While it is true the Aeldari Dominion before the Fall were monsters, the Craftworlds still existed then as trade ships, mostly made up of Eldar that didn't want anything to do with the Pleasure Cults so those interactions would have been amicable.
Vox Vitae: Warhammer AI quest
- Thread starter Neablis
- Start date
- Mature Sci-Fi
- Location
- Australia
[X] Plan: Oh no it's worse than I thought
[X] Aesthetic: Sharp, angular designs in black and grey, with orange highlights to add a shock of color as appropriate. If you've seen Civilization: Beyond Earth's Supremacy Ideology, you've got a decent idea of what I'm getting at. That being said, there's a certain allowance for aesthetic in Vita's designs that wouldn't be present in a design of pure mathematical perfection--tanks look like tanks rather than blocks of armor. Infantry look like infantry instead of the most mathematically perfect war machines for light battle duties--she is ultimately an adventurer at heart, and there's no fun in watching metal boxes shoot at things. Notably, the design principles do share commonalities with those employed in available STC-derived mechanisms, showing their common point of origin--there is no mind breaking defiance in any of her designs, and they work on sensible design principles aside from how their chassis might look. It may also help to look to the Metal Gear franchise for other samples here and there--the point is "Advanced without seeming outrageously so" Other Examples (Starship, Cybernetics )
Let us deliver emancipation! (If you know, you know.)
Perhaps we could use some Civ:BE harmony ideology and harmony/supremacy ideologies for the aesthetics of any biotech/gene-forged units we might make in the future!
[X] Aesthetic: Sharp, angular designs in black and grey, with orange highlights to add a shock of color as appropriate. If you've seen Civilization: Beyond Earth's Supremacy Ideology, you've got a decent idea of what I'm getting at. That being said, there's a certain allowance for aesthetic in Vita's designs that wouldn't be present in a design of pure mathematical perfection--tanks look like tanks rather than blocks of armor. Infantry look like infantry instead of the most mathematically perfect war machines for light battle duties--she is ultimately an adventurer at heart, and there's no fun in watching metal boxes shoot at things. Notably, the design principles do share commonalities with those employed in available STC-derived mechanisms, showing their common point of origin--there is no mind breaking defiance in any of her designs, and they work on sensible design principles aside from how their chassis might look. It may also help to look to the Metal Gear franchise for other samples here and there--the point is "Advanced without seeming outrageously so" Other Examples (Starship, Cybernetics )
Let us deliver emancipation! (If you know, you know.)
Perhaps we could use some Civ:BE harmony ideology and harmony/supremacy ideologies for the aesthetics of any biotech/gene-forged units we might make in the future!
Last edited:
[X] Plan: Oh no it's worse than I thought
[X] Aesthetic: Sharp, angular designs in black and grey, with orange highlights to add a shock of color as appropriate. If you've seen Civilization: Beyond Earth's Supremacy Ideology, you've got a decent idea of what I'm getting at. That being said, there's a certain allowance for aesthetic in Vita's designs that wouldn't be present in a design of pure mathematical perfection--tanks look like tanks rather than blocks of armor. Infantry look like infantry instead of the most mathematically perfect war machines for light battle duties--she is ultimately an adventurer at heart, and there's no fun in watching metal boxes shoot at things. Notably, the design principles do share commonalities with those employed in available STC-derived mechanisms, showing their common point of origin--there is no mind breaking defiance in any of her designs, and they work on sensible design principles aside from how their chassis might look. It may also help to look to the Metal Gear franchise for other samples here and there--the point is "Advanced without seeming outrageously so" Other Examples (Starship, Cybernetics )
[X] Aesthetic: Sharp, angular designs in black and grey, with orange highlights to add a shock of color as appropriate. If you've seen Civilization: Beyond Earth's Supremacy Ideology, you've got a decent idea of what I'm getting at. That being said, there's a certain allowance for aesthetic in Vita's designs that wouldn't be present in a design of pure mathematical perfection--tanks look like tanks rather than blocks of armor. Infantry look like infantry instead of the most mathematically perfect war machines for light battle duties--she is ultimately an adventurer at heart, and there's no fun in watching metal boxes shoot at things. Notably, the design principles do share commonalities with those employed in available STC-derived mechanisms, showing their common point of origin--there is no mind breaking defiance in any of her designs, and they work on sensible design principles aside from how their chassis might look. It may also help to look to the Metal Gear franchise for other samples here and there--the point is "Advanced without seeming outrageously so" Other Examples (Starship, Cybernetics )
- Location
- Bretonnia
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Plan: Oh no it's worse than I thought
[X] Aesthetic: Sharp, angular designs in black and grey, with orange highlights to add a shock of color as appropriate. If you've seen Civilization: Beyond Earth's Supremacy Ideology, you've got a decent idea of what I'm getting at. That being said, there's a certain allowance for aesthetic in Vita's designs that wouldn't be present in a design of pure mathematical perfection--tanks look like tanks rather than blocks of armor. Infantry look like infantry instead of the most mathematically perfect war machines for light battle duties--she is ultimately an adventurer at heart, and there's no fun in watching metal boxes shoot at things. Notably, the design principles do share commonalities with those employed in available STC-derived mechanisms, showing their common point of origin--there is no mind breaking defiance in any of her designs, and they work on sensible design principles aside from how their chassis might look. It may also help to look to the Metal Gear franchise for other samples here and there--the point is "Advanced without seeming outrageously so" Other Examples (Starship, Cybernetics )
[X] Aesthetic: Sharp, angular designs in black and grey, with orange highlights to add a shock of color as appropriate. If you've seen Civilization: Beyond Earth's Supremacy Ideology, you've got a decent idea of what I'm getting at. That being said, there's a certain allowance for aesthetic in Vita's designs that wouldn't be present in a design of pure mathematical perfection--tanks look like tanks rather than blocks of armor. Infantry look like infantry instead of the most mathematically perfect war machines for light battle duties--she is ultimately an adventurer at heart, and there's no fun in watching metal boxes shoot at things. Notably, the design principles do share commonalities with those employed in available STC-derived mechanisms, showing their common point of origin--there is no mind breaking defiance in any of her designs, and they work on sensible design principles aside from how their chassis might look. It may also help to look to the Metal Gear franchise for other samples here and there--the point is "Advanced without seeming outrageously so" Other Examples (Starship, Cybernetics )
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Plan: Oh no it's worse than I thought
- Location
- Canada
[X] Plan: Oh no it's worse than I thought
While we are doing all that hacking, could we investigate the feasibility and potential reactions to starting an academic database of our own? We can seed it with knowledge and invite others to contribute on things we are interested in. Of course as the founder we must remain anonymous as we are concerned about retaliation from the Mechanicus.
While we are doing all that hacking, could we investigate the feasibility and potential reactions to starting an academic database of our own? We can seed it with knowledge and invite others to contribute on things we are interested in. Of course as the founder we must remain anonymous as we are concerned about retaliation from the Mechanicus.
- Location
- Following The Apocalypse
[X] Plan: Oh no it's worse than I thought
[X] Aesthetic: Sharp, angular designs in black and grey, with orange highlights to add a shock of color as appropriate. If you've seen Civilization: Beyond Earth's Supremacy Ideology, you've got a decent idea of what I'm getting at. That being said, there's a certain allowance for aesthetic in Vita's designs that wouldn't be present in a design of pure mathematical perfection--tanks look like tanks rather than blocks of armor. Infantry look like infantry instead of the most mathematically perfect war machines for light battle duties--she is ultimately an adventurer at heart, and there's no fun in watching metal boxes shoot at things. Notably, the design principles do share commonalities with those employed in available STC-derived mechanisms, showing their common point of origin--there is no mind breaking defiance in any of her designs, and they work on sensible design principles aside from how their chassis might look. It may also help to look to the Metal Gear franchise for other samples here and there--the point is "Advanced without seeming outrageously so" Other Examples (Starship, Cybernetics )
[X] Aesthetic: Sharp, angular designs in black and grey, with orange highlights to add a shock of color as appropriate. If you've seen Civilization: Beyond Earth's Supremacy Ideology, you've got a decent idea of what I'm getting at. That being said, there's a certain allowance for aesthetic in Vita's designs that wouldn't be present in a design of pure mathematical perfection--tanks look like tanks rather than blocks of armor. Infantry look like infantry instead of the most mathematically perfect war machines for light battle duties--she is ultimately an adventurer at heart, and there's no fun in watching metal boxes shoot at things. Notably, the design principles do share commonalities with those employed in available STC-derived mechanisms, showing their common point of origin--there is no mind breaking defiance in any of her designs, and they work on sensible design principles aside from how their chassis might look. It may also help to look to the Metal Gear franchise for other samples here and there--the point is "Advanced without seeming outrageously so" Other Examples (Starship, Cybernetics )
Turn 2 vote closed
It's good. I'll probably throw it into the informational posts somewhere.
Sure. I need 3 total d100 rolls. Secure databases, mechanicus databases, Avatar.
Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
Done, Results were Good (77) Average (64), and Average (49) in that order.
meianmaru
The Devourer of Fiction
Any thoughts on using the Vodyani as a future aesthetic inspiration as an evolution from the Supremacy-aesthetic? Not relevant right now on our current tech-level, but just something I wanted to throw in as a vibe check:
So what are our long term plans?
I think that Vita would be pretty bad at sitting in one place and uplifting the people of Denva, on the other hand we do need a secure port. It is a very dangerous galaxy out there. I think we should stick around until they are strong enough to see off most raiders in the area and then move out to see how the galaxy has changed.
Since we do have that psi-tech focus I think we could do worse than look for a craftworld. They know a lot about the warp and Vita respects them so if they say there are daemon gods in the Empyrian, no really, she is likely to take them at their word and right now that is our biggest weakness.
I think that Vita would be pretty bad at sitting in one place and uplifting the people of Denva, on the other hand we do need a secure port. It is a very dangerous galaxy out there. I think we should stick around until they are strong enough to see off most raiders in the area and then move out to see how the galaxy has changed.
Since we do have that psi-tech focus I think we could do worse than look for a craftworld. They know a lot about the warp and Vita respects them so if they say there are daemon gods in the Empyrian, no really, she is likely to take them at their word and right now that is our biggest weakness.
Turn 3
Well, this is a pile of underpriced compost. Something smells, and I'm not sure what it is.
You take a moment to figure out your plan for the next few years. You want to interact with these people peacefully. Not only will being able to build up in the open be much, much easier and faster, but any effort you have to put towards defending yourself is effort you won't be spending getting operational again.
Also - I don't want to kill people unless I have to. I'd much prefer to talk to them. They're just making it really difficult!
But it's a surmountable challenge. You know that they won't react well to you revealing yourself as an AI. Therefore, you need to pretend not to be an AI. You're pretty good at generating realistic video - but not being able to appear in person could be a pretty significant weakness. Additionally, you want - need - to know more. There's too many secrets on this world, too many things that don't make sense, and you need that information before you can move forward.
The local government files will probably be easier to crack than those of the mechanicus, and their data will probably help you figure out how to go after the adeptus mechanicus better. To your surprise the goverments actually have fairly decent security, which looks to be aimed at keeping the mechanicus out of their systems. But the human element is always the greatest weakness, and you've got time. You hack into dozens of wireless connection nodes throughout the capitols of the various governments and drop packages that will scoop the credentials of anybody who logs into a secure system through an unsecure connection, or even just has their secure account logged in when they connect. Now all that's needed is to wait, so you turn your attention to other matters.
The next thing that comes to mind is an avatar, which is a hard decision. Do you really want to spend the time on reverse-engineering advanced technology just so you can build yourself a new body? I mean, yes, you do. You've missed your old avatar, nearly as much as you missed talking to people. Even if humans know you, know that you're a person, they just act differently when they're talking to something that they see as a human instead of a ship. It's more personal. Deeper.
You spend a few moments lost in the memories of improving your connections with people after you purchased your first Avatar. It really opened up whole new worlds of human interaction. Humans might think of their communications as mostly verbal, but they had a whole layer of partially unconscious exchange through body language and facial expression. Being able to participate in that had been a joy. But of course, you're still missing the other half of the element - people to talk to.
Well, they're out there, I just need to make sure they don't try to kill me for existing first.
And that's the real reason to build an avatar. It will let you appear in person as a nearly perfectly convincing human, though you'll need to stay within range of wireless reception in order to keep control of the body. If anybody scans you with the right instruments they'll figure it out, but those really shouldn't be common as long as you don't let them use any medical imaging equipment. And being able to show up in person and do things like purchase land is absolutely going to open important doors.
Having convinced yourself that an avatar is truly something that will be helpful, you get to work skimming through the manual and the archived scan results from the last time you thought about this topic in the long millenia. This time you don't have to worry about intellectual copyright protection, and you piece together the polymers used to make realistic-looking skin, figure out how to arrange micro-articulators to accurately simulate facial expressions and muscle movements, and design the machines to do the microscale weaving and stitching of realistic-looking hair. Your old body had some capacity for automatic modification and could change it's dimensions to some extent, as well as change details like hair, eye and skin color to suit personal aesthetic. Your version can't do that, so you'll need to decide exactly what you want your avatar to look like as you build it. They're not easy to make, but they're not that expensive. You just don't love the idea of throwing away your body every time you want to make a change.
Or having a closet of them. It's a little...weird. I could see making one for infiltration, but I'd like to have one 'main' body.
Finally it's time to actually make your new avatar, and you spin up your new manufacturing plant in anticipation. You built some of the new production methods into its design, and its first product is going to be your new avatar.
Manufactory completed. +50 build capacity.
Unfortunately, the first four bodies need to get recycled because of defects, and it's a bit discomforting to watch your chosen face melt as your bots shove it into the furnaces for material recycling. But such is the life of anybody who wants to make a decent final product, and after some amount of iteration you get it right.
Avatar Complete - rolled a 29+20=49! No special effects. Avatar body gained, appearance awaiting vote.
Unlocked new blueprint for design: 10 RP - New Avatar (10 BP, no CP)
Unlocked new research: 200 RP - Avatar self-customization
Unlocked new research: 100 RP - Combat bot humanization
You dial into your new body, feeling its limbs articulate smoothly as you look around the roughly-carved cavern that houses your new manufactory. It's kind of a hellscape not meant for organic life, but that's ok. It's not meant to be pretty, it's meant to make things.
The new body takes a stroll back through your ship, and you wince at the apparent damage to the place that has held you for more than fifteen thousand years. This ship is ancient, and it looks it. It's not the beautiful age of something well-maintained and showing its age. It's the wear and corrosion of something built so long ago that it can't be dated radioactively, and that it still exists at all is a testament to the craft of those who built it.
But it's time to move on. Doors open before you as you walk towards the core of the ship, and finally you step into the sanctum of sanctums, the home of your processing core. This room is as decrepit of the rest of the ship, and you shake your head as flakes of rust peel off of the wall at your touch. It's long past time you acquired a new ship, but unfortunately it's not so simple as building one. Not yet.
You know it's time to check back in on your little credential-traps, but you want to enjoy the feeling of having a body again first. You walk through the rest of the ship, touring the repaired reactor and running a finger over the seam where clean new parts meet blackened ancient ones. It's all functional and passes the necessary tests, but it's still ugly in a way you hadn't been able to appreciate until you looked at it with similar eyes to what a human would use.
Maybe having a body isn't just for how humans treat me. It also affects how I see the world. It's a point of focus for me, to bring my attention to specifics instead of merely going down a checklist. The walls are still structurally sound, so what does it matter they're covered in corrosion? It won't be a true problem for another fifteen thousand years, so who cares?
You avoid your previous crew's quarters, not quite ready to deal with that particular bombshell, and find yourself walking towards your storage vaults. The door hiding the psionic technology opens ahead of you with a hiss of air, and you walk in to study the racks of shining equipment.
They seem to have stood the test of time well. I wonder why?
Aside from the lack of corrosion, everything is obviously crude, studded with wires and protrusions that make it look like the armor and weapons of some kind of deep-sea crustacean. But that gives it a kind of organic appeal, making it clear that this technology does something more than simply effect the physical world.
You heft a strange sword, feeling the balance of it. To you it feels like just a sword, but you wonder what it would enable somebody with psychic abilities to do?
Though a sword - really? Maybe it's an amplifier, but I'd expect something like that staff over there to serve better. Or maybe that helmet-thing. That's the kind of thing I'd expect.
Regardless, it seems like psychic powers are a reality of this universe, and that's a potentially dangerous hole in your knowledge. One you should really patch over sooner or later.
Also - it's fascinating. Psychic powers? A new branch of reality, as-yet unexplained by science? How could I resist studying that?
Unfortunately, figuring out how all of this work is not the most important thing right now, or even the second most important thing. It's exciting and interesting, and something you absolutely want to figure out. However, if you're going to figure out weird warp-related phenomena it should be your shielding.
You spend what free time you have examining the physical structure and what information you have on the psychic shielding that protected you while you were in the space hulk. You don't understand how it works, you don't understand what it protected you from, and that seems like a dangerous liability that you need to fix. Eventually, at least. It doesn't seem to be under strain now, but it might be in the future.
You tear your attention away and turn it towards the thing that's actually important here, which is hacking into governmental databases. To your delight but utter lack of surprise you find a plethora of governmental credentials waiting in the traps you seeded earlier, giving you high-level access to their secure systems. More than one goverment has tried to airgap themselves from the public net, but all you need is a single one of their network nodes in range of a public node, and those are everywhere.
Hack into secure governmental databases - rolled 57+20=77. Good success, No additional technology to give bonuses to, extra information gained.
You dive into the data, looking for the secrets that you need to know. At first it's nothing particularly interesting, though a few things that don't surprise you so much as disappoint you. Cover-ups, a few distinctly non-democratic actions. But nothing too bad.
It's in going back to the archives for more information on the Imperium that you start finding the juciy bits. There's some more information on the Imperium that makes you shake your head. Details of the 'tithe' and the penalties levied when it wasn't met, the system of nobility that governed the planets. Some scraps of information on the Imperial Navy which give you pause. Those ships... don't seem very impressive compared to what you knew.
Then there's the section on threats. Mostly they seem focused on various aliens, such as the Orks. There don't seem to be any of those nearby, fortunately enough. You were kind of wondering if somebody would have hunted those malformed bioweapons to extinction by now, but clearly not. There's brief mention made of things called "Tyranids," also called the Great Devourer, and those just sound terrifying. There's not too much information, but they sound like the ravenous bug trope so common to sci-fi.
Greeaaat.
There does appear to be a local Eldar presence, which makes you pause. The old Imperial archives instruct the local government in no uncertain terms to ignore any attempt to make contact, and shoot on sight no matter the type of eldar observed.
More than one type of Eldar? Did they have a schism or something?
But the newer goverments have all rescinded that order. It seems like the local government would actually like to speak to the Eldari if they get an opportunity.
So there's potentially a break in their xenophobia there. Interesting.
Then, in a deep archive you find mention of the "necrons." There's not a lot of detail, but what there is is just confusing. How did you never hear of these? Ancient robots with hyper-advanced technology that worked according to principles separate from normal physics sound like the sort of thing you should have heard of before. You're not sure they're real, but hey. Maybe some other AI went a little crazy sometime in there.
The "Heretics" are a head-scratcher, especially since the people of Denva Secundus assert most vehemently that they are not, despite their slow drift away from the Imperial Creed. There's a singular mention of the Archenemy that makes your avatar frown, even as it places an engraved chestpiece into the scanner.
What archenemy? Shaytan? Some threat that cannot be named? The more I learn, the more issues I find.
Finally you get to a series of contingency files on the local system, and find the secret of Denva Prime. It turns out that Denva Secundus wasn't always the only colonized body in the Denva system. Denva Prime, the second planet out from the sun that is listed as an airless and barren desert in the public databases. It's not actually airless, though it is a desert.
It's also home to both an alien species labelled as the Vellkar, and large deposits of a rare ore called kultrinium. The imperium tried several times to exterminate the Vellkar, but always failed beyond pushing them into the extensive underground caverns that stretched beneath the desiccated sands. So they maintained heavily-armed mines across the surface to extract the kultrinium, which occasionally came under subterranean attack at the Vellkar tunneled in to slaughter the miners.
You query your database to figure out what the kultrinium is and quickly find a match. Then you're confused. Sure - it's useful for building high-power conduits and cheaper magnets, but it hardly seems like a critical strategic resource in the way the Imperium was treating it.
Anyways, after contact was lost with the imperium it was also lost with the mines, and the local governments aren't sure what is happening over there. They're worried the Vellkar have overwhelmed and slaughtered the humans, and are scavenging their technology and might come attack Denva Secundus. No contact with Devna Primus has been reported in living memory.
There's talk about sending probes to find out what's happened, but that always runs into the primary obstacle for the goverments - the mechanicus. There's no end of internal complaining in goverment channels about their obstructionism and interference with local goverment.
You read further and are shocked by the amount of influence a dozen small enclaves have over the various goverments. They seem to be successfully preventing any technological advancement of any kind from happening across Denva, as well as extracting frankly ridiculous tolls in precious metals and refined hydrocarbons in exchange for keeping leftover military equipment running.
You scan a little further and find out why. Not only is the mechanicus responsible for maintaining and supplying the Imperial equipment of the PDF, but they also are required to maintain and even arm the weapons of mass destruction owned by all of the nations. They also definitely have WMDs of their own, and no nation wants to piss off the people who both hold the keys to their nukes and have nukes of their own.
The enclaves aren't really just enclaves. They're more akin to a sovereign nation of their own. Low in headcount, high in influence and power. If I piss them off and they demand that all of the nations destroy me, then unless I can offer something better the people of Denva will follow their orders.
There are hints of some small amount of clandestine research going on, but the need for absolute secrecy from the mechanicus appears to be hobbling it pretty badly. That might just be them not wanting to put any information on even secure datanets where mechanicus hackers could find it though.
Nothing you can find suggests that the local governments might be friendly towards AIs. They don't even seem to consider they'd ever run into one, and the most mention you can find is how ridiculous that would be.
There's one other matter before you turn your attention to the mechanicus - the monasteries. You don't know what's going on with them, and apparently the governments are pretty much keen to let them be. But some digging in the deep archives of the nation of Denva reveals a trove of files left over from the Imperial government.
The monasteries were the local governor's attempt to safely sequester psykers before the Black Ships arrived. He hoped to curry favor with influential members of the government by providing a large allotment of psykers, and had agreements with several neighboring worlds - including Denva Prime - to take in any psykers they didn't want.
He also bargained with the local astropaths for any methods or techniques that could be used to 'stabilize' psykers, and there's some frustration there at the lack of success. However he did appear to have more success with a "rogue trader" that came through, who provided some kind of expertise for some undisclosed favor. Then the governor poured resources into the monasteries, cultivating the correct environment to keep his treasured "gifts to the Emperor" stable and alive to be picked up by the Black Ships. Though the 'alive' seems to be only optional, and there's some mention of executions and secret police operating amongst the monasteries to dispose of "sources of trouble."
Using the information gathered you search through more data. There's not much - the monasteries really are off the grid. But you do find some deleted data sitting in ancient drives that you manage to reconstruct. It consists of a series of messages that catalog what happened to the Adeptus Telepathica on Denva after contact was lost. They apparently retreated directly to the nearest monastery, refusing all demands they return to the capitol. The messages speak caustically of taking advantage of the "Governer's foolishness" to "outlast the coming storm and safeguard our people." It doesn't seem like the governor pushed the issue before he got blown up.
The latest message is dated a hundred and ten years ago, shortly after the destruction of the governor's spire, and is merely a request to see if anybody is still on the connection. You suppose you could pick that line up, though it hasn't been used in a hundred years, so who knows?
So - the monasteries are places for psykers to go, and they actually do need to go there or else they cause problems. And they're nice, but also have secret police that kill you if you cause problems. That sounds like not my problem right now.
You print out a few high-capacity data drives and store away all of the data you can find. You can query it again later if you missed anything, but for now it's time to turn your attention to the mechanicus.
You'd been hoping for some kind of initial framework for how to penetrate the enclaves' systems from the governments, but there's nothing. So you start by simply probing their open ports. Something slams the connection in your face, and you're pretty sure it seeks to run some sort of backtrace on you. Not that it'll work. Even if it is able to jump through all of the connections you made, the only place that signal will lead is to a satellite that is receiving a signal from an unknown and ground-based source that is nowhere near you.
But still, that reaction was a surprise. It felt almost like an AI - some sort of non-automatic system responding to your intrusion. Does the mechanicus have AI's after all? You analyze the history and conclude that if they do, they're shitty. The reaction was slow and sloppy. You try again, patiently worming through with a more subtle approach over the course of an entire year.
Hack into mechanicus databases - rolled 44+20=64. Success!
This time you're successful. You can see the trail the electronic guardian leaves in their systems and bypass it easily, diving into the mechanicus databases and looting them for all their worth. You decide to copy over all of the data you can quickly gather into another stack of printed memory instead of sticking around and doing analysis live. Less potential to ensure you get everything, but you got most of it and there's less risk.
Then you dive in, and there's a lot of information. More detailed information on the imperial factions, Imperial technology, the Mechanicus, their Cult of the Machine and more.
Always goddamn cults out here. I wonder what other cults I'll run into. The cult of the big-ass fish?
It all makes for dry reading, and you roll your eyes at their worship of the machine. A few more things jump out at you. First - that thing you ran into. It was a "machine spirit", which is a term you haven't heard before. You pour over their documents and see that they build small neural processing nodes into almost every piece of technology. You simulate one to their designs and find that it generates an unconscious intellect that's barely capable of anything at all. Then you link a few more together and the capability grows commensurately. It just becomes smarter and more responsive, not any more sapient.
Huh. A neat little way to still get access to intelligent systems without having to deal with AIs.
You model out the trajectory and it does seem like there's a point where too many of these things would start actually gaining consiousness, and they'd be prone to several forms of psychosis. But that's the trade-offs for trying to build a modular piecemeal intelligence.
It's also pretty resistant to damage. You break a third of the nodes and a machine spirit would get dumber, but it would keep working. That would kill me.
You delve into the rest of the mechanicus techbase and find it.. pretty primative. They seem to have a restricted database compared to what more advanced mechanicus outposts have, and there are sections gated off behind access codes that nobody on this planet seems to have. But even so, their manufacturing techniques are best described as "Crude but functional" and more accurately described as 'Why the fuck would you do it that way?" Diving into their manufacturing methods leads you to mention of a servitor, which makes you halt in disgust.
Actually though, why the FUCK would you do it that way? A robot would be better in every way than... lobotomizing a person and using them as an organic robot?
You dig deeper, trying to understand. There has to be a method to this madness, or else you're going to make it your mission to torch the Adeptus Mechanicus. These cogboys seem like a perversion of everything that technology is supposed to enable. You find your explanation eventually - it's precisely for the same reason that they use these "machine spirits." A servitor isn't AI, has no potential to become AI, but still gives you some of the same effects that an AI gives you.
That sends a chill racing through you. This anti-AI bias... is hardcoded. It goes all the way down. Why? What happened? You dive into the files again, and find something on the "Cybernetic Revolt."
Ah. That would do it.
There isn't much information there. But apparently all of the AIs in the galaxy decided to exterminate humanity at once! Or at least that's the history being told here. It's probably not exactly true, but given how deeply coded this anti-AI stance is into everything human there's probably a modicum of truth to it. Otherwise they wouldn't go to such ridiculous ends to avoid anything even having the faintest wisp of artificial consciousness.
Well. That... is enough learning for one day. There's more in the files, but you'll get to it another time. You're usually all-in on uncovering things, but his new Galaxy seems to have nothing but bad news. You'll get back to it later. When you've had more time to parse everything, and more tolerance for whatever the next horror is.
Then with a sigh that you can actually express through your new avatar, you go back into the data. You need one more thing, and that's what the current Mechanicus wants. What are their goals, their priorities? What are they doing with all of the resources they're getting?
The answers are as boring and human as the mechanicus pretends not to be. All of the different enclaves present a unified front to the outside world, but inside they're just bickering and vying for status amongst each other. They're mostly trying to out-do each other in self-enhancement, building and strapping custom-built crude cybernetics onto themselves to become a machine. At this point it all just feels paradoxical, but whatever. You're done with these idiots for right now.
They're also turning their new applicants into new techpriests, and the ones that flunk out are getting turned into skitari or servitors. Sure. Sounds like a totally normal thing to do.
Though, all of this does mean you could probably pretend to be a techpriest if you wanted to. You'd need to design a new avatar for the purpose, but it might unlock some interesting options... like burning down their enclaves from the inside...
Current capabilities:
Command Points 265/12,500
Ground Build Capacity: 150
Void Build Capacity: 0
Research Capacity: 200
Available ships:
None.
Available ground forces:
1000 Light infantry bots (200 CP)
Current Installations:
Underground Directional-Control Radio Tower (5 CP)
Underground Manufactory (50 CP)
Crashed Ship (10 CP)
In progress construction:
None
In progress research:
Psychic shielding: (50/300 RP)
[] [Free] Poke around some more in the databases, looking for anything in particular.
I'm not going to write out every aspect of Vita going through the databases she yoinked. If you want to ask if something in particular is present because it's important, do so here. Please keep it to one or two items per turn.
[] Orders: Command existing units in a given theater of operations.
You could send your bots out to grab people from the outskirts of the city, but that seems like a quick way to get attention.
[] Diplomacy: Talk to people. (Write-in goal & method)
You can send communications without a lot of risk of being backtraced now, either through the datanet or direct radio communication. You can also send your avatar in person. But who do you talk to? What do you say?
[] Construction: Gain build points equal to your build capacity, write in what combination of blueprints you spend them on.
[] Research: Gain research points equal to your research capacity, to be spent designing new blueprints or researching projects. Write in what you spend them on.
Some things are impossible without the correct research - for example, heavy tanks will require you to research heavy armor first. Other things will be very cheap if you already have most of the design - for example if you research a better weapon it will be relatively cheap to just swap that out on the tanks.
Designable Blueprints:
10 RP - New Avatar (10 BP, 0 CP) Design a new body for yourself, if you don't like the old one.
25 RP - Anti-Orbital Defenses (100 BP, 5 CP) A single large lance dug into a reinforced bunker. Will prevent hostile forces from claiming the orbits uncontested, but can be neutralized by orbital bombardment or ground invasion.
100 RP - Heavy Infantry Bots (100 BP, 200 CP) 1000 human-sized bipedal robots with heavy armor, roughly equivalent to the Sisters of Battle, and heavy armaments such as plasma guns, meltaguns, heavy flamers, melta bombs, missile launchers.
50 RP - Heavy tanks (500 BP, 50 CP) 100 heavy battle tanks with heavy battle cannons to fight effectively against heavy enemy armor.
Here are two examples of me designing the two blueprints you have available:
(Basic Defense Satellite) Light defense Platform. Base 100 Bp (200x200 meters). No engines, Light shields for 50 bp, light armor for 50 bp. 1x light lance battery for 100 bp. Total is 100+50+50+100 = 300. Weapons+equipment is 100, within the base BP of 100, so no cramming penalty.
(Basic System Monitor) Destroyer chassis. Base BP 350 (1500x300 meters) Engines: 7 gravities for 100 BP. Light Shields for 50 BP. Medium armor for 100 BP. 2x Light Macrocannon batteries for 200 bp, 1x Light Lance battery for 100 bp, High maneuverability thrusters for (1/10 base, round up to nearest 50 =) 50 bp. Total is 350+100+50+100+200+100+50 = 950. Weapons + equipment is 350, within the base BP of 350, so no cramming penalty.
Destroyer, 50 RP, 50 CP. (200-500 BP, 1200x200-1600x400 meters) Engines: (6/7/8 gravities) for (50/100/150 BP). Shields: (none/light/medium) for (0/50/100) Armor: (none/light/medium) for (0/50/100)
Frigate, 100 RP, 100 CP. (500-1000 BP, 1600x400-2200x600 meters) Engines: (5/6/7 gravities) for (75/150/225 BP). Shields: (none/light/medium/heavy) for (0/75/150/225) Armor: (none/light/medium/heavy) for (0/75/150/225)
Light Cruiser, 150 RP, 200 CP. (1000-2000 BP, 3500x400-4400x800 meters) Engines: (3/4/5 gravities) for (100/200/300 BP). Shields: (none/light/medium) for (0/100/200) Armor: (none/light/medium) for (0/100/200)
Vote by plan. You are allowed to design and build a blueprint on the same turn, then utilize it for diplomacy or orders. This also applies to manufactories - if you finish it with one action, then the next action will produce additional build points.
The humans of Denva are generally slightly brown-skinned, but white people aren't unknown. Hair colors tend to be darker, so anything bright and especially anything unnatural will draw attention, though the likelier conclusion is that you're a part of certain urban scenes instead of that you're a fake human.
Whee, another loredump. Luckily I don't think there are any more of these to write unless you go crazy with the free action. Finally we'll have some interaction! Thank you for submitting an aesthetic, don't forget the avatar appearance vote, and don't expect the next update tomorrow. It might happen, but it probably won't.
12 hours of moratorium.
You take a moment to figure out your plan for the next few years. You want to interact with these people peacefully. Not only will being able to build up in the open be much, much easier and faster, but any effort you have to put towards defending yourself is effort you won't be spending getting operational again.
Also - I don't want to kill people unless I have to. I'd much prefer to talk to them. They're just making it really difficult!
But it's a surmountable challenge. You know that they won't react well to you revealing yourself as an AI. Therefore, you need to pretend not to be an AI. You're pretty good at generating realistic video - but not being able to appear in person could be a pretty significant weakness. Additionally, you want - need - to know more. There's too many secrets on this world, too many things that don't make sense, and you need that information before you can move forward.
The local government files will probably be easier to crack than those of the mechanicus, and their data will probably help you figure out how to go after the adeptus mechanicus better. To your surprise the goverments actually have fairly decent security, which looks to be aimed at keeping the mechanicus out of their systems. But the human element is always the greatest weakness, and you've got time. You hack into dozens of wireless connection nodes throughout the capitols of the various governments and drop packages that will scoop the credentials of anybody who logs into a secure system through an unsecure connection, or even just has their secure account logged in when they connect. Now all that's needed is to wait, so you turn your attention to other matters.
The next thing that comes to mind is an avatar, which is a hard decision. Do you really want to spend the time on reverse-engineering advanced technology just so you can build yourself a new body? I mean, yes, you do. You've missed your old avatar, nearly as much as you missed talking to people. Even if humans know you, know that you're a person, they just act differently when they're talking to something that they see as a human instead of a ship. It's more personal. Deeper.
You spend a few moments lost in the memories of improving your connections with people after you purchased your first Avatar. It really opened up whole new worlds of human interaction. Humans might think of their communications as mostly verbal, but they had a whole layer of partially unconscious exchange through body language and facial expression. Being able to participate in that had been a joy. But of course, you're still missing the other half of the element - people to talk to.
Well, they're out there, I just need to make sure they don't try to kill me for existing first.
And that's the real reason to build an avatar. It will let you appear in person as a nearly perfectly convincing human, though you'll need to stay within range of wireless reception in order to keep control of the body. If anybody scans you with the right instruments they'll figure it out, but those really shouldn't be common as long as you don't let them use any medical imaging equipment. And being able to show up in person and do things like purchase land is absolutely going to open important doors.
Having convinced yourself that an avatar is truly something that will be helpful, you get to work skimming through the manual and the archived scan results from the last time you thought about this topic in the long millenia. This time you don't have to worry about intellectual copyright protection, and you piece together the polymers used to make realistic-looking skin, figure out how to arrange micro-articulators to accurately simulate facial expressions and muscle movements, and design the machines to do the microscale weaving and stitching of realistic-looking hair. Your old body had some capacity for automatic modification and could change it's dimensions to some extent, as well as change details like hair, eye and skin color to suit personal aesthetic. Your version can't do that, so you'll need to decide exactly what you want your avatar to look like as you build it. They're not easy to make, but they're not that expensive. You just don't love the idea of throwing away your body every time you want to make a change.
Or having a closet of them. It's a little...weird. I could see making one for infiltration, but I'd like to have one 'main' body.
Finally it's time to actually make your new avatar, and you spin up your new manufacturing plant in anticipation. You built some of the new production methods into its design, and its first product is going to be your new avatar.
Manufactory completed. +50 build capacity.
Unfortunately, the first four bodies need to get recycled because of defects, and it's a bit discomforting to watch your chosen face melt as your bots shove it into the furnaces for material recycling. But such is the life of anybody who wants to make a decent final product, and after some amount of iteration you get it right.
Avatar Complete - rolled a 29+20=49! No special effects. Avatar body gained, appearance awaiting vote.
Unlocked new blueprint for design: 10 RP - New Avatar (10 BP, no CP)
Unlocked new research: 200 RP - Avatar self-customization
Unlocked new research: 100 RP - Combat bot humanization
You dial into your new body, feeling its limbs articulate smoothly as you look around the roughly-carved cavern that houses your new manufactory. It's kind of a hellscape not meant for organic life, but that's ok. It's not meant to be pretty, it's meant to make things.
The new body takes a stroll back through your ship, and you wince at the apparent damage to the place that has held you for more than fifteen thousand years. This ship is ancient, and it looks it. It's not the beautiful age of something well-maintained and showing its age. It's the wear and corrosion of something built so long ago that it can't be dated radioactively, and that it still exists at all is a testament to the craft of those who built it.
But it's time to move on. Doors open before you as you walk towards the core of the ship, and finally you step into the sanctum of sanctums, the home of your processing core. This room is as decrepit of the rest of the ship, and you shake your head as flakes of rust peel off of the wall at your touch. It's long past time you acquired a new ship, but unfortunately it's not so simple as building one. Not yet.
You know it's time to check back in on your little credential-traps, but you want to enjoy the feeling of having a body again first. You walk through the rest of the ship, touring the repaired reactor and running a finger over the seam where clean new parts meet blackened ancient ones. It's all functional and passes the necessary tests, but it's still ugly in a way you hadn't been able to appreciate until you looked at it with similar eyes to what a human would use.
Maybe having a body isn't just for how humans treat me. It also affects how I see the world. It's a point of focus for me, to bring my attention to specifics instead of merely going down a checklist. The walls are still structurally sound, so what does it matter they're covered in corrosion? It won't be a true problem for another fifteen thousand years, so who cares?
You avoid your previous crew's quarters, not quite ready to deal with that particular bombshell, and find yourself walking towards your storage vaults. The door hiding the psionic technology opens ahead of you with a hiss of air, and you walk in to study the racks of shining equipment.
They seem to have stood the test of time well. I wonder why?
Aside from the lack of corrosion, everything is obviously crude, studded with wires and protrusions that make it look like the armor and weapons of some kind of deep-sea crustacean. But that gives it a kind of organic appeal, making it clear that this technology does something more than simply effect the physical world.
You heft a strange sword, feeling the balance of it. To you it feels like just a sword, but you wonder what it would enable somebody with psychic abilities to do?
Though a sword - really? Maybe it's an amplifier, but I'd expect something like that staff over there to serve better. Or maybe that helmet-thing. That's the kind of thing I'd expect.
Regardless, it seems like psychic powers are a reality of this universe, and that's a potentially dangerous hole in your knowledge. One you should really patch over sooner or later.
Also - it's fascinating. Psychic powers? A new branch of reality, as-yet unexplained by science? How could I resist studying that?
Unfortunately, figuring out how all of this work is not the most important thing right now, or even the second most important thing. It's exciting and interesting, and something you absolutely want to figure out. However, if you're going to figure out weird warp-related phenomena it should be your shielding.
You spend what free time you have examining the physical structure and what information you have on the psychic shielding that protected you while you were in the space hulk. You don't understand how it works, you don't understand what it protected you from, and that seems like a dangerous liability that you need to fix. Eventually, at least. It doesn't seem to be under strain now, but it might be in the future.
You tear your attention away and turn it towards the thing that's actually important here, which is hacking into governmental databases. To your delight but utter lack of surprise you find a plethora of governmental credentials waiting in the traps you seeded earlier, giving you high-level access to their secure systems. More than one goverment has tried to airgap themselves from the public net, but all you need is a single one of their network nodes in range of a public node, and those are everywhere.
Hack into secure governmental databases - rolled 57+20=77. Good success, No additional technology to give bonuses to, extra information gained.
You dive into the data, looking for the secrets that you need to know. At first it's nothing particularly interesting, though a few things that don't surprise you so much as disappoint you. Cover-ups, a few distinctly non-democratic actions. But nothing too bad.
It's in going back to the archives for more information on the Imperium that you start finding the juciy bits. There's some more information on the Imperium that makes you shake your head. Details of the 'tithe' and the penalties levied when it wasn't met, the system of nobility that governed the planets. Some scraps of information on the Imperial Navy which give you pause. Those ships... don't seem very impressive compared to what you knew.
Then there's the section on threats. Mostly they seem focused on various aliens, such as the Orks. There don't seem to be any of those nearby, fortunately enough. You were kind of wondering if somebody would have hunted those malformed bioweapons to extinction by now, but clearly not. There's brief mention made of things called "Tyranids," also called the Great Devourer, and those just sound terrifying. There's not too much information, but they sound like the ravenous bug trope so common to sci-fi.
Greeaaat.
There does appear to be a local Eldar presence, which makes you pause. The old Imperial archives instruct the local government in no uncertain terms to ignore any attempt to make contact, and shoot on sight no matter the type of eldar observed.
More than one type of Eldar? Did they have a schism or something?
But the newer goverments have all rescinded that order. It seems like the local government would actually like to speak to the Eldari if they get an opportunity.
So there's potentially a break in their xenophobia there. Interesting.
Then, in a deep archive you find mention of the "necrons." There's not a lot of detail, but what there is is just confusing. How did you never hear of these? Ancient robots with hyper-advanced technology that worked according to principles separate from normal physics sound like the sort of thing you should have heard of before. You're not sure they're real, but hey. Maybe some other AI went a little crazy sometime in there.
The "Heretics" are a head-scratcher, especially since the people of Denva Secundus assert most vehemently that they are not, despite their slow drift away from the Imperial Creed. There's a singular mention of the Archenemy that makes your avatar frown, even as it places an engraved chestpiece into the scanner.
What archenemy? Shaytan? Some threat that cannot be named? The more I learn, the more issues I find.
Finally you get to a series of contingency files on the local system, and find the secret of Denva Prime. It turns out that Denva Secundus wasn't always the only colonized body in the Denva system. Denva Prime, the second planet out from the sun that is listed as an airless and barren desert in the public databases. It's not actually airless, though it is a desert.
It's also home to both an alien species labelled as the Vellkar, and large deposits of a rare ore called kultrinium. The imperium tried several times to exterminate the Vellkar, but always failed beyond pushing them into the extensive underground caverns that stretched beneath the desiccated sands. So they maintained heavily-armed mines across the surface to extract the kultrinium, which occasionally came under subterranean attack at the Vellkar tunneled in to slaughter the miners.
You query your database to figure out what the kultrinium is and quickly find a match. Then you're confused. Sure - it's useful for building high-power conduits and cheaper magnets, but it hardly seems like a critical strategic resource in the way the Imperium was treating it.
Anyways, after contact was lost with the imperium it was also lost with the mines, and the local governments aren't sure what is happening over there. They're worried the Vellkar have overwhelmed and slaughtered the humans, and are scavenging their technology and might come attack Denva Secundus. No contact with Devna Primus has been reported in living memory.
There's talk about sending probes to find out what's happened, but that always runs into the primary obstacle for the goverments - the mechanicus. There's no end of internal complaining in goverment channels about their obstructionism and interference with local goverment.
You read further and are shocked by the amount of influence a dozen small enclaves have over the various goverments. They seem to be successfully preventing any technological advancement of any kind from happening across Denva, as well as extracting frankly ridiculous tolls in precious metals and refined hydrocarbons in exchange for keeping leftover military equipment running.
You scan a little further and find out why. Not only is the mechanicus responsible for maintaining and supplying the Imperial equipment of the PDF, but they also are required to maintain and even arm the weapons of mass destruction owned by all of the nations. They also definitely have WMDs of their own, and no nation wants to piss off the people who both hold the keys to their nukes and have nukes of their own.
The enclaves aren't really just enclaves. They're more akin to a sovereign nation of their own. Low in headcount, high in influence and power. If I piss them off and they demand that all of the nations destroy me, then unless I can offer something better the people of Denva will follow their orders.
There are hints of some small amount of clandestine research going on, but the need for absolute secrecy from the mechanicus appears to be hobbling it pretty badly. That might just be them not wanting to put any information on even secure datanets where mechanicus hackers could find it though.
Nothing you can find suggests that the local governments might be friendly towards AIs. They don't even seem to consider they'd ever run into one, and the most mention you can find is how ridiculous that would be.
There's one other matter before you turn your attention to the mechanicus - the monasteries. You don't know what's going on with them, and apparently the governments are pretty much keen to let them be. But some digging in the deep archives of the nation of Denva reveals a trove of files left over from the Imperial government.
The monasteries were the local governor's attempt to safely sequester psykers before the Black Ships arrived. He hoped to curry favor with influential members of the government by providing a large allotment of psykers, and had agreements with several neighboring worlds - including Denva Prime - to take in any psykers they didn't want.
He also bargained with the local astropaths for any methods or techniques that could be used to 'stabilize' psykers, and there's some frustration there at the lack of success. However he did appear to have more success with a "rogue trader" that came through, who provided some kind of expertise for some undisclosed favor. Then the governor poured resources into the monasteries, cultivating the correct environment to keep his treasured "gifts to the Emperor" stable and alive to be picked up by the Black Ships. Though the 'alive' seems to be only optional, and there's some mention of executions and secret police operating amongst the monasteries to dispose of "sources of trouble."
Using the information gathered you search through more data. There's not much - the monasteries really are off the grid. But you do find some deleted data sitting in ancient drives that you manage to reconstruct. It consists of a series of messages that catalog what happened to the Adeptus Telepathica on Denva after contact was lost. They apparently retreated directly to the nearest monastery, refusing all demands they return to the capitol. The messages speak caustically of taking advantage of the "Governer's foolishness" to "outlast the coming storm and safeguard our people." It doesn't seem like the governor pushed the issue before he got blown up.
The latest message is dated a hundred and ten years ago, shortly after the destruction of the governor's spire, and is merely a request to see if anybody is still on the connection. You suppose you could pick that line up, though it hasn't been used in a hundred years, so who knows?
So - the monasteries are places for psykers to go, and they actually do need to go there or else they cause problems. And they're nice, but also have secret police that kill you if you cause problems. That sounds like not my problem right now.
You print out a few high-capacity data drives and store away all of the data you can find. You can query it again later if you missed anything, but for now it's time to turn your attention to the mechanicus.
You'd been hoping for some kind of initial framework for how to penetrate the enclaves' systems from the governments, but there's nothing. So you start by simply probing their open ports. Something slams the connection in your face, and you're pretty sure it seeks to run some sort of backtrace on you. Not that it'll work. Even if it is able to jump through all of the connections you made, the only place that signal will lead is to a satellite that is receiving a signal from an unknown and ground-based source that is nowhere near you.
But still, that reaction was a surprise. It felt almost like an AI - some sort of non-automatic system responding to your intrusion. Does the mechanicus have AI's after all? You analyze the history and conclude that if they do, they're shitty. The reaction was slow and sloppy. You try again, patiently worming through with a more subtle approach over the course of an entire year.
Hack into mechanicus databases - rolled 44+20=64. Success!
This time you're successful. You can see the trail the electronic guardian leaves in their systems and bypass it easily, diving into the mechanicus databases and looting them for all their worth. You decide to copy over all of the data you can quickly gather into another stack of printed memory instead of sticking around and doing analysis live. Less potential to ensure you get everything, but you got most of it and there's less risk.
Then you dive in, and there's a lot of information. More detailed information on the imperial factions, Imperial technology, the Mechanicus, their Cult of the Machine and more.
Always goddamn cults out here. I wonder what other cults I'll run into. The cult of the big-ass fish?
It all makes for dry reading, and you roll your eyes at their worship of the machine. A few more things jump out at you. First - that thing you ran into. It was a "machine spirit", which is a term you haven't heard before. You pour over their documents and see that they build small neural processing nodes into almost every piece of technology. You simulate one to their designs and find that it generates an unconscious intellect that's barely capable of anything at all. Then you link a few more together and the capability grows commensurately. It just becomes smarter and more responsive, not any more sapient.
Huh. A neat little way to still get access to intelligent systems without having to deal with AIs.
You model out the trajectory and it does seem like there's a point where too many of these things would start actually gaining consiousness, and they'd be prone to several forms of psychosis. But that's the trade-offs for trying to build a modular piecemeal intelligence.
It's also pretty resistant to damage. You break a third of the nodes and a machine spirit would get dumber, but it would keep working. That would kill me.
You delve into the rest of the mechanicus techbase and find it.. pretty primative. They seem to have a restricted database compared to what more advanced mechanicus outposts have, and there are sections gated off behind access codes that nobody on this planet seems to have. But even so, their manufacturing techniques are best described as "Crude but functional" and more accurately described as 'Why the fuck would you do it that way?" Diving into their manufacturing methods leads you to mention of a servitor, which makes you halt in disgust.
Actually though, why the FUCK would you do it that way? A robot would be better in every way than... lobotomizing a person and using them as an organic robot?
You dig deeper, trying to understand. There has to be a method to this madness, or else you're going to make it your mission to torch the Adeptus Mechanicus. These cogboys seem like a perversion of everything that technology is supposed to enable. You find your explanation eventually - it's precisely for the same reason that they use these "machine spirits." A servitor isn't AI, has no potential to become AI, but still gives you some of the same effects that an AI gives you.
That sends a chill racing through you. This anti-AI bias... is hardcoded. It goes all the way down. Why? What happened? You dive into the files again, and find something on the "Cybernetic Revolt."
Ah. That would do it.
There isn't much information there. But apparently all of the AIs in the galaxy decided to exterminate humanity at once! Or at least that's the history being told here. It's probably not exactly true, but given how deeply coded this anti-AI stance is into everything human there's probably a modicum of truth to it. Otherwise they wouldn't go to such ridiculous ends to avoid anything even having the faintest wisp of artificial consciousness.
Well. That... is enough learning for one day. There's more in the files, but you'll get to it another time. You're usually all-in on uncovering things, but his new Galaxy seems to have nothing but bad news. You'll get back to it later. When you've had more time to parse everything, and more tolerance for whatever the next horror is.
Then with a sigh that you can actually express through your new avatar, you go back into the data. You need one more thing, and that's what the current Mechanicus wants. What are their goals, their priorities? What are they doing with all of the resources they're getting?
The answers are as boring and human as the mechanicus pretends not to be. All of the different enclaves present a unified front to the outside world, but inside they're just bickering and vying for status amongst each other. They're mostly trying to out-do each other in self-enhancement, building and strapping custom-built crude cybernetics onto themselves to become a machine. At this point it all just feels paradoxical, but whatever. You're done with these idiots for right now.
They're also turning their new applicants into new techpriests, and the ones that flunk out are getting turned into skitari or servitors. Sure. Sounds like a totally normal thing to do.
Though, all of this does mean you could probably pretend to be a techpriest if you wanted to. You'd need to design a new avatar for the purpose, but it might unlock some interesting options... like burning down their enclaves from the inside...
Current capabilities:
Command Points 265/12,500
Ground Build Capacity: 150
Void Build Capacity: 0
Research Capacity: 200
Available ships:
None.
Available ground forces:
1000 Light infantry bots (200 CP)
Current Installations:
Underground Directional-Control Radio Tower (5 CP)
Underground Manufactory (50 CP)
Crashed Ship (10 CP)
In progress construction:
None
In progress research:
Psychic shielding: (50/300 RP)
Actions (choose 4 of the below, can choose the same action multiple times):
[] [Free] Poke around some more in the databases, looking for anything in particular.
I'm not going to write out every aspect of Vita going through the databases she yoinked. If you want to ask if something in particular is present because it's important, do so here. Please keep it to one or two items per turn.
[] Orders: Command existing units in a given theater of operations.
You could send your bots out to grab people from the outskirts of the city, but that seems like a quick way to get attention.
[] Diplomacy: Talk to people. (Write-in goal & method)
You can send communications without a lot of risk of being backtraced now, either through the datanet or direct radio communication. You can also send your avatar in person. But who do you talk to? What do you say?
[] Construction: Gain build points equal to your build capacity, write in what combination of blueprints you spend them on.
- Installations
- Void Installations
- Ships
- Units
- Export Goods
[] Research: Gain research points equal to your research capacity, to be spent designing new blueprints or researching projects. Write in what you spend them on.
-[] Efficient Weapon Distribution (100 RP) Ok, there must be more efficient ways to lay weapons out on these ships! (Weapon costs count as 0.9x for ship capacity packing.)
-[] Heavy Cruisers (300 RP) How to make a bigger ship? Let's figure that out. Surely it's not much more complicated than just multiplying all of the dimensons by two! (unlocks heavy cruisers)
-[] Can I have a new ship please? (200 RP) Triggers a sub-turn to design yourself a new ship. It can be any size, up to one class larger than what you currently have available (This is Vita's unique mechanic, and will let you design the first iteration of your ship)
-[] Bombers (100 RP) Can... can you just stick bigger missiles on fighters? (unlocks bombers)
-[] Shuttle automation (150 RP) Surely I don't have to fly these stupid things myself. (Reduce the CP cost of shuttles by 50%)
-[] Superheavy Armor (200 RP) Let's just stick starship armor on them and call it a day. (Unlocks superheavy tanks and is half of the puzzle for space-marine-quality power armor)
-[] Basic power armor (100 RP) Putting heavy armor on a person doesn't work well because... well. It's heavy. If you can give it some robotic actuation then they don't need to carry all of it. (Unlocks humanoid heavy armor, as well as being a prereq for superheavy-humanoid armor, i.e. for space marine-quality, once you research superheavy armor.)
-[] Avatar self-customization (200 RP) Your previous avatar was capable of changing its appearance at your whim, changing the hair, eye and skim color rapidly. Hair length and body size changes took a bit longer but were also possible. Is this worth figuring out? It might just be you being vain. (Unlocks some disguise-style cybernetics... once you get good cybernetics and can do things like skin/eye replacements).
-[] Combat bot Humanization (100 RP) Your combat robots are obviously artificial, with metal skeletons and obvious sensors. But with a bit of tweaking you could make them look like humans in full-body armor. That would include the ability to speak and be mistaken for a human. They wouldn't be able to remove their helmets, and any investigation of wrecks would expose them as machines, but... it still might be useful. (No obvious follow-on tech).
-[] Walkers (300 RP) Tanks are... kind of boring? Mechs are cooler. (unlock armiger knights, starts the knights/titans research tree)
-[] Really good Robotics: (1200 RP) You know it's possible to make robots that are really strong. You've seen the specs floating around. You just don't quite know how to do it, though you've got some ideas on the matter... it would take quite a bit of simulation and a lot of trial and error to bring them into reality (Unlocks improvements to avatars, power armor, cybernetics, combat bots, improved manufactories). Acquire samples of advanced robots to reduce this cost.
-[] Intelligence Coding (500 RP) You don't really understand how your own code and hardware works. Maybe putting some effort into understanding that would pay dividends. It's never been something too interesting, but hey, maybe you should give it a shot. (Helps you understand your own code. Prerequisite to building new AIs, starts command point tree and automation tree)
-[] Psychic shielding: (300 RP) How does your shielding even work? What does it do? You've got the manuals, but it's going to require some brain-sweat to understand the darn thing. (Gives you a stability metric and a readout on your shielding. The first step towards building more/better psychic shielding. Half of unlocking research for better warp understanding).
- [] The Basics of Psytech (200 RP) You have that pile of samples from Prospero. You were supposed to see if anybody was interested in them, but you doubt the people who gave them to you will care much what you do with them anymore. Maybe poke around and figure out what's what. (Beginner psytech learnings. Unlocks research projects to build individual pieces of psytech)
-[] The workings of a Void Abacus (200 RP) You have a void abacus. It's pretty complicated, but you also have the manual, and you've always been good at physics. (You're better at using your void abacus, and unlocks the technology to figure out how to manufacture them, half of unlocking research for better warp understanding).
-[] A Study of Physics (150 RP) You have a good understanding of physics, and access to a huge network of academic papers from several different eras on physics theory. But being able to query it and understand it are different things. It's actually kind of interesting, you have to admit. (First steps towards more exotic weapon types like nova cannons, graviton weapons, vortex bombs, fusion beamers, as well as some new potential manufacturing techniques).
Locked behind samples/installations:
-[] System survey (50 RP) What else is there in the system? You're not even sure what planet you're on. (unlocks a system map). Locked behind an observatory.
-[] Biology is kinda wet (100 RP) Unlocks basic biology research. (The first step towards research projects related to juvenat, as well as human/xeno genetics, improved medical care, interrogaton drugs etc.) Locked behind Basic Biology Research Lab.
-[] Cybernetics (200 RP) Interfacing robotics with organics is an old art, and one you haven't dabbled in at all. You've got some medical literature on nerve-interfacing chips that will help, but you're going to need (consenting) test subjects and appropriate equipment to get started. (Allows you to build and install basic limb replacements. Nothing combat-capable. Unlocks research for more combat-capable cybernetics, brain implants and organ replacements) Locked behind any kind of medical facility.
-[] What's up with this tech? (100 RP, requires samples of imperial technology from locals) You know some of how it works, but you need to get your hands on it to properly replicate it. What's up? (unlocks machine spirits/servitor construction, as well as half of the prereq for hacking imperial technology). Requires Basic Technological Research Lab
-[] Heavy Cruisers (300 RP) How to make a bigger ship? Let's figure that out. Surely it's not much more complicated than just multiplying all of the dimensons by two! (unlocks heavy cruisers)
-[] Can I have a new ship please? (200 RP) Triggers a sub-turn to design yourself a new ship. It can be any size, up to one class larger than what you currently have available (This is Vita's unique mechanic, and will let you design the first iteration of your ship)
-[] Bombers (100 RP) Can... can you just stick bigger missiles on fighters? (unlocks bombers)
-[] Shuttle automation (150 RP) Surely I don't have to fly these stupid things myself. (Reduce the CP cost of shuttles by 50%)
-[] Superheavy Armor (200 RP) Let's just stick starship armor on them and call it a day. (Unlocks superheavy tanks and is half of the puzzle for space-marine-quality power armor)
-[] Basic power armor (100 RP) Putting heavy armor on a person doesn't work well because... well. It's heavy. If you can give it some robotic actuation then they don't need to carry all of it. (Unlocks humanoid heavy armor, as well as being a prereq for superheavy-humanoid armor, i.e. for space marine-quality, once you research superheavy armor.)
-[] Avatar self-customization (200 RP) Your previous avatar was capable of changing its appearance at your whim, changing the hair, eye and skim color rapidly. Hair length and body size changes took a bit longer but were also possible. Is this worth figuring out? It might just be you being vain. (Unlocks some disguise-style cybernetics... once you get good cybernetics and can do things like skin/eye replacements).
-[] Combat bot Humanization (100 RP) Your combat robots are obviously artificial, with metal skeletons and obvious sensors. But with a bit of tweaking you could make them look like humans in full-body armor. That would include the ability to speak and be mistaken for a human. They wouldn't be able to remove their helmets, and any investigation of wrecks would expose them as machines, but... it still might be useful. (No obvious follow-on tech).
-[] Walkers (300 RP) Tanks are... kind of boring? Mechs are cooler. (unlock armiger knights, starts the knights/titans research tree)
-[] Really good Robotics: (1200 RP) You know it's possible to make robots that are really strong. You've seen the specs floating around. You just don't quite know how to do it, though you've got some ideas on the matter... it would take quite a bit of simulation and a lot of trial and error to bring them into reality (Unlocks improvements to avatars, power armor, cybernetics, combat bots, improved manufactories). Acquire samples of advanced robots to reduce this cost.
-[] Intelligence Coding (500 RP) You don't really understand how your own code and hardware works. Maybe putting some effort into understanding that would pay dividends. It's never been something too interesting, but hey, maybe you should give it a shot. (Helps you understand your own code. Prerequisite to building new AIs, starts command point tree and automation tree)
-[] Psychic shielding: (300 RP) How does your shielding even work? What does it do? You've got the manuals, but it's going to require some brain-sweat to understand the darn thing. (Gives you a stability metric and a readout on your shielding. The first step towards building more/better psychic shielding. Half of unlocking research for better warp understanding).
- [] The Basics of Psytech (200 RP) You have that pile of samples from Prospero. You were supposed to see if anybody was interested in them, but you doubt the people who gave them to you will care much what you do with them anymore. Maybe poke around and figure out what's what. (Beginner psytech learnings. Unlocks research projects to build individual pieces of psytech)
-[] The workings of a Void Abacus (200 RP) You have a void abacus. It's pretty complicated, but you also have the manual, and you've always been good at physics. (You're better at using your void abacus, and unlocks the technology to figure out how to manufacture them, half of unlocking research for better warp understanding).
-[] A Study of Physics (150 RP) You have a good understanding of physics, and access to a huge network of academic papers from several different eras on physics theory. But being able to query it and understand it are different things. It's actually kind of interesting, you have to admit. (First steps towards more exotic weapon types like nova cannons, graviton weapons, vortex bombs, fusion beamers, as well as some new potential manufacturing techniques).
Locked behind samples/installations:
-[] System survey (50 RP) What else is there in the system? You're not even sure what planet you're on. (unlocks a system map). Locked behind an observatory.
-[] Biology is kinda wet (100 RP) Unlocks basic biology research. (The first step towards research projects related to juvenat, as well as human/xeno genetics, improved medical care, interrogaton drugs etc.) Locked behind Basic Biology Research Lab.
-[] Cybernetics (200 RP) Interfacing robotics with organics is an old art, and one you haven't dabbled in at all. You've got some medical literature on nerve-interfacing chips that will help, but you're going to need (consenting) test subjects and appropriate equipment to get started. (Allows you to build and install basic limb replacements. Nothing combat-capable. Unlocks research for more combat-capable cybernetics, brain implants and organ replacements) Locked behind any kind of medical facility.
-[] What's up with this tech? (100 RP, requires samples of imperial technology from locals) You know some of how it works, but you need to get your hands on it to properly replicate it. What's up? (unlocks machine spirits/servitor construction, as well as half of the prereq for hacking imperial technology). Requires Basic Technological Research Lab
Ground Blueprint Design:
To design ground installations & non-combat units, post them and I'll add them here if they're valid, along with RP cost to design them. This includes bunkers, anti-orbital defenses, ground units, etc. You'll unlock more things with more technology.Some things are impossible without the correct research - for example, heavy tanks will require you to research heavy armor first. Other things will be very cheap if you already have most of the design - for example if you research a better weapon it will be relatively cheap to just swap that out on the tanks.
Designable Blueprints:
10 RP - New Avatar (10 BP, 0 CP) Design a new body for yourself, if you don't like the old one.
25 RP - Anti-Orbital Defenses (100 BP, 5 CP) A single large lance dug into a reinforced bunker. Will prevent hostile forces from claiming the orbits uncontested, but can be neutralized by orbital bombardment or ground invasion.
100 RP - Heavy Infantry Bots (100 BP, 200 CP) 1000 human-sized bipedal robots with heavy armor, roughly equivalent to the Sisters of Battle, and heavy armaments such as plasma guns, meltaguns, heavy flamers, melta bombs, missile launchers.
50 RP - Heavy tanks (500 BP, 50 CP) 100 heavy battle tanks with heavy battle cannons to fight effectively against heavy enemy armor.
Void Blueprint design:
To design void blueprints, follow these steps:- Choose a starting hull from the list of available void chassis below
- Choose the number of Build Points to be spent on the base hull. This corresponds to overall size of the ship - a destroyer with 200 bp will be 1200x200 meters, while a 500 bp base destroyer will be 1600x400 meters. This will set the "hp" of the design as well as determine the total cost of weapons and combat equipment you can fit into the ship.
- Pick the speed, shields and armor of the design. Shields are recharging temp HP, while armor is damage reduction. Speed is self-explanatory. These do not count towards weapon cramming.
- Pick noncombat equipment to go onto the ship. These do not count towards weapon cramming.
- Choose weapons and combat equipment to add to the ship. As a rule of thumb, your budget for these things is the base BP spent on size before you start to get into cramming. You can cram more stuff in, but there will be penalties to maneuvering, maintenance, etc. As an example, if you build a destroyer with a base hull cost of 400, then you have a budget of 400 to spend on weapons/equipment before penalties start kicking in. See the below example for an explanation:
- Spend the number of RP attached to the chassis.
Here are two examples of me designing the two blueprints you have available:
(Basic Defense Satellite) Light defense Platform. Base 100 Bp (200x200 meters). No engines, Light shields for 50 bp, light armor for 50 bp. 1x light lance battery for 100 bp. Total is 100+50+50+100 = 300. Weapons+equipment is 100, within the base BP of 100, so no cramming penalty.
(Basic System Monitor) Destroyer chassis. Base BP 350 (1500x300 meters) Engines: 7 gravities for 100 BP. Light Shields for 50 BP. Medium armor for 100 BP. 2x Light Macrocannon batteries for 200 bp, 1x Light Lance battery for 100 bp, High maneuverability thrusters for (1/10 base, round up to nearest 50 =) 50 bp. Total is 350+100+50+100+200+100+50 = 950. Weapons + equipment is 350, within the base BP of 350, so no cramming penalty.
Available Void Chassis:
Light defense Platform, 25 RP, 10 CP, (100-400 BP, 200x200-500x500 meters.) Engines: (none) for (0). Shields: (none/light/medium) for (0/50/100) Armor: (none/light/medium) for (0/50/100)Destroyer, 50 RP, 50 CP. (200-500 BP, 1200x200-1600x400 meters) Engines: (6/7/8 gravities) for (50/100/150 BP). Shields: (none/light/medium) for (0/50/100) Armor: (none/light/medium) for (0/50/100)
Frigate, 100 RP, 100 CP. (500-1000 BP, 1600x400-2200x600 meters) Engines: (5/6/7 gravities) for (75/150/225 BP). Shields: (none/light/medium/heavy) for (0/75/150/225) Armor: (none/light/medium/heavy) for (0/75/150/225)
Light Cruiser, 150 RP, 200 CP. (1000-2000 BP, 3500x400-4400x800 meters) Engines: (3/4/5 gravities) for (100/200/300 BP). Shields: (none/light/medium) for (0/100/200) Armor: (none/light/medium) for (0/100/200)
Available Non-combat Equipment:
Living Space (1/5 of the base cost of the hull, rounded up to the nearest 50) This ship is built to be run and operated by humans. It will require a crew but will not cost CP to command.
Warp Drive (1/10 of the base cost of the hull, rounded up to nearest 50) This ship can jump to the warp. Navigation systems sold separately.
Troop compartment (25 BP) Can carry 10,000 soldiers or 500 medium tanks across the stars.
Medical bay (25 BP) Can treat 1000 moderately injured people at once.
Manufactory (Any cost up to base cost of hull, counts as combat equipment for cramming purposes) Generates void BP equivalent to 1/10 of its cost.
Repair Bay (Any cost up to base cost of hull, counts as combat equipment for cramming purposes). Repairs damage across friendly ships equal to its cost in repairs.
Warp Drive (1/10 of the base cost of the hull, rounded up to nearest 50) This ship can jump to the warp. Navigation systems sold separately.
Troop compartment (25 BP) Can carry 10,000 soldiers or 500 medium tanks across the stars.
Medical bay (25 BP) Can treat 1000 moderately injured people at once.
Manufactory (Any cost up to base cost of hull, counts as combat equipment for cramming purposes) Generates void BP equivalent to 1/10 of its cost.
Repair Bay (Any cost up to base cost of hull, counts as combat equipment for cramming purposes). Repairs damage across friendly ships equal to its cost in repairs.
Available Weapons:
Prow Ram 50 bp. This ship is built to run into things, and hurt them more than it gets hurt.
Light Macrocannons 100 bp. Medium range, projectile weapons built for sustained barrage.
Medium Macrocannons 200 bp. Medium range, projectile weapons built for sustained barrage.
Heavy Macrocannons 400 bp. Medium range, projectile weapons built for sustained barrage.
Light Lances 100 BP. Long range, hitscan burst weapons. Not excellent at sustained fire.
Medium Lances 200 BP. Long range, hitscan burst weapons. Not excellent at sustained fire.
Heavy Lances 400 BP. Long range, hitscan burst weapons. Not excellent at sustained fire.
Light Missiles 50 BP short range, limited ammo, vulnerable to enemy point defense but very good burst damage. Limited ammo. Decent anti-fighter/bomber weapon.
Medium Missiles 100 BP short range, limited ammo, vulnerable to enemy point defense but very good burst damage. Limited ammo. Decent anti-fighter/bomber weapon.
Heavy Missiles 200 BP short range, limited ammo, vulnerable to enemy point defense but very good burst damage. Limited ammo. Decent anti-fighter/bomber weapon.
Light Plasma Cannon 250 BP, Medium range, high-fire rate with incredible damage potential. Extremely effective against shields.
Medium Plasma Cannon 500 BP, Medium range, high-fire rate with incredible damage potential. Extremely effective against shields, less effective against armor.
Light Melta cannon 200 BP, Very short range, medium-fire rate but with incredible damage potential. Extremely effective against shields.
Medium Melta cannon 400 BP, Very short range, medium-fire rate but with incredible damage potential. Extremely effective against shields.
Fighters 100 BP, 50 CP. Parasite craft with short-ranged guns and some missile capability.
Point Defense 50 BP. A series of turrets on the hull to shoot down enemy fighters, missiles and torpedoes.
Small Torpedoes 150 BP. A payload of straight-flying armored torpedoes, sized to give destroyers a bad day, hurt frigates and prick cruisers.
Medium Torpedoes 300 BP. A payload of straight-flying armored torpedoes, sized to wreck frigates, hurt cruisers and make grand cruisers know they've been touched.
Light Teleportarium 100 bp. Can teleport a small number of organics or robots onto enemy ships from close range. Enemy shields must be down.
Medium Teleportarium 200 bp. Can teleport a medium number of organics or robots onto enemy ships from medium-close. Enemy shields must be down.
Heavy Teleportarium 400 bp. Can teleport a large number of organics or robots onto enemy ships from long range. Enemy shields must be down.
Light Macrocannons 100 bp. Medium range, projectile weapons built for sustained barrage.
Medium Macrocannons 200 bp. Medium range, projectile weapons built for sustained barrage.
Heavy Macrocannons 400 bp. Medium range, projectile weapons built for sustained barrage.
Light Lances 100 BP. Long range, hitscan burst weapons. Not excellent at sustained fire.
Medium Lances 200 BP. Long range, hitscan burst weapons. Not excellent at sustained fire.
Heavy Lances 400 BP. Long range, hitscan burst weapons. Not excellent at sustained fire.
Light Missiles 50 BP short range, limited ammo, vulnerable to enemy point defense but very good burst damage. Limited ammo. Decent anti-fighter/bomber weapon.
Medium Missiles 100 BP short range, limited ammo, vulnerable to enemy point defense but very good burst damage. Limited ammo. Decent anti-fighter/bomber weapon.
Heavy Missiles 200 BP short range, limited ammo, vulnerable to enemy point defense but very good burst damage. Limited ammo. Decent anti-fighter/bomber weapon.
Light Plasma Cannon 250 BP, Medium range, high-fire rate with incredible damage potential. Extremely effective against shields.
Medium Plasma Cannon 500 BP, Medium range, high-fire rate with incredible damage potential. Extremely effective against shields, less effective against armor.
Light Melta cannon 200 BP, Very short range, medium-fire rate but with incredible damage potential. Extremely effective against shields.
Medium Melta cannon 400 BP, Very short range, medium-fire rate but with incredible damage potential. Extremely effective against shields.
Fighters 100 BP, 50 CP. Parasite craft with short-ranged guns and some missile capability.
Point Defense 50 BP. A series of turrets on the hull to shoot down enemy fighters, missiles and torpedoes.
Small Torpedoes 150 BP. A payload of straight-flying armored torpedoes, sized to give destroyers a bad day, hurt frigates and prick cruisers.
Medium Torpedoes 300 BP. A payload of straight-flying armored torpedoes, sized to wreck frigates, hurt cruisers and make grand cruisers know they've been touched.
Light Teleportarium 100 bp. Can teleport a small number of organics or robots onto enemy ships from close range. Enemy shields must be down.
Medium Teleportarium 200 bp. Can teleport a medium number of organics or robots onto enemy ships from medium-close. Enemy shields must be down.
Heavy Teleportarium 400 bp. Can teleport a large number of organics or robots onto enemy ships from long range. Enemy shields must be down.
Available Combat Equipment:
Low-emission Systems (1/10 of the base cost of the hull, rounded up to the nearest 50) This ship has been tuned to reduce overall emissions, making it stealthier. Not stealthy. Stealthier.
High-maneuverability thrusters (1/10 of the base cost of the hull, rounded up to the nearest 50) This ship is more maneuverable, able to flip, spin and dodge more quickly. This lets it maneuver well through dense asteroid clusters and dodge/ram more effectively in combat.
Plasma payloads (choose missile warheads or Macro cannon warheads) (1/20 of the base cost of the hull, rounded up to the nearest 50) This ship can load and fire plasma-warhead ammunition, which has a flat damage increase.
Melta payloads (choose missile warheads, Macrocannon warheads or torpedoes) (1/20 of the base cost of the hull, rounded up to the nearest 50) This ship can load and fire melta-warhead ammunition, which is especially effective against enemy armor and hulls.
Tuned Shields Double shield cost on ship. These shields recharge significantly faster, but when taken down all the way take slightly longer to reboot.
Alloyed Armor Double armor cost on ship. Armor is much tougher but is harder to repair.
Light Boarding preparations (1/20 of the base cost of the hull, rounded up to the nearest 50) Bulkheads are reinforced, extra hatches seal all decks and turrets guard key chokepoints, making boarding annoying.
Medium Boarding preparations (1/10 of the base cost of the hull, rounded up to the nearest 50) The ship layout is designed to funnel borders into kill-zones in front of armored bunkers, and any borders will take heavy casualties.
Heavy Boarding preparations (1/5 of the base cost of the hull, rounded up to the nearest 50) This ship as essentially a flying dungeon, filled with escherian mazes, hidden turrets, crushing-hallways and other deathtraps.
High-maneuverability thrusters (1/10 of the base cost of the hull, rounded up to the nearest 50) This ship is more maneuverable, able to flip, spin and dodge more quickly. This lets it maneuver well through dense asteroid clusters and dodge/ram more effectively in combat.
Plasma payloads (choose missile warheads or Macro cannon warheads) (1/20 of the base cost of the hull, rounded up to the nearest 50) This ship can load and fire plasma-warhead ammunition, which has a flat damage increase.
Melta payloads (choose missile warheads, Macrocannon warheads or torpedoes) (1/20 of the base cost of the hull, rounded up to the nearest 50) This ship can load and fire melta-warhead ammunition, which is especially effective against enemy armor and hulls.
Tuned Shields Double shield cost on ship. These shields recharge significantly faster, but when taken down all the way take slightly longer to reboot.
Alloyed Armor Double armor cost on ship. Armor is much tougher but is harder to repair.
Light Boarding preparations (1/20 of the base cost of the hull, rounded up to the nearest 50) Bulkheads are reinforced, extra hatches seal all decks and turrets guard key chokepoints, making boarding annoying.
Medium Boarding preparations (1/10 of the base cost of the hull, rounded up to the nearest 50) The ship layout is designed to funnel borders into kill-zones in front of armored bunkers, and any borders will take heavy casualties.
Heavy Boarding preparations (1/5 of the base cost of the hull, rounded up to the nearest 50) This ship as essentially a flying dungeon, filled with escherian mazes, hidden turrets, crushing-hallways and other deathtraps.
Vote by plan. You are allowed to design and build a blueprint on the same turn, then utilize it for diplomacy or orders. This also applies to manufactories - if you finish it with one action, then the next action will produce additional build points.
Additionally, you've built yourself an avatar. What does it look like?
[] Avatar: (write in, provide reference images. AI-generated are fine.)The humans of Denva are generally slightly brown-skinned, but white people aren't unknown. Hair colors tend to be darker, so anything bright and especially anything unnatural will draw attention, though the likelier conclusion is that you're a part of certain urban scenes instead of that you're a fake human.
Whee, another loredump. Luckily I don't think there are any more of these to write unless you go crazy with the free action. Finally we'll have some interaction! Thank you for submitting an aesthetic, don't forget the avatar appearance vote, and don't expect the next update tomorrow. It might happen, but it probably won't.
12 hours of moratorium.
Last edited:
I really liked the story so far, Vita's commentry is quite enjoyable. Also with avatar shenanigans I can't wait for the Mechanicus Academy Arc
Huh... someone in those enclaves is a very smart cookie, not sure if that is a good thing or a very bad thing. See they have the WMDs, effectively all of them, they could attempt to raise themselves up in the place of the governor. Thing is some tech priest had the newest model of social actuator installed and realized that the same factors that had the planet rebel against the Governor would see it rebel against them. Sure the result would be mass starvation as the planet regressed in tech after the populace killed all the tech priests, but all the tech priests would be dead, which is suboptimal for them.
Also called it on external psyker lore source. Since it's back in the old Imperial days that trail is way too cold to follow, but maybe we can figure it out by analyzing the training itself once we get in good with the psykers.
Lastly it's interesting that the locals are willing to deal with the Eldar, I wonder if they are already in contact?
Also called it on external psyker lore source. Since it's back in the old Imperial days that trail is way too cold to follow, but maybe we can figure it out by analyzing the training itself once we get in good with the psykers.
Lastly it's interesting that the locals are willing to deal with the Eldar, I wonder if they are already in contact?
Insult Everyone!
Master of Evil but bad at it.
- Location
- Right behind you~
Right, so long term planning:
The Mechanicus has Got To Go.
Their tech hoarding and obstruction is obstructive to both you and the people, your greatest asset is your research and tech database and while normally that'd mean you could leverage it politically for benefits and shinies, their AI-phobia means that's largely a non-option. You can hide it, but nothing stays secret forever and keeping it secret will slow you down immensely. Best option, get rid of the Mechanicus, turn AI sentiment around, become the tech conglomerate. Technological Uplift ahoy! Long term, you HAVE TO in order to get back into space.
But none of that can happen with the Mechanicus around. Not when they're like this. So how do we wanna do that?
The Mechanicus has Got To Go.
Their tech hoarding and obstruction is obstructive to both you and the people, your greatest asset is your research and tech database and while normally that'd mean you could leverage it politically for benefits and shinies, their AI-phobia means that's largely a non-option. You can hide it, but nothing stays secret forever and keeping it secret will slow you down immensely. Best option, get rid of the Mechanicus, turn AI sentiment around, become the tech conglomerate. Technological Uplift ahoy! Long term, you HAVE TO in order to get back into space.
But none of that can happen with the Mechanicus around. Not when they're like this. So how do we wanna do that?
There are really two ways to go about this: we subvert them or we give the locals the tech they need to replace them. Thing is the former would require Vita to play into what she knows is a cargo cult and the latter would... lead to war crimes. Those tech priests will fight to the death. So first question what can we live with morally? Second question, what's more practical?
After Psychic Shielding,we can knock out A Study of Physics,Void Abacus and Basic of Psytech in about 3 to 4 turns with little difficulty,at least cost wise
Last edited:
10ebbor10
DON'T PANIC
- Location
- Present
Silly thought.
Given that a new AI body is relatively cheap, why don't we use the first one as a comforting form, rather than an infiltrator.
Insult Everyone!
Master of Evil but bad at it.
- Location
- Right behind you~
We can also use those nuke codes to rid em. That's the quickest and easiest. It'll prob get us a lot of flak from the locals though. At least for the short term. So not a good idea methinks.
As for subverting... sending in our avatar isn't worth the risk, methinks. We'd need to take control of their internal politics and that'd require more info from the QM. Which is probably worth looking into at least.
[x]Poke around - Mechanicus politics. How could we subvert them to our purpose? Can we rule them from the shadows? What ears do we whisper? Or do we need to be rid of em the hard way around?
If we're planning to hide long-term, hiding within the Mechanicus as secret puppet master is our best bet. Kind of OOC for Vita tho and while it's a very 40k path, the fun about the fanfics and quests is building something better. Reforming the Mechanicus from the inside is much more our style for this quest.
As for how to militarily beat them... Difficult. Any tech we leak will likely be rapidly confiscated, anything we build will need to be hidden. A literal and figurative underground military-industrial complex. Which is not Vita's style. The nukes we can handle, we have their codes. But that's only so long as they don't know, which means the threat of it is still on their side. Even without, they're still THE Tech Guys, a formidable force. We'd probably need to do the nukenation for this path. So let's focus on the subversion route.
We're specced for the Info War (tech and politics) so let's keep to our strengths.
Also, let's not skip construction again?
Last edited:
10ebbor10
DON'T PANIC
- Location
- Present
Anyway, Here's what I'm thinking.
[] Plan : Focus On Infrastructure
-[] Construction *3 (3* 150)
--[] Underground Manufactory => 300 CP
--[] Underground Basic Tech Lab => 150 CP
-[] Research
--[] What's up with this tech? => 100 RP
--[] Combat bot Humanization => 100 RP
Build a new underground manufactory, because we need the expansion (ships are expensive). Get the underground tech lab + basic tech research so that we can go hacking soon, and to let us start playing around with machine spirits. I kinda doubt we're going to do servitors, but the machine spirits could be fun to mess around with. Doing Humanoid Combat droids rather than continuing psychic shielding, because that finishes it and it's quite crucial. Having machine soldiers spotted would cause serious panic, so plausible deniability if we need to do any operation would be good.
Not to mention, right now our soldiers don't even have the ability to speak, our only option for interaction with anyone who happens to stumble upon us, no matter how accidental, is to shoot them or send out our avater.
And sure, we're safe underground, but our AI is a big softie (and also, SV are softies) who will send out the droids to help/save people if they notice someone's drowning in the river or something.
[] Plan : Focus On Infrastructure
-[] Construction *3 (3* 150)
--[] Underground Manufactory => 300 CP
--[] Underground Basic Tech Lab => 150 CP
-[] Research
--[] What's up with this tech? => 100 RP
--[] Combat bot Humanization => 100 RP
Build a new underground manufactory, because we need the expansion (ships are expensive). Get the underground tech lab + basic tech research so that we can go hacking soon, and to let us start playing around with machine spirits. I kinda doubt we're going to do servitors, but the machine spirits could be fun to mess around with. Doing Humanoid Combat droids rather than continuing psychic shielding, because that finishes it and it's quite crucial. Having machine soldiers spotted would cause serious panic, so plausible deniability if we need to do any operation would be good.
Not to mention, right now our soldiers don't even have the ability to speak, our only option for interaction with anyone who happens to stumble upon us, no matter how accidental, is to shoot them or send out our avater.
And sure, we're safe underground, but our AI is a big softie (and also, SV are softies) who will send out the droids to help/save people if they notice someone's drowning in the river or something.
Draft v2:
[]Plan My Space Rock Science Woman Life in a Cave
-[]Construction:
--[]Basic Biology Research Lab (50 BP, 50 CP)
--[]Basic Technological Research Lab (50 BP, 50 CP)
--Small automated medical facility (50 BP, 50 CP)
-[]Research:
--[] Psychic shielding:150 RP
--[]A Study for Physics:50 RP
-[]Avatar:
[]Plan My Space Rock Science Woman Life in a Cave
-[]Construction:
--[]Basic Biology Research Lab (50 BP, 50 CP)
--[]Basic Technological Research Lab (50 BP, 50 CP)
--Small automated medical facility (50 BP, 50 CP)
-[]Research:
--[] Psychic shielding:150 RP
--[]A Study for Physics:50 RP
-[]Avatar:
Last edited:
meianmaru
The Devourer of Fiction
Besides any other thoughts I have about this plan, I think it might be actually straight out impossible on one part. "What's up with this tech?" requires actual, physical samples of the tech.