The Merlin Capsule

Written by Jackson Jewell
Edited by Zach Batson

Capsule, Infantry, Mk. VII, (C13) Merlin

The Merlin Capsule is an orbital insertion vehicle used by the military of the British Empire and some Commonwealth nations. Its primary purpose is the rapid deployment of battle-ready forces into areas of intense fighting or special military interest. These capsules are typically deployed from aetherships in low orbit. The Orbital Dragoons of the Special Aether Service are particularly fond of the Merlin. In recent years the Merlin has seen more widespread adoption as a delivery vehicle for Automaton Infantry.

Development

In the aftermath of the Great Famine of 1920, the British Empire entered a period of significant decline. With several of the Commonwealth nations testing the boundaries of their Imperial Leash, it became abundantly clear that those boundaries needed to be reinforced, underlined, and checked twice for gaps. It had long been the empire’s policy to maintain a small elite military during peacetime, and this began to be viewed as a potential weak point. With territories on four celestial bodies and over a dozen continents, concerns were voiced as to the presence of Imperial rule. In response to this concern, the idea was presented to modernize the Regulars into a new kind of military. One that could respond to any crisis anywhere in the empire almost immediately.

The empire already maintained humanity’s largest fleet of aetherborne warships, and as such could respond with fire, but for more precision, a new type of vehicle was developed. The Merlin Mk. I was a crude device, little more than a steel box with a rudimentary Balfour drive for braking and a layer of ablative plates to protect from the heat of falling. It could reliably deliver the bodies of an entire rifle section from an aethership to the ground in approximately eight minutes. Whether or not its unlucky occupants were kept alive during the process proved more difficult. With the thin oxygen, intense heat, and underpowered engine pumping exhaust into the crew compartment, the trip down was anything but comfortable. However, the concept was proven to be possible, and more development was called for.

Deployment

The Mk. III was the first of the developed capsules to see actual use and was a considerable improvement upon its predecessors. With a programmed drive making precise alterations in the vehicle’s speed during descent, it resulted in a 95% reduction in passenger injuries and increased precision, while bringing the overall time-to-ground down to just five minutes. Deployed for the first time in 1930 in response to the Salt March in Gujarat, India, they made for an explosive reveal.

The capsules, deployed by the HMS Emerald, delivered two full companies of the newly created Royal Orbital Dragoons to Earth, with orders to suppress the ongoing unrest. Over the following years, this event would be repeated many times, helping to reinforce the British Empire’s hold over her colonies. Colonial governors had but to request some “help from above” and capsules would be deployed almost immediately from nearby Royal Navy aetherships.

The creation of the Orbital Insertion Capsule and the Orbital Dragoons is seen by many as a critical link in the creation of the modern British “Watchman State.” The capsules provide an overt and ongoing threat to back up the surveillance. The idea that at any moment armed and armored soldiers could be deployed to any location did successfully temper budding independence movements, but it has also resulted in a state of mild and ongoing paranoia amongst the citizenry of the empire and Commonwealth. The Suns never set on the British Empire, and the lensed eyes of the Watchman never close.