I like to imagine that facing the DCMS is like facing the Imperial Japanese Army during WWII, as fanatical followers of Bushido who do not back down and would rather commit seppuku than be taken alive. And like with the Imperial Japanese Army, infantry from the Federated Suns would be well advised to beware the Banzai charges...
Don't take offense of this GDN. You did an amazing job of explaining what the Draconis Combine is, but I gotta say in the words of Professor Tex, "Welcome to the wacky weird world of the draconis combine. But that's just me anyway, keep it up, man. We'll continue to watch your videos and love them.
I was going to say it could be worse, you could live in the Periphery.....but that could be cool, if you were of that mindset.Mad Max with mech's sign me up.
The Taurian Concordat has consistently had the best public education system and highest overall standard of living since before the Star League and straight through the Succession Wars.
@@dubuyajay9964 Way to miss the point. Just because you're not part of the machinations of the Inner Sphere, that does not mean that you're in a government-less wilderness. Marik is a governmental chaos that belies its survival within the inner sphere. Maybe the other Succession Powers just don't see them as a threat. Why then, doesn't Liao just take the whole mess over, one region at a time? They seem to be in a constant population conflict. Too many people, not enough space. Marik seems to have lots of space. Caught between an intransigent foe, who's defenses are strong and who's economy is stronger, and another who's dense population is desperate for expansion, how can Marik's fractious political environment ever form a united front against Liaotian aggression? Um, as I commented elsewhere, maybe these archetypes aren't well thought out. Whatever, we have to look at them as they stand. My understanding does not extend much beyond the 3050+ timeline, not many of my books go beyond 3058, in fact, I have a few "vintage" original 80's source books, I wish I had them all. So, maybe the galactic core went supernova since then, I'm going on my understanding of the foundation of the Human Sphere, and the foundational qualities of the Successor and Periphery States. Anyway, a more general question I've never had answered since I started playing the game: Why is it called "The Human Sphere," when it's only ever depicted as a two dimensional disk?
@@horsemumbler1 That's not an answer. By that logic, Earth, when depicted on a piece of paper, only consists of Africa, and small bits of Europe and Asia (as that's all the surface you could see in two dimensions). I have not seen any three dimensional representations of The Human Sphere. Maybe someone's tried, but not in any of the Battletech publications I've read, and within that span of publication, they had plenty of time to try. In any case, given it's size, it's more likely to be a disk. Maybe it should be called "The Human Frisbee." The best explanation seems like a bit of a cop-out to me: That "sphere" is meant to be more metaphorical, as in, "a sphere of influence." However, that usage connotes the existence of sentient races other than Humans, which is not part of the Battletech universe.
I haven't played mech warrior in age's but this was the house I was and to be honest I've been looking forward to this lore video since you started these videos. Saying that I might get back on it and start playing again. Thanks for the video grim
Thanks for watching. These Battletech videos need all the views they can get, lol. They are longer than my regular stuff and I gotta make them in addition to the regular stuff.
My leaning towards House Steiner makes me want to CRUSH these Kuritan folks... In some ways, they're the best hope for Humanity, but in every other way... The only House worse than Kurita is Liao.
"My leaning towards House Steiner makes me want to CRUSH these Kuritan folks..." ...Why? "The only House worse than Kurita is Liao." Again... Why? "In some ways, they're the best hope for Humanity." Are to referring to The Draconis Combine? How, then? I usually played Lyran, partly because of the German archetype, partly because the Federated Suns, otherwise quite amenable, fostered a certain paternalistic social supremacy. Some might call them "Ugly Americans" (although their inception seems to be English and French). I say, "Texan." Is a Texan a bad person? Probably not. Did Texans (are they now?) mess up my home by barging in and telling us what's best? Yeah, That's House Davion. Doubly so if you're a Periphery state of any egalitarian flavor. To co-opt a phrase (somewhat inaccurately), "Happiness is watching a Davion headed to the starport with a Capellan under each arm." Getting too close to reality. Time to say : Good Night!
@@tananam9782 Kurita hates mercs... and I love mercs. Liao, bunch a space commies, less a sense of humor than those Jade Falcon guys. I'd side with House Davion, but they have this problem with supporting democracy officially, but not following through with it. House Steiner is straight up about their... ineptitude, I guess, and as much as I despise hereditary monarchy, they're traditionally not terrible people... unlike Kurita and Liao. Kinda wanna instigate a Capellen-Combine war now and have the Steiner-Davion guys clean up. It's a shame Clan space is coreward instead of rimward... They'd have exterminated Liao.
@@Deridus You love Mercs... Well, that's pretty loaded. I would counter that no nation state, be it in the 31st century or the 16th century, likes the idea of wandering armies who's loyalties go to the deepest pockets. Their presence is horribly destabilizing. There is a reason there aren't roaming merc armies in the EU now, regardless of hundreds of years of precident. They may be fun to play in a game, but at best, in the chaos that is the Battletech world, nation states can only view their presence as a necessity born of temporary conditions. Need a battalion to shore up a rear guard on the Capellan March when all your main troops are on The Draconis March? Well, crap, we have some cash, but no material to spare, Eridani Light Horse is available. The Draconis Combine, with its particular (but not unique) warrior culture finds the idea of selling one's loyalty to be especially distasteful, beyond the fore mentioned socio-political reasons why Mercs are generally a bad idea. Perhaps if you prefer to play a Merc, this is why you might dislike working with The Draconis Combine. This is not the same thing as saying you hate Kurita because you like Mercs. Frankly, no state likes Mercs. At best, they are a necessary evil. [edited for punctuation and redundant adjectives]
@@tananam9782 True, no state likes mercs, but hey! Between Commies in Spaaaaaace, Psudo-Samurai, and the Clanners, I'm always ready to throw down. No lack of foes in the Sphere, that's for sure. And when I'm not fighting those guys, hey, there's always the Clans.
@@Deridus Um. Sorry. I wish I could respond to this, but I don't know how. This is after all, a "world" set up to encourage military conflict. That's the game. One could try to rationalize this world, or one could just fight. I think you're caught somewhere in between these dichotomies.
More history would be interesting, but there is a great deal of it - it would be hard to keep it out of hand. Hopefully future videos will look at history in a wider sense. There was one small error here, incidentally. House Kurita's rule isn't quite unbroken - for about a century during the Age of War, House Von Rohrs ruled the Combine only to be ousted and replaced by a restored House Kurita.
@@mickbrown7793 I kinda wanted to give an overview to the main factions. Talking about just history for these factions can take hours and hours and it can sound pretty boring. These videos already get much fewer views than my warhammer ones, so I wanted to present a few different but not too long aspects for now.
@@GrimDarkNarrator For an introductory video, this strikes a good balance. The original source material for the Successor States, Periphery, (historical) Terran Hegemony and (historical) Star League each we're large format volumes, hundreds of pages each. Some went into second edition revisions. It's unrealistic to expect to get all that data into a video or two of mostly narration. Not in decently short bits anyway. Otherwise, you're recording an audio book.
Their literal favorite things are glorious death in battle and sepukku ritual suicides. If they could find a way to do both at fuckin once they would. Wow cool faction am i right
@@demon212 No, your pathetic attempt at irony is not right. And, I gotta say, you're inclusion of blue language certainly convinced me that you're way cool and your opinions are super correct. Man, I want to be you when I grow up.
@@demon212 Um... Ok, you're a dumbass troll, but maybe you might want to be understood. "...it really shows how tilted you :)" What the hell does that even mean? Maybe if you're trying to insult me, it might help to know that I'm being insulted. Wow, how sad is it that the standards of stupidity are falling below even the most basic levels of literacy. Keep it up, soon you'll be a drooling mass of random characters. Man, you'll have showed all of us. I can't wait! Oh... maybe, hope of all hopes, you'll soon forget how to turn your device on. Well, wait, what brain dead phone zombie ever turns they're device off? Hmm. Well, I guess I could hope that you walk in front of a train, but I'm not that cruel. It would be terribly traumatic for the train driver. Ah, and to forestall your next comment, probably something about how important this must be to me because I typed in so many characters... Trust me, it wasn't hard, and it didn't take long. Think about that next time you drool over your keys wondering where the "any button" is.
@@dubuyajay9964 Grimdark Narrator's emoticon was insufficient. PBTPBTPBTPBTPBTPBT: Says the kid with the snowball about to throw at the scary looking Kuritan guard. (yeah, I have the first edition House Kurita source book!.... Well, I thought I did, where did I put it?) I also had first and second Perephery, First Lyran, something about Davion, but I forget. Terran Hegemony.... I wish my coverage wasn't so much swiss cheese.... and crap, that I knew where it all was.
@@tananam9782 Every time I read one of your comments, I'm surprised anew by what a cretin you really are, not to mention lacking in a sense of humor, or at least were a year or so ago. I usually read comments before the names attached, but can now recognize your Interestingly wordy yet oddly inept style of communication pretty quickly now.
I have always loved the DC. They are so different from the rest of the successor states. Some really great house mechs and after the reign of Takashi it got cooler. Theodore's reforms saved the IS as much as Victor or comstar. I love maulers and panthers. Add some of their great mechs to Bushido Creed and it's tough to break a DC defence
@@GrimDarkNarrator you don't grow from the map you displayed to the 3025 map then stop the clans without outside help of any kind till the capital invasion battle. Then push back and take every single word back. They have had some great ones leading to the religious fervor for the dragon and the individual acceptance of place in society. These great ones lead to an absolute believe in a greater good that even a poor coordinator can't hurt the nation all that bad, that 3rd successor was was followed by 3039 and early clan invasion was turned by Takashi's disgraceful soon Theodore. DC people take a long view and believe that fate will see all ill turns made right as they are mearly a small step back and a new path to glory. But you don't get people do dedicated without truly great leaders repeatedly over time to the point where even your criminals stand with the government.
@Paul Huston The Panther tried to punch outside it's weight. It basically had weak medium 'Mech firepower (but the PPC could be effective) and was marginally faster than medium 'Mech speed. It also had much less armor than most medium 'Mechs. So, in an environment of mostly light 'Mechs, with few mediums or heavier, it could be decisive, a sort of stand in for proper Medium support. Otherwise, I'm not convinced it was a good machine. I'll say: Effective in a very narrow niche. However, a similarly sized machine often found in the Kuritan arsenal was the Jenner. Much faster, and with the space and weight available to be refitted with a PPC. It was oddly shaped and had no battle fists as the Panther did, so fared poorly in close combat. But, owing to it's slight mass, so did the Panther when facing anything same sized or larger. If forced into a general setting, I think I'd prefer to pilot a properly fitted Jenner, versus a stock Panther, were I a Draconis mechwarrior. But I wouldn't be. My Mechwarrior (pencil RPG) character was an ambitious kid from a Lyran backwater with a harsh environment. No "twin suns," and he didn't have an "Aunt Beru." I'm not quite that derivative. No, he grew up in a boreal forest with broad glacially fed rivers and large swaths of permanently frozen ground, near great mountains... Ehem, like I did. That's how derivative I am. :P
I keep wondering, with so little resources,how does Draconis Combine wield so much power. Its like japan and north korea merged and somehow became the most powerful nation in the inner sphere while the Lyron, with all their exorbent amount of resources was disproportionately less effective per c-bill as a whole.
Well, they controlled about a quarter of the Inner Sphere. Size-wise they were equal to all the other great houses, apart from the Capellans who are smaller than everyone else. With their highly militarized and policed society, it makes sense that they can do more with less, compared to the other successor states that have a relatively more liberal approach to doing things.
Shame mechwarrior series went quiet for long time, I do like it cam back but wish we had more games with good single player campaigns. Either mechwarrior or least mechassault which also enjoyed.
I'm not much for rts style play. I liked mechwarrior and mechassault style gameplay better. I hope we see more games of the two genre in future. Though loved mechassault I loved mechwarrior customization. But anyways here hopping see more games of the two in future.
Has their been any netbooks on mechwarrior or battle tech, I kind lost interest when the dark ages came around. I read a decent amount of books when was in middle and high school but by the time the dark ages came I .ost interest in them. Not sure what's going on in mechwarrior/battletech universe now
As described, it's hard to imagine such a society lasting hundreds of years. Never-mind being politically or economically competitive with their neighbors, the Lyrans and the Federated Suns. Economic promises from such rivals should have lead more than one borderland corporation to swing away from the Combine. This is a severe interpretation of Japan under "The Bamboo Curtain." It could only work in relative isolation (as the real Tokugawa government did). Unfortunately, The Draconis Combine is stuffed between the two technological, political, and economic powerhouses of the Inner Sphere. This sociopolitical model would have been more likely if it were near, but not effected directly by, a major power (as Japan was in real life, near China). Maybe Kurita could be a powerful Periphery state. When I was in Middle School, and Battletech was only a few years old, I questioned the longevity of such an extreme system. My inquisitive inclination over the years lead me to a broader understanding of Edo Japan. No, such a system would not work in a global economy, and the Tokugawa Shogunate knew as much. Remember that at the end the Shogunate moved their capital to Hokkaido and modeled their new government after the US Constitution. But... A French racist ran their military. Ok, a story for another time. I'm working through your depictions of the various successor states and made it through two so far (Lyrans' system seems sustainable, Draconis' system does not). Regarding butchered pronunciation: Don't worry about your Japanese, not yet anyway. In Romanji (European/Roman standard text) the pronunciation of vowels is always the same. If vowels are combined, the have a predictable flow. In the American vernacular, "A" is always "Ah."(not Ay) "E" is always "Eh."(not EE) "I" is always "EE."(not "eye") ""U" is always "OO."(not "You") Japanese native speakers will insist that they do not have diphthongs. They do, but the way they're spelled in Japanese makes them difficult to identify. Where to you separate the syllables? "Eeyeh" (American phonetic) means "No." It sounds like a diphthong to me. To the Japanese, it's two syllables, "ee" and "eh." Don't sweat the small stuff. You're obviously not a native English speaker. Your command of the language is clear enough to get your point across. I've struggled for some 35 years with German, and I still can't hold a conversation with a Kindergartner. Not quite as much time, but almost, with Japanese. My little sister lives in Japan, I can barely order a beer when I visit. A little advice, hopefully taken in the friendly attitude in which it is given: You're English is excellent. However you often use the accENT on the wrong syllABLE. I have watched this series piecemeal, but now I'm watching it front to back. It's much more interesting this way. I had seen individual 'Mech design videos, now I'm going back to the front, so to speak. I was a fan of BattleTech from the way back, and began to fall behind, really after the 3050 timeline. Yeah, so, that was a while ago. I wasn't too happy with how the whole Clan Invasion played out. I played "Crimson Hawk's Inception," and "Crimson Hawk's Revenge," but then my interest began to wain in the Mid-90's... Where I was pulled back in by titles like MechWarrior II. I did continue to play tabletop, from time to time. I enjoyed the limited scale of warfare for which the tabletop rules were well suited. I liked the idea of a feudal interstellar society, where different flavors of feudalism might have worked. Unfortunately, the creative minds behind the marketing of the product wanted an ever more rapid introduction of new product (books, back then) which in their minds meant an ever evolvoing political environment and a rapidly advancing timeline. A concept not dissimilar to the now common "reboot" culture of American comic books. I'd have preferred a somewhat stable, but slowly advancing political landscape. The risk of Kerensky's return should have been something played out over a much longer time frame, and shouldn't have manifested as a frankly lame approximation of the Mongol Invasion. Indeed, if it were a proxy Mongol invasion, wouldn't it have made more sense to have occurred on the Liao/Marik frontier?
Nope. The Draconis Combine are psychotic genocidal medieval japan cosplayers. They've slaughtered billions in order to recreate medieval japan in space. To look at the history of the Combine is to look at a series of massacres and genocides in pursuit of their cosplay. Kentares is the most famous, but not the worst. During the early Succession Wars the Combine took the bread basket of the Inner Sphere, forced everyone to grow rice instead of grain, made them stop using machines to do the labor, made them wear traditional peasant clothing inadequate to the environment and live in traditional peasant huts also inadequate to the environment - the result was millions dead on that world and around one hundred billion starved across the Inner Sphere. It was this mass starvation that is the primary reason technology regressed as there just weren't enough people left on industrialized worlds who knew how to run things.
It's your position that some few crazies wanted to play a game ("cosplay") and so billions of people died? That's a bold claim. Prove it. Last I saw, Manga/Anime conventions were especially A-Political, and certainly had no effect on real government. It's a long haul to say that a bunch of genre fans made a government that eventually killed billions of people... apparently because they just felt like it. Your claim that the DC moved into effective farmland and subsequently wrecked it because it didn't fit their idea of what farmland should look like is also dubious. A smart Shogun knows what new opportunities look like. The Tokugawa government moved to Hokkaido before they lost. Today, Hokkaido is known for wheat, beef, and dairy, not traditional Japanese crops. Maybe you could show us how your costume play theory might have happened. I'd be interested to see how that works.
@@dubuyajay9964 Covered in other comment fields... Not all Periphery States are that bad off. In fact, the best way to describe the Periphery, I think, is that they're not directly attached to IS information systems. They don't share traditional central trade lines, can't communicate either goods or information across the IS, and therefore are isolated from one another and the IS. That does not mean that small states, perhaps locally rich, can't make a good life for their citizenry. What it does mean, is that they are separated from the rest of humanity, at least by time. I'm a member of the USA. I distinctly remember a time as a child, where certain TV shows, say sports broadcasts, may have been delayed by two weeks or more. True fans listened to AM radio. No, I'm not ancient. Not young, mind you, but solidly within the later part of Generation X. Anyway, at that time, our education system was seeing a new progressive revision, due to resource extraction out economy was booming, and great new advances in research were underway. I guess you could say I was living in a sort of Periphery Utopia. But it didn't last. Now, and for a long time, we've been ignored by our central government. I suppose that's where my real world example diverges from a Periphery Utopia (although, there was for a long time, a separatist political movement). Um, I'm rambling... The ramblings of a Periphery dweller's lost potential perhaps. :P Maybe that might have made sense in... what, 2700? The SL did attempt to bring the Periphery "back into the fold" a few times.
Love the 80s aesthetics for the bad guys, red glossy sleveless shirts with padded shoulders or pointed pauldrons and parachute pants for everyone
It's a Gundam! Oh wait, its House Kurita from Draconis Combine... Ahhh, the good old, 'Benevolent dictatorship' Najsu, GrimDark Gaijin.
Gaijin, developers of Dev of World of Tanks/Warships and now BATTLEMECHS!
"Najsu?"
@@JeanLucCaptain thats wargaming lol. Gaijin are the devs of war thunder.
@@KinQQz oh even better then!
I like to imagine that facing the DCMS is like facing the Imperial Japanese Army during WWII, as fanatical followers of Bushido who do not back down and would rather commit seppuku than be taken alive. And like with the Imperial Japanese Army, infantry from the Federated Suns would be well advised to beware the Banzai charges...
The only difference is the DCMS is not blitzed out of their mind on methamphetamine.
With a possible exception of the ghost units
I'm surprised the DCMS doesn't have kamikaze maneuvers as an option.
The DCMS is exactly like the IJA except they are not suicidal into themselves. They might do stupid shit in the name of Bushido.
Beware the Bonzai charges? Why? In WWII all they accomplished against disciplined and trained troops was get a lot of Japanese mown down like grass.
Do I hear "Yuki no shingun" sung in the distance?
Don't take offense of this GDN. You did an amazing job of explaining what the Draconis Combine is, but I gotta say in the words of Professor Tex, "Welcome to the wacky weird world of the draconis combine. But that's just me anyway, keep it up, man. We'll continue to watch your videos and love them.
Don't worry.
I was going to say it could be worse, you could live in the Periphery.....but that could be cool, if you were of that mindset.Mad Max with mech's sign me up.
The Taurian Concordat has consistently had the best public education system and highest overall standard of living since before the Star League and straight through the Succession Wars.
@@gallendugall8913 Because it's the closest thing to a old Terran free republic? Even more so than Marik?
@@dubuyajay9964
Way to miss the point. Just because you're not part of the machinations of the Inner Sphere, that does not mean that you're in a government-less wilderness.
Marik is a governmental chaos that belies its survival within the inner sphere. Maybe the other Succession Powers just don't see them as a threat. Why then, doesn't Liao just take the whole mess over, one region at a time? They seem to be in a constant population conflict. Too many people, not enough space. Marik seems to have lots of space. Caught between an intransigent foe, who's defenses are strong and who's economy is stronger, and another who's dense population is desperate for expansion, how can Marik's fractious political environment ever form a united front against Liaotian aggression?
Um, as I commented elsewhere, maybe these archetypes aren't well thought out. Whatever, we have to look at them as they stand. My understanding does not extend much beyond the 3050+ timeline, not many of my books go beyond 3058, in fact, I have a few "vintage" original 80's source books, I wish I had them all. So, maybe the galactic core went supernova since then, I'm going on my understanding of the foundation of the Human Sphere, and the foundational qualities of the Successor and Periphery States.
Anyway, a more general question I've never had answered since I started playing the game: Why is it called "The Human Sphere," when it's only ever depicted as a two dimensional disk?
@@tananam9782
Because it's a 3 dimensional shere, and when you compress a shere into two dimensions, as on a piece of paper, it appears as a circle.
@@horsemumbler1 That's not an answer.
By that logic, Earth, when depicted on a piece of paper, only consists of Africa, and small bits of Europe and Asia (as that's all the surface you could see in two dimensions).
I have not seen any three dimensional representations of The Human Sphere. Maybe someone's tried, but not in any of the Battletech publications I've read, and within that span of publication, they had plenty of time to try. In any case, given it's size, it's more likely to be a disk. Maybe it should be called "The Human Frisbee."
The best explanation seems like a bit of a cop-out to me: That "sphere" is meant to be more metaphorical, as in, "a sphere of influence." However, that usage connotes the existence of sentient races other than Humans, which is not part of the Battletech universe.
Good day! All Steiner units prepare to show these Godless Kuritans what war crimes look like!
Achtung!
The Bureau of Bureaucracy!😃
I haven't played mech warrior in age's but this was the house I was and to be honest I've been looking forward to this lore video since you started these videos. Saying that I might get back on it and start playing again. Thanks for the video grim
Thanks for watching. These Battletech videos need all the views they can get, lol. They are longer than my regular stuff and I gotta make them in addition to the regular stuff.
How about the new Battletech game?
@@dubuyajay9964 I enjoyed it thought I didn't finish it. I found some story missions to be ridiculously difficult.
@@dubuyajay9964
Are you referring to the turn based computer game?
Please make yourself understood.
Otherwise, why bother?
@@tananam9782 Yes.
space battlemech yamato!
Lol! I love Space Battleship Yamato and this comment made me chuckle a little!
On a side note, if house Kurita actually had the Yamato, they would have conquered the galaxy long ago.
@@yamatojoe7327 I'm currently watching the Original Series the one that came before SW. I can't believe how detailed it is!
For the Greater Good...wait er, I mean for the Dragon 😜
Thanks for the vid sir.👍🏼👍🏼
You're very welcome!
That Mauler pic is pretty sweet.
Great video. More Battletech lore if you please !
My leaning towards House Steiner makes me want to CRUSH these Kuritan folks... In some ways, they're the best hope for Humanity, but in every other way... The only House worse than Kurita is Liao.
"My leaning towards House Steiner makes me want to CRUSH these Kuritan folks..."
...Why?
"The only House worse than Kurita is Liao."
Again... Why?
"In some ways, they're the best hope for Humanity."
Are to referring to The Draconis Combine?
How, then?
I usually played Lyran, partly because of the German archetype, partly because the Federated Suns, otherwise quite amenable, fostered a certain paternalistic social supremacy.
Some might call them "Ugly Americans" (although their inception seems to be English and French).
I say, "Texan."
Is a Texan a bad person? Probably not. Did Texans (are they now?) mess up my home by barging in and telling us what's best?
Yeah, That's House Davion.
Doubly so if you're a Periphery state of any egalitarian flavor.
To co-opt a phrase (somewhat inaccurately), "Happiness is watching a Davion headed to the starport with a Capellan under each arm."
Getting too close to reality. Time to say : Good Night!
@@tananam9782
Kurita hates mercs... and I love mercs. Liao, bunch a space commies, less a sense of humor than those Jade Falcon guys. I'd side with House Davion, but they have this problem with supporting democracy officially, but not following through with it. House Steiner is straight up about their... ineptitude, I guess, and as much as I despise hereditary monarchy, they're traditionally not terrible people... unlike Kurita and Liao.
Kinda wanna instigate a Capellen-Combine war now and have the Steiner-Davion guys clean up. It's a shame Clan space is coreward instead of rimward... They'd have exterminated Liao.
@@Deridus
You love Mercs...
Well, that's pretty loaded.
I would counter that no nation state, be it in the 31st century or the 16th century, likes the idea of wandering armies who's loyalties go to the deepest pockets. Their presence is horribly destabilizing. There is a reason there aren't roaming merc armies in the EU now, regardless of hundreds of years of precident.
They may be fun to play in a game, but at best, in the chaos that is the Battletech world, nation states can only view their presence as a necessity born of temporary conditions. Need a battalion to shore up a rear guard on the Capellan March when all your main troops are on The Draconis March? Well, crap, we have some cash, but no material to spare, Eridani Light Horse is available.
The Draconis Combine, with its particular (but not unique) warrior culture finds the idea of selling one's loyalty to be especially distasteful, beyond the fore mentioned socio-political reasons why Mercs are generally a bad idea.
Perhaps if you prefer to play a Merc, this is why you might dislike working with The Draconis Combine. This is not the same thing as saying you hate Kurita because you like Mercs. Frankly, no state likes Mercs. At best, they are a necessary evil.
[edited for punctuation and redundant adjectives]
@@tananam9782
True, no state likes mercs, but hey! Between Commies in Spaaaaaace, Psudo-Samurai, and the Clanners, I'm always ready to throw down. No lack of foes in the Sphere, that's for sure. And when I'm not fighting those guys, hey, there's always the Clans.
@@Deridus
Um. Sorry. I wish I could respond to this, but I don't know how.
This is after all, a "world" set up to encourage military conflict. That's the game. One could try to rationalize this world, or one could just fight.
I think you're caught somewhere in between these dichotomies.
I would have liked to get a little history. The military strength stuff like that.
More history would be interesting, but there is a great deal of it - it would be hard to keep it out of hand. Hopefully future videos will look at history in a wider sense.
There was one small error here, incidentally. House Kurita's rule isn't quite unbroken - for about a century during the Age of War, House Von Rohrs ruled the Combine only to be ousted and replaced by a restored House Kurita.
I will hopefully make separate history videos for the main factions.
@@mickbrown7793 I kinda wanted to give an overview to the main factions. Talking about just history for these factions can take hours and hours and it can sound pretty boring. These videos already get much fewer views than my warhammer ones, so I wanted to present a few different but not too long aspects for now.
@@GrimDarkNarrator Yeah, I figured that there was just too much to work it in. Thanks for doing the videos, by the way.
@@GrimDarkNarrator
For an introductory video, this strikes a good balance.
The original source material for the Successor States, Periphery, (historical) Terran Hegemony and (historical) Star League each we're large format volumes, hundreds of pages each. Some went into second edition revisions. It's unrealistic to expect to get all that data into a video or two of mostly narration. Not in decently short bits anyway. Otherwise, you're recording an audio book.
Really you would take Cappelan confederation over Draconis Combine?
Ok Ghostbear dominion is the best choice...
A fellow crusader. Together we will crush the freeborn Comstar monks!
(We won't I know.)
I wish these videos covered more history.
I'll get back to them for that at some point.
My fav battle tech faction
Their literal favorite things are glorious death in battle and sepukku ritual suicides. If they could find a way to do both at fuckin once they would. Wow cool faction am i right
Why?
Sorry for the apparent self contradiction, but please try to answer in complete sentences. I really do want to understand.
@@demon212
No, your pathetic attempt at irony is not right.
And, I gotta say, you're inclusion of blue language certainly convinced me that you're way cool and your opinions are super correct.
Man, I want to be you when I grow up.
@@tananam9782 Thanks for replying to me twice in a row, it really shows how tilted you :)
@@demon212
Um... Ok, you're a dumbass troll, but maybe you might want to be understood.
"...it really shows how tilted you :)"
What the hell does that even mean?
Maybe if you're trying to insult me, it might help to know that I'm being insulted.
Wow, how sad is it that the standards of stupidity are falling below even the most basic levels of literacy.
Keep it up, soon you'll be a drooling mass of random characters. Man, you'll have showed all of us. I can't wait!
Oh... maybe, hope of all hopes, you'll soon forget how to turn your device on. Well, wait, what brain dead phone zombie ever turns they're device off? Hmm.
Well, I guess I could hope that you walk in front of a train, but I'm not that cruel. It would be terribly traumatic for the train driver.
Ah, and to forestall your next comment, probably something about how important this must be to me because I typed in so many characters... Trust me, it wasn't hard, and it didn't take long. Think about that next time you drool over your keys wondering where the "any button" is.
Ah, truly the most backstabby faction if you are a mercenary. You know its bad if Capellen's are more trustworthy.
13:23. Dear God that pic. Are we sure that's not a Steiner or Lyran propaganda poster?
You dishonour your house :P
@@GrimDarkNarrator I did not dishonor my house! That artist has sullied the reputation of the Imperial Family with that abomination of a drawing!
@@dubuyajay9964
Grimdark Narrator's emoticon was insufficient.
PBTPBTPBTPBTPBTPBT: Says the kid with the snowball about to throw at the scary looking Kuritan guard.
(yeah, I have the first edition House Kurita source book!.... Well, I thought I did, where did I put it?)
I also had first and second Perephery, First Lyran, something about Davion, but I forget. Terran Hegemony....
I wish my coverage wasn't so much swiss cheese.... and crap, that I knew where it all was.
@@tananam9782
Every time I read one of your comments, I'm surprised anew by what a cretin you really are, not to mention lacking in a sense of humor, or at least were a year or so ago. I usually read comments before the names attached, but can now recognize your Interestingly wordy yet oddly inept style of communication pretty quickly now.
@@horsemumbler1 What are you talking about, and what does it have to do at all with the content of this reply thread?
Whose communication is inept?
I have always loved the DC. They are so different from the rest of the successor states. Some really great house mechs and after the reign of Takashi it got cooler. Theodore's reforms saved the IS as much as Victor or comstar. I love maulers and panthers. Add some of their great mechs to Bushido Creed and it's tough to break a DC defence
They have indeed a lot of appealing traits.
@@GrimDarkNarrator even more so when the dragon isn't bonkers
There have been at least some which were competent from what I've read.
@@GrimDarkNarrator you don't grow from the map you displayed to the 3025 map then stop the clans without outside help of any kind till the capital invasion battle. Then push back and take every single word back. They have had some great ones leading to the religious fervor for the dragon and the individual acceptance of place in society. These great ones lead to an absolute believe in a greater good that even a poor coordinator can't hurt the nation all that bad, that 3rd successor was was followed by 3039 and early clan invasion was turned by Takashi's disgraceful soon Theodore. DC people take a long view and believe that fate will see all ill turns made right as they are mearly a small step back and a new path to glory. But you don't get people do dedicated without truly great leaders repeatedly over time to the point where even your criminals stand with the government.
@Paul Huston
The Panther tried to punch outside it's weight. It basically had weak medium 'Mech firepower (but the PPC could be effective) and was marginally faster than medium 'Mech speed. It also had much less armor than most medium 'Mechs.
So, in an environment of mostly light 'Mechs, with few mediums or heavier, it could be decisive, a sort of stand in for proper Medium support. Otherwise, I'm not convinced it was a good machine. I'll say: Effective in a very narrow niche.
However, a similarly sized machine often found in the Kuritan arsenal was the Jenner. Much faster, and with the space and weight available to be refitted with a PPC. It was oddly shaped and had no battle fists as the Panther did, so fared poorly in close combat. But, owing to it's slight mass, so did the Panther when facing anything same sized or larger.
If forced into a general setting, I think I'd prefer to pilot a properly fitted Jenner, versus a stock Panther, were I a Draconis mechwarrior.
But I wouldn't be. My Mechwarrior (pencil RPG) character was an ambitious kid from a Lyran backwater with a harsh environment. No "twin suns," and he didn't have an "Aunt Beru." I'm not quite that derivative. No, he grew up in a boreal forest with broad glacially fed rivers and large swaths of permanently frozen ground, near great mountains... Ehem, like I did. That's how derivative I am. :P
I keep wondering, with so little resources,how does Draconis Combine wield so much power. Its like japan and north korea merged and somehow became the most powerful nation in the inner sphere while the Lyron, with all their exorbent amount of resources was disproportionately less effective per c-bill as a whole.
Well, they controlled about a quarter of the Inner Sphere. Size-wise they were equal to all the other great houses, apart from the Capellans who are smaller than everyone else. With their highly militarized and policed society, it makes sense that they can do more with less, compared to the other successor states that have a relatively more liberal approach to doing things.
Shame mechwarrior series went quiet for long time, I do like it cam back but wish we had more games with good single player campaigns. Either mechwarrior or least mechassault which also enjoyed.
This year's Battletech has a pretty decent story though its more like X-Com in gameplay.
I'm not much for rts style play. I liked mechwarrior and mechassault style gameplay better. I hope we see more games of the two genre in future. Though loved mechassault I loved mechwarrior customization. But anyways here hopping see more games of the two in future.
Has their been any netbooks on mechwarrior or battle tech, I kind lost interest when the dark ages came around. I read a decent amount of books when was in middle and high school but by the time the dark ages came I .ost interest in them. Not sure what's going on in mechwarrior/battletech universe now
@@alluringming To be honest, I don't either. I'm mostly learning about the setting as I do lore about them.
@@alluringming It's turn based. Not rts. 😑
For the Algorithm!
DEST
LONG LIVE THE DRAGON...
I still need to hear that swedenese...
Battletech is an odd place. There are actual Swedish descendants in the combine. They and the Rasalhages constantly fight over border territory.
To summarize the DC in one sentence.
Japanese weeb fascism.
In one word: utopia
As described, it's hard to imagine such a society lasting hundreds of years. Never-mind being politically or economically competitive with their neighbors, the Lyrans and the Federated Suns. Economic promises from such rivals should have lead more than one borderland corporation to swing away from the Combine.
This is a severe interpretation of Japan under "The Bamboo Curtain." It could only work in relative isolation (as the real Tokugawa government did). Unfortunately, The Draconis Combine is stuffed between the two technological, political, and economic powerhouses of the Inner Sphere. This sociopolitical model would have been more likely if it were near, but not effected directly by, a major power (as Japan was in real life, near China). Maybe Kurita could be a powerful Periphery state.
When I was in Middle School, and Battletech was only a few years old, I questioned the longevity of such an extreme system. My inquisitive inclination over the years lead me to a broader understanding of Edo Japan. No, such a system would not work in a global economy, and the Tokugawa Shogunate knew as much. Remember that at the end the Shogunate moved their capital to Hokkaido and modeled their new government after the US Constitution. But... A French racist ran their military. Ok, a story for another time.
I'm working through your depictions of the various successor states and made it through two so far (Lyrans' system seems sustainable, Draconis' system does not).
Regarding butchered pronunciation: Don't worry about your Japanese, not yet anyway. In Romanji (European/Roman standard text) the pronunciation of vowels is always the same. If vowels are combined, the have a predictable flow.
In the American vernacular, "A" is always "Ah."(not Ay) "E" is always "Eh."(not EE) "I" is always "EE."(not "eye") ""U" is always "OO."(not "You")
Japanese native speakers will insist that they do not have diphthongs. They do, but the way they're spelled in Japanese makes them difficult to identify. Where to you separate the syllables?
"Eeyeh" (American phonetic) means "No." It sounds like a diphthong to me. To the Japanese, it's two syllables, "ee" and "eh."
Don't sweat the small stuff. You're obviously not a native English speaker. Your command of the language is clear enough to get your point across.
I've struggled for some 35 years with German, and I still can't hold a conversation with a Kindergartner. Not quite as much time, but almost, with Japanese. My little sister lives in Japan, I can barely order a beer when I visit.
A little advice, hopefully taken in the friendly attitude in which it is given: You're English is excellent. However you often use the accENT on the wrong syllABLE.
I have watched this series piecemeal, but now I'm watching it front to back. It's much more interesting this way. I had seen individual 'Mech design videos, now I'm going back to the front, so to speak.
I was a fan of BattleTech from the way back, and began to fall behind, really after the 3050 timeline. Yeah, so, that was a while ago. I wasn't too happy with how the whole Clan Invasion played out. I played "Crimson Hawk's Inception," and "Crimson Hawk's Revenge," but then my interest began to wain in the Mid-90's... Where I was pulled back in by titles like MechWarrior II. I did continue to play tabletop, from time to time.
I enjoyed the limited scale of warfare for which the tabletop rules were well suited. I liked the idea of a feudal interstellar society, where different flavors of feudalism might have worked. Unfortunately, the creative minds behind the marketing of the product wanted an ever more rapid introduction of new product (books, back then) which in their minds meant an ever evolvoing political environment and a rapidly advancing timeline. A concept not dissimilar to the now common "reboot" culture of American comic books.
I'd have preferred a somewhat stable, but slowly advancing political landscape. The risk of Kerensky's return should have been something played out over a much longer time frame, and shouldn't have manifested as a frankly lame approximation of the Mongol Invasion. Indeed, if it were a proxy Mongol invasion, wouldn't it have made more sense to have occurred on the Liao/Marik frontier?
Nope.
The Draconis Combine are psychotic genocidal medieval japan cosplayers.
They've slaughtered billions in order to recreate medieval japan in space.
To look at the history of the Combine is to look at a series of massacres and genocides in pursuit of their cosplay. Kentares is the most famous, but not the worst. During the early Succession Wars the Combine took the bread basket of the Inner Sphere, forced everyone to grow rice instead of grain, made them stop using machines to do the labor, made them wear traditional peasant clothing inadequate to the environment and live in traditional peasant huts also inadequate to the environment - the result was millions dead on that world and around one hundred billion starved across the Inner Sphere. It was this mass starvation that is the primary reason technology regressed as there just weren't enough people left on industrialized worlds who knew how to run things.
Go back to the Mad Max Hellhole that is the Periphery, barbarian.
It's your position that some few crazies wanted to play a game ("cosplay") and so billions of people died? That's a bold claim. Prove it.
Last I saw, Manga/Anime conventions were especially A-Political, and certainly had no effect on real government.
It's a long haul to say that a bunch of genre fans made a government that eventually killed billions of people... apparently because they just felt like it.
Your claim that the DC moved into effective farmland and subsequently wrecked it because it didn't fit their idea of what farmland should look like is also dubious. A smart Shogun knows what new opportunities look like. The Tokugawa government moved to Hokkaido before they lost. Today, Hokkaido is known for wheat, beef, and dairy, not traditional Japanese crops.
Maybe you could show us how your costume play theory might have happened. I'd be interested to see how that works.
@@dubuyajay9964
Covered in other comment fields... Not all Periphery States are that bad off.
In fact, the best way to describe the Periphery, I think, is that they're not directly attached to IS information systems.
They don't share traditional central trade lines, can't communicate either goods or information across the IS, and therefore are isolated from one another and the IS.
That does not mean that small states, perhaps locally rich, can't make a good life for their citizenry. What it does mean, is that they are separated from the rest of humanity, at least by time.
I'm a member of the USA. I distinctly remember a time as a child, where certain TV shows, say sports broadcasts, may have been delayed by two weeks or more. True fans listened to AM radio.
No, I'm not ancient. Not young, mind you, but solidly within the later part of Generation X.
Anyway, at that time, our education system was seeing a new progressive revision, due to resource extraction out economy was booming, and great new advances in research were underway. I guess you could say I was living in a sort of Periphery Utopia.
But it didn't last. Now, and for a long time, we've been ignored by our central government. I suppose that's where my real world example diverges from a Periphery Utopia (although, there was for a long time, a separatist political movement).
Um, I'm rambling... The ramblings of a Periphery dweller's lost potential perhaps. :P
Maybe that might have made sense in... what, 2700? The SL did attempt to bring the Periphery "back into the fold" a few times.
You say that like it is a bad thing
as Tex said, Kurita are the assholes of the Battletech universe.
For the Greater Good...wait er, I mean for the Dragon 😜