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 Posted: Thu Oct 20, 2011 1:08 pm
I gotta go to work but I need to remember this idea and want to see some thoughts on it
you got a world that's basically endless chasms covered in plant life and filled with small peaceful tribes, Old fables tell of an army of mindless red war machines and a witch on a floating island who holds them back.
The story would start in a small tribe out in a thick part of the forest where few other tribes have managed to live. Rumors have been spreading that the army has returned and attacked even more isolated villages, of course nobody believes that until some hunters spot them mere miles away. Everybody panics, some still don't believe it, others don't believe the legends of how powerful they are, and others want to run. Somebody convinces most of the tribe to hide in the forest and let the army pass, the rest run and some of them attempt to be a distraction. Long story short, almost everybody dies, the seed of the main characters are a few people who escape from both the hidden people and the distraction and manage to get ahead of the army (it's fairly slow traveling as the forest is dense and the machines are physically large) where they then travel on to near by towns (multiple groups of survivors maybe?) to warn them, the towns of course don't believe them.
After visiting several towns and being ignored at every turn word reaches the town they're in that the first town they visited has been destroyed by an unknown force (still nobody believes them but things are getting tense) at which point one of the groups decides to find the witch who for so many generations has stopped this invasion. Another group decides that if they can defeat one of the machines and bring it as proof the other towns will believe them, this leads them into a leading position in the growing defensive posture
A third possible group survived the initial attack but didn't escape, the machines slowly pass over them and then nothing, the only place to run is away from the machines, and that leads them into the heart of the war factory
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Spellcheck and whatnot tonight when I get home.
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Posted: Fri Oct 21, 2011 1:13 pm
The red machines, called Rusts, Rusters, or Rusties, because they're covered in rust, come in a few forms. The sort of mass infantry unit kind of looks like a baked potato. In the middle it's got two wide treads, about two feet between them, in that space three large cannons stick out, they can adjust up or down, and minimally side to side, but rely on moving the entire vehicle for most aiming. along the top and back small instrumentation spires stick out. To ether side of the tracks the rust bulbs out , it's a little more angular on the bottom, and the rust has been scrubbed off by the forest floor. the front corners are made out of ball joints, inside them are mounted smaller guns with much greater firing arcs. Only a small mount of the barrel protrudes and there's only a small gap between the ball joint shell and the barrel. Surrounding the three barrels on each ball are an array of optical instruments, their lenses the only part visible, and you'd find the glass to be harder than the armor hide. they reflect a dark blue, and at night some of them glow brightly to provide light.
Following the ball joint there are a number of panels running the height of the bulbus sides. These slide up to reveal a pair of crab like legs, rough and industrial in appearance. These legs are long enough to reach out wards from the body of the machine, both in front and behind it by several feet. On the feet of these legs there is a mechanism that fires a 2 foot spike into the surface it's on, this is designed for climbing, the leg would be placed against a chasm wall then the spike fired into it for traction.
This form of Rust lacks any rear firing weaponry, but it is the most numerous and except for the three main cannons their weaponry isn't strong enough to hurt each other.
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Posted: Fri Oct 21, 2011 1:42 pm
The central organism to the Rust front though is the deforesters. These are mammoth devices that consume the forest and turn it into fuel and munitions. They also orchestrate any necessary repairs on the potatos. They are considerably behind the potato line and stick to the chasm floor unless hoisted somewhere else. They're not particularly armored but they're coated in weaponry in all shapes and sizes, able to fire in all directions and at great distances. It basically looks like an oil refinery had a baby with a fleet of naval destroyers. One end is covered in big mauling sharp spinny bits and arms that grab stuff and pull it into the maw, along the bottom of the sides are potato sized bays. Notably the deforesters are built with walkways and doors and rooms and living utilities for people, though they are vacant and autonomous (for the moment)
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Posted: Fri Oct 21, 2011 1:49 pm
Usually unnoticed are the seekers that lead the army. These are small quadrupedal robots reminiscent of panthers only a bit larger. If necessary they do have a small rifle like gun that fires out of their 'mouth', but they rely primarily on looking like an animal and their claws. Because of the black cloth-like covering they have, these are not red nor are they covered in rust. These aren't as numerous as the potatos, but they don't need to be because they're much more mobile. They run out into the forest and find things, materials for the deforesters to consume, populations for the potatos to attack, ideal routes and hazards. If they're close they can transmit it back to the front but normally they physically return to dump the info. Unless backed by a force of potatos the panthers won't go into battle intentionally, as they lack significant armor, their skin is a sort of kevlar like fabric but that doesn't protect against bludgeoning. They will join in an attack because they can get inside things much better.
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