Goblin
General & Technical Data
Model Number: REA-01
Code Name: Goblin
Unit Type: Combat GERWALK Unit
Manufacturer: Red Eyes Armada
Operator: Red Eyes Armada
Rollout: AD 3000
First Deployment: AD 3000
Accommodation: Pilot only in torso cockpit.
Dimensions: Overall Height 10 meters w/ legs extended; Width: 3 meters
Weight: 20 metric tons (30 tons loaded)
Armor Materials: Composite of scavenged materials.
Powerplant: Cold fusion
Propulsion: Rocket Thrusters w/ verniers (legs and torso)
Performance: Turn (180), 2.2 seconds; Run (land): 200 Kph (125 Mph); Flight (atmosphere): 800 Kph (500 Mph) w/ 8Km (5 mile) ceiling
Equipment & Design Features: Sensors, range 4000 meters; extendable manipulator arms for cargo/asteroid; tri-screen cockpit.
Fixed Armaments: Torso-mounted paired blaster cannons. (Optional) Missile pods on side hardpoints on the torso.
Technical & Historical Notes
The Goblin class of GERWALK-style combat units represents the first original mecha manufactured by the space pirate Red Eyes. It marked the point where he acted on his pretentious ambitions of conquering the Milky Way galaxy, as heretofore the pirates used only mecha stolen from other parties and adapted for their use in piracy.
Observers in the domains afflicted by them report that they took the deployment of the Goblin as a sign that things had turned for the worse. This is not because the Goblin is a potent unit--it is a simple, cheap, and easy design to produce--but rather that demonstrating the power to design and produce their own mecha turned a desperate pirate band into a hostile power to contend with.
The Goblin fits into the most basic class of mecha: a pair of legs mated to a box with a cockpit, engine, and some additional thrusters. As a GERWALK-style design, it is easily able to handle unsteady terrain, but it lacks the ability to fold back the legs and thus has no Flight Mode. It cannot withstand atmospheric re-entry, but it has flown inside an atmosphere- though not at great speed. Hardpoints on the box's sides, where one would expect arm servos to attach, are usually used to mount external missile pods for additional firepower. The manipulator arms are kept retracted until the time to grab booty from a target arrives. The set of sensor eyes light up red, as one would expect of any Red Eyes Armada mecha.
While most Goblins are deployed in squadron-level strength or less from attacking pirate raiders, full wings of them were seen during their first year of deployment when a House Far flotilla engaged a Red Eyes operational base built from a handful of asteroids linked together with stolen colony construction gear. One was the resident garrison force, and two more came from a pair of half-refit stolen carrier vessels moored there. Despite horrific losses, the numbers compelled the Far flotilla to withdraw. When the Far warships returned, the pirates had since abandoned the base and fled the area.
By the end of the year, a captured Goblin arrived at House Kawamori's factory fortress at New Osaka. The forensic team quickly deduced the genius of the design, as they found the controls and user interface to be intended for pilots who could not read and had no formal education- the sorts that made up the masses of pirate crews across the galaxy. Duke Kawamori presented the team's findings just before Christmas at the Court of Stars on Earth, implicitly endorsing the argument that the Red Eyes pirates were a truly significant threat to galactic order.
The presence of an original pirate mecha design is distressing enough. That is is manufactured in great numbers makes this even worse of a development, as it means both that Red Eyes acquired industry capacity somewhere as well as a recruitment capacity to put flesh and blood at the controls- men loyal to the notorious pirate. Various experts on the matter speculate that it is now only a matter of time before more advanced designs appear.
In January of 3001, that time arrived. A higher-quality variant, dubbed Hobgoblin, debuted at the Taking of Gabriela Robin, the massive pirate raid upon House Ireton's seat of New Edinburgh in the Dire March- the incident that chroniclers now agree is the inciting incident marking the beginning of the Matter of the Milky Way.
