Question With a lever big enough I can move the world

This week the release is a Library entry... set in the Battletech universe is With a lever big enough I can move the world (Chapter 1) by MageOhki.

I’m giving you levers… which way will you move the worlds, young humans? I’ll be watching…

On the positive side, Kikyo's not the only one trying out a new body.

On the negative side, Kikyo's not the only one in play.

“A bit of Brace, a sniff of Can-do…” I trailed off ticking my fingers, realizing that my previous partying could be lethal, given the drugs involved. Also a good explanation of everything, so maybe I was crazy.… “And a sniff of Melange. Oh, and of course the usual drinks and some …” Before I could finish, my head was driven into my plate by a hard slap.

It's not the fall that kills you, but the crash at the end that wrecks your day.

"Some NoFear, Ex, and booze: no big deal. Stacked with something that sounds like red mesc stomped with shade: that could be a problem. I think we can see how Kikyo's body ended up with the blinky Vacancy sign."

null0trooper wrote:

I’m giving you levers… which way will you move the worlds, young humans? I’ll be watching…

On the positive side, Kikyo's not the only one trying out a new body.

On the negative side, Kikyo's not the only one in play.

There's two people involved Kikyo, and well... second to be determined (though one of the scenes pretty clearly hints at it)
That's it. You get to see Kikyo!Battletech. What Kikyo!(A variant of real world) is doing... who knows? (If you see stompy robots powered by fusion in 10 years, well...)

“A bit of Brace, a sniff of Can-do…” I trailed off ticking my fingers, realizing that my previous partying could be lethal, given the drugs involved. Also a good explanation of everything, so maybe I was crazy.… “And a sniff of Melange. Oh, and of course the usual drinks and some …” Before I could finish, my head was driven into my plate by a hard slap.

It's not the fall that kills you, but the crash at the end that wrecks your day.

"Some NoFear, Ex, and booze: no big deal. Stacked with something that sounds like red mesc stomped with shade: that could be a problem. I think we can see how Kikyo's body ended up with the blinky Vacancy sign."[/quote]

ROB just smiles. "The real problem was the battered and abused army guy."

MageOhki wrote: ROB just smiles. "The real problem was the battered and abused army guy."

Isn't that what Army guys are for?

Hey MageOki, do you know that a disclaimer is useless? By the law, fanfiction is technically illegal, if it weren't for the application of 'Fair Use', although even that application is shaky (as a lot of the time, fanfiction cannot be placed under that umbrella due to content). There's literally no need legally or otherwise to include a disclaimer, as it offers no protection from the law.

Other than that, great story. I liked it a lot. But just be advised that a disclaimer is useless and only serves to bog down the story.

Kristin Darken wrote: Actually, a disclaimer serves several purposes. While they do not give an author any authority to be in violation of copyright, they do tell the owners of that copyright that the fan fiction writer acknowledges the rightful ownership and has no intention to challenge that or to profit from it. Many circumstances where an author might otherwise say "I didn't give permission for this use, take it down" can be averted by that simple courtesy. After all, a fan fic piece if done well can serve as advertisement for the original work, resulting in sales that might otherwise not have occurred by making the property visible to new audience. Posting a disclaimer also warns those who might create further derivative work that it IS an unapproved work and that it shouldn't be assumed that posting it won't be challenged (and that posting it for profit could result in a civil suit). It is also possible that a reader doesn't know about the original work... and if you don't acknowledge it, you've mislead them to believe that YOU are responsible for creating it all.

And... perhaps just as importantly... this site requires it. Just as we acknowledge the derivitive nature of many elements in the Whateley Universe, we ask for non-canon authors of Whateley stories to include a disclaimer referring people to this site and the canon collection. We are respectful of the ownership of IP that we do not own because we want people to be respectful of Our property as well. That is why you will find that many of the stories in the Library section include disclaimers. When we fan-fic, we acknowledge the original creators. If those creators or their representatives ask us to take the stories down, we would... in a heartbeat. We might not have official approval to work in their sandbox, but we ALWAYS try to respect the space we use and leave it a nice or better when we are finished.

Personally, I feel that authors who choose to skip the disclaimer because it serves no legal purpose... are those who I least want messing around with my IP. Do you really think avoiding the repercussions of a law suit is the only reason to acknowledge that someone else set the groundwork that you are building from?

I actually never thought about it like that. Thanks Kristin.

And with certain IP, it makes it legal. Not all nations have the same law, and land of first copyright/origin, controls. BT isn't one of them, but...

And at the *worst*, as Kristen pointed out, it's good manners. Most entertainment companies (IMR/CATLabs is one) generally allow fanworks. But they do expect manners.

As a visual reader, an obvious block of disclaimer text is easy to skip over. It's not even the worst annoyance that folks using screen readers have to routinely deal with. It's usually located in a manuscript where acknowledgements, executive summary, or prologue would be placed.

FWIW, my first exposure to Shadowrun was Dr. Bender's "No Time For Second Chances" . That was what swayed my vote when one of my friends announced "Hey, is anyone up for a Shadowrun game? I've got this idea for a street scum campaign in Detroit." In turn, that sold a number of supplement PDFs. Dealing with a couple of players insanely unsuited for the table being run turned into FB posts, then a very short story working out something that had to be box-texted, and eventually a freshman with a thousand-yard stare roaming the Whateley Academy campus in a WhatIF AU.


tl,dr: Every time someone reads a story like this and enjoys the action and setting, there's a good chance they might buy and play the game. Everyone wins.

null0trooper wrote: As a visual reader, an obvious block of disclaimer text is easy to skip over. It's not even the worst annoyance that folks using screen readers have to routinely deal with. It's usually located in a manuscript where acknowledgements, executive summary, or prologue would be placed.

FWIW, my first exposure to Shadowrun was Dr. Bender's "No Time For Second Chances" . That was what swayed my vote when one of my friends announced "Hey, is anyone up for a Shadowrun game? I've got this idea for a street scum campaign in Detroit." In turn, that sold a number of supplement PDFs. Dealing with a couple of players insanely unsuited for the table being run turned into FB posts, then a very short story working out something that had to be box-texted, and eventually a freshman with a thousand-yard stare roaming the Whateley Academy campus in a WhatIF AU.


tl,dr: Every time someone reads a story like this and enjoys the action and setting, there's a good chance they might buy and play the game. Everyone wins.

Oh so THAT's how those metro stories work! They're a AU!!! Bloody hell, I was working myself round the bloody twist trying to figure that one out!

Kikyo's faced with a different set of problems in being dropped into this world. It closely resembles a universe she knows about, but there are sure to be differences that never came up in her game materials. However, there are things that have to happen and people that have to be in certain points in their lives, for the canon and/or fanfiction material to be reality-consistent.

Since I don't know much at all about BT, a Star Trek analogy: If you find yourself inexplicably in 1893 San Francisco, wouldn't you be very interested in looking up whether events match the Mirror-verse or not? Wouldn't looking for Madame Guinan and a group of terrible Shakespearean actors be important? The people around you might be confused that you have such specific interests. Some of them might not appreciate unexpected enquiries that suggest you might stand in their way.


As I see it, Kikyo has two aces up her sleeves. She has information about things going on outside her sphere of influence that the original would not have. She also has access to the walk-in's skills and memories and psychological hangups. The catch is that she still has all the enemies that original-Kikyo had, including the ones the original didn't know about, and there's no easy way to count the jokers in the deck.

How much lore is the reader expected to know?

I've heard of Battletech and have seen someone else playing it, but other than big robots shoot missiles and lasers and the video games were best enjoyed with a flight stick...I don't know anything about the setting.

Updated Banshees are better... and there's a *reason* why there's the Term Highlander Burial in Battletech... (Highlander is a *stock* base desgin 90 ton JUMP capable mech...)

Now:
I'm more *into* the Lore, over the tabletop rules, myself. Battletech, 'spc parts done by FASA in terms of Lore resembles Game of Thrones a LOT (and way before...), and FASA did a hell of a job creating interesting charatcers in the 3020's period of Battletech.

Are you, the reader expected to know the lore? Noope. Not at all. I knew when I started this, I'd be writing for non BT people.

Realistically, the only thing you, the reader need to bring? You did.

"Big Stompy Robots in the Far future."

And... that Battletech itself, and it's 3020's period was 'base' written in the 80's. Nuff said.


As for Kikyo!Insert's situation..... yeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.

And one of those enemies.... is blood. And just might know a few things, neh?

Side note: Yes, I'm using the HBS version of the universe to some degree.

Part 2 is this weeks release... please enjoy and comment.

Link to Chapter 2 for folks not seeing anything about levers in the Original/2nd Gen story blocks.

Part 3 is now available for your reading pleasure.

Chapter 3 link

Note to self: Onishi Kiyoko =/= Onishi Kikyo.

I enjoyed the story, though it has been long enough that a link to chapter one might be in order.

Anne wrote: I enjoyed the story, though it has been long enough that a link to chapter one might be in order.

Here are links to the first two parts... MageOhki also revised them a little since first posting.

With a lever big enough I can move the world (Chapter 1)

With a lever big enough I can move the world (Chapter 2)

Thank you ever so much!

With a lever big enough I can move the world (Part 4) is now available for your reading pleasure...

Oddly enough, despite being a long time player of CBT, MW RPG, the older MW and MC games (I haven't played anything newer than 2011 so far, but I mean to change that) and fan of the books, I am only just now reading this series, which I had completely missed up until now.

Reading a bit more, I would have to add that I have always been of the opinion that the primacy of BattleMechs is best explained sociologically, since they are a close analogue to knights - whose station in life dictated their tactics as much as the reverse did.

In both cases, you have a society which cannot afford - or at least, rarely tries to employ - mass maneuver beyond the size of a battalion or at most a regiment[1]; where travel times are long and going any real distance prohibitively expensive for anyone who isn't wealthy and/or privileged; the social structure is feudal and decentralized, with local governments have a large amount of autonomy from the larger states they nominally belong to, with both loyalty and military service being personally pledged to lieges by vassal; significant amounts of piracy and brigandage on the periphery (or the Periphery, if you will, though there's plenty of it going on in the Inner Sphere, too) and mercenaries are often the ones who are the best positioned both to do the fighting, and to travel freely from place to place.

While such a situation could also evolve along the city-state or empire routes, the specific technology - and perhaps just as crucially, the existence of ComStar, meaning that communication over interstellar distances was relatively fast compared to travel, but usually limited to the equivalent of telegrams due to cost - would have encouraged feudalism instead.

In such societies, there would invariably be a greater emphasis on individual combat and small unit tactics, rather than the mass tactics of, say, phalanges, legions, pike or musket squares, or rifle platoons (while mounted knights in a larger battle would be formed up for mass charges, more complex equestrian maneuver would have required a lot more training as a unit than you could expect from an army whose composition would ebb and flow as obligatory service periods end for different knights at different times). Even when fighting in groups, a knight's training would predispose them to fighting as individuals, or as small teams, and the same is true for Mechwarriors.

There's also the fact that, even with hundreds of inhabited worlds, there was very little in the way of mass industry, and what there was invariably got wrecked again once the next round of fighting began. Similarly, even with the Ares Convention prohibiting attacks on JumpShips, trade was mostly limited to specialty goods, with most manufactured products serving local (or at least, in-system) needs. One part of the world lore which makes some sense in this regard is that you could often salvage part of a mech, whereas tanks were often total write-offs, meaning that a mech could be maintained and passed down the generations in a way other vehicles couldn't.

It is notable that, just as this was being to change, lore-wise, with the growing amount of restored lostech and the growing importance of ground troops again during and after the Fourth Succession War, FASA introduced the Clans, whose society was all about single combat. This was a deliberate move to re-rail the series once they realized the implications of what Hanse Davion was doing (the fact that it gave them an excuse to introduce entirely novel mech designs which could replace the Unseen didn't hurt, either).

So, the supremacy of the BattleMech was mainly because it fit with the needs and ideals of the society, IMO.

1) Most medieval 'armies' had less than 10,000 under arms, often with fewer than 500 mounted knights of rank, perhaps a couple of thousand dismounted knights from the lower nobility or trained common men-at-arms, maybe another thousand mercenaries - who were often specialists such as the Genoan crossbowmen at Crecy, or the ubiquitous Swiss pike units towards the end of the period - and the rest being whatever levies the nearest allied lord could raise, with these often outnumbering the rest by a significant factor but rarely having much actual value in the battle itself. Even bigger battles, such as Crecy, rarely involved more than 30,000 on both sides. Note that in BattleTech scenarios involving larger actions, there's sometimes a lore-related handwave that, "oh, both sides had deployed infantry and tanks, but they always scatter once some BattleMechs reach the field", with the underlying assumption that the battle may be bigger than what you are playing, but the sector you're taking part of is the point which matters.

With a lever big enough I can move the world (Part 5) is now available...

On a roll!

With a lever big enough I can move the world, Part 6

With a lever big enough I can move the world, Part 7

“The more you use…”

The less you lose.”

This principle, or rather the Clan's complete lack of understanding of this principle, is why I stopped reading the Battletech books. The books were so clearly designed to create approximately even battles for people to have fun pushing miniatures across a table and rolling lots of dice, that it severely detracted from their quality as books.

(Not that there is anything wrong with rolling lots of dice. I have played plenty of games that involved rolling lots of dice.)

I keep getting distracted by other things, and so I'm still only on part 2 so far.

TL;DR: And now, I take this thread as an excuse to reminisce about my old game runs. Please laugh along with me, or maybe at me, your call.

I am tempted to ask if you'd be willing to cameo one of my Merc commander characters (either Israel Brahmaputna Kintaro, Petra Mythandros, or Gavin Bullock). Because every writer loves it when fans try to get their self-inserts included into canon

However, even setting aside the sheer gall of asking this (even as a joke), it is hard to see how they would fit into it. If I recall the timeline of my old game right, Rae would still be in his first or second year at An Ting University (which wouldn't be shuttered until later that year); he would fight in the Fourth Succession War, but would be set up to take the fall for a superior officer's mistakes. He survived by fleeing to the newly-stablished FedCom, and was running Kentaro's Razors by around 3031.

Trying to figure out how to fit a minor Canopan noble into this would be a strain, even if I could actually recall where in the timeline she would have been (the series of runs I made the Mythic Heroes Legion for never got off the ground).

Gav would be a teenager at this point (the campaign involving Saint's Bricks was set during the War of 3039), but of all of them, he'd be the one you'd be most likely to run into - he's from Castor (though his family still make a thing about being New Dallasites, generations after that world was abandoned), where he's milking cows, sneaking his dad's cigars out behind the school gym, and counting the days until he's old enough to enlist in the FWLM.

Now I am trying to picture what Sgt Apone from Aliens (who was sort of my character model for Bullock, or at least one of them) would have been like as a teenager. Go figure.

Still, it would strain credulity if he just happened to be anywhere near the wreck of the SLS Nelson, assuming that it even occurred to Kiki to go looking for it and she thought she could slip it out from under Julian Tiepolo's nose (which might be enough of a scandal to put a more competent Primus at the helm to act as a speed bump for Myndo Waterly's ambitions later on down the road). It would be fun, though.

And yes, we did put rather more role-playing into our runs than is usual for a tabletop miniatures tactical game. While we weren't exactly playing the Mechwarrior TTRPG, we did try to give our unit commanders personalities and plausible motivations, and would even write out brief cribs about some of our unit's mid-level officers' personality quirks. We would sometimes roleplay out the tabletop miniatures equivalent of cutscenes, working out the decisions they would make about TOE, hiring and purchasing, choosing which missions to sign on for, and interacting with the principals and whatever local groups the units would encounter.

And none of this is even counting the 'Action Hero All-Stars' pick-up runs my friend Sophianna set up, where all of the commanders and MechWarriors were named after - and based on - characters such as Snake Plissken, Jack Burton (I think there was a third Kurt Russell character around too), John McLain, Sara Connor, Jules Winnfield (who apparently went to seminary school after he left the mob, as he was the unit's chaplain as well as a MechWarrior), John Rambo, Hannibal Smith, Rooster Cogburn, Lara Croft, and Harry Callahan, with the medics being Dr. Pierce and Dr. Quinn. That was a lot of silly fun.

With a lever big enough I can move the world ( Part 8 ) is this weeks release