So, reading my Interceptor rules book. As I get older the dry details of rulebooks become less interesting and where in my youth I would breathlessly devour the technical rules for hours, and look for the tactical implications as well as how to use them to beat the enemy...now I find them dull and dry. That's OK. Interceptor rules are decently written aside from some typos, and have a little humor thrown in here and there. The booklet includes potted version of the Universe backstory, an introduction to the main conflict and actors. Here is where its clear the product was a little rushed maybè. It is, of course, hard to write a Romans in Space that does not infringe Star Wars, Warhammer 40K, or say, the Foundation novels. Fasa's team did a lot of good work making a unique version of history with a somewhat plausible rationale; after humanity was well established across the stars (the game opens 40,ooo years from now, take that as a nod to the other property if you like)  a terrible disease, probably a genetic engineered weapon, nearly extinguises the human species, what is left of us falls swiftly before the onslaught of Alien neighbors- many of the survivors are driven back on old earth before it too is conquered by the Kess-Rith, a species of angry Rhino centaurs with a combative but artistic and honor driven  culture. For 3 centuries Earthers survive as a slave species before orchestrating a very successful rebellion and breakout. The success was based on groundwork that included a religious devotion to Earth History, and the adoption of a psuedo Roman revival organization adopted by the most successful cell of terrorist freedom fighters.  The "Rome" in our space romans is in-game, an intentional artifical trapping to build solidarity among the human species. It's a veneer in some ways, meant to unify colonies, outposts, and human enclaves across the galaxy into one government with the goal of human supremacy for human survival. Needless to say women and aliens get short shrift...women in "Recent" game time are being forced into the role of reproduction as sole purpose with draconian potestas laws taking their reproductive and political rights away. This is a part of the schism that pushes the "Renegade Legions" to flee the Empire and take service with the small republican Commonwealth.  

     It isn't bad as backstory, and with a whole Galaxy to populate there is a lot of room for story telling and sandboxing...  The Empire appears unbelieveably vast monolithic and unbeatable, the Commonwealth seems a bastion of freedom and equality about to be swamped in a tidal wave of totalitarian forces... but appearances of course can decieve.

It did not recieve the success of Battletech, I think, because it did not have the direct human connection of that game. In Battletech's core books there are hero and villain characters to root for right off the bat, Hanse Davion, for instance. In Renegade Legion the units are vast and impersonal, and the game lacks PEOPLE to attatch to. There are no "heroes" to personalize the conflicts and represent the driving forces, those larger than life characters that make the Battletech universe tick. In RL the people are dimunitive cogs in universe size machines and that might be too close to home when many people feel that way in real life.