Timeline Suggestions

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Cool Hand
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Re: Timeline Suggestions

Postby Cool Hand » Tue Mar 16, 2021 6:32 pm

I liked the Jihad, but definitely dislike the idea of RP'ing the Dark Ages, at least the way the BT Canon portrays them. As Rabbit said, simply having a retro-tech 'Mech could make you the Lord of a whole planet.
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Re: Timeline Suggestions

Postby MrPig » Tue Apr 13, 2021 5:30 am

There's advantages and disadvantages to the different timelines, but this is the way I see it:

  • Fall of the Star League: We set the game at the dawn of the Succession Wars. Kerensky and his people have fled, and it is the height of warfare. Most fighting is done by House units in this time, but there'd be plenty of SLDF units and Republic units looking to go into business for themselves. We'd have access to most LosTech until it becomes LosTech. This has the advantage of plenty to do, but the disadvantage of not including the Clans, and we couldn't use 'Newer' units.
  • Succession Wars: We set the game at the beginning of the 3rd or 4th Succession War. This will put the game more in line with what is expected of BattleTech, but we exclude the involvement of the Clans, until/unless we make it happen. Considering the 4th Succession War is about where Harebraned and Catalyst are putting their content these days, it may do well to mirror official content. I would suggest the 4th War, because it gives us the option of triggering a Clan invasion.
  • Clan Wars: We set the game during the Clan Wars. I don't recommend this because then all the contracts would be 'Fight the Clanners."
  • FedCom Civil War: We do as the game originally began, at the beginning of the FedCom Civil War. I wouldn't mind this because it gives us an interesting mix of Clan and Inner Sphere politics to work with, but it's super complicated. It also gives us the chance to play with the Second Star League. As far as presenting content, this is probably the best call.
  • Jihad: We set it during or immediately after the Jihad. This is a mixed bag, but considering how much tech and characters and chaos it introduces, I actually think post-jihad is probably the best bet, because it gives us so much to do with the Clans, the Houses, and the mess that is the Terra sectors.
  • Post-Dark Age: I know basically nothing about this era, except for the Republic of the Sphere and its splinter states. I personally like the idea of a Resurgent Terra; it was the concept of the Eden's Guard, actually. Considering how much Skub this causes, though, I'm not sure it's the right call.

I would suggest FedCom, post-Jihad, or 4th Succession War.


However, I do have a radical idea that I would like to propose that gives us more room to wiggle, as it were. I'll admit it's somewhat self-indulgent because it's something I've always wanted to do, but it's hard to pull off at scale. In fact, I have 2 such ideas.

What if we go further, and do a time skip to the 33rd century, and instead of half-assing some calamity like Dark Age did where some borders got weird, we mess things up in the Inner Sphere. I'm not talking killing a head of a Successor State, I'm talking about international collapse.

The story would go something like this: After the Blackout and the subsequent conflicts, the rebuilt infrastructure and tech from the last 2 centuries led to large-scale, 1st/2nd Succession War style battles. By 3200, the Successor States and the Clans are reduced to their core worlds, light-years away from their nearest rival. By 3250, about when we'd start the game, the Successor States are starting to re-expand, and there's plenty of opportunity for pirates, brigands, mercenaries, and ronin all over the Inner Sphere.

With this, we're not so closely tied to canon, and can make up content as we go. If we go with the idea of having a Wiki, we can update planets as they're mentioned or scene in RP. It also gives us the chance to make our own content if we'd like.

We could use whatever tech we please, and just say "they managed to preserve this" while making some stuff super valuable to obtain. Or we can pick and choose what is or isn't LosTech, and give it out as rewards for good contracts.

EDIT: And because I'm a nerd with no sleep schedule I made a speculative map which illustrates what I'm thinking. Edit 2: Not that Imgur bothered to preserve the actual resolution.


The second idea is kind of the opposite: Instead of using the whole Inner Sphere, we pick a region of the Inner Sphere, and keep things limited to that. I would suggest the region around Terra; almost all factions are involved and there's plenty to squabble over. I'd recommend setting it after the Jihad or the FedCom Civil War. It removes the option of working in the Periphery, however. It makes the scale easier to manage, and we'd have more cause to work with each other as players.

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Re: Timeline Suggestions

Postby Vampire » Thu Apr 15, 2021 2:29 pm

Having avoided the Jihad era previously due to me not reading up on it (and knowing that a LOT of our favourite characters got creamed), I'm now sort of leaning towards it simply because of all the slew of new machinery during this period.

Despite the stigma attached to it, I'm particularly fond of C3i because of the advantages it provide combat vees (yes, I'd happily go all vee again, so there!)

Also, with all the chaos all over known human space, we can easily RP any situations that will have zero impact on canon events.
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Re: Timeline Suggestions

Postby MrPig » Thu Apr 15, 2021 6:02 pm

Vampire wrote:Having avoided the Jihad era previously due to me not reading up on it (and knowing that a LOT of our favourite characters got creamed), I'm now sort of leaning towards it simply because of all the slew of new machinery during this period.

Despite the stigma attached to it, I'm particularly fond of C3i because of the advantages it provide combat vees (yes, I'd happily go all vee again, so there!)

Also, with all the chaos all over known human space, we can easily RP any situations that will have zero impact on canon events.


It sounds like we're thinking Jihad era, then. Do we want to do it before or after, and include the Republic?

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Re: Timeline Suggestions

Postby Vampire » Thu Apr 15, 2021 11:21 pm

We sort of went through this exercise earlier and decided on pre-FC Civil War earlier, which is why we're doing Operation GUERRERO at the moment. For me, I have little knowledge on the Republic. So I'd be more inclined to go for pre to Jihad itself if we're moving this direction.

Of course, I'm totally fine with sticking and developing our current story line on Talitha and moving on from there. Again, we have a lot of flexibility on whether if we want to do a little time skip forward, or put ourselves collectively for hire after we pull out.
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Re: Timeline Suggestions

Postby MrPig » Thu Apr 15, 2021 11:24 pm

Vampire wrote:We sort of went through this exercise earlier and decided on pre-FC Civil War earlier, which is why we're doing Operation GUERRERO at the moment. For me, I have little knowledge on the Republic. So I'd be more inclined to go for pre to Jihad itself if we're moving this direction.

Of course, I'm totally fine with sticking and developing our current story line on Talitha too.


Oh, I'm sorry! I hadn't realized that was already decided! I feel like a dork now. I'll remove my foot from my mouth, if you'll pardon me, lol.

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Re: Timeline Suggestions

Postby Vampire » Fri Apr 16, 2021 1:37 am

Meh. Our thought was to just have everybody write together to get our collective feet wet after such an extended period of dormancy. The advantage of what we're doing now is that we all start on a clean slate, being able to RP whatever we want within established canon timeline but with flexibility to wriggle about.

The fact that we're actually NOT writing for payment and salvage might be detrimental for some in regards of motivation, but again, I believe we can work things around in that we can RP being able to lay our grubby hands on pretty much any hardware (again within canon timeframe) we want as long as its logical and everyone is in agreement.
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