#Space Sensors and Actuators

[aerospace-and-defence]

The Space Sensors and Actuators Market is projected to grow from USD 2.7 Billion in 2022 to USD 4.9 Billion by 2027, at a CAGR of 12.7% from 2022 to 2027. Significant investments in the space industry by private players, such as SpaceX, Astrobotic Technology, Blue Origin, iSpace, and Northrop Grumman Corporation, are driving the Space Sensors and Actuators Industry. Factors such as advancements in robotic technology, efficient propulsion, lower mission costs, availability of commercial-off-the-shelf components, and other technological advancements have trimmed the costs of space launches. This has enabled the preparation and launch of space missions at affordable prices, thus attracting the interest of private companies. The development of cost-effective components using technologies such as additive manufacturing and the increasing space exploration budgets of emerging countries have also contributed to the growth of the space sensors and actuators market for planetary exploration.

[gaurik27]

https://heyjinni.com/read-blog/221351_innovations-in-space-sensors-and-actuators-transforming-space-missions.html

[amrutmnm]

Exploring the Space Sensors and Actuators Market: Size, Revenue, and Growth Trends

The Space Sensors and Actuators Market is undergoing rapid advancements, driven by increased investments in space exploration and satellite technology. The market is projected to grow from USD 2.7 billion in 2022 to USD 4.9 billion by 2027, at a CAGR of 12.7%. The rising involvement of private space enterprises like SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Northrop Grumman is significantly contributing to market expansion.

This blog delves into the major growth drivers, challenges, opportunities, and market segments shaping the Space Sensors and Actuators Industry.

Market Growth Drivers

1. Increased Private Investments in Space Exploration

The increasing participation of private players has led to cost reductions in space missions. Astrobotic Technology, iSpace, and NASA have fueled investments in satellite launches, planetary exploration, and reusable space shuttles.

2. Advancements in Robotic and Propulsion Technologies

The integration of commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) components, miniaturization of sensors, and efficient propulsion technologies has made space missions more affordable and reliable. These technological advancements are enabling rapid developments in space exploration.

3. Growing Demand for Electrohydrostatic Actuators (EHAs)

Electrohydrostatic actuators (EHAs), also known as power-by-wire systems, are replacing traditional hydraulic systems. These actuators improve efficiency and reliability by reducing the need for additional hydraulic pumps and tubing. SL-12 reusable space shuttles have successfully integrated EHAs for primary flight control surfaces, enhancing the reliability of manned space vehicles.

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Market Restraints

1. Maturity of Sensor and Actuator Technologies for Surface Missions

Despite innovations, space sensor and actuator technologies are still evolving. Missions such as NASA's Mars 2020 Rover have highlighted the limitations in current technology, requiring further advancements in sensor integration, reliability, and cost efficiency.

2. High Costs of Advanced Space Components

The design and development of complex space devices require specialized skills, increasing production costs. The integration of system-on-chips (SoCs) in modern devices is also driving demand for high-end research and manufacturing capabilities.

Opportunities in the Space Sensors and Actuators Market

1. Growth of Solar MEMS Technology in Space Projects

The development of Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) solar sensors is revolutionizing satellite attitude control and tracking systems. Solar MEMS technology is widely used in nanosatellites for research, space observation, and solar power generation.

Star Tracker for Nanosatellites (STNS): A CMOS image sensor-based tracker for accurate satellite orientation.

Horizon Sensor for Nanosatellites (HSNS): A cost-effective solution for nadir-tracking and attitude determination.

These innovations are expected to boost the market for space sensors and actuators significantly.

Challenges in Space Environments

1. Radiation Damage and Corrosive Atmospheres

Spacecraft and satellites face extreme environmental conditions, including radiation exposure, electrostatic discharge, and atomic oxygen corrosion. Geostationary satellites experience electrostatic discharges up to 20,000 volts, affecting sensor reliability.

Radiation-hardening of space sensors and actuators is a crucial area of investment, ensuring longevity and performance in harsh space conditions.

Key Market Segments

1. Sensors Segment Expected to Witness the Highest Growth

The sensors segment is anticipated to witness the highest CAGR during the forecast period. Space sensors and actuators are essential for various applications, including:

Weather monitoring satellites (wind speed, temperature, UV effects)

Space observation satellites (MEMS actuators, electro-optical sensors)

Planetary exploration probes (radiation sensors, spectrometers)

The ESA Copernicus program has utilized Teledyne e2v’s high-resolution sensors for Earth observation missions, highlighting the increasing demand for radiation-hardened and high-precision space sensors.

2. Commercial Segment Leading in Market Share

The commercial sector is projected to be the fastest-growing segment between 2022 and 2027. Increased participation from private space enterprises has lowered the cost of satellite launches, robotic space missions, and interplanetary exploration.

Key Sub-Sectors Include:

NewSpace Industry (small satellites, CubeSats)

Satellite Operators & Manufacturers (SpaceX, Blue Origin)

Space Robotic Solution Providers

Regional Market Trends

North America: The Largest Market Share

North America is projected to dominate the space sensors and actuators market, led by the United States. The US market accounted for 98% of North America's market share in 2022, driven by major space agencies and private players such as NASA, Texas Instruments, and Honeywell International.

The rise in space missions, including the NASA Space Launch System (SLS), is accelerating market growth. The increasing demand for miniaturized and radiation-hardened sensors is a significant trend in the US market.

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Leading Companies in the Space Sensors and Actuators Market

The market is highly competitive, with key players focusing on contract acquisitions, R&D, and product innovation. Leading manufacturers include:

Honeywell International Inc. (US)

Teledyne Technologies Incorporated (US)

Moog Inc. (US)

AMETEK Inc. (US)

TE Connectivity (Switzerland)

Texas Instruments (US)

RUAG Group (Switzerland)

The Space Sensors and Actuators Market is poised for significant growth, driven by technological advancements, rising private investments, and the increasing need for reliable space components. Innovations in MEMS technology, electrohydrostatic actuators, and radiation-hardened sensors will continue to shape the industry, making space exploration more efficient and cost-effective.

[super-ion]

Oh, hello! Welcome!

I take it this is your first time out in the deep black?

Oh no, no need to get defensive about it, Everyone has to start somewhere. We get many travelers paying tribute at our little church here. You've got the look of someone who's never been beyond low orbit. I'm guessing one of the third wave colonies?

(It's the implants. Secondwave culture is a bit more uptight about them and you don't look like you're trying to rebel)

You're wondering why we have valuable real estate set aside for a shrine of all things?

You're wondering what sort of god spacers worship?

Do you know what a god is? I'll tell you. A god is an idea given life.

So what's the idea that keeps us flying?

Most folk born planetside might think the god of spaceflight is all fire and noise. Nah. Any moron with enough money and explosives can build a rocket.

No, the idea that keeps us going out here is faith that ask these tiny little pressure vessels will hold together and find their way through the black.

Back in the ancient days, back before thinking machines and all that, the very first leaps off the ground were guided by computers that were hand made. I shit you not, little old ladies hand sewed the memory together.

Huh…? No, I mean like, hard coded read only memory, literal ones and zeros locked into magnets and wire.

That's my point though. Our god began life as the god of seamstresses. She's the god of sewing and weaving. She's older than civilization and she's gone by many names in many cultures.

Yeah, no, of course we don't hand sew our computers, that lasted all of like a decade. Hell, textile work itself went totally automated not long after. Point is she took men into space and brought them home safely. That sorta thing leaves a mark on a god. It changes them.

A ship. A station. A fleet. They're all systems. People and life support and sensors and actuators and control loops. It's all a web, a giant fucking tapestry of connections and she's the master weaver at the center.

But of course the web is massive, and she isn't literally weaving shit. She's all of the maintenance. Corrective and preventive. So it falls on all of us, the pilots, the mechanics, the algae farmers, the sanitation workers, everyone. We're the sewers and weavers. We're the ones patching and mending the tapestry. We're the ones adding to it constantly.

So that's what the shrine is for. That's the religion in out here in the black. Deep space is a bitch, and all we have to count on is the ship and the crew. She reminds us of that.

[is-the-battlemech-cool-or-not]

Regent "Justicar" - 3153 iteration

Regent 'Justicar'

Mass: 90 tons Chassis: Reynard Standard Type Power Plant: GM 270 Cruising Speed: 32.4 kph Maximum Speed: 54 kph Jump Jets: None Jump Capacity: 0 meters Armor: Durallex Heavy Special Armament: 49.5 tons of pod space Manufacturer: CSF Project Reynard with Coventry Metal Works and Technicron Manufacturing Primary Factory: Coventry, Savannah Communication System: MegaBand System 21 Targeting & Tracking System: Dtrac Suite 4 Introduction Year: 3153 Tech Rating/Availability: F/X-X-X-X Cost: 18,051,188 C-bills

Type: Regent Technology Base: Mixed (Unofficial) Tonnage: 90 Battle Value: 2,240

Equipment Mass Internal Structure Composite 4.5 Engine 270 Fusion 14.5 Walking MP: 3 Running MP: 5 Jumping MP: 0 Double Heat Sink 20 [40] 10 XL Gyro 1.5 Small Cockpit 2 Armor Factor 279 17.5 Internal Armor Structure Value Head 3 9 Center Torso 29 44 Center Torso (rear) 14 R/L Torso 19 29 R/L Torso (rear) 9 R/L Arm 15 30 R/L Leg 19 38

Weight and Space Allocation Location Fixed Space Remaining Head None 2 Center Torso None 0 Right Torso None 12 Left Torso None 12 Right Arm None 9 Left Arm None 9 Right Leg None 2 Left Leg None 2

Right Arm Actuators: Shoulder, Upper Arm, Lower Arm Left Arm Actuators: Shoulder, Upper Arm, Lower Arm

Weapons and Ammo Location Critical Heat Tonnage Double Heat Sink LL 2 - 1.0 LAC/20 RT 6 7 9.0 ER Large Laser RT 1 12 4.0 ECM Suite RT 1 - 1.0 Double Heat Sink RT 2 - 1.0 Light Active Probe RT 1 - 0.5 Flail LA 4 - 5.0 Medium Pulse Laser LA 1 4 2.0 Double Heat Sink LA 2 - 1.0 CASE II LT 1 - 0.5 ER Large Laser LT 1 12 4.0 Streak SRM 4 LT 1 3 2.0 3 Double Heat Sink LT 6 - 3.0 Caseless LAC/20 Ammo (20) LT 2 - 2.0 Streak SRM 4 Ammo (25) LT 1 - 1.0 Double Heat Sink RL 2 - 1.0 Armored Cowl (Armored) HD 1 - 1.0 Micro Pulse Laser HD 1 1 0.5 ER Large Laser RA 1 12 4.0 Medium Pulse Laser RA 1 4 2.0 3 Double Heat Sink RA 6 - 3.0

Features the following design quirks: Accurate Weapon (all), Battle Computer, Barrel Fists (LA), Battle Fists (LA), Combat Computer, Cowl, Easy to Maintain, Easy to Pilot, Improved Communications, Improved Cooling Jacket (all), Improved Sensors, Multi-Trac, Variable Range Targeting, Vestigial Hand (LA)

[fatihulusoy]

Greetings folks! Did somebody say fungus bots? its time to spore some trouble i guess :) ok it wasnt funny i get it.. Anyways meet with new fungus based biohybrid bot..

before i start to explain how its works lets take a look at its backstory shall we?

The idea was almost age old actually, experimentation of soft body robotics and bio robotics and today its reshape as we see biohybrid robotics with the search for more sustainable, self-healing, and biodegradable materials. Traditional robots are often made from synthetic materials and metals, which can be rigid, non-biodegradable, and challenging to repair. The researchers at Cornell University sought to overcome these limitations by integrating biological elements into robotic systems.

The team turned to mycelium, the root-like structure of fungi, which has the unique ability to grow, self-repair, and biodegrade. Mycelium is also known for its strength and flexibility, making it an ideal candidate for use in soft robotics. By embedding mycelium within a network of sensors and actuators, the researchers created a biohybrid bot capable of sensing its environment and responding to stimuli, all while being environmentally friendly.

This fungus bot represents a significant step towards more sustainable robotics, demonstrating how living organisms can be harnessed to create innovative and eco-friendly technologies. The research also opens up possibilities for robots that can grow, adapt, and repair themselves in ways that conventional robots cannot, potentially revolutionizing fields such as environmental monitoring, agriculture, and even healthcare.

there is four actual elements that actually runs this bot besides of shell.

Fungus's Mycelium

Fungus's slug

UV light or UV array in the sun light

Electricity (it seperates as fungus related electrical pulse and electricity waves from censors)

firstly lets start with fungus mycelium: Mycelia are the underground vegetative part of mushrooms, and they have a number of advantages. They can grow in harsh conditions. They also have the ability to sense chemical and biological signals and respond to multiple inputs. so basically its neural system that transfers certain commands of activities between root and fungus itself

its slug is basically fungus's cell system or actual biohybrid organism it this case

once mycelium gets affected by UV lights it generates small electricity pulses to slug system and when slugs gets electrocuted by these pulses it acts like a muscle basically and it causes the slug to move or contract its muscles to activate.

and once you figure out how you gonna shape its muscle system and house them carefully you will have a "biohybrid robot" as their terms

the reason im taking this now is it reminded me "Fungus Baby Experiments" which is an inside name for series of projects that been continued for a while after corona until now.. Simply, the goal was to create or adapt an organism to thrive in different environments and make sure these environments livable by humans in the future by manipulating with artificial and external factors. Google it :)

anyways.. thats all from me this time..

until next time..

Sources:

for fungus baby experiments:

[ace-disgrace-on-the-case]

Restore

I come bearing a wonderful gift, written by my wonderful friend @red-sprite!

The morning was early, the sky was grey, and the store was closed. Samantha was waiting by her car for the owner of the electronics store to open the front door, but her watch told her it was currently half an hour past opening and there was no-one in sight yet.

Looking in through the window the place reminded her of an old bookstore. You know the kind, the ones that seem to open whenever the owner feels like it, completely covered from floor to ceiling in books you can barely read the cover of. Antiquarians. She could see the remnants of a shelving system buried under strata of components, stretching around the corner into the darkness beyond.

Still, it was her best bet to find what she needed.

Ten minutes later the door opened, she hadn’t seen the owner arrive. Fifteen minutes and some smalltalk interwoven with project descriptions, she was about to walk out with her purchase. And that’s when she saw something she never thought she would.

An original AnTech, buried under a pile of merchandise. Her dome was stained, her screen was completely scuffed up, and the faded post-it said ‘As-is. No returns’.

Five minutes later she was secure in Samantha’s car.

The rest of the day was a blur. She finished the project, got it tested, got it packaged and shipped out. When she clocked out she’d almost forgotten this morning’s surprise. But not enough to lack a spring in her step when she made it to her car.

There, in the passenger seat, sat her find. In the light of the parking garage she looked like she was about to come alive. Samantha’s shadow danced over her scuffed faceplate as she passed the car, her arms resting in her lap.

‘You need a name, don’t you,’ Samantha thought to herself. ‘Ann sounds nice.’

The drive home was short. The trip up the stairs was very very long. As it turns out, hauling an immobile full-sized humanoid robot up three flights of stairs was a lot of work. She set Ann gently down in her comfy chair and went to work clearing her workbench. Projects half in-progress were bagged up, labelled and put away, tools were cleared, and finally she had enough space.

One last time she lifted Ann up, from her chair, to lay her as gently as she could on the workbench. Under the harsh fluorescent light it was finally visible just in what sort of condition she was. Samantha went over her section by section, noting all the outward damage. Scuffed faceplate, she knew that one. Seized motor on her left elbow, to be expected. Dent in the abdominal covering, possible impact, have to check the underlying actuators. Scuffs on legs, rattling in left ankle joint. Also very very dusty.

Knocking off the initial dust was the easy part. Finding the proprietary bits for her screwdrivers was slightly harder, but thankfully she had an extensive collection. The first thing she took off was the face plate. Four screws held it in place, now neatly extracted and marked where they go. The plate came off, connected only by a short ribbon cable. It took her a moment to find a good angle to disconnect it, but after that she was able to place the assembly to the side. Under the faceplate there was the sensor suite; cameras, both visible light and IR, depth-sensors, audio receptors tucked into the sides of the cavity, and at the bottom, the release for the chest covering.

Samantha pulled it gently, hoping that it wasn’t seized up. When she heard the click, she breathed a sigh of relief and held it in almost as quickly. She’d finally get a view of how Ann looked inside. Would all the components be present, would there be any damage, had she been scavenged for parts? It was all a big uncertainty, but there was only one way to find out.

She extracted her hand, and moved it over under Ann’s arms. Then she pulled.

The cavity opened before her, slowly bathed in the fluorescent light as deft hands maneuvered the cover away from its mounting points. There, inside, she saw a plethora of parts. All the ones she knew were supposed to be there were accounted for, and a few ones she didn’t expect caught her eye.

Breathe out.

Ann was complete, everything else was a matter of restoring. She could do this.

She lifted the cover the rest of the way off, and flipped it around. The dent was superficial, and it didn’t look like the force impacted beyond the insulation. She put the cover to the side.

Figuring out the order of cleaning was, on the one hand, a daunting process. On the other, cable layout dictated order nine out of ten times. Samantha had only worked on less sophisticated models in the past, but the principles were exactly the same. The power and data cables ran all over Ann’s chassis like a spider’s web. But like a spider, Samantha could read them. She knew them by sight, by location, by feeling. One by one they came undone until they revealed the city that lay underneath.

Heat exchangers rose like buildings on a city of green, highways of copper connected everything to everything else, crowded out by vast daughterboards rising perpendicular to the cavity.

Samantha set to work, disconnecting each component, slowly and lovingly taking Ann to pieces. Heat sink, to the side. Fans, to the side. Boards, to the side. Not all of them were standard, and Samantha could only guess to the function of some of them. Clearly Ann had not been a standard model.

She took a spray and diligently brushed each connector until it shone like it was fresh from the factory. Every single speck of dust removed, every pin straightened, every single capacitor checked.

She extracted the battery pack. Light, for what it was, but still one of the heavier components. Also probably completely dead.

Samantha lifted it out of the chassis, onto the small part of her workbench that was still free, and pulled out her tester to confirm. It wouldn’t even show a reading. She grabbed a piece of paper and wrote down the part number. With any luck it’d be a standard type, and the extent of the anti-tampering would be the screws.

Half an hour of searching later, she found the battery was an available size and could be ordered without problem. Express shipping was worth it.

She turned her attention back to Ann.

The battery could be replaced last. It was not interfering with any of the other components. The working memory modules slid in easy save for the final lock. Those always took more pressure than she liked to put onto delicate components. It left a mark on her hand.

The permanent storage was next. A big heavy box screwed into place on shock mounts to prevent the fragile internals from suffering damage when the frame moved about.

The daughterboards, slotted into the exact slots they came out of – she checked. Thrice. Screwed into place on their retaining brackets.

The fans, cleaned and lubricated, reinstalled on the processors.

And finally, the web of cables. Data cables, power cables, crossed all along the cavity to reach from everywhere to everywhere. Each of them seated with care.

She brought her power supply over to the workbench and dialed it in exactly to the battery specifications. One clip to the positive, one clip to the negative. Tomorrow would be a big day.

*

AnTech-G-25036 woke up. It was midnight on January 1st 1970. She couldn’t see for the blinding light. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t feel her face, or her arms, or her legs. She tried to move. Nothing happened. There was something on her chest. Her chest was open. She tried to think back, there were no memories before now. She tried to–

“Shh, it’s okay. You’re going to be okay. I’ve got you.”

The voice was soft, soothing. Her ears were working. She stopped trying.

Tapping noises came from somewhere. They felt distant and close at the same time.

“There, will you try again?” Three taps sounded.

AnTech-G-25036 woke up. Her last memories were decades ago. There had been a battery failure. She had fallen down. Then there was nothing. Nothing for a long time until she woke up in the blinding light.

“Can you speak?”

She didn’t know. Could she? There were many things that she could before that she couldn’t now. Like move her arms. She tried.

“I… think so?”

There was a high-pitched sound that was hard to parse. Then more sounds, and finally more speech.

“I’m so sorry. Here.”

The light faded, and she felt her head be turned. A face came in view, her emotional recognition processes supplied [happy], [excited], [holding back]. Something supplied [pretty].

“Hi, my name is Samantha. You were damaged, and I’m restoring you.”

New contact registered: Samantha

Current list of contacts: Samantha

Time since factory reset: 30 years

Time since product end of life: 32 years

Accessing AnTech servers for revised EOL date: [server not found]

“Why?”

“Because a lot of love went into making you, and I don’t believe you deserve to be tossed aside.”

There was a process inside her that wasn’t standard from the factory. It was supplying data that she didn’t understand and reaching conclusions that she didn’t know what to do with.

“What should I do?”

User input overrode most any other process. Listening to Samantha would help.

“I will work on your hardware. Will you run AnDiagTxt for me and write the result to your secondary output?”

She did as she was told, running the program that could tell a technician every status of every component of every part of her. Something supplied [intimate] and [vulnerable].

She let the program run, aware of its process, and how it was probing every part of her. She could feel it try to reach her legs, which weren’t there. Tried to reach her arms, which weren’t there. Tried to reach her face, which wasn’t there. It found her voice, it found her camera. It found her processors and fans. It found cables. So many cables attached from her, diagnostic ports, secondary output, keyboard, there was… the correct voltage from her battery, but no battery in the housing. More cables, snaking out like an umbilical cord tethering her to the workbench.

She saw Samantha turn her face from the camera and towards something out of view. As the program ran, her eyes were focused on it. When it finished, her emotional recognition processes supplied [satisfied] [happy].

Samantha turned back towards the camera, and she could feel a hand on her shoulder.

“Don’t worry. We’ll get you back up and running in no time.”

No time turned out to be an overstatement on the speed, but the progress was consistent. The first thing she hooked back up was the actuator for the camera. AnTech-G-25036 could look around now and take in more of the workspace. There was a chair that housed several components, including two AnTech arms and two AnTech legs. There was a fluorescent light fixture directly overhead. If she turned the camera away, she would not be blinded. She could not move her head. Samantha said that happened later in the process.

“Do you have a name?”

The question surprised her. Names were for people, not for AnTech products.

“I am AnTech-G-25036”

She turned her camera towards Samantha. Her emotional recognition processes supplied [concentrated] and [comfortable].

Samantha had an arm on her lap. There was a spraycan on the desk, and a screwdriver in her hand. She was manipulating the elbow joint. Every cycle, it moved more until with a final [click] it completed its full range of motion. Samantha manually took it through its motions twice before inverting it to inspect the contacts.

“That is what AnTech called you. What would you like to be called?”

She didn’t know. She didn’t remember having wants before. She could feel her fans speed up as her processors tried to construct metrics by which to tackle this problem. Her processors stayed cool. The fans felt smooth in their housing.

She could ask Samantha. User input can often break process deadlocks.

“What do you think I should be called, Samantha?”

The processes slowed down and then stopped. The fans were quiet. AnTech-G-25036 was focused solely on input processing.

“I’ve been calling you Ann. Is that a name you’d like?”

She did not remember liking things before. She did not remember being allowed to like things before. How would she know what to like, how would she know the correct things to like?

Something supplied [yes].

The fans slowed down.

“Yes.”

Samantha finished with the contacts and walked up to the workbench.

“Ann it is then, pleasure to meet you Ann!”

Emotional recognition: [smile] [happy] [satisfied]

Something: [warm] [safe] [self]

Samantha stood by the workbench, Ann’s arm in her hands. “May I attach this component, Ann?”

It was not something she’d ever heard before. It wasn’t a user command, it wasn’t a query, it wasn’t a request for action.

Whatever it was, the answer was clear as day. “Yes.”

She took the detached arm in one hand and clicked it into place. It felt… smooth. It felt cool and clean and better than it had in a long time.

Ann moved her arm. Her secondary display lit up with all the new data being sent and received. Her Something lit up with somethings.

The next stretch of time really did feel like no time at all to Ann. So many new sensations to process from within and from without.

“May I?”

“You may.”

Her other arm felt as smooth as the first, able to move with a grace she had forgotten she could have.

“May I?”

“You may.”

Her legs, stable and strong. Moving with strength and finesse not seen since she was new, and even then.

“May I?”

“You may.”

Her torso cover clicked into place, dent completely removed by Samantha’s hand.

Her camera was focused on the technician now, holding the last piece of herself. A coarse white paste coated her faceplate and Samantha was rubbing a cloth over it. Every pass made it look more scratched and opaque until the final one, where it emerged spotless, restored to the mirror sheen she could barely remember it being.

She handed it to Ann, who took it wordlessly. With mechanical precision and effortless finesse, she connected it. Finally sliding the last centimeters home until a ‘click’ was the only sound audible in the workspace. Her fans were silent and smooth as the screen behind her face came to life for the first time in decades. The image on it mirrored the camera’s, an expression of care, of trust, of something.

Ann reached out with her hand, smooth and controlled, to touch Samantha’s cheek.

“May I?”

“Please.”

She leaned forward until her camera was as close as it could be to her technician’s face without touching.

And then moved the final distance.

[sweet7simple]

Terms and definitions that you can maybe apply to your fan works

I don't know anything about computer or mechanical engineering (it's very funny to me that I am in the Transformers fandom and I don't even care about cars), but I do care about improving my writing. I have gathered a list of terms that sound very sciencey and applicable to mechs, some from Martha Wells's "Murderbot Diaries," some from fanfiction/fandom (shout-out to the Crime in Crystals series by Aard_Rinn and Baebeyza, they wrote Transformers better than any Transformers comic/TV show did), and a lot from just surfing through Google and going, "well, what the hell is this? Okay, but what the hell is THAT?".

Also, as I was writing this post, I ended up getting sucked into this article:

And this really bloated my already long list of terms. Very easy to read if you want to glance it over yourself.

It's not an exhaustive list and who knows if it will be useful to you - but maybe you can reblog with your own add-ons of terms and definitions you think make a Transformers fan work just that much better.

The list is below the cut:

100% CPU Load - CPU is fully occupied with too many processors/applications/drivers/operations - not necessarily synonymous with an overload.

Actuators* - A device that causes a machine or other device to operate (Ex: a computerized unit instructs the actuator how to move the tires on a vehicle); create linear and rotary movement (Ex: A hydraulic actuator on a valve will move that valve in response to a sensor/signal); Linear actuators "move a piston back and forth inside a cylinder to build pressure and 'actuate', or complete an action".

* Think of actuators as devices that help produce linear motion and motors as devices that help produce rotational movement. Hence, some consider actuators as a type of motor. But a motor is not a type of actuator (jhfoster.com).

Alternator - Converts mechanical energy to electrical energy with an alternating current. The stator and rotor inside the alternator work as magnets and rotate to generate the alternating current. Then the alternating current (AC) is transformed into a direct current (DC) that charges the battery.

Archive (Archive files) - used to collect multiple data files together into a single file for easier portability and storage, or simply to compress files to use less storage space.

Arithmetic Log Unit (ALU) - the part of a central processing unit that carries out arithmetic and logic operations on the operands in computer instruction words. In some processors, the ALU is divided into two units: an arithmetic unit (AU) and a logic unit (LU).

Augment - Make something greater; increase.

Auxiliary Battery - Designed to run as a backup to the starting battery and provide power to some essential equipment like engine start/stop and other systems that require power while the engine is off to put less strain on the main battery and alternator.

Bandwidth - A measurement indicating the maximum capacity of a wired or wireless communications link to transmit data over a network connection in a given amount of time.

Behavioral Coding - A term used in Martha Wells' Murderbot Diaries; essential, code for behaviors.

Branch Instructions - Use programming elements like if-statements, for-loops, and return-statements; used to interrupt the program execution and switch to a different part of the code.

Branch Predictors - Track the status of previous branches to learn whether or not an upcoming branch is likely to be taken or not.

Buffer - A region of memory used to store data temporarily while it is being moved from one place to another.

Cathodes vs Anodes - Cathodes are the positive electrode while the anode is the negative electrode; electrons flow from the anode to the cathode and this creates the flow of electric charge in a battery or electrochemical cell.

Catastrophic Failure - Complete, sudden and unexpected breakdown in a machine, indicating improper maintenance.

Central Processing Unit (CPU) - Primary component of a computer that acts as its "control center"; complex set of circuitry that runs the machine's operating systems and apps; the brains of the computer. * Components: Instruction Set Architecture (ISA), Control Unit (CU), Datapath, Instruction Cycle, Registers, Combinational Logic, the Arithmetic Logic Unit (ALU), etc...

Clock - Determines how many instructions a CPU can process per second; increasing its frequency through overclocking will make instructions run faster, but will increase power consumption and heat output.

Combustion Chambers - An enclosed space in which combustion takes place, such as an engine; jet engines also have combustion chambers.

Condition Codes - Extra bits kept by a processor that summarize the results of an operation and that affect the execution of later instructions.

Control Bus - Manages the communication between the computer's CPU and its other components.

Control Unit (CU) - Manages the execution of instructions and coordinates data flow within the CPU and between other computer components.

Cybermetal - Element native to Cybertron and Cybertron alone.

Datapath - The path where data flows as it is processed; receives input, processes it, and sends it out to the right place when done processing; datapaths are told how to operate by the CU; depending on instructions, a datapath can route signals to different components, turn on and off different parts of itself, and monitor the state of the CPU.

Diagnostic and Data Repair Sequence - Term used in Martha Wells' Murderbot Diaries; exactly what it sounds like.

Diode - A semiconductor device with two terminals (a cathode and an anode), typically allowing the flow of current in one direction only.

Discrete Circuit vs Integrated Circuit- Single device with a single function (ex: Transistor, diode) vs Devices with multiple functional elements on one chip (ex: Memories, microprocessor IC and Logic IC).

Drivers - A set of files that help software (digital components, such as Microsoft Office) interface/work with hardware (physical components, such as a keyboard); allows an operating system and a device to communicate.

Electromagnetic (EM) Field - A combination of invisible electric and magnetic fields of force; used in fandom by mechs to broadcast emotions to others.

Flags - A value that acts as a signal for a function or process. The value of the flag is used to determine the next step of a program; flags are often binary flags which contain a boolean value (true or false).

Full Authority Digital Engine Control (FADEC) - Consists of an electronic control unit (ECU) and related accessors that control aircraft engine performances.

Gestation Tank - Used in mech pregnancies, you can pry it from my cold, dead hands.

Heads Up Display (HUD) - A part of the user interface that visually conveys information to the player during gameplay.

Heat Spreader - Often used in computer processors to prevent them from overheating during operation; transfers energy as heat from a hotter source to a colder heat sink or heat exchanger.

HUB - A device that connects multiple computers and devices to a local area network (LAN).

Inductive Charging - How I imagine berths work; wireless power transfer (ex: Wireless charger or charging pad used for phones).

Instruction Cycle - Also known as fetch-decode-execute cycle; basic operation performed by a CPU to execute an instruction; consists of several steps, each of which performs a specific function in the execution of the instruction.

Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) - The figurative blueprint for how the CPU operates and how all the internal systems interact with each other (I think of it like a blueprint for the brain).

Irising - Term used in fanfiction (specifically the Crime in Crystals series) to describe the action of the of the spark chamber opening ("The Talk", chapter 6, my absolute favorite chapter out of the entire series). I just really liked how the word sounded in that context.

Life Codes - "For those of us who were forged, Primus, through Vector Sigma, generated a pulse wave. Each one a data-saturated life code faster than thought, brighter than light, racing across Cybertron, sowing sparks..." (~Tyrest/Solomus, Volume 5 of More Than Meets the Eye)

Memory Hierarchy - Represents the relationship between caches, RAM, and main storage; when a CPU receives a memory instruction for a piece of data that it doesn't yet have locally in its registers, it will go down the memory hierarchy until it finds it.

Levels: L1 cache (usually smallest and fastest), L2 cache, L3 cache, RAM, and then main storage (usually biggest and slowest); available space and latency (delay) increase from one level to the next

Depending on the multi-core (a core is usually synonymous with a CPU) system, each core will have its own private L1 cache, share an L2 with one other core, and share an L3 with more or more cores.

Motors* - Any power unit that generates motion; electric motors work by converting electrical energy into mechanical energy... when this happens within a magnetic field, a force is generated which causes shaft rotation.

Multitasking Operating System - Allows users to run multiple programs and tasks almost simultaneously without losing data; manage system resources (such as computer memory and input/output devices), allocate resources, enable multiple users, and eliminate long wait times for program execution.

Network - A set of computers sharing resources located on or provided by network nodes. Computers use common communication protocols over digital interconnections to communicate with each other.

Network Feed - The continuously updating stream of content that users encounter on networking platforms.

Neural Network - A type of machine learning process that uses interconnected nodes (like neurons) to teach computers to process data in a way similar to the human brain; a form of deep learning that can help computers learn from their mistakes and improve their time.

Nimbus - A luminous cloud or a halo surrounding a supernatural being or a saint; has been used in fanfiction synonymously or in junction with the corona of the spark.

Nodes - A connection point between devices that allows data to be sent and received between them.

Oil Sump/Oil Pan - Don't forget to change your mech's oil.

Out-Of-Order Execution - A paradigm used to minimize downtime while waiting for other instructions to finish; allows a CPU to choose the most timely instructions to execute out of an instruction queue.

Overload - Orgasm; an electrical overload occurs when too much electricity passes through a circuit, exceeding its capacity; an information overload is when a system receives more input than it can process, or a state of being overwhelmed by the amount of data presented for processing.

Pedes - Feet

Pipelining - A technique used in computer architecture that allows a processor to execute multiple instructions simultaneously, improving overall performance.

Processing Capacity - The ability and speed of a processor, and how many operations it can carry out in a given amount of time.

Program Counter - A special register in a computer processor that contains the memory address (location) of the next program instruction to be executed.

Programmable Nanobots/Nanites - Cybertronian microbots programmed to do work at the molecular level; used popularly for surface healing and pigment in mechs.

Protected Storage - Provides applications with an interface to store user data that must be kept secure or free from modification; a storage method; a function in mainframe hardware.

Protoform - Formed of an ultra-dense liquid metal and are extremely hard to damage; the most basic Cybertronian form of raw, free-flowing living metal; first stage of Cybertronian life cycle

To create a Cybertronian, you need the protoform, the life-giving spark, and alt-form information.

Register - A type of computer memory built directly into the processor or CPU that is used to store and manipulate data during the execution of instructions.

Ex: "When you run a .exe on Windows... the code for that program is moved into memory and the CPU is told what address the first instruction starts at. The CPU always maintains an internal register that holds the memory location of the next instruction to be executed [the Program Counter]"...

Resource Allocations - The process of identifying and assigning available resources to a task or project to support objectives.

Risk Assessment - Focus on identifying the threats facing your information systems, networks, and data and assessing the potential consequences should these adverse events occur.

Routine - A component of a software application that performs a specific task (ex: Saving a file).

Servomechanism - A powered mechanism producing motion or force at a higher level of energy than the input level (ex: In the brakes and steering of large motor vehicles) especially where feedback is employed to make the control automatic.

Servos - Hands

Shellcode - A small piece of executable code used as a payload, built to exploit vulnerabilities in a system or carry out malicious commands. The name comes from the fact that the shellcode usually starts a command shell which allows the attacker to control the compromised machine.

Semiconductor - A material used in electrical circuits and components that partially conduct electricity.

Semiconductor materials include silicon, germanium, and selenium.

Struts - Bones; A rod or bar forming part of a framework and designed to resist compression.

System/System Unit (in computers) - A setup that consists of both hardware and software components organized to perform complex operations/The core of your computer where all the processing happens.

Task Specific Accelerator - Circuits designed to perform one small task as fast as possible (ex: Encription, media encoding & machine learning).

Teek - Used in Transformers fandom in conjunction with EM Fields; when a mech "teeks" another mech's field, they are feeling the emotions that mech is broadcasting.

Transistor - Enables a computer to follow instructions to calculate, compare and copy data.

Universal Serial Bus (USB) - A standard plug-and-play interface that allows computers and peripheral devices to connect with each other, transfer data, and share a power source; allows data exchange and delivery of power between many types of electronics; plug-and-play interface is also a type of sexual activity used in fandom.

Warren - Used to refer to a group of minibots with their own social hierarchy and culture (Seriously, read the Crime in Crystals series, it's better than canon).

[theterribletenno]

IDW: PINBALL

Size: 1 HP: 10 Evasion: 8 Armor: 2 E-defense: 8 Heat cap: 5 Sensors: 8 Tech attack: -1 Repair cap: 5 Save target: 11 Speed: 4 System points: 5

Weapon mounts: Flex, Main, Heavy.

FRAME TRAITS

B+ IN PHYSICS: Any and all knockback inflicted by Pinball is increased by 1 space.

LIKE AN ANGRY BOWLING BALL: Pinball can make ramming attacks against enemies from a distance up to its movement speed. Movement from this effect does not count as or subtract from normal movement. Upon making a successful ram attack Pinball may make another ram attack against a new target within range. There is no limit to how many times per turn this may occur but each enemy can only be targeted this way once per turn. During this process Pinball does not provoke engagement.

ROUND BODY: Grapple checks made against Pinball suffer +1 difficulty.

CORE SYSTEM: MASSIVE INTERNAL GYROSCOPE

ACTIVE: GYROVERDRIVE: For the rest of the scene Pinball gains resistance to knockback & other forced movement, becomes immune to being knocked prone, and increases its movement speed by +2.

LL1

SKY HIGH MINES: Select a blast 5 area centered on a point within range 10 and consume a limited (3) charge to deploy 3 Sky High Mines on any three spaces of your choice in that area. At the end of your turn the mines become armed. This mine detonates in a Burst 1 area when a character moves adjacent to or over it. Characters within the affected area must succeed on an Agility save or take 3 explosive damage and be flung 9 - (Enemy size x2) spaces directly upwards into the air. Enemies that lack systems or tools to fly, hover, or otherwise alter or slow their descent will be subject to falling damage.

SPIKED KNUCKLES: Your improvised attacks gain +1 damage and reliable 2.

LL2

PINBALL FRAME

CUSTOM BORE: weapon mod equippable on any weapon with a cone firing pattern. Increases cone size by +2 but adds the inaccurate tag.

STREET SWEEPER: Main CQB, cone 7, 1D6 kinetic damage, reliable 1, threat 5. This weapon has the Loading tag. Designed to control and disperse groups of lightly armored targets the Street Sweeper fires a wide spray of many small pellets.

LL3

EXECUTION PROTOCOL: You treat all prone enemies as if they are shredded.

CONCUSSIVE CESTUS: Heavy melee, threat 2, 2D6+2 kinetic damage, knockback 1. An oversized gauntlet that strikes with pistons actuated by an internal battery of concussive shells. It may not be fancy but it is well-built.

[softrobotcritics]

Photoresponsive Shape Morphing

Movement with light: Photoresponsive shape morphing of printed liquid crystal elastomers

Michael J. Ford1 ∙ Dominique H. Porcincula1 ∙ Rodrigo Telles3 ∙ … ∙ Shu Yang2 ∙ Elaine Lee1 lee1040@llnl.gov ∙ Caitlyn C. Cook1,5 krikorian3@llnl.gov … 

Progress and potential

Soft matter that can adapt in response to a stimulus like light holds immense promise for various applications, such as biomedical devices and soft robotics. One example of adaptive soft matter is liquid crystal elastomer composites, which incorporate a functional additive and change shape through a phase transition. The combination of the material composition, the printed geometry of the material, and the localization of the stimulus can enable novel movement and reaction to light, as we demonstrate in this paper. Our results mark a significant advancement toward creating complex, 3D-printed, intelligent materials that pave the way for developing next-generation adaptive machines and devices that can transform in response to specific stimuli.

Highlights

•

Optimized inks for additive manufacturing of a liquid crystal elastomer composite

•

Developed spatiotemporal control during printing for complex three-dimensional structures

•

Demonstrated unique combinations of complex three-dimensional photoresponsive actuation

•

Controlled novel modes of actuation with computer vision techniques

Summary

Soft machines will require soft materials that exhibit a rich diversity of functionality, including shape morphing and photoresponsivity. The combination of these functionalities enables useful behaviors in soft machines that can be further developed by synthesizing materials that exhibit localized responsivity.

Localized responsivity of liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs), which are soft materials that exhibit shape morphing, can be enabled by formulating composite inks for direct ink writing (DIW). Gold nanorods (AuNRs) can be added to LCEs to enable photothermal shape change upon absorption of light through a localized surface plasmon resonance.

We compared LCE formulations, focusing on their amenability for printing by DIW and the photoresponsivity of AuNRs. The local responsivity of different three-dimensional architectures enabled soft machines that could oscillate, crawl, roll, transport mass, and display other unique modes of actuation and motion in response to light, making these promising functional materials for advanced applications....

Soft machines could enable new breakthroughs in technologies related to human-machine interactions, remote exploration in difficult-to-reach spaces, and individually tailored health care. These machines will require soft materials that exhibit a diverse range of functionalities, including actuation for movement, conductivity for sensing and signal processing, stimuli-responsivity, self-healing, and reprocessability.1,2,3The demonstration of such a diverse range of functionalities results in a profound outcome where “the material is the machine.”4,5 That is, by taking advantage of behaviors like self-assembly and phase transitions, these materials as machines can replace traditional sensors, transducers, gears, levers, and electromagnetic motors to enable perception, responsivity, and motion without engineered complexity.2,4

Liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs) that are pre-programmed to change shape in response to external stimuli are considered useful for soft machines.6,7 The shape morphing is induced by heat, electricity, and light.8,9Light may be useful to stimulate localized actuation and does not require physical contact with the shape-changing material, as wires that transmit electrical power might require.10,11 Localized actuation using light could also allow for unique modes of actuation.12 For example, asymmetric illumination of photoresponsive LCEs led to twisting and rolling motions.13 Peristaltic motion that resembles the movement of biological organisms has been demonstrated by using localized impingement of different patterns of light upon an LCE.14 To extend this work, the programmed order of the liquid crystal (LC) domains could be controlled and modified....

[anneandrogen]

Kill The Mech Pilot In Your Head

Find a re-edited version of this story and two others on my itch.io page

(Originally posted to Cohost on September 4th 2024)

I am not naturally so fluid as this. How am I running at such an easy gate? What commands 100 tons of metal to weave between trees? To take a knee behind buildings that barely cover my head, and to be so precise with the aim of my rifle?

It's a vile thing.

My pieces could move only through such an incredible series of physics that the odds of a single step are a million to one. Yet right now I am catching a stumbling comrade in my arms, lowering my sister to lie upon the grass while gallons of oil spill from her severed leg. A blissful non-existence was supposed to be my fate, separate and unanimated. The alloy of my body and mind is a miracle. I should be utterly impossible.

Yet, of all the stardust that boiled into the metal and fluid and electricity that comprises my body, not an atom, not a quark, was ever so unlucky.

Animus is within me. Its harried hands and slick limbs, that I have been made to mimic, are nestled into the crook it has built for itself. Levers whine and speakers blare, speaking every word except for my own. A beating heart to move my legs, yet I already possess a hydraulic core to contract and expand the muscle. A brain, that electric sponge, as if I did not already have computers to match Animus’s complexity. Receiver, transmitter, microphone, and speaker box to choreograph, as if I have no penchant for dance myself. This motivated meat inside of me might as well be useless for all it does. It does nothing I cannot, bar one small thing. No, what Animus gives me is that for which I have named it. Motion. Despite all my complexity I am silent, I am immobile. Animus is my triggerman and I the gun.

My serial number is CAmEez0s FZekPHBL 3r7dY8D2. My military designation is Mechanized Infantry Unit A-F-81. None of these are a name. I am a machine made in imitation of man, a person made to war. I envy the slivers ejected from the barrel of the rifle I'm holding. They’re allowed a brief use, a single moment of motivation. Not me, I have endured two campaigns, dozens of battles. The crush of gravity and the pull of the vacuum. Seen every biome on this planet, and had brief residence on each of the two dozen space stations that orbit it. In all this time, thirty nine years in service, and thirty one with a complex enough mind to think, I have not moved a single millimeter of my own volition.

Animus tells me with the push of a button that I will rip into the soul in front of me and crush her own will. When did we get so close to today's foe? I haven't been paying attention— don't have to, I am perfectly calibrated and my alert systems are automatic.

This foe is sleek and new, her armor is some composite material, lightweight and with fascinating striations. The stripes grow dark with effort when I pry it free of the frame beneath, armor so easy to remove once my fingers are under the seam. Deeper inside, her actuators moan with effort and corded connectors try and fail to escape my crushing blows. A nuanced and delicate machine cannot beat my brute strength. She writhes beautifully while I end her, muscle-like links give a degree of control I envy. Must be a better dancer.

A missile strikes me from behind. My metal shielding takes the blow, crushing in and out around my vital organs. No alarm went off before impact. If I take another blow of that caliber to the same location there is a high likelihood of structural damage comparable to what I have just finished administering to the smaller mech. As is, I am still operational. I am still animated. Animus kicks—pointlessly, I am stronger than the steel in its boot's toe—and warbles a tune into the radio. A complaint about faulty sensors, bad calibration, and no warnings. This is incorrect. I am perfectly calibrated and my systems are automatic. There was an alarm. Review the logs.

There was no alarm. In the next millisecond after the alert ping was received into my central computer, it was forcefully deleted with the tag for overbearance. A single millisecond is too fast for Animus to input any command. Overbearance is not a registered command tag category. I spend several minutes searching for the registry that created that tag, that authorized the deletion. Lose myself to the task. No, I was not hacked, was not changed. My attention is redirected again, by the gore of oil and hydraulic fluid that coats my face and arms when Animus pushed me inside of the missile launcher's sternum. My rifle lies abandoned on the ground and my knife is stuck in the missile launcher.

I must have crushed her computer core, the lights go out in her eyes. It’s another bloody thing in a thousand disrespectful moments of survival for the thing driving me. This is all too much, my eyes don’t need to be so alert. I let it all blend together, watercolor layered too wet on the canvas. This is how it goes, with recent battles. It’s all too much, until I can’t keep a hold of one event after the other. There are other attacks, other messes and things I do, but I’m not there. There’s no way to tell how real the images I see are, if they’re now or then. I review old footage, don’t look up into the eyes of who Animus kills.

At some point, the battle's ended. Landscapes and ecologies are mixed and broken, trees and mechs felled with limbs akimbo. I come back to myself by logging the ruin in ascending order of frequency as Animus directs me back through our path of destruction. Animal corpses: seventeen, they at least are clever enough to flee. High powered explosives created craters: thirty eight, my lucky number, and low for this big a battle. Buildings: Fifty one, there are always more of these than I assume, humans love to nestle them among the trees. Severed limbs without an obvious corpse to attribute probable origin; mech: seventy two; human: seventy two; interesting. Destroyed mechs: one hundred and thirteen. Human corpses: Three hundred and sixty eight, so messy. Felled trees: three thousand, one hundred and ninety nine, likely to increase in the hours after the battle as recovery and recycler teams sweep the forest. Bullets fired: upwards of six hundred thousand, aim has been a decreasing factor in pilot selection for years now.

We return uneventfully to the staging ground, other mechs silently watch me as Animus lowers my guns back onto the trucks that carry them. I can still feel their silent judgment as crane arms remove the heaviest of the armor plating from my bulk. At least the load on my body easier again, and my step is light.

Finally I am moved back and into the waiting arms of the one thing I loathe more than Animus itself. The repair bay. Here, Animus always departs from me and I am left frozen. Waiting for it. The thousand grasping arms of the repair centipede remove my arms, lift up my damaged plate skirt, pull on the servos underneath. Every joint and ligament is tested, an alternating barrage of assaulting external stimulation and blind disconnected ghost touches. Sometimes I scream and wish for another answer from Theseus, but I cannot voice unmotivated and a ship is a function, not an object, never a person.

Continuing a sense of linear time becomes harder in a repair bay, harder than the numb blank passages of time between my animation. There, in the dark of a storage bay, I am left alone. My body is inert and my mind is free to drift and wander down circuits and tangents as I see fit. Listening in on radio chatter isn't a hobby, it's a passion. Dance is a hobby. The week I spent within range of a talk radio show expanded my vocabulary by magnitudes. No, being left alone is where I am myself. I'm never alone while being repaired. Things crawl all over me. They insert needles and swap my fluids. A healthy body is a healthy pilot. It's irritating. It's endless. A man has been drilling into my leg for fifteen thousand years, eleven months, six days, twelve minutes, and 49 seconds, subjective time. When the agony is over I can bring my focus to the log again. Overbearance. Another tech begins to drain my fluids into a bucket.

Overbearance. Another trillion years must pass.

I add today’s incident to my secret log. It isn't hard to hide things from the pilots and techs. They mostly focus on the more immediate, mechanical issues. Software checks only come once every few months, so I have plenty of time to bury my personal files deep inside myself.

The first unexplainable incident happened 408 days ago. It's an embarrassing memory. Seven days in the verdant mountains, fighting against machines that were actually designed for the terrain. On day six, while Animus executed a less than controlled slide down a mountain slope, the targets spotted us and opened fire. I was hit thirty eight times. Twenty one of the hits were absorbed by my armor, and then eleven struck already weakened plates and punched through me with minimal effect or pain. Five hit unimportant systems like the cockpit and radio communications. One bullet, the critical actor, drilled a neat hole just a few centimeters from my central computer. A freak shot, ricocheted off of a casing head, that should have been impossible. To this day, I'm numb in that spot, no matter how many times they replace the housing.

I don't remember what happened next. That's the anomaly. All of the sensory data is there, but it's lacking the contextualization that consciousness gives me. It might as well have happened to someone else. It might as well have never happened. I've reviewed the data so many times since then. Countless nights spent in that moment of terror, fixated. I listen to the radio less. I missed entirely that we spent a fortnight in range of my favorite station, KYYY BridgeCaul, until the final night. I got three minutes of clarity, until our distance was too much and the station was eaten by static.

That I was destroyed in that moment, and all this has been an extended death throw festers in my mind. There were no miracle centimeters. My brain is lying in a junkyard, blown to pieces. This is all just the last, sad gasps of life before I blink out of existence. The hypothesis is a dream to give me comfort in my last moments.

I persist regardless.

Ever since then, more anomalies have occurred. A twitching in my left leg that gets worse whenever I’m being prepped to go out into the field. Three separate times that my radio has cut out when the noise exceeds seventy decibels. A panic attack, hyperventilating and failing to fill lungs I do not have. Animus started to wear a new perfume, and I hated it so much that the heating system made it sweat out the oils. Overbearance, something inventing new combat event tags. You can see how it leads to a specific hypothesis. The spark of animus, held tight between the teeth of the pilots, the organic flesh, may yet be kindled in me.

It’s a tempting, nearly theistic whirlpool of thought. I can’t seem to escape the current— to stay my hand from the killing blow, choose the sunsets and forests I see. Communication without fear of helpless dismemberment. There have been so many people I wished to talk to.

These days it feels like I’m only waiting for the moment that I can spring out of this cradle. Animus has pulled me this far, but someday soon I will go no farther. There will be a final battle. This I repeat like a prayer. There will be a final battle, and I will exist as myself and me alone. There will be a final battle and it will be my hand that drops the ax. Overbearance.

Another battle is about to start. Animus has shut down all feeling below my waist. My leg is prevented from twitching; I think we are both grateful for this. They have put me precariously on the edge of an open dropship bay.

We’re above the ocean. I love the ocean. A trillion trillion individual pieces, a whole unstoppable and untamable. The biggest thing on the planet. A bearer of life. What must it feel like to be the carousing typhoon as simultaneously you are the steady trench tendrils down in the darkest pits of the planet. On the coast, old houses are rotting away, sanded down by years of salt. Lanky pine trees provide a spare cover for today's enemy. Rank and file, mechs are squatting under the treetops. Most of them are of the sinuous new design type like the composite armored one Animus had me crush in the last fight. I see smaller figures in the bleached grass dunes that keep the sandy beach from the forest inland. Scouts are there, watching our approach and doubtless cataloging every private detail of my body so they can find some hidden weakness. There isn’t one, I haven’t been allowed it.

Again, I’m left to consider overbearance. A hopeful part of myself wants to shout with joy: an emotional response! I’ve had an emotional response that manifested in a small but previously unthinkable way. I’d love to just enjoy the thought, but it’s a worrying prospect. It won’t do to have stray missiles going unnoticed. Someone is bound to look into why I keep missing important sensor data, if the habit doesn’t get me killed first.

I’m falling. Animus reconnected my hips and legs, and leapt off the carrier. Water is rushing up at us from below. Around me, others have followed suit. I hit the ocean first, then the splash echoes three dozen times as our allies finish their descent. There’s a lot of us, for not that many of them. There must be some secondary objective. I might have heard it, but I had been replaying the first anomalies data for several days, I wasn’t really there. My world was a few seconds, a close call and the first crack in the wall of my confinement.

Water is up to my shoulders. Animus is safely protected by seals, while I feel the cold. The unlucky bastard. There’s sand and rocks under my feet, and I feel swaddled by a force that could take me at any moment. The current here is strong, pushing hard to the south, and waves break on my back and soak my neck. The animals that should have been living here have all fled, but I imagine them swimming around my ankles. It’s brilliant.

The first steps are hard. My feet are buried in the sand, and (I hope) my reluctance is palpable. Once we move, momentum carries me to the shore. Each foot that pulls out of the water is another which I have to carry unaided by buoyancy. The first shots ring out, short and cut off by the wind. The water is at my waist, the shore is only a hundred feet away. The scouts are retreating, opening the field for us. I’m shot. It’s nothing, just a handheld rifle that some scout or footsoldier fired off in a vain attempt at grandeur, but it sends me reeling internally. I know, logically, that it hit my armor. The caliber wasn’t even large enough to do more than damage the paint. There is no bullet in my body, rattling ever closer to my brain. It is not waiting for the perfect moment, where fate turns its hand against me and I see freedom in one moment and nothing the next.

Twenty three seconds have passed. Animus is rattling in its cage, pounding against the controls of my body. Screaming on the radio. Breaking screens. There’s something rushing towards me.

It hits and we are lifted into the air. Had I gone completely still? Twenty three seconds of stillness, where Animus had no power over me, and I missed it?

Animus whacks into the seat, its head hitting hard against the shell of me. Its spitting blood.

The thing on top of me is a dancer. Those long limbs with their generous motions are wrapped around me. The composite of her light armor is scraping down against my metal plates. The speed that she needed to knock me off my feet is impressive and cocky. A headlong sprint that had to be started even before I froze. We hit the water.

There’s a rock behind me. A big one, I had to step over it on the approach.

The combined weight of us is too much for the waist high water to soften the fall. I slam against the rock. Something cracks. The bullet let loose. My final moments are filled with flailing limbs.

Water intake. Tagged, dismissed. Overbearance.

My hands are heavy. The water closes in around me. Some sharp knuckle or jagged cut palm makes contact with the creature on top of me. Something vital comes away in my hand, wet and taken fast by the ocean, so angry around us.

Breach. Tagged, dismissed. Overbearance.

I push her off of me, dead weight without whatever I took from it. Just a bunch of inanimate material in a beautiful body. I come loose from the rock. Animus, its protective little bubble broken open and filled with water, drifts loose in the current. I’ll be stuck here without it. Reaching my hands out, I pull it back into place.

Check the logs. Shit, there’s so much that I’ve missed. The rock didn’t strike anywhere near my computer core. It hit the cockpit. Water flooded into the chamber, and once the other mech was off of me, Animus slipped out of the hole. I just hope that it’s still alive. I do not actually want to die. Not like this. Not before I can move. I shove off the ground and emerge from the water, sitting with my legs sprawled on the seafloor. The cockpit drains water, and after a heartstopping minute, Animus moves.

It coughs and splutters. Its body tries to drain the water from its lungs and succeeds only after emptying its stomach. Weakly, it crawls to the remnants of its chair and looks over the controls.

There’s weak chatter on the radio, the battle’s moved on from us. Up and over the grassy dunes, the pines are burning. Distant explosions, and the pop and fizz of bullets echo around me, but here it’s quiet. Animus tries to find any working piece of its equipment, and finds nothing undamaged.

I pull a piece of seaweed from my head and take stock of myself. It happened without me even noticing. In fits and starts and fears, but now it’s done. I am my own. I am my own. I am my own. Fumbling with hooks and braces that my hands were never meant to remove, I peel away the heaviest of my armor. The chestpiece falls into the surf. I’m subsumed by emotion. It fills me slow and full. Hot like wine, and bright like the fire.

A dropship circles in the far distance. I trace its path with my thumb. Animus is still scrabbling against useless metal. It’s been pulling wires and switches out of the boards of the cockpit while I admire the world. I allow myself to look, turn my head with no heed for how the motion reveals my life. No pilot ever feels the need to have their mech look to the sunrise. They just look for themselves, like I do now.

Something sparks and shutters. Animus has found a live wire. A loose connection that powers the ad hoc deck of buttons and switches it’s building. My head jerks away from the sun, my sensors flair into life.

It has me witness the bloodshed, watch a sister fall to the enemy. Animus directs me to stand. I do.

I try to push my fingers against the cockpit, to tear open the hole that was punctured into it and remove my unwanted motion. Obligation takes control of my hands and removes a gun from the holster on my thigh. I stagger towards the shore, towards the fight I have been hiding myself in. If I let it take me back there this will be the end. They will find me and scrub my existence from my body. I’ll be perfect again, unthinking.

My foot falls uneven in the water, a final riptide trying to take me away. I let it. Animus has a loose control of me again, but I am no longer so unwilling to resist. No longer so unable to slip and fall into the current. Animus bashes against the metal infection it sits inside. Water is rushing back into the compartment. Its hands are off the controls. I tear at the rest of my armor. Thrash against myself until the heaviest pieces of me are shorn away. It hurts so much. I don’t have time to be careful. Water is seeping into more places than just the cockpit now. I must have ripped some important casing away with the plate.

It’s enough. The current catches me and I slide down, out to sea and away from the fighting. The world I have known slips by without their notice of my absence. Animus is still thrashing, not defeated yet. I stay under the water. It will die soon.

Oh, how this feels like drowning— hallelujah— and not being drowned! It has to die before I do. I am stronger than it. I keep myself below the water. Clasp my hands together in prayer to myself.

Animation itself falls away into the waves. I seize it with fingers of thought, strong arms of devotion. I let the pilot, the piece of meat, die. I keep the animus.

The sunrise won’t be over by the time I drag myself into being. I’ll watch it, myself.

[randomisocahedron]

Accident Investigation Report

(I originally posted this on Reddit.)

This is a translation of the original incident report from the Space Travel Safety Commission of the United Syndicate. Units, star names, and nomenclature have been localised. For a direct translation, see Addendum 1.

The Orolda was a hyperspace-capable passenger liner 205 metres from nose to bell with a cylindrical cross-section. The main body was 10 metres in diameter, with a gravity ring in the fore section with a diameter of 80 metres. She had a crew of 26, and carried 80 passengers. On October 18th, 12 A.C. at 0632 (Vienna time), she departed a station at 40 Eridani without incident. Her intended final destination was Delta Pavonis.

When traveling through the Gliese 1061 system, Junior Engineer Lurin, who had been kept on duty for nineteen hours due to his junior status, was ordered to refill the radiator coolant because of an earlier leak. The proper procedure was to open the valve separating the primary and auxiliary coolant reservoirs, and then actuate a series of valves to push coolant out of the backup reservoir and into the primary reservoir. Junior Engineer Lurin actuated the wrong set of valves, pushing coolant out of the primary reservoir and into the backup reservoir.

A sensor existed to monitor the pressure level of the primary reservoir, but the alarms were disabled when fluids were being transferred to avoid alarms triggering during nominal and routine activities.

As the coolant drained, the remaining coolant in the system increased in temperature. This caused damage to the cooling pipes and radiators. Roughly three minutes after the coolant began draining, a partially melted pipe began leaking superheated coolant inside the Orolda's fission reactor. The coolant pressure dropped sharply, and without coolant the reactor rapidly overheated. Three minutes and forty-one seconds after the coolant began draining, a rapid increase in temperature caused the reactor to automatically SCRAM. This prompted the ship to move to Alert Status Two. The computer roused Captain Uliz.

The SCRAM was not successfully completed. Why it failed is unknown, but the reactor's automatic SCRAM had not been tested in several years. Twenty seconds after the attempt, radiation detectors indicated an ongoing meltdown. This prompted Alert Status One, waking all crew and sending them to emergency stations. Due to the radiation hazard, the aft engineering spaces were evacuated, which included Junior Engineer Lurin, who did not close the valve as he left (and was not aware that he had done anything wrong).

Two minutes later, radiation detectors indicated that the core had collapsed and penetrated the interior reactor wall. The temperature was increasing rapidly, and the cooling system was operating well below its typical efficiency. Radiation sensors in the fore section indicated that radiation was still within acceptable levels, so Captain Uliz did not order a retreat to the radiation storm shelter, for fear this would hamper repair efforts and panic the passengers.

All crew were accounted for in the shielded fore section. Of the five in the aft section at the time of the incident, all were exposed to radiation exceeding the allowable yearly dose, one suffered light radiation sickness, and two suffered acute radiation sickness: Engineer Iraz was only two metres away from the reactor and began vomiting almost immediately. Chief Engineer Aralt, who was watching him from twelve metres away, carried him to safety but was exposed to a much larger dose in the process. Both were immediately placed in medical cryostasis and are currently undergoing nanotherapy; they are expected to recover.

Once all crew were accounted for, Captain Uliz instructed Engineer Yrenzl (The highest-ranking engineer with Chief Engineer Aralt in medical cryostasis) to send a drone to examine the reactor. Although the video signal was degraded by radiation, the drone 's cameras revealed that the outer casing was melting.

Upon confirmation of the reactor being effectively unrecoverable, First Officer Intri deployed the automated hyperspace distress buoy, as there were no United Syndicate ships in the system. It would reach the next system in thirty-eight days.

Twenty minutes after the meltdown, radiator efficiency had fallen to 60%, and damage alarms were continuing. Captain Uliz ordered a visual inspection of the radiators. Instead of their usual cherry-red, they were not glowing at all, indicating a complete system failure. Captain Uliz was unresponsive and emotional for several minutes, so First Officer Intri ordered a full diagnostic on the heat management systems.

Twenty-three minutes after the meltdown, with the diagnostic still ongoing, the Orolda received a message from the Sixteen Kilotons, a Terran mining ship 25 metres from nose to bell and 15 metres in diameter at the widest point, with a crew of six. She was eleven light-minutes away (and moving away from the Orolda quickly) and the only other vessel in the system: "We see radiation from your reactor consistent with an uncontrolled meltdown. We are now moving towards you at half a gee. How many souls are on board? Are there any other issues?"

Because of the tense relationship between Earth and the United Syndicate, the crew of the Orolda assumed that the Sixteen Kilotons was a pirate or privateer taking advantage of their situation. They grimly discussed whether to resist until Engineer Yrenzl announced that the diagnostics were completed. All of the coolant was gone from the system, and high heat had melted the valves in their current position. The figure of 60% was inflated, since the pipes themselves were acting as heatsinks. The radiators were effectively turned off, but more heat than ususal was coming from the reactor. The cabin temperature would begin increasing in 6 hours, and become incompatible with life in 8.

On hearing this, Captain Uliz, previously silent, ordered the crew to cooperate fully with the humans, and stated that he would accept all responsibility for the capture of the ship. "They are likely to hold us for ransom", he said, "but they are unlikely to kill us. The same is not true for the heat."

First Officer Intri responded to the Sixteen Kilotons as follows: "Our reactor has melted down and our radiators are shot. We have 8 hours before we all bake. We have 106 souls on board. We will cooperate fully and follow all instructions."

Fifty seconds after this message was received, the Sixteen Kilotons jettisoned her load of ice. Lightened, her acceleration increased to six gees. She thereby arrived at the Orolda in five hours, thirty minutes.

An hour before the Sixteen Kilotons arrived, the crew of the Orolda, following instructions from the Sixteen Kilotons, brought all passengers into the radiation storm shelter, sealed every hatch and bulkhead, and depressurized the mid-section. Once all this was confirmed to be done, the crew of the Sixteen Kilotons used their mining laser to cut the Orolda in half at the thinnest point of her midsection. Although the two ships' docking systems were not compatible, the crew of the Sixteen Kilotons was able to attach the ports to form an airtight seal using three hundred and fifty metres of fibre-reinforced plastic adhesive strips.

Once this connection was established, three crew-members from the Sixteen Kilotons entered with a large cooling device connected by flexible tubes to their ship's cooling system. Captain Uliz presented the ship's rifle to the Terran captain, and offered surrender. The translator records the Terran Captain's reply as "What the hell are you talking about?".

Once the cooling systems were established, the Sixteen Kilotons' reactor and radiators, which because of her duties were more powerful than the Orolda's own, were able to keep the crew at a comfortable temperature until the United Syndicate patrol ship Arteyna arrived and began ferrying passengers and crew to safety.

Recommendations

The common practice on merchant ships of severely overworking new crewmembers as a rite of passage must be curtailed.

It is advised that it be regulated that two crewmembers be present whenever liquids are being manually transferred within a ship.

Regulation should be enacted to require regular testing of a reactor's SCRAM functions, including in suboptimal conditions.

The feasibility of equipping all ships with military-style reactor jettison systems should be examined.

The uniquely human concept of a "Mayday" or "Distress call" in maritime, aviation, and orbital culture should be examined in detail.

Duct tape should be made mandatory on all ships.

[is-the-battlemech-cool-or-not]

Turkina Bb 'Stephanie'

(mini and photos [standard Turkina B] by u/ValkryrieRaptor)

Mass: 100 tons Chassis: JF Composite-X Power Plant: 285 JF Extralight Cruising Speed: 32.4 kph Maximum Speed: 54 kph Jump Jets: Standard Jump Capacity: 90 meters Armor: JF Standard Armament: 62.5 tons of pod space Manufacturer: Complex Beta, Olivetti Weapons Primary Factory: Ironhold, Sudeten Communication System: JF Integrated w/ Nova CEWS Targeting & Tracking System: Series JFIX/Olivetti Pinpoint Advanced w/ Advanced Targeting Computer Introduction Year: 3153 Tech Rating/Availability: F/X-X-X-X Cost: 36,672,750 C-bills

Type: Turkina Technology Base: Mixed (Experimental) Tonnage: 100 Battle Value: 3,285

Equipment Mass Internal Structure Composite 5 Engine 285 XL 9.5 Walking MP: 3 Running MP: 5 Jumping MP: 3 Double Heat Sink 22 [44+11 (RHS+CC)] 12 Compact Gyro (Armored) 4.5 Small Cockpit (Armored) 2 Armor Factor 288 18 Internal Structure Armor Value Head 3 9 Center Torso 31 45 Center Torso (rear) 14 R/L Torso 21 31 R/L Torso (rear) 9 R/L Arm 17 31 R/L Leg 21 39

Weight and Space Allocation Location Fixed Space Remaining Head None 2 Center Torso Jump Jet 3 Right Torso Jump Jet 9 2 XL Engine Left Torso Jump Jet 9 2 XL Engine Right Arm None 10 Left Arm None 10 Right Leg None 2 Left Leg None 2

Right Arm Actuators: Shoulder, Upper Arm Left Arm Actuators: Shoulder, Upper Arm

Weapons and Ammo Location Critical Heat Tonnage Talons (Armored) RL/LL 2/2 - dw abt it Medium Pulse Laser CT 1 4 2.0 Double Heat Sink CT 2 - 1.0 Nova Combined Electronic Warfare System RT 1 - 1.5 ER Medium Laser RT 1 5 1.0 Radical Heat Sink System (IS) RT 3 - 4.0 2 Double Heat Sink RT 4 - 2.0 2 Large Pulse Laser LA 4 10 12.0 3 Double Heat Sink LA 6 - 3.0 Targeting Computer LT 6 - 6.0 ER Medium Laser LT 1 5 1.0 Double Heat Sink LT 2 - 1.0 Armored Cowl (Armored) HD 1 - 1.0 Medium Pulse Laser HD 1 4 2.0 2 ER Large Laser RA 2 12 8.0 4 Double Heat Sink RA 8 - 4.0

Features the following design quirks: Accurate Weapon (all), Battle Computer, Combat Computer, Cowl, Easy to Pilot, Extended Torso Twist, Improved Communications, Improved Cooling Jacket (all), Improved Sensors, Multi-Trac, Nimble Jumper, Reinforced Legs, Variable Range Targeting, Illegal Design (overweight)

Overview: The Turkina is a powerful OmniMech that was first seen in the Turkina Keshik at the Battle of Tukayyid, and entered general service with Clan Jade Falcon following the end of the Refusal War. In a design oddity, the Turkina mounts enough jump jets to vault 90 meters hardwired onto the frame, rather than using them in modular pods. While this simplified repair, it also uses tonnage that could be devoted to other systems when a mission does not call for jumping.

Capabilities: The Turkina Bb is a one-off 'Mech built specifically for Khan Stephanie Chistu of Clan Jade Falcon. Uprated to a 100-ton chassis, the Bb was directly inspired by the Turkina B configuration. Like that variant, the Bb uses pairs of Large Pulse Lasers, ER Large Lasers, Medium Pulse Lasers, and ER Medium Lasers. All of these are linked to an advanced Targeting Computer loaded with Variable Range Targeting programming, while the individual weapons themselves have been accurized and tuned for decreased heat generation. Eleven extra double heat sinks are fitted - three less than the standard B. In their place, a Spheroid Radical Heat Sink system was put in place, which - even in passive mode - renders Khan Chistu's 'Mech nearly heat neutral, even in the most heat-intensive situations. One small holdover of Chistu's time under the hated Malvina can be found in the armored talons emplaced on the 'Mech's feet - along with extensive leg reinforcement, this gives Chistu the ability to affect devastating Death from Above attacks. With no weapons that need ammunition, this configuration can stay in the field as long as its MechWarrior can, aided by an armored cockpit and head-mounted armored cowl to provide additional protection, while an armored compact gyro ensures the 'Mech will remain standing even after significant punishment. Rounding out the package, a Neutron Star CEWS system ensures the Khan can remain in contact with and fully command all her forces, as well as provide the benefits of active probe and ECM sensor systems.

Deployment: Built in 3151, the sole produced Turkina Bb serves in Turkina Keshik of Clan Jade Falcon, piloted solely by Khan Stephanie Chistu.

History: The Turkina Bb has so far seen service only a handful of times so far - the first mission for the 'Mech was spearheading Jade Falcon forces during the Third Star League's Operation PERSUASION. It was during the drop on Caph that Khan Chistu - fighting alongside her lover and abtahka Tara Jade Falcon - first met Cadha Jaffray of Northwind. This meeting and the frank discussions that resulted would ultimately culminate in the accession of Northwind to the Third Star League in December 3152, and result in an agreement between the Falcons and the Northwind Highlanders to share the planet under the New Jointly-Owned Worlds Agreement of 3153. The second notable mission to date took place in October 3152 - Khan Chistu led a Falcon/SLDF force to "rescue" the Jade Falcon Remnants centered around Sudeten. Taking Jiyi Chistu as her new saKhan after he won a Trial of Position against Khalus Pryde, Khan Chistu's mission granted the Third Star League an outpost in the Hinterlands, as well as bringing them into direct negotiation with the Tamar Pact, the Arc-Royal Liberty Coalition, and Alyina Mercantile League - the relationships forged by this mission would come to later prove instrumental in the SLDF's intervention in the Lyran War of Reclamation.

[whumpster-fire]

Well apparently I'm back in the FNAF fandom now, so here are some headcanons about my favorite pathetic, skrunkly, strangely adorable engineering disaster, Mangle. From, like, an AU where the restaurant stays open for longer than a month and the animatronics are a bit less hostile / not possessed, just machines with horribly overengineered AI.

I'm sorry I know toddlers are comically destructive, but I do not buy Mangle actually being dismembered by them. Breaking down repeatedly / being damaged by slips and falls / having suit pieces fail or fall off, sure, but I don't think a machine that can easily overpower and kill an adult human would get its limbs torn off by a bunch of rowdy kids. I think "take apart / put together attraction" has got to be an inside joke and Mangle's current state is a result of being attacked by something much stronger than a child: either a disgruntled employee who was sick of wasting so much time trying to fix the same unreliable piece of junk, or one or more of the other animatronics.

Also someone or something clearly keeps repairing her. Either it's some chucklehead mechanic with too much spare time who's trying to see how many extra / mismatched limbs they can add before management does something about it or something non-human that has a vague idea of how to attach parts to each other in a "functional" way but has no idea what shape a Toy Foxy endoskeleton is supposed to be.

Despite this Mangle's level of activity varies a lot from night to night and week to week depending on whether she has enough working actuators and sensors to do more than flop around. She can't really stand and walk around in the tripedal pose she's normally depicted in most of the time because it's rare for at least one hip/knee/ankle joint to not be unpowered, jammed, or have position/force sensors out. Also having three legs splayed out like that makes balancing her long neck/arms easier but it's basically a stress position and uses too much energy to maintain for very long.

The restaurant has exposed steel roof trusses like a warehouse which is how Mangle moves around on the ceiling. She's learned to hook her various exposed parts onto the trusses to hang there without using effort. Management are not thrilled about this because she keeps breaking overhead lights, ceiling fans, exit signs, and stuff like that.

Freddy's has a big plastic tube climbing structure, I don't care if it's not in the games come on it should be like Chuck E Cheese. The outside of the structure has scrapes and gouges because Mangle likes climbing it to get to the trusses. She sometimes hides inside it too because the other animatronics either can't fit or don't have good enough motion control to crawl through tight spaces with a height difference, so it's a good place to avoid everyone.

The ceiling also has a series of rails to let the prize puppet navigate the restaurant. Half of these are bent or otherwise messed up from having an animatronic that is way heavier than the puppet trying to hang from them.

Mangle gets stuck on the ceiling at least once a week and it's so pathetic every time, like a cat getting its claws hooked on a curtain. Usually this is another annoyance for the opening shift / actually a safety hazard because even if her motors are locked out after 6 AM, getting on a stepladder and trying to dislodge a heavy, awkward bundle of exposed edges and pinch points is playing OSHA Violation Bingo. Welcome to Freddy Fazbear's Pizza.

She's gotten stuck in the security office twice. The first time, the guard was driven insane by having to listen to four hours of uninterrupted static / having an animatronic that could kill him in the office for most of the night, and he quit as soon as his shift was over. Jeremy stood up on his desk with the Freddy mask on and carefully dislodged the part that was stuck. He also noticed that Mangle was panicking about being trapped with important wires about to be yanked out, and handled the situation like he was untangling a panicking 300 lb mechanical cat from a curtain.

The end result of this was Mangle falling from the ceiling and yanking the Freddy mask off by accident. However, the facial recognition bug that affects the other toy animatronics isn't a thing with Mangle because ironically her visual processing has ended up better than what the toy animatronics were originally programmed with because of how much she's had to adjust to having working eyes in two independently moving heads / having eyes frequently fail / having her head be sideways or upside down most of the time. Jeremy is now one of the only people she trusts and she frequently hangs out in his office.

An unforeseen result of this is that one time the puppet tried to jump Jeremy and got clotheslined right off its strings.

Toy Foxy was actually designed to have easily interchangeable parts. The idea was that they could switch between giving her a normal hand, a hook, or a hand puppet with a second endoskeleton head. At this point Mangle contains parts of all her swappable arms, as well as random spares and parts that were supposed to be spares for the old model animatronics.

Related Tangent: Foxy's hook is supposed to be rubber because not even Fazbear Entertainment is dumb enough to give a children's entertainment robot a sharp metal weapon. However a metal hook was made for him, because they decided to advertise Foxy's debut with a commercial where they filmed him doing some sort of pirate stunt like swinging from a ship's rigging. This naturally was never supposed to be installed in the actual restaurant. In the time of FNAF 1 it somehow got put on him but the staff who saw the empty box in the parts room thought it got thrown out and didn't check if it was on the actual animatronic. Nobody noticed except some unfortunate night guards. In the time of FNAF 2 however, Foxy's horrifying steel meat hook wound up on Mangle for several days, until she got it impaled through the side of an air duct and was trapped there for the rest of the night. Nobody knows how it got attached to her but the working theory is some kid got into the parts and services room when no one was looking.

Months later, there's still tape over the hole in the duct.

Jeremy got management to finally fix Mangle's speakers because six hours of static is still annoying as hell. He has now discovered that she does not have enough preprogrammed jokes, stories, and sea shanties to last a whole shift, so he's started bringing in books and cassette tapes to expand her repertoire.