Does battletech have the most significant retcon in gaming's short history?

[bobthecoward]

I was thinking that battletech must have the most significant retcon in gaming. Going from "no new mechs are being made, Hesperus is a warehouse" to Hesperus has always made mechs took it from an unsustainable game to one that could last 40 years.

Has there ever been one as big or as more important in gaming than that one?

[Gotthammer]

There's the entirety of 40k lore - adding in the horus heresy (with multiple iterations), changing the eye of terror and probably a billion more.

Also the memory holing of Cyberpunk V3.0 as a separate timeline for the transition to Red.

[thedancingjoker]

Lots of Franchises have early lore that doesn't really hold up long term.

[ColBosch]

40K has had much more sweeping retcons, but BattleTech's is notable for happening particularly quickly. BattleTech Second Edition and Technical Readout 3025 were released within months of each other, and TR3025 clearly states that 'Mechs are still being manufactured. It was a good decision; the background Adventure Architects came up with is great for a standalone game, but it didn't allow for the sprawling sci-fi epic that BattleTech has become.

[ActionButler]

As others have said, 40K has made more substantial changes to individual characters than Battletech has to any overarching elements and it isn't particularly close.

Battletech has always been designed in such a way the mech production was (or the lack thereof) was just window dressing that could be handwaved away with "hey, look at all this cool new stuff that my plucky mercenaries found". Pick your favorite Primarch or named character and they'll have any number of major revisions to their history that put mech production to shame. Magnus went from actually doing nothing wrong when he tried to warn the Emperor about Horus to accidentally hoping a doorway to hell in the basement of the palace that fully ended any hope for humanity to avoid Warp travel. Before Leman Russ was the genetically engineered demigod father of a legion of dudebro werewolves, we was just some guy.

[Church14]

what said Hesperus was a warehouse?

[ANS Kamas P81]

Original BattleDroids book did.

[bobthecoward]

I would say the 40k stuff is just creators wanting to make their product better. I'm not sure battletech could exist long term without the change.

[Luciora]

Not sure the creators of Battletech expected the game to last 5 years, let alone going on 40+.

[SteelRaven]

Considering how many WoD fans loose their damn minds when a new publisher takes over the IP, IMO Battledroids->Battletech was a mild transition from we can't make anything to we can still make guns.

[bobthecoward]

Considering how many WoD fans loose their damn minds when a new publisher takes over the IP, IMO Battledroids->Battletech was a mild transition from we can't make anything to we can still make guns.

Not technically a retcon? Actually a reboot?


Wait....was TRO 3025 a ....reboot?

[Aotrs Commander]

Uh... Retconning the entire Star Wars EU into Legends and noncanon seems like it was a rather more significant retcon, I have to say.

[bobthecoward]

Uh... Retconning the entire Star Wars EU into Legends and noncanon seems like it was a rather more significant retcon, I have to say.

I think most people that "like star wars" during the time those were written never engaged with the expanded universe in a way that this affected them.

I declare SMALL

[Pat Payne]

I was thinking that battletech must have the most significant retcon in gaming. Going from "no new mechs are being made, Hesperus is a warehouse" to Hesperus has always made mechs took it from an unsustainable game to one that could last 40 years.

Has there ever been one as big or as more important in gaming than that one?

The original World of Greyhawk, as used by Gary Gygax's home group in Lake Geneva before the setting was published, was based on a map of the Midwest with Greyhawk itself centered on Chicago (and that can still be seen in the published map, as the Nyr Dyv still has the exact boundaries of Lake Superior), don't know if that counts completely, but that was a pretty significant change, even if most people would never have known about it.

[ColBosch]

I would say the 40k stuff is just creators wanting to make their product better.

At this point, it's deliberate anti-canon. The core factions - Space Marines, Imperial Guard, Chaos, Eldar, Orks, Tyrannids, and Tau - exist and have certain broad strokes that remain relatively constant, but the fiction and lore is not expected to remain consistent. Hell, even the 64-volume Horus Heresy novel series started retconning itself by like Book Five, and certainly shouldn't be regarded as the end-all and be-all of 40k's past events even over the past few editions of the wargames.

I'd say BattleTech is notable in how few retcons it's had. The real biggest change, of course, is the current art revival. Officially, in-universe the Marauder et al. have always looked like the new art.

[General308]

Uh... Retconning the entire Star Wars EU into Legends and noncanon seems like it was a rather more significant retcon, I have to say.

Star Wars EU was always noncanon according to George Lucas even when the stuff was being written.   Still amaze me that Star Wars fan act like the Mouse actually changed that when they didn't.

[bobthecoward]

At this point, it's deliberate anti-canon. The core factions - Space Marines, Imperial Guard, Chaos, Eldar, Orks, Tyrannids, and Tau - exist and have certain broad strokes that remain relatively constant, but the fiction and lore is not expected to remain consistent. Hell, even the 64-volume Horus Heresy novel series started retconning itself by like Book Five, and certainly shouldn't be regarded as the end-all and be-all of 40k's past events even over the past few editions of the wargames.

I'd say BattleTech is notable in how few retcons it's had. The real biggest change, of course, is the current art revival. Officially, in-universe the Marauder et al. have always looked like the new art.

Is art a retcon? From my perspective, Klingons from the 60s star trek and Worf look the same. I don't understand needing a setting to justify technological innovations in art in the real world.

[Aotrs Commander]

I think most people that "like star wars" during the time those were written never engaged with the expanded universe in a way that this affected them.

I declare SMALL

As someone who WAS very heavily engaged in the EU through the 90s and early 2000s, I find that statement rather dissmissive.

Star Wars EU was always noncanon according to George Lucas even when the stuff was being written.   Still amaze me that Star Wars fan act like the Mouse actually changed that when they didn't.

Okay, leaving aside the canonicity of the EU, then: even so, the sheer amount of material that was basically scrubbed eclipses BT's retcon several orders of magnitude.

I mean, frack, it covers (as bobthecoward said "gaming" and not "wargaming" or "tabletop gaming"):

X-Wing/TIE Fighter/X-Wing verses TIE Fighter/X-Wing Alliance
Knight of the Old Republic 1, 2 (and the MMO, I think?)
Star Wars Supremacy
Star Wars Empire At War

Star Wars RPG D6 (two editions)
Star Wars D20 (three editions)

As, as we're talking lore changes that impinge on those:

The Star Wars Essential Guides
The Star Wars Technical Manuals

And I'm not even going to guess how many novels.

(And that's just more or less stuff I can think of from my own collections of stuff, off the top of my head without trying terribly hard.)

Retconning out... About as much real-world time history as BattleTech has actually existed... (and probably in the running for as much written words as BattleTech has evr produced alone...) Is a pretty major retcon.



And I also add: quality of retcon was not in the question (and I have excised any of my own commentary on that), only size and significance.

(I mean, personally, I wouldn't even have known there WAS one to BattleTech, because I only started BT at (ironically) about the same time as I got really into Star Wars - in the mid 90s. It's kind of hard to miss the entire EU being retconned, though.)

[General308]

As someone who WAS very heavily engaged in the EU through the 90s and early 2000s, I find that statement rather dissmissive.

Okay, leaving aside the canonicity of the EU, then: even so, the sheer amount of material that was basically scrubbed eclipses BT's retcon several orders of magnitude.

I mean, frack, it covers (as bobthecoward said "gaming" and not "wargaming" or "tabletop gaming"):

X-Wing/TIE Fighter/X-Wing verses TIE Fighter/X-Wing Alliance
Knight of the Old Republic 1, 2 (and the MMO, I think?)
Star Wars Supremacy
Star Wars Empire At War

Star Wars RPG D6 (two editions)
Star Wars D20 (three editions)

As, as we're talking lore changes that impinge on those:

The Star Wars Essential Guides
The Star Wars Technical Manuals

And I'm not even going to guess how many novels.

(And that's just more or less stuff I can think of from my own collections of stuff, off the top of my head without trying terribly hard.)

Retconning out... About as much real-world time history as BattleTech has actually existed... (and probably in the running for as much written words as BattleTech has evr produced alone...) Is a pretty major retcon.



And I also add: quality of retcon was not in the question (and I have excised any of my own commentary on that), only size and significance.

(I mean, personally, I wouldn't even have known there WAS one to BattleTech, because I only started BT at (ironically) about the same time as I got really into Star Wars - in the mid 90s. It's kind of hard to miss the entire EU being retconned, though.)

They were not canon either with the excption of I think the Kotor games.   But all those games and RPGs and all those other things just were not canon.  I get it it sucks if you liked those things.   But frankly even when they were being made fans were told by George they were not Canon and that it had to be a Movie or TV show to be canon.  Just because Fans didn't listen doesn't make it Disneys fault.  And you can't retcon what was never canon in the first place.

Really it is no different than the BT video games not being Canon and we don't complain aobut that

[Hellraiser]

I just don't see this as "significant" in any way really.
  They didn't retcon from single Indi Mechs to Clan Legions.....

It's like 2 drafts of the same speech.

We've lost the ability to produce JS beyond some spare parts, v/s, We trickle out a jumpship every other year.   Ooohs.  Aahhs.  Major Change?  Not really.

Hesperus is a massive storehouse of mechs in a universe where we've lost the ability to produce mechs.
v/s
Hesperus is one of the last Major makers of mechs, it has lost many production lines over the centuries, but, can still make several models at much reduced rates compared to 300 years ago.

The BattleDroids setting was basically un-recoverable, it was the last days of a Terminal & Dying society.   (Hospice Care)
The BT2E setting was a society that was very ill & barely creeping along, it "has cancer but is getting chemo and there is a small hope in the NAIS for possible new treatments."

Like I say, it reads like 2 drafts of the same speech that the writer is deciding how to phrase the post apocalyptical status of the Inner Sphere.

[Hellraiser]

Star Wars EU was always noncanon according to George Lucas even when the stuff was being written.   Still amaze me that Star Wars fan act like the Mouse actually changed that when they didn't. 

I totally agree.  But not many realize that.

GL was pretty clear. 
Essentially................   "You can play in my house, but, I'm not going to be restricted to it when I get back into playing w/ it myself"
Disney just made a major statement about it since while GL was doing Prequels, they had to deal w/ Sequels that was going to actually impact much of the EU.

I mean, frack, it covers ................

IMO, the games aren't too bad off from what bits I've read.
A lot of the stuff gave detail about the Republic/Empire that isn't exactly "invalid" now, so much as just not covered.

Filoni/Favreau have been fairly good about trying to pull from EU to "canonize" bits that fit into their own stories, which I like.

For me the biggest change isn't the "Games" it was the Novels, changing the Solo kid Trio into just Ben (Plus Rey) basically. 
They went from "Twins" to "Force Dyad" and dropped off the 3rd kid.  Meh.  I want to say that sucked but really, the "kids" wasn't what I read the books for, it was the further stories of the OG Trilogy Cast.

(I mean, personally, I wouldn't even have known there WAS one to BattleTech, because I only started BT at (ironically) about the same time as I got really into Star Wars - in the mid 90s. It's kind of hard to miss the entire EU being retconned, though.)

Agreed.  The BT change was less than a year from introduction & went from "nearly dead to very ill" in technology.

[SteelRaven]

Is art a retcon? From my perspective, Klingons from the 60s star trek and Worf look the same. I don't understand needing a setting to justify technological innovations in art in the real world.

Officially: yes, the look of the designs have been retconned because there is no way the Battletech IO can use the original art without legal trouble. Fans can do as they wish (this isn't 40k) but official, the Warhammer is not a Tomahawk.

I'm staying away from Star Wars and Trek analogies, but fandoms do nothing but argue when I have a question so it's terrible standard to go by.

[Charistoph]

I totally agree.  But not many realize that.

GL was pretty clear. 
Essentially................   "You can play in my house, but, I'm not going to be restricted to it when I get back into playing w/ it myself"
Disney just made a major statement about it since while GL was doing Prequels, they had to deal w/ Sequels that was going to actually impact much of the EU.

Technically, Disney did retcon out Shadows of the Empire.  That was canon before then.

The really stupid part is when Kennedy said that they had no material to work with, despite having decades of books to pattern off of, and they still end up bringing some of those ideas back, and did it poorly, too.

[Tyrant]

Is art a retcon? From my perspective, Klingons from the 60s star trek and Worf look the same. I don't understand needing a setting to justify technological innovations in art in the real world.

Those Klingons, in universe, are different though. It's covered in Deep Space Nine that they are different and I believe Enterprise is where the explanation pops up.

RE: Star Wars, it's not as clean as "all of those things were non canon". There were levels of canon, as explained by Lucasfilm. One of those levels is called non continuity (N Canon). Since there are other levels, and N Canon (which includes all "non continuity" items) is the bottom of a descending list of descriptions, it stands to reason the other levels (all called "something" Canon), are in fact canon in at least some capacity. I don't know any other way to read that.

Then Disney nuked it and said everything they make (comics, games, whatever) is canon. Which is where I checked out of their EU. They won't actually live up to that once it becomes inconvenient and I won't support what I feel was a terrible decision. 

For other retcons, there's the Highlander franchise.

Movie 1: Connor is the last immortal
Movie 2: Ramirez is somehow alive again, the immortals are actually aliens, the future sucks
Movie 3: Connor isn't the last immortal, there's 3 guys buried in a cave. Three decapitations later, Connor is the last immortal again.
The Show: Movie 1 happened but there are actually hundreds if not thousands of immortals left.
Movie 4: Sticks with TV show continuity, but implies the villain had a hand in killing people from the other movies
Movie 5: Could be anything, it looked god awful so I didn't watch it
Cartoon Series: Immortals can willingly give up their immortality and keep their head. Ramirez is alive, again, again.
Anime Movie: Not connected to any events of the others. Embraces reincarnation of non immortals.

[bobthecoward]

Officially: yes, the look of the designs have been retconned because there is no way the Battletech IO can use the original art without legal trouble. Fans can do as they wish (this isn't 40k) but official, the Warhammer is not a Tomahawk.

I'm staying away from Star Wars and Trek analogies, but fandoms do nothing but argue when I have a question so it's terrible standard to go by.

even if one claims some art is canonical....


Ceci n'est pas une Battlemech

[Luciora]

Or, consider this.  Battledroids was the demo version of BattleTech, kind of like an beta release, that ends up becoming an upgraded product that allowed for future world building.  After all, we are playing BattleTech, not Battledroids.   

[beachhead1985]

It wasn't that big a deal, because it happened early-on without a great deal of product being affected.

The unseen was a much bigger deal, because by that time a great deal of product had been produced in which those designs were centrally-featured. And now they were very hard to get ahold of in physical form. This product continued to be important and more jarring; readily available on store shelves for a long time.

Thankfully, by then there was enough *padding* in the IP that even if you couldn't buy the minis easily anymore; you could buy something else and play with that.

Crucially, however; TPTB never turned their back on the old designs to the point where they were banned from play at any level, which might have occurred in other companies.

Even so; that's not as *BIG* a deal as some of 40K's retcons or the retcons doubtless to come in that troubled IP.

[Wrangler]

Well, the biggest retro cons Battletech has ever endured which had lasting effects is the Unseens, with removal of the main line of BattleMechs which were core of the game, then it expanded to some additional mechs.  Which is crime.    Thank fully, they were finally replaced with spirtual successors in the form of the NuClassics and Reseens (their refits but they opened the door to the mechs coming back into the line light).

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Is there anything about the Unseen that was actually a retcon?

They weren't removed from the game, FASA just couldn't use their artwork.  They weren't replaced by the Project Phoenix versions, FanPro just came up with new variants that had new appearances.  I don't even think they've actually been replaced by the Recognition Guide versions, IIRC I thought I'd seen it explicitly stated that the Rec Guide art only represented some of them and the old art also applied.

[Frabby]

I'd say BattleTech is notable in how few retcons it's had.

This. I feel it's also the greatest strength and selling point of BattleTech.

Wait....was TRO 3025 a ....reboot?

The reboot happened when Battledroids became BattleTech, 2nd Edition. Although Battledroids is recognizably a direct precursor to BattleTech, the game rules and construction rules underwent considerable change and the background lore was also altered - now there was some production after all.
Battledroids was officially ruled to be "not necessarily canon" for BattleTech.

As for Star Wars, it used to be a vibrant universe but fell apart with the prequels and was officially butchered when Disney decided to keep the brand name but dump the established content that made the brand in the first place. I always cite it as a prime example of how not to treat an established universe and a fan base. ("But it was so artistically done..." - famous last words.)
I wasn't a diehard Star Wars fan, and I could still enjoy parts of what came later, but by and large I've long ago stopped caring about what Star Wars is these days.