suddenly imagining 'Regular Mech Reviews'
"The GM MDG-1A Rakshasa: for when you want to induce the animal terror response of staring down a Timber Wolf, if they squint hard, and have no IFF. A machine that says 'I will never matter, but that's okay, because nothing matters.'"
"RAKSHASA: because you get a fusion-powered BONER thinking about the POWER of the Clans, but you live on a Davion dirt-farm planet that can afford one new combine harvester per decade, and need something to look at while you imagine an elemental pinning you to a wall."
"The Rakshasa is what you get when a bunch of New Avalon undergrads look at grainy footage of Clan mechs in action, and decide 'hey, we've got Catapult parts AND Marauder parts! we could build one of those!' just before hitting a lungbuster bongrip of Capellan March Green."
"The thing about imitative design, we've seen this so many times, is you can mimic form all you damn well please, but if you imitate without understanding, you end up with the battlemech equivalent of twelve kids who all brought a hydrogen peroxide volcano to the science fair."
"The Timber Wolf is too visible. It's too obvious what you're doing when you copy it. You have to understand, this thing came out two YEARS after things like the Falconer, which were already proving the Inner Sphere could replicate Clan design sensibilities in an original way."
"Sure, the Rakshasa looks kinda like a Timber Wolf. It's also undergunned, under-armored, and has a cockpit that will collapse onto the pilot if you sneeze at it. So not only is it like getting Store-Brand Vanilla ice cream when you ordered Haagen-Daaz Coffee, it's a deathtrap."
"RAKSHASA: because you gotta rep your mercenary company's credibility and wealth to a bunch of uneducated Chaos March peasants and you're really hoping none of them have internet access."
"And, okay. When we say 'undergunned,' like... sure, it's got 10-racks with Artemis. It's got ER Large Lasers. It's got the same 'two Martell Mediums and a Pulse' that come stock on every single thing General Motors vomits out. It's not undergunned compared to a Catapult."
"And sure. XL engine. Ferro-fibrous. Endo-steel. It's got fancy ingredients. But nobody's comparing it to a Catapult. Its designers weren't comparing it to a Catapult. They were comparing it... to a Timber Wolf. And it is, definitively, not that."
"The Rakshasa exists because GM wanted something to throw at Davion armchair generals who look at it and go 'IT'S A BARGAIN FOR THE PRICE! MY MEN DESERVE THE VERY BEST!' except the cost of production is completely stupid and unjustifiable."
"That 375 XL engine? It's not cheap. And it's not supported in supply because they cut support for this heap inside of a decade. Meanwhile, for 5.5 million c-bills more, you just go to the Diamond Sharks and GET an actual Timber Wolf. It's a big, stupid red herring."
"RAKSHASA: because you want to fail, but not in a spectacular way. Not in a way anyone notices. Quietly, where nobody can see your shame as you slump, gently, down the side of a muddy hill. Your lance comes back, and you're dead, and nobody knows why, because nobody was looking."
@hystericempress Oh my god, is LRR's Cameron in the cockpit?
@hystericempress Ah, true, yes. I was just momentarily sidetracked by how easy it was to picture him delivering that description. "The lance comes back and I'm dead and nobody knows why because nobody was looking" is very much a thing he'd say. XD
@Soreth I feel like Cameron would pilot something with slightly more dignity. Not a lot more dignity, but the sort of knowingly doomed dignity of anyone who has ever sat down in the cockpit of a Locust staring down something that out-tons them 3-to-1.