Scrapyard Station: Transporters

[feotakahari]

I blame @predstrogen for inspiring this one.

Transporters are carnivorous cave-dwelling bipeds, slightly shorter than Tinkers on average. They have dull grayish-black exoskeletons that blend into darkness. They have no eyes, navigating by the movement of air or water around them.

Transporters tend to packbond easily, especially if you share food with them. Their society leans towards the group over the individual, pooling limited resources to keep everyone alive.

Transporter exoskeletons are strong, but not as rigid as Builder back armor. There’s a bit of give that allows them to cuddle non-Transporters without feeling like rocks.

There are dangerous predators on the surface, so Transporters usually make do with what they can mine or harvest underground. They farm an immobile creature that’s roughly akin to a fleshy mushroom, supplementing it with whatever small prey they can catch. Their technological development was relatively low before first contact, since they can’t build anything that lets off smoke without a way to vent it. (They did figure out water wheels with underground rivers, though.)

Transporters can swim, but their senses don’t extend as far in water as in air. Thankfully, the creatures in cave rivers are small enough that Transporters hunt them rather than the other way around.

A Transporter can swallow just about anything that can fit in its mouth, with no apparent discomfort or distention. The object or creature can later be regurgitated unharmed if the Transporter so chooses. Living creatures describe darkness, warmth, enclosure, and a sensation as if the body has liquefied. Many find it comfortable.

(Scrappers are already liquid, so they generally don’t get what the fuss is about.)

Being swallowed is an act of trust, since the Transporter could choose to gain nourishment from you instead of releasing you. Gaining nourishment from a sapient is a major taboo, but there are dark myths about Transporters who turned to cannibalism and became deformed monsters with incredible strength. The relevant Tinker myths haven’t survived the conquest of Earth, so Tinkers don’t see the resemblance.

It’s difficult to describe the sensations involved when two sapients are swallowed at once. Subjects talk about a feeling of intermixing, but can’t go into much more detail.

Transporter reproduction requires three parents, one of which swallows and regurgitates the other two.

Being swallowed and regurgitated can help with some medical issues, particularly getting bloody wounds to clot faster or removing internal parasites. It’s not precise enough to selectively remove cancer, though.

Although Transporter society isn’t capitalist, they’ve integrated into the capitalist Coalition well. They’re known for swallowing vast quantities of products and regurgitating them in distant places.

Not even Transporters can swallow Winnowers.

Stewards’ heat powers mess with air flow in ways Transporters find disorienting.