NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dannyalcatraz" data-source="post: 8093968" data-attributes="member: 19675">Some thoughts on The Orbs, the other AI race describes so far.1) Individual Orbs are extremely tough, with a stealthy, insulated metallic shell.  They fully capable of independent, interplanetary space flight.  However, because of their small size*, none are inherently capable of supporting an integrated hyperdrive.  In fact, because they already had the capacity for interplanetary flight, they were actually slow to develop hyperdrive theory, and still have very few ships of any kind, including/especially hyperdrive capable ones.  This meant their civilization uses the portals as their primary interstellar transport for all purposes.  Most Orb ships are operated by their government.  2) Most other species are not even aware of the Orbs’ starships at all, thinking them a “client race” dependent on others.  This also means few know where their home actually is.  They don’t actually conceal this information like the Knights of Orion, but neither do they broadcast it.3) their primary alternatives to portal use are actually booking passage or becoming crew on the ships of other species.  Some have been known to become stowaways as well.4) Orbs manipulate the environment by a combination of telescoping appendages and short range tractor/repulsor emitters.  An Orb’s array of tools is chosen by the Orb itself,- there is no standard- and may change over time.5) As was suggested upthread, while they do not have a true hivemind, they CAN network when close together, increasing their processing power.  They leveraged this fact into increasing their demand in STEM fields and tech-intensive crew positions on starships of other species.* haven’t decided yet, but I’m thinking somewhere between baseball and beach ball size.</blockquote>

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