[Military] Will The Hierarchy’s Next Weapon Of Choice Be Batarian-Made?

Will The Hierarchy’s Next Weapon Of Choice Be Batarian-Made?

Hiral Calgomis, Safety Off Weekly

Only two weeks have passed in the open tender for the Hierarchy’s new squad automatic weapon, and surprises continue to mount as Erszbat-based Dumah Gunworks, the Confederacy’s official successor to Batarian State Arms, has declared their intent to place an offer for the contract.

Although their bid’s exact nature has not been revealed, it is already a topic of discussion – Wnot just for weapon experts and gun aficionados, but also political commentators and armchair politicians. While many dismiss the situation with comments such as “Inconceivable”, “disgusting” and, in one notable case, “This just in, batarians still have delusions of grandeur”, the news has also provoked several interesting conversations. Popular extranet discussion forum Relay Four saw several attempts to vandalize a multi-page thread discussing the implications, and whether it is a sign of the Confederacy attempting to reintroduce the batarian people as a member of the galactic community. Meanwhile, SAMC quartermaster Jason Roost’s personal blog entry on the matter was shut down by vandalism. His article, which compared Batarian State Arms’ reputation for low quality to its excellent no-export products, was deleted after its comments system crashed under a barrage of anti-batarian xenophobia. (Editor’s note: With Mr. Roost’s permission, we’ve made a copy of the entry available on our site, here.)

Another interesting angle has been raised by an anonymous user of GalaxyNewsNetwork, whose one-line comment drew attention to the a lack of similar reactions when offers were made for a variant of the human-made N7 Typhoon, the asari-made Zealot (Editor’s note: actually a commissioned salarian design), or the four (at last counting) separate offers of parties claiming ownership of fabrication rights to the infamous “Revenant” light machine gun.

Representatives of the Hierarchy at first declined to comment, but later publicly dismissed a rumor that they would give in to racial prejudice and disqualify Confederate Arms Manufacture’s entry regardless of its details. One way or another, we here at Safety Off will be watching this unfold with interest.

Yeah. Gonna be interesting to see what comes to the table. Don't really get why everyone is all up-in-arms over the batarian move, though. Of course the Hierarchy isn't going to pick their design, and the batarians know it. They're just showing off their tech for the rest of C-space.

And that's perfectly okay. Let them show off a bit.

But why does the news even pretend that there's a chance?

Political correctness, mostly. They want to be "fair" to all of their listeners, since there isn't really one race that epitomizes the lawless Terminus anymore. The batarians stood up and fought with the rest of us, so they get their benifit of the doubt. Won't be long before C-space picks out a new boogieman though.

EDIT: Sundowner makes a good point too.

Drama. It sells news feed subscriptions.

Solregit used to be rotten with "news" articles about Sundowner cells active on Palaven. We could only *wish*, back then, and of course now there's no point to it. But people saw the headline, got alarmed, and subscribed to the news feed, only to find out that the article was purely theoretical.

They already did - Parnack is the new Tuchanka!

Given the possible actions of a few of your species, I'd imagine it's you for quite a few people.

Evidently, given the "What's up with the Citadel" thread. I really wish I could explain what the hell was up with my government, but... There's a reason I'm an independent contractor.

I'm not exactly one to criticize the Hierarchy, but I honestly think we should try and bring in a line of firearms and stick to them. Constantly swapping them out won't be doing any favors in terms of cost and efficiency.

It really depends on a lot of factors. Maintenance costs being a big one. If it costs more to maintain old equipment than it does to replace it, maybe it's time to move up. On the other hand, if you're shelling out big bucks to replace everything for a marginal gain in quality and effectiveness, maybe you should reconsider. Because that new gear becomes old gear before long, and you have to maintain it too.

Then every once in a while you end up with a piece of equipment that does not perform as advertised. I'm sure every military in the galaxy has at least one story of a mission critical piece of hardware or software that had a reputation for failing at the worst possible times.

Cost is a factor any military needs to think about, but honestly, what's worse? Spending a bit more on getting some new guns or ending up with obsolete equipment that will get you and your unit killed?

There's a lot of problems associated with swapping out a standard issue weapon-you've got to issue it to everyone, you've got to train everyone on it, etc, but it can be worse to stick with a weapon that needs replacing.

At least it's not like the Marine Corps between '84 and '86. We had just gotten trained up and used to the Avenger and then they decided to bring in the Valkyrie.