Description

The Rat-king is a scavenger ship, captained by a small hive-mind of Greys, who stay in a central cabin heavily shielded from radio noise.  They communicate with the rest of the crew through the ship’s computer network, but are rarely seen outside their cabin.  The rest of the ship is patched together from an ever changing and gradually expanding pastiche of salvaged ships, junk robots, asteroids, and any other material that is both easily attainable and not immediately threatening.  The crew is composed of castaways, outcasts and strays, and the ship just slowly drifts from port to port, buying necessities and selling anything of value they can scavenge from the cold depths of space.

History

The Rat-king was first created by a Convergence scout ship that got lost in an ion storm near the frontier of the Planetary League late in Era-1.  Their ship was damaged, their connection to the larger hive mind was severed, and their supplies were running low, so they turned to scavenging.  They found enough materials to survive, but, by the time they reached civilization, the Greys aboard the ship had been out of contact with the Convergence for so long, that it made more sense for them to continue as an independent mind.

Over time, the ship grew larger and larger.  Castaways joined the crew as their escape pods were found, or their ships were salvaged. 

The name "Rat-King" was given to the vessel by the captain of a merchant ship that happened to encounter it in deep space, noting that the vessel's construction had something in common with an intertwined mass of rodents.  Upon returning to port, the captain told his friends about the strange vessel, and the use of the name spread.

During the Great Reckoning, the Rat-king became one of the founding "clans" of the Yatagarasu.