Draft — comments welcomed
Factory. A place of building, the act of creation forging whatever. A Place where raw materials enter one door and exit as a finished product (or in a more modern sense a component for another "finished" product).
Mobile. Ambulatory, the ability to move, requiring coordination, actors (such as muscles), power, and sometimes a direction.
Combining the two creates a object that could do neither function very well but well enough to justify the cost. In fiction at least, real-life seems a little slow on the uptake. Most often seen as military machines (see Military Mashup Machine) they are also quite handy in colonization efforts or anything really that needs stuff and is willing to put-up with a wondering stuff maker.
Watch out though if Von Neumann is to believed this would be a handy way to travel the stars without FTL and in fiction this probably means very large particles of Grey Goo.
Edited by GiantSpaceChinchilla Hide / Show RepliesYou're in the middle of nowhere (IN SPACE!, in the desert, etc.) There is nothing, nobody, perhaps some plants or animals or aliens but who cares about them. You're on a mission perhaps to make creds or to kill stuff or to make stuff so someone else can kill stuff. The problem is you have nothing and nobody to work with.
It's sad.
Oh well — time to call in the Mobile Factory.
archived
Subversions:
Real Life
because it needs to be fixed not deleted, when I have time.