Mercury Uplink Copter

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*"Love, Peace, Smilex."*

- Motto of Mercury pilots
## Tactical Analysis

* **Eye in the sky**: Boasting an enormous sight range, the Mercury provides line of sight for the Syndicate’s many long ranged weapons. And by stabalising its jets it can further extend its range, and detect stealth units at a shorter range.

* **Air traffic control:** The Mercury also can transport one vehicle (except fatties like Medusa) across the battlefield and if possible, connect its cargo's AURA projector with its own wireless communication suites, allowing friendly aircraft nearby to benefit from the respective AURA the vehicle would otherwise broadcast on the ground, the radius doubling when deployed.

* **Pacifist:** The Mercury carries no weapons and is defenseless against anything that can hit a helicopter. It's also relatively fragile thus must rely on friendly aircraft nearby to keep it safe.

* **Just A Part-time Job**: Despite its vast potential on the battlefield, the Mercury is still a civilian helicopter on short-time contract with Legion Security, a point repeatedly stressed by the pacifistic Mercury Pilots Association. Thus, they would never waste any money on attempts to militarize their choppers, such as adding a weapon.

## Background

**Pilot**: *Okay boys, you just lay down some fire on those targets over there, and I'll come pick you up later.*

**Talos Gunner**: *What, ain't you gonna help us?*

**Pilot**: *What, me? No way man. I'm a pacifist.*

**Talos Gunner**: *What? A pacifist! How can you be a god-damned pacifist?*

**Pilot**: *Yeah, it's bad for my Karma man. I don't mess with Karma. I just fly this plane.*

**Talos Driver**: *Just let it go!(sound of starting the engine)*

**Talos Gunner**: *Fuck that! That don't fly with me ya space muffin. I'm gonna Hawk you to the god-damn magic kingdom!*

**Pilot**: *Love ya man!(muffled by rotor spinning)*

**Talos Gunner**: *Ya god-damned muffin headed fucking pacifist!(sound of railgun being fired)*

*- An audio record collecting dust in a Legion Security evidence room.*

There are few things more difficult, not to mention dangerous, than traveling in the Sprawls. A maze of streets and alleys littered with ongoing construction, traffic jams, gang fights, and roadblocks all serve to hinder residents as try get from point A to point B. Even a simple run around the block risks stumbling into a shootout, never mind a trip to the grocery store. Travel by air would seem to be the safest bet, but skies can be surprisingly crowded; numerous Chariot Transports, drones, errant sky mines, not mention to the difficulty of finding a free landing pad.

This state of affairs was unacceptable to the Syndicate, how were they going to make money when their employees couldn’t get to work on time, and after the fifteenth meeting was canceled because half the would be attendees were “stuck in traffic” it was decided something needed to be done.

That something was the Mercury Uplink Copter.

Boasting state of the art radar and visual sensors, the Mercury could keep a constant eye on city streets. For a nominal fee, anyone could tap into the Mercury’s sensors and provided with the optimal route to get to their destination, and for an additional fee it will reroute you away any known hazards. Higher ups have an additional privilege, if they so desire they can load their ride into the Mercury, uplink themselves to the controls, and simply fly over any obstacles while the onboard air traffic control diverts away any local aircraft.

The Mercury’s isn’t restricted to civilian applications. It’s excellent sensors are great for spying on enemies and providing targeting information for artillery while its traffic control suite can be repurposed as an aerial AURA projector by connecting its cargo's AURA projector with it, allowing Mercury to broadcast respective AURA to aircrafts nearby.

All Mercury pilots are hand-picked by the helicopter's manufacturer, Maximilian Avionics. A company started by pacifists fleeing to Sprawls from conscription, being mocked as cowards or simply war itself, it offers every chosen candidate a chance to attend its private flight school for free. One would wonder what kind of individual would be trusted to pilot such a craft and the answer is not surprising. Mercury pilots consist entirely of pacifists, hippies, peace lovers, and others individuals who have chosen to live a non-violent life. According to Maximilian's official statements, its policy is to help fellow pacifists and anyone wanting to renounce violence make a living peacefully in vibrant Sprawls. Besides, peace-loving people are less likely to abuse their power to cause mayhem for fun like anyone else in Sprawls would do.

However, a post going viral on the Interweb disagrees. The poster claimed to be a escapee from Maximilian's flight school, a place she described as "a trap to lure test subjects for neurobiology/cybernetics experiments". According to her, Mercury pilots are actually wired directly into their craft during flights, with their brains conditioned and modified to receive and decipher enormous amounts of visual data. Although the pilots still look normal, the modifications leaves them little in the way of independent thought or action, reducing them to little more than semi-independent drones. She also speculates that the Mercury program is just the beginning: the next steps would be applying similar methods to lowlifes in Sprawls, then prisoners and parolees outside in the name of rehabilitation, then citizens of autocratic nations to eliminate bad thoughts, then anyone willing under the guise of promoting pacifism. When enough people around the world have been converted, they will easily make "pacifications" mandatory to everyone else. Eventually, the Syndicate will own every last one of human, mind and body, heart and soul. Maximilian Avionics spokesman has responded that such accusations are "baseless, pathetic attempts of slander by a hopeless dropout pretending to be a conspiracy theorist to draw attention" and the company will "take necessary measures to stop this libeler from damaging its reputation any further".