Roberts

The Roberts are an army of powerful combat robots created by Morgunov. They are capable of reconfiguring themselves on the fly, or merging into larger, much more powerful units.

Each Robert is a large, black-and-gray spherical machine with a small domed head. Several ports scattered around the body can deploy various effectors, including mechanical tentacles, flight devices, and weapons. As circumstances change, the Robert retracts irrelevant effectors and extends more appropriate ones. The interior systems are highly reconfigurable, with components rearranging themselves into new weapons or mobility devices. Roberts are eerily quiet for such powerful machines.

All Roberts are permanently soul-empowered to Morgunov's standards, and have soul vision and self-repair capabilities. They are fully autonomous and artificially intelligent, capable of independently problem-solving, gaining experience and cooperating with each other. They also respond smoothly to mental commands from Morgunov himself. Morgunov is extremely proud of them, thinking of them almost like beloved children and arranging rewards for units that perform particularly well, though there is no sign that they are sentient enough to appreciate it.

A few Roberts even have aberration-bone items and can use their powers. The swarm at Uego included at least four with Invisibility, although Morgunov notes that this cuts off communication between units unless a group of them shares a single unit's "cloak".

The standout feature of the Roberts is their ability to merge, interweaving and pooling their components to become a single, larger, much more powerful and durable Robert of a higher "Mark". A given Mark is named for how many Mark I Roberts combined to form it; the increase is linear, so a Mark V is composed of only five Mark Is. Though much nastier, higher Marks are bulkier and less mobile (and of course there will be fewer of them). A high-Mark Robert can deploy any device that its lower-Mark components had, and can also construct new devices that are physically too big and complex to fit in a lower Mark.

## Mark I

The basic model of Robert, the smallest and fastest. Even these are ferociously powerful machines, capable of grabbing and restraining multiple weaker servants with their many tentacles, and deploying various nasty weapons. A squad of them can actually match a Vanguard General under ideal conditions. Morgunov has at least a hundred Robert Mark Is.

### Basic Equipment

Roberts can deploy clusters of long mechanical tentacles, jet engines and wings, tunneling equipment, and various weapons including laser guns.

### Reversible Mirrors

Mark I Roberts can turn their black-and-gray shells inside out, revealing mirrors for deflecting energy attacks. Different units have mirrors tuned for different wavelengths of light: glass for infrared, aluminum for ultraviolet, iridium for X-rays, etc. In battle, the Roberts identify energy-wielders and swarm them with units that have the appropriate type of mirror, "for maximum efficiency and obnoxiousness".

### Infectious Nanomachines

One of Morgunov's greatest inventions, Roberts can infect enemies they wound with soul-empowered nanomachines, which weaken and degrade the target and cripple regeneration. Decontaminating a victim is a long and difficult process, almost impossible under battlefield conditions. Even destroying a servant's body and regrowing them from scratch might not get rid of a nano-infection; after the Battle of Uego, Field Marshal Jackson was reported to be ill and having trouble with regeneration long after he should have tried that.

### Tunneling

For entities with Morgunov's level of soul power, normal terrain is only a minor obstacle. Roberts can tunnel through solid rock fast enough to chase down a reaper trying to flee underground.

### Self-Destruct

If a Robert is disabled or immobilized, it annihilates itself, leaving not even wreckage behind.

## Mark III

Roughly the size of a van, the Mark III is "where things start to get really intense," according to Morgunov.

### Holding Cell

A Mark III has an open space inside that can hold and restrain a servant.

## Mark IV

The size of a bus, and capable of using some of the nastiest weapons available.

### Big Scary Lightning Gun

Originally called the Anti-Air Scatterburst Particle Exciter, the BSLG was given its current name by Jercash, and is one of Morgunov's favorite recent inventions. It projects an adjustable spray of ionic channels into the sky, which are then energized with a powerful electric current, essentially creating a giant shotgun blast of lightning bolts. Just standing nearby when this weapon is fired would instantly blind and deafen a normal person.

## Mark V

Only slightly larger than the Mark IV, the Mark V is the highest field-ready Mark. It has more of the same weapons as the Mark IV, but only one new one.

### Cage System

Designed to subdue the very nastiest entities out there, Morgunov thinks the Cage System might even be able to contain a god. The Mark V opens up its chest cavity and swallows the target, similar to the Mark III's holding cell, but then attacks the target with every form of attack Morgunov can think of all at once. Cryogens, nanomachines, blades, violent shaking, weaponized hallucinogens, radiation, and even flesh-eating microbes. The purpose of the system is to both numb and cripple the body and horrify the mind, preventing the target from using their abilities and allowing the Mark V to restrain targets that would normally be able to easily destroy the robot from the inside.

### Omnivore Drive

Morgunov thinks this will be his greatest invention ever, if he can actually make it work. The Omnivore Drive uses the Cage System to disintegrate its victim, then identifies and extracts "power producing components" from the remains. Ideally, this would allow the Mark VI to absorb new powers, similar to the most powerful Worms, but tests with captured servants in hyper states merely kill the victims without extracting anything.