Battletech and historical influences

[Sarevok]

1 ) Is the term lance a reference to the medieval concept of small unit of knights/men-at-arms ? I mean BT is supposed to take place in a neo feudual age with where chivalry reigns once again and mechwarriors are pretty much knights and nobility.

2 ) The clanners use a lot of Mongol/Asiatic terms. They are even lead by Khans. Are they an allegory for Mongol invaders ?

3 ) What would the undivided Star League at it's golden age represent ? Roman Empire perhaps ?

[Gunhead]

1 ) Is the term lance a reference to the medieval concept of small unit of knights/men-at-arms ? I mean BT is supposed to take place in a neo feudual age with where chivalry reigns once again and mechwarriors are pretty much knights and nobility.

2 ) The clanners use a lot of Mongol/Asiatic terms. They are even lead by Khans. Are they an allegory for Mongol invaders ?

3 ) What would the undivided Star League at it's golden age represent ? Roman Empire perhaps ?

Never read any direct quote about the term lance being derived from some medieval term, I think it's just to be more "cool" and medieval than say, platoon. BT's neo feudality is pretty debatable. Some of the earlier stuff is more about the mechwarriors being knights in super armor, later stuff is.. well not.
Clanners as mongol invader analogue doesn't really click IMHO. Some stuff might be seen like that but clanners are more.. Native Americans mixed with steroids, communism and uber warrior supremacy. Overall and to the third point too, you can draw all sorts of analogues from BT depending on the source. The Star League is just a stand in for the "good ole days" and as such it shares the bog standard mantle of drawing influence from all sorts of great historic cultures. It's really what you make of it. There's tons of BT stuff floating around and there are various takes on almost everything. I haven't read up on BT in ages so I'm going pretty much from memory and I have no idea about the newer stuff.

-Gunhead

[Tanasinn]

More recent fluff reveals to us that the Star League was a terribly corrupt, violent government that waged illegal, inhuman wars against unassociated confederations of worlds. Even more recent data tells us that Amaris - after he killed off the Cameron dynasty in a particularly nasty and personal fashion - was actually elected in a fairly free election to the position of Director-General. The full member-states of the Star League - the eventual Successor States - were in a constant state of shadow war, and really only belonged to the League due to the threat of military force and the advantages that could be gained by exploiting the League's bureaucracy.

While the Star League gets painted up as something pretty, it was just as black-hearted as any other nation.

[PainRack]

1 ) Is the term lance a reference to the medieval concept of small unit of knights/men-at-arms ? I mean BT is supposed to take place in a neo feudual age with where chivalry reigns once again and mechwarriors are pretty much knights and nobility.

Not too sure about this. But the Great Houses were inspired by Italy.

2 ) The clanners use a lot of Mongol/Asiatic terms. They are even lead by Khans. Are they an allegory for Mongol invaders ?

Yes. Well, inspired by is a better term. The artistic influence of the Clans were inspired by a mixture of Mongols and other analogies. Its obviously not a perfect fit, same as how the Cappellan Confederation isn't a perfect fit for Machivelli.

3 ) What would the undivided Star League at it's golden age represent ? Roman Empire perhaps ?

Yes.

More recent fluff reveals to us that the Star League was a terribly corrupt, violent government that waged illegal, inhuman wars against unassociated confederations of worlds. Even more recent data tells us that Amaris - after he killed off the Cameron dynasty in a particularly nasty and personal fashion - was actually elected in a fairly free election to the position of Director-General. The full member-states of the Star League - the eventual Successor States - were in a constant state of shadow war, and really only belonged to the League due to the threat of military force and the advantages that could be gained by exploiting the League's bureaucracy.

While the Star League gets painted up as something pretty, it was just as black-hearted as any other nation.

Its not even recent. The Star League was remembered as a golden age. But even if we were living in Renaisannce Europe, was the Roman Empire that wonderful?

Beside, seriously, you got to be delusional if you see Amaris as anything other than a tinpot dictator.