Only one more succession war until we're at the "start" of the setting, since people forget that the Fourth Succession War was where the story really began back in the day.
I forgot exactly how much of a punching bag Liao is in the setting. You know things are going to get good for everyone else when House Liao starts making serious gains or whenever it looks on the verge of a huge victory.
I decided to start like that so that anyone who wanted to get into reading the fiction wouldn't have to worry about any of the novels being spoiled by this series. Once I catch up I'll probably pick another point further in the timeline to look back from.
This series and your work has just been amazing. And we're only in the 2nd Secession War. Still got another 2 left and so much more after. BattleTech. Seriously. Got some epic stuff in it.
@@SvenVanDerPlank Don't destroy yourself. I've seen burnout in a couple other UA-cam creators I follow. Go at your own pace. You reach Clan Invasion. I think you've more than earned yourself a year long holiday.
I'll just keep chipping away at it. Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined I'd reach the 24 hour mark in this series, let alone hit it before even reaching 3025. I'll keep going as long as it remains fun.
The accidental format I've stumbled on has been to start each chapter with some important political change and end with a big battle. I write the whole series and then divide it up into segments depending on where those major events lie.
Sven “we’ll finally finishes the 2nd Succession War” Also Sven sweating as he looks at the daunting task of covering the 100+ years of the 3rd Succession War
I was going to say that capturing Danmar or risking him being taken out in the intense fighting of a deep strike raid was a bad idea when you could just let king blunder and do his thing while the Federated Suns could capitalize. But man it paid off well, even if not entirely in how they hoped.
It’s only slight less self defeating than the “death to mercenaries” policy the DCMS tried. It basically means the only units that will sign up with the dragon are small and so desperate they’ll take any contract or so big that they are basically a force unto themselves.
God, I love your indepth take on the succession wars... Great stuff and I love that you keep a very neutral tone, besides commenting on the true atrocities that did happen. Keep up the phenomenal work!! I am always excited to listen to you while I paint my Battletech miniatures!
Well thank you. Early Succession Wars was an era that got very little attention from what I'd seen so I've enjoyed shining some more light on these major conflicts.
@@SvenVanDerPlank you're welcome! You are doing the community a great service by giving this overview of key events of Battletech and making it into a very accessible format.
When you are through the 2nd succession War can you do a timelapse video of the map of the Inner Sphere throughout? With each year being 3-5 seconds? Would be interesting to see the border changes throughout
It's an interesting idea, but I don't have decent maps from before 2750. I'd need to redo the Reunification War ones at a higher resolution with a black background instead of white. I may do one for the entire Succession Wars era when I conclude that after 3039.
Thank you so much for all the work you put into this video! As always it was very good and I enjoyed it, a fee times it had me on the edge of my seat. I can’t wait to see what comes next with the third succession war.
Longtime viewer of the channel. All I can say is by understanding the past can we build a better future. Who am I kidding? The future will see multitudes die for few territorial gains that will have to be rebuilt to be useful and will be attacked because of any rebuilding!
11:05 - Hey Sven, this is more a behind the scenes question than a lore question. I know how small that pic is from the ComStar Sourcebook. How are you able to make the image that big in your movie maker to fill the whole screen? Whenever I do it I tend to get black/dark spaces around the sides.
So I'm in Vegas, if you're in Adobe whatever, names/places are probably gonna be slightly different, but hopefully you can follow along. When I drop an image into a project, I want to add an "Event Pan/Crop." For me its an icon in the corner of every image on the timeline. This is not the same as "Event FX," but it might be under that for you. Don't confuse this with adding "Track Motion" to the "Video Track" the image sits on, you want to change a specific event, not the whole layer. Clicking on that will open a pop-up window. Before doing anything else, I want to make sure "Stretch to fill Frame" is set to Yes, but you also need to change "Maintain Aspect Ratio" to Yes as well. Now change the "Position Width/Height" to a custom 16:9 aspect ratio, but before doing so, make sure "Lock Aspect Ratio" (distinct from "Maintain Aspect Ratio") is deselected so you can manually enter a value for each without the other trying to compensate. Your new width/height should not exceed the image's base resolution. As you adjust this, you should see an appropriate zoom in the Preview window. An easy way to make sure the values are correct is to set width to 16 pixels, height to 9, then reenable "Lock Aspect Ratio" and increase the value back up to the base resolution which you made a note of before making any changes. In practice, one dimension will remain unchanged, while the other will reduce until you hit a 16:9 ration. By having smaller values than the base resolution, you can crop parts off the edges if you wish. Still in that "Event Pan/Crop" window, I have my event timeline along the bottom which shows the same duration as it is set for on the project timeline. If I want the video to pan across an image, I need two keyframes, one at either end of the event timeline. Note that any later adjustments to the duration will require similar adjustments to the keyframe positions, or the pan will either not complete or stop prematurely. Then just adjust the "X/Y Center" so its at one extreme of the image at the first keyframe (without being off the edge), and the other extreme at the last keyframe. You can adjust the speed/smoothness of the pan animation by right-clicking on a specific keyframe to select from some presets or by adding "Keyframe Interpolation." Hopefully that helps.
@@SvenVanDerPlank Yeah, I'm in Vegas Movie Maker as well so this all makes sense to me. I had no idea where the Set Aspect Ratio and Lock Aspect Ratio were at. Now I can find it easily. Thank you, Sven! You are a freaking rock star! 🥰☺
Going back in time a bit. Where did you get the info for the step by step campaign of the SLDF's attack on Terra? I'm amazed you have the info down to the Armies.
I was a bit late but I still got to watch this the day it came out. Sven seems to have hit his stride and been knocking out great vids. Surely, the Second Succession War is the unsung great disaster of the Inner Sphere.
Cheers Deridus. I'm not sure what I expected of the 2ndSW coming into this series, but I think it has become my favourite conflict of the setting so far.
Hey Sven, long time listener first time commenter. I find your work to be extremely well done and I really like your attempts to tell these histories from the PoV of an in-universe historian. I actually had a question regarding that, and a related question to you personally Does your "character" hail from any of the Great Houses/Periphery/Comstar? Do they have any biases against them? For the personal question, what is your favorite faction? Thank you for the amazing work and entertainment!
Thank you Patrick, I'm glad you're enjoying them. I haven't really been able to come up with a justification for how the narrator knows so much or who he might be working for. I only talk about things in the past but at the same time I'll mention things that were never recorded and we only know through the fiction. I had initially toyed with the idea of establishing a meta-narrative into this series where intros or outros would tell a story of being hunted by ComStar for spreading information they want to keep secret, but only the ComStar archives contain some of this info, so I must have been a part of that organisation at some point. Maybe this is a briefing for the First Circuit. As for my favourite factions, for the Inner Sphere it is House Kurita and for the Clans Jade Falcon, but there are none I actively dislike. They've all got good stories and characters so my loyalties jump around from moment to moment.
I didn't see many people talking about the first thousand years of history outside of the Star League Civil War. I thought it was long overdue that someone make some videos on an overlooked era. Never imagined I'd delve so deep into the narrative that I'd find 24 hours of material to discuss before even reaching the 3rdSW.
Loving the Videos! i do wonder if you could give an update on the periphery states? what is the Taurians, Rim world, Outworlds or Canopus up to during the succession wars? i understand that there might not be a full vid worth? but an update would be cool!
There's virtually nothing to comment on the major periphery states. I am actually planning to do a mini-series alongside the 3rdSW looking at some of the minor powers during that same period up to 3025.
I watch this seires with the same intrest and enthusiasm as i watch World War 2 in real time. Ill be watching every episode as far as you are willing to go!
My doctor's appointment screwed up my plans. I guess some higher power doesn't let me make it to the premieres on time and create a ton of problems in the process. Anyway, the video's great. Second Succession War is my favorite chapter in BattleTech history, after Fall of the Star League. Thanks for your hard work for the community, Sven. I'll try to make it to at least the last episode. And,BTW,will you cover things after 3025 at some point?
At some point, yes for sure. My plan is to do the 3rdSW next, but run a mini-series on the minor periphery realms at the same time on alternating weekends. I have one other project planned for release before the 4thSW as well.
@@SvenVanDerPlank Can't wait for it! Thanks for your reply and your hard work. And,may I ask: what's the outro theme name? I really like it,but can't find it(.
How do you plan on handling things once you get past 3025 will you being it as a news perspective or will you move the time point the history is being done from to just before the Clan invasion or something like that
Probably the latter. Going forwards I'll jump to the end of each new era and cover events looking back from that perspective. Gives enough time for all the important details to come out but doesn't spoil some of the major twists that come later in the timeline.
Can i ask what exactly killed Laurelli Liao? Cuz reading up on the conflict on SARNA says she died in battle yet here you say she had a stroke. I kinda need to know which one it is for unit backstory purposes.
Died of a stroke on Sian (2ndSW p.75). If Sarna says otherwise that is an error. Possibly confusing Laurelli with her mother Ilsa, or possibly a misreading or Liao Handbook p.30 which states she "died on the battlefield of service to her people just as her mother died in a BattleMech."
Yes, definitely. I'll probably jump forwards to the end of the Succession Wars era and look back on the 4thSW, Andurien Crisis, Ronin War and 3039 from that perspective. Then repeat something similar for the Clan Invasion when we eventually get there.
As there is only ever so much Battletech IP art available for background pictures, I was wondering how generative AI might look if prompted for the kinds of scenes we commonly see matched with the narrative. There is something acutely awful and hilarious about a battlemech with too many fingers. Obviously the human art is better, but it was a fun experiment.
I'm looking at using some AI upscaling but generating new artwork isn't something I'm planning on at the moment. I've recently been working through my sourcebooks and picked up another 50+ images for the gallery.
@@SvenVanDerPlank As if, romantic or even just lustful entanglements between Successor Lords? Completely illusory, will never happen. Not after all that slaughter, I mean, are there even two nations that haven`t slaughtered each other by the billions at this point?
And with exhaustion setting in, the Great Houses will negotiate a mutual settlement and peacefully coexist into the future.
After a whole series of leaving these comments calling for peace, you'll finally get your wish in the finale next weekend.
Hahahahaha!!!
No.
... for about five minutes. Then they'll find another reason to do it all over again, lol.
@@Sierra026 Davion spills cup of coffee.
Kurita "Did you just insult my family's honor?! WAR IT IS THEN!"
Everyone else "Here we go again."
Shout-out to Dainmar Liao, the greatest Chancellor in the history of the Capellan Confederation!
- Michael Davion.
No man did more for peace.
A truly worthless man if ever there was one. 😂
Dainmar Liao was truly the greatest Fed Suns supporter and the only Capellan I trust.
Only one more succession war until we're at the "start" of the setting, since people forget that the Fourth Succession War was where the story really began back in the day.
Kind of crazy to have covered so much ground and yet in a way I haven't even begun.
@@SvenVanDerPlank It will be, in the words of Churchill, the End of the Beginning.
I forgot exactly how much of a punching bag Liao is in the setting. You know things are going to get good for everyone else when House Liao starts making serious gains or whenever it looks on the verge of a huge victory.
I like how you put 3025 as "present day". The good old classic days.
I decided to start like that so that anyone who wanted to get into reading the fiction wouldn't have to worry about any of the novels being spoiled by this series. Once I catch up I'll probably pick another point further in the timeline to look back from.
This series and your work has just been amazing. And we're only in the 2nd Secession War. Still got another 2 left and so much more after. BattleTech. Seriously. Got some epic stuff in it.
It never ends. Will I ever reach the ilClan era? It'll be years if ever.
@@SvenVanDerPlank Don't destroy yourself. I've seen burnout in a couple other UA-cam creators I follow. Go at your own pace. You reach Clan Invasion. I think you've more than earned yourself a year long holiday.
I'll just keep chipping away at it. Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined I'd reach the 24 hour mark in this series, let alone hit it before even reaching 3025. I'll keep going as long as it remains fun.
I can just imagine Micheal Davion's reaction upon hearing that Dainmar accepted his conditions.
Something along the line of "wait what? He accepted?"
This is a solid framing for a relatively subdued period.
I love how you keep these interesting, even as the real action winds down.
The accidental format I've stumbled on has been to start each chapter with some important political change and end with a big battle. I write the whole series and then divide it up into segments depending on where those major events lie.
The last time I was this early, there was a star league. Hail house Steiner! Great video Sven.
Cheers. Glory to Steiner!
@@SvenVanDerPlank "Unbeugsamer Wille"
Sven “we’ll finally finishes the 2nd Succession War”
Also Sven sweating as he looks at the daunting task of covering the 100+ years of the 3rd Succession War
hitting like is free and a practical way to support content creators such as our host
Indeed, it is!
Thank you both.
"It remains to be seen whether this will cause issues for them again in the future," Oh Sven...
I was going to say that capturing Danmar or risking him being taken out in the intense fighting of a deep strike raid was a bad idea when you could just let king blunder and do his thing while the Federated Suns could capitalize. But man it paid off well, even if not entirely in how they hoped.
Battletech continue to amaze me how well written it is as setting. Great work for provide such a tremendous amount of information, Sven
I tell you: This "company store" policy will just lead the Snakes to Misery.
It works flawlessly, apart from all the times it doesn't.
It’s only slight less self defeating than the “death to mercenaries” policy the DCMS tried. It basically means the only units that will sign up with the dragon are small and so desperate they’ll take any contract or so big that they are basically a force unto themselves.
"Why do I hear wolves howling?"
Takashi Kurita probably
"Son of a bitch, he stole my line"
@@SvenVanDerPlank famously one time in particular when it didn't and wolves feasted on the tail of the dragon
The service you are doing for us is amazing thank you so much!!
You're welcome, it's a service I'm happy to provide.
God, I love your indepth take on the succession wars... Great stuff and I love that you keep a very neutral tone, besides commenting on the true atrocities that did happen. Keep up the phenomenal work!! I am always excited to listen to you while I paint my Battletech miniatures!
Well thank you. Early Succession Wars was an era that got very little attention from what I'd seen so I've enjoyed shining some more light on these major conflicts.
@@SvenVanDerPlank you're welcome! You are doing the community a great service by giving this overview of key events of Battletech and making it into a very accessible format.
When you are through the 2nd succession War can you do a timelapse video of the map of the Inner Sphere throughout?
With each year being 3-5 seconds?
Would be interesting to see the border changes throughout
It's an interesting idea, but I don't have decent maps from before 2750. I'd need to redo the Reunification War ones at a higher resolution with a black background instead of white. I may do one for the entire Succession Wars era when I conclude that after 3039.
thank you sven, this is what i listen to every saturday when i work on my painting projects and i enjoy it more each time. keep up the awesome work
Cheers, will do.
Thank you so much for all the work you put into this video! As always it was very good and I enjoyed it, a fee times it had me on the edge of my seat. I can’t wait to see what comes next with the third succession war.
Cheers for the support, Stephanie. Glad you're still enjoying the videos.
@@SvenVanDerPlank thank you very much! Good luck with your future videos whatever you end up focusing on, I can’t wait to see what comes next!
Longtime viewer of the channel. All I can say is by understanding the past can we build a better future.
Who am I kidding? The future will see multitudes die for few territorial gains that will have to be rebuilt to be useful and will be attacked because of any rebuilding!
11:05 - Hey Sven, this is more a behind the scenes question than a lore question. I know how small that pic is from the ComStar Sourcebook. How are you able to make the image that big in your movie maker to fill the whole screen? Whenever I do it I tend to get black/dark spaces around the sides.
I'll write you an answer next time I sit down at the PC. Remind me in a couple days if I forget.
@@SvenVanDerPlank Will do. Thanks! ☺I'm always trying to improve my own editing and animating skills for my videos.
So I'm in Vegas, if you're in Adobe whatever, names/places are probably gonna be slightly different, but hopefully you can follow along. When I drop an image into a project, I want to add an "Event Pan/Crop." For me its an icon in the corner of every image on the timeline. This is not the same as "Event FX," but it might be under that for you. Don't confuse this with adding "Track Motion" to the "Video Track" the image sits on, you want to change a specific event, not the whole layer. Clicking on that will open a pop-up window.
Before doing anything else, I want to make sure "Stretch to fill Frame" is set to Yes, but you also need to change "Maintain Aspect Ratio" to Yes as well. Now change the "Position Width/Height" to a custom 16:9 aspect ratio, but before doing so, make sure "Lock Aspect Ratio" (distinct from "Maintain Aspect Ratio") is deselected so you can manually enter a value for each without the other trying to compensate. Your new width/height should not exceed the image's base resolution. As you adjust this, you should see an appropriate zoom in the Preview window. An easy way to make sure the values are correct is to set width to 16 pixels, height to 9, then reenable "Lock Aspect Ratio" and increase the value back up to the base resolution which you made a note of before making any changes. In practice, one dimension will remain unchanged, while the other will reduce until you hit a 16:9 ration. By having smaller values than the base resolution, you can crop parts off the edges if you wish.
Still in that "Event Pan/Crop" window, I have my event timeline along the bottom which shows the same duration as it is set for on the project timeline. If I want the video to pan across an image, I need two keyframes, one at either end of the event timeline. Note that any later adjustments to the duration will require similar adjustments to the keyframe positions, or the pan will either not complete or stop prematurely. Then just adjust the "X/Y Center" so its at one extreme of the image at the first keyframe (without being off the edge), and the other extreme at the last keyframe. You can adjust the speed/smoothness of the pan animation by right-clicking on a specific keyframe to select from some presets or by adding "Keyframe Interpolation."
Hopefully that helps.
@@SvenVanDerPlank Yeah, I'm in Vegas Movie Maker as well so this all makes sense to me. I had no idea where the Set Aspect Ratio and Lock Aspect Ratio were at. Now I can find it easily. Thank you, Sven! You are a freaking rock star! 🥰☺
17:25
Meanwhile at ComStar : DAINMAR LIAO DID *WHAT*
👍🤘🖖 party on Wayne.
Party on, Garth
Really looking forward to next week!
Excellent work Sven! I only got to this Sunday morning. However this was a fantastic production as always.
Great series, and for the much clearer picture of just how much the great houses won or loss so far. Can't wait for the lead-up to the Third.
Fav UA-cam series.
Going back in time a bit. Where did you get the info for the step by step campaign of the SLDF's attack on Terra? I'm amazed you have the info down to the Armies.
Historical: Liberation of Terra Vol.2
Another amazing video, both concise and full of info. Well done sir.
I was a bit late but I still got to watch this the day it came out.
Sven seems to have hit his stride and been knocking out great vids.
Surely, the Second Succession War is the unsung great disaster of the Inner Sphere.
Cheers Deridus. I'm not sure what I expected of the 2ndSW coming into this series, but I think it has become my favourite conflict of the setting so far.
Hey Sven, long time listener first time commenter. I find your work to be extremely well done and I really like your attempts to tell these histories from the PoV of an in-universe historian. I actually had a question regarding that, and a related question to you personally
Does your "character" hail from any of the Great Houses/Periphery/Comstar? Do they have any biases against them?
For the personal question, what is your favorite faction?
Thank you for the amazing work and entertainment!
Thank you Patrick, I'm glad you're enjoying them.
I haven't really been able to come up with a justification for how the narrator knows so much or who he might be working for. I only talk about things in the past but at the same time I'll mention things that were never recorded and we only know through the fiction. I had initially toyed with the idea of establishing a meta-narrative into this series where intros or outros would tell a story of being hunted by ComStar for spreading information they want to keep secret, but only the ComStar archives contain some of this info, so I must have been a part of that organisation at some point. Maybe this is a briefing for the First Circuit.
As for my favourite factions, for the Inner Sphere it is House Kurita and for the Clans Jade Falcon, but there are none I actively dislike. They've all got good stories and characters so my loyalties jump around from moment to moment.
I am definitely far more familiar with the 3rd Succession War and beyond, so, it's definitely very interesting to hear about the earlier eras.
I didn't see many people talking about the first thousand years of history outside of the Star League Civil War. I thought it was long overdue that someone make some videos on an overlooked era. Never imagined I'd delve so deep into the narrative that I'd find 24 hours of material to discuss before even reaching the 3rdSW.
so awesome!!!! really love these videos!
Keep up the great work.
It's been a wild ride these two wars
Good timing, just re-installed Batletech with all the DLC on my PC.
great video as usual
Cheers
that was awesome as always😁👍
Loving the Videos! i do wonder if you could give an update on the periphery states? what is the Taurians, Rim world, Outworlds or Canopus up to during the succession wars?
i understand that there might not be a full vid worth? but an update would be cool!
There's virtually nothing to comment on the major periphery states. I am actually planning to do a mini-series alongside the 3rdSW looking at some of the minor powers during that same period up to 3025.
G.O.AT. no shade to anybody else. Your Historical’s are Amazing
Thank you very much.
Can't wait for the fun that led to War #3, and further to the th War, and all dat fum. :P
Not long to go now. Should be starting on the next series sometime in May.
Bring it!
Great work!
I hope we get one more book to cover the third Succession war. All the house books do cover it but you have to get all those older books.
I watch this seires with the same intrest and enthusiasm as i watch World War 2 in real time. Ill be watching every episode as far as you are willing to go!
Thank you, I'm very pleased to hear that. Maybe one day in the distant future I'll look at covering some real world history too.
My doctor's appointment screwed up my plans. I guess some higher power doesn't let me make it to the premieres on time and create a ton of problems in the process. Anyway, the video's great. Second Succession War is my favorite chapter in BattleTech history, after Fall of the Star League. Thanks for your hard work for the community, Sven. I'll try to make it to at least the last episode. And,BTW,will you cover things after 3025 at some point?
At some point, yes for sure. My plan is to do the 3rdSW next, but run a mini-series on the minor periphery realms at the same time on alternating weekends. I have one other project planned for release before the 4thSW as well.
@@SvenVanDerPlank Can't wait for it! Thanks for your reply and your hard work. And,may I ask: what's the outro theme name? I really like it,but can't find it(.
13:56 I see what you did there!
How do you plan on handling things once you get past 3025 will you being it as a news perspective or will you move the time point the history is being done from to just before the Clan invasion or something like that
Probably the latter. Going forwards I'll jump to the end of each new era and cover events looking back from that perspective. Gives enough time for all the important details to come out but doesn't spoil some of the major twists that come later in the timeline.
Can i ask what exactly killed Laurelli Liao? Cuz reading up on the conflict on SARNA says she died in battle yet here you say she had a stroke. I kinda need to know which one it is for unit backstory purposes.
Died of a stroke on Sian (2ndSW p.75). If Sarna says otherwise that is an error. Possibly confusing Laurelli with her mother Ilsa, or possibly a misreading or Liao Handbook p.30 which states she "died on the battlefield of service to her people just as her mother died in a BattleMech."
420 episode? Oh hell yes
Hey Sven, since you're reporting to us from 3025 will we ever see a narration of the 4th succession war?
Yes, definitely. I'll probably jump forwards to the end of the Succession Wars era and look back on the 4thSW, Andurien Crisis, Ronin War and 3039 from that perspective. Then repeat something similar for the Clan Invasion when we eventually get there.
@@SvenVanDerPlank Thanks Sven. I'll be here dropping likes and views and goodies for as long as you'll be here.
Capellan conf. Used to be real beefy
For the chancellor!
Which one?
Oh boy. The 3rd succession war. Thats kinda gonna be a long one.
LoL
It's actually not. I haven't written it all yet but I don't think it'll take much more than an hour to cover the first 150 years.
RIP Cappies, another bad war for them
Capellans and losing... name a more iconic duo.
We will not be free as long as a single cappellan breaths
@@SvenVanDerPlank i have faith that at some point in the far future, a capable Liao arrives on the scene
And so ends the 2nd Succession war. Next up, 150 years of sticks and stones.
As there is only ever so much Battletech IP art available for background pictures, I was wondering how generative AI might look if prompted for the kinds of scenes we commonly see matched with the narrative. There is something acutely awful and hilarious about a battlemech with too many fingers. Obviously the human art is better, but it was a fun experiment.
I'm looking at using some AI upscaling but generating new artwork isn't something I'm planning on at the moment. I've recently been working through my sourcebooks and picked up another 50+ images for the gallery.
fed sun's plot armour is SO THICC people die of stroke the second they manage to do anything about it
Exhaustion just means the Successor States were sweaty, all smexy like.
Hahaha. Are you suggesting there was sexual tension between the Successor Lords?
@@SvenVanDerPlank As if, romantic or even just lustful entanglements between Successor Lords? Completely illusory, will never happen. Not after all that slaughter, I mean, are there even two nations that haven`t slaughtered each other by the billions at this point?
The real thing that kept Battletech from catching on with millennials was the lack of incest