Editing BattleTech (section)

==The Appeal of BattleTech==
First and most obvious, giant stompy BattleMechs bristling with guns duking it out is cool. But despite that, BattleTech is in general a more grounded and human setting. You don't have warp daemons, God Emperors, energy forces or psionic powers in BattleTech or giant Space Cathedrals and machines that work better when people pray to them. Nor does it have artificial gravity, shields, sapient aliens, serious transhumanism, dyson spheres, general AI and other more wild science fiction ideas. While it does go into some suspense of belief in technology such as KF-FTL drive and HPG-FTL communications, most of the technology is still grounded within the realm of plausible belief. Society-wise, it doesn't go into the speculation on how civilization may come into conflict with divergent ideals or extraterrestrial life, instead you have human people like you and me struggling in a hostile universe where the most dangerous thing is often another human being under another flag. Not that the setting lacks for variety; the main factions are very well developed with their own distinct motivations, even if they do sometimes tend to lean into stereotypes. BattleTech is for people who read [[Dune]] and find the idea of the Atreides, Harkonnens, Corinos and the other Great Houses of the Landsraad with their conflicts and their power plays to be far more interesting than what happened after Paul took over. Some others also consider it similar to a teen rated version of [[A Song of Ice and Fire|Game of Thrones]] in space (but with mechs and sci-fi tactics in place of mythical creatures and gore).

BattleTech is one of the more morally grey settings out there. Moreso than many Grimdark settings where it's a matter of [[Imperium of Man|nasty jerks]] vs [[Chaos|literal demons]]. While there are a few factions which are better or worse than others on the whole ([[Magistracy of Canopus]] vs [[Clan Smoke Jaguar]]) all of the factions have their share of virtue and vice, heroes and villains. Good people can come up from the Nobility of the Federated Suns, Citizens of the Capellan Confederation or the Iron Wombs of The Clans, as can a lot real nasty bastards. In that regard, this is a rather tragic universe. In BattleTech nobody is corrupted by [[Chaos]] or seduced by the [[The Force|Dark Side]]. Instead humanity took to the stars and flourished, only to be brought low because their leaders were in the end just human with human failings. 

On the same note, this means that there are multiple ways of reading things and you actually have to think about motivations when forming your opinion. Is Federated Suns the home of true believers in freedom who sometimes fall short, or an empire of self-righteous hypocrites? Is (pre-WoB) ComStar the defenders of humanity's legacy of knowledge against the apocalyptic power-plays of the Great Houses to bring about a Golden age which was not merely Gilded like the last one, or a cult which feels that it has the right to dictate who gets how much tech and eliminate anyone who stands between them and their distant vision of an ideal future? Ask different people and you'll get different answers.  It helps that all sourcebooks are cannonical documents in universe written by and for specific factions.  Technical Readouts are written by Comstar as a sort of Jane's guides, Field Manuals are handbooks written for senior officers (e.g. one Federated Suns Field Manual is a readiness report from the commander of the armies to the first prince.) and other books are written as in universe histories.  So every splatbook is biased and edited to make someone look good, and absolutely admits it.  Any retcons or inconsistencies are therefore the result of in universe lies (and not poor fact checking or writing in our world) and you can choose which lies you want to believe.

As far as mecha design goes, BattleTech designs run the gamut from box-on-legs (Awesome, Dragon, etc), to egg-on-legs (Catapult, Marauder, etc), through to very polished designs (which were mostly stolen from Japanese anime shows). Wrong, they hired a third party artist who sold his designs to them and the other guys. Some of the later work, post-FASA, could be quite smooth, to the point of organic looking. As such, BattleTech is a pastiche of various art styles and design philosophies, covering the range of reactions from "cool-but-impractical", to "eh, practical-and-possible", and well out into the area that will make your engineering professor have a mental fit.

Lastly from a hobbyist perspective, BattleTech tries to make itself as accessable as possible. It's set up more like a [[board game]] than a miniatures wargame. The basic rules are free online, and you're allowed to represent a 'Mech with anything you can fit in the hex grid &mdash; including paper cutouts, so you can pick up and play with anyone willing to learn the rules with you.