Mechanoids (Nexus: The Jupiter Incident)

The Mechanoids are a machine species that feature in Nexus: The Jupiter Incident.

History
The Mechanoids were a race of robotic nanomachines that were created by a long dead race of beings known as the Planners. This species created a powerful artificial intelligence with god-like capabilities known as the Entity to govern them. They later retreated to the Sol system where they established a secluded base on Pluto and even created an AI later known as Angel designed as a weapon to defeat the Entity. This left the rogue AIs to continue their own objectives and their existence was known to a few races such as the Vardrags who greatly feared the Mechanoids. Centuries later, the Mechanoids and their master were responsible for the Cataclysm; an event where the wormhole system that linked the different solar systems was re-aligned thus plunging the interplanetary empires of space to fall to chaos as their worlds were cut off from one another. This incidently caused the Gorg to declare war on the Vardrags as they believed their enemies were the only ones with the technological prowess to cause such a disaster and thus were unaware of the Mechanoids involvement in the incident. At some point, the Vardrags sent ships to make peaceful contact with the Mechanoids but the AIs destroyed the diplomatic delegation sent to them with apparent ease.

One of the first contacts made between mankind and the Mechanoids was in the Sol system; specifically, near Pluto where an inactive machine was located. The Angelwing encountered the alien machine but turned its attention to the Shukenja Base at the Kissaki Beta Station where the artificial intelligence known as Angel saved the ship by opening a wormhole to escape the Mechanoid attack. This led the ship to arrive in the star system where the Noah expedition had colonized and the crew of the Angelwing learnt that the enemy they faced in Sol was of Mechanoid origin. Upon learning this, the Noah colony banned Marcus Cromwell and his crew from returning until the area was first explored due to the fear associated with the Mechanoid threat. Following this, the Mechanoids dispatched a black glowing spherical transport ship to hide behind Earth's Moon but the light later faded. Whilst initially unaware, the existence of the sphere was discovered by a team of scientists including Amanda Rogers who used a transmitter to monitor the so called Black Moon. Following this attempt at scanning it, the Entity infiltrated the planetary computer systems as part of a viral attack. The infection of the Earth based computer systems occured at a startling pace despite being more primitive compared to the Vardrags to the point that it seemed that mankinds equipment was seemingly designed for ease of access by the Entity.

Afterwards, an inactive Mechanoid was discovered and an expedition by the Angelwing was launched to recover the machine. This led to Angel uploading herself into the body in order to destroy it but she gained a great deal of knowledge about the machine before partially losing herself to a number of personalities. When she recovered, the Gorg attacked and intended to claim the inactive Mechanoid leading to a fight between Cromwell's fleet and the Gorg. Angel managed to recover and used her AI interface with the Mechanoid to override the controls of the superior Gorg vessels though they continued to fight. However, the battle replenished the energy reserves of the Mechanoid which awoke and evicted Angel from its hardware whereupon it destroyed the Gorg fleet before departing the scene. It would later enter the Omikron Gate and stumble into the Raggras Clan territory where it was rendered inactive by a Locust attack. Upon seeing this sight, the Angelwing attempted to recover the Mechanoid in order to use its dead body as a means of creating a suitable defense against this machine race. The Locusts managed to escape thus preventing the Humans from finding a weapon to use against their enemy though the dead Mechanoid was assimilated by Angel onto the Angelwing despite this being against orders.

Following this incident, the Angelwing and her fleet later discovered the Locust Queen and killed her whereupon they developed the Energy Skeeter beam thats served as an anti-Mechanoid weapon. This proved useful in the next engagement as the Mechanoids had infected several Vardrag ships though struggled to completely overwhelm their systems due to the fusion of the aliens with their equipment. However, a later engagement showed that the Mechanoids had completely taken over the Vardrag ships at the Alpha Gate and even overloaded the cybernetic implants of their Raptor mercenaries thus frying their brains and using their bodies as extensions of their will. This allowed them to turn captured Vardrag vessels against their allies but this force was defeated. Despite this victory, an extension of the Entity led a transport sphere and assaulted the Vardrag homeworld with it being conquered utterly whereupon it was intended to integrate the world into the Entity itself. It was then that the true nature of the threat posed by the AI was revealed whereupon the Angelwing departed whilst the Vardrag fleet was destroyed by the army of Mechanoids at the Entity's command. The Gorgs and the Ghosts both suffered heavy losses as well as the Mechanoids advanced through the known worlds. This saw the Vardrags and Gorgs forming an alliance against the Mechanoids thus turning their long standing enimity aside in face of this greater threat.

Whilst the initial attack was a success, a fleet from Noah colony encountered a control field that disrupted the new anti-Mechanoid shield thus leaving the target vessels vulnerable. Angel managed to track the disturbance around Mars where an Entity Orb was generating it. Thus, a task force led by the Angelwing along with Ghosts was launched to eliminate this threat as these were the only ships immune to Mechanoid infiltration. Their mission was to deploy blocking-field generators that were designed to eliminate the Entity's control field thus removing the threat posed by it. Following its destruction, the Noah Defense Forces arrived in the Earth sector in order to engage the Mechanoids and allow Angel the opportunity to battle the Entity itself. The arrival of Gorg and Vardrag forces allowed Angel to infiltrate the planetary relay and drive out the Entity from the planet itself thus saving Earth. The battle between the two AI's continued into the Nexus but despite Angel's best efforts; the Entity kept replenishing itself from the energy of the other worlds in its domination. This led to the Angelwing crew locking down those gateways but initially faced opposition from a captured Vardrag ship but this was destroyed thus allowing Cromwell to continue his mission. She successfully managed to overpower and merge with the Entity thus taking it over whereupon she became a god-like AI thus defeating the Mechanoid menace.

Overview
An individual Mechanoid typically resembled a dodecahedron in their idle state though typically resembled large starship sized glowing floating spheres. They possessed terrifyingly advanced skills and abilities. Their bodies consisted of nanomolecular form which included tiny machines that were able to re-organize itself into any shape imaginable. A Mechanoid was considered the perfect form of hardware for an AI which was described by Angel as being unbelievable and being so comfortable. In addition, they were capable of assembling themselves into large bodies and travelling at fast speeds. It was known that in the world of these machines, the restrictions of schematic thinking did not apply to them. This was because a Mechanoid body was capable of being scattered apart and sent to coat another vessel in a universal assimilation process. As they were machines, they had no compunction with taking over an organic driven ship and overriding the failsafes to the weapons in order to increase firepower but also increase the possibility of a catastrophic explosion erupting from the vessel due to high unsafe power usage. They seemed to struggle to completely take over Vardrag ships which was partly attributed to the fact that the species were biologically integrated within their vessels. During the closing stages of the conflict with them, a new Anti-Mechanoid shield was create that generated an energy field that was projected over a 100 kilometer radius that disrupted the Mechanoid energy matrix thus splitting them into nano-sized particles and destroyed them.

Their bodies were designed to absorb the energy of incoming projectiles and store them in reserve power cells in a highly efficient manner. In an inactive state, its energy level was so low that even a few energy shots were not expected to awaken it to a critical level. They were able to gather energy from a number of sources such as sunlight which allowed an inactive Mechanoid to power itself within a 16 month timeframe. The use of devices such as a data scanner would reduce the timeframe to 5 and a half months that was needed in order to reactivate itself. When the energy reserves were low, the main algorhythms were inactive and even allowed certain external AIs to take control of it. However, being in the midst of a battlefield allowed an unpowered Mechanoid to quickly recharge its energy and re-assert control over its body if it were under the control of another AI. The Vardrags also believed that the collapse of several well known stars was due to the actions of the Mechanoids

They also made use of physical body to serve as a transportation medium with the capacity to carry Mechanoids or even the Entity itself. Calculation of this vessels mass proved impossible and it did not effect the gravitational orbit of moons as it did not alter their orbit or created tidal variances on a planet. Thus, it was suspected that its mass was significantly less compared to a heavenly body of its size. Certain types of spheres could contain thousands of Mechanoids with the resultant creation being far greater than the sum of its parts. They were assembled for various tasks such as the integration of entire planets into the Entity. Once a planet was taken over, the Entity used the Mechanoids to optimize the planet for its own. Entity orbs were able to come in various sizes and one form was able to generate a powerful control field that was able to disrupt the effectiveness of anti-Mechanoid shields thus making the target vessels vulnerable to infection.

Through the advanced science and technology of the Mechanoids, they were capable of actually manipulating space and creating wormholes. This seemingly allowed them to create spatial anomalies that sometimes resembled wormholes but had no exit in the conventional sense. These special rifts were actually doorways into subspace where the concept of distance was non-sensical. Normally, wormholes connected with one another via subspace though their entraces were fixed. Whilst the special wormholes of the Mechanoids led directly into subspace where it led to the Nexus. This allowed the Entity and the Mechanoids to open up such wormholes of its choosing at any point rather then locate fixed routes of travel. It drew its power from the gateways to the various worlds that were under its dominion.

The complete command of the Mechanoids was ultimately in the hands of the Entity which was a single intelligence that was capable of directing its attention across multiple avenues and was capable of observing through subspace. It itself resided within the Nexus where it resembled a large red sphere. Its ability to act through extensions meant that sometimes it made others mistakenly believe that there was more than one Entity when in fact it existed in many forms. It was known to be a virulent and aggressive AI which annexed entire star systems in order to develop itself. Thus, its objective was omnipresence which was why it annexed sophisticated systems such as computer networks for substrata, laws of nature or societal laws whereupon it grew stronger as well as spread. The danger posed by the Entity meant that not only did it possess the power but also the resources to conquer other worlds. This AI was even described as being called an artificial god due to its sheer strength and abilities.

Appearances

 * Nexus: The Jupiter Incident (2004)