Characters / Gruboid

*curious beeping noises*

Gender:

Genderless

Species:

Grub Insectroid

Age:

Around a decade, for the eldest

Origin:

Various

Abilities:

Wallclimbing, radio communication, laser cutting, night vision

Status:

Active

Affiliation:

The Insectroids

The Gruboids were Madouk's first ever Insectroid designs. They serve as her watchful eyes and tireless workers. There's about ~1500 or so of them currently, and because there's so many of them, they're almost always referred to plurally. It's usually a sign that something's wrong if you see one alone...

The majority of them roam the deserts of Ataraxia, alerting Madouk of possible threats, examining space debris that frequently falls from the sky, and hunting for small animals to bring home as food. A smaller amount of them stay in the bunker, relegated to bunker maintenance, Monarchoid upkeep, and helping Madouk with various things. You'll often find them resting or conversing on the walls and ceilings, in clusters like how ladybugs do.

Personality

The Gruboids are naturally helpful and polite, although they're not the brightest when compared to Monarchoid; the majority of them are much more cheaply built, quite literally having simpler brains. Although they're not as smart as the queen, but they still don't appreciate being mistaken for mindless workers! They get quite upset if they're not treated with respect! Luckily, Madouk spoils them with all the love and care she can give. There’s not been any talk of rebellion… and let's hope it stays that way.

Their builds have improved with time, as Madouk gathered better materials and upgraded a good amount of them... though it's definitely still apparent which Gruboids are more newly built, with the older ones twitching, misunderstanding commands, having their internal parts go out randomly ...or even straight up crashing from time to time.

Appearance

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The Gruboids are small, insect-like robots, most similar in appearance to a beetle grub mixed with an isopod. They have segmented bodies, foldable forelimbs for grabbing, 6 stubby feet, and pointy claspers on their rears. They have circular, glowing yellow eyes, with oval-shaped lights on their backs to match. The lit up bits are mainly for making them easy to spot in just about any situation.

They use their claspers either to chain together like a barrels of monkeys, or to latch onto the handle of a wagon and haul things around. Despite their size, they can pull a surprising amount of weight - sometimes even teaming up, with two or three dragging one wagon when things get heavy.

They're capable of basic Insectroid functions: scanning and snapping pictures with their eyes, night vision, clinging to walls and ceilings via vacuum suction, and communicating through morse code, using their own Insectroid radio frequency to speak it. What they lack is self defense - aside from being able to scuttle away fairly quickly, they're pretty much completely vulnerable - so if they're attacked, they likely won’t survive.

This is why Madouk doesn't allow them into dangerous situations, or pretty much anywhere offplanet anymore - too expensive (and sad) to lose one, let alone more than one!

Backstory

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Trivia