The Schism That Created Battletech's Ultimate Villains | The word of Blake part 1

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]Generic greetings, editing sigh here.

[00:00:02]Sorry for the random introduction, but the reality of the word of Blake video dramatically got away from me. Long story short, the dry recording that I did ended up being about 2 and 1/2 hours, and that was unacceptably long for how me and Steve record and our lives in general. So, the word of Blake video is instead being split up into two parts. This is part one, the history and the schism of the word of Blake and Comstar. Basically, we're going over all of the stuff that happened leading up to the jihad. And then the next video, part two, is going to be on the jihad itself.

[00:00:34]How the word of Blake fought it, what they ended up doing, how it royally screwed over the inner sphere, that kind of stuff. There's not going to be a normal intro for this video because we recorded a normal intro, and then about 2/3 of the way through part one, we realized, oh my god, we're going to be here forever. Hey, you want to split it into two parts? Yep. Yep. And then we did. So, with that said, welcome to part one of The Word of Blake, the history and backstory of the Inner Spheres most insane religious fanatics. I hope you enjoy. Anyways, syllabus for today. The Commar schism that initially resulted in the Word of Blake splitting off, the slow buildup of the Blakeists, and the complicity of the Free Worlds League that helped ruin everything. And >> seems like a slur.

[00:01:17]>> Seems like a what?

[00:01:18]>> A slur. The Blakeists. Okay, so skipping forward, it half is, half isn't. This was this is going to be covered in the this part two video, but long story short, the Blakeists have done so much damage to their reputation by the end of their little mini empire in like 15 years that they have literally been hunted to the ends of the universe and eradicated. The entirety of humanity basically went, "Any person who has ever associated with you ever needs to be wiped off the map and their name is literally mud. To call someone a Blakeist basically is a slur by this point in the Battletech timeline. It is like up there with the worst of them. It got so bad that even painting your mech in word of Blake colors or even using a mech that was associated with the word of Blake might just get you shot on site." So, so what what I'm hearing is we need to paint all of our uh if you have somebody in your unit that you don't like, you just paint it to blank colors and um deals with the problem itself.

[00:02:17]>> I mean, like this is the equivalent of like battletech fragging instead of throwing a frag grenade into your commanding officer when he's like on the portagon or something. You just go, I heard that piece of [ __ ] Praise Blake.

[00:02:28]Kill him. Kill him immediately. Enormous amount of concentrated fire slams into the back of the officer's battle mech.

[00:02:34]Corses it out instantaneously.

[00:02:36]>> Standing. Anyways, let's get into things. You ready, Steve?

[00:02:40]>> Uh, sure.

[00:02:41]>> Awesome. Let's begin with the Comst Star schism. And there's going to be a lot of backstory for this. So, you you remember Comcast, right? Like aside from the memes and stuff, you remember that we have talked about them and covered them.

[00:02:51]>> Yeah, I I remember naming them Comcast.

[00:02:53]>> Yeah. So, you remember how they're like an actual serial privacy violator? Like the worst things that AI companies are doing now don't even hold a candle to Yeah. Yeah.

[00:03:02]>> They're they're just Comcast.

[00:03:05]>> Allegedly. Allegedly.

[00:03:07]>> Allegedly. Allegedly. They spy on everyone through their data transmissions, hack doorbell cameras to watch you. They probably have cameras under the toilet seat to snap pictures of your taint or something like serial privacy violators. CommStar had a purpose for all of this. Wasn't just for the love of the game.

[00:03:21]>> And no, it it mostly was for the love of the game. But >> no, they they had Okay. Okay. It was for the love of the game, but it did have a purpose to it. All right. They were using their monopoly on interstellar communication and information to rake in shitloads of cash to the point that they de facto control the setting's main currency. And they were using that control and wealth to constantly keep starting wars and reducing the inner sphere to ruin. They directly caused the second succession war as well as having a massive hand in all the others, playing all sides to make sure everyone hated each other as much as possible and came out the other end as bad as possible. In some cases, they even just directly attacked worlds to destroy advanced technology and then, you know, blamed it on one successor state or the other. They were a very big fan of false flags. They were an Olympic flag collector with how many of those false flags they launched. So, while not all of the high technology and cool stuff was destroyed by CommStar, they did roll around and mayhaps have dropped the sun on a factory or two here and there and then blamed it on someone else. But overall, yeah, pretty awful people.

[00:04:26]Comstar's eventual goal was to take over the inner sphere and reunite humanity in a new Star League with them at the helm.

[00:04:33]When the clans first invaded, CommStar actually helped the dented Supouptock spawn because apparently they just figured, hey, they'll help us militarily conquer the inner sphere and Comstar will maintain order in the background and stuff and then manipulate them and they can all rule together. and they helped the clans by issuing HPG blackouts and basically controlling the populations on any worlds that they conquered. It was only once Commar learned that the clans were uh not a fan of this telecom company and in fact did not view them as a partner but more of a annoying intern that they could boss around and force them to get coffee that Comstar kind of wisened up to what was happening. It also helped that the clans very openly were like, "Yeah, your main capital world, Earth, Terra, the place you've built your entire power base.

[00:05:21]We're going to [ __ ] the hell out of that planet. We're going straight for that planet. It is a race to Earth. Whoever gets there, >> calm down. Calm down. We're We're not [ __ ] planets out here, >> dude. The clans are a special kind of special, okay? I guarantee you whichever clan got to Terra first in the invasion, some of their warriors probably would have lied down and started humping the dirt. They're just like that, okay?

[00:05:41]They're just a little wrong in the head.

[00:05:42]They're simply built different. I guess >> built wrongs are built wrong.

[00:05:48]>> It's just the people from the mummy.

[00:05:50]Would I awaken this? He will be my slave and do what I want. What do you mean he wants to kill me?

[00:05:56]>> Yeah. So, it was only once Commar learned that the clans intended to like Mollywamp Terra and kick their ass if they got in the way that they decided, you know what, maybe it's not possible to share a new Star League with these guys. So, CommStar turned against the clans. There was a lot of other little things like friction and tension between the two's culture and stuff, but it was very obvious that the clans did not view Comstar as a partner and they looked at Earth as a prize to take. That was really the thing that sealed it. Tukiad happens. Clans get absolutely shitwrecked by a bunch of cable repair guys and mechs and then bam, clan invasion is over for now. There was a really really important second objective though that Comstar tried during the battle of Tukiad, specifically launched by the leader of Commstar at the time, Mindo Waterly. Do you want to take a wild guess what her plan was?

[00:06:47]>> Uh, no, not not particularly.

[00:06:49]>> Okay. I want you to imagine Operation Barbar Roa, but the Germans launched it against like every country on Earth at the same time.

[00:06:56]>> Uh, so that seems like a great idea.

[00:06:58]Surely they succeeded, right?

[00:07:00]>> No.

[00:07:00]>> No. That that's that's surprising them.

[00:07:04]>> No, >> I don't see how this could have failed.

[00:07:06]>> This this th this was a this was a really really really really bad idea.

[00:07:13]Like I cannot there is no amount of realies that I can tack on here that explain how really really bad this idea was. Like this is a this is a legendarily [ __ ] idea. The worst decisions in human history look like Einstein's brilliance compared to what Mindo Waterly did here. Okay, it is it is bad. Essentially, what she wanted to do was use CommStar's absolute control over the HPG network to cause mass uprisings not only on the clan held worlds of the invasion corridor, but also on the entirety of the inner sphere, which basically amounts to like 95% of all human space in the setting.

[00:07:54]At the same time, CommStar, the telecom company, the cable repair guys spying on you when you're on the [ __ ] they wanted to try and conquer the entire galaxy by turning off your Wi-Fi.

[00:08:05]>> To be fair, that probably could conquer like half the countries on the planet.

[00:08:08]>> Okay. Yeah, but this is science fiction, not reality. Science fiction has standards. Come on.

[00:08:13]>> Does it?

[00:08:13]>> Yeah, man. Science fiction has to make more sense than reality sometimes because otherwise nobody would believe it and everyone would be like, "What is this garbage?" Anyways, the second part of the plan wasn't just cut off Wi-Fi.

[00:08:24]It was launch a conventional uprising or invasion of like every significant world. So, the plan was to blitz the entirety of human controlled space in one fell swoop to take control. Now, I'm not saying that Mindo Waterly was an insane zealot who had entirely lost her grip on reality, but I am heavily implying it. There are like a thousand reasons that this wouldn't work.

[00:08:45]Firstly, the clans do not care about this strategy like at all. They brought their own mobile HPGs from the home worlds because they had been cut off from Comstar and they were expecting to need their own lines of communication.

[00:08:58]You know, the whole thing about them leaving the inner sphere like 400 years ago. So Comstar's help was nice, but not actually needed. Secondly, the clans had just so many reserve forces and Salama units to garrison their conquests using advanced clan tech. Like the CommStar revolts essentially ran face first into a brick wall of scenile elementals and suicidal Salama mech warriors. They were slaughtered wholesale and accomplished nothing.

[00:09:26]>> You know, you you say the thing about them uh bringing their own their own telephone lines and all that stuff um be because uh they figured they wouldn't have any help. But I mean, as as I recall, the rest of their [ __ ] logistics were were god awful as well.

[00:09:39]So, I wouldn't say it's that obvious.

[00:09:41]Look, the Clanners had great logistics when it came to the stuff that they didn't need to resupply. If you're like, "Oh, we have our own communications. We have our own structures of command.

[00:09:51]We've got our own training systems.

[00:09:53]We've got all of our own stuff for like mobile barracks and uh command centers and all of that." Yeah, they were great.

[00:09:59]Anything that the clans didn't have to replace on a regular basis, they were doing great. It was all the stuff that you need to like keep the invasion going that they didn't bring like spare parts and replacements and manufacturing cap capacity and ammunition things of minor importance really in the grand scheme.

[00:10:18]>> Yeah.

[00:10:19]>> Anyways, the successor states also had double agents inside CommStar because despite being an incredibly secretive, insular little religious cult society, they're not completely impervious. There are holes that people can slip through.

[00:10:34]There have been cases where double agents or traders or other information leaks through Comstar. Anyways, the successor states learned of these attempts before it happened and as their want to do responded with brutal violence, rapidly storming and taking control of most of CommStar's HPG stations within their territory. The end result was Comstar losing more than 80% of its stations in Fedson, Combine, and Lyron territory, only losing around 30% in the Capellan Confederation because Lauo, nobody told them in time. They they were just like, "Oh, yeah, that's right. The Capellins exist as well." Uh, you guys know that this is happening, right? And they tell the Capellins like as they're currently on fire and being invaded by CommStar. So, you know, just a little bit more classic Capellan kicking for fun.

[00:11:21]>> It deserved. Very much deserved. very much deserved. Yes, pathetic little rump state that it was. The Free Worlds League, however, with its endless history of being a side character, decided not to do anything because their leader assumed that there must be a good reason for CommStar blacking out all of the HPGs and taking over all of these stations and stuff.

[00:11:42]>> Yeah, there was because they felt like it.

[00:11:44]>> So, CommStar was fine in the Free Worlds League, which would prove very important for the coming schism. What eventually caused the breakdown in Comstar was the man, the myth, the legend himself, breaker of the clans on Tukied, Marshall Anastasius Foch or [ __ ] I don't remember. I like Foch better. I think it's just a less awful pronunciation of his name. Anyways, this was the guy that they appointed to lead the battle of Tukiad and he's basically responsible for bleeding the clans dry on that rock.

[00:12:15]But Foch had inside information on what Mindo Waterly was doing. and rightly considering that this was beyond insane and that it would result in the absolute destruction of CommStar. So when Foch arrived back on Terra in one fell swoop, Foch confronted Waterley and revealed that her massive celebration because she was celebrating champagne, food, the whole deal, showing off giant diaramas and displays of how she successfully conquered the inner sphere. And then Foch basically walked up, went, "Oh yeah, that's fanfiction here. Let me edit it for you." changed the to the live view and then revealed that the plan had failed miserably.

[00:12:55]>> Like cut the CCTV loop on her.

[00:12:57]>> He was really like, "Nah, you're not getting pre-edited footage. We're zooming out to live. We're we're It's that old me. [ __ ] it. We're doing it live."

[00:13:05]>> He took out the tape.

[00:13:08]>> No tapes. We do it live. Let's go. Now, this did not go over well with Waterley, of course, because not only had Foch revealed that he was very staunchly in opposition to her, which is a little bit intimidating when he is like the commander of the entirety of your military and he just kicked the [ __ ] out of the clans. So, you're like, "Oh, oh, that's a really, really big threat." So, they got in a huge argument over it. I'm not going to go into the details of it, but this decided the fate of the Inner Sphere going forwards. Waterly right up to the very end was convinced that she was correct and decrieded Foch calling him a traitor saying he had betrayed Comstar and eventually storming off to order him replaced with a more loyal commander and probably have him killed.

[00:13:52]Foch, for his part, argued with her for quite a while on it and how Commar should be moving forward, but eventually this was the breaking point and he responded with a very polite, "Nah, I'm good." Then shot her in the back as she was walking away because he had smuggled a weapon in with him. outstanding.

[00:14:08]>> He gave diplomacy one last try and when that failed decided that violence wasn't the answer, it was a question and the answer was yes. He then proceeded to boldface the lie about it to the first circuit, Comstar's ruling council essentially. And when they asked, "Hey, what happened to the woman in charge of all of ComstStar?" Foch walked over very calmly, placed his hand on the guy's shoulder, and said, "She died." of a massive brain hemorrhage several days after I convinced her to step down and transfer command to me. Any who disagreed were very strong armed into compliance, let's say, and Foch wanted to lead Comstar down a far more secular path, an opinion that, while still not the majority, had been building for centuries by this point within the organization. Most of Comstar viewed their mission of preserving technology and one day resurrecting the Star League as a more aspirational or humanitarian goal. One day bringing humanity back to the peaks of the Golden Age, while a lot of the more insane religious aspects would be quietly left to the side to be abandoned. How do you think the more extreme insane religious aspects felt about that?

[00:15:17]>> Um, uh, not not too good.

[00:15:19]>> Not too good. Is that what we're going with? That's >> not too good. I'm going with not too good.

[00:15:23]>> Not too good. Well, that's a bit of an understatement. The more insane religious aspects did not like this at all. They were in fact quite angry and thus we have reached schism. When several of the dissenting Comstar precincts discovered that he that Foch had murdered Mindo Waterly and had lied to them bold-faced about it, they were not happy. coupled with what they viewed as the heretical direction Comstar and Foch were moving in, they fled to the Free Worlds League, convincing them that they could finally be relevant if they just gave the burgeoning Word of Blake refuge and protected them from CommStar's wrath. And once the Free Worlds League agreed, they settled on the world of Gibson and hit the at everyone button, sending a message to every CommStar facility in the sphere, calling for members loyal to Blake and his teachings to join them. Which you would think at this point would very much give away that shit's going down.

[00:16:17]But unfortunately, in maybe his only massive worlds mistake, Foch did not consider the word of Blake to be a particularly big threat. he was far more focused on breaking the back of the clans instead, which would come back to bite him legendarily. So, let's move on to why the Blakeists are uh where do I even go with this? The worst, insane, utterly detached from reality, monstrous maniacs. I don't know. What do you think is the best way to describe them so far?

[00:16:46]>> I we'll just use a combination of all those.

[00:16:49]>> Yeah, just throw them all together. One giant port manto word. You just say each one back to back with no no pauses in between. Yeah, pretty much. Back in ye olden days, right as the Star League was falling apart, good old Kinsky, Supouptock man himself, left a man by the name of Jerome Blake behind. Blake was left with the purpose of preserving what he could from the Star League, information, industrial knowledge, skills, and history so that the fires of the Secession Wars wouldn't burn them away forever. To essentially preserve the Star League through the dark ages to come. At first, he went about this by installing ComstStar as the de facto controller of Earth and of the HPG network at large. Essentially, taking control of the biggest target of the successor lords in the symbolic capital of humanity, Earth, which honestly was probably a really good idea because with how greedy and how petty the successor state lords are, I guarantee you they would be fighting over Earth nonstop, that's like the center gem in any of their crowns. They can be like, "Look, I'm the one that holds Earth. I'm the most legitimate successor state of them all. They also took control of the HPG network. This would allow Blake in the naent comstar a power base that would both make them nigh untouchable because mess with the cable guy and lose access to your entire empire's communication and Wi-Fi as well as a massive money stream because they were the only people processing and sending interstellar communication. This eventually made Comstar so powerful that they pretty much controlled the settings finance and communication system. A C billill being the cost of sending X amount of data through an HPG and the C billill standing for comstar bill. But Jerome Blake was terrified of CommStar degenerating. If the corporate side of CommStar ever got to be to too powerful or their goal too diluted, everything they had worked for would crumble. And CommStar, as well as everything left of the Star League, would be lost with it.

[00:18:41]So he looked back through history for inspiration, deciding that one of the longest lasting, most reliable ways of preserving ideas, goals, and purpose was religion. This is a horrible, horrible, horrible idea. Because the problems with religions, especially new ones that you've just founded, is that they tend to go absolutely [ __ ] insane and start launching holy wars, crusades, and purges of literally everyone who disagrees with them on anything. tend to or or like it's a rule that they do because I I I think it might be a rule.

[00:19:14]>> Well, I don't know if it's a rule, but it seems to happen all the time.

[00:19:17]Anyways, it was a really really bad idea to do this as it ended up being, in his words, from the Holy Book of Blake, the book of Salvation, chapter 4, line 1824.

[00:19:30]All that saved mankind during its last so-called dark age were the churches and religions. These were havens for humanity's learning, and they stood alone as beacons in the darkness and fallenness that humankind had become. To preserve history and knowledge, if Commar is to survive into the future, it must look to these religions as a blueprint for surviving the wars that are unfolding around us. Direct quote from the book of Blake. Blake began writing not only Commar's mission statement, but technical procedures, organizational structures, mindsets, punishments, and more down in what would become Comstar's Bible. People often joke about CommStar being a crazy cult spying on you. But like, they do not grasp how deep this goes. The Word/books of Blake are as holy to Comstar as any holy book is today to the most fanatical fundamentalists of any religion. to the point where these guys literally mandate prayer every single day. Every single day, every CommStar facility, every CommStar member, every person who works within the organization has to sit down and go over the word of Blake and basically agree wholeheartedly, "Yep, this is infallible. This is divine.

[00:20:44]Everything Blake said is exactly what we believe in." It is beyond insane cult behavior that they're taking part in.

[00:20:50]And it gets so much worse when you dig into it. So what happens if one day you don't 100% agree? What if you only 99% agree with >> they will they will disappear you >> if you think you used an a where it should have been an an or something.

[00:21:04]>> Oh there was definitely cases where people argued about the meaning of certain texts but if you ever disagreed with like any of the fundamentals they would just kill you. And if you ever if you ever suggested like anything contrary to the mission that was like pure heresy. They would unmake you. Your bank account has never existed. You have never existed. There is no record of your birth. All social media presence gone. You have never existed. They would they would Thanos snap you out of existence. At least during the beginning. They chilled out a lot as things continued on in the timeline. But initially once the cult of Blake was founded, like once that those initial seeds were planted, oh my god, were they a little insane. And while Blake did set out to do this intentionally, it's very unlikely that this is what Blake ended up wanting because Blake was very dead by this point, but his protege followed his last orders supposedly and purged anyone who wouldn't follow along with this ideal. Literally, what happened is Blake was dying of a terminal genetic illness and in his last moments, he met with his protege in private for 3 hours.

[00:22:11]When his protege came out of this meeting, he had a signed notorized will that labeled him as the defined successor and he had orders to turn Comstar into a religion with a whole bunch of prophetic teachings from Blake himself. Now, there's a very good chance this is [ __ ] But also, a lot of the stuff that Blake predicted was not truly prophetic. It was more like he was a very smart man and he could pretty easily guess where things were going. He was like, "Hey, guess what everybody?

[00:22:39]the succession wars are going to happen.

[00:22:41]Everything's going to get nuked and everybody's going to start killing each other. And then the succession wars happened and Comstar was like, "Oh my god, he's the messiah."

[00:22:51]And they were absolutely losing their [ __ ] over this. Even though from an outside perspective, like out of universe, the stuff he predicted really was not that profound.

[00:23:00]>> It It was 99 cents on Poly Market is uh >> 99.

[00:23:05]>> I think that's how that one works. I don't No, I don't use him, >> dude. He made like 50 bucks on Poly Market. He's a [ __ ] divinely ordained prophet. He knows the future.

[00:23:14]>> He He was Elon Musk uh betting on how much will Elon Musk tweet.

[00:23:23]>> Okay, that's a pretty good way to put it. Yeah. So, like I was saying, he did intend for a lot of this stuff to happen, but probably didn't intend for it to go as far as it ended up doing and didn't end up or wouldn't have ended up approving of everything that happened because there was a poison pill that he either didn't write about or forgot that would come back to Doom Comstar. Blake wanted religious adherence so that even if centuries down the line, CommStar forgot its roots and all of that, the ceremonies and rigid hierarchies and all of this would keep things on the rails.

[00:23:57]Kind of like the Mechanicus from 40k where a lot of them like don't really know what they're doing anymore, but the ceremonies and rituals are just the maintenance method for, you know, debugging your your s your OS or something. What Blake didn't want was religious zealatry. He didn't want crusades and wars of holy vengeance.

[00:24:17]>> Regret toform you.

[00:24:19]>> Uh yeah, considering that the most defining thing about the word of Blake is the jihad. I don't think he succeeded in that metric very well. But what he didn't want was religious zeatry. Like I was saying, didn't want crusades or holy wars or any of that stuff. Over the years, CommStar wound up interpreting the word of Blake very differently to what the man himself would have wanted.

[00:24:39]It was Commar's destiny to control the inner sphere, to hoard knowledge, to come out on top of the Succession Wars, to be the only true bearer of the flame of the Star League. Not to shepherd humanity under their care back to the heights of the Star League. Not to preserve and rebuild what was lost, but to take the inner sphere for themselves.

[00:25:00]Quote from the book of Salvation, lines 61 to 70. I believe a day will come when the fighting ends and we can emerge as the saviors. The victories will come to us one world at a time, then one house at a time, then until we control everything. Mankind will not resist, but will invite us to help rebuild as we have done with blessed terror. That is a very it was promised to us 3,000 years ago kind of statement. And you can imagine the kind of damage that's going to do. Nah, that surely nobody will have any any uh any um those thoughts about this. I I can't see I can't see anybody doing that. Yeah, it's surely nothing can go wrong. So yeah, that is a very charred statement. Now here's the thing.

[00:25:47]When Blake died, his holy book wasn't finished. It was a rough draft and his protege, Conrad Toyama, finished it for him. There is simply no way to definitively prove anything about what Blake said or did or his thoughts on the holy book he was writing. There's a very good chance that through a long game of broken telephone rewrites and overly zealous interpretations, the book was turned into the basis for a crusade, promising the entirety of human space as a dominion to Comstar. Even some of the stuff Comstar did would have had Blake spinning in his grave. Blake was staunchly against the devastation of the Succession Wars. He hated the idea and fought with Kinsky viciously to get him to stay, to try and rebuild, to hold the Star League together rather than giving up and fleeing to just let the chips fall where they may. So, it's difficult to imagine that he would condone Commar actively going out of their way after his death to sabotage technology, start or worsen several of the succession wars, and launch covert operations to commit everything from mass murder to terrorist actions to assassinations. I am almost convinced that that last quote, the one about everything being taken for Commar, like that is not Blake's words. He was extremely vocal for his hatred for the successor lords and how their greed, their endless hunger and thirst for power would destroy everything. He condemned them viciously for barreling towards the succession wars rather than slowing down, stopping it, or avoiding it. So why would he write a passage declaring divine authority to conquer the entirety of the known galaxy for comstar? Like >> we call that a a nice revision. Uh, we've got the we've got the pope writing like a a fiat of forgiveness or whatever. Everyone who joins the crusades gets forgiven by God. All right, everybody, go burn down the Middle East. So, while the Word of Blake, the book, is very real, it's also highly questionable about how much of it is the truth and how much of it is just outright lies. And the Blakeists, they dove head first into that insanity. They slurped up that Kool-Aid with absolutely no hesitation at all. There would be no peace, no rebuilding, nothing without them at the head. And so begins the civil war between Comstar and the word of Blake. And the irony is this civil war is the absolute antithesis of everything Blake wanted for Comstar.

[00:28:17]This is the ultimate failure of Blake's ideas. Fun fact, by the way, when Blake died, he wanted him to be cremated and have his ashes spread across like the Star League concourse or whatever. or I don't remember exactly where, but essentially like a big show of like I'm dead, scatter my ashes across the thing I loved the most. And CommStar was just like, wouldn't it be funny if we just didn't do that and lenoned him instead?

[00:28:42]So they like imbalmed his body, put him in a glass case in a big display room, and they like gawk at him for hundreds of years to come.

[00:28:49]>> It would have been good if they had shipped the body around to all the planets though, so they could see him and then put him in the the glass house.

[00:28:56]No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. They make pilgrimages to go see his corpse.

[00:29:00]All right. It's uh >> Oh, okay. That's even better. There.

[00:29:04]>> Yeah. It's It's similar to the Soviets.

[00:29:06]They had the big Lenin monument and like people from all over the Soviet Union would like make pilgrimages there to profess their undying love for Lenin.

[00:29:13]It's kind of the same thing for Blake.

[00:29:15]>> He's literally Elvis.

[00:29:16]>> He's l Yeah. Yeah. He's literally Elvis just with a way worse facial hair.

[00:29:24]>> Oh, poor Blake. He really is suffering.

[00:29:26]They literally didn't listen to anything he said. He was like, "Don't become religious zealots. Don't launch holy crusades. Please cremate me." And they were like, "Okay, but what if we became religious zealots, launch crusades, and then locked you in a box forever." Oh god. Comar and the word of Blake suck.

[00:29:42]They are terrible people, man. Ever.

[00:29:44]They're just the worst people. So anyways, the civil war is beginning.

[00:29:49]Using their power base in the free worlds league, the Blakeists rapidly started hoarding money and resources.

[00:29:55]Mindo Waterly's devastating plan to usurp the inner sphere had left Comar had left CommStar proper up Shitz Creek without a paddle. More accurately, about to go over the Great [ __ ] Waterfall, but you know, tomato tomato. While the Blakeists were fine to start building up their forces rather than rebuilding from the devastation that had been wrought on them. Their first most devastating strike years later was against Terara itself. While this wasn't the first opening move in the civil war between Comstar, that would mostly be a series of assassinations and small skirmishes and conflicts between different HPG stations and different groups deciding which faction do we go with. You know, the attack on terror, however, was the first massive opening move by the word of Blake that would eventually culminate in the jihad and one of the most devastating conflicts in human history.

[00:30:47]At the time of this invasion, there was ongoing civil war and conflict over the Chaos March region that hid their movements. Do you remember where that is in the inner sphere?

[00:30:56]>> Uh, in the inner sphere.

[00:30:58]>> Wow, brilliant response. So, the answer is no. Um, do you remember when the Capellan Confederation got cut in half by the Federated Commonwealth?

[00:31:07]>> Uh, somewhat.

[00:31:08]>> They they got absolutely run over. But the Chaos March is basically that region of the inner sphere that was conquered along with some worlds from the Free Worlds League that were captured and some other worlds like in that region.

[00:31:21]Now, all of this fighting, all of this conflict ended up hiding the word of Blake, allowing them to move many of their forces very close to Earth, like within one jump. This alone would not have been enough to get the drop on CommStar because they just have way too much information gathering and way too many tendrils all out across the setting. What did help, however, was a mixture of complacency and sabotage.

[00:31:48]Comstar did not fully grasp how deeply rooted the word of Blake was and how fanatical they were. Often the first time that CommStar would learn of Blake's sympathies were when a station commander would override the defense system and just let the oncoming forces in. So what ended up happening was the Blakeists moved their entire invasion fleet to the soul system. And they managed to get most of the way to Earth before Commar even knew that an attack was happening. And when they found out, they realized that their entire communication network, all of their early warning systems, and a hell of a lot of their defense grid had been compromised by internal sabotage by Blake sympathizers.

[00:32:32]>> Yes, a slight issue there.

[00:32:34]>> Yeah, little bit. Remember when I said that Foch thought the clans were a bigger threat and was focusing his attention on them? This is where it comes back to bite him in the ass.

[00:32:43]>> Uh, loud incorrect buzzer.

[00:32:46]>> Yep. Not going well for the poor guy.

[00:32:48]The largest defeat or I guess I should say in my opinion the most important defeat that Commar suffered during this era of the Civil War was the Titan shipyards. The largest surviving shipyard in the inner sphere. A massive array of dozens of dockyards and manufacturies from the height of the Star League were conquered by the word of Blake when the commander simply switched sides and transferred all of the security codes and information on the CommStar loyalists to them and then just gave up. The Titan shipyards were a devastating blow since it allowed the word of Blake to refit and construct not only hundreds of drop ships, but also in the years to come restart mass warship production from frigots and destroyers up to behemoth battleships. A very inospicious start to the official hot shooting war between Comstar and The Word of Blake.

[00:33:43]>> Did the that commander happen to be Italian?

[00:33:45]>> The pasta people have a habit of switching sides. All right, but it's whatever it is. Don't worry about it.

[00:33:50]That's fine. The following months of the conflict though were also a horrific slog for both sides. Foch wanted to continue to focus on the clans and as such left the civil war with the word of Blake as his secondary focus for much of the early moves. Again, generational fumble, refusing to attempt an assault on Earth and the solar system and instead opting for running skirmishes across the Chaos March and defending the territory that Commar continued to hold.

[00:34:18]The result of a lot of these battles were huge disruptions or total HPG blackouts, meaning they were cut off from outside communication. During their early years, the word of Blake used this to their advantage by filling the worlds with propaganda and honeyed lies.

[00:34:33]Essentially, they went, "Hey, look, Mr. Civilian, we're bringing food and water and not at all atomic and biological weapons onto your world. Aren't we so much better than the successor states and comstar? ignore the fact that we definitely invaded this world and caused all the most recent destruction and and don't ask what we're doing after we gain control. Everything will be perfectly fine.

[00:34:55]>> It will be um as normal for you. Surely >> everything will be as normal. A new lord is here, but you shall still farm your fedded fields and pay your wretched taxes. Hooray! Rejoice. You have been liberated.

[00:35:08]>> Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.

[00:35:11]>> What was that Megamind quote? Oh, I wouldn't say breed. It's more like under new management.

[00:35:16]>> Under new management. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:35:18]>> So, this strategy actually worked pretty well for the Blakeists initially, and they did manage to flip quite a few worlds and keep control of them without needing to like turbo crack down on all the population. And the conflict after about a year of this was winding down.

[00:35:34]not stopping, but winding down as both sides began consolidating their resources and looking for other plans or beginning to focus on other things. In 3064, the word of Blake also scored another major win, legitimization. The Free Worlds League, ever the eager and loyal accomplice, I get the Free Worlds League is like 85% at fault for this, by the way. Like if they had just crippled all the CommStar installations like all the other successor states did, the word of Blake wouldn't have had dick to start rebuilding with, and they probably wouldn't have had the money and the resources to throw against CommStar and the rest of the inner sphere. But no, they they just had to go, "Oh, CommStar is going to attack and seize all the facilities and black out all communications. Well, I guess they got a good reason to do it. Might as well take no action here, >> man. Sometimes you just got to cut off cell service for you." I mean that that's just how it is.

[00:36:28]>> Look, all I'm saying, the more I the more I dive into the word of Blake and the jihad, the more I become racist against the color purple, I just I just don't like it. I think the purple bird voted to delete itself from the setting and it should have just stayed that way.

[00:36:45]Like, oh my god, what are you bumbling idiots doing?

[00:36:48]>> They in fact don't know.

[00:36:50]>> No, they don't. They really really don't. Anyways, the Free Worlds League decided to offer the word of Blake membership and a position on the council of the Second Star League.

[00:37:00]>> Are they stupid?

[00:37:02]>> Yes. But do you remember what the Second Star League is?

[00:37:05]>> Uh, it's the Star League that came after the first one, but before the third one.

[00:37:09]>> So, the Second Star League was a temporary organization that all of the successor states formed to beat back the clans. The entire point of it was we need one governing controlling force that we can throw all of our military behind and then they will lead that military out to go beat the hell out of the clans. This is where the operation to invade the clan home worlds come from and the operation that erased the um oh god, what were they called? Smoke Jaguar. There you go. They erased smoke jaguar off the face of the map. Okay, that's where this came from. The second Star League. However, for the most part, it was never a true resurrection of the Star League. It was an alliance of convenience, and none of them really had any illusions of keeping it going beyond that. And this would be a massive issue for Blake, uh, The Word of Blake moving forward, but that comes a little bit later. So spurred on by this remarkable success, the Word of Blake would officially cement itself with the Word of Blake protectorate, a series of worlds within the Chaos March that they had conquered and that they would officially be taking control over and flying the Blakeist banner. Everything was coming up Blake, baby. What could possibly go wrong?

[00:38:23]>> Oh yeah, I'm bling it. I'm bling it.

[00:38:25]>> My favorite part was when he said, "It's Blake time." and then blaked all over the place.

[00:38:29]>> Oh yeah. Everything went so so very wrong. Despite the fact the word of Blake was propagandizing everybody and generally using their brilliant control of the HPG network to not let any communications in or out, it was still possible for a lot of people to see the absolute horror that was on the horizon.

[00:38:49]The word of Blake was not gentle. They were not kind. They were not gracious liberators or freedom fighters that were saving worlds from the great houses.

[00:38:58]They were just as, if not worse, than any of the other factions that had taken control of these worlds, and they were very quickly pushing into the region and threatening many, many other powerful factions. This ended up creating the Allied Mercenary Command led by Jaime Wolf as a response to the word of Blake.

[00:39:18]These were basically a giant coalition of mercenaries that were like, "Oh my god, everybody else is too busy fighting each other and the clans. like they're not going to stop the word of Blake.

[00:39:28]They're not going to do it. These guys are insane. They're actively on the edge of committing like horrible crimes against humanity. Someone needs to do something to stop their growing influence. So, it was made up of the Dismal Disinherited, the Wolves Draons, the Northwind Highlanders, a whole bunch of other big mercenary units that operated in the region. And their entire express purpose was stop the word of Blake. And while they weren't a direct opposition to it, like they didn't openly go to war with the word of Blake, a big part of what they were doing is if a planet didn't want the word of Blake there and they asked for help, the AMC would show up on mass and kick the [ __ ] out of the Blists and help them to keep control of their world. Later on, when this eventually became too much for the word of Blake to deal with, and they decided they wanted to end the problem personally, they would hire other mercenaries to go deal with them. And the end result would be considered the first battle in what would come to be known as the jihad. However, we are not there yet. We've got some other stuff we got to talk about about how the word of Blake think. So, you remember how we talked about their divinely ordained prophecy to rule the inner sphere, right?

[00:40:38]>> Yes.

[00:40:39]>> Well, for the most part, the word of Blake were not immediately willing to become genocidal maniacs. That's something that kind of built up over time as more and more barriers to their success, we'll call them, ended up cropping up. The AMC was one and definitely drove more radicalization in the word of Blake, driving them to more violent, more insane, more vindictive tactics on the battlefield, as well as dipping into more absurd technologies like cybernetically enhancing their soldiers and removing all empathy or all hesitation from them, which is just it's a great idea. only an issue if we say it's an issue and we say it's not an issue therefore not an issue.

[00:41:21]>> The word of Blake initially tried to do things not peacefully but h how do I even explain this more diplomatic from their perspective they had established a readymade power base within the Free Worlds League. The first part of their prophecy was coming true. One of the successor states had willingly accepted their control over the HPG network. a whole bunch of technology and was offering them safe harbor. More parts of their prophecy were coming true in that they started conquering individual worlds and the population thoroughly lied to openly welcomed the Blakeists in. And then they also had the cudigra which was they got invited to join the second star league not as an adviser not as a subsidiary company but as a full member. The crack started to show when all of this started falling apart. And again, you got to remember like these are the religious crazies, okay? They are on the verge of like their divine culmination, okay? Like this is the edge of their divine prophecy, their reason to be coming true. And then the AMC started pushing them off of worlds and resisting their advances and slowing them down. Okay, that's fine. No one, you know, Blake never said that the conquest of the inner sphere would be easy. That's okay. And then they started getting push back across the entire inner sphere as more and more intelligence agencies and more and more groups and commstar especially started fighting back and they began losing their technological edge especially with the hell memory core and the clans. They were no longer the only most advanced guiding light for humanity anymore.

[00:43:00]Okay, that should not be happening but whatever. The Star League is here. And then right as they were approved to join the Star League, guess what happened?

[00:43:10]>> Uh uh the full-fledged push back uh by by um other people.

[00:43:14]>> My god, dude. I literally said it. Come on.

[00:43:17]>> Nope.

[00:43:17]>> I literally talked about it. What did I say about the Second Star League? What was its purpose? What was it supposed to do?

[00:43:24]>> Uh uh they they uh had to push out the people. The the soup the soup people.

[00:43:29]>> You are a soup person. Your brain is made of soup.

[00:43:32]>> Only on days that we record.

[00:43:33]>> I hate you. It was It was 10 minutes ago. It can't be that hard to remember.

[00:43:37]>> Uh I actually have Alzheimer's. So, >> welcome to the dementia channel. By the way, >> we we in fact do not remember our names here.

[00:43:46]>> Oh my god. Okay, so the second Star League was expressly designed to fight the clans. Remember >> who the [ __ ] are the clans?

[00:43:56]>> I hate you. Why are you like this?

[00:44:00]You're going to turn me into the goddamn Joker one of these days. I swear to God, the Second Star League was made to fight the clans. Push the clans out, beat the [ __ ] out of Smoke Jaguar, erase them from the face of the planet. Awesome.

[00:44:12]Wonderful. Okay, its use had basically come to an end. And this is really the final breaking point for the word of Blake. Everything else they were doing, all the progress they had been making, everything they were willing to simply accept. Okay? Because it is what it is.

[00:44:30]whatever. They're still making progress.

[00:44:33]But then as they joined the Second Star League, they held a vote on whether or not anybody had confidence to continue the Second Star League. And in that vote of no confidence, everyone basically said, "Nah, we'd rather go our own way."

[00:44:49]>> In the vote of no confidence, there was in fact no confidence.

[00:44:53]>> Yeah, pretty much. And this is the breaking point for the word of Blake.

[00:44:57]They got right there. They were right there. Their divinely ordained mission was about to be completed. They were going to join as a full-fledged member of the Star League. Then they could have done politicking. They could have done some backhand deals. They could have just used their leverage and their wealth and they could have eventually muscled their way to the head of the Star League. And then everything would happen as Blake said it would. They can start rebuilding. They'll usher humanity into a new golden age. Everything will be great forever. Golden god rays will shine down on every single world under their control. And then all these stupid, stinky, smelly, unevolved, backwards, ungrateful, piece of [ __ ] spheroid losers decided to disband the Star League and go [ __ ] off back to their mud huts. I would be pretty pissed if I was religious like that as well. If I got right to the edge of the prophecy and then everybody was else was like, "Lol, no, we're just kidding. We're actually not doing it. Goodbye."

[00:45:54]>> Hey man, sometimes edging's good for you. Do not ever say that again, please.

[00:46:03]>> You know the kinds of people that are in our community, Steve, why would you bring that up? Comments are going to be full of nothing but that. Now, I'm going to look at the comments under this video and it'll be nothing about the content.

[00:46:12]It'll just be Steve edging. Bunny, good for you. And I'll It'll it'll Hey, but it will get everybody commenting. It'll make me wish that I died instead of Jerome Blake.

[00:46:26]>> I mean, but you're not a white guy named Jerome, though, so I don't know if it would have had the same impact.

[00:46:31]>> Yeah, good old white Jerome is spinning in his grave. By the way, good old white Jerome did get a happy ending. He uh >> Oh, he got what?

[00:46:40]>> Shut your goddamn I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you.

[00:46:45]I hate you. I I wish you were dead. I'm wishing death upon you. I'm channeling my brain power to blow up your goddamn skull right now. If there is a god, you will instantly suffer a massive brain hemorrhage and drop dead.

[00:46:58]>> Let me rephrase that. Blake ended up getting what he wanted originally when he died because when Earth was eventually freed from word of Blake control, they nuked the facility that had his body. So, he finally got the cremation he wanted. Just, you know, >> he was finally spread all over the place.

[00:47:19]Yes, he indeed was finally his resting place is a little bit over there, a little bit over there, a little bit on the walls and ceilings. Just all over the place really. And we do have a lot more to go into specifically about the jihad. But again, we're already like an hour and a half in and I don't feel like going for like another hour and a half.

[00:47:37]So, we are going to end it here. This is part one of the word of Blake. going over their origins, going a little bit over how they think, their view on the inner sphere, where they came from in CommStar, all of that good stuff. And then the part two is going to be going over the jihad itself, and how the word of Blake gradually and then all at once descended from kind of just insane religious zealots into like active doomsday, endofthe-world accelerationists that want to just burn humanity to the ground and start again.

[00:48:11]I regret this video. Do you regret this video, Steve?

[00:48:14]>> Uh, not yet.

[00:48:15]>> Not yet.

[00:48:15]>> Not yet. I will in part two, but >> You will in part two.

[00:48:18]>> So, you'll regret it more in part two.

[00:48:20]So, >> no. Part two is actually the funnier part to talk about. I think I'll enjoy that one a lot more if I'm being honest.

[00:48:26]This one is just, man, lots of dry lore, lots of you forgetting things, lots of you pissing me off. I need a nap.

[00:48:33]>> You act like uh the half of that won't continue to happen in the next episode.

[00:48:38]>> Yeah, but I'll be able to talk about stuff I enjoy more. Talking about the political and religious differences within an order of politically religious insane people is not something I'm particularly fond of. I should not have put the word of Blake down as an option.

[00:48:51]Why did I do this? Why did I let >> You have done this to yourself three times now. They know what will be the funniest for to make you do. So, >> it's not the funniest though. This is going to be like the driest one. This is going to be >> It is the funniest because it makes you suffer.

[00:49:07]>> Okay. Well, that's pretty much the end of the video. For anybody that made it this far, you clearly enjoyed it or you're a fan of the content or you're the target audience. So, why not leave a like, subscribe, comment down below, ring the bell, do all of the good stuff to help us out with the YouTube algorithm. It really goes a long way to help a small channel like us out. And if you're feeling more generous, we do have channel memberships where you can get access to videos a day or two early. Uh, get occasionally get some membersonly behind the scenes and cut content, as well as occasionally getting to vote on future content. what gets made, for example, this video. And they're getting a two for one because they picked the word of Blake. And as it turns out, it's really, really hard to talk about them in a clear, concise manner when they have so much to go over and they are responsible for so much. My god, they're responsible for so much. How? They're only around for like 20 years in the setting. How did this happen? How did they do so much? Oh my god. That brings us to the end of the video. Thank you members for making Sai suffer. Oh yeah, yeah, I got to do the members. Thank you to all the people who are already members of the channel. A huge thanks to you guys. Your support is really appreciated and goes a long way.

[00:50:15]Especially to the coffee vendors making sure that I am ever caffeinated and making sure that my war on sleep is ever successful. To the food merchants ensuring that my co-host is wellfed and properly drugged for these recordings so that he can't run away or try to fight back. Thank you to you guys as well. And the arms dealers supplying all the tools and toys seen in any of our videos. A huge thanks to you guys as well.

[00:50:37]Although I am deeply concerned about where you you picked up all of these Blakeists. Where did you find them? Do I just keep them in my garage? What do I do with these guys? Can you take them back?

[00:50:47]>> No return polic.

[00:50:49]>> Wonderful. Anyways, that's pretty much the end of the video. I got nothing else to say. This is part one. Part two is going to be on the jihad and how the word of Blake went absolutely insane. So yeah, show up for that one.