Proposing Future War: SCOUR and SCYTHE
Roughly five years ago, and two years after pushing out the Masters and Minions compilation and sorting out material for Jihad Hot Spots: Terra, a random email conversation with a fellow contractor spawned an idea. What if we could detail one of the biggest operations of BattleTech‘s Jihad Era and possibly kickstart a dormant series?
Operations SCOUR and SCYTHE were two major campaigns that I helped orchestrate within our massive canon timeline. They were officially Stone’s biggest combined campaigns of the war, culminating in the emancipation of Terra from the Word of Blake’s choking grasp.
I went so far as to work up a detailed outline and discussed the possibilities with a couple of writers who were free and whom I trusted most.
Alas, the project didn’t gain much traction because shortly afterwards, the Total Chaos idea came up and was chosen instead. At that point, I just folded over into it pieces of what I had conceived in this project.
Since there’s no chance this will ever be done, I’m posting it here as a ‘what if’ possibility for those interested in such things. It’s also a good example of how to build a project pitch for a plot book – if you happen to be involved in development of a venerable game line someday that actually has money to spend.
6 Replies to “Proposing Future War: SCOUR and SCYTHE”
” if you happen to be involved in development of a venerable game line someday that actually has money to spend.”
*mb raises eyebrow, curious as to what this could mean.*
Anything you want it to mean.
Well, I want it to mean that they’ll hire you and Herb back, because your work was awesome and I’m greedy enough to want more.
But reality rears its head again and that won’t happen.
Oh, what a good sourcebook, that would have been. 🙂
Hey Ben,
Did they ever publish the Victor Belle or Atlas Devlin? If they did not, what were they loaded out with?
I think Devin’s Atlas is in JHS: Terra. Belle’s never got published; I don’t think we ever got to statting it out.