Hi, sorry, this one took twice as long as expected as I tried to iron out some kinks based on previous comments, if I haven't done enough ironing please let me know.
This is again something of a test case, to be taken with a grain of salt. While I was thinking on one of the original Kerenskys for the next article I'm beginning to think a more minor character might be more appropriate to test how that works.
Character Study of the Week: Hanse Davion
Who: Hanse Davion
What: First Prince of the Federated Suns
When:
Weapon of Choice: 1G BattleMaster
Politics
Biographical details here:
http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Hanse_DavionPerhaps the first great game changer for the Battletech setting to feature in fiction as a character was Hanse Davion, First Prince, military genius and far thinker.
Presented in initial material as one of the five Successor Lords at the end of the Third Succession war his write up was a little different. As the youngest of the five his material presented him as something of a young gun and a potential game changer along with the diplomatic Katrina Steiner and cunning Maximillian Liao. By comparison Janos Marik was worn out and Takashi Kurita was too stubbornly set in his ways. This resulted in three elements of change and two stern obstacles, the setting was primed for conflict.
And back at that time, the very dawn of the game, that was all that was really needed, a sense of why the giant war machines were marching out into conflict, Hanse helped provide that.
The game was successful and began to grow and develop, and the characters needed to grow and develop as well in order to keep the setting engaging. There was no use in endlessly holding things at 3025 with Hanse and his contemporaries permanently poised, ready to shake things up, with only the sense that each faction has an equal chance of shaking things up to their favour, such stagnation would leave the game stale. So the setting developed, fiction was written and someone had to come out on top. That was Hanse Davion.
Ultimately Hanse is a man of destiny. To start with he was not the only one, as written in the House Books and other source materials at the time all the Successor Lords, plus a few heirs and others, had the same feel. As written at the time there was an air of provenance, a preamble to change. The way the novels went Hanse was the instigator of that change, and thus claimed the top spot.
A sizable chunk of this comes from the simple fact that whoever wins in the novel has to seem like the ‘good’ guy, and Hanse, relatively speaking, is the ‘good’ guy of the Successor Lords.
Takashi came across as a warmonger and sat easily as a natural antagonist for all comers in the setting, Max Liao was an inveterate schemer and there’s no way to rehabilitate that, Janos Marik was broken, his time past but still determined to do oppose his foes out of sheer spite, or just habit.
Katrina Steiner was much more ‘good’, but hobbled by the rebuffing of her diplomatic overture. She had one trick and it failed in the grand scheme of things. Hanse refused her along with all the others, but was polite, diplomatic, offered a reasonable argument for his actions and opened a dialogue regardless, making him seem just as reasonable as she, taking some of the ‘good’ trait.
I should point out that this does not make Hanse an ethical paragon, the Battletech setting is not one to permit such characters, not successful ones at least. He started two wars, devastated one nation over personal vendetta as much a sense of justice and righteousness for his cause, seriously whaled on two others and dragged the economies and peoples of the remaining two Successor States through Hell, all while justifying it to himself that he was a liberator against tyrannies.
Whether he was right or not is a debate for another time, however from an out of universe perspective he was not entirely wrong. Ultimately each Successor State is a form of dictatorship, even the modestly democratic Free Worlds League is mired in hereditary nobility with an elected body that can at best stymie bold moves by their lord, some of which might even be necessary. Compared to these someone with a modicum of compassion, clear goals that are not completely selfish and the ability to succeed can easily come across as heroic enough for the setting.
For comparison, as written Max Liao was a schemer, self-interested and a little mad, his potential heirs no better, and with a ruthless secret police at his disposal. Where Liao would sacrifice anyone to achieve his goals Hanse comes across as a little more moderate, giving thought to the people he was throwing into the fire, his history giving him a common touch.
Another case in point, taking to the field as the NAIS came under attack. He felt a personal responsibility to remove the invaders and felt regret at the aftermath, however necessary.
He continued to do so regardless of the suffering because, well, simply put a leader of any sizable group can’t put the wellbeing of individuals ahead of the larger group goal. Seeing his goal as worthwhile (who doesn’t?) he pursued it with an aim to making it quick and minimize suffering.
Of course matters are hardly that simple. From inside the universe Hanse is, just as he is outside, a divisive character. On the one hand he can easily be seen as the greatest First Prince since Alexander Davion, if not the greatest ever, for all that he achieved.
That would be the view from inside the Federated Suns, possibly other parts of the universe, even by academics in other nations, from a purely material sense he was the best thing to ever happen to the nation, leaving it stronger than it was at the start of his reign, Clan Invasion notwithstanding.
To every other nation, particularly the Capellans followed closely by the Draconis Combine, and probably no small number of Lyran and Federated citizens who saw the whole FedCom thing as a mistake he was Doom incarnate.
From that same perspective he also seems downright prescient for his strategic capabilities, however we know it is because of genius planning, careful choice of people and thorough analysis, both by him and by those same people.
This is the reason why I have listed his weapons of choice as both a BattleMech and politics, as he was adept at wielding both.
And his choice of BattleMech was something of a given. The first “Assault” weight design of the game along with the Goliath, the BattleMaster is considered a command unit, fitting for a leader, well armoured and heat sinked, it’s weapons, for the time, rather balanced in terms of range, power, crit-seeking, anti-armour and anti-personnel, suitable for a flexible character.
The only times Hanse was ever thrown for a loop was by Theodore Kurita, who was effectively Hanse in another nation, and by the Clans, which were such a radical departure from the expected that they are the definition of an out of context threat.
Both in and out of the universe Hanse was revolutionary because of his approach to war, rejecting the slow wearing down of typical Succession War combat in favour of decisive action, and for founding the New Avalon Institute of Science at a time when contemporary thinking was to just hammer your opponents down with whatever you had.
Again this makes him a natural hero for the setting, a relentless genius with realistic goals and a desire to achieve them, a trust in his subordinates and a genuine sense of concern and guilt over his citizens and what he must do to them to achieve the goals, ostensibly to make the universe a better place. Early on this was the easy interpretation of him, aided by making him a major protagonist through the early novels, though later publications managed to muddy the waters.
While an undercurrent of altruism remained, for Hanse a strong nation meant a strong people, well-educated and fighting because they wanted to fight rather than just for him, more recent materials have shown Hanse to be ambitious, ruthless, more than capable of justifying losses to maintain his position and have enhanced the role his political skills played. Though not enough to tarnish the man entirely, particularly when compared to contemporaries, they do take some of the shine off.
What happened? Quite simply the setting moved on.
In the context of the early setting, where he was a founding character along with every other Successor Lord, he was one of five, all the same with a lick of personality to differentiate themselves and their factions.
By the time of the novels he was fleshed out into a human character with drives, flaws, ambitions, plans and dreams, all the leaders were, however his were made to seem less selfish than most even while engaging in naked conquest. As leader of the ‘Hero’ faction in the novels it had to be done, these were not deep reading materials.
As the game and setting matured and fortunes swung for every nation and faction so did opinion. Hanse could not remain ‘good’ in a setting where those he conquered had an equal claim to support, both in the setting and in the context of the game.
While he is still seen as far better than Max Liao, madman and callous user of the people, he is not the unvarnished conquering hero, having failures and questionable motives that make him ethically suspect. This has been easier to achieve in sourcebooks and reference materials, where his actions and attitudes are usually reported by a third person or in journal segments rather than in a novel from his own point of view.
There is also the need to even out the factions once more, in the most recent developments in the setting the Capellan Confederation has gone from the whipping boy of the Inner Sphere into a nation of nigh unstoppable fanatics. This could very easily come across as an abused people turning around and becoming abusers themselves, instead the wheel turning is more akin to conquered people becoming conquerors against an aggressor. This is a fine hair to split, but if not then Capellans in the Dark Age come across as flat villains.
A final, almost minor note is who better represents Hanse’s legacy; the ethically driven, military oriented Victor or political, ruthless Katherine?
This is a necessary consideration as building a legacy was one of the major points of the character, specifically the Federated Commonwealth super nation, which would live on in part through his children.
And Victor and Katherine are the main contenders, Peter was again more military with a dash of politics, but he lacked the drive and ambition of the other siblings and Hanse, Yvonne was political and again lacked the drive and ambition, though by necessity her focus was on rebuilding and not expansion, while Arthur died (or ‘died’ depending on your perspective) before reaching a point where he was mature enough to show talent outside of his limited military training.
It would be easy to say that each represents a different facet of The Fox, Victor the military and Katherine the politics, creating a yin yang of siblings and foes, and the way they are written it is far from an incorrect assessment but is a function of their characterisation rather than Hanse’s.
It would also be incomplete. Both have ambitions and drives that match each other and Hanse. Katherine wants to rule all of humanity as First Lord, Victor wants to unite humanity in common interest, these both match Hanse’s drives and considering that Victor is military and Katherine is political these drives are mismatched.
Furthermore Katherine callously uses people to her own ends, Victor regretfully sends people out to achieve a goal, Hanse did both and told himself it was for the greater good.
What’s more neither really achieved the goal. Katherine was a contender for First Lord, failed, was deposed and exiled, Victor gave it all up after a fashion to be a unifier.
Ultimately each is a failure at fulfilling their father’s legacy, Katherine was a terrible leader, no military strategist and was all ambition while Victor was a great leader, militarily brilliant but hopelessly naive due to being an inveterate nice guy.
Hanse was a catalyst for change in the setting and he fulfilled that role well. His character did not linger past this change. While he showed enough adaptability during the Clan Invasion that it could be said he contributed, his role was more of a passing of the torch. The Fourth Succession War was his time, and as much as he could have contributed in terms of the evolving storyline he would have become an obstacle, better the clean break the character was given.