A 4x game would be cool, but I have zero confidence that a movie would be anything but terrible. Same with a series; someone would use the name to push a personal project. See stuff like Wheel of Time.
Cant be a 4x since its factions are established and its already explored. A grand strategy with ck2 dynasty space opera with unit customization detail of hoi4.
@@winzyl9546 Good point about the 4x. And while we're at it with ck2 and Hoi4, do also mix in the pops system from Imperator to give dynamic culture and identity to all the populace.
Combined all 14 episodes into one complete history of the first age of BattleTech. Work is well underway on the Reunification War. I've finished doing all the voicework and it's over THREE HOURS! Thank you to KingsofWinter & Awesome-Autocrat for creating some early faction logos for me. Really great work.
I must admit, I wish I'd been aware of these videos of yours while I was working on finalizing Operation Lancaster. They would've been extremely helpful in my efforts to ensure that the background information I'd written conformed with canon as much as possible. Regardless, thank you so much for these videos! They're fantastic work! You've got a new subscriber here. Excited to see your future work! ^_^
Good thing I made popcorn then! Seriously though, this helps me a lot with the background as I really only started getting into Battletech from the game from Harebrained Schemes in 2018. You got yourself a subscriber.
Oh Kerensky, this is amazing! Thank you so much My only feedback is to maybe highlight the mentioned worlds on the map whenever they're mentioned? It was a bit hard looking for them, especially in the first third of the video where it's basically just border gore
Thanks for the feedback. I tried to keep the most important worlds centre frame. In the parts where lots of minor things are happening I made sure it was all in shot but it would have been a lot of camera pans (and a lot of editing work/time) for not much benefit. There's definitely improvements I could make there though. As we progress in the timeline the conflicts are more fleshed out so you'll see units moving to and from the worlds I'm actively discussing which'll hopefully make it easier to follow.
No problem. I really did mean to do it sooner but for some reason couldn't force myself to do the 15 minute editing job necessary to merge it together. Going forwards I plan to upload a combined long video at the end of each era, only this time I'll work with that in mind from the get go.
I'm new to this universe, just got into it when I beat MechWarrior 5, then I found you. I'll be listening to this entire playlist. This is so interesting, and the main reason I'm doing this research is because I'd like to know more about who I'm working for on there I had no idea of the depth this universe has and I am NOT disappointed. Thanks so much for this. I'm subscribed and will be watching your videos for weeks to come.
A shame you never got to play mech warrior 4. Mech warrior 4 and its exansions are the pinnacle of mechwarrior. Mw5 isnt That great. Have you tried mechwarrior online ?
@@jeepsblackpowderandlights4305 I haven't, it's only on PC isn't it? And yeah, I wish there was more too MW5 but it still gets me by. Finally got a good playthrough going lol just hunting a Marauder 2
Excellent video. Very well done summation of the formative years of Interstellar Humanity in the Battletech verse. Honestly, all the talk of houses and feudal politics makes me wish for a Game of Thrones esque HBO show telling the story of these sorts of events. Maybe the first Succession War, or the Clan Invasion.
@@SvenVanDerPlank understandable. Well, at least the most recent Battletech Game was pretty fun, and I think it sold decently too, so hopefully there will be more of that. Seriously though, the more i listen to your vids and hear it all laid out, the more i realize that Battletech is Game of Thrones in space... or should it be Game of Thrones is Battletech on the ground, considering that Battletech came out most of a decade earlier?
@@SvenVanDerPlank yup, I made the battletech human sphere map without Faction borders. It's derived from the SUCKit. Love how you used it on your video!
@@SvenVanDerPlank let me know what maps you need. The full inner sphere map without borders is actually due for an update because of the new systems that appeared in newer source books.
Just when I realized that W40k Lore is just too depressing in the long run, I remembered BT cover artwork from my childhood and here I am. Thanks for your dedication! Apparently, the whole story begins with our current state of the world. Is this even fiction?
Our Battalion fought on many of these Worlds. Fighting was very brutal but we always fought to help the oppressed. Damn, now, after so many years, I may have to dust off the old gear and see if the old BattleMech will fire up for me just one more time. :)
40:37 The map really gets filled in quickly at this time skip timeskip, huh? What an amazing video. Good job! This was much preferred over reading through bits and pieces on sarna. But I'll probably do that as well.
The earliest map we have of the Capellan Confederation is 2366. It's reasonable to say that all events described prior to that probably have much larger states than shown in the video but I can only go on which planets are specifically mentioned.
@@SvenVanDerPlank This is a very comprehensive history that you are putting together. I started playing BT and greedily devouring the lore when i was 7 years old. Im 42 now and still love the setting. I would love to be a part of this
If you'd like to contribute and have any artistic inclination, any unit insignias would be massively appreciated. Even if it's just adding colour to the black and white ones or doing some simple Black/White remakes of some of the very low res ones. Otherwise, everything is more or less covered for the next few videos.
@@SvenVanDerPlank That’s cool. Sadly, though I try, i cannot draw or make likenesses to save my life. I write, for the most part. At any rate, thanks for this and keep up the good work!!
Cheers. I've always felt it was an era that doesn't get much attention (understandably so because it's so far in the past) but you can understand the origins of so many later conflicts by looking into the Age of War.
It goes without saying that the BPL/Tex is an inspiration for anyone making BT content. Maybe in the future I'll be lucky enough to collaborate on something.
To think about the reality is pretty fascinating, despite that map and all that imaginary events and actions, the real milky way galaxy is so mindblowingly huge that this entire narrative can take place in a portion of the real galaxy that if you had the entire galaxy on your screen, all that territory would still likely be invisibly small to you. To further think, Things like this could be going on out there now, with alien races so far away they never met any other life but their own still, Despite encompassing countless empires of just their species, having countless wars across thousands of stars. Still, even then, Having no idea if anybody else is out there yet.
@@SvenVanDerPlank in tldr, it's battletech tier of seriousnes with it's lore, also traveller is super old and modern big guys like warhammer took a lot from them. Anyway battletech is also great
Found your channel. Subbed! Great content and Battletech is one of my sci- fi favorites.. well the more grounded one even with bipedal war machines. Is it me or does both Battletech and WH40k take heavy inspiration from Dune? Politocal intrigues, houses, shady deals and of WAR! And BT Comstar a techno wizard AT-NT faction based on Earth that controls all communication, space travel, discoveries of LostTech, markets etc reminds me of the CHOAM finance faction of Dune.
Thank you, I'm glad you've been enjoying the content. Dune is one of the seminal science fiction works, there's barely anything in the genre that hasn't drawn from it. There certainly are a lot of similarities in BT as you say.
Very cool, but I am sure you got some of the names wrong / switched around when you were talking about them so it can be hard to follow sometimes. Anyway, no biggie it's fairly easy mistake to make since there are so many nation states forming, disappearing, changing etc.
Don't take this the wrong way, but I've been using this video to sleep the past few days, it's great. Love your stuff and long lore videos really cures my insomnia. Thanks for your deep dives and comprehensive map/timeline work!
Ha, that's hilarious. Don't worry, I get it. I've been using ASMR to sleep/relax since 2016, including one channel that has nothing to do with it. How anyone could find MY voice relaxing is beyond me though. Always glad to hear someone is enjoying the videos no matter what the context.
@@SvenVanDerPlank accents that people arent raised with tend to be appealing, and you have a very calm voice, so i could definitely see being able to fall asleep to this if i was tired.
I just started playing Mechwarrior 5 and I find the politics of this universe utterly fascinating. Thank you for this video. I always wondered about the factions from the MechAssault games I played as a kid, and now I've got somewhere to go for explanations.
Thanks, I'm glad you've been enjoying the videos. The political manoeuvring and backstabbing is my favourite part of the series, the 'Mechs are just a fun backdrop.
So, fun fact: Those "jump-capable warships" McKenna had? Dreadnought-class, the first WarShips of the Inner Sphere, given to him basically as a toy to keep him busy, apparently under the belief that a combat-capable JumpShip was a terrible idea and would be useless in any real conflict. Boy, did he prove them wrong, huh?
Didn't know the lore was THIS DEEP. I played Mech-assault 1 & 2 back on the OG Xbox, I didn't knew then it was part of a larger IP called the battletech universe. Then, when I did I was amused but now after a few more years, never realise the lore & the timeline was huge. ._. Edit: "Haha, Game of Thrones has alot of politics. The scheming, the manipulation, the backstabbing..." Battletech* "say wot?"
I had a similar experience. Played MechCommander as a kid, then understood there was some connection between it and the rest of the games around the time MechAssault 2 was coming out. Was another decade before I heard of BattleTech.
So I played this when it came out, it was called "Battle Droids" and was sued by George Lucas over the word "Droids". So it became "Battletech", then it was sued for it use of mechs from Robotech, and Macross. Then there was the Fasa, then the Harmony Gold fiasco. So its incredible to see so much of the lore, and so much politics that has come out and really fleshed out the inner sphere and its people and politics, local, planetary, and even interplanetary. I can't imagine where it all came from but I am glad there is so much love for this game and it's many iterations and it's slow growth and the painfully slow releases of new games. But I still love it and play everyday. One of the best things that could've ever happened to this game was the invasion by Gen. Kerenskis descendents, the Clans. This game needed a new and fresh infusion of mech designs that would not get the franchise sued. With the the return of the clans and the star league was a master stroke of genius. Now battletech was newer and fresher with its own mech designs and a new story line from its base history of the "Exodus" from the inner sphere by the star league. A master stroke. Clan mechs can trace their orgins back to the exodus battle mechs they took with them. Here we are, seeing how it all began, before the mech redefined warfare.
I think you are misunderstanding what plagiarism means. The Fighting Urukhai are a direct reference. As far as I know there are no orcs in BattleTech. Naming something after something else isn't plagiarism. Team Banzai is one of the most important merc units in the series and their name is straight from Buckaroo Banzai.
@@Duchess_Van_Hoof I believe basically anyone can add something to Sarna, it's a co-op wiki-pedia of battletech. But the early design of mechs used were absolutely rip offs from Macross and Robotech, even the name still utilizes part of its inspiration "tech" in battle"tech". In an effort to further distance themselves they went to calling it "Mechwarrior". That one definitely stuck.
@@impressiveprogressive7343 Almost anyone can edit Sarna, I believe you need to set up an account, which anyone on the internet can do. But The Fighting Uruk-Hai and Team Banzai, among many others, are canon formations that exist in the lore. There's a difference between "plagiarism" and "shout-out," which can admittedly get a little thin if the owner of the thing you're shouting out to take umbrage. Plucking a name from another work is generally not plagiarism, even a made-up name that could not be confused as anything but having come from that work, like Uruk-Hai, especially if the fictional universe the shout-out appears in has the fiction being shouted out to in it. BattleTech is based on actual Earth humans, so Lord of the Rings likely exists, thus it's entirely probable some MechWarrior who was also a LotR fan dubbed their merc command "The Fighting Uruk-Hai" because they thought it was funny. Similarly, the 42nd Adder Cavaliers of Clan Star Adder go by the unit nickname "The Answer." Also, the game has not been "renamed" MechWarrior. It has always been BattleTech. MechWarrior, in universe, is a term specifically describing someone trained to pilot 'Mechs. MechWarrior was first used, to my knowledge, as a product name for the role-playing supplements released alongside the BattleTech tabletop combat game, allowing for integration of character-scale RPG with lance- or company-scale 'Mech combat. MechWarrior was then applied to the first "flight sim" BattleTech game, the original first-person perspective shooter where you piloted a 'Mech, and the name has stuck for entries in that segment of the franchise. Those games happen to be very accessible to BT outsiders, so it is many people's first exposure to the setting and lore of BattleTech, but the MechWarrior games still exist under the umbrella of the BattleTech franchise. MechWarrior was also used for the clix mini game "MechWarrior: The Dark Age," which advanced the timeline quite a bit. While the main franchise (still in the throes of the Jihad) was catching up, it was rebranded "Classic BattleTech" for reasons which remain unclear, since just "BattleTech" and "MechWarrior: The Dark Age" share precisely zero words in common. Dark Age was eventually discontinued, and the franchise overall went back to being just "BattleTech." Also, Robotech IS Macross, just imported and redubbed completely by Harmony Gold and mashed up with two other anime series. When BattleTech was using Super Dimension Fortress Macross designs for some 'Mechs, the rights to that artwork had been legally purchased (thus, they were not "rip-offs"). Then Harmony Gold licensed the entirety of Macross, the situation was live-and-let-live for a time, then ExoSquad and BattleTech: The Animated Series were in the works, the toy company working on toys for ExoSquad made something a little too close to the Mad Cat for FASA's liking, FASA sued, Harmony Gold (who licensed some stuff for ExoSquad) countersued, and the whole Unseen debacle came about. A good chronicle of the whole sordid story is here: tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/ScrewedByTheLawyers/BattleTech
It is weird that the setting for a game about giant death robots is so intricate and so... beautiful in its tragedy. The formation of the Star League represents the victory of diplomacy against war itself, only for it to commit the most atrocious military campaign in human history. And its fall meant a galactic conflict that bombed civilization back to the proverbial stone age. And as an Earther myself the fall of the Terran Hegemony is a bit heartbreaking, especially considering what replaced it on this world of ours. If I had any pet peeve, then it would be that I would like more minor nations stubbornly struggling for their existence.
Consider that within the great houses, many minor houses and individual worlds are, nearly always, in conflict with each other. If not for their house lord's, they would be in open conflict. Look at the mess that is the ilkhan era.
Might sound weird but i think that's what the recent events with the Clans are hrading towards as a lot of clan splinter factions are creating their own regional powers and periphery kingdoms the tech and/or size of which could challenge the Taurian Concordant. And considering what all twenty clans (i know not all of them invaded) "working together" achieved in the Inner Sphere. Imagine what these splinter factions new clans, and the clan empires in the inner sphere will achieve all while being Capellan Confederation sized or much smaller.
If you were to live during the times of Terran Hegemony you'd remember it is a place with near infinite economical disparity, zero social lifts and evergrowing cultural degradation. There's a reason why everyone who's brains were worth a dime escaped it the first chance they got.
A bit late but one of my favorite parts about the setting being based around a tabletop game is that it encourages people like us to fill in the gaps. Pick a couple Periphery worlds or something with no established story and make something wild!
The Davion Civil War in particular makes me wonder how no one ever pitched a BT tv show to HBO in the style of GoT. I mean hell, BattleTech is basically GoT IN SPACE (or, since it is the older property i believe, perhaps GoT is BT IN NOT SPACE!?)
Oh absolutely ASoIaF concept => what Martin lifted from BattleTech Great Empire Of Dawn = Terran Alliance Valyria = Star League Dorne = Federated Suns House Targaryen = House Kurita House Stark = Wolf's Dragoons / Clan Wolf Free World's League = House Arryn Summer Isles = Magistracy Of Canopus House Glover's banner = pretty much just the House Stiener mailed fist The Maesters = ComStar There's probably more...
Would be nice if when you actually went to a planet in Mechwarrior, it had at least a 2 sentence bio on the place. This is great information and Lore, many thanks.
While a few worlds do have bios, the game creators seem to have deliberately left the majority open for interpretation. With thousands of worlds, it would be a daunting task, but I'd buy such an atlas.
This was very well done. I enjoyed this as much as the Tex talks Battletech series by the Black Pants Legion. You did an excellent job telling the story, and I loved how you used the map as a backdrop. That really tied everything together. Keep up the good work!
Thank you, glad you enjoyed it. I've just finished uploading the next compilation video which should be going live in the next couple of days (as soon as it's done processing), or you can watch the individual chapters already on my channel if you're interested in seeing more.
I also enjoyed this. It's always a good time when you can find a Battletech channel where it isn't someone just reading passages directly from a splatbook or Sarna. You've earned a sub alongside Fritz and TBPL
There's lots of fun names in BT, like Bad News, Nope and Don't. Few have ever had much history dedicated to them so it's up to you to guess what gave the planet that name.
@@SvenVanDerPlank Thanks for the quick reply. Really enjoying the history (played the card game, board game, and video games off and on for decades but now am finally getting into the lore of it all). Just by the name, I can imagine there is something surrounding that planet that causes the jump ships to be either destroyed or, unbeknownst to the rest of the planets, crashes and can never take off again. Thus, after a few tries, they just marked it as No Return as nothing ever returned from there.
I’m extraordinarily new to the Battletech universe and I’m absolutely loving it so far. Thank you for making such well written and interesting content about the lore. Keep up the fantastic work! Looking forward to making my way through this playlist
Spend 30 minutes learning world history in class? Nah, not for me. Sit through a two hour long video talking about the galactic history of a fictional universe? Fuck yes.
Bud, I've been looking for a comprehensive insight in the Battletech universe history for a long time and this video you made is amazing...you make the lore seem so real, thank you!! 😊
This is a mighty work on your part. The resources you had to scour to put this altogether must have taken a good deal of time. You mentioned about the introduction of the KF drives and how it expanded the breath of humanity to the stars. One part that you toched on for whey the Terran Alliance fell was the distances and the time for communications. Yet I did hear mention of the other benefit from the KF drives in that it lead to creation of the HPG network. Otherwise this was almost flawless.
So I deliberately didn't mention HPG (perhaps wrongly) because they had not been invented yet. In case you didn't know, the first working HPG entered service in 2630 which meant all communications before then relied on couriers.
It's story is inspired by feudal European nations constant squabbles and most of the tech is based on things that while we don't have them yet, are being heavily researched and could one day become a reality like fusion reactors and laser tech.
@@MrJack556 Thanks to square-cube law, realistically, any tech that would make mechs possible would make Infantry, Tracked Vehicles or Rotorcraft better for any role it'd fit.
I know you've been ridiculously swamped and gotten burned out doing BT videos once already, so feel free to completely ignore this. But one thing that would be extremely useful to me is sort of a "digest" version of this history, trimmed to maybe 20-25% of its current length, that hits the highlights and mostly glosses over the minutiae. As much as I love BT lore, I'm less concerned with remembering every little detail than just having a thorough understanding of the big picture. But again -- distilling this into a summary would be a huge amount of work, so I'm not really asking for this so much as saying "I would find this cool to have, *only if* you had both the time and motivation to do it."
For the reasons you said, I'd have to be honest and say I don't think it'll happen (definitely not soon anyway). It'd probably require a complete rewrite. Maybe when I've caught up to 3025 I'll do a brief 10-15 minute overview of the last 1000 years. BUT, I appreciate the feedback. I had to choose when I started this project how much I was going to write about and settled on about 50% of what was included in the Housebooks history sections, with a focus on what seemed the most important or most interesting. I actually recorded a whole episode I chose not to finish because although it was interesting to me, I could easily summarise it into two sentences near the start of the Davion Civil War video. For the upcoming Reunification War I ended up rewriting about 90% of the sourcebook which is probably too much. Depending on what others think, and if the consensus is that is too much, I'll keep things shorter in future. For now, I will continue to upload all my lore videos in shorter chunks to keep them digestible and only afterwards reupload the multi-hour specials for folks who want that.
I have actually watched this a bunch of times over and over. Probably because I am a BattleTech fan that has a history degree and find Sven's voice quite soothing, lol.
Glad you're enjoying the video. I can't watch these early vids of mine because of my voice. Talking a million miles an hour and the sound levels are all off.
1:50 The foundation of most "Space faring Empire" science fiction: Break General relativity and create a form of FTL/Jump travel that allows you to leave Earth and return without hundreds if not thousands of years to have passed while you were gone.
Incredible. Execellent produciton quality. I could watch hours of this. This is a great way to absorb battletech lore. I kind of want to model a stellaris playthough aroun the 2200 mark of battle tech, and this gives me the perfect amount of detail
The Mechwarrior lore always seemed extremely elusive to me. It turns out writers at FASA established a universe as vast and developed as Star Wars’ ! Your video makes it readily accessible. Thank you very much.
The Age of War series relied on 13 sourcebooks. The Housebook and Handbook for each of the five great houses, plus the two for the periphery, and the Star League sourcebook. Few additional details came from later books and Sarna.
I've loved Battletech/Mechwarrior since I first started playing the Board Game in 1985, at the age of 14. The Game World intrigued me so much that when the History Books of the Five Houses & the Star League were released, I read them all. The first history books I ever read. ^_^ I was a latecomer to Warhammer 40k, however. Though I've always known of it, I didn't get into the Game World until 2019. Those Poor Humans in Warhammer! Trapped in the Sol System until around 15,000 A.D. ! And Making Warpspace basically Hell? 'GrimDark' Indeed.
@@SvenVanDerPlank Just keeping track of the constantly changing and evolving politics, borders, cultures, nations, piecing together what daily life must be like, and et cetera.
Ah okay. It was a very active period in the history so things change quite quickly but it's also so far back in the timeline not very much is written about it so there's not often much in the way of explanation for some events.
Yes I absolutely will, BUT I'm working through the timeline chronologically and I've only just started on the Star League. Will be quite a while before I get to Clans I'm afraid.
Here's my problem with space exploration movies and shows. It's just plain crazy to think that we're just going to be able to colonies other habitable planets. There's no doubt in my mind that they will already have civilizations thriving on them. If a planet is in the goldy locks zone then life will already be established and its there for that reason.
BT has much lower planetary populations than other sci-fi I've come across. Even the most heavily populated worlds in the fiction don't compare to modern day Earth, with figures in the low billions. Similarly, many of the planets on the map are maintaining populations of less than 100,000.
@sven van der plank how far will you be going? As someone who is fairly new to the game, I have very little knowledge of what happens after clan invasion and would like to know more
Ha, I would also like to know. I've never read anything beyond the clans, don't even know Civil War let alone the later stuff. That said, I plan to do the whole thing, though it'll slow down as I get later into it and there is more to read myself.
Everything after the Clan invasion is kinda terrible, at least imo. The Word of Blake stuff is kinda interesting but really once you get into the Dark Age it gets pretty bad. There is a reason 90% of Battletech stuff is set either in the Succession Wars or the Clan Invasion period.
Combined all 14 episodes into one complete history of the first age of BattleTech. Work is well underway on the Reunification War. I've finished doing all the voicework and it's over THREE HOURS! Thank you to KingsofWinter & Awesome-Autocrat for creating some early faction logos for me. Really great work.
Playing mechwarrior 5 and wanted to really understand this world more, so thanks for this awesome playlist I'll get through in a couple days 😂😂 have 2 weeks off work so why not lol
I remember someone asked me why there are so many habitable worlds but no intelligent life in Battletech? Well if great filters are a thing finding alien ruins or other species it would mean we would be fucked.
this video is fantastic. thank you so much for the work that went into it. i've never heard of your channel prior to seeing this video so im really glad you made this combination, yt seems to favor longer videos in recommendations for some people
Thank you. Glad you enjoyed it. There is already a follow-up on the channel if you haven't seen it. I think you're right on the algorithm. When you have a long video, it's not uncommon for people to watch it across multiple sittings. YT sees that as people returning to a video which ranks highly in the algorithm but doesn't distinguish between where they stopped and started. If it's got a lot of return/repeat views it promotes it a little more to new folk. That's what I've observed anyway, supported by the fact that the compilation videos get more views in a day than all the individual chapters combined.
@@SvenVanDerPlank that makes a lot of sense, i'm glad you're getting views on this masterpeice. its well earned. i just don't get why it took until yesterday for YT to recommend me any of your videos since i basically watch all of no strings PRD's content on release and have been watching tex videos since day 1 basically. you'd think YT would show me your channel given the literal perfect overlap. either way im super grateful for this compilation, being able to sit down for a few hours and just absorb this is fantastic. a lot of the finer details i didn't know despite being a huge bt fan for years. like the finer details of operation Prometheus. im guessing you got that from the house steiner sourcebook? going to have to actually get around to getting them all lol
We can see how the Star League was born out of the iniquity of the Terran Hegemony and descended from the corruption of the Terran Alliance. Goes to show the poisonous tree that bore the fruit of both the Clanners and Comstar.
Thank you. I'm really pleased you enjoyed it. If you haven't already seen them, this is just the first in a long running series I'm working on. You should be able to find the full playlist on the channel.
Excellent! Something to keep my mind busy while I go hunting in MW5 whilst also bringing me up to speed. Already listened to the first half hour on my other account, very well done.
Question you battletech lore masters, I only know MechWarrior 5. Does this series of lore videos go up through it? I know it ends right before a clan wars thing which I found another series elsewhere for, just wondering if this series will get me all the way through the 4 succession wars etc. Great series so far uploader I'm on 2nd vid and it's cool hearing about origins of these kurita guys that hate me in MW5 LOL
@@SvenVanDerPlank dude you're an absolute machine, sounds like i'm in for a treat of some awesome history! thanks man no rush by any means, take your time pace yourself and as always thanks!!!
All the music used in my BT videos come from the HBS BattleTech game. Some of the tracks are exclusive to the Deluxe Edition but you can hear most of it on Spotify.
A really interesting explanation. thank you. Even though I did keep getting distracted looking at all the names of the planets. Most are logical, named after places on Terra, but there's also others like Numenor. However, the one that made me chuckle was Pomme de Terre up in Rasalhague territory :D
