Character Study of the Week: Belle Lee
Who: Belle Lee
What: Officer, rank(s) unspecified New Syrtis Planetary Militia
Mercenary Officer, rank(s) and unit(s)
Colonel, Stone’s Lament
General, Coalition Forces
Commanding General, Republic of the Sphere
When: 3041 – 31??
Weapon of Choice: 9K(D) Victor
How to sum up the most military character of the early Republic of the Sphere? Aggressive, stubborn, loyal, capable, frustrating, contradictory, all of the above, to everyone around and even herself.
Belle Lee is a character with little established background in the setting until she comes into her own in a situation so out of context for existing characters that only a new generation of individuals can be counted on to cope, and shape future events.
From a family of modest means, using a scholarship to attend NAIS and train as a MechWarrior Belle Lee entered the AFFC, into a militia position, and exited during the Civil War, disgusted with the partisan politics.
From there she became a mercenary, learned and demonstrated leadership skills, until she was captured by the Blakists, interred on Kittery and fell in with Devlin Stone.
After this her rise was meteoric, while Stone was a more than capable military commander he was also political, and among his circle there were few close to him with the necessary military skills and experience to act as his second in command, a position Belle was more than ably qualified.
That being said she never demonstrated political, or even media skills, routinely stepping on toes as she considered politics and PR to be wastes of time. Regardless she would occasionally try to work within those systems, though dreaded reaching the rank where these would become commonplace activities for her.
Regardless she became Commanding General of the Republic of the Sphere, and unlike certain other characters seems to have retired, had a family and even lived long enough to see at least one grandchild.
That’s her background and history, and one that manages to be fairly typical of action oriented fiction, and contains many common elements of other Battletech characters, but makes for a somewhat unusual character.
While early details are thin this is to be expected, Belle Lee is a character of a certain time, and while she is a Republic character her time is the Jihad. It’s the time where she is most active, shines really, and consequently is most written about.
Bookending things is the fact that later details of her life are currently thin to non-existent, the best source of information so far, funnily enough, is the first piece of Dark Age fiction, a short story focusing on her grandson, showing us that she retired and managed to have a family.
The time where details are available show a mass of contradictions. She is a superb warrior and leader with no time or patience for politics thrust into a political crux, she is a soldier in a nominally pacifistic nation, she has all the classic Battletech ‘good’ character traits but ends her life in a distinctly unusual manner for Battletech.
Call her an oddity, perhaps not to her face.
Her ‘Mech is probably the most mundane aspect of Belle, as far as we are told it is a fairly stock Victor, 9K or D, depending on which side of the border you’re on, and one of TRO 3050’s least hobbled designs. Sure the single heat sinks are a design flaw because it’s tonnage that could be put to better use, but as things go it’s a minor design flaw.
Focusing on capabilities it’s a reasonably good command ‘Mech, a role it has fulfilled with the Federated armed forces for centuries, and since it’s something of a sniper it fits for a unit commander, letting them throw a potentially decapitating shot down long range with enough short range firepower and versatility to defend themselves if caught by enemy forces in a trap.
It doesn’t really fit with Belle Lee, a firebrand personality. Perhaps her combat style is different or the Gauss Rifle is put to use in covering her approach, both entirely possible, but she seems much more likely to be piloting one of the later variants, with big, up close guns, the temper and temperament of the pilot would seem to favour those tactics, according to traditional Battletech themes.
The thing is we don’t actually have anything of Lee in combat, while she is a Republican character all we have of her to date comes from the Jihad era, limited to sourcebooks, where we see her handling media, allies, politicians and, well, not being a people person really. She is a military character we have yet to see in military action.
As I said earlier Belle is something of a contradiction. On the one hand she is a confrontational personality, something she recognises, but she is in a position where she must be diplomatic, something she also recognises as a necessity even as it is a personal weakness.
Why is she there? Inside the setting she is one of Devlin Stone’s closest people, and unlike many of them is militarily skilled, thus she has to take a major leadership position in the Coalition, effectively representing the future Republic’s contribution. Devlin Stone can’t fulfil this role, he is overall commander of the Coalition, if he’s representative of a faction, even one that doesn’t exist yet and that he will found, then that diminishes him as a unifying leader for the Coalition, reduces his ability to be all encompassing.
Given the nature of the nation he will forge it’s a contradiction and not necessarily one that is easy to understand. Essentially he has to, in the setting, be seen as neutral, and one way to do that is to point to place a subordinate in a position equal to other factional commanders within the Coalition to represent his contribution, even as he takes charge. That subordinate has to be Belle Lee, and this strengthens her ability to represent the Republic.
Couldn’t there be someone better? Or couldn’t the character have been different, even just a little more comfortable with politics? No, we already have David Lear, who’s behind the scene actions are hinted at and seem to range from benevolent manipulation to borderline chess master behaviour complete with pragmatic detachment.
From an external perspective it’s because this sort of bluff, blunt talking character is the archetypical ‘good’ character, one who has no time for politics and just wants to bull forward and get the job done.
Remember, the Battletech short hand is that political characters are villainous while military characters are valorous. Or another way to put it is that politicians start problems and soldiers end them.
Not that it’s ever that simple, but that’s what Belle Lee is, representing the Republic she’s painted with the generic ‘good’ brush of the setting even though the position she’s in makes for a lot of headaches for all concerned.
Note, however, that this is not glossed over. Blunt, bluff and ‘good’ though she may be the source materials show that her style causes a number of problems and she herself clearly does not enjoy her job, but she knows her duty.
Of course there is the inevitable clash, noted upon once or twice by David Lear, between Belle’s nature and the eventual drawdown of the militaries that are a part of his and Stone’s social agenda for the Inner Sphere. Belle is a fighter, and someone who has come through a couple of wars, and while welcoming of peace is not the sort of character or personality to come out of those experiences with the opinion of downsizing a military as a good thing.
We have not yet seen that clash, it is implied, and since the downsizing happened, that Lee managed to go with it, again out of loyalty or duty, or perhaps stood aside, any of which would have been taxing for such an individual.
This is probably why, rather than dying in the cockpit, she actually manages to retire and have a family, not the sort of thing normally associated with this sort of character.
For although Belle could easily be the product of lazy writing the reality is that she isn’t, there is a realistic arc to her life that matches both her personality and her abilities, contradicted with her situation and contrasted with the realities that creates.
Lazy, unrealistic writing would have had Belle become Commanding General and carrying on as that despite the inherent conflict her personality brings to the role and still having the Republic and RAF growing as an entity while drawing down in size as a result.
Instead it appears that she struggles through out of duty and loyalty until she can’t take it anymore and then, shockingly, changes her circumstances, possibly going on to live a satisfied life.
Strange thing for the Battletech universe.
However it is a fairly logical progression, and one that fits in with her Republican leanings in that she essentially gives up war for a life of peace, despite being one of the least likely of characters to do so.
This is something of a metaphor for the changing times, the Republican era is supposed to be a new and different time in the Battletech universe, one in which large armies, (which from a game perspective are new concepts), disappear in favour of small unit actions (which is actually the old Battletech paradigm).
You’ll notice I’ve made a lot of conditional statements there, I’ve stated in other articles that the game itself is geared towards small unit actions, that’s what it was founded on and it has never really lost that feel just because while the rules have changed they haven’t changed that much. Large unit actions required largely whole new game systems. The Dark Age was intended as a return to the roots of Battletech.
Which makes it all the more odd that Belle Lee be the metaphor for that. Ordinarily as an angry, scrappy, energetic character she would be in the thick of things for life, like Kai a perfect small unit battle character, instead she winds up leading armies.
All the same it would appear she could well have achieved the one thing no other major Battletech character has; an end to all her battles.
