View source for User:Mwhayden

=About Me=

==The Man==
I'm an aerospace assembly mechanic by trade and a historian by education.  I briefly went to school for art, and while I'm not a professional I am an avid amateur photoshop user.  I'm just starting to really get involved with this wiki, and I want to contribute in a meaningful way.

==The Legend==
My first memory of [[BattleTech]] is of an advertisment of an advertisment for the 2nd Edition box set and Citytech box set: I remember how utterly cool the Warhammer seemed.  At the time I believed the Archer to be some kind of much larger 'mech that transformed to and from a city.  I was a kid, and had a very active imagination.  I did not really have a grasp of what the universe was about, but I knew one thing: I wanted to be a part of it.

When I was a little older one of my friends brought the 3025 TRO to school: I immidiately recognized that distinctive font, and asked to borrow it.  Within a week I had read it cover to cover a dozen times, memorizing every 'mech within, and learning that the [[Archer]] was a 70 ton 'mech, and in fact NOT a city-sized transformer.  It was also during this time that I fell head over heels with the MAD-3R [[Marauder]], which looked simply awesome to my young eyes.

For quite a few years after that my access to new materials was very limited, and aside from books borrowed from the library or my friend my access to Battletech stagnated.  Then around the turn of the millenia a series of wonderful things happened.  The Mechwarrior 3 demo CD somehow made it's way into our classroom: we were all taken back at how awesome it was.  And that 'mech... a Madcat!  (my friend also had the 3050 TRO and several other books, so I atleast knew the clans existed).  I was excited to no end by what I was seeing, as lasers and polygonal 'mechs danced across the screen.  Around that time I also got my hands on the older Mechwarrior games, and my greatest prize: at a small thrift store auction a box full of pristine Battletech and Star Fleet Battles (important for later in the story) box sets.  I soon traded the Star Fleet Battles stuff to my friend for his collection of TROs and pewter 'mechs.  To this day I still maintain I got the better end of that bargain.

I played the Battletech and Mechwarrior throughout high school, into my college years, and even now as one of those grownup types.  Although I've always been interested in Battletech, my consumption has been limited to source books, TROs and rule books.  I've never gotten into the novels, and I don't intend to.

==The Myth==
I've pretty much followed house =Davion= since I started.  The =Outworlds Alliance= is my favorite periphery power because they seem both scrapy and believable, just like a periphery state should be.  I don't like the "gimmicky" periphery powers that border the [[Lyran Commonwealth]] and [[Free Worlds League]].  I'm not really into the clans, I like the notion of the warden clans, like [[Clan Ghost Bear]] or [[Clan Wolf]].  I'm honestly pretty much stuck in 3025-3030.

=My Goals Here=

I'm new, so I'm still trying to figure out where exactly I fit in.  I'm hoping to learn how to contribute images successfully, and hope to eventually write articles.