By [[Larry Moore]]

Scrapers are translucent creatures with no apparent brain or organs. It looks and acts like a single prokaryotic cell. They come in many shapes and sizes; most resembling a 1.5 meter cube, rectangular, cylindrical shape or whatever they squeezed through in the last ten minutes (they retain their shape for a time before plumping out back into their natural shape). 

They can dissolve any living organism quite hastily. Small creatures are dissolved in about 100 turns or 10 minutes. Only when a large creature, up to 75% of its mass, is engulfed the scraper stops to digest its meal, taking 200 turns or 20 minutes. After digesting a victim scrapers secrete a residue ball spitting it, (sounds like a pop) in a random direction up to 10 meters. The sticky ball adheres to almost anything.

Scrapers are kept away from ships consumables by resonating sonic fields around the room. Due to the expense of sonic resonation inside a ships hull they are typically not installed in passenger or crew areas. 

Scrapers will attack the nearest creature, attempting to engulf it and is oblivious to ranged attacks not knowing where the source is coming from. For unknown reasons Dralasites have been known to be repulsive. Most are able to walk away with nothing more than minor acid burns.

Since their feeding does not include electronics, plastics, rubbers or metal they are often used to clean the innards of ships, those hard-to-reach spots and hidden nooks. As mentioned above they leave balls of sticky droppings that mark their path. Biometric scanning devices are outrageously expensive, even for the wealthiest captain and it’s been near impossible to attach tracking devices, needles to say scrapers must be removed before flight lest the passengers and crew become food. Fortunately maintenance techs accidentally discovered a way to lure the creatures out. A mixture of Vruskian Bung-Beetle Cake, Dralasite Foglob Pudding, Human Escargot Sauce (with snail) and a sprinkle of Yazirian Ponjo Ale bring the beasties running. Well...if you call 10 meters per turn running.