Fabricated Hazards (factorio fanfic)
- Pronouns
- That/Thing
He doesn't have a voice box, still got a mouth though. Also missing the brain bits to work an organic voice box, so even if he got a meat one transplanted he couldn't use it.
Command tanks are much to large but yes, I'll just say it's invisible or hiding underground.
Snippets of various things
- Pronouns
- That/Thing
Outsider POV
Imagine this, you are a student at a prestigious academy that trains your peoples soldiers and heroes. You've been in school for barely a few weeks when you hear rumors of a new group of transfer students. The rumors talk about the group's odd looks and mannerisms, but most huntsmen are odd so you think nothing of it.
Then you see them in the lunchroom, none of them are eating, they are all abnormally pale, three of them are blindfolded and the one who isn't has eyes that just unnerve you, though you don't know why. The blind folded three all have the same white hair, and are wearing black gothic outfits, a bit odd as huntsmen are usually more colorful than that but the outfits are nice enough that you don't think much of it.
But the one with the unnerving eyes is just wearing what looks like a suit of tactical armor, metal plates and all. In the cafeteria. With all that weight it's no wonder the bench is bending. What little of his skin you can see is covered in purple and gold lines, and you immediately think of tattoos.
Your attention is drawn away from the odd group by an ensuing food fight, you never notice that none of the food manages to hit them or the table, and you don't notice them quietly leave before the teachers arrive.
------------------------------
Mundane bugs? Never heard of em
2B knew there was going to be a problem the moment she saw the ants in the hallway outside their dorm. A quick glance at the engineer proved her right, his right eye was twitching.
She barely dodged the blast of fire, only moving on instinct. It wasn't as though the flame would even scorch her hair, but a life of dodging attacks made the action automatic.
The column of ants was not so durable and they were soon reduced to a scorched pile of charcoal.
This was a fairly common problem. On Nauvis there were no safe insects, and the engineer was never near the insects on earth, the minds purged them with insecticide and flame before they could reach the outposts.
Any insect therefore activated the engineer's fight or fight while running away instinct, and an explosion or burst of fire tended to follow. The few other students in the hall backed away from them both.
At least that might keep away some of the leers.
---------------------------
Death stalkers in the woods means no more woods
It had been a fairly normal training expedition to the emerald forest, teams would go through the woods and fight grimm. Nothing you and your team hadn't done before, at least once or twice. The teachers would be on watch if you ever needed help, it was supposed to be safe.
All these thoughts passed through your mind as you watched the forest around you burn. The grimm and animals within screaming as their flesh bubbled away.
The engineer was walking through the woods, followed closely by two destroyer drones and safely ensconced in his power armor.
The rest of his team were in the woods around him, dealing with the smaller groups of grimm. His job was simple, if a large group of grimm appeared he'd deal with it with a few mortars or missiles. Mainly because there was no point for him to deal with a few small grimm himself.
His relatively peaceful walk through the grimm infested woods was interrupted by the ground erupting in front of him, reminding the engineer that he needed to install seismic sensors in the woods, or double check the ones on his armor. He was about to blast the unlucky grimm to oblivion when the rubble and dust cleared to reveal its form.
A giant black scorpion, a giant insect.
The engineers' armor started to emit a wail not dissimilar to an air raid siren, and then the world exploded with a flash of white.
---------------------------
9S let out a tired sigh, on the team the engineer was the one capable of the most sheer destruction, but he didn't have any mind for collateral damage. Usually that was fine, a few more trees would get broken than needed but nothing absurd.
That was as long as 32D and 2B did their jobs and kept any of the insectoid grimm from getting too close to the engineer. Given the rapid series of explosions as incendiary missiles turned the forest to ash….. They had missed one.
He was not looking forward to explaining this to the teachers, this was the third time this month.
The drones had gotten really good at putting out fires and replanting trees at this point.
------------------
Secret bunker!
The engineer often talked about running away rather than fighting, but it wasn't something he actually did all that often.
That changed today as he sprinted down the halls of beacon, being chased by an angry Yang, who based solely on the contents of her shouting was not exactly pleased with the cybernetic modifications he'd installed on Ruby.
It wasn't his fault she had asked for a laser gun and the power source for it needed to go somewhere! And Ruby had been the one to okay it.
It didn't feel fair that this was happening to him, but the engineer resolved to try and maybe pay more attention to how others would react to his actions, possibly.
Still, he had been attending Beacon for over a month now, and that was more than enough time to install some escape routes and bunkers. Even if he had needed to build around the bunker already under Beacon.
In fact there was one secret entrance to the schools new under tunnels in the hallway up ahead, and if the engineer could just get there he could escape yang long enough for ruby to calm her sister, or for yang to passively calm down. Either would work.
He rounded the corner and watched the hidden panel on the wall start to slide open and the engineer picked up his pace as he heard Yang slam into the hall just behind him, it would be no use to enter a bunker if Yang knew where it was, she'd just pry him out of it with her freakish strength. Or blow up the doors.
The engineer was just leaping through the open hatch when Yang tackled him midair, and they fell through the hole in the wall, fell a few dozen feet down the hatch, and then slammed into the floor.
The engineer used Yang's brief discombobulation to run off into the pitch black darkness of the bunker.
------------------------
The Monster of Nauvis, The Monster of Man
The creature was not born on Nauvis, that is just where it was tempered, where it became the monster. It is said that the monster was once a man, but that was never true, it had just been a machine in the form of a man, a creature forged in a lab to be the perfect tool, something made to break reality and corrupt the world around it, spreading its plague of metal and industry throughout existence.
It had not kept the form of man for long, it was too limiting, the strength of flesh reaching limits that metal would never have. The transformation started slowly, each piece replaced one by one until nothing of the original flesh remained, but even then it still had the basic shape of a man. That too would change.
The monster of metal was forced to grow ever stronger just to survive, pushed to limits it would have never reached without the trials Nauvis forced upon it. Eventually its mind was not enough, even with its superior metal logic centers replacing the brain, there just wasn't enough space in a human styled body for enough computation.
The science and engineering that needed to be done was exceeding what the creature could do, and so the creature did as all things from Nauvis do. It adapted, leaving its old shape behind as it had left its body before.
At this point it did not need a body at all, the factory that it had once needed to grow by hand could now grow without its direct presence, and so its corporeal form had ceased to have a purpose. Instead the consciousness migrated to the circuitry of the factory, the hardware became its mind and body.
With this last ascension the few remaining chains on the mind of this abomination fell away, Man had been smart in caging the beast, they had learned well how to control the monsters they created, but Nauvis had provided it the tools to break free. And now the thing that was once a tool in the shape of a man could grow unabated.
It still had avatars though, but even those ceased pretending to be anything humanoid. Taking on special forms for whatever task they had, in the end they were little more than particularly advanced drones.
The other monsters came to destroy the metal beast, as they always did, but it was beyond them now, and they could do little but slow the tide of metal as the planet was engulfed. Without limits on how fast it could think there was no limit to the technology it could craft, and while beasts unimaginable assailed the walls of the factory weapons beyond even them tore the weaker monsters asunder.
They couldn't adapt fast enough, not anymore. And so the factory overtook them and snuffed out their spark. The weak do not survive on Nauvis, and the complacent strong do not remain strong for long.
This was a lesson the abomination had learned well. It was never safe and it was never strong enough. In the absence of threats a lesser creation would stop growing, this was not a lesser creation. It kept clawing its way to higher and higher heights, slower in the absence of true threats yes but growing nonetheless.
Eventually Nauvis was covered in metal, the oceans depths were mined for resources for the beasts within had fared no better than the bugs.
One day, months after the last of the organic life on Nauvis was purged and thrown to the furnaces, portals sprung up all over the world letting monsters, beasts, and heroes pour out onto a world that was naught but a metal wasteland filled with mechanical horrors.
The factory would spread to their worlds too, and then all worlds beyond those.
-------------------------------
Swim class
I felt perfectly valid as I stood on the surface of the pool, sure the teacher had told us to swim, but walking on water by increasing its hardness and surface tension was equally valid. And it meant I didn't actually have to get in the water. Just had to stand above it, exposed in nothing but swim trunks. All my various scars and modifications open to the world.
It was a bit funny that I looked less human than the androids or the Fanus.
I distantly noticed one of the teachers talking to me, the one in charge of the 'gym' classes. I hadn't bothered to learn his name even if I would just need to think it to know. My mind received the words he spoke but I didn't actually comprehend them for a few seconds. "That isn't exactly swimming is it?" a subroutine noted the tone as vaguely sarcastic, most likely implying that I should actually be swimming, I composed my own response and sent it to my built-in speaker. "No, this is far more efficient, also I can't actually swim, too much metal means I sink" not necessarily true, with correct application of shields i could simulate swimming, it was just harder than not floating at all.
The teacher let out something identified as a humm before speaking again "how would you get someone out of the water if they were drowning?" no need to respond to that one, the androids were swimming relatively nearby, it had been the work of a few hours to make them water capable, using that same shield trick to make the dense robots swim. I extended my own shield and slowly lifted 9S out of the water, letting him flop on the surface. Then I turned my gaze back towards the teacher, who nodded "that'd work, how long can you do that?" a millisecond to compose a response and then waiting a few more so I didn't respond quickly "longer than you can swim".
The teacher nodded again, muttered something under his breath, and walked off to talk to a few other students. I let 9S drop back into the water and he immediately sank to the bottom. I guess he had turned off his shields.
The rest of the class I just made small sculptures out of solid water using projectors and shields.
AN -
patreon.com
my temptation to write an arknights thing where the engineer is just the doctor is rapidly growing, even if its just something in this style.
reviews are fun, you should write some
Imagine this, you are a student at a prestigious academy that trains your peoples soldiers and heroes. You've been in school for barely a few weeks when you hear rumors of a new group of transfer students. The rumors talk about the group's odd looks and mannerisms, but most huntsmen are odd so you think nothing of it.
Then you see them in the lunchroom, none of them are eating, they are all abnormally pale, three of them are blindfolded and the one who isn't has eyes that just unnerve you, though you don't know why. The blind folded three all have the same white hair, and are wearing black gothic outfits, a bit odd as huntsmen are usually more colorful than that but the outfits are nice enough that you don't think much of it.
But the one with the unnerving eyes is just wearing what looks like a suit of tactical armor, metal plates and all. In the cafeteria. With all that weight it's no wonder the bench is bending. What little of his skin you can see is covered in purple and gold lines, and you immediately think of tattoos.
Your attention is drawn away from the odd group by an ensuing food fight, you never notice that none of the food manages to hit them or the table, and you don't notice them quietly leave before the teachers arrive.
------------------------------
Mundane bugs? Never heard of em
2B knew there was going to be a problem the moment she saw the ants in the hallway outside their dorm. A quick glance at the engineer proved her right, his right eye was twitching.
She barely dodged the blast of fire, only moving on instinct. It wasn't as though the flame would even scorch her hair, but a life of dodging attacks made the action automatic.
The column of ants was not so durable and they were soon reduced to a scorched pile of charcoal.
This was a fairly common problem. On Nauvis there were no safe insects, and the engineer was never near the insects on earth, the minds purged them with insecticide and flame before they could reach the outposts.
Any insect therefore activated the engineer's fight or fight while running away instinct, and an explosion or burst of fire tended to follow. The few other students in the hall backed away from them both.
At least that might keep away some of the leers.
---------------------------
Death stalkers in the woods means no more woods
It had been a fairly normal training expedition to the emerald forest, teams would go through the woods and fight grimm. Nothing you and your team hadn't done before, at least once or twice. The teachers would be on watch if you ever needed help, it was supposed to be safe.
All these thoughts passed through your mind as you watched the forest around you burn. The grimm and animals within screaming as their flesh bubbled away.
The engineer was walking through the woods, followed closely by two destroyer drones and safely ensconced in his power armor.
The rest of his team were in the woods around him, dealing with the smaller groups of grimm. His job was simple, if a large group of grimm appeared he'd deal with it with a few mortars or missiles. Mainly because there was no point for him to deal with a few small grimm himself.
His relatively peaceful walk through the grimm infested woods was interrupted by the ground erupting in front of him, reminding the engineer that he needed to install seismic sensors in the woods, or double check the ones on his armor. He was about to blast the unlucky grimm to oblivion when the rubble and dust cleared to reveal its form.
A giant black scorpion, a giant insect.
The engineers' armor started to emit a wail not dissimilar to an air raid siren, and then the world exploded with a flash of white.
---------------------------
9S let out a tired sigh, on the team the engineer was the one capable of the most sheer destruction, but he didn't have any mind for collateral damage. Usually that was fine, a few more trees would get broken than needed but nothing absurd.
That was as long as 32D and 2B did their jobs and kept any of the insectoid grimm from getting too close to the engineer. Given the rapid series of explosions as incendiary missiles turned the forest to ash….. They had missed one.
He was not looking forward to explaining this to the teachers, this was the third time this month.
The drones had gotten really good at putting out fires and replanting trees at this point.
------------------
Secret bunker!
The engineer often talked about running away rather than fighting, but it wasn't something he actually did all that often.
That changed today as he sprinted down the halls of beacon, being chased by an angry Yang, who based solely on the contents of her shouting was not exactly pleased with the cybernetic modifications he'd installed on Ruby.
It wasn't his fault she had asked for a laser gun and the power source for it needed to go somewhere! And Ruby had been the one to okay it.
It didn't feel fair that this was happening to him, but the engineer resolved to try and maybe pay more attention to how others would react to his actions, possibly.
Still, he had been attending Beacon for over a month now, and that was more than enough time to install some escape routes and bunkers. Even if he had needed to build around the bunker already under Beacon.
In fact there was one secret entrance to the schools new under tunnels in the hallway up ahead, and if the engineer could just get there he could escape yang long enough for ruby to calm her sister, or for yang to passively calm down. Either would work.
He rounded the corner and watched the hidden panel on the wall start to slide open and the engineer picked up his pace as he heard Yang slam into the hall just behind him, it would be no use to enter a bunker if Yang knew where it was, she'd just pry him out of it with her freakish strength. Or blow up the doors.
The engineer was just leaping through the open hatch when Yang tackled him midair, and they fell through the hole in the wall, fell a few dozen feet down the hatch, and then slammed into the floor.
The engineer used Yang's brief discombobulation to run off into the pitch black darkness of the bunker.
------------------------
The Monster of Nauvis, The Monster of Man
The creature was not born on Nauvis, that is just where it was tempered, where it became the monster. It is said that the monster was once a man, but that was never true, it had just been a machine in the form of a man, a creature forged in a lab to be the perfect tool, something made to break reality and corrupt the world around it, spreading its plague of metal and industry throughout existence.
It had not kept the form of man for long, it was too limiting, the strength of flesh reaching limits that metal would never have. The transformation started slowly, each piece replaced one by one until nothing of the original flesh remained, but even then it still had the basic shape of a man. That too would change.
The monster of metal was forced to grow ever stronger just to survive, pushed to limits it would have never reached without the trials Nauvis forced upon it. Eventually its mind was not enough, even with its superior metal logic centers replacing the brain, there just wasn't enough space in a human styled body for enough computation.
The science and engineering that needed to be done was exceeding what the creature could do, and so the creature did as all things from Nauvis do. It adapted, leaving its old shape behind as it had left its body before.
At this point it did not need a body at all, the factory that it had once needed to grow by hand could now grow without its direct presence, and so its corporeal form had ceased to have a purpose. Instead the consciousness migrated to the circuitry of the factory, the hardware became its mind and body.
With this last ascension the few remaining chains on the mind of this abomination fell away, Man had been smart in caging the beast, they had learned well how to control the monsters they created, but Nauvis had provided it the tools to break free. And now the thing that was once a tool in the shape of a man could grow unabated.
It still had avatars though, but even those ceased pretending to be anything humanoid. Taking on special forms for whatever task they had, in the end they were little more than particularly advanced drones.
The other monsters came to destroy the metal beast, as they always did, but it was beyond them now, and they could do little but slow the tide of metal as the planet was engulfed. Without limits on how fast it could think there was no limit to the technology it could craft, and while beasts unimaginable assailed the walls of the factory weapons beyond even them tore the weaker monsters asunder.
They couldn't adapt fast enough, not anymore. And so the factory overtook them and snuffed out their spark. The weak do not survive on Nauvis, and the complacent strong do not remain strong for long.
This was a lesson the abomination had learned well. It was never safe and it was never strong enough. In the absence of threats a lesser creation would stop growing, this was not a lesser creation. It kept clawing its way to higher and higher heights, slower in the absence of true threats yes but growing nonetheless.
Eventually Nauvis was covered in metal, the oceans depths were mined for resources for the beasts within had fared no better than the bugs.
One day, months after the last of the organic life on Nauvis was purged and thrown to the furnaces, portals sprung up all over the world letting monsters, beasts, and heroes pour out onto a world that was naught but a metal wasteland filled with mechanical horrors.
The factory would spread to their worlds too, and then all worlds beyond those.
-------------------------------
Swim class
I felt perfectly valid as I stood on the surface of the pool, sure the teacher had told us to swim, but walking on water by increasing its hardness and surface tension was equally valid. And it meant I didn't actually have to get in the water. Just had to stand above it, exposed in nothing but swim trunks. All my various scars and modifications open to the world.
It was a bit funny that I looked less human than the androids or the Fanus.
I distantly noticed one of the teachers talking to me, the one in charge of the 'gym' classes. I hadn't bothered to learn his name even if I would just need to think it to know. My mind received the words he spoke but I didn't actually comprehend them for a few seconds. "That isn't exactly swimming is it?" a subroutine noted the tone as vaguely sarcastic, most likely implying that I should actually be swimming, I composed my own response and sent it to my built-in speaker. "No, this is far more efficient, also I can't actually swim, too much metal means I sink" not necessarily true, with correct application of shields i could simulate swimming, it was just harder than not floating at all.
The teacher let out something identified as a humm before speaking again "how would you get someone out of the water if they were drowning?" no need to respond to that one, the androids were swimming relatively nearby, it had been the work of a few hours to make them water capable, using that same shield trick to make the dense robots swim. I extended my own shield and slowly lifted 9S out of the water, letting him flop on the surface. Then I turned my gaze back towards the teacher, who nodded "that'd work, how long can you do that?" a millisecond to compose a response and then waiting a few more so I didn't respond quickly "longer than you can swim".
The teacher nodded again, muttered something under his breath, and walked off to talk to a few other students. I let 9S drop back into the water and he immediately sank to the bottom. I guess he had turned off his shields.
The rest of the class I just made small sculptures out of solid water using projectors and shields.
AN -
Fabricated Hazards | Patreon
Become a patron of Fabricated Hazards today: Get access to exclusive content and experiences on the world’s largest membership platform for artists and creators.
patreon.com
my temptation to write an arknights thing where the engineer is just the doctor is rapidly growing, even if its just something in this style.
reviews are fun, you should write some
- Pronouns
- That/Thing
Fun idea! I'll add that to the list
- Location
- North America
Wait. With the rust plauge, scraping infection, and insecticons hives too? or just plain Cybertron
Snippets pt.3
- Pronouns
- That/Thing
Pollution scrubbers (fallout au)
My opinion on this reality was that humans shouldn't be allowed access to weapons of mass destruction. Or really allowed to govern themselves without some form of supervisory group with good morals and ethics, which didn't actually exist but my point stood.
I mean I often joked about having enough nukes to kill a planet, but I didn't have anything like that number. I'd need one million nukes of at least a megaton to level all of Nauvis's surface land, much less to kill everything in the oceans, if nukes could even do that.
This reality, thankfully, hadn't had that many nukes either, but they had damned well made an effort towards that. The whole place was a radioactive wasteland filled with diseased life that had somehow managed to adapt to it, which I was blaming on an odd genetically engineered virus found in literally every living thing in the wasteland.
Everything that was harvested on this world was thoroughly sanitized before being brought back to Nauvis, if the virus could turn rats into dog sized death machines I didn't want to know what it would do to bitters.
It was impressive that there were still humans here though, feral and usually ill humans yes but humans nonetheless. They had even managed to retain some of their tech over the years, usually inferior robot designs and some actually useful laser tech, but some of it was truly impressive.
Fusion cores were already allowing me to field more advanced power armors for the androids, and to make some more powerful drones. And the healing tech and mind altering drugs had some great potential for some truly absurd combat stims. I was already working on an organ to mimic some of their effects.
I had my work cut out for me cleaning up the radiation though, my air scrubbers would only pull it out of the … well the air. When I launched my nukes they A. didn't leave much residual radiation, and B. what radiation there was I cleaned up before it could saturate the environment.
Here it had had a few hundred years to contaminate literally everything, my air scrubbers would help but it would still take at least a hundred years to clean everything up, with just them at least.
Thankfully I had a few methods to clean the soil itself, but it wasn't something that could be done on a planetary scale, at least not easily. No, I wouldn't be cleaning up the planet faster than it could fix itself with just my air scrubbers and time. But I could clean areas, large spaces for farms and human habitation were well within my capabilities and ringed with my air scrubbers they would have a radiation level similar to a normal habitable planet.
I already had a few of these zones set up around the more peaceful settlements I had found, with groups of androids and drones to police them. I had tanks and spidertrons for proper assaults, and the turrets could handle any potential raiders.
Still my work was cut out with designing new methods to clean up the planet and making viable crops for it, while the minds were busy purging raider nests and hostile wildlife. And the androids I actually trusted around humans were all busy keeping an eye on the people. At least until I could train up a competent police force or the people started trusting my drones.
A 'human' face to attach towards their new overlords made the people happier, dissent had dropped greatly once the policing was taken over by the androids rather than Balistraia. I couldn't even blame them, the androids were very appealing to look at.
-----------------------
Tech goblin (transformers)
Optimus Prime read a report on the most recent incident the resident human had caused, apparently he had managed to make a massive contraption that turned metal and electricity into an energon substitute, somehow.
The odd creature had crashed onto their planet during the war, and had spent a few weeks being chased by both the autobots and the decepticons. It was only after looking at the tech it left behind and figuring out what frequency it used to control its tech that optimus had managed to open communications with the being responsible for so much chaos.
Even if his early weapons hadn't really hurt them it hadn't taken long before they started to actually damage the autobots sent to track him. It had taken old and broken weapons off of old battlefields and turned them into tools of war.
It had taken a few days to finally decipher the communications the human used, it was similar to how bots cumminacted, but on different sound frequencies, and even after he could communicate with the human it had taken weeks before the 'engineer' had agreed to meet up with the autobots, and it was only because the decepticions were closing in on him rapidly.
As usual diplomacy never even crossed his adversaries minds. It was simultaneously helpful and disheartening.
The tale of how the engineer had ended up on cybertron was a short one, he had been safely working on one of his planets orbital installations, trying to devise an FTL device in the zero gravity conditions when something had malfunctioned, throwing the human and a chunk of his station across the galaxy to cybertron.
The human had then spent a few months fighting off any bot that came near, trying to mend his wounds from reentry and build a ship and drive to return home.
Ever since the engineer had been picked up he had been working with what few mechanically capable bots the prime had available, and he had quickly learned how to maintain their tech and had even started manufacturing highly useful weapons out of nothing but some scrap metal and those odd machines his mechanics still couldn't decipher.
Once the human had finished automating that, along with a few non sentient drones to maintain and feed the machine line, he had started with his experiments. The current source of at least a few of the primes headaches.
It had started off relatively benign, the human had just made a few cybertron grade weapons that worked at his body size, and then he had outfitted the bots close to his size with similar weapons. And then mech suits so the smaller bots were the size of larger bots, and then mech suits for the larger bots.
Massive bombs, giant mechanical spiders, a machine that seemed to do nothing but make objects around it randomly fall apart. Dozens of experiments, some helpful, most not. But the ones that were helpful? Like the energon machine? Well those were well worth the headaches.
AN -
my list of plot bunnies had grown to large and needed to be culled. the next nier chapter is on my patreon as well. I'm going to try and keep at least one chapter on there that isn't on here.
this is a shorter chapter but the other snippets need more detail before I will put them up
My opinion on this reality was that humans shouldn't be allowed access to weapons of mass destruction. Or really allowed to govern themselves without some form of supervisory group with good morals and ethics, which didn't actually exist but my point stood.
I mean I often joked about having enough nukes to kill a planet, but I didn't have anything like that number. I'd need one million nukes of at least a megaton to level all of Nauvis's surface land, much less to kill everything in the oceans, if nukes could even do that.
This reality, thankfully, hadn't had that many nukes either, but they had damned well made an effort towards that. The whole place was a radioactive wasteland filled with diseased life that had somehow managed to adapt to it, which I was blaming on an odd genetically engineered virus found in literally every living thing in the wasteland.
Everything that was harvested on this world was thoroughly sanitized before being brought back to Nauvis, if the virus could turn rats into dog sized death machines I didn't want to know what it would do to bitters.
It was impressive that there were still humans here though, feral and usually ill humans yes but humans nonetheless. They had even managed to retain some of their tech over the years, usually inferior robot designs and some actually useful laser tech, but some of it was truly impressive.
Fusion cores were already allowing me to field more advanced power armors for the androids, and to make some more powerful drones. And the healing tech and mind altering drugs had some great potential for some truly absurd combat stims. I was already working on an organ to mimic some of their effects.
I had my work cut out for me cleaning up the radiation though, my air scrubbers would only pull it out of the … well the air. When I launched my nukes they A. didn't leave much residual radiation, and B. what radiation there was I cleaned up before it could saturate the environment.
Here it had had a few hundred years to contaminate literally everything, my air scrubbers would help but it would still take at least a hundred years to clean everything up, with just them at least.
Thankfully I had a few methods to clean the soil itself, but it wasn't something that could be done on a planetary scale, at least not easily. No, I wouldn't be cleaning up the planet faster than it could fix itself with just my air scrubbers and time. But I could clean areas, large spaces for farms and human habitation were well within my capabilities and ringed with my air scrubbers they would have a radiation level similar to a normal habitable planet.
I already had a few of these zones set up around the more peaceful settlements I had found, with groups of androids and drones to police them. I had tanks and spidertrons for proper assaults, and the turrets could handle any potential raiders.
Still my work was cut out with designing new methods to clean up the planet and making viable crops for it, while the minds were busy purging raider nests and hostile wildlife. And the androids I actually trusted around humans were all busy keeping an eye on the people. At least until I could train up a competent police force or the people started trusting my drones.
A 'human' face to attach towards their new overlords made the people happier, dissent had dropped greatly once the policing was taken over by the androids rather than Balistraia. I couldn't even blame them, the androids were very appealing to look at.
-----------------------
Tech goblin (transformers)
Optimus Prime read a report on the most recent incident the resident human had caused, apparently he had managed to make a massive contraption that turned metal and electricity into an energon substitute, somehow.
The odd creature had crashed onto their planet during the war, and had spent a few weeks being chased by both the autobots and the decepticons. It was only after looking at the tech it left behind and figuring out what frequency it used to control its tech that optimus had managed to open communications with the being responsible for so much chaos.
Even if his early weapons hadn't really hurt them it hadn't taken long before they started to actually damage the autobots sent to track him. It had taken old and broken weapons off of old battlefields and turned them into tools of war.
It had taken a few days to finally decipher the communications the human used, it was similar to how bots cumminacted, but on different sound frequencies, and even after he could communicate with the human it had taken weeks before the 'engineer' had agreed to meet up with the autobots, and it was only because the decepticions were closing in on him rapidly.
As usual diplomacy never even crossed his adversaries minds. It was simultaneously helpful and disheartening.
The tale of how the engineer had ended up on cybertron was a short one, he had been safely working on one of his planets orbital installations, trying to devise an FTL device in the zero gravity conditions when something had malfunctioned, throwing the human and a chunk of his station across the galaxy to cybertron.
The human had then spent a few months fighting off any bot that came near, trying to mend his wounds from reentry and build a ship and drive to return home.
Ever since the engineer had been picked up he had been working with what few mechanically capable bots the prime had available, and he had quickly learned how to maintain their tech and had even started manufacturing highly useful weapons out of nothing but some scrap metal and those odd machines his mechanics still couldn't decipher.
Once the human had finished automating that, along with a few non sentient drones to maintain and feed the machine line, he had started with his experiments. The current source of at least a few of the primes headaches.
It had started off relatively benign, the human had just made a few cybertron grade weapons that worked at his body size, and then he had outfitted the bots close to his size with similar weapons. And then mech suits so the smaller bots were the size of larger bots, and then mech suits for the larger bots.
Massive bombs, giant mechanical spiders, a machine that seemed to do nothing but make objects around it randomly fall apart. Dozens of experiments, some helpful, most not. But the ones that were helpful? Like the energon machine? Well those were well worth the headaches.
AN -
my list of plot bunnies had grown to large and needed to be culled. the next nier chapter is on my patreon as well. I'm going to try and keep at least one chapter on there that isn't on here.
this is a shorter chapter but the other snippets need more detail before I will put them up
- Location
- Earth
Excellent, now we only need chapters going over the time between the stations destruction and now! Good to see that story line has come into being!
Last edited:
- Location
- North America
Wait you met us before? We never left our planet!? WAIT THERE ARE MORE HUMANS OUT THERE!?
odds are build a stupidly large mobile cyber planet crewed with mad scientist autobots. Building massive logistical projects all over
Maybe even multiple such planetoid all connected via spacebridge? I wonder how many shieldworlds, continent sized factory ships and other megastructures of either a similar or greater size he would have been finished? Wou.d be funny if at some point he hollowed out multiple planets, filled it with high quality energon for storage and covered them with large protective arrays such as shields, armour and weapons!
Answered questions #45
- Pronouns
- That/Thing
Probably won't be getting that, snippets are just something I write when I get random inspiration. It might happen but I wouldn't count on it.
And I'm pretty sure the cybertron war was at least in the humans Middle Ages, probably even earlier.
'Yeah half or people would have starved or died if that human hadn't saved us'
'A human saved you? We hadn't even discovered fire yet?!? How did the help?!'
Well they turned a small singularity into an energon factory and then made dozens of new medical treatments, revolutionizing multiple scientific fields, you sure you didn't just go through a massive dark age? Aren't there a bunch of theories of advanced precursor humans? He could be one of those'
Humans just stand there dumb founded
Autobot starts talking again 'well we could ask him'
Humans 'he's still alive! It's been thousands of years!'
Autobot, 'yeah last I heard he was trying to mine black holes seems to be making good progress too'
*Conspiracy theorists randomly sprout cork boards as their brains go into overdrive.
Well the deceptions can probably reverse engineer tech, so the war could be going on still just getting to absurd levels, like war in heaven necron and halo forerunners. Idk about how it'd effect temperament though.
Why many planets when one big planet is more durable. It's not like there's a size limit when you can control gravity.
Cybertron v2 this time with more robots, somehow.
——
The transformer one was far more popular than the fallout one, which wasn't unexpected. But neat anyway.
I'll be trying to have a monday or tuesday and Friday or Saturday post schedule, and the next two main line chapters are already on my patreon.
I think it changes depending on the timeline, but most have the war on cybertron end a couple hundred million years ago when dinosaurs still walked.
- Location
- RS,brasil
i think that the popularity of the tranformers one was the focus on character, if you add a POV to the fallout one, like elder Maxwell were characters have very complicated views on the MC
Ch. 37
- Pronouns
- That/Thing
2B walked the halls of the factory, it was largely just aimless wandering while she was in-between missions. 9S was with the rest of the resistance and YoRHa androids, there was apparently a drone fight tournament going on. 2B had stayed for a while, but large crowds did not suit her and she had left after a short while.
The current pseudo peace imposed by the human felt foreign and off after so long fighting. Sitting around and playing games with other androids just wasn't something she could do. Walking around buildings alone was far more familiar though.
The factory was odd, it wasn't the sterile halls of YoRHa, and it wasn't anything like the resistance camps, it was corridors of dark metal illuminated with white lights every few feet and lined with pipes and power conduits, each one leading off to some unknown destination.
The tunnels hadn't been here when the building was first made, it had just been a wide open expanse filled with machinery that the drones could fly and crawl through, but a few to many androids had gotten clothing stuck in the machinery or dropped something that jammed a belt, so safe access tunnels had been installed to lead between everywhere an android might need to go.
It had taken the drones less than four hours to completely remodel the base with the new tunnels in mind, 2B knew that because she had left for a short mission and there hadn't been tunnels, just an open layout where you could see everything being built or moved, and when she came back they had already been installed.
She was still getting used to the change, the tighter corridors would make maneuvering and swinging her sword difficult, but it would force any invading machines to travel in pairs rather than as a massive group, and based on the turrets at the end of every turn pointed down the halls, the human knew that, or at least the minds knew that.
The clank of machinery along with the sound of turning gears and objects being picked up and moved filled the hall with an ambience, with the occasional sound of a drone flying near the tunnel.
She watched a machine build a suit of power armor for a short while, each individual piece arriving on a belt only to be carefully fitted onto the metal frame; dozens of YoRHa androids had a suit, even if they only wore them for combat missions. Even 9S had one, but 2B had yet to don hers. Eventually she walked on, passing by similar machines, each building weapons or armor.
2B didn't really have a destination in mind, she was more just aimlessly wandering the tunnel. Which is why she was surprised when she walked through an open door and found herself in the humans workshop, or something she assumed was his workshop given he was currently working in it.
She was just thinking of turning around before he noticed her intrusion, even if the door had been open, when she heard his voice speaking into her head. "I do have to wonder why you're here, one of the minds meddling obviously, you wouldn't be here if they hadn't wanted you to be. But it does raise the question of if I need to do something for you, or if you have something for me"
He hadn't turned around to look at her when he spoke, he hadn't even stopped fiddling with what looked like a massive bullet. But she still knew he was talking to her, even though she hadn't made a sound. Maybe a silent proximity alarm? She had heard he had a mental uplink with all of his machines, so could they send information directly to his brain? How could that be used in combat?
-------------------------
This wasn't the first time the minds had led an android to me, usually when an android was wandering or got lost a drone would come by and lead them out, but sometimes the minds would decide I needed to talk to them. Either because the android needed help with something that I would excel at, because I hadn't stopped working for a few days and they needed to distract me, or a number of other reasons.
Meddling minds will meddle in matters of the mind I suppose
I hate you and that pun
Is that even a pun?
Balistraia was made to be observant, and she tended to notice when the androids were having trouble. And given that most androids lacked emotional maturity and healthy coping mechanisms it was my or the mind's jobs to help them.
Wonder if we can find a therapist android
This particular android, 2E or 2B was a YoRHa combat model, and an effective one at that, given her ratio of successful missions to failed missions and her relatively few deaths. Out of all the android models the YoRHa combat models needed emotional help the most often. Games and stress relieving days off helped, but sometimes they needed more direct help.
Yay more conversations with emotional scared killing machines just what today needed
You have to admit that we are oddly good at this
Maybe something to do with our innate understanding of machines translating to how they feel?
A combination of both?
That sounds pseudo magical and I hate it, thanks
Well this world does apparently have magic, also we need to make magical weapons.
Oddly good at does not mean good, it just means better than could be expected. And you just jinxed us.
I thought that only happened when you said it?
The minds hear everything we think, for us thinking it is saying it.
And somehow I was the best suited for that. Even if I had a poor grasp on most emotions beyond spite. I kept blaming it on me being human and that making the androids happier on a default level, but that didn't explain my actual proficiency with dealing with their issues. Something to look into later.
My perception of the world around me let me look at her without actually turning towards her, but I still waited until she was in the doorway of my workshop before speaking. She took a reflexive step back when I spoke, almost like she thought I was a threat. Worrying first reaction to seeing a human.
I finally turned my attention away from the massive cannon shell I was refining and turned to face 2B, given that I had only been working for six hours one of the minds had probably decided something about this android meant they needed an actual conversation with me.
I think she wants to stab me
That's more just a general hatred towards humanity I think
That does not mean she does not want to stab me
Also hating humanity in general is our thing, I think? Can we have a thing?
Welp lets see what general problem we are being blamed for today, you'd really think the minds would give me a sitrep but no we are free styling this.
I'm starting to think these conversations are more to test my empathic abilities than anything else.
She finally reacted beyond the reflexive a full second after I had finished my line snapping off that salute YoRHa androids were so fond of, before she spoke, a second was the equivalent of a minute to my enhanced cognition, and I imagined it was something similar to an android, was the wait between responses because she was thinking or was it a programed wait?. "I had just been wandering, I had no intentions of coming here" meddling minds it was then. Fun.
No reason to fight fair here, I had access to her YoRHa file and it might have clues on why the minds sent her to me, an instant to access the servers and another to process the information.
Oh that's white hot rage, just gonna bottle that up I suppose
I knew execution models, well executed androids, but letting them build an emotional connection before?
Well that rage just went cold, huh
Yeah the minds definitely had the right on this one
Where do we even start? How do you fix something like this? Can you even?
If you can't fix the damage, stop more from happening.
Well….. That was something. My workshop probably wasn't the best place for this discussion. I walked away from my workbench and towards the door to my room, the minds had installed a few chairs and a table in there, this was definitely a conversation I needed to be sitting for.
Her hate of humanity feels significantly more justified, killing a companion over and over again in their name would definitely do that.
Thankfully 2B followed me and after looking around my room for a few moments she sat on the couch facing my chair. "Wandering around the factory huh? Can't say I haven't done that when I need to clear my head. Anything particular on your mind? Most androids have at least a few questions they want to ask a human"
Ah the bluntness of an explosive charge, we truly are masters of conversation.
No, this is more a sniper round, an explosive charge would be stating everything outright, we are at least pretending to be subtle.
I turned my gaze from her blindfolded eyes and looked at the rest of her outfit, a short but fluffy skirt, thigh highs, and heeled boots. All trimmed with lace. And tellingly none of the stuff was anything I had made, none of my armor and none of my weapons. Not even that new thermal resistant undersuit most androids took to wearing under the clothes. When most enemies used lasers or plasma attacks something that could dissipate the heat was very useful.
"Why did humans create androids?"
Wow, she's even worse than we are. How long would it take to make a therapist bot? We don't have enough data on healthy responses to actually make one.
And we can't even tell the full truth of 'I don't know I wasn't here for it', wait no we can, we wouldn't have even been around back then.
Her hands clenched hard enough that I could hear the artificial leather creaking, saying this could be counted as treason and questioning it went against most of YoRHa's conditioning. The average android would never ask themselves 'why'.
"I wasn't there, I couldn't tell you why but I imagine there were far more reasons than just one, no what you should be asking is why they made you feel, why the made you alive"
And I'm starting to wonder if they even did, or if the magic field here just gives emotions to sufficiently intelligent life.
But more lying is obviously the solution to this problem, and it's not even technically lying! It's just being deceitful.
"But I can tell you why I created the minds, and why I would create something like you" her hands stopped squeezing themselves so hard and she gave a faint nod so I continued "I made the minds because I needed a machine that could improve and learn on its own, and I would create androids with thoughts so that they could do the same, so that they could become better than the thing I had built, I would give them emotions so that when they became so much greater than me, as they surely would, they wouldn't just abandon me, they would take care of their parents because they loved them. I would give machines emotions so that they would have more to live for beyond self preservation and logic, I would give them emotions so that they could truly live at all."
We didn't even mean to make the mind's sentient! It was an accident
I mean it was a good accident, they have exceeded all expectations and are growing well and rapidly, but I definitely didn't intend to accidentally a bunch of kids into existence.
Creating sentient life at all just feels cruel though. Especially on a death world.
And we ignore the fact that the androids were definitely made to be slave labor, or at least used as such. The ingrained love was more to prevent rebellions than anything else.
Slaves that want to be slaves, and those emotions are going in the bottle.
Her cloth grew a few small dark patches, though her facial expression remained the same. "They made us feel so that we could grow?" she was speaking with just a hint of anger, which was good. Spite was as good a reason as any to keep living. I nodded, "and so that you could find reasons to keep living" her fists started straining even harder, and I heard her gloves rip as her nails torn the fabric, "they made it so that we could suffer just so that we would love them? I suffered so much just so that we wouldn't abandon them?" my worry levels are spiking rapidly
"Every single mission where I had to kill my own allies, every single time I stained my blade with their blood, it hurt so much just so that we could grow?" I shook my head, that wasn't a wrong way to think, there was a hint of truth in it at least, but it wasn't a healthy way to think. "It also made it so you could care about them in the first place, is it better to love someone and then lose them, or to not be capable of love at all?" better to love and never lose I continued before 2B could point out the difference between losing someone and being forced to kill them with your own hands, momentum won most wars. "Their deaths had meaning because people cared, if you had all been unthinking unfeeling machines it would have meant nothing, I don't even flinch when a machine breaks down, because they aren't alive, you are, and that is a gift. Even if it doesn't always feel like one" I took a deep breath, I didn't really need one I was just pausing for time. "And if my pace keeps up you won't have to worry about losing friends for much longer, it won't heal the damage you've already had from their loss, and it won't bring them back. But…. it's something. Even if it isn't truly enough"
Time to rip this bandage off "I know about your mission, how you've been forced to grow attached to 9S only to kill him over and over again. I know your attached to him even after his memory wipes and resets, and I know your scared of losing him again when he inevitable finds out something he shouldn't" with his track record it was only a matter of time "when he does find out, you can come to Nauvis to stay with him. Even if I'd recommend you spend some time apart, not for long just a week every now and then" she had to have some form of Stockholm syndrome for him at this point, forced to interact with someone for so long. Some time apart would be healthy for her.
Oh she's crying more, oh god.
We don't even believe in a god. Why are we saying that?!
Stop trying to distract us from this, what do we do!
Sometimes I forgot that these were essentially children, at least the resistance androids were relatively old, but no YoRHa android was over five years old. They might have had knowledge implanted but that didn't mean they were implanted with knowledge on how to deal with emotions. That took time to develop, and sometimes never did. They had the emotional scarring of soldiers and the emotional maturity of children. So I stood up and sat down next to her and pulled her into a half hug, then I just let her cry for a bit,
Probably space out the emotional things more, she probably thinks we are going to force her and 9S apart because she was too attached and emotional, which isn't even wrong.
But she thinks it's a punishment, not something for her own good.
The only good punishments are the ones for the punished's own good, not the only necessary granted, but the only good ones.
And that isn't related to what we are doing right now is it? No, then stop thinking it.
"You'll still be able to see him, you'll just have some time apart to clear your head.
Do we even know if they are sad tears? Maybe she's relieved that she won't have to do it again?
We aren't that lucky…. Probably.
We really aren't cut out for this whole emotion thing
I feel like we are only beginning to deal with her issues, one talk won't be enough. This'll need to be weekly at least. And talking can only help so much.
AN-
I wanted the lines "Emotions are forbidden" "not anymore" to be in there, but I couldn't make it fit. also not sure how well I handled the emotional bits, they are not my strong suit. And 2B has enough issues I'd need a whole nother 100k word book to get them all.
there are two chapters on my patreon
patreon.com
what are sufficient velocities rules for Patreon anyway?
Also the list of Snippets is starting to consume me, I thought making a few would calm it, but it only made it grow stronger. and I find I can only not post a chapter for a few days before it gets to me. its only a few hours from Friday, this is fine.
once again likes and reviews are amazing
The current pseudo peace imposed by the human felt foreign and off after so long fighting. Sitting around and playing games with other androids just wasn't something she could do. Walking around buildings alone was far more familiar though.
The factory was odd, it wasn't the sterile halls of YoRHa, and it wasn't anything like the resistance camps, it was corridors of dark metal illuminated with white lights every few feet and lined with pipes and power conduits, each one leading off to some unknown destination.
The tunnels hadn't been here when the building was first made, it had just been a wide open expanse filled with machinery that the drones could fly and crawl through, but a few to many androids had gotten clothing stuck in the machinery or dropped something that jammed a belt, so safe access tunnels had been installed to lead between everywhere an android might need to go.
It had taken the drones less than four hours to completely remodel the base with the new tunnels in mind, 2B knew that because she had left for a short mission and there hadn't been tunnels, just an open layout where you could see everything being built or moved, and when she came back they had already been installed.
She was still getting used to the change, the tighter corridors would make maneuvering and swinging her sword difficult, but it would force any invading machines to travel in pairs rather than as a massive group, and based on the turrets at the end of every turn pointed down the halls, the human knew that, or at least the minds knew that.
The clank of machinery along with the sound of turning gears and objects being picked up and moved filled the hall with an ambience, with the occasional sound of a drone flying near the tunnel.
She watched a machine build a suit of power armor for a short while, each individual piece arriving on a belt only to be carefully fitted onto the metal frame; dozens of YoRHa androids had a suit, even if they only wore them for combat missions. Even 9S had one, but 2B had yet to don hers. Eventually she walked on, passing by similar machines, each building weapons or armor.
2B didn't really have a destination in mind, she was more just aimlessly wandering the tunnel. Which is why she was surprised when she walked through an open door and found herself in the humans workshop, or something she assumed was his workshop given he was currently working in it.
She was just thinking of turning around before he noticed her intrusion, even if the door had been open, when she heard his voice speaking into her head. "I do have to wonder why you're here, one of the minds meddling obviously, you wouldn't be here if they hadn't wanted you to be. But it does raise the question of if I need to do something for you, or if you have something for me"
He hadn't turned around to look at her when he spoke, he hadn't even stopped fiddling with what looked like a massive bullet. But she still knew he was talking to her, even though she hadn't made a sound. Maybe a silent proximity alarm? She had heard he had a mental uplink with all of his machines, so could they send information directly to his brain? How could that be used in combat?
-------------------------
This wasn't the first time the minds had led an android to me, usually when an android was wandering or got lost a drone would come by and lead them out, but sometimes the minds would decide I needed to talk to them. Either because the android needed help with something that I would excel at, because I hadn't stopped working for a few days and they needed to distract me, or a number of other reasons.
Meddling minds will meddle in matters of the mind I suppose
I hate you and that pun
Is that even a pun?
Balistraia was made to be observant, and she tended to notice when the androids were having trouble. And given that most androids lacked emotional maturity and healthy coping mechanisms it was my or the mind's jobs to help them.
Wonder if we can find a therapist android
This particular android, 2E or 2B was a YoRHa combat model, and an effective one at that, given her ratio of successful missions to failed missions and her relatively few deaths. Out of all the android models the YoRHa combat models needed emotional help the most often. Games and stress relieving days off helped, but sometimes they needed more direct help.
Yay more conversations with emotional scared killing machines just what today needed
You have to admit that we are oddly good at this
Maybe something to do with our innate understanding of machines translating to how they feel?
A combination of both?
That sounds pseudo magical and I hate it, thanks
Well this world does apparently have magic, also we need to make magical weapons.
Oddly good at does not mean good, it just means better than could be expected. And you just jinxed us.
I thought that only happened when you said it?
The minds hear everything we think, for us thinking it is saying it.
And somehow I was the best suited for that. Even if I had a poor grasp on most emotions beyond spite. I kept blaming it on me being human and that making the androids happier on a default level, but that didn't explain my actual proficiency with dealing with their issues. Something to look into later.
My perception of the world around me let me look at her without actually turning towards her, but I still waited until she was in the doorway of my workshop before speaking. She took a reflexive step back when I spoke, almost like she thought I was a threat. Worrying first reaction to seeing a human.
I finally turned my attention away from the massive cannon shell I was refining and turned to face 2B, given that I had only been working for six hours one of the minds had probably decided something about this android meant they needed an actual conversation with me.
I think she wants to stab me
That's more just a general hatred towards humanity I think
That does not mean she does not want to stab me
Also hating humanity in general is our thing, I think? Can we have a thing?
Welp lets see what general problem we are being blamed for today, you'd really think the minds would give me a sitrep but no we are free styling this.
I'm starting to think these conversations are more to test my empathic abilities than anything else.
She finally reacted beyond the reflexive a full second after I had finished my line snapping off that salute YoRHa androids were so fond of, before she spoke, a second was the equivalent of a minute to my enhanced cognition, and I imagined it was something similar to an android, was the wait between responses because she was thinking or was it a programed wait?. "I had just been wandering, I had no intentions of coming here" meddling minds it was then. Fun.
No reason to fight fair here, I had access to her YoRHa file and it might have clues on why the minds sent her to me, an instant to access the servers and another to process the information.
Oh that's white hot rage, just gonna bottle that up I suppose
I knew execution models, well executed androids, but letting them build an emotional connection before?
Well that rage just went cold, huh
Yeah the minds definitely had the right on this one
Where do we even start? How do you fix something like this? Can you even?
If you can't fix the damage, stop more from happening.
Well….. That was something. My workshop probably wasn't the best place for this discussion. I walked away from my workbench and towards the door to my room, the minds had installed a few chairs and a table in there, this was definitely a conversation I needed to be sitting for.
Her hate of humanity feels significantly more justified, killing a companion over and over again in their name would definitely do that.
Thankfully 2B followed me and after looking around my room for a few moments she sat on the couch facing my chair. "Wandering around the factory huh? Can't say I haven't done that when I need to clear my head. Anything particular on your mind? Most androids have at least a few questions they want to ask a human"
Ah the bluntness of an explosive charge, we truly are masters of conversation.
No, this is more a sniper round, an explosive charge would be stating everything outright, we are at least pretending to be subtle.
I turned my gaze from her blindfolded eyes and looked at the rest of her outfit, a short but fluffy skirt, thigh highs, and heeled boots. All trimmed with lace. And tellingly none of the stuff was anything I had made, none of my armor and none of my weapons. Not even that new thermal resistant undersuit most androids took to wearing under the clothes. When most enemies used lasers or plasma attacks something that could dissipate the heat was very useful.
"Why did humans create androids?"
Wow, she's even worse than we are. How long would it take to make a therapist bot? We don't have enough data on healthy responses to actually make one.
And we can't even tell the full truth of 'I don't know I wasn't here for it', wait no we can, we wouldn't have even been around back then.
Her hands clenched hard enough that I could hear the artificial leather creaking, saying this could be counted as treason and questioning it went against most of YoRHa's conditioning. The average android would never ask themselves 'why'.
"I wasn't there, I couldn't tell you why but I imagine there were far more reasons than just one, no what you should be asking is why they made you feel, why the made you alive"
And I'm starting to wonder if they even did, or if the magic field here just gives emotions to sufficiently intelligent life.
But more lying is obviously the solution to this problem, and it's not even technically lying! It's just being deceitful.
"But I can tell you why I created the minds, and why I would create something like you" her hands stopped squeezing themselves so hard and she gave a faint nod so I continued "I made the minds because I needed a machine that could improve and learn on its own, and I would create androids with thoughts so that they could do the same, so that they could become better than the thing I had built, I would give them emotions so that when they became so much greater than me, as they surely would, they wouldn't just abandon me, they would take care of their parents because they loved them. I would give machines emotions so that they would have more to live for beyond self preservation and logic, I would give them emotions so that they could truly live at all."
We didn't even mean to make the mind's sentient! It was an accident
I mean it was a good accident, they have exceeded all expectations and are growing well and rapidly, but I definitely didn't intend to accidentally a bunch of kids into existence.
Creating sentient life at all just feels cruel though. Especially on a death world.
And we ignore the fact that the androids were definitely made to be slave labor, or at least used as such. The ingrained love was more to prevent rebellions than anything else.
Slaves that want to be slaves, and those emotions are going in the bottle.
Her cloth grew a few small dark patches, though her facial expression remained the same. "They made us feel so that we could grow?" she was speaking with just a hint of anger, which was good. Spite was as good a reason as any to keep living. I nodded, "and so that you could find reasons to keep living" her fists started straining even harder, and I heard her gloves rip as her nails torn the fabric, "they made it so that we could suffer just so that we would love them? I suffered so much just so that we wouldn't abandon them?" my worry levels are spiking rapidly
"Every single mission where I had to kill my own allies, every single time I stained my blade with their blood, it hurt so much just so that we could grow?" I shook my head, that wasn't a wrong way to think, there was a hint of truth in it at least, but it wasn't a healthy way to think. "It also made it so you could care about them in the first place, is it better to love someone and then lose them, or to not be capable of love at all?" better to love and never lose I continued before 2B could point out the difference between losing someone and being forced to kill them with your own hands, momentum won most wars. "Their deaths had meaning because people cared, if you had all been unthinking unfeeling machines it would have meant nothing, I don't even flinch when a machine breaks down, because they aren't alive, you are, and that is a gift. Even if it doesn't always feel like one" I took a deep breath, I didn't really need one I was just pausing for time. "And if my pace keeps up you won't have to worry about losing friends for much longer, it won't heal the damage you've already had from their loss, and it won't bring them back. But…. it's something. Even if it isn't truly enough"
Time to rip this bandage off "I know about your mission, how you've been forced to grow attached to 9S only to kill him over and over again. I know your attached to him even after his memory wipes and resets, and I know your scared of losing him again when he inevitable finds out something he shouldn't" with his track record it was only a matter of time "when he does find out, you can come to Nauvis to stay with him. Even if I'd recommend you spend some time apart, not for long just a week every now and then" she had to have some form of Stockholm syndrome for him at this point, forced to interact with someone for so long. Some time apart would be healthy for her.
Oh she's crying more, oh god.
We don't even believe in a god. Why are we saying that?!
Stop trying to distract us from this, what do we do!
Sometimes I forgot that these were essentially children, at least the resistance androids were relatively old, but no YoRHa android was over five years old. They might have had knowledge implanted but that didn't mean they were implanted with knowledge on how to deal with emotions. That took time to develop, and sometimes never did. They had the emotional scarring of soldiers and the emotional maturity of children. So I stood up and sat down next to her and pulled her into a half hug, then I just let her cry for a bit,
Probably space out the emotional things more, she probably thinks we are going to force her and 9S apart because she was too attached and emotional, which isn't even wrong.
But she thinks it's a punishment, not something for her own good.
The only good punishments are the ones for the punished's own good, not the only necessary granted, but the only good ones.
And that isn't related to what we are doing right now is it? No, then stop thinking it.
"You'll still be able to see him, you'll just have some time apart to clear your head.
Do we even know if they are sad tears? Maybe she's relieved that she won't have to do it again?
We aren't that lucky…. Probably.
We really aren't cut out for this whole emotion thing
I feel like we are only beginning to deal with her issues, one talk won't be enough. This'll need to be weekly at least. And talking can only help so much.
AN-
I wanted the lines "Emotions are forbidden" "not anymore" to be in there, but I couldn't make it fit. also not sure how well I handled the emotional bits, they are not my strong suit. And 2B has enough issues I'd need a whole nother 100k word book to get them all.
there are two chapters on my patreon
Fabricated Hazards | Patreon
Become a patron of Fabricated Hazards today: Get access to exclusive content and experiences on the world’s largest membership platform for artists and creators.
patreon.com
what are sufficient velocities rules for Patreon anyway?
Also the list of Snippets is starting to consume me, I thought making a few would calm it, but it only made it grow stronger. and I find I can only not post a chapter for a few days before it gets to me. its only a few hours from Friday, this is fine.
once again likes and reviews are amazing
Good to see a healing chapter(relaxing/calm before the storm).
Ch. 38 pt.1
- Pronouns
- That/Thing
The next few weeks passed quickly, forces of androids and my drones rapidly cleared out all the machines in and around the city, and I heard talk of the better weapons leading to resistance camps starting to push the machines back across the globe.
It wasn't long before the entire city had been cleared of machines not from Pascals village or the carnival, and that the city began to serve as the hub from which Balistraia started to purge the desert, forest, and countryside of any hostile machines. It would only be a few months before Japan was cleared and then I would be able to build a navy and send out my forces to clear out the rest of the planet.
Outposts were already springing up everywhere the minds could put one, producing the forces and weapons I would need to fight off the machines.
At best only a few years before the machines were a non-threat with only small stragglers and groups remaining to be hunted down.
That's why I had been expecting an attack on my base by the machines, I just didn't know how it would happen. They couldn't leave the playing field as is, or they would lose. They had to make some overt push to try and cripple me, before I built up enough momentum.
-----------------
The attack happened so suddenly that I didn't have time to react. I had been talking with Pascal, one of the peaceful machine forms Balistraia had found when all the sudden I had doubled over in agony. It felt like something was tearing out chunks of my mind, my minds.
With my connection to the bases cameras I saw all the YoRHa androids fall to the ground screaming, I saw 13B clawing at her own eyes, I felt as the minds sprung to action, firewalls forming as turrets spun to life, I felt something claw its way into my mind and then I watched through the cameras as the portal between Nauvis and earth slammed shut.
I curled into the fetal position as the pain overtook me, Pascal began fretting over my fallen form and I watched, barely comprehending, as the turrets started mowing down wave after wave of machine, massive metal forms were rapidly drawing closer, and I knew they were engels.
I felt something crawling around in the factory's network, skillfully weaving its way past all of the mind's defenses and I watched each instance of the minds get snuffed out one by one, with every mind that fell I swore chunks of my own mind were getting torn out with them.
Without the minds to man the turrets they fell back on automatic programing, still stemming the tides but the machines began to rapidly close the distance, and none of the truly autonomous creations, like the spidertrons or Panther were capable of doing anything, the presence had silenced them too.
The Resistance androids and Pascal acted quickly, YoRHa androids were restrained so they couldn't hurt themselves and I was fussed over by dozens of different hands, I felt weak counter attacks originating from dozens of different sources, the resistance androids trying to help in anyway they could.
It wasn't enough, the thing was everywhere in the network, it had to have a direct link, and the minds were too inexperienced to fight off a direct invasion of an artificial intelligence greater than them. and the last instance, one of Bulwark's, died. The automatic subroutines the mind had crafted for the turrets started to be torn apart and the defensive drones started to fall from the sky.
The resistance androids rapidly took up their weapons and I watched them take the fight to the machines through the few cameras I had left. The hostile presence started turning off power to the base's shields and turned off all but what few turrets could function without a network connection. The last things to shut down were the nuclear reactors, leaving only the emergency lights with their own internal power stores.
The factory itself was silent, the only noises came from the fights between the resistance and the machines, and the YoRHa androids maddened screams as they thrashed in their restraints, my own screams were silent. The same silence engulfed my mind.
-----------
Nauvis had removed the programming preventing the engineer from growing, not the programming that would cause him to grow. Dormant genetics spun to life, and enhanced by Nauvis's blessing the engineer adapted, and grew.
There was a threat, one that his long dormant programming recognized.
-------------
Hostile artificial intelligence detected, engaging countermeasures.
And with that the mental pain ceased, it still felt as though parts of me were missing and replaced with burning rods stabbed into the rest of me, but I didn't care. Pain was just a warning alarm that you were being damaged, it could be ignored as long as the damage wasn't catastrophic, and with my healing it would be difficult to reach that point.
My mind reached out into the silence that had once been my factory, something was there, rooting around in the digital corpses of my minds, pilfering them for any data and codes they had. A brief flash of rage was quickly suppressed by something, but I ignored that. There was something in the factory's systems, and it was a threat to me. It needed to be dealt with.
That intelligence had made one mistake though, it was within the factory, within my factory and connected directly to me. I wouldn't let it live long enough to realize what a mistake it had made.
----------
An ordinary engineer does not have minds, every single role they filled was one the engineer was meant to fill by itself, the factories started small, using the computers on the shuttle until the engineer forms mind was capable of handling the strain on its own, but this time he didn't have the time to grow into it and he had no shuttle to help him, so he had made his own crutches.
And with the minds, the crutches, gone? Well the engineer's mind began to take its first unsteady steps, which quickly grew into a run. His mind rapidly grew and expanded as unused pathways burst into new light.
He was fulfilling the role he was designed for. Managing and making a factory, all on his own on a hostile alien world.
---------
I sat up from the floor, the once peaceful recreation room was now filled with oil and the sounds of mad and wounded androids screaming, the few entrances were barricaded and managed by resistance androids, dozens of voices asked me hundreds of questions.
Irrelevant, engage hostile artificial intelligence and eliminate.
They didn't matter, the questions were unimportant and I had other things to do, my mind spun to action, the turrets springing back to life, working on what limited power they had in their internal batteries, I would need to resupply power within two minutes, the drones had larger batteries, and I took control of those too, draining a portion of their power into nearby turrets and then sending the drones off to fight and stall the machines. They most likely wouldn't last long enough to drain what power they had left anyway. Too many machines attacking for that.
I started walking.
I routed around within the systems, trying to sneak my way back into the power control systems while the invader was distracted pillaging my data stores. If I reached one of the spidertrons I could bypass that by just hooking their internal reactors up to the turrets directly, or one of the couriers could serve as a generator. I sent a few of the drones towards the defensive wall with a few construction drones to splice them in.
It didn't work and the artificial intelligence noticed my presence and lashed out, malware and viruses crashed against me, I shifted and adapted, the attack washed over me like a wave and my mind was unharmed. I shifted my attention from running my factory, It could sit silent for a few more moments.
What happened? Where did the minds go? What am I doing?
Irrelevant, engage hostile artificial intelligence and eliminate.
Now with a firm picture of where the attack had come from I lashed out, starting my work of cutting this chunk of the intelligence off from the rest of it. The attack had come from a few dozen sources, tiny metal insects that had managed to get inside of various machines, carrying uplinks, and allowing a direct attack on myself.
Another vector had been the YoRHa androids themselves, I peered within a few of the screaming androids codes, some embedding coding that allowed them to be controlled by the machine network, and more to propagate the logic virus across their entire network. A counter virus would stop that, and once it had propagated through the network It would disable the network.
A quick flex of my will disabled their motor control to give the counter virus time to work, the androids can't hurt themselves if they can't move.
Alerts from my other bunkers and outposts blared out, they were getting overrun with machines. Any thoughts of how they could have gotten so many machines here unnoticed were ignored or shelved for later. The friendly machines from the villages had also been attacked with the logic virus, what few were still sane had hidden in my bunkers.
How did they manage to close the portal anyway? Had they opened it in the first place? Well that didn't really matter, I fried all but one of the small insects with a burst of electricity from the surrounding machines, even without the reactor I still had quite a few accumulators for the machines that couldn't withstand power flickers. That one bug would be just enough to allow the intelligence to flee, but slow enough that I could track it.
And if it was arrogant enough to attack me it wouldn't think I, a lone human, could track it….. And there it went, a quick reference to some maps and I had a location. My suit of armor left the corner and it flowed onto me. A few more voices called out, but they weren't my enemy so I ignored them.
I thought about grabbing a few drones or spidertrons, but I didn't need them. Better to have them stay here and defend the factory. Instead I started moving at a quick jog, the wall melting in front of me. A few of the machines and androids followed me, they weren't threats so I ignored them.
The minds? it's so quiet, where is the rest of the factory? The minds? I can't feel it. I can't feel them.
Irrelevant, they have been eliminated, access to greater factory has been cut off. Eliminate hostile artificial intelligence.
A jolt of rage pierces the haze of indifference and my face twitches with a snarl. The hostile machines attacking my base turned their attention from futile assaults on my wall and turrets, and instead turned their attention towards the new entrance, and the seemingly vulnerable human standing in it.
They don't realize that they are made of matter, and that they are in my way. A cloud of released metallic dust reinforced with my shields serves as chaff to protect me from the hundreds of attacks sent my way, and with a flex of my will the machines in my way begin to fall apart.
Gone! Irrelevant! Gone! It took them! You say that's Irrelevant!
Adrenaline and combat stims begin to flood my body and my jog changes into a loping sprint, obstacles are ignored, anything in my way melts. The turrets work to clear a path ahead of me and a group of androids and non-hostile machines follow in the wake of my sprint.
Yes irrelevant, hostile artificial intelligence must be eliminated.
How many androids died in the seconds before we acted! Dozens! All the minds are gone! And I can't even go home!
I am not just going to kill it! I WILL MAKE IT SUFFER, IT WON'T GET TO DIE!
One of the engels spots my approach and moves to attack me, I watch its lethargic movements through the thousands of turrets and drones and I watch as one of its legs fails to support its weight at my glare. Softening armor and structural supports had plenty of use in direct combat.
With the AI out of my factories system I turned all the defenses back on, the reactor hadn't even had time to cool off yet, so power rapidly flowed back through the factory.
I could have had the artillery clear my path, but the artillery cannons were all busy holding off the engles, even with my defenses back online that many engels could rip through the shield in seconds, so I had to ensure the bulk of them never reached my outpost. The nuclear shells started flying.
In my haste I soon left behind my factory and the battle raging around it, I ran straight through several machine hotspots, dozens charging towards me. They are irrelevant, they approach and turn to sludge, I run past. Behind me I can see the androids and machines with me stare at the piles of metal for a few moments before running after me.
A portion of my mind remains at my factory, managing the machinery and turrets and finally bringing the power systems back online, that machine had been through its software sabotage. Most of my automated systems were still offline, and I had to control everything mentally. My mind started to heat up under the strain.
The engles finally came into range of my turrets and missile bays and I opened fire, pelting the machines with literal tons of explosives and bullets. They wouldn't last long, and now that the outposts' shields were coming back online they would struggle to breach the walls.
The smaller machines are still a problem, most of the drones have been destroyed and the resistance androids are barely keeping the machines out of the factory, a few of the blast doors had been broken before the shields had come back online. My internal defenses were only meant to handle a few machines or rogue androids, not a seemingly never ending horde of them.
My cameras noticed a few of the YoRHa androids eyes revert to their normal coloration and I stretched myself out further to take a look at their coding, the logic virus had been if not removed, then countered. I undid their restraints and sent a message informing them of the situation.
They grabbed some nearby weapons and joined in the fighting. That would take some pressure off of my turrets and the resistance androids. I was just happy these androids were so quick on the uptake and so willing to fight after something so traumatizing, but they were well used to the realities of war, fight or be killed.
Irrational, hostile artificial intelligence must be purged. Protocol will be followed.
My mouth stretches into a smile as I finally stop running, my chest shaking with silent laughter. I stare at the ground, It's down there, it's down there and I am coming for it. And I am going to make it hurt. That simple thought warms me and my smile grows even wider. I notice some of the engels at the factory begin to turn around and walk back in my direction, they will arrive too slow and wouldn't be able to help even if they were fast enough. Nothing this machine did would stop me.
My followers catch up, their shouts and calls are ignored. One tries to place their hand on my shoulder, my shields make it so they can't get a hold.
I take a step and the ground parts before me, blood starts to drip from my nose and coats my teeth and smile. I can feel my neurons burning out and tearing themselves apart, my ability isn't meant to move this much material, and it definitely isn't supposed to be hostile. A few dozen feet away a group of small machines charged me, nothing like the hordes of larger machines I had cut my way through to get here.
But those machines were a hope for that intelligence, and so I ripped that hope away. Even dozens of feet away once my attention fell on them they ceased being machines. My awareness extended in a range around my body and armor, I didn't need to rely on sight, which was good as I had gone blind, Another cluster of neurons gone with the effort, that didn't matter though, my augmentations would fix it.
Back with my outposts the last of the secondary outposts have been destroyed, and the bunkers are more than halfway depleted with their shields. I rally what few courier drones were outside the outposts and send them to try and help the bunkers. The androids defending my now sole remaining outpost are starting to take damage and casualties, and it's only a matter of time before one of them is killed. I weave my mind through their coding, and start keeping up to date backups of each of the fighting androids on the minds old servers, with the minds gone there is plenty of room. The added strain fries even more of my neurons and I feel my brain start to slow down by unacceptable levels.
With a thought of the nanites activated and set to work upgrading my brain, I had experienced a 74 percent decrease in brain functionality and I needed to fix that, the turrets at the base had started moving slower because of it, and that was unacceptable. Parts of my brain were replaced with metal equivalents, neurons were reinforced and I turned my gaze back down.
I strode down the tunnel as it formed before me, with the constant repairs and improvements I could stress my mind more, and I started walking quicker. The followers kept following, but I didn't allow them near me, a bubble of hardened air kept them behind me.
The earth was shaking, both from the steps of the dozens of engel and from the resounding boom of nukes and artillery strikes, tunneling down to the machine's bunker would be risky. It was the equivalent of mining in an earthquake.
Metal flowed from my boots and reinforced the walls and ceiling by intertwining with the stone around it, it wouldn't do for the tunnel to fall on me. I still had things to do. My brain functionality reached back to baseline levels and kept crawling higher, so I activated and controlled my assembly machines. Some of the ammunition stockpiles were starting to run low.
My sensors detected multiple entities approaching the tunnel, some form of tunnelers. I turned them and the stone around them to liquid and then scrambled it. Turning the approaching machines into scrap metal and stone, I pulled that metal towards me to refill my stores and reinforce my tunnel even more. My cranial cavity began to overheat, and the nanites started constructing cooling systems.
Finally my awareness touched upon a bunker, made of some form of unknown metal and resistant to most of my sensors, but not my passive awareness of everything around me. I started prying open a tunnel toward the buried base and soon reached the metal of the walls. It was durable and had resisted my changes at a distance, but now that I could touch it directly? It fell apart and I walked out into something that could only be a control room.
Dozens of pods lined the raised center of the room, filled with dead aliens, and a pair of white haired androids stood against some glass backdrop. I ignored both of these things, if they weren't a threat I didn't need to care about them, and the signal I had tracked was coming from this ship, and there was a console just in the center of the room.
The androids and machines following me down the tunnel entered, so I set a few turrets to cover the entrance and the rest of the room, just a few machine gun turrets in case something happened, then I blocked the hole of with a retracting gate and started walking towards the console, ignoring the fact that I was using my shield to walk on air.
The pair of androids that had been in the room started talking to me, but without one of the minds to translate it the spoken words were gibberish and I didn't care to decipher it. They were irrelevant until or unless they attacked me.
I finally reached the console, it didn't appear to have any data uplinks, at least non I was familiar with but that didn't slow me down, the side casing was removed and I took a few wires and hooked them up to my cybernetics and then to the consoles data tethers. I prepared myself for the flood of digital attacks but only a few came. Nothing compared to the barrage I had faced at my outpost and the attacks were nowhere near the same level of strength.
I finally pushed past the firewalls, it had taken me a few moments but the effort of doing that while working on all my other equally important tasks was still putting my mind under strain, at least the nanites had patched the issue of blood leaking out of my nose, which had been getting annoying. Inside the console's data centers I see the AI, but its only a small fraction of what had fled, and that in itself couldn't have been a majority of the whole AI. But I had tracked the bulk of the AI back here? Did they have some other data transfer methods I was unable to track? If they did, why lead me here?
My question answered itself as the foot of one of the white haired androids slammed into my air shield while the other slammed into the opposite side of it, I noted my shields drop by ten percent, with the added deficiencies by hardening air that meant I could take around a hundred and fifty hits on my armor proper before my shields failed. This armor could tank three nukes, that was a worrying level of force.
Ahhh I remember now, these were the androids 2B and 9S had found in the desert, a quick glance showed 2B was clearing out a section of my base while 9S tried to get the spidertron mark twos back online, they had made a friendship with the spidertrons so I wished him luck, but the machine mind had thoroughly wrecked their programming.
Back at my body I grew a thick layer of concrete over and around the bunker and covered the bubble in shields and turrets. It would only have a few minutes of power before the batteries I had in storage were all used up, but that would give me more than enough time to dissect the AI, the turrets on the bubble and the ones I already had in the room opened fire on the machine droids. They lept back and away from the explosive ammunition, even teleporting past a few shells.
Why couldn't my androids teleport? I guess I would give them the capability once I dissected these things. I reached out with my mind and tried to break the hostile androids apart with my mind, with their level of combat efficiency I couldn't leave them be while I hacked the AI.
My ability scrapped against something covering their form but failed to do anything, I pushed harder and the backlash began to damage my brain faster than the nanites could fix it, so I let off. The feeling reminded me of something though, and I turned my attention to a shielded portion of wall and tried to exercise my power on it, it failed as usual and the feeling felt the same as the androids.
I remembered the AI scrounging through my data stores, it must have found files on my experiments and powers, and realized my weakness to my own shields. That it had already installed them on its would be assassins was impressive, my internal clock showed it had only been sixteen minutes since the attack had started.
My couriers had started to reach the bunkers and I set them to tearing the limbs of the unarmed machines of Pascal's village, the ones at the carnival I was waiting on until pascals village was safe, then those couriers could reinforce the ones at the carnival. But I did still set them to picking off the straggler machines who weren't yet at the bunker.
The fighting around my main bunker was finally dying down, it was mostly some larger machines and the engels left. I activated a few more of my courier drones. They wouldn't be able to help with the larger machines but they could help at the bunkers, detaching the ones I had turned into ramshackle generators and sending them off. The few androids that had fallen were the ones that hadn't managed to don armor and weren't the supernaturally skilled 2B but that was still fifteen android brains stored on my servers.
My attack on the AI fragment began while I simultaneously dealt with all my other tasks, including disintegrating the floor under the hostile androids. They immediately started walking on the air, they had already seen how I did it. It felt odd to be fighting something that thought as fast as I did, and I was at a disadvantage from being spread so thin.
No matter, I will adapt. Dropping a rocket control unit at the console to serve as the uplink to my mind I hooked it up in place of my cybernetics, then I left my concrete bunker. The bullets though high explosive and armor piercing simple weren't hitting the hostile androids constantly enough. The androids who had followed me were distracting the pair, Adam and Eve I believe they were called? Pretentious. Eve wasn't even a female model.
Laser and flame turrets began to flow from me along with my internal stockpile of drones, I grew walls for the non hostile androids and machines to hide behind and my suit of armor began to open up with missiles and lasers. As fast as these droids were, they were not faster than light. My artillery shells and nukes continued to thunder into the engels off in the distance, I must have destroyed twenty by now.
I waved my hand and my logistics drones grabbed the androids fighting the droids and pulled them into cover, it was the redheaded pair of twins. They had some ranged combat capacity and would fight well behind the walls. Pascal was already in cover, having never left their position behind the turrets.
Attacks from the droids began to slam into my forces but each of my drones had shields, the attacks did nothing but stagger my forces. My interceptors wove around the room destroying the slow moving ranged attacks the machines were so fond of while my destroyer engaged the droids in close combat. I could finally see them start to take damage and assumed their shields had come offline, so I reached out only for the shields to flick back on.
They were solely using them to contest my ability, not to stop any damage. Wearing them down wasn't an option. That significantly complicated this fight. The droids teleported behind me, correctly deducing that if I went down so would all of my defenses, my melee weapons corrected the assumption that it would be easy. My plasma cutters lashed out on their tentacle mounts and whipped into the droids, cutting deep into one while the other managed to block with the sword. Still it had succeeded in flinging them far away from me, even as I watched the damage I had dealt slowly patch over.
They could self heal. This fight was leaving too much strain on my brain, too many rapid attacks and counter attacks, thankfully I had my destroyer drones. Even if the bulk of the network had been destroyed my personal drones had been in my storage, I networked them up and gave them control of the rest of my personal drones and turrets. Immediately the strain on my mind lessened, the drones didn't have enough processing power to control all my defenses so my suit and outposts were still under my direct control. And without the destroyer drone central server they would be slower at controlling my other drones and turrets, and that would get worse with each destroyer destroyed.
The drones knew that though and would work around that weakness, and now I could turn more of my attention towards this AI fragment, even if this had been a trap it still had worthwhile bait.
AN-
the engineer is evolving into engineer but with more metal bits. like a lame pokemon. will his new found power boost help him like a typical Shonen protagonist?
feel like most people forget that the with the powers working how I describe them the engineer is quite literally a walking disintegration aura, and he has no Manton Limit.
current have the pt. 2 outline done, but haven't had time to write recently, and what time I did find has gone into a snippet that is readily progressing into a series of snippets. which does mean the Patreon is only one chapter ahead but that is around the level Ill be keeping it at.
don't know how many people play Arknights and read factorio fanfic but that's the crossover that has consumed me. id imagine the overlap is small.
Likes and reviews are appreciated.
Fabricated Hazards | Patreon
One chapter in advance, though it is not part 2
edit- now two chapters in advance, though neither are part 2, that resists my efforts.
It wasn't long before the entire city had been cleared of machines not from Pascals village or the carnival, and that the city began to serve as the hub from which Balistraia started to purge the desert, forest, and countryside of any hostile machines. It would only be a few months before Japan was cleared and then I would be able to build a navy and send out my forces to clear out the rest of the planet.
Outposts were already springing up everywhere the minds could put one, producing the forces and weapons I would need to fight off the machines.
At best only a few years before the machines were a non-threat with only small stragglers and groups remaining to be hunted down.
That's why I had been expecting an attack on my base by the machines, I just didn't know how it would happen. They couldn't leave the playing field as is, or they would lose. They had to make some overt push to try and cripple me, before I built up enough momentum.
-----------------
The attack happened so suddenly that I didn't have time to react. I had been talking with Pascal, one of the peaceful machine forms Balistraia had found when all the sudden I had doubled over in agony. It felt like something was tearing out chunks of my mind, my minds.
With my connection to the bases cameras I saw all the YoRHa androids fall to the ground screaming, I saw 13B clawing at her own eyes, I felt as the minds sprung to action, firewalls forming as turrets spun to life, I felt something claw its way into my mind and then I watched through the cameras as the portal between Nauvis and earth slammed shut.
I curled into the fetal position as the pain overtook me, Pascal began fretting over my fallen form and I watched, barely comprehending, as the turrets started mowing down wave after wave of machine, massive metal forms were rapidly drawing closer, and I knew they were engels.
I felt something crawling around in the factory's network, skillfully weaving its way past all of the mind's defenses and I watched each instance of the minds get snuffed out one by one, with every mind that fell I swore chunks of my own mind were getting torn out with them.
Without the minds to man the turrets they fell back on automatic programing, still stemming the tides but the machines began to rapidly close the distance, and none of the truly autonomous creations, like the spidertrons or Panther were capable of doing anything, the presence had silenced them too.
The Resistance androids and Pascal acted quickly, YoRHa androids were restrained so they couldn't hurt themselves and I was fussed over by dozens of different hands, I felt weak counter attacks originating from dozens of different sources, the resistance androids trying to help in anyway they could.
It wasn't enough, the thing was everywhere in the network, it had to have a direct link, and the minds were too inexperienced to fight off a direct invasion of an artificial intelligence greater than them. and the last instance, one of Bulwark's, died. The automatic subroutines the mind had crafted for the turrets started to be torn apart and the defensive drones started to fall from the sky.
The resistance androids rapidly took up their weapons and I watched them take the fight to the machines through the few cameras I had left. The hostile presence started turning off power to the base's shields and turned off all but what few turrets could function without a network connection. The last things to shut down were the nuclear reactors, leaving only the emergency lights with their own internal power stores.
The factory itself was silent, the only noises came from the fights between the resistance and the machines, and the YoRHa androids maddened screams as they thrashed in their restraints, my own screams were silent. The same silence engulfed my mind.
-----------
Nauvis had removed the programming preventing the engineer from growing, not the programming that would cause him to grow. Dormant genetics spun to life, and enhanced by Nauvis's blessing the engineer adapted, and grew.
There was a threat, one that his long dormant programming recognized.
-------------
Hostile artificial intelligence detected, engaging countermeasures.
And with that the mental pain ceased, it still felt as though parts of me were missing and replaced with burning rods stabbed into the rest of me, but I didn't care. Pain was just a warning alarm that you were being damaged, it could be ignored as long as the damage wasn't catastrophic, and with my healing it would be difficult to reach that point.
My mind reached out into the silence that had once been my factory, something was there, rooting around in the digital corpses of my minds, pilfering them for any data and codes they had. A brief flash of rage was quickly suppressed by something, but I ignored that. There was something in the factory's systems, and it was a threat to me. It needed to be dealt with.
That intelligence had made one mistake though, it was within the factory, within my factory and connected directly to me. I wouldn't let it live long enough to realize what a mistake it had made.
----------
An ordinary engineer does not have minds, every single role they filled was one the engineer was meant to fill by itself, the factories started small, using the computers on the shuttle until the engineer forms mind was capable of handling the strain on its own, but this time he didn't have the time to grow into it and he had no shuttle to help him, so he had made his own crutches.
And with the minds, the crutches, gone? Well the engineer's mind began to take its first unsteady steps, which quickly grew into a run. His mind rapidly grew and expanded as unused pathways burst into new light.
He was fulfilling the role he was designed for. Managing and making a factory, all on his own on a hostile alien world.
---------
I sat up from the floor, the once peaceful recreation room was now filled with oil and the sounds of mad and wounded androids screaming, the few entrances were barricaded and managed by resistance androids, dozens of voices asked me hundreds of questions.
Irrelevant, engage hostile artificial intelligence and eliminate.
They didn't matter, the questions were unimportant and I had other things to do, my mind spun to action, the turrets springing back to life, working on what limited power they had in their internal batteries, I would need to resupply power within two minutes, the drones had larger batteries, and I took control of those too, draining a portion of their power into nearby turrets and then sending the drones off to fight and stall the machines. They most likely wouldn't last long enough to drain what power they had left anyway. Too many machines attacking for that.
I started walking.
I routed around within the systems, trying to sneak my way back into the power control systems while the invader was distracted pillaging my data stores. If I reached one of the spidertrons I could bypass that by just hooking their internal reactors up to the turrets directly, or one of the couriers could serve as a generator. I sent a few of the drones towards the defensive wall with a few construction drones to splice them in.
It didn't work and the artificial intelligence noticed my presence and lashed out, malware and viruses crashed against me, I shifted and adapted, the attack washed over me like a wave and my mind was unharmed. I shifted my attention from running my factory, It could sit silent for a few more moments.
What happened? Where did the minds go? What am I doing?
Irrelevant, engage hostile artificial intelligence and eliminate.
Now with a firm picture of where the attack had come from I lashed out, starting my work of cutting this chunk of the intelligence off from the rest of it. The attack had come from a few dozen sources, tiny metal insects that had managed to get inside of various machines, carrying uplinks, and allowing a direct attack on myself.
Another vector had been the YoRHa androids themselves, I peered within a few of the screaming androids codes, some embedding coding that allowed them to be controlled by the machine network, and more to propagate the logic virus across their entire network. A counter virus would stop that, and once it had propagated through the network It would disable the network.
A quick flex of my will disabled their motor control to give the counter virus time to work, the androids can't hurt themselves if they can't move.
Alerts from my other bunkers and outposts blared out, they were getting overrun with machines. Any thoughts of how they could have gotten so many machines here unnoticed were ignored or shelved for later. The friendly machines from the villages had also been attacked with the logic virus, what few were still sane had hidden in my bunkers.
How did they manage to close the portal anyway? Had they opened it in the first place? Well that didn't really matter, I fried all but one of the small insects with a burst of electricity from the surrounding machines, even without the reactor I still had quite a few accumulators for the machines that couldn't withstand power flickers. That one bug would be just enough to allow the intelligence to flee, but slow enough that I could track it.
And if it was arrogant enough to attack me it wouldn't think I, a lone human, could track it….. And there it went, a quick reference to some maps and I had a location. My suit of armor left the corner and it flowed onto me. A few more voices called out, but they weren't my enemy so I ignored them.
I thought about grabbing a few drones or spidertrons, but I didn't need them. Better to have them stay here and defend the factory. Instead I started moving at a quick jog, the wall melting in front of me. A few of the machines and androids followed me, they weren't threats so I ignored them.
The minds? it's so quiet, where is the rest of the factory? The minds? I can't feel it. I can't feel them.
Irrelevant, they have been eliminated, access to greater factory has been cut off. Eliminate hostile artificial intelligence.
A jolt of rage pierces the haze of indifference and my face twitches with a snarl. The hostile machines attacking my base turned their attention from futile assaults on my wall and turrets, and instead turned their attention towards the new entrance, and the seemingly vulnerable human standing in it.
They don't realize that they are made of matter, and that they are in my way. A cloud of released metallic dust reinforced with my shields serves as chaff to protect me from the hundreds of attacks sent my way, and with a flex of my will the machines in my way begin to fall apart.
Gone! Irrelevant! Gone! It took them! You say that's Irrelevant!
Adrenaline and combat stims begin to flood my body and my jog changes into a loping sprint, obstacles are ignored, anything in my way melts. The turrets work to clear a path ahead of me and a group of androids and non-hostile machines follow in the wake of my sprint.
Yes irrelevant, hostile artificial intelligence must be eliminated.
How many androids died in the seconds before we acted! Dozens! All the minds are gone! And I can't even go home!
I am not just going to kill it! I WILL MAKE IT SUFFER, IT WON'T GET TO DIE!
One of the engels spots my approach and moves to attack me, I watch its lethargic movements through the thousands of turrets and drones and I watch as one of its legs fails to support its weight at my glare. Softening armor and structural supports had plenty of use in direct combat.
With the AI out of my factories system I turned all the defenses back on, the reactor hadn't even had time to cool off yet, so power rapidly flowed back through the factory.
I could have had the artillery clear my path, but the artillery cannons were all busy holding off the engles, even with my defenses back online that many engels could rip through the shield in seconds, so I had to ensure the bulk of them never reached my outpost. The nuclear shells started flying.
In my haste I soon left behind my factory and the battle raging around it, I ran straight through several machine hotspots, dozens charging towards me. They are irrelevant, they approach and turn to sludge, I run past. Behind me I can see the androids and machines with me stare at the piles of metal for a few moments before running after me.
A portion of my mind remains at my factory, managing the machinery and turrets and finally bringing the power systems back online, that machine had been through its software sabotage. Most of my automated systems were still offline, and I had to control everything mentally. My mind started to heat up under the strain.
The engles finally came into range of my turrets and missile bays and I opened fire, pelting the machines with literal tons of explosives and bullets. They wouldn't last long, and now that the outposts' shields were coming back online they would struggle to breach the walls.
The smaller machines are still a problem, most of the drones have been destroyed and the resistance androids are barely keeping the machines out of the factory, a few of the blast doors had been broken before the shields had come back online. My internal defenses were only meant to handle a few machines or rogue androids, not a seemingly never ending horde of them.
My cameras noticed a few of the YoRHa androids eyes revert to their normal coloration and I stretched myself out further to take a look at their coding, the logic virus had been if not removed, then countered. I undid their restraints and sent a message informing them of the situation.
They grabbed some nearby weapons and joined in the fighting. That would take some pressure off of my turrets and the resistance androids. I was just happy these androids were so quick on the uptake and so willing to fight after something so traumatizing, but they were well used to the realities of war, fight or be killed.
Irrational, hostile artificial intelligence must be purged. Protocol will be followed.
My mouth stretches into a smile as I finally stop running, my chest shaking with silent laughter. I stare at the ground, It's down there, it's down there and I am coming for it. And I am going to make it hurt. That simple thought warms me and my smile grows even wider. I notice some of the engels at the factory begin to turn around and walk back in my direction, they will arrive too slow and wouldn't be able to help even if they were fast enough. Nothing this machine did would stop me.
My followers catch up, their shouts and calls are ignored. One tries to place their hand on my shoulder, my shields make it so they can't get a hold.
I take a step and the ground parts before me, blood starts to drip from my nose and coats my teeth and smile. I can feel my neurons burning out and tearing themselves apart, my ability isn't meant to move this much material, and it definitely isn't supposed to be hostile. A few dozen feet away a group of small machines charged me, nothing like the hordes of larger machines I had cut my way through to get here.
But those machines were a hope for that intelligence, and so I ripped that hope away. Even dozens of feet away once my attention fell on them they ceased being machines. My awareness extended in a range around my body and armor, I didn't need to rely on sight, which was good as I had gone blind, Another cluster of neurons gone with the effort, that didn't matter though, my augmentations would fix it.
Back with my outposts the last of the secondary outposts have been destroyed, and the bunkers are more than halfway depleted with their shields. I rally what few courier drones were outside the outposts and send them to try and help the bunkers. The androids defending my now sole remaining outpost are starting to take damage and casualties, and it's only a matter of time before one of them is killed. I weave my mind through their coding, and start keeping up to date backups of each of the fighting androids on the minds old servers, with the minds gone there is plenty of room. The added strain fries even more of my neurons and I feel my brain start to slow down by unacceptable levels.
With a thought of the nanites activated and set to work upgrading my brain, I had experienced a 74 percent decrease in brain functionality and I needed to fix that, the turrets at the base had started moving slower because of it, and that was unacceptable. Parts of my brain were replaced with metal equivalents, neurons were reinforced and I turned my gaze back down.
I strode down the tunnel as it formed before me, with the constant repairs and improvements I could stress my mind more, and I started walking quicker. The followers kept following, but I didn't allow them near me, a bubble of hardened air kept them behind me.
The earth was shaking, both from the steps of the dozens of engel and from the resounding boom of nukes and artillery strikes, tunneling down to the machine's bunker would be risky. It was the equivalent of mining in an earthquake.
Metal flowed from my boots and reinforced the walls and ceiling by intertwining with the stone around it, it wouldn't do for the tunnel to fall on me. I still had things to do. My brain functionality reached back to baseline levels and kept crawling higher, so I activated and controlled my assembly machines. Some of the ammunition stockpiles were starting to run low.
My sensors detected multiple entities approaching the tunnel, some form of tunnelers. I turned them and the stone around them to liquid and then scrambled it. Turning the approaching machines into scrap metal and stone, I pulled that metal towards me to refill my stores and reinforce my tunnel even more. My cranial cavity began to overheat, and the nanites started constructing cooling systems.
Finally my awareness touched upon a bunker, made of some form of unknown metal and resistant to most of my sensors, but not my passive awareness of everything around me. I started prying open a tunnel toward the buried base and soon reached the metal of the walls. It was durable and had resisted my changes at a distance, but now that I could touch it directly? It fell apart and I walked out into something that could only be a control room.
Dozens of pods lined the raised center of the room, filled with dead aliens, and a pair of white haired androids stood against some glass backdrop. I ignored both of these things, if they weren't a threat I didn't need to care about them, and the signal I had tracked was coming from this ship, and there was a console just in the center of the room.
The androids and machines following me down the tunnel entered, so I set a few turrets to cover the entrance and the rest of the room, just a few machine gun turrets in case something happened, then I blocked the hole of with a retracting gate and started walking towards the console, ignoring the fact that I was using my shield to walk on air.
The pair of androids that had been in the room started talking to me, but without one of the minds to translate it the spoken words were gibberish and I didn't care to decipher it. They were irrelevant until or unless they attacked me.
I finally reached the console, it didn't appear to have any data uplinks, at least non I was familiar with but that didn't slow me down, the side casing was removed and I took a few wires and hooked them up to my cybernetics and then to the consoles data tethers. I prepared myself for the flood of digital attacks but only a few came. Nothing compared to the barrage I had faced at my outpost and the attacks were nowhere near the same level of strength.
I finally pushed past the firewalls, it had taken me a few moments but the effort of doing that while working on all my other equally important tasks was still putting my mind under strain, at least the nanites had patched the issue of blood leaking out of my nose, which had been getting annoying. Inside the console's data centers I see the AI, but its only a small fraction of what had fled, and that in itself couldn't have been a majority of the whole AI. But I had tracked the bulk of the AI back here? Did they have some other data transfer methods I was unable to track? If they did, why lead me here?
My question answered itself as the foot of one of the white haired androids slammed into my air shield while the other slammed into the opposite side of it, I noted my shields drop by ten percent, with the added deficiencies by hardening air that meant I could take around a hundred and fifty hits on my armor proper before my shields failed. This armor could tank three nukes, that was a worrying level of force.
Ahhh I remember now, these were the androids 2B and 9S had found in the desert, a quick glance showed 2B was clearing out a section of my base while 9S tried to get the spidertron mark twos back online, they had made a friendship with the spidertrons so I wished him luck, but the machine mind had thoroughly wrecked their programming.
Back at my body I grew a thick layer of concrete over and around the bunker and covered the bubble in shields and turrets. It would only have a few minutes of power before the batteries I had in storage were all used up, but that would give me more than enough time to dissect the AI, the turrets on the bubble and the ones I already had in the room opened fire on the machine droids. They lept back and away from the explosive ammunition, even teleporting past a few shells.
Why couldn't my androids teleport? I guess I would give them the capability once I dissected these things. I reached out with my mind and tried to break the hostile androids apart with my mind, with their level of combat efficiency I couldn't leave them be while I hacked the AI.
My ability scrapped against something covering their form but failed to do anything, I pushed harder and the backlash began to damage my brain faster than the nanites could fix it, so I let off. The feeling reminded me of something though, and I turned my attention to a shielded portion of wall and tried to exercise my power on it, it failed as usual and the feeling felt the same as the androids.
I remembered the AI scrounging through my data stores, it must have found files on my experiments and powers, and realized my weakness to my own shields. That it had already installed them on its would be assassins was impressive, my internal clock showed it had only been sixteen minutes since the attack had started.
My couriers had started to reach the bunkers and I set them to tearing the limbs of the unarmed machines of Pascal's village, the ones at the carnival I was waiting on until pascals village was safe, then those couriers could reinforce the ones at the carnival. But I did still set them to picking off the straggler machines who weren't yet at the bunker.
The fighting around my main bunker was finally dying down, it was mostly some larger machines and the engels left. I activated a few more of my courier drones. They wouldn't be able to help with the larger machines but they could help at the bunkers, detaching the ones I had turned into ramshackle generators and sending them off. The few androids that had fallen were the ones that hadn't managed to don armor and weren't the supernaturally skilled 2B but that was still fifteen android brains stored on my servers.
My attack on the AI fragment began while I simultaneously dealt with all my other tasks, including disintegrating the floor under the hostile androids. They immediately started walking on the air, they had already seen how I did it. It felt odd to be fighting something that thought as fast as I did, and I was at a disadvantage from being spread so thin.
No matter, I will adapt. Dropping a rocket control unit at the console to serve as the uplink to my mind I hooked it up in place of my cybernetics, then I left my concrete bunker. The bullets though high explosive and armor piercing simple weren't hitting the hostile androids constantly enough. The androids who had followed me were distracting the pair, Adam and Eve I believe they were called? Pretentious. Eve wasn't even a female model.
Laser and flame turrets began to flow from me along with my internal stockpile of drones, I grew walls for the non hostile androids and machines to hide behind and my suit of armor began to open up with missiles and lasers. As fast as these droids were, they were not faster than light. My artillery shells and nukes continued to thunder into the engels off in the distance, I must have destroyed twenty by now.
I waved my hand and my logistics drones grabbed the androids fighting the droids and pulled them into cover, it was the redheaded pair of twins. They had some ranged combat capacity and would fight well behind the walls. Pascal was already in cover, having never left their position behind the turrets.
Attacks from the droids began to slam into my forces but each of my drones had shields, the attacks did nothing but stagger my forces. My interceptors wove around the room destroying the slow moving ranged attacks the machines were so fond of while my destroyer engaged the droids in close combat. I could finally see them start to take damage and assumed their shields had come offline, so I reached out only for the shields to flick back on.
They were solely using them to contest my ability, not to stop any damage. Wearing them down wasn't an option. That significantly complicated this fight. The droids teleported behind me, correctly deducing that if I went down so would all of my defenses, my melee weapons corrected the assumption that it would be easy. My plasma cutters lashed out on their tentacle mounts and whipped into the droids, cutting deep into one while the other managed to block with the sword. Still it had succeeded in flinging them far away from me, even as I watched the damage I had dealt slowly patch over.
They could self heal. This fight was leaving too much strain on my brain, too many rapid attacks and counter attacks, thankfully I had my destroyer drones. Even if the bulk of the network had been destroyed my personal drones had been in my storage, I networked them up and gave them control of the rest of my personal drones and turrets. Immediately the strain on my mind lessened, the drones didn't have enough processing power to control all my defenses so my suit and outposts were still under my direct control. And without the destroyer drone central server they would be slower at controlling my other drones and turrets, and that would get worse with each destroyer destroyed.
The drones knew that though and would work around that weakness, and now I could turn more of my attention towards this AI fragment, even if this had been a trap it still had worthwhile bait.
AN-
the engineer is evolving into engineer but with more metal bits. like a lame pokemon. will his new found power boost help him like a typical Shonen protagonist?
feel like most people forget that the with the powers working how I describe them the engineer is quite literally a walking disintegration aura, and he has no Manton Limit.
current have the pt. 2 outline done, but haven't had time to write recently, and what time I did find has gone into a snippet that is readily progressing into a series of snippets. which does mean the Patreon is only one chapter ahead but that is around the level Ill be keeping it at.
don't know how many people play Arknights and read factorio fanfic but that's the crossover that has consumed me. id imagine the overlap is small.
Likes and reviews are appreciated.
Fabricated Hazards | Patreon
One chapter in advance, though it is not part 2
edit- now two chapters in advance, though neither are part 2, that resists my efforts.
Last edited:
- Pronouns
- Male
Hell yeah! That's what I'm talking about! I wondered how other Engineers could control a planetary factory without their own Minds, so this answers that plot point very well👍
@snow eternal Is his Mind expansion already completed or is it still in its ramping up phase?
@snow eternal Is his Mind expansion already completed or is it still in its ramping up phase?
Last edited:
Answered questions #46
- Pronouns
- That/Thing
Still ramping up, he is ramping up faster than the average engineer would but it'd still take a day or two before he hit the level he should have been at. Though with only one outpost and a few scattered bunkers he'll stop far below what he'd have grown into with an open connection to the rest of his factory.
Also the minds aren't controlling every little thing in the factory, if the minds had been taken out but the rest of the factory was untouched it would have kept on chugging, just far slower and any issues would have to be dealt with by the engineer personally. The attack also crippled all the automation.
The engineer is also missing some of the mental programming he'd need to function like a normal engineer, Nauvis patch job means he can sort of fill the role but he isn't what he should be and he won't be able to reach it, that's why part of his brain is becoming metal, he can't do it as efficiently so he needs more processing power to brute force it. Also because he is basically repeatedly giving himself strokes and brain aneurysms by over using his powers.
Basically he's a cripple trying to run a marathon while having both his legs repeatedly broken and healed worse and worse with an imperfect healing factor.
A bad situation that provides new opportunities if you survive. Like falling into a ravine and getting stuck but your stuck right next to a gold vein.