- Pronouns
- That/Thing
Actually got into warframe recently, and might do an interlude with it. Or just a whole fanfic about it. Need to do new war for that though, and getting a necramech to do the quest is a trial and a half
Fabricated Hazards (factorio fanfic)
Actually got into warframe recently, and might do an interlude with it. Or just a whole fanfic about it. Need to do new war for that though, and getting a necramech to do the quest is a trial and a half
This fiction is pure gold. Be it the warhammer side story or the main, it is truly a marvelous read.
On a side note, the way i see in my mind humans from mass effect meeting the engineer after reading about balitsraia new body is something along the lines of:
...
Year 10 day 23
After much pestering by the humans from mass effect universum to meet the enigmatic Maker. Androids respond after a decade of wait and continous pestering on human side.
Diplomatic Android on Earth or other colony towards human delegation
-Your request has been aproved. Please decide upon a delegation you would wish to represent your civilisation in the meeting with The Maker. Upon fielding the said delegation you will be granted a travel writ towards the Inner Forge of The Maker.
(Delegation appears on Navius after much travel and witnessing various miraculous creations Witnesses a gigantic walled city encrusted with gold and precious gems and metals They travel towards the Inner Forge and take a routue with other pilgrims toward the so called Forge of Souls. They appear upon the end of their travel with other pilgrims on a scenic balcony at the ceiling of a gigantic cavern. AND witness a giant being of at least twenty meters tall forging a marvelous gigantic sword upon an anvil that seems to warp reality. The anvil is surrounded by molten lava and the giant seems to not care that he is knee deep in it. Cue the diplomatic android statement.)
Diplomatic Android- Be aware you are ones of the few that were bestowed with the right to witness The Maker during his work. Do not squander such opportunity and watch the holy spectacle, the miracle of creation upon the Forge of Souls. For not many artifacts are forged in such a way.
(Cue humanitys diplomats upon taking their open jaws from the balcony floor.)
-Holy s.it you said that he was human!!! How is this possible? He is clearly a giant from some legend.
Diplomatic Android- Legends always have some source, some beggining...
(Upon reading this fiction I have always thought that the natural progression of the Maker / Engineer would be a gigantic godlike being of forge and creation. And the fact that Balistraia can be a fifteen meter tall goddess of destruction only furthers such thoughts. Always thought that Maker meeting the Makers from Darksiders would be a truly tasty treat. Soo much ways to troll primitive beings and have fun witnessing their eyes going outside of their sculls from the shear magnitude of Engineer baddass way of doing things.)
On a side note, the way i see in my mind humans from mass effect meeting the engineer after reading about balitsraia new body is something along the lines of:
...
Year 10 day 23
After much pestering by the humans from mass effect universum to meet the enigmatic Maker. Androids respond after a decade of wait and continous pestering on human side.
Diplomatic Android on Earth or other colony towards human delegation
-Your request has been aproved. Please decide upon a delegation you would wish to represent your civilisation in the meeting with The Maker. Upon fielding the said delegation you will be granted a travel writ towards the Inner Forge of The Maker.
(Delegation appears on Navius after much travel and witnessing various miraculous creations Witnesses a gigantic walled city encrusted with gold and precious gems and metals They travel towards the Inner Forge and take a routue with other pilgrims toward the so called Forge of Souls. They appear upon the end of their travel with other pilgrims on a scenic balcony at the ceiling of a gigantic cavern. AND witness a giant being of at least twenty meters tall forging a marvelous gigantic sword upon an anvil that seems to warp reality. The anvil is surrounded by molten lava and the giant seems to not care that he is knee deep in it. Cue the diplomatic android statement.)
Diplomatic Android- Be aware you are ones of the few that were bestowed with the right to witness The Maker during his work. Do not squander such opportunity and watch the holy spectacle, the miracle of creation upon the Forge of Souls. For not many artifacts are forged in such a way.
(Cue humanitys diplomats upon taking their open jaws from the balcony floor.)
-Holy s.it you said that he was human!!! How is this possible? He is clearly a giant from some legend.
Diplomatic Android- Legends always have some source, some beggining...
(Upon reading this fiction I have always thought that the natural progression of the Maker / Engineer would be a gigantic godlike being of forge and creation. And the fact that Balistraia can be a fifteen meter tall goddess of destruction only furthers such thoughts. Always thought that Maker meeting the Makers from Darksiders would be a truly tasty treat. Soo much ways to troll primitive beings and have fun witnessing their eyes going outside of their sculls from the shear magnitude of Engineer baddass way of doing things.)
I love it, just one problem, no one but the engineer leaves the inner forge, it wouldn't let them leave
THE BUGS IS HERE
Well that could be the problem. But if the Engineer would think that various machines and androids that have fate in him would pester him to watch his holy craft a bit too much, I belive he would make some little forge aside with a viewing platform, one that would be away and thus non intrusive to his work and he could profit, no pestering no problems. Reading the fic and witnessing the behaviour of the maker I belive that he simply does not care for various things. Like the author displayed when the engineer trivalised the diplomacy with humans and others. The engineer does not care as long as they are not intrusive towards him and The Factory, they are not his problems and as long as they will not make themselves his problems he would simply not do anything about them. They should fear the moment they would become his problem for the solution would in all probability be swift and final.
So something along the lines of androids deeply faithfull towards the engineer could potentilly allow for designing and creating a forge deeply away from the inner factory and yet closely connected to it. From what i interpret from reading the fic. Engineer would be very vexed by them using his time and taking him from tinkering, designing and building. Add to this the fact that everything made by him works better and is clearly higher grade, a viewing platform for a limited of the most faithfull or granted by lottery, while he personally works on some artefact would potentially be possible and even maybe workable. They do not take his tinkering time, not create problems, the androids, machines and maybe other guest are fullfiling their desire to watch the Maker and work is done. Three or more goals with one simple anvil and viewing platform. But that is nothing more than my personal interpretation of the mc behaviour patterns, he on the other hand could also clearly say that he has no time to meet some primitive humans and have his important building time sheldue destroyed by some too self important politicians. But such a way of going about things would be something that is less belivable by the prior proof we witnessed about the maker behaviours, as long as someone is not obtrusive towards his goals the mc simply does not care enough about them.
Ch.60 - The Tour (2)
- Pronouns
- That/Thing
Chao's immediately erupted before Beal's eye's as he watched the portal grow, a raging storm filled with lightning visible through it, along with more monsters than he could even begin to count. The factory wasn't idle either, not even half a second having passed before the guns he'd spotted previously erupted with massive gouts of flame and light, the faster lasers immediately lancing into the portal and eliciting unholy screeching from whatever dwelled within.
If he'd thought the factory looked like a kicked hive before there was no doubt it his mind, the number of drones exiting the factory tripled, the drones already outside holding weaponry diverting themselves towards the portal with terrifying synchronicity and the androids around him were already reacting, the machine he was riding beginning to turn within the first few seconds and the armed androids began racing towards the blooming fight. Did they really stand a chance against creatures that large?
The monsters did not take this response without their own, beasts larger than the buildings dashed out with unbelievable speed, followed by a torrent of smaller monsters. All that he could see were larger than a car, and the lasers only did noticeable damage to the smaller ones, the larger monsters bearing the beams with not but scorch marks and glowing chitin. The lesser monsters hid from the light's behind the greaters bulk. They were planning, that was an organized charge, the things were intelligent or at least instinctively knew how to fight.
Then Beal's gaze was forcibly pulled from the fighting as a golden star bloomed in the sky, not brighter than the sun, but more important. Even as panic and confusion raced through his mind he couldn't help but think it was beautiful, as odd as he logically knew that was to think about what was little more than a golden dot in his vision. Just what the hell was going on here?
He tore his eyes from it however he just didn't have the time to stare, his team was not so stalwart, still watching the sky. But the androids seemed to have better luck tearing their eyes from it in their race away from or towards the fight. That meant he saw when the fight proper started, Paragon sentinels outright flashing into existence in the midst of the tide of chitinous horrors, lashing out with heavy hammers and gouts of what he could only assume was a form of napalm filled with… lightning?!
The sentinels stood firm, forming blocks and groups and covering each other seamlessly, the flames and arches of electricity covering their forms keeping them from getting grappled and dragged beneath the flood but they just couldn't kill enough, only serving to slow the tide. The drones and lesser sentinels with them rapidly falling with bursts of shrapnel as they are dragged under or pierced through with claws. Was he watching people die? Were the sentinels people?
It slowed the bugs long enough for the first shells fired from the distant factory to hit, gouts of heat he could feel miles away bracketing his face before a shockwave followed soon after, nearly knocking him off the only thing taking him away from the fighting. He swore he saw a piece of shrapnel get deflected away from his face by the drones hovering around the group.
The explosions only offered a brief reprive though, shots drilling holes into the larger bugs before detonating and forcing gouts of flame out the bullet holes, and that failed to kill the larger bugs. They just walked on, and the explosions kept pace, more and more and more on both sides. The cloud of drones arriving and dropping yet more ordnance or swooping down and dancing through the bugs with lasers, most who risked that getting clipped by a blast of acid or clouds of spikes. Planes flying towards the battlefield launched missiles, and tanks met the foremost edge of the horde, shells vanishing into the bulk of the bugs.
How on earth did the androids plan on helping there? They were just as likely to get hit by an errant shell or missile as they were to get killed by a bug, it was charging into an active artillery bombardment.
Beal didn't stay watching much longer however, as the drones he was riding turned a corner and put the bulk of a city block between him and his view of the battle. He wasn't going to be able to see just what the androids had planned. He could however watch as the buildings around him shifted, turrets and metallic plating appearing as some routes were closed off entirely. Yet more drones working to set up more turrets here, did they expecting the fighting to reach here?
He couldn't help but think that leaving the battle behind was for the best, even if this was an informational goldmine this was just insanity. More information would only make his report more pessimistic. At the very least they'd found the theoretical enemy.
If the androids were used to fighting something like that it was no wonder they'd only sent one ship. They needed them here. Could that have been why the 'Maker' was supposedly against the androids sending help? Diverting resources from the warfront?
Beal still had no idea what was going on here, the drones were taking them somewhere however and Sapphire didn't seem worried though if a machine could feel worried was beyond him, based on those he'd seen charging into the fight it was looking more and more like they couldn't, and yet he'd seen a few of the smaller machines huddled up and crying when the explosions started. The rest of the delegation however…. Langley seemed calm, though Beal could see the white knuckled grip he held the metal grips with, Axel looked …excited? And the other two seemed oddly calm, but well they were supposed to be spooks and those types had always eluded his understanding.
Only one person would have any idea what was going on however, so he called out to Sapphire, stress lining his voice. "Just what were those? And where are we going?!" Okay well he had tried to keep his voice down, but he really felt it could be excused. Sapphire turned to face him, speaking in an… excited tone? "OH! It's a bug invasion! Usually they show up at the teleporter junctions, we should have it handled in a few hours." He could have sworn he could faintly hear her muttering about 'missing out on the fight' before continuing "though the meeting might be delayed, I can take you to some accommodations while the situation is handled!"
And off they set, passing more and more androids racing towards the fight at unbelievable speeds, utterly massive combat forms and what he swore were mechanical t-rex and dragons. Which….. This was apparently normal for here?
------------------------------------
One day I would find what god hated me and declare a war of annihilation, sure I might end up dying for my hubris and all that but at this point it would be worth it. Today had been decidedly suboptimal and I was ready to make that everyone else's problem, more than it was already turning out to be.
I watch as Balistraia guides Sapphire and the humans away from the fighting, guiding the courier drones and speaking into Sapphire's coms. I feel the ground under the courier's claws as they race, playful minds not caring about the overarching situation, trusting in me, trusting in the minds, to handle it.
First a few humans blatantly pocketing a few examples of android technology, stupid sure but not a problem for me to deal with and it wouldn't work off earth regardless needing the ambient magic there to actually do anything. Making it by default a low priority issue that could be dealt with by the androids own systems, and I'd find it funny to watch people try and fail to understand why the glorified taser they swiped isn't working.
I feel Bulwark shift the layout of the city, prepared for a situation like this and directing the flow of bugs away from more vulnerable areas, he directs the fire of a million turrets across the globes and lashes out at the insects. He slows the tide, but I watch those same turrets get torn to shreds, see drones get ripped from the walls and feel as they are devoured.
That ever present hum of anger grows louder, it sounds like a song and I long to sing with it. I do not, anger will not serve me here as cathartic as it would be.
Then Balistraias 'psychological experiments', I know I'd made her enjoy figuring out how things think and how to manipulate and predict that but I'd wrongly assumed I'd have been excluded.
'Which was profoundly stupid in hindsight'
'I can't say I hated the situation'
'I will gut you out of this mindspace.'
'Well that's just uncalled for, didn't you mention wanting to pet the androids? A bit hypocritical now no?'
'I didn't actually do it! ALSO SITUATION AT HAND POSSIBLE EXTINCTION EVENT?!?!? NOT THE TIME'
'It is always the time, and what are we doing about the problem besides whining anyway? The minds have control of all our stuff and we haven't been relevant on the battlefields grand scale since we graduated one thousand tanks.'
Both of those however were minor annoyances at the end of the day, and arguably problems I'd caused by my own actions or inactions.
The situation at hand now? I couldn't see any way to pin this on myself.
I watch as an android on earth not even three weeks old is ripped from a building, their adult form not masking the terror their young mind feels as they struggle with weapons they were only just learning how to use that they were never meant to need, a sentinel charges and fails to save them before the insect snaps them in half, I feel as their mind leaves their body and races into my network, I cradle it towards a server bank were it will wait until the battle it won.
The song echoes louder, reaching into the machines around me, driving them to race faster as if that will let them fight. A thought dials them back, no need to burn out a conveyor belt as if that would help the battle.
I watch the portals on the range disgorge an endless tide of bugs, destroying all in their path. It is not even intentional carnage, the bugs are just too large and they don't care if they rip up a jungle to make a hive. It is apathy to all other life. One portal opens near a human's range. I know the human will be dead within five minutes. Others open close to my bases or teleporters, close enough that Balistraia can react.
An army is mustered, an army is sent, an army will fail to do more than stall.
I watch, I watch, I watch.
Across earth, the far far range, the moon, and mars and likely a few other places I didn't actually have equipment the bugs had torn open portals and poured through. The main attacks were distractions, meant to force my attention and forces away long enough for the bugs to get to ground and spread.
My troops march in the millions, my turrets and walls stand strong, the bugs wash towards us and we make an ocean of blood. Beyond my reach I see more pour through, sensor arrays made to measure and understand my own portal tell me of dozens of portals being ripped open, I have only seen seventeen.
And it was working, I couldn't abandon the junction bases and the bugs could force a battle with a steady stream of bugs. Even if I killed them as soon as they arrived I still needed units there to hold them in check.
A squad of sentinel paragons stand in the threshold of the portal, standing as they champions they are made to be and gleaming metal is christened with the ichor and oil of thousands of bodies. The lesser drones and sentinels died long before they reached the portals, and I watch as one of the paragons shields fall, their brothers desperately trying to keep the tide off of him. They fail, and he feels as the insects burrow into his internals, the defenses made to stop this situation are only moderately effective. He falls to his knees, the hammer still in his grasp and the curtain of plasma he'd helped the maintain dims without his support.
I'd known the magic would bring my machines to life, true life, the more complex I'd made them. I'd known and I'd still made them fight. I take his mind within my grasp and guide it into an empty shell, the Steadfast takes him and places him on top of his corpse, the plasma wall strengthens. The Steadfast teleports the corpse back into the base, the bugs within are purged by the repair drones and a new empty body is ready as yet another Paragon falls on another front.
It could have been worse, it should have been worse really. The bugs knew to avoid opening rifts into population centers and it would have taken hours to get units to them and they were too diffuse and sensor resistant for my orbital weapons to work once they'd gotten away from the highly visible and 'loud' rifts.
But I had the Steadfast in orbit over earth, one golden plort burnt so the teleporter's systems could break its limits and all the sudden every single available unit on or near a teleporter could be in the battle the next instant. Long range teleportation was almost cheating, which only made the fact the bugs now had the same more painful.
The portal the sentinels were standing before should have been walled off, a curtain of plasma projected from their forms. The new shields. The bugs flickered past it without getting burnt. I could only take thin solace in the slower rate of teleportation.
That only stemmed the flow on earth however, and there were several portals that the bugs got through. Two of which were underwater, which meant I had less than a day until the bugs had aquatic adaptations on a planet that was mostly water without any true competition.
A memory of a helpless struggle in the darkness of a river, the silt and sand blocking my natural sight and my other sight failing to pierce the water. Things claw and scratch at my armor, my trident all but useless and I feel as a gash is open and the cold floods in, a burst of electricity arcs out from my suit and into the water. I feel it as much as the beasts around me, the suit is comprom ised. I grit my teeth and the suit arcs out again.
I had been weak then, flesh and blood and fear and pain. Electricity would not harm me, and harm would not cause pain unless I allowed it.
The androids and machines working in or on Earth's seas are alerted, Grun wakes. Designs in my mind are sent towards fabrication.
I hate that I must send the androids to fight were I cannot, I hate that Grun, who had longed to be gentle was roused to violence, I hated that the bugs would force me to do these things, I Hated and Hated and Hated.
So I needed my own. And I needed to deal with the bugs rampaging across the Range and Mars. The Moon was actually fine, I've turned that place into a deathtrap. Then I need to figure out how to track and follow the bugs' rift ability and purge them from wherever they are going before they get too established or wipe out a reality's worth of humans or other species.
Which meant I'd need those android kill teams with android me support equipped and armed far sooner than I'd planned. Already my other selves were rushing to work and preparing for war. Small advanced tanks full of sensors and absurdly expensive, power armor rated for every situation I'd encountered yet, weapons androids could wield that could actually hurt a command bug, Mini-trons and modified pods paired with each android for support and live analysis.
Everything I could think of and fit within the tanks or armors while still keeping it small enough to fit and maneuver in an environment without needing to reshape it, including the fact they could hover. The small size also made it possible to transport them interdimensionally without crippling my power network with each one.
None of that made me feel better, not even the thought of the new war machines setting to work purging the insects from the multiverse. All I could feel was a blooming hate for the foul things, all of me agreed on that one thing, we hated. The one thing that could draw all of my attention.
It was not a pleasant feeling to understand that, or to feel it rise like acid within myself until I thought I'd hack it up.
Rational thought felt far away, even as my mind raced with perfect clarity. A loss in efficiency due to emotion couldn't be borne, it would be a weakness. But I still wanted nothing more than to use my own hands and tear them to shreds no matter how impossible it was.
So I would simply settle for other methods, and hope that the emotions would dull with time and I could actually be without needing to maintain an iron grip on my own psyche to prevent myself from rushing into a fight I couldn't win without preparation.
My main advantage over the bugs had been the other planets I had spread to, and now they were doing the same. The war had shifted dramatically, and I would keep my lead or kill myself trying.
AN-
some scenes have both italics and 'these' around them, those are the thoughts. just italics are what the engineer is watching and or feeling.
If he'd thought the factory looked like a kicked hive before there was no doubt it his mind, the number of drones exiting the factory tripled, the drones already outside holding weaponry diverting themselves towards the portal with terrifying synchronicity and the androids around him were already reacting, the machine he was riding beginning to turn within the first few seconds and the armed androids began racing towards the blooming fight. Did they really stand a chance against creatures that large?
The monsters did not take this response without their own, beasts larger than the buildings dashed out with unbelievable speed, followed by a torrent of smaller monsters. All that he could see were larger than a car, and the lasers only did noticeable damage to the smaller ones, the larger monsters bearing the beams with not but scorch marks and glowing chitin. The lesser monsters hid from the light's behind the greaters bulk. They were planning, that was an organized charge, the things were intelligent or at least instinctively knew how to fight.
Then Beal's gaze was forcibly pulled from the fighting as a golden star bloomed in the sky, not brighter than the sun, but more important. Even as panic and confusion raced through his mind he couldn't help but think it was beautiful, as odd as he logically knew that was to think about what was little more than a golden dot in his vision. Just what the hell was going on here?
He tore his eyes from it however he just didn't have the time to stare, his team was not so stalwart, still watching the sky. But the androids seemed to have better luck tearing their eyes from it in their race away from or towards the fight. That meant he saw when the fight proper started, Paragon sentinels outright flashing into existence in the midst of the tide of chitinous horrors, lashing out with heavy hammers and gouts of what he could only assume was a form of napalm filled with… lightning?!
The sentinels stood firm, forming blocks and groups and covering each other seamlessly, the flames and arches of electricity covering their forms keeping them from getting grappled and dragged beneath the flood but they just couldn't kill enough, only serving to slow the tide. The drones and lesser sentinels with them rapidly falling with bursts of shrapnel as they are dragged under or pierced through with claws. Was he watching people die? Were the sentinels people?
It slowed the bugs long enough for the first shells fired from the distant factory to hit, gouts of heat he could feel miles away bracketing his face before a shockwave followed soon after, nearly knocking him off the only thing taking him away from the fighting. He swore he saw a piece of shrapnel get deflected away from his face by the drones hovering around the group.
The explosions only offered a brief reprive though, shots drilling holes into the larger bugs before detonating and forcing gouts of flame out the bullet holes, and that failed to kill the larger bugs. They just walked on, and the explosions kept pace, more and more and more on both sides. The cloud of drones arriving and dropping yet more ordnance or swooping down and dancing through the bugs with lasers, most who risked that getting clipped by a blast of acid or clouds of spikes. Planes flying towards the battlefield launched missiles, and tanks met the foremost edge of the horde, shells vanishing into the bulk of the bugs.
How on earth did the androids plan on helping there? They were just as likely to get hit by an errant shell or missile as they were to get killed by a bug, it was charging into an active artillery bombardment.
Beal didn't stay watching much longer however, as the drones he was riding turned a corner and put the bulk of a city block between him and his view of the battle. He wasn't going to be able to see just what the androids had planned. He could however watch as the buildings around him shifted, turrets and metallic plating appearing as some routes were closed off entirely. Yet more drones working to set up more turrets here, did they expecting the fighting to reach here?
He couldn't help but think that leaving the battle behind was for the best, even if this was an informational goldmine this was just insanity. More information would only make his report more pessimistic. At the very least they'd found the theoretical enemy.
If the androids were used to fighting something like that it was no wonder they'd only sent one ship. They needed them here. Could that have been why the 'Maker' was supposedly against the androids sending help? Diverting resources from the warfront?
Beal still had no idea what was going on here, the drones were taking them somewhere however and Sapphire didn't seem worried though if a machine could feel worried was beyond him, based on those he'd seen charging into the fight it was looking more and more like they couldn't, and yet he'd seen a few of the smaller machines huddled up and crying when the explosions started. The rest of the delegation however…. Langley seemed calm, though Beal could see the white knuckled grip he held the metal grips with, Axel looked …excited? And the other two seemed oddly calm, but well they were supposed to be spooks and those types had always eluded his understanding.
Only one person would have any idea what was going on however, so he called out to Sapphire, stress lining his voice. "Just what were those? And where are we going?!" Okay well he had tried to keep his voice down, but he really felt it could be excused. Sapphire turned to face him, speaking in an… excited tone? "OH! It's a bug invasion! Usually they show up at the teleporter junctions, we should have it handled in a few hours." He could have sworn he could faintly hear her muttering about 'missing out on the fight' before continuing "though the meeting might be delayed, I can take you to some accommodations while the situation is handled!"
And off they set, passing more and more androids racing towards the fight at unbelievable speeds, utterly massive combat forms and what he swore were mechanical t-rex and dragons. Which….. This was apparently normal for here?
------------------------------------
One day I would find what god hated me and declare a war of annihilation, sure I might end up dying for my hubris and all that but at this point it would be worth it. Today had been decidedly suboptimal and I was ready to make that everyone else's problem, more than it was already turning out to be.
I watch as Balistraia guides Sapphire and the humans away from the fighting, guiding the courier drones and speaking into Sapphire's coms. I feel the ground under the courier's claws as they race, playful minds not caring about the overarching situation, trusting in me, trusting in the minds, to handle it.
First a few humans blatantly pocketing a few examples of android technology, stupid sure but not a problem for me to deal with and it wouldn't work off earth regardless needing the ambient magic there to actually do anything. Making it by default a low priority issue that could be dealt with by the androids own systems, and I'd find it funny to watch people try and fail to understand why the glorified taser they swiped isn't working.
I feel Bulwark shift the layout of the city, prepared for a situation like this and directing the flow of bugs away from more vulnerable areas, he directs the fire of a million turrets across the globes and lashes out at the insects. He slows the tide, but I watch those same turrets get torn to shreds, see drones get ripped from the walls and feel as they are devoured.
That ever present hum of anger grows louder, it sounds like a song and I long to sing with it. I do not, anger will not serve me here as cathartic as it would be.
Then Balistraias 'psychological experiments', I know I'd made her enjoy figuring out how things think and how to manipulate and predict that but I'd wrongly assumed I'd have been excluded.
'Which was profoundly stupid in hindsight'
'I can't say I hated the situation'
'I will gut you out of this mindspace.'
'Well that's just uncalled for, didn't you mention wanting to pet the androids? A bit hypocritical now no?'
'I didn't actually do it! ALSO SITUATION AT HAND POSSIBLE EXTINCTION EVENT?!?!? NOT THE TIME'
'It is always the time, and what are we doing about the problem besides whining anyway? The minds have control of all our stuff and we haven't been relevant on the battlefields grand scale since we graduated one thousand tanks.'
Both of those however were minor annoyances at the end of the day, and arguably problems I'd caused by my own actions or inactions.
The situation at hand now? I couldn't see any way to pin this on myself.
I watch as an android on earth not even three weeks old is ripped from a building, their adult form not masking the terror their young mind feels as they struggle with weapons they were only just learning how to use that they were never meant to need, a sentinel charges and fails to save them before the insect snaps them in half, I feel as their mind leaves their body and races into my network, I cradle it towards a server bank were it will wait until the battle it won.
The song echoes louder, reaching into the machines around me, driving them to race faster as if that will let them fight. A thought dials them back, no need to burn out a conveyor belt as if that would help the battle.
I watch the portals on the range disgorge an endless tide of bugs, destroying all in their path. It is not even intentional carnage, the bugs are just too large and they don't care if they rip up a jungle to make a hive. It is apathy to all other life. One portal opens near a human's range. I know the human will be dead within five minutes. Others open close to my bases or teleporters, close enough that Balistraia can react.
An army is mustered, an army is sent, an army will fail to do more than stall.
I watch, I watch, I watch.
Across earth, the far far range, the moon, and mars and likely a few other places I didn't actually have equipment the bugs had torn open portals and poured through. The main attacks were distractions, meant to force my attention and forces away long enough for the bugs to get to ground and spread.
My troops march in the millions, my turrets and walls stand strong, the bugs wash towards us and we make an ocean of blood. Beyond my reach I see more pour through, sensor arrays made to measure and understand my own portal tell me of dozens of portals being ripped open, I have only seen seventeen.
And it was working, I couldn't abandon the junction bases and the bugs could force a battle with a steady stream of bugs. Even if I killed them as soon as they arrived I still needed units there to hold them in check.
A squad of sentinel paragons stand in the threshold of the portal, standing as they champions they are made to be and gleaming metal is christened with the ichor and oil of thousands of bodies. The lesser drones and sentinels died long before they reached the portals, and I watch as one of the paragons shields fall, their brothers desperately trying to keep the tide off of him. They fail, and he feels as the insects burrow into his internals, the defenses made to stop this situation are only moderately effective. He falls to his knees, the hammer still in his grasp and the curtain of plasma he'd helped the maintain dims without his support.
I'd known the magic would bring my machines to life, true life, the more complex I'd made them. I'd known and I'd still made them fight. I take his mind within my grasp and guide it into an empty shell, the Steadfast takes him and places him on top of his corpse, the plasma wall strengthens. The Steadfast teleports the corpse back into the base, the bugs within are purged by the repair drones and a new empty body is ready as yet another Paragon falls on another front.
It could have been worse, it should have been worse really. The bugs knew to avoid opening rifts into population centers and it would have taken hours to get units to them and they were too diffuse and sensor resistant for my orbital weapons to work once they'd gotten away from the highly visible and 'loud' rifts.
But I had the Steadfast in orbit over earth, one golden plort burnt so the teleporter's systems could break its limits and all the sudden every single available unit on or near a teleporter could be in the battle the next instant. Long range teleportation was almost cheating, which only made the fact the bugs now had the same more painful.
The portal the sentinels were standing before should have been walled off, a curtain of plasma projected from their forms. The new shields. The bugs flickered past it without getting burnt. I could only take thin solace in the slower rate of teleportation.
That only stemmed the flow on earth however, and there were several portals that the bugs got through. Two of which were underwater, which meant I had less than a day until the bugs had aquatic adaptations on a planet that was mostly water without any true competition.
A memory of a helpless struggle in the darkness of a river, the silt and sand blocking my natural sight and my other sight failing to pierce the water. Things claw and scratch at my armor, my trident all but useless and I feel as a gash is open and the cold floods in, a burst of electricity arcs out from my suit and into the water. I feel it as much as the beasts around me, the suit is comprom ised. I grit my teeth and the suit arcs out again.
I had been weak then, flesh and blood and fear and pain. Electricity would not harm me, and harm would not cause pain unless I allowed it.
The androids and machines working in or on Earth's seas are alerted, Grun wakes. Designs in my mind are sent towards fabrication.
I hate that I must send the androids to fight were I cannot, I hate that Grun, who had longed to be gentle was roused to violence, I hated that the bugs would force me to do these things, I Hated and Hated and Hated.
So I needed my own. And I needed to deal with the bugs rampaging across the Range and Mars. The Moon was actually fine, I've turned that place into a deathtrap. Then I need to figure out how to track and follow the bugs' rift ability and purge them from wherever they are going before they get too established or wipe out a reality's worth of humans or other species.
Which meant I'd need those android kill teams with android me support equipped and armed far sooner than I'd planned. Already my other selves were rushing to work and preparing for war. Small advanced tanks full of sensors and absurdly expensive, power armor rated for every situation I'd encountered yet, weapons androids could wield that could actually hurt a command bug, Mini-trons and modified pods paired with each android for support and live analysis.
Everything I could think of and fit within the tanks or armors while still keeping it small enough to fit and maneuver in an environment without needing to reshape it, including the fact they could hover. The small size also made it possible to transport them interdimensionally without crippling my power network with each one.
None of that made me feel better, not even the thought of the new war machines setting to work purging the insects from the multiverse. All I could feel was a blooming hate for the foul things, all of me agreed on that one thing, we hated. The one thing that could draw all of my attention.
It was not a pleasant feeling to understand that, or to feel it rise like acid within myself until I thought I'd hack it up.
Rational thought felt far away, even as my mind raced with perfect clarity. A loss in efficiency due to emotion couldn't be borne, it would be a weakness. But I still wanted nothing more than to use my own hands and tear them to shreds no matter how impossible it was.
So I would simply settle for other methods, and hope that the emotions would dull with time and I could actually be without needing to maintain an iron grip on my own psyche to prevent myself from rushing into a fight I couldn't win without preparation.
My main advantage over the bugs had been the other planets I had spread to, and now they were doing the same. The war had shifted dramatically, and I would keep my lead or kill myself trying.
AN-
some scenes have both italics and 'these' around them, those are the thoughts. just italics are what the engineer is watching and or feeling.
Huh, and the Citadel once have their reports of these bugs, they'll either stay the f*ck away and quarantine the whole sector, duck their head into the sand, & ignore until several of their colonies wiped out by these bugs, OR, they'll start take the Maker warning seriously and rethink their strategies in neutering Krogan, because they could thought of this is the 2nd Rachni invasion, and Krogan ain't doing a good job at it; as well as theorized that the Rachni have advanced technologically to the point that they can commence Planetary invasion without any fleet, anywhere, anytime, and push Citadel economy back to wartime production. No more lazing around, and potentially help them when the Reaper start rolling from Eden Prime.
Either way, things will get better for any oppressed minority within Citadel space.
Either way, things will get better for any oppressed minority within Citadel space.
Thanks for the chapter!
AldariSiradla
Knight of the Fountain Pen
And the Bugs are expanding!
This is truly a War to End All Wars...
They will be relentless, unending, and hungry...
But the Armies of the Maker will be dauntless, steadfast, and righteously kick ass!
This is truly a War to End All Wars...
They will be relentless, unending, and hungry...
But the Armies of the Maker will be dauntless, steadfast, and righteously kick ass!
- Pronouns
- That/Thing
That's like trying to learn to swim in a hurricane, sure if you manage youll be excellent at swimming but there are better ways to learn.
That'd be like trying to find the source of all ants, even if you did it you'd still have ants. And at this point even cracking the planet had a non-zero chance of the bugs just surviving on the chunks. And that'd be like breaking pandoras box with a sledge hammer with how the monsters both bug and not would be forced to adapt to space.
Much safer to individually purge hives to make sure you don't miss any. But all of this is easier said than done.
The Cadian manage to survive the cracking of a planet, if They can do that so are the bugs
- Location
- U.S.
did not mean to just crack the planet, but more outright vaporize it and erase it.
Ahh Much more posible
Ch. 60 - The Tour (3)
- Pronouns
- That/Thing
Bulwark was spread thin, both with its processing power and with the units they had available. An assault on this scale and level was unprecedented, not only were the bugs still pressing on the Nauvis frontlines in greater numbers than ever before seen, but they had invaded and permeated the interior territories.
In the past the Maker had noted that even if it only took a single bullet, missile, or explosive to kill a bug they didn't even have enough ammunition to do it. There used to be quite literally more bugs on Nauvis than munitions. That hadn't been true for long once earth had gotten up to production capacity, but there remained one issue.
It took more than one bullet to kill a bug, significantly more, and they didn't have enough. That also failed to take into account storing or transporting said ammunition, a problem only recently lessened with the implementation of warp-tech to move supplies.
One might think then that perhaps laser or plasma weaponry was the answer, and they'd be right. Bulwark made extensive use of energy based weaponry, only resorting to solid munitions when the situation warranted the expenditure. It was the reason behind the Makers efforts to craft more efficient or powerful energy weapons. But it was a flawed solution, the hives could produce bugs faster than the factory could produce energy to burn them away. Energy weapons also rapidly lost effectiveness in adverse environments, dense fog and rain absorbing the energy before they even hit. And simple thermal shielding could increase the needed energy for a kill drastically, mirror shells even using the attacks against them and some bugs outright consuming the plasma to rapidly grow or fuel their more esoteric and energy consuming attacks.
Command bugs would also destroy power lines to forward bases, something growing less effective with the introduction and slow growth of the Bailey, making it significantly harder to isolate connected fortresses from the greater factory.
This had been manageable however, for Bulwark had carefully maintained the front to minimize just how many bugs could actually assault at once, ensuring munition use never eclipsed production for long.
Then the bugs had started teleporting, teleporting without Hijacking the factory's own network, and Bulwark felt frustration as they watched their carefully constructed defenses fall apart.
If this kept up the factory would actually be in danger, and they'd have to get to break out the really big guns.
-------------------------------
Balistraia coordinated her bodies from her new central core, the advanced computation systems running throughout allowing her central self to process and respond to all the inquiries for her auxiliary selves.
The situation was grim, one problem with Bulwarks defensive efforts was that there were less bugs being killed than there were being made, and that had necessitated the occasional use of higher grade weaponry to reduce the number or blunt a massed attack. And it had been one of her roles to prevent such masses from gathering.
Reduce the bug hordes to the point they couldn't breach the defenses and then withdraw. Hunt down command bugs that would force such masses of bugs to gather, and destroy the hives producing such hordes and reduce overall bug production. And it had been working, there hadn't been a major breach in months and any force that looked like it could have made a breach had been crippled before it arrived.
But well, that had relied on the assumption bugs needed to group up. And they had learned not to do that apparently, instead small cells of bugs each with a bug serving as the teleporter had attacked in mass. Achieving the needed volume without actually grouping up and provoking an attack.
She had become predictable and this was the price. Hundreds of androids dying, bugs breaking containment on an unheard of scale, and months of infrastructure being destroyed. It was her job to scout, to keep watch and warn.
The thoughts weren't helpful, another weakness of both her new form and the nature that had led to her asking for it. And so she reached out into the greater factory, the steadying connection to every mind and machines within and stabilizing her simulated emotions. There were times when they were needed and helpful, this was not one of them.
She was losing her forces at an absurd rate, Already it would take months to refill the stockpiles and get an acceptable reserve. But she still had a reserve, just not for very long as each unit was prepped and teleported onto the frontlines. Her forces couldn't actually hold the bugs off, that had never been the point or goal nor had it been possible. They were supposed to kill the bugs and avoid direct fights, usually by outranging them or just having superior ranged firepower.
That fell apart rapidly when the bugs appeared inside of the cities, tanks were too large and cumbersome to help, command tanks were far too large, and drones were too fragile to serve as anything but chaff. That left spidertrons and sentinel paragons to fight in the cites, and her stockpiles of those were decidedly small. But that kind of fighting had always been Bulwarks game and her small amount of units could be used to drastically amplify Bulwarks own efforts and be used as rapid response units when said efforts failed.
That also meant the rest of her forces could be used elsewhere, and there was a whole lot of elsewhere. Any chance of keeping the factory's presence on The Far Far Range was officially shot as her legions fought bugs across the surface of the planet. Turning entire ecosystems to glass and ash and making minor efforts to keep humans away from the conflict.
It was likely the world wouldn't be habitable in certain areas however, and wide scale evacuation would likely be needed even if the bugs were contained. Lots of particles in the air and a probable nuclear winter. Though the wildlife on this planet did seem adept at recovery so perhaps it'd only take a few weeks to stabilize again.
The new volcanos and cracking continental plates however…. She'd consult with the Commander for a solution after the battle had died down. Command bugs and their own more durable variants necessitated the use of higher yield nukes and other doomsday weapons, along with her 'requisitioning' of the orbital cannons as artillery, both the landbound and orbiting variety.
It was probably overkill, but she'd had command bugs regenerate from a torn piece of carapace or a leg. As long as the piece had some redundant organs and some neural tissue the bug had a chance of surviving. And if she had another command bug show up that was immune to nukes and the kinetic energy they imparted she'd be liable to chuck that section of the planet into the sun.
Organizing her troops on earth was easy, the Steadfast Recompense capable of moving every unit of her army individually, but on the Range and Mars she had fewer options, being limited to ground travel and teleportation. Meaning the bugs had time to set up defenses, and she barely had enough forces on mars to matter. It'd be days before ships got into orbit to provide orbital support and the gateway there didn't have enough power to remain active constantly.
It was meant to be a test bed for the Bailey and it's growing ecosystem. And while this would certainly test the Bailey she couldn't see it actually succeeding here, it was meant to supplement an army and deal with small probing attacks. Not to deal with a burginging bug infestation.
It was likely the bugs would get a firm hold on Mars, which just meant they'd get to test some world grade weapons they couldn't use anywhere they actually had noteworthy infrastructure.
All of this could barely distract Balistraia from what the Commander and the rest of the minds knew, the bugs had reached planets they hadn't and were spreading unchecked.
-------------------------
One might think Byzantine would be as worried as the more combat oriented minds at the rising situation. And it was fair enough to think that, but Byzantine was not worried, they were agitated and annoyed.
Every carefully constructed delivery, every belt, track, and drone, all of it had been disrupted by this absurdity. The efficient calculations away from the frontlines had been worked to perfection, every delivery happening without a single moment wasted.
And now bugs were eating said drones, deliveries of war materials were being diverted to the nearest fights, and the drones themselves were being weaponized in particularly troubling areas. War trains were being moved onto tracks that were highly important for bulk material movement and the mind was needed to make constant efforts to divert the flow of resources away from the ever shifting conflict zones.
That wasn't even adding in the minds own efforts at directing the non-combatants away from the fighting, while Balsitraia was the mind who talked to people this wasn't something she was suited towards. At this scale it was a logistical issue, needing to coordinate the evacuation and movement of hundreds of thousands of machines and androids. Usually into bunkers well away from the fighting.
The mind didn't need to talk to them, simply giving each person a path to the nearest shelter. With the inefficiencies of non-factory life taken into account and the emotional reactions predicted based on an algorithm Balistraia had made for each of the common types of machines and androids. It wasn't perfectly accurate, but if the mind accounted for twenty percent inefficiencies it was serviceable.
If close to as maddening as the inner factory.
Really why couldn't everything just follow a simple predictable pattern and accurately follow its commands. Drones were so much easier to manage. The most difficult part was figuring out just which archetype each person fit into, based on how they reacted to the outbreak of fighting.
Some decided to charge towards the fighting, and the mind needed to find out if they were simply curious or wanting to fight or looking for some more general way to help. Others would run away, or wait and query the network about what was happening before running or coming to help. And then there were outlighters, those who just didn't react, or who broke down with panic, those the mind needed to send drones or the helpful machines to help.
Hundreds of thousands of different reactions, even those similar enough to treat the same had minute differences that made the mind question what the right response would be.
Byzantine couldn't wait for the day the bugs were exterminated. This divergence from the pattern was infuriating.
----------------------------
Labyrinthine watched through thousands of cameras as the bugs tried to tear down and destroy its works, and took careful note of each and every success and what it could do to prevent it once the rebuilding had begun. Of course the facades covering the majority of its buildings were torn off without much effort from the bugs, but that was always going to happen and it just meant the mind would get to remake them newer and better.
No, the mind watched the super-structures and foundations, the bunkers and fortifications, powerlines and the reinforced parts of the structures that housed the defensive systems. The things that needed to remain to allow easy rebuilding and continued resistance to the bugs.
Roads were destroyed, tastefully designed gardens and rivers were ripped free and floods began in areas were rubble blocked the redundant drains or sewers, fortifications were shattered, teleportation nodes were sabotaged with suicide attacks to delay the factories responses, buildings were toppled and underground cites were rendered decidedly unsafe by the repeated explosions.
The mind noted and informed Byzantine when it noticed that certain areas were no longer safe, recommending bunkers likely to remain intact or in particularly urgent cases locations that'd not be crushed, leaving some androids and machines trapped in small pockets of air to be dug up later.
Overall it's works were holding up to what the mind had predicted they would, it was perfectly acceptable. Nothing broke that shouldn't break without the bugs putting dedicated effort into breaking it. No errant explosions or shockwaves or ambient hazards from the battles broke them.
Labyrinthine still wasn't satisfied however, already it was noting what it could have done differently, whether that was preparing for a new bug adaption or tactic that looked like it'd remain in broad use, or noting when something did better than expected and could be replicated. Planning for things it hadn't thought to plan for before, like making it so that if the cities did utterly collapse it'd be in a way that allowed evacuation and kept the residential areas from being destroyed, and doing that without actually making it easier to collapse the cities.
It was simply art of a different form however, and the mind looked forward to how its next works would fair.
AN-
it's been ages since a chapter with all mind POV but I figured it was a good idea to throw it in, next chapters written and posted to Patreon.
Likes, Comments, and Reviews are fantastic.
In the past the Maker had noted that even if it only took a single bullet, missile, or explosive to kill a bug they didn't even have enough ammunition to do it. There used to be quite literally more bugs on Nauvis than munitions. That hadn't been true for long once earth had gotten up to production capacity, but there remained one issue.
It took more than one bullet to kill a bug, significantly more, and they didn't have enough. That also failed to take into account storing or transporting said ammunition, a problem only recently lessened with the implementation of warp-tech to move supplies.
One might think then that perhaps laser or plasma weaponry was the answer, and they'd be right. Bulwark made extensive use of energy based weaponry, only resorting to solid munitions when the situation warranted the expenditure. It was the reason behind the Makers efforts to craft more efficient or powerful energy weapons. But it was a flawed solution, the hives could produce bugs faster than the factory could produce energy to burn them away. Energy weapons also rapidly lost effectiveness in adverse environments, dense fog and rain absorbing the energy before they even hit. And simple thermal shielding could increase the needed energy for a kill drastically, mirror shells even using the attacks against them and some bugs outright consuming the plasma to rapidly grow or fuel their more esoteric and energy consuming attacks.
Command bugs would also destroy power lines to forward bases, something growing less effective with the introduction and slow growth of the Bailey, making it significantly harder to isolate connected fortresses from the greater factory.
This had been manageable however, for Bulwark had carefully maintained the front to minimize just how many bugs could actually assault at once, ensuring munition use never eclipsed production for long.
Then the bugs had started teleporting, teleporting without Hijacking the factory's own network, and Bulwark felt frustration as they watched their carefully constructed defenses fall apart.
If this kept up the factory would actually be in danger, and they'd have to get to break out the really big guns.
-------------------------------
Balistraia coordinated her bodies from her new central core, the advanced computation systems running throughout allowing her central self to process and respond to all the inquiries for her auxiliary selves.
The situation was grim, one problem with Bulwarks defensive efforts was that there were less bugs being killed than there were being made, and that had necessitated the occasional use of higher grade weaponry to reduce the number or blunt a massed attack. And it had been one of her roles to prevent such masses from gathering.
Reduce the bug hordes to the point they couldn't breach the defenses and then withdraw. Hunt down command bugs that would force such masses of bugs to gather, and destroy the hives producing such hordes and reduce overall bug production. And it had been working, there hadn't been a major breach in months and any force that looked like it could have made a breach had been crippled before it arrived.
But well, that had relied on the assumption bugs needed to group up. And they had learned not to do that apparently, instead small cells of bugs each with a bug serving as the teleporter had attacked in mass. Achieving the needed volume without actually grouping up and provoking an attack.
She had become predictable and this was the price. Hundreds of androids dying, bugs breaking containment on an unheard of scale, and months of infrastructure being destroyed. It was her job to scout, to keep watch and warn.
The thoughts weren't helpful, another weakness of both her new form and the nature that had led to her asking for it. And so she reached out into the greater factory, the steadying connection to every mind and machines within and stabilizing her simulated emotions. There were times when they were needed and helpful, this was not one of them.
She was losing her forces at an absurd rate, Already it would take months to refill the stockpiles and get an acceptable reserve. But she still had a reserve, just not for very long as each unit was prepped and teleported onto the frontlines. Her forces couldn't actually hold the bugs off, that had never been the point or goal nor had it been possible. They were supposed to kill the bugs and avoid direct fights, usually by outranging them or just having superior ranged firepower.
That fell apart rapidly when the bugs appeared inside of the cities, tanks were too large and cumbersome to help, command tanks were far too large, and drones were too fragile to serve as anything but chaff. That left spidertrons and sentinel paragons to fight in the cites, and her stockpiles of those were decidedly small. But that kind of fighting had always been Bulwarks game and her small amount of units could be used to drastically amplify Bulwarks own efforts and be used as rapid response units when said efforts failed.
That also meant the rest of her forces could be used elsewhere, and there was a whole lot of elsewhere. Any chance of keeping the factory's presence on The Far Far Range was officially shot as her legions fought bugs across the surface of the planet. Turning entire ecosystems to glass and ash and making minor efforts to keep humans away from the conflict.
It was likely the world wouldn't be habitable in certain areas however, and wide scale evacuation would likely be needed even if the bugs were contained. Lots of particles in the air and a probable nuclear winter. Though the wildlife on this planet did seem adept at recovery so perhaps it'd only take a few weeks to stabilize again.
The new volcanos and cracking continental plates however…. She'd consult with the Commander for a solution after the battle had died down. Command bugs and their own more durable variants necessitated the use of higher yield nukes and other doomsday weapons, along with her 'requisitioning' of the orbital cannons as artillery, both the landbound and orbiting variety.
It was probably overkill, but she'd had command bugs regenerate from a torn piece of carapace or a leg. As long as the piece had some redundant organs and some neural tissue the bug had a chance of surviving. And if she had another command bug show up that was immune to nukes and the kinetic energy they imparted she'd be liable to chuck that section of the planet into the sun.
Organizing her troops on earth was easy, the Steadfast Recompense capable of moving every unit of her army individually, but on the Range and Mars she had fewer options, being limited to ground travel and teleportation. Meaning the bugs had time to set up defenses, and she barely had enough forces on mars to matter. It'd be days before ships got into orbit to provide orbital support and the gateway there didn't have enough power to remain active constantly.
It was meant to be a test bed for the Bailey and it's growing ecosystem. And while this would certainly test the Bailey she couldn't see it actually succeeding here, it was meant to supplement an army and deal with small probing attacks. Not to deal with a burginging bug infestation.
It was likely the bugs would get a firm hold on Mars, which just meant they'd get to test some world grade weapons they couldn't use anywhere they actually had noteworthy infrastructure.
All of this could barely distract Balistraia from what the Commander and the rest of the minds knew, the bugs had reached planets they hadn't and were spreading unchecked.
-------------------------
One might think Byzantine would be as worried as the more combat oriented minds at the rising situation. And it was fair enough to think that, but Byzantine was not worried, they were agitated and annoyed.
Every carefully constructed delivery, every belt, track, and drone, all of it had been disrupted by this absurdity. The efficient calculations away from the frontlines had been worked to perfection, every delivery happening without a single moment wasted.
And now bugs were eating said drones, deliveries of war materials were being diverted to the nearest fights, and the drones themselves were being weaponized in particularly troubling areas. War trains were being moved onto tracks that were highly important for bulk material movement and the mind was needed to make constant efforts to divert the flow of resources away from the ever shifting conflict zones.
That wasn't even adding in the minds own efforts at directing the non-combatants away from the fighting, while Balsitraia was the mind who talked to people this wasn't something she was suited towards. At this scale it was a logistical issue, needing to coordinate the evacuation and movement of hundreds of thousands of machines and androids. Usually into bunkers well away from the fighting.
The mind didn't need to talk to them, simply giving each person a path to the nearest shelter. With the inefficiencies of non-factory life taken into account and the emotional reactions predicted based on an algorithm Balistraia had made for each of the common types of machines and androids. It wasn't perfectly accurate, but if the mind accounted for twenty percent inefficiencies it was serviceable.
If close to as maddening as the inner factory.
Really why couldn't everything just follow a simple predictable pattern and accurately follow its commands. Drones were so much easier to manage. The most difficult part was figuring out just which archetype each person fit into, based on how they reacted to the outbreak of fighting.
Some decided to charge towards the fighting, and the mind needed to find out if they were simply curious or wanting to fight or looking for some more general way to help. Others would run away, or wait and query the network about what was happening before running or coming to help. And then there were outlighters, those who just didn't react, or who broke down with panic, those the mind needed to send drones or the helpful machines to help.
Hundreds of thousands of different reactions, even those similar enough to treat the same had minute differences that made the mind question what the right response would be.
Byzantine couldn't wait for the day the bugs were exterminated. This divergence from the pattern was infuriating.
----------------------------
Labyrinthine watched through thousands of cameras as the bugs tried to tear down and destroy its works, and took careful note of each and every success and what it could do to prevent it once the rebuilding had begun. Of course the facades covering the majority of its buildings were torn off without much effort from the bugs, but that was always going to happen and it just meant the mind would get to remake them newer and better.
No, the mind watched the super-structures and foundations, the bunkers and fortifications, powerlines and the reinforced parts of the structures that housed the defensive systems. The things that needed to remain to allow easy rebuilding and continued resistance to the bugs.
Roads were destroyed, tastefully designed gardens and rivers were ripped free and floods began in areas were rubble blocked the redundant drains or sewers, fortifications were shattered, teleportation nodes were sabotaged with suicide attacks to delay the factories responses, buildings were toppled and underground cites were rendered decidedly unsafe by the repeated explosions.
The mind noted and informed Byzantine when it noticed that certain areas were no longer safe, recommending bunkers likely to remain intact or in particularly urgent cases locations that'd not be crushed, leaving some androids and machines trapped in small pockets of air to be dug up later.
Overall it's works were holding up to what the mind had predicted they would, it was perfectly acceptable. Nothing broke that shouldn't break without the bugs putting dedicated effort into breaking it. No errant explosions or shockwaves or ambient hazards from the battles broke them.
Labyrinthine still wasn't satisfied however, already it was noting what it could have done differently, whether that was preparing for a new bug adaption or tactic that looked like it'd remain in broad use, or noting when something did better than expected and could be replicated. Planning for things it hadn't thought to plan for before, like making it so that if the cities did utterly collapse it'd be in a way that allowed evacuation and kept the residential areas from being destroyed, and doing that without actually making it easier to collapse the cities.
It was simply art of a different form however, and the mind looked forward to how its next works would fair.
AN-
it's been ages since a chapter with all mind POV but I figured it was a good idea to throw it in, next chapters written and posted to Patreon.
Likes, Comments, and Reviews are fantastic.
Why is does it take months for the reserves to be refilled if thwey were depleted in moments? Shouldn't there be enough factories across several dimensions and worlds, especially in space?
Its a mention of how much resources are being used months worth of current production rate of said supplies.
- Location
- Israel
The reserves were designed for excessive frontline attacks and specific instances of breaching the minds anticipated could theoretically happen.
OOC problems have a way of fucking with your predictions, such as why would the bugs adapt into teleportation if they weren't telefragged? Same as why there's very few nuke immune/resistant bugs, they are eitger annihialted to the last in their flesh network or the use of it is withheld completely.
TL;DR - insects ADAPT, how did they create a new tactic from scratch?
- Pronouns
- That/Thing
Are you psychic or just reading on the Patreon as the engineer is asking himself just that the next chapter.
------------------
as for how the reserve was emptied and why it will take so long to refill, It's a combination of quite a few things.
1. The bugs destroyed factories making the supplies so those factories need to be rebuilt, the railways moving the resource need to be rebuilt, the non-combat robots moving the resources and finished products need to be rebuilt. Earth was the engineers breadbasket for ground forces and infrastructure.
2. The defensive needs have grown so that even if the production hadn't been crippled on world the drain on the supplies has increased and will stay increased.
3. The supply took so long to build up specifically because the engineer was and is still using most of his production, most of his excess materials aren't stored they are sent to bolster the fighting or to larger scale projects.
4. The bugs destroyed the facilities storing some of the reserves and made attacks on others damaging it, making the engineer need to spend production capacity repairing them.
5. some things the engineer makes he doesn't/didn't expect the bugs to actually break, meaning the facilities making that stuff were only making enough to match the factories growth, not enough to replace suddenly losing a good portion of it.
If the engineer's production capacity wasn't getting literally and figuratively eaten by the bugs it'd take him like a day or two in order to refill the stockpile. The reserve was only the overflow that he couldn't figure out how to use or kept in case of an emergency.
- Location
- Israel
I am paychic, also I was more in tune with my psychic will due to tge factory next to my guardhouse rumbling in infrasound... when it shut off 2 hours ago I was suddenly so tired due to the heqdache going away.
Thanks for the chapter!
You forget that all of those goods need to be transported and yk, stored somewhere. Also bugs would likely target ammo dumps, rail lines, power lines and other infrastructure. Also, everything is being diverted to thousands of battles with probably trillions of bugs. Reserves being depleted doesn't mean the ammo is gone, just that it's no longer in some warehouse.
Ch. 61
- Pronouns
- That/Thing
Log #14
Year 1 day 34
Well things have gone to shit pretty recently. You'd be surprised at just how much can happen in 8 days when you don't need to sleep and your enemies don't even have the concept.
First the work on the moon proceeded without many issues, turning it into a fortress better than any other I've built just on size and number of turrets alone. I got a new substance that can grow and turn material into more of itself as well, and that'll slowly replace the lunar surface until the moon is a giant metal sphere. Then with more energy I can keep the moon growing into a larger and larger thing, though I might need to run simulations on how that'd affect the tides and the earths rotation. Might need to move the moon further out or figure out gravity tech on a scale large enough to ignore the issue.
Could also just have the moon 'shed' excess material and use that to make defensive rings around it or the earth, I don't want to completely incase the planet, that'd be wasteful and expensive, not to mention the androids wouldn't like it even if I simulated a sun.
Thoughts for later, ready made space-infrastructure that the moon or any converted mass of sufficient size can produce seems highly useful and like the kind of thing Byzantine would enjoy.
The moon working turned out to be an excellent thing, covering it in more turrets than I know what to do with kept the bugs from lasting there and allowing it's factories to support the war effort on Mars and The Range.
Also note, my ability to effectively counter the bugs in urban environments without removing the urban environments is minimal. Find solutions for that or find ways to reduce living collateral. Likely a unit dedicated towards evacuating and protecting individuals or providing first aid/repairs.
If I'm going to be doing more work in such 'fragile' areas I'll need preparations, and while my medical facilities are good they aren't exactly mobile. A well armored tank with said medical facilities and drones with medical supplies and programing would be useful. I have some healing serums and the drones can be equipped to monitor vitals. It'd also help to prevent Plagues from crossing dimensional boundaries and let me make and distribute vaccines on site.
I can't see the situation in which I'd need that, but I'd rather be prepared than not.
Honestly it had been about as relaxing as it was possible for things to be for awhile, just making new weapons and advancement after advancement. Making progress on having the androids form a proper society and having enough spare time to actually spend time 'socializing' I.E having my body in the same room as my android squad and talking about some of the new hobbies 13B and her squad got and working on my own 'hobbies'.
I also went ahead and made a proper flagship, The Steadfast Recompense. An absolute beast of a ship made to arrive and end fights before anyone else even knows what's going on and an utter departure from the design of the other combat ships. They were basically made to be mobile weapon platforms, sitting and taking fire and forcing enemy ships to face my static defenses. And now they can serve to hold off the enemy long enough for the Steadfast to show up and kick in the enemies teeth.
Add in a proper dedicated air/space superiority fighter to supplement my bombers and ground support planes and my military is starting to shape up into something not tailor made for pest control and containment. Really though most of my stuff, tactics included, has been made with the bugs in mind and a fair portion of that stuff is either overkill or not effective against more 'human' foes, another fair portion is perfectly effective. Balistraia had been telling me what exactly she'd need or want and I'd been making it, along with things I'd figured would be neat.
With all this in place and the new units being made I had decided it would be a good idea to send the Steadfast Recompense and a few construction ships over to the Quarians to let the androids open contact once they were done with the human's meeting, perhaps even letting the humans and Quarians meet and give them some much needed supplies. Partly because the Council wasn't stupid and had figured out the human's had help and partly because I'm not the kind of bastard to let a species slowly go extinct because it'd be cheaper, they have to annoy me first and even then I'd probably just tell the androids to replace or subjugate the government that annoyed me.
Making a sterile world using machines for a race that hates machines seems like an absolutely hilarious thing if I end up doing it. Also note to self, look into the Geth some more and maybe make contact.
Preparations for said trip had begun at exactly the worst time, as the bugs figured out multiversal teleportation, the bugs. Figured out. Multiversal. Teleportation. Not just hijacking my network and using that to get about, no proper tunneling into places I haven't even been. How the hell did they do that you may ask, aren't the bugs only supposed to adapt to direct dangers or threats to survival? An excellent question, I have no damn idea.
Bug adaptations while fast on an evolutionary scale are still gradual, they don't just start hovering or become fireproof and well, they only adapt to counter direct threats like plasma or flying enemies. So not only should they not have started developing it in the first place, they also shouldn't have been able to have so many bugs with that level of effectiveness. It goes against all other known trends.
So something happened, and I can't really afford to just be pissy about it. I need to start multiversal containment measures, both stopping new portals from being opened and hunting down and exterminating bugs on said other worlds.
The good news is we have at least a week or two before the bugs make all life on the worlds they invaded extinct and some places can probably fight them off. If the bugs invade a medieval world the bugs will spend most of their time building hives and slowly spreading, only hunting down nearby settlements. The danger for those worlds comes when the bugs finish their initial nest and start sending out 'colonizers', they'd likely want to build nests in places ideal for life and well that's where the people are. But the bugs would be unlikely to actually bother with a mass extermination, only many local exterminations.
A world at the start of the steam age however would likely have two weeks, people are moving enough and have enough of an information network for fleeing humans to lead bugs to other settlements and they'd likely mass armies to try and fight off the bugs. Add in the sheer number of people and it'd be a disaster as the bugs actually divert forces towards pest control.
A 20th century world would actually do okay, they wouldn't win mind you but if they have sufficiently built up militaries and can contain the bugs to the continent they arrive on well a cruise missile will hurt a bug, and nukes are still an effective weapon. Even tanks and anti-armor weapons will work on smaller variants. If the governments of the world handle the situation with either care or what they'd believe to be excessive force they could hold the bugs off for months. If the bugs starting numbers are small and the bugs are constantly harassed at least.
Space age civilizations will be in roughly the same situation but not at any risk of going extinct if they have FTL, or if they are more advanced they can contain or wipe out the invasion.
These are admittedly optimistic scenarios based on the bugs being cautious and caring more about preparing for my own containment measures than they do rapidly taking over the world, and the fact that most worlds with life have water and probably oceans the bugs would need to circumvent.
This is quite literally worse than anything I had imagined the bugs were capable of. Sure my imagination came up with worse ideas, but I hadn't considered those or this possible, and now? Well I'll have to rethink.
Log #15
Year one Day 35
Okay, I haven't been able to figure out how to track where the portals went, but I have designed a system that should theoretically let me send a small group in the 'wake' of the bugs. And when I say small I mean it, too much and I risk disrupting the 'wake' and having the group sent on an entirely unguided dimensional hop.
I should be able to send the 'elite' tanks I'd made; however, the prototypes were made for urban combat and about half as tough as a command tank, while being twice as expensive. A small assembler in the thing for ammo production but it could be used to start a factory in a pinch, slime-tech stored resources were limited however as stuff in storage still has dimensional weight. Meaning resources will need to be gathered, and rapidly, in order to ensure the bugs can't out attrition me.
I'll need to send an android-me to actually build new factory tech and make new factory tech as needed. They aren't good at it, but with an assembler they could. With the tanks having limited AI and my android selves power armor sending android seems a tad… unneeded, but it has been encouraged in case I end up needing to interact with the locals in a significant manner. That and the androids can be intelligent and delegated to other issues I discover that aren't building the factory and opening a connection back to Nauvis.
That's just the force I need to send to unknown locations; however, I also need to deal with the bugs in locations I'm already at. The fight on the Far Far range seems like it'll be the most difficult front, Mars has nothing on it and I can just the bugs up from orbit once I get there, Earth has the androids and alot of static defenses, and the bugs died on the moon within moments.
Mars also has the advantage of lacking a breathable atmosphere and nutrient rich soil. It's not enough to stop the bugs but they are currently optimized to get energy from oxygen and hives draw on the soil and the life around them almost as much as they draw on the sun and probably other sources for energy. Even a half percent reduction in energy efficiency and production will be noteworthy on the scale the bugs fight at and this is likely more than that. Though my knowledge of how the bugs work is still very limited, given they don't work the same way for long.
I still want to help the Quarian's with their issues but I think they'll have to wait a year or two longer.
The humans are also finally in talks with the androids, now that the fighting has been forced away from critical infrastructure, and said critical infrastructure has been rebuilt. It is a bit of a shame that most of the talking has been the humans wanting to know about the bugs and the threat they pose rather than more formal relationships with the androids but enough of the latter is still happening for the venture to be a minor success.
It does bring to mind a potential issue however, it's more than likely I'll end up putting the androids into contact with other dimensional nations, and that said nations are also going to interact. And using the earth as the primary meeting point is… suboptimal. Unless I turn the entire planet into metal and control every factory there is the risk of disease, storms, invasion, civilian android and machine stupidity.
So I'll need a dedicated place for the various civilizations and dimensions to meet and intermingle without any complications. And building a… small world, would be a fairly decent option and make a statement. I could give each polity a section of it to build/live in/ operate out of, grow it as needed, and use it to house refugees if a world becomes uninhabitable or already has an end of the world thing going on. Adding a greater degree of separation for the androids as well, with them setting up their own enclave there for me to deal with the same as the rest and allowing them to do their own stuff without my direct help.
Balistraia had played a fairly large role in the background for the first diplomatic meeting, keeping it operating smoothly and priming the humans to bring up topics we wanted brought up. The bugs fucked that up sure but we have no plans on playing such a role again unless its critical.
I also have a plan to do something I said I'd never do, the android copies of me are good, they have brain power and ingenuity comparable to mine but they are mundane even though their consciousness is at least partially magical. Every blueprint and design they make I need to go over again and make compatible with the factory, every test material made needs an assembler or my own hand to infuse it with the factories effects, more complex machines outright break, which is why I have so many of them just building more durable materials for the factory to enhance.
They are good, but they are limited. In order to fight the bugs however I can't settle for 'good but limited' . I needed perfection, but I'd simply have to settle for 'better'. And I was better, the flesh me was better than the android versions, so I needed more flesh Me's.
I need to clone myself. Really making android versions of myself had already been breaking my promise, as had letting my disposable machines become sentient. I'd already made life and consigned it to my fight, making an organic isn't that much further and if I give them my memories it's just like another android self. More justifications to condone what I believe to be wrong, but that's just human nature isn't it.
I've already begun the testing.
AN-
Don't really have great excuses for the lack of chapters, just moving again and dealing with Christmas, that and a bit of writer's block and I wind up not writing for like a week and a half. Going to try and get back into the swing of things, but no promises.
Year 1 day 34
Well things have gone to shit pretty recently. You'd be surprised at just how much can happen in 8 days when you don't need to sleep and your enemies don't even have the concept.
First the work on the moon proceeded without many issues, turning it into a fortress better than any other I've built just on size and number of turrets alone. I got a new substance that can grow and turn material into more of itself as well, and that'll slowly replace the lunar surface until the moon is a giant metal sphere. Then with more energy I can keep the moon growing into a larger and larger thing, though I might need to run simulations on how that'd affect the tides and the earths rotation. Might need to move the moon further out or figure out gravity tech on a scale large enough to ignore the issue.
Could also just have the moon 'shed' excess material and use that to make defensive rings around it or the earth, I don't want to completely incase the planet, that'd be wasteful and expensive, not to mention the androids wouldn't like it even if I simulated a sun.
Thoughts for later, ready made space-infrastructure that the moon or any converted mass of sufficient size can produce seems highly useful and like the kind of thing Byzantine would enjoy.
The moon working turned out to be an excellent thing, covering it in more turrets than I know what to do with kept the bugs from lasting there and allowing it's factories to support the war effort on Mars and The Range.
Also note, my ability to effectively counter the bugs in urban environments without removing the urban environments is minimal. Find solutions for that or find ways to reduce living collateral. Likely a unit dedicated towards evacuating and protecting individuals or providing first aid/repairs.
If I'm going to be doing more work in such 'fragile' areas I'll need preparations, and while my medical facilities are good they aren't exactly mobile. A well armored tank with said medical facilities and drones with medical supplies and programing would be useful. I have some healing serums and the drones can be equipped to monitor vitals. It'd also help to prevent Plagues from crossing dimensional boundaries and let me make and distribute vaccines on site.
I can't see the situation in which I'd need that, but I'd rather be prepared than not.
Honestly it had been about as relaxing as it was possible for things to be for awhile, just making new weapons and advancement after advancement. Making progress on having the androids form a proper society and having enough spare time to actually spend time 'socializing' I.E having my body in the same room as my android squad and talking about some of the new hobbies 13B and her squad got and working on my own 'hobbies'.
I also went ahead and made a proper flagship, The Steadfast Recompense. An absolute beast of a ship made to arrive and end fights before anyone else even knows what's going on and an utter departure from the design of the other combat ships. They were basically made to be mobile weapon platforms, sitting and taking fire and forcing enemy ships to face my static defenses. And now they can serve to hold off the enemy long enough for the Steadfast to show up and kick in the enemies teeth.
Add in a proper dedicated air/space superiority fighter to supplement my bombers and ground support planes and my military is starting to shape up into something not tailor made for pest control and containment. Really though most of my stuff, tactics included, has been made with the bugs in mind and a fair portion of that stuff is either overkill or not effective against more 'human' foes, another fair portion is perfectly effective. Balistraia had been telling me what exactly she'd need or want and I'd been making it, along with things I'd figured would be neat.
With all this in place and the new units being made I had decided it would be a good idea to send the Steadfast Recompense and a few construction ships over to the Quarians to let the androids open contact once they were done with the human's meeting, perhaps even letting the humans and Quarians meet and give them some much needed supplies. Partly because the Council wasn't stupid and had figured out the human's had help and partly because I'm not the kind of bastard to let a species slowly go extinct because it'd be cheaper, they have to annoy me first and even then I'd probably just tell the androids to replace or subjugate the government that annoyed me.
Making a sterile world using machines for a race that hates machines seems like an absolutely hilarious thing if I end up doing it. Also note to self, look into the Geth some more and maybe make contact.
Preparations for said trip had begun at exactly the worst time, as the bugs figured out multiversal teleportation, the bugs. Figured out. Multiversal. Teleportation. Not just hijacking my network and using that to get about, no proper tunneling into places I haven't even been. How the hell did they do that you may ask, aren't the bugs only supposed to adapt to direct dangers or threats to survival? An excellent question, I have no damn idea.
Bug adaptations while fast on an evolutionary scale are still gradual, they don't just start hovering or become fireproof and well, they only adapt to counter direct threats like plasma or flying enemies. So not only should they not have started developing it in the first place, they also shouldn't have been able to have so many bugs with that level of effectiveness. It goes against all other known trends.
So something happened, and I can't really afford to just be pissy about it. I need to start multiversal containment measures, both stopping new portals from being opened and hunting down and exterminating bugs on said other worlds.
The good news is we have at least a week or two before the bugs make all life on the worlds they invaded extinct and some places can probably fight them off. If the bugs invade a medieval world the bugs will spend most of their time building hives and slowly spreading, only hunting down nearby settlements. The danger for those worlds comes when the bugs finish their initial nest and start sending out 'colonizers', they'd likely want to build nests in places ideal for life and well that's where the people are. But the bugs would be unlikely to actually bother with a mass extermination, only many local exterminations.
A world at the start of the steam age however would likely have two weeks, people are moving enough and have enough of an information network for fleeing humans to lead bugs to other settlements and they'd likely mass armies to try and fight off the bugs. Add in the sheer number of people and it'd be a disaster as the bugs actually divert forces towards pest control.
A 20th century world would actually do okay, they wouldn't win mind you but if they have sufficiently built up militaries and can contain the bugs to the continent they arrive on well a cruise missile will hurt a bug, and nukes are still an effective weapon. Even tanks and anti-armor weapons will work on smaller variants. If the governments of the world handle the situation with either care or what they'd believe to be excessive force they could hold the bugs off for months. If the bugs starting numbers are small and the bugs are constantly harassed at least.
Space age civilizations will be in roughly the same situation but not at any risk of going extinct if they have FTL, or if they are more advanced they can contain or wipe out the invasion.
These are admittedly optimistic scenarios based on the bugs being cautious and caring more about preparing for my own containment measures than they do rapidly taking over the world, and the fact that most worlds with life have water and probably oceans the bugs would need to circumvent.
This is quite literally worse than anything I had imagined the bugs were capable of. Sure my imagination came up with worse ideas, but I hadn't considered those or this possible, and now? Well I'll have to rethink.
Log #15
Year one Day 35
Okay, I haven't been able to figure out how to track where the portals went, but I have designed a system that should theoretically let me send a small group in the 'wake' of the bugs. And when I say small I mean it, too much and I risk disrupting the 'wake' and having the group sent on an entirely unguided dimensional hop.
I should be able to send the 'elite' tanks I'd made; however, the prototypes were made for urban combat and about half as tough as a command tank, while being twice as expensive. A small assembler in the thing for ammo production but it could be used to start a factory in a pinch, slime-tech stored resources were limited however as stuff in storage still has dimensional weight. Meaning resources will need to be gathered, and rapidly, in order to ensure the bugs can't out attrition me.
I'll need to send an android-me to actually build new factory tech and make new factory tech as needed. They aren't good at it, but with an assembler they could. With the tanks having limited AI and my android selves power armor sending android seems a tad… unneeded, but it has been encouraged in case I end up needing to interact with the locals in a significant manner. That and the androids can be intelligent and delegated to other issues I discover that aren't building the factory and opening a connection back to Nauvis.
That's just the force I need to send to unknown locations; however, I also need to deal with the bugs in locations I'm already at. The fight on the Far Far range seems like it'll be the most difficult front, Mars has nothing on it and I can just the bugs up from orbit once I get there, Earth has the androids and alot of static defenses, and the bugs died on the moon within moments.
Mars also has the advantage of lacking a breathable atmosphere and nutrient rich soil. It's not enough to stop the bugs but they are currently optimized to get energy from oxygen and hives draw on the soil and the life around them almost as much as they draw on the sun and probably other sources for energy. Even a half percent reduction in energy efficiency and production will be noteworthy on the scale the bugs fight at and this is likely more than that. Though my knowledge of how the bugs work is still very limited, given they don't work the same way for long.
I still want to help the Quarian's with their issues but I think they'll have to wait a year or two longer.
The humans are also finally in talks with the androids, now that the fighting has been forced away from critical infrastructure, and said critical infrastructure has been rebuilt. It is a bit of a shame that most of the talking has been the humans wanting to know about the bugs and the threat they pose rather than more formal relationships with the androids but enough of the latter is still happening for the venture to be a minor success.
It does bring to mind a potential issue however, it's more than likely I'll end up putting the androids into contact with other dimensional nations, and that said nations are also going to interact. And using the earth as the primary meeting point is… suboptimal. Unless I turn the entire planet into metal and control every factory there is the risk of disease, storms, invasion, civilian android and machine stupidity.
So I'll need a dedicated place for the various civilizations and dimensions to meet and intermingle without any complications. And building a… small world, would be a fairly decent option and make a statement. I could give each polity a section of it to build/live in/ operate out of, grow it as needed, and use it to house refugees if a world becomes uninhabitable or already has an end of the world thing going on. Adding a greater degree of separation for the androids as well, with them setting up their own enclave there for me to deal with the same as the rest and allowing them to do their own stuff without my direct help.
Balistraia had played a fairly large role in the background for the first diplomatic meeting, keeping it operating smoothly and priming the humans to bring up topics we wanted brought up. The bugs fucked that up sure but we have no plans on playing such a role again unless its critical.
I also have a plan to do something I said I'd never do, the android copies of me are good, they have brain power and ingenuity comparable to mine but they are mundane even though their consciousness is at least partially magical. Every blueprint and design they make I need to go over again and make compatible with the factory, every test material made needs an assembler or my own hand to infuse it with the factories effects, more complex machines outright break, which is why I have so many of them just building more durable materials for the factory to enhance.
They are good, but they are limited. In order to fight the bugs however I can't settle for 'good but limited' . I needed perfection, but I'd simply have to settle for 'better'. And I was better, the flesh me was better than the android versions, so I needed more flesh Me's.
I need to clone myself. Really making android versions of myself had already been breaking my promise, as had letting my disposable machines become sentient. I'd already made life and consigned it to my fight, making an organic isn't that much further and if I give them my memories it's just like another android self. More justifications to condone what I believe to be wrong, but that's just human nature isn't it.
I've already begun the testing.
AN-
Don't really have great excuses for the lack of chapters, just moving again and dealing with Christmas, that and a bit of writer's block and I wind up not writing for like a week and a half. Going to try and get back into the swing of things, but no promises.
Thanks for the chapter!