Stormbird

The Stormbird is a machine in North and South America. It is a large aerial combat-class machine. Its ability to fly distinguishes it from other machines of this class. Its huge size, intimidating appearance, superior field of vision (due to being aerial), and an array of powerful attacks make it a lethal threat to any human who enters an area over which a Stormbird patrols. A highly maneuverable flying machine with a wide array of Shock based air-to-ground attacks.

Utility

Stormbirds are solitary; at no time have they ever been seen to congregate. They circle high overhead at their respective sites, almost never landing except to attack a perceived enemy. Stormbird sites are scattered throughout the Carja Sundom, from The Jewel to the mountains far north of Meridian. They are mainly found in the arid regions north and northeast of Meridian. Though they have never been seen active in The Cut, the chassis of one, long destroyed and heavily encrusted with Bluegleam, is at the end of the pilgrimage route known as the Shaman’s Path.
Stormbirds employ powerful electric attacks from the air, such as carpet bombing with electrical energy projectiles, and equally powerful melee attacks on the ground using their beaks, talons, and tails. Additionally, they employ their wings as weapons by using them to generate damaging wind gusts, and to execute air-to-ground melee attacks. They can also use their weight to crush an enemy that moves directly beneath them while airborne. They possess no elemental weaknesses, and are resistant to Shock damage.

Complexity

Stormbirds are raptorial in appearance. Indeed, while machines generally resemble some form of pre-Zero Day animal life, the Stormbird's appearance does so more than many other known machines. Its resemblance to a bird of prey is unmistakable, with raptorial wings, tail, head and beak, armor plating that resembles feathers, and taloned feet. It has two optical sensor arrays positioned in the same place as the eyes of an eagle or falcon. Above each shoulder is an armored Chillwater canister. Each wing is equipped with three feather-shaped jet engines. The wings are equipped with winglets, enhancing their aerodynamic efficiency. An armored Blaze canister is positioned above each hip. Each of the four toes on each foot is equipped with a talon. In the center of the chest is an armored electrical energy projectile weapon known as a lighting gun, with which it can fire powerful blasts of electrical energy, similar to a Shell-Walker.
Removal of all six jet engines on a Stormbird’s wings disables their air-to-ground and carpet bombing attacks. Destroying the lightning gun disables a Stormbird’s electrical energy attacks and enhancements, dealing Shock damage to the machine. Strikes on its Blaze and Chillwater canisters with the corresponding elemental ammunition cause corresponding elemental explosions and respectively induce Burn and Freeze states.

Discovery

Stormbirds were not created as combat machines. Instead, they were originally Zero Dawn terraformers, designed by Zero Dawn’s governing AI GAIA to work under its subordinate function AETHER, to detoxify Earth’s atmosphere, which was ravaged by the Faro Plague (though there is some evidence that the basic design concept may actually date back to the Old World origins of Project Zero Dawn).
However, when GAIA self-destructed, HEPHAESTUS, GAIA’s erstwhile subordinate function responsible for manufacturing Zero Dawn’s terraforming machines, gained control over machine manufacture and management of at least five Zero Dawn cauldrons. Deeming humans a threat to Zero Dawn for their hunting of machines, HEPHAESTUS made the machines produced at these cauldrons hostile toward humans. The tribes refer to this phenomenon as the Derangement. It then began producing combat machines of various sizes and abilities as further protection and deterrence against machine hunting. It weaponized Stormbirds, remodeling them from aerial detoxifiers to powerful aerial combat machines.