Nanites / Nanobots

Nanites (aka nanobots or nanomachines) are microscopic robots that are found in many various applications in modern society.

One of the most common functions for nanobots is in medical applications (both human and reploid). Nanobots injected into the patient's body can travel to injured areas and make some repairs/help heal.

When used in humans, the nanobots often use red blood cells, nutrients from within that person's body and their own bodies to mend their host. It increases healing time significantly (Allowing even broken bones to mend within days if enough nanobots are used). When used in reploids, nanobots first try to use extra metal/material found around damage or within that reploid's body, but failing that they will use their own bodies to help repair damage.

Some nanobots can also self-repair if they get damaged and there are enough materials available.

Unfortunately despite their usefulness, nanobots cannot always perfectly repair their host. Significant damage done to the host can easily overwhelm the nanobots or make it so that there is insufficient materials to properly effect repairs. (Since nanobots are dependant on the materials available to them and if none are there then they sacrifice themselves. Which also means that eventually if enough damage is done then that host would run out of nanobots.) Even if they are functioning properly, a user's nanobot repair tends to be fairly slow at best (given that each has only a finite number of nanobots and nanobots are extremely tiny and can only affect a small area at a time.)

Also if the host is killed then their nanobots shutdown also. (Nanobots cannot act without the reploid to direct them.)

Nanobots have the capability of gathering information about their host. Typically in humans this data is then fed back to an external device (like a watch) where the data is either recorded or send to their medical professional for them to monitor and evaluate. Though some humans have purchased systems (EX- special glasses) so they can read their own vitals. With reploids this data is fed back to that reploid's Control Chip so they can get an instant read out of how their body is doing (what areas are damaged or are having troubles, power spikes/fluctuations, etc…)

However getting access to this data is generally extremely difficult without express permission. Some nanobots do not broadcast this data (they form a long chains in the user's body to send and receive signals directly, much like the human nervous system). Others that do use wireless broadcast methods ensure all data sent is encrypted for that reploid's control chip only (often using proprietary 1 petabit “Hammerhead” encryption method.)

Hunter teams that have medics actually need to be granted special permission for their medics to have access to that team's nanobots (and even then, those medics are only granted to their team's nanobots and not all Hunters). All medical teams in hunter bases though have access to aid them in diagnostic and repair of injuries sustained in field work. (Though they only have access so long as that one is a patient.)

Nanobots can be injected into targets for a variety of functions. They can be used to attack enemies from the inside (instead of repairing functions, break them down). They can also cause specific issues like interfering with weapon modules (locking weapons, interrupting normal operations by causing misfires, blank fires, etc… ). They can sometimes even be used to feed physiologic data about the host back to the one who fired the nanobots.

Even though nanobot attacks are useful they can often be countered by the target's own nanobots. The target's nanobots may destroy any foreign nanobots, thus reducing attack effectiveness. (Though if damage has been done to a target this can compromise their ability to negate/defend from nanobot attacks.) Nanobot attacks that involve control chip access tend to take a long time given how complex the control chip is. And often attacks on control chips can be resisted if the user realises what is going on.