Yellowhammer
Well-known member
Okay, this is me not really being into BTech lore until relatively recently, but... I always thought that whole thing wasn't really a thing until the SWs made getting new Mechs so difficult/expensive....
Ok, this relates to the CapCon's social structure a bit.
Basically you have two flavors of nobility.
The Sheng are the landholding noble 'old families' who were generally prominent pre-CapCon such as the Teng who ruled St. Ives, the Liao, the Ridziks and Quinns in Tikonov, the Hargreaves who fled Chesterton, etc. For these nobles they own land/businesses/whatever, which they pass down to their chosen heirs in perpetuity.
You also have the Barduc 'sword nobility' who are ennobled as a warrior caste. These are your Mechwarriors, ASF pilots, CCAF officers, and so on. The big difference is that their titles are generally NOT hereditary. This is where the Mei fall as a family of 'Mechwarriors who hit the jackpot when one of their daughters going through Capella Military Academy as a merit student caught the eye of her fellow cadet Balthazar Liao.
Now, that said, both castes have the same legal rights as nobles, so Mei Ying now has absolute authority over the workers and tenants on that plantation just like Ilsa Liao did. Ying can run for the House of Scions to represent Liao, get elected as a Tikonov Commonality Prefect and so on and so forth just like any of Ilsa's cousins who own a title there can.
Dispossession comes into play because the Barduc are 'ennobled as military men' (and the CapCon has a very strong Cult of the Mechwarrior thanks to the Lorix Doctrine that gave us the Warrior Houses later), so Ying losing her family ride with no replacement mech (her aunt lost hers on Calloway VI and the other ride was damaged by her brother) means that she could lose status and get shuffled out to a different caste.
What Ilsa did was give her a landholding from her own properties and by decree make her a Hereditary Barduc Lady (the lowest of the five ranks of nobility) with property that Ying now possesses in and of herself (rather than being assigned from the State). As Hereditary Nobility, Ying now has the right to name her heir and pass the title down to Huiqing (or someone else if she goes that way). Basically she is in an intermediate step up from Barduc but below full-on Sheng since she can't have that title/property taken from her just by Dispossession making her useless to the State as a Mechwarrior in terms of service.
Ok, this relates to the CapCon's social structure a bit.
Basically you have two flavors of nobility.
The Sheng are the landholding noble 'old families' who were generally prominent pre-CapCon such as the Teng who ruled St. Ives, the Liao, the Ridziks and Quinns in Tikonov, the Hargreaves who fled Chesterton, etc. For these nobles they own land/businesses/whatever, which they pass down to their chosen heirs in perpetuity.
You also have the Barduc 'sword nobility' who are ennobled as a warrior caste. These are your Mechwarriors, ASF pilots, CCAF officers, and so on. The big difference is that their titles are generally NOT hereditary. This is where the Mei fall as a family of 'Mechwarriors who hit the jackpot when one of their daughters going through Capella Military Academy as a merit student caught the eye of her fellow cadet Balthazar Liao.
Now, that said, both castes have the same legal rights as nobles, so Mei Ying now has absolute authority over the workers and tenants on that plantation just like Ilsa Liao did. Ying can run for the House of Scions to represent Liao, get elected as a Tikonov Commonality Prefect and so on and so forth just like any of Ilsa's cousins who own a title there can.
Dispossession comes into play because the Barduc are 'ennobled as military men' (and the CapCon has a very strong Cult of the Mechwarrior thanks to the Lorix Doctrine that gave us the Warrior Houses later), so Ying losing her family ride with no replacement mech (her aunt lost hers on Calloway VI and the other ride was damaged by her brother) means that she could lose status and get shuffled out to a different caste.
What Ilsa did was give her a landholding from her own properties and by decree make her a Hereditary Barduc Lady (the lowest of the five ranks of nobility) with property that Ying now possesses in and of herself (rather than being assigned from the State). As Hereditary Nobility, Ying now has the right to name her heir and pass the title down to Huiqing (or someone else if she goes that way). Basically she is in an intermediate step up from Barduc but below full-on Sheng since she can't have that title/property taken from her just by Dispossession making her useless to the State as a Mechwarrior in terms of service.