The Essential Guide to Droids (Page 38-39)
Household Service: Guardian Droid
Cybot Galactica, famous for its protocol units, decided to blaze a new market niche with the creation of the GW3 Guardian droid. The gleaming plastic canine was designed from the earliest concept sketches to be the ultimate protector, companion, and friend.
Four-legged domesticated guard animals are common on countless inhabited planets. The Guardian’s similarity to these watch creatures is no accident. Its personality programming is on par with that of a particularly bright beast; it cannot speak, but instead communicates a wide range of emotions through growls, roars, and yips. The droid can understand most simple commands if they are delivered in Basic.
The GW3’s metal body is heavyset and powerful. Hydraulic leg muscles allow it to easily outrun a fleeing burglar, or to pin a luckless intruder to the floor. The Guardian is strong enough to carry a standard human on its back. An array of solar collection panels allows the droid to store reserve energy throughout the day, dramatically reducing the amount of time wasted during repowering sessions.
As a terrifying attacker that is also a loving children’s pet, the Guardian must take special care never to accidentally injure its charges. Its twin rows of razor-sharp, serrated incisors are fully retractable, snapping into place only when danger threatens. Its blaster is concealed in a sealed belly compartment, and it is usually set for stun in households—though this is seldom the case in industrial facilities.
At four thousand credits new, Guardian droids are appropriate units for any number of jobs. Wealthy landowners buy them to protect their estates from trespassers. Scientists and military types use them to guard installations and research laboratories. And indulgent parents purchase them as full-time companions for their offspring. In all of these situations, the GW3’s preprogrammed loyalty imprint ensures its everlasting devotion. In fact, the tenacious droid will always sacrifice itself rather than relinquish whatever item it has been told to defend.
The product line has benefited from strong sales and favorable word-of-mouth. The children’s market caught fire after a Guardian was featured in the popular holo-series Revala’s Journey: A Story of a Girl and Her Droid. Families now constitute the largest segment of GW3 buyers.
Recently, a new use has been discovered for the Guardian droid: search and rescue. In a widely publicized incident, an SAR squad on Corellia used a GW3 to save a team of four spelunkers trapped in the notorious Koen’s Grotto catacombs. Cybot Galactica, mindful of the good press, is currently developing a modified version of the droid featuring enhanced detection sensors, an emergency transponder, a spotlight, and a weatherproof packet of survival gear.
Info Boxes
Front View
- Infrared Photoreceptors
- Olfactory Samplers
- Limited Vocabulator
- Heavy Plasteel Plating
- Retractable Blaster Cannon (behind panels)
- Hydraulically-powered Servomotors
- Durasteel Claws
Side View
- Retractable Signal Antenna
- Restraining Bolt Mount
- Solar Energy Panels
- Audio Sensors
- Triple-reinforced Jaw Assembly
- Retractable Razor Teeth
- 360° Head Pivot Joint
- Standard Recharge Port