Apocryphail Phriday: Battletech The Animated Series

It was the 1990s. I had just beaten one of the greatest video games ever, Mechwarrior 2, set in 3057 during the war between Clan Wolf and Clan Jade Falcon. And then I saw the advertisement for this game, Battletech, set in the same universe. It was a tabletop wargame, and I liked wargames. After requesting the game, I received it for my sixteenth birthday. I found it a great game, but I wondered, why couldn't I play with the 'Mechs from the video games? Then I found out there were expanded rules for that.

I got the expanded rules. And then I got sourcebooks. I began to read the novels tied in with the wargame, and immersed myself in the rich universe of Battletech. Solaris: Multi-Player BattleTech Online on AOL and Gamestorm was my very first online multiplayer game. And, in 1998, I attended my very first Science Fiction convention with the express purpose of participating in their Battletech tournament. I placed third.

It was there that I became aware of Battletech: The Animated Series, a thirteen-episode one-season epic cartoon released by Saban in 1994. I found myself a copy, and watched eagerly, looking forward to animated adventures set in the world of what was, at the time, my favorite game.

You can guess how that went. This column is not called Apocryphail Phriday because the stuff I review is good, after all.

I was going to review one of William Shatner's "Shatnerverse" novels for Star Trek, but I need another week to properly process that particular bit of crazy. So let's look at one of the worst animated series set in one of the best sci-fi universes ever.

Pictured: The coolest thing ever.

First, the question must be asked, is this cartoon so bad? On paper the plot looks riveting. It tells the tale of the First Somerset Strikers, a unit formed as a special operations battle group defending the Federated Commonwealth during the Clan invasion of 3050.

I guess that requires some explanation. See, the Federated Commonwealth is the main starfaring nation with a European/Nordic/American culture. They share a border with their traditional enemies, the Japanese-Culture themed Draconis Combine. The Clans are mysterious invaders from beyond the Periphery... the Periphery is the edge of known space... who have advanced weaponry and technology that allows them to easily conquer the worlds of the Inner Sphere.

The Inner Sphere is the region of known space, which includes the Federated Commonwealth, the Draconis Combine, and others.

So the Clans conquer a planet named Somerset, and this is the home planet of a guy named Adam Steiner, who, since he's related to Archon Melissa Steiner, manages to commandeer a Draconis Combine jumpship and go to attack the clans.

I suppose I should mention that the Archon is the leader of the Lyran Commonwealth, which is the western part of the Federated Commonwealth, which is why being related to her has such pull. Oh, and jumpships are ships that travel through hypserspace in jumps up to a maximum of 30 light years, but then have to open up their solar sails and recharge for a week before making another jump.

And also there's this Star League that once united all of humanity, and this general named Kerensky who took the Star League military away, but is rumored to come back someday to defend the Inner Sphere when it needs it the most.

About a third of what you need to understand.

And this is all stuff you need to know to understand the very first half-hour cartoon episode.

And here we come to what killed this cartoon. If you do not already have an encyclopedic knowledge of Battletech, it makes practically no sense. The Clanners are tossing out Clan slang and ephithets with no explanation. Nothing about their society is ever very clearly explained, it's mostly left for the viewer to figure out (or to read about in one of the Battletech sourcebooks that they apparently assumed everyone would go out and buy).

Literally the first words spoken in this series are: "Attention Somerset. I am Star Colonel Nicolai Malthus of the Jade Falcon Clan. A full trinary stands ready to conquer your planet. What forces dare oppose us?"

"You Stravag!" "What about your vag?" "ARRRGH!"

The next line Malthus says is, "You dare to refuse my batchall?"

Never in the entire series are we told what a trinary is. If you pay very close attention, you can eventually figure out what a batchall is, but it's not very well explained. It takes half the series for them to bother explaining what a Clan is, or where these guys come from.

Vital information is spoken once in passing conversation, often obliquely, and then never mentioned again for the rest of the series despite being necessary to understand events. And that's not even getting into the fact that Inner Sphere politics are central to three episodes especially, and yet are never explained.

A huge amount of information is crammed into each half-hour-minus-commercials-and-credits. In one episode they have a space dogfight through an asteroid field to avoid automated drones, they detect a signal from inside a dark nebula, they learn the drones are from the "Second Succession War" (which is never explained), they participate in a simulated combat to test their new enhanced imaging system, they try to decode the signal which takes them awhile, and find out that the signal might, jut might, lead to an old Star League base, and Franklin is told that the transmission is probably nothing and to ignore it. And that is all in the first five minutes.

Too much is happening, and considering that even the Inner Sphere is alien to viewers not already familiar with the universe, that kills it. What exposition does exist is ham-handed and forced, and often rushed through so quickly that it does not stick.

And with all the action and exposition, there is no time for character development whatsoever. Not that Saban cartoons ever have much in the way of character development. So as a shortcut, the writers apparently relied on that old standby of racism!

Every 80s and 90s show ever. It was a different time.

The black guy? He bucks authority and does things his own way, but with a jovial, street-smart attitude.

The hispanic girl? She doesn't test very well, but she's super-fiery and enthusiastic!

The Japanese guy? He's mysterious and never gives a straight answer, and it turns out is secretly part of a conspiracy back in his home nation, which apparently is entirely comprised of Japanese guys who are mysterious and never give a straight answer and are samurai, obsessed with honor and conspiracy. To be fair, the novels were also often guilty of this when dealing with the Draconis Combine, but that is no excuse.

And where racism doesn't help, other stereotypes do. You have the gruff veteran, the nerdy sharp-talking tech girl, and the leader who believes in teamwork, and that information is ammunition, and that we have to look beyond prejudice and unite together to be prejudiced against a whole new set of people!

The old copies of Battletech episodes I have were of terrible
quality, and I couldn't find a good picture of Ciro. So here's
a similar character. Just imagine he's captured by Venger
and gets convinced that Venger is the good guy.

Oh yes. And there's Ciro. Ciro the traitor. Ciro who exists only to be a jackass, until he is captured by the Clans and you think maybe, just maybe, we'll get some character development, but no he just turns traitor and keeps being a jackass.

The villains are predictably dull-witted, easily tricked, and a waste of air-time. This did not have to be a bad thing. One of the key quirks of the Clans is their culture has become so ritualized that they actually are easily-tricked, and they regard the use of clever tactics as a "coward's way out". But since that is barely mentioned, and the deeper nuances of clan culture are never talked about, it doesn't matter.

And even if it was, it would not justify bad guys this stupid.

Then there's the typical problems you have with any show of this type. The Clans supposedly have vastly superior technology, but their 'Mechs are only superior when the plot needs them to be superior, and are defeated when the plot needs them to be defeated. Indeed, the amount of damage a Battlemech can take in this show seems to be determined entirely by the level of dramatic tension, and nothing else.

Then there's the content. This is a Saban show, so presumably it's aimed at children, but they retain a lot of the moral ambiguity and questions about who is really in the right from the Battletech novels. The result is a show that is too complex and morally ambiguous to really be aimed at children, but at the same time is too childish and simplistic to be satisfying for adults.

As I see it, there are only two ways this show could have worked: Either they needed each episode to be an hour long, or else they needed to make the story about the Fourth Succession War of 3028, which has a much more straightforward plot of nation battling against nation.

This is not to say there is nothing good about the show. I do like that it at least attempted to be sophisticated (although it failed). And in 1994 the idea of a serialized plot in a cartoon was a big step forward. Plus, although the CGI is hopelessly dated, the fact that Enhanced Imaging turns the traditional animation into 3D for battles is really cool.

This is a series that I really, really want to have worked. And that only makes me hate it more because it didn't.

Seriously. Someone needs to remake this as a decent show.