Biggest/Best Hanging Plot Hooks

[Colt Ward]

New JS cores were made through automated factories, but the factories that made the factories no longer existed.  This has gone round and round before with folks who are actually involved in industrialized mass production of complicated systems- you just do not build a JS Core factory.  You build smelters that create the right alloy in the right manner, you have a 3 or 4 level (or more) specific electronics production pyramid that builds the control units, refining/creation of the proper helium for cooling (heck, that also gets into different designs of the core in canon), solar sail production, solar sail linkage, KF booms for DS, and all the other parts that go into making up a core.

Look at any modern technological device, and while all you see is that device what you do not see is the supply pyramid that has to function to get to the point of producing that product.  The larger, more complicated, and nearer the cutting edge a device is the fatter the base of that pyramid needed to get you that pinnacle.

[Talen5000]

New JS cores were made through automated factories, but the factories that made the factories no longer existed.  This has gone round and round before with folks who are actually involved in industrialized mass production of complicated systems- you just do not build a JS Core factory.  You build smelters that create the right alloy in the right manner, you have a 3 or 4 level (or more) specific electronics production pyramid that builds the control units, refining/creation of the proper helium for cooling (heck, that also gets into different designs of the core in canon), solar sail production, solar sail linkage, KF booms for DS, and all the other parts that go into making up a core.

Look at any modern technological device, and while all you see is that device what you do not see is the supply pyramid that has to function to get to the point of producing that product.  The larger, more complicated, and nearer the cutting edge a device is the fatter the base of that pyramid needed to get you that pinnacle.

Yes - but at the same time, it's a technological innovation that was developed and could be developed using twenty first century technology.

It's one thing to say this tech got lost because it was treated as an industrial secret and the vault with the recipe got nuked, or that that tech got lost because it was not used anymore but for the technology and knowledge of KF Drives to be lost, a technology that is not only critical but also in contant use and demand, implies that there was more going on.

A lot can be explained away by pointing out production and research facilities were nuked, that engineers, scientists and teachers were conscripted just as everyone else was, that industrial secrets were lost. But not everything.

If we were to be somewhat realistic about this, then I would have to say that the likelhood that the knowledge was lost was in fact...false. That the knowledge of KF tech was retained.

But that it did becoem rare.

Why? Because production and research facilities were destroyed.
Because the economic and academic priorities ensured advanced centres of production and learning were centralsied and therefore easy targets.
Because a lot of knowledge would NOT have been written down on books, but would have been uploaded into central databases which themselves would have been high priority targets.
Because Comstar would have unleashed a scrubbing virus to remove as many traces of KF technology from the Spheres databases as possible. Actually, probbaly not clean, but alter into non viability.
Because by sending teachers and engineers, researchers and technicians to the front lines, and by diverting funding from education into the military the Sphere deprived itself of the ability to teach and prepare the next generation.
Because the technology to build relies not only upon the knowledge of KF Tech, but also the knowhow to build, operate and maintain specialist refineries and production facilities to creates the parts and tools necessary to creates the parts and tools necessary to creates the parts and tools necessary to create the core and any breakdown anywhere in that chain would affect drive production.

So - as the wars dragged on, the databases that housed the knowledge were corruupted, the production facilities used to create the cores and shops were sabotaged, and the people who might have fixed this ended up either getting nuked, shot or sent to the front lines, also ensuring that their knowledge wasn't passed along, contributing to a general decolien in the level of knowledge and the eradication (or nearly so) of certain highly specialised fields. The knowledge would have become rarer - but not non existent.  There were people who understood KF physics for instance. House Marik put them to work on a program to replicate HPGs IIRC...they didn't last long.

But if the Sphere tried hard enough, and dug deep enough and poured enough resourecs into the effort, they could probably regain KF tech very quickly. They'd need peace, a place of learning, the ability to interview enough technicians and scientists and get them to write down every scarp of info about KF tech they could recall, and a willingness to tear apart a KF drive or even factory to find out how the things were put together but I think, overall, odds are good that most of the knowledge supposedly lost was retained somewhere within the Great Houses reach.

[Ursus Maior]

The problem with trying to make 'new' size jump cores- 7 or 8 collar JS for example- is they do not quite know the how.  Outside of ComStar shipyards, no one has the modeling programs, before the 50s no one had built a core that did not go in a current model JS.

When I was in the Army I had TMs for my vehicles, and with that guide book I could repair most problems.  I could even tell you how a lot of it worked.  But I could not take that book and go design a whole new armored vehicle.

But those two things are immensely different in the structural side of things. No offense meant, but when / if you were repairing tech in the army, you probably weren't half as qualified for building those things you repaired or inventing improved or variant versions of those than a specialist engineer working for a specialist company trying to wrap his head around how to go from an Invader or a Star Lord to a 8-collar JumpShip.

Being a repair tech doesn't mean you can build anything, not even things you would be repairing every day. If I would hand my car to any repair technician and tell him "make me a copy", he would laugh at me. It's not a matter of handing him a second spare car either, he simply has neither the tools nor the knowledge.

But if I hand a 1990s Chinese car corporation a 1998 Chevrolet Spark or Daewoo Matiz and tell them "copy it", they will take less than 5 years to do so. It actually happened.

And it's not unreasonable to assume something similar for JumpShip technology. All JS technology must exist archived digitally. So you can send all the blueprints, simulations, data and figures to your research and development institutions (universities, corporate R&D) and tell them "wrap you heads around it" and then let them come up with something. In BattleTech, JumpShip technology is perfectly scalable. So going from an Invader or Star Lord to a Monolith is a matter of scaling up the energy output, the size of the core etc. Of course the devil will be in the details and you need the industry to actually deliver the parts, but that is something very different as not being able to come up with plans.

No, for me the solution to "LosTech" always was "there was no option to do produce this" and not "it could not be re-thought again". Why is that the case? Well, I can think of two answers.

First, you can give all data to your research and development institutions, but at some point you need actual parts to start building new JumpShip classes. And since it costs huge amounts of money and you're bleeding high tech gear left and right (constant warfare will do that to you), you need to prioritize. In 1945 the German armament industry had made significant advancements for 20 years, but they couldn't just flip a switch and build all the shiny stuff, because they were loosing production facilities and raw resources left and right. Building jet engines is a problem, when you're short on rare materialy, it's utterly pointless, if you lack jet fuel and run your trucks on wood gas generators.

Second, when your military capabilities are shrinking and you loose units monthly, raw economical power daily and bright minds every year, it might sound feasible to invest in optimized military logistics, including DropShips and JumpShips, but how could you accomplish that? We just have to take a look at the former USSR and its successor countries. Even Russia is still decades behind Western countries in most industrial and social sectors, including medical capabilites and quality of life. In some areas of this huge country, people are even worse off than they were during the 1980s and we're almost 30 years after the end of the Cold War and there were numerous initiatives to get all sorts of aid into the country. Except for a few paragon projects, the Russian military is only slowls climbing back to capabilities on par with its most likely opponents. And we're talking here of the biggest and most powerful Successor State, looking at Ukraine, Belarus, Kasachstan or the numerous smaller countries and we see no such abilities to offensively prevail in a war with their neighbours (including Russia).

Third, Russia suffered a devastating brain drain during the 1990s and 2000s and still is. If you're top educated and from Russia or Ukraine, you will take that offer from Harvard or Oxford or Sorbonne or Munich if and once it comes. Because it will only come once.

And this is ComStar at its finest. Operation HOLY SHROUD might have been about the destruction of Successor State knowledge and might have involved a lot of killings. But Scientists are not necessarily hardcore attached to their Successor State, not in a generation that still had known an interstellar community of research and scientific advancement. I would bet, ComStar made several advancements on top scientists telling them "do what you want, but do it on Terra, we need to rebuild mankinds ancestral home and save humanity from the bloodshed and destruction that is already here".

And then of course, ComStar has another ace up its sleeves. The moment Successor Lords start sending their precious data on soon-to-be LostTech around the ether to build data caches and restart their research programs, they will probably send this data via HPG. After all, HPGs are fast, highly capable and extremely reliable, since they're run by the one and only neutral actor: ComStar. And since ComStar dictates HPG usage rules and can basically decipher every message, it would have been easy for ROM to alter LosTech data. It doesn't take much to alter data on KF-technology to make it completely useless and probably hazardous. Just alter the last digit of some coefficients or constants and no jump core will work in this universe. Or add some picometers to core processor nodes and watch them burn...

tl;dr

It's the complexity of the task and the multitude of actors involved combined with the scarcity of ressources, not the impossibility to come up with plans and prototypes, which made technological progress or even recovery impossible during the darkest days of the Succession Wars era. Once your precious tech is gone, you need peace or at least outside help to recover. Cringy analogy: If all of your world is the USSR and its successors, there are no helping hands and Harvard keeps stealing your brightest minds, good luck recovering in time, before the Clans come.

[victor_shaw]

Ursus Maior, Talen5000 thank you my hand was getting tired  ;D

So as this started as a complaint about Warships lets finish it on that and get back to other issues.
I don't disagree with the idea that they didn't have the funds or resources while fighting a galactic war as Ursus Maior and Talen5000 both said. :thumbsup:
I just don't buy the Jordan Weisman story that they all just forgot how to make them. :P
So in that sense the answer to my question was;

a. The house lords did not want to start a new arms race.
b. ComStar interference. maybe
c. Wartime economy of the houses would not allow it. most likely
d. They where an after thought of the writers and they realized they made them to powerful. almost definitely

As for the other questions
On Clan Wolverine, Even after a full novel on the subject we still don't know what happened to the survivors.

As for ComStar ROM
They tend to be as good as needed by the plot.
Which I still don't buy as they let a Draconis Combine agent;
1. Into their order.  ???
2. On the ruling counsel.  :stupid:
3. Manipulate them into assisting the DC.  :crash:
4. And the kicker, take over as head of the order.  :facepalm:

Lets face it, they stink at anything other then information gathering.  :lol:

[Lone-Wolf]

OK, I should have included the reference to The Blake Documents.

But going through them and remembering something else:
1) Who killed the last real First Lord Simon Cameron (the mining robot accident)?

From the Blake Documents page 112+
2) What is the Tesla Project?
3) What is the truth of the TRIPITZ (OK, as a german I think the name should be TIRPITZ)? Did the ship carry the Cameron twins (the supposed children of the last Cameron) or took Kerensky them?

And all the other things (Jeanette Marik - genetic Projects etc) mentioned in this book.

[Colt Ward]

Okay, you keep leaping back and forth between WS and regular JS cores- pick one, because the reasons do differ slightly.

For JS-  creating a larger jump core is not a 1+1 increase in difficulty, its a geometric curve.  Additionally, for the comment they made 'JS with 21st century technology' while true, those JS were not the same as SL-era JS and WS cores.  Talen touched a bit on the car example, but drastically shortened up the interval- though I do take your point and IMO makes that Aquarius find in one of the BC stories even more important . . . wonder where that ship ended up- which describes ComStar building their own warships a la the Suffren class.  But in the 3SW/3025 does not describe the Houses with Jumpship factories- they have factories that produce JS and have some basic JS theory, but they do not even understand the automation and processes it accomplishes that give them the end result of a finished JS.  In fact, the JS lines are slower b/c the automation has not been maintained to keep it at peak efficiency (3050s fluff about restoring lines to order to produce more JS) because of those problems.  Which is the point of the Ford example- Henry Ford and his engineers, as bright and cutting edge as you want to make them at their time are not going to understand everything that goes into that future car you hand them.  They will be able to improve their own designs with small things quickly- tires perhaps being a example- but they are not just going to be able to plug in revolutionary advances b/c they do not understand what went into them.

Tech has historically been lost all the time and successors were not able to duplicate much later if at all.  Naptha comes to mind, the secret was lost when the Greeks were defeated . . . Roman engineering & construction, as a example what came to be called the London Bridge . . . the Saxons & friends inherited a functioning bridge, were not able to maintain it properly but did make temporary repairs like running planks across spans that were lost until too much was lost.  Eventually too much was lost for their low-tech repairs to keep it functional.  They lived in Roman stone buildings, but if they were damaged they had to repair them with wood.  They had the Roman fountains and sewers but did not understand plumbing.  The Saxons learned and improved their knowledge base but they did not have the same knowledge base to start with so even with examples they could not replicate what the Romans did- the very simple arch for construction/load bearing escaped them for a while.

So its quite apt that since Weisman modeled the Star League and its fall sort of on the Roman Empire, its not surprising it went with the same loss of technology even for every day life.  By the end of the Second Succession War (2863) the ability to build HPGs & new jump cores had been lost by most of the Inner Sphere.  With the discovery of the Helm Core to assist tech recovery efforts as well as the creation (and protection) of such places as the NAIS, its not unfeasible that by 3040s the IS was starting to build more JS cores.  A 170 year recovery is still faster than a lot of those historic periods.

But again, your arguing about setting . . . not some single line in fiction or sourcebooks, even something recurring like who are the Green Ghosts which was semi-answered.

[victor_shaw]

Okay, you keep leaping back and forth between WS and regular JS cores- pick one, because the reasons do differ slightly.

For JS-  creating a larger jump core is not a 1+1 increase in difficulty, its a geometric curve.  Additionally, for the comment they made 'JS with 21st century technology' while true, those JS were not the same as SL-era JS and WS cores.  Talen touched a bit on the car example, but drastically shortened up the interval- though I do take your point and IMO makes that Aquarius find in one of the BC stories even more important . . . wonder where that ship ended up- which describes ComStar building their own warships a la the Suffren class.  But in the 3SW/3025 does not describe the Houses with Jumpship factories- they have factories that produce JS and have some basic JS theory, but they do not even understand the automation and processes it accomplishes that give them the end result of a finished JS.  In fact, the JS lines are slower b/c the automation has not been maintained to keep it at peak efficiency (3050s fluff about restoring lines to order to produce more JS) because of those problems.  Which is the point of the Ford example- Henry Ford and his engineers, as bright and cutting edge as you want to make them at their time are not going to understand everything that goes into that future car you hand them.  They will be able to improve their own designs with small things quickly- tires perhaps being a example- but they are not just going to be able to plug in revolutionary advances b/c they do not understand what went into them.

Tech has historically been lost all the time and successors were not able to duplicate much later if at all.  Naptha comes to mind, the secret was lost when the Greeks were defeated . . . Roman engineering & construction, as a example what came to be called the London Bridge . . . the Saxons & friends inherited a functioning bridge, were not able to maintain it properly but did make temporary repairs like running planks across spans that were lost until too much was lost.  Eventually too much was lost for their low-tech repairs to keep it functional.  They lived in Roman stone buildings, but if they were damaged they had to repair them with wood.  They had the Roman fountains and sewers but did not understand plumbing.  The Saxons learned and improved their knowledge base but they did not have the same knowledge base to start with so even with examples they could not replicate what the Romans did- the very simple arch for construction/load bearing escaped them for a while.

So its quite apt that since Weisman modeled the Star League and its fall sort of on the Roman Empire, its not surprising it went with the same loss of technology even for every day life.  By the end of the Second Succession War (2863) the ability to build HPGs & new jump cores had been lost by most of the Inner Sphere.  With the discovery of the Helm Core to assist tech recovery efforts as well as the creation (and protection) of such places as the NAIS, its not unfeasible that by 3040s the IS was starting to build more JS cores.  A 170 year recovery is still faster than a lot of those historic periods.

But again, your arguing about setting . . . not some single line in fiction or sourcebooks, even something recurring like who are the Green Ghosts which was semi-answered.

Again you go to this loss of Jumpship and jump drive construction, yest this is no actually stated anywhere in the sourcebooks.
Per Jumpships and Dropships (yes I still have that book) Their are at least 17 fully functional Jumpship yards in the Innersphere.
The only issues is that these Yards where barely producing enough to cover the losses, not because they were running slow but because it took upwards of a year to produce a Jumpship. This book at the time the prime source for Jumpship information make no mention of Jump core construction being lost or restricted.
It also make mention of some of the other types of Jumpships (ex. Quetzalcoati) also being built in some houses.
So according to this book it was not lost tech but shortage of yards and inability to redirect funds for the war effort to build more that was the limited factor.
This is why after the end of the 3rd successor war their was a massive surge in yard and Jumpship construction, as now the funds where freed up.

And to the jumping back an forth question.
My original question was about Warships, Jumpships where broth into the discussion by another poster, I was just bringing it back to the original question.

[DarkISI]

And to the jumping back an forth question.
My original question was about Warships, Jumpships where broth into the discussion by another poster, I was just bringing it back to the original question.

I think that was me, pointing to the problems producing jump ships to show why WarShips were nowhere near a possbility to produce. If you can't keep up with producing the far simpler Jump Ships, how will you build WarShips? They require the same base tech and then some.

[victor_shaw]

I think that was me, pointing to the problems producing jump ships to show why WarShips were nowhere near a possbility to produce. If you can't keep up with producing the far simpler Jump Ships, how will you build WarShips? They require the same base tech and then some.

Yeah, after I got a PM by a player pointing me to my copy of Dropships and Jumpships that point was made. :thumbsup:
Thus the answer "Wartime economy of the houses would not allow it."  ;)

[Alan Davion]

This book at the time the prime source for Jumpship information make no mention of Jump core construction being lost or restricted.
original question.

Because that wasn't... Oh what's the word I'm looking for... Pertinent? information for what that book was trying to do, which was simply give technical and practical information about the ships, such as their intended role for use in whatever Faction Navy was using them.

I have this book too by the way, both a digital and physical copy, though my digital copy apparently has an error in it, the image for the Clan Potemkin transport is corrupted or something, and won't load.

Anyway, if the book was focusing more on fluff/lore rather than giving players the information to use these ships effectively in combat, then yes, the book may likely have gone deeper into how the Houses constantly clubbing themselves further and further into technological regression, it might have touched more on how production for parts of Dropships, Jumpships and perhaps even Warships was eventually lost, or at the very least severely restricted so as to make it unfeasible.

I forget who it was, but someone along the course of this thread mentioned the construction/material pyramid, or however they phrased it, and that's the key factor. If just one element of that pyramid is removed from the equation, then the whole project comes crashing down on its face.

So, going back to my example of the Scout Class jumpship vs the Avalon class warship, we can infer that the Great Houses were able to keep producing ships like the Scout, Merchant, Star Lord and Monolith, even if production were severely limited, as they were likely focusing their economies on keeping Battlemech/Combat Vehicle production as high as possible, which you touched on...

c. Wartime economy of the houses would not allow it. most likely

Which also goes back to what I was saying about the Scout vs Avalon, they could have potentially been designing new warships all during the Succession Wars, but a lot of small problems along the way, coupled with a massive shift in economies just made it a secondary, or even tertiary concern until A, the Helm Memory Core was discovered, and B, The Clans came a callin', which facilitated yet another shift of priorities. ComStar and The Great Houses figured they would have to engage the Clans in space at some point in the future, and started scrambling to build new Warships, although I don't think there would be any truly noteworthy naval engagements until sometime in the FedCom Civil War and the Jihad. I know there was that one naval battle that Task Force Serpent had to engage in, but that was a relatively small engagement as I recall.

[victor_shaw]

Because that wasn't... Oh what's the word I'm looking for... Pertinent? information for what that book was trying to do, which was simply give technical and practical information about the ships, such as their intended role for use in whatever Faction Navy was using them.

I have this book too by the way, both a digital and physical copy, though my digital copy apparently has an error in it, the image for the Clan Potemkin transport is corrupted or something, and won't load.

Wrong book.
I am not talking about "TRO 3057 Dropships, Jumpships, & Warships",  The book I was talking about was a book called "FASA-1619: Dropships and Jumpships" From 1988.
And it was a full sourcebook with History and even the Operations section which where the first Aerospace rules for this size of ships. As we only had "Aerotech 1st edition" at the time witch only covered fighters and LAMs. It had no Clan ships since they had not been written yet.

Anyway, if the book was focusing more on fluff/lore rather than giving players the information to use these ships effectively in combat, then yes, the book may likely have gone deeper into how the Houses constantly clubbing themselves further and further into technological regression, it might have touched more on how production for parts of Dropships, Jumpships and perhaps even Warships was eventually lost, or at the very least severely restricted so as to make it unfeasible.

The whole first half of the book was fluff/lore. Warships where not in there because they would not be written about or even exist till "TRO 2750" a year later.

I forget who it was, but someone along the course of this thread mentioned the construction/material pyramid, or however they phrased it, and that's the key factor. If just one element of that pyramid is removed from the equation, then the whole project comes crashing down on its face.

Not relevant because nothing had been removed from the equation as construction of Jumpships continued.

So, going back to my example of the Scout Class jumpship vs the Avalon class warship, we can infer that the Great Houses were able to keep producing ships like the Scout, Merchant, Star Lord and Monolith, even if production were severely limited, as they were likely focusing their economies on keeping Battlemech/Combat Vehicle production as high as possible, which you touched on...

Which also goes back to what I was saying about the Scout vs Avalon, they could have potentially been designing new warships all during the Succession Wars, but a lot of small problems along the way, coupled with a massive shift in economies just made it a secondary, or even tertiary concern until A, the Helm Memory Core was discovered, and B, The Clans came a callin', which facilitated yet another shift of priorities. ComStar and The Great Houses figured they would have to engage the Clans in space at some point in the future, and started scrambling to build new Warships, although I don't think there would be any truly noteworthy naval engagements until sometime in the FedCom Civil War and the Jihad. I know there was that one naval battle that Task Force Serpent had to engage in, but that was a relatively small engagement as I recall.

They were able to produce these ship because that's what the yards where geared for and these ships fit their needs.
As I said before other ship where also build such as The Quetzalcoati by the Capellan Confederation, and even after the  Helm Memory Core was discovered very few new designs were created (2 Innersphere), and even in 3040 it still took a year to build Jumpships.

The battle was called "Trafalgar"
Innersphere force: 1 Battlecruiser ,1 Frigate, 1 Corvette, 3 Destroyers
Vs.
Clan Force: 1 Frigate, 2 Destroyers

Not huge but it was the biggest Innersphere warship battle since the end of the second successor war.

[Moonsword]

Take the aerospace debate to another thread, please.  Preferably one in the Aerospace Combat section.

[beachhead1985]

Katherine Steiner pulled that one via a Lyran Intelligence Loki agent placed with Task Force Serpent as a means of whittling away at Victors circle of support.

Thank you.

[Mendrugo]

Thank you.

There is, however, circumstantial evidence that the Word of Blake was behind it.  High level WoB precentors were shown joking about the specific brand of whiskey used to poison Morgan, implying to me that WoB ROM did the deed and had their agent claim Loki ties to shift the blame to Katherine.

[victor_shaw]

There is, however, circumstantial evidence that the Word of Blake was behind it.  High level WoB precentors were shown joking about the specific brand of whiskey used to poison Morgan, implying to me that WoB ROM did the deed and had their agent claim Loki ties to shift the blame to Katherine.

You know there are times when I think that the writers for Battletech fiction need to take off their "Tinfoil Hats" before they start writing.
Why does everything have to be some Dark Conspiracy in the BTU?
The Jihad was a temper-tantrum by the WoB, nope it was a shadow conspiracy by the Mater.
Katherine Steiner had him killed to whittling away at Victors circle of support, nope is was some WoB conspiracy.
First Lord Simon Cameron was killed in a mining robot accident, nope it was some great periphery conspiracy.

Why can't more main characters die of natural causes like Hanse Davion, or just die in combat like Natasha Kerensky?
Everything has to be a nefarious plot, or dark conspiracy.

[RanFelsnerAFFS]

There is, however, circumstantial evidence that the Word of Blake was behind it.  High level WoB precentors were shown joking about the specific brand of whiskey used to poison Morgan, implying to me that WoB ROM did the deed and had their agent claim Loki ties to shift the blame to Katherine.

Exactly this. While Lucas Penrose was indeed at some point in time a Loki operative, there was never any confirmation, that Katrina was the moustache-swirling mastermind behind.

Simply remains unsolved. And maybe it should stay that way.

I found some of the resolutions of the plot hooks, they chose not to follow to feel too lackluster in their execution due to that fact that true novels were missing.

For example the vanishing of the LAS Arthur Steiner-Davion was brilliantly build up from a narrative standpoint. But the throwaway explanation years later, that WoB bombed it away with a Super-Jump because of the "misuse of the name of the one foretold" felt meh.

[beachhead1985]

You know there are times when I think that the writers for Battletech fiction need to take off their "Tinfoil Hats" before they start writing.
Why does everything have to be some Dark Conspiracy in the BTU?
The Jihad was a temper-tantrum by the WoB, nope it was a shadow conspiracy by the Mater.
Katherine Steiner had him killed to whittling away at Victors circle of support, nope is was some WoB conspiracy.
First Lord Simon Cameron was killed in a mining robot accident, nope it was some great periphery conspiracy.

Why can't more main characters die of natural causes like Hanse Davion, or just die in combat like Natasha Kerensky?
Everything has to be a nefarious plot, or dark conspiracy.

Well, i think as IRL; you will always have people who wonder; but yes; I agree.

I'm not saying that we need to have someone offed from blood poisoning derived from a stubbed toe. But all these dangling threads canbe a bit messy if taken too far.

I admit; I like the Jihad conspiracy; what were the WOB planning BEFORE the poo hit the fan? Because it's fascinating logistically and as a what-if. Because there exist some evidence for several theories and each one is interesting.

[Alan Davion]

Why does everything have to be some Dark Conspiracy in the BTU?

Everything has to be a nefarious plot, or dark conspiracy.

Cause if there weren't conspiracies everywhere the life of Grayson Death Carlyle would have been very different indeed.

[Sartris]

are you trying to tell me that people just fight wars? without being tricked by a decades-long conspiracy?

clearly a blakist lie meant to throw us off the trail

[beachhead1985]

Cause if there weren't conspiracies everywhere the life of Grayson Death Carlyle would have been very different indeed.

The IP should do What IF? products just for this very purpose.

What IF? Everything that happened to the Gray Death Legion was a spinoff of Carlyle's paranoid delusions??? Could be a cool RP campaign; the boss of your merc company is insane and thinks the bogeymen are after him and uses that as his excuse to drag you through one mess after another.