[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.

...huh.

That's a thing.

The guy's right about BSA's difference of quality between for-export and not-for-export goods, used the Kishok a couple of times during the War and damm that thing packed a punch.

The problem I can see, the Heirachy might insist the winning bid give up manufacturing rights to the weapon (or rather, it'd insist on having the right to manufacture the guns itself).

There is no conceivable way the Hierarchy would be stupid enough to choose the batarian design. The weapon will almost certainly be a turian-manufactured light machine gun, despite the intent to open the market to non Hierarchy species.

It'll end up being Heirachy-manufactured, sure, but design maybe not.

You'd be surprised at how durable and reliable batarian gun manufacturing can be.

No, no, holy fuck no!


This guy gets it. Props, bud.

Shit me, bro, only a year of every ma, pa and creepy uncle in the galaxy having to grab guns off the nearest dead guy to shoot Reapers and no everyone's a rutting expert. Well they ain't, you get me?

Lemme keep it simple for you folk. Look at us turians. And yeah, you ladies can just go ahead and untangle your panties, I know we're sculpted works of art but I'm talking here, yeah? Look at those magnificent claws on the end of each arm. You see how many digits we got? Yeah that's right. Three.

Now look at them moody batarians. Oh yeah, they got five on each hand. You think a weapon designed for a dude with five fingers is going to be at all user friendly for a bro with three? IT AIN'T. And I'm not even talking about the obvious things here, you know? Sure, you can swap out the grip. I seen plenty of furheads firing Phaestons with swapped out pistol grips that fit those freakishly large hands. You can recalibrate the optics, you can rewrite the OS, you can even replace the charging handles. It's getting expensive here, but you can do it if you're making enough savings on the weapon. You know what you can't change? Yeah, the mechanisms.

Any of you civvies got any idea how hard it is to do field maintenance on a weapon made for a species with more fingers than you? It's fucking hard, even with a tool. You can give a turian a batarian rifle for a mission, no probs. You give him one to wage a campaign with, and he's fucked.

It's not exactly hard to do the redesign to accomodate for three-fingered species.

Or at least, shouldn't be for any competent designer.

Sweetheart, if you're redesigning the internal mech, you may as well be designing a whole new rutting weapon, you get me?

And like I said earlier, if you buy 500 LMGs off the batarians to equip a company with, and then you gotta get the QM to remodel every single fucking one of 'em, so you gotta buy a load of replacement parts and waste a bunch of dudes' time, are you even saving any money?

I'm not a math kinda guy, so I dunno. But it sounds stupid enough to me, hon.

Also, you know where all the competent designers are? Yeah, they're working for friggin Armax and Haliot. So why not just buy from them in the first place, you feel?

...okay, my last post was actually misspeaking a little, sorry.

Like I said earlier, I don't think it'll be buying the physical weapons from the Batarian company. What'll happen is that they commission the winning bid to make the design of the weapon. Then, the Heirachy will produce the gun itself. No replacement parts needed because the guns have been designed from the beginning to work for Turians.

As for competency, that's why they're making this a bidding process, so they can choose who'll be able to deliver the best design. Despite your implication, there are good non-Turian gun manufacturers out there.

Hey, Interesting

HardDrop, no offense but asari and turian gun manufacturers are doing the exchange handle routine right of the assembly line for over a millennium now, that's basically a design request for any company that wants to sell more than just into their own military (like mixed merc groups...) Also what are we talking here, an ergonomic grip and buttons? Guns don't have clockwork mechanics after all so you need to snap-click stuff to reconnect the electronic interface.

In the end, I think Baker is right, the hierarchy may look at the designs but in the end must have the manufacturing under their control. It is just a necessity for their military role to not be dependent on an outside source.

Huh.

Man, I feel like a jackass now. Sorry, hon. Yeah that make total sense. Shit, that's what happened with the old P22 PDW our APC drivers still use, just to prove I'm a fuckin idiot. Elkoss design, but ground up designed for turians, ain't ever been or ever will be volus issue. Thing looks like it got stamped out at the same factory as the Phaeston.

Yeah I know, the designers bit I meant like all the competent turian designers work for Armax, you feel? Got a lot of time for some of the shit humans produce, as it happens. Salarians too, though they tend not to outfit grunts like me, you know?

Shit, I ain't never gonna learn not to run my mouth. My bad, bro.

Please don't change and keep up the good work.
Just buy me a beer next time.

It's okay, looking at my post you responded to, it really wasn't well thought-out. So, I think we misinterpreted each other's positions slightly. :)

I might repeat what Taleeze said about a beer, though. ;)

Nah, that ain't what I meant at all, I talked about that shit. Depends on the manufacturer too as to whether or not you can buy turian fit as standard. That Disciple shotty a load of your commandos go weak at the knees for? Yeah, even if a turian wanted to embarrass themselves using it, it's a single unit. Grip's moddable but the trigger assembly ain't, you really got wrap ya claw in there and it ain't comfy, you feel? Don't even get me started on how hard swapping out ammo blocks is.

The shit I'm talking about is how hard it is to keep the barrel cleaned when the maintenance port's built for some skinny asari fingers and you're trying to wedge a claw in there, you get me? Shit like oiling the tension mechanism, or cleaning the ammo bracket. If a gun ain't designed to be taken apart with a set of three, that shit gets difficult. And if you cock it up, and suddenly your rifle ain't working when you make contact, you're fucked, right?


And yeah like I said, got the wrong handle on it. This is why I'm only a sergeant and not the REMF making these decisions, ya dig?



Ha, sure thing. Any time ;3

Oh, I get exactly what you mean. Vital to have a well-cleaned rifle, or you're screwed (and not in a fun way).

Incidentally, the Disciple's a prime example of a really, really specialised gun. It's made for the hit-and-run stuff we're famous for, and it's designed to work well with the standard mnemonics Commandos are taught for combat biotics. Most weapons purpose-built for the Republics are like that, in fact, but the Disciple more so.

And I might hold you to that if you're ever on the Citadel.

I catch your angle.
But yeah, as I said, Every company that wants to sell their stuff has this in the design requirements catalog. I have o idea how the batarians handle this. From recent history you may be right, they probably didn't waste a thought about how turians could clean their weapons I guess.
The Disciple is a bad example though as it it is absolutely not directed at turians, it is a lightweight biotic weapon.
I know a huntress who loves her Striker for example, a gun not manufactured with asari hands in mind. But maybe biotics help with the cleaning? I know these fuckers get dirty as hell after a day of shooting, I had the pleasure to work on it a bit.

yay

Most militaries have their weapons suppliers affiliated them or at least within their territory. Like, say if the Confederacy and the Hierarchy were to go to war-their weapons designs and supplier would be easily accessed by an enemy government. Which is, you know, bad.

So I'm not convinced that the battles will get this contract, quality of product or not.

A shame Roost's blog was vandalized, I highly value his insight into guns and his unbiased approach.
I usually lack the latter when it comes to batarians, so I turn to him for a second opinion.

I think the hierarchy will (if they actually settle for an alien design) license the design and have one of their own providers manufacture it. Out of curiosity I hope the details of the trials will make it to the press just to see how the individual entrys compare to each other and to the specs the hierarchy ordered.

Isn't that kind of the point? Get a reliable, foreign weapon so that they're dissuaded from going to war with them - defense interdependence, of a sorts?

Even if what I just said is completely wrong, I hope that the batarians get the contract. Their weapons and armors aren't appreciated enough, and this could really bring them into the limelight.

Yeah. Having one corp in your country selling weapons to another government doesn't create defence interdependence. That usually takes military alliances, a lot of selling of military equipment (and I mean a lot) and exercises designed to create inter-operability. Kinda like what the Alliance-Urdnot-Hierarchy alliance will probably doing. That sort of thing takes a lot of effort to create and all parties need to want.

Nations-they'll always look out for themselves first, you know? Part of that is not being dependent on someone who you don't trust. Not saying that the Confederacy can't be trusted, just that I doubt tht it and CSpace trust each other yet. There's a lot of bad blood there and that takes time and concerted effort to dismantle.

I'm just saying that there's a reason that turian corps have always been the ones to manufacture hierarchy weapons and it's not just design issues.

I had a look at that blog post (I'm a quartermaster myself so I like to pay attention to this sort of stuff) and there's apparently some pretty good stuff by those guys-never fired one myself so can't give an opinion on them. I do reckon we might see more of their guns around-it'd be a shame if they aren't-but I'm not convinced it'll be in the talons of the turian military.

Yeah, I don't understand what's going on here. Of course the turians are going to choose one of their own corporations, both to help rebuild their own economies and because the long-standing relationships with said corps give them more room to negotiate.

Pretty much everyone but the top three contenders enters these things to get publicity anyway, and there's no reason why batarian companies shouldn't be able to do that too. It totally works! I want to try the gun now.