Pre 3050 Trial of possessions

[Sjhernan3060]

In the “ good old” pre invasion/pre taint days of the clans, I am curious how trial of possessions worked. For example:
Clan Fish develops the EER ( Extended Extended Range) PPC and Clan Slug wants it. How did deals typically go?
If Slug and Fish are allies would they attempt to trade?
Would a trial of possession happened right away if they were neutral or enemies?
How does Clan Slug find about the new weapon? Did pre – 3050 clans have Watches that could let their Clans know that new tech was abound?
Could the merchant  or scientist cast bring  a petition to the warriors to trial for said new weapon?

[Ice Hellion]

They would make a deal with X Trials with each side receiving a % of the total agreed exchange.
Just look at the Elemental Battle Armour/Genetic line trials with Clan Wolf against Clan Hell's Horses.

[wantec]

In the “ good old” pre invasion/pre taint days of the clans, I am curious how trial of possessions worked. For example:
Clan Fish develops the EER ( Extended Extended Range) PPC and Clan Slug wants it. How did deals typically go?

In this case, Clan Slug would declare a Trial of Possession for it. They could trial for copies of the weapon (easiest), for the design specs (harder), or outright for the scientists who made it, the factory, all examples, and exclusive control of it (hardest).

If Slug and Fish are allies would they attempt to trade?

Allies, or even just two Clans who each have something the other wants could trade. After the general terms are agreed to by the merchants, there's still a series of Trials. The two sides agree on how many lots to fight over (5 was a popular number), then conduct separate Trials for each individual lot. The vast majority of the time these Trials ended up going 3-2, both sides come out happy with something they wanted and one side gets a little bit more.

Would a trial of possession happened right away if they were neutral or enemies?

Neutral sides could still made trades as I described above, outright declaring a Trial for another Clan's tech or other resources tends to be viewed as a hostile act. The Clans didn't really care about ticking off an enemy, so those were almost always straight Trials of Possession with nothing offered up in trade.

How does Clan Slug find about the new weapon? Did pre – 3050 clans have Watches that could let their Clans know that new tech was abound?

While the Clans had some form of Watch units (varied by Clan), encountering new weapons of equipment on the battlefield was generally how things were discovered. From there information was a resource that could be traded/trialed for if a Clan knew who to ask.

Could the merchant  or scientist cast bring  a petition to the warriors to trial for said new weapon?

If there's a new weapon, the warriors are going to be the ones to discover that, short of an information trade. Scientists aren't going to be allowing such info to slip into the hands of another Clan, that would in effect be treason.

[Sjhernan3060]

That's great info thanks!

[Colt Ward]

You also get some Trials that are strategic . . . as in misdirecting from what a group really wants.

Though it was during the Refusal War, you do have an example of Ulric launching one trial to suck up the majority of the defenders into a battle which left very little of the garrison to protect what was his strategic objective.  On the planet the Ulric's Tau Galaxy challenged the Falcon defenders, maybe for the world or maybe for their stockpiles I cannot remember.  Once the bidding was complete and the majority of the defenders & garrison were involved in a hard fight against the Tau clusters, Ulric initiated another Trial.  He declared a Trial for a dropship yard/repair facility on the planet's moon.  All the Falcons had left was a few points of BA IIRC which were no match for the elite points supported by a mech or three that Ulric had held out of the bidding for the initial Trial.

This could have been done before coming to the IS, but it would be done against a Clan that was considered a hated rival IMO.  Falcon vs Wolf, Star Adder vs Coyote, Steel Viper vs Snow Raven, etc.

[Sjhernan3060]

Did the arrival of protomechs cause the same level of trial and bidding that other new tech did?

[Vition2]

Did the arrival of protomechs cause the same level of trial and bidding that other new tech did?

Not really, or at least it was a downplayed portion of the trials which took place during roughly the same time period.  Much of this is that there wasn't much of real defender of the technology, whoever had significant territory on the world likely had access to some of the tech designing the protomechs.  The other thing is that at this point there were significant trials being done over the "loss" of two clans and the emigration of another.  The Ghost Bears had left, leaving some of their holdings in the hands of other clans while simply abandoning others.  The Jaguars and Nova Cats had just been disappeared from the homeworlds, leaving large swathes open for others to snatch up - and then trial over for before any kind of digging in happens.

[Archangel]

Did the arrival of protomechs cause the same level of trial and bidding that other new tech did?

Yes and no.  Like any new Clan tech, the interest in it varied from Clan to Clan ranging from resource-poor Clans, like the Blood Spirits, or Aerospace-centric Clans, like the Snow Ravens or Cloud Cobras, having a lot of interest to Clans having little to no interest in it, like the Ghost Bears who never adopted the technology.  The fact that the technology was still in the early development stages further limited interest in the new technology.

"Let other Clans spend resources developing the technology.  If it doesn't pan out we waste nothing, if it does then we can simply take it from another Clan either by trading for it or taking it by trial."