Brass Cardinal: Overview

The baseline rifle used by Wyroks, the Brass Cardinal is a single shot, semi-auto battle rifle that’s on par with the largest battleship cannons ever fielded. With a wide range of usable ammo variants and high level of possible precision, the Brass Cardinal is a reliable loadout choice for any Wyrok pilot no matter the situation.

Okay I’m tired of talking about squadron level weapons, let’s talk about one of the big fuckers in our arsenal. We have squad level rifles, yes. But did you know we have Wyrok level rifles? Cause I wanna talk about Wyrok level rifles.

Much like the Frostpick, when we started up the Wyrok program we needed a standard issue armament that they could use. What’s a standard issue armament? It’s a gun that can be used for just about any situation, any mission, any requirement. Now it doesn’t do anything to a phenomenal degree, but it does a lot to an acceptable degree. The Frostpick fits in that slot since if a base were invaded, we could hand them out to every legionnaire on post and feel confident the attackers will be in God’s waiting room before the sun sets.
Anything that’s standard issue is designed to be reliable, competent, and unspecialized in a way that doesn’t require a fucking college degree to operate it.

The Brass Cardinal is all that and a little more, but for Wyroks.
Desmond is the one who did most of the work behind it, but I got charged with writing all this shit down so whatever, I’m mostly referencing the notes he sent me. Sidenote, Desmond’s writing makes me feel like a fucking ape in comparison. _{Perish the thought. – Iza}

When the R&D phase for the Brass Cardinal started, it was like the entire weapons lab had returned to a bunch of glue eating children. They’d made all kinds of weapons and some of our fuck-off sized base defenses, but they’d never had to make something this large that was simultaneously portable. To make it even harder the gun had to be “operatively compatible” with Wyrok hands, so there was a shitload of consultation done between them, the Mechanical Legion, and the Armored Legion.
Hold on lemme check these notes again… okay so “consultation” means, they all lived in the same research sector at Frostfall for like a month while working on the Brass Cardinal. I would think that making a gun for Wyroks is like making a normal gun except you multiple all the numbers and shit x10, but what the hell do I know. _{If it were that easy we wouldn’t all be sleep deprived substance abusers. – Dr. Baddarick}

What gets me is that at the time, the Wyroks were still in the testing phase from what I remember. So the gun was being made in tandem with the actual mech that was supposed to use it, meaning shit was changing by the hour and everything that worked yesterday counted for shit the following morning. I’m just skimming Desmond’s notes, but I’m seeing references to Wyrok loadout balance, recoil adjustment, muscular tension, trigger pull force, magazine operation, targeting system integration, grip pressure thresholds, just all sorts of wild shit.
I give that like two seconds of thought and I’m stressed the hell out, so at least I’m not the dumb bitch that had to be in charge of it all.

A month of work got us the first prototype, but it still took like three more months until we had our first completed Brass Cardinal. The quick rundown is that Wyroks are meant to be highly customizable and horrifyingly agile, an assault platform that isn’t constrained to a single type of operation, and one that can literally run in and blow shit up before the enemy even has a chance to realize they’re done for.
Another way of saying it; Wyroks make “terrain advantage” a non-issue, the goddamn things can climb up cliffs and wade through swamps.

In terms of operation the Brass Cardinal is a single shot, semi-auto rifle that uses PSS ammo rather than PTT. The difference is mostly in the volume of plasmatic matter the tungsten projectile is encased in, with PTT being a thin layer and PSS being fully enclosed. And my oh my is a 410mm tungsten projectile ever the candidate for extra plasmatic matter. I managed to find some archived footage of the testing trials for the Brass Cardinal and hoooooooly shit I had to turn on a fan when they started shooting.

For the trial the Wyroks were running through a simulated city obstacle course, where they had to use their rifles to wipe out targets of strategical importance while under attack from numerous attack drones. When I say attack drones I mean these were some seriously armored motherfuckers, loaded up to the tits with rocket launchers, machineguns and bazookas that all had sim rounds in them. The Wyrok pilots weren’t gonna get killed, but they’d be knocked senseless if they got caught in the open. Not that I think it mattered, cause gawddamnyou boys and girls in the Armored Legion know what’s up.

The Wyroks weaved through cover, never exposed themselves, and when they opened up with the Brass Cardinals it damn near made me emotional. Have you ever seen a 410mm rifle fire? My God the entire recording shook, windows shattered, buildings trembled, the screen would go pure white from the plasmatic fireball it produced, and whatever they were shooting at was just utterly, completely vaporized beyond all recognition. Attack drones got picked off, targets were sniped from kilometers away, and anything that tried to hide was just blown apart as the Brass Cardinal’s projectiles turned cover into concealment. It was highly coordinated, steady, and immaculate to watch. I don’t know how the hell you even do this while piloting a mech, but their reloading was smoother than the shit I’ve seen from late cycle trainees at Hammershell.

Writing this now though, I remember the event that really made the Brass Cardinal the iconic rifle of our Wyrok squadrons. There was a contract where we had to take out an armor battalion that was heading towards our client’s FOB, and we sent over two Wyroks to see how they performed in their first ever live fire mission.
If you’re in the Armored Legion you’re gonna see this video eventually, but a Wisp drone recorded these two Wyroks just steadily marching forward as they picked off dozens of tanks one by one. Best part is the shells from the tanks did jack shit to the Wyroks, might as well have been throwing water balloons at them as they just casually strolled forward, blowing city block sized craters in the ground shot by shot. At the end of it, there were dozens of craters and millions of scrap metal pieces scattered all across the countryside.

Shit I also just remembered something; with weapons like the Brass Cardinal, we can’t (or really shouldn’t) deploy Wyroks alongside infantry, at least not in a direct sense. Let’s say a client wants a Wyrok to act as fire support for their infantry as they move in to capture an objective, so they need to be close together.
Whaddya think happens when the infantry below are exposed to the pressure waves, blasts, and sound that comes from a 410mm rifle being repeatedly shot?

You get TBIs, concussions, hearing loss, all kinds of wonderful indirect friendly fire. Even legionnaires shouldn’t be in that situation, since with the Tungsten Skin armor most Vanguards are issued we still see cases of nausea and temporary vision issues despite all the layers of protection your helmets provide. In those scenarios the Wyrok pilots need to reference a table that shows the safe distance they can be from any infantry, depending on the weapons in their loadout. For the Brass Cardinal that means being at least 400m away from any Vanguards, and at least 900m away from any client infantry.
Makes combined arms doctrine far trickier than it needs to be.

Now with all of that in mind, imagine an entire squadron of Wyroks, armed with 410mm battle rifles, running towards your position.
I’d barely have time to call my grandpa to say I picked the wrong career.

-FrW Nahli Lok-Riveria