Shadow by BlueBlankey on DeviantArt (original) (raw)

A large self-replicating automation the Zios refer to as "shadows". The planet they live on is full of a gaseous element with properties that enable it to both power and manufacture their machines. They eventually discovered that it also has a capacity to store data, and could be "programmed" to create their machines without having to design them directly. The more they brought the element to the surface, the more it became diffused across the biosphere. Over time clumps of mechanizations began spawning from the ground like flora, and over many years became mobile zombie-like automations.

At first the Zios thought of them as more a curiosity than a threat, that is until they built a massive construct the freely emitted the element to aid with space travel in "the age of light". The automations then became exponentially larger and moved across the landscape looking for sources of the element for food; the Zio's constructs being the primary source. It became an unwinnable battle- the more they destroyed them, the more fuel it gave them to procreate to a larger size, which prompted larger weapons to combat them- in the end just feeding subsequent generations more fuel.

The war splintered the Zios into many groups of different ideologies- those against destroying the automations in favor of accepting them as the new world order, and those that wanted to continue destroying them in hopes of buying time for a permanent solution. In the meantime the automations continued to grow ever larger, enveloping whole swaths of land with the dead producing the living- and although slower to manifest itself, they were also reaching higher forms of intelligence.

~An old model made in Sketchup. The texture map is a bit messy but it was a good learing experience. The details are much better seen in 3d: sketchfab.com/3d-models/monste…
This is a prototype model to set the tone of what the mechs kind of look like. The idea is that the best way to make it feel like they were grown would be to literally grow them with procedural generation. (Also because their structures are never exactly the same to one another, and making them individually would take forever.) It may be awhile before I figure out how to do this, but I'm confident it'll work.