Vanguard Industries

Vanguard Industries is an old, major military manufacturer of the northern Periphery known for producing Aerospace assets, combat vehicles, and assorted weapons and support systems. Its Headquarters and primary facilities are located in the Grenze system.

## Company Information

### Product Ranges

* Combat Vehicles
* Aerospace Fighters
* Naval Assets

### Specialty

Omni Mediums

What would eventually become the Vanguard Industries consortium started as a disparate group of individual, small local corporations on Grenze. These small businesses made a variety of civilian ground vehicles and aircraft, and slowly merged and consolidated into progressively large and larger entities throughout the late 24th and mid 25th century. Among the minor businesses integrated into the proto consortium were also up and coming defense armorers, producing small-arms and armored vehicles for paramilitary security purposes, as well as defense against pirates and other such threats. By the late 25th century and the end of the Age of War, Vanguard Industries had grown into a regionally significant producer of Combat Vehicles of all kinds. These included a variety of wheeled, tracked, and even some hover vehicles, of which many tanks, armored personnel carriers, as well as mobile artillery and anti-air vehicles variants, generally powered by Fuel Cells or conventional Fusion drives. Atmospheric aircrafts were also among their products due to the importance of air transport on Grenze.

As the Amaris line took power in the Rim Worlds Republic, the board of directors of Vanguard Industries would, for the following centuries, begin to play a long game that mirrored that of the Amaris' own political schemes. They went through considerable efforts to placate the lords and scions of House Amaris, making shows of loyalty and regular token gifts in an effort to, ironically, keep their attention away and focused on the more 'unruly' and 'unreliable' elements of the Republic. This was all done to maintain their nominal independence, minimizing the amount of noble-meddling in the consortium's affairs, and avoiding the threat of potential nationalization. Effectively, it was a facade, and the Vanguard executives looked out only for themselves and their assets, an endeavor for which they were prepared to as morally flexible as possible.

It is thanks to that flexibility that they managed to avoid much damage during the Reunification Wars. When the Rim Worlds Civil War broke out, Grenze declared itself neutral, with Vanguard proceeding to create its own sizable 'self-defense force' and covertly selling equipment to both sides of the conflict while openly promising to each side that they were their only customer. When the SLDF barreled in with their operation MAILED FIST, reports of 'stolen' or 'hi-jacked' shipments surfaced, with scores of middle managers and low-level executives being sacrificed as scapegoats or found dead in 'accidents' to pre-empt the evidence that was eventually going to come up.

As the Star League era and the buildup of the Rim World Republic's military forces unfolded, Vanguard saw considerable expansion of its own, with the establishment of Vanguard Aerospace just a few years after the official end of the Reunification War, with sizable orbital facilities being constructed in the Grenze system for large-scale Aerospace Fighter lines, as well as a Zero-G mixing station for Endo-Steel. About a century later, Vanguard Aerospace had expanded enough to include DropShip production lines - of which Mule freighters were their largest seller - and even to justify the establishment of a new, third branch: Vanguard Capital Yards. This latest branch was initially used to service and maintain the ever-increasing amounts of Pinto-class Corvettes produced for the Republic Navy, but they also were used to refit and modernize scores of larger capital ships moth-balled by the SLDF and purchased by House Amaris, especially the old Monsoon-class Battleships. By the time of the Amaris Coup, Vanguard Naval Yards had been earmarked to increase the production of new Stefan Amaris-class battleships, but no hulls were completed by the time of Aleksander Kerensky's blitzkrieg.

When the famed - but angry - SLDF general arrived in the Grenze system, the Vanguard executives at the time did as Vanguard did best, taking advantage of the widespread unpopularity of House Amaris within the civilian population at this point to bribe, persuade or silence any officials that stood in their way as they welcomed Kerensky, nominally surrendered without a fight, and offered as much supplies and spare part to the SLDF as, effectively, a bribe to make the angry Russian go away with minimal destruction. So forthcoming were they that the Vanguard executives offered to cannibalize all resources and spare parts they could from the half-built WarShips at the Capital Yards. The offer was reluctantly taken, as the SLDF was in dire need of parts, avoiding an unnecessary fight against an heavily entrenched world meant losses not taken for the far more important coming battle in the retaking of the Terran Hegemony.

As the galaxy descended into the chaos of the Succession Wars in the wake of the collapse of the Rim Worlds Republic and then the SLDF itself, Vanguard - effectively in control of Grenze as a corpocracy at this point - decided to cut contact with the Inner Sphere and establish itself as the economic hegemon of the independent periphery systems that remained, seeking to avoid the mass destruction of the Succession Wars. It would not be so easy however, as House Steiner heard rumors that fully operational shipyards for WarShips had somehow survived the previous civil war, and a task force was assembled to either capture or at least destroy them. This time though, Vanguard decided to stand its ground.

When the Steiner task force jumped in, they immediately came under fire as space mines had been dispersed near all known, unauthorized pirate jump points. The Commonwealth had expected the system to be guarded by at most large numbers of aerospace fighters, augmented by some uncertain amount of battle satellites in a cruder, smaller form of elements of a space defense system. They did not expect to encounter the 'Ambitions', a Lola III class Destroyer, and a pair of Pinto-class Corvettes, scattered remnants of the devastated Rim Worlds Navy. Once the Lyrans shaked off the mines, they found themselves faced with a considerably more difficult fight than they had anticipated, and the admiral in charge scrambled as best as he could. After a 3-days long space battle, the Lola III laid crippled, the Pintos destroyed, and the dockyards were severely damaged. The Steiner taskforce, however, barely survived to limp back and report Mission Complete.

With no further interest in the Grenze system by the Great Houses, Vanguard Industries was free to return to playing Hegemon in the periphery. Over the following centuries, it would consolidate its control on the local democracy, making it a well-oiled puppet show. Additionally, Vanguard would begin to long, arduous process of repairing its installations, little by little with what extra resources could be afforded over the decades and centuries. By the time that Clan Ashen Corsac's intelligence operatives were able to use the local population's frustration, the flaws in their facade of democracy, and a small number of Warriors to spur a planet-wide uprising that forced Vanguard to submit to avoid a protracted war against its own manpower pool, the Ambitions had been completely restored to combat capable status while much of the naval yards had been rebuilt. Vanguard's resentment and hatred at the Corsac quickly began to lessen, as though they meddled with executive decisions and production lines considerably, they also introduced Omni technology and Clan weapon systems and electronics, which were of utmost interest to the executives.

## Branches

### Vanguard Motorworks

The oldest and most experienced of Vanguard's main three branches is Motorworks, a provider of Combat Vehicles of all types, ranging from small motorized infantry carriers to massive Assault-class tanks, passing by swift VTOL and helicopters. It offers a wide range of relatively cheap and cost-efficient local models generally powered by Fuel Cell or Fusion engines. In the chaos of the Succession Wars, Vanguard Motorworks sold indiscriminately to all periphery - or pirate - groups that bothered to ask, making their vehicles a common sight in the Northern Periphery.

Due to their history as having evolved from many consolidated smaller companies, Vanguard Motorworks owns a large number of decentralized plants scattered across Grenze's four sub-continents, making it difficult to assault. It also owns Vanguard Arms as a subsidiary, the main manufacturer of small-arms weapon systems for all non-capital vehicles, which also operates in a similarly decentralized fashion.

### Vanguard Aerospace

Though not nearly as old as Vanguard Motorworks, the Aerospace branch has grown to overtake it in terms of reputation and revenue, partially due to Combat Vehicles being often looked down upon compare to Mechs and Aerospace Fighters. Vanguard Aerospace historically had large-scale production lines for Fusion-powered Medium and Heavy Aerospace Fighters, with smaller, limited production lines for specialized models, support models, and high-value elite variants with XL engines. More recently, it has retooled its lines to begin the production of OmniFighters and increase its use of XL engines. Vanguard Industries' orbital Endo-Steel facility is also under the control of the Aerospace branch.

Unlike Motorworks' decentralized factories, Vanguard Aerospace makes use of a streamlined type of orbital assembly plant. Unofficially dubbed 'Aero-A', the station features a central, pressurized spine with gravity decks, parts and raw material warehouses, and shuttle bays. Extending out on each side of the central spine, with a trench-like gap between both, are two pairs of un-pressurized assembly lines for Aerospace. Each 'Quadrant has a capacity of 30'000 tons and is operated remotely via a control room that oversees a large network of robotic arms and machines operating in the hard vacuum. The Station is heavily protected against raiders, with a considerable amount of Large Pulse Lasers dispersed throughout the hull to fend of pirate ASF, while a heavy naval PPC in each facing is more than a threat to DropShips and Q-Ships.

#### Production Lines (3070)

 Phoenix IIC | Omnifighter
 Saker Falcon | Omnifighter
 Overseer | Command&Control
 Mirage | High-Speed Recon

### Vanguard Capital Yards

The last and shortest-lived of Vanguard Industries' main three branches, Vanguard Capital Yards had its golden age around the same time as that of the Rim Worlds Republic and the Star League. Originally founded to maintain, repair and refit already extant ships of the then-large Rim Worlds Navy, it was fully capable of constructing new hulls. About half a dozen Pinto-Class corvettes were constructed, while a pair of Stefan Amaris hulls laid incomplete and were cannibalized for parts during the Amaris Civil War. Its two smaller drydock stations were destroyed during the early Succession Wars, but the larger, sturdier capital ship drydocks survived, barely, and was slowly brought back to operational status by the turn of the 4th Millenium.

Though they laid empty, lacking any orders let alone the enormous amounts of resources required to build such formidable WarShips, Vanguard Capital Yards' remaining 'Titanforge'-class naval yard is a marvel of Star League era engineering, painstakingly restored. Two berths with a capacity of 1'200'000 tons each are nestled inside a giant H-shaped station. The inner sides are fitted with a dizzying away of multi-tool robotic arms, magnetic cranes and remote-control drones, while the outer sides are heavily armed and armored for a civilian station, featuring thick Ferro-Carbide armor and a mix of Heavy Naval PPCs and AC/30s to defend the hugely expensive strategic asset.

With the Corsac takeover, however, everything changed. The Titanforge spurred to life for the first time in 300 years as the Corsacs dragged back the derelict SLS 'Vengance', which was in need of extensive, factory-level repairs and refits, much as Vanguard Capital Yards had once been designed for, and by a stroke of cosmic poesy... the Vengeance was a Stefan Amaris battleship originally commandeered by Kerensky and used in Operation CHIEFTAIN. From the Vengeance's refit, a new class of modernized and altered Battleships was conceived, the Penance-class, and alongside, a fast Battlecruiser was also derived, the Paladin. Production of these gargantuan ships will be difficult, slow and costly, but once again, Vanguard Capital Yards has orders...