Like Warhammer lore is digestible because it’s very self aware that it’s ridiculous.

Battletech unfortunately is really self serious. The different houses of the Inner Sphere are basically a rough sketch of what a redditor thinks America, Europe, Russia, and China are and Japan.

Then you have the clans who are basically exiled nazis with a handful of quirky social progressive quirks.

This. Is a shame because Battletech and MechWarrior are really cool.

But the understanding of states of any stripe is basically what a redditor thinks if they were also from the 80s.

I think I would appreciate sci fi that werent blisteringly inaccurate and vulgar appropriations of real modern day states. God damn.

  • Max
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    8
    ·
    edit-2
    2 years ago

    is it a problem that all the various organizations in battletech are near uniformly morally detestable? I don’t think anyone is positively depicted outside of stories told from the perspective of individuals in the organizations, who of course view themselves favorably.

    • JJROKCZ@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      1 year ago

      Which is exactly like 40k where literally every faction and sub faction are horrible to live under. Yes even the tau with their outlawing of different culture and religion or you get disappeared

    • GloriousDoubleKOP
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      2 years ago

      Sure. It’s not a “problem” really. The issue that I have is that all of the houses and clans being detestible is based on bullshit we think is actually true in real life. Like they took the house that was “socialist” and basically slapped together ill the bullshit lies about real socialist states and then put a veneer of sci fi on it? Then the house that is the allegory for “America” is bad because they keep talking about freedom and all that bullshit but they’re… Smug about it. 😒

      I dont know all the lore. And Im slowly getting into it. But most of the stuff im seeing so far is just lazy sci fi. Which is a big shame.

      • Shrike502
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        7
        ·
        2 years ago

        The “lore” is just window dressing for having a game with stompy robots punching one another. That’s it. Same with Warhammer really

      • bemenaker@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        1 year ago

        The lore was written during the cold war and some of it is done as a mockery of what was at the time. Context of the 1980s is helpful to understand why it is written how it is.

      • Max
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        4
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        2 years ago

        You’re definitely not wrong. Admittedly my days of owning boxes of miniatures is long over, so my battletech knowledge does not extend beyond the late 2000s. Maybe it’s even worse now. Not to mention any sort of narrative lore controlled by a big business that hires working writers to fill out plot points will inevitably end up falling back on tired sci-fi tropes—many of which were solidified during the Cold War era.

  • PolandIsAStateOfMind
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    7
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    2 years ago

    ilKhan Kerensky never stops being funny though.

    His first name was even Nicholas. Someone there either read Lenin about SR’s or figured this on his own.

    • GloriousDoubleKOP
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      2 years ago

      Well sure. I guess what I would ask is if they read Lenin, then what was the deal with the clans being as fascistic as they are? Then there is that one house that is supposed to be an approximate of the soviet union and communist China. And they depict that like they based it off of Reddit memes.

      We have all talked about it before. Since we tend to know better, liberal entertainment and media betrays or reveals the author’s depth of knowledge about certain things.

      I guess like… If you want socialist societies to be bad guys or look bad, you dont REALLY have to lie about it. Just be honest and throw in some xreative spins that makes it seem crappy. Like maybe that socialistic house could have their shit together but because they are at odds with all the other houses, they gotta make due with shitty to downright inhospitable planets.

      • Munrock ☭
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        2 years ago

        liberal entertainment and media betrays or reveals the author’s depth of knowledge about certain things.

        It also propogates and reinforces misinformation. The author will fill their knowledge gaps with whatever the prevailing pop narrative is (e.g. red scare). Then the media consumers, often assuming that an author making an analogy implies authoritative knowledge of the subject (e.g. pop opinion of Orwell and Animal Farm), see this as more evidence that those falsehoods are correct and embrace the bad information with even more confidence.

        • GloriousDoubleKOP
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          2 years ago

          That is true unfortunately.

          I was soured at Cabinet of Curiosities for example because one episode thought it would be cool to tell bullshit about Gaddafi.

  • Shrike502
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    4
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    2 years ago

    But the understanding of states of any stripe is basically what a redditor thinks if they were also from the 80s.

    I mean, that’s pretty much what it is. It was created by liberal Yankee weebs.

    Then you have the clans who are basically exiled nazis with a handful of quirky social progressive quirks.

    And are lead by Kerensky, and also clan Wolf’s emblem is a bright red wolf’s head with golden stars on it. Yeah.

    • GloriousDoubleKOP
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      2 years ago

      Yeah. It’s ridiculous. My complaint I guess is why do all that nonsense when one could have just really made up some fresh lore instead of cobbling together dog shit memes? Oh well.