There is still the balance issues between the Successor States and the Clans to contend with... the Successor States are many times larger than the clans, they have much larger militaries, that is the reasons why the Clans have clantech to begin with, is to balance out quantity with quality.
This presumes (mistakenly, I believe) that the TPTB intend to keep having the Clans as a major power and opponent to the Inner Sphere when the past 20 years of setting development has been about how elements of the Clans have split off and joined or otherwise merged with various pre-existing Inner Sphere factions (first the Dragoons, then Wolf-In-Exile, then the Nova Cats make a deal with the Draconis Combine (and then the RotS), then the Diamond Sharks move in as free traders, the Ghost Bears and Ravens make deals with Inner Sphere powers, and the Scorpions become el Scorpio Imperium).
By all accounts the Clans look to be moving firmly into minor powers status with their only prospects for not being so laying in doing the unthinkable and presenting a unified front and compromising with their ancient rivals.
Nice strawman. Care to actually address my arguments?
Your arguments are that realism and logic shouldn't count and that the individual Clans should magically remain at major power status despite everything inside the Battletech Universe telling us they should fall to minor power status on par with the Taurians or the Magistry (who are nothing to sneeze at; just not in the Suns' or Lyrans' or Combines' league).
Trying to address the argument "BUT... I WANTS IT!!!" is just a waste of everyone's time.
The IJN had no advanced weapon systems whatsoever.
Their torpedoes were the most advanced in the world during the war. At the start of the war their Zero fighters outperformed everything in the Allies' arsenal. They also mounted the largest guns ever (18 inchers) on their battleships (no other navy in the world used guns that large). What kicked their butts was their lack of production capacity compared to the United States.
A large portion of Germany's loss in World War II can be attributed to the fact that the top German leadership was full of idiots whom had no idea what they were doing.
And the Clans' reliance on might-makes-right leadership where the winners of one-on-one physical duels get to be the generals instead of say, people who demonstrate an actual grasp of strategy, was not sheer idiocy?
The Germans produced vastly superior tanks, had the devestating 88's (good for ground attack as well as anti-aircraft) and fielded the world's first JET FIGHTER, but were hamstrung by a poor industrial base that literally could not compete with the Allies (at least not after the US got involved... the disparity in production numbers between the US and the rest of the world during the war are STAGGERING). They also had shoddy leadership from the get go.
In other words, the Axis powers of WWII are actually a wonderful model of what befell the Clans, and probably their long term future as well. Once they had the crap kicked out of them both Germany and Japan were re-built under new leadership and became allies of the United States.
The Lyran Commonwealth and Free Worlds League would beg to differ [about the Clans being a minor power].
So would the British, the Chinese, and even some of the Americans during 1941 when the Japenese juggernaut rolled across the Pacific. Then they hit the limits of their supply chains and production capacity and got steamrolled by the Allies whose monthly production capacity exceeded their annual capacity.
By the same token, what sort of power is Japan today (here's a hint: they have no military to speak of, their economy has been stagnating for the past two-decades, and they got hit by a major tsunami not too long ago)?
Those are minor powers that had very little bearing on the universe as a whole, and barely were able to last a few years before they were simply annexed by the much bigger Successor States. That would be the future of the Clans if the Inner Sphere was allowed to retool their entire infrastructure and industry to Clantech.
And because they're the Clans that means magic pixie-fairies are going to come and save them from the inevitiable crush of human history?
You say "the Clans would become a minor power" like its a BAD THING. It is neither good nor bad. It simply IS. Things in 2011 are not like they were in 1911. Entire EMPIRES formed and fell to ruin inside those hundred years. Time marches on.
What keeps BattleTech interesting is that it marches on too. We aren't perpetually stuck in 3025. Nations are born. Nations fall. Alliances shift. Leadership changes hands. Its that continued change over time that gives BattleTech much of its versimiltude and makes it so engrossing. What you're asking for is for them to make a special magic exception to what's made BattleTech such a great setting because your favored faction won't be keeping its major power status.
Their technological advantage allows them to retain a bit of relevancy in the overall storyline, which they would not have if the Successor States were able to mass-manufacture Clantech on their own.
My favorite faction has always been the Northwind Highlanders (you might say I'm a HUGE fan of the Clans... Gunn and MacKenzie to be specific :D ). They've NEVER had a unique technology base. At best they've had ONE WORLD under their control. Doesn't keep them from being relevant to any story someone would care to tell about them.
By the same token, my Highlanders ended up shut out of pretty much the entire Jihad story due to the blockade. It didn't bother me because it made sense to the story. For the Jihad campaigns I created
MacKenzie's Company; a small group of Highlanders who'd been delayed getting back to Northwind when the Wobbies started their blockade. They were a mixed company (just one lance of Mechs, two of vehicles, an air lance, a platoon of battle armor and a couple of platoons of infantry) who never did anything world-shaking during the Jihad, but the stories I created out of the characters involved made it interesting for me.
Basically what you seem to be saying is that Clans don't have an interesting enough society or heritage to make them interesting on their own. The only thing that makes them interesting is a Mary Sue tech advantage. That's just SAD really.
Personally, I think there's more than enough in the Clans to keep them interesting even if they had shown up with just Star League-era tech back in 3050.
The Dark Ages and the MUL support this, as there is no Inner Sphere-built Clantech to be found.
The MUL (and by extension the units that Dark Ages stories had available to use) were also put together off existing game assets. The XTRO's and Prototypes are the first products to seriously look at putting out canon units using mixed technology.
As additional TRO's come out that include mixed tech, I'd expect those MUL's for 3150 to change significantly.
Lets face it, take away the realism argument and you have no leg to stand on. That is why you people keep defaulting to it.
Let's face it, take away magic-pixie fairies and you have no leg to stand on. Your argument resides entirely on the demand that rational human beings throw away their rationality because you want the Clans to always be major players in a universe that evolved past them.
Edit: spelling and grammar.
