New Avalon 1.3​

New Avalon 1.3​The Wolf Dragoons name drop hadn't been really thought out... he knew they were famous, but their sheer impression their name rep and fame had by the time he'd been an adult in another world had come off as the authors wanting to hype up their pet faction... but it probably was also true by that point Battletech as a fandom and IP in that other world had had so much other stuff going on, and had been competing with other things.

This, in a real world, he might have thought that was just hype.

... but no The Wolfs were a big fucking deal. They were a brand, and they had started their tenure with the Fed Suns so they were a big fucking deal here. Just the mention that that was an option attracted so much more attention from Sandoval than he had been expecting... and he was glad when Yvonne headed things off, "Lets focus one thing at a time."

"Yeah," He agreed, "Like I said these are a cost effective solution, but the centurion is already in service and you wont have to train techs on a new machine they've never heard of before." He continued quickly. Ugh, there were days he simply despised the marketing presence and cultural phenomenon that the Wolf Dragoons enjoyed... but there was nothing he could do about that. "I will be happy to talk about standard parts with Archenar and Kallon for that matter but the entire reason for the interest in Corean is that it is in service, the Centurion, and that they have recently completed a new factory here."

Was he really that differently wired than they were when it came to these thing?

He didn't want to think so... but he had to admit the prospect of having extra universal knowledge shouldn't have been that much greater logistical insight.

Henry shook his head, took a minute to snag his coffee and drink, which yielded the floor to the other Davion present. Hanse looked like was something back, his posture had shifted a bit when he had mentioned techs, but maybe that had been him commenting about the Dragoons. Ian had been the one who had hired them when they had first appeared in the Inner Sphere after all. "We will have to inform the First Prince of all of this, a new domestic Heavy BattleMech is obviously something that can't be ignored. Its in the national interest."

Henry couldn't help himself, "You know the Marauder II is a thing right, I mean I absolutely would love the rights to produce that," Arguably to the point where he might have ordinarily joked about killing over it... except someone would have probably taken that all too literally, "But leaving that aside, okay its a heavy battlemech I am open to discussions regarding the Longsword, or other projects." He took a breath, "Look Hanse, make me a list, and I will give an itemized response of what is and isn't practical and why for it is or isn't in a given time frame... but mostly that's going to boil down to if not the production of the major components then lack of trained personnel created bottlenecks in manufacturing then it is is the supply situation in the merchant marine." Another breath, " I mean think about how long it normally takes to get from point a, say Robinson, Or Sakhara in this case, to reach New Avalon, versus what that is with a dedicated full time allocation of JumpShips. This is why this is my priority. With Corean, the machine is established. The centurion is a standard enough common service design within the AFFS logistics system, and there is already a set of experienced workers who have set up one new factory recently. But if the Longsword is of the national interest they're here," Being endowed to Avalon, "For the school to take a look at."

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"You know things would be so much easier if he were just a mech ace."

"He reminds me of Dr. Banzai. Not identical but they both have that sort of manic energy about them," Hanse replied as the scores tallied. Since Hanse hadn't bothered to use the jump jets... it was new BattleMech design, Henry was currently out on the course. The Rabid Fox had given him a great deal to think about whether he knew that or not. What Clay probably was ignorant of was the true value of what his victory on Halstead Station had won the Federated Suns, beyond just humiliating the Combine and destroying one of the most historically vile units of the DCMS.

What had been lost to history and then found... and what they had kept out of the Combine's hands. The regiment of sword of light shattered on Halstead station had given them time to strip the vaults of all their valuables. That they had also certainly severely damaged Takashi Kurita's plans to establish a supply depot on Halstead to support offensives.

With little to do he broached the question, "And there still has been no sign of the 2nd​ Sword of Light being reconstituted?"

Yvonne Davion shook her head, "No, we assume it has to be coming, but to the best of our knowledge the Regiment disappeared from the rolls. If the Combine means to reconstitute it it will require moving units and personnel from other units in the brigade... we really would have expected to see that take place but we've had nothing to substantiate those expectations."

The Combine continued to publish an alternative account of the battle in their public narratives. After all the Coordinator couldn't possibly have made a mistake so much as that samurai had been attempting to honorably avenge their predeceased commander, and if that meant pretending they'd been fighting some lostech assault battlemech from the end of the star league well... that seemed to be the route they had committed to. "Even so," Hanse started to protest.

"From what we understand," The Duchess of Victoria replied as the seventy tonner's ppcs flashed on the screen, "the combine failed to recover much of their equipment, Halstead Station's environment was far from hospitable, but he had expected them to be able to make some gains."

Aaron Sandoval nodded, "The dome and the magma vault did collapse that could have caused geologic instabilities burying any salvage under thousands of tons of earth."

"That is the working theory."

Hanse knew that the vault's breach hadn't critically compromised the area. The fighting hadn't helped, but in his discussions with Ian he had had to make clear to his older brother that even though they had the upper hand they needed to strip the vaults of all their material... and then that they should scuttle the load bearing supports as they withdrew. If they were lucky, if their luck had held then the Combine might well have just written it all off, or wasted the better part of a year digging for some idea of what the AFFS had been after.

... but simply denying that find to the Combine was not the same as as effectively utilizing what they had found, and Hanse knew they would need leverage in order to have Ian move... and he was hoping that the prospect of a new shipyard might convince his older brother that the Federated Suns stood at a unique, and historical opportunity by which to move their nation into the future.

"can he fix the McKenna shipyards?"

"I believe he has those resources," Yvonne replied. Then it was simply a matter of allowing Ian, receiving his brother's consent to post his youngest vassal to the capellan march, "We have a year, and if in a year the shipyard at Sakhara is operational then we will have our answer."

Even if it wasn't quite ready, allowing for teething issues with the machinery that by itself would mean that the Federated Suns had a new Shipyard. A new shipyard, not a refurbished star league era one, but an entirely new line to produce JumpShips.

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Notes: this would have been up this morning but my computer decided to freeze up and fucked up the update for this, saturday's update of aoe sunday's update for ghost... anyway so I went to bed without posting as a result this is sans Ian's introduction, which I will rewrite for 1.4 New Avalon.