Why Smoke Jaguar, a Universally disliked and Bloodthirsty Clan?

[TitanGear]

I was so interested when I saw CLANS... Brought back memories of my time from Mechwarrior 2 as a Wolf, Jade Falcon or Ghost Bear Trueborn. No you had to pick the clan that gets effectively erased due to their barbarism and sick tactics they used to attack their enemies. Did you try n take a page out of Disneys book and make the bad guys "Misunderstood" or relatable? This is right around the same vein as Naughty dog forcing us to play as the troll that killed Joel, "I cant remember her name and I aint looking it up" I highly reccomend yall consider adding more "CLANS" to your clan game otherwise this will be a hard pass for me.

[justfaded]

swordsman422 eredeti hozzászólása:

There has notably been a big push in the last few years to more fully flesh out CSJ and give them more depth and complexity than as the clan of psychopathic mass-murderers. Starting with the publication of Forever Faithful, which was centered around the introspections of a Jaguar warrior about the collapse and destruction of his clan, the Jags were moved away from being a 1-dimensional faction with monolithic groupthink and more portrayed as tragically failed by poor guidance and dismal leadership. After reading it, I was pretty certain we were going to get a Mechwarrior title from their perspective, and the same narrative brush has been applied to the characters in MW5C. While the pessimist in me recognizes this move as a way to make the fandom more receptive of the game, I do appreciate it anyway, because hoo boy, the optics on CSJ back in 1991 were not good.

I think the entire lore can stand a little modernization. Let's face it, the original lore as is is pretty outdated. It's pretty soap opera-ish even for 80s standards.

[Sinner6]

I was kind of struck by how much 40k took the basic premise of the future being populated by nothing but warmongering regressive factions with no good guys and cranked the volume to 11. It seems like they got the idea from BT. They took the soap opera factor and wrote 358 (and counting) of the stuff. I'm wondering if I should check out the BT books, as an adult in 2024?

[lllaxmatist]

They just were playing Ares Bingo.

[HuffingJenkem]

M3chaMike eredeti hozzászólása:

allan101ez eredeti hozzászólása:

"There are no bad or good, evil or kind people in the universe, everyone is the same there and it depends on which side of the information is provided."

Have to disagree with this. The "everything is relative" perspective is probably the most boring and uninteresting one you can take. Everyone's the same, no actions are bad or good etc etc... *yawn* no thanks. What's even the point about fighting with one side or the other, since everyone's the same you might as well switch sides on a whim, which gives me zero stakes in "my side". "everyone's the same" so who cares who wins? Terrible narrative choice if that's what they're going for.

I mean, in Battletech, it IS all relative. No faction is purely good, or purely evil. Except Capellans, they are the punching bag of everyone. But seriously, if you look into Battletech AT ALL you'll see that every faction does warcrimes, and every faction has moments where they are the heroes.

Yes, for some that means that there's no point in fighting for a specific faction. But on the flip side, it means that you can have a story from any perspective. Because even though the factions all do bad things, they usually do them for a REASON. That's what Battletech is all about. It's about how humans are more complex than just good versus evil.

Diamond Shark are warcrime free, no?

[Harukage]

HuffingJenkem eredeti hozzászólása:

Diamond Shark are warcrime free, no?

They are the clan whose warrior caste is the second arm of merchant caste. They sell weapons to enemies and steal any tech they can get their hand on.
And recently they had also developed a taste for blackmail.

[Illydth]

Digital Fulcrum eredeti hozzászólása:

I sure hope this isn't a "the villain is misunderstood" thing. I want to play as one of the most aggressive clans out there. It's about time we get some content through their perspective. Many other games used Smoke Jaguar (SJ) as their punching bag as a faceless villain.

I honestly think this might be a case that was similar to the first Twilight Of the Clans book, if I remember correctly. Is that a lot of the higher echelon leadership of SJ getting more aggressive and violent while you play as troopers in the front line thinking they're going too far and basically betraying the clan.

It's not a redemption arc for an "un-understood complex antagonist" story, at least not that I know of. The problem of course is that the castrated kittens were WRITTEN by FASA to be the comically-over-the-top-bad-guys of the setting that everyone was supposed to hate and despise...a bit like Lao / Capellan Confederation.

There's no "alternate cannon history" to show that these irredeemable reprobates were anything but the comically-bad bad guys of BattleTech. Sure we can extrapolate because of the way the ending to the clan wars plays out that maybe it was just their leadership that was "Twirl your handlebar mustache and grin evilly as you tie the woman to the railroad tracks" bad, but it's not like there's a lot of cannon places for PGI to go with this story that doesn't end in a rather un-fun game.

It's why I asked a long time ago when this was first announced why the hell someone would choose to make a game with the Smoke Jaguars as the protagonists. There's just no good playable story here...at least not really beyond early invasion where the Jags were just one of the bad guys and not the clearly "here's who you should hate because we've written them that way" people. Sure you can do some missions playing as the bad guys, and maybe some subset of the BT population would enjoy playing the handlebar mustache wearing dude that calls a nuke strike down on Turtle Bay, but the ending can't be happy-go-lucky. You can't "win"...there's no cannon ending where the Smoked ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ do anything but get annihilated.

My expectation of PGI's DLC for this game will be additional clan invasion stories. The next time you'll play as another clan, another DLC will have you play as a different one than that. Eventually I think we end up at the battle of Turkyyid (SP?) to close out the game. I can't figure out another way for this to play out...there's just no "continuing story" with the soaked houscats as the protagonists.

[Harukage]

There is. Fidelis are Smoke Jaguars. And they were, as you may call them, good guys serving the new Star League and next Republic of the Sphere. And they did revive their clan in the end.

[Illydth]

Sinner6 eredeti hozzászólása:

I was kind of struck by how much 40k took the basic premise of the future being populated by nothing but warmongering regressive factions with no good guys and cranked the volume to 11. It seems like they got the idea from BT. They took the soap opera factor and wrote 358 (and counting) of the stuff. I'm wondering if I should check out the BT books, as an adult in 2024?

150% ab-so-♥♥♥♥♥♥♥-lutely. Lets be clear, they ARE popcorn Sci-Fi fantasy books. No book reviewer worth their salt would ever call one of these things "classics" and they are no Ivanhoe or Lord of the Rings style literary masterpieces of the 20th century. They're about as "masterpiece" as a good Forgotten Realms novel...i'm not sure they rise even to the literary excellence of Dragonlance.

HOWEVER, there is no series I've ever read quite like it. The flowing story from 3019 to 3077 (or whatever the date at the end of the FedCom civil war) was an honest to God genius masterpiece of work. How you continue to publish 300 page novels time after time for 50+ books in a coehesive winding in and out political thriller story and keep the events and timelines interesting across a dozen or more years of publication is rather mind blowing, and really there's only one TRUELY BAD book in the entire series. The way the writers interweave the events...events that are touched on in one novel are expanded on in another and the outcomes of that book have visible impacts down the main storyline...is a writing genius that honestly approaches the Marvel Universe handling of the Avengers up through Endgame and the ways that Disney interwove the stories between TV Shows, Movie Releases and other media to create a meta-story under each individual story they were telling.

To be more clear, there is a specific bent to these books. It's definitively NOT an impartial account of a fantastical historical universe spanning people and the machinations of the powers that be...this is no "Song of Ice and Fire" here...there are definitive "good guys" and "bad guys" written into the setting...even though the "good guys" are at best almost as morally bereft as the bad guys are, that's not how they're portrayed. Clams that the Davions and Clan Wolf are the Mary Sue's of the setting aren't wrong. But I would argue that even with this it doesn't detract from the story or the overarching lore of the setting. History is written by the winners, and so long as you keep your eye on the novels as a bit like reading a historical propaganda piece you can see the grayness oozing out the pours of the story.

Battletech is one of the richest historical settings ever published for an RPG system. It's clearer and less opaque than Warhammer, less flighty than Forgotten Realms, and significantly more detailed and richer than any of the other D&D Settings including Dragonlance (which from a novel perspective is the most impressive writing in a published D&D setting). The novels make sense, hold the test of time, and put together a story that I believe makes converts out if it's readers. I wouldn't necessarily call it complex or nuanced in it's political machinations, but it's definitely a step above most other RPG setting's "political" stories.

I'll warn you up front...it's...an undertaking. 52 (I think) 300+ page novels is what gets you from the beginnings of the Gray Death Legion in 3019 to the end of the FedCom Civil war. (somewhere around 3077ish). Most of the books go fast (say what you want but Stackpole is a HELL of a writer, and Coleman showed her own, especially in the later years), some are a little bit of a slog.

But I will maintain to you like I have maintained to every person who's ever asked this question of me (and there have been several) in the years since I read these that they are without a question worth the time and effort to put into them.

(NOTE: Also just to again be transparent: During the FedCom Civil War part of the history FASA, the original publisher of BattleTech, announced that it was shutting down. There were also payment problems with some of it's authors, including the lead author that wrote most of the "main quest" novels of the storyline [Stackpole]. This leads to an authorship change; a "passing of the torch" so to speak toward the end of the series on who writes the main storyline and who finished off the series. I will suggest that the author who took over for Stackpole (Loren Coleman) did a PHENOMENAL job at finishing the storyline. However there IS an authorship change at the end and while I don't remember a tone or feel difference in the final novels from what i'd expect out of the series I do like to warn people this happened so that people aren't surprised 50 books into the series that Stackpole wasn't the author of Endgame.)

[Illydth]

Harukage eredeti hozzászólása:

There is. Fidelis are Smoke Jaguars. And they were, as you may call them, good guys serving the new Star League and next Republic of the Sphere. And they did revive their clan in the end.

Yep. I'm very aware...and that's a long long long long long long long way past 3050. If you want to see a good end to the Smoked Kittens you're going to have to go past the Clan invasion, Past the FedCom Civil War, Past the Jihad, and past the Founding of the Republic of the Sphere to get there.

I will bet you a very large amount of money here and now that MW5: Clans will NOT take us through 80 years of history, skipping past everything that happened between, to tell us the full story of the Castrated Kitties and their actual redemption ark.

[moyer4487]

No matter what clan or game world and universe used none is darker than Warhammer fantasy( the orginal prior to the 40k clone in a fantasy skin) or darker than 40k's grim dark. if u think clan SJ or any clan is bad or the inner sphere governments are vile and evn read some of the things the drukari have done in 40k or what chaos has done in fantasy and 40k. let alone the things humanity has done themselves. the game universe of either game i would not want to be living in. for them there is only war. and recent wars have llasted something like 10,000 years. with very short periods of peace at any given time. the warhammer universe be it fantasy or 40k would kick the ass of any game world created to date.i can't help but laugh thinking about the woke having to live in such a place where safe spaces don't exist for anybody and u are more than likely going to die because of warfare or chaos shows up on your planet or die of starvation because of the warfare no food or meds make it planetside. or start trek, imagine those softys in the grim dark, kurt wouldn't last very long. not trying to offend any trekies, so please don't smash me. i like star trek too

[Drokk]

The clans are not the bad guys. The dictators of the IS that attacked Star League, nuked, orbital bombed and used chemical and biological warfare on eachother and made feudal dictatorships for power are the bad ones. The clans are the good guys trying to restore the republic and free humanity.

If Smoke Jaguar was written to be evil bad guy, and apparently succeeded since many fans of the franchise see the clans in general and smoke jag in particular as evil, why would FASA wipe them out? You don't kill off a good written bad guy. What would Star Wars be without the empire or sith?

[Duetzefix]

Drokk eredeti hozzászólása:

The clans are not the bad guys.

Oh buddy. Dude. Pal.
The clans are the embodiment of "Might Makes Right". That is the whole point of their culture.
They are organised in castes. They are governed by the warrior caste, a small elite of genetically "superior" soldiers who are taught their whole lives that you can take whatever you want as long as you can defeat whoever wants to keep it or take it away.

A sibko of warriors starts out as a bunch of 100 children. Literal children, 10 years old. These vulnerable people are, for the next 8-10 years, taught how to fight, and not much else. The warriors who teach them are usually too old for active service and were not exceptional enough to earn a command position; teaching sibkos is not exactly glamorous, and actually looked down upon by the "real" warriors. So those teachers are angry, and frustrated. They are basically encouraged to take it out on their charges.
Abuse is rampant. The members of a sibko are beaten, humiliated and molested their whole lives, or at least until they are strong enough to put a stop to it. And they can't wait to be in a position to abuse their power over others themselves.

Drokk eredeti hozzászólása:

The dictators of the IS that attacked Star League, nuked, orbital bombed and used chemical and biological warfare on eachother and made feudal dictatorships for power are the bad ones.

The Star League was not attacked by the great houses. The throne of First Lord was usurped by Stefan Amaris and his Rim Worlds Republic, then the Star League collapsed after he was defeated by the SLDF.
He had killed everyone in House Cameron, which left a power vacuum in the Terran Hegemony as well as the Star League which the other Lords wanted to fill with themselves. They couldn't agree on a new First Lord, because why would they? They were equals, so they didn't see the need to submit to one of their own.
When Minoru Kurita was the first to proclaim himself First Lord the other Lords didn't agree, so war broke out. The war Aleksandr Kerensky had seen coming, which is why he took most of the SLDF and GTFO.

Also, those "feudal dictatorships" were already a reality centuries before the Star League was even founded. The Terran Hegemony was one of them.

Drokk eredeti hozzászólása:

The clans are the good guys trying to restore the republic and free humanity.

The Star League was not a republic. It was a federation of feudal states, not dissimilar to the Holy Roman Empire.

And "free humanity" from what, exactly? From being serfs in a feudal system? The clans, at least the crusader clans, want everyone to submit to their caste-system. Because that's what they think humanity needs to prosper. Is that better? It's different, alright, but is it better?

Drokk eredeti hozzászólása:

If Smoke Jaguar was written to be evil bad guy, and apparently succeeded since many fans of the franchise see the clans in general and smoke jag in particular as evil, why would FASA wipe them out? You don't kill off a good written bad guy. What would Star Wars be without the empire or sith?

The clans are not gone. Clan Smoke Jaguar is gone. Well, they got better eventually.
Why FASA chose to kill Clan Smoke Jaguar I can only speculate, but I can see why the Second Star League chose them: The Smoke Jaguars were ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. They deserved everything coming their way.

[Harukage]

Clans were not bad, they were just different. A culture that took completely different aproach in its developement. They are not good they are not bad, just different. Everything else is subjective.
You must also take note in their philosophies. A lot of clans were literally incited into Crusader camp. And as time passed they saw things for themself and shifted towards Wardens.
Like all of spheroid clans of 32nd century are literally Wardens if not in name than in everything else. And that includes revived Smoked jaguars, and Jade Falcons who currently are waking up from blood induced nightmare of Malvina Hazen.

[orcaa]

ExplosiveBolts eredeti hozzászólása:

Why is it so bad that you get to play as the irredeemable bad guys? It's an interesting angle that we haven't seen before.

no kidding ! +1