Mech Lore Calmak / Peeler

In 1880, The Ribbon Society, a rift cult claiming to represent Liverpool’s Irish community, accused the city’s mayor of using local gangs like the Hip Rob to poison minority communities in the city.

The mayor had long been accused of harboring anti-Irish sentiment and introduced laws that allegedly targeted the Irish exclusively.

What started as a march on the town hall ended in a violent confrontation between various gangs that threatened to turn the inner city to ash.

The Liverpool police, afraid to pick sides in the matter, called for assistance from the Manchester police, hoping their latest addition to the force would deter an escalation of violence between the opposing parties. This was the first time the public saw these quadrupedal automatons in action. Two automatons known as Peelers marched through the crowds and took position in front of the Town Hall’s steps.

There they stood sentry as both sides faced off, shouting accusations and slurs, with only a thin blue line keeping them from fighting each other.

Nobody knows who threw the first stone, but before long, bricks and firebombs started flying back and forth, with the police caught in the middle.

But the moment the police barricades were broken, both groups were about to stab one another. That’s when the two Peelers unleashed their water cannons and pushed the protesters back to their positions.

Sweeping across the crowds, they strummed across the square, parting the opposing sides like the Red Sea. The chaos and fear of the automatons sent the crowds running, and further escalation was prevented.

The Peelers made headlines, lauded as preservers of peace.

However, while the Peeler became a symbol of order and emancipation, on the other side of Europe, its close cousin, the Çalmak, became a harbinger of dark days ahead.

But before we get to the Çalmak’s reputation, let’s discuss the first mass-produced CB platforms.

CONCEPTION

To understand how the unlikely collaboration between the British and the Ottomans came to be, we need to go back to the early days of the Directorate.At the dawn of the 19th century, the Ottoman Empire was in decline. When the Sultan was still in charge, before 1826, he made great strides in modernizing both his administration and armed forces. Despite this progress, the Empire remained in such a deplorable state that it was considered the Sick Man of Europe—an autocratic regime ruling countless peoples who didn’t want to be there.Hence, when the Janissaries snatched power away from the Sultan in 1826, nobody was surprised. This was the start of the Directorate, a military theocratic dictatorship.When the latest dictator, Kara Pasha, rose to power in the wake of the Crimean War, he wanted a weapons system no other country possessed. He wanted a Chassis d’Bataille.

The Chassis d’Bataille, often called CBs or Battle Frames, are quadruped war machines deployed exclusively by the French International Penal Battalion, which were only produced in small numbers in the French colony of Cayenne.Kara had his agents negotiate with their Cayenne contacts to deliver the means of producing their own CBs.Next, they needed a purpose for their new machines.

The CBs produced at the time weren’t made for war, but for the Containment sector—fighting wyrd beasts and the like.When initiating his CB program, it was the era of the Eastern Crisis (1875–1880) taking place in the Balkans. And in the wake of the Crimean War, veterans had organized anti-Janissary militias.The Directorate wanted an easy-to-deploy, anti-insurgency platform. However, the Ottomans still had to build up their industry. They needed both expertise and investment.This is where Tophane Arsenal and the British Armstrong come into play—companies with very impressive legacies.

TOPHANE

Tophane Arsenal (Tophane-i Amire), located in Istanbul, dates back to Sultan Mehmed II’s conquest of Constantinople in 1453. It was initially established as the imperial artillery foundry (“Tophane” literally means "cannon factory" in Turkish), dedicated to manufacturing weapons and munitions for the military.During the Crimean War, Tophane was a crucial site in the Ottoman war effort against Russia and its allies. During this period, the empire was actively modernizing its military technology, often with foreign assistance, including experts from Prussia and Cayenne.In 1875, the Ottomans got their hands on French CB prototypes, thanks to the efforts of the infamous Éloïse Solanaire. Once the Directorate had its project up and running, the first CB they wanted to create had to be simple — something made with available materials and components that existing industries could produce.This turned out to be unrealistic, but the engineers at Tophane Arsenal somehow managed to design prototypes the fledgling industrial sector could produce. Their first mass production model couldn’t have been more ‘Directorate’.

But before we get into that, let’s have a look at their British partner.

ARMSTRONG

The history of the company starts with William George Armstrong. In 1847, he set up a factory in Elswick for industrial hydraulic machinery such as cranes. In the 1850s, he developed the revolutionary Armstrong breech-loading guns, just in time for the Crimean War, and was knighted for providing his patents to the British government.

Armstrong’s legacy includes advancements in hydraulic machinery, artillery, and infrastructure projects like bridges used worldwide. Eventually, the Armstrong company merged with Charles Mitchell's shipbuilding firm to become Armstrong-Mitchell, expanding into warship construction. Its diverse in-house expertise made Armstrong a prime candidate for designing this new machine.

THE EMERGENCE

To understand why the British government was eager to get involved in the development of the Çalmak, we need to go back to 1875— that year, England was shaken by the Emergence, a nationwide riot orchestrated by Jacobins and Weatherman cells. At least, that was the official story.In reality, it was a transhumanist uprising by a radical faction known as the Signalites. For providing free prosthetics to the destitute, the movement carried broad support among the metropolitan elite and the medical establishment.What the public didn’t know was that the cult was equipping the resentful and criminal through their ‘public prosthetic clinics,’ turning them into cybernetically enhanced shock troops.

In May that year, hordes of augmented fanatics torched the inner cities of England in a vain attempt to overthrow the government and bring about a transhuman Utopia.Although the uprising was suppressed within 24 hours, an estimated 2,000 citizens were killed and damage ranged in the billions, including homes and private businesses.

Even before the Emergence, the Liberal government walked a thin line between its principles of freedom and religious tolerance when dealing with the ‘Rift Cults.’Most occult groups, despite the gods, spirits, or whatever they worshiped, still insisted on achieving their goals the British way. They wanted to change England, not destroy it, which meant adhering to tradition, public debate, and conducting oneself as a gentleman.But in the ugly underbelly of society, radical cults spread their ideas. Headlines suggested acts of human sacrifice, organized gangs aligning themselves with unknown gods, and practitioners of the dark arts—including accusations of conspiracy against the Signalites.The establishment’s reaction to these claims was indifference. Some cults had members in high places, including politics and entertainment. For a decade, these headlines were treated as sensationalism and conspiracy theories that ought to be dismissed.But after the Emergence, all this changed.Now the public was aware, the government had to ban automated prosthetics to appease the population, and the controversial Home Army Bill that had been argued about for a year was approved overnight.At this point, the army decided that The Hague Charter and the restrictions on wyrd tech should be ignored and used their new budget to introduce new technologies first deemed taboo.When Tophane Arsenal announced the Çalmak, they offered to invest in this new technology.

THE PEELER

When the British government and its Ottoman allies were looking for investors for the Çalmak project, they secured their support. They arranged a license for Armstrong to work on what became known as the Combat Frame Committee. As Tophane and Armstrong bent over the drawing board, in England there was a discussion about who would get this platform: the Borough Police or the Army.On the European continent, the army was responsible for policing, usually called the gendarmerie. In England, the police force was a civil affair thanks to Robert Peel’s police reforms. Hence, the constable became known as Peelers. Apart from serving the civil interest rather than that of the state, the ideal was that the police should not use lethal force—an ideal that had to be soon abandoned. Despite this, constables frowned upon the use of firearms.Even to this day, it’s still uncommon for constables to chase dangerous criminals with hammers, axes, or whatever objects they have at hand. This attitude shifted after the Emergence. Today, they still strive for non-lethal methods. However, the police declared that heavy ordnance would be essential, be it against wyrd beasts or cybernetic fanatics. Eventually, it was decided that both the Army’s cavalry and the police would get their own version, and the project was adopted under the name The Peeler.

Then came the discussion: who would pilot them?The only experienced pilots they could find were all Casket Girls for the penal legal system—women with a criminal past. They tried to compromise by having these women train male cavalrymen, but the cavalry got upset, afraid they would lose their horses.Apparently, the trainers were met with such resistance that they refused to train men altogether. (The exact details are unclear.)Combine this with some very eager women’s rights activism, and the general staff relented. The new CB would be piloted by women, who ought to be hailed as a new wave of patriots.

But not all British women were happy with this development. The pilots were met with inflammatory criticism from both women’s organizations and conservatives alike, suspecting this gesture to be a ploy to introduce a mandatory military draft for both men and women.

But what about the Directorate? The Janissaries did what they always did: they saw this as an opportunity to increase their recruitment pool. In other words, they did exactly what the British populace feared would happen. They took girls in their late teens from their families, while their minds were just impressionable enough, and gave them the same Sofie-inspired religious indoctrination they gave the boys, albeit segregated.Then they would be trained by Solanaire and her Fey Furiosa. Some believe she converted to Islam for this reason, but no one knows for sure.

DESIGN

Although the conception of the Çalmak was a collaboration, the parties agreed that some components had to be locally produced.Therefore, the Peeler is powered by the British-made Mirlees MB375 diesel engine that provides a solid 250 BHP and has reached speeds of 35 mph.The Çalmak came with the Tophane-i Amire Mark I (TA-M1) engine that can put out 220 BHP and reach up to 32 mph. Due to their inexperience with engines, the engines had reliability and overheating issues. The Çalmak came with a multi-layered 12-mm composite armor, called ‘Composition K’, comprised of ceramics and resins wedged between steel plates.The Peeler has plain 15-mm hardened steel armor with a fire-resistant coating.What both versions had in common was that the turret ring is powered by a dynamo-driven electric motor, providing some maneuverability even with the engine turned off.Finally, its control system: they both use a second-generation Cayenne-Pattern ORB Beta system that allows the user not only to control locomotion but also to assist in aiming their weapons.

This is where the controversy comes in.

As for the weapon systems, the Çalmak was designed to be an anti-insurgency platform.The British version was meant for inner cities to disperse violent crowds. It was maneuverable and armored enough to resist small arms fire. As for its weapons, it was equipped with two Armstrong water cannons and six single-shot gas mortars.The cavalry version was also fitted with an Armstrong water-cooled machine gun to show the Military Police means business. Originally, that gun was supposed to be something more akin to a self-reloading rifle to serve as a deterrent. But a small gun wasn’t deemed imposing enough to look like a threat.

The Directorate, however, had a very different interpretation of ‘anti-insurgency.’ Instead of water cannons, it had flamethrowers and came with two light machine guns.The Çalmak would be deployed to smoke out anti-Janissary forces and torch their homes in reprisal. The irony was not lost on critics that the Peeler would be used for light firefighting duties.

SERVICE OVERVIEW

With the adoption of the Çalmak, the Directorate raised several CB divisions to support their Sipahi Cavalry and Azab infantry Ortas. The CB units are organized into company-sized Bölüks (pronounced “BUR-luke” or “BUE-luke”), which include pilots and support personnel. Usually, these units field between 12 and 20 CBs.However, following the traditions of their mentor, Solanaire, the CB squadrons still refer to themselves as ‘Mizraks’ (pronounced "Muhz-rahk"); a lance with their own call sign. The most renowned are the Al-Khawlah Sipahi, also known as the Al-Khawlah Amazons. Then there are the Sayyida Korsans (Corsairs). And finally, the Susaybah Janissaries, who patrol the Constantinople area.Their reputation was mixed, as the Çalmak became somewhat synonymous with the Directorate’s war crimes in the Balkans. However, activists being activists, and with generous financial aid to the Directorate’s coffers, these women were promoted in the West as symbols of female independence and military competence.

Back in the British Isles, the situation was very different. The Peelers were attached to the larger police barrows, which usually had no more than two on standby. Only the Provost Police, dedicated to Rift-related activity and raised in the wake of the Emergence, and the Military Mounted Police, founded in 1877, had full lances at the time.The Provosts called themselves the Gallant Sentinels, who specialized in containing Wyrd Beasts. Their water cannons were swiftly replaced with 37 mm Pom-Pom autocannons. Hence, their lance became known as the Pom-Poms.

CONCLUSION

After several years of service, more Çalmak variants were adopted by various other nations and private contractors. It became known as a reliable machine for low-risk engagements. With autocannons, it could deal a world of hurt from a safe distance.

However, as Wyrd Beasts and reverse-engineered technology became more prevalent, the limitations of the platform became obvious.

Despite being one of the first mass-produced CBs, the Çalmak variants were reliable machines. But as time passed and more imposing machines took the limelight, the Çalmak became synonymous with the carnage of the Eastern Crisis.

The Peeler, meanwhile, no longer suited the increasingly hostile battlefields and was decommissioned, eventually making its way into private hands. Because of its prevalence, spare parts were easy to come by and reproduce.

As for their legacy, the Çalmak and Peeler became symbolic of how both empires handled dissent.