Von Neumann Raiders are a constant nuisance. These craft the size of a small frigate at about 230 meters long and weigh about 32,000 tonnes, though they have comparable firepower as a corvette about half their mass and maneuverability more akin to a large destroyer from the time that they were designed. Their hyperdrives can only make jumps about 0.6 times as far as a contempory conventioanl regular frigate could. They are automated and as such are less capable than a manned ship in terms of general performance. Even so they do have several advantages over more conventional warships: namely their ability to manufacture more of themselves. Each Von Neumann Raider has the ability to mine and process comets and asteroids for fuel and raw materials for a bank of fabricators. These it uses to build additional fabricators, small assembly robots, additional torpedoes, spare parts and ultimately additional Von Neumann raiders. They programming is to find raw materials, produce more of themselves and attack space stations, satellites, lone warships and cargo ships.



Von Neumann Raiders were launched as a long term areal denial weapon, launched in the twenty year armistice of the Kingdom of New Wisconsin and the Four World's Federation between their Second and Third War (547 After Tranquility to 567 After Tranquility). In order to deal a blow to the Four World's Federation and to keep it's military bogged down, sixteen Von Neumann Raiders were launched with the intent of raiding FWF shipping. After four years of their launch, they had undergone two generations had begun launching their attacks on ships, which were enough to get the FWF to institute convoys and had their fleets out to hunt down them and their nests. Even so they were never able to fully eradicate them and their attempts to destroy them scattered them. After the end of the Third War, the Kingdom used a kill command as a bargaining chip, who latter spread it to other powers. Even so, they were never able to get all of them and over a century latter they still come out of the woodworks launching raids. They are programmed to find out of the way areas to start production and set up fabrication sites before launching raids.



The ability to command these ships to simply shut down has done a lot to deal with the threat they pose. Even so, they can still do a fair bit of damage to undefended targets if the code is not given. They also have been notable in that they can be salvaged for their equipment, which makes them the prey of pirates and arms dealers in search of weapons and spaceship components. Even so in the last few years there has been reports of Von Neumann Raiders which do not respond to the Kill Command which have recently been verified.