Gaiaterra: Elysea's Conflict/Reaper Walker

"It's running pretty good!"

-Reaper Walker

The Reaper Walker is a former Combat walker used by Voshkod, now under Ascalia. This unit is planned to be voiced by

Tactical analysis

 * Bristling with weapons: The Reaper hails from an age of Voshkod excess, which is why it's loaded down with so many explosive weapons. Its three fast-firing grenade launchers and top-mounted rocket rack are almost excessive in their stopping power, and let the Reaper attack both surface and air targets.
 * The questionable proto-jump: Much like the Sickle, the Reaper is capable of leaping long distances. Unlike the Sickle, the Reaper only gets one shot at this before its legs inevitably break, turning the thing into a makeshift defensive turret. Being much heavier than Sickles, Reapers can crush almost anything they land on, making the benefits of the proto-jump potentially outweigh the consequences. Fortunately the Reapers experience repair crew, and large supply of spare parts, allows them to repair the Reapers legs and get it moving again.
 * The steadfast Reaper-turret: Once legless, the Reaper remains fully operational apart from its lack of mobility. It can still attack in any direction, and because the jump landing tends to bury the Reaper's canopy halfway into the ground, its defenses are bolstered in this state.
 * The price of punishment: Because it is available in relatively short supply and packs so much firepower, the Reaper is fairly expensive to produce, even more so than a Voshkod main battle tank. While most Ascalian forces are considered to be specialized and efficient, the Reaper can be seen as something of a jack-of-all-trades.

History
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There is a popular postwar saying in the Voshkod that translates to, "Hey, we tried." It was first uttered by a team of Sickle gunners on their ignoble return to base after the Alliance' attack on Lastonbell. This led to a series of feel-good propaganda printings from the humiliated Voshkod government to its shaken people (essentially an extravagant get-well card that cost the nation half of its remaining treasury). The image of a Sickle personified as a very sad-looking and bruised ice hockey player, with tears in his eyes and with one of his legs in a cast, became iconic throughout the war-torn Voshkod.

But even though thousands of Sickles met their crushing defeat in the war, this did not stop the Aleksandr Ministry of Experimental Science from moving to refurbish an older and less reliable prototype in an effort to maintain a modicum of defensive capability and to remain solvent as a business. That prototype, commonly known as the Reaper, was known to have only a fraction of its better-known cousin's maneuverability, as well as a crippling design flaw in its legs... A prime example of the self-deprecating "Hey, we tried" attitude so prevalent in the Voshkod.

The Reaper is like a bigger, burlier version of the Sickle. Instead of the Sickle's signature heavy machine guns, the Reaper features three independently-articulated grenade launchers. In addition to that, a swivel-mounted rocket launcher is mounted to the top of the Reaper's canopy, and its tracking system turns out to be sophisticated enough to lock onto fast targets such as aircraft. Furthermore, the Reaper is built from a similar alloy to Voshkod main battle tanks, so in spite of its somewhat clunky appearance, it is sturdier than the Sickle.

If all this is to be believed, then the question becomes, why did the Kazminov Design Bureau (the Sickle's manufacturer) favor the less-powerful model and throw the other one away? One theory is both cynical and steeped in stereotype: The Voshkod likes cutting corners. The Sickle was cheaper to produce in bulk, and the Reaper had a few kinks not found in its lighter, quicker relative. So the Sickle went into mass production, while the Reaper would be sold off to the Ministry for a cheap sum.

The Reaper's crude, inflexible walking mechanism, high profile, and lack of true internal stabilization made it basically useless on the battlefield; there were many tried and tested designs that performed better, and quite a few experimental ones as well, such as the Thresher. Moreover, the targeting systems for the weapons were dysfunctional to the point of uselessness; in one case, a walker accidentally unloaded an entire barrage on a Conscript, only for the man to survive unscathed. When push came to shove, Voshkod command allocated the money to the Thresher project instead of to fixing up and manufacturing the Reaper, stating a need to stop looking back for solutions. As the budget report stated; "The reintroduction of ten-year-old equipment is a stopgap, not a solution. This committee would rather have a single combat effective Thresher on the field than a dozen malfunctioning Reapers."

To cut their losses they sold what remaining Reapers they had to their allies, of which only Ascalia bought. Who then made a minor but crucial improvement by attaching tools and materials that lets the crew repair the Reapers legs when not in combat.

And despite the Voshkod abandoning the Reaper its design frame was the main template for Yunru's Centurion Walker, which double everything at the cost of its jump capability and mass manufacturing.