I'm fascinated by deep periphery states.
Menelik MNL-1A
Mass: 55 tons
Tech Base: Inner Sphere (Primitive)
Chassis Config: Biped
Rules Level: Era Specific
Era: Dark Ages
Tech Rating/Era Availability: D/E-X-F-A
Production Year: 3119
Cost: 4,007,628 C-Bills
Battle Value: 1,036
Chassis: Unknown Primitive Structure
Power Plant: Unknown 265 Primitive Fusion Engine
Walking Speed: 43.2 km/h
Maximum Speed: 64.8 km/h
Jump Jets: None
Jump Capacity: 0 meters
Armor: Unknown Primitive
Armament:
1 Large Laser
2 Medium Lasers
2 LRM-5s
Manufacturer: Unknown
Primary Factory: Unknown
Communications System: Unknown
Targeting and Tracking System: Unknown
Overview: Upon first contact with Interstellar Expeditions in 3085, the Axumite Providence realized it had a problem. After close to a millennium without contact with the Inner Sphere, now that contact was unavoidable. The Axumites had only what they needed to defend themselves from each other. Now they would need to be able to defend themselves from all comers.
All was not lost. The Axumite people are a well-educated bunch. While they did not have much heavy industrial capacity, they had retained more technological abilities than many other states in the Deep Periphery. Most importantly, they had time.
Interstellar Expeditions was careful when making contact with the Axumites. They were content to let relations develop with them at a natural pace. More importantly, IE was willing to transport a team of Axumite scholars and diplomatic agents to the Inner Sphere so that they could see how things had developed in their absence.
The Axumites were rightly horrified by what they found. Less than half a century after the Jihad, the Republic of the Sphere was rising around the borders of the Terran Alliance. Tensions with the newly formed Republic and the successor houses threatened to break into open conflict. The Axumites saw the shadow of the same conflicts that had driven their fore bearers into the Deep Periphery.
In the time since they Axumites had left, the Star League had been born and died. Kerensky and his inheritors had departed and then returned as an invading horde. The Successor Houses had risen and then had for nearly a thousand years been trying to tear each other apart. The Inner Sphere was a House of War, and the Axumites needed to be ready for anything that might come from it.
During the time that the Axumites had been out of contact, the Battlemech had become king of the battlefield. It had also become nearly ubiqitous. Even relatively recently formed periphery states such as the Marian Hegemony were producing battlemechs of their own.
The Axumites needed their own mech, but simply buying and importing them wouldn't work. The appearance of a defenseless interstellar state would draw every pirate and raider to them like moths to a flame. They would need to build something domestically and get a standing force of mechs in place before their existence become common knowledge.
Fortunately for the Axumites the Inner Sphere held no shortage of companies capable of helping them. The problem was that most of those companies had ties to existing Inner Sphere militaries. Eventually the Axumites found one manufacturer that they could work with, Kressly Technologies. Kressly had a long history of providing military technology to small, independent states. Perhaps more importantly for the Axumites, they were willing to agree to keep their clients' confidential.
Capabilities: In exchange for future trading rights (and a DropShip hold full of rare earth materials) Kressly was willing to help. They had long been known as a manufacturer of simple but effective designs, and they were wiling to sell to anyone. What they suggested was a downgraded version of their Linebreaker battlemech. This mech had proved rugged and capable during the chaos of the FedCom civil war, and with a few modifications could be adapted to fit a lower technology base.
The Axumites were capable of building fusion plants, but their technology did not extend to the military grade ones used in the Inner Sphere. Kressly suggested changes to several large industrial models already being built in the Providence that would allow them to work as power plants for a mech.
The weapons of the Lineholder were simple by Inner Sphere standards, but more advanced than what had been available at the time of the founding of the Providence. Kressly was able to supply a good about of technical data on their manufacture.
The end result is something with similar features to the Lineholder, but capable of being produced by a much more limited industrial base. It retains the long range laser and missile fire of the original. It does sacrifice a bit of close-range ability and some speed.
The Axumites were unable to produce the type of armor commonly available throughout the Inner Sphere. They were able to approximate the armor available during the age of the Terrain Alliance. Accordingly the new design would be required about half again the tonnage of its parent.
Deployment: The end result of all this was the Menelik. Named for a a great hero of the historical Terran nation of Ethiopia from which many of the Axumites had come, the Menelik was the first battlemech adopted by the Axumite Providence Protectors law enforcement agency.
The Menelik's introduction was controversial. At the time, contact with Interstellar Expeditions was not widely known. The Axumites had gone for hundreds of years with no military. Its law enforcement agencies were considered to be sufficient to see to the security needs of the nation. Now one of its agencies was being given was was undeniably as a weapon of war.
Production was slow. Each Menelik had to be hand built initially. For the first Lance the fusion engines were rebuilt from existing industrial fusion plants. Several setbacks were encountered with the production of the weapons systems.
The initial contact with Interstellar Expeditions had been in 3085. The expedition to the Inner Sphere had been in 3090. The first Menelik did not come off of the assembly line until November of 3019.
Ultimately a few dozen Meneliks were produced. each world in the Providence has at least one lance assigned to it. They are generally kept in storage, except when taken on field exercises. So far Axumites have not had to deal with raiders, perhaps owing to how remote their realm is from the Inner Sphere. The feel that war is only a matter of time.
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Equipment Type Rating Mass
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Internal Structure: Primitive Structure 91 points 5.50
Engine: Primitive Fusion Engine 265 14.00
Walking MP: 4
Running MP: 6
Jumping MP: 0
Heat Sinks: Single Heat Sink 10 0.00
Gyro: Standard 3.00
Cockpit: Primitive 5.00
Actuators: L: SH+UA+LA R: SH+UA+LA+H
Armor: Primitive AV - 166 15.50
Internal Armor
Structure Factor
Head 3 9
Center Torso 18 24
Center Torso (rear) 7
L/R Torso 13 21
L/R Torso (rear) 5
L/R Arm 9 16
L/R Leg 13 21
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Equipment Location Heat Critical Mass
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Medium Laser RT 3 1 1.00
LRM-5 RT 2 1 2.00
Medium Laser LT 3 1 1.00
LRM-5 LT 2 1 2.00
Large Laser LA 8 2 5.00
@LRM-5 (24) CT - 1 1.00
Free Critical Slots: 39
BattleForce Statistics
MV S (+0) M (+2) L (+4) E (+6) Wt. Ov Armor: 6 Points: 10
4 2 2 1 0 2 1 Structure: 5
Special Abilities: SRCH, ES, SEAL, SOA
