Novalyst.
Spoiler-aware compendium Sign in
Library/ Network Effect
Compendium Story so far
Reading position Whole book
Whole book
← The Compendium
Generic faction illustration for Gray Intruders
faction

Gray Intruders

Targets · colonists · altered colonists · infected group · less-infected faction · alien-remnant faction · hostiles

A less-infected delegation exposes the implants and underground captors while Target Control’s destruction ends the network directing the colony’s coercive faction.

Story so far

The altered colonists are divided between an infected group carrying out Target Control’s coercive plans and less-affected residents who deny responsibility for the ship seizures. ART forces five delegates from the latter faction to meet by threatening the terraforming engine and demonstrating armed pathfinders in the agricultural zone.

Iris recognizes their Adamantine language and believes they belong to the same faction as the colonist who died helping ART’s crew escape. Under questioning by Thiago and Overse, the delegates insist that alien influence affects people unequally. When Ratthi’s implant evidence appears, three delegates turn on a fourth who claims the devices provide connection and protection. The confrontation reveals that some colonists did not know implants were being used to enforce obedience.

One delegate finally locates Murderbot with the infected faction eight levels beneath the installation plaza, near the contagion. ART withdraws the negotiators and uses pathfinders to scatter armed defenders while Three infiltrates. Below, Murderbot and Murderbot 2.0 destroy Target Control System and its human host, causing the target drones to fail. The surviving colonists remain endangered but are no longer under the central network’s active direction.

Appearance

Humans with varying gray skin, blotches, and bodily alterations, dressed in work clothing or scavenged protective gear. The negotiation delegates are unarmed; some retain mostly ordinary human skin tones while others are fully gray.

Role

The gray intruders resolve into victims, collaborators, resisters, and unaware residents rather than one enemy. Their internal disagreement supplies the location that makes Murderbot’s retrieval possible.

Relationships

Iris — Iris identifies the delegates’ language and argues that their faction previously helped the university captives.
Thiago — Thiago uses negotiation to separate the delegates’ claims and extract the underground location.
Overse — Overse plays the threatening intermediary and confronts the faction with evidence of lethal implants.
Target Control System — Target Control System infects, deceives, and compels the colonists until its physical network is destroyed.
ART — ART coerces a meeting with precision detonations but ultimately avoids destroying the colonist population.
Sources — 7 recorded facts, by chapter
Chapter 5
  • Tall gray-skinned invaders with sharp teeth, stealth armor, and sadistic curiosity occupy Perihelion without understanding most of its systems.
Chapter 8
  • The last gray occupiers die in ART's control foyer, leaving their origin, altered bodies, and role in the colony's catastrophe unresolved.
Chapter 10
  • Autopsy proves the intruders were deliberately altered and uniformly implanted, while their old suits and unknown internal elements resist a simple origin story.
Chapter 11
  • The altered raiders may have seized an explorer’s command structure, neutralized three SecUnits, and turned its weapons against the expedition’s support ship.
Chapter 15
  • The gray intruders are exposed as remnant-sick colonists divided by severity, ideology, and a possible hivemind into factions already at war.
Chapter 16
  • The controlling colonist faction links surface and explorer through Target Contact, captures Murderbot, and loses its implanted prisoners to a liberated SecUnit.
Chapter 19
  • A less-infected delegation exposes the implants and underground captors while Target Control’s destruction ends the network directing the colony’s coercive faction.
Character portrait