Hunter-Killer

**Dev. Status** | Modelled

 **Key Features** | »» Oversized CPU»» Voice synthesizer linked to loudspeaker»» Unknown calibre modular machine guns (x2)»» Tracks w/ carbon treads»» Data files about fear causing entities (Dracula, Satyrs and rats currently loaded)

*"I'll pick the flesh from your bones!"*

- Hunter-Killer Tank, displaying its sadistic tendencies
## Tactical Analysis

* **Exactly as it says on the tin**: The Hunter-Killer is perhaps the final word in anti-infantry, be they lowly Conscripts or top-end battlesuits, all will before the Hunter-Killer

* **You Cannot Run**: The Hunter-Killer goes wherever it pleases thanks to its heavy duty treads. Like all Protectorate units it can operate underwater making no place safe from its wrath.

* **You Cannot Hide**: Cover is no defense from the Hunter-Killer. It is tall enough to fire over walls and can drive its victims out of buildings with its terror inducing soundtracks.

* **But You Can Fight Back**: While murder on infantry, tanks and other anti-armour vehicles can withstand its fire and carry heavy enough weaponry to send the Hunter-Killer back to the scrap heap.

## Background

Early on, the Core Mind Collective was convinced that with huge numbers of robots, any enemy could fall. In a way, the Collective is correct, but there is one facet they could not understand. While pulling down an enemy was easy enough, the Collective soon learned of a curious human emotion that could win battles alone, called "fear", which the closest analogy that the A.I.s felt was an extremely negative version of the prediction that one's designs would be rejected. When searching through their cache of poetry failed (since the Rising Sun rarely wrote on the subject), several search bots were attached to various human transmissions to learn more. Soon, they hit a breakthrough; in Brazil, army ants were on the march, causing much fear in the region. The Protectorate sent a number of observer nanites to observe the phenomena. While they learned a great deal, something completely unexpected happened.

The army ants marched on a plantation, in patterns whose pure geometry compared to humans pleased the A.I.s. Surely, the humans would fall to these numbers. But then the humans simply pulled out tanks of insecticide and calmly sprayed the swarm. They weren't afraid of these numbers! As the entire swarm died while the humans joked and laughed, the Core Mind Collective's earlier assumptions were invalidated. The clear conclusion was that humans do not fear numbers alone. Noticing that the humans feared the jungle animals fleeing the swarm more, the Collective set upon forging a large, terrifying unit to supplement their great numbers.

The A.I.s were set upon the problem. The first attempt, a large graphic on the sides of tanks showing a growling bear and a skeleton, did not work well nearly as much as the A.I.s hoped. However, they then turned to combining fear with aesthetics, and at the exact nanosecond they came up with a design, the infernal machines of the Protectorate started cranking them out. Large, imposing, and well armed, this **Hunter-Killer** was everything the Core Mind Collective wanted it to be. It was intentionally designed to vaguely look like a humanoid, but clearly robotic structures to put any person at ill ease. Two machine guns could level entire columns of men, or could be used with other modules better suited to other targets.

Since fear was understood now, "younger" A.I.s were re-coded and implanted with this idea, only being returned to their former state after their task. They were given the sole task of writing scripts which were understood to provoke fear in humanoids, all of which were uploaded into each Hunter-Killer. This was considered necessary, as it was computed that they would cause fear better than some hexagrammatical equation. Indeed, Hunter-Killers often do everything to demoralize their enemy, from attacking non-combatants despite losing the tactical disadvantage, to screaming out obscenities and slurs in a synthesized voice. The full effect against humanoids is unknown, but what is known is that Hunter-Killers are deadly against infantry, and in a way anything that stands against them.

## Behind the Scenes

The Hunter-Killer is almost certainly based on a similar looking vehicle from the Terminator movie series.