Mizrak Medium Scout 'Mech

Introduced around the same time as the Barbarian, the Mizrak was intended to fill the same general medium scout niche as the Phoenix Hawk and, perhaps more specifically, the Star League-era Hussar. Lighter than the former 'Mech and heavier than the latter, the Mizrak dedicates over a quarter of its forty tons to a 320-rated extra-light fusion engine that can push its limber frame to 130 kilometers an hour and eight vectored-thrust jets in the legs and torso for a 240-meter jump distance. Built around a large extended-range laser and with a standard medium laser in each arm, the Mizrak has a respectable punch and tolerable heat curve.

As a dedicated scout, TME engineers designed the Mizrak to exemplify two key principles: mobility and visibility. Both principles were adhered to at the cost of protection, since a scout should generally avoid combat whenever possible and rely on mobility should it be pressed into it. Mobility was exemplified by the 'Mechs double-joints, which, while exposed, made the Mizrak much more flexible than most of its competition. Visibility was achieved through the Mizrak's massive bubble canopy, similar to the one on the Battlemaster. The similarities to the assault 'Mech's cockpit did't end there; unlike most scout 'Mechs, the Mizrak's cockpit was both spacious and comfortable for extended periods.

The Mizrak's development went relatively smoothly but was marred by the combat simulation phase, where engineers found that the combination of relatively thin armor and an extra-light engine meant that their dedicated scout was rather fragile. Neither the managers nor the engineers failed to be concerned with this development; it was the expected result of design trades. Marketing, however, saw it as problematic since TME Industries was building a reputation for durability through sales of the Robur and Tikbalang. A fragile fast scout could harm that image, no matter how logical or expected it was that a fast scout be fragile. As many times as the marketers were told to be honest and say it was a harasser at best and not designed for intense combat, the marketers came back saying it would harm the company's strategic image.

Some wiseass engineer opined that since TME Industries was essentially a mysterious and secret guild anyway, why not just create a shell company and sell the Mizrak under a different brand name?

The concerned marketers thought this was a brilliant idea and immediately went to work on doing so, while the more conservative marketers instead ran a few informal surveys through the trade worlds on the next delivery run. The surveys discovered that public perception of TME was more along the lines of "those mysterious guys who can build anything, like NETC but more secret and with better quality" rather than "those mysterious guys that built that tank that refuses to die." This alarmed the senior marketing staff since a fragile but effective fast scout would only emphasize the real image that was coming out of the wash rather than the image they previously thought they were engendering, and this whole 'market the Mizrak under a different brand' would actually dilute TME's effectiveness. The marketing team responsible for making the new company were offworld jumping through the hoops necessary to incorporate a shell, and TME Industries avoided HPG usage as much as possible (plus there is no HPG on Tinker's World), so it became a race as to who would market the Mizrak first.

TME Industries won, since it was already officially incorporated and not buried in paperwork. This surprised--and offended--the offworld marketing team so much that they went rogue. For any other organization a few soft-subject perfect-coiffed sales wonks 'going rogue' wouldn't be much of a problem, but TME Industries was a closed society which worked under tight operational security and it was understood that once one was in, one never left. Not breathing, at least.

Thus started the short, covert campaign later known internally as The Marketing Incident and externally as nothing more than a few cranks saying something wacky about secret Star League facilities before being fatally mugged in the streets. Nothing particularly newsworthy about that.