I’d like to point out, the American/Canadian analogue was defined last year as the Terran Hegemony, which bore the brunt of the initial fall of the League (and who served as more-or-less “homeland” of the bureaucracy and military of the same). Widespread use of atomics by all parties during the initial fighting makes a convenient reason for writing them out of the setting, culturally speaking.

Building on the inital comment, the Combine was initially portrayed as protagonists (“Heir to the Dragon,” “Wolf Pack”) about as often as it was the antagonist (“Wolves on the Border,” large segments of the “Warrior Trilogy”). They became almost-exclusively protagonists (along with much of the Inner Sphere) during and after the Clan Invasion in the early 1990s. So far the only real “antagonist-only” factions have been the Capellan Confederation (Chinese/Russian analogue, who’ve recently taken a “sure they’re jerks, but they’re successful jerks” route after decades spent as laughingstocks among the Houses) and the ComStar-offshoot “Word of Blake” (who, along with the current Blakist Jihad storyline, were initially created in the early 1990s as a future followup to the story of the separation of the German and Franco-British halves of the Federated Commonwealth).

I like that analogy of the Clans as returning Legions, armed with machine guns while the knighthood of the middle ages has its hands full just trying to scrape together swords and horses for knights. What’s interesting is that other, relatively-ignored cultures are starting to make appearances in the fringes of the setting (Deep Periphery states, Sol-system backwaters, there’s even some actual full-on “togas and sandals” neo-Romans that have taken a central spot in some recent stories). It’ll be interesting to see how they’re integrated into the setting, I’m sure.

I really like the BTech universe. Read pretty much every Michael Stackpole novel and a few of the others. They are quite good reads!

Best,
Hunter (Pedro Bouça)

Get out of my head!!!

But seriously, thanks for this write-up. I haven’t read any BT novels in about a decade I suppose, but they were a big part of my high school experience.

However, I’m curious if the novels’ historical subversions match their contemporary political situations better than you’re suggesting. In the original novels (written in the early 80s?), we have our Anglo “good guys” in the Fed Suns fighting the Japanese “bad guys” in the Draconis Combine, just as anti-Japanese sentiments were prevalent in America due to the combination of increased business competition and leftover impressions from WWII that their traditions/rituals/attitudes are outdated and barbaric. As Japanese culture became more popular in America (especially with a large portion of BT’s fans), the Draconis Combine became more sympathetic (also notably more “progressive” by Western standards).

As of the last few novels that I read, Sun-Tzu, leader of the Chinese analog, was among the more ambitious and scheming characters (i.e. “villainous”), reflecting contemporary American anxieties about the rising power of China, the ideology of which it views as incompatible with its own.

Finally, wouldn’t Steiner be Germany (especially since its the Lyran Commonwealth… the collection of states a la pre-unification Germany)? I always took the FRR for the Scandinavian analog, though that does leave Marik as America, but that makes a certain amount of sense when you consider that it’s the only one without a monarch.