by Tom Verreault
 [1] |
Occasionally, on one of the worlds where agriculture is a significant part of the economy it becomes necessary to drive off pests and protect crops. An ancient practice from another world far removed from the Frontier was to post a scarecrow in a field and hope it would drive off avian pests. Notoriously ineffective, the scarecrow became a human cultural icon associated with harvest. Tachton Instruments’ new SCARECROW Bot (Small Critter Abolishment, Removal, & Eradication Crop Regulating Over Watch Robot) fits this niche need.
The Scarecrow bot is designed to patrol agricultural fields, identify pest creatures and prevent crop loss through abrogation of the threat they pose. It is equipped with a sonic screen, infrared and acoustic sensors, as well as a weapon arm. The weapon arm comes in automatic, laser, gyro-jet, or needler rifle variants. Legs, wheels, and tracked methods of propulsion are standard but the robot can be ordered with a hover upgrade for 2000 Cr.
Standard body, Level 3 robotic processor brain, type A parabattery, IR and Acoustic sensors, Attack/Defense program, Search and Destroy program, standard modes of propulsion (legs, wheels, or tracked- choose at time of purchase) and a rifle arm with a double clip of ammunition (automatic, laser, gyro-jet or needler rifle- choose at time of purchase). 10,800 Cr. Movement is at 120m/turn like similar search and destroy robots.
Standard Mission: Patrol Agricultural Assets and Identify and remove Pests.
Function 1: This function can be as simple as a map of the agricultural asset or a written description.
Function 2. This function defines what a pest is. It may identify pests as creatures of a particular size. Example: creatures size small and tiny are all pests in which case all creatures conforming to size small or tiny will be attacked by the robot. Alternately it may include bio scans of specific species. In this case it will only attack those creatures specifically identified as pest.
It should be noted that the language of the mission with the search and destroy program will ensure that the robot will pursue those creatures it deems pests beyond its programmed patrol area.
Optional Function 3: Rearm and recharge as needed or during non-peak pest activity times (i.e. nocturnal or daytime periods). Inclusion of this function has contributed to accidental malfunctions where the robot would not rearm until the specified period and thereby failed in its eradication mission.
For some reason the second function has been known to become corrupt. There are several instances where the robot identified any sized creature as a pest including medium sized sapient beings like humans, dralasites, yazirians, and vrusk. With lawsuits pending Tachton Instruments refuses to comment on this at this time.
The player characters are traveling through agricultural areas and run afoul of a Scarecrow robot with corrupted programming causing it to attempt to eradicate them as pest.
Links
[1] http://frontierexplorer.org/content/scarecrow-bot