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= BTA Developer Blog #3: Tanks For All The Fish =
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= BTA Developer Blog #11: BTAU History: ComStar and the Terran Hegemony =
  
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Welcome back to the BTA Developer Blog series, where I take a look at and explain various facets of BTA's design for your edification. Today I'm talking about tanks and why BTA's tanks are as they are. I'm covering a handful of topics here so strap in.
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In BattleTech canon, the Terran Hegemony was effectively totally destroyed in the wake of the Amaris Civil War and the Cameron family was completely wiped out by Stefan Amaris, leaving no survivors to re-claim their throne. In BTAU, this *kind* of happens. The Hegemony *is* destroyed during the Amaris Civil War, that part still happens. However, the Cameron family line is not completely killed and the Terran Hegemony is later re-established. Read on to learn more.
  
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One of the most common complaints we receive here at BTA Headquarters is about tanks: "they're overpowered, I hate them, why are they so broken?!" My response has been and remains that tanks aren't broken, they just take a little learning to figure out how to deal with. This has always been true. BTA's tanks are more durable than new players expect coming from vanilla and are programmed to be clever about what side faces the player so that they attempt to shield their damaged locations, giving a false sense of, forgive me, "tankiness". Add to this that BTA's tanks largely are more dangerous too, and you get the frequent complaint that tanks are overpowered. So the question is, why are our tanks like this? The reason is fairly basic: I wanted tanks to be more threatening. In vanilla HBS BT, tanks are essentially jokes. There's none with really serious armor and only a couple that are even vaguely threatening (the Demolisher and Schrek are about it, the Gallant Urban from Urban Warfare too). In the base game, tanks are jokes that might as well not be there for all the threat they pose. I don't like that, tanks have certain advantages in-setting that should be reflected in BTA. Tanks don't dedicate tonnage to cockpits or gyros or anything like that, they have more space for armor and guns. They can be a real threat if ignored, so BTA reflects this. I believe we've succeeded at making tanks dangerous but manageable with attention. Sometimes, that means you need to focus them over the mechs. Paradoxically, although tanks often have a lot of armor, they are sometimes squishier than might be expected. Because they have limited locations to take hits on, good focused fire can often crush a tank, even one with heavy armor, faster than an equivalent mech. Because mechs have more locations, they spread damage a lot more than tanks do.
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In BTAU, the Hegemony falls to Stefan Amaris and is later obliterated during the conflict between Amaris and General Kerensky's SLDF forces. Stefan Amaris does in fact kill all members of the Cameron family and leaves their bodies to rot in the Star League's throne room, just as in canon. After Amaris is defeated, the House Lords gather on Terra as in canon and strip Kerensky of his title of Protector of the Realm. They also put Jerome Blake in charge of the HPG network, again all as happens in canon. However, before Kerensky embarks on the Exodus, he and Blake have a private conversation in which they discuss the future of the Inner Sphere and their respective roles in it. There are three versions of this story: the Clan story, the ComStar story, and the true story that can only be found in Blake's original private writings.
  
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The Clan version goes like this: Kerensky tells Blake to preserve as much information and knowledge as possible so that when his descendants return to the Inner Sphere they can more easily establish a new golden age. Blake agrees without question and says he will wait patiently. They part ways and Kerensky undertakes the Exodus as normal.
  
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There is one other quirkiness to address concerning playable tanks that's a little harder to explain: tanks getting stuck a lot. So, this is a little mechanical-focused, but essentially tanks getting stuck is a matter of their movement profile definitions. Tanks have movement profiles (wheeled, tracked, hover) that define how their movement interacts with terrain such as trees, rough terrain, or elevation changes. These values can change how they move around. Notably, mechs have these definitions as well. With tanks, to keep them semi-accurate to how these kinds of vehicles actually behave, the definitions are more restrictive than mech equivalents. This makes sense: a tracked vehicle is gonna have a harder time with water than a mech will since feet are better at moving through water than tracks are. The consequence of this being realistic is that sometimes, tanks get spawned somewhere they can't move off of (this is most common with hovercraft, which cannot move through trees at all and often get spawned inside of a forest). The biggest culprit is usually elevation issues, tanks can only manage certain steepness of slopes and if they're spawned on top of a hill that's too steep, they can't get down. There isn't a great fix to this: if we open up their movement profiles then they start behaving unusually (tracked tanks speeding through water like hovers, for instance, or going up and down sheer cliffs). We could try to set it so they can go over most stuff but not everything, but the math is tricky and there's not a good way to test anything. Some folks have suggested the 1-hex jump jet solution: just give everything 1 jet so they can hop and it'll be fixed. Problem is that giving tanks jets is impossible, tanks don't have the concept of jumping in the files so I couldn't give them a JJ if I wanted to. There just isn't a great way to fix this. We've already fiddled with the movement profiles some, though I'll keep an eye on it going forward.
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The ComStar version goes like this: Kerensky tells Blake about the Exodus and Blake in return asks for some forces to remain behind so that he can form a small sphere of neutral worlds around Terra so as to rebuild a bastion of humanity and hope for when Kerensky's forces return in the future. Kerensky agrees and leaves Blake several divisions of battle-hardened SLDF troopers with the mandate to obey Blake's orders as if they were Kerensky's own. They part ways and Kerensky undertakes the Exodus as normal.
  
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The truth goes like this: Kerensky and Blake meet and both acknowledge that the IS is about to fall into horrifying warfare as the House Lords scramble to conquer each other. Kerensky tells Blake about the Exodus and Blake asks if he can have some troops to help keep Terra secure, which Kerensky agrees to. Blake then tells Kerensky that he'll keep the light of hope alive, despite Kerensky's cowardice in leaving. The General scoffs, saying this is the only way to prevent billions of deaths and the men part ways. Kerensky then undertakes the Exodus. The troops left behind include almost 18 divisions of troops, centered around the 151st Royal BattleMech Division.
  
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However, tanks have a flip-side, the player side. See, in BTA we added the ability for tanks to be fieldable by the player, taking them from menace to menacing. Notably though, there's a few quirks. First, only some tanks can be used either by purchase or salvage. Second, *no* tanks can be modified, they come stock and that's what you get. Why are these two things true? A bunch of reasons. Let's start with tank modification. Having a mechbay for tanks isn't available in BTA for two reasons: it both can't be done and I don't want it to be done anyway. Tank modification currently is actively unable to be done by anyone (BTA, RT, anyone). Now, there's talk that that might be changing eventually, which brings us to the second, more salient, point: it is not my design that tank modification should be possible. Player tanks are intended to be support units, not primary units. They're available to players as a change of pace and as a fun option to mix up their drop decks. I don't really intend for tanks to be the stars of the ~~show~~mod. Further, allowing tank modification would require that tanks somehow have their canon building restrictions respected (example: non-ammo using energy weapons on tanks require enough standard heat sinks to be installed to totally neutralize the heat generated, that rule would need enforced somehow). How do we handle engines on tanks? Tanks don't work like mechs, where if you change the engine size the movement changes. Instead, tanks have their movement profiles hard-defined behind the scenes, you could just *remove* the engine and the tank would still be operational in-contract. That'd have to be enforced somehow. There's more, but I suspect the point has been made: enforcing tank build rules opens a really bad Pandora's Box that I'm not interested in opening for honestly minor gain. No thanks.
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After the Exodus is complete, Jerome Blake takes his forces in 2788 and enacts Operation SILVER SHIELD. However, unlike in canon where Blake only claims the Sol System, in the BTAU he instead claims to a cluster of worlds surrounding Terra (approximately 12 planets). The Great Houses, shocked at his forceful acts, attempt to protest but Blake's broadcast on June 28th, 2788 makes it clear that the so-called ComStar Protectorate exists to support ComStar's efforts to manage communications services for the entire Inner Sphere and that ComStar would forcibly defend its claims from any aggressor. The House Lords, realizing that the Succession Wars are upon them and that the HPG network is vital to their survival, all eventually accept Blake's claims on those worlds. Eventually, Blake would fall ill in 2819 and would pass away in that year, leaving leadership of ComStar to his close friend, Conrad Toyama.
  
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It is under Toyama that ComStar and its Protectorate would find their truest purpose. Toyama turned ComStar from a secular organization into a religious one, building a faith around the concept of the preservation of knowledge and mankind's future. It was also under Toyama that ComStar would discover the truth about the Cameron family, namely that several children from the family in fact survived Amaris' purge. Ian Cameron II and Amanda Cameron, twin children of Richard Cameron II, were in fact secreted off of Terra during the early days of the Amaris coup and were sent from the Sol system to an unknown Deep Periphery colony that the Camerons established as a last-ditch bolthole fallback should the Hegemony fall. The ship that carried them was supposedly the SLS Tripiz, which vanished during the coup. Though Toyama was unable to find the coordinates of this colony or of the ship itself, he began a new mission for ComStar: slowly re-establish the Hegemony, at least as much as possible, and find the Cameron family again and bring them to Terra to resume their rightful place.
  
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The second quirkiness of player tanks in BTA is that only some are available to the player. Why is this? Two-fold reasons. First, to make a tank playable in BTA requires a decent spot of work and I didn't want to do it for every tank for very minimal gain. Who's gonna actually want to field the Vedette Liao (2 Medium Lasers)? No one, that's who, why bother doing the work for something no one will use? There's a lot of tanks that, in all honesty, are fit for the OpFor but aren't interesting for players to command (Vedettes, Scorpions, J.Edgars, etc, these are just easy examples). It's fun to shoot Vedettes and watch them explode into flames. It's not as fun to drive the useless things and be a waste of 50 tons, so we just skipped the whole debate and saved people from wasting their time. This was a matter of smart use of effort and time. Second, like mentioned above, tanks are meant to be supporting units, not primary units. Tanks shouldn't be the stars of the show, but the supporting cast. They don't get prime billing in BTA and that's on purpose. To encourage this, the selection of tanks was largely centered on fire-support (direct and indirect alike) tanks or scouts, with only a small handful of main battle tanks such as the Manticore and Challenger. The majority of what's available are things like carriers or fast hovers, stuff meant to do a job, not be anchors of a combat line. Yeah tanks like the Devastator or Challenger are available but they're in the minority here as the goal was not to encourage 12 tank play but to encourage 8 mech/4 tank play. Moving artillery into tanks is sensible: it's what happens in-setting and that's for a reason. BTA reflects that by choice.
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Over the next two hundred years, ComStar embarked on what would be eventually termed as Operation SACRED SWORD. This was a covert operation akin to Operation HOLY SHROUD (which was put in place by Primus Raymond Karpov to destroy as much of the Houses technological knowledge as possible) and entailed ROM quietly fomenting rebellion and revolt among former Hegemony planets with the eventual goal of getting them to request admission to the ComStar Protectorate. Though ROM was not always successful in their efforts, a number of former Hegemony planets did ask for admission to the Protectorate, which ComStar granted. The Great Houses objected of course, leading to several skirmishes between ComStar's forces and the Great House in question, but in each case the House eventually was forced to back down and let the planet go due to pressures on other fronts during the Succession Wars (ROM always timed the planet's request for admission as best they could to coincide with the Houses engaging each other heavily, so as to prevent heavy resistance to the request).
  
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In 2979, the Taurian Concordat discovered the floating hulk of the SLS Tripiz and began efforts to reclaim the ship. ComStar of course became aware of this rapidly and the Primus at the time, Yin Takami, ordered the ComGuard into action to destroy the Taurians, board the Tripiz, recover as much data as possible from it, then scuttle the ship. The mission was a complete success, the Taurians were destroyed to a man and the ComGuard managed to recover fragmented information that pointed them towards the location of the missing Cameron colony. With that, they scuttled the Tripiz and none were the wiser that they were ever present. Primus Takami had the data reconstructed as best possible and then ordered the Explorer Corps (put in place by Takami's predecessor, Adrienne Sims) to hunt down the Cameron colony, which they did in 2987. After discovering the colony and its survivors, the Explorer Corps team was surprised to find that there was a living House Cameron on the colony. While life had been hard for 200 years, it had also been quiet and the colony had been given as much technology and support before the fall of the Star League as was possible, meaning the quality of life was still decent and the Camerons were as well educated as was possible in such a backwater part of the Deep Periphery. The Explorer Corps team explained the situation of the Inner Sphere to the colonists and the Cameron family survivors and then returned to Terra with the Camerons.
  
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So there you go, BTA Tanks: a little quirky, a little weird, I think worth it and interesting. They can be difficult and frustrating but they're also fun to play with and change up the playstyle enough to be fun to work with. Give them a shot if you haven't already, just be aware of their weirdnesses.  
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There, Primus Takami welcomed them to their ancestral home in Scotland (which had been maintained all this time for their eventual return) and told them of ComStar's plans: they would be given the best education and training for leadership that could be had in the Inner Sphere while ComStar prepared a military force with which the Camerons could reclaim the remaining Hegemony worlds. The plan was to take place in several decades, after a new generation of Camerons could be born and raised from birth for their role as rulers of an interstellar realm and after ComStar could properly prepare for the major military action required. The Cameron family members agreed wholly with the plan and so it began. From 2987 to 3035 ComStar secretly built a great army in the Protectorate and House Cameron re-established itself socially and politically through arranged marriages with other major families in the Protectorate (though their true identity was of course kept a closely guarded secret).
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Finally, in 3035, the Primus of ComStar, Myndo Waterly, and the head of House Cameron, Christopher Cameron, sent the following broadcast to the Great Houses and the general people of the Inner Sphere:
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"Greetings, people of the Human Sphere! We, the Primus of ComStar and the head of the reborn House Cameron, come to you today to announce the grand rebirth of a fallen nation! The Terran Hegemony, which was once lost to the tides of history, has been reborn. Henceforth, the ComStar Protectorate is no more and the Terran Hegemony takes its place under the rightful rule of the Great House Cameron. ComStar will remain as faithful advisors and supporters of the Cameron dynasty.
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To this end, the Hegemony has undertaken its first action on the political stage: the reclamation of its ancestral worlds from the grasp of the other Great Houses. To the House Lords, we say this: we do not desire your thrones nor your homes, we are only reclaiming that which is already ours by right. Stand not in our path, lest you be swept aside by our twin furies.
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And to the people of the Inner Sphere we say this: if you desire a future free of the depredations of the Succession Wars and full of bright promise, then look no further than the Terran Hegemony! It was once the brightest of the all the stars and it will be so once again! This we swear with our life's blood."
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Of course, the Great Houses were shocked and appalled that their ancient rival was reborn but were stymied by three factors that prevented them from moving against the Hegemony immediately. First, the Hegemony's army (the one ComStar built for them in secret) was surprisingly potent and sizable, using Star League technology that the Houses could not immediately match, and struck many worlds at once making organization against them difficult. Second, the overwhelming response of the populace of the Inner Sphere was positive. ComStar had an excellent reputation as bringers of a brighter future and the restoration of the mythical Terran Hegemony (which had been built up for centuries as a golden promised land of myth and legend) was received very well. Finally, the threat of HPG interdiction hung heavy over the Great Houses' heads and they knew the risks.
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Of the House Lords, they reacted thusly: Captain-General Thomas Marik respected the action and let the Hegemony do as it wished, claiming that the war would not be worth the bloodshed. Chancellor Romano Liao was busy with rebuilding her nation and paid the Hegemony zero mind as it was not claiming any worlds from the Confederation at the time. Coordinator Takashi Kurita was occupied with internal matters and with the fallout of the Fourth Succession War and though he wished to oppose the Hegemony decided against it, preferring to strengthen the Combine instead. First Prince Hanse Davion and Archon Katrina Steiner both wished to oppose the actions of ComStar and the Hegemony and even did make efforts to do so, however their forces were roundly smashed due to the technological and training advantage that the Hegemony's army possessed. After several high-profile losses, the two rulers agreed that the Federated Commonwealth would survive just fine, even without being physically joined through the center of the Inner Sphere though they also intended to take their worlds back as soon as was reasonably possible.
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From 3037 (the efforts to reclaim their worlds took until that year to accomplish) onwards, the Terran Hegemony would sit in the center of the Inner Sphere as an equal with the other five Great Houses whether they liked it or not (they did not). Though it took some time, several DNA tests, and the revelation of the Cameron's survival, eventually all five Great Houses acknowledged that Director-General Christopher Cameron was a legitimate member of the Cameron family and that the Hegemony was legitimate as ComStar was acting as the final vestiges of the nation all along. Christopher proved an adept politician during this period, managing to extract said acknowledgements from each House Lord in turn, and even preventing several military actions against his realm via diplomacy. However, the Hegemony did engage in several conflicts in this period with both the Federated Commonwealth and the Draconis Combine, all of which turned out to be evenly matched and inconclusive conflicts. Notably, the Hegemony was true to its original word and did not attempt to conquer the worlds of the other Great Houses, keeping its military actions only to the original worlds of the Hegemony, a distinction that did not go unnoticed by the other House Lords.
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Of course, everything shifted in 3049 when the Clans invaded the Inner Sphere. At first, the Hegemony and ComStar just observed the invaders and tried to identify them and their aims. The Clans proved excessively hostile towards the Hegemony's existence, something that puzzled ComStar. The reality is that the Clans were furious about the ComStar Protectorate's existence and refused to acknowledge either the Protectorate or the Terran Hegemony as legitimate. In fact, the Clans viewed the Protectorate's existence as a betrayal of the agreement struck by Jerome Blake and Aleksandr Keresnky so many centuries ago (due to the story being passed down differently among the Clans than it was among ComStar). The Clans openly declared war against ComStar and the Hegemony, decreeing that they would never accept them as legitimate states and calling them the Betrayers.
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When it became clear that the Clan goal was Terra itself, the Hegemony and ComStar together issued a challenge to the Clans: fight us at Tukayyid with all that you have with the fate of the invasion on the line. Despite their fury, the invading Clans accepted and in 3052 the Battle of Tukayyid took place. On the Inner Sphere side was the largest army mobilized in one place since the Star League, composed of Hegemony and ComGuard troops working in unison. On the Clan side were the seven invading Clans (the same as in canon). The battle was long and bloody, with both sides suffering heavy casualties, but at the end of the day the Hegemony held the line and won the trial, refuting the Clan Invasion and stopping the Clans dead in their tracks. The Clans were furious that they lost but accepted that within their own rules of engagement, they had been bested. Interestingly, in the wake of the Battle of Tukayyid, Clan Nova Cat independently opened communications with the Hegemony and requested genetic proof of the Cameron family's bloodline. Also during the aftermath of the Battle of Tukayyid, Primus Myndo Waterly of ComStar stepped down from her post, saying that her role in politics was over. The First Circuit of ComStar then elected Precentor Rasalhague, Gardner Riis, to the role of Primus.
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The election of Gardner Riis proved a monumental moment for ComStar, as Riis was a strong proponent of a diplomatic solution to the Clan problem. There had been a debate inside of ComStar for several years now as to how to deal with the Clans, with one camp advocating for a diplomatic solution intent on convincing the Clans that the Hegemony was a legitimate state and the true inheritor of the Star League and with the other camp advocating for a military solution to the problem as the Clans would neither understand nor respect anything other than war. With the ascension of Riis to the highest office of the order, the elements of ComStar that wanted a military solution declared that this action would not stand and so split away from ComStar to form a new organization, titled the Word of Blake. The Word of Blake, knowing they were unwelcome in the Hegemony at this time, fled to the Free Worlds League where Captain-General Thomas Marik welcomed them and their technological expertise. He granted them an enclave of worlds centered around the world of Gibson and expelled all ComStar members from the League. The Word then took over the HPG network in the League going forward.
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After the Jade Falcon Incursion of 3058 (where the Falcons assaulted the Lyran Commonwealth), Director-General Christopher Cameron called a conference on Terra of all the House Lords, as well as the rulers of the Free Rasalhague Republic, the St. Ives Compact, ComStar, and Clan Wolf-in-Exile (who had set up on Arc-Royal in the Lyran Commonwealth), with the intent of discussing a solution to the Clan threat. Though the conference was fraught with political fighting and much debate, it was eventually decided that a unified response to the Clans had to be undertaken: the wholesale destruction of a Clan. With information provided by Khan Phelan Kell, it was decided that Clan Smoke Jaguar would be the target. Additionally, Precentor Martial of ComStar, Anastasius Focht, presented knowledge of the Exodus Road and the location of Huntress, the Smoke Jaguar homeworld. With all the pieces in motion, Director-General Cameron proposed the founding of a new Star League to prosecute the assault on the Smoke Jaguars. After a great deal of argument and political deals being struck, the Second Star League was founded on November 21st 3058. The First Lord position, which would rotate every few years via popular vote among the member-states of the Second Star League, was first granted to Director-General Cameron himself thanks to a clever ploy by Victor Steiner-Davion.
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Operation BULLDOG and Task Force Serpent were enacted by the Second Star League's forces as per canon (led by Victor Steiner-Davion) with the addition of Hegemony forces to both BULLDOG and Serpent. The Great Refusal took place as in canon and the threat of a renewed Clan Invasion was ended. The Smoke Jaguars were obliterated and peace was restored to the Inner Sphere. In 3061 another conference took place on Terra to determine the next First Lord. This time, Theodore Kurita was elected First Lord, despite machinations by Katherine Steiner-Davion (which were largely defeated by the combined efforts of Precentor Martial Anastasius Focht and the newly appointed Director-General Ian Cameron III).
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And that is where things stand for the Hegemony, ComStar, and the Inner Sphere in 3062. The Terran Hegemony stands in the middle of the Sphere, trying to keep the peace among the Second Star League's members and being wary of future conflict with the Clans (though, notably, Clan Nova Cat willingly joined with the Second Star League to destroy the Smoke Jaguars and is the sole Clan to acknowledge the Hegemony's claim as a legitimate nation, making them nominal allies). ComStar, under the vision of Primus Gardner Riis, continues to try and negotiate with the Clans, though to little avail.
  
 
= Previous Developer Blogs =
 
= Previous Developer Blogs =
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[[BTA Developer Blog 1: BTA's Core Philosophy|BTA Developer Blog #1: BTA's Core Philosophy - 2021/5/18]]
 
[[BTA Developer Blog 1: BTA's Core Philosophy|BTA Developer Blog #1: BTA's Core Philosophy - 2021/5/18]]
  
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[[BTA Developer Blog 3: Tanks For All The Fish|BTA Developer Blog #3: Tanks For All The Fish - 2021/5/31]]
 
[[BTA Developer Blog 3: Tanks For All The Fish|BTA Developer Blog #3: Tanks For All The Fish - 2021/5/31]]
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[[BTA Developer Blog 4: Abiding Quirkiness|BTA Developer Blog #4: Abiding Quirkiness - 2021/6/11]]
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[[BTA Developer Blog 5: Artillery and You, A Primer|BTA Developer Blog #5: Artillery and You, A Primer - 2021/10/8]]
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[[BTA Developer Blog 6: The Salvage Question|BTA Developer Blog #6: The Salvage Question - 2022/3/13]]
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[[BTA Developer Blog 7: Damage Reduction And You|BTA Developer Blog #7: Damage Reduction And You - 2022/4/14]]
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[[BTA Developer Blog 8: BD's Favorites!|BTA Developer Blog #8: BD's Favorites! - 2022/4/15]]
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[[BTA Developer Blog 9: The Story of the Sanctuary Worlds|BTA Developer Blog #9: The Story of the Sanctuary Worlds - 2022/12/12]]
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[[BTA Developer Blog 9.5: The Actual Story of the Sanctuary Worlds|BTA Developer Blog #9.5: The Actual Story of the Sanctuary Worlds - 2022/12/12]]
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[[BTA Developer Blog 10 BTAU History The Rim Worlds Republic|BTA Developer Blog #10: BTAU History: The Rim Worlds Republics - 2024/11/4]]
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[[BTA Developer Blog 11 BTAU History ComStar And The Terran Hegemony|BTA Developer Blog #11: BTAU History ComStar And The Terran Hegemony - 2024/11/4]]]
  
 
[[Category:Dev Blogs]]
 
[[Category:Dev Blogs]]

Latest revision as of 19:59, 4 November 2024

BTA Developer Blog #11: BTAU History: ComStar and the Terran Hegemony

In BattleTech canon, the Terran Hegemony was effectively totally destroyed in the wake of the Amaris Civil War and the Cameron family was completely wiped out by Stefan Amaris, leaving no survivors to re-claim their throne. In BTAU, this *kind* of happens. The Hegemony *is* destroyed during the Amaris Civil War, that part still happens. However, the Cameron family line is not completely killed and the Terran Hegemony is later re-established. Read on to learn more.

In BTAU, the Hegemony falls to Stefan Amaris and is later obliterated during the conflict between Amaris and General Kerensky's SLDF forces. Stefan Amaris does in fact kill all members of the Cameron family and leaves their bodies to rot in the Star League's throne room, just as in canon. After Amaris is defeated, the House Lords gather on Terra as in canon and strip Kerensky of his title of Protector of the Realm. They also put Jerome Blake in charge of the HPG network, again all as happens in canon. However, before Kerensky embarks on the Exodus, he and Blake have a private conversation in which they discuss the future of the Inner Sphere and their respective roles in it. There are three versions of this story: the Clan story, the ComStar story, and the true story that can only be found in Blake's original private writings.

The Clan version goes like this: Kerensky tells Blake to preserve as much information and knowledge as possible so that when his descendants return to the Inner Sphere they can more easily establish a new golden age. Blake agrees without question and says he will wait patiently. They part ways and Kerensky undertakes the Exodus as normal.

The ComStar version goes like this: Kerensky tells Blake about the Exodus and Blake in return asks for some forces to remain behind so that he can form a small sphere of neutral worlds around Terra so as to rebuild a bastion of humanity and hope for when Kerensky's forces return in the future. Kerensky agrees and leaves Blake several divisions of battle-hardened SLDF troopers with the mandate to obey Blake's orders as if they were Kerensky's own. They part ways and Kerensky undertakes the Exodus as normal.

The truth goes like this: Kerensky and Blake meet and both acknowledge that the IS is about to fall into horrifying warfare as the House Lords scramble to conquer each other. Kerensky tells Blake about the Exodus and Blake asks if he can have some troops to help keep Terra secure, which Kerensky agrees to. Blake then tells Kerensky that he'll keep the light of hope alive, despite Kerensky's cowardice in leaving. The General scoffs, saying this is the only way to prevent billions of deaths and the men part ways. Kerensky then undertakes the Exodus. The troops left behind include almost 18 divisions of troops, centered around the 151st Royal BattleMech Division.

After the Exodus is complete, Jerome Blake takes his forces in 2788 and enacts Operation SILVER SHIELD. However, unlike in canon where Blake only claims the Sol System, in the BTAU he instead claims to a cluster of worlds surrounding Terra (approximately 12 planets). The Great Houses, shocked at his forceful acts, attempt to protest but Blake's broadcast on June 28th, 2788 makes it clear that the so-called ComStar Protectorate exists to support ComStar's efforts to manage communications services for the entire Inner Sphere and that ComStar would forcibly defend its claims from any aggressor. The House Lords, realizing that the Succession Wars are upon them and that the HPG network is vital to their survival, all eventually accept Blake's claims on those worlds. Eventually, Blake would fall ill in 2819 and would pass away in that year, leaving leadership of ComStar to his close friend, Conrad Toyama.

It is under Toyama that ComStar and its Protectorate would find their truest purpose. Toyama turned ComStar from a secular organization into a religious one, building a faith around the concept of the preservation of knowledge and mankind's future. It was also under Toyama that ComStar would discover the truth about the Cameron family, namely that several children from the family in fact survived Amaris' purge. Ian Cameron II and Amanda Cameron, twin children of Richard Cameron II, were in fact secreted off of Terra during the early days of the Amaris coup and were sent from the Sol system to an unknown Deep Periphery colony that the Camerons established as a last-ditch bolthole fallback should the Hegemony fall. The ship that carried them was supposedly the SLS Tripiz, which vanished during the coup. Though Toyama was unable to find the coordinates of this colony or of the ship itself, he began a new mission for ComStar: slowly re-establish the Hegemony, at least as much as possible, and find the Cameron family again and bring them to Terra to resume their rightful place.

Over the next two hundred years, ComStar embarked on what would be eventually termed as Operation SACRED SWORD. This was a covert operation akin to Operation HOLY SHROUD (which was put in place by Primus Raymond Karpov to destroy as much of the Houses technological knowledge as possible) and entailed ROM quietly fomenting rebellion and revolt among former Hegemony planets with the eventual goal of getting them to request admission to the ComStar Protectorate. Though ROM was not always successful in their efforts, a number of former Hegemony planets did ask for admission to the Protectorate, which ComStar granted. The Great Houses objected of course, leading to several skirmishes between ComStar's forces and the Great House in question, but in each case the House eventually was forced to back down and let the planet go due to pressures on other fronts during the Succession Wars (ROM always timed the planet's request for admission as best they could to coincide with the Houses engaging each other heavily, so as to prevent heavy resistance to the request).

In 2979, the Taurian Concordat discovered the floating hulk of the SLS Tripiz and began efforts to reclaim the ship. ComStar of course became aware of this rapidly and the Primus at the time, Yin Takami, ordered the ComGuard into action to destroy the Taurians, board the Tripiz, recover as much data as possible from it, then scuttle the ship. The mission was a complete success, the Taurians were destroyed to a man and the ComGuard managed to recover fragmented information that pointed them towards the location of the missing Cameron colony. With that, they scuttled the Tripiz and none were the wiser that they were ever present. Primus Takami had the data reconstructed as best possible and then ordered the Explorer Corps (put in place by Takami's predecessor, Adrienne Sims) to hunt down the Cameron colony, which they did in 2987. After discovering the colony and its survivors, the Explorer Corps team was surprised to find that there was a living House Cameron on the colony. While life had been hard for 200 years, it had also been quiet and the colony had been given as much technology and support before the fall of the Star League as was possible, meaning the quality of life was still decent and the Camerons were as well educated as was possible in such a backwater part of the Deep Periphery. The Explorer Corps team explained the situation of the Inner Sphere to the colonists and the Cameron family survivors and then returned to Terra with the Camerons.

There, Primus Takami welcomed them to their ancestral home in Scotland (which had been maintained all this time for their eventual return) and told them of ComStar's plans: they would be given the best education and training for leadership that could be had in the Inner Sphere while ComStar prepared a military force with which the Camerons could reclaim the remaining Hegemony worlds. The plan was to take place in several decades, after a new generation of Camerons could be born and raised from birth for their role as rulers of an interstellar realm and after ComStar could properly prepare for the major military action required. The Cameron family members agreed wholly with the plan and so it began. From 2987 to 3035 ComStar secretly built a great army in the Protectorate and House Cameron re-established itself socially and politically through arranged marriages with other major families in the Protectorate (though their true identity was of course kept a closely guarded secret).

Finally, in 3035, the Primus of ComStar, Myndo Waterly, and the head of House Cameron, Christopher Cameron, sent the following broadcast to the Great Houses and the general people of the Inner Sphere:

"Greetings, people of the Human Sphere! We, the Primus of ComStar and the head of the reborn House Cameron, come to you today to announce the grand rebirth of a fallen nation! The Terran Hegemony, which was once lost to the tides of history, has been reborn. Henceforth, the ComStar Protectorate is no more and the Terran Hegemony takes its place under the rightful rule of the Great House Cameron. ComStar will remain as faithful advisors and supporters of the Cameron dynasty.

To this end, the Hegemony has undertaken its first action on the political stage: the reclamation of its ancestral worlds from the grasp of the other Great Houses. To the House Lords, we say this: we do not desire your thrones nor your homes, we are only reclaiming that which is already ours by right. Stand not in our path, lest you be swept aside by our twin furies.

And to the people of the Inner Sphere we say this: if you desire a future free of the depredations of the Succession Wars and full of bright promise, then look no further than the Terran Hegemony! It was once the brightest of the all the stars and it will be so once again! This we swear with our life's blood."

Of course, the Great Houses were shocked and appalled that their ancient rival was reborn but were stymied by three factors that prevented them from moving against the Hegemony immediately. First, the Hegemony's army (the one ComStar built for them in secret) was surprisingly potent and sizable, using Star League technology that the Houses could not immediately match, and struck many worlds at once making organization against them difficult. Second, the overwhelming response of the populace of the Inner Sphere was positive. ComStar had an excellent reputation as bringers of a brighter future and the restoration of the mythical Terran Hegemony (which had been built up for centuries as a golden promised land of myth and legend) was received very well. Finally, the threat of HPG interdiction hung heavy over the Great Houses' heads and they knew the risks.

Of the House Lords, they reacted thusly: Captain-General Thomas Marik respected the action and let the Hegemony do as it wished, claiming that the war would not be worth the bloodshed. Chancellor Romano Liao was busy with rebuilding her nation and paid the Hegemony zero mind as it was not claiming any worlds from the Confederation at the time. Coordinator Takashi Kurita was occupied with internal matters and with the fallout of the Fourth Succession War and though he wished to oppose the Hegemony decided against it, preferring to strengthen the Combine instead. First Prince Hanse Davion and Archon Katrina Steiner both wished to oppose the actions of ComStar and the Hegemony and even did make efforts to do so, however their forces were roundly smashed due to the technological and training advantage that the Hegemony's army possessed. After several high-profile losses, the two rulers agreed that the Federated Commonwealth would survive just fine, even without being physically joined through the center of the Inner Sphere though they also intended to take their worlds back as soon as was reasonably possible.

From 3037 (the efforts to reclaim their worlds took until that year to accomplish) onwards, the Terran Hegemony would sit in the center of the Inner Sphere as an equal with the other five Great Houses whether they liked it or not (they did not). Though it took some time, several DNA tests, and the revelation of the Cameron's survival, eventually all five Great Houses acknowledged that Director-General Christopher Cameron was a legitimate member of the Cameron family and that the Hegemony was legitimate as ComStar was acting as the final vestiges of the nation all along. Christopher proved an adept politician during this period, managing to extract said acknowledgements from each House Lord in turn, and even preventing several military actions against his realm via diplomacy. However, the Hegemony did engage in several conflicts in this period with both the Federated Commonwealth and the Draconis Combine, all of which turned out to be evenly matched and inconclusive conflicts. Notably, the Hegemony was true to its original word and did not attempt to conquer the worlds of the other Great Houses, keeping its military actions only to the original worlds of the Hegemony, a distinction that did not go unnoticed by the other House Lords.

Of course, everything shifted in 3049 when the Clans invaded the Inner Sphere. At first, the Hegemony and ComStar just observed the invaders and tried to identify them and their aims. The Clans proved excessively hostile towards the Hegemony's existence, something that puzzled ComStar. The reality is that the Clans were furious about the ComStar Protectorate's existence and refused to acknowledge either the Protectorate or the Terran Hegemony as legitimate. In fact, the Clans viewed the Protectorate's existence as a betrayal of the agreement struck by Jerome Blake and Aleksandr Keresnky so many centuries ago (due to the story being passed down differently among the Clans than it was among ComStar). The Clans openly declared war against ComStar and the Hegemony, decreeing that they would never accept them as legitimate states and calling them the Betrayers.

When it became clear that the Clan goal was Terra itself, the Hegemony and ComStar together issued a challenge to the Clans: fight us at Tukayyid with all that you have with the fate of the invasion on the line. Despite their fury, the invading Clans accepted and in 3052 the Battle of Tukayyid took place. On the Inner Sphere side was the largest army mobilized in one place since the Star League, composed of Hegemony and ComGuard troops working in unison. On the Clan side were the seven invading Clans (the same as in canon). The battle was long and bloody, with both sides suffering heavy casualties, but at the end of the day the Hegemony held the line and won the trial, refuting the Clan Invasion and stopping the Clans dead in their tracks. The Clans were furious that they lost but accepted that within their own rules of engagement, they had been bested. Interestingly, in the wake of the Battle of Tukayyid, Clan Nova Cat independently opened communications with the Hegemony and requested genetic proof of the Cameron family's bloodline. Also during the aftermath of the Battle of Tukayyid, Primus Myndo Waterly of ComStar stepped down from her post, saying that her role in politics was over. The First Circuit of ComStar then elected Precentor Rasalhague, Gardner Riis, to the role of Primus.

The election of Gardner Riis proved a monumental moment for ComStar, as Riis was a strong proponent of a diplomatic solution to the Clan problem. There had been a debate inside of ComStar for several years now as to how to deal with the Clans, with one camp advocating for a diplomatic solution intent on convincing the Clans that the Hegemony was a legitimate state and the true inheritor of the Star League and with the other camp advocating for a military solution to the problem as the Clans would neither understand nor respect anything other than war. With the ascension of Riis to the highest office of the order, the elements of ComStar that wanted a military solution declared that this action would not stand and so split away from ComStar to form a new organization, titled the Word of Blake. The Word of Blake, knowing they were unwelcome in the Hegemony at this time, fled to the Free Worlds League where Captain-General Thomas Marik welcomed them and their technological expertise. He granted them an enclave of worlds centered around the world of Gibson and expelled all ComStar members from the League. The Word then took over the HPG network in the League going forward.

After the Jade Falcon Incursion of 3058 (where the Falcons assaulted the Lyran Commonwealth), Director-General Christopher Cameron called a conference on Terra of all the House Lords, as well as the rulers of the Free Rasalhague Republic, the St. Ives Compact, ComStar, and Clan Wolf-in-Exile (who had set up on Arc-Royal in the Lyran Commonwealth), with the intent of discussing a solution to the Clan threat. Though the conference was fraught with political fighting and much debate, it was eventually decided that a unified response to the Clans had to be undertaken: the wholesale destruction of a Clan. With information provided by Khan Phelan Kell, it was decided that Clan Smoke Jaguar would be the target. Additionally, Precentor Martial of ComStar, Anastasius Focht, presented knowledge of the Exodus Road and the location of Huntress, the Smoke Jaguar homeworld. With all the pieces in motion, Director-General Cameron proposed the founding of a new Star League to prosecute the assault on the Smoke Jaguars. After a great deal of argument and political deals being struck, the Second Star League was founded on November 21st 3058. The First Lord position, which would rotate every few years via popular vote among the member-states of the Second Star League, was first granted to Director-General Cameron himself thanks to a clever ploy by Victor Steiner-Davion.

Operation BULLDOG and Task Force Serpent were enacted by the Second Star League's forces as per canon (led by Victor Steiner-Davion) with the addition of Hegemony forces to both BULLDOG and Serpent. The Great Refusal took place as in canon and the threat of a renewed Clan Invasion was ended. The Smoke Jaguars were obliterated and peace was restored to the Inner Sphere. In 3061 another conference took place on Terra to determine the next First Lord. This time, Theodore Kurita was elected First Lord, despite machinations by Katherine Steiner-Davion (which were largely defeated by the combined efforts of Precentor Martial Anastasius Focht and the newly appointed Director-General Ian Cameron III).

And that is where things stand for the Hegemony, ComStar, and the Inner Sphere in 3062. The Terran Hegemony stands in the middle of the Sphere, trying to keep the peace among the Second Star League's members and being wary of future conflict with the Clans (though, notably, Clan Nova Cat willingly joined with the Second Star League to destroy the Smoke Jaguars and is the sole Clan to acknowledge the Hegemony's claim as a legitimate nation, making them nominal allies). ComStar, under the vision of Primus Gardner Riis, continues to try and negotiate with the Clans, though to little avail.

Previous Developer Blogs

BTA Developer Blog #1: BTA's Core Philosophy - 2021/5/18

BTA Developer Blog #2: BTA and the Clans - 2021/5/24

BTA Developer Blog #3: Tanks For All The Fish - 2021/5/31

BTA Developer Blog #4: Abiding Quirkiness - 2021/6/11

BTA Developer Blog #5: Artillery and You, A Primer - 2021/10/8

BTA Developer Blog #6: The Salvage Question - 2022/3/13

BTA Developer Blog #7: Damage Reduction And You - 2022/4/14

BTA Developer Blog #8: BD's Favorites! - 2022/4/15

BTA Developer Blog #9: The Story of the Sanctuary Worlds - 2022/12/12

BTA Developer Blog #9.5: The Actual Story of the Sanctuary Worlds - 2022/12/12

BTA Developer Blog #10: BTAU History: The Rim Worlds Republics - 2024/11/4

BTA Developer Blog #11: BTAU History ComStar And The Terran Hegemony - 2024/11/4]

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