Ore Collector (Echoes)

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## League Tiurakh Ore Truck

### Tactical Analysis

* **(Title 1):** (Overview)

* **(Title 2):** (Secondary)

* **(Title 3):** (Miscellaneous capabilities)

* **(Title 4):** (Upgraded nature)

### Background

*"(show personality here!)"*

-Tiurakh driver

## Combine Tamandua Ore Truck

 **Key Features** | »Durable all-terrain truck chassis»Open-hull ore collection bin»Unfoldable side-armature floats»Well-armored composite exterior»Underclocked engine

### Tactical Analysis

* **Slurping up Ore:** The Tamandua Ore Truck is the primary ore collection vehicle of the Technocratic Combine, a heavily armoured truck capable of fueling the Technocratic peace machine with every trip it makes. One automatically comes with every Refinery Plant, and more can be built from it or by the Manufactory.

* **Chasing ants:** Rather than technological gadgets or fancy machinery, the Tamandua's primary means of defence is through simply going faster, flooring the accelerator and shooting straight forward at high speed for several seconds. Though it does not lose its ore, it has no ability to turn until stopped.

* **Water-capable:** Despite its bulk and appearance, the Tamandua is just as capable of travelling across water as it is land thanks to side-mounted floats, and can still carry its precious cargo safely to boot.

* **Easy-going:** While capable of running over infantry (especially if moving at high speeds), the Tamandua is not otherwise equipped with protective systems or weapons of its own.

### Background

*"No future without ore!"*

-Tamandua driver
(Replacement background: Ore collection in the context of growing industrialization efforts in smaller countries previously reliant on agriculture [ex: Honduras], Tamandua as 'at-site' vehicle)

As an industrialized and growing nation, the United Technate recognizes the importance of effective exploitation of both materials and logistics funnelling those materials in order to better develop the foundations and economy of their country. Without adequate source to raw materials, or means with which to transport those materials to refining facilities, the Technate would be halted in its tracks. But where other nations use conventional supply lines of armoured cars and trucks, the Combine relies on airship convoys to transport goods and materials back and forth. There are a number of advantages to these aerial transportation lines over normal ground transport: For one, each individual airship can transport more than its cost in ground vehicles. Unlike cars and trucks, airships do not require roads to be laid to the mines, forests, or quarries in order to reach them. And finally, unlike conventional weapons, it is much harder to carry both weapons and sufficient supplies of ammunition necessary to attack said airships whilst they are airborne - a handy fact considering the various cartels, resistance groups, and secret societies lurking in Combine areas.

Nonetheless, there are reasons why the **Bigfoot Ore Collectors** are still in service at many a resource and Ore site. While airships are useful for transporting said materials long distances to refineries back in the cities of the Technocracy, they are less useful for short-term collection and hauling of said resources from mine to camps and sites. Furthermore, despite Combine beliefs, hostile forces are not stupid: attackers often plan their attacks on Combine camps and resource sites when the airships are docked and awaiting lift-off, making them vulnerable to takeover or destruction. Thus, there exists a need for the secure loading and transportation of Ore from the mines to the refineries that exist within the bases themselves - and this is where the Bigfoot comes in.

Much like early Prospectors, the Ford T-850 Bigfoot is nothing more than a heavily armoured truck, with an open hull collection bin used to store Ore or other raw materials for protection while it makes its way to the nearest refinery. Unlike other ore collection vehicles and indeed the majority of Combine vehicles, however, it is not a complicated machine. Slabs of composite armour cover weak points in the chassis, and even the windows are made of reinforced bulletproof glass. Aside from the unpackable floats (for the Bigfoot must often tread water as well as land in carrying out its orders), there are no special communication relays or deployable parts or weapons: merely a chassis, three sets of wheels, a collection bin, and an engine that gives the Bigfoot its name - surprisingly quiet for a truck of its size, yet exceedingly powerful and almost always never used to its full extent in the dull task of transporting Ore around from place to place. Because of this relative simplicity, the Humanitarian Guard can afford to pick their Bigfoot drivers from the ranks of the normally civilian Teamsters Councils, whose members are noted for their laid-back approach to the changing conditions of the battlefield as well as their love for, when the situation calls for it, demonstrating the full capabilities of what their trucks can do. Reports of Bigfoot drivers deliberately 'assisting' in the defence of Combine bases by putting their pedal to the metal and smashing straight through enemy infantry or even smaller vehicles are surprisingly approved of by the Councils, who regard such activities as innovative thinking under fire.

## Industrial Buckstock Truck

### Tactical Analysis

* **A fair day's wage for a fair day's work:**

* **No wimps in foxholes!:**

* **Buck off the stock:**

## Contingent Bendigo Mine Truck

### Tactical Analysis

* **Mineral Reclamation Services:** The most rugged and reliable collection truck in the Australian frontier, the Bendigo serves as the ore collecting vehicle of the Contingent, capable of carrying more load than the rest.

* **The Big Haul:** The sheer size makes the Bendigo unable to go faster than the rest; this means that the Contingent's rate of ore generation is the same as everyone else's.

* **Won't you fly high, free bird:** During emergencies, Bendigo drivers activate the antigravity device inside the vehicle, allowing it to float upwards for a few seconds. However, it cannot move, only aircraft (and anti-aircraft weaponry) can damage the Bendigo while on this mode, and don't even think about deactivating the device; it has a set time before descending back to the ground.

### Background

Mining has always been a huge industry in Australia. The many mineral resources located almost everywhere from the Fimiston Pit to mining towns such as Broken Hill and Mount Isa has contributed much to the country's mining industry; hence, it surprised no one that many organisations, countries and individuals sought to exploit the resources found in the so-called "mineral Eden" that is the island country. In fact, a Syndicate executive who offered to 'help' Australia's post-war economy by building a Sprawl atop the ruins of Darwin who was killed in a freak fire before even stepping into Australia was just one of the people who attempted to benefit from the rich minerals of the island for their own benefits. And these very same mineral resources were the primary reason why the expansionist Imperial war machine attacked Australia in the first place.

The invading Imperial army even planned to do to the Outback as they did to Siberia: exploit the rich mineral ores in the said location for them to be fed to the nanoassemblers of their instant processors. While the rest of the Australian and New Zealand armies were attempting to block the Imperial siege from pushing through the islands further, some of the armies decided to concede a good portion of the country's mines to the invaders. Some Imperial commanders, surprised at this turn of events, tasked their soldiers to secure these newfound resources. What surprised them further was the fact nobody in the ANZAC even dared to attempt an attack against them. They didn't know the reason, but it is actually because the ANZAC military has *others* to do the attacking for them.

It all started one day when a couple of Imperial guards outside a mine were treated with the horrible sight of some of their dead colleagues slowly being feasted on by a pack of pythons. The snakes quickly pounced at the unlucky guards before they could even attempt to fire at the pythons afterwards. Those guards were not the only people who fell victim into the hands of the dreaded and dangerous Australian wildlife, as the invasion's commander soon received dozens of alarming reports of cassowaries kicking Japanese soldiers to the ground before slitting their throats with a kick, Imperial engineers at water dying after being stung by stonefish, box jellyfish or irukandji, walking Imperial patrols being ambushed by wild koalas who 'dropped from trees before clawing at their necks', and the nastiest of all, an entire group of Imperial warriors were forced to retreat while loudly screaming in pain from a group of enraged platypi who they accidentally disturbed.

Meanwhile, on other small forward bases in other mines, many of the Japanese soldiers stationed in them were quickly ambushed by local natives who do not take kindly especially to strangers who aim to steal their land and resources. Being strangers already in an alien land where every wild animal can kill a person (a returning Imperial soldier recounted of the 1,275 different animals that can kill anyone), the local Japanese soldiers faced a group of local fighters who, after throwing a few woomeras and boomerangs at the heads of some warriors, ran away in order to ambush more Imperial foot patrols. Indeed, an entire Imperial guard stationed at one mine was found dead with multiple stab wounds and holes left by being struck by spears.

Other times, when it is not the crazy wildlife or the angered natives that made the job of securing those minerals out of those mines a living hell for the ones involved in them, it is the harsh, unforgiving Australian weather; it is not uncommon for Imperial soldiers stationed in guard posts to die of heatstroke while attempting to find water to quench their immense thirst, while other soldiers who are truly desperate for food has started to scrounge crops from fields while having to contend with taipans and funnel-web spiders (there was even a tale of a taipan who killed a hundred Imperial soldiers before being beheaded by a warrior's blade!). It was clear that not even the finest warriors of the Empire can stand against such an environment located in Australia, as the ANZAC decided to let their armies be the rocks, and the trees, and the birds in the skies. Eventually the Empire was driven away from the mines without so much as a single shot.

Come the post-war, many of northern Australia, particularly for those in cities such as Darwin and Brisbane, the war has left so many people homeless and jobless. Such was their desperation to regain their livelihoods destroyed by the war that some people started scavenging for useful ore and junk lying around everywhere in the Outback to be bartered for various goods (the government has already announced that they will be accepting minerals as currency). A few more people contribute to the growing crime rates, with some that even started looting nearly every general store in Queensland states if it would enable them to taste Vegemite again. Reports have even reached Atmospheric Command of people resorting to tactics used by prospectors of yore by sitting near a body of water and wait for the ore to flow near to their pans. Thankfully, the A.C. was lenient to those people; why blame them? They are simply trying to make a living on a period where the imperialists have just left Australian shores, not without some bruised cities of course.

Eventually, these lone prospectors often grouped together to increase their collective chances of scoring on the next deposit. Entire shanty towns and mining cities sprouted in the harsh lands to become the new rebirth of Australian industry. Forming long road-trains from the mines to the refineries, these men and women soon found themselves contacted by Atmospheric Command to start a new venture. Apparently, all the Contingent's best geologists and mineralogists had been seconded to a top-secret project that concerned their unique skills. This left the mass of the Contingent without experts in shiny dirt. Hence contacting the prospectors.

The Contingent was offering government contracts, exclusive mineral rights to the best pre-war deposits in exchange for these nascent companies becoming the logistical key to the Contingent's field operations. Of course on the battlefield a road-train is nothing if not a target. While still used for civilian purposes, the Contingent's ore transport of choice has become the Bendigo Mine Truck. Named for Australia's original gold mining town, the Bendigo came from a slated improvement on the prospector left in a testing facility to the North. Instead of carrying expensive and vulnerable radio equipment, the Bendigo was supposed to have a form of thruster installed underside to ensure escape in case of attack. In such a situation, the original plan believed that the vehicle would fly back to back with the ore secured and the Soviets left scratching their heads. The Contingent expanded on the design, yet simultaneously took away from it. They improved by adding a system of anti-gravity generators underneath the Bendigo, and threw out the ability to fly (after some incidents of prospectors deserting and flying away with their newfound riches). Now, the Bendigo can hover over the enemy and pray they're still standing underneath when it crashes down on their heads.

This isn't to say that the Bendigo isn't loved by those who now drive it. Unlike other ore transports used by the various powers, the Bendigo was designed to survive rough conditions and even combat, though mainly against hijackers trying to take the ore for themselves. For them the Bendigo is much simpler to handle than their typical dozens of trailers, and the job has actual benefits for their families compared to the possible busts that comes with mining. The Allies have come to conclude that, should the Contingent move to war, the Bendigo drivers will be at the front aiding in the logistical operations of the Contingent, blaring country music out an open window as they go. Safe in the knowledge that they won't wind up like the owners of the many sun-bleached Imperial helmets left beside the dusty roads near the mines.

## Unionist Scrooge Ore Collector

### Tactical Analysis

* **(Title 1):** (Overview)

* **(Title 2):** (Secondary)

* **(Title 3):** (Miscellaneous capabilities)

* **(Title 4):** (Upgraded nature)

### Background

*"(show personality here!)"*

-Scrooge driver

## Commonwealth Vaishya Collector

### Tactical Analysis

* **Ply my trade:** Driven by civilian employees, the humble Vaishya Collector gathers ore in the field to be processed in Commonwealth refineries, bolstering the war effort.

* **Pleasant supplies:** Vaishyas can also serve as impromptu supply depots, packing tons of ammunition that nearby Frontier Corps can utilize to fire faster than usual. Commandos often foot the bill to purchase these supplies.

* **Economic crash:** Only useful for logistical purposes and nothing else, Vaishya operators are highly discouraged from trying to combat enemy units.

### Background

This article (Ore Collector (Echoes)), or a section of this article, is not considered canon until Team Echoes has considered it so.
It may or may not be part of Echoes, in either the game or the Lore. Usually, its status will be debated in the the discussion page of the appropriate article.

It's clear that India will go through growing pains as it transitions from backwater to superpower. Despite the country's growth, millions of families still live under the poverty line. Many people joined the sepoys in hopes of monetary compensation, but those unfit for service tend to go home empty-handed. Sometimes, their pacifistic beliefs (in the case of Sikhs and Jains) prohibit them from hurting or killing others. Whatever case, little opportunities await them as civilian job-seekers.

It's no surprise that many of them decide to enlist for the military again, though this time for a different role: **Vaishya** truck drivers. Named after the historical trader caste, they stand in for the eponymous social group as they gather valuables and sell them in exchange for profit. Using this analogy, they drive to the mines, collect the ore, and drop them off in refineries to get their salary. On non-military operations, they traverse mineral-rich zones such as the Chota Nagpur Plateau so that civilian refineries can process their haul instead.

Unlike other different factions who outfit their resource-gathering vehicles with weapons or gadgets, their Vaishyas are nothing more than civilian trucks purchased for Frontier Corps use. As many of these work in a single base at any given time, they are often ripe targets for theft. Vaishyas in poorer areas usually attract burglars, and GLA raiders get most of their loot from commanders who leave them unattended.

Until they come packed with supplies and ammunition, and armies stationed nearby fire back at these would-be saboteurs. An entrepreneurial driver came up with this idea in the Ogaden, when he packed his Vaishya with cannon shells and rifle cartridges instead of ore. Initially berated by his superiors, this came in handy on a GLA ambush when the driver parked his car where soldiers can easily go to, told them to gear up, and ran away. As a result, the rebels retreated once bullets overwhelmed them, and the driver was given a raise. Today, more Vaishya drivers imitate him by turning their trucks into supply depots in the heat of battle, despite the risks involved.

### Tactical Analysis

* **(Title 1):** (Overview)

* **(Title 2):** (Secondary)

* **(Title 3):** (Miscellaneous capabilities)

* **(Title 4):** (Upgraded nature)

### Background

*"(show personality here!)"*

-CODELCO operator

 **Detailed Information** | •

## See Also

* Ore Collector (Paradox)

* Ore Collector (Quantum)

* Ore Collector (Annihilation)

* Ore Collector (Null)

* Ore Collector (Pandemonium)

* Ore Collector (Insanity)

* Ore Collector (Extremis)

* Ore Collector (Silentium)