Hekseville Defense System

Hekseville Defense System is a robotic defense system created by Dr. Brahman to defend Hekseville from the Nevi attacks and replace the Jellyfish Special Forces.

It consists of two types of robots, the Grigos and the Bubs.

Control Posts

Dotted around Hekseville are strange black buildings, some put up in place of buildings that stood previously. It is not known definitively what purpose these buildings serve, though given the presence of inactive Grigos just outside one of them, they are most likely used as control posts for the patrolling machines. Kat first sees one of these buildings when seeking help from Pandora's Fortunes, only to find this in its place.

Grigos

The Grigos are spherical floating robots with a single eye that can change colours depending on their status. They speak in a monotone, high pitched voice similar to a child or woman, and attack with electricity. Their function is to detect Nevi entering the city as well as any other crime that may be committed. They can recognize peoples' faces and general appearance, and demand registration from anyone who has not been added to the database.

Grigos have four different states, denoted by the colour of its eye:

• Green - The Grigo is in a passive state, and will pose no threat.
• Amber - The Grigo becomes suspicious, and will start scanning for trouble.
• Red - The Grigo is now hostile, and will either pursue or attack its target.
• Blue - In a unique case, a Grigo became friendly when Alias hacked it to assist Kat.

While Grigo operation is wireless, they usually only use this function to communicate. They are fully autonomous robots, as shown when a damaged one is thrown into a Rift Plane and continues to operate. They are capable of recording everything they see, and recorded footage can be recovered from a smashed Grigo on a removable drive. As shown in Road to Lonely, they can add and remove suspected criminals from the police's wanted list.

Their name may come from the Gorgon, a monster known for the ability to turn people to stone by looking at them.

Bubs

Flower-shaped floating robots that absorb the gravitational energy from gravity storms to stop them. Unbeknownst to everyone, they were actually storing the energy and are able to regurgitate it to shield the Angels. These devices only seem to appear in the wake of a Gravity Storm.

Their name probably comes from the fact that they look like flower buds when closed. The way they open out like a flower in bloom further reinforces this.

Trivia

• The data drives that Grigos are fitted with are similar in function to the Black Box in an aircraft; both are capable of recording data that can be used by authorities for criminal or crash investigations. The big differences though is that while a Black Box can only record audio, Grigos can record video and audio, making their functionality more akin to fully mobile CCTV.