History TabletopGame / BattleTech

* ''Franchise/BattleTechExpandedUniverse'' - The Expanded Universe contains the hundreds of novels, the animated series titled ''[=BattleTech=]'' - one of the few Western mech shows. This has existed almost as long as ''[=BattleTech=]'' has (the first novel was printed in ''1986''), and even in the franchise's quieter years never completely stopped being printed. Unlike many Expanded Universes, [=BattleTech's=] novel line has always been regarded as fully canon rather than BroadStrokesCanon, with only a few rare exceptions. By default, the novel canon is treated as superior to sourcebook canon unless explicitly stated.

* ''Franchise/BattleTechExpandedUniverse'' - The Expanded Universe contains the hundreds of novels, the animated series titled ''[=BattleTech=]'' - one of the few Western mech shows. This has existed almost as long as ''[=BattleTech=]'' has (the first novel was printed in ''1986''), and even in the franchise's quieter years never completely stopped being printed.

There was also a CollectibleCardGame. Produced in the mid 1990s by Creator/WizardsOfTheCoast, creators of ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering''. Gameplay was similar to Magic as well. It was relatively successful, but has faded.

* ''WesternAnimation/BattleTech'' - A cartoon focused on the exploits of Adam Steiner during the Clan invasion of 3050 as he leads a group to try to take back his home planet from the Clans. It only lasted one season, and occupies a unique niche in terms of canonicity: the animated series is considered ''in-universe'' propaganda, to make Adam Steiner look good. So the cartoon is essentially the cartoon being shown to kids in the Inner Sphere.

* ''VideoGame/MechAssault'' - A third-person mech action series for the [[Platform/Xbox original Xbox]]. While set in the ''[=BattleTech=]'' universe, it is a much more simple, fast paced action game compared to the ''Mechwarrior'' games. The games were released in 2002 and 2004. For various reasons, this is one of the few Expanded Universe materials that is considered completely non-canonical.

* ''Videogame/MechAssault'' - A third-person mech action series for the [[UsefulNotes/{{Xbox}} original Xbox]]. While set in the ''[=BattleTech=]'' universe, it is a much more simple, fast paced action game compared to the ''Mechwarrior'' games. The games were released in 2002 and 2004. For various reasons, this is one of the few Expanded Universe materials that is considered completely non-canonical.

* ''Videogame/MechWarrior'' - A first-person, real-time mech combat simulator series for Windows [=PCs=]. ''[=MechWarrior=]'' is one of the most storied video game franchises of TheNineties, and was a ''massive'' GatewaySeries into the wider ''[=BattleTech=]'' universe for an entire generation of game players. The series had a number of releases between 1989 and 2002 before being sidelined by {{Creator/Microsoft}}, which at the time owned {{Creator/FASA Studio}}, seemingly ending the franchise at ''[=MechWarrior=] 4''. Over the years, after an aborted attempt to revive the franchise in 2009, Piranha Games Interactive launched the free-to-play ''[=MechWarrior=] Online'' in 2012, and ''[=MechWarrior 5 Mercenaries=]'' in 2019.

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/BattleTech_Timberwolf2_1159.JPG]]
[[caption-width-right:350:[[Literature/NineteenEightyFour If you want a picture of the future, imagine a 'Mech stomping on some PBI]]. [[LongRunners Forever]].]]

* ''VideoGame/BattleTech2018'' - A tactical turn-based combat game for PC, [[Website/{{Kickstarter}} kickstarted]] by [[VideoGame/ShadowrunReturns Harebrained Schemes]] (and thus often called "''Harebrained Schemes' [=BattleTech=]''", "''HBS [=BattleTech=]''" or a variant thereof to differentiate it from the TT game), with Jordan Weisman himself as one of the creative directors. It was released on April 24th, 2018.

Unlike other wargames such as ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'', which require official minatures, ''[=BattleTech=]'' has very loose rules on what can be used to represent units; an index card on a stand with a stick-figure 'Mech could be used to represent your [[MightyGlacier AS7-D Atlas]], or you could buy official pewter or lead miniatures. The only real rules are that the representation should be both unique and consistent, and that it should have a clear way to determine which way it's facing[[labelnote:examples]]As an example of consistency and uniqueness, an [[Franchise/TheTransformers Optimus Prime]] action figure could easily represent aforementioned [=AS7-D=] Atlas, but a second Optimus Prime figure should only be used to represent another Atlas of the same configuration, and any additional Atlas [=AS7-Ds=] you field should ideally be represented by the same figures. As an example of being able to determine facing, a soda bottle with its label torn off is not an appropriate representation of any 'Mech as there is nothing to mark which way is "front". That same bottle with a single vertical line drawn on it in marker would be usable as that line could be considered the "front".[[/labelnote]]. The game's quick-start rulebooks can be [[http://bg.battletech.com/?page_id=27 downloaded for free]] off of the official ''[=BattleTech=]'' website, even, including basic rules and the ability to print out a map and paper stand-ups of four 'Mechs, two variants each of a tank, hovercraft, [[PoweredArmor BattleArmor]] and infantry platoons to wage a quick, easy-to-understand skirmish.\\

Five decades of relative peace passed from 3081 to 3132 with a few minor wars, and then the political situation in the Republic and the relations with its neighbors reached breaking point after Stone's retirement. It was evident to all that one wrong event in the wrong time could shake the house of cards down. That event came on August 7 3132 in the form of the simultaneous shutdown (via a widespread computer virus plus a few military strikes) of the majority of hyperpulse generators in the Inner Sphere. Every faction was suddenly rendered nearly blind and deaf, without information, and swiftly rushed to either take advantage of the crisis or defend against its results. And while the older factions stayed relatively unified, the unconsolidated hotbed of different cultures that was the Republic splintered into many micro-factions. Most of these eventually either joined or were conquered by the Great Houses and the Clans, who came upon the weakened Republic like hungry vultures. Besieged from all sides, the desperate Republic activated the Fortress Republic system that prevented anyone from jumping into their core systems, often with fatal results, and abandoned the worlds outside the Wall to the conquerors. With all easy pickings taken and with dreams of empire, many Great Houses or Clans soon turned upon their neighbors, and this period saw the final destruction of ComStar when it was absorbed into Clan Sea Fox.\\

Five decades of relative peace passed from 3081 to 3132 with a few minor wars, and then the political situation in the Republic and the relations with its neighbors reached breaking point after Stone's retirement. It was evident to all that one wrong event in the wrong time could shake the house of cards down. That event came on August 7 3132 in the form of the simultaneous shutdown (via a widespread computer virus plus a few military strikes) of the majority of hyperpulse generators in the Inner Sphere. Every faction was suddenly rendered nearly blind and deaf, without information, and swiftly rushed to either take advantage of the crisis or defend against its results. And while the older factions stayed relatively unified, the unconsolidated hotbed of different cultures that was the Republic splintered into many micro-factions. Most of these eventually either joined or were conquered by the Great Houses and the Clans, who came upon the weakened Republic like hungry vultures. Besieged from all sides, the desperate Republic activated the Fortress Republic system that prevented anyone from jumping into their core systems, often with fatal results, and abandoned the worlds outside the Wall to the conquerors. With all easy pickings taken and with dreams of empire, many Great Houses or Clans soon turned upon their neighbors.\\

In the current year 3150 some factions (Steiner, Davion, [=ComStar=]) are desperately staving off ruin while others (Liao, Kurita, Clans Wolf and Jade Falcon) are riding waves of conquest. All eyes are turned towards Terra, where the Republic has unleashed its hoarded might from behind the Wall, while the Wolves, Jade Falcons, and House Liao all prepare to claim humanity's ancestral homeworld.

The [=BattleTech=] board game was launched by Creator/{{FASA}} in the early '80s, evolving from traditional tabletop wargaming like TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons, but influenced by the then-relatively new genre of mecha anime rather than fantasy. At the most basic level, a [=BattleTech=] game featured two teams of four [[HumongousMecha BattleMechs]], each with their [[DesignItYourselfEquipment own unique arsenal of weaponry, defenses, and movement capabilities]], which would proceed to beat each other into the ground across a terrain map. As the [[Franchise/BattleTechExpandedUniverse background fiction developed]], scenarios were written to provide specific settings and rules to "recreate" the fictional battles of the 31st century, and expansions to the rules included conventional units, space combat, and large-scale warfare, bringing the game right back to its roots.

After three centuries of exile, the descendants of the SLDF, now calling themselves "The Clans", launched a blitzkrieg invasion of the Inner Sphere. Inspired by the doctrines of Aleksandr Kerensky's son Nicholas and armed with advanced Battlemechs, weapons, and [[PoweredArmor Battle Armor]], their intent was to end the still-ongoing Succession Wars and reform the Star League by force. The two most prominent Clans of this invasion were [[http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Warden_Clans Warden]] Clan Wolf, the direct successors of the Kerensky bloodline who felt that the [[http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Crusader_Clans Crusader]] Clans were using Kerensky's writings as an excuse to take over Inner Sphere and thus took part in the war to minimize damage, and the Crusader Clan Jade Falcon, who saw the Inner Sphere as their rightful domain torn apart by fake usurpers. The invasion was eventually halted by using the Clans' own rules against them, honor binding them from attacking Inner Sphere for 15 years, but not before the Clans carved a huge chunk of territory out of the nearest Successor States,[[note]]parts of the Draconis Combine, the Lyran side of the F-C, and nearly devouring the breakaway Free Rasalhague Republic,[[/note]] and for the next several decades both the Inner Sphere and the Clans were busy dealing with the consequences.\\

Within the Clans, the Crusaders led by Clan Jade Falcon were pointing at the Clan Wolf as a scapegoat, accusing their Khan, Ulric Kerensky, of a deliberate sabotage of the war effort, and were calling to break the 15 years truce and immediately restart the invasion. In return, Ulric initiated a Clan-scale Trial of Refusal in order to thwart Crusader ambitions, starting the Refusal War between the Wolves and the Falcons. The Wolves lost the war with Ulric killed by treachery, but not before crippling the Falcon's might, effectively rendering all their invasion plans moot.\\

[[folder:P-Z]]
* PathOfInspiration: Pre Reformation [=ComStar=] and the Word of Blake. They were particularly fond of indoctrinating inhabitants from worlds that had regressed to pre-Industrial Revolution tech levels by amazing them with "divine" space age machines.
* PayEvilUntoEvil: Prominent among many factions; there are codes of conduct for war but break the rules bad enough and you can expect to be treated in kind. The Word of Blake being blown to kingdom come is probably the best example.
** Mercenaries tend to be unkind to other mercenaries who commit war crimes or betray their employers; to the point that the Mercenary Review and Bonding Commission (MRBC) will put out bounties on them. If you get kicked out of the commission you are considered a pirate and a criminal rather than a soldier; and pirates are considered free game by everyone.
** Pull too many dirty tricks (or any at all beyond the mid 3050s) and the Clans will get annoyed enough to simply throw duels and honor out the window and turn their SuperSoldiers and advanced weapons on you at their full potential. The Clans also punish piracy with battlefield executions and don't apply honor to criminals.
** The fear this trope in the form of mutually assured destruction through LostTechnology was the only thing that kept the Great Houses from attacking jumpships during the late Succession Wars.
* ThePeterPrinciple: The Clans' way of promotion relies heavily on personal combat skills, which leads to many higher ranked warriors who can beat their subordinates in combat but cannot effectively lead said subordinates in battles. Indeed, in ''Historical: Operation Klondike'' (which chronicles the birth of the Clans), one interviewee (a retired Star League sergeant turned bar owner) criticized this method, referring to lower-level SLDF commanders who could shoot straight but "[C]ouldn't lead themselves out of a well-lit parking lot." It took the failure of Operation Revival for the Clans to begin fixing this.
* PillarsOfMoralCharacter: House Kurita's Order of the Five Pillars. [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Naturally]].
* PirateGirl: Morgan Fletcher, Suzy "One-Eye" Morgaine-Ryan and Paula "Lady Death" Trevaine.
* PlanetBaron: Barons are common in the game, as the Successor Lords commonly reward someone who's done a valuable service to their realm by appointing them baron of a planet. If they're lucky, they'll get put in charge of a planet that's got a valuable resource like a battlemech factory. If they're unlucky they'll get named baron of an uninhabited ice ball on the fringes of the Successor State's territory. Other nobles often rule their own planets as well, though in this case it's hereditary while the title of baron does not transfer to the original individual's heirs.
* PlanetTerra: Terra is the common name for both the planet of humanity's origin and its star system, with the actual star being referred to as Sol. The term has influenced the names of some of the states that come to rule the region of space containing Terra, such as the Terran Hegemony. Interestingly, the switch in terminology seems to have occurred some time after humanity began exploring the stars, as the first extra-solar planet to be colonized by humans received the name New Earth rather than New Terra.
* {{Planetville}}: Played dead straight. Except for the local capital (with its attendant spaceport) and the occasional outlying settlement or three, planets in most [=BattleTech=] fiction might as well be completely uninhabited.
** This is to some extent an AcceptableBreakFromReality, since it helps [[WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief prop up the illusion]] that the fate of an entire world could in fact be decided by the relatively small-scale battles played out at the actual gaming table.
** It is also a not-immediately-obvious, but very logical, result of the Amaris Coup and Civil War and First and Second Succession Wars. There ''used'' to be a lot of planets with very high populations, mech armies in the tens of thousands or higher, abundant universities and cities all around the planet. [[ApocalypseHow After a century of warfare with incredibly powerful weapons of mass destruction, there aren't so many of those planets anymore]], and many of the surviving planets were reduced to Planetvilles by sheer violence, and struggle to rebuild even in the modern setting.
** Averted by the most prominent worlds, which have more realistic populations (billions) and spread out infrastructure. The historical battles that take place here also tend to be suitably large. Smaller worlds could just be a single colony; those examples would be [[JustifiedTrope justified]].
** Also, the "limited warfare" doctrines most factions use means 24 'Mechs duking it out on an empty plain far from any population centers or useful infrastructure is preferable for all parties.
* PlasmaCannon: Uses a laser to heat a block of plastic into plasma and fires it at a target. Also comes in the smaller plasma rifle that can be used by Battlesuits.
* PoliceState: The Capellan Confederation has fallen back on these policies as it is losing ground to its enemies for most of the timeline; though its only really bad when the current Chancellor is the insane variety of Liao. The majority of the other factions temporarily go into this in times of crisis.
* PoliticallyCorrectHistory: Used in-universe. The Star League is generally considered to be golden age of mankind by just about everyone in the 31st century, while in actuality it was far from it. Sure, there was relative peace and a high technology level, but speak out about independence one iota and the SLDF would appear in-system to remind you who the boss was - with 'Mechs.
** Various source books emphasize that, while Inner Sphere and Clan peoples remember the Star League's rule as 300 years of peace and development fondly, the Periphery states were forced to join after they were brutalized in the Reunification War and never really got over that. These 'Territorial States' were poorly treated, overtaxed, and systematically abused until the collapse of the League. It eventually came back to haunt the League, as Stefan Amaris [[HoistByHisOwnPetard was a Periphery lord]].
** There's also the little matter of never-ending shadow wars (using 'bandits') between what would become the Successor States, a civil war in the Free Worlds League, and a couple of border wars, though these smaller conflicts were absolute peanuts compared to the Succession Wars that started when the Star League fell - particularly the first two, [[ApocalypseHow which saw the unrestrained use of WMDs]].
* {{Portmanteau}}: The Timber Wolf's Inner Sphere reporting name Mad Cat came to be when Precentor-Martial Focht was analyzing the blackbox data from Phelan Kell's 'Mech. The targeting system, not having data on the Timber Wolf, couldn't decide if it was seeing a Marauder (MAD) or a Catapult (CAT), since the Timber Wolf had visual similarities to both, resulting in the targeting system constantly switching between MAD and CAT.
* PoweredArmor: From simple powered suits for special forces troopers to one-ton suits capable of taking on 'Mechs in numbers, and even larger suits up to two tons. The best-known example is Clan Elemental battle armor, which surprised Inner Sphere militaries during its first appearance on account of being so tough for such a small suit.
* PowerPincers: Some mechs had large claws that could be used to attack opponents, such as other mechs. One example was the CTP-005 Clytemestra (in the magazine ''[=BattleTechnology=]'' #21) which had two Solaris Arms Mark IV [=BattleClaws=].
* PragmaticVillainy: The main reason the Inner Sphere gave up total warfare and Weapons of Mass Destruction after the First and Second Succession Wars. Defeating your enemies simply isn't possible when your technological base is being blasted back to the Industrial Age, your civilians are all dead and unable to contribute to the war effort and the worlds you want to conquer end up as depopulated piles of wreckage. Centuries long stalemates aren't exactly fun but even the most ambitious House Lord realizes that you can't rule all of humanity if spacefaring civilization comes to an end.
* PraetorianGuard: The Chancellors of the Capellan Confederation and the Coordinators of the Draconis Combine have the Death Commandos and Otomo respectively. The other Great Houses don't have dedicated units for this role but the current House Lord's former military command often plays this role. The various Khans in the Clans have Keshik units that they personally command in battle.
** BodyguardingABadass: Most faction leaders at least have some military training and, in the cases of the Combine, the Federated Suns and the Clans, are often among the most highly skilled warriors themselves.
* PrivateMilitaryContractors: Many, many mercenary armies work for each of the Houses; some even own their own worlds.
** Notably, the game designers (and fanbase) seem to ''really love'' mercenaries. Whole sourcebooks are dedicated to the logistics and economics of running mercenary units, several novels include, or are entirely from the point of view of, mercenary characters, and about half the video games cast your PlayerCharacter as a mercenary, including ''[=MechWarrior=] 2: Mercenaries'', ''[=MechWarrior=] 4: Mercenaries'', the upcoming ''[=MechWarrior=] 5: Mercenaries'', and the recent ''[=BattleTech=]'' computer game by Harebrained Schemes. Even ''[=MechWarrior=] Online'' includes support for playing a mercenary. If there's such a thing as a "default setting" for the game, it's being a mercenary.
* ProfessionalKiller: Many, from the Bounty Hunter to the Jarnfolk assassins.
* ProudMerchantRace: The Lyran Commonwealth is generally described as a nation of merchants first, politicians second, and warriors a distant third. The Free Worlds League likewise is a mercantile nation (when they aren't busy [[BalkanizeMe killing each other]]) and an industrial powerhouse, which allowed them to become the largest arms maker in the Inner Sphere after the Lyran Commonwealth was attacked by the Clans. Clan Diamond Shark combines their love of money with their [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy love of combat]], much to the chagrin of the other Clans.
* ProudWarriorRaceGuy: The Clans' Warrior Caste - in a half-twist, they are the ''enemies'' for once. The Invading Clans who settled down in Inner Sphere are gradually changing to the Proud Soldier Race Guy sub-type, whether they want to admit it or not, at least when dealing with the Inner Sphere "barbarians". The Hell's Horses are the only Clan that provides a rather interesting mix of ''both'' the Warrior and Soldier sub-types because, even after the Great Exodus from Terra, they still ascribe to the centuries-old philosophy of combined arms warfare, whom the other Clans consider "hopelessly obsolete" in a field dominated by HumongousMecha.
** The Clans end up being a [[DeconstructedTrope deconstruction]] of this trope, first because it turns out that behind all the CulturalPosturing, they're every bit as prone to political bickering and infighting as the Inner Sphere, and second because their hidebound adherence to [[LetsFightLikeGentlemen a heavily ritualized form of warfare]] makes it easy for a clever strategist to manipulate them into giving themselves crippling handicaps[[note]]Best exemplified in the Battle of Tukayyid, in which [=ComStar=] challenged the hitherto unstoppable Clans to a Trial of Possession for control of Terra. The Clans accepted, because the challenge was made within their rules and they believed [=ComStar=] to be a pushover, and then immediately started bidding among themselves for drop order and prestige targets, with the Smoke Jaguars winning by committing the least amount of forces, and the other Clans (except Wolf) following suit. [=ComStar=] committed twelve ''armies'', and then exploited the various battlefields by using "dishonorable" tactics like ambushes, artillery, supply raids, hit-and-runs, and goading the Clans into making stupid attacks for reasons of honor. The Clan invasion was stopped because the Clans were too obsessed with honor to fight effectively[[/note]].
** The soldiers of the heavily militaristic Federated Suns and Draconis Combine, based on Anglo-French knights and Japanese samurai respectively, tend towards this as well, in a SoldierVersusWarrior way (Suns being Soldiers and Combine being Warriors).
** Exemplified by Clan Smoke Jaguar, who represent the worst excesses of the Clan's brutality and contempt for those not born to the Warrior Caste. They're also the tragic perpetrators of a grand case of DramaticIrony as their founder, [[NobleDemon Franklin Osis]], had rediscovered his youthful pacifism in his twilight years and wished to temper the ruthless savagery of his Warriors with pursuits beyond the martial. Unfortunately, he was followed by a succession of short-sighted and vicious Khans that enshrined those beliefs he had come to regret, resulting in a Clan that was [[EveryoneHasStandards hated and despised]] by their ostensible allies, notorious for committing wanton slaughter and a seemingly endless list of atrocities. When their crimes caught up to them during Operation [=BULLDOG=] and Operation [=SERPENT=], the rest of the Clans were all too happy to abandon the Jaguars to their doom.
* PutOnABus: An interesting case, as the bus putting actually happened in the backstory and is integral to the setting at large, before the then-current timeline in the game started. The example, of course, would be Alexander Kerensky and the Star League Defense Forces. It didn't last long because:
** TheBusCameBack: And they throw the entire Inner Sphere into chaos when they return as the Clans.
** Inverse are some Mechs are no longer seen or in use as the factories producing them were destroyed or production of them were discontinued altogether.
* PyrrhicVictory:
** Stefan Amaris is defeated and Terra is liberated but the Terran Hegemony is mortally wounded. Without it to mediate, the Successor States once again war over who will lead the Star League. General Aleksandr Kerensky was Terra's only hope but he and his army left the Inner Sphere rather than get caught up in the squabbles of the Great Houses. The Hegemony was finally finished off by the Great Houses' land grabs and [=ComStar=]'s takeover of Terra.
** The Jade Falcons came out victorious over the Wolves during the Refusal War, but thanks to some strategic victories by the Wolves as well as a successful repelling of a concentrated assault on the Kell Hounds and the splinter offshoot Clan Wolf-In-Exile (comprised of the surviving original Warden members of the Clan), the Falcons were ultimately in no position to resume the invasion of the Inner Sphere, and were forced to absorb the remaining Wolves in order to re-bolster their strength. This didn't last long either, as treachery by the Falcon leadership in the battle that was Khan Ulric Kerensky's last was revealed and Clan Wolf reasserted itself as a Crusader faction thanks to newly appointed Khan Vladimir Ward, who was the sole witness of the Falcons' dishonorable acts during the war and ultimately killed their two highest ranked members responsible in [[MightMakesRight Trials]] against them.
* RagnarokProofing: Properly maintained Mechs and Jumpdrives that are centuries old and still work far better than their more recently-made counterparts.
* RammingAlwaysWorks: The game's charge mechanics can lead to some...interesting results, depending on the unit being used. The aptly titled ''Charger'' [=BattleMech=] can deal a frightening amount of damage, mostly as a factor of mass and distance traveled. Given that the ''Charger'' is 80 tons and can move 86 kph on clear ground, its ramming attacks can be devastating (64 damage points to the target, while the maximum damage it can take as a result of its attack is often just 10 points).
** Subverted in the rules for aerospace combat, though, where ramming your craft into another isn't just tricky in and of itself but is one of the few times the rules apply a sort of morale check in the form of a (''difficult'') roll to determine whether your pilot/crew is actually crazy enough to go through with it or chickens out at the last moment.
*** During the Clan invasion, a mortally wounded Rasalhague aerospace pilot named Tyra Miraborg disabled the thrust safeties on her half-smashed 65-ton fighter and flew head-on into the bridge of the Clan flagship. Not only did this cripple the warship her squadron otherwise couldn't scratch, it ejected the commander of the overall invasion into space and brought the Clan advance to a screeching halt. The ''Clans'' were highly impressed by this, with even the victimized Clan deciding to rename a new class of assault craft in her honor. Her act was even immortalized as a verse in their poetic history, The Rememberance.
* {{Realpolitik}}: With a few notable exceptions, like the undeniably evil Amaris the Usurper and a handful of insane Capellan chancellors, there really are no good guys or bad guys among the various political leaders. They're just looking to take care of their people, which sometimes means stepping all over someone else.
* RealRobot: 'Mechs average a bit more resilient than usual for the genre, but they are still gritty metal-and-grease war machines that get banged up and blasted to pieces all the time.
** Justified in backstory. Most of the more fragile units from the Star League era didn't survive the Succession Wars, or were rebuilt using simpler, more resilient technology.
** This is also ''why'' early ''Battletech'' leaned so hard on the ''Anime/{{Macross}}'' and ''[[Anime/FangOfTheSunDougram Dougram]]'' designs - they were a perfect fit for the feel that Weisman and Babcock were going for in their initial pitch, much moreso than something like Gundam or any SuperRobot.
* RecoiledAcrossTheRoom: Any 'Mech less than 100 tons attempting to move and fire a [[{{BFG}} Heavy Gauss Rifle]] in the same turn must check for falling down. See ChestBlaster above for a truly ridiculous variation.
* RecycledInSpace: At first glance, most of the Successor States look like medieval or 16th-18th century nations, though they are actually more complex. Also applies to other factions.
** House Davion: Great Britain[=/=]France [-IN SPACE-]
** House Steiner: (West) Germany [-IN SPACE-]
** House Marik: USA[=/=][[DependingOnTheWriter Yugoslavia]] [-IN SPACE-]
** House Liao: Imperial/Communist China[=/=]Soviet Union [-IN SPACE-]
*** St. Ives Compact: Taiwan [-IN SPACE-]
** House Kurita: Imperial Japan [-IN SPACE-] (deliberate design by its founder)
** Free Rasalhague Republic: Scandinavia [-IN SPACE-]
** [=ComStar=]: Medieval Catholic Church [-IN SPACE-]
** Taurian Concordat: Kingdom of Asturias / Israel [-IN SPACE-]
** Magistracy of Canopus: Las Vegas / Atlantic City [-IN SPACE-]
** Outworlds Alliance: Amish[=/=]Mennonites [-IN SPACE-]
** Marian Hegemony: Republican[=/=]Imperial Rome [-IN SPACE-] (deliberate design by its founder)
** Tortuga Dominions: Pirates of the Caribbean [-IN SPACE-]
** Nuevo Castile: Reconquista Spain [-IN SPACE-] (until Clan Goliath Scorpion takes over)
** Mostly averted with the Clans, which were deliberately designed (both in-universe and in real life) as a new society, but they do use Mongol terminology and initially burst upon the Inner Sphere much as the Mongol horde did to medieval Europe.
* RememberTheNewGuy: Interstellar Expeditions, a large organization dedicated to investigating mysteries throughout the Inner Sphere and Periphery, were introduced in a sourcebook covering the Jihad era with the group having a substantial role in locating the Word of Blake's hidden worlds. However their in-game history goes all the way back to the Third Succession War.
* TheRemnant:
** At least half of understrength Word of Blake elite Shadow Divisions were unaccounted for by the end of Jihad, who are rumored to have retreated to their hidden worlds to lick their wounds.
** A popular in-universe theory is that in the former Rim Worlds Republic space there is a RWR remnant with hidden worlds bigger than other ex-RWR mini-states.
** There is a small, but stubborn faction of Republic of the Sphere military that refused to retreat behind the fortress-republic and opted to stay and defend their homes and the ideals of the republic. They call themselves the "Remnant".
** The mysterious Minnesota Tribe, who appeared in the Periphery, cut their way across the Inner Sphere and disappeared are believed to have been the survivors of Clan Wolverine following their abjuration. (Confirmed by WordOfGod but In-Universe no one know this.)
* RenegadeSplinterFaction: The Word of Blake to [=ComStar=]
* ReportingNames: Each of the Clan [=BattleMechs=] were given such names by the Inner Sphere. For example, the Clans' ''Timber Wolf'' is still widely known as the ''Mad Cat''[[note]]Supposedly because when first encountered, an Inner Sphere targeting computer tried to identify the Timber Wolf as a Marauder (MAD) and a Catapult (CAT) at the same time, as the profile of the Timber Wolf has elements of both[[/note]].
** Some of these are better than others, and the mere mention of an Inner Sphere reporting name in the presence of a Clan supporter can cause arguments. Just to make it worse, the ''Vulture'' is the only Mech that ever went by three names. It was also called ''Hagetaka'', which is Japanese for Vulture, in the Draconis Combine. To the Clans, it's the ''Mad Dog''.
** The ''Mauler'' is a [=FedCom=] reporting name for a Draconis Combine 'mech, back when it was so secret the other IS houses only had rumors of its existence. The 'Mech's prototypical name was ''Daboku'' (bruise), but the original prototypes were marked failures. While the newest models were superior and reasonably effective, the Draconis Combine used the [=FedCom=] reporting name to avoid the embarrassment of the ''Daboku'''s history. Before that, related models that (visually) called back to the ''Mauler'' went by ''Na-No-Kami'' (the Japanese god of earthquakes) and ''[[SpecialPersonNormalName Linesman]].''
*** A similar story exists for the ''Wolf Trap'' [=BattleMech=]. Designed by the Draconis Combine, its original name was ''Tora'' (tiger), but it was quickly given the [=FedCom=] reporting name ''Wolf Trap'' in a hasty effort to make it not seem Draconian in origin, as the 'Mech was branded a failure.
** An subverted case is the ''[[http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Ebon_Jaguar_(Cauldron-Born) Ebon Jaguar]]'', which was made sometime in battle of Luthien by Clan Smoke Jaguar. It was named the ''Cauldron Born'' by the Inner Sphere, and the Clans also call it ''Cauldron Born'', because it was so new they didn't get the name Smoke Jaguar made.
** This can occasionally result in cross cultural confusion too, as is the case with calling a 'Mech a ''Viper''. If a Clanner is speaking, they're referring to a 40-ton urban raider known to the Inner Sphere as a ''Dragonfly''. If you're listening to a Spheroid, they're discussing a 75-ton frontline brawler called a ''Black Python'' by its creators.
* {{Retcon}}: Certain early Mechs were derived from ''Anime/{{Macross}}'' and this caused a longstanding legal headache for the game designers once ''[=BattleTech=]'' began to pick up steam. The designs were removed from the game, and fans took to calling these designs "Unseen". With rights to the original artwork still not forthcoming, eventually the mechs were simply redesigned.
** WordOfGod says this is officially ''NOT'' a retcon -- the original designs still exist in universe, they just can't be seen in RealLife. The Project Phoenix redesigns are just that -- revamped designs of the old machines meant to reflect the new styling of the 3060s. The debate over whether CGL ought to just retcon once and for all the old designs into the new designs is a cause of a lot of BrokenBase on the official forums. CGL, for their part is not dipping their toes into that water. Yet.
*** "Yet" has kind-sorta happened. On July 24, 2015, Catalyst announced that they were going to redesign the Unseen. The already-released designs [[http://bg.battletech.com/news/news-and-announcements/drop-pod-sequence-initiatedthree-two-one/ shown here]] show that these minis are going to go as close as legally possible as they can to the Unseen to replace them wherever an Unseen would be used (mostly pre-3067/Project Phoenix instinces of the Unseen). Further, WordOfGod [[http://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php?topic=48674.msg1101187#msg1101187 claims]] it as a genuine retcon, as the newly-minted designs completely in-universe replace the original Macross/Dougram/Crusher Joe art that can no longer be used.
** Confusing the issue further, Catalyst has the rights to use, and does use, the artwork for the 'Mechs taken from all sources not ''Macross'' - specifically from ''Anime/FangOfTheSunDougram'' and ''Anime/CrusherJoe''. The Thunderbolt, Shadow Hawk, Battlemaster, and others have reappeared in RealLife.
*** Catalyst, however, has officially said they will not exercise whatever rights they do have to that artwork, out of fear that someday it might come back to bite them legally (the ''Macross'' situation having made everyone understandably paranoid). The official stance of CGL is that if it wasn't made "in house" by FASA, FanPro or CGL directly (this also rules out bespoke designs like the Studio Nue redesigns for the Japanese version of [=BattleTech=] that became the IIC Clan 'mechs), they will not touch it with a ten-foot pole.
** Just to complicate matters further, rumor has it that Catalyst and Topps are trying to sidestep the issue altogether by designing new artwork and models for the Unseen designs, debuting an [[http://i.imgur.com/7AekIj8.jpg updated Warhammer]] design at [=GenCon=] 2015, to considerable interest from fans and a minimum of legal fuss thus far from Harmony Gold.
** A more standard, narrative-based example is the situation regarding 'Mech production. Initially, in ''Battledroids'' and VERY early ''[=BTech=]'', there was ZERO production, just spare parts to fight over which placed a higher emphasis on the SchizoTech and ScavengerWorld themes. A fairly early retcon created working factories which allows scrapped 'Mechs to be replaced, but without making them numerous either, preserving to a lesser degree the sense of scarcity.
** Similarly, the fact that the Inner Sphere had finally started to recover some lost Star League technologies on a useful scale beginning about a decade before the Clan invasion... was only introduced to the universe ''after'' the first novels about said invasion had already been written. This makes several viewpoint characters from said novel sound oddly ignorant on the subject of the invaders' technology in retrospect.
** There is ''Battletech'' animated series. However, it deviated far enough from the source material (not necessarily the mechs themselves, but rather the characterization of certain important-to-the-universe people) that it has been declared ''propaganda'': it still exists in-universe, but is widely viewed as at best VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory, and at worst as an attempt to make certain parties look better than they are.
* RevengeByProxy: One of the many ways in which some of the more oppressive Great Houses of the Inner Sphere (such as Kurita) violated human rights.
** Pre-Schism [=ComStar=] and the Word of Blake also used this as a mean of intimidation. The latter often on a planetary scale.
* RiddleForTheAges: Jinjiro Kurita, one of more unstable Coordinators of the Draconis Combine and the perpetrator of the infamous Kentares Massacre during the First Succession War, [[DrivenToMadness went off the deep end when he received a box that made it through layers of security]]. The contents were a single doll dressed in a Star League uniform. After nearly killing the two guards who had been sent to check on him, Jinjiro spent the final four years of his life locked in a soundproof room screaming in terror until [[DrivenToSuicide he finally hanged himself with his own clothes]]. Centuries later, historians remain baffled by what Jinjiro saw in the doll as well as who sent it.
* RightHandVersusLeftHand: All over the place. Be it mercenary commands getting into conflicts with their employer's regular forces, line units running into trouble with local leaders who feel threatened by their presence, rival commanders jockeying for position and influence (though certain factions, the Clans in particular, encourage this to an extent), business interests and military necessity clashing, or conflicting ideological and regional allegiances, in the 31st Century the enemy doesn't always fly a different flag.
** The Free Worlds League is the best example. The main weakness of the otherwise solid FWLM is that units from different regions distrust each other and are often taking orders from regional leaders who have goals that don't line up with the commands coming from House Marik.
** The Word of Blake had no less than ''five'' different factions on its ruling Conclave. Furthermore, during the Jihad, Precentors Apollyon and Cameron St. Jamais (who commanded the Word's elite Manei Domini and regular [=WoB=] Militia respectively) despised each other, to the point that the Shadow Divisions attacked Militia held worlds even while Stone's Coalition was beginning to go on the offensive.
* RingOut: It is possible to knock enemy units off of the map by knocking them into an adjacent hex when they're right on the edge; game rules often treat this as "in retreat" or similar.
** In-universe, this is a perfectly legitimate way to win many Clan trials; most of these are held in a predetermined battle area called a Circle of Equals. A warrior who leaves the Circle either due to his own actions or those of his opponent automatically loses the contest.
* RoaringRampageOfRevenge: How the Absorption of Clan Widowmaker went down after [[spoiler:Nicholas Kerensky was killed]]. The results were... not pretty.
** The rallying cry [[spoiler:Clan Smoke Jaguar must die!]] had shades of this as well.
** Early in the First Succession War, the Coordinator of the Draconis Combine was assassinated shortly after nearly conquering the Davion-held world Kentares IV. His son and successor decided the entire planet needed to die. He ordered his troops to kill every man, woman and child on the planet. This [[AwakeningTheSleepingGiant predictably caused a strong response in House Davion's troops, turning the tide in the war.]]
*** It also caused another, directly aimed at House Kurita -- the Eridani Light Horse were repulsed by the massacre, and declared their mercenary contract null and void due to Kurita's violations of the laws of war. The governor of the planet they were based out of responded by [[BerserkButton killing all of the Eridani Light Horse's families and dependents]]. This was a grave miscalculation on Kurita's part -- the unit sought out every representative of the Kurita government and military on the planet and systematically killed them in revenge. [[EveryoneHasStandards When Kurita reinforcements arrived in the system, they promptly learned about the massacre]] [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere and left]].
*** Wolf's Dragoons also got in on this during both the Marik Civil War and the events surrounding the aptly-named planet of Misery. Given both their skills and considering their eventual origins, this proved to be a ''bad'' thing for the parties they were seeking revenge against.
*** The Dragoons had another big one when Blakist sponsored mercenaries attacked Outreach and killed [[spoiler:Jaime Wolf]], among other atrocities. They proceeded to enact "Condition Feral" - they give every ally ''one'' chance to stand down, and kill every hostile without asking or accepting surrender, in an action explicitly compared to a Clan Trial of Annihilation.
** The Clans have a socially accepted version of this, the aforementioned Trial of Annihilation. Normally a badly tainted group or personage is Abjured, exiled in other words. If they are considered truly beyond the pale, however, Annihilation is proposed. An Annihilated Clanner is killed, as are all those descended from them, and then all those killed are [[UnPerson unpersoned.]] Like all Clan Trials it is by combat and it's in theory possible to win...but this has only occurred a handful of times in Clan history. The mere proposal of Annihilation usually means all the political bridges have been burned; the vote for the trial determines the odds on the field, and 100 to 1 ''or worse'' is the norm.
** The Blakist nuclear and biological attacks on Clan Ghost Bear civilians made things personal. The warriors of the Bears - infamous among the Clans for being slow to act - threw out all the Clan rules of warfare and responded with an Inner-Sphere style campaign of massive bombardments and savage brutality. Even forces which would have had a mutual enmity with the Word of Blake were caught up by their fury. They eventually calmed down and sided with the growing coalition against the Blakists.
** Operation [=REVIVAL=] was fully intended to be one of these, to punish the Great Houses for their petty squabbling and arrogance that had destroyed the Star League. In fact, one of the prizes the Invader Clans were bidding for was to claim the honor of getting the invasion corridor through the Draconis Combine, as Kurita had precipitated the First Succession War and thus the Clans viewed them with the same level of contempt as they viewed Stefan Amaris.
* RoyalsWhoActuallyDoSomething: Like ancient and medieval kings back on Earth, royalty and other leaders are expected to inspire the people by leading their troops in combat, or at least have combat experience. Does not apply to actual heads of state, usually, but if the excrement is well and truly all over the fan, it happens. Ian Davion, Hanse's Davion's older brother and First Prince before him, died in his ''Atlas''' cockpit, while Hanse and Takashi Kurita both mounted up (and scored several kills each) in defense of their capital worlds.
** You can't be appointed First Prince of the Federated Suns without spending five years on the front lines as a member of the Federated Suns military. This particular point becomes a big issue for the younger sibling of the First Prince, who stages a very artful coup but never has particularly much legitimacy because she never did any military service. Cue vicious CivilWar.[[note]]Katherine wasn't actually [[SpareToTheThrone in line for leadership]], despite being the second-oldest of Hanse and Melissa's children. Peter Steiner-Davion was the real spare, and serving out the required military service even after Victor ended up running the Federated Commonwealth. It's not really clear why Katherine never went into the military to get into the line of succession, but [[EntitledBitch given her personality]], it seems likely she was just never interested in properly earning whatever power she wanted.[[/note]]
** Lampshaded in ''VideoGame/MechWarrior 4: Vengeance'', where the protagonist is from a ducal family, seeking to restore legal rule to his planet (and the final battle is with his cousin), and after one of his missions, a lancemate actually says "I guess you're not one of those royals who let the rest of us do the heavy lifting."
* RoyallyScrewedUp: The Camerons of the Terran Hegemony, the Liaos of the Capellan Confederation, and the Mariks of the Free Worlds League to a certain extent. The other great houses also have had their examples throughout the ages, but those are the most prominent.
** The Camerons were prone to excesses, and occasional bouts of Magnificent Bastardry. This actually managed to be a boon to their nation, until Richard was betrayed by his TreacherousAdvisor.
** The Liaos have a serious genetic predisposition to being ''batshit fucking insane''. As in "self-mutilation to show your loyalty" and "kill a few thousand people because I'm convinced a handful are traitors" and "I'm convinced I can kill you with the power of my mind" kinds of insane. The ones that aren't insane are shrewd, competant leaders. The ones that are insane are shrewd, terrifying megalomaniacs.
** The Mariks are known to two major traits: Being largely ineffective on the throne, and killing each other to take the throne. The most effective Marik leader in recent memory turned out to not actually be a Marik.
** While most of the Steiners are skilled, and occasionally brilliant leaders; the family does have a sporadic history of psychological instability ranging from mild irrationality to megalomania. These cases are not as common as in Houses Liao or Marik but when one of them gets on the throne the Commonwealth usually suffers for it.
** Other royal families also had problems with internal strife and political wrangling at each other, but usually not to the ridiculous extent the Liaos and Mariks would display. The Davions and Kuritas generally see infighting of a political and cultural nature rather than being rooted in mental illness.
* RuleOfCool: The setting would not exist without this.
* SaltTheEarth: The Cobalt-Laced nukes, used in early Succession Wars and late Jihad.
** Another way this occurred was through destroying or cutting off a world's access to food and especially water. Many worlds that relied upon imports or terraforming quite literally ''died'' because of this during the Succession Wars. Preventing this trope (along with LostTechnology) is the number one reason why nearly every faction in the setting has rejected total warfare.
* ScaryBlackMan: Franklin Osis, the first Khan of Clan Smoke Jaguar. Lincoln Osis, the ilKhan who saw the Great Refusal end the Clan Invasion once and for all, was also one. Leo Showers, Lincoln's predecessor who oversaw the initial invasion of the Inner Sphere, was yet another example. Indeed, this seems to be Smoke Jaguar's stock in trade.
* ScavengerWorld: Much of the Inner Sphere.
** The same applied to the Pentagon worlds before and during Operation Klondike.
* SchizoTech: Some League technology has been retained, but much has been lost and has to be reinvented. For example, compact fusion reactors and neurointerface technology exists in the setting, but targeting computers weigh several tons and are less capable than WWII-era analog ones.
** Targeting computers weigh so much because it's not ''just'' a computer, but more precise servos for weapon mounts, better sensors, and the like. A Targeting Computer weighs a variable amount based on the combined weight of weapons on the unit, since it needs to tie into all of them to be effective.
* ScrewTheRulesIMakeThem: Pretty much how [=IlKhan=] Andrews started up the initial Reavings that would plunge the Clan Homeworlds into all out war. He even got away with killing another Khan before he had a chance to defend himself. His taint doctrine had no precedence in Clan law and only served to allow the Homeworld based Clans to attempt to weaken their Invader rivals. Once the strongest of these allies, the Star Adders, got what they wanted they pointed out that Andrews' Steel Vipers had also been "tainted" and Annihilated them [[HoistByHisOwnPetard under their own doctrine.]]
** In general, while the [=ilKhan=] is beholden to Clan law and the will of the Grand Council, the whole point of an [=ilKhan=] is to point the Clans in the same direction in wartime, or other periods of strife affecting the Clans as a whole. As such, they have a fairly broad range to invoke this trope. [=ilKhan=] Nicholas Kerensky most of all, since he was still laying the groundwork of what would become Clan society, had no problem making up rules, laws, and Trials on the spot as needed to keep the Clans functioning.
* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: General Kerensky and the majority of the SLDF fled known space once they realized that the only other option was to fight those they had sworn to protect.
** Much earlier, after a grinding civil war with the outer systems led to a political upheaval, the 23rd century Terran Alliance completely pulled out of all systems more than a single hyperspace jump (30 light years or so) away from Earth. Not all the systems involved appreciated the maneuver.
** In the leadup to the Wars of Reaving, most of the original Invader Clans saw what was coming and abandoned their homeworld holdings, fleeing to their Inner Sphere Occupation Zones or merging with Spheroid nations to survive. Of special note was Clan Ghost Bear, who covertly evacuated almost their entire civillian population to the Inner Sphere in massive ''Leviathan''-class ships before any of their rival Clans noticed.
* TheScottishTrope: The Not-Named Clan [[spoiler:Wolverine]].
* SelfFulfillingProphecy: First Lord Jonathan Cameron was plagued by visions of "rough, coarse men from the Periphery" conquering Terra and destroying human civilization. To that end, he invested a large chunk of the Star League's budget developing automated Space Defense Systems around key Hegemony worlds, including Terra itself, to keep them safe from any hostile invaders. These same defense systems would be co-opted by Stephan Amaris and his Rim Worlds Republic forces during their takeover of the League, and turned against the SLDF during their war to liberate the Hegemony.
** [=ComStar=]'s Explorer Corps was formed after the then Primus had nightmares about invading monsters from outside the Inner Sphere that bore alarming resemblance to the animals the Clans named themselves after. Said Explorer Corps were what instigated the Clan invasion of the Inner Sphere when one of their ships accidentally discovered the Smoke Jaguar homeworld.
* SelfHealingPhlebotinum: The Clans use a biological agent called [=HarJel=] in their Elemental Battle Armors. If the suit is damaged, [=HarJel=] acts like a sealing agent and also sterilizes suffered wounds and numbs the pain of the wearer. It is also used to instantly seal ruptured hulls of spaceships. 'Mechs can make use of it in similar situations, and combining it with underwater maneuvering units and functionally submersible weapons makes them capable underwater combatants. The secret behind its mass-production is closely guarded by one Clan and thus the product is highly valued throughout Clan Space and the Inner Sphere.
* SeriesMascot: The Mad Cat/Timber Wolf is the series iconic design. The Atlas and Warhammer(replaced by the Battlemaster) are usually the Inner Sphere and Succession Wars mascots.
* SecretPolice: The ISF of the Combine, [=ComStar=] and the Word of Blake's ROM, The Free Worlds League's (comically inept) SAFE, the various Clan Watches, the Federated Sun's [=MI6=], the Confederation's Maskirovka, and the Commonwealth's LIC (though their LOKI department goes a step [[StateSec further]], and Heimdall goes [[InternalAffairs beyond ''that'']]).
* {{Seppuku}}: Brought back by the Draconis Combine.
** Clan Fire Mandrill warriors also practice this, being their founder was from the Draconis Combine himself.
* ShortRangeLongRangeWeapon: As with many tabletop games, this trope is in full force here. Long range weapons in [=BattleTech=] rarely have a maximum range that exceeds ~25 hexes, and each hex is ~30 meters long. Most weapons have much shorter maximum ranges, and their ''effective'' range is even shorter than that. Apparently the tech level makes giant robots practical, but it can't arm them with anything that goes farther than half a kilometer.
** This has been repeatedly called out, and repeatedly stated to exist for game balance. In real-world, all of the weapons would have ranges measuring "to the horizon", save possibly Lasers, as those would suffer diffraction. The designers have also directly said that it was for playability as well, as to model accurate ranges would force players into needing 12 or more maps end-to-end, and that it took away the "face-to-face" dueling romance of the game and instead making it a sniper contest.
* ShotgunsAreJustBetter: In the right hands, even lower-damage LBX autocannons can ''tear shit up'' with cluster munitions.
* ShouldersOfDoom: On the ''Atlas'', pictured [[https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Battletech_3050_Atlas_resized_8459.jpg here]]. [[MeaningfulName Quite appropriate given the name]].
** The [[http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Akuma Akuma]], produced by the Draconis Combine, shares a similar shoulder-based design as the ''Atlas'', though its shoulders are less prominent than its cousin.
** For the ShoulderCannon variant, the missile racks of the ''Mad Cat's'' silhouette are probably the most famous. The ''Awesome'' and the ''Mauler'' get in on the action with the VerticalMechaFins variant.
* ShoutOut: lots of them, from various sources.
** A recent sourcebook includes a news report by [[WesternAnimation/MegasXLR Kiva Cooper]], on a battle where a 'Mech [[RunningGag falls onto a Pop TV building]].
** Several famous mercenary units referenced popular culture. Examples included [[Literature/TheLordOfTheRings The Fighting Urukhai]] and [[Film/TheAdventuresOfBuckarooBanzaiAcrossThe8thDimension Team Banzai, led by the mysterious "Dr. B. Banzai."]] (Team Banzai was integrated enough into the setting once upon a time to play at least a bit part in the ''[[Franchise/BattleTechExpandedUniverse Warrior]]'' novels. [[MythologyGag A certain watermelon]] even managed to [[ChekhovsGun become plot relevant for just one crucial moment]].)
** Wolf Dragoons also got in the act with its old Zeta company pre-misery mostly in having names of some of its members of that part of the Dragoons taken from [[Anime/MobileSuitGundam a certain universe that goes by a U.C timeline]]
** A small one: in the book ''Crusader Clans,'' there's a Clan Star Adder unit whose unit sobriquet is "The Answer." Their official designation? [[Franchise/TheHitchhikersGuidetotheGalaxy The 42nd Adder Cavaliers]].
** A small one to ''Film/MontyPythonsLifeOfBrian'' in ''Interstellar Players 3: Interstellar Expeditions'':
--> A citizen of the Inner Sphere may ask, "What did the Clans ever do for us?" "Well," a citizen of the Barrens might answer, "the sanitation, the medicine, education, viniculture, public order, irrigation, roads, the freshwater system, public health, oh and peace."
** The entry for the ''Black Knight'' heavy mech in ''Technical Readout: 3039'' is absolutely '''full''' of references to ''Film/MontyPythonAndTheHolyGrail''. First, it says that the mech debuted with the 3rd Heavy Assault Regiment, a Star League unit nicknamed [[Creator/MontyPython "The Pythons."]] Then it says that people who fought it had to "literally dismember their foe" to stop it. And finally, for good measure, there's this sentence in the mech's profile:
---> "In a one-on-one battle with another heavy [=BattleMech=] - assuming equally skilled [=MechWarriors=] - conventional wisdom is that the ''Black Knight'' will always triumph."
** One of Jihad Sourcebooks says that there is an in-universe VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory tv-series about The Bounty Hunter and his team. It is basically ''Series/TheATeam [[RecycledINSPACE IN BATTLETECH!]]''
** In Technical Readout 3055, an upgrade to the ''Spider'' Mech is created. Its name? The ''ComicBook/{{Venom}}''. [[ComicBook/SpiderMan Hmm...]]
** Also in Technical Redaout 3055 was a new mech named the [[https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Grand_Titan Grand Titan]], which was noted due to the artwork resembling [[Franchise/TheTransformers a certain red and and blue robot]]. When new artwork was created for the revised Technical Readout 3055 Upgrade, the Grand Titan had "[[https://www.sarna.net/wiki/File:3055u_Grand_Titan.jpg Roll Out]]" stenciled on one shoulder.
** The ''Explorer Corps'' cites a fictional book titled ''[[Series/TheXFiles I Want to Believe]]'', written by a Piper Anderson.
** ''Experimental Technical Readout: Royal Fantasy Tournament'' is a 'Mech tournament full of custom mechs patterned and named after Disney princesses (also [[WesternAnimation/BeautyAndTheBeast the Beast]], WesternAnimation/{{Aladdin}}, and [[Franchise/StarWars Leia]]). Their pilots were all named after said characters' voice actresses/actors, and had some suspicious parallels in their backstories.
** The Expanded Universe novel ''Betrayal of Ideals'' chronicles the story of the ill-fated Clan Wolverine. Prominent within the story is their warriors' habit of invoking their Clan's name as a battlecry. Yep, [[Film/RedDawn1984 "Wolverines!"]]
** The cover for The Periphery Sourcebook looks similar to the scene of Luke camped on the planet [[Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack Dagobah]].
** ''Technical Readout: Vehicle Annex'' features the popular Buster and Powerman industrialmechs. The Buster is the product of the Bluth Corporation, which was eventually decimated when its founder, [[Series/ArrestedDevelopment George Bluth, was indicted on multiple counts of treason, embezzlement, and theft]]. The Powerman was created by its chief rival, Sitwell Corporation.
** Anastasias Focht's early crackpot theory about the Clans being aliens who self-evolve by absorbing other organisms' DNA bears an uncanny resemblance to the Invid of ''Anime/GenesisClimberMospeada'' (which doubles as a MythologyGag since it was made into the last season of ''Anime/RoboTech'', the first segment of which had provided half the 'Mechs for the first edition).
** While ''Anime/SuperDimensionFortressMacross'', ''Anime/FangOfTheSunDougram'' and ''Anime/CrusherJoe'' were the only anime that had designs officially licensed, a few other 'Mechs take some design cues from various 1980s anime besides. Most notably, the iconic Atlas' classic artwork cribs heavily from ''Anime/ArmoredTrooperVOTOMS''' Scopedog (specifically the Red Shoulder Custom version), with its domed head, rounded shoulder armor, missile pods mounted on the side of its torso and an AC-20 resembling the Scopedog's rifle (although torso-mounted rather than handheld). The original sourcebook drawing is even posed the same way as the Scopedog's main model sheet illustration. The Vindicator also bears a strong resemblance to the Walker Galliar from ''Anime/{{Xabungle}}'', apart from lacking Galliar's CombiningMecha gimmick, replacing its massive turbofan with a JetPack and having [[ArmCannon a PPC for an arm]].
*** The Hatamoto-Chi and Hunchback IIC, meanwhile, bear an uncanny resemblance to the [[Anime/MobileSuitGundam Gundam and Guncannon]], respectively.
** In the intro story of the sourcebook ''Second Succession War'' (which deals with the death of [=ComStar=] founder Jerome Blake from the POV of his successor Conrad Toyama), part of the narration talks about the last minutes of Blake's life. It says that one of the last things Blake did before going to sleep for the last time was listen to a song by "someone named Music/EricClapton," describing the song as "about spurned love, with a long guitar and piano coda." Yep - the last song Blake ever heard was "Layla."
** The "Operation: KLONDIKE" sourcebook features, as one of the writings from the time Nicholas Kerensky was coming up with the foundation of the Clans, the notation that "[[Series/BattlestarGalactica2003 This may have all happened before, but it doesn't have to happen again.]]"
** The iconic Urbanmech is made by a company called [[Anime/SuperdimensionCenturyOrguss Orguss]] Industries.
** The Battlemech Manual has a few scatterd among the flavor text of various weapon profiles.
*** Under [[GatlingGood Rotary Autocannons]], [[VideoGame/TeamFortress2 "It costs 72,000 C-Bills to fire this marvel of Davion engineering for 10 seconds"]].
*** [[MagneticWeapons Gauss Rifles]] features the tagline, [[Music/WoodyGuthrie "This Machine Kills Clanners"]].
*** Lasers have the slightly more obtuse, [[WesternAnimation/GIJoeARealAmericanHero "Red or blue: it's still half the battle."]]
** One of the pilot profile cards for the ''Goshawk'' details a prideful and eccentric Jade Falcon mechwarrior assigned to the [[WesternAnimation/DarkwingDuck Dark Wing Cluster named Drake]]. Despite his overbearing personality and numerous egotistical faults, Drake is a man with an ironclad sense of duty and justice, especially when it comes to his responsiblity to protect civilians. Of note, he has taken a young civilian girl as a bondwoman when his unit failed to prevent the collateral damage which claimed her parents lives. Further sealing the resemblance is his almost supernatural ability to maneuver through dense terrain under Night Fighting conditions, his notable quote of "I am the terror, that jumps in the night!" and his penchant for purple capes.
* SingleBiomePlanet:
** Averted by pretty much every planet with a breathable atmosphere (which is pretty much all the ones people bothered settling). Even Tharkad, which is infamous for its cold due to being in the middle of an ice age,[[note]]Its arctic circle extends down to the 30th parallel north - to put that in perspective, if that were true on Earth, all the United States (except southern Texas, southern Louisiana and most of Florida), all of Europe, and the northern tip of Africa would be Arctic territory[[/note]] is still noted to have an equatorial tropical band.
** Still somewhat played straight by the presence of {{Planetville}} as a trope, though - while the planets have multiple biomes, the actual inhabited areas of a planet tend to define its "biome" in the zeitgeist, even in-universe.
* SinsOfOurFathers: Present in many factions; mostly in reaction to criminal activity or dereliction of duty. Ranges from political and social marginalization (Houses Davion, Steiner and Marik), labor camps, pressure to commit suicide or outright execution (Houses Kurita and Liao) to demotion/exile/execution for warriors and sterilization for civilians (the Clans).
** Indeed, the Clan Trial of Annihilation takes this up to eleven. Should the guilty party be [[TrialByCombat convicted]] not only are they executed, but anyone related to them is put to death (if in the warrior caste, and this includes children still in training or even still [[PeopleJars unborn]]) or sterilized and sentenced to a life of hard labor (if in the civilian castes). Afterwards, if someone so much as mentions the names of the Annihilated, that alone is grounds for censure. It should be noted that Annihilations are only carried out well after the Clans see the GodzillaThreshold crossed and it requires ''every'' bloodnamed warrior in the Clans (thousands of people, apart from those who are targeted) to vote in favor to even commence the Trial.
* SkullForAHead: The Atlas, the archetypal 100 ton mech, was deliberately designed as such.
* SlapOnTheWristNuke: Played straight gameplay wise for balance reasons, but in-universe averted to high hell. Using nukes (or just about any weaoons of mass destruction) is the quickest way to get everyone to stop shooting each other and start shooting at '''you'''.
** ''Reunification War'' states that only the biggest ones (like city busters) were not stated for balance reasons. Even the smaller tactical nukes, orbital strikes, radiological bombs and nerve gas weapons ''will'' destroy anything unfortunate enough to be caught anywhere near ground zero and will severely damage things further outside it. ''The Wars of Reaving'' also saw weaponized viruses with a 100% lethality rate against units at the wargame level and player characters at the RPG level.
* SlaveryIsASpecialKindOfEvil: The Taurian Concordat's animosity to the Federated Suns, and the Inner Sphere as a whole, began when they stumbled across and liberated a slave labor colony on the Davion-held world of Tentativa in 2360, convincing them of the curelty and barbarism lurking beneath the Great Houses' thin veneer of civlity.
** While made very wealthy by the practice, the Rim Worlds Republic's tradition of helot-style slavery bit them in the ass when the SLDF came looking for a little vengeance against Stefan Amaris' erstwhile realm. Massive uprisings tore through the Republic as slaves avenged themselves on their former owners, and many signed up to bolster the ranks of their liberators. Many historical accounts vilify the Republic for the despicable practice, and it is often pointed to as a reason why, no matter the crimes of House Cameron or the Hegemony as a whole, Amaris and the Republic would always be the greater evil.
* SmallRoleBigImpact: Clan Wolverine more or less exists solely in background material for the setting, but their fleeing survivors suddenly appearing in and blasting their way across the Inner Sphere as the Minnesota Tribe is noted in-universe as directly leading to the Second Succession War, which was when the Sphere began its technological regression in earnest. Their appearance also led to [=ComStar=] theorizing they may have been connected to the disappeared [=SLDF=], and organizing the project ''Outbound Light'', whose own unexpected arrival on the planet Huntress spooked the Clans into rallying around Smoke Jaguar's plans to invade the Inner Sphere. And the story of The Not-Named Clan and their Annihilation is a psychological wound on the Clans that never fully heals, a societal bogeyman they fear on a primal level. The whole point of the Inner Sphere's Great Refusal was to Annihilate another Clan (Smoke Jaguar) to basically poke that wound with a big needle and say "You sure you want to keep screwing with us?"
* SmugSuper: Trueborn Clanners are not exactly humble about their superior breeding and training; to say nothing of their tendency towards CulturalPosturing. Even the friendlier ones (who respect skilled freeborns and honorable Spheroids) are usually characterized as being confident well past the point of arrogance. To make things worse certain Clans, particularly the Falcons, Jaguars, Vipers, Ravens and Wolves, are considered prideful by ''Clan standards.''
** The Word of Blake's [[{{Cyborg}} Manei Domini]] looked down on ordinary humans as "frails" and saw themselves as enlightened and closer to the Master's vision for humanity. Unlike the Clans, who [[MightMakesRight recognize strength]] and are willing to [[GracefulLoser swallow their pride]] if you [[WorthyOpponent beat them bad enough]], the Domini have a tendency to throw tantrums if they lose; usually with massed WMD deployment.
* SnipingTheCockpit: Largely averted. While head hits will hurt a 'Mech's pilot and may knock him or her out (and the head is usually the weakest spot on the whole giant armored war machine, period), actually aiming for the head is almost impossible unless the pilot is already unconscious or the reactor has shut down. Even then it's hard enough to pull off that it's more often a finishing move executed at point-blank range than anything else.
** Any hit on a 'Mech still has a one-in-thirty six chance of landing on the head, so this trope is still in play, if unable to be {{Invoked}}. The "Punch Location Table" only includes the upper sections: Right, Left, and Center Torso, Right and Left Arms, and Head, so a punch has a one-in-six chance of hitting the head. The Partial Cover rules used to apply a to-hit penalty, but roll on the Punch table if you did hit, making it far easier to headshot enemy 'Mechs standing behind Level 1 hills or buildings. This has been changed to rolling on the regular hit table, and if you hit the leg behind cover, you hit the cover instead (i.e., you miss).
* SocialDarwinist: The Clans: see DesignerBabies. Ironically, ''real'' Darwinism bit them on the ass when they tried to retake the Inner Sphere. While the Clans had spent the last couple centuries honing their skills in ritualized honor-bound combat, the Inner Sphere had been fighting wars practically nonstop.
** Whilst the Clanners might have the upper hand in an organized fight, the Inner Sphere were more than able and willing to employ tactics that the haughty Clan Warriors would see as cowardly. Or to put it simply, the Inner Sphere warriors and commanders were all versed in the art of [[CombatPragmatist Combat Pragmatism]], quite happily exploiting the rigid HonorBeforeReason of the Clans.
** The Clans got wise to it eventually, though. Nowadays Clan forces are permitted to flatly refuse any [[FutureSlang batchalls]] (challenges) from Inner Sphere forces without any loss of honor, if the Sphere challenge is blatantly intended to use the system to put the Clanners at a disadvantage.
** The Clans are essentially a case study in why Social Darwinism is something Charles Darwin himself detested: it doesn't work on natural selection, and instead of increasing diversity, it selects for arbitrary traits that may or may not be beneficial and ''decreases'' diversity.
* SoldierVsWarrior:
** [=MechWarriors=] themselves went from one side of the dichotomy to another as the game evolved. The first editions of ''Battletech'' (the 3025 start) was essentially set in an AfterTheEnd ScavengerWorld where 'mechs were rarer than available pilots and [=MechWarriors=] equalled medieval knights; most Great Houses' [=MechWarriors=] followed chivalric codes (especially the Draconis Combine), and mercenary orders were more akin to knightly orders or [[KnightErrant Knights Errant]], with 'mech battles taking on a ritualistic, duel-like nature thanks to the Honours of War. As the game evolved more into MilitaryScienceFiction, Inner Sphere [=MechWarriors=] became Soldiers; one aspect of a combined arms warfare strategy who took on military ranks and fought with a modern military hierarchy. It was at this point, of course, the Clans came along to take on the Warrior role by having followed the early [=MechWarrior=] duel codes to an n-th degree.
** Post-Invasion, those of the Inner Sphere are usually presented as Soldiers and the Clans usually as Warriors: The Clans are warriors who fight for individual glory, honor, and the right to have their genes added to the next generation, and operate on AsskickingEqualsAuthority. Clanner battles are basically honor duels. But since the failure of Operation REVIVAL, where their own honor was used against them, they slowly started to lean towards the Soldiers, and by the Dark Ages they use ''zelbringen'' against the Inner Sphere only when it gives them advantage.
** Interestingly, the Hell's Horses are the only Clan that leans heavily on the Soldier side (though they still uphold strong Warrior traditions) because of their centuries-old philosophy of combined arms warfare which favors the effective, tried-and-true mixed deployment of infantry and armored vehicles with their [=BattleMechs=] operating as support units rather than front-line units. This is considered rather peculiar among the other Warrior-minded Clans because ever since the development of the [=BattleMech=], they thought it would obsolete the old combined arms approach to warfare and derided the Hell's Horses as being doomed to fail with their "obsolescent" philosophy. The aforementioned failure of Operation REVIVAL proved that the Hell's Horses were smart enough to uphold their philosophy, even though the Horses themselves did not participate in that mission. Inner Sphere combined arms forces, particularly the Federated Commonwealth's Regimental Combat Teams (a regiment of [=BattleMechs=], three regiments of combat vehicles, five of infanty, two wings of [=AeroSpace=] fighters, and a batallion of artillery, with other assets like engineers and marines assigned as needed, and all trained and drilled to work together with maximum efficiency) proved capable of wrecking the Clans when they deployed 'Mechs, ''maybe'' backed up with Elementals and/or fighters. [[ZergRush Infantry Swarm attacks]], artillery bombardment, and strafing runs from fighters were all great ways to curb the tech advantage the Clans enjoyed.
** The Inner Sphere factions have been fighting wars for the past four hundred years, giving it all they got and employing ambushes and artillery and other "dishonorable" tactics, as well as promoting their officers for tactical, strategic, logistical, and administrative ability rather than beating the others into submission. On the other hand, the sizable portion of military elite of the two most militarized Inner Sphere factions, Federated Suns and Draconis Combine, have a rather old-fashioned ideas on how the military should fight that lean on the Warrior side, such as only allowing the noble families to own mechs in the former and the preference for melee where long range should have been preferable for the latter.
** Certain Home Clans wanting to remain Warriors as certain Invader Clans learned (through harsh experience in the Inner Sphere) to be Soldiers pretty much set the stage for the Wars of Reaving, in which Clans "tainted" by the Inner Sphere were violently removed from Clan space.
* SpaceAgeStasis: Over two hundred years went by during the Succession Wars, during which almost no new technology was created, and huge amounts of existing technology was destroyed, or hidden.
** Though the Clans did not experience this stasis, and thanks to the Grey Death data core and salvaged Clan tech the Inner Sphere has been moving out of it in fits and stops - though the Word of Blake [[ApocalypseHow sure isn't helping]].
* SpaceFighter: Aerospace Fighters.
** SpacePlane: They are also capable of operating in atmosphere. Hence the name "Aerospace".
* SpaceFillingEmpire: There are a number of smaller states around the Inner Sphere, but most of it is controlled by the five Successor States.
* SpaceNomads: The 32nd century version of Clan Sea Fox becomes this, acting in trading fleets known as Khanates (based around an [[TheArk ArcShip]]), with smaller accompanying Aimags; though they do have some planetary holdings (primarily enclaves on planets controlled by other factions).
* SpacePirates: Firmly Type 1. A serious problem in the Periphery, where they raid isolated worlds and recharging Jumpships for technology, trade goods and slaves.
* TheSpartanWay: The Clans. The first book of the ''Legend of the Jade Phoenix'' trilogy goes into much detail about Clan warrior training, and while Clan Jade Falcon is certainly one of the stricter Clans, it's the best look at how it works. A Trueborn sibko starts with 100 infants, who are trained towards being warriors from the moment it's possible to start doing so. By the time their in their early teens and starting what most militaries would consider boot camp, about a dozen of them remain, the others having washed out or died prior. By the time it comes to the Trial of Position, their final test to attain warrior rank, only ''two'' are left, and only one of those succeeds in the Trial. The Clans' approach to training can best be summed up as "Sink or Swim -- now let me fill your pockets with rocks."
* SpheroidDropship: The TropeNamer. See [[http://www.sarna.net/wiki/File:Outpost_(DropShip).jpg here]] for an example.
* SpiderTank: Quadrupedal mechs do exist, though they're uncommon and generally less effective than the bipedal kind. In gameplay terms, as long as they manage to actually keep all four legs (which isn't as easy as it sounds), they're both more stable and can execute a special 'sidestep' maneuver...but lacking arms and the ability to torso twist, they have less room to spare for weapons than their bipedal cousins even when they can load the exact same tonnage as well as fairly large blind spots from which they can be attacked while being unable to return fire at all.
* SpoilerTitle: Much of the suspense of the final battle of the Dark Age era, to determine which Clan would finally claim the title of ilClan, was more or less instantly spoiled by the title of [[spoiler: ''Hour of the Wolf'']].
* StandardSciFiArmy: Mecha may dominate the battlefield, but there still plenty of room for tanks, infantry, and power armor.
* StandardSciFiHistory: Set during the Interregnum following the collapse of the Star League.
* StateSec: The most (in)famous examples are probably the Draconis Combine's Internal Security Force and the Capellan Maskirovka. (The [=CapCon=] also notably adds the Death Commandos, a comparatively small but fanatical and elite soldier/intelligence/bodyguard force that explicitly answers to the Chancellor alone.) There's also the Lyran Commonwealth's Loki, whose ''raison d'etre'' includes "state terrorism" among other things; however, with the Lyrans generally portrayed as a bit more mindful of such things as human rights, less tends to be made of that unless it's to emphasize how much of a villain the current ''Archon'' happens to be.
* StoneWall: While many mechs are heavily armoured, the most triumphant example is undoubtedly the aptly-named ''[[TurtlePower Great Turtle]]''. It's a quadrupedal mech, which means it can mount more armour than a biped, and weighs 100 tons, giving it the maximum armour potential of any mech outside Superheavy designs. It mounts the maximum possible amount of armour, but what really makes the ''Great Turtle'' this trope is the type of armour it mounts; Hardened Armour, which reduces all damage taken by half. On top of that is the fact that its cockpit is torso-mounted, meaning it can keep fighting even if its head gets blown off. The downside is its low mobility and relative lack of weapons, although the former is mostly offset by its Jump Jets.
* StopWorshippingMe: If Jerome Blake could see what [=ComStar=] became after his death, his reaction would be this. He was a secular man, and [=ComStar=] took on its quasi-religious trappings under the guidance of Blake's successor, Conrad Toyama.[[note]][[spoiler:However, according to the "true" story presented in ''Second Succession War'', his actual reaction would have been AllAccordingToPlan. He ''would'' have been utterly horrified, however, by the Word of Blake and the atrocities they committed in his name.]][[/note]]
* StrategicAssetCaptureMechanic: The game has many rules for creating scenarios where one or both sides are trying to capture an objective. Often this will involve using infantry or battle armor to infiltrate a building while the rest of your units protect it.
* SubspaceAnsible: The Hyperpulse Generator (HPG) is the standard means of interstellar communication. It basically hyperspace-jumps a radio wave to its destination up to 50 light-years away, bypassing the need for null-gravity jump points that jump ships need since radio waves have no mass. During the Succession Wars, they were deemed so crucial that they became the purview of an (ostensiblly) neutral faction called [=ComStar=], who established a universal currency using HPG transmission time as the backing commodity (The C-Bill). A second, less-known form is the "Black Box" radios, which were backburner experiments during the Star League's time (and predate the HPG, but the latter proved more practical), but made practical by secret scientific endeavors by the Federated Suns and used to subvert an interdiction against them by [=ComStar=] during the Fourth Succession War. They work more like conventional radios, broadcasting their signal outwardly in all directions in hyperspace, where anyone with another black box can pick up the signal.
* SubSystemDamage: Each section of [=BattleMechs=] and other vehicles have their own HitPoints. Once armor is stripped away, there is the distinct possibility of inflicting a CriticalHit that destroys a specific internal component in the 'Mech, with various effects. On top of that, losing a limb means losing every weapon, ammo bin, heatsink, and subsystem inside it. More strict simulation-like rules allow for critical hits to be scored at other major body parts of a 'mech, like the actuators that govern mobility (crippling the motion of the affected limb, and crippled hand actuators can cause a 'mech to drop whatever it is holding), the gyro (which controls the 'mech's ability to balance and thus toppling the mech due to loss of stability), and the the engine (Engines take up critical hit slots, and landing crits on the first 2 slots induces a heat regulation penalty, while the third forces a safety shutdown; some engine crits can result in the safety failing and the engine exploding as a result).
* SuccessionCrisis: The [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Succession Wars]], with five Successor States with claims on the title of the First Lord of Star League, lasting 400 years through four separate wars. The Successor States themselves occasionally have successions crises of their own, most notably the [=FedCom=] Civil War.
* SuperSoldier: Clan Mecha/Fighter Pilots and Battle Armor Troopers.
** Clan fighter pilots subvert the SuperSoldier trope. Despite being genetically engineered to be better pilots, and having better equipment, they consistently lose to Inner Sphere pilots[[note]]at the speeds [=AeroSpace=] engagements take place, Clan range superiority counts for a lot less[[/note]]. Clan aerospace inferiority arguably cost them the Invasion at the Battle of Radstat. Bjorn Jorgensson, the Ghost Bear khan for much of the 3050s and 3060s was a [=MechWarrior=] who got a "second chance" trial of position after he flunked out of being a [=MechWarrior=] (which he was bred for). That he is [[AsskickingEqualsAuthority Khan]] shows he is just as capable a fighter pilot warrior than those specifically bred for it (though getting assigned a monstrous Khirgiz fighter because his body size borders on "small Elemental" and it was the only cockpit he could fit in also helped).
** Elementals, meanwhile, take the trope and run with it. They're pretty much [[TabletopGame/Warhammer40000 Space Marines]] minus the extra organs and plus the possibility to be female (with an even chance of being a BrawnHilda or an AmazonianBeauty).
** The Manei Domini are cyborgs originally designed to (hopefully) defeat the Clans, this would also make them SuperSoldiers.
* TakeThat: Ladies and Gentlemen, we present to you, the [[http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Enterprise_%28WarShip%29 Super Carrier]]'' [[Franchise/StarTrek Enterprise]]''. Which also doubles as a "Take that" against projects in real life also becoming ruined by people tacking on more and more requirements to get what they want as well out of a new vehicle design. When the ship had her first sail after almost five years of development the engineers wondered why the massive abomination couldn't haul herself out of the dock and why her thrusters failed to work in conjunction together. The ''Enterprise'' had to be tugged out of the dock in front of the entire Navy and was quickly abandoned soon after.
* TangledFamilyTree: The Great Houses have quite a set of lineages. A particularly conspicuous knot for four of the five Great Houses focuses around Victor Davion. His parentage includes his father, First Prince Hanse "[[MagnificentBastard The Fox]]" Davion, and his mother, [[HotConsort Melissa Steiner]], daughter of the illustrious [[TheHighQueen Archon]] [[IronLady Katrina Steiner]]. His immediate progeny includes a son, [[MeaningfulName Kitsune]] [[LukeYouAreMyFather Kurita]], with [[StarCrossedLovers Omiko]] [[TheLostLenore Kurita]], and three children with his eventual wife, [[SecondLove Isis Marik]], daughter of the "Real" [[KnightTemplar Thomas Marik]]. Victor has sired children with both a daughter of the family that is his maternal ancestral enemy (Steiner vs Marik), and with a daughter of the family that is his paternal ancestral enemy (Davion vs Kurita).
* TanksForNothing: Averted. Ton for ton, tanks are generally inferior to comparable [=BattleMechs=], but they are still far from help- or useless. See also TankGoodness below.
* TankGoodness: 'Mechs may be the 'kings of the battlefield'... but you would be well-advised not to tell a [[{{BFG}} Demolisher]], [[KineticWeaponsAreJustBetter Alacorn Mark VII]] or [[ShockAndAwe Shrek PPC Carrier]] that to its face. Tanks are typically cheaper and far more numerous than 'Mechs, and quantity has a quality all its own. And those that do equal a 'Mech's pricetag are dangerous in themselves.
** There's even an in-universe training scenario that highlights TankGoodness. Called the Scorpion's nest, it involves an absurdly high number of Scorpion tanks continuously ambushing the testee until the testee loses. In-game, one is far more likely to see the Savannah Master swarm, with equally absurdly high numbers of an even worse unit. Played properly, either of those "crap" unit swarms can topple Dropships. Even Assault 'mech groups don't want to face an opposing Dropship.
** Players who underestimate ground vehicles are quickly relieved of the notion after their first [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Demolisher]] encounter. An 80 ton tank with a heavy armor shell and dual [[{{BFG}} Autocannon-20s]] that cost less than a 35-ton 'Mech, the Demolisher can easily be hidden in a hull-down ambush and roll up alongside a 'Mech to deliver a crippling one-two punch.
** Clan Hell's Horse and their unwilling splinter cousins of Stone Lion are the only Clans that believe in this.
* TankTreadMecha: 'Mechs can equip treads on their lower legs. This allows them to use walking/running or tracked movement, the chief advantage of this is that while using the treads they're much more stable over rubble and broken up terrain, though they're not as fast. It also allowed the mech to negate most of the penalties of leg damage as long as both tracks were still intact. The game also features Quadvees, which are quadruped mechs that have tank treads (or in one case wheels) mounted on their legs that they can swap between walking/running mode and driving mode, without the speed penalties that standard tread-mounting mechs have and with a few other bonuses as a tradeoff for a few more limitations.
* TechnologyMarchesOn: In-Universe. The official line is that humanity either ran out of most of its good ideas, or started hitting some of the serious limitations of physics and practicality, before the 22nd century, and spent most of the next several centuries refining existing technologies; the Star League era saw ''some'' rather spectacular technology begin to take shape, [[ApocalypseHow but then it all fell apart]]. Thanks to scarce resources on some worlds though, 20th-century tech is the usual standard, with internal combustion engines, radio, and [=CD-ROMs=].
* TelephonePolearm: If your 'Mech has hands, you can pick up and use almost ''anything'' as a improvised club-this can include [[GrievousHarmWithABody pieces of other 'mechs]], [[BatterUp whole trees]], or [[ImprovisedWeapon whatever else]] you can get your giant metal mits on.
* {{Terraform}}: The technology exists, but only Mars and Venus have undergone the standard sci-fi total transformation, and since habitable, if not comfortable, worlds are common in Inner Sphere, the Mars[=/=]Venus treatment is considered to be cost ineffective. Most other examples are minor touch ups to the already habitable worlds.
* ThatWasTheLastEntry: Magazine ''[=BattleTechnology=]'' #21 article "What Now, [=Mechwarrior=]?", scenario "King of the Hill". The diary of a Pathfinder (scout for mecha forces) ends with "I sure will be glad when this mission is over and I can get off this dustball. At least the Sarge says he doesn't expect the enemy to..." It was found after a hard-fought battle.
* TheThunderdome: Solaris VII's many combat arenas - originally battlemech testing grounds, they soon evolved into venues to showcase 'mech designs to potential buyers, and from there into the sites of publicly broadcast gladiator-style contests, complete with betting, prize money, and a championship system.
* TierInducedScrappy: ''[=BattleTech=]'' is one of those rare tabletop wargames that, rather than trying to bring under-performing units up to par with balance passes and retcons, instead chooses to ''acknowledge them as being crappy machines in-universe''. Such units tend to receive the "Bad Reputation" Quirk in addition to whatever other mechanical deficiencies they might possess.
* TimeSkip: When ''[=MechWarrior=]: Dark Age'' was introduced in 2002, the main storyline (retitled ''Classic [=BattleTech=]'' was wrapping up the [=FedCom=] Civil War. The ''Dark Age'' timeframe, however, was set in the 3130's, completely skipping almost 70 years of history, including the Word of Blake Jihad. The ''Dark Age'' line has since been discontinued and the main line has caught up with it. Also thematically the events between 3085 (first years of the Republic of the Sphere) and 3132 (Blackout) serve only as an interlude between the aftermath of Jihad and the proper start of the Dark Age.
* TransformingMecha: Early versions of the game featured Land-Air 'Mechs, which could transform ''Macross''-style into aircraft. (The results were predictably AwesomeButImpractical.) This was one of the places where the ''real'' trouble lay with the ''Macross'' 'Mechs, so they began to be phased out in the early '90s. Nevertheless, optional rules still exist for them.
** Hilariously, some of the associated novels mention these very aircraft - and then ridicule them for failing miserably every time someone tried to design one.
*** It got so bad that FASA finally put in the fluff that there was one, and only one, factory by 3050 capable of producing [=LAMs=]. Clan Nova Cat, who had captured the world, had a typically Clanner loathing of [=LAMs=] (and the fact that they had very different phenotypes for aerospace pilots and [=Mechwarriors=] didn't help) and razed the factory to the ground.
** The 3085 Technical Readout has updated LAM designs; they look much less ridiculous than the original ones, but still look like they'd topple over in a light breeze.
** In the Dark Age there are [=QuadVee=] prototypes, the four-legged battlemechs that can change between all-terrain leg-mode or road-friendly tread mode.
* TransformationIsAFreeAction: Averted for Land-Air Mechs - they are most vulnerable when transforming, as getting hit when doing so could jam the transformation or cause the machine to crash if converting from fighter mode.
* TranshumanTreachery:
** The Word of Blake's Manei Domini are an embodiment this. Clan warriors don't quite fit, as they are more "peak human" for the most part (aside from the occasional hardcore extremist who takes Enhanced Imaging implants). For the most part, cybernetics in Clan society are for compensation from injury or organ failure, and their notions of superiority because of the manner of their birth is all too human.
** The Free Worlds League has an unpleasant history with this; it's why ''any'' kind of cybernetic implant, even lost limb replacement, is looked down upon. It's also why the Word of Blake lost their only real ally state in the Inner Sphere.
* TrialByCombat: Present in the Combine and one of the key pillars of Clan society, who have seven official ones all referred to as 'Trials'. These are the Trials of [[AsskickingEqualsAuthority Position]], [[RiteOfPassageNameChange Bloodright]], [[ThrowingDownTheGauntlet Grievance]], [[AppealToForce Refusal]], [[WarForFunAndProfit Possession]], [[DefeatMeansFriendship Absorption]], and [[FinalSolution Annihilation]]. There are unofficial ones as well (such as the Trial of Reaving), but they are mostly variants on the seven sanctioned by Kerensky.
* TripodTerror: The Super-Heavy Three-Legged Mechs. Unable to replicate the Blakist bipedal 150-ton Omega, The Republican R&D decided to use the Blakist research material to circumvent the "Useless-beyond-100-ton" problem by adding the third leg, and managed to create the 125-ton Poseidon class and the 135-ton Ares class. While slow as hell, the third leg also allows them to change direction much quicker without losing much speed.
* UngratefulBastard: It burns Vlad Ward up that the man responsible for rescuing him after the clan flagship took a kamikaze attack to the bridge was the freeborn bondsman he disdainfully sneered at so often: Phelan Kell. When Vlad flaunted the fact that he claimed Phelan's fancy belt buckle as ''isorla'', Phelan just countered by reminding him of the scar across Vlad's face from the incident with a slow face slash gesture.
** One of the first acts of the Star League Council after the liberation of Terra was to strip General Kerensky (the man who led the Star League Defense Forces against Stefan Amaris's coup while the Council Lords sat out the war in their home realms) of his title of Protector of the Star League. They would have gladly removed him as Commanding General of the SLDF, but they knew the troops would have openly rebelled against such an order.
* UnitedSpaceOfAmerica: Soundly averted. Because the American planetary colonies were the first ones settled, they were also closest to Earth and thus subjected to the most horrific bombardments in the 400-year long interstellar civil war. Little American culture survives in the 31st century save for the tequila-drinking Texans of the Capellan March, the Americans and Israelis on the Southwest Worlds of the Free Worlds League, and the far-flung Amish planet of Home.
** That said, the League is often compared to the USA when it's not described as Space Yugoslavia (a distinction which becomes less significant with each passing year).
* UnPerson: Many of the harshest punishments in Clan society involve some form of this, from deletion of a Bloodnamed warrior's genes from their Clan's pool, to their erasure from Clan lore, all the way to the elimination of entire Bloodlines, Bloodnames, or (in the case of the [[TheScottishTrope the Not-Named Clan]]) entire Clans.
* UnreliableNarrator: Every book, from the [=TROs=] to the Sourcebooks, (except for the novels) is explicitly written as an in-universe book. Originally, this was done just for flavor, as a way to create immersion. It has practical considerations as well. The way canon works in BT is that the most recent books trump any previous material. This makes doing a {{Retcon}} or even a subtle {{Rewrite}} much easier; the older material is simply considered to be in error. It also allowed the BT writers to correct a lot of incorrect and inaccurate information in the earliest books, simply by calling the [=ComStar=]-induced errors or possibly even misinformation.
** At first, now the sourcebook writer seem to have developed a fetish for ''purposely'' giving out misinformation in the new releases. That's right, there's every possibility in the world that that brand new sourcebook in your hands is lying to you.
** The misinformation took on a weird new meta-level when the developers revealed a new 200-ton ''Omega'' "superheavy" 'Mech as an April Fool's joke to the players. Then at the end of the Jihad storyline, guess what one of the Word of Blake's new experimental weapons turned out to be? The joke's on you, heretics.
* UnusualWeaponMounting: Players are encouraged to throw weapons anywhere they want to.
** Leg mounted weapons
** Cockpit mounted weapons - or in the case of the ''Atlas'', EyeBeams.
** The ''[[http://www.sarna.net/wiki/images/thumb/4/4a/3050U_Orion.jpg/647px-3050U_Orion.jpg Orion]]'' and ''[[http://www.sarna.net/wiki/images/a/a8/Perseus.gif Perseus]]'' have a rocket launcher for a shoulder.
** The original Battlemech, the ''Mackie'', has a [[http://www.sarna.net/wiki/images/a/a9/Mackie.jpg cannon mounted on the crotch]], which shoots lasers.
** Rear-mounted weapons. Not a favorite of most players (many of whom will, if given a "canon" design that sports these, happily flip them around into the forward arc first chance they get), but at least in principle ''any'' weapon that can be mounted in a torso or leg can be installed in the same location to fire at targets ''behind'' the 'Mech instead.
** Some 'Mechs move the cockpit from the head into the (comparably) better-protected torso, and then stuff the head with weaponry. One experimental ''Quickdraw'' turns this head-gun into a PPC turret.
** Speaking of which: yes, 'Mechs can carry turrets, although not every design whose artwork suggests it should actually does so by the rules. In addition to turning a 'Mech's head into a full turret as described above, shoulder-mounted turrets and special tank-style "quad" turrets for four-legged 'Mechs also exist.
* UnwantedFalseFaith: Jerome Blake was just a bureaucrat who wanted to keep humanity's technology from being destroyed or misused; he most certainly did not want his subordinates to attempt to drive humanity into a Dark Age so they could remake the Inner Sphere in his "vision". Aleksandr Kerensky, while a career soldier, sought to lead his followers away from the eternal conflicts of the Inner Sphere and would most likely have disapproved of the warrior based Clans that came to see him as a Moses like figure. However both men were dead before their words were twisted, by Blake's successor Conrad Toyama and Kerensky's son Nicolas no less, so they couldn't exactly do much to prevent it.
* UrbanWarfare: Still a nightmare in 31st century. The Urbanmech, as the name suggests, is a light mech designed to fight in the cities.
* UsedFuture: Some mechs and dropships have probably never been properly repainted and replated in ''centuries''.
* TheUsurper: Amaris is the most infamous example but there are plenty of others; such as Katherine Steiner-Davion and the Von Rohrs dynasty in the Draconis Combine.
* UterineReplicator: The preferred way of creating new Clan warriors. See DesignerBabies above.
* UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans: Nicholas Kerensky seems to have been doing this when he created the Clans.
** This also seems to have been [[spoiler:Devlin Stone]]'s approach in building [[spoiler:The Republic of the Sphere]], especially with the revelation that [[spoiler:he was responsible for the HPG network crash]]
** Ian Cameron had this mindset as he was building the Star League; he wanted humanity united at ''any'' cost. While the League did herald 250 years of relative peace, technological advancement and economic propensity the Reunification War against the Periphery was the deadliest and most brutal conflict in history until the First Succession War broke out.
* VerbalTic: Clanners, much like [[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration a certain Star Trek android]], don't use contractions in their regular speech. Specific cultural terminology aside, the Clans revere the form of English that was the official state language of the Star League and consider contractions to be disrespectful to it and the Star League by proxy.
* VerticalMechaFins: Crops up occasionally. One of the main highlights of the ''[[http://i.imgur.com/DloH3.jpg Awesome]]'''s design.
** The ''Awesome'' had VerticalMechaFins roughly a decade before Evangelion was released.
* VestigialEmpire: After the Blackout, many factions started rushing towards the Republic of the Sphere in the ensuing chaos. Consequently, the Fortress Republic protocol was enacted, leaving the main Republic as only Prefecture X (the systems surrounding Earth), while anything outside [[TeleportInterdiction The Wall]] was abandoned, becoming [[TheRemnant the Republic Remnant]].
* VibroWeapon: Exist at the mech level and, more commonly, as personal melee weapons. While a vibro weapon is capable of penetrating most personal armor the advantage is somewhat offset by the fact that the weapons run out of power quickly and make a very unstealthly humming noise.
* AVillainNamedKhan: The leaders of the Clans are known as Khans, the second -in-command of a Clan is known as saKhan and the leader of all the Clans (when such a thing is necessary) is the ilKhan or "Khan of Khans".
* VindicatedByHistory: In-Universe, Doctors Kearny and Fuchida developed the theory that would lead to the invention of faster than light travel. They were ridiculed by their peers and their careers were effectively destroyed; the fruits of their work were only produced long after both men were dead.
* WalkingTank: The majority of Clan 'Mechs and post-Clan Invasion Inner Sphere mechs are {{Walking Tank}}s, but most Succession Wars era 'Mechs are more humanoid.
** The ''Goliath'' deserves a special mention, as it manages to take this trope to [[http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Goliath its literal extreme.]]
* WarIsGlorious: If you ask the Federated Suns, the Clans, or the Draconis Combine anyway. The Suns' belief in this trope was a major sticking point during their union with the Commonwealth; whose position was that war should serve economic and political goals, no more no less.
* TheWarOfEarthlyAggression: Several throughout Inner Sphere history. The Outer Reaches Rebellion in the Terran Alliance era. The Campaigns of Persuasion in the Terran Hegemony era, and the Reunification Wars of the Star League.
* WeaponForIntimidation: 'Mechs as a whole lend themselves to this trope, but some are more notable than others.
** On one end of the scale is the Arbiter, a light 'Mech with a number of cosmetic enhancements that make it look much heavier and more dangerous than it actually is, primarily used as a deterrent against pirates.
** On the other end is the Atlas, a hundred-ton walking harbinger of death and destruction designed to evoke terror as a means of psychological warfare to complement its already impressive raw firepower.
-->'''General Aleksandr Kerensky, Defining what the ''Atlas'' will be''': A 'Mech as powerful as possible, as impenetrable as possible, and as ugly and foreboding as conceivable, so that fear itself will be our ally.
* WeaponizedCar: The Star League-era Rotunda scout car, which is a combat vehicle disguised as a luxury sports car or other civilian vehicles, and is armed with a large laser...and an SRM-2 missile rack.
** Amusingly, its official gameplay stats give it a canonical weight of ''twenty tons''...fairly light as BT combat vehicles go, to be sure, [[SciFiWritersHave/NoSenseOfMass but by civilian road and traffic standards?]]
* WeaponizedExhaust: Dropship liftoffs are capable of destroying anything near them.
* WeAreStrugglingTogether: Each Successor State has no shortage of competing noble families and sub-factions vying for position. The Free Worlds League has this more so than most, with numerous free planets and alliances fighting each other for most of its' history.
** The Clans are this by design, each Clan is its own faction in a loose alliance with the other Clans, frequently fighting over planets and resources and making and breaking alliances between themselves. This was one of the reasons the Inner Sphere invasion failed.
** Clan Fire Mandrill is even more factionalized their rivals, being divided into many smaller sub-Clans called ''kindraa'' based on inter-Bloodname alliances who fight each other more than they do the other Clans.
* WeWillUseWikiWordsInTheFuture: All over the place, as you can see from the title itself, and even sometimes in contexts where there's an existing non-[=CamelCase=] word. For some of the many examples, the series is called ''[=BattleTech=]'', the signature HumongousMecha are called [=BattleMechs=], similar machines designed for peaceful, non-military use are called [=IndustrialMechs=], the pilots of [=BattleMechs=] are called [=MechWarriors=], ships capable of FasterThanLightTravel are called [=JumpShips=], ships that aren't are called [=DropShips=], ships designed to fight each other are called [=WarShips=].
* WeHaveReserves: The main danger to the Clans from Inner Sphere units. A Clan cluster is 35 to 45 'Mechs, about the size of an Inner Sphere battalion. The Inner Sphere typically throws multiple ''regiments'' of 3+ battalions each at a Cluster.
** Early in the invasion, the tech gap meant that most Inner Sphere forces considered that they'd require a 2-to-1 advantage over Clan forces to simply reach ''parity'', and both sides would end up mauled into worthlessness during the actual battle. For any chance of a decisive victory, Inner Sphere forces needed to vastly outnumber the Clanners.
*** This was a deliberate choice, a company of 12 3025-tech Inner Sphere mechs was supposed to be a match for a star of 5 Clan Mechs,
* [[WhamEpisode Wham Sourcebook]]: ''The Wars of Reaving,'' full stop. By the end of the book, [[spoiler: seven of the Clans have been Abjured (stricken from the Clan records as though they never existed) by the remaining Clans in the Clan homeworlds, though they still exist in exile; four other Clans have been Annihilated or Absorbed; one new Clan has been created from the half of one of the Abjured Clans that ''wasn't'' Abjured; as far as the four remaining Homeworld Clans know, the Kerensky bloodline - ''the bloodline of their society's founder'' - has been utterly destroyed (they're wrong, thanks to Khan Vlad Ward's foresight); the Homeworld Clans are set to resume an invasion of the Inner Sphere once they've spent several decades recovering from all this chaos; and most if not all of the main Clan characters that Battletech readers have followed for over 20 years (among them Vlad Ward and Marthe Pryde) are dead.]]
* WhipItGood: Clanners use ''laser-guided whips'' in single combat duels.
* WildMassGuessing: Three recent sourcebooks full of what amounts to canon WMG. Its up to the individual GM to decide what's actually true.
* WretchedHive: Many independent planets in the Periphery are ruled by pirate bands and are havens for violence and other illegal activities. One example is Port Krin, where it is described as unhealthy to walk around without body armor.
* YellowPeril: Most of the Capellan Confederation's Chancellors, and the Draconis Combine at times. All depictions of Stefan Amaris show him as a bald asian with a fu manchu as well.
* YourSizeMayVary: Official artwork tends to be a bit inconsistent about how big various 'Mechs are, both in relation to each other and to real-world things like tanks, buildings and people. It seems Catalyst (or whoever happens to be holding the license) like to be cagey about this, as while various pieces of spinoff media will occasionally give figures for a 'Mech's size (the most accepted one for the Atlas being 18 meters, similar to other iconic giant robots such as Anime/MazingerZ or the Anime/MobileSuitGundam) they are conspicuously absent from any official stats in the tabletop game.
* ZeeRust: Mostly averted, but comes into play just occasionally, normally in the earlier novels that were released in the late 80's. One mention is when a character in the Warrior Trilogy is amazed that the Lostech data core they discovered might contain literally hundreds of KILOBYTES of information on lost drive technology. That's got to be at least 3 word documents!
[[/folder]]

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:G-O]]
* GalacticSuperpower: The Star League in the past. Each of the Great Houses and the Clans as a collective have ambitions to recreate it with themselves as its rulers.
* GangInitiationFight: The Clans military have a very similar principle, where a cadet must participate in live fire battles against several experienced members and win at least once in order to become part of the caste.
* GargleBlaster: The [=PPC=], so called because it can take your head clean off. It's four shots of grain alcohol diluted with two shots of another liquor associated with one of the great political powers - peppermint schnapps (Steiner), bourbon (Davion), ouzo (Marik), plum wine (Liao), sake (Kurita), and various others for minor powers, regions, and Clans... or just more grain alcohol for the Periphery [=PPC=]. It's popular throughout in-universe fiction as a [=Mechwarrior's=] drink, when "real" ones usually prefer something that won't make their mouths numb.
** A drink mentioned in the Jade Phoenix trilogy called the fusionnaire is described as needing to be drunk quickly, lest it dissolve the enamel of the drinker’s teeth. It’s pretty much orange and burning flavored.
* GatlingGood: Rotary Autocannons, and some machinegun models.
** AwesomeButImpractical: [=RACs=] like to jam up if you fire them like machineguns, making them of questionable utility due to their range and accuracy compared to the slower-firing but non-jam-prone autocannons.
** However, the Clans have eventually, in addition to their own [=RAC=] models, developed the Hyper-Assault Gauss Rifle ([[FunWithAcronyms HAG for short]]) - they are given a rating of 20, 30, or 40. What does this stand for? How many rounds it fires ''in a single combat round'' - bear in mind the above-mentioned [=RACs=] fire at most 5/6 times per round depending on the caliber.
** DependingOnTheArtist, some Ultra or even LB-X Autocannons take the form of large gatling cannons. From the somewhat reasonable ArmCannon of the [[https://cfw.sarna.net/wiki/images/8/85/Atlas_II.jpg Atlas II]] to the utterly unrestrained monument to munitions found on the [[https://cfw.sarna.net/wiki/images/9/90/Burrock.jpg Burrock]].
* GenderIsNoObject: Most of the factions do not discriminate on the basis of gender, and some of the best leaders and warriors in the setting have been female. Marion Marik (about the only leader who didn't maul the Periphery during the formation of the Star League), Katrina Steiner (the political mind behind the Federated Commonwealth) and Sandra Noruff (the mother of the SLDF) are all prominent examples. Even the male dominated Draconis Combine was rebuilt after a civil war by Coordinator Siriwan [=McAllister=]. Natasha Kerensky, aka [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast "The Black Widow"]], is considered one of the three best [=Mechwarriors=] (Kai Allard-Liao and Phelan Kell/Ward have their supporters) of the 31st century. The Taurian Concordat and the Magistracy of Canopus were founded by women. The Clans play this totally straight; all castes see a close to even gender ratio at every rank and no one bats an eye at a female Khan.
* GeneralFailure: While they pop up in every faction, the Lyran Commonwealth's "Social Generals", who achieve their positions through money and connections, are responsible for the most economically powerful faction in the setting having one of the weaker armies in the Inner Sphere. Other factions do have have similar cases but have [[ReassignedToAntarctica ways]] [[YouHaveFailedMe of]] [[TrialByCombat dealing]] [[KickedUpstairs with them]] that the business minded House Steiner isn't willing to use.
** Part of the reason why the Clans eventually began to lose to Inner Sphere forces; because of the Clan's HonorBeforeReason attitude, the CombatPragmatist generals of the Inner Sphere began to exploit the tunnel-vision of Clan commanders, with ambushes and various other nefarious tactics. It doesn't help that Clanners are promoted [[AsskickingEqualsAuthority solely on combat prowess]], [[SoldierVsWarrior rather than on their ability to actually command people]]. [[note]]This was even lampshaded during the formation of the Clans; ''Operation Klondike'' quotes a retired SLDF Master Sergeant's thoughts on the Clans' then-new promotion system as, "I think we both can remember some lance and company commanders that were good shots but couldn't lead themselves out of a well-lit parking lot."[[/note]]
** Both of the above cases started to rectify themselves due to sheer necessity. House Steiner's brief merger with the more military minded Davions purged their officer corps of the worst examples and while Katherine's takeover set things back a little the Lyran Alliance's military isn't the same organization as it was during the Succession Wars. After the Great Refusal many Clan officers simply began disregarding their traditional rules of engagement when fighting Spheroids and one [=ComStar=] observer noted that whenever a Clan officer was defeated due to HonorBeforeReason his subordinates caught on and weren't fooled the next time round. By the 3070s both the Lyrans and the Invading Clans successfully engaged the Word of Blake in large scale warfare and the ranks of Commanders, Generals, Star Colonels and Galaxy Commanders were more capably staffed; with leaders like Fredrick Steiner and Ulric Kerensky (strong strategic minds as well as capable warriors) having become the norm rather than the exception in their respective factions.
* GeneralRipper: The Draconis Combine and Capellan Confederation are infamous for these. The Word of Blake was commanded by nothing but these.
** An infamous historical example was Star League general Amos Forlough, also known as [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast the Baby Killer]]. His preferred methods were razing cities from orbit and executing a tenth of a planet's population (literally decimation) to quell rebellions.
* GeniusBruiser: Most Clanners fit this trope. Especially Elementals.
** Some Clan sourcebooks actually point out the stereotype of DumbMuscle existing even among the Clans, and how many Elementals have proven otherwise. The [=RPG=] rules codify this, as their intelligence has the same range as anyone else's. This is all but enforced for Elementals. . . if they want to attain high ranks and Bloodnames, especially competing against [=MechWarriors=] or [=AeroPilots=], they need to be cunning and play to their strengths. A Trial of Bloodright randomly gives one warrior the choice of how to fight (hand-to-hand or in 'Mechs[=/=]fighters[=/=]armor), the other of where. If an Elemental wins the "how" decision against a [=MechWarrior=] or [=AeroPilot=], they can pulp them in hand-to-hand combat. If they lose, they'll have to get creative to defeat an opponent in a vehicle that masses at least ten times what their single suit of [=BattleArmor=] does.
** Hanse Davion is this as well. A cultured, erudite, well-educated man, one of the most magnificent of Magnificent Bastards the setting has to offer... and a pilot who has canonically ripped other 'Mechs arms off and beaten them to spare parts with them.
* GiantFootOfStomping: One of the (more sadistic) options Mechs have for attacking Infantry actually has a point of use in that it saves ammo although generally when one can get away with it one uses a machine gun or a flamer for anti infantry.
** Actually best employed against battle armor. Even the biggest 'Mech foot will usually only get one or two troopers out of a conventional infantry platoon, there's a significant to-hit penalty for trying to kick things in your own hex, and missing forces a roll to avoid toppling your own machine by accident.
** This is a valid tactic against enemy 'Mechs that have fallen. A 50 ton 'Mech curb-stomping its downed adversary is every bit as effective as it sounds, and the tabletop game's fluff makes several mentions of cockpits being crushed under giant metal feet.
** In canon, a disputed use of this caused the bitter feud between Wayne Waco and Jamie Wolf. Waco claimed that a Dragoon 'mech had deliberately crushed his son underfoot, who had ejected from his crippled 'mech. The Dragoons denied it (either denying outright that it happened or denying it was deliberate), but the incident would culminate in the Waco Rangers assaulting Outreach as part of the Word of Blake's attempt to decapitate the Dragoons early in the Jihad.
* GlassCannon: Many designs that sacrifice armor for firepower. Of the few standard examples there many long-range support mechs who are not expected to fight in close combat, the Hollanders who are basically light mechs built around big guns, the Hunchback [=IIC=], the purposely underarmored Clan mech with the goal of being the last ride of the dishonored or deathseekers past their prime, and the Hellbringer (Loki), a 65-ton Clan mech well known for its significant firepower potential in a highly customizable chassis that does its job well at the expense of being comparatively thin-armored for its weight class.
* GlobalCurrency: While individual states still issue their own currencies, they largely operate secondary to one currency that is accepted equally everywhere--the C-Bill ([=ComStar=] Bill). C-Bills have their value backed by the highly important resource of [[SubspaceAnsible HPG transmission time]], and tend to be a lot more stable in value over any given period than the House currencies as a result. Mercenaries are particularly fond of them due to this. The C-Bill wasn't originally meant to be a currency, just a certificate of purchase for HPG transmission time. As HPG transmission time became more and more a commodity, the C-Bill became a de facto currency backed by it. The different prices for purchasing in each realm's national currency became exchange rates. [=ComStar=] eventually embraced the evolution, since it helped strengthen their NGOSuperpower status.
** In the Dark Age era the C-Bill value massively dropped when HPG communications were shut down, shifting the economy to the local national currencies, and in some cases barter, particularly with ammunition among the Mercenaries.
* GodSaveUsFromTheQueen: It may be [[RecycledInSpace space feudalism]] but gender equality is nearly a completely dead issue. Three of the most destructive and vindictive leaders shown on-page are female.
** To wit, there's one AxCrazy DragonLady (Romano Liao), one [=ComStar=] leader who wants to plunge the finally recovering galaxy back to the good old dark ages where they control everything (Myndo Waterly), and Katherine Steiner-Davion, who apparently started out as the DaddysLittleVillain to ''the'' MagnificentBastard of the entire franchise, Hanse Davion. Unfortunately for a lot of people, Hanse died prematurely of natural causes and no one else in Katherine's family had a clue of how to deal with their budding [[TheSociopath sociopath]]. It took her all of about 3 years to depose or kill all members of her family that stood between her and absolute power. [[FromBadToWorse And that's just the first half of her reign...]]
* GodwinsLaw: Used InUniverse. While Hitler is still occasionally used, the name Stefan Amaris has become synonymous with evil. One of the few things every faction is willing to agree on is that he was a monster and some people in the Periphery even express some concern that they, being descended from Rim Worlds refuges, [[SinsOfOurFathers might be distantly related to House Amaris]]. The background information has featured cases where the writer's enemy is compared or equated to Amaris.
** Among the Clans (who idolize the Star League and thus view Amaris as pretty much Satan in human form) a unit declared Dezgra (dishonored due to serious breaches of honor or major defeats), in addition to receiving the worst supplies, recruits, weapons and general treatment, has to replace their traditional insigna with the symbol of House Amaris. In other words, Amaris is considered to embody dishonor and disgrace.
* GodzillaThreshold: The means in which the Draconis Combine warns the Federated Commonwealth about [=ComStar=]'s "[[LetNoCrisisGoToWaste Operation Scorpion]]": the Combine has reverse-engineered and developed their own secret [[SubspaceAnsible Black Box]] hyperspace radios, like the ones the Commonwealth used to bypass the HPG interdiction [=ComStar=] imposed on them to interced in the Fourth Succession War. The medium helped infer the dire urgency of the message as well: Theodore Kurita absolutely could not let [=ComStar=] know that he was apprised of their subterfuge, and he considered it an acceptable price to pay to reveal to Davion that the Dracs had Black Boxes of their own in order to send the warning.
* GoneHorriblyRight: After conquering the Periphery States, the Star League created a system of economic and technological dependance to prevent the new territories from becoming self-sufficient and rebellious again. Advanced terraforming, power, and water generation systems that only the League could provide, and that they could cut off again if a Periphery state didn't play ball. This kept them in line for 2 centuries, until the Star League collapsed. Cut off from the vital trade and technology, countless Periphery worlds withered and died, their populations forced to escape or perish, as planned.
** [=ComStar=] created the Explorer Corps to locate General Kerensky's Exodus fleet. One of their ships, the ''Outbound Light'', succeeded by stumbling upon the Clan Smoke Jaguar homeworld of Huntress. This gave the Crusader Clans an excuse to launch their invasion of the Inner Sphere.
** [=ComStar=] itself is an example of this as of the story at the beginning of the Second Succession War sourcebook. Previous books implied that Blake’s ideals were twisted into the CargoCult idea by Toyama. The story in 2SW reveals that Blake practically ordered Toyama to create the religion around him in order to perpetuate the kind of mindset that would protect knowledge into the future. What Blake didn’t consider was the eventual formation of the Word of Blake and their HolyWar. Kind of shortsighted when looking at examples such as Fundamentalism, the Crusades et al...
** This is the general consensus, both in and out of universe, on the Ares Conventions. Sure, they stopped the profligate use of weapons of mass destruction and civilian massacres that typified pre-Star League warfare, but in exchange they legitimized conventional warfare as a means of settling disputes, leading to generstions-long grudges and protracted conflicts that may have ended up costing more lives in the long run. Of the two states that refused to sign the Conventions, one (the United Hindu Collective) refused because of this explicit reason, seeing the Conventions as legitimization of warfare as a political tool.
* GoodOldFisticuffs: Any battlemech with arms is capable of throwing a punch, with more articulation in the arm resulting in better punches. For many pilots, it's a last-ditch resort, but some machines, like the 95-ton ''Banshee'' "close assault" 'mech, are meant to charge right into a target's face and get personal.
* GoombaStomp: Death From Above attacks.
* GratuitousLatin: Present in [=ComStar=] and Word of Blake. Lampshaded with the latter's EliteMooks:
-->''"Ten years ago, if you had mentioned the words 'Manei Domini' to anyone, you could expect either a confused head-tilt reaction or a correction for your bad Latin."''
* GreyAndGrayMorality: ''Everybody'' thinks they're doing the right thing. Everybody else would disagree. Pretty much any faction can be good or bad based on if you're with them or against them. For the Federated Commonwealth, the Fourth Succession Wat was a masterful military campaign that united two great nations and promised a new age of prosperity for the Inner Sphere. To the other three Successor States, it was two huge powers teaming up to curb-stomp anyone who got in their way. If you're a Crusader, the Clan Invasion is justified as uplifting the Inner Sphere barbarians and restoring the grand dream of the Star League they so carelessly destroyed. To a citizen of the Inner Sphere, it's unbridled aggression by a ProudWarriorRace practicing BlueAndOrangeMorality. Even factions that traditionally get the "villain" treatment in fiction (Capellans and Clan Smoke Jaguar to name but two) are frequently given sympathetic traits and motivations, and the factions traditionally portrayed as heroic (Federated Suns[=/=]Commonwealth, Draconis Combine, Warden Clan Wolf) are noted to place more emphasis on achieving their goals than being morally beyond reproach.
** BlackAndGrayMorality: The Jihad, with the Word of Blake clearly cast as villains in and out of universe, fell into this. The gray factions also tended to get darker. The BackStory involving the fall of the Star League also fell here; the SLDF was pretty ruthless but they were saints compared to Amaris the Usurper's forces.
* GrievousHarmWithABody: [=BattleMechs=] can lose limbs due to structural damage or a CriticalHit, but the limbs do not simply 'disappear' from the map. Another 'Mech (or the same one that lost the limb!) can go over to the hex where the limb was lost, pick it up, and proceed to brutally club enemy 'Mechs with the severed arm/leg/head. This is actually surprisingly practical--trees used as clubs will shatter after a single hit, and finding a good girder can be hard if you're not playing in a city map or are trying to avoid collateral damage. The club increases the 'Mech's physical combat damage and in no way inhibits weapons fire from the 'Mech carrying it, and it can't be damaged the way a traditionally carried axe or sword could.
** Historically, Hanse Davion did exactly this in the Battle for the NAIS research center on New Avalon during the 4th Succession War, using a severed ''Marauder'' arm as a weapon after his 'Mech's hand-carried PPC was destroyed in a physical attack.
* HellishHorse: The iconography of Clan Hell's Horses, whose name was based on a genetically altered equine species that happened to be carnivorous.
* HereditaryRepublic: About half of the states in the Inner Sphere and Periphery are nominally republics but consistently have a member of the same family as their head of state (most of the rest being explicit hereditary monarchies, with true republics being scarce). Particularly notable examples include:
** The Terran Hegemony, which was nominally a democratic republic with an elected Director-General, but after being founded by James [=McKenna=], every subsequent Director-General was a member of the Cameron family and a succession reform in 2392 made it nearly impossible for anyone who wasn't a Cameron to become Director-General. Even when Stefan Amaris usurped control of the Hegemony, he paid lip service to its democratic process with a sham election to try to establish his legitimacy.
** The Free Worlds League, which has an elected parliament whose power can be ignored more-or-less at will by the Captain-General, an office that is almost always held by a member of the Marik family.
** The Capellan Confederation, where the Chancellor is virtually always a member of the Liao family, and which has also become a PeoplesRepublicOfTyranny.
** The Outworlds Alliance, which has an elected parliament and a president but their society is so conservative that the presidency is always held by the Avellar family. Unlike most examples of this trope the Alliance is still quite democratic and a leader in human rights (along with the Magistracy of Canopus) in a setting dominated by monarchies and juntas.
** The Magistracy of Canopus executive officer is elected Autocrat who serves for life or until removal. This has almost always been a Woman from House Centrella as the only two times they elected someone from outside the family, they made such a mess of things that there isn't any political will to elect someone else. That being said, each planet elects a representative to the Central Committee which has powers and responsibilities in line with most Legislative branches, if slanted in favor of the Magestrix. Not the most democratic of republics, but still a republic.
** The Republic of the Sphere, which is trying to avert this as per their "No More Nobles" ideology, but has already been forced to place nobles to the important administrative posts since they were the only ones who knew how to run planetary governments.
* HeroWithBadPublicity: From a ‘Mech standpoint, the Blackjack suffered from this until the 3rd Succession War due to issues [[OnceDoneNeverForgotten with the initial production run]] that were solved quickly but ruined its reputation. It was only when a Federated Suns officer used them to excellent effect against a Kurita officer who was obsessed with light ‘Mech [[ZergRush Zerg rushes]] that the Blackjack finally started to recover... [[HereWeGoAgain when the Omni version dumped its reputation in the toilet]] [[CompanyTown by the initial export manufacturing run requiring proprietary parts instead of allowing the use of Clan salvage without expensive adapters.]]
* HeWhoFightsMonsters: The Principality of Regulus, one of the major regions of the Free Worlds League, who suffered greatly at the hands of the Word of Blake's nuclear attacks eventually got sick of it. Their response was nuclear bombardment of Blakist strongholds without any regard for collateral damage to civilians or biospheres. Unfortunately they got a bit trigger happy and basically ended up committing genocide on unaligned targets just to be sure. The other factions, particularly the Confederation (who had to battle the Blakists alone), did this as well to a lesser extent.
* HistoricalHeroUpgrade: Attempted in-universe and defied. One historian from what used to be the Rim Worlds Republic was desperate to find something, anything that would prove that Stefan Amaris wasn't as big of a monster as he was portrayed as. However he lamented in the book he published that not only was Stefan Armaris as much of a monster as popular history protrayed him, he uncovered a few more atrocities Amaris committed that went unrecorded.
-->As a citizen of the Outworlds Alliance and a descendant of the Rim Worlders, I had hoped that in the course of our research on this volume I might find some mitigating factor to modify history's judgement of my most famous countryman. I regret to say that I have found none. As far as Amaris is concerned, the ancient slogan applies: Ig fallou blaos, dem ressensu glottuo. ("What you see is what you get," or, literally, "if you catch this, you will have to eat it.") Amaris may have been worse than even past historians have claimed.
* HistoricalInJoke: The [[UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan Reagan Defenses]] that were invented during the Star League era were named after "an obscure Terran leader who had dreamed of a similar system.”
** The drone warships that were part of the Reagan Defense system were known as "Caspar" drones, after Caspar Weinberger, Reagan's Secretary of Defense. And the term Space Defense System itself is commonly abbreviated SDS, which recalls the SDI, or "'''S'''trategic '''D'''efense '''I'''nitiative", better known as "Star Wars".
* HitPoints: Generally split between armor and internal structure points. Incoming damage eliminates armor first (it's ablative); once that's gone, further damage to the relatively 'soft' internals forces rolls for possible critical hits, and enough of it will of course take out the location struck (and possibly the unit with it).
** Certain components also have hit points, but don't have CriticalExistenceFailure like armor (and to a lesser extent structure). Engines, gyros, sensors, and even pilots all gradually degrade from damage. For instance, the first critical hit on the engine damages the shielding, inflicting a permanent waste heat penalty. A second hit worsens the penalty. The third hit makes it so the reactor can no longer contain its heat to sustain the reaction and the mech is down for the count. Gyro damage causes piloting skill penalties for one hit and then permanently floors the mech on the second. Sensor damage causes to-hit penalties when targeting, and pilot injury causes a chance for the pilot to get KO'd and makes it gradually harder to resist getting KO'd or wake back up, eventually to the point where the pilot is killed.
* HollywoodGenetics: Surprisingly averted with the Clan eugenics program. While they carefully control genetic pairings, they prefer to let nature determine the outcome and refuse to do any tinkering of their own (aside from the realistic purpose of correcting obvious random defects). Played more straight with some of the "modified" flora and fauna they introduced to many of their homeworlds, though the results are more reasonable than in most sci-fi.
* HollywoodScience: Supposedly the constant war and strife has nearly "beaten humanity back to the stone age", but not only can people deal with the existence of future tech, but they can handle and repair it, what would be impossible for today. It was eventually retconned that "back to the Stone Age" was hyperbole and while some planets did see widespread technological collapse, most did not and the Inner Sphere's average tech level never fell below the 25th Century's.
* HollywoodTactics: The Clans were infamous for this, thanks to their HonorBeforeReason habits and cultural emphasis on single-combat prowess. Centuries of fighting highly structured trials for combat had left them rigid and inflexible and unable to easily cope with a foe that refused to fight fair. For the first year or so of the invasion, this didn't matter because their vastly superior technology let them curb stomp ever opponent anyway. It finally came to a head in the Battle of Tukayyid, when the seven invading Clans fought [=ComStar=] for control of Terra. All the Clans fought separately, none of them made even a pretense of working together. Despite the warnings of ilKhan Ulric Kerensky that they needed to prepare for a long campaign and should therefore stockpile extra ammo and replacement parts and configure their omnimechs with mostly energy weapons, most of the Clans came in expecting a brief, short battle and configured their mechs to run heavy on ammunition based weapons without deep supplies. When faced with [=ComStar=] traps or entrenched positions, too many Clan commanders chose to attempt to charge straight up the middle and suffered heavy casualties as a result. The end result was that Clan Wolf was the only one to achieve both of its objectives, which Clans Ghost Bear and Jade Falcon both achieved one objective and the other four Clans all failed utterly.
* HonorBeforeReason: The Clans, all the way into IdiotBall territory.
** Inverted by the Black Angus Boys mercenary group; their motto is "Dishonor before death!"
** The Kuritans got in on this at times too. This may have something to do with their fascination with all things feudal Japanese, and it occasionally got them their collective butts handed to them, such as when they tried to challenge the Clans to the sort of straight dueling that both parties favored, but for which the Draconians were woefully underequipped and initially under-skilled.
* HoverTank: The science behind them is based off of real life science. There's no antigravity or other stuff like that here. Instead, ''[=BattleTech's=]'' hovercraft operate on the same principle as modern hovercraft, riding on a cushion of air, usually contained in some manner of rubber or similar skirt. Hovercraft and hovertanks are among the fastest ground vehicles and are capable of amphibious operations as they can skim over water just as well as land, but they're comparatively fragile and even the heaviest hovertanks prior to the introduction of the superheavy class (which is not permitted in most official gameplay formats) are only 50 tons while wheeled vehicles can go up to 80 tons and tracked vehicles and 'Mechs can go up to 100 tons before being considered superheavy vehicles of their respective types.
* HufflepuffHouse: The Free Worlds League kinda just.. sat around, for the majority of the universe's history.[[note]] Being at war constantly with yourself has a tendency to cause that... [[/note]] The [=FWL=] became much more important during the Clan Invasion and the Jihad, but it is still rarely featured in the novels.
** The Periphery states and the Homeworld Clans also count, though exceptions occur when they get their own sourcebooks.
* HumansAreWhite: One of the more notable settings to completely avert this.
* HumongousMecha: The main feature of the setting and the core gameplay focus is [=BattleMechs=], 20-100 ton walking war machines that dominate the battlefield. [=BattleMechs=] or simply just 'Mechs come in many forms from humanoid to ChickenWalker to WalkingTank and bipedal, tripedal, and quadrupedal. A small handful are even TransformingMecha. 'Mechs are divided into four main weight classes - light (20-35 tons), medium (40-55 tons), heavy (60-75 tons), and assault (80-100 tons), as well as two far less common classes - ultralight (under 20 tons) and superheavy (over 100 tons). There are also non-military [=IndustialMechs=] and police and private security [=SecurityMechs=]. The series even has a trademark on the word "Mech".
* HypercompetentSidekick: Both Victor Davion-Steiner and Hohiro Kurita have one for them, Galen Cox and Shin Yodama, respectively. Both the two Great House heirs owe their lives to their perrennial aides more than once over. The two even teamed up once, being the only two amongst all the Great House heirs that passed a SecretTestOfCharacter at the Outreach Summit during the Clan Invasion.
* IconicSequelCharacter: A lot of mechs after [=Mechwarrior=] 3 and the Clan Invasion got this. The Bushwacker, Mad Cat, Shadow Cat, Vulture, Thor, and Daishi all got his treatment. The Mad Cat and Bushwacker the most.
* ImplacableMan: Some 'Mechs can take a tremendous amount of punishment and keep on going. The most notable is probably the Atlas, but any 'Mech with heavy armour, no or few explosive ammo bins (Or CASE/CASE II to protect them) and a normal or compact engine can happily lose its arms and side torsos and still be capable of fighting. Such 'Mechs are generally nicknamed 'Zombie' units since only decapitation or engine destruction can kill them quickly.
** Oddly enough, the light scout ''Spider SDR-5V'' 'Mech fits this description perfectly: it only has two medium lasers as weapons, and mounts 8 jump jets with no heat sinks. However, the two lasers are mounted in the center torso, with the majority of the jump jets mounted in the legs and center torso as well. Taking off the ''Spider''''s arms, or even the left and right torso sections, doesn't slow down the 'Mech at all (though the pilot might be a little worse for wear): it can still dish out the exact same amount of damage and have the same impressive mobility until the head or the center torso is destroyed.
* ImpossiblyGracefulGiant: Averted. 'Mechs are basically tanks with legs. With a trained pilot and properly calibrated systems, they become agile runners, can negotiate rugged ground, and throw solid punches, but precise hand coordination is difficult. It's possible to use waldos to directly control the hands and arms on 'Mechs, but it's nearly impossible to use them for any sort of graceful action - you could not for example, use both arms to operate a giant 'Mech-sized shovel, without repeatedly jabbing the ten ton shovel into your mech.
** Which is as realistic as anything else in the game gets, but raises the question again, [[AwesomeButImpractical why use the humanoid form at all]]?
*** The answer is that they often don't. A lot of 'Mechs, particularly Clan 'Mechs, can't be said to resemble humanoids at all. Bipedal and two-armed, yes. Even the freaky ones tend to have two legs and what could charitably be called arms (Or more accurately side-mounted gun turrets). Humanoid? Not quite.
*** Some, like one of the ''most'' Humanoid ones, the ''[[MightyGlacier Atlas]]'' are humanoid because of one thing: ''fear''. That's the entire point of the ''Atlas'' in general, that it's so big, so strong, and looks so fricking terrifying with its SkullForAHead, that the other guy would crap his pants and start running.
*** Others are designed to "[[RuleOfCool look cool]]" in-universe, and tend to succeed among the fans. The ''[[https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Centurion_(BattleMech) Centurion]]'', with it's slender lines, ArmCannon, and head crest (holding the 'Mech's sensor equipment and designed to be reminiscent of a plumed helmet) invokes the romantic image of the armored soldiers of days past. Making your 'Mech design ''attractive'' as well as ''functional'' is just good business.
** It ''is'' possible to play this straight in the RPG, though it requires a highly skilled pilot and ''thousands of hours'' of computer programming to pull off. Than the pilot can do anything from moving through rough terrain more easily to FlippingTheBird with a 100 ton bipedal warmachine.
* InformedObscenity: The Clans consider all words that are connected to birth or pregnancy extremely obscene, and to call someone a Freebirth (a human who has been conceived and born the natural way and not grown from the Clan's artificial "Iron Wombs") is among the worst of insults.
** They also view contractions this way, as they see them as a corruption of the [[InsaneTrollLogic pure, perfect language of the Star League.]]
* InsertGrenadeHere: Infantry with jet packs or grappel rods can conduct "swarm" attacks on 'Mechs, which essentially means "climbing onto the 'Mech and stuffing demo charges into the leg joints". While not likely to destroy a 'Mech alone, swarm attacks are much-feared because of their ability to cripple them and leave them vulnerable to heavier units, or worse, knock them down. It's much easier to reach the cockpit of 'Mech that's flat on it's face, and then blow in the canopy...
** In the fluff there are recorded instances of single people on foot taking down [=BattleMechs=] via creative use of this trope to either kill the pilot or get inside the cockpit and hijack the 'Mech.
* InterfaceSpoiler: A subtle one in the ''Wars Of Reaving'' sourcebook. Each page in the book is framed by stone tablets with the emblems of the original twenty Clans on them, but as the book progresses, these tablets change to depict a rough chronology of Clan history, with drastic changes over the last third of the book. Clans that are Absorbed into other clans have their tablets turned blank, Clans that are Abjured (considered exiled from Clan society) are covered in pyramids, and Clans that are Annihilated have their tablets shattered or bloodstained. Of special note are two Clans that change names, and the Not-Named Clan's tablet being covered with rubble.
** There are also lines of text beneath some of the tablets. The final line is between the Clan Wolf and Clan Wolverine tablet. Wolverine's tablet gains its rubble covering on Page 7, so unless you're paying close attention, you'll miss the final line, {{Foreshadowing}} the entire theme of the book: [[spoiler:the Clans have forgotten their past, and thus are condemned to repeat it.]]:
--->HARK CHILDREN OF THE CLANS,\\
TO THE WISDOM OF KERENSKY\\
AND YOUR FOREBEARS,\\
REMEMBER IT AS YOU STRIVE\\
TOWARD THE FUTURE.\\
WISDOM IS THE POWER\\
UNBROKEN BY THE FUTURE,\\
STAINED BY THE PAST.\\
IT IS THE WAY TO HEED;\\
THOSE WHO FAIL FIND\\
[[spoiler:THEIR FLAME EXTINGUISHED.]]
* InUniverseNickname: Hunchback variants that replace the 'Mech's signature shoulder-mounted [[{{BFG}} AC/20]] with anything else are collectively referred to as "Swaybacks" in-universe due to the dramatic change in their profile. Note however that despite the nickname implying that Swayback Hunchbacks are hobbled by the replacing their main gun, many variants are still extremely dangerous, sometimes even arguably moreso than the original. In particular, the HBK-4P replaces the AC/20 with [[BeamSpam six Medium Lasers in addition to retaining the two arm-mounted medium lasers from the standard HBK-4G model]], freeing it from the ammo limitations of the original and doing 33% more damage when performing an AlphaStrike.
* ItsAllAboutMe: Not an uncommon attitude among less admirable characters in particular, but Vladimir Ward may just take the cake, shown once to privately but in all seriousness believe that all of human history up to that point had to turn out exactly the way it did just so that ''he'' could return to the Inner Sphere and conquer it.
* JackOfAllStats: Most of 40-55 ton Medium and 60-75 ton Heavy 'Mechs. The workhorses of most armies. Medium and heavy 'Mechs generally have a balance of speed, armor, and armament and can fill many roles, while light 'Mechs are usually limited to being either scouting forces or {{Glass Cannon}}s and assault 'Mechs are generally limited to being [[MightyGlacier nearly-immobile walls of armor and armament]].
** In particular, the Inner Sphere ''Bushwhacker'' is legendary for being purpose-built as a do-anything machine. It's a 55-ton slugger that can keep pace with Light mechs, has decent armor and packs a balanced loadout of missiles, autocannons and lasers that lets it punch well above its weight class.
* JapanTakesOverTheWorld: Well, kind of. The Draconis Combine has one of the strongest militaries in the Inner Sphere, but it isn't ''[[FantasyCounterpartCulture actually]]'' Japan. Also, the power comes from their martial might and not their economy, and they're based more on romanticized vision of feudal Japan than modern day Japan.
* {{Jetpack}}: Infantry can wear light jetpacks, which allow them to jump long distances. Some mechs mount Jump Jets, which is basically an integrated jetpack that runs on the 'Mechs fusion reactor. There are also single-use jump jets for mechs, which are used once then jettisoned; they're most often used for air-dropping 'mechs that don't have integral jump jets.
* TheJinx: The Dark Age-era Draconic Combine Fourth Dieron Regulars have a "cursed" White Zou, a heavy infanty battle armor. The Fourth lost every battle in which the White Zou participated, often with heavy casualties while the White Zou survived, even when it was deliberately placed in the unwinnable situations, since the Fourth believes that the "curse" will be broken if the White Zou is destroyed.
** Gets even funnier when you realize that ''zou'' [[note]]象, "zō"[[/note]] is in fact the Japanese word for [[WhiteElephant "elephant"]].
* KarmaHoudini: Katherine Steiner-Davion, who was responsible for fracturing the Federated Commonwealth to satisfy her lust for power, not only survived the Civil War, [[spoiler:but even lived to the age of at least 100 as a warrior for Clan Wolf. Karma did catch up to her in a way: her "son" created from genetics of her and her brother Victor and born from an Iron Womb [[SelfMadeOrphan killed her]] when her megalomania reared its ugly head again and threatened his Clan.]]
* KatanasAreJustBetter: Averted in the RPG, a katana isn't that different from any other sword; its a bit more accurate but also about eight times more expensive. However in the Draconis Combine earning the right to carry a katana and a wakizashi (by being inducted into the equivalent of their knightly order) is a requirement to advance beyond the rank of company commander in the DCMS.
* KillItWithFire: Inferno rounds, which can overheat mechs and force them to shut down (making them a sitting duck), or trigger internal ammo explosions inside them. Of course, you can also imagine the effect that these weapons would have on exposed infantry.
** Flamers, true to their name, vent superheated core plasma at targets and will crisp an infantry squad in no time. The Plasma Rifle and Plasma Cannon does the same, but even quicker, and from further away.
* KineticWeaponsAreJustBetter: Averted. In terms of raw damage per ton, compactness, and ammunition independence, ''energy'' weapons rule the roost. . . at least, right up to where they overload their carrying platform's ability to handle their usually-copious waste heat too badly to actually use them all. This is why the vast majority of 'Mechs carry at least ''some'' energy armament, whether as primary weapons or just convenient backup. Ballistic and missile weapons find their niche where they either underbid the energy competition enough in the heat department (this is especially true on conventional vehicles, which can only carry single heat sinks and aren't allowed to field more energy weapons than those can handle but in exchange don't have to count ballistic/missile weapon heat at all) ''or'' where they offer capabilities that energy weapons just plain don't -- like special-purpose munitions, indirect fire, or just the right unique combination of range and damage.
** Kinetic weapons ''do'' have higher potential damages than energy weapons. The [=Autocannon/20=] [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin deals 20 damage per shot]], the LRM-20 can deal 20 damage if all the missiles it, the SRM-6 can deal twelve (higher than most energy weapons, but edged out by some), and the Gauss Rifle deals 15, the same as the Clan ERPPC, but with 14 less heat. However, just about any weapon that gets much above ten damage starts to stray into AwesomeButImpractical territory, either through too much heat to effectively sink or prohibitively high costs in tons, crits, and ammo requirements (progressively heavier weapons have progressively fewer shots per ton allocated to ammo). Kinetic weapons also deal about half-to-a-quarter as much heat as they do damage; most energy weapons ''at best'' generate as much heat as they do damage. Units that can't spare the space or weight for extra heat sinks, but can spare it for ammunition, can get a lot of mileage out of ballistic and missile weapons.
* KlingonScientistsGetNoRespect: Despite Clan dogma which emphasizes the virtues of all five castes, the warrior caste in most Clans only ''very'' grudgingly respect scientists and technicians, and have no respect for merchants and laborers. Even the most open-minded Clans see the civilians as a support system for the warriors, with the only notable exception being the Diamond Sharks (who consider their merchants to be a more subtle form of warrior), the Hell's Horses (who place more emphasis on combined arms strategies and less on politics that interfere with their own castes), and the Ghost Bears (whose emphasis on the strength of family results in higher regard for all the castes).
** Justified and also deconstructed after the Wars of Reaving. The other castes distrust the Scientists (those that weren't executed, imprisoned or sterilized anyway); because a good number of them turned out to be traitors and [[DeadlyDoctor murderers]]. However, when the current [=ilKhan=] at the time later decided to abuse his authority over who should be free from the "taint" of freeborns, it ultimately ended with the demise of both himself and his Clan's (the Steel Vipers), with the former being bludgeoned to death by the [=saKhan=] of the Star Adders for violating Clan law and the latter being subjected to a Trial of Annihilation for their Khan's grievously dishonorable conduct.
** Clanners hold little regard for the lives of the technicians on their [=JumpShips=] and [=WarShips=]. A captured Clanner technician on an Inner Sphere ship is surprised at the advanced life support and protection suits that all of the workers are given when working in dangerous conditions.
** This trope is also Deconstructed with Clan Smoke Jaguar. Turns out that being a Clan of mostly warriors and little to no scientist, engineers, and even basic workers, means that you have to raid other people for basic supplies. This lead to them having no allies during the Clan Invasion, Mechs and weapons that could not be replaced anywhere near fast enough, and lower caste members defecting to the Inner Sphere. There is a good reason Clan Smoke Jaguar no longer exists; their over-emphasis on the Warrior caste and completely ignorant eschewal of their other castes resulted in both CripplingOverspecialization and being TooDumbToLive. This served as a begrudging lesson to be learned for the Clans as a whole and that is 'never undervalue the potential of your other castes besides your Warriors'. Even the Jade Falcons, one of the strictest clans when it comes to enforcing the caste system, value and honour their civilian castes per Nicholas Kerensky's vision and understand that their clan would be nothing with them. Interestingly, the first Khan of the Jaguars, Franklin Osis, sought to ''avert'' this trope during his reign while still keeping a heavy emphasis of martial prowess within his Clan. Unfortunately for him, after his reign ended, the less charismatic successors of him focused only on building the strength of the Warrior caste, and did little to nothing to improve their civilian castes to the point that they outright scorned their very existence within the Clan; thus, the Clan's self-destruction would slowly but eventually be ensured until it ultimately reached its breaking point after the Battle of Tukkayid.
** As a whole the Clans are hypocrites. They consider themselves the most powerful warriors... because they have the most advanced equipment developed by the Scientist caste and maintained by the Technician caste. Clans that acknowledge the contributions of more than just the Warrior Caste (specifically the Battlemech Pilots) have the greatest stability. A point of pride is that most Clanners are genetically engineered by the Scientist caste, so they would literally not exist without them!
* LadyLand: The Magistracy of Canopus. It's mellowed out over time, though. To the point that the only big restriction on men is that they can't sit on the throne.
* LargeAndInCharge: Most command 'Mechs are in the heavy and assault weight classes; mostly because they can accommodate extra electronics, communications equipment and consoles.
* LaserGuidedKarma: Some say the Star League was hit by this, given their poor treatment of the Periphery States (and house Amaris in particular) during the Reunification War.
** [=ilKhan=] Brett Andrews, the "Bloody Khan" of the Steel Vipers got hit hard with this at the end of the Wars of Reaving. After overseeing the Annihilation, Abjuration, and Absorption of several Clans during the war, Star Adder Khan Stanislov N'Buta turned around and declared a Trial of Reaving against Andrews and the Steel Vipers, using the exact same language and rhetoric he'd been using to label his enemies as "tainted". Andrew's response was to kill N'Buta with a laser when the challenge was earlier determined that they would fight each other Unaugmented. This serious breach of Clan conduct immediately came back to bite Andrews as he quickly got killed by N'Buta's ''[=saKhan=]'' and the charges of Reaving eventually got upgraded to Annihilation against the Steel Vipers.
* LawyerFriendlyCameo: Averted with the Unseen. [[ClumsyCopyrightCensorship Turned out exactly how you'd expect]]. But some of them have been given some design changes making them Reseens.
* LegacyCharacter ([[http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Bounty_Hunter The Bounty Hunter.]])
* LensmanArmsRace: The period from the start of Clan Invasion to the end of Jihad was the constant drive to research better weapons than the opposition had. The post-Jihad peace pretty much slowed it down to the crawl.
* LethalJokeItem: Sure, laugh at that [[ButtMonkey UrbanMech]] all you want, light mech pilots... until it [[BlatantLies gently]] reminds you that it's packing an AC/10.
** Or the Capellan variant, which mounts an [[{{BFG}} AC/20]]. WhosLaughingNow?
** How about the Clan variant, the [=UrbanMech IIC=], with its Ultra [=AC/10=] and majorly improved speed of [a still slow but decent] 54 km/h?
** [[http://i.imgur.com/KNJjYRx.jpg The joke is officially now on everyone else]], because there's a variant of [=UrbanMech=] that is now canonically armed with ''[[NukeEm tactical nukes]].''
* LetNoCrisisGoToWaste: Common in the War-heavy setting like this. The first year of the Wars of Reaving for example was almost all about various Clans using the apparent "taint" as an excuse to attack other Clans.
** The Great Houses pretty much owe their existence to this trope; as they were formed when the Terran Alliance left all of its colonies isolated and defenseless. The only option was to band together and swear fealty to a new authority.
** The Word of Blake was only able to expand when the machinations of Katherine Steiner-Davion and Sun-Tzu Liao left many worlds (which came to be known as the Chaos March) in a state of almost total anarchy.
** Katherine was notorious for using the threat of the Jade Falcons to expand her power base; she would leave border worlds undefended if they wouldn't swear fealty despite her illegal actions. This backfired when the Kell Hounds, Clan Wolf (in Exile) and a ton of mercenaries companies declared independence and formed the Arc Royal Defense Cordon to protect the Lyran Alliance when its own Archon wouldn't.
** Primus Myndo Waterly of [=ComStar=] ''attempted'' to use the chaos of the Clan Invasion to take over the entire Inner Sphere. It backfired because three of the five Great Houses knew it was coming and even second line Clan units were capable of beating her forces in open combat. For her efforts Waterly [[YouWouldntShootMe got a bullet in the back of the head]] courtesy of Precentor Martial Focht.
** The Clan Invasion only occurred because a [=ComStar=] exploration vessel accidentally jumped into the territory of the fervently Crusader Smoke Jaguars. Capitalizing on the fear that the Clans would be discovered by the Inner Sphere, the Jaguars convinced the Grand Council, which had previously been about evenly split on the issue, to attack first. Only the Wolves dissented and they could not win a Trial of Refusal as the odds were set at 4 to 1 against them.
* LightningBruiser: 'Mechs themselves. While in specific situations other types of battlefield units can hold an advantage over them, in general they are better armored, swifter, more maneuverable, and more heavily armed than anything else on the battlefield, barring an even bigger 'Mech cresting the hill in front of it.
** For the Inner Sphere, the Charger is a prime example of this, being the fastest Assault 'Mech in existence. Sadly, due to being built as a scout 'Mech, the base variant carries almost no weapons at all.
** Cavalry Heavies such as the Flashman and Kuma have this as their niche. Excellent speed and maneuverability, heavy armour and enough weapons to put the hurt on anything they encounter, but tend to require vulnerable components like XL Engines in order to function.
** Clan 'Mechs tended to fit this trope better originally, due to their better technology. Then the Inner Sphere caught up...
** Among 'Mechs themselves the more advanced heavy mechs and select few assault mechs are this, one of them being the Timber Wolf[=/=]Mad Cat.
** The most triumphant example is probably the experimental Devastator MUSE EARTH, a 100-ton assault mech equipped with MASC and a Supercharger. Combined with its massive XXL Engine this allows it to achieve speeds of up to 100 kilometers per hour for short periods.
** Many heavy and assault Aerospace fighters are quite capable of engaging in dogfights with other heavy and medium weight craft as well as assaulting larger targets. Provided they avoid [[FragileSpeedster Interceptors]] that is.
** Some models of Battlearmor are this compared to ordinary infantry; they shrug off small arms fire and can survive a few hits from medium grade support and vehicular weapons, can run over 30 kilometers per hour, and a squad numbering less than half a dozen can still bring down a Mech or slaughter an entire regular infantry platoon if left unchecked.
*** Most Battle Armor infantrymen out of their suits also fit here; as the physical requirements are stiff. Most of them are over 6 feet in height and very strong but they are also quite fast; having a few hundred pounds of muscle hitting you like a freight train makes them a threat outside their suits. [[SuperSoldier Clan Elementals]] are a Clan eugenics phenotype that goes even further through breeding programs.
* LightningGun: The Particle Projection Cannon (PPC) looks like this when it fires but actually fires a supercharged stream of [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin particles]] that ''melts'' the extremely advanced armor on [=BattleMechs.=]
* LightIsNotGood:
** The [[KnightTemplar Word]] [[OmnicidalManiac Of]] [[NukeEm Blake]] uses angelic motifs and names for their exclusive aerospace fighters, omnimechs and battlearmor. They're also one of the very few unambiguously evil factions in the whole setting.
** Katherine Steiner-Davion attempts to invoke LightIsGood by wearing predominantly white clothing, but she is anything but; she is principally responsible for the dissolution of the Federated Commonwealth through murderous subterfuge (even so far as of the matricidal kind), character assassination, and general tyrannical misrule.
* LimitBreak: Triple Strength Myomers will triple a mech's melee strength and greatly increase the mech's speed, but only when the mech is running ''very'' hot. Going above or below the recommended heat will reduce the benefits. A TSM mech needs to constantly fire its weapons in a careful manner in order to maintain its heat level - but good luck doing that when your [[ATeamFiring targeting computer is malfunctioning from heat]]. A TSM boosted mech can [[OneHitKill curb-stomp]] fallen mechs and quite literally kick the legs off of lighter mechs.
* LineageComesFromTheFather: Averted. Clan warriors only have a claim to the bloodname of their genetic mother.
* LoadsAndLoadsOfRules: The basic boardgame is essentially designed to provide for reasonably colorful and detailed 'Mech-vs.-'Mech ''duels'' and does in fact do that pretty well. It increasingly slows down as the forces involved on both sides grow larger, however...and that's ''before'' you add additional unit types like "conventional" combat vehicles, infantry, or aerospace assets, all of which have their own additional special-case rules (with the last in particular being basically on their own wholly new rules ''level''), let alone go past the "standard" ruleset into the "advanced" and "experimental" optional add-on material that takes up at least two full hardcover tomes of its own (''Tactical Operations'' and ''Strategic Operations'') plus whatever updates are needed to keep up with in-universe development.
** Once all was said and done, the complete rules for ''Battletech'' take up ''six'' books: ''Total Warfare'' (the base combat rules), ''[=TechManual=]'' (construction rules), ''Tactical Operations'' (advanced technology and optional rules), ''Strategic Operations'' (rules for playing strategic-scale, batallion-to-regiment-sized battles, the very first draft of the ''Alpha Strike'' quick-play rules deputed in this book as well), ''Interstellar Operations'' (devoted to grand-strategic-level warfare at the corps, army and national level) and ''Campaign Operations'' (ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin -- rules for playing linked campaigns at any of the above play levels).
* LongRunners: Over 30 years of heavy metal mayhem for the franchise that codified western-style mecha.
* LostColony: These show up from time to time, usually because the maps of the Inner Sphere only show currently inhabited systems. Plenty of planets were rendered uninhabitable or abandoned for some reason or another over centuries of warfare.
** One of the more famous examples in New Dallas, which is actually situated right next to the Chaos March, one of the most heavily contested areas in the Inner Sphere. The planet was nuked during the Succession Wars.
** The Periphery follows a different rule; planets are only marked on the map if they have a HPG or otherwise significant connections to the rest of the universe. There may be hundreds of unmarked, inhabited worlds out there.
** Another infamous lost planet was Dunkelwaelderdunkelrfluessenschattenwelt, on the Combine's border with the Outworlds Alliance. Both citizenry and government had gotten sick and tired of their jawbreaker of a name, and voted to rename the planet simply "Bob." However, the relevant paperwork got lost in the Combine's logistics department, holding up shipments, for as far as the Draconis Combine was concerned, the planet Bob didn't exist. The state of affairs dragged on long enough for the terraforming equipment to give out, destroying the colony.
* LostTechnology: Lots of stuff from the Star League era; it is collectively known as "[=LosTech=]". Pulse lasers, LB-X Autocannons, Gauss Rifles, Jump Ships, Warships, and Extra Light reactors were all eventually rediscovered, though some technology has never been recovered, like the Star League Defense Force's adaptive body armor. Conversely, some advancements beyond Star League tech has occurred; for example, extended range lasers now cover the whole range; Small and Medium-sized lasers, instead of just large. Ultra and LBX autocannon types now cover the whole gamut of bore sizes as well, instead of just 5 and 10, respectively. The Clans, naturally, never had LostTechnology issues, and have more advanced tech in general as a result.
** And thanks to many worlds experiencing a combination of poor support in the early colonial days and the setbacks of war, most can't produce a full range of modern technologies on-planet, and imports can get pricey. There are more than a few worlds where businessmen talk on sattelite phones while riding their horses (or possibly some other alien beast) to work, and almost everyone has access to holo technology which look like high tech i-pads.
* LuckManipulationMechanic: ''[=BattleTech=]: A Time of War'' gives characters an edge attribute, which may be burned to reroll or adjust a result.
* MacGyvering: Would-be revolutionaries and other miscreants who either can't afford or lack access to proper [=BattleMechs=] will sometimes build substitutes from whatever is on hand; either by cobbling together spare parts into often barely functional "[=FrankenMechs=]" or by bolting whatever weapons they can find onto the war machines' Work-, Utility-, and/or [=IndustrialMech=] cousins.
* MacrossMissileMassacre: In various densities and ranges. The biggest ''single'' volley from a 'Mech-mounted weapon currently comes from the MRM-40. Which, yes, does mean it shoots forty missiles at a time...and it reloads in under ten seconds, too.
** Most fire-support 'Mechs are basically walking examples of this Trope waiting to happen. A couple of the more extreme examples include the ''Salamander'' and the ''Yeoman''.
** Rocket launchers rate a special mention. Yes, they're one-shot, they fire only unguided rockets with no fancy special ammo options, and their salvo sizes 'only' range from ten to twenty; but they're lightweight enough that it's easy to carry a ''bunch'' of them on a suitably dedicated unit, which can then potentially fire them all off ''at once''.
** Medium-Range Missiles can come in truly enormous launcher sizes. They're not quite as accurate as [=LRMs=], but moreso than Rockets.
** In general, carrying two or more LRM launchers in the 10, 15, or 20 rack is a great way to wreck someone's face from across the map, and carrying three or more SRM launchers in the 4 or 6 rack is great way to make them pay for getting close. Multiple designs and variants of 'Mechs focus on rack upon rack of missiles in various sizes. One of the more notable is the ''Summoner B'' configuration, carrying two [=LRM20=]s and two [=SRM4=]s (and a NARC missile beacon) letting it loose 48 missiles at a time at the right distance.
* MadeOfExplodium: Ammunition, while capable of reducing a 'Mech to scrap if a reasonably full bin is hit, arguably doesn't count because it's ''supposed'' to explode or burn in the right circumstances, either to project the projectile, or to damage the target. However, the game features non-ammo explosive components as well, most famously every model of the Gauss rifle.
** There are optional (as well as physically impossible in-universe) rules for the Fusion reactor that powers the 'mechs, allowing them to explode messily when damaged, which is often easier than the amount of armor would indicate. The rules explicitly call out that such explosions would be [[ANuclearError impossible both in universe and in real life by the way fusion reactors normally work]] and that they wrote the entry solely for RuleOfCool (even all but saying "this is not how this works, but hey, who doesn't like to see StuffBlowingUp?").
** Game rules have combustion-powered [=VTOL=] vehicles like helicopters explode spectacularly if they're destroyed in a crash - which many of them are. Officially, it's because they use more volatile fuels than other combat vehicles.
* MagneticWeapons: The iconic Gauss rifle and its descendants -- the only weapons in the game where the ammunition is inert but the ''gun'' explodes if hit. The classic model, dating all the way back to the glory days of the Star League, is highly lethal to any armored target on the battlefield over long distances (especially enemy 'Mechs, whose head it can remove in one shot regardless of how heavily the rest may be armored) and remains the standard against which the generally more specialized rest of the family is measured.
* TheMagnificentSevenSamurai: The Grey Death Legion mercenaries performed this way, especially in their early years. They started as an ad hoc militia unit that was thrown together by their founder Greyson Death Carlyle in order to defend the planet from attacking raiders. They did the same thing on a few other planets during their early years, then more or less evolved out of the trope as they recruited more people and became a larger, more powerful force.
* MamaBear: The aptly named Clan Ghost Bear (the actual animal is also known to display this type of behavior) is fiercely protective of its civilian castes, as well as the citizens of Rasalhague, whom they consider distant kin. When the Word of Blake decided to drop neutron bombs on a few of their cities and introduced a virus that killed hundreds of thousands, they dumped the usual Clan [[HonorBeforeReason restrictions]] on mass battles and orbital bombardment. They proceeded to savage several elite Word units and almost single handily turned the Combine front of the Jihad around.
* MeaningfulName: As is to be expected with military vehicles.
** Consider 'Mechs such as the ''Catapult'', ''Trebuchet'', ''Longbow'', and ''Archer''. All names with implications of arrows and projectiles flung at quite a range. It should probably come as little surprise these designs focus on long range missile barrages as their primary offensive tactic.
** Quite a few other 'Mechs fall into this by virtue of resembling their namesake. The ''Raven'' is the most obvious candidate, being the most avian of the reverse-joint 'Mechs, but you can make a good argument for designs like the ''Shrike'', the ''Fire Scorpion'', and the ''[[BearsAreBadNews Kodiak]]''.
** 3 guesses what the [[MightyGlacier Atlas]] is.
** The ''[=JagerMech=]'', built as a replacement to the ''Rifleman'' mech, is a walking AA turret/long range fire support mounting a variety of Autocannons. Now consider that Jager (or alternatively, Jäger) is the Dutch/German word for "Hunter", that means the name can be translated as "Hunting/Hunter Mech" or "Mech Hunter/Hunter of Mechs".
** Clan Ghost Bear, whose name [[BearsAreBadNews symbolizes]] [[MamaBear three]] [[TheBerserker things]].
*** [[InvokedTrope Invoked]] with the Clans generally, as they were named after animals whose qualities they seek to emulate.
** For conventional vehicles, the Demolisher epitomizes what [[TankGoodness tanks]] [[{{BFG}} should]] [[TheDreaded be]].
** For a rather different sort of meaning, the Clans like to give 'Mechs names intended as insults to particularly hated foes.
*** Smoke Jaguar named their Heavy 'Mech designed to be a slightly less powerful but much more affordable version of Clan Wolf's iconic ''Timber Wolf'' as the ''Mad Dog'' for no reason other than to mock the Wolves beloved NationalWeapon.
*** After improving upon Star Adder's own ''Adder'' chassis as the basis for their new fire support Light 'Mech, Jade Falcon spitefully chose to base the new designs name upon its Spheroid ReportingName of ''Puma'' rather than its proper Clan name, giving us the ''Cougar''.
* MeaningfulRename: Clan trueborns fight Trials to earn the right to use the surname of the Founding warrior they are matrilineally related to. This is a great honor, allows a warrior to serve in combat until they are unable (most warriors end up in rear line units by the age of 35) to, grants one a vote and a voice in the Clan Council, and, most importantly, ensures that your genes will be passed on in the form of new warriors.
* MechaEnablingPhlebotinum : Myomer makes up for a lot of the mechanical issues of anthropomorphic giant robots, but it still has issues with overheating. [[BrainComputerInterface Neurohelmets]] allow a 'mech's motion control software use the pilot's own proprioception to determine intent of the mech's state of balance, and project information into the pilot's own kinesthetic senses to aid in such determinations.
* MedievalStasis: Though technology has been advancing throughout the setting, progression was relatively slow, thanks to the constant periods of war and civil strife in the Inner Sphere impacting production and technological advancement. The Age of War, the Amaris Civil War, and the Wars of Succession were so brutally destructive (even with the Ares Conventions) that many highly advanced technologies and the know-how to make them were lost, and the Inner Sphere is still using 'Mech designs and even 'Mechs themselves from hundreds of years previously. The main reason why the Clans had such a leg up in their weaponry was because the infighting between Clans was very rigidly controlled to minimize damage. Intact SLDF tech and 'Mech caches were considered priceless treasure troves prior to the Clan invasions.
* MegaCorp: Plenty of these exist in the Inner Sphere and are especially strong in the Lyran Commonwealth, where the aristocracy is largely comprised of successful executives. [=ComStar=] pretended to be one of these but due to their control of the HPG network and their significant political influence and aspirations they were better described as an NGOSuperpower with corporate and mystical trappings. Eventually the Word of Blake stopped pretending when they started ruling worlds directly.
* MightyGlacier:
** The 80-100 ton Assault class of mechs, designed to deal and take massive amounts of punishment, but except for the few exceptions they are the slowest assets on the battlefield. The [[spoiler:150 ton Word of Blake Omega]] takes it to CripplingOverspecialization levels.
** The infamous Urbanmech is an interesting example. It's a light mech but is armed with a powerful autocannon and enough armor to rival most medium mechs. However, putting all that on a weak light mech engine makes it one of the slowest mechs in the game. Yes, even slower than the Atlas.
* MiniMecha: Protomechs, which were designed to fill the gap between battlearmor and light Mechs. They stand at about half the height of the shortest mech and massing at just a tenth of a battlemech they were intended to allow the resource starved Smoke Jaguars to deploy a lot of firepower in smaller packages.
* MisplacedRetribution: During the Jihad the Word of Blake's regular armies and its elite Shadow Divisions committed brutal actions against almost every faction in human space, understandably resulting in equally brutal acts by their opponents once the Word went on the defensive. However this also extended to the [=WoB=] Protectorate Militia, purely defensive formations that were not involved in a decade of nerve gas strikes, saturation nuclear attacks and populations being wiped out by biological weapons. Many found themselves faced with premier mercenary commands, elite House regiments and front line Clan clusters and were shown no mercy as the Word's enemies took the opportunity to get some payback for the horrors of the Jihad.
* MistreatmentInducedBetrayal: Nova Cats' alliance with the Draconis Combine was not that stable to begin with, and after the Second Combine-Dominion War the former were painted as the scapegoats of the war on top of the increased anti-Clan sentiments, resulting in their doomed rebellion decades later.
* MoralEventHorizon: Happens in-universe when the Word of Blake starts using [=WMDs=] indiscriminately on civilian populations. This is considered such a heinous act that ''every other faction'' in the Inner Sphere [[EnemyMine unite]] and [[BatmanGrabsAGun ignore the Honours]] in order to nuke them into oblivion.
** If the events that gave them their name, not to mention being at the forefront of operations during the Amaris Coup wasn't the Greenhaven Gestapo crossing this, then sacking the Vatican, executing the Pope and several hundred monks, along with [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking graffitiing the Sistine Chapel]] certainly was.
* MoreDakka: The [[GatlingGood Rotary Autocannons]] fall under this, but a few mechs also mount enough normal machine guns to turn normal infantry into puree, like the [[http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Piranha base version of the Piranha]] Mech which has 12 of them.
** The original poster child for More Dakka was the Ultra Autocannon class of weapons, which would literally double their rate of fire (and go through ammo twice as fast). This meant that an Ultra AC 20 would spit out 40 damage in a single turn... The Hunchback IIC was therefore the poster boy for this trope, as it could ostensibly deal nearly 100(!) points of damage in a game where the average ton of armor had 16.
*** Three Words: [[GatlingGood Bear Hunter]] [[AwesomeButImpractical SuperHeavy]] [[ATeamFiring Autocannon]]. A Clan Hell's Horses invention ([[ArchEnemy hence the name "Bearhunter"]]), it was designed to provide conventional infantry with. . . well, precisely this trope. Clan Hell's Horses being not only the only Clan who recognizes the value of conventional vehicles and infantry in a setting otherwise dominated by HumongousMecha and PoweredArmor but having a massive hate-on for Clan Ghost Bear, the Bearhunter is a [[{{BFG}} massive]] [[GatlingGood gatling]] autocannon. Ironically, the failed attacks by Clan Hell's Horses against Clan Ghost Bear would see the weapon fall into the hands of the very people it had been designed to splatter across the landscape.
** Several assault 'Mechs get in on this by carrying multiple autocannons. Examples include the ''Annihilator'' with its quadruple LBX guns, the ''Jagermech'' and its dual double barreled autocannon arms, and some variants of the ''Dire Wolf'', which carried what can only be described as a shoulder mounted AA gun.
* MortonsFork: The Mercenaries are stuck in this situation in the Dark Age era, where wars are a lot more Status Quo breaking compared to the pre-Jihad eras. The losing sides lose so comprehensively that expecting any kind of payment is a fool's erand, while the winning sides win so overwhelmingly that they will have no use for mercs after the contracts expire, and there are no more "safe" low-level skirmish[=/=]garrison contracts for downtime jobs. And this is on top of their weakened post-Jihad positions, no reliable and recognized merc arbitration authority like Outreach, and the devaluation of the Merc favorite [[GlobalCurrency C-Bill]].
* MotionCaptureMecha: Partially. The pilot's neurohelmet reads his instinctive motor implulses and uses those to coordinate simple details like balance, foot placement, and arm movements. Four-legged 'Mechs are less agile because a human doesn't naturally "think" like a crawler, and a 'Mech operating without the helmet is every bit the clumsy, lumbering giant that it appears.
** Mechs with hands may have waldoes in the cockpit that the pilot inserts his meaty arm into to control the giant mech arm with, for use in situations requiring delicate work that the computer will probably botch up.
** [[PoweredArmor Elementals]] use hand signs to trigger their weapons - folding their ring finger and pinky, and laying their thumb over it to fire their arm mounted laser.
* MultiEthnicName: Extremely common among named characters of TheVerse as a result of over a thousand years of star colonization wiping away real-world races and racial prejudices. In one ShortStory, a green-eyed redhead goes undercover as "Rabbi Martinez", apparently considered a completely unremarkable combination of traits.
* MultinationalTeam: [=ComStar=] and the Word of Blake are generally staffed by individuals who are adopted from other factions rather than born into the orders; all the better to use them as spies and sleeper agents. More mobile mercenary groups tend to pick up recruits as they travel, [[DefeatMeansFriendship often from enemy defectors or prisoners,]] resulting in this trope once the command becomes established. The armies of the Republic of the Sphere are from the forces of Inner Sphere houses. And going back some further, the Star League Defense Forces were made up not only of warriors from the late Terran Hegemony, but from the other Great Houses, as well.
* MultipleChoicePast: The official explanation for any contradictions in the Franchise/BattleTechExpandedUniverse - [=ComStar=] deliberately altering or hiding historical records.
* MundaneUtility: The [=BattleMechs=]. Mechs equipped with hands are very effective for light construction and combat engineering, high-power 6 ton lasers can be toned down for welding, Long ranged missiles are used like dynamite. Then ten seconds later they can pick up and crush a car, slice another [=BattleMech's=] torso in half with said high power laser, and user the [=LRMs=] to shower an area with a minefield.
* MyCountryRightOrWrong: Vlad may have vehemently opposed Ulric Kerensky's politics, but the man was still his ''Khan''. He would not let such underhanded treachery perpetrated by the Jade Falcon saKhan Vandervahn Chistu that killed Ulric go unanswered. He eventually killed Khan Elias Crichell too.
* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: Pretty much said word for word, complete with TearsOfRemorse, by Khan Lincoln Osis of the Smoke Jaguars after he realizes that the Crusader ideology was only harming the Inner Sphere. He immediately commits [[SuicideByCop Suicide by First Prince.]]
** The entire Draconis Combine Mustered Soldiery was hit by this after the Kentares Massacre; where they put 50 million civilians to death with katanas or small arms. Many of them [[DrivenToSuicide committed Seppeku]] or were demoralized to the point that they could not fight effectively. This, combined with the fact that the Federated Suns was [[AwakeningTheSleepingGiant out for revenge]], cost the Combine the First Succession War when it had previously been on the verge of actually winning it.
* NamedAfterSomebodyFamous: [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Kerensky Aleksandr Kerensky]]?
** The Kerensky in [=BattleTech=] is supposed to be one of the real Kerensky's descendants. Real-life ancestors to the setting's fictional characters are [[http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Takeo_Kurita quite]] [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Cameron_%28Covenanter%29 common]].
** Also, apparently a [[http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Jeremy_Brett Marshall in the Free Worlds League Military]] once played [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Brett Sherlock Homes in the UK for ITV.]] Probably not deliberately, though.
* NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: Several 'Mechs and vehicles will have these, frequently overlapping with MeaningfulName:
** For 'Mechs, we have examples like ''Battlemaster'', ''Marauder'', and ''Daishi'' (meaning "Great Death," the ReportingName for the Clan 100-ton ''Dire Wolf''). Speaking of the Clans, they have examples in the ''Nova'' (a medium 'Mech mounting a stupid array of medium lasers) and its bigger, meaner cousin with a prison record, the ''Supernova''.
** Among vehicles, we have things like the [[{{BFG}} Demolisher]]. If you know your BT weapons, the [[MacrossMissileMassacre LRM and SRM Carriers]] and [[ShockAndAwe Schreck PPC Carrier]] are this, too. The old SLDF mainstay tank, the Alacorn, with its [[TheresNoKillLikeOverkill trio]] of [[MagneticWeapons gauss rifles]] is enough to soil the pants of even assault 'mech pilots once it had its resurgence.
* NemeanSkinning: Clan Ghost Bear's Clawing Ritual.
** Also done by Bloodnamed warriors of Clan Jade Falcon - within a year of winning his bloodname, the warrior must capture and kill a full-grown jade falcon by himself and make a cape using the feathers of his kill.
* NeverMessWithGranny: Natasha Kerensky is ''ancient'' by the standards of the Clans and well into her 70's even as far as the Inner Sphere is concerned (excellent medical technology that makes her [[OlderThanTheyLook older than she looks]] notwithstanding). She is still far and away the absolute last person you want to get into a 'Mech fight with. She isn't called the [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Black Widow]] for nothin'.
* NiceJobBreakingItHero: The Ares Conventions, while fulfilling their objectives of protecting civilians and entire planets from the horrors of scorched earth warfare, effectively legalized warfare when it came to resolving diplomatic disputes. Combat became sufficiently sterile (to the average citizen and ruler, soldiers in this period were honored, few in number, and relatively safe so they didn't mind either) that ForeverWar wasn't that bad of a prospect. And since every power has accepted constant conflict things got ''really'' ugly when this situation kept going after the positive aspects of the Conventions, such as the restrictions on attacking key technology or using weapons of mass destruction, fell out of practice and the constant warfare evolved into the near apocalyptic Succession Wars.
* NiceJobFixingItVillain: The Clans invaded the Inner Sphere to try and establish a second Star League by force. The Inner Sphere's strategy to stop the invasion once and for all? Establish a second Star League and eliminate an entire Clan by force.
* NoKnees: Some early mech designs had legs that would be flat-out impossible to control due to tiny ranges of motion on knees, or in the case of the Stalker assault mech, [[http://www.sarna.net/wiki/images/5/5f/3025_Stalker1.jpg crazy bendy-legs that bend in both directions]]
* NonindicativeName: Some names just plain don't give any indication what the Mech is meant for, the Stalker is a mech meant for charging the enemy headlong while firing any guns in it's optimal range, the Hauptmann is a standard combat Mech with no command capability.
* NostalgiaFilter: Both the Clans and the Great Houses view the Star League as the height of human civilization, despite the many conflicts that were simmering just under the surface. Comes with a hefty dose of WrittenByTheWinners as well - having been on the receiving end of the Star League's attempts to unite all of humanity under its banner (read: numerous wars of conquest) the peoples of the various Periphery states do ''not'' remember the Star League with any sort of fondness.
** Then again, the Great Houses weren’t trading WMDs like Halloween candy when the Star League maintained its fragile peace, so it all depends on whether it was all worth the price in rampant imperialism.
* NoSuchThingAsAlienPopCulture: While there are no aliens as such, the Clans as the next best thing play this straight enough that being 'infiltrated' by ''Inner Sphere'' pop culture is actually something of a concern for them.
* NotTheIntendedUse:
** Clan Hell's Horses scientists realized that the complex gyros on [=OmniMechs=], designed to adapt to their variable equipment loads, would make them perfect for transporting the recently-developed [[PoweredArmor Battle Armor]] infantry units. Nowadays, handholds, power outlets, and communications ports are a mainstay on any Omni.
** Inner Sphere "Re-Engineered" Lasers were an attempt to combine a Clan Heavy Laser with a Pulse Laser. They failed at that, but the result still had a surprising use: the twin beams fired were capable of [[ArmorPiercingAttack punching through heavier armor with ease]]: in game terms, this allows them to ignore the damage reduction that would normally apply from certain types of armor.
* NoTrueScotsman: The Wars of Reaving were basically this in a nutshell. All the "home clans", those that didn't qualify for the original Clan Invasion in the 3050s, declared that the invader clans were "tainted" by contact with the Inner Sphere. As a result, the Wars of Reaving happened, where the Invader Clans' assets still in the Kerensky Cluster were savaged. Meanwhile, the Invader Clans themselves were too busy fighting in the Jihad, dealing with a monster that made Stefan Amaris look like a mere schoolyard bully in comparison. The "Home Clans" eventually beat each other bloody and cut off from the Inner Sphere, and the Invader Clans all followed Clan Ghost Bear's example by moving wholesale to the Inner Sphere, forming their own separate Clan social structure, some of them hybridizing their societies with their new Inner Sphere neighborhood.
* NotSoDifferentRemark: In the Clans sourcebook, framed as a document written by Phelan Kell, he notes that the Clan propaganda cartoon "The Adventures of Clan Spaniel" is quite similar to such shows in the Inner Sphere (i.e. the in-universe version of [[WesternAnimation/BattleTech the cartoon]]).
* NuclearOption: The ''only'' accepted use of nuclear weapons under limited warfare is the killing of Warships, which tend to be MadeOfIron. Even the Ares Conventions inserted a caveat allowing atomic detonations tens thousands of kilometers above the surface of populated worlds for this reason.
* NuclearWeaponsTaboo: In-universe. The massive indiscriminate slaughter of civilians from nuclear bombardment from orbit during the Succession Wars caused ''all'' the Successor States to stop using nukes and bombardment entirely. Until the Word of Blake showed up and started killing everything with nukes and bioweapons, that is.
** Breaking the WMD taboo tends to get you killed as the other factions stop fighting amongst themselves to eliminate the more serious threat. The most clear examples being Clan Smoke Jaguar, who were destroyed by a reformed Star League and abandoned to their fate by their fellow Clans after the bombardment of Turtle Bay, and the Word of Blake, who were destroyed by the rest of the human species after they got too nuke happy. The Taurian Concordat (historically the most WMD happy faction in the setting) was absolutely gutted in the post-Jihad era for using nukes against the Inner Sphere while aligned with the Blakists. Part of this was caused by Spheroid retaliation but most of it was due to a large number of Taurian worlds breaking off and forming their own state to escape the insanity.
* NuclearTorchRocket: Jumpships use fusion rockets to move to and from a star system's Jump Point, and use a solar sail to keep them stationary in-orbit until the jump-drive fires.
* ObfuscatingInsanity: Sun-Tzu Liao was a master of this before his mother's death. He painted himself as just as bat-guano as his mother and maternal grandfather, making his hidden machinations all the more effective. He's a {{Sociopath}}, to be sure, but he is far more lucid than either of his two most recent predecessors as Chancellor of the Capellan Confederation.
* ObstructiveCodeOfConduct: The Ares Conventions. Along with reasonable restrictions (captive abuse, no detonating nuclear weapons on populated worlds, no chemical weapons, avoid urban damage) it also included things like ''timeouts'' for refueling and rearming and armies often surrendered simply because they were "checkmated". War was turned into such a gentleman's game that the Age of War (which lasted over a century) killed far less people than the 20 year Reunification War and the 2 year Fourth Succession War.
** The Clans' ''Zellbrigen'' dueling rules and the Inner Sphere's informal pact of limited warfare subvert this. While you are not allowed to unleash all the weapons and force at your disposal these (as proven by the Pentagon Civil War and the First and Second Succession Wars) restrictions are necessary to prevent the end of space faring civilization.
* OddFriendship:
** The [[SpaceAmish Outworlds Alliance]] and [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy Clan Snow Raven]] formed an alliance and eventually merged outright. The only things they have in common are a focus on space combat and some serious issues with the Draconis Combine. The Ravens consider the Alliance to be backwards barbarians and the Alliance thinks the Clanners are insane but the Outworld's need for defense and the Ravens' [[spoiler:need for a home after they were expelled from the homeworlds and lost a large portion of their population during the Wars of Reaving]] cemented the partnership. By the Dark Age the Raven Alliance is relatively functional, with the Ravens defending the realm and allowed to keep their warrior traditions and the Outworlders free to control their own affairs.
** The Free Rashalhague Republic was largely swallowed by the Clan Invasion, mostly by Clan Ghost Bear, which later became the champion of the Warden cause in the wake of the War of Refusal that sundered Clan Wolf. Clan Ghost Bear eventually moved the entire clan almost wholesale from the faraway Clan worlds to their Inner Sphere holdings. Due to somewhat similar cultures, the former Rashalhague citizens and the Ghost Bear citizens merged quite well, and the nation eventually became the Rashahlague Dominion. It was cemented by the elevation of the son of Haakon Magnusson (the first Elected Prince of Rashalhague) to a bloodnamed warrior in Clan Ghost Bear and creation of the Magnusson bloodname.
** The [[GratuitousSpanish Escórpion Imperio]], formed by the fusion of [[AdventurerArchaeologist Clan Goliath Scorpion]] and the two Deep Periphery states of Nueva Castile and the Umayyad Caliphate. They specifically followed a method of integration based off of the Ghost Bear-Rasalhague method due to its success, and were eventually able to conquer the Hanseatic League, leaving them as by far the most powerful Deep Periphery state (then removing the {{Gratuitous Spanish}} from their name to become the Scorpion Empire).
* OhCrap: From the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CWr3ZUQJeo trailer for an unused version of a game]]: "My God!" "New target, designation Atlas." Any surprise Assault 'Mech is likely to elicit this reaction, as are a few Assault-weight vehicles. The rules include the ability for some units to deploy hidden to invoke this effect upon your enemies.
* OldMaster: Pretty much a standard of the setting. The constant and often brutal warfare of the Inner Sphere creates veterans who've survived protracted conflict in hellish conditions, while the Clan emphasis on physical ideals forces warriors over the age of thirty to work harder than ever to retain their status. In either case, anyone past middle age who still pilots a 'mech into battle is almost guaranteed to humiliate any fresh-faced young upstarts they happen across. Natasha Kerensky, the "[[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Black Widow]]" was still whupping upstarts well into her eighties.
** This trope was [[InvokedTrope invoked]] by the newly-formed [[GratuitousSpanish Escórpion Imperio]] when they created the reKhan position, allowing [[OldSoldier solahma]] warriors to serve in an advisory role to their main military forces.
* OlderIsBetter: Those old mechs who cannot be built anymore are treasured over weaker, more recent models.
** Recent sourcebooks have created new weapons (i.e. plasma weapons) and technology (i.e. compact engines) which simply did not exist during the Star League era (previously the sole source of advanced equipment). So the while the trope applied during the greater portion of the Succession Wars, it starts to become subverted during the Fed Com Civil War and Jihad eras.
* OldSchoolDogfight: Aerospace fighters behave this way when fighting in atmospheres, and normally are [[SpaceIsAir the same way in space]]. [[SubvertedTrope However]], ''[=AeroTech=]'' includes a set of advanced movement rules that allow for more realistic combat in a vacuum, among other things.
* OldSoldier: There are examples of truly exceptional [=MechWarriors=] remaining active well into their 80's.
* OnceDoneNeverForgotten: A downplayed example with the Word of Blake during the Jihad. Their reputation for flinging the nukes got started by a completely unrelated accident during their attack on Tharkad. A nuclear power plant had exploded due to some damage and went up, and the Lyran forces mistook it for an actual nuclear weapon. The [=WoBblies=] ended up living down to it, however.
* OneHitKill: Nearly every unit is in danger of these in some way. Vehicles have these as one of their serious disadvantages; 'Mechs are more resilient and harder to destroy in one hit. 'Mechs themselves can be removed from combat in one shot through blowing off their heads; even the largest mech is limited in how much armor can go on the head (nine points, specifically, combined with three internal structure for the head, and it can take no more than twelve damage before being destroyed), which leaves the cockpit vulnerable. Weapons that can reliably focus more damage in a single hit location than the heads can absorb get the epithet "headchoppers". After all, 20 damage on an Atlas's chest is almost laughable, but 20 damage on it's head has instantly removed a terrifying opponent from combat.
** Then there's a type of CriticalHit commonly called the "through-armor critical", which is ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin - each hit, no matter how minor, has at least a small chance of getting lucky on the hit location table and being allowed to check for critical hits to the location struck even if the latter still has plenty of armor points remaining. (Under the stock tournament rules, this can only affect torso locations on 'Mechs, but there's a popular optional "floating critical" rule that allows this kind of hit to land ''anywhere'' -- including the head.) When you score a critical hit, either through-armor or regularly, you get to roll on a table that might let you score between zero and three critical hits, rolling for each one which slot in the location the crit hits. This ''can'' potentially result in an otherwise-intact [=BattleMech=] getting its first hit from a small-caliber weapon like an [=AC/2=] (the canonical "[[CherryTapping golden BB]]" example due to its combination of low damage and long range), having it turn out to be a [=TAC=] to the center torso, and get its engine or gyro shot out before the fight has even properly started; the chance of all factors aligning just right for this to happen is very, very small, but it's there. (It should be plainly obvious [[CriticalExistenceFailure what happens]] if a lucky TAC actually manages to hit a proper ''ammo bin''...)
* OneSteveLimit: Averted. In the fiction, there are many common first names that pop up again and again.
** A notable example is Morgan Kell and Morgan Hassek-Davion. Both have similar physiques and appearances (Kell has dark hair while Hassek-Davion has red hair, but both wear it long), both are older warriors during the time of the Clan Invasion, both are powerful and influential leaders (Morgan Kell of the Kell Hounds mercenary unit, Morgan Hassek-Davion the Marshall of Armies for the Federated Commonwealth), both are on the same side (The Kells have historically been fanatically loyal to House Steiner, despite being mercenaries, Morgan Hassek-Davion is personally loyal to Hanse Davion, who's married to Melissa Steiner, and transfers that loyalty to their son Victor), and they tend to crop up in stories together. A character simply talking about "Morgan" may cause the reader to pause while they figure out ''which'' "Morgan".
** Generally played straight with 'Mech ReportingNames, which are rarely recycled for use with newer designs. In cases where a new design is a direct development of an existing one, Roman numerals are typically used to distinguish them, occasionally with a "C" suffix to denote a 'Mech redesigned with Clan technology. "Super-(name of 'Mech)" is also occasionally used.
** Purposefully averted by Katherine Steiner-Davion, who began calling herself "Katrina Steiner" specifically to invoke memories of her universally beloved grandmother.
* OneWorldOrder: Averted. One World Order arose on Earth, then expanded, then the space colonies rebelled. It was repeated with the Star League, but that fell apart too.
* OnlySaneMan: The United Hindu Collective, a minor state that peacefully merged with the Federated Suns during the Age of War, was the only nation to point out that the Ares Conventions would effectively legalize warfare.
** During the Reunification War, when the rest of the Inner Sphere got very brutal in their attempts to force the Periphery into the Star League, the Free Worlds League was the only power to obey the Ares Conventions (despite Ian Cameron having rescinded them) during the conflict. This is the primary reason why the Magistracy of Canopus, the state conquered by the League, has positive relations with the Inner Sphere compared to the centuries long legacy of hatred and mistrust you find in the Concordat and Outworlds.
** Andrey Kerensky was pretty much TheConscience to his [[DarkMessiah brother]] and kept Nicholas in check while the Clans were being formed. When he was killed his brother had no restraint and his more radical and brutal ideals came into force.
* OperationBlank: Between the emphasis on warfare and the sheer length of history in the [=BattleTech=] universe, these pop up frequently. Some particularly notable ones:
** Operation EXODUS - the mass [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin exodus]] of SLDF units from the Inner Sphere after the Amaris Civil War.
** Operation KLONDIKE - the retaking of the Pentagon Worlds by the newly formed Clans.
** Operation SWITCHBACK - the mass evacuation of Clan Wolverine from Clan Space and (planned) return to the Inner Sphere.
** Operation REVIVAL - the Clan invasion of the Inner Sphere.
** Operation BIRD DOG - guerrilla campaigns/armed reconnaissance on Clan Smoke Jaguar worlds in the Inner Sphere, in preparation for...
** Operation BULLDOG - the retaking of all Smoke Jaguar worlds in the Inner Sphere.
** Task Force Serpent - the follow-up to Operation BULLDOG to eradicate Clan Smoke Jaguar in Clan Homeworlds space in the deep periphery.
* OutgrownSuchSillySuperstitions: Completely averted. All of the major religions have survived and thrived throughout human space and many new branches and faiths have popped up over the centuries.
* {{Overheating}}: Of equal threat to a player's forces as the enemy is the perennial problem of heat. Weapons generate heat, which is dissipated by heat-sinks. If you fire faster than your heat sinks can remove the heat, your 'Mech first slows down, then the accuracy of your weapon attacks suffers, then the reactor tries to shut down barring the pilot managing to override the safeties, and at the extreme end there's a real risk of any explosive ammo you may be carrying starting to cook off, or the pilot dying within seconds to heat exposure since the life support systems can't keep up. For extra fun, some weapons that can help raise a 'Mech's heat level ''from outside'' also exist...
** Just see KillItWithFire for examples of weapons that artificially increase a mech's heat level.
[[/folder]]

BattleTech/Tropes0ToF

[[folder:0-F]]
* TwoDSpace: Every space map in the game is two-dimensional, even the maps of the Inner ''Sphere''.
* TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture: One of the earliest events of the Battletech universe was the creation of the first fusion reactor in the then-distant year of 2018.
* AbnormalAmmo:
** Needle pistols, which blast out needle shaped shards of plastic. Plasma Rifles seem to operate on this too, as they fire out clouds of what used to be plastic blocks, that have been lased and converted into a superheated plasma state. Infantry can also use a Gyrojet rifle, which fires self-propelled rocket bullets rather than using gunpowder.[[note]]Gyrojet rifles and pistols actually exist, dating from the sixties, and this is indeed their operating principle. Unfortunately a tiny spin-stabilized rocket, while inherently cool, is a much more complicated and expensive thing to manufacture than an ordinary powder-and-primer cartridge, which along with reliability problems doomed the Gyrojet line to languish in the prototype stage despite initial interest from the US Army. The few remaining examples are mainly of interest to collectors, especially since no one is still making Gyrojet ammunition and what remains of it almost certainly can't be fired.[[/note]]
** There are missiles which deploy minefields, and artillery shells that launch radio and radar jammers. Some missiles can use Inferno rounds, which is basically napalm on crack.
** Another special mention goes to the Fluid Gun, which, as the name suggests, can be adapted to spray a variety of fluids, including water, oil, coolant, Inferno gel, and acid.
** [=BattleMech=] flamers vent the 'Mech's reactor plasma onto the target. Jump jets use it to propel the 'Mech through the air. [[WeaponizedExhaust A jump is one of the time-tested methods of clearing off infantry making a swarm attack, by crisping them.]]
** Gauss Rifles are abnormal in the context of 'Mech weaponry: whereas missile and autocannon ammunition has a chance to explode violently (and usually lethally) if struck by an attack, Gauss Rifle ammunition, being inert ferrous slugs, will just break, with no other effects. [[MadeOfExplodium If the Gauss Rifle itself is hit, however, it will explode with enough force to destroy the armor or torso location where it is mounted.]]
* AbnormalLimbRotationRange: Some 'Mech designs can rotate their arms 180 degrees to aim at targets directly behind them. By the construction rules, this is enabled by designing the 'Mech without any hand and lower arm actuators at all (they formally keep their shoulders and upper arms); since on [=OmniMechs=] these same actuators happen to be merely pod-mounted and can be left off at leisure, in principle any Omni that doesn't explicitly put them back ''on'' can do this by default.
** The [=UM-R60=] [=UrbanMech=] is unique in that it can turn its torso 180 degrees, allowing it to attack while moving in any direction (which is extremely helpful in the urban environments the [=UrbanMech=] is designed to fight in).
* AbsentAliens: Humanity has spread to many different planets, and there are no other sapient species out there. Subverted in that there ''are'' alien creatures living on other planets, but they're all more or less the equivalent of wild animals, and humans interact with them as such.
** The only exception is the stone age-like Tetatae from ''Far Country''. However that novel was not well received by most of the fandom; the official stance is that the novel is canon but takes place in an effectively unreachable part of the universe.
* AceCustom: Encouraged by the construction rules and supported by the fiction. Even with scores of distinct "stock" 'Mech designs rolling off the factory lines in usually a number of variants already, individual [=MechWarriors=] still show up in customized personal rides time and again. Possibly the earliest example in the novels (and certainly still one of the iconic ones) is Justin Allard's ''Yen-Lo-Wang'', a ''Centurion'' modified to replace its autocannon and long-range missile rack with a shorter-ranged but ''far'' more powerful autocannon specifically for arena combat. After his son Kai inherited it, it was again customized with a gauss rifle replacing the autocannon.
** [=OmniMechs=] are specifically designed for customization with a set amount of payload mass and internal space for loadouts using special modular equipment easily interchangeable with any other [=OmniMech=]'s payload, as well as a specialized gyrostabilizer design that allows for automatic recalibration within the parameters of the allocated pod mass and space. Standard [=BattleMech=] gyros take technical skill to manually recalibrate like that, and [=OmniMech=] gyros also need such manual recalibration if the base mass distribution is altered.
* ActionGirl: A LOT of them throughout the setting; unsurprising given that mechanized warfare is king, although many women are quite formidable even without; a standout is female Clan Elementals, who due to the Clans' genetic engineering and breeding programs are just as much hulking masses of PoweredArmor-combat-optimized muscle as their male counterparts
* ActuallyFourMooks: [[PoweredArmor Battlearmor]] come in squads of four (or five, for the Clanners). Infantry come in even bigger sizes. Some miniatures portray the correct amount of infantry/powered armor, [[ActuallyFourMooks some don't]].
* AdaptationAmalgamation: [[https://store.catalystgamelabs.com/products/battlerun-best-ever-eighth-world-sourcebook-adventure-pdf [=BattleRun=]: Best Ever!]], an AprilFools crossover adventure where [=BattleTech=] is set in the future of the TabletopGame/{{Shadowrun}} universe. AprilFools 2020 brought a sequel, [[https://store.catalystgamelabs.com/products/battlerun-ii-the-quest-for-the-thing [=BattleRun=] 2: The Quest For The Thing]].
* AdventureArchaeologist: [=LosTech=] prospectors and Clan Goliath Scorpion's Seekers. Also Snord's Irregulars, who were spun off from Wolf's Dragoons to be this trope explicitly.
* AerithAndBob: With all the cross-cultural influences going on, it's not too unusual (Takashi Kurita and his son Theodore being probably the best-known example). A few truly peculiar names do stand out, however, like Grayson Death Carlyle[[note]](pronounced "deeth")[[/note]] and Photon Brett-Marik.
* AfterTheEnd: Downplayed, but the devastation caused by the fall of the Star League and the resulting Succession Wars leans ''heavily'' into the post-apocalyptic genre, especially during the First and Second Succession Wars (before WMD usage was ended by all factions by tacit agreement). Until the reintroduction of Lostech following the Clan Invasion, most, if not all mechs in the setting were ''centuries'' old, maintained and kept running because they couldn't be replaced. Several advanced technologies necessary for the continuance of life on colonies (terraforming tech, [=JumpShips=], etc) were lost, resulting in colonies dying out, the remaining [=JumpShips=] being emphatically off-limits as targets, and so on. Mechwarriors placed (and still place) a high emphasis on salvage from their battles, sometimes even more than monetary gain, because even ''broken'' equipment was more valuable than other spoils of war. The only reason that the post-apocalypse genre is not more emphasized is because, from the outbreak of the First Succession War to the Jihad (c. 2786 - 3081, or a period of ''three hundred years''), the apocalypse '''[[PunctuatedForEmphasis keeps. Freaking. Happening.]]'''
* AirborneAircraftCarrier: The Cloud Ten airborne aircraft carrier. It's basically a zeppelin with a fighter bay and surveillance equipment.
* AKA47: Mixed with BrandX. Several combat vehicles are openly based on existing real-world vehicles to varying degrees of similarity. The ''Chevalier'' scout tank is one degree of separation away from the South African ''Rooikat'' armored fighting vehicle, and the ''Hetzer'' is based on the similarly named German tank destroyer, albeit with wheels instead of treads. Personal weaponry places boxy ''TabletopGame/{{Shadowrun}}''-esque unique designs alongside AKA-47 expies like the Federated Long Rifle (AR-15) or the Gauss SMG (P90)
** Inverted with the Striker, which first appeared in the 1987 supplementary book ''Technical Readout: 3026,'' only for a very similar vehicle to appear in the real world known as the Stryker.
* TheAlliance: The Second Star League was a joint Inner Sphere front against the Clans; rather than a single House-dominated union like its predecessor.
** The Council of Six formed by the Inner Sphere Clans after the Wars of Reaving resembled the old Grand Council but, rather than acting as a ruling body, it was meant to allow the now-isolated Clans to survive in the Inner Sphere, mostly through jointly restoring the HPG network, their now-purged Scientist Castes and some of their military hardware and bloodnames that were devastated by the Jihad and the Wars of Reaving.
** Devlin Stone's anti-Blakist Coalition is notable for its sheer diversity. It included units and characters from four of the five Great Houses, all six Invader Clans, most of the major Periphery states, and a huge number of mercenary companies. Things were not exactly smooth but they ''did'' accomplish their goal of eradicating the Blakists and managed to avoid full scale conflict among themselves afterwards.
* AllPlanetsAreEarthLike: Within a reasonable limit, all inhabited planets have between 0.9 and 1.1 atmosphere pressure, 0.9 to 1.1 g-gravity, and Earth norm temperature ranges, though no planet is as comfortable for humans as Earth is. There are exceptions (like the dome-covered cities of Sirius V where the atmosphere is methane), but understandably humans would tend to pick earth-like planets to settle.
** Quite a few planets have issues involving gravity as well as unpleasant (and barely survivable) biomes. Ice planets in particular seem popular, probably due to the cold temperatures being an aid to dissipating a 'Mech's heat.
** Source materials also mention Star League-era {{terraform}}ing technology. In addition, it is frequently noted that settlers introduce genetically modified variants of Terran flora and fauna to colonized planets. The preponderance of Earth-like planets is primarily due to terraformation. And the lack of new planets to colonize is because that terraformation technology was blown up so hard it's still [=losTech=].
* AlphaStrike: The contextual Trope Namer. Step one: fire every weapon you have, simultaneously. Step two: hold your breath and hope to god your mech can sink the heat[[note]]Failure to sink sufficient heat may result in death from heat stroke, death from ammunition explosion, and the medical condition known as "my 'Mech shut down and I'm a sitting duck for my enemies oh god help me!"[[/note]]. Step three: hope that you land a knockout.
* AlwaysAccurateAttack: The entire philosphy behind Streak SRM launchers. They utilize a built-in targeting computer to lock a target and prevent wasting ammo by only firing when a direct hit is virtually guaranteed. In game terms, this means that the launchers don't consume ammo or generate heat unless a successful hit is rolled.
** Clan Coyote managed to accomplish the dream of many Star League weapons techs when, in 3057, they rolled out Streak LRM launchers, boasting the enforced accuracy and ammo control of a Streak missile and the range of an LRM. They proved very popular with Clan mechwarriors, despite several drawbacks compared to standard Clantech launchers, such as being unable to use alternate ammo types, doubling the launchers weight and lacking indirect fire capability.
** The Society managed to go one step further and created the "improved Advanced Tactical Missile", or iATM for short, which is a Streak ATM in every practical concern. The flexibility of the system made them extremely effective, but the crimes of The Society meant that most, if not all, captured examples were destroyed as a matter of honor, and it's doubtful any made their way to the Inner Sphere before the Wars of Reaving cut off the Homeworld Clans.
* AlternateUniverse: Featured in the ''Empires Aflame'' adventure book. [[spoiler:A Misjump dumps the player characters into the universe where Aleksandr Kerensky was assassinated before he could reveal the Exodus plan to his troops, and in grief Aaron [=DeChavilier=] decided to stay and take the fight back to the Great Houses, establishing the Terran Supremacy in the process. Some other highlights: No Exodus obviously means no Clans, which among a lot of other things means no Wolf's Dragoons, and the Draconis Combine conquering New Avalon; the Federated Suns and the Capellan Confederation united into one nation, the Confederated Suns; The Free Worlds League fare even worse, taking the Capellans' place as a punching bag in 4th SW, politically dividing the League into the Pro-Marik and the Pro-Halas factions; The Periphery nations are stronger due to various factors; [=ComStar=] does not exist and many other things also while the succession wars still happened they weren't has brutal as they were in the official universe so much fewer pieces of technology went lostech and more planets and various mech fighter and large craft designs stayed around instead of being destroyed as they were in the official universe.]]
* AmazonBrigade: Katana Tormark's elite regiment Amaterasu.
* AmbiguouslyBrown: A lot of people in the Inner Sphere end up looking for this due to the interbreeding of Terran colonists.
** Lampshaded in one of the Dark Age novels: a character possessing red hair and green eyes goes through the customs office as "Rabbi Martinez" and no one bats an eye at the juxtaposition. See also Minobu Tetsuhara, a Kuritan Samurai who is also a black man.
** An earlier novel referred to the "great Inner Sphere gene plasm bingo" as the reason for this.
* AnAxeToGrind: Some 'Mechs have giant hatchets built into them.
** Crosses over into ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin with some models, as it is not hard to guess what a Mech with a name like ''Axman'' or ''Hatchetman'' are boasting.
* AncestralWeapon: Families will pass down Mechs from father (or mother) to son/daughter. Justified by the fact that a Mech usually costs ''millions'' of C-Bills and thus is a valuable heirloom as well as a tool of war. For some perspective, if ''A Time of War'', set in the Jihad era of 3068-3080 is any indication then the average peasant can save up 10,000 C-Bills. [[http://www.sarna.net/wiki/C-Bills That's approximately $65,400 U.S. Dollars, at 2010 values]].
** Not to mention that, before the coming of the Clans with their [=OmniMech=] technology, 400+ year old Star League-era mechs were actually ''more'' technologically advanced than brand new 'Mechs being produced in the 3025 era. The constant war and strife has nearly "beaten humanity back to the stone age" (actually more like the mid-late 20th Century) where repairing [=BattleMechs=] is essential when the base technology is not even all that well understood. Same goes for the [[FasterThanLightTravel Kearny-Fuchida drives]] in the [=JumpShips=], which nearly all date back to the Star League era since the technology to construct new faster than light drive engines had been lost until a recent resurgence. See also RagnarokProofing.
** In one scenario from an early gamebook, a pair of Mackies from the original production run, the first [=BattleMechs=] ever designed and pushing ''eight hundred years'' old, passed down through a family from the days of the Terran Hegemony, are powered up to fight the Black Widow Company. They usually acquit themselves with great distinction.
* AncientConspiracy: [=ComStar=] among others - there are multiple sourcebooks for the various ancient conspiracies lurking in the background.
* AnimalMecha: These occasionally crop up, being regular battlemechs with some animal motifs (such as the [[http://www.sarna.net/wiki/images/1/12/WLF-5_Wolfhound.jpg Wolfhound]] light mech containing its sensor equipment in ear-like lobes on the cockpit, making it look vaguely like a wolf head or the [[http://www.sarna.net/wiki/images/f/f4/CCG_Mercenaries_Mandrill.jpg Mandril]])
** On occasion you will also have 'Mechs like the [[http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Barghest Barghest]], which is only a step or two away from being a Franchise/{{Zoid|s}}.
* AnimalMotifs: Almost all of the Clans. The sole exception is Clan Blood Spirit, named for the concept of ''esprit d'corps'' (ironically they swiftly became the most isolationist of Clans).
** And they eventually ''inverted'' the trope. The blood spirit, a genetically engineered vampire bat, was named FOR the Clan instead of the other way around. Albeit it was meant as a TakeThat by the Blood Spirit's worst enemy.
** Clan Diamond Shark was originally Clan Sea Fox. The name change was due to the introduction of the diamond shark (also genetically engineered by a rival Clan) into the sea fox's native habitat, where it promptly drove the former species to near-extinction. In a form of InsultBackfire, the Clan decided to embrace the Diamond Shark as their new mascot and changed their name. [[spoiler:Some sea foxes did apparently survive in captivity, though, and Clan Diamond Shark eventually effected a name change ''back'' to Sea Fox around 3100.]]
* ArbitraryMinimumRange: Many long-range weapons have minimum ranges, making it harder to hit within that minimum range. There are a variety of reasons: For missiles (most notably Inner Sphere Long Range Missiles), there is a distance arming fuse that typically doesn't kick in until they're past the minimum range. For ballistic weapons, it's typically because the barrel is long and ungainly to aim (though artwork sometimes doesn't depict this). For [[LightningGun PPCs]], it's because there's a safety system designed to prevent the shot from damaging the firing unit with electrical interference. The lack of minimum range on extended range [=PPCs=] is partially explaned by "field inhibitors." There's an optional rule to disengage the field inhibitor on a standard [=PPC=], removing the minimum range but risking damage to the firing unit. [=ERPPCs=] presumably have better field inhibitors that remove the minimum range and the possibility of particle feedback to the firer.
** [[ArbitraryMaximumRange Of course, this also goes in the other direction as well.]] Lasers have absurdly short ranges compared to how long they could actually reach given no intervening terrain, in the neighborhood of a few hundred meters for the large laser, down to 100 or thereabouts for the small laser. Weapons in general have much shorter ranges than they should realistically have. [[labelnote:For Example...]]the standard machine gun in the game, which is something like the .50 cal M2 Browning machine gun used by the US Army, is 90 meters, or three hexes. A real life M2 Browning has an effective range of 1,830 meters, or 61 hexes.[[/labelnote]] This is lampshaded by the designers, who acknowledge the discrepancy, but argue the choices were made deliberately for game balance and playability, as using real-world ranges for weapons would necessitate an almost prohibitively large playing field at the scale of the game.
---->'''Unnamed [=MechWarrior=]''' ''(in the writeup for the machine gun in ''[=BattleMech=] Manual'': Damn, he's 91 meters out.
* UsefulNotes/ArcadeGame: Back in the 1990's, there were several ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BattleTech_Centers Battletech Centers]]'' - an immersive arcade with enclosed mech combat simulators. The place was designed to feel like being in the universe of [=BattleTech=]. Also notable for having Creator/JamesBelushi in one of the barker videos the Centers would play.
** The machines themselves still exist, but they are no longer produced or supported by the company that made them (which has gone defunct). Existing pods are maintained by enthusiasts and seen at conventions, but they are slowly wearing down. In effect, this makes the pods a ''real-life'' example of [=LosTech=].
* ArchaeologicalArmsRace: During the Succession War era, the discovery of Lostech caches can cause small-scale wars over their possession. Then the Gray Death Legion mercenaries discovered the Memory Core with almost complete lostech schematics and spread it contents through the Inner Sphere despite the efforts of [=ComStar=].
* ArchaicWeaponForAnAdvancedAge: In ''[=MechWarrior=]'' swords are described as still being a preferred weapon aboard starships because combat will invariably be close quarters and the blade won't rupture the ship's hull as opposed to firearms.
* ArchEnemy: Dozens of cases here. If two factions have shared a border for any length of time they probably hate each other.
** Secular (relatively) [=ComStar=] and the ChurchMilitant Word of Blake hate each other as they believe that the other has perverted Blake's vision. [[spoiler:Jerome Blake [[StopWorshippingMe would have hated]] what [=ComStar=] had become when Conrad Toyama succeeded him, so post-schism [=ComStar=] is more his vision.[[note]]Actually, given revelations in ''Second Succession War'', Jerome actually was the one who wanted [=ComStar=] to become a religion, in the hopes that that would preserve knowledge from being destroyed, and it was Conrad who was against, but who reluctantly agreed to carry out the plan out of loyalty to his friend. However, both of them acknowledged the risks inherent in the plan, risks that slowly came to reality with the Jihad.[[/note]]]]
** The Free Worlds League and the Lyran Commonwealth despise each other for both economic purposes and because their conflicts in the Succession Wars were among the most brutal.
** The Capellan Confederation is still bitter from all the losses the Federated Suns dealt it. The Taurian Concordat is pretty much an entire nation of {{General Ripper}}s; to them the Suns are behind ''everything''.
** The Draconis Combine had the typical hate with the Suns and the Commonwealth but also had a sore spot with several mercenary units. The most notable case was Takashi Kurita's personal vendetta with Wolf's Dragoons; which lead to him hampering his nation's war effort in the Fourth Succession War when he threw an entire military district's forces at ''five regiments'' - while his armies were losing ground elsewhere.
*** The Davion and Kurita ruling families became more amiable towards each other due to an EnemyMine situation that the Clans precipitated. The rank and file of the Combine and [=FedComs=], however... old animosities die hard, especially with the more conservative elements. Eventually the old rivalry flared up again in the 32nd Century.
** The Wolves and the Jade Falcons have a history of bad blood; they lead opposing factions within the Clans and the Falcons are still upset that the Wolves possess exclusive rights to the Kerensky bloodname.
** Clan Diamond Shark never really forgave the Snow Ravens for wiping out their original namesake the Sea Fox. Their revenge generally consists of [[ProudMerchantRace jacking up prices]] though. The Ravens consider the misdeed a dishonorable act by a rogue member of their clan, so they grin and bear it as penance with the Shark merchants bilking them.
** Clans Blood Spirit and Burrock were constantly in conflict, a situation "resolved" by the latter's Absorption by Clan Star Adder. The Spirits shortsightedly goaded the Adders into taking the Burrock's place, a bad move considering the power imbalance between the two Clans and one which usually resulted in the Spirits getting handily beaten [[spoiler:and eventually wiped out, after the Wars of Reaving.]]
** Clan Ghost Bear and Hell's Horses feuded with each other for over a century, but their bitter hatred eventually transformed into [[WorthyOpponent mutual respect]].
** The Inner Sphere and the Clans as a whole; the former didn't appreciate losing a few hundred worlds and the Clanners blame the Successor States for ruining the Star League. Eventually the Ghost Bears and the Rasalhague Republic, the Ravens and Outworlds Alliance, and the Wolves-In-Exile and the Lyran Commonwealth start to patch things up.
** The Word of Blake is pretty much this to the rest of humanity; ''no one'' wanted a Succession War-style conflict and weren't pleased at all when the Blakists started one over the break up of the effectively moribund Second Star League.
** Among mercenary units, the Waco Rangers had a bitter, if one-sided, rivalry with Wolf's Dragoons due to an incident involving the founder's son of the former faction being inadvertently crushed to death by a Dragoon Assault Mech during a Capellan campaign. While the Dragoons brushed this off as simply an accident, the founder, Wayne Waco, and his Rangers swore bloody vengeance towards the Dragoons ever since. The Dragoons consider them as an UnknownRival until the Jihad when the Rangers supposedly acting under the Blakist's employ managed to turn things personal by killing several noteworthy Dragoon personnel in the planet Outreach, including [[spoiler:Jaime Wolf]], though it also led to the death of [[spoiler:Wayne Waco himself.]] The Dragoons then responded by exterminating all non-Dragoon personnel, including the Rangers, and thus completing the chapter of this rivalry.
* ArmCannon: There are 'Mechs that fit in both variations. In fact, 'Mechs that physically hold weapons in their hands are very, very rare (and growing more so, as most of them are Unseen, i.e., based on artwork ''[=BattleTech's=]'' owners do not have the rights to). If a 'mech has a weapon in an arm that has a lower arm actuator but not a hand actuator, odds are that weapon is depicted as such in the artwork. Besides a few notable mechs like the ''Battlemaster'' that carry a {{BFG}} in their hands (the ''Battlemaster'' being one of the Unseen), most 'Mechs with hand actuators mount a cannon on their forearm. By default, a 'Mech with weapons and a hand actuator has weapons along their forearms, while 'Mech's lacking hand actuators will have a wrist muzzle, and 'Mech's lacking hand and lower arm actuators will pretty much have the whole arm just be gun.
* ArmoredCoffins: While almost all [=BattleMechs=] and aerospace fighters avert this, it applies to tanks, [=VTOL=] craft, Protomechs, and a few infamous deathtrap mechs, like the Spider [=SDR-5V=], which has no ejection system. To get out in combat, the pilot needs to get out of the control chair, unhook his neurohelmet, and then climb through the hatch below the armored window.
** The Hunchback IIC was made to be this by the Clans for warriors who are too old(above 35) or have suffered disgrace, to die in battle. But the mech is still formidable even by Clan standards, being able to put out nearly as much raw damage as front-line 'Mechs twice its size. [[note]]For those keeping score, its peak damage if both cannons are firing and hitting at double rate is 94 points per turn, whereas the 100-ton Dire Wolf Prime, arguably one of the most powerful 'Mechs in existence, puts out a maximum of 98 points with a full alpha strike, and would immediately shut itself down upon doing so.[[/note]]
** The Wolf Trap was a terrible mech designed as its ammunition bays are on its back and attacking mechs usually aim for its backpack. It was discontinued ten years after it was made.
** To say nothing of the ''Lucifer,'' a medium aerospace fighter that has ''no ejection system'' due to a cockpit redesign. As Technical Readout: 3025 put it, "the pilot is strapped into his fighter until he lands or crashes, whichever comes first." Even worse, the fighter has problems with dead-stick atmospheric re-entry '''and''' its ammo bays have a tendency to suffer internal explosions (destroying the craft) even ''outside'' combat!
** The four-legged Clan Hell's Horses second-line mech called the ''Thunder Stallion'' has been referred to as a "quad coffin" by some [=mechwarriors=] due to the fact that some of the ammo for its main weapon (a Class 20 Autocannon, one of the most powerful weapons in the game) is located in the ''head,'' where the pilot is also located. If that magazine gets cooked off with even one round loaded in, [[YourHeadASplode the mech gets decapitated]] and the pilot gets fried.
** The ''Spider'' gets this treatment as well, at least in its earlier incarnations -- due to the mech's small size, the cockpit is largely located in the torso, and the placement made putting in an ejector seat too difficult to accomplish.
** A borderline case exists with the stock Succession Wars-era ''Vindicator''. It does have an ejector seat, however, the head-mounted laser has been known to... interfere... sometimes with the ejection process, leading to messy results.
** [=ProtoMechs=] nine tons and under cannot mount ejection systems. Even though [=ProtoMechs=] are surprisingly robust for (and due in part ''to'') their size, it is statistically likely that a hit which disables a [=ProtoMech=] will at least injure the pilot too, ejection system or no.
* ArmorPiercingAttack: Later eras of Battletech (after the 3080s) eventually introduce Armor-Piercing ammunition for Autocannons, which can punch through armor and strike at your mech's structure and internals directly. More strict Critical Hit rules also allow for Through-Armor Criticals, where a "golden BB" shot is rationalized as finding a weak spot between armor plates and punching straight through into your internals.
** There are also "Re-Engineered" Lasers, only usable by the Inner Sphere (for now), which have the effect of ignoring the damage reduction that would normally apply from certain types of armor (i.e. Reflective Armor).
* ArmsDealer: The Lyran Commonwealth, the Free Worlds League and Clan Diamond Shark, as well as many other private businesses.
* ArrogantKungFuGuy: Many of the more hardcore Crusader clansmen can come across as this. Special mention goes to Vlad Ward.
** The first [=MechWarrior=] was one of these by what information is available, up to and including finishing the test battle by literally stomping the last opposing tank flat.
* ArtEvolution:
** Early [=''BattleTech''=] art was usually [[http://www.sarna.net/wiki/images/3/3a/3025_Atlas1.jpg very basic black and white]] unshaded drawings (save for sourcebook covers). [[http://www.sarna.net/wiki/images/thumb/5/50/Atlas_2.jpg/433px-Atlas_2.jpg Later art]] featured shading, digital art, and more visually complex designs, with rendered CGI artwork becoming more common. Later sourcebooks got more covered artwork, whereas earlier sourcebooks typically had more simplistic black-and-white artwork.
** [=BattleMech=] designs shifted from relatively anthropomorphic chassis ripped directly ([[http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Unseen and quite a few cases, literally!]]) from Japanese anime to more mechanical WalkingTank designs more typical of Western mecha (which, ironically, ''[=BattleTech=]'' helped to popularize). The anthropomorphic 'man-walkers' from the early days are often redesigned to look less like guys wearing goofy cardboard box costumes and more like robots merely inspired by the human form; compare the Banshee [[http://www.sarna.net/wiki/images/5/58/3025_Banshee1.jpg BNC-3E]] from 1984 to the [[http://www.sarna.net/wiki/images/5/5e/Banshee_1E.jpg BNC-1E]]from 2012.
** And it's gone full circle with the new Classics redesigns for the Unseen, which shed many of the artistic hallmarks of [[Anime/SuperDimensionFortressMacross the source material]] in favor of a more unified art style in line more with recent art while still honoring (as far as copyright law will allow) the original designs.
* ArtifactTitle: in-universe in several cases.
** Hanse Davion is First Prince of the Federated Suns, which has no other Princes, because when the title was introduced the Federated Suns was divided between five princes and the Davions were simply first-among-equals. The other four principalities were abolished following a civil war.
** It might seem strange that the ruler of the Draconis Combine is merely called the Coordinator, but the first leader of House Kurita used the apparently humble title to allay the suspicions of rivals within what was then the Alliance of Galedon until he could position himself to eliminate them.
* ArtificialGravity: [=JumpShips=] have rotating grav decks, while [=DropShips=] use thrust to simulate gravity. The not-quite-canon animated series also features grav boots.
** CentrifugalGravity
* AsYouKnow: The ''Shattered Sphere'' sourcebook contains many excerpts from Lyran propaganda. The editor of the InUniverse document makes many notations correcting the historical events covered. Thing is, they are addressed towards Victor Steiner-Davion, usually regarding events that Victor himself was involved in.
* AscendedFanon:
** Megamek is an open-source java application that emulates the board game on the computer. In-universe, a nod is given in also being the name of the official military strategic planning software that the Lyran Alliance uses.
** The epigraph for the recent novel "Children of Karensky," by Blaine Pardoe, is attributed to one Randolph P. Checkers, a character created/played by Tex of The Black Pants Legion, known to the Battletech community for his "Tex Talks Battletech" series of short videos and feature-length documentaries.
** Supposedly the story behind the existence of the UM-AIV Urbanmech variant s that one of the game designers at [=GenCon=] saw a fan-made model of an Urbanmech launching a nuke that he loved so much he made the supplement that introduced it just to make it canon.
* AscendedGlitch: The original sourcebook illustration of the Commando showed its head tilted to one side, which subsequent illustrators misinterpreted as an asymmetrical head with a weird, lopsided "helmet". Almost every redesign since has continued to give the Commando an asymmetrical head in some way, the current version having prominent targeting lenses on one side of its face (which, combined with its domed head, small size and stocky, humanoid build, gives it a passing resemblance to the [[Anime/ArmoredTrooperVOTOMS Scopedog]]).
* AscendedMeme: The toy for the Mauler from the animated series had an ejection seat that triggered when a panel on the lower-center torso was hit. This would eventually lead to the "Daboku" (The prototype for what would become the Mauler in canon) having a faulty ammunition safety feature that would trigger the auto-eject system at an impact to the lower center torso.
* AsskickingEqualsAuthority: The Clans work this way.
** Amusingly, they also get hit with the predictable downside: because their system selects on single-combat prowess, it also ''doesn't'' select based on organizational or unit-based tactical skills. In combat with the Inner Sphere at the strategic scale, they lose more often then they win.
* AttackAttackAttack: Clan Ice Hellion's preferred method of operation, in both politics and war. Combined with their [[LeeroyJenkins impatience]], it usually ends poorly. [[spoiler:So poorly that most of them got killed by the Falcons and Horses and the rest were Absorbed by the Scorpions.]]
* AuthorityEqualsAsskicking: Everyone from unit commanders to faction leaders are more likely than not to have their own personal [=BattleMech=] and be quite willing to use it in combat. For the Inner Sphere factions, this typically culminates in RoyalsWhoActuallyDoSomething.
* AwesomeButImpractical: The ''raison d'etre'' of Battlemech combat. The invention of war machines much more expensive and much less effective than battalions of tanks or legions of infantry was ''supposed'' to make humans think twice about fighting each other, but of course that didn't happen.
** Ironically it kinda worked. Most "wars" for a planet only involves an dozen or so mechs, in an open area, after a battle or two the loser walks off.
** In the early days of the game, the vehicle rules underwent several rounds of nerfing to keep Mechs the dominant unit on the battlefield. People kept spending their points on tons of hovercraft and swarming the big slow targets.
*** Another related hampering of most non-mech units is the inability for them to mount double heat sinks for better heat dissipation, which is why energy weapons are not the to go weapons for most of them.
** Most Solaris 7 inventions are beyond useless in an actual battlefield, but are used in the arena because of how flashy they are. Swords, bucklers, Bombast lasers, and Flails are all popular weapons.
** Many of the more iconic 'Mechs are ridiculously impractical. For example, the Mad-Cat/Timberwolf (the one with two beam arms and big missile launcher shoulders - currently the page image) is, pound for pound, one of the absolute best Heavy 'Mechs that you can get, with an [=OmniMech=] design that makes it versatile, an array of weapons that makes it deadly at any potential range (in its default configuration), and a price tag that makes it completely ridiculous to afford. The Timberwolf has a cost of 24 million C-Bills. An Atlas (the ''other'' iconic Mech, with a skull-like face design) has a cost of less than 12 million C-Bills, and is almost as powerful as a Timberwolf (sacrificing some versatility for firepower). Meaning you can buy two Atlas 'Mechs for the price of one Timberwolf. This is emblematic of Clan 'Mechs. Of course, being the Clans, their 'Mechs and technology are not typically for sale on the open market. . . until the mid-late [=3060s=], when [[ProudMerchantRace Clan Diamond Shark]] [[JustForPun smells money in the water]][[note]]Though the Diamond Sharks had to step pretty lightly to avoid the other Clans taking umbrage at the selling of cutting-edge Clan military technology to what was still more-or-less the enemy[[/note]].
*** Clan 'Mechs (especially most "Primary" [=OmniMech=] configurations) have a marked tendency to pack '''way''' more weapons onto the platform than they can reasonably ever use. The above ''Timber Wolf'', with its arrays of [=PPCs=], ER and pulse lasers, and missiles; the ''Warhawk'' with its four [=PPCs=]; the ''Nova'' with its '''twelve''' ER Medium Lasers; and most ''Dire Wolf'' configurations are standout examples. Firing all, or even most, of the available weapons on any of these will spike your heat into "this is bad" territory, if not push it all the way to automatic shutdown. Inner Sphere 'Mechs have this problem both less and more: Succession Wars era designs lost double heat sink technology, but also the XL engines and Endo Steel structure that let you pack more weapons into a 'Mech, with the result that many 'Mechs from that time will have either one group of weapons for one job (say, long-range fire) and one for another (say, close-in brawling) and you're simply not supposed to use both sets at the same time. Others just have a jumble of assorted guns, leaving it to pilot discretion what and how much to fire at any given time and whether or not to risk overheating. As the Inner Sphere recovered Star League technologies, it became possible to mount more equipment on 'Mechs, though many were still limited by the extra bulk of the lighter systems. The ''Marauder II'' is a sterling example of this, with a pants-browningly scary array of [=PPCs=], ER Medium Lasers, and an autocannon, but so packed with goodies it has no space for Double Heat Sinks, making the heat of its weapons fire (and the possibility of that detonating its AC ammo) a very real concern.
*** "Zero-Heat Alpha Builds" straddle between this and BoringButPractical. It's ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin: a 'Mech build that can fire all of its weapons at once with zero heat buildup. Of course, doing so means you're packing a lot less firepower than most other 'Mechs in your weight range, and lack an eleven to dial your 'Mech up to if you [[GodzillaThreshold absolutely, positively need to kill]] an enemy 'Mech NOW. You're either undergunned compared to a different variant of the same 'Mech, your internals are filled with heat sinks (which can take crits and ruin your zero-heat alpha strategy) or both. That said, it's enormously satisfying (and can be quite effective) to let fly with EVERYTHING and not have to worry about the deleterious effects of heat.
** Any weapon that gets over ten damage starts to stray into this territory, due to being being exceptionally heavy, taking up several critical clots, extremely high heat, extremely low ammo-per-ton, or a combination of the above. The Clan ERPPC weighs only six tons, takes only two critical slots, and does fifteen damage. . . for the price of fifteen heat (for reference, if a 'Mech's heat reachs 30, it's automatic shutdown)[[note]]You'll need eight double heat sinks to absorb this heat, so the ''actual'' weight of an ERPPC plus what it needs to be used effectively is ''fourteen'' tons and ''eighteen'' critical slots[[/note]]. Comparatively, a Clan Ultra [=Autocannon/20=] does 20 damage for 7 heat (40 for 14 if you rapid-fire it and risk it jamming and becoming useless for the rest of the game), weighs ''twelve'' tons, takes ''eight'' crit slots, and gets only 5 shots per ton of ammo (and has not quite half the range of the ERPPC). [=LRM-15=], [=LRM-20=], and [=SRM-6=] launchers are comparatively forgiving in terms of weight, heat, slots, and ammo. . . but there's no guarantee every missile fired will hit, and thus that you'll get the weapon's full damage potential every time you fire it.
* BadassArmy: The (larger) Mercenary company armies are usually made of the best of the best [=MechWarriors=], pilots, and crews.
** Many of the most prestigious House regiments, frontline Clan galaxies, the [=ComGuards=] and the Blakist Shadow Divisions also fall here. Getting a place within these units is an incredibly competitive process and many of the above mentioned mercenary units tend to recruit from House veterans who mustered out.
** The Star League Defense Force was this by design. They needed to be better armed, stronger, and more technologically advanced than the Great House's militaries to enforce the peace. At the time of Operation Exodus, even after losing more than 60% of their forces in the Amaris Civil War, the SLDF was still the most powerful military force in the Inner Sphere.
* BalancePowerSkillGimmick: The four non-[[HufflepuffHouse FWL]] Great Houses fit roughly into this. The Federated Suns are Balance, the Lyran Commonwealth favors heavy-duty firepower, the Draconnis Combine in contrast, prefers undergunned, over-engined mechs, and the Capellan Confederation make up for their relative conventional weakness through gureilla tactics and electronic warfare.
* BalkanizeMe: The Free Worlds League effectively ceased to exist during the Jihad, leaving half-dozen of larger nations and hundreds of independent planet-states. Most of the states were reunited later in 3139 by a descendant of the last Captain-General.
** After the failure of HPG network most of the Republic of the Sphere border prefectures seccedded either to strike it on their own or to join the Successor State or Clan they originally belonged to.
** [[spoiler: At the start of Il-Clan era the combination of Lyran Commonwealth's inability to respond and the Jade Falcons leaving behind a massive power vacuum in their haste towards Terra gave rise to various opportunists carving out their own private kingdoms in the former Falcon OZ.]]
* BatmanGambit: Ulric Kerensky deliberately sabotaged the Clan Invasion by having his Clan Wolf perform better than the other Clans, which caused the other Invader Clans, already poorly equipped logistically and mentally unprepared for strategic-level warfare, to trip over each other and spread themselves thin trying to one-up the Wolves. When he was tried by the [[KangarooCourt Clan Council]] after the war, it basically consisted of Ulric and his defense proving that he was just doing his job.
** He also pulled another gambit during the Refusal War with the Jade Falcons. Most of the Wolf warriors he led into battle were of the Crusader faction, while he sent most of the Warden-minded ones away to the Inner Sphere. Win or lose, he would thin out the ranks of the Crusader-oriented Wolves who were causing problems as well as deny the Falcons the pleasure of beating Wardens. However he also got hit by one where the Jade Falcons used their freeborn and low-skilled trueborn warriors as CannonFodder for [[ZergRush Zerg rushes]], so that by the time the Wolves got to the high-ranking and/or skilled Falcons they were worn down first.
** The Battle of Tukayyid is another example. Long story short, [=ComStar=] realized that the Clans were basically unstoppable because the Inner Sphere couldn't band together to fight them off. [=ComStar=] decided, therefore, to challenge the Clans to a winner-takes-all battle on Tukayyid, inviting the Clans to bring their absolute best to the battle, with the results of victory either being that [=ComStar=] loses and doesn't stop the Clans from taking Terra, or [=ComStar=] wins and the Clans have to stop the invasion for 15 years. The Clans jumped at the chance, and [=ComStar=] committed almost all their forces to the battle. The gambit was that either [=ComStar=] ''somehow'' managed to eke out a victory and stop the Clans cold, ''or'' [=ComStar=] lost but ''absolutely devastated'' the Clans by mangling all of their best equipment and pilots beyond repair. After 20 days of vicious fighting, [=ComStar=] did '''[[CurbStompBattle both]]''', sacrificing a hell of a lot of lives, but ultimately forcing the Clans to admit defeat (and therefore prompting the 15 year truce and stopping the invasion), and ''also'' ripping apart the Clan war machine to the point that only 40% of their assets were repairable, with the other 60% either lost outright or damaged well beyond the point of repair.
* BatmanGrabsAGun: Word of Blake breaking the NuclearWeaponsTaboo pisses off every other faction enough to get them to collectively nuke the Blakists back.
* BeamSpam: The state of any battle in which a 'Mech with more than five laser weapons is in, with bonuses for pulse lasers. A number of designs, such as the ''Nova''/''Black Hawk'' Prime and the ''Flashman'', are built to bring this.
** Honorable mention also goes to designs such as the ''Awesome'', the ''Warhawk'', and the ''Hellstar'', which carry multiple particle projection cannons, easily the largest and most destructive energy weapons available in the setting. And the I-UK ''Timberwolf'' variant, what with packing 11 ER Medium lasers and an ER Large laser, is it's own walking rave party.
** The Medium Laser is ideally suited to this. It is, succinctly, perfectly balanced: One ton, one crit slot, no ammo requirements, three heat, five damage, respectable (albeit still short) range, and cheap if you're going into more campaign-based play. You can cram a stupid amount of these on a modern medium mech design and still have enough weight left over for extra heat sinks (double type, natch) to at least allow for most of them to be fired. Offshoot variants don't manage it quite as well; either due to range and weight (pulse variant) or excess heat (extended range variant). Some crazy, fan-constructed variants have mounted upwards of 50 of them into a single mech. That's more than enough potential damage to completely shuck even the heaviest mechs of all of its armor in a single salvo.
*** There is a canonical 'Mech that does precisely that--the ''Komodo'' is a 45-ton 'Mech designed to kill PowerArmor. To do this, it brings a pants-browningly terrifying battery of ten medium lasers to the field, which is enough firepower to slag over three tons of armor in a single salvo. [[ThereIsNOKillLikeOverkill Note that the heaviest battle armor suits only weigh two tons.]]
* BearsAreBadNews: Clan Ghost Bear symbology elicits this. They have a very heavy-weighted military, and became the premier Warden Clan after the Refusal War tore asunder Clan Wolf, the previous ''de facto'' leader of the Wardens. During the Jihad, a combination of a bombing by the Word of Blake at a summit on dealing with the Blakists claiming their Khan's life (among many others), and a series of usages of weapons of mass destruction [[ItsPersonal against their civilian castes]], prompted the Bears to throw all rules of warfare to the wind and went full "take no prisoners" against the Blakists. Their fury was so unrestrained that they were even attacking other anti-Blakist forces who got in their way, until they came to their senses.
* BecomingTheMask: Wolf's Dragoons apparently preferred life as mercenaries to life in Clan society, though it helps that Ulric Kerensky specifically ordered them to help prepare the Inner Sphere for the Clan Invasion in secret.
** The "false Thomas Marik" strived to become an actually good leader of the Free Worlds League: unfortunately, when he tried to distance the FWL from the Word of Blake (which was incidentally lead by the real Thomas) they revealed that he was an impostor, which caused the FWL to collapse from different parties claiming that they had the true claim on the seat of Director-General, a situation that would persist until 3139 (ironically, the Director-General of the new state was the "false" Marik's daughter).
* BehemothBattle: Tactical wargame centered on giant piloted robots (or ''mechs''). Had a focus on team tactics, ie groups of mechs fighting each other. Spawned the Franchise/BattleTechExpandedUniverse franchise.
* BenevolentAlienInvasion: Partway through the Clan Invasion, Clan Ghost Bear realized that if they were to actually move to the Inner Sphere, they should treat it better, so they brought in their garrison Galaxies and Merchant Caste members to serve a double role - freeing up their mainline forces to serve in the invasion proper, while also assisting in public works and infrastructure rebuilding in order to improve their image in the eyes of those conquered. This paid off for them in a big way when they transferred almost all of their Homeworld assets to their Inner Sphere holdings, and were even able to negotiate a peaceful annexation of the remains of the Free Rasalhague Republic into what would then be known as the Rasalhague Dominion.
* TheBerserker: Clan Smoke Jaguar was absolutely brutal in battling their enemies and in their treatment of conquered civilians. Their leadership only amplified the resulting problems with internal political skullduggery and shortsightedness regarding logistics. This attitude didn't work out very well; their brutality led to the Inner Sphere singling them out for destruction (both for their atrocities and their fighting prowess) and the rest of the Clans standing by and allowing [[TheFriendNobodyLikes the Jaguars]] to be destroyed.
** Clan Ghost Bear also displays this attitude towards their enemies if they have been sufficiently angered enough by whoever is facing them.
* BiggerIsBetter: The favorite strategy of the Lyran military is to send a slow avalanche of metal at their enemies. Some of their generals use heavy 'Mechs for recon, and are stymied why anyone would bother with medium and light units at all. Clan Ghost Bear also has a similar bias in their mechs, thanks to an abundance of raw materials enabling them to bias their ''touman'' (a Clan term meaning all the organic military assets, i.e. mechs, tanks, aircraft etc.) on the heavier side.
** Explicitly mentioned in the description of the Heavy Gauss Rifle in [=MechWarrior 4: Mercenaries=] ("Built around the concept that bigger is better, [...]"). No prize for guessing which nation commissioned ''that'' design.
** Who was the first nation to field the Autocannon/20, the first [[BoomHeadshot head]][[OneHitKill chopper]] weapon mountable on a 'mech, in centuries past? You guessed it... the Lyrans.
** Amusingly, contrary to the stereotype the Lyrans actually ''do'' canonically have quite a few quality light 'Mech designs to call their own...which promptly led to some fans jokingly referring to such fully-fledged 'Mechs as the 25-ton ''Commando'' as "Lyran battle armor". The trope is also ultimately subverted -- despite the big machines and a prestigious [=MechWarrior=] academy or two, the Lyran military gets just perhaps the least ''respect'' among those of the five major Successor States, due in large part to frequently less-than-competent leadership.
* {{BFG}}: All 'Mech guns, really. But then there are Seriously Big Effin' Guns; Gauss rifles heavy and standard, any autocannon in the 20-bore size, Clan [=ER-PPCs=], and Long Tom artillery pieces, any of which is sufficent to blow a suit of power armor to vapor or take a 'Mech's head clean off with one shot. And just as a modern tank's main gun is huge compared to a rifle but tiny compared to a battleship's turret, a Mech's guns are small compared to naval artillery as found on Dropships and Warships.
** In infantry variants, there's Gauss rifles, which can be quite large. Or autojet rifles, which are like the Warhammer 40K bolters, imagine a modern rifle, except it shoots a rocket propelled, explosive tipped mini-rocket.
** A mild subversion kicks in as units get bigger, though -- eventually there ''aren't'' any bigger guns anymore and the only thing really left to do is mount ''more'' instead. For instance, even the heaviest individual [=BattleMech=]-portable weapons can in a pinch be squeezed into a medium 'Mech frame; the result may not carry any other weapons beyond its signature BFG and possibly cut some corners in other areas, but it can in principle be done. There isn't a single weapon that would actually ''require'' a heavy or assault 'Mech just to carry it.
* {{BFS}}: Starting around 3050, Mechs gained a new melee option in mech sized swords, which further got expanded into experimental Vibroweapons versions later on. Should be noted that except for the aforementioned Vibro weapons, the melee weapons are basically stylized 5 ton metal clubs.
** Compared to hatchets, swords have a better hit chance (due to better weapon balance) with a minor drop in potential damage.
* BlackBox: Thanks to the devastation of the Succession Wars, any [[LostTechnology Lostech]] that hasn't vanished completely from the Inner Sphere ends up as this - usable by whomever can get their hands on it, perhaps even repairable to a limited degree, but good luck trying to replicate it. In one famous case, a fully automated Battlemech factory was allowed to run without human intervention for ''centuries'', lest any attempt to uncover its secrets render it inoperable instead.
* BladeBelowTheShoulder: [[http://i.imgur.com/5KmYF.jpg Retractable Blades]], which fit onto the arm of a 'Mech for extra stabby-ness.
* BlingOfWar: Due to their proclivity to consider themselves something of an incarnation of medieval knights [[note]] which, considering the neo-feudal nature of the inner sphere, isn't entirely incorrect[[/note]], some mechwarriors elect to decorate their war machines with gaudy and colourful paintjobs based on their allegiances or personal heraldry. Taken up to 11 in most videogame depictions of Rasalhague 'Mechs, which normally incorporate intricate norse inspired gold and silver patterns into their battlemechs' armour along several shades of blue, guaranteeing that their 'Mechs are the shiniest killing machines in the field of battle.
* BlueAndOrangeMorality: The Clans, at least to the Inner Sphere.
* BloodSport: Solaris VII. Subverted in that while their Mechs will inevitably get destroyed thanks to the ThereCanOnlyBeOne stipulation in the games, pilots themselves usually do not get killed; they will eject once their Mechs are nearing destruction.
* BodyArmorAsHitPoints: Armor on [=BattleMechs=], other vehicles and [[PowerArmor Battle Armor]] functions essentially as extra hit points that need to be ticked off before reaching the internal structure.
* BoomHeadshot: Any weapon that can reliably outright destroy even an undamaged 'mech head in one shot should the RandomNumberGod favor your hit location roll are colloquially referred to as "headchopper" guns. They're typically given much higher values in systems meant to quantify combat effectiveness.
** In ''Wars of Reaving,'' [[spoiler:this is how Etienne (leader of [[DeadlyDoctor The Society]]) anticlimactically goes out - the Jade Falcons storm his sanctuary, and Loremaster Kael Pershaw shoots him in the face as soon as he visually confirms Etienne's identity.]]
* BoringButPractical: All that Double Heat Sinks do is the same job as classic ''single'' heat sinks, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin only twice as well for the same weight]]...which basically renders the former obsolete and allows for unit designs with hitherto-unprecedented levels of firepower for their respective weight class. Their extra bulk meant as a counterbalance doesn't quite do the job, as every 'Mech gets ten weight-and-space free heat sinks in their engine, and heavier engines can have a number of space-but-not-weight free heat sinks built into the engine, and these become double as well. With their advent, many 'mechs just mount those free double heat sinks and none additional, especially if there aren't many energy weapons on board. Assault 'mechs are the only ones that really have problems with double heat sinks' bulk, since their typically heavy-duty weapon arrays are also quite voluminous as well and compete for space in designing. Inner Sphere 'Mechs really suffer from this, as IS Double Heat Sinks take ''three'' crit slots, while Clan Double Heat Sinks take only two.
** In terms of weapons, the trope is embodied first and foremost by the medium laser. Modest damage, fairly short range... lightweight, compact, heat-efficient, no ammo needs, and arguably the most ubiquitous [=BattleMech=] weapon in the entire Inner Sphere. You'll be hard pressed to find a 'Mech that does not have at least one medium laser, either as a main gun on certain light 'Mechs or a reliable backup weapon on heavier ones. And since it's very easy to stack up multiple medium lasers due to their neatly packed size and mass, [[BeamSpam quantity has a quality all its own]].
** The Clan ER Large Laser. It's a bit heat inefficient (10 damage for 12 heat), lacking the raw punch of the ERPPC or the hit bonus of the Large Pulse Laser, and does not have those two weapons' heat efficiency (both deal equal amounts of heat and damage). But it's two tons lighter and one less crit slot than both, and is the third-longest-ranged weapon in the game (tied with the Light Gauss Rifle) in most eras. Not [=LRMs=], not Gauss Rifles, not [=ERPPCs=] can reach out and touch someone as far as the Clan ER Large Laser can. It is exceeded only by the Inner Sphere LB 2-X and Clan Ultra Autocannons by two hexes, and the Clan LB 2-X Autocannon by five, and does between six and nine more damage. Heat problems on many Clan 'Mechs can be solved by replacing [=ERPPCs=] with ER Large Lasers, gaining two hexes of range in the process and rolling the space and weight savings into more heat sinks.
** Among Autocannons, the 10 class. Their range is solid, though not as insanely far-reaching as the 2 and 5s, and their damage is good, though not as brutal as the 20s. They're heavy and bulky, but not punishingly so, and have a decent amount of ammo per ton. Compared to the awesomeness of the extreme range 2s and 5s that deal ScratchDamage, or the terrifying punch of the 20 that your enemy may never let you get close enough to use, the class 10 autocannon is good all-round choice when you want a bit of dakka.
** Also, all those fancy [=BattleMech=] melee weapons and cool death-from-above moves? Frequently pale in comparison to a plain old 'Mech-sized ''kick'', which comes completely free of charge[[note]]Well, you can't have fired any leg-mounted weapons that turn... not a concern for most designs that aren't called ''Crusader''.[[/note]] and tends to be accurate and do a fair chunk of damage -- often to a target 'Mech's legs, which can cripple its mobility in short order once armor is breached. Yes, there's a chance of overbalancing and falling yourself, but that's only if you miss in the first place. . . and hitting with a kick forces the target to roll to avoid falling.
*** Add the [[SuperMode Triple Strength Myomer boost]] to the [=BattleMech=] kick and you pretty much can remove the legs from any foe who lighter then you, and even some of the same weight class if they skimp on leg armor in one kick. Against a downed foe, this can result in some pretty brutal curb stomps, and ''that's'' before you add the experimental Talon weapons for boosting kick damage. . . which, by the way, ''ALSO'' benefit from the TSM boost.
** A 'Mech design that has taken a somewhat bad rap for this in recent years is the ''Hellstar'' -- a Clan assault machine with maximum armor for its 95-ton weight, four extended-range [=PPCs=] whose heat buildup it can sink ''completely'', and no explosive components to be concerned about. Since Clan [=ER PPCs=] are "headcappers", that means it can basically walk onto a battlefield, engage the enemy 'Mech of its choosing, and has a 1-in-9 chance each turn [[note]]1-in-36 for a headshot in the hit location table X up to 4 chances per turn[[/note]] to kill its target right then and there or, even failing that, deliver a heavy pounding under which ''something'' is bound to give sooner or later...lather, rinse, repeat as needed.
** Lore-wise, the fan-favorite ''[=UrbanMech=]'' is this. It's puny, slow, and can't take a hit. It's also optimized for UrbanWarfare and carries a big gun that can take down Mechs twice its size. You may not see them in open battle, but they are almost guaranteed in urban situations. They are also very, very cheap to produce, and one can raise a garrison of these tiny terrors quickly and cheaply. And finally, from a technological viewpoint, while many mechs go obsolete and/or extinct due to the technological up and downs, the Urbie's been in production for centuries, that spareparts will always be available.
* BornWinner: This is what Clan trueborns are intended to be.
* BrainComputerInterface: Clan "Enhanced Imaging" and the Inner Sphere's "Direct Neural Interface". Both allow the pilot to effectively control his or her 'Mech with their mind. Possible side effects include delusions of godhood and insanity. Direct Neural Interface also kills you after about a decade. Even among [[DeathSeeker Clan warriors]], most consider the consequences too excessive to be practical.
** To clarify; ''all'' mechs are ''controlled'' in part by the pilot's mind, and always have been, via the Neurohelmet (which only requires a clean haircut instead of surgery). In particular, the mech's gyro is directly controlled by the pilot's sense of balance; whether an imbalance is pilot intent (such as tilting forward to walk or run) or peril (when a hard hit from weapons fire teeters the mech). It also gives indirect feedback[[note]]Which has an inherent danger on its own: the reason that an ammunition explosion will always hurt the pilot is because of the feedback from the explosion essentially punching the pilot in the brain[[/note]], giving pilots a kinesthetic sense of their 'mech to aid in such balance judgements. Direct Neural Interface is a two-way system, feeding data from the mech's sensors directly into the mind, rather than using conventional status displays, with all the dangers that implies[[note]]The aforementioned ammunition explosion in a 'Mech will be felt by the pilot ''directly'' instead of just giving them feedback pain[[/note]].
* BraveScot: The Northwind Highlanders, an illustrious and storied large mercenary outfit, are this. Their emblem comprises of a scottish claymore over a plaid kilt banner, and one of their favored 'mechs is the [[GoombaStomp 90 ton assault mech of the same name]]. Their reputation apparently was so fearsome that the [[ChurchMilitant Word of Blake]] just engaged in some trickery to make them think they were being blockaded instead of savaging planet Northwind like they did Outreach (home of Wolf's Dragoons); when Devlin's Coalition dropped in to investigate their absence, they only found that their satellite network was knocked out and Northwind was unspoiled. The Highlanders signed up with Stone's coalition once they learned [[MoralEventHorizon just what the Blakist zealots were up to]].
* BreakOutCharacter: More like Break-Out Mech: The Atlas is one of the most memorable and noted mechs.
** The "Mad Cat" (Clan name: ''Timber Wolf'', pictured above) timeshares with the ''Atlas'' as the face of the franchise.
** Among fans, the delightfully useless ''[=UrbanMech=]'' is uniquely loved.
* BreathWeapon: The ''[[http://i.imgur.com/I3V1I.jpg Berserker]]'' mounts a flamer where a person's mouth would be.
** The ''[[https://cfw.sarna.net/wiki/images/6/6f/CCG_Unlimited_Mongoose.jpg Mongoose]]'' has a similar mounting point for a small laser
* BrokenPedestal: After their self-imposed exile, the Star League Defense Forces became viewed as heroes by the Inner Sphere. And then their descendants returned. Violently.
* CamelCase: Throughout the setting. [=BattleMechs=], [=IndustrialMechs=], [=MechWarriors=], [=WarShips=], [=DropShips=]...
* CadreOfForeignBodyguards: The Fidelis in service of the Republic of the Sphere, though they were more of a special ops force than a true {{Praetorian Guard}}. Many suspected that they were survivors of Clan Wolverine, when in actually they were [[spoiler: the survivors of the Smoke Jaguar Annihilation]].
* CanonWelding: Michael A. Stackpole has revealed in a 2002 German interview that Wolf's Dragoons unintentionally became an advance recon force for the Clans while the writers were planning out the Clan Invasion. Specifically, during a convention in 1988, Stackpole and Battletech co-creator Jordan Weisman were speculating about Natasha Kerensky's connection with Alexandr Kerensky when Stackpole noted the coincidence of Wolf's Dragoons and one of their planned Clans sharing a name. Since the Dragoons already had a mysterious past, the writers were able to cleanly connect them to the Clans.
* CantStopTheSignal: This is how the Helm Memory Core was distributed to the Inner Sphere. The Gray Death Legion mercenaries, rightfully not trusting [=ComStar=] in the matter, instead distributed copies of the library core to a large number of free traders, as well as certain specific people (such as Duke Hassid Ricol, who had aided them in the defense of the core); which ensured that, in spite of [=ComStar=]'s efforts to destroy the core, they ultimately failed at eradicating it, which allowed for the long-standing [[LostTechnology decline of technology]] in the Inner Sphere to be reversed.
* CarFu: An interesting take on the concept, this is the premise from the popular lighter class mech urban tactic "Death-From-Above". Step 1: Realize your 40-ton mech can't go head to head with a 80-tonner. Step 2: Flee between skycrapers. Step 3: Jump-jet onto top of building, one that's taller than your opponent. Step 4: Wait until opponent is in jump range. Step 5: Gain as much altitude as possible before letting your "light" 35 tons of steel and armament come crashing down on top of your opponent. This is usually considered a last ditch tactic, as even a successful DFA is likely to cause some damage to the attacking unit.
** Not just light mechs, either. The [[http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Highlander Highlander]], a ''90 ton Assault class mech'', has jumpjets that allow it to DFA. Doing so is called the Highlander Burial, and can easily result in an instant kill by crushing the targeted mech's cockpit. Even without the likelihood of a cockpit crush, landing 90 tons of 'mech on another will do massive damage to even another assault 'mech.
* CatchPhrase:
** The Clan ''batchall'' (''Bat''tle ''Chall''enge): "This is [Rank] [Name] of the [Unit Name]! What forces defend [Objective]?"[[note]]The ''batchall'' is the Clan standard method of declaring their intentions for honorable combat: the version here is abbreviated. A formal ''batchall'' involves announcing your presence, announcing what units you have (in general terms; you can say you have a Star of 'Mechs, but you don't have to specifically indicate which 'Mechs, for example), announcing what your objective is, and then asking what forces the defender will commit to the battle. The ''batchall'' was designed by the Clans to preserve honorable combat, and also minimize losses: by declaring your attacking force, the defender could reasonably look at the correlation of forces and honorably withdraw without actually committing their forces to combat and therefore having to deal with combat losses (a serious concern in the resource-poor Kerensky Cluster the Clans call home). Needless to say, announcing your presence, forces and objectives doesn't work as well when the other side doesn't answer, like the Inner Sphere did when presented with the unknown combat rule: IS forces instead just got set up to blast their opponents, whether by surprise, ambush or otherwise, frequently replying to the ''batchall'' with something along the lines of "You want to know what forces I've got, come on down and find out." It speaks to the Clans superiority in combat and technological advantage that purposefully handicapping themselves didn't slow them down at all.[[/note]]
** "Bargained well and done," spoken to accept the terms of a ''batchall''.
** And among the now-Annhilated Clan Wolverine:
--->'''Wolverine 1''': And what are we?\\
'''Wolverine 2''': ''(switching comms to broadcast in the clear)'' '''''[[BattleCry Wolverines!]]'''''
* TheChessmaster: [=ComStar=] had a hand in instigating a good number of conflicts during the Succession Wars.
* ChestBlaster: Seen quite a bit, from [=BattleMechs=] that just install some secondary guns in the torso to support arm-mounted main weapons to such extremes as the ''Hollander'' light 'Mech that is basically just a {{BFG}} on legs (it's built around a Gauss rifle that, when also counting its ammo, accounts for almost half its total weight and ''looks'' the part). The construction rules actually somewhat encourage this by generally making the left and right side torso locations the ones with the most ''room'' to install weapons and other equipment.
** Slightly less insane than the ''Hollander'' is the classic ''Hunchback'', whose variants (with very few exceptions) mount the biggest cannon possible for their tech level into their right torso. A ''Hunchback'' that DOESN'T have a gargantuan cannon jammed into its torso is such a different beast that most pilots will not call it a ''Hunchback'' at all (they're ''Swaybacks'' instead)
** Slightly ''more'' insane than the ''Hollander'' is the BZK-F7 variant of the ''Hollander II''. Initially, the BZK-F5 ''Hollander II'' was built to address the original's shortcomings, increasing the 'Mech's mass by ten tons and adding extra armor and some backup weapons. Then someone had the [[SarcasmMode bright idea]] of stripping out all of its weapons and replacing them with a single ''Heavy'' Gauss Rifle. This variant can potentially destroy itself without enemy help whatsoever.[[note]]Explanation: Any 'Mech of 100 tons or less that moves and fires a Heavy Gauss Rifle in the same turn needs to make a piloting skill roll (of variable difficulty depending on its weight class, with mediums like this design being the second-worst possible) to retain its footing. [[RecoiledAcrossTheRoom If it fails, it falls,]] and should it land on its back the fall damage is more than enough to destroy the armor on a rear side torso and transfer over to the internal structure. Assuming this happens to the right torso, this has a good chance of damaging the Gauss rifle -- they're big and there's not really anything else in there -- and causing it to explode with enough force to gut the 'Mech outright.[[/note]]
** The Clans built a model that takes it up to eleven: the ''Hunchback [=IIC=]'' features two [[{{BFG}} Ultra AC/20s]], one over each shoulder. Of course, in order to fit that sort firepower onto a mere 50-ton frame certain sacrifices had to be made... such as [[GlassCannon armor and speed]]. Or enough ammunition for more than two and a half turns of fire at full blaze. Getting assigned to one is therefore generally an [[DeathEqualsRedemption invitation]] to [[DeathOrGloryAttack go out in style]].
** Some 'Mechs have smaller weapons embedded in their torsos, and the models depict them with the bore situated not far from dead center on the machine. Examples include the ''Hermes II'', the ''Peregrine'', the ''[=OstScout=]'' and the ''Spider.''
** Special mention goes to the ''Fafnir'', which has ''twin'' Heavy Gauss Rifles in its chest, enough to savage an entire Assault Mech unit even on its own[[note]]And enough to core out the 'Mech in the event of a lucky critical hit to one of those Gauss Rifles, which will make it explode, which will then explode the other Gauss Rifle, which, if the first one didn't destroy the center torso region, the second will[[/note]].
* CollateralDamage: ''[=BattleTech=]'' normally assumes that missed shots simply miss and have no other effect. There are three exceptions to this:
** If a mech has partial cover, then any shots that would normally hit the location behind the cover hit the cover instead. If this is because a battlemech is standing behind a low hill, this doesn't really matter. If it's because the mech is standing behind a small building, on the other hand, the building takes the hit. This can potentially destroy the building if it takes enough damage.
** Weapons that strike entire hexes, like artillery, always hit *something*. If you miss the target, you roll on the scatter chart to see which direction the shell drifts off-target, then calculate the distance based on how badly you missed by. This could mean that it hits another enemy unit. This could mean that it hits one of your own units. At point-blank range, this could potentially wind up drifting so badly that it lands behind the unit that fired the shell.
** There are advanced rules for calculating a missed shot to see what it's chances are of hitting something else that's on the line from the attacking unit to the target. As this adds a lot of extra work, it slows the game down considerably and is therefore not used very often.
* ChickenWalker: Quite a few 'Mechs have reverse-joint legs, including favorites like the ''Marauder'' or the ''Timber Wolf.''
* ChurchMilitant: The Word of Blake, its predecessor pre-schism [=ComStar=], and Clan Cloud Cobra
** Modern-day [=ComStar=] itself may be considered one as well, though with the religious aspects toned well down. Still, old habits die hard.
** The Brotherhood of Randis straddles the line between this and [[KnightInShiningArmor Knights In Shining Armor]]. At any given time, a Knight can be studying the Bible, helping to build a hospital, or blasting the hell out of pirates.
** Also astride the same line above are the Knights of the New Avalon Catholic Church, who formed out of House Davion [=MechWarriors=] fed up with their comrades-in-arms who'd formed secret societies called [=MechWarrior=] Brotherhoods. The Brotherhoods were abusing their position in society to extort, harass and brutalize civilians, and the [=KotNACC=] fought to put a stop to it, with the blessing of the Church.
* TheClan: The different Bloodname families in the Clans work like this.
* ColonyDrop: The Jihad had a few Asteroid Drops caused by Word of Blake, in one case framing the Federated Suns in the eyes of Taurian Concordat, sparking another front the Suns didn't need.
* CombatPragmatist:
** Frequently Inner Sphere troops in general when compared to the Clans. Not ''all'' Clan warriors put HonorBeforeReason, but enough of them do that peer pressure tends to keep the rest in line while the "dirty Spheroids" are largely free to run the gamut of what the Honor crowd considers acceptable tactics to gain an advantage in combat.
** Theodore Kurita, mastermind of the Draconis victory in the War of 3039, is this compared to his father Takashi Kurita. Takashi was a staunch disciple of Bushido, which resulted in a bad showing in the Fourth Succession War. By the time the War of 3039 rolled around, his son Theodore was being groomed for succession and had already become general of all the Draconis Combine Mustered Soldiery. His more pragmatic view to warfare was a major factor in the change of fortunes compared to the Fourth Succession War. Teddy's son Hohiro Kurita in turn is more a mind like his father than his grandfather, which makes the two far more able to strategically combat the Clans than the old die-hard Bushido warriors in the DCMS.
** The [[PlanetOfHats hat]] of Clan Star Adder is that, amongst the Clans, they most resemble a professional military and prize unit cohesion, military intelligence and long-term strategic thinking. Ironically this tendency kept them out of the Clan Invasion because their realistic assessment of what invading the Inner Sphere would require caused them to make a bid that was considered laughably overkill by the other Crusader Clans.
** Clan Wolverine remained this as Nicholas Kerensky was pushing the Clans deeper into HonorBeforeReason. It was one of the factors that lead to the other Clans not liking them very much, anyone challenging the Wolverines in TrialByCombat found themselves victims of disadvantageous terrain, flanking maneuvers, pincer attacks, ambushes, and combined fire.
* [[CompanyTown Company Store]]: Most nations in the Inner Sphere have tried to tie up mercenary companies in the national equivalents of "one company owns everything" from time to time, though some of the most famous incidents were the Draconis Combine's attempt to assimilate the Wolf's Dragoons into the Combine's military and the Federated Suns' hamhanded treatment of the Northwind Highlanders. Both ended tragically as the Dragoons ended up in a PyrrhicVictory against Warlord Samsonov's forces on [[MeaningfulName Misery]], and the Highlanders, covertly backed by an agent of the Capellan Confederation who was a descendant of one of their heroes, decided to go independent when [[GodSaveUsFromTheQueen Katherine Steiner-Davion]]'s actions triggered the [=FedCom=] Civil War, leaving [=FedSuns=] forces unable to keep hold of their homeworld of Northwind.
* ContinuityNod: The Era Report: 3145 gives a few nods to the Clix [=Mechwarrior=] boardgame and the [=WizKid=] era Dark Age novels:
** The RISC cards, presented in-universe as unstable equipment that somehow shows up everywhere with no rhyme or reason, criticized by the in-universe writer of the report.
** The inconsistent characterization of Anastasia Kerensky in the early novels:
--> ''The aimless bouncing from one goal to the next that characterized her actions in the mid-3130s caused many observers to question her mental state, with some claiming she seemed like a different person each time she popped up into the public eye.''
* CoolHelmet: The Neurohelmet. The pre-Succession Wars/post-Clan Invasion neurohelmet are similiar to jet fighter helmets, while the Succession Wars era helmets are massive 10 pound monstrosities that limit the wearer's field of view.
* CoolShades: Most incarnations of the Banshee have a polarized windshield designed to look like the mech is wearing sunglasses.
* CorporateWarfare: Mostly by mercenary proxies.
* CorruptedContingency: At the height of its power, the Star League built a series of nigh-impregnable orbital defenses around Terra in order to protect the capital world from any aggressors who might seek to conquer it. Unfortunately, when the usurper Stefan Amaris managed to take over the Star League in a manner that bypassed the orbital defenses[[note]](by becoming the First Lord of Star League's most trusted friend and advisor over the course of several years and then shooting him in the head)[[/note]], those same defenses exacted a terrible toll on the loyalist Star League Defense Force when it came to remove Amaris from power.
* CrapsackWorld: Dozens of worlds are actually quite nice to live on. It's the hundreds of others - alternately exploited, ignored, and conquered by somebody or other - that are lucky to exist on the industrial level.
** Pretty much amounts to a [[CrapsackWorld Crapsack Galaxy]] on the whole...
** Somewhat Averted however. 90% of the time, the factions go out of there way to prevent as much civilian losses as possible and for them being conquered just means a new flag.
* CriticalExistenceFailure: [=BattleArmor=] troops are the only ones that play this straight. A suit of [=BattleArmor=] has a certain number of armor points (depending on how heavy the suit is, how much of that weight it devotes to armor, and how advanced its builder's armor technology is), plus one for the trooper inside. The definitive [=BattleArmor=], the Clan basic Elemental armor, has ten armor points. Hitting a [=BattleArmor=] trooper with a weapon that does ten damage means the suit's armor is completely stripped (and so, logically, the suit itself should be all but destroyed), but the trooper in question can still run, jump, shoot all his weapons (that still have ammo), and climb up a 'Mech to try and [[AttackItsWeakPoint tear up its actuators with his armored hands]]. Only when that eleventh point of damage, representing the trooper inside, is taken, is the [=BattleArmor=] out of comission.
** 'Mechs can theoretically remain active and functional with just one point of internal structure remaining on the center torso, but in reality a 'Mech is far more likely to sustain critical damage and become combat nonfunctional (or withdraw) well before that. Engines and gyros are in the center torso, three engine hits "kills" a 'Mech by forcing the engine to shut down; two gyro hits make it impossible for the 'Mech to stand (though it can prop itself up with its arms to keep shooting). Your shots aren't likely to all go to the CT, you'll scatter damage across left and right torsos, arms, legs, and head, which all have their own armor and structure and components you can damage to decrease the 'Mech's effectiveness. Killing a 'Mech by reducing its CT to zero structure is known as "coring" among the fans.
*** 'Mechs can easily suffer a CEF through one thing: ammo explosions. Damage transfers through a 'Mech, you see. . . hit a left arm that has only five structure with your Autocannon[=/=]20, fifteen of your damage isn't just lost, it goes to the left torso. When an ammo bin takes a critical hit, the ammunition explodes, dealing damage equal to what the weapon does when fired once times the number of shots remaining in that ton. So if a full ton (five shots) of [=AC/20=] ammo explodes, it does 100 damage to the location it was stored in, and if that location can't absorb 100 points of damage without being destroyed (impossible), it transfers to the next location. Damage always transfers towards the CT, so a 'Mech suffering an ammo explosion (without the benefit of CASE to mitigate it) pretty much inevitably dies immediately.
** Conventional vehicles can mount ''way'' more armor than a 'Mech of the same tonnage, and can put on a pretty frightening array of weapons to boot. But vehicles are ''very'' prone to suffering "motive system" crits, even when they have plenty of armor left, which can increase the difficulty of piloting rolls, reduce the vehicle's MP, or even render it immobile. They can also suffer "turret locked" crits, which locks the turret in the direction it was facing when the crit occurred. A good volley of fire can reduce your fearsome combat vehicle an expensive battlefield ornament.
** Conventional infantry platoons are filled with {{One Hit Point Wonder}}s, each point of damage kills one trooper (some weapons may be more or less efficient at this). The more soldiers are in the platoon, the more hits it can acheive and thus the more damage it can do, but the whole platoon is not destroyed until the very last soldier dies.
* CriticalFailure: [[GoombaStomp Death from Above]] attacks have a very high probability of dumping the attacking mech on its face, missing the target entirely. Rapid fire weapons like rotary and ultra-autocannons have a chance to jam if they're fired more than once in the same turn. It's possible to get critical failures from ''movement''; roads are notoriously good at making your battlemechs stumble around like they're drunk, as players need to perform a roll when making high-speed maneuvers on smooth surfaces - fail the roll, and the mech will faceplant onto the road or the ground next to it. God forbid you have to turn on a road while in a city, as failing the rolls will make your mechs slam into buildings, taking huge amounts of damage and [[DisasterDominoes even worse depending on what you slam into you could then cause the building you slam into to collapse on top of you for more damage]]. [[FromBadToWorse You can also skid into other units. . . typically your own.]]
** The Experimental Hyper-Velocity Autocannon lines have a CriticalFailure condition where getting a bad enough roll when using one of these Autocannons causes the gun to blow up in your face for damage to the unit using them.
* CriticalHit: Any sort of combat machine, be it 'Mech, aerospace fighter, Dropship, or vehicle, can suffer critical hits to their internal components. These are applied once armor is lost, and generally speaking the loss of any single slot of a component rendered the whole weapon useless. Even worse, some components, like Gauss Rifles and most forms of ammunition, could explode if hit. Under certain conditions, some weapons can bypass your armor's threshold for damage mitigation to score a Through-Armor Critical Hit.
* CultureChopSuey: While each nation has a dominant culture, they also have hundreds of billions of inhabitants across dozens or hundreds of worlds, each with its own influences. Then keep in mind that those nations that try to invoke historical cultures are usually going by bastardized interpretations of them, sometimes deliberately.
* CultureClash: HilarityEnsues when the Inner Sphere meets the Clans...
* CulturePolice: The Draconis Combine's [[PillarsOfMoralCharacter Order of the Five Pillars]]. The Word of Blake and pre-schism [=ComStar=] also had a department of [[SecretPolice ROM]] dedicated to maintaining ideological purity.
* CumbersomeClaws:
** [[PowerArmor Battle Armor]] has several options for hands. Armored gloves let you do anything that a human could do with their hands (since they're literally just gloves over the wearer's hands)). Basic Manipulators are less dexterous and prevent the wearer from doing any tasks that require fine motor skills but are still good enough for basic tasks. And finally Battle Claws, which are weapons first and pretty dismal at any task that doesn't involve ripping enemies apart.
** Battlemechs often have hands, but these can be replaced with claws as a melee weapon. Claw attacks deal more damage than punches but take a penalty on the attack role. On top of that, if the mech tries to use its claws for any task other than attacks (for example, trying to pick something up), they have to make a piloting skill check or they hit it with an accidental claw attack.
* CurbStompBattle: In a sense, the Battle of Tukayyid: the Clans brought their best, and the opposing [=ComStar=] forces brought their...all. And then [=ComStar=] proceeded to fight to the literal death, which was not a battle that the Clans were prepared for (their way of life emphasized honorable retreat, and while death in combat was full of honor and glory, it was also something to be avoided due to relatively scarce resources in the Kerensky Cluster). In addition, [=ComStar=] had studied the Clans and knew that they couldn't decline a challenge without a serious loss of honor, which the warrior culture wouldn't allow, and [=ComStar=] also knew that the Clans preferred direct combat with 'Mechs over any other form of battle. As a result, [=ComStar=] was able to utterly savage the Clans using indirect attacks (artillery, aerospace assets, ambushes, etc), asymmetric warfare, direct challenges in which a Clan unit about to break and retreat was instead goaded into continuing the attack for honor's sake, and human wave tactics. The result was that [=ComStar=] lost ''a lot'' of lives and equipment, utterly savaged by the Clans superior weaponry, equipment and training, but the Clans lost ''worse'', including most of their equipment and some of their best Mechwarriors for an entire generation.
--> '''Tex Talks Battletech''': tl;dr, the Clans brought their best. And Space AT&T said "Get bent, weirdo".
* CyberCyclops: The [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin aptly-named]] ''Cyclops'' assault/command battlemech has a head which is dominated by a massive red/black glass canopy designed to look like a eye. In ''Videogame/MechWarrior 4'', it's also the mounting point for a [[EyeBeams large laser]]
* CyberneticsEatYourSoul: Clan Enhanced Imaging and the Word of Blake's Direct Neural Interface both allow the user much greater control over their vehicle. However they also cause psychological and physical problems; up to and including death after several years.
** Generally averted for everything else; as long as you don't screw with the central nervous system than you can have as many ArtificialLimbs and organs as you need. Even the extensively augmented Manei Domini, the above implant notwithstanding, are not merciless killers because of their augments; they are merely ideologically indoctrinated well before they were seriously upgraded.
* {{Cyborg}}: The Manei Domini elites of the Word of Blake.
** Even before the Manei Domini, several characters were shown or described as having visible cybernetic prosthetic limbs or facial features, and the tabletop game recognizes the less subtle variants are more common than the 'stealthy' ones.
* TheCycleOfEmpires: The Successor States and the Crusader Clans are fighting one another to become the next empire after the Star League's fall.
* DarkMessiah: Nicholas Kerensky to the Clans and The Master to the Word of Blake. Lesser examples for other factions come up with distrubing freqenecy.
* DarwinistDesire: The Warrior castes of the Clans in Battle Tech practice eugenics. A Clan's scientists blend together the genes of two respected warriors and grow about a hundred [[TheSpartanWay (of which as few as five might survive childhood)]] kids in tanks.
* DaysOfFuturePast: The rapid expansion of humanity eventually results in a reversion to [[FeudalFuture quasi-feudal governments]]. Almost every government is ruled by a noble family, and via RuleOfCool, [=BattleMech=] pilots are compared to chivalric knights. The inclusion of monarchical intrigue and royal romance help put the [[SoapOpera soap]] back in SpaceOpera.
* DecadentCourt: House Kurita's internal politicking is more often violent than not. Houses Liao and Steiner end up like this when the families crazier traits manifest in the current ruler. The Davions have to deal with a minefield of regional politics and lesser nobles while the Mariks have to contend with representatives from a few hundred worlds and very powerful provincial leaders. Civil wars are common in the Inner Sphere for this reason.
* DeadlyDoctor: [[spoiler:The Society]]
* DeadlyEscapeMechanism: As [=BattleMech=] interiors tend to be extremely hot places, most 'Mech pilots dress for comfort rather than survival post-ejection, making them rather ill-equipped to handle all but the most temperate of environments outside their cockpits. And that's before considering the utter hellscape that is the average 31st-century battlefield. Or the fact that ejecting from a toppling 'Mech has the propensity to send the pilot rocketing straight into the nearest solid object. Or the design "quirks" of certain 'Mechs which make a successful ejection from them nigh impossible...
* DeathFromAbove: You can attack from higher ground to gain a chance to hit enemy Mechs in the vulnerable head area, call in air strikes or artillery, or perhaps just jump into the air and [[GoombaStomp drop one multi-ton machine onto another]]. That last one is specifically called Death From Above in-game and in-universe. One rulebook even considers it good form to loudly declare Death From Above while attempting it in the course of a game. The [[LightningBruiser Highlander assault Mech]] is one of the few Mechs of its [[MightyGlacier class]] that can perform this tactic thanks to having jump jets installed in the chassis as standard equipment, allowing it to execute the infamous "Highlander Burial" on opposing mechs smaller than itself.
* DeathSeeker: For a Clan warrior, the highest goal is a glorious death amidst a sea of fallen enemies, as it proves you have the courage and skill to be worthy of your genes being used to breed future generations. To live past the age of thirty is shameful, unless you're [[AsskickingEqualsAuthority high-ranking enough]] that your badassery is truly without question.
** Common among disgraced Combine warriors, who either wish to die in battle or be granted permission to commit Seppeku, and in TheFundamentalist units in the Word of Blake (particularly the Manei Domini), often carry out suicide attacks so they can die for their beliefs.
** Also not unknown among Capellan troops since the Fourth Succession War went badly for the Confederation, [[GodSaveUsFromTheQueen Romano Liao]] took over to salvage what was left, and retreating from the enemy in combat effectively became treason and punishable by death. She's dead now, but "hopeless battle syndrome" has remained a real problem well into the reign of her considerably more rational son Sun-Tzu.
* DeathTrap: The base model of the Hunchback IIC mech is in-universe called one by most Clanners, since with it's light armor (for a medium size mech ) and sparse armaments (once the [=UAC20=] ammo is gone it only has 2 medium lasers to fall back on) anyone put into one is not expected to make it out alive. Given the above trope, aging Clan warriors will sometimes request this assignment so they can have a chance to die gloriously.
* DeathWorld: Many planets inhabitants depend on terraforming to stay alive on some of the worst examples. When the Star League collapsed and these technologies were lost, ''millions'' died in the Periphery to due disease and a lack of clean water and food.
** The Clan homeworlds are at best considered sub optimal. Resources are in short supply, leading to wastefulness being a cardinal sin in Clan society. Many of the original SLDF exiles also contracted diseases in the early years. The Clans are also named for actual animals native (or modified and introduced) to their worlds, and these (which include lovely critters such as [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Steel Vipers, Ghost Bears and Smoke Jaguars]]) are often more dangerous than the SuperSoldiers that took their names.
** ''Dunkelwalderdunkelerfluesseschattenwelt'' in the Draconis Combine is reputed to be one, with flora and fauna that is marginally less deadly than [[TabletopGame/Warhammer40000 Catachan]] from a different franchise. The dreaded ''nachtzehrer'' (a gigantic vampire bat-like creature) is even part of the planetary flag! [[note]]Don't go looking for it on current maps, though: The planet's citizens, fed up with the gigantic jawbreaker of a name, changed it to "Bob". [[ObstructiveBureaucracy Bureaucrats being what they are]], the DCMS office in charge of supply shipments lost the declaration paperwork and so refused to send any new supplies to "Bob". The planet largely died, though pockets of colonists are still hanging on, and are bloody terrifying, given what they've had to survive for the past 300 years...[[/note]]
* DefectorFromDecadence: Candace Liao pulled this when the rest of her family got a bit too AxCrazy and started harming the Capellan Confederation.
** Clan Nova Cat as a whole defected to the Inner Sphere once they realized that the Crusaders were going to destroy any chance of the Star League being reformed. Clan Wolf (In Exile) had this forced on them, they sought to protect the Inner Sphere from Crusader aggression (under orders and in accordance with the Warden philosophy) but then the Jade Falcons came along, [[ScrewTheRulesIMakeThem cheated to win the Refusal War and then had the Warden Wolves Abjured without a Trial.]] The Ghost Bears started off as a Crusader Clan but then abandoned their beliefs and fully embraced the Warden ideology after the Invasion, and then completed their defection by merging with the Free Rasalhague Republic and thus turning into the [[{{Protectorate}} Ghost Bear Dominion]].
* DemocracyIsBad[=/=]DemocracyIsFlawed: Democracy did not fare well in the BT universe, to say at least:
** In the early days of colonization before the HPG communications became the norm, the democratic style of government was simply ineffectual, and even detrimental, for managing a large interstellar nations.
** Terran Alliance, in its efforts to get rid of the large amount of problems it had managing the unruly colonies, voted to simply abandon the colonies past a certain distance, leading to associations with isolationism.
** The democratic process in the Free Worlds League over the centuries has degenerated into a farce.
** The Democracy Now! movement in the Lyran Commonwealth turned into a secessionist one during the Jihad.
* DesignerBabies: The Clans' "trueborns" are all test-tube babies, with their genetics manipulated to create {{Super Soldier}}s. Goes right down to "Freebirth" being a '''really''' nasty slur -- "freeborn" is the neutral term for describing someone born naturally, but "freebirth" is a racial slur similar in offensiveness to the N-word.
** Freeborns ''did'' sometimes join the warrior caste though; more than one series of the associated fiction involved a despised, bottom-caste Freeborn proving his worth as a warrior. In addition, certain Clans hold little or no value on test tube baby superiority, awarding rank and status purely on merit.
** There's the opposite, "Trashborn" or "Vatborn" which is used by Freeborns as a slur against Trueborns (usually where the Trueborns can't hear them).
** Clanner opinion changed after extensive warfare versus the Inner Sphere, especially in proving that older warriors weren't necessarily inferior (most Clanners past the age of about 30-40 were relegated to "cannon fodder" duty strictly on age). ''All'' Inner Sphere warriors are Freeborns, many of them on par with Clan warriors and and few (Kai Allard-Liao) being remarkably deadlier than the best the Clans have to offer. Inner Sphere warriors frequently have a decade or more of experience on their Clan counterparts; by the Clan way of thinking, since the Trueborns of one generation are born of the absolute best of the previous generation, they all start out as good as that generation, and only get better as they're properly trained. Once they hit 30 years old, they're facing warriors three and four generations "improved" on them, thus the genetic equivalent of a biplane trying to take on a jet fighter. All-out warfare with the Inner Sphere (once the tech gap was narrowed significantly, and the Inner Sphere learned how to trick their way around it) proved that edge Clan warriors have is minimal (and possibly has more to do with [[TheSpartanWay their methods of training warriors from birth]] than any kind of genetic superiority), and thus that older warriors with greater experience are more valuable than a young, new, "genetically superior" raw recruit.
* DesignItYourselfEquipment: Just about every vehicle in the game is customizable, or one can simply create wholly new designs from scratch; by the Total Warfare edition, there's an entirely separate ''book'' of construction rules, plus extra material to be found spread among several others. (Individual ''parts'' will still be off-the-shelf, though -- whether you call it a [=ChisComp=] 43 Special or a Magna Mk III isn't going to make one large laser noticeably different from the next.)
* DiabolusExMachina: Just when a lot of [[LostTechnology LosTech]] has been rediscovered and things are starting to stabilize into the Republic of the Sphere, somebody throws a wrench into the works by shutting down the Hyperpulse Generator (FTL communications) network. The setting more or less immediately reverts to the pre-3025 political arrangement.
** This also happens earlier in the timeline, specifically in 3050: the Inner Sphere is stable (well, as stable as it gets), and there's relative peace after the end of the Fourth Succession War, as things stabilize into neutrality. And then [[OutsideContextProblem the Clans show up]] and cut a huge swath of Periphery space away, all but destroying several smaller powers and permanently up-ending the political situation in the Inner Sphere forever.
* DiminishingReturnsForBalance: The way engine mass works, there is an optimal engine size and speed for any given 'Mech mass and while deviating from this may give some benefits, dramatically over-engining results in a 'Mech with virtually no room for weapons or armor as the engine mass increases more and more with each extra point of movement added. Conversely, under-engining results in smaller and smaller weight savings for the same reason. As such, most practical 'Mechs won't deviate much more than a point of movement in either direction from this curve. The later addition of Light and XL engines shifts this curve in favor of faster designs, but doesn't actually get rid of the curve.
** Dramatic examples of over-engining can be seen with the ''Cicada'' and ''Charger'', which have engines that take up more than half of their mass, leaving them badly undergunned and incapable of carrying the maximum armount of armor for a 'Mech of their tonnage.
** Underengining can be seen in the ''[=UrbanMech=]'', which could gain another point of movement for only 1.5 tons and of that 1.5 tons gained, an entire ton is spent on a heatsink that's not really necessary given that the ''[=UrbanMech=]'' can't actually generate enough heat to overtax even the ten heatsinks already included in the engine.
* DirectLineToTheAuthor: All of the sourcebooks exist InUniverse as secret reports, historical textbooks, vehicle manuals or something else along those lines.
* DividedStatesOfAmerica: The USA hasn't existed since the 21st century in the setting, but the Terran Hegemony and the Free Worlds League are close enough to qualify. In the Terran Hegemony's case their territory was divided up by the Successor States in a series of brutal wars following the fall of the Star League. In the Free World League's case . . . well, it's pretty much a RunningJoke in the franchise that there's a betting pool going for when their next civil war is going to break out.
* DividedWeFall: The Free Worlds League tends to fight itself as often as it battles as other Successor States, mostly due to the fact that it's a collection of hundreds of "free worlds". It has had numerous civil wars (which are always exploited by the other Houses, and some of them are actually triggered by foreign spies) and during the Jihad broke up into no less than three major powers who all claimed to be the "true" Free Worlds League and were willing to fight to prove it. All while fighting the [[OmnicidalManiac Word of Blake]].
** Clan Fire Mandril is arguably even worse than the League and this was intentional on the part of their first Khan. Divided into several Kindras they battle amongst themselves so often that they routinely get pulverized by other Clans. It got so bad that they [[spoiler:were eventually [[KilledOffForReal Absorbed]] during the Wars of Reaving.]]
** The Draconis Combine began to have these issues during the Clan Invasion and it only got worse as time went on. The reforms of Theodore Kurita were opposed by the Black Dragon Society, a bunch of hardline samurai traditionalists, who eventually engaged in armed rebellion against House Kurita. At the exact time the Word of Blake started its Jihad.
* TheDreaded: Many individuals and military units fall here. However during the Succession Wars the mere threat that [=ComStar=] was considering to Interdict you (refusing any communication services) was enough to get all but the gutsiest leaders to back off. This is understandable as without the HPG network a nation is restricted to using months long and resource consuming Jumpship courier routes for interplanetary communication; throwing their military efforts, intelligence networks and economics into chaos.
** In terms of mechs there's the Dire Wolf, a hundred ton Clan Assault [=OmniMech=] better known to the Inner Sphere as the Daishi, Japanese for 'Great Death' (Unless it's on your side then the Buddhist translation of Daishi "Great Master" probably implies instead). It is every bit as implacable as an Atlas and a smidge over half of its 100 tons loaded mass is available for a modular arsenal, which inevitably include a pastiche of Gauss Rifles, Ultra Autocannons, Pulse Lasers and the feared Clan [=ER PPCs=]. It's not unheard of for one of these mechs to destroy twice its own weight in Inner Sphere units before being taken down.
** Speaking of the Atlas, that mech was [[InvokedTrope deliberately designed]] to invoke this trope with a sinister skull motif on its cockpit in addition to its incredible arsenal.
** Among conventional combat vehicles, there's the [[{{BFG}} Demolisher heavy tank]], the [[ShockAndAwe Shrek PPC carrier]], and the [[MagneticWeapons Alacorn Heavy Tank]]. Not only are these three feared by any other combat vehicle crew, but even the cockiest 'mech pilots will soon lose their nerve when faced off with (respectively) dual [=AC/20=]s, a trio of Particle Projector Cannons, or a trio of Gauss Rifles. These armaments are all top-tier heavy-damage weapons in Energy and Ballistic classes, and each vehicle mounts multiples of them, something that's a challenge to design even an ''assault mech'' to carry[[note]]The number of 'Mechs that are designed to hold three [=PPCs=] can be counted on one hand, and they have severe heat issues as a result. A 'Mech mounting a ''single'' [=AC/20=] is considered dangerous, and the weapon is heavy enough that mounting two is unfeasible. A Gauss Rifle has the range of a PPC with the damage of an [=AC/10=], and better accuracy than both, and they're dangerous to mount on a 'Mech due to the possibility of it exploding[[/note]].
* TheDreadedDreadnought: PlayedWith. ''Dreadnought''-class [=WarShips=] are not the biggest or most powerful in the setting, but they were the ''first'', and all other [=WarShips=] owe their existence to that class.
* DroppedABridgeOnHim: Done completely by accident with the mercenary unit The Black Thorns, whom had been the subject of two novels and one sourcebook. Early into the Jihad arc, fighting between Combine and Suns forces accidentally released a deadly bio-engineered plague on the planet Galedon V which led to the planet being sterilized with nukes. When a writer later wanted to write a short story on the Black Thorns, fact checkers discovered the unit had been last seen assigned to garrison duty on Galedon V... [[ThrowItIn Rather than try to retcon or rewrite the story, the developers simply decided the Black Thorns were all wiped out from either the plague or the nuclear bombardment.]]
** [[CreatorsPest They weren't terribly broken up by the error]] -- [[https://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php/topic,5611.msg125368.html#msg125368 Here's then-Line Developer Herb Beas' recollection of how he reacted to the situation.]] Complete with a SincerityMode NotMakingThisUpDisclaimer.
* DropShip: Literally called that, probably as a ShoutOut to the original ''Literature/StarshipTroopers'' novel, which was published 25 years before [=BattleTech=].
* TheDogBitesBack: At the dawn of the [=ilClan=] era, Clan Jade Falcon was hit with a double dose of this. Their Khan, Malvina Hazen, was ultimately stabbed to death by their adoptive "daughter", Cynthy, after a long period of physical and emotional abuse. When Galaxy Commander Stephanie Chitsu (who was a staunch opponent of Hazen's cruel methods) found the dying Khan, they ultimately decided to ignore the "Chinggis Khan"'s demands for aid. On a larger scale, Clan Hell's Horses, taking advantage of the Falcons' weakness following the [=ilClan=] Trials, struck back at the Falcons for Hazen's perversion of the Horses' Mongol Doctrine, as well as being made unwilling allies of the Falcons; launching Operation: STAMPEDE and taking several Falcon worlds.
* DoubleMeaningTitle: The Inner Sphere ReportingName of the Dire Wolf, the Daishi is either translated from Japanese as "Great Death" when it's barring down on you but if it's on your side, the Buddhist term of Daishi which translates to "Great Master" is more applicable
* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness:
** The game was originally called ''Battledroids'', but [[Creator/GeorgeLucas someone else]] [[DisneyOwnsThisTrope owns that word]].
** The early setting had a ''much'' more ScavengerWorld feel to it, with battlemechs being literally irreplaceable. This was toned down later on via one of the few actual {{retcon}}s for both storytelling and profit reasons; can't sell new expansion packs if nobody is making new mechs!
** The very first edition shipped with several alternate rule types not seen in later editions. "Expert" rules formed the basis for the game today. "Advanced" rules removed physical attacks, piloting checks, falling damage, and aimed shots. "Basic" rules completely altered the game with very simplistic rules; all your weapons would be fired at once and would either all hit or miss, and would not expend ammo or generate heat. Mechs were simplified to a single hitbox without SubsystemDamage, and [[CriticalExistenceFailure depleting these hitpoints would destroy it]].
* EarthIsABattlefield: The Liberation of Terra in Amaris Civil War and Jihad.
* EarthIsTheCenterOfTheUniverse: Geographically speaking, in this case--all the maps of known space have Earth as the center. And despite the setting encompassing countless other planets, dates are always given as whatever day it is on Earth when something happened.
** Controlling Earth generally means you're the most powerful faction as well.
* ElaborateUndergroundBase: Castles Brian (or "Castles named after Brian Cameron"), with the average one being the size of an ''average planetary capital city'' and rivaling a VideoGame/DwarfFortress for how long they can hold out against a siege.
* EliteArmy: The Clans, especially their frontline Galaxies. Even their garrison troopers tend to be formidable due to the Clans' technological advances and high barrier of entry.
* ElitesAreMoreGlamorous: ''Battletech'' is constructed around the [=BattleMech=] and the lion's share of gameplay and rules are for 'mechs. InUniverse, [=MechWarriors=] are akin to medieval knights, 'riding' the rare but extremely powerful [=BattleMechs=] into battle as part of a combined-arms approach to warfare (in the Inner Sphere at least). The Clans (except Hell's Horses) made the [=BattleMech=] as important to their overall warfare doctrine as it is presented in-game and field almost exclusively 'mech-based armies with some aerospace and infantry support.
* TheEmpire:
** The Draconis Combine was this for much of the backstory, being the only Great House nation to be founded on the idea of uniting all of humanity under House Kurita by force, and the Successor State that opened the First and Second Succession Wars. During the game's main timeline, a combination of BalanceOfPower concerns (under Takashi), reformist leaders (under Theodore) and the Clan Invasion kept the Combine on the defensive, although as of the Dark Age period they have re-started their wars of conquest.
** The Star League was like this to the Periphery nations; who were heavily taxed, denied the rights enjoyed by the Great Houses and were forced to join after the Inner Sphere attacked them in the Reunification War.
** Downplayed by The Marian Hegemony, a micro-nation that practices slavery, used to be a bandit kingdom, and has conquered several other states in the Periphery. As a small power even by Periphery standards, they are far too weak to threaten any of the Successor States, or even any of the major Periphery nations.
* EnemyCivilWar: The Wars of Reaving, when the homeworld Clans tore themselves apart throughout the 3070s over perceived 'taint' from the failed Inner Sphere invasion. Unfortunately, the Inner Sphere powers were too busy dealing with the Word of Blake Jihad to take advantage of it.
* EnemyMine: First happened with the feuding Successor States when the Clans invaded. And then, when the Word of Blake started the Jihad, the Successor States did this again ''with the very Clans that made them invoke this trope the first time''. Of course, chances of the Successor States and the Clans allying with the Blakists in the future against an even greater threat is low, seeing how as the order is essentially dead, and any survivors are considered to more or less be akin to Amaris supporters back in the Star League's final days.
** In the Dark Age, the Inner Sphere was shocked when [[spoiler:the Wolf's Dragoons signed up with their traditional arch-enemy, the Draconis Combine, although by this time-frame almost all the Dragoons who had issues with the Draconis Combine were dead or retired by now which lessened the shock]].
* EnergyWeapons:
** Lasers, [=PPCs=], and their variants. They don't require ammunition, but are terribly heat inefficient compared to missiles and ballistics.
** The current developments of laser weapon technology (as described on that page) [[HilariousInHindsight almost perfectly mirrors how the differing in-game laser weapons work according to the sourcebooks.]]
* EnforcedTechnologyLevels: [=ComStar=]'s ''[[http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Operation_Holy_Shroud Operation Holy Shroud]]''. Pretty much the cause of +90% of the problems in the Inner Sphere.
* EpicFlail: Mech sized versions of flails appear on mechs customized for the gladiatorial combat on Solaris 7.
* EternalEnglish: [[EnforcedTrope Enforced]] by the Clans.
* ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin: The Hatchetman and Axeman [=BattleMechs=]; [[AnAxeToGrind guess what they carry?]] Likewise the [=UrbanMech=]. It's the slowest light 'mech in the games (both original tabletop and the video games based off it), but it works because it's intended to be used in the kind of cover that a city can give.
** Some of the 'Mechs can have rather pretentious names, but quite a few are surprisingly apt. The ''Charger'' excels at physical attacks like ramming, the ''Ostscout'' is a great recon vehicle (and dead meat if anywhere within a kilometer of a proper battle), and the ''Annihilator'' has eight rather considerable guns, half of which can fire the tactical equivalent of [=BattleMech=] buckshot and will chew up most smaller targets if given the chance.
** Many 'mechs named after medieval siege weapons, projectile weapons, or soldier classes who operate them are often in the business of [[MacrossMissileMassacre Long Range Missile]] volleys. Examples include the ''Trebuchet''[[note]]A Medium class mech with some short range backup, but primarily intended to mount two [=LRM15=] launchers for indirect fire support[[/note]], the ''Archer''[[note]]The originator of this naming convention, being the first true fire support mech and armed with twin [=LRM20=] launchers with a battery of lasers for backup[[/note]], and the ''Catapult''[[note]]A Heavy class mech with point defense weapons built around two [=LRM20=] launchers, though variants can include extreme long-range weapons like [=PPCs=] in place of the missile launchers[[/note]].
* EvilCounterpart: While it's difficult to call a war machine evil, any Clan 'Mech of a "Z" configuration is about as close to the mark as you can get. Z-types were the exclusive domain of the Society during their attempted coup, having selected the designation to symbolize what they believed were the last days of the Clan's old Warrior dominated way of life. They are quite potent, having been packed with absolutely bleeding edge gear in an attempt to compensate for Society Mechwarrior's lack of combat experience, but their role in assisting many of the Society's crimes against humanity means they are seen as symbols of evil and consequently none survived the Wars of Reaving.
* EvilIsPetty: Several examples come to mind. The most infamous is probably Jinjiro Kurita; who had over fifty million people executed because his father was killed as a legitimate military combatant. The resulting furor over the Kentares IV Massacre cost the Draconis Combine the First Succession War, which they were ''winning'' before. NiceJobFixingItVillain.
** When the Word of Blake realized that they were going to be defeated and [[PayEvilUntoEvil receive no mercy for their crimes]] their tactics became even more destructive. During the Liberation of Terra they detonated cobalt laced nuclear weapons in key population centers, irradiating them for decades, not for any tactical purposes but simply because they wanted to pull IfICantHaveYou on humanity's homeworld.
** On a slightly smaller scale, this is a defining character trait of Katherine Steiner-Davion, who after seceding with her half of the Federated Commonwealth is repeatedly shown to be more concerned with how to get back at people for real or imagined snubs than the responsibilities of actually running her nation.
* EverythingsBetterWithSamurai: Well, considering that the Draconis Combine is obsessed with feudal Japanese culture... it's not surprising that Kurita [=MechWarriors=] style themselves after the Bushido code of old. And then there's the ''[[http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Hatamoto-Chi Hatamoto-Chi]]'', which is actually designed to ''look'' like a samurai.
* EyepatchOfPower: Precentor-Martial Anastasius Focht sported one. Combines neatly with his CoolOldGuy factor (not physically, but he proverbially stared down the Clans with the Com Guard under his command).
* FactionCalculus: Very loosely, as the game places a massive emphasis on personal customization. However there are ''some'' trends within each faction, if you care to play lore accurate:
** Clans is the Powerhouse faction to the Inner Sphere's Subversive. Clan mechs are generally much better armed and faster, but ''absurdly'' expensive. If you field a single Clan ''Timber Wolf'' in a PointBuy game, expect your Inner Sphere opponent to field ''two Awesomes'' to match, or even ''four Awesomes'' if you use a C-Bill purchase system instead. As a Clan player you invest in overwhelming power but you pay for it by fielding fewer units and having to take rather stupid HonorBeforeReason tactical decisions, like insistence on single combat and no [[DeathFromAbove artillery]]. Even within the Clans and Inner Sphere, there are breakdowns on preferred tactics:
*** Clan Smoke Jaguar likes using heavy and assault units like the ''Warhawk'' and ''Dire Wolf'' along with an aggressive and lethal style of war, but this makes them slow and vulnerable to supply issues, [[MightyGlacier making them easy to outmaneuver]].
*** Clan Wolf and Clan Nova Cat take a more moderate approach to war with units like the aforementioned ''Timber Wolf'', and more flexible units like the ''Shadow Cat''. Less power, but last longer than their peers.
*** Clan Jade Falcon is the textbook Cannon faction. They favour fast-moving units with tons of firepower and little in the way of protection, like the ''Hellbringer'' and the ''Summoner''. [[GlassCannon They're deadly, but can be put in a lot of pain if caught out of position or focused on]].
*** Clan Ice Hellion is an interesting take on a Powerhouse/Subversive mixture. Units like the ''Viper'' and the ''Fire Moth'' won't win against bigger and more heavily-armed and armoured mechs, but they run rings around their Clan peers and field quite a lot of units relative to the price they pay. Unfortunately, this often makes them reliant on achieving a win condition that isn't a straight duel to the death.
*** Do you want to field Panzers in space? Look no further than House Steiner, the Inner Sphere's Powerhouse faction. They have the economy to field very large mechs like the ''Zeus'' and the ''Atlas'', [[MightyGlacier emphasizing armour and tonnage at the expense of speed and numbers]]. They have a preference for the long-range Gauss Rifle, letting them reach out and wallop their enemies from miles away. But this makes them very predictable and slow on the move, easy to outflank and outwit.
*** House Liao is Subversive to a tee, a mish-mash of Imperial and Communist China and favours mechs that are fast and light, loaded out with high-tech stealth armour and electronic warfare suites, as well as unusual missile launchers. House Liao's units like the ''Raven'' and the ''Vindicator'' will lose if they try and fight head-on, but they can sneak-grab objectives and score critical hits like no other.
*** House Marik and House Kurita are Balanced, but in different ways. You go with the United States/Yugoslavia/Holy Roman Empire-themed House Marik if you just want a "little bit of everything", with a vehicle pool listing all categories and weight classes but nothing particularly standing out; you mostly win by fielding whatever the enemy lacks. House Kurita, the Japanese-influenced faction, quite unusually focuses on very light and very heavy units almost exclusively, largely omitting middleweight mechs; averaging out to a tenacious balance by using both extremes in tandem.
*** House Davion is the Inner Sphere Cannon faction. Taking on the fine British tradition of using MoreDakka in their armies, Davion likes to use light-armoured and quick mechs loaded with autocannons up the wazoo, something you can see in their ''Enforcer'' and ''Victor'' class mechs. You have to be careful with the fragile mechs, but if you can manage to outflank and focus down an enemy mech, you'll Swiss cheese it in no time.
** That said, there's nothing outright ''preventing'' House Steiner or Clan Ghost Bear from feilding fast light and medium 'Mechs, House Davion from using tougher units armed with lasers, or Clan Jade Falcon from taking a more cautious approach with better-armored units, or House Liao from meeting the enemy head-on in straight-up slugging match. The factions have their stereotypical preferences, but none is strictly forced into one specific playstyle, forsaking all others.
* FailedFutureForecast:
** The game's timeline started with the fall of the Soviet Union -- in 2011; this was changed in later editions to the Russian Federation. The most recent edition puts it back to the Soviet Union, with history having changed from ours during the 1980s.
** Later editions had Russia undergo a civil war between reformists and communists; which forced NATO to act as peacekeepers. This cooperation lead to the formation of the Western Alliance, which became the Terran Alliance which fell and was replaced by the Terran Hegemony.
* FailureIsTheOnlyOption: If any one faction succeeded, or even if widespread peace breaks out, the game ends! So when one faction does succeed, it must inevitably fall (Star League, Federated-Lyran union, Republic of the Sphere), and when widespread peace breaks out it must be betrayed (Clan Golden Century, Dark Age).
* FalseFlagOperation: Many examples crop up but the Blakists are the masters of this trope. One of the reasons the Jihad was initially successful (despite taking on all the major powers at once) was because the Word was able to trigger several brush wars, civil uprisings and succession movements to weaken their enemies.
* FantasticCasteSystem:
** The Clans place SuperSoldier DesignerBabies at the top of their society. Although it's possible for a Freeborn warrior to earn a Bloodname and officially join the guys on top, unofficially, they remain looked down upon.
** The Technician Caste can be considered to have a number of sub castes. A tech maintaining a mech has a higher social standing than one who maintains, say, a hydroponics unit.
** Applies to Scientists as well. A Scientist working on the breeding program or weapons development (both of which support the Warriors) enjoys more prestige and standing than one working on new hybrid food crop. Even Laborers, one building a new Warrior barracks or testing ground is better than a mere farmer. And even among Warriors, the statuses of Trueborn or Freeborn, if you have a Bloodname, the pedigree of the specific Bloodname you hold, which Bloodhouse you belong to, rank, age, and personal combat record all influence a specific Warrior's standing. Basically, the Clans have a Fantastic Caste System ''inside'' their Fantastic Caste System.
* FantasticRacism: While normal racism is far more common; many Trueborns see [[FantasticSlur "Freebirths"]] as PunyEarthlings and many freeborns consider "Trashborns" to be NotEvenHuman. Neither charge has much basis in reality.
** The Free Worlds League, despite being the most tolerant society in the Inner Sphere when it comes to any form of diversity, discriminates against those with cybernetic implants. Paradoxically they are also the most tech savvy of the Great Houses in many areas.
* FantasticUnderclass: Below all the official castes in the Clans' Fantastic Caste System exists the Bandit - aka "Dark" - caste. Its members are the outcasts and rejects of Clan society, often those who have failed in their assigned (or reassigned) caste but who refuse to accept demotion, or simply those who do not fit in to the rigid structure of Clan life.
* FantasyCounterpartCulture: In spades.
** Each of the Inner Sphere States includes populations with roots in various Earth cultures (or rather: a [[ThemeParkVersion heavily fictionalized version of these Earth cultures as outsiders might imagine it]]), usually with one being strongly dominant. However, what the nations of the BT universe have in common is that they're strongly "medievalized", so to speak - the historical circumstances of the setting being engineered in a way that it promoted feudal societies, traditional knighthood, courtly intrigue, isolationism due to poor communication and complicated methods of transport and so on.
*** The Draconis Combine, based on samurai-era and World War II Japan, is the most culturally homogeneous. The only two major exceptions to this are the Muslim Azami and, prior to its secession in 3034, the Scandinavian-influenced Rasalhague Military District.
*** The Free Rasalhague Republic is extremely Norse, to the point of having a sea serpent for its banner and later merging with a winter-themed Clan that was co-founded by a man with strong Nordic ancestry.
*** The Capellan Conferedation is predominantly Chinese, but also has notable Russian and Indian populations. They're kind of a mishmash of dynastic Imperial China (how they like to be percieved) and modern Communist China (how they really are).
*** The St. Ives Compact started as pre-transfer Hong Kong, with elements of Taiwan being added over the years. The latter is lampshaded with the april fools e-book ''Free Taiw...St. Ives''.
*** The Lyran Commonwealth is German, with Norse and Italian influences. And with references to the Norse pantheon all over the place.
*** The Free World League somewhat avoids this, being the only nation that isn't a clear-cut throwback to a specific Earth culture. While its ruling House Marik are descendants of Czech nobility, the biggest member-states of the FWL between them contain cultures from Europe, South Asia and the Middle East, and the numerous smaller regions and independent worlds are drawn from all over Earth.
*** The Federated Suns can be summed up as the "Western" faction, with its leaders being of Anglo-French stock; and being the ones most rooted in Western political traditions, with Arthurian elements woven into the culture.
*** Historically, the Terran Hegemony could be considered "the Anglo-American alliance IN SPACE!"
** The Periphery States:
*** The Marian Hegemony wishes it was Rome, as per its founder's design.
*** The Magistracy of Canopus is like Las Vegas (tons of slot machines everywhere) and the rest of Nevada (legalized prostitution) combined.
*** The Taurian Concordat are essentially Texas, with their fiercly independent and defiant streak backed up by a predeliction for shotguns (personal and Battlemech sized), by way of Spain thanks to being ruled by House Calderon.
** The Clans: Generally, the Clans are less defined by having strong roots in a specific Earth culture like the Spheroid states, and more as having themes (there's the trader clan (Diamond Sharks), the religious clan (Cloud Cobras), the over-aggressive clan (Smoke Jaguars), the mystic clan (Nova Cats)...). However, a common element of Clan society is that is is actually a mix of Maoist China, the Mongol Empire, ancient Sparta (with the importance put on martial prowess, raising their kids TheSpartanWay, their cruel treatment of and disdain for serfs, civilians and freebirths in general (all of whom are basically various version of helots) etc.) coupled with a ''Literature/BraveNewWorld''-like mindset when it comes to eugenic matters, a very pronounced disgust for natural conception, sexual promiscuity and restricted freedom of thought.
*** Clan Coyote has some Native American influences sprinkled in.
*** Dark Age Clan Hell Horses modeled their tactics after the Mongols, even naming this philosophy the Mongol Doctrine. Then the Jade Falcons under the leadership of Malvina Hazen took over the doctrine, only they chose to emphasize the terror warfare aspect to frighten opponents into submission. This caused a conflict between two Clans.
* FasterThanLightTravel: Of the "Jump" variety, using a Kearny-Fuchida (K-F) Drive. Ships that do this are called [=JumpShips=]. [=BattleTech=] has one of the ''slowest'' [=FTL=] systems in Science Fiction. 30 light years at a jump, but then around a week to recharge. it would take about 9 months for one ship to travel from one end of the Inner Sphere to the other.
** Travel from one end of the Sphere to the other can be done quicker via a "Command Circuit" -- a series of [=JumpShips=] waiting one after the other. A DropShip disconnects from the first Jumper to catch a ride with the next one, and so on. This is incredibly expensive to set up and is essentially reserved for military use or priority travel by the ruling class.
** Though commercial space travel is commonly accomplished by riding one [=JumpShip=] for jump or two, then transferring to a different [=JumpShip=] for other jumps, in a manner not unlike picking up connecting flights in modern air travel (the [=HareBrained=] Schemes ''VideoGame/BattleTech'' video game shows this very well).
** You can speed up the recharging process (and thus the travel time) in a few ways. The main way [=JumpShips=] (and their bigger, meaner cousins, [=WarShips=]) recharge is by deploying a solar sail and collecting energy from the star they've jumped to. The process is slow, but steady and safe. Many important systems have recharging stations which can recharge a K-F Drive faster than solar collection, and (almost) as safely. Beyond that, a ship may use its own conventional drives and generators to funnel energy into the K-F Drive, though at risk of actually losing charge or damaging the drive. Lithium-Fusion Batteries can store an extra jump charge, but take as long to recharge as the drive itself. You can only charge the drive or LF Battery from one source (sail, station, or onboard energy) at a time, and a source can only charge a drive or a battery, but nothing stops you using one source on the drive and another on the battery, if you're willing to risk potentially damaging the battery.
* TheFederation: The Federated Suns, and Lyran Commonwealth. However, while both are largely free societies, both are ruled by autocrats. The Federated Suns has a partially democratic congress, however. The Lyran Commonwealth also has a parliament with some power. Both states do have democratic governments at the planetary and local levels as well, for the most part.
** The Star League was this to the Inner Sphere; the member states handled their own internal affairs and major decisions were made via a vote by the House Lords who could and did occasionally override the First Lord.
* FeudalFuture: All of the Successor states are ruled by royal families and nobles, with individual nations having different amounts of feudalism. The Federated Commonwealth is a (largely) free society, while the Draconis Combine takes feudalism up to eleven.
* FictionalGenevaConventions: The [[http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Ares_Conventions Ares Conventions]], and its spiritual successor the Honours of War, are perhaps the most exhaustive examples ever written. The former cleaves close to this trope in being intended for humanitarian purposes, the latter are more a case of pragmatism in the face of total societial collapse and boil down to "don't break [[LostTechnology shit that's hard to replace]]." This obviously means damaging the remaining faster-than-light Jumpships gets ''everyone'' pissed at you, but pretty much any piece of technology more advanced than a microwave oven can be ransomed -- along with the guy who owns it; at any time during a battle, a Mechwarrior can offer to yield with the full expectation of his opponents ransoming him and his Battlemech to his faction, and can usually expect the offer to be accepted. Same with space fighters and dropships; no-one wants to wreck operational technology. It also protects spaceports, industrial areas and power plants. The Conventions are known and acknowledged even at the civilian level because civilian populations and agricultural areas are implied to be part and parcel of those sites as they're the local source of trained workers to ''run and maintain'' them -- especially because a lot of the expertise is passed down through families. This means that most [=WMDs=] are also banned, because biosphere damage that kills too much of a planet's population is likely to demolish all technological civilization on the planet, rendering it all but worthless unless someone brings in megatons of hardware and people to rebuild it from scratch. However, the resulting AdventureFriendlyWorld clearly demonstrates the HardTruthAesop at the trope's heart; the Conventions ''legalized'' warfare, and made it so simple and cheap that nations waged war for resources and territory almost ''constantly.''
** As with everything to do with warfare, taken to the logical extreme by the Clans. Where the intent of the Honours was simply to outlaw weapons of mass destruction and keep civilians and irreplaceable Lostech out of the line of fire after the apocalyptic First and Second Succession Wars, The Clan Way and ''zellbrigen'' (which rose from the similarly apocalyptic Pentagon Wars) places such emphasis on limiting collateral damage that bidding takes place before all combat, with the intention of keeping even military units that aren't absolutely necessary to achieve victory from being destroyed. Likewise, combat is ritualized to such an extent that in many cases even ganging up 2-on-1 against an opponent was unethical. Naturally, the clash of cultures was a shock during the Clan Invasion.
* FlawedPrototype: Frequently, prototype 'Mechs, fighters, vehicles, etc. will have serious design flaws and bugs that the finished design may (or may not) iron out. For much of the game's history these flaws were an InformedAttribute, only present in the fluff descriptions of the unit but not at all affecting its performance on the tabletop, though later rules for Quirks remedied this somewhat. In fact, a whole Technical Readout book (appropriately entitled "Boondoggles") was all about Flawed Prototypes that were ''so'' flawed they never made it into production at all.
* {{Foreshadowing}}: The [[PrivateMilitaryContractors Wolf's Dragoons]] sourcebook openly speculates that the mercenary unit is actually a scouting party for the return of Alexander Kerensky's Star League Defense Forces.
** The novel ''Wolves on the Border'' features a Clan ritual conducted by members of Wolf's Dragoons.
* ForGreatJustice: The Brotherhood of Randis might qualify as a modest mercenary band, except they don't fight for profit, a rare thing in the pragmatic [=''BattleTech''=] universe. They do have an as-yet-undisclosed source of income though, so they can afford to be altruistic.
* FounderOfTheKingdom: Nicholas Kerensky, the creator of the Clan's social and governmental structure, is revered by all Clanners as "The Founder". His famous father, Aleksandr Kerensky, is even move revered and remmebered as "The Great Father" of the Clans. His remains were preserved aboard his old flagship, the SLS ''[=McKenna's=] Pride'' orbiting the Clan capital world Strana Mechty as a monument to the Exodus (at least until the Wars of Reaving).
* FragileSpeedster: Most of 20-30 ton light mechs by standard design. Due to their relatively small size, they do not have enough space to equip enough weapons and enough armor to go toe-to-toe with heavier mechs without sacrificing speed, at which point it would be more cost effective to field a medium mech. Thus, the light mechs are used for scouting, hit-and-run, and general harassment, with the "fair" opponents for them being the equally light mechs or extremely slow-to-turn mechs.
* FranchiseDrivenRetitling: When ''[=MechWarrior=]: Dark Age'' was introduced, the original game was retitled ''Classic [=BattleTech=]'' to differentiate it from the new line ([[FridgeLogic why this was necessary for a pair of games that shared no common words in their titles is a mystery]]). After ''Dark Age'' was discontinued, the ''Classic'' moniker was dropped from the original game, which went back to being just ''[=BattleTech=]''.
* FreeLoveFuture: The Magistracy of Canopus has legalized prostitution (and sex tourism is a substantial part of their tourism and entertainment industry, which basically sustains their entire economy) and is pretty liberal when it comes to sex of any sort.
** The Clans, despite being ruled by a military junta devoted to social engineering, also practice this. With no form of marriage in place, warriors reproducing [[DesignerBabies through the eugenics program]] and civilians though arranged pairs (the resulting children are raised in communal creches), sex is treated like recreation.
* FrontlineGeneral: There are many examples. This is encouraged in the Inner Sphere and all but mandatory in the Clans.
** For the Inner Sphere, there are several 'Mech designs, like the ''[=BattleMaster=]'', ''Cyclops'', and ''Archer'' that are "Command 'Mechs" with extra communications and control equipment to help their pilot both lead a sizeable force and personally kick ass (this is largely a fluff designation, but the Quirk rules give Command 'Mechs an initiative bonus). Someone piloting one of these is likely to be both an extremely cunning and talented leader and an exceptionally skilled [=MechWarrior=].
** In the Clans, since AsskickingEqualsAuthority is in full effect, their leaders are typically right there on the front ranks, even up to the Khans. The ones that try and avert this and lead from the rear tend to have their careers end horribly when it comes out they aren't "true" warriors.
* FTLTravelSickness: Transit Disorientation Syndrome, or "jump sickness", is a condition that afflicts some people after a K-F jump. Symptoms include headaches, nausea, irritability, disorientation, and diarrhea. They typically only last for a few hours, but if the person undergoes a second jump while still experiencing symptoms, they can be incapacitated for as long as a week. Suffering from this condition doesn't really impact a mechwarrior's career in any way, but you can't serve on a jumpship or dropship crew or as an aerospace fighter pilot.
* FutureSlang: The Clans in particular embrace this. Though they insist on speaking proper grammatical English, they also added plenty of their own military and cultural slang. It's part Russian, and part easily figured out, but it's there.
[[/folder]]

** In terms of weapons, the trope is embodied first and foremost by the medium laser. Modest damage, fairly short range... lightweight, compact, heat-efficient, no ammo needs, and arguably the most ubiquitous [=BattleMech=] weapon in the entire Inner Sphere. You'll be hard pressed to find a 'Mech that does not have at least one medium laser, either as a main gun on certain light 'Mechs or a reliable backup weapon on heavier ones.

* AerithAndBob: With all the cross-cultural influences going on, it's not too unusual (Takashi Kurita and his son Theodore being probably the best-known example). A few truly peculiar names do stand out, however, like [[AwesomeMcCoolname Grayson Death Carlyle]][[note]](pronounced "deeth")[[/note]] and Photon Brett-Marik.

*** Three Words: [[GatlingGood Bear]][[AwesomeMcCoolname Hunter]] [[AwesomeButImpractical SuperHeavy]] [[ATeamFiring Autocannon]]. A Clan Hell's Horses invention ([[ArchEnemy hence the name "Bearhunter"]]), it was designed to provide conventional infanty with. . . well, precisely this trope. Clan Hell's Horses being not only the only Clan who recognizes the value of conventional vehicles and infantry in a setting otherwise dominated by HumongousMecha and PoweredArmor but having a massive hate-on for Clan Ghost Bear, the Bearhunter is a [[{{BFG}} massive]] [[GatlingGood gatling]] autocannon. Ironically, the failed attacks by Clan Hell's Horses against Clan Ghost Bear would see the weapon fall into the hands of the very people it had been designed to splatter across the landscape.

** Certain components also have hit points, but don't have CriticalExistenceFailure like armor (and to a lesser extent structure). Engines, gyros, sensors, and even pilots all gradually degrade from damage. For instance, the first critical hit on the engine damages the shielding, inflicting a permanent waste heat penalty. A second hit worsens the penalty. The third hit makes it so the reactor can no longer contain its heat to sustain the reaction and the mech is down for the count. Gyro damage causes piloting skill penalties for one hit and then permanently floors the mech on the second. Sensor damage causes to-hit penalties when targeting, and pilot injury causes a chance for the pilot to get KO'd and makes it gradually harder to wake back up, eventually to the point where the pilot is killed.

* RiddleForTheAges: Jinjiro Kurita, one of more unstable Coordinators of the Draconis Combine, [[DrivenToMadness went off the deep end when he received a box that made it through layers of security]]. The contents were a single doll dressed in a Star League uniform. After nearly killing the two guards who had been sent to check on him, Jinjiro spent the final four years of his life locked in a soundproof room screaming in terror until [[DrivenToSuicide he finally hanged himself with his own clothes]]. Centuries later, historians remain baffled by what Jinjiro saw in the doll as well as who sent it.

** Battlemechs often have hands, but these can be replaced with claws as a melee weapon. Claw attacks deal more damage than punches but take a penalty on the attack role. On top of that, if the mech tries to use its claws for any task other than attacks (for example, trying to pick something up), they have to make a piloting skill check or accidentally hit it with a claw attack by accident.

*** "Zero-Heat Alpha Builds" straddle between this and BoringButPractical. It's ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin: a 'Mech build that can fire all of its weapons at once with zero heat buildup. Of course, doing so means you're packing a lot less firepower than most other 'Mechs in your weight range, and lack an [[UpToEleven Eleven to dial your 'Mech up to]] if you [[GodzillaThreshold absolutely, positively need to kill]] an enemy 'Mech NOW. You're either undergunned compared to a different variant of the same 'Mech, your internals are filled with heat sinks (which can take crits and ruin your zero-heat alpha strategy) or both. That said, it's enormously satisfying (and can be quite effective) to let fly with EVERYTHING and not have to worry about the deleterious effects of heat.

** The Clans built a model that takes it UpToEleven: the ''Hunchback [=IIC=]'' features two [[{{BFG}} Ultra AC/20s]], one over each shoulder. Of course, in order to fit that sort firepower onto a mere 50-ton frame certain sacrifices had to be made... such as [[GlassCannon armor and speed]]. Or enough ammunition for more than two and a half turns of fire at full blaze. Getting assigned to one is therefore generally an [[DeathEqualsRedemption invitation]] to [[DeathOrGloryAttack go out in style]].

* FeudalFuture: All of the Successor states are ruled by royal families and nobles, with individual nations having different amounts of feudalism. The Federated Commonwealth is a (largely) free society, while the Draconis Combine takes feudalism UpToEleven

* FlawedPrototype: Frequently, prototype 'Mechs, fighters, vehicles, etc. will have serious design flaws and bugs that the finished design may (or may not) iron out. For much of the game's history these flaws were an InformedAttribute, only present in the fluff descriptions of the unit but not at all affecting its performance on the tabletop, though later rules for Quirks remedied this somewhat. In fact, a whole Technical Readout book (appropriately entitled "Boondoggles") was all about Flawed Prototypes that were ''so'' flawed they [[UpToEleven never made it into production at all.]]

** [[UpToEleven Exemplified]] by Clan Smoke Jaguar, who represent the worst excesses of the Clan's brutality and contempt for those not born to the Warrior Caste. They're also the tragic perpetrators of a grand case of DramaticIrony as their founder, [[NobleDemon Franklin Osis]], had rediscovered his youthful pacifism in his twilight years and wished to temper the ruthless savagery of his Warriors with pursuits beyond the martial. Unfortunately, he was followed by a succession of short-sighted and vicious Khans that enshrined those beliefs he had come to regret, resulting in a Clan that was [[EveryoneHasStandards hated and despised]] by their ostensible allies, notorious for committing wanton slaughter and a seemingly endless list of atrocities. When their crimes caught up to them during Operation [=BULLDOG=] and Operation [=SERPENT=], the rest of the Clans were all too happy to abandon the Jaguars to their doom.

** Indeed, the Clan Trial of Annihilation takes this UpToEleven. Should the guilty party be [[TrialByCombat convicted]] not only are they executed, but anyone related to them is put to death (if in the warrior caste, and this includes children still in training or even still [[PeopleJars unborn]]) or sterilized and sentenced to a life of hard labor (if in the civilian castes). Afterwards, if someone so much as mentions the names of the Annihilated, that alone is grounds for censure. It should be noted that Annihilations are only carried out well after the Clans see the GodzillaThreshold crossed and it requires ''every'' bloodnamed warrior in the Clans (thousands of people, apart from those who are targeted) to vote in favor to even commence the Trial.