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Post by Insano-Man on Jan 17, 2019 17:26:02 GMT -5
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Post by Insano-Man on Jan 17, 2019 19:53:13 GMT -5
LI'L STICKY
The origins of the harvester drones are uncertain. Some claim they were a tinkerer's foray into a robotic assistant. Others say they were created by the redworlders to serve as adaptive assistants and garbage hauler custodians. Other theories still claim they were a unionite project that had originally been intended to replicate historical human research into artificial intelligence. In the end, any records regarding their creators, creation, and original intentions have faded from history.
What is generally accepted as fact is that the first harvester on Set was a small maintenance drone by the name of Stickfingers. Scattered information suggests that Stickfingers was owned, operated, or even employed by the Loonies. Not a single bunker on Set has ever backed the claim. Stickfingers is first credited as operational around the time of 600-630 OSC, and may have existed for up to a century prior. The few documents that mention him suggest - by way of frustration, disgust, and annoyance - that he was not much different from the harvesters of the present day.
Stickfingers' first appearance in historical records coincides with his discovery by the Unity Trust. It was during this time that the unionites petitioned for access to a full copy of his programming to assist with studies into artificial intelligence. Their requests were repeatedly denied by Loonies of the Pioneer Network, for reasons that have yet to surface. Attempts continued for at least a decade before the unionites altered their approach. Once it had become clear that they could not convince the Loonies, they instead attempted to convince the harvester himself.
The Unity Trust lobbied for Stickfingers to be recognized as an intelligent machine and emancipated. In tandem with their political offensive, overtures were made to secure the harvester's allegiance. As an autonomous individual, he would have had the liberty to submit to their research directly. When the Loonies responded, it was only a few words away from a declaration of war. They were, in no uncertain terms, ready to liquidate - or, in the communique's words, liquefy - Stickfingers. When the unionites brought the affair to the public stage, the redworlders leapt to the Loonies' side. Public opinion swung hard against the Unity Trust. Efforts halted almost immediately.
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Post by Insano-Man on Jan 19, 2019 3:32:13 GMT -5
STOP POKING ME!
Stickfingers remained untouched by the unionites, but records suggest that the Unity Trust eventually uncovered another harvester. Events surrounding the second harvester are poorly detailed in the few documents mentioning it. Just as with Stickfingers, its origins, condition, and relation to the present-day harvesters are all unknown. What is accepted as fact is that the research into the second harvester ended in catastrophe. It was only after their political incident with Stickfingers that the first harvester infestation in Set's history appeared - on Unity Station.
An explosion rocked an undocumented laboratory on Unity Station around a decade after. The culprits behind it were a swarm of harvester drones that had broken free of containment and killed most of the staff. It took a full day of intensive fighting just to prevent the drones from breaking out into the rest of the station. Once the unionites had re-secured the lab's perimeter, the harvesters decided on death before recapture. They constructed a bomb with parts scavenged from the lab, gathered together around it, and took to a last stand. A dead man's trigger detonated the explosives once the last harvester had been disabled - and claimed at least twenty more people in the blast.
The extensive casualties the unionites suffered during the outbreak prompted an inquiry from the Pioneer Network. The Unity Trust scrambled to cover its operations up as the inquiry began. Remaining wreckage from the drones, sensor logs from dead unionites, and most of the lab's equipment were all moved deeper into Unity. Despite clear evidence of tampering, the investigators were unable to determine the lab's purpose. The Trust escaped with no more than a slap on its wrist. The experiments on the harvesters continued in the shadows.
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Post by Insano-Man on Jan 19, 2019 3:32:25 GMT -5
CUT IT OUT!
What neither the unionites, nor the Loonies could believe was that the harvesters had secured a foothold on the station. A single drone had managed to break free of the security cordon before the explosion. It smuggled itself across the station in the aftermath. Systems in the areas it moved through registered it as a unionite - and many more were corrupted into harvesters themselves. Once the drone had found a nest in an automated section of the station, it went to work cultivating it into a factory.
It took several years before anyone realized that the drone had laid its roots into the station. By then, there was a small army of harvesters tearing through uninhabited decks for resources. The unionite response to the incident has been mostly lost to time. What can be said for certain is that a containment attempt was launched, but ultimately ended in failure. When it became clear that the station was in danger, the Unity Trust reached out for assistance. The Pioneer Network responded, and the Loonies intervened.
The Looney approach to the crisis was one of total war. Unity Station was quarantined - so much as it could be - by a fleet of Pioneer warships. Combat teams deployed en masse to counter drone movements. Even unarmed, isolated drones were treated as extreme threats. When a section of the station was scoured, its systems - and the systems of every adjacent and related area - were purged with it. Every object the harvesters had made even brief contact with was treated as a part of the sickness. The containment efforts were a foreshadowing of the Space Loonies of today; hot-blooded extermination without mercy.
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Post by Insano-Man on Jan 19, 2019 3:32:34 GMT -5
DON'T DO THAT AGAIN!
Another inquiry was launched to determine the harvesters' source. Looney investigators formed the core of the probe. Before the year was out, evidence on the truth of the initial lab surfaced. Some discoveries even suggested that the Unity Trust was studying the harvester that had escaped. Some even suggested that its unchecked proliferation was a direct consequence of their willful inaction. While sanctions against an entire species were not practical at the time, the Loonies made every effort to punish the Trust for the outbreak.
The full extent of the political fallout has been largely lost to time, but the punitive measures against Unity Station were immense. Penal labor arrangements, Looney oversight, and taxes on Unity Trust trade agreements were all elements of the sanctions. The intensive nature of the punishment cast a spotlight on the Loonies' relationship with the harvesters; they alone understood the full extent of the threat posed by the drones - and they all but refused to share that information with others. Beyond their relationship with Stickfingers, the reasons why were never uncovered.
Scrutiny from the Unity Trust was restricted by the harsh measures enacted by the Loonies. In a twist of fate, they were blindly justified; the Trust continued research into the harvesters just as they had before. Their studies were kept a secret as they had been before. Harvester AI cores were replicated into custom-designed chassis. Existing harvesters were allowed to reproduce and construct limited manufacturing facilities. Unionite security teams made good on their observations of Looney containment efforts. So far as anyone on the outside could tell, the harvesters were gone.
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Post by Insano-Man on Jan 19, 2019 3:33:07 GMT -5
I'VE HAD ALL I CAN STANDS...
The state of affairs continued for at least twenty years until 660-770 OSC. It was during this time that a harvester colony was discovered by a civilian mining team on Set's surface, somewhere in Patzaghd. Initially, the miners believed it was first contact with an unencountered form of artificial intelligence. The event was welcomed as though it were the arrival of a new species on the planet. Requests were sent for a team of diplomats and scientists to assist in evaluation and - hopefully - integration. It was within weeks that a team arrived - made up of Unity Trust researchers.
History looped one final time as the unionites made all efforts into concealing the harvester colony. Reports were falsified that it was indeed a new form of artificial intelligence. Attempts were made to pass the colony off as a crashed spacecraft that had only activated once it had landed on Set's surface. The miners at the location were kept contained under the false pretenses of a quarantine. All the while, the unionites worked feverishly to round up the drones and shuttle them back to Unity Station. For a time, the ruse worked.
When it collapsed, it was the most disastrous incident the Unity Trust had been involved with. After only a month, the harvesters retaliated with overwhelming force. Several nearby colonies revealed themselves and joined in the counterattack. The unionites and miners were completely wiped out in the ensuing conflict. When the Pioneer Network arrived to find the harvesters, several communities had already been besieged and driven out. A harvester strike force of at least several hundred drones was mobilizing to assault the spaceport that served them.
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Post by Insano-Man on Jan 19, 2019 3:33:38 GMT -5
...AND I CAN'T STANDS NO MORE!
Before the year was out, the Drone Wars had begun. The conflict expanded in scope with every month that went by as more and more harvester colonies surfaced to assist others nearby. Swarms of drones clashed with Looney strike teams all across Set in a planetwide war for survival. Cyberwarfare attacks from harvesters scorched a path through the planet's digital realm like nothing else before. Disjointed battles cropped up all across the planet for decades after the initial outbreak. In some years, the harvesters were quiet and dormant. In others, they were launching simultaneous strikes against Pioneer positions across the planet.
The Drone Wars were catastrophic for Set's living population, but the toll they exacted on the garbage hauler network was the worst by far. Harvesters favored hauler processing centers above all possible targets. They routinely used them as hunting grounds, shooting down haulers as they came and went. When they could not directly attack them, they leveraged their electronic superiority against them. Haulers were infected, hijacked, and loaded down with harvesters. The network that had once been the lifeline for Set's spacefaring species was steadily corrupted into the harvesters' own transportation system.
All the while, the political rift between the Loonies and unionites tore wider on a daily basis. Accusations flew; that the Trust seeded the harvesters, that the Loonies were actively pre-empting diplomacy, and more. Attempts at punishment and sanctions were infeasible thanks to the fighting, which only served to heighten frustration. Questions, confusion, and calls for help from rest of Set's population only added to the political chaos. Independent attempts at negotiating with the harvesters ended in disaster. Meanwhile, Stickfingers had quietly vanished in the background. The truth behind the Drone Wars never emerged.
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Post by Insano-Man on Jan 19, 2019 3:33:51 GMT -5
I WANNA GO HOME!
While most blamed the unionites for the start of the Drone Wars, the Unity Trust was critical to ending them. As the fighting raged on, their research was forced out into the public stage. The Loonies continued to lobby against it, with repeated calls for the research teams to be publicly tried. The necessity of the war effort took greater precedence. Instead, in yet another twist, the unionites were granted legitimacy in their endeavours. Harvester research continued on. Roughly half a century after the start of the Drone Wars, it produced results.
What baffled most of the planet was the claim that the harvesters were not the invaders. In truth, they were simply stranded. A merger between Looney strategic intelligence and unionite behavioral research confirmed it; the harvesters were actively seeking spaceports and garbage haulers in an attempt to leave the planet. Many of their attacks were based on simple military necessity - to clear paths to their destinations, to secure the colony for future pushes, and more. With no end to the fighting in sight, strategic opinion shifted in favor of simply letting the harvesters go.
In another confounding turn of events, the Looney response was conflicted. During and prior to the Drone Wars, the Loonies held a hardline stance in favor of total extermination. When the suggestion came about, Looney officers in the Pioneer Network wavered. A short bout of political infighting paralyzed the war effort for a short time. When it finally resolved, the decision was unanimous. Operations shifted to spaceport evacuations, containment, and defensive operations. The harvesters were allowed to leave in relative peace.
In a clumsy exchange of silent diplomacy, the drones obliged. They secured abandoned spaceports, hijacked docked haulers, and fled en masse to space. Simmering Pioneer troops watched on from the sidelines, engaging only when the harvesters overextended. Most colonies were abandoned over time as their drones took to orbit. Some simply disappeared underground. Over the course of a few years, the harvester presence on Set disappeared on its own. The Drone Wars were finally over.
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Post by Insano-Man on Jan 19, 2019 3:34:09 GMT -5
WRONG TURN AT ALBUQUERQUE
The harvester drones, however, were not so quick to leave. While they had made it to orbit, they were not quite ready to leave the planet altogether. Most fled to the Scuttler Slice and remained there. Asteroid mining and salvaging operations cropped up soon after. Construction on new droneships commenced. The first harvester fleets formed from a ragged mix of commandeered craft and restored wrecks. Only a few of their stolen ships left to the Lost Reach. The rest worked to build themselves up in the Pioneer Network's orbital shadow.
While most deemed the harvester exodus a failed experiment, the drones remained silent in the background. Raids were few in number, limited in scope, and easily repulsed. Pioneer Network warships went largely unchallenged in mop-up operations. The Loonies were in an uproar in the background, but the rest of Set was satisfied with the conclusion. The harvesters were left to their own devices. Surviving records suggest their behavior was largely a parallel of the expand-and-abscond pattern observed today. Some even suggest that Pioneer actions against them may have been counterproductive as a result; left alone, the harvester fleets may have grown large enough to completely depart from Set.
In the times leading up to the Splinter Wars, Set arrived in the Third Invaders' home system. The harvesters came with it. Harvester activity at the time is poorly documented. What few records have survived to the present day offer little suggestion as to their behavior. Theories suggest that the harvesters may have been the trigger behind the Third Invaders' siege. Some suggest they may have landed on the Third Invaders' home world, others claim that their constant cyberwarfare attacks were seen as an act of war. More vindictive conjecture suggests that the Third Invaders may even be extinct off of Set thanks to the harvesters.
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Post by Insano-Man on Jan 19, 2019 3:34:19 GMT -5
I SAW IT FIRST!
When the Invaders attacked, the harvesters seized on the chaos - by leaping to Set's defense. Fate played with whimsy once again as the drones that laid siege to the Pioneer Network jumped to reinforce it. Fleets of droneships tore into Third Invader flanks near the Scuttler Slice. Hijacked haulers were packed with nuclear explosives and hurled into hostile fleets. Damaged ships were carted away, refurbished, and sent right back against their former owners. Meanwhile, the Pioneer Network was left untouched. Harvesters clashed in happenstance battles with passing fleets, but the drones remained a silent ally.
The tumultuous times have scoured most of the records on the harvesters' involvement in the Splinter Wars. The scale of their contributions, their overall success rate, and the Pioneer response have all fallen into obscurity. How many were lost when Set left the Third Invaders' system was never documented. The Big Split of 800-870 is a further unknown; whether the harvesters contributed to, fought against, or were targeted by Looney operations are all without clarity. The only certain facts of the harvesters' involvement were with the nascent Space Loonies.
When the Space Loonies began to take shape, many of them had personally witnessed harvester assistance during the Splinter Wars. The vast majority of gathering fleets were struggling with resource shortages, overcrowding from refugees, and a critical lack of tactical intelligence. The harvesters held the keys to resolve each of these problems, be it in industrial capacity or orbital coverage. A second attempt at diplomacy was extended to several drone fleets. The hope was that the exodus at the end of the Drone Wars had served to heal relations with the harvesters.
In the end, the attempt was a disaster. Messenger drones were captured, salvaged, and tracked back to the fleets that had sent them along. Droneships attacked Space Looney ships in massed assaults. Attempts to rally against the harvesters were stymied by lingering Third Invader ships and a blossoming pirate presence. Hundreds died in the resultant fighting, most of them civilians. The incident came to be known as the Drone Raids, and continued until roughly 921 OSC.
Elsewhere, harvesters began a siege against Unity Station. Scores of droneships raided the megastructure as Pioneer ships dwindled away. Enormous sections were torn free by purpose-made cutter ships and hauled off into the Scuttler Slice with their occupants still aboard. Battle damage leftover from Third Invader strikes afforded passage to the inner levels. Unionite defenders scrambled to maintain security as drones boarded the station. Thousands died regardless. In the chaos of the Big Split's aftermath, help was slow to arrive and rarely sufficient. The unionites logged it as the Scuttler Siege of 918. To this day, it remains the single most damaging attack on Unity Station since its arrival over Set.
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Post by Insano-Man on Jan 19, 2019 3:34:47 GMT -5
THAT'S MY LUNCH!
Affairs settled into Set's norm in the wake of the siege. The Space Loonies fully formed and took up the Pioneer Network's mantle of suppressing the harvesters. They had grown in the years since the Splinter Wars, but the task was not insurmountable. Spacers learned to respect the heightened harvester presence in orbit. They learned to treat individual drones as armageddon in miniature, to view the garbage haulers with suspicion, and to tread the Scuttler Slice lightly. Unity Station secured itself with the help of Pioneer remnants and sympathetic mercenaries. Daily matters in orbit tapered to a period of tenuous peace - with the harvesters, at least - for roughly two centuries.
The Garbage Crisis of 1132 and the surrounding years arrived to change that. Harvester damage to the garbage hauler network was extensive. Damage inflicted by the Splinter Wars and the Big Split only served to exacerbate it. When the haulers began to proliferate, it was a windfall occasion for the drone fleets in orbit. Scores of haulers were diverted into the jaws of industrial platforms. Countless processing centers were corrupted into harvester bases in rapid succession. While the haulers were the stars of the Garbage Crisis, the harvesters were its main beneficiaries.
Fate was as fickle as ever; for as much as the harvesters benefitted, most of orbit was better for their success. The surge in resources and production led to the departure of countless drone fleets. Some fleets even escaped alongside others that had been produced from scrap collected from the haulers. Most areas saw a colossal reduction in harvester presence. Leftover harvesters were mostly swarms and small flotillas chasing after the excess left behind by their peers.
By contrast, the few areas that did not prosper from the harvesters' success were dealt a small-scale apocalypse. Harvesters built themselves up on the waves of new resources, only to come up short just shy of the requirements for their departure. To satisfy that need, the freshly-engorged fleets set upon the ships and stations that might have once posed a threat to them. Massed hordes of droneships swarmed across their opponents. The besieged spacers fled for the protection of the Space Loonies - or even went to ground as a last resort.
Both independently and consequently, the Space Loonies themselves were targets during the sudden surges of harvester activity. Many provoked harvester responses by attempting to shut down garbage haulers. Many fleets were subject to assaults and raids as they worked to mitigate the Garbage Crisis. Marines boarding processing centers were often ambushed by harvesters that had assumed control of the facilities. While the haulers themselves were defenseless, their predators were not ready to give up their prey so easily.
In the end, the Crisis wound down and harvester growth tapered off. Most regions of space saw a short, but valuable decline in prowling drone fleets. The isolated cases of harvester hordes rampaging across orbit served to temper the overall impact. Many served as the basis for concentrations of harvester activity in the years to come. Others diffused across orbit to support smaller, more threatened fleets. Most remained within the Scuttler Slice where the garbage haulers were least affected.
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Post by Insano-Man on Jan 19, 2019 3:34:57 GMT -5
PRESENT DAY
Since the Garbage Crisis, the harvesters have grown. They have spread throughout the Scuttler Slice again, begun raids against ships in high orbit, and started regular assaults against Set's meatscapes. Attacks online are just as common as those in the real world, with harvester holdings constituting at least a quarter of the charted internet. They have become a permanent element of spacer life over the planet and a constant worry for the unionites and Space Loonies.
The harvesters continue to present as a nuisance and general threat to daily affairs on and over Set. Rumors continue to escalate of harvester intelligence - rumors that both the Space Loonies and Unity Trust have long sought to quash. They continue to disappear into the Lost Reach, burrow themselves away, and rage against the meat. They continue to prey on garbage haulers, pirates, and space monsters just as much as they hunt unionites, Space Loonies, and average spacers. They have resisted all attempts at extermination and expulsion - and most believe that the threat they pose will only worsen as time goes on.
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