Walkers. Some of the most impressive and intimidating military vehicles ever to be featured in cinema. Although seemingly impratical by todays standards, these machines were essential to the warfare of The Galaxy Far Far Away. Over a dozen models have been named and identified and many more are nameless in the literature today. In this blog, I hope to create an accurate, in-universe, history of these magnificent vehicles, their form and function in the GFFA.

History

More than 25,000 years before the Battle of Yavin, before even the earliest forms of the Republic took shape, the galaxy had invented the Repulsorlift; a technology which could defy gravity. Over the next millennia, this drive would be refined and remodeled, into countless forms of civilian and military vehicles, and would all but replace the old wheeled and piston-legged vehicles of ancient times. As Repulsorlift vehicles flourished, and galactic civilization spread from world to world, more "primitive" vehicles were forgotten, their designs mothballed, in all but highly unconventional companies. However, with the onset of large-scale wars with high-yield weaponry and masses of armies with impressive hover-craft, technology evolved. Shield systems and Ionic weapons were utilized to create planetary defense networks, and these new technologies stifled the Repulsorlift. Defensive shields blocked anything which was not grounded, and fried anything without adequate armor. For decades this new shield system stifled large-scale ground attacks from opposing armies.

Re-enter the Walker. Engineers finally reincarnated old wheeled, treaded and walking vehicles, who's natural grounding and heavy armor allowed them to roll and march right through opposing shields. Many of these new walker designs were automatons, and as such, unmanned. However, these droid walker armies were dull and insufficient for modern warfare. New innovations were needed.

During the Great Sith War, the Mandalorians developed an automaton walker with the cognitive ability of a intelligent animal, and had their warriors ride the mechanical beasts into battle. These became known as the Basilisk War Droids. Over the next several millennia walkers were developed which were fully functional automatons, and which had little or no artificial intelligence and were entirely crewed by sentients. By the end of the New Sith Wars, and the supposded extinction of the Sith religion, the Galaxy fell into a long period of peace, with few major conflicts to speak of.

As this "Pax Republica" continued, the military of the Galactic Republic (now the major power in the galaxy) fell into lapse, and it was up to local systems to maintain their own militias and militaries. The Republic Army, all but vanished, the Republic Navy was shrunk down to a relatively tiny fleet of modest picket ships, and, for a time, it seemed as if large scale war was a thing of the past. Walkers continued to be manufactured for industurial purposes, mainly being automata rather than piloted vehicles, but the age of military walkers seemed to have passed.

However, in the last decades of the Republic, piracy ran rampant along hyperlanes and Outer Rim systems, and many large trade and industrial conglomerates, petitioned the Republic for standing armies to keep security among their holdings. The consent of the Republic led such entities as the Trade Federation, Banking Clan and Commerce Guild to make and purchess machines of war. Re-enter the walker.

As the military might of the corporate world began to threaten the Republic as they seceded on grounds of taxation and went on to form the Confederacy of Independant Systems. And so, the Republic, swiftly recreated their military, and the galaxy entered into one of the darkest times in its long history; the Clone Wars. It is from this era and onward, which produced a great variety of walkers, and it is these walkers which will be discussed in the next blog : "Types of Military Walkers".

Please be patient, I know you're all shivering in your shoes waiting to learn about walkers, but this will take some time

Due to the length this has turned out to be, I have decided to put the actual information on specific walkers in a separate blog, and without further adu, I give you Types of Military Walkers

Enjoy