Mech Every Day Sunday Special #6: Continuity and Me

 

The above image, from BattleTech's Legends I sourcebook, nearly gave me a (second) heart attack.

Let me explain.

So far, all of the miniatures I've painted for Mech Every Day (or #MechADay on Bluesky) have been, give or take, canonical unit or individual liveries. I take a few liberties in my interpretations of those schemes, mostly to reflect my own preferences and skills, but I do try to keep them mostly in accordance with BattleTech's lore. That holds true for this week's miniatures: I loved the look of this Crusader and the Goliath from Legends II. Knowing that Galen Cox was Victor Steiner-Davion's aide and that they fought alongside Kai Allard-Liao in Yen-lo-Wang, this week's theme was obvious: the Tenth Lyran Guards RCT. (Technically Warren Hestrus was in the 26th Lyran Guards, but the scheme is the same.)

But when I went to double-check everything for yesterday's Force Saturday post, I almost panicked. Victor and Galen were assigned to the 12th Donegal Guards, not the 10th Lyran! This is borne out by the scheme on Victor's custom Dire Wolf, Prometheus: it's blue and black with gold trim, not blue and white. A quick check of the primary source, Michael Stackpole's Lethal Heritage, confirmed this. My heart sank. Had I screwed up? Was I going to have to repaint the Crusader and Victor, or make a correction? Was the Crusader from Legends I in the wrong paint scheme?

I skimmed on through Lethal Heritage. (I really need to fully re-read it soon; Mike spins a fun yarn.) And I found my salvation, only half-remembered: after the disaster on Trellwan, Victor Steiner-Davion and Galen Cox were reassigned to the 10th Lyran Guards where they were united with Kai Allard-Liao. The art and my miniatures were not in error. Prometheus's blue/black/gold scheme wasn't chosen until the FedCom Civil War, when Victor needed to emphasize his connections to the sundered realm. (Presumably it was SLDF Olive Green during Operation Bulldog and white while in the service of ComStar.) Phew.

BattleTech has a dense backstory, as detailed and convoluted as any other major franchise. Great pains are taken behind the scenes to avoid continuity errors, but they do slip through. Even in the original sources - FASA's House book series - there are mistakes between the volumes, sometimes even within a single book itself. Over four decades the complexity of the story has compounded and new errors have crept in.

For a time Fantasy Productions and Catalyst Game Labs tried to explain these continuity errors away through a process known as the "FASA Two-Step." One example that I personally handled was about the Valkyrie 'Mech. Technical Readout 3025 went into some detail about how the Star League had built an automated factory on New Avalon for this machine, but it didn't go into production until well after the Star League was dissolved. So to explain this mistake (a former writer chose the wrong date), I explained in Technical Readout 3085's Wasp LAM Mk. I entry that the Valkyrie was an infringing copy of a Wasp LAM variant and legal action prevented the factory from going online until after the Star League courts were gone.

Sometime after I stopped writing for BattleTech, the Two-Step was abandoned. In a later work, another author referred to the presence of a "Royal Valkyrie" at a certain battle. Well, the SLDF had no Valkyries at all, and certainly not a upgraded variant. Instead of Two-Stepping, the author just acknowledged that he'd made a mistake and it's listed as a known error that will be fixed if the book is ever updated.

If I do make a mistake with one of my schemes, I'll acknowledge and fix it. If I had been wrong about Galen and Victor being in the 10th Lyran, I would've just removed their names from the blog posts in question. If Legends I showed Galen's Crusader in the wrong paintjob, I would've reported it to the authorities...I mean, to the errata threads.

Mistakes happen. It's best to acknowledge and address them honestly and meaningfully.