Though marvelous to behold, the Automaton had no pretensions to elegance. It was a leviathan of brute force, pistons hammering like factory presses, exhaust vents coughing like a foundry. Born of the great age of steam, it outlived the soot-stained hands that wrought it and outshone the steel hulks of modern warfare, which paled before its clockwork grandeur. It thundered into battle beside the newer engines, and when the diesel-fueled cacophony of battle had at last subsided, only the steady, tireless clatter of the Automaton remained.