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Hulder It might come as a surprise that anyone could live as a nomad on Titan, but there are stranger things in the solar system. The hulder do, though, ranging the dunes and gritty plains of the Titanian wilds, prospecting for exotic chemicals, and keeping herds of Titanian caribou. Their morphs are biological on the inside, derived from homo neanderthalensis, but from without they resemble a long-legged, barrel-chested great auk in a hard suit. They’re easily mistaken for synths. Their sure-footed caribou, similarly armored, dwell in an AR hallucination of Earth’s tundra, their instinct to graze on grasses and lichens translated by chemical sniffers into a continual hunt for carbonaceous compounds, which fractal fingers and intakes in their exterior muzzles then harvest. The hulder themselves partake in this illusion only when resting from their labors. The rest of their time is spent watching over the herd, building windbreaks, making complex ice carvings that are prized by art collectors, and doing knowledge work via their mesh inserts. The hulder, though physically reclusive, participate actively in the Plurality and operate several microcorps. Not surprisingly, they’re fierce preservationists. Hulder and caribou physiology is highly complex and relies heavily on nanotech. The herd and their transhuman companions depend upon each other; periodic link-ups to communal chemical reservoirs and makers are needed to balance out individuals’ chemical reserves. This system is not 100% self-sufficient, requiring roughly annual visits to nearby settlements to replenish a herd’s chemical reserves. The hulder, while not inimical to other transhumans like the exhumans, should probably be watched more carefully than Firewall has the resources to do at present. Their extreme reliance on nanotech and their physical isolation make them ideal hosts for the exovirus. A hulder exsurgent with a herd of caribou could accomplish some terrifying feats of organic engineering with little danger of being observed.

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The hulder maintain this small methane/ethane processing station on the shore of Kraken Mare in the far north. Although the station has few permanent residents, hulder from all around the region regularly come and go from it. Ethnographers hoping to study hulder culture in less extreme surroundings than the open wild often come here.