=The Factors= 
**Posted by:** Francis Wu, Firewall Filter <**__Info__ __Msg__ __Rep__**>
**Classification:** TOP SECRET/VINEGAR EYES ONLY
While dealing with a race of slimy, deceptive, thieving predators, the Factors have shown surprising restraint. Many sentinels look at the Factors who have, over the past eight years, withheld almost everything about themselves and their motivations, and immediately categorize them as hostile. Given transhumanity’s history of handling native peoples, I would argue the Factors are practically saints. But this isn’t to imply they are safe. The political situation is precarious, and has already led to casualties on both sides. Any misstep, or even nothing at all, could spark a war transhumanity would almost certainly lose.
There has never been a successful interrogation of a Factor, and they have carefully limited our access to their ships. Like an attentive mother, they contain us and filter everything we see. What would we find in her recycler? Inquiring minds would like to know. But to be caught peeking risks attack, economic collapse, perhaps annihilation. Should you be caught between a Factor and a hard place, caution is required, to avoid both traps and causing a second Fall. No agents should be interacting with Factors without the full Factor diplomacy training, but sentinels travel in interesting circles and occasionally find themselves on alien star ships with no recollection of how they arrived. So with that in mind, I have collected a selection of resources for all sentinels going into the field.
The information below is the culmination of extensive research as part of Operation VINEGAR. Much of this intel is unknown to transhumanity, even to the rest of Firewall. I won’t go into detail on how we acquired the data; some of the ops are still ongoing. It’s widely believed in intel circles that no one has yet successfully infiltrated a Factor vessel or examined a dead Factor. Let’s keep it that way.
==Factor Biology== 
Psychology is biology, and to understand why Factors act as they do, first one must understand how. There is still much of Factor biology that is beyond us; the nature of their metabolism, their DNA-equivalent, their planet of origin, and so on. We know they evolved on a dark, energy-poor planet. They are highly omnivorous; they can “breathe” using oxygen locked in minerals or water, can digest most organic matter, and especially enjoy live prey. Most notable is their control over their own genome, expressed in their extreme biodiversity, brought into union by their joining into “mega-organism” colonies.
===Individual Biodiversity=== 
Factors are roughly grouped into phenotypes based on their role, as each individual appears to be morphologically unique, making Linnaean taxonomies unfeasible. Factors have fundamental control over their own genomes, and are able to create individuals with novel features in order to meet environmental pressures (most notably ambassadors with a “face” and mammalian palate and tongue). We do not know exactly how long it takes a colony to produce specifically adapted individual Factors, but we know it is less than eighteen months. It’s not clear if this process is intentional, like transhuman genetic design and engineering, or some unconscious process taken on by the colony in response to stimulus. We do know the Factors are invested in a number of bioengineering and genome library firms, such as Ecologene. It is possible the Factors are actively mining transhumanity for biodiversity they can incorporate into future phenotypes. It’s not certain how far this directed evolution can go, nor what shape Factors might take on a distant exoplanet. Some xenobiologists theorize the “amoeba-like” shape we associate with Factors is itself engineered, to serve as a malleable base for future evolution, and the original species may be unrecognizable compared to the modern example.
===Colony As The Organism=== 
[[image:Factors_DanijelFirak.png width="800" height="560" align="right"]]The ability of Factors to function as individuals or operate as a single, giant organism gave them a physical and mental advantage in their rise to sapience, and defines their modern social structures. The colony may be considered the fundamental unit of defining a Factor, and each individual is like a pseudopod off that. This is a difficult concept for transhumans to master, as there are no common analogs. As a colony, each individual shares (but retains) their knowledge, desires, understandings, and difficulties. They are spawned into the colony and their identity, their ego, lives on in the colony after they die. Each Factor is autonomous and can act competitively, but it is also convinced it is part of a greater identity, for which it will willingly sacrifice itself.
Colonies depend on specialized individuals to provide circulation, digestion, and waste management necessary to large animals. Xenobiologists call these phenotypes “subferous,” and they are marked by rigid muscles, bony protrusions, and a network of vasculature and pores. Without them, individuals suffocate or are gradually poisoned in larger colonies, and movement as a colony is almost impossible.
Colonies may include individual Factors so specialized they are unable to survive on their own, termed “differentiates.” Differentiates give colonies capabilities that individuals lack. Differentiates may contribute offensive adaptations, sophisticated “mindspaces” similar to VR, or perhaps mimic the physiology of another species. Factors guard their secrets about differentiates carefully.
Colonies may take the character of a formless “soup.” The skin of each individual becomes highly elastic and permeable, and it exudes a viscous liquid which provides a medium for biological signaling via neurofilament contact and protein exchanges. The colony lacks the leverage and anchoring to move as a whole, and individuals are kept in contact via their pseudopods, grasping claw-like structures, and surface tension.
With enough subferous Factors, the colony can retain a more solid structure, and provides anchor points for directed muscle movement. This has the appearance of a massive mobile organism with individuals fulfilling their phenotype-specific roles. While physically this creature can be intimidating, something like an eight-ton garden slug, bristling with sensing stalks or armored “foot” plates, the truly dangerous aspect is the colony’s mind; a gestalt of the knowledge and experience of each individual, operating simultaneously and sharing its thoughts perfectly. The creature is not an elephant, but a supercomputer.
While the colony makes complex reasoning simpler by providing a larger mindspace to work with, the colony does not have knowledge that is not possessed by any of the individuals. In a sense, a collection of uneducated individuals will create an uneducated colony. To use the terms of AI researchers, a colony has massive parallel architecture, but a low processing speed, and it is still limited by its programming and learning capabilities.
To imagine the psychology of each member of a colony, first imagine the arm of an octopus removed from its body, still acting out its role as it is designed to support the whole. Now imagine a synergist, an individual who has voluntarily joined their ego with a group. The Factor is the average of those two poles. From the moment of spore dispersal, every Factor is part of the colony. They develop from the whole, where they are impressed with the colony’s psychology and experiences, but develop into an individual. Their first memories and experiences are a truncated portion of the colony’s, but as they act and grow they develop their own and fall under the control of their own neurology, which imposes an individual temperament and preferences. Individuals spend most of their lives as part of the colony, and rejoining reinforces those native mental structures. Psychologically, most Factors consider themselves an organ of the individual (the colony), and rarely do they understand the colony as a product of the individuals. There is no observed personal ambition among individuals. Some Factors are spawned to survive only for a period of months, to fill a particular role while others are created to represent their species indefinitely, and we see no competition between them. Evolutionary biologists believe individuals with such drive could actually be destructive to the survival of the colony, and may even be a form of psychological cancer, which the colony naturally must detect and isolate. This may also explain why Factors have declined offers of transhumans to join their colonies.
Colonies have a maximum size, estimated to be between twenty and one hundred individuals. Colonies can interlink with one another to create a lattice, which permits sharing of information and resources. Each Factor ship is crewed and operated by a single lattice. While we don’t know the relationship between colonies within a lattice, we do see different lattices compete and engage in dominance-play. It is important to remember Factors are natural predators, and it is unlikely any feelings of cooperation extend towards prey.
====Sidebar: Salt to Slugs==== 
**Posted by:** If It Bleeds, Firewall Eraser <**__Info__ __Msg__ __Rep__**>
Well, actually, Factors are bioengineered space bugs, and they’re totally immune to most of our weapons. Guns, stabbing, kicking, none of them will work like they do with exsurgents. They’re like jelly in a bag of skin. When they bleed, the jelly gets hard like glue. That seals up any holes, but it can also glue them onto stuff. It can be pretty funny if it works just right.
Firewall has strict rules about hitting Factors. We can only do it if deemed a “serious threat to the well-being or survival of transhumanity,” so don’t forget to put that line in your After-Action Reports. Make it big. Flamethrowers, explosives, crushed under buildings, falling from heights. Spacing just lets them starve, so mix it up with some disassembler swarms. What works with nine of them might not work with the tenth, so try to kill them in a few different ways.
Factors can make their skin thick or wet, but they have to make it wet to work in a colony. That means the best way to nuke a bunch of them at once is with chemicals. Which chemicals? We don’t know, so try them all. Remember, what’s poisonous to us doesn’t work with them. Balance out your normal poisons with acids or heavy metals.
Factors are good as ambush predators. That means camouflage and traps. But arms, legs, and heavy weapons are ideal for direct action, like pursuit and combat. Until Factors are able to run and carry rocket launchers, we still have an advantage.
==Factor Culture and Society== 
As Sartre said, “Hell is [being brain-bonded with] other people.” Poor Factors, trapped in a permanent state of bureaucracy, without the benefits of small talk, cards over dinner, and civilized adultery. It’s no wonder they’ve traveled the galaxy to trade trinkets, with nothing else to invest their idle time in. Regardless, they must negotiate with us chatty transhumans now; an activity they’ve become well versed in.
===Factor Names=== 
Names are an abstraction Factors have little use for. They continue to ignore attempts to apply names to individual Factors, though they have adopted names for their colonies to acquiesce to the limitations of transhuman minds. These names (originally mistaken as individual names by transhuman diplomats) have so far been based on scents—presumably ones the Factors find appealing.
Various transhuman factions have, of course, applied their own naming/labeling conventions to both individual Factors and distinct ships, usually in the way of code names or numerical designations. Media and popular culture, however, took a different path, identifying specific Factors with simple adjectives related to their role or nature, such as Friendly, Short, Collector, or Cheap. Ships have likewise been named by their general appearance: Jellyfish refers to the Factor ship that first visited Titan, while StubNose refers to the ship that first made contact at Mars. For internal Firewall purposes, we identify individual Factors by given, colony, and ship name, in that order. For example, Shrewd-Oakmoss-Jellyfish refers to the Factor ambassador that first made contact with the Titanians.
===Governance=== 
At first contact, Factors claimed to be ambassadors of a union of extraterrestrial intelligences. They occasionally make references to such a body, implied to be some form of congress of equals. They have yet to introduce any other species, or even provide any artifacts except trinkets possibly scavenged from dead civilizations. Regardless of the veracity of their story, they do understand other government systems, and have been very successful at interfacing with (and circumventing) our own governments.
There does not seem to be any government between the known Factor ships. There is communication and specialized roles, but no sign of a central authority or enforced hierarchy, or a set of laws. Each of the ships has its own modus operandi, behaviorisms, and, apparently, its own goals. Stub-Nose primarily pursues hard technology such as ship and habitat designs, while Jellyfish focuses on biological sciences. The two have been known to compete directly, and at one point the Jellyfish intercepted a shuttle acquired by the Stub-Nose after months of negotiations. The fallout of this competition is unknown.
===Factor Spiritualism=== 
The Factors do not take a romantic view of death or birth, and do not claim any religion (despite the efforts of Jesuit missionaries sent by the Jovians). Factors usually seem nonplussed by the threat of death, but do become more risk-averse the longer they are separated from the colony. They do have a philosophical view of serendipity, and good or ill fortune is sometimes attributed to a set of kinesic strictures. The size, shape, position, and environment of the body is said to cause good or bad things to befall the colony, similar to feng shui but applied to the self. Factors acknowledge this is superstition and now more of a turn of phrase, but it suggests a more robust spiritual belief existed earlier.
===Art, Sport, and Leisure=== 
Colonies strongly value time in communion. Most Factors seek to spend most of their time joined to the colony, or at least with groups of Factors. Factors even seem to prefer the company of transhumans, even without any detectable communication, to being alone. Exile is considered equivalent to torturous death, but seems to be used more as a threat or turn-of-phrase than an actual punishment. Factor trades frequently focus on books, genomes, exoplanet maps, and similar items. However, individual Factors don’t seem to be especially interested in them. Even when translated into a more friendly medium, such as audio, Factors grow bored or frustrated, likely because transhuman art is usually serial; music is expressed as one note following the other, while the Factor mind digests data in parallel. The ordering of events is of less interest than the relation between points.
Factors as a rule are better wooed with gifts of sculptures, perfumes, and food, which are easier for them to physically and mentally appreciate. Factors are known to envelope certain pieces and hold them in their bodies for hours or days. Factor dealer Dark-Mahogany-Porcupine said that “art is best appreciated by [a] colony, and it is lamentable [transhumans] can not.” Several labs, especially around Luna, developed perfumes with scents ranging from vinegar to rotted leaves that are intended to appeal to Factor senses. Of special note is a Titanian commune that is attempting to encode a collection of sensations chemically and relate them to one another using special tactile or flavor-based tags. The project has gotten a good deal of attention, including from the Factors.
Two Factor ships are decorated with complex bas-reliefs (of non-Factor species), and most contain
rooms or narrow tunnels studded with chemically-embedded barbs, intended to elicit a particular mind-state. The Factors have shared a number of objects of artistic interest with transhumans. They
claim ownership of most of them, but the wide range of styles suggests a variety of sources. Most of the gifts have been physical objects of unknown meaning. If seen out of context, some would appear to be naturally-occurring stones, the creation of minor transhuman artists, or even the results of biological processes. The Factors admitted that their finer art cannot be properly experienced or understood by transhumans, and so they intentionally select those they feel are at our level.
We know that the Factors engage in at least one “sport”: a game spanning several weeks that involves two or more colonies slowly moving around the play area, apparently to secure one of several winning positions. They are also familiar with games similar to table tennis or catch. They enjoy mental challenges, and famously purchased S* Plus, the most prolific producer of sudoku puzzles for the inner system.
==Factor Communications== 
Factors have little use for the abstraction of language. Factors can join neural filaments, permitting them to share multiple complex, interlocking concepts almost telepathically. They communicate remotely by encoding critical information in chemical packets to be dispersed or deposited, which are then digested and understood by the recipient. Translating this complex process into language is one of the greatest barriers of diplomatic relations. So far, only the Factors have bridged that gap (in part because of their refusal to provide better data to our engineers). Diplomatic Factors have specially evolved organs that interface into a carried computer, which translates their neural activity into approximations of transhuman language. Usually this is transmitted via standard mesh protocols to the recipients’ AR. A few special Factors have a mouth and tongue and will speak on their own. I have seen exsurgents eat their own entrails, and I don’t think they are as terrifying as seeing a two-meter amoeba speak out of a human mouth.
Because of the complexities, learning how to speak with Factors is a skill of its own. For them, language is slow, awkward, and error-prone. Their struggle to limit their thoughts to words shows in how they talk. They speak in short statements, to minimize accidentally transposing words or ideas. Their use of pronouns (especially “we”) is frequently ambiguous. They take long pauses or stop speaking altogether as the mood strikes. Factors mark intonation and emotion with releases of scents, many of which we have identified and can now interpret. In order to avoid causing offense or accidentally emitting something that might be taken as a message, transhuman diplomats carefully select their morphs and limit exposure to scents for several days (including food).
Factors are capable of using the mesh, but are reluctant to do so except with their own hardened devices. When use of an unsecured mesh is required, they use limited AIs or intermediaries. They do use their own version of a mesh on their ships, and with each other when necessary, but their protocols and code are vastly different from our own.
Factors appreciate transhuman humor in an abstract way, especially physical humor (puns do not translate well). Factors do have their own sense of humor, which seems to orient mostly around unexpected windfall at the expense of another.
===Sidebar: Essence Essentials=== 
As Factors interpret and express concepts as scents, some familiarity with common associations may be helpful.
||~ Scent ||~ Association ||
|| Isopropyl Alcohol || Anger or Frustration ||
|| Walnuts || Embarrassment (possibly for the speaker) ||
|| Ash || Joy or amusement ||
|| Trout || Arousal ||
|| Kerosene || Fear ||
|| Celery || Disgust ||
|| Burnt Vanilla || Physical trauma or death ||
Sentinels are encouraged to smell and record Factors, and include this in their After-Action Reports.
==Factor Attitudes== 
Our observations of the Factors are limited to a handful of ships across a few hundred interactions. Still, a few traits seem to consistently show through: avarice and risk-aversion bordering on paranoia. The former we understand only too well, the latter not nearly well enough.
===Sales and Profits=== 
In their normal relations, Factors put on a very human face. They are classic capitalists. Very little is given without a price or an opportunity for future profit. Van Neuk, LLA ambassador to the Factors, said “they will sell you the chest for a fortune, and then the key for twice that.” They are active in both the credit and reputation markets, usually through intermediaries, and they spend capital as quickly as it accumulates. In practice, the Factors prefer to sell goods to the Consortium and Luna, where hard cash is the rule. In Titan space, they share art and digital goods, properly branded and impeccably marketed, to accrue maximal reputation boosts.
Selling to the Factors is a patience game. They may take months to evaluate a trade, especially if there is potential for fraud. A given item may be carbon-dated, x-rayed, t-rayed, exposed to vacuum, shipped to a private holder around Neptune then back to the seller before they will decide to drop the deal with no explanation. When the Factors are selling, they insist any testing be completed by other Factors (since only they have the tools to understand what is being sold). Given the cost of purchasing Factor services for anything, few buyers bother. This should not imply the Factors are always ponderous. They have recognized and discreet buying agents who can locate and close on an item before it even hits market—if the Factors are sure it’s something they want.
And what is transhumanity’s profit from these exchanges? In truth, we frequently don’t know. Certainly Factor goods are universally interesting, but without knowing an item’s origin, who can say if it’s actually a tactile expression of beauty or a useless novelty? And without being certain what things are, extracting scientific value becomes a fool’s game. This is a truth all of us are aware of, but even the droppings from their plate are enough for us to keep scrambling for their favor.
===Security=== 
The Factors compete with the Jovians for paranoid security-focus. Everything is scanned and evaluated, most things are handled through disposable intermediaries. Systems are air-gapped, individuals are quarantined. It’s difficult to appreciate the depth of their security because their first-level measures conceal the other measures they take.
===Pandora Gates=== 
On the political level, the Factors decried two things as security risks: seed AIs and Pandora gates. As advanced alien technology, the gates do pose a clear threat to our survival. Despite this, we have not ruled out the possibility that the Factors also secretly use the gates, due to evidence of their presence in numerous gate-linked extrasolar systems. The Factors have not taken any overt action to stop transhuman gate use beyond ominous warnings and veiled threats. If we are to believe them, their lack of action is permitting us a second chance at self-eradication.
Economic game theorists suggest there are other reasons why the Factors might warn us away from the gates. Most benign: the gates remove the Factors’ technological advantage. If this is the case, it implies we are not likely to find other friendly alien civilizations in the near future. If contact was likely, it would behoove the Factors to act more aggressively in curtailing our use.
The other theory is: there is incriminating evidence of the Factors’ previous relations with client species. Under this theory, the Factors will extract as much value from transhumanity as possible, while positioning military assets. Once transhumanity discovers the Factors’ history, the Factors will transition to gunboat politics or possibly war. This could very well be a war that transhumanity could not win. If this theory is true, it behooves us to keep any findings about the Factors secured. Both Firewall and the Planetary Consortium have capped a tight lid around gatecrashing teams returning with evidence of Factor activities in other systems. The Consortium has gone so far as to collect the evidence and destroy the team—a regrettable but perhaps wise choice, given the difficulty of guaranteeing the silence of a tenured academic. Firewall has also found evidence of Factor activities in multiple other systems, but any further analysis is heavily restricted. All you need to know is: we don’t think this theory is true, but we’re not betting against it either.
===Artificial Intelligence=== 
The Factors’ distrust of artificial intelligence is deeply ingrained. Factors do have specialized AI, but for more complex tasks they rely on genetically engineered Factor hybrids. Factors are willing to work with transhuman AIs, including muses, but they distrust and refuse to work with AGIs and even some infomorphs. They also respond poorly to synthmorphs, though this varies.
The TITANs were seed AIs, so again this distrust seems to be well-founded. However, the Factors dismiss discussions about the exsurgent virus, and they refuse to use even safe AGIs. When pressed, Factor ambassador Broker-Cedar-Hammerhead said the AI threat is “not well known” by transhumans, implying the Factor warning is not about seed AIs bringing the Fall; it’s about what they are yet to do.
==Factor Relations== 
Factor interactions have been mercantile and carefully coached to their own advantage. In response, we are falling over ourselves to sell our heritage for their cast-offs. It’s not clear what will happen when transhumanity runs out of valuables to pawn or if capitalism is even the Factors’ real motivation. The Factors created the game, and have declined to tell us the rules.
===Intraspecies Relations=== 
We have witnessed Factor ships transmitting short messages to one another, or leaving buoys. Outside of that, Factors avoid communicating while in transhuman space. Factor ships respect each other’s zones of control, and avoid trading where another is active. Most likely, this is an agreement on how to cut the pie. Given their paranoia in other areas, it’s also possible this is a method of quarantine, to prevent any transhuman infections from spreading. If there is any friction between ships, it is not something they discuss.
===Inner System Relations=== 
The Factors trade aggressively with the inner system, primarily in material goods such as telecommunications and computer systems, ship parts, and heavy construction tools, as well as Earth and cultural artifacts. Initially, all communications were carefully managed by the LLA government directly, or through the Consortium’s dedicated agency, the Department of Extrasolar Commerce, or DESC (which, interestingly enough, is not part of Oversight). Since first contact, the Factors scolded the Consortium repeatedly for their use of the Martian Gate, and they have since reached out to some of the hypercorps directly, as well as the Morningstar Constellation. The Consortium strong-arms member corporations where it can in an attempt to re-establish its position as a unified power bloc, but the damage is done. In turn, the Consortium threatened to withdraw their protections of the Egg orbiting Mercury, which the Factors ignored.
The Consortium and the LLA both place taxes and safety restrictions on any technologies sold by the Factors. This has encouraged some smaller hypercorps to consider shifting more of their operations to the Morningstar Alliance or Extropia. Meanwhile, DESC has expanded to include an enforcement and espionage role, to track and interfere with Factor deals outside of the approved channels. They are most active in this role outside of Consortium space, which has led to some raw nerves with their neighbors, but the Factors have yet to complain.
===Jovian Relations=== 
The Jovian government has officially shunned the Factors as dangerous and untrustworthy. Jovian ambassadors and the Hammerhead ship met for a historical closed-door summit at Locus. Since then there have been many exchanges by radio, but the Factors avoid Jovian space.
This is not to imply there are no relations. The Vatican has sent eight Jesuit missionaries to visit
Factor ships, and are queuing up many more. Based on their findings thus far, the Vatican has formally declared the Factors as intelligent creatures in need of God’s grace. They established a small habitat called Xavier orbiting at the edge of Jupiter’s sphere of influence, where they called the Factors to visit, to receive spiritual services including baptism. The Factors have visited twice, but are not confirmed believers.
====Sidebar: Coming To God==== 
**Posted by:** Herodotwo <**__Info__ __Msg__ __Rep__**>
The use of missionaries isn’t just Christian charity. The Jesuits especially have a reputation for entering hostile countries and opening them up for later colonialism. Even among other Catholics, they’re considered too tricky by half.
Expect these fellows to be modest and soft-spoken, but also to carry multiple PhDs, with strong survival skills, and none of that Jovian dogmatism. Once they make contact, they’re permanently marked as an infection risk by the Junta. That means they’re signing up for a lifetime of exile for a few days of proselytizing. I hope it’s worth it.
===Autonomous Alliance Relations=== 
Many autonomous habitats take a dim view of Factors, owing to their exploitative bargaining tactics and deceptive behaviors. Some have publicly declared Factors an x-threat, and warned against dealing with them. Others enjoy the opportunity to interact with a truly alien species. The Factors are not as active rimward, but they have been known to conduct fly-bys and scans, without communication, on their way in and out of the system. These silent visits are especially frequent near moons with Pandora Gates, getting as close as five thousand kilometers to the surface. Go-nin especially has protested the visits, but the Factors have not responded.
Some habitats are eager to make contact and trade, either out of novelty or for a chance for fame or profit. A few go so far as to mold asteroids or transmit poetry in hope of attracting Factor attention. The Factors have a few favorite artists they return to, such as the reclusive Praesly hiding on Habitat on the Rock, and MeatHab.
The Factors make regular diplomatic visits to Titan. These usually include a promise of peace and prosperity, followed by a litany of direst warnings about AGI development and gate activities, then dinner. Trade, when it occurs, is focused on the exchange of cultural goods, such as art and items of historical interest. Titan (and some other habitats) work through the organization Contact, part of the Ministry of Science, whose ranks include specialists in Factor relations. In addition to providing diplomatic and security services, Contact streams the encounters via the mesh. Followers across the system watch and comment on the encounter as it unfolds, and Contact AGIs coordinate the feedback to provide smart-mob analysis back to the participants.
==Factor Capabilities== 
The Factors’ key technology is in their bioengineering, which they use to fill every niche from cybernetics to advanced computing. They claim to be well advanced of transhumanity in the use of other technologies as well, but we believe we’re less than twenty years behind observed Factor engineering.
===Factor Ships and Habitats=== 
There are now six recognized Factor ships, each with its own lattice as crew. Additional ship sightings have been claimed, but not confirmed. All of them are designated by their shape. Stub-Nose (first contact at Mars), Hammerhead (first contact at Luna), Jellyfish (first contact at Titan), and Porcupine (first contact in the Neptunian Trojans) were the first four known, are larger, and engage in the bulk of trade. Two smaller and newer ships, Needle-Nose and Nettle, arrived two years later, visit infrequently for varying lengths of time, and rarely interact with transhumans except via transmissions. Factor trade visits are very brief; frequently the ship will not even enter orbit, and instead send shuttles to conduct business for several hours before returning. The ships are as diverse as their crews. Most of the ships feature similar manufacture, but none are identical in model. As a general rule, they feature a wide bulge in the fore, presumably for their reactionless or perhaps FTL drives, a slender body behind, and a set of reaction drives at the rear. Scans suggest the ship interior is tight, almost claustrophobic. Transhumans have been permitted to visit some areas, and report the interior open with wide corridors, but built without any preference for up or down. Only one of the traders features rotating tori to produce gravity. Their reactionless drives are significantly faster and more powerful than transhuman equivalents; it takes about two months for them to travel from Mercury to the Kuiper Belt—slightly faster than an antimatter courier. The ships have a radiation signature similar to antimatter, but with a marked absence of background neutrinos. Given the speed of round-trips, it’s assumed the Factors have a permanent station somewhere within the Oort Cloud, but scans have thus far been unsuccessful. Rumors of an aerostat station in Uranus seem unlikely, as the ships never stray much closer to the planet than Oberon. So far, the possibility of a Factor habitat is just speculation. Attempts to track Factor ships or extrapolate their flight paths have produced nothing useful; the ships are mysteriously lost once they are deep within the Kuiper Belt.
Radio communications between Factor ships are rare, usually low-bandwidth, and involves a complex two-way challenge and answer pattern. Their communications are always heavily encrypted, but traffic analysis suggests either they intentionally throttle their own communications to the bare minimum, or they use radio frequencies as a handshake to establish a communications method outside our detection. Given previous competition between ships, it’s likely Factors eschew remote communications in the system.
===Factor Robotics===
[[image:eclipse-phase/FactorCapabilities_MarkMolnar.png width="800" height="560" align="right"]]Many Factors are spawned with gold-colored patches, where conductive interfaces can be attached for using computers or robotics. Factors rarely take advantage of tools made in silicon and metal, except to deal with transhumans or use transhuman tools. Factors will also use suits or drones for operating in hostile environments. Much like their ships, these vary widely in body layout and technical capabilities, but they do have a preference for transhuman-manufactured tools.
====Sidebar: Tech Curve==== 
**Excerpted From:** //DESC Analysis of the Factor/Consortium Technology Gap//
For each technological category, listed is the number of calendar years believed to be required, and the number of work-hours in research and development. Because many technologies require interdisciplinary coordination or long periods for testing, the two figures do not always have a direct correlation. All values are estimated, based on observed Factor technology and artifacts, with a margin of error of 50 percent.
||~ Technology ||~ Years Difference (est.) ||~ Work-hours Required (est.) ||
||= Ship-Engineering ||= 8 ||= 10<span style="vertical-align: super;">9</span> hours ||
||= Propulsion Drives ||= 16 ||= 10<span style="vertical-align: super;">10</span> hours ||
||= Genetic Engineering ||= 25 ||= 10<span style="vertical-align: super;">10</span> hours ||
||= Nanotechnology ||= 20 ||= 10<span style="vertical-align: super;">9</span> hours ||
||= Computer Technology ||= 4 ||= 10<span style="vertical-align: super;">7</span> hours ||
||= Habitat Engineering ||= No Information Available ||= No Information Available ||
||= Robotics ||= 5 ||= 10<span style="vertical-align: super;">8</span> hours ||
||= Chemical Engineering ||= 18 ||= 10<span style="vertical-align: super;">9</span> hours ||
||= Mechanical Engineering ||= 15 ||= 10<span style="vertical-align: super;">8</span> hours ||
==Factor Assets==
The Factors have established confidential business relationships with a few small firms to provide basic services for them, mostly scouting for items of interest or managing the review and preparations for a Factor purchase while the ship is out-of-system. These business agents are stereotypically as slimy as He3 resellers, willing to break laws and hide their identities if it secures their commission. The Factors publicly disavow any control over their transhuman intermediaries, and do not protect them from any legal repercussions.
It’s strongly suspected the Factors hire deniable assets as well. Tracking this has proven impossible. It’s too easy for an organization with unlimited funds to work through anonymous channels. If the Factors are planning anything with mercenary forces, we won’t know until they tighten the noose—and even then we might not know who is behind it. The Factors have become a sort of bugbear in some intelligence communities; the mysterious force responsible for any unexplained paramilitary action.
==Extrasolar Activities==
The Factors flew in using interstellar craft, claiming to be ambassadors for an alliance of alien species, yet less is known about their extrasolar activities than almost any other aspect of their lives. No other species have been seen or even alluded to, except for the artifacts provided in trade. While their reactionless drives should permit them to move nearly at the speed of light, that still limits them to the local neighborhood, even with generation ships. If they are capable of faster than light travel, they’re keeping it out of sight.
We’ve encountered individual Factors on exoplanets, and have also found evidence of Factors on others: Factor dust and artifacts similar to those they’ve traded with us. We do not know how they came to be there. FTL travel is possible, but each exoplanet has also had a Pandora gate. If they do use Pandora gates when it suits them (no blue box devices have been found), they may know the network better than we do.
The existence of Factor exoplanet explorers poses another mystery. Factors describe the colony as essential to living. Yet the Factors encountered on exoplanets have always been lone operators. Are these individuals specially created for solitary living? A subspecies adapted to individualism? Or is antisocial behavior so dangerous to a colony mind that they are put into exile?
===Sidebar: Intergalactic Empire or Space Hobos?===
**Notes from Dr. Bainbridge’s presentation, “Space Hobos and Other Mysteries”
ETI Conference 04.10.08**
”Since day one, we have supposed the Factors are participants of a galaxy-spanning civilization, perhaps their alliance of alien species, or simply a Factor empire of which Sol is just another backwater. These both presuppose one of two basic assumptions that may be summarized by a simple categorization: the Factors are capable of faster-than-light travel. Be it by Pandora gate or some unknown type of FTL drive, a way of exchanging people and communications quickly over vast distances is a requirement for any sort of far-flung empire. No empire has been able to keep stable colonies further than twelve months away, and while we can assume the Factors have technologies to partially alleviate this, the precondition remains, and a non-FTL empire may not expand beyond a few neighboring stars.
We have already mapped sufficient gates to find points of common intersection, which permits us to estimate the size of the network at large, and even at high factors of light speed, they are limited to visible stars, of which we see little evidence of other civilizations. It is quite feasible they have an advanced communications method, silent to our best technology, but we have seen no evidence of new personalities among our six tracked ships. Regardless, one must ask how their galactic civilization survives when so many others have fallen.
Thusly, judging solely on the evidence available, I opine that in fact no such civilization exists. The Factors are bands of nomads, seeking points of warmth to exchange technology and knowledge before moving on. The diversity of ship types, of the goods they sell, belies a long history of visiting other civilizations. Their story of ambassadorship is factually true; they represent alien species in the stories and technologies they’ve collected, to which transhumanity is surely being added. I predict the rumored Oort Cloud facility is true; a place for them to refuel and communicate without transhuman interference. But this is not a self-supporting naval outpost as some claim, but rather a tent camp hidden from sight, providing respite and a place to clean oneself before seeking alms.
To many, this idea may sound relieving; Earth does not exist on the edge of a conquering empire! But I fear this is far more pessimistic. We have visited thousands of worlds, all scoured clean. It is foolhardy to imagine we survived by luck the extinction threat which felled so many. Our doom still lies ahead of us. The Factors have survived so long because only they have discovered the safe path: eschew all new scientific development. Leave the embrace of home, for it will burn. Wander the cold of space, in hopes of warming yourself momentarily by another’s fire.
Thank you, and good night.”
==Speculation==
The Factors thrive on mystery, so naturally we thrive on rumors. Most stories about the Factors are delicious to the point of ridiculousness. This doesn’t make them false, so it’s worth reporting those rumors (with sources) to your proxy. I’ve selected a few choicest for your consumption here. If desired, there’s a cornucopia available on the Eye.
===Dangerous Unions===
It’s believed that non-Factors can be integrated with a colony, but it’s not clear if that would be a good idea. It may be colonies integrate with prey as a method to paralyze it, ideal for digesting it alive over several weeks. Perhaps the colony can consume the prey’s mind as well, extracting insights into the species and learning their secrets.
The Factors claim to be ambassadors for other species. This is possibly a falsehood, suggesting a cooperative past where there is none. But should the Factors be capable of keeping individuals alive and subjugated to a colony, it could be literally true. For all we know, they may already have assimilated transhuman minds into their colonies, to learn more about us. Firewall SOP is that an individual completely destroy their brain and stack rather than risk becoming a member of that alliance.
===Political Interference===
The Factors have relationships with a number of hypercorps and a vested interest in particular polities (especially inner system ones) succeeding. The current balance of power could be easily shifted by an influx of currency, technology, or intelligence, and any Factor influence would be lost in the normal static of political competition. Should there be a sudden political upheaval, especially some type of black swan event, we must entertain the possibility it is the first stage in a Factor invasion. More immediately, sentinels cannot predict the sort of resources Factors may leverage to derail a mission.
===Naval Facilities===
The Factors don’t take pit stops, but they use fuel, water, and life support. Almost certainly they have a local station, perhaps in the Oort Cloud. If they operate like transhumans, this station will also support long-distance cargo haulers, and possibly military ships for direct combat or espionage.
Hiding facilities is quite easy. The solar system is large, and as long as your facility is cold (as in, not generating power or maneuvering), it’s easy to disappear in the voids of deep space or under the cloud cover of a gas giant. There are rumors about a Factor aerostat hidden deep in the clouds of Uranus. This is not as implausible as some would have us think, but while the Factors have visited the Uranian system many times, we have not identified any suspicious activity indicating such a thing. If such a facility does exists on Uranus, however, there are almost certainly more.

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