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Post by satoh on Jul 11, 2013 21:54:30 GMT -5
We know the Master created the Betas, and that they became known as Carbons eventually, and also that they are the 'human' population of Terra. What we don't know is whether or not the carbons have any human DNA at all, and here is the really interesting part:
We never hear anyone not part of the system refer to the species of the people of Terra. Or to put it another way, we don't know if these people even consider themselves human, or have ever heard of humans. Sure we might assume they do and have... but isn't that because we are humans ourselves?
Back to the theory. We do know they are not human as the system is concerned, which means they very likely do not contain 100% human DNA (Unless the system is just a butt and doesn't want to accept them... that's a different theory for another day).
So what are the carbons? Lets look at some things we know about them: They are adept at grafting mechanical parts onto their bodies, and it is completely common for ordinary people to have said mechanical bits. (This can be seen, but was also directly confirmed by devroom members, Carbons regularly give themselves implanted machine parts. It was implied that it was not limited to replacing injured parts either)
We know that when Trigger's 'parameters' were reset, he returned to child form, however this was not the case for Sera, meaning she was exempt from the process, or is of a different biiotechnological structure. Carbons look very much like humans, reproduce like humans, and are flesh and blood(as far as we can tell) like humans.
So, on to the actual hypothesis: Carbons are the evolutionary descendants of biomechanical androids, the betas. I say androids, because Trigger, who functions the same as the carbons, is treated like an android by the system units, and even has his memories and original "data" stored in a machine... called Data. (Original!Trigger doesn't sound very clever with names) So, if we assume Trigger, who is apparently biological, is considered an android, we can assume that many of the system units were this way as well, including those that became the betas.
Even Yuna, Sera, Gatz and Geetz seem quire organic despite their mechanical functions and tranformations. Now, all of this sounds like a massive set of contradictions, since a machine cannot simply be mechanical AND biological at the same time, right?
Wrong. The prequel series' actually establishes this as a possibility multiple times. Megaman X: Reploids have DNA, and are even seen to breath and feel pain. Megaman Zero: Reploids bleed, feel pain, have DNA, and can apparently even grow with age (which is confirmed in...) Megaman ZX: Reploids can not only grow as they age, but even reproduce with humans apparently, as the 'line between reploid and human is practically nonexistant, and the distinction has dropped mainly, in favor of a joint term, "humanoid" to describe both species' to paraphrase.
What I'm leading up to, is that there were a few true humans left, who lived on elysium, and eventually one, the Master, decided to populate the lower world with beings that were greater than the sum of their function... To do this, he gave free will to the existing android units on the surface, and a directive to simply do as they will. This led to civilizations that rose and fell, but also led to the system needing to purge the carbons (as they were not only taking up space intended for the human repopulation, but also they would be considered aberrant for their non-system-controlled behavior.)
Thus, carbons are neo-reploid-human-androids similar to but not necessarily the same as the humanoids from ZX. This allows them to easily graft functioning mechanics to their bodies, without any nasty side effects that come from such attempts with ordinary living beings. (Real people have tried it, and it almost always ends up leaving the skin pretty irritated and invites infection...this is why prosthetics are almost always over-the-skin, not under it.)
We could even go one step farther and consider that all of Rock's armor and equipment is not simply worn, but attached and detached as needed (his arm doesn't even fit in half his weapons... not even a little bit in some like the vacuum arm.)
Now... This is an established fact, taht carbons do in fact attach things to their bodies, and it is normal for them and not given a second thought. A man with metal ears or cameras for eyes is about as out of place in on Terra as a man sitting on a chair... and as anime has told us, "people sit on chairs."
So that's my theory on carbons.
EDIT: And a final piece of important support, we know for a fact that Yuna used her own abilities to not only fix Matilda's body, but also take control of her mind as well. (In the sense that Matilda is unable to interact with the world and Yuna has control over her every function)
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Post by satoh on Jul 11, 2013 21:12:44 GMT -5
Ok, so, since I got a question about my avatar I guess I'll use it as an excuse to start the art thread I've been debating... These are all models I made to mimick the PSX style, though they slightly break the polygon limit... but the important thing is that they look retro. Trigger. Roll Tron, in her MoTB Labcoat Yuna Sera Denise Art (backpack and pistol are separate models) A system character from the concept sketches, I call her Cybele. A small Reaverbot I created specifically to be a non-boss type enemy. I call it Billet All of the original characters have been modified slightly from their original outfits, this was intentional. So... That's where my avatar came from.
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Post by satoh on Jul 11, 2013 18:08:58 GMT -5
8/10. I like the use of reflection on what is a 'clearly' an invisible object, and slightly more for the added bloom, which in games is a nuisance, but in static art is far under-appreciated. It has a very organic aesthetic despite being inorganic subject matter. It appears to be a multifaceted crystal.
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Post by satoh on Jul 11, 2013 6:56:04 GMT -5
So, I see you went with a classic rockman aesthetic... I don't know where you are on the programming side of this, but if you want to capture that classic rockman platforming feel as well, this should be useful to you, it contains a list of mechanics studied and explained from the original NES games: tasvideos.org/GameResources/NES/Rockman.htmlAnd since jumping in itself is an important mechanic, probably more important than any other, here's a page that explains a jump mechanic from a different series, but one that has always been at the peak of 'just feeling right' info.sonicretro.org/SPG:JumpingI hope some of this helps in some way.
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Post by satoh on Jul 11, 2013 6:44:29 GMT -5
Loken, this is fantastic. The attention to detail has paid off. It not only looks like the Flutter, but also fits in a real 3D space, and not one known for being forgiving about wall placement.
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Post by satoh on Jul 10, 2013 21:51:46 GMT -5
Unrelated because their androids. They are supposedly created to complement each other but at the same time they are opposite in nature. But if they were carbons or humans I'll say they would be twin sisters, where Yuna is the good twin and Sera the bad one XP Funny thing is, I see Yuna as the troublemaker and Sera as the dutiful one. I think a lot of people would agree with you though, since Yuna is at best a protagonist and at worst indifferent, while Sera most definietly wants to kill a bunch of really nice people and a few not so nice ones... I'm not dead set on the twins idea really, I used to think that way, but then I considered that it could be like going to an unfamiliar country for the first time, and seeing how all of the people, while still different, have a lot of the same features, and until you get used to them you have a hard time telling the difference between a passing resemblance and a familial one. To give a better example, I don't feel Gatz and Geetz are related in any way, and never did. They are two comepletely separate entities... but they do share a lot of traits. Sera and Yuna might just be harder to tell apart because of how they're modeled. (all the MML girls have the same shaped head for instance). Not arguing, though.
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Post by satoh on Jul 10, 2013 21:11:39 GMT -5
So I dug around for a bit, and I didn't find any search results stating this had been done, and I was actually pretty curious...
How do you see Yuna and Sera? I always considered them sisters at first glance but not so much anymore. I realized recently that they don't really interact much directly, and I don't recall any information stating that they're directly related. Then there's the fact that they're technically androids, and may not have a direct concept of 'family' (whether they have DNA like reploids is unknown too... I assume they do, but that's a long LOOOOOONG, extremely lengthy topic for another ramble another time).
They're always used as opposing forces or concepts, but that doesn't mean they're ay more directly related than the real earth and moon. I think I lean toward cousins or nothing these days.
That's me, but I want to see where the rest of you define it. How are Sera and Yuna related, if at all?
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Post by satoh on Jul 10, 2013 8:16:03 GMT -5
Well, I will say this about the defense area... It most likely existed to for the sake of keeping invaders out of the important parts of the city... This means Elysium was probably built when there was some form of outside threat, or, the builders were really paranoid about aberrants from within the city itself.
That's the area where the gravity controls are right? It seems like the gravity might be 1/6 when set to low... (or it might only be 1/2, I don't know exactly) assuming its 1/6, that would mean Elysium is supported by its own gravity field, equivalent to the moon's. Considering there weren't many enemies (not really) in the defense area, it seems more likely that it was meant as a muster area for drills and training and gearing up Purifiers to go on aberrant executions.
There do seem to be some amount of natural life, but the only bit we see is grass, and even that could be fake. I don't see many animals as being likely on Elysium, not real living ones anyway. I think there may have been simulated life, like holograms or robotic animals.
If we assume any of Capcom's promo art is trustworthy, there may also have been festivals (there is an image of Sera and Yuna in festival hapi), meaning that life there wasn't completely devoid of entertainment...
Elysium's residential area is composed of islands linked by teleporters (and I believe they're in a mock ocean as I recall?). It seems like there were likely artificial environments in the Human sectors. The Master's home was a large building that seemed like it likely had many more rooms than we see in the game itself (for one thing there was nothing resembling a bed or even a sleep pod or anything). The Master is shown looking at a screen depicting Terra's city at night, so it seems as though Elysium's surveillance equipment was pretty good, and not off limits to those who lived there.
I got the impression that Elysium was 'asleep' when you visit it in MML2, due to the lack of generally anything at all to see aside from one or two defense machines... much like the reaverbots in the first ruin in MML1 were 'asleep' until you approached them.
Being a space station, it would have to have a self sustaining power station, and Geets suggests they can manufacture refractors, which may actually be true, unless they used Terra's refractor facility as their power supply depot.
The Master created the Betas, meaning there is also likely some large scale factory for building or fabricating replacement system units there as well. It was most likely managed by other system units, possibly a 4th class of unit, or maybe the missing 2nd class.
A large portion of the Elysium that we see is pure metal and circuitry architecture, which leads me to believe that humans probably weren't expected to be there much. (this is much like how it was in the X series, where Reploids did most of the hard work and humans sat around being feeble) The master himself states that the betas lives are fulfilled because they have to work for their prosperity, lending credence to the idea that the humans on Elysium did not have responsibilities.
The function of the Library seems to be the storage of human genetic and memetic information, but also probably contained the collective knowledge of the Master System, considering it was treated as the heart of Elysium. It seems like storage of memories was common in Elysium, whether that was limited to units' programs or human memories as well. (I got the Impression that human personalities might be stored with their DNA)
Trigger seems to have created quite a large amount of trouble, and built data seemingly without being noticed, so it seems like Elysium's internal security is not all knowing. Sera claims that she followed the system very avidly, meaning the system units may have a degree of free will in how hard they work, and also suggesting that Sera herself was not limited to controlling numbers and delegating tasks to other units... She may have had active functions. She also seems to have been relatively close to the Master, so system units may have lived side by side with the humans in Elysium... but there's no evidence to suggest or refute that they were equals. System units seem to be treated like working class citizens, but that may simply be the impression because they actually did do all the work.
My theory is that system units were probably lower class than Humans, but at the same time, Humans were not allowed to do anything.
There are reavers roaming freely in the fields of the Residential area, they don't seem to serve any real purpose other than to slow the player down, (they're agressive, but only at close range...) they seem to just run around in circles all day. It seems likely that these reavers had some mundane purpose like taking care of the artificial environment.
There doesn't seem to be a lot of color in Elysium, but that can't be entirely the case, since even the defense machines are brightly colored when there's no tactical advantage to it. There is a dock and spaceport, meaning trips to and from Terra may have been frequent, for certain units. It doesn't seem logical to build a large dock if you only plan to have one small shuttle-pod.
I recall the Master being about 3000 years old (I don't remember where I heard that figure) suggesting that there was likely a facility for healthcare, but not one that involved much body strain... probably some sort of chambre that simply 'fixed' bodily damage.
Considering Data's healing and the Servitors' mechanical integration abilities, it seems likely that there were healing facilities for humans and androids alike, and probably very advanced ones that fit in a small space. Carbons can be repaired by mechanical integration (and even simply robotic parts), which adds credence to the idea that the system units are not so different from ordinary organic beings (and also that carbons are not entirely organic like humans) but that's a slight tangent.
Elysium seems to be strangely devoid of most of the System symbols that seem to be prevalent everywhere else (even being tattooed in the skin of the Mothers and Servitors), which in itself is odd. I'm not sure what use that is, but it's worth noting.
Annnd... I think that's as far as I can go without getting into another ramble.
Hope it helps a bit more than my last post, which admittedly got out of hand.
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Post by satoh on Jul 9, 2013 16:22:53 GMT -5
I can do a bit of Tiesel and Barrel... but... probably not as good as it seems from my perspective. (Your recorded voice always sounds different from your own speaking voice... I think it has to do with how your own body reverberates when you speak)
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Post by satoh on Jul 9, 2013 16:11:07 GMT -5
That's how I see Elysium. A prison planet, built to save humanity from free will. ... It would explain the creation of a fortress world protected by near-human robots that could more closely relate to humans. Trigger would, as we know, be tasked with destroying aberrant units that somehow found their way to Elysium. I'm assuming that's why there's so many Reaverbots in the defense zone and so few in the Habitat zone. They just started accumulating there when Trigger was left on Earth and could no longer do the housekeeping.
...
It may be a topic for a different discussion, but I'd like to clear up something about the system Units. In my opinion they are as much organic as they are mechanical. I think they're basically like Reploids in the ZX series, they are living things with organic components, but they are capable of incorporating mechanical devices into their root body structure. Even in the X series reploids had "DNA" which didn't seem to be exactly like human DNA but did seem to fill the same role. The system units, I feel, are the same. Living beings with organs and DNA, but built out of mechanical parts. So in the end, the true Humans were being ruled by artificial humans.
When you consider it that way, humans, who have the capacity to want things, are denied the ability to get them with their own power, and machines that are mostly devoid of those desires, but are allowed to use the skills they have... Humans are denied the use of their abilities, and machines are denied the desire to use their abilities. From this standpoint, the humans, or rather the Master, rebelled, becoming 'aberrant' himself, except that because he is not under direct mental control of the system, the term cannot e applied to him. I think perhaps this is why reavers themselves become aberrant--they have all the programming required to develop personalities, but the system denies them the right. So in the end the downfall of Elysium's Master System, was the Master System itself, by denying the rights of both the enforcers and the citizens. As for why Elysium exists... I think it was probably built some time after ZX, to save the human race from total extinction by integration. In ZX it is mentioned that almost no one exists that does not have both reploid and human components in their body. I think there were likely some who feared the human race being swallowed up by the 'humanoid' race, and built a haven, with pure reploid style units as guards for pure human beings. By extension, I think the Master, when he created the Betas, used reaver technology in conjunction with reploid android technology, to create a new 'humanoid' race, much like the one that humans had fled, and he saw that they were functionally less durable than the humans protected by the system, but were more fulfilled as their personalities evolved from proto-androids into fully articulate beings. (They were most likely IMO, just androids like the system had, but with extremely loose directives. Instead of being tasked with "running this machine in this facility for this many hours each day" they were given the order to "manage the Terra system" and set loose to do it however they chose.) What all this means is that basically, Elysium was a sort of human zoo. The system was meant to keep humans happy and healthy and away from harm, but they were robbed of their humanity itself. Stasis is not life. Survival is not living. Another impression I got about the Master System and Elysium, is that they were populated with many many Megamen. Some people seem to believe that there were only as many system units as we see in the games, or at least that's how they seem from my seat, but that doesn't fit with the implied data in the series. For example, a caste system is pointless when it only applies to something like 6 people and each one has its own unique caste. However, if there are 600 people, and only 6 castes, then the hierarchy works. Also, we see that there are 3rd class units, and 1st class units, and units (apparently) beyond those classes, but we never see anything 2nd Class. (Unless the servitors or mothers are 2nd class... but that seems to go against the logic of the game since it seemed like Sera considered Purifier 1st Class Trigger, to be of lower rank than she) So lets assume there were... I don't know... 5000 humans at first. Well that's a lot of work so you'd need at least one android per ten humans to manage everything, so that's at least 500 System units. I assume there were so many Humans because it makes no sense to build a city the size of the moon, for 2 or 3 people. (The moon is massive remember. Even just covering the surface with living space would be a larger city than the largest city on earth today) Now, what about the rest of the System, which is part of Elysium, like the Eden system. I think something caused a calamity on the earth that made it unlivable for organic beings (humans reploids humanoids alike) so part of the system was to restore the planet to life, using fully mechanical androids and robots. The other half of the system was protecting the humans on Elysium. (whether or not humans had fled there to escape integration is irrelevant to this point) Reploids of course, could always be replaced, as they were built initially from parts. They reproduced by this point, not terribly differently from humans, but humans could not simply be fabricated to create a new species. Elysium had that purpose: to record human DNA and memetic legacy, in order to repopulate the planet when it was livable again. The Reinitialization program was probably intended to wipe out the terraforming systems, to make the planet a clean slate for humanity and the Master system to build upon when the time came. Anyway I'm losing track of my thoughts and probably rambling by now, but essentially, Elysium was a haven, a command center, and a prison, all for a single purpose: Put people back on the lower world, and force them to live peacefully...but that plan never came to fruition because things went awry and all the humans died, and there was a rebellion of one of the System's more important units. EDIT: And as a consequence, Megaman committed genocide. He destroyed all remaining traces of the human race, save for the Master's DNA, which may still be with Data.
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Post by satoh on Jul 9, 2013 2:11:54 GMT -5
I always got the feeling that the elders didn't HAVE lives involving travel, work, buying or selling, or generally anything of that nature to worry about. The impression I got was if they wanted something, they got it. Simple as that. The system provided them with whatever they wanted without having to go anywhere or do anything to get it. Everything was taken care of for them, including their own physical fitness. Their did not exercise and eat right, rather they were exercised, and their nutrition was made to taste however they wanted so that they -could not be- unhealthy, but otherwise their entire lives were so sedentary that barnacles seem like daredevils in comparison.
There are surely plenty that could live complacently in a system like this, but there are some who cannot. The Master was one such person. What I do wonder, is how if the Master was able to live 3000 years, why was he alone? What killed the other humans, or was he the only human who ever actually made it to Elysium before whatever happened that necessitated the building of Elysium in the first place?
I've seen it cited that Elysium is the size of the moon (and is in fact a replacement for it, actually BEING the moon of Terra), this would mean that Elysium's gravity is at least partially natural. The moon has 1/6G in comparison to Earth's 1G at sea level. That Gravity would also be pulled toward the center of Elysium, meaning that the interior must in fact be spherical, unless the artificial gravity flattens it out in one direction.
I too believe that there would be no natural settings, but rather even the naturelike areas are artificial constructs that mimick nature. It seems to me that Reaverbots have intended functions other than 'kill intruders' but we never get to see what they are, since they are never seen in this behavior. We also never see anything but a few blocks of Elysium's huge structure. It seems to me that there is a lot we don't know about Elysium, and that what we do know is only the tip of it.
However, while there is likely more that we don't see, I still believe that the lives of the human populace were likely stagnant and mundane. We do know that there were artificial beings there as well as humans, Trigger and the Mothers are among them. We also know that these beings could malfunction, and that they did -have- functions other than simply caring for the humans needs (Evidenced by Sera, 'The more I followed the system, the sadder The Master looked when he saw me' ~paraphrased).
My impression is that there was a large society in Elysium, but that humans weren't really allowed to take part in it. Humans were being protected from themselves, while the system units themselves were more like people... and this is what sparked the Master's idea to create the Betas using the existing units managing Terra's system. That's how I see Elysium. A prison planet, built to save humanity from free will.
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Post by satoh on Jul 9, 2013 1:40:07 GMT -5
The size of refractor shards in the games is not literal, in my opinion... Frankly there are a lot of them that won't even fit inside the reaverbots they came out of. As for why they are worth anything at all... Because people allow them to be. That's all that is required for currency to have worth.
For instance, while the US dollar was once backed by gold, this has not been the case for many years. US Currency is backed by nothing. It is paper and coinage that has worth simply because people believe it does. I think this is the case with refractor shards. It may even be like gold itself for that matter: Rafractor shards are actually useless pretty trinkets that have been sought after since the betas first attained sentience. Their original meaning, if any, is another casualty of time.
No one remembers WHY they wanted to keep the broken shards of refractor, only that they DO want to keep them. Just like gold had no real useful value to primitive man, it WAS pretty, and could possibly be used for the same things as any other material... but it was pretty and so it was worth more than say, sandstone, which could be shaped and used as a tool like gold, but also like gold, it was not very durable...but gold is at least pretty.
Substitute gold for refractor shards. Aside from that, refractor shards fill a need in the world. The world NEEDS currency in order to progress in a controlled way, to reach the point that it has in MML. If everyone spends all day bartering one sheep for two chickens... a lot of time is wasted establishing the worth of things. Currency has definite worth. Refractor shards are plentiful. While you can go into ruins and "get as many as you like" it DOES require significant amounts of work to do, and therefor even diggers are earning the shards they gather, meaning the worth of them is not diminished.
Again on size being a game mechanic rather than a literal: We see three good examples of what are considered "large refractors" by the cast. The first one is smaller than most of the shards you find in the game, yet it is called a large refractor. We can assume that the shards Trigger collects are smaller than this. As for why they are so apparently large in the game... it's to make them easily visible, and also easily distinguishable from each other. Large things are easy to see and thus make good collectables. Small things... not so much.
Now, no one has mentioned that there seem to be a lot of refractor shards in the garbage... Well if they're actually quite small, it would be easy to lose them and for them to wind up alongside other items in the trash. Most people don't rummage around in trash cans either, so Trigger collecting trashcan money is actually sort of an oddity.
Lets expand upon the discussion even further by asking how much is a refractor shard worth... That is, what is Zenny worth. My guess is that 10 zenny is roughly equivalent to a US dollar, a British pound or a euro. My reasoning is that I have actually dealt some with machining, and if we consider a lot of the things Roll builds being about 500 USD/other real currency (5000z) then its actually quite realistic, considering she starts with parts that she has and puts all of the work in herself. Then we consider that trashcans seem to have 20z lying around all over... well, losing two coins is pretty easy, so losing two coins worth of Zenny is probably easy enough too.
However, this is not a perfect figure, as it only costs 1800z to build an upscale condo....according to Mayor Amelia. However, one man during the evacuation claims that he "Forgot [he] only had 970z in the bank." If twice that is enough for a nice house, then "only" seems like a snobbish thing to say, however if 970z is only about 97 quid/buck/insert euro slang... well that's not much of a savings at all.
Setting aside where they keep it (because that's in the pocket dimension as per ALL video game logic) there could just as easily be actual coinage that is indeed traded for shards. In fact its not uncommon for multiple forms of currency to be used, for example, trading shards for items, and getting coins back as your change. This is how trade works in Hong Kong. In Hong Kong, the US dollar is worth more than the native currency, not in the monetary sense, but in the personal value placed in it by the people. If you pay in USD, they will accept it eagerly, but will always return you change in local money, even when they have correct change to give you, and know readily how much of what to give. If you ask for USD as your change, they may oblige, but the general sense is that they'd rather have the green bills than the red ones padding their registers.
So with this in mind it could be that shards are literally currency, while zenny is ALSO a currency.
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Post by satoh on Nov 10, 2012 3:16:59 GMT -5
I'm submitting these two as one basic Reaverbot, but in two flavors... Sort of like Red and Green Horokko...
"The Pocket Digger", excerpt: 'No ifs ands or bots'
Kirikan A large, cylindrical 4 legged reaverbot that dwarfs even Hanmuru Doll. Two red eyes can be seen on the body's sides. Strangely, these eyes never seem to point at the digger, always pointed perpendicular to him/her...it's sight is no worse for this fact however, and shouldn't be underestimated It's attacks aren't far removed from Horokko, tackling and occasionally grasping at diggers. It is possible that it has bombs as well, though this has not been observed... Mainly due to diggers running in fear of it... or simply not returning to tell the tale. While it's attacks are nothing special, its size makes up for it in spades. Due to this great size, however, it can be a bit sluggish. It does not appear to have any sort of heavy armor, so normal tactics should be able to bring it down... but you would have to be a braver digger than this author!
It seems to be an aquatic relative of the Dorakuni.
Dorakuni Like the Kirikan, this is a massive sized reaverbot with four appendages. Its body is spherical with the unmistakeable red eye appearing on top. This reaverbot does not appear to have grasping abilities, but it may try to pin a digger underfoot for a moment while it prepares its weapon. Its weapon is a sticky substance not unlike a glue of sorts. Diggers trapped in this substance may find it more difficult to move. Fortunately this weapon must be prepared before use, so not getting caught will ensure you are not 'caught in the web' as well. Unlike its cousin Kirikan, this reaver appears to be more nimble, though still not what one would call speedy. It has been known to rush diggers when they get too far away, and this can be dangerous.
(Kirikan Theme: Kraken/Squid Cylinder body, 4 long tentacle legs with large paddles on each segment. looks like an X when seen from above with legs straight. it can swim, throw bombs, and has an oil slick it can deploy)
(Dorakuni Theme: Spider/Mite Sphere body, 4 tube legs, like Mirumijee from MML1, can hide in cylindrical holes in the wall while dormant, awaiting activation.)
I may add pics later.
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