COBRA Replicating Android Trooper (R.A.T.) By Imperator-Zor Watch

9 Favourites 2 Comments 736 Views

The ability to make robotic soldiers was one of COBRA's greatest assets during the initial COBRA Wars despite the limitations of even the most advanced models of Battle Android Troopers. It did a lot to make up for the numerical disadvantage that COBRA was always at and by extension both directly (providing more disposable soldiers) and indirectly (strengthening their organization and convincing more people to throw in with COBRA). Said technology was taken with them to COBRA Prime in their interstellar exodus and in time was built on and refined. By 2152, B.A.T.s were smarter, faster, more endurent and in general more capable than their predecessors. These tenth generation B.A.T.s would be produced in the tens of millions and (especially when lead by organic overseers at the squad or platoon level) would prove to be effective ground troops in the Second COBRA/Klingon War. However, while these more traditional units were formidable shock troops a less conventional variation on said technology would ultimately prove more significant in that War: the Replicating Android Trooper (R.A.T.)



The R.A.T. project began in 2139 as one of several minor R&D programs, but ultimately it's sugnifigance was given a major boost in the First COBRA/Klingon War after being adopted by the DeCobray Dynasty with satisfactory results being achieved in 2147. In many regards the R.A.T. was a significant downgrade in terms of performance when compared to a conventional B.A.T., they were sluggish, had a top speed of 8 km/h over short bursts and usually would plod along at 4km/h, less durable (its external coverings offered some protection against shrapnel and did provide decent concealment against passive scans but little else), more bulky, had a shorter operational lifespan (about two years at most), their two arm mounted laser weapons could only fire off 30 pulses per minute and were less powerful than the particle rifles that had become standard and their general processing abilities and adaptability left a lot to be desired. These features were sacrificed to achieve one desired goal: self replication.



Each R.A.T. was capable of collecting deuterium for fuel, eating materials (mostly common materials such as Iron, Carbon and Silicon), processing them and using them to make components that it could assemble into more R.A.T.s (usually taking about seventy hours to do so). This meant that given an ample supply of raw materials and focusing entirely on self replication in three months one R.A.T. could become 1,048,576 R.A.T.s . It could also assemble in the span of nine days a R.A.T. Nest, a fridge sized stationary machine with an input hopper and a set of assembly arms that could make a new R.A.T. in 12 hours and (with assitance of R.A.Ts to move components away and assemble them) a new Nest in two days.



Fearing that another confrontation with the Klingons was inevitable numerous Klingon worlds had R.A.T. Nests (usually several nests per planet, but never more than eight) seeded onto them in sensor resistant casing, a small supply of raw materials, basic subspace receivers and explosive charges (in case of detection) in remote locations along their surface. When war was declared an activation signal was sent out and the R.A.T. nests began making R.A.T.s, who's behavior was dictated by directive trees. The first newly created robots were programmed to fan out, avoiding confrontation, find viable resource sites, built new Nests and then work mining and building more R.A.T.s, some of which would further spread out and others would work building new Nest, mining to feed the nests and setting up defensive laser cannons around the Nest clusters. Once a certain number of generations had been achieved or Nests had reached a certain size, most new R.A.T.s would form into groups of 27 and begin to move out to population centers (setting up Nests as they'd go) and attack with a simple objective: Kill All Klingons. Most of the previous stages were done with minimal communication between individual R.A.T.s baring short range laser bursts, though once engagement with the Klingons was done they'd make use a of a variety of long range bursts to report victory or defeat. In addition to their laser weapons, each R.A.T. carried a pair of simple fire and forget chemical rockets which could be used as short range artillery or (especially in large numbers) anti-aircraft weapons.



In a few months after their activation this meant that numerous Klingon planets had become warzones fighting against a seemingly endless waves of murderous machines that just kept coming out of the woodworks. Even though their efforts came in dribs and drabs and their behavior were highly predictable simple were enough to overwhelm many Klingon cities. Attempts were made to destroy Nest Clusters, but doing so was often costly and even if they were successful they were often quickly rebuilt. Additional worlds were seeded with R.A.T.s after the war began, which includes reports of them being deployed on Qo'noS. The only sure way to clear a large area of R.A.T.s was substantial orbital bombardment with a large number of kiloton and megaton strikes, doing massive environmental damage.



Ultimately COBRA's main goal with the R.A.T.s was to tie down planets, east up resources and limit their contribution to the Klingon war machine as well as to act as political leverage in a war which could not be one in a starship to starship. On those occasions during the Second COBRA/Klingon War in which conventional COBRA forces took planets a Kill Command was given which caused the R.A.T.s to self destruct. While other factors played into it, the fact that COBRA possessed said Kill Commands did play a role in the eventual peace treaty that ended said conflict. After the war the Klingons made use of this to clear out all their planets and invested heavily in planetary sensor grids in case of another such attack. The Romulans also took note and began work on their own projects of a similar nature while COBRA kept research into that field going.

IMAGE DETAILS Image size 1142x1775px 554.91 KB Show More