Hosptialler Emergency Response Exoskeleton Base Tech Level: Standard (IS)
Level Era
Experimental -
Advanced -
Standard 3068+ Tech Rating: E/X-X-F-F
BV: 22 Cost: 1,666,000 C-bills Source: Jihad
Movement: 2/2/2
Internal: 4 Armor: 4 BA Standard (Basic)
Internal Armor
Trooper 1 1 1
Trooper 2 1 1
Trooper 3 1 1
Trooper 4 1 1
Weapons Loc Heat
Swarm Mek Squad 0
Attack Swarmed Mek Squad 0
Stop Swarm Attack Squad 0
Leg Attack Squad 0
Equipment Loc
Extended Life Support (Body) Squad
Searchlight [BA] (Left arm) Squad
Space Operations Adaptation (Left arm) Squad
Heat Sensor (Body) Squad
Cutting Torch (Right arm) Squad
BA Manipulators [Armored Gloves] (Left arm) Squad
BA Manipulators [Armored Gloves] (Right arm) Squad
Overview:
The Hospitaller is a loose, unlicensed copy of the Krise PA(L). The Hospitaller is manufactured by Taurus Territorial Industries for the purpose of emergency response. It was created to allow Taurian medical teams and first responders to operate in hostile environments in nearly any conditions.
The Tauarians realized the need for an environmentally sealed exoskeleton following the spread of the Scourge virus. The virus had originally been isolated to the dead world of Brinton, but following a raid by Dedrickson’s Devils it was allowed to escape to the nearby world of Aea. Fearful that the disease could spread further, TTI was directed to develop an environmentally sealed exoskeleton that could be used to screen vessels that had passed near Brinton and Aea for signs of the virus.
TTI had no experience manufacturing armored systems. They reached out to Ceres Metals for assistance, who had experience building battle armor. Ceres was mostly busy with other projects, but they were able to provide a small engineering team with powered exoskeleton experience. However, those engineers came without a lead designer.
TTI chose to use another suit as a template. Gortex Multi-E in the Federated Suns had brought the Krise PA(L) to market a few years before, TTI purchased several of these suits through a third part and had them shipped to their facilities on Sterope for examination. Ultimately they would use the Krise as a template for their own design.
Capabilities:
The Hospitaller is not as advanced a design as the suit it attempts to copy. Taurian manufacturing capability was not quite up to the standards of replicating the Krise. Instead, TTI used the Krise as a template, attempting to copy the capabilities of the suit as closely as possible.
The most glaring change is the speed. TTI’s engineers could not find a joint bearing that could hold up to the stress of a 400 kilogram suit running at 30 kilometers per hour. Likewise they could not handle a 30 meter drop. The durability of the materials to hand meant that TTI had to reduce both the speed and the jump distance of the Hospitaller by a third compared with its “inspirational” parent.
Neither is the sensor suite quite up to par. Gortex-E had equipped the Krise with an advanced sensor suite that allowed the Krise to be used in nearly any response scenario. TTI was unable to miniaturize their technology to the level that it could replicate the Krise’s capabilities. Instead, they equipped the Hospitaller with a basic heat sensor that would at least allow it to see which rooms aboard a ship were likely to be occupied.
The salvage arm of the Krise is not present, though this was an intentional change rather than one required by a lack of technology. The Taurian medical corps needed the Hospitaller in the field as quickly as possible. They also intended it for use not only by first responders, but also by medical teams to be able to interact safely with infected. The Medical Corps preferred the fine motor control ability of a simple set of armored gloves to the utility of the salvage arm, and so they asked it to be removed. A wrist-mounted cutting torch is still included with the suit, to allow first responders the ability to breach a ship’s bulkhead in the event of an emergency.
Deployment:
The Hospitaller proved to be a success. It was deployed to the Taurian medical division in late 3068 and was in use by medical inspection teams throughout the Concordat within a year. Those medical inspection teams did a good job of screening any DropShip that was registered to have landed on Aea, largely preventing the Scourge virus from spreading to other worlds.
Those teams would remain in place for over a decade. Furthermore, response teams were created that landed on any world that the Devils landed on. These teams would quarantine areas that the Devils had been, performing extensive tests for the presence of the Scourge virus. Follow-on teams would see to the people caught up in these quarantines, monitoring their progression through the disease and ensuring that they were segregated from populations on the rest of the planet.
Despite the shoot-on-sight notifications from the MRBC and extensive manhunts from both the Taurian Defense Forces and the Armed Forces of the Federated Suns, the Devils continued to operate in the region for years. Their last sighting was sometime around 3071, though the chaos that the Jihad brought to both the Inner Sphere and the Periphery means that these reports are less than reliable.
TTI attempted to market the Hospitaller on the interstellar market in 3075, prompting a lawsuit from Gortex-E. By this time Gortex-E had realized that the Hospitaller was a low-tech re-creation of their own design. The lawsuit stretched on until 3081. And resulted in the suit being banned from sale in the Federated Suns, Lyran Alliance, Draconis Combine, and Republic of the Sphere.
Despite these bans, the suit became quite popular throughout the Rimward side of the Inner Sphere and Periphery. In particular it became a common site in the Magistracy of Canopus, where medical teams had become familiar with its use while providing support to the Taurians.
