Jack of Harts

If you’ve been paying any attention at all to the news, you’ve heard about the fires in Los Angeles County by now. Thanks to the wonders of Internet friendships, my Kevin Bacon is down to one friend between me and someone who’s lost a home over there, and I have nothing but compassion for everyone who is losing everything they’ve built to this inferno.

But we literally knew this would happen and we said it would happen if the government didn’t start performing proper land management in the area. They didn’t clear the dead brush that would fuel a fire during the off season. They actually stopped people from clearing the dead brush on their own property if reports are accurate. They haven’t built new reservoirs to hold water to fight the fires since before I could walk. They throw away one of the greatest sources of water in the world, the snowmelt off the Rocky Mountains, rather than let it flow into the lowlands to supply farms and fire fighting systems. The fire hydrants are running out of water, or already have run out, and they knew it was a problem because it happened mere months ago. They cut 17 million dollars in funding from the Fire Department and the new fire chief made DEI her primary focus with what funding she had left.

Government policies enforced by the administrations in California and the White House working together did the exact things you would do if you wanted to make this fire season worse. I hope the people of Los Angeles remember this when it comes time to elect their representative in the next two and four years. This disaster is the result of government action. Just like the fire in Hawaii was a very few short years ago. The conditions for that were also set up by government actions. By not clearing the dead brush. By not replacing the electric system with something that wouldn’t spark when it got jiggled by the winds in fire season.

I don’t want anybody going through anything like this. I want all of us to have representatives who take the actions it takes to make life BETTER for all of us. I want representatives who plan and take actions to make Acts of God like this LESS dangerous, not MORE dangerous. We all deserve that, and I want all of us to get that. But right now, a great many of us do not have that, and people are dying because of it.

I am filled with sorrow and compassion for everyone stuck and trapped in this situation. All the people seeing their lives and homes torn apart. You don’t deserve this. And I wish you had representatives that would have fought to make it less likely.

I have run or helped run a half dozen people through new playing experiences in the last month. At KSAGG last month and at Games & More this month. My Pryde Rock Demo Kit helps me easily show people how to play BattleTech Alpha Strike and BattleTech Encounters. And with some prep time and willingness to lug around the big kit, I can also bring a BattleTech Grinder on wheels. My demos are really very basic. Just running people through the active experience of playing the game. No rules book. Just a quick example of how to go through the turns, what to roll dice for, how to record damage or other effects, and finishing a quick game. I love giving a new player a good new experience at playing a new-to-them game. And I love watching their eyes open up with the realization of what each thing does. Of the fun they could have playing the game. It’s why we play games after all. For the fun.

I’ve been a fan of the BattleTech universe, and the various BattleTech games since I was a teenager. I started playing after the Clan Invasion, long after the 3025 dark ages were over, and when the Inner Sphere was rebuilding. And after a brief dalliance with the Free Worlds League, I discovered this little interstellar polity that I fell in love with.

The Taurian Concordat. The second oldest surviving interstellar polity, originally founded so far away from Terra that they thought they would never be found. Stubborn enough that when Terra did find them they held off the united invading armies of the Star League during what I’ve always called “The War of Terran Aggression” for twenty years before finally surrendering. Patient enough to spend two hundred years rebuilding their military industrial complex in literal underground factories after the Terrans dismantled their tech base so they could never rebel, and then kicked off the rebellion that resulted in the destruction of the hated Star League oppressors. Spent the next three centuries weathering the rapid and then slow technological decline of the Succession Wars by just continuing to build whatever they could build themselves or acquire from their contacts.

They initiated the only major colonization efforts performed since the Star League fell, adding dozens of new star systems to the Human Sphere in a universe that had seen only sudden or gradual collapse for three hundred years. They literally have the best literacy rate in the entire Human Sphere due to centuries of funding the best schools they could rebuild after the Star League fell. They maintained their own interstellar communications system after the fall of the Star League cut off all communications with the Inner Sphere. And when communications were restored, major mercenary commands contracted with Taurian companies to buy military hardware for combat in the Inner Sphere. They started recovering Star League technology without the aid of outsiders and built literal Star League designs out of their own resources. They recovered their own Pre-Star League designs and started building them again. They built new designs of their own that matched favorably against what the rest of the Human Sphere builds. They cultivated contacts to acquire new technology to improve on Star League designs. They made them faster. Better. Not always stronger, but something that gave them the ability to meet their traditional foes on the battlefield and fight them on at least a close to even field.

They are the classic small nuts just hard enough that none of the true big players in the universe can crack them without devoting so many resources to the operation that the other big players would absolutely take advantage of the situation. But they also can’t be ignore because they are out there on the fringes. As long as they are out there, trying to rebuild what they had before the big players invaded and tore them down, the big players can never rest easy. Because nobody can be allowed to truly succeed without the big players agreeing to let them succeed, doncha know?

I will further note that everything I’ve said above comes straight from BattleTech lore. Was printed in official BattleTech sourcebooks and technical readouts. They were introduced in MechWarrior First, as part of that first general sourcebook of the Human Sphere in the early 3000s, and then expanded upon in the fifth of the six major faction sourcebooks FASA published that established the state of the universe in 3025. They were later advanced into the 3050s by a second Periphery sourcebook, and into the 3060s by numerous other sourcebooks that focused on them to one degree or another. And other books have talked about them and mentioned them and noted what they are doing all the way up to the modern setting in the 3150s. They have a very detailed history, even if far less detailed than the Inner Sphere which is where most of the game’s focus is on.

And yet, despite all that detailed information sprinkled through forty real life years of sourcebooks, I find long time BattleTech fans who cannot conceive of the Taurian Concordat building anything more advanced than old school 3025 dark age technology. That the mere idea of them building something from the fabled Star League violates their fundamental understanding of the basic laws of the universe. I’ve seen literal fan wars over the idea, which is one of the reasons I’ve basically checked out of the BattleTech fan scene. I really don’t need that kind of negativity in my life.

It can get tiresome sometimes, but I didn’t pick the Taurians because they were an easy faction. I picked them entirely because they were the plucky faction that could, and did, and absolutely never stopped. Their symbol is a stubborn bull, and most BattleTech fans just call them Space Texas. Which is close enough that Taurian fans take the mixed insult and compliment with a smile and a nod and a “don’t mess with the bull or you’ll get the horns.” Hence the above image of a Taurian bull on a cowboy hat worn by a Taurian Mechwarrior. I don’t remember where I found this. I think it’s fan art, but it is one of many I can point to that plays to the general theme I have found on the internet. They evoke the ultimate “get off my lawn and leave me in peace or leave in pieces” energy. The problem is people keep coming onto their lawn while the Taurian is relaxing on his front porch and saying it belongs to them. Which is when the annoyed Taurian reaches behind the porch rail to pick up his shotgun and defend his lawn. And as it goes in war games, sometimes he wins and sometimes he loses. But the Taurian is stubborn enough to reach for the shotgun anyways.

They are basically the perfect Gen-X faction, and I feel that annoyed tiresome stubbornness deep in my soul.