Chapter Text
Count Dooku was not normally a patient man.
Being a Sith and the leader of an entire faction of a war grated on what little patience he had to no end, and his recent capture by pirates did not help in the slightest.
Yet the count of Serreno and leader of the Confederacy of Independent Systems was unfortunately forced to wait in an admittedly sinfully comfortable chair on Geonosis. He had been requested to come to the desert planet by Duke Poggle the Lesser, who had been working with Foreman Wat Tambor on a project that would apparently be the next generation of the T-series military strategic analysis and tactics droid, or better and simpler known as the Tactical Droid.
Dooku had his reservations about the project. If the normal T-series wasn't so horribly incompetent, he would have not even bothered with approving this project, let alone these new ST-series droids. The prospect of having an even better version of the T-series this close to the beginning of the normal version's limited production also bothered him slightly. If this continued, he would need to slow production in order to help prolong the war for his Master, Darth Sidious.
"Apologies for the wait, Count Dooku. Duke Poggle and Foreman Tambor will see you now." A B1 secretary said.
Dooku walked past the droid, internally irritated at how annoying they seemed to have gotten ever since the beginning of the war. He walked into an observation room, where the Geonosian and the Skakoan seemed to be muttering over a datapad in hushed tones.
"Gentlebeings." The count of Serreno greeted.
"Ah, Count Dooku. I apologize for the wait." Tambor greeted in return. "Duke Poggle and I were simply going over the final changes to the design."
The Count's eyes wandered around the room. "And where is this new Tactical Droid you have been working on?"
"The first model is here. It is not ready to be activated yet, but we supposed that you would like to oversee the final design." Duke Poggle explained in heavily accented basic, gesturing to the now illuminated pod.
The droid was powered off, proven by the fact that it's three photoreceptors were dimmed. Dozens of wires and cables connected to it from behind, attaching all over its body as it hung in the air a foot off the ground. It looked remarkably similar to the design of the standard ST-series, but it was bulkier. Concealed blasters taken from a Super Battle Droid were present on its arms, while its left thigh held a concealed vibroblade. Its waist was thinner, and more organic looking, but still maneuverable.
The droid itself was painted black with red accents, and a look at its photoreceptors showed that they would glow white when active, and focusing lenses would allow it to zoom onto far off battles without the need for macrobinoculars. Instead of the usual three fingered hands, this new model had four thinner fingers. It still had the general silhouette of the ST-series, but it was almost like a fusion of a B2 and an ST.
"Are there any differences besides the obvious?" Count Dooku asked.
"Ah, well, this is technically a prototype that we had worked up, and parts of it can be stripped way for costs, but we believe that we have finally dealt with the programming problems that come from the sometimes very illogical decisions of Jedi." Wat Tambor boasted. "We would need to test it, but I trust in the Techno Unions coding." The Skakoan thumped his gauntlet against his chest plate. "We call it the UTD-series, or Ultra Tactical Droid, designed to perform as an anti-Jedi General. Its armor plating is comprised of Phrik, and as you can see, it has a set of concealed weapons in its arms as fallback weaponry on the chance that it is in a situation without reinforcements..."
Dooku stopped listening as he thought for a moment, as Wat Tambor rattled off a few other specifics of the new design. About how they built it to stay online and in one piece for as long as possible against clone trooper and Jedi alike, plus plans to add Cortosis to its plating, along with the Phrik enhanced vibroblade it had. This new kind of droid was promising, and while the CIS was on the backfoot right now, since the Republic had finally shifted to a war economy, his Master still needed more power from the Senate.
He could allow this new droid a chance to prove its model is worth the funds, and a small part of him was interested to see just how well this new droid could deal with the members of his former order. But his Master might see its production as too far of a progression in the CIS war effort. He filed that thought away for when he would next speak to Darth Sidious. Perhaps he could only order a small amount of them and spread them across the battlefield where some would be destroyed by Jedi, leaving only the smartest of them to act as Generals.
But where would he send this new droid to test it? The operation on Naboo had recently failed due to Dr. Nuvo Vindi's incompetence, and spies had recently reported that the massive Republic fleet had moved to other fronts, leaving the planet with just its planetary defense force. He would save that thought for another day, because he would need to consult his Master on if or when he could have Senator Amidala planet-side.
He instead turned his thoughts to another planet. The system was in the Outer Rim, just far enough from the Republics main lines that it could be retaken with no real resistance. And even if they deemed it necessary to retake the planet, the droid army would have been entrenched long before they ever arrived.
'Yes. That system will do.' The count thought.
"We will require a live test of this new droid's capabilities." Dooku declared.
"Of course, Count. What sector will we be sending it to?" Wat Tambor asked.
"The Telos system."
As the three Separatists began putting together a test fleet for the new droid, none of them noticed a small spark coming from the back of its head, and the droid briefly coming to life, before slumping back down, offline.
5/4/7956 C.R.C
In an instant, I woke up. Well, I wouldn't say 'woke up', more like... powered on.
The last thing I remembered was driving home from work, but everything after was fuzzy. I couldn't see anything, almost like I was blind. Before I could even get my bearings, however, text popped up in front of my eyes.
[Initiating Boot Up sequence]
[Primary Processing core: Online]
[Secondary Processing core: Online]
[Heuristic Processor: Online]
[Databanks: Online]
[Repulsion systems: Online]
[Weapon systems: Online]
[Shadowfeed connection: Established]
[Battlenet connection: Established]
[Boot sequence complete]
Everything flashed and suddenly, I could see again.
I looked around at the room I was in. It was fairly spartan, but futuristic with subtle green accents, with a beautiful view of space, along with a planet that I instantly knew wasn't earth.
"Well, this is wei-!" I said, cutting myself off because that wasn't my voice.
I looked down at my body, but instead of skin and flesh, it was all black metal with red accents. I rapidly glanced around for a mirror, and saw one on a far wall of the room I was in. I slowly walked towards it, my feet clanking lightly along the floor. Once I reached the mirror, I let out a mechanical gasp and staggered back a step. Three glowing white optics stared back at me with a beak-like 'mouth' below them. On the bright side, I no longer needed glasses.
I brought up my hands, which had four fingers, then stared at myself in the mirror for a full minute, taking in my new visage.
"Why... do I look like a Super Tactical Droid?" I asked myself slowly, not used to the much lower tone I now had.
My voice was deep, but not so much that I couldn't emote properly. I sort of sounded like Shockwave from Transformers: Prime, but with the mechanical undertone of a droid vocalizer. I could probably tweak it to make it sound less or even more menacing, probably.
I of course knew what I was, somewhat. I was a ST-series droid from Star Wars: The Clone Wars. The question of why I looked slightly different from the average ST-series was soon answered, as my model popped up in my vision, or rather, my Hud.
[Baktoid Combat Automata: 7956 C.R.C]
[Ultra Tactical Droid]
[Model: BZKG-T1]
[Assembled at Point Rain Hive Factory, Geonosis]
Huh. Well, that explains a bit. I'm some sort of prototype Tactical Droid.
Normally, this would be where a person would be freaking out about everything. But being a droid, I could simply 'mute' my emotions, so that I wouldn't have a panic attack. Plus, I kind of always wanted to become a robot in some capacity, so I wasn't panicking as bad as some other people might, it was just the lack of tactile sensations that was mildly freaking me out.
After a few minutes of calming myself down, I allowed my emotions to flow freely again. Now much calmer, I started to pace as I thought about the situation that I now found myself in, my hands clasped behind my back.
"When is 7956 C.R.C? ...Ah, 21 B.B.Y. I'm only a year into the Clone Wars." I muttered, my feet lightly clanking on the ground as I paced in my room, soft mechanical whirs emanating from me as I walked. "But where exactly I am and where I'm going is unknown. And how exactly am I going to deal with the Clone Wars? Better yet, what exactly am I going to do about the Sith? Possibly even more important, am I in Legends or Canon Star Wars? Because both options are equally as bad for my continued existence."
I soon lapsed into silence as I thought, and eventually began to familiarize myself with my quarters and the few belongings that were probably given to me, since I was a prototype of an ST-series droid. I was looking at a small shelf with a few datapads on it, when I heard voices outside. Intrigued by the volume of their conversation, I slowly crept up to my door. I was just able to make the voices out, and by the sound of it, the two conversing were Neimoidians.
"Why does the droid get the best quarters anyway!?" One exclaimed.
"It does not matter, there will be no organic crew on any of the ships. This mission to Telos IV is simply a test for its capabilities." The other explained.
"Fine, but why are we wasting time and credits on a single Tactical Droid, even if it is supposed to be a new model?"
"This one apparently can correctly calculate Jedi into its tactical computer, and even fight against them to some capacity. I do not know the specifics, but it appears that Wat Tambor himself was at the head of its creation..."
The voices soon became too hard to hear, and I guessed that they were moving away from me, and probably leaving the ship.
I soon returned to exploring my quarters, which included a bed, a very high-tech repair room that looked to be retrofitted from a closet, filled with spare parts for me, a few chairs, a table, and a holocomputer. After a few minutes, I realized that I could remember quite a lot of my life in fine detail, which led to me accidentally watching all of my most cringe inducing moments back-to-back for a solid five minutes. After I had finally pulled myself out of that cringe feedback loop, I reviewed where I most likely was in the war.
I knew it was 21-bby, but when exactly in the year it was, I didn't know. My best bet was probably sometime before the Second Battle of Geonosis, since my informational data said I was built at Point Rain Hive Factory. More importantly, I was on the Separatists side. the 'bad guys' of the Clone Wars. Despite how much I enjoyed watching the clones, I liked the droid army more, simply because of my love of Transformers, and most other robotic beings, from mechs to androids.
When I noticed that I had weapon systems, I was slightly confused, because I didn't see any weapons on me. That was when I discovered that I had a pair of concealed B2 wrist blasters in my arms, and a vibrosword that extended out of my left thigh. I guess whoever designed me had combat in mind, along with my original purpose. And according to what the two Neimoidians outside my room had said, I was meant to be the droid version of a Jedi General, minus the Force, at least. Whoever proposed the design of my body had to have been high on Spice at the time.
Since I needed to connect to a computer in order to access the wider galaxy, my eyes-optics were soon drawn to the computer in the corner of my quarters. I was about to turn the holocomputer on and explore the holonet, or rather, the CIS equivalent, the shadowfeed, when my communicator beeped. I picked it up, and after a cursory examination, clicked the answer button. The device activated, and a small hologram of Count Dooku himself, popped up.
'W H A T.'
"...My lord." I greeted after a moment, barely remembering how everyone greeted the Sith.
"Good, you are online. The Confederacy is placing quite a bit of trust in your model for this mission, BZ-KG." The Christopher Lee lookalike said. "Your orders will be sent to you momentarily. I hope you will not fail me."
The Sith lord hung up, and I was left dumbfounded for a moment.
"Did I just get passively threatened by Count Dooku?" I muttered to myself.
I tentatively opened my battlenet connection, and I was almost overwhelmed when I suddenly knew the locations of all my troops, plus the ships under my command.
...Well then.
It looked like Count Dooku was not putting a lot of trust in me for my mission to Telos, because I was in a Recusant-class command ship with minor damage, named The Harbinger's Greed. The less said about the other ships in my fleet, the better. Two other Recusants, four Munificents, and twelve smaller supporting craft from the various mega-corporations that comprised the Separatist Council, and all of the vessels had varying levels of Ion damage that was still being repaired. That was not much hardware, at least from what I'd gathered from my memories and the battlenet. And according to the orders that arrived, I was to take the planet of Telos back from the Republic and prove I could keep the counterattack from dislodging us from the planet.
After a few more minutes, I finally decided to leave my quarters. My feet clanked lightly along the floor as I walked down the hallways of the ship, heading to the bridge. I passed by wandering patrols of B1's who stopped and saluted me as I passed them. Funny little droids. Rarer than the B1's, were lone B2's wandering the halls, and the odd astromech or two surrounding an exposed part of the wall, sparks emanating from the wiring within as they performed maintenance on the ship.
I soon arrived on the bridge and was hit with a wave of nostalgia. I had watched the Clone Wars when it first came out, and it was dragging up old memories. There was a console in front of the command chair, which I used to check my ground forces after I had sat down.
Hmm.
Around 241,000 droids in total. 162,000 are B1's, 74,490 are B2's, 2000 Droidekas, 500 BX Commandos, 1,500 Dwarf Spider Droids, 490 Crab Droids, and twenty IG-100 Magnaguards, the IG's presumably for my protection. There was quite the variety of battle droid here, but without a Lucrehulk, my ability to occupy the planet is limited. The landing craft, tanks, assault vehicles, and other transports that a Lucrehulk would have, were shoved into a corner of my larger ship's cargo holds, and a closer look at them revealed that I only had half or even less of everything I needed.
15 Landing Craft, 100 MTTs, 475 AATs, 150 IG-227's and only 100 NR-N99s. That also cut into my Vulture Droid compliment, but there were about two hundred or so Vultures that had magnetized to the hulls of the ships.
I was originally supposed to have a Providence-class Dreadnought and two more Munificents, plus a Lucrehulk to hold all of the invasion force, but all of them had been sent to dry dock for a weapons overhaul. They would be finished in about a week, and if I was still on Telos, they would come to the planet and assist with locking it down, otherwise they would join my fleet in attempting to take the planet again.
If I survive, that is. I don't even know what kind of resistance Telos IV even has, and my orders don't either.
"Are we ready?" I asked.
"The fleet is fueled and ready, Commander. Repairs are scheduled to be completed in around thirteen standard hours. We are ready to jump." One of the B1's reported.
"Very well. Navigation, set course for Telos IV."
"Roger, roger."
As the fleet began calculations for the hyperspace jump, I took a look at the B1's and B2's programming.
To put it simply, it was awful, to the point that I was thoroughly surprised that they managed to function on a day-to-day basis. It only made me feel slightly better when I compared it to the programming of the bridge crew, but not by much. There were so many bugs and glitches that some canceled each other out, which confused me. They are legitimately programmed to act like how I've seen them in the show, slowly walking towards the enemy and hoping that they have the numbers to take their opponents out. Quantity over quality.
As we made the jump to hyperspace, I began work on a battle plan for a potential space battle, and the surface battle, which I knew would be a struggle from start to finish. I also began to copy bits of my own code, and creating code based on what I've seen Clone troopers do, to create a software update for all the droids and ships in my fleet, ground and air. My forces would need new coding if I had any chance of winning this battle.
If the CIS aren't going to program their troops properly, then I will.
Besides, I've always liked the droids more than clones.