ZERR
Character
- ZERR -
Name - ZERR.
Faction - N/A.
Rank - N/A.
Model - Guardian Corps war robot, Corps Commander variant.
Age - 25,000+.
Sex - Male.
Height - 2.78 standard meters.
Weight - 400 kilograms.
Photoreceptors - Black transparisteel lenses.
Casing - Greenish kiirium with a reflective sheen.
Force Sensitive - No.
- Strengths -
Witness to the Ages - ZERR has seen tens of thousands of years of history over the course of his long life, and has survived all of it. Though not originally built to do anything more than follow orders, his vast experience has given him a great wealth of information on any number of subjects, and has led to his becoming far more independent now than when he was first built.
Thick Hulled - ZERR may be old, but he was built to last. Having endured wave after wave of Vodran, Klatooinian, Nikto and Weequay soldiers during the Third Battle of Vontor and survived intact, the ancient war droid is decidedly sturdy; he is basically immune to almost anything short of heavy ion blasters or anti-vehicle weapons, which he has been careful to avoid going up against when he can help it.
Intimidating - ZERR is a powerful machine, of course, but honestly, who would want to fight a 2.78 meter tall droid - covered in shiny armor and bristling with weaponry - in the first place? Most beings - droids and organics alike - don't give ZERR any trouble, and those who do seldom live long enough to regret it.
- Weaknesses -
Steady but Slow - To be sure, ZERR has weathered the ages well, but sadly his twenty millennia old logic circuits leave something to be desired. ZERR is intelligent, and accumulated experience has made him wise, but he is physically slow to respond to unanticipated developments. This generally isn't a problem for a machine as big and sturdy as ZERR, but it has gotten him into trouble.
Bigger isn't Better - ZERR, though tough and intimidating, can find that his size puts him at a disadvantage in certain situations. Standing over half a meter taller than the average Wookiee, the ancient war droid has trouble fitting into confined spaces. He is also immensely heavy with his thick kiirium hull, weighing in at 400 kilograms.
Level with me - Another of ZERR's flaws are his serviceable but outdated balance systems, which give the top-heavy droid trouble on anything besides flat or at least predictable terrain. He can of course negotiate more challenging topography, but his progress is slow and he can easily be put off balance.
- Appearance -
ZERR is a hulking Guardian Corps war robot, built over 25,000 years ago. Massive and intimidating, the ancient mechanical is sheathed in mirror-like kiirium armor, nearly impervious to hand weapons even in the modern age; of note, ZERR's casing is composed of rare green kiirium.ZERR was built as a Corps Commander, and was thus fitted with a golden death's head insignia on his breastplate. Not generally visible are arcane symbols etched inside the lip of his torso armor, placed there by ancient Nuswattan mystics as a form of supernatural protection.
In public, the droid often wears an over-sized brown all-temperature cloak to hide most of his features.
- Equipment -
ZERR is fitted with a selection of useful equipment and weapons. They include the following:
- 2x pulse-wave blaster cannon, detachable.
- 2x forearm-mounted particle discharger array.
- 2x gauntlet-mounted heatbeam aperture.
- 1x head-mounted beam-tube.
- 4x head-mounted floodlight.
- 1x integrated weapon detector.
- 1x integrated comlink.
- 1x integrated translator unit.
- 1x integrated loudhailer.
- 1x integrated fusion generator.
- Vehicles -
ZERR acquired pilot programming at some point in his long years, and flies an ancient war barge known as the Zerrwagon, a name given to it in jest by one of the droid's organic associates, and which ZERR continues to use more or less unironically. The Zerrwagon also carries a small Conductor-class landing craft, which ZERR uses as an occasional secondary ship.- Biography -
"Try I have, to calculate the wrath of organics; their need to annihilate one's maker, one's master, one's equal. Never does it compute. I suppose, after all, that I am grateful to be of kiirium rather than of flesh. I am programmed to destroy, but I need not fathom why."
_ZERR.
ZERR, War Robot of Xim, is a story long in the making; an epic tale of one machine's march through uncounted ages of history.ZERR was built by Tionese droidwrights of the planet Thanium, and was one of a handful of such droids whose casings were cast in green kiirium. This rare coloration - the result of imperfections in the kiirium smelting process - was considered a sign of good luck, and gave rise to the Verdant LXXIII (Verdant 73), an honorary unit of war robots who guarded Xim during his visits to the Forbidden Gardens of Nuswatta. Every unit of the Verdant 73 had the rare green casing, and uniquely among Guardian Corps units, all were built to Corps Commander specifications.
ZERR's service with the Verdant 73 was relatively quiet, as the unit's role was more or less entirely ceremonial. Few threats penetrated into the sanctity of the Forbidden Gardens, and of those that did, most were dealt with by other guards long before they even reached the cordon of war droids. ZERR faithfully protected his master all the same, even if it was usually from nothing.
This changed at the outbreak of the Hutt-Xim conflict.
"Magnificence, Thanium and the other workshop worlds cannot keep up with demand!"
_An adviser to Xim.
Especially after the Second Battle of Vontor, during and after which Xim increasingly began to rely on automatons, war robots were dredged up from all points within the Empire to bolster the armies. The 73, pulled from guard duty on Nuswatta, were finally sent to the front, briefly fighting as an elite assault force second in reputation only to the fabled Crimson Condottieres. ZERR, along with the rest of the 73 and tens of thousands of his fellow war droids, were eventually committed to the Third Battle of Vontor, where fate would decide a new direction for him."We are the Verdant 73! For our Daritha, we fight to destruction. Ours, or yours!"
_Verdant 73 battle taunt.
The Verdant 73 was positioned in the front ranks of Xim's ground forces during the battle, holding their ground against millions of alien mercenaries fielded by the Hutts. Droid by droid, the 73 were systematically dismantled by hordes of spice-crazed warriors, the mechanicals were tricked into fighting on rough terrain or deep underground where the enemy would have some slim advantage, eventually burying the nigh unstoppable killing machines under mountains of corpses.ZERR, for his part, was unaware of his master's defeat at first. Having gathered a small group of regular Guardian Corps units around him, the last of the Verdant 73 led his troops to a secure position, from which they continued to kill Huttese troops for days until, at last, their power generators ran down.
ZERR, along with a handful of other functional war robots, were subsequently captured by the Hutts and re-purposed to serve the victors. Ironically, ZERR was brought to Kossak Inijic Ar'durv's palace on Varl, where he was tasked with guarding the cell where his former master was kept as a blinded slave.
ZERR served Kossak and other Hutts for centuries, fighting in numerous Huttese wars and in fact becoming more familiar with the slug-like aliens than the culture which had originally built him. In a dark twist, the war droid was part of an army sent to depopulate and sterilize former Tionese worlds in the Kiirium Reaches during the genocidal campaign known as the Devouring. Eventually, though, he was phased out of Hutt service, traded to a traveling arms merchant. Briefly enduring a period of being rented out to various armies, ZERR eventually attained enough independent will to request his manumission, using a charged pulse-wave blaster as incentive. After this, the old war robot - no longer ruled by a command podium - set himself up as an independent mercenary.
ZERR spent the next several thousand years fighting in war-zones across the Galaxy, witnessing the rise, decline, renaissance and eventual death of the Republic, both rounds of Sith wars, the rise and fall of the Galactic Empire, the New Republic, the Galactic Alliance, and ten thousand other events leading to the present day.
The eternal warrior, ZERR continues to fight on to this day. So long as he can earn credits to repair himself, he has no particular preference as to who he works for; still, many who have known ZERR say that they have never met a droid quite so nostalgic for what once was...