Trial of Birthright: A Star League, if you can keep it.

[Spirit Cat Refugee]

This book has been out for 5 days and just got POD version yesterday. Lots of discussion about already on the official discord and elsewhere about it. We need a thread for it here on the official forums though.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DRZZFN4Y



This novel focuses primarily on Clan Wolf and advances the timeline 6 months past Hour of the Wolf. It also focuses primarily on the formation of the new Star League Defense Force.

Share your impressions and thoughts in this thread.

[Lanceman]

I've talked about my thoughts some on the Discord, but overall I was very happy with Trial of Birthright. There were already some hints that the new SLDF was going to be kind of a RotS successor, and I wanted to see one that was standing apart from the Wolves and I think we've definitely got the roots for it now.

For characters, I was really surprised at how much I took to Noritomo Helmer and much fun I had watching him trying to build a bureaucracy up while dealing with a culture that hasn't known "normal" government functioning for centuries.

Antasia Kerensky was another surprise. While I wouldn't go as far as calling it a complete rehabilitation of her character, I really appreciated being shown that she has some self-awareness of her more unusual tendencies. And she continually made vaguely threatening remarks to Alaric, which is definitely scored points with me.

Overall, it made me (even more) excited for IKEO.

[Lyran Wolf]

Here is my review and thoughts on the book

Trial of Birthright Review

I devoured the book…for reasons.  So at some point I should probably go back and read with a deliberate eye to catch things on second read.  But here are my thoughts.

The prose is good, exactly what you would expect from a Battletech novel.  Good,  functional, writing.


Characterization was good.  Anastasia’s past issues were acknowledged to some extent, and a path charted for the future for her.  I don’t feel that any character acted in a way they shouldn’t have.  The only potential complaint might be that in a few spots some characters felt more reactive than proactive, but that is probably more to do with them looking to Darren for his expertise.  So at most the complaint might be that it was rather apparent Darren was a MC in a couple spots and past protagonists deferred to him.

We also had two former Wolves in Exile, Darren and Lana, but that’s only kinda mentioned once early in the novel.  Their Exileness(?) doesn’t really play into things.  That wasn’t really the lift the book was making so I can completely understand why word count wasn’t devoted to it.    They are all wolves now, time to move on.

The plot made sense. The novel shows a glimpse into the re-birth of the Star League and the SLDF.  The antagonists make sense from their point of view, and nothing seems jarring.  It will be interesting to see how the foreshadowing plays out since it’s very apparent the SLDF is being positioned as a separate entity and Noritomo Helmer also appears to be attempting to stand up a Star League that will outlast him, everyone around him, and any of the individual factions or entities that make it up.

The conflicts had believable amounts of setbacks and challenges.  Yes the protagonists will ultimately win, but they had to fight for it and it didn’t always go exactly how they wanted

Characters
Noritomo Helmer - Fan.  His current actions paint him as a Warden in Jade Falcon Wolf's clothing.  He’s playing a long game…really long game.  His history and position as a Loremaster makes it believable that he thinks a bit differently than the average clanner.

Darren - liked him.  My curiosity has me wondering what the exact circuitous path he took from Exile to Republic was, we see the back part of the path that brings him back to the wolves.  It will be interesting to see where he goes and how he gets used in the future.

Anastasia - still Anastasia.  Seemed as consistent as possible for Anastasia.  I like her, but I liked what I read of her in Dark Age novels so…. Seeing where she takes the SLDF in the future will be fun.

Alaric - Heavy is the Head.

Lana - I’ll recuse myself from comment, but will say I’m happy with where she ended up.  The SLDF is looking to be the exact kind of place I’d want a Kell descended former Exile to end up.  It feels right.

Daur - the name certainly feels on the nose 😄

There are tons of other supporting characters I liked, a few returning characters that felt right as well.

All in all I was pleased with it.  I’m interested to see where this all goes in the future.  It should be a fun ride.

[Kojak]

We also had two former Wolves in Exile, Darren and Lana

Three. Anastasia Kerensky was also a Wolf-in-Exile, once upon a time.

[Arkansas Warrior]

I enjoyed the overall arc of the novel, there were a lot of interesting developments, and I think it did a good job advancing the narrative.  I was happy to see the return of some characters from the dawn of the Dark Age, hopefully we’ll see more of various knights and the like from early DA material, popping up here and there.  But the devil is in the details.


As with most recent CGL products, from novels to sourcebooks to Shrapnel, it was shot through with minor things that should have been caught in copy-editing.  I’m not sure if they’re just rushing everything through too quickly, or they’ve hired Quickscell to do their copy-editing, or what, but it’s come to be an expectation rather than an exception, which is disappointing.


There was one particular scene that I just found confusing: the dropship hijack raid in Chapter 4.  It gives its location as “Mars Orbit”, and the POV character at one point looks “down at the green, blue, and white marble below them”…but it also calls the yards the “Titan Shipyards”.  I’m sorry, did I miss where the Titan Shipyards were moved from, well, Titan?  Titan’s farther from Mars than Earth is, there’s no way he’d be able to see it from there (plus THe beginning of the chapter says “mars orbit”).  Then there’s the raid itself. No numbers are given, but only about six members are named, and the impression is definitely of a squad of commandos, having free-jumped from a dropship.  Then they hijack a Castrum? How many people does it take to crew a Castrum, even as a bare-bones prize crew?  Also, one of the team members has her own team that gets left behind, so I’m really not sure how many people there were in this outfit.  Not to mention that at least seven other teams attacked with them, since it mentions seven other dropships getting hijacked at the same time.  There’s some real scale whiplash when, over the course of a few pages, it goes from sounding like one squad of folks, to all of a sudden we’re hinacking a flotilla of large dropships (well, a flotilla including at least one large dropship), while also leaving behind some commandos who couldn’t get back before the ships left.  How many spec-ops commandos do the Belters have?


Then there’s the protagonist.  I liked him, seemed like a good dude.  Not sure how Lana Kell seemed to not know who he was when she went to get him, given that they apparently have the same geneparents, but maybe WiE makes a lot of those sibkos.  But then there’s the chapter where, mid-raid, after hurrying to a combat zone and chasing rebels around for a while, he spends eight pages laying out in detail his analysis of the rebels’ entire operational structure, which he’d apparently been thinking about the entire time he was running around in a Phoenix Hawk (given that there’s no downtime between the end of the mech piloting and this immediately following scene).  This includes things like him pointing out as obvious a trap that Anastasia Kerensky had completely missed, and her eventually nodding along and following the advice of this Lieutenant that two months before had been fighting for the RAF.  I seriously wondered if he was being set up to star in some sort of Sherlock Holmes-style Battlemech Detective series, such were his leaps of logic.  But no, that’s only one of his talents.  He’s also capable of beating elementals in hand to hand combat, fighting three elite clan warriors by himself in a melee, etc.  I mean, given his geneparents I suppose I should just be saying he inherited his genefather’s plot armor, but I don’t like to go to that excuse.  (Though defeating an elemental in an unaugmenred Bloodname trial is becoming something of a family tradition.  As is claiming a name you have at best a tenuous tie to, if any, apparently.)  Can’t say I’m looking forward to the arc this ristar of ristars look set for.  I mean, I liked the guy a lot, really.  But his arc over the course of the novel, from ex-RAF abtakha who’s trianing other former RAF personnel in rifle marksmanship, to a guy who’s single-handedly altering the trajectory of the ilClan and Star League, giving advice to and being highly favored by the ilKhan and the SLDF Commanding General, it all felt a bit rushed.  It at least took Phelan an entire trilogy to go from bondsman to Bloodnamed.

[worktroll]

So I did like Star Colonel Esten Canto. An Elemental who paints BattleTech minis, brings popcorn to Trial fights, and is pretty darned clever.

But then I realised that this, like so many things in this book, leaned into the one-dimensionalism Stackpole has long been accused of.

Consider: Everyone who joins the SLDF reborn regardless of origin is good, honourable, and does the right thing all the time. The only time the SLDF forces fail in their mission is when an Evil Clan Wolfie^TM intervenes. And everyone in Clan Wolf who's loyal to Clan Wolf - not the IlKhan, not the SLDF - is Evil^TM and Stupid^TM - there are no clever, good, or conflicted Wolf loyalists.

Heck, it's more one-dimensional than the Warrior trilogy. The Davions may have Justin Xiang, and Super Hanse, and etc etc, but they did at least get Michael Hasek-Davion and Count Vitios. Name one 'bad' SLDFer in this novel?

The novel's not bad - just I hoped for more of the subtlety that separated Hour of the Wolf from IlKhan. It sets up major tensions between Clan Wolf and the SLDF. While it offers little airtime to clans Jade Falcon or Smoke Jaguar, it's pretty clear they're going to be aligned with the SLDF, who treats them with respect, as opposed to Clan Wolf, who sees them as competitors and lesser beings.

The insights on Alaric are worth the read just in themselves. Boy, did this provide plenty of room for future plot hooks! After all, he is great, isn't he?

[Caesar Steiner for Archon]

I think the lack of the Falcons in the story is probably because they're getting their own book so they were off doing something different we don't know about yet.

[MarauderD]

I enjoyed the book.  At the same time, I agree with Worktroll that there was a pretty stark White hat/Black hat thing going on with the SLDF and Clan Wolf.  A little more gray would have made sense to me.

[Mendrugo]

There was one particular scene that I just found confusing: the dropship hijack raid in Chapter 4.  It gives its location as “Mars Orbit”, and the POV character at one point looks “down at the green, blue, and white marble below them”…but it also calls the yards the “Titan Shipyards”.  I’m sorry, did I miss where the Titan Shipyards were moved from, well, Titan?  Titan’s farther from Mars than Earth is, there’s no way he’d be able to see it from there (plus THe beginning of the chapter says “mars orbit”). 

The raid site was CMC-90, which is in Mars orbit, and most of the scene correctly refers to it as CMC-90.  The reference to Titan was in error.  The "green, blue, and white marble below them" does refer to Mars, which has been fully terraformed since the Terran Alliance era, and got its water complement replenished during the Blakist regime. 

In terms of how many spec-ops commandos the Belters have - they have an overall population of two billion, so they do have a fairly robust bench to draw from.  And that's not counting any RAF special forces that went into hiding among the Belter populace.

[Nerroth]

There were a few details which I found of note:

Firstly, that Khan Cassius N'Buta's speech from Operational Turning Points: REVIVAL Trials has not been forgotten, even if his Clan has long since become estranged from those in the new Star League who have taken heed of it.

Secondly, I saw that the art from page 97 of Shattered Fortress, depicting Alaric and Stone squaring off in a Circle of Equals, has been "canonized"... if only as a simulator battle!

Thirdly, as mentioned elsewhere, I found some interesting parallels between Trail of Birthright on the one hand, and Moving Forward from Shrapnel #6 on the other. Both deal with how far abtakha from a defeated realm can go within the ranks of the Clan that Absorbed them; and to what extent this can trigger adverse reactions from those within each respective touman who reject such integrationist approaches. (And, perhaps, what options might be on the table, should both Clans eventually establish communications with one another.)

And fourthly, while not a data point in this book per se, I find myself that much more looking forward to seeing the "sourcebook perspective" for all of this, once IlKhan's Eyes Only shows up next week!

[Arkansas Warrior]

The raid site was CMC-90, which is in Mars orbit, and most of the scene correctly refers to it as CMC-90.  The reference to Titan was in error.  The "green, blue, and white marble below them" does refer to Mars, which has been fully terraformed since the Terran Alliance era, and got its water complement replenished during the Blakist regime. 

In terms of how many spec-ops commandos the Belters have - they have an overall population of two billion, so they do have a fairly robust bench to draw from.  And that's not counting any RAF special forces that went into hiding among the Belter populace.

I'll put that down to something else that should have been caught in editing, then.

[Kojak]

In my defense, I did point out the Titan thing in fact-check -- I'm not sure how it slipped through.

[Spirit Cat Refugee]

So I did like Star Colonel Esten Canto. An Elemental who paints BattleTech minis, brings popcorn to Trial fights, and is pretty darned clever.

But then I realised that this, like so many things in this book, leaned into the one-dimensionalism Stackpole has long been accused of.

Consider: Everyone who joins the SLDF reborn regardless of origin is good, honourable, and does the right thing all the time. The only time the SLDF forces fail in their mission is when an Evil Clan Wolfie^TM intervenes. And everyone in Clan Wolf who's loyal to Clan Wolf - not the IlKhan, not the SLDF - is Evil^TM and Stupid^TM - there are no clever, good, or conflicted Wolf loyalists.

Heck, it's more one-dimensional than the Warrior trilogy. The Davions may have Justin Xiang, and Super Hanse, and etc etc, but they did at least get Michael Hasek-Davion and Count Vitios. Name one 'bad' SLDFer in this novel?

The novel's not bad - just I hoped for more of the subtlety that separated Hour of the Wolf from IlKhan. It sets up major tensions between Clan Wolf and the SLDF. While it offers little airtime to clans Jade Falcon or Smoke Jaguar, it's pretty clear they're going to be aligned with the SLDF, who treats them with respect, as opposed to Clan Wolf, who sees them as competitors and lesser beings.

The insights on Alaric are worth the read just in themselves. Boy, did this provide plenty of room for future plot hooks! After all, he is great, isn't he?

I wouldn't call the Clan Wolf characters evil and stupid. Arrogant yes, stubborn also yes, and by the standards of the Terrans and RAF definitely evil, but by the standards of the SLDF they're just refusing to compromise. It's understandable they'd be this way; they've just won the IlClan trial, they are the IlClan, and they're angry that everyone isn't bowing down to worship them like they thought. They thought it'd be easy after, a land of milk and honey, and it's not, and they're angry.

You also have a selection bias issue going on. Any Wolves who would challenge this arrogance and refusal to compromise are getting shunted off to the SLDF. So all the voices who would be "good" and "smart" in your terms are being forced out by an increasingly bitter and angry Chance Vickers, leading to some braindrain. This happens in organizations all the time where poor leadership or leadership that won't compromise chases out potentially useful subordinates for yes-men.

Clan Wolf is acting the way Clan Wolf has always acted. Alaric executed POWs on Helm. Clan Wolf executed civilians on Helm. They stole supplies ("requisitioned" in their terms) from civilians in their Empire all the time, and they're doing it on Terra. It's short-sighted, but it's in their character.

Chance Vickers has become a far more interesting character now. Between her anger at Alaric not rewarding her loyalty with the Khanship, and probably some guilt over snuffing out Devlin Stone when he couldn't fight back, she's clearly trying to do the job she's been given but feeling unappreciated and a ton of guilt too.

[Arkansas Warrior]

I want to come back in to reiterate that I really did enjoy the novel.  I feel like my first post could read as overly negative, and I didn't mean for it to.  There were a few small things I was confused about or disappointed with, but all in all I liked it.  It's too easy to say "I liked it, except for..." and spent 90% of your post on small negatives.


Bringing back Mason Dunne was great.  I really liked his character in Ghost War, all those years ago (my gosh, was I 14 when that came out?  Holy Cow!), and it was great to see him back.  Same to a lesser extent with Janella Lakewood, she's had more screen time, but is another character from the dawn of DA that really helps the setting feel continuous, rather than "that was DA, this is Now".  Anastasia as well, come to think of it, and she's gone through massive evolutions since the Tassa Kay days.  Some great callbacks.  I wonder what other old DA character we might see pop up in the future.  Raul Ortega?  Austin Ortega?  Jerome Parsons? Grace O'Malley?  I could keep going, but I probably shouldn't.


Also, maybe it's just me, but I really enjoyed seeing the formation of the new SLDF.  I wouldn't have guessed the direction that took.  But I enjoy the logistical side, talking equipment production, personnel recruitment, unit formation, etc.  Too much of it might be boring, which makes it hard to do well if you have to find a way to get some action scenes in.  But I think this one did it well.


I'm looking forward to seeing where things go from here.

[DarkISI]

Thirdly, as mentioned elsewhere, I found some interesting parallels between Trail of Birthright on the one hand, and Moving Forward from Shrapnel #6 on the other. Both deal with how far abtakha from a defeated realm can go within the ranks of the Clan that Absorbed them; and to what extent this can trigger adverse reactions from those within each respective touman who reject such integrationist approaches. (And, perhaps, what options might be on the table, should both Clans eventually establish communications with one another.)

Where elsewhere?
I think the Star League and the Scorpions would be very interesting. Scorpions and the ilClan... far more boring.


Btw: A-Team is a documentary in the 32nd century :D

[Spirit Cat Refugee]

Finished the novel, really liked it. I appreciate that the author went out of their way to patch up some of the ways the Republic got done dirty. Just having a ton of characters, including some Smoke Jaguars talk about how much they owed to the Republic, how important it was, was nice to see. It made their flip a little less bitter. It's nice having a work where you can tell the author doesn't hate one side and just proceeds to get them bodied at every moment.

Great mix of politics and characterization. My only, ONLY criticism of the novel is two-fold. A) I would've liked to see ONE scene with Chance Vickers and Mathi Vickers from their POV. We understand why they don't like the new SLDF, and it's a pretty reasonable stance, but hearing them say would've made them, especially Mathi seem less like antagonists against the SLDF for the sake of antagonists. It also would've been good to see the conflict in Chance in her own mind; we know from several sources that Chance is big on loyalty, and obviously feels like Alaric did not give her her due. Just hearing that in her own head I think would've made her much more sympathetic.

B) One scene with Mason Dunne and Reynard Seychelles early on, maybe once Darren tricks/defeats a raid would've been good. We meet Reynard and promptly kill him off the next chapter. I would've liked to see more characterization, and seen some RAF characters from their perspective who haven't given up the fight yet.

The novel already is pretty big, nearly 400 pages, so I get why those things didn't get included, but I think they would have taken the novel from 98% amazing to 100% best novel yet in the IlClan era. I'd have to rank this on the same level of Damocles Sanction, which prior was already my favorite IlClan era book.

[JAMES_PRYDE]

<Decided to move this to here>

Finished reading TOB. Good Read

First question, so technically, can Darren use both his Bloodnames ? Would they both be on his uniform ?

I found the division as it grew between the Wolves and the SLDF very grabbing, gave many food for thought, towards the end, especially reading and seeing the attitude of both Vickers, needing war and blood, and extremists Crusader sentiments, then later Lakewood's "unspoken" endorsement of Warden philosophy, a thought hit me, it may be very down the line in the ilClan Era, but what if, this "Final Annihilation" that has been teased, is against the Wolves/Crusaders? When SLDF proper is well. They go do something totally bad, and the SLDF is like, that's it ! Also very ironic too, would it be classed as another civil war?

EDIT: And the "demons" in Alaric's head at the end, were/are a great touch for our little boy wolf

And yes Helmer is good.

[Hellraiser]

Question:

Is this a Novel?   Paperpack?   Hard Back?    Source Book?

I'm just seeing the deadtree price of $20 and wondering what it is I'm looking for.

[Lyran Wolf]

It is a novel.
The physical copy will be a Print on Demand copy.  Soft cover

The novel specifically deals with the aftermath of the IlClan trial and the taking of Terra.  Though focused on the new SLDF, with details around the new Star League as necessary.  There is a lot it doesn’t cover that should be touched on in IlKhan’s Eyes Only, IKEO, which will be showing up in the middle of this week.
IKEO is a sourcebook.

[Hellraiser]

The physical copy will be a Print on Demand copy.  Soft cover

Ah, ok, so not something I can get at my local Barnes & Noble

[Lyran Wolf]

Actually it looks like you can get the Trade paperback at B&N.

I might have confused novels with the fact Shrapnel is PoD

[DarkISI]

It is PoD, but Amazon does work like a publisher for retail. The retail store simply has to treat Amazon as a publisher and order books from them.

[Nerroth]

Where elsewhere?

I meant "noted" as in "noted by me in other threads" (such as here and here). I didn't want to seem like I was overly repeating myself on this topic, though there is a somewhat different focus in each case.

Although:

I think the Star League and the Scorpions would be very interesting. Scorpions and the ilClan... far more boring.

That might be a question that could begin to be addressed in the wake of IlKhan's Eyes Only - at least, so far as whether the new Star League is to consider the Goliath Scorpions as being "Clan" or not.

Although, while it appears that the IlClan Watch is thus far unaware of the Scorpions having functional HPGs, it has been noted in the Voidbreaker preview thread that the topic (from a Clan Sea Fox perspective, at least) is going to be addressed in that novel somehow.

[RanFelsnerAFFS]

B) One scene with Mason Dunne and Reynard Seychelles early on, maybe once Darren tricks/defeats a raid would've been good. We meet Reynard and promptly kill him off the next chapter. I would've liked to see more characterization, and seen some RAF characters from their perspective who haven't given up the fight yet.

I find it quite a coincidence that both Seychelles Stonehearts and Lana Kell first came to life in the same Shrapnel issue (#4) and make their return to the big stage in ToB :)

I am very intrigued to see how the contradictions between the Stonehearts Unit Digest and ToB are being solved.

Shrapnel stating that they left Terra immediately after Janella's capture and having resurfaced on Keid in 3151 being led by a living Reynard Seychelles, with ToB having Reynard being killed by Mason in November 3151 in Terra...

Maybe Reynard and the Stonehearts will be the RotS-Hardliners version of the Bounty Hunter and his Bunch. It's always "Reynard Seychelles" even when it's other people acting in this persona

[Mendrugo]

Shrapnel stating that they left Terra immediately after Janella's capture and having resurfaced on Keid in 3151 being led by a living Reynard Seychelles, with ToB having Reynard being killed by Mason in November 3151 in Terra...

Easiest explanation is that they knew how to get through the Wall and crossed back to Terra after a brief refit on Keid.

[Knightmare]

Easiest explanation is that they knew how to get through the Wall and crossed back to Terra after a brief refit on Keid.

This.

[RotS fan]

But how did they leave Terra and the Solar System (and came back to it!) without attracting any attention from the Clans? I find it easier to believe that their presence somewhere else than Terra is a honest mistake or "costar-level" misinformation

[Mendrugo]

But how did they leave Terra and the Solar System (and came back to it!) without attracting any attention from the Clans? I find it easier to believe that their presence somewhere else than Terra is a honest mistake or "costar-level" misinformation

There are two billion Belters living in the outer reaches of the Sol system.  Millions of ships.  Easy enough to blend into that traffic.  During the fighting, the Clans didn't have a super-tight stranglehold on Terra's orbital space.  Hansen's Roughriders were able to pack out and leave.  Plus, the RAF continued to launch harassing attacks against Clan supply lines until their final defeat at the Second Battle of Titan, tying up Clan space assets even more.  With all that going on, there's more than enough background noise for units with the necessary info and resources to slip in and out unnoticed.