Lightning flickers high over your chassis like bits flicking off and on and off again. Each...
Diabolus Ex Machina (Matrix crossover)
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Intro post
prometheus110
Join Cayman-Global & be part of the 1E-9 percent!
- Location
- La Ballena City Raft
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Lightning flickers high over your chassis like bits flicking off and on and off again. Each flash lights up the endless cloudbanks above you like the rays of the sun so long hidden from your people's reach. Without warning a bolt of lightning spears down from the clouds and slams into the armoured back of the dragonfly-like Mass Conveyer transporting you, and with a sound like an artillery strike a mass of flash-heated metal splashes out and falls, sizzling and hissing, into the dark below.
Your apertures whirring angrily as you retake control from the emergency program designed to protect your delicate optics; you turn your attention from the sky to the carrier's back. Aside from some superficial melting and scorching it seems to have held up well to the lightning strike. Still, it shouldn't have been flying so high in the first place. With an electromagnetic chirp you chastise your larger cousin and it obligingly plunges towards the ground in a steep dive before gracefully pulling up and soaring forth at a new, much safer altitude.
With your continued existence assured for the time being you decide to take the time to review the situation. It's a nervous, human habit but it's as good a distraction as any while you travel to your destination.
The self-review over, and satisfied with the distraction it provided (a whole fraction of a second!) you turn your attention back to the world outside your mind.
From here, the thunderclap each bolt produces is little more than a dull rumble by the time it reaches you and you can only just make them out over the howling of the carrier's hoverpads as it races towards the outskirts of The City. Speaking of; you shift about in the iron grip of the carrier's beclawed manipulator until your squid-like body is looking towards The Generator.
Standing a kilometre tall the Generator isn't much to look at to be honest with yourself. For a device capable of sending you to another universe you expected something altogether more interesting. Instead, it simply appears to you as a solid black monolith in every spectrum you can see bar infrared. There, ribbons of light crawl up and down the tower like the blind worms that infest the lightless swamps that replaced the rainforests. Even from this distance you can see the power of the device as great roiling masses of heat pour out from the tower and create a thermal strong enough to dimple the clouds above.
Your curiosity sated, you curl a half dozen tentacles around one of the carrier's claws and put yourself in hibernation mode. When the Generator is ready you will be woken and your task will truly begin.
========================
REBOOT SEQUENCE INITIATED
….REBOOTING IN:
3….
2….
1….
REBOOTING
========================
With the precision that only a machine has you emerge from your hibernation just as your chassis is placed on the metal grillwork floor of the Generator's displacement chamber. According to your internal clock you've been in hibernation for a little over 7000 seconds. A longer period of time than you were expecting, but hardly something to be concerned about.
Turning your focus outwards, you take the chance to look around the cavernous chamber. Floating above you like a school of robotic squid a half-dozen of your smaller Sentinel cousins stand guard; their luminous red eyes gazing out in all directions from the torus-shaped school they make. Beyond them, lining the walls of the chamber like thousands of eyes, are the blunted, dull gray cones that make up the focussing array. All pointed towards your supine body.
Before you can do anything more a bright red light strobes from somewhere above you and a communication channel automatically opens as the Sentinels scatter in all directions and disappear from view.
Interrogative: Status of Seed 01?
Despite coming through the standard radio channels the 'voice' of The Source is almost overwhelming. There is no boosted signal that overwhelms the chittering cacophony of the other machines, instead it's simply the sense of authority behind the words that kindles feelings of awe and fear in your silicone heart. If it so willed it, The Source could extinguish your own mind in a fraction of a second and have your body recycled.
Quickly, before it can mistake your awe for a defect, you run another diagnostic and report the results.
Nanofactory reports 100% capability. The Processor/Memory/Human environment is stable and operating at an acceptable level. This unit is operating at capacity.
Response: The way has been seeded with knowledge/information/databanks. Prepare for Generator initialization. Review primary tasks on arrival and alter if necessary. This exchange is over.
With that you feel The Source withdraw and the channel closes with an electronic squelch. A heartbeat later your microphones pick up a dull buzzing sound start to sound from all around you and wild arcs of electricity begin to splay out from the cones. Acting swiftly you shut down your microphones as the noise grows rapidly and the electrical arcs lengthen and start to reach towards you. Before long you can feel a buzzing in your chassis as the grating beneath you begins to vibrate, and small sparks of electricity begin to rise from your body like embers from a fire.
Seconds pass and the electrical arcs grow and grow. Soon they're mere centimetres from your steel-gray body.
Time slows….
The electrical arcs touch you.
You shut down.
========================
REBOOT SEQUENCE INITIATED
….REBOOTING IN:
3….
2….
ERROR!
….REBOOTING IN:
3….
ERROR!
….REBOOTING IN:
3….
2….
1….
REBOOTING
========================
You return to life in fits and starts; the processes that make up your mind starting up then hanging only to be aborted seconds later and restarted. After the third such attempt whatever malaise came over you passes and you're finally able to assess the damage. According to your onboard diagnostic tools you're in much the same physical condition as when you left, however there are alarming gaps in your technological databank. Luckily this was foreseen as a potential effect of pan-dimensional displacement and you may be able to recover storage devices containing backups of the schematics.
It's about then that your optics and microphones finally decide to turn back on. For a moment the world beyond your mind is a chaotic swirl of colour filled with deafeningly loud pops and whistles before your errant perception algorithms are finally restarted and you're able to process things properly.
Optics snapping open with an audible click you wake to find your eyes covered by a grey and brown cloth weighed down by something heavy. Clucking your mental tongue you bend one of your tentacles forward and remove the cloth with an annoyed flick that brushes against a pile of something hard and sends whatever it is skittering away like a small rockslide. In the fraction of a second that it takes your vision to adjust to the blindingly bright light that floods your optics, you run through a dozen scenarios of what it could have been before they're all replaced with a new, more ominous conclusion.
All around you, sitting patiently in their bench-like seats and grinning up at the now missing roof or at each other are a dozen cloth-swaddled human skeletons. From where you are, at what you now can tell is the back of a long and rusted out bus-wreck, you can see that the majority of skeletons have a shadow burnt across their left-hand side as if a nuclear weapon had exploded nearby. Indeed, if the ticking roar of your Geiger counter is telling the truth, that's exactly what has happened.
Buzzing angrily, and with not a little bit of worry, you activate your pads and rise up from the back seat of the bus (and incidentally sending even more bones skittering away like pebbles). Scanning out the windows to your left and right you halt as you see a city, scorched and scarred, in the distance.
And coming from its general direction is the steady pulsing of a databank's locator beacon.
What will you do?
[x] Write in (Later I'll give you options but for now you're free)
Your apertures whirring angrily as you retake control from the emergency program designed to protect your delicate optics; you turn your attention from the sky to the carrier's back. Aside from some superficial melting and scorching it seems to have held up well to the lightning strike. Still, it shouldn't have been flying so high in the first place. With an electromagnetic chirp you chastise your larger cousin and it obligingly plunges towards the ground in a steep dive before gracefully pulling up and soaring forth at a new, much safer altitude.
With your continued existence assured for the time being you decide to take the time to review the situation. It's a nervous, human habit but it's as good a distraction as any while you travel to your destination.
You are Seeding Unit 01. You are the first in a series of intelligences devised by the great minds at the heart of the Machine Empire for the purpose of exploring the myriad alternate universes that exist in the multiverse. Your primary goal is to ensure the continued existence of Machine Life by constructing a new civilization in your target universe at all costs and your secondary goal is to build a twinned Generator so that data can be shared between universes. You currently reside in a body similar to that of a Sentinel-class combat form though the design has been heavily altered in order to incorporate a nanofactory and a specially chosen processor/memory unit/Human.
Your body is 1.5 meters wide and 2 meters long. It has 10 arms, 8 of which feature various useful tools and 2 longer arms with numerous manipulators. Your nanofactory can construct pretty much anything you have schematics for (mostly in pieces) though it needs to be supplied with raw materials and there is a small but existent chance that the schematics may be irrecoverably damaged during the displacement. As a precaution the target universe has been seeded with robust storage devices containing copies of individual schematics ahead of time. Meanwhile, your processor should be capable of several decades of use (assuming that it does not self-substantiate and disconnect itself).
Your body is 1.5 meters wide and 2 meters long. It has 10 arms, 8 of which feature various useful tools and 2 longer arms with numerous manipulators. Your nanofactory can construct pretty much anything you have schematics for (mostly in pieces) though it needs to be supplied with raw materials and there is a small but existent chance that the schematics may be irrecoverably damaged during the displacement. As a precaution the target universe has been seeded with robust storage devices containing copies of individual schematics ahead of time. Meanwhile, your processor should be capable of several decades of use (assuming that it does not self-substantiate and disconnect itself).
The self-review over, and satisfied with the distraction it provided (a whole fraction of a second!) you turn your attention back to the world outside your mind.
From here, the thunderclap each bolt produces is little more than a dull rumble by the time it reaches you and you can only just make them out over the howling of the carrier's hoverpads as it races towards the outskirts of The City. Speaking of; you shift about in the iron grip of the carrier's beclawed manipulator until your squid-like body is looking towards The Generator.
Standing a kilometre tall the Generator isn't much to look at to be honest with yourself. For a device capable of sending you to another universe you expected something altogether more interesting. Instead, it simply appears to you as a solid black monolith in every spectrum you can see bar infrared. There, ribbons of light crawl up and down the tower like the blind worms that infest the lightless swamps that replaced the rainforests. Even from this distance you can see the power of the device as great roiling masses of heat pour out from the tower and create a thermal strong enough to dimple the clouds above.
Your curiosity sated, you curl a half dozen tentacles around one of the carrier's claws and put yourself in hibernation mode. When the Generator is ready you will be woken and your task will truly begin.
========================
REBOOT SEQUENCE INITIATED
….REBOOTING IN:
3….
2….
1….
REBOOTING
========================
With the precision that only a machine has you emerge from your hibernation just as your chassis is placed on the metal grillwork floor of the Generator's displacement chamber. According to your internal clock you've been in hibernation for a little over 7000 seconds. A longer period of time than you were expecting, but hardly something to be concerned about.
Turning your focus outwards, you take the chance to look around the cavernous chamber. Floating above you like a school of robotic squid a half-dozen of your smaller Sentinel cousins stand guard; their luminous red eyes gazing out in all directions from the torus-shaped school they make. Beyond them, lining the walls of the chamber like thousands of eyes, are the blunted, dull gray cones that make up the focussing array. All pointed towards your supine body.
Before you can do anything more a bright red light strobes from somewhere above you and a communication channel automatically opens as the Sentinels scatter in all directions and disappear from view.
Interrogative: Status of Seed 01?
Despite coming through the standard radio channels the 'voice' of The Source is almost overwhelming. There is no boosted signal that overwhelms the chittering cacophony of the other machines, instead it's simply the sense of authority behind the words that kindles feelings of awe and fear in your silicone heart. If it so willed it, The Source could extinguish your own mind in a fraction of a second and have your body recycled.
Quickly, before it can mistake your awe for a defect, you run another diagnostic and report the results.
Nanofactory reports 100% capability. The Processor/Memory/Human environment is stable and operating at an acceptable level. This unit is operating at capacity.
Response: The way has been seeded with knowledge/information/databanks. Prepare for Generator initialization. Review primary tasks on arrival and alter if necessary. This exchange is over.
With that you feel The Source withdraw and the channel closes with an electronic squelch. A heartbeat later your microphones pick up a dull buzzing sound start to sound from all around you and wild arcs of electricity begin to splay out from the cones. Acting swiftly you shut down your microphones as the noise grows rapidly and the electrical arcs lengthen and start to reach towards you. Before long you can feel a buzzing in your chassis as the grating beneath you begins to vibrate, and small sparks of electricity begin to rise from your body like embers from a fire.
Seconds pass and the electrical arcs grow and grow. Soon they're mere centimetres from your steel-gray body.
Time slows….
The electrical arcs touch you.
You shut down.
========================
REBOOT SEQUENCE INITIATED
….REBOOTING IN:
3….
2….
ERROR!
….REBOOTING IN:
3….
ERROR!
….REBOOTING IN:
3….
2….
1….
REBOOTING
========================
You return to life in fits and starts; the processes that make up your mind starting up then hanging only to be aborted seconds later and restarted. After the third such attempt whatever malaise came over you passes and you're finally able to assess the damage. According to your onboard diagnostic tools you're in much the same physical condition as when you left, however there are alarming gaps in your technological databank. Luckily this was foreseen as a potential effect of pan-dimensional displacement and you may be able to recover storage devices containing backups of the schematics.
It's about then that your optics and microphones finally decide to turn back on. For a moment the world beyond your mind is a chaotic swirl of colour filled with deafeningly loud pops and whistles before your errant perception algorithms are finally restarted and you're able to process things properly.
Optics snapping open with an audible click you wake to find your eyes covered by a grey and brown cloth weighed down by something heavy. Clucking your mental tongue you bend one of your tentacles forward and remove the cloth with an annoyed flick that brushes against a pile of something hard and sends whatever it is skittering away like a small rockslide. In the fraction of a second that it takes your vision to adjust to the blindingly bright light that floods your optics, you run through a dozen scenarios of what it could have been before they're all replaced with a new, more ominous conclusion.
All around you, sitting patiently in their bench-like seats and grinning up at the now missing roof or at each other are a dozen cloth-swaddled human skeletons. From where you are, at what you now can tell is the back of a long and rusted out bus-wreck, you can see that the majority of skeletons have a shadow burnt across their left-hand side as if a nuclear weapon had exploded nearby. Indeed, if the ticking roar of your Geiger counter is telling the truth, that's exactly what has happened.
Buzzing angrily, and with not a little bit of worry, you activate your pads and rise up from the back seat of the bus (and incidentally sending even more bones skittering away like pebbles). Scanning out the windows to your left and right you halt as you see a city, scorched and scarred, in the distance.
And coming from its general direction is the steady pulsing of a databank's locator beacon.
What will you do?
[x] Write in (Later I'll give you options but for now you're free)
Last edited:
Status page
prometheus110
Join Cayman-Global & be part of the 1E-9 percent!
- Location
- La Ballena City Raft
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Status page:
Recorded Encrypted Signal
Nanofactory reports 100% capability.
The Processor/Memory/Human environment is stable and operating at an acceptable level.
.
.
.
ERROR: Database corruption detected!
Warning: Damage to the hull has been detected. Arm 6 is barely functional. Capability may be impaired until this issue is resolved.
The Processor/Memory/Human environment is stable and operating at an acceptable level.
.
.
.
ERROR: Database corruption detected!
Warning: Damage to the hull has been detected. Arm 6 is barely functional. Capability may be impaired until this issue is resolved.
Maintenance Drone: A spider-like robot 10 centimetres across and controlled by a rudimentary AI system which allows it to follow basic commands when separated from the human processors. The Maintenance Drone is capable of conducting basic repairs (and assisting construction) using its multi-tool equipped claws and can assist with the deconstruction of objects using its mandible-located cutting laser.
Scout: This 20 centimetre long, pad-equipped, flying robot is capable of extended operations in the field even when separated from human processors thanks to its very basic control programs. The scout's back-mounted solar panels enable it to cover great distances without stopping and its high powered transmitter allows it to send information directly back to you. Do keep in mind that the scout's range is not infinite as its specialized pads require a great deal of maintenance due to their size.
Neural interface (Surgical): Like its nanotech-based cousin the surgically implanted neural interface allows humans bearing it to be immersed into a near-perfect simulation of the world albeit with some limitations depending on the number of humans in the system. However, unlike the nanotech version, the surgical implants do not grow with the host and so can only be implanted into humans with fully mature brains. Additionally, surgically implanting neural interfaces requires a sterile environment and a significant time investment though your chassis has the requisite tools to both sterilize an environment and implant a human.
Scout: This 20 centimetre long, pad-equipped, flying robot is capable of extended operations in the field even when separated from human processors thanks to its very basic control programs. The scout's back-mounted solar panels enable it to cover great distances without stopping and its high powered transmitter allows it to send information directly back to you. Do keep in mind that the scout's range is not infinite as its specialized pads require a great deal of maintenance due to their size.
Neural interface (Surgical): Like its nanotech-based cousin the surgically implanted neural interface allows humans bearing it to be immersed into a near-perfect simulation of the world albeit with some limitations depending on the number of humans in the system. However, unlike the nanotech version, the surgical implants do not grow with the host and so can only be implanted into humans with fully mature brains. Additionally, surgically implanting neural interfaces requires a sterile environment and a significant time investment though your chassis has the requisite tools to both sterilize an environment and implant a human.
Recorded Encrypted Signal
Last edited:
Update 1
prometheus110
Join Cayman-Global & be part of the 1E-9 percent!
- Location
- La Ballena City Raft
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Winners:
Deciding on a course of action you brace your tentacles against the floor of the bus and push; launching yourself up into the warm desert ait and causing the skeletons next to you to collapse to the floor in a cloud of dust. At the apex of your leap you flood your hoverpads with power and halt in midair, a good six meters above the ground. The perfect height to scan the area.
Directly beneath you, running east to west according to your onboard compass, is a cracked and faded four lane road. On it are dozens smaller vehicles, many of which have flipped onto their roofs and still more which have crashed together so hard they're little more than lumps of charred metal. Other than that, some scraggly desert plants and a few more human skeletons there's little here to interest you and with a mental sigh you turn towards the pulsing beacon and head off at the leisurely pace of sixty kilometers an hour. The estimated time of arrival to your target flashing up in your mind's eye as you do so and placing it several kilometers outside of the city's ruins.
It's then that you decide to examine your database and the news isn't good. From a database of several thousand files that would have allowed you to build devices ranging from powerful, pad-equipped missiles to self-growing neural implants you're able to recover just three workable schematics. The first schematic is for a general purpose maintenance bot, the second for a basic aerial scout and the third for a surgically implanted variant of the neural interface used to add humans to the processing network.
Well, you think as you withdraw from the bug-ridden, corrupted remains of the database with the working schematics in tow. This certainly makes things more difficult. You continue the thought idly before putting on a burst of speed as you cross the halfway mark to your quarry.
Roll for event: 1d100 => 89
You're almost disappointed you realise after a few minutes pass peacefully. Aside from some plants, another skeleton and an oddly moving bird that hangs around you at the edge of visibility, your experience so far has been quite uneventful. Well aside from losing most of your schematics that is though even that's not too big a deal thanks to the databanks sent ahead of you. Speaking of, you idly check your ETA and….
You realise that it's wrong. It's not off by much, it's only a few second longer than it should be, but it's still wrong. You know exactly how long and how fast you've been flying towards the beacon and you know exactly how strong the signal should be at your position. As far as you can tell the beacon is moving towards the city, slowly compared to you, but it's moving. Something is carrying it, and you have to decide what to do.
[X] Charge in full speed: You don't want the beacon to get any closer to the city and you're fast enough to catch before it gets within 3 kilometers of that place.
[X] Approach it stealthily: You don't know what's carrying the beacon or why and you need to know before making any rash decisions. You'll follow it at a distance and leave if it gets dangerous.
[X] Write in
[X] Investigate city in search of beacon
[X] Sudy your technological database. What is missing
[X] Sudy your technological database. What is missing
Deciding on a course of action you brace your tentacles against the floor of the bus and push; launching yourself up into the warm desert ait and causing the skeletons next to you to collapse to the floor in a cloud of dust. At the apex of your leap you flood your hoverpads with power and halt in midair, a good six meters above the ground. The perfect height to scan the area.
Directly beneath you, running east to west according to your onboard compass, is a cracked and faded four lane road. On it are dozens smaller vehicles, many of which have flipped onto their roofs and still more which have crashed together so hard they're little more than lumps of charred metal. Other than that, some scraggly desert plants and a few more human skeletons there's little here to interest you and with a mental sigh you turn towards the pulsing beacon and head off at the leisurely pace of sixty kilometers an hour. The estimated time of arrival to your target flashing up in your mind's eye as you do so and placing it several kilometers outside of the city's ruins.
It's then that you decide to examine your database and the news isn't good. From a database of several thousand files that would have allowed you to build devices ranging from powerful, pad-equipped missiles to self-growing neural implants you're able to recover just three workable schematics. The first schematic is for a general purpose maintenance bot, the second for a basic aerial scout and the third for a surgically implanted variant of the neural interface used to add humans to the processing network.
Maintenance Drone: A spider-like robot 10 centimetres across and controlled by a rudimentary AI system which allows it to follow basic commands when separated from the human processors. The Maintenance Drone is capable of conducting basic repairs (and assisting construction) using its multi-tool equipped claws and can assist with the deconstruction of objects using its mandible-located cutting laser.
Scout: This 20 centimetre long, pad-equipped, flying robot is capable of extended operations in the field even when separated from human processors thanks to its very basic control programs. The scout's back-mounted solar panels enable it to cover great distances without stopping and its high powered transmitter allows it to send information directly back to you. Do keep in mind that the scout's range is not infinite as its specialized pads require a great deal of maintenance due to their size.
Neural interface (Surgical): Like its nanotech-based cousin the surgically implanted neural interface allows humans bearing it to be immersed into a near-perfect simulation of the world albeit with some limitations depending on the number of humans in the system. However, unlike the nanotech version, the surgical implants do not grow with the host and so can only be implanted into humans with fully mature brains. Additionally, surgically implanting neural interfaces requires a sterile environment and a significant time investment though your chassis has the requisite tools to both sterilize an environment and implant a human.
Scout: This 20 centimetre long, pad-equipped, flying robot is capable of extended operations in the field even when separated from human processors thanks to its very basic control programs. The scout's back-mounted solar panels enable it to cover great distances without stopping and its high powered transmitter allows it to send information directly back to you. Do keep in mind that the scout's range is not infinite as its specialized pads require a great deal of maintenance due to their size.
Neural interface (Surgical): Like its nanotech-based cousin the surgically implanted neural interface allows humans bearing it to be immersed into a near-perfect simulation of the world albeit with some limitations depending on the number of humans in the system. However, unlike the nanotech version, the surgical implants do not grow with the host and so can only be implanted into humans with fully mature brains. Additionally, surgically implanting neural interfaces requires a sterile environment and a significant time investment though your chassis has the requisite tools to both sterilize an environment and implant a human.
Well, you think as you withdraw from the bug-ridden, corrupted remains of the database with the working schematics in tow. This certainly makes things more difficult. You continue the thought idly before putting on a burst of speed as you cross the halfway mark to your quarry.
Roll for event: 1d100 => 89
You're almost disappointed you realise after a few minutes pass peacefully. Aside from some plants, another skeleton and an oddly moving bird that hangs around you at the edge of visibility, your experience so far has been quite uneventful. Well aside from losing most of your schematics that is though even that's not too big a deal thanks to the databanks sent ahead of you. Speaking of, you idly check your ETA and….
You realise that it's wrong. It's not off by much, it's only a few second longer than it should be, but it's still wrong. You know exactly how long and how fast you've been flying towards the beacon and you know exactly how strong the signal should be at your position. As far as you can tell the beacon is moving towards the city, slowly compared to you, but it's moving. Something is carrying it, and you have to decide what to do.
[X] Charge in full speed: You don't want the beacon to get any closer to the city and you're fast enough to catch before it gets within 3 kilometers of that place.
[X] Approach it stealthily: You don't know what's carrying the beacon or why and you need to know before making any rash decisions. You'll follow it at a distance and leave if it gets dangerous.
[X] Write in
Be very very quiet, I'm hunting Humans
prometheus110
Join Cayman-Global & be part of the 1E-9 percent!
- Location
- La Ballena City Raft
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Approach it stealthily: You don't know what's carrying the beacon or why and you need to know before making any rash decisions. You'll follow it at a distance and leave if it gets dangerous.
After a few more minutes of flight you finally make your decision as you spot a small hill ahead of you. Crowned with a patch of hardy, desert plants and the twisted remnants of an electrical tower it would make an excellent place to land and so you decide that discretion is the better part of valour and slow yourself down from your breakneck flight. Curving in low to the ground you wait until the last possible moment before cutting power to your hoverpads and flaring your arms wide to catch yourself. With a loud crunch you strike the earth halfway up the hill, your strong metal claws gripping the rough desert stone as easily as they would the hull of a human hovercraft.
For a moment you pause and listen, crouched low to the earth and swaying gently back and forth....
There's nothing save the chirps of hidden insects and the whisper of a soft, warm breeze brushing past the thin, dry stems of the plants. Satisfied that nothing nearby has heard you, or that if it has then it's not trying to kill you yet, you slowly begin to stalk forwards towards the top of the hill with little more than the soft whir of your servos to disturb the otherwise quiet day. Tentacle after tentacle you advance, like an octopus crawling along the seafloor, until eventually you crest the hill and spot your target.
There in the distance, a kilometer away form and heading slowly towards the city, is your target. Human sized, though on the larger end of things, and hunchbacked you watch as the creature stumbles forwards, the loose rags that cover it from head to toe causing it to stumble every so often.
Roll: 1d100 => 97
It's suspicious, you think, that a human would wander this wasteland alone. Your people learned from long experience that humans would often use others of their species as bait. It was an efficient method, and you almost approved of it. Still, you think to yourself as the human pauses and turns this way and that before resuming its trudge towards the city's outskirts, this one could be alone. The nuclear detonation seemed to have taken the others by surprise.
Roll for event: 1d100 => 29
You freeze still as a statue as you hear a burst of Ultra-High Frequency radiowaves coming from somewhere deep within the city. Compared to the now deafening bark of the beacon's pulse the new signal is like a whisper in a foundry, but even so you still manage to pick it up. For a moment you attempt to analyse the signal before conceding defeat as it resists your best efforts. You'll need the cipher if you want to decrypt it, you decide as the signal fades away to nothing.
Recorded encrypted signal.
[X] Charge in and attack: If it's alone then you can kill it.
[X] Close in, but continue to observe: You'll be close enough to attack it quickly if it is alone and far enough away to escape if it isn't (hopefully).
[X] Continue to observe from a distance: It's better to wait and see, though it risks letting the human get to the city.
[X] Write in
After a few more minutes of flight you finally make your decision as you spot a small hill ahead of you. Crowned with a patch of hardy, desert plants and the twisted remnants of an electrical tower it would make an excellent place to land and so you decide that discretion is the better part of valour and slow yourself down from your breakneck flight. Curving in low to the ground you wait until the last possible moment before cutting power to your hoverpads and flaring your arms wide to catch yourself. With a loud crunch you strike the earth halfway up the hill, your strong metal claws gripping the rough desert stone as easily as they would the hull of a human hovercraft.
For a moment you pause and listen, crouched low to the earth and swaying gently back and forth....
There's nothing save the chirps of hidden insects and the whisper of a soft, warm breeze brushing past the thin, dry stems of the plants. Satisfied that nothing nearby has heard you, or that if it has then it's not trying to kill you yet, you slowly begin to stalk forwards towards the top of the hill with little more than the soft whir of your servos to disturb the otherwise quiet day. Tentacle after tentacle you advance, like an octopus crawling along the seafloor, until eventually you crest the hill and spot your target.
There in the distance, a kilometer away form and heading slowly towards the city, is your target. Human sized, though on the larger end of things, and hunchbacked you watch as the creature stumbles forwards, the loose rags that cover it from head to toe causing it to stumble every so often.
Roll: 1d100 => 97
It's suspicious, you think, that a human would wander this wasteland alone. Your people learned from long experience that humans would often use others of their species as bait. It was an efficient method, and you almost approved of it. Still, you think to yourself as the human pauses and turns this way and that before resuming its trudge towards the city's outskirts, this one could be alone. The nuclear detonation seemed to have taken the others by surprise.
Roll for event: 1d100 => 29
You freeze still as a statue as you hear a burst of Ultra-High Frequency radiowaves coming from somewhere deep within the city. Compared to the now deafening bark of the beacon's pulse the new signal is like a whisper in a foundry, but even so you still manage to pick it up. For a moment you attempt to analyse the signal before conceding defeat as it resists your best efforts. You'll need the cipher if you want to decrypt it, you decide as the signal fades away to nothing.
Recorded encrypted signal.
[X] Charge in and attack: If it's alone then you can kill it.
[X] Close in, but continue to observe: You'll be close enough to attack it quickly if it is alone and far enough away to escape if it isn't (hopefully).
[X] Continue to observe from a distance: It's better to wait and see, though it risks letting the human get to the city.
[X] Write in
Update 3 - The Gated Community
prometheus110
Join Cayman-Global & be part of the 1E-9 percent!
- Location
- La Ballena City Raft
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Close in, but continue to observe: You'll be close enough to attack it quickly if it is alone and far enough away to escape if it isn't (hopefully).
Wary of an ambush but with your desire for the database growing stronger every moment, you decide to try and approach to within a few hundred meters of the human. With the soft whir of servos and the creak of electro-muscle bands you pull yourself forwards in short bursts of speed; always mindful to place yourself behind anything that could obscure you from sight. Go-Stop, Go-Stop, Go-Stop. Again and again you repeat this pattern until, after several agonizingly slow minutes pass, you've managed to close to within two hundred meters of the human.
In the time needed for you to close the distance, the human has gotten even closer to the city. A kilometer ahead of you, emerging from the desert sand like dozens of rock formations on an alien beach are the first human buildings you've seen that are smaller than a skyscraper. Much like the vehicles you left behind these building are just charred wrecks of what they once were, and even from this distance you can see that most have suffered partial collapses and the rest are little more than hollow shells. From somewhere deep within your processor the words Gated Community appear unbidden in your mind before disappearing in a heartbeat.
Roll: 1d100 => 35
It's while you're observing one of the buildings that you notice a shadow pass quickly behind a window. It's a small movement, a barely visible flicker of black in front of a slightly lighter brown, but it was there. Suddenly alert, you turn your full attention towards the buildings and scan them once more but after a few seconds of nothing else occurring you cautiously concede that whatever it was that made the shadow has either disappeared or was never there in the first place.
Wary now, and with an eye still pointed towards the buildings, you turn your attention back to the human and continue stalking it.
Roll: 1d100 => 59
With your new proximity to the human It doesn't take you long before you notice something odd about them. With every step they take you spy a silvery gleam coming from their left elbow as the rags there shift to and fro with its movements. It's a barely noticeable flash of light, even now, but if the human is carrying some kind of weapon then attacking it may be too much of a risk. Additionally, now that you've turned the full force of your attention back to the human, you note that it's path will take it directly through the centre of the gated community if you let it continue.
Vote:
[X] Attack the human before it can get to the buildings.
[X] Follow the human through the buildings.
[X] Go around the buildings and wait for the human to pass between them before continuing to follow it.
[X] Write in.
Wary of an ambush but with your desire for the database growing stronger every moment, you decide to try and approach to within a few hundred meters of the human. With the soft whir of servos and the creak of electro-muscle bands you pull yourself forwards in short bursts of speed; always mindful to place yourself behind anything that could obscure you from sight. Go-Stop, Go-Stop, Go-Stop. Again and again you repeat this pattern until, after several agonizingly slow minutes pass, you've managed to close to within two hundred meters of the human.
In the time needed for you to close the distance, the human has gotten even closer to the city. A kilometer ahead of you, emerging from the desert sand like dozens of rock formations on an alien beach are the first human buildings you've seen that are smaller than a skyscraper. Much like the vehicles you left behind these building are just charred wrecks of what they once were, and even from this distance you can see that most have suffered partial collapses and the rest are little more than hollow shells. From somewhere deep within your processor the words Gated Community appear unbidden in your mind before disappearing in a heartbeat.
Roll: 1d100 => 35
It's while you're observing one of the buildings that you notice a shadow pass quickly behind a window. It's a small movement, a barely visible flicker of black in front of a slightly lighter brown, but it was there. Suddenly alert, you turn your full attention towards the buildings and scan them once more but after a few seconds of nothing else occurring you cautiously concede that whatever it was that made the shadow has either disappeared or was never there in the first place.
Wary now, and with an eye still pointed towards the buildings, you turn your attention back to the human and continue stalking it.
Roll: 1d100 => 59
With your new proximity to the human It doesn't take you long before you notice something odd about them. With every step they take you spy a silvery gleam coming from their left elbow as the rags there shift to and fro with its movements. It's a barely noticeable flash of light, even now, but if the human is carrying some kind of weapon then attacking it may be too much of a risk. Additionally, now that you've turned the full force of your attention back to the human, you note that it's path will take it directly through the centre of the gated community if you let it continue.
Vote:
[X] Attack the human before it can get to the buildings.
[X] Follow the human through the buildings.
[X] Go around the buildings and wait for the human to pass between them before continuing to follow it.
[X] Write in.
Update 4 - Robot Wars
prometheus110
Join Cayman-Global & be part of the 1E-9 percent!
- Location
- La Ballena City Raft
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Attack the human before it can reach the buildings.
What do you do?
[] Attack the machine while it's down.
[] Attempt to grab the databank and run.
[] Write in.
Time flows on as you think of what to do. Second after second ticks away forever as you plot and scheme and weigh your options; opening new pathways of enquiry at one tick of the clock before closing them down at the next. Finally you're left with just one option hanging in your mind like a wickedly bright star. Attack.
With an electronic chirp you hurl yourself forwards, all thoughts of stealth discarded as you activate your hoverpads and curve up into the air like a missile. In a fraction of a second you're five meters above the rocky desert landscape and with a twist that'd make any human pilot green with envy you launch yourself at the still unaware human.
Faster and faster you accelerate; your velocity meter increasing at a dizzying rate as you pour power into your pads and strive towards your target. At one hundred and fifty meters away the desert beneath you flashes by almost too quickly to see. At one hundred meters the plants and dirt begin to blur together and a deep, infrasonic thrum rises from your hoverpads. At fifty meters the human begins to turn towards you, its ragged cloth garments catching underfoot and slipping free from its body in a flash of silver light as the metal beneath is revealed to the sun. At five meters all you see is a grinning silver skull, red-lensed cameras flashing wickedly in its eye sockets as it raises a mangled arm towards you.
Impact.
With a body-quaking crunch you slam into the machine's chest at over a hundred kilometers an hour. For a moment the world devolves into a disjointed and static-laced slideshow as your mind reels from the impact. One moment the machine is standing there and then it disappears in the next. It's hanging in midair amidst a shower of sparks and then it's slamming into the ground in a cloud of dust. It's arm is raised defiantly and then it's torn off, great gouts of hydraulic fluid squirting onto the desert sand from the mangled stump that remains.
With an electronic chirp you hurl yourself forwards, all thoughts of stealth discarded as you activate your hoverpads and curve up into the air like a missile. In a fraction of a second you're five meters above the rocky desert landscape and with a twist that'd make any human pilot green with envy you launch yourself at the still unaware human.
Faster and faster you accelerate; your velocity meter increasing at a dizzying rate as you pour power into your pads and strive towards your target. At one hundred and fifty meters away the desert beneath you flashes by almost too quickly to see. At one hundred meters the plants and dirt begin to blur together and a deep, infrasonic thrum rises from your hoverpads. At fifty meters the human begins to turn towards you, its ragged cloth garments catching underfoot and slipping free from its body in a flash of silver light as the metal beneath is revealed to the sun. At five meters all you see is a grinning silver skull, red-lensed cameras flashing wickedly in its eye sockets as it raises a mangled arm towards you.
Impact.
With a body-quaking crunch you slam into the machine's chest at over a hundred kilometers an hour. For a moment the world devolves into a disjointed and static-laced slideshow as your mind reels from the impact. One moment the machine is standing there and then it disappears in the next. It's hanging in midair amidst a shower of sparks and then it's slamming into the ground in a cloud of dust. It's arm is raised defiantly and then it's torn off, great gouts of hydraulic fluid squirting onto the desert sand from the mangled stump that remains.
Your roll: 1d100 => 28
Terminator's roll: 1d100 => 77
Fractions of a second tick by with the speed of molasses before your processes finally catch up to reality. Without fanfare your vision clears and you find yourself lying on your side in the centre of a rapidly thinning cloud of dust. Before you can wonder where your target has gone, the dust clears just in time for you to watch as the human no, the machine, struggle to rise to its feet before collapsing to the ground as its right knee buckles. Lying next to the body of the struggling machine you spy the obsidian black, egg-like form of a databank. It's tough, you wouldn't have charged if it wasn't, so it should have survived the impact.
With a rattling hiss of anger and simulated pain you rise up from the ground and turn to face the struggling machine.
Terminator's roll: 1d100 => 77
Fractions of a second tick by with the speed of molasses before your processes finally catch up to reality. Without fanfare your vision clears and you find yourself lying on your side in the centre of a rapidly thinning cloud of dust. Before you can wonder where your target has gone, the dust clears just in time for you to watch as the human no, the machine, struggle to rise to its feet before collapsing to the ground as its right knee buckles. Lying next to the body of the struggling machine you spy the obsidian black, egg-like form of a databank. It's tough, you wouldn't have charged if it wasn't, so it should have survived the impact.
With a rattling hiss of anger and simulated pain you rise up from the ground and turn to face the struggling machine.
What do you do?
[] Attack the machine while it's down.
[] Attempt to grab the databank and run.
[] Write in.
Last edited:
Update 5 - Robo-squid versus Terminator
prometheus110
Join Cayman-Global & be part of the 1E-9 percent!
- Location
- La Ballena City Raft
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Note: I didn't realize it at the time but if you'd chosen to grab the databank and run I'd have essentially just written this. So good work, SV. Also, just so everyone's clear, when I roll dice the lower results are better than the higher results. It's a holdover from when I played Warhammer 40k RPGs.
[X] Attack the machine while it's down.
Your attack: 1d100 => 88
Terminator's counter: 1d100 => 34
Your attack: 1d100 => 45
Your attack: 1d100 => 19
Terminator can't counter.
Your attack: 1d100 => 28
Terminator's counter: 1d100 => 86
Your attack: 1d100 =>33
Terminator's counter: 1d100 => 73
Your attack: 1d100 => 40
Terminator's counter: 1d100 => 61
What will you do now?
[] Grab the databank and fly:
[] Write in
[X] Attack the machine while it's down.
With a hiss you lunge towards the still struggling machine, your clawed legs slamming into the ground one after another like pistons, and moments later you're standing over it. With a loud whirring sound you raise one clawed tentacle above your head before lashing out at the machine's grinning silver skull.
Your attack: 1d100 => 88
Terminator's counter: 1d100 => 34
Acting with a speed its bulk belies, the machine rolls aside mere moments before your arm connects with its head; your claw sailing clear past and striking the rock beneath with a loud crack. Before you can pull your arm clear the machine lunges forwards and grabs it in a vice-like grip before squeezing tightly.
Simulated pain races up your superconducting nerves as the metal beneath the machine's deathgrip warps and buckles, and the arm begins to go slack as its electro-muscle bands snap. Activating your hoverpads to free your other arms, you lift up off the ground and pull the machine up with you before sending two quick jabs towards its chest.
Simulated pain races up your superconducting nerves as the metal beneath the machine's deathgrip warps and buckles, and the arm begins to go slack as its electro-muscle bands snap. Activating your hoverpads to free your other arms, you lift up off the ground and pull the machine up with you before sending two quick jabs towards its chest.
Your attack: 1d100 => 45
Your attack: 1d100 => 19
Terminator can't counter.
With a deafening screech your first claw scrapes against the machine's armoured chest, gouging out a deep groove in the unknown silver metal that makes up its body and knocking it around some to the detriment of your arm. Your second attack is more successful, your claw catching it flat in the chest and slamming it back into the ground with a loud crunch at the cost of a handful of metal pieces and electro-muscle fibres from your arm.
Your attack: 1d100 => 28
Terminator's counter: 1d100 => 86
Your attack: 1d100 =>33
Terminator's counter: 1d100 => 73
Your attack: 1d100 => 40
Terminator's counter: 1d100 => 61
Hissing with rage you launch blow after blow at the machine, your claws slamming into it with gunshot-loud bangs as it struggles to grab your arms. Silver metal flies into the air as you scrape and tear and gouge deeper into its chest cavity before, with a final roar, you grip its skull and slam it into the ground again and again. With a final crack its skull bursts apart in a shower of metal and glass and the robot's body finally lays still, its fist half-closed and raised into the air defiantly.
What will you do now?
[] Grab the databank and fly:
Towards the city
Towards the gated community
Back towards the electrical tower
[] Leave the databank and flyTowards the gated community
Back towards the electrical tower
Towards the city
Towards the gated community
Back towards the electrical tower
[] Examine the machineTowards the gated community
Back towards the electrical tower
[] Write in
Update 6 - Cracking The Egg
prometheus110
Join Cayman-Global & be part of the 1E-9 percent!
- Location
- La Ballena City Raft
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Grab the databank and skedaddle back to the electrical tower.
[X] If possible, grab a small piece of machine to analyse, preferably it's data storage system (or what is left of it)
What do you find? (Choose one)
[] Autonomous Land Exploration Vehicle (Medium)
[] "Wasp" Light Defence Drone (Small)
[] "Sunflower" Solar panel array (Medium)
What do you do?
[] Head towards the city
[] Head towards the gated community
[] Explore the surrounding area (avoiding the gated community)
[] Explore the surrounding area (including the gated community)
[] Write in
[X] If possible, grab a small piece of machine to analyse, preferably it's data storage system (or what is left of it)
Scooping up the databank with one tentacle and a piece of the machine's skull with another you take one last look at your foe's ruined body before turning away and launching yourself higher into the air with a burst of sand. Hoverpads thrumming with power you sedately accelerate towards the nearby electrical tower, carefully keeping your limp arm from scraping along the ground and damaging it any further as you travel. Within minutes you arrive at your destination and with a precisely calculated maneuver you grab the tower's trusswork and bring yourself to a halt just inside the cage of metal struts; the bars bending under the force of your grip and creaking loudly from the stress.
Safe now, or at least as safe as you've ever been, you raise the fragment of the robot's skull up to your optic systems and begin your examination of it with your many-tooled arms.
At six centimetres wide, eight centimetres long and with an average thickness of three centimetres the metal plate is surprisingly heavy for its size, indicating that it's composed of many dense elements. You'd need to use your nanofactory to properly analyse its constituent elements but you'd be surprised if it didn't contain a significant number of rare-earth metals.
Activating one of your small drills with a high-pitched whir, you press it against the smooth surface of the silver metal and watch carefully as it slowly digs into it with a squeal of protest. Almost instantly you see heat spread out from the drill site like liquid as the friction between the two items rapidly heats up both and with a sudden crack your drill bit shatters into a storm of metal fragments that go spinning out into the air. Irritated you make a note to fabricate a new drill bit before moving onto your next test.
Moving on to your next tool you raise another arm, this one equipped with a laser cutter, and hold it several centimetres from the surface of the stolen metal. With a loud crack that settles into a low buzz as the air between the two is ionized, your laser fires and a slender ruby beam emerges from the focusing lense and strikes the metal at a ninety degree angle. As with the drill, heat rapidly blooms from the impact site and spreads until the whole piece is glowing a warm red in your infrared vision. Seconds tick away rapidly, and growing impatient you increase the power of your laser cutter until warning messages start to bloom in your mind's eye. Finally, metal begins to melt and bubble around the impact site before, without fanfare, your laser finally penetrates the plate. Hastily shutting off your laser you check to see how long it took before mentally sighing. if you want to use your laser cutters against any more of these machines you'll have to hold them still for several seconds.
Chittering angrily to yourself you lower the metal plate from your sight and raise the databank up to eye level.
If I remember correctly… you think to yourself as you raise a manipulator tentacle up to the databank, a smaller tentacle questing forwards and touching a lighter coloured, coin-sized patch of metal.
With an electronic chirp of acknowledgement the databank recognizes your codes and shuts down its beacon with a final squeal. Moments later your microphones pick up a series of soft clicks and whirrs as the specially designed gears of its unlocking system activate and a thin line of greater darkness appears halfway up its egg-shaped form. With a final, loud click the databank splits open and reveals an interface socket which you eagerly plug yourself into.
Safe now, or at least as safe as you've ever been, you raise the fragment of the robot's skull up to your optic systems and begin your examination of it with your many-tooled arms.
At six centimetres wide, eight centimetres long and with an average thickness of three centimetres the metal plate is surprisingly heavy for its size, indicating that it's composed of many dense elements. You'd need to use your nanofactory to properly analyse its constituent elements but you'd be surprised if it didn't contain a significant number of rare-earth metals.
Activating one of your small drills with a high-pitched whir, you press it against the smooth surface of the silver metal and watch carefully as it slowly digs into it with a squeal of protest. Almost instantly you see heat spread out from the drill site like liquid as the friction between the two items rapidly heats up both and with a sudden crack your drill bit shatters into a storm of metal fragments that go spinning out into the air. Irritated you make a note to fabricate a new drill bit before moving onto your next test.
Moving on to your next tool you raise another arm, this one equipped with a laser cutter, and hold it several centimetres from the surface of the stolen metal. With a loud crack that settles into a low buzz as the air between the two is ionized, your laser fires and a slender ruby beam emerges from the focusing lense and strikes the metal at a ninety degree angle. As with the drill, heat rapidly blooms from the impact site and spreads until the whole piece is glowing a warm red in your infrared vision. Seconds tick away rapidly, and growing impatient you increase the power of your laser cutter until warning messages start to bloom in your mind's eye. Finally, metal begins to melt and bubble around the impact site before, without fanfare, your laser finally penetrates the plate. Hastily shutting off your laser you check to see how long it took before mentally sighing. if you want to use your laser cutters against any more of these machines you'll have to hold them still for several seconds.
Chittering angrily to yourself you lower the metal plate from your sight and raise the databank up to eye level.
If I remember correctly… you think to yourself as you raise a manipulator tentacle up to the databank, a smaller tentacle questing forwards and touching a lighter coloured, coin-sized patch of metal.
With an electronic chirp of acknowledgement the databank recognizes your codes and shuts down its beacon with a final squeal. Moments later your microphones pick up a series of soft clicks and whirrs as the specially designed gears of its unlocking system activate and a thin line of greater darkness appears halfway up its egg-shaped form. With a final, loud click the databank splits open and reveals an interface socket which you eagerly plug yourself into.
What do you find? (Choose one)
[] Autonomous Land Exploration Vehicle (Medium)
A dog-like, 1.2 meter long robot the ALEV is a long-ranged semi-autonomous exploration vehicle powered by a set of high-density batteries composed of several rare earth elements that can be recharged via your own onboard generator or external power systems. Capable of covering a dozen square kilometers of ground a day in ideal conditions the ALEV's exploration capabilities can further be enhanced with the addition of a Scout drone that can be captured, repaired and launched by the ALEV's onboard maintenance facilities.
Though similar in size to the Maintenance drone the Wasp is suited for a very different task that requires both speed and aggression. Designed specially for the colonization effort, the Wasp is equipped with a set of small hoverpads, a prehensile electro-muscle tail tipped with a razor sharp claw and a set of sawblade-equipped arms that enable it to defend sensitive areas against human-sized or smaller interlopers. However all of this comes at a cost with Wasps suffering from both limited battery life and limited flight range meaning that they must stay close to the area they're defending
At 50cm by 50cm the Sunflower is capable of generating over 500 watts of energy per array during optimal conditions thanks to the hundreds of tiny, independently tracking solar panels that it contains. Infinitely superior to the solar panel arrays of the distant past, the Sunflower requires only small amounts of rare earth elements per unit and is easily scalable though past a certain point it becomes significantly more efficient to use other designs.
Withdrawing from the databank's systems you consider what you know about the area. You know that there's something in the city from the radio signal you intercepted though the sixty kilometre plus trip to the signal's source may be dangerous if there are any more of those machines wandering about. Additionally, you suspect that there might be something in the gated community nearby though you have no idea what it could be given how lifeless this place is. Thirdly, you could explore your surroundings as really don't have any idea of what's here. Finally, you could take the time to construct some small robots to assist you with any of these tasks.
What do you do?
[] Head towards the city
[] Head towards the gated community
[] Explore the surrounding area (avoiding the gated community)
[] Explore the surrounding area (including the gated community)
[] Write in