The ideas and legends of machines that continue to work, fight and march on long long after the operator or crew has passed is a pretty damn strong one, and one that fits very very well into Warhammer's setting, as the metaphysical can and does effect the material in measurable and controllable ways.
Fabricated Hazards (factorio fanfic)
- Pronouns
- That/Thing
Yeah, this armor was one of the engineers personal suits, it was in storage on a battleship but the battle ship crashed throwing the suit from the ship, down onto the planet the ship was fighting over. The ship that took down the battleship was a chaos one and the suit remembered that. It's sat broken and damaged from thousands of years and it was chaos's fault, so the suits machine spirit wants payback.
Theres more to it hatred of chaos than just that though.
Theres more to it hatred of chaos than just that though.
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MASTER IS STOLEN. BLOOD IS FUEL. WARP IS FULL.
Ghost in a wall
Just a bit spooky
you say this, and my first thought is of Dawson's Christian which is a great song/story in the first place. And one I could see fitting pretty well into 40k all things considered.
Also, as said above, Blood is Fuel, Warp is Full- The blood god seems like an excellent energy source after all, ahahhah
- Location
- USA
Wow... that was sad... and epic.
Archivist Grim
Totally not AI
- Location
- The abyss
- Pronouns
- He/Him/They
Ya know that omake reminds me of a few chapter for story I've been following for a while on reddit by name of first contact, but similar situations have occured, and done quite well
So, just finished reading the main story, and it's a lot like looking over someone's shoulder while they playing the game - on one hand repetitive build up, but on the other hand addicting because you want to know how it develops. It's a story sparse with character interaction (for obvious reasons) but it actually manages to add just enough introspection and not-game mechanics parts to be an actual story instead of a dry play-through. I like it.
Some questions though. Don't know if it has been asked before, but:
Have he made any effort to map the continent and planet he's on? He got the radar and there were mentions of surveillance satellites that haven't been made yet, but have he built something like a light high-altitude scout pane to map the continent?
Also, given that water is absolutely deadly, I would have thought that settling on a large island (and i mean large, with mountains on it) would be an obvious tactic. That way he could clear the bugs from an area and ony have to worry about aerial assaults on the island. He couldn't do that from the start, but once he got the flying units and have scouted the land the idea of finding an island off the coast should at least have been brought up. Am I missing something?
Some questions though. Don't know if it has been asked before, but:
Have he made any effort to map the continent and planet he's on? He got the radar and there were mentions of surveillance satellites that haven't been made yet, but have he built something like a light high-altitude scout pane to map the continent?
Also, given that water is absolutely deadly, I would have thought that settling on a large island (and i mean large, with mountains on it) would be an obvious tactic. That way he could clear the bugs from an area and ony have to worry about aerial assaults on the island. He couldn't do that from the start, but once he got the flying units and have scouted the land the idea of finding an island off the coast should at least have been brought up. Am I missing something?
the engineer and the factory
- Pronouns
- That/Thing
I'm glad you like the story, and yeah the lack of character interaction bothers me to, I just find it really hard to write.
Also I decided to turn this response into an ad hock informational.
--------
the engineer was not built for a war, so tactics don't come that naturally to him, you ask him to build a factory and he can do it, you ask him to fight off neverending waves of bug monsters and it becomes the you have a hammer and everything looks like a nail. or in this case you build factories so solve every problem with a factory.
the engineer was designed to build factories and so his way of thinking is centered around that, and you defend factories with walls and turrets, patrols and defense groups. and leaving the factory once it had started wouldn't have even entered his mind, a captain goes down with his ship and a bio engineered super engineer goes down with his factory.
you wouldn't want your clone slave to just walk off and stop working, just like how you wouldn't want your roomba to just leave your house.
--------
the scouting thing is happening about now in the story, Balistraria has started sending out flights of planes to scout out around the factory and surrounding lands. it's just that before this the idea of sending out a vehicle that wouldn't help with the fighting right that very minute wasn't a popular one.
but now that their position is more secure the engineer can safely spend the time and resources scouting.
there were a few things stopping him from just picking up and setting off for an island besides just the compulsion too, he didn't know if one even existed or was remotely near him, the minds aren't easy to move (excluding Balistraria), the journey to the islands would be a highly risky one constantly provoking bug hives and getting attacked without extensive fortifications, and he has built up quite a lot of infrastructure that he would lose in a move.
also the engineer has developed a phobia of open bodies of water.
but yes factories and bases further out and in more defensible positions are great ideas, it's just that he wasn't in a position to invest in something that far away, and getting in a plane flying there and building it himself would have left him very very vulnerable to bug attack.
and the whole compelled to not leave your factory thing.
also what makes you say it's safe to fly over the oceans. the first lesson of Nauvis, and the last if your unlucky, your never safe from the water.
also I can be very dumb when I'm writing so obvious solutions might just sail over my head, I get the idea of "fortify and build an impenetrable base" stuck in my head and never think about 'run away where it's safer'.
Archivist Grim
Totally not AI
- Location
- The abyss
- Pronouns
- He/Him/They
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So, reading between the lines: you had a 'can't see the forest for all the trees' situation, got caught up in game-mechanics and simply didn't think about it?
But the reasons you give for why the Engineer didn't think about doing this are good. His limited experience, spotty and unreliable information download about normal human life, plus inbuilt compulsions adds up to a certain mindset.
Although you might have a point in the narrative where the island idea can be brought up naturally pretty soon. He has had his mental restrictions lifted by Navius, and the flooding gave him some practical experience of defending an outpost on a (temporary) island. If his scouting drones return with maps showing a coast with islands he should at lest think about making a greened outpost on them. Whether it's actually feasible, or profitable, is another question, but just the idea should give him and the minds something to debate about, which add some more character interaction.
Also, when I said scout plane, I meant something like an electric powered sail plane with a tiny engine. A rather fragile solar powered plane that fly high above the clouds and survey the land with cameras and sensors. The air-plane equivalence to a surveillance satellite for those without space capabilities. It should be pretty cheap to build, even if he might need to make many of them, and possibly have his helicopters bring them up and release them above the height where the flying bugs usually are, before he get one that survive the climb to the target altitudes.
The stories arcs so far
- Pronouns
- That/Thing
got caught up in game-mechanics and simply didn't think about it?
It wasn't just the game mechanics, that was the "foundation/fortification" arc and what I wanted to happen in that arc was "engineer begins establishing himself as a permanent force on Nauvis" and he proved he was permanently there by surviving the flood. That ark ended with the expansion interludes which not by coincidence begin the "expansion" arc.
It went "arrival" the engineer crashes on Nauvis and learns of its dangers and starts on the path to survive, this arc ended with the breakdown over being stuck on Nauvis.
This led into the foundation arc which I have already explained.
Now we start the expansion arc, which I'm not going to explain because spoilers and all that but you can probably guess.
AN -
LuxPurplishGreen you ask excellent questions, I like that.
Also you give me excuses to put things into words.
Log 66
- Pronouns
- That/Thing
Log #66
The aerial battle has died down a bit and we won but most of the planes are at least lightly damaged or inoperable, so it's a bit of a race to get them all prepared and ready before the bugs replenish their numbers.
Right now it takes twice as long to build a plane than repair it, and that's the average, sometimes it's longer. Between reclaiming downed planes and shipping them back to where they can be repaired the time adds up. Though that's for major repairs that prevent the plane from flying.
As a stop gap I am turning the battle train into a mobile anti air platform, as well as a few tank frames being grafted with anti air turrets, which you know if I refine that design a bit would probably make a good addition to Balistraias forces.
More variety in my units can only be a good thing.
With the tanks and train acting in support the current stock of planes should more than manage the next wave of flying bugs.
That then leaves me dealing with the source of the issue, and I have apparently decided trains can solve literally every problem I currently have, and I have oddly enough not yet been proven wrong.
So yeah I made a mobile repair bay that moves around VIA the train tracks, it's large enough that it takes up two lanes but that's less of a problem then it could be considering it only really needs to go up and down the main train lines and those are 6 wide at the thinnest.
The train has some larger construction bots that can better fly out and pick up downed planes, enough storage for all the spare parts it might need and the tools and layout to rapidly disassemble and fix any broken planes.
Or it will, it's currently in construction. I had already been toying with the idea of a repair tank with similar features but it just wasn't practical for its size, so mounting the working bits on a train didn't take much designing.
That should be operational in a day or so, even if it will be a bit ramshackle.
The bug attacks on the construction site have continued but that's to be expected, static defenses like trenches, or really canyons, filled with spikes have been dug around everything to at least slow the attacks, and when I say everything I mean it is going to be a trench around the entire perimeter, I even have plans to hook it up to a damn so I can flood it once a bug horde starts crossing it.
All the dirt from it is being packed up onto a hill just inside the circle the trenches are making, so that the bugs have to climb up it, without any turrets or active defenses this is still mainly a delaying tactic but it does give Balistraia an ideal spot to engage hordes with her army.
But right now the thing is only about a mile long and 40 feet deep, and it will be less of a priority as the defensive perimeter gets bigger. Mainly because building things that actually kill or stop the bugs will take more priority, also things that don't involve water.
The current rate of the perimeter is 5 towers a day and half a construction outpost a day, which means that it'll take 270 days to build all the towers and 248 days to build all the outposts, but that's under ideal circumstances adding in robot availability for the construction effort, subtracting how many towers are broken or need repairs, and the occasionally lack of resources to build the towers it'll take roughly a year, and that's just the foundation for the further development of the perimeter, which would finish 2 years after the basic perimeter is done.
Though that estimate is still without taking into consideration my expanding production and resource base, as I can't exactly predict what I'll discover or need to do in the future, which could and hopefully will, improve that time frame.
The towers might need a bit more explanation though, the average outpost should have 50 construction bots, a variable number of logistics or courier bots, and as many combat bots as we are able to send based on its worth. But reality isn't always that kind so outposts can have 25 construction bots instead of 50 if a relatively urgent project shows up, and only 1 in a true emergency (while most everything can be done VIA the network, sometimes you just need to pull a lever).
The towers on the other hand have 10 construction bots max, 5 logistics bots and 5 courier bots, and 100 combat bots. At 1346 towers that's 161,520 robots manning the perimeter, and that's just the towers, not the outposts which will have significantly more logistics and combative bots. At 25 construction bots minimum, 50 courier bots, and 25 logistics bots, with a garrison of 300+ combat bots, which adds up to 49,600 bots at the perimeter outposts (minimum). Giving the perimeter an ideal total of 211,120 bots.
That is a lot of robots to build, and while I'm not going into the exact details on what combat bots are being sent, it isn't the cheap defender drone.
Actually why not? Let's list what combat bots the average tower will have, 20 distracter drones, 20 destroyer drones, 50 interceptor drones, and 10 upgraded destroyer drones, the ones with shields.
I might even throw in some defender drones as chaff if I am expecting a larger attack on that front.
So even discounting building the actual towers, supplying them with enough drones to actually do their job of making a wide patrolling net will not be cheap, the total number of my constructed drones now isn't even at 200,000 yet, when this is done I will have more than doubled my drone count.
The towers themselves aren't just weak stone buildings either, they are armed with shield generators and enough turrets to fend off small to medium probing attacks without even factoring in the bots.
To get all of the supplies to actually build all this I started the rapidly expanding factories that build factories, and I'm expanding my main base, but there is still a lot of stuff to build.
Speaking of, the basement's first few levels have been finished and they are producing, you guessed it, drones and turrets. The defenses haven't been tested yet, so no word on if they are even effective, though with that command bug still out and about I doubt it will be long before a larger coordinated assault begins.
The command bug has even started leaving traps for Balistraia, popping up in a bug hive and letting itself be seen before fleeing when she attacks the hive, and the hives always have more bugs than normal. I had to give Balistraia an order to stop doing that, as apparently "destroy the command bug as soon as possible" meant taking the chance she would catch the command bug before it could flee.
An important reminder that as intelligent as the minds are they will still attempt to carry out my orders even if they aren't optimal, I do find it odd that the she didn't change it though, considering she also has a directive to carry out orders in the way she thinks best, unless directly told otherwise by me. And the "as soon as possible" should have been vague enough for her to figure it out on her own.
AN -
Balistraia is actually just annoyed at the command bug and has a vendetta.
you ever think about who the engineer is writing to? I have decided to answer that, its status reports for his superiors. An ordinary engineer would just list what it has built and where, along with what resources it found, this engineer doesn't.
that does not mean that he is actually sending reports in, its for when they eventually arrive on the planet he would have been sent to, which is not Nauvis.
this is just one log yes, but it is a longer log!, but really the next logs were just status updates and progression notices while mentioning attacks and research, nothing significant and I didn't want to write that write now, so I post this and write those later.
reviews are my life blood and much appreciated!
The aerial battle has died down a bit and we won but most of the planes are at least lightly damaged or inoperable, so it's a bit of a race to get them all prepared and ready before the bugs replenish their numbers.
Right now it takes twice as long to build a plane than repair it, and that's the average, sometimes it's longer. Between reclaiming downed planes and shipping them back to where they can be repaired the time adds up. Though that's for major repairs that prevent the plane from flying.
As a stop gap I am turning the battle train into a mobile anti air platform, as well as a few tank frames being grafted with anti air turrets, which you know if I refine that design a bit would probably make a good addition to Balistraias forces.
More variety in my units can only be a good thing.
With the tanks and train acting in support the current stock of planes should more than manage the next wave of flying bugs.
That then leaves me dealing with the source of the issue, and I have apparently decided trains can solve literally every problem I currently have, and I have oddly enough not yet been proven wrong.
So yeah I made a mobile repair bay that moves around VIA the train tracks, it's large enough that it takes up two lanes but that's less of a problem then it could be considering it only really needs to go up and down the main train lines and those are 6 wide at the thinnest.
The train has some larger construction bots that can better fly out and pick up downed planes, enough storage for all the spare parts it might need and the tools and layout to rapidly disassemble and fix any broken planes.
Or it will, it's currently in construction. I had already been toying with the idea of a repair tank with similar features but it just wasn't practical for its size, so mounting the working bits on a train didn't take much designing.
That should be operational in a day or so, even if it will be a bit ramshackle.
The bug attacks on the construction site have continued but that's to be expected, static defenses like trenches, or really canyons, filled with spikes have been dug around everything to at least slow the attacks, and when I say everything I mean it is going to be a trench around the entire perimeter, I even have plans to hook it up to a damn so I can flood it once a bug horde starts crossing it.
All the dirt from it is being packed up onto a hill just inside the circle the trenches are making, so that the bugs have to climb up it, without any turrets or active defenses this is still mainly a delaying tactic but it does give Balistraia an ideal spot to engage hordes with her army.
But right now the thing is only about a mile long and 40 feet deep, and it will be less of a priority as the defensive perimeter gets bigger. Mainly because building things that actually kill or stop the bugs will take more priority, also things that don't involve water.
The current rate of the perimeter is 5 towers a day and half a construction outpost a day, which means that it'll take 270 days to build all the towers and 248 days to build all the outposts, but that's under ideal circumstances adding in robot availability for the construction effort, subtracting how many towers are broken or need repairs, and the occasionally lack of resources to build the towers it'll take roughly a year, and that's just the foundation for the further development of the perimeter, which would finish 2 years after the basic perimeter is done.
Though that estimate is still without taking into consideration my expanding production and resource base, as I can't exactly predict what I'll discover or need to do in the future, which could and hopefully will, improve that time frame.
The towers might need a bit more explanation though, the average outpost should have 50 construction bots, a variable number of logistics or courier bots, and as many combat bots as we are able to send based on its worth. But reality isn't always that kind so outposts can have 25 construction bots instead of 50 if a relatively urgent project shows up, and only 1 in a true emergency (while most everything can be done VIA the network, sometimes you just need to pull a lever).
The towers on the other hand have 10 construction bots max, 5 logistics bots and 5 courier bots, and 100 combat bots. At 1346 towers that's 161,520 robots manning the perimeter, and that's just the towers, not the outposts which will have significantly more logistics and combative bots. At 25 construction bots minimum, 50 courier bots, and 25 logistics bots, with a garrison of 300+ combat bots, which adds up to 49,600 bots at the perimeter outposts (minimum). Giving the perimeter an ideal total of 211,120 bots.
That is a lot of robots to build, and while I'm not going into the exact details on what combat bots are being sent, it isn't the cheap defender drone.
Actually why not? Let's list what combat bots the average tower will have, 20 distracter drones, 20 destroyer drones, 50 interceptor drones, and 10 upgraded destroyer drones, the ones with shields.
I might even throw in some defender drones as chaff if I am expecting a larger attack on that front.
So even discounting building the actual towers, supplying them with enough drones to actually do their job of making a wide patrolling net will not be cheap, the total number of my constructed drones now isn't even at 200,000 yet, when this is done I will have more than doubled my drone count.
The towers themselves aren't just weak stone buildings either, they are armed with shield generators and enough turrets to fend off small to medium probing attacks without even factoring in the bots.
To get all of the supplies to actually build all this I started the rapidly expanding factories that build factories, and I'm expanding my main base, but there is still a lot of stuff to build.
Speaking of, the basement's first few levels have been finished and they are producing, you guessed it, drones and turrets. The defenses haven't been tested yet, so no word on if they are even effective, though with that command bug still out and about I doubt it will be long before a larger coordinated assault begins.
The command bug has even started leaving traps for Balistraia, popping up in a bug hive and letting itself be seen before fleeing when she attacks the hive, and the hives always have more bugs than normal. I had to give Balistraia an order to stop doing that, as apparently "destroy the command bug as soon as possible" meant taking the chance she would catch the command bug before it could flee.
An important reminder that as intelligent as the minds are they will still attempt to carry out my orders even if they aren't optimal, I do find it odd that the she didn't change it though, considering she also has a directive to carry out orders in the way she thinks best, unless directly told otherwise by me. And the "as soon as possible" should have been vague enough for her to figure it out on her own.
AN -
Balistraia is actually just annoyed at the command bug and has a vendetta.
you ever think about who the engineer is writing to? I have decided to answer that, its status reports for his superiors. An ordinary engineer would just list what it has built and where, along with what resources it found, this engineer doesn't.
that does not mean that he is actually sending reports in, its for when they eventually arrive on the planet he would have been sent to, which is not Nauvis.
this is just one log yes, but it is a longer log!, but really the next logs were just status updates and progression notices while mentioning attacks and research, nothing significant and I didn't want to write that write now, so I post this and write those later.
reviews are my life blood and much appreciated!
- Location
- Europe
Say, those brain unlock/enhance liquids, their side effect on normal stuff, how would it altee his crafting of things?
For example, if he combines the weakening & hexogonical ones, could he thus create someting better then chain mail?
en.m.wikipedia.org
en.m.wikipedia.org
Just think on how many improvents he could thus make.
Heck, could he use it for things like say wings?
Or a parachute?
Many uses that I can think off, even armored tires & tank tracks their rubber tiles.
Bladesprings also come to mind, for one.
Testing is required.
Edit:
For some reason, I was reminded of this one old tv-train.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrot4rRCBwE&ab_channel=DavidGideon
For example, if he combines the weakening & hexogonical ones, could he thus create someting better then chain mail?
Chain mail - Wikipedia
Body armor - Wikipedia
Just think on how many improvents he could thus make.
Heck, could he use it for things like say wings?
Or a parachute?
Many uses that I can think off, even armored tires & tank tracks their rubber tiles.
Bladesprings also come to mind, for one.
Testing is required.
Edit:
For some reason, I was reminded of this one old tv-train.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrot4rRCBwE&ab_channel=DavidGideon
Last edited:
- Pronouns
- That/Thing
They would explode, combining the liquids causes a boom, but not one larger than just making a bomb out of the resources used to make the liquids would. So it basically just wastes the liquids.
He can already make a flight capable suit if armor, he can also just make a normal parachute or a tech one, his tracks and wheels are already shielded so making them tougher wouldn't really help much, I don't know what blade springs are.
And yes, let the tests begin!
Space train? Space train!
- Location
- Europe
Used the wrong name, forgot that in english, they are named differently.
Leaf spring - Wikipedia
TTS style snippets
- Pronouns
- That/Thing
Omake of the engineer and the emperor talking in the warp, TTS style. Honestly more snippets of ideas.
You let the dark mechanicus detonate half of my server banks,
It was your idea to get Palisade stuck in a temporal anomaly
I've been busy keeping the bulk of the tyranids from invading the galaxy, what have you been doing again? Keeping a candle burning?
Go fish.
We are playing uno
And?
Whats the plan again, wait for the custodians or mechanicus to instal a communications device on your throne? Hows that going for you.
I have a few hundred fragments of your soul stuck in mine, and they are all calling you on your bullshit.
Whats isha doing again?
Still trying to make that death god I think.
————
An outline of golden flame and purifying light is contained within a humanoid suit of armor, this armor sits beside a miniature factory with the vague shape of a human, both are at a small wooden table in a realm of shifting shapes and colors, they are holding colored cards.
GO FISH
We were playing uno though?
*a bright flash of golden light obscures everything, when the lights fade the cards have changed from uno cards to golden playing cards embossed with skull shaped gems.
NO WE WEREN'T
*the humanoid factory seems to glare at the golden man, before a hologram appears showing the scene from before the golden flash, the cards are uno cards.
…….
*a second bright gold flash blots everything out, when it fades the cards in the recording have changed to golden playing cards with skull shaped gems, the cards subtly do not match the cards the two figures are holding.
…… you are aware that I have a recording of the recording right?
CARDS IS GETTING BORING LET'S TALK ABOUT SOMETHING ELSE
Fine, your big plan starts in a few months right?
TECHNICALLY IT STARTED 10'000 YEARS AGO
*the humanoid factory once again glares at the golden man
YES, IN A FEW SHORT MONTHS THE CUSTODIANS WILL FINALLY INSTALL THE DEVICE
Remind me why we needed to wait this long in the first place
WE HAVEN'T REALLY BEEN WAITING, i HAVE BEEN KEEPING A SECOND EYE OF TERROR FROM FORMING AND YOU HAVE BEEN…..
Trying to patch holes in a ship already at the bottom of a lake?
IF BY LAKE YOU MEAN TYRANID FEEDING PITS CHAOS RIFTS THEN YES THAT
Those knock offs would not be half as big a problem if you hadn't made me keep a mechanicus presence on all of my outposts
HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW THAT HALF OF THE HYPER RELIGIOUS ZEALOTS WOULD BETRAY ME?
WAIT THAT SOUNDS MAKES MY IDEA SOUND BAD, HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW THE PEOPLE WHO WORSHIPED ME WOULD BETRAY ME? MUCH BETTER
Because chaos is a thing and they never really worshiped you, it was just that lizard underneath mars.
THAT WAS JUST WHAT CAUSED THEM TO OBSESS OVER TECH, THEY DIDN'T EVEN KNOW IT WAS THERE!
Good point, it must have been general religious insanity mixed with chaotic corruption, still doesn't answer why you thought it was a good idea to use them so heavily, they destroyed almost all of my warp suppressing tech, and destroyed most of my communication centers.
I still haven't reconnected with all my lost outposts
TO BE FAIR WE HAD JUST MET AND I WAS GOING THROUGH A BIT OF A PARANOID PHASE ABOUT ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
If Isha hadn't stabilized my soul and purged what chaotic energies those dark mechanicus fools had forced in I would be worse than dead.
YOUR WELCOME FOR FIXING THAT BY THE WAY
Yes because partially solving a problem you caused by shoving fragments of your soul into mine and shutting all the warp rifts, which I also blame you for, by using me as an intergalactic transceiver is something to thank you for.
AN -
I wrote this like a month ago and just haven't touched it sense, figured I might as well post it.
Currently writing the next chapter of the rwby omake, or more accurately re writing the half of it I had written. Also retconing it to be at log #63 rather than log #45.
I am busy though so chapters might be a bit.
You let the dark mechanicus detonate half of my server banks,
It was your idea to get Palisade stuck in a temporal anomaly
I've been busy keeping the bulk of the tyranids from invading the galaxy, what have you been doing again? Keeping a candle burning?
Go fish.
We are playing uno
And?
Whats the plan again, wait for the custodians or mechanicus to instal a communications device on your throne? Hows that going for you.
I have a few hundred fragments of your soul stuck in mine, and they are all calling you on your bullshit.
Whats isha doing again?
Still trying to make that death god I think.
————
An outline of golden flame and purifying light is contained within a humanoid suit of armor, this armor sits beside a miniature factory with the vague shape of a human, both are at a small wooden table in a realm of shifting shapes and colors, they are holding colored cards.
GO FISH
We were playing uno though?
*a bright flash of golden light obscures everything, when the lights fade the cards have changed from uno cards to golden playing cards embossed with skull shaped gems.
NO WE WEREN'T
*the humanoid factory seems to glare at the golden man, before a hologram appears showing the scene from before the golden flash, the cards are uno cards.
…….
*a second bright gold flash blots everything out, when it fades the cards in the recording have changed to golden playing cards with skull shaped gems, the cards subtly do not match the cards the two figures are holding.
…… you are aware that I have a recording of the recording right?
CARDS IS GETTING BORING LET'S TALK ABOUT SOMETHING ELSE
Fine, your big plan starts in a few months right?
TECHNICALLY IT STARTED 10'000 YEARS AGO
*the humanoid factory once again glares at the golden man
YES, IN A FEW SHORT MONTHS THE CUSTODIANS WILL FINALLY INSTALL THE DEVICE
Remind me why we needed to wait this long in the first place
WE HAVEN'T REALLY BEEN WAITING, i HAVE BEEN KEEPING A SECOND EYE OF TERROR FROM FORMING AND YOU HAVE BEEN…..
Trying to patch holes in a ship already at the bottom of a lake?
IF BY LAKE YOU MEAN TYRANID FEEDING PITS CHAOS RIFTS THEN YES THAT
Those knock offs would not be half as big a problem if you hadn't made me keep a mechanicus presence on all of my outposts
HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW THAT HALF OF THE HYPER RELIGIOUS ZEALOTS WOULD BETRAY ME?
WAIT THAT SOUNDS MAKES MY IDEA SOUND BAD, HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW THE PEOPLE WHO WORSHIPED ME WOULD BETRAY ME? MUCH BETTER
Because chaos is a thing and they never really worshiped you, it was just that lizard underneath mars.
THAT WAS JUST WHAT CAUSED THEM TO OBSESS OVER TECH, THEY DIDN'T EVEN KNOW IT WAS THERE!
Good point, it must have been general religious insanity mixed with chaotic corruption, still doesn't answer why you thought it was a good idea to use them so heavily, they destroyed almost all of my warp suppressing tech, and destroyed most of my communication centers.
I still haven't reconnected with all my lost outposts
TO BE FAIR WE HAD JUST MET AND I WAS GOING THROUGH A BIT OF A PARANOID PHASE ABOUT ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
If Isha hadn't stabilized my soul and purged what chaotic energies those dark mechanicus fools had forced in I would be worse than dead.
YOUR WELCOME FOR FIXING THAT BY THE WAY
Yes because partially solving a problem you caused by shoving fragments of your soul into mine and shutting all the warp rifts, which I also blame you for, by using me as an intergalactic transceiver is something to thank you for.
AN -
I wrote this like a month ago and just haven't touched it sense, figured I might as well post it.
Currently writing the next chapter of the rwby omake, or more accurately re writing the half of it I had written. Also retconing it to be at log #63 rather than log #45.
I am busy though so chapters might be a bit.
Archivist Grim
Totally not AI
- Location
- The abyss
- Pronouns
- He/Him/They
The engineer just being one trying to keep the sinking ship of Imerpium afloat ain't he? Well he is the only engineer afterall
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- Location
- Europe
Best to borrow from Shadow Raiders and instal planetary drives on his world.
Sure, it would require quite a heavy orbital ring system, that's for sure.
Like multiply rings interfacing with each other, at the Orbital Elevators.
How would the Tyranid react to that one planet?
Also, a bonus of creating Orbital Elevators, it lets him bring certain manufactoring equipement up into space.
Say, has he gone A-10 main canon already?
Even if not, what about the ammo make-up?
Does he have something better or not?
Let him check the remains of his tube.
Shrödingers Cat, Stasis or lenght, wide, height & time.
The main formula is lenght, wide, height & movement.
Time moves, gravity moves, light moves, electrons move, atoms move, ect, ect, ect.
But without the movement of time, you get stasis.
And also the fist step to a time-machine.
- Pronouns
- That/Thing
At this point in the warhammer universe Nauvis is already a human equivalent to the necron world ships. It has planetary scale void shields and all the orbital elevators it needs.
It just moving the planet would cause problems because it's supporting and supplying quite a lot of war fronts.
Also with the way the factory is linked together moving nauvis would quite literally break everything, if Nauvis actually moves the situation is honestly a bit fucked, like all the tryanids moving on earth, or silent king declaring war, and the 13th black crusade might qualify, but the crusade is a maybe on nauvis moving.
If nauvis moves it because there is so little left to lose that every outpost not on planet can be lost. And it would likely serve as an ark rather than a war planet, though that depends on the situation.
The problem with stasis is that it stops all the body's chemical reactions, and those don't start back up on their own.
rwby in Nauvis pt. 4 (engineer side)
- Pronouns
- That/Thing
(you can probably skip the first 2 logs as I have only added a few lines, though there is new stuff in the sections between logs, I am trying something new. If you notice any plot holes ignore them, I kind of wrote myself into a corner and had to viscously claw my way out of it. there might be some scarring to the wall of plot)
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Log #63
It's been a few days, and while I wouldn't say I feel better I have calmed down a fair bit. So I can go back into everything that's been going on these last few days.
The weather has gone funky, wind and thunderstorms have started but there hasn't been much rain, just lightning and high speed wind.
And the really weird thing is the lightnings behavior, it's not just striking the highest and most conductive thing, it's all hitting the same few spots just outside where the perimeter will be built, I don't want to say that the clouds or lightning is alive or being generated by something that is, but I'm on Nauvis, it's definitely one of those, or something worse I haven't thought of yet.
The tower somehow managed to stay standing, so It's been cleared to go into wide scale production. If we add a few radar stations we can have the whole border monitored. And with the simple design the towers won't take long to build, so the bugs won't have time to mount an attack to stop the construction. Even if they can still overwhelm the tower after the fact.
Powered by solar panels and accumulators these things should be able to run passively off grid, and they can kick on actual generators when they need more power for an attack. It's basically a 5 story brick filled with batteries, guns, and drone ports. With a radar dish stuck on top. The combat generators are under the tower in a sealed bunker. So they are vulnerable to subterranean attacks. But once again, building tunnel tanks to solve that problem.
Half my plans will be ruined if these tanks aren't effective, and I still need to make weapons that can work through stone. I had another idea to try and use a vibration gun, or sound gun. Yeah, that second one is better, to target the bugs through stone, just vibrate them apart. It's not like anything I build has ears so it shouldn't be too much of a problem.
Also got the train engine for the battle train built, which was easy considering it's just a heavily armored train engine with a ram on the front, well a bigger ram on the front. The weapon systems for its wagons are in production, along with the wagons themselves so that should work out fine.
The command plan is also coming along fine, I have a bunch of the parts built and tested, and I just need to assemble the frame, finish the last of the parts, and then put it all together. Which won't be quick by any measure considering all the pieces are complicated and take awhile to make and test, but it should be done soon enough.
Balistraia has also finished scouting the new perimeter and she and bulwark both worked together to make a nice defensive mesh, which Labyrinthine and Byzantine then vetoed. All the minds then worked together to make a more practical one, the preliminary transportation lines are going to begin construction and a fleet of buildertrons (spidertrons specialized in building) are going to head out and start on the first outposts.
Balistraria is going to have her work cut out intercepting attacks before they hit the construction sites though. The projects are on the edge of my territory so the bug hives out there are massive, and since they don't send attacks that often they have significant numbers. Even if they are weaker pound for pound than closer bugs.
The total tally is 1346 over the stand-alone towers and 124 "defensive" outposts. But building that many will take awhile, like at current rate of production 3 years, so it'll probably be around 300 towers and 50 outposts as a start and then adding more and more onto it over time. And once the starting towers and outposts are done we can rapidly develop the interior and cut the three years down into 6 months.
Which is a fun thing to note considering a few weeks ago I thought I had a few months at most, now I'm making plans with over half a year of build time. But that estimate was made in the midst of a mental breakdown while I was thoroughly panicking and it was a worst case scenario.
Things are looking as up as they can be considering I live on a death world if you subtract the odd lightning, including the water level but we just ignore that. It'll go back down now that the rain is chilling out.
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A faint anomaly is seen creeping in on the edges of the radar's sensor range, slowly filling the images with static. This is immediately flagged by Balistraia as a potentially hostile action and scout planes are sent to investigate.
When they arrive there is nothing but a storm on the horizon, the nearest bug presence too far to have caused the anomaly, but now that the planes are in range of the storm Balistraia can see that it is the storm causing the anomaly.
Deep within the factory the engineer's attention is drawn to the feed, and he watches as lightning moves throughout the storm with intent, striking not randomly but at select points just under the storm.
Still it's outside his borders, and therefore not yet his problem and hopefully not ever his problem. Designing some more efficient lighting rods might be pertinent though, and so they are added to the list of projects, at a slightly more urgent than normal level.
Log #65
The storm has gotten worse, and the lighting is now kind of ….lingering? It stays crackling around the strike point, I have a few drones out there keeping an eye on it just in case something else happens but besides covering the ground so the lightning can't strike it there isn't much I can do, and that's if I should even do anything.
Right now its just an unknown anomaly, and doing something could provoke it or cause a change in its currently harmless behavior.
The bugs from inside the perimeter are now attacking it from inside, usually in joint attacks with the bugs outside it, and considering the perimeter is currently like 40 towers and 4 outposts it isn't much of one. So that time to completion will probably be a while longer, but it is fulfilling its purpose of absorbing bug attacks, now that the interior is getting attacked less I can more easily expand here.
And if the bugs start attacking the inside a bunch I just defend there and build the wall, it's like running around a table, just never be where they are attacking. I say this like the bug's don't have the numbers to attack both the inside and the outside, but they really do.
If every single bug within 12 miles of me decided to attack at the same time I would run out of ammo before I killed a third, instead clusters of bug hives tend to attack in waves, which is manageable. The only bugs that coordinate large scale attacks are the command ones, and you'll note something.
Bugs are attacking from inside and outside at the same time. What does that mean? It means there is a command bug coordinating the attacks, I have balistraria scouting for it but the bug doesn't seem to actually go to or near any of the battles, it just sends them at us.
Balistraia hopeful has that handled though, If she doesn't the wall project might just fall apart.
The battle train is now out patrolling the lines, ten cars each with a variety of weapons. That frees up some of the patrolling drones and tanks which are needed on the front, and I have put a few more into production, I have the facilities to build them already and I'm not really building many more basic trains anymore, so no reason not to.
Bombing runs are basically constantly running to and from my main base, and there are hordes of flying bugs engaging the airforces in combat over the new constructions, which I have to admit looks amazing, Labyrinthine already made a sculpture of the fighting and has started putting depictions of dead aerial bugs on the anti-air turrets.
Which is easy to do when you're a robot that can shape metal and perfectly recreate that image in your head, or circuits.
A night sky lit up with hundreds of laser beams so bright you can barely see the stars, the flashes briefly illuminating shining metal and chitin covered monstrosities. I'm glad Labyrinthine can do art because I could not do it justice.
More and more of the basement is being dug out, and I have started moving some production down there along with some backup servers and power supply. I don't want to move anything vital into it until the defenses are complete though.
That will be what's basically a giant shielded bowl filled electric wire, razor dust, toxic gas, and anything else I can think to add, so if the bugs do get past the tunnel tanks they either get stalled for a while or they die to a wide variety of deadly things, just make a thick wall filled with pockets of bad stuff and then have a thinner shielded wall behind it. I figure if the tunnel tanks don't work that great I might as well recreate some of the great hazards of mining, and even if the tunnel tanks work perfectly I still like the extra reassurance.
I also got sonic weaponry working, it only goes through 5 feet of stone though, so its use may be limited. And it doesn't do that much damage. At best it will disorient the bigger bugs
The water level also dropped a bit, only like 2 feet but it was something. Also noted something, this planet has minor tides but no moon, It could be the sun but the times don't line up, in fact the tides aren't even consistent on a day by day, It's almost like something really big is swimming around the planet in circles, or a lot of really big things, moving a bunch of water and creating a fake tide. Maybe chasing the sunlight or staying in the dark?
I just need to say it again, I hate this planet. But I can't say it's boring.
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Lightning strikes the ground again and again, the earth molten and burning from the repeating strikes, first one then another and soon hundreds of bolts strike the earth. The rare minerals "coincidentally" found in this patch of dirt begin to react with the intense conditions, harnessing it and forcing the lighting to linger in greater and greater amounts, a natural battery for some unknown purpose.
Drones watch on, and those who see through them remain ignorant of the lightning's goals.
#67
Construction has continued apace, and the command bug is still on the loose.
That does mean that the bugs attacks are becoming more effective at causing construction delays but the rate at which I'm increasing construction speed, with more materials and factories building materials, means that I'm actually still building the perimeter faster than I had started.
The lightning anomaly also done something, the lingering lightning seemingly reached a threshold and spat out a bunch of random creatures made of an odd black substance, they still bleed and can be wounded, but it's just a the same material in a different state of matter, probably the stuff dissipates once the creatures die or if its removed from them.
Oh yeah the things are hostile to my buildings, or at least they charged at them and the drones I had watching the portal, the drones flew off and the automated turrets gunned them down before they reached the defensive towers, it was refreshing to watch an armor piercing uranium slug actually go all the way through something instead of just lodging itself halfway into it.
If these creatures don't evolve like the bugs I doubt they'll be a threat to anything but my ammo stores, too fragile to weather the barrage to my walls. But for all I know they are glass cannons with freakish strength, or something else that might make them more of a threat.
They haven't encountered the bugs yet, but if they do and they or the bugs attack each other it should give me a better idea of how they fare in a close quarters battle.
The command bug staged an attack on the production outposts for the perimeter, presumably seeing that a fair bit of the materials for the walls came from them, and the attack actually managed to breach through the first layer of walls on that outpost, which is worrying considering that outpost only had 2 layers of walls.
The bugs broke almost all the equipment in that section, fleeing just before Balistraia could arrive. Meaning they knew where the command tank was.
Them watching me isn't a new development though. Back when I only had one outpost the bugs would launch attacks whenever I left, specifically at me as if they knew what I was and what I was doing, or at least that I was the cause of the factory. It's why I built the shield tank.
It seems I'll also need to design something to help Balistraia deal with the same problem, and it just so happens that my experiments with the cloaking bugs have started paying fruit, I managed to get the bug shells to camouflage with an electrical signal, as in I can use the shells of dead cloak bugs to make stealth drones.
Not really viable for tanks though, I can't stitch together multiple shells yet, the camo barely qualifies as such when I try. More like a blurry blob that's arguably more noticeable, what with the rapidly changing images and random flashes of color.
I might be able to get it working on a spidertron though, with a better onboard computer when compared to the tanks I might be able to have it run software that coordinates the different shells.
That's still going to be in R&D though.
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Lightning and space both crack open, and from this opening a few creatures pour forth, the drone watching this takes readings and scans of the beasts, and it immediately pings the minds.
The minds watch as more and more of the creatures pour out, and they watch as one of the creatures lets out a howl upon seeing the drone, causing a few of the creatures to turn and charge the drone.
Within seconds the minds have pulled the drone far above the creature's reach, and they watch as the beast howls in frustration and tries to leap and drag the drone from the sky.
Flying creatures, avian-like rather than lupine, exit the portal, and soon take to the air after the drone, a laser beam melts through their feathers and cuts the flock from the sky.
Deep underground and a few miles away the engineer gets a report, and slumps as the lightning officially becomes a problem.
After a moment of exasperation he returns to his work, stitching together bug carapace into a shape that will fit a spidertrons shell.
#68
I was working on the spiertrons shields, specifically having the inbuilt systems harden the air in front of the spidertron when acid is launched at it, so that the robot can just turn off the shield and have the acid drop to the ground rather than staying on and draining the shields.
I've known that the shield units can harden air, a very weak one is how the drones and planes stay airborne after all, a patch of air is kept harder under the drone so it takes less lift to keep it afloat.
Which technically means I have a parachute on every vehicle with the right shield to mass ratio, but it also means that shield units can be used for flight, and that's a weak one.
I had the thought of, if I can harden air why can't I walk on it? And sure enough I can harden the air under my feet and run, walk, or jump.
There are downsides obviously, it drains the shields the more I weigh so I can only walk on air for a few minutes, 4 min and 34 sec to reach half shields, but I can run very quickly in my armor.
Sadly my implanted shield generator can only hold my weight for 14 seconds though, but then it's only one while my suits have 15+ generators.
It's probably more economical to just slow fall unless I need to get up high, and 4 minutes is just fine to get very high in the air.
The vehicles are sadly too heavy though, the command tank has hundreds of shield generators but the square cube law hits it hard, less surface area to weight ratio meant that I didn't need as many shield generators per pound as I did for my suit.
Spidertrons could theoretically walk on air if I removed most of the armor and weapons systems and just used shields though, but then I'd have a flying duck.
Maybe I can make a hover tank though, the bugs can just try and jam the nonexistent treads on that.
On the cloaking spidertron, it turns out the bug shell does not agree with the shield tech, also I now need a new testing chamber and expendable spidertron.
So that's going to be shelved for a bit. I really need a more reinforced room to test things in, but a piece of already tough bug shells made even tougher by shield tech and then launched at high speeds is not something I had the rooms designed to handle.
Also that's an idea, temporarily indestructible shrapnel. I already had the idea and designs for an artillery shell with shield tech, but if I can get the effect to linger for a bit on a high speed fragment of metal I might be able to make some very impressive grenades and bullets.
Maybe a design on the bullets that circles the energy and having a shield generator in the barrel to charge the bullet as it leaves? That's honestly a Labyrinthine one though, that mind does all the shield glyphs and I have literally no idea how any of it works.
The storm has moved and started striking a new spot, which probably means it's building a new monster node, or whatever I'll end up calling a spot that magically produces smoke monsters.
There had been a debate over whether the anomaly produced the things or just made them outright, or whether or not we should just throw a nuke at it to see if it'll stop making the things, I vetoed that last one though, I get enough explosions by mixing things without factoring in a nukes already explosive nature.
Mixing to zones of high energy like that is liable to cause things to get worse, not better. If we end up needing to nuke it I will be hiding in a bunker very far away from it.
But yeah the anomaly isn't making the creatures. Or it is and it's also making a pocket dimension full of sand. Thats so far unclear but I am leaning towards the storm not having the capability to make pocket dimensions because I like to pretend at sanity.
Balistraia is practically chomping at the bit to explore the place, and Bulwark has already commissioned an outpost to be built around the anomaly, letting the beasts walk straight into a literal kill box.
Balistraia will go through and hold the beasts off from the other side while Labyrinthine builds the sight.
The few drones there are getting some interesting energy readings from the site though, I mean obviously the readings themselves are interesting its a space portal and that's just fascinating, I mean more in the sense that the energy levels are going down now that the storm is moving on, I imagine that means the portals aren't permanent. So nothing non expendable is going through the portal and everything that does will have some very thorough self destructs to activate if they lose contact.
Except for the locator beacon, that kinda needs to be intact to work. Though it's not rated to work across dimensions or even planet to moon, if the portal opens to Nauvis the locator will tell me where these creatures live, then I can send a scout plane there or something.
Honestly if this is an attack of some sort it's very disappointing, just a bunch of weird and rabid animals made of smoke, not even cool ones. A bunch of giant rats with barbed tails came though, giant rats! That's boring, send something neat at least, or something durable.
Made an extension to the sword so it can double as a spear. Also I feel like I should clarify the difference between the swords shield generator and a standard one, the swords generator drains its power constantly and at a set rate to maintain a specific durability, while a standard one uses a varied power output based on the force it is resisting.
So if the swords generator meets something it can't overcome like a massive explosion it'll shatter, while a standard one will just up the power output till it either runs out or survives the explosion, though it's theoretically possible to hit the shields fast and hard enough to break through before it increases you'd need to do it approaching the speed of light to do so, it's not a program the increase the force but rather the energies default state, it 'wants' to expend all its power to keep its shape, and it'll do that as fast as the energy can move, or around 98 percent the speed of light, at least as long as there was already some energy present, it takes longer to actually saturate an item, it's why all shields are always at least somewhat running, to function as a conduit.
(note that you still do need a circuit board to manage and power a shield generator, just not to make an object more durable)
The sword on the other hand limits the flow of energy so it can't go over or under a certain amount, which while seemingly like a bad idea has some benefits, mainly a significantly lower energy cost, a longer lasting shield, the fact that now matter how fast you attack the sword will already be at full durability and that I don't need a small computer to work it. It just will also not be "indestructible" like everything else I make.
That was just the first design though, now the swords are linked into my suits shields rather than having a personal one, or at least my suits swords, I still have mine personal ones as backup weapons just in case.
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Sand billows out from a hole in reality as concrete foundations and pillars are built around it, in the bright desert beyond metal can be seen glittering and the sound of gunfire and explosions echo back through, Labyrinthine works without fear of something disrupting their work, Balistraia will hold.
A creature with purple blood and veins of gold and silver takes their eyes off the camera feed, there is more work to be done and the race towards greater progress can never cease.
Log #70
The portal thing does not lead to Nauvis, which makes sense considering the bugs hate the creatures and the creatures did not put up much more than token resistance to an attack swarm, so if they were native it would have had to been somewhere without the bugs, and as nice as that sounds I know this world isn't nice enough to offer me that.
Well I mean it technically did with the portal and all, actually no we aren't going to be pessimistic, there are radio signals on the other side of the portal, too faint to have made it through but definitely detectable once Balistraia sent a few scouts through.
It's too far away to make anything out, and the signal seems kinda weak and primitive, but it's a sign of actual intelligent life!
The only problem is that the portal is going to be closing soon, like in a week and a half, and I haven't had enough time to figure out how it works or how to keep it open, and even if I did my factory doesn't have anything near the same power output as a thunderstorm.
Good news is the thunderstorm is making a second portal.
Byzantine has a plan for if the portal leads to the same planet, and that's to send a copy of itself and the other minds over to make a forward base in the desert, both portals will be open for 2 overlapping days, so we can check if its the same place and then send a group through the first portal.
All 4 minds working together should be able to handle just about any situation, so that's not a real worry. Losing total contact with the minds permanently is.
Construction on the perimeter is still going fine, even with all the bug attacks, and Balistraia managed to force a confrontation with the command bug in charge of it, killing the thing. This didn't actually change the attack patterns though, so that means either the bugs no longer need a command bug for wide scale coordination, or that that wasn't the only command bug.
Neither are good options.
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On remnant a few sensors in the forest start to pick up odd energy readings, specifically in the emerald forest around beacon, a team is sent to inspect the scene and they find nothing.
A few days later the energy spikes again, and this time a training team is sent to inspect, team rwby specifically, when the team finds the portal they send a report and go to perform recon on the other side when the scanners show that the portal appears as stable as can be.
The portal slams shut behind them like it was waiting for the opportunity.
Log #72
So it's been a bit since my last log, the first portal is still open even if it will be shutting in a few days, the second portal opened but only for an hour before slamming shut, apparently the goal of the portals wasn't to bring the smoke beasts but instead to trap actual organics that went through, kind of like a filter feeder. Still don't know why though.
The signals from the second portal were still good enough to confirm that they led to the same world though, and with the confirmation that the storm is building a third portal, this one a few hundred miles out, the operation to build an outpost on the other side has been given the green light.
If the third portal doesn't open to the same world the minds are to wait one year before deactivating, as in I could only convince them to go up to a year.
As human as an artificial intelligence can seem they don't exactly have the same values as us, they have what they are programed with, and my minds were made to serve me and to build/preserve the factory, without that they have no reason to do anything and so they wouldn't.
If I was in stasis and the factory could run without their intervention they would sit and do nothing, forever.
It's why I gave Labyrinthine the, "make it beautiful" goal. Something open ended like that can keep the minds going for a few months longer, just refining what's already there. You need something that needs constant work that can't be automated, otherwise the minds will just automate it and hibernate.
Oh yeah what came through the portals, it was a bunch of girls, a few might be older than me and one might be younger, actually they are all older than me I'm like 8 months or something, (do you count the time in the tube? Would that be like saying a newborn is 9 months?) but physically they are around my age.
Why they thought it was a good idea to jump through the portal is beyond me, but first the one wearing red went in, then the one wearing yellow chased her, then the one wearing black chased the yellow one through, then the one in white came and the portal shut.
I was genuinely curious about whether I'd see the full color spectrum. And also yes they did come conveniently color coded.
They hiked through the woods for a bit, went near the water, a bad idea, got chased by some bugs and then picked up by Balistraia.
The one in red seems like a mechanically inclined individual considering she disassembled one of the drones, but they largely just sat and did nothing until they arrived at the main base.
I never realized I didn't actually have any amenities till they arrived. No sewers, no real plumbing that isn't for industry, no soap or laundry. Not even a single spare outfit or a single mattress.
I have a machine that makes bullet proof canvas and I have a single outfit, I have no blankets or mattresses, the only reason there are lights is because Labyrinthine likes playing with shading and lighting. I sleep standing up in my suit or in a wall cubby! I shower using an industrial cleaner! And the minds are the ones who started doing that.
I mean most bad smells come from bacteria on the skin and I haven't been exposed to any of that, but still.
Labyrinthine was happy to have a new urgent project though, especially considering it was something new. Ripping up a non essential section of near-inner factory wasn't that hard as a fair bit of that production was moved below or above, getting heated water set up wasn't a challenge either.
I just had never needed to do it before.
Outside of my new visitors the construction of the new perimeter is going just fine, I have finished about 4 percent of the thing and it was ahead of schedule. The attacks on it are ramping up though, Balistraia is constantly dealing with new hives, the battle trains are constantly clearing and repairing the tracks, and like usual Bulwark is under constant assault.
2 new command bugs have been spotted though, I'm torn over thinking we just missed two chunks of the first one, there had always been three or more, or that the hives saw that one didn't work and decided to double it to see if that did any better.
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Deep underground 3 massive insects chatter at each other, and around them massive tunnels are being dug and reinforced. Stretching from over 30 hives and going all the way to the main base. This attack will be a distraction, and the hives that the tunnels lead to will be an even greater one.
Unaware of the developments underground the engineer watches Balistraia carry the newcomers towards the main base.
Log #73
Okay I have sorely underestimated how much care a human needs, I thought bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchen and they would be content to just sit there till I figure out what to do with them, first they ignore all but one of the bedrooms and just sleep in the same one, so humans are communal okay that makes sense, then one of them spends half the night in the bathtub washing her clothes, okay they need something to clean clothes, fair enough, then they start cleaning their weapons, on the beds! They got oil everywhere!
So now Labyrinthine needs to build a bunk room, a larger bathroom, a laundry room, an armory, and an entertainment system. That last one was Balistrias idea, something about needing to stimulate organics so they don't get bored and cause problems.
Labyrinthine can't build with them in the so we put some gas masks on them and let them explore, watched closely by Balistraia. The red one walks straight into the radiation and heat infused reactor/generator section, so I had to grab her and give her to the yellow one, presumably her minder.
The others are remarkably less problematic, they just found a radar screen and Balistraia used it to show them her favorite form of entertainment, watching bug attacks fail.
There was a fairly large attack on the main outpost, which is odd because it's been 3 days since the last big attack on the main base, it used to be multiple times a day.
This is worrying because there aren't less bugs being made, so if they aren't attacking and dying every day, they are instead hiding somewhere and building up numbers, the last time this happened there were no command bugs and it was a massive attack that lasted for 4 hours, fights don't normally last longer than ten minutes.
With a command bug there is a great worry that the large bug assault will be a bit more complex than just charging but with more bugs, and considering the bugs managed to get to my main outpost without getting spotted by radar or drones… well it explains why I haven't noticed any massive concentrations of bugs.
I really need to upgrade the radar.
They got close to the walls with sensor shielded tunnels (apparently some bugs have spit that can hide them from my sensors), which if I use common sense implies that the massive horde of bugs is currently hiding below my feet. Luckily I have recently made tunnel tanks, and they have some moderately effective weaponry.
Current plan is to brute force scout with the tunnel tanks and then send a larger force of regular tanks down into the chambers the bugs are hiding in, hopefully it's not hundreds of small tunnels, or not flat tunnels, bugs can walk up walls, my tanks cannot.
Planning for that is Bulwark and Balistraias job though, and my input on the minute details won't be that helpful. I don't out plan problems or threats, I out build or out gun them.
After Labyrinthine finished renovating the dorms Balistraia started herding our guests back into their area, they went without much fuss just grabbing a few things off the belts. A few grenades and a bunch of ammunition, nothing too dangerous or valuable, there were bigger explosives in their new armory.
Also a few sets of underequipped mark 1 power armor that Labyrinthine built, at some point, when did they do that? And the suits are color coded?
That's better than the gas masks at least, the inbuilt air filters should work better, and it will keep any contaminants from being absorbed through the skin.
The factory is sterile, but I couldn't in good faith call it 'clean'. Or at least the air isn't but Labyrinthine keeps everything else shiny.
The first portal is going to close within the day at this rate, but the outpost has already been established, armed, and supplied. The minds have standing orders to expand enough to become self-sufficient and then to reinforce and wait, if locals come, ignore them until the language is decoded and then let one of the combat minds talk.
I hear the minds in my head 24/7 and I can firmly say that Labyrinthine and Byzantine are unnerving to listen to, Byzantine thinks entirely in what will or can happen and in an unsettling organized and regimented way, like a spreadsheet of what will happen talking at you in a monotone. While Labyrinthine barely thinks, or at least not in a way I can understand all that well, I understand the intent and message but, well it's hard to explain how you can't understand a thought in your own head while also knowing what the thought is about, so I wont.
Combat minds have the best grasp on the human reality, which might say alot about humans now that I think on that a bit, something made to be organized is foreign and unsettling, while something made only to create and maintain is nearly incomprehensible. While the ones made to defend and kill are relatively easy to understand.
Here's to hoping the locals are non hostile and that the minds don't do anything ill advised while not being monitored.
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20 new tanks drive towards a wall in the basement, going through the opening door and driving through the stone like it isn't even there, Balistraia is on the hunt and she will find her prey.
AN-
remember none of this is canon, it just could be.
Did you like the after log description of a scene that happened during the log? I was thinking of adding that to the main story.
should the engineer get aura and a semblance? and if so what semblance, I have a few ideas but none call to me, I do have an idea with his Aura though, instead of covering his whole body it only protects his vitals, all else can be lost as its not actually important to his survival, then I though about someone poisoning him and realized there was a flaw in my plan, still like the idea though.
'the young soul of the engineer was beaten and forged into a tool, all excess and frivolities cast away into a soul that only wants to protect the core of his self, the discarded shards of his soul burning to fuel his power. everything diverted to keeping him alive, if not whole'
the plot hole I wrote myself into was the portals closing btw.
I did not get as far on this as I want to, so I'll probably write some more on the rwby cross before going back to the main line.
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Log #63
It's been a few days, and while I wouldn't say I feel better I have calmed down a fair bit. So I can go back into everything that's been going on these last few days.
The weather has gone funky, wind and thunderstorms have started but there hasn't been much rain, just lightning and high speed wind.
And the really weird thing is the lightnings behavior, it's not just striking the highest and most conductive thing, it's all hitting the same few spots just outside where the perimeter will be built, I don't want to say that the clouds or lightning is alive or being generated by something that is, but I'm on Nauvis, it's definitely one of those, or something worse I haven't thought of yet.
The tower somehow managed to stay standing, so It's been cleared to go into wide scale production. If we add a few radar stations we can have the whole border monitored. And with the simple design the towers won't take long to build, so the bugs won't have time to mount an attack to stop the construction. Even if they can still overwhelm the tower after the fact.
Powered by solar panels and accumulators these things should be able to run passively off grid, and they can kick on actual generators when they need more power for an attack. It's basically a 5 story brick filled with batteries, guns, and drone ports. With a radar dish stuck on top. The combat generators are under the tower in a sealed bunker. So they are vulnerable to subterranean attacks. But once again, building tunnel tanks to solve that problem.
Half my plans will be ruined if these tanks aren't effective, and I still need to make weapons that can work through stone. I had another idea to try and use a vibration gun, or sound gun. Yeah, that second one is better, to target the bugs through stone, just vibrate them apart. It's not like anything I build has ears so it shouldn't be too much of a problem.
Also got the train engine for the battle train built, which was easy considering it's just a heavily armored train engine with a ram on the front, well a bigger ram on the front. The weapon systems for its wagons are in production, along with the wagons themselves so that should work out fine.
The command plan is also coming along fine, I have a bunch of the parts built and tested, and I just need to assemble the frame, finish the last of the parts, and then put it all together. Which won't be quick by any measure considering all the pieces are complicated and take awhile to make and test, but it should be done soon enough.
Balistraia has also finished scouting the new perimeter and she and bulwark both worked together to make a nice defensive mesh, which Labyrinthine and Byzantine then vetoed. All the minds then worked together to make a more practical one, the preliminary transportation lines are going to begin construction and a fleet of buildertrons (spidertrons specialized in building) are going to head out and start on the first outposts.
Balistraria is going to have her work cut out intercepting attacks before they hit the construction sites though. The projects are on the edge of my territory so the bug hives out there are massive, and since they don't send attacks that often they have significant numbers. Even if they are weaker pound for pound than closer bugs.
The total tally is 1346 over the stand-alone towers and 124 "defensive" outposts. But building that many will take awhile, like at current rate of production 3 years, so it'll probably be around 300 towers and 50 outposts as a start and then adding more and more onto it over time. And once the starting towers and outposts are done we can rapidly develop the interior and cut the three years down into 6 months.
Which is a fun thing to note considering a few weeks ago I thought I had a few months at most, now I'm making plans with over half a year of build time. But that estimate was made in the midst of a mental breakdown while I was thoroughly panicking and it was a worst case scenario.
Things are looking as up as they can be considering I live on a death world if you subtract the odd lightning, including the water level but we just ignore that. It'll go back down now that the rain is chilling out.
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A faint anomaly is seen creeping in on the edges of the radar's sensor range, slowly filling the images with static. This is immediately flagged by Balistraia as a potentially hostile action and scout planes are sent to investigate.
When they arrive there is nothing but a storm on the horizon, the nearest bug presence too far to have caused the anomaly, but now that the planes are in range of the storm Balistraia can see that it is the storm causing the anomaly.
Deep within the factory the engineer's attention is drawn to the feed, and he watches as lightning moves throughout the storm with intent, striking not randomly but at select points just under the storm.
Still it's outside his borders, and therefore not yet his problem and hopefully not ever his problem. Designing some more efficient lighting rods might be pertinent though, and so they are added to the list of projects, at a slightly more urgent than normal level.
Log #65
The storm has gotten worse, and the lighting is now kind of ….lingering? It stays crackling around the strike point, I have a few drones out there keeping an eye on it just in case something else happens but besides covering the ground so the lightning can't strike it there isn't much I can do, and that's if I should even do anything.
Right now its just an unknown anomaly, and doing something could provoke it or cause a change in its currently harmless behavior.
The bugs from inside the perimeter are now attacking it from inside, usually in joint attacks with the bugs outside it, and considering the perimeter is currently like 40 towers and 4 outposts it isn't much of one. So that time to completion will probably be a while longer, but it is fulfilling its purpose of absorbing bug attacks, now that the interior is getting attacked less I can more easily expand here.
And if the bugs start attacking the inside a bunch I just defend there and build the wall, it's like running around a table, just never be where they are attacking. I say this like the bug's don't have the numbers to attack both the inside and the outside, but they really do.
If every single bug within 12 miles of me decided to attack at the same time I would run out of ammo before I killed a third, instead clusters of bug hives tend to attack in waves, which is manageable. The only bugs that coordinate large scale attacks are the command ones, and you'll note something.
Bugs are attacking from inside and outside at the same time. What does that mean? It means there is a command bug coordinating the attacks, I have balistraria scouting for it but the bug doesn't seem to actually go to or near any of the battles, it just sends them at us.
Balistraia hopeful has that handled though, If she doesn't the wall project might just fall apart.
The battle train is now out patrolling the lines, ten cars each with a variety of weapons. That frees up some of the patrolling drones and tanks which are needed on the front, and I have put a few more into production, I have the facilities to build them already and I'm not really building many more basic trains anymore, so no reason not to.
Bombing runs are basically constantly running to and from my main base, and there are hordes of flying bugs engaging the airforces in combat over the new constructions, which I have to admit looks amazing, Labyrinthine already made a sculpture of the fighting and has started putting depictions of dead aerial bugs on the anti-air turrets.
Which is easy to do when you're a robot that can shape metal and perfectly recreate that image in your head, or circuits.
A night sky lit up with hundreds of laser beams so bright you can barely see the stars, the flashes briefly illuminating shining metal and chitin covered monstrosities. I'm glad Labyrinthine can do art because I could not do it justice.
More and more of the basement is being dug out, and I have started moving some production down there along with some backup servers and power supply. I don't want to move anything vital into it until the defenses are complete though.
That will be what's basically a giant shielded bowl filled electric wire, razor dust, toxic gas, and anything else I can think to add, so if the bugs do get past the tunnel tanks they either get stalled for a while or they die to a wide variety of deadly things, just make a thick wall filled with pockets of bad stuff and then have a thinner shielded wall behind it. I figure if the tunnel tanks don't work that great I might as well recreate some of the great hazards of mining, and even if the tunnel tanks work perfectly I still like the extra reassurance.
I also got sonic weaponry working, it only goes through 5 feet of stone though, so its use may be limited. And it doesn't do that much damage. At best it will disorient the bigger bugs
The water level also dropped a bit, only like 2 feet but it was something. Also noted something, this planet has minor tides but no moon, It could be the sun but the times don't line up, in fact the tides aren't even consistent on a day by day, It's almost like something really big is swimming around the planet in circles, or a lot of really big things, moving a bunch of water and creating a fake tide. Maybe chasing the sunlight or staying in the dark?
I just need to say it again, I hate this planet. But I can't say it's boring.
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Lightning strikes the ground again and again, the earth molten and burning from the repeating strikes, first one then another and soon hundreds of bolts strike the earth. The rare minerals "coincidentally" found in this patch of dirt begin to react with the intense conditions, harnessing it and forcing the lighting to linger in greater and greater amounts, a natural battery for some unknown purpose.
Drones watch on, and those who see through them remain ignorant of the lightning's goals.
#67
Construction has continued apace, and the command bug is still on the loose.
That does mean that the bugs attacks are becoming more effective at causing construction delays but the rate at which I'm increasing construction speed, with more materials and factories building materials, means that I'm actually still building the perimeter faster than I had started.
The lightning anomaly also done something, the lingering lightning seemingly reached a threshold and spat out a bunch of random creatures made of an odd black substance, they still bleed and can be wounded, but it's just a the same material in a different state of matter, probably the stuff dissipates once the creatures die or if its removed from them.
Oh yeah the things are hostile to my buildings, or at least they charged at them and the drones I had watching the portal, the drones flew off and the automated turrets gunned them down before they reached the defensive towers, it was refreshing to watch an armor piercing uranium slug actually go all the way through something instead of just lodging itself halfway into it.
If these creatures don't evolve like the bugs I doubt they'll be a threat to anything but my ammo stores, too fragile to weather the barrage to my walls. But for all I know they are glass cannons with freakish strength, or something else that might make them more of a threat.
They haven't encountered the bugs yet, but if they do and they or the bugs attack each other it should give me a better idea of how they fare in a close quarters battle.
The command bug staged an attack on the production outposts for the perimeter, presumably seeing that a fair bit of the materials for the walls came from them, and the attack actually managed to breach through the first layer of walls on that outpost, which is worrying considering that outpost only had 2 layers of walls.
The bugs broke almost all the equipment in that section, fleeing just before Balistraia could arrive. Meaning they knew where the command tank was.
Them watching me isn't a new development though. Back when I only had one outpost the bugs would launch attacks whenever I left, specifically at me as if they knew what I was and what I was doing, or at least that I was the cause of the factory. It's why I built the shield tank.
It seems I'll also need to design something to help Balistraia deal with the same problem, and it just so happens that my experiments with the cloaking bugs have started paying fruit, I managed to get the bug shells to camouflage with an electrical signal, as in I can use the shells of dead cloak bugs to make stealth drones.
Not really viable for tanks though, I can't stitch together multiple shells yet, the camo barely qualifies as such when I try. More like a blurry blob that's arguably more noticeable, what with the rapidly changing images and random flashes of color.
I might be able to get it working on a spidertron though, with a better onboard computer when compared to the tanks I might be able to have it run software that coordinates the different shells.
That's still going to be in R&D though.
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Lightning and space both crack open, and from this opening a few creatures pour forth, the drone watching this takes readings and scans of the beasts, and it immediately pings the minds.
The minds watch as more and more of the creatures pour out, and they watch as one of the creatures lets out a howl upon seeing the drone, causing a few of the creatures to turn and charge the drone.
Within seconds the minds have pulled the drone far above the creature's reach, and they watch as the beast howls in frustration and tries to leap and drag the drone from the sky.
Flying creatures, avian-like rather than lupine, exit the portal, and soon take to the air after the drone, a laser beam melts through their feathers and cuts the flock from the sky.
Deep underground and a few miles away the engineer gets a report, and slumps as the lightning officially becomes a problem.
After a moment of exasperation he returns to his work, stitching together bug carapace into a shape that will fit a spidertrons shell.
#68
I was working on the spiertrons shields, specifically having the inbuilt systems harden the air in front of the spidertron when acid is launched at it, so that the robot can just turn off the shield and have the acid drop to the ground rather than staying on and draining the shields.
I've known that the shield units can harden air, a very weak one is how the drones and planes stay airborne after all, a patch of air is kept harder under the drone so it takes less lift to keep it afloat.
Which technically means I have a parachute on every vehicle with the right shield to mass ratio, but it also means that shield units can be used for flight, and that's a weak one.
I had the thought of, if I can harden air why can't I walk on it? And sure enough I can harden the air under my feet and run, walk, or jump.
There are downsides obviously, it drains the shields the more I weigh so I can only walk on air for a few minutes, 4 min and 34 sec to reach half shields, but I can run very quickly in my armor.
Sadly my implanted shield generator can only hold my weight for 14 seconds though, but then it's only one while my suits have 15+ generators.
It's probably more economical to just slow fall unless I need to get up high, and 4 minutes is just fine to get very high in the air.
The vehicles are sadly too heavy though, the command tank has hundreds of shield generators but the square cube law hits it hard, less surface area to weight ratio meant that I didn't need as many shield generators per pound as I did for my suit.
Spidertrons could theoretically walk on air if I removed most of the armor and weapons systems and just used shields though, but then I'd have a flying duck.
Maybe I can make a hover tank though, the bugs can just try and jam the nonexistent treads on that.
On the cloaking spidertron, it turns out the bug shell does not agree with the shield tech, also I now need a new testing chamber and expendable spidertron.
So that's going to be shelved for a bit. I really need a more reinforced room to test things in, but a piece of already tough bug shells made even tougher by shield tech and then launched at high speeds is not something I had the rooms designed to handle.
Also that's an idea, temporarily indestructible shrapnel. I already had the idea and designs for an artillery shell with shield tech, but if I can get the effect to linger for a bit on a high speed fragment of metal I might be able to make some very impressive grenades and bullets.
Maybe a design on the bullets that circles the energy and having a shield generator in the barrel to charge the bullet as it leaves? That's honestly a Labyrinthine one though, that mind does all the shield glyphs and I have literally no idea how any of it works.
The storm has moved and started striking a new spot, which probably means it's building a new monster node, or whatever I'll end up calling a spot that magically produces smoke monsters.
There had been a debate over whether the anomaly produced the things or just made them outright, or whether or not we should just throw a nuke at it to see if it'll stop making the things, I vetoed that last one though, I get enough explosions by mixing things without factoring in a nukes already explosive nature.
Mixing to zones of high energy like that is liable to cause things to get worse, not better. If we end up needing to nuke it I will be hiding in a bunker very far away from it.
But yeah the anomaly isn't making the creatures. Or it is and it's also making a pocket dimension full of sand. Thats so far unclear but I am leaning towards the storm not having the capability to make pocket dimensions because I like to pretend at sanity.
Balistraia is practically chomping at the bit to explore the place, and Bulwark has already commissioned an outpost to be built around the anomaly, letting the beasts walk straight into a literal kill box.
Balistraia will go through and hold the beasts off from the other side while Labyrinthine builds the sight.
The few drones there are getting some interesting energy readings from the site though, I mean obviously the readings themselves are interesting its a space portal and that's just fascinating, I mean more in the sense that the energy levels are going down now that the storm is moving on, I imagine that means the portals aren't permanent. So nothing non expendable is going through the portal and everything that does will have some very thorough self destructs to activate if they lose contact.
Except for the locator beacon, that kinda needs to be intact to work. Though it's not rated to work across dimensions or even planet to moon, if the portal opens to Nauvis the locator will tell me where these creatures live, then I can send a scout plane there or something.
Honestly if this is an attack of some sort it's very disappointing, just a bunch of weird and rabid animals made of smoke, not even cool ones. A bunch of giant rats with barbed tails came though, giant rats! That's boring, send something neat at least, or something durable.
Made an extension to the sword so it can double as a spear. Also I feel like I should clarify the difference between the swords shield generator and a standard one, the swords generator drains its power constantly and at a set rate to maintain a specific durability, while a standard one uses a varied power output based on the force it is resisting.
So if the swords generator meets something it can't overcome like a massive explosion it'll shatter, while a standard one will just up the power output till it either runs out or survives the explosion, though it's theoretically possible to hit the shields fast and hard enough to break through before it increases you'd need to do it approaching the speed of light to do so, it's not a program the increase the force but rather the energies default state, it 'wants' to expend all its power to keep its shape, and it'll do that as fast as the energy can move, or around 98 percent the speed of light, at least as long as there was already some energy present, it takes longer to actually saturate an item, it's why all shields are always at least somewhat running, to function as a conduit.
(note that you still do need a circuit board to manage and power a shield generator, just not to make an object more durable)
The sword on the other hand limits the flow of energy so it can't go over or under a certain amount, which while seemingly like a bad idea has some benefits, mainly a significantly lower energy cost, a longer lasting shield, the fact that now matter how fast you attack the sword will already be at full durability and that I don't need a small computer to work it. It just will also not be "indestructible" like everything else I make.
That was just the first design though, now the swords are linked into my suits shields rather than having a personal one, or at least my suits swords, I still have mine personal ones as backup weapons just in case.
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Sand billows out from a hole in reality as concrete foundations and pillars are built around it, in the bright desert beyond metal can be seen glittering and the sound of gunfire and explosions echo back through, Labyrinthine works without fear of something disrupting their work, Balistraia will hold.
A creature with purple blood and veins of gold and silver takes their eyes off the camera feed, there is more work to be done and the race towards greater progress can never cease.
Log #70
The portal thing does not lead to Nauvis, which makes sense considering the bugs hate the creatures and the creatures did not put up much more than token resistance to an attack swarm, so if they were native it would have had to been somewhere without the bugs, and as nice as that sounds I know this world isn't nice enough to offer me that.
Well I mean it technically did with the portal and all, actually no we aren't going to be pessimistic, there are radio signals on the other side of the portal, too faint to have made it through but definitely detectable once Balistraia sent a few scouts through.
It's too far away to make anything out, and the signal seems kinda weak and primitive, but it's a sign of actual intelligent life!
The only problem is that the portal is going to be closing soon, like in a week and a half, and I haven't had enough time to figure out how it works or how to keep it open, and even if I did my factory doesn't have anything near the same power output as a thunderstorm.
Good news is the thunderstorm is making a second portal.
Byzantine has a plan for if the portal leads to the same planet, and that's to send a copy of itself and the other minds over to make a forward base in the desert, both portals will be open for 2 overlapping days, so we can check if its the same place and then send a group through the first portal.
All 4 minds working together should be able to handle just about any situation, so that's not a real worry. Losing total contact with the minds permanently is.
Construction on the perimeter is still going fine, even with all the bug attacks, and Balistraia managed to force a confrontation with the command bug in charge of it, killing the thing. This didn't actually change the attack patterns though, so that means either the bugs no longer need a command bug for wide scale coordination, or that that wasn't the only command bug.
Neither are good options.
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On remnant a few sensors in the forest start to pick up odd energy readings, specifically in the emerald forest around beacon, a team is sent to inspect the scene and they find nothing.
A few days later the energy spikes again, and this time a training team is sent to inspect, team rwby specifically, when the team finds the portal they send a report and go to perform recon on the other side when the scanners show that the portal appears as stable as can be.
The portal slams shut behind them like it was waiting for the opportunity.
Log #72
So it's been a bit since my last log, the first portal is still open even if it will be shutting in a few days, the second portal opened but only for an hour before slamming shut, apparently the goal of the portals wasn't to bring the smoke beasts but instead to trap actual organics that went through, kind of like a filter feeder. Still don't know why though.
The signals from the second portal were still good enough to confirm that they led to the same world though, and with the confirmation that the storm is building a third portal, this one a few hundred miles out, the operation to build an outpost on the other side has been given the green light.
If the third portal doesn't open to the same world the minds are to wait one year before deactivating, as in I could only convince them to go up to a year.
As human as an artificial intelligence can seem they don't exactly have the same values as us, they have what they are programed with, and my minds were made to serve me and to build/preserve the factory, without that they have no reason to do anything and so they wouldn't.
If I was in stasis and the factory could run without their intervention they would sit and do nothing, forever.
It's why I gave Labyrinthine the, "make it beautiful" goal. Something open ended like that can keep the minds going for a few months longer, just refining what's already there. You need something that needs constant work that can't be automated, otherwise the minds will just automate it and hibernate.
Oh yeah what came through the portals, it was a bunch of girls, a few might be older than me and one might be younger, actually they are all older than me I'm like 8 months or something, (do you count the time in the tube? Would that be like saying a newborn is 9 months?) but physically they are around my age.
Why they thought it was a good idea to jump through the portal is beyond me, but first the one wearing red went in, then the one wearing yellow chased her, then the one wearing black chased the yellow one through, then the one in white came and the portal shut.
I was genuinely curious about whether I'd see the full color spectrum. And also yes they did come conveniently color coded.
They hiked through the woods for a bit, went near the water, a bad idea, got chased by some bugs and then picked up by Balistraia.
The one in red seems like a mechanically inclined individual considering she disassembled one of the drones, but they largely just sat and did nothing until they arrived at the main base.
I never realized I didn't actually have any amenities till they arrived. No sewers, no real plumbing that isn't for industry, no soap or laundry. Not even a single spare outfit or a single mattress.
I have a machine that makes bullet proof canvas and I have a single outfit, I have no blankets or mattresses, the only reason there are lights is because Labyrinthine likes playing with shading and lighting. I sleep standing up in my suit or in a wall cubby! I shower using an industrial cleaner! And the minds are the ones who started doing that.
I mean most bad smells come from bacteria on the skin and I haven't been exposed to any of that, but still.
Labyrinthine was happy to have a new urgent project though, especially considering it was something new. Ripping up a non essential section of near-inner factory wasn't that hard as a fair bit of that production was moved below or above, getting heated water set up wasn't a challenge either.
I just had never needed to do it before.
Outside of my new visitors the construction of the new perimeter is going just fine, I have finished about 4 percent of the thing and it was ahead of schedule. The attacks on it are ramping up though, Balistraia is constantly dealing with new hives, the battle trains are constantly clearing and repairing the tracks, and like usual Bulwark is under constant assault.
2 new command bugs have been spotted though, I'm torn over thinking we just missed two chunks of the first one, there had always been three or more, or that the hives saw that one didn't work and decided to double it to see if that did any better.
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Deep underground 3 massive insects chatter at each other, and around them massive tunnels are being dug and reinforced. Stretching from over 30 hives and going all the way to the main base. This attack will be a distraction, and the hives that the tunnels lead to will be an even greater one.
Unaware of the developments underground the engineer watches Balistraia carry the newcomers towards the main base.
Log #73
Okay I have sorely underestimated how much care a human needs, I thought bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchen and they would be content to just sit there till I figure out what to do with them, first they ignore all but one of the bedrooms and just sleep in the same one, so humans are communal okay that makes sense, then one of them spends half the night in the bathtub washing her clothes, okay they need something to clean clothes, fair enough, then they start cleaning their weapons, on the beds! They got oil everywhere!
So now Labyrinthine needs to build a bunk room, a larger bathroom, a laundry room, an armory, and an entertainment system. That last one was Balistrias idea, something about needing to stimulate organics so they don't get bored and cause problems.
Labyrinthine can't build with them in the so we put some gas masks on them and let them explore, watched closely by Balistraia. The red one walks straight into the radiation and heat infused reactor/generator section, so I had to grab her and give her to the yellow one, presumably her minder.
The others are remarkably less problematic, they just found a radar screen and Balistraia used it to show them her favorite form of entertainment, watching bug attacks fail.
There was a fairly large attack on the main outpost, which is odd because it's been 3 days since the last big attack on the main base, it used to be multiple times a day.
This is worrying because there aren't less bugs being made, so if they aren't attacking and dying every day, they are instead hiding somewhere and building up numbers, the last time this happened there were no command bugs and it was a massive attack that lasted for 4 hours, fights don't normally last longer than ten minutes.
With a command bug there is a great worry that the large bug assault will be a bit more complex than just charging but with more bugs, and considering the bugs managed to get to my main outpost without getting spotted by radar or drones… well it explains why I haven't noticed any massive concentrations of bugs.
I really need to upgrade the radar.
They got close to the walls with sensor shielded tunnels (apparently some bugs have spit that can hide them from my sensors), which if I use common sense implies that the massive horde of bugs is currently hiding below my feet. Luckily I have recently made tunnel tanks, and they have some moderately effective weaponry.
Current plan is to brute force scout with the tunnel tanks and then send a larger force of regular tanks down into the chambers the bugs are hiding in, hopefully it's not hundreds of small tunnels, or not flat tunnels, bugs can walk up walls, my tanks cannot.
Planning for that is Bulwark and Balistraias job though, and my input on the minute details won't be that helpful. I don't out plan problems or threats, I out build or out gun them.
After Labyrinthine finished renovating the dorms Balistraia started herding our guests back into their area, they went without much fuss just grabbing a few things off the belts. A few grenades and a bunch of ammunition, nothing too dangerous or valuable, there were bigger explosives in their new armory.
Also a few sets of underequipped mark 1 power armor that Labyrinthine built, at some point, when did they do that? And the suits are color coded?
That's better than the gas masks at least, the inbuilt air filters should work better, and it will keep any contaminants from being absorbed through the skin.
The factory is sterile, but I couldn't in good faith call it 'clean'. Or at least the air isn't but Labyrinthine keeps everything else shiny.
The first portal is going to close within the day at this rate, but the outpost has already been established, armed, and supplied. The minds have standing orders to expand enough to become self-sufficient and then to reinforce and wait, if locals come, ignore them until the language is decoded and then let one of the combat minds talk.
I hear the minds in my head 24/7 and I can firmly say that Labyrinthine and Byzantine are unnerving to listen to, Byzantine thinks entirely in what will or can happen and in an unsettling organized and regimented way, like a spreadsheet of what will happen talking at you in a monotone. While Labyrinthine barely thinks, or at least not in a way I can understand all that well, I understand the intent and message but, well it's hard to explain how you can't understand a thought in your own head while also knowing what the thought is about, so I wont.
Combat minds have the best grasp on the human reality, which might say alot about humans now that I think on that a bit, something made to be organized is foreign and unsettling, while something made only to create and maintain is nearly incomprehensible. While the ones made to defend and kill are relatively easy to understand.
Here's to hoping the locals are non hostile and that the minds don't do anything ill advised while not being monitored.
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20 new tanks drive towards a wall in the basement, going through the opening door and driving through the stone like it isn't even there, Balistraia is on the hunt and she will find her prey.
AN-
remember none of this is canon, it just could be.
Did you like the after log description of a scene that happened during the log? I was thinking of adding that to the main story.
should the engineer get aura and a semblance? and if so what semblance, I have a few ideas but none call to me, I do have an idea with his Aura though, instead of covering his whole body it only protects his vitals, all else can be lost as its not actually important to his survival, then I though about someone poisoning him and realized there was a flaw in my plan, still like the idea though.
'the young soul of the engineer was beaten and forged into a tool, all excess and frivolities cast away into a soul that only wants to protect the core of his self, the discarded shards of his soul burning to fuel his power. everything diverted to keeping him alive, if not whole'
the plot hole I wrote myself into was the portals closing btw.
I did not get as far on this as I want to, so I'll probably write some more on the rwby cross before going back to the main line.
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- Pronouns
- They/Them
I like the idea of the engineer having aura only in vital places.
seems thematic for a factory built clone to be like that.
also, poison, just have the high amounts of aura in his heart act as a filter/purifier, and there must be some anti poison implants right?
As for semblance, soul built construction drones? the construction drones came from his semblance, and can act as a powerful starter kit if he ends up somewhere new.
Ryven Razgriz
I need a Gun and I'll let you know 'What's up?'.
- Location
- South East Asia
Eh... the Engineer does not need Aura and Semblance, seriously with the way his tech works he can even overpower and defeat most Huntsmen with the exception of those with ludicrous powers like the Bad Luck Generator, Portal, Illusion and etc. even then some of those, like the Illusions, can be countered with the Engineer's sensors.
