Weapons of the Magnate War
The Magnate Continuum
Army
Series VII Replicant
Epithets: Meatbots, Windups, Dregs
Invented by the Eternal Dawn and proliferated through most of the Magnate Continuum as a solution to the League's larger size, Series VII Replicants were barely-sapient engineered weapons given their superlative combat skill via a series of advanced computer implants. These combinations of biotechnological might and cybernetic enhancement were powerful combatants, with superlative combat skill and an instinctual mastery of small-unit tactics. Their combat chatter is clipped and rapid, with unit orders and status reports generally given in one-word answers. Series VIIs were produced in large numbers throughout the war and also given various types of equipment and armoring, although all armor had to be modified somewhat to interface with the Series VII's physiology. The most common variants in the war, however, were the Eternal Dawn "standard" and the Syntha variant.
Their initial deployment came as a severe shock to the League and ZOCU forces who, although familiar with Magnate supersoldiers, did not expect the sheer number of VIIs to be deployed, nor did they anticipate their idiot-savant battlefield ability. However, after a few battles were won at great cost in the early stages of the deployment, ZOCU and League generals quickly realized there was a fixed pattern in their movements, a lack of improvisation that was created by their inflexibility. This information, along with counterweapons for the prevalence of grossly superhuman light infantry being put into service, turned VIIs into a moderate threat instead of a war-winning superweapon, and then further analysis of VII communications and tactical patterns turned them into a joke.
The Eternal Dawn response was to create and deploy the Series VIII, or Series VII Officer Variant, a fully sapient and intelligent version which could monitor and manage the powerful but inflexible Replicas on a small-unit level. This countered the cracking of the VII tactical programming to a great degree, but the damage had already been done and the VII although still a potent force throughout the war was never the game-changing machine the Eternal Dawn freethinkers believed it would be.
Technologies
Alephs
Zodiac Outworld Colony Union
Craft
OMF-04 Peltast Mobile Suit
This page's version focusing more on the machine's role in fighting the magnates and the concept of humanoid combat frames in general.
