Tim BradstreetĢ315 - Terran Hegemony founded: In 2314, economic strain and political corruption within the Terran Alliance leads to civil war on Earth, now known simply as Terra. The Terran Hegemony’s first director-general, James McKenna. Demarcation leads to the rise of the six Great Houses: House Davion, House Cameron, House Kurita, House Liao, House Marik and House Steiner. All worlds outside that bubble are granted independence. The Demarcation Declaration sets the edge of Terran space at a bubble with a radius of 30 light-years. As it becomes harder and harder to govern its colonies, the Terran Alliance trims back its boundaries. Travel and communications are made possible by a fleet of FTL-capable craft called JumpShips.Ģ242 - The Demarcation Declaration: The bubble of colonized space around Earth spreads even further. By 2235, some 600 additional colonies are founded around our Sol system. Its maiden voyage takes it to the Tau Ceti star system, 12 light-years away.Ģ116 - New Earth founded: The first extra-solar colony is founded on the fourth planet in the Tau Ceti star system and named New Earth. SeptemThe first faster-than-light mission: The Western Alliance (now referred to as the Terran Alliance) launches Pathfinder, the first faster-than-light (FTL) spacecraft. Catalyst Game LabsĢ027 - Permanent colonies are established on Mars and the MoonĢ050 - Probes return to the Sol system with evidence of nearby, Earth-like worlds Launched from low Earth orbit on October 12, 2027, it reached mars in 14 days. The Alliance Ship Columbia was the first fusion powered interplanetary spaceship. The first step is to establish a small settlement on the moon.Ģ017 - The first manned mission to Mars is launchedĢ020 - Fusion power is invented: Engineers from Harvard, MIT and General Motors together create the first full-scale fusion reactor, gifting humanity a nearly unlimited source of clean power. Shortly thereafter, the shooting war draws to a close with a Western Alliance victory in 2014.Ģ016 - The formation of Alliance Space Command: With the Cold War won, humanity returns to space exploration in earnest. As the conflict widens, nuclear armageddon is narrowly avoided when a space-based defensive system is used to intercept Russian missiles headed toward the West. Western forces, under the banner of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), intervene. Bill Fitz-PatrickĢ014 - The end of the Soviet Union: In 2011, the collapse of the Soviet Union sparks a civil war. The agreement still left both countries with enough nuclear weapons to destroy each other many times over. Jimmy Carter and Leonid Brezhnev signing the SALT II treaty, Jin Vienna. Whether you’re new to the franchise or a returning vet, consider this your crash course on the BattleTech universe. Special thanks also to Catalyst Game Labs and the community at, who have been keeping track of the BattleTech lore online for a long, long time. Polygon talked to the loremasters at Piranha games - Matt Newman, Alex Iglesias and Mark Nicholson - part of the team behind the upcoming first-person action game Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries, to learn more about the key events in the BattleTech timeline. With two new BattleTech video games and two new boxed sets of the tabletop game on the way, all with bona fide connections to the franchise’s original creators, there has never been a better time to be a fan of BattleTech. But through it all there is a common thread - a singular timeline that every MechWarrior and BattleTech game shares.Ģ018 is set to be a high water mark for the historic franchise.

It is also incredibly complicated, thanks in part to the seemingly endless string of game developers and authors that have poked and prodded at it since its birth in 1984.

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