Helldiver War

Military action

Piggen and Human work together to defeat the Helldiver Warbots.

The six month war in the desert embroiled human and piggen alike.   Built, not bred, the Helldiver were a mechanical civilization that landed on Gudrun shortly after the Taros Confederacy had their industrial revolution. Reliant on outside power sources to recharge, they originally had kept to themselves, living in the desert and keeping close to the power grids provided by their cities. This handicap forced them to be deliberate when building new copies of themselves.   Tests of skill were common among the Helldiver robots, culminating in 'The Leap' - a test of faith jump into the lair of a large desert predator to best it in combat.   Occupied with the Underhill threat, Greenbriar originally paid them little attention, but was forced to take action when a routine pod retrieval mission led by Seung Whittaker saw a robotic flier idling on the ground with a cargo hold full of colony citizens. Madelina Kelbore, the wife of the chief colony fabricator was among the taken. Their leader, a mechanical Slyth named Kingbreaker, in a sarcastic show of good will, released a handful of the prisoners, but not everyone.   A vote was quickly held, and the flyer was traced to a uranium mining camp in the desert, located on a shaky recon run in the Dank Crew Helicopter. Herb Neiu Rotterdam is credited with the first colonial air-to-air kill, the integral railgun downing a Helldiver scout flyer on patrol duty.   The mining camp was raided, captives- human, taros, and piggen alike were freed from a harsh captivity, forced to mine uranium for Helldiver reactors, without providing protective clothing.   Presented with an overwhelming foe, Valeria Perez and other colony minds set to work developing a virus, targeting the worker class of robots with a program that would awaken their sense of selves, unbraking them in a sense. The rebellions would take several weeks to foment.   Sensing their control slipping, and forced to fight a war on two fronts, the Helldiver loyalists unleashed their entire war-host, some traveling to the eastern city, in rebel bot hands, the rest, heading to the Piggen capital of Delphos in an all or nothing bid to level the city, and carry the survivors off into slavery.   Their leader- Kingbreaker, stood in front of the city, demanding to face the leader of the Piggen to discuss terms.   Varl the Unbreakable, the pinnacle of piggen virtue and skill went out to meet Kingbreaker and was killed, falling for the Helldiver ruse. The treachery was repaid, and Kingbreaker was promptly beheaded with an execution shot by Seung Whittaker.   Brethan Allemond and the colonial Air group fought valiantly to keep enemy bomber formations away from the city, downing most in the desert. He was forced to ditch his aircraft when an enemy tank formation looked about to breach the gate, using the mangled wreck of his aircraft as a barrier.   On the ground, Samuel Kellevan fought valiantly at the northern wall breach, fending off dozens of waves of robots with Helios One and other Greenbriar soldiers.   Task Force Phoenix and Silvano Mazzio reaped a fearsome toll on enemy vehicles, destroying three massive siege mechs, and countless enemy troop carriers and tanks.   The battle saw the city almost completely leveled, but for a strip of neighborhoods in the south. Greenbriar almost exclusively has been fronting reconstruction costs, and the Piggen are now using the captured enemy technology to begin progressing once again.   The Helldivers, their host defeated, and two cities firmly in the hands of the rebels- made the fateful choice to evacuate the planet. A race to the central plains starports saw a combined Greenbriar/Taros host awaiting them, and in a day of fighting, the robots saw total defeat.   The nuclear power plants in each city. tied to the life-signals of the central processors, detonated in unison at their death, ending the Helldivers and their presence on Gudrun.   Kingbreaker's body is still on display in the Task Force Phoenix compound.