In-Universe Mech Highlight: The Exterminator (SLDF era)
Introduced: 2630
Mass: 65 tons
Max Speed: 97 kph
Jump Capacity: 150m
Designed by General Systems in 2630, The Exterminator was the company's only foray into mech design and manufacturing. With every component of the mech being built at General System's Caph factory, the Exterminator was a purpose-built Special Operations mech with a single highly skilled and specialized role: Headhunting.
Designed specifically to slip through enemy lines and decapitate command and control elements within a battlespace, the Exterminator was a fast-moving 65 ton mech that utilized the pinnacle of defensive and electronic warfare technologies to minimize detection and headhunt command-level elements.
While the base-model EXT-4D was outfitted with a sheathed directional communications array, phased array sensor systems, Fibrolyte Ablative armor and heat baffles to disguise its IR signature, the pinnacle of the Exterminator's stealth features only appeared in two highly-classified limited versions: the EXT-4C variant, released alongside the 4D, and the top-secret (and extremely rare) "2nd generation" EXT-4Db SLDF Royal variant introduced nine decades later in 2718, which carries an all-energy loadout for extended operations behind enemy lines.
Both of these extremely rare variants add the Null Signature System and Chameleon light polarization shield, making the Exterminator hard to detect to both sensors and the naked eye. The two systems work in combination with each other, with the Null Signature System cloaking heat output and electronic emissions while the Chameleon blurs the mech's visual outline, allowing it to blend into surrounding terrain. (Editor's Note: Think the camo system in "Predator")
Extremely fast for a heavy mech, the Exterminator can move at 97 km/hr, allowing it to outrun most mechs of the Era. The few mechs that could catch it would find itself outgunned, as the Exterminator carries four Averell medium lasers and a Deadeye-10 LRM-10 (The Royal 4Db variant swaps out the LRM-10 for an ER Large Laser). A Dinatech Mk III small laser keeps infantry at bay, while a Buzzsaw anti-missle system protects the Exterminator from missle salvos launched by slower mechs. The armament is strong enough to strike hard at the normally lightly armored command & control elements ensconced deep behind enemy lines, and what armor the mech's arsenal cannot penetrate, its feet and battlefists can.
On top of its straight-line speed, the Exterminator is also extremely nimble, capable of leaping 150m from its five jump jets- 2 in each leg, and a single jet in its rear. The best Exterminator pilots could fire jump jets in a single leg to "juke" the mech one way or another, making the mech even harder to hit. Since the job of headhunting was only ever given to the best pilots in an SLDF unit, and training in such a specialized mech was extensive, "the best" can be taken to mean "all" Exterminator pilots. Indeed, it was not uncommon to find Gunslinger Program graduates logging significant time in an Exterminator, such was the importance of and skill required for headhunting missions.
Lastly, if you can find it, and you manage to catch it, the Exterminator has 10.5 tons of high-tech armor protecting its valuable electronics. While not as well-armored as many of its heavy counterparts, the Exterminator is well armoured for a mech with its speed and mission profile, and the Exterminator's Fibrolyte Armorscale has been improved with four layers of early-generation reflective armor as its outer skin, providing enhanced protection against energy weapons while also making the mech even harder to see in combat. It also makes the mech extremely difficult to hit with a TAG laser.
The Exterminator was a rare commodity during the SLDF Era, classified and kept out of the public eye. Highly prized by commanders for its abilities, it was generally attached to a high-level headquarters or as the fifth mech of a reinforced Command Lance. The SLDF's penchant for combining mechs of a single type into a unit also applied to the Exterminator, so it was not uncommon for all Exterminators in a regiment or division to be pulled from batallion commands and combined into a Lance or company for Special Combat Missions.
The only thing more dangerous to an enemy's field base, mobile HQ, and general command structure than a single Exterminator is a pack of them.
Such a rare and effective mech is a dangerous adversary, and the fall of the Star League and the dawn of the Succession Wars saw these mechs hunted down and destroyed, lest the Exterminator live up to its reputation against one's own command structure. In the midst of the massive destruction of the first Succession War, commands assigned entire specialized lances dedicated to eliminating single Exterminators.
The price on the heads of these mechs, in combination with the loss of the advanced technologies responsible for its stealth and speed, and the destruction of General Systems' Caph factory in 2793, lead to this already extremely rare mech being wiped from the battlefield. Attempts by Kallon industries in 3006 to re-purpose the design as a line mech using available technology was a failure, and only Comstar managed to retain a small stockpile of the original design, and even in their ranks of vintage SLDF treasures, the EXT-4C and 4Db stealth variants were exceedingly rare.
Legacy: A decade after the Exterminator was introduced, it's success encouraged the SLDF to expand the use of its highly secret Null Signature System and Chamelon Light Polarization Shield, and a lighter Headhunter mech, the 35 ton Spector, was produced in very limited numbers by Norse Technologies, with all 600 being delivered in 2640. Although it never gained the Exterminator's dubious reputation of being a battlefield ghost greatly feared by the SLDF's foes, it was well-received by its pilots and SLDF command, and its all-energy weapons loadout, faster speed (119 km/hr) and greater agility (210m jump capacity), as well as its next-generation AR-12 Sheathed Directional beacon with a Guardian ECM suite, made it an effective mission partner for the Exterminator, and gave the SLDF exceptional flexibility for fulfilling headhunting and deep-strike Special Operations mission scenarios. Almost all of the Spectors- as well as the plans and reports on the highly classified mech- disappeared with Alexander Kerensky in the SLDF Exodus. The few that did remain were destroyed in the opening days of the Succession Wars.
