Once I had a good outline of my history, society, and technology. I showed it to Pat Larkin.and the two of us spent considerable time discussing the ideas and how they could he fleshed out. When Pat and I felt we'd worked out the bugs, he went ahead to produce the excellent history that is included in the basic game. It was that early, original material that inspired you to want to know more and we at FASA to further develop the background of BattleTech.
While Pat was busy writing the fiction. I began to design the game system. As a gamer, I have always felt that the best systems were those where you could vividly imagine the action in your head while playing, as though the game were a movie, with the player as hero. To keep from destroying the magic of imagination, I did not want a game with rules so complicated they interfered with the movie playing in our heads.
BattleTech started as a simple system, and that helped to draw more and more people into the game. Of course, as players became more experienced, they began to want more and more details. Though we have expanded the rules far beyond anything I everimagined at the start, players can still stick with simplicity by playing with the basic rules, and choosing for themselves whatever additional rules they want to include in the game.
While producing all the new books and products for the popular BattleTech line, we wanted strong visual images that would help players feel that the game universe lives, breathes, and feels real. As a result, our BattleTech artists and designers have established new high marks for graphic quality in the adventure game industry. BattleTech was also the first line in the industry to include interior color art and it is the first to feature extensive uniform and vehicle painting schemes.
In addition to rules and striking graphics, the richness of the the BattleTech fictional background made it a natural for straight, non-gaming fiction. With fans of the game clamoring for more. I called Bill Keith to discuss the idea of writing novels related to the game and he jumped at the chance to work in a longer fictional form. The result was the exciting trilogy of the Gray Death Legion.
This year, with the major figures of the BattleTech universe moving their realms again toward another major interstellar war. I felt that the motivations of the major characters in this drama needed to be discussed in a depth that game material cannot hope to do. Thus was Mike Stackpole's Warrior Trilogy conceived. To begin this enormous project, Mike first had to become a world authority on BattleTech (excluding us at FASA, of course). Only then could he begin to craft the major plots we had designed, together with hundreds of characters and minor plots that he created, into a tale that would take the Successor States to a new stage of struggle, intrigue, and war.
Because we fell that BattleTech had spawned a wealth of beautiful and striking graphics, we decided to create Shrapnel, which is a collection of BattleTech short stories as well as a showcase for dramatic artwork such as the Jim Holloway painting shown here. For me, this painting isBattleTech. It portrays the action, the grittiness, and the scale that has made BattleTech so popular—and alt from the player's perspective. This image gives player the kind of ‘you are there’ identification that makes the game so real and therefore so much fun. As for the stories, all were commissioned specifically for this book, and are meant to show aspects of life in the BattleTech universe that have not been covered before.
This book is dedicated to the creative team, both in-house and free-lance, that has worked with me to create a universe that lives and breathes and feels real.
Enjoy.
J. K. W. Chicago, June 1988
OLD MECHWARRIORS NEVER
-Ken St. Andre
Hard times on Solaris VII, the gaming world, meant that not much was happening in the planetary arenas. With the galaxy at war. most of the best 'Mechs and all ot the best warrior-pilots were otfworld, slugging It out for keeps on a hundred different planets. A lot of the 'Mech-businesses had shut down. The city taverns were mostly empty. And the frequency of Mech combat in the various arenas of the gaming world was greatly reduced.
But there was still some demand for 'Mech combat and arena time, and as long as there was some demand, any man who could operate the giant war robots, no matter how poorly, need not starve in Xolara City. Also, there were still a few noble houses onplanet, namely the Tandrek, Zelazni. Blackstar. and Oonthrax. that had programs to test or young scions to prove in mechanized battle.
Trev-R came out of Arena headquarters with a 50-credit advance toward his next fight. Considering that his last fight had ended with his Mech reduced to a pile of smoking rubble— thank the galactic Spirit for last-second ejection pods—he had not done too bad. Still, it did not seem like enough money to tide him over for a month or more until the next fight unless he could augment it somehow.
He pulled his old plastic cowl up to protect his head from the stinging acid rain that was just starling to fall. Overhead, thick gray clouds blotted out the sky and obscured the tops of the city buildings. Underfoot, the road was half-gravel, half-quagmire. Trev-R lurched into a rapid and peculiar walk as he headed for Mode's Tavern His left leg pivoted in a half-circle from the hip and planted firmly in the mud ahead. Then he pushed off with his right toot and took a normal half-step. Then the left foot dragged around in another half-circle. And so on. For such a jerky and awkward gait, he made good speed. The left leg, along with certain other parts of the left half of his body, was an old mechanical prosthesis. The servo-motor in the knee had burned out a few months earlier, and he had not been able to afford a replacement.
Eight years as a Tech and I can't fix my own leg.he thought disgustedly. Should have stayed a Tech. I'd have made more money. Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to get back into Mech fighting as a warrior.Trev-R's thoughts were as gloomy as the weather. ‘Just one big score.’ he always told himself, ‘and I could leave Solaris. Ten years on this world is eleven years too long!’
As he turned into Rotten Alley. a shortcut between Arena HO and his tavern, Trev-R's right hand rested on the time-worn handle of his old 45 slug-thrower. It was an ancient gunpowder weapon dating back to 28th-century Terra—a replica of a 20th-century police weapon. It was the only valuable thing he had left, and it had been in his family for centuries. Over the years. Trev-R had taken care of it. even going so far as to handload his own ammunition, back in better times, and it had taken care of him. He had only two bullets left, and he did not want to use them. Rotten Alley was in the toughest part of town, though, and so he knew he needed to be ready for anything.
The local thugs, however, were busy with someone else Trev-R heard the muffled thud ot a body being thrown back against a wall, and a thin voice protesting weakly. He knew he should turn back and walk away before anyone noticed him. but old memories rose unbidden and he lurched on toward the scene of the crime.
Three figures loomed out of the rain as Trev-R approached. One was short, thin, and well-dressed in a blue pseudo-leather jacket and black slacks. Two larger men, covered with the standard gray plastic coats of the lower class had the smaller man backed into a corner. A short knife glittered at the victim's throat while the second robber rummaged through his pockets.
‘I've got his cash,’ said the second man. ‘Slit his throat and let's go!’
‘Don't kill me! I'm a nobleman,’ squeaked the youth.
‘Trev-R pointed the gun in their direction. ‘I'd leave quietly if I were you,’ he advised them in his most menacing tone.
The alleybashers looked annoyed but not intimidated. Trev-R knew they did not even recognize his weapon. The one with the knife spun his victim around in Iront of him to act as a shield. The other one started to grope inside his raincoat.