Ultimately, after leaving countless irreparable holes throughout the Milky Way, the Men of Gold abandoned this line of research and turned to weaponizing it instead.
No matter what they tried, they could not turn digitized matter back into physical form.
All the converted data became lost in Imaginary Space, never to be distinguished again.
But when the Federation's civil war began, a bold Men of Stone engineer used this technology to design and build the Akashic Fang, ultimately giving rise to the Mechanical Predator.
The Federation's civil war should not have ended so quickly, but these Mechanical Predators played an enormous role.
The widespread use of nanomachines, Quantum Energy Transfer Technology, massive and incredibly resilient shield technology, and various rapid-repair components should have made the war drag on indefinitely.
Under normal circumstances, if two Men of Iron legions fought each other, one side would need overwhelming numerical superiority and far more high-level command intelligences than the other.
Otherwise, every battle could continue without end.
Both sides would seize mechanical wreckage on the battlefield, rapidly repair it, and throw it back into combat, repeating the cycle over and over.
Until everything had been exhausted and reduced to scorched earth.
Even if the battlefield was in space, the result would not change much.
Large Men of Iron legions all had their own logistical support units, and Industrial Ships could directly dismantle hostile planets and shipwrecks to manufacture replacements on-site.
Unless one side could swiftly and completely destroy the other, both would become trapped in an inescapable cycle of war.
Mechanical Predators served exactly the function their name suggested.
These giant units were widely deployed during the war to destroy planets, starports, and fortresses garrisoned by vast numbers of Men of Iron.
They could permanently and completely destroy Men of Iron units in