to make conversation and get to know members here.It seems like every board or forum has that one guy who always has to remind everyone that the topic has been discussed previously.. :(
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OK, so I get the point..but hypothetically if the Developers at BT decided to add an Alien storyline all of the sudden, then how many of you guys would stop playing BT? or at least not buy the new line of TRO's or miniatures?
I would definitely be outta here. The lack of sentient aliens is one of the first things (besides 'Mechs themselves) that drew me to BattleTech, so if they were to take away that cornerstone (which, fortunately, they won't), my support would collapse immediately.
How am I supposed to know this was discussed last year and again in 2008, I'm still fairly new to the boards and I'm just trying to make conversation and get to know members here.It seems like every board or forum has that one guy who always has to remind everyone that the topic has been discussed previously.. :(
Don't let it bother you. In a few months, I guarantee you will see this topic again by someone else. It happens, and people will be people. In fact, I expect we'll have a "BattleTech Movie" thread within the next month, because it's been a while. Certain topics have that cockroach-like ability, heheh.
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Don't let it bother you. In a few months, I guarantee you will see this topic again by someone else. It happens, and people will be people. In fact, I expect we'll have a "BattleTech Movie" thread within the next month, because it's been a while. Certain topics have that cockroach-like ability, heheh.
Like Davion and Wolf Fiat, Who is Devlin Stone?, Battletech Movie, Mechwarrior 5, why the Unseen's look sucks/rocks,
how there should be no weapons other then the "perfect" IS Medium laser, why the original Jagermech sucks/rocks,
Anti-Dark Age threads, Anti-Jihad threads(which I figure will die down like the Anti-Clan threads), "Why 3025 was the
best era" threads...
Honestly, there are certain topics that keep coming up, and, really, I honestly think many of the long time forumites are
sick of them, because they never add anything new, and invariably end up in circular arguments of "I'm right because I'm
right, and no amount of reasoned arguments and evidential or anecdotal proof will sway me to believe anything else" from
all sides.
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Please NO!!!! Battletech is so much better without Aliens!!!
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Essentially, the reason we won't see aliens in BT is because at least the part of the BT fandom that regularly posts on these boards (which may or may not be representative, but why take chances?) makes the WH40K Imperium of Man look like a bunch of alien-hugging xenophiles...and these are, after all, the people CGL are trying to sell their game to. ;)
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I'll definitely stop caring about Battletech the very moment humankind establishes a contact with sentient alien species. I've always seen Battletech as a tale of basic human flaws, that plague our existence no matter how far in space we go and no matter how advanced our technologies become. So while I welcome 'alien' societies and cultures (like, the Clans, Manei Domini or Genecaste, because they still represent the extension of these flaws to one or other extreme), I feel that aliens have no place in the BTU.
+1
Couldn't said it better...
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Essentially, the reason we won't see aliens in BT is because at least the part of the BT fandom that regularly posts on these boards (which may or may not be representative, but why take chances?) makes the WH40K Imperium of Man look like a bunch of alien-hugging xenophiles...and these are, after all, the people CGL are trying to sell their game to. ;)
*shifty eyes* Some people *ARE* xenophiles...doesn't mean we want to see Aliens in Battletech. For our Aliens,
we have other universes for that!
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*shifty eyes* Some people *ARE* xenophiles...doesn't mean we want to see Aliens in Battletech. For our Aliens,
we have other universes for that!
Yes we do.
http://www.eclipsephase.com/ (http://www.eclipsephase.com/)
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When I think "alien invasion", I always think about the vast span of human history and technological development, and how astronomically small the odds must be that the alien invaders have tech on a similiar level to mankind. I enjoy popcorn movies like "Independence Day", but I can't take those sorts of stories seriously. Battletech would become a joke game.
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Once you add aliens, the game will start to look like Warhammer 40k. We already have warrior societies with big guys in power armor that consider Terra a holy place, cyborgs worshiping technology living on Mars, and a divine frozen ruler. :P
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The idea of predator with a BattleMech intrigues me.... ;D
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The idea of predator with a BattleMech intrigues me.... ;D
Why, yes, the Raptor II is a good 'mech ;)
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Besides i don´t ever never want to see aliens fight humanity, what should those aliens be like on the game board, just thinking about rules and game-mechanics.
When playing IS vs Clan, there are enough people fighting about one side being overpowered.
And there are not very few people out there completely ignoring the clans existence.
So what rules should those aliens get? How could they fit into gameplay?
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I am the guy who pointed to exact threads and cited what Battletech line developers think about Aliens. The only effort expected is to read them. But of course it doesn't matter. :)
Actually there are some Aliens which weren't discussed that much before - Hyperspace Aliens from Interstellar Players 2.
In fact there are two big problems with Aliens:
- biology and intelligence
- technology
1. If you have Aliens which are close to humans in their psychology, then you actually don't need them. You can stay with humans.
Or their psychology can be completely different and their intentions and motives so strange that the human being can't get a grasp on their thoughts. In this case, you can write maybe a short story or perhaps even a novel, but it would have been pretty difficult if not impossible to integrate them into Battletech universe.
2. Their technology is the same as human - then you don't need aliens at all.
Or their technology is completely different. In this case, you would need to multiply complete Battletech by 2. Writers would need to write complete TechManual, Total Warfare and Tactical Operations... just to describe Alien machines, their use and rules for them. And most important. There would be a need for a Rulebook (I am afraid it would have to be a BIG one) to bridge a gap between Human technology and Alien technology. You know, how human technology/weapons affect alien (war)machines and opposite. As I said, you would have been writing Alien Battletech.
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I am the guy who pointed to exact threads and cited what Battletech line developers think about Aliens. The only effort expected is to read them. But of course it doesn't matter. :)
Actually there are some Aliens which weren't discussed that much before - Hyperspace Aliens from Interstellar Players 2.
In fact there are two big problems with Aliens:
- biology and intelligence
- technology
1. If you have Aliens which are close to humans in their psychology, then you actually don't need them. You can stay with humans.
Or their psychology can be completely different and their intentions and motives so strange that the human being can't get a grasp on their thoughts. In this case, you can write maybe a short story or perhaps even a novel, but it would have been pretty difficult if not impossible to integrate them into Battletech universe.
2. Their technology is the same as human - then you don't need aliens at all.
Or their technology is completely different. In this case, you would need to multiply complete Battletech by 2. Writers would need to write complete TechManual, Total Warfare and Tactical Operations... just to describe Alien machines, their use and rules for them. And most important. There would be a need for a Rulebook (I am afraid it would have to be a BIG one) to bridge a gap between Human technology and Alien technology. You know, how human technology/weapons affect alien (war)machines and opposite. As I said, you would have been writing Alien Battletech.
Thanks for pointing them out..I got the information I needed from them.Just wanted to see what other people that may not have been aware that the question had been asked before(like me)
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Richard, don't get too offended by the "Use the search function" monkies here. every web forum has them.
guys, lets be a little more welcoming to the newbies. leave the "RTFM"ing to Linux and warhammer 40K Forums... and 4Chan.
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I'm almost completely anti-alien when it comes to BT. I think the only way I could tolerate them would be if say, at some time around the 2900s, someone like the Hanseatic League or other Deep Periphery power came across a small Stone Age alien population and wiped them out. The whole affair would be heard of by only a handful of people and even they'd think it was just a crazy spacer tall tale. A footnote like that I could live with.
Aliens as an active faction - I wouldn't be into that at all. It would be too big a change.
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A big deal about adding aliens is that the make up of the human militaries would change drastically. For the most part, warfare in the inner sphere is the game of the Great Houses and even the clans do not really take it seriously. An alien race that actually competed with humanity for resources would bring in total economic warfare. If battlemech factories were hard to expand and harder to build, battlemechs would become lone islands in a sea of tanks.
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I am the guy who pointed to exact threads and cited what Battletech line developers think about Aliens. The only effort expected is to read them. But of course it doesn't matter. :)
Actually there are some Aliens which weren't discussed that much before - Hyperspace Aliens from Interstellar Players 2.
In fact there are two big problems with Aliens:
- biology and intelligence
- technology
1. If you have Aliens which are close to humans in their psychology, then you actually don't need them. You can stay with humans.
Or their psychology can be completely different and their intentions and motives so strange that the human being can't get a grasp on their thoughts. In this case, you can write maybe a short story or perhaps even a novel, but it would have been pretty difficult if not impossible to integrate them into Battletech universe.
2. Their technology is the same as human - then you don't need aliens at all.
Or their technology is completely different. In this case, you would need to multiply complete Battletech by 2. Writers would need to write complete TechManual, Total Warfare and Tactical Operations... just to describe Alien machines, their use and rules for them. And most important. There would be a need for a Rulebook (I am afraid it would have to be a BIG one) to bridge a gap between Human technology and Alien technology. You know, how human technology/weapons affect alien (war)machines and opposite. As I said, you would have been writing Alien Battletech.
Yeah, I'm one of the idiots who made those two points in the 16-page thread. ;)
And the hyperspace aliens are apocryphal, based on the ramblings of a madman... just as word of the Genecaste is. The latter is there to give the GM a new enemy that's more out of the ordinary than the. Average Clanner. The Hyperspace ones are there to explain weird things... not to be fought. Or exist in a standard game.
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*snip*
An alien race that actually competed with humanity for resources would bring in total economic warfare.
*snip*
The elephant in the living room in a "resource war" scenario is... How vast and resource intensive must this alien culture be, to need to go to war over a lack of resources!? Battletech may be a game of warfare, but the wars (on a large scale) are hardly ever about resource acquisition. Space is far too vast, planets too numerous, for overcrowding or resource depletion to be a concern for humanity in this setting unless you purposely settle lousy worlds. Any alien race that uses enough resources to require wars to get more must be impossibly innefficient at using them, or impossibly overpowering.
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I run the roleplaying system a lot and have found it's more fun to have an almost sentient creature, a.k.a. a gorrilla; only it could be an insectoid, avian, or other creature.
I ran one game wherein the players stumbled on a wrecked Potempkin (it had misjumped and wound up buried just beneath a planet's surface). I used a modified form of the Tikkitti from the GURPS space creatures as the (OPFOR). In that instance, as I've used them other games as well, they would be curious and try to communicate with the characters or their machines, using a laser light that is generated biologically. However, one of the players decided to set off explosives in an attempt to blow open a "jammed" door. Yeah, the insectoids, not quite being sentient went into defend the nest mode.
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An alien race that actually competed with humanity for resources would bring in total economic warfare. If battlemech factories were hard to expand and harder to build, battlemechs would become lone islands in a sea of tanks.
Please, could you elaborate the thougt about resources?
- Personally I would say that any alien race developed enough to master the interstellar flight would be more than capable to mine all needed mineral resources on deserted planets (even without atmosphere) or asteroids.
- Energy? With fussion, fission or anti-matter reactors, or maybe even with more powerful energy sources at their disposal, what energy could possibly take from mankind?
- Agricultural products? E.T.s stealing this year's harvest? Not probable.
- Aliens as maneaters? Bah. (Yes, I know there are some Sci-fi series with theme like this, but I don't believe anybody would considered this seriously in Battletech).
- Habitable planets? Maybe, but space is enough infinite. Aliens would have it easier to find some uninhabited planet than start an interstellar war.
- Aliens stealing our women? Bah. What use would we have for females of alligators.
Make allowance for me taking part in this thread to my old love to Science-fiction. ;)
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At the heart of every war in Battletech is a very human motivation. Every conflict is driven by ambition, greed or anger (or some combination of the above). The problem with adding aliens is deciding what motivates them. Do they just want resources? Boring. Do they want to dominate? Word of Blake, Aleksander Kerensky, Stefan Amaris, Katherine Steiner; already been done. Do they want to infect us like a parasite? Creepy and not really suitable for the setting?
There's no compelling reason to add an alien race to Battletech. Even the games that do have aliens in them (like 40k) are just using them as exaggerated representations for some human impulse. Eldar represent an arrogant elitism born of knowledge and age. Dark Eldar represent the same thing taken to a nihilistic extreme. Tau are a thinly veiled representation of collectivism of the cartoonish type depicted as the enemy of all things by people like Ayn Rand. Chaos Demons represent untempered emotion and selfishness. And humanity ends up representing a hopelessly dogmatic fear of change.
They're all just caricatures of human motivations. They're not really that alien at all. CBT is a universe that doesn't need cartoonish metaphors. It's grounded in fundamentally human flaws and ideals.
That's not to say that aliens in other games are bad. Different universes should use different approaches to engage their audience. Aliens just don't fit the look and feel of Battletech. Since aliens are never used for anything more than creating funny looking versions of human motivations, they are unnecessary in a universe that already represents the full spectrum of those motivations in the human population.
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I tend to disagree with the no alien camp. For me the question is why are there no aliens to be found given the statistical likelihood of alien races being met?
As for what they bring, I would see them as the immovable object and unstoppable force, acting like a cross between a sleeping giant and a force of nature. They would fight us because we are vermin that are lowering property values in the Milky Way; for definitions of property values that include not being able to tolerate destructive neighbours living nearby.
As for the people leave the game if aliens were added, I would skirt that whole issue by having CGL do it as an alternative universe; a choice for those that do, not something that everyone has to do.
YMMV.
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I tend to disagree with the no alien camp. For me the question is why are there no aliens to be found given the statistical likelihood of alien races being met?
Since we haven't met any aliens, we can hardly have any verified data to base our statistics at.
As for what they bring, I would see them as the immovable object and unstoppable force, acting like a cross between a sleeping giant and a force of nature. They would fight us because we are vermin that are lowering property values in the Milky Way; for definitions of property values that include not being able to tolerate destructive neighbours living nearby.
So you imagine your Aliens as something like the Borg colective (instoppable force of nature),
"Our sentry vessels tossed aside, no defense against the storm. And by the time they had surrounded our star system... hundreds of cubes... we had already surrendered to our own terror."
or better yet Species 8472 (disregarding story details)?:
"The weak...will perish."
As for the people leave the game if aliens were added, I would skirt that whole issue by having CGL do it as an alternative universe; a choice for those that do, not something that everyone has to do.
I'd like to express my personal opinion that one of the greatest strengths of Battletech was adherence to ONE universe. Of course, there were retcons and such, but writers spared no effort to make everything part of the same universe. Just personally, I feel that alternative universe would be a big misstep.
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Another concern on the realism side:
Time.
Humanity in BT held its progress back a few times. Dark ages. Succession Wars. A few centuries worth of progress were lost.
What happens if we meet an alien race that started exactly at the same time, but without those speed bumps?
Or, more likely still: an alien race that has a 10,000 year head start on us?
Or, far more likely still:
This planet's about 4.5 billion years old. Life started about 2 billion years ago.
There's bits in the universe that are 13 billion years old.
Can you imagine a technological race that has a billion year head start on us? How about 5 billion? Yeah, how about a race that figured out interstellar travel before our planet even existed.
IOW, it goes back to the realism vs. gameplay issue.
Ranges in BT suck for gameplay reasons; to keep the game fun. Realistic damages and ranges would be 1 shot = 1 kill games, and they'd be considerably less interesting.
Likewise, a realistic encounter with an alien race would likewise be unsatisfying and lobsided.
The only exception is to make the aliens all to much like us, ref, Star Wars, Star Trek, etc, etc. It's been done. We're more unique and unusual for not having aliens, despite the statistical impossibility of that.
Paul
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I vote No Aliens. For all the reasons given.
Besides, if you want an universe not too far from Battletech with Aliens, Renegade Legion is for you. I believe it is out of print, and the rights belongs to...? No idea !
But the setting is simple, black and white (good rebels versus bad imperium) and the rules quite fun, each weapon having a different profile of damage. And a few alien races, allied with one faction or the other. No mechs, but flying tanks, fighters and capital ships.
It was a FASA game.
Good luck to find it !!
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Actually been tempted to get that as I know a local guy that owns some of it (he kind of runs a game store out of his own cellar), just keep hesitating as players tend to be somewhat nostalgic (myself very much included) and only remember the good points of a game and not so much it's bad points.
Am behind the PTB view on aliens and Battletech 100% though.
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Please, could you elaborate the thougt about resources?
The big motivator in the BTU is conflict. Unfortunately, being alien, an alien faction either will not interact with humanity at all, or only interact with humanity for the basest of reasons. If they only interact with humans because humans force the issue, they are targets for raids/piracy. If the aliens have a reason for conflict, it is for something (however unlikely) that they cannot get within their own space. Resource scarcity is probably a poor excuse for human/alien conflict, but other excuses are even worse, save xenophobic hysteria that makes one side believe that it must eliminate the other.
I tend to disagree with the no alien camp. For me the question is why are there no aliens to be found given the statistical likelihood of alien races being met?
Depending on how optimistic/pessimistic you are when assigning values to the Drake Equation the number of civilizations varies from one in every ten thousand stars through one in every ten thousand galaxies to it being unlikely that there is anyone else out there, at all. Being alone in the galaxy, but with the nearest alien civilization in the Andromeda galaxy is actually one of the more optimistic estimates. Even if we acquire a star drive, the statistical probability of encountering anyone else is still almost zero.
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I don't think nothing good about equations like this. When you have no data about Aliens, and no possibility how to verify the result ... You can use any variables you wish and end with any result you desire.
Some variables about intelligent life, technology or signals are completely fictional and comical. You can use any number because the only inhabited planet is Earth and the only civilization is ours too.
Edit:big spelling error
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I agree. There could be a pre-radio civilization thriving in a star system 10 LY away, and we would have no idea that there was even a planet in the habitable zone of that star. In such a situation, it is better to just say, "I don't know", rather than do something like old mapmakers where you squiggle out some lines to make things connect back to known areas and write "Here be Dragons" in between.
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There's no purpose for aliens. For aliens to be interesting, they have to be understandable. Their purpose has to be something that makes sense. Whether they're here to steal our women, to eat us, or to blow up Terra, without a reason they're boring.
Aliens have to be human. Oh you could have monsters like Zergs/Tyrannids, or you could have Orks/Klingons, or what not, but when it comes to it, they must have a reason.
There have been sentient aliens in Battletech numerous times. In the beginning it was the Capellans with their crazy dictator, who replaced the good king Hanse with a double. Then it was the Clans, a warlike "Klingon" race that practiced planned breeding to forge the next stock of battlebabies. Lately it's been the "Robot Race", the Word of Blake, a species willing to destroy planets to keep their secrets safe from humanity.
We havn't had Zerg, though I think the entire concept is ridiculous (the protomechs were an experiment in that direction IMO). The WoB probably were not so far from a central mind however, with C3i being brought down to Battlearmor IIRC, the next step would be an implant into their cyborg brains...
Slavering monstrous flesheatng aliens are animals, and deserve no great place in the fiction, they are concerns for individuals trapped in a cavern or lost in a forest, they are hungry wolves in the Russian winter, not nation breaking forces.
Battletechs enjoyment in the factions is because their is an understanding, a broken mirror through which each faction can see a bit of itself in it's opponent. The cultural differences, and the individual flaws in leaders are what make battletech's universe interesting. We need no monsters, they come from us. Mankind is the alien.
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-snip-
We need no monsters, they come from us. Mankind is the alien.
Well said, good sir. I think I'm adding that last bit to my signature.
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will the Battletech Universe ever see an alien invasion from deep space, which will force all the Houses and Clans to band together to fight a common foe, or will they just continue to fight each other for the NEXT 25 years?
Might as well just play warhammer 40K then
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I tend to disagree with the no alien camp. For me the question is why are there no aliens to be found given the statistical likelihood of alien races being met?
As for what they bring, I would see them as the immovable object and unstoppable force, acting like a cross between a sleeping giant and a force of nature. They would fight us because we are vermin that are lowering property values in the Milky Way; for definitions of property values that include not being able to tolerate destructive neighbours living nearby.
As for the people leave the game if aliens were added, I would skirt that whole issue by having CGL do it as an alternative universe; a choice for those that do, not something that everyone has to do.
YMMV.
Problem: If the aliens are immovable object and/or unstoppable force, it would become a frustration of the efforts of the players, since the aliens could storm out at any moment, mopping up everything, like the hilarious joke about the hidden Tetatae Battlefleet ready to start armageddon...
Plus, if that force is such, what challenge should they pose tho the players, other than making them become minced meat at the speed of light?
Such is why (from an in-game perspective), IMHO, unstoppable aliens are a potentially dangerous direction.
Vulnerable aliens? There's already the clans, though powerful, which play that part.
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Might as well just play warhammer 40K then
Tried it..hated it..I more of a Warhammer Fantasy Battle fan..but GW's constant price increases and "You gotta have this new rule book/army book now" mentality is forcing me to find a cheaper alternative.If I knew my topic would have started such a big discussion, I'd have never posted it..but hey at least it got people to state their opinions..
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OK, so I get the point..but hypothetically if the Developers at BT decided to add an Alien storyline all of the sudden, then how many of you guys would stop playing BT? or at least not buy the new line of TRO's or miniatures?
I'd stop. they'd lose my gaming dollar, and quite a few others, I suspect.
if they wanted to publish NONCANON scenario books to aid people in running what-if campaigns for this and other scenarios, I would encourage that. But the official storyline? No way.
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Here's my problme-- we have complaints already, justified to some degree that many cultures in battletech, human cultures are not given enough attention-- thousands of high population (1 million plus) worlds not even on the map, the fact that some capital worlds are treated as "one capital city and other...stuff", the "village of hats" phenomena-- and that's even considering what a good job the designers have been doing avoiding that.
The problem is, that unless you want Btech to have as many books as oh say the social studies section of UCI's library, you'll get lots of places where get get stuff glossed over.
Now, you're going to add aliens to this?
either 1. They're just humans in funny suits, in which case why bother, or2. you're going to be spending tne next several years of real time publishing establishing their character.
Neither one is much of a draw for me.
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I'd be in favor of footnotes about planets with vicious monsters running around the outback, with absolutely not way for them to leave the planet, or near sentient creatures that "trade" fruit and nuts for candy bars when reasearchers wander through. I would even accept finding artifacts that might be from primitive civilizations, or cliffsides that look like they were carved. But when anything starts writing or building pyramids I start looking for the shark.
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Please, could you elaborate the thougt about resources?
- Personally I would say that any alien race developed enough to master the interstellar flight would be more than capable to mine all needed mineral resources on deserted planets (even without atmosphere) or asteroids.
- Energy? With fussion, fission or anti-matter reactors, or maybe even with more powerful energy sources at their disposal, what energy could possibly take from mankind?
- Agricultural products? E.T.s stealing this year's harvest? Not probable.
- Aliens as maneaters? Bah. (Yes, I know there are some Sci-fi series with theme like this, but I don't believe anybody would considered this seriously in Battletech).
- Habitable planets? Maybe, but space is enough infinite. Aliens would have it easier to find some uninhabited planet than start an interstellar war.
- Aliens stealing our women? Bah. What use would we have for females of alligators.
Make allowance for me taking part in this thread to my old love to Science-fiction. ;)
anti-matter reactors are not allowed in CBT either. :)
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Sentient aliens (Sorry; we remain committed to a strictly man-vs-man universe, at least as far as everyone can tell)
Well, as was probably said in those old threads you referenced, there's always the old joke about the Wolverines aren't missing...they are off protecting humanity against the threat of alien invaders...personally, I prefer to think of them as holding the line preventing the Tetatae hordes from pecking us all to death...
:D
Edit: Seriously though, I prefer my BTech sans advanced sentient aliens that can be a threat to humanity (at least as a whole)...as others have said, there are enough of those types of universes elsewhere...I prefer my BTech like I like my Firefly...human-centric...If I want humans mixing with aliens, I have Star Wars, Star Trek, Renegade Legion, various Rifts titles, Robotech/Macross, etc....
Ruger
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Tried it..hated it..I more of a Warhammer Fantasy Battle fan..but GW's constant price increases and "You gotta have this new rule book/army book now" mentality is forcing me to find a cheaper alternative.If I knew my topic would have started such a big discussion, I'd have never posted it..but hey at least it got people to state their opinions..
hey please don't let anything here discourage you. Despite us being us. We are always happy to have new players. Like I said last night 90% of the threads on the board have been talked about at one point or another. So don't let it bother you. This thread, the battletech movie, Stone being WoB and others come up all the time.
In fact I am getting nostagic and sort of want to start the "Why Kerensky is a traitor to the Star League" thread. Always a fun one.
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hey please don't let anything here discourage you. Despite us being us. We are always happy to have new players. Like I said last night 90% of the threads on the board have been talked about at one point or another. So don't let it bother you. This thread, the battletech movie, Stone being WoB and others come up all the time.
I believe you are forgetting an obvious topic there. More obvious than all of those topics put together.
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In fact I am getting nostagic and sort of want to start the "Why Kerensky is a traitor to the Star League" thread. Always a fun one.
Please don't start the Clans vs. Inner Sphere thread yet. We haven't finished the Unseen are childish anime thread yet. And until Inerstellar Operations comes out we can't cite how LAMs are broken and will destroy the game. We need to maintain the cycle of endlessly repeated threads.
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honestly, every time this has cropped up, it's gone the exact same way.
First poster:"why don't we have aliens? i think they could be neat."
Eight pages of replies:"well, because then you'd have to change factors a-k and we wouldn't gain much that isn't already blablaba where's my beer and get off my lawn"
First poster: "but....i think they could be neat."
short, simple answer is there's pretty much no way to add aliens that isn't either just "pepsi zero" syndrome or already been done and would require a LOT of really awkward rewriting either way.
Please don't start the Clans vs. Inner Sphere thread yet. We haven't finished the Unseen are childish anime thread yet. And until Inerstellar Operations comes out we can't cite how LAMs are broken and will destroy the game. We need to maintain the cycle of endlessly repeated threads.
how long until the "why are autocannons useless?" thread again? i've got a couple of zingers i forgot to use last one i'm looking forward to.
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I don't know why their couldn't be aliens. There's some almost sentient creatures and there's the Tetatae. I don't think aliens would really be good for a big plot line but as a small sideline, like with the Tetatae I think they'd be cool. I know I'd love to find out if the kuritan infantry group found others on that second planet. I'd also love to find out what would happen in a could hundred years when the Tetatae reverse engineer the Locust that was left with them. There's also the other human's on the planet and they have mechs now too. We could have a nice Battletech war of humans vs aliens, that could even go interplanetary between the two planets, and still be within the Battletech Universe but have no impact on the rest of the universe as a whole. It would just be a neat little side arena for people to play in. At least until the jumpships are reverse engineered and the Tetatae invade the Inner Sphere. :D Of course by then the Third Star League has been formed and a second Reinunification War taken place to bring the Home Clans and Minor Periphery Realms back under one banner. So the only people left to fight would be aliens. Or Clan Wolverine. :D
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Hello,
Hmmmm. *scribble scribble scribble*
Thank you,
- Herbert Beas
BattleTech
Catalyst Game Labs
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Hello,
Hmmmm. *scribble scribble scribble*
Thank you,
- Herbert Beas
BattleTech
Catalyst Game Labs
Tell us what you really thing?
Hey I forgot all about the "What will Herb nuke next thread!" Sorry 'bout that Herb :)
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...Or their psychology can be completely different and their intentions and motives so strange that the human being can't get a grasp on their thoughts. .... Or their technology is completely different.
How on earth would you do either of those? If a human being 'can't get a grasp on their thoughts', how would a human writer describe them? If their technology was completely different from anything we have or know about, how would we go about describing that?
Just asking. Aliens in BT would be redundant in the extreme. And trying to create a sentient race whose thought processes, values, etc were truly alien, would be like trying to invent a new color in the spectrum.
Cent13
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... We need to maintain the cycle of endlessly repeated threads.
Absolutely! It adds.....er, bulk to the proceedings. Besides which, some of us don't visit here every hour on the hour (honestly, twelve or thirteen posts a day?! For the past six years?) There are quite a few of those repeating threads I am seeing for the first time. Maybe their recurrence is a healthy thing for the forums?
Inerstellar Ops - is that the companion to Clanerstellar Ops?
Cent13
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I tend to disagree with the no alien camp. For me the question is why are there no aliens to be found given the statistical likelihood of alien races being met?
As for what they bring, I would see them as the immovable object and unstoppable force, acting like a cross between a sleeping giant and a force of nature. They would fight us because we are vermin that are lowering property values in the Milky Way; for definitions of property values that include not being able to tolerate destructive neighbours living nearby.
As for the people leave the game if aliens were added, I would skirt that whole issue by having CGL do it as an alternative universe; a choice for those that do, not something that everyone has to do.
YMMV.
Yes. On all three counts. BattleTech Elseworlds!
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How on earth would you do either of those? If a human being 'can't get a grasp on their thoughts', how would a human writer describe them? If their technology was completely different from anything we have or know about, how would we go about describing that?
Just asking. Aliens in BT would be redundant in the extreme. And trying to create a sentient race whose thought processes, values, etc were truly alien, would be like trying to invent a new color in the spectrum.
Cent13
Well, when I was younger, I liked Science-fiction very much. I had more free time too. There were many stories and novels about this problem, but I can recommend you this one because of its quality:
Strugatsky, Arkady and Boris: Roadside Picnic. MacMillan Publishing Co., Inc, New York, 1977
(+ there were another two or three other editions in the USA)
Aliens came, they did whatever it was their intention, and they departed. They left and (maybe intentionally) lost some very very interesting devices (Empties, Black Sprays, Batteries or Pins and other things). I will not describe it farther because I don't want to spoil the book for you. As I said, you can read it for yourself because it's actually very thin book (150 or 160 pages at most).
So the description can be done can be - but in my post you quoted I wrote it to show how difficult would be integration of this into Battletech universe.
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Hello,
Tell us what you really thing?
Can't. That would be trolling. Sorry.
Thank you,
- Herbert Beas
BattleTech
Catalyst Game Labs
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Bottom line is this. Other than people wanting aliens because they think aliens or cool. I have not ever seen one good argument as to why the game needs them. I just can't think of anything they can do that humans can't do in the game. To add them with any ablity's humans don't have would I think dramaticly change the feel to the game and make it to much like so many other scifi settings
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Yes. On all three counts. BattleTech Elseworlds!
No, no! It's BattleTech Extended Universe! :D Where Max shot first!
W.
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Hello,
Hmmmm. *scribble scribble scribble*
Thank you,
- Herbert Beas
BattleTech
Catalyst Game Labs
:o [AAAH] I'm scarred now. How much will it cost to keep you from doing what I fear you're doing?
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Let me play devil's advocate for a moment and ask the people who argue that aliens are unnecessary because they wouldn't add anything new "Well, and what do the specific human factions we have actually add to the game, exactly?"
I mean, the canon universe is nice and all...but really, Liao vs. Davion, Steiner vs. Kurita, Inner Sphere vs. Clans, everybody vs. the unimaginable might of the Tetatae Armada: it's at heart just yet another iteration of Red vs. Blue. There's nothing new under the sun here anyway.
(And yes, that's the main reason I've personally grown a bit distant from and disillusioned about the whole "canon" thing over the years.)
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Let me play devil's advocate for a moment and ask the people who argue that aliens are unnecessary because they wouldn't add anything new "Well, and what do the specific human factions we have actually add to the game, exactly?"
I mean, the canon universe is nice and all...but really, Liao vs. Davion, Steiner vs. Kurita, Inner Sphere vs. Clans, everybody vs. the unimaginable might of the Tetatae Armada: it's at heart just yet another iteration of Red vs. Blue. There's nothing new under the sun here anyway.
(And yes, that's the main reason I've personally grown a bit distant from and disillusioned about the whole "canon" thing over the years.)
There are five sources of war: For Land, For Wealth, For Life, For Freedom, and For Some King's Lies. In essence,
each of the houses represents one of these:
The Confederation is For Land(their own!)
The Combine and Clans are For Life, because in both factions, battle is life.
For Wealth is pretty much the Lyrans.
For Freedom, ultimately, is the Free World's League(why else would they always be having Civil Wars?).
Federated Suns is the standard of For Some King's Lies.
On top of that, even though the Clan culture is rather alien, it, like the Successor Houses, is very human. We can
see ourselves in them. We can understand their motivations because, ultimately, they are the same as ours.
In essence, the Clans provide a situation where we can shine the light on some of the noblest aspects of humanity(the capacity for honour, for putting something greater then oneself) as well as the worst(Hubris, violence, prejudice). At the
same time, the Clans provide the ultimate culmination of Lee's "It is good that war is so terrible, else we would grow too fond of it" belief.
While one could say that the 5 Successor States are caricatures of various cultures, as we really look at them, we can
usually see that those are just the surface and the propaganda. As we look at each of them, we see they have their
own unique takes on the origins we would take them as lampooning. And, from there, it can be used to explore social
issues we have today. The Confederation, after all, was likely made into a sort of Neo-Communist state and bad guy because in the 1980's, the bad guys WERE the communists.
Finally, one big argument is: it is easier for humans to write about humans. We know ourselves, more or less. Can we
make an alien that is truly alien? Even in most sci-fi movies, there is a very human objective for the aliens. Usually wealth(minerals, water, women) or land(there are come to take over and "colonize" our world). Because we cannot
really make something with an alien mindset. So, ultimately, what the factions in the universe give us something for
conflict that we can relate to, without there having to be a pretense at trying to make it something other then
"Humans in funny suits."
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"Ewglu phln'slghn Battletech. Krha'gr br'clnuilha wgah'rly'ueh v'glua n'gl."
Really surprised nobody has mentioned Cthulutech by this point. You want aliens? We'll give you aliens so terrible that you'll crawl into a hole and never come out again. And Gundamy mechs just for the hell of it.
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"Ewglu phln'slghn Battletech. Krha'gr br'clnuilha wgah'rly'ueh v'glua n'gl."
Really surprised nobody has mentioned Cthulutech by this point. You want aliens? We'll give you aliens so terrible that you'll crawl into a hole and never come out again. And Gundamy mechs just for the hell of it.
And Evangelion-style mecha...and Guyvers
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I can't believe we are the only intelligent life in the universe. I think a game with aliens is more realistic.
I don't think it is more FUN though.
Aliens, by definition, have an alien point of view, one that is hard to...really show us. If you think about it, most aliens are really just bumpy foreheaded or long eared or ridgenecked humans in most movies or tv shows. And the more alien they get, the harder it is to be interested by them.
I don't really have a problem with mixing aliens in with BattleTech. Heck, there are all KINDS of aliens in BattleTech already. ;) But I LIKE that BattleTech decided to go human dominant the way it did. We can all relate to humans because...well...we all are. Except those of us reading this who aren't, and you know who you are. ;)
Seriously, the game's made for humans. Any faction that is going to have a large amount of a fanbase needs to be human or at least have elements that us humans can understand. The Klingons are Sparta with bumpy heads kind of thing. So in the end, what can I say? Aliens don't bother me. But BattleTech doesn't need them.
So I'm happy to have it remain without them. You know...except for the aliens the Wolverines are fighting off of course. They're kinda cool. ;)
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Hello,
Hmmmm. *scribble scribble scribble*
Thank you,
- Herbert Beas
BattleTech
Catalyst Game Labs
;D :D
Saying that aliens would have to have some alien reason for invading that us humans couldn't possibly understand is kind of silly. They're going to have the same concerns humans have. Possibly a few more like exterminating the cockroach know as man or avenging some extinct species, or doing something perverted with women. (Sexist aliens always picking on us. Okay so we have beauty and brains but still...EW! Not that men haven't been doing that as well. GRRR! ) The why ultimately doesn't really matter, unless you're a woman, or trying to negotiate your surrender. The big thing is you're being invaded. How do you counter their battle plans and any advanced tech they may have.
That being said, aliens aren't necessary for Battletech. Humans can, do and have had "alien" reasons for doing things no other humans could figure out. That being said, i still want to find out what happened with the Kuritan Infantry and the Tetatae. And how their invasion of the #rs Star league goes. :D
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I think the obvious answer is that they have come to feed upon our catgirls. Everything from FASAnomics to weapons ranges has drawn them like moths to a flame.
(http://www.tvshows.de/alf/images/pictures/alf10.jpg)
BTW-Saying aliens have our same concerns is the old rubber suit argument. I direct you again toward the Eldritch horror section. ;)
However, Battletech has a habit of saying a lot of Earth-like planets did in fact have similar evolutionary paths to our own. There wouldn't be like a dozen species of Stone Age tech hominids in the IS otherwise. Therefore rubbersuit aliens are plausible. Next April Fools, Leviathantech. We've found a species very similar to our own with advanced 20th century technology. Time to bring them under heel.
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Next April Fools, Leviathantech. We've found a species very similar to our own with advanced 20th century technology. Time to bring them under heel.
Isn't that kind of the premise of An Entry with a Bang? ;)
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;D ;D ;D
Yep. It's possible. Maybe that's where WoB got all their extra forces?
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hey please don't let anything here discourage you. Despite us being us. We are always happy to have new players. Like I said last night 90% of the threads on the board have been talked about at one point or another. So don't let it bother you. This thread, the battletech movie, Stone being WoB and others come up all the time.
In fact I am getting nostagic and sort of want to start the "Why Kerensky is a traitor to the Star League" thread. Always a fun one.
I'm not bothered by it..if no one here asked any questions because they may or may not have been asked before, then this would just be a site where everyone would just come to and stare at each others Avatar pictures and signatures.I can almost guarantee you that when the next newbie joins this site within a month or two the same question will come up again.But this time he nor she can be directed to this thread..lol I amazed that this "old" topic has already generated 6 pages of discussions
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What I want to know is, why not aliens in Axis & Allies? Don't you get tired of Russia v. Germany v. Great Britain v. Japan v. America? Wouldn't it be cooler if they created a version of Axis & Allies where flying saucers invaded in the 1940s?
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What I want to know is, why not aliens in Axis & Allies? Don't you get tired of Russia v. Germany v. Great Britain v. Japan v. America? Wouldn't it be cooler if they created a version of Axis & Allies where flying saucers invaded in the 1940s?
This man need to be hired a concept developer, Nazis and Flying Saucers? Throw in some zombies and you just developed a bazillion dollar game!
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What I want to know is, why not aliens in Axis & Allies? Don't you get tired of Russia v. Germany v. Great Britain v. Japan v. America? Wouldn't it be cooler if they created a version of Axis & Allies where flying saucers invaded in the 1940s?
A version of Axis & Allies based on Harry Turtledoves Worldwar series http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worldwar would be cool.
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This man need to be hired a concept developer, Nazis and Flying Saucers? Throw in some zombies and you just developed a bazillion dollar game!
I have seen similar-themed game in my local game shop. It is called "Dust Tactics". From I have seen around the net it seems this game is pretty popular. And it seems it includes everything you mentioned. :)
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I can't believe we are the only intelligent life in the universe.
i can believe it. universe tries this whole sentience thing, see how well the test run goes and shelves it on some tiny world and hopes it kills itself off in a couple millennium.
as soon as the accordion was invented, it was obvious that sentience is far more trouble than it could be worth on a cosmic scale of things.
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I'd like to see some referenced cultural aspects of the BattleTech universe fleshed out more (like actual samples of Swedenese and Clan battle language) than adding sentient "aliens" to the BattleTech universe.
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I can't believe we are the only intelligent life in the universe. I think a game with aliens is more realistic.
I don't think it is more FUN though.
Aliens, by definition, have an alien point of view, one that is hard to...really show us. If you think about it, most aliens are really just bumpy foreheaded or long eared or ridgenecked humans in most movies or tv shows. And the more alien they get, the harder it is to be interested by them.
I doubt this. Any intelligent creature will have risen to dominate first it's homeplanet, then others because it's species evolved to take advantage of tools, other species and so forth. They're be land based (because you can't start a fire underwater in order to forge more capable tools), they'll be omnivorous (because using other creatures as food gets you more energy quicker, providing more time to communicate, create tools, and form social/governmental structures.) They'll be standing creatures (ie the won't be horses, though they could be centaurian, the manipulating structures will need to be capable of fine movement). They'll be based on a planet from @ 0.8-2 Gs, as higher or lower G's will result in atmospheres, and temperatures incapable of supporting sentient life. Microbes at the bottom of a methane pool? Next.
They would be just like us, only looking different. However they would result in a dumbed down view of the universe, because it's ok to be racist against aliens.
There are many cultures on Earth today that have a hard to understand point of view, eg the differences between Western, Middle Eastern, and Eastern cultures.
Aliens bring nothing to the table. They're boring, it's like changing a game of Civilization to a Game of Doom. Whoopee, it's a tentacled monster, kill it, or do you make a deal with one civilization in order to get supplies, while paying another civilization to attack it in order to weaken them both for your eventual war of conquest?
Both games have their points, but if you have to have sentient aliens in battletech, just call each of the factions different species and your'e there. Change the name of a Lyran Heavy Gauss Rifle to a Lyran Acid projector, a Capellan Plasma Rifle? Well it's shot by biogrown weapons that are fused to the biomechs through genetic and phychic adaption between the biowarrior and the biomech.
What the hell ever happened to kids imagination. If you want something, then you grab a few sheets of paper and do it. The core universe is great as it is. The developers know this. It would be truly jumping the shark to add sentient aliens, because it would make all the cultural and political structures moot. It would dumb down the universe, make it like every other universe I know of, and really kill the game for a LOT of people.
If you want it though, it's not hard to make an alien invasion fleet of your own.
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I doubt this. Any intelligent creature will have risen to dominate first it's homeplanet, then others because it's species evolved to take advantage of tools, other species and so forth. They're be land based (because you can't start a fire underwater in order to forge more capable tools), they'll be omnivorous (because using other creatures as food gets you more energy quicker, providing more time to communicate, create tools, and form social/governmental structures.) They'll be standing creatures (ie the won't be horses, though they could be centaurian, the manipulating structures will need to be capable of fine movement). They'll be based on a planet from @ 0.8-2 Gs, as higher or lower G's will result in atmospheres, and temperatures incapable of supporting sentient life. Microbes at the bottom of a methane pool? Next.
Just out of curiosity, how many sentient extraterrestrial species have you encountered? Because if you're basing your assumptions on observations made on a single planet that all life evolved on simultaneously, your assumptions are valid only for that planet and life on it. Just because there aren't talking cephelopods walking down the street on tentecales and breathing methane gases in your average small town doesn't mean it's impossible, just that it hasn't yet been observed.
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actual samples of Swedenese
We've seen some of that already, actually. Not a lot, granted, but some.
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We've seen some of that already, actually. Not a lot, granted, but some.
Was this sample of Swedenese more recent than the Blood of Kerensky, and not just Swedish that was merely called Swedenese?
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Was this sample of Swedenese more recent than the Blood of Kerensky, and not just Swedish that was merely called Swedenese?
Yes to both.
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I can't believe we are the only intelligent life in the universe. I think a game with aliens is more realistic.
Realism?
Here is all the realism you shall need!
*kicks Medron Pryde into the Pit of Death, raises the fist of the Minotaur Protomech and shouts through the
amplified loudspeaker* This is BATTLETECH!
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Was this sample of Swedenese more recent than the Blood of Kerensky, and not just Swedish that was merely called Swedenese?
Masters & Minions page 103, top right side citation by Cilla Amdahl looks like it is Swedenese.
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What I want to know is, why not aliens in Axis & Allies? Don't you get tired of Russia v. Germany v. Great Britain v. Japan v. America? Wouldn't it be cooler if they created a version of Axis & Allies where flying saucers invaded in the 1940s?
See Harry Turtledove's "World War" series. And yes, I think it would be excellent if they produced a "The Race" expansion pack for A&A - or bette still, for Avalon Hill's "Third Reich" ... ;)
W>
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You know the Race probably would be the best type of alien to pop into Battletech.
Lizardman #1- These humans are savages. See how the records recorded two thousand cycles ago show them using rocks and arrows as weapons.
Lizardman #2- Another victory for our people!
Attacks just for laughs Earth(Terra) 3043
Lizardman #2- The horror! The horror!
Lizardman #1- Get a hold of yourself. The colonization force will be here in twenty cycles. We have escaped orbit where those weapons platforms destroyed most of our force and now we safe. You hear me safe.
Lizardman #3- Something just appeared next to the ship.
Lizardman#1- I need some ginger!
[CSS Invisible Truth appears next to Race's ship. Opens fire obliterating them.]
One of the things that I love about the Race is that they have more advanced technology than say 1940s humans. However, they advance slower than humans at things, so they had a head start but any tech gap is quickly within a hundred years reached and surpassed. By the time, that series ends humanity had developed faster than light tech while the Race was still slow boating it.
Then again, I don't necessarily believe that aliens if they appear are going to benevolent space gods like in the Day the Earth Stood Still(The original not the one with the Whoaher). And though I enjoy the original, it has its issue. Honestly, another alien race that I love is the Kilrathi from Wing Commander because again they aren't near perfect space being who are super advanced past humanity. They have roughly the same tech.
In both cases if we put the Race or Kilrathi like species into Battletech, it doesn't add much. The Kilrathi are basically the Clans. And the Race are really low tech space aliens by the 31st Century, and the Tetatae already are the Race basically in Battletech if anyone can get there to see them. For it to be different for Battletech, you need the equivalent of the Monolith aliens from 2001 to show up.
And honestly what fun would that be if near unbeatable aliens showed up? Though ancient ruins of possible aliens creating a cult that spreads across the worlds of the former Republic of the Sphere would create an interesting next story arc. Though people would probably think it would boarder too close to the Blakest mentality, so there you go.
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Let me play devil's advocate for a moment and ask the people who argue that aliens are unnecessary because they wouldn't add anything new "Well, and what do the specific human factions we have actually add to the game, exactly?"
I mean, the canon universe is nice and all...but really, Liao vs. Davion, Steiner vs. Kurita, Inner Sphere vs. Clans, everybody vs. the unimaginable might of the Tetatae Armada: it's at heart just yet another iteration of Red vs. Blue. There's nothing new under the sun here anyway.
(And yes, that's the main reason I've personally grown a bit distant from and disillusioned about the whole "canon" thing over the years.)
To add to what StCptMara's already said, the theme of BattleTech has always been that humans fight given any opportunity. Except now they've got big stompy robots to fight with, so battles were less the 'push a button, five million people half a world away die' impersonal school of war we're drifting into and more chivalric - or at least, in-your-face, unit-versus-unit - combat. That made war as personal as a punch in the face, which is where the setting began... although over the last twenty years it's drifted a bit towards the 'soldiers as expendable bullets for the House Lords' school of war, at least until the horrors of the Jihad brought home the reality of it again.
Adding aliens who are just like the Clans adds nothing that already exists... and then brings up an issue with regards to explaining WHY they're waging war on humans if they're not simply 'humans with bumpy foreheads'. If this was some other game with 'exploring the known universe, meeting new species and new civilizations' as its focus, then aliens would fit better into it
.I doubt this. Any intelligent creature will have risen to dominate first it's homeplanet, then others because it's species evolved to take advantage of tools, other species and so forth. They're be land based (because you can't start a fire underwater in order to forge more capable tools), they'll be omnivorous (because using other creatures as food gets you more energy quicker, providing more time to communicate, create tools, and form social/governmental structures.) They'll be standing creatures (ie the won't be horses, though they could be centaurian, the manipulating structures will need to be capable of fine movement). They'll be based on a planet from @ 0.8-2 Gs, as higher or lower G's will result in atmospheres, and temperatures incapable of supporting sentient life. Microbes at the bottom of a methane pool? Next.
They would be just like us, only looking different. However they would result in a dumbed down view of the universe, because it's ok to be racist against aliens.
There are many cultures on Earth today that have a hard to understand point of view, eg the differences between Western, Middle Eastern, and Eastern cultures.
Aliens bring nothing to the table. They're boring, it's like changing a game of Civilization to a Game of Doom. Whoopee, it's a tentacled monster, kill it, or do you make a deal with one civilization in order to get supplies, while paying another civilization to attack it in order to weaken them both for your eventual war of conquest?
Although this is a rather human-centric view of the universe (there's no guarantee that aliens would develop a tool-using culture like ours, or civilization like our own), I do agree with the core concept of 'aliens don't add anything new, at least with regards to BattleTech. If they're low-tech, then there's no real competition with mechs in terms of gameplay unless they're extremely large or tough. If they're high-tech, then there's no guarantee that humans would be able to fight them if they're extremely advanced... or conversely, they're just like the low-tech aliens who humans would just stomp over. Or if they don't have a technology type we'd recognize, then we might not even recognize we're in combat with them and it'd be more a game where a rancher's trying to chase off a flock of wolves which are actually sentient aliens who don't use any type of technology or social organization we'd recognize... and then it's less about war and more about pest control.
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Aliens are simple used as different factions in other Sci-Fi universes, the BTU and other non-aliens game universes don’t need aliens. Adding aliens would not only be pointless but would wreck the whole point of setting up a game based on human conflict.
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Although this is a rather human-centric view of the universe (there's no guarantee that aliens would develop a tool-using culture like ours, or civilization like our own)....
I could be wrong, but I think verybad was being sarcastic.
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One of the things that I love about the Race is that they have more advanced technology than say 1940s humans. However, they advance slower than humans at things, so they had a head start but any tech gap is quickly within a hundred years reached and surpassed. By the time, that series ends humanity had developed faster than light tech while the Race was still slow boating it.
Harry turtledove used to teach history at UCLA and a lot of his stuff makes use of some pretty strong trends in history-- the Race gets a lot from the Imperial Chinese, right up to the fact that they have to create a new protocol for dealing with what had, up uhntil that point, been an impossibility-- other *legitimate* governments.
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Just out of curiosity, how many sentient extraterrestrial species have you encountered? Because if you're basing your assumptions on observations made on a single planet that all life evolved on simultaneously, your assumptions are valid only for that planet and life on it. Just because there aren't talking cephelopods walking down the street on tentecales and breathing methane gases in your average small town doesn't mean it's impossible, just that it hasn't yet been observed.
Life's evolution hasn't happened simultaneously, it's happened in many places at different times and certain forms and responces to different challenges. The successful forms have happened over and over again. There are certain things that stay the same no matter where you go, and chemistry and physics are two of them
Tentacles aren't a good system for walking because they would have to maintain a harder structure to walk in an atmosphere, than a liquid. Maintaining muscle pressure at all times would take more energy, and the creature would die out long before it became sentient. Tentacles are used by octopuses and squids as grasping organs, NOT as their primary form of movement. Additionally, they use it underwater, where their mass is countered by the mass of the water.
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2010/06/why-is-the-hydrogen-exiting-titans-atmosphere.ars
A predominantly Methane gas atmosphere will require a very low content of oxygen, as oxygen and hydrogen like each other more. To generate energy, the life form would "burn"molecular Hydrogen (H2) with Carbon resulting in CH4. The base methane would need to be liquid, as a gas methane would lose the Hydrogen, it would float to the top of the atmosphere, and then away, this would happen in a few million years unless you have a very large planet, with a high G.
Planets with large gravity's can keep Hydrogen as a gas, but otherwise you have to keep it as a very, very cold liquid. Or as part of another (ie Something like water)
Liquid Methane on a planet able to gather energy from solar energy has to be about -200 degrees Celsius. It also means that there is very, very little energy getting down from the solar energy. Any life form like this will move extremely slowly if at all, and would probably be something like a black scum on the top of the methane pools. It might eat itself (ie be cannibalistic). Even if it were somehow capable of becoming sentient and capable of traveling FTL, it would blow up if it were to step into an earth like atmosphere. It would be like stepping into Venus for us. It would have no use for our planets, and we would have none for theirs. No reason for warfare. No reason for having it in the game, and ridiculously unlikely.
I'm more than willing to discuss your ideas on other potential forms of life if you wish to post them however.
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Even if it were somehow capable of becoming sentient and capable of traveling FTL, it would blow up if it were to step into an earth like atmosphere. It would be like stepping into Venus for us. It would have no use for our planets, and we would have none for theirs.
But in the Battletech universe humans did live on Venus for centuries. :) While Iwould agree that you are probably right and that I cannot see how a lifeform too disimilar to ours could evolve sentience we are arguing from the basis of having seen life from only 1 planet until life was discovered near them no scientist would have believed that life could exist near underwater hydrothermal rifts. Until we actually reach other planets where life has evolved we cannot say for certain that life can only evolve along a pattern similar to ours.
As to conflict between us. Picture a race that evolves on a planet similar to the 1 you describe. They develop space travel and discover 2 earth like worlds in their solar system. They regard the conditions as hellish but as their race takes a few mellenia to develop a K-F drive after entering space they develop techniques to allow them to live and and work on this hellish world so they can mine it and exploit its resources, perhaps using huge powered enviromentally sealed exoskeletons. By the time they do come in contact with BT humans resources more redily available on earth type planets than on those like their homeworld may have become vital to their civilisation readily setting them up for conflict with humans. I'm not saying I think that even if such a lifeform existed and developed spacefaring trechnology conflict between our species would be inevitable even then but if a writer wanted to have it happen it could be written in.
However I'm firmly in the Battletech is better without aliens camp. After all how would they reach the Inner Sphere past the Wolverines.
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Why are there no aliens? I mean I get the reasons for there being no aliens and all in the game, but why are there no aliens in the universe? What happened to them, given that the universe is big enough for them to exist.
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Why are there no aliens? I mean I get the reasons for there being no aliens and all in the game, but why are there no aliens in the universe? What happened to them, given that the universe is big enough for them to exist.
We don't know. If they exist -- and given the variety of alien animal and plant life that's hanging out in the BT universe already, I'd agree that they probably do --, then it's simply that no human has actually seen them yet...or made it back with a reliable eyewitness account, at least. (Ardan Sortek may or may not have stumbled across stone-age level natives on Stein's Folly in The Sword and the Dagger, but he was delirious at the time and I don't believe that they were ever actually found. And as far as Far Country goes, well, a planet that has so far only been reached twice through catastrophic misjumps that wrecked the ships involved beyond repair might as well be in an alternate universe altogether.)
Personally, on some days I like the idea that they discovered humanity first, thankfully without being spotted in return, and promptly decided to put this bunch of hopelessly rabid apes under quarantine until they either evolved into something remotely civilized or died out, whichever came first. ;) It's a big galaxy, after all; there's probably nothing they'd really urgently need in the area of space where the human monsters are currently running amok that they can't just as easily get somewhere else...
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There could be and probably are advanced aliens in the universe. The Inner Sphere only encompasses a small chunk of a single galaxy. The point is humans will probably never interact with anything above stone age tech. Doesn't mean non-sentient. The dude who invented the bow and arrow 10,000 years ago wasn't any less intelligent than you or me.
If you are asking why we seem to have a dearth of alien species on earthlike planets that had developed their own higher life (some up to mammals)... the answer is that humans don't seem to give a crap about the local ecosystems and just dump a bunch of Terran life on it. Those native things that survive in the face of Terran competition or are somehow useful to the humans are all that winds up being left.
Conservation isn't in much of the people's vocabulary.
Also need to post this image for posterity.
(http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a394/Sangdraxshadow/1301193963999.png)
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Why are there no aliens? I mean I get the reasons for there being no aliens and all in the game, but why are there no aliens in the universe? What happened to them, given that the universe is big enough for them to exist.
There are plenty of aliens, just no sentient ones with a technological society in range of the Inner Sphere
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Even if it were somehow capable of becoming sentient and capable of traveling FTL, it would blow up if it were to step into an earth like atmosphere. It would be like stepping into Venus for us. It would have no use for our planets, and we would have none for theirs. No reason for warfare. No reason for having it in the game, and ridiculously unlikely.
First, no Aliens in BTU for me. And now to the point.
There is one thing you could consider. Aliens developed in completely different environment (For example Jupiter, Saturn,... ; forty years ago there was an opinion that there could be firm ground you can land with your rocket, albeit under gigantic atmospheric pressure and titanic storms) and capable of faster-than-light travel could invade other planets to terraform (if I may use this term) them. Exactly as mankind in BTU terraformed Mars, Venus, Bryant or other planets. Aliens could invade to planet colonized by humans and trigger some environmental processes to change the planet to better suit alien needs. And voila - conflict with humans under way.
You may read very nice science-fiction book about it (different title in the USA):
Wyndham, John. The Kraken Wakes (London: Michael Joseph, 1953)
Wyndham, John. Out of the Deeps (New York: Ballantine, 1953)
This book describes this type of conflict between mankind and Aliens (from some gas giant in the Sol system). It is very dramatic and worth reading.
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If they exist -- and given the variety of alien animal and plant life that's hanging out in the BT universe already, I'd agree that they probably do
Given how many planets possess indigenous life in the Inner Sphere alone, I'd say that the old Star League had an extraordinarily solid, extraordinarily optimistic set of data to work from. I wouldn't want the writers to introduce aliens as a notable faction, though; my first thought would be "oh, the creative well must have run dry," which is not a thought that leads to me buying more things.
One genuinely "alien" feature that wasn't mentioned in the two prior threads, which could be done with a visibly human population, is to have that population speciated just enough that they can't breed with mainstream humanity.
Moving on, thinking about an alternate universe where godlike aliens think humans are lowering the local property values, I understand that one of the Interstellar Players books contains something about hyperspace squids. Does that rumor give enough detail to build an Orkin Squid vs. Human Vermin campaign?
I have seen similar-themed game in my local game shop. It is called "Dust Tactics". From I have seen around the net it seems this game is pretty popular. And it seems it includes everything you mentioned. :)
Are the zombies IN flying saucers?
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Does that rumor give enough detail to build an Orkin Squid vs. Human Vermin campaign?
Hardly. Not classical campaign, even though I can imagine a non-classical one.
Are the zombies IN flying saucers?
It doesn't seem se to me. But I don't know much about that game. Just seen the miniatures and read the description:
“Add the speed and power of the Axis Zombies to your Dust Tactics forces! These nightmarish creatures are one of the most powerful units of the Axis. Allied units are advised to use all available resources against these living corpses as they can destroy both squads of soldiers and powerful walkers in close combat. Despite their simple minds, the Blutkreuz Korps needs these undead soldiers to focus on only one objective, annihilating the enemy. Allied commanders will need to adapt quickly to these new enemies as they are fast, mindlessly fearless, and sometimes appear impervious to gunfire.â€
Rule #1 - "They hunger!"
Rule #2 - "They just keep on coming!"
Rule #3 - "I've been bit!"
Have you seen rules like this in Tactical Operations? ;D
But back to Extra-Terrestrials...
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Why are there no aliens? I mean I get the reasons for there being no aliens and all in the game, but why are there no aliens in the universe? What happened to them, given that the universe is big enough for them to exist.
I will rephrase your question to "Why are there no intelligent aliens?", as that is the question that I believe you are asking.
We think intelligent creatures are a big deal, because that is what we are, but humans very nearly went extinct before we got out of Africa, and it was only technology that catapulted us to the point where we could destroy the biosphere. Absent our technology, there are plenty of things more successful than we are. If there was an election and each species got one vote for every hundred tons of biomass amongst its members, the winner would be some kind of insect, probably a beetle, with no vertibrates in the top ten. The fossil records show that cockroaches have survived several mass extinctions in their 350 million year history. We view intelligence as an adaptive advantage because it seems to be all that we have, but the vast majority of living things seem to get by without the faintest shred of intellect. If life on Earth is an example of life in space, the vast majority of aliens will be practically brainless things about an inch long, except for niches that encourage something larger.
As for what an intelligent alien will look like, the only thing we can say with any certainty is that every creature, on earth, that does not cluster its sense organs together also does not have a brain, so any intelligent alien will have a head which will house its primary senses.
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But in the Battletech universe humans did live on Venus for centuries. :)
No, they lived on a terriformed version of Venus.
While Iwould agree that you are probably right and that I cannot see how a lifeform too disimilar to ours could evolve sentience we are arguing from the basis of having seen life from only 1 planet until life was discovered near them no scientist would have believed that life could exist near underwater hydrothermal rifts. Until we actually reach other planets where life has evolved we cannot say for certain that life can only evolve along a pattern similar to ours.
Sentience requires the capability to form a virtual world within your mind that simulates multiple outcomes to an action. (Imagination) This results in empathy and language. Tool use is probably necessary as a part of development of sentience (look at Chimpanzees for an example, they're almost there)
As to conflict between us. Picture a race that evolves on a planet similar to the 1 you describe. They develop space travel and discover 2 earth like worlds in their solar system.
A liquid methane world. Oxygen is highly lacking (ie not a common part of the atmoshphere/ocean) You need high temperature fire to melt metal. You need much higher temperatures that can be generated through prestone age cultures. No way to get there. Everything on the planet moves at a slowed down pace because of the lack of available energy. Rather than fast moving animals, a mold that covers another species of mold is the highest form of predatory actions...it might take a year to eat an inch of another mold...
They regard the conditions as hellish but as their race takes a few mellenia to develop a K-F drive after entering space they develop techniques to allow them to live and and work on this hellish world so they can mine it and exploit its resources, perhaps using huge powered enviromentally sealed exoskeletons. By the time they do come in contact with BT humans resources more redily available on earth type planets than on those like their homeworld may have become vital to their civilisation readily setting them up for conflict with humans. I'm not saying I think that even if such a lifeform existed and developed spacefaring trechnology conflict between our species would be inevitable even then but if a writer wanted to have it happen it could be written in.
However I'm firmly in the Battletech is better without aliens camp. After all how would they reach the Inner Sphere past the Wolverines.
I am more than willing to accept when and or if I am wrong, however I'll use as much science as I can glean to support my arguemnt.
Sentient aliens? I am pretty sure they're out there in real life, and I bet they're similiar to us in overall scope.
Adding them to Battletech doesn't imrove the game, and I think would reduce it's depth. Suddently a game with many scopes is polarized if aliens are "evil powerful aliens that want to kill us all. If they act like people, are playable, and have different tech but are balanced for the game, then you're just making elves or orks that are playable for the game, and it's dumbed down.
While the main scope of the board game is the mechs, the main scope of the fluff behind the game is of empires clashing. You've got two options for aliens. Powerful antagonists (eg super clan robot death borg sith warriors)that players can't use in a game because they'll pwn everyone in the first turn.
Or different looking humans with either sexy mysterious elf women or manly ork men (who may eat with sporks, and have ridges on their faces, but are brutally handsome in a completely honorable way (ie Klingons).
Mining eathlike planets doesn't make much sense for a Methane based life form. For biology it's gonna use Methane based planets, and for minerals, once you've got space travel, it's cheaper to mine asteroids. Additionally, space travel on a methane based planet would be an order of magnitude harder to develop because of the lack of oxygen, you'd have to mine it, and it would be like uranium here. Also release of oxygen in the atmosphere would probably be like releasing toxic gas is to us. I just don't see it happening.
It's a big universe, all thigns are possible, the likelihood of methane based life forms being highly evolved are extremely low however, it's much more difficult than on a planet like ours. I DO think methane based life has evolved, probably even here on Titan (or here on earth in isolated ares). Just nothing higher than microbes or molds.
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No, they lived on a terriformed version of Venus.
And the hypothetical alien race could plan to transform an earth like world to a form suitable for their needs. If our world is as hostile to them as venus is to us and the star league terraformed venus an alien race should be capable of a similar feat with a similar technological base.
I'm not saying your wrong that another sentient species we encounter is likely to be broadly similar to ourselves. From all of our experience it is. But that experience is based solely on ourselves and the world we have evolved on.
One of my favourite SF scenes is the opening chapter of the Genesis Quest by Donald Moffitt. In it an alien race's SETI programme picks up a signal from Earth. The first thing they identify within the transmission is the first ten prime numbers. From this they deduce that we must have ten limbs just like them. For them an efficent body plan presupposes radial symmetry and a diffuse neural network with most of the brain at the centre of the body where its well protected and can send impulses to all the extremities with minimum delay and whatever evolutionary path life takes to arrive at sentience it will in a form similar to their own because thats the only intelligent life they've ever met.
Mining eathlike planets doesn't make much sense for a Methane based life form. For biology it's gonna use Methane based planets, and for minerals, once you've got space travel, it's cheaper to mine asteroids. Additionally, space travel on a methane based planet would be an order of magnitude harder to develop because of the lack of oxygen, you'd have to mine it, and it would be like uranium here. Also release of oxygen in the atmosphere would probably be like releasing toxic gas is to us. I just don't see it happening.
My point regarding the hypothetical race evolving on a very different world and after they develop interplanetary travel discovering an extremely inhospitable (to them) earth-like world which they learn to exploit and become dependant on as they do not develop the K-F drive for a mellennium was meant to illustrate one possible way in which a writer could develop a basis for conflict between ourselves and a very different race.
As regards asteroid mining being cheaper yes it probably is. But AFAIK we have as yet discovered only 1 asteroid belt outside our solar system compared with over 500 candidate for planets. Now while that is likely to be because asteroids are harder to detect and a lower priority for detection as its a far less glamourous discovery than a planet this does mean that we really have no way of knowing how common asteroid belts actually are.
Like I said earlier I would agree with you that sentient alien life is likely to be similar to us, but I can see how the writers could also use a very different lifeform. Either way, broady similar or very different I would hope that they don't as I feel that the BT setting is stronger without sentient aliens.
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you guys are thinking waaaaayyyy to hard about this topic... ;D
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Didn't think that this would get to 8 pages did you? ;)
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Didn't think that this would get to 8 pages did you? ;)
No..I'm totally surprised... [rockon]
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you guys are thinking waaaaayyyy to hard about this topic... ;D
That's where I get my enjoyment in these kinds of discussions. Thinking about the trials and triumphs of life in different locations are entertaining.