Belters and the Oort Cloud

[Weirdo]

First described in Interstellar Players(first or second one), though everything in there needs to be taken with a grain of salt or five. The Belter stuff is among the more credible, and I'd say a lot more likely to actually be a thing than other stuff in there. Jihad: Terra went into detail on them as well in their overview of the Sol system, in addition to their role in helping Stone's Coalition get to Titan and Terra. Apparently Belter shuttle pilots are a crazy bunch, even by pilot standards.

[pensiveswetness]

The belters are generally rather isolationist, they are not xenophobicly isolationist but they keep to themselves.  IIRC (don't have my books to hand) when ComStar claimed Terra and the Sol system they approached the Belters and basically said "We like you, we'll leave you alone, just don't go trading stuff with folks outside, we'll handle all shipping and take a small cut but you get the majority of the profits." And the Belters were like "Yeah what ever dude." and happy with it. 

Comstar never tried to control them, they just retained cool but cordial relations with them and left the Belters alone, seemingly not quite realising how hugely spread out or how many of them there were.  From the book where you get a good look at the Belters, the Comstar guy writing his report is seemingly shocked at how many Belters there is, it was a significant order of magnitude more than Comstar guessed there was.  And because the Belt and Oort cloud are so freaking huge, whilst they have some very large settlements like Metis which acts as the defacto capital for the various Belt groups and organisations, there is hollowed out asteroids and orbital habitats a plenty in the Belt and Cloud. 

The book also said the Belters have REALLY advanced Medical tech, which in the book was shown off by the belter guide going outside of an airlock without a suit and doing a lil dance for a few minutes, so they've gone really into outright modifications to improve survivability as well as radically ****** or even completely halting aging. One of the RPG hooks was that the Belters indeed HAVE stopped aging, but this is kept beyond top secret and only a few have recived it as they know the danger of an anti-agapic being spread across the Inner Sphere. 

Their culture seems to be a kind of wild west mentality as well, almost everyone is armed usually with a knife of some kind and because their med tech is so damn advanced, a stabbing isn't seen as a bad thing rather a learning experience. No need to shoot someone, win a knife fight, take them to the docs, they are back on their feet quick as you like. 
So very advanced in some areas and with a general tech level around the Star League in others, isolationist but not aggressively so (although apparently Belter Aerospace fighter pilots are deadly) and just content to be left alone to live their lives and let their society keep going the way it is.

One thing about AI, the Belters had a lot of issues with the Caspers during the Amaris crisis as he'd use them to try and crack down on the Belters, they got a serious hatred of them and the Amaris crisis made the Belters become more isolationist after Kerensky left and Blake took over Terra, basically they seemed to have seen it as simply not worth their bother to get involved with the Terrans.  Their society and culture has diverged significantly and they seem to have no real feelings of loyalty to Terra, rather to each other and family.

Imagine Belter and Society medical coming together. Actually, don't. Void monsters and the Genecaste are the least of our worries...

[grimlock1]

The belters are generally rather isolationist, they are not xenophobicly isolationist but they keep to themselves.  IIRC (don't have my books to hand) when ComStar claimed Terra and the Sol system they approached the Belters and basically said "We like you, we'll leave you alone, just don't go trading stuff with folks outside, we'll handle all shipping and take a small cut but you get the majority of the profits." And the Belters were like "Yeah what ever dude." and happy with it. 

Okay, I know what I'm reading tonight.

Uh, what book am I reading tonight?

[Frabby]

I dimly remember an aerospace scenario where Belter spacecraft, in anticipation of the Liberation of Terra during the Jihad, race through the inner Sol system on a reconnaissance run for Stone's Coalition. Just don't ask me where I saw this...

[Weirdo]

Total Chaos. :)

[hoosierhick]

I dimly remember an aerospace scenario where Belter spacecraft, in anticipation of the Liberation of Terra during the Jihad, race through the inner Sol system on a reconnaissance run for Stone's Coalition. Just don't ask me where I saw this...

There's a story in Jihad Hot Spots: Terra about the Belters taking part of the Coalition on a very fast pass by the Titan shipyards.

[Korzon77]

Jihad conspiracies has the first really in depth discussion of the belters, including a bit about teh supposed existence of "immortals." while JHS Terra has a more, mundane description that goes into more detail--and is easier to introduce if you don't want to risk the impact of effective immortality might have.

If anything, the Belters resemble, in outlook, most liberal 21st century states, while the rest of the Inner Sphere is closer to the 19th and early 20th Century colonial empires--which is to say, the belters are more or less insular when it comes to conquering their neighbors, as compared to the Inner Sphere, which is functioning on a zero sum, colonial style foreign policy.

If you want to use them, though, you get into the problem of--why?  What does the IS have that belters want?

[Garrand]

If you want to use them, though, you get into the problem of--why?  What does the IS have that belters want?

I think there are quite a few things that Belters will want from IS powers. Things like biologicals or drugs that cannot be synthesized. Rare elements will always be in demand...with as rare as Germanium is for jumpship production, the Belters will need that as well as everyone else. Certain luxury goods...Ceres brew may be good, but nothing like Timbiqui Lager! Also things that cannot be manufactured locally. There is this idea that certain levels of technology require a certain size population base, so even a couple billion belters spread throughout the outer system may not be a sufficient base of expertise or resource extraction to support jumpship manufacture, requiring trade with the IS powers or Earth to make up for those shortfalls, etc. All of which can bring in the potential for conflict.

Damon.

Damon.

[Korzon77]

Organics maybe, but belters are specifically called out as being independent in terms of JS production--if anything, the fluff points out that they fueled a fair part of the jumpship production that was used in the expansion of the Hegemony. Inorganics, are to put it mildly, not rare in space. 16 psyche alone would probably provide more in the way of metals than the belters would need in their entire history.

Organics, especialyl alien life forms might be a different matter. Given that they're fluffed as being very advanced in teh life sciences, it wouldn't be surprising that you'd have belters traveling around the Inner Sphere, doing the same thing modern drug and research companies do with jungles--investigating new worlds for valuable organisms.

the problem, from the viewpoint of big stompy robots is that what motivate them to stay in warzones? The answer of course would be that they probably wouldn't--Belters would be an unusual encounter or event, not something that sticks around, unlike the Clans or WOB.

As for tech, I myself think the Belters are the most likely to come up with something like protomechs for the IS--they don't need big mechs, but may occassionally need something larger than a power armor suit.

[Maingunnery]

The Oort belt will also be very poor of many minerals, as many are formed by organic and geological processes (or a mix of them).

[Garrand]

I would also add that germanium specifically has been fluffed as being pretty rare, which is specifically why I mentioned that. So much so that some dude finds a large stockpile of it out in the periphery & uses the profits from the sale to form his own new proto-state. But each IS power has approx 300 worlds to draw resources from, and if germanium is a bottleneck to core production, then it would make sense that belters would need to trade for it. Even if not, things like economies of scale could make buying germanium (& other rare minerals) from the IS more economical than mining another remote body...

Damon.

[Maelwys]

I have to admit, I don't really like the Belters. Not really so much the concept, it would make sense, but it doesn't really seem like it fits the Battletech Universe. Its like someone's AU/RPG group managed to insert something that they really liked into the universe, without really making it fit with the BT universe. If they had remained an ISP rumor, that would've been fine. Fluff to give people ideas that they could use for their own homebrew games and what not. But adding them to the "real" universe rather than the "tabloid" BT universe that was ISP just doesn't work for me.

Here is this faction that's technologically advanced (and managed to keep that technology presumably even during the Succession Wars) which is pretty neutral (which doesn't really work for a wargame universe) and has better genetic engineering/training for their pilots (presumably) than the Clans.

So yeah. Interesting ISP material, not really great for the actual universe, IMO

[cray]

Seems like Btech only ever talks about Belters in the Sol system.  If there are resources, why wouldn't you see Belters  in more colonized systems?

Because there's only about a billion of them, with roots in the pre-KF drive colonists of the Sol system. They're far, far away from reaching the point where they need another system to develop. They're well short of the population - trillions or quadrillions - where they'd need another system.

Meanwhile, the people who settled the Inner Sphere went for the habitable planets, which haven't come close to being exhausted of minerals the way Terra has, and thus have no reason to start developing their asteroids. Even at the peak of the Star League, asteroid mining was expensive compared to using habitable planets. You do see some space development, like in the Taurian Concordat, but it's generally not worth the trouble.

[Korzon77]

Because there's only about a billion of them, with roots in the pre-KF drive colonists of the Sol system. They're far, far away from reaching the point where they need another system to develop. They're well short of the population - trillions or quadrillions - where they'd need another system.

Meanwhile, the people who settled the Inner Sphere went for the habitable planets, which haven't come close to being exhausted of minerals the way Terra has, and thus have no reason to start developing their asteroids. Even at the peak of the Star League, asteroid mining was expensive compared to using habitable planets. You do see some space development, like in the Taurian Concordat, but it's generally not worth the trouble.

It's important top note tht most mentions of resource exhaustion or pollution tend to pop up in A. first edition books, where the writers had, well, pretty big problems with scale (Tortuga suffering resource exhaustion from a population of a few million!?).  A better statement would be: the IS is largely spoiled from thousands of worlds with untouched resources. "Resource exhaustion" is more in the line of "You no longer can satisfy all of your metal needs with a few shallow pit mines, and now, you gasp, have to put some effort into it.).  Asteroid mining was seen as a viable alternative in the context of a world (Earth) with thousands of years of resource extraction leading to some mines being over 3.9 KM under the surface of the earth by 2012, so things were probably a lot worse when the belt was developed.

[Daryk]

I think it's notable that 8 of the 10 mines listed in that article are for gold.  Only two of them are for base metals (copper/zinc and nickel).

[truetanker]

I wonder how the ilclan will deal with them?

TT

[Frabby]

My understanding of astrophysics is limited. But I believe the relative abundance of iron and other metals on earth is not a given. Other planets in our solar system may have a different composition; other star systems may have vastly different relative amounts of elements altogether. To say nothing of the possibilities of economically viable extraction.

[ColBosch]

Don't worry too much about it. Until we actually get to other planets, we can't be sure what resources will be available. Hypotheses suggest that all main sequence stars of the same age as our Sun should have similar elemental compositions in their planets, and there has been a lot of solid data on spectrographs of the stars themselves, but we just don't know for certain until we get there.

In any case, reality has only a passing acquaintance with BattleTech. Future of the 1980s and all that.

[guardiandashi]

My understanding of astrophysics is limited. But I believe the relative abundance of iron and other metals on earth is not a given. Other planets in our solar system may have a different composition; other star systems may have vastly different relative amounts of elements altogether. To say nothing of the possibilities of economically viable extraction.

to some extent you are correct.  with that said there are some ways of getting data that leads to some fairly strong suggestive data.
for instance if you did a mass breakdown of earth you can find a close approximation of its relative density, if you look at another planet you can measure and or approximate its radius, which combined with a near order estimate of its mass allows you to reasonably predict its density.  if the density is similar its not unreasonable to assume its elemental makeup is reasonably close as well.

as far as earth is concerned have you ever actually considered its effective makeup?  for all practical purposes the vast majority of the formation heavy elements should be near the core, because they have migrated there over time.

what this means is that in general terms during the planetary formation of earth almost all of the relatively dense materials should be near the core with mostly lighter elements closer to the surface if you accept that conclusion, then where did all the relatively heavy and dense elements on (near) the surface come from?
IMO the most likely source is later deposition from external sources, IE an asteroid gets too close to earth, and comes down (possibly getting significantly heated in the process) and slams into the surface leaving the materials on or close to the surface.

[snewsom2997]

Earth is relatively unique in that it has two Metallic Cores. IF the theory about the moon is correct. That said without the extra metal in the core with correspondingly large amounts of radioactive Materials, we would not get the overturn of the Crust and the Volcanic Inclusions due to volcanic activity, which we so like to mine. Thinking back to the bombardment Epochs in earths prehistory, the planet looked to be liquefied a couple of times, to me that means that the heavy metals would sink, if not for a few billions years of volcanic activity pushing the Heavy Metals elements up from below the surface. When you look at a cold planet like Mars, you do not get that continual uplift, what you get on the surface is what was on the surface shortly after the volcanos and plate techtonics stopped. I would be curious to know whether or not the vulcanism on Venus is deep vulcanism, i.e. the Magna circulates, or whether or not it is a surface feature due to temp and air pressure.

[Alsadius]

Iron will be pretty common universe-wide, as heavy elements go, simply because it has the highest binding energy per nucleon - i.e., it's the point where fusion stops producing energy. Late-stage stars and supernovae will produce a lot of it, so it'll be much more common than most other heavy elements.

That said, local composition will vary. Some planets will have less, some will have more. Earth is the most iron-rich of the planets in the solar system, which is why we're the densest. It's not all that rich in the crust(5%, compared to 35% for the planet as a whole), because as you say the bulk of it has sunk over the years. But there's enough that some sinking won't leave the crust entirely devoid. Still, across a thousand inhabited planets, Earth will not be the most resource-rich - there'll be enough that we shouldn't expect shortages of exploitable ores.

[Hominid Mk II]

The location of the American-founded slowboat colony of Columbia is something known only to Belters, ComStar, and the RotS.

The French-founded colony of Terrelibre is located in the Ross 248 system.

We don't know where the British-founded New London and Brazilian-founded Paraiso were located, but they've both been abandoned for centuries anyway.

Edit: None of these has ever appeared on a BT star map. Ross 248 is a real star, but that's no guarantee that it's in the same place compared to Terra or any other system that it would be on a real-world star map oriented in the same way as a BT one. Based on what little Interstellar Players 2: Jihad Conspiracies says about Columbia, it appears that the only real-world star system it could be in is the Kapteyn's Star system. If you glance sideways at my avatar, you'll see where I think Ross 248 (Terrelibre) and Kapteyn's Star (Columbia) should be if they're in the same places as their real-world counterparts. But they may well not be, given how many other stars aren't.

[cray]

I wonder how the ilclan will deal with them?

The Belters will probably deal with the ilClan the same way they dealt with the Terran Hegemony, ComStar, and RotS: ignore them except to send their required taxes to the appointed capital planet.

Unless the ilClan is going to suddenly start making everyone wear furry Clan totem costumes and speak Clan English only, there shouldn't be a problem. But the Inner Sphere Clans - and thus probably the ilClan - did fairly well by leaving local cultures alone.

[Korzon77]

The Belters will probably deal with the ilClan the same way they dealt with the Terran Hegemony, ComStar, and RotS: ignore them except to send their required taxes to the appointed capital planet.

Unless the ilClan is going to suddenly start making everyone wear furry Clan totem costumes and speak Clan English only, there shouldn't be a problem. But the Inner Sphere Clans - and thus probably the ilClan - did fairly well by leaving local cultures alone.

Given the comparative population sizes, I get he image of the entire Inner Sphere, belter and all, "surrendering" by just deploying legions of frustrated actors from teh various jr. colleges to play the role of "subjugated" Spheroids to their clan occupiers. Everyone is satisifed and paying someone to go to drama school is FAR more economic than buying a battlemech.