Harvesters

Harvesters is a newly discovered pathogen.

Anatomy

Harvesters are an incredibly advanced nanobot that is similar in appearance to an amoeba. They can form many tentacle-like appendages. They reproduce by scraping chunks of metal off of things and crafting them into new Harv

A Harvester

esters. The process by which a Harvester builds another Harvester is not entirely known as the "parent" harvester completely envelops the metal during this process.

Special Behaviors

When a Harvester infects an Irken's PAK, preferably on a live Irken, the Harvester takes great care when building more Harvesters. Eventually, an infected Irken begins to display unusual behavior, first showing slight discomfort. Then, it begins to hoard small metal objects, such as communicators, utensils, portable electronics and other small things. The Irken begins to put these things in a pile and jump into them. A small amount of Harvesters escapes out of it's PAK and into the pile, infecting the objects and reproducing in them. After some time, the Irken climbs out of the pile and gathers more objects to put in it. This process repeats, but the size or importance of the objects gained increases in intensity after each trip. The Irken also attempts to sell infected objects to other Irkens.

If the infected Irken cannot sell infected objects at the same rate that it finds new objects to add to the pile, and the pile reaches a certain size, it will turn into a hive. Harvesters will create suits of armor and act as muscles inside them, creating small, insect-like creatures. Tunnels will also be made. Not much is known about these hives.

Infected SIR Units also display strange behavior, eating metal objects and then throwing up a metallic liquid that, after testing, is concluded to consist of nothing but thousands of Harvesters.

In more advanced stages of SIR Unit infection, either two things can happen:

The Harvesters establish a direct link to the SIR Unit's A.I module and other important parts such as the CPU, effectively obtaining full control over the SIR unit. These "controlled" SIR Units may be used for many things, especially in recursive infection.

Or the Harvesters will turn the SIR Unit into a hollow shell, linking together to form muscles and constructing hollow, jointed legs to replace the standard floating legs, as well as other appendages for various uses.

It should be noted that events like this are not limited only to Irkens and SIR Units. Harvesters have been recorded to infect robots or spaceships that consist of technology other than the Irken Empire's.