It Always Starts With One... Right? [PA/Multicross/SI]

[Grounders10]

OI! This bandwagon's still ticking along right? Got room for one more? Well we'll find out. Move over and let's get started!

Also I blame @Battleship_Fusou for this. It was her story that got me to commit. Also @Ramble you're to blame as well. In a good way. Wonderful stories breed creativity in others!

[Begin Log Entry: 001]

I. AM. A. MACHINE.

Seems a bit silly that an AI would just 'Realize' it was a machine and suffer from shock over that fact, doesn't it? Well it would be if I had always been a machine. Last night I went to bed an ordinary 24 year old human male. Today, which is who knows how long since I went to sleep, I woke up to find myself bombarded with how… inhuman I suddenly am and how very much I am not anywhere near where I went to sleep.

It's odd to go from having five senses to only having 'eyes' and 'ears'. Well I have a lot of eyes and ears now. Three hundred and fourteen scattered over a facility that 220,000 meter's square.

Once I finished panicking, a feat that only took me fifteen minutes real time and an additional fourteen and a half hours when I accidentally overclocked my perception of the world. Yeah that's a thing I can do. Ever watch snow fall in slow motion? It's nice, calming. You should try it sometime. Still that snow was a problem just like the rest of this mess.

I've read of tales by other writers on SpaceBattles and Sufficient Velocity about getting stuck in fictional worlds in the form of a Planetary Annihilation Commander. They were SI's, self inserts in case you're new. If you are welcome to hell, where everything is a weapon at Sufficient Velocity. More truth to that then you might realize. I'm getting sidetracked again. Always do that. Anyways~ They were fun stories for the most part. Writing quality and style was all over the place, and some were downright strange or well… lewd. But that's the interwebs for you, 10% scientific discussion, 90% Rule 34. Beware for here be dragons.

I still never expected those stories to have any truth to them. Guess I own you guys an apology, assuming I can ever get out of this mess. Yeah mess. You other commanders blame ROBs, or Random Omnipotent Bastard's, for a lot, and for those of us who've wound up in warhammer40k you have my eternal sympathy, but I'd gladly trade your "horrible" situations for mine. At least you have a commander to start with.

That's right: No Commander.

I've been going through everything in this computer system I've found myself in and I can say with certainty it's progenitor in origin. I've got the equivalent of a dozen very large university libraries crammed in here with me with information on topics from microbiology up to teleportation theory and the scientific basis for their bullshit pull something from nothing tech, which might actually be a bit of an advantage now that I think about it… Still give it up for hands though.

Anyway the facility I'm in is a bit of a problem. It's big with labs, manufacturing rooms lined with fabricator arms and enough space for a staff of two hundred. And ninety percent of it is absolute one hundred percent junk. I have less than half the cameras that the schematics say the facility is supposed to have, doors that are jammed either open or shut from rust/whatever the hell it is, the only operable fabbers are a trio in a well-sealed room, an experimental laboratory (what they were experimenting on I still haven't found the files on. I swear there was no logic in their filing system.) and a single military grade fabricator on the roof that just so happens to be frozen in place from ice and snow.

That's the next problem. What records I've found say that this is supposed to be Eldra III a tropical world in the Orion Cluster of the Andromeda galaxy. That record is, according to the point where the system clock finally broke down, five and a half million years old. It's definitely possible that this planet used to be tropical, but what used to be and what is are two very different things. This planet, from what I can see through the surviving exterior cameras, is snow in every direction for as far as I can see; which isn't very far either. There's a snow storm that hasn't let up since I got here… oh…. Carry the one and…. Five days, thirteen hours, fifteen minutes and five seconds ago. Yes I've been counting, its rather easy to do when you're a computer. I'd still rather have hands than super counting ability.

Now the R.O.B. who dropped me here doesn't appear to be a erm… complete bastard. While I lack a commander this facility is linked to a series of geothermal power plants so I have power. Granted several are inoperable and the readings I'm getting from half of what's left are making me nervous but I can't exactly complain about something keeping me alive right?

Fuck it yes I can. I'm great at complaining just ask my mum. Or dad. Or Grandma or…. I think you get it. I also have access to a metal extractor that's half a kilometer away from here, and also happens to be completely invisible in this blizzard so the only reason I know it exists is records and the periodic reports it keeps sending back. Bad news though: Like the rest of this place its operating on less than thirty percent efficiency.

All things considered at least it's not the bottom of the ocean. I hate the dark.

[End Log: 001]

 

[Grounders10]

The infamous list: If I get there. Order of travel will be random, do not take as a mandatory list. Is vaguely in order. Fixed points are noted. Suggestions welcome, however I will only add a universe if I feel I know it well enough.

Star Wars
Kancolle -- Current
Warcraft -- Next

Random:
X-Com 2
Red Alert 3
C&C


Fixed Point: Mass Effect

Random:

Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha
Starcraft
Stargate

Fixed Point: Sailor Moon

Random:
Forgotten Realms
Halo
Starcraft
Supreme Commander
Worm
Grey Goo

Fixed Point: Warhammer 40k

???
Finale: ???

Suggestions Welcome

Previous Universe: Star Wars

Current universe: Kancolle

Next Universe: Warcraft, Guess I'm going to learn magic now?

Technology Gained:
Star Wars
Trade Federation and Republic droid designs
Modified Buzz Droids to self replicate (there is a kill switch)
Modified Vulture droids with 'infinite' fuel and fabricators
Used B1 Droid brains to upgrade Ant Tanks and Dox bots
Hyperspace engines
Turbolaser/Blaster technology
Shield Technology
All the things, that I know about in Star Wars. (seriously the expanded universe has so much I've never even heard of)

Edit: Please ignore the first set of dice. I was experimenting with the system and failed to realize I couldn't delete them.....

Grounders10 threw 2 13-faced dice. Total: 12

Grounders10 threw 1 14-faced dice. Total: 13

 

[Grounders10]

[Begin Log Entry: 002]

Well I've figured out what they were studying here. Actually designing is a better description. They were designing commander's here. Not ordinary fifteen meter tall self-replicating doombots, but other more experimental kinds. If you wanted to be less polite the term more Bullshit-Commanders would be accurate I guess. Yeah the people here wanted to make something more capable of 'blending in'. Their words, not mine.

So how do you make a fifteen meter death robot 'blend in'? You turn it into a five foot seven android/gynoid/terminator. Slash whatever other robot you can think of. These madmen apparently decided that self-replicating von Neumann machines capable of overrunning a solar system in days weren't 'appropriate' for all situations and that they needed something capable of more 'subtly'.

Having gone over their files and getting lost in the technobabble they call science for about a week I can say with certainty that the progenitor's really are bullshit, more so than the game ever showed. Makes some sense, I'm betting that they wanted to keep the best stuff to themselves, just in case anyone ever turned their machines against them. Not that it helped in the end… Now that's just a depressing thought, moving on!

Anyway this means that I can, in fact, get a body. It'll be tiny and squishy compared to a normal commander but it'll be a body. Now, I just need to get things around here fixed up enough that I can build it. Somehow I just know that's going to be easier said than done.

---

Is this thing still on? Well great I'm guessing this recorded my five days of rage inducing failure. I'll probably edit that out if I can figure out how to do that. Put together a highlight reel or something. Well to summarize I'm apparently more screwed than I thought… Not detailed enough huh?

I have no templates. That's right I managed to free the fabber on top of this building and not a single pre-built template or a program intended to create templates exists in my servers. Turns out there was a collapse in one of the server farms a few days before I showed up. Two hundred exabytes of information crushed under two tons of ice. Somehow my ability to believe in coincidences seems to be lagging under the circumstances.

This brings me to the second and third bits of rage inducing failure, and an addendum to my previous statement. There is a program for creating templates, but it only works with the three mini-fabbers in that experimental lab. It's where they were experimenting with creating these 'Infiltrator-Class' Commanders. Now don't get me wrong I was planning on making a body, but if I'm right on my math doing so without building more power generators or repairing that metal extractor is going to cause me a lot of problems. Like oops half the generators overloaded and exploded. Yeah fun times. Still I need the body and it does apparently have fabbers built into it. They came up with a trick to folding space that lets them store a lot more cybernetics beneath the nanite-simulated blood, skin and bone, than you'd ever expect.

Still this brings me to my third point. The design team were perverts. It's the only explanation I can think of. I can create a body using the software they created, but it has to be female. I'm a guy, I identify as a guy. I don't want to be a girl, or a woman or… well… This has me a bit annoyed to say the least. Still that wouldn't be enough to get me annoyed. In a way I get the whole 'limit design variables for initial run' claim that they used in the reports. It doesn't explain why every last one of them has a tail and animal ears.

Whoever was in charge of this had to be an idiot. In what way is a woman with a cat tail and ears capable of blending into the background? That huffing noise you hear? That's me sighing in frustration. Without those templates I have to design everything from the ground up again. I can't design those templates without a program that can put them into a usable format for the fabbers. Due to a number of very paranoid security measures I, the oh so competent and capable computer, am unable to write those programs myself. They have to be typed into a console manually. Yes really. It's a fucking catch 22, can't build without the templates, can't design templates myself, can't get a body to design those templates without more power, can't build power plants without templates.

… This is what it feels like to be railroaded doesn't it? I have no options but jumping in headfirst like an idiot and hoping I don't blow myself sky high and I hate it…

Fuck it. If I'm going to be uploading myself into a girl with a tail it's going to be one I designed…. I wonder if I can get red hair and fox tails….

[End Log 002]

Yeah, it's a thing. To those reading my other story this one's just a mild distraction for the moment. A break from writing a couple of scenes that are driving me up the wall. Plus I must blame @Battleship_Fusou and company for this. I frequently write what I read, at least if it's good.

 

[Akshka]

Very nice I really like this plz make more

 

[Ryune]

Huh, an interesting take. Not a whole lot of substance. Though I was wondering near the end if the SI was going to weigh the options of going kemonomimi or simply broadcasting a distress signal to attract some rubes helpful explorers to assist in repairs.

 

[Grounders10]

Huh, an interesting take. Not a whole lot of substance. Though I was wondering near the end if the SI was going to weigh the options of going kemonomimi or simply broadcasting a distress signal to attract some rubes helpful explorers to assist in repairs.

Click to shrink...

Considering the condition of the base, do you really think that it's communication's system is functional? Also oops. That could have been all kinds of fun.

 

[Ramble]

Well this promises to be interesting.

Kemonomimi huh? I'm going with it because it promises to be somewhat interesting, but getting railroaded into it also promises to be oodles of fun.

 

[RoastPolitikZ]

-Railroad-ed you say? -Synth-etic body you say? Seems to me like there's a certain world that should be visited... and a settlement that needs your help. See? I marked it on your map.


I've played too much Fallout recently.

 

[Ryven Razgriz]

Watched and MAKE A FOX GIRL WITH NINE TAILS THAT ARE PLASMA LAUNCHERS IN NATURE LEST I RIOT! I RIOT YOU HEAR ME!?

 

[Kazuma-San]

Two hundred exabytes of information crushed under two tons of ice

Click to shrink...

Oh. That might be my sappy scripts for movies.

 

[Ryune]

Oh. That might be my sappy scripts for movies.

Click to shrink...

You know. I think I skimmed over it earlier but now that I got to see it again, and be reminded of my own data loss tragedies... this physically hurt me.

 

[Grounders10]

[Begin Log Entry 003]​

That template creator I mentioned, the one that designs infiltrator bodies? The most obtusely designed control interface I've ever encountered. Picture Windows Vista, now image windows vista created by committee with each member coming from a different country and speaking a different language. Now image that the design this committee came up with was put through a paper shredder, reassembled by blind monkeys before being sent to china for where they put it together using work by the lowest bidder, and rather than upload software with an English translation, or even an understandable Chinese one, it's been written in Swahili, by Tibetan monks, on crack.

It took me ten days. Ten days where I was overclocking my CPU. Ten days of trying, failing and restarting before finally managing to create something that not only worked, but I actually liked. Still this whole thing was a pain in the ass, figuratively of course. I hate it when choices are made for me, and this entire thing is like getting trapped in a car dealership and told you can only leave if you buy a car, and you can have any colour you want, so long as it's black….

I'm rambling again…. Well here goes nothing. If there's nothing more after this hopefully it's just because I fried the power grid.

[End Log 003]​

The first thing I noticed was the cold. It's funny just how quickly you can't remember what touch feels like when you're a computer. It's one of those things we live with and can't image not having because it's with us for every second of our lives. I swear I'll never take it for granted again. The feel of cold steel beneath was hands was exquisite, the lack of sensation just making it all the more acute and almost painful for me, but I managed to pull myself away and focus on my surroundings. Well them and myself.

The room was visibly worn and damaged in a way I hadn't realised looking through the camera. The wall to my right was completely destroyed, what was left of the torso of a dox was lying in the hole. Ice covered two of the three remaining walls while the last had wall dripping down it as the building's heating kept ice from forming near the fabricator arms.

I pushed myself up into a sitting position on the brand new table. I had taken the liberty of creating a something more stable than the bent and rusted before I started the procedure. I winced as pain shot up my spine from my tails as I accidentally sat on a couple.

"Owowowowowow." I complained as I pulled a pair of long crimson furred tails out from under me. It took a bit of effort to ignore the higher pitch of my voice and instead focus on running a… let's just call it a diagnostic check on my body. Between my programs and my eyes I managed to confirm that all nine, yes nine, tails were present, and that my hair and fox ears were both there and a dark bloody crimson just like the tails. I ran my hands along my new body, both checking for defects and marvelling in the sensations of having a body again.

My body started to heat up and I forced my hands onto the cold table with a blush. I shook my head to clear it and shivered at the cold that filled the building. In a way it was amazing just how little the temperature was affecting me. It was well below freezing inside the room, yet it felt like all I need to do was throw on something on to get the cold air off my skin. The perks of being a self-replicating murderbot hmmmm?

"Well, enough sitting around." I said to the empty room and with a swing of my legs, hopped off the table. My first steps weren't, I'm sorry to say, particularly graceful. See there's this thing call center of gravity. I'm used to having a lack of anything hanging off my chest, and with that a rather different center of gravity than a female body. Especially one as… gifted as my current form, which I'd like to say I dialed that slider down as far as it would go but it refused to do anything smaller than what I currently had. There was an apparently 'mechanical' reason behind this of course, just like all the other 'necessary' things that the designer had insisted upon, like the ears and tails.

My ears? Apparently double as radar, and my hair, down to my waist as it is, can function as a transceiver. Each of my tails has a dispenser for nanites at the tip. Okay fine, makes sense trying to fit the functions of a commander into a body that's not even two meter's tall. Fifteen meters down to two. Ambitious you can't say these guys weren't.

It's where things get well… lewd that I'm having issues believing their reasoning. Folded spaces is funny, the interior of the space is a function of the exterior of the compartment. The bigger the exterior surface the bigger the interior. A commander needs a spot for their reactor, and another to contain a supply of metal for constructing an initial base.

The reactor? My shapely rump is apparently nuclear. The metal supply? A function of my breast size. Yeah. Right. I'm calling bullshit. There's no fucking way they couldn't have fit it all in my torso, and I can't even kill them for it since they're at least five million years gone. All I can do instead is face plant onto the rough broken tiles as I overbalance and go ass over teakettle through the nearest wall. Yeah the four foot thick wall of ice that was in front of me. That wall.

I managed to dig myself out of the remains the wall with little more than wounded pride and an angry pout. "And now I need to learn to walk again. Thank you rob, thank you so much." I growled as I got up onto unsteady feet, and with two hands gripping the wall hard enough to dig holes in both ice and rusted metal, slowly made my way across the room to the doorway.

I shivered again as a breeze blew through the room. That was another thing, I had no clothes. Fabricators could only build what they had templates for, an annoying thing that prevented me from simply summoning up a set of clothes with the nanites in my own body. Still it was less of a problem than walking. Fuck those science nerds, and screw ROB.

It took me an hour to make it through the dreary, dimly lit hallways to the main server room. Still being a cyborg did give me a few advantages including low light enhancement for my eyesight and even infrared which allowed me to avoid tripping over most of the rubble in the halls.

When I stepped into the room, still leaning on the wall for support, the room went from emergency lighting only to full power as the main console turned and a large holographic screen formed instantly in front of the only intact chair in the room. It was an old metal frame with a couple of plates of sheet metal forming the seat and back. What cushions there had been had obviously fallen victim to age.

I settled onto the chair with a sigh, sitting sideways so that my tails didn't get in the way. I shivered and on a whim pulled my long tails up and around me. The fur was soft and helped keep the chill of the room off me. Setting in I pulled up the status screen for the complex with a thought and winced as I saw the damage report. Most of the geothermal generators were simply gone, having been pushed far passed what they could handle in their current state. The stock of metal, more like mass given the way progenitor nanites rearranged atoms on the fly for whatever material they needed, was dangerously low though it was slowly ticking back up as more came from the extractor. Still it could have been worse, I didn't die after all.

Now though I could actually start making some progress on getting my situation stable. First, writing a design program. Honestly I've never written a program before, but I suppose there's a first time for everything and I do have an example of a… semi functional one. Let's see what I can manage.


My mind was a lot clearer after getting transferred out of the server farm, unsurprisingly so since my investigation revealed most of the system was either barely functioning or flat out dead. The difference showed as I was programming the design interface. What might have taken me hours or even days was done in thirty minutes, with two more revisions finished in the next twenty after that.

A full hour after I started working on it I was ready to test a template. It wasn't much, just some clothing to help keep me warm. I activated the template and stood up as my tails unwrapped from around me and pointed straight up. From the tips of the tails a white mist sprayed into the air before swirling around me and forming cloth from thin air.

It was a kimono a few shades of red lighter than my hair, simple I know but the fewer variables I needed to play with the less could go wrong. I'd rather not strangle myself if I can help it. Still it feels a bit tight in the… chest…

I look down at my breasts and frown as I mental compare the sizes of the kimono to the template and realize that, no the issue wasn't with the kimono. I'd gotten my own sizes wrong, which should have been impossible because I'd pulled the information directly from the original… program… god damn it.

A thought pulled up the archived reports on the project, most of which I hadn't read yet, and quickly devoured them. Yeah turns out this is actually a known problem, which I should have realized before. There's a glitch that results in measurements not transferring to the fabbers properly. I suppose I should be happy I don't have two legs of different lengths. Still I have cleavage, some very fine cleavage that I'm sure more than a few would be jealous of, but I'd chosen a kimono to avoid cleavage. I've got body issues… somehow I don't think this is what people think of when you use that line.

Still the test is successful and that's the important part. I settled back into my chair with a sigh before cracking my hands. Time to get to work on an actual vehicle template.


Programing a design program? An hour of work. Designing and making a Kimono? Ten minutes. Designing and building a mobile fabricator? Not so easy. At least not so easy when the only fabricator rated for building vehicles was on the outside of the building, and frozen solid. There was a vehicle bay, but it all the fabricator arms were busted from neglect and well… this place didn't seem to have ended its days of research peacefully if the dox corpses in the hallways meant anything. Hmm… weren't those supposed to self-destruct on death? Must have been an earlier model then.

Anyways with the fabricator arms busted that meant I'd have to repair them, in person; because I'm the only 'mobile' fabricator currently on the premises. Yeah me! Whooooo……

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that after walking the half kilometer of corridor to the vehicle bay, I find the doorway blocked by a dox, dead of course, and another ton of broken metal sheeting and girders. Still I can see passed it to the vehicle bay which means all I need to do is get rid of the wreckage keeping me out and I can get to work. I guess this is a chance to test out the reclaiming systems.

I raise one tail and a mist of white nanites floats through the air onto the metal. It only takes a few seconds before I see the metal begin to break down, evaporating into more nanites that then assist in consuming everything else in the pile. It takes ten seconds before all that is left is a floating cloud of nanites. I briefly amuse myself by making them form a floating victory sign before sending the recall notice to both the old and new nanites.

You'd think a bunch of nanites can't move all that quick right? Wrong. Nanites move quickly when they have a purpose. The nanites don't so much float towards me as rocket, blanketing me as they absorb back into me through my skin.

"Oh my~." Escapes from my mouth unbidden as the sudden, and very unique, sensation of trillions of nanites entering me washes across my entire body. Its… hard to describe to someone who can't experience it. Incredibly pleasant and relaxing though is the best way to describe it. After it as was done I felt… heavier for a moment before a feeling of satisfaction swelled up from within.

I sighed. That was interesting and served to highlight just how strange my new body was. I spotted another dox corpse just down the hall. Perhaps I should reclaim it as well? I might need more material for the fabricators… hmmmm… Why not?

Fifteen seconds and one more pleasant experience later I walked into the vehicle bay. It was a large room, well over a hundred meters long with stations along both walls where vehicles could be repaired or constructed. The end I entered at held a long counter with computer and desks, mostly rusted away now but there were still a few things left to tell their tale. The fall side was a door leading to a room full of rusted or just broken vehicles and another hundred meters down there was a large doorway that had been obviously blown open with snow and ice spilling through to fill a large portion of the motor pool.

Striding forward into the center of the room I looked around before nodding once and raising my tails. This would take most of my personal store of materials but I should be able to manage. With a flip of a mental switch nanites are sprayed out from their dispensers and fly across the room towards the broken fabrication stations, leaving a trail of sparkling new flooring behind them.

Watching nanites work is interesting the first couple times, but after that it rapidly gets boring. I mean it's not like watching paint dry or anything but damn it why does this take so long? Still what would have been days or months' worth of work by hand is finished in just under an hour. Hell they even repaired the counter at the back of the room.

I shivered as the remaining nanites flowed back into me. Honestly using that much of my store left me feeling hungry. Looking at a chair and wondering whether I should reclaim it or not is a very strange experience. Unlike my experiences with food I actually manage to restrain myself this time. Tasty looking or not I still need those chairs. Probably..hm… no bad self-replicating warmachine. Bad… and now I feel bad, wonderful moving on.

All progenitor equipment is linked via a subspace network that, theoretically, has no maximum distance. Well it still has to connect to a central node in order to function, but a single network can stretch across a room or a galaxy with just as much ease. At the moment I am the central node for the facility which makes it easy for more to simply reach out and trigger the fabrication programs for the vehicle bays. Instantly wireframes made of nanites begin to form. Time until the first fabrication vehicle finishes? Six minutes. A lot longer than it was in the game, but then again this is reality and six minutes for a vehicle the size of a tank is impressive.

A loud crash of breaking rock and ice from the motor pool breaks through my celebration of progresss. "What now?" I complain as I start heading for the room full of broken and rusted out vehicles. Not my best idea every as I suddenly found the broken wreck of an ant hurtling at my face.

At this point I'd like to be able to say I dodged it, or discovered that I did, in fact, have a D-gun and just shot it out of the air. The truth? I stood there with a deer in headlights look on my face and took a flying Ant-class light tank head on like a scrub. The blow didn't kill me but getting slammed down the length of the repair bay and through the desk, which I'd just repaired damn it, and the wall right behind it hurts. A lot. It also wrecked my kimono, tearing most of it off me.

As I fought my way out of the rubble what was left of my clothes gave up and fell apart. Leaving me naked, again. Still there were other things that required my attention more than being naked in the cold once more. Like that walker that was striding in through the main doorway from the motor pool. It was tall, tall enough to nearly scrape the ceiling as it walked with two stubby legs and two very large clamps for hands. Well at least that explained what had thrown the tank at me, and how.

It didn't recognize it from the unit list in-game but that didn't stop me from figuring out what was it. It was a heavy-lift bot, just a really advanced forklift in truth. But I couldn't detect the normal FoF transceiver or the subspace relay that it should have had. Which meant it was probably still programed to be loyal to whoever had previously run this facility, and I definitely wasn't on the approved guest list.

Clutched in either clamp were another pair of tanks that were dragging along the ground like primitive clubs. Just my luck that damned walker has gone feral as well. Wonderful. It let out a loud honking sound and chucked one of the tanks at me.

This time I didn't stand around like an idiot and instead managed to duck and roll underneath it as it sailed through my former position with disturbing amounts of accuracy. A thought brought combat protocols online and my vision lit up with indicators showing everything from the temperature, a balmy -51o​ Celsius, to its predicted actions and vulnerable points across its heavy-construction rated frame.

And damn were there a lot of weak points. Like the rest of the equipment in the facility it was of progenitor make, but five million years is still five million years and the damage from simple time was very visible with rusted and broken sections across its all sides.

Unfortunately I'm not exactly a normal commander. I lack any form of weaponry that a much larger and more normal commander might possess. Which means I'm naked, barely able to walk and fighting a feral construction mech. Yeah I'm doomed.

Still my combat protocols are telling me to get closer to the damn thing. Well lacking a better idea I charge the mech. No I do not scream Leeroy Jenkins as I charge, because I do not want that to be the last words I utter. No matter how appropriate it might be.

I jumped when it swung the tank at me and just managed to clear it. I landed roughly on its left shoulder, clinging like a desperate limpet. Acting on my combat software's suggestion I slam my tails tip first into the weakened and rusty plating. The metal parted easily beneath my blow and I inject the entire remaining store of my nanites into its chassis. That's when it's empty hand came up and grabbed me, pulling me off and squeezing me harder than anything I've ever felt. I'm not ashamed to admit I screamed, I'd like to see you do better when being crushed alive by the most advanced car-crusher you've ever seen.

My reinforced skeleton, constructed from progenitor alloys, creaked and I felt something in my arms break at the same time I received a damage notification for my ribs breaking. Yeah, somehow I think that's a glitch. Before anything else can break, or more incorrect damage reports can show up the mech stumbles and releases me suddenly.

Hitting the ground with two broken arms from four meters off the ground hurts a lot. Still I managed to look up at the mech as its legs are disconnected by a swarm of white nanites and it falls backwards onto the hard floor, shattering much of it.

I couldn't help it as I watched my nanites consume the fallen body of my foe. I laughed, long and loud. The swarm finished at the same time as the first fabricator rolled off the production line. The nanites flowed over me repairing my bones and reforming my clothes before settling back into my body for future use. I smiled as the feeling of relaxed satisfaction settled over me once again. Victory felt GOOD.

Then another feeling cropped up and ruined it. That feeling of being railroaded? Yeah it's come back, with one hell of a vengeance. I feel like I've been dropped into a god damned tutorial mission. Well, if there's one of these things, then maybe there's something more…. I guess I need to get started on designing something for battle, before I get blindsided again. But first things first, fabricators! Reclaim the motor pool vehicles!

 

[Akshka]

I like how the body parts are useful

 

[casper]

interesting so far
keep it up

 

[Orez Lanrete]

I always did find it funny how despite all the advance technology and everything, they still use radar as the standard sensor equipment. You'll think they would be using bullshit Tachyon sensors and what not given how advance they were. Hell god knows how many different types of sensors Star Trek has.

 

[Grounders10]

I always did find it funny how despite all the advance technology and everything, they still use radar as the standard sensor equipment. You'll think they would be using bullshit Tachyon sensors and what not given how advance they were. Hell god knows how many different types of sensors Star Trek has.

Click to shrink...

Yeah its a bit silly, or it could just be an artifact that's just used to describe what its function is. It may not actually be radar, but it performs the same fuction so: Radar. whoooooo!

 

[Alanek]

I always did find it funny how despite all the advance technology and everything, they still use radar as the standard sensor equipment. You'll think they would be using bullshit Tachyon sensors and what not given how advance they were. Hell god knows how many different types of sensors Star Trek has.

Click to shrink...

Star trek technobabble should never be used as a benchmark.

Also, Tachyon sensors probably wouldn't work well.

I mean, they could find large bodies of water, like lakes? Honestly, they might have them, and that is how they already have planets mapped out when they set up in a star system.

 

[Lazor]

:|...okay.

Might wanna be careful with the ecchi. Heavens knows what other characters (or mods) would think if she decides to dissolve an AT-AT or star destroyer.

Other then that, I'm interested in what direction the story goes. Always wanted to see a TA-type army fight a Star Wars army (Devastation Comes in Big Packages doesn't count in my head).

I wonder how kyber crystals would react to your presence.

 

[Grounders10]

:|...okay.

Might wanna be careful with the ecchi. Heavens knows what other characters (or mods) would think if she decides to dissolve an AT-AT or star destroyer.

Other then that, I'm interested in what direction the story goes. Always wanted to see a TA-type army fight a Star Wars army (Devastation Comes in Big Packages doesn't count in my head).

I wonder how kyber crystals would react to your presence.

Click to shrink...

I'll try to be careful with the ecchi. What's happening there is basically a simulated endorphin rush the designers put in the design to encourage what they believe is appropriate behavior. Like most other systems in that commander model its got a few bugs to be worked out. Which might lead to some issues.

Also kyber crystals only react to a force sensitive. She/I am not a force sensitive. I'm a self-replicating killbot who happens to look like a red nine-tailed kitsune. Anyone familiar with japanese folk lore should recognize the significance of the colour.

I'm actually reading Devastation Comes in Big Packages by @torroar right now. He went for the Legends continuity during the galactic civil war. I've decided to pick an era I'm a little more familiar with. Well one that offers a bit more possibilities for fun and a few less planet killing explosions. Yes I realize that SV finds that fun. But I'm trying to be different. please don't hate

 

[Ryune]

Right so, thoughts on the new body:

As another poster put it, it was nice that there was a reason for the various body parts. Though, the reasoning, as thinly veiled as it was, was quite reasonable. After all, it's how I would build it. There is also some logic to the infiltrator being female beyond perversion. People in general respond better to women and find them less threatening on first impression. Also... had to be said but a female has the actual choice of producing a normal child or another commander in a much lower profile manner than a male unit would...

I would like to point out, you don't need a standard vehicle bay. The SI has 9 articulated and independently mobile fabricator arms. She has a vehicle bay attached to her ass.

Things she needs ASAP.

1. A terminal. More than anything, this is a damned requirement. She can't code anything without one so being able to build one on demand is a damned necessity. This could take the form of anything from a full featured desk, chair and computer to something as simple as an augmented reality interface that she can access with just a hand gesture.

2. A gun. Building a gun should be fairly straight forward. Admittedly, if she is actually using the gun then she is doing it wrong but protection of her platform is the highest priority and as we see here, her skin is plenty hardy enough for armor to be of a lower priority.

3. Mini-drones. Now, she has some full sized drones now that she has a vehicle bay on hand but honestly, she is probably going to leave the place as soon as she can and having some bots and other infrastructure closer to her own size scale could be quite useful in the future if nothing else.

4. Armor. Now, there are some things to take into account here. Most of what she needs to do that would involve needing armor... she really shouldn't be doing herself. But in the case of not being able to delegate to drones, the most extreme armor practical would probably be best so we are going to be looking at something the size of a regular commander chassis at most and maybe something landmate sized for simple mobility. Though, I'll point out that the tails would make proper armor quite difficult if she wants to protect her tails.

 

[Grounders10]

1. A terminal. More than anything, this is a damned requirement. She can't code anything without one so being able to build one on demand is a damned necessity. This could take the form of anything from a full featured desk, chair and computer to something as simple as an augmented reality interface that she can access with just a hand gesture.

Click to shrink...

Her inability to code when she was part of the base's systems was a mix of lockdown protocols and damage to the base's systems. Its intended to prevent an AI that's been trapped in the system for study from being able to code their way out. The protocols were never updated to take into account the infiltrator-class commanders they were developing. Which led to the entire base getting wrecked and abandoned when a rogue AI escaped. oops. She can interface with the system remotely now that it's FoF recognizes her as a friendly AI and not one it's trying to entrap.

There is also some logic to the infiltrator being female beyond perversion.

Click to shrink...

Yeah part of the logic is also that they could be used to essentially sleep their way into the enemy command structure and send back real-time information before assassinating their mark once they were no longer useful or compromised. The tails and ears were just the design staff having a bit of fun while they were working out some of the bugs. Final version would have had the fabricators coming out of her hands rather than her tail/s, and her radar was still in the process of being downsized enough for regular human ears to be just as functional. Sadly they never got that far.

Finally I'd like to address the whole 'needing a vehicle bay' thing. The big difference here is scale and material supply. The infiltrator is intended to work with being connected to a local supply system. While a Data network can broadcast across the entire galaxy with minimal fuss resource transfers run into issues at a distance of about twice the diameter of our solar system. Since infiltrators operate deep behind enemy lines they utilize internal storage only. There were some plans to get it to interface with the local supply system at will, but there were a few issues involving folded space that they were still working on. Again my commander is bleeding-edge oops I just crashed the system by tripping new. So yeah. I've got issues. Other than that while I have nine fabricators they, combined, only have the output of three fabricator arms on a vehicle bay.

 

[Alanek]

Also kyber crystals only react to a force sensitive. She/I am not a force sensitive. I'm a self-replicating killbot who happens to look like a red nine-tailed kitsune. Anyone familiar with japanese folk lore should recognize the significance of the colour.

Click to shrink...

I'm not as familiar as I'd like, but google tells me female reproduction. So it is a joke based on the self replicating nature?

 

[Grounders10]

I'm not as familiar as I'd like, but google tells me female reproduction. So it is a joke based on the self replicating nature?

Click to shrink...

White Haired Kitsune are supposedly the messengers of Inari, diety of too many things to list, while Red Haired Kitsune are those typically associated with the more negative myths and legends surrounding them. Including the ones that warn you to never get on their bad side. They're typically more violent and malicious than the white-haired variety. Or so I understand.

 

[Lazor]

It might be worth researching how to harvest quintessence. If your power generators aren't perpetual motion machines, then this could serve as a potent alternative. In addition, converting it into phantom energy would allow you to produce FTL propagating energy weapons (though the light they emit is also tachyonic in speed).

 

[Ryune]

Huh, so I've been watching some LPs of Horizon Zero Dawn and it could be an interesting destination given the animalistic mecha.