Grayson's middle name was originally supposed to be pronounced "Deeth" instead of "Death" but the ancestor from whom he inherited it asked everyone to pronounce it like that because it sounded cooler. This is canon, go read Decision at Thunder Rift.
Just handing all the advanced tech out for free because the guys who tried to kill you and also basically eliminated their tech advantage is so spiteful.
Only partly. Grayson Carlyle was an idealist. He hated the slide into a new dark age because that is partly what killed his father. (the dracos were result of that slide into darkness)
Wouldn't have to do this if people could use a different internet provider. Remember this when you have to decide between crappy cell phone internet and Comcast.
Well, it wasn't so much pure spite as desperation. The Legion's back was to the wall and it was find it or have nothing to bargain with. Besides, Grayson Carlyle was always something of an idealist. He did it as much from wanting to take a stand against the slide into a terrible dark age as to spite Comstar.
Just to fill a lore gap here, the reason ComStar went to the trouble of the war crimes ruse to discredit the Legion was get their planetary charter revoked by the Free Worlds League. ComStar was aware that there likely was a Castle Brian cache on Helm but not specifically where it was. The search for that specific Castle Brian was part of a major engagement during the First Succession War but when it was never found it was assumed Kerensky emptied it and destroyed it as part of Operation Exodus. Once GDL discovered the cache and word immediately leaked to ComStar (because ComStar reads everyone's mail), ComStar wants the cache but more than that they don't want FWL to get it, and the ComGuards can't mobilize enough resources fast enough to contest Marik forces who absolutely would have forced the issue to get their hands of a Star League memory core. So the Precentor's plan was to frame the GDL, get Marik forces to destroy GDL for ComStar so ROM (ComStar intelligence/black ops) could go in quick and quiet, pull the data that ComStar wanted and destroy the rest of the Castle Brian ostensibly to "maintain the balance of power between the great houses."
@@DIEGhostfish Pretty much, yet its funny because it was Janos Marik who denied them the survey team on Helm to begin with. A part of the reason the Legion got framed is due to Janos Marik as well. He was also searching for the core once he started to piece together that Comstar was not randomly sending out gelogical survey teams. The expulsion of GDL was done at political expedience because Comstar tied Janos' hands by creating the issue.
Lets not forget he got his wife by accidentally threatening her with her worst fear. Being burned alive in her overheating mech by the inferno missile he was aiming at her.
Well, to be fair, she had a mech and was pointing a laser at him. She was a minor mechwarrior for a bandit king there as raiders and pirates generally don't get that much mercy, so I figure she thought she was getting a good deal surrendering to someone who didn't just fry her by default.
Which is absurd. She was driving a Locust 1V. That thing could literally be sprinting all out through a forest fire with all weapons blazing and not overheat unless it's taken critical damage to its engine shielding. Battletech is a great game system, but all the lore/novels are terrible and stupid because every story told in the setting breaks the rules it establishes.
@@thepiratemongoose8965 i will defend that fear Its pirates upkeeping it so maybe they dont install a heat sink or two Maybe they dont have the good lasers so thry run hot I been around heavy machines, despite them being the same model if you have bad maintenance they run like ass
The Helm memory core was more than military secrets. It had advanced civilian knowledge as well. Things like advanced surgical techniques and how to build star league era water purification systems. When it was disseminated, it was a near complete recovery to Star league era technology once the core was fully decoded. 22:49 oh what Precentor Emilio Rachan did was far worse. The natural atmosphere on the outside of the domes when mixed with oxygen and weapons fire instantly ignited. They didn’t just suffocate. They were burned alive. 27:32 The legion was later exonerated. And the mastermind behind the whole ordeal faced a short drop and a sudden stop if memory serves.
The core had all the ciphers the star league was using up till collapse. All the houses had an assortment of SL tech, plans, and blue prints but were all encrypted on multiple layers and cant even figure out how they work.
@@eddapultstab2078 I thought it was just that some of the core copies were partial or got damaged in transit, but that WOULD explain the Panther 10k And Kuritan Atlas. Was that ever said officially or just a headcanon.
@DIEGhostfish In the book when they found the Core, it's mentioned that it can be read and copied on any normal computer; nothing special needed. That's when Grayson made the call that the Core was more important than what was in the Cache. The Great Houses got the copies just as the 4th Succession War started, so it took a few years to build the Infrastructure to start producing the tech. That's why you don't see anything with updated tech until the late 30's.
Okay...seeing as the Gray Death Legion happens to be one of my favorite merc companies, I have to step in to clarify some things... FIRST, you did okay up to the point where you spoke of the events of the third and final novel in the original trilogy for the Gray Death. When the Legion was double-crossed on Helm, it was because the ComStar Precentor discovered that there was a Star League Brian's Cache still located on the planet. They didn't know WHERE it was, but they needed access to the planet to be able to locate it. Since Gray was the nominal landholder on Helm, he had access to information that would lead to it's discovery. So the Precentor hatched a plan to make it appear as if the Legion had performed war crimes, which would effectively get them out of the way. However, Gray discovered this and realized why they were being set up. He figured the best way was to find the Cache himself and use it as a means to get off world to broadcast the truth. Upon finding the Cache, he and his remaining forces liberated as much material as they could, including the Helm Memory Core, which they copied and disseminated, since they realized the Precentor was trying to destroy it or take it for ComStar. When the Star League facility was compromised by the Precentor and his forces, a fail-safe did activate, causing the (believed) destruction of the base, killing the Precentor and his forces. The truth of the Legion's set-up was revealed, clearing Gray Death's good name and the reputation of his unit.
Just to clarify, the Helm self-destruct wasn't as simple as described here (I know, limited time and coherence for this video, we were warned). The GDL were losing the fight outside the cache so they grabbed what they could - a copy of the core and enough hardware to rebuild once they got it ready to go - and ditched out the back, leaving the front door closed. The MarikComStar forces didn't have the key to the door so they blasted it open, and this set off the self-destruct - which no one knew was even a thing. This blew up the reactor and buried the cache, including the ComStar lead team. And then, it turned out that in building the cache, the SLDF had also buried all the water of an inland sea (think the Black Sea) for... you know. Reasons. And with the cache destroyed, all this water burst back out. Basically instantly. And thus, the entire Marik army chasing the GDL was buried under a small sea. Because Grayson is Space-Moses, bringing the helm core (aka the commandments) back to his people. So of course he could drop a sea on his enemies.
It didn't exactly directly "Blow" the reactor. It dropped the reactor into the underground lake/sea, flashboiling it and causing a steam explosion that collapsed the cavern network so the rest of the base fell into the underground sea. I think the enemies fell into the sea as the floor collapsed rather than the sea falling on them as the cliff collapsed.
The Marik troops made it to safety (those that survived the encounter with the GDL pickets. Julian Langsdorf the frield commander learned during the battle what really happened on Sirius V and he withdrew his unit before the cache was fully destroyed. Also a funny sidenote the battle was called "the battle for Helm's Deep" Now where have we heard that before?
@@Chris_ohne_Nickname His middle name comes from an ancestor whose name was Deeth. The ancestor insisted on pronouncing it as "Death"... and he was badass enough that nobody argued.
Fun fact. The ComStar spy they captured caved stupidly fast. Turns out Grey didn’t need to have his massive Scot beat the information out, he just put his entire army around the guy and told him “good luck.”
Yep, they were very fond of the wee lass who died because of the little shite. He wouldn't have made it half way to the perimeter. Even Hassan was impressed.
Grayson: Hey Comstar. Commie: What? Grayson: Lookie what I got. Commie: ..no. Grayson: Guess what I'm gonna do. Commie: No. Grayson: Gonna give it to everyone. Commie: Nooo! Grayson: All the houses. Commie: Nooooo! Grayson: All the mrec. Commie: Noooooo! Grayson: Everyone. (pushes send all) Commie: NOOOOOOO!!
I've watched a few of his videos now, and every one of them has inaccuracies in them. I wonder if he actually read the books or if he got his info from a wiki.
Missed the part where Greyson had to cut a deal with Duke Ricol, the Kuritan responsible for the death of his father. Alternate contents for the memory core if you want to run this as a campaign. 1) General Kerensky's collection of Polka music. 2) Stephan Amaris' collection of Asain recipes. 3) Richard Cameron's furry porn collection.
I swear that one of the most notable parts of the grey death legion's tactics was the use of combine arms, and anti mech infantry units supported by mechs. I'm not quite sure that came across in the video. They also love them selves some battle armour.
One thing I love is the Kuritan Duke behind the ambush in the first book and the "pressure from on high" is ALSO the same guy who helped save the GDL in the 3rd book.
Today I learned, only due to the comments, that it is "Helm Memory Core," because the whole time I've followed this channel I thought you were saying "Hell Memory Core" and I thought that name went so hard LOL
Grey Death was my first battletech novels. And thus my favorite mech unit. Sure, Wolf's Dragoons and Kell hounds get a lot of spotlight, and the Northwind have all the bagpipes. But the Grey Death was great for explaining and understanding military tactics and combined arms integration!
I read the books in High School. Honestly one of the only good things about those 4 years. I think i at least still have the original trilogy in all their well worn glory.
When we were role playing our way into the fourth succession war, my merc unit (only a company because we had a lance of fighters alongside of two lances of mechs) about the closest thing that we ever did to “historical” in our careers was “escort” some of Carlyle’s Helm copies to the Taurians and the Farlookers. Then I was off to college far from any sort of game shops. It would be four or five years before I heard anything about the clans.
Speaking of explanations of Battletech names, the Savanna Master is not named that because savanna is good terrain for hovercraft. Instead, during testing one of the new hovercraft defeated a light mech...and that mech's pilot was named Savanna.
And losing to a 5 ton turd in an exhibition match made the locust pilot so mad that he tried to kill it only to be taken down for real in front of a house lord who was very amused.
Yep, and to be honest he was a better pilot than she was. Especially in his little terror. Because I'd be hesitant about going up against three lances of Savanna Masters in any medium mech. You might get a few of them but eventually they'll burn through to something important....
@@eddapultstab2078 A very very very fast turd. Its like an off road race car with a BFG on it. Or an Abrams or Leopard being attacked by a swarm of Wiesel two man mini tanks in the real world.
You know what, after learning that Black Bolt's real name is Blackigar Boltigan, I've developed complete immunity to stupid-ass justifications for names.
I left my phone playing videos of battletech lore from this channel while I use my computer. And now my phone have screen burn in of the video's textboxes.
Everything about this is aggressively 80s/90s, from the storyline to the artwork. I love it. It was a projection of the most shameless aspects of that era into the future 1000 years or so
To be honest, the Gray Death novels were the first ones and the audience was young adult boys. A lot of worldbuilding came later on with the House books. The emblem of them always reminds me of a skull with a red clowns wig.
This and the highlander are my favorite videos *bagpipes* Your off the cuff humor bouncing off one another is awesome and don't feel bad about being tired- that just means you really like this and that passion comes through when yall do that
The thing about the comgaurds was that it's a secret. Until a few years before tukkyid, nobody actually knew that comstar had a private army, muchless one that rivals any one of the houses. If they fought on helm their would be a good chance that not only a large number will be lost but it would be revealed that they had a massive army. So yeah, the warcrime is a no-brainer for them because it's a soft target, no losses and almost no evidence of the contrary, and before people get wise they have long already committed the dumb.
I read these books when they were released. i was drinking water when you said "he got a wife this way as well" thanks... the legion did wonders for the setting. i still have my copy of the GDL book from the 80s - includes history, missions, main member descriptions and missions.
If I remember his dad gave him the middle name death as some crazy family tradition and he actually hated it. Ahh I see what you mean by not doing it justice cause when you got to them using the Drop ship as a boat. It was a Leopard class that is a class capable of water landing and take off so they shut the hatches and yeah floated it across the ocean. If you know what a leopard class looks like it makes more sense.
Ok that makes way more sense. But as most, the good ones atleast, dropships are air tight they can float as long as their is displacement just make sure to weld a pontoon on a spheroid before you do that or the contents will be tumbling like a dryer.
Correction, the dropship was a Union class. They did not put propellers on it, they pumped seawater past the reactor to heat it into steam before blasting it out the drive nozzles.
@@terencemcquillan5750 Thats right they were like a company and a half sized unit by that point right. Well either way Drop ships were designed to float as is cause of the nature of trying to find a landing zone. Lakes and stuff are clear spots. And most mecs work under shallow depths of water.
@ulricgrey5219 You do know that two of the best Mech Warriors in the setting, Jaime Wolf and Morgan Kell piloted Archer's right? Don't take the b.s Mech mechanics in MW5 for how Archers work on the TT and in lore.
@gregdomenico1891 I know. But plot armor is a thing. Because just like a 3025 crusader, one ammo crit is all it takes for an archer... no case. You can have a different opinion, but my experience has been ammo cook off for that mech. Also I don't play mwo, only tt or mw5. Mostly tt since the early 90s
@ulricgrey5219 I started playing in the late 80's, so I do know about the issues with 3025 mechs. The Archer wasn't the only death trap when it overheated or took a ammo critical. I lost quite a few Marauders and Warhammers to both. Once Double heat sinks and case came into play, the Archer is fine, as long as you remember it's a Fire support Mech, and not a close range brawler Alpha striking all the time. As for plot armor, didn't help Jaime Wolf much; he died in his during the battle of Outreach.
Hope we get a breakdown of the Warhammer, one of my favourite mechs. Also a great chance to start with "Today we are going to be talking about Warhammer." to confuse Steve
It'd be kind of cool to see a timeline vid just to put everything into perspective and for everyone to able to see how deep the history is visually. Just touching major births, events, and inventions.
If I remember the comstar plan was so convoluted cause they needed to make it so confusion cause they did not want the other great houses to find out that there was a SLDF cache on the planet. Cause something that BIG of a find would make a comstar blakist guy think they had to do something like this. If i remember right the guy that did this had blakist ties and they are NUTS and he also wanted to hide what he was after from comstar. Its been a while since I read the book. Also If I remember they actually did clear their name for the false flag massacre later on I think one of the great houses did it to damage comstars rep. Also that Helm Core had a ton of medical stuff in it so it helped humanity beyond just the military stuff.
Everyone gets famous for driving Marauders because it was one of the SLDF's standard battle line heavy mechs, so like the Archer and the Warhammer they're everywhere. Every planets, every faction, every time period post Star League there's probbaly a Marauder and available spares for Marauders.
Wait.... Grayson never made it off Trell One IIRC. He was TRYING to when he had use the locals to bring down a Wasp(?), and shortly after that THEN that's when the Trellwan Lancers were formed.
They actually were cleared publicly for the genocide ROM tried to pin on them. Also, they detonated the star league cache themselves. Before they did that they coppied the entire data core AND made a deal with the combine to evacuate them AND a HUGE number of star league battlemechs to boot. I know this only because I just finished the audible audiobook trilogy of grey death novels. I HIGHLY recommend everyone who hasn't listened to them to do so. They're easily the best written (and now narrated @ audible) of all battletech novels. For a rough analogy picture the first three Horus Heresy books vs your average 40k novel.
Little sidenote about the Helm memory core (or the Gray Death memory core): that was just a portion of the entire knowledge base the Star League amassed over the years. The Star League had a database called Prometheus which contained every bit of knowledge the Star League had ever gathered: technology, history, intelligence reports. No full copy has ever been found so far (even the departing SLDF force took only partial copies with them). The Helm memory core was one of the biggest finds. Later during the Jihad the New Dallas memory core filled some missing holes but even that core was just a small one. For lostech prospectors a full copy of the Prometheus database is the holy grail. Though considering how far the IS has progressed most of that knowledge is most likely old by now (save for the terraforming wonders of the Department of Megaengineering)
Wait a sec! Lori wasn't captured when the Dracs hit the Verthandi Rebel's Main Base, she was captured later on in the story during when the GDL along with the remaining Rebel Forces raided the Drac Forces on planet. It was her capture that saw Grayson go all in which lead to the final battle of the whole campaign.
Turned a space ship....into a normal ship...that's shaped like an egg. This sounds like something Dr Robotnic would end up doing because his original plan simply didn't pan out and just rolled with what he had left
As much as I love the BattleTech and Battlestar Galactica lore, I would love to see you lore it up on the Uplift series. And I still want you to take a peek at the Instrumentality of Mankind stories. Someone else suggested Lensman, too, which is a great idea IMO.
Well, she did have a mech. So it wasn't like she was unarmed. And it did take a while for her to get over that. I don't remember if she was with him until they got to Mercenary's Star and she still wasn't solid till The Price Of Glory. So its not like point inferno, get hot chick.
Comstar: Ridiculously powerful phone company with a monopoly on communication, run by religious zealots who plan like The Underpants Gnomes at worst or Pinky & The Brain at best.
Comstar was disappointed but soldiered on. The precentors vary from person to person, many are moderates actually, their intelligence and military arm are where most of the crazies are, and would see the situation as a zero sum game. They most likely backed of on Carlyle because the cats out of the bag and theirs no point wasting resources for Nothing and had to play political baccarat to maintain relevance and control after that disaster.
So to be fair the death middle name was shortened from something in another language where his family was descended from. Deathort or something and like a mercenary whose middle name is literally death could be seen as like promotional. If everything is equal do you hire the guy with death in his name or Bob
Hey, Grayson Carlyle has a lot of strong traits. Naming merc companies wasn't one of them. Regardless he's my boi! The Grey Death is the reason I got interested in Battletech many many moons ago when I found Decision At Thunder Rift in a used book store and fell in love with the setting and the Grey Death. Long live the Legion!
The Steam ship thing wasnt propellers. They apparently used the nuclear engine as a sort of open steam turbine of sorts. It probably dumped a ton of radiation into the sea.
If i recall in the first book, Death is not proununced like the English word Death, but something like Deeth or De-ah-th. Its been a few years since i read the book, but it was explained to not be as blantantly silly as presented.
WW2 Germany and Russia signed s "Non Aggression Treaty". With each side planning to attack the other as soon as they had enough forces. With Russia being mad Germany beat them to the betrayal.
Grayson's middle name was originally supposed to be pronounced "Deeth" instead of "Death" but the ancestor from whom he inherited it asked everyone to pronounce it like that because it sounded cooler. This is canon, go read Decision at Thunder Rift.
I was hoping someone would add that crucial piece of lore.
And then the Fed Suns court herald says it "Deeth" when he's getting his title from Victor and you get a whole scene of him cringing in his head.
that was my first BattleTech Book. It all started there for me. I should reread it, I still have it on my shelf.
Just handing all the advanced tech out for free because the guys who tried to kill you and also basically eliminated their tech advantage is so spiteful.
"Altruism out of bloody minded spite" is about as moral as a mercenary can hope to get.
Only partly. Grayson Carlyle was an idealist. He hated the slide into a new dark age because that is partly what killed his father. (the dracos were result of that slide into darkness)
Wouldn't have to do this if people could use a different internet provider. Remember this when you have to decide between crappy cell phone internet and Comcast.
Your grammer is so bad it makes your message incomprehensable.
I love how the Battletech equivalent of the Imperium finding a complete STC.
Was an action performed out of pure spite.
same thought i had
Well, it wasn't so much pure spite as desperation. The Legion's back was to the wall and it was find it or have nothing to bargain with. Besides, Grayson Carlyle was always something of an idealist. He did it as much from wanting to take a stand against the slide into a terrible dark age as to spite Comstar.
Just to fill a lore gap here, the reason ComStar went to the trouble of the war crimes ruse to discredit the Legion was get their planetary charter revoked by the Free Worlds League. ComStar was aware that there likely was a Castle Brian cache on Helm but not specifically where it was. The search for that specific Castle Brian was part of a major engagement during the First Succession War but when it was never found it was assumed Kerensky emptied it and destroyed it as part of Operation Exodus. Once GDL discovered the cache and word immediately leaked to ComStar (because ComStar reads everyone's mail), ComStar wants the cache but more than that they don't want FWL to get it, and the ComGuards can't mobilize enough resources fast enough to contest Marik forces who absolutely would have forced the issue to get their hands of a Star League memory core. So the Precentor's plan was to frame the GDL, get Marik forces to destroy GDL for ComStar so ROM (ComStar intelligence/black ops) could go in quick and quiet, pull the data that ComStar wanted and destroy the rest of the Castle Brian ostensibly to "maintain the balance of power between the great houses."
The GDL didn't even really know to LOOK for the Cache until comstar framed them and they realized there had to be SOME reason why.
@@DIEGhostfish Pretty much, yet its funny because it was Janos Marik who denied them the survey team on Helm to begin with. A part of the reason the Legion got framed is due to Janos Marik as well. He was also searching for the core once he started to piece together that Comstar was not randomly sending out gelogical survey teams. The expulsion of GDL was done at political expedience because Comstar tied Janos' hands by creating the issue.
@@grygaming5519 Thus their move to replace him.
Lets not forget he got his wife by accidentally threatening her with her worst fear. Being burned alive in her overheating mech by the inferno missile he was aiming at her.
Well, to be fair, she had a mech and was pointing a laser at him. She was a minor mechwarrior for a bandit king there as raiders and pirates generally don't get that much mercy, so I figure she thought she was getting a good deal surrendering to someone who didn't just fry her by default.
Which is absurd. She was driving a Locust 1V. That thing could literally be sprinting all out through a forest fire with all weapons blazing and not overheat unless it's taken critical damage to its engine shielding.
Battletech is a great game system, but all the lore/novels are terrible and stupid because every story told in the setting breaks the rules it establishes.
@@thepiratemongoose8965 i will defend that fear
Its pirates upkeeping it so maybe they dont install a heat sink or two
Maybe they dont have the good lasers so thry run hot
I been around heavy machines, despite them being the same model if you have bad maintenance they run like ass
So, find out a girl's worst fear.
Then use that against her.
???
Marriage.
The Helm memory core was more than military secrets. It had advanced civilian knowledge as well. Things like advanced surgical techniques and how to build star league era water purification systems. When it was disseminated, it was a near complete recovery to Star league era technology once the core was fully decoded.
22:49 oh what Precentor Emilio Rachan did was far worse. The natural atmosphere on the outside of the domes when mixed with oxygen and weapons fire instantly ignited. They didn’t just suffocate. They were burned alive.
27:32 The legion was later exonerated. And the mastermind behind the whole ordeal faced a short drop and a sudden stop if memory serves.
Yep, Rachan died after he fell several feet or meters and was then crushed by rock and the held back water reservoir bursting out the ground
The core had all the ciphers the star league was using up till collapse. All the houses had an assortment of SL tech, plans, and blue prints but were all encrypted on multiple layers and cant even figure out how they work.
@@eddapultstab2078 I thought it was just that some of the core copies were partial or got damaged in transit, but that WOULD explain the Panther 10k And Kuritan Atlas. Was that ever said officially or just a headcanon.
@DIEGhostfish In the book when they found the Core, it's mentioned that it can be read and copied on any normal computer; nothing special needed. That's when Grayson made the call that the Core was more important than what was in the Cache.
The Great Houses got the copies just as the 4th Succession War started, so it took a few years to build the Infrastructure to start producing the tech. That's why you don't see anything with updated tech until the late 30's.
@@gregdomenico1891 Good call. You don't built a tech industry overnight. Especially when it requires rebuilding the tech base for your entire society.
"Mostly memes, mostly just us being stupid"
Sounds like a good time to me.
Okay...seeing as the Gray Death Legion happens to be one of my favorite merc companies, I have to step in to clarify some things... FIRST, you did okay up to the point where you spoke of the events of the third and final novel in the original trilogy for the Gray Death. When the Legion was double-crossed on Helm, it was because the ComStar Precentor discovered that there was a Star League Brian's Cache still located on the planet. They didn't know WHERE it was, but they needed access to the planet to be able to locate it. Since Gray was the nominal landholder on Helm, he had access to information that would lead to it's discovery. So the Precentor hatched a plan to make it appear as if the Legion had performed war crimes, which would effectively get them out of the way. However, Gray discovered this and realized why they were being set up. He figured the best way was to find the Cache himself and use it as a means to get off world to broadcast the truth. Upon finding the Cache, he and his remaining forces liberated as much material as they could, including the Helm Memory Core, which they copied and disseminated, since they realized the Precentor was trying to destroy it or take it for ComStar. When the Star League facility was compromised by the Precentor and his forces, a fail-safe did activate, causing the (believed) destruction of the base, killing the Precentor and his forces. The truth of the Legion's set-up was revealed, clearing Gray Death's good name and the reputation of his unit.
Just to clarify, the Helm self-destruct wasn't as simple as described here (I know, limited time and coherence for this video, we were warned).
The GDL were losing the fight outside the cache so they grabbed what they could - a copy of the core and enough hardware to rebuild once they got it ready to go - and ditched out the back, leaving the front door closed.
The MarikComStar forces didn't have the key to the door so they blasted it open, and this set off the self-destruct - which no one knew was even a thing. This blew up the reactor and buried the cache, including the ComStar lead team.
And then, it turned out that in building the cache, the SLDF had also buried all the water of an inland sea (think the Black Sea) for... you know. Reasons. And with the cache destroyed, all this water burst back out. Basically instantly. And thus, the entire Marik army chasing the GDL was buried under a small sea. Because Grayson is Space-Moses, bringing the helm core (aka the commandments) back to his people. So of course he could drop a sea on his enemies.
It didn't exactly directly "Blow" the reactor. It dropped the reactor into the underground lake/sea, flashboiling it and causing a steam explosion that collapsed the cavern network so the rest of the base fell into the underground sea. I think the enemies fell into the sea as the floor collapsed rather than the sea falling on them as the cliff collapsed.
The Marik troops made it to safety (those that survived the encounter with the GDL pickets. Julian Langsdorf the frield commander learned during the battle what really happened on Sirius V and he withdrew his unit before the cache was fully destroyed. Also a funny sidenote the battle was called "the battle for Helm's Deep" Now where have we heard that before?
You put some fucking respect on Grayson Death Carlyle’s name!
So... is his name Grayson "Death" Carlyle, or actually Grayson Death Carlyle?
@@Chris_ohne_Nickname that’s literally his middle name
It would be funny but the guy is literally a born mercenary. What middle name were you expecting? "Sharon"?
@@eddapultstab2078 William
@@Chris_ohne_Nickname His middle name comes from an ancestor whose name was Deeth. The ancestor insisted on pronouncing it as "Death"... and he was badass enough that nobody argued.
I finished reading the Gray Death Legion trilogy a month or two ago, really enjoyed it.
They are some solid books
They have a second trilogy based just before fed com civil war
Fun fact. The ComStar spy they captured caved stupidly fast. Turns out Grey didn’t need to have his massive Scot beat the information out, he just put his entire army around the guy and told him “good luck.”
Yep, they were very fond of the wee lass who died because of the little shite. He wouldn't have made it half way to the perimeter. Even Hassan was impressed.
Grayson: Hey Comstar.
Commie: What?
Grayson: Lookie what I got.
Commie: ..no.
Grayson: Guess what I'm gonna do.
Commie: No.
Grayson: Gonna give it to everyone.
Commie: Nooo!
Grayson: All the houses.
Commie: Nooooo!
Grayson: All the mrec.
Commie: Noooooo!
Grayson: Everyone. (pushes send all)
Commie: NOOOOOOO!!
Funny thing is I bet Grayson would actually do it to comstars face if he thought he could get away with it.
Grayson: Oh and here's the kicker.....I did it 20 minutes ago.
The inaccuracies of this video are as amusing as the video itself...
Glad someone else said something
Agreed. The entire part of the Helm Memory Core was very, very inaccurate.
I only listen to this guy to hear him make mistakes and poor analysis. Also he gets angry at the most awesome things.
I've watched a few of his videos now, and every one of them has inaccuracies in them. I wonder if he actually read the books or if he got his info from a wiki.
Missed the part where Greyson had to cut a deal with Duke Ricol, the Kuritan responsible for the death of his father.
Alternate contents for the memory core if you want to run this as a campaign.
1) General Kerensky's collection of Polka music.
2) Stephan Amaris' collection of Asain recipes.
3) Richard Cameron's furry porn collection.
It is far too small and poorly hidden to be #1 or #3.
Everyone: we hate you, Greyson hits send : everyone get robot girlfriends, everyone: nevermind we love you too.
You forgot the part where Gray pretended to be a hobo hiding in a homeless camp for about an hour to avoid DEST kill teams 😂
"Not A Clan ERPPC" made me chuckle
A note on GDC's middle name: it's supposed to be pronounced deeth despite the spelling.
I think they make a comment that some ancestor decided to pronounce it wrong and being mercenaries it stuck that way.
@nibblitman "Damn that sounds like a sweet merc unit name" -Carlyle at some point probably
I find it very funny they use the Clan daggerstar emblem at 19:30 on the bunker when discussing the SLDF Helm memory core.
First book series I read for BT while HG was suing FASA to death. 14 year old me was having a blast. I miss the old mech art.
20:43 LOL, comcast
A drop ship, is basically a hollow egg that is air tight . They should float unless they are breached. .
I swear that one of the most notable parts of the grey death legion's tactics was the use of combine arms, and anti mech infantry units supported by mechs. I'm not quite sure that came across in the video. They also love them selves some battle armour.
Grayson Death has real like WW2 "War Daddy" tank command energy.
One thing I love is the Kuritan Duke behind the ambush in the first book and the "pressure from on high" is ALSO the same guy who helped save the GDL in the 3rd book.
Today I learned, only due to the comments, that it is "Helm Memory Core," because the whole time I've followed this channel I thought you were saying "Hell Memory Core" and I thought that name went so hard LOL
I'm glad to see that Sci let Steve out of the dungeon after the Highlander Hijinks 😂
* bagpipes intensifies! *
Grey Death was my first battletech novels. And thus my favorite mech unit. Sure, Wolf's Dragoons and Kell hounds get a lot of spotlight, and the Northwind have all the bagpipes. But the Grey Death was great for explaining and understanding military tactics and combined arms integration!
I miss the crescent hawks personally, I would love to see a reboot of those late 80s games.
I read the books in High School. Honestly one of the only good things about those 4 years. I think i at least still have the original trilogy in all their well worn glory.
"Because 'The Gray Deeth' doesn't have the same ring to it."
When we were role playing our way into the fourth succession war, my merc unit (only a company because we had a lance of fighters alongside of two lances of mechs) about the closest thing that we ever did to “historical” in our careers was “escort” some of Carlyle’s Helm copies to the Taurians and the Farlookers.
Then I was off to college far from any sort of game shops. It would be four or five years before I heard anything about the clans.
9:50 Rare photo of a Shockwave in action. A criminaly underrated Dark Age era mech.
Keep it up, love to hear more lore man!
Me *looking at Gray Death Carlyle’s profile pic*
My brain: 🎶It’s my liiiiiiiife, it’s now or neverrrr. I ain’t gonna live foreeeveerrr.”🎶
Well, lets be honest. Most of the merc companies from the 80's looked like hair bands LOL
I came to support you as best I can with a like, comment and I turned on my notification bell for ya! More battletech history to come I hope!
Speaking of explanations of Battletech names, the Savanna Master is not named that because savanna is good terrain for hovercraft. Instead, during testing one of the new hovercraft defeated a light mech...and that mech's pilot was named Savanna.
And losing to a 5 ton turd in an exhibition match made the locust pilot so mad that he tried to kill it only to be taken down for real in front of a house lord who was very amused.
Yep, and to be honest he was a better pilot than she was. Especially in his little terror.
Because I'd be hesitant about going up against three lances of Savanna Masters in any medium mech. You might get a few of them but eventually they'll burn through to something important....
@@eddapultstab2078 A very very very fast turd. Its like an off road race car with a BFG on it. Or an Abrams or Leopard being attacked by a swarm of Wiesel two man mini tanks in the real world.
You know what, after learning that Black Bolt's real name is Blackigar Boltigan, I've developed complete immunity to stupid-ass justifications for names.
I left my phone playing videos of battletech lore from this channel while I use my computer. And now my phone have screen burn in of the video's textboxes.
Everything about this is aggressively 80s/90s, from the storyline to the artwork. I love it. It was a projection of the most shameless aspects of that era into the future 1000 years or so
To be honest, the Gray Death novels were the first ones and the audience was young adult boys. A lot of worldbuilding came later on with the House books.
The emblem of them always reminds me of a skull with a red clowns wig.
They're better written than a lot of the bigger name stuff though.
This and the highlander are my favorite videos *bagpipes* Your off the cuff humor bouncing off one another is awesome and don't feel bad about being tired- that just means you really like this and that passion comes through when yall do that
Steve's back! Yay!
I always thought that portrait of Grayson looked like Byron from Season 5 of Babylon 5.
STEEVE. GLAD TO HAVE YA BACK I've been missing ya. Absolutely great content as always thank you for the hard work and laughs.
Yooo why does ole Grey Death look like 80s Zack Efron😂😂😂
22:14 My guess would be they just didn’t have enough to fight the grey, still enough to make a dam well convincing attack.
The thing about the comgaurds was that it's a secret. Until a few years before tukkyid, nobody actually knew that comstar had a private army, muchless one that rivals any one of the houses. If they fought on helm their would be a good chance that not only a large number will be lost but it would be revealed that they had a massive army. So yeah, the warcrime is a no-brainer for them because it's a soft target, no losses and almost no evidence of the contrary, and before people get wise they have long already committed the dumb.
@@eddapultstab2078 Interesting…
Also, how the fuck do you keep an army large enough to rival army’s without anyone spitting the beans?!
I read these books when they were released.
i was drinking water when you said "he got a wife this way as well" thanks...
the legion did wonders for the setting. i still have my copy of the GDL book from the 80s - includes history, missions, main member descriptions and missions.
Thanks!
Thank you, love your format.
If I remember his dad gave him the middle name death as some crazy family tradition and he actually hated it. Ahh I see what you mean by not doing it justice cause when you got to them using the Drop ship as a boat. It was a Leopard class that is a class capable of water landing and take off so they shut the hatches and yeah floated it across the ocean. If you know what a leopard class looks like it makes more sense.
Yeah the Leopard is more sort of plane shaped sanding wedge as opposed to a buttplug.
Ok that makes way more sense. But as most, the good ones atleast, dropships are air tight they can float as long as their is displacement just make sure to weld a pontoon on a spheroid before you do that or the contents will be tumbling like a dryer.
Correction, the dropship was a Union class. They did not put propellers on it, they pumped seawater past the reactor to heat it into steam before blasting it out the drive nozzles.
@@terencemcquillan5750 Thats right they were like a company and a half sized unit by that point right. Well either way Drop ships were designed to float as is cause of the nature of trying to find a landing zone. Lakes and stuff are clear spots. And most mecs work under shallow depths of water.
Mauraders as hero mechs do compeat with the Archers
False... because archers are just Soviet tanks waiting to have their large ammo racks cook off.. but you do you
@ulricgrey5219 You do know that two of the best Mech Warriors in the setting, Jaime Wolf and Morgan Kell piloted Archer's right? Don't take the b.s Mech mechanics in MW5 for how Archers work on the TT and in lore.
@gregdomenico1891 I know. But plot armor is a thing. Because just like a 3025 crusader, one ammo crit is all it takes for an archer... no case. You can have a different opinion, but my experience has been ammo cook off for that mech. Also I don't play mwo, only tt or mw5. Mostly tt since the early 90s
@ulricgrey5219 I started playing in the late 80's, so I do know about the issues with 3025 mechs. The Archer wasn't the only death trap when it overheated or took a ammo critical. I lost quite a few Marauders and Warhammers to both. Once Double heat sinks and case came into play, the Archer is fine, as long as you remember it's a Fire support Mech, and not a close range brawler Alpha striking all the time. As for plot armor, didn't help Jaime Wolf much; he died in his during the battle of Outreach.
Why does every character worth knowing in battletech drive a Marauder? Because it is the Marauder the best damn mech in the setting!
For more information look up tex talks battletech: the marauder
Hope we get a breakdown of the Warhammer, one of my favourite mechs. Also a great chance to start with "Today we are going to be talking about Warhammer." to confuse Steve
Goodness, hope you two are doing better after that. I've been liking your stuff for a while now
I remember the movie Trancers.... the main character is named Jack Deth.... still love watching the movies about him.
Grey Death basically found Star League Wikipedia
It'd be kind of cool to see a timeline vid just to put everything into perspective and for everyone to able to see how deep the history is visually. Just touching major births, events, and inventions.
Great job with videos boys, you've earned a subscription.
I personally like the Grey Death Legion, their who I went with as a sponsor in MW4 mercs and I had a wail of a time in that game
If I remember the comstar plan was so convoluted cause they needed to make it so confusion cause they did not want the other great houses to find out that there was a SLDF cache on the planet. Cause something that BIG of a find would make a comstar blakist guy think they had to do something like this. If i remember right the guy that did this had blakist ties and they are NUTS and he also wanted to hide what he was after from comstar. Its been a while since I read the book. Also If I remember they actually did clear their name for the false flag massacre later on I think one of the great houses did it to damage comstars rep. Also that Helm Core had a ton of medical stuff in it so it helped humanity beyond just the military stuff.
Everyone gets famous for driving Marauders because it was one of the SLDF's standard battle line heavy mechs, so like the Archer and the Warhammer they're everywhere. Every planets, every faction, every time period post Star League there's probbaly a Marauder and available spares for Marauders.
Wait.... Grayson never made it off Trell One IIRC. He was TRYING to when he had use the locals to bring down a Wasp(?), and shortly after that THEN that's when the Trellwan Lancers were formed.
My man pulled out the ultimate gamer move.
You guys should definitely cover Hansen's Roughriders at some point.
Macarons armored cavalry or since you have done snord and I think wolf's dragoons, the Waco rangers.
Grayson Death Carlyle.
Death pronounced as "deeth". From Old English.
Gray Death Legion.
Death prounced as "death".
TBF it literally means "Death"
Also Janos was still salty at the Capellans for funding his brother's rebellion a decade before.
Steve sounds and acts like an OG Cylon, danger doster alert! The ad mec will be pleased.
The Eridani Light Horse is my favorite Mercenary Unit in Battletech.
Hunky 80s action man screws over the galactic phone company
The legion was also awarded the Nobel Prize in Spite
still some of the best battle tech books you can read
Got to do the Eridani light horse next
I'm waiting for him to get to Snord's Ireggulars.....that will be....entertaining LOL
@@Wastelandman7000 he already did a vid a few months ago
I got a Shadow Hawk, as one of my starter mechs, for BattleTech 2018. I later found a Wolverine and Rifleman.
With a name like that I would have figured "Death" was his call sign. Then maybe legally changed his middle name to it later.
Just did the hbs battletech game Flashpoint with this crew, fun times!
I read the paperbacks about this unit back in '87. Great lore
They actually were cleared publicly for the genocide ROM tried to pin on them. Also, they detonated the star league cache themselves. Before they did that they coppied the entire data core AND made a deal with the combine to evacuate them AND a HUGE number of star league battlemechs to boot.
I know this only because I just finished the audible audiobook trilogy of grey death novels. I HIGHLY recommend everyone who hasn't listened to them to do so. They're easily the best written (and now narrated @ audible) of all battletech novels. For a rough analogy picture the first three Horus Heresy books vs your average 40k novel.
Dam Contra just took a dark turn.
"this is what they call a pro gamer move" no steve as an attorney I'm pretty sure we call that kidnapping and sexual assault. 🤣
Little sidenote about the Helm memory core (or the Gray Death memory core): that was just a portion of the entire knowledge base the Star League amassed over the years. The Star League had a database called Prometheus which contained every bit of knowledge the Star League had ever gathered: technology, history, intelligence reports. No full copy has ever been found so far (even the departing SLDF force took only partial copies with them). The Helm memory core was one of the biggest finds. Later during the Jihad the New Dallas memory core filled some missing holes but even that core was just a small one. For lostech prospectors a full copy of the Prometheus database is the holy grail. Though considering how far the IS has progressed most of that knowledge is most likely old by now (save for the terraforming wonders of the Department of Megaengineering)
Very informative... but MAN do you need spellcheck.
@@hariman7727 Guess my fingers are getting a little too fat ;)
When i readed the Gray Death Legion Trilogy in 1988 it made me a longtime Battletech Fan.
Thanks for that great Vid. 🙂
Wait a sec! Lori wasn't captured when the Dracs hit the Verthandi Rebel's Main Base, she was captured later on in the story during when the GDL along with the remaining Rebel Forces raided the Drac Forces on planet. It was her capture that saw Grayson go all in which lead to the final battle of the whole campaign.
Turned a space ship....into a normal ship...that's shaped like an egg.
This sounds like something Dr Robotnic would end up doing because his original plan simply didn't pan out and just rolled with what he had left
1 min again is crazzzzyyyyyy
As much as I love the BattleTech and Battlestar Galactica lore, I would love to see you lore it up on the Uplift series.
And I still want you to take a peek at the Instrumentality of Mankind stories.
Someone else suggested Lensman, too, which is a great idea IMO.
Ahhh, that’s my probably my most favourite pic of LAND’S RAIDER.
And no mention of the Inferno SRM that cemented Grayson and Lorrie's courtship...
Well, she did have a mech. So it wasn't like she was unarmed. And it did take a while for her to get over that. I don't remember if she was with him until they got to Mercenary's Star and she still wasn't solid till The Price Of Glory. So its not like point inferno, get hot chick.
@@Wastelandman7000 Either way it would have ended with a hot chick... just a bit more crispier in one of the cases...🤯
It was heart breaking to read the destruction of the Legion near the end of the FedCom war.
Comstar: Ridiculously powerful phone company with a monopoly on communication, run by religious zealots who plan like The Underpants Gnomes at worst or Pinky & The Brain at best.
It's basically Google meets the WEF, only slightly more dignified and less malicious.
So how did ComStar react to all this? Also do they ever get caught?
Comstar was disappointed but soldiered on. The precentors vary from person to person, many are moderates actually, their intelligence and military arm are where most of the crazies are, and would see the situation as a zero sum game. They most likely backed of on Carlyle because the cats out of the bag and theirs no point wasting resources for Nothing and had to play political baccarat to maintain relevance and control after that disaster.
So to be fair the death middle name was shortened from something in another language where his family was descended from. Deathort or something and like a mercenary whose middle name is literally death could be seen as like promotional. If everything is equal do you hire the guy with death in his name or Bob
Hey, Grayson Carlyle has a lot of strong traits. Naming merc companies wasn't one of them. Regardless he's my boi! The Grey Death is the reason I got interested in Battletech many many moons ago when I found Decision At Thunder Rift in a used book store and fell in love with the setting and the Grey Death. Long live the Legion!
davis mccall was my fave character in the gray death novels
Thank you for your videos.
The Steam ship thing wasnt propellers. They apparently used the nuclear engine as a sort of open steam turbine of sorts. It probably dumped a ton of radiation into the sea.
Hey, it worked for Eddie van Halen...
If i recall in the first book, Death is not proununced like the English word Death, but something like Deeth or De-ah-th. Its been a few years since i read the book, but it was explained to not be as blantantly silly as presented.
Fine, more support, just so Steve will stop complaining.
WW2 Germany and Russia signed s "Non Aggression Treaty". With each side planning to attack the other as soon as they had enough forces. With Russia being mad Germany beat them to the betrayal.
Are the two people in the image on 5:57 resflavoured Luke and Leia Skywalker?
Welcome back Steve