God-Poking Tank

SNARgocz-class applied eschatology vehicle

Builders:

Probable Technologies, ICC, based on an original design by the Society of Nanoscale Artisan-Researchers

Length: 48'
Width: 20'
Height: 16'

Propulsion:

• Dual Treadwell tracked drivetrain, powered by
• Empire Nucleonics, ICC, "Ember"-type low-power radiothermal generator

Maximum speed: 15 mph (naked); 5 mph (shielded)

Complement: 3 (1 driver; 2 technicians)

Armament: None

Armor:

• ½" anti-nanotech laminate
• SNAR "Globbery" phlegm system

This ugly bucket of obsolete parts is the SNARgocz-class applied eschatology vehicle, designed to poke its nose into places where there are, or at least might be, active nanotechnological blooms and retrieve data, samples, and specific items from within.

"Ugly bucket of obsolete parts", incidentally, is not a pejorative, but an accurate description. Among the many principles of forensic eschatology is don't feed the eschaton. As a consequence, the SNARgocz is deliberately manufactured using simple, low-energy technologies to give any blooms it encounters as little to work with as possible. As for ugly... well, we'll get to that part.

The main cabin of the SNARgocz is a simple rectangular block, divided into three: an engineering room at the back, a driving position forward, and the laboratory section in the middle. Motive power is provided by split, full-height rollers at front and rear of the vehicle, driving the massive full-length tracks which surround the cabin above and below, resting on 32 idler rollers each. Splitting the rollers permits the tracks to be controlled independently to steer the vehicle.

The SNARgocz cabin is small and cramped by Imperial standards, maintained at positive pressure by a basic canned life support system, and completely surrounded by half-inch anti-nanotech laminate (a material composed of many layers of the least-tractable elements in atom-thick layers, designed to prove impossible to handle by simple nanites, and to require repeated reconfiguration phases by those more complex). Since unfortified gaps in the laminate pose potential attack surfaces, the SNARgocz has a single, small hatch at the left-rear of the laboratory section, which is welded shut using a one-shot laminate welding strip at the start of each mission. The crew must be cut out after recovery, and the hatch and frame replaced before the vehicle can be used again.

The engineering room at the rear of the cabin houses the power plant (a radiothermal generator) and the track-driving motors, power from which is conveyed directly to the rear drums and to the forward drums via a drive shaft which runs along the ceiling of the cabin. The engineering room is designed as a sealed Lorith cage, to avoid spilling energetic electromagnetics into the environment surrounding the vehicle, and only low-power systems are permitted outside the cage. Once again, don't feed the eschaton.

Mounted above the engineering room, outside the vehicle and between the tracks, are the tanks and pumps for the "Globbery" phlegm system, which we must describe before going further. While the laminate armor will slow down hostile nanotechnology which penetrates to it, its protection is at best a last resort. The main protection of the SNARgocz against attacking blooms is antinanitic goocleanser - a viscous, slippery fluid laden with artificial antibodies which bind to well-known nanite surfaces, along with various formulations of chemical and kinetic antinanitics and carcerands. This compound, which functions in a very similar way to biological mucus, is distributed evenly by the Globbery, flows over the entire surface of the vehicle, and is collected, filtered, and reused. High molecular weight remnants caught by the filters are diverted into sensor-lined catchment cells.

(To return briefly to "ugly", you should now have an accurate picture of a SNARgocz on-mission as a crawling blob of snot, leaving a slime-trail behind as it goes about its business. You're welcome.)

The front of the cabin contains the driver's position, allowing control of the vehicle and its very limited sensors. To maximize protection, the sensors use electromagnetic induction (or, where absolutely necessary, optical transmission through diamondoid laminate rods, which don't provide as much protection as the armor but are still within the bounds of acceptability). The driver thus has access to a low-resolution visible-and-infrared camera (mounted, it should be noted, under the phlegm-flow), and where this proves insufficient, a backup direct optical periscope. Many drivers end up navigating the SNARgocz primarily with the aid of outside communications.

The driver's position also allows control of a limited-use manipulator arm (constructed largely of the same laminate as the armor, powered by "cold" hydraulics, and as the sensors are, controlled by through-hull induction) to retrieve items and place them in one of the phlegm-filled, laminate-build retrieval boxes attached to the left and right sides of the vehicle.

Meanwhile, the central section of the cabin is the laboratory section, in which the carried technicians may examine - again, using low-powered sensors operated through the armor - both any remnants caught by the phlegm-flow and any items in the retrieval boxes. It is not, it must be emphasized, the task of the carried technicians to analyze any captured nanotechnology: the tools and facilities available are unquestionably insufficient to this task. Rather, it is their task to determine only whether retrieved items and nanotech samples are safe enough to return to a proper laboratory for a detailed analysis.

Finally, beneath the floor of the cabin is installed a powerful thermal decomposition charge, triggerable by a number of manual switches located throughout the cabin, or by a cabin-penetration alarm. This item is not a nanodefense, as such: rather, it is intended to destroy the informational contents of the cabin in the event of mission failure.

This has the beneficial side-effect of sparing those manning the vehicle the unpleasant experience of being disassembled alive.

- Ground Vehicles of the Imperial Exploratory Service