General-purpose humanoid robots

One of the most persistent designs in robotics is the humanoid.  Mimicking humanity was the most obvious path to development for many early efforts in the field.  As a result, many of the most successful robot designs have been humanoid in form.

After the Third Robot War, the Planetary League adopted the Rubric of Duty into law, officially confining all commercially produced robots and AIs to a single specialized purpose, effectively preventing them from achieving general intelligence.  Even with this regulatory regime, general-purpose hardware remained popular, and many programmers and DIY enthusiasts (on both sides of the law) continually sought to push the boundaries of ability.

For example, the Pegasus Cybernetics S-series, which first saw production in GSC 54 was widely popular, and was adapted to a wide variety of tasks.

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Robots

Robots fill many roles, and have a wide array of functions here are some examples:

Cargo robots are designed to carry heavy loads.

General-purpose robots could perform most of the functions of a human worker, but were generally limited to a single function.

Power Utility robots store and dispense large amounts of energy.

Superstructure Maintenance robots repair the outer hulls of space-craft and space stations.

Virobots are parasites on intelligent life-forms.

The Maenads of Troniac

The Maenads of Troniac (named after the maenads from Greek mythology) are humans (or other intelligent life-forms) who have been parasitisedby specially engineered virobots.  First deployed during the robot wars of late Era-0 and early Era-1, they were developed by the forces of General Zarlok, and saw their fullest use by the Engine of Negation in their ongoing attempts to rid the galaxy of organic life.

Instead of having their hosts build more virobots, the virobots used to create maenads are designed to drive their hosts into a berserk rage, focused on injuring or killing intelligent life.  Mostly used as a weapon of terror, maenads occasionally played bigger roles in thinning out the populations of cities before a direct attack.  This was generally accomplished by aerial bombardment, using munitions stuffed with virobots that could be scattered in population centers.

Plastanium

One of the more important technologies in Eras 1 and 2 was Plastanium, a lightweight, super strong composite material.  Spacecraft, armor, robots and buildings were made of this supermaterial.  Special tools were required to work with plastanium, as it was too strong for normal construction methods, and its nano-compositing was quantum-locked into a super rigid structure that required exotic energies to manipulate.

Tardigrade Powered Armor

The Tardigrades were a unique organization that filled a search and rescue role early on, that became more focused on disaster recovery, and the defense of outposts and colonies as time went on.  As a result, they developed a distinct set of equipment that would assist in their many efforts. 

Tardigrade armor was well-insulated from a wide array of environmental hazards, and included a mechanical-assist system that could substantially boost the wearer's strength.  It also included an extensive set of utility functions, enhancing the wearer's senses, increasing mobility, and facilitating communications.

Variants

The Tactical variant was the lighter version, and was used in cases where mobility and flexibility were essential.

The heavier "Water Bear" variety was used in situations where heavy resistance was expected.

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Tardigrade Tactical Powered Armor was relatively light, while still providing solid defensive capabilities. (helmet not shown)

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Water Bear armor was designed for maximum durability and strength.  Few battlefield weapons could breach it.

The Graviscope

First invented late in Era-0, the graviscope is an instrument that makes gravitational waves visible.  The first graviscopes were large and unwieldy, mainly used in ground-based observatories.  The graviscope revealed much about space, showing the locations of black holes, dark matter clusters, and many other objects that would not otherwise have been found.

Graviscopes are also useful for detecting ships traveling faster than light, as doing so distorts the fabric of space-time, creating gravitational waves.

Midway through Era-1, graviscope technology was developed to the point that it became a practical instrument for space voyages.  As a result, space travel became substantially safer.  Ships that would have previously been lost in gravitational-wave storms, or swallowed by black holes were able to avoid these fates.

Early graviscopes were based on laser interferometry, while later designs changed to a mechanism combining nanotechnology with the exotic material known as gravitonium.

There was a previous version of the graviscope used in the Empire of 1,000,000 Suns, but it was never developed there beyond the level of the ground-based observatory.  The legendary engineer Kroah Dashan wrote a famous treatise on the use of graviscope data in finding the optimal placement for stargates.

Bioreactors

Bioreactors are an important technology, used in a wide variety of applications.  A bioreactor is essentially a self-contained habitat for microorganisms, feeding watering and sheltering them so they can perform some useful function.  Depending on the application, a bioreactor can be small enough to fit in a handheld device or large enough to fill a room. 

Depending on the organism and the nutrients fed into the bioreactor, it can do a number of useful things.  Bioreactors with specially engineered organisms can produce medicine, food, fuel, bio-plastics, and even building materials.   Bioreactors are used in the process of algal symbiosis.  Terra-forming operations also use this technology extensively, particularly in atmospheric conditioners and soil processors.

In space colonies, and on ships bioreactors growing algae recycle the air and water.  Many an astronaut has complained about the flavorless organic mush produced by a bioreactor for food when more appealing fare is in short supply.

Both Human and Cielioid -based civilizations make extensive use of this technology, as it is one of the gateway developments to serious space-fairing. One of the main manufacturers of bioreactors in human-controlled space is Cosmid, inc. one of the largest of the corporate states.  On Earth, bioreactors were first developed late in Era-0.

Entanglement Device

The Entanglement device is a means of faster-than-light communication that is instantaneous, but only works at very low bandwidths.  First invented by the legendary engineer, Kroah Dashan, the entanglement device works on the same principal as the star-gate, but at much smaller scales.

Few Entanglement Devices are made, because they have a mass and a cost approaching that of a star-gate, while only allowing a very limited amount of information to pass through.  Like star-gates, entanglement devices operate only in pairs constructed together, and then separated after activation. 

The Empire of 1,000,000 Suns only made limited use of entanglement devices, using them mainly for large-scale coordination of naval fleets.  The Planetary League made more extensive use of them, typically placing a small number per colony as part of a communication network.  Even with the instant speed of the entanglement device, communications were still slow due to the low bandwidth.  Because of this, Gazillion, inc.  made a lot of money with its own parallel network of entanglement devices built in corporate outposts near Planetary League colonies.  The Holy Empire of Man largely abandoned this technology because of its anti-intellectual culture.  In Era-3, the Galactic Republic improved the design, allowing for higher bandwidth, smaller size, and lower cost.  Consequently,  Entanglement devices became much more widely used during Era-3.

Clock Pulsers

A special application of entanglement device technology is the Clock Pulser which was invented during Era-1 in the Gazillion Corporate State.  The only information this device can receive is a single bit that pulses at a regular rate, connected to a remote timing device.  Because the clock pulser operates through the action of a fluctuating quantum field, it allows for the synchronization of timepieces, even in places with intense gravitational fields, or on high-speed spacecraft (where the pulsers appear to change speed, but are able to maintain synchronization).  Clock pulsers are all cubes, one meter on a side, weighing about twenty metric tons, because of the unique physics, and exotic matter needed to make them work.  The Planetary League operated a galaxy-spanning network of these devices synchronized to a hyper-accurate atomic clock on Earth.  This was the basis of the Galactic Standard Calendar, the standard time-keeping scheme of the League.  All colonies of the Planetary League, and most capital ships had at least one of these devices in order to maintain proper timekeeping.

Clock pulsers do not work in hyperspace; however, and when a ship with a spatial compression device emerges from higher dimensions, it needs to re-synchronize its clock with a local timekeeping source.  Occasionally, especially if the ship has been through a hyperspace storm, the ship will arrive at a point in time that was unexpected at the outset of the journey.  This seems to be related to the phenomenon of cosmic drift.