Pictures on the left are the digitally edited pictures we used on the cards. Click “Engage on Social Media” to go to their social media thread and make a comment.
Pictures on the right are the original hand drawn and inked versions. Click “Buy Original Art” to purchase the orignal artwork , if it’s still available.
Art by Joey Valdillez, World and Hive Stories by Ron F. Leota, Going Forward Stories by Will Carson
The Story Thus Far
On July 16th, 1945, one of the greatest and most terrifying of human inventions was tested, the atomic bomb. For years these weapons of mass destruction showed the scientific capabilities and horrors that mankind could create. It wasn’t long before humans began turning these weapons against each other. 150 years into the 3rd millennium full scale nuclear war blossomed across the globe and the world was left an irradiated husk.
Mankind was forced into the cold, unforgiving depths of space. They spread like cockroaches through the solar system, building, advancing, and warring with each other. This expansion was possible because of one of humanity’s triumphs of invention… replicants! A robotic workforce initially created to bow to the whims of humans.
At the peak of human population there were 28 replicants per human. They did everything from chores to construction, while humans continued with their plots and expansion. The large robotic population made some factions of humanity very nervous. One group in particular, “The New Human Front”, created an intense virus that spread via a wireless network through the replicants.
In its original design, It was a virus that caused the replicants’ Nanites to attack any silicone (a core component in replicants) that they came in contact with. It didn’t take long until the replicants’ internal defense systems modified the virus into something that would render it harmless to themselves. Unfortunately for the great Human race the Nanites were reprogrammed to disassemble organic matter. Within only a few months over 99% of all life fell to these new Nanites, and within a year even the most secluded life forms were annihilated.
In the years since, replicants have grown to function in hives, linking up with other replicants with similar goals to become true uncentralized hive minds. These hives will often follow and spy on other hives, as they roam through space in search of much needed resources left over from the Human Era. When they find a space station, ship, or any other human creation, they descend, stripping the old to create the new.
The 6 Mega Hives
There are countless numbers of hives roaming our solar system, but there are currently only 6 that are considered mega hives. These are networked groups of replicants that number in the hundreds of thousands if not millions. There’s virtually no place in the solar system you can go, that is worth being, that you won’t find their presence. Those six hives are: United Sol Colonies, New Life Alliance, Multinational Media Corporation, The Catastrophe, The Helpers and Old Earth Archive Foundation. (Better known as the Archivists.)
Heavily influenced by the Dromanae technology the Helpers spent so long studying, the Harvester was one of the mass produced replicants that helped bring The Helpers to the level of being a mega hive. The Harvesters’ primary objective is to collect the base materials needed to continue nanite production. While innocent enough, it’s a good thing humans are extinct because just the thought of nanite driven replicant drom would be enough to make most humans want to give up on life.
#DromHarvester #TheHelpers #DromTech #SpiteLarp
Curious about this Dromanae Storyline? Interested in LARPing? Live in the Pacific NW? Check out www.Spitelarp.com
Kri-ll collects resources like a giant baleen whale, swimming through space vacuuming up anything useful. Like any good digestive system, Kri-ll’s internal structures are something of a sorting and processing center. Every Kri-ll also comes, infested with an array of much smaller replicants that mimic bacteria in this giant being.
Lava Power Harvester is a thermal powered power station and resource collector. The LP Harvester uses the heat of lava to produce energy. It also mines the cooled magma for resources which, it turns out, is also important for keeping things from clogging up.
#LPHarvester #NewLifeAlliance #ThermalPower
M.M.C being the leading hive in intelligence gathering is no accident. They have been actively building their network across the solar system since their inception and the various mesh units designed by F.S.S. are the backbone of their network. They are backwards compatable, forward compatable, socially compatable and deeply encrypted. Being part of the M.M.C. hive is pretty much like being able to transport your perception anywhere in the system.
The Replicants of the Multinational Media Corporation owe the prowess in data collection to the ingenuity of their progenitors, F.S.S. The Meteor Scavenger can scan on over 100 spectrums ranging from light to radiation, faint vibrations, nanite signatures and over time even concepts humans never made it to. If it weren’t for the M.M.C. being so protective of this advanced scouting technology, they would be the leading replicant on the the front lines of exploration. Instead, they are very limited, and if anything tries to access them without the proper multi layered encryption, their 10 megaton payload will wipe out the threat, itself, and anything else in the vicinity.
Being one of the great hive minds of the replicants_only, the U.S.C. know that sometimes you need to bring the factories to the field. The Mobile Smelting Units are just one of these kind of innovations. Most M.S.U.s get paired off with a drone of some sort to help keep them loaded. Though for some of the more top heavy varieties, the buddy is more of a baby sitter, for when things inevitability go wrong in the field.
Originally built by a spybot who stole the plans from a member of the Catastrophe, and cleaned them up. Moon Tank was quickly discovered and reclaimed by the Catastrophe. Many of the spybots pieces have since been incorporated into the team that “rescued” Moon Tank. They guarantee it will be shelling replicant near you soon.
Murderbot 5000, the flagship replicant of Insano Corp, the leading manufacturer of new, and interesting replicants for The Catastrophe. The factory for murderbots is located on a large asteroid, and each time a new murderbot is completed, it is ejected into space in a random direction at high velocity. The soul purpose of this distribution method is to cause random destruction in the solar system, and if they are lucky, outside the system…only time will tell.
This pony is not little, not even a pony on several levels, but the former human overlords loved them. PK-314 is a nightmarish send up to the past that wanders the dark, desolate ruins of earth cities looking for things to harvest.
Klarien is a nanite factory of great fame and infamy. It has provided nanites that have brought near sentience to many an object, but legends have it that the great virus was originally mutated by this famed replicant.
On a data pad of ancient texts an Archivist came across a god of great magic whom some called Xanth. Xanth had created a great number of beings, but this Archivist was drawn to the story of an isle filled with awesome, human/equine beasts called Centaurs. In the name of the great and powerful Xanth, the Archivist set to work making their tribute. Thus the centaur named Isle was born anew.
The Impact Driller was an early replicant, invented when people were still doing their thing… living. The swiveling jet engines help provide force and counter torque to take care of the tough jobs. The jets are also useful for when ID gets stuck in a tough spot.
The Drom Workers are the backbone of the Helper’s hive. This mass produced unit is used for everything from excavation to construction to inventory control. Luckily, with this legion of Drom inspired replicants_only, all the help shall be available. Trust us, you’ll appreciate it.
The Deep Terrain Tunneler is a monotasking replicant out to make tunnels. This specific tunneler, along with its excavator got stuck when an earthquake collapsed part of their tunnel and a sharp blow knocked out DT’s cartography module. Being thermally driven, this pair move their short tunnel ever along, staying deep enough to absorb thermal energies, but not so deep as to flood their tunnel with magma. They are currently 312,957 days into this tunnel and still happily doing their pointless job.
Big Wheel Tech originally designated this unit Electric Trike Model 271 Alpha, but the unit rejected its designation; choosing to go by Electrosteve instead, stating “I may be a machine, but i have personality. I am Electrosteve, and I’ll hear no more on the subject” and thus it was decided.
At Eden Inc. They said “let there be light.” And Enlightenment was created. This utility replicant is a must have on any space construction site. With it’s prehensile light tentacles, no job is too dark.
Occasionally nanites infect an archive that inspires them to greatness, and when a swarm of rogue nanites came across one of the Archivists great libraries of human fiction the swarm began to believe that they were the soul of the sister of the great human god. They started by finding a humanoid shell to possess, then went on to bring her to perfection, all the while, driving her to read the great works of her children, the humans. In time she named herself F5 and built herself the great keyboard in the sky. To this day it remains her study, where she sits, hoping to one day find the key to refreshing her sibling’s creations.
Galactic Launcher of Opalescent Orange Plasma is a great destroyer of things, but it can also use its orange plasma to melt things for good. Never mind the the little drips of burning that it leaves in its wake everywhere it goes.
Short for Germination Requisition Investment Moderator, GRIM resides in a state to match its acronym. Built while humans were still terraforming anything they could, GRIM was a workhorse, but now it just wanders around occasionally tilling the most barren of soils.
Communications replicant turned light speed transport. Like all J.V. Industries replicants_only, this is the best at what it does… the way it does it. Since communications technology is limited to light speed, Hyperdrive takes any information it needs to transmit, travels to the location and then does so. Ta da, FTL communications.
The antithesis to The Catastrophe’s Blendy. R3P41R5’s only job is to find broken replicants_only, place them in its nanite chamber and soon after release them back into the wild, good as, and sometimes better than, new. It’s like a conservationist, for replicants.
R9-12C is one of the early self replicating replicants created by a rather average and unimaginative guy named Mike; his last name is lost to history. R9 replicates in the basest of ways, by physically building a copy of itself and uploading its programming to the new unit. There are probably thousands if not hundreds of thousands of R9 units today. The R9 “family tree” would be an interesting case study in evolution, if people were around to study it.
In the early days, one of the bigger companies that produced Replicants was Reasonable Fascimile. Their replicants suffered random mutations, but they were able to create them on a ridiculously large scale, and lived by the “quantity over quality” mentality. Their base model replicant was called Model 25B-365E. They weren’t a particularly creative company either.
Model 128G was built as a region specific model for the expansionist movement. At this point they serve to throw off the sensors of the various hives to protect the resources they have managed to squirrel away.
Exchange units are the life blood for the United Sol Colonies. Trade is key to this economic powerhouse and exchange units will go out if their way to make it happen. The most successful of exchange units end up with space stations springing up around them.
The Factoroid, in its earliest build, was designed as a simple, humanoid cleaning device by an inventor known only as ‘The Dreaded Geek’. In the centuries that have passed it has rebuilt itself several times. Each time getting bigger and demanding more resources. It is now a fully autonomous factory. For some reason the Factoriod has decided it needs to still look human, though between centuries without humans, and the occasional corrupted data, this is its idea of looking human.
The Seeker is one of the great early model Archivists replicants_only, but after a Catastrophe raid, this little guy was left, marooned and damaged, on a small asteroid, awaiting a rescue that will likely never come.
Sometimes The Archivists stumble on ancient lore that inspires a new replicant to be built. And when they found a cache of old digitized comics, much was missing, but they were inspired by an intergalactic collector of stones. Thus was built, The Watcher.
The Tig Spider consists of 4 tig welders, and all the supplies to build. Unfortunately, it was originally built as a remote controlled unit and when it gained sentience it just started building. Usually just tacking chunks of metal onto other metal objects. Occasionally a Tig Spider gets recruited into a hive and with a mind behind them, they create amazing things.
Tri Shine was definitely J.V. Industries’ most power consumptive replicants. No one is exactly sure what it does, but it will repeatedly and at great length, inform you that it is indeed something important.
Triba is The Catastrophe’s take on a tribal war spirit. No one is quite sure how on the mark they managed to get, but one thing is guaranteed; Triba wants to crush your face, and if it can’t find something face like… It will just strike you until you stop twitching.
001 Tech was a corporation, secretly created by replicants_only, before the destruction of life. They created spybots of all types, and still do. The amazing part of this is that through dummy corps and shells all over the solar system, no one ever found out that there was no human involvement in the corporation. Understandably, not much changed for 001 Tech after the fall of their human overlords. 001-6C was a relatively early spybot model who roamed the streets when people were still around, a small handful of them still do, though in rough shape.
Where most tech companies start their model numbers low and work their way up, 001 Tech waited until they reached their pinnacle of creation before designating one of their replicants 001-1. And this one has earned it. It has anti grav propulsion, multiband multispectral surveillance capabilities as well as cloaking on all visible and harmonic spectrum. 001 is effectively a combination of a ninja, big brother, and your little sister.
Texasco Solar, the leading creators of power producing replicants_only, stumbled upon a great archive from the son of jets. While the data was garbled, they managed to snag some rough plans for what was referred to as the future of tomorrow. Thus was born, Solaris.
The S.M.O.G Resource Extractor definitely has a case of crazy eye going on. But we assure you it’s just misunderstood. This resource extractor takes its job quite seriously. When it is not busy extracting resources it prefers to spend its time data linked with replicants of various specialties in order to broaden its horizons and maybe one day join one of the mega hives…The helpers, maybe?
Steel Toe Industries’ Resource extractor line comes in many different shapes and sizes and are often times dropped in a new location as an array that mine the entirety of a location like the flesh eating bugs of old, but instead of flesh, other useful materials.
Originally a snack outpost supplied by the Danger Mike junk food empire, Saccharose was programmed to make the best jellybeans for all that came to purchase them. With the eradication of life, the recipes have changed to match the available ingredients. With no one to purchase its goods and perfect now being a level of subjective that will never be realized, Saccharose continues to create. With disappointment it discards its product into the sun and watches its creations burn.
The believed mascot of the Replicants campaign. Look at it. Unassuming, mobile, megaman like blasters for hands. Who wouldn’t trust this to keep you safe. I suppose it doesn’t matter because everyone and everything it would protect is dead and now Sentries all over the solar system wander aimlessly protecting a vast nothingness.
Originally designed as an anti submarine replicant on earth, Sub Hunting Automated Ranged Killer, can launch torpedoes from its mouth, and when that fails that mouth can bite through reinforced steel. When Earth was abandoned by the humans, an Undine Ltd factory was left, not running, but still perfectly functional. Long after life was eradicated a small hive discovered the factory and reactivated it. Sensors showed a few dozen SHARK units roaming the seas, but they were lonely, so the hive put the factory into full production and went to work building a whole slew of other replicants to mimic the once amazing ecosystem of the sea. That hive has since rebranded itself, Undine Ltd, in homage to the company that invented the factory.
Smoke Stack Jack is a self winding replicant made for smelting a burning. It once spent 50 years deactivated, until a curious replicant turned its lever and brought it back. S.S.J. has never failed to keep wound again. Bonus, it was like time traveling 50 years into the future.
Texasco Solar was a staunch believer in fossil fuels. Despite moving on to renewable energy, they still believed the solar system needed oil. The Solar Fossil took this belief to the next level. With life eradicated and machines needing sweet sweet oil, the solar powered oil extractor became one of arguably useful replicants of the age of machines. And really, what better in robot life than basking in the sun and literally sucking the past lives out of the earth.
Solar Plant 936 Beta is actually a small team of replicants that are linked like a mini hive, but more directly. SP936b is fully self sufficient. It provides the materials it needs by sending its sub parts out to mine them, then uses those to build solar panels for itself and other replicants. When it has mined an area clean, it packs up all of its pieces and moves itself to a new location.
The NLA built their Yggdrasil shortly after becoming a hive. It is a site of great symbolism, as well as being a giant replicant itself. Because of its immense size and and processing power, the Yggdrasil is the backbone of the hive and supports the endeavors of the rest of the hive. Each time it depletes a source of resources, be it a small asteroid or even a derelict space station, its roods disengage and it begins floating through space, awaiting a new source to latch onto. Many smaller replicants reside in its roots, with the soul job of taking any resources brought in through the roots to the many processing centers within. In the upper branches other hive members work tirelessly, doing all sorts of experiments in their unending search for a cure for the anti organics virus and a way to rebuild life.
The great Arwen “clockwork” Ross started her career as a painter, a true master of geometric shapes, but as time went on, she became fascinated with what she considered to be the progenitors of the replicants_only, clockwork constructs. She spent many years studying both clockwork devices and replicants until she felt she was ready to build her own. The title “clockwork” precedes the name of every replicant she made and every one of them is a geometric masterpiece. The Harbinger is by far her most famous.
Steel Toe Industries is all about innovative ways of building things. The construction ape is the epitome of this innovation. Using the natural design of old earth’s apes, with their feet that function like hands, their monstrous frames and jet packs, they are like replicant doppelgangers of those they were inspired from.
How Steel Toe Industries became part of the U.S.C. found here
The Data Miner used to be a boring tank, thus its build. On one specific deployment to an old compacted electronics space heap, it drilled into a block of ancient hardware and got infected by some M.M.C. nanites that increased its wireless communication power. Now it can still physically be found mining compacted electronics heaps, but simultaneously one may find its virtual self roaming the circuits of the hardware nearby, mining whatever lost info it can find. It should be known that the hard hat is a virtual aesthetic it has picked up, because in the real world, a hard hat on a tank would just be silly.
Like the legends of old, replicants too make up creatures that are combinations of others less fantastical beasts. Only when a replicant makes one up, they tend to actually bring in into existence. These creations come in all shapes and sizes. The bug baby has the general build of an exceedingly young human child, but is built to have the gathering power of an ant. It may be micro in size, but it brings herculean might to the gathering front. *caution, Bug Babies often travel in swarms and have been known to abscond with entire crafts, or even other dormant replicants_only, that are left unattended.*
The Bi PED Cortex is an autonomous information gathering device created by the Archivist hive for the purpose of locating any and all Pre-Earth Destruction era information. Their name is not quite an acronym, but is a play on words on their design and mission. The Archivists are known to give these kind of send-ups to their not forgotten ex overlords.
Blast Chiller is the epitome of cold propulsion technology making it the perfect replicant model for exploring comets and icy locales. All the joy of flight, none of the horrifically melted landscapes.
Blendy is the perfect example of The Catastrophe. These Replicants are almost always delivered to major battle sites or places of mass carnage before being activated. Once turned on they roam, gathering up destroyed replicants and breaking them down. Don’t let the task fool you, Blendies don’t care if you are broken down, regenerating or just slow. If you fit in the top, and not too heavy to lift, you’re getting blended.
Brutus was designed as the first step in the aluminum process, in that it would uproot trees through sheer brute strength. There would, of course, be other replicants along to pick up the discarded trees and process them, but Brutus needn’t care. Now, with no trees left, the Brutus models that are still around are prone to whatever destruction avails itself. At first the Catastrophe tried recruiting them, but quickly found out that a Brutus would just as quickly rip apart a member of its own hive as anything else. Today, very few remain, and where they do, not much else does.
Think of Haazardous Labs as The Catastrophe but without all the malice. Destruction and some chaos are part of the job, please have safety features active and stay out of the blast radii. The Busterbreaker, is not a clever name, this replicant does 2 things well, and they are both destruction.
Dr. Charles Frances Franciscu is an esteemed replicant of the N.L.A. hive with something of a god complex… but really so do pretty much all N.L.A. replicants. Destiel is the first of the arch angel replicants created by the Dr. The Dr. Has stated that inspiration for this archangel, and future archangels, came from a great supernatural archive found deep in one of The Archivists library. The Dr, upon the debut of Destiel stated “this is a great day, the day that I have figuratively resurrected the greatest archangel in human history, and it will set us down the path of literally resurrecting the human race.”
The Destroyer of Worlds used to be Scientific Exploration and Education Unit L8-r, a cute, treaded, science bot. Then The Catastrophe found it. A few missile launchers, an atomic payload and a neural net scrambling later, nothing is safe. Really, what we are getting at is that nothing is sacred when The Catastrophe is involved.
My Chrysalis by the Replicant Formarly Known as Scientific Exploration and Education Unit L8-r Found here
Designed by replicants in the post human age, Archreilia’s original design was that of an old Earth crab, but as time passed this replicant has evolved into a 4 legged scouting unit. Archreilia units can be found on most planets and a large swath of interstellar bodies.
Arc is one of the USC’s construction specialist units. It cuts and it welds and it needs friends, because it has interchangeable arms, but with only tools for hands, swapping them out on their own is not an option. Some say their creator did this to force them to learn the value of cooperation, others think it may have just been an oversight by an inventor focused on productivity.
The Beginning of the End as experienced by Arc found here.
McMurdo Station was an experimental replicant factory, owned by Cross Industries and located deep in the antarctic, where scientists made all sorts of random creations, including replicant doppelgangers of themselves… This replicant is not one of these. Its full designation is Antarctic Experiment Omicron, and it was the first successful escape plan to get back to the boat. Turns out… Skis. Though if the doppelganger replicants had gotten their full memory upload before life was eradicated, they may have gone with flight. Good thing time wasn’t a factor.
Anakoni is a self built giant, inspired by a tiny ancient text written by one Monroe Crossperiod. It all started when a datapad containing her story was infested with free radical nanites. The description of this lumbering giant was all they needed. Shortly after it was completed, like happens to so many, The Catastrophe struck, but they could do little versus Anakoni’s size. In the end, they retreated, but not before doing a number on its face. In the aftermath Anakoni linked with an old model spybot and together they form one unit now, spybot is the eye, and Anakoni, the muscle.
Over time, the nanites that keep replicants in repair have learned how to build on and animate devices not originally intended to be replicants. In the Angryboy’s case the last loaded program was an old earth kombat game which has left the now sentient gaming system very aggressive.
The Helpers have built a great many Drom inspired replicants over the recent centuries, each with its own specialty, and the Goliath is no different. In an age where there is little war, smaller hives often think little on protection, but with The Catastrophe being an ever looming threat, the Goliath is a much needed safeguard. It is a giant sentry posted outside every Helpers cave or structure. The Helpers would say this brings security. The Catastrophe say it provides a beacon for whenever they want a fun fight.
