Crux Fleet

Anyone with a drone gets a deedlit-deedlit-deedlit alert on their comm devices. It's a video post with a rather harried-looking Ensign Navarro. His eyebrows are missing and his hair is much more closely cropped than before. The area behind him is swarming with activity as a flaming figure does battle with a muck-covered monster.

"Ensign Navarro here. So, we were going to do this a while ago, but discovered a flaw that needed hammering out. The good news is this: We finally upgraded our drone technology. The bad news: The upgrades we were going to use melted right off. And caught fire. And it turns out the rest of the upgrades were just as flammable if you added the right chemicals to the mix." He coughs. "But, like I said, we've managed some improved functionality. If you'll pardon the projection..."

He taps a few things on his end and a complex display and readout appear. "We've increased the battery span on the drones. We're making strides for kinetic charging, something we'd tried for on the old Tyr mobile armors but which, unfortunately, turned out to be too expensive. We phased those out for the Teslated microgenerators we now use, but I was always a fan of the idea of someone powering their equipment by moving. So we're working on miniaturizing it. It might be ready in a model or two. In any case, with the battery improvements, we've enhanced recharge time and allowed for more power output. So now you shouldn't be so, ah. Noodly." Yes. "We've also added some actual connection points, so you guys can start designing outer shells if you want. Make them look a bit like you."

He flicks a dial and various armored plates skitter over the display surface. "You might want to keep in mind that, when making these things, they're still not 100% designed for an outer layer. So if you're making an outer shell of some kind, make sure you've got joint room. We'll be fixing this in future models."

"Finally, we've managed to fix the paper plate problem. Some of us wanted to use a vid-screen to allow you guys to get your faces across, but. Well. Honestly, after watching how some of you interact with each other, I'm not sure that those vid screens would remain intact for long. So we built in some holo displays!" He reaches offscreen and plonks a drone's head onto the table in front of him. Wiping off some flame retardant foam, the Ensign smacked it on top of the head with a fist and the blank face began to project another human face, this one contorted in pain. "Um. Ignore that. We were trying for some haptic feedback and, well. Let's just say it's going back to the drawing board. But in any case, the holos are pretty primitive. We can't quite make it replicate your current expressions, it draws on too many resources to translate your impulses into expressions, but you can manually take a 'snapshot' and update it whenever you want an expression change. Like, uh." He waves a hand over the face and it goes of one contorted to pain to a default blank. He waves it the other way and it goes back into a different pained expression. "They're not solid holograms, they don't provide instant 'updates', but we can get the lips to move when they talk! And we think we're pretty close to a breakthrough on the whole 'Entire face moves just like yours does' gig."

He shoves the drone's head off the table and drums his hands on its surface. "So, there you have it! Not our proudest production, I'll admit, but we're finally back on track with getting you guys the comfort and versatility you deserve. Maybe in a week or two we'll have something more substantial to give you, but for now we'll need you guys to help us out and provide feedback so future drones will be superior. If you've got any questions, ask now." Navarro grins expectantly, only flinching a little at the sound of the flaming body in the background pulling the arms off of the slimy one and beating the body with them.