I - OVERVIEW
The Praetorians are an entirely mechanical force comprised of solely automated, AI-controlled mobile weapons, vehicles, ships, and factories. Typically, they are encountered as Mobile Suits, but are more commonly associated with the hulking Mobile Armors, a form which they have never truly shed since their inception. Their goal is remarkably simple: Extermination of all human life, and at is in this endeavor that they excel, bending all of their considerable resources toward its realization.
They can be found in any locale - though the largest and most dangerous of their kind were contained in the Eye of Jupiter, many sleeper cells remain, left behind, lying in wait. Some are simply buried under the earth, whether by accident or design, and are occasionally uncovered by civilians, causing them to jolt back to life, ready to fulfill their purpose. Others travel below the waves of Europa, crawling at depths otherwise unreachable for any living thing, watching the lights overhead for any sight of human activity, ready to drag them down into the black abyss. Nowhere is safe, and citizens of the Jovian Sphere should always be on guard, even in low-security sectors, as danger can be just underfoot at any moment.
What makes the Praetorians so feared is their ability to proliferate rapidly. A single insurgent unit can quickly take over a factory or installation, and turn what once was producing peaceful appliances into an engine of staggering efficiency, able to crank out countless war weapons in record time. They accomplish this through the use of
Colloid Virus Injectors, which are used to reprogram factory systems to serve their own needs. While most modern facilities are prepared with this in mind, there exist countless such plants which were built during, or prior to the Insurrection War.
A Praetorian that is able to locate and seize such a locale becomes an existential threat, able to grow and multiply its force in a staggeringly short time - thus, Vultures and MS Hunters alike are to hunt down and destroy such machines
on sight. The catacombs below Io are still, to this day, plagued with Praetorian Plumas because they maintain a stranglehold on deep-plate volcanic forges, providing them with almost limitless materials. This is also why salvage is of considerable interest - retrieving technology first, and placing it in human hands is vastly preferable to allowing the machines to take it for themselves.
Some Mobile Armors are able to generate what are called Pluma, small scale mobile weapons that can reap resources from locales, overwhelm targets, repair the mother unit and quickly multiply. These were a late development in the Insurrection War, and indicated a turning point in the Praetorian's strategy - no longer were they dependent on factories and bases for reinforcements, they could simply build the capacity to manufacture additional forces into themselves.
It is to be assumed that any large scale mobile weapon of Praetorian origin is capable of producing Pluma.