In 3073, Solaris was on the verge of collapse. The Word of Blake were everywhere, the ragged defenders pushed to the edge and beyond, with no aid in sight. Then the Fourteenth Skye, formerly Lyran, Guard RCT showed up out of nowhere. The Word of Blake met them in the skies over Solaris and the remains of the Solarian defenders could do nothing but watch as one ship after another exploded. The Word of Blake fought to the last fighter, destroying three-quarters of the Skye Guard and almost all of their spaceships, sending the rest burning towards the ground.
         Solaris was littered with the shattered remnants of Word and Skye war machines, many of which rained down on Solarian positions. The Solarians stripped and fixed any machines they could, putting them back into action against the Word. Doctor R. Raisley performed a number of experiments, one of which worked better than expected. He grafted the remains of a destroyed Morpheus that lost its upper body with a Word Striga shot down over Nowhere. Skye fighters had shattered its fusion core, but the sturdy craft survived the crash intact enough that its cockpit and much of its upper structure could be used. At first Doctor Raisley was just looking to make the odd combination of fighter and 'Mech capable of walking into battle and firing its weapons. He didn't realize at the time just how demanding its MechWarrior would be.
         Medron Pryde came from a family with a long tradition of piloting LAMs, but he'd lost one of the last remaining LAMs his family still owned in the earlier fighting on Solaris. He saw Doctor's Raisley's combination of a Striga and Morpheus as a chance to retake the family tradition, assuming he could arrange things right. And even if it only turned out to be a Frankenstein it would be better than the nothing he had at the time.

         At first the "Mark Zero Frankenstein" could only walk, but as the weeks went by and the Solarian defenders began to push the Word back, Doctor Raisley continued to work on it. After a series of "feature requests" he finally managed to feed the Striga's jets from the new power plan and the Mark Zero could jump. It took him weeks to tweak it enough to stop it from flying out of control every time the jets activated, and he nearly gave up on the thing. But in the end the Mark Zero began spending more time in combat and less in the shop. Carrying a particle cannon in each hand, it brought impressive firepower to the war against the Word. It was also faster, when he could keep it from running into buildings, and again and again the twin particle cannons helped to bring down Word machines.
         That was when the critical need for scouting became even more important. With the Word of Blake retreating back towards Solaris City, the Solarians had to cover more and more territory with their limited scouts. Medron "suddenly" had the idea to use the Striga's jets, already designed for constant use, in conjunction with some rebuilt wings it was already designed to carry, to give him flight capabilities. So he could scout. For the defense of Solaris.
         The suspicious Doctor Raisley reattached the wings that "just happened" to be stored away, and as usual the Mark Zero didn't work as advertised. It wasn't until the new year that it flew, but in the end it provided an excellent scouting platform in the skies that were now almost completely empty of anything short of a basic AeroFighter, and even they were rare. It helped keep the Word of Blake from escaping the DropPort in the final hours of the war for Solaris, telling Solarian units where to cut them off again and again.
         Then the war was over and it was time to rebuild the shattered industrial base of Solaris. It would be five years before they could build new BattleMechs or space ships, and in that time anything that could make it into space was worth its weight in germanium. And Medron "just so happened" to have a unit that was at least partially designed for it. Half of it at least.
         By now, Doctor Raisley was far past suspicious. He knew he'd been had, but he also realized that one of his most annoying testers had a point. Any space faring vehicle, no matter the origin, was needed, and since the Nova Cats were selling LAM parts again, the retrofit would be possible. Not easy. Not fast. Not anything that brought to mind an image of Doctor Raisley having any hair on his head when he was done. Just possible.
         The Mark Zero learned to transform in 3076, and flew into space before the new year, giving Solaris a valuable spaceborn asset. It became valuable enough in fact that when Solaris got its feet under it again, the new Cooperative looked to acquire more LAMs like it. Doctor Raisley, having ironed out all of the major difficulties of the design over the previous years, helped bring production online in 3081.
         The Archangels, as they became known, used the most advanced electronics and systems available to the Solaris Cooperative, including Clan technology particle cannons. Heavy armor and mobility remained important in the final version as well, and to this day it is still one of the hardest LAMs to shoot down.

         The Archangel LAM has become the primary medium AeroSpace Fighter of the Solaris Cooperative. It has also become the symbol of the Solarian space forces, and of the new Unlimited Series Tournaments where warriors fight under water, on land, in the air, and in space. Trisagion AeroSpace also sells them to member units of the Allied Mercenary Command, expanding their visibility throughout the Human Sphere. The Mark Zero still flies over Solaris as well, despite its age and idiosyncracies.