The Universe of WipEout

[NeroIcaras]

Tigron Enterprises and the mystery of the “K-VSR”

“FX400 RACE COMMISSION DATABASE ENTRY: TIGRON ENTERPRISES
LEVEL ZERO FOUR CLEARANCE REQUIRED.
DATA PURGED: CODEWORM ACCESS INTERDICTION SUCCESSFUL AT POINTS 62.33[error], PILOTPROFILESDUBR13[error],-ILES BASC138.23.0[error], OVERTEL CORP. ARCHIVES[error], -ORONER REPORT KIRO666.0.0.49[error], FINANC-[error], PILOT KHUM.1[error]. 2,127 FILES COMPROMISED.
DATABASE INTEGRITY ESTIMATED AT 13.6%.”

- Leaked FX400 Race Commission records regarding the status of their files on Tigron Enterprises. Backdated June 13, 2209.

Has there ever been a team as controversial in the history of anti-gravity racing as Tigron Enterprises? Though its tenure in the sport was fleeting in terms of championships competed in, the Russian organisation nonetheless left a deep and indelible scar on the landscape of the AGRC, and its legacy continues to permeate hushed rooms and datasheet comment sections years after their dissolution.

Tigron’s founding was steeped in shadowy dealings, bloodshed and controversy. After years of rising tensions and economic depression, the developing socialist movement in Russia was gripped by a shadowy crime organisation. Calling themselves the Новые априлиты (New Aprilists, a reference to Vladimir Lenin’s 1917 ‘April Theses’) the New Aprilists practiced an extreme form of hardline neo-Bolshevism, undermining the then-crumbling democratic government with propaganda campaigns, guerrilla warfare and terrorism, supported by an untraceable and immense amount of financial resources. In the summer of 2147, New Aprilist suicide bombers carried out a co-ordinated attack on the Russian Federal Assembly, the Kremlin and several high-profile military bases, killing and wounding thousands and essentially decapitating the power structure of old Russia. Declaring the formation of the ‘Socialist Union of Russian Republics’ (SSRR), the enigmatic New Aprilists installed former Commerce Secretary Aleksey Yurenev as a puppet ‘Premier’ and instituted a mass reform of Russia’s economy, infrastructure and government.

At this time, Qirex-RD was one of Russia’s leading anti-gravity research firms, as well as the world’s foremost anti-gravity racing team. Seeing the potential of AG racing as a propaganda tool, the SSRR ordered a complete reorganization of Qirex’s company structure, rebranding it under the name Tigron Enterprises in August 2149. Several high-profile Qirex engineers and executives who protested were sent to a number of hastily built ‘re-education and commitment’ camps on the Siberian border: the SSRR categorically refuted several reports claiming that nothing existed there except mass graves and sentry checkpoints.

Tigron thus replaced Qirex as a team entry for the 2150 season. Despite immense outcry from the United Nations, the F7200 League Committee and both pilots and fans alike, Tigron were waved into the championship without so much as a glance. Thanks to Qirex know-how and an emphasis on aggressive piloting, Tigron were immediately successful, and by 2154 had won their first title courtesy of Swede Ingrid Kohler. Kohler was highly outspoken against the team’s practices throughout her time at Tigron, as evidenced by this quote from the AG racing datasheet Sublime and Delicious in September 2152:

“Of course, the money here is sublime, but racing for these people is harder than a perfect lap at P-Mar Project. The secrecy we’re held to and the lack of information - sometimes I don’t even know who I’m racing for! Sixty million euros is a high price to pay for my contract, let alone my silence.”

An unfortunate testing accident midway through the 2155 season ended Kohler’s career shortly afterward, and she disappeared from the public eye until her (rumoured) death in 2190.

With the conclusion of the F7200 era in 2155, Tigron appeared front-and-centre on the entry lists for the inaugural season of the F9000 league. With a greater focus on public spectacle, weapon usage and media representation, Tigron’s philosophy seemed to fit the new league regulations rather well. The team’s shadowy chief engineer Vladimir X was quoted in a leaked internal memo, saying, “finally, those f**kers upstairs have their hands on the controls. Knew they’d manage it. Time to wipe the floor with all these whining bastards: This is the Tigron era, baby!” When asked who the “upstairs” people were and exactly what they’d ‘managed’, Vladimir X remained tight-lipped. He was not present at any more F9000 events until the 2158 season opener, and profusely vomited after being asked any further questions about said memo.

Shady practices notwithstanding, there was no denying Tigron were massively successful. In the early years, the team’s developing BULL-series craft were exceptionally powerful and often matched up against Xios and Piranha in terms of outright speed: unfortunately, the difficulty of piloting these immense craft resulted in the team going through pilots on a season-by-season basis, ensuring the championship was never quite within reach. That all changed with Omarr Khumala’s signing in 2158: standing 6’ 8'' tall and weighing almost a hundred kilos, the imposing South African marked a significant upturn in Tigron’s success. Kept loyal by some of AG racing’s most lucrative contracts and treatment that bordered on royal by the team, Khumala laid waste to ship after ship. While Tigron weren’t famed for their technical expertise or racing finesse, Khumala regularly claimed race wins and topped the elimination tables for five consecutive years. Forming a solid partnership with teammates Sveta Kirovski (2160-64) and Georgi Zaitsev (2164-68), Khumala went on to finally win his one and only championship title in 2164. That year, while famed for the incredible title battle between Khumala, Xios’s Natasha Belmondo and Jann Shlaudecker of Piranha, was also marred by the Temtesh Bay disaster. Tigron pilot Sveta Kirovski was among those killed in the collapse of the mines: an emotional Khumala dedicated his title to the Russian, and declared his intent “to keep racing, for Sveta’s sake, and to do her proud as long as I am able.”

Unfortunately for Khumala, Tigron’s competitiveness dropped off steadily afterwards. Races where the Tigron craft were absolutely nowhere would be followed by absolutely dominant performances. Accusations of foul play were leveled at the team, to be met with thinly-veiled disgust and denial by Tigron representatives. Eventually, the F9000 Race Commission were forced to intervene and placed a blanket ban on accusations relating to Tigron from that point forward: it is thought that this was the catalyst for the Anti-Gravity Purity Coalition’s extensive investigation. Despite this, the Tigron craft continually dropped down the order: by 2169, the year of Khumala’s retirement, Tigron occupied a dismal fifth out of seven in the championship rankings.

Omarr Khumala himself remains one of the most loyal pilots to a single team in AG racing history, spending his entire 12-season, 186-race career with Tigron. Following his retirement, Omarr Khumala retired to Johannesburg, establishing a network of dog shelters and animal welfare charities across the country. The South African has two children: Dana (b. 2166) and Bevan ‘Bev’ (b. 2174). Bevan Khumala’s son Jeev is currently an Assegai Academy pilot, and will begin his first JX200 campaign in 2219.

2170 was, by all accounts, an unremarkable year for Tigron right up until the end. Far removed from the FEISAR-Xios battle at the top of the standings, Tigron’s two rookie pilots were mostly unremarkable and average, although random podiums and high finishes kept them in fourth, ahead of EG-R and G-Tech. However, at the penultimate round of the championship in Alca Vexus, an announcement on the starting grid immediately prior to the race start would totally bulldoze any illusion of normalcy the AG racing world may have held. The tireless efforts of the Anti-Gravity Purity Coalition were laid bare on every screen and every datacast across the world: terabytes of hacked data revealing the corruption, fraud and large-scale cover-ups of the Overtel Corporation and several teams, including Tigron, G-Tech and several high-ranking officials. For several silent moments, shock washed over pilots, teams and the thousands-strong crowd, as trackside screens and holo-boards displayed the terrible, final truth.

Then all hell broke loose.

The craft of lead EG-R pilot Nawin Kantawong boosted forward, uncontrolled, into the rear of Lucien Badeaux’s Piranha before coming to a dead stop: both EG-R pilots’ vitals had inexplicably flatlined. Both G-Tech pilots activated their craft’s emergency ejection systems in an effort to escape, only to be apprehended by Mexican Federal Police drones. The Tigron craft of American pilot Silas Drecker III spontaneously detonated, incinerating both the craft and Drecker. His teammate, the Lithuanian rookie Povilas Kalvaitis, immediately ejected from his craft, only for his retrieval pod to be quickly destroyed by an unguided rocket launcher from somewhere in the grandstands: the entire Tigron team on-site were arrested by Mexican Federal Police. It turned out, from financial documents recovered by the Purity Coalition, that Overtel had been backing Tigron from their very inception. Tigron data specialists had apparently uncovered massive financial irregularities from Overtel’s previous management of Qirex, blackmailing Overtel into pouring billions into Tigron to prop up the league’s aggressive image and ensure Tigron’s own success. This even involved fixing races in the team’s later, faltering years to keep up appearances. Furthermore, shadowy sources pointed at Overtel’s finances having backed the Aprilist revolution in Russia to start with, for reasons that will perhaps forever remain unknown. In the worldwide chaos that followed, the SSRR was obliterated in a lengthy civil war, and the Tigron facilities destroyed in a mass riot. Tigron was dead, and its ashes thoroughly ground into the dirt.

Or perhaps not. Following the return of professional AG racing in the form of the FX300 League, the chairman of the newly reformed Qirex team, Feliks Levovich, commissioned the two remaining Tigron craft. Completely outdated and maintained with a dwindling inventory of parts rescued from the ruins of the Tigron factory in Moscow, the so-called BULL-776 craft were completely unsuited to a team entry in the FX300. Levovich thus entered them as a sort of ‘training team’ for Qirex test pilots in the JX150 championship, starting in 2199. The Tigron craft, hastily modified under JX150 rules, were surprisingly competitive, excelling on the higher speed circuits such as Blue Ridge and Sincuit. However, the team’s overriding need to keep the craft from being destroyed limited their actual progress, and Qirex terminated the Tigron junior program in 2202 with no victories to their name. Both BULL-776 ships are now on display at the Qirex-RD Museum of Racing Excellence at their HQ in Moscow.

However, that was still not the end of the Tigron name. During the illegal amateur AG racing scene of the 2170s/80s, rumours surfaced of a secret group of Tigron employees who had escaped the original company’s destruction. The team had supposedly been working on a skunkworks project, known as the K-VSR, to revitalize the team’s fortunes, but the F9000 had collapsed before the craft could be unveiled. Undeterred, the Tigron employees continued work in secret, and soon glimpses and whispers of a top-secret prototype began to emerge on the amateur racing scene. The K-VSR quickly became an urban legend among racers: a hulking, battle-scarred craft rumoured to be near-unstoppable in a straight line and unbeatable in any race you care to name. No craft matching this description was ever entered in a professional race, but the legend remains. With the right contacts and the right amount of money, anyone can supposedly fly Tigron’s last swansong.

Both the FX300 and FX400 Race Commission have mounted extensive investigations into the veracity of these rumours. In 2209, a large-scale cyber-attack from an unknown source heavily damaged and erased much of the FX400 Race Commission’s archives on Tigron Enterprises, the Overtel Corporation and the K-VSR. No further investigations have been held.