Editing Machine Army (section)

==='Breeding' Cycle===
The Machine Army by design will take the time to 'seed' solid surfaces, wherever they go, with metallic-looking ores for future machine growth. For example, [[Dot]] in enemy territory saw seeds deep in craters and crevices. If left unattended, these seeds will hatch into new and full Machine Army installations. They are hard to make out because they are partially extradimensional. Thus, despite not being too challenging to destroy, it takes care and attention to find and destroy these seeds.<ref name="II20.e3 eExtradimensional">Five scanned the ground with his eyes, searching.  The Machines had a design, and that design was to impregnate the ground with seeds that would erupt into full Machine Army installations if left unattended.  The problem was that they were hard to make out, partially extradimensional.  But if he found them soon enough… - [[Last 20.e3]]</ref><ref name="II.I3 e4">Here and there, deep in the craters and crevices, the ‘trick’ missiles had delivered payloads that weren’t explosive.  They looked like veins of metal in rock.  In weeks and months, they would ‘hatch’, revealing the machinery that had built itself within.  For now, they were paved over.<br>[...]<br>The machines weren’t too challenging to destroy.  Dot’s groups had sometimes destroyed them.  The trick was that they set in roots wherever they went.  Each time they reached a new place, they would keep emerging from that place, from walls and floor and rock and tree.  It took care and attention to get the machine out of each of those things, and while that care was being taken, machines elsewhere would emerge, march, and make inroads along the flanks. - [https://www.parahumans.net/2018/01/25/glare-interlude-3/ Excerpt] from [[Interlude 3 II]]</ref><ref name="II20.1 eQuarantine" /> For example, nukes don't vaporize everything in an area, so dropping one on Eagleton and calling it a day would inadvertently spread the surviving seeds everywhere.<ref name="R3" />

The Machine Army can infect a building and slowly, but steadily, replace the entire structure with murderous facsimiles.<ref name="II.I3 e1"/> The same buildings later can be armed and put on tracks, turning them into massive siege weapons.<ref>He was surrounded, he noted, by the machines.  Big, small, utility, weapon.  The biggest were house-sized, mounted on treads like those of a tank, each containing a different weapon that they revealed when they unfolded. - [https://www.parahumans.net/2019/12/21/interlude-18-z-radiation/ Excerpt] from [[Radiation 18.z]]</ref>

Machine Army collects and recycles organic matter: it sometimes uses its victims as parts of mechanisms.<ref>There was a machine that was as tall as a house, with spindle legs, and a kind of open coffin for a head.  A person was in the coffin, machinery threaded into their eyes and mouth.  They groped blindly at the air as the machine spider-walked its way forward.  When the giant smashed the machine, it bled from the resulting cracks, lurched back to a standing position, and then began firing lasers from turrets at the side. - [https://www.parahumans.net/2019/11/02/sundown-17-10/ Excerpt] from [[Sundown 17.10]]</ref>

Perception powers such as [[Harbinger Five|Five]]'s can make it easier to find Machine Army seeds.<ref>“Yeah.  There’s-” he pointed.<br><br>Withdrawal was already on it, spraying down a section of ground where one seed lay.<br><br>“A seed there.  You didn’t need my help.”<br><br>“Any help is appreciated,” Withdrawal said.  “You saved me from a close call.”<br>[...]<br>He turned his head.  “I should scout for any seeds it put down on the way.”<br><br>“Okay,” Sveta said, quiet. - [[Last 20.e3]]</ref>