motile
Names: motilemotilessoldier motilessub-herd of soldier motilesmotile soldierssoldier motilespace adept motiles
First appears in Book 1: Pandora's Star, chapter 19 (EIGHTEEN)
Appearances
What you know
Book 1: Pandora's Star
- Ch 19Motiles are pear-shaped, four-legged, four-armed Prime creatures birthed by immotiles. They have four sensory stalks, feed immotiles regurgitated pap, and are not smart enough to handle technology unaided.
- Ch 19Motile variants include standard, heavy-work and soldier types, determined by the immotile's hormone control over nucleiplasm.
- Ch 19Soldier motiles are smaller, faster, more agile, armored and weaponized, but lack endurance; MorningLightMountain controls them by microwave link.
- Ch 25Motiles advanced across the new lands outside the cities with little resistance, because humans fled down wormholes inside their guarded cities.
Book 2: Judas Unchained
- Ch 19Dudley Bose discovered that the Starflyer's true origin lies with the motiles; the soldier motiles seen now are an improved version.
- Ch 19Soldier motiles here have eight hoofs and multiple arms with weapons, are faster than those on Elan, and number in the hundreds.
- Ch 19Armored car X-ray lasers can pierce soldier motile force fields only within fifty meters.
- Ch 19Soldier motiles lie in ambush, powered down, and a thousand block Highway One; they lack electromuscle support but chase relentlessly.
- Ch 19Motiles are either grown from the Starflyer's modified nucleiplasms or humans whose brains were subsumed to host its thought routines.
Connections
- led byMorningLightMountain
- member ofMorningLightMountainpuppet bodies controlled by it
- member ofStarflyercontrolled by the Starflyer's hive-like mind
Key moments
- Book 1 · Ch 19Founding of MorningLightMountain
A sub-herd of twelve motiles chooses the light-struck mountain, prepares a pond, and four merge into the immotile MorningLightMountain, which begins birthing motiles.
- Book 1 · Ch 19Alien captives examined
Two alien motiles are brought to MorningLightMountain's mountain and confined in the chemical warfare laboratory. Soldiers strip their suits, revealing strange physiology.
- Book 1 · Ch 25MorningLightMountain consolidates its gains
After losing a quarter of its wormholes, MorningLightMountain realigns the surviving routes to its twenty-three new worlds, ships resume carrying supplies, and motiles advance outside the human cities against little resistance.
- Book 2 · Ch 19Clans confront the Starflyer convoy
The clans block Highway One, mine it and encircle the Starflyer convoy; Barsoomians arrive on king eagles, and the Institute sends out hundreds of soldier motiles.
- Book 2 · Ch 19Armored cars charge and meet soldier motiles
Bradley orders the armored cars to ram the MANN truck, but hundreds of soldier motiles block the way. Morton kills one in close combat and the Paris team ends up nearly surrounded.
- Book 2 · Ch 19Retreat from soldier motiles and sudden darkness
The group's decoy attack on the soldier motiles fails and the second armored car is destroyed. The armor suits flee on foot as the sun suddenly goes dark over the Dessault Mountains.
- Book 2 · Ch 19Bradley infiltrates the Marie Celeste
Using the Starflyer's neural language, Bradley passes the force field, guards and alarms, enters the ship and taunts the Starflyer with claims of sabotage while launch is prepared.