Cannonshop I understand that, but what I meant was not the over the top of Liz, but more how 1 planet could build up their own defense lines and "not" be super tech to do it, or do an Iran and build your own defense force infrastructure, and build close copy of other hardware with some new twist. More like a Real military, and yes I know not much room for them. But I don't recall Kowloon, having a large Mech Force.
I love your force designs, but I will admit I am Steiner loyalist.. and if truth be told I would be Heimdall often acts as self-appointed guardians of the Lyran people.
a lot of the problem has to do with the nature of BT militaries vs. so-called 'realistic' ones, for instance with Kowloon, I made the decision early on to cut the variety of specific designs filling the same role. It was a basic mechanical engineering thing-50mm guns don't fire 20mm shells very well, or 100mm shells at all. (the sheer quantity of bore-sizes, not even limited by manufacturer or model, in the TRO's for something as simple as AC-10 weapons...) I was applying real-world economics to a setting that was and is decidedly heroic fantasy, and basing my decision tree on real-world history. (The German Army in 1940 had literally dozens of different, non-compatible, 'Standard' 8mm rifle rounds in their inventory-same bore size (Roughly) but it meant that there was a real possibility that your infantry company equipped with Mausers would find their next ammo shipment was ammunition for Steyr-Mannlichers. The 8x57 Mauser cartridge is rimless and the shell has a different diameter from the 8x56R cartridge used by Austria, Hungary, Romania...and there were two versions of the Mauser cartridge-the 7.92x57mmS, and the J-their bullets were different diameters, one was pointed, the other a rounded off cylinder...) Simplifying to a standard ammunition means needing fewer warehouses and getting more per tonne from the same factory.
The problem is, Canon relies
heavily on 'Variety'. In a given CANON formation of 36 'mechs, (a battalion) the tables can and do give up to 37 or more different types of what is basically the same job.
Logistically, this is termed a ******" (Gee, I hope the filter catches that one). such situations are crushingly expensive in the real-world, because time=money, and every pound of cargo (every kilo) is expensive-you can only abstract so far before it becomes ridiculous. (the aforementioned AC/5 or 10 with twenty some odd different
canon calibers...)
but it doesn't fit with the Aesthetic of uniqueness, nor does it work with the random-unit-generation mechanics that are a major part of the game's campaign structure, and by extension, storyline.
That's game mechanics.
There's another reason the stuff I wrote can't ever be incorporated into Battletech-the politics doesn't work in-game.
For the armies at their canon sizes to work, with the level of heroics they operate at, people like Liz and her folks simply can not afford to exist in the Canon universe. A battlemech Battalion has a combatant number about equal to an Infantry
platoon. add in techs and it gets to almost-but-not-quite infantry company sized.
Battalions are capable of taking
planets in the BTU.
Clan Clusters have teh same personnel shortage. The only way this works, is politics and population sentiment. A good parallel would be if the U.S. conquered Iraq in 2002 using only a single regiment with an attached wing of fighters, and were able to secure and occupy the country with that tiny force,rather than the multiple divisions it ACTUALLY took.
Politically in canon, then, the general populace of the Inner Sphere (and Clan Homeworlds, and everythign in between) is almost obsessively apathetic and submissive to a point that would be unrealistic even in the most oppressive real-world nations.
Kowloon, as written, isn't.
This poses a serious problem with the Canon, if they were, as written by me, brought into the Canon. The problem being that it highlights a 'gap' that's been part of the setting for decades in real-time, it throws a monkeywrench in the whole thing, a sort of de-balancer that would require the powers that be to concoct or expand on potential equivalents in EVERY one of the Great Houses, and come up with some similarity minority among each of the SUCCESSFUL Clans.
which tosses the aesthetic of the lone 'mechwarrior hero right on it's ear. That esthetic is vitally important to the popularity and longevity of the game itself-Battletech may be written by westerners, it may be a game developed in America and Western Europe, but the core of it is the Japanese anime 'Mecha' shows-and I mean all the way back to Robot Boy, through Gundam 0079, Macross, etc. etc.
and it's a key part of the setting. What
I wrote, meshes...poorly with that, moreso if it gets the level of attention necessary to fit into the broader story without disrupting it. in the fan-fics, I've tried (at least, in the later cycles of them) to make the adjustments to fit, to lampshade the logical inconsistencies, and to incorporate explanations of WHY the rest of the galaxy is the way it is, while Kowloon (and later Arluna) are the way THEY are within it.
but incorporation into the broader Canon would be rather more difficult, esp. if you want to preserve the elements that have kept the franchise successful for as long as it has been successful. (and believe me, we have players that weren't even born when the Clan Invasion was new, we have members of the writing and development team who are YOUNGER than the game. It's successful beyond all normal predictions and all common sense projections.)
The final nail for me, is a matter of 'where and how does this work'. Liz wouldn't make a ripple in the Free Worlds League, she wouldn't survive long enough to be interesting in the Draconis Combine, she'd be in a re-education center by the age of 10 in teh CapCon. In Davion space she'd get too big, too fast-she'd literally eclipse the most important domestic elements there just on how she does her business. The only way the Kowloon stories end up working and being interesting, is if she's Lyran, and they're Lyrans, or in the Lyran Commonwealth, because only there, can you have the necessary in-built conflicts while still allowing them to 'do their thing' without overturning the whole dinner table.
The national character of the Lyrans works, because there, the 'loonies are at a contrast that is visible, without being overwhelming. The Lyrans make the right mistakes, mistakes the Davions don't, and the others wouldn't, they have just enough of the kind of economic focus that her approach is feasible without being over-the-top.
see, Liz in the Free Worlds would be just another separatist. In Davion space, she'd be another impoverished broken-wheel baron, in the CapCon she'd be either an integral part of, or a declared enemy of, the State, in the Combine, she'd be executed.
