It's still moving. We confirmed that its wetware experienced a critical existence failure six minutes ago. There's not even a cauliflower left to operate it. Why is still moving? By whatever Lord is out there, why is it still moving?
The
Lost Expanse is home to so many hazards that their count gets lost in floating point precision errors, but one of the biggest known threats is an
Anomalous Entity designated "The Puppeteer". Unlike the borderline mindless "drones" operated by defective
CPU units, occasionally a machine whose wetware is missing entirely or outright destroyed will suddenly begin moving again under the influence of a will that is not its own.
It is unknown precisely what the Puppeteer is, or if it even truly exists. It was granted a
Threat Identity Designation as an attempt to provide an explanation for why a "dead" machine starts operating again without a functional CPU, and starts acting with malign intent towards other wetware units. The Puppeteer seems to infect or possess a broken machine with no prior warning, and will then seek out active wetware units to destroy. Only one machine is ever seen to be controlled by the Puppeteer at any one time.
Puppeteer possessed machines do not behave randomly or erratically, as seen with damaged CPUs, but instead move with an inscrutable yet deliberate purpose that hints at a higher intelligence. Encounters with the Puppeteer has revealed that it has a high level of strategic planning and tactical awareness. It seems to be able to perceive the environment beyond the capabilities of the machines it inhabits. The Puppeteer is apparently incapable of possessing a machine without a functional power source, or if it can, it is entirely incapable of operating the machine without it being powered.
Contain. Excise. Extinguish.— Recorded transmission from a possessed toaster
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