Goliath

[DeJaVu]

GOLIATH

Type/Model: GOL-6HGoliath
Mass: 80 tons
Chassis: Earthwerks GOL Quad-A
Power Plant: Pitban 320 Light Fusion
Walking Speed: 43 km/h
Maximum Speed: 65 km/h
Jump Jets: None
Jump Capacity: 0 meters
Armor Type: Durallex Heavy with CASE
Armament: 1 Fusigon Strongtooth Heavy PPC
2 Delta Dart LRM-10s
6 SperryBrowning Light Machine Guns
2 Hellespont Array Assemblies
4 Defiance Razorback Anti-Battle Armor Pods
Manufacturer: None
Primary Factory: Field Upgrade
Communications System: Angst Clear Channel 3G
Targeting & Tracking System: Angst Clear View Multitask


We’ve known for some time that the Word of Blake has shadowy connection to the Periphery states nearest us. Both the Circinus Federation and the Marian Hegemony have accepted and given aid to the Word in the past, and while its becoming more and more clear that the Word has more or less conquered the Federation, reports indicate that the Marians have ejected the Word from their realm.
Evidently the Blakists left something behind.
New Goliaths have been spotted among the Marian Legions, and with a decent vid and some supposition, I can guess at what they’ve done with it. We make enough of the four-legged assault ’Mechs here in the Free Worlds that I’ve got some experience with them. It looks to me like they’ve been refitting standard GOL-1H chassis into a new monster by replacing the engine with a light fusion model. This liberates enough mass to replace the aging PPC with a Fusigon Strongtooth Heavy PPC, and while the Delta Dart LRMs remain place, the machine guns have each been replaced with two trios of arrayed light machine guns. Reports of the Marians fighting the Word of Blake seem to be borne out as the new Marian Goliath mounts four Defiance Razorback B-pods. These shredder weapons are the medicine prescribed for a ’Mech infected with clinging Purifier battlesuits. I wish we could get a hold of some here on Irian.
Unfortunately, Sherry on Hall sent me another vid of a new ’Mech emerging from the refit yards there. Evidently the Word, impressed with the results of their White Flame upgrade, has decided to give it a big brother. A new Goliath equipped with two of the Ceres Arms Crusher Plasma Rifles and a bank of medium lasers is just starting to reach Word formations. The vid I saw was fairly low quality, but I don’t think that was because the ’Mech mounted stealth armor stolen from the Capellans. I think it was just a bad camera.
But the stealth armor is there, anyway.
Reports from the rest of the Sphere show that opinion of the Goliath is on the rise, as it has been since we first introduced the GOL-3M. Both the Steiner and the Davion realms are still deploying their respective assault quad ’Mechs as quickly as they can be constructed, and more and more quad-designed BattleMech are being produced every year.
Clearly, the experiment represented by the GOL-3M has been justified. I only hope we don’t come to regret it as the Word shoves our innovation back down our throats.