OOC Thread

[GraeGor]

sheesh

with friends like those NVA, you really don't need enemies do you?

[NVA]

NO kidding

I mean, first the FRR goes Clan on us.  Then an SL ally blows up some of our folks.  Then the RD turns on us.  Now this...LOL

[GraeGor]

well, if it makes you feel better, you can count on us to blow you up at any opportunity (or at least be prepared to blow you up)

[NVA]

well, if it makes you feel better, you can count on us to blow you up at any opportunity (or at least be prepared to blow you up)

Ah...A little sanity<?> in life.

[JediBear]

Interesting.  I never read that in any of the material and thought that they still referred to themselves as Clan XXX.  They still act generally like clanners. 

Talking funny and engaging in honor duels combined with tossing the word "Clan" in front of your name doesn't actually make you a Clan.

Anyone at all can do that, and so there's nothing actually special about it.

By this definition, the OWA could outlaw contractions, switch to a base-5 organization and rename themselves "Clan Pygmy Marmoset" and they'd then actually be a Clan.

[GI Journalist]

Are those really the only qualifications?

Latin, the official language of the Marian Hegemony, does not use contractions.  Our base-5 organization is the maniple.

Just call us Clan Revenant Legion.

[JediBear]

Are those really the only qualifications?

Latin, the official language of the Marian Hegemony, does not use contractions.  Our base-5 organization is the maniple.

Just call us Clan Revenant Legion.

Cool. You want to join the Grand Council and kick around some Successor Lords?

[GraeGor]

Works for me, we can move the Blood Spirits to the Little Clans' Table

[GI Journalist]

Cool. You want to join the Grand Council and kick around some Successor Lords?

As fun as that sounds, I think your orignal point stands. There is more to being a Clan than that. Kerensky's vision protected the Inner Sphere from the destructive power of the SLDF, and then the Clans perfected a way of minimalizing the negative impact of warfare, as opposed to the total warfare embraced by the Inner Sphere. "Clan Revenant Legion" might never be able to grasp the concept of limited warfare that helps define the Clans.

Of course, if the Clans do take over, they'll have to reconsider their philosophy. 

What I find interesting is that some of the Clans who have been kicked off the Grand Council spend more time trying to uphold their traditions than those who claim to be the true heirs of Kerensky. It's a fair question whether the exiles have been trying to recapture something that they've lost, or whether they are taking their oaths just as seriously as those on the GC.

I also find it remarkable that the Clans are unconcerned about a group like the Dark, which has completely rejected their tenets and is using Clan technology to blaze a swath of genocide across the Inner Sphere. I find it preposterous that such a group has attracted so many followers, especially as the Clans typically go out of their way to exterminate such scum. Whenever the Clans embrace Inner Sphere tactics and allow civilians to be targeted, they lose their moral high ground. The canonical Paul Moon eventually learned from his mistakes, even though it took the destruction of his Clan to see it. This one is characterized as a total monster who still doesn't get it. It's a real wall banger of a plot point that I'd like to see corrected.

[GraeGor]

regarding the Dark

1) they're on the far side of the IS, only the Adders and Horses really have any presence there; the Adders is minimal, and the Horses are probably trying to integrate themselves and the OWA

2) thanks to the ComStar Interdiction of Clan territory, the Clan's don't get updated as to the current state of affairs in the IS, those that have a "work around" may get it, but it will be considerably out of date

3) most Clan's likely don't care, if they know at all, seeing the Dark as "just desserts" for the Nations they're plaguing

4) those that do care, and know, aren't able to commit much currently, if anything, due to the Not-Named War

[Iron Mongoose]

When it comes to the Dark, I think a big point in their favor is that they don't generaly claim to be the Jaguars (though they do sometimes, when it suits them).  They are just "The Dark."  So the Clans don't feel like they are really treading on our intelectual property, or besmerching our name.  And when they call themselves the Jags, we just laugh at how silly that is, since everyone knows that getting defeated when all the IS houses gang up on you and no one helps out is a sure sign of weekness.  Its not like the Falcons went crying to the other Clans for help...

Anyway... so the Clans see the Dark as just some group.  As JediBear tells us, if you're not a part of the club, you don't really count, so its not really our problem.  The one group for whom it is a problem, the Horses, are doing something about it.  The Adders have mainly been laughing all the way to the bank as they take pressure off our chief ally. 

As for Paul Moon, there's no telling when he came to hold the views he does in the DA era, and what caused that to be the case.  It could have been the Jihad, but with no Jihad he's had no cause to reform.  It could be a product of the Phone Companies merging, as being held by just C* gave him a difrent perspective.  Or he might have just watched one too many violent cartoons, or played too many vidio games.  That is after all how someone becomes a genocidal mad man, right?

[Marlin]

To the Dark, the others summed it up. And Moon:I want some plot points corrected as well, in Canon as well as here. I doubt its gonna happen.

This deviates from Canon, so good ol' Paul might have seen things that made him.. more Drac/Capellan in mind. Dracs took no survivors earlier too.. why should the Paul?

And well, he is not Clan anymore and pokes the mightiest realm besides the Terrans. I kinda like that.

[GI Journalist]

While it would be nice if the Clans policed up after their own, I can understand why its not going to happen here.

My main problem with the Dark is that they don't make sense. They aren't actually bandits or Jaguar holdouts. Instead, they're some kind of death cult following a poorly written villain with no redeeming features. As far as tropes go, this one isn't working for me. In the DA timeline, Moon has plenty of time to think about Trent and the destruction of the Smoke Jaguars. In this timeline, someone gave him a bunch of fanatical troops, put him on the opposite side of the Sphere from the Clans and turned him loose on innocent planetary populations, which he is murdering out of some vague notion of revenge.

But as you say, they're not really Clanners.  He was only raised, equipped, and disciplined by the Clans, so the Inner Sphere can't really blame Clan society for producing him now that he has gone over to the dark side. Mind you, if the Smoke Jaguars had been defeated by another Clan, they would have been quietly Absorbed, but because it was the Star League that beat them, the remainder have become remorseless killing machines, taking the actions that caused the Inner Sphere to target the Jaguars to a new extreme.



If the Smoke Jaguars represent the pinnacle of what Clan society is capable of producing and the rest of the Clans are incapable of dealing with them when they go wrong, then what exactly is the value of Clan society?

[tassa_kay]

I think, given their already-brutal and bloodthirsty mindset, and adding a big heaping helping of genocide (the Annihilation, more or less, would be seen by THEM as genocide, even if it wasn't) and ultimate betrayal (having every single Clan turn their backs on them when the Inner Sphere ganged up to destroy them), that the Dark make perfect sense.  Their own society basically kicked them out, and they're bred to kill... becoming even more remorseless killimg machines and mass murderers seems like a logical progression to me.  They literally have nothing to live for anymore, since they have no standing and can't achieve any of their societal goals (namely, restoring the Star League, etc etc)... so yeah, societal nihilism is 100% fitting, in-character, and makes perfect sense.

[Pink_Knight]

How are the Jags the 'pinnacle of Clan society'? I don't quite get where that comes into play. The Jags got attacked, they asked for helped and were ignored, thus allowing the SL to wipe them out.

Its not the act of being defeated by the SL that pushed them to become the Dark, it was the other Clans not aiding them, thus removing them from Clan society and forever stripping them of the purpose and fate they had lived for their entire lives. No longer being a Clan, means that they will never be able to take Terra, never be able to reform the true Star Leauge, never be able to accomplish any of their goals. That would shatter their collective mindset, and in that situation, those with the strongest natual personalities would come to the fore with whatever personal motivations they hold, and push on.

If Moon holds Victor most personally responsible for the destruction of the Smoke Jaguars, then its perfectly acceptable to me that he would strike into the Federated Suns and cause as much damage as possible, if only to cause Victor pain by proving that he cannot defend his own people.