A drone is an autonomous vehicle capable of networked intelligence and possessing more localised decision making capability than a motes. In military use they are considered mission expendable. Drones with sufficient onboard compute can be temporarily piloted by a reduced instance of a synth which is also capable of running separately from the vehicle. In normal usage however drones only require their onboard compute and communication with other nearby drones to complete their objectives.

Drones are produced for commercial and military use by most terrestrial and off-earth polities, however the high volume low control sophistication of the manufacturing process lends itself to highly concentrated low cost supply chains, resulting in the majority of drones being produced in a few global hotspots. The largest are Drone Valley in Bengaluru, Shenzhen's Drone Alley in Greater Zhōngguó, 12Quans factory cities in Iran and the greater Fatimid Trade Caliphate, Istanbul and Ankara in Türkiye. There are also some more sophisticated but lower volume drone manufacturing centers, the most notable are in Haifa, Israel as well as several in the US across Texas, California, Arizona, and North Carolina.