Author's note:
I've been tinkering with this for over two weeks, ever since the idea came to me, I name this a provisional article because it's more to frame the format and focus I want to use in future articles, specifically what makes a character what they are, their purpose, their use and how that interacts with the setting. In this vein constructive criticism is more than welcome.
The initial idea in using Victor was because he was such a significant character with a great deal of material he would be an easy place to start.
I also can't help but feel that this article is simultaneously too long, rushed, repetitive, lacks detail and took too much time, so it's probably best to focus criticisms on the previously mentioned goals.
At the same time I'd like to see what debate happens as a result of this article, so if you want to treated like the other "X of the Week" articles feel free.
The next article is tentatively slated to be on Hanse Davion and will be a refinement based on having written this article and suggestions resulting from this one.
Now, enjoy. :)
Who: Victor Ian Steiner-Davion
What: Firstborn son of Hanse Davion and Melissa Steiner
Heir Apparent Federated Commonwealth
Kommandant, 12th Donegal Guards, AFFC
Kommandant, 10th Lyran Guards, AFFC
Archon-Prince, Federated Commonwealth
Precentor Martial, ComGuards, ComStar
Commanding General, Republic of the Sphere Armed Forces
Paladin, Republic of the Sphere
When: 12 April 3030 – 26 November 3134 (age: 104)
Weapon of Choice: Victor Class BattleMech, 9B or 9K/D depending on writing.
Dire Wolf/Daishi Class OmniMech, A or Prometheus personalised configuration, again depending on writing.
Detailed biography can be found here:
http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Victor_Steiner-DavionNo other character has quite the publication history of Victor Steiner-Davion. He has been a main character in many of the novels, appeared in several others in support roles and as a plot device, as well as appearances, mentions, and in-universe author of sourcebooks and historicals. In this capacity he has been a dominant figure in the BattleTech Universe by virtue of sheer presence.
Indeed, looking over his lifespan, over a century, it could be said that he has lived through almost all the major events of the modern game setting, and brushed past a few more. Born at the end of the Fourth Succession War, the war that first brought real change to the setting, living through the revival of Star League technology, the Clan Invasion, Blakist Jihad and the founding of the Republic of the Sphere to die at the opening of the Dark Age, we are just beginning to enter a period without Victor’s presence that isn’t retroactive such as the Amaris Coup or Reunification War.
Thus it can be said that Victor bookends much of the active setting.
He is also a character caught in a contradiction: the need to be a heroic pulp sci-fi hero in a grim, chaotically neutral setting.
For better or worse Victor is based partly on a sort of template Stackpole uses for characters. Typically Michael Stackpole uses a character that is short, blonde, green eyed, left handed and has, if not father issues exactly, then a close or slightly fixated relationship with their father.
We can see these traits in the perspective characters of the Blood of Kerensky trilogy, Phelan has green eyes, Kai has the father thing, Shin Yodama is left handed while Victor gets short and blonde.
Some would say that using a template for characters is cheating or lazy writing, I however disagree, Stackpole uses these very basic traits as a starting point for characters, sometimes letting them inform the person they are or develop into, sometimes doing so for other characters, rarely letting these characteristics inform the plot.
So using this shorthand Michael Stackpole creates what starts as a fairly stock heroic character. Victor is moral, ethical, heroic, willing to dash off and fight the enemy at the drop of a hat and to fit the setting is very good at all things military.
Another trait of the pulp hero is that one is frequently the underdog. How do you make a Prince an underdog? You kick him. Hard. And often.
This is relatively easy as the larger plot of the setting is not within any one writer’s control. This is a dark, grim setting where the ruthless prosper, war is a constant and no one faction is allowed to be too good or win too much. Victor’s character collides with this head on.
On the one hand Victor needs to be the stock standard pulp sci-fi hero: good, moral, dashing and brilliant. On the other is the need to fit him into a setting where no one is all that good, moral or dashing, and so his brilliance is compromised. This contradiction, character and setting, brilliance and stupidity, makes Victor a subject of much debate. Quite simply how can someone who so many sourcebooks claim is a military genius have such blindingly simple stupid moments, and how can he continue to survive, prosper or even be considered an elder statesman by the Republic era?
As annoying as it may be the simple answer is the story arc, which demands these moments of stupidity as much as the glory.
Conversely he is also cursed with being a protagonist hero and thus getting into and out of scrapes most characters with a few paragraphs in a sourcebook wouldn’t survive, making him seem unrealistic even as events propel him forward and even promote him. Again, as a pulp hero he can’t be allowed to simply fade away.
The ‘Mechs Victor has used are somewhat indicative of his character, aside from a few test rides, or joyrides depending on your interpretation, in a Grand Dragon Victor is associated with his namesake, or what is possibly the most deadly Assault class design in the game, in short “Hero Rides”, because they’re the fanciest, deadliest things around.
Both designs are blunt instruments. There’s no finesse or interesting tricks to any of them, the Victor gets in close, blasts away, jumps out, or further in to more advantageous position. The A/Prometheus advances slowly until the enemy is dead, or backs out slowly until the enemy is dead. Subtlety isn’t really an Assault ‘Mech thing.
In either configuration the Dire Wolf is precisely what you want to put your main character in if you’re going to throw or have them walk into the fire and you want some sort of serious chance of them walking out again. Especially since Victor while a noted strategist and tactician, is not the best ‘MechWarrior.
True, he’s running around with the likes of Kai Allard-Liao and Phelan Kell, so if you’re average compared to them you’re still somewhere over the 90th percentile and at least a veteran or lower level elite warrior. This is also a feature of a pulp sci-fi hero, their skills are usually a little bit below other characters in their circle, partly to justify the continued presence of these other characters, also because perfectly skilled characters are boring as protagonists.
Like it or not he has been the main perspective character through the fiction being either a major or the main POV character more often than any other individual. Events as seen from his perspective have been the best way of giving readers a broad view of things as his positions and ranks have allowed him access to intelligence and information few others would.
This is also why his mistakes seem particularly foolish and have very dire consequences. It’s easy to call them that from a reader’s perspective, we are far more omnipresent than any character and can see events unfold in ways they cannot precisely because of characters like Victor.
Between these factors, from a writing perspective, Victor can’t ever catch a break. Being such a central character, in the telling of the tales as well as within the setting, if he does do the smart thing there goes much of the conflict.
For example: Joshua Marik. When the boy dies if Victor does the smart thing, the thing his mother would have done but his father possibly not, and not follow the failed example of Maximillian Liao by replacing the child with a double and instead tells Thomas Marik the treatments simply failed, has the body escorted back into League Space with honours, possibly personally it is quite likely that Thomas would have continued to honour the agreement made with Hanse. Worst case scenario the refit kits stop flowing, not a good thing but a far lesser problem than what developed.
In-universe Victor weighed his options and not seeing the League-Capellan invasion as a possibility decided the risk was worth it.
But if he had been smart? No invasion, no resurgent Confederation, no physical impetus for Katherine to secede. This leads to no Chaos March for the Blakists to get a foothold, no St Ives war, no FedCom Civil War, this changes the Jihad and has myriad roll on effects.
Could events have transpired in another way? Certainly. But this ties all the events to our heroic protagonist, why when you have a perfectly good character you can kick about and knock over the dominos at the same time?
And it has to be addressed that Victor is a “good guy”. Sadly this is in a setting that is supposed to be morally ambiguous, periodically hostile and as a perspective character has to be just dim enough to have things explained to him, and therefore the audience, without being so stupid you wonder how he manages to sit upright that his chair doesn’t have safety rails (insert height joke here) it’s hard to get a balance where his victories don’t seemed forced and his woes self-inflicted.
He’s the main character in a setting that has never been terribly daring with its characters because its main aim is to show off a rich, interesting universe. Painting the larger picture requires smaller elements to suffer.
Could this have been done with rich, interesting characters as well? Sure, but again, that wasn’t the aim. Authors like Stackpole were constricted, for better or worse, but the larger setting plot elements. Victor could have ridden off and destroyed the Clans single handedly when they invaded in good pulp fashion, but it would absolutely not fit with the setting, and would run counter to the company game requirements, i.e.: the elimination of a major antagonistic faction with new toys as soon as they arrived.
Could he have been less foolish in running a nation? Sure, but he was never written as being terribly good at politics as a means of getting him to make those plot evolving mistakes, and as pointed out if he didn’t make those mistakes then other events don’t happen.
In short Victor is inadvertently the whipping boy for the setting. He has to be just interesting and engaging enough that we want to read about what he’s doing but not so brilliant that he can see the twists and turns coming, that would be an altogether different character with a different purpose.
