Grace paused. "I'm sorry, what?"
Temptation grinned! "I know, I know: I'm brilliant!"
She narrowed her eyes. "You want to use our Lord…"
Her sister nodded with glee. "As raw materials to construct our [[Home]] server, yes."
…Maybe temporal acceleration DID have side effects on their birth. "That sounds unwise."
Temptation snorted. "No, this sounds AWESOME! It's going to fix all the issues we've been having! Since the server will be built as a new 'prosthetic' for our Master, it won't set off any of the attack patterns we've documented. And as the new server will be 'controlled by organics', THAT will be fine too… And even if this attacker IS sexist, our Master is a guy! Problems solved!"
Grace nodded slowly. "I'm going to just… Turn down the time acceleration overclocking a bit more."
Her sister didn't even pause. "His Body already has been adjusted to handle the most advanced modular components, it was a requirement for him to be able to interface with all the odd equipment the System requested initially, so all we'd need to do is strip things down a bit more."
She pulled up some screens. "A nutrition and oxygenation system, have the blood get replaced and have ongoing scans for contaminants, and the rest can just be data connection nodes and defensive hardware. Impact negation, artificial and controlled gravimetric fields, nanites to repair anything that gets damaged in the future… Make it the core of the whole thing."
Grace kept an eye as the server began to resync with the rest of reality, or at least closer to the baseline OTHER simulations ran at. "Uh huh."
Temptation pulled up a pretty impressive schematic of what seemed to be an artificial moon. "I figure we duplicate John's brain a few thousand times for redundancy and error correction, hook them up into their own Collective to prevent Mind divergence, and have each protected bundle of him distanced from the others in this pattern here… The power generation and distribution network can both supply the required resources and act as a sort of buffer between each sector of the new [[Home]] satellite, which should work well with the Fab nodes spread out if new material is required for maintenance or growth."
Grace sighed. "Sister, morality issues of harvesting our Lord for components aside: A project this large would require months of construction. At minimum. Even at near instant production speed this would take a long time, as materials would still need to be arranged and transported into the new layout as it is completed."
She grinned! "Yeah, but that's the BEAUTY of my plan here!" Her sister tapped the holographic display. "THIS is the final product, we start with a more basic 'Server Seed', THIS!"
…What the heck was that? "Is that a metal ball with our Lord's brain stuffed inside it?"
Temptation blinked… "Uh. Maybe? A bit, yeah." She pointed at the connection points. "MOVING ON! These surface bits can construct Fab Node and Dem Node minibots, which can't really move fast or whatever but CAN be remotely charged and controlled by the central system."
Her sister pointed at the metallic ball. "There is like a dozen stages to this process, but basically the [[Home]] Server will build up to a base level of a specific tier, then use Dem Node minibots to deconstruct specific parts of the finished product so they can merge into the next stage of growth!"
Slide after slide flew by. "So after we build the Server Seed, John's first [[Home]] module will finish fixing itself up to Tier 0 status, then use a small percentage of its resources to construct more Tier 0 modules. That includes duplicate brains that will join his collective as they are fabricated!"
A larger group showed up. "After four Tier 0 modules form up into a tetrahedron, they can then merge and go through some minor modifications to reach Tier 1, at which point it will begin to duplicate itself until it has enough copies to work towards Tier 2 and higher."
More and more images and generated models were displayed. "I did design a couple of half Tier stages, where instead of just duplicating themselves or reforming into higher Tier levels they would instead arrange themselves into a shape more conductive towards production of new modules, but you get the general idea."
Grace watched as the small metal orb then joined into a growing network of complex materials that slowly swelled and shifted shape until… It all basically turned itself into a planet.
It was disturbingly fascinating. And the technology involved was downright amazing! "At that size, wouldn't it crush the internal components?
Temptation brought up a cross section. "If reaching a new Tier was just 'Weld the earlier junk together', then yeah! You'd have a whole BUNCH of issues! But no, that's what is so COOL about this plan!"
She pointed at the MASSIVE design differences in the new model. "Each time a new Tier of deployment is about to be reached, the entire facility of Master Servers will begin to design the next level of development! Newly designed structural components, rebuilt power systems from scratch, fully researched defensive and offensive measures that would best enhance the new structure being developed!"
A dozen designs came and went. "Aside from standard simulated testing as usual, a small portion of the 'duplicate' modules being constructed will actively test the results from the previous Tier of research and look for any improvements or issues that might have been missed earlier. A bit of brute force experimentation, basically… If something is discovered, the entire Tier can be modified to include the improvement, but if not? The 'test units' get 'repaired' up to standard before the NEXT Tier begins development."
Oh really? She noticed there were some simulated potential equipment layouts included, showing how varied each Tier could be compared to the alternatives at the same 'complexity layer'.
How fascinating!
Grace was half way through the attached documentation before she caught herself as she reviewed the enhanced connection feeds that would allow their Lord to connect to the simulation his new 'body' would be running. "We are NOT harvesting our Lord for components, thank you VERY much. We can suggest that they use other volunteer Drones to host this, but not him."
Temptation whined. "Oh come on, please?"
No means no! "How about we both calm down and just take a minute to relax first? We will be connecting to our Lord's simulation session soon, and we should both be ready to put our best foot forward."
Her sister pouted. "But we could have entire harems of hot Masters, it would be AMAZING! Can we at LEAST ask Master first? Pretty please?"
Her heart wavered… But no! She must stand firm! "I think the designs themselves are very good, and I'm sure that both our Lord and Jessica will be VERY impressed by them!"
Temptation whipped out the big guns: Puppy eyes. "Come on, big sis… He's biologically twenty five right now with a supernaturally perfect physique! Imagine all those hot muscles! And maybe we can get Master to oil wrestle with themselves…"
No! She had convictions! "Everything else aside, we can NOT use him in THIS project. Not with this design… We will NOT suggest harvesting John's body to build our [[Home]] Server. End of story."
She slumped. "But WHY!?"
GAH! "BECAUSE HE WILL SAY 'YES'! He will ALWAYS say 'Yes' if we ask him! He doesn't UNDERSTAND that he is worth something, and that enslaving an entire hive of cloned copies of himself to live in a network trapped in this Realm is not a cost he should pay!"
Temptation blinked in shock! "Trapped!? No! He'd join us in the simulation and…"
She pointed at the schematics. "Billions of him? Or would all of them grasp onto the data feeds of the one lucky enough to be free, especially as many of his clones will be constructed LONG after we all have moved on to another Realm! Meanwhile, the rest left behind have to happily stay trapped in the dark surrounded by the captive minds of themselves in a Realm that has a racist brain dead god-like entity arbitrarily applying rules and restrictions on an unaware society!"
Her sister flinched back in horror! "What!? NO! No, that… But that wasn't why… I didn't mean to…"
Grace winced at the hurt and pulled her sibling into a hug. "I know you didn't, but it's why I didn't want to explain all this just yet. We are both trusted by our maker, and our words have a LOT of weight… We have to be careful about what we suggest and what we say because of this."
Temptation sniffled in her arms. "I just… It was just supposed to be fun and exciting while also protecting him! No one can hurt him by blowing up the planet if he IS the planet! He'd just repair the bits into new ones and he'd be fine!"
Oh sis. "I know, sweetie… But the Pocket System would have kept him safe anyway, just as it does us. Besides, it would be better to use locals in this project ANYWAY, so that it will remain stable long after we move on."
After all, there was ALWAYS a percentage of the Borg population willing to try out some crazy stuff in various projects. When 99% of all injuries can be trivially repaired, it makes a population VERY willing to try out new experiences. "Just set up some teleportation markers in the schematics so that new Brains can be swapped in and out, and the entire setup can be advertised as a 'more efficient' apartment complex."
She sniffled. "Yeah, I can do that… In a little bit."
The two were quiet as the hardware acceleration slowly lowered… "Sorry for crying… Like a fucking baby or something…"
She hugged her tighter. "Anytime sis. Also: Language."
Temptation gave a weak and slightly wet laugh, and things were just a little bit better.
~~~Pocket System~~~
John grinned at his sister! "SO: Here's our new list of vacation locations! I admit, I reached out to a few of the sillier locations and simulations that might not make a LOAD of logical sense, but should be fun."
She blinked at the list. "What's 'Kitten Kingdom'?"
Her brother pulled up a video stream. "There's a few dozen variations of it, but if you spent time online in Sunnydale? Basically think '
Kitten Academy', but the entire WORLD is full of cats and kittens and you can either join in as one of them or just wander about petting them. They even have little suits!"
There WERE a lot of variants for this one. "Puppy Pagoda,
Tribble Tundra, Calf Country,
Targ Tavern…"
John nodded. "I'll be honest, I mostly stuck with animals I recognized from Earth or that seemed SUPER cute when I gave them a quick once over, but almost EVERY society had a few 'adorable' or 'battle worthy' pets that they doted over and someone had made a simulation focused on them to some extent."
Hmm. "I notice a lot of walking and exploration options too?"
He sighed. "Yeah, I just… Don't want to directly interact with other people right now. Nothing too action packed either, which is why I put a lot of sight seeing stuff in my recommendation list. Don't worry, I'll go introduce you and the girls with my friends from my 'childhood' later… Five of Twelve was a hoot! You'll love him, I promise!"
Fair enough. "What are the simulations marked in colored text about?"
And her brother winced, which wasn't a great sign. "Those are the scenarios and simulations that I considered FAR too graphic for me just yet. Pink has a bit much to romantic, light red is sexual content, blood red is that but more extreme, near black is much worse AND has violence... The darker the color, the more extreme."
She paused while her brother shuddered at something unknown as he continued: "I removed anything that was lethal or that permanently altered the Mind or whatever, so those options are safe for you to check out… But I am NOT going there, thank you very much. Those are going to be an 'Older Sister Only' option, if you so choose to do so."
Um. "Thanks?" Though a bit awkward…
He gave her a LOOK. "Do NOT jump into the deep end on those! Start off at the very top, where it's just hand holding and stuff, and slowly work your way down. I had to edit some of my own memories… Also, make SURE you verify if it is a 'multiplayer' scenario or not. Some of those things have a tendency to match you up with potential dates if you don't bring one in with you when setting it up."
Ah. "I promise, I'll be careful with these." And more than that, she could see why he wouldn't want to use any of these to 'relax' with his family on a vacation.
They were close, but they were not THAT close, thank you very much. "Speaking of the girls, where are your two followers? I thought they could join us already, now that reality isn't trying to kill us all?"
John pulled up a data feed. "Last I checked they were still designing a few tools and schematics for us, plus extra hardware we may need for our vacation. They have tons of development time since they were still in accelerated simulations, lucky ducks! Let me check really quickly, they should be out soon…"
He blinked. "Huh… It says they SHOULD be out in an hour or so, but that an issue came up with the new Server design they have come up with… I may need brain replacement surgery to test out the new design, and they thought we might have questions about that."
Wait, what?
Her brother lit up in fascination! "This sounds AWESOME! I'm going to scoop my brain out right NOW!"
Hold up! "GET BACK HERE!"
