Rogue drones
Rogue drones and wild drones are the terms used over advanced drones that mutated out of control, taking on a life of their own and developing a murderous AI consciousness.
Origins
A few years ago some fatally ingenious Gallente inventor had the idea of creating super-advanced drones that could think and act on their own - in essence acting in every sense like a regular space ship except being unmanned and computer controlled. First prototypes were encouraging, but then disaster struck. The drones became unruly, then unmanageable. Some of these were huge - the largest drones ever constructed - and a few were even equipped with warp drives and the latest advancements in artificial intelligence. These mother drones, as they were called, along with several lesser drones, soon managed to spread out, not only within the same system as the research facility that birthed them, but also to other systems. Only later did humans discover exactly how: the drones had attacked and taken over space ships, then used them to jump to other systems with the drones themselves safely hidden within. Needless to say, the super-drone research was soon abandoned by the Gallente.
Evolution
The rogue drones soon started behaving very much like other living beings, albeit ones with rather unstable personalities. They constructed a home for themselves, usually deep in some remote asteroid field, and began plans for reproduction. This involved both the mining of asteroids and attacks on unsuspecting mining vessels - all with the intent of gathering the materials needed to expand their homes and to build their own drones. As the months passed drone lairs popped up in dozen different places, and today they can be found in almost every corner of the world, harassing and killing space farers of every sort. As each drone lair is started by a separate mother drone they often evolve in quite different ways. Each new generation of rogue drones shows some new mutations, creating a huge diversity in the shape, size and power for rogue drones.
Hulk lairs
Recently a new type of drone lairs have appeared, commonly called hulk lairs. It seems that when rogue drones manage to capture suitably large vessels, like large cargo freighters or cruisers, they don’t dismantle the ship completely, but instead start to incorporate the lair into the ship’s hull. Eventually these hulks break free from the drone lair that captured them and start drifting out of the asteroid field, sometimes even under their own accord; the propulsion system still being intact. Hulks like these have been found drifting in deep space, far from human settlements, but occasionally they drift close by settled planets or through space routes. This can cause severe problems for the populace and space farers, often requiring heavy military involvement to get rid of.
Human reaction
In areas where rogue drones are numerous and seen as deterrents to normal mining and trade operations the local authorities have taken it up by themselves to employ armed forces to destroy rogue drone lairs, or at least keeping them from spreading too heavily. A favored tactic among those hunting rogue drones is re-programming their AI circuits, effectively taking control of them. However, this tactic is hard to pull off, not to say very dangerous. Discussions have been held between the empires and within the CONCORD about possible ways for a joint effort to rid the world of rogue drones, but these discussions have not let to any concrete deals being made and thus it is still in the hands of local authorities to deal with the drones as they see fit.