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Description
While generally apolitical, TME Industries did have a soft spot for the Lyran Commonwealth for reasons never officially (or even unofficially) defined. Most simply thought that perhaps it had something to do with the political sympathies of the founders, except that said founders were Capellans of the Tikonov region whose operations were nationalized by the Confederation; others theorized that the Lyran sympathies were a simple matter of the Lyrans usually having the money to buy the Industrials' top-shelf products.

In any case, around 3056 these sympathies lead TME Industries to brand a planned heavy assault tank--centered around prototype FedCom autocannon the Industrials had 'acquired' in a friendly manner--on the matriarch most directly responsible for the founding of the Federated Commonwealth, Katrina Steiner. The first one. While this FedCom-friendly branding did risk commercial contacts in the rest of the Sphere, particularly amongst Houses Liao and Marik, the first Katrina was sufficiently universally respected that the impact would not have been too severe.

Then the then-Regent Katherine went a few bridges too far in 3057 and took the 'Katrina' label for herself. While TME Industries were certainly Lyran-aligned, this alignment was notable for its mildness and Industrial recruiting from across the Sphere had made it much more cosmopolitan. The ideal of the Federated Commonwealth as a peaceful union was a sign of hope amidst the Succession Wars and its effective usurpment and sundering threw away a carefully-planned charm offensive by Marketing. The Katrina Steiner tank immediately disappeared from TME Industries catalogs to be replaced with, after consulting a few books on the meanings of names and translation dictionaries, the identical Ubico.

The Ubico basic configuration and design were actually set when an engineer discovered some fictional speculative tanks in the Terran Hegemony culture archives on Tinker's World. She decided to take the impressive slab-sided images she'd found and make them 'less stupid' by adding such important things as suspensions, since the original artists must not have known anything about how tracked vehicles actually worked (or, at least, not beyond the most basic of World War I principles).

The Ubico's 100-ton design was built to last, with twenty-three tons of standard armor protecting it, and centered around three basic attributes: first, a 300-rated extralight to ensure it kept up with other tanks in its class; second, an at-the-time novel dual turret layout; and finally, equally novel sponson. These, combined with the prototype rapid-fire assault autocannon in the main turret, the lightweight medium autocannon in the sponson, and the Thunderbolt light missile launcher ensured that the Ubico would be expensive and relatively difficult to maintain due to its inherent complexities. Due to these factors and a series of gentlemen's agreements with the Federated Commonwealth (arranged both before and after the naming fiasco) where TME Industries would be very selective about producing and selling the Ubico, it was not until late 3068 that the Ubico-0000 reached full production.

The first model to actually see standard production, therefore, was the unusually designated Ubico-A1A. The first 'A' designated it as using a variant primary turret mounting a Long Tom artillery cannon; the '1' indicated that it dropped the turret's box launcher; and the last 'A' meant that it was the 'simplified' version that dropped the sponson, replaced the forward turret by putting the large laser in a simple forward-hull casemate, and replaced the extra-light engine with a standard model. The combined result cut the price of the Ubico by nearly two thirds and produced a respectible support tank.

Variants quickly followed in the Ubico-__A series: the -B1 used another variant turret with no box launcher to mount a Gauss rifle with targeting computer-assisted aiming; the -C made a simple modification to the never-seen 'standard' -0 turret so it would carry a standard 20-class autocannon with an attached six-rack short range missile box launcher; and the -D offered the fire-support capability of the -A in a more conventional fashion with sixty long-range missile tubes in a box-launcher turret. All except the -B1 were compatible with various light box launcher modifications: the -_1 was of course no launcher, as described above; the -_2 mounted a six-rack of short-range missiles, the -_3 carried a ten-rack of medium-range missiles; the -_4 carried a five-rack of long-range missiles; and the 'standard' -_0 of course carried the single five-class Thunderbolt tube.

While all this variation would have normally played happy hell with production and maintenance, the parts commonality between Ubicos and their simple construction meant that it was often surprisingly inexpensive to maintain a mixed force even if the Ubico-C2A was a short-ranged brawler, the Ubico-B1A was a long-ranged sniper, and the Ubico-D3A was a scorched-earth missile boat with box launchers comically mounted to bigger box launchers.

As the FedCom Civil War heated up, the Ubico saw moderate use on both sides. The tank's ruggedness resulted in self-competition not entirely unlike the Outlaw and Ranger; as extra-light engines started moving out of assault 'Mechs and into vehicles, the more advanced 'standard' chassis became economically viable and so the Ubico-__0_s started rolling off the production line. Since the lightweight autocannon weren't authorized for full production yet due to FedCom agreements and both the -___0 and -___1 sponson variants were taken with the available classes of lightweight cannon, the first sponson were actually of the -___2 variant mounting 'retrotech' medium rifled cannon. When ammunition demand for these unusual weapons couldn't keep up, TME Industries began building -___3 sponson with twelve short-range missile tubes each, -___4s with ten long-range tubes, and even -___5s with forty rocket tubes each (which often had ground clearance issues). Perhaps unsurprisingly, by the end of the Civil War there were all different kinds of Ubicos rolling around, from the Ubico-A0A to the Ubico-DU405, with a near infinity of field variants and retrofits inbetween, including a -_U__ production variant that took weight from wherever it could to mount a bulldozer blade for urban operations, which again hearkened back to the source material.

The confusion was mostly a problem for logistics officers; on TME's side, all the Ubicos used effectively the same parts so Aftermarket absolutely loved the revenue the tank kept pulling in.

By the time the Ubico-0000 finally came out in 3068, there was mounting pressure to Omnify the tank since that would reflect the reality of its usage. TME Industries agreed, but its engineers noted that adding Omnitechnology to the chassis, even with design experience from the Uhlan-DO and field experience from the alphabet-soup Ubicos, would add complexity and difficulties not easily modeled on paper, as the ongoing (at the time) Robur-AO project had shown. Management therefore conferred with Contracts and, after negotiations with interested buyers in Houses Steiner, Davion, Marik, and Liao (the last two brought in by wanting in on the action after seeing results from the Civil War), were able to get it into the contract that the OmniTechnology would be constrained by the presence of turrets and sponson or not. This simplified the design parameters but, after several false starts, it still wasn't until January 3072 until the high-tech OmniUbico-O00 and OmniUbico-O0A were ready for trials.

Just to confuse people even further, the OmniUbico-O00 and -O0A were sold as bland, unconfigured Omnivehicles. Pre-equipped OmniUbicos retained the classification schemes of their non-Omni forebears except for the modified name and the addition of an 'O' in the first modification letter. It was feared that having from OmniUbico-0O000 to OmniUbico-DOU4A would perhaps cause confusion and hurt the sales of the now "budget" Ubico-__0_ and "bargain basement" Ubico-__A families, but luckily Inner Sphere customers had dealt with nonsensical designation schemes for centuries and were therefore not particularly taken aback, especially when the four basic types (unhelpfully labeled Omni XL, Omni Standard, Standard XL, Standard Standard) were kept under separate headings.

Description
While generally apolitical, TME Industries did have a soft spot for the Lyran Commonwealth for reasons never officially (or even unofficially) defined. Most simply thought that perhaps it had something to do with the political sympathies of the founders, except that said founders were Capellans of the Tikonov region whose operations were nationalized by the Confederation; others theorized that the Lyran sympathies were a simple matter of the Lyrans usually having the money to buy the Industrials' top-shelf products.

In any case, around 3056 these sympathies lead TME Industries to brand a planned heavy assault tank--centered around prototype FedCom autocannon the Industrials had 'acquired' in a friendly manner--on the matriarch most directly responsible for the founding of the Federated Commonwealth, Katrina Steiner. The first one. While this FedCom-friendly branding did risk commercial contacts in the rest of the Sphere, particularly amongst Houses Liao and Marik, the first Katrina was sufficiently universally respected that the impact would not have been too severe.

Then the then-Regent Katherine went a few bridges too far in 3057 and took the 'Katrina' label for herself. While TME Industries were certainly Lyran-aligned, this alignment was notable for its mildness and Industrial recruiting from across the Sphere had made it much more cosmopolitan. The ideal of the Federated Commonwealth as a peaceful union was a sign of hope amidst the Succession Wars and its effective usurpment and sundering threw away a carefully-planned charm offensive by Marketing. The Katrina Steiner tank immediately disappeared from TME Industries catalogs to be replaced with, after consulting a few books on the meanings of names and translation dictionaries, the identical Ubico.

The Ubico basic configuration and design were actually set when an engineer discovered some fictional speculative tanks in the Terran Hegemony culture archives on Tinker's World. She decided to take the impressive slab-sided images she'd found and make them 'less stupid' by adding such important things as suspensions, since the original artists must not have known anything about how tracked vehicles actually worked (or, at least, not beyond the most basic of World War I principles).

The Ubico's 100-ton design was built to last, with twenty-three tons of standard armor protecting it, and centered around three basic attributes: first, a 300-rated extralight to ensure it kept up with other tanks in its class; second, an at-the-time novel dual turret layout; and finally, equally novel sponson. These, combined with the prototype rapid-fire assault autocannon in the main turret, the lightweight medium autocannon in the sponson, and the Thunderbolt light missile launcher ensured that the Ubico would be expensive and relatively difficult to maintain due to its inherent complexities. Due to these factors and a series of gentlemen's agreements with the Federated Commonwealth (arranged both before and after the naming fiasco) where TME Industries would be very selective about producing and selling the Ubico, it was not until late 3068 that the Ubico-0000 reached full production.

The first model to actually see standard production, therefore, was the unusually designated Ubico-A1A. The first 'A' designated it as using a variant primary turret mounting a Long Tom artillery cannon; the '1' indicated that it dropped the turret's box launcher; and the last 'A' meant that it was the 'simplified' version that dropped the sponson, replaced the forward turret by putting the large laser in a simple forward-hull casemate, and replaced the extra-light engine with a standard model. The combined result cut the price of the Ubico by nearly two thirds and produced a respectible support tank.

Variants quickly followed in the Ubico-__A series: the -B1 used another variant turret with no box launcher to mount a Gauss rifle with targeting computer-assisted aiming; the -C made a simple modification to the never-seen 'standard' -0 turret so it would carry a standard 20-class autocannon with an attached six-rack short range missile box launcher; and the -D offered the fire-support capability of the -A in a more conventional fashion with sixty long-range missile tubes in a box-launcher turret. All except the -B1 were compatible with various light box launcher modifications: the -_1 was of course no launcher, as described above; the -_2 mounted a six-rack of short-range missiles, the -_3 carried a ten-rack of medium-range missiles; the -_4 carried a five-rack of long-range missiles; and the 'standard' -_0 of course carried the single five-class Thunderbolt tube.

While all this variation would have normally played happy hell with production and maintenance, the parts commonality between Ubicos and their simple construction meant that it was often surprisingly inexpensive to maintain a mixed force even if the Ubico-C2A was a short-ranged brawler, the Ubico-B1A was a long-ranged sniper, and the Ubico-D3A was a scorched-earth missile boat with box launchers comically mounted to bigger box launchers.

As the FedCom Civil War heated up, the Ubico saw moderate use on both sides. The tank's ruggedness resulted in self-competition not entirely unlike the Outlaw and Ranger; as extra-light engines started moving out of assault 'Mechs and into vehicles, the more advanced 'standard' chassis became economically viable and so the Ubico-__0_s started rolling off the production line. Since the lightweight autocannon weren't authorized for full production yet due to FedCom agreements and both the -___0 and -___1 sponson variants were taken with the available classes of lightweight cannon, the first sponson were actually of the -___2 variant mounting 'retrotech' medium rifled cannon. When ammunition demand for these unusual weapons couldn't keep up, TME Industries began building -___3 sponson with twelve short-range missile tubes each, -___4s with ten long-range tubes, and even -___5s with forty rocket tubes each (which often had ground clearance issues). Perhaps unsurprisingly, by the end of the Civil War there were all different kinds of Ubicos rolling around, from the Ubico-A0A to the Ubico-DU405, with a near infinity of field variants and retrofits inbetween, including a -_U__ production variant that took weight from wherever it could to mount a bulldozer blade for urban operations, which again hearkened back to the source material.

The confusion was mostly a problem for logistics officers; on TME's side, all the Ubicos used effectively the same parts so Aftermarket absolutely loved the revenue the tank kept pulling in.

By the time the Ubico-0000 finally came out in 3068, there was mounting pressure to Omnify the tank since that would reflect the reality of its usage. TME Industries agreed, but its engineers noted that adding Omnitechnology to the chassis, even with design experience from the Uhlan-DO and field experience from the alphabet-soup Ubicos, would add complexity and difficulties not easily modeled on paper, as the ongoing (at the time) Robur-AO project had shown. Management therefore conferred with Contracts and, after negotiations with interested buyers in Houses Steiner, Davion, Marik, and Liao (the last two brought in by wanting in on the action after seeing results from the Civil War), were able to get it into the contract that the OmniTechnology would be constrained by the presence of turrets and sponson or not. This simplified the design parameters but, after several false starts, it still wasn't until January 3072 until the high-tech OmniUbico-O00 and OmniUbico-O0A were ready for trials.

Just to confuse people even further, the OmniUbico-O00 and -O0A were sold as bland, unconfigured Omnivehicles. Pre-equipped OmniUbicos retained the classification schemes of their non-Omni forebears except for the modified name and the addition of an 'O' in the first modification letter. It was feared that having from OmniUbico-0O000 to OmniUbico-DOU4A would perhaps cause confusion and hurt the sales of the now "budget" Ubico-__0_ and "bargain basement" Ubico-__A families, but luckily Inner Sphere customers had dealt with nonsensical designation schemes for centuries and were therefore not particularly taken aback, especially when the four basic types (unhelpfully labeled Omni XL, Omni Standard, Standard XL, Standard Standard) were kept under separate headings.