make rebel cogs that you can team up with also they are capable of speech and make a combiner module so that you can combine with other drillships and create a giant mecha
Absolutely don’t want some transformers/power rangers/gundum/or whatever mechas in this game.
And the cogs are all robots. We don’t know yet if they are individually self-aware, but I like the idea of them not and are instead just mindless worker drones for someone or something else. In that context, rebels don’t make sense.