Founder's Collector Drone

Serving as long-distance scouts, trackers, and acquisition agents, collector drones see frequent use in the study and collection of alien life forms on new worlds. They can operate independently for years, cataloging unique species while enduring extreme environments that would overwhelm their biological makers. These machines may tag a captive creature with a tracker chip that can be monitored and tracked with their integrated chipfinders. They do so to observe and document the behavioral patterns of such creatures from afar, studying viable specimens for days until they eventually isolate and retrieve the studied prey again for further examination in a controlled laboratories.

Among their more impressive features, collector drones possess a hardened artificial intelligence, maintaining a singular focus on their mission directives even when wandering out of communication range with their owners. They tend to react swiftly to movement and perceived threats to their physical security, either emitting loud tones or alarms as a preemptive warning, or flying upward to gain altitude before assessing a given situation and potentially opening fire in defense of itself. Some collector drones grow more lax in their analysis protocols over time, giving way to a state similar to paranoia if left in the field for too long. This corrupted logic inevitably leads them to interpret even the most innocuous actions as proof of hostile intent. Other collectors become fixated on their directive to retrieve specimens without undue damage, interpreting it as a need to protect their targets from all possible sources of harm.

Halima estimates the value of a pristine collector drone at 10000 bir

A soft whirring noise accompanies this flying drone.