Scanner

OPERATING INSTRUCTIONS Equip to quick-access toolbelt. Never remove. Scan everything. Scanning technology fragments will generate new blueprints.

Scannable targets trigger an icon in your HUD, prompting you to equip and use the scanner.

BACKGROUND Alterra's pride, the essential science and survival tool. In cooperation with a PDA, the spectral scanner can image and analyze anything a pioneer encounters. Ryley Robinson used a standard field scanner to discover and cure 4546b's kharaa infestation, a feat of solitary survival unmatched in human history.

The scanner is a hyperspectral imager, integrating techniques from resonance enhanced Raman spectroscopy to Spiff muon tomography. The PDA then generates a best-fit theory from a corpus of past data. When generating names and databank entries, the PDA considers — but does not always respect — the user's cultural background, educational accomplishments, and personal preferences.

• Scan fragments of technology to add their blueprints to your PDA databank. Multiple fragment scans may be required to synthesize a complete blueprint
• Novel species are assigned an easy-to-remember name and a databank entry populated with best-guess behavior, anatomy, niche, reproduction, and evolution (BANRE). Remember that this information is provisional. Alterra cannot be held liable for errors or mistakes caused by a mismatch between AI induction and real outcomes
• The user may run a self-scan to determine their own physical well-being, but this function is usually redundant with implanted PDA diagnostics and biobed scans
• Data gathered with the scanner can also be delivered to a higher-order artificial intelligence (such as Alterra's Noetic Advisor) to generate advanced theory

"The Alterra Hyperspectral Scanner: it's all you need to know*."

*Intellectual property generated by use of the Alterra Hyperspectral Scanner (including but not limited to novel physical and biological theory, genetic and biomechanical applications, and licensing rights for charismatic species) is by default assigned to the user's employer in perpetuity. Terms of contract may vary.