V2.00 AJ. Edgar (Taurian Variant) _jCCA@@GL 004 2 2 12H "8Diverse Optics Type 2j Pinard Reaper2nThe J. Edgar is one of the oldest operating vehicles used in the militaries of the Human Sphere. Originally built by the now-defunct Alphard Trading Corporation, it was one of the most successful hover tanks of its day. In fact it success was so great that they could not fill demand for it and were forced to license other companies to build the J. Edgar on factories throughout the Human Sphere. Because of this, the J. Edgar survived the Succession Wars even though her parent company did not. Still, only Sudeten and Perdition hosted factory lines devoted to building them by the end of those devastating wars. And when Sudeten fell to the Clan Invasion, that left Pinard Protectorates Limited of Perdition as the only remaining licensee building the ancient hover tank. Still capable, much of the romance surrounding the old design had begun to fade, especially with the newer better tanks in production, and PPL was on the verge of canceling production of the J. Edgar. Only the timely intervention of a group of investors including former PPL engineers saved the J. Edgar from finally slipping into the long night that all abandoned war machines go to. They offered to purchase the license and the ancient factory line that produced them from PPL, and the company happily accepted the infusion of cash that would allow them to upgrade their successful Rommel tank. They washed their hands of the old war machine and never looked back. The investors in turn incorporated the single factory line as Alpha Trading Corporation, an obvious nod to the dead Alphard Trading Corporation, in 3055 and commenced with an operation to revitalize the J. Edgar into a modern war machine. The result was a superior combat hover tank. Alpha Trading Corporation at first attempted to upgrade the existing design of the J. Edgar but within weeks realized that modifications to the tank were simply impossible. The designs were too old, used equipment that was out of date by the better part of a millennium, and used design schemes that no modern engineer could even understand. In the end they decided to engineer a totally new vehicle designed to look like the J. Edgar of old. The new frame came easy, and the engineers soon found themselves looking at a passable representation of the old J. Edgar. Making it move was a more difficult endeavor. The redesigning of the interior works of the tank made it impractical for the old fusion engine to work and they were forced to perform heavy modifications to the power plant. One of the engineers had other ideas for the project though. Richard Lee had been one of the engineers that worked with the Wolf's Dragoons in the 3030s to develop a hover tank they would be willing to purchase, what became the Plainsman hover tank. He had maintained contact with those he'd worked with over the years and began negotiations on the side in an attempt to secure support for an extra-light construction operation. The Dragoons agreed to support the Alpha Trading Corporation with design schematics and consultants to convert their fusion construction facility to extra-light production. The weight savings of the new engine, even though it generated more power than the older one, allowed them to add extra armor and to heavily increase the J. Edgar-T's weapons array. Extra tonnage of Durallex Light Ferro-Fibrous from Taurus resulted in a significant armor boost, increasing the survivability of the design. Pinard Reaper Streak missile systems replaced the old missiles, making the J. Edgar-T both capable of performing heavier damage while also conserving ammunition. The final and most impressive change though was the expansion of the laser array. The J. Edgar-T's main laser turret actually holds the equivalent of three lasers. Attempts to have them share a firing circuit and expel their energy at the same time resulted in catastrophic loss of projection capacity, literally melting the barrel though. This necessitated a delay to be built into the circuitry, allowing each capacitor to empty its charge into the projection barrel at slightly different times. This resulted in a slight pulsing appearance that makes many enemy soldiers mistake it for a newer pulse laser array. The final design of the J. Edgar-T resulted in the production of a faster, more heavily armored, and more heavily armed hover tank that has sold extremely well. So well in fact that ATC funneled its profits into building the new Fulcrum hover tank, once again relying on Dragoon contacts to acquire further advanced electronic systems. ATC appears to be very successful for such a young company, and we expect great things from them in the future.Deployed with the Concordat Jaegers on Detroit, a lance of J. Edgar-Ts harassed a greater number of Liao-built BattleMechs for over a day while the main BattleMech force fought with a second BattleMech-equipped group near the old Star League factories. Had the two been allowed to merge and fight as one, the Jaegers very well may have lost the world to the pirates, but the lance of J. Edgars-Ts skillfully kept their enemy off balance. Striking from hiding, time and again they accelerated into point blank range to assault the backs of a single enemy at a time, bringing down even the greatest heavy and assault BattleMechs with their concentrated fire. Then they would fall back out of range or into carefully planned exit vectors where the pirates could not concentrate fire on them. By the end of the long battle, every tank had been badly mangled, some even with turrets blown off or ruined, but every single one lived to see the victorious Jaeger BattleMechs crest a hill before them and smash the surviving pirates into gibbering hysterics. The lance commander donated all of the BattleMechs his lance killed to the formation of a new militia of Detroit rather than take such slow machines for himself. CRoebinood Roebinood is a famous commander of J. Edgars in battle. Stories of his daring raids against the evil Sheriff of Syrtis have been a staple of children's entertainment in the Taurian Concordat for centuries, and were one of the reasons that the J. Edgar remained in production for so long. Roebinood brought romanticism to the tank and Pinard Protectorates Limited used that as much as possible to increase their sales. Force Sergeant Robyn Fitz Born to a family of modest means on Brinton, Robyn chose to join the Taurian Defense Forces at an early age after a Capellan raiding force bombarded much of her home town and destroyed her parent's home. Many of her friends, who also lost homes to the raid, followed her even though they were not old enough to begin their Four Years as well. With the town records destroyed, the TDF could not verify their ages and the group of friends were able to lie their way into service. In the years since, they have managed to keep their group together through numerous postings, despite many attempts by senior officers to break the wild group of partiers up. The action on Detroit seems to have gained them a great amount of respect, as well as a reprieve from dubious officers, and Alpha Trading Corporation has been quick to act on it. Labeling them the "Merry Men", they have begun an advertising campaign touting their "generous giving" of the captured BattleMechs to the poor settlers on Detroit. Obviously an attempt to link her and her friends to the legends of Roebinood, it has appeared to have a positive effect on J. Edgar-T sales.The negotiations with Wolf's Dragoons that netted Alpha Trading Corporation the extra-light engine stipulated that the Dragoons be given the first run of J. Edgar-Ts for testing. Their Special Recon Group used them to good effect in a number of classified actions, though the Dragoon techs reported a number of design flaws. Those flaws were corrected in the final production version and the Dragoons have purchased a large number of J. Edgar-Ts at a significant discount since. ATC has sold out of both major production runs, many going to noble regiments or other forces throughout the Taurian Concordat. They have also been seen in small numbers in the New Colony Region and the Magistracy of Canopus, obviously a result of the Treaty of Taurus. Some rumors place J. Edgar-Ts in the St. Ives Compact as well, suggesting that ties between the Compact and the Concordat are warming despite the Compact's ties with the Federation. Alpha Trading CorporationPerdition / TC (ATC)LeenexDurallex Light Neil 6000-xTracTex Alpha-1GC:\Program Files\HeavyMetal\Vee\vehicles\J. Edgar (Taurian Variant).hm-