Preparing the Battlefield

[Valik]

In light of recent disagreements arising between the Sith and the Mandalorians, Valik decided he would quit making ways to deal with Jedi and begin focusing on ways to make the Mandalorians fear his technology. But how? A Mandalorian in some good armor was nearly impervious. Beskar was simply the strongest metal in the Galaxy, boasting amazing resistance to blaster fire, slug and melee weapons, and lightsabers. Don't focus on the strengths, find a weakness. Valik thought to himself to try to stay on course. Beskar was rare, most normal troops wouldn't have a full or pure set of armor, still, impenetrable soldiers were a problem no matter what their frequency.

Stop focusing on it's strength. Find a weakness. Valik prodded himself to think more constructively. Weaknesses, weaknesses, weight. Beskar, especially pure beskar not made into the molecular cage structure with Carbon. Weight then, but how to manipulate it. Most mandalorians almost always wore their armor, so they were used to dealing with the weight. If there were a way to increase it however, perhaps Valik could get somewhere . . .

 

[Valik]

Valik had come up with a nice work-around to severly hinder the Mandalorians and their Beskar armor and other toys, but it needed several other significant components to work, or it would effectively be useless. So before working on the meat of the subject, the power in his device, he made a general model, a disc about a third of a meter in radius and around half a decimeter tall, and then began implementing various fold-able hooks, drills, screws and other such 'rooting' devices into the disc. It needed to root itself to the ground and other surfaces, so it needed to be prepared for a myriad of different soil and rock consistencies.

After creating an initial array of rooting mechanisms Valik spent the next several hours researching and creating the soil and ground conditions of various planets along the Mandalorian border. They were easy enough to replicate, but the task was taxing from the sheer number of differing environments. As he went along he took his prototype disc and put it on top of the various soil, cavernous, icey, and sandy environment samples, then programmed the disc to move this drill there, that hook around there, this screw over here, and so on and so forth until he found the most stable arrangement for each general environmental archetype. Once he found said arrangement he recorded the tools and positioning used in each arrangement and programmed them into a list of categories, then put the categories in a menu. Valik had learned long ago that ease of use was important, as most Sith seemed not to bother themselves with understanding technology. He would such fools the power of a strong mind and a handful of metal and wires.

 

[Valik]

With the rooting mechanism completed, Valik took it upon himself to begin making a way to have the discs quite literally feel the air around them. Which, in all honesty, was quite simple from a gravitational standpoint. Put whatever you want on the disc, activate it by timer or remote activation, then it weighs the force on top of it and sets it to standard. Simple. Rotational force however, was a bit more difficult, and required some nicer attunement. After some tinkering he managed to find a system small enough that could sense alterations in force exerted by about two meters or so. It wasn't the best, but it would do. Then he opted to go to motion sensors, which was also rather simple, at least on it's own. After furiously moving with both motion sensor and pressure sensors, he realized he would not be able to add both without seriously compromising the range of both, as well as the hinder the effects of the device. It seemed instead of one invention, he would have two variations, which he supposed was acceptable, but his need to compromise hurt his pride. He would make sure the Mandalorians would pay for such an action.

 

[Valik]

After a night of rest Valik awoke and went to work on his creation. With the rooting and detection systems implemented, the only thing remaining to implement was the payload of his mine. As most Mandalorians likely knew, Beskar could take a good blast from a frag, plasma, carbonite, electrical, or basically any mine. It could only take so much, as even the miracle metal had limits, but his intention was not to damage the armor at all. His intention was to disable the Mandalorians, by psuedo-increasing the armor's weight to point of immobilization. So, instead of a pack of blasterpack, chemical mixture, or carbonite emitters he loaded a very powerful electro-magnet to the system. The energy needed to fuel the electro-magnet was immense, so the magnetic field would only last for about 30 seconds or so but that time was more than enough for a competent Sith to deal with the beskar tortoises that fashioned themselves warriors. As an added bonus, the magnetic field would effectively fry any electronics in the effect radius, disabling pesky things like infrared scanners, 360 vision, computer aided targeting systems, comlinks, positioning systems, and other nonsensical things.

Valik travelled to a remote location, away from his lab, and put the mine on a nice piece of loam. He set the mine to drill into the ground, and be triggered remotely. After putting some cover on it he walked away, planted an Imp blaster about two meters away from the mine, then walked another three meters away. Using the Force he took a rock and threw it, making it land about a meter from the mine, piercing the ground in a sort of mock-footstep. The mine activated, violently ripping the Imp blaster and rock towards it, then holding it at the center. Valik reached with out with the Force and tried to rip his blaster out of the magnet's grip, but could not. The scientist smiled, for he knew his creation would work to a devastating effect.