Battletech - Also known as Trannytech

[Techpriest]

You're mixing up the Star League and the Star League Defense Force a lot there.

Anyway, this idea fails for the same reason the Republic of the Sphere was a stupid idea: it relies on Successor States that have been independent and warlike for 300+ years willingly giving up power to the Star League and units to the second SLDF. That's not happening. The First Star League only worked because the Terran Hegemony was at its center, and the Hegemony was both a powerful state, and one very heavily invested in keeping its five neighbors quiet. Most of the Star League Defense Forces (all those Royal Regiments) were originally Terran Hegemony units, House militaries contributed only a quarter of their standing armies and those tended to stay in their own territories.

There was nothing like that for the Second Star League, that organization was bound to collapse the moment the Clan threat (as the impetus to its creation) was dealt with. As it actually happened (triggering the Jihad in the process). So, unfortunately, we can't rely on the Star League for anything.


The point of the Second Star League is to show that the ideals of the Star League were untenable. The Star League is lost, and it was lost because its ideals crumble before greedy men and women in power always wanting more power.

In more practical narrative terms, this is an Eternal War setting with multiple factions. The Star League can't be there, and if it is there, it can't have any sort of real peacekeeping power. It can only exist as a background element to justify the setting developing as it did before the current narrative begins.

I'll give the Republic of the Sphere this, they had fun unit names at least, and some fun paint schemes.

Honestly shifting the focus from large scale actions to smaller 'Brush Wars' would have benefitted the setting more than the current choices, but I'm optimistic the Il-Clan era will bring some fun wars back into play. Combine vs Rasalhague Dominion, the Snow Raven Alliance doing fun shit with the Fed Suns and Combine, FWL mk II having even MORE civil wars this time involving splinters of various clans, Hells Horses slugging it out with the Wolf Empire along with the Lyrans and the Taurian Concordat making a comeback are all potential things. The implication we've gotten from recent material is that the Il Clan Era isn't going to be just the Third Star League dominating everything - there's a lot of internal conflicts on the menu, and I doubt that the 3rd League is going to have much more than token authority over the successor states and Clan Occupation Zones. Also more deniable wars means more mercenaries on the menu.

 

[Corn Flakes]

Honestly shifting the focus from large scale actions to smaller 'Brush Wars' would have benefitted the setting more than the current choices, but I'm optimistic the Il-Clan era will bring some fun wars back into play. Combine vs Rasalhague Dominion, the Snow Raven Alliance doing fun shit with the Fed Suns and Combine, FWL mk II having even MORE civil wars this time involving splinters of various clans, Hells Horses slugging it out with the Wolf Empire along with the Lyrans and the Taurian Concordat making a comeback are all potential things. The implication we've gotten from recent material is that the Il Clan Era isn't going to be just the Third Star League dominating everything - there's a lot of internal conflicts on the menu, and I doubt that the 3rd League is going to have much more than token authority over the successor states and Clan Occupation Zones. Also more deniable wars means more mercenaries on the menu.

That's what I'm hoping for, yeah. I said this before: Jihad and Republic eras left the Inner Sphere in a much more interesting place than it was before by ~3150. They didn't just break up the FWL, they broke up the entire map, and more borders = more war.

It's not just Steiner vs Kurita vs Davion vs Liao vs Marik vs Steiner, rinse and repeat anymore. Instead of a neat pie chart, there are actual borders and minor powers, the Periphery is relevant, and there's space for smaller conflicts can be even more interesting than the Succession Wars. Communication over long distances is more difficult, and with that it's also harder to do large-scale wars because if you're a Successor State you have to spread your forces to defend your borders a lot more tightly. Minor powers have a much greater chance of actually beating an invasion, or nibbling at the edges of the large powers, too. Hell, even the Clans evolved from "mostly homogeneous but with some quirks" into factions with their own individual identities spread far beyond the Clan Invasion Corridor. Even their fashion sense has improved somewhat!

So I'm actually optimistic for the post Il-Clan developments.

 

[TFT-A9]

There's one thing about FWL/Marik that I honestly can't decide whether I love or hate: the utter ineptitude of SAFE.

 

[Techpriest]

There's one thing about FWL/Marik that I honestly can't decide whether I love or hate: the utter ineptitude of SAFE.

SAFE is actually one of the better intelligence gathering and analysis agencies in the inner sphere, they were better than ComStar at it. The problem is a lot of it is directed either internally, or SAFE's activities are sabotaged from the inside by various member states.

 

[TFT-A9]

SAFE is actually one of the better intelligence gathering and analysis agencies in the inner sphere, they were better than ComStar at it. The problem is a lot of it is directed either internally, or SAFE's activities are sabotaged from the inside by various member states.

Fair enough, and makes sense given how hilariously fractious the FWL is.

Seems to be a common theme in the Inner Sphere, the only House intelligence agency I can think of that doesn't tend to turn its guns inward an awful lot might be Steiner's (HEIMDALL? ODIN? I forget.) and I'm probably wrong on that. Hell, the Kuritans have multiple internal agencies that constantly try to kill each other. The Maskirovka are legit fucking terrifying.

At least it's not the Clan Watches. They're hilariously bad at everything they do.

 

[Techpriest]

Fair enough, and makes sense given how hilariously fractious the FWL is.

Seems to be a common theme in the Inner Sphere, the only House intelligence agency I can think of that doesn't tend to turn its guns inward an awful lot might be Steiner's (HEIMDALL? ODIN? I forget.) and I'm probably wrong on that. Hell, the Kuritans have multiple internal agencies that constantly try to kill each other. The Maskirovka are legit fucking terrifying.

At least it's not the Clan Watches. They're hilariously bad at everything they do.

The Lyran Commonwealth Intelligence has multiple factions, of which two constantly fight each other. LOKI is the super black ops terrorist division that does anything and everything the state requires or may require, including false flag attacks, while HEIMDALL is an unofficial organization within the LCI intelligence that works to mitigate or prevent LOKI's excesses.

 

[RomanesEuntDomus]

You're mixing up the Star League and the Star League Defense Force a lot there.

Yeah, sorry. I'm using the acronym wrongly here, as I use it synonymously with the SL itself.

Anyway, this idea fails for the same reason the Republic of the Sphere was a stupid idea: it relies on Successor States that have been independent and warlike for 300+ years willingly giving up power to the Star League and units to the second SLDF.
[...]
There was nothing like that for the Second Star League, that organization was bound to collapse the moment the Clan threat (as the impetus to its creation) was dealt with. As it actually happened (triggering the Jihad in the process). So, unfortunately, we can't rely on the Star League for anything.

Clans Wolf, Steel Viper and Jade Falcon were very keen on taking Terra even after the Smoke Jaguars got wiped out, so the threat of the Clans could still be a believable reason for the Successor states to accept a certain loss of autonomy in exchange for a reformed Star League helping them defend against the Clans. And with an election every couple years to settle for a new First Lord, there's always a chance to take political and economical advantage of the Star League or even the SLDF by a Great House. The Great Houses would still try to prevent the Star League from getting too much power for obvious reasons.

Of course you can't have a reborn Star League with the same kind of absolute power and peacekeeping ability like they had in the past for ingame and meta-gaming reasons, but that doesn't mean you have to abondon the concept of a reformed Star League altogether so quickly.
It just means you have to adapt the existence of this new Star League in such a way that it does not prevent skirmishes between factions (and the SLs limited economic and political power would play into that quite organically). If the SLDF is preoccupied with fending off tubeborn weirdos from the Deep Periphery, you can still have Davions and Kuritas bashing their brains in over something, since there's no SLDF.
This phase would then act as filler until something big happens. I don't want the new Star League to be around 5ever, I just don't want them to be a completely pointless waste of time or a red hering. And you could always go for a timeskip of a few decades during which the Star League does its thing before you move on to the next story arc.

The point of the Second Star League is to show that the ideals of the Star League were untenable. The Star League is lost, and it was lost because its ideals crumble before greedy men and women in power always wanting more power.

I dunno. To me, it kinda looks like the downfall of the second Star League was more of a "We don't know what to do with this, also we want to sell clicky-tech dark ages stuff, so pull the plug" thing. I really doubt this was some deep insightful statement about the nature of man and the downfall of high ideals in face of greed... it was simply someone taking the axe to a setting to transform it in the quickest way possible to get from one point to the other. Doesn't matter how long the Jihad had been planned before ownership of the game changed, the execution is what annoys me. On a basic level, I am totally fine with a Jihad putting everything in a blender and putting an end to the Pie-Chart layout of the IS map. It just would have been nice if there had been some room to breath for the new Star League (so to speak).

In more practical narrative terms, this is an Eternal War setting with multiple factions. The Star League can't be there, and if it is there, it can't have any sort of real peacekeeping power.

Narratively speaking, turning the rebirth of Star League into a huge nothingburger that unceremoniously gets axed very quickly is incredibly unsatisfying, given how long it was leading up to this point. If the powers that be planned to do a timeskip, they might as well have went with "And then the new SL operated for a a couple decades before [x] happened which lead to the dissolution of the SL and the Jihad, etc. pp." so it feels like they at least accomplished something for some time before everything went down the shitter. It's all that I am asking for, really.

It can only exist as a background element to justify the setting developing as it did before the current narrative begins.

It can exist in many different functions, depending on what you do with it.

there's a lot of internal conflicts on the menu, and I doubt that the 3rd League is going to have much more than token authority over the successor states and Clan Occupation Zones. Also more deniable wars means more mercenaries on the menu.

We could have gotten to this point with the 2nd Star League without throwing them under the bus on a detour through crazyland, I'd say.

 

[Corn Flakes]

Yeah, sorry. I'm using the acronym wrongly here, as I use it synonymously with the SL itself.


Clans Wolf, Steel Viper and Jade Falcon were very keen on taking Terra even after the Smoke Jaguars got wiped out, so the threat of the Clans could still be a believable reason for the Successor states to accept a certain loss of autonomy in exchange for a reformed Star League helping them defend against the Clans. And with an election every couple years to settle for a new First Lord, there's always a chance to take political and economical advantage of the Star League or even the SLDF by a Great House. The Great Houses would still try to prevent the Star League from getting too much power for obvious reasons.

Of course you can't have a reborn Star League with the same kind of absolute power and peacekeeping ability like they had in the past for ingame and meta-gaming reasons, but that doesn't mean you have to abondon the concept of a reformed Star League altogether so quickly.
It just means you have to adapt the existence of this new Star League in such a way that it does not prevent skirmishes between factions (and the SLs limited economic and political power would play into that quite organically). If the SLDF is preoccupied with fending off tubeborn weirdos from the Deep Periphery, you can still have Davions and Kuritas bashing their brains in over something, since there's no SLDF.
This phase would then act as filler until something big happens. I don't want the new Star League to be around 5ever, I just don't want them to be a completely pointless waste of time or a red hering. And you could always go for a timeskip of a few decades during which the Star League does its thing before you move on to the next story arc.


I dunno. To me, it kinda looks like the downfall of the second Star League was more of a "We don't know what to do with this, also we want to sell clicky-tech dark ages stuff, so pull the plug" thing. I really doubt this was some deep insightful statement about the nature of man and the downfall of high ideals in face of greed... it was simply someone taking the axe to a setting to transform it in the quickest way possible to get from one point to the other. Doesn't matter how long the Jihad had been planned before ownership of the game changed, the execution is what annoys me. On a basic level, I am totally fine with a Jihad putting everything in a blender and putting an end to the Pie-Chart layout of the IS map. It just would have been nice if there had been some room to breath for the new Star League (so to speak).


Narratively speaking, turning the rebirth of Star League into a huge nothingburger that unceremoniously gets axed very quickly is incredibly unsatisfying, given how long it was leading up to this point. If the powers that be planned to do a timeskip, they might as well have went with "And then the new SL operated for a a couple decades before [x] happened which lead to the dissolution of the SL and the Jihad, etc. pp." so it feels like they at least accomplished something for some time before everything went down the shitter. It's all that I am asking for, really.


It can exist in many different functions, depending on what you do with it.

I think it might all boil down to matter of point of view. I wasn't playing BattleTech back when the FedCom Civil War plotline ended and the Jihad plotline started, but I was following the story. I still have my Jihad Hot Spots: 3070 book stashed away somewhere. Even back then (Jesus Christ, it's been almost 20 years already) I didn't think the Second Star League was a big deal. It had been formed for a specific reason, to pull a second Tukayyid and beat the Clans at their own game in the Great Refusal. Once that was done, it seemed inevitable that the League would collapse again.

I honestly don't know why people put so much weight on the Second Star League. It was an alliance of convenience against a common enemy. Even the OG Star League wasn't all that amazing. They had a lot of material wealth, for sure, but it was essentially just a soft takeover of the Inner Sphere by the Terran Hegemony. And it wasn't all that nice, either. The Reunification Wars were so bloody the Periphery mistrusts the Inner Sphere to this day. The SLDF was often deployed as a show of force to make sure planets paid their dues to the Star League. Even the technological advancements that the League provided weren't necessarily due to the League, they were basically because the Terran Hegemony was very serious about researching and developing new tech, and then renting it out to the other Great Houses. They had a lot because hadn't lost most of it to a Civil War and two Succession Wars yet.

In short, the Star League is neat. It shows very well that the BattleTech universe as depicted in the original 3025 sets, was a galactic-scale post-apocalyptic setting, and I like that. But I don't place much importance on it, and it wasn't a plotline that needed to be retread in any way, particularly so short after another unification/collapse narrative (the creation and fall of the Federated Commonwealth). Narratively, the Second Star League falling did nothing for me, I was too busy being annoyed at the Free Worlds League carrying the Blakist Idiot Ball to mourn its passing.

 

[RomanesEuntDomus]

It had been formed for a specific reason, to pull a second Tukayyid and beat the Clans at their own game in the Great Refusal. Once that was done, it seemed to be inevitable that the League would collapse again.

Yeah, and the ones running the setting could have named that thing whatever they wanted, but they went with Star League, which carries a lot of implications and then decided to just deflate that thing to the sound of a wet, awkward fart.

The Star League of yore wasn't perfect, but in a way, it symbolizes a golden era of relative peace and prosperity (to the IS, for sure, not so much for the Periphery), so alluding to it and then just ditching the concept so quickly makes the whole buildup feel moot and I simply don't think that it was done to make some smart comment about greed or futility of morals or whatever.

They wiped the slate clean to fast forward the setting to a vastly changed situation. Once again: The changes in and of themselves are okay, the way how we got to them was not. Disbanding the second Star League is fine. But disbanding it so quickly is a huge let-down and I compare it to the SW sequels for a reason.

Re-establishing the Star League had been the goal of every major power ever since Amaris got his shit kicked in, hence why that whole era was called the Succession Wars. And once something comes along to unify everyone sufficiently to put together a new Star League, all this amounts to are a few years of beating up Smoke Jaguars and then that's it. It makes all the struggles, all the obstacles, all the challenges, all the triumphs meaningless that happened to get to that point.
At worst, it generates the question: "Why should I get invested in this setting? It's all just meaningless anyway" and that's never a good thing.

This isn't an issue of whether a fast downfall of the second Star League can be logically explained within the setting, either. It's bad storytelling to handle it this way, cause it's narratively unsatisfying. In the same vein, it's perfectly logical that Han Solo is a deadbeat dad that divorces his wife and then pisses off to be a space trucker, but it doesn't make for a satisfying plot progression, given what came before.

Imagine the ilClan era essentially boiled down to a clan taking over Terra, forming another Star League that rules over all clans and IS powers alike, which orders everyone to ban the use of contractions in their speech and then disbanded the whole thing a day later. The following week, all Clan warriors pack up their stuff and go on a long vacation, never to be heard of ever again. What a satisfying end to the Clan plot that would be.

 

[Corn Flakes]

Yeah, and the ones running the setting could have named that thing whatever they wanted, but they went with Star League, which carries a lot of implications and then decided to just deflate that thing to the sound of a wet, awkward fart.

I mean, yeah. They named it the Star League because it was the only name the Clans would respect. Are you a Clanner, perchance? Because you're reading far too much significance in the name Star League, just like they do.

Yeah, I'm sure some of the guys there, like Victor Steiner-Davion for example, had some faith in the principles behind the Second Star League. But they weren't the ones calling the shots.

 

[Techpriest]

I mean, yeah. They named it the Star League because it was the only name the Clans would respect. Are you a Clanner, perchance? Because you're reading far too much significance in the name Star League, just like they do.

Yeah, I'm sure some of the guys there, like Victor Steiner-Davion for example, had some faith in the principles behind the Second Star League. But they weren't the ones calling the shots.

Victor also has the political acumen of a squirrel, if I'm being generous. Man was so entranced by drac pussy he almost caused a full scale rebellion in the Federated Suns.

 

[Balr0g]

Fair enough, and makes sense given how hilariously fractious the FWL is.

Seems to be a common theme in the Inner Sphere, the only House intelligence agency I can think of that doesn't tend to turn its guns inward an awful lot might be Steiner's (HEIMDALL? ODIN? I forget.) and I'm probably wrong on that. Hell, the Kuritans have multiple internal agencies that constantly try to kill each other. The Maskirovka are legit fucking terrifying.

At least it's not the Clan Watches. They're hilariously bad at everything they do.

I wouldn't discount the Clan Watches. at least not those from Clan Ghost Bear and Clan Sea Fox. Those Watches are quiet good in their own ways.

And if you want to know what total war in Battletech is you need to look at the Pentagon Civil War. Those battles were so destructive that a lot of communities on the Pentagon worlds reverted back to nearly medieval standards in regards to living conditions. Yeah there were still Mechs and tanks but those were few and more importantly were held together by bailing-wire and happy prayers. Only a few factions like the Ascendancy had even a sliver of modern tech left. Even the then forming Clans had a spartan life though that might be more because of Nicolas Kerensky's weird ideas.

I am somehow skeptical about the IlClan era. I mean the lore states that Stone had several contingency plans up his sleeves (the Fortress being one of them) and I can't imagine he hasn'T one in case Terra falls. I mean look at what the Blakists wanted to to: Operation Meggido a scorched earth plan that would turn Terra into a nuclear wasteland. I would somewhat expect Stone to do the same. Or at least cripple Terra's industrial capacity so the would be conquerer only has Terra and nothing else (like Comstar tried when they lost Terra to the Blakies)

 

[RomanesEuntDomus]

I mean, yeah. They named it the Star League because it was the only name the Clans would respect. Are you a Clanner, perchance? Because you're reading far too much significance in the name Star League, just like they do.

I'm not the one who puts much significance in the name Star League, the setting did from the very first iteration of BattleDroids. The terms Succession Wars and Successor States were chosen for a reason. Also don't mix up the actions of characters in a story and the direction the people in charge of the game took. The characters could have called it the "Army of Superbest Friends" for all it matters, ultimately, everything is directed by whoever owns the IP.

There's a shitton of novels leading up to the creation of the second Star League and it gets chucked into a woodchipper unceremoniously after less than a decade and the setting shifts dramatically via rather sudden events that transform everything and we fast forward to almost 100 years in the future. That is bad storytelling in my eyes. I couldn't care less about the Star League itself, but I do care about the setting and how it progresses and I was not happy with this (in my eyes) rash and rushed decision.

Or at least cripple Terra's industrial capacity so the would be conquerer only has Terra and nothing else (like Comstar tried when they lost Terra to the Blakies)

Terra is pretty much just the finishing line for the clan rat race to figure out which clan will become the supreme leader over everybody else. Doesn't matter if it's a barren wasteland covered in nuclear waste and shards of bones. Whoever can claim to have reached it first will be in charge.

 

[Techpriest]

I'm not the one who puts much significance in the name Star League, the setting did from the very first iteration of BattleDroids. The terms Succession Wars and Successor States were chosen for a reason. Also don't mix up the actions of characters in a story and the direction the people in charge of the game took. The characters could have called it the "Army of Superbest Friends" for all it matters, ultimately, everything is directed by whoever owns the IP.

There's a shitton of novels leading up to the creation of the second Star League and it gets chucked into a woodchipper unceremoniously after less than a decade and the setting shifts dramatically via rather sudden events that transform everything and we fast forward to almost 100 years in the future. That is bad storytelling in my eyes. I couldn't care less about the Star League itself, but I do care about the setting and how it progresses and I was not happy with this (in my eyes) rash and rushed decision.


Terra is pretty much just the finishing line for the clan rat race to figure out which clan will become the supreme leader over everybody else. Doesn't matter if it's a barren wasteland covered in nuclear waste and shards of bones. Whoever can claim to have reached it first will be in charge.

Let's also not forget that Stone apparently has other surprises in store for Alaric. I think he mentioned that conquest and governing are very different things. Something tells me the 3rd Star League isn't going to be the most stable society.

 

[RomanesEuntDomus]

I think he mentioned that conquest and governing are very different things. Something tells me the 3rd Star League isn't going to be the most stable society

That "conquest isn't governing" thing seems heavily inspired by ASOIAF. Also, the 3rd Star League in itself is kind of silly. After what happened to the 2nd, why should I care this time? Why should I get invested? And it turns it sort of into a running gag, like they have no other idea what to do... then they realize their eternal war setting doesn't mix well with a unified governing body and they go back to square one by pushing the reset-button.
Even worse, it starts in 3250? Jesus. Whoever runs BT now really is fond of timeskips, it seems. Can't really say I like that tbh. Makes the whole setting feel wishywashy to me, the more it's done.

I guess now's the time to stock up on all the publications of the 3025-3067 era of BT, the newer stuff seems to drift away from what I enjoy...

 

[Corn Flakes]

There's a shitton of novels leading up to the creation of the second Star League and it gets chucked into a woodchipper unceremoniously after less than a decade and the setting shifts dramatically via rather sudden events that transform everything and we fast forward to almost 100 years in the future. That is bad storytelling in my eyes. I couldn't care less about the Star League itself, but I do care about the setting and how it progresses and I was not happy with this (in my eyes) rash and rushed decision.

Eh? What novels are you talking about? I haven't read all of the old BattleTech novels (and I traded mine away ages ago), but the only one I remember that dealt with the creation of the Second Star League was Grave Covenant. And even then, the FedCom Civil War novels that came out shortly afterwards way overshadowed any novels featuring the Second Star League. Hell, you could argue that the Star League being formed and heading out to slap the Jaguars around caused the FedCom Civil War, and the Civil War in turn caused the fall of the Star League.

If you don't like the Jihad and the effective timeskip into the Republic era, that's fine and I agree it was mishandled. But that gap in the storyline is being populated and it's going well so far, IMO. If you really want to blame someone for this, blame the management at FASA for deciding to call it quits and selling BT to WizKids. And then you can be angry at WizKids for trying to do something different with the setting.

Let's also not forget that Stone apparently has other surprises in store for Alaric. I think he mentioned that conquest and governing are very different things. Something tells me the 3rd Star League isn't going to be the most stable society.

That's the lesson only the Bears seem to have learned, and it took them a while. The Wolves have no chance.

 

[Balr0g]

Terra is pretty much just the finishing line for the clan rat race to figure out which clan will become the supreme leader over everybody else. Doesn't matter if it's a barren wasteland covered in nuclear waste and shards of bones. Whoever can claim to have reached it first will be in charge.

But ruling from a barren wasteland doesn'T sound very glorious to me. Like "Hey we have the center of the old Star League" Uhh dude it's a wasteland" "But it's the center!" If I want to take Terra i want it intact. After all it is THE industrial powerhouse of the entire IS. The glut of military manufacturers alone makes it a step above others. In one lore book it was stated that Hesperes 2 has a good plant. Terra has dozens of those.

 

[RomanesEuntDomus]

Eh? What novels are you talking about? I haven't read all of the old BattleTech novels (and I traded mine away ages ago), but the only one I remember that dealt with the creation of the Second Star League was Grave Covenant.

I didn't mean that all novels centred around the theme and plot of reforming Star League specifically, but it is a long ongoing process within the plot that starts with the clan invasion and culminates with the reformation of Star league. Not so much an unbroken red thread, more like a bunch of dominos where one thing leads to another.

And even then, the FedCom Civil War novels that came out shortly afterwards way overshadowed any novels featuring the Second Star League. Hell, you could argue that the Star League being formed and heading out to slap the Jaguars around caused the FedCom Civil War, and the Civil War in turn caused the fall of the Star League.

Which is nice and all... But it's also entirely irrelevant to the point I am making. It's a logical progression of the story, but that doesn't make it narratively satisfying to me. There could have been just as easily another, just as logical story where the new Star League gets at least a few deserved moments in the sunshine, before everything goes down the shitter.

If you really want to blame someone for this, blame the management at FASA for deciding to call it quits and selling BT to WizKids.

I could not give less of a shit about who should be blamed for what. I'm not madany of them either, I just dislike this decision, that's all.

But ruling from a barren wasteland doesn'T sound very glorious to me. Like "Hey we have the center of the old Star League" Uhh dude it's a wasteland" "But it's the center!" If I want to take Terra i want it intact. After all it is THE industrial powerhouse of the entire IS. The glut of military manufacturers alone makes it a step above others. In one lore book it was stated that Hesperes 2 has a good plant. Terra has dozens of those.

Terra's industrial base would be a rather juicy price for whoever can take it, but I doubt that it's the deciding factor. Terra is more like a symbolic place for the clans, so they might as well rule from Strana Metchty if Terra is FUBAR'd by WoBists... or set up a new capital somewhere else.
That is not to say, they wouldn't prefer to take Terra intact and rule from there with all its awesome industrial capabilities at their fingertips, but that's only secondary to becoming ilClan. If anything, some sore loser blowing up Terra would be proof to the clans that non-clanners need a firm hand to guide them or else there's barbarism against even holy Terra.

 

[TFT-A9]

Oh my god the recoil modeling with mods active in MW5M is so satisfying. Converted my WHM-6R into a Boomhammer with twin LB10X ACs and an SRM6A rack plus medium lasers for window dressing, now that it's past 3030 in-game and I can find an XL280. Who needs survivability when everything that looks at you crosseyed dies?

The upgrades you can snag after 3030 give a lot of Mediums and Lights more longevity, too. Commando-2D with an XL200, Endosteel, FF armor and enough SRMs to melt Manticores like Velveeta? Great for Raids. What are you going to do, CATCH me? lol.

 

[Snekposter]

A bit late to the conversation, but by the 31st Century the Drac intel agencies were definitely up there thanks to dealing with both ROM and MIIO getting up to no good inside their borders, and the infighting had mostly stopped after ISF got redirected towards breaking up the Steiner-Davion alliance following the Fourth Succession War. Reminder that it was a Drac agent that took the reins of ComStar after Waterly's externally-induced aneurysm.

Lyran intel agencies are... both good and bad, mostly because LOKI tends to act like their namesake and do whatever the hell they want.

The Cappie Maskirovka was indeed quite good, but they got overconfident and let Justin Allard in, which of course got everyone who had ever shaken his hand purged for disloyalty, not recovering until after the conquest of the St. Ives Compact.

FedSuns agencies are British, so they're as dirty as they are quietly competent. They also have an explicit civilian/military split between MIIO and the DMI, allowing each agency to focus more on their specific areas. As a result of all First Princes needing to serve in the military (and even golden boy VSD started off as a "mere" major), they have a very dim view of empire building and make sure that doesn't happen with their spooks. DMI are also a bunch of yiffers, with more fox this and fox that than Metal Gear Solid.