Sentry Bots (Minions)
Faction: none (Sentry Bots)
Faction: Heavy Metal (Advanced Sentry Bots)
After the first failed Ulthar invasion in the early 1970′s, some inquisitive scientific minds in Pulp City embarked on a project of fighting metaphorical Ulthar fire with fire!
Most of the captured technology from the repelled invaders was immediately snatched up by the military, and dragged away into the hidden depths of secret labs, only to surface years later in one form or another.
However, some of that leftover Ulthar technology was not locked down by the military, and subsequently found its way into the hands of a few private citizens, each with considerable influence and resources.
Even as military scientists began their work to understand Ulthar power systems and weapons, it took Supreme minds to crack the security codes of the invasion’s foot-soldier robots. The battle-droids had been brought to Earth by the Ulthar in their will to conquer an inferior civilization, and the technology was clearly superior to anything mass produced on the planet.
As progress was made, it was quickly found that the deactivated Ulthar Bots were still dangerous, and extremely tricky to deal with, as any manual attempt to open their thick ceramic hide would set off an auto-destruct mechanism. Many brave were lost trying to unlock the Ulthar secrets wrapped in the deactivated and defunct army left in the wake of their defeat. But of course, they were not the only ones studying the alien technology.
When a group of Heroes from Pulp City eventually put enough clues together, too late they realized that somebody was buying up all the wrecked Ulthar war robots from around the world that could still be obtained through the black market.
Those Heroes followed the trail which led them to look toward Kodo Island, and thus it was almost certain that the Mysterious Man was behind the operation to acquire the inactive automata. The Supreme Heroes knew an assault on the roving secret island would surely fail, even if they could find it. However, despite their frustrations they would not have to wait long for Mysterious Man’s involvement to be felt. Shortly after they had identified him as the mastermind gathering whatever leftover Ulthar technology that he could, the first of his reprogrammed Sentry Bots fought alongside Nuke against a local Supreme in a short and violent battle in a radioactive waste dump in Mexico.
The basic design of the Sentry Bots became very popular among various groups after the Mexico incident, even though the Earthly materials used to create new units could never duplicate the defensive potential of the original Ulthar prototypes. The auto-destruct mechanism, which was incredibly difficult to remove, was generally reprogrammed so that a controlled Sentry Bot could be turned into a tactical warhead when its position was compromised. Mercenary groups, like Trinity Inc. and other warmongering Supremes of Pulp City, found the unfailing loyalty of Sentry Bots to be almost priceless.
As more and more Sentry Bots were impounded from crime scenes, Androida of Heavy Metal was able to acquire a supply through agreements made with PCPD and City Hall. The android speedster-scientist managed to build upon the framework of the original Ulthar Bot, creating a new more technologically advanced version of the Sentry Bot that possessed a higher capability artificial intelligence with a very efficient and fast tactical computer hard-wired into its systems. With protective plates that are reinforced by advanced ceramic shields, the Heavy Metal Advanced Sentry Bots have resilience matching that of some Supremes. The downside has been that the production cost of each unit is equal that of a small tank.