This article is about a model of robot that is believed to be extinct. The information within is presented for historical research purposes.

A typical WALL-E unit in service, ca. 2150

Nova Laboratories WALL Series (Class E)

Manufacturer: Nova Laboratories (later U.S. Robotics)
Designation: Waste Allocation Load Lifter
Sub-Designation: Class E
Primary classification: Solid refuse management
Secondary classification: Industrial load lifting
Primary user: United Earth Defense Force
Other users: Royal Salusian Armed Forces, Wedge Defense Force; later Duotech Corporation; numerous planetary and municipal government agencies; some private citizens

Model history: The Waste Allocation Load Lifter series debuted on pre-Contact Earth in 1995 as a simple, basic industrial droid. Its manufacturer, Nova Laboratories, is still best-known for its military products, most notably the Strategic Artificially Intelligent Nonhuman Trooper (originally "Nuclear Transport") series of battle droids, which entered service with the United States armed forces in the late 1980s. The WALL robots represented Nova's first effort to apply their then-industry-leading technologies to non-military applications.

WALL-series robots were available in a variety of sizes, which were designated by alphabetical "class" descriptors. They ranged in size from the gigantic WALL-A, which was nearly the size of a two-story building, to the diminutive WALL-E model, which was roughly the size of an Industrial Automaton R2-series astromech droid, but whatever their size, all had the same purpose: to compact and stack solid (non-biological) waste. The B- and C-class WALL robots had short market lives, finding no particular niche at their size level, but the others were in wide adoption by the time of Earth's First Contact with Salusia in 1999. WALL-A units could be found in heavy industrial settings such as aircraft boneyards and military scrapyards; WALL-D units, with their 3' x 3' bale size, were popular among wastepaper and plastic recycling firms; and WALL-E units, compact and agile, could be found everywhere from the trash holds of Earth Defense Force spaceships to small-town junkyards and even private homes.

In 2000, U.S. Robots and Mechanical Men, Inc., acquired the robotics division of Nova Laboratory and took their most popular products, including the WALL series, onto the newly opened galactic market. By the mid-21st century (by which time USR had streamlined its name to U.S. Robotics), the SAINT-IV multipurpose military robot was a the company's best seller, followed closely by the E-class WALL unit. Like humans, the robots humans built spread across the civilized galaxy and beyond over the next two centuries.

Following a series of market failures and design problems beginning in the early 2200s, U.S. Robotics was acquired in a hostile takeover by GENOM Corporation in 2215. GENOM, as part of the company's standard anticompetitive strategy, immediately ceased production of all USR products and terminated all support contracts, offering existing USR customers a discount on a managed conversion to use GENOM's own "BoomerŪ" products instead. Unsurprisingly, customers such as the Royal Salusian Armed Forces and the WDF declined.

In 2227, faced with an almost total unavailability of spare parts and repair services, the RSAF sold all its remaining functional WALL units to the Duotech Corporation, a technology company operating in the Kant Sector on the edge of Salusian-influenced space. These were used in a failed attempt to manage the increasingly chaotic state of the scrap disposal facility on planet 03F8 until, their systems failing, Duotech's WALL units eventually joined the vast continuum of scrap they were intended to help clean up.

The WDF, however, kept its WALL units in service, relying on in-house reverse engineering to produce replacement parts as needed, until the force's 2288 collapse. Most of the WDF's WALL units were destroyed with the SDF-17.

More than twenty million E-class WALL units were produced between 1995 and 2227, but the lack of maintenance and repair services, spare parts, and manufacturer support since 2227 means that, as far as is known, all have ceased functioning or been scrapped. No known galactic robot registry lists one today.

Capabilities: The E-class WALL unit was optimized for a specific task, but also possessed sufficient general utility functions to permit it to be adapted to other uses with a bit of ingenuity.

All-terrain mobility - Lacking any sort of antigravity or repulsorlift capability, WALL units were groundbound. They moved with a caterpillar drive system featuring a highly advanced adaptable suspension, with which they could traverse almost any solid terrain. Thanks to the extremely flexible design of their suspension, the E-class models could even "walk", locking their treads and using the twin tread units independently as "legs". At full emergency drive power across smooth ground, a WALL-E unit could achieve a maximum speed of nearly 50 miles per hour, but they customarily moved at no more than a tenth of that speed.

Trash compaction - WALL-E's primary function was the gathering and compaction of solid refuse. Its internal compaction compartment was capable of exerting a force of up to 10 tons on the refuse placed within, crushing almost anything into an 18-inch cube.

Telescopic multi-position arms - Though constrained in many respects by the basic box shape of its main body, a WALL unit had surprising agility thanks to its cleverly designed arms, which could telescope, rotate, swivel and hinge at the shoulder joints, and move independently on right-angle tracks for high and low lifting positions.

Fork manipulators - Optimized for scraping debris into the compaction chamber, a WALL unit's manipulators also featured two independently operable digits and a semi-opposable thumb, making them capable of considerable manual dexterity. With the right programming, they could reportedly even type.

Cutting laser - To help manage larger waste objects, each WALL-E unit was equipped with a 15kW diode laser for cutting. Though this laser was not intended for use as a weapon, there are documented cases of WALL robots defending themselves with it.

Multi-function sensors - WALL-E robots were equipped with a full range of sensors enabling them to mimic the human sensorium, plus enhanced vision modes such as infrared and ultraviolet sensing (enabling them to work at night without floodlights) and, as an optional extra, short-range ground radar.

Audio recording - Because the smaller WALL units (D- and E-class) were often employed in concert with humans (e.g. in warehouse situations), they were equipped with digital audio storage and playback systems. A typical WALL-E could store and play back up to 100 hours of stereo sound. In practice, this was customarily used for music, though they could also be used to record and relay verbal instructions.

Adaptive intelligence - Since they were designed to operate independently in constantly changing work environments over long periods of time, WALL units were fitted with highly advanced intelligence systems for their era, enabling them to improvise and adapt to changing conditions. Later models (produced after 2150) were sometimes even fitted with small positronic brains, theoretically giving them the potential to develop sapience, though - despite persistent rumors of WALL-E units, like R2 units, developing "personalities" - there are no documented cases of this actually happening.

Energy storage system - The larger WALL units were powered by onboard thermonuclear fusion reactors, but the E-class models were too small to support this technology at the time. They were instead powered by cryogenic flat batteries capable of sustaining them for up to a week of standard operation at a time. Recharge could be conducted through a variety of different means, including tapping a starship's or settlement's electron plasma energy system, connecting to a power droid, or even, in the top-of-the-line models, photoelectric energy collection from outside radiant (e.g. solar) sources.

Storage mode - WALL-E robots were designed to collapse into a compact storage unit when deactivated. Since much of their interior space is, by design, hollow, this is achieved relatively easily. In full storage/shutdown mode, a WALL-E unit's tread system, arms, and head all fit completely within the central body "box" structure, making the unit an easily managed, nearly cubical shape. As an added benefit, this mode put the robot's most delicate parts, the suspension system and optic sensors, within the solidly armored main casing. WALL-E robots in storage mode (also commonly called "box mode" or "turtle mode" by humans accustomed to the robots) could easily survive situations that would disable or destroy them in normal operating mode, such as military air drops and artillery near misses.

Function: WALL robots were primarily used, as their name suggests, to compact and stack trash, either for later disposal by other means or simply to tidy up refuse dumping areas. Their rugged, heavy-duty construction and heavy lifting capabilities also made them easily adaptable to cargo-handling and general load-carrying duties.

Deployment: At the height of their popularity, from about 2075 to 2200, WALL-E units were ubiquitous in parts of the galaxy, most notably on Earth and the first-generation solar colonies, aboard the starships of the WDF and Royal Salusian Navy, and in the homes of relatively affluent private citizens. For some reason, they were particularly popular among the early-22nd-century upper middle class on Tomodachi, where a deactivated unit can still be found in a "typical Nekomikoka home, circa 2120" diorama at the Colonization Museum.

Cost: In 2215, the final year of production, a typical WALL-E robot carried a suggested retail price of cr6,750 (worth roughly cr20,000 today).

Outlook: None; WALL-E units are apparently extinct. The manufacturing data may still exist in some GENOM database, but as there are more efficient and inexpensive items on the market today that perform similar functions, it is unlikely that anyone will seek that information out, much less put the robots back into production.

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Aside from this, I LIKE it! :) And, as said, look forward to having him show up somewhere. And, even if he doesn't, still a nice touch.