Lostech: the Tirolian Scout Drone

It is a sad truth that so much of the history of the Robotech Masters empire is irrevocably lost. A part of this was official policy, of course. The Masters suppressed, altered, redacted and manipulated their own history at every level in order to support their personal narrative of their own supreme power. The second was the level of destruction that the empire suffered in its downfall. The Invid sack of Tirol destroyed so much of the world's history; anything that was not useful to the Regent was destroyed in the name of cleansing the taint of the Masters from the universe. The destruction of their Motherships over Earth in the Second Robotech war also destroyed massive archives, with little effort made to preserve them.

As a result, their history is full of gaps and holes at every level. This includes the weapons of the Empire, with the details of many systems either wholly or partially lost. For example, the earliest weapons and Mecha designed for the Zentraedi are known only from fragments. We can but assume that the Soldier Bioroid was the first of its kind, but we have no proof of this statement. Recovery crews in the post Second Robotech war period found an otherwise completely unknown shuttle design among the wreckage of the Master's fleet. And so on.

One such example is the Tirolian Scout Drone, a vessel whose very existence was hard to verify. Most of what is known about this craft comes from eyewitness accounts of encounters with it, recovered debris and some partial records. There is no indication of when this craft first entered service or how widely it was deployed and even its Tirolian name is unclear. While the designation Saldiri Kimse has been accepted, other sources identify it as 'Dezalg'.

Regardless, a few things can be said for certain about the ship. It was a small craft, about four meters wide at most. It consisted of a small central section shielded by two bulbous pods which contained its main thrusters, reaction mass storage and weapons systems. The craft was driven by a combination of anti-gravity and advanced reaction drives, much like the Masters' other combat craft. While its maximum acceleration is unknown, it was fast and agile enough to dogfight with the Southern Cross' Pluto light aerospace fighter. While there are no documented instances of the craft operating in a terrestrial atmosphere, there is no reason to suppose it could not.

The craft was completely unmanned and was likely operated by an entirely autonomous onboard Artificial Intelligence system. However, it also likely had a master over-ride that could be used to take control of it as needed. To fulfil its primary function, the craft was equipped with a compact but advanced sensor system in its central body. The full capabilities of this package are unknown, but EM intercepts suggest that it boasted an extensive range of options. Due to its size, this package was inferior to that mounted on the Scout Bioroid, but still well ahead of that used by other Mecha.

Its most unusual feature, however, was the ability to eject its central sensor and AI module in the advent of catastrophic damage. The jettisoned module had its own thrusters and ability to operate autonomously. Presumably, the point of this system was to allow sensor data recorded by the craft to be recovered regardless of its loss.

While not intended for combat, the craft was still armed for self-defence. Its primary weapon was a four-barrelled, rapid-fire energy weapon mounted under the main body of the craft. Unusually for a Tirolian design, it also carried a compliment of a half-dozen missiles, with three in each pod. The full capabilities of these missiles are unknown, but they appear to be self-guided and capable of engaging fast-moving, agile craft.

From fragmentary records, it appears that the role of this craft was to act as an advance scout when entering into an uncharted or potentially hostile solar system for the first time. The likely operational procedure would be for the Robotech Masters to dispatch a small number of ships (such as their destroyers) which would then be used as a base of operations for recon and exploratory forces. Because of its ability to operate autonomously and not be dependent on a pilot, the drone could range far from its parent craft while allowing them to remain undetected.

It is known that this drone was only encountered a couple of times by the Southern Cross during the opening stages of the Second Robotech war. The first probing missions launched by the masters fielded this drone, both in autonomous actions and alongside Scout Bioroid forces. Recovered footage has verified the drone's presence in these early engagements, where ironically it faced second-line Southern Cross forces armed with craft that were themselves falling to obscurity.

However, it then completely vanishes from sight, with not a single confirmed encounter with it recorded for rest of the war. Even in the last days of the conflict, where the Masters were using their own civilians as cannon-fodder troops, this drone was not being thrown into the fray. This then beggars the question, where did it go?

It is likely that no definitive answer will ever be found, but there are some likely theories. The first is that the Masters had little use for the drone once they had entered the Sol system, and so withdrew those that were left to conserve Protoculture supplies for their Bioroid forces. The second is that the Drone was already considered obsolete and had been withdrawn from service by the time the Masters reached the Sol system. Those that were left were simply thrown into combat to fulfil their purpose and forcibly retire those that remained.

Ultimately, unless more lost records are rediscovered, we will likely never know the full story behind this unique design.