Year 1 Day 3
Balistraia let out a faint huff through the speakers in the cyberwarfare suite, and one of the Scanners manning the stations, 98S, looked up at her. "Discover another built in 'copyright' feature?" "Yes! Who designs their tech specifically to be inefficient!" one of the Battlers guarding the room snorted "capitalists apparently". And Balistraia couldn't help but agree, she understood the merits of the economic system but as soon as the term 'mega corp' arrived those merits fell apart. Why bother innovating and improving if all the competition is gone? And here on the 'far far range' they had a monopoly on tech. Meaning the human ranchers had no choice but to buy from them unless they had contacts capable of independent shipping.
Everything was very breakable, and couldn't be used outside of its very narrow stated purpose. And broke if you tried to use it in an innovative way, even if it had no reason to break. Meaning instead of just using the stolen designs they had to use the principles behind the stolen designs to make their own versions.
Really! A jetpack that has to be worn by someone with a pulse otherwise it won't work. Meaning you can't mount four to a vehicle or just have an android use one. And if you take off the housing and try to use it it doesn't even start. Dozens of features that were hard to find and tedious to redesign just to ensure you can't make modifications to the design.
It was driving her insane, and the resistance androids were faring little better in their attempts to 'scavenge' them like they did with so much ancient earth technology. It shouldn't take more than an hour for an AI to break all of this, but 7Zee had put more effort into encrypting their products coding than they did on the satellites.
Everything about everything 7Zee did annoyed the mind. The only good thing was that they had no known weapon systems, only a smattering of defensive and deterrent tech. Nothing that a resistance android couldn't shrug off outside of their armor. Though given an asteroid dropped from space could be just as deadly… she really wanted her own ships.
They didn't even keep ship schematics on the Far Far ranges network, just the needed repair parts, meaning she'd needed to jigsaw puzzle a ship together from dozens of interlocking pieces. And that was just a virtual blueprint, the thing was so stupidly built it'd take days to manufacture one of the cargo ships. The only thing it had she cared about in the slightest was the FTL drive, which while sized for a ship far larger than their own would work as is if she added them to the design. Or more accurately if the Maker added it to the design.
The 7Zee ships were six hundred meter long one hundred meter wide cargo vessels, while the factories ships were much smaller, being around three hundred meters long and eighty wide, not counting the four 'arms' which added another hundred meters of length. Though her ships actually had more mass to them, given the lack of any living quarters, and they were shaped sort of like an octopus.
The ships already had enough excess power to run the FTL drives, but they needed reworked to handle the strain and to make space in the internals for the things, something the Maker was far more proficient at than any android.
Which meant she needed to get drones with the communication code to the Maker so he could re-link with the factory. Which given she knew where he was wouldn't take overly long, in fact the drones would arrive within the hour.
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Year 1 Day 3
You know night on this planet was oddly peaceful, there were more of the Tarr things sure, but they still weren't exactly common. Outside of that one large outbreak I had scarcely seen a dozen. I could only assume they didn't have very long lifespans and died once the food ran out.
The sky was filled with stars and glowing flying slimes. Which somehow remained airborne, well they were filled with helium but it didn't detract from the beauty. The slimes plorts glowed, and while I didn't know how long they lasted the glow was dim and didn't require much power. Meaning I could just set up millions of lamps throughout the dark side of the earth and bring it back to 'day.
Actually a better Idea, just add the slimes to the ecosystem there, they only ate fruit so they wouldn't over eat prey species, and these trees seemed to be able to grow in the plorts light. Meaning overtime they'd naturally bring the darkside of the planet into something like twilight. Making it far more pleasant to live there.
If they overpopulated without natural predators… well I'd figure that out if it happened. But slimes seemed fairly self regulating on that front, they only reproduced when 'overfed' for an extended period of time. Meaning there were only as many slimes as the food supply could maintain.
I'd set myself up in a cave on a mountain slope, the slimes I had with me resting in a pile near the back of it. And I sat, my legs dangling over the edge while my suits sensors gave me a field of view far beyond any human sight. I saw everything around me for miles, and my mind actually processed the information. I was indoors and in range of my radar so often that I hardly ever experienced relying solely on my eyes, and even now I only saw through my suits feed. Even without my suit I had my 'area' perception which meant I always saw myself from above, hundreds of feet even.
It was odd to watch as the slimes got closer to my point of 'vision' in the sky, steadily becoming more clear and then just flying right through it, as there wasn't anything there regardless. I never did that with my drones, always guiding them away from it, an inbuilt reflex similar to not biting your tongue or poking your own eye. Just one without a point to it, I didn't even have anything to flinch or blink with up there.
My radars did the same thing, just a passive top down awareness put straight into my brain. If nothing happened I wouldn't pay attention, but the moment my subconscious saw something I became aware. Different from my suits, which I was actively aware of, and had to focus to not see every little detail. The androids did have some advanced sensor tech in those blindfold, and I had adapted that to my armor.
That meant the moment the drones came within a few miles I saw them flying, a bunch of interceptor drones and a helicopter. Which explained the odd urge I'd had to be waiting out here looking rather than doing anything else, even 'disconnected' I had known they'd be coming. The Helicopter essentially working as a mobile battery station and storage unit, an easy and cheap solution to the interceptors short range. Though now I was probably going to switch to plort power. Both Boom plorts and oddly enough a radioactive slime variant's plorts, could be used to power a drone, being smaller than a reactor and decently powerful. I mean you need a setup to generate the power but that still makes it smaller and cheaper than a normal suit reactor.
Still! The minds had found me and it had only taken a day and a half. Given that I'd tried to send my own drones out and had lost control of them after a few hundred meters it meant they'd figured out a way around that.
I could only hope that the assault on Nauvis was going according to plan even without my presence, with the portal (hopefully) working I wasn't actually needed. The androids and minds didn't need me for a battle, and neither would actually let me fight regardless. I stood up, my armor reacting in sync with my muscles for smooth movement and no wasted energy. And the slimes in my cave noticed, the four things hopping out and looking oddly groggy for things without nervous systems or brains.
They sat and watched as the drones approached, not looking frightened in the slightest. Either they had better eyesight than I thought and could see the similarities between my armor and the drones, or they just assumed I'd be able to handle it.
Once the drones were within a few hundred meters, the same range my personal drones had lost connection, they linked with my mind and I was hit with all the information they had stored. And moments later I was relinked back into the greater factory as the override codes were implemented. Not nearly as intense as it had been the last time I'd been disconnected, though this had been far less violent and to a lesser extent. Even if I hadn't been able to talk to the minds I'd been able to vaguely feel them.
The minds flooded through my own memories and examined everything I had learned, from plort usage, environmental scans, optimal building locations, how the larger variants were made, and how the tarr worked. While I saw what they'd done, the extermination had started just to a lesser extent as the resources were funneled here as well as to Nauvis.
That and the fact there were humans on the world, which would probably be a problem given the androids though they were dead…… I'd manage, and it wasn't like these were their humans. These ones actually had FTL, which I was already itching to sink my teeth into. and with the blueprints already stolen I just needed to figure out the 'eezo' fuel.
I greenlit the minds plans to focus more resources to space industry, increasing the ten percent overall budget to twenty. And then went through the dozens of blueprints the minds had stolen.
The 'staple' tech appeared to be the 'vac system' or 'Nano storage' tech. Which seemed easier to use than the androids system, and not nearly as … odd as my own, something I could actually implement on drones and trains. But the rangers had some interesting kit, I didn't know how the 'heart modules' worked but I was going to figure out if I could use them. Ideally on the androids but they were more metal than flesh, given they had no flesh. The pulse wave seemed similar in function to the discharge defense, but I could likely merge them to get a sort of electric shield.
Dash boots, well it was just assisted movement from the 'vac guns' power stores. Little motors and smart fabric to take most of the effort out of moving your feet. Helped increase endurance by a fair margin sure but nothing I couldn't already make. I did like the jetpack though, and it didn't take me long to break it down and rebuild my own schematics I could actually use. Then upscaling it for power armor and within minutes I was fabricating one for my suit, within my own 'inventory'.
The slimes watched me seemingly just staring at a helicopter hovering just meters in front of me, but I started moving after barely ten minutes to adjust and review. Grabbing the slimes and waiting as the helicopter dropped its ramp, before leaping through the air and slamming onto it, not even causing the thing to lurch.
Then the ramp closed, the slimes hopped down, and I sat on the floor to begin designing my spaceships, and to make one for boarding/combat. Just in case.
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Year 1 Day 4
It had only been an hour long flight to the portal base, or Range #1, Slime one was a bad name. But that still meant I arrived at my own subjective 12:23, and as that was the time all my bases operated on the majority of the androids were asleep, only A2 and 13B waiting at the hanger. Both of them gave an odd look to the slimes that followed me out, but only A2 said anything about it "picking up strays now?" And I had the armor nod "Yeah, you. These things actually make stuff" That got a disdainful huff out of the android, and a small smirk on 13B. Before A2 looked down at the hopping things as they explored their new environment, before she shrugged and walked behind me as we all left the hanger.
A2 didn't like the 'charismatic and overly kind' persona I put on for the average android, finding it patronizing, so I had taken to throwing in some minor barbs in our conversations. Still she was a very prickly individual. 13B however didn't care about the barbs, unlike the scanners who'd think I was being 'mean'. I had the natural personality of a plain stone brick though, so changing my mannerisms on the fly was relatively easy.
Was it a bit manipulative? Yes yes it was.
As much as I wanted to go straight to work in my workshop I had to drop off my slime pals in some of the pins Byzantine had made. So I started towards the hangar's exit rather than the entrance to the underground facility. Outside was a scene of controlled chaos, dozens of drones flying around on paths so narrow only an inorganic mind could keep from crashing. They were busy setting up hydroponic farms and slime pens. I'd reworked the designs for the latter on the drive over, though I didn't quite trust the 7Zee farm plots enough to use them, meaning I was just using my own hydroponics. Not some super fast growing mega plots, it wasn't like the androids or machines needed food and what little one human needed was easily obtainable by the hobby farmer androids on earth.
The pens however were fascinating, permanent semi permeable walls? Give me that. I could already see so many uses for it, didn't quite understand why the horizontal version didn't work as well as the vertical… but I'd fix that. I had already scaled up the pens to be larger, and actually have plants, trees, and rocks inside. Rather than the nearly criminally small slime corrals the average rancher used. It was only that small as it was the largest size the auto-plort collector could reliably harvest. I could well have a few drones feeding and collecting from a couple dozen slimes. Didn't know the ratio of drone to slime yet but I wasn't exactly lacking in the former.
I already had a mental blueprint for a 'harvester drone' that used the 'vac pack' to feed, store, and harvest plorts. And I imagined some androids and machines would love 'ranching' the things. Pascals people especially, they just loved that non-violent work, and they'd love the plorts.
Might be better even to have the slimes entirely managed by the androids and machines, stimulate the economy and give them goods I actually want. So they could trade plorts for factory items rather than scrap metal that was steadily becoming less and less common. A drone would work better sure, but I imagined the slimes would rather work with a person than a…. Machine? Unthinking machine? Lets go with the latter there. Something for Byzantine to figure out, and just as I thought that the mind pulled the plan from my mind and set to work on it.
I turned towards 13B and she noticeably perked up at my attention "Was there something you needed" and I pretended not to here A2's mutter of 'kissass' and 13B did likewise, it wasn't untrue and it wasn't something 13B was ashamed of in the slightest. "I was just wondering if any of the androids or machines would enjoy taking up 'slime ranching'." and then came the predictable response "If you asked they would" If I asked they'd jump off a cliff, I specified 'enjoy' for a reason, but then 13B had trouble imagining anyone not thinking serving me was enjoyable. It had taken me weeks to get her to stop calling me sir.
I just let out a humm as I reached the first completed corral, and I picked the slimes up and set them inside, tossing food further in so they'd go towards the middle while I vanished back into the tangle of machinery before they noticed I was gone. I'd visit them.
The trip back to my workshop was faster, no longer needing to wait on the slowly hopping slimes. I still had the same worries of the androids skirts getting stuck in the machinery but they managed to avoid it with practiced ease. Dodging machinery wasn't much different from dodging machines. And once we left the 'non-habitable' section and entered the proper hallways it sped up even more as the androids could match my walking pace without worry. Even when I had a far larger stride given my armor.
Both of them sat down in the recreation room outside my workshop, though both the recreation room and workshop were far smaller than my Nauvis or Earth counterparts, it still had enough room for me to start toying with new designs on the 7Zee's tech base. Ideally I could turn the Vac's into canons and add the storage tech to… basically everything moving. Though those were my 'easy' goals, and I doubted it'd take me more than an hour for either.
AN -
likes and reviews are great!
, I half expected they/he would encounter a rancher. The one detraction I can see is the time line. Is the Engineer's part happening before or after the Mind's part? As if it happens after than it does not make sense that they have not gotten in touch with him by then.
