Building your own Battletech universe from scratch

[Triptych]

My son is an anime fan, and he's been bugging me to write an robot anime novel, so I'm finally gonna indulge him. My plan is to combine the common tropes of mecha anime like Gundam, Knights of Sidonia and Code Gease, with the more realistic stuff found in BT.

So what I've done is combined BT with Gundam. For starters, I have created a sort of LAM machine which I call a mechtan (short for mecha titan). It'll have phasers, photon torpedoes and lightsabers, plus antigravity so it can move and dodge like a Gundam in a BT universe. Mechtans will also have force fields and armor for defense. They'll have exotic power too, which gives them unlimited range.

Now in order to make these mechtans really special, only rare individuals called Abraxans can pilot them. I'm thinking maybe one in a trillion humans have an innate inborn ability to pilot a mechtan, so each faction would only have a handful of these Abraxans, and the book will center around them. 

Next tier are the demimechs (which are essentially battlemechs), with fusion engines, lasers, missiles and gauss rifles. Primary defense will be their armor.

Of course there will also be conventional AFVs like tanks, IFVs, APCs, etc.

Worldbuilding will be similar to BT, with a once united human empire on the verge of breaking apart. Great Houses, but maybe 4 instead of 5.

Did I forget anything? Any suggestions welcome. 

[Prospernia]

Don't forget to do your research! 

Read country-books about cultures; I've found '70's books about the future, are interesting.

[Daryk]

With rare pilots like that, they're definitely going to be reserved for Special Forces.  Attritional warfare is won by "good enough" quality with MASS.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

One in one trillion is kinda too low to build an actual force out of.  Even if your setting is the size of the Inner Sphere, that would mean only about five or six people who could pilot them.  Even if they're magic super-robots that are basically invincible and capable of taking on entire armies and winning, they're not enough to actually matter if the setting is going to be mostly grounded instead of a space superhero setting.  Going with one in one billion or even one in ten billion would let them be common enough to actually be used as some sort of legitimate military force.

[Triptych]

Don't forget to do your research! 

Read country-books about cultures; I've found '70's books about the future, are interesting.

Could you give me some titles? ;)

[Triptych]

With rare pilots like that, they're definitely going to be reserved for Special Forces.  Attritional warfare is won by "good enough" quality with MASS.

I was thinking they might be like hero units in videogames, sort of like Jedi Knights attached to clone armies.

If I was to make an RPG of this, they would be the player characters lol

One in one trillion is kinda too low to build an actual force out of.  Even if your setting is the size of the Inner Sphere, that would mean only about five or six people who could pilot them.  Even if they're magic super-robots that are basically invincible and capable of taking on entire armies and winning, they're not enough to actually matter if the setting is going to be mostly grounded instead of a space superhero setting.  Going with one in one billion or even one in ten billion would let them be common enough to actually be used as some sort of legitimate military force.

Good points on the numbers. BT uses regimental size units for major planetary assaults, but I think I want to scale this up to Army Groups or something. Multiple Corps of ground troops backed up by huge battle fleets.

Does anyone know of a larger unit formation than an army group? Or maybe a better name? Army group sounds old fashioned when writing a space opera. I'll give you credit or a mention. 

With these mechtan pilots I was thinking each faction ought to have no more than two dozen tops. That ought to be enough to keep them both rare and in proper numbers to alter the outcome of any battle if they get attached to a unit. The Great Houses would have to carefully choose where and when to deploy them.

[Daryk]

Pretty much they'd all be trying to avoid letting an opponent bring one when they don't have one.  I think this would drive more investment in WarShips and orbital defenses...

[Prospernia]

Could you give me some titles? ;)

Mankind: 2000 (1967)
Arcology: Cities in the Image of Man
Images of the Future

Country-Study books

[Daemion]

Does anyone know of a larger unit formation than an army group? Or maybe a better name? Army group sounds old fashioned when writing a space opera. I'll give you credit or a mention. 

A term you might be looking for is Brigade.  The Davion Brigade of Guards encompasses all Guard regiments.

[Red Pins]

Hmm.

As above, increase the percentage of possible users.  Age, physical condition, mental toughness, moral questions...  Please tell me there will be no nonsense like the 'alien ancestry' in Stargate.

And as 'invincible' as these units are, have you considered the sheer insanity the individual components will interject on this universe?  Everything about them will have to be identified, explained and rationalized, and the is the BEGINNING of your problems.  Timeline, tech tree Ohmigawd - the tech tree.  Why does this have super-engines, and not that...  Rarity and expense is one thing, but consider Ukraine's use of drone speedboats against the Russian navy.  A few generations backwards might make the perfect counter-weapon., setting, history...  If you don't want this to have so many holes it becomes unreadable, I think you'll have to narrow your focus on a plotline to just a fraction of all this.

Perhaps the Bolo stories by Keith Laumer (sp) might offer a suggestion?  The handwavium of power plants, armor, weapons, stardrives, etc. were heavily glossed over to tell the story.  Also, the Gundam universe itself; the pilots were just random and became superpowered during the course of the story, IIRC.

Might want to post on fanfiction.net or the battlespace forum, since its a derivative of a couple genres.  It sounds interesting.  Let us know when its done, eh?

[Garrand]

A brigade is an organization that encompasses either a mixture of different types of units (i.e. a mech brigade has 1 tank battalion & 2 mech infantry battalions), or an organization that groups multiple regiments together (which is what the Davion Brigade of Guards would be...in this case an organizational formation rather than a maneuver unit).

The name for units, top to bottom are:

Army Group: 2 or more armies
Army: 2 or more corps
Corps: 2 or more divisions
Division: 2 or more regiments/brigades
Brigade: either 2 or more battalions, often of different types (or their equivalents), OR 2 or more regiments.
Regiment: 2 or more battalions of the same type
Battalion: 2 or more companies
Company: 2 or more platoons
Platoon: 2 or more squads/vehicles
etc...

So what comes above an army group? In the real world we never had to really deal with that.

Damon.

[Triptych]

Pretty much they'd all be trying to avoid letting an opponent bring one when they don't have one.  I think this would drive more investment in WarShips and orbital defenses...

Good point. The timeline Im setting this in is currently equal to the start of the First Succession War for BT, but with a major difference: the Star League Army sticks around. 

It would be a cat and mouse game with all factions trying to maneuver their hero units along the borders to gain the best advantage the moment the shooting starts. In so doing, there's probably going to be a shadow conflict wherein some of these mechtan pilots will get assassinated or blackmailed or something. Still working on that bit lol.

Mankind: 2000 (1967)
Arcology: Cities in the Image of Man
Images of the Future

Country-Study books

Nice. Im currently referencing the BT House sourcebooks for culture since Im gonna use the nobility and all that. These hero pilots will be treated like gold and are essentially adopted in the nobility the moment theyre discovered. Maybe even put in an attempted breeding program like the Bene Gesserit? hmm.

Hmm.

As above, increase the percentage of possible users.  Age, physical condition, mental toughness, moral questions...  Please tell me there will be no nonsense like the 'alien ancestry' in Stargate.

And as 'invincible' as these units are, have you considered the sheer insanity the individual components will interject on this universe?  Everything about them will have to be identified, explained and rationalized, and the is the BEGINNING of your problems.  Timeline, tech tree Ohmigawd - the tech tree.  Why does this have super-engines, and not that...  Rarity and expense is one thing, but consider Ukraine's use of drone speedboats against the Russian navy.  A few generations backwards might make the perfect counter-weapon., setting, history...  If you don't want this to have so many holes it becomes unreadable, I think you'll have to narrow your focus on a plotline to just a fraction of all this.

Perhaps the Bolo stories by Keith Laumer (sp) might offer a suggestion?  The handwavium of power plants, armor, weapons, stardrives, etc. were heavily glossed over to tell the story.  Also, the Gundam universe itself; the pilots were just random and became superpowered during the course of the story, IIRC.

Might want to post on fanfiction.net or the battlespace forum, since its a derivative of a couple genres.  It sounds interesting.  Let us know when its done, eh?

The first book is already coming out late April. 

Heres the link: https://www.amazon.com/Abraxan-Shattered-Imperium-Book-1-ebook/dp/B0CV48D6F3/

With regards to the tech, I'll just gloss over it. My current plan is to make these mecha titans ancient alien artifacts with vastly superior tech, so they can self repair, but there probably will be a Comstar like organization that helps to maintain them or something. Still fleshing out the details. 

[Red Pins]

 

Self-publish?  Cool.

[SteelRaven]

Best of luck with the story and I hope you are enjoying the creative process.

It sounds like you are already well on your way crafting your world but I do have two suggestions.

One would be avoiding your new houses of sounding like nation states and more like a collective planetary alliances, it's a tone that Battletech started with that has faded with over time. Each planet having their own interest and agency will make the changing of flags more believable and avoid the 'sheeple' argument we often read in the general discussion far too often.

Second would be to avoid planetville trope of a entire planet being define by one location on the map. It works for Battletech and a few other long live sci-fi franchises for it's simplicity but it leaves out some potential for future world building. You can focus on one area of a planet as the center of power (as far as the larger interstellar community is concerned) but at least mentioning other parts of the planet would also make flag changing easier. Maybe the rest of the planet doesn't care what happens to the 'capital' as long as it doesn't interfere with their lives, maybe another part of the planet who felt neglect are the ones who support the regime change and now they host the new capital as they hoist the new flag.

You don't need to go deep into the politics, just hint at it and let the readers imagination go wild. It leaves you with plenty of story telling potential if anyone wants to go full Game of Thrones from the planet side states to galactic trade.         

Pretty much they'd all be trying to avoid letting an opponent bring one when they don't have one.  I think this would drive more investment in WarShips and orbital defenses...

This would actual work with the idea of highly trained individuals and small units with multi role machines vs a larger forces. In theory, it's going to easier to have small craft to a stealth* insertion vs a larger war group if the main objective is planet side.

* depending on what counts as stealth in this universe, could be as just dressing up a military transport as a standard shuttle via Gundam Wing or Return of the Jedi but it's not unheard of for sci-fi to use active cloak and anti-grave for a almost silent landing     

[BrianDavion]

regarding numbers just going to give a peice of advice.

Don't. Hard numbers are the bane of sci-fi writing

[Prospernia]

. . .

Nice. Im currently referencing the BT House sourcebooks for culture since Im gonna use the nobility and all that. These hero pilots will be treated like gold and are essentially adopted in the nobility the moment theyre discovered. Maybe even put in an attempted breeding program like the Bene Gesserit? hmm.
. . .

It's no easy matter; it took years for me to gather info on cultures etc.  I used to love to read, "Daily life in  ______", books, until, they all started to sound the same to me.


The House books are, nice, but they don't really say much about culture; the only good culture I found was in House Kurita's Pillar of Gold and Ivory chapters, and in House Davion's Six-Freedoms?  Or was it five?  And these are from the OG House books.

As for the Bene Gesserit, you can always read the post Dune books written by Herbert's son. They're an easy read (BUT, there's a lot to read),with lots of useful info that I consider, somewhat cannon Battletech, in style.  There aren't rules for psychic-powers in Battletech (that I know of, perhaps maybe in the Word Of Blake books).  There are in Mekton though.

Anyways, you might want to take a modern-culture, and then apply it to life in space.  How would Vedic-Indians deal with life, say on Mars? 

[Triptych]

A brigade is an organization that encompasses either a mixture of different types of units (i.e. a mech brigade has 1 tank battalion & 2 mech infantry battalions), or an organization that groups multiple regiments together (which is what the Davion Brigade of Guards would be...in this case an organizational formation rather than a maneuver unit).

The name for units, top to bottom are:

Army Group: 2 or more armies
Army: 2 or more corps
Corps: 2 or more divisions
Division: 2 or more regiments/brigades
Brigade: either 2 or more battalions, often of different types (or their equivalents), OR 2 or more regiments.
Regiment: 2 or more battalions of the same type
Battalion: 2 or more companies
Company: 2 or more platoons
Platoon: 2 or more squads/vehicles
etc...

So what comes above an army group? In the real world we never had to really deal with that.

Damon.

Yeah I think I'll have to go with Army Group, but it sounds kinda quaint in a sci-fi setting lol.

Self-publish?  Cool.

LOL yeah been doing it for years. Hit the Amazon bestseller list a few times. I used to make nothing, but now it pays the bills and best of all, its fun.

Best of luck with the story and I hope you are enjoying the creative process.

It sounds like you are already well on your way crafting your world but I do have two suggestions.

One would be avoiding your new houses of sounding like nation states and more like a collective planetary alliances, it's a tone that Battletech started with that has faded with over time. Each planet having their own interest and agency will make the changing of flags more believable and avoid the 'sheeple' argument we often read in the general discussion far too often.

Second would be to avoid planetville trope of a entire planet being define by one location on the map. It works for Battletech and a few other long live sci-fi franchises for it's simplicity but it leaves out some potential for future world building. You can focus on one area of a planet as the center of power (as far as the larger interstellar community is concerned) but at least mentioning other parts of the planet would also make flag changing easier. Maybe the rest of the planet doesn't care what happens to the 'capital' as long as it doesn't interfere with their lives, maybe another part of the planet who felt neglect are the ones who support the regime change and now they host the new capital as they hoist the new flag.

You don't need to go deep into the politics, just hint at it and let the readers imagination go wild. It leaves you with plenty of story telling potential if anyone wants to go full Game of Thrones from the planet side states to galactic trade.         

This would actual work with the idea of highly trained individuals and small units with multi role machines vs a larger forces. In theory, it's going to easier to have small craft to a stealth* insertion vs a larger war group if the main objective is planet side.

* depending on what counts as stealth in this universe, could be as just dressing up a military transport as a standard shuttle via Gundam Wing or Return of the Jedi but it's not unheard of for sci-fi to use active cloak and anti-grave for a almost silent landing     

You bring up an interesting point with regards to nation states and alliances. Even though BT has a feudal system, the state bureaucracies are modern. I'm trying to replicate that part to give it a Game of Thrones / Dune feel. Agreed on giving each world a different culture and character. So far the first novel only covers a few planets and we only get glimpses of them, but one world in particular is focused on, so I tried to make it kinda real.

regarding numbers just going to give a peice of advice.

Don't. Hard numbers are the bane of sci-fi writing

Agreed. I just sort of plug in some hints on the true scale during dialogues and such to give it a realistic feel. There's plenty of scenes with general staff doing sitreps and planning, so I have to put bits of numbers in there.

It's no easy matter; it took years for me to gather info on cultures etc.  I used to love to read, "Daily life in  ______", books, until, they all started to sound the same to me.


The House books are, nice, but they don't really say much about culture; the only good culture I found was in House Kurita's Pillar of Gold and Ivory chapters, and in House Davion's Six-Freedoms?  Or was it five?  And these are from the OG House books.

As for the Bene Gesserit, you can always read the post Dune books written by Herbert's son. They're an easy read (BUT, there's a lot to read),with lots of useful info that I consider, somewhat cannon Battletech, in style.  There aren't rules for psychic-powers in Battletech (that I know of, perhaps maybe in the Word Of Blake books).  There are in Mekton though.

Anyways, you might want to take a modern-culture, and then apply it to life in space.  How would Vedic-Indians deal with life, say on Mars? 

Oh I'm not gonna give anyone superpowers other than machine affinities, I think. I'll add in religions and stuff, but nothing like telepathy and prescience. This series (assuming the books sell) is more of a military space opera, where smarts and tactics rule. 

[Von Jankmon]

1. How many of these suits do you want walking around in your story?  Work out those numbers first and extrapolate the number of Abraxans based on that.  To keep the logistics plausible work out everything in reverse order.

2.  Can you brainwash or mind control an Abraxan, or kidnap one and inject their DNA into yourself to become the endboss?

3.  What happens with disabled or peacenik Abraxans?  With them being so rare do they get conscripted anyway, to they get put to death or harvested for materials if they will not serve.

4.  Are Abraxans heredirtary, if so are they linked to the great houses?

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

And how many Abraxans are there compared to the number of suits?  I there are more people who can use the things than there are things, Von Jankmon's 3rd point becomes moot.  If there are fewer people than there are things, it becomes extra important.

[Triptych]

1. How many of these suits do you want walking around in your story?  Work out those numbers first and extrapolate the number of Abraxans based on that.  To keep the logistics plausible work out everything in reverse order.

2.  Can you brainwash or mind control an Abraxan, or kidnap one and inject their DNA into yourself to become the endboss?

3.  What happens with disabled or peacenik Abraxans?  With them being so rare do they get conscripted anyway, to they get put to death or harvested for materials if they will not serve.

4.  Are Abraxans heredirtary, if so are they linked to the great houses?

Oh, interesting points. Youre not just making me think, youre actually giving me ideas for new subplots lol. 

My current plan is to make Abraxans non-heritable, which means its some kind of random genetic quirk. However I'm leaning towards making the emperor's bloodline (now extinct) the only ones in history able to produce Abraxan offspring, sort of like Targearyns and their dragons. I havent fully decided on it yet though.

I've also hinted that the Great Houses tried to set up some kind of breeding programs, but they totally failed. Or maybe there are exceptions, but it'll be some kind of unique situation that I can turn into another book or something.

The social consequences of this will be sort of like what the Jedi do. If a child has the Abraxan gift, then they get taken away and adopted by the nobility and raised as a knight or something.

I suppose there will be some retired Abraxans, but they will be the exception since most die in battle. I'm thinking of making them sort of develop a bond with their mobile suits, so they go crazy when their suit gets destroyed and they prefer to die in them rather than eject.

And how many Abraxans are there compared to the number of suits?  I there are more people who can use the things than there are things, Von Jankmon's 3rd point becomes moot.  If there are fewer people than there are things, it becomes extra important.

There has to be more mobile suits than pilots. Each Great House probably has stores of them lying around, like lightsabers waiting to get picked up by a Jedi or something. Each mobile suit also has unique abilities, so they're not all the same.