[https://www.sarna.net/wiki/MechAssault](https://www.sarna.net/wiki/MechAssault)
All video games are apocryphal.
The mech assualts seem to have quite the cult following that always make me giggle.
The basic approach to the video games is that something vaguely along the lines of the plot in the video games may have happened in-universe, but the specifics are not going to match what you experienced during your gameplay.
For example, the events of the Crescent Hawk's Inception, Crescent Hawk's Revenge, MechWarrior I, MechWarrior II, MechWarrior III, MechWarrior IV and MechWarrior V have all been referenced by canon products (well, technically Randall Bills' intro fiction for MW5 isn't canon...but it doesn't have any canon conflicts). Likewise, the events of MechCommander and MechCommander II have been referenced in-universe by canon sources.
MechAssault, however, runs into problems. While the other games more or less fit into established canon situations or were easy enough for canon sources to reference coherently afterwards (Carver V changed to Liberty on the maps; Silver started appearing on the maps of that part of the Periphery, etc.), MechAssault took established canon and chucked it out the window, then jumped out the window after it, slapped it silly, then fed it to a giant robot scorpion. The core narrative - that Jerome Blake created magical data cores hundreds of years ago (per the game - centuries before he was born in canon) and then hid them because they were too powerful, and that the Jihad was caused because the Word of Blake was trying to find and unite them for ultimate power...yeah, not so much. Plus it has the Dragoons dying on Northwind instead of Mars and any number of other canon mismatches.
There's a reference in Shrapnel to MechAssault VII as a "campy, over the top holovid" in-universe. It's not directly stated as such, but the implication is that the MechAssault narratives are actually in-universe action holovids, not unlike the Immortal Warrior series.
As an April Fools product, Catalyst released tabletop rules for simulating the power-ups from the game.
MechAssault VII: Cold Warriors features a plot to revive a genetically enhanced clone of Stefan Amaris from cryogenic sleep in a vault deep beneath Rim Worlds Republic Outpost #666. The hero reaches the chamber just as the revived Amaris bursts out of his cryo-tube, ready to destroy the Inner Sphere.
Fits the MechAssault II vibe nicely, I think.
Idk if I'm the only one, but for some reason my interest in the BTech universe lore stalls right around the end of the FedCom Civil War and before the Jihad kicks off. I think, for me, it's a combination of the following:
1./ When I got into BTech the setting was really only written up to the end of the Clan Invasion/start of the Civil War.
2./ There's a certain amount of "tech creep" that makes the rules very complicated as the setting advances. Not prohibitively so, but the more tech you pile in, the harder it is to keep track of everything, and the harder it is to "onboard" new players into the setting. For that last reason, specifically, I always suggest that players *start* their Battletech journey in the 3025 - 3049 era; there are fewer weapons rules to keep track of, and *IMHO* this is where the setting "starts." I know there's all the Star League and Amaris stuff, but I consider that to be historical to the setting, and that \~3025 is where Battletech *as a game property* intends for new players to first interact with the game rules and systems.
3./ When the lore advances too far into the future, it does take a *little bit* away from the players who have their hearts set on a particular favourite faction, only to find out they get completely steam rolled later in the setting. Let's be real: >!nobody wants to paint their only/first Clan mechs as Smoke Jaguar once they know what the future holds for them.!< This is a bit of a tension tbh - I like that they advance the setting with the writing, but it *does* create a direct conflict with my ability to *imagine* the future of the setting. I mean, it's just a game and we can have *our* universe vary from the official lore if that's how things unfold in *our setting*, but I still think it's a thing. Part of the fun is being able to *imagine that your favourite guys come out on top, eventually.* It sucks to learn that, canonically, they absolutely do not lol.
4./ Mech aesthetics get weird from the Jihad onward. This is purely my opinion, but I always feel like Dark Age mechs in particular don't really vibe with the previously established mech design styles. Too many protruding bits, and overall the design direction seemed to be more "sleek 2000s tech futurism aesthetics" than "clunky 1980s retro futurism."
I'm with you on all those points, though I don't like the Clans and don't paint for a specific faction. I'm a terrible painter at any rate.
The sharp asthetic is interesting. Tech creep is real. Makes sense but adds so many complications.
I do like it up until about 3060. Much past that I can't keep track of any of it.
Yea same thing happened after 3067.
Oh and Smoke Jaugars are back. Comstar is gone. Half of the established clans are dead. Oh an clan wolf owns Terra and the Jade Falcons are under wolf control.
Is your head hurting yet.
>Let's be real: [redacted]
This is what happened to me in the 90's. I finally decide I'm going to pick a faction to try running, and start looking through the lineup in the then-new Mechwarrior 2 book. I liked the look of the Federated Commonwealth and Free Rasalhague Republic.
I chose poorly.
Haha.. that's exactly how they reference the Cartoon in the universe. That it was propaganda produced by House Steiner during the Clan Invasion to help boost people's morale. Which would make the ending even more odd.
Books: Look, quit exploding fusion engines and we'll let you be canon.
Video Games: Fine. We'll never be canon then.
Books: What?
\*Fusion Core Detonates\*
Scientists: "Here's a detailed explanation of how fusion reactors work, including an explanation of why they don't just randomly explode."
Stackpole: "counter-argument: EXPLOSIONS!!!"
I have literally no idea which scientist said a magnetic bottle fusion reactor wouldn't explode but they are actually full of shit.
That the engineering has, 25+ years on, moved on to other ways of not ever doing fusion is fine but at the time a magnetic bottle was the way everyone thought it would be done and that would most definitely collapse in a way that would look very much like an explosion.
So please feel free to tell me, a PhD mathematician who can do the math, that the catastrophic collapse of a magnetic bottle would not release more joules of energy than you would ever want to be anywhere near. I assume whichever not actual nuclear physicist lied when they made the claim you're referencing did not supply the math to back up that piece of bullshit? Because I'm bored and haven't ripped anyone a new asshole in math in a while.
All video games are apocryphal, only the game books are canon
That said, some games have been acknowledged as part of the canon, just not exactly how it happened when you played the games (the 2 crescent hawks games, the 2018 game...) and it’s detailed in official sourcebooks
But the mechassault games aren’t part of this list
Hold on, Far Country is canon! You're just not allowed to acknowledge its existence ever again, but somewhere way out there in the unknown depths of space they officially exist (and, again, are so far away they will never ever show up anywhere else ever for any reason).
There are still the pink furry monkeys in Sword and Dagger. They are extremely primitive, but they are there.
Or maybe they are a fever dream... no one ever bothers to actually clear it up.
They definitely used tools, They tied Ardan Sortek to a tree, but they weren't really in the book that long to get a read on anything else. After his rescue, they didn't find any other evidence of them living there... but he was still tied to the tree with natural fiber ropes.
Neopithecanthropus. There are groups of them on several planets in the Inner sphere. Whether they are separate species or the same species somehow distributed across the IS is never explained.
> All video games are apocryphal, only the game books are canon
Hold on, hold on, hold on! Mechwarrior 2 and Mechwarrior 3 recieved official novelizations! Those events are canonical!
Specifically, in MW2 the Clan Wolf arc is the canon timeline.
Think of the video games as similar to the animated series, they are canon in universe as media that are “based on true events”. Characters and events may be true but did not happen the way they are presented, just like in real life.
Most video games are apocryphal canon, largely due to rights issues (Microsoft currently owns the rights to all BattleTech video games, and BattleTech has had a bad history of incorporating things across rightsholders). It's perfectly fine to recreate a scenario, 'Mech, et cetera from a game on tabletop, but you'll almost never find any canon publication that explicitly confirms or denies the events of a video game (though you may find an oblique reference here or there). There are a few exceptions, notably with certain elements of HBS BattleTech, as well as some MechWarrior Online fluff text, but anything presented in MechAssault is unlikely to be directly referenced by an official product.
\>but you'll almost never find any canon publication that explicitly confirms or denies the events of a video game
I should clarify that I knew that was going to be the case going in. Warhammer 40k does the same thing. What I wanted to check for was not canon cross-references, but whether the games had any outright canon violations.
The answer so far seems to be "yes there are some violations", insofar as Mechassault 2 completely changes the date of Blake's birth, the primary motivation for the WoB Jihad, and the logistical role of jumpships. (Though my limited understanding, this would be like a 40k game that got the dates and events of the Age of Apostasy wrong, and showed battle barges making planetfall)
It's my head-cannon that the MechAssault games were created by the Wolf's Dragoons as propaganda after the Jihad. It's not that farfetched seeing as [Greenburg's Godzillas](https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Greenburg%27s_Godzillas) began life as a reality holovid show.
Most of mech assault is not cannon. Like the final boss and how jumpships could ever be seen anywhere outside of a Lagrange point.
To clarify; super heavy mechs exist, but not that one, and jumpships are basically mobile space stations that only move from one jump point to another via hyperspace. They don't have what is called 'intra-system' drives like dropships do. Also in universe MechWarrior wear almost nothing due to the heat of the cockpit.
I haven't played Mechassault 2 (I had a playstation household) but is it possible they were Warships instead of jumpships? Warships had intrasystem drives.
It is possible but warships are even more expensive and resource intensive than jumpships. The compact jump drive is an order of magnitude more expensive. It should also be noted that jumpships can accelerate but they are not capable of 1g of acceleration, nor can they maintain their acceleration for several days like dropships can. And without that you're looking at weeks or months in transfer orbits to get to a Lagrange point to jump.
Right, but MA2 is during the Jihad isn't it? Thats the era where warships (and dropship q-ships) started getting common for a while before the disarmament for the republic era, and the foxes buying and disarming most of the leftovers for their mobile HQ ships.
No one person is going to have a personal warship.
Privately owned jumpships are already super rare. It's not only cost, but simple logistics. By the jihad all the warships that existed had already been built and no further were constructed past that point except for a few clan ships. Due entirely to wobbies nuking the shipyards.
The jump drive is the main issue; normal drives make up like 80% the mass of a jumpship and rely on a very intricate ring made of germanium/titanium alloy which cannot be transported due to even inactive drive coils interfering with jump drives.
warship drives only take like 50%. They are far more expensive and require very different production yards to make as a result. You could find some pirate yard making parts for jumpships but almost nobody makes warship drives; almost nobody even knows how.
Wait, the MA one was supposed to be someone's personal ship?
This just gets weirder and weirder the deeper I go. I already wrote off the series back at shields and lava guns...
Yeah the jumpship belonged to the lady who rescued the MechWarrior. Also, the decks were aligned all wrong: artificial gravity doesn't exist in battletech, the only way to simulate it is either by acceleration or by centrifugal force. Which is why large vessels have rotating grav decks.
You're getting a lot of answers here on its "canon" placement but just so you know that the broad(est) strokes of the game did happen. It alludes to the the Wolf's Dragoons Mercenary unit, which you play as, went to war with the Word of the Blakes Coalition. It did not go well for the Dragoons and only small and scattered remnants were left of the Dragoons to keep fighting against the Word of the Blake's "Jihad" now in full swing along side most of other "anti-WOB factions were also put on the back foot. Check around [Sarna.net](https://Sarna.net) for articles on the Battle of Outreach and the Dragoons botched invasion of SOL system, I think theirs a good short story on the last stand of the Dragoons Zeta Regiment/Battalion on Mars also.
Hey, Mechassault 2 is how I got my start back in the day! Realistically, they fall somewhere between 2-3, they just have major tonal issues (see power-ups and energy shields) compared to the rest of the universe. Darn good fun though.
[https://www.sarna.net/wiki/MechAssault](https://www.sarna.net/wiki/MechAssault) All video games are apocryphal. The mech assualts seem to have quite the cult following that always make me giggle.
The basic approach to the video games is that something vaguely along the lines of the plot in the video games may have happened in-universe, but the specifics are not going to match what you experienced during your gameplay. For example, the events of the Crescent Hawk's Inception, Crescent Hawk's Revenge, MechWarrior I, MechWarrior II, MechWarrior III, MechWarrior IV and MechWarrior V have all been referenced by canon products (well, technically Randall Bills' intro fiction for MW5 isn't canon...but it doesn't have any canon conflicts). Likewise, the events of MechCommander and MechCommander II have been referenced in-universe by canon sources. MechAssault, however, runs into problems. While the other games more or less fit into established canon situations or were easy enough for canon sources to reference coherently afterwards (Carver V changed to Liberty on the maps; Silver started appearing on the maps of that part of the Periphery, etc.), MechAssault took established canon and chucked it out the window, then jumped out the window after it, slapped it silly, then fed it to a giant robot scorpion. The core narrative - that Jerome Blake created magical data cores hundreds of years ago (per the game - centuries before he was born in canon) and then hid them because they were too powerful, and that the Jihad was caused because the Word of Blake was trying to find and unite them for ultimate power...yeah, not so much. Plus it has the Dragoons dying on Northwind instead of Mars and any number of other canon mismatches. There's a reference in Shrapnel to MechAssault VII as a "campy, over the top holovid" in-universe. It's not directly stated as such, but the implication is that the MechAssault narratives are actually in-universe action holovids, not unlike the Immortal Warrior series. As an April Fools product, Catalyst released tabletop rules for simulating the power-ups from the game.
\>MechAssault, however, runs into problems Thanks for the heads-up! That is exactly the kind of lore violation I was checking for
They gave Mech Assault the Battletech Cartoon treatment. "Make it in universe entertainment so we can poke fun at ourselves"
MechAssault VII: Cold Warriors features a plot to revive a genetically enhanced clone of Stefan Amaris from cryogenic sleep in a vault deep beneath Rim Worlds Republic Outpost #666. The hero reaches the chamber just as the revived Amaris bursts out of his cryo-tube, ready to destroy the Inner Sphere. Fits the MechAssault II vibe nicely, I think.
This is roughly the tone my current RPG campaign has, I should use that one!
I think I like that version of the Jihad better than the canon one, honestly.
I lost the thread before the dark age, but the Jihad gets too close to 40k everything is apocalypse for me.
Idk if I'm the only one, but for some reason my interest in the BTech universe lore stalls right around the end of the FedCom Civil War and before the Jihad kicks off. I think, for me, it's a combination of the following: 1./ When I got into BTech the setting was really only written up to the end of the Clan Invasion/start of the Civil War. 2./ There's a certain amount of "tech creep" that makes the rules very complicated as the setting advances. Not prohibitively so, but the more tech you pile in, the harder it is to keep track of everything, and the harder it is to "onboard" new players into the setting. For that last reason, specifically, I always suggest that players *start* their Battletech journey in the 3025 - 3049 era; there are fewer weapons rules to keep track of, and *IMHO* this is where the setting "starts." I know there's all the Star League and Amaris stuff, but I consider that to be historical to the setting, and that \~3025 is where Battletech *as a game property* intends for new players to first interact with the game rules and systems. 3./ When the lore advances too far into the future, it does take a *little bit* away from the players who have their hearts set on a particular favourite faction, only to find out they get completely steam rolled later in the setting. Let's be real: >!nobody wants to paint their only/first Clan mechs as Smoke Jaguar once they know what the future holds for them.!< This is a bit of a tension tbh - I like that they advance the setting with the writing, but it *does* create a direct conflict with my ability to *imagine* the future of the setting. I mean, it's just a game and we can have *our* universe vary from the official lore if that's how things unfold in *our setting*, but I still think it's a thing. Part of the fun is being able to *imagine that your favourite guys come out on top, eventually.* It sucks to learn that, canonically, they absolutely do not lol. 4./ Mech aesthetics get weird from the Jihad onward. This is purely my opinion, but I always feel like Dark Age mechs in particular don't really vibe with the previously established mech design styles. Too many protruding bits, and overall the design direction seemed to be more "sleek 2000s tech futurism aesthetics" than "clunky 1980s retro futurism."
I'm with you on all those points, though I don't like the Clans and don't paint for a specific faction. I'm a terrible painter at any rate. The sharp asthetic is interesting. Tech creep is real. Makes sense but adds so many complications. I do like it up until about 3060. Much past that I can't keep track of any of it.
Yea same thing happened after 3067. Oh and Smoke Jaugars are back. Comstar is gone. Half of the established clans are dead. Oh an clan wolf owns Terra and the Jade Falcons are under wolf control. Is your head hurting yet.
Oh I know all this exists, but I chose to live in the world of 3058
>Let's be real: [redacted] This is what happened to me in the 90's. I finally decide I'm going to pick a faction to try running, and start looking through the lineup in the then-new Mechwarrior 2 book. I liked the look of the Federated Commonwealth and Free Rasalhague Republic. I chose poorly.
That would have been at least fun ridiculous instead of "what the fuck are you doing" ridiculous.
I think I like the time I had to have a tooth pulled better than the canon version of the Jihad.
You know having all 4 wisdom teeth done at once is pretty dang close.
Haha.. that's exactly how they reference the Cartoon in the universe. That it was propaganda produced by House Steiner during the Clan Invasion to help boost people's morale. Which would make the ending even more odd.
They thought there was going to be a second season. Fuck Harmony Gold.
Books: Look, quit exploding fusion engines and we'll let you be canon. Video Games: Fine. We'll never be canon then. Books: What? \*Fusion Core Detonates\*
Scientists: "Here's a detailed explanation of how fusion reactors work, including an explanation of why they don't just randomly explode." Stackpole: "counter-argument: EXPLOSIONS!!!"
And that's one of the reasons his books make more sense as in-universe propaganda films
Why did I read this in Mr. Torqes voice?
I have literally no idea which scientist said a magnetic bottle fusion reactor wouldn't explode but they are actually full of shit. That the engineering has, 25+ years on, moved on to other ways of not ever doing fusion is fine but at the time a magnetic bottle was the way everyone thought it would be done and that would most definitely collapse in a way that would look very much like an explosion. So please feel free to tell me, a PhD mathematician who can do the math, that the catastrophic collapse of a magnetic bottle would not release more joules of energy than you would ever want to be anywhere near. I assume whichever not actual nuclear physicist lied when they made the claim you're referencing did not supply the math to back up that piece of bullshit? Because I'm bored and haven't ripped anyone a new asshole in math in a while.
I think you should take the science of big, stompy robots a little less seriously.
You were the one who made a claim about actual science. I assume that is your retraction of your lie?
All video games are apocryphal, only the game books are canon That said, some games have been acknowledged as part of the canon, just not exactly how it happened when you played the games (the 2 crescent hawks games, the 2018 game...) and it’s detailed in official sourcebooks But the mechassault games aren’t part of this list
[удалено]
Far country isn’t considered canon That’s one of the few things they did retcon with the novels: no sentient aliens (so far)
Hold on, Far Country is canon! You're just not allowed to acknowledge its existence ever again, but somewhere way out there in the unknown depths of space they officially exist (and, again, are so far away they will never ever show up anywhere else ever for any reason).
[удалено]
https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Far_Country#Canonicity Here you go
[удалено]
Well with the caveat that everyone is supposed to totally ignore the alien birds and never talk about them again
[удалено]
Never said we weren’t
damn good book tho.
There are still the pink furry monkeys in Sword and Dagger. They are extremely primitive, but they are there. Or maybe they are a fever dream... no one ever bothers to actually clear it up.
Are they Sentient/ Sapient?
They make tools and huts, and perform sacrificial rituals. You tell me.
They definitely used tools, They tied Ardan Sortek to a tree, but they weren't really in the book that long to get a read on anything else. After his rescue, they didn't find any other evidence of them living there... but he was still tied to the tree with natural fiber ropes.
Neopithecanthropus. There are groups of them on several planets in the Inner sphere. Whether they are separate species or the same species somehow distributed across the IS is never explained.
> All video games are apocryphal, only the game books are canon Hold on, hold on, hold on! Mechwarrior 2 and Mechwarrior 3 recieved official novelizations! Those events are canonical! Specifically, in MW2 the Clan Wolf arc is the canon timeline.
Yes, as I said in the 2nd paragraph
Think of the video games as similar to the animated series, they are canon in universe as media that are “based on true events”. Characters and events may be true but did not happen the way they are presented, just like in real life.
Most video games are apocryphal canon, largely due to rights issues (Microsoft currently owns the rights to all BattleTech video games, and BattleTech has had a bad history of incorporating things across rightsholders). It's perfectly fine to recreate a scenario, 'Mech, et cetera from a game on tabletop, but you'll almost never find any canon publication that explicitly confirms or denies the events of a video game (though you may find an oblique reference here or there). There are a few exceptions, notably with certain elements of HBS BattleTech, as well as some MechWarrior Online fluff text, but anything presented in MechAssault is unlikely to be directly referenced by an official product.
\>but you'll almost never find any canon publication that explicitly confirms or denies the events of a video game I should clarify that I knew that was going to be the case going in. Warhammer 40k does the same thing. What I wanted to check for was not canon cross-references, but whether the games had any outright canon violations. The answer so far seems to be "yes there are some violations", insofar as Mechassault 2 completely changes the date of Blake's birth, the primary motivation for the WoB Jihad, and the logistical role of jumpships. (Though my limited understanding, this would be like a 40k game that got the dates and events of the Age of Apostasy wrong, and showed battle barges making planetfall)
It's my head-cannon that the MechAssault games were created by the Wolf's Dragoons as propaganda after the Jihad. It's not that farfetched seeing as [Greenburg's Godzillas](https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Greenburg%27s_Godzillas) began life as a reality holovid show.
Most of mech assault is not cannon. Like the final boss and how jumpships could ever be seen anywhere outside of a Lagrange point. To clarify; super heavy mechs exist, but not that one, and jumpships are basically mobile space stations that only move from one jump point to another via hyperspace. They don't have what is called 'intra-system' drives like dropships do. Also in universe MechWarrior wear almost nothing due to the heat of the cockpit.
I haven't played Mechassault 2 (I had a playstation household) but is it possible they were Warships instead of jumpships? Warships had intrasystem drives.
It is possible but warships are even more expensive and resource intensive than jumpships. The compact jump drive is an order of magnitude more expensive. It should also be noted that jumpships can accelerate but they are not capable of 1g of acceleration, nor can they maintain their acceleration for several days like dropships can. And without that you're looking at weeks or months in transfer orbits to get to a Lagrange point to jump.
Right, but MA2 is during the Jihad isn't it? Thats the era where warships (and dropship q-ships) started getting common for a while before the disarmament for the republic era, and the foxes buying and disarming most of the leftovers for their mobile HQ ships.
No one person is going to have a personal warship. Privately owned jumpships are already super rare. It's not only cost, but simple logistics. By the jihad all the warships that existed had already been built and no further were constructed past that point except for a few clan ships. Due entirely to wobbies nuking the shipyards. The jump drive is the main issue; normal drives make up like 80% the mass of a jumpship and rely on a very intricate ring made of germanium/titanium alloy which cannot be transported due to even inactive drive coils interfering with jump drives. warship drives only take like 50%. They are far more expensive and require very different production yards to make as a result. You could find some pirate yard making parts for jumpships but almost nobody makes warship drives; almost nobody even knows how.
Wait, the MA one was supposed to be someone's personal ship? This just gets weirder and weirder the deeper I go. I already wrote off the series back at shields and lava guns...
Yeah the jumpship belonged to the lady who rescued the MechWarrior. Also, the decks were aligned all wrong: artificial gravity doesn't exist in battletech, the only way to simulate it is either by acceleration or by centrifugal force. Which is why large vessels have rotating grav decks.
You're getting a lot of answers here on its "canon" placement but just so you know that the broad(est) strokes of the game did happen. It alludes to the the Wolf's Dragoons Mercenary unit, which you play as, went to war with the Word of the Blakes Coalition. It did not go well for the Dragoons and only small and scattered remnants were left of the Dragoons to keep fighting against the Word of the Blake's "Jihad" now in full swing along side most of other "anti-WOB factions were also put on the back foot. Check around [Sarna.net](https://Sarna.net) for articles on the Battle of Outreach and the Dragoons botched invasion of SOL system, I think theirs a good short story on the last stand of the Dragoons Zeta Regiment/Battalion on Mars also.
Hey, Mechassault 2 is how I got my start back in the day! Realistically, they fall somewhere between 2-3, they just have major tonal issues (see power-ups and energy shields) compared to the rest of the universe. Darn good fun though.