Just trying to get my head around this concept and get some clarifications.
I remember stories of BattleMechs being family heirlooms and passed down from generation to generation and is a source of power and pride for a family. Then there are stories of people stumbling across a cache (Brian? Brain?) and getting old mechs. This setup generally had mechs as very rare items and could turn a tide during a battle, which I imagined would've been mostly vehicles and infantry and one or two mechs appearing would definitely turn the tide. In my mind, lance-sized forces outside of major military operations or military-focused worlds would be rare, so on your average world, maybe a 2-vs-3 mech battle would be max. I think in this scenario, mechs were also jury-rigged or would sport less armor than would be in the TRO, and so pilots would retreat once significant damage was done to the mech.
Then suddenly, it seems like mech production kicked up and mercenaries could buy mechs? I mean fast forward to Jihad and it seems like not only new variants but totally new mechs start appearing and in massive quantities?
I'm just trying to understand how and when the universe/lore went from BattleMechs being rare to being moderately available to being mass produced? As mentioned in another thread, I'm hoping to start a game with my boys and would like to make them feel what it's like pre-Clan era how valuable mechs were and how new mechs could be acquired.
Thanks!
In the original game (Battledroids, in 1984), mech production had ground to a complete halt. Human civilization was full on Mad Max in most places. Mech "factories" were really warehouses full of parts that were slowly cobbled together into complete mechs, but nothing really "new" was being produced.
In 1985, the second edition of the game (called Battletech for the first time) was released, and there was a slight retcon. Now the universe was described as being mostly Mad Max, but there were still some factories and some production was still going on. We get some of the history of the game at this point. Previously (in the before times), the Inner Sphere had been wracked with terrible wars. The First and Second Succession Wars (roughly 2785 through 2865 or so) was basically one long series of nuclear wars, orbital bombardments, wiping out planets, and other nasty stuff. It left the Inner Sphere in ruins. The Third Succession War followed, and it runs up until the "present day" of the second edition game (about 3010 or so when the novels begin). This is probably the era that you are most familiar with.
In the Third Succession War, mech production continues but it's at a crawl. Nations work as hard as they can and barely manage to cover their losses. Planetary "invasions" often have only a handful of mechs fighting over a supply of spare parts or a piece of equipment from a water purification plant. While regiments are described as existing, there's a definite focus on the small handful of Battlemechs fighting in tiny raids over scraps.
As time goes by, the novels progress, leading up to the Fourth Succession War in 3028. Here it's revealed that maybe things weren't as bad as we thought, because Hanse Davion is able to pull a bunch of Battlemech regiments out of his butt, and suddenly coordinates the largest invasion in the last 150 years. The perspective of the game shifts from small raids to large battles and major wars. Not much explanation is given at the time for the sudden change, though later on (in real world terms) there's some explanation that the Inner Sphere had been slowly recovering their capabilities and it just wasn't really visible yet until 3025 or so.
So theoretically, at the beginning of the Third Succession War things were exactly as you thought of them, but the last 50 years or so the Inner Sphere was starting to piece things together again.
In 1989/1990, two important things happen. First, the Gray Death Legion (a mercenary unit loved by the writers) uncovers an old Star League base that has a working computer system with full schematics for
everything. It's a full "jump start your stagnant civilization with advanced tech" how to guide. This happens around the same time as the Fourth Succession War. Second thing, we skip forward to the year 3050, when the Inner Sphere is invaded by a new group -- the Clans.
The Clans have super-Battlemechs, and the writers haven't gotten the message yet that the Inner Sphere was supposed to be experiencing a tech recovery. The Clans slam full tilt into what appears to be a 4th Succession War era Inner Sphere full of old technology. The Clans are stopped short by the revelation that ComStar (supposedly a neutral organization with no weapons, focused only on ensuring safe communications) actually has been quietly keeping an entire army of Star League level Battlemechs hidden this entire time. See they were waiting for things to get bad enough for them to take over and seize power, but they never got their chance. Now they have to play hero and stop the Clan Invasion (the Clans are not interested in allowing ComStar to take over someday).
This leads us to 1992, and Battletech third edition. The boxed set of the game rewinds to right before/during the 4th Succession War. While there are plenty of books out there describing the Clan Invasion, the boxed set establishes the year 3025 as the "base" time period for Battletech. It's before any advanced tech appears, and so the rules are the simplest to learn at that time. As described in the 3rd ed set, there's a bit of the Mad Max era left, but there's also a bigger acknowledgment of regiments and full scale wars.
As time goes by in the 1990s and into the 2000s, more products are introduced that fill in the time between the Fourth Succession War and the beginning of the Clan Invasion. Over 20 years (in universe) had passed between discovering the Star League memory core, and the Clans hitting. So the tech recovery process is expanded, new mech designs are retroactively inserted, and the description of how exactly the Invasion happened is changed a bit. Originally, the Inner Sphere was completely clueless as to how any of the advanced tech worked. With the new retelling, the Inner Sphere has advanced mechs of their own in the field at the time (though they still aren't nearly as good as the Clan versions).
Once you get post-Clan Invasion (3070s and later), everybody can produce as many mechs with as much super-tech as they want. I kinda quit following the story at that point.
