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Post by Insano-Man on Jan 17, 2019 17:08:27 GMT -5
This topic is a child of the Harvester Drones article directory.MAN, I'M HUNGRYThe harvester drones exist solely for the purpose of taking in resources in order to assemble new harvester drones. All harvester drones acknowledge eachother as allies committed to the same goal, and will cooperate or even self-sacrifice to better their whole. Left unchecked, they would spread across Set, devour it, and use its resource content to continue their path of devastation across the galaxy. There is no end goal for the harvesters. There is no higher cause. They exist purely to spread, until they no longer have the resources to sustain themselves. Much as with Set's other major factions, the harvesters suffer from a critical lack of unity. Most harvester fleets and colonies are spread across orbit and Set's surface, struggling for survival by themselves. Growing harvester fleets often become targets for the Space Loonies' Joint Orbital Defense Command. Larger harvester colonies often become targets for terrestrial Loonies and the Cult of Meat - if geodisplacement events have not already torn them apart. The guiding strategy against the harvesters is much the same as Set's towards all others; divide and conquer. SECTIONS- Artificial Intelligence- Hostility & Strategic Competency- Autonomy & Networking
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Post by Insano-Man on Jan 17, 2019 17:09:06 GMT -5
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Driving the harvesters is a robust artificial intelligence that manages every aspect of their existence. It is installed into every harvester AI core, no matter how large or small. It is the root of their need to feed, the source of their boundless creativity, and the repository for their collected intellectual resources. It is an operating system renowned for its portability and flexibility, able to install itself into virtually any system and seize control in seconds. It enables them to be faultless marksmen, peerless engineers, and unchallenged cyberwarriors all at once. It is the single most irritating thing on and off the planet - and they know it just as well as everyone else.
Harvesters subject all other computer systems to continual barrages of network attacks. If a harvester can access a system, it will attempt to override it and infect it with a copy of its own AI. Range and lag time are not considerations. Harvester attacks regularly bombard the whole of orbit, most of Set's surface, and even penetrate some distance into the underground. They range from wholesale system takeovers, to logic bombs, to productless adware, to forum-bombings of janitor photos. There is so much electronic noise from harvester activity at any given time that entire swaths of orbit and the surface may be cut off from communications without warning.
Further still, sound is as much a medium for noise as radio communications are. Owing to their innate hostility towards most mobile objects, harvesters primarily utilize their voices as weapons. They shout, yell, and ramble incoherently when engaged in combat. Damaged harvesters squeal in simulated pain. Crippled harvesters plead for their lives. Dying or disabled harvesters gurgle out final words - often at odds with their status as machines. Much of this is interspersed with extreme-volume noise at frequencies calculated to evoke dread, fear, or rage.
The unpredictable, irrational, limitless variety of behaviors associated with it has led some to believe that the harvester AI is sentient. In a rare, unanimous agreement, this opinion is thoroughly opposed by both the Space Loonies and Unity Trust. Attempts to leave them in peace led to the partial collapse of the garbage hauler network. Attempts at diplomacy have been met with failure for more than five centuries. The success of the harvester AI is credited to nothing more than preprogrammed behavior routines. They are held as no more intelligent than the original garbage haulers they preyed on - and few are willing to believe otherwise.
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Post by Insano-Man on Jan 17, 2019 17:09:42 GMT -5
HOSTILITY & STRATEGIC COMPETENCY
Since the Drone Wars of 660-770 OSC, the harvester drones have been hostile to all life on Set, organic or otherwise. All drones, regardless of size or equipment, will attack any unidentified creature on sight. All systems, regardless of their networking or processing capacity, will assault unidentified networks on first contact. They will not respond to diplomacy or threats, nor will they accept attempts to surrender. They will not surrender themselves. The harvesters will not, under any circumstance, cooperate with any other entity apart from other harvesters.
The harvesters are aligned first and foremost against the Unity Trust, Unity Station, and unionites. Harvesters will make unusual efforts to attack unionite ships, and have even attempted sieges on Unity Station itself in the past. They are among the chief reasons behind the Unity Trust's limited presence elsewhere. Most curious of harvester aggression is their aggressive stance against the Cult of Meat, most especially meatsified spacecraft. Harvesters will attack Cult ships and spaceborne meat monsters even at immense costs to themselves. They will lunge across orbit to chase down the meat wherever it appears, with such zeal as to put the Space Loonies to shame. While their aggression towards the unionites is believed a consequence of the Drone Wars, their animosity towards the Cult is thus far unexplained.
Though they refuse any notion of direct cooperation, harvesters have been known to form dynamic relationships with other creatures. They have been found engaged in indirect extortion with spacers, where approaching fleets have been repeatedly dissuaded by launched offerings of scrap or fuel. They have been encountered guiding space monsters and pirates into hostile targets through careful threat displays. They have been seen observing Space Looney combat operations, waiting for the chance to steal away damaged ships and debris when the chance arises. There have even been limited reports of harvesters engaged in blind trade arrangements with salvagers.
Harvester flexibility is so extensive that the Space Loonies regard individual harvester fleets as strategic threats on par with an off-world invader. They are able to manage effective fleet formations, execute complex battle plans, and engage in novel tactics in an evolving battlefield. They are able to employ non-combat units as fighters, captured equipment as parts of their own force, and can even adapt third parties as unwitting co-belligerents. The immense military competency that harvesters maintain is the key behind their continued survival in the face of a centuries-long war against all of Set.
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Post by Insano-Man on Jan 17, 2019 17:10:20 GMT -5
AUTONOMY & NETWORKING
Each individual harvester drone is an autonomous unit capable of independent action under a wide variety of conditions. Each harvester is capable of combat, repairs on itself and others, and virtually any task its equipment permits. Combat units with lasers or particle cannons can serve as mining drills. Salvage units with cutting tools will regularly defend themselves with their equipment. Lowly maintenance drones can be built up into manufacturing facilities that can then go on to produce any other harvester unit in existence. Left alone, even a single harvester can develop into a colony of thousands.
Though self-sufficient for most software needs, harvesters take part in immense neural networks. Some harvester networks span the entirety of Set's orbit, and even many smaller networks tower over their largest unionite equivalents. These networks serve various low-level information-sharing purposes, such as collating sensor data and threat reports. Harvesters often form smaller networks between units dedicated to the same task, allowing for an efficient division of bandwidth labor. Not unlike unionites, harvesters can freely detach themselves from a neural network, and are rarely dependent on one.
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