CLASSIC BATTLETECH CATALYST game labs

As the title says.

The general Inner Sphere populace has no idea why the Bears are so angry. They speculate it may be the death of their Khan, or the poisoning of Radstadt.
Us on the outside have Uncle Chandy's files and the knowledge that the extra secret rumors section that was not shown to everyone was probably shown to the Bears.

So what does Word of Blake at its different levels know, think or suspect?

I don't even know if there is any reason for even most MD to know. After  all they have all be told the Clans are crazy nut jobs. This could be considered par for the course.

constrictive underwear.

ok will someone let me in on this?   why are teh bears angry?

Heck they blasted the McKenna over Tukayyid which was the Wolverine flagship in their run to the IS. That's all the proof the GB's need...

Correction -- the Blake Documents tells us that the Wolverines were sequestered at Koryo on Mars until being moved to the Five (pgs. 126-128.) 


The Blake Documents, pg. 117.

Of course, all of these responses require you to accept things contained in the Blake Documents as true, but then, so does this thread.

Not only did they just park it there, but they blew out the KF Drive with a Superjump, IIRC

Well thats the point isn't it? Check them all to find the ones they want.

I wonder if the whole Wolverine thing isn't Parrdeau's "Holy Shroud."

IIRC, in her ramblings she mentions that all Precentor ROMs have their own Operation Holy Shroud, each one does something different. What if all the notes, all the rumors are her Holy Shroud, designed to tick off the Clans in such a way that they can't help but invade with more, heading through the Invader Clans, as well as the LC and DC in massive battes that would shatter the Inner Sphere?

Well, I assume it didn't take into account the Jihad.

Imagine though. We know that the WoB's goal was to kill the Clans. If the Star League hadn't of been destroyed by the Steiner-Davions and Liao, the WoB was to eventually steer the SLDF into wiping out the Clans.

Leaking/creating info like this would've been a good way to either rile up the Clans already around "See, look, they're attacking us like mad animals!" or to force more Clans to come into the Inner Sphere. "See, look, told you we can't trust them! Now do you want to destroy them?"

You don't need genetic samples to identify a MD. A strong magnet seems to be enough.

If the conspiracy theory is true, and there's still room in fluff for it not to be, it seems to me that the Wolverines would be just one aspect of the Word. The Master, St Jamais, and general old-school WoB individuals who thought the sun shone out of Waterly's backside - these would also make up the filling of the pie. Also, the Wolverines may not be synonymous with the MD - we have suggestions there was an internal dispute on Jardine between Apollyon and an unknown opponent, so perhaps not all the Blood are on the same page.

To answer the question though, I wouldn't have a problem with a big secret like that being brought into the open. TPTB can always cook up new mysteries.

No, its not and that is the scary part.

Certain Clans take on an enemies largest concentration and destroy them in detail, but thats where the similarities stop. They don't try and kill everyone. They try to have some semblance of honour.
The Bears always went in hard and violent after probing for weaknesses. This is different. This is Clantech as played by a munchkin with a blood lust. This is violence to make a Jaguar pale, aimed to cause fatalities and still probably very carefully targeted. The Bears always knew about overwhelming firepower but now they are applying it fully and are probably getting very good at it. How long till they learn of Total Warfare?

We can keep the pdf away from them indefinitly, but how long until they find a hard copy at their FLGS?

 

From Jihad Secrets --- The Blake Documents, I thought that The Blood were a covert, commanding minority w/in CS / WoB, largely unknown to the rank-and-file.

Grrr...still waiting for Blake Documents to arrive...must read!!!!

Per information from Jihad Secrets, the GB council (if they have such a thing) agreed to annex the rest of the FRR because to protect the "trothkin" of their other FRR "subjects".  This would account for their attacks at Tukayyid and the rest of the WoB presence in the FRR. 

Per FM: WC Pg 79, when Star Captain Amon allowed the Wolverines to escape, the Bears have taken it as a stain on "every Ghost Bear's personal honor."  This explains the other attacks and method of attacks on WoB by the Bears (and lets not forget the mobilization of the Leviathan), they have bought into the last third of Jihad Secrets, for better or worse.

What I have bought into is that after the Wolverines landed on Mars there was a coup by the civilians led by Kuritian guy.  This is what became Comstar ROM later, so no, the rank and file of WoB doesn’t know why the GBs have a “thing” for them.

But lets not forget that a lot of the WoB rank and file “robes” are, IMO, hippie pacifists (they don’t get out much).  The factions listed in FM: Comstar, the True Believer and (mostly killed off) Shunner factions were the most pacifistic, with probably many small non-Conclave factions also leaning this way.  I mean, look at the fluff for the Condor dropship or any other sourcebook entries concerning Comstar’s public image and its easy to see how someone could by into this image.

Maybe its something less obvious, like the Wobbies have their own clan style creches producing Manei Domini troops\ test subjects, and the samples of DNA they are using came from Wolverine.

Well, how many characters share that birth date? that should be a pretty good jumping off point for speculation. There shouldnt be that many characters we know too much about from back then, so it could very well be a major head of comstar

I don't think that we even need to include the rumours from The Blakist Documents to explain the Bears' current rampage.

First, the WoB has used weapons of mass destruction in a fairly indescriminate manner to render multiple planets sterile.  This should be enough to get any good Warden Clan, which the Ghost Bears claim to be, up in arms.  Their goal is to protect the Inner Sphere from major threats, after all, and I don't think threats get much bigger than the WoB currently is.

Second, the Blakist attack on Radstadt was sneaky, honourless, and massively destructive.  If the blatent, obvious, and ineffectual attack by the Alshain Avengers was enough to cause the Bears to jump the Bear-Combine border en-masse, the attack on Rastadt was sure to ellicite a violent response.

Third, the Blakists' suicide bomber plant (Donner) killed Bjorn Jorgensson.  Bjorn was the most popular Khan since Kilbourne Jorgensson, if not the most popular Khan ever.  When Kilbourne was killed in the Battle of Tokasha, it sent the Ghost Bears into a killing frenzy that wiped out the opposing Hell's Horses force.  Bjorn was killed in a cowardly and honourless fashion, which should result in an even more furious response.

So, whether the MD have a sprinkling of Wolverine DNA, are descendants of the RWR, or have no connection to either, Clan Ghost Bear has ample justification, in Clan terms, for their current campaigh against the Word of Blake.

Started ReReading 3076. and this seemed to go with the wolverine theory.


I get the overwhelming vibe that they are gene sampling the dead wobbies. It could be worse than Wolverine however, it could be that the Wob stole a GB genetic sample and used it, or that they have teamed up with another clan. But an end to the Wob/Wolverine/Minnesota Tribe controversy would be nice.

it definitly sounds like more-than-the-average-bear rage.

Why not. Hell it could even be somehting so mysterious it dates back to the founding of the dragoons. Any information would be fun.

By "wolvies", I meant WOLVERINES

I'm nitpicking I know, but each Clan started off with 40 bloodnamed warriors.

Was thinking on this a bit more and remembered something else from Blake Documents. Parrdeau's ravings in the 'through the looking glass' section have a bit where she talks about the 'Minnesota Tribe' raids being a hoax perpetrated by old ComStar. I wonder if this is a cover story put out by the Blood and their agents? If so then it suggests their secret is known only to a very tiny number of select individuals outside their own group, and so I'd say that hardly anyone in the Word of Blake suspects why the Ghost Bears are so furious (this assumes that the Blood themselves are not very numerous, and that we consider the Blood to be 'in' the Word of Blake).

What we run into though are a lot of unknowns. Is the Master in on the secret? Apparently Myndo Waterly wasn't, so I don't think the Master is a sure-fire shoe-in (though personally I think he has at least some knowledge of the Blood). St Jamais could easily have been left out of the loop by the Wolverines. And how closely linked are the Manei Domini and the Blood? Perhaps not super-close, or even close at all, because the Bears seem to be taking genetic samples still, like they need to refine their information more as if not all the corpses had Wolverine DNA. So not all the MD may know why the Bears are so angry, and even Apollyon may or may not know. I think he probably does though. His conflict with St Jamais suggests to me that if one of them is in with the Blood cabal then the other one isn't, and is in the dark. My money is on Apollyon being the clued-up one.

What if it's a case of the MD being made aware of, but not being related to the Blood?  After all, what would be the reaction of a MD to the knowledge that they've been bred to kill the Clans by former Clansmen?  How would a MD react to realizing that they were being used as pawns?

No argument that they are willing tools of the Master, but what if they discover that the Master has been a pawn of the Blood all along?  That's what I'm trying to understand because we all know everyone answers to someone, even the Master.

Yah, if the MD or the Master are wolverine in origin, that would give them more anti clan dogma, not less.

I would like to agree with you, but even today emotions can be controlled, just look at the media. If they want to populace to hate something, it usually works

There are lies and there are lies.

For example. In the first grade you were told there is no number less than 0. This was a cast iron truth. Then in grade three you learned that there are negetive numbers. Numbers less than 0. OMG. You were lied to by one of the greatest authority figures in your young life!

The point is that sometimes lies are necessary. In the case above you needed the first lie to understand the concept of 0. As your understanding of maths improved you could be exposed to the next lie. Being unable to handle the truth is a very legitimate concern. Can you imagine teaching string theory to first graders?
In the case of the MD you have listed above the Blood is something they don't need to know about immediately to understand Clans are bad m'kay. By the time the find out, it either confirms their beliefs or they have more serious problems.

 
Huh?

Are you refering to the issues the Mariks had with the SL during its later years?

no one complain when them Coyotes were practically raped in the Hellion's Fury. or when Clan Jaguar push daisies. i dont see why they want to start  now though.

...You arent looking at the right boards then. You still hear Jaguar fans complaining about how the Jaguars were taking out on the Clan boards.

My take is that the heart of the MD would be wolverines relation.  They were hidden away by WoB minded CS staff.  The Wolverines and Clans hate each other and want to destroy each others corruption.  Then the Dragoons showed up which would of thrown a flag to the Bloods and future WoB guys (that knew of the Wolverines).  Then the actuall invasion comes.  The wolverines left when the genetic engineering was in its infancy so to combat this edge, with the help of clan/comstar technology, cyborgnetics were used.  Then the WoB fanatics with this tech and their love of "indoctrination", they could swell the numbers of MD rank and file (low rank) which is stated in the Jihad books.  And to make questionable converts to WoB indoctrin and the MD machine, implanted bombs seem to keep 'em fighting in line and from giving up info if captured.  I'll bet Apollon (sp?) is a Blood while the Master is a really really fanatical power hungry WoB (Toyoma) guy who wants to rule the universe (but behind the scenes) and will use everyone to his advantage through lying, cheat, and steal. I also think that Jamias guy doesn't know who the master is.   I  don't remember all the tid bits in the books but it would be something if the original Thomas Marik was the Master.

The Wolverine-->WoB connection is still vaporware at this point in time. Parrdeau's ramblings in Jihad Secrets could be nothing more than pot-stirring. Got ComStar ROM, WoB ROM, Manei Domini, and every intelligence agency in the Inner Sphere after you? Muddy the waters a bit with random accusations and stories that carry enough plausability to ring true. She had access to enough information as head of ROM to make a good go of it.

That's one explanation anyway. YMMV. 

There doesn't have to be a WOB--->Wolverine connection to motivate the Ghost Bears to Annihilate WoB. The Bears are all about family, (in)famous among the other Clans for their family ties, and they've adopted the FRR into their family. One of my friends grew up in a very tight-knit family-- aunts, uncles, cousins, second cousins, brothers, sisters--and if someone messed with one of them, they ALL got involved. The Bears are kinda like that, only with Elemental Galaxies, Kodiaks and Leviathan IIs.