Scout Beast: Overview

Scout beasts act as mounts for the Armored Scout Cavalry of the Armored Legion. With a high degree of speed, maneuverability, durability, and completely silent operation, Scout Beasts make for the perfect companion during long term recon behind enemy lines.

Apparently we’re above using horses like normal people, so this ended up becoming my issue as always.
_{Nobody wants to shovel shit out of a Longboat after moving cav to an LZ. – Azan
Yeah and having to deal with horses on top of that would be awful. – Nahli}

There are some areas where autonomous systems can’t cut it, and one of them is ground level recon behind enemy lines. I can shove sensors into a frame until the drone sinks into the ground, but it’s still hard to match the primal instincts all animals have. Therefore, we needed a way to get those animals from point A to point B in the most efficient, silent manner possible.

Our initial designs were what would later come to be known as “Bounder Legs”, but then some fucking ape named Varith said that wasn’t going to cut it. Oh how stupid would we look in military parades without cavalry units, oh how dreadful would it be for PR that our scouts prioritized efficacy over aesthetics. I know you’re reading this, and I dearly hope you get bone cancer in your goddamn face.
_{Please limit death threats to direct messages only. – Ye-Jun}

Fine, they wanted a scout drone that runs on four legs, so they’ll get exactly what they asked for.

Since we already had most drone motion systems figured out, and installing Baddarick Lungs would give enough extra power to the unit’s generator, exactly what work was there for me to do? I could easily throw together a frame, fill it with nav systems, give it a simplistic AI that was trained to act like a pack animal, and then have the muscle weavers install so much artificial musculature that it looked as if it was on growth hormones.
That was fantastic for a simplistic, AI controlled, four-legged drone.

It was absolutely not fantastic for a cavalry unit that a legionnaire had to ride, much less steer.
Our first trial involved a legionnaire hopping onto the unit and using it to try and reach a destination about 30 meters away. Since it had an AI that resembled a pack animal, we told him to try and steer it the same way you would a horse. The damn thing shot off like a rocket right into a wall, leaving the legionnaire to fall on his ass, because the AI was trained to be like a pack animal.

Pack animals don’t know how to control their strength when they’ve found themselves loaded down with 400+ kilos of artificial muscle.

A day of work later we fixed that, so we could go back to trying it out with legionnaires. To our eternal relief, the drones would cooperate with directions from their riders as they moved through a simplistic obstacle course. That was all going well until we needed the unit to jump over an ankle high obstruction, where after a lot of coaxing, it immediately leapt about 8 meters into the air.

Pack animals don’t often find themselves needing to leap over obstacle courses.

Having enough of this, and not wanting to condemn my team to sitting in a dark room to adjust the unit’s behaviors one at a time, I consulted with Sonny to see if he had any brilliant insights. All it took was two days of unanswered calls, unanswered messages, and then searching through the Mechanical Legion sector in Frostfall before I found him passed out beneath a Kakos Kharis tank in one of their many motor pools.
After beating him with a stick for over ten minutes until he woke up, he had a suggestion that at the time made zero sense to me.

“Just have a horse-“
No wait, my apologies.
“Juss hava horse gal do all them there trainin’ fer ya. Be right damn easy.”

At the time, I had no idea what the hell a “horse girl” was, but for some reason it filled me with a deep, almost instinctual unease.
_{And so, the scales fall from the eyes. – Azan
You’d think that’d be the main demographic making up cav, and yet. – Nahli
What the hell are you both on about. – Iza}

Whensoever I am presented with what I immediately know to be an info hazard, the only course of action I can take is to find someone that’s an expert in such matters. To that end, I had to now consult with Nahli.
_{Always happy to help. – Nahli}

After a call that went into far more detail than I’d ever wanted, I had a better idea of how to get this project back on track. We sent out a message to all legionnaires at Frostfall to solicit help, asking anyone who was familiar with horses to come assist our team in the Science Legion sector. However, in accordance with Nahli’s guidance, we ensured that within the message we had at least three factual errors when it came to horses.
The first legionnaire to correct us on all of that would be the person to go with, and it took all of half an hour before we received an entire essay from one Senior Guardian Mellony Hook.

Not only did she correct our errors, but then went on to provide sources for the corrections, summary statements for each section, and then went on to correct other minor mistakes in the other parts of our initial message. I figured this was about right for a legionnaire from the Science Legion.
Imagine my goddamn dismay to find out Sgr Hook was in the Vanguard Legion. The implications of this, that she met the criteria for the Vanguard Legion yet delivered an essay fit for publication, nearly caused a crisis in our team as we truly learned what we were dealing with.
_{What? Why is this surprising? – Nahli}

Once we’d confirmed it with her commander and dealing with Finance to ensure her extra pay for this was assigned, Sgr Hook was brought onto our development team for the project. Upon seeing the prototype for the first time, her sentiment was “ Aw, that’s designed more like a deer, not a horse… where the hell is it’s head?”. But she was enthusiastic regardless, as evidenced by the three hour lecture she gave us upon arrival.
Rather than teach her how to reprogram the AI’s behavior from the ground up, we utilized a GUI based interface layer that interacted with the AI directly. After teaching her how to correct and adjust the AI’s behavior, we assigned a few assistants to Sgr Hook and let her get to work on fixing the prototype’s hardware and software.

The assistants weren’t there to provide technical support.
They were there to ensure she didn’t die of dehydration, malnutrition, or any other host of self-inflicted health issues due to her hyper fixation and refusal to stop working unless held at gunpoint. There’s autism, and then there’s whatever the fuck Sgr Hook has.
_{That’s my girl <3 – Nahli}

Within two weeks, she had not only corrected the AI’s behavioral patterns, but refined it to such a point that the drone was indistinguishable from an actual horse/deer/whatever in terms of how it acted. It could now show signs of excitement, boredom, frustration, eagerness, or affection. By now the drone would walk up to Sgr Hook and start leaning on her or making playful pushes with its body anytime it simulated wanting to go for a run.
By now it was showing a level of intellect never seen before in a simple drone platform and could easily be mistaken for true sentience.

For her assistance and the amount of work she put in we offered to transfer Sgr Hook over to the Science Legion to help us with similar projects, but she declined. We even offered to help her transfer to the Armored Legion to take on responsibility for all of our Scout Beasts once the project was completed, but she again declined. Rather, she was simply content to stay in the squadron she currently had.
I found that admirable and ensured she left with my personal recommendation for immediate promotion, and as large of a paycheck as I could authorize. Should she ever like to join our development teams, the door is always open.
_{At the time of this writing it’s Bsgt Hook now. – Nahli
Nice. – Azan
As it should be. – Dr. Baddarick
That’s great to hear. – Iza
Nice. – Klein
Excellent! – Johann
Arbiters, all of you, please just message each other instead of using this document as some form of group chat. – Hansuke}

After the AI was taken care of, we could finally begin proper trials of the system.
The first test was repeated, with a legionnaire directing the Scout Beast as you would when riding it. The drone successfully navigated obstacles and moved between points without any outrageous spikes in acceleration or height.
Our second test involved seeing how well the drone would perform in terms of speed, transportation capabilities, and stealth. Nothing too interesting, just loading it down with all the supplies required for long term recon and seeing how it did.

The third test was where we began turning the screws.
For this one, we needed to see how the Scout Beast performed outside of a controlled, directed lab setting as it were. The role of this drone was to assist in recon behind enemy lines, as well as support calvary for hit and run type attacks. What this meant was we needed a true test against an active detection system.

For this, we hauled ourselves over to a border and had the goal of a legionnaire placing a single finger on a residential structure within the country. Which let me say, the Scout Beast we sent in passed with flying colors as [REDACTED] _{Holy shit you absolute IDIOT. – Ye-Jun} never even had the slightest clue we were there.
_{YOU WHAT?! – Iza
PICK UP ACRIS! – Iza
I CAN SEE YOU’RE ACTIVELY EDITING RIGHT NOW! - Iza
WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU!? – Iza}

And as time is short, let me summarize by saying the Scout Beast has been altogether wonderful addition to oausrd;aLKSJdfaFDFDFRRRRRrrvv sjxn rtydfghzvttx

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