@MarauderPilot
Technician: Well in short in the relatively distant FTL travel is created but still in its early phase of each ftl ship being a huge investment. That’s the time of the first expedition, who traveled to a distant planet confirmed to host live by observatory.
There after a very successful initial phase to their colony and the completion of the planetary launcher to send resources back home they activated the automated remnant of a lost civilization, the first true battlemech of the universe. With their still primitive equipment they had to face them but thankfully for them many of the installation of that lost civilization were offline but salvageable and that’s how they were able to fight fire with fire and after much struggle they defeated them.
After that the colonists wanted to renegotiate the term of their allegiance to the homeworld, arguing that the difficulty they faced justified it. That’s the time of the second expedition. A full on military one this time to settle the issue. The fight was fierce but they were outmatched by the early colonists recovered battlemechs as they could only bring tanks from the homeworld, great tanks mind you but tanks are weaker in this game. The war went bad for them at first but the second expeditions was lead by a cunning commander and good politican who eventually secured crucial victories after a series of defeat and conquered the launcher. Finally after this the forces of the second expedition made peace with the colonist, and create a second country on the planet and agreed to share the burden of the tribute to the world with their country exporting a bigger share. That a story for people who don’t mind playing tanks and cheaper mech for the trill of being the underdog.
And then we come to the time of the 3rd expedition. For a while the two country finally share the technology of mech, the second expedition one sharing it with the homeworld as well. Then a war in the homeworld end with someone becoming emperor and gaining absolute power. Neither people from the first or second expedition are fine with his rule and broke ties. Though he himself have for goal to centralize a new space empire of many worlds around the homeworld especially now that FTL fleet became a realistic dream. So he plan yet a new invasion that is meant to be supported by massive orbital forces this time. Hence the focus on taking the planetary launcher early as we see in the scene this set is about.
And that’s the heavily summarized story of everything before the content of this scene. What your friend will indirectly play in the canon is the end of the 3rd expedition invasion. When the united force of the first and second expeditions retake the launcher for the 3rd time and used it to send a battlemech in space who fight on the surface of the imperial capital ship and destroy its bridge to make it crash on the north pole ice cap.