Are the PCs on the wrong side of history in this game?

[Iracundus]

Now I know the real reason is because the Aurigan Coalition was created for the game and didn't exist before.

Nonetheless, we see that the planets of the Coalition are absent from the official Inner Sphere maps and remain so in later eras. We also know from the campaign intro that we successfully help Kamea Arano retake the throne (since the intro is really a retrospective). So does that mean Kamea Arano was the wrong leader for the job and the Aurigan Coalition has fallen apart and died out? Was the Directorate really what was needed?

Or is the explanation that some really hefty bribes to Comstar wiped the planets off the official maps?

 

[Deaghaidh]

From what 'Ive seen...

Spoiler: Spoilers

No. At least not in a moral sense, since in three years in power the only thing we've seen from Espinoza is concentration camps, which are explicitly said to be much worse than the old regimes prisons.

There's no sign yet as to whether the Directorate makes the metaphorical trains run on time. But all signs point to "noble monarch defends liberty from evil military dictatorship." Espinoza seems like Stephen Amaris on a tiny scale. Which is actually a bit of a let down, civil wars are more interesting when characters on both sides can reasonably think they are in the right

As to explaining their absence on the map, there's really no (in-universe) logical reason that either the existence of the Coalition or it's collapse wouldn't have been in the history books and maps. Smaller periphery powers are, and usually have at least a date and "destroyed by clans" to explain where they went. Even Comstar couldn't make the entire population of two successor states and the two biggest Periphery nations suddenly forget they had once shared a neighbor.

 

[Calantyr]

Official maps of the Periphery only include the major states. The fluff states that minor governments (without an HPG uplink, brief lifespan, or inconsequential exports) don't get included on official maps BECAUSE THERE'S HUNDREDS OF THEM. Most only include a single planet, some have a few scattered solar systems, but all are meaningless in interstellar politics.
The region to the galactic west of the Aurigan Reach (anti-spinward) gets heavily colonised by the Magistracy of Canopus and Taurian Concordat, but the Aurigan Reach itself does not seem to get annexed by anyone. So it's possible that the region remains a low-power state for a while.

 

[Iracundus]

Even if the planets remain somewhat nominally inhabited, their disappearance off the map to me suggests the Aurigan Coalition may have died out, and the planets have faded into such economic and interstellar insignificance that they have been removed from the map. They may have succumbed to the slow dying off that many Periphery worlds and even Inner Sphere worlds have been subject to, with the decline of technology and interstellar travel. At some point, perhaps interstellar travelers just decided it wasn't worth going to some tiny farming village on an otherwise uninhabited planet. The Coalition may have gone out with a whimper, with worlds just fading out, leaving ever more empty seats in parliament (or whatever they called it), until the whole thing just got formally disbanded or people just stopped showing up entirely. Maybe that could be a handwaving explanation as their neighbors might remember a catastrophic collapse but might more easily not notice a slow unexciting fading out. By the time the Capellan Confederation has extended its reach out to neighboring systems by 3145 (as per the official 3145 map), maybe grandparents' tales and small footnotes in obscure historical texts are all that remains.

We know that in the intro Espinoza believed the Aurigan Coalition's problems lay in its parliamentary deadlock, leaving the economic downturn unaddressed. It is a pity if it is going down the path of moustache twirling evil dictatorship. Sometimes the nice sympathetic leader is not necessarily the best leader.

 

[Deaghaidh]

If in 3025 the Magistricy and the Concordiat feel obliged to meddle in Augrian affairs for strategic reasons, it's unlikely that they were so marginally inhabited as to not merit placement on a map.

Potentially the Restoration or Directorate provoked an Interdiction that was never lifted. Unable to communicate the Coalition became just a handful of De facto independent planets 5hat were isolated from diplomacy and the larger IS economy.

 

[TaurianMerc]

Maps (much like history) only contain the things the composer wants you to see
Who drew the maps for all of the 3025 era sourcebooks? Many of them are supposed to be Comstar published documents so contain many biases.
Plus, do you really think all those areas not contained within a boundary on the maps are uninhabited?

Although to answer your original question, yes. Since the campaign is supposed to be open (you can allow the Directorate to win) and have the same ultimate outcome I would say the AR is screwed from the start. It probably gets invaded by Davions, they like bullying trying to bully periphery states.

 

[Deaghaidh]

If Comstar made them "unpersons" as Orwell would put it, then there must have been a massive offense against them. Like "massacred all the HPG workers in the region" bad. Although even then they would have achieved a sort of infamy as a cautionary example.

 

[Iracundus]

Maps (much like history) only contain the things the composer wants you to see
Who drew the maps for all of the 3025 era sourcebooks? Many of them are supposed to be Comstar published documents so contain many biases.
Plus, do you really think all those areas not contained within a boundary on the maps are uninhabited?

Although to answer your original question, yes. Since the campaign is supposed to be open (you can allow the Directorate to win) and have the same ultimate outcome I would say the AR is screwed from the start. It probably gets invaded by Davions, they like bullying trying to bully periphery states.

It is perhaps one thing to alter the details for one planet or scrub it, but harder to scrub an entire realm from the pages of history.

Is the campaign open? I thought the intro was pretty much Kamea Arano talking to the player and reminiscing about how the player helped her gain the throne.

 

[Calantyr]

It is perhaps one thing to alter the details for one planet or scrub it, but harder to scrub an entire realm from the pages of history.

For a couple hundred years ComStar managed to systematically murder every leading scientist, diplomat, and strategist within the Inner Sphere capable of pulling humanity out of the dark ages. They were able to do this through stealth and by controlling communication for the entire human species. If they wanted to to hide the existence of some backwater state with only a dozen systems they probably could.
A more likely answer is simply that the Aurigan Coalition is weak, poor, and unimportant, so no one really bothers adding it to most maps.
An even better answer is that it will be retconned into the lore is the game sells well.

 

[Deaghaidh]

It seems bigger than Oberon Confederation, though perhaps it's not as important strategically.

 

[Iracundus]

For a couple hundred years ComStar managed to systematically murder every leading scientist, diplomat, and strategist within the Inner Sphere capable of pulling humanity out of the dark ages. They were able to do this through stealth and by controlling communication for the entire human species. If they wanted to to hide the existence of some backwater state with only a dozen systems they probably could.
A more likely answer is simply that the Aurigan Coalition is weak, poor, and unimportant, so no one really bothers adding it to most maps.
An even better answer is that it will be retconned into the lore is the game sells well.

Comstar also did it with misinformation. Scientific work requires communication and peer review. If Comstar sabotages a paper by tweaking the numbers, is the average person on the street going to notice? Anyone that does can either be recruited into Comstar itself, bribed, or disappeared.

While the average person in the Inner Sphere might not know or care much about the disappearance of the Aurigan Coalition, the people in that area of the Periphery might raise eyebrows at a whole dozen systems vanishing. It's one thing for some numbers in a niche scientific journal being tweaked or vanishing versus having one's neighboring systems (with whom there has been presumably some level of trade or contact) fall off the map entirely.

Granted, there are other systems that are on the game map that are not on the canon maps, so either those systems were not included or scrubbed, or they died out or dropped off the interstellar scene in the following decades.

 

[Tnarien]

Granted, there are other systems that are on the game map that are not on the canon maps, so either those systems were not included or scrubbed, or they died out or dropped off the interstellar scene in the following decades.

I think you're reading a bit too much into the fact that HBS has a level of attention to detail that was not applied to this region of space for other sourcebooks. Let's face it, outside the Magistracy and the Concordat, this region of space doesn't matter in this time period. As a result, it didn't make sense for the folks writing the BT lore to expend resources on cataloguing...nothing.

To me that's perfectly ok. Moving forward, the lore will adjust itself to accomodate the additions that HBS:BT makes. That's how a universe this big always works: additions are incorporated as they happen.

 

[TaurianMerc]

I think you're reading a bit too much into the fact that HBS has a level of attention to detail that was not applied to this region of space for other sourcebooks. Let's face it, outside the Magistracy and the Concordat, this region of space doesn't matter in this time period. As a result, it didn't make sense for the folks writing the BT lore to expend resources on cataloguing...nothing.

To me that's perfectly ok. Moving forward, the lore will adjust itself to accomodate the additions that HBS:BT makes. That's how a universe this big always works: additions are incorporated as they happen.

Exactly this, I never suggested that Comstar made anything disappear, or that they hoped no one would notice if they did.
I was simply saying that our knowledge of this area at this time period comes from the Comstar source books and they didn't consider the Aurigans worth including for whatever reason, just like they miss off a number of planets that exist at this time but don't come to prominence until later.

We need to remember to make the distinction between real world knowledge and in universe knowledge.

 

[dulahan]

"In success..." we'll probably get an answer to what happens later. (presuming the game doesn't answer the question during play or the epilogue)

As things stand, remember this isn't technically canon yet, despite the involvement of Jordan. It's not officially part of the Universe until the existing game works it in. But in the aforementioned success I'd wager some form of sourcebook is probably likely. Hell, would be fun, could be a little pdf a la the "Touring the Stars" one to just give a brief update. Or a longer one to really bring it up to snuff. Or even just some off handed mentions in a new sourcebook. That said, I don't think it will take a lot to get it in, given how tight knit the devs of all the various Battletech things are. But for now it's not.

Otherwise, the canon setting will probably just move onwards presuming it doesn't exist, leaving it for the individual GM to do all the work.

 

[Tnarien]

"In success..." we'll probably get an answer to what happens later. (presuming the game doesn't answer the question during play or the epilogue)

As things stand, remember this isn't technically canon yet, despite the involvement of Jordan. It's not officially part of the Universe until the existing game works it in. But in the aforementioned success I'd wager some form of sourcebook is probably likely. Hell, would be fun, could be a little pdf a la the "Touring the Stars" one to just give a brief update. Or a longer one to really bring it up to snuff. Or even just some off handed mentions in a new sourcebook. That said, I don't think it will take a lot to get it in, given how tight knit the devs of all the various Battletech things are. But for now it's not.

Otherwise, the canon setting will probably just move onwards presuming it doesn't exist, leaving it for the individual GM to do all the work.

There was a statement from the BT Line Developer that the events of the primary campaign are considered canon. I'll see if I can dig it up...

 

[dulahan]

There was a statement from the BT Line Developer that the events of the primary campaign are considered canon. I'll see if I can dig it up...

Awesome!

And not totally shocking if true. Like I said, the devs are pretty close across all the Battletech Properties. Right down to the Gen Con Masters & Minions games including them. (I got to play Jordan and AJ at Gen Con last year, was a blast!).

 

[Tnarien]

Awesome!

And not totally shocking if true. Like I said, the devs are pretty close across all the Battletech Properties. Right down to the Gen Con Masters & Minions games including them. (I got to play Jordan and AJ at Gen Con last year, was a blast!).

So it's not a bulletproof statement, but here you go:

https://community.battletechgame.com/forums/threads/1190

 

[Calantyr]

So it's not a bulletproof statement, but here you go:

https://community.battletechgame.com/forums/threads/1190

Fantastic. It makes me wonder what little-known areas we will explore in the expansions/sequels.

 

[Frabby]

There was a statement from the BT Line Developer that the events of the primary campaign are considered canon. I'll see if I can dig it up...

The statement was that it was the intention for the HBS game to be declared canon for CGL mainline BattleTech. I read that to be a declaration of intent, rather than a canonisation of the (upcoming) game's storyline in and of itself already. Randall Bills isn't even the BattleTech Line Developer anymore over at CGL. So it remains to be seen if that intent is carried out.

 

[Tnarien]

The statement was that it was the intention for the HBS game to be declared canon for CGL mainline BattleTech. I read that to be a declaration of intent, rather than a canonisation of the (upcoming) game's storyline in and of itself already. Randall Bills isn't even the BattleTech Line Developer anymore over at CGL. So it remains to be seen if that intent is carried out.

As I said, It's not bullet proof.