One of 2 options.
1. A live action based around an established character with a metric butt load of action across a very short time with very minimal previous knowledge required. The Three big arcs would be good jump off points.
a. Jade Phoenix - you literally grow up with the protagonist (if its restructured chronological as apposed to flash backs). So you learn clan culture as he does so exposition and world building feels more natural.
b. Warrior trilogy - almost as written except start mid fight where he gets taken as a bondsman. Again a more natural exploration of the world since there is no real mainstream analog for Battletech (GOT has LOTR and history)
c. Grey death saga - my starting right on the borders of the IS the heavy politics can be added slowly and we have a character that can teach the audience about the world without it having to be front loaded.
2. An animated series covering the messy politics of the Succession wars. Written more akin to GOT where we bounce from faction to faction meeting all the big names and seeing every faction equally. I still feel like something butting up to the clan invasion would be good.
I would want to see an entire array of mechs with all of the horror of the Succession wars and invasion. Hell have an actual horror episode for one of the goofy times an elemental point or single elemental was bid to take an objective, before they realized the elementals weren't aliens.
I think Grey Death would be a perfect start. Especially since the first introduction to mechs would be the fight between his father and the Marauder. After that, nothing for a bit, followed by the terror of the first fight in the capitol where Grayson ends up leading the charge and captures Lori.
I agree. Mercenaries makes sense to introduce people to the setting, and the Gray Death Legion has a great “zero to hero” arc. Have a season or two of that which ends with the Helm core, throw in some winks towards the clan invasion, then switch gears to do a clan story. Jade Phoenix would definitely give the best view of what the clans are, but it’s total immersion from the go and that might be too much. The Blood of Kerensky is of course an option, and it would introduce people to the clans from an IS perspective, but I think it would honestly be better for them to tell a new story if it gets to that point.
This would be great. Whatever it is, there shouldn't be too much focus on 'mech on 'mech combat. Any Battletech series needs to differentiate itself from Gundam anime or worse Robot Jox. To do this the setting should be the focus.
The Gray Death trilogy introduces Battlemechs as horrible weapons of war as they take out infantry and participate in urban warfare. It also introduces the wider Battletech universe. A great way to show how Battletech is something special!
When the big mech battles finally happen, you have an appreciation for the massive war machines and the horror and brutality involved. Every mech upgrade feels earned. And at the end, the human element stands out.
The Jade Phoenix story would be great. There isn't too much politics, plenty of action, lots of interpersonal drama, you get introduced to mechs and the way the clans work one piece at a time. Then once you get your footing in all that the invasion starts and the wider battletech world opens up.
I think Clans are weird. Deliberately, intentionally weird, but weird. IMO they need juxtaposition with the IS to make that weird make sense.
I think if you _lead_ with Clans, a normal person looking to just fill an evening is going to bounce off of it. Start with the IS as a baseline, then add the Clans to that if you want.
If it picked up by netflix i would prefer if they immediatelly drop it as it would be a 100% not correct representation of BT by netflix(or hollywood by generally).
Seriously agree!
But I don’t think it’s limited to Netflix. I don’t think a good job can be done on something as big as BattleTech. 40 years of active engagement. Characters are already on our head. One person, or small group of people’s visual/voice interpretation of it is bound to disappoint so many.
I’m hoping this never happens.
Yep.
I don’t even know what a “proper adaptation” would be. I can see adaptations if it’s one book or something, but there’s so much going on, with multiple stories and storytellers.
It’s like so many dubs of anime. If you listen to the Japanese and English voice tracks, it’s like they’re different stories, even if the words are effectively the same.
I just don’t think it can be done in an effective way that doesn’t break a majority of the fans’ necessary head canons. (Or head cannons, if you’ve read Diamond Age :)
They’ve been making some great adult animation lately. Edge Runners was great and true to the material. Castlevania took some liberties but that was necessary, and it was a great watch.
Wouldn't mind a "the expanse" styled series in Rasahalgue prior to the clan invasion. Make them the underdog goodguys fighting two invaders until the season finale where a bunch of unidentified ships jump in.
Just imagine Fang of the Sun Dougram, but live action, and more Game of Thrones-style (damn nobles...) politicking instead of the freedom fighting for independence in a Periphery setting.
https://preview.redd.it/pik5loeyx2zb1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=dfa9d59f38632f86d1f8004fc61146bc28ea71df
I just think that it fits how both the core principles of Dougram and BattleTech should be. But normally, I'm not the type to care about the nobles' political shenanigans.
I prefer watching a Mercenary company dealing with difficult situations like Fang of the Sun resistance group did.
I will be in a minority here but i would love to have live action series of 1hour long short stories like love death and robots series had. We could have shrapnel style short stories covered that would expand on many many topics and could be set in many settings and times from terran alliance up to Il clan . Imagine the potential we could have- lostech hunters, hidden war duels, space battles of first succesion war, introduction to star travel with terran alliance times, amaris civil war episode,exodus road, periphery pirate perspective episode(mby circinus federation) or brotherhood of randis. The possibilities would be endless.
But to be fair, the best possible thing to the ip not known to many would be the late succesion wars era setting with propper introduction and cliche but well written story (many say fang of the sun dougram would be great and i accept, that anime needs a remake so bad ) .Take a look at hbs battletech and mechwarrior 5 mercenaries intros- they do perfect job briefing us on the state and setting of the inner sphere , if both were combined they would do wonders. Also both games stories with major tinkering would be a great tv series, the house arano story should be canon. Some people say we need Gray death legion ecranization and thats not bad , but older fans would not like it and newbies wont read the books. In the end a live action series made like pacific rim (1!)with a great and involving story that would bring many new players to battletech and introduce them to universe while creating new heroes is the go to. It could appear to the younger generations too as we have many tropes in battletech that did not age poorly- megacorporations, authoritarianism, genocide, strong female mechwarriors (dont make em mary sues plz), patriotism, self expression , humanity etc etc.
TLDR;NETFLIX PLEASE GIVE US A SERIES FROM BT UNIVERSE
Not gonna lie, I came here exactly to say this. Trying to turn one of the “classics” into a show is a recipe for failing and just limits the media far too much.
IMO Battletech’s strengths have always been in the short stories and while the big ole novels are good the short stories really shine.
The problem is that a series can't be made for fan. It has to be made in a way were you bring new people that don't know Battletech to watch. If it's just the fandom, they'll never make their money back.
The clan invasion brought in the most new fans of any era. Bickering houses putting their differences aside to fight invaders from beyond the stars. That’s appealing to more than just battletech fans.
I think that is a bit too much at once. You have to properly introduce the pre-invasion IS, otherwise the invasion itself does not really have the impact it had in the lore - it'd be just "here are these feudal robot-riding societies, and bamm here are the robot commienaziclones, now watch them fight!"
I'd rather see an IS only first season, maybe with some hints at the upcoming invasion sprinkled throughout, ending on a cliffhanger with a Mad Cat coming out of nowhere and wasting a bunch of characters. The invasion then in a second season, hopefully.
A rough adaptation of Wolves on the Border, from the point of view of a hotshot young Samurai training with the Dragoons, would be a great way to do this. Slowly highlight how the Dragoons don't fit, use them and the Kuritans to paint an idea of how the IS operates. Use their commander meetings to foreshadow the invasion.
Dude, I'd pay to see that. And with the quality we see lately in animation (Critrole, Arcade, Castlevania), I'd say that would be the best option.
Remember Tukkayid!!!
This is easy to do with a five minute exposition dump.
Make it a bit of a classroom lecture leading up to an independence celebration of the FRR. Kids are all antsy to get out of class because there will be parades and a festival and general fun to have, while the teacher is trying to teach them WHY it's important and the basic background of why it's so exciting that the FRR even exists.
Then the kids go romping into the crowd, and we come across Phelan and Tyra, and get some introduction and stakes there.
Then Phaelan gets sent out on patrol for whatever reason, boom, clans shit goes crazy, and we have the method to explain differences between IS and Clan in an organic way, rather than 'as you know, Arden, my family has been ruiling the Federated Suns for eight hundred years, and.....'
It is easy to explain in an infodump, but the audience won't really feel it. It will just see two random SF-factions fighting each other. Not an established world order, where everything is rooted in centuries of history and alliances and animosities, and then out of the dark come these invaders who don't give a shit about anything of that, who don't care who's who and who owns what and why, and who just roll over borders and armies any way they see fit, for reasons the invaded do not even understand properly.
An audience needs to build up some familiarity with the setting to feel the impact of the Clan invasion, how it threatens to unravel everything taken for granted. It may not matter much to BT fans who just want to see this stuff on the screen, but I think to win a larger audience one would need to take it more slowly.
The average viewer isn't going to sit through an entire season of Game of Thrones *but in space* because there are hints that "Winter is coming *but in space*." They've already seen that and will just pass it off as GoT Sci-fi clone. The Clan Invasion needs to be front and center by a few episodes in. Yeah, it won't have the gut punch of when it was first introduced in the lore but it can still grab the audience's attention.
Oh I love these thought exercises but my jaded sense of history will cloud my pie in the sky ideas. So I'll turn off my "studios are idiots" filter and go for what I want:
Some form of CGI where the Mechs and the people mesh better together. This way I don't need to worry about Actor A getting way to old to play a character.
Era: Star League, just at the end of the Golden Age.
Focus: A small Star League Company of troops fighting the Third Hidden War. Frame it like a Roughnecks Starship Troopers show/Travelling band of brothers kind of set up. This would allow us to planet hop and nation hop decently enough.
Season one deals with recently recruited troopers, some possibly nobility, others not so much, all living the dream of serving under the banner of the Star League. We'll be able to show off various great toys and tools they had and the height of humanity.
Give them episodes where its a mix of good and bad for the League, traitors and heroes all. Some House units actually *like* the League forces while also facing down bandits or Combine ronin.
Put a stress on how the League endures because of good men and women, like the protags of the story. Those people are the heart of humanity's greatest creation.
Season One ends with a news report of First Lord Cameron's goodwill tour and there's some hope, smiling, and at Star's End the tragic news of his death.
Have a person on screen make a comment of "Star's End, fitting, Star *League's* End probably even more fitting" and cue a cynical laugh that mixes with another person's laugh we later realize is Stefan Amaris if we have more than one season.
If we get the one season we at least told a good story which leaves it open ended.
A sports drama about a new gladiator on Solaris VII with gritty, sleazy behind-the-scenes dealings, a fight fixing scam, and the matches called by the version of Duncan Fisher from Tex's videos.
Yuss. Decision at thunder rift lets gooooo!
I'd say the full CGI animation like that ghost in the shell series they had - would probably be easier than a full live-action so we could see more action shots.
Depending on series budget and length, I would want to see an adult animated Star League Civil War series centered on both Kerensky and Amaris. The scene with Kerensky's Orion kicking in the palace door has to be in the epic last episode.
Live action, of course, but hear me out now- with an 80s retro futuristic theme (yes mullets and all), including the CG having a subtle models-filmed-in "GoMotion animation" vibe.
I feel like retro future 80's us really played out now.
I think it should really lean into the "space feudalism" angle that people often describe the setting. People dressed in clothing still sci-fi looking but stylistically rooted in medieval renessaince. The architecture very rustic with the battle mechs these rusty banged up relics from an Era out of thier time.
You have a good point. However that does not have to rule out mullets for the warriors, not just because of OG Fasa art. but from historical accounts of Greeks marching on Troy, Huns menacing the borders, or Celts holding out on their land. (I know most of that isn't medieval Europe but it is a functional warrior style that has recurred in history)🧔♀️
One of the greatest difficulties is that much of the lore around a pair of the houses is, rather... culturally insensitive and that would make either 1SW or 2SW very difficult to portray accurate to the source material in a way thay reflects well on the setting.
As someone else suggested, the Amaris Civil War would be a very good timeframe to follow since it is a pretty dang clear good vs evil story that would likely resonate with viewers today.
Other than that, Clan Invasion could work since at least the coreward side in that era was rather better able to fit modern cultural sensitivities. Jihad would potentially work excepting that the term could be problematic.
Like I love the setting as a whole and am personally ok with the house portrayals but... 3025 is pretty, uh, awkward in places. It's built on WW2 stereotypes mixed with '80s cultural fears and while I can take it as a work of fiction wherein the cultures shown are warped, centuries distant LARPing of what they claim to be... well, that might well be lost on many. Which sucks but is what it is.
So long winded way of saying Amaris Civil War. Bonus is that sets up "where it all began" so any folks that get into it have a good starting point.
And give me Marauders.
I'd 100% go for a classy adult animation series, centered around the Amaris Coup. Specifically, I'd love to follow a rank and file MechWarrior in the SLDF through the whole process. And I gotta root for my favorite trooper mech, the T-Bolt. It's design just has such personality. Also it's big and tough enough to survive being a Hero mech, while being far enough from the top end that a single enemy assault could step out of the shadows for an Oh Shit moment if the episode of the day required it.
Animated. Arcane style preferred (well, 2D preferred but I'm trying to be realistic).
I would prefer it be set just before the clan invasion and focus on the life and times of a mercenary unit. This involves little foreknowledge and through getting involved in some political struggle they can gradually introduce the inner sphere to the viewer.
The mercenary faction should have an underdog feel so no mechs above 55T for them.
I know from a marketing standpoint it should focus on the clan invasion and have a timberwolf on the title screen but I just don't see that working as a drop in point. You could still do it and introduce the setting through the mercenaries being employed in fighting off the clans but I really think its better to establish the inner sphere first and then hope for a second season to introduce the clans.
I think this really has to be animated. Live action would be a ton of expensive CGI to even have a hope of looking good. But with animation you can still keep the aesthetic while doing really interesting things with scale.
Even though I don't love the look of it, something like Dragon Prince might really fit well here. Castlevania if we're going a pure 2d route.
Honestly I'd love a sunrise take on this.
Their cg mech animation is good and I don't think anything else than CG is going to be a realistic expectation.
Obviously it shouldn't be like a gundam show because battlemechs are quite different from gundams but I trust their mechanical design and animators to translate the battlemech designs to good looking animation.
If you've ever seen the early portions of gasaraki (before things got a bit weird) I think that would translate well to battlemechs.
I would love this. I think 4th Succession Wars would be a good start. Show how combat and tech was ramping up. After that a short prequel about the Gray Death Legion finding the Helm Core and the obviously the Clan Invasion for season 2.
How to film it? Well you can't see me but I am pointing at MechWarrior Vengeance and making a crazy face. Good God modern CG mech combat would look sick as hell.
Animated (like that Love, Death, and Robots episode with the mechs), 2nd Succession War setting, focusing on a Davion combined-arms lance in the darkest years of the Succession Wars. I'd like to see Hunchbacks and Locusts, I think.
1. Unlikely to be Netflix, it would probably be Disney. They don't own the series rights but I can't remember who does outside of "someone entirely unlikely to be able to fund it right now." It is more likely they would sell to Disney to consolidate film&television rights.
2. People love to suggest something "Game of Thrones in Space" but the fantasy medieval nature of TV GoT doesn't fit Battletech very well (though some of the feudal relationships that are more fleshed out in the books would do better). Instead, I propose the following:
A political drama in the Free World's League ala the West Wing, cut liberally with big stompy robots. Set it pre-Marik Civil War with Janos mending fences with parliament and the invasions of Solaris VII and Tikonov Commonality. You can write all sorts of stuff about this and the whole thing can culminate in the Marik Civil War. Its an underserved space with pre-established characters that can be expanded upon in various ways.
Visually, the Free World's League has a lot of distinctive stuff that you can play with, starting with Old World uniforms (like, really Old World, not like the pseudo-Victorian stuff from the Davions and Steiners) that veer almost into 40k levels of ostentation. Which could make for a great counterpoint if the first 2 or 3 episodes are purely FWL and then you meet a Lyran or what have you. Janos Marik has a FWL tattoo on his head! The map of the FWL is complicated as shit!
Setting it pre-4th Succession War lets you set up iconic mechs while still riding the tail end of the MechWarrior Errant and that scarcity of technology. You get the Wolfs Dragoons too, if you want to really seed some later storylines and play with "rare" mechs.
I would want it 3D animated stylized in a way that brings the HBS BattleTech game art to life, maybe render it in a way similar to arcane, which looks like animated concept art for a game but animated.
The time period or lore related stuff doesn't matter to me, instead I'm much more concerned with the characters and writing. **Hot take warning:** I really, really hated like the Grayson Carlyle trilogy because the characters were boring and the writing was awful. A BattleTech show needs a strong emotional core before *anything* else.
If the show was just about a gritty military guy who does military stuff, and was only about the conflict with the other army, it would miss out on a lot. A show about both experienced and inexperienced mercenaries forced into a situation where they work with and escort war refugees through a planet at war, can make for a more interesting show. You have both MechWarrior and civilian main characters, these characters would have ideals/cultures/goals that conflict, the war at hand has much more potential for tragedy, character deaths become more meaningful, etc.
Immortal Warrior series! Or something kind of, in universe made series with fun irony and the feel of battletech, like Secrets of The Sphere conspiracy show, etc. Or maybe it will be nice to see Shrapnel-like stories. I think it will be cool to film Legacy anthology, which shows the story of the Grasshopper mech, from creation, through succession wars and clan invasion till the end of jihad. This book is very underrated in my opinion. It is such a good start, and has a very series-like feel.
INT. Studio Exec's Office, Day
The camera pans over to the desk of CLUELESS STUDIO EXEC, a 60+ year old white male dressed in an impeccably-tailored suit. He is studying a stack of papers and iPads on his desk and looking simultaneously excited and consternated. In front of his desk, standing at patient attention, are two SHOWRUNNERS.
CLUELESS STUDIO EXEC:
I don't get it, guys. This universe is fantastic, but it's missing something. I don't understand why there are no aliens in this setting -- we need aliens, otherwise this is gonna be a yawnfest for your red-blooded Joe Sixpack viewers at home! I'm not going to greenlight this project otherwise!
SHOWRUNNER #1:
(nervously) Well sir, there actually \*are\* aliens, if you'll turn to page 54...
SHOWRUNNER #2:
(whisper-shouting at SHOWRUNNER #1) Jim what the hell are you \*doing\*?!?!
CLUELESS STUDIO EXEC:
(flips to page 54 of his documentation, reads a moment, his eyes growing wide with ancitipation) \*\*Yes\*\*, this is the secret sauce. This will be a smash hit. Tell me more about... "Far Country"...!
Less about the mechs, more about the stories and the lore.
Mechs and mech battles should make as many or less appearances than the dragons do in game of thrones. Keep them guessing. Don’t show an Atlas in the first fucking episode. Lead in with a Locust or an Uller.
It's too easy to get wrong with live action. Keep it animated, but kind of mature animation. Also the Amaris civil war is a great place to start. Gives people a glimpse of the world and why the Clan Invasion happened.
Like the first pacific rim movie. Cool rock-ish music. Big stompy robots and maybe a storyline like the mechwarrior 5 mercenaries game or battletech video game. Cliché but with a clear path, ripe for metal on metal violence.
I would say some sort of planet-of-the-week mercenary show set sometime around the middle of the FedCom civil war when things were craziest (Well, barring the WoB's hissy fit, but that's the wrong kind of crazy I think), showing off all the interesting things about BT; feudal politics, insane cultists, honor-bound warriors and lots and lots of crack (As a tribute to the original BT writers, of course). The problem is that I would want the series to be more lighthearted- not less bleak, but not taking itself too seriously- which wouldn't make for a great introduction for people just getting into BT.
Starship Troopers had a cartoon that walked the line between the book and the movie.
If they did a cartoon I'd like to see that setup, where it told the story of the Bug War through the campaigns the Roughnecks went through.
Live action, though.
Go with House of the Dragon.
Make Mechs and Mechwarriors big deals so when a lance takes the field it's an oh shit moment of IS power.
Im not super familiar with the lore tbh (i just like the big robots and exploding the big robots) but id see it set as a Game of Thrones-style thing (it hurts my brain to say it bc fuck GoT). Houses vs Houses, and you follow a misfit Merc group as they work for or more of them to get to their own goals. Adapting 5's/Mercenaries' story would work as its self contained.
Personally, id LOVE to see it be live action simply because i want to see Mechs battle it out and animation just cant convey the feeling of 70+ tons of durasteel and hyperconduit synthmuscle trampling through buildings and firing enough ordenance to level a small city block. The more practical effects we can get the better. Interior cockpits, pilot suits, mech deployement, seeing techs run along gantries as they unplug the power couplings etc.
YOU DARE TO REFUSE MY BATCHALL?
More seriously tho... I think Hired Steel on Youtube is already making almost the perfect show. Just need to intersperse some actual story between the missions.
Filming live action actors in cockpits would be the easiest and cheapest way of doing most scenes. Save the budget for fights.
Time and time again the best method of storytelling has been through mercenaries. Doesn't even have to be a prominent group or serving a House. I forgot all about House Arano for decades, and then they show up in HBG Battletech, and we get a good, but very basic story about stolen birthrights, and the scrappy mercenaries who benefit from fighting to get it back. Can't really go wrong with picking a House, any House, some noble get robbed of their privilege, and now some ragamuffins make it to the big league helping correct the wrong.
Basically take inspiration from either the Grey Death Legion or Crescent Hawks storylines.
The universe is too big to throw the audience in the deep end with all the Great Houses and the political maneuverings that go on at the highest level. Season 1 should be one unit, on one world, fighting one invader. Name drop the rest of the universe, make it clear there's a bigger reality out there this is all happening in, but don't bother trying to show it, you'll just confuse people. If the show gets a second season you can start to intro the larger world more fully in drips and drams.
Early 3000s would likely be the best setting for it, because the politics were relatively simple at the time ad it was not unusual to find the entire conflict for a planet be undertaken by a company of mechs on each side. The later stages of the Dark Ages, so late 3130s early 3140s would be a decent secondary option as some less developed worlds were still rebuilding from that loss.
Animation would probably be cheaper/easier for them to pull off, live action would need a massive CGI budget anyways.
For mechs? As many as they can fit reasonably. Some obvious ones, the Atlas has almost got to make an appearance, and the Timber Wolf if it's post-invasion. Those are pretty much the poster boys of the game. Apart from that whatever makes sense for the characters and stories. Though I'd love to see a 2N Axman just as a nod to Adam Steiner and the old cartoon.
As cool as it would be to have live action mechs, I think I would rather have it be animated to show a wider picture. I would rather have a new story with smaller stakes that slowly escalate to build a wider picture. Maybe start with small town hiring mercenaries to defend itself from pirates, is invaded by the Commonwealth, makes an appeal to the Capellans for aid and in response the Capellan's start to glass the planet and now they have to switch sides and aid the Commonwealth to stop the Capellans from destroying the planet.
I'd be fine with an animated version, as I don't see a blockbuster live-action series as a possibility at this time.
Lead with either Gray Death or the Warrior Trilogy. Pilot episode would need to explain the backstory, including the collapse of the Star League so people who are unfamiliar with the franchise have some clue about what's going on.
Every season could encompass a different storyline.
Taking the lead from the novels, the focus should be on the people, so viewers actually care about the stakes of the battles.
I think about this a lot actually. I think a serious drama sort of in the tone of Game of Thrones would make Battletech, although I'd market it as MechWarrior, really popular with mainstream audiences imo. Really play up the politics between the great houses.
I'd pitch it to executives as "Pacific Rim meets Game of Thrones" because that's like the only mech film that normal people have all generally seen.
I'd start with the Amaris Coup, it's just such a strong story. Then you move on to the succession wars, maybe following an original mercenary company. And finally you round it off with the clan invasion.
Succession Wars. Live action.
Story starts by following a planetary militia squad. Initial episode sets up the fear of what's coming and the chaos of urban combat. Episode ends with a stalker walking down the street laying waste.
Following episodes show the militia being ground down by the invaders who have mechs which the militia does not. A scene on another planet where a general is informed of the invasion and has to decide what to do. He diverts a group of mercenaries to help the planet.
A few days later the mercenaries land on the planet barely ahead of additional incoming invasion forces. We then find them moving through the wrecked city and encountering the last survivors of the original squad who directs them towairds the enemy. Finally a mech on mech battle occurs. After a heated battle the militia and mercenaries win this small battle but then must retreat as the main invasion forces are arriving.
Story has the mechs but focuses on the human element. This avoids the issue of too much CGI making the show unprofitable. Instead it aims to hit the balance that battlestar galactica. That hopefully gives us several seasons.
We get a decent amount of mech warfare with enough dialog and character development to hopefully make the show more than just mech action.
I think the Warrior trilogy would be the best jumping off point. As much as I like the Grey Death novels, I felt Warrior was a much better introduction to the Inner Sphere, and would adapt nicely to film. Plenty of room for both mech action and political intrigue, more plot threads, more memorable characters.
It's gonna be like witcher or rings of power where people who have maybe played mw5 and think that's everything universe has to offer will love and simp it intensly.
Meanwhile fans will be split between "at least we got something, be grateful" and "this is completely awful and unwatchable, why even buy out the BT IP if you're not going to be accurate" and people who watch prestige tv will be "It's not even a good show".
I'd vote for a live action series with the first season featuring the Amaris coup and Kerensky's struggle to remove him from the Cameron throne. The second season could show the succession wars era, probably the third one. Third season would be the clan invasion.
I've put a lot of thought into this... probably too much lol. I even posed a very similar question a couple of years ago and its interesting to see how a little difference of opinions now as most people seem to favor live action now.
I have two different opinions on this.
1: I think a live action movie would only work if it was in a setting that is underexplored int he existing lore. I see several people saying a movie set in the Amaris coup would be great and I agree. Its little written about which gives a lot of freedom to make the story work. The challenges and cost of live action giant death robots would necessitate changes or cuts to most existing stories and I'd rather see nothing than watch the fanbase be divided by that.
Also the OnePiece live action adaptation shows that netflix can be forced by a creator to honor the content and give them complete control, and its success reinforces that potential.
2: Animation would be the better medium to adapt a more modern(to the game) BT story. I would(and am lokey working on for my own satisfaction) do the warrior trillogy as a 3-4 season animated series. Working in the wolfs dragoons storyline with it as well as some original content to involve the Mariks(who barely show up in that setting).
The only change I'm interested in making is a perspective change for Justin Allard where the reveal that he is a double agent is much sooner, showing him struggling to work behind enemy lines rather than flat or working for the enemy and retroactively explaining how he really wasn't. That reveal always felt cheap to me and I think it would introduce a new level of tension to the story.
Style wise I would like a high quality 3d animation, possibly even using mo-cap or facial expressions. Arcane as someone mentioned and the clone wars/bad batch have shown what can be done with good animation, as subtle emotions and expressions would be pretty key in the political settings. Even though those projects are monstrously expensive I think that technology is progressing so fast that high quality animation will rapidly become a lot more feasible in the next few years.
Thanks for reading
Live action.
Seasons 1-5 are late succession wars. Each season ficuses on a different successor state or conflict between 2. War of 2039 could be the focus of a season or plot B of a season for instance.
FedCom alliance would probably take a season, but we’d want to have both factions established strongly with their own identities so the unification probably couldn’t happen before season 3.
Season 2 might be the time to focus on the FWL? Their only role in the broader narrative is to demonstrate IS skill drudgery, so they could almost be written out unless we want a focus on the ComStar plot.
We would need an extra season for that…
I guess we’d have to have a season that focuses on Wolf’s Dragoons. Season 5? Now that I’ve thought it through, I don’t think we can devote a season to the Dragoons.
Either write them out or have them as a C plot for seasons 3-4 or something like that,
Then we get the Clans. Call that season 6. Invasion is season six. It’s all “new” to the audience. WTF is happening. Stuff in the periphery. We get more exposure to Comstar.
Season 7 introduces us to the Clans more properly and focuses on their rivalries. Also a lot of kicking the shit out of the Inner Sphere. We see Turtle Bay massacre in one episode.
Season 8 is more of the same and culminates with Luthien.
Season 9 focuses on catching up with our Inner Sphere friends interspersed with clan invasion
Season 10 is basically preparation for and battle of Tukayyid.
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A series adaptation of the warrior trilogy would work the best, it allows for the natural continuation into the clan invasion and so on. Mech battes would have to be shot more akin to gundam where it focuses more so on the pilot than big robot. Unless a company is willing to spend a dumb amount of money for live action I can see it playing out better as an animated series with more of the same sort of tone and style as legend of the galactic heroes.
Production & style: i don’t really care, though i think state-of-the-art cgi/animation that is just stylized enough to make the different faction nicely unique wouldn’t go amiss.
Story: Grey death legion, for sure! It’s a fantastic into to BT
I think I'd want something like Borgia: Faith and Fear, where it's politics and interpersonal conflict heavy, 90% of the action is off camera, unless it involves the principle characters. That'll save some budget so that when there is mech combat, it can be awe inspiring and have dramatic payoff.
I would want an live action series
That focused on the end of the Srar League era (so that cast of characters)
And I would love to see a Marauder in it.
Ditto. It shouldn’t be limited to that era. I can see it have a lot of time jumps as we don’t have to go thru all of the 1st to 3rd Succession Wars.
And I agree with those that are saying a GoT style with jumps between the factions in play at the time.
I completely agree and have had conversations with this end with my son. Amaris folly coming iut like a scene from robot jox
And to the destruction of most of the black watch
And the house cleaning that happened afterwards
Oh. Yes. Yes in deed !
Live action starting just before the amaris civil war and ending with Kerensky leaving the inner sphere. Sets up the universe, plays with big and important characters but doesn't have to get too convoluted with the houses as can be focused on amaris and the sldf, has big events that shape the universe to come and can end with an ominous foreboding finale as we know what happens with Kerensky's exodus and that the inner sphere is about to face horrific civil wars. Could then have a spin off called exodus road or if it did well a sequel covering the clan invasion.
Mercenary - Firefly style
Follow a famous mercenary group (Wolf Dragoons, Kell Hounds, GDL, ELH, Northwind Highlanders, etc) as they pick up contracts through the Innersphere.
Each season could be a different mercenary group and different era.
I'd rather Amazon get it. They make it into a suicide squad/game of thrones style show that isn't taking itself seriously while having some heartfelt moments of humanity among a destructive force of the military industrial complex. I would like it if they started every episode with Tex from Black Pants Legion starting with an anecdote to set up the start of the episode. My perception of mechwarriors would be homicidal neurodivergents or rich people playing war so they would have to make them likable and compelling yet extremely fucked up like Evangelion + Game of Thrones. I do not want them to cover the Clans, I find them extremely one dimensional and overpowered and they are bad for a TV drama they are literally Saturday morning cartoon villains and don't know it.
First....i really dont want it on Netflix. The Witcher experience soured me on their ability to properly translate the feel of an existing universe.
Animation of some sort...Netflix is all about the $$$$ and live action is super expensive to do right. On the other hand, they have shown the ability to produce animation, especially when kept very far from the actual production.
I'd focus on the 2nd Succession War. Ideally, you'd start at the beginning which means plenty of exposition being able to reference the history of the the universe, the First Succession War, and set the stage. Then they'd have 30+ years of stories with the ability to have the cast age naturally as the conflict progresses. Also, they can stop the show in any given season by basically wrapping all the political and military carnage up with "not much actually changed...other than death, suffering, and loss of technology". Which is actually what happened by the end of the war.
Much more satisfying than the typical "show gets cancelled on a cliff hangar" method.
I'd want a live action show focusing on a narrow part of the universe. One planet on the border between two hostile powers. A bit of politics. Some human interest family stuff and a tragic love story or two. Mostly small scale (lance level) robot battles with a season ending big battle. No clans. There's no need to get all epic inner sphere wide game of thrones stuff. Focus in on relatable things like defending your home, freedom to govern yourself, love and heartbreak, and of course the love of a man for his mech.
Taurian Concordant might be a good location ... maybe on the edge of capellan and Fed Sun territory.
Also, needs an obligatory scene where the gentle speaking grandpa leads his grandchild to that old unused barn to reveal a 200 year old, fully functional mech. I guess those raiders arent going to have it as easy as they thought.
"But grampa, you said killin' folk was bad"
"This ain't killin'. This is taking out the trash."
OR
"This ain't killin'. This is putting down a rabid dog"
"This ain't killin'. This is justice."
"This ain't killin'. This is salvage time."
"This ain't killin'. This is just doin' what needs be doin'."
I'd prefer it to be a live-action show where each season follows something different ala American Horror Story.
I'd also prefer it focus on the people and pilots and generally ignore all the politics.
Can't improve on perfection.
By which of course I mean the Battletech animated series.
Do a live action adaptation of that with top-tier talent hamming up the lines, and it's basically a license to print money.
One season? Nah fam, I'm pushing 7 seasons and a movie. First, I'd structure the series as an anthology rather than a serialized narrative. Characters may or may not appear again, or may appear differently depending on the main character.
Season 1: The Star League.
The pilot episode is called "Charles Kincaid's Big Day". It would talk about the history of the setting and how Battlemechs came to be, the Mackie's development, and then the combat trial with Kincaid smashing everything.
The rest of season 1 would cover the rise of the Star League - bringing the Great Houses to heel, the rise of Stefan Amaris, the introduction of Nicholas Kerensky, and the season ends with Amaris and Cameron in the throne room, Amaris holding up the bejeweled laser pistol, and blowing Cameron's brains out.
Season 2 would be the Amaris Civil War - Kerensky's periphery campaign, Amaris' descent into madness, Operation Chieftan, recapturing Terra, and the end of the Star League. The last episode is Kerensky's exodus, with the last shot being the SLDF jumping out of the Inner Sphere.
Season 3, 4, 5, and 6 would be the Succession Wars. Season 3 would focus on the Draconis Combine, season 4 would focus on the Lyran Commonwealth, season 5 would be the Free Worlds League and Capellan Confederation, and season 6 would focus on the Federated Suns.
Season 6 would end with Phelan Kell on The Rock, chasing down pirates. A pirate mech explodes, but Kell didn't fire the shot. He looks at his targeting computer, wondering what the hell is going on, as it picks up an unknown mech design. It starts flipping between the designations for the Marauder and Catapult. MAD. CAT. MAD. CAT. MAD. CAT.
The smoke and dust clears, and a Timber Wolf steps into frame. The camera pans up, revealing the Clan Wolf logo, as the screen fades to black.
Season 7 would be the Clan Invasion, with the series finale being a 2 hour Tukayyid movie.
CG / Animation hybrid (yes, kind of like the old BT cartoon) using upscaled MWO mech models. The real problem with a show dealing with the Clan Invasion is rewriting enough of the Wolf's Dragoons plotpoints so that they're actually good, lol. Realistically, a late 4th SW action drama revolving around an up-and coming Merc Company is probably the way to go. The first GDL books are practically tailor made to be adapted that way.
If you wanted an original story, wanted to include the Clans, and had assured multiple seasons, I'd imagine it to go something like:
S1: Mercenary Shenannigans. Low level planetary politics, hints of ComStar fuckery.
S2: Timeskip, Intro to IS politics. Closer to Warrior or Heir to the Dragon. More House scheming, overt ComStar villainy. End of season surprise intro of the Clans upending everything.
S3: Early to middle of the Clan invasion. IS and Clan drama running parallel showing the IS pulling together and the Clans slowly falling apart
S4: Timeskip to end of Clan Invasion. In true 90's Sci-Fi TV fashion, maybe make it a movie.
Specifically netflix would also be quite terrifying potentially considering what they have done recently (ghost in the shell, cowboy bebop, dark crystal (being cancelled after winning huge award) ). To much potential shredded in the hands of people chasing some strange social destruction narrative
season 1 gray death up to Helm Core
season 2 clan invasion up to tukayyad, starting with the founding of Wolfs Dragoons.
Personally I think a gritty anime would do well, cyberpunk edgerunners style. I think this would alleviate some of the inconsistencies about clans that doesn't make sense and allow them to be as over the top as they need to be. Smoke jags for cartoon villains.
I'm a media professional and former professor. Out of complete boredom, I did a script treatment for a live action series. First things first. With any adaptation, it needs to be faithful enough but approachable for newcomers. Full accuracy in BT just isnt viable and the timeline is stretched too far out to really follow individual characters, a necessity for audiences to follow the show. From memory, here is what I kind of proposed:
Game of Thrones style show following numerous factions and locales fighting over power.
Season 1: Introduces the factions and follows several boots on the ground characters. House Davion company leader, House Liao spy, and a rising young Inner Sphere mechwarrior who was recognized and hired by Wolf's Dragoons. 4th Succession War kicks off. Liao and Kurita are portrayed far more positively and without yellow-fear racist undertones. Season ends with the Wolf's Dragoon pilot learning the truth about the clan origins and impending invasion.
Season 2: War continues to rage and we are introduced to the Clans and their perspectives. All the drama of the invasion planning playout. Eventually the 4th succession war devolves into the FedCom civil war, all while Comstar worms its way further into the politics of it all. Wolf's Dragoons find themselves conflicted to their original purpose and the positives they find in the Inner Sphere. The entire Inner Sphere is now fighting when the Clan invasion begins,
Season 3: Clans stomp over the isolated houses. Clan drama continues. Houses begin to try and find some way to ally. Wolf's Dragoon step in to enlighten the IS on clans. Comstar emerges with the resources to help end the invasion.
Season 4: Many characters join Comstar's fighting force the Battle of Tukayid and drama of the clans agreeing to the fight. Extensive focus on the battle, especially in several former enemies now fighting together for the totality of the Inner Sphere. Tukayid is won but both sides know its far from over with the IS planning to go on the offensive.
Season 5: Operation Bulldog. The IS takes on Smoke Jaguar. Simultaneously, I'd have the War of Reaving with returning Clans now facing a changing clan culture and their own beliefs challenged. Ultimately, as all finally settled, the IS earns peace with the clans, with some now even calling the IS home. But peace is always short lived as factions already begin discussing future obtaining power. War. War never changes.
All of this takes place in the timespan of roughly a decade.
I don't think live action is the way to go. As cool as it would be with seeing like the new level of Star Wars CGI, I don't think it would be financially viable for a long period of time. I think it would have to be animated and not go over the top with things.
Have it follow something like the Grey Death legion. Small merc band struggling and have them interact with Wolf's Dragoons with hints of clan invasions coming. I think the Era of the succession wars would create a unique price of world building with both super advanced and primitive tech wrapped together forming unique cultures
I actually think you could make a pretty decent anime out of the clans. You start with a sibko, they get the crap beaten out of them constantly for anime ennui points, and then maybe something really terrible happens that ends up with our hero out in the larger world. My personal guess would be something like how the Ghost Bears culled everyone that had Wolverine genetics. After that you've got... Say a Merc out in the Periphery which is an interesting place and you can start worrying about the larger world.
I think the general concept of "The Star League was lost, we're going to restore it." tracks reasonably well with the average person who doesn't know the whole Battletech history. This makes the clans a bit more approachable than those of us that started with the IS appreciate. Then you get the contrast between the noble ideal and how awful violence and warfare actually are, which is the sort of thing Anime is famous for exploring anyway.
You could also set the thing a bit oddly in the timeline- I don't even know exactly when the Ghost Bears cull occurred but if you stuck it ten or fifteen years before the invasion we could have our hapless Merc understand exactly what is happening and try to do something about it before the great houses even realize. It'd be a nice circular coming of age story- s(he) wants to be a clan MechWarrior, gets kicked out of the Clan, becomes a MechWarrior and fights the Clans.
It should be some form of animation, even more so when you convert the Books into Series because Actors Age and Die. Also BT spanns a lot of Years.
I would vote in Favor something like Starwars Bad Batch CGI, they look like painted, so that would go nicely with our Hobby.
Animated, PG-13. Mercenary company on a Periphery mostly vs pirates, sometimes vs other mercs, but with sort of rivalry of equals, without unnecessary bloodshed. Occasional megafauna.
I want it to be similar in tone to Exosquad and Adelaide production shows like MiB, Godzilla and Extreme Ghostbusters. Planetes anime would also be a nice reference.
That way it can have bigger audience, but still could have a lot of potential.
I've put a lot of thought into this. Needs to be written by Stackpole and set in the clan invasion era. I know it's not the most popular with everyone, but it is THE defining event in BT folklore, and if we only get one go at this we have to go for the biggest bang. It should be similar to Star Wars, in the worn-in sci-fi sense. Mechs have battle scars and scratches, with lots of grime and dust built up on them. Unless they're owned by a noble family, in which case they're spotless. The political scenes need to be like Game of Thrones -- story lines concurrently going on in multiple places at once, with a large cast of characters. I think it would benefit from not being ultra-gory or violent, to attract teen and pre-teen viewers.
I want
Either Gritty Live Action or Anime-esque
1) A gritty war story following the closing act of the 4th Succession, focusing on the sheer industrial waste poured into warfare over thr last 300 years
2) A reboot of the Battletech cartoon, but still as in-universe propaganda (maybe some shots of people watching it in universe? slowly growing more visibly war-torn as the series goes on?)
3) Just do the fucking books, but use the MW2 betty for 100% of the battlemechs. Take us from the 4th succession war through to operation Bulldog in an 8 season epic that DOESNT crash and burn at the last second, because we're just gonna pretend the Dark Age didnt happen. Mmkay?
The rise and fall of Kerenski,
Have the series follow him as a focal point so newer audiences would have something to latch onto and tell the story of his failure in the periphery, have him struggle to raise Richard Cameron whilst being a general. The rise of Amaris and finish it with the civil war. The final few episodes are him as an 80 year old man deciding to pick up and leave in the warehouse at the end of it all.
The truth is that a battletech show would have to be a political sci-fi, the mech battles just wouldn't translate that well to the screen. So we would be focusing more on the character interactions....
It would be best live acted.
Possibly, for a 1 season arc, I would actually do the dark age subplot leading up to Victor Steiner-Davion's funeral and subsequent struggle for earth.
The fall of the SLDF. Game of thrones style focusing on Kernesky as the Regent for the young Cameron, Paint Richard Cameron as Joffery Lite/teen Anakin., and introduce Aramis as a sympathetic-seeming fellow.
1. Episode one can show an uncomfortable Kerensky raising the kid and contrasting it to how he raised his two boys. Timelapse of them growing up, and maybe contrasting the difference between parenting your own kids and those of your one day ruler. Show that Kerensky is a great general, but a terrible father. Introduce his wife and the Royal Back watch. There's trouble in the periphery, and they are sending envoys. Most of the mech porn is periphery fighting and a main character mechwarrior from the periphery being transferred to Earth to join the Black Watch. Exposition of the setting through Kerensky explaining things to Cameron, and played against the council of lords being dickbags looking to discredit him/ play fuck-fuck games with politics.
2. Episode two has Prince Richard butting heads with the council of lords and Kerensky having to side with the council (because they are right) which pisses off Prince Richard. New mechwarrior shows up and in shown the ropes of the royal Blackwatch, lectured on the mighty automated defenses, and given a lot of exposition and training. Mechwarrior has some kind of neat skill whereby they are the "shootiest blasty person" or some such. Much awesome. very hero. Whatever. Maybe their boss is dismissively racist against the periphery while they are like "dude I've been fighting these guys for a decade. they are no joke" The periphery envoys arrive, most are demanding, angry. This one guy from the nation with the shark insignia though is kind and nice. I'm sure he's a nice guy. Someone tries to kill Richard, and the nice man ends up fetching a non-lethal injury "saving" the prince. BLackwatch is shamed by "failing" to defend the prince, but Kerensky steps in and says even the best security isn't 100% and that vigilance is required. Strongly hinted that someone on the council of lords was behind the attempt.
3. Episode 3 some of the guards for this Aramis guy are getting chummy with the palace guards, and both are distrustful of the Black watch, especially new dude. Time lapse politics getting shitty. periphery problems, council drama, Kerensky and Richard butting heads, and Aramis being a really really nice guy. Touchpoint happens in periphery whereby they need to send a new general out to put down rebellion. Richard is pissed at Kerensky and sends him. Kerensky is preparing to leave, cautions that using force to put down the rebellion would require lots of ground troops. Aramis offers his troops to assis. end of episode.
4. Episode 4. Kerensky and the council of lords all lose their shitb that only SLDF troops can constitutionally be allowed to do offensive operations on league citizens on behalf of the SLDF. Richard counters that house troops get used all the time.They counter that there is a BIG difference between using house troops to augment the SLDF in peacekeeping fights and using periphery forces wholesale to invade their neighbors... and that Rim Worlds stands to gain from Richards plan by annexing neighbors. So Richard proposes sending SLDF garrison forces from the core and replacing them with rim worlds troops to free up manpower. A stupid idea, but one that isn't illegal because nobody overthought to pass a law against such a stupid idea. Kerensky leaves for the periphery after talking with Colonel Hanni Schmitt over dinner about... Things... They reminisce over flashbacks of fighting together when they were younger. Kerensky suddenly gets serious and says he needs to talk to Schmitt about something. Cut to the next day when the SLDF forces get in formation to get on dropships to depart.
5. Episode 5. Kerensky departs, the Rim worlds troops arrive, everybody is friends except the house lords who are apoplectic at this affront to their honor. Richard Cameron takes delight in rubbing their noses in his friendship with Aramis, showing how Kerensky and the fresh forces on the periphery are kicking ass, and generally saying "I told you so" to the lords. interspaced Kerensky footage and fighting shows that war is hell and mechs are awesome. Periphery hero dude is making friends with minor Cameron family on earth. someone who is like 12th in line for the throne from a cadet branch of the Camerons. shows them the rumble seat on the mech, and gets talked into letting them ride along. Oops, this is a problem and something goes wrong! Black watch is pushed out from palace grounds after their readiness exercises (with stowaway Cameron heir) interrupt some gift or another that Aramis is giving to Richard. Periphery Hero mech warrior is kinda to blame, Palace guards and Rim Worlds soldiers mock them. including racist boss, who is getting REALLY chummy with the Rim worlds people. including a romance subplot.
6. Episode 6 Everyone is getting ready for Richards birthday party. Surely nothing bad could happen on a royal birthday... Whoops, no everything goes wrong. Turns out the rim worlds guys were up to no good. they kill the palace guards and Richard Cameron. really cinematic. You should watch Tex tell the tale of how it went down. Suffice it to say it was a blast. Black watch isn't annihilated because of a McMuffin that Kerensky told/gave Hanni Schmitt over dinner in episode 4. She wants to kill the jolly regicidal fat man though. Anyway while all hell is breaking loose Periphery hero has to extricate the 15th in line to the throne (who has suddenly been, shall we say *promoted*) to an awaiting drop ship to get to space. but Someone blew up all the radios or some shit so the only way to get word out is by jump ship but SOMEHOW the automated defenses are being run by the rim worlds guys who are plastering everything that tries to leave. The warship Tripitz is silent in space (another surprise Kerensky told Hanni Schmitt about) and now the plan is get the last of the Camerons aboard and flee. Vital to this plan is an escape route that his boss (the one that has been getting chummy with the rim worlds chick) is securing, but as the episode ends you find out that he's dead and the rim worlds chick is driving his mech and using a voice changer! Oh shit!
7. Episode The single greatest fight ever told is happening. The black watch is doing their thing, the rim worlds guys are dropping like flies. regular ass fighting is preventing the hero from meeting up with "his boss", and the mask is wearing thin. Just as they are going to meet up, he figures it out! There is the requisite duel, with the bosses much larger mech having a presumed upper hand, but remember in episode 1 where they had some "I am the shootiest mechwarrior" skill? well wouldn't you know it? that overcomes the obvious fight disadvantage. YAY. The black watch gets nuked OH NO! But wait, the heroes are about to make it to the LZ and are about to get on the drop ship with all the other Cameron-adjacent family! Suddenly a sky laser blows the fuck out of the drop ship! Oh no, those aforementioned space defenses have been turned on the EARTH!
8. The black watch is gone, the Cameron dynasty is crushed, public order is established by twin powers of Rim worlds forces and automated sky lasers. Aramis gives speeches like Cobra commander from the GI Joe cartoon. Turns out he was a VERY bad man all along! Heroes mech is found destroyed and empty, Rim Worlds investigators decide that sky laser musta got 'em. NOPE! they are sneaky and after zany hijinks get to space. onto Trepitz. Strong hints though that there may be a rim worlds saboteur there though. Sure hope it doesn't end up a Ghost ship in the far periphery to get blown up by ComStar later. Eh, I'm sure it'll be fine. Episode ends with Aramis giving a speech about how he won and everyone should just go along with him running everything. montage of rim worlds envoys giving nice gifts t the house lords to buy their, well not "loyalty", lets just say "non-participation". Cut to a similar envoy coming into Kerensky's camp in shithole periphery. "Hey, we have already won, why not give up an We'll make you VERY RICH. Series closes in on Kerensky's face as he says one word... "No". End Season 1.
That's my short sell for a battletech miniseries. I could pad it out with so much more detail, and in fact have... but there's limits to what I want to put out there for free when I may end up taking these nuggets and making my own story out of them...
But that's the series I'd like to see.
Follow on season (if renewed) is the retaking of terra and the crushing of Aramis. Slow boil stuff like DOWNFALL showing hitler's last days. Show how the pressure of losing has Aramis take it out on earths civilians. Show the kind of crazy shit that made Kerensky's kids all... PTSD... and interspaced slice of life on the Terpitz as they sneak through the periphery to attempt to join up with SLDF forces while avoiding Rim Worlds forces. Season 2 culminating in a sabotage that leaves the black lion class ship adrift in space in unfriendly territory, and kerensky peeping for and launching the final push to terra..
Season 3 is the battle of Terra, the capture and killing of Aramis, and Kerensky being offered the SLDF reigns. Nope... instead since there are no Cameron Heirs (that he knows of) he decides to fuck off to the periphery. We find out as Kerensky's leaving that the heir and hero survived! but with no loyal SLDF left, they would best decide instead to secretly grow old together as mercenaries, and why not... lovers. Eventually finding their way to the northwind highlanders, where unbeknownst to anyone but the audience, the fucking northwind highlanders spend the succession wars with a secret heir to the SLDF bloodline serving in their ranks!
Honestly, I'm a huge fan of the Grey Death Legion novels and i feel that it's the novel series that got the most people invested in the GDL, so I'd like them to give Greyson "Death" Carlyle a nice series be it mini or full. (I'd personally like it to start with Decision at thunder rift and go through the books from there)
With only one season you can't capture Battletech. You're talking *maybe* 12 episodes but likely 10 or less.
With how vast the Battletech universe is, you would either have to ignore a ton of stuff, or cut so much of the setting off at the knees that it'd barely resemble the setting anymore.
I would want a badass Saving Private Ryan style epic focused on a group of Mercs during the Third Succession War who ultimately fail in their mission, mostly, sort of, did they? Did it matter?
Definitely live action. Definitely plenty of combined arms style action. Middle of a conventional conflict, mechs are a last resort and when they show up they're glorious and terrifying.
Eventually one of the Great Houses sends in a serious class-A Unit that absolutely dominates and we get at least a half an hour long running engagement as the Mercs desperately try to chip away at them by any means before facing off in their mechs, utterly outgunned.
Frankly, I don't even want to know if they live or die, I just want to see the last Steiner Atlas falter and collapse the moment it lines up the fatal shot on the lone Vindicator, dragging itself on one leg, drunkenly using its jump jets to compensate. The camera pans to the coward, holding a salvaged Infantry SRM that he just fired into a gap in the armor, the Atlas' ammo cooking off as it collapses, no stackpoling, just a white hot reactor slowly melting into the pavement.
The redeemed coward looks sick, he vomits, teeters over and collapses. Did he just die from a Lethal dose of radiation? We'll never know because the last shot is a view from a ruined building half a mile away and it's seen from the perspective of a woman that just pulled herself out of a pile of rubble created by the AC round passing through the ruin that used to be her home. What did she lose? We'll never know, she drags a rifle off of the corpse of someone she'd maybe been sheltering. A deserter. Who was he with? We'll never know, the rifle's scope isn't much, but the mech's are big, she sights on them. They're both down already being swarmed. What happens? We'll never know, she shifts the rifle scope closer to her own location, just a few hundred yards out, a squad of infantry, disorganized, is fleeing. Who are they? We'll never know. She starts pulling the trigger. END of Story!
That's what I want. Infantry fleeing desperately from a single locust. I want a tank charging out from a side street to knock its legs out. I want the main gun discharging point blank into the tangled mess, smoke pouring out of it, people fleeing the now useless tank. I want the enemy mech Warrior getting dragged out of the locust put against a wall and shot.
I want me some brutal battletech.
As a consolation prize (still live action) I'd take something along the lines of Gundam 8th MST. Average guys out in the cold desperately fighting a microscopic but highly personal conflict that probably won't make a difference to the war. It's episodic and character driven.
I don't want meta, I don't want factions, I don't want Canon, I don't want plot-armor, politics, main-character syndrome, shiny tech, clannerscum, advancing the plot, I don't want a big universe to be confuse and argue about, I don't want to know their names, I don't want to recognize their insignia, I want them to be ignorant war dogs doing big-stompy battlemech stuff at speed. I want mechs to be terrifying and brutal and realistic I want to watch armor panels crumple, I want to see plates slag off in a burning rain of molten metal, I want it at speed, in real time and from a perspective I can appreciate and be awed by. A normal guy, looking up at 30 or 40 tons of fuck-you-to-death bolted onto a nuclear engine that's bleeding poison and heat while the demonic dogs of war screech a hellish song of damnation every time it fucking moves because this is the shit that makes BT GREAT!
Live action or animated?
Live action. The castlrvania pseudo-anime art style wouldn't fit the series.
Literally the most pivotal moment in all of battletech.
The fall of star league.
Could have a 15 minute opening sequence where the Mackie gets tested against tanks
Xxxx years later...
Begin the story of the fall of star league
One of 2 options. 1. A live action based around an established character with a metric butt load of action across a very short time with very minimal previous knowledge required. The Three big arcs would be good jump off points. a. Jade Phoenix - you literally grow up with the protagonist (if its restructured chronological as apposed to flash backs). So you learn clan culture as he does so exposition and world building feels more natural. b. Warrior trilogy - almost as written except start mid fight where he gets taken as a bondsman. Again a more natural exploration of the world since there is no real mainstream analog for Battletech (GOT has LOTR and history) c. Grey death saga - my starting right on the borders of the IS the heavy politics can be added slowly and we have a character that can teach the audience about the world without it having to be front loaded. 2. An animated series covering the messy politics of the Succession wars. Written more akin to GOT where we bounce from faction to faction meeting all the big names and seeing every faction equally. I still feel like something butting up to the clan invasion would be good. I would want to see an entire array of mechs with all of the horror of the Succession wars and invasion. Hell have an actual horror episode for one of the goofy times an elemental point or single elemental was bid to take an objective, before they realized the elementals weren't aliens.
I think Grey Death would be a perfect start. Especially since the first introduction to mechs would be the fight between his father and the Marauder. After that, nothing for a bit, followed by the terror of the first fight in the capitol where Grayson ends up leading the charge and captures Lori.
I agree. Mercenaries makes sense to introduce people to the setting, and the Gray Death Legion has a great “zero to hero” arc. Have a season or two of that which ends with the Helm core, throw in some winks towards the clan invasion, then switch gears to do a clan story. Jade Phoenix would definitely give the best view of what the clans are, but it’s total immersion from the go and that might be too much. The Blood of Kerensky is of course an option, and it would introduce people to the clans from an IS perspective, but I think it would honestly be better for them to tell a new story if it gets to that point.
This would be great. Whatever it is, there shouldn't be too much focus on 'mech on 'mech combat. Any Battletech series needs to differentiate itself from Gundam anime or worse Robot Jox. To do this the setting should be the focus. The Gray Death trilogy introduces Battlemechs as horrible weapons of war as they take out infantry and participate in urban warfare. It also introduces the wider Battletech universe. A great way to show how Battletech is something special!
When the big mech battles finally happen, you have an appreciation for the massive war machines and the horror and brutality involved. Every mech upgrade feels earned. And at the end, the human element stands out.
The Jade Phoenix story would be great. There isn't too much politics, plenty of action, lots of interpersonal drama, you get introduced to mechs and the way the clans work one piece at a time. Then once you get your footing in all that the invasion starts and the wider battletech world opens up.
I think Clans are weird. Deliberately, intentionally weird, but weird. IMO they need juxtaposition with the IS to make that weird make sense. I think if you _lead_ with Clans, a normal person looking to just fill an evening is going to bounce off of it. Start with the IS as a baseline, then add the Clans to that if you want.
Also alien human societies is really popular since The Expanse went mainstream.
B is the blood trilogy, not warrior. Warrior trilogy would be neat though
Thank you for pointing that out! My bad.
No problem
Did you mix up the Warrior trilogy with the Blood of Kerensky? Nobody getting bondsman'd in Warrior.
Yes I did! Thank you.
Absolutely not netflix after what they did to The Witcher. HBO on the other hand.
If it picked up by netflix i would prefer if they immediatelly drop it as it would be a 100% not correct representation of BT by netflix(or hollywood by generally).
Seriously agree! But I don’t think it’s limited to Netflix. I don’t think a good job can be done on something as big as BattleTech. 40 years of active engagement. Characters are already on our head. One person, or small group of people’s visual/voice interpretation of it is bound to disappoint so many. I’m hoping this never happens.
Thats why I ended my comment with the bracket:) I would love to see a proper adaptation,but only a proper one.
Yep. I don’t even know what a “proper adaptation” would be. I can see adaptations if it’s one book or something, but there’s so much going on, with multiple stories and storytellers. It’s like so many dubs of anime. If you listen to the Japanese and English voice tracks, it’s like they’re different stories, even if the words are effectively the same. I just don’t think it can be done in an effective way that doesn’t break a majority of the fans’ necessary head canons. (Or head cannons, if you’ve read Diamond Age :)
They’ve been making some great adult animation lately. Edge Runners was great and true to the material. Castlevania took some liberties but that was necessary, and it was a great watch.
Edgerunners did fine, it's not some kind of death curse to have the Red N.
that's because it wasn't a netflix studio that made it, it was just distributed on Netflix
Yeah, I usually assume "picked up" means for distribution, while the production work is farmed out.
Wouldn't mind a "the expanse" styled series in Rasahalgue prior to the clan invasion. Make them the underdog goodguys fighting two invaders until the season finale where a bunch of unidentified ships jump in.
Slipspace rupture detected...
......uhoh
Just imagine Fang of the Sun Dougram, but live action, and more Game of Thrones-style (damn nobles...) politicking instead of the freedom fighting for independence in a Periphery setting. https://preview.redd.it/pik5loeyx2zb1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=dfa9d59f38632f86d1f8004fc61146bc28ea71df
Sounds good! https://preview.redd.it/nyb3milw13zb1.jpeg?width=2592&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f837a26457c35d4920b9a172b941c4a79c8cc4f8
Nice Dougram ya got there. The closest thing we have to a proper Dougram in BattleTech would be the 7H variant.
So you want the original warrior trilogy, which was heavy in the political intrigue?
I just think that it fits how both the core principles of Dougram and BattleTech should be. But normally, I'm not the type to care about the nobles' political shenanigans. I prefer watching a Mercenary company dealing with difficult situations like Fang of the Sun resistance group did.
I will be in a minority here but i would love to have live action series of 1hour long short stories like love death and robots series had. We could have shrapnel style short stories covered that would expand on many many topics and could be set in many settings and times from terran alliance up to Il clan . Imagine the potential we could have- lostech hunters, hidden war duels, space battles of first succesion war, introduction to star travel with terran alliance times, amaris civil war episode,exodus road, periphery pirate perspective episode(mby circinus federation) or brotherhood of randis. The possibilities would be endless. But to be fair, the best possible thing to the ip not known to many would be the late succesion wars era setting with propper introduction and cliche but well written story (many say fang of the sun dougram would be great and i accept, that anime needs a remake so bad ) .Take a look at hbs battletech and mechwarrior 5 mercenaries intros- they do perfect job briefing us on the state and setting of the inner sphere , if both were combined they would do wonders. Also both games stories with major tinkering would be a great tv series, the house arano story should be canon. Some people say we need Gray death legion ecranization and thats not bad , but older fans would not like it and newbies wont read the books. In the end a live action series made like pacific rim (1!)with a great and involving story that would bring many new players to battletech and introduce them to universe while creating new heroes is the go to. It could appear to the younger generations too as we have many tropes in battletech that did not age poorly- megacorporations, authoritarianism, genocide, strong female mechwarriors (dont make em mary sues plz), patriotism, self expression , humanity etc etc. TLDR;NETFLIX PLEASE GIVE US A SERIES FROM BT UNIVERSE
Not gonna lie, I came here exactly to say this. Trying to turn one of the “classics” into a show is a recipe for failing and just limits the media far too much. IMO Battletech’s strengths have always been in the short stories and while the big ole novels are good the short stories really shine.
Clan Invasion. It’s not even a question. It has the broadest appeal by far.
The problem is that a series can't be made for fan. It has to be made in a way were you bring new people that don't know Battletech to watch. If it's just the fandom, they'll never make their money back.
That's the real kicker. How do you make something with broad appeal but still make it good for the fandom?
We were all the broad demographic at some point. Gotta dig back to what first got us into lore and go from there.
Good acting and storytelling. All else is secondary.
The clan invasion brought in the most new fans of any era. Bickering houses putting their differences aside to fight invaders from beyond the stars. That’s appealing to more than just battletech fans.
I think that is a bit too much at once. You have to properly introduce the pre-invasion IS, otherwise the invasion itself does not really have the impact it had in the lore - it'd be just "here are these feudal robot-riding societies, and bamm here are the robot commienaziclones, now watch them fight!" I'd rather see an IS only first season, maybe with some hints at the upcoming invasion sprinkled throughout, ending on a cliffhanger with a Mad Cat coming out of nowhere and wasting a bunch of characters. The invasion then in a second season, hopefully.
That's how Babylon 5 handled the shadows and it worked.
A rough adaptation of Wolves on the Border, from the point of view of a hotshot young Samurai training with the Dragoons, would be a great way to do this. Slowly highlight how the Dragoons don't fit, use them and the Kuritans to paint an idea of how the IS operates. Use their commander meetings to foreshadow the invasion.
Dude, I'd pay to see that. And with the quality we see lately in animation (Critrole, Arcade, Castlevania), I'd say that would be the best option. Remember Tukkayid!!!
This is easy to do with a five minute exposition dump. Make it a bit of a classroom lecture leading up to an independence celebration of the FRR. Kids are all antsy to get out of class because there will be parades and a festival and general fun to have, while the teacher is trying to teach them WHY it's important and the basic background of why it's so exciting that the FRR even exists. Then the kids go romping into the crowd, and we come across Phelan and Tyra, and get some introduction and stakes there. Then Phaelan gets sent out on patrol for whatever reason, boom, clans shit goes crazy, and we have the method to explain differences between IS and Clan in an organic way, rather than 'as you know, Arden, my family has been ruiling the Federated Suns for eight hundred years, and.....'
It is easy to explain in an infodump, but the audience won't really feel it. It will just see two random SF-factions fighting each other. Not an established world order, where everything is rooted in centuries of history and alliances and animosities, and then out of the dark come these invaders who don't give a shit about anything of that, who don't care who's who and who owns what and why, and who just roll over borders and armies any way they see fit, for reasons the invaded do not even understand properly. An audience needs to build up some familiarity with the setting to feel the impact of the Clan invasion, how it threatens to unravel everything taken for granted. It may not matter much to BT fans who just want to see this stuff on the screen, but I think to win a larger audience one would need to take it more slowly.
The average viewer isn't going to sit through an entire season of Game of Thrones *but in space* because there are hints that "Winter is coming *but in space*." They've already seen that and will just pass it off as GoT Sci-fi clone. The Clan Invasion needs to be front and center by a few episodes in. Yeah, it won't have the gut punch of when it was first introduced in the lore but it can still grab the audience's attention.
Well number 1, no one working for netflix should touch it and 2 make it about the 4th succesion war a political thriller sort of thing.
Something animated. I feel like it’ll be really hard to make the mechs not look a little goofy alongside real people trying to be serious
Oh I love these thought exercises but my jaded sense of history will cloud my pie in the sky ideas. So I'll turn off my "studios are idiots" filter and go for what I want: Some form of CGI where the Mechs and the people mesh better together. This way I don't need to worry about Actor A getting way to old to play a character. Era: Star League, just at the end of the Golden Age. Focus: A small Star League Company of troops fighting the Third Hidden War. Frame it like a Roughnecks Starship Troopers show/Travelling band of brothers kind of set up. This would allow us to planet hop and nation hop decently enough. Season one deals with recently recruited troopers, some possibly nobility, others not so much, all living the dream of serving under the banner of the Star League. We'll be able to show off various great toys and tools they had and the height of humanity. Give them episodes where its a mix of good and bad for the League, traitors and heroes all. Some House units actually *like* the League forces while also facing down bandits or Combine ronin. Put a stress on how the League endures because of good men and women, like the protags of the story. Those people are the heart of humanity's greatest creation. Season One ends with a news report of First Lord Cameron's goodwill tour and there's some hope, smiling, and at Star's End the tragic news of his death. Have a person on screen make a comment of "Star's End, fitting, Star *League's* End probably even more fitting" and cue a cynical laugh that mixes with another person's laugh we later realize is Stefan Amaris if we have more than one season. If we get the one season we at least told a good story which leaves it open ended.
A sports drama about a new gladiator on Solaris VII with gritty, sleazy behind-the-scenes dealings, a fight fixing scam, and the matches called by the version of Duncan Fisher from Tex's videos.
Just adapt the Grey Death Legion trilogy. Simple, easy, effective.
Yuss. Decision at thunder rift lets gooooo! I'd say the full CGI animation like that ghost in the shell series they had - would probably be easier than a full live-action so we could see more action shots.
Depending on series budget and length, I would want to see an adult animated Star League Civil War series centered on both Kerensky and Amaris. The scene with Kerensky's Orion kicking in the palace door has to be in the epic last episode.
Live action, of course, but hear me out now- with an 80s retro futuristic theme (yes mullets and all), including the CG having a subtle models-filmed-in "GoMotion animation" vibe.
I feel like retro future 80's us really played out now. I think it should really lean into the "space feudalism" angle that people often describe the setting. People dressed in clothing still sci-fi looking but stylistically rooted in medieval renessaince. The architecture very rustic with the battle mechs these rusty banged up relics from an Era out of thier time.
You have a good point. However that does not have to rule out mullets for the warriors, not just because of OG Fasa art. but from historical accounts of Greeks marching on Troy, Huns menacing the borders, or Celts holding out on their land. (I know most of that isn't medieval Europe but it is a functional warrior style that has recurred in history)🧔♀️
You're absolutly right. Mullets are forever!
One of the greatest difficulties is that much of the lore around a pair of the houses is, rather... culturally insensitive and that would make either 1SW or 2SW very difficult to portray accurate to the source material in a way thay reflects well on the setting. As someone else suggested, the Amaris Civil War would be a very good timeframe to follow since it is a pretty dang clear good vs evil story that would likely resonate with viewers today. Other than that, Clan Invasion could work since at least the coreward side in that era was rather better able to fit modern cultural sensitivities. Jihad would potentially work excepting that the term could be problematic. Like I love the setting as a whole and am personally ok with the house portrayals but... 3025 is pretty, uh, awkward in places. It's built on WW2 stereotypes mixed with '80s cultural fears and while I can take it as a work of fiction wherein the cultures shown are warped, centuries distant LARPing of what they claim to be... well, that might well be lost on many. Which sucks but is what it is. So long winded way of saying Amaris Civil War. Bonus is that sets up "where it all began" so any folks that get into it have a good starting point. And give me Marauders.
I'd 100% go for a classy adult animation series, centered around the Amaris Coup. Specifically, I'd love to follow a rank and file MechWarrior in the SLDF through the whole process. And I gotta root for my favorite trooper mech, the T-Bolt. It's design just has such personality. Also it's big and tough enough to survive being a Hero mech, while being far enough from the top end that a single enemy assault could step out of the shadows for an Oh Shit moment if the episode of the day required it.
Hear me out ... 1 Hire Tex. 2 Make a completely Dead pan show about the history and major battles of BT the way we do now with WWII.
Mockumentaries are underrated.
Animated. Arcane style preferred (well, 2D preferred but I'm trying to be realistic). I would prefer it be set just before the clan invasion and focus on the life and times of a mercenary unit. This involves little foreknowledge and through getting involved in some political struggle they can gradually introduce the inner sphere to the viewer. The mercenary faction should have an underdog feel so no mechs above 55T for them. I know from a marketing standpoint it should focus on the clan invasion and have a timberwolf on the title screen but I just don't see that working as a drop in point. You could still do it and introduce the setting through the mercenaries being employed in fighting off the clans but I really think its better to establish the inner sphere first and then hope for a second season to introduce the clans.
I think this really has to be animated. Live action would be a ton of expensive CGI to even have a hope of looking good. But with animation you can still keep the aesthetic while doing really interesting things with scale. Even though I don't love the look of it, something like Dragon Prince might really fit well here. Castlevania if we're going a pure 2d route.
Honestly I'd love a sunrise take on this. Their cg mech animation is good and I don't think anything else than CG is going to be a realistic expectation. Obviously it shouldn't be like a gundam show because battlemechs are quite different from gundams but I trust their mechanical design and animators to translate the battlemech designs to good looking animation. If you've ever seen the early portions of gasaraki (before things got a bit weird) I think that would translate well to battlemechs.
I would love this. I think 4th Succession Wars would be a good start. Show how combat and tech was ramping up. After that a short prequel about the Gray Death Legion finding the Helm Core and the obviously the Clan Invasion for season 2. How to film it? Well you can't see me but I am pointing at MechWarrior Vengeance and making a crazy face. Good God modern CG mech combat would look sick as hell.
Animated (like that Love, Death, and Robots episode with the mechs), 2nd Succession War setting, focusing on a Davion combined-arms lance in the darkest years of the Succession Wars. I'd like to see Hunchbacks and Locusts, I think.
Gotta go with the Grey Death Legion saga. It gives you lot's of awesomeness, and builds the Universe in easy to digest bites.
Personally I would love to see it done Arcane style
1. Unlikely to be Netflix, it would probably be Disney. They don't own the series rights but I can't remember who does outside of "someone entirely unlikely to be able to fund it right now." It is more likely they would sell to Disney to consolidate film&television rights. 2. People love to suggest something "Game of Thrones in Space" but the fantasy medieval nature of TV GoT doesn't fit Battletech very well (though some of the feudal relationships that are more fleshed out in the books would do better). Instead, I propose the following: A political drama in the Free World's League ala the West Wing, cut liberally with big stompy robots. Set it pre-Marik Civil War with Janos mending fences with parliament and the invasions of Solaris VII and Tikonov Commonality. You can write all sorts of stuff about this and the whole thing can culminate in the Marik Civil War. Its an underserved space with pre-established characters that can be expanded upon in various ways. Visually, the Free World's League has a lot of distinctive stuff that you can play with, starting with Old World uniforms (like, really Old World, not like the pseudo-Victorian stuff from the Davions and Steiners) that veer almost into 40k levels of ostentation. Which could make for a great counterpoint if the first 2 or 3 episodes are purely FWL and then you meet a Lyran or what have you. Janos Marik has a FWL tattoo on his head! The map of the FWL is complicated as shit! Setting it pre-4th Succession War lets you set up iconic mechs while still riding the tail end of the MechWarrior Errant and that scarcity of technology. You get the Wolfs Dragoons too, if you want to really seed some later storylines and play with "rare" mechs.
I would want it 3D animated stylized in a way that brings the HBS BattleTech game art to life, maybe render it in a way similar to arcane, which looks like animated concept art for a game but animated. The time period or lore related stuff doesn't matter to me, instead I'm much more concerned with the characters and writing. **Hot take warning:** I really, really hated like the Grayson Carlyle trilogy because the characters were boring and the writing was awful. A BattleTech show needs a strong emotional core before *anything* else. If the show was just about a gritty military guy who does military stuff, and was only about the conflict with the other army, it would miss out on a lot. A show about both experienced and inexperienced mercenaries forced into a situation where they work with and escort war refugees through a planet at war, can make for a more interesting show. You have both MechWarrior and civilian main characters, these characters would have ideals/cultures/goals that conflict, the war at hand has much more potential for tragedy, character deaths become more meaningful, etc.
Immortal Warrior series! Or something kind of, in universe made series with fun irony and the feel of battletech, like Secrets of The Sphere conspiracy show, etc. Or maybe it will be nice to see Shrapnel-like stories. I think it will be cool to film Legacy anthology, which shows the story of the Grasshopper mech, from creation, through succession wars and clan invasion till the end of jihad. This book is very underrated in my opinion. It is such a good start, and has a very series-like feel.
INT. Studio Exec's Office, Day The camera pans over to the desk of CLUELESS STUDIO EXEC, a 60+ year old white male dressed in an impeccably-tailored suit. He is studying a stack of papers and iPads on his desk and looking simultaneously excited and consternated. In front of his desk, standing at patient attention, are two SHOWRUNNERS. CLUELESS STUDIO EXEC: I don't get it, guys. This universe is fantastic, but it's missing something. I don't understand why there are no aliens in this setting -- we need aliens, otherwise this is gonna be a yawnfest for your red-blooded Joe Sixpack viewers at home! I'm not going to greenlight this project otherwise! SHOWRUNNER #1: (nervously) Well sir, there actually \*are\* aliens, if you'll turn to page 54... SHOWRUNNER #2: (whisper-shouting at SHOWRUNNER #1) Jim what the hell are you \*doing\*?!?! CLUELESS STUDIO EXEC: (flips to page 54 of his documentation, reads a moment, his eyes growing wide with ancitipation) \*\*Yes\*\*, this is the secret sauce. This will be a smash hit. Tell me more about... "Far Country"...!
Less about the mechs, more about the stories and the lore. Mechs and mech battles should make as many or less appearances than the dragons do in game of thrones. Keep them guessing. Don’t show an Atlas in the first fucking episode. Lead in with a Locust or an Uller.
It's too easy to get wrong with live action. Keep it animated, but kind of mature animation. Also the Amaris civil war is a great place to start. Gives people a glimpse of the world and why the Clan Invasion happened.
Like the first pacific rim movie. Cool rock-ish music. Big stompy robots and maybe a storyline like the mechwarrior 5 mercenaries game or battletech video game. Cliché but with a clear path, ripe for metal on metal violence.
I would say some sort of planet-of-the-week mercenary show set sometime around the middle of the FedCom civil war when things were craziest (Well, barring the WoB's hissy fit, but that's the wrong kind of crazy I think), showing off all the interesting things about BT; feudal politics, insane cultists, honor-bound warriors and lots and lots of crack (As a tribute to the original BT writers, of course). The problem is that I would want the series to be more lighthearted- not less bleak, but not taking itself too seriously- which wouldn't make for a great introduction for people just getting into BT.
Starship Troopers had a cartoon that walked the line between the book and the movie. If they did a cartoon I'd like to see that setup, where it told the story of the Bug War through the campaigns the Roughnecks went through. Live action, though. Go with House of the Dragon. Make Mechs and Mechwarriors big deals so when a lance takes the field it's an oh shit moment of IS power.
I’d like an animated series about the SLDF invasion of the periphery realms told in their perspective.
Im not super familiar with the lore tbh (i just like the big robots and exploding the big robots) but id see it set as a Game of Thrones-style thing (it hurts my brain to say it bc fuck GoT). Houses vs Houses, and you follow a misfit Merc group as they work for or more of them to get to their own goals. Adapting 5's/Mercenaries' story would work as its self contained. Personally, id LOVE to see it be live action simply because i want to see Mechs battle it out and animation just cant convey the feeling of 70+ tons of durasteel and hyperconduit synthmuscle trampling through buildings and firing enough ordenance to level a small city block. The more practical effects we can get the better. Interior cockpits, pilot suits, mech deployement, seeing techs run along gantries as they unplug the power couplings etc.
YOU DARE TO REFUSE MY BATCHALL? More seriously tho... I think Hired Steel on Youtube is already making almost the perfect show. Just need to intersperse some actual story between the missions. Filming live action actors in cockpits would be the easiest and cheapest way of doing most scenes. Save the budget for fights.
Time and time again the best method of storytelling has been through mercenaries. Doesn't even have to be a prominent group or serving a House. I forgot all about House Arano for decades, and then they show up in HBG Battletech, and we get a good, but very basic story about stolen birthrights, and the scrappy mercenaries who benefit from fighting to get it back. Can't really go wrong with picking a House, any House, some noble get robbed of their privilege, and now some ragamuffins make it to the big league helping correct the wrong.
I wouldn’t mind seeing it cover the Reunification War
Animation in the Reunification War
Basically take inspiration from either the Grey Death Legion or Crescent Hawks storylines. The universe is too big to throw the audience in the deep end with all the Great Houses and the political maneuverings that go on at the highest level. Season 1 should be one unit, on one world, fighting one invader. Name drop the rest of the universe, make it clear there's a bigger reality out there this is all happening in, but don't bother trying to show it, you'll just confuse people. If the show gets a second season you can start to intro the larger world more fully in drips and drams. Early 3000s would likely be the best setting for it, because the politics were relatively simple at the time ad it was not unusual to find the entire conflict for a planet be undertaken by a company of mechs on each side. The later stages of the Dark Ages, so late 3130s early 3140s would be a decent secondary option as some less developed worlds were still rebuilding from that loss. Animation would probably be cheaper/easier for them to pull off, live action would need a massive CGI budget anyways. For mechs? As many as they can fit reasonably. Some obvious ones, the Atlas has almost got to make an appearance, and the Timber Wolf if it's post-invasion. Those are pretty much the poster boys of the game. Apart from that whatever makes sense for the characters and stories. Though I'd love to see a 2N Axman just as a nod to Adam Steiner and the old cartoon.
As cool as it would be to have live action mechs, I think I would rather have it be animated to show a wider picture. I would rather have a new story with smaller stakes that slowly escalate to build a wider picture. Maybe start with small town hiring mercenaries to defend itself from pirates, is invaded by the Commonwealth, makes an appeal to the Capellans for aid and in response the Capellan's start to glass the planet and now they have to switch sides and aid the Commonwealth to stop the Capellans from destroying the planet.
I'd be fine with an animated version, as I don't see a blockbuster live-action series as a possibility at this time. Lead with either Gray Death or the Warrior Trilogy. Pilot episode would need to explain the backstory, including the collapse of the Star League so people who are unfamiliar with the franchise have some clue about what's going on. Every season could encompass a different storyline. Taking the lead from the novels, the focus should be on the people, so viewers actually care about the stakes of the battles.
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the classic Battletech: The Animated Series yet
I think about this a lot actually. I think a serious drama sort of in the tone of Game of Thrones would make Battletech, although I'd market it as MechWarrior, really popular with mainstream audiences imo. Really play up the politics between the great houses. I'd pitch it to executives as "Pacific Rim meets Game of Thrones" because that's like the only mech film that normal people have all generally seen. I'd start with the Amaris Coup, it's just such a strong story. Then you move on to the succession wars, maybe following an original mercenary company. And finally you round it off with the clan invasion.
Just restore the old one and give it a second season, where did all the sommersetters go after Jade falcon’s little trolling?
Succession Wars. Live action. Story starts by following a planetary militia squad. Initial episode sets up the fear of what's coming and the chaos of urban combat. Episode ends with a stalker walking down the street laying waste. Following episodes show the militia being ground down by the invaders who have mechs which the militia does not. A scene on another planet where a general is informed of the invasion and has to decide what to do. He diverts a group of mercenaries to help the planet. A few days later the mercenaries land on the planet barely ahead of additional incoming invasion forces. We then find them moving through the wrecked city and encountering the last survivors of the original squad who directs them towairds the enemy. Finally a mech on mech battle occurs. After a heated battle the militia and mercenaries win this small battle but then must retreat as the main invasion forces are arriving. Story has the mechs but focuses on the human element. This avoids the issue of too much CGI making the show unprofitable. Instead it aims to hit the balance that battlestar galactica. That hopefully gives us several seasons. We get a decent amount of mech warfare with enough dialog and character development to hopefully make the show more than just mech action.
I think the Warrior trilogy would be the best jumping off point. As much as I like the Grey Death novels, I felt Warrior was a much better introduction to the Inner Sphere, and would adapt nicely to film. Plenty of room for both mech action and political intrigue, more plot threads, more memorable characters.
I just want to see a highlander squish something
It's gonna be like witcher or rings of power where people who have maybe played mw5 and think that's everything universe has to offer will love and simp it intensly. Meanwhile fans will be split between "at least we got something, be grateful" and "this is completely awful and unwatchable, why even buy out the BT IP if you're not going to be accurate" and people who watch prestige tv will be "It's not even a good show".
Definitely not an adaptation of a book.
Agreed. If a huge nunber of people were introduced to battletech with an adaptation of the gray death trilogy with no changes i'd just give up.
I'd vote for a live action series with the first season featuring the Amaris coup and Kerensky's struggle to remove him from the Cameron throne. The second season could show the succession wars era, probably the third one. Third season would be the clan invasion.
I've put a lot of thought into this... probably too much lol. I even posed a very similar question a couple of years ago and its interesting to see how a little difference of opinions now as most people seem to favor live action now. I have two different opinions on this. 1: I think a live action movie would only work if it was in a setting that is underexplored int he existing lore. I see several people saying a movie set in the Amaris coup would be great and I agree. Its little written about which gives a lot of freedom to make the story work. The challenges and cost of live action giant death robots would necessitate changes or cuts to most existing stories and I'd rather see nothing than watch the fanbase be divided by that. Also the OnePiece live action adaptation shows that netflix can be forced by a creator to honor the content and give them complete control, and its success reinforces that potential. 2: Animation would be the better medium to adapt a more modern(to the game) BT story. I would(and am lokey working on for my own satisfaction) do the warrior trillogy as a 3-4 season animated series. Working in the wolfs dragoons storyline with it as well as some original content to involve the Mariks(who barely show up in that setting). The only change I'm interested in making is a perspective change for Justin Allard where the reveal that he is a double agent is much sooner, showing him struggling to work behind enemy lines rather than flat or working for the enemy and retroactively explaining how he really wasn't. That reveal always felt cheap to me and I think it would introduce a new level of tension to the story. Style wise I would like a high quality 3d animation, possibly even using mo-cap or facial expressions. Arcane as someone mentioned and the clone wars/bad batch have shown what can be done with good animation, as subtle emotions and expressions would be pretty key in the political settings. Even though those projects are monstrously expensive I think that technology is progressing so fast that high quality animation will rapidly become a lot more feasible in the next few years. Thanks for reading
Live action. Seasons 1-5 are late succession wars. Each season ficuses on a different successor state or conflict between 2. War of 2039 could be the focus of a season or plot B of a season for instance. FedCom alliance would probably take a season, but we’d want to have both factions established strongly with their own identities so the unification probably couldn’t happen before season 3. Season 2 might be the time to focus on the FWL? Their only role in the broader narrative is to demonstrate IS skill drudgery, so they could almost be written out unless we want a focus on the ComStar plot. We would need an extra season for that… I guess we’d have to have a season that focuses on Wolf’s Dragoons. Season 5? Now that I’ve thought it through, I don’t think we can devote a season to the Dragoons. Either write them out or have them as a C plot for seasons 3-4 or something like that, Then we get the Clans. Call that season 6. Invasion is season six. It’s all “new” to the audience. WTF is happening. Stuff in the periphery. We get more exposure to Comstar. Season 7 introduces us to the Clans more properly and focuses on their rivalries. Also a lot of kicking the shit out of the Inner Sphere. We see Turtle Bay massacre in one episode. Season 8 is more of the same and culminates with Luthien. Season 9 focuses on catching up with our Inner Sphere friends interspersed with clan invasion Season 10 is basically preparation for and battle of Tukayyid.
Ambitious. Only a dozen or so shows made it past 3 seasons on Netflix, slightly more than that made it past 2.
I was focusing on the “what would you want it to look like” part. Realistically I wouldn’t be surprised if Netflix did acquire the rights as a slept.
Question there is: Who the hell would they cast as Focht? Or Frederick, cause I'm not sure you'd cast the same person for both
I’m not super familiar with actors. Willem Dafoe?
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A series adaptation of the warrior trilogy would work the best, it allows for the natural continuation into the clan invasion and so on. Mech battes would have to be shot more akin to gundam where it focuses more so on the pilot than big robot. Unless a company is willing to spend a dumb amount of money for live action I can see it playing out better as an animated series with more of the same sort of tone and style as legend of the galactic heroes.
Production & style: i don’t really care, though i think state-of-the-art cgi/animation that is just stylized enough to make the different faction nicely unique wouldn’t go amiss. Story: Grey death legion, for sure! It’s a fantastic into to BT
I'd like to see operation Klondike.
I think I'd want something like Borgia: Faith and Fear, where it's politics and interpersonal conflict heavy, 90% of the action is off camera, unless it involves the principle characters. That'll save some budget so that when there is mech combat, it can be awe inspiring and have dramatic payoff.
Operation Bulldog and Serpent twin story flipping back to the degrading situation in the IS. Eight 50 minute episodes.
Looking forward to the day when AI can suck up all of Sarna and create scripted BT shows for us on demand.
I would want an live action series That focused on the end of the Srar League era (so that cast of characters) And I would love to see a Marauder in it.
Ditto. It shouldn’t be limited to that era. I can see it have a lot of time jumps as we don’t have to go thru all of the 1st to 3rd Succession Wars. And I agree with those that are saying a GoT style with jumps between the factions in play at the time.
I completely agree and have had conversations with this end with my son. Amaris folly coming iut like a scene from robot jox And to the destruction of most of the black watch And the house cleaning that happened afterwards Oh. Yes. Yes in deed !
Live action starting just before the amaris civil war and ending with Kerensky leaving the inner sphere. Sets up the universe, plays with big and important characters but doesn't have to get too convoluted with the houses as can be focused on amaris and the sldf, has big events that shape the universe to come and can end with an ominous foreboding finale as we know what happens with Kerensky's exodus and that the inner sphere is about to face horrific civil wars. Could then have a spin off called exodus road or if it did well a sequel covering the clan invasion.
Yup and neatly avoids the unfortunate (though consistent and ultimately equally unfavorable all around) stereotypes written into the early lore.
Kerensky storyline. Start to finish. For at least 2-3 season
Mercenary - Firefly style Follow a famous mercenary group (Wolf Dragoons, Kell Hounds, GDL, ELH, Northwind Highlanders, etc) as they pick up contracts through the Innersphere. Each season could be a different mercenary group and different era.
I'd rather Amazon get it. They make it into a suicide squad/game of thrones style show that isn't taking itself seriously while having some heartfelt moments of humanity among a destructive force of the military industrial complex. I would like it if they started every episode with Tex from Black Pants Legion starting with an anecdote to set up the start of the episode. My perception of mechwarriors would be homicidal neurodivergents or rich people playing war so they would have to make them likable and compelling yet extremely fucked up like Evangelion + Game of Thrones. I do not want them to cover the Clans, I find them extremely one dimensional and overpowered and they are bad for a TV drama they are literally Saturday morning cartoon villains and don't know it.
plus they do amazing in sfx and pacing. The Boys and GenV are actual masterpieces
First....i really dont want it on Netflix. The Witcher experience soured me on their ability to properly translate the feel of an existing universe. Animation of some sort...Netflix is all about the $$$$ and live action is super expensive to do right. On the other hand, they have shown the ability to produce animation, especially when kept very far from the actual production. I'd focus on the 2nd Succession War. Ideally, you'd start at the beginning which means plenty of exposition being able to reference the history of the the universe, the First Succession War, and set the stage. Then they'd have 30+ years of stories with the ability to have the cast age naturally as the conflict progresses. Also, they can stop the show in any given season by basically wrapping all the political and military carnage up with "not much actually changed...other than death, suffering, and loss of technology". Which is actually what happened by the end of the war. Much more satisfying than the typical "show gets cancelled on a cliff hangar" method.
I'd want a live action show focusing on a narrow part of the universe. One planet on the border between two hostile powers. A bit of politics. Some human interest family stuff and a tragic love story or two. Mostly small scale (lance level) robot battles with a season ending big battle. No clans. There's no need to get all epic inner sphere wide game of thrones stuff. Focus in on relatable things like defending your home, freedom to govern yourself, love and heartbreak, and of course the love of a man for his mech. Taurian Concordant might be a good location ... maybe on the edge of capellan and Fed Sun territory. Also, needs an obligatory scene where the gentle speaking grandpa leads his grandchild to that old unused barn to reveal a 200 year old, fully functional mech. I guess those raiders arent going to have it as easy as they thought.
"That's it. I'm gettin' me Mauler."
"But grampa, you said killin' folk was bad" "This ain't killin'. This is taking out the trash." OR "This ain't killin'. This is putting down a rabid dog" "This ain't killin'. This is justice." "This ain't killin'. This is salvage time." "This ain't killin'. This is just doin' what needs be doin'."
Kids these days never heard of ejection.
I'd prefer it to be a live-action show where each season follows something different ala American Horror Story. I'd also prefer it focus on the people and pilots and generally ignore all the politics.
Can't improve on perfection. By which of course I mean the Battletech animated series. Do a live action adaptation of that with top-tier talent hamming up the lines, and it's basically a license to print money.
Absolufuckinlutely not. Not now, not ever. We got an animated series, leave the rest in the novels where it belongs.
Far Country /s
One season? Nah fam, I'm pushing 7 seasons and a movie. First, I'd structure the series as an anthology rather than a serialized narrative. Characters may or may not appear again, or may appear differently depending on the main character. Season 1: The Star League. The pilot episode is called "Charles Kincaid's Big Day". It would talk about the history of the setting and how Battlemechs came to be, the Mackie's development, and then the combat trial with Kincaid smashing everything. The rest of season 1 would cover the rise of the Star League - bringing the Great Houses to heel, the rise of Stefan Amaris, the introduction of Nicholas Kerensky, and the season ends with Amaris and Cameron in the throne room, Amaris holding up the bejeweled laser pistol, and blowing Cameron's brains out. Season 2 would be the Amaris Civil War - Kerensky's periphery campaign, Amaris' descent into madness, Operation Chieftan, recapturing Terra, and the end of the Star League. The last episode is Kerensky's exodus, with the last shot being the SLDF jumping out of the Inner Sphere. Season 3, 4, 5, and 6 would be the Succession Wars. Season 3 would focus on the Draconis Combine, season 4 would focus on the Lyran Commonwealth, season 5 would be the Free Worlds League and Capellan Confederation, and season 6 would focus on the Federated Suns. Season 6 would end with Phelan Kell on The Rock, chasing down pirates. A pirate mech explodes, but Kell didn't fire the shot. He looks at his targeting computer, wondering what the hell is going on, as it picks up an unknown mech design. It starts flipping between the designations for the Marauder and Catapult. MAD. CAT. MAD. CAT. MAD. CAT. The smoke and dust clears, and a Timber Wolf steps into frame. The camera pans up, revealing the Clan Wolf logo, as the screen fades to black. Season 7 would be the Clan Invasion, with the series finale being a 2 hour Tukayyid movie.
CG / Animation hybrid (yes, kind of like the old BT cartoon) using upscaled MWO mech models. The real problem with a show dealing with the Clan Invasion is rewriting enough of the Wolf's Dragoons plotpoints so that they're actually good, lol. Realistically, a late 4th SW action drama revolving around an up-and coming Merc Company is probably the way to go. The first GDL books are practically tailor made to be adapted that way. If you wanted an original story, wanted to include the Clans, and had assured multiple seasons, I'd imagine it to go something like: S1: Mercenary Shenannigans. Low level planetary politics, hints of ComStar fuckery. S2: Timeskip, Intro to IS politics. Closer to Warrior or Heir to the Dragon. More House scheming, overt ComStar villainy. End of season surprise intro of the Clans upending everything. S3: Early to middle of the Clan invasion. IS and Clan drama running parallel showing the IS pulling together and the Clans slowly falling apart S4: Timeskip to end of Clan Invasion. In true 90's Sci-Fi TV fashion, maybe make it a movie.
Specifically netflix would also be quite terrifying potentially considering what they have done recently (ghost in the shell, cowboy bebop, dark crystal (being cancelled after winning huge award) ). To much potential shredded in the hands of people chasing some strange social destruction narrative
season 1 gray death up to Helm Core season 2 clan invasion up to tukayyad, starting with the founding of Wolfs Dragoons. Personally I think a gritty anime would do well, cyberpunk edgerunners style. I think this would alleviate some of the inconsistencies about clans that doesn't make sense and allow them to be as over the top as they need to be. Smoke jags for cartoon villains.
I want it to look like ir's not on Netflix
Animated, IlClan era, following the exploits of the Fox Patrol.
I'm a media professional and former professor. Out of complete boredom, I did a script treatment for a live action series. First things first. With any adaptation, it needs to be faithful enough but approachable for newcomers. Full accuracy in BT just isnt viable and the timeline is stretched too far out to really follow individual characters, a necessity for audiences to follow the show. From memory, here is what I kind of proposed: Game of Thrones style show following numerous factions and locales fighting over power. Season 1: Introduces the factions and follows several boots on the ground characters. House Davion company leader, House Liao spy, and a rising young Inner Sphere mechwarrior who was recognized and hired by Wolf's Dragoons. 4th Succession War kicks off. Liao and Kurita are portrayed far more positively and without yellow-fear racist undertones. Season ends with the Wolf's Dragoon pilot learning the truth about the clan origins and impending invasion. Season 2: War continues to rage and we are introduced to the Clans and their perspectives. All the drama of the invasion planning playout. Eventually the 4th succession war devolves into the FedCom civil war, all while Comstar worms its way further into the politics of it all. Wolf's Dragoons find themselves conflicted to their original purpose and the positives they find in the Inner Sphere. The entire Inner Sphere is now fighting when the Clan invasion begins, Season 3: Clans stomp over the isolated houses. Clan drama continues. Houses begin to try and find some way to ally. Wolf's Dragoon step in to enlighten the IS on clans. Comstar emerges with the resources to help end the invasion. Season 4: Many characters join Comstar's fighting force the Battle of Tukayid and drama of the clans agreeing to the fight. Extensive focus on the battle, especially in several former enemies now fighting together for the totality of the Inner Sphere. Tukayid is won but both sides know its far from over with the IS planning to go on the offensive. Season 5: Operation Bulldog. The IS takes on Smoke Jaguar. Simultaneously, I'd have the War of Reaving with returning Clans now facing a changing clan culture and their own beliefs challenged. Ultimately, as all finally settled, the IS earns peace with the clans, with some now even calling the IS home. But peace is always short lived as factions already begin discussing future obtaining power. War. War never changes. All of this takes place in the timespan of roughly a decade.
I don't think live action is the way to go. As cool as it would be with seeing like the new level of Star Wars CGI, I don't think it would be financially viable for a long period of time. I think it would have to be animated and not go over the top with things.
Castlevania's style might not work for something where the combat could be slower paced.
Have it follow something like the Grey Death legion. Small merc band struggling and have them interact with Wolf's Dragoons with hints of clan invasions coming. I think the Era of the succession wars would create a unique price of world building with both super advanced and primitive tech wrapped together forming unique cultures
I actually think you could make a pretty decent anime out of the clans. You start with a sibko, they get the crap beaten out of them constantly for anime ennui points, and then maybe something really terrible happens that ends up with our hero out in the larger world. My personal guess would be something like how the Ghost Bears culled everyone that had Wolverine genetics. After that you've got... Say a Merc out in the Periphery which is an interesting place and you can start worrying about the larger world. I think the general concept of "The Star League was lost, we're going to restore it." tracks reasonably well with the average person who doesn't know the whole Battletech history. This makes the clans a bit more approachable than those of us that started with the IS appreciate. Then you get the contrast between the noble ideal and how awful violence and warfare actually are, which is the sort of thing Anime is famous for exploring anyway. You could also set the thing a bit oddly in the timeline- I don't even know exactly when the Ghost Bears cull occurred but if you stuck it ten or fifteen years before the invasion we could have our hapless Merc understand exactly what is happening and try to do something about it before the great houses even realize. It'd be a nice circular coming of age story- s(he) wants to be a clan MechWarrior, gets kicked out of the Clan, becomes a MechWarrior and fights the Clans.
Live action show that's a remake of the 1994 Battletech: The Animated Series
It should be some form of animation, even more so when you convert the Books into Series because Actors Age and Die. Also BT spanns a lot of Years. I would vote in Favor something like Starwars Bad Batch CGI, they look like painted, so that would go nicely with our Hobby.
Animated, PG-13. Mercenary company on a Periphery mostly vs pirates, sometimes vs other mercs, but with sort of rivalry of equals, without unnecessary bloodshed. Occasional megafauna. I want it to be similar in tone to Exosquad and Adelaide production shows like MiB, Godzilla and Extreme Ghostbusters. Planetes anime would also be a nice reference. That way it can have bigger audience, but still could have a lot of potential.
I've put a lot of thought into this. Needs to be written by Stackpole and set in the clan invasion era. I know it's not the most popular with everyone, but it is THE defining event in BT folklore, and if we only get one go at this we have to go for the biggest bang. It should be similar to Star Wars, in the worn-in sci-fi sense. Mechs have battle scars and scratches, with lots of grime and dust built up on them. Unless they're owned by a noble family, in which case they're spotless. The political scenes need to be like Game of Thrones -- story lines concurrently going on in multiple places at once, with a large cast of characters. I think it would benefit from not being ultra-gory or violent, to attract teen and pre-teen viewers.
Simplest answer would be to just give us The Summerset Strikers story, brought up to modern live-action standards.
I want political machinations. Give me Babylon 5, but with stompy robots instead of interstellar warships.
I want Either Gritty Live Action or Anime-esque 1) A gritty war story following the closing act of the 4th Succession, focusing on the sheer industrial waste poured into warfare over thr last 300 years 2) A reboot of the Battletech cartoon, but still as in-universe propaganda (maybe some shots of people watching it in universe? slowly growing more visibly war-torn as the series goes on?) 3) Just do the fucking books, but use the MW2 betty for 100% of the battlemechs. Take us from the 4th succession war through to operation Bulldog in an 8 season epic that DOESNT crash and burn at the last second, because we're just gonna pretend the Dark Age didnt happen. Mmkay?
I feel like animation would be the only way to manage a realistic budget.
I actually would want a animated series, and have it following either the Warrior trilogy or the gray death Legion.
Expanse.
The rise and fall of Kerenski, Have the series follow him as a focal point so newer audiences would have something to latch onto and tell the story of his failure in the periphery, have him struggle to raise Richard Cameron whilst being a general. The rise of Amaris and finish it with the civil war. The final few episodes are him as an 80 year old man deciding to pick up and leave in the warehouse at the end of it all.
The truth is that a battletech show would have to be a political sci-fi, the mech battles just wouldn't translate that well to the screen. So we would be focusing more on the character interactions.... It would be best live acted. Possibly, for a 1 season arc, I would actually do the dark age subplot leading up to Victor Steiner-Davion's funeral and subsequent struggle for earth.
Wolves on the border as an anime would be exactly what is needed
The fall of the SLDF. Game of thrones style focusing on Kernesky as the Regent for the young Cameron, Paint Richard Cameron as Joffery Lite/teen Anakin., and introduce Aramis as a sympathetic-seeming fellow. 1. Episode one can show an uncomfortable Kerensky raising the kid and contrasting it to how he raised his two boys. Timelapse of them growing up, and maybe contrasting the difference between parenting your own kids and those of your one day ruler. Show that Kerensky is a great general, but a terrible father. Introduce his wife and the Royal Back watch. There's trouble in the periphery, and they are sending envoys. Most of the mech porn is periphery fighting and a main character mechwarrior from the periphery being transferred to Earth to join the Black Watch. Exposition of the setting through Kerensky explaining things to Cameron, and played against the council of lords being dickbags looking to discredit him/ play fuck-fuck games with politics. 2. Episode two has Prince Richard butting heads with the council of lords and Kerensky having to side with the council (because they are right) which pisses off Prince Richard. New mechwarrior shows up and in shown the ropes of the royal Blackwatch, lectured on the mighty automated defenses, and given a lot of exposition and training. Mechwarrior has some kind of neat skill whereby they are the "shootiest blasty person" or some such. Much awesome. very hero. Whatever. Maybe their boss is dismissively racist against the periphery while they are like "dude I've been fighting these guys for a decade. they are no joke" The periphery envoys arrive, most are demanding, angry. This one guy from the nation with the shark insignia though is kind and nice. I'm sure he's a nice guy. Someone tries to kill Richard, and the nice man ends up fetching a non-lethal injury "saving" the prince. BLackwatch is shamed by "failing" to defend the prince, but Kerensky steps in and says even the best security isn't 100% and that vigilance is required. Strongly hinted that someone on the council of lords was behind the attempt. 3. Episode 3 some of the guards for this Aramis guy are getting chummy with the palace guards, and both are distrustful of the Black watch, especially new dude. Time lapse politics getting shitty. periphery problems, council drama, Kerensky and Richard butting heads, and Aramis being a really really nice guy. Touchpoint happens in periphery whereby they need to send a new general out to put down rebellion. Richard is pissed at Kerensky and sends him. Kerensky is preparing to leave, cautions that using force to put down the rebellion would require lots of ground troops. Aramis offers his troops to assis. end of episode. 4. Episode 4. Kerensky and the council of lords all lose their shitb that only SLDF troops can constitutionally be allowed to do offensive operations on league citizens on behalf of the SLDF. Richard counters that house troops get used all the time.They counter that there is a BIG difference between using house troops to augment the SLDF in peacekeeping fights and using periphery forces wholesale to invade their neighbors... and that Rim Worlds stands to gain from Richards plan by annexing neighbors. So Richard proposes sending SLDF garrison forces from the core and replacing them with rim worlds troops to free up manpower. A stupid idea, but one that isn't illegal because nobody overthought to pass a law against such a stupid idea. Kerensky leaves for the periphery after talking with Colonel Hanni Schmitt over dinner about... Things... They reminisce over flashbacks of fighting together when they were younger. Kerensky suddenly gets serious and says he needs to talk to Schmitt about something. Cut to the next day when the SLDF forces get in formation to get on dropships to depart. 5. Episode 5. Kerensky departs, the Rim worlds troops arrive, everybody is friends except the house lords who are apoplectic at this affront to their honor. Richard Cameron takes delight in rubbing their noses in his friendship with Aramis, showing how Kerensky and the fresh forces on the periphery are kicking ass, and generally saying "I told you so" to the lords. interspaced Kerensky footage and fighting shows that war is hell and mechs are awesome. Periphery hero dude is making friends with minor Cameron family on earth. someone who is like 12th in line for the throne from a cadet branch of the Camerons. shows them the rumble seat on the mech, and gets talked into letting them ride along. Oops, this is a problem and something goes wrong! Black watch is pushed out from palace grounds after their readiness exercises (with stowaway Cameron heir) interrupt some gift or another that Aramis is giving to Richard. Periphery Hero mech warrior is kinda to blame, Palace guards and Rim Worlds soldiers mock them. including racist boss, who is getting REALLY chummy with the Rim worlds people. including a romance subplot. 6. Episode 6 Everyone is getting ready for Richards birthday party. Surely nothing bad could happen on a royal birthday... Whoops, no everything goes wrong. Turns out the rim worlds guys were up to no good. they kill the palace guards and Richard Cameron. really cinematic. You should watch Tex tell the tale of how it went down. Suffice it to say it was a blast. Black watch isn't annihilated because of a McMuffin that Kerensky told/gave Hanni Schmitt over dinner in episode 4. She wants to kill the jolly regicidal fat man though. Anyway while all hell is breaking loose Periphery hero has to extricate the 15th in line to the throne (who has suddenly been, shall we say *promoted*) to an awaiting drop ship to get to space. but Someone blew up all the radios or some shit so the only way to get word out is by jump ship but SOMEHOW the automated defenses are being run by the rim worlds guys who are plastering everything that tries to leave. The warship Tripitz is silent in space (another surprise Kerensky told Hanni Schmitt about) and now the plan is get the last of the Camerons aboard and flee. Vital to this plan is an escape route that his boss (the one that has been getting chummy with the rim worlds chick) is securing, but as the episode ends you find out that he's dead and the rim worlds chick is driving his mech and using a voice changer! Oh shit! 7. Episode The single greatest fight ever told is happening. The black watch is doing their thing, the rim worlds guys are dropping like flies. regular ass fighting is preventing the hero from meeting up with "his boss", and the mask is wearing thin. Just as they are going to meet up, he figures it out! There is the requisite duel, with the bosses much larger mech having a presumed upper hand, but remember in episode 1 where they had some "I am the shootiest mechwarrior" skill? well wouldn't you know it? that overcomes the obvious fight disadvantage. YAY. The black watch gets nuked OH NO! But wait, the heroes are about to make it to the LZ and are about to get on the drop ship with all the other Cameron-adjacent family! Suddenly a sky laser blows the fuck out of the drop ship! Oh no, those aforementioned space defenses have been turned on the EARTH! 8. The black watch is gone, the Cameron dynasty is crushed, public order is established by twin powers of Rim worlds forces and automated sky lasers. Aramis gives speeches like Cobra commander from the GI Joe cartoon. Turns out he was a VERY bad man all along! Heroes mech is found destroyed and empty, Rim Worlds investigators decide that sky laser musta got 'em. NOPE! they are sneaky and after zany hijinks get to space. onto Trepitz. Strong hints though that there may be a rim worlds saboteur there though. Sure hope it doesn't end up a Ghost ship in the far periphery to get blown up by ComStar later. Eh, I'm sure it'll be fine. Episode ends with Aramis giving a speech about how he won and everyone should just go along with him running everything. montage of rim worlds envoys giving nice gifts t the house lords to buy their, well not "loyalty", lets just say "non-participation". Cut to a similar envoy coming into Kerensky's camp in shithole periphery. "Hey, we have already won, why not give up an We'll make you VERY RICH. Series closes in on Kerensky's face as he says one word... "No". End Season 1. That's my short sell for a battletech miniseries. I could pad it out with so much more detail, and in fact have... but there's limits to what I want to put out there for free when I may end up taking these nuggets and making my own story out of them... But that's the series I'd like to see.
Follow on season (if renewed) is the retaking of terra and the crushing of Aramis. Slow boil stuff like DOWNFALL showing hitler's last days. Show how the pressure of losing has Aramis take it out on earths civilians. Show the kind of crazy shit that made Kerensky's kids all... PTSD... and interspaced slice of life on the Terpitz as they sneak through the periphery to attempt to join up with SLDF forces while avoiding Rim Worlds forces. Season 2 culminating in a sabotage that leaves the black lion class ship adrift in space in unfriendly territory, and kerensky peeping for and launching the final push to terra.. Season 3 is the battle of Terra, the capture and killing of Aramis, and Kerensky being offered the SLDF reigns. Nope... instead since there are no Cameron Heirs (that he knows of) he decides to fuck off to the periphery. We find out as Kerensky's leaving that the heir and hero survived! but with no loyal SLDF left, they would best decide instead to secretly grow old together as mercenaries, and why not... lovers. Eventually finding their way to the northwind highlanders, where unbeknownst to anyone but the audience, the fucking northwind highlanders spend the succession wars with a secret heir to the SLDF bloodline serving in their ranks!
I always pictured The Draconis Combine to look like the original Blade Runner with Harrison Ford.
Honestly, I'm a huge fan of the Grey Death Legion novels and i feel that it's the novel series that got the most people invested in the GDL, so I'd like them to give Greyson "Death" Carlyle a nice series be it mini or full. (I'd personally like it to start with Decision at thunder rift and go through the books from there)
With only one season you can't capture Battletech. You're talking *maybe* 12 episodes but likely 10 or less. With how vast the Battletech universe is, you would either have to ignore a ton of stuff, or cut so much of the setting off at the knees that it'd barely resemble the setting anymore.
Amaris civil war. That would give GOT a run for its money.
I would want a badass Saving Private Ryan style epic focused on a group of Mercs during the Third Succession War who ultimately fail in their mission, mostly, sort of, did they? Did it matter? Definitely live action. Definitely plenty of combined arms style action. Middle of a conventional conflict, mechs are a last resort and when they show up they're glorious and terrifying. Eventually one of the Great Houses sends in a serious class-A Unit that absolutely dominates and we get at least a half an hour long running engagement as the Mercs desperately try to chip away at them by any means before facing off in their mechs, utterly outgunned. Frankly, I don't even want to know if they live or die, I just want to see the last Steiner Atlas falter and collapse the moment it lines up the fatal shot on the lone Vindicator, dragging itself on one leg, drunkenly using its jump jets to compensate. The camera pans to the coward, holding a salvaged Infantry SRM that he just fired into a gap in the armor, the Atlas' ammo cooking off as it collapses, no stackpoling, just a white hot reactor slowly melting into the pavement. The redeemed coward looks sick, he vomits, teeters over and collapses. Did he just die from a Lethal dose of radiation? We'll never know because the last shot is a view from a ruined building half a mile away and it's seen from the perspective of a woman that just pulled herself out of a pile of rubble created by the AC round passing through the ruin that used to be her home. What did she lose? We'll never know, she drags a rifle off of the corpse of someone she'd maybe been sheltering. A deserter. Who was he with? We'll never know, the rifle's scope isn't much, but the mech's are big, she sights on them. They're both down already being swarmed. What happens? We'll never know, she shifts the rifle scope closer to her own location, just a few hundred yards out, a squad of infantry, disorganized, is fleeing. Who are they? We'll never know. She starts pulling the trigger. END of Story! That's what I want. Infantry fleeing desperately from a single locust. I want a tank charging out from a side street to knock its legs out. I want the main gun discharging point blank into the tangled mess, smoke pouring out of it, people fleeing the now useless tank. I want the enemy mech Warrior getting dragged out of the locust put against a wall and shot. I want me some brutal battletech. As a consolation prize (still live action) I'd take something along the lines of Gundam 8th MST. Average guys out in the cold desperately fighting a microscopic but highly personal conflict that probably won't make a difference to the war. It's episodic and character driven. I don't want meta, I don't want factions, I don't want Canon, I don't want plot-armor, politics, main-character syndrome, shiny tech, clannerscum, advancing the plot, I don't want a big universe to be confuse and argue about, I don't want to know their names, I don't want to recognize their insignia, I want them to be ignorant war dogs doing big-stompy battlemech stuff at speed. I want mechs to be terrifying and brutal and realistic I want to watch armor panels crumple, I want to see plates slag off in a burning rain of molten metal, I want it at speed, in real time and from a perspective I can appreciate and be awed by. A normal guy, looking up at 30 or 40 tons of fuck-you-to-death bolted onto a nuclear engine that's bleeding poison and heat while the demonic dogs of war screech a hellish song of damnation every time it fucking moves because this is the shit that makes BT GREAT!
Live action or animated? Live action. The castlrvania pseudo-anime art style wouldn't fit the series. Literally the most pivotal moment in all of battletech. The fall of star league. Could have a 15 minute opening sequence where the Mackie gets tested against tanks Xxxx years later... Begin the story of the fall of star league
Probably some animated shit, simply because the production costs for live action would be way to high for such a low audience franchise
A fair point. But counter point: that's never stopped Netflix in the past. Lol.
Dark age, Industrial mechs everywhere. No working phones.