Description
Created by the Retail Caucus and the Commerce Guild the Amphibious Excavation Crab (AEC) was originally a civil droid used on ocean and swamp words for excavation and farming on these worlds. Often walking trough terrain such as swamps, wet land and shallow water they could also partly over to aid in their weight, especially when carrying additional materials in or between their shovel-claws. All of this allowed them to removing silty clay, clearing silted trenches, swampland operation, and shallow water operation better then many other vehicles, as they could walk and work on water. Additionally to all of this their chassis also were able to float and while they could operate as automatized droids, they also could be crewed and piloted from inside. On of their biggest dangers was to topple over and roll on their backs when encountering unstable underground. As they were hermetically sealed they could even work underwater and some models had the ability to work flooded for aquatic species. Moving thanks to walking motions of itβs legs rather smoothly their upper crab torso could also be rotated around 360Β° fully with no need of using the lags by rotating atop the lower part were the legs where. Combined with leg movement however they could turn around much faster, something the Separatist Alliance would utilize more during battles in the Clone Wars. Each of their leg parts is divided into independent water tight compartments to support them from sinking to much and easily in muddy underground, or when loosing their ground in the water, while aquatic versions actually could flood these departments to sink deeper and work underwater. Their legs could even use a vibrating drills and their claws could aid in excavation, grabbing bigger objects, including vehicles and tanks and even crush them and enemy bunker buildings in between their claws. With more and more of them used as military robots during the Clone Wars, some versions would get build in laser rifles and canons inside their claws and underneath their chin, while also some of their flooding departments were repurposed to deploy biological and chemical weapons against unsuspecting Republic Clone Troopers, Volunteer Organic Troopers alike, as well an Imperial Storm Troopers.
Another type of formerly civil vehicle repurposed by the Separatist Alliance, the Confederacy of Independent Systems to aid them against either the republic, or regional bandits, gangs and space pirates before. After all the threat these groups posed in the Rim and many worlds was one of the reasons the Conglomerates got away with their own massive Battle Droid Armies and fleets in the first place, as the Galactic Republic had neither the political wish to support the underpopulated lawless Rim, that was not as important in elections and economics, nor the military needs to do so and rather had chooses to spare credits by outsourcing such problems to the local systems and world themselves, which in return bought security and battle droids to build up their own security forces instead of poorly armed and trained militia alone. This in turn often lead to massive debts of those systems by the major conglomerates and increased political influence, or outright direct control of many Rim, especial Mid Rim and Outer Rim Worlds by them in return over the decades. While not truly one of the early militarized, armored and armed versions of these machines and vehicles would turn up in some places and the overall model and idea was later widely introduced over more worlds and systems during the Clone Wars, making them a much more devastating device as auxiliary battle droid forces. This allowed the Separatist Conglomerates and independent systems and worlds alike to build up their security forces, military and overall defenses in chase of a Republic or later Imperial invasion of their worlds. When some of these droids were damaged, rebelled, rose up, or had a malfunctioning deactivation code and signal, allowing for them to build independently operating Cast of Crabs that cooperated, worked together and defended their territory against all outside interference, but no longer followed and operated to droid signals, codes, commands or organic command structures. Out of these Cast of Droid Crabs, some would operate even decades and centuries after the Clone Wars were long over, even if the lacking of spare parts and the ability to repair themselves meant increasing losses for these independent groups over time.