The Rebel Faction

Union R&D 5: Scourge

Name: Scourge Nanites

Designers: Union Special Weapons Division

With its realization that it cannot match most galactic entities blow for blow on the battlefield, the Union has invested heavily in special items and weaponry that they could use for specific purposes, including planetary extortion. To this end, the Union aquired the Eden treatment system via Belgardi Ltd. Though Eden was designed for the welfare of people, a team of well paid scientistshas taken the nanotechnology used for the Eden bots and corrupted it towards their own twisted purposes; in a scheme to gain a major advantage on the battle field.

Since the dawn of galactic warfare every force in existence has tried to find the perfect weapon to use to gurantee their victory over their opponents. The Union's leaders realized that no technology can become the end-all weapon in warfare; however the Union does recognize the need for some form of military superiority, especially when facing massive galactic governments. A very basic principle has been taken note of in the corruption of the bots for their terrorism purposes. Metal of all forms has always been the staple of almost all advanced civilizations and the Union has grasped this concept very well in their weapons development laboratories hidden safely away aboard their mobile headquarters.

Taking the shapes and designs of bacterial organisms that can thrive even in the depths of space, the Union has created an entirely new and unrecognizable nanite model. This model is designed to be able to move swiftly acorss any metal surface upon making contact. Part of each of these nanites is a miniturized enzyme synthesizer that generates a special acid which the nanite is capable of spraying. This special acid is designed to break down the basic components of any metal on an atomic level, literaly disintegrating it.

Programming
Scourge nanites are designed to seek out and destroy all metallic material in their reach. Thus, when they come into contact with a piece of metal, all nanites focus on a single point and move outward from their, taking on the look of a green haze as they use their acid to rip the metal apart at its very atomic structure. It does however raise the problem of the nanites attacking each other and becoming useless which is why they were programed to not attack the single metal used in their own structure.

Platinite Structue
The nanites disintigrate all metallic compounds besides a single rare metal, which Union scientists settled upon due to its limited availability. Called platinite, the metal was previosuly limited to use in expensive jewelry which is obviously not used in any standing military designs and is sparsely used in even the wealthiest of civilian designs. The Union uses its many financial connections with several mining companies and subsidiaries to quietly aquire this metal and then hands it over to its scientists who use their lab machinery to carefully craft the devious little machines out of the valubale metal.

Metallurgic Acid
The acid generated by the synthesizers that are part of the nanites is completely harmless to organic beings. What is even more instriguing is that if the acid is not introduced at the atomic level (i.e. not from a scourge nanite), breaking the bonds in the metals atomic structure , the acid is very slow to eat through the metal. However, after being introduced via the Scourge, there is little that can be done to prevent the Scourge from disentgrating all metallic compounds in its path.

Enzyme Synthesizer
While this device is quite useful on almost all planets, it requires some assitance from the environment to function properly. The enzyme synthesizer uses plentiful particles gathered from any atmosphere to fuel its acid generation. In the vacuum of space, the nanties are forced to rely on acid reserves built up before being deployed. This limits the useful life span of any spaceborne Scourge nanite unless they break through a vessel's hull where gases wait to fuel their synthesizers.

Delivery Systems
Scourge nanites can be deployed in a number of ways, from merely dropping a vial of them on a metal surface to being flung in a large blast radius by some explosive device. A more commonly sought idea is even now in development to deploy warships armed with warheads packed full of dormant nanites which will activate once they come in contact with metal outside of the warhead's containment unit.

Due to their destructive nature and the abundance of metal in all of galactic civilization, the Union Committee refers to the insidious little machines as Scourge since if enough are deployed, they could decimate anything metallic like a plague destroys organic beings.

Production Specifications:
-Nanties produces solely at Construction yards
-Produced in amounts of 12 cm canisters
-Construcion Yards can only produce 15 canisters per day

R&D Time: 60 Days