GMU
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General Manufacturing Unit
Taken from the nomenclature used in Iain M. Banks' Culture novels a General Manufacturing Unit (GMU) is a self-contained mining and manufacture system. It utilizes replicator technology (combined with Von Neumann machine strategies) to disassemble asteroids and small moons and, assuming the right mix of elements is available, turn them into almost any product a human being could plan.
This ship is a one kilometre long open tube with the propulsion system fastened around the outside, three-quarters of the way from the front, or mouth of the ship. Forward of this are the control and habitation pods used by the small crew and their families.
The ship works by 'flying' through an asteroid field collecting raw material in its mouth using a combination of cutting beams and presser-tractor beams. Smaller lumps are 'dragged' to the GMU's collection zone using mining tugs, two of which are part of the initial holdings of a GMU. This material is then processed by a series of Extremely Large Replicators into the basic materials needed for manufacturing.
Note that one of the first things a GMU produces, besides the parts of another GMU, is a factory to use "bulk manufacturing" (term from Drexler) techniques to create large un-complicated structures (I-beams, sheet stock, etc), which can be formed into large objects. This factory can float free but is often placed on a convenient large asteroid or moonlet.
Additionally, mining disassemblers are manufactured from internal stocks to collect and sort new feedstock’s to replenish internal supplies. These are often used in conjunction with the tugs to track down hard to find minerals to save the energy and time it would take to convert them from another form.
The basic GMU can extrude items up to three hundred metres in diameter as they pass through the manufacturing bay and exit from the aft of the ship. For bigger items the GMU initially produces a general-purpose tool, about the size of your fist, which is under the control of the GMU AI. This 'tool' can place an atom or molecule *exactly* where it is told to, creating the necessary chemical/physical bonds needed to keep it there. The construction template held in by GMU AI guides this operation.
The GMU feeds this 'tool' with the necessary feedstock using a variation on transporter technology. Because this 'tool' is operating outside the confines of the ship it can produce an object of any size. To bring production up to a level that is useful a flock of 'tools' can be produced and guided by the GMU AI, using this method complete ships can be produced in weeks.
Given sufficient feedstock a GMU without an assembled manufacturing plant optimised for their production can turn out a pod an hour whilst directing the construction of another vessel outside.
GMU's can be deployed planet side where they cannibalise their own engines and other space-faring systems before starting on the planets raw materials.
One of the first jobs for the GMU is to manufacture more GMUs. Each colony is usually delivered two GMUs, one of which concentrates on making pods, the second GMU first replicates itself until there are at least 9 copies, including the original pair, and then starts assembling weapons and ships. The number of GMUs deployed to the planet's surface will depend on the proposed size of the colony.
Larger ships have been proposed, the General Transport Unit (GTU) and the General Offensive Unit (GOU) but at present the resources, manpower and size of these twenty-kilometre diameter Death Stars has precluded their construction. ( Thus spake Thinker :-) )
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