Silicae

Composed of nanites, the silicae are similar to their android counterparts in that they are made of artificial materials. However, silicae are "born", not manufactured. They are the result of self-replicating nanomachine swarms based on Von Neumann universal constructors that were created as a last ditch effort by the supercomputers to contain the spread of the virus during the fall of mankind. These nanomachines were tasked with isolating the virus by identifying and destroying vectors of the infection, i.e. mutants. Large swarms of these nanites were released into the atmosphere by the supercomputers and proceeded to rampage throughout the wastelands attacking infected humans and animals. Things got out of control when the nanites began destroying entire ecosystems, threatening the already devastated ecology of the planet with utter extinction in what could very well have ended up as a grey goo scenario. For this reason, this plan was ended shortly after the supercomputers realized the existential threat posed by their own machines to the sustainability of the future. Thus, the nanoswarms were largely limited in their scale to give them greater individual agency and less threat to the environment. The silicae are the result of this second iteration of the nanites. Their reproductive abilities were greatly controlled in such a way that they could only reproduce a certain mass. In this way, the first silicae were created. Each silicae is formed of a swarm of hundreds of thousands of nanites which can form into a large number of different configurations. Over the centuries, these nanites have evolved naturally to gain sentience and a limited hive-mind. Their ability to reproduce gave them a survivability that even androids were unable to match. They were also able to reconfigure their parts into various shapes of appendages. A silica is, in essence, a swarm of sentient metal, and able to configure in any way that its total mass allows. THe restriction of this is based largely on the programming and collective intelligence of the hive-mind. As a silica gains experience, it learns new ways of morphing itself and utilizing its components. A silica does not use augs or mutations in the same way as other races. They have an adaptability in combat that androids can't hope to match. Silicae are only limited by the parameters of their body mass in what shapes they can assume. However, the collective intelligence of a silica is ill-suited for tasks that androids excel in. Androids are far better at hacking than nano-swarms, and have far better skills in the realm of logical and computational tasks. Likewise they are more stable in their construction. A loss of a limb for an android is a minor inconvenience: for a silica it means a temporary loss of intelligence until the nanites lost are replaced. For this reason, nanite swarms are highly vulnerable to being scattered, thus weakening the neural network and potentially destroying the hivemind. Finally, like androids, they are highly vulnerable to EMP burst attacks, which can put them out of commission for significant amounts of time.