Ore crawlers were a type of a crawler used by the Mining Guild on the planet Lothal. They were used to strip rake the planets surface for raw materials to feed Imperial factories. One such crawler, crawler 413-24 was hijacked by the Spectres so they could use its communications array to contact Alliance High Command.
The Mining Guild dispatched ore crawlers across the planet Lothal to strip the land for raw materials to be used in the mass production of Imperial armaments in the Imperial Armory Complex and Imperial factories. Crawler 413-24 was dispatched to the southern hemisphere of the planet. Locals who saw the machines in action referred to them as "World Devastators" due to how they moved on giant repulsorlift legs sucking up the ground beneath them.
The design for the ore crawlers was based on the look of the World Devastators used by the Dark Empire in the comic book miniseries of the same name.
In a sense, the ore crawler and World Devastator do the same thing. They strip basic minerals from a given surface and use them as raw materials for the Imperial production of fighters and starships. The difference is the Devastators were factories themselves, whereas the crawlers transported their product to factories elsewhere.
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