Re: Sa'Vasku Ship Lifecycle

Some Hypotheses regarding Sa'Vasku Ships

Sa'Vasku ships come in 4 basic varieties:
a) Sterile Mules
b) "Males"
c) "Females"
d) (Hypthesised, never seen) "Breeders"

Sterile Mules are essentially disposable workers, incapable of
reproduction.
They lack pod launchers and wombs.

Males have the ability to launch "Pods" capable of of eating asteroids
and other
material (notably enemy ships...). It would take the trace elements from
about
1000 Mass of asteroidal matter (or perhaps half that of ships) for them
to produce
1 "Cell", often referred to as a "Hull Box", or when operating
independently,
"Drones" or "Fighters".

Females have the capability to both absorb such "Drones", and produce
them from
their own substance. Only the very largest can produce anything larger
than
Sterile Mules, and appear not do so in any event. Most if not all also
retain
their male organs.

Breeders have the ability to operate in concert to build other Breeders,
and
any of the other types. They may not be capable of making Sterile
drones, this
may be the province of the Females alone.

Each Cell newly produced from an asteroid cruises space until absorbed
by a
Female or Breeder. Each cell has a certain amount of indpendent
intellect, and
the ability to form complex processing links and manipulate energy to
some degree,
if only for self-propulsion and self-defence. As Cells age, they lose
some of
their flexibility, becoming more specialised. Eventually they die, and
the bodies
are then used to construct such organs as Stingers, Wombs, with the less
valuable
parts of the body transformed into "husk" construction material and
armour.
As a general rule, it will take the parts of 3 or more Cells to make 2
mass
of specialised organs, the remains either jettisoned as waste, or used
as husk.
These organs become poisonous as the result of use, so are not suitable
food,
any more than excrement is for most species.

Sterile Mules that survive long enough and find a Breeder can be
transformed
into Males.
Males that survive long enough and return to Breeders can be transformed
into
Females.
Females that survive long enough and find Breeders are transformed into
Breeders,
and will tend to make designs that echo their own life-cycle prototypes.
Thus
only the fittest Mules, Males and Females get to reproduce.  

It is hypothesised that Females at one time exchanged information about
new
weapons and tactics by "swapping drones", but the Sa'Vasku designs seem
to have
lasted unchanged for countless millenia, suggesting that this ability
has atrophied
from disuse.

Of course all of the above is speculative, but is the best that the
OUSIRO has
come up with so far....