Fabricated Hazards (factorio fanfic)
DuckaBoo385
Consumer of Great Amounts of Tea
Does anyone remember the conversation on the Factory, through SCIENCE/Warp stuff help nullify the bad luck of the Lamenters? I just had a thought that rather then nullifying the bad luck, why don't they "redirect" it? Like the Lamenters being able to cause like the opposite affect or the negative version of the "miracles" phonomena caused by the Sisters of Battle? Like when they are in combat with the device, the enemys gun suddenly jams at a crucial shot or like a enemy tank can no longer move because "unluckily" a crucial bolt came loose, rendering the whole vehicle useless. I can see this being the Lamenters "thing".
- Location
- ' New Eden
If you want space-based infrastructure, I can only recommend Eve Online. It has ludicrous build speeds (a couple of hours for a battleship that is 1km+ in length) and also space-based mining. Should be a good prepatory step for anything further down the line in space like 40k.
And it does good in replicating economies of scale.
And it does good in replicating economies of scale.
danmachi chap - 1
- Pronouns
- That/Thing
The engineer feels a ripping sensation as something is torn from him. his mind becomes nothing but agony and he can only vaguely register his suit hitting the floor back first, he can feel nothing but shredding pain and no coherent thoughts can be formed.
As he lays on the floor he feels something trying to dig into his side. "Is it biting me?" A sharp jolt "hostile entity detected, engaging countermeasures" a bright flash of light hits the tunnel as a sphere of lighting surges forth from my suit. The lighting hits the creature, which screams before dying. "Hostile entity terminated, resuming passive scans" "I have to get up, the bugs are after me".
His fractured thoughts and senses can't even begin to figure out where his body actually is, much less moving it but "maker compromised, initiating automated functions" with another jolt his body begins to rise, sending agony through what's left of his mind, which isn't even enough to scream.
"Calculating route, establishing communications with minds - attempt failed, secondary priority established - regain connection with minds, resuming independent function, contact with radar network - negative, engaging suits internal radar, calculating route."
With oddly graceful steps the suit of armor begins to walk its head panning from side to side constantly observing its surroundings, "current location - Unknown, estimation - bitter subterranean tunnel system, calculating, new tasks assigned - discover route out of tunnel network - reestablish contact with minds - avoid or eliminate hostile entities - ensure makers physical integrity, calculating, possible route found"
With a sudden lurch the armor suddenly begins sprinting at a rapid speed, dashing around tunnels and doging around any outcroppings of rock, after 10 seconds of running a loud crack is heard as part of the wall shatters and six white rabbits burst out, the suit of armors head rapidly turns to face the creatures " hostile entities detected - unknown bug variant, calculating, small size indicates sabotage or swarm tactics, avoid direct physical contact - make uses of explosives and discharge defense"
With another jarring movement the armors momentum shifts and it lunges away from the creatures, 6 bright beams lance from the suit before they instantly strike a rabbit each, succeeding in doing little but burning their fur, a millisecond later a small round object is launched from the suit before detonating mid air between the creatures, shredding them.
"Hostiles eliminated, calculating, hostiles were not detected, stealth variants present, resuming course,"
The rubble from where the rabbits emerged has yet to even settle before the armor begins its sprint yet again, the tunnel begins to slope upwards at an ever higher angle but the armor shows no signs of stopping, more openings appear and without slowing the suit dashes through a seemingly random one, it continues on like this, with the armor sprinting at an ever upward angle and taking random detours for seemingly no reason before the wall once again begins to crack.
"Hostile incursion detected, deploying countermeasures" the suit points its arm at the wall within moments and there is a loud whoosh as a pillar of fire rockets from the suit, hitting the wall before erupting in an explosion similar to but much larger than the one that wiped out the rabbits from before. The wall explodes but the armor does not turn away, instead running backwards while more beams of light arc into the smoke, burning holes through the debris, a large rock then rockets form the smoke, and the armor does not flinch as the rock is burned away before reaching half distance, 3 more rockets fire from the suit and hit the target in the cloud of debris.
After the 3 successive booms finish a loud thump is heard as something tall topples over, and if you had the advanced sensors of the armor you would see a large minotaur with a gaping hole in its center, each missile had hit the same spot one after the other, coring the beast.
Without a second glance the armor continues its journey, and any unfortunate monster in its path is summarily destroyed, the environment begins to shift and a faint fog can be seen coating the floor, still the armor does not react to this change, continuing its relentless charge
The rooms are now larger and more open, making the armor's path clear, as it runs around or dramatically changes course to avoid nearing any groups, well before meeting them especially with the mist obscuring most forms of sight. The few occasions a group nears to close or blocks the path forward a barrage of explosives hits them, and unlike a few of the previous creatures these do not survive the first explosion, with the armor not even slowing down to avoid entering the clouds of shrapnel its weapons leave behind.
The fog begins to thin and a faint light begins to hit the armor, showing off its silver color while the various gems adorning it begin to sparkle and glow, before that glow rapidly intensifies as beams of light lance from them cutting the monsters in front of the suit into tiny pieces, where some of the creatures seemingly disintegrate, the engineer, which at this moment is only technically a thinking creature notices this sunlight and urges his suit onward, with nothing but the vague instinct to seek light guiding this action, and the armor once again increases in speed, almost but not quite a blur as it rapidly ascends.
This new pace rapidly sends the armor to the next zone, where the tunnels shrink in size and the light begins to fade once again, the engineers fragmented mind notices this, and driven by fear, pain, and a profound sense of emptiness and loss tries to urge the armor back into the light, still the engineer is not capable of coherent thought, much less forming an actual order for the suit to follow, and his wishes are ignored as the armor once again plunges into the darkness.
This new zone was proceeding much the same, the armor calculating a route that both avoided almost all the the monsters while also leading upwards, when a new "bug variant" struck, a vague black shape rose from the floor, and was summarily hit by a missile, it dashed through the missile and managed to land a hit on the armor, which did not even scratch the suit, before 40 beams of light launched forth and disintegrated the living shadow.
The rest of the trip through the tunnels continued identically, and instead of explosions lashing out to destroy the few monsters the suit encountered beams of light issued forth, carving neat holes through any monsters it encountered, before it finally reached the surface, emerging out onto a dark street sans any people, though even this did not warrant anything but a decrease in speed.
"Pathing complete, attempting to reestablish communications - attempt failed, maker status - limited brain scans show intense pain, no external damage detected, deployed painkillers show no signs of effect, calculating, new course of action, find secure shelter till contact is reestablished or new orders are issued, calculating route"
The suit of armor was jogging through the streets of orario at night. The few people that were walking about were avoided or ignored and the armor was heading for a less populated section of the city, it was heading there to avoid drawing excess attention, making use of some of the courier drones behavior patterns to avoid aggravating any buildings, or in its synthetic mind 'hives', less dense and developed buildings meant getting near the edge of the hive, where it could escape.
This plan came crashing down as it tried to jog past a small woman wearing a white dress, the moment the suits visual sensors landed on the woman the engineers mind, which had largely been quiet since they had left the dungeon, experienced a flurry of activity, and managed to colace into a single feeling of "home" the disparate shards of his mind for a few moments had a unified goal, "return home, return to myself" and well, hestia is a goddess of hearth, home, and family.
The engineer, a creature currently operating on nothing but emotion, could feel these concepts emanating from the small woman, and with a burst of will he took control of his armor for the first time since he arrived in Orario and the armors smooth gate shifted into a barely controlled stumble in Hestia's direction, quickly drawing the woman's attention.
Hestia is not just a woman, she is a goddess and she can see into the hearts of all mortals, their wants, dreams, motivations, and intentions all lay bare before her gaze, and even if she did not often use this power a large man in a suit of armor suddenly stopping his sprint to stumble in her direction caused her enough concern that she used a tiny fraction of her godly power, not near enough for any other god to notice but enough for her to feel the barest of the man's intentions and mind.
Hestia's concern about the man's intentions with her rapidly shifted to concern for his health after she had glimpsed at his soul, his mind was nothing but pain and a longing for his home, it felt as if he had been ripped from his family and then had ever agony imaginable inflicted upon him, she wasn't even sure how he was even moving, much less how he had been jogging before. Still with his mind in such shambles it was no wonder he was approaching her, any animal could feel her godly domain and any human in that much agony was certainly reduced to an animal.
With his mind in the state it was he wouldn't have been able to hurt her even if he wanted too, at least if she disregarded how he had been sprinting before, and with how his stumbling was getting worse she doubted he would even make it all the way to her, just as she was about to take a step forward to try and support him his stumbling walk came to an end, as he crashed to the floor with a loud thump.
Rushing the last few feet to the man Hestia tried to help him get up, but he didn't seem to be trying at all, and with his armor on she couldn't even one of his arms, still she was not one to quit, so she spent the next few seconds trying to lift him while continual berating the man for being unhelpful.
It was with a fair bit of surprise that Hestia watched the man smoothly get to his feet from where he had been crumpled on the road, and her worry ratched even higher when he just stared at her unmoving, so once again using her power to per into the man's mind …. It was exactly the same, maybe even a little worse, how was he standing like that? A skill or an ability?
Still she couldn't in good conscience let him walk around town like that, and they were close enough to her house, so it wouldn't be too much trouble to walk him there, and there was always a chance he wasn't in a familia, even if the armor made that unlikely…..
The armor was experiencing conflicting orders, it was both instructed to kill anything that threatened harm to the maker, and it was now told by the maker that it was not allowed to harm the odd bug repeatedly tapping the top of its head, the order by the maker superseded an order by a mind yes, but the makers cognitive functions were impared, bringing the makers decision making abilities into question.
So the armor was at an impasse, still the level of force wasn't enough to cause harm, even without the shielding, so the armor had no need to take immediate action, and so the conflicting orders were not yet pertinent.
After what its internal clock registered as an hour the light patting slowed down before stopping entirely, the bug had apparently grown tired over the course of its attack and did not possess the endurance needed to break through the shield, the armor noted this and continued its passive observation of its surroundings, the maker was still indisposed and so emergency mode was still in full effect.
The armor's visual sensors were pointed at the ceiling, and it was not permitted to move while the maker was asleep and not in immediate danger, even in emergency mode, so the armor had to resort to more exotic sensors, the radar was the go to, even if other more specialized sensors were present.
it showed a clear if indistinct picture of the room, a small underground shelter, containing one bed and a few other appliances, of overall poor quality, the buildings structural integrity was not up to standard, and was barely reached the minimal threshold before evacuation and demolition, this caused the temperature in the room to be moderately low, but the armor was more than suited to protecting the maker from the elements.
The same could not be said for the bug, which would normally be within its bed, instead the bug was sitting on the floor, resting its torso across the armor while the armor was resting on the bugs lap, the armor was not actually cold, its metal was above the rooms ambient temperature, but the small insect was still shivering, after a few moments of processing the armor came to a conclusion, it was not allowed to harm the bug, the bug currently posed no threat, so there were no conflicting orders, the bug was being harmed by the cold, the armor could prevent that, by inaction the armor was harming the bug. With a light rushing of air the vents on the armor began to intake cold air while outputting heated air.
Within a few moments the bug stopped shivering and the armor resumed its passive scans, there was no telling when the building's structural integrity would pass the safety threshold, and more hostiles it was actually allowed to engage could show up, so the armor would continue its vigil.
AN -
I am a lying liar who enjoys lies, more accurately I couldn't get this plot bunny out of my head and it wouldn't let me right the main story, the inconsiderate thing.
I do wonder if anyone is actually planning on writing any omakes for this story, though I doubt it'll happen anytime soon if it happens at all.
if I decide to continue this story deities wont just be people, they will be other, as in all have a presence and slight effect on the world, even with the bulk of their powers sealed away, meaning hestia feels like home and family to everyone, and in the engineers case that feels like the minds and his factory, this lessens his pain slightly and makes him protective of her, as he would be of the minds and the factory.
I don't know how I feel about giving the armor so much agency but it does seem in character for the minds to have programed an emergency response pseudo AI into the suit.
if your wondering what makes the suit different from the minds, its this, the minds wouldn't have thought the monsters were bugs and they wouldn't have ignored the engineer when he wanted to stay in the light, the minds are capable of thought and have some minor semblance of emotion, the suit does not, it has pre programed responses and a minor capability to problem solve, and the minds installed kill switches in it, which the engineer didn't install in the minds, make of that what you will.
the armor throughout this whole chapter, "your a bug, thats a bug, everything is a bug, LIGHT IT ALL ON FIRE!"
As he lays on the floor he feels something trying to dig into his side. "Is it biting me?" A sharp jolt "hostile entity detected, engaging countermeasures" a bright flash of light hits the tunnel as a sphere of lighting surges forth from my suit. The lighting hits the creature, which screams before dying. "Hostile entity terminated, resuming passive scans" "I have to get up, the bugs are after me".
His fractured thoughts and senses can't even begin to figure out where his body actually is, much less moving it but "maker compromised, initiating automated functions" with another jolt his body begins to rise, sending agony through what's left of his mind, which isn't even enough to scream.
"Calculating route, establishing communications with minds - attempt failed, secondary priority established - regain connection with minds, resuming independent function, contact with radar network - negative, engaging suits internal radar, calculating route."
With oddly graceful steps the suit of armor begins to walk its head panning from side to side constantly observing its surroundings, "current location - Unknown, estimation - bitter subterranean tunnel system, calculating, new tasks assigned - discover route out of tunnel network - reestablish contact with minds - avoid or eliminate hostile entities - ensure makers physical integrity, calculating, possible route found"
With a sudden lurch the armor suddenly begins sprinting at a rapid speed, dashing around tunnels and doging around any outcroppings of rock, after 10 seconds of running a loud crack is heard as part of the wall shatters and six white rabbits burst out, the suit of armors head rapidly turns to face the creatures " hostile entities detected - unknown bug variant, calculating, small size indicates sabotage or swarm tactics, avoid direct physical contact - make uses of explosives and discharge defense"
With another jarring movement the armors momentum shifts and it lunges away from the creatures, 6 bright beams lance from the suit before they instantly strike a rabbit each, succeeding in doing little but burning their fur, a millisecond later a small round object is launched from the suit before detonating mid air between the creatures, shredding them.
"Hostiles eliminated, calculating, hostiles were not detected, stealth variants present, resuming course,"
The rubble from where the rabbits emerged has yet to even settle before the armor begins its sprint yet again, the tunnel begins to slope upwards at an ever higher angle but the armor shows no signs of stopping, more openings appear and without slowing the suit dashes through a seemingly random one, it continues on like this, with the armor sprinting at an ever upward angle and taking random detours for seemingly no reason before the wall once again begins to crack.
"Hostile incursion detected, deploying countermeasures" the suit points its arm at the wall within moments and there is a loud whoosh as a pillar of fire rockets from the suit, hitting the wall before erupting in an explosion similar to but much larger than the one that wiped out the rabbits from before. The wall explodes but the armor does not turn away, instead running backwards while more beams of light arc into the smoke, burning holes through the debris, a large rock then rockets form the smoke, and the armor does not flinch as the rock is burned away before reaching half distance, 3 more rockets fire from the suit and hit the target in the cloud of debris.
After the 3 successive booms finish a loud thump is heard as something tall topples over, and if you had the advanced sensors of the armor you would see a large minotaur with a gaping hole in its center, each missile had hit the same spot one after the other, coring the beast.
Without a second glance the armor continues its journey, and any unfortunate monster in its path is summarily destroyed, the environment begins to shift and a faint fog can be seen coating the floor, still the armor does not react to this change, continuing its relentless charge
The rooms are now larger and more open, making the armor's path clear, as it runs around or dramatically changes course to avoid nearing any groups, well before meeting them especially with the mist obscuring most forms of sight. The few occasions a group nears to close or blocks the path forward a barrage of explosives hits them, and unlike a few of the previous creatures these do not survive the first explosion, with the armor not even slowing down to avoid entering the clouds of shrapnel its weapons leave behind.
The fog begins to thin and a faint light begins to hit the armor, showing off its silver color while the various gems adorning it begin to sparkle and glow, before that glow rapidly intensifies as beams of light lance from them cutting the monsters in front of the suit into tiny pieces, where some of the creatures seemingly disintegrate, the engineer, which at this moment is only technically a thinking creature notices this sunlight and urges his suit onward, with nothing but the vague instinct to seek light guiding this action, and the armor once again increases in speed, almost but not quite a blur as it rapidly ascends.
This new pace rapidly sends the armor to the next zone, where the tunnels shrink in size and the light begins to fade once again, the engineers fragmented mind notices this, and driven by fear, pain, and a profound sense of emptiness and loss tries to urge the armor back into the light, still the engineer is not capable of coherent thought, much less forming an actual order for the suit to follow, and his wishes are ignored as the armor once again plunges into the darkness.
This new zone was proceeding much the same, the armor calculating a route that both avoided almost all the the monsters while also leading upwards, when a new "bug variant" struck, a vague black shape rose from the floor, and was summarily hit by a missile, it dashed through the missile and managed to land a hit on the armor, which did not even scratch the suit, before 40 beams of light launched forth and disintegrated the living shadow.
The rest of the trip through the tunnels continued identically, and instead of explosions lashing out to destroy the few monsters the suit encountered beams of light issued forth, carving neat holes through any monsters it encountered, before it finally reached the surface, emerging out onto a dark street sans any people, though even this did not warrant anything but a decrease in speed.
"Pathing complete, attempting to reestablish communications - attempt failed, maker status - limited brain scans show intense pain, no external damage detected, deployed painkillers show no signs of effect, calculating, new course of action, find secure shelter till contact is reestablished or new orders are issued, calculating route"
----------------------
The suit of armor was jogging through the streets of orario at night. The few people that were walking about were avoided or ignored and the armor was heading for a less populated section of the city, it was heading there to avoid drawing excess attention, making use of some of the courier drones behavior patterns to avoid aggravating any buildings, or in its synthetic mind 'hives', less dense and developed buildings meant getting near the edge of the hive, where it could escape.
This plan came crashing down as it tried to jog past a small woman wearing a white dress, the moment the suits visual sensors landed on the woman the engineers mind, which had largely been quiet since they had left the dungeon, experienced a flurry of activity, and managed to colace into a single feeling of "home" the disparate shards of his mind for a few moments had a unified goal, "return home, return to myself" and well, hestia is a goddess of hearth, home, and family.
The engineer, a creature currently operating on nothing but emotion, could feel these concepts emanating from the small woman, and with a burst of will he took control of his armor for the first time since he arrived in Orario and the armors smooth gate shifted into a barely controlled stumble in Hestia's direction, quickly drawing the woman's attention.
----------------------
Hestia is not just a woman, she is a goddess and she can see into the hearts of all mortals, their wants, dreams, motivations, and intentions all lay bare before her gaze, and even if she did not often use this power a large man in a suit of armor suddenly stopping his sprint to stumble in her direction caused her enough concern that she used a tiny fraction of her godly power, not near enough for any other god to notice but enough for her to feel the barest of the man's intentions and mind.
Hestia's concern about the man's intentions with her rapidly shifted to concern for his health after she had glimpsed at his soul, his mind was nothing but pain and a longing for his home, it felt as if he had been ripped from his family and then had ever agony imaginable inflicted upon him, she wasn't even sure how he was even moving, much less how he had been jogging before. Still with his mind in such shambles it was no wonder he was approaching her, any animal could feel her godly domain and any human in that much agony was certainly reduced to an animal.
With his mind in the state it was he wouldn't have been able to hurt her even if he wanted too, at least if she disregarded how he had been sprinting before, and with how his stumbling was getting worse she doubted he would even make it all the way to her, just as she was about to take a step forward to try and support him his stumbling walk came to an end, as he crashed to the floor with a loud thump.
Rushing the last few feet to the man Hestia tried to help him get up, but he didn't seem to be trying at all, and with his armor on she couldn't even one of his arms, still she was not one to quit, so she spent the next few seconds trying to lift him while continual berating the man for being unhelpful.
It was with a fair bit of surprise that Hestia watched the man smoothly get to his feet from where he had been crumpled on the road, and her worry ratched even higher when he just stared at her unmoving, so once again using her power to per into the man's mind …. It was exactly the same, maybe even a little worse, how was he standing like that? A skill or an ability?
Still she couldn't in good conscience let him walk around town like that, and they were close enough to her house, so it wouldn't be too much trouble to walk him there, and there was always a chance he wasn't in a familia, even if the armor made that unlikely…..
--------------------
The armor was experiencing conflicting orders, it was both instructed to kill anything that threatened harm to the maker, and it was now told by the maker that it was not allowed to harm the odd bug repeatedly tapping the top of its head, the order by the maker superseded an order by a mind yes, but the makers cognitive functions were impared, bringing the makers decision making abilities into question.
So the armor was at an impasse, still the level of force wasn't enough to cause harm, even without the shielding, so the armor had no need to take immediate action, and so the conflicting orders were not yet pertinent.
After what its internal clock registered as an hour the light patting slowed down before stopping entirely, the bug had apparently grown tired over the course of its attack and did not possess the endurance needed to break through the shield, the armor noted this and continued its passive observation of its surroundings, the maker was still indisposed and so emergency mode was still in full effect.
The armor's visual sensors were pointed at the ceiling, and it was not permitted to move while the maker was asleep and not in immediate danger, even in emergency mode, so the armor had to resort to more exotic sensors, the radar was the go to, even if other more specialized sensors were present.
it showed a clear if indistinct picture of the room, a small underground shelter, containing one bed and a few other appliances, of overall poor quality, the buildings structural integrity was not up to standard, and was barely reached the minimal threshold before evacuation and demolition, this caused the temperature in the room to be moderately low, but the armor was more than suited to protecting the maker from the elements.
The same could not be said for the bug, which would normally be within its bed, instead the bug was sitting on the floor, resting its torso across the armor while the armor was resting on the bugs lap, the armor was not actually cold, its metal was above the rooms ambient temperature, but the small insect was still shivering, after a few moments of processing the armor came to a conclusion, it was not allowed to harm the bug, the bug currently posed no threat, so there were no conflicting orders, the bug was being harmed by the cold, the armor could prevent that, by inaction the armor was harming the bug. With a light rushing of air the vents on the armor began to intake cold air while outputting heated air.
Within a few moments the bug stopped shivering and the armor resumed its passive scans, there was no telling when the building's structural integrity would pass the safety threshold, and more hostiles it was actually allowed to engage could show up, so the armor would continue its vigil.
AN -
I am a lying liar who enjoys lies, more accurately I couldn't get this plot bunny out of my head and it wouldn't let me right the main story, the inconsiderate thing.
I do wonder if anyone is actually planning on writing any omakes for this story, though I doubt it'll happen anytime soon if it happens at all.
if I decide to continue this story deities wont just be people, they will be other, as in all have a presence and slight effect on the world, even with the bulk of their powers sealed away, meaning hestia feels like home and family to everyone, and in the engineers case that feels like the minds and his factory, this lessens his pain slightly and makes him protective of her, as he would be of the minds and the factory.
I don't know how I feel about giving the armor so much agency but it does seem in character for the minds to have programed an emergency response pseudo AI into the suit.
if your wondering what makes the suit different from the minds, its this, the minds wouldn't have thought the monsters were bugs and they wouldn't have ignored the engineer when he wanted to stay in the light, the minds are capable of thought and have some minor semblance of emotion, the suit does not, it has pre programed responses and a minor capability to problem solve, and the minds installed kill switches in it, which the engineer didn't install in the minds, make of that what you will.
the armor throughout this whole chapter, "your a bug, thats a bug, everything is a bug, LIGHT IT ALL ON FIRE!"
- Location
- Hell
I would try to write an omake.
But they come out horribly.
Its why i stick to shorts.
Though it is weird that the story with such great possibilities doesnt have any reader made omakes.
Kinda makes people sad to see such things.
But they come out horribly.
Its why i stick to shorts.
Though it is weird that the story with such great possibilities doesnt have any reader made omakes.
Kinda makes people sad to see such things.
- Pronouns
- That/Thing
As long as it's longer than a paragraph is an omake, or at least I'll consider it one. And yeah the possibility for factory is why I wrote the thing, you can shove the engineer into virtually any setting and he'll be fine.
Logs 51-55
- Pronouns
- That/Thing
Log #51
The minds are handling all the new factories and coordinating all the resource shipments, along with building the second layer of the main factory and managing all the defense, at this point any contribution to a singular area I make is overshadowed by the sheer industry or might of the factory, Sure I can build a factory faster than a spider tron can, but I can't build factories faster than ten spider trons, and while my suit is one of the most advanced weapon systems the factory has, I don't really want to go charge bug hordes, and I don't think the minds want me to either.
So my contribution, while significant, is not critical or overwhelming for any particular task, and I needed to find something new to do, so I started thinking of problems the factory is currently facing, besides the obvious one of mutant bug hordes trying to destroy it, and then seeing what I can do about those problems specifically while the minds focus on the broader running of this whole operation.
The main issue I decided to tackle was actually a relatively major one, at least compared to all the other minor problems, and while it was a problem that was currently manageable. It could easily become a more significant problem farther along, to understand this problem I'll need to explain a few things, mainly about what resources the factory actually uses.
There is a bit of a skew in the materials different machines are made up of, and because this specific machine is relevant later I will use it assemblers as my example, the most basic assembler is something I could conceivably make out of mostly stone and clay, with only a little bit of copper to run the moving components and wiring, The next tier that can process liquids and solids would need to be made out of more durable and watertight materials, and the equipment inside of them that actually handles the water would need gold or other "noble" metals, especially if the assembler will be handling more volatile chemicals.
The second tier of assembler also needs to be more variable, as in easier to produce new things or implement new production methods or what materials go into the designs. This added variability is also what allows modules to do their work, they can make the machines do different things, whereas a module on a tier one wouldn't actually have any components that can do more than a single thing. And all of these features mean that a tier two assemble machine needs significantly more advanced materials, but still mundane materials that can be found in large quantities. Sure gold, platinum, rubber and glass are harder to get and make than clay, stone, and copper but it's not a problem.
Then we get to the third tier, or as I refer to it "sufficiently advanced science", any machine in the third tier takes materials that are either vanishingly rare or just hard to produce or purify, it's why my armies and machines aren't all the most advanced versions I can make, just because I know how to make something does not mean I have the supplies or throughput to make a significant amount of things, I don't even have words in my skull for half the materials that go into making a spider tron or a second tier shield generator. Presumably the decoders don't repair non essential information or something.
To actually get a third tier assembler I need to find and refine materials, like the tier 3 assembler needs one hundred percent purity gold, if it was ninety nine the thing would either break or just not run, it requires 5 different types of contaminant free gemstone, so I need to grow artificial crystals and gems, it needs mundane metals treated in exotic chemicals that take days to produce and days longer to treat, on some of the machines or parts I need designs etched onto them at a detail my eye can't see, nevermind that I can still make them by hand, that level of detail still takes awhile to produce.
Tier three is worth it yes, but it is not something that I can mass produce, and everything that is lost or damaged sets us back ages, and the problem with mass producing tier three is that they need rare or hard to process materials, this is the problem I have set out to rectify, and considering I don't even understand why tier three needs those materials in the first place, I'm not going to do that by changing the recipes.
No, the solution I am going for is in why tier 3 things are worth it, and it's not just because they work faster, though that is an improvement. It's in what they can do, a brick of steel made by a tier 1 assembler is weaker than one made by a tier 2, better construction materials having less faults and all that, this is taken even farther by a tier 3, all that advanced equipment does… something to anything it makes, and If I had to guess it would be changing the actual atoms in the construction to put them in a more "sturdy" position.
A tier 1 assembler turns materials soft so they can be easily shaped, a tier 2 assembler does the same thing but it can also turn liquids solid without freezing them and it is better at moving material in more advanced ways, meaning that while a tier 1 will leave structural weak points whenever it moves metal, or even just have an inconsistent density, a tier 2 will have none of those.
A tier 3 can do this on an even smaller scale, meaning it can turn both liquids and solids into different states, and probably gasses though I haven't tested, and then move the individual atoms making up that material, so if I sent a block of gold that was only 88 percent pure through and told it to make pure gold it could get pretty close, if not perfect, after significantly less time than my previous methods. This doesn't help with materials being rare or just taking a long time to produce or make, but it does help making the purer or in some cases less pure materials.
My thought is this, if a tier 3 can move atoms, could a theoretical tier 4 move protons, neutrons and electrons without just detonating the whole building? And if it can will it be cost effective to use that to change mundane materials into more useful ones, or if its limited turn similar materials into other things, like more common metals into rarer metals, the energy cost for the more delicate features in a tier 3 assembler get exponentially less power efficient sure, but enough nuclear reactors and you can do anything.
Honestly, even if this whole thing is a bust, having a better understanding of how the assemblers work, and maybe even figuring out general improvements, if not a whole new tier, could be worth my time.
There are other things that I thought about working on, like getting a better material to make walls out of, or starting the space exploration thing, but well, the minds just shield the walls with 1st tier shield generators and there is already a plan to get into space, it just isn't scheduled to begin for a month or two, so trying to make the assemblers break physics more than they already do is my new thing to do.
The second layer is still under construction, we officially have a runway/landing pad, and a few assemblers making planes and helicopters now, along with all the fuel and munitions they need, still need to get the expanded aerial drone production running but that's just a matter of time.
The rain is still continuing and the water level has gone up another few feet, but that is not really my problem, as it is not something I can solve, so I'm just going to ignore it and hope the problem fixes itself.
Log #52
Construction of new bases has continued at roughly the projected rate, and while bug resistance has once again become a problem, the loses they deal to my expedition forces are not at an unmanageable rate, after every battle I can replace the lost low quality drones by the hundreds and lost tanks by the dozens, if that actually starts happening I will have problems supplying and maintaining everything else sure, but I have the production capacity to do it. Actually the whole thing is more complicated than that, I could theoretically, depending on the tank type, build either more or less of them, but a dozen is for the shield tanks and those are essentially the base model anyway.
I am being hemmed in on essentially all fronts that are not underwater, and any expansion is a viscous and slow slog, but we still consistently win fights and we have yet to lose bad enough the Balistraias command tank is lost, damaged sure, even missing half its legs and most of its ablative armor a few times, but never actually totaled or lost, which is good considering its the only part of that army that would take more than a day to build.
Bulwark has been sending some more concerning reports though, all shielded walls that are under the water are drawing on significantly more power than their dryer companions, and it is not just at my main base, any outposts partially submerged, which is most of them, are showing the same thing, I don't know if its the invisible gel monster, there are still fish swimming near the walls, but whatever it is is causing Bulwark to get antsy, so now any outpost with a sufficiently robust electricity grid has the ability to discharge a quite concerning amount of power into the water, not to often as the accumulators need to recharge, but the shields in the water fail every fish within a few hundred feet of an outpost will either be dead or we can just call it immune to electricity.
Both of my offensive minds are also reporting that the bugs' adaptation and resistance to my weaponry has sped up, not significantly but it is a noticeable increase. My smallest variety of drone has actually become useless as anything but an improvised explosive/ ramming device, and it can still crash into invisible bugs I guess, even if the drones wouldn't be able to kill it. It's not really necessary to take apart the assembly line for the drone, everything used in it is something used in other drones, so I can just have Byzantine route that into the other drones production.
Or I could keep producing them but add slightly thicker armor and have them serve as living shields, maybe even just put a grenade inside and have the armor designed so it fragments from a significant inside pressure while still maintaining heightened durability, I can make a bunch of the things, so making them with the intent to lose them is not a problem like the rest of my equipment, that goes mostly the same for the rest of the drones though, so I'll have to think on it.
The experimentation with the assemblers has begun, and it is starting with figuring out how I build the damn things in the first place, as I may or may not have written before I don't actually understand how I build things, with simpler or smaller things I don't even need to look at what I am doing, I can just be walking around or discussing with the minds, as long as my hands are free I can build, and when I do pay attention all I really see are a bunch of parts just kinda flowing around or into each other with a complete disregard for physics, I'm pretty sure I could put a gear inside an airtight box without opening the box, I generally try not to think about it to much, as it freaks me out, but survival comes with sacrifices and watching my freaky magic with more detail is not that much of a problem.
This does not change the fact that I do not consciously understand what I am doing, sure I know what pieces go where, even if that's more a product of repetition, but I don't know why everything is laid out the way it is, I tried moving around a few of the "array projectors", the things that make solids less solid, and then seeing if the machine would still run. It did, it just didn't turn all of the steel brick into steel clay, only parts of it, and when the assembler tried to cut up the brick like normal the manipulators broke, so I learned that a tier one assembler does not have sensors inside of it to check if anything is wrong, which I suspected, and I learned that the array is like that to cover the entire inside of the production area, which I also suspected.
The next plan is to supercharge the projectors to see what happens, and then try swapping the projectors but not their locations to see if they all work the same/ do the same thing. I build them the same way but at this point I don't actually want to assume anything about anything.
The roof section has encountered no real problems, and Byzantine and Labyrinthine say it should be finished within a week and a half, which means that if the rain stops and visibility goes back up I will gain a significant edge over the bugs, cause more air force, and if the rain does not stop I will gain a minor advantage over the bugs, because more air force.
Log #53
The shields on two of my smaller outposts went down, and the damage the walls took before they went back up caused the walls on one of the outposts to collapse, so that whole thing flooded and a fair bit of the equipment was ruined, I wouldn't say the outpost was lost, it just needs repaired, but the whole thing was still a hit to the resource supply, these outposts didn't have enough power to actually warrant or use a… what would I even all it, a giant discharge defense, so we don't know if electricity will even kill the things, still it's definitely the goo monster, that's exactly what the inside of my oil refinery looked like after it had gotten in.
Fire does seem to work at driving those things off though, or maybe it's just heating the water that does it, so the outposts were both repaired after Bulwark had lit the water on fire and driven off the gel things.
The second layer sections are still on track to be finished, and the basic materials for the drones are being manufactured, if not the final assembly, so pretty soon I will have even more production capacity that needs to be filled with resources! The best problem to have, I think.
The expansion of outposts that gather resources isn't really capable of matching my overall production capacity, and my ability to refine the resources hinders both of them, I have been thinking of making a second "main" base that's roughly the size of this one and just setting it to refine the raw ore more, I already have outposts that do it, it's just not quite keeping up, and building more of those outposts takes resources to build, maintain, and defend them, and making a centralized location, while more devastating to lose, lowers all those costs while also making it easier to supply and manage.
So a few dozen tiny bases or one really large one, it's not like I'd be demolishing the tiny ones though, probably just take a fair bit of the equipment, I don't know, both ideas have merit and the plans the minds gave make them both seem valid, so they are leaving the decision up to me, which is odd because usually they just submit what they want to do and I either say yes or no, they don't tend to give me different options.
The experiments with the assemblers have continued, I tried moving the projectors around, but nothing really happened, the machine still worked fine and I didn't see any changes in the finished product, so presumably the tier 1 assemblers all use the same projectors, don't know if that will go for the other tiers, but it is a new thing that I did not know, so technically, even if nothing interesting happened, it was worth my time.
Now the overloaded projectors were significantly more interesting, those exploded, and in a neat way too. I supplied just a bit more power than they usually get and they just detonated, not even a noise preceding it, just a loud series of pops, and here's the really interesting part, the shards of projector that got scattered everywhere, they splattered when they hit anything, like a liquid.
I have a few theories for why that happened, but the leading one in my head is that the increased power caused the projectors to soften themselves, which meant that they couldn't maintain their forms and they exploded, whether that's because projectors build up a high pressure, or if that's just what happens to softened material when electricity is run through it is something I have yet to determine.
Log #54
This log isn't going to be about the expansion efforts or about my experiments, this one is about Labyrinthine's experiments. A span of time not to long ago I had asked for Labyrinthine to design a sort of metal mesh that could go under my skin, to allow the shielding effect to work on it, I specifically asked them to do it because they already design similar things for the walls, and while this one needs to be made of a thinner wiring, and also capable of moving with my body, Labyrinthine seemed up to the challenge.
A few hours ago Labyrinthine sent me a completed blueprint, and after looking the thing over I gave permission for the thing to be built and sent over to the medical bay, along with a bunch of other things, the second big one is the actual shield generator, which I designed to both not kill me and actually fit in my body.
The third biggest thing, and the last big thing going into this specific batch is the tiny tiny reactor that is going to be powering the shield generator, along with all my other mechanical internal organs, including my future additions. Replacing the fuel in the thing will be a trial and a half, but that's only like twice a decade at the rate my organs use power.
But yeah the underskin chainmail is defentainly the largest thing I have added to my body yet, your skin is the largest organ but you don't really think about that till you have to cover all of it, the thing even follows my optic nerve to cover my eyes, and my eyelids! It's going to be weaved into my ears and quiet literally every part of me that's exposed, and that apparently includes my teeth and the inside of my throat.
Itll cover my body in slight ridges, most of the things are around a hair's thickness, but a few, roughly one per limb wrapped around said limbs in a spiral, are thicker and are basically going to resemble veins, if veins filled with a golden or silver liquid, and yes the whole thing is in fact made of gold and platinum, these apparently conduct whatever energy the shield generators use to shield things, which I presume is similar if not the same as what the assemblers use to do the opposite.
My blood is already a kinda purple color from all the additives though, so adding some silver and gold to the mix is not a real problem, at some point I'm just going to replace my blood, if not entirely, the human immune system is complex enough to gives me a run for my money on constructing defenses and keeping that around will probably be helpful, even if I need to recode the thing to keep it from attacking my new bits and bobs, that's actually easier than you'd think.
So yeah, going into surgery to get my internal shielding and power source, what fun.
Log #55
The surgery was a success, and I weigh more now, I don't know if adding 20 pounds of metal counts as putting on some more weight but at this point I will take what I can get, about the only thing I am still having any issues with is that the wires throughout my skin are kinda tingly, it's not often I notice, usually only after they trigger, like if I bump something. It still happens even if I am in my armor too, still I imagine I'll get used to it.
The broader expansion efforts are continuing, and I decided on what I was going to do with the refinement stations, 2 medium ones, so losing one wont utterly cripple me and running and defending 2 of the things is easier than running a couple dozen, not quite the best of both worlds but I take what I can get.
The bugs have continued to get more resistant to my current armament, specifically fire and electricity, along with smaller caliber kinetics, making kinetics bigger is fairly simple, making fire and electricity more powerful? Well electricity is just a need for more electricity, but hotter fire needs fuel that burns at a higher temp, which is harder to manage.
The decoders do produce new recipes for better propellants but the rate my fire gets hotter is being matched and slightly exceeded by how fast the bugs are getting used to it, I mean it still works on the smaller bugs, less mass to reach critical temp and less room for cooling organs, but on the larger bugs I can basically coat them in fire and they will be fine for a fair while, eventually they overheat sure but it is not a quick thing.
So bugs are taking longer to die and I am therefore losing more and more bots with each engagement, which takes more resource to replace, which takes resources form my decoders, which means that my weapons advancement stops keeping up with bug adaptations, which means that the bugs take longer to die, which means…. I could go on, it's a death spiral on my part, solely centered around a lack of higher end materials.
Apparently I was not created with mass produced high end products in mind, just meant to cover a planet with low end rubbish, well calling anything I make low end is probably an insult, but I can be bitter.
I have been continuing my experiments now that the surgery is over with, which only really took me out for a day, the actual surgery and the observation period after, not that I'm not being observed now mind you. Mainly I have been looking at my own ability to soften objects, or liquify them. I don't have projectors in me, I think, which leads me to believe the projectors are more generators and that they produce an energy and direct it, and that my body can do the same thing 'naturally', I can even seemingly liquify objects and soak them in through my skin or armor, and I have been doing this without thinking for a fair while, it was just instinct. I went through a bunch of medical scans and the minds and I could not find where the objects went, and it wasn;t just small things either, it was whole bricks and steel beams, even a few tiny mechanical contraptions.
They just go into my skin and when I want or need them they flow right back out into my hands, or out of my feet and across the ground, depending on where I want it, the really weird thing is that I already had a bunch of my tools and random materials inside of me, my armor doesn't even have pockets and I just never noticed the tools forming in my hands, or how I had the material to build a whole oil refinery just on me, the thoughts never even entered my head as something strange.
Sometimes I regret noticing things, and this is one of those times. Still now I have another thing to figure out, my own limitations, what all can I store, where does it go, what things can I do with this. Lots of questions, don't know if I want the answers.
I have also noticed another thing, everything I don't understand in this factory has a tendency to explode when I mix it with another thing I do not understand. Mixing the science liquids to make new colors, get an explosion, over charge the projectors? Explosion, put a shielded brick in an assembler to see what happens? Make a guess, great you win, it exploded.
It wasn't a particularly violent explosion, comparable to a few grenades, still caused me to jump quite a few feet into the air though.
I did also manage to supercharge a projector without breaking the thing, and the results showed some fair promise, the trick is to keep all the vital bits farther from the liquify bits, makes the thing bigger sure but when needs must, the single projector I did this to liquefied parts of the brick, not just softened, and also softened a fair bit of the metal behind the brick, which makes me want to stick the thing on a drone, though power costs make that currently infeasible, I could just have a swarm of drones that can tunnel through rock and bug alike.
Maybe if I increase the range I can make it on a tank or something, or mount it on my armor, this has possibilities.
But I don't know what else I can learn from these weaker machines, so later I plan on disassembling a few tier twos and maybe a tier 3.
Things are looking simultaneously up and down, depending on the front. So I guess that makes this situation neutral, which is good for staying alive I suppose.
AN-
a longer main story chapter, If a bit heavy in "science" still I had fun writing the thing which is what really matters.
once again all reviews are appreciated and I would like some suggestions on my writing and just the story in general, what parts do you like? what parts could you do without? what parts do you think you might like if they were written better?
give me some stuff to work with, also just general reviews.
The minds are handling all the new factories and coordinating all the resource shipments, along with building the second layer of the main factory and managing all the defense, at this point any contribution to a singular area I make is overshadowed by the sheer industry or might of the factory, Sure I can build a factory faster than a spider tron can, but I can't build factories faster than ten spider trons, and while my suit is one of the most advanced weapon systems the factory has, I don't really want to go charge bug hordes, and I don't think the minds want me to either.
So my contribution, while significant, is not critical or overwhelming for any particular task, and I needed to find something new to do, so I started thinking of problems the factory is currently facing, besides the obvious one of mutant bug hordes trying to destroy it, and then seeing what I can do about those problems specifically while the minds focus on the broader running of this whole operation.
The main issue I decided to tackle was actually a relatively major one, at least compared to all the other minor problems, and while it was a problem that was currently manageable. It could easily become a more significant problem farther along, to understand this problem I'll need to explain a few things, mainly about what resources the factory actually uses.
There is a bit of a skew in the materials different machines are made up of, and because this specific machine is relevant later I will use it assemblers as my example, the most basic assembler is something I could conceivably make out of mostly stone and clay, with only a little bit of copper to run the moving components and wiring, The next tier that can process liquids and solids would need to be made out of more durable and watertight materials, and the equipment inside of them that actually handles the water would need gold or other "noble" metals, especially if the assembler will be handling more volatile chemicals.
The second tier of assembler also needs to be more variable, as in easier to produce new things or implement new production methods or what materials go into the designs. This added variability is also what allows modules to do their work, they can make the machines do different things, whereas a module on a tier one wouldn't actually have any components that can do more than a single thing. And all of these features mean that a tier two assemble machine needs significantly more advanced materials, but still mundane materials that can be found in large quantities. Sure gold, platinum, rubber and glass are harder to get and make than clay, stone, and copper but it's not a problem.
Then we get to the third tier, or as I refer to it "sufficiently advanced science", any machine in the third tier takes materials that are either vanishingly rare or just hard to produce or purify, it's why my armies and machines aren't all the most advanced versions I can make, just because I know how to make something does not mean I have the supplies or throughput to make a significant amount of things, I don't even have words in my skull for half the materials that go into making a spider tron or a second tier shield generator. Presumably the decoders don't repair non essential information or something.
To actually get a third tier assembler I need to find and refine materials, like the tier 3 assembler needs one hundred percent purity gold, if it was ninety nine the thing would either break or just not run, it requires 5 different types of contaminant free gemstone, so I need to grow artificial crystals and gems, it needs mundane metals treated in exotic chemicals that take days to produce and days longer to treat, on some of the machines or parts I need designs etched onto them at a detail my eye can't see, nevermind that I can still make them by hand, that level of detail still takes awhile to produce.
Tier three is worth it yes, but it is not something that I can mass produce, and everything that is lost or damaged sets us back ages, and the problem with mass producing tier three is that they need rare or hard to process materials, this is the problem I have set out to rectify, and considering I don't even understand why tier three needs those materials in the first place, I'm not going to do that by changing the recipes.
No, the solution I am going for is in why tier 3 things are worth it, and it's not just because they work faster, though that is an improvement. It's in what they can do, a brick of steel made by a tier 1 assembler is weaker than one made by a tier 2, better construction materials having less faults and all that, this is taken even farther by a tier 3, all that advanced equipment does… something to anything it makes, and If I had to guess it would be changing the actual atoms in the construction to put them in a more "sturdy" position.
A tier 1 assembler turns materials soft so they can be easily shaped, a tier 2 assembler does the same thing but it can also turn liquids solid without freezing them and it is better at moving material in more advanced ways, meaning that while a tier 1 will leave structural weak points whenever it moves metal, or even just have an inconsistent density, a tier 2 will have none of those.
A tier 3 can do this on an even smaller scale, meaning it can turn both liquids and solids into different states, and probably gasses though I haven't tested, and then move the individual atoms making up that material, so if I sent a block of gold that was only 88 percent pure through and told it to make pure gold it could get pretty close, if not perfect, after significantly less time than my previous methods. This doesn't help with materials being rare or just taking a long time to produce or make, but it does help making the purer or in some cases less pure materials.
My thought is this, if a tier 3 can move atoms, could a theoretical tier 4 move protons, neutrons and electrons without just detonating the whole building? And if it can will it be cost effective to use that to change mundane materials into more useful ones, or if its limited turn similar materials into other things, like more common metals into rarer metals, the energy cost for the more delicate features in a tier 3 assembler get exponentially less power efficient sure, but enough nuclear reactors and you can do anything.
Honestly, even if this whole thing is a bust, having a better understanding of how the assemblers work, and maybe even figuring out general improvements, if not a whole new tier, could be worth my time.
There are other things that I thought about working on, like getting a better material to make walls out of, or starting the space exploration thing, but well, the minds just shield the walls with 1st tier shield generators and there is already a plan to get into space, it just isn't scheduled to begin for a month or two, so trying to make the assemblers break physics more than they already do is my new thing to do.
The second layer is still under construction, we officially have a runway/landing pad, and a few assemblers making planes and helicopters now, along with all the fuel and munitions they need, still need to get the expanded aerial drone production running but that's just a matter of time.
The rain is still continuing and the water level has gone up another few feet, but that is not really my problem, as it is not something I can solve, so I'm just going to ignore it and hope the problem fixes itself.
Log #52
Construction of new bases has continued at roughly the projected rate, and while bug resistance has once again become a problem, the loses they deal to my expedition forces are not at an unmanageable rate, after every battle I can replace the lost low quality drones by the hundreds and lost tanks by the dozens, if that actually starts happening I will have problems supplying and maintaining everything else sure, but I have the production capacity to do it. Actually the whole thing is more complicated than that, I could theoretically, depending on the tank type, build either more or less of them, but a dozen is for the shield tanks and those are essentially the base model anyway.
I am being hemmed in on essentially all fronts that are not underwater, and any expansion is a viscous and slow slog, but we still consistently win fights and we have yet to lose bad enough the Balistraias command tank is lost, damaged sure, even missing half its legs and most of its ablative armor a few times, but never actually totaled or lost, which is good considering its the only part of that army that would take more than a day to build.
Bulwark has been sending some more concerning reports though, all shielded walls that are under the water are drawing on significantly more power than their dryer companions, and it is not just at my main base, any outposts partially submerged, which is most of them, are showing the same thing, I don't know if its the invisible gel monster, there are still fish swimming near the walls, but whatever it is is causing Bulwark to get antsy, so now any outpost with a sufficiently robust electricity grid has the ability to discharge a quite concerning amount of power into the water, not to often as the accumulators need to recharge, but the shields in the water fail every fish within a few hundred feet of an outpost will either be dead or we can just call it immune to electricity.
Both of my offensive minds are also reporting that the bugs' adaptation and resistance to my weaponry has sped up, not significantly but it is a noticeable increase. My smallest variety of drone has actually become useless as anything but an improvised explosive/ ramming device, and it can still crash into invisible bugs I guess, even if the drones wouldn't be able to kill it. It's not really necessary to take apart the assembly line for the drone, everything used in it is something used in other drones, so I can just have Byzantine route that into the other drones production.
Or I could keep producing them but add slightly thicker armor and have them serve as living shields, maybe even just put a grenade inside and have the armor designed so it fragments from a significant inside pressure while still maintaining heightened durability, I can make a bunch of the things, so making them with the intent to lose them is not a problem like the rest of my equipment, that goes mostly the same for the rest of the drones though, so I'll have to think on it.
The experimentation with the assemblers has begun, and it is starting with figuring out how I build the damn things in the first place, as I may or may not have written before I don't actually understand how I build things, with simpler or smaller things I don't even need to look at what I am doing, I can just be walking around or discussing with the minds, as long as my hands are free I can build, and when I do pay attention all I really see are a bunch of parts just kinda flowing around or into each other with a complete disregard for physics, I'm pretty sure I could put a gear inside an airtight box without opening the box, I generally try not to think about it to much, as it freaks me out, but survival comes with sacrifices and watching my freaky magic with more detail is not that much of a problem.
This does not change the fact that I do not consciously understand what I am doing, sure I know what pieces go where, even if that's more a product of repetition, but I don't know why everything is laid out the way it is, I tried moving around a few of the "array projectors", the things that make solids less solid, and then seeing if the machine would still run. It did, it just didn't turn all of the steel brick into steel clay, only parts of it, and when the assembler tried to cut up the brick like normal the manipulators broke, so I learned that a tier one assembler does not have sensors inside of it to check if anything is wrong, which I suspected, and I learned that the array is like that to cover the entire inside of the production area, which I also suspected.
The next plan is to supercharge the projectors to see what happens, and then try swapping the projectors but not their locations to see if they all work the same/ do the same thing. I build them the same way but at this point I don't actually want to assume anything about anything.
The roof section has encountered no real problems, and Byzantine and Labyrinthine say it should be finished within a week and a half, which means that if the rain stops and visibility goes back up I will gain a significant edge over the bugs, cause more air force, and if the rain does not stop I will gain a minor advantage over the bugs, because more air force.
Log #53
The shields on two of my smaller outposts went down, and the damage the walls took before they went back up caused the walls on one of the outposts to collapse, so that whole thing flooded and a fair bit of the equipment was ruined, I wouldn't say the outpost was lost, it just needs repaired, but the whole thing was still a hit to the resource supply, these outposts didn't have enough power to actually warrant or use a… what would I even all it, a giant discharge defense, so we don't know if electricity will even kill the things, still it's definitely the goo monster, that's exactly what the inside of my oil refinery looked like after it had gotten in.
Fire does seem to work at driving those things off though, or maybe it's just heating the water that does it, so the outposts were both repaired after Bulwark had lit the water on fire and driven off the gel things.
The second layer sections are still on track to be finished, and the basic materials for the drones are being manufactured, if not the final assembly, so pretty soon I will have even more production capacity that needs to be filled with resources! The best problem to have, I think.
The expansion of outposts that gather resources isn't really capable of matching my overall production capacity, and my ability to refine the resources hinders both of them, I have been thinking of making a second "main" base that's roughly the size of this one and just setting it to refine the raw ore more, I already have outposts that do it, it's just not quite keeping up, and building more of those outposts takes resources to build, maintain, and defend them, and making a centralized location, while more devastating to lose, lowers all those costs while also making it easier to supply and manage.
So a few dozen tiny bases or one really large one, it's not like I'd be demolishing the tiny ones though, probably just take a fair bit of the equipment, I don't know, both ideas have merit and the plans the minds gave make them both seem valid, so they are leaving the decision up to me, which is odd because usually they just submit what they want to do and I either say yes or no, they don't tend to give me different options.
The experiments with the assemblers have continued, I tried moving the projectors around, but nothing really happened, the machine still worked fine and I didn't see any changes in the finished product, so presumably the tier 1 assemblers all use the same projectors, don't know if that will go for the other tiers, but it is a new thing that I did not know, so technically, even if nothing interesting happened, it was worth my time.
Now the overloaded projectors were significantly more interesting, those exploded, and in a neat way too. I supplied just a bit more power than they usually get and they just detonated, not even a noise preceding it, just a loud series of pops, and here's the really interesting part, the shards of projector that got scattered everywhere, they splattered when they hit anything, like a liquid.
I have a few theories for why that happened, but the leading one in my head is that the increased power caused the projectors to soften themselves, which meant that they couldn't maintain their forms and they exploded, whether that's because projectors build up a high pressure, or if that's just what happens to softened material when electricity is run through it is something I have yet to determine.
Log #54
This log isn't going to be about the expansion efforts or about my experiments, this one is about Labyrinthine's experiments. A span of time not to long ago I had asked for Labyrinthine to design a sort of metal mesh that could go under my skin, to allow the shielding effect to work on it, I specifically asked them to do it because they already design similar things for the walls, and while this one needs to be made of a thinner wiring, and also capable of moving with my body, Labyrinthine seemed up to the challenge.
A few hours ago Labyrinthine sent me a completed blueprint, and after looking the thing over I gave permission for the thing to be built and sent over to the medical bay, along with a bunch of other things, the second big one is the actual shield generator, which I designed to both not kill me and actually fit in my body.
The third biggest thing, and the last big thing going into this specific batch is the tiny tiny reactor that is going to be powering the shield generator, along with all my other mechanical internal organs, including my future additions. Replacing the fuel in the thing will be a trial and a half, but that's only like twice a decade at the rate my organs use power.
But yeah the underskin chainmail is defentainly the largest thing I have added to my body yet, your skin is the largest organ but you don't really think about that till you have to cover all of it, the thing even follows my optic nerve to cover my eyes, and my eyelids! It's going to be weaved into my ears and quiet literally every part of me that's exposed, and that apparently includes my teeth and the inside of my throat.
Itll cover my body in slight ridges, most of the things are around a hair's thickness, but a few, roughly one per limb wrapped around said limbs in a spiral, are thicker and are basically going to resemble veins, if veins filled with a golden or silver liquid, and yes the whole thing is in fact made of gold and platinum, these apparently conduct whatever energy the shield generators use to shield things, which I presume is similar if not the same as what the assemblers use to do the opposite.
My blood is already a kinda purple color from all the additives though, so adding some silver and gold to the mix is not a real problem, at some point I'm just going to replace my blood, if not entirely, the human immune system is complex enough to gives me a run for my money on constructing defenses and keeping that around will probably be helpful, even if I need to recode the thing to keep it from attacking my new bits and bobs, that's actually easier than you'd think.
So yeah, going into surgery to get my internal shielding and power source, what fun.
Log #55
The surgery was a success, and I weigh more now, I don't know if adding 20 pounds of metal counts as putting on some more weight but at this point I will take what I can get, about the only thing I am still having any issues with is that the wires throughout my skin are kinda tingly, it's not often I notice, usually only after they trigger, like if I bump something. It still happens even if I am in my armor too, still I imagine I'll get used to it.
The broader expansion efforts are continuing, and I decided on what I was going to do with the refinement stations, 2 medium ones, so losing one wont utterly cripple me and running and defending 2 of the things is easier than running a couple dozen, not quite the best of both worlds but I take what I can get.
The bugs have continued to get more resistant to my current armament, specifically fire and electricity, along with smaller caliber kinetics, making kinetics bigger is fairly simple, making fire and electricity more powerful? Well electricity is just a need for more electricity, but hotter fire needs fuel that burns at a higher temp, which is harder to manage.
The decoders do produce new recipes for better propellants but the rate my fire gets hotter is being matched and slightly exceeded by how fast the bugs are getting used to it, I mean it still works on the smaller bugs, less mass to reach critical temp and less room for cooling organs, but on the larger bugs I can basically coat them in fire and they will be fine for a fair while, eventually they overheat sure but it is not a quick thing.
So bugs are taking longer to die and I am therefore losing more and more bots with each engagement, which takes more resource to replace, which takes resources form my decoders, which means that my weapons advancement stops keeping up with bug adaptations, which means that the bugs take longer to die, which means…. I could go on, it's a death spiral on my part, solely centered around a lack of higher end materials.
Apparently I was not created with mass produced high end products in mind, just meant to cover a planet with low end rubbish, well calling anything I make low end is probably an insult, but I can be bitter.
I have been continuing my experiments now that the surgery is over with, which only really took me out for a day, the actual surgery and the observation period after, not that I'm not being observed now mind you. Mainly I have been looking at my own ability to soften objects, or liquify them. I don't have projectors in me, I think, which leads me to believe the projectors are more generators and that they produce an energy and direct it, and that my body can do the same thing 'naturally', I can even seemingly liquify objects and soak them in through my skin or armor, and I have been doing this without thinking for a fair while, it was just instinct. I went through a bunch of medical scans and the minds and I could not find where the objects went, and it wasn;t just small things either, it was whole bricks and steel beams, even a few tiny mechanical contraptions.
They just go into my skin and when I want or need them they flow right back out into my hands, or out of my feet and across the ground, depending on where I want it, the really weird thing is that I already had a bunch of my tools and random materials inside of me, my armor doesn't even have pockets and I just never noticed the tools forming in my hands, or how I had the material to build a whole oil refinery just on me, the thoughts never even entered my head as something strange.
Sometimes I regret noticing things, and this is one of those times. Still now I have another thing to figure out, my own limitations, what all can I store, where does it go, what things can I do with this. Lots of questions, don't know if I want the answers.
I have also noticed another thing, everything I don't understand in this factory has a tendency to explode when I mix it with another thing I do not understand. Mixing the science liquids to make new colors, get an explosion, over charge the projectors? Explosion, put a shielded brick in an assembler to see what happens? Make a guess, great you win, it exploded.
It wasn't a particularly violent explosion, comparable to a few grenades, still caused me to jump quite a few feet into the air though.
I did also manage to supercharge a projector without breaking the thing, and the results showed some fair promise, the trick is to keep all the vital bits farther from the liquify bits, makes the thing bigger sure but when needs must, the single projector I did this to liquefied parts of the brick, not just softened, and also softened a fair bit of the metal behind the brick, which makes me want to stick the thing on a drone, though power costs make that currently infeasible, I could just have a swarm of drones that can tunnel through rock and bug alike.
Maybe if I increase the range I can make it on a tank or something, or mount it on my armor, this has possibilities.
But I don't know what else I can learn from these weaker machines, so later I plan on disassembling a few tier twos and maybe a tier 3.
Things are looking simultaneously up and down, depending on the front. So I guess that makes this situation neutral, which is good for staying alive I suppose.
AN-
a longer main story chapter, If a bit heavy in "science" still I had fun writing the thing which is what really matters.
once again all reviews are appreciated and I would like some suggestions on my writing and just the story in general, what parts do you like? what parts could you do without? what parts do you think you might like if they were written better?
give me some stuff to work with, also just general reviews.
Personally I can't write for shit, I'll enjoy anyone else's writing but anything I write turns into a mess.
also, keep doing what your doing, it's fine for me, sorry thats not helpful but meh.
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- Pronouns
- That/Thing
My main confusion is that some chapters get more likes and reviews than others and I have no idea why, it causes confusion
Eh, personally I don't like to comment on every single thing someone does, it feels weird to me.
- Location
- Europe
How about those heavy walker spider tanks, their legs?
Crushing steps.
Add Scorpion tail and Crab claws to it, for extra fun.
Also, a ship or submarine, might become possible, like this.
Now, he has fission reactors, what about looking into fusion reactors?
The Iron Man Arc-reactor, is I believe, a fusion between several fusion reactor designs, like the normal, the laser, lightning-arc and so on, fusion reactors.
It combines plasma, fusion, electrical arc, laser/neon tubes and way more, one thing doing several tasks at the same time, like a eco-home.
Magnetic containment, electrical engine, power transfer, powering the neon-laser tubes, ect, ect.
Is there still a in-tact enough engine room on his crashed starship?
How about electronics?
Is it's computer still good?
Are we going to see Horizon style war-machines?
Could be a nice way of holding territory, in dept.
O boy, a Bug/Fish that can fuse with a machine, in order to take it over.
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- Location
- Israel
Ooh, Horizon Zero Dawn style machines are exactly what's needed against the bugs, because they basically ARE the bugs but as a mechanical form! Not the animals, but the creepy things that hunt all humans and use biomass as fuel (somehow).
Neko-tama
[Verified Cat] [Verified Writer]
- Pronouns
- She/Her
What about a contained singularity, and/or anti-matter reactor?
- Location
- Europe
Ever played Mass Effect Two?
it's basically a heavier version of that armor weave mod you can buy for your body, as if Cerberus wouldn't have done this, while reviving Shepard.
answered questions #19
- Pronouns
- That/Thing
That kinda implies the weave itself makes the engineer more durable, which isn't wrong now that I think about it, platinum and gold are probably tougher than meat and skin, but that's not the main thing they do, it's more of a conduit weave.
If your invading Nauvis that's the final boss
The stuff for that's mainly in space, or needs extensive equipment to make, so I'd call that like tier 4 or 5 depending on my mood
The science packs are expensive, and only explode about as much as a grenade or 2, not a bad idea as a last resort sure, but as a standard weapon it's inefficient, conventional explosives would be cheaper, though with late game science…..
I have an odd feeling you just want robot animals, which I can whole heartedly agree with, almost every good robot we have is based on an animal, and they are adorable
(that's why the courier bots are a thing) and robot dinosaurs will never not be cool.
Almost everything is broken, about the only machine partial intact is the ships black box, which is what the engineer was using to get data, the rest of it is just parts that are less slagged, and the engine and reactor are lost causes.
The engineer basically has a worse version of that already, a tiny reactor, which is less adavanced and produces less power, I'm trying to avoid ripping off that blatantly though.
I am kinda thinking of scrapping the individual crossovers and doing a multi cross, or just pausing the individual crosses and doing a multicross for a bit, still don't know.
Also the warhammer thing has kinda hit a dead end for me, so it may or may not be continuing based on if I get more ideas for it
Neko-tama
[Verified Cat] [Verified Writer]
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Like the raw materials are found in space? Cause they aren't. Anti-matter is... well, it's not really there. It forms occasionally in high energy conditions, but it generally annihilates right away, and a contained singularity needs to be maintained in order to keep existing.
At the risk of telling you things you already know, let me get into a bit more detail. Anti-matter can be produced in small quantities in particle accelerators, but it comes with the downside of always being balanced by the same amount of matter being also produced, so with current tech, and theoretical physics, you can't just make some anti-matter, annihilate it with some matter you got lying around, and use the energy to make more antimatter, and keep the loop going for incomprehensibly immense energy gain, however seeing how we exist, and all our matter didn't immediately annihilate when it started forming in the early universe, it stands to reason that there must be some way to make more matter, than anti-matter, and vice versa, so this could plausibly be exploited.
The contained singularity likewise converts matter to energy, but it would be harder to pull off. Black holes evaporate into EM radiation. The smaller they are, the faster they evaporate. If you create a tiny black hole, say by focusing lasers so intensely on a point that the energy contained in that point becomes so dense, that it collapses into a tiny black hole (this is called a kugelblitz), then you can feed it matter, which it will turn into radiation as it evaporates. A black hole small enough to be manageable at all would evaporate fairly quickly, so there is no chance you'll find one of that scale floating around in space.
answered questions #20
- Pronouns
- That/Thing
That's more a mix of, he'd have equipment that can do that at fairly late space age for him, and that the ideas to make it would come from observing examples in space.
The engineer has only a vague knowledge of things, and most of it isn't conscious knowledge, so for the idea to enter his head he needs to see an example.
And space just means free metal you don't have to fight for, which would allow him to build the sizable machines he'd need.
I knew some of that, though it has been awhile and the reminder is nice
danmachi chap - 2
- Pronouns
- That/Thing
Log #65
I have had an awful few days and what exactly happened is complicated and I;m not even sure I actually know what happened at all, so some apologies if my explanations are lacking, let's start with the catalyst of this whole thing.
The first thing that went wrong was the appearance of a new type of bug, at first it was a bug that would disappear before a weapon could hit it before reappearing near where it had vanished, it couldn't teleport often and faster weapons like lasers could still kill it, same with things like landmines and surprise attacks. Then it kept getting stronger, teleporting at greater distances and at faster rates, it wasn't a red alert or anything, the giant bugs were a greater threat and these guys were not common, so the minds and I probably didn't give them the worry we should have.
I mean it's not entirely our fault, there have been some bug variants that defy all sense, one was even utterly impervious to anything we could dish, not that we had tried nukes or any of the other high yield weapons on it, and the invulnerable bug died before it could reach the base because its cells couldn't absorb oxygen, a rare short range teleporting bug was noteworthy but not panic worthy. I just had the hive that produced them added to Balistraias extermination list at a medium priority.
I even dissected a few and figured out how to emulate the teleportation, if not how it worked in the first place, by implanting an artificial version of the bugs teleportation organ into a few drones, I even had plans to add it to myself after some more through testing and refinement, I had figured out the things restrictions and the teleportations weaknesses and devised a few counter measures just in case.
Then once I had put the teleporting bugs out of my mind one of the bugs teleported into the outer layer and grabbed me, ignoring its previous range and sight restrictions, along with its inability to teleport through solid matter. Without the slightest pause the bug was lit up by both my armor and dozens of drones and turrets, shredding the thing within milliseconds, but not before its broken body managed to teleport again.
I don't know if it was the wide variety of exotic energies and materials that were unloaded into the bug, or if it was the stress placed on the organ from teleporting so far, or even if it was the things intention to do it in the first place, it could even even be a combination of all three, but regardless of the how and the why the bug teleported with me and flung me far far away.
The suits chronometer says I was between spaces for 13 days before it spat me out in some random cave system, I guess that 13 days spent in a space between spaces left my mind and body in rough shape as I only have a vague memory of mind numbing pain, instead of remembering what exactly happened myself I have the suits logs of the events.
The first notable thing I saw in the recordings were the energy readings throughout the caves, the walls pulsed with an unknown form of energy, and the energy seemed to be scanning the armor, it didn't actually get through anything but the outermost layer but it does imply either an intelligence or automated system within the caves. This energy also limited some of the scans my suit had available, and blocked signals.
Now my suit is essentially the most advanced drone I can produce, even more advanced than the spider tron, (the command tank is more of a mech than a drone it would not work without Balistraria to run it) so it figured out pretty quickly that the cave system was blocking its transmission, and with its little machine mind decided the best way to solve that problem was to leave the caves. This was a good decision and even one I can agree with, no the issue with the armor not having true intelligence became apparent later, you see the minds programed the armor with a series of parameters and actions to take if those parameters were met, this situation was entirely unpredictable though, and no specific actions were present for the armor to take.
Instead the armor took a few parameters and tried to do all of them at once, which is okay as none of them were mutually exclusive, the first parameter met was my own incapacitation with an active threat trying to kill me, which led the armors programing to assuming direct control of the armor and incinerating the threat. This first parameter is what allowed the others to be followed in the first place, the second one met was being trapped in unknown and hostile territory, which caused the programing the attempt contact with the minds with long range comms, when this failed it triggered a third parameter, trapped in hostile territory with jamming preventing assistance and reinforcement, which led the programing to adopt more active measures, increasing its attempts to hide and beginning attempts to escape the jamming without being spotted.
This was all within the first 10 seconds of my arrival mind you, and so far no true mistakes, sure it didn't notice that it wasn't a bug chewing on me, but it was programed with only 2 foes in mind, bugs on land and fish in water, I was on land so it must be a bug.
Honestly I only have nitpicks with the armors automatic performance, or ways it could have gone wrong, for an untested system in an entirely new situation it preformed astonishingly well, it's just that things could have gone so much worse if things went just a little bit differently, so a few changes will need to be made.
With the armor having activated parameters that prioritized stealth and escape over anything else it soon began making its way out of the caves, avoiding large concentrations of "biters" and taking the quickest route up and out of the cave that it could.
Shortly after the armor began its journey upwards the energy scanning me got even more intense, still my armor is shielded to protect me from near point blank blasts of radiation, and from fairly high yield nukes at that, so the strange energy didn't succeed in getting any deeper, this part is just conjecture, with the failure of its more passive scans and the suits avoidance of any of its other forces the cave decided to teleport in, or maybe just produce, a few beasts to fight my armor, presumably to test my capabilities.
What I do know for certain is that those creatures were decidedly not friendly, the creatures looked like a modified variant of an earth rabbit, and were seemingly composed of something that was not quite matter, granting them greater speed and durability than should have been possible.
This is one of my first nitpicks, the creatures appeared with a burst of energy similar if not identical to the energy the bug used to teleport me, they were made of an unknown material, and I had no records or information about them. If I had been conscious I would have captured a few specimens to study, instead the armor just disintegrated them.
The few rabbits the armor destroyed did require it to use weaponry though, and the intelligence within the walls certainly took note of them, this success is presumably what caused the next creature to appear, actually for all I know that was standard behavior and had nothing to do with my immunity to its scans, this new beast was some bipedal bull, and it did not even have a few seconds to do anything before the armor had reduced it to ash.
By this point the armor had caused quite a ruckus, and had drawn a bit of attention to us, as a few people (yes actual humans) were following us. The armor had noticed the people, but with its limited intelligence assumed they were bugs, the only reason it did not attack was the fact they were moving at a slower pace than it, it assumed that was their max speed and so disregarded them as it knew it could outrun them.
I should probably go into more detail on the humans, they were a mix of standard human and a few with modifications, though all visible were biological ones, they moved at a pace more than keeping up with the armors own, which even slowed by the lack of my piloting and the difficult and unknown terrain was still well in excess of what an augmented human could reach. The only exterior modifications any of them had were animal features or modifications to size and ear shape. The additional animal features seemed functional so I can't judge….. much.
They had no examples of advanced technology on them, save the augmentations, and with the biological nature of their known modifications those could be inherited, there were examples of metallurgy in the armor but said armor was seemingly made of more unknown materials.
Weirdest thing though, only one of them was actually 'adequately' armored, the rest either wore armor that covered little of their vitales or they were wearing cloth, though the cloth was made of a sturdy material, which could be considered armor if one stretched the definition, still only one of them were a helmet! One! At least one of the unmodified girls was walking around with only 2 small pieces of cloth covering her!
I know I have enough subdermal armor to pull that off but based on the smooth and unblemished nature of her skin there can't be any significant armor under her skin, or at least not any armor I know of.
These people were following me for at least part of my journey, staying around a hundred feet behind the armor and killing any of the creatures that they encountered with enough ease that they had to have some significant augmentation, one of the pointy eared ones even possessed an ability to manipulate some of the energy in the air and within her body to cause effects, which is something I did not expect to see and almost caused the armor to engage, it was only the fact that my escape had a higher priority than fighting dangerous variants of bugs that stopped it.
They left my radar range after a fair while, so they presumably stopped following me at some point, though they could have entirely tracked me through the whole cave system and to the basement I am now in.
Aside from the humans with a disturbingly high strength to weight ratio there were a few other things of note, first, the creatures were weaker the closer I got to the exit from the cave, and the cave showed signs of frequent human habitation, with bits of refuse, trash, armor and weaponry scattered throughout, and even some torches in the higher parts, though the torches are seemingly fueled by the energy in the walls, probably bait now that I think of it.
The second thing of note is once again about the creatures, it seems there are crystallized concentrations of energy within them, constantly being fed and powered by the energy from the walls, presumably how they are powered and animated, and presumably from that presumption they may be a weak point.
That's about it for the cave system, I don't really have any confirmed theories, nor do I know why people venture into the caves in the first place, but I imagine I'll find out something eventually.
Outside the dungeon is a fairly large metropolis, and even though the passive scans did not make a very detailed map of the city during my "jog" they still gave me a decent idea of the size and structure of the city, which is primarily composed of "rustic" buildings, wood and stone being the primary building materials, with cobbled roads in more traveled areas while a few areas are just packed dirt.
It is cleaner than one would expect from a city of this size and development, but everywhere with less traffic shows signs of decay and dirt just under the outer glamor, meaning there are still slums and run down parts of the town, I'm actually in one of the run down buildings now, even if its not derelict, yet.
That's about all I learned from the city, not much considering the suit was considerably more concerned with tracking living creatures and plotting a route out of the city than staying to investigate it, at least with the hostile creatures and non hostile humans it scanned them to determine weak points, with the buildings it just noted that they existed and were not in its way.
Now we get to my… I want to call her my rescuer but that Implies I was in immediate danger, host would probably be a better term. She, if I can even call her that, is not a human, even if she was at some point a human she cannot be considered one any longer. Her body absolutely thrums with power, and it's not just something my sensors can detect, no I could feel her power even in my broken state as a pulse of home and hearth, a soothing flame that made everything better.
She genuinely contains power comparable to multiple nuclear reactors, I think, the sensors can't seem to decided and the feeling she gives off remains largely constant no matter what fluctuations the sensors detect, and I have instituted constant neural scans to insure no lasting changes, though with the damage my mind has already taken none of the changes that could happen can be directly pinned on her anyway.
Once I had felt her power my mind and body both reached out to her in some desperate attempt to ease the pain, and with the lessened pain my mind managed to put together enough of an order for the armor to stay near the woman and to not harm her, before I once again fell into the haze of pain and lost lucidity. Still the armor managed to follow her to her home, being guided by her, I don't want to know what would have happened if she had tried to run or fight me because the armor tried to follow her, another flaw in the suits program but not one I can think of a way to solve.
She lead me to a ramshackle church, the church part makes sense as I could imagine people worshiping her as a god, the ramshackle part makes less sense, investigating why she is in such a decrepit building is definitely on the to do list, once she lead the armor inside she took us into a deeper portion of the church, into what was presumably her bedroom based on the cosmetics and evidence of the bed having been used and not made after. She then looked at the bed and looked at me before dragging the armor over to the wall and sitting down, leading the armor to following her to the ground.
After a fair bit of finagling she managed to get my head resting on her lap, why she dragged a fully armored person she did not know into her bedroom just to give them a lap pillow remains a mystery, but I am just going to assume she felt that if I was actually a threat she could incinerate me or something.
She just sat there rubbing my head through the armor for 62 minutes before she seemingly fell asleep laying across my armors torso, where she shortly began to shiver, how a being with that much energy became cold from a 60 degree room is beyond me but the armor took allowing harm to come to the woman as harming the woman and activated its exhaust ports to purge heat into the room, not something I would do unless actively on fire or submerged in lava, and raised the rooms ambient temperature until the woman stopped shivering, at which point she wrapped her arms around me and pulled herself even closer.
As the armor was not wasting power running constant brain scans I don't actually know if this is the case, but based on the fact that even now being near the woman hastens my bodies and brains recovery, I assume that her glompling my armor for a few hours is what allowed me to finally return to some semblance of consciousness, at which point I saw a woman hugging my torso while snoring, my current location, and hundreds of alerts and alarms from my armor, along with a deep gaping emptiness where the rest of the factory should be.
I have been outside the factory's comms range on numerous occasions, at least in the earlier days before the constant bug attacks, so I know what merely being far away feels like, this was not that, if before it felt like the factory was just out of site, something I could see if I just focused hard enough, now it felt like I was standing in a crater where the factory used to be, it was just gone and nothing was left but pain. It was and is indescribable but if I had to try I would say it is like having the majority of your brain removed and having all of your limbs and muscles removed, while simultaneously every nerve you still have and every one you used to have scream at you as loud as they can, filling what remains of your head with waves of agony.
It was not like I could do anything with that much pain, I could just finally remember that I used to be a person and that there was more than the agony, which allowed me to look out into the world and see. This stimulus of something that was not pain allowed more and more of my mind to pull itself from the pain and eventually I gained enough of myself back to form a plan.
That plan was essentially "figure out what happened and where I am then move and figure out how to stop this pain" it was admittedly not a very through plan but it did give me cause to go through the records of my suit and to put together a few theories, and with more distractions came more and more awareness as each piece of me began planning and working together.
It was after another few hours of review and planning that I gently pried the woman's arms off of me, before I picked her up and set her on the bed. She was my only contact and had already shown herself to be at least outwardly kind, and I would need a guide of some sort for this world.
Then I began to clean up and reinforce the building, the thing looked ready to fall over with the slightest bit of damage and there was rot in half the wooden walls, I thankfully still had wood on me, which is interesting considering I haven't personally chopped down any trees for months, but considering I just don't clear my cache it makes some measure of sense. So with the help of a fair few drones and taking from my own personal stockpile, along with the broken wooden furniture in some of the rooms, I began to renovate the building.
The outer facade of the building, and a fair few of the walls were stone, which I had in even more abundant than wood and it was significantly tougher and less flammable, if still brittle, so I spent a fair bit of time renovating the outside myself, the drones handled the interior as I did not want them to become common knowledge or for anyone to see them at all really.
The bedroom the woman slept in was already in a hidden bunker of sorts, so not much needed to be done on that front, It was just a matter of quietly reinforcing the whole thing with some fairly durable metals while she slept, then putting the stone facade back with another hidden door, this one would eventually lead to a bunker under the bunker, the bunkers bunker if you would.
There were two reasons I was renovating this building, well two main reasons, the first is I needed something to distract myself and mind numbing building was a ready option, the other was I had some vague plans to stay here if the woman would let me, and even if she didn't leaving a building in that state left my entire body feeling itchy, which while not as bad as pain was still not pleasant, especially considering the pain did not cease with the itching, they just stacked.
The glass was the only significant hurdle, I had some clear metal I could have used for it, and I even had a few sheets of durable crystal that would have worked, but I didn't just have generic glass and I did not want to spend my more valuable resources on something that was really just a structural weakness, so I just bricked in the windows.
The building still doesn't have power or climate control, I don't want to add any obvious signs of my tech, and I definitely didn't want any tech that could have been left behind if I had to leave, and something inside a building definitely counts as something I could have to leave behind.
AN-
this is quite literally just a different pov of the last danmachi chapter with some added information, but I have been suffering the block of writing and this was the first thing I tried to write that actually came as more than 3 paragraphs and I needed to write this at some point anyway, I was gonna write 5 logs but I was already at 3500k words and once I ran out of material I had already covered my pace once again began to slow.
next chapters will be whatever I can manage to write over 1000 words on, and will probably be danmachi or rwby, still thinking of making danmachi the start of a multicross.
there are probably errors in here as I didn't bother to reread it, if you see anything I messed up or just want to give some advice a review would be appreciated, they are my life blood.
I have had an awful few days and what exactly happened is complicated and I;m not even sure I actually know what happened at all, so some apologies if my explanations are lacking, let's start with the catalyst of this whole thing.
The first thing that went wrong was the appearance of a new type of bug, at first it was a bug that would disappear before a weapon could hit it before reappearing near where it had vanished, it couldn't teleport often and faster weapons like lasers could still kill it, same with things like landmines and surprise attacks. Then it kept getting stronger, teleporting at greater distances and at faster rates, it wasn't a red alert or anything, the giant bugs were a greater threat and these guys were not common, so the minds and I probably didn't give them the worry we should have.
I mean it's not entirely our fault, there have been some bug variants that defy all sense, one was even utterly impervious to anything we could dish, not that we had tried nukes or any of the other high yield weapons on it, and the invulnerable bug died before it could reach the base because its cells couldn't absorb oxygen, a rare short range teleporting bug was noteworthy but not panic worthy. I just had the hive that produced them added to Balistraias extermination list at a medium priority.
I even dissected a few and figured out how to emulate the teleportation, if not how it worked in the first place, by implanting an artificial version of the bugs teleportation organ into a few drones, I even had plans to add it to myself after some more through testing and refinement, I had figured out the things restrictions and the teleportations weaknesses and devised a few counter measures just in case.
Then once I had put the teleporting bugs out of my mind one of the bugs teleported into the outer layer and grabbed me, ignoring its previous range and sight restrictions, along with its inability to teleport through solid matter. Without the slightest pause the bug was lit up by both my armor and dozens of drones and turrets, shredding the thing within milliseconds, but not before its broken body managed to teleport again.
I don't know if it was the wide variety of exotic energies and materials that were unloaded into the bug, or if it was the stress placed on the organ from teleporting so far, or even if it was the things intention to do it in the first place, it could even even be a combination of all three, but regardless of the how and the why the bug teleported with me and flung me far far away.
The suits chronometer says I was between spaces for 13 days before it spat me out in some random cave system, I guess that 13 days spent in a space between spaces left my mind and body in rough shape as I only have a vague memory of mind numbing pain, instead of remembering what exactly happened myself I have the suits logs of the events.
The first notable thing I saw in the recordings were the energy readings throughout the caves, the walls pulsed with an unknown form of energy, and the energy seemed to be scanning the armor, it didn't actually get through anything but the outermost layer but it does imply either an intelligence or automated system within the caves. This energy also limited some of the scans my suit had available, and blocked signals.
Now my suit is essentially the most advanced drone I can produce, even more advanced than the spider tron, (the command tank is more of a mech than a drone it would not work without Balistraria to run it) so it figured out pretty quickly that the cave system was blocking its transmission, and with its little machine mind decided the best way to solve that problem was to leave the caves. This was a good decision and even one I can agree with, no the issue with the armor not having true intelligence became apparent later, you see the minds programed the armor with a series of parameters and actions to take if those parameters were met, this situation was entirely unpredictable though, and no specific actions were present for the armor to take.
Instead the armor took a few parameters and tried to do all of them at once, which is okay as none of them were mutually exclusive, the first parameter met was my own incapacitation with an active threat trying to kill me, which led the armors programing to assuming direct control of the armor and incinerating the threat. This first parameter is what allowed the others to be followed in the first place, the second one met was being trapped in unknown and hostile territory, which caused the programing the attempt contact with the minds with long range comms, when this failed it triggered a third parameter, trapped in hostile territory with jamming preventing assistance and reinforcement, which led the programing to adopt more active measures, increasing its attempts to hide and beginning attempts to escape the jamming without being spotted.
This was all within the first 10 seconds of my arrival mind you, and so far no true mistakes, sure it didn't notice that it wasn't a bug chewing on me, but it was programed with only 2 foes in mind, bugs on land and fish in water, I was on land so it must be a bug.
Honestly I only have nitpicks with the armors automatic performance, or ways it could have gone wrong, for an untested system in an entirely new situation it preformed astonishingly well, it's just that things could have gone so much worse if things went just a little bit differently, so a few changes will need to be made.
With the armor having activated parameters that prioritized stealth and escape over anything else it soon began making its way out of the caves, avoiding large concentrations of "biters" and taking the quickest route up and out of the cave that it could.
Shortly after the armor began its journey upwards the energy scanning me got even more intense, still my armor is shielded to protect me from near point blank blasts of radiation, and from fairly high yield nukes at that, so the strange energy didn't succeed in getting any deeper, this part is just conjecture, with the failure of its more passive scans and the suits avoidance of any of its other forces the cave decided to teleport in, or maybe just produce, a few beasts to fight my armor, presumably to test my capabilities.
What I do know for certain is that those creatures were decidedly not friendly, the creatures looked like a modified variant of an earth rabbit, and were seemingly composed of something that was not quite matter, granting them greater speed and durability than should have been possible.
This is one of my first nitpicks, the creatures appeared with a burst of energy similar if not identical to the energy the bug used to teleport me, they were made of an unknown material, and I had no records or information about them. If I had been conscious I would have captured a few specimens to study, instead the armor just disintegrated them.
The few rabbits the armor destroyed did require it to use weaponry though, and the intelligence within the walls certainly took note of them, this success is presumably what caused the next creature to appear, actually for all I know that was standard behavior and had nothing to do with my immunity to its scans, this new beast was some bipedal bull, and it did not even have a few seconds to do anything before the armor had reduced it to ash.
By this point the armor had caused quite a ruckus, and had drawn a bit of attention to us, as a few people (yes actual humans) were following us. The armor had noticed the people, but with its limited intelligence assumed they were bugs, the only reason it did not attack was the fact they were moving at a slower pace than it, it assumed that was their max speed and so disregarded them as it knew it could outrun them.
I should probably go into more detail on the humans, they were a mix of standard human and a few with modifications, though all visible were biological ones, they moved at a pace more than keeping up with the armors own, which even slowed by the lack of my piloting and the difficult and unknown terrain was still well in excess of what an augmented human could reach. The only exterior modifications any of them had were animal features or modifications to size and ear shape. The additional animal features seemed functional so I can't judge….. much.
They had no examples of advanced technology on them, save the augmentations, and with the biological nature of their known modifications those could be inherited, there were examples of metallurgy in the armor but said armor was seemingly made of more unknown materials.
Weirdest thing though, only one of them was actually 'adequately' armored, the rest either wore armor that covered little of their vitales or they were wearing cloth, though the cloth was made of a sturdy material, which could be considered armor if one stretched the definition, still only one of them were a helmet! One! At least one of the unmodified girls was walking around with only 2 small pieces of cloth covering her!
I know I have enough subdermal armor to pull that off but based on the smooth and unblemished nature of her skin there can't be any significant armor under her skin, or at least not any armor I know of.
These people were following me for at least part of my journey, staying around a hundred feet behind the armor and killing any of the creatures that they encountered with enough ease that they had to have some significant augmentation, one of the pointy eared ones even possessed an ability to manipulate some of the energy in the air and within her body to cause effects, which is something I did not expect to see and almost caused the armor to engage, it was only the fact that my escape had a higher priority than fighting dangerous variants of bugs that stopped it.
They left my radar range after a fair while, so they presumably stopped following me at some point, though they could have entirely tracked me through the whole cave system and to the basement I am now in.
Aside from the humans with a disturbingly high strength to weight ratio there were a few other things of note, first, the creatures were weaker the closer I got to the exit from the cave, and the cave showed signs of frequent human habitation, with bits of refuse, trash, armor and weaponry scattered throughout, and even some torches in the higher parts, though the torches are seemingly fueled by the energy in the walls, probably bait now that I think of it.
The second thing of note is once again about the creatures, it seems there are crystallized concentrations of energy within them, constantly being fed and powered by the energy from the walls, presumably how they are powered and animated, and presumably from that presumption they may be a weak point.
That's about it for the cave system, I don't really have any confirmed theories, nor do I know why people venture into the caves in the first place, but I imagine I'll find out something eventually.
Outside the dungeon is a fairly large metropolis, and even though the passive scans did not make a very detailed map of the city during my "jog" they still gave me a decent idea of the size and structure of the city, which is primarily composed of "rustic" buildings, wood and stone being the primary building materials, with cobbled roads in more traveled areas while a few areas are just packed dirt.
It is cleaner than one would expect from a city of this size and development, but everywhere with less traffic shows signs of decay and dirt just under the outer glamor, meaning there are still slums and run down parts of the town, I'm actually in one of the run down buildings now, even if its not derelict, yet.
That's about all I learned from the city, not much considering the suit was considerably more concerned with tracking living creatures and plotting a route out of the city than staying to investigate it, at least with the hostile creatures and non hostile humans it scanned them to determine weak points, with the buildings it just noted that they existed and were not in its way.
Now we get to my… I want to call her my rescuer but that Implies I was in immediate danger, host would probably be a better term. She, if I can even call her that, is not a human, even if she was at some point a human she cannot be considered one any longer. Her body absolutely thrums with power, and it's not just something my sensors can detect, no I could feel her power even in my broken state as a pulse of home and hearth, a soothing flame that made everything better.
She genuinely contains power comparable to multiple nuclear reactors, I think, the sensors can't seem to decided and the feeling she gives off remains largely constant no matter what fluctuations the sensors detect, and I have instituted constant neural scans to insure no lasting changes, though with the damage my mind has already taken none of the changes that could happen can be directly pinned on her anyway.
Once I had felt her power my mind and body both reached out to her in some desperate attempt to ease the pain, and with the lessened pain my mind managed to put together enough of an order for the armor to stay near the woman and to not harm her, before I once again fell into the haze of pain and lost lucidity. Still the armor managed to follow her to her home, being guided by her, I don't want to know what would have happened if she had tried to run or fight me because the armor tried to follow her, another flaw in the suits program but not one I can think of a way to solve.
She lead me to a ramshackle church, the church part makes sense as I could imagine people worshiping her as a god, the ramshackle part makes less sense, investigating why she is in such a decrepit building is definitely on the to do list, once she lead the armor inside she took us into a deeper portion of the church, into what was presumably her bedroom based on the cosmetics and evidence of the bed having been used and not made after. She then looked at the bed and looked at me before dragging the armor over to the wall and sitting down, leading the armor to following her to the ground.
After a fair bit of finagling she managed to get my head resting on her lap, why she dragged a fully armored person she did not know into her bedroom just to give them a lap pillow remains a mystery, but I am just going to assume she felt that if I was actually a threat she could incinerate me or something.
She just sat there rubbing my head through the armor for 62 minutes before she seemingly fell asleep laying across my armors torso, where she shortly began to shiver, how a being with that much energy became cold from a 60 degree room is beyond me but the armor took allowing harm to come to the woman as harming the woman and activated its exhaust ports to purge heat into the room, not something I would do unless actively on fire or submerged in lava, and raised the rooms ambient temperature until the woman stopped shivering, at which point she wrapped her arms around me and pulled herself even closer.
As the armor was not wasting power running constant brain scans I don't actually know if this is the case, but based on the fact that even now being near the woman hastens my bodies and brains recovery, I assume that her glompling my armor for a few hours is what allowed me to finally return to some semblance of consciousness, at which point I saw a woman hugging my torso while snoring, my current location, and hundreds of alerts and alarms from my armor, along with a deep gaping emptiness where the rest of the factory should be.
I have been outside the factory's comms range on numerous occasions, at least in the earlier days before the constant bug attacks, so I know what merely being far away feels like, this was not that, if before it felt like the factory was just out of site, something I could see if I just focused hard enough, now it felt like I was standing in a crater where the factory used to be, it was just gone and nothing was left but pain. It was and is indescribable but if I had to try I would say it is like having the majority of your brain removed and having all of your limbs and muscles removed, while simultaneously every nerve you still have and every one you used to have scream at you as loud as they can, filling what remains of your head with waves of agony.
It was not like I could do anything with that much pain, I could just finally remember that I used to be a person and that there was more than the agony, which allowed me to look out into the world and see. This stimulus of something that was not pain allowed more and more of my mind to pull itself from the pain and eventually I gained enough of myself back to form a plan.
That plan was essentially "figure out what happened and where I am then move and figure out how to stop this pain" it was admittedly not a very through plan but it did give me cause to go through the records of my suit and to put together a few theories, and with more distractions came more and more awareness as each piece of me began planning and working together.
It was after another few hours of review and planning that I gently pried the woman's arms off of me, before I picked her up and set her on the bed. She was my only contact and had already shown herself to be at least outwardly kind, and I would need a guide of some sort for this world.
Then I began to clean up and reinforce the building, the thing looked ready to fall over with the slightest bit of damage and there was rot in half the wooden walls, I thankfully still had wood on me, which is interesting considering I haven't personally chopped down any trees for months, but considering I just don't clear my cache it makes some measure of sense. So with the help of a fair few drones and taking from my own personal stockpile, along with the broken wooden furniture in some of the rooms, I began to renovate the building.
The outer facade of the building, and a fair few of the walls were stone, which I had in even more abundant than wood and it was significantly tougher and less flammable, if still brittle, so I spent a fair bit of time renovating the outside myself, the drones handled the interior as I did not want them to become common knowledge or for anyone to see them at all really.
The bedroom the woman slept in was already in a hidden bunker of sorts, so not much needed to be done on that front, It was just a matter of quietly reinforcing the whole thing with some fairly durable metals while she slept, then putting the stone facade back with another hidden door, this one would eventually lead to a bunker under the bunker, the bunkers bunker if you would.
There were two reasons I was renovating this building, well two main reasons, the first is I needed something to distract myself and mind numbing building was a ready option, the other was I had some vague plans to stay here if the woman would let me, and even if she didn't leaving a building in that state left my entire body feeling itchy, which while not as bad as pain was still not pleasant, especially considering the pain did not cease with the itching, they just stacked.
The glass was the only significant hurdle, I had some clear metal I could have used for it, and I even had a few sheets of durable crystal that would have worked, but I didn't just have generic glass and I did not want to spend my more valuable resources on something that was really just a structural weakness, so I just bricked in the windows.
The building still doesn't have power or climate control, I don't want to add any obvious signs of my tech, and I definitely didn't want any tech that could have been left behind if I had to leave, and something inside a building definitely counts as something I could have to leave behind.
AN-
this is quite literally just a different pov of the last danmachi chapter with some added information, but I have been suffering the block of writing and this was the first thing I tried to write that actually came as more than 3 paragraphs and I needed to write this at some point anyway, I was gonna write 5 logs but I was already at 3500k words and once I ran out of material I had already covered my pace once again began to slow.
next chapters will be whatever I can manage to write over 1000 words on, and will probably be danmachi or rwby, still thinking of making danmachi the start of a multicross.
there are probably errors in here as I didn't bother to reread it, if you see anything I messed up or just want to give some advice a review would be appreciated, they are my life blood.
always glad to read even more so for danmachi "omake?" to be honest I kinda consider any "omake" you make to just be their own story/timeline sorta like comics marvel and DC different worlds and timelines but their own story to be told regardless thanks for this don't forget to take a brake and just look at different things sometimes helps when writing even if it has nothing to do with writing itself.
You were at 3.5m words? Wow, you must be an absurdly quick writer
- Pronouns
- That/Thing
It's only a fortress of doom if it has lasers or magical traps, this is a bunker of doom!