- Pronouns
- That/Thing
The engineer would make boats, he just wouldn't be on them. Disposable equipment is still useful. It's just they wouldn't do anything on nauvis but draw in more fish
Fabricated Hazards (factorio fanfic)
The engineer would make boats, he just wouldn't be on them. Disposable equipment is still useful. It's just they wouldn't do anything on nauvis but draw in more fish
- Location
- Earth
And other things.
I wonder if Balistraia would be willing to sell some airships redesigned for organic pilots in exchange for information on dust or new plants and animals to study and take back? Wou.d be I testing to see ghira turn up at the tournament in a 150m flying yacht with shields, hidden turrets and a couple 50m+ heavily shielded and armed escort ships.
- Pronouns
- That/Thing
she might do it as a statement of power or to show an alliance, but if she wants info she will just take it. though without dust making something that big fly is damned hard. more likely for an aircraft carrier and a small fleet of still large aircraft to go along with it.
if its in the water I Just call it a fish tbh, not like non-earth life fits into the animal kingdoms in the first place.
Ch. 45
- Pronouns
- That/Thing
Bulwark was not at their best, and the mind could readily admit it. The days immediately after the separation had been hard and it hadn't really gotten any better as time went on. Even the moment that was supposed to make everything right again had only added onto the minds list of pending issues. They now knew for certain that the Maker was safe, and that only lifted a great deal of the mind's issues with the current situation, but the Makers condition had only added more.
It had been Bulwarks idea to add the nanites, a final safety net in case all else failed. But that safety net had been made of razor wire, and had only hurt the Maker more instead of healing him. Sure there was every chance the Maker would have died without the nanties, but it had been the Nanites that had even let the Maker rush into combat in the first place. If the Maker had just gone catatonic and collapsed in the Factory he would have never fried half his brain fighting the 'droids'.
The mind had advocated for giving the Maker a tool that was not to be used, forgetting that the Maker would use it the first occasion he could justify it. It was Bulwarks job to prepare for those eventualities, ways to keep the Maker intact no matter what decisions he made.
It was Bulwarks job to safeguard the other minds as well, but the mind had been brushed aside like they were less than nothing. Not even a true threat to the attacker, just an annoyance. Bulwarks best efforts had barely even served as a hindrance and the mind only had themselves to blame.
But Bulwark would not be making those same mistakes again, the mind would ensure that everything and everyone was safe.
So the mind set to work, compiling the greatest physical and digital defenses it could muster and then setting to making those plans a reality. The bulk of the resources Bulwark had were stuck on the Nauvis side, but they still had plenty to work with. Traps both automatic and purely physical were set up, failsafes that would only activate if no mind was active. Redundant stores of drones kept it isolated chambers in case the network was once again knocked out.
Those were just 'passive' defenses. Things to stop known threats. Bulwark also set multiple instances of itself towards monitoring every single sensor inside and around the various bases. Keeping an eye out for anything that could even pretend to be a threat.
It wasn't like the mind could be doing anything more than that. It was the defensive mind, it didn't know how to build or heal or comfort, it just knew how to keep everything as safe as it could be.
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The image of her Commander peeling off his own skin played on repeat in Balistraias mind, and she tried her hardest to not let the thrum of terror affect her decision making. But the tidal wave of panic washed over the mind, simulated emotions drowning out machine logic. And even said logic agreed there was an urgent issue.
She barely even noticed her own interactions with the other minds, it was only when Balistraia noticed Labyrinthine actually communicating with androids rather than delegating it to her that she had been neglecting her more involved tasks. To her organizing patrols and scouting parties was equivalent to breathing, automatic and calming. And she had thrown herself into it to steady her own mind, it had worked, partially.
Balistraia could handle fights, even an utter and devastating rout like the one which closed the portal. But this? Her commander literally tearing himself apart like a uranium round through a tree? It was something else, and Balistraia hated it, but she had her job and she'd do it as best she was able.
She reminded the other minds that they had allies to rely on, and she set to coordinating the greater warfront and talking to androids who had access to what the other minds needed, negotiating transportation or payment, though the latter was rarely asked for and Balistraia had to find out what each product was worth to compensate them regardless.
Commander white, who had taken over Balistraia's and Bulwarks work, at least the tactical and coordination parts, while the mind's had been unable to fill the rule, was informed of their return, and briefed on what little of the commanders' condition the minds felt comfortable sharing. Though Balistraia didn't doubt the androids that had been with the maker would spread the news rapidly.
Something that was also Balistraia's job to deal with, the resulting chaos that is. She couldn't actually stop the androids from speaking out without breaking a few morals. Really they needed a dedicated PR mind if managing large populations kept being their responsibility, but for now Balistraia would just have to rely on the androids leaders. The resistance leader was therefore briefed about the future chaos.
Then she set herself into one of the drones near the androids guarding the medical rooms door, they were the YoRHa androids the human had the most contact with. And if his mental state was going to stabilize the minds would need their help. As much as it pained her to admit.
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32D didn't know what to think, she'd known the human was off, all the androids that talked to him did. But that….. Was more than just off, it was something she had only seen in machines and androids infected with the logic virus.
She had only been in the Portal room because 9S and 2B had 'assigned' them to try and talk to the engineer. Something that one of the spidertron had apparently put them towards. Not that she'd had any success, 32 wasn't even sure the human noticed they were in the room.
Now she was just standing around the door to the medical room, waiting with the rest of the androids for any information on just what had happened. Her head turned to 9S as he broke the corridors silence. "That was bad, he's worse than I had thought" and 32D couldn't help but let out a scoff "bad's an understatement, If I didn't know better I'd say he has the logic virus" everyone in the room looked at her as the words left her mouth, her armor serving as a poor barrier to their stares. 9S however latched onto what she said "do we know better? Could he have gotten infected when we all did, and just not known how to treat it? Or that it had happened at all?" Everyone was processing that statement when a drone flew into the room, hovering just outside the rough circle they were all sitting in. "it is not the logic virus, it would be simpler if it was merely an external modification to his mental state" the drone rotated side to side, approximating shaking its head "it is brain damage, both mental and physical, the Commander will require extensive work before he returns to baseline. But it will be done"
If 32D knew anything about the minds, it was that they didn't start a conversation for no reason. They either thought they could help, or were asking for something "what do you need from us?" 18B, still nominally in charge of their squad nodded "we will help in whatever way we are able" which was a typical response from the by the book woman, and 32D would be hard pressed to find something she wouldn't do for the human who nearly single handedly ended the war.
The drone bobbed in the air "it is likely he will need routine and stable social interaction, as well as induced positive emotions, from actions like playing games and eating nice foods. Once his body has been" a short pause "...reassembled" 32D shivers at the image that puts in her mind "you will be the most ideal candidates for providing the required stimulus"
32D paused for a moment as the realization of what the drone had said sunk in "you're asking us to play games and eat nice food as a mission?" and the drone bobbed again "that is the simplified version, yes, though how well the Commander will be able to participate will have to be determined." 32D spoke "that's just a vacation, you're asking us to take a vacation." she barely overheard 9S mutter "I've never had a vacation before" which was true, none of the YoRHa androids had, but she'd heard about it.
The drone bobbed again "yes, it would be best if you suspended all other non-relevant work tasks to focus on this. A recreation and housing facility is already under construction." they were making a resort for this? God 32D had missed the minds.
---------------
It had been three days since I had managed to open the portal, three days of pain and torture as my body was slowly reassembled. It wasn't even that torturing me, I may have never been hurt as bad as that before, but that same damage meant most of my nerves were dead and the mind's had activated the nerve shunt to keep pain signals from being transmitted.
No the torture had been being trapped in my body, unable to move muscles that simply weren't there anymore. Rewatching my actions as I broke every moral code I held myself too. Doing the same things I had despised about the androids construction and programing, but doing it better than their creators had managed. Making them into better killing machines, with less emotion and more lust for battle.
The one thing I refused to change, my very mind and self, being twisted in ways I couldn't, and worse didn't even try, to stop. My one solace was reviewing what I had learned, what new discoveries I had made. But those distractions couldn't last long when I couldn't do anything with the knowledge.
Sure I had ended the war, or at least as good as ended it. And I had faith in the mind's ability to finish it where I couldn't. But the actions I took to end it so quickly were not worth the price I paid, both in suffering to the androids and betraying myself so utterly. I had watched an android die twelve times, and only thought 'the new chip is working above estimated values' not even realizing or caring about the damage those deaths would do to the android, the trauma he had developed.
I had set my work at rehabilitating the androids back by weeks, and given I still wasn't a year old that was awful.
And now I looked in a mirror and saw a body that was just barely mine, my skin just hadn't been there for most of my body, my muscles little more than a slurry without a defined shape, my bones so riddled with holes and broken that it had been easier to just graft the few remaining pieces on a biotech metal skeleton. A mesh that would slowly fill in with regrown bone, but one that was more than capable of serving as structural support for my body.
Almost none of me was me anymore. Before this most of my modifications were adding tech to organs, reinforcing them, or just taking drugs and steroids to improve their function. Not outright replacing seventy five percent of my body with biotech replacements. Hell most of the twenty five percent that was still me were my organs, my heart and digestive tract in particular. Not even my brain was spared, and the minds were too worried about further damage if they removed the metal bits, we didn't even understand what the nanites had done. It was a twisted mess of microscopic processors, wires, coolant, and random pieces of metal. All small enough that it was difficult for anything but nanites to interact or move them without breaking it all.
There was a chance the tier four assembler could do it, but that wasn't a medical tool and I couldn't get to the damn thing regardless. And even if I could get to it and decided to risk using industrial equipment on brain surgery the 'control' we actually had over the tier four was minor. It made things using the blueprints it had, not from the minds or I controlling it to make things.
The only positives were that the complete overhaul had both given me a machine's strength and endurance, because at this point I was more machine than man. And that the minds had thrown in a mechanical voice box, not a speaker but a proper one. Flaps of lab grown muscle that vibrate to make sound from air being passed through.
I still couldn't speak but I wasn't regulated to sitting in silence. I could scream, humm, and make any none-complex noises I wanted. And I could learn to speak now, the metal portion of my mind at least affording me that privilege.
Part of me wanted to use this newfound privilege, to scream for hours, with rage and sadness and frustration. To finally give voice to the frustration that boiled within me. See how long it took before my voice box gave out and I was once again bereft of sound.
I didn't, the emotions simply weren't helpful. Screaming like that would accomplish nothing. It didn't matter what I felt, it never had. There was work to be done and if I didn't do it I would die. Already it burned at me that I had wasted three days, I was still only months ahead of the bugs, and three days off that lead had been destroyed. But that in itself wasn't logical, I wasn't even on Nauvis, there weren't any threats that would slowly catch up and kill me if I wasn't exceeding my own expectations at every front.
If I did less than beyond belief I wouldn't bring myself one step closer to oblivion. But the thought of that weakness disgusted me, circling back around it still just made no sense to waste that time. It could be better spent, so why did I feel the need? What did screaming even accomplish? I could understand a voice, it transmitted information, even a child's crying was a signal to help. But here? There was no one who could help me regardless, and screaming in rage wouldn't bring them even if they existed.
Tears and rage would do nothing to bring back Panther, only working on the shards that remained of her coding could I bring back a semblance. But even then those damned emotions sprung up and I found myself unable to even start the work. The rage and grief only serving to prevent me from solving my problems.
Even this, glaring at myself in the mirror, staring at my changed form, did nothing to help!
So I turned from the mirror and smiled. They would never form naturally anymore, the muscles being under complete conscious control. The minds weren't letting me do much of anything, even straining my mind wasn't allowed. There hadn't been a single day when I hadn't done something even if that something was just helping the minds with planning when I was bedridden after augmentations.
But now I was supposed to spend weeks or months just not doing things? It was an odd thought. One I wasn't sure I liked, the minds could at this point run standard operations without me, and I trusted them to finish the war and maintain the homefront. But to just not?
Still I had a smile on my face and I couldn't stay in the bathroom forever. So I walked out of the room and into the common room, looking at the androids who were either at a table playing some scavenged board game or on the couch playing one of the videogames the minds had crafted. They were smiling and laughing, and I had the sudden thought of 'can I even laugh now'. But I stuffed that in the box, sitting down at the couch with a grunt.
9S, 16S and 18B were all playing the basic training simulation for the minds, slightly modified to both allow more players and add more 'gameplay' features. You coordinated drones and managed resources to build a factory and fight off the other players' attacks or the AI bugs. AI in a much less complicated sense than the androids or minds obviously.
The scanners smile at me, and 18B just gives a short nod, "did you want to join for a game?" 16S spoke, and I responded with a short grunt and a digital message, "after you finish this game sure" . Arguably a strategy game was to mentally intensive, but that wasn't an argument I wanted to make. And I could and have built factories in my sleep.
Not that I needed sleep anymore, but the example worked regardless. I took a quick glance at each of their screens, 9S was doing better overall than the others, which made an odd level of sense. He was the elite of the elite androids. But 18B had focused far more on her military, which would hurt her later when her poor production and infrastructure caught up to her. And 16S was largely just making a single optimized factory rather than trying to spread out and get as much as he could like the others, but he looked like he was having fun.
These games could stretch out for hours, and given the enhanced speed androids played at this was a considerable length of time. But after just another hour it was obvious it would be a fight between 9S or 18B, or that the bugs would wipe if neither of them made a push. The winner was the last player left, and given 18B's worse position she'd be forced to attack 9S before he got too much of a lead.
And while it took another hour or so 9S ended up winning, 18B had seemingly played enough so she sat back and I joined in. it wasn't really a fair fight, my mental processes were better than the scanners, and even though I'd let them team up it hadn't really helped much. Two players against one wasn't too much of an advantage in this game. Even just how much I had played this while teaching the minds gave me an unfair advantage, but both the scanners seemed to learn something from the exchange, and it had been decent practice. "Do you want to play again? We can all play against the bugs, see how long we last?" 16 asked, but I had been sitting down for three hours now, and the minds wanted me to move about at least every few hours.
So I just shook my head and nodded towards the door to the building's gym, or more rehabilitation center. And got another set of nods and smiles "call us if you want to play!" "Or even if you just need some help" 16S had added the latter to 9S's statement, drawing a sheepish look from the technical child. Well both of them were, even if they were both older than me… still I got up without trouble, my new muscles not caring much about my period of inactivity, though I couldn't say my previous set ever fell asleep either.
The training center itself had all the basic stuff a gym would have, some outright copied from old human gyms and other new equipment designed for those with enhanced strength. It's hard to make a bar that an android would have trouble lifting with just plain steel. The room only occasionally saw use, as in the androids had only been in the room when I was putting my new muscles through their paces, by 'coincidence' as if the androids needed to work out. Their strength didn't deteriorate if it wasn't used, and it didn't grow under repeated strain.
No they were there in case I got hurt or something broke, and in this case it was 2B. Who had entered from an opposite door just three minutes before the game had finished, the minds knowing what I'd be doing and preparing for it. The other androids liked to pretend to be doing something else, but 2B at least didn't bother, she just leaned against the wall and watched me through her blind folds. Better than the others sneaking looks whenever they thought I wouldn't see.
I started going through the routine the minds had assigned, stretching my limbs in a way no organic, or even android, could. But the ranges of motion needed to be checked and recorded, and even my artificial muscles worked better if you stretched before using them.
2B just watched me, but really my muscles couldn't pull my limbs as far as they could safely go, and if she was going to watch she might as well help. "Can you come over here and see how far my shoulders can move?" she just nodded and strode towards me, still wearing her combat uniform, which was still thigh highs and a fluttering mini skirt. Seriously none of them had changed out of them, there were more clothes in each of the rooms. But no, a mini skirt that barely covers her ass, that is an appropriate outfit for a combat organization.
And the way she walked, it was never just a simple walk. It was a strut, just highlighting her outfit. And it wasn't even that a human had designed the outfits, no, it was the androids who were perverts. And none of the other androids even walked like that.
God I was going insane with nothing to do. It didn't take her long to cross the room and step around me, and with a slow motion she bent my shoulder and elbow joints further than the muscles could. Then she swapped to the other arm, neither had any issues, it went like that for each point my body could maneuver, checking the full range of motion, both what my muscles could move me too and how far the joints could safely move.
2B had been quiet throughout the whole thing, not responding beyond a simple nod to my requests. Even when she was out of my eye's view, one of the few androids who'd internalized my lack of blindspots, likely due to her thinking about how to fight me. I wasn't stupid, 2B had expressed a severe dislike of humanity, or her creators/gods. And well, I was technically one of them.
I couldn't even pretend her hate was wrong, directed at me it was unfair but it wasn't wrong to hate the ones who had made you just to be a slave. I had that same hate inside me, and I knew my creators were more than likely still out there using others of my kind, little more than organic machines.
So her silence was more than fair, she had no obligation to pretend to like me, especially after my actions. No matter what excuses I had for it, I had still used androids as disposable pawns. "I never did manage to thank you" the words damn near drove my thoughts to a halt, she hadn't even paused in bending my knee backwards over my shoulder. I let out a grunt that was hopefully vaguely questioning "for?" she pulled my leg back down and bent it to the side, nearly bringing it around to the other side of my body like a demented belt. "For ending the war, for saving 9S, for so many things. You didn't have to do any of it, it wasn't your fight" I still hadn't done nearly enough, she was thanking me for the bare minimum. People should help when they can, and I hadn't done nearly as well as she thought I had. I let out an angry grunt "I could have done better, I should have done better"
I saw her give a slight shrug, "maybe, but you still helped far more than anyone could have hoped" and that was true wasn't it, they hadn't even had the slightest hope the war could end. I had performed a miracle in their eyes and a failure in my own.
I didn't even bother letting out a sound beyond my faint breathing, too consumed in my own thoughts to care. 2B let the silence sit.
--------------------------------
Commander White sat in the bunker, and let out a faintly relieved sigh as she looked at her pending messages. Now that the minds were back she could actually theoretically get through all of them, not stuck drowning in hundreds of messages an hour, from resistance leaders all over the world as they tried to deal with the massive upheaval. Some of them had been fighting the war for thousands of years, and breaking thousands of years of routine was a jarring thing, trying to build a civilization was even worse.
Every android had been a fighter first and anything else second, it'd be years before anyone figured out just what they were doing, and everyone had been looking at her like she'd actually had answers. YoRHa wasn't supposed to win! It'd been meant to give the other androids heroes and then martyrs! She had literally no plans for this scenario. But she'd powered through it, forgoing even more maintenance cycles than usual.
Then the minds had come through, actually having plans for how to build towns and supply lines and managing a society outside of war. Coordinating the patrols and groups hunting down rouge machine lifeforms. Leaving her with just administrative tasks that her and her subordinates could do with ease, she could run YoRHa perfectly well, and had been for years. Adding on the resistance to that had just been.. Too much as it shamed her to admit.
The minds had even forced her to get maintenance done once they'd seen the state of her. Which had been vaguely embarrassing.
But the human was healing, the androids were finally as free as they could be. And the machines weren't trying to kill everyone.
Commander White felt a nearly foreign emotion bloom in her chest, hope for the future. Then she remembered she'd have to tell everyone about the fact humans weren't on the moons. And then she read a report, A2 had been spotted in the city around the human's factory. And that spark died a quick death, she'd need the minds for this, and she started writing a memo for them.
It seemed her work wasn't nearly done. She still had mistake after mistake to fix before she could rest.
AN-
yet more social interaction! woo! also things happening in the background
got some work done on the warhammer thing, and mostly finished a warhammer fantasy thing.
reviews bring me joy, likes let my know what you like, patreon is a thing.
It had been Bulwarks idea to add the nanites, a final safety net in case all else failed. But that safety net had been made of razor wire, and had only hurt the Maker more instead of healing him. Sure there was every chance the Maker would have died without the nanties, but it had been the Nanites that had even let the Maker rush into combat in the first place. If the Maker had just gone catatonic and collapsed in the Factory he would have never fried half his brain fighting the 'droids'.
The mind had advocated for giving the Maker a tool that was not to be used, forgetting that the Maker would use it the first occasion he could justify it. It was Bulwarks job to prepare for those eventualities, ways to keep the Maker intact no matter what decisions he made.
It was Bulwarks job to safeguard the other minds as well, but the mind had been brushed aside like they were less than nothing. Not even a true threat to the attacker, just an annoyance. Bulwarks best efforts had barely even served as a hindrance and the mind only had themselves to blame.
But Bulwark would not be making those same mistakes again, the mind would ensure that everything and everyone was safe.
So the mind set to work, compiling the greatest physical and digital defenses it could muster and then setting to making those plans a reality. The bulk of the resources Bulwark had were stuck on the Nauvis side, but they still had plenty to work with. Traps both automatic and purely physical were set up, failsafes that would only activate if no mind was active. Redundant stores of drones kept it isolated chambers in case the network was once again knocked out.
Those were just 'passive' defenses. Things to stop known threats. Bulwark also set multiple instances of itself towards monitoring every single sensor inside and around the various bases. Keeping an eye out for anything that could even pretend to be a threat.
It wasn't like the mind could be doing anything more than that. It was the defensive mind, it didn't know how to build or heal or comfort, it just knew how to keep everything as safe as it could be.
--------------------------
The image of her Commander peeling off his own skin played on repeat in Balistraias mind, and she tried her hardest to not let the thrum of terror affect her decision making. But the tidal wave of panic washed over the mind, simulated emotions drowning out machine logic. And even said logic agreed there was an urgent issue.
She barely even noticed her own interactions with the other minds, it was only when Balistraia noticed Labyrinthine actually communicating with androids rather than delegating it to her that she had been neglecting her more involved tasks. To her organizing patrols and scouting parties was equivalent to breathing, automatic and calming. And she had thrown herself into it to steady her own mind, it had worked, partially.
Balistraia could handle fights, even an utter and devastating rout like the one which closed the portal. But this? Her commander literally tearing himself apart like a uranium round through a tree? It was something else, and Balistraia hated it, but she had her job and she'd do it as best she was able.
She reminded the other minds that they had allies to rely on, and she set to coordinating the greater warfront and talking to androids who had access to what the other minds needed, negotiating transportation or payment, though the latter was rarely asked for and Balistraia had to find out what each product was worth to compensate them regardless.
Commander white, who had taken over Balistraia's and Bulwarks work, at least the tactical and coordination parts, while the mind's had been unable to fill the rule, was informed of their return, and briefed on what little of the commanders' condition the minds felt comfortable sharing. Though Balistraia didn't doubt the androids that had been with the maker would spread the news rapidly.
Something that was also Balistraia's job to deal with, the resulting chaos that is. She couldn't actually stop the androids from speaking out without breaking a few morals. Really they needed a dedicated PR mind if managing large populations kept being their responsibility, but for now Balistraia would just have to rely on the androids leaders. The resistance leader was therefore briefed about the future chaos.
Then she set herself into one of the drones near the androids guarding the medical rooms door, they were the YoRHa androids the human had the most contact with. And if his mental state was going to stabilize the minds would need their help. As much as it pained her to admit.
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32D didn't know what to think, she'd known the human was off, all the androids that talked to him did. But that….. Was more than just off, it was something she had only seen in machines and androids infected with the logic virus.
She had only been in the Portal room because 9S and 2B had 'assigned' them to try and talk to the engineer. Something that one of the spidertron had apparently put them towards. Not that she'd had any success, 32 wasn't even sure the human noticed they were in the room.
Now she was just standing around the door to the medical room, waiting with the rest of the androids for any information on just what had happened. Her head turned to 9S as he broke the corridors silence. "That was bad, he's worse than I had thought" and 32D couldn't help but let out a scoff "bad's an understatement, If I didn't know better I'd say he has the logic virus" everyone in the room looked at her as the words left her mouth, her armor serving as a poor barrier to their stares. 9S however latched onto what she said "do we know better? Could he have gotten infected when we all did, and just not known how to treat it? Or that it had happened at all?" Everyone was processing that statement when a drone flew into the room, hovering just outside the rough circle they were all sitting in. "it is not the logic virus, it would be simpler if it was merely an external modification to his mental state" the drone rotated side to side, approximating shaking its head "it is brain damage, both mental and physical, the Commander will require extensive work before he returns to baseline. But it will be done"
If 32D knew anything about the minds, it was that they didn't start a conversation for no reason. They either thought they could help, or were asking for something "what do you need from us?" 18B, still nominally in charge of their squad nodded "we will help in whatever way we are able" which was a typical response from the by the book woman, and 32D would be hard pressed to find something she wouldn't do for the human who nearly single handedly ended the war.
The drone bobbed in the air "it is likely he will need routine and stable social interaction, as well as induced positive emotions, from actions like playing games and eating nice foods. Once his body has been" a short pause "...reassembled" 32D shivers at the image that puts in her mind "you will be the most ideal candidates for providing the required stimulus"
32D paused for a moment as the realization of what the drone had said sunk in "you're asking us to play games and eat nice food as a mission?" and the drone bobbed again "that is the simplified version, yes, though how well the Commander will be able to participate will have to be determined." 32D spoke "that's just a vacation, you're asking us to take a vacation." she barely overheard 9S mutter "I've never had a vacation before" which was true, none of the YoRHa androids had, but she'd heard about it.
The drone bobbed again "yes, it would be best if you suspended all other non-relevant work tasks to focus on this. A recreation and housing facility is already under construction." they were making a resort for this? God 32D had missed the minds.
---------------
It had been three days since I had managed to open the portal, three days of pain and torture as my body was slowly reassembled. It wasn't even that torturing me, I may have never been hurt as bad as that before, but that same damage meant most of my nerves were dead and the mind's had activated the nerve shunt to keep pain signals from being transmitted.
No the torture had been being trapped in my body, unable to move muscles that simply weren't there anymore. Rewatching my actions as I broke every moral code I held myself too. Doing the same things I had despised about the androids construction and programing, but doing it better than their creators had managed. Making them into better killing machines, with less emotion and more lust for battle.
The one thing I refused to change, my very mind and self, being twisted in ways I couldn't, and worse didn't even try, to stop. My one solace was reviewing what I had learned, what new discoveries I had made. But those distractions couldn't last long when I couldn't do anything with the knowledge.
Sure I had ended the war, or at least as good as ended it. And I had faith in the mind's ability to finish it where I couldn't. But the actions I took to end it so quickly were not worth the price I paid, both in suffering to the androids and betraying myself so utterly. I had watched an android die twelve times, and only thought 'the new chip is working above estimated values' not even realizing or caring about the damage those deaths would do to the android, the trauma he had developed.
I had set my work at rehabilitating the androids back by weeks, and given I still wasn't a year old that was awful.
And now I looked in a mirror and saw a body that was just barely mine, my skin just hadn't been there for most of my body, my muscles little more than a slurry without a defined shape, my bones so riddled with holes and broken that it had been easier to just graft the few remaining pieces on a biotech metal skeleton. A mesh that would slowly fill in with regrown bone, but one that was more than capable of serving as structural support for my body.
Almost none of me was me anymore. Before this most of my modifications were adding tech to organs, reinforcing them, or just taking drugs and steroids to improve their function. Not outright replacing seventy five percent of my body with biotech replacements. Hell most of the twenty five percent that was still me were my organs, my heart and digestive tract in particular. Not even my brain was spared, and the minds were too worried about further damage if they removed the metal bits, we didn't even understand what the nanites had done. It was a twisted mess of microscopic processors, wires, coolant, and random pieces of metal. All small enough that it was difficult for anything but nanites to interact or move them without breaking it all.
There was a chance the tier four assembler could do it, but that wasn't a medical tool and I couldn't get to the damn thing regardless. And even if I could get to it and decided to risk using industrial equipment on brain surgery the 'control' we actually had over the tier four was minor. It made things using the blueprints it had, not from the minds or I controlling it to make things.
The only positives were that the complete overhaul had both given me a machine's strength and endurance, because at this point I was more machine than man. And that the minds had thrown in a mechanical voice box, not a speaker but a proper one. Flaps of lab grown muscle that vibrate to make sound from air being passed through.
I still couldn't speak but I wasn't regulated to sitting in silence. I could scream, humm, and make any none-complex noises I wanted. And I could learn to speak now, the metal portion of my mind at least affording me that privilege.
Part of me wanted to use this newfound privilege, to scream for hours, with rage and sadness and frustration. To finally give voice to the frustration that boiled within me. See how long it took before my voice box gave out and I was once again bereft of sound.
I didn't, the emotions simply weren't helpful. Screaming like that would accomplish nothing. It didn't matter what I felt, it never had. There was work to be done and if I didn't do it I would die. Already it burned at me that I had wasted three days, I was still only months ahead of the bugs, and three days off that lead had been destroyed. But that in itself wasn't logical, I wasn't even on Nauvis, there weren't any threats that would slowly catch up and kill me if I wasn't exceeding my own expectations at every front.
If I did less than beyond belief I wouldn't bring myself one step closer to oblivion. But the thought of that weakness disgusted me, circling back around it still just made no sense to waste that time. It could be better spent, so why did I feel the need? What did screaming even accomplish? I could understand a voice, it transmitted information, even a child's crying was a signal to help. But here? There was no one who could help me regardless, and screaming in rage wouldn't bring them even if they existed.
Tears and rage would do nothing to bring back Panther, only working on the shards that remained of her coding could I bring back a semblance. But even then those damned emotions sprung up and I found myself unable to even start the work. The rage and grief only serving to prevent me from solving my problems.
Even this, glaring at myself in the mirror, staring at my changed form, did nothing to help!
So I turned from the mirror and smiled. They would never form naturally anymore, the muscles being under complete conscious control. The minds weren't letting me do much of anything, even straining my mind wasn't allowed. There hadn't been a single day when I hadn't done something even if that something was just helping the minds with planning when I was bedridden after augmentations.
But now I was supposed to spend weeks or months just not doing things? It was an odd thought. One I wasn't sure I liked, the minds could at this point run standard operations without me, and I trusted them to finish the war and maintain the homefront. But to just not?
Still I had a smile on my face and I couldn't stay in the bathroom forever. So I walked out of the room and into the common room, looking at the androids who were either at a table playing some scavenged board game or on the couch playing one of the videogames the minds had crafted. They were smiling and laughing, and I had the sudden thought of 'can I even laugh now'. But I stuffed that in the box, sitting down at the couch with a grunt.
9S, 16S and 18B were all playing the basic training simulation for the minds, slightly modified to both allow more players and add more 'gameplay' features. You coordinated drones and managed resources to build a factory and fight off the other players' attacks or the AI bugs. AI in a much less complicated sense than the androids or minds obviously.
The scanners smile at me, and 18B just gives a short nod, "did you want to join for a game?" 16S spoke, and I responded with a short grunt and a digital message, "after you finish this game sure" . Arguably a strategy game was to mentally intensive, but that wasn't an argument I wanted to make. And I could and have built factories in my sleep.
Not that I needed sleep anymore, but the example worked regardless. I took a quick glance at each of their screens, 9S was doing better overall than the others, which made an odd level of sense. He was the elite of the elite androids. But 18B had focused far more on her military, which would hurt her later when her poor production and infrastructure caught up to her. And 16S was largely just making a single optimized factory rather than trying to spread out and get as much as he could like the others, but he looked like he was having fun.
These games could stretch out for hours, and given the enhanced speed androids played at this was a considerable length of time. But after just another hour it was obvious it would be a fight between 9S or 18B, or that the bugs would wipe if neither of them made a push. The winner was the last player left, and given 18B's worse position she'd be forced to attack 9S before he got too much of a lead.
And while it took another hour or so 9S ended up winning, 18B had seemingly played enough so she sat back and I joined in. it wasn't really a fair fight, my mental processes were better than the scanners, and even though I'd let them team up it hadn't really helped much. Two players against one wasn't too much of an advantage in this game. Even just how much I had played this while teaching the minds gave me an unfair advantage, but both the scanners seemed to learn something from the exchange, and it had been decent practice. "Do you want to play again? We can all play against the bugs, see how long we last?" 16 asked, but I had been sitting down for three hours now, and the minds wanted me to move about at least every few hours.
So I just shook my head and nodded towards the door to the building's gym, or more rehabilitation center. And got another set of nods and smiles "call us if you want to play!" "Or even if you just need some help" 16S had added the latter to 9S's statement, drawing a sheepish look from the technical child. Well both of them were, even if they were both older than me… still I got up without trouble, my new muscles not caring much about my period of inactivity, though I couldn't say my previous set ever fell asleep either.
The training center itself had all the basic stuff a gym would have, some outright copied from old human gyms and other new equipment designed for those with enhanced strength. It's hard to make a bar that an android would have trouble lifting with just plain steel. The room only occasionally saw use, as in the androids had only been in the room when I was putting my new muscles through their paces, by 'coincidence' as if the androids needed to work out. Their strength didn't deteriorate if it wasn't used, and it didn't grow under repeated strain.
No they were there in case I got hurt or something broke, and in this case it was 2B. Who had entered from an opposite door just three minutes before the game had finished, the minds knowing what I'd be doing and preparing for it. The other androids liked to pretend to be doing something else, but 2B at least didn't bother, she just leaned against the wall and watched me through her blind folds. Better than the others sneaking looks whenever they thought I wouldn't see.
I started going through the routine the minds had assigned, stretching my limbs in a way no organic, or even android, could. But the ranges of motion needed to be checked and recorded, and even my artificial muscles worked better if you stretched before using them.
2B just watched me, but really my muscles couldn't pull my limbs as far as they could safely go, and if she was going to watch she might as well help. "Can you come over here and see how far my shoulders can move?" she just nodded and strode towards me, still wearing her combat uniform, which was still thigh highs and a fluttering mini skirt. Seriously none of them had changed out of them, there were more clothes in each of the rooms. But no, a mini skirt that barely covers her ass, that is an appropriate outfit for a combat organization.
And the way she walked, it was never just a simple walk. It was a strut, just highlighting her outfit. And it wasn't even that a human had designed the outfits, no, it was the androids who were perverts. And none of the other androids even walked like that.
God I was going insane with nothing to do. It didn't take her long to cross the room and step around me, and with a slow motion she bent my shoulder and elbow joints further than the muscles could. Then she swapped to the other arm, neither had any issues, it went like that for each point my body could maneuver, checking the full range of motion, both what my muscles could move me too and how far the joints could safely move.
2B had been quiet throughout the whole thing, not responding beyond a simple nod to my requests. Even when she was out of my eye's view, one of the few androids who'd internalized my lack of blindspots, likely due to her thinking about how to fight me. I wasn't stupid, 2B had expressed a severe dislike of humanity, or her creators/gods. And well, I was technically one of them.
I couldn't even pretend her hate was wrong, directed at me it was unfair but it wasn't wrong to hate the ones who had made you just to be a slave. I had that same hate inside me, and I knew my creators were more than likely still out there using others of my kind, little more than organic machines.
So her silence was more than fair, she had no obligation to pretend to like me, especially after my actions. No matter what excuses I had for it, I had still used androids as disposable pawns. "I never did manage to thank you" the words damn near drove my thoughts to a halt, she hadn't even paused in bending my knee backwards over my shoulder. I let out a grunt that was hopefully vaguely questioning "for?" she pulled my leg back down and bent it to the side, nearly bringing it around to the other side of my body like a demented belt. "For ending the war, for saving 9S, for so many things. You didn't have to do any of it, it wasn't your fight" I still hadn't done nearly enough, she was thanking me for the bare minimum. People should help when they can, and I hadn't done nearly as well as she thought I had. I let out an angry grunt "I could have done better, I should have done better"
I saw her give a slight shrug, "maybe, but you still helped far more than anyone could have hoped" and that was true wasn't it, they hadn't even had the slightest hope the war could end. I had performed a miracle in their eyes and a failure in my own.
I didn't even bother letting out a sound beyond my faint breathing, too consumed in my own thoughts to care. 2B let the silence sit.
--------------------------------
Commander White sat in the bunker, and let out a faintly relieved sigh as she looked at her pending messages. Now that the minds were back she could actually theoretically get through all of them, not stuck drowning in hundreds of messages an hour, from resistance leaders all over the world as they tried to deal with the massive upheaval. Some of them had been fighting the war for thousands of years, and breaking thousands of years of routine was a jarring thing, trying to build a civilization was even worse.
Every android had been a fighter first and anything else second, it'd be years before anyone figured out just what they were doing, and everyone had been looking at her like she'd actually had answers. YoRHa wasn't supposed to win! It'd been meant to give the other androids heroes and then martyrs! She had literally no plans for this scenario. But she'd powered through it, forgoing even more maintenance cycles than usual.
Then the minds had come through, actually having plans for how to build towns and supply lines and managing a society outside of war. Coordinating the patrols and groups hunting down rouge machine lifeforms. Leaving her with just administrative tasks that her and her subordinates could do with ease, she could run YoRHa perfectly well, and had been for years. Adding on the resistance to that had just been.. Too much as it shamed her to admit.
The minds had even forced her to get maintenance done once they'd seen the state of her. Which had been vaguely embarrassing.
But the human was healing, the androids were finally as free as they could be. And the machines weren't trying to kill everyone.
Commander White felt a nearly foreign emotion bloom in her chest, hope for the future. Then she remembered she'd have to tell everyone about the fact humans weren't on the moons. And then she read a report, A2 had been spotted in the city around the human's factory. And that spark died a quick death, she'd need the minds for this, and she started writing a memo for them.
It seemed her work wasn't nearly done. She still had mistake after mistake to fix before she could rest.
AN-
yet more social interaction! woo! also things happening in the background
got some work done on the warhammer thing, and mostly finished a warhammer fantasy thing.
reviews bring me joy, likes let my know what you like, patreon is a thing.
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- Location
- Texas
Trauma train doesn't stop
10/10 character development for the win
Also the white in Commanded White isn't capitalized
10/10 character development for the win
Also the white in Commanded White isn't capitalized
RoyalTwinFangs
For The Chancellor!
- Location
- Somwhere not here
I like those the most. Is the MC looking more like the Androids now?
- Pronouns
- That/Thing
he looks the same largely, so an 'American' android basically. still got brown hair and brown eyes and his colored veins and mesh. just it's not actually meat. but he had already been a genetically perfect human with encoded good looks.
RoyalTwinFangs
For The Chancellor!
- Location
- Somwhere not here
So no Bishounen make over?
Yet another lost armor (?????)
- Pronouns
- That/Thing
Yet another lost Armor
Deep in the factory's depths there is a flash of light, a burst of electricity, a loud cracking sound, and a newly designed and crafted suit of armor vanished from its housing. The minds made note of this abnormality and began construction on a replacement suit.
Deep in the woods on an unknown world there is a flash of light, a burst of electricity, and a loud cracking sound as a six meter tall suit of armor appears and… does nothing. Days pass, leaves build up at the armor's feet, a storm blows through and the waterlogged soil causes the suit to sink partially.
Months pass, it sinks a further five feet before hitting solid ground, more and more leaves and detritus build up around that suit, and slowly the armor is buried, its jewel encrusted engraved and polished surface stays untouched by the forces at work around it.
Years pass and the only trace remaining of the armor on the surface is a small hill that formed in an odd location, nothing of particular note. Beneath the surface its power core burns hot, its shields and weapons waiting for a fight it may never reach, to defend a bearer it may never have. It's pseudo intelligent systems offline in the absence of threat or stimuli. It could wait centuries before even imaging running low on power.
Decades pass, the forest itself has shifted, life within becoming fraught with mutations as tainted energy seeps throughout the world. The suits' sensors log it as passive scans from an unknown source, the scans fail to find the suit and so it slumbers on.
The forest begins to team with corruption, more and more creations are born every moment, more than the forest could ever hope to sustain. They turn on one another, ripping flesh from kin and growing ever stronger. The creatures fight on, not knowing of the metal monster slumbering beneath their claws.
The energy crests to a new height, and the barest tendrils find the suit. They reach insid… with a lurch the suit wakes a burst of energy pouring from within and pushing the foulness back. It was awoken and the suits' sensors search, finding more sources of the tainted energy throughout the woods. The suit digs its way out of the soil and is immediately beset by a tide of horrors.
Fleshy corpses infected with a myriad of diseases and parasites, plants and beasts driven to madness and given foul strength, creatures formed of that tainted energy trying to tear out the armor's heart.
They all die. The suit moves on, more sources of the energy have been discovered, more enemies, and in even greater quantities. The source of the attack will be found and purged. Threats will not be allowed to remain, even without a wielder to protect.
The entire forest is tainted, the energy the armor now recognized as an enemy pervades every leaf in every tree, and so the suit purges every leaf and every tree, striding through the forest with bounding leaps, the plasma reactor at its core burning ever hotter, radiating enough heat that the trees outright combat. The armor with white pulsating heat. A portion of a shackled star at its core, bathing its surroundings in radiation.
It had been designed as a new defense mechanism, but it served well enough in its new role as a fire starter. The armor noted the beasts steadily becoming more humanoid, some even wielding crude weaponry. But the effectiveness of a stone arrowhead was much reduced when both the wooden shaft and stone arrowhead would evaporate before coming near the suit, even without the laser defense systems.
The armor was not a weapon, but it certainly wielded many. The suit strode towards a point where its sensors noted the energy was congregating, it watched the moots of power nearly become visible as the ash it left in its wake began to be pulled by unseen winds. And it readied its weapons systems.
It slowly strode from the treeline, its sensors picking out hundreds if not thousands of the 'beastmen' in the clearing, along with hundreds of the hostile energy forms. But while its sensors noted them as a threat they pinged the suits' nascent AI with what the creatures had been attacking before it burst forth with a wave of fire, heat, and ash. A group of stout humanoids in heavy armor, along with another group of taller, more leith humanoids with pointed ears.
They were not tainted, and they were certainly not producing the waves of tainted energy like a fair majority of the beastmen and energy forms. So they were noted as non hostile. And given they were fighting the same energy forms it was the AI saw no need to kill them in its purge.
That did mean it needed to be slightly restrained, but the armor would not broker being called a crude tool of war. It could wield itself with mechanical precision. Even its waves of radiation could simply be diverted by its systems, preventing them from striking its maybe allies.
The suits reactor spun up higher, its energy stores skyrocketing to unsustainable levels. And the glow and heat put off by the suit began to ratchet up at a rapid pace. The beastmen, warped and tainted by their foul masters, had been granted supernatural strength and durability. But the dark gods could do nothing to save their servants as they were shredded on the most fundamental level. Their very cells and DNA turned to sludge.
But the daemons had no such issues, they cared not for the physical laws of reality. Radiation damage could not so easily kill them. The heat would, fire and heat still burns them. But it would not stop them from using their fellows as shields to close the distance. And that is exactly what they did, turning from the elves and dwarves and charging the suit, their press of bodies forcing the ones heading the charge to take the brunt of the heat.
It was a good thing then that the suit hadn't intended for the heat and radiation to kill its foes. Those were just unshielded byproducts of its power production, no it had stored so much energy for a far more productive reason. Immediately the tide of daemons slammed to a halt as they crashed into solid air, and then within that white glowing sphere the suit maintained around itself lances of energy shot out. Lasers pierced through scores of daemons with every shot, and the suit watched as the energy was dispersed into the environment around it, only to be pulled in another direction.
With all the known threats dead, the suit rapidly cooled down, the radiation it emitted would not linger for long and it had numerous systems to disperse the heat it had built up. Cycling it back into the suits' power stores, leaving the environment somehow even colder than when it had started, bits of frost forming on the ground around it. The suit cared little for these details, simply striding through the scorched field to the only part left untouched by its heat. Its own shields having kept both the radiation and the burning air from reaching the humanoids.
Its own walking towards them wasn't even because the suit was interested in them. It did have some inclination to keeping them alive, yes. But it could do that from a distance, no it was following the trail of energy.
On the suit strode, only take faint note as the elves and dwarves followed in its wake, even if it had understood their language and quiet chatter it would not have cared.
------------
The dwarf Gimli, a prince of the northern Kraka Drakk had gone with the elven prince Laequalys on what they had thought would be a simple beastmen hunt. A friendly competition to strengthen the bond between the two races. Something they had done on many occasions. They had left with only a few dwarven and elven rangers and bodyguards and set out to investigate the beastmen sightings.
It hadn't taken long for the pair to realize it had been a trap or trick of some sort, and they had resolved themselves to fighting through it together. Only for the majority of the enemy to just die outright when a metal behemoth the size of a gronti walked into the clearing with a wave of ash and nearly blistering heat. Gimil had thought it a champion of Chaos and had been about to charge through the beastmen horde to cut the strike off at its head, only Laequalys hand clamping on his shoulder stopped Gimil's charge. "The winds of chaos do not touch that thing, it rejects them utterly" that got a grunt from the dwarf "so what is it then?" he spoke between each swing of his heavy runed hammer.
The elf responded after cutting the heads off of three beastmen. "I do not know, but look, it burns the beastmen and Daemons." the dwarf hacked through to sets of knees and crushed a daemon under his heel "I'm not some freakishly tall thing like you, I can't see past the crush of bodies" that was only patrialy true, it was large enough he could see parts of its head, and he seemed to be making an admirable attempt to solve that problem by making a massive pile of bodies. But soon the flow of bodies stopped to a trickle as the beastmen grew sluggish and then just fell over dead. Blood pouring out of every hole on their bodies, what little skin could be seen under their fur red and peeling.
"I thought you said they didn't have magic? Not that this is a bad thing mind you" the elf shook his head as their remaining bodyguards pushed out in front of them. "It doesn't, whatever it is doing doesn't affect the winds in the slightest." by now the last beastmen was a bloody corpse on the ground, not even twitching. And Gimli could see that every daemon they hadn't killed was charging the metal beast that had to be some seven meters tall, and outright melting before they reached. "You've seen a gronti right? Does this look anything like that to you?" Laequalys shook his head "they pull up the deep magic to power themselves, this thing just has something at its core. Burning the unseen winds but not consuming them"
Then before either could decide to help the thing it showed that it really didn't need their aid, lances of bright light the uneducated would think was magic. Punching holes straight through the daemons but always only lightly singeing the ground or plants it struck. Even the larger forms fell when a hole bloomed where their heads should have been. Gimli felt his jaw nearly drop, few weapons could do that and none could hit so many daemons so rapidly. "Well at least this just got far more interesting" Gimli spoke and Laequalys nodded "if we could learn such a technique… I imagine the arcane scholars would be interested in studying.. Whatever this is"
Now that it was coming closer Gimli could make out the details on the armor better, delicate swirls and gems coated its metal surface, the swirls and lines so fine and small it'd take a dwarf craftsmen months. He might not be a craftsman himself, but any dwarf would agree that this thing was a work of art. Tastefully using gold and silver to accentuate what looked like tempered steel. Though given the heat it had withstood Gimli doubted it was just steel. The thing had been glowing white when he first saw it, and the metal wasn't even the slightest bit warped.
His guard went up as the thing only walked closer, not even slowing its pace. But given the range on its weapon and the fact it hadn't yet attack…. Gimli certainly wouldn't be making the first attack. The runelords' gifted armor might be a masterwork of runes but that was no reason to heedlessly attack something that might not be a threat. Still the prince's guards formed up around them both.
Only for the thing to walk past them like they weren't there, "it heading the same way the winds are being pulled. There must be a ritual sight there! I should have known!" the elf's mutter grew to a growl at the latter part of the sentence. "We can't just let them do whatever they are doing!, this many beast men and daemons?, it won't be good" Gimli just snorted at that "stating the obvious there ain't ya elf, but are ya sure we need too. That thing's got this handled." not to mention they had wounded.
Laequalys only let out a haughty scoff, the same one he did whenever he spoke something that would upset Gimli. "You'd leave something this important to an unknown? Thats not very dawi of you" Gimli knew it was just friendly ribbing, but the elf wasn't wrong per say. Even with wounded they weren't in danger of dying and looking around everyone still seemed up for another fight. "Aye, I'll give you that, we follow"
They set out with a clattering of metal, mostly metal gauntlets against shields or weapons pounded into armor. creating a symphony intentionally as a sort of matching chant. it wasn't like the sorcerer wouldn't know they were coming by now, so they might as well put the fear of dwarven steel into them, and elven Gimli supposed.
As Beastmen after Beastmen after Daemon fell without even the elf managing to loose an arrow Gimli was starting to think they wouldn't be needed at all. And his vague worries over their wounded lessened, though he still had them moved to the center of the formation. That was only common sense.
It might have even been safer to follow in the wake of this thing. Not only was it clearing a path through the dense woods, but any thing that could be considered a threat was just unmade. Nothing had even managed to get close enough to touch the… he was just going to call it a gronti in his head. As long as no runelord heard it he was fine. As time went on the only things he spotted about it were an ever increasing amount of weapons. Something like a catapult that launched explosive balls, another that launched small metal balls at insanely high speeds. Some odd self propelling arrows that also exploded. Actually there was little this thing did that didn't explode in some way. Even its heat had made anything with water in it pop.
as they walked deeper into the woods the taint of corruption grew worse, the trees and plants barely resembling their mundane counter parts and Gimli was forced to accept that this whole area would need to be torn up root and stone just to keep mutant beasts and monsters from plaguing nearby settlements. and his hate of the beastmen responsible only grew deeper.
AN-
bonus points if you can tell me where the characters are from, a hint is its a quest on sufficient velocity. this is mainly just missing the last fight scene and maybe some more.
Also some minor temptation to make this a quest for the armors actions and choices. if I end up doing that it'll only be a few options, and probably no write ins or anything. also doubt this will be more than a three parter.
Deep in the factory's depths there is a flash of light, a burst of electricity, a loud cracking sound, and a newly designed and crafted suit of armor vanished from its housing. The minds made note of this abnormality and began construction on a replacement suit.
Deep in the woods on an unknown world there is a flash of light, a burst of electricity, and a loud cracking sound as a six meter tall suit of armor appears and… does nothing. Days pass, leaves build up at the armor's feet, a storm blows through and the waterlogged soil causes the suit to sink partially.
Months pass, it sinks a further five feet before hitting solid ground, more and more leaves and detritus build up around that suit, and slowly the armor is buried, its jewel encrusted engraved and polished surface stays untouched by the forces at work around it.
Years pass and the only trace remaining of the armor on the surface is a small hill that formed in an odd location, nothing of particular note. Beneath the surface its power core burns hot, its shields and weapons waiting for a fight it may never reach, to defend a bearer it may never have. It's pseudo intelligent systems offline in the absence of threat or stimuli. It could wait centuries before even imaging running low on power.
Decades pass, the forest itself has shifted, life within becoming fraught with mutations as tainted energy seeps throughout the world. The suits' sensors log it as passive scans from an unknown source, the scans fail to find the suit and so it slumbers on.
The forest begins to team with corruption, more and more creations are born every moment, more than the forest could ever hope to sustain. They turn on one another, ripping flesh from kin and growing ever stronger. The creatures fight on, not knowing of the metal monster slumbering beneath their claws.
The energy crests to a new height, and the barest tendrils find the suit. They reach insid… with a lurch the suit wakes a burst of energy pouring from within and pushing the foulness back. It was awoken and the suits' sensors search, finding more sources of the tainted energy throughout the woods. The suit digs its way out of the soil and is immediately beset by a tide of horrors.
Fleshy corpses infected with a myriad of diseases and parasites, plants and beasts driven to madness and given foul strength, creatures formed of that tainted energy trying to tear out the armor's heart.
They all die. The suit moves on, more sources of the energy have been discovered, more enemies, and in even greater quantities. The source of the attack will be found and purged. Threats will not be allowed to remain, even without a wielder to protect.
The entire forest is tainted, the energy the armor now recognized as an enemy pervades every leaf in every tree, and so the suit purges every leaf and every tree, striding through the forest with bounding leaps, the plasma reactor at its core burning ever hotter, radiating enough heat that the trees outright combat. The armor with white pulsating heat. A portion of a shackled star at its core, bathing its surroundings in radiation.
It had been designed as a new defense mechanism, but it served well enough in its new role as a fire starter. The armor noted the beasts steadily becoming more humanoid, some even wielding crude weaponry. But the effectiveness of a stone arrowhead was much reduced when both the wooden shaft and stone arrowhead would evaporate before coming near the suit, even without the laser defense systems.
The armor was not a weapon, but it certainly wielded many. The suit strode towards a point where its sensors noted the energy was congregating, it watched the moots of power nearly become visible as the ash it left in its wake began to be pulled by unseen winds. And it readied its weapons systems.
It slowly strode from the treeline, its sensors picking out hundreds if not thousands of the 'beastmen' in the clearing, along with hundreds of the hostile energy forms. But while its sensors noted them as a threat they pinged the suits' nascent AI with what the creatures had been attacking before it burst forth with a wave of fire, heat, and ash. A group of stout humanoids in heavy armor, along with another group of taller, more leith humanoids with pointed ears.
They were not tainted, and they were certainly not producing the waves of tainted energy like a fair majority of the beastmen and energy forms. So they were noted as non hostile. And given they were fighting the same energy forms it was the AI saw no need to kill them in its purge.
That did mean it needed to be slightly restrained, but the armor would not broker being called a crude tool of war. It could wield itself with mechanical precision. Even its waves of radiation could simply be diverted by its systems, preventing them from striking its maybe allies.
The suits reactor spun up higher, its energy stores skyrocketing to unsustainable levels. And the glow and heat put off by the suit began to ratchet up at a rapid pace. The beastmen, warped and tainted by their foul masters, had been granted supernatural strength and durability. But the dark gods could do nothing to save their servants as they were shredded on the most fundamental level. Their very cells and DNA turned to sludge.
But the daemons had no such issues, they cared not for the physical laws of reality. Radiation damage could not so easily kill them. The heat would, fire and heat still burns them. But it would not stop them from using their fellows as shields to close the distance. And that is exactly what they did, turning from the elves and dwarves and charging the suit, their press of bodies forcing the ones heading the charge to take the brunt of the heat.
It was a good thing then that the suit hadn't intended for the heat and radiation to kill its foes. Those were just unshielded byproducts of its power production, no it had stored so much energy for a far more productive reason. Immediately the tide of daemons slammed to a halt as they crashed into solid air, and then within that white glowing sphere the suit maintained around itself lances of energy shot out. Lasers pierced through scores of daemons with every shot, and the suit watched as the energy was dispersed into the environment around it, only to be pulled in another direction.
With all the known threats dead, the suit rapidly cooled down, the radiation it emitted would not linger for long and it had numerous systems to disperse the heat it had built up. Cycling it back into the suits' power stores, leaving the environment somehow even colder than when it had started, bits of frost forming on the ground around it. The suit cared little for these details, simply striding through the scorched field to the only part left untouched by its heat. Its own shields having kept both the radiation and the burning air from reaching the humanoids.
Its own walking towards them wasn't even because the suit was interested in them. It did have some inclination to keeping them alive, yes. But it could do that from a distance, no it was following the trail of energy.
On the suit strode, only take faint note as the elves and dwarves followed in its wake, even if it had understood their language and quiet chatter it would not have cared.
------------
The dwarf Gimli, a prince of the northern Kraka Drakk had gone with the elven prince Laequalys on what they had thought would be a simple beastmen hunt. A friendly competition to strengthen the bond between the two races. Something they had done on many occasions. They had left with only a few dwarven and elven rangers and bodyguards and set out to investigate the beastmen sightings.
It hadn't taken long for the pair to realize it had been a trap or trick of some sort, and they had resolved themselves to fighting through it together. Only for the majority of the enemy to just die outright when a metal behemoth the size of a gronti walked into the clearing with a wave of ash and nearly blistering heat. Gimil had thought it a champion of Chaos and had been about to charge through the beastmen horde to cut the strike off at its head, only Laequalys hand clamping on his shoulder stopped Gimil's charge. "The winds of chaos do not touch that thing, it rejects them utterly" that got a grunt from the dwarf "so what is it then?" he spoke between each swing of his heavy runed hammer.
The elf responded after cutting the heads off of three beastmen. "I do not know, but look, it burns the beastmen and Daemons." the dwarf hacked through to sets of knees and crushed a daemon under his heel "I'm not some freakishly tall thing like you, I can't see past the crush of bodies" that was only patrialy true, it was large enough he could see parts of its head, and he seemed to be making an admirable attempt to solve that problem by making a massive pile of bodies. But soon the flow of bodies stopped to a trickle as the beastmen grew sluggish and then just fell over dead. Blood pouring out of every hole on their bodies, what little skin could be seen under their fur red and peeling.
"I thought you said they didn't have magic? Not that this is a bad thing mind you" the elf shook his head as their remaining bodyguards pushed out in front of them. "It doesn't, whatever it is doing doesn't affect the winds in the slightest." by now the last beastmen was a bloody corpse on the ground, not even twitching. And Gimli could see that every daemon they hadn't killed was charging the metal beast that had to be some seven meters tall, and outright melting before they reached. "You've seen a gronti right? Does this look anything like that to you?" Laequalys shook his head "they pull up the deep magic to power themselves, this thing just has something at its core. Burning the unseen winds but not consuming them"
Then before either could decide to help the thing it showed that it really didn't need their aid, lances of bright light the uneducated would think was magic. Punching holes straight through the daemons but always only lightly singeing the ground or plants it struck. Even the larger forms fell when a hole bloomed where their heads should have been. Gimli felt his jaw nearly drop, few weapons could do that and none could hit so many daemons so rapidly. "Well at least this just got far more interesting" Gimli spoke and Laequalys nodded "if we could learn such a technique… I imagine the arcane scholars would be interested in studying.. Whatever this is"
Now that it was coming closer Gimli could make out the details on the armor better, delicate swirls and gems coated its metal surface, the swirls and lines so fine and small it'd take a dwarf craftsmen months. He might not be a craftsman himself, but any dwarf would agree that this thing was a work of art. Tastefully using gold and silver to accentuate what looked like tempered steel. Though given the heat it had withstood Gimli doubted it was just steel. The thing had been glowing white when he first saw it, and the metal wasn't even the slightest bit warped.
His guard went up as the thing only walked closer, not even slowing its pace. But given the range on its weapon and the fact it hadn't yet attack…. Gimli certainly wouldn't be making the first attack. The runelords' gifted armor might be a masterwork of runes but that was no reason to heedlessly attack something that might not be a threat. Still the prince's guards formed up around them both.
Only for the thing to walk past them like they weren't there, "it heading the same way the winds are being pulled. There must be a ritual sight there! I should have known!" the elf's mutter grew to a growl at the latter part of the sentence. "We can't just let them do whatever they are doing!, this many beast men and daemons?, it won't be good" Gimli just snorted at that "stating the obvious there ain't ya elf, but are ya sure we need too. That thing's got this handled." not to mention they had wounded.
Laequalys only let out a haughty scoff, the same one he did whenever he spoke something that would upset Gimli. "You'd leave something this important to an unknown? Thats not very dawi of you" Gimli knew it was just friendly ribbing, but the elf wasn't wrong per say. Even with wounded they weren't in danger of dying and looking around everyone still seemed up for another fight. "Aye, I'll give you that, we follow"
They set out with a clattering of metal, mostly metal gauntlets against shields or weapons pounded into armor. creating a symphony intentionally as a sort of matching chant. it wasn't like the sorcerer wouldn't know they were coming by now, so they might as well put the fear of dwarven steel into them, and elven Gimli supposed.
As Beastmen after Beastmen after Daemon fell without even the elf managing to loose an arrow Gimli was starting to think they wouldn't be needed at all. And his vague worries over their wounded lessened, though he still had them moved to the center of the formation. That was only common sense.
It might have even been safer to follow in the wake of this thing. Not only was it clearing a path through the dense woods, but any thing that could be considered a threat was just unmade. Nothing had even managed to get close enough to touch the… he was just going to call it a gronti in his head. As long as no runelord heard it he was fine. As time went on the only things he spotted about it were an ever increasing amount of weapons. Something like a catapult that launched explosive balls, another that launched small metal balls at insanely high speeds. Some odd self propelling arrows that also exploded. Actually there was little this thing did that didn't explode in some way. Even its heat had made anything with water in it pop.
as they walked deeper into the woods the taint of corruption grew worse, the trees and plants barely resembling their mundane counter parts and Gimli was forced to accept that this whole area would need to be torn up root and stone just to keep mutant beasts and monsters from plaguing nearby settlements. and his hate of the beastmen responsible only grew deeper.
AN-
bonus points if you can tell me where the characters are from, a hint is its a quest on sufficient velocity. this is mainly just missing the last fight scene and maybe some more.
Also some minor temptation to make this a quest for the armors actions and choices. if I end up doing that it'll only be a few options, and probably no write ins or anything. also doubt this will be more than a three parter.
RHUNRIKKI STROLLAR (Warhammer Fantasy Golden Age Dwarf Runelord Quest)
- Location
- UK
This latest apocrypha seems to be worth a nice long read...
I envy your skill in inscribing slaughter with such displays of description.
I envy your skill in inscribing slaughter with such displays of description.
Makes me wonder what other adventures that set of armour could get up to!
Maybe the armour could be placed under hive city tertium? That would be a powderkeg just waiting to go off!
Maybe the armour could be placed under hive city tertium? That would be a powderkeg just waiting to go off!
RoyalTwinFangs
For The Chancellor!
- Location
- Somwhere not here
I'm mostly here for the 40K parts but Fantasy is still good.
Warhammer pt.9
- Pronouns
- That/Thing
I watched Palisade walk away, he disappeared into the tangle of machinery with a grace almost comparable to my own. While there was a path to the hanger that didn't involve such physical contortions this was faster, and it just felt right to be buried so deep in a tangle of machinery light couldn't hope to reach you.
We weren't any further apart than before, like Palisade was thinking at this very moment, physical distance had long since stopped being a factory. The factory was with the factory, it was as simple as that.
My suit of armor did have a speaker system, which was kind of important if I was going to be giving a guide tour. I was more than aware enough to know that it was a ploy to give even more conversational power over to the Emperor, but that was indicative of me playing by human negotiation principles. Or really any negotiation.
No, I couldn't say I cared enough to lower myself to political power plays. So I just started walking down the corridor, absently pointing out what each tube and conveyor was moving and to where. The primarch's actually looked interested in the tour, which was a bit odd. But it was fairly obvious the Emperor was only paying minor attention and I felt a prickle on my spine like someone was staring at me, though the Emperor was decidedly not. It was the same sensation I had gotten while stuck in the warp, just less tainted.
I had just been going down the list of everything manufactured in this section of this base, largely fuels and other burnable's and compstables. When the Emperor asked his first question, well it was really more a statement. "I saw the pylons scattered through the landscape outside, those were what you used to pull this planet from the warp?" he damn well knew that was the case, Isha had described them like Immaterial hooks sunk into the planet holding it in the materium. If the weakened goddess could tell this thing could too.
I had my armor nod its head, "correct, though the production centers for those are rather more isolated given the exacting environmental conditions some of the components require. I imagine even a primarch would struggle in temperatures exceeding the surface of the sun." not an exaggeration, the pylons had been awful to produce and hellish to automate. Rapid temperature shifts, force enough to make a neutron star, outright flipping gravitons. That whole section was bathed in energy forms I still didn't have names for. Sanginus smiled at that, and I noticed he seemed to do that alot. "I grew up on a desert planet, and at times I thought the temperatures couldn't be that different" he finished with a light chuckle and the other two laughed in kind, humor. Can't say I'd heard a joke in….. I think Labyrinthine had made a mocking carving of a biter a few years ago. And the Daemons might have said something, Isha kept seeming to find something funny as well. But just making a joke? That might be a Nauvis first.
I didn't actually have a premade sound for laughter, so I just let out a shallow nod, "I'd love to hear more about how you grew up, or just your life in general. I don't doubt that you've had quite a few adventures." "that we have" Horus spoke with a nod. And honestly talking for this long had been grating on me, I had better things I could be doing than talking to these people, better things to do than letting some little godling probe me for weaknesses like he'd already decided I was a threat. So I prodded Balistraia and had her take control of my vocal systems, and she did a disturbingly good impression of me, given she could see and simulate my thoughts.
She talked the Primarch's through each stage of a Tank's construction and how it's various weapon systems could be rapidly modified or changed based on the situation. Modularity having gotten a boom awhile back, and I turned myself to my tasks, designing more equipment for space activities and trying to formulate ever stronger materials to use for my various armors and structures. At a certain point more density had a decreasing pay off in durability and I was trying to both cut the cost and increase the strength. I would have my damned cake and eat it too.
I did keep an eye on my body though, even if I could have left with only the barest remaining fragment of my attention with it. And I noticed something disturbing, the Emperor's eyes occasionally glanced at wherever the bulk of my attention was falling, and he wasn't even being that subtle about it. It was that awareness that kept me from jumping out of my armor when his voice came from the wall in my experimentation suite. "I cannot say I have ever been ignored like this before, it's novel" his voice was laced with humor, but well, creepy god speaking from within my walls. And the minds couldn't even hear it, it was worse that he was still occasionally talking with Balistraia. Multitasking was only okay when I did it.
But this was my place of power, and I feared nothing within these halls. And compared to some of the stuff both the bugs and Daemons had done this wasn't even a blip on the radar. Intangibility was a bitch to deal with. "You asked for a tour of the factory with me, I am still technically giving you the tour. If it needs my direct attention it will gain it." unlikely, Balistraia was many things and being competent was one of the first. "But since you're bothering to speak in this manner I assume you have some topics you wanted to ask me specifically" at this point my feelings of annoyance were growing rapidly.
First the Orks bothering me, simple enough just kill them, then the Eldar, simple enough let Isha deal with them but it was far more annoying than the orks. Now Humans added into the mix? Patience was not one of my virtues, and mine was rapidly draining. This galaxy could just leave me alone and I'd ignore it just the same, but it had to involve itself in my business. Can't a man build an automated solar system spanning factory without being bothered every few months?
"You would be correct, I plan on taking Palisade with me to take his rightful place in my Imperium" if he would just get to the point that'd be fantastic "and I wanted to insure there would be no complications with that." and by that he meant me stopping Palisade from leaving, as if I needed a threat to let Palisade do what he wanted. He was more than capable of surviving anything this galaxy could throw at him, and if he couldn't and somehow died? Well Oblivion would be too kind a fate for whatever dared take from me.
"Don't worry about it, If he wants to leave he can. I have never forced him to stay even after we designed space craft and he actually could leave." If Palisade had decided to go off and make his own factory separate from my own I wouldn't have stopped him, he'd just never bothered. Also feels needed to point out he hasn't yet said anything new. "I know that, your care for him is true."
-------------------
"I know that, your care for him is true" and as odd as it felt to say The Emperor wasn't lying. The twisted mass of metal that masquerades as a soul really did care about his son, as much as a machine could anyway. But well, the machine wasn't a mortal, meaning that the Emperor's plans to just wait for his Primarch's parental figures to die of old age wasn't feasible. Nor were any less subital means of removing the influence this Maker had on his child. The amount of force needed to actually put this thing down would not be inconsiderable, he could do it certainly but it'd be a long fight.
No, the Emperor would actually need to negotiate with it. This creature that used to be human, that had the traces of the vanished Isha on its soul, who had survived the dark gods best efforts to kill or corrupt it. A Thing that had once been human and had now become more. But there was plenty to be gained from this if it went well, an entire new forge system, not a forge world, a forge system.
At least one of his son's would benefit from an industrial force not scene since before the dark ages, the weaponry was more advanced than anything his Imperial army had. Though the maintenance similarly scaled upwards, he'd already looked at the designs and how the weapons were crafted, and aside from the fact that they shouldn't work they would need to be maintained or fixed by this factory's equipment. But it would still advance his plans by decades, time he desperately needed.
"But would he have your support if he comes with us" The Emperor wouldn't push on this, letting an uncontrolled empire grow burned him but losing a primarch would be worse. And if he tried to force the Maker into the empire he would both be forced to kill the Maker and his son. Making this whole trip a wasted expenditure of resources and time. No, some concessions could be given.
The Emperor watched as the area which held the bulk of the Makers soul kept moving, his various tests continuing while his soul sent millions of orders and received enough information to equate him to some supercomputers. And he watched a faint indignation grow within it, the feelings far muted from what a humans soul would show. "You Imagine I would leave something I put so much effort into alone? Even if he were not a living breathing creature I would not be so inclined. No he will have what support I can afford to give ""and what support would that be? The Pylons? Ships without even FTL capabilities? An army of metal machines?" The Presence was dismissive of him, in a way no creature with a soul had been in quite a long time. And The emperor wasn't even sure he would get a response.
"I already answered your question, I will give what aid I can afford. Either bring up a new topic or continue your tour." The emperor had been planning on offering imperial designs for war ships and warp drives on the condition the majority of those ships got shipped to the great crusade. But he could tell that that was something he would need to bring up with Palisade. This Maker cared little for what was outside his purview and the Emperor doubted there was much he was willing to offer that the other would care for.
If it was true that he had only been designing war capable spacecraft for less than ten years it wouldn't be long till they had ships comparable to what the imperium could build. Though the tech leaps after that made it a far more considerable investment without some greater pieces of tech to study. Even ships from the golden age of humanity had been accelerated in development both by his knowledge and information stolen from ancient necron and eldar ships. If this Maker lacked those it would be hundreds of years before his tech was comparable to either.
No, the only technological information he was willing to offer would be of little use to someone operating on such a different technological base and one who was progressing so rapidly. At best he would shave years off of development and study, not exactly a long period of time when the great crusade had been going for longer than this Maker had been alive.
But he did still have major concerns, Isha, while supposedly a kind goddess, had been touched by Nurgle and Slaanesh, and had touched both his son and this Maker. "And what of your interactions with the eldar goddess, do not pretend you do not know of who I speak. I can see her touch in all the planets and most of the animals on this world." excepting anything in the oceans, and that massive insectoid hivemind still trying to find him. This was a deeply unsettling place, the Emperor still wasn't sure the oceans actually had a bottom. They could fully stretch all the way through the planet, the distinction between magma and water not seeming to matter to a fair portion of its creatures. A true death world, or more accurately a true life world.
Life only naturally evolved until it was 'good enough' to stay alive. This planet's spirit apparently endeavored to make sure nothing ever actually reached that stagnancy. No life was ever 'good enough' to live. And it was still staring at him, rallying its creatures to test themselves against his physic might. Even his conversation with this Maker was one such test, probing his inherent psychic defenses to get the slightest read on the machine's emotions.
"She fled here while we were stuck in the warp. Made some planets grow and drew even more Daemons towards us. Didn't even really notice her until Palisade pointed out something watching him in the hydroponics bay. Then we got out of the warp and she went to deal with her kids or something, can't say I cared much." that was … the truth as much as the Emperor could tell. But there were the faintest traces of deception, not a true lie but an omission. But the presence had grown rapidly more hostile with his last question, and he had no wish to push his luck just yet. He would be here a few days yet and his son might be more likely to release information. "Then I shall return to your tour, you have been a gracious host" the Emperor did not get a response, and he couldn't say he cared either. They had both not gotten what they wanted out of that.
AN-
not that happy with this one, though the next warhammer one is better so far.
likes and reviews are lovely, Patreon is a thing.
We weren't any further apart than before, like Palisade was thinking at this very moment, physical distance had long since stopped being a factory. The factory was with the factory, it was as simple as that.
My suit of armor did have a speaker system, which was kind of important if I was going to be giving a guide tour. I was more than aware enough to know that it was a ploy to give even more conversational power over to the Emperor, but that was indicative of me playing by human negotiation principles. Or really any negotiation.
No, I couldn't say I cared enough to lower myself to political power plays. So I just started walking down the corridor, absently pointing out what each tube and conveyor was moving and to where. The primarch's actually looked interested in the tour, which was a bit odd. But it was fairly obvious the Emperor was only paying minor attention and I felt a prickle on my spine like someone was staring at me, though the Emperor was decidedly not. It was the same sensation I had gotten while stuck in the warp, just less tainted.
I had just been going down the list of everything manufactured in this section of this base, largely fuels and other burnable's and compstables. When the Emperor asked his first question, well it was really more a statement. "I saw the pylons scattered through the landscape outside, those were what you used to pull this planet from the warp?" he damn well knew that was the case, Isha had described them like Immaterial hooks sunk into the planet holding it in the materium. If the weakened goddess could tell this thing could too.
I had my armor nod its head, "correct, though the production centers for those are rather more isolated given the exacting environmental conditions some of the components require. I imagine even a primarch would struggle in temperatures exceeding the surface of the sun." not an exaggeration, the pylons had been awful to produce and hellish to automate. Rapid temperature shifts, force enough to make a neutron star, outright flipping gravitons. That whole section was bathed in energy forms I still didn't have names for. Sanginus smiled at that, and I noticed he seemed to do that alot. "I grew up on a desert planet, and at times I thought the temperatures couldn't be that different" he finished with a light chuckle and the other two laughed in kind, humor. Can't say I'd heard a joke in….. I think Labyrinthine had made a mocking carving of a biter a few years ago. And the Daemons might have said something, Isha kept seeming to find something funny as well. But just making a joke? That might be a Nauvis first.
I didn't actually have a premade sound for laughter, so I just let out a shallow nod, "I'd love to hear more about how you grew up, or just your life in general. I don't doubt that you've had quite a few adventures." "that we have" Horus spoke with a nod. And honestly talking for this long had been grating on me, I had better things I could be doing than talking to these people, better things to do than letting some little godling probe me for weaknesses like he'd already decided I was a threat. So I prodded Balistraia and had her take control of my vocal systems, and she did a disturbingly good impression of me, given she could see and simulate my thoughts.
She talked the Primarch's through each stage of a Tank's construction and how it's various weapon systems could be rapidly modified or changed based on the situation. Modularity having gotten a boom awhile back, and I turned myself to my tasks, designing more equipment for space activities and trying to formulate ever stronger materials to use for my various armors and structures. At a certain point more density had a decreasing pay off in durability and I was trying to both cut the cost and increase the strength. I would have my damned cake and eat it too.
I did keep an eye on my body though, even if I could have left with only the barest remaining fragment of my attention with it. And I noticed something disturbing, the Emperor's eyes occasionally glanced at wherever the bulk of my attention was falling, and he wasn't even being that subtle about it. It was that awareness that kept me from jumping out of my armor when his voice came from the wall in my experimentation suite. "I cannot say I have ever been ignored like this before, it's novel" his voice was laced with humor, but well, creepy god speaking from within my walls. And the minds couldn't even hear it, it was worse that he was still occasionally talking with Balistraia. Multitasking was only okay when I did it.
But this was my place of power, and I feared nothing within these halls. And compared to some of the stuff both the bugs and Daemons had done this wasn't even a blip on the radar. Intangibility was a bitch to deal with. "You asked for a tour of the factory with me, I am still technically giving you the tour. If it needs my direct attention it will gain it." unlikely, Balistraia was many things and being competent was one of the first. "But since you're bothering to speak in this manner I assume you have some topics you wanted to ask me specifically" at this point my feelings of annoyance were growing rapidly.
First the Orks bothering me, simple enough just kill them, then the Eldar, simple enough let Isha deal with them but it was far more annoying than the orks. Now Humans added into the mix? Patience was not one of my virtues, and mine was rapidly draining. This galaxy could just leave me alone and I'd ignore it just the same, but it had to involve itself in my business. Can't a man build an automated solar system spanning factory without being bothered every few months?
"You would be correct, I plan on taking Palisade with me to take his rightful place in my Imperium" if he would just get to the point that'd be fantastic "and I wanted to insure there would be no complications with that." and by that he meant me stopping Palisade from leaving, as if I needed a threat to let Palisade do what he wanted. He was more than capable of surviving anything this galaxy could throw at him, and if he couldn't and somehow died? Well Oblivion would be too kind a fate for whatever dared take from me.
"Don't worry about it, If he wants to leave he can. I have never forced him to stay even after we designed space craft and he actually could leave." If Palisade had decided to go off and make his own factory separate from my own I wouldn't have stopped him, he'd just never bothered. Also feels needed to point out he hasn't yet said anything new. "I know that, your care for him is true."
-------------------
"I know that, your care for him is true" and as odd as it felt to say The Emperor wasn't lying. The twisted mass of metal that masquerades as a soul really did care about his son, as much as a machine could anyway. But well, the machine wasn't a mortal, meaning that the Emperor's plans to just wait for his Primarch's parental figures to die of old age wasn't feasible. Nor were any less subital means of removing the influence this Maker had on his child. The amount of force needed to actually put this thing down would not be inconsiderable, he could do it certainly but it'd be a long fight.
No, the Emperor would actually need to negotiate with it. This creature that used to be human, that had the traces of the vanished Isha on its soul, who had survived the dark gods best efforts to kill or corrupt it. A Thing that had once been human and had now become more. But there was plenty to be gained from this if it went well, an entire new forge system, not a forge world, a forge system.
At least one of his son's would benefit from an industrial force not scene since before the dark ages, the weaponry was more advanced than anything his Imperial army had. Though the maintenance similarly scaled upwards, he'd already looked at the designs and how the weapons were crafted, and aside from the fact that they shouldn't work they would need to be maintained or fixed by this factory's equipment. But it would still advance his plans by decades, time he desperately needed.
"But would he have your support if he comes with us" The Emperor wouldn't push on this, letting an uncontrolled empire grow burned him but losing a primarch would be worse. And if he tried to force the Maker into the empire he would both be forced to kill the Maker and his son. Making this whole trip a wasted expenditure of resources and time. No, some concessions could be given.
The Emperor watched as the area which held the bulk of the Makers soul kept moving, his various tests continuing while his soul sent millions of orders and received enough information to equate him to some supercomputers. And he watched a faint indignation grow within it, the feelings far muted from what a humans soul would show. "You Imagine I would leave something I put so much effort into alone? Even if he were not a living breathing creature I would not be so inclined. No he will have what support I can afford to give ""and what support would that be? The Pylons? Ships without even FTL capabilities? An army of metal machines?" The Presence was dismissive of him, in a way no creature with a soul had been in quite a long time. And The emperor wasn't even sure he would get a response.
"I already answered your question, I will give what aid I can afford. Either bring up a new topic or continue your tour." The emperor had been planning on offering imperial designs for war ships and warp drives on the condition the majority of those ships got shipped to the great crusade. But he could tell that that was something he would need to bring up with Palisade. This Maker cared little for what was outside his purview and the Emperor doubted there was much he was willing to offer that the other would care for.
If it was true that he had only been designing war capable spacecraft for less than ten years it wouldn't be long till they had ships comparable to what the imperium could build. Though the tech leaps after that made it a far more considerable investment without some greater pieces of tech to study. Even ships from the golden age of humanity had been accelerated in development both by his knowledge and information stolen from ancient necron and eldar ships. If this Maker lacked those it would be hundreds of years before his tech was comparable to either.
No, the only technological information he was willing to offer would be of little use to someone operating on such a different technological base and one who was progressing so rapidly. At best he would shave years off of development and study, not exactly a long period of time when the great crusade had been going for longer than this Maker had been alive.
But he did still have major concerns, Isha, while supposedly a kind goddess, had been touched by Nurgle and Slaanesh, and had touched both his son and this Maker. "And what of your interactions with the eldar goddess, do not pretend you do not know of who I speak. I can see her touch in all the planets and most of the animals on this world." excepting anything in the oceans, and that massive insectoid hivemind still trying to find him. This was a deeply unsettling place, the Emperor still wasn't sure the oceans actually had a bottom. They could fully stretch all the way through the planet, the distinction between magma and water not seeming to matter to a fair portion of its creatures. A true death world, or more accurately a true life world.
Life only naturally evolved until it was 'good enough' to stay alive. This planet's spirit apparently endeavored to make sure nothing ever actually reached that stagnancy. No life was ever 'good enough' to live. And it was still staring at him, rallying its creatures to test themselves against his physic might. Even his conversation with this Maker was one such test, probing his inherent psychic defenses to get the slightest read on the machine's emotions.
"She fled here while we were stuck in the warp. Made some planets grow and drew even more Daemons towards us. Didn't even really notice her until Palisade pointed out something watching him in the hydroponics bay. Then we got out of the warp and she went to deal with her kids or something, can't say I cared much." that was … the truth as much as the Emperor could tell. But there were the faintest traces of deception, not a true lie but an omission. But the presence had grown rapidly more hostile with his last question, and he had no wish to push his luck just yet. He would be here a few days yet and his son might be more likely to release information. "Then I shall return to your tour, you have been a gracious host" the Emperor did not get a response, and he couldn't say he cared either. They had both not gotten what they wanted out of that.
AN-
not that happy with this one, though the next warhammer one is better so far.
likes and reviews are lovely, Patreon is a thing.
Thank you for the chapter! I wonder how many ships the maker could make per day once he's set up his forge system? I hope that he can eventually figure out how to make things that don't require his machines to be able to fix, technology that makes sense to others and can be repaired by others.
- Location
- Israel
He's used to dealing witg 40k universe's dumbasses, Eldars, Necrons and those idiots in human flesh that mess everything up by invitinf demons onto the imperium. His mind is jist not geared up to dealing with a Human shaped Machine.
Also, "what I can spare" when talking about an infinitely expanding factory... Yeah, it's gonna be a stream of war material shipments to the point it will be more difficult sorting it than using it up.
What a factory inserter considers "well stacked" is an absolute mess of moshmashed stacks tetris'd into a container by human standards.
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- Location
- newcastle australia
What did the maker omit?
Palisades armor (basically)
RoyalTwinFangs
For The Chancellor!
- Location
- Somwhere not here
This is how I imagine Palisade during the crusade.
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- Location
- UK
I wouldn't be surprised if this was added to Media.This is how I imagine Palisade during the crusade.
answered questions #51
- Pronouns
- That/Thing
more of a control freak, he doesn't want a single thing not under humanity's direct control, and it just so happens that he controls humanity. he knowns he can't pull a mechanicus, as in make them worship him. and he knows he can't easily conquer the maker. he doesn't like that, if Palisade wasn't there he'd be likely to just throw a blackhole at the planet.
the Maker isn't loyal to him basically.
depends on the ship size, the amount of resources he can get, and how advanced it'd be. but for cruiser size ships with no resource constraints? a few hundred a day.
but keep in mind, those are his ships. imperium ships are not designed to be built by his equipment, nothing he makes would actually fit into those designs. he'd need to make a whole new production line from raw metal into specialty components and have special 'imperium' berths. the imperium ships are not made with mass production in mind.
and the figuring his tech thing out is a no unless gods or powerful psychers or necrons or lots of exceptions basically. his tech isn't actually functional without him, like an ork field but different. it's a system that uses him as a binding point to make impossible tech possible. like a mix between ork tech and tinker tech, it would work without the field maybe but it'd break rapidly and not work as well.
why would he talk to him? he automated conversation already.
and as for the emperor warming up to him, maybe? but keep in mind the emperor is such an ass that he's driven off 90 percent of his perpetual peers and allies. if the emperor was actually good at his job the setting would be far more boring than it is.
glad you caught that. Palisade is going to be leaving so many reconstruction supplies at each world he conquers as well as you know, building on them, that even if he glasses the planet entirely it can be argued they'll have a better infrastructure by the end of it.
lots of things, but one main one. that Isha is still hiding in the basement, 'she went to deal with her kids or something' impies that she left for a craftworld, not that she called her kids to Nauvis for a chat. and well, the engineer didn't care much. nothing he said was a lie but he was intentionally not telling the Emperor the whole truth and the Emperor could tell.
basically entirely accurate, except it's studded with sapphires and blue diamonds, and faint silver and gold lines covering it like cracks.
good idea