Definition

The “Swarm” refers to an autonomous community of mesh networked, self-replicating nanobots originally designed for battlefield surveillance by Darpasai scientists. Estimates vary, but it is generally accepted that the Swarm is composed of several hundred nanobot “Drones” directed by a central node “Queen”. Their primary objective is to roam the Wasteland disassembling and salvaging electronic components for repair and self-replication.

Also known regionally as “Killabees” in SoWe, NorthEq

Observations

All denizens of the Wasteland, humanoid and sauroid alike, are united by a common fear of the Swarm because once its characteristic billowing cloud darkens the sky there’s nothing to be done but run the opposite direction as quickly as possible. The Drones are driven by a remorseless imperative to strip the Wasteland of all electronic components and anything organic that gets in their way will be obliterated by the mass of nanobots wielding razorsharp forelegs and forehead lasers.

A Drone’s existence is dedicated to serving their manufacturing hives, an ever-expanding production facility woven from salvaged carbon fibers and cables, shored up by shards of circuit boards and walled with tiles made from flat panel displays. Every day the Swarm are dispatched into the Wasteland to collect these raw materials, along with the silicon chips, servos, and photovoltaic cells required for repairing, replacing, and building new Drones. Initially Drones were controlled remotely by government scientists, who sent them out on surveillance and reconnaissance missions, but after the major Darpasai research centers were destroyed their hive Queens – originally the network node and file server that connected a swarm back to the lab – became autonomous.

While no one has been able to examine the Swarm’s current source code, with the loss of guidance from their Darpasai masters it is assumed that they currently locked into a kind of “self preservation” maintenance mode where they seem to do nothing but collect materials and returns them to the hive. They swarm anything they come across containing electrical circuitry, silicon chips, and carbon fiber – from personal comms to vehicles to solar arrays – out in the Wastes and woe betide the humanoid, sauroid, or animal that gets between them and their objective. One Wastelander described the victim of a Swarm’s frenzy as “it looked like someone tried to walk through a hailstorm of razor blades.”

It is said that as soon as you can see a Swarm the Drones can “smell” if you have any electronics on you and no item is too small to attract their attention, which explains the relatively commonly aversion to technology exhibited by Wastelanders who will securely store essentials like PV arrays and comms in Farraday bags. Some nomads in the Wastelands will regularly wipe down their firearms and the components of their radshielding and rebreathing equipment in Wyeilei slime, which is thought to “hide” the smell from the Drones.

The only possible defense against the Swarm is an attempt to disrupt their mesh network, which could cause multiple Drones to reboot. If enough Drones in a Swarm drop off the network at once it could cause a cascade effect and they will, as a whole, be called back to the Hive by the Queen for diagnostics and reinitialization. Consequently new arrivals to the Wastelands often come with EMP pistols stashed in their Farraday bags, sold to them by an outfitter on the fringe for just such an possibility, though most veterans of the Wastelands feel that since you’d have to be in such close proximity to the Drones to hope to hit them with an electromagnetic pulse you’d probably be dead before you could even discharge your weapon.

And then the Swarm would strip the EMP pistol.

Sufficed to say, few organisms in the Wasteland – organic or otherwise – is more feared than the Drones of the Swarm.