The Strider Battleoid

History

Designed as a mobile watchtower, the Strider battleoid was manufactured by Danforth Galactic under contract to the PLIN starting in GSC 925. The design was widely used by Planetary League garrison forces across the galaxy. Striders were fielded by both sides in the Great Reckoning. Production continued through the end of that war and continued well into the Imperial era after Danforth had been subsumed by the Holy Empire of Man.

Striders remained in service throughout Era-2 due to their low production cost. Several variants became popular and helped the longevity of the design.

The Strider was so cheap to produce and so prolifically distributed, that most militaries in the galaxy ended up with at least a few.

Capabilities and Specifications

The Strider was designed to be fast and light, sporting a minimum of armor, its defenses were centered on an advanced sensor suite and exceptional ground speed. The Strider was often deployed to areas with soft terrain, such as swamps, sandy deserts, and snowy polar areas. Because of this, it was designed to be relatively lightweight, with especially wide feet that helped prevent it from sinking in.

The Strider’s load-out was designed for base defense. Its main armament was a pair of anti-aircraft lasers mounted in the torso. It dealt with ground-based threats with an under-slung light railgun turret. In place of arms, the Strider possessed a pair of point-defense laser turrets to deal with drones, guided munitions, and the like.

The Strider was designed to serve the role of a mobile watchtower, and was 16 meters tall with the main sensor array mounted at its apex to serve that purpose.

Options and Variants

Danforth Galactic offered a number of options and variations of the basic Strider design.

The most popular options that most Striders possessed were a Spotlight attachment and a pair of light drone-racks that were highly valuable in increasing the unit’s sensor range and making it more suitable to patrolling deserted areas alone.

The most common variants were a set of specialization options for working in particular environments. Most of these were represented by the Snow-Strider, the Sand-Strider, and the Swamp-Strider.

Titans

When the Holy Empire of Man took over the island, the locals called them the "Sky Kings". One village embraced the Sky Kings and their ways while the rest clung to the old ways. One day, the Celestial Knight descended from the heavens and stood by the village. Then a mighty hurricane rose from the sea and destroyed all the enemies of the Sky Kings. The village and the Celestial Knight stood unharmed, square in the eye of the hurricane for three days. The locals called it a miracle, the commanding officer called it weather control.

Titans are enormous walking vehicles similar to battleoids, but at a larger scale.  The smallest titans are about the same size as the largest battleoids, but the largest are far larger.  Because of their size and complexity, titans are always piloted by a crew of at least two, and usually three or five pilots connected via an inter-brain network based off the early experiments of the Markovians (notably technology recovered from the Archipelago incident).  Unlike battleoids, Titans are never mass-produced. Each one is custom-built for a particular use.  Many prosperous industrial worlds prominently feature a titan in their planetary defense forces, as a status symbol.

History

The first Titans saw deployment around GSC 850 among the star-kingdoms along the Sagittarius rim.  The Planetary League never widely adopted the technology, but the Holy Empire of Man used them extensively, mainly as an intimidation tactic.  The Empire of 1,000,000 Suns gained the technology shortly before the War of the Empires, and Titans saw extensive use during that conflict.

Civil Defense Battleoid

The civil defense battleoid is a classic design in the history of the Empire of 1,000,000 Suns.  Dating back before the 1,000 Years war, it was a common sight on garrison duty, defending cities, and even on the outer hulls of space habitats and capitol ships.  While many of its systems were upgraded, the basic design of the civil defense battleoid changed very little over the history of the empire.

Capabilities

The civil defense battleoid had two arms slung below the center of its body, these could be used to wield a number of different weapons and other equipment. 

The "eye" at the front of its body housed both a searchlight and a powerful laser cannon. 

The body housed a large deflector shield to supplement the battleoid's weaker than average armor.

The feet of the battleoid contained powerful electromagnets that allowed it to operate on the outer hulls of star-ships.

The civil defense battleoid was designed to be operated by a single pilot who entered and exited through a hatch on the under-side of the body directly behind the arms.

Spinoffs and variants

The design of the Convergence scout walker was based on the civil defense battleoid, with many of its systems being directly copied.

E1MS Artillery Pod

Overview

The Artillery Pod was an important weapon in the armory of the Empire of 1,000,000 Suns.  Before the 1,000 Years War, these walking artillery pieces were, for the most part, fully robotic.  During the war; however, they defected to the Cult of Troniac in large numbers, and subsequently, were manufactured almost exclusively for operation by an organic pilot.

Heavily armed and armored, but slow and ponderous, the Artillery-pod was often used to set up fortified positions, especially in rough terrain. 

E1MS "Sapling" Rifle

The "Sapling" was the standard rifle chassis for most of the history of the Empire of 1,000,000 Suns. 

An unadorned Sapling, as might be seen in field use.

For formal inspections, parades, etc., the Sapling is often seen adorned in Imperial Green.

History

First developed during the 1,000 Years war, it saw continuous service (albeit with many variations and upgrades) until the period between the Great Reckoning and the War of the Empires.  Many later claimed that the E1MS might have won the War of the Empires if they had stuck with their traditional arms instead of upgrading to higher tech designs provided by the remnants of the Planetary League.

The E1MS also used the Sapling as a foreign policy tool, gifting it (or the designs to build it) to nearly anyone willing to fight the enemies of the Empire. 

The Cult of Troniac also made extensive use of the Sapling, (especially during the 1000 Years War), as many early conversions to the faith were robots that built the Sapling in the Empire's military machine.

Over time, this weapon was produced in such large numbers, and the designs to create it were so widely available, that most criminal enterprises, insurgencies, and warring factions throughout the galaxy had at least a few of them in their armories.

Variants

There were three main variants of the Sapling in use throughout most of its career. 

The first was the laser rifle, which was the most widely used as it required only electricity to operate, and was therefore the simplest to keep in service.  It was also the cheapest to mass-produce.  This simplicity was offset by the fact that a foe could deflect the laser by presenting an appropriately reflective surface.  Most laser rifles could be switched between "single shot" mode, which activated the laser briefly, and "continuous beam" mode which would operate until either the trigger was released or the power cell discharged.

The second main variant was the rail-gun, which used electromagnets to launch kinetic projectiles.  This necessitated carrying ammunition in addition to power cells.  The projectiles came in a variety of variants with various properties, such as armor-piercing, hollow-point, etc.

The third, and most complex of the standard variants was the plasma-bolt rifle.  This version launched a magnetic core surrounded by charged plasma.  It had the most complex ammunition, consisting of a power cell, a magazine of cores, and a cylinder of gas.  This was a logistical hassle that helped make this the least used of the main variants of the Sapling.  In addition to the damage caused by the magnetic core (its self a kinetic projectile), the plasma fired by this weapon could damage electrical circuits, super-heat armor, and burn flesh.  If the specialized ammunition was unavailable, this version could also fire the projectiles made for the rail-gun variant as well. 

Accessories

Being such a widely-produced weapon for such a long time lead to a plethora of accessories and modifications being created for the Sapling from the mundane to the exotic.

Other Notes

The Sapling rifle was designed to be used by Cielioids, and as such, the trigger is about twice the size as what a human would normally use.  (Cielioids have only two large fingers on a hand about the same width of a human hand.)  This makes operation of the rifle by humans awkward, but not by any means impossible.  During Era-2, one of the most popular modifications for the Sapling was to replace the handle and trigger with something more amenable to human hands.

Deflector Shields

Deflector shields are a defensive measure employed primarily by star-ships, (although a number of other applications exist as well) to protect them from both the harsh environment of deep space, as well as attack by hostile forces.

History

The earliest deflector shields were simple magnetic fields projected around a ship to deflect incoming charged particles.  This partially protected astronauts from cosmic radiation, and provided some defense against plasma-based weapons.

The first popular enhancement was to add some ionized gas to the field.  This blocked more radiation, and allowed the shield to be used as a magnetic sail.

Later models added reflective nanoparticles that could defend against laser weapons.

Once flux pinning technology matured, deflector shields could resist kinetic attack as well. 

All these basic techniques of deflector shield defense were developed first during Era-0 in the Spozak, and during Era-1 in human space.  Later models continued to refine and elaborate on these principals.

In practice there are two main types of deflector shields:

Energy Shields

These are the most common type of deflector shield, designed to stop energy weapons (lasers, plasma-bolts, and the like), and keep out the hard radiation of space.  The main weakness of these shields is that they can admit solid projectiles, such as torpedoes, fighters, or asteroids. Energy shields are affordable, consume a moderate amount of power, and can be built small and light.

Barrier Shields

These are rare, expensive, require a bulky, generator, and use a lot of power to operate.  Even a shield of this type designed to contain only a single prisoner without any personal space can weigh a ton, and consume enough power to operate a star-fighter.  Naturally, they are used only to protect the most valuable targets.  The main advantage to their use is that barrier shields, unlike energy shields, do not permit the passage of solid objects.

Kugelblitz projector/ Kugelblitz formation

Description/ use

The Kugelblitz projector (and the Kugelblitz formation) is a massive weapon, designed to create a small black hole at a target location, by precisely targeting a large number of high powered lasers.  A black hole generated by light concentrated in a small space is known to science as a Kugelblitz (from the German, meaning "Ball Lightning").  The Kugelblitz is a real black hole,(meaning that it has gravity so intense that light can not escape it), although in almost all recorded uses of the Kugelblitz projector/formation it lasted only a fraction of a second, due to Hawking Radiation.   Hawking Radiation is also the main lethal force of the Kugelblitz Projector, as the black hole generated by it is too small to have far-reaching gravitational effects, and the Hawking Radiation of such a black hole is colossally explosive.

The Kugelblitz Projector/ Formation is a large-scale weapon, generally deployed against capital ships, cities, or space-colonies.  The higher-power versions could destroy the biosphere of an inhabited planet, or even break up small planets.

The Kugelblitz projector is a single-unit weapon, usually installed on large capital ships, consisting of a large number of high-powered lasers with a centralized controller to aim them at a certain location, and to time the beams to arrive there at the same instant.  Sometimes (especially with lower-tech versions), the projector will operate with the assistance of a targeting drone, similar to the Kugelblitz formation.

The Kugelblitz formation follows the same concept, except the lasers are distributed among a number of smaller craft.  This makes the precise targeting essential to the operation of the weapon more difficult.  For this reason, a Kugelblitz formation generally uses a targeting drone (usually a torpedo modified with special reflectors and a reaction chamber where the Kugelblitz forms) fired from a command ship in order to coordinate the attack.

The technology that enables the Kugelblitz Formation is derived from the older Sunflower Formation, which used reflectors mounted on small craft to concentrate sunlight on a target, in order to super-heat it.

History

In the Empire of 1,000,000 Suns, the first known designs for a Kugelblitz projector were created by Kroah Dashan as a speculative project.  Eventually, it was built for use in combating the dreaded Nomad Armies that frequently raided the Empire.  Both the projector and the formation found a substantial amount by both sides during the 1,000 Years War.  After that conflict it was used only sporadically, during the long, relatively peaceful period until the War of the Empires, when it again became a main weapon in large battles.

In the Holy Empire of Man, the Kugelblitz Projector was developed during the Great Reckoning, for use by the Purification Fleet, destroying cities and sterilizing planets.  During the War of the Empires, the Kugelblitz Formation was also developed in order to counter the E1MS, and was used heavily by both sides in that conflict.

The John-Henry industrial battleoid

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Specs

Height: 10 meters(32'9")

Width at shoulders: 4 meters(13'1")

Length (cockpit):  3 meters(9'10")

Operating mass: 60 metric tons (66 tons)

Maximum walking speed: 40kph (25mph)

Power system:  Two hot-swappable graphene-glucose hypercapacitors (mounted on either side of the cockpit)

Power system output: 10000kw

History

The ironically named John-Henry (named after the folk hero ) was built and sold by Ares Systems during Era-1, primarily as a piece of heavy construction equipment.  The relatively simple, modular design led to a host of modified versions for specific tasks.  The John Henry was a top-seller, and Ares Systems reliably redesigned it with new features and improvements about once a decade throughout its manufacturing lifespan.

The popular shipyard variant was outfitted with maneuvering jets, a fully environmentally-sealed cockpit (with storage for enough consumables to supply one pilot for 24 hours), and two heavy-duty electromagnets in the soles of the feet.

The versatility of its design, and heavy-duty construction also made the John-Henry a useful (if slow-moving) improvised defensive unit in combat situations.  Many of the small states that sprung up around the fringes of the Planetary League included John-Henries in their armed forces.  John-Henries were also a common armament for various the pockets of resistance and rebellion that opposed the Holy Empire of Man during Era-2.