Kor Ramoret - TheGiraffe3/Endless-Sky-Creators-Handbook GitHub Wiki
Original text by zoura3025
NAVIGATION
The Kor Ramoret (rough translation: “Aggregate Korath”) are a T2.3 faction native to the Milky Way. They are Korath Automatons, like the Kor Sestor and Kor Mereti.
HISTORY
Kor Ramoret history is largely unknown. They emerged sometime within only the past five hundred years, seemingly appearing as the result of damaged Sestor and Mereti machinery merging and reconstructing itself into merged forms. They’ve slowly carved out a small portion of Korath space for themselves, despite initial attempts to contain them or lead Kor Sestor or Kor Mereti automata in to destroy their infrastructure.
TECHNOLOGY
Much of their technology is the same as that which is shared by all Korath: their Reactors, Cooling, Engines, and Recovery outfits are all the same as other Korath factions, both Automata and flesh. Their weapons, however, are combinations of Sestor and Mereti weaponry, with obvious inspiration: The Disruption Repeater is a Sestor Thermal Repeater with disruption capabilities, the Ramoret Entrencher is a Husk-Slice-cross-Korath Detainer, and their Subdeployer Missiles combine Piercers and Cluster Mines into a single package. They seem to be actually developing newer-generation weapons in real time, if slowly; many older Quarg captains have observed that, in particular, the modern Entrencher has only been in service for about a century. This sense of progress is considered equal parts fascinating and terrifying.
Kor Ramoret ships also have a mix of the Sestor and Mereti’s best features: They have the hull armor of the Sestor, the powerful shields of the Mereti, and above-average heat dissipation across the board. These qualities make them far more dangerous than Kor Sestor or Kor Mereti automata, to the point where even Quarg ships are occasionally overwhelmed by them.
The Kor Ramoret make heavy use of carriers and carriables; even heavier usage than the Kor Sestor. Most of their carriers carry more than a dozen total carriables, split unevenly in favour of drones. Kor Ramoret Carriers are usually somewhat poorly armed for their size, with biases towards ranged support weapons or anti-missile.
TERRITORY
Kor Ramoret automata are particularly nomadic among Korath automata. Their fixed installation presence is rather limited, with the Kor Ramoret seemingly preferring to construct ships in large, spacebound “cabals”. Detailed documentation of this phenomenon is rare, but it is known that as many as a hundred capital ships can spawn in these cabals at once, forming massive collections of ship and space junk. Despite the preferential behaviour, however, they have taken up residence in some old Korath stations, and even some planets:
Reteroshkefar
An old Korath station now used by the Kor Ramoret as a staging point for flights into Mesuket from deeper within their territory. Curiously, this station has an active shipyard of sorts that constantly produce new Kor Ramoret ships; particularly carriables. It is the only known instance of Ramoret automatons constructing outside of a cabal.
Eshkoshtafar
While not the largest stockpile station the Kor Ramoret have access to, Eshkoshtafar seems to be the premier restocking point for Ramoret automata returning from Mesuket. Intercepted transmissions highlight a particular fondness for the station among the Kor Ramoret, analogous to how a compassionate human may view an orphanage.
Eniratak
Eniratak is a fairly large Korath station now used as a stockpile for seemingly thousands or even tens of thousands of Kor Ramoret drones and fighters, all lying in wait for the day when they are needed to be sent into battle.
Ketelikfar
This ocean world has been left oddly untouched by the Kor Ramoret, save for large cleared paths that resemble hiking trails, heavily implying that the Ramoret automata come to the planet for some sort of rest or recreative purpose.
Seleketefar
A mostly dead badlands world, Seleketefar hosts a substantial industrial sector that the Kor Ramoret automata use to refine stolen minerals or scrap into higher-quality parts for ship construction.
SOCIETY & CULTURE
It is known that their primary way of reproducing is abducting damaged pieces of Sestor and Mereti ships to reconstruct them into fresh Kor Ramoret ships, using their superior strength to retrieve said materials from the Mesuket system. However, they do mine and independently process specific materials, presumably for making internals that would be more difficult to loot from damaged wrecks.
At the heart of every Kor Ramoret capital ship is a “Higher Thought Board”, named such because it seems to display significantly more advanced capabilities than either Sestor or Mereti control devices. In addition to providing the core functions of operating the ship, the Higher Thought Board also appears to be able to sustain a basic AI persona. How this evolved from Mereti and Sestor code is unknown, but it makes the Kor Ramoret much less predictable, as the AI personae are often capable of basic abstract thought (in layman’s terms, a form of creativity). The most common example of this is that ships with larger cargo holds will more often develop scavenger-like behaviour, fighting less and attempting to directly plunder disabled Kor Sestor and Mereti vessels. Slightly disturbingly, Kor Ramoret AI personae demonstrate a basic desire for self-preservation: Compared to other Korath automata, Ramoret are less likely to self-destruct when being boarded.
Extensive probing of Kor Ramoret code highlights something equally startling and frightening: The Kor Ramoret have a (very basic) culture. Their ships often receive names from the AIs piloting them, and the fighters and drones housed by carriers are often referred to as the “children” of said carrier. Tapping of Kor Ramoret communication lines also seems to indicate they remember distinct individuals and their “families” of carriables, suggesting not just a sense of self, but of community as well. Korath scholars attempt to explain this as inheriting “the Mereti’s sense of Me” and the “Sestor’s sense of We”, producing the “Ramoret’s sense of Us”.
Unfortunately, despite their small steps towards greater aspirations, the Kor Ramoret still adhere to the primary directives of destroying all that they see. Even more troublingly, they seem to have developed a discontent for the other Kor Automata, commonly considering them to be inferior machines. It is unknown if this sense of superiority reflects on their opinions of biological beings such as the Korath themselves.
RELATIONSHIPS
The Kor Ramoret, like other Korath Automata, are almost universally hostile. However, these hostilities are occasionally somewhat nuanced, with definite reasons revealed over decades of code probing.
Kor Sestor
The Kor Ramoret seem to consider the Sestor as the lowest form of machines, due to the hive-like way they coordinate and behave. The Kor Sestor are too simple to reciprocate this level of personal hatred, but they continue to war regardless.
Kor Mereti
The Kor Ramoret hold the Mereti in the same regard a human might hold a simple animal. Also like how some humans treat animals, however, the Ramoret have no qualms with slaughtering the Mereti mercilessly, seemingly considering them lower-enough forms of machines. The Mereti, likewise, have no issues fighting back, with heavily fatal results.
Quarg
The Kor Ramoret are hostile-on-sight to the Quarg, and are strong enough to occasionally pose a threat to a lone Quarg scout, or even a small group. Notably, when observing Quarg, the Kor Ramoret often use the term “Ke’lek” to identify them: The Korathi word for a target. This could indicate the Kor Ramoret see the Quarg as some sort of trophy target.
Kor Efreti
It is very rare for a Kor Ramoret vessel to make it far enough to interact with a Kor Efreti ship; the number of incidents is only barely in the double digits. Though they still attack Kor Efreti ships, it is observed that the Kor Ramoret seem to delay deploying their carriables for a short period of time after acquiring an Efreti target, as if trying to give the Efreti a chance to escape. No known explanation exists for this behaviour; only the theory that the Kor Ramoret still accept the Korath as creators.
PHILOSOPHY
Given their ability to think creatively at a basal level, make progress, form connections, desire self-preservation, and reproduce, some Korath consider the Kor Ramoret a form of life. Attempts have been made to reach out peacefully to the Kor Ramoret, but so far, no successful communications aside from basic code-probing have occurred. The Quarg in particular seem dismissive of the claims of life within the robotic ships, but due to the threat the Ramoret automata pose, there is an active interest in attempting to pacify them.