#honestly Mr Draper being a ground pounder with a superiority complex in what I’d already got figured out

[doolallymagpie]

One bit of worldbuilding in the BattleTech AU I’ve been picking at is the MCR, as I really do have to explain why four dipshits, only two of whom were in a navy, can run a ship by themselves beyond “fly it somewhere we can pick up more crew”, so, here goes I guess

The Tachi-class was part of a design experiment that resulted from finding an SLDF AI research facility on one of McEvedy’s moons, so naturally, it and the Donnager-class have significantly smaller crew requirements than normal, because they’re very automated (though less so than in The Expanse canon because this is still 80s Retrofuture)

Another aspect of Mickie AI research is that there’s a lot of PBIs in Congress that really want to end the dominance of the MechWarrior (Bobbie’s dad isn’t in Congress but he’s definitely one of these PBIs with a Complex About It, leading to so much drama during family dinner night), so there’s a lot of funding going to drone ‘Mech research and nothing much to show for it (because if the SLDF could have a computer pilot a ‘Mech, they’d have done it)