Mechanized Walkers

Mechanized Walkers of the Maret family come in two variations: Quadrupedal and Bipedal. Quads tend to be enormous in size, but relatively slow due to their bulk. They make up for this by being able to wield huge armories of mounted weapons and are a force unto themselves. Biped Walkers are usually smaller than Quads, and though they can move slightly faster their main benefit is that they are easier, and cheaper, to construct.

Acacia - Standing anywhere between 3 and 5 meters, Acacia walkers are the most numerous among the Maret forces. They rarely have volatile personalities and often are excited to form a bond with a pilot.

Redwood - Standing between 8 - 12 meters tall, Redwood walkers were once the standard Maret walker, but the expense in creating a Biped walker of such a height, along with the generally abrasive and antagonistic personality they tended towards meant that the Redwoods fell out of favour for most Maret pilots and only a few remain active.

Karst - The original Quad walker, standing at a respectable 5 meters in height, is a staple of the Maret's famous "rolling wave" assault. Karsts (and their pilots) are a commanding presence on the battlefield and many consider it an honour to serve alongside their pilots.

Mesa - A more recent design, the Mesas are usually no more than 10 meters at their highest point but take up a lot of horizontal space. They were a controversial step, and the first group were though to be unusable, as no pilots were able to connect until it was discovered the monumental personalities contained within the machines, requiring incredibly specialized training and fortitude just to talk with the machine. Mesa pilots are the most revered among the walker pilots for this reason.

History

The official story on how the Maret family came to use Walkers as their primary military is that several hundred years ago, a Patriarch named Lorenzo Maret was trying to create a war machine to combat the Laguerre tanks (this fact is highly opposed by Laguerre who created their tanks to oppose the Maret walkers). Unable to find something of significant enough power he prayed to the Lord Sovereign and the Machine he was working on answered him. Thus the first pilot/walker relationship occurred. The voice in the machine instructed him on how to create the Walker Cores and how to connect a pilot to them to bring the walker "to life" in order to accomplish physical feats regular machines would never be capable of.

Since then, Walkers have been a staple of Maret society, functioning in civilian and military roles (though every Walker pilot is a commanding officer in some respect).