I think that when you're first introduced to Battletech as a young person you're like "cool! Giant stompy robots!". When you're older and saltier you're like " Wow, the geo-political spacescape creates and environment where the pain,death , and suffering is beyond human suffering. Also, giant stompy robots!"
Hope you're all ready for a light and cheery episode. It's nothing but wall to wall japes and shenanigans. Absolutely nothing traumatic or apocalyptic happens, promise.
You asked at the end why Forlow gets so much more attention than the destruction of Inglesmond and other worlds... I think I know why. The Succession Wars were horrible, but their horror is well known among any Battletech fan. Maybe not the sheer scale, but I can't say it is any surprise really. In contrast, the Star League is painted as the height of civilization, utterly different than the barbarity of the Succession Wars and Lords. For many, your videos on the Reunification Wars were the first taste of the reality behind the League. Makes it stick more.
I imagine Lauren Hayes sitting in her quarters on Terra with a bottle of whiskey, quietly and venomously cursing General Kerensky as the list of casualty reports and dead worlds roll in.
Hayes sadly kind of disappears from the story after this point. ComStar does their best to not become a target and that involves breaking down, mothballing or decommissioning most of their military assets, giving Hayes not much left to work with. There's still one more covert military action she's behind in the next episode but that's pretty much it.
Very apt for the First Succession War. Any credibility the claimants had goes right out the window along with ethics and morality. No body has really won anything by the end of it.
If I had to guess, I'd say the reason why the Kentares Massacre is better-known than Tyrfing is that the majority of the victims on Kentares IV were killed by _hand_ rather than WMDs
My takeaway is that House Kurita is directly responsible for the Renaissance of the 31st century by using nuclear weapons to render Helm strategically worthless, thereby preserving the now-famed memory core. Thank you First Lord Kurita!
Man Tyrfing was a rare battle for sure. The only time all 5 Successor States fighting over a single world. It just amazes me that these people would resort to such barbarism just to rule over each other.
There's a good chance I'm wrong but I think it's the only time that the five major houses have all been fighting at the same time on one planet. Certainly don't recall any incidents before this in the timeline.
I can't think of any of time besides Tyrfing were the Great Houses had a five way free for all but much later in the time line all the Great Houses would fight together on Strana Mechty against the Clans. All the Great Houses would also fight together again on Terra during the Jihad. @@SvenVanDerPlank
@@SvenVanDerPlank Am kind of shocked it was only one time they had all five on the same world, a setting like 40k you would regularly see most mainline factions fighting on a world.
@MrCookie0510 There are other planets where everyone has fought on at some point, but never concurrently like Tyrfing. Other than that there are a few three-way battles I can think of but nothing beyond that comes to mind.
Another interesting but underdiscussed cataclysm which begins with the commencement of the First Succession War is the general depopulation of marginal systems, esp. on the Periphery. The Outworlds Alliance loses maybe 2/3rds of all the systems it posessed at the beginning of the Amaris War, and most of those without the hands of a conqueror. The Inner Sphere today (3025) is not merely a less advanced place than in 2750, but also drastically emptier.
This is what the Hegemony fostered: reliance on the Hegemony. so this is only consequential when the houses ripped the Hegemony to shreds that all systems that rely on it suffer heavily. Plus the Alliance probabl suffered more then others from pirates and petty warlords due to their pacifistic nature.
I think what makes Kentares more horrific is that it wasn't just nuking and orbital bombardments. It was that whole "Use your swords to kill these vermin!" thing which makes it more personal. That act broke the morale of the DCMS troops, even they got sick of it.
And despite the literal hands-on approach which takes longer, it still only took a few months to kill fifty million civilians mostly with auto-rifles and katanas.
I never heard of the Battle of Tyrfing. 5-way battle for a former star league planet. God's what'll happen with the Helm fight. And all the planets in the former terran hegemony, Oh God.
I wanted to bring attention to some of those lesser known battles because they far surpass the more infamous Kentares Massacre, which is probably the first thing that comes to mind when someone thinks First Succession War. That had its own horror to it though, but we'll get to that in a couple of episodes.
It does sound a bit less than the pure unadultered HATE that was the Kentares massacre. You did it justice though, I can see the fight for yet ANOTHER sldf castle as something to make note on. Still, 5-way fight man, how the hell did the Davions get into the place I'll never know.
It will always be amazing that there was anything left after the dust of the First Succession War settled. Truly the most barbaric, yet still very human, period of Battletech's history.
Calling this episode ”somber” might be Sven’s contribution to the Understatement Olympics. Like… I knew it was going to get bad, but by the time of the outro, it was actually getting hard to listen to. I think this series has actually made 40K less grimdark than BTech, because 40K never gives you any numbers. Keep up the great work, Sven; I’ll keep watching for as long as you make these. Love you. Now I’m going to watch cute animal videos to wash the taste of raw despair out of my mouth.
In a universe famous for its war crimes committed by everyone. Draconis Combine really are the guys that people can point to and say "you know, I think these are the bad guys"
You definitely weren't kidding with the casualty count going astronomically high (pun intended, cause a lot were occurring in space). But I've been thoroughly enjoying these videos, I'm getting to learn more about one of my favorite franchises in great detail! You and all the other BattleTech content creators on here have reignited my love of it. You guys all rock!
Thank you, I'm glad you're enjoying the videos. I'm enjoying exploring some of these overlooked parts of the history and seeing what kind of horrors we uncover.
Yeah, I agree. As soon as the Successor Lords commit to this level of war, any SLDF concentrations would just get obliterated as priority targets. The only thing that allowed the Successor States to weather the storm (just barely) was the amount of territory they controlled, over which their military and manufacturing ability was dispersed. The bombed out Hegemony would not have been able to sustain the SLDF for long, as its size was only possible as long as funds continued to flow from the Member and Territorial-States.
@@SvenVanDerPlankcounterpoint. Assuming he could maintain control of all his remaining forces, I am reasonably certain he could have taken out any one of the big 5. An announcement that whatever party started the fighting first would be given the same treatment as Amaris would make even Kurita think twice I believe.
The biggest threat to WarShips isn't other WarShips, it's small vessels like Aerospace Fighters launching missiles with nuclear warheads. The Taurians demonstrated that weakness with their FireShips during the Reunification War. The power of WarShips is to deploy overwhelming amounts of orbital fire during ground engagements, but once the gloves come off with WMD usage, they're extremely vulnerable, hence why they very quickly died out.
@Korraganitar I agree, Kerensky had a TON of clout given his leadership during the Amaris coup, and the SLDF were still loyal to him. I see a few ways he could have severely limited or even prevented the Succession wars. As you said, declare that whoever starts it gets the Amaris treatment, and if he can convince blake to work with him and cut off HPG service to that state, that's a huge advantage. The only problem is, who heads it? Kerensky doesn't want to be first lord, so who takes the job? In my eyes, Jerome Blake is the guy. He runs the HPG network and is essentially the last star league official. Kerensky backs him, that's a lot of clout, combined with blakes ability to just shut off communications to whatever state objects. Is it perfect? No, are there issues I'm overlooking? Probably, but given what actually happens in lore, holy shit anything is better than the succession wars, IMO. *Edit, woops, didn't show who i was replying to*
This was an incredible episode that I don't think even mentioned a single mech. I had no idea that playing mechwarrior 2 would lead me to an epic space opera where I was so invested in the story line, and we've not even reached the timeline point where I entered the game almost 3 decades ago.
I think the 'Mechs are almost always there on the ground level but with a campaign this size I can only give a very high-level overview, in which the particular tactics employed the 'Mech regiments rarely features.
very meme rich episode this time with the outgunnedgunned, the glitches, the incoming nuclear missile as way of greeting, the Kuritan impossibru honor, the no wonder they lost they had BARONS. truly amazing memes of viscous texture.
My god, man. I played table top BT way back in the late 80’s and early 90’s, but not once did we set up during the FSW timeframe. Now I know why: it would have been a short campaign. Turn one, Kurita nukes you. End of game.
Exactly. Players would have begun by setting up their characters or choosing their 'Mechs, then at the end of a successful mission, "Congratulations you won. The retreating enemy commander calls in a nuclear strike on your position. You and the objective are obliterated." FUN!
Hahaha, I thought I was making something sad when I was putting this together. Something went wrong in the premiere where somehow it transitioned into a big joke.
@@SvenVanDerPlankit was still sad the memes lightened the mood a bit but the video was still amazing and your coverage touching at times, you did a great job with this premiere don't worry.
You popped up in my feed at random a few days ago. I’d never looked into BattleTech before but something about the video caught my eye and made me click. I’m so glad I did! I’ve binged this whole playlist and can’t for more! You’re a fantastic storyteller!
Buckle up everyone. Things get crazier. Sven, great work. I’m one of those legacy players that started playing in the late 80’s. I’m a gearhead so I’m always excited when mecha of any sort are mentioned. Your work immerses fans into the BT universe as eagerly as any of the source books, games, sims, wargames, and novel arcs of the past four decades. It’s that same feeling when you dive into the games and source data for the first time. Love your collabs with other BT creators. Well done sir. Bravo Zulu.
God damn this gets so overwhelming so quickly. Thanks for these First War histories. It's harrowing to hear the choices made by what feels to be real people struggling in the moment. The somber scripting and narration just drives the point home.
I appreciate that folks like you and Tex are willing to dive into the earlier eras of the setting. It's one thing to read a summation that says the 1st succession war was cataclysmic. It's another to hear a more detailed breakdown of various events and actions. Thanks you for your work on this.
Hope you enjoy it. Each one of these videos that I get done is a step closer to the day when I actually get to play MW5 (I tell myself it's a reward for making it to 3025).
@@SvenVanDerPlankit was dope! What happened to the troops that went into the crystal caves? Get lost looking for lostech loot? Well since you're waiting to play MW I'd love it if you checked out my MW5 music montages. If you want. Working on another probably for the Highlander, maybe. I just figured out I could use free cam on my PS5 so now I'm all jazzed up with ideas. My Atlas one is almost all free cam shots.
Minoru Kurita on Helm: Close, but no banana! Though one would have to agree, the "Ghost Rain Protocol" that wiped out a lot of the population on Helm did alot to protect the Memory Core from discovery. Major Keeler's last act of defiance would echo throughout history.
The Endless War certainly captures the entire geopolitical mood of MW5, from all the military scifi settings this is the one which I feel captures the best the concept of realpolitiks.
Gary Jules. Songs From the Big Chair is a great album, but it's the only one of theirs I like. Their version of Mad World does absolutely nothing for me. Just a generic 80s pop song. As a Brit, I do hold a certain resentment towards the Gary Jules version for robbing us of perhaps the greatest Christmas #1 song ever, but that's outweighed by how good that version of Mad World is. I know it's in Donnie Darko but for me it's synonymous with Gears, and various other childhood memories through that.
@@SvenVanDerPlank ah man. We have the exact opposite opinion. I think Jules' version, while beautiful and somber, is just a generic piano cover. The Tears for fears one is far from a generic 80s pop song. It's so discordant. It has an upbeat happy melody with a distorted layer underneath that really underlines the lyrics and sense of unreality that deep depression and anxiety can bring on. In my opinion.
@@mikeumm I just gave it another listen because it's been a few years. I think calling it a generic 80s hit was not at all fair, but my dislike remains. It's particularly the vocals which I really do not enjoy. I couldn't identify any time signature changes but it just sounds to me like the singer is out of time, like he's going too fast for the song. You mention a discordant quality which I can totally hear, and I can point to other artists I like (VU and Stooges come to mind but I'm sure there's others) who also have that same quality in several of their songs, but it just doesn't sound right to my ears. I feel like I'd prefer it if it took it's time a bit more. Only having that instrumental interlude last 20 seconds was not enough for me.
Nothing like a nice little nuclear apocalypse or two to end the day. I still can't shake the feeling there should be larger numbers in ships, industry, casualties and people in general for a civilization that had over 700 years to grow under modern circumstances. I mean look at population developement on earth over the last 700 years (and for most of that time conditions were worse and technology was less developed than in BT).
@SvenVanDerPlank since you are doing more shorter vids, once is done with a "section" or "era" or whatever. are you going to edit the smaller vids into larger ones? (i personally enjoyed the long form vids, as i would play them while painting my Mechs for the TTG, but having shorter ones are good as well!) Keep up the great work!
Absolutely. Every time I conclude a series (First Succession War for example) I plan to reupload them into one long compilation vid like I have in the past, along with any changes or additions that I pick up on over the course of doing the individual chapters.
There's a few already visible on the "south" end of the map. They were already gone in the 2784 map. Because we don't have exact dates for even half of the ones that disappear, I'm just going to have them all change at once at the end of the series.
As always a wonderfully well put together video. Devastating to hear the loss of life, doubly so to know the death toll only goes up from here. It was one thing to read about these events in snippets here or there in the past but wow seeing it all together. Just devastating.
Every faction had already used WMDs? Did you forget to mention the capellans first use of them in the last video or am I just forgetting that you did? Only nukes on that front I remember was FWL nuking capellan warships and spaceports and burning cities.
In that same space battle, the surviving Capellan WarShip tried to use their own nukes but only caught DropShips and fighters. They've used orbital bombardments several times by the end of this episode, which may or may not include nukes launched from orbit.
For the Algorithm! Also, I despise the Inner Sphere and Star League even more now that I've seen Sven and Tex's videos. Ill stay in the Concordat thanks.
Okay, now at the bit where Comstar(with Lauren Hayes) just took over Terra. Masterful positioning my Jerome Blake and his (future) cult, getting the fighting going THEN make their move so each idiotic house is busy with the others. The 5 first houses wete probably thinking they could take on Comstar if they wanted to, but they never will in the future.
Be warned. This episode is filled love, fairness, equality and peace. Absolutely no one died. I swear on the name of chancellor Liao's name that im telling the truth
12:30 The weapons facility on Helm did exist and would remain undiscovered for 250 years until it was found by the Grey Death Legion, with the resulting discovery of a data core changing the face of Inner Sphere.
Hey, amazing history lessons, thank you!:) Such a grim universe it is. One improvement: could you put the Episode Number also in the Video title here on UA-cam? Otherwise, it was difficult to know if the next clip is the right one in order in the list view,
You're welcome, glad you're enjoying them. Thank you for the suggestion. Unfortunately the video titles are often at the character limit, so I'd only be able to add the episode number to half of them. Furthermore, replacing words for numbers doesn't help with the SEO so it's lower priority. However, all the thumbnails have the episode number in them (as well as the year) and there is a full playlist for the series on the channel that has them all in order. Hopefully that's useful to you. Thanks.
As always Sven; I'm looking forward to this video. The Succession Wars and the turmoil and devastation that is wrought during this time is always bandied about in the fiction, but is usually pretty murky in the end. Your videos have always been wonderful in the detail they bring to this IP and the rich history that is often overlooked. Will probably miss the premier, but as usual I'll be watching it as soon as I can.
I imagine it's potato shaped. It might be that the main colony there is a mining outpost on the large asteroid. But who knows, maybe it's a major agricultural world.
Watching these attrocities, it's starting to feel painfully ironic that Amaris is considered the embodiment of evil in the BattleTech universe. Each one of these would-be First Lords does orders of magnitude more damage than he even dreamed of.
Yeah, we're already so far beyond Amaris. I do think that his Operation TRIPWIRE did kind of open the door to these kind of things, but that was still tiny compared to the likes of Tyrfing or Inglesmond.
Amaris is more considered evil I think for being a Judas, in addition to being a mass murderer, while, regardless of the merits of future Lords, the first generation of the Successors could hide behind the pretense of military necessity. Once one rival does it, your own extermination of a planet can no longer shock in comparison to anything.
We'll get to it eventually. It was reading the 4thSW Atlases that originally gave me the idea of doing this series so it's definitely something I want to cover.
Incidents like Inglesmond and Tyrfing are a good reminder that the Davions are still warlords same as the other scavenger lords at the end of the day, just more self-righteous and with good PR. A nice warlord is still a warlord.
I feel like Tyrfing is the microcosm of the the Succession wars as a whole. It's the battle that can be used to describe the conflicts to come and to show how chaotic and destructive it is.
Your videos just continue to get better. Amazing stuff. Lore about the war is spread over so many books that the true scope of the war is hard to see. You do a great job tying it all together into a horrifying whole.
I think that when you're first introduced to Battletech as a young person you're like "cool! Giant stompy robots!". When you're older and saltier you're like " Wow, the geo-political spacescape creates and environment where the pain,death , and suffering is beyond human suffering. Also, giant stompy robots!"
Lures you with GIANT STOMPY ROBOTS, keeps you with so much wonderful lore, and STILL giant stompy robots.
Hope you're all ready for a light and cheery episode. It's nothing but wall to wall japes and shenanigans. Absolutely nothing traumatic or apocalyptic happens, promise.
Oh God, they were using BARON's in this war. Any warship is better than no warship I guess.
just light-hearted shenanigans and just a smidge of trolling going on
I nuke, you nuke, we all nuke, for my Duke!
Hey, What's a few nukes amongst friends?
You asked at the end why Forlow gets so much more attention than the destruction of Inglesmond and other worlds... I think I know why.
The Succession Wars were horrible, but their horror is well known among any Battletech fan. Maybe not the sheer scale, but I can't say it is any surprise really. In contrast, the Star League is painted as the height of civilization, utterly different than the barbarity of the Succession Wars and Lords. For many, your videos on the Reunification Wars were the first taste of the reality behind the League. Makes it stick more.
I imagine Lauren Hayes sitting in her quarters on Terra with a bottle of whiskey, quietly and venomously cursing General Kerensky as the list of casualty reports and dead worlds roll in.
Hayes sadly kind of disappears from the story after this point. ComStar does their best to not become a target and that involves breaking down, mothballing or decommissioning most of their military assets, giving Hayes not much left to work with. There's still one more covert military action she's behind in the next episode but that's pretty much it.
@@SvenVanDerPlank That's just a matter of fan-writing! :)
After listening to this, the old quote feels fitting: "war does not determine who is right, only who is left".
Very apt for the First Succession War. Any credibility the claimants had goes right out the window along with ethics and morality. No body has really won anything by the end of it.
True that!!
"and then it got worse"
- Every history of the succession wars
about every other page too, things STEADILY and PREDICTABLY go worse.
Also Warhammer 40K!!
If I had to guess, I'd say the reason why the Kentares Massacre is better-known than Tyrfing is that the majority of the victims on Kentares IV were killed by _hand_ rather than WMDs
*Me, sadly watching this video's events:* "It can't possibly get much worse than this, can it?"
*Sven, with much cheer:* "But wait, there's more!"
My takeaway is that House Kurita is directly responsible for the Renaissance of the 31st century by using nuclear weapons to render Helm strategically worthless, thereby preserving the now-famed memory core. Thank you First Lord Kurita!
Hahaha, what a fantastic outlook. Long live the Draconis Combine. Long live House Kurita.
Man Tyrfing was a rare battle for sure. The only time all 5 Successor States fighting over a single world. It just amazes me that these people would resort to such barbarism just to rule over each other.
There's a good chance I'm wrong but I think it's the only time that the five major houses have all been fighting at the same time on one planet. Certainly don't recall any incidents before this in the timeline.
I can't think of any of time besides Tyrfing were the Great Houses had a five way free for all but much later in the time line all the Great Houses would fight together on Strana Mechty against the Clans. All the Great Houses would also fight together again on Terra during the Jihad. @@SvenVanDerPlank
@@SvenVanDerPlank Am kind of shocked it was only one time they had all five on the same world, a setting like 40k you would regularly see most mainline factions fighting on a world.
@MrCookie0510 There are other planets where everyone has fought on at some point, but never concurrently like Tyrfing. Other than that there are a few three-way battles I can think of but nothing beyond that comes to mind.
Another interesting but underdiscussed cataclysm which begins with the commencement of the First Succession War is the general depopulation of marginal systems, esp. on the Periphery. The Outworlds Alliance loses maybe 2/3rds of all the systems it posessed at the beginning of the Amaris War, and most of those without the hands of a conqueror.
The Inner Sphere today (3025) is not merely a less advanced place than in 2750, but also drastically emptier.
This is what the Hegemony fostered: reliance on the Hegemony. so this is only consequential when the houses ripped the Hegemony to shreds that all systems that rely on it suffer heavily. Plus the Alliance probabl suffered more then others from pirates and petty warlords due to their pacifistic nature.
I think what makes Kentares more horrific is that it wasn't just nuking and orbital bombardments. It was that whole "Use your swords to kill these vermin!" thing which makes it more personal. That act broke the morale of the DCMS troops, even they got sick of it.
And despite the literal hands-on approach which takes longer, it still only took a few months to kill fifty million civilians mostly with auto-rifles and katanas.
I never heard of the Battle of Tyrfing. 5-way battle for a former star league planet. God's what'll happen with the Helm fight. And all the planets in the former terran hegemony, Oh God.
I wanted to bring attention to some of those lesser known battles because they far surpass the more infamous Kentares Massacre, which is probably the first thing that comes to mind when someone thinks First Succession War. That had its own horror to it though, but we'll get to that in a couple of episodes.
It does sound a bit less than the pure unadultered HATE that was the Kentares massacre. You did it justice though, I can see the fight for yet ANOTHER sldf castle as something to make note on. Still, 5-way fight man, how the hell did the Davions get into the place I'll never know.
It will always be amazing that there was anything left after the dust of the First Succession War settled. Truly the most barbaric, yet still very human, period of Battletech's history.
Calling this episode ”somber” might be Sven’s contribution to the Understatement Olympics. Like… I knew it was going to get bad, but by the time of the outro, it was actually getting hard to listen to.
I think this series has actually made 40K less grimdark than BTech, because 40K never gives you any numbers.
Keep up the great work, Sven; I’ll keep watching for as long as you make these. Love you. Now I’m going to watch cute animal videos to wash the taste of raw despair out of my mouth.
In a universe famous for its war crimes committed by everyone. Draconis Combine really are the guys that people can point to and say "you know, I think these are the bad guys"
And we haven't even gotten to Kentares yet!
You definitely weren't kidding with the casualty count going astronomically high (pun intended, cause a lot were occurring in space). But I've been thoroughly enjoying these videos, I'm getting to learn more about one of my favorite franchises in great detail! You and all the other BattleTech content creators on here have reignited my love of it. You guys all rock!
Thank you, I'm glad you're enjoying the videos. I'm enjoying exploring some of these overlooked parts of the history and seeing what kind of horrors we uncover.
Kerensky had zero chances of stopping this militarily
Yeah, I agree. As soon as the Successor Lords commit to this level of war, any SLDF concentrations would just get obliterated as priority targets. The only thing that allowed the Successor States to weather the storm (just barely) was the amount of territory they controlled, over which their military and manufacturing ability was dispersed. The bombed out Hegemony would not have been able to sustain the SLDF for long, as its size was only possible as long as funds continued to flow from the Member and Territorial-States.
@@SvenVanDerPlankcounterpoint. Assuming he could maintain control of all his remaining forces, I am reasonably certain he could have taken out any one of the big 5. An announcement that whatever party started the fighting first would be given the same treatment as Amaris would make even Kurita think twice I believe.
If he focuses on destroying all the ship yards, then the warships he could have won i think.
The biggest threat to WarShips isn't other WarShips, it's small vessels like Aerospace Fighters launching missiles with nuclear warheads. The Taurians demonstrated that weakness with their FireShips during the Reunification War. The power of WarShips is to deploy overwhelming amounts of orbital fire during ground engagements, but once the gloves come off with WMD usage, they're extremely vulnerable, hence why they very quickly died out.
@Korraganitar I agree, Kerensky had a TON of clout given his leadership during the Amaris coup, and the SLDF were still loyal to him. I see a few ways he could have severely limited or even prevented the Succession wars. As you said, declare that whoever starts it gets the Amaris treatment, and if he can convince blake to work with him and cut off HPG service to that state, that's a huge advantage. The only problem is, who heads it? Kerensky doesn't want to be first lord, so who takes the job? In my eyes, Jerome Blake is the guy. He runs the HPG network and is essentially the last star league official. Kerensky backs him, that's a lot of clout, combined with blakes ability to just shut off communications to whatever state objects. Is it perfect? No, are there issues I'm overlooking? Probably, but given what actually happens in lore, holy shit anything is better than the succession wars, IMO. *Edit, woops, didn't show who i was replying to*
This was an incredible episode that I don't think even mentioned a single mech. I had no idea that playing mechwarrior 2 would lead me to an epic space opera where I was so invested in the story line, and we've not even reached the timeline point where I entered the game almost 3 decades ago.
I think the 'Mechs are almost always there on the ground level but with a campaign this size I can only give a very high-level overview, in which the particular tactics employed the 'Mech regiments rarely features.
very meme rich episode this time with the outgunnedgunned, the glitches, the incoming nuclear missile as way of greeting, the Kuritan impossibru honor, the no wonder they lost they had BARONS. truly amazing memes of viscous texture.
Hahahaha, that was not my intention AT ALL. I know I included Barbossa but I swear I was trying to create a sombre mood.
@@SvenVanDerPlank yet, it's fine because it lightened the mood a bit
My god, man. I played table top BT way back in the late 80’s and early 90’s, but not once did we set up during the FSW timeframe. Now I know why: it would have been a short campaign. Turn one, Kurita nukes you. End of game.
Exactly. Players would have begun by setting up their characters or choosing their 'Mechs, then at the end of a successful mission, "Congratulations you won. The retreating enemy commander calls in a nuclear strike on your position. You and the objective are obliterated." FUN!
Oof
*"Just saw another house think they deserve to rule the sphere. The Star league has fallen. Billions must be nuked."*
What an uplifting episode!
:D
Hahaha, I thought I was making something sad when I was putting this together. Something went wrong in the premiere where somehow it transitioned into a big joke.
@@SvenVanDerPlankit was still sad the memes lightened the mood a bit but the video was still amazing and your coverage touching at times, you did a great job with this premiere don't worry.
You popped up in my feed at random a few days ago. I’d never looked into BattleTech before but something about the video caught my eye and made me click. I’m so glad I did! I’ve binged this whole playlist and can’t for more! You’re a fantastic storyteller!
That brief spurt of wisdom that lead to the Ares Convention has well and truly been forgotten.
Good stuff my man, one day you'll get to the Il-Clan lore and modern battle tech will finally make sense.
One day, maybe in 3151, lol. I do definitely plan to cover the whole timeline but that's a multi-year project.
Buckle up everyone. Things get crazier.
Sven, great work. I’m one of those legacy players that started playing in the late 80’s.
I’m a gearhead so I’m always excited when mecha of any sort are mentioned.
Your work immerses fans into the BT universe as eagerly as any of the source books, games, sims, wargames, and novel arcs of the past four decades.
It’s that same feeling when you dive into the games and source data for the first time.
Love your collabs with other BT creators.
Well done sir. Bravo Zulu.
Star league weapons cache in technology hah I did a battle report a few months ago with a similar story background glad I was right on the money.
God damn this gets so overwhelming so quickly. Thanks for these First War histories. It's harrowing to hear the choices made by what feels to be real people struggling in the moment. The somber scripting and narration just drives the point home.
I just listened to this while walking on a foggy rainy mountain in Oregon, so I missed all the memes. Your intended mood was achieved.
I appreciate that folks like you and Tex are willing to dive into the earlier eras of the setting. It's one thing to read a summation that says the 1st succession war was cataclysmic. It's another to hear a more detailed breakdown of various events and actions.
Thanks you for your work on this.
Thank you for fleshing out this part of Battletech history. Your narration and music are perfect.
Hey hey I forgot today was the day the video came out. I just got done playing MW5 all day so my mind and body are ready.
Hope you enjoy it. Each one of these videos that I get done is a step closer to the day when I actually get to play MW5 (I tell myself it's a reward for making it to 3025).
@@SvenVanDerPlankit was dope! What happened to the troops that went into the crystal caves? Get lost looking for lostech loot?
Well since you're waiting to play MW I'd love it if you checked out my MW5 music montages. If you want. Working on another probably for the Highlander, maybe. I just figured out I could use free cam on my PS5 so now I'm all jazzed up with ideas. My Atlas one is almost all free cam shots.
Hippity hoppity
Awesome work Sven. Thank you.
Minoru Kurita on Helm:
Close, but no banana!
Though one would have to agree, the "Ghost Rain Protocol" that wiped out a lot of the population on Helm did alot to protect the Memory Core from discovery.
Major Keeler's last act of defiance would echo throughout history.
Really great story. Thank you for doing this
You're welcome. Glad you enjoyed it.
I thnk we need a campaign book for Tyrfing, Battle of five armies !!
The Endless War certainly captures the entire geopolitical mood of MW5, from all the military scifi settings this is the one which I feel captures the best the concept of realpolitiks.
At first I thought you meant the Kentares massacre when you said about the whole atrocities on another level thing.
Now it pales in comparison.
all around me are familiar faces
burn out places
burn out faceees
Legit makes me cry that song.
Ok but the real question... Tears for fears or Gary Jules?
Gary Jules. Songs From the Big Chair is a great album, but it's the only one of theirs I like. Their version of Mad World does absolutely nothing for me. Just a generic 80s pop song. As a Brit, I do hold a certain resentment towards the Gary Jules version for robbing us of perhaps the greatest Christmas #1 song ever, but that's outweighed by how good that version of Mad World is. I know it's in Donnie Darko but for me it's synonymous with Gears, and various other childhood memories through that.
@@SvenVanDerPlank ah man. We have the exact opposite opinion. I think Jules' version, while beautiful and somber, is just a generic piano cover.
The Tears for fears one is far from a generic 80s pop song. It's so discordant. It has an upbeat happy melody with a distorted layer underneath that really underlines the lyrics and sense of unreality that deep depression and anxiety can bring on.
In my opinion.
@@mikeumm I just gave it another listen because it's been a few years. I think calling it a generic 80s hit was not at all fair, but my dislike remains. It's particularly the vocals which I really do not enjoy. I couldn't identify any time signature changes but it just sounds to me like the singer is out of time, like he's going too fast for the song. You mention a discordant quality which I can totally hear, and I can point to other artists I like (VU and Stooges come to mind but I'm sure there's others) who also have that same quality in several of their songs, but it just doesn't sound right to my ears. I feel like I'd prefer it if it took it's time a bit more. Only having that instrumental interlude last 20 seconds was not enough for me.
ayyyy, lets go :3 once again, thanks for making it.
I think I read this book? It sounds super similar to something ive read.
Looking forward to this. Amazing work, what a great series!
Neat to see you here Cap'n. Always enjoy your Old School videos.
@@Zenoflame Awww.. thanks!
Fuck yeah. It's the cap
Would an Old Fashioned cocktail and a cigar be recommended while viewing?
A good combo.
I was smoking a cigar during the premiere I will now treat myself to whiskey
Nothing like a nice little nuclear apocalypse or two to end the day. I still can't shake the feeling there should be larger numbers in ships, industry, casualties and people in general for a civilization that had over 700 years to grow under modern circumstances. I mean look at population developement on earth over the last 700 years (and for most of that time conditions were worse and technology was less developed than in BT).
I appreciate the thorough coverage. Keep up the good work
In a mechwarrior5 mission, you find a derelict warship.. ryana calls it a monstruosity responsible for the death of millions. Wasnt kidding!
Cant wait, u do amazing job!
Another amazing video!!
@SvenVanDerPlank since you are doing more shorter vids, once is done with a "section" or "era" or whatever. are you going to edit the smaller vids into larger ones? (i personally enjoyed the long form vids, as i would play them while painting my Mechs for the TTG, but having shorter ones are good as well!) Keep up the great work!
Absolutely. Every time I conclude a series (First Succession War for example) I plan to reupload them into one long compilation vid like I have in the past, along with any changes or additions that I pick up on over the course of doing the individual chapters.
Another great episode
This whole thing is like the Wars of The Doadachi only on steroids.
Amazing job as always
I remember you debating how to represent dead worlds on the map... I guess we'll find out 😬
There's a few already visible on the "south" end of the map. They were already gone in the 2784 map. Because we don't have exact dates for even half of the ones that disappear, I'm just going to have them all change at once at the end of the series.
Man. This one year in the first succession war was awful. And it wont be getting better anytime soon. Davion, my guys, get your crap together. Please.
It is time for the Nuke Throwing Festival at a galactic scale!
As always a wonderfully well put together video. Devastating to hear the loss of life, doubly so to know the death toll only goes up from here.
It was one thing to read about these events in snippets here or there in the past but wow seeing it all together. Just devastating.
Keep up the good work.
Apocalypse is rightful title for this part of the First Succession War
Every faction had already used WMDs? Did you forget to mention the capellans first use of them in the last video or am I just forgetting that you did? Only nukes on that front I remember was FWL nuking capellan warships and spaceports and burning cities.
In that same space battle, the surviving Capellan WarShip tried to use their own nukes but only caught DropShips and fighters. They've used orbital bombardments several times by the end of this episode, which may or may not include nukes launched from orbit.
@@SvenVanDerPlank Thanks
Very dark and somber look at the First Secession War. Makes it pretty clear none of the great houses could lay claim to a moral high ground.
Well, that escalated quickly.
Awesomeness
Never underestimate Man's inhumanity to Man.
You know.. i can't waiting !!!
I luv your vids, thx a lot!
Apocalypse comes let the machines of war feast let the seas boil the stars burn out the planets shatter
For the Algorithm!
Also, I despise the Inner Sphere and Star League even more now that I've seen Sven and Tex's videos. Ill stay in the Concordat thanks.
I don't blame you.
The Concordat has a good run... enjoy it.
Kinda feels like Wizkids and CGL hate the Concordat, but that may finally be changing when the Two halves reunite sometime next decade in lore.
Says here in my contract that civilian casualties are mandatory? I really got to get better at reading the fine print.
War Crimes never sounded so good
>10 billion die
Great Houses: etoooo... bleh!
man lets just go full bore there don't need to be anything left standing at the end of this conflict
I know it is way in the future but will you cover the clan wars too??
I have no intention of stopping any time soon, but I'm sticking to covering the timeline linearly so it'll be a while yet before we get there.
Here is some algorithm pump .
I know it's fiction but the fact that humanity is actually capable of this shit is depressing as fuck...
Yep. Spot on.
Okay, now at the bit where Comstar(with Lauren Hayes) just took over Terra. Masterful positioning my Jerome Blake and his (future) cult, getting the fighting going THEN make their move so each idiotic house is busy with the others. The 5 first houses wete probably thinking they could take on Comstar if they wanted to, but they never will in the future.
There's one last chance to do something about ComStar in 2789, but as we'll see next time, it doesn't quite go to plan.
it's just W after W for Comstar for 200 years straight
Are you counting the various ComStar purges as wins?
@@SvenVanDerPlank of course, you need to make sure only the most faithful remain
Be warned. This episode is filled love, fairness, equality and peace. Absolutely no one died. I swear on the name of chancellor Liao's name that im telling the truth
ALL TARGETS ARE VALID TARGETS!
Now you're thinking like a Successor Lord!
12:30 The weapons facility on Helm did exist and would remain undiscovered for 250 years until it was found by the Grey Death Legion, with the resulting discovery of a data core changing the face of Inner Sphere.
Hey, amazing history lessons, thank you!:)
Such a grim universe it is.
One improvement: could you put the Episode Number also in the Video title here on UA-cam?
Otherwise, it was difficult to know if the next clip is the right one in order in the list view,
You're welcome, glad you're enjoying them.
Thank you for the suggestion. Unfortunately the video titles are often at the character limit, so I'd only be able to add the episode number to half of them. Furthermore, replacing words for numbers doesn't help with the SEO so it's lower priority.
However, all the thumbnails have the episode number in them (as well as the year) and there is a full playlist for the series on the channel that has them all in order. Hopefully that's useful to you. Thanks.
As always Sven; I'm looking forward to this video. The Succession Wars and the turmoil and devastation that is wrought during this time is always bandied about in the fiction, but is usually pretty murky in the end. Your videos have always been wonderful in the detail they bring to this IP and the rich history that is often overlooked.
Will probably miss the premier, but as usual I'll be watching it as soon as I can.
Thank you Zenoflame. I'm glad I can shine a light on some of those forgotten parts of the history.
There is a world of Potato (Pomme de Terre)??
I imagine it's potato shaped. It might be that the main colony there is a mining outpost on the large asteroid. But who knows, maybe it's a major agricultural world.
@SvenVanDerPlank according to Sarna it is an Agricultural world.
Well, I guess this fits, one of my hobbies is battletech, another one is gardening with one of my crops being potatoes, I grow a lot of potatoes 😀.
Watching these attrocities, it's starting to feel painfully ironic that Amaris is considered the embodiment of evil in the BattleTech universe. Each one of these would-be First Lords does orders of magnitude more damage than he even dreamed of.
Yeah, we're already so far beyond Amaris. I do think that his Operation TRIPWIRE did kind of open the door to these kind of things, but that was still tiny compared to the likes of Tyrfing or Inglesmond.
Amaris is more considered evil I think for being a Judas, in addition to being a mass murderer, while, regardless of the merits of future Lords, the first generation of the Successors could hide behind the pretense of military necessity. Once one rival does it, your own extermination of a planet can no longer shock in comparison to anything.
I hope one day to see the Fourth Succession War, that’s one of my favorite conflicts in Battletech. House Davion gave the Capellans a good stomping.
We'll get to it eventually. It was reading the 4thSW Atlases that originally gave me the idea of doing this series so it's definitely something I want to cover.
I can't wait for the Kentares episode. Also the aftermath with the ELH.
I suppose it is *WAY* too early to ask but...
Will you be incorporating events from the PC games into your lore videos?
Sure. I plan to do a video on the history of the Aurigan Reach as soon as I'm done with the Second Succession War.
@@SvenVanDerPlank Awesome!!!!!
May the peace of Blake be with you
Aw sheit here we go agen.
Instruments of destruction, tools of power play,
It's a violent eruption, existence drips away.
My gods... I knew the 1st SW was awful... but not THAT awful.
Incidents like Inglesmond and Tyrfing are a good reminder that the Davions are still warlords same as the other scavenger lords at the end of the day, just more self-righteous and with good PR. A nice warlord is still a warlord.
I feel like Tyrfing is the microcosm of the the Succession wars as a whole. It's the battle that can be used to describe the conflicts to come and to show how chaotic and destructive it is.
Your videos just continue to get better. Amazing stuff. Lore about the war is spread over so many books that the true scope of the war is hard to see. You do a great job tying it all together into a horrifying whole.
Well damn...I knew it was going to be bad...BUT not this bad! 0.o'' this is on a whole other level.
Thank you and keep these coming! Great video and great work! You and the BlackpantsLegion are my favourites
This really brings it to light the insanity & inhumanity of the opening years of the first(!) Succession War.
Amazing work!
oh i just missed the chat poll, whitch greeting won?
The options were:
A) hello
B) hey
C) hi
D) nuclear launch
Most folks enjoy option D.
@@SvenVanDerPlankWelcome to the Battletech community, we love WMD and saturation bombing Civilian Targets!
Holy z0rg that is a high body count.
Like, wow...
Cheers!
Worst part? I can easily see humanity do this and worse, even today.
Amazing episode, if a really dark one.
😢
Bravo!