I always liked this part. Alexander the Great and this Successors lead from the Front.
You like what you like. And there probably was no other way for Alex to do what he did. But Alex also needlessly exposed himself to foreign diseases and an early death that left his short-lived empire with no clear successor and a subsequent breakup. I’m not sure Alex is a good model for how to lead a stable Successor State or Star League.
Given the relative survivability of Mechs
No doubt, mechs are more survivable than vehicles. But every shot at a mech still carries a 3% chance of striking the head. And then there’s the falls and ammo explosions and overheating, any of which will leave the mechwarrior mentally and/or physically incapacitated. Not where you want your head of state or military if you want domestic stability or continuity of command.
And even if mechs perfectly protected their mechwarriors, mechwarriors can’t spend every hour in the cockpit. I don’t want to get a Rule #4 warning, but you only have to read about how a dozen generals from a certain big Eastern European country have been eliminated in recent weeks by a certain smaller Eastern European country to see the folly in having military leadership forced to lead from the front in something resembling modern warfare.
having a successor lords right to rule stemming from their success as both a war leader and personal combat with a Mech, provides the ideological under pinning of how the post-Star League space Feudalism functions.
It also fits with the lag in control they would experience. You cannot effectively run a war from the capital in real time, you kinda have to be there.
But it actually hasn’t functioned that way. Wars were run from capitals. Look at the 4th Succession War. Hanse, Maximillian, Takashi and the rest all stayed home and ran that war from their capitals. They only mounted a mech or were in physical danger if there was action at their capital. Other exciting characters, like Justin Allard, were the ones regularly in harm’s way. We saw both the political scheming behind the scenes and the military action out in the open without unrealistically fusing the two in the same characters.
Same was true of the Clan invasion. Focht ran Tukayyid from a bunker, not a mech cockpit. Even Ulric, a Clan Khan/ilKhan, ran Operation Revival from his warship. Ulric didn’t really take the field until years later, when he felt like he had no choice but to lead a suicidal spearhead to grind his Crusaders and the Falcons to dust in the War of Refusal. Other exciting characters, like Natasha and Phelan and Ranna, were the ones regularly in harm’s way. Again, we saw both the political scheming behind the scenes and the military action out in the open without unrealistically fusing the two in the same characters.
That dichotomy changed with Victor, and the BT storyline became more about watching Victor fight here, there and everywhere during the FC breakup. And then during the Jihad the storyline switched to watching Stone fight here, there, and everywhere. And then in the ilClan Era (or at least the run-up to it), the storyline has been watching Alaric fight here, there, and everywhere. The only pure political schemers tend to be obviously evil (Katherine, the Master), vice the layers of gray that characters like Hanse, Ulric, and Focht brought to the table.
By fusing political/military leadership in the same characters that do the frontline fighting starting around the FedCom Civil War, I think BT lost not only a certain suspension of reality of but also a lot of its depth. I’m simplifying and I’m sure there are exceptions, but ever since then, BT characters, novels, and storylines have felt more like Marvel superhero movies fighting here and there than carefully laid Game of Thrones-type plots and plans unfolding against a gritty, grey, hard-boiled space opera. IMO, it would be nice to get back to the old dichotomy between political/military leadership/scheming from the rear and military action on the front. I think it would add realism and depth back to the setting and characters.
My 2 C-bills... FWIW.
