*Blows the cobwebs off again*

I touched upon this in a rant on the board about the treatment Isis Marik gets from most BT players, but realized it was better saved for elsewhere. This is elsewhere.

So Isis didn't "understand" Sun-Tzu?

The truth is that there's very little to understand about Sun-Tzu, and this is what makes it difficult to understand him.

I realize that was a cumbersome way of saying it. Put it this way instead: Sun-Tzu is deceptively simple.

Sun-Tzu has been said by some to not be a real character, but merely a "walking plot device" who exists to forward the Capellan Confederation's interests. I don't know whether that means he's not a "real" character, but there's a great measure of truth in this idea.

It would be incorrect to say the elevation of the CapCon is Sun-Tzu's top priority. It's his only priority. Nothing else matters to him - nothing. Other interests, concerns, emotions - they simply do not enter his mind, or if they do are instantly dismissed in favor of the one, surpreme, overriding goal. Sun-Tzu can be thought of, somewhat paradoxically, as the CapCon's collectivist "everything for the state" mentality personified in a single individual.

If Isis couldn't understand Sun-Tzu it's because she's, well, like most people; call it what you want: Less focused, less sick, more normal, more human. While Sun-Tzu might be worthy of some admiration for his (lacking a better word) patriotism, I suspect most people would not want to "understand" his mentality. (To identify the way something works is not the same as understanding it.)

"An FS Capellan March loyalist might have been fun in 3025, but there isn't really anywhere you can go with that now."

That's what I said in "Dissent," my blog entry from early February lamenting the absence of any BT players choosing the various opposition groups (Free Skye, Black Dragons, etc) as their faction.

Given information in the newly-released Dawn of the Jihad SB, it seems the "Capellan March First" cause may not be as dead as I thought; not with George Hasek apparently proving to be more like his grandpappy than his father, the late Morgan Hasek-Davion.

(Oh yeah, two blog entries in one day - he's on a roll now!)

(*Blows dust and cobwebs off the blog*)

One cannot be defined by one is against.

This is the principle I espoused when discussing the Taurian Concordat and Capellan Confederation with deathfrombeyond earlier. He disputed this, raising the second Star League and (in the real world) the Allies of World War II as examples of groups that were defined by what they opposed.

I see that my original statement was not entirely clear in communicating my point. One can be defined by what one opposes. Whether one should be is another matter.

If something uses what it opposes as the central column of its identity, it cannot endure beyond the endurance of the thing opposed. The second Star League became irrelevant the moment the Clan threat was "neutralized" with the Inner Sphere victory in the Great Refusal. The Allies ceased to exist with the defeat of the Axis - some of them continued in alliance, but this alliance was, ironically, formed in opposition to their former partner, the Soviet Union.

If the Federated Suns were wiped off the face of the BattleTech canon, the Capellan and Taurian player bases would implode. There are those who chose those factions for more "legitimate" reasons, but I believe the primary reason for their popularity is a backlash against the popularity and "munchiness" of the Federated Suns.

The Taurians were probably secretly rejoicing over the "Davion" (Fighting Urakhai) attack on Taurus: The great Davion Bogeyman had finally (in their minds) payed attention to them for the first time in a couple of centuries. Their existence was validated. Before that, their plight was much like that of The Venture Brothers Monarch, who was infuriated to discover Dr. Venture considered another villain his arch enemy.

Decide what you are for, and make your stand on that. Tie your identity to what you oppose, and in destroying it you will destroy yourself.

Another ludicrously long layoff between blog entries. At least this time I sort of have an excuse, as some of you may know what's being going on in my life over the past month.

Anyway, this is something I've been thinking about for some time. Have you ever heard of "rebranding"? It's a marketing term, which, as near as I can tell, means you slap a new name on something and pretend it's a new product even when it's exactly the same as it was under the previous label.

Consider this in the context of the ComStar schism in the early 3050's. The wacko cult element of ComStar splits off, partially through Focht's efforts to reform the organization and partially of their own volition, and set themselves up as Word of Blake.

And it's not just me calling them the "wacko cult element," understand. They're pretty much the self-proclaimed wacko cult element. These are the people who think that all of the pre-schism ComStar's shadier activities, like collaborating with the Clans, and actively trying to prevent the Inner Sphere from clawing its way out of the deep pit it had dug for itself during the Succession Wars by quashing the development of science and technology, and manipulating governments, were just peachy.

But because they give themselves a new name, nobody seems to notice. Just because the (at least nominally) de-wackified/cultified ComStar retains the name ComStar, people view them with suspicion and and hatred, blaming them for all the mischief they did pre-schism which they have now disavowed and which the Blakists have not.

Behold the power of "rebranding." Nobody ever ended up broke by underestimating the intelligence of the consumer, and apparently nobody ever had their plots for domination of known space foiled by the intelligence of the general public, either.

It has come to my attention that the Canopian incarnation of the new "Trinity" Battle Armor in Combat Equipment (a design shared between the Capellans and their Periphery lapdogs, three versions with three different names for the three states) is called Theseus.

Wonderful. The name that would have been absolutely ideal for a FWL unit has been wasted on a Canopian one. If the Canopians had to use something Greek wouldn't, say, Atalanta have made more sense?

Granted, having one unit use a name doesn't preclude it being used for another (witness the three different BT Eagles) but this still bugs me. The FWL has always been the most Greek-flavored faction since the death of the Rim Worlds Republic - we cut our PPCs with ouzo, for God's sake. (Never mind the apparent apparent efforts to make us Roman, what with his Free Worlds "Legionnaires" - sometime I'll collect all the reasons I despise the FW Legionnaires - and Longinus BA.) Theseus was a Greek mythological hero who became the elected king of Athens, widely credited as the first democracy - and the FWL has the most democratic trappings of any Successor State, too.

Most of you will say I'm getting overly worked up over something insignificant, and you're probably right, but this really irks me. FWL players are pretty much conditioned to think TPTB aren't paying attention to their faction, so I suppose stuff like this grates extra hard.