|
|
Post by Insano-Man on Jan 17, 2019 17:20:52 GMT -5
|
|
|
|
Post by Insano-Man on Jan 17, 2019 17:21:05 GMT -5
SECURITY & PREPAREDNESS
The quantity of harvester drones in orbit forces most, if not all spacers to carry at least some form of personal protection. This is regardless of location, occupation, or even the overall security of nearby space. It is because of the harvesters, more than anything else, that unarmed ships and stations are seen as deathtraps. Be it space monsters, Cult of Meat stowaways, or pirates, nothing in orbit has ever matched the threat posed by roving harvester swarms. Even small, unmanned shuttles often carry at least one defensive weapon as insurance against stray drones.
The threat of individual harvester drones strongly contributes to the fear of harvester attacks. During extra-vehicular combat, collisions, or equipment malfunctions, it is not unusual for smaller harvester drones to be lost to space. On many occasions, the drone remains in operating condition, but has no power to return to its fleet or home base. Conditions such as radiation storms, communications failure, or defeat in combat can result in the harvester's group making no attempt to recover it. The drifting drone will then tumble through space until it eventually escapes Set's orbit or collides with something - including the planet itself.
Rarely, the drone may land on an orbiting station or idling ship. In the case of a combat drone, this can result in a spree of killings that can tear through entire decks until an armed response can be mustered. In the case of a maintenance drone - or, catastrophically, a utility drone - the harvester will attempt to salvage its landing site in order to start a fleet. If left unchecked, a landing by just one properly-equipped harvester can destroy an entire station, its occupants, and even other platforms nearby.
Entire catalogues of weapons have been designed specifically for the task of combatting harvester drones. This includes everything from shipborne auto-turrets, right down to handheld magnetic chainsaws designed for the express purpose of destroying a harvester's AI core. Plasma weapons and mining lasers are particularly reputed for their ability to penetrate harvester armor and damage underlying hardware. Scavenged harvester weapons and tools are often sold - stripped of any electronics - as harvester deterrents themselves.
A station's ability to defend itself from harvester attacks, both physical and digital, is a key indicator of its success and habitability. A failure against the harvesters ends in a half-eaten derelict infested with harvester AIs - if the station is not completely destroyed in the process. Damage by harvesters further allows space monsters, pirates, and even squatters to trickle in behind them. Even a minor setback can result in a snowball effect that can reduce a prestigious platform down to nothing more than an orbital slum.
|
|
|
|
Post by Insano-Man on Jan 17, 2019 17:21:20 GMT -5
CYBERSECURITY & DEAD WEBSITES
Harvester attacks on the orbital internet are just as severe as those faced in the Scuttler Slice. Cybersecurity experts spend more than twice as much time combatting harvester intrusion attempts relative to all other threats combined. For every minute that goes by, an estimated six hundred quadrillion attacks are launched on Unity Station alone. This includes everything from simple overflow attacks to advanced mimetic worms capable of independent social engineering attacks. Only by shutting out the entire electronic world can a system ever be truly secure.
The sheer variety of harvester cyberwarfare methods is difficult to fully put into perspective. Garbage hauler botnets are common attack platforms. Harvester-hosted websites are regular traps. Disguised AI cores are planted as cyber-bombs for salvage teams. Electronic equipment is regularly tampered with and left drifting in the void to serve as a virus vector when it is eventually recovered. Pioneer Network leftovers are prized by the harvesters just as much as all others - for the express purpose of corrupting their systems into a means of attack.
Websites on the orbital internet are just as much targets as they are pathways to their host systems. Digital stores are forced to regularly check purchases and product deliveries to avoid transactions with harvesters - some of which are even legitimate. Social media websites are flooded with registration attempts from harvester drones - some of which develop into fully-featured personas. Discussion boards are bombed daily by harvester spam that ranges from devious to baffling - some of which has cemented itself into online culture.
When a website is abandoned, the harvesters set upon it as vultures. They seize control, modify it to their whims, and engorge it with harvester viruses, often ransacking the host system in the process. On the rare occasion that the harvesters cannot take over a website, they resort to one final attack; "janitor bombing". Posts, comments, and profiles are created for the express purpose of loading the website down with images of custodial staff. Some websites may be loaded with janitor images numbering in the quintillions. Individual posts may contain upwards of several thousand janitors. Every image is uniquely crafted for its post. Screen-filling text art, emoticon pixel art, captioned reaction images - it is genuinely believed by the scientific community that no two janitors are alike.
Janitor bombing is so prevalent on dead websites that it has become synonymous with digital decay. It is a phenomenon so thoroughly understood in orbit that it has become part of the average spacer's cultural background. Honest, sincere research has been invested into discerning the different qualities of different janitor bombing runs. Scales of intensity have been charted based on specific details of initial janitor posts. Despite how well its impacts are understood, despite how commonplace it has become, it has gone completely unexplained for centuries. It is a conundrum that has infuriated AI researchers in their attempts to understand harvester behavior patterns. Attempts to uncover the secrets of the harvesters' legendary vault of janitors have seen as much scientific credence as expeditions into Zorah's Eye.
|
|
|
|
Post by Insano-Man on Jan 17, 2019 17:24:11 GMT -5
GHOSTS ON THE GROUND
Set's planetside population is largely oblivious to the harvesters' existence and the threat they pose to life in orbit. This is thanks mostly to the ignorance surrounding artificial intelligence on Set's surface. Few of the planet's common inhabitants have ever encountered an AI, much less have the education to know anything about them. As a result, most see the harvesters as nothing more than ghosts haunting the computer systems of ruins and spacecraft wrecks on the planet's surface.
In conjunction with crazed Montgomeries and the sorassan, the wrath of lurking harvesters has affected a form of technophobia in many of Set's towns. Many explorers and scavengers have been attacked and menaced by harvester-corrupted computer systems. Many have been shot at by sentry guns, locked out of - or into - buildings, or even deafened by overloaded intercom systems. The harvesters' penchant for inane banter and wild screaming has only served to reinforce the pervasive belief that many ruins are genuinely haunted.
One of the few exceptions to the harvesters' hauntings is the city of Cloneston. As one of the most technologically-advanced settlements on Set's surface and one of the largest cities on the planet, it would otherwise be a prime target for the harvesters. In the face of its vulnerability, harvester activity borders on non-existent in the city. While many of the city's senators are deeply invested in securing Cloneston against them, the lack of a harvester presence is a glaring anomaly.
|
|
|
|
Post by Insano-Man on Jan 17, 2019 18:24:39 GMT -5
HISTORICAL INTEREST
One of the unusual fascinations with the harvester drones concerns historians on and off Set. The harvesters are believed to have a shared information repository that could extend as far back as the arrival of Unity Station in 490-520 OSC. They have been with the planet since at least 660-770, long enough that they could hold information on many lost species. They have observed some of the planet's most critical events from inside and afar. They have attracted just as much inquiry from archaeologists as they have from artificial intelligence researchers.
As joking as it may sound, the unsealing of the harvesters' vault of janitors could potentially be one of the planet's greatest archaeological achievements. Along with it could come the harvesters' collective knowledge - Pioneer Network weapon schematics, recordings of the Splinter Wars, and more. It is a task that the Unity Trust has been dedicated to for centuries, with countless bounties posted on harvester AI cores. A breakthrough could restore the information lost to the Big Split and the Violet Uprising - and much more that may have been lost after.
Much of the research involves the hunt for older harvester drones, or wreckage leftover from them. Many harvesters have been in operation for centuries at a time. Many more have been restored to operational condition after centuries of dormancy. Some active harvesters have been dated back to the years of the Drone Wars. As a consequence of fleet departures and colony burrowing, the search for older drones is a matter of urgency. There is no way to know if any at all are still on Set, or whether they have all disappeared. Confirmations of surviving drones from Set's past have triggered waves of expeditions from the Unity Trust and independent researchers.
|
|
