Jerboa
The Gear that would eventually become the Jerboa was originally designed by Eddie Verton and Isaac Verton of Jan Mayen. Eddie was a competitive rally racer originally from the Mekong Dominion, but moved to Jan Mayen in TN1923 in order to escape crushing debts owed to the Yakuza. In Jan Mayen, he met an eccentric and compulsive Isaac class GREL, who regularly repaired Eddie’s offroad motorbike in exchange for the use of his last name, Verton. Out of this friendship, Verton Tech emerged.
The small company initially manufactured custom off-road vehicles. Two of these vehicles went into regular production after the pair couldn’t meet the orders that came flooding into the small shop. In the Summer of TN1932, Verton Tech relocated from Jan Mayen to Prince Gable to open a factory for their Desert Springer ATV, and Sand Stalker dune buggy. It was during this time, that Eddie won a contract to maintain the Port Arthur Korps’s Ferret Gears. The parts and components were manufactured at a secondary facility in Port Arthur, and the company saw a regular source of income from both endeavors. With regular revenue, the friends toyed around with the development of a custom Gear based on the Ferret’s ingenious secondary movement system. The initial prototype of their experimental Gear simply took a stripped down Ferret MK II with an enlarged cockpit and experimental boosters mounted on the sides of the rear wheel. The expanded cockpit was to accommodate a pair of volunteer Minerva GREL test-pilots. With the booster rockets added by Isaac Verton, the only test pilots willing to try out the Gear were Minerva Zella-5563 and Minerva Kaya-8829, both former transatmospheric fighter pilots craving the speed and g-forces of their prior occupation.
The initial modifications proved disastrous; the frame of the small Gear couldn’t handle the strain of the boosters and literally shook apart on first engagement. Zella was hospitalized for nearly a season from the injuries she sustained from the accident. Horrified by the results of test, Eddie nearly shut down the project. Isaac, on the other hand, perceived the design flaws and went back to their hangar to start from the ground up. A cycle later, the first Jerboa prototype was complete, but the design lacked a crucial component. Without the expertise to manufacture NNets, the Jerboa lacked the central processing power to function. Isaac had to utilize the scrapped Ferret’s NNet, but felt that the processing power of the unit wouldn’t be adequate for the Gear. The second test run was performed by Kaya in Winter 15, TN1936 just outside of Port Arthur. While the GREL could handle the Jerboa, the Gear’s responsiveness was sluggish and poor compared to the Ferret. Frustrated with the limitations of production, Isaac mothballed the Gear.
After the subpar performance at the track, the Vertons took another contract with PAK. The Cyclone Hover Cycle was designed with the help of PAK and HAPF engineers, and at the time they were working on the project, Eddie had discussed he and Isaac’s pet project. Engineers working on the Gallic Series were impressed with the Jerboa’s design and the lack of a good recon Gear in the series made the Jerboa an ideal candidate. Three weeks later the Jerboa had a proper NNet and the production model was authorized a season later.[1]
Usage
The Jerboa is one of the longest serving Gears in the Gallic Series, and was immediately pressed into service as it was released. The larger cockpit on the Jerboa made the recon Gear incredibly popular with forces. Currently the Jerboa has seen wide deployment in the HAPF, PAK, and NuCoal SDF. Within the SDF, the Jerboa is the main recon Gear and has largely supplanted any polar recon Gears.
Second line units within PAK still utilize the Ferret, but are quickly replacing the Northern Gear for the locally manufactured option. The Humanist forces have been the slowest to adopt the Jerboa, but a recent licensing deal by Verton Tech with Javelin Strategic Industries to produce the Jerboa for the HAPF in the South has opened up the market for the Gear.
While the Gear has seen wide distribution in the military, the civilian model Jerboa is better known. Verton’s own racing team composed of the original test pilots Minerva Zella and Kaya won the Deathtrack 1000 in TN1945 and TN1946. The Jerboa was banned from the event after claims that the boosters gave the vehicle an unfair advantage over the competition. In response to the ban, Eddie and Isaac started the VT Pro Challenge at the Boyce Canyon Switch in TN1948. The competition held once a season allows any Gears, and features fast paced racing in a collapsed MacAllen tunnel near Prince Gable. With a heavy amount of sponsorship from local Hermes72 networks, the VT Pro Challenge has proven to be an extremely popular competition.[2]
Variants
- Jerboa Paratrooper
Gallery
References
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