hmm
That's not a choice, it's not even a write-in!
---
You elect to review your situation, your benefits, and your new job before you head to sleep and while you're waiting for your hair to finish air-drying and your take-out delivery to arrive. The planetary government has fairly comprehensive social welfare programs-you're already entitled to a basic ration, free basic health care, and a free, if somewhat dubious apartment. Better housing and food come out of your paycheck-and if you want to eat something other than rice, beans and tortillas, you might want to buy that food. Housing looks similar-if you want six roommates and one bathroom for an entire floor, the free option is fine-everything better is paid for. Thankfully, the medical front actually looks pretty good-you even have a private insurance through the new job that will cover a lot of optional things-even some plastic surgery! You'll need to get a local bank account and other paperwork sorted to actually start claiming some of these things, but eating and living fairly well on your new income should be easy.
You aren't sure exactly what you eat that night, but it has fish, shrimp, tomatoes and coconut. The bed is...well, you're not exactly sleeping comfortably-several times you wake up and attempt to punch it softer, but the mattress remains stubbornly firm. Your friends always did joke about you sleeping on a feather-bed, but you have to admit they had a point. By morning you're not well rested. But at least you're rested, dressed and meeting your fixer-a dull girl, not much of a conversationalist-and ready for the hour-long drive through city traffic to the factory campus. The factory and headquarters is a sprawling compound on the far side of the city, so the drive gives you time to take in the scenery, which you're pretty sure was intended.
The dawn light plays over the skyline, revealing a jumble of new and old. All the tallest buildings are Star league vintage, 'overaw local primitives standard designs'. Most of them are cold and empty frames, their windows and presumeably furnishings looted long ago for other purposes. A few though are refurbished and redone in a new style-certainly, no Star League aesthetic you've ever seen included that eye-searing shades of yellow and green adorning one building, or the red and purple on the next one offset by gold-tinted glass. Color is a thing the locals love though-you scarcely see one building that isn't giving at least one wall to a mural, or painted in a bright primary shade. Even the giant glass pyramid that you drive by has different tints of glass placed on it's surface to create a interesting visual pattern.
The compound itself is surrounded by a 4 meter fence, and has a small display of tanks out front. Most of them are old and obviously primitive designs, but the two at the end look like they have at least standard composite armor instead of the normal mild steel most domestic Periphery designs make do with. Meeting you when you arrive are two men-one young, with a marketing executive's practiced smile, one old and somewhat fat, who looks down his nose at you who is introduced as 'our company's chief designer for 30 years, Domingos Sanjiv'. Mr. Sanjiv explains in his own clipped words starting as a boy running errands for the designers, and working his way up without a day of formal education beyond the sixth grade. The fact that his latest model of tank uses a fusion engine is a sign of his own skill at self-education.
The tour of the production facilities, while not impressive, is encouraging. You eyeball their homegrown fusion plant at a nice round 240, a solid design spec, if not particularly novel. It's also the only model they produce currently, and you get a feeling that at least one of your first jobs will be to make a Mech that can use it. The local autocannon are 40nn and 70mm, unimaginative brutalist designs that are probably over-engineered because of deficiencies in materials. A SRM system also features, as well as some old-fashioned one-shot rocket tubes on their wheeled APC which is apparently still in production to equip militia despite it's being the oldest design they still make. The factory itself is a nice assembly line, but it's less impressive than the one next door. The floor space there is clean and cleared out, a blank cement sheet for new developments. The only clue as to it's purpose is the ten bays along one wall. Ten Mech bays, with robotic arms rigged to a overhead rail system that look designed to move across a production area, pick up components, and assemble them into a Battlemech. It's still unfinished-packing material is shoved into a corner-but the bays at least are solid, very respectable designs. Just 40 years ago, this would have been a start-up operation whose opening would have made headlines across the Inner Sphere, more for implications than for actual production figures.
The offices at the Campus aren't shabby either-R&D department has some sort of laser on a test platform when you meet them at the labs, and they shake your hand all around the labs. You get a promise of more toys to play with than what you saw on the factory floor before you're whisked off to meet the design office. Most of them are working on a medium tank when you arrive, but before you get a good look, computer screens are switched off and you get an enthusiastic welcome. Most of them are suitably impressed by your credentials and you get the feeling that you've got some smart people here-no geniuses, nobody who's exactly Banzai, but good co-workers. The computers look like they're running standard CAD software, no frills, no bells and whistles, but good stuff. While talking to them you expound a bit on your best achievement-
[ ] You helped design a XL engine-a test stand model, but you have hands-on experience with advanced technology.
[ ] You got your hands dirty and rebuilt a Panther that had been written off as scrap-and re-rigged it's power supply to feed a large laser and a pair of mediums.
[ ] Your class got experience moving from concept to test article-though the ultra-light prototype you were working with had neither armor nor weapons.
[ ] You spent your six months 'real world' at an Industrialmech factory re-designing the factory's layout to improve output, and estimated a 20% increase in production.After that, everyone breaks for lunch-and you get taken asside by the exec. It seems that they're interviewing candidates for the design team you're going to be in charge of-under supervision of course, but you're the only trained Mech-Engineer they have. But they're also holding a meeting on the design specifications the local government is calling for, and if you want to clarify what you're here to do, that's going to be where you'll need to be.
[ ] I need to have a say in who's on my team first.
[ ] I need to know what I need to build first.