BattleTech is a science-fiction "space opera": a factional, militarized universe set in the thirty-first century, a future where humanity has spread to the stars and spawned titanic interstellar empires, each nation controlling hundreds of worlds across a region of space stretching a thousand light years and beyond. Initially published over thirty years ago as a tabletop board game, BattleTech has gone on to become one of the gaming industrys most important and longest-lasting science-fiction universes.