Mackie II MSK-56K2
Mass: 100 tons
Tech Base: Inner Sphere
Chassis Config: Biped
Rules Level: Era Specific
Era: All Eras (non-canon)
Tech Rating/Era Availability: E/X-X-E-A
Production Year: 0
Cost: 22,954,000 C-Bills
Battle Value: 2,129
Chassis: Unknown Endo-Steel
Power Plant: Unknown 400 Light Fusion Engine
Walking Speed: 43.2 km/h
Maximum Speed: 64.8 km/h
Jump Jets: None
Jump Capacity: 0 meters
Armor: Unknown Ferro-Fibrous w/ CASE
Armament:
1 Rotary AC/5
1 ER PPC
1 Large Pulse Laser
2 ER Medium Lasers
Manufacturer: Unknown
Primary Factory: Unknown
Communications System: Unknown
Targeting and Tracking System: Unknown
Overview:
Originally developed in the fires of the Jihad from a half-slagged wreck found
in the remains of Solaris VII's 'Junkyard' arena, yet by far the most intact
unit left that salvagers found, the Mackie II would see a slow, and painful
birth lasting over a decade of trial and error.
With such catastrophic damage to the arenas, Solaris City, and the surrounding
countryside, plus the damage dealt to interstellar trading, any militia unit
needing more 'Mechs was told to either find a way to fund its acqusition
themselves, and good luck just getting it to the beseiged world, or were
pointed towards The Junkyard - a notorious unclassified arena in the lowlands
to the west of the main city. Notorious not only for the not just for its
brutal conditions within the arena, but that it was an actual functioning
junkyard.
It was here that the SHDL, forced yet again to FrankenMech their way to getting
a new unit, quite literally stumbled over the broken and partially stripped
down chassis of a MSK-9H, and a customized one at that. As in their escorting
Shadowhawk, due to a badly aligned gyro, tripped over it when carrying other
retrieved components. How long it had been there, buried under centuries of
rusted out hovercars, crumpled VTOLs, and heaping mounds of long-since
forgotten plastic arena mascots, will likely be never known. All that can be
said is the SHDL militia took one look at it, dumped everything else they had,
and spent seventeen hours pulling it free, scoured it clean of muck and other
unpleasant bits, before loading it onto a flatbed to be taken back to one of
VEST's surviving facilities that the SHDL was protecting.
On one hand, utterly dismayed at the state the chassis was in, VEST was, on the
other hand, ecstatic in getting to tinker around with want could only be an
SLDF 'Royal' variant Mackie. Anything to keep them busy, occupied, and not
thinking of the daily horrors going on outside their complex conducted at the
hands of the Blakists. To their astonishment, they'd not only gotten their
hands on a -9H custom, but it looked to originally have had a loadout extremely
similiar to the original Mackie prototype.
Capabilities:
While the original chassis had been stripped of nearly everything of value,
there were enough clues left to point out where it would be best to start
adding them back on. Or at least normally, that is how it would have been,
weren't it not for Blakist snipers occasionally taking potshots at VEST and
SHDL personnel, nor the near complete loss of material stockpiles, long since
looted through months earlier. As it was, they had to make due with what was on
hand.
Originally a patchwork of endo-steel and standard internal framework, combat on
Solaris eventually saw the Mackie take enough damage to finally erode what was
left of it's original chassis - left and center torso, head, and left leg, that
a Ship of Theseus was done in swapping out entirely for an standard endo-steel
one. Its original armor, turned into an interconnecting set of patches before
the Blakists surrendered, was promptly switched out for ferro-fibrous gleefully
taken from those same Blakist's own stockpiles. No one is quite exactly certain
where the light fusion reactor came from originally, other than a somewhat
tired, stupidly drunk, and almost completely dry on ammo, group of SHDL 'found
it after it fell off the back of a truck' and hauled it in. While the original
only mounted a standard 300 class, and they just were hand-delievered a light
400, VEST wasn't about to question too deeply. Mostly as they were completely
out of reactors at that particular moment. VEST made a careful point to cut a
decade long sweetheart deal with the Lyran Commonwealth after further details
about this incident became more widely known later on.
Originally starting with near RetroTech armaments, all of which were dated back
to at least the Second Succession War, the rebuild would go through nearly all
of these before its final loadout that would become the production model's own.
The right arm would forever be cursed on it, going through three straight
AC/10s, to an LB-10X, back to an AC-10, an Ultra AC/5, and a fifth AC/10,
before fitting in a RAC/5 off a gutted Blakist Deva Dominus. In fact, the same
Deva that had blown off that last AC/10. After that, it seemed to have found a
match made in heaven, or somewhat lower and warmer locations, as it never
needed replacing again.
The original large laser would be replaced by a pulse version off a Grand
Crusader, while the previously gutted Deva would serve as a donor for swapping
the medium lasers for extended models. In fact, in something of an irony, the
only weapon system not replaced the entire time, was its left arm's extended
range particle cannon, one of the last ones VEST had available when fitted to
the rebuild, and was mounted on it from the moment it left their complex for
the first time, to the very last mission used before being brought back to
their headquarters. Where it currently stands in their main lobby as a monument
to both VEST's and Solaris City's refusal to go quietly in the face of any
opposition.
Battle History:
While the rebuilt original's SLDF history has been lost for ceturies, it's
second life saw it firing on Omnimechs less than three minutes after leaving
the hangar, losing the first of an unfortunate series of autocannons in that
debut. However, due to grave misgivings about the Word of Blake, VEST and the
SHDL took pains to wipe its BattleROMs completely each time it took to the
front lines. Concerns were that Manei Domini or other WoB units might grab the
BattleROMs and use the footage from the Mackie leaving and exiting the VEST
compound to better plan out assaults against the defenders. Considering that
the Blakists did indeed try just doing that with other downed SHDL 'Mechs, it
was a wise precaution. Unfortunately, this meant that there was no clear record
of the Mackie's performance during the occupation of the city, outside of a few
times it showed up on other unit's BattleROMs. This is not to say that it
performed poorly, ignoring the 'curse' of its right arm, and in fact a host of
tales regarding its exploits has begun to appear from various locations within
Solaris City. With no veritable evidence to the contrary, several of them are
starting to veer away from the practical, and more into the 'fantastic'
category. Any involving it's showing up with only one arm while using jump jets
are plainly false.
Variants:
It was only after an intensive line-by-line look through the -9H's files,
half-corrupted that they were, that VEST's staff were able to determine it's
final loadout before being scrapped. Effectively a merger of the -5S and
standard -9H, with a bit of a twist, it carried an extended range particle
cannon in the left arm, a center torso located large pulse laser with standard
medium lasers on either side of it, and a massive Gauss cannon in the right arm
mount in place of an autocannon. Where it obviously differed, was brackets for
twin quad-tube launchers above both of the shoulder mounted lasers, and an ECM
suite taking the place of the active probe seen on later models. Considering
the bulk of the damage when found was to its right torso, and they never did
find a trace of it's arm, it was assumed that its capacitor banks had exploded,
fed into the torso, and caused a domino effect that took out its missile bins,
thus crippled it.
Mounting the Gauss rifle, pulse laser, and no less than fifteen double heat
sinks carried, all incredibly rare to see on a 'Mech of its era, let alone
together, VEST took a somewhat reasonable leap of faith in announcing it was a
'Royal' variant design when the rebuild made its debut, along with revealing
its original loadout. While several surviving scandal-vid groups, to say
nothing of what Blakist propaganda said about the entire thing, heaped shame on
Vining for unsubstantiated conclusions, it wouldn't be until months later that
they were able to confirm that it was indeed just that.
VEST had considered putting a variant of the Mackie II based on this loadout
into production, but while it would be cheaper and vastly easier to build, they
simply don't have the time, nor the funds available, to pause the production
lines they still have working. As it is, with a ten month backlog on orders,
any disruption to their production times could very likely be fatal for the
company. However if they manage to scrape up enough loans to rebuild another
production line, this variant is already earmarked for it from the start.
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Equipment Type Rating Mass
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Internal Structure: Endo-Steel 152 points 5.00
Internal Locations: 1 HD, 2 LT, 2 RT, 3 LA, 2 RA, 2 LL, 2 RL
Engine: Light Fusion Engine 400 39.50
Walking MP: 4
Running MP: 6
Jumping MP: 0
Heat Sinks: Double Heat Sink 12(24) 2.00
Gyro: Standard 4.00
Cockpit: Standard 3.00
Actuators: L: SH+UA+LA R: SH+UA
Armor: Ferro-Fibrous AV - 304 17.00
Armor Locations: 6 LT, 3 RT, 3 LA, 2 RA
CASE Locations: 1 RT 0.50
Internal Armor
Structure Factor
Head 3 9
Center Torso 31 48
Center Torso (rear) 13
L/R Torso 21 31
L/R Torso (rear) 11
L/R Arm 17 33
L/R Leg 21 42
================================================================================
Equipment Location Heat Critical Mass
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rotary AC/5 RA 1 6 10.00
ER PPC LA 15 3 7.00
ER Medium Laser RT 5 1 1.00
ER Medium Laser LT 5 1 1.00
Large Pulse Laser CT 10 2 7.00
@Rotary AC/5 (60) RT - 3 3.00
Free Critical Slots: 1
BattleForce Statistics
MV S (+0) M (+2) L (+4) E (+6) Wt. Ov Armor: 10 Points: 21
4 4 4 1 0 4 1 Structure: 5
Special Abilities: CASE, SRCH, ES, SEAL, SOA
