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So, it's no secret that I am obsessed with "old" technology. Hell, a good number of my tech submissions are some form of "ancient" tech; one of my characters, X3R, is an antique pre-Republic war droid.
Well, with the new timeline coming up, I had initially decided to remake my good ol' walking meatbag disposal unit for it. I doubt I would even need to change the backstory much, and he would fit even better in an earlier age when his technology was less obsolete.
But, I got to thinking, and I began to realize that X3R, as fun a character as he is, is just the tip of what could be a large and terrifyingly well armored iceberg.
X3R is a War-Robot, a machine based on the Legends-canon Guardian Corps. The Corps were the creation of the pre-Republic dictator Xim, a conqueror who forged a powerful star empire in the Outer Rim at a time when the Old Republic was still a gleam in Core Worlds' collective eye. He controlled thousands of worlds, and possessed a massive space fleet which expanded his empire by the day. His fist, it was said, would enclose the stars, and his name would outlive time.
Neither of these predictions bore true, of course. Xim went to war with the Hutts when the frontier of his empire brushed up against their holdings, and was subsequently captured and enslaved after being defeated in battle. His reign lasted about 30 years, and his empire broke up into warring factions after his death. By the time of the Galactic Civil War, he was considered obscure, his name mainly of interest to archaeologists and historians studying the pre-Republic history of the Tion Cluster.
Now, there is a piece of Star Wars reference material called the Despotica, which is both an academic chronicle of Xim's life and times - and of his empire - and also a stage play. It's a bit hard to get a hold of these days, as it was published only on the old official Star Wars website, and as far as I know had been taken down even before the Disney takeover. There are probably... ways that you can still get it, though. >.>
One of the most interesting parts of it to me, though, was a part regarding Xim's Guardian Corps, and his increasing reliance on them. Especially as his war against the Hutts began to pick up steam, Xim became more and more distrustful of his own organic underlings, suspecting incompetence and fearing conspiracies against him. In response to these fears, he began to rely more and more heavily on technology, even intentionally sacrificing his organic armies and officers in suicidal campaigns so that they could be replaced by his war droids. It of course didn't help, in the end, as he was defeated by the Hutts and their bottomless supply of spice-addicted slave soldiers, but the idea of an insane dictator turning his figurative war machine over to literal ones got me thinking.
Just how far could that have gone?
"I was brought before their command podium, shackled and crawling like an animal, the way some prehistoric barbarian might have treated a conquered foe. The droids stood silent in rows, rank upon rank of gleaming kiirium death. I was not allowed to look up, until we stopped, and I was commanded to.
"I had been morbidly curious. Who could this be? Who stood at the command podium, leading this army of merciless machines that had descended on our world, who had ordered our cities reduced to level plains, our people slaughtered like beasts?
"I looked up, and saw, oh gods did I see. I saw an ornate suit of battle armor from an age long past, as gloriously shining as any of the droids... but in it, propped up only by that armor, were naught but bones.
"And with a terrible clatter, a million arms raised in salute to a general long consigned to chaos. Naught but punch-cards and defaults guided these constructs.
"They did as their cruel master had commanded, long, long ago, and nothing would ever tell them to stop."
_Anonymous Republic officer, captured by the ACC.
Until I can think of something better - or someone suggests something - I'm calling this the Automatic Conquest Corps. They are, indeed, still-functioning War-Robots, built by a paranoid Xim, or some equivalent. After their master was defeated in a long-ago war, those armies not defeated in battle continued to function, and since their maker had only ever trusted himself with their shutdown commands, they could not be stopped. With no guidance from their defeated high command, they started roaming the Galaxy, attacking worlds at random. They were incredibly well made, lethal in battle, and were programmed to enslave a portion of any defeated population, brainwashing them with mind probes to have them perform maintenance and repairs, keeping the droids at full strength.
Now, obviously the ACC was a major threat to the early Republic, especially as it expanded into the Outer Rim. Jedi and Republic armies hunted down and destroyed most of the roaming droid armies, and these days the ACC is mostly remembered as a scary story told to young ones to make them behave.
Every so often, though, "phantom transports" will be sighted along some backrocket hyperlane, or some remote world will mysteriously fall silent...
...and when the subspace interference is thin, one can still hear faint messages in some forgotten code, beaming across the void...
What d'you guys think?
Well, with the new timeline coming up, I had initially decided to remake my good ol' walking meatbag disposal unit for it. I doubt I would even need to change the backstory much, and he would fit even better in an earlier age when his technology was less obsolete.
But, I got to thinking, and I began to realize that X3R, as fun a character as he is, is just the tip of what could be a large and terrifyingly well armored iceberg.
X3R is a War-Robot, a machine based on the Legends-canon Guardian Corps. The Corps were the creation of the pre-Republic dictator Xim, a conqueror who forged a powerful star empire in the Outer Rim at a time when the Old Republic was still a gleam in Core Worlds' collective eye. He controlled thousands of worlds, and possessed a massive space fleet which expanded his empire by the day. His fist, it was said, would enclose the stars, and his name would outlive time.
Neither of these predictions bore true, of course. Xim went to war with the Hutts when the frontier of his empire brushed up against their holdings, and was subsequently captured and enslaved after being defeated in battle. His reign lasted about 30 years, and his empire broke up into warring factions after his death. By the time of the Galactic Civil War, he was considered obscure, his name mainly of interest to archaeologists and historians studying the pre-Republic history of the Tion Cluster.
Now, there is a piece of Star Wars reference material called the Despotica, which is both an academic chronicle of Xim's life and times - and of his empire - and also a stage play. It's a bit hard to get a hold of these days, as it was published only on the old official Star Wars website, and as far as I know had been taken down even before the Disney takeover. There are probably... ways that you can still get it, though. >.>
One of the most interesting parts of it to me, though, was a part regarding Xim's Guardian Corps, and his increasing reliance on them. Especially as his war against the Hutts began to pick up steam, Xim became more and more distrustful of his own organic underlings, suspecting incompetence and fearing conspiracies against him. In response to these fears, he began to rely more and more heavily on technology, even intentionally sacrificing his organic armies and officers in suicidal campaigns so that they could be replaced by his war droids. It of course didn't help, in the end, as he was defeated by the Hutts and their bottomless supply of spice-addicted slave soldiers, but the idea of an insane dictator turning his figurative war machine over to literal ones got me thinking.
Just how far could that have gone?
"I was brought before their command podium, shackled and crawling like an animal, the way some prehistoric barbarian might have treated a conquered foe. The droids stood silent in rows, rank upon rank of gleaming kiirium death. I was not allowed to look up, until we stopped, and I was commanded to.
"I had been morbidly curious. Who could this be? Who stood at the command podium, leading this army of merciless machines that had descended on our world, who had ordered our cities reduced to level plains, our people slaughtered like beasts?
"I looked up, and saw, oh gods did I see. I saw an ornate suit of battle armor from an age long past, as gloriously shining as any of the droids... but in it, propped up only by that armor, were naught but bones.
"And with a terrible clatter, a million arms raised in salute to a general long consigned to chaos. Naught but punch-cards and defaults guided these constructs.
"They did as their cruel master had commanded, long, long ago, and nothing would ever tell them to stop."
_Anonymous Republic officer, captured by the ACC.
Until I can think of something better - or someone suggests something - I'm calling this the Automatic Conquest Corps. They are, indeed, still-functioning War-Robots, built by a paranoid Xim, or some equivalent. After their master was defeated in a long-ago war, those armies not defeated in battle continued to function, and since their maker had only ever trusted himself with their shutdown commands, they could not be stopped. With no guidance from their defeated high command, they started roaming the Galaxy, attacking worlds at random. They were incredibly well made, lethal in battle, and were programmed to enslave a portion of any defeated population, brainwashing them with mind probes to have them perform maintenance and repairs, keeping the droids at full strength.
Now, obviously the ACC was a major threat to the early Republic, especially as it expanded into the Outer Rim. Jedi and Republic armies hunted down and destroyed most of the roaming droid armies, and these days the ACC is mostly remembered as a scary story told to young ones to make them behave.
Every so often, though, "phantom transports" will be sighted along some backrocket hyperlane, or some remote world will mysteriously fall silent...
...and when the subspace interference is thin, one can still hear faint messages in some forgotten code, beaming across the void...
What d'you guys think?
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