I’ll freely admit that I’m not a huge mecha fan. Sure, I do enjoy a good anime or roleplaying game that heavily focuses on it but I’m nowhere near as dedicated to the genre as some people are. That said, the rich history behind the BattleTech universe is intriguing, but there’s just so much of it. Trying to wrap your head around all of the dealings of the Inner Sphere, Periphery States, and Clans can be a daunting task for the uninitiated like myself.
Still, I try to keep an open mind and have tried to learn as much as I can from friends who are diehard fans. Even so, it’s hard to grasp all the intricacies. Which is why I enjoy a good snippet of lore behind the universe as shown in the latest update for BattleTech. This is a rather lengthy read but it is still incredibly informative whereby they talk about a small patch of space largely unexplored in lore along the Periphery.
I may not know much about the universe, but I do know enough to have been able to mostly follow along with this strip bordering two Periphery States and one of the five Great Houses and how it all fits into the history of BattleTech. And honestly it’s a great read even for someone who barely knows anything about the universe. I will admit that I do love a rich and detailed setting even if I don’t read every little supplement or novel out there, especially one as deep as this one.
The other major part of the update, namely why they chose this region of space for the single player campaign, is also worth reading if you’re into all of the behind-the-scenes development news like I am. Of particular note is that they wanted essentially a blank slate to work with. The machinations of the five Houses, the dissolution of the Star League and of the Terran Hegemony, the myriad Succession Wars, and the like are all well known even by a Luddite like myself.
That they went so far as to grab every single map of known space through every source material that they could find and overlayed them all over each other to create as accurate of a map as possible is most certainly worth a mention here. That painstaking piece of work paid off as they found a largely unused “horseshoe” of space that used to be on Star League maps but ended up removed as time went on. This is the region that eventually became known as the “Aurigan Reach” in this BattleTech game.
As I’ve mentioned, I’m not a big fan of the BattleTech universe but I have had friends who have tried to get me into it because they’re passionate about the setting and I will admit that their love for it has become infectious as I do find myself wanting to learn more about it. I may not have time to read every little piece of information but snippets like this one is a nice quick read to get to learn more about it.
