BattleTech FanFiction Tribble Emporium 2.0: expanded premises!

[Lone-Wolf]

I looked but I found nothing, so if it was already mentioned, I apoligize

Tribble #720

When Jaime Wolf tells the assembled leaders on Outreach about the Dragoons origins, the Clans and everything else, Hanse goes off the rails.

He jumps up and then in a very angry voice tells Jaime about Feudal Obligations and what they mean.
He tells him that the second he accepted Outreach he was bound to tell him about the Clans, the tech etc.
He tells him that he was bound by feudal obligations to turn over any knowledge and tech.
And if he had done so, the AFFC would now be entirely composed of SL-tech units with elite units equipped with Clan-tech.
He tells him that therefore a lot of casualties are his faults and he demands by feudal law that Jaime immediatly does his duty and turns over everything.

[drakensis]

That's a risky thing for Hanse to do while he's surrounded by Dragoons.

Not necessarily suicidal, not necessarily wrong. But risky.

Also Hanse wrote some very poorly worded treaties at the end of the 4SW, otherwise the entire Northwind Highlanders mess wouldn't have happened.

[SulliMike23]

I'm surprised nobody's commented on my little tribble. Oh well.

[Drak4806]

That's a risky thing for Hanse to do while he's surrounded by Dragoons.

Not necessarily suicidal, not necessarily wrong. But risky.

Also Hanse wrote some very poorly worded treaties at the end of the 4SW, otherwise the entire Northwind Highlanders mess wouldn't have happened.

The FedCom was suspicious about why the dragoons wanted Outreach in the first and hired Snord to survey the planet and he lied to his employers that the Star League manufacturing facilities that the Dragoons used later didn't exist. So that's just one more example of how the Dragoons have been lying as they breathe for the past several decades. The Dragoons can try something as a result on getting called out but there's also the fact that Thomas Marik, Romano, Theodore, and all the others are all right there in the potential crossfire at a supposedly neutral conference so if the Dragoons want to make an enemy of the entire Inner Sphere they absolutely can.

And its been a while since i read the book but did the House leaders come without any body guards? Plus Outreach is home to mercenaries who just need to be told that the Dragoons are spies for the forces currently invading the IS and they've just taken hostages

[Starfox5]

I'm surprised nobody's commented on my little tribble. Oh well.

Sorry, never watched the crossover series.

[Ramblefire]

Tribble 721

What if Operation Holy Shroud didn't target advanced technology, but instead targeted and neutered all the process safety management organizations in the inner sphere and eliminated any and all attempts to establish a work safety culture in the inner sphere.


So there's advanced technology, but not much of it, both of of the usual wear and tear and also because a factory producing large laser components exploded on Atreus, releasing a cloud of toxic fumes which sickened and killed 300 thousand people. Or a factory producing AC ammunition precursors on tharkad leaked for four decades before the source of the massively increased infant mortality, developmental disabilities, elevated cancer rates and long term chronic illness was identified. 

[Daryk]

Heh.. talk about the LONG game!  ::)

[Tegyrius]

And subtle.  Let the families of the victims do the work for you.  After a few generations of constant industrial accidents, anyone promoting industrialization or high technology will be a pariah.

[Takiro]

Tribble #722 - The South American Proxy - An Alternate Tukayyid

Just as Focht had feared, ilKhan Leo Showers would not accept his proposed location for the Trial for Terra. The scarred leader of the Clans had pushed his fearsome warriors ever onward torward victory with a sense of urgency that only seemed to increase since his near death experience at Radstadt. Nearly all of the InnerSphere's futile efforts to stem the tide against the seven Invading Clans ended in failure. Rare reversals such as Wolcott, Twycross, Somerset, Camelot Command, and Luthien had been the exception to the rule. Only the technologically superior ComGuard stood a chance of halting their inexorable advance onn the Cradle of Humanity. Thankfully both the Primus and the ilKhan had agreed to this bargaining which would hopefully impose a fifteen year truce and give the Great Houses a chance to modernize their forces. For this oppurtunity ComStar would have to pay a steep price which if defeated could cost them everything. Losing would see the Order absorbed wholesale into the Clans and Terra fall under their dark aegis. An ilClan would be proclaimed according to the Crusader's ideology and it would only be a matter of time till the InnerSphere was subjugated. While Anastasius was heartened by the honorable response his offer had drawn the rejection of his initial combat zone of Tukayyid was disappointing. Showers had even turned down another proposal by the Precentor Martial to fight this titanic clash on the Lyran world of Chaffee. He had served there before and was familar with that planet's terrain which would have been advantageous but the ilKhan would not be dissuaded. Terra was the ultimate goal and if the Clans were to halt their advance for this gigantic proxy battle then the combat must indeed occur there. Thankfully the Clans accepted my final alternative for the proposed Trial on the continent of South America. The recall order has already gone out to the ComGuard around the InnerSphere and it will be good to have the homefield advantage but beating the Clans will not be easy. Blake help us all

Questions
1. Most important what exactly are the seven Invading Clans objectives in South America that will determine victory or defeat? The seven biggest cities, certain industrial sites, symbolic points of interest, castle brians?? 
2. Operation Scorpion on Steriods. With the frontline forces of the Clans drawn to Terra will Primus Myndo Waterly be able to resist the oppurtunity to destroy them all by nefarious means? There could be a Tamo Bunker scenario ala Tukayyid where Focht is killed or incapacitated which even justifiably provokes this action. ROM could certainly initiate final strategic options like ComStar's fleet, SDS sites, and nuclear weapons from which the invaders would not escape. 
3. Clan victory. ComGuard tactics being judged dishonorable from the start by the ilKhan could provoke the Clans to disregard their own rules of combat and if that happens, well.....

Who or what emerges from this Crucible? Focht and a 15 year truce? Waterly and the annihilation of the Invaders? Or a new ilClan?

Discuss.....

[Daryk]

I suppose that's Tribble #722...

I think the only things that let the clans get as far as they ever did was Succession State restraint.  They don't have the numbers to survive anything close to a First Succession War level fight.  Nukes and other WMDs are bad and cause billions of casualties.  Ask any government under an existential threat with a population in the trillions how much that really matters.

[monbvol]

On that note:

Tribble #723

The invasion should have been simple.  The power of Clan Omnimechs at the hands of the elite warriors of the Clans should have been enough to sweep the field of battle of all foes.

Reality was a harsh mistress though.  Sending a lone Trinary against an entire Regimental Combat team revealed just how much the Clans had fallen for their own hubris and propaganda.

Premise:

Basically the early invasion writers just seemed to forget exactly what kind of forces the Clans were actually fighting and thus basically like the conventional support elements were not even there.

What if they were actually there though and actually allowed to perform like they would on table top?

How long would the Clans hold to their precious honor before they resorted to "I killz it with my Battleships!"?

[Daryk]

Heh, and how long after that until the Successor States are singing "Praise the Lord, and pass the Alamos!"  :D

[Cannonshop]

On that note:

Tribble #723

The invasion should have been simple.  The power of Clan Omnimechs at the hands of the elite warriors of the Clans should have been enough to sweep the field of battle of all foes.

Reality was a harsh mistress though.  Sending a lone Trinary against an entire Regimental Combat team revealed just how much the Clans had fallen for their own hubris and propaganda.

Premise:

Basically the early invasion writers just seemed to forget exactly what kind of forces the Clans were actually fighting and thus basically like the conventional support elements were not even there.

What if they were actually there though and actually allowed to perform like they would on table top?

How long would the Clans hold to their precious honor before they resorted to "I killz it with my Battleships!"?

given that hovering in the atmospheric interphase on raw engine power is the SECOND stupidest thing you can do with a warship (the stupidest being "I rams tehm foar grate Justis!!!") and only works if you've got enough cover to KEEP air superiority (warships are vulnerable to fighters)?

it really depends a LOT on which ruleset you're working with.  AT1 not so risky, AT2 kinda risky, Total Warfare's era of rules and you're begging to be relieved of your ships and stranded.

But that's also true of the original poster's idea- if you're using tonnage balance (compendium ROW, BMR, BMR(r) or TW) you get signficantly different outcomes on the ground.

I'm saying that as someone who got to a point where they were getting better than 50%-plus-one results using IS conventional forces against Clan players without 'mechs by playing their heads instead of just the board under BMR(r) without Maxtech supplements.

TW incorporated ALL the supplemental cheeze from Maxtech, along with implementing a change to how tanks and other vehicles take damage that would allow for strategies I literally couldn't make work under the previous rules because they were stupidly counterproductive.  (Park'nshoot was effectively giving up under BMR(r), and now it's THE go-to for how to use heavier tanks, including tanks that were just BV sinks that would lose you the fight before.)

so your results are strongly influenced by which era of game rules you're using, both on the ground and in space.  Invasion-era Clan forces were a lot more likely to win an encounter under the rules that existed when that early invasion was actually being published, than they are in today's version of the game rules.

[Daryk]

And that perfectly captures why I've always advocated for consistency in the rules.  Results mostly depend on initial conditions, and rules are precisely those.  I have yet to be convinced TPTB have thought that through at any stage, but hope they will someday.

[monbvol]

Last bit of derailment:

I'm largely with you two.  The fluff of the era is frankly terrible versus what would really happen if you put minis on the mapsheet and tried to game it out.

The only remotely plausible part is that ASF in the fluff were being presented as scarce enough in the Inner Sphere that both delivering enough nukes to actually get inside a Clan Warship and having enough cover against the ASFs of said Clan Warship made it an ultimately losing proposition for the Inner Sphere.

[SulliMike23]

I think for the capture of Terra, I think ALL of the Clans should have a stake in this. Each Clan is allowed to send down a cluster, at least, to capture cities like Rio, Buenos Aires, Lima, etc. But the ComGuards have the Amazon rain forest and the Andes mountains to their advantage. The very continent can be one giant deathtrap. The question is, how will the ComGuards use the elements to their advantage?

[Takiro]

I suppose that's Tribble #722...

My bad, I suppose that would be. I will adjust the original post.

I think for the capture of Terra, I think ALL of the Clans should have a stake in this. Each Clan is allowed to send down a cluster, at least, to capture cities like Rio, Buenos Aires, Lima, etc. But the ComGuards have the Amazon rain forest and the Andes mountains to their advantage. The very continent can be one giant deathtrap. The question is, how will the ComGuards use the elements to their advantage?

Good point about the exotic terrains that the ComGuards have to chose from SulliMike23.

If we go top cities for targets I guess you'd go with these 7(8?).
Buenos Aires and Montevideo (probably target number 1, would these cities be too far away from each other?)
Sao Paulo
Lima
Bogota
Rio de Janeiro
Santiago
Caracas

Three Castle Brians listed in Fall of Terra (pg 60)
Manaus [Amazonia District of Brazil]
Curitiba [Parana District of Brazil]
Tinogasta [Argentina]

I'll have to look for points of interest that would be beyond those two. Industrial sites, historical or culturally significant points...

I could definitely see Jungle ambush scenarios for the Amazon not to mention a river crossing or two, a mountain siege in the Andes, hell how about something in Patagonia?

What would your targets be?

[Sir Chaos]

Buenos Aires and Montevideo (probably target number 1, would these cities be too far away from each other?)

Way too far. At that point, the Rio de la Plata is so wide that there was a full-fledged running naval battle on it in WW2 (the sinking of the Graf Spee). I think it´s a three or four hour ferry ride between the two cities.

I´m also not sure how acceptable expecting them to fight in a multi-million-inhabitant metropolis (Buenos Aires has something like 14 million people even now, never mind what it´ll have in 3052...) will be to the Clans. Or to ComStar, for that matter.

Remember, Tukayyid was picked specifically because it had a small population that was easy to evacuate (Sarna says 3.7 million, i.e. a quarter of what Buenos Aires alone has today...) - and the Clans want Terra intact.

My guess would be that Focht, instead of designating evacuated cities as targets as on Tukayyid, would designate districts, provinces or whatever - perhaps with the additional stipulation that whoever enters or attacks an inhabited settlement in a district automatically forfeits the battle for their district.

[Takiro]

Thank you Sir Chaos, solid thoughts. Yes massive metroplexes would be though to fight over especially if they are occupied. I see in my admittedly quick research that Rio de Janeiro was fought over during the Jihad. The rest of South America has been relatively unscathed over the BattleTech timeline since at least the Terran Alliance.

The Castle Brians could serve as the three most sought after targets with other points of interest making up the next four.

[Atarlost]

#724: The Hells of Iron

It all started with a shopping complex.  Normally you'd put the parking in the basement, but there was an aquifer so the parking was above ground.  The bottom three floors were reinforced to take the weight of hundreds of civilian vehicles, but the upper floors didn't need to be.  They were just shops.  The parking section had open sides to let the exhaust gasses of internal combustion vehicles out but fairly thick waist high concrete walls to prevent vehicles from accidentally driving out. 

Then the Star League collapsed.  War came to the city where the shopping complex stood.  Field guns were towed in to the parking garage to fire out the sides and ammo trucks were brought in.  An Urbanmech stood on top.  A Phoenix Hawk jumped on top to engage it and crashed through the upper floors to stop at the highest parking level. 

Someone noticed.  Someone took the ide of building with reinforced lower floors and light upper floors to deliberately trap mechs to their relatively undeveloped homeworld with its mech poor militia.  Years later a city that had such strong points held when everyone expected it to fall.  It was then destroyed by orbital fire, but the attackers took the idea with them and it spread. 

Others added to the idea, though they never became as widespread as the reinforced parking garage with fragile shops above.  Second floor skyways that tanks could drive under but mechs could not walk under.  Buildings with heavily reinforced walls but deliberately fragile roofs and ceilings.  Phone networks adapted to be used as field telephones so that infantry hiding in buildings could spot for indirect LRM fire with no betraying radio signals.  The prevalence of steel girders and iron rebar in urban construction was always a problem for sensors in urban environments and these can be augmented by large outdoor heating elements and noise generators to create ghosts on IR and seismics.  These urban defenses became most developed along the Lyran Commonwealth-Draconis Combine border, a region the Eisenteufel by the Lyrans or Angband by the Dracs from the same fictional source that gave Luthien its name. 

Not even the most fanatically suicidal samurai would attempt to attack a major city in the Iron Hell and the more active components of the defenses tended to fall into disrepair everywhere but the Tamar salient, but even the passive architectural features were a nasty shock for the Clans and the more active components could be restored with time.  Many of the cities in the Eisenteufel were subjected to orbital bombardment, but the region stretched from the Star League era border to thirty lights inside the Lyran border and Jade Falcons had a finite supply of warships and the Wolves and Ghost Bears were reluctant to level cities. 

[Daryk]

Interesting idea, but if the idea is to have above ground basements, I'm not sure that would work...

[Sir Chaos]

Minor quibble: "Eisenteufel" means "iron devil", not "iron hell". That would be "Eisenhölle".

[Atarlost]

Interesting idea, but if the idea is to have above ground basements, I'm not sure that would work...

Above ground parking structures are typically three to five stories tall and are heavily built with open sides for ventilation.  They typically are stand alone structures. 

Underground parking is the same thing but in the basement and usually not as many levels because above ground structures tend to serve multiple buildings while underground parking only serves the one they're under. 

The idea for the initial building is to take an above ground parking structure and have the shops it serves in the upper floors.  This sacrifices the shops having street level frontage, but conserves expensive urban real estate if the local geology is not conducive to basements.  I suppose it might also be done to allow customers to stay out of the sun somewhere with no ozone layer. 

This coincidentally leads to a building that is two or three floors of heavily reinforced concrete that a mech can not casually crash through underneath a few floors of commercial building that do not need to be reinforced and so for budget's sake are not and will collapse under medium and heavy mechs. 

A city where most of the downtown buildings are of this form is a much less friendly environment for mechs heavier than the upper floors are built to support. 

The other concepts are generally less likely to appear naturally, though there is a hospital clinic downtown where I live that has two wings on opposite sides of a road with a second floor skyway connecting them. 

Cassels lied to me. 
Minor quibble: "Eisenteufel" means "iron devil", not "iron hell". That would be "Eisenhölle".

[Daryk]

I'm not quibbling with the architecture, just the game implementation.

[Daryk]

Tribble #725: More Taurian than Taurians

After the disastrous raiding campaign by Inner Sphere "mercenaries" from 2933-2937, the Lothian League requested nuclear weapons from the Taurian Concordat.  The request was conveyed by the heir apparent, but denied anyway.  In response, the Lothians requested and received permission to purchase two squadrons of aerospace fighters from Pinard Protectorates Limited, consisting entirely of Thunderbirds manufactured on Perdition.  Upon the heir's return in 2939, the Lothian government started a crash development program to manufacture nuclear warheads clandestinely.

By the time the Marian invasion was recognized for what it was in the mid-31st century (after the fall of Paulinus), Dame Lorelai Logan had authorized nuclear weapon release.  The second Marian attempt at a Lothian world was met by two Leopard CVs with 12 Thunderbirds carrying 24 Alamos.  No units participating in the attempt returned to the Hegemony.  Nor did any from the third attempt.  After the Caesar finally received an intelligence report of what had happened, further attempts were cancelled and the Marians started their own crash development program.  Unfortunately for the Marians, the clandestine Terran (ComStar/Word of Blake) presence on Alphard frustrated this effort, delaying any further attempts at conquest of the remaining Lothian worlds indefinitely.  Low-level raiding and intelligence gathering continued, but inconclusively.  All overtures by ComStar and the Word of Blake to install HPG service on Lothian worlds were refused, the Lothians more than content with the messaging provided by the few JumpShips plying the space lanes between their six remaining (and original; Paulinus was only occupied to prevent raids) worlds.

[Cannonshop]

we need more weirdness.

276:  Clannic!!!

In 3049, the Clan invasion began.  Operation: Revival.  In 3052, Comstar BEAT THE HELL out of the Clans at Tukayyid.   In 3055, with the truce terms holding, a sudden mass invasion of the Lyran periphery, followed by probes interrupted this truce.

It wouldn't be until 3057 that the cause of the Clans sudden abandonment of honor would be known, as something else came down the Exodus road after devouring the Kerensky Cluster, and mankind found itself facing a choice between old rivalries, new enemies, and annihilation by an enemy more ancient, and more powerful than anyone could believe.

The Ice Hellions really should've tried talking before firing on the Minbari...

[Vehrec]

Talking about B5 is so early '00s though man, it's the 20s.

277: In 3049, the Clan invasion begins in the Inner Sphere.  But at the same time, a portal in Terra opens to reveal that the universe has been connected to seven other universes, with vastly different mecha paradigms.  They range from what is apparently the 1970s to almost a million years in the future-and many are host to machines that can only be described as...super.  And their connection is no accident-a vast, pan-dimensional evil is acting to gather forces, both puppets and it's own terrible armies, to fight for the destiny of the multiverse.

SRW-Battletech crossover.  Let's have Char pilot the Zeong against the Dire Wolf, or Kai-Allard Liao face off against the bloodthirsty pilot of Black Shin Getter.  Go hog wild, throw it all out there, make it as anime as you like

[Daryk]

I think those last two are 726 and 727...  ::)

[drakensis]

#728

In 2786, Aleksandr Kerensky halted his Exodus fleet to colonise five more-or-less suitable worlds. A couple of years later, once everyone's unpacked and it's way too late to start travelling without disrupting everyone's lives again, it turns out that he stopped just a few jumps away from a region that has about as many garden worlds as the Inner Sphere (hundreds of them) and as many more-or-less suitable worlds (thousands).

Naturally, the settlers forgot all about their eagerness to stop anywhere after two years travel and decided this was Aleksandr Kerensky's fault. To which let's add the plague. And the quarrel between a largely Capellan and largely Draconian settlement that was 'de-escalated' by Aaron DeChevilier treating them both as if they were Taurians. And then Aleksander suffered a stroke. Possibly over one or the other of his sons' behaviour. Or both!

So then people were breaking out the SLDF hardware and shooting at each other, or seizing jumpships and rushing off to more habitable worlds with a lower population of... well, their former neighbours and comrades. As you do.

Move forwards two and a half centuries, to after the Federated Commonwealth won the Fourth Succession War. It seems pretty certain that House Steiner-Davion will dominate the Inner Sphere. Some people want to fight. Others feel that it is best to flee from the obvious oncoming juggernaut (or possibly from the new Capellan Chancellor, or from the Free World League's Civil War, or from Rasalhague's government that doesn't want to keep pro-Kurita populations around - but let's just blame the Steiner-Davions. Everyone else does.).

And conveniently, ComStar reports that after an extended search they have found Kerensky's Army. And the Inner Sphere-sized region of easily colonisable worlds that they're currently very thinly populating. One that's 'above' the Inner Sphere and thus more or less equidistant from everyone.

So now there's something new to fight over... and no shortage of people to fight with since lots of expeditions are crossing the gulf between the Inner Sphere and this new Sphere, to fight with each other and the existing inhabitants over these valuable worlds and their resources. Some of these expeditions even have official government backing from the nations whose banners they are carrying.

[Rodon]

#729
A bit of a crack-ish idea:

A show that is sweeping the sphere, from an unknown source, shows the Sphere as a shared delusion at a mental institution.  Flipping between reality and the shared mental delusion.

The Draconis Combine is just a person that is really into ancient Japanese culture before his beak down.  Lyran Commonwealth is a CEO that is obsessed with planning out non-existent factories.  Free Worlds League is a bureaucrat that thought he could talk to rats and is trying to lead them against the others.  Capellan Confederation is janitor that is convinced the rats are planning against him.  The Federated Suns is a family that rotates in and out, which consistently had Arthurian delusions.

Magistracy of Canopus is a former female doctor that has a big gambling habit.  Outworlds Alliance is a person how has a multiple personality issue, where they can all talk to each other.  Taurian Concordat is merely a out-patient with paranoia issues (hence why they don't show up often).  Comstar is shown as a obsessive planner that must control everything.

Military advances are frequently where the nurses move people around, smash-and-grab raids are stealing from the others plate/table, and normal raids are shown as the patients needling each other.

Needless to say, none of the sphere powers are happy with this and would really like to know who is doing this.  As each episode has some things they would all like to keep quit about.