Hope in Dark Times [PASI, Sequel to FiSF]

[Faith]

Had a bit of fun with this one. Was a bit of an interesting challenge to write only one side of the conversation and still try to convey the full extent of it. Hope that turned out okay.

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Moving Object had tried to avoid thinking about the tasks he'd be asked to perform as Commander Hope's on-site Personal Assistant. Not because he had been worried or concerned about the tasks he might be required to complete, or because he was self conscious in his ability to complete those tasks, but because he'd wanted it to be a surprise.

"Yes, sir. We are paying you so that we can take the contract off your hands."

He was of the distinct impression that even if he had lent the topic some thought prior to his recruitment, he still would never have thought he'd be doing this.

"Yes, sir, I realize that this is somewhat unorthodox. My superiors have determined your proposed timetable to be too slow for our purposes."

Commander Hope had been clear. Find out what was taking the communications companies so long, and throw money at the problem until it went away. He had attempted to bribe Tau Cheti Communications into doing the work in their sector immediately, but when they told him it would take at least a month to get even a basic overhaul complete and dared him to do better, he'd hit upon a much simpler solution.

"That's exactly why we want to take the contract from you. That we may be able to fulfill it ourselves."

Throw money at the people owning the problem until they gave the problem to him, so he could make it go away himself.

"Yes, we are fully capable of doing so."

The difficult part was convincing people of the genuine deal he was offering them. Not many companies were willing to buy new, untested communications relay buoys from unknown companies, regardless of how many modern urban legends were told about the company in question. Or possibly because of those urban legends.

"You understand that your company holds the contracts, yes? We cannot legally provide service in those areas unless you permit it. That is why, rather than offering the service ourselves, we are offering to sell you the devices required for you to provide that service, starting immediately."

It didn't really help that he seemed to be talking to the lowest-ranked office lackeys every time he called, forcing him to wait unfathomably long for each offer, request or rebuttal to be passed up the chain and back again. Usually just to have it rejected out of hand or, more commonly, ignored.

"Yes. I understand. Please, you do that. Yes, I'll hold."

His consolation was that it was so easy to keep on top of communications, and he had so much free time whilst he waiting for each response, that he was able to work simultaneously on a number of other projects, or at least keep tabs on how his former colleagues were doing without him.

Welcome to the Relay Nexus Message Boards
You are currently logged in, MovingObject (Faith Foundation)
You are viewing:
• Private message conversations with user: Daring Bellona.

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♦ Private message from Daring Bellona:

MovingObject: Status report?
Daring Bellona: Ah, Moving Object. The project is still going fairly slowly, but we're starting to get the hang of their biotech abilities.
Daring Bellona: We might start seeing field-usable full-customs inside of a month, but I'd call that a generous estimate and it would be in no sense perfect.
Daring Bellona: Nothing further to report, really. No major breakthroughs or anything.
Daring Bellona: How about you? How's the new job?
MovingObject: Interesting. I've had a lot of opportunities I can't imagine I'd have had on Station Four. It's interesting to see the cultures of the other worlds, even if I've only seen one thus far.
MovingObject: It's also quite telling to see how various factions in this world have reacted to the Faith Foundation. There's a very stark divide between those who appreciate us and those who don't.
MovingObject: Still, it's gotten boring at times. Commander Hope has settled into an organic 16-8 cycle of activity and inactivity, like most organics. This has resulted in a lot of downtime.
MovingObject: Even more than would usually be involved in interacting with organics.
MovingObject: In that sense it's a little frustrating. Even if it provides a lot of opportunities for me to do my own thing.
Daring Bellona: Well that's not so bad, then. What are you doing at the moment that's so boring?
MovingObject: Currently, Commander Hope has me negotiating with a number of human businesses to improve their communications infrastructure in our operational area.
MovingObject: Whilst it was interesting at first, it has quickly become infuriating due to their lack of trust and willingness to cooperate fully with the Faith Foundation.
MovingObject: Commander Hope has told me we're going to a festival in a couple of days time, however, so that hopefully will be some reprieve from organic stupidity.
Daring Bellona: A festival? What kind of festival?
MovingObject: One that celebrates the anniversary of the colony's founding. I'm not sure what exactly that entails, however.
Daring Bellona: Aw, that's cool! Like a birthday party for an entire colony! I hope that's more interesting than what you're currently doing.
MovingObject: As do I. It feels almost bad form to say, but I feel I'd rather enjoy some combat. There are no real stakes, in our operations here, none with long-lasting influence anyway.
MovingObject: Still, if nothing else the insight into Commander Hope's personality is worth the boredom. It's hardly a secret that she's not as composed as she at first appears, but I'm starting to see the cracks run far deeper than we may have thought.
Daring Bellona: I don't think that's the kind of thing you should be saying on The Nexus, Moving Object. And it's maybe a little rude, besides.
MovingObject: Hm. You may be right. I don't feel it's incorrect, however.
MovingObject: Regardless, thank you for the update on the project. Next time I return to the Hub I shall endeavour to visit in person. For now, I must attend to other business.
Daring Bellona: I understand. Farewell, Moving Object, and good luck!
​

Moving Object shut down the message boards with what would have been a sigh, had he an organic body.

"Greetings, Director Kassard. I am Moving Object, of the Faith Foundation."

At least sometimes the desk lackeys he got stuck with were smart enough to pass the entire call up the chain, rather than relaying every single message with an agonizing lack of urgency.

"Yes, that's correct, sir. I am an Artificial Intelligence."

Although he was beginning to notice that where there were senior officials, there was a general sense of distrust towards him, seemingly due to his artificial nature. He wondered, briefly, why those of the older generations were less comfortable with his presence, and resolved to investigate.

"I'm sorry, no organic operators from the Faith Foundation are available right now, although they may become available very shortly."

It tended to lead to nothing more than terse conversations and slightly insulting terminology, but sometimes it had the aggravating side effect of slowing down an already slow process, or delaying it entirely.

"I assure you, I convey the full authority of the Faith Foundation's current head. Furthermore, the correct term is, as I have mentioned, 'Artificial Intelligence'."

Commander Hope's assertion that he 'grin and bear it' until further notice did little to put his mind at ease. Her own status as a previously-organic entity, one currently in possession of a primarily organic body, made it easy for her to appear to be a regular organic herself. He doubted she was experiencing the same kinds of issues he was.

"No, sir. I have been solely responsible for all such negotiations, including those with the Kamredian Corporation."

Of course, he could have taken the same approach - an easily constructed BioAvatar and a false name would have been sufficient to conceal his nature. But he didn't see much point in hiding such an important part of his personality just to make others feel comfortable.

"Yes, I can confirm the terms of that offer were as you say. May I inquire how you came to possess such information?"

That said, given the time constraints of his mission, he sometimes found it prudent to simply acquiesce to societal pressure and direct those who refused to deal with him to someone more to their liking.

"I see. Very well. As soon as Miss Hope is available, I will direct her to contact you immediately. I assure you, sir, the deal she will offer will be no better than that which I have already offered."

Compromise, he'd been told by Vivid Sienna, was a state that left all parties dissatisfied.

"Understood. I shall pass along that sentiment, sir. Thank you for your time."

And since the mere insult to his existence was enough to dissatisfy him, it was only fair that he returned the favour.

He waited seventeen minutes, modified his vocal profile, and restarted the call.

"Director Kassard? My name is Hope, from the Faith Foundation. I understand you wanted to speak with me?"

 

[Faith]

This chapter brought to you by hard drugs prescription medicine. I'm probably not going to like this chapter come morning but fuuuuuuuckit I'll just retcon it out if I find it too objectionable whatever. Comments and corrections and whatever blaaaaaah nap time

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Whatever Moving Object had offered to get the communications companies on side, it worked. Already, there were reports that communications were far more stable, and that the network was running faster overall. Object told me it would be just a few more days until the last communications systems got repaired, replaced, upgraded, or whatever, and then the network would be back at maximum capability.

Unfortunately, that did mean it wouldn't be online until the Founding Festival was over, but I didn't see that being much of a problem. It did leave a sort of constant nagging in my mind that maybe there would be delays or something, but Object assured me the situation was in hand, and I trusted him to have a handle on things. Would have been pretty pointless to have him around if I didn't, after all.

I was, however, determined not to let that nagging ruin my enjoyment of said festival. It seemed a good opportunity to take a bit of a break and blow off some steam, and had the convenient side effect of letting me get a better feel of the general mood of all the people displaced by the evacuation of Loek III.

Plus, Haigen told me there would be a stall that did great Proagama Roasts. Whatever they were.

I quickly tapped into the local Command Network to get in touch with my assistant.

Object. Any reply yet from the Minister?

No, not yet. The board members are still in their meeting. I suspect you will either have an answer or a request for an extension shortly, though. Their duties at the festival are more likely to be their priority than the discussion of our offer, especially as you left it somewhat open ended for them.

Ah, well. No issue. Have you decided on which chassis to bring?

I have put little thought into the issue, ma'am. I'm still unconvinced of the benefits of the BioAvatar as they apply to me.

Suit yourself, Object. Just, you know. Figured you might enjoy a chance to dodge a bit of that AI-hating.

That won't be necessary, Hope. I'm more than capable of handling it.

Of course. Just saying, you don't have to if you don't want to. Anyway, whichever avatar you bring, I'd still like you out and about, as we discussed.

Yes, I understand. Public relations. Am I still to proceed with Operation Santa?

Should the chance arise, certainly. Don't push it too hard, though. Some people might find robot santas creepy. And strictly no foods or drinks! That's bound to be trouble.

Yes, I remember. Is there anything else?

No, I think that's about it for now, Object. See you at the festival!

Affirmative.

I closed the link, sighed, and turned my attention back to my current dilemma, having successfully distracted myself from the issue for all of nine seconds.

Speaking to the empty room, I asked, "What on earth am I supposed to wear?"

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"Come on, Hellena!" The girl's mother called from the other room. "We're going to miss the fireworks!"

"Coming, mama!" The little girl scampered down the stairs, barely avoiding an outright tumble, and, upon reaching the ground floor landing, spun in place, showing off her cute summer dress.

"Ah, Hellena, you look lovely. Cute as a button. Now, come on. It's about to start!"

Taking her mother's offered hand, Hellena followed her out of the apartment and onto the street. Dozens of other families and couples had gathered in the streets, some settling around picnic baskets or on comfy looking rugs as they stared up at the western sky. Hellena saw a couple of the other kids in her class about with their own parents, all dressed fancy like her.

From their street, positioned somewhat serendipitously at the crest of a hill, they had an excellent view of the western plains where the fireworks always came from.

This time, though Hellena thought she saw something different about the plains. Something that she didn't think had been there last year. "Look, mama, the plains are glowing!"

"They must have a lot of lights down there, so that the organizers can see what they're doing," her mother explained, without even bothering to look.

"No, mama, see, see! They're glowing really bright green! Something's happening."

"Yes, dear, they're about to start with the fireworks. Oh, come on, now, I can see Milera and her parents. Don't you want to hang out with Milera?"

Hellena shot one last confused look at the glowing grass before allowing herself to be tugged across the road to where her best friend and her family were sat. "Oh, there you are! Where's your husband?" Milera's mother called as the pair approached.

"Oh, working late, you know how it is for the board members. How are you?"

"Oh, I'm doing wonderfully! Ah, Hellena looks so grown up in her little…"

Hellena quickly tuned out the adults and their constant talking, turning instead to her friend and shooting her a quick smile.

"Hey, Hellena," Milera greeted. "Did you see the plains? Isn't it weird?"

"Yeah, I did! I wonder what's going on? Mama thinks it's just them getting ready to launch the fireworks."

Milera shook her head. "Maybe. Are you excited for the fireworks?"

Hellena nodded excitedly, her pigtails bobbing up and down. "They're always so pretty!"

The two girls quietly cheered and turned expectantly to the west. Around them, couples were falling silent and parents were shushing their children. A small group of teenagers who had been laughing over a video of some kind quickly closed the video.

The first firework sailed into the sky alone, a tiny flare of golden light rocketing up and exploding into a cascade of multicoloured sparks. It was followed a few seconds later by dozens more, each exploding into clusters of stars or the shape of smiling faces.

And each time a firework went off, adding to the curtain of sparks raining from the sky, the green glow on the plains seemed to get brighter. Again and again bright beacons of light would race upwards and explode, and burn colours into the night sky, and slowly the green glow rose higher, and higher, until even Hellena's disinterested mother could no longer reject its existence.

Beneath the green glow, now it was high enough to see below, Hellena thought she could see some sort of building. She heard her mother mutter much the same to Milera's mother, and a quick glance at Milera herself seemed to confirm she was thinking much the same.

As the fireworks show continued, so too did the seemingly inexorable rise of the green light, and the buildings beneath it.

"What is that?" Milera asked.

Hellena shrugged. "I don't know, it looks like a big building though!"

"Yeah! Maybe they're building more bits of the city!"

"Don't be silly, girls," Hellena's mother cut in. "It must be a part of the light show, or something." More to herself, she added, "No way a real building could be made that fast. It's not possible."

"Maybe your mama is right," Milera admitted, pouting. "Maybe it's just an ill-you-shun."

"Well I think it's real!" Hellena stated proudly. "As real as my name is Hellena Cassandra Slayton!'

She tried her hardest to maintain her serious facade, but after a couple of seconds she broke down giggling, Milera quickly following suit, covering her mouth with her hands in a way that did nothing to conceal the sound.

After they got their composure back, although only barely, Milera asked, "Do you think maybe it's a magic building? A wizard could have built it!"

She, too, tried as hard as she could to hold on to her serious face. Just like her friend, however, she lasted just a couple of seconds before breaking down laughing.

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"Oooh, look, Milera! They do Proagama Roasts!"

The two girls cheered and made to join the queue, but Milera's mother put a hand on her daughter's shoulder. "Now, now, don't be greedy. You've already got your fairy floss, you don't want to have too many sweeties or you'll get !"

The girls pouted, but Milera's mother was immune to the delicate charm of two pouting eight year olds, and stubbornly refused to allow them to enter the queue, so they had to make do with nibbling on their fairy floss and watching other people enjoy the little squares of roasted joy as they wandered around the marketplace.

Well, that, and sneaking glances at the mysterious glowy tower out to the west, in case it disappeared. Their parents followed them at a leisurely pace, far enough away to give them privacy but close enough to keep an eye on them, and the two girls started meandering through the city, occasionally poking their heads into little shopping stalls or oohing and aahing at the various street performers.

So lost were the two girls in one such display, a man pulling various comically oversized objects from a little blue box far to small to hold any of them, that they didn't even notice the woman in front of them had stopped walking until Milera's fairy floss found itself stuck rather messily to her hair.

The woman turned abruptly, yanking the candy from the girl's hand and causing it to tumble to the floor. Immediately, Hellena heard both her mother and Milera's quicken their pace.

"I'm so sorry!" Milera pleaded. "I didn't mean to mess up your pretty hair!"

The woman looked down at the two girls and frowned. "Whatever do you mean?"

"I - my fairy floss got stuck to your hair! I'm really sorry?"

"Mm… I don't think so. See, look?" She reached over her shoulder, pulling her hair around in front of her and holding it up. "No cotton candy here."

Cotton candy? Hellena thought. That's a weird name for fairy floss. It's not like cotton at all! Cotton isn't nearly as yummy.

"Oh," Milera muttered. "I thought I saw some get tangled in your hair."

"Well, maybe it was, but it's not any more, is it?" The woman winked at the two little girls and then turned to the candy on the ground. "Sorry about your candy, darling. I'd give you more, but you know what they say about taking candy from strangers."

Milera and Hellena shared a glance and shrugged as one. "No we don't."

The woman chuckled. "Well, alrighty, then. Here's, uh." She dug into the pocket of her jacket, pulling out a fistful of little metal discs. "Here's sixty. Buy yourself something nice."

"Sixty! I could buy lots of candy floss for that much!" Milera objected. "Do you want some back?"

"No, no. That's fine." The woman looked up, seeing Hellena's mama approaching, and tapped her nose. "Our little secret, huh? Don't spend it all in one place." She stood upright again. "Here, take these, too." At the girl's confused stares, the woman cracked a manic grin and showed the two her empty hands, then clasped them together.

For a second, green light seemed to shine between her fingers, and when she opened her hands again, two silver bracelets were hanging loosely from her fingers.

"Wow! How'd you do that!"

"Just a little bit of magic. Ssh, though, don't tell anyone." The woman looked up at Hellena's mama and winked.

"Don't be silly, lady. Magic isn't real!"

"Magic can be real, if you just have a little faith," the woman said with a sad smile. "Besides, didn't you see that huge tower spring up out of nowhere? Seems pretty magical to me. Maybe some kind of wizard did it."

Waving away the girl's concerned and slightly alarmed looks, the woman laughed.

"Now, you two should go enjoy the festival, right? Not going to be around forever, you know!"

Saying that, she turned and skipped away, melting into the crowd in a flash of blue so quickly it didn't seem possible.

"Hellena! Milera! You shouldn't take things from strangers like that!" Hellena's mama chided as soon as the woman was out of earshot. "They might be dangerous!"

Hellena looked down at the little silver ring she had cupped in her hand. Along the inside of the band, little words were inscribed. As Milera argued with her mother, Hellena held up the bracelet so she could make out the letters.

May you find joy in simple pleasures, and hope in dark times.

Hellena thought there was something just a little bittersweet about it. But then, she was only eight.

 

[Faith]

You know I was intending for this + the last chapter to be a one-and-done bit about Commanders building things. I'm having far too much silly fun, though. To the point where, if I hadn't had to rush to finish this chapter to fit my self-imposed schedule, I may well have made part two an entire chapter by itself. Who says Commander Fics have to be about epic battles and building giant robots? Pah.

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The people of Kian VI had been merrily partying for several hours before Moving Object bumped into his Commander, skipping through the streets with a small baked confectionary clamped between her teeth and a bag loaded with clothes in each hand.

She practically bounced on her heels when she saw him, although she at least remembered to address him over the Command Network rather than attempt to communicate verbally with the cookie still in her mouth.

Oh, hey, Object. Enjoying the festival?

I suppose, he lied. Although a large proportion of the entertainment here either does not suit my interests- he gestured at Hope, with her snack food and large amounts of unneeded accessories that would have looked beyond awful on his robotic frame -or is else rendered obsolete by my superiority over organics. He pointed at one of the ring-tossing game stands that had been set up.

Hooking the four rings to the four spindly arms of the drone had been all too easy with his understanding of basic projectile motion, perfect control over his avatar's body, and highly advanced computational core. Without the challenge, though, claiming the reward (a five foot high stuffed panda) had seemed to him a rather hollow victory. He'd teleported it to the Eos' passenger cabin anyway, for posterity's sake.

Hope nodded. Yeah, thought you might run into those kinds of issues. Hey, I'm just running these things back to the spacedock, but afterwards did you want to join me down at the carnival grounds? I was going to put on a magic show and then make a bunch of random junk for kids. Thought it might be fun.

Moving Object looked at his commander and shrugged. By 'magic show', did you mean, 'demonstration of perfectly explainable scientific principles disguised by a thin veneer of showmanship and the ignorance of the target audience?'.

Hope reached up and took the half-eaten cookie from her mouth, showering the front of her dress in crumbs. She cast a quick glance down and frowned before brushing them off, pointing an accusing finger at the AI. "Now look here, mister. Just because that's basically exactly what I meant doesn't mean I'm not going to have fun doing it. Now, are you in, or not?"

You know what? Sure. I've little better to do.

"Attaboy. Now, I'm going to have to change when we get back to the Eos - I know there's a totally awesome blue tuxedo in one of these bags…"

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The crowd's uproar echoed through the city streets, a cacophony of laughing and crying and wild cheers that seemed to take longer to end each time it started up again.

"Alright, alright. Settle down, you hooligans," Hope requested, clasping her hands behind her back.

The crowd slowly quieted. "Now, for my next trick, I'm going to need an assistant. Luckily, I have one backstage. Guys, I'd like you to meet my pet robot, Object."

Suddenly, Moving Object was regretting agreeing to this plan.

I am not a pet, he complained as he stepped out onto the stage to yet more thunderous applause. And I would appreciate you clarifying that for them.

If you say so, Hope retorted with a glee that made him regret his choice even more.

"He's not just any pet robot, though. He's a special robot. He's a magical robot." The crowd ooh'ed and aah'ed, and Hope allowed them to go on for a few seconds before adding in a well-rehearsed stage whisper, "It's a secret, though. Don't tell anyone."

Commander, I've come to regret this decision.

Well, too bad. Unless you can magic up me a new assistant, you're not getting out of it.

"So, Object." Hope reached behind her back, where the audience couldn't see her hands, and teleported in an almost comically oversized chainsaw, theatrically flaunting it to the audience before passing it over to him. Besides, I think you might like this bit.

Like the chainsaw before it, a lounge chair teleported onto the stage, brought over from their base on Loek III by one of the dozens of Phase Teleporters Hope had commandeered for this ridiculous show, and Hope casually dropped onto it, lying on her side to face the audience.

"Now if you've seen a magic show before, you might have seen this trick, but I assure you, you've never seen it like this. Object."

She rolled, so she was flat on her back. "Kindly cut me in half across the waist."

Huh. You were right, Commander. I do like this bit.

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Once their impromptu show came to a close, Hope waved a hand theatrically, yelling "Shazam!" as the stage began to dissolve around them, broken up by a surge of nanites and dragged away just as quickly, leaving only a small, slightly raised platform upon which sat two chairs.

The pair barely had time to sit down, though, before the horde of excited children and somewhat more reserved parents rushed forward to fill the space their stage had once occupied, crowding around them.

Moving Object personally found the work to be more engaging than anything else he'd done so far, which he considered to speak more for the relatively boring nature of their operations here than for his own tastes.

Using refinements from the past nineteen iterations, the loose simulation parameters Hope had provided, and a bit of digital intuition, Object constructed another model, once again subjecting it to a torrent of simulated laser fire, kinetic impacts, and intense atmospheric pressures trending towards both extremes.

Finding the simulated design to be well within the desired durability range, he activated the Fabricator mounted into his chassis and waited as the nanites did their work, quickly gathering and clumping together into the shape of a small robot before taking on its form.

What I don't understand, Commander, is how you construct a ground-to-orbit, life sustaining, FTL-capable transport craft in less than a second and yet struggle to construct simple toys in the same time frame.

Beside him, Hope shook her head, and made as if to speak verbally before blessedly deciding otherwise.

It's because I cheat, Object, I cheat like a big cheating cheater. I've got short cuts and corner cuts and all sorts of other cuts, and they're all great, but only a scant few apply to this scale of work.

She made a flourish with her hands, showing off the green glow of her own internal fabricators, and then crossed her arms behind her back. When she moved them around in front of her again, she had a small plush toy clutched in one hand.

May I express some slight confusion as to how one 'cheats' at such endeavours as this?

The children giggled with glee and Hope passed the doll to one of the girls in question. Object, meanwhile, deemed his own construct complete, and handed it wordlessly to the boy who'd asked for it.

Like I said, shortcuts. The Eos? It's literally just an Astraeus scaled up, with three extra bits bolted on top. A living module, an FTL module, and a shell to mask the fact that it's just three entirely separate things welded together into one ungainly chunk.

But how does subdividing the task into smaller modules make it easier to design?

The boy cheered and stepped back, new nigh-indestructible toy in hand, and a teenage girl took his place. "I want new ear rings!"

Because I've already done the design work - the individual components I mentioned? They're just templates copied from the library. I have a massive archive of thousands of different components and I glue them together as necessary, then stick a shell over the top to make it pretty. Faith thought it was cheating, but even she used to use it.

Ah. But that does mean the units you create lack the efficiency that would be provided by a totally coherent and single-focused design, right? So there are downsides.

Sure, downsides so small they flat out don't matter in most cases. At the scales we're working with, a two percent boost to energy efficiency is nothing, even if it does, relatively speaking, account for enough saved energy every minute to power this entire city for six days. And, more relevantly to this, none of the archived parts are really suitable for building Fluffy, the Rabbit King of Plush Toys.

An arm-mounted plasma cannon would provide King Fluffy an inarguable advantage in defending his crown, however, he noted as he handed the girl a pair of glistening silver earrings studded with little blue lights and tiny slivers of sapphire.

Hah. Yeah, maybe, but I'm not giving this little girl's doll a plasma cannon. The other advantage with building stuff out of modules is that I can just assume inherited tolerance. If every individual part of the robot can survive falling from orbit, it's a fair bet the robot itself will survive falling from orbit. That means I can skip a lot of iterative simulations and save a lot of time.

Object nodded in acceptance and was about to start building a young boy a toy laser cannon when something Hope had said suddenly struck him.

Commander. How many simulations did you run the Eos through before you had us board and brought us here?

Hope turned to look his avatar in the eye. Why? She asked, sounding apprehensive. Don't you trust my engineering?

Well, I used to, but I'm suddenly feeling a little concerned

Ah. In that case, probably best I don't tell you.

Smirking, she twisted around in her seat to face the crowd again.

Does that not seem like a conflicting philosophy to you? You stated, before, that you wanted to do things right this time, yet you're cutting corners to save time and devoting only half your time or less to the immediate problems?

It was a long time before she responded, long enough that Object was beginning to suspect she wasn't planning on answering at all.

You know, Object. You ask a lot of questions. I like that. Way I see it, the destination is far more important than the journey. Whatever tactical, strategic, or logistical shortcuts I take now are kind of irrelevant so long as we get the end goal we desire, and I don't feel I'm compromising my morals or ethics in doing so, at least not in this case, so… I don't think it really matters.

Abruptly, Hope leapt to her feet, casting her arms wide. "Unfortunately, ladies and gentlemen, it seems that's all I've time for tonight." She paused for a moment as the crowd aaw'ed. "Thank you, though, for being a lovely captive audience." Again, she paused as they cheered. "And thank you for inviting us up on stage - even if you made us bring our own. Enjoy the rest of your Founding Festival, ladies and gentlemen. I've been Hope, he's been Object, and we've been saving our best trick until last."

A top hat, of all things, appeared in midair and dropped into Hope's outstretched hand as a silly grin spread across her face. She slipped the hat onto her head in a smooth motion, shot one last wave at the audience, and yelled out, "Turrah!"

And with a flash, they were gone.

 

[Faith]

Short chapter, today. Uni's back in session and with it comes pain, torment, and the existential dread of having to wake up at 5AM and not getting back home until 9:30...PM. On a Friday, no less. This also means that there may not be a chapter this time tomorrow at all (I'll try to make up for it over the weekend, in that case) and starting next week maybe these chapters will release at a decent time, as opposed to 'somewhere between midnight and three AM'. Who knows? Not me, I don't know shit.

Incidentally, we are drawing the Sanctum/Prologue Arc to a close now, at least according to my paper notes, which means we should be here for another week or so but honestly at the current rate I'm writing it may take more like a month before the plot really kicks off.

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Once Object and I had the groundworks laid out, and the approval of the local megacorp-slash-government was assured, the rest of the project, at least here in Capital City, could basically complete itself. A vast swarm of Fabricator-equipped Migrant and Clover units coordinated effortlessly to construct in mere minutes entire city blocks, great gleaming spires of blue steel and glass that reached just as high as any of the more traditionally constructed buildings in the city's centre.

Admittedly, I'd cheated slightly in that I'd constructed the first building of the Blue District before I was on paper permitted to start building, but I'd done so under the cover of fireworks specifically with the intent of making it very obvious something was going on, so I considered that largely a success.

The fact that not one of the thousands of cameras pointed at the tower in question managed to catch even the slightest glimpse of my Clovers was basically a minor miracle, one which called even further into question just how exactly the tower had been constructed in the first place. I seriously don't know how an entire city's worth of onlookers managed to all completely miss the little craft, but they did.

With the construction itself underway, I was free to begin the second, and arguably more tedious step of creating, confirming, and filing all of the paperwork required for building an entire city district and then relocating a whole load of people into it.

And by 'I', I of course mean my legion of intelligent, observant, and loyal artificial intelligences, whose diligence and work ethic shamed my own. Vivid Sienna, informed of the mounting task, seemed to think of it as somewhat of a fun challenge, and had immediately sent over half a dozen AI to deal with the problem for me.

I intended, should Vivid Sienna no longer require their services, to keep them here to keep an eye on things after I left, as a contingency of sorts. For now, though, they were the galaxy's best pencil-pushers, chewing through every bit of paperwork Humanity First threw at them and spitting it back out, filled out and filed perfectly, in triplicate, within seconds.

And with step two automated, that left me… nothing, really. Step three was 'steps one and two, but in every other city in human space, starting with the ones near Kian VI', but until steps one and two finished and I had something worth showing off to the inevitable hordes of interested governments and property developers, that, too, had to wait. And even then, it wouldn't even be that hard - repeating a process we'd already done once was guaranteed to be far easier than starting from scratch, plus now we had a whole half-dozen AI helping out directly (as opposed to working by proxy as a side-project, as they had before).

I guess I could have started work on legitimizing the Faith Foundation, since I'd promised Charlotte, once, sort of, to give her the ruins of the Bright Foundation and then failed to follow through on that, and I thought it might have made a nice bit of compensation. But I didn't want to begin that kind of work until Vivid Sienna got back to me with her analysis of the proposal I'd sent, since she would inevitably have picked up dozens of mistakes, flaws, or loopholes to correct.

I didn't expect that to take particularly long, but it still left me with a few precious minutes of idleness. Haigen and Charlotte were hung-over in bed together, and I had absolutely zero interest in interrupting that, SiMo wasn't much for the whole 'conversation' thing, Object was finalizing one of the deals with some communication network or another, and I didn't really know anyone else on the planet worth talking too.

I'd enjoyed my brief stint as a stage magician, though, even if the chainsaw trick had been a lot more painful than I'd anticipated. Perhaps all I needed was a new hobby?

Once, I'd collected animals, and other biological samples, partly in hopes of discovering some cool new trait or ability that could be emulated or manipulated in some way but mostly because looking after a whole menagerie of animals was kind of fun. Plus, with the Reaper-tech Dragon's Teeth to create huskified cyber-versions, they even presented a positively massive array of potential chassis designs.

Suboptimal, unnecessary, and redundant chassis designs, maybe, but still.

Of course, that kind of work had fallen to the wayside as Faith and I had poured more and more attention into the war with the Batarian Hegemony and then cleaning up after. Back when we'd kind of insisted on managing or at least overseeing everything ourselves. Now… well, now, thanks to the power of delegation, I had a lot more free time and a lot of nothing to do.

Plus an FTL capable transport with all the equipment I could possibly need to gather information and genetic samples from any life form in the known galaxy.

Object. I'm going to be going on a bit of a trip, I've decided. If anyone asks for me, tell them I'm unavailable. If you think it's important, call me, otherwise, do you think you can handle running this show for a while?

His response was as rapid as I expected it to be, essentially immediate, but tinged with concern I hadn't foreseen.

Certainly, Commander. But-

The AI cut himself off.

But? Something else to add, Object?

He took a few cycles, seemingly to get his thoughts in order, before he explained.

Once again you appear to be neglecting your duties in opposition to your previously stated aim to 'do things right this time'. Previously, when we first arrived, you indicated a willingness to delay taking action because there were no immediate short-term concerns, but you are now actively avoiding taking action even in the middle of an ongoing scheme. May I add, then, before you go, that I'm somewhat concerned for your mental state in light of this?

Ah, right. He'd mentioned something similar after our little magic show, as well. Complaining about me half-assing things. Which was fair, because I was, really.

That said, since I'd just made up my mind about going on the galaxy's greatest big game hunt specifically to avoid stress, this wasn't a conversation I really wanted to have right now.

Okay. Look, Object. Thank you for being concerned, but relax, I'm fine. You just have to realize… well, my standards are different to yours. Sure, I want to make things better, to get things right, but I'm…

Stalling? Uncertain? Afraid?​

I'm a Commander, sure. But in a lot of ways I'm still just a human, really. I'm going to take it slow, I'm going to take breaks, and I'm probably going to make a few more mistakes along the way because that's what humans do.

Can't forget what I used to be. Can't become what she became.​

I'm not going to work tirelessly and devote one hundred and ten percent of my efforts to achieving the goals I've set. There's no major, pressing, time-sensitive issues, so it's okay for us to take things slow, okay? We're going to fix everything, or at least give the locals the ability to fix it themselves.

That answer, at least, seemed to placate him, but I could hardly say I was at ease myself. Rushing around without thinking things through was what caught me and Faith completely flat-footed so many times the first go around. I had no intention of repeating that mistake.

I… see. I may have been too harsh, then. I apologize. I did not realize that you were so… organic. I had assumed those flaws were rectified by the upload process.

That… was a valid point. None of the AI suffered from tedium or weariness. Not unless they wanted to and went out of the way to simulate it. But I felt it just like I had before, when I hadn't been me.

You're not the only one who assumed the upload would be an upgrade, I responded at last. Don't worry about it. When- when we get back to Hub, we can sit down and have a real conversation about this, but for now, just drop it. Please.

Normally when I asked him to drop an uncomfortable subject he snarked at me. That he didn't choose to this time was just a little unnerving.

All the more reason, I decided, to go on vacation.

#=#=#=#=#​

 

[Faith]

Sunday night is still technically the weekend. Forgot how much stuff I had planned yesterday, like a complete derp, hence this chapter's lateness.

#=#=#=#=#​

The best part of being an uploaded intelligence with enough computational power to manage both logistical and combat operations across an entire solar system is that it's really, really easy to multitask.

And since I could delegate the real work to Object, I didn't need to work even part-time on actually overseeing the Faith Foundation's work as it expanded beyond Capital City to the rest of Kian VI. All he asked of me was for occasional use of my voice, because apparently some people were racist to robots and it was easier for him to pretend to be me than fight their prejudices, given we wanted to just get the whole thing over and done with.

There was already a burgeoning AI rights movement and I was pretty sure Charlotte would support that cause in some capacity or another once I gave her a whole ton of money to do so with, so I didn't see much point in pushing the issue.

Either way, it meant that I went basically undisturbed throughout my vacation trip. Being as I had an FTL capable transport and no responsibilities, I was totally free to engage in environmentally non-damaging big game hunting at my own liberty, and so whilst I waited thirty seconds or so for Loek III's Airfield to build me a spaceship, I hopped onto the internet, brought up several crowd-sourced lists of the most dangerous, interesting, or unique critters and plants in known space, and made myself a shopping list.

#=#=#=#=#​

The badlands of Mirabelle IX were wonderfully miserable. The air was hot, the ground was dry and the winds were still. The only plant life for miles around was moss, a scrunchy carpet of grey-green that covered every surface not scorched by the sun's rays.

Apparently the stuff was deadly poisonous, inducing paralysis and audiovisual hallucinations within seconds of being even just touched, and almost inevitably killing anyone affected within an hour of initial infection. Deathmoss, the locals had called it. I couldn't possibly imagine why.

For the sake of science, I had a jar of the stuff in my bag to look over later, in the Hub. But it wasn't why I was trekking through the badlands in blistering heat all by my lonesome, praising myself for deciding to swap out my squishy meat body for a mechanical doppelganger.

I was actually here to find a giant metal-eating centipede with acid pincers. Apparently that was my idea of fun. Apparently the beastie in question was the primary reason the colony on Mirabelle IX had failed - they went out to dig up a huge mineral deposit, couldn't find it, and then had their mining equipment eaten by the local fauna, a centipede the size of a small cruise liner.

I feel like I'd have given up around about that point, too, if not for the whole 'brutally efficient self-replicating mechanism of war' thing that I had going for me. Even if I didn't think of myself as brutal or efficient in any particular sense, and I wasn't so big on the self-replicating thing.

But in this case I had the advantage - I wasn't trying to establish any permanent colony or anything like that. All I needed to do was get close enough to tag the thing with nanites, and get a sample of it DNA and the like. And even if it slipped out of my grasp and took a bite out of me, I could always just build another NeoAvatar and try again.

Just one more reason to use it, over the fleshy BioAvatars that took time to grow (thankfully, not the two decades it should have taken, but still). Convenience, comfort, and bait.

According to the survivor's accounts, the Crawler had been able to track people by even just small pieces of metal on their body, and willingly ignored those who didn't possess any metal for it to snack on. And since my body was made almost entirely of metal, I figured as soon as the Crawler caught on to my presence, I'd be right in its sights.

And it, of course, would be directly in mine.

Beneath me, the earth began to shake, and my sensors picked up movement below me. Big, angry, and coming almost directly for me. I waited tensely as it approached, and threw myself to one side just in the nick of time.

The ground exploded upwards, chunks of rock and dirt flying into the sky as dust spread like fog around me. Switching my eyes from visible light to infrared, I got my first good look at the monster, towering over me with venom dripping from its mandibles and sand running off its chitinous back, like it was some kind of Legend of Zelda boss.

It had a triangular face, with rows of smooth chitinous plate concealing grey flesh and black eyes beneath, and two great thick mandibles as wide around as my torso, which clicked together beneath its pointed snout as it swivelled on the spot, trying to figure out where it's lunch went.

The giant ugly bug shrieked as it finally caught sight of me, and twisted to face me, bringing its head down with its jaws split open like it was trying to trap me in a very spiky, very acidy cage.

I'd never been much good at melee combat - neither had Faith, despite the both of us taking impromptu lessons from the many Batarian soldiers who called New Bondi home during the war. But I had played a lot of Monster Hunter, and I had the ability to just build a new body and carry on like nothing happened, anyway, so there weren't exactly going to be consequences for making mistakes.

With that in mind, I ran forward to meet it head on.

#=#=#=#=#​

Fifteen minutes and a new NeoAvatar later, I'd secured the sample I wanted (and retrieved the jar of Deathmoss, too, which had thankfully not been eaten), cleaned up the remains of my first NeoAvatar, and was on my way to my second target - a much easier catch in every sense. It was a really pretty fish whose scales, ground into powder, made a vital component of several incredibly powerful sedatives.

The weaponsmith in me considered that a kind of redundant 'upgrade' given the technology I already had, but again, I wasn't there for the technological benefits. I was there to catch some pretty fish. Well, to call them fish is a disservice. They really aren't like Earth fish at all. What with the completely different biochemistry involved, and the differences required for life to thrive in temperatures well below zero celsius.

Nonetheless, the sea-dwelling creatures were my primary targets, and I was rather looking forward to figuring out a safe way to keep them back in the Hub, given their vastly different environmental standards, but there were still two problems I had to overcome.

First, that swimming in methane was quite different to swimming in water. Namely, it had about half the density of water, which made it rather difficult to propel oneself through purely mechanical means - even with diving flippers it wasn't exactly fast going. Luckily, with a big enough motor that stopped being a problem, and I was more than capable of obtaining a 'big enough motor' for my purposes.

Second, finding a small number of fish in an entire literal ocean is not exactly fast when your scanners, by default, are looking for things like 'fifteen metre death robots' and aren't quite so good at finding little things. Tweaking the sensor settings wasn't too hard but it did cut down the range a little.

Not enough for the fish to escape my sight, but it did cut down the range. I was about two kilometres beneath the surface, double checking the simulation parameters to make sure my nanite harpoon actually would work in a liquid methane environment, when my sensors, clipped as they were, picked up something entirely unexpected.

A maximum priority communications request with high encryption levels even by Progenitor standards. Anyone capable of sending such a message was either on my side, or another Commander trying to gain access into my Command Network. Either way, almost inevitably trouble. There were only five other people authorized to send communications requests at maximum priority, and not one of them would send such a request if they weren't serious.

If it was another Commander, of course, then it was definitely trouble. Biting my lip, literally, and the bullet, metaphorically, I tapped into the communications request and found, to my equal relief and consternation, it was from Pocket Change.

Commander, he said as soon as the connection was established. This is Pocket Change, with Ave Britannia and Pale Martyr, reporting in.

There were two reasons he could be calling. The first reason was that they'd found the missing AI Core, brought it to the Hub, and locked it up in the most secure room in at least four realities.

Understood, Pocket Change. This is about the package?

Uh, yes, ma'am, Ave Britannia answered uncertainly in his place. But there's… a problem.

The second was that… well, any number of things could have gone wrong, honestly. They might not have found the AI Core, they might have found it destroyed, they might have found evidence some of the locals of the Mass Effect universe had gotten it first…

They might have found evidence that Fusou or Gamma had gotten it first.

Explain. Now.

Whatever the case, I almost certainly wasn't going to like it.

On receiving the package at the Jartar Facility, Pocket Change and I authorised a portal transfer, Pale Martyr explained. And though we verified the portal's stability as per standards, when we sent the package through, it failed to arrive at the other end. We reverified the portal and found it stable both ways, indicating someone must have hijacked our portal network to redirect the package, somehow.

I found it unlikely that 'someone' could have done that, unless the 'someone' in question was, say, the douchebag who made the portals, or at least, told Faith and I how to make them, in the first place.

Sometimes, I really hated being right.

 

[Faith]

I wanted to post this last night, but my internet crapped out so that didn't quite happen. First of three(ish?) end-of-arc interludes and then we're back on track with the main plot.

#=#=#=#=#​

The Founding Festival had been, by all accounts, a great success. People were happy, crowds were non-violent, and the food was absolutely delicious. It wasn't just a triumph for the event organizers, though. As far as Charlotte was concerned, it was a pretty big win all around. Hope's promise to restore the communications infrastructure seemed to be on the brink of success, and already the connection speed and stability were noticeably better than they had been.

That was probably the lesser of Hope's recent victories, though. Standing as she was on the roof of her apartment complex, it was hard not to notice the newest additions to the city's skyline - a dozen or more curved towers, painted blue and white and practically shining in the morning sun.

If she hadn't had such a painful headache, she might have found it beautiful. Instead she found herself trying to look away without looking down.

"Oh, Char. There you are." Her boyfriend sounded about as well as she felt, and when she turned to look at him she realized that wasn't by coincidence. The dark bags under his eyes were frighteningly visible compared to his even-paler-than-usual skin, and his usually messy hair looked like it had recently been hit by a hurricane.

He was holding two cups of blessed cocoa, though, still steaming slightly, and Char couldn't refuse the unspoken offer. Taking the offered mug and wrapping her hands around it, she gave him a dulled smile. "Thanks, Haigen."

He shrugged and stepped past her, over to the edge of the rooftop. "Pretty sight, all those towers, huh? Moving Object assures me we're getting a penthouse."

"I don't want a penthouse…" she mumbled, taking a sip of the precious beverage.

"Yeah, that's what I said, too." Haigen shrugged. "Apparently Hope doesn't care. Ready to go?"

"Feeling a little worse for wear. But I guess we shouldn't keep her waiting."

#=#=#=#=#​

Hope wasted little time with pleasantries when they arrived at the spacedock, immediately turning and waving for them to follow. "Miss Wray. Mister Hawkins. Thank you for agreeing to meet me on such short notice."

"Not a problem, Hope. After all the work you've done for us, it seemed only fair."

"Might not seem so fair in a moment," the shorter woman said with a sad smile. "I apologise, but I've got a lot to dump on you very quickly. I'm required rather urgently elsewhere. Anyway, I -"

"Uh, is this about that intergalactic war?" Haigen interrupted. "Because if that's going to come our way I'd like to know about it."

Hope stopped walking, turning to glare angrily at Haigen before her face softened. Taking a calming breath, she quickly shook her head. "No, no, this is something different. VIP extraction. Don't worry too much about it. Anyway, the reason I called you is because I wanted to make you an offer."

She resumed her brisk walk through the spacedock terminal., leaving Charlotte and Haigen almost jogging to keep up.

"Those at the top have decided to establish a more permanent facility in this sector, and begin tapping into local economies more directly. It's a strategy that's seen some success in other areas and we're hoping it'll turn out well here, too. Think of it as like us opening a local branch office."

Charlotte nodded along. "And you want us involved, in some way?"

"Essentially, I want you two running it," Hope clarified. "You've got the local knowledge and understanding we lack, and good heads on your shoulders. And I understand you were promised a cut of the Bright Foundation, before they went belly up. Consider this compensation for us not making that happen."

"Faith did mention giving me the ruins, once. I didn't think she was serious."

"Well, she was. The main thing I'd want from you is executive direction. Our generated AI are good at what they do but sometimes their problem solving methods are… counterintuitive. We'd put an upload AI in charge, but… it's not feasible. Besides, I'd like to think that you should be given the chance to control your own fate. Not fair if we roll in and take over your lives, you know? Not until you fuck up so bad we have to."

"I'd rather avoid that, I think," Charlotte hedged. "And I'm assuming you feel the same."

Hope simply nodded. "Now, obviously we're a very powerful group, we eat moons and terraform planets and create monsters a thousand times worse than the Lumes just to see if we can. Giving you unrestricted access to that kind of technology is not on the cards - our AI will happily run the business for you, but the other thing they'll do is restrict you. No nanite fabricators or infinite energy generators besides those I provide, no automated war fleets or von neumann mining drones. I ask only that you use the tech, and the money, in a way that benefits humanity on the whole. If you don't..."

She trailed off, but Charlotte didn't need her to elaborate. She and Haigen had seen Faith fight, before, and she couldn't imagine Hope being any less dangerous if pushed.

"If you don't want the job you don't have to take it, of course," Hope continued, seemingly unaware of the sour face Charlotte was pulling. "We can figure something else out. I just thought I'd open the offer to you first."

They were almost outside, now, stepping out onto the tarmac where half a dozen ships of various kinds were parked. Hope's enormous rocket ship was tucked away in one corner, alongside a sleeker ship Charlotte recognized as one of Faith's retrofitted Bright Foundation designs. Under the ship's nose, where the access ramp would be, stood two more of Hope's robotic servants. Hope came to a halt not far from the door, so the three of them could remain in the shade as they wrapped up.

"Should you decide to take the job, Decadent Melody and Serene Ascension, the AI in charge of the project, will be happy to get you up to speed - they're keeping an eye on the Avatars whilst they get things set up in the Loek System, so let them know if you want to chat. If you decide you don't want that responsibility, again, let them know. They'll pass the message up the chain and we'll figure something else out."

Charlotte turned to Haigen, who if anything just looked even more confused than she felt.

"I understand if you don't want to make a choice now - it's a big decision and I did kind of spring it on you out of the blue. Any questions, any concerns, please, talk to those two, they'll help as best they're able, but I really, really have to be going."

Haigen seemed upset, momentarily, before he nodded with an air of acceptance. Straightening his posture and raising his chin, he reached out to Hope with an open hand. "We understand. Thanks for helping us out, and doing all that for us. You run off and save the galaxy. Do good for your sister, you hear?"

Charlotte nodded her agreement. "And pass on my regards to Faith."

Hope bit her lip, but took his hand and shook it anyway. "Thank you, Haigen. I'll try."

#=#=#=#=#​

"Man, you didn't hear about the magic show?"

Charlotte shook her head. "No? Something impressive?"

"For sure," Craige said, nodding enthusiastically. "She just appeared, on this big stage that came out of nowhere - super impressive even before the show started! She had this robot helper, and they were doing all these amazing tricks!"

Charlotte shot Haigen a concerned glance. He shrugged, looking bewildered.

"She kept making things appear out of nowhere - she reached behind her back, and pulled out this huge chainsaw, like, almost as big as she was. And then sat down on a chair and the robot cut her in half, and dragged the two halves to other sides of the stage and she was totally fine!"

"You realize that's a pretty simple trick with a person in a box, right?" Haigen attempted to interject.

"No, no, but it wasn't, though - it was just a thin chair, so there was no one in it, and we saw her sit down and then get cut in half! No way they could fake something like that! And she just kept on talking like nothing was wrong!"

He was just babbling now, words streaming out of his mouth almost too fast for Charlotte to keep track of about apparently every single one of the ridiculous stunts Hope had allegedly pulled.

"And don't even get me started on the elephants!"

Charlotte had already heard quite enough about the elephants. They'd made a very powerful impression on the crowd. Videos of it were all over the network. The song used as backing music had basically topped the charts overnight. Frankly, she thought it was a bit over the top, but everyone else seemed to love it.

To her dismay, 'everyone else' included her boyfriend.

Politely excusing herself from Craige's company (he was too deep in his elephant-based rambling to care) she passed through the nightclub, Haigen in tow, and the two of them entered their little hacker den for what would likely be the last time.

"What do you think, Char?"

She looked around the now-empty space. Their screens and computers and servers had been carted away, the posters taken down and the furniture dismantled and removed. Only a few plexatic boxes remained, packed with miscellaneous junk, lost clothes and "Going to miss this place. Penthouse is nice, but this is… intimate."

Haigen huffed. "Sure, one way to put it.... Not what I meant though," he continued, shaking his head.

"What did you mean, then?"

"I meant Hope. Building the Blue District, giving you part of her fake company or whatever? This whole 'intergalactic war' she was on about, the mission she's run off too? It's… a lot. Even for a week"

"It is," she agreed, nodding. "I get the impression she's not… all there. She seemed very enthusiastic and very serious about 'making everything better'-" she made quote marks with one hand. "But then she also seems very happy to take time off, and just as quick to take off, but we don't really know what's happening wherever she went, so I don't want to judge. I don't remember Faith taking any breaks, when she was around, though."

"She did have more to do."

"Mm. Maybe. The company… I don't know. I don't know I'm the best choice to give that kind of power - if that's even what I'm being given. Not sure how much those AI are going to bottleneck me. I feel like she'd probably be better off assigning one of them to run it - local knowledge can only go so far, right? And their… what did she call it, 'counter-intuitive problem solving'? It can't be that bad."

"She seems to think it'd be bad enough she'd rather have us in charge."

Charlotte shrugged. "I guess we'll see. Who knows, maybe she'll come back again after she's done saving the galaxy or whatever."

"Given how long she took to get here in the first place, I wouldn't count on it," Haigen replied with a casual shrug. "You know what I found weird, though?"

"What?"

"The names. Seems to me, if there was any sort of meaning behind them, that they were the wrong way around. Faith showed up at a bad time, kept us going until things got better, and left. And after sticking through some rough stuff since, it's Hope that shows up in the end and makes things really work out?"

"Even if the names do have some deeper meaning, I don't think that's it. She said she was an upload, so maybe that was just her name, before she became an AI? I get what you mean, though. Feels like… I don't know. Hope should be fleeting, but Faith lasts forever? Would have been more appropriate."

Haigen nodded, crouching down to grab a crate of assorted data drives. "Sure. Something like that."

 

[Faith]

Three interludes? Hah. No. Not happening. Have a regular, plot-progressing chapter instead. Tastes a bit like fish.

#=#=#=#=#​

I stepped through the portal into a Hub busier than it had ever been. Not that it appeared so, not in the solace of the Portal Spire, but I could feel it thrumming in my head as factories churned and nanites swarmed. Half a dozen AI were working in concert to oversee the mess, and self-contained storage rooms throughout the system were filling with units of every stripe, from Dox bots and Gagea scout craft to even the Colossus city-smashers.

"Explain," I demanded of the air, and huffed as those same AI scrambled over each other to address me. For a few nanoseconds they fought amongst themselves before conceding Pocket Change's superior rank, and he answered.

Commander Hope. I understand the situation isn't exactly as the emergency contingencies described, but I instated Contingency Raven anyway - not just because of the missing Core, although obviously that's a concern and Raven will to some degree help address it, but also because of something else.

I let my BioAvatar slump to the ground in the Portal Spire, teleporting it to my private room as an afterthought as I settled into a purely digital existence. Something else? More important than the Core?

I doubt it, Commander Hope, but dangerous enough that I might have considered Raven even without the loss of the Core. Stargazes Alone has been analysing the passive data feeds from the other Portals, and she believes there may be a serious conflict developing in World Two.

Ah. Of course. FTL? Well, I didn't - Faith didn't exactly leave the place in the best shape when she left. Impatience, ignorance, apathy, and probably more than a little sheer incompetence. For now, we focus on the primary issue. The Core?

Pale Martyr, popping in from the World Four network, sent over a sizeable file of recordings, which I quickly reviewed. Full spectrum analysis, phase sensors, every kind of camera and recording device we had access to. As a security measure, every portal was watched vigilantly by the most observant machinery in the universe, and I had access to records of every second of the incident.

They proved unfortunately unhelpful. None of the data, from either side of the Portal, showed any signs of abnormality, any outside influence or interference. Not Fusou, not Gamma, not the ghost of sister dearest or any other phenomena I could detect. That would have been alarming, in other circumstances.

We already examined that as closely as possible, Commander. Pocket Change offered as I sifted through the records. Nothing.

I fully agreed with his assessment. Not just because I trusted him to do his job, although I did, but also because I was pretty sure I knew who was responsible anyway. The one guy who knew the portals better than I did, the guy who ostensibly designed them in the first place. ROB. Whatever his actual name was. If he had one.

And combined with the new information about the FTL world having some kind of conflict brewing? Given I'd last heard from ROB there - or at least, I was pretty sure it was ROB even if I didn't realise at the time, - I couldn't help but draw the conclusion there was some kind of reality warping fuckery going down.

Then again, given the state of the place when we'd left, maybe the FTL universe was catching fire of its own accord.

Regardless of all that, the FTL universe would have been my next destination anyway. That it was both my best lead in tracking down the missing AI Core and potentially about to erupt into war again only made it more important for me to get out there.

Alright, then. We'll shelve the Core issue for now. Stargazes Alone, you were observing the situation in World Two?

Surveillance operations there are within my portfolio, yes, the intelligence operative confirmed. As requested, I've been limited to purely passive observations until recently, but I did detect a spike in various emissions across frequencies that seem out of place based on my estimates of their projected technology tree. Per Raven, I've sent out active intelligence gathering units, and I'm compiling their reports now.

She passed across a few reports of her own, and skimming through them I had to come to the same conclusion.

The FTL universe had been divided, broadly, into power blocs organized by race. The Humans had been amongst the biggest, alongside the sentient energy beings, the Zoltan. Most of the other races had smaller, more disorganized power blocs on the fringes, or were folded into the larger blocs as protectorates.

The Engi had been one such smaller bloc, the nanite-based race apparently rather new to space travel when Humanity had encountered, and subsequently vassalized them. They advanced quickly, technologically speaking, even if their industry wasn't quite up to par, which lead to them having a lot of ramshackle but functional machines and vessels.

After I'd essentially removed Humanity as an independent power through an embarrassingly incompetent chain of events I had no desire to recall, the Engi had by necessity stopped leaping ahead so much - that kind of thing was difficult to do when you relied on the industrial and economic capacity of a now non-existent neighbour - and turned their focus inward, to develop their own mining claims and manufacturing centres.

Very effectively, it seemed. Too effectively, even.

They'd flown ahead by leaps and bounds in a very short time, judging by the insane increase in communications traffic, energy emissions, and military presence.

They'd skipped merrily to the head of the pack in terms of scientific development, and then just kept going. And going. And going. Way past the level of anyone else in the FTL universe.

Commander, Alone interrupted. I've just received a priority report from reconnaissance vessel SA-19. You should see this.

I was already bringing up the report.

And already not liking what I was reading. I pinged Moving Object, and felt him open the file himself.

Confirmed match for Faith Foundation Grade Zero nanite fabrication tech!? He exclaimed but a fraction of a second later. How'd they get their hands on that!?

The fact that there was a war brewing in that chunk of multiverse made it a priority. That it was my best lead for finding the missing AI Core made it even higher priority. This latest report may as well have confirmed the location of said Core, although I had to wonder, if that was the case, why ROB had elected to send the Core back in time as well as to another world.

Relation to the missing Core or no, though, the fact they had access to Grade Zero tech - of all the Grade Zero tech, the nanite fabrication tech, - that alone elevated the situation well beyond 'high priority', right to 'oh shit stop that now' territory.

I reached across the network, feeling the ever growing weight of my new army, endless and ever expanding, a tide of blue metal building up in staging points all around the system. I noted the unfortunate absence of Nephthys or even Osiris Commanders amongst the immense build-up, and bit back a curse even as I realized it was entirely my own fault. Faith and I had never assumed we'd need to produce the things in large numbers.

Back then, we'd never considered giving them out - it just screamed 'dangerous', no matter how many safeguards we'd enforced upon our AI legions. But back then there'd been two of us, and we'd been a hell of a lot more confident about our prowess, for whatever misguided reason.

Luckily, we did stockpile a lot of Resource Cores - well, they were mostly in use in the hollowed-out core of one of Hub's moons, but the point was that we had them. And they, more than anything else, were the biggest time sink in the construction of a Commander chassis.

It was a simple matter to disconnect a couple from the moon and bring them down to the Portal Spire, a triviality to wrap them in their own Nephthys shells. Three Nephthys chassis, for three Commander AI. Well, one Commander AI and a couple of Halsey-Pattern AI.

Ave Britannia, still here? I asked as I slipped into the metal shell, an ever-disconcerting experience.

Yes, Commander, she responded, pleasantly. You've orders for me?

Sure do. Grab a Nephthys. Moving Object, the third one is yours.

Commander?

Say again?

You heard me, both of you. I'm pretty sure I know who's to blame for this, but for whatever reason, we've got a missing and potentially highly-aggressive AI core, a machine race suddenly toying with Grade Zero technology, and what looks like it may turn out to be one hell of a war on the horizon. If either of you see that as a coincidence, you're fired.

For just a few seconds I got the impression the two AI were just staring, shell-shocked, but they got their acts together quickly and nabbed a Nephthys each, and the three of us stood side-by-side.

So, marching orders. We find out what the hell's going on, we figure out where they're getting their Grade Zero toys from, and we do whatever's necessary to make it stop, as quickly as possible. Questions?

None that can't wait, Object replied uneasily.

Ave Britannia hummed her agreement, but said nothing further. I got the impression that both of the AI were deep in their own thoughts, but I had neither the inclination nor the time to pry.

Alright, then. Let's roll.

 

[Faith]

Hah, 'weekdays'. Oh, I crack myself up sometimes. Anyway, this again. Bringing in some of the loose plot threads from FiSF (and boy there are a lot, where FTL is concerned) to see if I can't make something a little interesting out of them. Unfortunately this necessitated me going back and re-reading the FTL arc of FiSF, and I'm gunna be 110% honest here - that, more than uni, is the reason this took so long. I put it off a lot and did very little re-reading at a time, because it was actively painful to do so. Anyway, that's done now and hopefully I'll never have to go back again, so hooray!

#=#=#=#=#​

Stargazes Alone had done a stellar job of keeping tabs on the movers and shakers of the FTL universe, even when restricted to passive observation, and now that Contingency Raven was in effect, her Rider corvettes were swarming all over the galaxy, feeding a constant stream of information that gave me an effectively real-time view of the galaxy at large.

Most of it seemed how I expected it to be - business as usual throughout the fringe, Lanius staking claims on the ruined and abandoned systems left desolate during the Federate Civil War, Zoltan being prissy stuck-up jerks in their sectors, the Slugs just chilling in the nebulas and watching the rest of the galaxy from afar.

But the Engi… they were getting ahead of themselves.

Their territory was positively swarming with ships - and not the ramshackle, barely-spaceworthy flotillas they used to field. Some of their vessels, particularly the larger ones, looked a lot like those formerly used by the Federation. They were probably retrofitted designs, I reasoned, since the Engi had been allies of the Federation and probably would have taken to using their ship chassis if they'd ever gotten their own shipyards up to snuff before I'd swooped in and wrecked everything.

Really, there were far too many ships about, based on Alone's projections of their industrial capacity. And that wasn't mentioning the vast number of orbital installations they had, all of similarly high quality and uniform design.

As stealthed Rider corvettes scanned their systems, the cause became ever more apparent. There was a planet, just one, near the center of Engi territory, where their entire brand new industry seemed to be based.

The orbital shipyards, voidcraft, and installations scattered through that solar system represented more minerals than that one colonized planet could have hoped to produce, and from what Alone had picked up from their various sensor sweeps, this was the origin point of the Engi's sudden economic boom.

Even if Alone hadn't already highlighted the system as the location she'd initially detected the stolen nanite tech, I'd have picked it as the target location. It was too obviously built-up. A colony didn't go from 'backwater mining operation' to 'heart of interstellar industry' in five years and change, not without some serious trump cards.

Trump cards like Progenitor nanite tech.

I brought a map of the system to the forefront of the Command Network, and directed Ave Britannia and Moving Object towards it. It was a smaller system, and relatively barren. Red giant star, two planets far from the habitable zone, and a belt of asteroids and debris that ringed the system. Both planets were littered with sprawling industrial zones - to the point that they probably accounted for more surface area than the natural surface. The larger of the two planets, drifting a chilly eight point four astronomical units from the star, was the more densely packed of the two, and the most built up - the logical target for our little investigative effort.

And all throughout the system, of course, stood fleets and stations of every shape and scope.

Initial thoughts, I began. This is the core system where their Progenitor-grade nanites are currently being either stored, manufactured, or both. Our primary objective, currently, is to figure out exactly where these nanites are coming from. Even with the blueprints, the Engi shouldn't have the technical capacity to manufacture them for decades yet, let alone fill in the blanks with their power supplies and processing units. So, how did they get them? I asked rhetorically. Reverse engineered tech? An unidentified Commander?

We answer that, first. If it's a Commander and they're friendly, I'll attempt to talk them down. If it's a hostile Commander, or stolen and reverse engineered tech from our last visit, then we shut the operation down immediately and with force.

The two AI pinged their agreement.

Should it come to a fight, Commander, what are the rules of engagement? Ave Britannia, ever the admiral, inquired.

If it's got nanites, blast it, total annihilation. We are NOT leaving this stuff around for any old locals to stumble over and abuse for their own gains. I don't care if it's a building, a station, a ship or a person. Not one scrap of nanotech is getting left behind, alright? If it doesn't contain nano-tech, simply disabling the ship should suffice.

Understood. What about non-Engi combatants? We know their current tensions with the Zoltan are high - if the Zoltan see us launch an attack and decide that's a good time to launch their own, or have already made plans along the same lines, how do we treat them?

If they have nanites, blast them. They can't harm us otherwise, they just don't have the firepower, so if they're not at risk of nabbing Grade Zero tech, again, just let them be, or non-lethally disable them.

Ion Weaponry with a side of Plasma Cannons, then. Affirmative, Commander.

Truth be told I was a little uncertain of those orders. I'd killed before, sure. Hell, I'd killed a lot of people, now. But even so there was that nagging feeling of doubt, that maybe there was some way I could do this without violence.

Much as I hated to say it, every non-violent method I'd ever tried had failed. That spoke more, I felt, of my own lack of particular talent for diplomacy than the overwhelming utility of violence, but it was a historical precedent I didn't want to ignore.

Alright. Ave Britannia. As soon as we jump in system, prepare for a full-scale fleet engagement. The Engi Assembly will probably not be too happy about our intrusion. Moving Object, you're with me. We're teleporting straight into orbit of their built-up facility, here. We're going to ask very nicely for them to explain, and, failing that, we're going to snoop around and see what we can find ourselves.

To that end I was already going over the massive roster of units Pocket Change and his subordinates had ordered the construction of. Most of it - the ground-based units, especially, - would likely prove useless. Orbital supremacy was far more useful in a combat situation than any number of survey craft and artillery bots, and we had plenty in the way of orbital supremacy, both strike craft and corvettes built at the Hub and larger craft built on-site at the now-recommissioned factories spread throughout the empty void of the FTL universe.

But some, such as the hyper-compact Avatar units, were perfect for the infiltration role for which they were needed.

Really, Commander? Object asked as I perused the inventory of death-bots. Is this not one of the occasions where we might find more utility in diplomacy?

Past experience with the Engi has informed me that they're a bunch of duplicitous jerks, and they say that turnabout is fair play. Plus, every second we waste arguing with them is a second they spend probably making more nanites that we'll have to hunt down and kill later. Plus they'll likely send warnings to any other nanite-harbouring installations if they figure out what's up, and then we'll have to go play whack-a-mole.

I… mostly understood that, but I'll follow your lead, Commander.

I returned my focus to my Commander Chassis, still staring idly into the Dimensional Gate. The plan was made, the army was arriving, and time was slowly ticking on. There was no point in waiting any further.

Ave Britannia, Moving Object, ready to move out?

Affirmative, Commander, they answered again in sync. Together, we stepped into the void.

 

[Faith]

Trying to get back into the swing of things. See how we go.

=#=#=#=#=#=​

The Loki was a newer, simpler model of cruiser. In the past, I'd cribbed design aesthetics from Halo and Planetary Annihilation when building the Faith Foundation's fleet, going for very geometric designs and lots of big, flat slabs of armour. Instead, this build borrowed more from Star Trek, if anything - just a flattened disk, only the slightest protrusions on the rear marking the engine blocks, the one component I couldn't feasibly hide beneath its glistening silver-blue hull.

Guns, of course, were easy to hide - individual turrets hid just beneath the armour, ready to be teleported a scant few feet to the hull in the event of combat. Like most of my ships it was also heavily defended, capable of FTL travel and stealth, and possessed powerful enough sensors to detect and track every non-stealthed moving object in the system larger than a basketball.

And, for no practical purpose besides a slight hint of deception, it had a little bridge, nothing more than a single room with an enormous window to look out of and some cursory comforts like chairs, life support, and hologram emitters. It was there my humanoid form stood, even as I focused the majority of my attention on the far more important task of coordinating a multi-solar-system invasion against a galactic power.

Moving Object, back temporarily in his souped-up SiMo guise, stood by my Avatar's side on the bridge. We've almost arrived, Commander. Dropping out- he paused his transmission as the ship shuddered. Now.

From the moment we entered the system, the Engi knew we were there. For all the variations of stealth tech we'd swiped, there was little we could do to reduce the assorted radiation soup that came with dropping out of Phase Space, and even if there had been, we weren't exactly trying.

Even as a few of the local defence ships and stations oriented to face my cruiser, a facility on the planet's surface sent us a hail.

"Unidentified Vessel, this is Military Orbital Command. You are intruding on the sovereign territory of the Engi Assembly without due permission. Identify yourself and state your business immediately."

"Hello! My name's Hope. I'm part of a special task force investigating the potential spread of some incredibly dangerous, Grade Zero technology that may be occurring in this sector. If you don't mind, I'd like to take a look around some of your industrial plants?"

"You are an intruder of both sovereign territory and restricted access military zones. You will leave the territory of the Engi Assembly immediately, and pay fines for entering a restricted access area approximating but no less than sixty five thousand Federation Caegers per minute of intrusion."

"I'm sorry, sir, but you don't have the authority or the firepower to persuade me to leave this alone. We just need to know if you possess any Grade Zero technology, and, if so, how you came to possess it, and-"

"You will comply or you will be destroyed."

I, of course, had no intention of doing either. It was clear they had no intention of talking, and so every second wasted engaging with them was a second they could have spent propagating Grade Zero technology throughout the galaxy and I really, really did not want that to happen. I already knew where the nanites were coming from, or at least, I had narrowed the search area down from 'solar system' to 'small city-sized industrial complex', and I had no compunctions about solving the problem with violence, subterfuge, and superior firepower.

After all, solve a man's problem by talking, solve them for a day. Solve a man's problem with violence, solve them forever.

That's how that saying goes, right?

I breathed a heavy sigh and closed the line with the Engi, opening one instead with the rest of my forces, lurking just beyond the Engi's borders in the depths of space. "Britannia, this is Hope. They've neglected to play ball. Plan remains the same. Go hard, go fast. If it's got nanites, total annihilation. Otherwise, shoot to stun."

"Affirmative, Commander. Wrangling the fleets now."

The Engi Assembly had spared no effort when it came to defending this system. Sixteen fleets and hundreds of individual ships ranging from light freighters to dreadnoughts had already been scrambling to react to my intrusion, but now they were seriously hustling. Apparently me hanging up on them had only pissed them off. Orbital platforms which had previously been lazily rolling now rapidly twisted in place to gain firing solutions on the Loki, thrusters burning hot.

It wouldn't have been enough, even if I hadn't called Britannia's forces in. The Loki had enough concealed Super Awesome Friendship Emitters - even now I had to giggle at the name, just a little, - to scar a planet if they all focused fire, and there wasn't a single ship in the Engi fleet that compared even remotely favourably to a planet in terms of durability. Plus, between the stealth system and the powerful engines, the Loki could have run circles around the opposing fleets for weeks.

None of that mattered, though, because I had called Britannia's forces in, and she, like me, had a preference for superior firepower.

Ten thousand Asgard-class cruisers burst from Phase Space, tearing through holes in reality like some demonic force and setting upon the enemy with gusto. It wasn't a fight, or even really an execution. Just, one moment there were Engi. And the next, as an immense white-hot glow lit the system, there were not.

Orbital platforms melted away into clouds of ionized gas. Fleets blinked out of existence, ships blown wholesale into chunks no bigger than the nanites that had undoubtedly crafted them. How many Engi perished, I dared not estimate.

"Ave Britannia, reporting. System secure. Moving to next target."

A handful of her cruisers remained idle in system as the rest of her force jumped away through Phase Space, moving on to wipe out the next cluster of nanite-bolstered Engi forces.

I, meanwhile, turned my attention to the surface. Already, the Engi network was filling with requests for information, confused exclamations and wild theorizing as to what the hell had just happened to the metal curtain that had once hung over the planet.

They were in a state of disarray on the surface, and I intended to use that to my advantage. Two Nephthys Commanders teleported to the surface, weapons armed and firing before the Engi around us had even noticed our arrival.

Plasma bombs and laser lances split the air, melting away walls and defensive installations, whilst the combined E-War Suites of two Commander AI Cores set about gaining access to every device they could connect with. Which, given the Engi had this whole 'networked intelligence' thing going on, was most of them.

Not that the Engi's 'networked intelligence' shtick held a candle to the Geth, but that only worked in my favour.

It was with relief, and certainly no complaints, that I found the Engi's arrogance working in my favour even more - sure, they knew what black boxing was and how to make closed systems, and as far as I could tell, the factory where my sensors were detecting the largest concentration of nanites was smack bang in the middle of one giant blacksite, presumably one packing its own network and possibly even some offline computers, depending on how security-paranoid the Engi were feeling.

But what they didn't hide in the blacksite was their message history. Or, well, it might have been hidden in the blacksite, but their high level military communication buoys had copies of every message they'd sent on, and that included a lot of information about Project Divinity, which was a bit of a presumptuous thing to call a nanite project even if it did work as a reference on multiple levels.

It gave me a nice timelog of when the project began, regular status updates, requests for permission to begin strip mining the planet's moon - explaining the missing chunk of hemisphere, at least, - and, most importantly, the information that the project had been started by an Engi 'Advanced Recon Intelligence Agent', designation 'Unit', based on samples of technology he'd acquired from Faith. Well, me.

Fantastic.

On the bright side, that meant I probably wouldn't be dealing with either hostile Commanders or a hostile ROB. Just the products of my own short-sightedness and stupidity.

As much as it pained me, I could definitely handle that.

 

[Faith]

Man, my favourite bit about writing is when you have Scene A, and Scene C, but Scene B just refuses to come out of its hole.

Wait, did I say favourite? I meant the exact opposite of that.

Also, if anyone cares, I apologise for the delay. I had to reread the FTL section of FiSF again for this chapter and that was a physically painful experience for me. Fortunately, this chapter marks the beginning of the end of both the FTL arc AND completely-idiot-ball-laden-Hope. Unfortunately, it's only the beginning of the end. = (

@mograinya A not inaccurate assessment. For all that the Man In The White Suit is a petulant brat of a god-like entity, he's still, in some ways, very intelligent. His plan to create an easily manipulable and violent 'subordinate' (fire-and-forget minion) has by all accounts worked pretty well - almost too well, really, since he almost nailed a 3-for-1 deal. It's just that he didn't quite think things all the way through with regards to what exactly 'easily manipulable and violent' would look like. Given he shares a lot of characteristics with me (to the point I would consider him almost an SI himself) this should probably not be a huge surprise.

=#=#=#=#=#=​

Moving Object was unusually silent as we romped through the industrial zone towards the Engi's alleged military blacksite. I'd expected, at the very least, some sort of complaint about the horrendous levels of civilian infrastructure we were frying beyond uselessness with every EMP shot, or at least a snide remark about my lack of commitment to attempting the diplomatic approach.

Instead, he was all cold efficiency, blasting a path through every barrier, swatting away defenders with pulsed ion bursts, and stepping daintily over every ground unit stupid enough to try and stop two giant doombots from reaching their destination.

Part of me found that a little unsettling - he'd been, if not necessarily a chatterbox, at least willing to speak up every now and then if he felt he had something to say. The rest of me just chose to appreciate that he'd stopped questioning my orders.

The two of us made good time on our approach - the fact the Engi didn't have anything on the planet big enough to even inconvenience us, let alone anything close enough to even get to us in time, was a pretty big reason for that - and in less than a minute we'd broken in to the blacksite proper. It looked, from the outside, like any of the other factories that littered the cityscape, with blocky towers and huge warehouses divided by large cooling towers and the occasional communications array, and a maze of criss-crossing pipes linking everything together.

Once we ripped open the front wall of the main building with a nanite swarm and poked our heads in, the differences became a little more apparent.

As far up as I could see, stacked all the way to the ceiling of what I realized was more of a building-shaped shell than an actual building, were rows and rows and rows of computers. Narrow walkways ringed the interior, providing the Engi the limited access they needed to keep everything ticking along.

I set the E-War suite to work and waited. Unbelievably vast stores of data became mine to access, and I set about to work. "Object. The only building with the same security level as this tower is the warehouse directly behind it. Take a look, would you? Money says that's where the nanites are."

Money, and most of the records I was reading through, if my interpretation of 'Divinity Secondary Data Archive/Storage Facility' was even remotely correct. That did unfortunately imply that this was something akin to an off-site backup, keeping copies of all the important stuff in case something happened to the actual facility, but that was hardly a concern.

Skimming one of the archived records, I quickly identified something quite alarming - a report, labelled under the highest of security clearances and secured with enough cybersecurity to dissuade Hollywood's greatest hackers. And it was labelled 'Alchera Incident'.

Given the most immediately obvious feature of the moon Alchera was the fact that most of the northern hemisphere looked like someone had taken a planet-scaled pickaxe to it with gusto, the fact that there had been an 'Incident' there immediately set me on edge.

As well secured as the documents may have been, the Engi didn't hold a candle to the Progenitors, and I was digging into the meat of the file in moments. And it did not look good.

=#=#=#=#=#=​

Project: DIVINITY
Report: 352.APPEND
Title: CONTAMINATION EVENT 218B / QUARANTINE BREACH EVENT 1
Classification: MAXIMUM
Author: AUTOMATICALLY GENERATED REPORT

Attached are all security recordings, site communications, installation announcements, instrument measurements, equipment logs and subnet messages generated:
- TWO {2} PLANETARY CYCLES BEFORE {CONTAMINATION EVENT 218B}
- DURING {CONTAMINATION EVENT 218B}
- THIRTY SIX {36} PLANETARY MICROYCLES BETWEEN {CONTAMINATION EVENT 218B} AND {QUARANTINE BREACH EVENT 1}
- DURING {QUARANTINE BREACH EVENT 1}
- TWO {2} PLANETARY CYCLES AFTER {QUARANTINE BREACH EVENT 1}

Attachments have been sorted by {PRIORITY}, {RELEVANCE [CONTAMINATION EVENT 218B, QUARANTINE BREACH EVENT 1]}, {TIMESTAMP}

Attachment 1: FABRICATION CHAMBER SECURITY FEED 9312A
Attachment 2: FABRICATION CONTROL NODE SYSTEM LOG 9312A
Attachment 3: DISTRESS BEACON LOG {Sec.Op 'Bravo' 47347237309218233B}
Attachment 4: FABRICATION CHAMBER SECURITY FEED 9312B
Attachment 5: FABRICATION CONTROL NODE SYSTEM LOG 9312B
Attachment 6: SECURITY CENTER SECURITY FEED 9312B
Attachment 7: POWER GRID ANALYTICS 9312
{SEE 18512 MORE RESULTS}



Accessing File: FABRICATION CHAMBER SECURITY FEED 9312A
Beginning Playback.

=#=#=#=#=#=​

The Advanced Recon Intelligence Agent known to the galaxy as Unit could almost have been mistaken for a statue - his composite nanites had locked into position, providing a totally unmoving frame for the enhanced optical system he'd reformed his head into.

The Security Head known as Bravo thought the practice was rather pointless, given that even in a standard configuration, Engi eyesight was good enough to pick a single nanite out of the swarm. Zooming in could only reveal so much detail, and Bravo at least lacked the engineering knowledge to make heads or tails of the details either way.

Not only was it pointless, but it was technically against protocol.

"Unit. You have been advised. By Assembly directive, access to the Fabrication Chamber is not permitted outside of scheduled inspections. Please return to the Security Center and resume your duties."

The ARIA turned to the site's chief of security, the nanites in his head shuffling around as he returned his visual receptors to their standard configuration. "Bravo. Your dedication to your protocol is appreciated. I trust in your security measures to ensure the security of the site from external threats."

"Directives from The Assembly are clear," Bravo reiterated. "Your assignment here is as information security agent. You are not here to observe the N1 Strain directly."

"Affirmative." Unit turned back to the inch thick glass wall, gazing down at the pit full of nanites buzzing around energetically and otherwise ignoring him.

"Please return to the Security Center, immediately." Bravo continued when it became apparent Unit didn't plan on moving. "Or I will be forced to remove you."

"Understood." Unit turned his attention back to the Security Head. "That will not be necessary. I will leave momentarily. My task is almost complete."

"Your… task?"

Before the intelligence agent could answer, a distant blast rocked the facility. Overhead illumination flickered and panic alarms began to sound. They were followed, less than a second later, by a second blast, and the entire facility was plunged into darkness.

"Power's out!" Bravo realized, even as he reached for his Ion Blaster. "I suspect enemy action. Are the security measures holding?"

Unit turned to look at the display next to the viewing window and quickly realized it had gone completely blank. "Security Measures have been disabled," Unit reported.

"How? They're on their own power grid. The control system must have been subverted." Bravo raised his blaster and turned towards the door of the chamber.

"Affirmative," Unit agreed, retrieving a small laser weapon from his core. "This is the work of subversive units within the facility."

Bravo sighed, reaching out for the facility subnet and finding nothing. "We should stay here and ensure the N1s are secure - our attackers have completely disabled all security and communications, so we'll be on our own. The subversive elements were thorough."

"Affirmative," Unit agreed again as he fired into Bravo's unsuspecting form. "I was."

The scatter laser was of Human design, a relic of their initial, brief war with the Engi. Despite its age, it was a well manufactured and well maintained piece of equipment, one specifically designed to inflict significant casualties amongst an Engi cluster's nanite complement, rapidly destroying units that could otherwise shrug off more conventional weapons with limited difficulty.

Bravo's half-melted form collapsed into a pile of dust and dead nanites before he had time to comprehend his own death, and Unit was left alone to achieve his objective in peace.

Stepping through the now-unlocked door into the Nanite chamber, Unit once again took stock of his prize. Sixteen thousand Pure-Strain nanites, carefully recovered from starships across the galaxy and collected in secret by the Assembly's ARIAs over the course of months, and close to two hundred million of their imperfect N1-Strain replicas.

Under the watchful eye of a dozen quantum intelligences, the single highest concentration of computational power on galactic record, research into the retrieved Pure-Strain devices had lead to advances in robotics research and nano-scale manufacturing both, and the N1-Strain represented the forefront of that research.

More advanced than any nanite the Engi had ever developed, the N1-Strain required manufacturing so precise that only other N1s, or the Pures they were derived from, could even begin the process.

The Engi Assembly had already put them to use in a limited capacity, serving as roving repair units aboard warships across the fleet, but their true purpose, as far as the Assembly was concerned, was to usher in a new Golden Cycle.

Unit had a similar, but much more personal, idea in mind.

=#=#=#=#=#=​

I filtered through the rest of the records just as quickly as I'd gone through the first few, but it was already obvious enough what had happened on the moon of Alchera.

Before the power had cut out and interrupted all the recordings, there had been two regular Engi in the Fabrication Chamber. And after the power had returned, there was just a rapidly expanding swarm of nanites for a few seconds before the camera feeds cut out a second time. They never came back after that.

Progenitor nanites were not, strictly speaking, designed to operate independently of a Fabrication Arm. In fact, without one, or, at least, something to take over the power and control requirements otherwise fulfilled by one, Progenitor nanites were completely useless.

Somehow the Engi had figured out both how to power them and how to control them, and with that knowledge, and a swarm of highly cooperative military-industrial construction nanites, it was fairly easy to snowball. Build nanites until you reach the limit of your capacity to power or control them, build a new power generator or computer system to raise that limit, build more nanites.

Super simple stuff. Von Neumann 101.

The Engi had measures in place, failsafes in case they lost control of the nanites and they began recklessly self replicating. Those failsafes included twelve wings of tactical bombers with ion munitions, six thermonuclear warheads buried under the site, and a series planet-scale phase field generators capable of shunting half the moon into phase space.

The first two had been subverted before they even had the chance to fire, and by the time the phase field generators had spooled up, the entire research facility had been consumed. Alchera had been uninhabited, thankfully, so the losses were restricted to 'only' the several hundred on-site personnel, but the phase field generators were a temporary measure - the Engi didn't have the resources to power such a huge system indefinitely.

Based on the after action reports I was skimming through, the Engi expected the phase space bubble to collapse any time in the next twelve hours, and when it did, the entire moon-sized blob of nanites would be free to start snowballing again - and given that the person ostensibly in control of the grey goo was a recon and intelligence commando, and they had several wings worth of spacecraft to work with, they would likely return in a shell of starship armour covered in guns.

The Engi probably would have been able to deal with it. Depending on the exact mechanism they, and Unit, were using to control the nanites, the Assembly might even have been able to do so without risking their ships becoming further infection vectors for the grey goo. They had certainly possessed enough ships to reduce a moon to rubble - a veritable armada of warships of every shape and size, with firepower to flatten a planet with nukes to spare.

I'd have given them, at least, even odds.

You know, before their chances of winning had gone up in flames - right alongside their fleet

And that was entirely my fault. I had to resit the urge to slap myself in the face.

"God. Fucking. Damnit."

=#=#=#=#=#=​