I added that speculation myself. The sourcebook presents no answers other than the entire WarShip squadron vanished in the debris field of the much larger Star League Civil War battle.
@@SvenVanDerPlankI can totally see a few of those monsters lurking about, wounded but not dead, in some isolated dead systems wreckage field, just waiting for a jumpship
I remember reading about this in the sourcebook. My buddy, who was far more read into it than me, said he was assuming a young Comstar Navy. I forgot all his reasoning for it, but i remember it made some sense at the time.
@@Plaprad Young ComStar Navy makes sense. The planet isn't that far from Sol/Terra and ComStar likely wouldn't want any of the Successor States to acquire any way to really repair their naval assets (although that might be more of a 2nd Succession War thing, hiding tech away and what not).
The more I learn about him the more Kenyon Marik seems like the biggest asshole in the Inner Sphere at the moment, and given that he's competing with both the Liao and Kuritans for the title, that's an achievement.
I'd agree if Minoru Kurita weren't around. He KNEW Davion was the heir and could have saved alot of lives by affirming Cameron's wishes. Military action came later, but I'd argue that the war started when Kurita named himself First Lord.
"238 years later, we're still waiting" Literal goosebumps yo, like in a wave over my whole body. I "know" the level of carnage from the 1st war, at least at a passing level from reading through various sources over time, and that probably just contributed to the feeling 😬
@@justinhammer3196 Oh the Wolf Empire hasn't ended anything yet. They've taken Terra but left themselves more than a little exposed in the other territories. The wars continue. The Cappellans will be having their own problems shortly with the Andurien/MoC alliances getting shaky, along with Davion figuring out the leader debacle.
Here we go! We're at one minute to midnight. The Successor Lords are about to unleash Armageddon on the Inner Sphere. There's no going back after this.
Once the entire series is complete, we're getting some kind of obscenely long, overly informative lore orgy omnibus....right? Or at least a Playlist? lol
@SvenVanDerPlank Gotta start small....and yeah. Considering it would cover from the 1980's to today...that's a metric ton of information. I'd expect a FULL history of Battletech, from the Mackie on, to be almost a full college semester. A man can dream, can't he? LOL
Ah yes... Warship centric warfare until we ran out of warships. I don't even want to imagine how it must have been for the general public to know that at any time, at any point they could die instantly because somebody hundreds of lightyears away decided so... The fear that must have permeated the air on any and all planets must have been palpable. Also thank you very much for making these. I'm still new to battletech, barely have any books and around a regiment of miniatures. Learning more about the "ancient history" before the eras that I tend to play in, is a treat and then some.
One thing that attracted me to this setting was that grim things kept happening, and it told the story of those places, but humanity still acted like itself. With all its goals of general benefit and cooperation above and beyond any other thing that has ever lived. Sidewalks are too selfless to ever evolve. A place where I could read millions being gun down by murderous states and their goons, and still hear about the healthcare system that allowed humans to heal from it.
I think its fair to say that Sven has placed himself up there with Tex and a few other in terms of "must see" fan-made Battletech content. The "Military Documentary" style might not be everyone's preferred way of intaking information (As a lover of The History Channel" before it became about aliens and lost gold, I love it) but it's become the best summarization of 40 years of Battletech lore in existence, and it is far superior to the sourcebooks, which is a rare feat indeed. Shut up and give Sven your money!😅
You're definitely not alone. People seem to love the tracking of BT campaigns and changes on the map, so there's definitely a market if some dev team or modder wants to take on a big project.
Absolutely love this project. This is fantastic. As an old school Battletech gamer this is all familiar ground, but that doesn't make it any less enjoyable! Oh, and half an hour per year for the whole First Succession War sounds GREAT to me!
I'm glad you're enjoying it. Mercifully there isn't 30 minutes of material to talk about each year even if I wanted to, otherwise we'd be here 18+ hours. Better to spend that time on covering future events as well.
"The battlefield is a scene of constant chaos. The winner will be the one who controls that chaos, both his own and the enemies." -Napoleon Bonaparte. Hearing from the initial assaults from the system lords I can tell that there was too much chaos for anyone to control for victory.
I said this in chat, but it's damning it took so many atrocities for the States to bring back the Ares Conventions. I'd be horrified if my government was so cavalier.
With interstellar communications still so limited after the Civil War and the Intelligence Agencies working overtime, most people remain blissfully unaware of how bad things are at the front for a while. Slowly, rumours of dead planets start to filter back.
Worked 80 hours through the last 7 days and your video helped me cool down after a strenuous shift yesterday and to make it through the last one today. As much as I appreciate your Star league Civil war stuff, for the great work it is, I like this series even better, like your earlier videos, without the guest speakers and a maybe a bit drier more homogenous naration if that makes sense. Still great stuff as always. Comments for the comment god. Keep on doing Blake's work.
This episode was epic. It almost highlights the ruthlessness of humanity when it comes to achieving the upper hand in a strategic sense. Great job breaking down the lore. I look forward to next Saturday.
First the Star League's fall and now we are setting foot into the Succession Wars. Here's to you, Sven, and here's hoping for more to come in the future. For me, the devastation of New Dallas is a prime example of the utter tone of "shitshow" that the First Succession War carried from start to finish. Extremely high losses of life due to militaries inclined to throw everything including the kitchen sink at problems all in the name of victory, regardless if the problem warranted a response of that magnitude or not.
I've commented on it before but the 1st & 2nd Succession Wars are essential to understanding how things ended up the way they are in 3025, but once humanity manages to arrest it's technological decline, they actually become significantly less important then they really should be. The setting moves on to a point where the origins and influences are either much older or much more recent, and the specifics of the early Succession Wars hardly matter beyond "it was so bad, we all vowed never to use nukes again."
@@SvenVanDerPlank that makes me curious - do you think the Helm Core rediscovery arc and subsequent tech advancement made BattleTech a less interesting setting?
Great work as always, but I did catch a small text error at 8:33 where you list the Lyran force as the CCAF, unless there’s an acronym I’m not aware of.
Keep it up man, I'm loving this. Despite being a long time fan of BT I never dug deeply in to the Succession Wars so this is all great new territory for me.
The production quality and research behind these videos is spectacular. Thank you. I also have to say that you have some amazing material to work with. The intricacy and groundedness of the lore during this era are top notch. No one is writing anything of this depth and maturity these days.
Man, that was fantastic. I assume this is something like a "part 1" though, right? 'Cause there's no way you can talk about the First Succession War without mentioning the Kentares Massacre =D
Yeah, this is part 4 in the series and it only covers the first year of fighting. Another ten episodes to come. I think Kentares is around part 7 or 8.
@@SvenVanDerPlankI’ve played off and on pen and paper. Unpainted grey mechs and cardboard triangles. Hand painted favorites and others. Read one series or another non sequentially from time to time. Skimmed tech manuals and felt like I understood what was going on. I was wrong. I appreciate your work as well as BPL and others. Absolute dedication of love of the genre.
Wonderfully done as usual mate, especially with a good coverage of all nations in the first year, but as we known, the first year was tame compared to what we’re about to see, and *spoilers* the fact so many units surprisingly survived this war (tho Alamogordo all under 40% strength), you can already see just how brutal the second will get
Hearing about the total devastation of planets, making them unfit for use of both sides is just mindboggeling. The civil war devastated the infrastructure and the 1st Succession War seems to be a big nail in the coffin.
You make awesome videos, the best Battletech content on TH-cam in my humble opinion. And I mean, if you wanted to go through the Succession Wars year by year, I wouldn’t complain. 😄
One day I might get there. I would really like to do the Jihad and Dark Age so those folks who don't want to invest the time into that period can jump ahead to the ilClan and still understand what's what.
One thing that I enjoy about BattleTech lore channels is the commonality of telling it from a setting perspective. And the range of times as well, You in the 3020s Tex somewhere post Clan invasion but likely pre Jihad And so on It really adds to the experience
Well I hope you enjoy the series. It's gonna be a major undertaking to cover the entire history of the Succession Wars but fingers crossed we'll make it through.
Here is a link to an upload someone has made: th-cam.com/video/TR2_nZZ-T0Q/w-d-xo.html - Don't think it is available officially anywhere on the platform unless you make it your countdown timer.
Pardon my French, but the First Succession War was brutal insanity. Figting along multiple massive fronts, with multiple enemies there is no way any one house could have won. We see peace only came through mutual attrition as all sides were ground down to shadows of their initial strength.
@@azuaraikrezeul1677 I'd say more blitzkreig what with the spearhead forces isolating the enemy and moving on. it doesn't really have the exploitation force that deep battle calls for. that said it is designed with multiple breakthroughs, which is very deep battle.
The new ComStar will arise from an A.I. born from a derelict drone ship accidentally reactivated by a backup code placed in the HPG network by Conrad Toyama. What? It's a better storyline than the Dark Ages.
Always amazing to me that not a single one of these idiots thought to get at least a nonaggression pact with one of their neighbors signed so they could concentrate on just ONE border. I know the reasons, both plot and canon, but it seems like it would be the thing to do before kickoff.
There is an attempt at a nonaggression pact next year, and later in the war one Successor Lord offers to recognise another as First Lord, but yeah, I get your frustration.
Thing is, everyone wants to be THE power. Signing any pact means you aren't, and you already know your neighbor wants the same thing. So who's to say any pact you sign will even be payed attention to? Same ideas that made it easy for ComStar to manipulate events.
@@theatagamer90 Yeah. I made a quick game in my head, and only maybe Steiner really had the attitude/lack of grievance to carry it off...and even that was weak bet.
With all the amount of space exploration sci-fi stuff that we (humans) create; I hope we don't start to kill off ourselves once we move beyond earth. I am 98.7 % percent sure we will but one can dream right?!
an hundred billion dead, uncountable warcrimes, hundreds of depopulated planets, a ravaged cultural economic and technological base and some minor border adjustments later... it got worse.
The idea that still active drone warships could still be drifting in debris fields is a terrifying idea.
I added that speculation myself. The sourcebook presents no answers other than the entire WarShip squadron vanished in the debris field of the much larger Star League Civil War battle.
@@SvenVanDerPlankI can totally see a few of those monsters lurking about, wounded but not dead, in some isolated dead systems wreckage field, just waiting for a jumpship
I remember reading about this in the sourcebook. My buddy, who was far more read into it than me, said he was assuming a young Comstar Navy. I forgot all his reasoning for it, but i remember it made some sense at the time.
@@Plaprad
Young ComStar Navy makes sense. The planet isn't that far from Sol/Terra and ComStar likely wouldn't want any of the Successor States to acquire any way to really repair their naval assets (although that might be more of a 2nd Succession War thing, hiding tech away and what not).
I imagine a drone WarShip would look like any other wreck in the debris field. Scarred and hulled through. Just drifting silently. Till it isn't.
*everyone gansta until the Radioactive Debris Field starts speaking Binary*
Ai or Comstar dont know sure with i prefer
The more I learn about him the more Kenyon Marik seems like the biggest asshole in the Inner Sphere at the moment, and given that he's competing with both the Liao and Kuritans for the title, that's an achievement.
I'd agree if Minoru Kurita weren't around. He KNEW Davion was the heir and could have saved alot of lives by affirming Cameron's wishes.
Military action came later, but I'd argue that the war started when Kurita named himself First Lord.
Damn...I finished watching the video and now I have to agree. Kenyon is an unrepentant war criminal.
"Ares Conventions? More like Ares suggestions."
"238 years later, we're still waiting"
Literal goosebumps yo, like in a wave over my whole body. I "know" the level of carnage from the 1st war, at least at a passing level from reading through various sources over time, and that probably just contributed to the feeling 😬
Didn't the herpy derpy Wolf Empire finally end the wars? Or was the Capellan Confederation just waiting a few centuries for its chance to shine?
@@justinhammer3196
Oh the Wolf Empire hasn't ended anything yet. They've taken Terra but left themselves more than a little exposed in the other territories. The wars continue. The Cappellans will be having their own problems shortly with the Andurien/MoC alliances getting shaky, along with Davion figuring out the leader debacle.
Here we go! We're at one minute to midnight. The Successor Lords are about to unleash Armageddon on the Inner Sphere. There's no going back after this.
Once the entire series is complete, we're getting some kind of obscenely long, overly informative lore orgy omnibus....right?
Or at least a Playlist? lol
It's already in a playlist. I'm not planning on doing another series longer than the Star League one. Think this one will come in around 4-5 hours.
@SvenVanDerPlank Hey, can't blame a guy for wanting a 12 hour retelling of the entire history of Battletech....LOL
@@dilanbrinkley3587 12 hours? You think so small 😉 Add a zero.
@SvenVanDerPlank Gotta start small....and yeah. Considering it would cover from the 1980's to today...that's a metric ton of information. I'd expect a FULL history of Battletech, from the Mackie on, to be almost a full college semester.
A man can dream, can't he? LOL
"...Something lurking in the radioactive debris field..."
Chills.
Ah yes... Warship centric warfare until we ran out of warships. I don't even want to imagine how it must have been for the general public to know that at any time, at any point they could die instantly because somebody hundreds of lightyears away decided so... The fear that must have permeated the air on any and all planets must have been palpable.
Also thank you very much for making these. I'm still new to battletech, barely have any books and around a regiment of miniatures. Learning more about the "ancient history" before the eras that I tend to play in, is a treat and then some.
One thing that attracted me to this setting was that grim things kept happening, and it told the story of those places, but humanity still acted like itself. With all its goals of general benefit and cooperation above and beyond any other thing that has ever lived. Sidewalks are too selfless to ever evolve. A place where I could read millions being gun down by murderous states and their goons, and still hear about the healthcare system that allowed humans to heal from it.
I think its fair to say that Sven has placed himself up there with Tex and a few other in terms of "must see" fan-made Battletech content. The "Military Documentary" style might not be everyone's preferred way of intaking information (As a lover of The History Channel" before it became about aliens and lost gold, I love it) but it's become the best summarization of 40 years of Battletech lore in existence, and it is far superior to the sourcebooks, which is a rare feat indeed.
Shut up and give Sven your money!😅
Thank you for the very high praise.
Cripes. I WANT to see a fricken Grand Strategy game made out of this.
You're definitely not alone. People seem to love the tracking of BT campaigns and changes on the map, so there's definitely a market if some dev team or modder wants to take on a big project.
The easiest thing to mod would be Star Wars Empire at War. Most other RTS games either focus on space, the ground, or map control.
Like one of the old Avalon Hill games.
Absolutely love this project.
This is fantastic.
As an old school Battletech gamer this is all familiar ground, but that doesn't make it any less enjoyable!
Oh, and half an hour per year for the whole First Succession War sounds GREAT to me!
I'm glad you're enjoying it. Mercifully there isn't 30 minutes of material to talk about each year even if I wanted to, otherwise we'd be here 18+ hours. Better to spend that time on covering future events as well.
"The battlefield is a scene of constant chaos. The winner will be the one who controls that chaos, both his own and the enemies." -Napoleon Bonaparte. Hearing from the initial assaults from the system lords I can tell that there was too much chaos for anyone to control for victory.
"The response to these videos have been pretty spectacular." That's because all of your videos have been consistently spectacular.
I said this in chat, but it's damning it took so many atrocities for the States to bring back the Ares Conventions. I'd be horrified if my government was so cavalier.
With interstellar communications still so limited after the Civil War and the Intelligence Agencies working overtime, most people remain blissfully unaware of how bad things are at the front for a while. Slowly, rumours of dead planets start to filter back.
Worked 80 hours through the last 7 days and your video helped me cool down after a strenuous shift yesterday and to make it through the last one today. As much as I appreciate your Star league Civil war stuff, for the great work it is, I like this series even better, like your earlier videos, without the guest speakers and a maybe a bit drier more homogenous naration if that makes sense. Still great stuff as always. Comments for the comment god. Keep on doing Blake's work.
Id still be happy if youd take 30min per year for every succession wars. Keep up the great content.
By far the most underappreciated, under shared Battletech channel on TH-cam.
This episode was epic. It almost highlights the ruthlessness of humanity when it comes to achieving the upper hand in a strategic sense. Great job breaking down the lore. I look forward to next Saturday.
First the Star League's fall and now we are setting foot into the Succession Wars. Here's to you, Sven, and here's hoping for more to come in the future.
For me, the devastation of New Dallas is a prime example of the utter tone of "shitshow" that the First Succession War carried from start to finish. Extremely high losses of life due to militaries inclined to throw everything including the kitchen sink at problems all in the name of victory, regardless if the problem warranted a response of that magnitude or not.
Legit hyped for this, 3025 is my favorite era to play and this is the table setting.
I've commented on it before but the 1st & 2nd Succession Wars are essential to understanding how things ended up the way they are in 3025, but once humanity manages to arrest it's technological decline, they actually become significantly less important then they really should be. The setting moves on to a point where the origins and influences are either much older or much more recent, and the specifics of the early Succession Wars hardly matter beyond "it was so bad, we all vowed never to use nukes again."
@@SvenVanDerPlank that makes me curious - do you think the Helm Core rediscovery arc and subsequent tech advancement made BattleTech a less interesting setting?
Great work as always, but I did catch a small text error at 8:33 where you list the Lyran force as the CCAF, unless there’s an acronym I’m not aware of.
Thank you for doing these and making them like 30 mins (easily digestible bites of history). Keep up the great work!
Keep it up man, I'm loving this. Despite being a long time fan of BT I never dug deeply in to the Succession Wars so this is all great new territory for me.
Thank you for your history lecture, Professor 😊👏👏👏👏👏
You're welcome. Tune in next week. There's a test at the end of this series.
The production quality and research behind these videos is spectacular. Thank you.
I also have to say that you have some amazing material to work with. The intricacy and groundedness of the lore during this era are top notch. No one is writing anything of this depth and maturity these days.
Thank you. I agree with you, the BT history sourcebooks are pretty fantastic.
Great work. I’m impressed with how thoroughly you’re delving into the lore. Absolutely worth the sub.
So, so happy to listen to this. It's really awesome.
Sorry to late to mention this, this has been fantastic video series. You're attention detail is amazing.
Thank you Wrangler, I'm pleased you're still enjoying the series.
Man, that was fantastic. I assume this is something like a "part 1" though, right? 'Cause there's no way you can talk about the First Succession War without mentioning the Kentares Massacre =D
Yeah, this is part 4 in the series and it only covers the first year of fighting. Another ten episodes to come. I think Kentares is around part 7 or 8.
@@SvenVanDerPlankI’ve played off and on pen and paper. Unpainted grey mechs and cardboard triangles. Hand painted favorites and others. Read one series or another non sequentially from time to time. Skimmed tech manuals and felt like I understood what was going on.
I was wrong.
I appreciate your work as well as BPL and others. Absolute dedication of love of the genre.
Wonderfully done as usual mate, especially with a good coverage of all nations in the first year, but as we known, the first year was tame compared to what we’re about to see, and *spoilers* the fact so many units surprisingly survived this war (tho Alamogordo all under 40% strength), you can already see just how brutal the second will get
Love your work. Still waiting was an awesome ending. Those maps are great.
These are amazing. I can only imagine the amount of work involved.
Hearing about the total devastation of planets, making them unfit for use of both sides is just mindboggeling. The civil war devastated the infrastructure and the 1st Succession War seems to be a big nail in the coffin.
Wow i'm caught up after marathoning all your BT lore vids
Just in time for disaster next time out. Must have been quite some marathon as I think we have around 16.5 hours of history in the playlist now.
Absolutely brilliantly done.
Thank you, I'm glad you think so.
Excellent work!!! Greatly appreciate these videos, very entertaining.
You make awesome videos, the best Battletech content on TH-cam in my humble opinion. And I mean, if you wanted to go through the Succession Wars year by year, I wouldn’t complain. 😄
So good, I'm waiting impatiently for the next episode
Imagine how much Battletech history might have changed if Steiner had only chosen not to sign the Commonwealth-area HPGs over to Blake.
Great video Sven. Looking forward to the next one. Oh man Kintares!
Had a crappy shift at work, but at least your videos always bring a silver lining to my Saturdays.
This was excellent. Looking forward to more.
Can't wait for the next year.
Another great video, cant waut for nexy week!
I loved it keep making more
I'm just gonna like this ahead of time.👍
Might as well, it’s inevitable
Another wonderful video!
For the Algorithm and the Taurian Concordat!
Man I wish you could do this for the entire history of Battletech to the current Post Dark Age Era....
One day I might get there. I would really like to do the Jihad and Dark Age so those folks who don't want to invest the time into that period can jump ahead to the ilClan and still understand what's what.
wow can't wait !!
so hype
Can’t wait for the movie in imax.
One thing that I enjoy about BattleTech lore channels is the commonality of telling it from a setting perspective.
And the range of times as well,
You in the 3020s
Tex somewhere post Clan invasion but likely pre Jihad
And so on
It really adds to the experience
This is going fantastic. I like the history of the Succession Wars more than the star league
Well I hope you enjoy the series. It's gonna be a major undertaking to cover the entire history of the Succession Wars but fingers crossed we'll make it through.
I'm pausing BG3 for this.
There is no higher praise!
Amazing.
AWESOME
Where is the art at 6:34 from?
I do not recall, sorry. It's not modern but it's not from the 80s/90s either. I would wager I found it in the 25 Years of BattleTech artbook.
Lovin it
What's the name of the song you use on the pre-show?
the pre-show is a youtube live specific thing i think, so you'd have to see what youtube uses, though i could be wrong about that
Here is a link to an upload someone has made: th-cam.com/video/TR2_nZZ-T0Q/w-d-xo.html - Don't think it is available officially anywhere on the platform unless you make it your countdown timer.
Feed me more lore! It sustains me.
Pardon my French, but the First Succession War was brutal insanity. Figting along multiple massive fronts, with multiple enemies there is no way any one house could have won. We see peace only came through mutual attrition as all sides were ground down to shadows of their initial strength.
DCMS seems to have developed blitzkreig tactics for space, with all the problems with liquidating pockets they come with
they had a lot russian immigrants in the dcms i would say this was deep battle.
@@azuaraikrezeul1677 I'd say more blitzkreig what with the spearhead forces isolating the enemy and moving on. it doesn't really have the exploitation force that deep battle calls for. that said it is designed with multiple breakthroughs, which is very deep battle.
The new ComStar will arise from an A.I. born from a derelict drone ship accidentally reactivated by a backup code placed in the HPG network by Conrad Toyama. What? It's a better storyline than the Dark Ages.
Ah Kerensky, the salty peanut. If only he had have kicked the crap out of the Combine on his way out the door .....
"Armageddon Comes": Or when Sh*t really hit the fan!
and so the nuke tossing begins. let see who throws the most!
Always amazing to me that not a single one of these idiots thought to get at least a nonaggression pact with one of their neighbors signed so they could concentrate on just ONE border. I know the reasons, both plot and canon, but it seems like it would be the thing to do before kickoff.
There is an attempt at a nonaggression pact next year, and later in the war one Successor Lord offers to recognise another as First Lord, but yeah, I get your frustration.
Thing is, everyone wants to be THE power. Signing any pact means you aren't, and you already know your neighbor wants the same thing. So who's to say any pact you sign will even be payed attention to? Same ideas that made it easy for ComStar to manipulate events.
@@theatagamer90 Yeah. I made a quick game in my head, and only maybe Steiner really had the attitude/lack of grievance to carry it off...and even that was weak bet.
With all the amount of space exploration sci-fi stuff that we (humans) create; I hope we don't start to kill off ourselves once we move beyond earth. I am 98.7 % percent sure we will but one can dream right?!
I think our best bet is to get there before we do here, lol
We better figure it out. We can't stay a single planet species forever. All it takes is one bad event. Ask the dinosaurs about that.
Never been a FWL fan becoming less so . Long live the Confederation
prediction before the video starts: the column of small stick figures where each figure is a milion dead will keep going up...
nailed it
And they aren't going to stop for months yet.
@@SvenVanDerPlank that's how we like it
The storm breaks.
They got within 1 jump of new Avalon
*Laughs in 3146*
The Inner Sphere has reapt what they had sown back in 2577. Screw em all.
Comment for the comment god
Average human disagreement
an hundred billion dead, uncountable warcrimes, hundreds of depopulated planets, a ravaged cultural economic and technological base and some minor border adjustments later...
it got worse.
urrrgh i'll be in the pub :(
bummer...the long form videos are great.
What was this in response to? I don't understand which makes me think I either misspoke or you misunderstood something I said.