Universe
A detailed timeline stretching from the late 20th century to the mid-32nd describes humanity's technological, social and political development and spread through space both in broad historical terms and through accounts of the lives of individuals who experienced and shaped that history. Individual people remain largely unchanged from those of modern times, due in part to stretches of protracted interplanetary warfare during which technological progress slowed or even reversed. Cultural, political and social conventions vary considerably between worlds, but feudalism is widespread, with many states ruled by hereditary lords and other nobility, below which are numerous social classes.
A key feature of the BattleTech universe is the absence of non-human intelligent life. Despite one or two isolated encounters in novels, mankind is the only sentient species, making the incessant warfare among humanity's feudal empires seem a more realistic and direct extension of the past and present.
Above all, the central theme of BattleTech is conflict, something to be expected given the franchise's wargaming core. Interstellar and civil wars, planetary battles, factionalization and infighting, as well as institutionalized combat in the shape of arena contests and duelling, form the grist of both novelized fiction and game backstories.
Read more about this topic: Periphery (Battle Tech)
Famous quotes containing the word universe:
“I pray every single second of my life; not on my knees, but with my work. My prayer is to lift woman to equality with man. Work and worship are one with me. I can not imagine a God of the universe made happy by my getting down on my knees and calling him “great.””
—Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906)
“Philosophically considered, the universe is composed of Nature and the Soul.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“There are no fixtures in nature. The universe is fluid and volatile. Permanence is but a word of degrees. Our globe seen by God is a transparent law, not a mass of facts. The law dissolves the fact and holds it fluid.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)