What Was Once a known quantity: Chapter 26
What Was Once a known quantity: Chapter 26
Reliable Invention (Kim Possible): Anything you construct is only broken when used improperly or purposefully targeted with attacks. The items you create do not malfunction and are completely resistant to damage caused by regular usage.
Then my entire process got flipped on its head again. I can rarely feel most of my perks activating as hard as I did Efficiency, but this new one kicked me in the teeth. I felt everything I'd built suddenly altered slightly. Just a little alteration to my workload. Most of my tech is nearly maintenance less by itself. That's a design choice I make ahead of time. A small resource expenditure ahead of time reduces future maintenance time, which doesn't take long by any stretch with my time crunching abilities, but it's a few minutes here and there every few days for everything I make. My factory has maintenance cycles built in to ensure that something doesn't go wrong mid-craft. My Valkyrie stored stuff I fix during downtime as a time sink. But suddenly that was gone. I felt my mental map of every design lost maintenance requirements.
The most shocking change was probably my factory and my auto-expanding systems. Because my Tau Factory spends a lot of time at nearly no production, it does maintenance cycles a lot. Keeping everything at 100%, and then it's programmed that if there is no damage to be repaired anywhere, to expand. I have the materials to do so. So when everything locked to 100 percent, the fabrication of spare parts was suddenly unnecessary, it kicked into overdrive. Operating at speeds that normally wouldn't be done for long periods of time to prevent longer maintenance cycles, was suddenly perfectly acceptable, constantly. Instead of a slow, 1-3 % a week expansion of my factory, I was seeing a 22% increase in size, cumulatively, a day. I felt the magical formations tapping my magic begin expanding the room to compensate, driving a massive volume of magic to compensate.
I programmed a cap into the size of the factory a long time ago, 2 sets of production floors, orbital 15 kilometers tall, the suborbital combat rectangles, 500 meters tall, and both 64 square kilometers across. It was going to take me years to get to that limit, intentionally so. Now? Projections put it at 3 weeks. That's… ok. Sure. Why not? With Efficiency going, passively making every aspect of the adaptive factory the most efficient for army creation as I could make it, why not? I let that insanity run, almost conflicted that I was going to have an issue with EMC, but… no. The ridiculous production I had before created enough EMC that I wasn't going to run out unless I tried filling the universe with steel.
Sand I could probably do, but the expensive metals would be an issue.
With production scale solved forever, I built some ships to scour the multiverse for the Darkseid that somehow remained. The result was a half transformer, half Tau, half Aeldari cruiser about a kilometer long. It was about 35% adaptive nanites by volume and could reconfigure itself around a stable Warp-Void glass, and Tau plating core, that had some constant armaments, life support, and a simple FTL drive, but was augmented at every step by the nanite cloud. If I needed more shields, I had them. If I needed bigger guns, I had them. If I needed better thrust, I had it. If I needed to carry more people, I could. It was a very nice all-purpose cruiser that could hide the nanites and become a 750-meter wide disk, about 200 meters tall. It looked very Aeldari if you recognized it, but the non glass areas looked very proto-futuristic from the Tau roots I'm drawing from, the smooth lines, and seamless transition from clear to opaque around the guns and sensors.
Defensively, it didn't need too much from the nanites. The shields were good, Harmony making programmable Anti-Matter fields palatable, but honestly, I didn't really have the perks to go crazy with shields, I just dumped power into them. The real defense was the armor. The meter thick layer of reinforced Wraithbone and Wraithbone glass was one thing. The mind-boggling synergy between High-Frequency Manufacturing and Vibraium was… terrifying to behold. The entire ship had a woven monoatomic shell of Vibranium that was kept vibrating at speeds that turned it into effectively, infinitely smooth sandpaper. I rubbed a stick of Adamantium on it, and it ceased to exist. Atoms were targeted as they came into 'contact' with the Vibranium, and forced the materials to vibrate on their own atomic frequency, and safely dissipate into Gamma radiation. Admittedly, lots of gamma radiation. But in space, if you are vulnerable to that degree of radiation then you are already dead.
It rendered us immune to everything but straight lasers, and the Void glass laughs at anything but visible light passing through it. It filters out lasers, radiation, most of the energy spectrum really, and somehow invisibility effects, magical and non magical. Barring the visible spectrum that I specifically excluded, it was Void, and it worked well.
With our ship set up, we set off exploring the multiversal-galactic community for signs of Darkseid.
There was a lot of fuss from nearly every version of New Genesis that I was 'too young' to deal with him, but from a planet that constantly needed the Justice League's help defeating him… I didn't care. Exploring was fun, and eventually, I ended right back as square one.
The universe I arrived in, the Earth-Prime for my jump, as it were. Darkseid was still kicking around in that small blip of the Multiverse. Sure, why not?
I arrived in the system to a massive armada of ships fighting. Dimensional signatures from all over. Seems the Reach got the tech and was here to fight.
So did New Genesis, pooling their resources into 1 universe I was looking at a battle on a scale that no one…
"Somehow, I'm reminded of home." Violette said, looking out on the 2 armada's crashing into one another.
Battle on a scale at home in the 40K universe. I'll take it.
I contacted the New Genesis fleet and offered my assistance. Surprise surprise, the people actually fighting accepted my help. I dialed in the Reach War Worlds first.
*Volcanic Forge (God of War) (300) Not Bought Remaining: 100 points.*
I wanted to test out my guns and fired a single volley. With solidly 100% of the nanites oriented at making the biggest guns I could. A definable lance of energy exploded out of the energy cannon, and a magazine of heavy antimatter shells poured out onto the battlefield. The shells struck smaller ships in the formation with the closest War World and removed them from existence. The endless stream of antimatter particulates amongst the half photonic, half energized plasma majority cored the War World. Nearly 75% of its spherical face was gone in a flash of light. As both armadas take a small break to deal with my firepower, I decided to be mean.
In my childhood, I watched a show. Space Battleship: Yamato. I remember vividly the description of its titular ship's main gun. The Wave Motion gun. I remember it was the detonation of 2 dimensional gravitational singularities into higher dimensional tachyons fired at superluminal velocities from the bow of the ship. I always wondered why they didn't simply fire the higher dimensional energy waves creating the 2D singularities directly. So I'm going to find out.
I control the nanobots, forging a massive cannon on the top of the ship as the Reach begins firing on my ship nearly exclusively. My shields are holding, and I let them do the work to protect my nanobot cloud as I finalize the gun. I feel Harmony activates as I build High-Frequency Manufacturing into a system built onto universal vibrations. Then I realized what this cannon is. I'm tapping into the dimensional foam directly, as pure energy. My system is interpreting this as EMC through a strange bit of synchronism. I can't shoot this, annoyingly enough, but Efficiency saves it at the last minute. I can't fire pure EMC. I can't convert this either, it's far too much energy for my condensers to deal with at once. It would… form a singularity.
Great. I've come full circle, haven't I?
But… How about I do something else. How about I do exactly what I said I wasn't going to. Fire the energy of collapsing black holes. I can forge them into 2 dimensional figures with a crafting table, and I push. Storing them in a Philosopher's stone's rafting table, I charge 9 condensers and watch the magic happen.
A beam of energy unlike anything I've ever shot before, ever seen before, a weapon so devastating that Violette is shocked. A magically enhanced wave motion beam.
The nanite cloud dissipates into almost nothingness as the cannon tries and fails to sustain fire. But it does sustain the beam for almost 4 seconds.
That's more than enough. The energy is red tinted, or is that just the redshift as it moves away from me?
Regardless, the red beam lances out, annihilating many Reach ships in its aura until it strikes another War World, and as it does, I realize I made a terrible mistake. It isn't stable enough to continue like a contained beam, it refracts like a wave.
And explodes outward.
I see a sphere of blue expand from the ship as it detonates the energy beam, expanding in every direction. In an instant, both fleets, both planets, everything else in the solar system ceases to exist as the blue energy washes everything away. It dissipates as it passes a radius about one light year from the detonation point, in a little under 2 seconds.
That's… not good.
Realm Accrued Points Dissolved for Jump. Realm Cleared-Options: Leave Realm Unlocked for visitation, and set up base zone or gain 1500 points.
I frown, "So… does anyone want to come back here? I'm good with a no."
The Wavestrength enforced chat room fills with 4 "No."s and I select the 1900 points. Annoyed at the number given that Darkseid had more points.
Starmapping points acquired by Darksied have been revoked by Aqua due to failure to best you. Celestial Forge remnant harvested for 1500 points. Total points 3000.
Nevermind.
Lock registered on Realm={DC}_{Secondary Start}. Points 3000. Point Dispersal: Failed. Check Max Found: 2200. Point Dispersal: Chronos Supply (Katana Zero) (2200)
Chronos Supply (Katana Zero): This is a case of 10 Chronos syringes, there is nothing special about the syringes or the Chronos contained within (aside from the usual), and the case replenishes at the end of every week. However, if you want to pay a little extra, you can get a shipping container, containing about 1000 doses, that replenish each week, and the formula to make Chronos. The third and final option nets you the same as the second option, but without the side effects, this nets you a shipping container full of side effect less Chronos and the recipe to make more. Taking this improved version of Chronos will purge a person of their addiction, and can reverse some symptoms of withdrawal.
I… what the hell are those and why are they so effective?
Points Remaining: 800. Point Dispersal: Tinker Plus (Generic Worm Fanfiction) (800)
Tinker Plus (Generic Worm Fanfiction): You're not just a Tinker anymore, you're the Tinker. The PRT rating scale isn't really set up to handle someone like you because it assumes that Tinkers will have specialties, and you don't. You are something never seen before; a genuine omni-Tinker, and one of truly amazing capacity.
Your aptitude and intuition for all sorts of research, science, engineering, and design is absolutely unbelievable. If a project is even halfway related to any of the hard sciences then you can get it done, and do so with a speed and efficiency that makes even experienced Tinkers working within their own specialities look like clumsy beginners. And you can rapidly reverse-engineer other technology given sufficient opportunity to study it, however complex or esoteric it might be. You can even study and analyze exotic and anomalous phenomena, such as cape powers in action, to hopefully gain inspiration for new Tinkertech.
You have a volume knob in your head for making your designs either easily reproducible by mundane methods or totally blackboxed vs. any reverse-engineering or anything in between. You can perform what would have required clean room levels of precision assembly for mundane engineers with ordinary tools and under rough conditions. Troubleshooting or repairing tech that you already understand is a job you could practically do in your sleep, and anything you build or overhaul is maintenance-optional. With time and practice your Tinker abilities can improve and grow indefinitely, without any upper limit.
You can't do things like 'perfected social sciences' or 'auto-win personal interaction methodologies', though. That sort of thing is for Thinkers, not Tinkers.
I… oh. Oh yes. That sounds… unbelievably fantastic. Wow.
Realm Selected. Jumper's knowledge of the realm below threshold for restriction. Jumper's ignorance of the realm above threshold for threat alert. Realm Threat Flag: Potential Higher Dimensional Existential Erasure
I… I'm sorry, what?
Minimal Threat Mitigation Recommendation: None
Moderate Threat Mitigation Recommendation: Restrict higher level magical effects. Restrict higher level reality alteration effects. Restrict temporal motive effects. Restrict temporal hyper-expansion effects.
Can I go somewhere else? Please?
Major Threat Mitigation Recommendation: Restrict alterations to established timeline.
Perfect. In a moment that I feel like I'm falling, I'm in a desert. I can see lights in the distance that presumably point to civilization. I quickly create a doorway on the side of a rock and send a clone through to my Warehouse. Wavestrength needs me to have opened the door at least once to connect to the Warehouse, and the clone is for… not dying due to something terrible happening out here.
I inform my companions about the long list of things I shouldn't do in order to lower the risk of whatever the hell that flag means, and ask for opinions.
Violette begins bluntly, "Honestly, for the moment, I would keep a clone in here, maybe even your main consciousness, and try to figure out where we are before doing anything… adventurous. Like, conquer a planet."
Wiz is more focused, less cautious, "You have a wide range of powers if you can check what the level of this place is compared to them, what the powers talk about, then you might be able to figure out where we are from that."
Tiamat questions, "We could remain here, try scanning the place and leaving as little footprint as possible, that would prevent most of the risk flags from triggering."
Ankh saves the conversation, remarking directly, "The system has a threat calculator, and auto assigns threat levels correct?"
I blink. Duh. 'System, list threats by order of magnitude.'
More information required.
I frown. Ok… 'System, list threats?'
Threat Checklist access allowed: Arcturus Mengsk currently 0, potentially 200. Jim Raynor currently 0, potentially 200, secondary potential 2000. Egon Stetmann currently 0, potentially 300. Sarah Kerrigan currently 100, potentially 800, secondary potential 3000. Overmind currently 1000, potentially Error. Artanis currently 100, potentially 600. Zeratul currently 100, potentially Error, secondary potential 0. Amon currently Error.
Starcraft. I'm… not entirely sure who about half of these people are, but I'm definitely in Starcraft. I recognize Raynor and Kerrigan from the second game. And Stetmann from… well my Starcraft Perk.
The potential points of Error scare the crap out of me. I don't know what that even means.
*Store of Omni-Metals (DC - Larfleeze) (300) Not Bought Remaining: 100 points.*
The Overmind… is... isn't that the Zerg hive mind base? I frown, and decide to do something I should have done months ago, and didn't make time for. Checking out the Organic Database. Opening it spun Engineering Savant | Foresight of Ouros lie I'd never felt before, and I began.
As I began experimenting, I quickly noticed that the same basic tenant kept popping up in the Zerg, and the repetition was growing annoying. Rapid breeding speed combined with minimized junk DNA and an even heavier focus on specialization. Heavily specialized creatures for every slot in a war machine, little to no overlap in abilities, simplified… not quite psionic bands between creatures for commands. The range was all but insignificant for the terrestrially bound creatures, it was easily continental for the structures, and with a strange exception to this seemingly for an unarmed balloon, one that I could actually remove completely with my new understanding of the genetics of… everything. The other exception to the range limit was the building that got me thinking about this, the understandable lack of range limit on its frequency. It was… strange. There were limitations that I couldn't understand why they were designed around specific paradigms. I had no real way of testing until I could crack the near psionic waveband. The only reasons I was as close as I was could be accredited to Martian Manhunter and my new Tinker Plus. His powers were close to what I needed, and my dual specialty in Psionic Connectivity and Alternative Vibrational Dynamics. The combination got me agonizingly close, but it's like I was on the wrong tech tree. Psionics, as a limitation of biology or a multi universal constant, overrated on a small set of wavebands. Worm, DC, even Marvel did, given that it's the same energy band that the telepathy blocker and neural shock bomb from my Iron Man tool kit functioned on. Spending time focusing on that band isolated from the Zerg required fighting my Efficiency perk, and I decided to let it lie.
Then I opened the packet on the Overmind, its specifics. Then I realized that I was trying to connect to a Bluetooth signal with a tinker tech wireless telephone. There was… something. Something massive was hiding in that creature, and it was some kind of organic encryption and network hub system, the durability and complexity were letting it push at the edge of a fiat in and of itself, but the moment I actually understood and looked for encryption? Instant access. It… it was honestly almost identical to my Wavestrength perk, through some kind of Void energy. That's when it clicked. I was trying to tap into a Void energy sublet, without using Void energy. New specialties swapped in, Non-Energetic Motion Systems apparently, and I was shocked that an organic structure was capable of forging a Void connection at all, but my genetic experience and Tinker specialties, led me to the truly alien genetics of the Overmind. It wasn't Zerg at all. It was… created to lead the Zerg. I could see that written right in its DNA.
After figuring that out, understanding, and being able to program the connections between my virtual swarm, I was really able to test my creations. I simulate colonies, genetics from the aliens I'd encountered, and other technologies into the growth pattern. I discovered quite quickly that adding in most of the aliens was nearly useless, or stupidly expensive. I could leave the option open for a highly limited version of the genetics to be an extremely late game upgrade, it's frankly ludicrous price leaving the price of the creatures and buildings alone, but it would be centuries of production to get there. While experimenting, 2 massive bonuses popped up, the first almost by accident.
*Technical Schematics (Warhammer 40k - T'au empire) (200) Bought. Remaining: 0 points.*
Specialization in Mechanical Life made it possible to grow an inorganic equivalent of the Zerg. AKA the Mecha-Zerg. I didn't know it was possible to make metal grow from sunlight and rocks, without Equivalent Exchange that is, but apparently it was quite possible. The strange crystals that this seemed to depend on were the main limiting factor for a long time, looking into several tinkertech Matter Generation solutions only demonstrated that the Zerg needed something simpler, easier to grow, but eventually, I got it all worked out. Specifically, I figured out the second major upgrade to the Zerg.
Via Efficiencies grinding hand, and specialization or three, I found that Equivalent Exchange could be incorporated directly into both the fully organic, and fully mechanical Zerg live cycles all but eliminating the requirements for outside materials, but the normal materials could further accelerate the growth. I didn't make the primary base structure a collector, but a massive condenser. Capable of taking in both materials, fallen enemies that didn't contribute to the DNA of my organic strain, or technologies for my mechanical strain, and further accelerating the growth loop. It had an upper limit that expanded massively with each of the three upgrades to the building; somehow it incorporated the Equivalent Exchange tier system naturally into the Zerg tier system.
Then I started simulating base construction with combat and frowned. Why the hell were they even above ground? Or near the battlefield? I had Nydus Worms, and they could deploy from anywhere. I optimized them to the smallest Efficiency allowed. I did lose some of the recharge rate, a twenty percent increase in time between repositioning, but the capacity for 4 of them to be added directly to the primary Zerg structure, called a Hatchery, Lair, and Hive depending on the upgrade tier. That did have the unfortunate side effect of rendering my base structure vulnerable to traditional fire, and no amount of Subterranean Construction specialties removed the condition for the Nydus worms to be exposed to the troops being moved. The base structure was underground certainly, but it was one organism. I resolved to build a few, but Nydus worms at only one or two.
The next step was the Zerg strain buildings. Upgrade centers needed to be within the much smaller Psionic radius of that building directly. The Hives connect to other Hives, and the Leviathan class Zerg. The biological unlock centers for the more advanced species of Zerg were strange. They carried upgrades, and I really couldn't do much for them. I looked at a combination of them, but it wasn't worth even starting. What I could do was remove them from the battlefield entirely. I used the functionality of my Wavestrength, and would build them directly into my Warehouse, into the Overmind I would eventually put on one of the top floors. That would give my entire swarm the full upgrade tree, without ever putting them in danger. It made the upgrades far more expensive. Just under 1200 times more expensive, but I would need them once. Across my entire jump history. I could build them into an Overmind in a specific realm, but buying them again for no additional effect? Costing even less than it would normally. Apparently, the Zerg system adapts to that kind of thing.
It would explain the tens of trillions that a Kryptonian upgrade, even just the invulnerability was a few hundred million. It was insane.
* Not Bought Remaining: 100 points.*
Then I looked at my defenses. I was rather disappointed in the 3 options I had available. Spine Crawlers were versatile, but not great. So I looked to the creatures for more ideas, and I found them. Nearly all of them from Hydralisk strains surprisingly. The nearly invisible burrowing ability, the massive anti-armor damage, the large area of effect anti-infantry spread combined into a longer range building. About one and a half times the range of the spine crawler, 4 times if the creep spread that far, and I did put a Creep tumor into it, just to help out with that. Capable of targeting infantry and tanks separately with their targeted effects. It was a nasty surprise for anything standing on the ground.
I was kinda disappointed in the Spore Crawlers in general. They felt… weak compared to the powers that other units already had. So I amped them up too. Stupidly fast fire of the Hydralisk projectiles, easy to do given that they don't need to move, and small flying Locusts, but with a twist. They didn't need to live long anyway, so I added some Baneling and Scourge projectiles to them. Area of effect, potent acid weapons that turned air units into wreckage faster than most of my units could even react. Unfortunately, the shooting into the sky limitation means that they aren't hidden in the creep, but the lethality made up for it.
The cost of these defenses was far higher than the originals, so I incremented it. Internal upgrades meant they could be deployed at about half the price of the originals and could be upgraded into their more lethal forms. Given that they were mutable in the field, I could raise the number of attacks from the 1 anti-infantry spike, to 3 each anti-infantry and 3 anti-tank. My Grave-Lurker was devastating at that point, all but unbreachable by the unaltered units I could encounter. At basically the last minute, I recognized that invisibility was a thing in Starcraft, and built sensors into them. It was so cheap I put it directly on the base structure, and it upgraded like the unit, almost doubling the sightline and therefore the range of them. I smiled at the synergy.
The Acid Javelin would start with little more than the speed of 1 Hydralisk, but it could finish with the power of 24, and up to 12 Scourglings. Even the massive range of the Broodlord couldn't deter it with the Scourgelings attacking it.
Nearly forgotten in my upgrade spree, was the humble Drone. It was… almost acceptable, honestly, it was close, and without Tinker Plus, I might have kept it. But I can just add what they do directly to the Creep.
That brought me finally to said Creep. It covered the ground, massive sections of it, and seemed to do nothing. Even in my simulations, real as my Lucy Computer could make them, regular Creep was a food source for my organic Zerg and given that feeding them fell under maintenance somehow, unless they were healing from combat, they didn't need to do that, it was just charging the Mecha-Zerg. I built nanopores into the entire mass, sitting at the bottom so that the food goo, and/or charging pad protected it from basic damage, and had mutable DNA like the Drones throughout the whole thing. It could grow directly over the crystals, consuming them at a small constant stream, accelerating the growth pattern if they were available. If not, it functioned as the building process as well, collecting mass into the entire surface area of the future building's connection with the floor. Accelerating build speed and removing a vulnerable unit from the field. Even after that, it didn't feel complete, right up until I realized why Efficiency had prevented me from putting the EE collectors as the skin of my buildings but had me include Creep tumors into all of them. I could augment the food and charging properties of the Creep with a collector. It was already covering everything, surface area expanding as the fight does. It was perfect. So perfect that it was overwhelming the condenser of 1 Hive my the time the simulation hit tier 2. I actually needed to build a dedicated external condenser to keep the collected energy from overflowing the Hive. And that means I needed forward structures, and I looked back to the Spawning Pools and smiled.
*Sublimation (Fate/Legends - Vive La France) (600) Not Bought Remaining: 200 points.*
I made a whole new building, setting them up as both condensers, taking a load off of the Hive structure, slower but still useful spawning of larva in the solution, and a forward point to analyze and consume fallen enemy soldiers. The Analysis Maw sounded suitably metal, and it looked like a collection of mouths full of acid.
Running more simulations, I didn't have a whole lot to actually do to the organic creatures of the Zerg. The upgrades I introduced covered the minor changes to Zerg doctrine that I disapproved of, like the 1 upgraded strain per creature. They were both purchasable as a result of the martian DNA, which didn't cost much comparatively, and then I could swap back and forth in the cases like the Hydralisk, and the Swarm Host had a toggle, but in all other cases, I just had both. More per larvae and jumping Zerglings. Infested and slowing Roach toxin. Jumping and multiplying Baneling. Toxic and self-resurrecting Ultralisks. The Mutalisks were interesting. I just gave the abilities of the second upgrade to the Broodlord, while giving the Broodlings a time-out Baneling detonation.
The Mecha Zerg had no such issues. With the firepower I could design directly into them, I almost started a full redesign, but stopped. I already had a solid base to start from, why not incorporate upgrades? I started with that, adding instead of replacing. Everywhere I had Hydralisk projectiles, I had upgrades for an upgraded version of the Tau Rail Rifle. A massive upgrade in damage, into the snake-like creatures, and my Acid Javelin. I looked into the Roaches and smiled. Mild reinforcing and I could turn their effect into Flamers. Interestingly enough, the Mecha-Zerg's adaptive programming adapted quite well, keeping the slowing effect, even if I had to drop the effect of the implanting egg. I was able to add a rather nice set of Nexus Missile Racks to its back, giving it a mobile artillery option. I was also capable of truly upgrading the Bile Launcher to fire heavy plasma grenades, widening its formidable area of effect and increasing damage.
Leviathans were a massive cost sink already, so I decided to look into what I could do with them. I discovered quite quickly that instead of putting an Overmind on a planet, I could put them in space, combining the powers of the two, entrenching my network into an array of emitters for a change in cost that was effectively non-existent by the time I was making them at all. Then I slapped on an individual Kryptonian upgrade to go with the full EMC collecting and condensing rig, and wow I was not expecting them to synergize quite so well. By the time I spent the better part of a week growing the damn thing, a Leviathans with all those upgrades, it would take less than a day for the EMC production of a Leviathan to pay for itself. At its size, it could store the resources it created measurable in weeks, no star required. With one? I was unstoppable.
I felt my Tinker Plus ease the difficulty of the transition from my experiences to making it all work like I wanted, and I dialed Blackboxing to 11. I do not want the Overmind stealing my upgrades, that could be… well the threat was already at Error. Let's not make it worse.
*(Not so) Consistent Technology (World of Darkness - Genius the Transgression) (200) Bought. Overflow. I Can Whip Something Up (My Life As A Teenage Robot) (100) Bought Remaining: 0 points.*
Checking what I got from the Forge this time, I was surprised.
I Can Whip Something Up (My Life As A Teenage Robot): Working late nights and filling out strange requests is just another Tuesday for a Scientist of your calibre. This perk ensures that you'll never suffer burnout, grow overly bored, lose inspiration, or have your work suffer because of exhaustion. So long as your basic needs are at least barely being met you can keep happily churning out work day after day.
(Not so) Consistent Technology (World of Darkness - Genius the Transgression): The average Genius has an Aesthetic that they fit into, kind of like a genre of legacy. You however, thanks to your many teachers, have a difference of opinion that makes you unique, Wonders built in your Aesthetic don't just 'feel' better but are better and you can switch your Aesthetic when you feel like a different Tech-Genre could be viable. You could have an airship that was built with the hard bulky like of a dieselpunk whilst the insides have the sleek holograms and AR of a cyberpunk.
So my mental and physical health wouldn't deteriorate unless I 100% ignored everything else forever, and with Limits! I doubt even that could stop me for long.
That particular ability seems strange given my current Biology, but it could be truly useful.
But the other one… that one was an interesting boon, but it was also a conflict. My Aesthetic was fiat engaged to be distinct regardless of the piece, and this was an allowance to try blending into the background. That's either going to fail, as a rule, or be perfectly camouflaged. I was intrigued to see which.
I nod and decide to see what that town is. Heading out, I arrive in a town in the midst of an evacuation. People were screaming about aliens, and I was confused. I was under the impression that the Zerg and the… Protons? The teleporting ones were well known.
I followed, and when I passed a military group, I pulled out of the crowd and asked, "Can I help?"
They blinked and sent me off to the command center nearby to get set up. I ran around a corner, and right into a massive black marine armor. I smiled in recognition of the skull, Jim Raynor. "Out of the way! Evacuation needs to pick up speed."
I nod, and head to the command center, and begin coordinating the evacuation. I focus on the dropships, and clearing the landing zones over the loudspeaker, and speeding up the evacuation as much as possible. As the Zerg advanced on the city, we were nearly 23% ahead of the most optimistic plans for the evacuation. I felt quite proud of that, but we needed to go faster, the marines were falling in several zones, and…"You! Get over here if you think you can help!"
One of the coordinating officers waved me over, and I left others to continue the evacuations. Apparently, I was drafted. I would prefer to handle the evacuation, but Efficiency was still on saving the colonists, and it wanted me to follow, so I started coordinating the defense of the town. I did notice several people just stopping to watch as I coordinated. Reloads, stims, movement of the marines down to the step. It felt a little like watching the pros play the game, the massive coordination. But with my implants, ability to multitask, type on 2 different keyboards at the same time, and call out orders, I was probably at a slightly higher commands per minute.
Eventually, and to the great relief of the men under my command, the city was evacuated. I sighed in relief and stood back to the stupefied military coordinators that I had replaced, and sent them a sheepish smile.
Then one of them forwarded a call for help to me and I nodded. Backwater Station? Did someone really name themselves Backwater?
Several dropships with marines arrived, and I took command as fast as I could. I recognized Raynor's suit and smiled.
*Good Enough For Science. Not Aperture Science! (Portal) (0) Bought. Legion Trained (A Practical Guide to Evil) Bought (100) Bought Remaining: 0 points.*
Legion Trained (A Practical Guide to Evil): One Sin. Defeat. One Grace. Victory. These are the words that every member of the Legion lives by. You've been trained in the legions, and are proficient with rank-to-rank fighting with the gladius and scutum, the usage of goblin munitions, and mass spellcasting (assuming, of course, that you're capable of spellcasting). Furthermore, you know how to create goblin munitions, including the magic-eating goblin fire. While this won't let you stand up to a Hero on it's own, the discipline of a legionnaire and their skill against others on their level is not to be doubted. As one of the Named yourself? Well, this level of skill can be quite effective, though it's enhanced with the assistance of fellow warriors.
Good Enough For Science. Not Aperture Science! (Portal): Pick one of these two options: one PhD in a subject which actually exists, or 3 PhDs in subjects which only exist in Aperture. Applied physics of quantum tunneling, multiverse search algorithms, and event horizon containment are examples of Aperture only degrees. You can buy this perk twice, but it's only free once.
I blink as I feel lots of information get dumped into my brain. And I feel Strategic Trance activate and get a choice. 3 PHDs in Aperture Sciences huh? I'll take those. Those nutcases are insane but damned if understanding their tech couldn't help. I will definitely take 'Applied physics of quantum tunneling'. Then I look through the list. And I find something… interesting.
'Controlled Energy Formation.' Material Emancipation grids, and maybe Hardlight. Taken.
Finally, 'Kinetic Radial Formation Systems.' Long Fall Boots, maybe more. With the three taken, and the waterfall of information filling my brain further. Taking a second to adjust, I feel my new Legion Trained take hold, and I begin again. Advancing in formation, called reloads and timed stimpacks. I pushed them forward, taking points, entrenching between waves of Zerg, taking down the command the Zerg infested, and rescuing a reporter, and without someone defying orders and rushing off ahead, I wouldn't have lost a single soldier. I was quite proud of myself.
Then I learned that we weren't exactly supposed to be doing that over the comns. "Who in the hell led that team?"
I blink, looking around, "Was I not supposed to?" I turn to the man that guided me over here and recognize his more formal attire. "Do you want to explain?"
He smiles, "It will be fine."
Admiral Duke decides to arrest everyone responsible. Efficiency now decides to balk at that order, but I don't really have an option without shooting everyone on my way out. As the troops cleaned up, I was quite affronted when the two of them just pat me on the back, "Raynor actually took the men. Your involvement was minimal." he said. Right up until I realized that they were serving here in the city. Then the rather well dressed man that asked me to look in on that combat explains, "Raynor has a reputation around here. It's not personal."
We were both elsewhere a few hours later when the Sons of Korhal freed Raynor, and much of the local army went rogue from the Confederacy. I was rather confused until the Magistrate explained, "The Confederate is the ruling government here. There are factions at the edges displeased with the Lord's ruling style, the Sons of Korhal are led by Arcturus Mengsk, and are primarily galvanized by the destruction of the planet Korhal."
Arcturus Mengsk himself. "Despite the successes you've had so far Commander, the Zerg are taking Mar Sara. The Confederates are leaving, and so are we. But there is something we need to do first." And he explains that we are raiding an installation simply called Jacob's Installation for potential weapons data.
I was asked and accepted command over the operation. It wasn't hard, they weren't ready for a foe with standard doctrines for frontline combat, and a moving formation. I don't think anyone here would be. At the end of the station was some information that was shocking. They were studying Zerg, and the records I was accessing through the suit were clear. The Zerg on Mar Sara was not an accident.
Ok. I might not know these people, and I might not hate the Zerg as much as others, but these morons were feeding planets to the Zerg, and we were going to have words.
*Talisman Adept (Inukami) (300) Not Bought Remaining: 100 points.*
AN: An explanation in the wake of the WMG that went out of control. Damion hasn't really built something totally new in a long time. He builds from his list of components, and his many crafting boosts are then aiming for the idealized version of that blueprint. But this gun was him pushing his powers to the absolute maximum that they can, snowballing interaction on a scale the small percentage of the Celestial Forge he's tapped into is really capable of when unleashed.
Reliable Invention (Kim Possible): Anything you construct is only broken when used improperly or purposefully targeted with attacks. The items you create do not malfunction and are completely resistant to damage caused by regular usage.
Then my entire process got flipped on its head again. I can rarely feel most of my perks activating as hard as I did Efficiency, but this new one kicked me in the teeth. I felt everything I'd built suddenly altered slightly. Just a little alteration to my workload. Most of my tech is nearly maintenance less by itself. That's a design choice I make ahead of time. A small resource expenditure ahead of time reduces future maintenance time, which doesn't take long by any stretch with my time crunching abilities, but it's a few minutes here and there every few days for everything I make. My factory has maintenance cycles built in to ensure that something doesn't go wrong mid-craft. My Valkyrie stored stuff I fix during downtime as a time sink. But suddenly that was gone. I felt my mental map of every design lost maintenance requirements.
The most shocking change was probably my factory and my auto-expanding systems. Because my Tau Factory spends a lot of time at nearly no production, it does maintenance cycles a lot. Keeping everything at 100%, and then it's programmed that if there is no damage to be repaired anywhere, to expand. I have the materials to do so. So when everything locked to 100 percent, the fabrication of spare parts was suddenly unnecessary, it kicked into overdrive. Operating at speeds that normally wouldn't be done for long periods of time to prevent longer maintenance cycles, was suddenly perfectly acceptable, constantly. Instead of a slow, 1-3 % a week expansion of my factory, I was seeing a 22% increase in size, cumulatively, a day. I felt the magical formations tapping my magic begin expanding the room to compensate, driving a massive volume of magic to compensate.
I programmed a cap into the size of the factory a long time ago, 2 sets of production floors, orbital 15 kilometers tall, the suborbital combat rectangles, 500 meters tall, and both 64 square kilometers across. It was going to take me years to get to that limit, intentionally so. Now? Projections put it at 3 weeks. That's… ok. Sure. Why not? With Efficiency going, passively making every aspect of the adaptive factory the most efficient for army creation as I could make it, why not? I let that insanity run, almost conflicted that I was going to have an issue with EMC, but… no. The ridiculous production I had before created enough EMC that I wasn't going to run out unless I tried filling the universe with steel.
Sand I could probably do, but the expensive metals would be an issue.
With production scale solved forever, I built some ships to scour the multiverse for the Darkseid that somehow remained. The result was a half transformer, half Tau, half Aeldari cruiser about a kilometer long. It was about 35% adaptive nanites by volume and could reconfigure itself around a stable Warp-Void glass, and Tau plating core, that had some constant armaments, life support, and a simple FTL drive, but was augmented at every step by the nanite cloud. If I needed more shields, I had them. If I needed bigger guns, I had them. If I needed better thrust, I had it. If I needed to carry more people, I could. It was a very nice all-purpose cruiser that could hide the nanites and become a 750-meter wide disk, about 200 meters tall. It looked very Aeldari if you recognized it, but the non glass areas looked very proto-futuristic from the Tau roots I'm drawing from, the smooth lines, and seamless transition from clear to opaque around the guns and sensors.
Defensively, it didn't need too much from the nanites. The shields were good, Harmony making programmable Anti-Matter fields palatable, but honestly, I didn't really have the perks to go crazy with shields, I just dumped power into them. The real defense was the armor. The meter thick layer of reinforced Wraithbone and Wraithbone glass was one thing. The mind-boggling synergy between High-Frequency Manufacturing and Vibraium was… terrifying to behold. The entire ship had a woven monoatomic shell of Vibranium that was kept vibrating at speeds that turned it into effectively, infinitely smooth sandpaper. I rubbed a stick of Adamantium on it, and it ceased to exist. Atoms were targeted as they came into 'contact' with the Vibranium, and forced the materials to vibrate on their own atomic frequency, and safely dissipate into Gamma radiation. Admittedly, lots of gamma radiation. But in space, if you are vulnerable to that degree of radiation then you are already dead.
It rendered us immune to everything but straight lasers, and the Void glass laughs at anything but visible light passing through it. It filters out lasers, radiation, most of the energy spectrum really, and somehow invisibility effects, magical and non magical. Barring the visible spectrum that I specifically excluded, it was Void, and it worked well.
With our ship set up, we set off exploring the multiversal-galactic community for signs of Darkseid.
There was a lot of fuss from nearly every version of New Genesis that I was 'too young' to deal with him, but from a planet that constantly needed the Justice League's help defeating him… I didn't care. Exploring was fun, and eventually, I ended right back as square one.
The universe I arrived in, the Earth-Prime for my jump, as it were. Darkseid was still kicking around in that small blip of the Multiverse. Sure, why not?
I arrived in the system to a massive armada of ships fighting. Dimensional signatures from all over. Seems the Reach got the tech and was here to fight.
So did New Genesis, pooling their resources into 1 universe I was looking at a battle on a scale that no one…
"Somehow, I'm reminded of home." Violette said, looking out on the 2 armada's crashing into one another.
Battle on a scale at home in the 40K universe. I'll take it.
I contacted the New Genesis fleet and offered my assistance. Surprise surprise, the people actually fighting accepted my help. I dialed in the Reach War Worlds first.
*Volcanic Forge (God of War) (300) Not Bought Remaining: 100 points.*
I wanted to test out my guns and fired a single volley. With solidly 100% of the nanites oriented at making the biggest guns I could. A definable lance of energy exploded out of the energy cannon, and a magazine of heavy antimatter shells poured out onto the battlefield. The shells struck smaller ships in the formation with the closest War World and removed them from existence. The endless stream of antimatter particulates amongst the half photonic, half energized plasma majority cored the War World. Nearly 75% of its spherical face was gone in a flash of light. As both armadas take a small break to deal with my firepower, I decided to be mean.
In my childhood, I watched a show. Space Battleship: Yamato. I remember vividly the description of its titular ship's main gun. The Wave Motion gun. I remember it was the detonation of 2 dimensional gravitational singularities into higher dimensional tachyons fired at superluminal velocities from the bow of the ship. I always wondered why they didn't simply fire the higher dimensional energy waves creating the 2D singularities directly. So I'm going to find out.
I control the nanobots, forging a massive cannon on the top of the ship as the Reach begins firing on my ship nearly exclusively. My shields are holding, and I let them do the work to protect my nanobot cloud as I finalize the gun. I feel Harmony activates as I build High-Frequency Manufacturing into a system built onto universal vibrations. Then I realized what this cannon is. I'm tapping into the dimensional foam directly, as pure energy. My system is interpreting this as EMC through a strange bit of synchronism. I can't shoot this, annoyingly enough, but Efficiency saves it at the last minute. I can't fire pure EMC. I can't convert this either, it's far too much energy for my condensers to deal with at once. It would… form a singularity.
Great. I've come full circle, haven't I?
But… How about I do something else. How about I do exactly what I said I wasn't going to. Fire the energy of collapsing black holes. I can forge them into 2 dimensional figures with a crafting table, and I push. Storing them in a Philosopher's stone's rafting table, I charge 9 condensers and watch the magic happen.
A beam of energy unlike anything I've ever shot before, ever seen before, a weapon so devastating that Violette is shocked. A magically enhanced wave motion beam.
The nanite cloud dissipates into almost nothingness as the cannon tries and fails to sustain fire. But it does sustain the beam for almost 4 seconds.
That's more than enough. The energy is red tinted, or is that just the redshift as it moves away from me?
Regardless, the red beam lances out, annihilating many Reach ships in its aura until it strikes another War World, and as it does, I realize I made a terrible mistake. It isn't stable enough to continue like a contained beam, it refracts like a wave.
And explodes outward.
I see a sphere of blue expand from the ship as it detonates the energy beam, expanding in every direction. In an instant, both fleets, both planets, everything else in the solar system ceases to exist as the blue energy washes everything away. It dissipates as it passes a radius about one light year from the detonation point, in a little under 2 seconds.
That's… not good.
Realm Accrued Points Dissolved for Jump. Realm Cleared-Options: Leave Realm Unlocked for visitation, and set up base zone or gain 1500 points.
I frown, "So… does anyone want to come back here? I'm good with a no."
The Wavestrength enforced chat room fills with 4 "No."s and I select the 1900 points. Annoyed at the number given that Darkseid had more points.
Starmapping points acquired by Darksied have been revoked by Aqua due to failure to best you. Celestial Forge remnant harvested for 1500 points. Total points 3000.
Nevermind.
Lock registered on Realm={DC}_{Secondary Start}. Points 3000. Point Dispersal: Failed. Check Max Found: 2200. Point Dispersal: Chronos Supply (Katana Zero) (2200)
Chronos Supply (Katana Zero): This is a case of 10 Chronos syringes, there is nothing special about the syringes or the Chronos contained within (aside from the usual), and the case replenishes at the end of every week. However, if you want to pay a little extra, you can get a shipping container, containing about 1000 doses, that replenish each week, and the formula to make Chronos. The third and final option nets you the same as the second option, but without the side effects, this nets you a shipping container full of side effect less Chronos and the recipe to make more. Taking this improved version of Chronos will purge a person of their addiction, and can reverse some symptoms of withdrawal.
I… what the hell are those and why are they so effective?
Points Remaining: 800. Point Dispersal: Tinker Plus (Generic Worm Fanfiction) (800)
Tinker Plus (Generic Worm Fanfiction): You're not just a Tinker anymore, you're the Tinker. The PRT rating scale isn't really set up to handle someone like you because it assumes that Tinkers will have specialties, and you don't. You are something never seen before; a genuine omni-Tinker, and one of truly amazing capacity.
Your aptitude and intuition for all sorts of research, science, engineering, and design is absolutely unbelievable. If a project is even halfway related to any of the hard sciences then you can get it done, and do so with a speed and efficiency that makes even experienced Tinkers working within their own specialities look like clumsy beginners. And you can rapidly reverse-engineer other technology given sufficient opportunity to study it, however complex or esoteric it might be. You can even study and analyze exotic and anomalous phenomena, such as cape powers in action, to hopefully gain inspiration for new Tinkertech.
You have a volume knob in your head for making your designs either easily reproducible by mundane methods or totally blackboxed vs. any reverse-engineering or anything in between. You can perform what would have required clean room levels of precision assembly for mundane engineers with ordinary tools and under rough conditions. Troubleshooting or repairing tech that you already understand is a job you could practically do in your sleep, and anything you build or overhaul is maintenance-optional. With time and practice your Tinker abilities can improve and grow indefinitely, without any upper limit.
You can't do things like 'perfected social sciences' or 'auto-win personal interaction methodologies', though. That sort of thing is for Thinkers, not Tinkers.
I… oh. Oh yes. That sounds… unbelievably fantastic. Wow.
Realm Selected. Jumper's knowledge of the realm below threshold for restriction. Jumper's ignorance of the realm above threshold for threat alert. Realm Threat Flag: Potential Higher Dimensional Existential Erasure
I… I'm sorry, what?
Minimal Threat Mitigation Recommendation: None
Moderate Threat Mitigation Recommendation: Restrict higher level magical effects. Restrict higher level reality alteration effects. Restrict temporal motive effects. Restrict temporal hyper-expansion effects.
Can I go somewhere else? Please?
Major Threat Mitigation Recommendation: Restrict alterations to established timeline.
Perfect. In a moment that I feel like I'm falling, I'm in a desert. I can see lights in the distance that presumably point to civilization. I quickly create a doorway on the side of a rock and send a clone through to my Warehouse. Wavestrength needs me to have opened the door at least once to connect to the Warehouse, and the clone is for… not dying due to something terrible happening out here.
I inform my companions about the long list of things I shouldn't do in order to lower the risk of whatever the hell that flag means, and ask for opinions.
Violette begins bluntly, "Honestly, for the moment, I would keep a clone in here, maybe even your main consciousness, and try to figure out where we are before doing anything… adventurous. Like, conquer a planet."
Wiz is more focused, less cautious, "You have a wide range of powers if you can check what the level of this place is compared to them, what the powers talk about, then you might be able to figure out where we are from that."
Tiamat questions, "We could remain here, try scanning the place and leaving as little footprint as possible, that would prevent most of the risk flags from triggering."
Ankh saves the conversation, remarking directly, "The system has a threat calculator, and auto assigns threat levels correct?"
I blink. Duh. 'System, list threats by order of magnitude.'
More information required.
I frown. Ok… 'System, list threats?'
Threat Checklist access allowed: Arcturus Mengsk currently 0, potentially 200. Jim Raynor currently 0, potentially 200, secondary potential 2000. Egon Stetmann currently 0, potentially 300. Sarah Kerrigan currently 100, potentially 800, secondary potential 3000. Overmind currently 1000, potentially Error. Artanis currently 100, potentially 600. Zeratul currently 100, potentially Error, secondary potential 0. Amon currently Error.
Starcraft. I'm… not entirely sure who about half of these people are, but I'm definitely in Starcraft. I recognize Raynor and Kerrigan from the second game. And Stetmann from… well my Starcraft Perk.
The potential points of Error scare the crap out of me. I don't know what that even means.
*Store of Omni-Metals (DC - Larfleeze) (300) Not Bought Remaining: 100 points.*
The Overmind… is... isn't that the Zerg hive mind base? I frown, and decide to do something I should have done months ago, and didn't make time for. Checking out the Organic Database. Opening it spun Engineering Savant | Foresight of Ouros lie I'd never felt before, and I began.
As I began experimenting, I quickly noticed that the same basic tenant kept popping up in the Zerg, and the repetition was growing annoying. Rapid breeding speed combined with minimized junk DNA and an even heavier focus on specialization. Heavily specialized creatures for every slot in a war machine, little to no overlap in abilities, simplified… not quite psionic bands between creatures for commands. The range was all but insignificant for the terrestrially bound creatures, it was easily continental for the structures, and with a strange exception to this seemingly for an unarmed balloon, one that I could actually remove completely with my new understanding of the genetics of… everything. The other exception to the range limit was the building that got me thinking about this, the understandable lack of range limit on its frequency. It was… strange. There were limitations that I couldn't understand why they were designed around specific paradigms. I had no real way of testing until I could crack the near psionic waveband. The only reasons I was as close as I was could be accredited to Martian Manhunter and my new Tinker Plus. His powers were close to what I needed, and my dual specialty in Psionic Connectivity and Alternative Vibrational Dynamics. The combination got me agonizingly close, but it's like I was on the wrong tech tree. Psionics, as a limitation of biology or a multi universal constant, overrated on a small set of wavebands. Worm, DC, even Marvel did, given that it's the same energy band that the telepathy blocker and neural shock bomb from my Iron Man tool kit functioned on. Spending time focusing on that band isolated from the Zerg required fighting my Efficiency perk, and I decided to let it lie.
Then I opened the packet on the Overmind, its specifics. Then I realized that I was trying to connect to a Bluetooth signal with a tinker tech wireless telephone. There was… something. Something massive was hiding in that creature, and it was some kind of organic encryption and network hub system, the durability and complexity were letting it push at the edge of a fiat in and of itself, but the moment I actually understood and looked for encryption? Instant access. It… it was honestly almost identical to my Wavestrength perk, through some kind of Void energy. That's when it clicked. I was trying to tap into a Void energy sublet, without using Void energy. New specialties swapped in, Non-Energetic Motion Systems apparently, and I was shocked that an organic structure was capable of forging a Void connection at all, but my genetic experience and Tinker specialties, led me to the truly alien genetics of the Overmind. It wasn't Zerg at all. It was… created to lead the Zerg. I could see that written right in its DNA.
After figuring that out, understanding, and being able to program the connections between my virtual swarm, I was really able to test my creations. I simulate colonies, genetics from the aliens I'd encountered, and other technologies into the growth pattern. I discovered quite quickly that adding in most of the aliens was nearly useless, or stupidly expensive. I could leave the option open for a highly limited version of the genetics to be an extremely late game upgrade, it's frankly ludicrous price leaving the price of the creatures and buildings alone, but it would be centuries of production to get there. While experimenting, 2 massive bonuses popped up, the first almost by accident.
*Technical Schematics (Warhammer 40k - T'au empire) (200) Bought. Remaining: 0 points.*
Specialization in Mechanical Life made it possible to grow an inorganic equivalent of the Zerg. AKA the Mecha-Zerg. I didn't know it was possible to make metal grow from sunlight and rocks, without Equivalent Exchange that is, but apparently it was quite possible. The strange crystals that this seemed to depend on were the main limiting factor for a long time, looking into several tinkertech Matter Generation solutions only demonstrated that the Zerg needed something simpler, easier to grow, but eventually, I got it all worked out. Specifically, I figured out the second major upgrade to the Zerg.
Via Efficiencies grinding hand, and specialization or three, I found that Equivalent Exchange could be incorporated directly into both the fully organic, and fully mechanical Zerg live cycles all but eliminating the requirements for outside materials, but the normal materials could further accelerate the growth. I didn't make the primary base structure a collector, but a massive condenser. Capable of taking in both materials, fallen enemies that didn't contribute to the DNA of my organic strain, or technologies for my mechanical strain, and further accelerating the growth loop. It had an upper limit that expanded massively with each of the three upgrades to the building; somehow it incorporated the Equivalent Exchange tier system naturally into the Zerg tier system.
Then I started simulating base construction with combat and frowned. Why the hell were they even above ground? Or near the battlefield? I had Nydus Worms, and they could deploy from anywhere. I optimized them to the smallest Efficiency allowed. I did lose some of the recharge rate, a twenty percent increase in time between repositioning, but the capacity for 4 of them to be added directly to the primary Zerg structure, called a Hatchery, Lair, and Hive depending on the upgrade tier. That did have the unfortunate side effect of rendering my base structure vulnerable to traditional fire, and no amount of Subterranean Construction specialties removed the condition for the Nydus worms to be exposed to the troops being moved. The base structure was underground certainly, but it was one organism. I resolved to build a few, but Nydus worms at only one or two.
The next step was the Zerg strain buildings. Upgrade centers needed to be within the much smaller Psionic radius of that building directly. The Hives connect to other Hives, and the Leviathan class Zerg. The biological unlock centers for the more advanced species of Zerg were strange. They carried upgrades, and I really couldn't do much for them. I looked at a combination of them, but it wasn't worth even starting. What I could do was remove them from the battlefield entirely. I used the functionality of my Wavestrength, and would build them directly into my Warehouse, into the Overmind I would eventually put on one of the top floors. That would give my entire swarm the full upgrade tree, without ever putting them in danger. It made the upgrades far more expensive. Just under 1200 times more expensive, but I would need them once. Across my entire jump history. I could build them into an Overmind in a specific realm, but buying them again for no additional effect? Costing even less than it would normally. Apparently, the Zerg system adapts to that kind of thing.
It would explain the tens of trillions that a Kryptonian upgrade, even just the invulnerability was a few hundred million. It was insane.
* Not Bought Remaining: 100 points.*
Then I looked at my defenses. I was rather disappointed in the 3 options I had available. Spine Crawlers were versatile, but not great. So I looked to the creatures for more ideas, and I found them. Nearly all of them from Hydralisk strains surprisingly. The nearly invisible burrowing ability, the massive anti-armor damage, the large area of effect anti-infantry spread combined into a longer range building. About one and a half times the range of the spine crawler, 4 times if the creep spread that far, and I did put a Creep tumor into it, just to help out with that. Capable of targeting infantry and tanks separately with their targeted effects. It was a nasty surprise for anything standing on the ground.
I was kinda disappointed in the Spore Crawlers in general. They felt… weak compared to the powers that other units already had. So I amped them up too. Stupidly fast fire of the Hydralisk projectiles, easy to do given that they don't need to move, and small flying Locusts, but with a twist. They didn't need to live long anyway, so I added some Baneling and Scourge projectiles to them. Area of effect, potent acid weapons that turned air units into wreckage faster than most of my units could even react. Unfortunately, the shooting into the sky limitation means that they aren't hidden in the creep, but the lethality made up for it.
The cost of these defenses was far higher than the originals, so I incremented it. Internal upgrades meant they could be deployed at about half the price of the originals and could be upgraded into their more lethal forms. Given that they were mutable in the field, I could raise the number of attacks from the 1 anti-infantry spike, to 3 each anti-infantry and 3 anti-tank. My Grave-Lurker was devastating at that point, all but unbreachable by the unaltered units I could encounter. At basically the last minute, I recognized that invisibility was a thing in Starcraft, and built sensors into them. It was so cheap I put it directly on the base structure, and it upgraded like the unit, almost doubling the sightline and therefore the range of them. I smiled at the synergy.
The Acid Javelin would start with little more than the speed of 1 Hydralisk, but it could finish with the power of 24, and up to 12 Scourglings. Even the massive range of the Broodlord couldn't deter it with the Scourgelings attacking it.
Nearly forgotten in my upgrade spree, was the humble Drone. It was… almost acceptable, honestly, it was close, and without Tinker Plus, I might have kept it. But I can just add what they do directly to the Creep.
That brought me finally to said Creep. It covered the ground, massive sections of it, and seemed to do nothing. Even in my simulations, real as my Lucy Computer could make them, regular Creep was a food source for my organic Zerg and given that feeding them fell under maintenance somehow, unless they were healing from combat, they didn't need to do that, it was just charging the Mecha-Zerg. I built nanopores into the entire mass, sitting at the bottom so that the food goo, and/or charging pad protected it from basic damage, and had mutable DNA like the Drones throughout the whole thing. It could grow directly over the crystals, consuming them at a small constant stream, accelerating the growth pattern if they were available. If not, it functioned as the building process as well, collecting mass into the entire surface area of the future building's connection with the floor. Accelerating build speed and removing a vulnerable unit from the field. Even after that, it didn't feel complete, right up until I realized why Efficiency had prevented me from putting the EE collectors as the skin of my buildings but had me include Creep tumors into all of them. I could augment the food and charging properties of the Creep with a collector. It was already covering everything, surface area expanding as the fight does. It was perfect. So perfect that it was overwhelming the condenser of 1 Hive my the time the simulation hit tier 2. I actually needed to build a dedicated external condenser to keep the collected energy from overflowing the Hive. And that means I needed forward structures, and I looked back to the Spawning Pools and smiled.
*Sublimation (Fate/Legends - Vive La France) (600) Not Bought Remaining: 200 points.*
I made a whole new building, setting them up as both condensers, taking a load off of the Hive structure, slower but still useful spawning of larva in the solution, and a forward point to analyze and consume fallen enemy soldiers. The Analysis Maw sounded suitably metal, and it looked like a collection of mouths full of acid.
Running more simulations, I didn't have a whole lot to actually do to the organic creatures of the Zerg. The upgrades I introduced covered the minor changes to Zerg doctrine that I disapproved of, like the 1 upgraded strain per creature. They were both purchasable as a result of the martian DNA, which didn't cost much comparatively, and then I could swap back and forth in the cases like the Hydralisk, and the Swarm Host had a toggle, but in all other cases, I just had both. More per larvae and jumping Zerglings. Infested and slowing Roach toxin. Jumping and multiplying Baneling. Toxic and self-resurrecting Ultralisks. The Mutalisks were interesting. I just gave the abilities of the second upgrade to the Broodlord, while giving the Broodlings a time-out Baneling detonation.
The Mecha Zerg had no such issues. With the firepower I could design directly into them, I almost started a full redesign, but stopped. I already had a solid base to start from, why not incorporate upgrades? I started with that, adding instead of replacing. Everywhere I had Hydralisk projectiles, I had upgrades for an upgraded version of the Tau Rail Rifle. A massive upgrade in damage, into the snake-like creatures, and my Acid Javelin. I looked into the Roaches and smiled. Mild reinforcing and I could turn their effect into Flamers. Interestingly enough, the Mecha-Zerg's adaptive programming adapted quite well, keeping the slowing effect, even if I had to drop the effect of the implanting egg. I was able to add a rather nice set of Nexus Missile Racks to its back, giving it a mobile artillery option. I was also capable of truly upgrading the Bile Launcher to fire heavy plasma grenades, widening its formidable area of effect and increasing damage.
Leviathans were a massive cost sink already, so I decided to look into what I could do with them. I discovered quite quickly that instead of putting an Overmind on a planet, I could put them in space, combining the powers of the two, entrenching my network into an array of emitters for a change in cost that was effectively non-existent by the time I was making them at all. Then I slapped on an individual Kryptonian upgrade to go with the full EMC collecting and condensing rig, and wow I was not expecting them to synergize quite so well. By the time I spent the better part of a week growing the damn thing, a Leviathans with all those upgrades, it would take less than a day for the EMC production of a Leviathan to pay for itself. At its size, it could store the resources it created measurable in weeks, no star required. With one? I was unstoppable.
I felt my Tinker Plus ease the difficulty of the transition from my experiences to making it all work like I wanted, and I dialed Blackboxing to 11. I do not want the Overmind stealing my upgrades, that could be… well the threat was already at Error. Let's not make it worse.
*(Not so) Consistent Technology (World of Darkness - Genius the Transgression) (200) Bought. Overflow. I Can Whip Something Up (My Life As A Teenage Robot) (100) Bought Remaining: 0 points.*
Checking what I got from the Forge this time, I was surprised.
I Can Whip Something Up (My Life As A Teenage Robot): Working late nights and filling out strange requests is just another Tuesday for a Scientist of your calibre. This perk ensures that you'll never suffer burnout, grow overly bored, lose inspiration, or have your work suffer because of exhaustion. So long as your basic needs are at least barely being met you can keep happily churning out work day after day.
(Not so) Consistent Technology (World of Darkness - Genius the Transgression): The average Genius has an Aesthetic that they fit into, kind of like a genre of legacy. You however, thanks to your many teachers, have a difference of opinion that makes you unique, Wonders built in your Aesthetic don't just 'feel' better but are better and you can switch your Aesthetic when you feel like a different Tech-Genre could be viable. You could have an airship that was built with the hard bulky like of a dieselpunk whilst the insides have the sleek holograms and AR of a cyberpunk.
So my mental and physical health wouldn't deteriorate unless I 100% ignored everything else forever, and with Limits! I doubt even that could stop me for long.
That particular ability seems strange given my current Biology, but it could be truly useful.
But the other one… that one was an interesting boon, but it was also a conflict. My Aesthetic was fiat engaged to be distinct regardless of the piece, and this was an allowance to try blending into the background. That's either going to fail, as a rule, or be perfectly camouflaged. I was intrigued to see which.
I nod and decide to see what that town is. Heading out, I arrive in a town in the midst of an evacuation. People were screaming about aliens, and I was confused. I was under the impression that the Zerg and the… Protons? The teleporting ones were well known.
I followed, and when I passed a military group, I pulled out of the crowd and asked, "Can I help?"
They blinked and sent me off to the command center nearby to get set up. I ran around a corner, and right into a massive black marine armor. I smiled in recognition of the skull, Jim Raynor. "Out of the way! Evacuation needs to pick up speed."
I nod, and head to the command center, and begin coordinating the evacuation. I focus on the dropships, and clearing the landing zones over the loudspeaker, and speeding up the evacuation as much as possible. As the Zerg advanced on the city, we were nearly 23% ahead of the most optimistic plans for the evacuation. I felt quite proud of that, but we needed to go faster, the marines were falling in several zones, and…"You! Get over here if you think you can help!"
One of the coordinating officers waved me over, and I left others to continue the evacuations. Apparently, I was drafted. I would prefer to handle the evacuation, but Efficiency was still on saving the colonists, and it wanted me to follow, so I started coordinating the defense of the town. I did notice several people just stopping to watch as I coordinated. Reloads, stims, movement of the marines down to the step. It felt a little like watching the pros play the game, the massive coordination. But with my implants, ability to multitask, type on 2 different keyboards at the same time, and call out orders, I was probably at a slightly higher commands per minute.
Eventually, and to the great relief of the men under my command, the city was evacuated. I sighed in relief and stood back to the stupefied military coordinators that I had replaced, and sent them a sheepish smile.
Then one of them forwarded a call for help to me and I nodded. Backwater Station? Did someone really name themselves Backwater?
Several dropships with marines arrived, and I took command as fast as I could. I recognized Raynor's suit and smiled.
*Good Enough For Science. Not Aperture Science! (Portal) (0) Bought. Legion Trained (A Practical Guide to Evil) Bought (100) Bought Remaining: 0 points.*
Legion Trained (A Practical Guide to Evil): One Sin. Defeat. One Grace. Victory. These are the words that every member of the Legion lives by. You've been trained in the legions, and are proficient with rank-to-rank fighting with the gladius and scutum, the usage of goblin munitions, and mass spellcasting (assuming, of course, that you're capable of spellcasting). Furthermore, you know how to create goblin munitions, including the magic-eating goblin fire. While this won't let you stand up to a Hero on it's own, the discipline of a legionnaire and their skill against others on their level is not to be doubted. As one of the Named yourself? Well, this level of skill can be quite effective, though it's enhanced with the assistance of fellow warriors.
Good Enough For Science. Not Aperture Science! (Portal): Pick one of these two options: one PhD in a subject which actually exists, or 3 PhDs in subjects which only exist in Aperture. Applied physics of quantum tunneling, multiverse search algorithms, and event horizon containment are examples of Aperture only degrees. You can buy this perk twice, but it's only free once.
I blink as I feel lots of information get dumped into my brain. And I feel Strategic Trance activate and get a choice. 3 PHDs in Aperture Sciences huh? I'll take those. Those nutcases are insane but damned if understanding their tech couldn't help. I will definitely take 'Applied physics of quantum tunneling'. Then I look through the list. And I find something… interesting.
'Controlled Energy Formation.' Material Emancipation grids, and maybe Hardlight. Taken.
Finally, 'Kinetic Radial Formation Systems.' Long Fall Boots, maybe more. With the three taken, and the waterfall of information filling my brain further. Taking a second to adjust, I feel my new Legion Trained take hold, and I begin again. Advancing in formation, called reloads and timed stimpacks. I pushed them forward, taking points, entrenching between waves of Zerg, taking down the command the Zerg infested, and rescuing a reporter, and without someone defying orders and rushing off ahead, I wouldn't have lost a single soldier. I was quite proud of myself.
Then I learned that we weren't exactly supposed to be doing that over the comns. "Who in the hell led that team?"
I blink, looking around, "Was I not supposed to?" I turn to the man that guided me over here and recognize his more formal attire. "Do you want to explain?"
He smiles, "It will be fine."
Admiral Duke decides to arrest everyone responsible. Efficiency now decides to balk at that order, but I don't really have an option without shooting everyone on my way out. As the troops cleaned up, I was quite affronted when the two of them just pat me on the back, "Raynor actually took the men. Your involvement was minimal." he said. Right up until I realized that they were serving here in the city. Then the rather well dressed man that asked me to look in on that combat explains, "Raynor has a reputation around here. It's not personal."
We were both elsewhere a few hours later when the Sons of Korhal freed Raynor, and much of the local army went rogue from the Confederacy. I was rather confused until the Magistrate explained, "The Confederate is the ruling government here. There are factions at the edges displeased with the Lord's ruling style, the Sons of Korhal are led by Arcturus Mengsk, and are primarily galvanized by the destruction of the planet Korhal."
Arcturus Mengsk himself. "Despite the successes you've had so far Commander, the Zerg are taking Mar Sara. The Confederates are leaving, and so are we. But there is something we need to do first." And he explains that we are raiding an installation simply called Jacob's Installation for potential weapons data.
I was asked and accepted command over the operation. It wasn't hard, they weren't ready for a foe with standard doctrines for frontline combat, and a moving formation. I don't think anyone here would be. At the end of the station was some information that was shocking. They were studying Zerg, and the records I was accessing through the suit were clear. The Zerg on Mar Sara was not an accident.
Ok. I might not know these people, and I might not hate the Zerg as much as others, but these morons were feeding planets to the Zerg, and we were going to have words.
*Talisman Adept (Inukami) (300) Not Bought Remaining: 100 points.*
AN: An explanation in the wake of the WMG that went out of control. Damion hasn't really built something totally new in a long time. He builds from his list of components, and his many crafting boosts are then aiming for the idealized version of that blueprint. But this gun was him pushing his powers to the absolute maximum that they can, snowballing interaction on a scale the small percentage of the Celestial Forge he's tapped into is really capable of when unleashed.
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