Gaiaterra: Elysea's Conflict/Locust Gunship

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The Locust Gunship is Skynet's gunship aircraft. Planned to be voiced by

History
"And the locust went up over all the land of Egypt, and rested in all the coasts of Egypt: very grievous were they; before them there were no such locusts as they, neither after them shall be such."

-Exodus 10:14

SKYNET, in its preparations for war, has taken it upon itself to study the militaries of Gaiaterra and copy their strengths. Their reason for this is simple; SKYNET's army are robots with no prior knowledge of how to fight a war, so they should study those who do. Furthermore, since the militaries of Gaiaterra would be their enemies, it was only logical to study them in order to find their weaknesses and exploit them. Several A.I.s have dedicated their processing power to this task, sifting through human tactics, human arsenals, the past wars of humanity, and so on.

One A.I., while analyzing the arsenal of the human power known as the "Voshkod Union", came across a human weapon known as a "Twinblade". Noting that SKYNET had no equivalent vehicle to the Twinblade or the later, the Mi-28 Havoc in its inventory, the A.I. submitted a recommendation shortly after. There were a number of advantages to possessing an air vehicle like the Twinblade. Such an air vehicle could hover over the battlefield for extended periods of time and would be able to support SKYNET ground forces. SKYNET approved the creation of an air vehicle analogous to the Twinblade.

While its inspiration came from the Twinblade, the new Locust Gunship was anything but. The designers had replaced the inefficient rotors with far more efficient gravitic technology, which was just as effective when it came to generating lift but far superior when it came to propulsion if consuming more power. The Protectorate incorporated laser cannons. This had the additional advantage of making the Locust far more versatile than the Twinblade, since it could handle any surface target. The exterior design also differed greatly from the Twinblade's, being considerably slighter in order to save material costs and following SKYNET design aesthetics.

The Locust designers also saw it as the opportunity to install another weapon. Special beacons, designed to jam the radio frequencies that human militaries used, were included on the Locust. Once activated, they could be dropped onto the battlefield, where they would begin to disrupt communications and radar, preventing the human forces from fighting back effectively. SKYNET forces themselves would use frequencies that the beacons were set not to jam, allowing them to continue to operate within a beacon's radius of effect.

The first operational test of the new Locust Gunship, the razing of the Mor Dhonan mining town of Yakut, was highly successful, with the town having been completely wiped off the map. SKYNET has approved the design for production.