What about making those first parts an antigravity field and the perpetual generator? Then we can just find some preexisting container to attach it to, and tow it along like a balloon, or turn up the power to escape into the sky dangling from that towing rope, and navigate using wind currents like a hot air balloon.
So, how hard would it be to upgrade the magnetic shield to repel water, since water is already weakly diamagnetic?
Allowing us to deflect things like punches and many chemicals, as well as give people strokes by waving our hand near their head.
Upgraded bullet-deflector that can repel the ground, giving it a "jetpack" or "hover" mode.
A point-defense targeting computer for Skybreaker that helps us use it to stop bullets.
A point-defense suite that operates by shooting down incoming threats, with secondary application against stealthy or fast-moving clockworks or biological threats e.g. Empowered or Fused.
Reflex-booster to help defend against Empowered/Fused and to make bullets more manageable, either by dodging them or by blocking with Skybreaker (portals or just interposing it and using its ludicrous durability).
High-quality powered armor. Possible features: Badass style (to better Inspire a perception of invulnerability), physics-defying protection (momentum cancellation or redirection, shockwave/impact absorption ideally with energy capture to charge the batteries, phasing), augmented reflexes (to assist against fast/strong melee threats e.g. Empowered/Fused), super-comfy interior for use in hostile environments (AKA "who needs a sleeping bag/inn")
A tool for directly inspiring perception of invulnerability in onlookers by mind control. Would that be "cheating" and not work?
Tool for "phasing" out of reality to avoid incoming threats.
Perception-augmentation, for better information-gathering and to help against fast/stealthy threats and with aim-dodging/putting up portals right as enemies pull the trigger.
Upgrade bullet-deflector to create a more general force-field, suitable for stopping clocks and enemies with melee weapons.
"Standby" mode for bullet-deflector that consumes significantly less fuel (enough for 24/7 activation) and automatically kicks on full power when a threat is detected.
Upgrade bullet-deflector for use as an active melee weapon - pushes/trips/shields on the low end up to major bludgeoning on the higher end.
A tool that suppresses the energetic operations in its area of effect, for example, gunpowder doesn't explode, an Inspired device may stop working, high-powered clockworks can't get up enough steam, etc.
A body modification or tool that significantly improves raw durability, up to "bulletproof" levels.
Time-rate modification, which is just awesome in general. Slow enemies and incoming attacks, pick bullets out of the air like you're Neo, speed yourself up, etc.
Tweak to the bullet-deflector to catch bullets instead of deflecting them, which improves our ability to grandstand and handles impact-fuzed AoE weapons better.
A hologram projector that we can use to get the army started on things without actually being present to be attacked.
A spatial-warping effect that makes projectiles bend around us.
A mind-affecting tool that makes people unable to consider attacking us.
An upgrade to the bullet-deflector that lets it rip weapons out of attackers' hands and screw with clockwork.
Ideas liked by Inspiration are marked in yellow, ideas adored are marked in green. You have trouble getting it to actually answer what's possible and what isn't with your current resources; the few projects you're certain are currently impossible, barring audience assistance, are marked partially in red. Many projects marked in red should be possible using materials you can probably buy in a sufficiently good market. You think at least some of the projects it thought were "meh" should be possible, but again, Inspiration seems to think they're meh.
You also can't get a good answer from Inspiration as to if mind control would interfere with audience assistance.
Alivaril, about how long would the proposed bullet-deflector run off that much coal? Less than ten minutes? Less than five minutes? Less than a minute? Less than thirty seconds?
@Alivaril Just to confirm, you're not closing the vote any time soon are you? Because if you are, I'd like to @everyone to make sure they're aware of Vebyast's new vote and confirm they prefer the old standby vote.
Straight antigravity effect, block gravitons or set the curvature of spacetime to "flat" in a radius or something equivalent to those formulations.
A lump of negative mass paired with a selective gravity amplifier to boost the negative-gravity from the negative mass enough to counteract the gravity of the earth.
A gravity projectorthat can be operated for extended periods at an intensity of 1g to counteract gravity in its target area.
A toolthat phases an object out of reality in a way that ignores gravity as well as everything else.
A mobile pocket dimension with no gravity and a coterminous border with reality.
A tool that latches on to celestial objects and uses them to haul itself around.
A tool that twists existing gravitational wells to change which way gravity points.
A tool that changes masses but not kinetic energy, allowing us to play tricks with inertia to get extreme thrust.
A big-ass jet engine suitable for mounting on a building.
A clockwork rotary-airfoil aircraft aka helicopter.
A clockwork ornithopter.
A flight-capable roc or dragon or other excessively large mount.
A hot air balloon. But a really good one, maybe with the capability to eject controlled quantities of lifting plasma as an attack.
A hot air balloon that keeps itself heated using a giant lens to focus the sun, conveniently also usable as a directed energy weapon, for reconnaissance work, or for astronomy.
A monolithic vacuum airship built using ultra-high-strength materials.
A vacuum airship built out of air-repelling force fields.
A vacuum airship built using super-low-density microscale structures e.g. ultra-large fullerenes or carbon tubes.
A lighter-than-air airship using light gasses at atmospheric pressure.
A lighter-than-air airship using aphysical gases with impossibly low densities.
A lighter-than-air airship that operates by pinching space inside itself to so that it has less volume than it should, lowering the mass inside it without affecting the buoyant force from differential pressure across its height, leading to lift
An Immovable Object that nails itself to a bit of the fabric of space and refuses to move
A big-ass jet engine strapped to some wings
An airship that operates by walking on ground that's in a parallel dimension where the ground is higher than it is in our world.
A glider that gets power by flying a kite in the upper atmosphere to take advantage of high-speed airstreams at higher altitudes.
Build a rocket and get up into orbit.
A giant cannon that'll blast us up into space where we can reach orbit with only a small kick.
A tool that pushes against the earth's magnetic field hard enough that we can use it to climb into the sky.
A glider that can rapidly fold and unfold its wings so we can get a much larger flyer through one of Skybreaker's portals.
An aircraft powered by a void portal placed behind vents that channel the incoming air to exert a force on the craft as it's sucked into the portal.
A persistent pocket dimension, suitable for inhabitation and buildings (workshop, house, etc) and only accessible via Skybreaker portal.
A tool that can gain traction against open space by exploiting whatever weirdness it is that makes the rims and backsides of Skybreaker's portals invulnerable. Then we climb up into the sky, or make it persistent and build a building on top of it, something like that.
A trajectory computer that uses Skybreaker portals to fling the user through the air in whatever manner is desired.
Ideas liked by Inspiration are marked in yellow, ideas adored are marked in green. You have trouble getting it to actually answer what's possible and what isn't with your current resources; the few projects you're certain are currently impossible, barring audience assistance, have arbitrary parts marked partially in red. Many projects marked in red should be possible using materials you can probably buy in a sufficiently good market. You think at least some of the projects it thought were "meh" should be possible, especially if you can figure out a way to make them sound more interesting.
You smile and briefly scour the information provided. You were torn between making Inspiration's suggested deflector and a defensive module for Skybreaker, but why should you need to choose? Certainly, the end result won't be as efficient as either would've been had you focused on it, but safe exploitation of the army is more important. Inspiration even seems to have gone out of its way to make refinement of the design easy on you. It only takes three rounds of trading plans before you come out with something you're both happy with.
You'd thought Skybreaker needed you to slash in a specific direction in order to open appropriately-aligned rifts, but that apparently isn't true. It merely needs to be pointed in roughly the correct direction; moving it is simply to make it easier for you to use. Either way, it's the work of mere minutes to shove the various cogs, crystals, plates, and joints into a small box. Your extensive practice under your parents serves you well; it doesn't even explode once. Leaving it inactive until the device is completed probably helps there.
The end result is hideous and looks like the mutant child of an iron jewelry box and a bronze spider. You're glad nobody will be able to properly see it from a distance.
(Basic Clockwork Defensive Module Acquired)
(All Warclock Sensor Crystals Expended)
(-60 Ounces Basic Bronze Clockwork Components)
(-15 Ounces Basic Iron Clockwork Components)
Styles at time of creation: Stubborn/Redundant
Components: Clockwork, Crystal
Fuel: Coal
Traits: Magnetic (NF/F), Fragile, Short-Lived, Automated, Sensory, Toggled, Ugly
A temporary attachment to Skybreaker, this clockwork controller is intended to protect you from basic attacks. Slower threats will be blocked by appropriately-sized Skybreaker rifts while bullets, ferrous or otherwise, will be deflected by the "barrier." You think it might even be able to block the attacks of sufficiently fast Empowered. Skybreaker can use rifts to block incoming attacks in a hemisphere dictated by the direction it's pointed in while the repulsion function is omnidirectional.
You fully expect it to burn through half your coal supply within six minutes. Fortunately, that's far more time than you'll need to become invincible. The resulting black smoke will be contained inside the device until and unless it runs out of fuel or is shut off, whichever comes first.
You don't expect the original device will last very long at all; if you want to make an upgraded version later on, you'll first need to either repair the original or redo the project from scratch.
You will not be able to use Skybreaker yourself while the module is attached to Skybreaker. You may detach it without damaging either device. The repulsion function may be used without first attaching it to Skybreaker, although its little limbs will still move as though it was attached.
The Surge ends as soon as you push the last plate into place. However, Inspiration doesn't really feel tired at all. If anything, it seems even more enthusiastic than it was before you initially Surged. You don't know if the ease of the project had anything to do with that or if it's simply because of the upcoming army-sized audience exploitation. Both? Neither?
[] Surge and attack the army. You think you have enough defenses to work with.
-[] Wait until this evening to do so.
-[] Wait until the following morning before you attack.
-[] Write-in approach plan.
[] Leave.Even if your defenses aren't 100% perfect, you're sure you can properly exploit the army somehow. You even made a module just for that purpose.
[] Write-in
Voting will be locked for 90 minutes after this first goes up.
More experimentation: If you vote and subsequently leave the thread, I hereby dub thee fair game for @'ing by those who actually stick around. I rarely put the best potential options in base votes, and as such, it's rather unfair to make better write-ins fight so hard to replace defaults. That being said, the hostility to voters who don't later switch is a little much. Please refrain from such in the future; it's a game, remember?
Making a skybreaker portal and then BREAKING the portal, mixing the pieces into some kind of alloy or coating, in order to get a physical material with some of its properties.
Using either a portal or the above coating underneath a heavy structure to block or redirect gravitons, thus making it lighter.
OOC: These two were not asked for different reasons. The first, since Lorelei doesn't believe it would say good things about her self-preservation if she proposed tearing apart tears in reality. Two was due to no effective conversion to IC knowledge. The rest have been spoiler'd, save for the "inspired by monkeys" bit. Lorelei has never seen a monkey and does not know how they move.
Manipulate reality on a more abstract layerto make so that for a certain material or structural point of view, the earth does not exist, and thus cannot pull it down.
Instead of trying to make a tool to change the "phase" of stuff, maybe we could make a portal that is "phased" or "angled" relative reality, so that anything that passes through it will have altered effective properties as well. Basically, phase is just an offset, so if a portal is created with that offset so will anything emerging from it.
Instead of specifying "phasing" what about more generally considering altering a material or object such that it cannot interact with some specific substance or phenomena, or so that that substance or phenomena subjectively "doesn't exist".
It seem like the void portals already connected to something that can function as a pocket dimension, and this might be useful in more ways than we're using it. If we can open void portals that lead to the SAME space, and are near each other within that space, it could be useful as an actual space. Even better would be if we can open a void portal near an object previously sucked into the void to retrieve it, or open a portal to this world from inside the void in case we get sucked in; one would let us use it for storage, and the other would let us hide ourselves in it.
Would it be possible to alter the nature of a void portal to alter the nature of the space it opens into? Basically different "versions" of the void, that light be more suitable to actually doing stuff inside it.
Could we generate lift by simply removing the air above an object using a portal and generate differential pressure? Possibly using:
We should make a "frame" of some kind we can generate a portal inside, which'd do at least one and possibly both out of a) making it last longer, and b) making it able to move around with the frame instead of being pinned to space.
Either using a frame, or some kind of power source that can be attached to the back or side of a portal to recharge it, if we could keep portals stable longer we already have a way to store things in the sky, simply using a downwards facing portal as a platform.
An extension of the portal-as-platform idea, we could put hooks onto either such a big platform portal, or into several smaller portals, and suspend a larger structure from it using cables. By extending the cables, it could be lowered through another portal in order to move it, and then the hooks reattached to portals around that site.
Another variant of that idea in a fortress with large arms, that hook into and swing between small portals that it creates itself at the last moment,using motion patterns inspired by monkeys.
You don't really think this worked. Inspiration seemed interested at first, but seemingly didn't want to put in the effort necessary to translate it into its component ideas; you'd likely be better off just proposing the ideas directly. It also seems quite amused by, and happy about, your various attempts to figure out the best ways to extract information from it.
Forgeclock, a walking workshop able to do things like devour raw materials and separate out the useful parts while everything else is either ejected (possibly at high speed for defense) or used as fuel for the machine itself and it's internal devices, it'll need internal and external mechadendrites with the internal ones being mostly tools while the external ones are grippers and harvesters.
Giant boxy scorpion-pede. Tons of legs to minimize ground pressure and ensure all-terrain capability. Claws on the front for turning things into small scrap that's suitable for ingestion. Tail is a crane, for picking up bigger bits of wreckage to feed into the intake and to unload products after they're done. Slap on some shields, have some fabber blueprints on hand for various guns, you've got yourself a clockwork mecha-fatboy. Hardest part is probably going to be the fabricator; we'd need designs for things that can be produced without Inspiration around to tell physics that those parts can, in fact, be assembled without exploding.
You think something like the "Forgeclock" might've been done before, complete with an autonomous mechanical mind to run it. It eventually killed its creator and went on to devastate the empire it'd been built in. Thanks to all its little minions, you're pretty sure it's supposed to have taken months of warfare to bring it down. It might as well have been a powerful Inspired all on its own. Either way, building one is likely to bring you quite a bit of negative attention and plenty of people insisting on its destruction before it could turn on you. You're well aware that said insistence would, more likely than not, lead to it going rogue should you give it intelligence of its own.
With little better to do with your time, you spend much of the day remaining ahead of the army, resting, tossing ideas at Inspiration, and practicing your singing. If you're going to make song into one of your most memorable themes, you should at least be good at it.
Sadly, a single day of effort is no substitute for years of training. It'll have to be an ongoing project.
[x] If you think it'd help, use some smallish void portals to interrupt their sleep.
You're honestly not sure it'd be worth interrupting your own sleep just to harass the army throughout the night. However, as your stalker seems to be doing a good enough job all on their own, you simply open up a single Void rift in the skies far above them soon after the camp has settled. The distinctive scream should be adequate for inducing paranoia.
With that done, you head for a semi-hidden cave, assemble a simple clockwork explosive-slash-alarm, and go to sleep.
[x] Attack tomorrow morning. Ideally just before sunrise so you can use that to punctuate your Surge, but if they get up early you'll settle for interrupting their breakfast.
-[x] Announce yourself with a void portal in the sky. Not necessarily a big one, but you might as well start developing a trademark.
-[x] Try to keep 2.5 to 3 batteries available for use during your attack.
When you're woken up by the rather distinctive *screeeeeeCRACK* of your alarm detonating, three batteries have been fully filled and await your use. After getting up and making yourself presentable, you open up a short linked rift-pair to take you back out of the cave and look around. It seems your timing was almost perfect; you can still see smoke from where the campsite should be and the first rays of dawn are only just creeping over the horizon.
Inspired Behavior?
You open up a screaming tear in reality as far above the camp as possible. It shouldn't harm anyone all the way up there. Once you're sure you've gotten their attention, you open up a linked rift pair close to the camp and attach your defensive module to Skybreaker.
Yes, we can get started.
Access granted.
You sway precariously as Inspiration's chosen knowledge fills your mind. Unless you're very much mistaken, there's far, far more of it than there should be. The fabric of the universe unfolds before you, blinks, and establishes eye contact.
You step back and try to ignore the feeling of something closely watching you. You're used to your gift looking over your work, but this? You might as well compare a candle to the sun. If you were of a religious bent, you'd wonder if you attracted the attention of God. Or a god, at least. One who seems intent on watching everything you do.
No pressure, right?
At least you have yet more evidence for your new idea of Inspiration being a single entity. But if it is, why does it not seem to care about its partners killing one another? Your gift seems to like you well enough.
Inspired behavior.
You shake your head and take the hint, striding through the open rift and ignoring the insignificant mites incapable of harming you. Even if Inspired in general are prone to being distracted, you aren't just any Inspired. You fully intend to prove that to the entire world.
Although you'd rather like to use the earth itself for the mass you'll require, reality is mortally certain the ground is supposed to remain relatively unchanging. Even human-forged garbage is a result of humans converting something old into something new; you'll have precedent on your side when it comes to changing it once again.
Material properties.
Of course, if you get it hot enough, the ground will turn into something different anyway. Could you not use it after that? All you'd need is something to melt wide swathes of land — say, a giant thermal cannon — and you could start forming castles beneath the earth.
Alas, what could be won't help you right this instant. Something for your next audience-fueled Surge, perhaps.
OOC: Use preference voting: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, where lower numbers mean you prefer that option over the others. However, be warned that voting will be locked for 2 hours after this goes up.
A ranged hand cannon capable of liquefying the very earth. Technically, it wouldn't be turning anything to glass unless you shot at sand. You feel the name still works despite that little detail. The fact that it can be used as a weapon is just an added bonus; your primary objective is to open up the possibility of proper army-sized audience exploitation in the future.
You might be able to merge it with Skybreaker, but you aren't certain.
A device virtually useless on its own, Lightweight would let you almost completely shut off gravity in an adjustable area. The maximum size should be enough to fit an entire keep inside. As with virtually every other project you'll create while you have an audience to work with, it won't ever require additional fuel.
A mirrorlike disc with a radius of approximately five meters, Aten would be capable of directed flight, albeit at a relatively low altitude. During the day, it would also be capable of incinerating any poor fools directly beneath it at middling ranges. You're pretty sure you won't even need to bother with railings as long as you make it automatically move to support you.
The most powerful miniaturized perpetual energy generator you can make with the knowledge you have access to. On its own, it accomplishes absolutely nothing, but you should be able to use it as a power source for your future inventions. It should suffice for at least a few ordinary projects. You're hoping to give it spider-like legs and some rudimentary defenses as well, but that's strictly secondary to your main objective.
[] Wraith Field
(Crystal, Aether, Personal, Worn)
A device to temporarily pull you and everything close enough to you — say, within a meter or three — into the Void. You'll need to build some form of propulsion once you're in there, but travelling inside it should let you effectively navigate through solid objects. You'll need to set up safeties to ensure you don't return inside a wall, of course; you get the feeling doing so would be distressingly fatal.
A two-layer suit of armor. The inner layer is an almost scandalously form-fitting dress capable of dampening the force of most incoming attacks in addition to telling reality that no, those bullets can't pierce the cloth it's made of, thank you very much. The golden outer layer can break apart on command to form a swarm of small, flying warclocks, half of whom would block incoming threats while the other half would seek out and destroy any weapons attacking you. The users of any such weapons, if any, would be left alone.
Voting will be locked for 120 minutes after this first goes up.
"All this, just for me?
I'm flattered.
I really am.
"But you've lost the Light's attention,
And your gifts were never weaker.
So please, fuel my ascension.
Let your fates turn ever bleaker.
"But alas, they can't, can they?
You're letting Light be eaten.
Your entire country lost its way.
You all deserve to be beaten!"
A moment is wasted thinking about what you're actually saying. After determining that you're still able to tell reality it's wrong despite the lack of precise audience cooperation, you mentally shrug and go back to what you were doing. You think the Light might be venting and it's even angrier than you are.
"We don't need to do a thing.
You'll go down in history.
Your problem is self-correcting.
You'll make a nice mystery.
"Your League might as well be cursed.
I bet you will be fun to watch.
Did you believe you were the first?
That you're more than just a notch?"
You try to avoid letting your own impatience be reflected by your work, but it just keeps exploding. At this rate, you won't be able to give it proper defenses. You suppose you could always build them later, but additions aren't nearly as appealing as inserting them into the original design.
"You're much dumber than expected.
But is that sad or impressive?
Maybe the second if we squinted.
As it is, awe seems excessive."
You giggle as yet another incendiary bomb harmlessly detonates nearby. An exploding aether generator is much more destructive than that, but can it harm you? Of course not. Their continued attempts only serve to waste supplies.
"You've tried all that already,
No credits for holding steady.
Just let me finish this, okay?
My shield won't simply decay."
A fraction of a second is spent evaluating the last verse. It doesn't quite fit, but you suppose that doesn't really matter. It accomplished what it was meant for.
"You should consider taking notes.
The Light won't impress itself.
Why not try something that floats?
Disrupt a continental shelf?
"You could do better if you tried. In theory, that is. You're dumb.
You're both filled with unearned pride,
When you're little more than scum."
You spend a moment on estimating your remaining Surge time and wince. You've gotten a working generator model, but only the primary part; you simply didn't have enough time for everything you wanted to do with it. You completed the reactor itself, yes, but it wouldn't have any defenses to call its own. You should've had enough time for both, time enough to make it into a respectable Warclank. You simply made too many mistakes.
Access Renewed.
...Excuse me, but what?
Human Behavior.
You force down your numerous questions and try to focus on the task at hand. It's even more difficult with the addition of something new and unfamiliar guiding your actions. You know it's technically been years since you first became an Inspired, but the new construction philosophy is still a surprise.
(Trait Acquired: Methodical(?))
Surges do not automatically end when a project is "completed." Because of this, you are able to make a satisfactory design, continue trying to refine it anyway, and return to said design if you can't improve it before your Surge ends. This change in methodology may somewhat slow your working speed during Surges.
You idly stretch, grab the fabric of a nearby tent, and begin converting it into modified bronze. Nearby screams are filtered away from your consciousness and ignored.
"You thought we were done, didn't you?
I must confess I did as well.
But it seems Light enjoys the view,
So I welcome you back to Hell."
You start to move forward more cautiously than you normally do. Within seconds, the peanut gallery tosses in its own opinion of that.
Inspired Trait: Stubborn.
Onward and upward?
Satisfaction not your own pushes against the side of your mind. You mentally shrug and reach for the sky. What's the worst thing that could happen?
Inspired History.
You suppose an ever-burning aetheric fire that burns everything outside significant human settlements could be rather problematic, yes.
Unlike practically every design you've ever made in the past, you try to stick with incremental improvements. After the first few failures without any major progress, you're glad you decided to be cautious.
"I'd meant to make an engine,
A burning furnace fueling all.
It finished with little margin,
One that was simply much too small."
Spider-like legs come first and are easy enough to implement, as is the generator's "weapon." You figure storing some extra energy to vent at foes should be more than enough to deal with nearly all enemies. Unfortunately, the range does leave something to be desired.
"But the Light likes me more than you,
My gender barely matters.
I'm among its chosen few,
Until its attention scatters."
An identification and command system is added next. You'd hate for someone else to be able to use something you made.
"Yet I'm not at all worried,
I know all that we were made for.
Light's desires are quite varied,
But rather simple at their core."
Since Gift is beginning to approach a rather large dog in size, you elect to add a stealth system. It's closer to natural camouflage than true invisibility, but considering it was glowing before, you aren't going to try aiming for the latter.
"You don't know what they are, right?
You aren't allowed to learn.
You don't truly serve the Light,
And so its knowledge you must earn."
Rudimentary automaton comes next. Identifying you is one thing, but you'd like it to be able to attack foes of its own accord. Not true intelligence, not yet, but making an information warfare suite to let it hijack the personalized creations of other Inspired took less time than you'd expected.
Speaking of true intelligence, you're pretty sure you could manage even a full-fledged mind if you so desire. The resulting mind likely wouldn't be smarter than a rather clever dog, but even that would forever prevent you from simply discarding Inspiration's Gift when it was outdated. You imagine it'd be like having a pet.
Or you could go for a simple sensor upgrade instead of even making it as smart as a dog. You suppose that could work too.
[] Give Gift approximately clever-dog-level intelligence. It's not anywhere near as messy as a biological pet would be.
[] Just improve its sensors and leave it as a series of contingent programs with no actual mind to speak of. You'd rather not have to worry about taking care of yet another sentient being, especially since it might just up and leave you. That would be rather inconvenient.
Well, I guess one way to make sure we don't have more Agneyastras or Calypsos is to roll enough dice for the central limit theorem to ensure that crits don't happen.
Actually, they still can for a few categories. But for perhaps the first time for important rolls, dice didn't really like you, and so you will not go to space today. The Light of Inspiration rejected most project consequences of displeased dice gods, but the intervention came with consequences of its own.
R&S B T ((x/16)+32): Redundant and Stubborn Bonus Tiers, but minor mistake here. It should've been X+32 or (x/16)+2. This would've added 32 tiers as-is, which would've just been silly.
APO: (Classified)
ISEDNLS (X/10=T & DC+): I Say, Explosives Do Not Look Safe! (Extra tiers, extra DC, but the roll was too low to affect either...)
IP-FP (DC-70/70/70): Initial Project Failure Points, DC was affected by passes and close failures and slowly went down over time. Failing and passing, including crit successes/fails, would only affect how long the project took to complete. However, the generator ultimately took a while, which meant the next part was failed:
IDIATFMASI: If Done In A Timely Fashion, May Allow Secondary Ideas.
I Int: (DC-Y = 100-X): Inspiration Intervention, or whether it would take pity on you. Two rolls, one (X) subtracted from 100 to determine the DC for roll two (Y). OOC functionally the same as 2d100 vs a DC of 100, but IC differences exist.
R&S B T CS (2+(x/16)): Same as last time, but correctly formatted. The roll was 4 which rounds down to zero, so only two bonus tiers for the second phase, except...
YANATGUN! >:3 ((x/20)=FBT m.2): You Are Not Allowed To Give Up Now! (Further Bonus Tiers, minimum 2; added to result of Redundant and Stubborn Bonus Tiers Roll.)
SP-OFP (L70, W30, IFF70, S80): Secondary Project Failure Points. Legs, Weapons, Identification Friend/Foe, Stealth. See "Methodical" for why the formatting is different.
AC (...AI80, ABIFF)6: Above Continued (Artificial Intelligence DC-80, Affected By Identification Friend/Foe.) I accidentally ended the sequence here instead of properly continuing it, which led to some moderate difficulties as I sorted things out (see original post for details).
ImW = Improved Weaponry, TAI = True Artificial Intelligence, Sh = Shields, AC = (Redacted).
Finally, the rename to "Inspiration's Gift" was not a typo.
Voting will be locked for 90 minutes after this first goes up.
Landslide: [x] Give Gift approximately clever-dog-level intelligence. It's not anywhere near as messy as a biological pet would be.
You're honestly not sure how long it will be until you can get some genuinely intelligent companions. Until and unless that happens, why wouldn't you spring for a pet? Playing with it might give you something to do. Even from a purely pragmatic perspective, an intelligent mind can learn on its own while a collection of contingencies would require adjustment whenever you discovered something unexpected. You just have to model it off something naturally adorable and loyal.
A change in rhythm may be necessary.
"I have no master plan,
No thoughts but that I can.
I just want a cute pet,
Is that truly a threat?
"Endless, strong, and cheerful,
Clever, quick, and loyal,
A friend to fight boredom
Without seeking freedom.
"But it won't be a slave
I don't seek my own grave.
(Unlike some, but that's done,
Light has already won.)"
With Inspiration continuing to work on Prometheus's mind, you switch part of your attention toward giving it a better method of protecting you. You think you might've been shot had it not been for your defensive module. Why not make a reflector controlled by something intelligent?
"Help drive away my woes
Shield Mother from all foes."
Familial relations?
Yes, I mean me. Mother can defend herself.
"Together we'll show all
That I don't need a thrall."
You suspect it might be cheating to base the personality of Prometheus off animals humanity spent several thousand years domesticating. Does it really count as cheating if Inspiration encourages sidestepping potential problems in such a way?
"I don't believe in God
The mere premise is flawed.
But we're not on our own,
We're to build our own throne."
Preferably of a variety it hasn't seen before. It's seen a hundred flying thrones, a thousand flying Warclanks, ten thousand supersoldier attempts. Extravagance and perfectionism are all well and good, yet it would much rather see something new and interesting.
"Light is here to assist,
Something the League has missed.
You bite the hand that feeds,
Ignore its wants and needs.
"Just do the math
Walk down that path
Your Empowered
Are outnumbered.
"Light's grown beside our race,
Changed itself to keep pace.
It's stronger than you'll dream,
Yet it doesn't like to scream.
"It's tired of your nonsense,
It's done with this pretense.
You get one last warning,
Lest the League start burning."
You frown faintly as your last few attempts at an upgrade fail rather spectacularly. It looks as though the shield is the last upgrade you'll be able to manage; you don't have enough time to improve it further and escape safely. At least the end product is far better than you'd hoped.
Traits at time of creation: Stubborn/Redundant (Both Project Phases), Methodical (Second Phase Only).
Armed (Explosive Cannon / Flamethrower, Leg Spikes), Magnetic (NF/F), Sensory
Inspiration's Gift, otherwise known as Prometheus's Gift, Gift, or Prometheus, is a perpetual energy generator and the first pet you ever made. He's about as intelligent as a particularly clever dog and resembles a hound-sized, ten-legged clockwork spider built around a swirling and glowing dark blue sphere, although one of his sensors can also act as an expressive tail. Four circular crystals at the front of his body act as eyes. He shouldn't mind carrying you and should be strong enough to do so, although you'll need to make some sort of saddle or seat to manage such.
Prometheus can form up to seven permanent linked rifts to projects with valid receiver capacity and send energy through said rifts to remotely power them. Unlike Skybreaker, Prometheus cannot create rifts without an appropriately-sized stabilization frame on the other end. You can also just use old-fashioned power cables should you not have the aether and crystals necessary for the rift frames. Power transfer is set to its maximum safe limit per slot and cannot increase its output per slot without another audience-fueled Surge. The amount of energy this generator can produce at once is not infinite, but it is quite significant. Skybreaker does not have a receiver yet. If a receiver is destroyed, the connection will be closed immediately. Rerouting rifts is not quick, but it is relatively easy. If the receiver was destroyed instead of properly closed, it may take an extra hour or two.
While a slot is not in use, it will be used to charge one of eight batteries located near the back of Prometheus's central orb. These batteries can be removed and used to power inventions without the need for rifts or cables. Opening them without proper containment measures in place will result in the excess energy traveling down any paths of least resistance — in other words, the contents of a fully charged battery would explode with an effective radius of approximately one meter. The battery itself would remain intact. Although the released payload would likely burn biological beings and ignite wood, it dissipates too soon to destroy most stone or other heat-resistant materials. This method of powering projects is significantly less efficient than simply having a permanent uplink in place.
Prometheus technically only has two weapons, but one of them has two modes of attack. He can vent partial core output in a small (max approximately 10 meter range or slightly further if firing straight down) cone, likely killing or horribly burning most organic creatures and igniting flammable objects within its path. This cannon can instead shoot pressurized explosive packets (max approximately 20 meter range) for a slightly longer-ranged attack.
It's likely this cannon can be maintained on stored power for 1 minute of continuous flamethrower use or can fire twenty packets before requiring a recharge, a process which should take about four hours. Prometheus's external batteries can further extend use by approximately four seconds per battery, although that small of an extension honestly doesn't seem worth it. Finally, Prometheus can extend or retract 10-centimeter spikes from the sides of his legs. He knows better than to hurt you with either through carelessness.
Prometheus is capable of blending in with his surroundings and climbing most surfaces without damaging them. He can also see through most forms of concealment. His sight is focused in front of him while his other senses are omnidirectional. His primary methods of detection are hearing, which is sensitive enough to act as echolocation within an approximately ten-meter radius, and touch, which lets Prometheus detect and locate groundbound creatures at over ten times that range. He can also see heat signatures and atmospheric aether.
Prometheus knows you're significantly squishier than he is and can activate a reflection field to reject many incoming metals, ferrous or not. This ability is practically automatic and would take quite a bit of sustained effort for any enemies to override. Amusingly enough, arrows are now arguably more dangerous to you than than bullets; an arrowhead reflected away from you may force an attached wooden shaft to shatter, spraying painful splinters in your general direction. You don't think anyone uses those anymore, though. Not until you head a few thousand miles east or travel overseas.
"We're almost out of time,
Reject your life of crime.
I won't be back to see
If you listen to me.
"That's not my job
So tell the squab
Who rules you all
How soon he'll fall.
"It isn't too late
To reject hate
But you're quite close
To a dire dose.
"We're past second chances,
Think about your stances.
The Light hates being prey,
And it does get a say.
"Remember this warning,
Consider its meaning,
Spread my words far and wide,
Step back and view your side."
You flick Skybreaker and open a path back the way you came, glancing back once to make sure Prometheus skitters along after you. As soon as you're both safely on the other side, you flip the direction and cover the opened rift with the backs of two more linked rifts.
Your Surge soon comes to an end and leaves you with just a tiny portion of the Light, but not before it delivers a few final comments.
Human Psychology.
Stressful tasks may harm productivity, you mentally translate.
Theatrical Pacing.
And you know there's more to a story than the climax?
The Light of Inspiration's satisfaction is answer enough. A good thing, too; if it demanded new sights from you all the time, you wouldn't even be able to use one of your two main traits, Redundant. You think it might be happy so long as you're working toward a goal it likes. It might not give you as much aid as it did today, but it won't easily forget you.
The comfortable semi-silence is ultimately broken by shouts from the other side of the now-blocked rift. You ignore them and crouch next to your new pet, Prometheus. He lowers its back legs to better look back at you.
"Hello there. I'm Lorelei, your creator. It's nice to meet you."
Prometheus rapidly alternates between legs in an adorable wiggle, his tail rapidly wagging from side to side.
"We should get going. Could you follow me?"
You didn't actively give him much of a vocabulary, yet some words are going to save you an awful lot of grief down the road. Prometheus doesn't answer immediately, only freezing before he abruptly lunges back toward the rift and stabs at midair with two back legs. A quiet snap of abused electronics herald a bird-sized Spyclock being forced into visibility.
Prometheus transfers the wrecked Spyclock hummingbird to its mouth-slash-cannon before skittering back toward you and placing his victim by your feet, tail and internal gears whirring happily. You stare at the ruined Spyclock for several long moments before forcing a smile and crouching down to rub the top of Prometheus's central orb.
"Good boy, Prometheus!"
You gingerly pick up the ruined Spyclock with your other hand, peering at the minuscule gears making up its internal mechanisms. Its wings and head are covered with some form of crystal or glass, but only its wings and head. Most of its body remains uncovered. Either way, granting invisibility to something that tiny is difficult, especially since it seems to be powered entirely by clockwork and a few crystals. Transmitting what its eyes see to a remote source? So very much harder. Whoever is spying on you didn't exactly skimp on resources.
Ominous.
The Spyclock is carefully placed inside one of your belt pouches. You'd like to study it later, but for now, it's time for you to get away from here.
"Bring me any others you find, okay?"
A yelp is forcefully suppressed as Promtheus rapidly scales your legs and settles where you'd normally put your backpack, hugging your waist for stability. You awkwardly pat his legs, take the few steps necessary to reach the place you left Neighilist, and...
"Why are you wearing eyeliner?"
Neighilist releases an annoyed snort and continues trying to scrape away the smudged black smiley face drawn on his forehead. After a few moments of thought, you sigh and idly reach back to rub Prometheus's core.
"I don't know who you are, but this is starting to get really annoying. Nobody likes stalkers."
A rumbling purr from Prometheus and distant birdsong are your only answers.
[] Head further into the League. Hopefully, that'll help discourage your stalker.
[] Change course and leave the League. You did poke them with a rather sharp stick AND you were probably close enough for them to get a good look at you this time. You'd rather not risk Empowered coming after you.
-[] Head south. You should be past the lands of your parents by now.
-[] Head north, back toward civilization you're vaguely familiar with.
[] Write-in
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