'Shattered Fortress' release this summer - the timeline advances!

[Ruger]

Either a copy will think that they are the most qualified to lead or they have grown so independent that they see no need for joining up.

Ssssoooo...basically the Free Worlds League after the Jihad and up to around 3150, just everywhere?

 ;)

Ruger

[ColBosch]

Just freaking Balkanize the whole thing. ALL OF IT.

[Maingunnery]

Just freaking Balkanize the whole thing. ALL OF IT.

That would be very nice.

Heck, part of me wants to have the entire fortress area to misjump in 3250 (as a side effect) leaving just one giant void....

[Scotty]

Just freaking Balkanize the whole thing. ALL OF IT.

I, too, would like my faction(s) to receive even less screentime.

[SCC]

Either a copy will think that they are the most qualified to lead or they have grown so independent that they see no need for joining up.

Except that many would have seized (emergency) power when the sphere shattered and promised to return it when things returned to normal, something that has now happened, and many people will now expect that to happen. I'd also hold that there would also only be on true copy of a faction, centered on it's old capital. OK, you might have a second if the ruler or his heir (or both) where in different fractures.

[winters_night]

I've grown increasingly numb to caring about IlClan and any future of the game. I've been playing since summer of '86 or so and probably should have laid down when the Blood Spirits got smashed. Sorry guys, it just doesn't excite me anymore.

I feel you on that, I love Battltech but Catalyst as much as I love them has really done a fantastic job of shredding the factions I loved and taking away my interest. Smoke Jaguars, Steel Vipers, Ice Hellions, Nova Cats (the big one) and with the destruction of the Nova Cats my Combine liking has tanked. Just leads to a universe full of players I care not for.

Here's to hoping for some more material in prior timelines that talk of the fallen fsctions since their annihilations have been total

[Maingunnery]

Except that many would have seized (emergency) power when the sphere shattered and promised to return it when things returned to normal, something that has now happened, and many people will now expect that to happen. I'd also hold that there would also only be on true copy of a faction, centered on it's old capital. OK, you might have a second if the ruler or his heir (or both) where in different fractures.

Sure if only a few years have past, but a generation or more has past then everything (culture, military, industry) would have adjusted to the reduced environment. This is especially true if the people think that their leaders have done a good job.

[Scotty]

Catalyst didn't exist when the Smoke Jaguars died.  Seems odd to lump them in with that list.

[Kitsune413]

I think at some point someone decided that in order to be a playable game that would attract fans they needed less factions...

and I feel that. Whoever decided there should have been a million home clans was asking for trouble. It probably made sense when they were all one group, but when each one went on to become its own faction it makes sense to cut them down....

and I imagine that somewhere out there they've become a single faction entirely.

[SCC]

Sure if only a few years have past, but a generation or more has past then everything (culture, military, industry) would have adjusted to the reduced environment. This is especially true if the people think that their leaders have done a good job.

100 years max, so given BT's medical tech there might be people still alive who remember the old ways. There's also the fact that alot these governments probably sold themselves early on as interim or caretaker governments, them refusing to submit to the central government when contact is restored could cause problems.

[Maingunnery]

100 years max, so given BT's medical tech there might be people still alive who remember the old ways. There's also the fact that alot these governments probably sold themselves early on as interim or caretaker governments, them refusing to submit to the central government when contact is restored could cause problems.

Some people might remember the old ways, but they will be the vast minority, have little power, and might feel like their current situation is better.
The concept of an interim or caretaker government isn't going to last a single generation.

[SCC]

Some people might remember the old ways, but they will be the vast minority, have little power, and might feel like their current situation is better.
The concept of an interim or caretaker government isn't going to last a single generation.

True but the concept that they are a caretaker government could last for much longer, especially if whoever took power isn't popular and the person whose name they claim to be acting is.

[Karasu]

Not what I was envisioning. I was thinking that broke the Inner Sphere into chunks to size of a province, but the extent of these chunks doesn't respect existing borders, so, for example, you have one that included New Syrtis, but it wouldn't include all of the Taygeta Operational Area, however it might include chunks of the CC and TC. Now this effect covers the Inner Sphere, but not all of it, there are a few sections of it not covered and in reverse there are a few sections of the Periphery covered as well, probably most importantly the Clan Homeworlds.

And sometime before 3250 whatever was causing this effect stops, how does everyone react? Remember that there are now likely several copies of each IS faction, how do the various FS factions react to one another?

Do you remember the little story about the origin of the New Avalon Catholic Church?

[winters_night]

Catalyst didn't exist when the Smoke Jaguars died.  Seems odd to lump them in with that list.

Sorry I didn't mean to insinuate that catalyst took out the Jags as well just listing the fallen factions I liked.

I will say when it comes to the Jags they got it the best, that story was massive and while sad to see them go i think it was done well. The others tho? Ugh really bad write off

[winters_night]

I think at some point someone decided that in order to be a playable game that would attract fans they needed less factions...

and I feel that. Whoever decided there should have been a million home clans was asking for trouble. It probably made sense when they were all one group, but when each one went on to become its own faction it makes sense to cut them down....

and I imagine that somewhere out there they've become a single faction entirely.

I don't think in the history of gaming there's been an instance of someone saying "that game? No way it has to many factions"

It was done so catalyst doesn't have to come up with as much storyline with each update. I mean I get it, trying to think up what 20 clans have done every update book is a bit much.

I think they could of done it though like Fasa did prior, much more abbreviated for the non mainliners.

I also don't get with faction reduction being the goal why would you make new factions like stone lion? Was there a big clamoring for another split vs like.. keeping an existing clan with fans around?

[Daemion]

Edit: Forget the CPFB comment!

Now, actually, Broken Fortress might be more apt of a title, if you're going with the Wall analogy. Breached Wall? Breached Fortress?

Further Edit: Oooh!  Fallen Fortress!

[Daemion]

RE: Post Fortress travel shenanigans -

It would be interesting in a lot of ways if this happened. Maybe jump is limited to small hops less than 30 light years. If so, I could see some efforts put into colonizing the harsher environments in closer systems for resources, or inside garden systems, for that matter. A new class of Belter?

Something like this would help reinforce the worry and risk of core burnouts, and those odd after-effects could still come up later at random times.

As for balknization, if that was a goal, I would strongly recommend a few warring neighbors be chosen for spotlight, and only offer glimpse looks at what a typical Sub State might look like that's away from the spot light, and leave them nebulous for players to have fun with.

[Cubby]

It was done so catalyst doesn't have to come up with as much storyline with each update. I mean I get it, trying to think up what 20 clans have done every update book is a bit much.

This is baseless, and rather insulting to those of us who work on the products.

I also don't get with faction reduction being the goal

The goal...according to who?

[Kit deSummersville]

Just freaking Balkanize the whole thing. ALL OF IT.

It turns out that Balkanizing the Balkans is rather difficult.

[Mendrugo]

If the "Fortress Republic" tech works in the manner that it appeared was being foreshadowed the Historical: War of 3039 sidebar on Black Boxes, Tucker Harwell's analysis, and the accounts of what happened to ships that tried to breach the Fortress:  (Caveat - the new writing team certainly could have taken things in a completely new direction)

The source material established that hyperspace has a "high band" and a "low band."  Pure energy, like HPG transmissions, uses the high band.  Items with mass, like JumpShips, use the low band.  The Black Boxes "ripple" the fabric of the high band - modulating it so that a receiver calibrated to monitor hyperspace can pick up coded messages.  Scientists working on the early HPGs detected interference from Black Boxes (which were then cutting edge interstellar communication devices) and came up with adjustments to the HPG signal to compensate for the interference, which they recorded as chants.  Tucker Harwell identified the problem with the Wyatt HPG as being hyperspace interference, and successfully recalibrated it (using the ancient chants - which were developed to deal with such interference) to transmit, suggesting that CLARION CALL was a weaponized black box variant technology that was causing the Blackout by "rippling" high band hyperspace and thereby blocking most HPG transmissions.

If CLARION CALL is a weaponized black box tech that can "ripple" the high band, it follows that the FORTRESS REPUBLIC is something that can "ripple" the low band, causing physical matter passing through to be fatally disrupted and spat back out.  One of the Combine ships that failed to penetrate the Fortress looked like its physical substance had been realigned as though it were sand being pushed by a wave, with the bodies of the crew intermingled with the bulkheads.  Rippled, in other words.

So, if the high band can be penetrated by energy by adjusting the settings to compensate for the interference...it follows that the K-F drives could be similarly tweaked to allow them to pass through rippled areas of low band.  Or else, if you had one of the black boxes, you could transmit an inverse signal, cancelling out the FORTRESS signal in a localized area, and set your course through the calmed region.  (Which is one way that Republic strike teams could have been getting in and out of the FORTRESS)

So, if FORTRESS technology becomes commonplace in the post-ilClan era, all you'd need is a scanner to analyze the local hyperspace for rippling, then set your device to counteract it, and it's back to business as usual.  Not much different than the Listen-Kill Missile kerfuffle - a cutting edge weapon quickly neutralized as everyone installs countermeasures.

(Massive caveat - Cray's rulebook section on hyperspace flatly rules out "high band" and "low band" altogether, stating that ships simply "translate" from point A to point B without spending any time in hyperspace, which is not a place, but merely a mathematical construct.  The new writing team may have gone with this interpretation and had the Fortress Republic interdiction zone enforced by Giant Space Hamsters, for all I know.)

[Maingunnery]

A mathematical construct doesn't rule out high or low band.  ;)

[Sartris]

It turns out that Balkanizing the Balkans is rather difficult.

YOU get a five planet fiefdom! and YOU get a five planet fiefdom! EVERYONE gets a five planet fiefdom!

the hazard of a moving timeline is... change. from a personal perspective i'm not overly concerned if the fwl gets busted up again. i'll find a new fictional flag to rally around in future eras.

[Empyrus]

If hyperdrives can be tuned to different bands, that could open up a lot of new hyperspace tech. HPGs range is higher than jump range. Therefore, perhaps high-hyperdrive could have higher range as well. What about super-jumps via different band? Normal super-jumps are incredibly risky. (There's also question of how do super-HPGs work, considering they have incredible range.)
Or, consider. Currently there are high and low bands. What about something in-between? Or even higher or lower? Do energy requirements depend on the band, or whether energy or material is being sent through?
And, what if others copy the Fortress technology? Individual systems could be shielded, or perhaps just simple points like nadir and zenith, forcing enemy to jump further away and thus give defenders more time.

Note that his does not contradict the idea of "mere translation". It can still be that, just done in a bit different manner. Remember that jumps take some 15 minutes real time, so they aren't instantaneous anyhow, despite being described as "translation".

[Kidd]

YOU get a five planet fiefdom! and YOU get a five planet fiefdom! EVERYONE gets a five planet fiefdom!

the hazard of a moving timeline is... change. from a personal perspective i'm not overly concerned if the fwl gets busted up again. i'll find a new fictional flag to rally around in future eras.

Not everyone is as flexible.

I mean look, within the span of a few posts on the same page here we find people asking for balkanisation (more factions); people asking for their old factions to be retained; and an admission that less factions is logical from a writing standpoint.

And balkanization IS the status quo of the game. Each planet is its own fief, with its own leader, form of government, economic system, sociocultural structure, etc etc. Do we all know what happens on planet Crapsack XXVII? No, we don't. Even if the lore touches on the planet, it takes the form of "Planet Crapsack is a harsh mining town which was fought over in year 3030 by Regiment 1 of House K and Regiment 3 of House S, with House K winning the place." End.

I dunno about you, but IMHO that's PLENTY of wiggle room for whatever campaign or lore you want to cook up. Even on a planet as canonically detailed as, say, Luthien, there are 1,001 details left to GMs and players to flesh out for themselves. What's so inflexibly rigid about the system now that you guys think balkanising the Inner Sphere is necessary?

[winters_night]

This is baseless, and rather insulting to those of us who work on the products.

The goal...according to who?

as given by catalyst people on the forums some years ago when asked why factions where being knocked off, think it was around the time 3145 came out wars of reaving had been out so 2013ish?  I believe it was in the ask the lead devs

[Daemion]

Mendrugo - that little explanation is neat, and would be too bad if that was how they went with such a scenario. Why? Because I also liked the idea of a dead-space where nobody could reach by any means of FTL. Imagine that instead of disappearing, all worlds inside the fortress were suddenly hit with BT's equivalent of a perpetual Warp Storm. All the old Hegemony worlds and Terra aren't necessarily gone, but nobody can jump in to find out what happened. Nobody could use warp speed or anything that folds space. The only way would be to send in sub-light generational ships.

What you have does help explain the Nebula California. ;)

[Jaim Magnus]

as given by catalyst people on the forums some years ago when asked why factions where being knocked off, think it was around the time 3145 came out wars of reaving had been out so 2013ish?  I believe it was in the ask the lead devs

Even if that were true, and I don't believe it is, we have an all new lead developer, beholden to no one's previous statements on the matter.

[Adrian Gideon]

It is true.

[Tai Dai Cultist]

Heh I spent the last 10 minutes trying to find a quote from I don't know how long ago made by I don't remember who that did illuminate that it was true at least as of one time :D

Anyway, going in to speculation: I'm hoping the "Faction culling" takes the form of combining all Clans into the ilClan.  IlClan plus 5 Great House makes for what I hope is a sustainable number of factions.

[Adrian Gideon]

There isn’t a whole lot of culling that needs to be done at this point. More of a refocusing if anything.