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.

Retribution-class battleoid

The Retribution class battleoid was used extensively by the Holy Empire of Man during the War of the Empires.  Designed as a terror and siege weapon, its main armament was a heavy repeating plasma-bolt thrower mounted on its right arm. Its standard configuration also included retractable missile pods, and a large spotlight.  The Retribution also had a number of mounting points for optional equipment.  

Star-gates

Description

Star-gates are ring-shaped machines that directly connect two locations in space.  All star-gates are constructed in pairs that connect to one another.  They are huge and very expensive to create.  The two halves are built together, and then, after the gate has been activated, the two pieces are separated, one going to either location that is to be connected.  Once activated, there is no way known to shut down a star-gate.  The construction of star-gates requires large amounts of exotic, and hard to obtain substances.  The absolute minimum size a star-gate can be is about 500 Meters in diameter.  If one half of a star-gate is destroyed, both halves will explode with a colossal amount of energy. 

History

In the Empire of 1,000,000 Suns, the star-gate was invented well before the 1,000 Years War.  The legendary engineer, Kroah Dashan, oversaw the creation of a dense network of star-gates that protected imperial shipping routes from piracy, but also helped keep the Empire provincial.

Within the E1MS, and in a few other places, there are some ancient, dormant star-gates, known as the Zanathian Gates.  They are rumored to have been built by a civilization even older than the E1MS.

In human space, Star-gates were invented midway through Era-1, but the Planetary League only ever built a handful connecting a few major systems and regional capitols.  The Holy Empire of Man built a few more during Era-2.  Era-3 saw a dramatic rise in the use of star-gates, after the Galactic Republic discovered a more economical means of production.

Revenants

The Holy Empire of Man, in its quest to conquer the galaxy used every means available.  One of the more disturbing of these was the creation of Revenants.  When the forces of the Empire would find one of the Emperor's enemies on the battlefield, either brain-dead, or severely brain-damaged, but otherwise alive, Imperial surgeons would often remove the casualty's head, and replace it with a neuro-cybernetic controller, and some basic sensors.  Then, they would release the Revenant, either guided by artificial intelligence, or under remote-control, as a psychological warfare agent.

See:  Tail of the Toad God