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Battletech Field Manual/Sourcebook
Battletech: Shattered Fortress
“In 3146, the Republic of the Sphere hangs by a tenuous thread. The last fragments of Devlin Stone’s dream to shepherd humankind toward a more prosperous future hide behind the impenetrable defenses of Fortress Republic. As the interstellar communications blackout rages, the ambitious Great Houses vie for military dominance, and the bloodthirsty Clans strive to find a weakness in the Fortress’s armor on their path to conquering Terra and claiming the coveted title of ilClan. When the Wall comes down, will the Inner Sphere plunge even further into the abyss of interstellar war, or will this herald the dawning of a new age?
“Shattered Fortress chronicles the twilight of BattleTech’s Dark Age, as nations are thrown into turmoil and predators circle the broken remnants of the Republic of the Sphere. This volume provides a year-by-year look at pivotal turning points in the history of the Inner Sphere, offers a peek behind the curtain of Fortress Republic, and reveals the fateful decisions that will ultimately decide the future of humanity.”
“Shattered Fortress chronicles the twilight of BattleTech’s Dark Age, as nations are thrown into turmoil and predators circle the broken remnants of the Republic of the Sphere. This volume provides a year-by-year look at pivotal turning points in the history of the Inner Sphere, offers a peek behind the curtain of Fortress Republic, and reveals the fateful decisions that will ultimately decide the future of humanity.”
- GenresScience Fiction
122 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 2018
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 22, 2023
This is a difficult one for me to read due to my own tastes. I, with no exaggeration, fucking despise the Great Houses and Successor States. To me, they are by far the most boring part of BattleTech. I hate the characters related to the Great Houses, I hate the storylines of the the Successor States and they are just generally my least favourite thing in the whole game, to the point that any story they're involved in is immediately less interesting to me.
So given the fact that Shattered Fortress focuses mostly on the Great Houses...well you can guess how much I enjoyed this book.
Now, the previous Sourcebooks I've reviewed recently (Era Digest: Dark Age, Era Report 3145 and Field Manual 3145) all heavily featured the Great Houses. I found myself actually somewhat enjoying the stories of these factions in those books but in this one I, once more, was back to hating them.
I loathed the amount of FedSuns wanking. They lose their capital but other than that, they nearly always win and Julian Davion is almost as much of a Gary Sue as Victor was, but he's a FedSun so you expect that. The Combine and Capellans are back to their generic, uninteresting evil selves and the Free Worlds League...well the FWL story was actually kinda decent, I won't lie. That was probably the most interesting Successor State in the whole story.
I didn't care, in the slightest, about the Buena Collective rebellion in the Lyran Commonwealth and I was disappointed to find myself once more disliking the Lyrans as I really enjoyed their conflicts with the Clans Wolf and Jade Falcon during the early Dark Age. In this book though, they sucked as much as the other Great Houses.
One thing that surprised me was the Marian Hegemony's involvement with the events of this book. The Marians are one of my favourite BattleTech factions but they've mostly sat out the major events of the setting so I was super excited to see them included! But, no...they're in this just so the reborn FWL can kick the Hegemony's ass and prove how "cool" it is. A shame.
But what about the other factions?
Clan Hell's Horses does nothing and the Ghost Bears are almost a non-presence in the story so...not much to talk about there.
As I love the two factions, I enjoyed most of the stuff about the Republic of the Sphere and the Republic Remnant (there are a few minor...questionable story choices regarding them however), their storyline was very well done and I like the ending to the Remnant, it felt suitably tragic and Operation ERUPTIO was a very interesting and fun piece of lore!
As always, Clan Jade Falcon remains the coolest thing to exist in the Dark Age and they were once again very fun to read about. I love Hazen and what she makes the Falcons in to during this era, a shame she dies during the whole Ilclan thing as I feel the Falcons will never be as cool again as they were under her command.
I was saddened to see the disappearance of most of the Republic's Secessionist Groups/Splinter Factions in this book.
The Steel Wolves are mentioned sometimes, Jasek Kelswa-Steiner and his Stormhammers do appear in this and they kick ass so that was fun to see, after what Katana Tormark did during the Nova Cat/Combine War it's not surprising that the Dragon's Fury weren't in this at all but I loved that group and would've liked to see more of it. The SwordSworn rejoin the FedSuns and fade into the background, the Spirit Cats are mentioned once or twice and there's no mention of Bannson's Raiders at all. The Northwind Highlanders are still around and have a large part in the story so...yay! The most boring early Dark Age group survived!
I'm sure most won't care about the absence of these groups, but as a man that has two very large BattleTech armies painted up as the Dragon's Fury and the Stormhammers, I was very sad to see them disappear from the lore.
Now what about Clan Wolf?
Oh boy...
If the writers were wanking over Julian Davion, then the writers were working their cocks so hard over Clan Wolf it's surprising they didn't snap off.
Easily the last quarter of this Sourcebook is just one huge circle jerk glorifying Clan Wolf and Alaric Ward as the coolest thing to ever exist in the history of ever. They do nothing but win, they suffer no real losses or endure any trials and they're just a cringe worthy pile of shit that sours the ending of this book. But, hey, who expected Clan Wolf to be even remotely well written?
They've always been the shite Mary Sue faction.
So all in all, this Sourcebook was pretty mediocre and I won't be re-reading it as the lore is either bad or simply uninteresting to me.
I still love the Dark Age, I just wish it ended better.
So given the fact that Shattered Fortress focuses mostly on the Great Houses...well you can guess how much I enjoyed this book.
Now, the previous Sourcebooks I've reviewed recently (Era Digest: Dark Age, Era Report 3145 and Field Manual 3145) all heavily featured the Great Houses. I found myself actually somewhat enjoying the stories of these factions in those books but in this one I, once more, was back to hating them.
I loathed the amount of FedSuns wanking. They lose their capital but other than that, they nearly always win and Julian Davion is almost as much of a Gary Sue as Victor was, but he's a FedSun so you expect that. The Combine and Capellans are back to their generic, uninteresting evil selves and the Free Worlds League...well the FWL story was actually kinda decent, I won't lie. That was probably the most interesting Successor State in the whole story.
I didn't care, in the slightest, about the Buena Collective rebellion in the Lyran Commonwealth and I was disappointed to find myself once more disliking the Lyrans as I really enjoyed their conflicts with the Clans Wolf and Jade Falcon during the early Dark Age. In this book though, they sucked as much as the other Great Houses.
One thing that surprised me was the Marian Hegemony's involvement with the events of this book. The Marians are one of my favourite BattleTech factions but they've mostly sat out the major events of the setting so I was super excited to see them included! But, no...they're in this just so the reborn FWL can kick the Hegemony's ass and prove how "cool" it is. A shame.
But what about the other factions?
Clan Hell's Horses does nothing and the Ghost Bears are almost a non-presence in the story so...not much to talk about there.
As I love the two factions, I enjoyed most of the stuff about the Republic of the Sphere and the Republic Remnant (there are a few minor...questionable story choices regarding them however), their storyline was very well done and I like the ending to the Remnant, it felt suitably tragic and Operation ERUPTIO was a very interesting and fun piece of lore!
As always, Clan Jade Falcon remains the coolest thing to exist in the Dark Age and they were once again very fun to read about. I love Hazen and what she makes the Falcons in to during this era, a shame she dies during the whole Ilclan thing as I feel the Falcons will never be as cool again as they were under her command.
I was saddened to see the disappearance of most of the Republic's Secessionist Groups/Splinter Factions in this book.
The Steel Wolves are mentioned sometimes, Jasek Kelswa-Steiner and his Stormhammers do appear in this and they kick ass so that was fun to see, after what Katana Tormark did during the Nova Cat/Combine War it's not surprising that the Dragon's Fury weren't in this at all but I loved that group and would've liked to see more of it. The SwordSworn rejoin the FedSuns and fade into the background, the Spirit Cats are mentioned once or twice and there's no mention of Bannson's Raiders at all. The Northwind Highlanders are still around and have a large part in the story so...yay! The most boring early Dark Age group survived!
I'm sure most won't care about the absence of these groups, but as a man that has two very large BattleTech armies painted up as the Dragon's Fury and the Stormhammers, I was very sad to see them disappear from the lore.
Now what about Clan Wolf?
Oh boy...
If the writers were wanking over Julian Davion, then the writers were working their cocks so hard over Clan Wolf it's surprising they didn't snap off.
Easily the last quarter of this Sourcebook is just one huge circle jerk glorifying Clan Wolf and Alaric Ward as the coolest thing to ever exist in the history of ever. They do nothing but win, they suffer no real losses or endure any trials and they're just a cringe worthy pile of shit that sours the ending of this book. But, hey, who expected Clan Wolf to be even remotely well written?
They've always been the shite Mary Sue faction.
So all in all, this Sourcebook was pretty mediocre and I won't be re-reading it as the lore is either bad or simply uninteresting to me.
I still love the Dark Age, I just wish it ended better.
September 28, 2020
Matches up nicely with some of the novels - but I always struggle with source books!
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews