Directorate Officer
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
- Intent: To provide a protocol droid in Lucerne Labs product line-up
- Image Source: protocol droid concept art found in The Art of Rogue One
- Canon Link: N/A
- Permissions: N/A
- Primary Source: N/A
- Manufacturer: Lucerne Labs
- Affiliation: Directorate, Silver Jedi Concord, Lucerne Labs customers
- Market Status: Closed-Market
- Model: L3 Nuntius Protocol Droid
- Modularity: knowledge cartridges
- Production: Mass-Produced
- Material: alusteel chassis with Defensa Textile mesh sealed joints, typical droid components
- Classification: Second Degree
- Weight: Average
- Height: Average
- Movement: bipedal
- Armaments: none
- Misc. Equipment:
- General
- Sensors
- Other
- Sealed Chassis: The Nuntius is designed to work in rougher environments than many protocol droids. To that end, not only does it use a dull, satin alusteel plating chosen just as much for protection as for aesthetics, but all of its wires and joints are covered with Defensa Textile. This effective seals the droid's internal components from the outside environment. Internally, the Nuntius has a Droid System Fortification to make it more reliable in the case the chassis is breached. Consequently, the Nuntius does not worry about sandstorms clogging up its servomotors or acid rain seeping in to corrode its wiring. The droid is even technically capable of being fully submerged underwater, though its movement there is likely to be poor at best.
- Negotiation Suite: The Nuntius has a TranLang III Communications module, which provides it with a wealth of languages and understanding of cultural nuances common to most protocol droids. More than technical ability, however, Lucerne Labs spent a large amount of time in perfecting its stock personality. Fresh from the factory, Nuntius are surprisingly easy going, receptive, agreeable and almost complacent. Its heuristic processor is designed to quickly adapt to and learn other languages, cultures, and even the personal tastes of who its negotiating with. The droid will even adopt mannerisms and phrases of others if it feels like it will make it more likeable to another party. Perhaps because of the company being focused on the mid rim, Nuntius speak with a plain, matter of fact Mid Rim accent. Lucerne Labs designed the personality matrix to be fairly altruistic, and thus the droid has a very strong tendency to explain the viewpoints of all of those present in the best light possible. It also dislikes lying or being aggressive in negotiations. This has given them a reputation as honest brokers for diplomatic purposes, but not great for cutthroat corporate contract negotiating. The droids can be instructed to simply not talk about certain issues though, which can partially negate this potential problem area.
- Protective Suite: The Nuntius is designed to provide both information and physical protection to its owners in the course of delicate negotiations. For physical protection, the droid does have a personal shield generator which it can activate to protect itself and another person or two who stays close to the droid. To ensure privacy in negotiations, the Nuntius has a disruption bubble generator to prevent others from listening in on talks. Similarly, the droid has a sonic scanner and signal interceptor - ostensibly to locate potential bugs, other listening devices, and attempts to pass information outside of the talks. This can mean that sometimes unwary negotiaitors might give the droid more information than they intend to.
- Knowledge Cartridge Input Slots: The front chest panel of the droid conceals of sextet of knowledge cartridge slots. This allows even non-tech savvy owners to quickly give their droids new skills or knowledge with very little time and effort. These cartridges are almost always knowledge cartridges to aid the droid in explaining certain technical or more arcane subjects as part of their negotiation or educational work. Common choices include industrial engineering, starship design, biochemical synthesis, business administration, military protocol, and corporate law.
- Envoy: Like most protocol droids, the Nuntius is a capable envoy thanks to its vast knowledge of languages and cultures as well as sophisticated personality programming.
- Protector: The Nuntius is capable of protecting its owner physically through use of its built-in shield generator and from potential interlopers through its sensors and bubble distortion generator.
- Adaptable: The Nuntius is unusually adaptable for a protocol droid thanks to its use of knowledge cartridges, which lets the droid intelligently discuss a wide variety of different topics that might arise in negotiations. The sealed an hardened nature of its chassis means that it can be pressed into harsh environments with no special environmental adaptations
WEAKNESSES
- Honest: Unusually honest, L3s tend to do well at creating mutual understandings, but tend to do poorly in aggressive negotiations because of their penchant for being honest about almost everything.
- Poor Combatant: L3s are not designed for direct combat, having no weapons or specific combat programming
Protocol droids are almost a necessity for any large organization in the galaxy today - the sheer diversity of peoples and cultures inevitably means contact with someone who doesn't speak a common tongue or comes from a different cultural background. Irritated by his own experience with a particularly prissy 3PO droid, Admiral Quee tasked a droid designer team with making what he considered to be an ideal protocol droid from himself: knowledgeable, relatively laid back, and adaptable. To that end, the design team created the Nuntius to be particularly "unannoying" to the admiral, especially in field conditions, to which the man agrees they succeeded.
The Nuntius appears to be a fairly unobstructive humanoid droid with dull, gray plating with an almost industrial aesthetic. But this unimpressive appearance conceals a fairly sophisticated heuristic droid brain that not only has the knowledge of hundreds of other languages and other cultures, but also learns the likes of other people and actively seeks out knowledge on its own accord. The ability to accept different knowledge cartridges means that the Nuntius can be configured to easily take niche roles, such as those of military protocol droids or as purchasing agents for industrial materials. Additionally, thanks to the admiral's preferences, the droid is a bit more durable and discreet in protecting the nature of negotiations from outsiders, making it ideal for diplomatic ventures in the outer reaches of the galaxy.
As with most Lucerne Labs products, the L3 is primarily intended for sale wtih allied governments and organizations, with a strong secondary internal use by the company itself and the Directorate. Since it is not considered to be a piece of military hardware and has no particularly sensitive technology inside of it, the company has sold large numbers of the droids on the civilian market, where they have particularly proven to be popular with local governments and non-for profit organizations. As one of the few purely civilian and popular products in its product line, the L3 is almost guaranteed a long production run with the company.
