Michael A. Stackpole is an award-winning author, game designer, computer game designer and podcaster. In 2006 he and Brian Pulido won the Fade-In magazine scriptwriting contest grand prize for the script Gone. At DragonCon, Mike’s writing podcast, “The Secrets”, took the first-ever Parsec award for writing-related podcasts.
When not writing or podcasting, Mike enjoys indoor soccer and salsa dancing. Both are similar—it’s all in the footwork—but for one you get to dress up nicely. His web site is www.stormwolf.com.
Robert Thurston has been writing science fiction and fantasy since the early 1970s, after attending the second and third Clarion SF Writing Workshops. When the first collection of stories from Clarion was published, his story “Wheels” was awarded first prize; the story later became the basis for his novel A Set of Wheels. He has written over a dozen novelizations and original novels, including Alicia II, Q Colony, BattleTech, Robot Jox, and nine Battlestar Galactica books. He lives in New Jersey with his wife, Rosemary.
Phaedra Weldon is the author of several Classic BattleTech stories/novellas, including the continuing Sandoval Saga, En Passant and Epaulet Mate. She has also authored the Isis Marik series, The Art of War, and is currently working on the multi-layered Jihad series/novella, A Distant Thunder.
Her other publications can be found in various DAW anthologies, as well as works in the Star Trek universe for Starfleet Corps of Engineers, and The Next Generation series, Slings and Arrows. She is also the author of the ACE Fantasy series WRAITH, released June 5, 2007, and is currently working on book II, scheduled to be released in 2008.
BATTLETECH ERAS
The BattleTech universe is a living, vibrant entity that grows each year as more sourcebooks and fiction are published. A dynamic universe, its setting and characters evolve over time within a highly detailed continuity framework, bringing everything to life in a way a static game universe cannot match.
To help quickly and easily convey the timeline of the BattleTech universe—and to allow a player to easily “plug in” a given novel or sourcebook—we’ve divided BattleTech into six major eras.
STAR LEAGUE (Present—2780)
Ian Cameron, ruler of the Terran Hegemony, concludes decades of tireless effort with the creation of the Star League, a political and military alliance between all Great Houses and the Hegemony. Star League armed forces immediately launch the Reunification War, forcing the Periphery realms to join. For the next two centuries, humanity experiences a golden age across the thousand light-years of human-occupied space known as the Inner Sphere. It also sees the creation of the most powerful military in human history.
(This era also covers the centuries before the founding of the Star League in 2571, most notably the Age of War.)
SUCCESSION WARS (2781—3049)
Every last member of First Lord Richard Cameron’s family is killed during a coup launched by Stefan Amaris. Following the thirteen-year war to unseat him, the rulers of each of the five Great Houses disband the Star League. General Aleksandr Kerensky departs with eighty percent of the Star League Defense Force beyond known space and the Inner Sphere collapses into centuries of warfare known as the Succession Wars that will eventually result in a massive loss of technology across most worlds.
CLAN INVASION (3050—3061)
A mysterious invading force strikes the coreward region of the Inner Sphere. The invaders, called the Clans, are descendants of Kerensky’s SLDF troops, forged into a society dedicated to becoming the greatest fighting force in history. With vastly superior technology and warriors, the Clans conquer world after world. Eventually this outside threat will forge a new Star League, something hundreds of years of warfare failed to accomplish. In addition, the Clans will act as a catalyst for a technological renaissance.
CIVIL WAR (3062—3067)
The Clan threat is eventually lessened with the complete destruction of a Clan. With that massive external threat apparently neutralized, internal conflicts explode around the Inner Sphere. House Liao conquers its former Commonality, the St. Ives Compact; a rebellion of military units belonging to House Kurita sparks a war with their powerful border enemy, Clan Ghost Bear; the fabulously powerful Federated Commonwealth of House Steiner and House Davion collapses into five long years of bitter civil war.
JIHAD (3067—3080)
Following the Federated Commonwealth Civil War, the leaders of the Great Houses meet and disband the new Star League, declaring it a sham. The pseudo-religious Word of Blake—a splinter group of ComStar, the protectors and controllers of interstellar communication— launch the Jihad: an interstellar war that will ultimately pit every faction against each other and even against themselves, as weapons of mass destruction are used for the first time in centuries while new and frightening technologies are likewise unleashed.
DARK AGE (3081+)
Under the guidance of Devlin Stone, the Republic of the Sphere is born at the heart of the Inner Sphere following the Jihad. One of the more extensive periods of peace begins to break out as the 32nd century dawns. The factions, to one degree or another, embrace disarmament and the massive armies of the Succession Wars begin to fade. However, in 3132 eighty percent of interstellar communications collapses, throwing the universe into chaos. Wars almost immediately erupt and the factions begin rebuilding their armies.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.
WARRIORS: A BATTLECORPS COMPILATION VOL. 1
Cover art by Franz Vohwinkel
Interior art by Chris Lewis, Brad McDevitt, Matt Plog, Franz Vohwinkel and Klaus Scherwinski.
©2010 The Topps Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Classic
