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Notes -
The Gays Destroyed The "No Politics" Rule
Pride month began, and the moderators of /r/Battletech enforced their "no politics" rule as they have through elections, wars, referedums, economic crisis, etc. A long standing rule fastidiously kept by most Battletech groups I frequent. It's preserved Battletech as one of my escapes for long years as every other hobby I had got overrun with far left politics. Alas, no longer.
In response, Catalyst games launched /r/OfficialBattletech, specifically calling out the "bigotry" of /r/Battletech, and announcing Battletech is a "safe space". They parachuted in a community leader with experience moderating "safe spaces". People began making the sorts of spurious claims against the mods of /r/Battletech you are used to seeing, calling them being fascist at best, literally "Heil Hitler" nazi's at worst on the most spurious of circumstantial evidence. The originator of /r/Battletech came out of nowhere and completely removed the mods of /r/Battletech to make damned sure /r/Battletech participates in Pride Month.
Because it's not political. It's just being a decent person.
So I guess Battletech is explicitly left wing now. You are no allowed to opt out of their politics.
Hobbies/Fandoms I'm allowed in
Video GamesBoard GamesScience FictionStar WarsStar TrekBattletechWoodworking
And I log into youtube to watch Stumpy Nubs tell me how to sharpen a chisel every day in fear some flashpoint will have occurred. That the Eye of Sauron finally noticed that woodworking is too white and must be destroyed. And suddenly every content creator I watch will be posting these mewling apology videos for not doing enough to foster diversity and inclusiveness in this important hobby. And the rest of the month ends up being pride themed woodworking content. Making your own buttplugs on a lathe or whatever. How to add glitter to a poly finish.
I’ve never heard of Battletech until now, but the post from the new guard made reference to the old guard having an ”1988” stipulation rule - is this some attempt to delineate the franchise prior to some woke spoilage?
You're more likely to have heard of it under the MechWarrior or MechCommander name (used for games, some books), as opposed to BattleTech (some RPGs, some books) or Battledroids (original tabletop game, largely dropped post-1986).
The old rule #1 was :
Battletech's a little weird because it's technically an alternate history/future setting, even if most players or readers (especially of the MechWarrior stuff) would be surprised to hear that. While the play focus is usually around giant robots fighting interstellar wars somewhere in the 3000s, officially the branching point was the fall of the Soviet Union in 2011, with the resulting differences in interstate politics leading to development of a functional fusion reactor in 2018 and (eventually) the titular mecha and faster-than-light travel.
It would be very rare for pre-divergence issues to end up relevant for a discussion, but it's at least imaginable: several of the Houses for Inner Sphere are both pastiches of and descended from real-world states. But a political discussion of an event that occurred after the fall of the Soviet Union doesn't really make sense from a lore perspective; the setting expects such an extreme divergence within just a few years that it's unlikely almost any specific event occurred in both cases.
((I don't know how effective this was.))
It is hard for me to understand how posting about Pride could fall afoul of such a rule given that Pride, as both celebration and flag, pre-date 1988.
Donald Trump and Joe Biden existed in 1988 too, but it would be disingenuous to post something involving them that is like 99% of the things posted about them online, and excuse it with "well, they existed in 1988".
Nobody of significance would write something that's about Pride (or Trump) that solely extrapolates from their status in 1988.
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I'm not sure how accurate the summary here is, but from a quick look at the anthology, I expect that the previous moderation team was not particularly focused on the 1988-rule at the time.
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