MULERs

Created Monday 01 August 2022

Searching for non-ferrous metals. Good at collecting & directing large amounts of mass. And working rapidly to set up a plurality factory^[That idea, by the way, is one I got from The Expanse when that woman took that biochem facotry juuuuust in case they'll need it. Totally contrived plot peice, but---yeah---totally likely idea. But, laying bear the lie of them being totally pluripotent is that the ones MULEs make are metalic plurality factories. And in the dust of space. (Haggs get it from under the ground. Lot more down there. So much that Haggs do indeed come close to complete pluripotency. Along with a CARE package or two and what they fly in with, they do make all of the necessities of robots, AIs, and humans. (And whatever weird demands a passing Decider wants built into it.)].
And using that to fashion more MULEs and adapting those new designs to the needs of the situation.
While fighting like fucking maniacs. Within an AU of Buzzkills.

Could've sworn I started something like this here already. I mean, more than just the MULE page.

"It's not the size of the match, it's where you light it. And don't light it in space."

One of the Deciders has to be someone who burns incessence in his ship. He is so priveldged he doesn't know to conserve oxygen in space.

Well, to put it here, too, in case I newver find that other MULE page, them with black teeth and bodies you can only call whispy. Nearly squid-like.

Remember, Blattid/Buzzkill's persisting invsaion strategy is to use Corsairs to run a screen while the engineers set up a Blinker Blaster gate.
Humans blast in a Hagge with as much support as they can squeeze through. Whcih is usually little more than a surveillance craft, one or two squads of heavy infantry, and as many MULERs as you can squeeze in around the edges. Maybe a dozen or so; MULEs start out very compact. Like Hagges, MULEs (and many long-range ships) are also built to be able to use local resources to make durable---and eventually chemically-complex---tools and products. MULEs jsut start much smaller and dont' eveyr get much bigger, they just set up shop to keep churning out the few things you really need to survive long-term in space. (No, I don't know what all those things are, and neither do any of them. We've never had to put up with this much of that.) But they're figuring it out and MULERs have mastered the skill and quickly learn any technologies related to a pretty narrow range of industries. A MULER pretty much knows exactly how much of what ("10 miligrams of iodine per centiday," etc.) he needs for him and his equipment to survive. That lets everyone estimate pretty exactly how much of whatever else there is at that location left to use, and thus if the jump is worth it, in what ways, etc.

The silent generation. A lot of your communication is in short bursts. That or loooooong times of being right next to someone allllllllll the time. For decades. Some long-haulers generations.
Sure, MULERs are not so long distance. And close enough to supply hubs that they are usually not not more than one round jump away. But still, many of their parents have heritage as one line of long-haul jumpers.

So, many MULER names are biblical long haul names. Names so special to a long-haul ship (Oh, the Skip'na'Jump. Yes, I've heard of that ship. The Skipanadge Clan has worked this jump spot since before it was a jump spot. There never were many of them (it was little more than a skeleton crew; sending resources here was a long shot), but they have always mattered.

And you still spend a lot of alone time between the stars. ("Between the fars." they'll sometimes say.) And although you're still all usually this side of a jump, you're still light minutes or hours---or days---away without a clear idea of your or others' flight plans. So communications are usually tight, short-waved lasers that use less power the more accurately you can hit another ship AUs away. Or at least that's what you try to do. Still, comm beams miss, and messages don't always have a lot of time to say much of any depth. So learning to talk in brief, nearly code-like speach is good. Eventually being able to speak eloquently in such a language is great. The Khan of MULERs can. In commands sent to the ships of his fleet with such military insight and eloquent poetry that MULERs will cry to hear them repeated in song.