Before joining LEGO as a set designer, TBB alum Carter Baldwin was an influential AFOL in the military sci-fi theme who fused elements of Aliens, anime, Mechwarrior and the occasional LEGO throwback theme. Recently Carter has been revisiting the Exo-Force theme with a serious upgrade to the line’s iconic robots.

Introducing the Constructobots….

The Sentries…

The Infiltrators…

And the Soldiers.

To go along with the mech design upgrades, Carter also spins a fresh take on the lore:

Long ago, in CYBER YEAR 2006, we lived alongside the robots. They were our helpers, our builders, even our… friends. That all changed when the evil MECA 1 uploaded his NANOVIRUS, turning all of the robots evil and ushering in the age of the MECHWAR.

Wearing our hulking EXO battle machines like a second skin of steel and plasma, we fight against the endless tides of evil robots to defend the last bastion of humanity, SENTAI MOUNTAIN

To defeat the monsters, we became monsters ourselves.

The only way to stop MECA 1 and his legions of evil fighting machines was to create battle machines of our own – the EXOs.

We are the last guardians of humanity.

We are the only hope we have left.

We are… EXO FORCE

Carter’s drone design started as a doodle after he joined LEGO as a designer on the Superhero team.

If these drones look familiar, it might be because you’ve built a variation yourself if you have Ninjago City Gardens. As that set’s designer Markus Rollbühler told New Elementary:

I really wanted to include a new helper bot to go with Sweep that is included in 70620 LEGO NINJAGO City and while I was stuck one afternoon I ended up walking past a desk in the Superheroes team area that was littered with cool mechs. 

Carter Baldwin had built a little army of awesome Exo-Force drones for fun and kindly donated his design to the LEGO NINJAGO City Gardens project. Of course I had to shrink it down to fit the scale.

Finally, while we featured this mech before, it’s too epic not to showcase again. Hopefully we’ll see more amazing Exo-Force creations from our old friend Carter!

LEGO has released some incredible mechs in recent years as part of the Ninjago and Monkey Kid lines that can appeal to kids and adult mech fans alike. Seeing Carter’s more mature sci-fi spin on a classic line makes me wonder if LEGO would ever release an original theme with characters and lore that’s not primarily targeting kids. Sets from Star Wars, Dune, and if rumors are true, Star Trek, are fun to build and collect, but wouldn’t it be great to learn about a more mature sci-fi world and its characters through original LEGO sets?