Well? What are they? Robots? Soldiers?

..my kingdom for an upvote.

Part of me hopes they never ever answer the question.

I'm assuming drillers are the people who eventually drill the mines.

I always think of Sentinels from The Matrix but I also kind of hope the devs never put a description or image to them.

They can't really be people, because the Thief can steal them. Otherwise it would have been an Immigration Officer or something like that.

I also disagree on the fact that they are actual people. Because for example the General "DESTROYS" 10 drillers. They would put KILL if they were human.

Ha, yes, I was focussed on the part that they drilled mines, and then the 'people' part was included without thinking...

I initially thought of them as steam driven drilling robots, but then started to think of them as power suits, kinda more like Ripley wears in aliens, crossed with a big daddy from bioshock. With an oxygen supply and pressure protection. I like to imagine there's a human cost to the battles that are going on.

But yeah, I hope we never find out definitively!