Mecha in Galactic Christendom

Mecha in Galactic Christendom run the gamut from the realist of Real Robots through to the most super of Super Robots.

Most pilots operate Real Robots of a basic design. The mecha is really little more than a box with a cockpit, sensors, and an engine with a pair of manipulator arms. Slapping on some basic blasters, external ordinance racks, or alternative locomotion (legs, treads, etc.) and you have a viable warmachine to mass-produce and deploy in the billions. Control schemes are now standardized to minimize time spent cross-training.

Stepping up from there are the man-like mecha. Their pilots are knights, older squires, and other officer-grade professionals. As there are billions of such men across the galaxy, these two often are fundmentally basic at their core. The same box is the torso, with a head, more mannish arms with hands, and legs with feet. Sometimes the legs can swap to an alternative locomotion mode, such as wheels in the feet and treads in the lower thighs. Few in-built weapon systems are standard, preferring externally-mounted modules or hand-held systems; point-defense guns and beam swords are commonplace as basic features. They tend to have superior speed and mobility to the basic models, as their pilots hold superior status and get treated accordingly.

Transformable models are sufficiently common to merit their inclusion, and in main military Orders of Battle they are often found in rapid-deployment units where versatility of function is a virtue; they hold a line until more specialized (and numerous) units arrive to relieve them. Fighter/Man hybrid is standard, but Submersible-Man hybrids are sufficiently popular on water-heavy worlds to get a mention here. For more powered-armor sized units, motorcycle-sized hybrids are the norm; the key difference being if the vehicle attaches to a base armored suit or not.

The Ace Custom models and Limited Production lines are where the Real/Super line starts to blur, as we see the installation of sub-systems aimed at exploiting the pilot's specific traits and abilities, the production incorporating uncommon materials and production methods, etc. all to generate a performance edge that matters at the top-end of ace combot scenarios.

But the line--while burring at times--remains present. Real Robots have to conform to the limits of what is possible within the laws of physics. Super Robots can go beyond the impossible, and the greatest of them do just that. This is why they are few in number, and the deployment of any of them--even the least among them--is a significant event. Originally developed to take the most powerful of the Nephilim and their Fallen Angel fathers on man-to-monster, they remain to this day tied to safeguards that confined their use to just a few pilots who share a culture of reluctant usage.

Unlike the Real Robots who have to rely on standard means of travel and deployment, as would any other warmachine, Super Robots can and often do circumvent this need by means of an alternative able to deploy the Super Robot where and when called for in moments. The reason is that the Super Robots are tied to a pilot, bound to it, and thereby share a connection across spacetime. The ceremony for a pilot's installation on a Super Robot is not empty ritual; it serves to forge that bond, a bond registered in the City of God, as it is ultimately a great blessing to be granted the responsibility that being a Super Robot pilot puts upon the pilot.

The basic feature of a Super Robot is the ability to call it forth by invocation. This is why a reliable tell of a Super Robot Pilot is the fire of his passion; even those seemingly quiet and reserved become thunderous storms when in battle. That call needs to be heard, so being a mouse-voiced meek thing is no asset. As many are also martial artists in one or more disciplines, the practice of battle-yelling for effect is carried over into their mech-piloting as a feature. This also accounts for why the Super Robots tend to have such devastating power, have specialized systems, and are often crafted to resemble and invoke the mythological heroes of eras long ago.

And then, overlapping both sorts, are the combiners. Elite units, with specific mission profiles, get these mecha. The reason for the combination ability is to handle top-end threats without needing to call in reinforcements, as their mission profile doesn't allow for that for one reason or another. None are more famous in the galaxy than the Church's own three-man team named for the Archangels,of Church tradition, whose ability to combine into a form named after the angel that speaks for God to Man, has single-handedly broken the backs of a Nephilim-led invasion of Earth in the time of the Great Liberation of Earth prior to Man's expansion into the galaxy- the First Galactic Crusade.

And then there are the fleets that carry these pilots and their machines into battle, but that's for another post.