Mechanis has found an explorer and being a “tinkerer and experimenter” himself he’s decided to take this “thing” down to his lab to see what makes it tick.


Mechanis is an Atn: an ancient space-faring race that, millions of years ago, were created to be weapons of planetary and system-wide destruction. The makers of the Atn died long ago and the Atn have forgotten their original purpose. Having achieved sentience they make tunnels in asteroids and use said asteroid as a means of (slower than light) travel throughout the universe. They travel for millions of years between galaxies on an endless journey of exploration and wonder. Their tunnels are decorated with various glyphs and sigils who's purpose only the Atn know. The Atn live for thousands of years individually and procreate by "building" their children via mechanical and organic parts. Some scientists have studied the Atn Clade world asteroids, but the Atn don't really pay any attention to them and go about their business mining their tunnels. Not much is really known about them to this day.

The Atn race is the creation of author Gary Gibson via his excellent Sci-Fi series “Nova Wars”.