EFFORTPOST [Effortpost] The Battle drama rages on

This is a continuation of this effort post here: https://rdrama.net/post/176154/effortpost-the-battlemarseytrain2-cries-out-in

You can read my previous reporting on Mechwarrior Online here: https://rdrama.net/post/114442/turns-out-bideo-game-marseyangryexosuitmarseyjanny-jannies

After another day of people seething and raging over this

and this

(yes these are real)

The community is still a little hot and bothered about it. Over on /tg/ one of the authors of the fanzine decides to stop by as they are also a channer. Remarkably, while people shit all over them they mostly just take the feedback and move on. Here are a few choice snippets:

Retvrn to Tradition

>My honest reaction to this anthology:

>You will never be a real Ghost Bear. You have no honor or prior knowledge of football. You are an honorless man twisted by furry porn...

https://voca.ro/1bEs7DPXgCzV

Turns out some of the gays hate the cliche gay storylines written by danger hairs. Speaking of dangerhairs I'm sure you want to follow them on twitter right? https://x.com/Detocroix/status/1664042859383644160

The author is about midway down the thread with the RDJ image (https://archived.moe/tg/thread/89112168). Like I mentioned earlier, most just took the criticism and not too much drama. But later another anon points me towards some Sarna drama. Sarna is really well maintained wiki for all things Battletech, so if you ever want to look up some random shit about a giant mech you can. The last time I played the game was with my father and brothers as a teenager so it was pretty nostalgic looking through it.

But I digress, Sarna also has an editorial column where they talk Battltech news, after many complaints the author decided to move CURRENT YEAR topics to a separate section instead of woven into the article. Here's the most recent:

Our inaugural editorial comes courtesy of esteemed novelist and BattleTech writer Michael A. Stackpole, who declared on Twitter that “BattleTech has always been woke” following a post from Catalyst outlining the success BattleTech has achieved in recent years which counters the right-wing battle cry of “go woke, go broke.”

But has BattleTech always been woke? A certain tank that will no longer be reprinted seems evidence to the contrary. And the fact that both House Kurita and House Liao are still largely ethnically and racially defined, would beg to differ. Things got a lot better with the introduction of the Clans, with its egalitarian society that cared little for race or gender, only whether you were born in a test tube with combat-capable genes.

I’m sorry, but the idea that ‘things got a lot better’ for the setting in terms of wokeness with the introduction of the Clans just makes me laugh. Have we forgotten that the Clans openly practice eugenics and chattel slavery? To what possible degree is the Clan scientist caste tolerant of disability or mental health in selecting the best warrior genes? In what way is a society wherein the strongest fighters rule ‘egalitarian’? As has been pointed out above, ‘woke’ no longer means ‘alert to racial prejudice and discrimination’ (if it ever did), but is now associated with a type of toxic individual who endlessly agitates for changes to established lore and setting until the correspond with that individual’s particular real-world political views. To say that ‘BattleTech has always been woke’ speaks to a pretty fundamental misunderstanding of the term.

Human chattel is progressive now, just look at the Woman Queen: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_woman_king

Sean, in regards to the criticism of Battletech being “Woke”. Woke has become one of those words that has lost all meaning due to overuse and misuse. Woke no longer means “alert to racial prejudice and discrimination” because many individuals who claim to be “woke” are in fact quite bigoted, self absorbed and quite frankly, complete idiots. Calling yourself Woke is just asking to be compared to these people. Yes, Battletech has always been diverse in terms of race and sexuality, and I wouldn’t have it any other way, but it has never sought to hold that diversity up on a moral pedestal and screamed incomprehensibly at people who disagree with it.

Gay people EXISTING is not incompatible with battletech. This is like saying “its fine to have BLACK people but i don’ want to see them.” It’s nonsense. Get over yourself. Gay and trans people exist, and having them mentioned isn’t somehow an insult to you. There are straight s*x scenes in every other battletech novel but you’d lose your mind at two men kissing?

This argument, every single time.

Plenty of slapfights in the Sarna coments and on /tg/ enjoy