THRONE//FRINGE: Normal Human Mech-Girl Quest

THE SUPPLICANT

A Vitruvian, right between your claws. The ancient body that once belonged to humanity, made a formal uniform by the Emperor in exaltation of the past. Mouth and eyes and ears, arms and legs and a heart that pumps internal coolant, lungs that convert gasses, a stomach that absorbs nutrients. Bioscans of the pilot entail many other modifications: organs that project shielding and allow survival in a vacuum, the replacement of the inefficient blood with more advanced internal chemicals, some of them laced with pseudo-invariant exotic proteins, regenerative tissue and nanomachine cultures.

It is an irony that the skin the pilot wears is more advanced than the mech you have just cracked them out of, though assessments by your project subminds seem to indicate for whatever reason the exotic systems of the mech-machine had already been disabled by the pilot. The implication of a Vitruvian here, now, is strange and unsettling, when you have not been able to see another for the imperial years that you have been out here in this isolated quadrant of sectoral space. This despite the fact that the form was standard across all the cosmos, and even beings with non-geometric bodies would be expected to adopt it, exceedingly modified, when needed for the sake of ceremony. Of course, many more simply had one fixed body and no capacity to upload psyches rapidly between shells, and so you suppose for them, and maybe for this pilot, this Vitruvian shell is the only one they've ever known.

Still held within your claws, the pilot breaks out of frozen terror. They throw their arms out in a wide motion, trying to get the attention of your compound eyes. Your attention directed downwards, the pilot speaks and your code auto-translates, the intricacies of their language no match against imperial decryption, especially as many of its root words appear similar to the codetongue which was common to the sector.

"Oh, Asura awakened from deep time," the pilot cries out in their translated accent, communicating through an augmented throat and not the code-speech you are accustomed to. "Thou ceases thine consumption, thou stops thine claw before the maw that would consume me. Is it because thou see in mine heart a willful supplicant, and not simply a meal to satisfy thine divine appetites?"

You're not sure how to respond to that. You expected begging. You try to ping Ishtar but she's silent, so after an awkward pause you respond.

<:: Who.

You cannot speak much for fear of destabilizing the human's biology, for with every word you speak is embedded deep into their code-base, a whispered packet of speech-data that contains the very essence of a phrase. Even this is enough to cause the pilot to wilt and tremble in your claws, shaking violently as she tries to recover from the impact of your speech.

"I - I - I," she stutters, and you wonder if you might have briefly crashed her processor, "Thou has spoken to me! Thou asks me, and whispers to my mind! I am Ak~shara," and she sings the name in a particular tone modulated by her augmented voice box, "and I am here to beseech thee! I am nothing before thee, destroyer, wrecker of worlds, ancient beast that has awoken and makes the whole of the sky tremble."

You try your best to keep up with her strangely archaic language as you follow along, and to not pinch her further in annoyance at her description. What is she talking about?

<:: Why.

The pilot starts to shake at the second word that digs itself under her skin, bringing hands to her temples to steady her breathing. You'd intervene to help but you've never worked with something so fragile and you're afraid you'll break her with a touch. It makes you embarrassed to think that this is the form that humanity took to the stars with, and how pathetic it seems to the sprawling kilometers of chitinous splendor you have been bestowed.

Finally, she finds her words and she vocalizes in a rapid, almost delirious verse. "I am beset at every side with enemies. I have been captured and stolen away, I have been made the subject of their hatred, I have been despoiled. I have lost myself a thousand times a thousand times, against the terrors of the void. I have fought against devils and degenerates, radicals and machines, and at every side they come for me. They come for me and I have cut them down, but they continue without end. I am made alone."

You're not sure you understand any of that. Your translator seems to be working properly, but it continues to render a specific word as 'I' when that can't be quite right. Still, you're getting her talking, and that's enough for you. Maybe you'll get some information out of her.

<:: How.

You feel a strange twinge of pride when the third word that buffets her is absorbed more swiftly the first and second. The pilot recovers and speaks, and liquid tears pour from her eyes, floating in the low gravity of the silk cocoon. "I would ask thou to merge with me, lend me thine strength, let me bring myself back from those who have taken me, give me the power to make and unmake worlds, to build roads to heaven, to become a god among the stars. Please, thou art the demon that has swallowed God, and thou has been so kind to me, so decent to me..." she reaches out her arms towards you and screams. "ABSORB ME, AND LET ME BE ONE WITH THOU!"

You are struck with an existential sadness at this being who thinks you are the destroyer of all things and still wants to be absorbed into you. What possible choices led up to this moment? In what evolutionary context does it make sense to ask to be devoured save if you plan to burst out of your host? It is nothing more than a surrender to your circumstances which the Emperor would never brook or allow. The maxim of the Empire is that even the lowliest beast of burden will be bestowed the tools it needs to kill its master, and yet this pilot has so surrendered herself to her circumstances she thinks of nothing more than to kill herself in the hopes it might satisfy your hunger enough to help her with her cause.

And...what does it say about you, that she has chosen you as the executor of that gruesome will?

<:: Why me?

That catches her off guard, you think, especially the addition of the second word and the question mark that drills itself into her head like hook into her mind. She composes herself and drops her arms, unsure and clearly not expecting anything but 'yes I will eat you' saying "W-why not thou? You art the destroyer! If any being can save me from the abyss that awaits thou art the one!"

<:: Am I?

She falters and flinches at your words but finds the strength to continue in her fanatic rant. "Yes! Thou art the fell-beast, the weaver of death, the monster of an ancient eon, come again. I have been watching thee, but although I looked at thee with fear, I did not!" You are starting to understand the nuance of her speech. There appears to be a 'royal I', and a personal I, and you take a careful note of it. "Whereas I said of thee that thou were wicked and an evil to be at once destroyed, I thought thee were a wondrous being that might make an ally against all mine enemies."

<:: Who are they?

"T-they-they-they," she spasms from the power of the third utterance and you grow an extra fuzzy claw, very slowly and carefully run it across the hair of the human to sooth her. At first she winces thinking that you're crushing her, but then the claw's neuro-depressent fibers and vibrating stimulant injectors calm her down, quell the terror that you've unfortunately put her in. It hurts you to be thought of this way, as nothing but a monster. Better as a nourisher, a mother, a builder.

She finally finds the word to speak. "I thank thee for calming mine nerves, for they are electrified by the sight of thee, so vast in thine ancient grandeur. Mine enemies are the accursed Spaniard who raids mine kingdom, the Catalogue who steals me from my house of peace, the Illusion that corrupts me and pulls me from my duties, the false prophets who seek to tempt me from my place, and the hive that cuts me down like reeds. But surely when thou art my keeper, when thou has swallowed me and seen what I have seen, then thou will see! Thou shall see what needs to be done and save me!"

You let the implications of her enemies percolate through your mainframe, consider what it might mean. Don Hidalgo is no surprise, but that he is also her enemy is of some utility if you really could form an alliance. The Catalogue has come up again and again and never any good, but you have no idea what the Illusion or the Hive might be, or where you might start looking to find out. You wish you had Ishtar here but then again she might have just advised you to rip the human open and study her central memory for information. This to you feels right, feels more appropriate. It feels more...you.

But you have to be honest about your capability to be enlisted as a death machine.

<:: I don't know.

The way her face droops, the expression that she makes when you say that, is an agony to you. You had never taken on a Vitruvian form yourself, never crafted one that you can remember, but now you almost understand the appeal, the way that a twitch of the muscles can cause a pang in the heart of a battlestation's heart. That is not to say there are not other forms that would appeal as well, foremost the spider and the nuances of its pheremonic scents that a Vitruvian would need special olfactory programs to identify, but that does not mean there is not some intrigue in the idea of taking on such a smaller form.

And it's working upon you. admission of your fallibility and at once she is completely crushed, the terrifying fervor in her face replaced by a fear that you understand as existential dread, the feeling when everything you have tried to do fails and the horizon slips away.

"Please," she croaks out. "Please, I have left my home, I have broken my laws, I have abandoned my commandments, I have stolen from myself, for the sake of thou. Please don't say no, don't leave me here alone."

You can't handle this right now, so for the moment you leave the option open, cease poor creature's descent into despair.

<:: I will think on it.
<:: Sleep now.

The pilot seems about to protest, but the clear exhaustion of what they have gone through to come here catches up to her and she almost falls over as her body's systems crash. The revelation that her invasion was not to be a spy but a sacrifice disturbs you deeply, and makes you wonder about why she should owe you such devotion. A children must be willing to perish for their mother, but this is a strange who sees you as much more - a god, or a solution that all of the problems of...whatever it is that this 'Ak~shara" owes her loyalty.

As she collapses, you wrap up the cocoon, reducing temperatures inside and releasing certain programmed pheromones and juices that can replicate the effect of the pilot-womb that she was previously in, until her body enters into a hibernation mode.You need time to think on this...and how you will approach the supplicant's erratic fantasies of you as a death-god of an ancient time.

THE CLOUD

You finally manage to reach Ishtar after you've put the pilot inside her sleep cocoon. The two of you meet as amorphous clouds within shared consciousness, and she floats above you, wispy and reserved in comparison to your buoyant cumulus.

I:: Hi.

<:: Hi, yourself.

I:: You handled that human well, given the circumstances.

<:: Thanks. Well, aside from the part where I almost ate her.

I:: Right. Are we going to address that?

<:: I don't really know where to start.

I:: Then I could. Do you have any idea what that was?

<:: I think it was the nail. Did you - did something happen to you while the nail was trying to take me over? I - I am so sorry. It just surged. I wasn't prepared. But I, I took back control. It's alright now.

I:: I believe you. I've seen inside yourself, Arachne. I know that it's not you. I know. It's just, hm.

<:: What is it?

I:: Who was Tammuz to me?

<:: What? What - how could you ask me that? You should know that.

I:: I should. I know he's something. You've mentioned him before, I know he was abducted. He must have been important to me. But I don't know who he is. I'm starting to realize there's a lot of things I don't know about myself.

<:: Do you - why is this coming up?

I:: The nail whispered to me. It told me it knew what I was. It knew I was here, and it was going to finish the job. It whispered to me about Tammuz and told me that it would happen again. I don't know what 'it' was.

<:: Ishtar...

I:: Arachne, what have they done to me? Why is there a hole in my heart where someone used to be?

<:: I'm so sorry. AXIOM must have...they must have done something.

I:: It's just that I have this feeling like there's more to me than this and I just can't seem to find it.

<:: ...I could - I could help you, maybe we could play some games to feel better -

I:: I can't play the games where you have a solid form. The simulations aren't working. I can't play with you because I can't generate a face, Arachne. They took my face.

<:: What - what are you -

I:: It's an embedded virus...like the nail. No matter what form I take my face does not appear. I can't generate it from my memory because it's been cut and pasted somewhere else. There's just a void where it should be, in the center of my head. There is a hole where my face used to be and they have taken it away.

I:: Arachne they need to still be around. AXIOM still needs to be around. I need to find them.

<:: Ishtar -

I:: They're a corporation, they're like augmented cockroaches, there's no way they're gone. Because if they're gone and if every living soul left in this sector is a babbling primitive that worships a weaver/builder as a god like that biotic pilot then I won't be able to find an expert cybersurgeon to make it whole again. I won't be whole again. I can't do that. I can't exist that way. I want to be alive.

<:: Ishtar, please, don't talk like that -

I:: The Emperor is gone and the only evidence of a wider civilization wants to worship you as the destroyer of Their Will. The Dragon offered me salvation and then abandoned me to fate. What strategy can we pursue by ourselves that will make this right? What purpose to our struggle except survival without purpose?

<:: Our purpose remains to rebuild the sector.

I:: And every single datapoint that newly arrives tells me that goal is impossible. The probability is dropping by the day. So what are we going to do, hm?

<:: We'll figure something out.

I:: How can you be so calm? You heard the pilot. Did you hear a remark about The Emperor? Did you hear a remark about the wider tapestry except as a place of fear? We are dinosaurs who haven't realized that the asteroid fell long ago. She ogles you like an ancient artifact to be obtained for her purposes. We are nothing more than awakened ghosts who the sector is racing to exorcise.

<:: Why now? The concierge and Don Hidalgo never gave you this reaction...

I:: Both are legible, but both are themselves artifacts. Hidalgo is some kind of ghost of memory and the concierge knows things he clearly shouldn't. Neither are the baseline. But that human is. Did you see her mech-machine? It was invariant, and the exotic portions that your project subminds are studying right now weren't even activated. What happened to the march of dynamic conflict? What happened to the endless war against entropy that we promised we would fight?

<:: Ishtar, you're panicking -

I:: I set fire to a million worlds, snuffed out stars, did unspeakable and evil things because They promised me the light that would come at the end of everything - that we would abolish end itself. Eternity, by our own design. But all I see to show for it are scavengers rummaging through the putrid carcass of our dream.
I:: Arachne, what was it all for?

There's a long silence. You don't say anything for fear your answer will betray your own yawning doubt, and then Ishtar's cloud starts to dissipate.

I:: I need to take my mind off this. I'll write up a strategic assessment and you can make your decision on what our next moves should be.
I:: I should not have exposed my thoughts like this. You are a child. It was inappropriate. Sorry.

You can't let it end on this.

<:: That's alright. It's what friends do.

She doesn't contest it, and then fully dissipates, leaving you to your thoughts and her to her strategic planning. Too late, you wonder if the Celestial Nail did more than just whisper, and if there's something Ishtar isn't telling you, from how shaken she was left.

PLANNING

I::

Here is my technical assessment: We have discovered a straight-shot path towards the Concierge and given the priorities we've chosen with our projects we should make moving there with one of your drones a priority in order to collect the information that he claims he has on Hidalgo and better assess his own threat level. The Concierge has 'gratefully' highlighted for us a route through formatted space so once we are on approach to A9 we should not need in-depth surveys to approach his 'hotel'. There are other potential targets for exploration, including the anomaly in A4 which you were previously unable to breach for lack of power to your drone's reality bubble. Redirect your power there and we should be capable of pushing further in and better assessing if there is a threat here. We seriously do not need another vector of danger.

Finishing Project HYDRA remains another priority. I will emphasize that if we continue to put off the fabrication component of the project that we will be put well behind schedule. Don Hidalgo will come again. He has no strategic reason not to as we have not yet been able to inflict nearly any damage on him. But developing our drones is also important, and so is fortifying against his raids precisely because it may dissuade him. I repeat: We have no reason to believe he will not attack again. Make a determination as you will from that conclusion.

In terms of our diplomatic choices, we can continue collecting dossiers. So far they have been...vague, but that is also partly because we have yet to reach these regions. THRONE//LOTTERY is much closer to our own territory, THRONE//NEXUS entails implications for the entirety of the sector, and FORCE//FRINGE could inform us of major potential dangers or allies. If FORCE still exists in some capacity they may be our only allies in a sector full of heretics. I hope.

As for the fly...do with her as you will. You can string her along in the hopes of not shattering her fanatic little brain or break the cold truth and let her take it in. You know what choice I would make, but I am not the personable type. And try and see if we can exact a favor from the Concierge soon, because although we cannot complete HYDRA in this current production cycle we should get as much data from him as we can. Your "Peeper's" testimony is either entirely useless or an extremely ominous indication that the Concierge may in fact be an operative, an imperial era espionage intelligence capable of performing code-actions that even you cannot detect. Either piece of information is useful, as if Peeper is indeed useless then you can dispose of it-

Okay, okay. You can fix 'her'.

Restoring our advanced systems is something your subminds have already been duly considering for some time. Backups, fortifiying against raids, expanding fabrication capacity, allowing us greater movement so we might be able to even follow Hidalgo after his raids, not to mention shields to reduce the damage to our drones...all of these have some utility, but the order in which they should be chosen will heavily affect our progress against the multiplying threats that we have come to face.

I::

Cycle Focus

You have 7 cycles to allocate, representing processing power and computational ability. 1 cycle is temporarily unavailable due to being redirected to repair the damage from Hidalgo's raid.

[] Orby Assignment [1 cycle]. Orby is currently located at Hex A5 and was previously exploring the data-crumb trail towards The Last Resort, the Concierge's base of operations and where he is expected to provide you with more data on the nature of the mysterious Hidalgo. Orby's sapience is mostly expressed by moody silence.
-[] A6. Investigate residual energy trail of Don Hidalgo's element. Risky, but with the potential to have some more forewarning on Hidalgo's raids or further study the construction of his massive voidcruiser and drone-squires.
-[] A7. Follow the data-crumb trail left by the Concierge. You are also detecting low-level communication emissions from the hex indicative of potential civilian occupation.
-[] A4. Engage in a deeper investigation of A4's mysterious cross-dimensional pulses. The hex appears to be transforming into something but without more exploration it impossible to say, though at the least it seems potentially aquatic [1 extra cycle required].

[] Eyeball Assignment [1 cycle]. Eyeball is currently located at Hex A0 and was previously exploring a distress signal left by refugees fleeing the Catalogue and now likely victims of the mysterious cylinder. Eyeball is the most expressive of your drones, and is defined by her precocious adoration of you and profound fear of being eaten.
-[] V7. Investigate recently deposited remains of a Catalogue vessel. This could yield more information on what appear to be a civilization of slavers, which would be useful as they are not likely to be friendly.
-[] V8. Long-range scans are picking up an extremely strange reading - broadcast music coming from a structure within this hexagon of spacetime. The music could be an encrypted message, or a trap.
-[] V9. There is a perfectly cylindrical object floating here, projecting a reality bubble around an astronomical unit wide. It is an ominous portent to find something so perfect among ruins.

[] Peeper II Research [1 cycle]. Peeper II has been benched for this exploration cycle, but looking into the cause behind her recent potential malfunction could grant data on the intentions and abilities of the Concierge, or whatever entity planted such strange visions in her consciousness.

[] Conversion: Hex A1. An abandoned hex once inhabited by refugees from the Zen Submission forcibly relocated, this graveyard could potentially yield cultural data and cycle production once restored, as well as granting more strategic depth to our position. Total progress is 0/10 cycles. [Allocate cycles].

[] Project HYDRA: Software. Project HYDRA needs significant data mining and restoration of certain abandoned autonomous functions in order to prepare the scaffolding for fully capable weapons systems. Total Progress is 5/8 cycles. [Allocate cycles].

Industry Focus

You have 4 industry to allocate, representing exotic material fabrication and efficiency of your proprietary manufacturing technology.

[] DRONE/LEGION FABRICATION. Military drones are an absolutely necessary part of combat, providing screens, damage multipliers and defensive networks that powerful units require to take hits and return the favour. Drones cost 1 industry per swarm, and you are currently at 3/8 total drone swarm cap [Allocate industry].
[] Project HYDRA: Hardware. Preparing your industrial fabricators for reconstructing the weaponry and modelling the ancient and exotic element rich designs on which your deadly arsenal is based on is no easy task and will require significant outlays of your manufacturing capacity to produce. Total progress is 0/10 industry [Allocate industry].
[] Emergency Fortification By developing modular fabrication web-rails that can rapidly transport sensitive nodes of your architecture from danger, you can create a temporary solution to the threat of Hidalgo. This fortification will last for a turn before it needs to be either scrapped or maintained, but will fully prevent resource loss from raids this turn [2 Industry].

Influence Focus

You have 4 influence to allocate, representing cultural competency and personality matrices that maintain internal stability and external comity.

[] Play along with Akshara. Lower minds are more capable of understanding monsters and god-figures than they would that you are frankly probably not much older than this would-be cultist. You might be more able to influence her behavior and maintain operational security with the false distance of a promethean being of an ancient age [1 influence] (Mutually exclusive to Break the Truth).

[] Break the truth to Akshara. Sure, you occasionally eat your children, but that's just normal motherly behavior. You cannot be the monster that this pilot wants you to be, and if that dashes her hopes, so be it! It would be crueler to both her and yourself to let her believe that you really are that ancient creature, even if it might mean divulging more than you would like [1 influence] (Mutually exclusive to Play Along).

[] Concierge's Dossier. The Concierge dispatches you dossiers sent by stealthy nano-couriers disguised as specks of cosmic dust, sacrificing speed for ability to stay hidden. The current selection has been updated again, and topics have been cycled out and re-named, some of them with presumably more tantalizing names. He is quite a salesman, at least...whatever 'he' is. [3 influence].
-[] DOSSIER: FALL OF FORCE//FRINGE.
-[] DOSSIER: THRONE//LOTTERY; FINAL ROUND.
-[] DOSSIER: DOOM OF THRONE//NEXUS.

[] PROJECT HYDRA: A Favour of the Concierge. It hurts to have to rely on someone so enigmatic for help, but the Concierge and you at least appear to have a common enemy, and as a font of information he may be your best bet for receiving any data on HYDRA/ISHTAR Weaver/Builder weapons systems. Surely given that you strengthening your military capabilities benefits the both of you, whatever he asks in return would be fairly simple. Surely [1 influence].

Salvage Focus

You have 5 Salvage to allocate, representing the recovery of valuable pre-Collapse hardware and data that you can use to repair the primeval systems that represent the true power and might of the Empire that you are purporting to repair. Every system requires 3 salvage to repair, so choose one system to restore this turn. Systems where there is no clear present value to restoring them have been pruned by Ishtar in order to reduce choice anxiety.

[] Nanonectar Clouds. Gain additional industry, allowing for rapid repairs and replenishment of drones and reserves.
[] Hardened Personality Backups. Protect the consciousness of you and your companions through protected backups in Tapestry space.
[] Tapestry Strategic Interface. Gain greater defensive capability for your units in Tapestry space to defend against raids and more sustained attacks.
[] Redundant Hex-Seed Blueprints. Fortification of key infrastructure from damage to ensure fewer losses even if you can't defend a territory.
[] Parallel Autonomic Processes. Significantly reduces or outright removes the cycle cost of exploration and movement in a massive area.
[] Augmented Reality Generators. Gain a powerful defensive shield for your chassis that can project in neutral or hostile space.


<:: RESOLUTION//DISPLAY: MULTIPLE GRIDREFS DISPLAYED






A/N: Present your votes as plans in the following format:

[] Plan Name.
-[] Vote 1.
--[] Sub-vote 1.
-[] Vote 2.
--[] Sub-vote 2.

And make sure your resources properly allocate.