Heavy industrial crane transport

This article is about the loading gantry on Trask. You may be looking for another mobile loading gantry.

The heavy industrial crane transport, also known as HI-CT walker^[3] and referred to as the Trask walker,^[4] was a type of quadrupedal crane transport walker commonly used as cargo lifters, employed on the estuary moon Trask,^[1] as well as the planets Ferrix^[5] and Cantonica.^[6]

Description

Bearing some similarities to another crane transport, the Kuat Drive Yards manufactured OI-CT,^[3] HI-CT walkers were well-balanced and heavily armored. Towering over Trask's seaside loading docks, they were more than powerful enough to lift a waterlogged ST-70 class Razor Crest M-111 out of the sea.^[1] Each HI-CT possessed four sturdy legs and feet, as well as a crew deck and command bridge, alongside an extendable crane. The walker's legs were sealed thoroughly against sea water,^[3] though they were also sometimes utilized on land.^[5]

History

A number of heavy industrial crane transports could be found around Ferrix City on the planet Ferrix^[5] in 5 BBY.^[7] By 3 ABY,^[8] these walkers were employed around the Worker's District of Canto Bight on the planet Cantonica.^[6] By around 9 ABY,^[9] HI-CT walkers could also be found patrolling the waters around a black market port on Trask. One such crane was used to retrieve the Mandalorian bounty hunter Din Djarin's ship, the Razor Crest, out of the sea after a failed landing during his mission to Trask.^[1] That same year,^[9] a similar yet distinct model of another model was used by the New Republic Correctional Corps across the Karthon Chop Fields on the moon Karthon.^[10]

Behind the scenes

This mobile loading gantry was first appeared in the 2020 The Mandalorian Season Two episode "Chapter 11: The Heiress," where it was described in the audio description.^[1] The shot with the gantry carrying the Razor Crest was realized in CG by Industrial Light & Magic.^[11] The Art of Star Wars: The Mandalorian Season Two further labeled it specifically as a "Trask walker" in 2022, before the walker was finally officially identified as the "heavy industrial crane transport (HI-CT walker)" in an Amazon pre-order listing preview for the book Star Wars Encyclopedia: The Comprehensive Guide to the Star Wars Galaxy which released on November 19, 2024.^[12]

According to concept artist Christian Alzmann, this walker was originally designed under the assumption that they were created from recycled All Terrain Armored Transport parts left over after the collapse of the Galactic Empire,^[13] though this idea was later abandoned following the walker's appearances in projects such as Star Wars: Andor^[5] and Star Wars Outlaws.^[6]