Texlinz

Some companies are remarkably effective at covering up shady pasts. Texlinz is one of them. Formed in Lima well before the Talinz unit was even a twinkle in its mother’s eye, Texlinz (Originally TexLima), was a robotics research unit themselves. The company itself had originally applied for the UN Development commission grant that would eventually result in the frames. It had a remarkable pedigree; having already performed a lot of important groundwork in the field of computational neuroscience, and was pulling in large amounts of money from the Peruvian Government at the time for the construction of an Artificial Neural Network to monitor the El Niño. It was, however, deemed that a private company was unsuitable to spearhead the project.

In the wake of the Talinz Project’s completion, rather than attempt to introduce a competing model, the company adapted fast, eating up as many subsidies as possible, using the profits to fund their own research into more esoteric fields. Their huge South American production base turned the newly rebranded Texlinz into the largest manufacturer of Talinz frames within three years. In a rather cynical riposte to the research councils who had denied them, Texlinz had managed to attain an immense share of the market without having to spend any of their own money on research and development.

In the meantime, the more esoteric fields would prove to be remarkably useful in the production and advertising of their own frames. Talinz units that could pick up and process substantially larger sensory inputs than competitors, those that could react much faster than their peers, even those that could be used in orbital networks were all quickly released into the world by Texlinz. They were among the first to contract with government military and police forces also, gaining a reputation for efficient, robust systems with few points of failure. It would be these latter contracts that would become Texlinz main source of income, and much of their research and development budget was funnelled into advanced team protocols, attempting to create Talinz that could best a human pilot in combat unassisted, or multiple units linked to a single ‘vanguard’ pilot, reducing manpower costs to allow the fielding of ever larger forces as the wars escalated.

The Baku treaty ended up being nothing more than a bump in the shares of the company, too. Using the programming developed from years of military hardware, they quickly co-opted them to aid fisheries, using colonial ‘net’ frames that corralled and caught fish for them. The singular ‘vanguard’ systems quickly saw use in the construction industry, speeding up the process of rebuilding after the war. Reconstructing buildings their own products had damaged, it seemed as if Texlinz had engineered the entire thing themselves. At the very least, they seemed to be well ahead of the curve when it came to adapting to the new environment.

Texlinz were one of the founders of the sport of Talinz fighting, and were instrumental in the frames public redemption in the post-war era. To this day, they still sponsor the largest tournmanet in South America, the continent-wide Andes cup, and its bigger brother, the invitational All-Americas cup. Repeated investment in local industry now makes Texlinz one of the major employers in South America, with a respectable record and a well-treated workforce that, despite all of their advances, is still primarily human. In part, it seems that these workers act as a useful bargaining chip for Texlinz when prospecting future expansions in the continent. Few governments are likely to challenge a business that would lose little by upping and leaving your country, or autonomising a sizable sector of your economy.

Key to the success of Texlinz, it has constantly been believed, is the existence of ‘The Board’. Rather than any single influential or charismatic individual, Texlinz has a reputation for elevating talented members of staff through the ranks until they sit at the pinnacle of the organisation. One of the current board, it is rumoured, even started his career on the factory floor in Rio, before being scouted for his discerning eye. Not only does this give their employees a goal and a motivation, but these conglomerate committee-led opinions give an undoubted strength to the company. How much of the rumour that surrounds ‘The Board’ is true is uncertain, and many urban legends are clearly wild and unfounded: including suggestions that they might be early experiments in artificial intelligence by TexLima gone rogue.

Statting 'The Board'

So, 'The Board' of Texlinz I have explicitly avoided giving stats. They are shady, they are shadowy, and they are hella competent. Depending on the political/social/economic system at hand, they should provide an interesting ally or opposition. Rather than individuals with stat lines, I would almost recommend GMs consider them to be opposition in the scene in the same way a natural force might be. They have a tendency to push situations in their favour, and you are only likely to encounter well-informed delegates of 'The Board'. Or they might actually be Board members themselves... Who knows?

In exchange, have some mechanics about how their communal Talinz technology works!

"When a Talinz frame fitted with the Aspect 'Vanguard module' is piloted, it can interface with local unpiloted units that also possess the module and exist on the same 'Vanguard' call frequency. These units are networked, utilising the group's combined processing power. They can utilise any skill bonuses granted by the AI cores of any unit in the network as if they were their own. The unit gains an additional +1 bonus when it combines skill to act as a team (Note that skills given to units by other members of the network do not count as actually possessing the skill at above +1 for the purposes of the Teamwork action). Unpiloted units are considered allies for the purposes of stress track and actions, with a single stress box for each member of the unit."