One Rabid Fox changes the Succession Wars [A Battletech Isekai]

[Bofors40mm]

Speaking of Marie has Clay met her or MHD yet?

 

[Imperator Pax]

Speaking of Marie has Clay met her or MHD yet?

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Clay has met them, but the first time was at the wedding where Ian was more than a little intoxicated. MHD's most recent encounter was him in the hangar with the new mechs which culminated in Mikey complaining about resources being lavished on the Draconis March which had been the tune Michael has been belting out to Ian and Hanse for pretty much the entire time he's been on New Avalon since

 

[Bofors40mm]

Clay has met them, but the first time was at the wedding where Ian was more than a little intoxicated. MHD's most recent encounter was him in the hangar with the new mechs which culminated in Mikey complaining about resources being lavished on the Draconis March which had been the tune Michael has been belting out to Ian and Hanse for pretty much the entire time he's been on New Avalon since

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To be blunt if he wants better stuff for his March he can build it or at least fix it. In particular....points to the nightstar plant on Kathil

Also do we need a introtech deathstalker?

Edit. Looks at deathstalker design.....uhhhh I'm not sure this is a design we can make with pure introtech.
Arguably it's just a crappy design due to utterly terrible armor levels for its mass and role.
10.5 tons is just terrible.
And that many energy weapons without DHS....well it can done and done pretty well. But that's called a stuka and it's 20 tons heavier

 

[Arimai]

Clay's descendants

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Ancestors. Clay has no descendants, he doesn't even have whores. Or perhaps you meant to say Clay's Household and Retainers are SLDF

 

[Imperator Pax]

To be blunt if he wants better stuff for his March he can build it or at least fix it. In particular....points to the nightstar plant on Kathil

Also do we need a introtech deathstalker?

Edit. Looks at deathstalker design.....uhhhh I'm not sure this is a design we can make with pure introtech.
Arguably it's just a crappy design due to utterly terrible armor levels for its mass and role.
10.5 tons is just terrible.
And that many energy weapons without DHS....well it can done and done pretty well. But that's called a stuka and it's 20 tons heavier

Click to shrink...

I get the feeling from looking at the stufff for MHD is there is al ot of stuff he could do he just doesn't because honestly he seems to think he's entitled to just having it given to him, and he doens't actually want to bother with improving the capellan march and that he should just be given the whole fed suns to play with.

As for the Death Stalker yeah its really more of ... well we'll get there, but Clay's emphasis on producing the smaller stingray is intention , and even once ER large lasers and DHS start becoming available publicly the Death Stalker gets supplanted by other designs, there is a reason Yvonne here is under the impression these bigger birds are SLDF planes

Ancestors. Clay has no descendants, he doesn't even have whores. Or perhaps you meant to say Clay's Household and Retainers are SLDF

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Thank you, the latter is indeed more along the lines of what I was implying

 

[Bofors40mm]

honestly you could make a better variant of the deathstalker but it will have to lose the AC-10

Spoiler: Introtech Deathstalker

Introtech Deathstalker F-77D
Base Tech Level: Standard (IS)

Level	Era
Experimental	-
Advanced	-
Standard	3025+

Tech Rating: D/X-E-D-D

Weight: 80 tons
BV: 1,548
Cost: 3,956,120 C-bills
Source: TRO 3075 - Star League

Movement: 5/8
Engine: 240 Fusion
Heat Sinks: 32
Fuel Points: 400 (5.0 tons)

Structural Integrity: 8
Armor: 264

	Armor
Nose	80
Left Wing	66
Right Wing	66
Aft	52

Weapons	Loc	Heat
Large Laser	NOS	8
Large Laser	NOS	8
Large Laser	RWG	8
Large Laser	LWG	8
Medium Laser	AFT	3
Medium Laser	AFT	3

still uses the massed large lasers albeit non ER ones and with the heatsinks to do so but it to do so loses the AC-10 as previously mentioned. It does however gain 6 tons of armor.

probably better to use a PPC Vulcan variant as compared to it though. Which is one hell of a brick of a ASF with no less than 22.5 tons of armor.

Spoiler: PPC Vulcan

PPC Vulcan
Base Tech Level: Standard (IS)

Level	Era
Experimental	-
Advanced	-
Standard	3025+

Tech Rating: D/X-E-D-D

Weight: 80 tons
BV: 1,902
Cost: 4,530,120 C-bills
Source: TRO 3075 - Star League

Movement: 5/8
Engine: 240 Fusion
Heat Sinks: 20
Fuel Points: 400 (5.0 tons)

Structural Integrity: 8
Armor: 360

	Armor
Nose	108
Left Wing	90
Right Wing	90
Aft	72

Weapons	Loc	Heat
PPC	RWG	10
PPC	LWG	10
SRM 6	NOS	4
SRM 6	NOS	4
Medium Laser	NOS	3
Medium Laser	NOS	3
Medium Laser	RWG	3
Medium Laser	LWG	3
Medium Laser	AFT	3
Medium Laser	AFT	3

Ammo	Loc	Shots
SRM 6 Ammo	FSLG	15
SRM 6 Ammo	FSLG	15

 

[Imperator Pax]

New Avalon 2.6​

Alexandria checked over the report she had been handed pertaining to her Orion. Not that there was any real need to, if there had been an issue someone would have said something, but there were required safety checks for these sorts of things. She wasn't particularly enthused at the prospect of the tournament, especially not as it drew closer and Justin became more enamored with the prospect of one on one giant robot fisticuffs... but boys would be boys she supposed.

To that end the sudden arrival of the Duchess of Victoria, and unannounced was a surprise. Even if she supposed given everything that was going on perhaps it shouldn't have been. "Are you ready?"

"I believe so." She replied.

Yvonne Davion nodded, "Good, false bravado is something for other people. There is enough of that from the warrior hall boys." She remarked, her expression somewhat inscrutable. "I wouldn't dismiss them out of hand, but the real news will come on the morrow. The First Prince will be making official announcements on certain matters, matters which are of national importance, and will have significant effects in the Crucis March, as well as the Federated Suns as a whole." She almost blurted out a response, but it bit it down. "Yes, that would indeed be the matter in question," Yvonne remarked nodding.

The Shipyard... but it was more than that... and it was. "Are you looking for him?"

"Officially no," Yvonne replied ... but it was rather obvious that she had expected the count of Sakhara to be here in the mech bay... which admittedly she would concede, this was where Alexandria had expected Henry Clay to be, but then again neither he nor Justin were here. "Though I do note the Rabid Fox is absent." It was rather hard to miss the empty bay, and the 70 ton war machine that had been there since their arrival. It was true she had questions, and suspected that the duchess did as well... but compared to everything else, the Rabid Fox as a BattleMech was overshadowed by the events that swirled around him. "The gossip mill has already begun to swirl... there are after all things that go into issuing letters patent."

Awards and recognition needed to be published for the gazette. It was tradition. It was a tradition that long predated a unified Terra or spaceflight, or powered flight for that matter. They didn't have to include all of the relevant, or sordid details for things that won the affection and praise of the monarch... but there were some things that one couldn't conceal, and more importantly had no reason to conceal. "Its..." The truth was even now she was weighing how far to reveal what she had heard, and been implied by the people in her own age group.

"Oh dear I've already said the salons are starting, the First Prince means to make that clear, and really its more than just the gossips at court."
--
A Rabid Fox was a seventy ton clan OmniMech. His was loaded into a 'B' configuration and while a clan ER Large Laser lacked the lopsided firepower of a Clan ER PPC it had advantages, like not running as hot as those. The possibility of needing them... well he had Hellstars for that, if it ever came to that... but they weren't on New Avalon, and he didn't expect to need them.

The ironic thing was that the canonical Hellstar was effectively a clan Awesome... admittedly a clanner awesome that didn't show up until 3079 and thus if they appeared it was not going to be in Clan Wolf, and thus the Wolf Dragoon database of clan war machines.

It was part of the reason he had selected some of them... maybe not the best reasons but a case of if it came down to it wanting the options. The problem was that ... the Badger, and Bandit were OmniVehicles derived from the Clan Epona in turn developed from an even earlier Star League era piece of hardware with intermediaries in between. He didn't understand why it had taken that long or why tech had seemed to stagnate, but he was also kind of glad he hadn't brought any of the heavier tanks.

He didn't want to step on the toes of a corporate entity, overshadow them, he wanted to work with in the future... "That's a big mech." Justin observed oblivious to his thoughts.

"Marauder II, a hundred tons," And a significant parts interchangeability with the standard Davion iteration of, domestic production, version of the Marauder. "its the Federated Suns first new domestic production battlemech in living memory."

Justin backpedalled, "What, what do you mean?"

"It entered production a few years ago. It hasn't made a splash at market, Blackwell hasn't really made a large debut but that's because I think their capital backer is the Wolf Dragoons, and they can apparently afford to sustain the company's large scale expansion." He wasn't quite sure how that worked in terms of keeping the company in the black, but that was something for the accountants and the lawyers to figure out. "anyway, its the designs I'm interested in, and their connection to the dragoons." That was the honesty of it... the brutal honesty of it.

Blackwell was a Federated Suns Company. It wasn't as if this was some star league era megacorp like Corean who he was already working with. Corean had assets abroad... and to be honest he wasn't quite sure how that worked in the era of the succession wars even if the third wasn't nearly as bad as the first one had been, but even so... this had the potential to be all kinds of messy.

He glanced down at the empty coffee container, and grimaced at the headache he was already feeling coming on. Justin was too distracted at the prospect of someone having beaten him to the punch for a new mech.

"Its not that big of a deal," he started to say.

"Yeah it kind of is, but they've just got the one?"

"Yeah, that's right," He replied, "The Marauder II also mounts a full suite of jump jets as well, I appreciate that about the design but more importantly its a very economical design from a productive standpoint." The Lasers, and PPCs were all commonly available, and so on and so forth... for the weight of course some compromises in parts had to be be made, and Blackwell had used different hardware for TTS, and communications but it wasn't that big of a deal. "My understanding is Jaime Wolf has a lot of Star League era machines," he wasn't going to discuss the down-teched nature of those, some of hte oddities, "But that he was looking for someone to produce the Shogun."

"Can you do that?"

"I can, it'll mean diverting resources... but Blackwell has a lot of potential, and I need an in with the Wolf Dragoons to get my foot in the door. Blackwell provides that." ... and thus in theory he could leverage that into keeping the Dragoons from working for House Kurita, which would prevent Kurita from being able to draw on those mercenary regiments... and yeah ideally being able to turn the Dragoons on them was probably a thing, "There is a lot going on right now."
--
Notes: there was some additional content that got lost due to last night's power outage, but its not that important just some slight additions, and we'll cover basically the same stuff in the conclusion to NA2

 

[Bofors40mm]

Well I take it that Jamie clearly doesn't get the idea of a low profile if he's shopping around to have someone make basically a lostech assault mech

 

[Imperator Pax]

Well I take it that Jamie clearly doesn't get the idea of a low profile if he's shopping around to have someone make basically a lostech assault mech

Click to shrink...

I don't think Jaime ever understood what low profile meant, but yeah canonically the dragoons went shopping around for someone to make them Shoguns and then after the clan invasion started the Dragoons apparently couldn't replace their down teched versions

 

[Bofors40mm]

I don't think Jaime ever understood what low profile meant, but yeah canonically the dragoons went shopping around for someone to make them Shoguns and then after the clan invasion started the Dragoons apparently couldn't replace their down teched versions

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Which is weird thst they couldn't given all the other stuff they made.

In any event I take it that this is likely going to be my Succession War worthy Shogun variant?

 

[Imperator Pax]

Which is weird thst they couldn't given all the other stuff they made.

In any event I take it that this is likely going to be my Succession War worthy Shogun variant?

Click to shrink...

Indeed.

 

[TixxedNyx]

I've been following this story for a while, and every time I read a new chapter I have absolutely no idea what is going on. Everything is too short for me to connect to what the story is.

 

[Imperator Pax]

I've been following this story for a while, and every time I read a new chapter I have absolutely no idea what is going on. Everything is too short for me to connect to what the story is.

Click to shrink...

Ok thats good to know. Is that an issue of how the chapters are divided to sets of scenes

Like would it help if all of Sakhara 1 was a large single post, or was amalgamated together into a smaller number of posts? Say two large posts ?

 

[drakensis]

I usually find that about 5,000-7,000 words works for a chapter, but I write longer scenes than you do. For me that averages 3 scenes.

My own criticism is that not much seems to happen in the scenes. I don't get a sense that we've gone from a starting point to an end point. There's no conflict, just one person providing a little information to the audience and/or a near silent in-universe audience.

I'm not saying you have to write just like me, but I didn't get the sense that the scenes moved the story forwards. This could be me totally misreading it, of course, but some fairly decent advice I got for writing is that in a scene someone should want something and start not having it. Then over the course of the scene they either obtain it (possibly at a cost) or don't obtain it due to some barrier.

I don't hate what you're doing but it does seem a bit... lacking in tension. Not necessarily action, but the story seems to be a bit adrift.

 

[PeaceMaker03]

I-Pax. I like this story a lot and did not really think about it, but I often read the prior chapter before the current one. I came to the story late so it was a large number of chapters and made it pretty easy to follow the flow of the story.
Not any type of literary expert so take what you will. Look forward to more of your stories.

 

[Imperator Pax]

New Avalon 2.7
[New Avalon 2 Conclusion]​

In hindsight perhaps it might have been a little obvious where to find him, and that he probably would have brought Justin Allard along. It made sense... in truth the patronage of New Avalon that Ian extended to the institution was a continuation of his father's policies. Andrew's support of New Avalon, over Albion was a statement of ... well that too many Albion graduates had supported the Warrior Cabal that had killed Peter the second.

Not that there hadn't been a shortage of Albion graduates, Andrew and his father had both graduated from Albion, and Hanse had attended the school, but Andrew had sent his heir, the current first prince to New Avalon Military Academy. Then of course... there had been the victory stolen from under the Coordinator's nose , the victory the Combine didn't even realize that the Federated Suns had won, a prize that New Avalon was better suited to exploit than her own alma mater.

The truth was the first succession war had been an utter disaster.

A lesson of history it was a seemingly unceasing tide of horror.

Yvonne Davion regarded the towering hulk of muscle watching over the two boys. The infantry officer wasn't simply large in comparison to the two cadets, the hulk out massed everyone else present. There was no contest.

He was also the man who had pointed out... who had reminded Clay that there were details that the Wolf Dragoons should bear in mind regarding their employment if there were to be business dealings in the future. It was those, those details which she was keeping in mind. If it were possible the Federated Suns wanted to directly distribute such information to the Dragoons, ideally with the hope of swinging the Dragoons to return to the Suns.

That would have repercussions on a strategic level. A strategic level that she doubted Alexandria fully grasped, never mind the two boys. Justin Allard was after all presently, and impatiently waiting for the opportunity to examine Blackwell's hundred ton Marauder II. A machine that they had developed with the help of the Dragoons, and the Dragoons were the only user... largely because somehow or another the machine had flown under the radar of observation. It was the first indigenous new design to go into production in the Federated Suns since hte onset of the 3rd​ Succession war. The average MegaCorp head would have probably bristled at the threat or potential competition it posed to his own designs, but Clay seemed not to mind at all.

It probably would have been entirely doable for Clay to leverage his technicians ability to churn out designs using commonly available parts to put pressure on Blackwell rather than trying to cooperate with them Cooperation and aims to expand production seemed to be the greater priority... which further underscored support within the AFFS that Clay might not have even realized he was accumulating... support outside of the Draconis March.... which did keep Yvonne's focus looking at other parties within the realm rather than outside it. "We should join them I think." She remarked to Alexandria. Justin Allard was the only one in a military uniform, not that the Cadet's Dress Uniform for Sakhara wasn't flattering but the countess of Kestrel had chosen to wear a semi functional dress, and the soon to be Duke of Bristol had worn a conservative suit... though he might have been making a low key comment given that his boots were made of out snakeskin.
--
The Campaign on Mallory's Wolrd shouldn't have seemed so long ago, nor Halstead Station for that matter. The new year would ring in 3016, and and it would be two whole years since the Sword of Light had been provoked to going to their deaths on Halstead's station. The Victory on Halstead Station so early in 3014 further solidified his rule... and if he died Ian was cognizant of what Hanse's marriage meant for the realm, and Hanse's child would mean. That wasn't to say there wasn't pressure to marry... in an ideal world he might be able to wed the Archon bringing the two realms together, but he knew that if he wanted to that it would create problems with the Church. The Bishop of New Avalon was conservative he would, probably, oppose any union between Hanse's prospective son and Ian's stepdaughter assuming a marriage between Archon and First Prince could even be secured...

was that the only stumbling block? Of course not. There were plenty of pressures that often prevented the First Prince for marrying for affection alone, but at least with the Archon he could have leveraged on peace between the realms.

"He brought up the Shogun to Blackwell?"

"In that they would convey to Jaime Wolf his offer, and that as an investment partner New Valencia would be the site of production in exchange for reciprocation." His aunt, the Duchess of Victoria, replied to the question. "Clay expects to have a prototype ready for evaluation by March if that is acceptable to Blackwell."

"Do you think it would sway the Dragoons?"

"We know that Jaime Wolf was disappointed that no one wanted to take on manufacturing of the Shogun for the Dragoons so I do believe it will draw his attention."

There was some rustling as a few other ducal lords of the Federated Suns entered the privy council's chambers deep in the heart of the palace, "Did you speak with him regarding ... certain material of the Eridani's problems with the Combine." He asked as diplomatically as he could.

She shook her head, "No the timing wasn't right, I didn't want to risk mention of it reaching the Eridani, or General Kerston before we could do so. We should accept that we may not get things all neatly lined up as we would like them... but the implication I take from this is that the Eridani, and the Dragoons will look at the information favorably to us... and it would be better to leverage the dragoons."

"Because the Light Horse are already in our service?" The First Prince remarked reservedly.

"Quite," She agreed, "Of course we could proceed to inform the Eridani, and then invite a contingent of the Dragoons to negotiate matters of business -"

"They could send Kerensky."

"She's hardly subtle I agree, but the truth is that may well benefit us," Yvonne replied as Hanse helped his wife into her seat... not that Dana Stephenson was particularly delicate by any means, "and of course waiting for a Dragoon response would give us time to establish exactly the depth of the dragon's complicity."

There was a lull, and the silence turned almost interminable before the last of the great houses settled into the numbers. The Duke of Elidere was among the last to arrive. House Maikos was not the martial of Draconis March houses, but they were wealthy, and unfortunately if the present Duke died without issue... Ian suspected it would be another case like Bristol where it would fall to him as First Prince to distribute the title to a worthy bearer. It was an issue of succession that he was supposed to discuss with the Duke of Elidere ... but one that struck him as a tad hypocritical given his own issue... or rather that his legitimate heir was his brother, and Hanse's line.

"My companions, I welcome all of you to my hall," And so followed the usual harkenings of older grander times, and the neo feudal traditions, and the first toasts of what was probably going to be a very long session of his senior most lords, and ladies. "It is with great esteem then that I present to this august body the expansion of our ranks," he didn't like the sudden look on his brother in law's face, but Ian contented himself that Michael Hasek's glee would be shortly dashed. The holographic display bloomed to life showing Sakhara's northern hemisphere, and the sprawling sands and great river, "The recent contribution to the realm is a JumpShip Yard capable of construction of the Star Lord class JumpShips, it is for that reason amongst other contributions I have drafted letters patent to create as Duke of Bristol, Henry Clay." He didn't actually need to discuss naming or reasoning, but historically it always helped to be able to shield any creations of nobility from attacks of being driven by nepotism. The peerage had powers, and ways to confound a prince even if the great lords could not impinge upon his right to name members to the ranks.
--
Notes: back on a xiania, and pokemon kick so may be doing stuff in those genres soon ish.

 

[Bofors40mm]

Should be Peter the 1st. The prior Peter Davion never ruled the fedsuns just was a Chad of a general

 

[Imperator Pax]

Should be Peter the 1st. The prior Peter Davion never ruled the fedsuns just was a Chad of a general

Click to shrink...

Is sarna wrong? https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Peter_Davion_(30th_c.)

 

[Bofors40mm]

Is sarna wrong? https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Peter_Davion_(30th_c.)

Click to shrink...

Only Peter I can see that was a first prince is him.
Might have taken the II to not confuse people with his Chad or a relative or to honor him

 

[Imperator Pax]

Only Peter I can see that was a first prince is him.
Might have taken the II to not confuse people with his Chad or a relative or to honor him

Click to shrink...

Which wouldn't be unreasonable for monarchial naming traditions

Carl for Sweden, and Louis for France both come to mind most immediately

 

[Bofors40mm]

I wonder what tinkering the dragoons will do with their Shoguns vs the ones the suns will get since they have case and the suns's don't

 

[Imperator Pax]

New Avalon 3.1​

Henry couldn't help but grin at the display. The crowds were already raucous. It was despite that excitement really a small tournament. That wasn't as big of an issue because this was only one small part of the holiday festivities... but while there would be troop reviews and other events that would demonstrate the military and martial virility of the Federated Suns and that this year... that would be more on display.

Ian Davion's past few years of rule had cemented his reputation as a military leader in the conflict against the hated even racial enemy, against the Draconis Combine. On their surface, though these were great military victories they did not suggest a paradigm shift in the succession wars, did not signal that Ian Davion's reign would represent a significant change from the norm of the succession wars... and this tournament similarly represented a continuation of tradition rather than an example of departing from it.

For the average person on New Avalon watching the Cataphract represented something new and exciting, being a new BattleMech design. For the common public, largely the middling orders of New Avalon, and even the members of the aristocracy this was the first demonstration of a new BattleMech design something that wasn't centuries old.

Justin's Cataphract had been given a parade paint job in the Sakhara colors and with badging to reflect the Academy... just in case anyone didn't know what institution the scion of House Allard was supposed to be representing despite the announcers, and the blazened holographic images pervading the displays. Admittedly given Sakhara's small class size drawn of exclusive ranks of high society it might have actually been a good idea.

The holographic displays were accompanied by the broadcaster reading, rather obviously, off a provided paper talking aobut the machine. An official press release talking about the battlemech and its equipment. Thereby proving government bureaucrats could make even giant stompy robots sound boring and mundane.

Alexandria turned to look at him, "I still can't believe you let him talk you into mountain an Assault Auto cannon on it before we shipped out."

She had a point in that it was a much more significant modification to the Cataphract than he had had in mind, and had involved pulling the two Imperator-A autocannons that had been installed originally in addition to the LRM five... which admittedly he'd expected to be dropped since yes that had on reflection seemed extraneous.

The decision had almost tempted him to slip CASE, or even Ferro-fibrous on the design... but he knew they had been going... coming here to New Avalon and that a lot of eyes would be on the Cataphract. A machine that the First Prince had asked about on their previous visit, and that was also something Alexandria probably had in mind since Justin's modification to the machine would potentially alter impressions of the baseline model.

As for the Assault Auto-cannon it used a Defiance Mech-Hunter the same as the Alecto, and the identical in weight Warden that had yet to debut. Both of those were ten tons heavier in the assault weight class. Justin still had his large laser, and the Mk III had no minimum range and the two mediums added to that... but it would mean that the Cataphract would run hot... most likely though Justin planned to close as quickly as he could in this fight and pour auto cannon fire in without necessarily using the Large Laser.

In the Davion booth a much similar discussion was going on as Yvonne Davion was put into the position of explaining the modification as personal preference... and that boys would be boys. In his cockpit, with ears burning Justin Allard waited impatiently for the party to start. The Capellan March asshole had been rubbing him wrong since their first run in in the hanger, but he didn't seem like he'd be that tough. If anything it was fighting Alexandria, or the Highlander that might the issue. The Highlander had a PPC in its arm in place of a class ten auto cannon, and coupled with its LRMs would have more range than he would, but the bigger machine was also going to be slower... but not a lot slower. All of these fights were going to be in close fast, and he doubted they'd last more than a few minutes.

A narrow window to win determined by violence of action... and the whole planet was watching. No pressure.

Hanse Davion in the Davion booth watched as the master of ceremonies signaled that the two heavy BattleMechs could begin. It was a round robin tournament. The Thunderbolt was a venerable, mech with a well established history in service to the successor states, and before that in the Star League Defense Force. It was a five hundred year old base design facing a new design five tons heavier.

It wasn't the only Thunderbolt in the competition, though they had slightly different load outs. It also hadn't escaped Hanse that the Eridani had their share of Thunderbolts as well. That sustaining the design since the fall of the Star League had required refits, and retrofits and other modifications to keep the heavy battlemechs on the battlefield.


"They're starting." Ian observed leaning forward in his seat at the center of the box as both heavy battlemechs began moving towards one another. There were no attempts to evade the two boys had both floored their accelerators churning up the sod... that was why they used artificial turf for the field since it allowed these courses to be shaped to reflect a uniform standard.

It didn't take either mech long to get out of their starting boxes and once they were clear of the line photoreceptors started tracking attempts by both machines to hit the other, which with direct fire lasers was more of making sure the gyro was compensating at this distance.

"Are they going to stop?" The question was from Marie, but her husband seemed to be having the same thought given both machines were at flank speed and had together cleared a quarter of a mile as they both ran forward.

"Doesn't look like it does it." It was reckless. Obviously in hindsight they should have been worried about this sort of thing. The simumintion from the massive auto cannon still made an expressive bang as it opened fire. The first rounds splashing red paint across the thunderbolt's torso... and those were supposed to represent an AC 20, which changed the entire dynamic of the fight, even before the two heavy battlemechs crashed into one another at speed.

Down below in a private if less impressively placed box the countess of Kestrel hissed out a quiet invective. "Damn it Justin." Henry didn't quite mirror the response, but empathized... that probably wasn't just going to buff out.

Instead, he settled for taking out a noteputer and messaging his technical staff.

 

[TixxedNyx]

When will we see the Mc again?

 

[Bofors40mm]

Count of Sakhara not countess. Unless Henry got genderbended by KF fuckery while I wasn't looking?

 

[HunterxReader]

Alexandria turned to look at him, "I still can't believe you let him talk you into mountain an Assault Auto cannon on it before we shipped out."

Click to shrink...

I think this was supposed to be "mounting".

She had a point in that it was a much more significant modification to the Cataphract than he had had in mind, and had involved pulling the two Imperator-A autocannons that had been installed originally in addition to the LRM five... which admittedly he'd expected to be dropped since yes that had on reflection seemed extraneous.

The decision had almost tempted him to slip CASE, or even Ferro-fibrous on the design... but he knew they had been going... coming here to New Avalon and that a lot of eyes would be on the Cataphract. A machine that the First Prince had asked about on their previous visit, and that was also something Alexandria probably had in mind since Justin's modification to the machine would potentially alter impressions of the baseline model.

As for the Assault Auto-cannon it used a Defiance Mech-Hunter the same as the Alecto, and the identical in weight Warden that had yet to debut. Both of those were ten tons heavier in the assault weight class. Justin still had his large laser, and the Mk III had no minimum range and the two mediums added to that... but it would mean that the Cataphract would run hot... most likely though Justin planned to close as quickly as he could in this fight and pour auto cannon fire in without necessarily using the Large Laser.

Click to shrink...

Justin couldn't help but get the AC-20, huh. I'm curious, dropping the two AC-5s and their ammo should be more than enough for the bigger autocannon. And while I can understand removing the LRM-5 to get rid of the ammo bomb for a brawler, still that's a lot of freed weight seeing as he also dropped two MLs. What'd he do, dump it all into heatsinks and armor or up the engine for a heavier Yen-Lo-Wang?

 

[Bofors40mm]

Well think on the positive side of things. If he somehow ends up dueling legend killer and gray Norton this time around he won't be in a Valkyrie and might very well win .....mind you not sure Candace would live if he's in that and not a blackjack.

 

[IrrelevantlAlex]

Good ol run up an punch.

 

[Imperator Pax]

New Avalon 3.2​

The two machines sprawled out from the impact, and probably dazed remained there for the better part of a minute, mud and grass and paint on their mechs. Henry watched. It helped that the Cataphract had one arm with a hand. He'd been leery about recreating that asymmetry... he hadn't been sure about it, but now he was sort of glad he had. In a real fight the AC 20 shots would have probably rattled the other Heavy BattleMech more, but here in simulated combat that wasn't counting for as much still... Justin had crashed headlong into the other machine.

A tactic that was a lot riskier, a lot more hazardous than the simunitions standing in for missiles or auto cannon rounds for the tournament. The Warrior's hall candidate hadn't been expecting it. "He's off balance," Henry observed... probably more psychological than anything, and Justin was on top of the Thunderbolt anyway and the AC 20 was in action. The Cataphract was supposed to be a jack of all trades workhorse, but at this range and in this situation there was no question that Justin was probably right to run the machine hot.

This was a fight between two mechs, and well... Justin was kicking the bastard while he was down and refusing to let up. The warrior's hall mechwarrior should have just thrown in the towel, and after a minute and a lot of paint the judges called it. The crowd erupted into cheers, and even though Henry recognized it probably didn't readily resemble a normal BattleMech engagement in onthe battlefield it did resemble one very recent well publicized event...

... namely when he'd taken his Rabid Fox down a hill and and beaten Yorinaga Kurita's Warhammer into scrap to save the First Prince ... a battle rom which the Davion public were very very familiar with. The crowd was wild as a result. It didn't matter that they were two Fed Sun mechs beating each other, they were ecstatic.

Most of the chants were just uniformly pro davion. Cheers for the Federated Suns, House Davion, the AFFS, some were Sakhara, but some were for the Draconis March... never mind that as a native of Kestrel and a noble scion of the planet at that Justin was from the Crucis March.

Henry leaned back in his seat, and then paged his techs. It was unlikely but the shake up might be enough to jar something... the Cataphract wasn't standard they'd changed the systems... and well maybe he was being overly cautious but he hadn't expected Justin to do this as a solution to his very first fight in the tournament, even if it had paid off.

Within a few minutes, after some comments from the officials congratulating, making a point of congratulating both pilots, the seats began to empty. It took longer to get down to the stable level and for Justin to dismount from the cataphract. Henry glanced around just to be sure, but the 'mech hangar was secure. Secure enough that Alexandria was confident in the privacy to explode at her cousin for turning the match into a brawl thirty odd seconds into the match.

He almost considered intervening, but a tech stepped in with the diagnostic. "Nothing seems a matter," The tech remarked, "We'll pop it tonight just to be sure, and make sure to get the mud and paint off of it... replacing the scraped panels will take a little longer than all that, but its not something to worry about." The man assured him.

Henry nodded, and punched up the specifications for the standard 'davion' equipment cataphract... but he was also considering other versions. The Capellans would eventually debut the Raven, he just couldn't remember off hand when it would enter production but it probably wouldn't be for a few years yet. It would have been easy to probably obfuscate anyway given all the other designs but the Cataphract would probably get enough attention because it was a heavy BattleMech even without LosTech weapons.

Justin in the mean time had had enough to loudly protest that he had won.

"While taking unnecessary risks, you could have made a fool of yourself."

Henry made a point of exerting the effort to ignore the both of them regardless of the points that both of them made for their respective positions. He had other things that needed to be done He navigated the essence to examine his saved version of the CTF 2X really just a version with davion equipment and the differences were minimal but that was the advantage of the Essence. In theory when it came time for other manufacturers to start producing the machines under license they shouldn't have an issue at least that was his working theory.

Los tech components would come later Maybe Justin's decision to replace the weaponry more heavily to make room for the assault auto cannon just reiterated Davion market preference. He made a note to see if they couldn't possibly make a Marauder II akin to a King Crab for the Davion market whether that would be an interest.... but only really if it was possible to drop systems that made the Marauder II distinctive... and it might start a legal argument with GM so best to leave that alone for the time being... especially with CASE being 'unavailable' at least commercially. Especially as he had plenty of other unique designs to push forward into production to swell the ranks of available mechs.

There were a lot of those, indeed the previous trip to New Avalon had all but been defined by the breadth of designs as it was the company worth of seventy tonners delivered to Albion. The Longsword had intended to be the center piece of that visit, but he'd let his enthusiasm get away from him, and he had misjudged the interest a 70 tonner with auto cannons might garner... and he had gone totally overboard with the original designs, that was more obvious now. More people were just shell shocked at the sudden demonstration.

... and at the same time his eyes snapped back to the holographic data chart of the essence, and the tabs with costs. Things the like the Fusilier he could hopefully convince other manufacturers to diversify production and build safely in the Crucis March, but he had avoided thus far trying to nudge them towards Kestrel... that would have been 'forward' and not necessarily in the good way... and the Shadow Hawk refit kits could be manufactured by a third party for what they needed... maybe Blackwell could to leverage a position... he groaned, "The techs will fix the Cataphract Justin, just try and avoid unnecessary wear and tear in the future, lets go get something to eat in the mean time." He declared minimizing the essence projection hastily looking at the other two... but the truth was his focus was on trying to emphasize or get people to buy Sentry BattleMechs enough to encourage production across Davion space, and maybe myrmidon tanks as well given that Lord Aaron was now rolling down the ramp from the bank of elevators towards them.

At least he, unlike Alexandria had taken Justin clobbering the Thunderbolt in delight... maybe a set of Sentry and Alecto mechs could be transferred to RBA and or Northwind after all of this, or at least in a few months, for similar evaluation as the Long Swords.

 

[Bofors40mm]

I will note that as the designer of the fusiler it very much is meant to pair up with sentry along all the other trooper aka affordable and save exceptions like the sentry moving along at most 4/6/4 and usually 4/6 medium mechs as their go to indirect fire support option and leave stuff like the dervish and trebuchet with the calvary/skirmisher units for the most part. And for that matter it likely discourages new conversions to LRM hunchback variant due to having a mech to fill that roll in production that actually has a greater firepower.

The other niche it serves is a generic cheap LRM boat that can be attached to most units that need LRMs in bulk.

 

[Imperator Pax]

New Avalon 3.3​

The idea of the Myrmidon, rather what he was going to market as the Sphinx immediately came to the fore in the discussion. The Sphinx was a fusion engine tank, and thus didn't require a capacitor like ICE and thus could mount a power intensive issue in this case a Magna MK III with limited issue. It was also an example of way purchasing Pratt & Whitney had been his next public move, "I plan to expand," Henry remarked, "Subsidiary parts manufacture is my next expansion, Pratt and Whitney will expanding tooling manufacture that will go into producing the parts for the tank," And it would be nominally through Pratt & Whitney that he planned to overhaul and expand things on Bristol for heavier tanks... but now wasn't the time to bring those up. "I wouldn't be surprised or rather I would that we will see other designs to fill local niche roles over the next few years, once we have manufacturing orders started the primary focus will be expansion of production."

"I understand you're in talks to produce them here?"

"I mean yes," He replied to the wheelchair bound duke, "The Sphinx will probably see some production here on New Avalon, but I wouldn't be surprised if that," If the major components for the forty ton tracked tank were likely to be in demand as replacement parts for mech units at least until production expanded... the Sphinx running off of the same fusion engine, "If we don't get requests for parts to repair or rebuild mechs, weapons and fusion engines and such."

Aaron Sandoval nodded.

It was a common matter, a common way of doing things in the succession wars that had reduced the 'common-ness' of fusion powered tanks as those parts were scavenged to keep BattleMechs in the fight, or bringing them back to combat status. "But there will be other production sites?"

"Of course, the fact it has commonality with a light mech engine isn't unintentional. The Devastators, and variants of it will produced side by side with the Alecto, and the Sphinx can be up-engined to run off a Nissan replacing the LRMs with a PPC, if you're interested in expanding the fusion engine production on Robinson." It did mean losing a ton of armor, but all of that was already in the plain black and white of the pamphlets describing the two variants but also the other tanks. Those same documents made clear what tanks ran off common equipment and fusion engines, and also that they were prepared to handle licensing and adjustments to run off other versions of locally produced weapons. It would be simple to build the Sphinx with an ExoStar in staead of the MK III that his demonstration model ran off of, but that was largely because the Mark III equipped tank was intended to woo Blackwell. He wanted access to their OmniVehicles and to expand the production of the Marauder.

If a major offensive was forthcoming then producing tanks would grow the work force and expand the davion tax base... not that he ever put it in those terms but it was in the back of his mind. Even if he was aware that it didn't change the limiting factor of JumpShips... but really he wasn't especially concerned about mass production of tanks as a major factor to his bottom line... and for that Henry recognized the nature of the succession wars and even the popular view worked in his advantage. Achernar demonstrated perfectly well that you could have the majority of your income from non military projects, and be a viable interstellar company. He did want that, but there were some other things to deal with.

They continued to walk, making there way out of the hangar, mech bay, set aside for the Sakhara 'team' in the tournament, which threatened to funnel them back into the swelling crowds . It honestly reminded Clay of a derby, a horse race where there was a lot of hype but that each event was spread out and it gave people time to walk around get refreshments, make small talk and generally socialize. At least this way Justin would be able to watch the next match of the day, and of course it also let the faire marshals go over the ground and make sure there was nothing wrong with the grounds, and that it was safe to continue. They'd be coming to double check the safety standards on the mechs as well... it was a wonder there wasn't a pilot check, but that probably assumed that the cadets would be fine.

The short bursts of replay footage were largely a factor of how quick things had resolved. There were still shots of both mechs 'in their corners' being projected, and there were images of other mechs that would fighting later, he recognized a still shot of Lex's Orion for example, and of course the distinctive head of the Assault weight Highlander.

It was the Highlander, with its common General Motors 270 that he was surprised wasn't attracting more interest in bringing back into production... admittedly given everything else going on he just hadn't had the time to look at what could be done, or rather was being done inside the Fed Suns with that weight engine. Given that there was so much else going on he wasn't going to bring it up unprompted. There were already too many other projects he needed to have foundries set up for, or to have planned expansions carried out... and of course there was whatever happened with Bristol.. and the Fury would mean 320 Engine production would need to be expanded... and eventually it would mean reintroducing the Gauss Rifle in at first its Star League version back to Davion forces... in first tanks and then battlemechs.

"How long do we have, anyway?"

"Until the next match?" He asked in response to Justin's question, "Long enough, they spaced them far enough apart for the marshals to check everything," including time to hose off paint, at least they had scheduled time for that, "And for attendees to get refreshments."

"We should get food, I worked up an appetite." Justin replied prompting a laugh from the Duke of Robinson at the half serious comment. The had the option to retreat to a the private boxes set aside for them and just order food, but perhaps as a result of the recent head on collision Justin was more in the mood to walk it off, and they made their way largely without notice through the crowd of well dressed wealthy middling orders, and upper classes of Davion and New Avalon in particular society.

Arguably given their outfits really only the Duke of Robinson was probably immediately recognizable if only because of his handicap, but the grounds were still configured to allow his manual wheelchair access to where ever he wanted to roll himself too. That left them the opportunity to more or less shoot the shit, and talk about the short lived match and how Justin liked the Cataphract as a mech, and in particular how his up-gunned version handled.