[OT] BattleTech - Castle Brians

[Azure Trance]

Where did the name originate from? I can only recall them from when the clans invaded and there was a planet which was fortified with a Castle Brian. They were successfully defending against the clan invasion until the clans pulled up the plans from their database and found a secret way in.

Anybody know anymore about CBs?

 

[Azure Trance]

Or, to be a little more specific, from what I read CBs were a 'standard' high-level fortress which were on many planets.

I wonder if anybody here knows what I'm talking about.

 

[Heretic Apostate]

I know what you're talking about (the Grey Death found a cache and shared the tech with all the Successor States, resulting in SOME improvements in tech, before the Clans showed up).

Might have more luck if you tried the newsgroup (let's see if I remember this...): http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&group=rec.games.mecha

 

[Purple]

The Castle Brian Fortresses were created by one of the Director-Generals of the Hegemony, Brian Cameron, as defensive points for a planet. They were setup on several boarder planets of the Terran Hegemony to prevent the planet from being held long term by an invader. They had huge stockpiles of weapons, food and other supplies, along with a large network of exit areas so that the defenders of a planet could strike any invaders for a long time without real risk.

All that was mostly taken from the BattleTech book The Star League. Wow, I didn't really remember that I had that much BT stuff. Hope that helps.

-Purple

 

[Heretic Apostate]

Anyone know where I can find an online "history" of what happened after, oh, 3060? I stopped following BT a long time ago, and now that FASA is kaput, I don't know where to look....

 

[Azure Trance]

Thanks Purple! Never knew if I would ever find out about that ...

H.A., I wonder the same too. Last I remember was the revolution in one of the IS states while the leader was away on Operation Bulldog (I think), and a new division in Comstar.

 

[JacktheRabbit]

This looks like the place to ask. What finally happened to FASA? Did the mech centers retail locations finally put them under?

 

[Aaron L]

The only thing I can offer after Purples exhaustive answer is that the proper plural was Castles Brian. If you doing a Star League era game remember that they were deterrents, not actually capable of preventing a planets capture, but a garauntee that there would be Star League forces present on a captured planet as a harassment for a long time. Most of the Houses considered this sufficient deterrent.

 

[Heretic Apostate]

This looks like the place to ask. What finally happened to FASA? Did the mech centers retail locations finally put them under?

All I can say is that they're kaput. No sign of them. Their website now links to an online degree program.

That's all I know.

 

[gfunk]

This looks like the place to ask. What finally happened to FASA? Did the mech centers retail locations finally put them under?

They pretty much closed up shop. I remember reading the final message on their website thanking all of their loyal gamers and telling them that the Battletech license would be transferred (though I'm blanking on the company name). They said that back issues of technical readouts and such would be available for a while on their website.

I think the beginning of the end of FASA pretty much occured with the snafu over Mecha designs. Some artists of anime such as Robotech were miffed that some of FASA's creations were a little too close to their own (e.g. Marauder, Wasp, Shadow Hawk, Battlemaster, among others). Rather than become embroiled in a bitter legal battle they chose to simply withdraw the mechs. Since these designs helped fueled FASA's popularity I think the company started to go under.

BTW, if anyone is interested, I have a few 3060+ Sourcebooks and I used to read the FASA Btech novels as well. If anyone wants some info, I'd be happy to share.