Typhon Kerberos Guardian-Drone

Written by: Coupe

Typhon Munitions aren't exactly known for making anything but classy guns, but every once in a while they come up with a fancy new 'exotic security-solution' to go alongside their guns. The Kerberos is the latest in these endevours, made with no small help from Quva Home-Automation and aiming to see if they can't improve on the perfection of an old-fashioned guard dog by giving it a bark worse than any bite.
The Kerberos is a quadruped security-drone standing at about four feet from toe to head, covered in puffy ballistic composite-weaves and living up to its namesake with three heads: The left and right head are a pair of sophisticated sensor-suites, while the central 'head' is a flexible mount for mounting your weapon of choice, from a taser to a semi-auto shotgun or even a pain-inducer! The pilot-program running the Kerberos is a couple of steps more sophisticated than your usual security-drone setups, giving it a little more flexibility on deciding whether to shoot an intruder or just blast off its 95 decibel noisemaker to wake up everyone else.

Neat thing about the Kerberos' piloting system is that they modelled its default behavior-algorithms after synaptic patterns from actual attack dogs: The Kerbs have a tendancy to chase and close in on intruders before firing their guns point-blank, and if there's more than one of them in a WAN they'll start using actual pack-tactics, circling around intruders and making feints while others go in for the kill. And when I say 'neat', I mean 'Absolutely fraggin terrifying'...

— Cr4nk

Like the critters they're based on, the Kerberos aren't made to be your main bulwark; They're deterrents, scarecrows, something to stop people from getting too close to your property or a VIP client and, if the worst happens, buy some time for the real heavy-hitters to get involved. They have noisemakers, fire-control for non-lethal munitions and even optional 'chaser' subroutines to give intruders an opening to retreat. Expect to see them in the sort of places you'd expect to see actual guard-dogs, if guard-dogs didn't need to eat, sleep or breath and could stay alert for weeks without someone coming along...

It's weird. Typhon markets these as fancy 'Dog +1' security upgrades for rich people, but the Kerb's main buyers are corps and mid-end businesses. Not that they're complaining about a profit either way.

— Saint Ain't

It's not just the utility of a dog that attracts the rich (or people looking to appear rich): Having a pet can be a status-symbol in of itself, a way of saying you've got the spare time and cash to look after a higher-maintenence animal. Hell, a legit purebred pug could cost you more than a Kerberos drone.

— Null Kit

A purebred Pug'll cost you more than a Kerb in yearly vet bills alone, and that's not even mentioning the moral cost of bringing one of those abominations into painful life to begin with.

— Anonymous poster

Nickname

Kerbs, TotenHunder

Motto

"Reliable hardware, loyal software."

Manufacturer

Typhon Munitions

Price

8,500¥

Rarity

11R

Speed

4G

Type

Medium Drone (Pilot Walker)

Handling

3

Acceleration

2

Body

6

Armor

10

Sensor

3

Pilot

3

Standard Upgrades

Weapon Mount: Standard, Noisemaker, Small Unit Tactics (2) Autosoft