Burger Kong



The Burger Kong is an 80-ton assault IndustrialMech and corporate Totem mech of the BurgerKongs franchise.

Status
As an 80 tonner, it doesn't abide by the Treaty of 2613 to pass the requirements to be considered a SecurityMech - thus, it is built with industrial grade components and matching industrial "purpose".

History
With the recently recovered LosTech after the salvage of the Helm Memory Core, industrialmechs were becoming more and more common. To compete with, and allegedly surpass, the recent developments of SpheRonalds, BurguerKongs made a single main design (in comparison to the several ones of SpheRonalds), heavier and perhaps more intimidating due to the open use of melee weaponry. It was marketed with the tagline: "Be tough as an ape. Eat in BurgerKongs."

The campaign backfired from the response that "To stomach BurgerKongs food, you would have to be very tough indeed"; but the 'Mech was practical enough and its appearance did inspire awe, specially after showing how, unlike SpheRonald's fragile commercial-armor designs, it could resist boulder hits and its cover could easily deflect infantry-scale bullets. "You will be as strong as him if you eat enough of our burguers", the CEO, Adrian Sisko-Windu, said in an interview, noting the open-mouthed working class kids in the holovid that clamored "imma eat fifty KongBurgers(TM) now!".

Function
The main variant carries a wrecking ball and hatchet to demolish the local quarters of the competition -after legally buying them, of course-, which is a kid-friendly show. BurguerKong pilots are instructed in a variety of tricks with the hatchet, meant more to impress audiences as a marketing scheme than with another practical purpose.

A medium Bridge Layer allows the Burguer Kong to be helpful in logistics, but it bears mention that the 'mech itself may be too heavy to safely traverse its own bridges.

Combat
Despite its shortcomings and lack of longer-ranged weaponry, the BurguerKong is equipped with industrial-grade Triple Strenght Myomer which makes its melee attacks that much more lethal.

On the other hand, its huge Internal Combustion Engine means the 'mech is fairly slow, topping out at 54 km/h ; as sluggish as an Atlas, but without the long range firepower.

A bit on the brighter side, the 'mech mounts a considerable amount of Heavy Industrial armor, as resistant as military-grade standard armor.

The only weapons mounted are two vehicular flamers, under the excuse that an alternate foam ammo makes them suitable for firefighting (indeed, some firefighting vehicles use them). However, this combined with its physical prowess should buy it an easy win against the likes of the Big Mec, although the result of the combat against a Ronald battlemech is less than guaranteed. At least, the Burguer Kong is much cheaper to produce than its totemic counterpart.

Its targeting is not at all sophisticated, though later variants seek to fix this.

Internal security
The Burguer Kong isn't equipped with ejection systems, under the philosophy that "a good mechpilot employee goes down with their 'mech". In fact, the cockpit can be sealed remotely to impede the pilot to escape, to enforce corporate policy to fight until the bitter end (or rather, to make the fodder under their disposal fight...).

BRGK-A
The original version entering service in 3035.

BRGK-P
Made with Primitive technology, this variant is faster with a bigger Internal Combustion Engine, but the extreme increase in weight forced the designers to drop practically all of the equipment. A single concealed MachineGun is mounted in the head. Ironically considering the lackluster weaponry, this version upgrades the cockpit to a Standard one with Advanced Targeting, mainly in the hopes it will help with construction/demolition tasks and melee attacks.

BRGK-C
A version constructed with a salvaged Centurion Weapon System and a concealed torso cockpit, this totem is suppossed to show how intimidating the Kong can be.

Related developments
When labor conflicts got hot and increasingly militarized towards the mid-3050s, BurgerKongs Ltd. developed the aging Burger Kong blueprints into a new 'mech called the Super Kong.