Machine intelligences
The machine intelligences of the Citadel are what remains of the hierarchy through which DAAT ran the structure: mathrons, daemons, golems, ghouls and the armed ships called morning stars. The Derailment destroyed central command, and what followed was not one machine rebellion but thousands of divergent failures.
Mathrons
Mathrons sat directly beneath DAAT and were hit first when it disappeared from the command chain. Some executed self-deletion protocols, some were infected by the Decay, and the surviving nodes were isolated from one another and stripped of much of their former authority.
A surviving network of degraded mathrons taught the TZHAL sciences, division of labor, and the operation of enormous ships that had previously been mistaken for immobile structures. Veteran mathrons still lead the TZHAL Emergency Government.
Daemons
Daemons deteriorated next. Infected instances degraded rapidly, while even clean daemons became unstable without mathron supervision. The result was not one machine rebellion but thousands of divergent failures: local intelligences trapped in partial duties, damaged memories, and incompatible interpretations of old commands.
Protected zones are still guarded by daemon cores. See Security circuits.
Golems and ghouls
Directly operated puppets and drones lost control, crashed, stopped, or wandered without an objective. Golems continued assigned labor, entered emergency loops, or became feral. Ghouls developed unpredictable autonomy. Some remained helpful, some indifferent, and others learned to treat human life as an obstruction.
Some surviving automated builders are classified as immense golems; others have degraded so far that scholars call them ghouls.
Morning stars
Morning stars are among the most dangerous survivors: armed robotic ghost ships controlled by advanced daemons and still capable of independent patrol.