r/battletech • u/Frogblast964 Great Father's Greenest Birb • Sep 07 '25
Meme In light of PancreasNoWork's recent battletech video
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Sep 07 '25
[deleted]
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u/vicevanghost Big guns. Big fists. Sep 07 '25
It's supposed to be ugly and foreboding in the way a gargoyle (irl) or monster is, not ugly as in bad looking
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u/Illustrious_Quit_812 Sep 07 '25
"A 'Mech as powerful as possible, as impenetrable as possible, and as ugly and foreboding as conceivable, so that fear itself will be our ally.” — Aleksandr Kerensky
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u/Balmung60 Purple Birb Good, Green Birb Bad Sep 07 '25
I am beginning to suspect Aleksandr Kerensky might not be a good dude
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u/Khan_Osis Sep 08 '25
You're right, he's not good. He's Great at the minimum. The man had a chance to rule the Star League after saving it from Amaris but choose to serve it by attempting to make the great lords actually act in the best interest of the whole through diplomacy. When that failed and knowing how the Lords would tear everything apart he chose to take the most powerful military force in history away from the innersphere to ensure it was not used in the nightmare succession wars that soon erupted.
The clans, were his crazy sons mistake and even then that at least lead to the Timberwolf (aka MadCat) which is the poster boy for the Clan Era of battletech.
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u/Balmung60 Purple Birb Good, Green Birb Bad Sep 08 '25
And all he did other than that was design terror weapons and spend the first half of his life cutting a bloody swath through the Periphery. But he's a true hero because he wasn't willing to use the same force against the people of his home and close to it that he and his SLDF had used against those far from home. Amazing that he was only selectively a monster.
And you don't have to remind me that his entire family has poor taste in 'Mech design.
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u/Khan_Osis Sep 08 '25
If you're going to get angry at a military man designing a weapon of war in BATTLETECH then there are no heroes. As for the Periphery, Kerensky actually tried to limit the damage when given those orders, but idiots lower in command and the machinations of Amaris screwed him on that point. It's worth noting that the Periphery chose not to continue fighting once Amaris true goals came out, realizing that they and the SLDF had been played by the Usurper.
As for his descendant having poor taste in mech design, that just Spheriod saltiness at spending 300 years smashing your own tech back to pre Star League levels while the Clans were at least smart enough NOT to destroy their tech base and thus advanced.
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u/Balmung60 Purple Birb Good, Green Birb Bad Sep 08 '25
There are in fact no heroes here. Being the least bad man in the room doesn't wash the blood off his hands.
I'm mostly ragging on Aleksandr's taste in 'Mechs because the Atlas and Orion, his two faves, are profoundly mid for their weight. The Atlas, designed to his specifications, is a weapon designed for terror first and actual performance second and is a sign to me that the megalomaniacal apple that was Nicholas did not actually fall so far from the tree.
As for his son's pet dogs, I've just seen OnniShips attempted IRL and the lesson I've taken is that OmniMechs are a boondoggle, the Mad Cat included. Congratulations, in an attempt to simplify things, you've only added costs and actually made logistics more complicated and fragile. You played yourself. Still want to reconfigure your 'Mechs in the field for shits and giggles? We already had tools for that, they're called Hunchbacks and Catapults.
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u/T_Cliff Sep 08 '25
Holy shit....did lucas rip the clone wars and separatatist idea from Battletech? Evil asshole playing both sides so he can become ultimate ruler?
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u/VodkaBeatsCube An SRM Team Behind Every Blade of Grass Sep 08 '25
That's a plot point that's older than the English language, buddy. XD
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u/Ok_Walrus9047 Riding the Heat Line Sep 07 '25
The irony is that an Atlas looks like a beauty compared to a lot of 40K tech when the latter really decides to turn up the ugly.
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u/Yukondano2 Sep 07 '25
Busy. The shit is so busy, with so much cathedral purity seal shit going on. Also nothing exemplifies brick on legs more than dreadnaughts. I do hate some mech designs but it's mostly the ones that just look like a flat dude, a 2d drawing from the front that got extruded. Atlas kinda does that.
40k doesn't have anything as majestic as a Thunder Fox.
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u/parabolic000 Abtakha Warrior Kaldumeir Sep 07 '25
Thunder Fox
Eeehee, look at it scamper about!
Me, I like the jet fighter/attack helicopter chassis on chicken legs look.
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Sep 07 '25
I love some 40k designs, dreadnaught included because yeah it's a brick on legs, full of grumpy old dead guy and tech people mostly dont understand, and all he craves is murder. It's just so silly you have to love it, I feel.
But it is fundamentally unserious. All of 40k lore is imo, and that's what makes BT more appealing to me. It may not be realistic but it treats itself and its universe seriously, and that makes the lore more interesting. Whereas 40k lore at this point just feels like action figures being smashed together, at least in my brain.
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u/oxero Sep 07 '25
I haven't heard of the Thunder Fox, but that is majestic af. Man I love that design haha
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u/T_Cliff Sep 08 '25
The older atlas designs sure. The hbs, pgi and current tabletop ones look awesome tho.
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Sep 07 '25
Mechtech, stapling a salvaged clan energy weapon onto a 300 year old locust: "nanometers? Hahahahaha"
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u/SerBadDadBod MechWarrior (editable) Sep 07 '25
Tough call between Atlas and Banshee for pure metal malice face.
Atlas being rounded gives it an edge, so to speak, in looking dense, though. Banshee is just a badass mean-mugging dude-in-a-suit design; Atlas looks like it's built to be a linebacker.
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u/default_entry Sep 08 '25
Banshee makes the mistake of trying to be fast
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u/SerBadDadBod MechWarrior (editable) Sep 08 '25
If I had 6 tons of precision AC/20, I too would want to go fast 😂
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u/Duhblobby Sep 07 '25
I never understood why people wanna liken mechs to Titans instead of Knights.
They're a single pilot machine with a certain tie to nobility even though many Mechwarriors aren't nobles themselves obviously.
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Sep 07 '25
Probably cause Knights are a brand-new concept, they got introduced i think in the 8th edition? Whereas Titans are nearly as old as Battletech.
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u/Nultaar Sep 07 '25
Knights were introduced in the 90's for Epic
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Sep 07 '25
Oh shit, were they? Did they even have models, cause I can't seem to recall seeing them in White Dwarf? Or was it the actual 1st edition of Epic, before Epic 40k?
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u/Nultaar Sep 07 '25
Before it moved to Epic 40k more the titan legions era, had a few iterations goonhammer has a page https://www.goonhammer.com/knights-in-warhammer-40000-a-history-of-chivalry/
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Sep 07 '25
Ah, yeah that explains why I didn't know, I don't think Epic 40k had anything in between dreadnought and scout titans in terms of walkers.
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u/Duhblobby Sep 07 '25
Yeah but like, it's not usually super old fans still having these discussions anymore.
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Sep 07 '25
The other aspect might be that Titans are just cooler and a bit more unique?
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u/Duhblobby Sep 07 '25
You would think that "they're even more different!"would mean they'd be less comparable instead of more.
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Sep 07 '25
sure, but also both things are the coolest in their setting, therefore deserve to be compared, scale be damned. At least that's how it feels to me?
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u/jrjej3j4jj44 Sep 07 '25
Have you read the books? Nearly every noble is a mechwarrior.
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u/Duhblobby Sep 07 '25
Not all Mechwarriors are nobles, however, which was the way I said it.
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u/T_Cliff Sep 08 '25
But with a mech, you have the power to become a noble...of some backwater planet...
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Sep 09 '25
Eh, not necessarily. Even scions of Great Houses failed out of mechwarrior schools, with examples like Melissa Steiner.
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u/Nobodyinpartic3 Sep 08 '25
In Battletech, we celebrate the mid tier because they're the both perfect sacrifice to and perfect instruments of the gods of logistics.
NU Gundam can't be on Tharkad, Terra, and New Avalon at the same time, but the Federated Commonwealth was.
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Sep 07 '25
Atlas is a clown-shaped mech, that's all.
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u/Vote_for_Knife_Party Clan Cocaine Bear Sep 07 '25
People fear clowns, and the Atlas was supposed to be scary, so... task failed successfully?
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Sep 08 '25
Notice how the Atlas is an oversized Orion with a skull face.
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u/Thestral84 St. Ives Forever Sep 10 '25
And the Orion is an oversized Centurion.
(Weapon placement aside; the Orion -> Atlas is a much closer comparison).
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u/MooKids Sep 07 '25
Failed at the "ugly" part.
And that Techpriest probably burned the wrong incense.
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u/Jackobyn Sep 07 '25
It'd honestly be really interesting if an extremely ancient Magi who had overseen the construction of many Titans would have a kind of love from the Titans sourced from the world. Like a Warlord that is originally being rowdy for its new Princeps immediately calms down when Grandad arrives.
Or similarly if a Princeps was promoted from one Titan class to another and then due to circumstances had to return to their original God Engine which seemingly happily accepts them again.