ZAWR-831

"Engaging enemy."

- A typical ZAWR-831 status report

The ZAWR-831 (Zarkan Arms War Robot-831) was a model of battle droid produced Zarkan Arms, the government armaments production company of the Zarkan Kingdom, the ZAWR-831 was the first product of Project Metal Fist, the combat robot development programme of the Zarkan military.

The ZAWR-831 was a little shorter than the average Human, and didn't have hands, rather three grasping claws at the end of arm, with inbuilt guns in the "palms", which were later replaced with blasters when blaster technology became available. The designation came from the year Metal Fist began and this robot entered service in the Zarkanian calendar, which began with the founding of the Zarkan Kingdom in 1,000 BBY. The robot spoke in a monotone voice. They had a large clear dome for a "head" which was made of bulletproof glass, in this dome was the robot's optical sensors, which generally weren't able to be seen whilst the robot was active.

As the first model of combat robot produced by Zarkan Arms, the ZAWR-831 was slow and generally quite unwieldy, due to the huge battery which took up much of the robots' internal space, which only had enough power for 4 hours of active time. Yet for their time they were highly advanced, and were pretty much impregnable to the small calibre slugthrowers used by Earth's standard infantry soldiers.

In 69 BBY the Union of Earth States introduced the Combat Robotics Non-Proliferation Treaty, this was done out of fear of the Zarkanians developing the capacity to produce a robot army to directly challenge the authority of the Union, the treaty effectively made the continued development of combat robotics illegal. and would thus outlaw the century old Metal Fist project, however the Zarkan Kingdom was greatly angered by this treaty, that they refused to sign it and simply moved the development of combat robots underground, both literally and figuratively.

As of the outbreak of the Earth Civil War in 21 BBY the Zarkanians were still using ZAWR-831s, despite their obsolescence, this was due to the relative inexpensiveness of the model, which let the Zarkan Arms produce the type as "disposable soldiers" and for bolstering security details, due to their relative cheapness and the common availability of parts and replacements the ZAWR-831 was still popular with security companies and forces as late as 9 ABY.