The Mountain Terrain Scout Transport (MT-ST), also known as the "bug walker" for its six-legged, insect-like appearance, was a ground walker in the service of the Imperial Army during the early years of the Galactic Civil War. Measuring 7.2 meters in height and comparable to a large speeder in length, the MT-ST moved at a rapid gait of 100 km/h. The walker was armed with a single twin blaster cannon and afforded room for only a single pilot to operate.
Imperial cadets at the Academy of Carida first trained with simulated and later prototype versions of the MT-ST in the months following the Battle of Yavin. In one such war-games exercise around 1 ABY, Cadet Shira Brie, secretly a pupil of Darth Vader, used a prototype MT-ST that was intended to be equipped with training lasers but was actually fully armed to crush a competing squad, killing six fellow cadets.
The Mountain Terrain Scout Transport (MT-ST) was a model of ground walker utilized by the Galactic Empire. Colloquially termed the "bug walker" for its insectoid appearance, the MT-ST stood on six legs and, according to Imperial Cadet Myrette Davani, looked "a little creepy" upon external inspection. The MT-ST stood 7.2 meters in height and measured about the length of a large speeder. The walker's interior held room for a single pilot and no passengers, and included a small cargo hold with a carrying capacity of thirty kilograms. Armed with a single fire-linked twin blaster cannon with a firing range of 200 meters, the MT-ST achieved a maximum velocity of 100 kilometers per hour and, by Davani's judgment, moved quickly even on the planet Carida's high-gravity surface.
In combat situations, the MT-ST would normally be deployed via drop pod. Cadets in training could have the MT-ST prototype up and running in less than five minutes. The MT-ST was not available for public sale.
The MT-ST walker entered the arsenal of the Imperial Army in the months following the Battle of Yavin, during the Galactic Civil War. By eight months after Yavin, Cadets Myrette Davani and Shira Brie at the Imperial Academy of Carida trained in cockpit simulations of the new walker in preparation for eventual use of the MT-ST in an upcoming war-games competition. In approximately 1 ABY, cadets at the Academy finally tested MT-ST prototypes in the field, going head-to-head in the jagged and mountainous Caridan war-games range known as "Tarkin's Teeth."
The competing cadets and the MT-ST prototypes were both delivered to the range aboard drop ships. Davani, Brie, and a host of supporting cadets formed one team, while another group, named Bantha Squad, comprised their opposition. The prototype walkers that the cadets piloted for the war-games exercise were outfitted with training lasers and were designed to shut down when automated sensors registered that the vehicles were hit—all except for Brie's MT-ST, which, unknown to the rest of the cadets, was instead fully armed. Davani and Brie set out alone in search of Bantha Squad, leaving the rest of their team behind to guard their assigned perimeter, and Brie quickly found her targets first. Within minutes, Brie single-handedly wiped out the other team, killing six of her fellow cadets and totaling a dozen MT-STs in the process.
Much to Davani's consternation, no one in authority at the Academy took any action against Brie, whom the Dark Lord of the Sith Darth Vader had personally selected for accelerated training in Imperial Intelligence. The Academy wrote off her MT-ST's charged lasers to "instructor error," and the deaths of the cadets as "regrettable casualties." Davani later recorded the incident and her experience training with the MT-ST in a series of HoloNet messages to her parents, which were eventually obtained by Rebel Alliance Intelligence.
The Mountain Terrain Scout Transport was created by former Star Wars Roleplaying Game editor Cory J. Herndon for the September 2003 Wizards.com Planet Hoppers article series entry entitled Carida: Heavy Duty, which focused on Shira Brie's training career at the Academy of Carida. Herndon first referenced the MT-ST as a new vehicle with which the Academy cadets were training in the second entry of the Carida article series, Boot Camp, released on September 11.
The MT-ST shares a basic similarity with the Mountain Terrain Armored Transport, a walker design introduced in the 1994 The Jedi Academy Trilogy novel series by author Kevin J. Anderson. However, no specific relationship exists between the MT-ST and MT-AT.