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Betrayal of Ideas vs Blake Documents

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My main problem with Betrayal of Ideals was that every other Clan was depicted as evil to make the Wolverines justified. I don't have a huge problem with that as I don't like the Clans, but it looked like simplistic writing. My favorite part was the intro chapter showing Operation Klondike. The fight with Rasmussen Elite was pretty different than what we usually see, and I'd be interested in seeing more about the various factions involved, especially without the filter of Clan propaganda.
 
WhiteChapel said:
My main problem with Betrayal of Ideals was that every other Clan was depicted as evil to make the Wolverines justified. I don't have a huge problem with that as I don't like the Clans, but it looked like simplistic writing. My favorite part was the intro chapter showing Operation Klondike. The fight with Rasmussen Elite was pretty different than what we usually see, and I'd be interested in seeing more about the various factions involved, especially without the filter of Clan propaganda.
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So many stories yet to tell, so many game settings yet to explore. : )
 
If Catalyst makes its BattleCorps stories available a la carte, you will want to seek out the following pre-Clan Invasion stories:
Fall From Glory by Randall Bills
To Lead and Serve by Jason Schmetzer
A Turn of the Wheel by Lance Scarini
Family Ties by Craig A. Reed Jr.
A Tale of Mercy in Defeat by Chris Hussey
Sorrow of Eden by Alan Brundage
The Day That Greatness and Vision Died by Philip A. Lee
Changes, They Are the Times by Ken’ Horner and Herbert A. Beas
Half of a Warrior by Philip A. Lee
Whispering Death by Philip A. Lee
Seven Years’ Bad Luck by Philip A. Lee
A Keystone Arch by Philip A. Lee
A Call for Unity by Philip A. Lee
 
See, I was hoping to see something equating the Word of Blake to some Immortal Elves or something. Still trying to find that Shadowrun<>Battletech link :)

But otherwise, I concur: Sourcebooks are faction reports (mostly stolen by ComStar) and are hearsay. Novels are mostly first-hand accounts, by (potentially) unreliable narrators. History is written by the victors, and scurrilous hearsay is written by the losers. And no one is omniscient, not even the Primus.
 
Murdoch said:
See, I was hoping to see something equating the Word of Blake to some Immortal Elves or something. Still trying to find that Shadowrun<>Battletech link :)

But otherwise, I concur: Sourcebooks are faction reports (mostly stolen by ComStar) and are hearsay. Novels are mostly first-hand accounts, by (potentially) unreliable narrators. History is written by the victors, and scurrilous hearsay is written by the losers. And no one is omniscient, not even the Primus.
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Do you mean BattleRun?

F8D62EC6-2F84-4414-92A5-95CBD19C291D.jpeg
 
I thought that the Wolverines were the Minnesota Tribe? They lost their Trial against Kerensky's son, basically said "Screw this", the survivors made it as far as the Draconis Combine, did a few hit and run raids, then vanished into the periphery somewhere. Apparently my lore knowledge is so far off that I don't even understand the references made here.
 
The story “Betrayal of Ideals” chronicles the details of the Wolverines’s fall and flight. It ends with them split into three scattered groups of survivors. The largest became the Minnesota Tribe. Another about 1/3 that size seems to have settled within visiting distance of the final battle site on Barbados, and the third (the crew of the Zughoffer Weir) appears to have found sanctuary with ComStar.

The details of what happened afterwards are scattered through the fiction, with the most detailed being Interstellar Players: Interstellar Expeditions and Jihad Conspiracies: The Blake Documents. Of course, the first raises more questions than it answers, and the second appears to be a bit of truth cloaked in fake anti-Blakist propaganda intended to being the Clans into the Jihad to fight against the Word of Blake and Nueva Castille.

Interstellar Players has a chapter on the efforts of archaeologists to track the Minnesota Tribe. The trail leads around the Inner Sphere clockwise, past the Outworlds Alliance and Taurian Concirdat, finally going cold beyond the Magistracy of Canopus, where the inhabitants of McEvedy’s Folly tell the archaeologists that the Tribe visited but did not stay. In the opening fiction to the IE book, archaeologists finally discover the Tribe base, full of abandoned Clan Wolverine equipment, but are wiped out by Word of Blake Manei Domini fighters, which were called in by a mole in the archaeology team.

The Guide to Covert Operations hints that ComStar met up with elements of Kerensky’s Exodus Fleet (later revealed to be the Zughoffer Weir, which saw service as part of the Blakist Fleet during the Jihad). It also suggests that there is something odd about how the Ebon Magistrate (Magistracy of Canopus special forces - like DEST) got so good so fast.

The earliest lore of the Magistracy, from the MechWarrior RPG, indicates that it was getting advanced tech from a source “beyond the Periphery.” One of the BattleCorps Iron Writer stories (written in one hour at GenCon with no fact checking, so not technically canon) even shows a mysterious ship visiting a top secret Canopian outpost and trading tech for supplies - a process that has been going on for decades, and for which the outpost has special blackout secrecy procedures. The visitor concludes the transaction by saying “well bargained and done.” Sounds Clanny to me, and the only Clanners in that neck of the woods are the Minnesota Tribe.

The story “With Carrion Men” gets a bit into the fighting in the Magistracy of Canopus during the Jihad, with the cybernetic Manei Domini fighting the cybernetic Ebon Magistrate operatives, and a Capellan Warrior House envoy getting cybernetic enhancements to save his life. The special attention the Word gave the Magistracy, plus the fact that they are watching over the abandoned Wolverine base to keep it secret, implies that the Word of Blake knows about where the Tribe ended up and their ties to the Magistracy. The fighting between the Ebon Magistrate and Manei Domini suggest the Tribe and Zughofferites don’t like each other.
 
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I want to once again point out that any evidence of Wolverine involvement with ComStar falls under the Canon Rumor category. The only verifiable information regarding the Zughoffer is that it was salvaged as a derelict in 3061 and delivered to the Word of Blake's Titan shipyards for refurbishment the same year, where it was later re-named and integrated into their WarShip fleet.

Pretty much all of Chandresekhar Kurita's "discoveries" regarding the Wolverines were an (admittedly wildly successful) attempt by him and Devlin Stone to bring the Ghost Bears into the Jihad because of their existential blood feud with the Wolverines centuries prior.
 
Plus the opening story in Interstellar Expeditions, which shows Manei Domini equipment being used to keep the abandoned Wolverine base a secret.

There is also a picture somewhere (haven’t been able to locate it just yet) that shows a dead ComStar officer slumped over his desk, shot in the back. The desk is covered with top secret files. If you hold the picture upside down, you can read the title of one report concerning a rendezvous with the Exodus fleet.
 
Which is part of the Jihad Secrets series, the sourcebooks that defined the most egregious uses of the canon rumor.

It is entirely unreliable information.
 
The fiction is always canon. It’s the in-universe reports that are canon rumor.
 
Not the opening bit with the Manei Domini attack on Interstellar Expeditions. Plus, the IE book wasn’t a “canon rumor” book. It’s a Deep Periphery sourcebook.
 
Honestly that all sounds needlessly convoluted. Why on earth wouldn't you leave it as it was, a fun unsolved mystery?
 
Deaghaidh said:
Honestly that all sounds needlessly convoluted. Why on earth wouldn't you leave it as it was, a fun unsolved mystery?
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Because after so long the odd hint, shadow and tantalizing rumor keeps the possibility alive, fresh and of interest to more and newer fans.

Witness...

#ClanWolverine4ilClan!!!!!!
 
And on top of all that, I really have a hard time believing that Wolverine expats made it to Comstar and it staying a secret. At least 3 of Comstars late leaders would have released that information: Primus Sharilar Mori (who the novels heavily hint was a Combine agent), Precentor Martial Anastasias Focht (who outed most of Comstar's secrets), and Precentor Martial Victor Steiner-Davion (who was always more loyal to the Inner Sphere).
 
Mendrugo said:
Not the opening bit with the Manei Domini attack on Interstellar Expeditions. Plus, the IE book wasn’t a “canon rumor” book. It’s a Deep Periphery sourcebook.
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Incorrect. It's an Interstellar Players book. The series that STARTED the "canon rumor" shenanigans in the first place.

http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Interstellar_Players_3:_Interstellar_Expeditions

http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Jihad_Conspiracies:_Interstellar_Players_2

http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Interstellar_Players
 
WhiteChapel said:
And on top of all that, I really have a hard time believing that Wolverine expats made it to Comstar and it staying a secret.
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Because they didn't. The Ghost Bears did extensive genetic testing on damn near every Word of Blake prisoner and corpse they and the Coalition encountered (to an obsessive degree that freaked the Coalition out). No trace of Wolverine genetic lines were found.

With over two centuries of interbreeding those genetic lines would have been damn near everywhere had the Wolverines done what some of the conspiracy theories say they did.
 
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Tnarien said:
Incorrect. It's an Interstellar Players book. The series that STARTED the "canon rumor" shenanigans in the first place.
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Beg to differ.
The book, as a real-world product, has an introduction fiction piece that isn't part of the in-universe portion of the book. That story is canonically true because it is written from an ooc omniscient viewpoint, also called "story fiction" in the BattleTech context (and in one early case, somewhat misleadinly, "novel fiction").
The rest of the book purports to be an in-universe document ("sourcebook fiction") and is thus possibly subject to in-character bias, errors, or even deliberate misinformation.

"Canon Rumors" meanwhile are just what it says on the cover - rumors that canonically exist in the BattleTech universe as rumors. They may or may not be completely true, half true, or complete fabrications. Or anything in between, or a big misunderstanding. FanPro, when they came up with the idea, deliberately left them open to interpretation by a GM. However, as the timeline progressed later publications often happened to prove or disprove certain canon rumors. Others remain unresolved.
 
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