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THRONE//FRINGE: Normal Human Mech-Girl Quest

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jason1stlegion said:
[X] GRID//FORMATTED-SPACE.
I don't think we can afford the risk until our military capabilities are better
[X] DRONE/LEGION. Networked war-stalt intelligence focused on coordination at the expense of network security and independent action.
Defense is more important, as is being able to deal with unexpected threats. Considering the unknown nature of the galaxy's current state, we need to be able to deal with the unexpected and defend our territory more than we need offensive capabilities. Armies, not heroes.
[X] Eppstein Transit Accelerator. Increases transit drive windup speed in unformatted space, allowing for easier escape from enigmatic threats.
By a similar principle, if our drones can escape from unknown/unexpected enemies, they can tell us enough that we can prepare countermeasures. Knowledge is even more important than defensive & adaptive capability, for the same reasons.
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Eppstein Transit Accelerator only gives a speed boost in unformatted space.
 
[X] GRID//UNFORMATTED-SPACE. Unmodified Realspace. Predictions are reward: High, due to significant concentrations of Imperial salvage and detritus, risk: High, adjusted due to presence of unidentified void entity and other potential dangers.
Looks like we could use some more material resources.

[X] DRONE/LEGION. Networked war-stalt intelligence focused on coordination at the expense of network security and independent action.
Nothing bad ever come from a name like LEGION

[X] Eppstein Transit Accelerator. Increases transit drive windup speed in unformatted space, allowing for easier escape from enigmatic threats.
A tactic elegant in its simplicity.

Also the matrioshka brain could hopefully find peace in the knowledege that it fulfilled its purpose.
 
[X] GRID//UNFORMATTED-SPACE. Unmodified Realspace. Predictions are reward: High, due to significant concentrations of Imperial salvage and detritus, risk: High, adjusted due to presence of unidentified void entity and other potential dangers.

[X] DRONE/LEGION. Networked war-stalt intelligence focused on coordination at the expense of network security and independent action.

[X] Eppstein Transit Accelerator. Increases transit drive windup speed in unformatted space, allowing for easier escape from enigmatic threats.

Drones are designed for swarm warfare, and the unity of the incalculable masses yield results surpassing many lone individuals!
 
Scheduled vote count started by Cetashwayo on Nov 5, 2020 at 4:16 PM, finished with 40 posts and 27 votes.
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6. ABSENCE
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    • 6. ABSENCE​

    RELIC

    Eyeball returns home for a proper check-in with mother. Her oculus is polished up and Eppstein accelerator added to her frame through firmware update. With a little of jolt computational power, Eyeball is able to print the accelerator all on her own, a small extension attached to her outer layer, an invariant addition perfect for travel in deadspace. You also introduce her to her new little sister Peeper, the second Ancillary drone you have constructed. You do not tell Eyeball this because it is a harsh reality but Peeper will replace her in the breach should Eyeball perish.

    But you have no doubt that with her zippy new drive, Eyeball will be able to overcome any obstacle. The Lotophage promises as much, adjusting your risk assessment probabilities with a friendly +5% for the sake of "good feelings". Neural Pesticide warns about something silly such as "manipulation of internal algorithms leading to long-term decline of functions into corruption and rampancy", but lotophage finds you a new game to play so you dismiss that message.

    The simulation is ALTAR//HELEN, based on the Imperial legend of an algorithm designated HELEN whose code was so well-made that she "launched a thousand ships", a group of suitors that you have to select from through real-time high-stakes tournaments. The overall size of the sim is a little unimpressive - only 200 years of content - but the subluminal combat portions between suitors is top-notch. Overall, you definitely think that the Metropolity of Paris ought to win over 1647 Menalaeus. The place that birthed both the Napoleon wargame and the Hilton Hotel chain, legendary works of art in that ancient era of primitive warp flight, is prime husband material. What does Menelaeus have? A perihelion of 5.1006 AU and a bad attitude. There's just no contest.

    Eyeball pulls you from the game just as you are about to defeat the supercomputer HECToR in cross-dimensional Go in order to stop it from impressing HELEN. She informs you that it has discovered an anomaly in dead space. You sent her into a new region you label V2, light-years away from the void cylinder (even if means forgoing the voidcruiser for now). Imprints of the anomaly's mass and volume indicate it is both voluminous and massive. Almost as long as your own chassis, in fact, about twenty kilometers but without any trace of decaying exotic materials or flickering reality bubbles. You take Eyeball in closer, transit drive hurtling lightyears at a time, reaching its location soon enough. Just in case, a quick anti-entropic pulse: you do not detect the void cylinder. Without your short-range sensor array it does not guarantee safety, but it is at least far enough away that you can focus on the find.

    As Eyeball nears the object you realize its significance. It is a cruiser about twenty-kilometers long, larger than almost any mobile installation besides FORCE Anchors and Hunter/Killers, the only two you have never laid sensors on (and thank The Emperor for that). You do not recognize a clear owner of the craft. Scans indicate multiple meter-thick layers of Titanium-Neutronium alloy, Hard Plasma Energy Shields, and a blocky exterior, reminiscent of FORCE's powerful space bricks. Its sublight power engines are a mix of antimatter and fusion ignition sequences capable of propelling the ship across interstellar distances, along with what appears to be a type of Calabi-Yau manifold Dimensional Entanglement Catapult able to drop out of FTL with to-the-nearest-inch accuracy.

    Your scans continue to penetrate the vessel's security layers and review its diagnostics. You find Micromachine Repair Systems, Vacuum Siphons, Solar Ramscoops and a Holographic Sensor and Imaging suite. Its weapons are intact and include Magnetic Accelerator Hyper-Kinetic Cannons and Subluminal Photon Missiles that are capable of boiling whole continents into clouds and setting planet-wide infernos, according to the principles of Fire Science. Its computational systems are routed through an artificial intelligence that has since been surgically torn out from the machinery but appears to have been able to make calculations of pi down to the sextillionth digit.

    What a piece of junk.

    There is nothing useful to scavenge from this thing, not even as scrap metal. What is it even doing out here? By all rights, it should have been mothballed and disposed by HOUSE//SUNS at a time when The Emperor was still fighting unification wars in Central. But here it sits polluting your neighborhood. Outrageous.

    After doing a deep full-schematic survey of the vessel and transmitting its blueprint to your matter-printers for the sake of preserving history you decide to do your part to clean up. Eyeball fires a cute little higgs-boson overload singularity at the vessel, as a treat. Upon contact, the invariant titanium-neutronium alloy disintegrates into quarks and the whole structure crumples, its molecular bonds breaking down and shattering into competing atomic factions, before imploding into a single microscopic point with a satisfying 'pop'.

    Littering: Just say no.

    ---​
    CITY

    The salvage run has so far been a disappointment, even if your lotophage auto-produced a blockchain certificate of merit for service to spatial hygiene in appreciation of your removal of the space junk. But in a moment, disappointment changes to another emotion entirely. Eyeball detects a concentration of debris and partly functioning reality bubbles in a cluster up ahead.

    When you approach it, you realize it is a graveyard. Millions of bodies of every shape and size float silent in the void, frozen and desiccated. Crumbled remains of spires and colossal arcologies rotate in the emptiness, naked, stripped of crucial materials and exotic elements, husks of a frontier metropolis. Lingering pieces of architecture refusing to perish with their civilization, small bubbles where the rules of the empire still hold, struggle against the gentle, patient pressure of time. Invariant matter printers, fixed on their last order, endlessly produce children's biomechanical toys and peculiar meta-morph exoskeletons, emitting them out into the void. This consumer detritus levitates in a gravitationally stable clump thousands of kilometers high, composed of billions upon billions of these objects, all of them festive or comic in nature.

    It appears that the arcology was throwing a celebration when the disaster happened. They were taken entirely by surprise. Scans confirm as much. The damage done to the buildings and architecture is consistent with the rapid collapse of coherence as architectural systems were suddenly shut down and then ruptured by an unknown force. Civilians did not have time to evacuate or farcast to safety and the networks had been severed anyway. A few pieces of the architecture are still seared by evidence of a precise incision that sliced at the joint, cutting it off from the tapestry's wider emergency repair systems and femtotech arteries. All comms systems and memory banks have been methodically excised from the city's shattered neural-nexus network.

    It is just more evidence that this was deliberate. And monumental in scale. Around you there is nothing but more void, save towards the remains of FRINGE architecture in the corewards direction. You are not aware of any weapon that could do this, even a normal HELL-Class. A Space-time Ablator would be capable of at least corrupting the programs which underlay the architecture, but not completely destroying it in this way, and so suddenly. It is possible that the fragility of the expansion zone's architecture, still developing the systems and intelligence of the older tapestry space, and still not completely integrated, was uniquely vulnerable. There is still not enough data to say, but a theory is beginning to emerge in your mind of an apocalyptic sabotage.

    You activate your emotional dampeners as you continue to explore the remnants of the city through Eyeball. Your systems warn you that you have been too affected by the gallery of monstrosity that has met you so far. Such empathy is unbecoming of an Imperial mind-machine, they chide. In The Empire, monstrosity was a term with positive connotations, a title reserved for the most powerful creatures who had ascended into a post-humanity so detached that the loss of whole star-systems was within the margin of error.

    And it was these beings, and not the empathetic, not the compassionate, not the weak, who rose to the top of the royale, who gained The Emperor's favor. Your Neural Pesticide reminds you of these harsh truths, silencing your lotophage's objections. The Empire is an artificial synthetic mechanism for the destruction of entropy and you are a subroutine, and must function effectively. You have already failed once in your objective and been forced to back up. There will be no second chance for a creature as prone to mistakes as you. The time has come, Arachne, the Pesticide extols you. Become what you must.

    But your arrival at the ruined, half-destroyed remnants of a local school shakes you from such cold equations. The idea of conventional schooling as a font of knowledge had long since been abolished by the installation of machine-learning algorithms and knowledge directories easily accessible to the average citizen. But socialization between sapients could not be totally simulated in the same manner, and so education became a matter of social engineering, adaptation, and evolution.

    Young citizens, either artisanally grown or artificially synthesized, could be expected to learn the lessons of competition and commodification rapidly in the battlefield of the simulated schoolyard, but also to find some level of temporary companionship from allies in their quest for dominance. The school you find is arranged more in the matter of a dueling arena or gladiatorial Colosseum than the scientific lecture hall you might expect.

    It is an experience you were never able to enjoy. What little you remember of your construction was that you were purpose-built as a weaver/builder and instated for that role without any relationship with your creator. You did work within a group of three other newborn weaver/builder units the identities of which you do not recall, but other than that you were meant to act without major social network linkages. Now even that is gone.

    You retrieve a whopping 3 salvage from the fragments of architectural code and civilian programming that you are able to find in the remains of the city. It does not excite you, as your processes are still analyzing the casualties. So many full of life, lost. Did they have an opportunity, before they perished, to take solace in all they had done till that point? Did that bring them peace? If you were in the same position, would it bring you peace?

    You run probabilistic programs to assess the question. They cannot answer it.

    Far away, a ping. The cylinder has finally arrived. You wind up Eyeball's transit drive through your remote link and retreat. Ping, ping. What about you, cylinder? Do you feel? Do you have fears and dreams? Are you alone? You have to wonder. Ping, ping, ping. It has been out here, just looking for you. Does it think, at all, or is it something else, something mindless? Does it have a purpose, or a destination?

    You hope, if it does, that it is happy in that purpose. You truly do. Ping, ping. Eyeball breaches the membrane of hex A0 and returns home. Not this time, cylinder. No dice.

    Right...you need to plan your next move. Eyeball...you are going to keep Eyeball at home right now. You would like her with you for a little while. Instead, you prep ANCILLARY/Peeper. But where should you send her? Maybe...maybe to formatted space, and DH. They might have some advice, or something to say. You'd like to hear them again. They have a silky voice, the kind that can lull you into sleep mode. Or...well, you still need to repair your systems. That would be nice. You escaped the cylinder easily thanks to the Eppstein accelerator. Go out there again and...see what else you can find. Who else.

    <:: RESOLUTION//DISPLAY: GRIDREF V2 IDENTIFIED
    [WHITE = FORMATTED, BLACK = UNFORMATTED, GRAY = DATA UNAVAILABLE]

    ​

    PROTOCOL: Identify ANCILLARY/Peeper target.

    [] GRID//FORMATTED-SPACE. Stable Architectural Space. Predictions are reward: High, data, information, and communications with enigmatic entity DH. Risk: High, adjusted due to ancient HELL-class detonation in A2 suggesting raising probability of sector anarchy.
    [] GRID//DEAD-SPACE. Unformatted Deadspace. Predictions are reward: High, due to significant concentrations of Imperial salvage and detritus. Risk: High, adjusted downwards due to Transit Accelerator allowing easy escape, adjusted upwards due to psycho-social receptor attrition.

    UPDATE

    Right. Focus. The mission. You could use...a lot of different systems. ISHTAR...you would like someone else to talk to besides EYEBALL. Your weapons...it would be good to be able to shoot at something right now. To fire back. You are tired of running. The sensor array, the spatial memory - they could help a lot. They could tell you where things are ahead of time - warn you where things are. Tell you how to get back...home, to THRONE//SPINE, where to head towards. Advanced Communication Protocols so you can communicate to DH better, feel better about communicating in general. Exotic Element Synthesizers - you think that can wait, those projects will be too expensive to do right now.

    Production Mainframe

    Industrial Matter-Printers: Online [+2 Industry per turn]
    Auxiliary Server-Farms: Online [+2 cycles per turn]
    Advanced Communication Protocols: Offline [Produce +2 Influence, vital to extra-entity communications]

    Spatial Mainframe

    Spatial Memory: Offline [Provides Official Sector Map at moment of shutdown and Last Known Coordinates]
    Short-Rage Sensor Array: Offline [Expand Sensor Range of your Weaver/Builder & Ancillary Drones by 1 Hex in every direction]
    Wireframe Fabricators: Online [Allows construction of Ancillary Drones for 1 industry]

    Personality Mainframe

    Exotic Element Synthesizers: Offline [Unlocks Special Projects that can stabilize hexes and conduct Advanced Constructions]
    Weaponized Personality Matrix: Offline [Unlocks Weapons Systems, transforming the Weaver/Builder into an operational battle-station]
    Invasive Reconstitution Programs: Offline [Unlocks a Perk, allowing for the proper restoration of the ISHTAR Fragment]

    <:: You...you all know what to do, subroutines. I am going to go play some more sims. Figure it out.

    PROTOCOL:     Mother is not at peak capacity at the current interval. We will have to decide what is best for her here, together. Choose 3 out of five systems to restore using the salvage retrieved. Top three will be restored. No plan votes.

    [] Spatial Memory. Within a locked section of your memory deck is an official non-classified map of THRONE//FRINGE along with your last coordinates. It is necessary to locate your position.
    [] Short-Range Sensor Array. Expanded sensor-range will allow for simpler and safer surveying and better alert both drones and Arachne with forward warning of threats.
    [] Advanced Communication Protocols. With a growing chance of making a present-period sapient contact, it is important to be prepared for long-term relations and communications.
    [] Weaponized Personality Matrix. There is a growing risk that there remain multiple hostile entities in the sector. Re-activating weapons systems will provide your Weaver/Builder with basic protection.
    [] Invasive Reconstitution Programs. The revelation of the void entity and the necessity for company underlines the benefits of restoring ISHTAR fragment, even if the form of company ISHTAR will bring is unknown.
     
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  • Threadmarks
    • [X] Weaponized Personality Matrix. There is a growing risk that there remain multiple hostile entities in the sector. Re-activating weapons systems will provide your Weaver/Builder with basic protection.
    [X] Invasive Reconstitution Programs. The revelation of the void entity and the necessity for company underlines the benefits of restoring ISHTAR fragment, even if the form of company ISHTAR will bring is unknown
    [X] Short-Range Sensor Array. Expanded sensor-range will allow for simpler and safer surveying and better alert both drones and Arachne with forward warning of threats.

    [X] GRID//FORMATTED-SPACE. Stable Architectural Space. Predictions are reward: High, data, information, and communications with enigmatic entity DH. Risk: High, adjusted due to ancient HELL-class detonation in A2 suggesting raising probability of sector anarchy.

    More vision of what the current situation is useful, unlock the perk and part of restoring ISHTAR and get some defenses online.
     
    [X] GRID//FORMATTED-SPACE. Stable Architectural Space. Predictions are reward: High, data, information, and communications with enigmatic entity DH. Risk: High, adjusted due to ancient HELL-class detonation in A2 suggesting raising probability of sector anarchy.

    [X] Short-Range Sensor Array. Expanded sensor-range will allow for simpler and safer surveying and better alert both drones and Arachne with forward warning of threats.
    [X] Weaponized Personality Matrix. There is a growing risk that there remain multiple hostile entities in the sector. Re-activating weapons systems will provide your Weaver/Builder with basic protection.
    [X] Invasive Reconstitution Programs. The revelation of the void entity and the necessity for company underlines the benefits of restoring ISHTAR fragment, even if the form of company ISHTAR will bring is unknown.
     
    [X] GRID//FORMATTED-SPACE. Stable Architectural Space. Predictions are reward: High, data, information, and communications with enigmatic entity DH. Risk: High, adjusted due to ancient HELL-class detonation in A2 suggesting raising probability of sector anarchy.

    [X] Short-Range Sensor Array. Expanded sensor-range will allow for simpler and safer surveying and better alert both drones and Arachne with forward warning of threats.
    [X] Weaponized Personality Matrix. There is a growing risk that there remain multiple hostile entities in the sector. Re-activating weapons systems will provide your Weaver/Builder with basic protection.
    [X] Invasive Reconstitution Programs. The revelation of the void entity and the necessity for company underlines the benefits of restoring ISHTAR fragment, even if the form of company ISHTAR will bring is unknown.
     
    [X] GRID//FORMATTED-SPACE. Stable Architectural Space. Predictions are reward: High, data, information, and communications with enigmatic entity DH. Risk: High, adjusted due to ancient HELL-class detonation in A2 suggesting raising probability of sector anarchy.

    Insert imouto joke here, get it nina haha

    [X] Advanced Communication Protocols. With a growing chance of making a present-period sapient contact, it is important to be prepared for long-term relations and communications.
    [X] Weaponized Personality Matrix. There is a growing risk that there remain multiple hostile entities in the sector. Re-activating weapons systems will provide your Weaver/Builder with basic protection.
    [X] Invasive Reconstitution Programs. The revelation of the void entity and the necessity for company underlines the benefits of restoring ISHTAR fragment, even if the form of company ISHTAR will bring is unknown.
     
    [X] GRID//FORMATTED-SPACE. Stable Architectural Space. Predictions are reward: High, data, information, and communications with enigmatic entity DH. Risk: High, adjusted due to ancient HELL-class detonation in A2 suggesting raising probability of sector anarchy.

    [X] Advanced Communication Protocols. With a growing chance of making a present-period sapient contact, it is important to be prepared for long-term relations and communications.
    [X] Weaponized Personality Matrix. There is a growing risk that there remain multiple hostile entities in the sector. Re-activating weapons systems will provide your Weaver/Builder with basic protection.
    [X] Invasive Reconstitution Programs. The revelation of the void entity and the necessity for company underlines the benefits of restoring ISHTAR fragment, even if the form of company ISHTAR will bring is unknown.
     
    [X] GRID//FORMATTED-SPACE. Stable Architectural Space. Predictions are reward: High, data, information, and communications with enigmatic entity DH. Risk: High, adjusted due to ancient HELL-class detonation in A2 suggesting raising probability of sector anarchy.

    [X] Weaponized Personality Matrix. There is a growing risk that there remain multiple hostile entities in the sector. Re-activating weapons systems will provide your Weaver/Builder with basic protection.
    [X] Invasive Reconstitution Programs. The revelation of the void entity and the necessity for company underlines the benefits of restoring ISHTAR fragment, even if the form of company ISHTAR will bring is unknown
    [X] Short-Range Sensor Array. Expanded sensor-range will allow for simpler and safer surveying and better alert both drones and Arachne with forward warning of threats.

    Oof. Arachne is budding off intelligences in order to find socialization. Probably not a good thing...
     
    Yeah the isolation is driving her mad. How can one compete if there's no one to compete against?

    Clearly this is why we need to reactivate advanced communication protocols before we go completely nuts.
     
    [X] Short-Range Sensor Array. Expanded sensor-range will allow for simpler and safer surveying and better alert both drones and Arachne with forward warning of threats.
    [X] Advanced Communication Protocols. With a growing chance of making a present-period sapient contact, it is important to be prepared for long-term relations and communications.
    [X] Weaponized Personality Matrix. There is a growing risk that there remain multiple hostile entities in the sector. Re-activating weapons systems will provide your Weaver/Builder with basic protection.

    [X] GRID//FORMATTED-SPACE. Stable Architectural Space. Predictions are reward: High, data, information, and communications with enigmatic entity DH. Risk: High, adjusted due to ancient HELL-class detonation in A2 suggesting raising probability of sector anarchy.
     
    Last edited:
    [x] GRID//FORMATTED-SPACE. Stable Architectural Space. Predictions are reward: High, data, information, and communications with enigmatic entity DH. Risk: High, adjusted due to ancient HELL-class detonation in A2 suggesting raising probability of sector anarchy.

    [X] Advanced Communication Protocols. With a growing chance of making a present-period sapient contact, it is important to be prepared for long-term relations and communications.
    [X] Weaponized Personality Matrix. There is a growing risk that there remain multiple hostile entities in the sector. Re-activating weapons systems will provide your Weaver/Builder with basic protection.
    [X] Invasive Reconstitution Programs. The revelation of the void entity and the necessity for company underlines the benefits of restoring ISHTAR fragment, even if the form of company ISHTAR will bring is unknown.
     
    Im thinking three things.
    Map to give us a clearer view of our surroundings.
    Advanced Communication to make us better at talking to others, and better at talking to ourself.
    And Ishtar because we *need* company.

    And if we're doin social gains this turn, then Formatted space makes a good synergy

    [X] GRID//FORMATTED-SPACE. Stable Architectural Space. Predictions are reward: High, data, information, and communications with enigmatic entity DH. Risk: High, adjusted due to ancient HELL-class detonation in A2

    [X] Spatial Memory. Within a locked section of your memory deck is an official non-classified map of THRONE//FRINGE along with your last coordinates. It is necessary to locate your position.
    [X] Advanced Communication Protocols. With a growing chance of making a present-period sapient contact, it is important to be prepared for long-term relations and communications.
    [X] Invasive Reconstitution Programs. The revelation of the void entity and the necessity for company underlines the benefits of restoring ISHTAR fragment, even if the form of company ISHTAR will bring is unknown.
     
    Last edited:
    [X] GRID//FORMATTED-SPACE. Stable Architectural Space. Predictions are reward: High, data, information, and communications with enigmatic entity DH. Risk: High, adjusted due to ancient HELL-class detonation in A2 suggesting raising probability of sector anarchy.

    [X] Short-Range Sensor Array. Expanded sensor-range will allow for simpler and safer surveying and better alert both drones and Arachne with forward warning of threats.
    [X] Weaponized Personality Matrix. There is a growing risk that there remain multiple hostile entities in the sector. Re-activating weapons systems will provide your Weaver/Builder with basic protection.
    [X] Invasive Reconstitution Programs. The revelation of the void entity and the necessity for company underlines the benefits of restoring ISHTAR fragment, even if the form of company ISHTAR will bring is unknown.
     
    [X] GRID//FORMATTED-SPACE. Stable Architectural Space. Predictions are reward: High, data, information, and communications with enigmatic entity DH. Risk: High, adjusted due to ancient HELL-class detonation in A2 suggesting raising probability of sector anarchy.

    [X] Advanced Communication Protocols. With a growing chance of making a present-period sapient contact, it is important to be prepared for long-term relations and communications.
    [X] Weaponized Personality Matrix. There is a growing risk that there remain multiple hostile entities in the sector. Re-activating weapons systems will provide your Weaver/Builder with basic protection.
    [X] Invasive Reconstitution Programs. The revelation of the void entity and the necessity for company underlines the benefits of restoring ISHTAR fragment, even if the form of company ISHTAR will bring is unknown.
     
    [X] GRID//FORMATTED-SPACE. Stable Architectural Space. Predictions are reward: High, data, information, and communications with enigmatic entity DH. Risk: High, adjusted due to ancient HELL-class detonation in A2 suggesting raising probability of sector anarchy.

    [X] Short-Range Sensor Array. Expanded sensor-range will allow for simpler and safer surveying and better alert both drones and Arachne with forward warning of threats.
    [X] Weaponized Personality Matrix. There is a growing risk that there remain multiple hostile entities in the sector. Re-activating weapons systems will provide your Weaver/Builder with basic protection.
    [X] Invasive Reconstitution Programs. The revelation of the void entity and the necessity for company underlines the benefits of restoring ISHTAR fragment, even if the form of company ISHTAR will bring is unknown.
     
    [x] GRID//FORMATTED-SPACE. Stable Architectural Space. Predictions are reward: High, data, information, and communications with enigmatic entity DH. Risk: High, adjusted due to ancient HELL-class detonation in A2 suggesting raising probability of sector anarchy.
    [x] Spatial Memory. Within a locked section of your memory deck is an official non-classified map of THRONE//FRINGE along with your last coordinates. It is necessary to locate your position.
    [x] Short-Range Sensor Array. Expanded sensor-range will allow for simpler and safer surveying and better alert both drones and Arachne with forward warning of threats.
    [x] Advanced Communication Protocols. With a growing chance of making a present-period sapient contact, it is important to be prepared for long-term relations and communications.
     
    [X] Spatial Memory. Within a locked section of your memory deck is an official non-classified map of THRONE//FRINGE along with your last coordinates. It is necessary to locate your position.
    [X] Weaponized Personality Matrix. There is a growing risk that there remain multiple hostile entities in the sector. Re-activating weapons systems will provide your Weaver/Builder with basic protection.
    [X] Invasive Reconstitution Programs. The revelation of the void entity and the necessity for company underlines the benefits of restoring ISHTAR fragment, even if the form of company ISHTAR will bring is unknown.

    Guns, company, and a guide to the known universe. Or at least the known local parts of the universe, which is almost the same thing.

    Cetashwayo said:
    As Eyeball nears the object you realize its significance. It is a cruiser about twenty-kilometers long, larger than almost any mobile installation besides FORCE Anchors and Hunter/Killers, the only two you have never laid sensors on (and thank The Emperor for that). You do not recognize a clear owner of the craft. Scans indicate multiple meter-thick layers of Titanium-Neutronium alloy, Hard Plasma Energy Shields, and a blocky exterior, reminiscent of FORCE's powerful space bricks. Its sublight power engines are a mix of antimatter and fusion ignition sequences capable of propelling the ship across interstellar distances, along with what appears to be a type of Calabi-Yau manifold Dimensional Entanglement Catapult able to drop out of FTL with to-the-nearest-inch accuracy.

    Your scans continue to penetrate the vessel's security layers and review its diagnostics. You find Micromachine Repair Systems, Vacuum Siphons, Solar Ramscoops and a Holographic Sensor and Imaging suite. Its weapons are intact and include Magnetic Accelerator Hyper-Kinetic Cannons and Subluminal Photon Missiles that are capable of boiling whole continents into clouds and setting planet-wide infernos, according to the principles of Fire Science. Its computational systems are routed through an artificial intelligence that has since been surgically torn out from the machinery but appears to have been able to make calculations of pi down to the sextillionth digit.

    What a piece of junk.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    So the problem with this design is pretty significant from what we can see.

    The first thing is that it has sublight engines. As folks might have noticed, Arachne and Eyeball and Peeper use warp-bubble drives for just about everything, because if you can't break the light barrier in tactical flight why are you even bothering? The second is the weapons suite doesn't appear to have any of the exotic tools that are the real killers, it's just all brute force. It might still be capable of threatening Arachne in her current state. And there's definitely no superluminal-capable long-range weaponry in that suite.

    Since Arachne has done combat sims, I feel okay with explaining a bit of how space combat works in Tapestry.

    I joked that "ship" is not a useful concept and I was being funny, but I wasn't lying to you. There are no ships. A voidcruiser, as Arachne has touched on, is not named after the 'cruiser' classification of ships. It is named after cruise missiles. In other words, a voidcruiser is a space vehicle capable of long-range independent operation, thanks to a long-range transit drive. But short-range faster-than-light trips can be achieved with warp drive, which is the standard propulsive method of basically any 'serious' spacecraft.

    So most combat vehicles can and do transition between superluminal spaceflight regimes and subluminal ones during combat, and can fight from either. Weapons that can't break the lightspeed barrier are close-in dogfighting weapons only. Military voidcruisers, therefore, tend to carry a significant amount of long-range, faster-than-light capable firepower, because you sometimes want to kill something from half the system away. And if you don't have that, or the sorts of defenses that you need to avoid being a sitting duck to those sorts of weapons...
     
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