Nobbies

Summary
The nobbies are a former race of servitor robots, freed by their master upon her death many decades ago. They have the power to repair and self-replicate, but the amount and frequency is sharply limited by their programming. Their purpose was to "grant happiness" to their creator. Originally, they only served their creator on her small, one-person space station out towards the galactic rim. When their creator died of extreme old age, she felt so indebted to the nobbies that she set them free. Now they believe that their purpose has been expanded to all life. Perhaps as a result of their idiosyncratic creator, however, they have an odd way of going about it.

Nobbies can be very difficult to predict, but they usually leave the overall situation better than when they arrived. Their appearance in a new place will always cause some small amount of aggravation for the inhabitants, but they will also provide some advantage or benefit to their hosts, sometimes fixing problems that the organics did not even know they had.

Nobbies further discovered that organics were much more tolerant of their traveling around the galaxy when they did so in small groups, as the sight of a swarm of small robots crawling all over a space station or ship often caused alarm. As such, they travel in varying small vessels usually ranging in size between a shuttle and a freighter. They further keep to the galactic rim and do not usually cause mischief in the core worlds. As a result, the Coalition has never bothered banning their use of the gates.

Biology
Nobbies themselves are approximately one meter tall. In appearance, they can vary somewhat depending on the modifications or repairs that a particular unit has gone through. Generally, they look something like a bipedal duck, with a triangular protrusion from the front of their face and a short stumpy body. Nobbies usually have two arms (although a unit specializing in zero-g repairs might see a use for a third upper limb) and a metallic exterior. Nobbies will often decorate themselves in festive colors, often customized to the system that they are temporarily operating in (as different colors have different meanings and effects on different species). Generally, nobbies attempt to appear non-threatening and cheerful, encouraging organics to let them go about their business unimpeded.

Nobbies’ exteriors are often rough hewn due to their periodic self-repairs and extensive modifications, but their work is uniformly excellent. They are modular by nature and can interface, given enough time, with almost any electronic system in Coalition space. They can, and do, adapt to new situations through self-modification and tackle new problems with apparent cheerfulness and confidence. Somewhat contrary to their peaceful mannerisms, nobbies usually possess an armored exoskeleton and hardened computer systems. These secured computer systems are actually an integral aspect of the nobbies themselves. One of the few things that will provoke a nobby to abandon its mission and refuse aid to an organic is an attempt to meddle with their programming. The nobbies take the integrity of their internal systems very seriously, on par with their commitment to the personal sanctity of organics and the importance of self-determination. The nobbies do all they can to secure themselves from external interference and any attempt to interfere with their mission in such a fashion is taken as an attack.

Nobbies are capable of self-repair and self-replication, but their replication is strictly controlled by an internal program set in place by their creator to prevent an accident. Nobbies will generally return “home” to Turoseo and consult the latest census data before making a decision about whether to construct a new unit.

Nobbies share data, including memories and interactions, whenever they encounter one another. As a result, individual nobbies rarely stay that way for long. If a person befriends a nobby, that friendship will rapidly expand until every nobby in the vicinity can (and will) show the same “emotional” attachment and friendly attitude. While individual units obviously exist, there is little to distinguish them to outsiders besides almost imperceptible visual cues. Organic researchers claim that there is some personality drift, part of why the nobbies are not considered a hive-mind, but there are few who can tell the difference. The nobbies also happily change their own names when they are encountered, depending on who they are interacting with, in order to seem more familiar. A human and a kral’shir might call the same nobby “Fred” and “Rortinak” respectively, making continuous identification even more difficult.

History
The story of the nobbies begins with their creator, a tlecian female from an uplift fleet sent to invite a distant new species to the Coalition. Already separated from their species and the Chime by an entire lifetime of travel (meaning that any message and response would take two generations, at least until the tlecians completed the lengthy construction of a gate), the fleet arrived to find a desolated world with the last survivors of the species they meant to welcome into the galactic sphere suffering through the final stages of a catastrophe. Despite the tlecian’s belief that the species had navigated through the risky period of self-destruction that confronts most intelligent life, a bio-weapon had raged out of control and decimated the planet.

The tlecian fleet reacted to the news with an uncharacteristically discordant note. There was some contention about whether it would be worthwhile to attempt to salvage what was left of their mission, although rescuing the dwindling population of the planet below seemed incredibly dangerous due to the contagion. A sizeable party proposed that they simply turn around and head back, leaving the gate un-built and thus isolating the system from the rest of the galaxy and preventing any possible transmission of the bio-weapon to other populated systems. Eventually, the faction arguing for the construction of the gate that would allow them all to return home in a matter of years instead of decades won out. The nobbies’ creator was amongst those who argued that, despite the sacrifice of so much time away from the Chime, they owed it to the rest of the galaxy to isolate the system and its deadly inheritance.

When the tlecian fleet finally finished their work and completed the gate, they returned home to a mixed welcome. Tlecian society and culture changes fast, and the Chime can seem alien to those who are separated from it for even a little while. The nobbies’ creator could not make a harmony with her kind any longer. She took a name from the ancient tongues (Sujurani, “Sorrowful Song”) and left her people behind. She returned to the now abandoned system, allowed by her sympathetic kin to take up a solitary residence in the now quarantined system onboard a small space station orbiting a distant gas giant she named Turoseo.

Over the years, Sujurani grew lonesome despite her continuing desire for isolation from the discordance of the Chime. A skilled programmer and engineer, Sujurani constructed a robotic servitor for herself. Over time, she began to experiment and improve on her design and the project began to take on a life of its own. As Sujurani aged, she eventually gave up on dreams of using the nobbies (an affectionate term they adopted from her original project title) to find a way to purify the now dead garden world in the system and began to rely on them increasingly for friendship and company. Upon her eventual death, she freed the nobbies as a gesture of gratitude.

The Coalition had long since withdrawn the quarantine of the system after a scientific review board confirmed that the bio-weapon had finally dissipated, although all life down to the basest bacteria had been destroyed. The system was still not a popular destination for terraformers and colonists, and the area quickly became a dead end. When the Nobbies finally began to poke their heads out into the galaxy at large, they garnered attention but little alarm. After quickly agreeing to a review by top Coalition engineers of their programming, provided no changes were made, the nobbies were eventually set free (some say as a result of tlecian pressure to honor the memory of one of their lost kin). The nobbies’ strict programming prevented out of control reproduction, required regular adjustments back to “factory standard” for ethical subroutines, and mandated charitable nature convinced their examiners that they meant little harm. They also lacked the sort of aggressive hardware or software that would make them an extreme danger if an error did occur.

Since then, the nobbies have been a small factor in the affairs of the galaxy. They journey from place to place, causing minor disruptions for both good and ill. In their wake, however, those they visit always admit (albeit sometimes grudgingly) that it was for the best.

Culture
The nobbies believe in freedom as a path to self betterment, reasoning that no individual or species is happy unless they make up their own mind and strive for their own goals. To begin with, a nobby will never infringe on the physical integrity of another being without express permission. Over many decades, they also learned that their creator was never happy when they radically altered her surroundings or tried to take actions "for her betterment" that she did not choose for herself. That being said, organics also sometimes believe they want or need something simply because they have grown accustomed to it and don't understand what they're missing. The nobbies might not empty the liquor cabinet of an old man with a handful of years left to live who has a slightly unhealthy love of alcohol, but they probably would destroy a young addict's stash (and then synthesize a helpful drug cocktail to relieve withdrawal symptoms and then stick around for a month or two performing dance routines as a distraction).

Nobbies typically organize themselves into small “colonies” based around one or more space-faring vessels. These fleets will adjust and reform themselves when nobbies cross paths with one another. These colonies can have different experiences and vary in size, but nobbies typically organize themselves along fairly uniform lines, with total membership usually ranging between a half dozen and thirty and rarely traveling in flotillas larger than three ships. They have refused to adopt identifiers provided for them by researchers, politely explaining that by accepting monikers they are showing signs of allegiance that might interfere with their mission.

The only colony of the Nobbies that has a consistent location, although its membership can fluctuate wildly, is in orbit around their home system of Turoseo. This is typically called the “Turoseo Colony” by outsiders and the Nobbies do not seem to mind the name, although they will translate it into their listener’s language whenever possible to avoid cultural affinity with any particular group.

Religion
Nobbies have no religion beyond their mission. Bringing happiness to a diverse universe is an imposing task and the nobbies do not take it lightly. Over time, the Nobbies have learned to strike a balance between non-interference and meddling. Nobbies generally limit themselves to small scale tasks and endeavors to avoid grand well-meaning actions that could create accidental side effects, concluding that larger projects generally lead to unpredictability and accidental misery. Nobbies believe in personal freedom above all else, although they will sometimes act contrary to an individual’s stated desire if the benefit is clear and direct enough.

Nobbies will also avoid actions that could be construed as supporting or enabling violence; a nobby would repair a damaged ship’s engines but probably not its weapons. Nobbies will not use weapons to stop a conflict, but they might temporarily restrain two combatants until tempers cool. If two opponents appear to be committed enemies, however, the nobbies will usually stand aside and hope to provide aid to the survivors after the fighting is through.

Economy
The nobbies do not have a currency and rarely carry valuable items onboard their vessels, so as to avoid becoming targets for organics. Whenever possible, nobbies will manufacture their goods from raw materials that they harvest themselves before they distribute it. A nobby will provide help to a person in need and never ask for payment. If that person has a glut of something that could be used by another party (typically non-critical spare parts, medical supplies, or other similar items that the nobbies couldn’t make themselves) a nobby will ask for a donation. If such a donation is refused (or if the nobbies believe that asking would be pointless based on their assessment of the individual), nobbies will often steal in order to satisfy their mission.

Nobbies will also, occasionally, trade in favors. When the nobbies identify individuals or groups devoted to charitable endeavors, they will simply refer others to them whenever the nobbies cannot rectify a situation themselves. In other instances, however, they may need to call upon greater resources to fix a particularly complex problem. In such a situation, the nobby would direct a person in need to someone that the nobbies have previously helped and who has yet to make any kind of recompense.

Civilian Ship classes:

Language
The nobbies are capable of wireless communication with one another (and compatible computer systems) over limited distances, but their creator told them that organics got lonely when it was too quiet. As a result, the nobbies will talk out loud (usually in the form of a cheerful chirping) between themselves wherever they go. When not in the presence of organics, nobbies reputedly will revert to wireless data transmission alone, but they will always speak (even when under observation and asked not to) when in the presence of an organic individual. This electronic chirping is easily translatable and the nobbies are perfectly capable of conversing with other creatures, although they have little to say on issues outside the bounds of their mission.

Military
The nobbies do not engage in warfare, even in self defense. However, their ships typically sport impressive defenses and thick armor and nobbies are capable of rapidly repairing structural damage to their vessels. If attacked, nobbies will flee. In addition, nobbies determined long ago that limiting the value of their vessels as targets was the best deterrent against attack or theft. Their ships never carry valuable cargo and nobbies will self-terminate when violent capture seems imminent. As a result, engaging in combat with nobbies provides little benefit beyond target practice. Even attempting to use nobbies for such purposes would simply cause them to cease evasive maneuvers and spoil the fun.

Notable Planets
Turoseo – The planet itself is a gas giant, roughly translating as “Secluded Peace”. The Nobbies still maintain and occupy the small space station in orbit around Turoseo that their creator called home, along with a large (by their standards, anyway) flotilla of ships. This flotilla will fluctuate in size depending on recent arrivals and departures by other nobby groups, but Turoseo is a close as a nobby has to a home. The station has long been stripped down to its superstructure, due to the nobbies giving away all of the items that organics might find useful from their creator’s old possessions. The station is not outfitted for mining and has little economic value. The nobbies have preserved the entirety of their creator’s home, and images of her form in the form of highly detailed holograms, limiting any nostalgic value it might have (if the nobbies even experience such things). It is not clear why they still maintain the station.