Ferrets

Created Monday 13 August 2018

A bit smaller than the average human.
No head, just a 1970 Buck Rogers discoball ball smeered over the top of where its head would be---like a mirror-balled mohawk on the sleek, headless body of an Olympic gymnaist
Lightly armored, non-metalic skin that is more supple than steel.
- It can squeeze into smaller places than you'd think. The γ-gun array on its head and its internal power plant are the main limiting factors.

That ridge, of course, is among the few of its on-board weaponry. (A few blades--fewer than you'd think--some chemical warfare-y stuff, and maybe a projectile). But that ridge sat right on top of the ferrets drive: It was a quick shot from the power source to the γ gun that gave it a range over most of its body. It could fire a high-energy γ burst instantly to a very nice fire arc.

Some of a Ferret's internals are weapons, but most are closer to home in a toolbox. Cutting plasma knife, high-tensil repairing foam, wrench, awl, etc. Later models with advanced skeletins have not only a more elegant profile but room inside for an open internals bay; they can be fitted with different extra tools or sensors.

The ferret, you see, is the go-to robot designed to hunt people. There sure are robots designed to hunt all sorts of other robots or various non-human targets, but there are surprisingly few designed to hunt other people. And the ferret is one of them, because it's really pretty darned effective. And we try not to kill other people now that we've got other species to contend with. But, well, sometimes you need to. And that's where Interspecific Interpersonalization Militarization (originally, "Infiltrative Intraspecifc Miliartizer" but I still don't like that term quite yet. It's too narrow a field. But, yeah, maybe that's what he really is, but he mostly just tells people he's a psychologist who works with the military a lot.)

[I didn't mean for ferrets--which've been creeping through my mind for a way long time now--and that prof--I just made up and only threw him in because I figured I was going to actually think of having characters in this and maybe focusing on the destruction of a species from a bunch of dopey intellectuals. But it does kinda work.]