| The Python was the last member of an experimental line of large Gears developed by Mandeers Heavy Industries for Southern military forces. The line, dubbed the "constrictors," consisted of three designs heavily inspired by the Razorback Northern Gear that was commonly fielded at the time. The three were developed together and reached the prototype stage in rapid succession; they were named Boa, Anaconda, and Python, after legendary enormous constrictor snakes originally found on Earth. Of the three, only the Python saw active service. Slightly smaller than its two brethren and equipped with a more efficient engine, the Python was also well-armored, well armed, and carried a fairly good computer control system. The one problem was its design limitations. The Razorback was a 50-cycle old machine when the Python was designed and the Southern Gear did not solve the technical difficulties of the Northern design, most importantly a serious design flaw in the sensor suite which gave it spotty performance. Nevertheless the Python entered service to fill the niche for a dedicated fire support Gear, but it was decided that it would be the last machine of its line.
In the last 30 cycles, the Python has had an active second career in the Badlands and among bandits of the Southern Hemisphere. While a good number of the Gears are still in the hands of second-line units, city militias, or the Mekong Peacekeepers, an alarming number are fielded by two-bit desert dictators and rover bands. Several of the large bandit armies of the Mekong junges use Pythons and the Peacekeepers and MILICIA have both struggled to stop the flow of the machines into the black market. The MILCIA military police has recently begun a crack-down on spare parts smuggling and theft, hoping to cut off the vital supplies that keep bandit Gears in operational order. Several savannah and desert principalities which have recently signed accords with the Allied Southern Territories have bitterly complained about this crack-down, however. These communities depend on the black market to supply them with the hardware necessary to defend themselves against rovers and are afraid that they will become vulnerable to attack long before the bandits do.
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