Triakis Industries Team Profile
Team Principal:
Samuel McNaughton (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...tralia.svg.png)
Slogan:
Ever since the RIDS controversy (see below) Triakis has not run with any slogan, nor done much in the way of trackside advertising.
Backstory:
Triakis is one of the oldest industries in the world today, for even through several eras of peace with no wars people will always need some sort of weapon. And though the lucrative business of supplying weapons to AG-craft collapsed for several years after the fall of the F9000 league, Triakis never truly went under. After all, the global riots meant that someone needed to supply police forces with shock batons and riot shields.
Triakis had been trying to enter F9000 with little success after experimenting with old chassis designs bought from Auricom and material salvaged from the bombed-out base of Goteki 45 in Makana. Their first ship was never given a serial number but a name instead – somewhat of a tradition for the weapons giant – and ‘Mary’ flew for the first time in the remaining track sections around the ruined Temtesh Bay in 2078.
Unfortunately, the F9000 fell notoriously later that year and Triakis had to scrap their AG-project. Mary became the personal craft of the Triakis chief Samuel McNaughton for several years, until the AG-league decided to begin the FX150 league in 2175. Mary became a test bed for the various weapons of the league. Some of the earlier teams to sign up for FX150 appreciated the work that Triakis was doing, most notably FEISAR and Assegai. Auricom and AG-Systems however complained loudly about the return of weapons to the races when they had easily been the downfall of the F9000 league.
At this time the FX150 league was filled with fairly fragile if nippy ships that sometimes lacked for outright pace. McNaughton suggested one day at a board meeting to start using Mary for making a new ship, one to enter themselves that transcended the other craft. Where they were light and agile, this would be heavy and bulky. Where they couldn’t take one or two hits from rockets, Triakis would create a true gunship.
In the tradition of English Queens, Mary’s successor was Elizabeth, though she was more commonly referred to as ‘Liz’ or ‘Beth’ amongst the engineers. When she turned up for her first race in the new FX200 league, she was something of an oddity. Amongst the blue rocket ships of Assegai, FEISAR, Auricom and AG-Systems, here was this Australian monster with shield and top speed ratings off the charts.
Fortunately for the established teams, ‘Elizabeth’ failed to shine at first. Soon though it became obvious that Triakis were working on the ship and it began tearing through the soft and established teams. Only Auricom shifted focus to shielding and its’ own weapon systems to combat the new Australian threat. It was expected for a while that Auricom and Triakis would begin a new rivalry in this season until Qirex’s surprise reappearance halfway through the season under Felix Levovitch and Auricom almost completely forgot about Elizabeth. That left AG-Systems as Triakis’ greatest opponent in the verbal wars and as the championship hit the higher speed levels, the two were near-level in terms of points. Whatever AG-S pulled out on the technical tracks, Triakis would win back in the open ones. AG-S pipped Triakis to second in the championship behind Auricom and the Australians decided revenge was in order.
Anne hit the FX300 grid running, able to outgun the heavy Qirex and Piranha craft and still keep pace with the AG-S and FEISAR teams. Auricom was never far off the now legendary Japan-Australia war breaking out, but Qirex kept them too busy to chase for the title. It came down to a straight race between Thierry Caluroso of AG-Systems and Rory Stephenson of Triakis in the mystical Syncopia track and the world held its’ breath.
Australia exploded in triumph as Stephenson’s time came up in front of Caluroso’s on the board – Triakis had won the championship by fifty-six thousandths of a second.
Or so it seemed at first. When all the teams’ ships were hauled away to technical specifications, the authorities found a mysterious spiral device hidden in the port side of the Triakis ship. The Australians paused before providing the true answers – a loophole in the rules had allowed them to create a Reverse-Inertia Deceleration System (RIDS), something that was by rights banned from the technical regulations. Many hearings were called, though AG-Systems was absent from the accusation booth. Ken Matsumodo, the technical director of AG-Systems said that they didn’t want to win the championship in a courtroom – unfortunately for him, they did.
Triakis was fined four million Australian dollars and demoted to last place for the FX350 grid. So much time in the off-season had been spent in the courtroom as well rather than in the testing labs that ‘Anne II’ was nothing more than Anne with the RIDS removed and it suffered for it, leaving Triakis wallowing in the lower half of the grid for most of the season. Its’ only satisfaction was that Assegai had not abandoned their old friend and was willing to share technical advice on getting Anne II to work. With Assegai’s advice, Triakis managed to prepare her for the future seasons throughout the FX400 league.
Strangely though, ‘Anne III’ and ‘Anne IV’ only ever showed small signs of improvement. Weight reduction here, thruster torque there... it all seemed fairly meaningless and it looked like Triakis were going to give up come FX500. But with another victory for AG-Systems, Triakis appeared on their doorstep for the end-of-season party with a demonstration of their Fury Craft, the work of almost a decade. The party fell silent and glasses smashed as they fell from hands. And then the video footage was taken away to reveal ‘Victoria’ and some of the party members began to cry.
Allies: Assegai, FEISAR
Rivals: Auricom
Arch-Rivals: AG-Systems
Searching AntiGravity Racing Archives for Subject ‘AG-Systems and Triakis’
681 Matches Found...
Opening File...
I speak for the entire team when I say this is the hollowest win we have ever taken. This trophy is worth less to us than the rustiest spanner on the floor of our workshop. No team should ever have won a championship in a courtroom instead on a track, and particularly not one that has racing since the very first leagues.
If there is anything we feel for Triakis, it is condolence. We cannot speak about the Reverse-Inertia Deceleration System – we have been accused in years previous of using loopholes to exploit new technology (Subject refers to the strobe boosting that AG-Systems used at Altima VII in 2145, after which Pilot D. Chang was disqualified) and it is good to see such a new team taking such great leaps and bounds in technology whatever our friends in Auricom may say.
Triakis is a worthy opponent, one that we have never really had in any stage of our racing careers and we look forward to racing them again and again in future years.
-Chief Engineer I. Itsua, of AG-Systems, Press Conference 2198, Tokyo
Ship Details:
‘Victoria’ is unlike anything anyone has seen before in an AG-ship. The entire structure is manipulable, able to make it into a shielded armadillo that can survive over forty-eight hours of sustained 50-calibre machine-gun fire, a streamlined rocket that can reach speeds of Mach 8 in a straight line and an entire-body airbrake to go from that speed to nought in ten seconds with no ill effect to the pilot.
Triakis was always the most powerful ship in terms of shield power, and Victoria (or ‘Vicky’ as she is sometimes called by the engineers) can boast that along with better engines and more advanced air-braking systems to improve the handling. Experts who have analysed the craft say it still looks too heavy to have any decent acceleration or handling, but in the new Eliminator mode introduced for FX500, Triakis is the team to beat.
Lead Pilot – Lt. Vincent Stephenson (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ngland.svg.png)
Once a member of the Grenadiers, the primary guard of the King of the United Kingdom, Stephenson was given honours for saving the life of King James III and VIII from a fall off his private vessel by commandeering one of the life-craft from the cruise craft and racing after the falling King, catching him with no permanent injuries. He was given a medal for bravery and quick thinking by King himself at his hospital bed, but when he left the room he was slipped a note by a Triakis agent who had followed him.
Stephenson was being offered a place on the Triakis race team and a secondary role as weapons tester and ambassador to the United Kingdom for Triakis for a quite considerable sum, certainly much more than he would ever get from His Majesty.
Three months later, King James III and VIII watched the man who saved his life sing ‘God Save The King’ on the podium, the first of a string of victories that Stephenson racked up through the FX200, 250 and 300 leagues. King James had made arrangements to knight the young man come his victory over Caluroso, but the discovery of Triakis’ cheating struck hard and the ceremony was cancelled. Ever since then, Stephenson has been silent on the podium when he has stood on it and has never returned to the UK.
The Englishman keeps to himself for the most part and does not socialise much, preferring to retreat to his home in Sydney after each race where he keeps a pet fox called Nelson. His hatred of AG-Systems and in particular their pilot Caluroso has kept him focussed on his racing and he remains one of the most vicious pilots on the grid, famously vengeful and an aggressive rammer.
Siham Pejman, ‘Float Nation’ magazine’s resident psychologist, has suggested that the abandonment of his King has caused Stephenson to lose the once popular ‘knight in shining armour’ look he had amongst his home public, who have begun to turn to Icaras’ Dawod and Qirex’s McKellen for national pride.
Second Pilot – Buster Harding (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...States.svg.png)
While Rory Stephenson had everything and lost it, Buster Harding had nothing and has a lot more now. A street brawler from Detroit, Harding used to organise and race in Demolition Derby events in the narrow ruined streets of his hometown. One day, he was organising a race when a mysterious Australian woman offered him a ride in her ship. Taken aback at how powerful and technical the ship was compared to what he was used to, he agreed heartily when offered to drive this ship for money.
Harding is Triakis’ envoy to the United States, and is very popular in his home state of Michigan, where he returns at least once a month to organise another Demolition Derby. Because of him, Motor City is slowly being reborn and many refer to it nowadays as ‘Float City’.
Despite the fact that Harding is one of the most intimidating people on the grid, it’s fairly obvious that he is a bit of a softie at heart. Like his team-mates, he keeps animals, though his are mostly woodland rodents such as squirrels and raccoons and he regularly gives to childrens’ charities in the US and Mexico. He also seems to have taken the chivalrous role from Stephenson, and has been found giving lifts to fellow pilots whose craft have crashed or need a tow back to the pits, even going so far as to pick up the entire Harimau craft at one point with one hull of his ship.
Third Pilot – Lauren Taylor (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...tralia.svg.png)
Fiona Taylor was the head of job-hunting for Triakis, travelling the world in search of possible weapons technologists, envoys and other contributors to their project – she was the one who found Stephenson and Harding and all of Triakis’ other pilots who have come and gone over the course of the FX250 series and beyond, finding themselves not given as much attention as the two professionals in the other craft. After the RIDS debacle though, the list of people interested in flying for Triakis began to dwindle considerably. Fiona was forced to return time and time again without anyone willing to fly the third ship until suddenly one day she turned up with a young woman who looked exactly like her just behind her.
Her daughter Lauren had often been left behind at the Triakis laboratories whenever Fiona had gone flying off around the world and the younger Taylor had occasionally wandered into the testing grounds for Mary and Elizabeth. When she became eighteen and received her piloting licence, she asked to become part of the project for making Victoria. This was kept completely silent from her mother until the one night when Fiona had come into the Taylor household crying, two days before Triakis needed to submit its’ team roster to the FX500 league officials without a third pilot. Lauren broke the silence and found herself in Tokyo the next day in the camo jump suit of Triakis with Harding and Stephenson looking at her rather curiously.
Out of everyone on the grid, Lauren Taylor has never flown in a race with other pilots before, nor has she ever fired a weapon in anger at another human before – so many are expecting her to have some nerve issues going into the season. But as she said herself in the press conference: “Neither of these two has flown Vicky for over ten years.”
Stephenson remains unconvinced though: “She’ll be dead within the year. I for one won’t be a pallbearer.”
