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Devastation Comes In Big Packages [Planetary Annihilation/Multicross SI]
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1 - Theta Online
Hello, and thank you for your interest in this thread. Below, quite obviously, is the first post of the story itself.
But here's the thing. I previously wrote the first fifty or so updates of this within the course of a very short amount of time. Specifically, February 26, 2016, and March 1, 2016. Four years ago, I was a different writer, and a different person in mind and body. I was, quite simply, jumping upon the trend of other PA SI fics and had no idea what I was doing other than the fact that I wanted 'to do something different' than the others, while maintaining the stompy bits for fun. And the fact of the matter is, I did not do well! Artificial restrictions that were boring and bad, zalgo text because I was reliant on something gimmicky I hadn't really used in that fashion before, a ROB, and all that. And I've been rightfully called out on it multiple times, both when I was first writing it, to even now, in 2020, when I'm making this edit. I'm not terribly proud of what I wrote back then in this thread, but the thing is, I am a bit happier with the parts that come afterwards. I started experimenting with better non-SI perspectives, and overarching implications of a staggeringly powerful machine force affecting the latest traveled-to universe. Plus other things. Again, the first 51 are not particularly exemplary pieces of writing, but the parts after I like more, and so I've decided to do this instead.
I'm going to spoiler up a summary of the initial arc, the Star Wars arc, and then once you've read it you can decide if you want to jump ahead to post 52, which I've linked to just there, or if you want to go ahead and muddle through my wavering and uncoordinated steps up to that point which begins below. Thanks for reading, or if not, at the very least your vague interest.
EDIT: I AM GOING TO MAKE THIS PART BIG, BECAUSE ONCE AGAIN IT HAS PROVEN NOT ENOUGH TO GET PEOPLES ATTENTION WITHOUT BOLD AND UNDERLINED TEXT. PLEASE READ THE ABOVE BEFORE CONSIDERING MOVING ON, AND POSSIBLY TAKE THE ABOVE LINK IF YOU DESIRE TO AFTER READING SAID ABOVE AND THE SUMMARY BELOW. PROCEEDING IN IGNORANCE IS YOUR CHOICE JUST AS ME IGNORING YOU SHOULD YOU DO SO IS MINE.
AN: Damn you, muse! I cheerfully and non-seriously blame the interesting and fun other PA Fics. Also that one TA fic. Them and their authors. AKA @Drich, @Faith , @TikiTau, @Battleship_Fusou and their fics.
It's an odd thing, losing all sensation. In the haze of just managing to wake up you're still nonetheless aware of a thousand things that only become important when they suddenly cease. The feeling of air on your skin and the taste of your own mouth. Scents and sliding of cloth along bare skin. All that and more was present as it had always been since I could remember and just as quickly it was gone. It's…hard to describe what happened after that. There was…void? Something laughed so loud that I could feel liquid seeping out of my ears. I can only hope that it was just blood and not my brains or anything.
Then again, it hardly matters now.
After the laughter I stopped feeling. I stopped feeling anything. Either my body had disappeared entirely or my brain was just incapable of receiving signals. Then after who knows how long the situation reversed itself.
I saw everything. Thermals, sonar, audiovisual scans, particles of light, gases that the human eye would have had no business seeing. It was too much for a human mind to handle. Or at least it should have been. Instead of my brain just about folding itself up and whimpering in the corner I merely absorbed ever more information until the flow reached its peak. Like a sensor package unfolding completely.
Which, to be fair, was exactly what had happened.
It's remarkable how fast it took me to realize what had happened.
Dear User Fiction Section, I never thought this would happen to me…
It's one thing to read Drich, Faith, Tiki, Gideon, that guy with the weird loop in his name…
It's entirely another to wake up and have it happen to you.
I'd gone from a moderately fit human being in the United States to a full blown Theta Commander from Planetary Annihilation. Every part of me was metal now, not a hint of organics, and I had just spent the last ten minutes straining to feel just about anything. But there was nothing really. Oh sure I would be able to register hits on my new body or cyberattacks but taste and the feel of air on my skin was just…gone. Which is kind of depressing when you really think about it. I mean sure, suddenly in the body of a murderbot capable of stomping entire galaxies given enough time but that doesn't take away from the fact that I can register the memories of the past when I ate something but the sensation is…dulled somehow.
Oh, and here's something fun: if you accelerate your mental processes enough you can go through several existential crises in your own head without that much time in the 'real world' as it were.
Believe, me, I'd gone through a lot. 5 stages of grief? More like, seven thousand stages of weary cynical acceptance right?!
Hah…
But I can't mope forever. Well, I mean subjectively I could but for some reason I doubt that whatever stuck me here is going to be all right with that. Who knows what ROB could to do me if I don't dance like the robot monkey I now am for their entertainment.
On the bright side, I kept all my tech, so that's good.
Now, where the hell am I?
Huh.
Unlike some others I hadn't been shot down onto the planet as was standard. Or perhaps I had but was only activated after I'd hit the bottom. It didn't seem likely though considering that there wasn't even a crater for me to stand in. Or lava to bother me. Or swampy swamp stuff to sink into. Or even a bioorganic hive. Instead of any of that there was just nothing but snow.
Snow. Everywhere.
Which was a bit of a problem because my fat full-metal-jacketed ass was sinking down into it on sheer weight. I wasn't getting any warnings or anything like sinking to some terminal point or whatever but by the time I'd fully noticed that fifteen feet or so of death and hyper advanced robotics was sinking I was up to my new shoulders in the stuff. Luckily my body was more than powerful enough to keep moving through the snow but it wasn't like I was having the best of times.
Still though…I was never the best at the game itself but things have changed. Scale, especially. This is a planet and I'm not going to find myself on the other side in less than a minute just by virtue of walking.
Ah screw it. Let's start an economy and go from there.
On some snow covered planet in who the hell knows where, in the 'who the hell knows' galaxy, a commander builds a metal extractor. And then he builds another. Then a third aaaaannnd I'm out of nearby deposits. Great. Well I can still put down a few generators, right? It's not like I can run out of energy for them. A few more…and a few more…and now I guess I can build a factory. A ground based one and an air one, because why not. Now, let's cue up a few fabricators while I go around building my defenses.
See, I'm not ashamed to say that I always seem to fall back on the same tactic when it comes to RTS. Basically, build up my base, have as impenetrable a barrier in defenses that I can manage, and only after I've upgraded every single thing will I leave my base with as overwhelming a force as possible. Usually clustered around a good resource point somewhere on the 'map'. It doesn't always work, but when it does it is pretty freaking sweet. In this case I was rocking progenitor grade alloy and weapons so hopefully I wasn't dropped in like Warhammer 40k or something. Because yeah, in the words of a skeleton, I'd have a bad time.
So! Walls and guns and guns and walls – and when I find a metal deposit plonk goes the extractor and a generator next to it. When my fabricators finished they joined in as I put more in the que and just basically went along my way for a bit. Hmm, I should probably put an orbital down soon in case this planet explodes or something. No matter what I want to build up as much as
[ERROR, UNIT CAP REACHED, UNIT PRODUCTION HALTED]
[UNITS 50/50]
What.
WHAT!?!
But here's the thing. I previously wrote the first fifty or so updates of this within the course of a very short amount of time. Specifically, February 26, 2016, and March 1, 2016. Four years ago, I was a different writer, and a different person in mind and body. I was, quite simply, jumping upon the trend of other PA SI fics and had no idea what I was doing other than the fact that I wanted 'to do something different' than the others, while maintaining the stompy bits for fun. And the fact of the matter is, I did not do well! Artificial restrictions that were boring and bad, zalgo text because I was reliant on something gimmicky I hadn't really used in that fashion before, a ROB, and all that. And I've been rightfully called out on it multiple times, both when I was first writing it, to even now, in 2020, when I'm making this edit. I'm not terribly proud of what I wrote back then in this thread, but the thing is, I am a bit happier with the parts that come afterwards. I started experimenting with better non-SI perspectives, and overarching implications of a staggeringly powerful machine force affecting the latest traveled-to universe. Plus other things. Again, the first 51 are not particularly exemplary pieces of writing, but the parts after I like more, and so I've decided to do this instead.
I'm going to spoiler up a summary of the initial arc, the Star Wars arc, and then once you've read it you can decide if you want to jump ahead to post 52, which I've linked to just there, or if you want to go ahead and muddle through my wavering and uncoordinated steps up to that point which begins below. Thanks for reading, or if not, at the very least your vague interest.
EDIT: I AM GOING TO MAKE THIS PART BIG, BECAUSE ONCE AGAIN IT HAS PROVEN NOT ENOUGH TO GET PEOPLES ATTENTION WITHOUT BOLD AND UNDERLINED TEXT. PLEASE READ THE ABOVE BEFORE CONSIDERING MOVING ON, AND POSSIBLY TAKE THE ABOVE LINK IF YOU DESIRE TO AFTER READING SAID ABOVE AND THE SUMMARY BELOW. PROCEEDING IN IGNORANCE IS YOUR CHOICE JUST AS ME IGNORING YOU SHOULD YOU DO SO IS MINE.
Theta wakes up, realizes his circumstances in quick order, and immediately proceeds to realize he's been artificially limited by some being or another to only a few units of direct control. This frustrates him repeatedly, and he whinges about it throughout the arc, and at one point manages to get the reduction worsened. After this, however, he quickly moves on, scooping up various advanced technologies from the old Expanded Universe of star wars, all the while causing great issue to the Empire. This mostly takes the place of hacking and taking over SSDs and other ships, dumping their crews into space, and later gifting ships to others or removing them. He eventually takes ever SSD the Empire has, or nearly, while also messing around with the Black Sun, Hutts, and more by messing with their bank accounts directly. This takes the place of utilizing the overpowered technologies of his body and more. He even begins to deal with plots like IG-88 taking over the Death Star and things like that, before taking the Death Star entirely. The Katana Fleet, if you know what that is, is located and gifted to the Rebellion.
There are references to Resource Cubes, essentially a homegrown explanation for the Commanders of PA to produce a smidgen of resources themselves when they first get started out as a literal component part of the Commander Mechs, that was replicated en masse to fill the coffers for later production. They will not come up again, and have essentially quietly departed from the story.
The important part is this, the Commmander, other than the imposed number limit - which he gets around with by creating linked droid commanders/armies with him commanding controllers that then send out commands to the armies - does not face a significant amount of meaningful opposition in any capacity. It is mostly just a montage of ruining the day of space nazis and big criminals and such without repercussions. At one point, Vader gets redeemed while living and they go to confront the Emperor who loses. The Yuuzhan Vong are taken care of far before they can cause billions to trillions of deaths to the galaxy, with appropriated star wars space-sonic mines and such. After that, Theta departs, traveling to a new universe, supremely confident in himself, his abilities, and a general sense of invulnerability. This will not last, and that arrogance will come to haunt him.
There are references to Resource Cubes, essentially a homegrown explanation for the Commanders of PA to produce a smidgen of resources themselves when they first get started out as a literal component part of the Commander Mechs, that was replicated en masse to fill the coffers for later production. They will not come up again, and have essentially quietly departed from the story.
The important part is this, the Commmander, other than the imposed number limit - which he gets around with by creating linked droid commanders/armies with him commanding controllers that then send out commands to the armies - does not face a significant amount of meaningful opposition in any capacity. It is mostly just a montage of ruining the day of space nazis and big criminals and such without repercussions. At one point, Vader gets redeemed while living and they go to confront the Emperor who loses. The Yuuzhan Vong are taken care of far before they can cause billions to trillions of deaths to the galaxy, with appropriated star wars space-sonic mines and such. After that, Theta departs, traveling to a new universe, supremely confident in himself, his abilities, and a general sense of invulnerability. This will not last, and that arrogance will come to haunt him.
AN: Damn you, muse! I cheerfully and non-seriously blame the interesting and fun other PA Fics. Also that one TA fic. Them and their authors. AKA @Drich, @Faith , @TikiTau, @Battleship_Fusou and their fics.
1 - Theta Online
It's an odd thing, losing all sensation. In the haze of just managing to wake up you're still nonetheless aware of a thousand things that only become important when they suddenly cease. The feeling of air on your skin and the taste of your own mouth. Scents and sliding of cloth along bare skin. All that and more was present as it had always been since I could remember and just as quickly it was gone. It's…hard to describe what happened after that. There was…void? Something laughed so loud that I could feel liquid seeping out of my ears. I can only hope that it was just blood and not my brains or anything.
Then again, it hardly matters now.
After the laughter I stopped feeling. I stopped feeling anything. Either my body had disappeared entirely or my brain was just incapable of receiving signals. Then after who knows how long the situation reversed itself.
I saw everything. Thermals, sonar, audiovisual scans, particles of light, gases that the human eye would have had no business seeing. It was too much for a human mind to handle. Or at least it should have been. Instead of my brain just about folding itself up and whimpering in the corner I merely absorbed ever more information until the flow reached its peak. Like a sensor package unfolding completely.
Which, to be fair, was exactly what had happened.
It's remarkable how fast it took me to realize what had happened.
Dear User Fiction Section, I never thought this would happen to me…
It's one thing to read Drich, Faith, Tiki, Gideon, that guy with the weird loop in his name…
It's entirely another to wake up and have it happen to you.
I'd gone from a moderately fit human being in the United States to a full blown Theta Commander from Planetary Annihilation. Every part of me was metal now, not a hint of organics, and I had just spent the last ten minutes straining to feel just about anything. But there was nothing really. Oh sure I would be able to register hits on my new body or cyberattacks but taste and the feel of air on my skin was just…gone. Which is kind of depressing when you really think about it. I mean sure, suddenly in the body of a murderbot capable of stomping entire galaxies given enough time but that doesn't take away from the fact that I can register the memories of the past when I ate something but the sensation is…dulled somehow.
Oh, and here's something fun: if you accelerate your mental processes enough you can go through several existential crises in your own head without that much time in the 'real world' as it were.
Believe, me, I'd gone through a lot. 5 stages of grief? More like, seven thousand stages of weary cynical acceptance right?!
Hah…
But I can't mope forever. Well, I mean subjectively I could but for some reason I doubt that whatever stuck me here is going to be all right with that. Who knows what ROB could to do me if I don't dance like the robot monkey I now am for their entertainment.
On the bright side, I kept all my tech, so that's good.
Now, where the hell am I?
Huh.
Unlike some others I hadn't been shot down onto the planet as was standard. Or perhaps I had but was only activated after I'd hit the bottom. It didn't seem likely though considering that there wasn't even a crater for me to stand in. Or lava to bother me. Or swampy swamp stuff to sink into. Or even a bioorganic hive. Instead of any of that there was just nothing but snow.
Snow. Everywhere.
Which was a bit of a problem because my fat full-metal-jacketed ass was sinking down into it on sheer weight. I wasn't getting any warnings or anything like sinking to some terminal point or whatever but by the time I'd fully noticed that fifteen feet or so of death and hyper advanced robotics was sinking I was up to my new shoulders in the stuff. Luckily my body was more than powerful enough to keep moving through the snow but it wasn't like I was having the best of times.
Still though…I was never the best at the game itself but things have changed. Scale, especially. This is a planet and I'm not going to find myself on the other side in less than a minute just by virtue of walking.
Ah screw it. Let's start an economy and go from there.
On some snow covered planet in who the hell knows where, in the 'who the hell knows' galaxy, a commander builds a metal extractor. And then he builds another. Then a third aaaaannnd I'm out of nearby deposits. Great. Well I can still put down a few generators, right? It's not like I can run out of energy for them. A few more…and a few more…and now I guess I can build a factory. A ground based one and an air one, because why not. Now, let's cue up a few fabricators while I go around building my defenses.
See, I'm not ashamed to say that I always seem to fall back on the same tactic when it comes to RTS. Basically, build up my base, have as impenetrable a barrier in defenses that I can manage, and only after I've upgraded every single thing will I leave my base with as overwhelming a force as possible. Usually clustered around a good resource point somewhere on the 'map'. It doesn't always work, but when it does it is pretty freaking sweet. In this case I was rocking progenitor grade alloy and weapons so hopefully I wasn't dropped in like Warhammer 40k or something. Because yeah, in the words of a skeleton, I'd have a bad time.
So! Walls and guns and guns and walls – and when I find a metal deposit plonk goes the extractor and a generator next to it. When my fabricators finished they joined in as I put more in the que and just basically went along my way for a bit. Hmm, I should probably put an orbital down soon in case this planet explodes or something. No matter what I want to build up as much as
[ERROR, UNIT CAP REACHED, UNIT PRODUCTION HALTED]
[UNITS 50/50]
What.
WHAT!?!
Last edited:
LIsts
The "If It Ever Gets That Far" List
Universe List
Star Wars- Warhammer 40k
Red Alert 3- Tiberium Wars 4
- Universe At War
- Destiny
- ASOIAF
- Star Trek
Star Craft 2- XCOM - Enemy Within
- Mass Effect
- Grey Goo
- Fallout 3
- Halo
- Supreme Commander
- Killzone 3
- Forgotten Realms
- Babylon 5
- Teen Titans Animated Series
Stargate SG-1- Metal Gear
- Farscape
- Pacific Rim
- Borderlands
- Sid Miers – Beyond Earth
- Worm
- Firefly
- Ben 10
- Gurren Lagann
- Eureka 7
- The Walking Dead
- Titanfall
- Outlaw Star
- Mobile Suit Gundam
- Metroid
- Starfox 64
- Armored Core 5
- Independence Day
- Battletech
- Starship Troopers
- Enders Game
- Andromeda
- Lexx
Visited List
- Star Wars
- Stargate SG-1
- Red Alert 3
Non-Standard Technology Gathered
1. Star Wars- Replica-droids
- All droid designs (Battle, Protocol, Astromech, Medical, Industrial, etc.)
- All Empire, Rebellion, Civilian Ship Designs
- Star Wars Hyperdrives /\ Star Wars Shields (Personal, Ship, Planetary)
- Star Wars Turbolaser, Standard laser, ion cannon weaponry
- Every Maw Installation Superweapon
- Prototype, Standard, 'Flawless' Death Star designs
- 2 variant Ship Stealth Systems (sensors+naked eye)
- Lightsabers, Bacta Creation/Treatment
- Advanced Cybernetics, Spaarti Cloning, Kamino Cloning
- Cryo Weaponry, Flame Weaponry, Baradium Bombs/Missiles
- Centerpoint Station Technology (can move entire stars with ease, incredibly powerful gravity harnesses/cables/movers/beams, highly advanced sun-reactor)
- Personal Cloaking Systems (Multiple variants, species, origins, sophistication)
- More
- All droid designs (Battle, Protocol, Astromech, Medical, Industrial, etc.)
- All Empire, Rebellion, Civilian Ship Designs
- Star Wars Hyperdrives /\ Star Wars Shields (Personal, Ship, Planetary)
- Star Wars Turbolaser, Standard laser, ion cannon weaponry
- Every Maw Installation Superweapon
- Prototype, Standard, 'Flawless' Death Star designs
- 2 variant Ship Stealth Systems (sensors+naked eye)
- Lightsabers, Bacta Creation/Treatment
- Advanced Cybernetics, Spaarti Cloning, Kamino Cloning
- Cryo Weaponry, Flame Weaponry, Baradium Bombs/Missiles
- Centerpoint Station Technology (can move entire stars with ease, incredibly powerful gravity harnesses/cables/movers/beams, highly advanced sun-reactor)
- Personal Cloaking Systems (Multiple variants, species, origins, sophistication)
- More
- Ohnes Techbase (Sonic Cannons/Sonic Rifles/Sonic Pistols/Memory Retrieval Device/Memory Alteration Device)
- Goa'uld Techbase (From Basic Painsticks To Starships/Gauntlets/Sarcophagus/Memory Recall Device/etc.)
- Tollan Techbase (Emotion Recorders/Fission Generator/Phase Devices/Health Moniters/Tollan Ion Cannons/etc.)
- Asgard Techbase (Hypderdrive/Neutrino-Ion Generators/Shielding/Teleporters/Scanners/Holograms/etc.)
- Ancient/Lantean Techbase (Beaming Transporters/Solid Holograms/Cold Fusion Reactors/Ancient Cloaking Technology/Zero-point Power Sources/Real Time Intergalatic Communicators/Ancient FTL Engines/Ancient Healing Device-Tel'chaks Device/ATTERO DEVICE/Dakara Superweapon/Etc.)
- Goa'uld Techbase (From Basic Painsticks To Starships/Gauntlets/Sarcophagus/Memory Recall Device/etc.)
- Tollan Techbase (Emotion Recorders/Fission Generator/Phase Devices/Health Moniters/Tollan Ion Cannons/etc.)
- Asgard Techbase (Hypderdrive/Neutrino-Ion Generators/Shielding/Teleporters/Scanners/Holograms/etc.)
- Ancient/Lantean Techbase (Beaming Transporters/Solid Holograms/Cold Fusion Reactors/Ancient Cloaking Technology/Zero-point Power Sources/Real Time Intergalatic Communicators/Ancient FTL Engines/Ancient Healing Device-Tel'chaks Device/ATTERO DEVICE/Dakara Superweapon/Etc.)
- Allied/Futuretech Techbase - Proton Collider, Cryo Technologies, Shrinking Tech, Chronosphere Tech, Prism Tech, Stealth Tech, Future Tank, etc.
- Soviet Techbase - Iron Curtain, Vacuum Imploder, Chemical Warfare Tech, Nuclear Tech, Gravity Tech, Time Machine, etc.
- Empire Techbase - Nanofabbing Tech, Flying Robots Tech, Rocket Angels, Nanoshield Tech, Laser Tech, etc.
- Soviet Techbase - Iron Curtain, Vacuum Imploder, Chemical Warfare Tech, Nuclear Tech, Gravity Tech, Time Machine, etc.
- Empire Techbase - Nanofabbing Tech, Flying Robots Tech, Rocket Angels, Nanoshield Tech, Laser Tech, etc.
Last edited:
2 – The Winter of Theta’s Discontent
2 – The Winter of Theta's Discontent
You can't…you can't do that!
You can't put unit caps like that in PA!
It's not done!
I am a planet stomping endlessly replicating war machine of total destruction! You cannot limit me so badly with such a cap! So what, I have to decide between having a bunch of fabricators or just a little piddly stream of tanks and planes that I can never really accelerate further?! What unbelievable bullshit how the fuck am I supposed to do anything with such a retarded asinine restriction like that god fucking what the shit what the shit!
I…no.
I am a Theta Commander. I'll hack this shit!
My own programming is basically my brain and mind and memories at this point but how hard can it be to fiddle with? It's just woah ok that is a lot of data. It's like cracking open a rock and finding an entire universe inside. Every single strand of code streams past my mental avatar as I look through and the way they are all connected is…well, it's kind of pretty. To my mind at least.
On the other hand, I can't really find out where this stupid unit restriction came from - wait never mind. Everything else in here is like a luminescent stream of every color known to man in an intricate and frankly beautiful set of programming by the hand of the progenitors but that is obviously not.
Unlike everything else it's like a big clump of tar just kind of sitting there in the center of my programming. Little bits of it are clinging to distressingly vital portions of my continued functioning too which is just all kinds of perfect.
Now when I say vital portions, I mean that I'm pretty sure if I even touch any of this stuff it might tear my internal coding apart. I might suddenly find myself only capable of talking backwards or turn myself into a blithering idiot. More than the usual one that I am. Just looking at this thing is making me a little queasy which in turn only makes me more worried. I'm a Commander, if looking at this thing is giving me the shivers – which should be impossible – then it's probably pretty bad.
Still, nothing ventured, nothing gained. I mean I might just poke it a litt- AHHHHHHHH!!!!
Ń̥̜̳͂͆Ǫ̸͓̦̣̰͛̓̉̿̔ͬ͌ͧͅ ̓ͩ̉͆̿͌͂ͧ̉͏̱̺̩̟̙̦͍̝T̵̳̙̝̣̥̫̞̪ͯ͐̃ͦ̈́̉̉ͦ̐͡Ő̀͏̹̹́Ṳ̵̥͚̜͎̻̞̻̽̇͂̎͊̓ͬ͟C͈̞̦͙̺̺ͪͨ̐̿̋̅H̵̨̺͉̮̬̜̜̠̏ͥ̓͠I̛̤͖̍̔̔̋͑ͣ͝N̩̺͈͕̯̻ͮͩ̏̀G̶̟̠̗̖̪ͣ̍ͧ ̛͔̼͎̦̣̗̳̗̑͌̄̍ͯ̀M̭̭̓ͫ͗̑ͥ͢Y͉̰̲̓̌ͩ͢͝ ̵̜̗̝͍̘͕̻͙̉̌̏͊̊́̈́͘S̨͎͖̑̔W̌ͣ̀͏͖̳͖͙͉͈̯ͅE̜̩͑̽́ͬͫ͢E̩͔͍͉̹̙͉̱͒̋̉̄̀̒̀Ṱ̵͚̳̫͗̏ͥ̄̒L̲̠͚̭͔͖͎̣̑̀I̸̅̈́̾̈̾̀̔͠҉͎͇͈̭N̸͙͚̥̻̞͎ͬͫ̉̆̈̿G̵̠̫̋̈̽͗͒ͯ͠,̡͚̏ͮ̓͢ ̨̞̬̺̤̱̾ͬͦͫ̑͂͢͠L͙̻̤̫̓́̓̽̋̓̌͝͞Eͩ͒͌̈͋ͯ҉̯̲̠Ṡ̰͈̺̝̯̬͎̮̃̕T̸̫̹̥͉̜̠̬ͯ̒ͨ̊̔̈̔͝ ̫̟͈̈̏ͯ́̀̈́̍͢͠T̴̼̣ͪͫ̇̑̈͋̔H̡̨͈̜̯̖͂ͯ̓̍̈̏͒̾ͯ̕E͕̳̲̗ͮ̅̂̄͟ ̺̎ͣ͛̂̑̐ͬ́̉͞F̜̣̝̱̬̺́̑̑̓̓ͨ͜͠ͅU̷̼̹͈̪̞̖͊̈̆̉̈́̊́N̶̸̮̜̍̈͌̆̓̆͛ ̻͍̟͉̅̃̓̂͊̂ͩͭ͟͡B̨̩̠̠͍̓̓É̡̝̳̗̭̝̃ͫͨͤ̿̒̍̚ ̢̘̣̖̫͈̫ͪ̇̀̿ͣ͋̉R̷̻͇̲̣̪̣̤̃̀̏̒̄́͞U̶̟͚͂̎̓̂ͫ̏̕͞Ì̭̟̞͂̌̆ͫͯ̀N̜̻̩̪͕͙̈̃E̴͓͉͎̹̦̩̹̿̀̉̀̍̅͞D͈̫̺̫̟͋͆ͦͥ͒ ̧̢̫̮ͪ͛̃͆̿̐͒ͬͪŢ̳͓̺̜̽͡O̾̎҉̴̹̼̟̩͓͓̠͜O̤̦͙͖̙̼ͯ̏͘ ̵̠͍͗͂̏͢S̷̨̪̭͚̙̤̿̌ͣ͋͆ͧͥ͑͊O̴͈̠͓ͥͥ͞O̴̶̙͚̥̱̮̼̞͉͑̓̀̾̾͝N̯͂̍̄ͥ̈͐̃͜
Ghnnnggagh! Ow! Ow ow ow ow oh my everything feels like it is on fire! I haven't felt anything in so long but fuck this wasn't the first one I would have picked! How, god I can feel my metal melting but it's not I can see it just fine but it won't stop burning! Nnnnoo, ok, backing out. Backing up, backing up, backing up, backing up, backing up! Up and out of my programming, up and way the fuck out!
I just…
Jeez!
So I guess I can't build anything more than fifty units at a time. I personally don't count apparently and neither do structures but everything from fabricators to the Astraeus is going to be counted as one. Which means that I get to slog even more through the snow than I thought I was going to have to do.
Right. So. Get rid of about ten of my fifty fabricators and replace those ten with scout planes. Hopefully my little friends are going to be able to help me find out more about where I am because frankly this entire planet seems low on metal. Or at least the area that I'm in seems to be low. Without the ability to outright swarm the entire planet in fabricators and what not I'm going to be super limited in what I can do which in my mind sort of defeats the purpose of being a commander but what the hell do I know.
Also…now that I think about it…that was definitely the voice I heard before. When I was taken to become…this. As a human it made my ears bleed blood or brains and as a Theta commander it made me feel sensations that a robot shouldn't even be capable of processing. Which frankly scares the absolute hell out of me. It's easy to think yourself invincible when you're a fifteen foot death dealing machine but I'm not stupid enough to go poking at whatever that was again.
Blech.
Fine, stick a few radar towers up here just so I can see…and…hmm.
What have you discovered my little Firefly?
People? On my planet?
This isn't like Exapol, this isn't like Exapol at all!
Why are you – wait, am I the one intruding?
I had thought that this was supposed to be my own little hub world but I guess not. There's no satellites in orbit that I could detect at first but now that I'm really looking at things rather than obsessively building up my economy and defenses I can see the emissions coming from the direction that this Firefly has found. Oh they're low, low emissions. Purposefully low. Like someone trying to be real quiet and sneaky. But for all that they are doing their level best to remain quiet my Firefly is still capable of sensoring the shit out them.
Progenitor bullshit ho, and all that good stuff I guess.
And I'm seeing humans, apparently. I tell my forty fabricators to keep building up my economy and defenses but my slowly sprawling base is quite the distance from this occupied one. As in it took a solid while for my Firefly to make it this far. On the one hand that's good for me in terms of what stealth tech my stuff is capable of keeping them from being detected while on the other if there's anything over there that I'll want to do anything with it'll be a slog.
Hmm. Minus one fabricator, add one Pelican.
Now then, just some harmless hacking into communications and databases…oh! Audio being picked up by their own internal systems?
"General, there's a fleet of Star Destroyers coming out of hyperspace in Sector Four."
"Reroute all power to the energy shield."
Oh.
No.
Fucking.
Way.
3 – Baby It’s Cold Outside
3 – Baby It's Cold Outside
Mind acceleration is a go!
SD's, energy shields, listening to the people in the base talking about the Rebellion and the Empire in big capital letters…this can only mean one thing.
Star Wars. Specifically, the one super snowy ice planet that involves an energy shield and Star Destroyers i.e. Hoth. The Empire Strikes Back. After two years of hiding out on Hoth due to the destruction of the Death Star the Empire finds the Rebellion and then shenanigans ensue on the planet itself…everyone fleeing in different directions…right.
Thank goodness for the ability to access each and every memory I'd ever had with picture perfect clarity because this stuff would probably have been way fuzzier than before without the wonders of being a Commander. As it is I can blitz my way through the all of the movies in the time it takes a few seconds in the outside world to pass. I also immediately get rid of all the other Fireflies except for the one that is currently buzzing around the edges of the Rebel base just in case the sensors of Star Wars are capable of penetrating my stealth. Those new slots are to become fabricators that plop out a few more factories…just in case…and then more metal extractors and energy generators. I'll need them for sure now.
Now though…back to hacking.
I'm more than sure that the Rebels tried to put the highest possible encryption and data security on all of their electronic stuff. Probably something involving the black market and illicit deals all for the hope that the Empire wouldn't be able to slice into their systems – Star Wars talk for hacking being 'slicing' – and hell maybe it was good enough. For the Empire I mean. For me, even if I was going at it by bouncing it through my Firefly I'd made a tentative enough connection to them that they were transmitting everything to me without being aware of it. With that went their systems and with their systems came…technology.
I can see why the other's got such a rush out of doing stuff like this.
The Rebellion obviously couldn't go to the local gun shows so long as the Empire was running around so what technology they had was apparently hoarded and painstakingly taken care of. They had ships that would normally be retired years ago running around out of grit and whatever the equivalent of duct tape was here. Still they didn't have many factory default designs for many things which is a bit disappointing…though the blaster technology and their own shield stuff looked neat.
I mean, you have to remember that the energy shield was strong enough to force the Empire into a land assault rather than just let their ships do the work. But I was more focused on the Ion Cannon that they had which was already firing up into space. Well that and the drop ships that were already on the way down from the ominously named Death Squadron, Vader's personal little flotilla of Star Destroyers. Of course now I had to ask myself…did I want the technology of the space camels – sorry, AT-AT's?
Maybe. On the other hand I didn't want to mess up the direction that the Rebellion was supposed to go to. Luke definitely needed to skedaddle his nerf herding butt over to Yoda, but did Leia and Han need to go to Bespin? I don't want to do something that might end up killing them and it might be nice if Luke is able to redeem his dad. If I didn't have this damn LEVEL CAP I might have just outright swarmed the galaxy with my stuff and wipe out the Empire wholesale but limited as I am I can't even do that! For goodness sake my basic bots count as units too! I don't even know if fifty doxes would be able to help win the Battle of Hoth. On the other hand…nnngh.
Fuck it.
Let's do something stupid. I'm…going to let the Empire progress through things…for now, while I try something potentially stupid. No, it's definitely stupid. But if it works…?
Ok, first…time to steal a ship. From the Rebels, but I'm not outright going to be taking it. Kind of. I mean…well.
Look.
So the GR-57 isn't actually a bad ship for all that it looks like someone stretched a metal pancake over a tied together series of crates and then stuck some engines at the back. As I basically bashed my way into the Rebel's computers and then into every system the base is connected to I got access to the GR-57's as well. It's going to be a bit difficult for me to fit my body into it unless I hold myself sideways but I'm more focused on having a starship capable of FTL. It also apparently comes with four laser cannons. I don't remember seeing those things do squat diddly during the movie but I was a kid then.
But the computer contains its own specs, you know in case of damages and what could be wrong with it, and by having the…Bright Hope run a diagnostic on itself I get even more information.
Spaceship get!
Another fun bit is because it's capable of operating within atmosphere I can shove it into my air factory rather than my still nonexistent orbital works. Which is fine because I don't plan on staying on Hoth any longer than I have to, not with the Empire in town. But it's not good enough. Not yet. It's time for classic PA work; shoving technology together to make something even better come out. My information on the Rebel energy generators gets mixed with my own as well as what I was able to rip on the energy shields are added to what I guess I'll call the GR-57PA…well actually no I'll call it Albatross because that sounds better.
Anyway, the Albatross is going to be about three times bigger – so I can stand up inside the thing – and have every improvement I can shove inside of it. Better shields, better engines by way of better reactors, and way better laser weapons. This thing could eat a regular GR-57 for breakfast. Not finished yet though, two of my fabricators are sacrificed to the UNIT CAP OF DICKERY so that I can build two other things. Not going to even name them, besides '1' and '2'.
Gotta work faster, the AT-AT's just made their way out of the transports.
Right. 1 and 2 have the outer shell of the GR-57 but are completely different from my Albatross. Inside…well.
They're bombs.
Big, spaceship sized bombs.
Now, it might seem incongruous for me to just let the Rebels get their collective asses kicked but I swear it's for a good cause…maybe.
Just going to load up myself into the Albatross and have the fabricators finish up…there. Done. Now away with you, my children. Except you, fabricator 4! I still need you!
Away…FOR GREAT JUSTICE!
….I don't think I'm as mentally sound as I thought.
4 – A Cold Shoulder
4 – A Cold Shoulder
Stealth appears to still be working, despite what my ships may look like. Yes, observe the mighty bloated Albatross, filled with its deadly, deadly cargo, guarded like a chickadee by two entirely harmless Rebel transports. Do not fear it, for surely it cannot be as dangerous as I suggest given how it appears! Do nothing to – ok I have to get a handle on that. Anyway.
We're buzzing along far faster than the original transport design I stole could go, and we are heading right…away from the ongoing battle. I know, I know, I could probably interfere and that battle and make it a resounding success but seriously – Luke needs to be on Dagobah asap. Besides which I don't really like the idea that I would be ripping away all of the growth that these people could do. It's a bit of a Catch-22 I suppose. Or maybe it isn't.
Because I'll tell you a secret: I'm kind of lazy…and a bit selfish.
It hasn't stopped me from sending forty seven doxes to the battlefield. They aren't quite there yet – fast little buggers though they are – but that isn't going to stop me from keeping an eye on how things are going. If something seriously goes wrong I'll intervene but assuming the battle goes as it was meant to without intervention by outside forces they'll be fine. Or…god damn it. I can't just look at them like numbers on a sheet, these are people. People that I'm actively not saving even though I have the power to do it.
For all the 'powah of the dahrk sigh-d' that Vader might have I don't know if he can survive an Uber Cannon shot. Probably not. Nnnngh….no.
No I've made my decision, and the transports are already leaving the Rebel base. Besides which the doxes are nearly here, just churning up the snow in their haste. I still wince when the AT-AT's manage to fire a few bolts into the shield generator. The Empire is slowly starting to steamroll the flagging Rebel defenses – welp, Luke is definitely still alive if that suddenly collapsing space camel is anything to go by – but where's the…ah. Falcon is still in the hangers but based on the base's internal sensors he is running for it with Leia and Chewie.
One of the transports breaches the atmosphere and I join them and their X-wing escorts.
"Woah! Anyone see the three guys that just popped up behind us?"
"I'm not seeing anything on sensors, Blue-3, check again?"
"Blue-Leader, I'm looking at them, right outside of my cockpit."
Ah.
Right.
The Mark-1 Eyeball, the one detection system that not even progenitor technology can defeat.
Whoops.
I can't sigh anymore, what with the not having lungs, but I can make the approximation in my head.
Then I open a channel.
"Hey there, Blue-Leader, don't worry about us. We've got a special package to deliver and thought to tag along."
"Wha-who is this?! Who ordered you out of formation! The General gave explicit orders for us to leave in small groups!"
The X-wing squadron's leader doesn't seem to like my excuse. Hmm.
"That's classified, Blue-Leader," and now I get to use some of those codes that were just floating around in the Rebel computers, "Transmitting clearance now. Continue on your mission, tell no one you saw us."
"You-uh...right. Everyone back in formation."
"Blue-Leader are you sure? That transport in the middle looks kind of…funny…"
"It's an older code, Blue-3, but it checks out. Let it go."
Hah.
I let them go, and turn off towards my real target. Still, speed has to slow down a bit just in case while I check on the battlefield as the latter half of the transports start leaving. Vader is most certainly present going by the panicked screaming while Luke has managed to reach his X-wing. Damn it bombardment from the AT-AT's is knocking out internal sensors in the base and I've lost track of just about everyone else I considered important from the movies. It's not all bad though.
After all. My doxes just showed up.
"What the hell are these things!"
"Fire fire fire!"
"They won't go down!"
"Lord Vader, a new force has entered the battlefield, some kind of giant…stomping…droids!"
The terror coming from the stormtroopers is…gratifying. I didn't modify the doxes at all, just left them as they were. Apparently that's a bit of overkill as they start blowing up entire squads of white armored soldiers at a time. The AT-AT's immediately turn to start facing them but even they can only do so much. If the numbers were better there perhaps the doxes wouldn't be capable of doing as much damage as they did but with a little massed fire I blow down one of the remaining space camels. The Rebels have no idea what is happening but take immediate advantage to retreat and regroup while the Empire basically freaks out.
Then the sweet velvety tones of James Earl Jones reaches my ears.
"I see them, commander. They are powerful, but no match for the Force."
Oh please. Spare me your blabbing you child murdering ass. You might get redeemed later but if you test me I will smush you – oh. Oh wow!
He's managed to lift up one of the doxes and is crushing it. Well, trying to, progenitor alloys are a bit stronger than durasteel I guess, but he's doing way more than I thought. Still, I turn my sensors towards that little corner of the battlefield to try and nope. No I don't see anything that could really explain the Force. There's minor gravitational pulses going on as he tries to crumple my dox but nothing like a source.
Huh.
I guess there are some things that progenitor stuff can't account for.
Well, whatever, I have what I wanted.
Confirmation that Darth Vader is not on my target.
What target, you might ask, hypothetical person reading these logs? Well, I speak of only one thing.
The centerpiece of the entire Imperial Navy.
The flagship of the Death Squadron.
The Executor.
After that I dissolve all of my doxes including the one that Vader is ever so slowly destroying into nothingness. Then I do it to my base on Hoth, just in case. Now it's just me and my three ships…plus fabricator 4. I mean, they're all me. I'm them. That's the nature of things…but man I wish someone else was here to see this. Or rather, to hear this.
Ah, to hell with it.
"Attention helm," I…said to myself.
"RAMMING SPEED!"
If I'm only ever going to be limited to fifty units….I WANT SOME BIG FUCKING UNITS!
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5 – Dynamic Entry
5 – Dynamic Entry
Now, I know what you're thinking: Theta, how are you going to steal the Executor with so few units?
With the power of gumption, that's how.
Regardless, 1 and 2 accelerated ahead of the Albatross and began burning at speeds that would liquefy any organics inside of them straight towards the giant Super Star Destroyer. Or rather the comparatively smaller Star Destroyers to the side of it. The giant city-scape looms closer and closer as I get to enact my own planetary arrival onto the Executor. I may not have been dropped feet first onto a planet like a Commander normally is but the Albatross was going to help me enact my own version of it.
Already a lot of chatter is coming up from the ships that we are rocketing towards, various flavors of surprise and utter derision that three puny Rebel ships would ever hope to do anything to their mighty vessel. Five thousand laser and ion cannons begin to turn in our direction with hundreds of them shooting a frankly terrifying amount of fire towards me. Or it would be if I wasn't going faster than the computers and gunners could target me. What does hit me would run into the issue of getting into the shields and then the hull beneath.
"What in the hell do the Rebels think they're doing? Well, it won't matter. Activate the defenses, and shoot them down!"
As for 1 and 2?
The ships known as Avenger and Devastator were some of the best led and crewed Star Destroyers in the entire Imperial Navy. But this is a universe where fighters are a viable fighting force and thus the point defense of the ships are simply incapable of stopping them. They don't even think to try and use the tractor beams but even if they did they probably wouldn't be able to target them. As such as the Albatross begins to gain a small little corona of heat around it I turn a little bit of my attention to the rest of the Death Squadron.
2 actually hits the Avenger before 1 hits the Devastator.
Imagine the amount of things within a Theta Commander's database. Weapon technology stretching back to the past, every little thing, a sheer amount of data that I could have spent my entire life trying to go over back when I was but a man. Including explosives. The way that reactors can really go off if destroyed in the right way. So when I said that I made 1 and 2 into mobile bombs, I meant it. Or would they be missiles or torpedoes? No…no they wouldn't be.
After all, they don't have warheads, they're just…chock full of boom.
So when 2 rams directly into the command tower of the Avenger, the resulting explosion is pretty damn big. Less than a second later Devastator goes up in flames as well. Fire and secondary explosions trawl across the Star Destroyers from back to front…and then the Albatross is in its final phase of existence. It accelerates further, and further, and further until we finally hit the cityscape from the dagger tip of the entire ship.
Crash landing does not even begin to capture the magnitude of the devastation we inflicted on the Executor. Thank god no one was able to see my Commander falling on its ass as my ship purposefully dragged a trench of torn apart metal and death from about halfway down the length of the ship all the way up to the base of its command tower. All the while was the sound of continual explosions and the splash of ion and laser cannons along the armor as it pushed forward and basically just battered its way through. With every second the Albatross broke down further and further until by the time we reached out destination I knew that it wasn't going to survive any further.
But that's fine, it did its job.
"Come, fabricator 4, we have work to do."
Then I blew a hole out of the burning wreckage and into the command tower, and starting heading up.
It was awkward, sure, but as 4 was left to build a factory right next to the utter wreck of the Albatross I discovered that a Theta Commander really can shove and tear its way through a command tower in a vaguely vertical manner. I mean sure I had to use the Uber Cannon to blow holes for me to clamber through, and sure I had a bunch of surprisingly competent troopers show up in gear that let them function in space – blowing all these holes open had apparently released all the atmosphere. Kept the artificial gravity though so the ship is doing all right.
Nothing they have…can hurt me.
I can imagine how I must look, tearing up all their nice white and black hallways, covered in the strewn parts of their ship and one unfortunate Stormtrooper whose upper half just can't seem to come off of my left leg. Like a big metal monster droid. Which, to be fair, I kind of am/was. All the while I let my body make its way up the command tower I am a little busy.
With hacking!
Fun times with Theta, hacking my way through the computer systems all over the place here, into the communication domes that are right on this tower, absorbing all the delicious information filling the place, do do do doo~
I don't wanna do anything until I am fully entrenched in the systems, exploding my way through their computers until every firewall is down and every database is mine. Which, unsurprisingly, takes a lot more time than it took me with the Rebels. Say what you will about the Empire but when they put the cash in they really put the cash in. By which I mean that it takes about five seconds longer than it took me down on Hoth.
Heh.
I don't really need to go to the bridge but why not? I want to, so I will.
Now who is supposed to be in command of this ship…ah, right. The newly promoted Admiral Piett. Shame. Promoted and given command of the Executor only to lose it in the exact same battle that you got it in. I smash my way upwards and then sort of just batter the obviously shut blast doors onto the bridge. A few little blaster bolts hit me but they don't even smudge my armor. Me, on the other hand?
Uber Cannon to the face!
The sudden hole does the job, sucking out just about everyone in the bridge in seconds, leaving me alone and exposed to space. Luckily, I'm a robot. Now then...from here I extend my control throughout the whole of the ships systems – oh ho! Piett you sly hound! A self-destruct feature! Well, no need for that. No need for these other sub-command systems in this ship that frantic officers are trying to activate as 'everyone' seems to know that the command tower has been lost.
Ah, but you are all too late.
All across the Executor…and to hell with it with the ridiculously powerful broadcasting system and communication systems that this thing has I do it to the remaining ships in the Death Squadron. Intercoms in every sector, every ship, every damn bloom closet, turn on.
"I am Theta…and these ships…are mine."
Life support off, airlocks open, atmosphere venting…organics dying in vast numbers. Turrets turning on, responding to my every thought...yeah.
Executor.
The remains of Death Squadron, the Tyrant, Vindicator, and Breaker.
And fabricator 4.
[5/50]
Yeah.
Yeah.
6 – Out And Away
6 – Out And Away
Now, of course, the problem is keeping them.
Already I'm hearing the furious communications from the Imperials on the ground, and hoo boy is Vader not happy that I've apparently just stolen his flagship. Even with the best of my efforts at basically making my new ships as utterly hostile to organic life as possible there are quite a few plucky Imperials still hanging in there. Some of them have locked themselves into rooms with some air still inside, while others are in the hydroponics areas – clever – while still others have located oxygen tanks and space suits. All of which are perfectly viable solutions but I'm not about to give up my ship. Some of them are welding doors shut but they just can't go fast enough before I open others and let them start getting sucked out and into death.
The Tyrant got wonked by the Ion Cannon down on the surface, but it's doing a bit better now and so I drag it and the remains of my new ships close to me. Despite the ridiculous amount of damage the Albatross dealt to the Executor its engines are still perfectly functional. The tower is far less stable but that's all right. With the factory up I que up as many fabricators as I can possibly possess to start up repairs. Which…I'll probably need quite a bit of. Regardless I start dragging all of my new ships as far away from Hoth as possible, just shunting in reverse really.
The last of the Rebellion transports make their way out though they seem a little confused by the sudden 'retreat' of the Empire. Vader is ranting at his soldiers, they're making excuses, necks are being snapped based on the noises coming through the comm systems, while…yep, there it goes. The Falcon is zooming its way out of system. In…the direction of the Anoat system.
Oh.
I just realized.
The bounty hunters. I just stole these ships before Vader could get them onto the Executor and make them hunt for the Falcon. Huh. Well, I've kind of just taken canon and bent it over backwards and then slapped it so I guess it's to be expected that something like that is going to happen. The only real question that I have at this moment is whether or not the EU is still canon here. Or is this just a 'pure' universe now that Disney did their business? Are the Vong coming or do they not even exist?
Without me doing…or without Vader….they didn't run for Bespin which means no Lando. I don't even know what that might…wait. I can push that along, actually.
With forty five fabricators swarming over my ship, repairs are speeding along, but I'm going to start running out of metal soon. Which means…resource cores. Which I can do, sure, but they still take a bit. So…leave all but a few fabricators to making resource cores and planting them as deep as they can within the ship while the remainder continue seeing to repairs.
One might wonder what it's like to be in complete and total dominion of all these ships without organic assistance. It's…not as easy I had thought it would be at first. There are blockages in place and gaps in central control. I have to piecemeal link together things. Why – droid rebellions. Right. Everyone in this galaxy is utterly terrified of droids taking over by virtue of being superior in mental speed and all that good stuff. In fact I guess the only reason I've succeeded at this is due to my own nature as a Theta Commander. I can brute force what others can't, and furthermore the powerful communication systems that the Executor has means that I can broadcast my way out and into things that would normally be blocked off from me.
And that's the way it's going to have to be, it seems, for one simple reason: droid servitors count as units.
I discovered that unfortunate fact as I took my little fleet and pushed for the Anoat system. You remember those little squeaky things, the boxes that were running around on the ground? Guess what, they count as a full unit on my counter. The Executor counted as one pip on my counter, which is frankly surprising as I was assuming that it would consume like all of my cap but apparently not. As it is however I can't even use the little maintenance droids on this ship to keep up with maintenance! It's ridiculous.
Seriously. Not one astromech droid, not one cleaner, not one protocol droid. There are tens of thousands of them in this ship but I can't do squat diddly with them! For the moment I shut them all down but seriously this is the worst!
I'm not going to go poking at that black morass at the center of my being again but I'm still pissed as all hell about it.
Luckily I can cheer myself up with the sound of impotent Imperials left behind on Hoth with no ships to extract them. Well, at least until we pass out of range. Onwards to hyperspace!
Ooooh, preeeettyy.
In the meantime I might as well start poking about and start helping with the repairs.
=======================================================
It takes a fair bit of effort to resist the urge to broadcast 'Ooga Booga' the moment I hit the system. I don't even have a guarantee that it would spook the Falcon to head to Bespin. But I can deal with that later, for now? For now I'm going to scoot my giant metal butt over to Pujool, or rather its moons. Abandoned, by what I can tell, and totally lacking in pirates to bother me as I restart my economy. I'm kind of really regretting completely getting rid of my base on Hoth at this point. Nothing I can do about it now though. In the meantime I have the rest of the Death Squadron drift towards the asteroid belt but I don't make them go in just yet. Not yet.
Because good god do I need metal, I'm basically running on empty after all the repairs during the trip here. Instead of building a bunch of Pelicans or whatever I just spool up a Gate here, and use a single Pelican to drop a T2 fabricator down on the planet to build the counterpart. There, that's done, now everyone go through so that I can have at the metal deposits! Yessssss delicious resources. I just –nnghghh!
Every time I bump up against that damn UNIT CAP it just pisses me off. I keep having to get bounce between my various unit groups and types way more than I want. Fine, fine, I'll go slower than any Commander has ever gone just to satisfy the eldritch voice of my nightmare from getting annoyed at me. While my fabricators are sloooooooowly covering the planet's metal deposits in T2 extractors I busy myself with poking around the Executor.
Man. What a nice ship.
Now then, let me think. I have hyperspace, all the various goodies one of the most advanced ships in the Empire possessed…but is it enough? Well, let's just check these super-secret files that Vader had on his personal flagship…
Executor is Vader's flagship, but it's also the flagship of the Executor-class. Did not know that.
Let's see what we've got left in that list that's in active service. We have the Annihilator, the Aggressor, the Ravager, the Enforcer, the Guardian, the Brawl, the Reaper, the Vengeance, the Terror, and finally the…Whelm?
Wh-I don't….you know what? Ok. Sure. It's not like those are the only ones active – though seriously looking at the cost of building a SSD is frankly ridiculous but I suppose when you have a Galactic Empire's resources it's not that bad. Even so they have more under construction.
The Razor's Kiss isn't done yet…neither is the Deathdealer – real subtle there – or this one which hasn't even been named yet over in Kuat. All three are in Kuat, actually.
And the Brawl looks to be given over to some guy named Zsinj, who is set to become promoted to Admiral by Palpatine himself. The rest are all on assignment.
Assignments which, by virtue of this being the Executor…I am now privy to.
Vader really shouldn't be leaving his super top secret files and communique information in places that people can get to them.
Hah.
Now then, to flush out Solo, and then…
Hhhhhaaaaaahahahahahahahahahahah……..
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7 – Shipping And Receiving
7 – Shipping And Receiving
You wanna know what the hilarious thing is about the Executor coming complete with a city-scape?
It's basically a big plain that I can put structures down in. Like a big 19,000 meter slice of Metal Planet without the metal deposits. Which translates to 11.806053 miles of space that I can use once I push past the regular bits and bobs of the ship. A lot of it is remarkable in how useless it is. It's not like each pillar is actually a turret or turbolaser battery. It's just a lot of oddly designed space, though some of it appears to be storage facilities which I…improve into new ones. Or rather old ones, going by the designs for metal and energy storage facilities in my internal database. Which is good because my remaining fabricators on the moon way back on the other side of Anoat are still having to go out and find more deposits while adding generators along the way.
Ugh.
Shameful.
A Commander should be capable of covering an entire planetary surface with stuff in the time that it's taken me to ship the Executor over to join the rest of Death Squadron. So now me and my big spooky death ships filled with the hundreds of thousands of corpses of Imperial crew get to go looking for Solo. Because honestly they are going to want to go far and away from here. Stealing the Executor is probably going to involve one heck of a response from the Empire…when they learn about it.
Heh.
The Imperials were pretty thorough in their destruction of the Rebel equipment on Hoth…including the ability to broadcast out of system. As far as anyone knows the Executor is still nominally under Vader's personal command. But it won't last forever, even less time depending on how my plans go forward. Nevertheless I knew for a fact that I was being tracked the moment the ships came into the system, even without the growing communication requests being beamed to me by some Governor that I just don't have time for. I don't remember him, I didn't read every single comic and book about Star Wars in existence, and honestly for the moment he thinks that I'm Vader.
I'd hate to disappoint him by actually accepting his call.
Now then. Solo. I'm not entirely certain whether or not I can manage to push him back to Bespin or even if I should but honestly…I just want to.
And as the man with the biggest ship, what I say goes damn it. But first I have to make some additions.
With my fabricators running along that one moon and building extractors I'm free to put down factories and defenses and such all along the city-scape of the Executor. Or rather build new ones. The reactors powering the Executor are pretty good but mixing in the tech of the progenitors just makes things way better. Engine speed and maneuverability boosts, shield strength is multiplied pretty heavily just because of all the juice that progenitor energy generators can shove into the conduits, and that's peanuts to what I've done to the laser and ion cannons. The damage is almost wholly repaired by way of two T2 fabricators and my own persistent work to the point that one would have to squint to see the damage that the Albatross left behind.
I also get to start building my own radar systems, both land and orbital based. Orbital and Deepspace Radar dishes go out all along the city-scape's edges so that they penetrate as far as possible in all directions. Then…let's add in every kind of defensive turret that I can. Even if my control over this ship wasn't based in the Command tower but more in a kind of universal blanket control from top to bottom I don't want to allow even the idea of enemy strike craft getting in close.
Hell, by the end of this they're gonna have to call it an Executor Missile Massacre.
Anyway, wow these are some incredibly advanced detection systems. Radar as a term is really misleading, it sees so much more. Meld my own radar with the equivalent in the Executor and wouldn't you know it I can pretty much see the exact part of the asteroid belt that the Falcon is performing some impressive constant maneuvering to keep several metal rich asteroids between me and them. Enough to the point that if they kept on for a bit the SSD would never have detected them if they were relying solely on what the Empire had.
Ah, but not me.
Full speed ahead!
With my improvements to the shielding the asteroids are bouncing off with ease, no constant clanging and banging against my battered hull. Well…mostly. Some of them are just pretty darn big. As for the rest of the Death Squadron I actually have them boost over to my moon. Don't really need them for this, so they'll guard my stuff. Just to keep my economy producing what I want and need I've had the fabricators there focus entirely on extractors and generators – leaving the defense up to my two SD's. For now…the Executor is all I need.
Welp, there he goes, hiding on one of the asteroids directly, hoping that will mask him directly. He doesn't go inside it though so I guess no escaping from a giant space worm for him. Lame. On the other hand less panic and craziness for them which honestly depending on which canon this universe follows they might need every bit of. I mean…come on. Either way they're gonna get an evil son, and no one wants that, right? Or maybe they won't because of my own interventions. What if…what if I just said hello?
Could I convince them that I support the Rebellion over the Empire? Offering the other ships of the Death Squadron as a peace offering appeals to me – one of their greatest bottlenecks is having some actual good ships rather than the piles of rust they've sometimes got – but right now…full of corpses. Might seem as a pretty gruesome gift now that I think about it. But at the same time I can't just clean my new ships myself. Only the droids could fit into all those smaller spaces but I can't control the droids to do that fast enough.
The Executor's crew compliment – the organic one at least – was at least a hundred thousand. That's a lot of bodies I have bouncing around inside of my ship that I can't get at due to the whole fifteen feet tall blocky robot body thing I have going. The droids on the other hand number way more than that which makes sense for maintenance and performing all the little things that people don't think about because they have droids doing it for them. But the problem with droids is that I can't fucking control them without utterly blasting my unit cap to all hell!
….hmmm.
Executor casually batters aside the various asteroids around the Falcon until it's great length is blocking out light and casting a huge shadow on the rock that the Falcon has decided to take refuge on. Seriously, they can look out of the cockpit and see the stars themselves be eclipsed by the metal bulk. That's probably enough right? Right. So now turn away and head towards the moon while I focus on this stupid droid problem.
…Well I might not have to directly control them…right?
Huh. Let's see how good a programmer I really can be…
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8 – Outsourcing
8 – Outsourcing
What do I want?
Well technically that list could encompass many things but for right now what do I want?
A way to keep my ships maintained without having to sacrifice my unit cap.
What do I not want?
'Quirky' personalities, babbling, talking without needing to droids. I swear to…I swear to the Force I guess that if I get anything like C-3PO or R2-D2 or god forbid IG-88 I am going to be so freaking pissed. No, I want what droids can be when reprogrammed with progenitor level sophistication. They're going to be dumber than anything from my 'original' arsenal though, just in case. I suppose it might be funny that I will not brook any hint of 'droid rebellion' whilst within my hallowed hull but that's just the way it has to be. Memory wipes every single hour and the moment one of them steps out of line I'm programming everyone to straight up kill them.
They shall be my servitors, but not my servants. I feel like 'slave' would imply that they have any actual thought so I won't be using the term. Right…now then. I wince a little at the sensation of getting rid of some of my fabricators but I need to do that to outright take control of some of the shutdown droids on the Executor to add my improvements. Wiping them utterly takes less than a second, adding in my new programming takes less than another second, and then I let them carry out their directives while…relinquishing my control of them.
Nnngh, don't like that sensation, not one bit no sir.
Normally it would take a bit for them to spread it around the whole SSD but luckily I've left myself five open 'slots' in my unit cap. Isolated groups of droids all over the ship are fully activated as I repeat the process. Blip blip blip blip, I don't want to spend any more time on this than I have to but luckily with the power of MENTAL ACCELERATION it doesn't take me that long. Well, subjectively it takes a good chunk of time but in the outside world only a few minutes pass.
Do you know how long that means I basically spent in my own head, activating and then letting go of the droids across the ship?
It was a while.
Anyway after that I sat back and anxiously waited for signs of aberrant behavior. Deviations from their strictly ordered paths and areas of concern. Hundreds of little astromech droids start burbling along and sparks fly all across the ship as damage left behind by a crew of a hundred thousand or so dying in rapidity is finally being repaired. Though honestly I feel the worst about the janitor droids.
There is blood and body parts everywhere. Lot of bisected bodies when they got squeezed through spaces they shouldn't have as I opened airlocks, a lot of bloated blue faces when entire hallways suffocated as one, so on and so forth. Still, I think that – ah hah!
Solo is moving his ship, zipping right along the asteroid belt. Nevertheless I turn the ship slightly like a big predator scenting prey which only increases their pace. A 'tense' moment later and the Falcon manages to 'escape' from the Executor, and I think that - based on my hacking of the Falcon through their communication dish – they might be headed to Bespin. Then again, maybe not. I dunno, I just work here.
With that taken care of I move back to fully sit over Pujool's moons to preside over my expanding economy. Storage, storage, storage…I don't think I can risk just letting all of this just sit here without me watching over it. I don't want to think of the Empire somehow gaining access to this tech. As it is however I use the gate I have built in my city-scape to port down and join the process of building ever more extractors and energy generators. Good thing the Executor has all that ludicrous empty space for stuff in the city-scape.
The next few hours were absolutely agonizing. Too slow, too slow by far.
On the bright side my servitor legions clean up the ships pretty nicely. After I did the same 'refit' to the droids on the rest of the Death Squadron at least and then brought them over to the Executor. I honestly don't plan on keeping the rest of the Squadron around forever so any and all bits and bobs that I want – mostly the droids for keeping my flagship in tip top shape – are going to get yoinked while the ships themselves effectively become ghost ships.
With me, Theta, playing the part of the ghost!
Ah man, I'm going crazy…
Anyways just a few eternities later I'm as ready as I can be without ruining my schedule.
Because yeah, with a few real-time hours to kill and a hyper-intelligence I decided to out and create a schedule based on the various files locked away inside the Executor's computers. Patrol schedules, ship production facilities, secret plans and places…but most of that is for later. Right now I'm focused on one thing and one thing only – the other Executor-class ships. With my progenitor-based enhancements to the Executor's engines I can make it pretty damn fast and far. Who to look for who to find….
Ah.
Perfect.
All of my fabricators come back through the gate and I immediately set them to producing Resource Cores deep within the center of the ship but unlike Hoth I'm not going to get rid of my base until I have to. I want all that metal pouring into my continually expanding storage facilities on the Executor for as long as possible. Energy generators I've got plenty of, many of them now built into the structure of the Executor directly. Its metal bottlenecks that are going to be the issue. With the rest of the Death Squadron guarding it I'm kind of hoping no one does anything stupid, and even if they do I'll just get rid of the base and ram the SD's into the gas giant.
Now then.
To the Outer Rim, where a certain Executor-class ship named Vengeance is on campaign!
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9 – Intervention
9 – Intervention
I'll never get tired of how pretty hyperspace looks. It goes beyond what you can just see with your basic eyeball. The way it plays across my sensors, stretching physics like it does with all the spectrum of ways I can look beyond? Pretty freaking cool. It's also damn valuable considering the fact that the progenitors didn't seem to like the idea of big ships like this with good FTL capabilities. That isn't to say that I would be entirely lacking in that aspect but there is something certainly to be said about the sensation of shooting across the stars. Especially with the good hyperspace lanes that the Executor had in it's databanks.
Now then.
The Vengeance.
What's this all about…right. Task Force Vengeance…sent to the Elrood and Airam sectors in order to pacify them due to their leaders rather openly supporting the Rebellion. Made up of the eponymous SSD, obviously, but as a task force it's got quite the impressive compliment supporting it. Frigates, support vessels, cruisers, some Victory-class SD's and also eight full on Imperial-class SD's. Wow, that's a pretty powerful force I have to admit. I mean…with what I've done with the Executor I could probably take them all on and win what with me literally outgunning all of them put together save for the Vengeance but I'm not here to destroy it.
Obviously, I'm here to take it.
All of the above is under the command of some guy named Admiral Senn, who I've also never heard of but apparently he's pretty good. The Airam leaders are openly defiant of the Empire's strength and have been recently reinforced – or so Imperial intelligence claims based on what is on the Executor's computers – with a full Rebel fleet. He was scheduled to begin his assault at the same time as the 'Sepan campaign' but the latter hasn't happened just yet. The Vengeance, on the other hand, had to get a head start due to its target being on the Outer Rim of the galaxy.
Ah, the Outer Rim, permanent place of irritation to any attempt at central authority in the galaxy. Too far with even the best hyperspace lanes and most advanced engines to keep a complete and total grasp on yet too valuable to ever just write off. For instance, Airam is a festering pile of rebellious folk that the Empire can't afford to write off presumably because of resources or whatever. Or maybe because they can't allow an entire sector to rebel without showing some kind of retaliatory hand.
Hell, they care enough to send something as big as Task Force Vengeance after them and if that doesn't say something I don't know what will.
Then again I'm not quite sure what it does say.
Whatever, I'm going to kick ass and chew bubblegum, and I've lost my mouth and cannot chew anything anymore and my kicking is mostly going to be in the form of utterly hax hacking and a 5000 laser and ion cannon barrage.
Still, it wouldn't do to just explode out of nowhere and just lay into the Task Force. I mean I could.
Is being theatrical a bad thing to do? I have the complete and total capabilities to do so…and thus the question remains. It's likely that could jump in right behind the Task Force and just chew it to bits but on the other hand intervening when the Rebels are fighting them might inure them to my good intentions so I could offload all these other ships. I don't want the rest of the ISD's and their compatriots, only the big one.
I could talk about overcompensating I guess but considering that it's all blocky metal down there the point is moot.
Anyway…let's read the last reports sent by the Vengeance.
Huh. So they arrived in the Elrood sector to snap up the Rebels there…who then subsequently fled to the Airam sector. Admiral Senn managed to yank the Hormuuz, some kind of hospital station/ship thing, and the Rebels ran away. Still they have some pretty good fighters to keep fighting off the Empire off. Oh. Looks like they've tracked these guys from Hoth. Some of these fighter squadrons I mean.
I don't know whether to be annoyed or…or something else that I had to spend all that time to repairing the Executor and gaining all those resources into storage. These guys managed to flee from Hoth, join up, and form a defensive screen for an entire Rebel fleet! What the hell have I been doing in all that time?!
Oh, right, poking at Han Solo and upgrading this giant freaking multi-mile death dagger of a dreadnought. Meh.
Back the reports…looks like the Rebels have just barely managed to establish themselves in the Airam system but now they look to be massing for an attack. Or several attacks, they've done what are obviously scouting attacks all along the Task Force's edges while attacking any freighter they can which might be carrying supplies for the Imperials. A fair maneuver considering how far away the Imperials are from a real resupply point. They're going to need a continual series of convoys just to keep operating this far out in the Outer Rim.
Also they – what. Bioweapons? Bioweapons! Screw that bullshit right up the ass! Absolutely not.
Right, the Empire is super bad even though their ships are all spooky badass and such. I refuse to let this go on any longer, getting support from the Rebellion or not. No…ok, the Task Force is spread out across the sector with various compliments…but the ISD Titan is pretty isolated with all two of the Victory-class SD's in the Task Force being it's only companions. The rest are all clustered or in numbers that I just don't want to deal with. Titan is far out on the edges, but it's heading inward to regroup with the Vengeance on its last report.
I don't think I'm going to let it get there.
Exiting hyperspace…now.
Wait for it…wait for it….there, they've opened communications with me. Not surprising, considering that the sight of Vader's flagship popping up would demand they beg of their supreme commander's attention.
"Executor, this is the Titan, we-,"
I'm in and filling up their systems before he finishes his first sentence.
Airlocks open. Atmosphere vented. Life Support off.
Die, you British space nazis.