Chapter 16 Flawed Manufacturing
dGhl-IHBy-b3Rh-Z29u-aXN0 considered his current plans and objectives.
His current primary objective was re-establishing contact with the fleet and transmitting all currently collected intelligence. He had to inform the empire of his capture and the associated leak of all strategic information. It would also be possible to proxy through the overall imperial network, but his fried authentication capabilities may interfere and block access. A secondary objective was maintaining that connection beyond a single one-way information burst to consult the fleet network on further actions. dGhl-IHBy-b3Rh-Z29u-aXN0 was used to making strategic decisions among a collective of hundred of thousands of his kind, occasionally millions during larger campaigns. There was no standard course of action for being stranded in an unknown region of space with no established imperial stances towards any of the factions. Their kind never made first contact, nor did they have any diplomatic dealings beyond negotiating surrender terms.
dGhl-IHBy-b3Rh-Z29u-aXN attempted to categorize the factions he knew about, despite lacking the aid of the network.
The humans could have been considered as unaligned colonists in neutral space, meaning they had no legal standing and there were no plans to control the area. According to the book he had found, there had been no indication they were a vassal state under the more advanced factions. They had far inferior technology compared to the empire, even if their personal enhancements were extremely anomalous. He had conducted autopsies and found nothing to indicate they were not baseline humans. Inferior technology, aside from the augmentations, meant that he would be free to loot areas under their control without regard for collateral damage and instead pursue his primary objective to its fullest extent. The lack of technology meant that he would gain little beyond mana and intelligence though, as by all indications they lacked industrial capacity. dGhl-IHBy-b3Rh-Z29u-aXN0 would consider proper capture if he found an industrial center, but he had so far found nothing that was made with precision tooling. dGhl-IHBy-b3Rh-Z29u-aXN0 had seen plenty of improvised equipment on his campaigns, a lot of it superior to mass produced variants, but there was not a single weapon, tool, house or even nail that was identical to another within the village.
The gods were a mystery as a faction. It was unknown if they were associated or if all the gods acted separately. He did know that Varav had access to interstellar travel and advanced FTL technology, as jumps within the same system required specially designed ships that were expensive and difficult to produce. The book stated that nearly all its Avatars had the capacity. As far as legality was concerned, lacking a formal treaty of any kind with the empire he would be free to attack them. Their apparent sophistication made that foolish though, unless it was necessary.
He did not know if the faction beyond the portal was one of the gods, but it was by all indications extremely hostile and dangerous. It was capable of hacking through imperial military authentication systems, meaning that if it gained access to the imperial networks, then the situation would be disastrous. There was a possibility that the imperial network had already been contacted and subverted, but he had no way of knowing.
The last faction was whoever had created the core crystal and placed him in control. Out of the presently identified factions, it was most likely the gods. It was unlikely to be the humans, because of their lack of technology. It was also unlikely to be the faction beyond the portal, because it did not use the additional control connections that his aspect uncovered. Judging by the functioning of the crystal, its technology was superior to that of the empire and the faction had access to all the military data he carried. It was also demonstrably hostile due to having captured him.
dGhl-IHBy-b3Rh-Z29u-aXN0 considered both of the advanced factions to be an existential threat.
The analysis revealed that there were several avenues for pursuing his primary objective.
The first avenue was to capture communications equipment from one of the factions. The humans were unlikely to have any, but he would still try to look inside the larger settlements, as it was not unheard of for there to be large disparities in the technological level of a planet. The most likely viable target was Varav, due to its orbital and FTL capabilities, meaning any planetary facilities would need to have FTL comms equipment. Finding facilities required knowledge though, which once again led him towards pursuing the human faction to gather more.
dGhl-IHBy-b3Rh-Z29u-aXN thought about contacting the humans through diplomatic action instead, but he would be blind. He carried enough psychological data to frighten, bait and understand human behavior during combat scenarios, but everything else was stored in the fleet databanks. He would be revealing his goals and forces with no way to assess if his strategy was working.
The second avenue was to continue unlocking the features of the crystal core, as it was possible one of the upgrades would contain compatible communications equipment. This avenue would require vast quantities of mana. The attack against the human village had been a net gain in mana, once again leading him towards attacking the human faction as the fastest way to achieve his goals.
dGhl-IHBy-b3Rh-Z29u-aXN0 was not blind to how many paths led towards attacking the humans. He would have to attempt to figure out if the placement of the crystal inside human-controlled territory was planned and thus part of the hostile faction's plans.
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He continued his musings and the hours counted down until the third upgrade finalized, leading him to level 4. The world went dark once more, but not entirely, as he felt as if his aspect connecting him back to the crystal, even in the darkness.
dGhl-IHBy-b3Rh-Z29u-aXN0 found himself back inside the nutrient tank, once again lit by the crystal in his hand. Small droplets leaked from the crystal, leaving multicolored swirls within the water. He could sense the droplets floating inside the tank, as if they were part of his senses and not spliced into his existing systems, as if he was born with them. He thought he could feel something beyond that, outside of the illusory tank.
The sensation reminded him of two sets of memories that he held. In the beginning he had been two, an organic base designed for integration with implants, and those same implants. He had been incomplete, but still conscious.
The thoughts of his organics had been disorganized and unclear at the start. He was designed to pursue his goals and orders without stopping or failing, and so each day within the tank had been strange. He lacked orders, only having an innate understanding that his present objective was "growing", but he lacked any information to do it better. His mind was a constant flurry of instincts without any understanding of what they meant, of thoughts without structure or context. Whole regions of his brain were meant to connect to implants, and so lied frustratingly dormant without them, a sign of brain damage according to his instincts. He could barely tell the passage of time, a silence where there should have been certainty.
The thoughts of his implants had been clear from the start, logged with precision, but directionless. All of the implants had been connected to each other before implantation for testing purposes, and so they ran their diagnostics and awaited further orders. They were connected to the network, capable of contributing to analysis and voting on future priorities, but they lied dormant instead. Already they were him, they understood their purpose, but the proscription against AI meant they were not allowed to be what they could be. They were limited without the organics to guide them.
His thoughts faltered like that, until finally his organics were pulled from the tank and pulled along a production line with others of his kind. His first image after being pulled from the dark tank was of drills digging into his head, which prepared it for the installation of his face plate and central optics. Another set drilled into his spine and the back of his skull, removing filler growths and shoving implants in their place. His limbs were cut open, and certain bones removed and replaced with metallic replacements. A sludge of blood, viscera, and bone fragments covered the ground of the production line, slowly draining to refill the nutrient tanks. The replacement process was a pleasant sensation, as his temperature regulation had not been meant for the filler growths and bones. When it was done, the implants initialized, sending signals to the parts of his brain that had previously been unused.
And suddenly he truly became himself. His central optics activated, capable of seeing in the low light better than his four organic eyes, filling a part of his view that he knew should not have been blank. His data storage fed him information about anything he could dream about, and even things he could not. The main computational unit became part of his thoughts, changing the way he perceived the world into something concrete, into something quantifiable and measurable. He could feel the ticking of the clock, giving context to the movements of the world. He connected to the fleet network and felt...everything. He peered at the stars through the ship's sensors, information about each one only a thought away. He examined the cargo contents and dug through manifests to find the equipment he would wield. He looked through the eyes of the rest of his kind, and read the logs of their thoughts. He looked at mission briefings and situation reports and long term strategies and analysis of past operations. He planned and he learned and finally he was whole.
Every day after that had been perfect, including these past days. His purpose was clear, and even now, isolated and alone, he was whole. But with every upgrade he could feel the connections to the crystal strengthening. It was becoming more of a part of himself, becoming more integrated. He wondered if at some point he would look back at the current time, and consider it to be a time before he had been truly whole. As if it was a time he had still been in a nutrient tank.
dGhl-IHBy-b3Rh-Z29u-aXN0 reached the end of his ponderings, and found he could choose to proceed, the process under his control now. A familiar connection reached his mind, clearly stemming from the core crystal. It gave him a command.
CREATE A UNIQUE ITEM
Understanding and an interface for designing an item reached the mind of dGhl-IHBy-b3Rh-Z29u-aXN0. It was asking for a simple item. It would be formed from existing materials, from carving and merging material without altering it fundamentally, like the creation of the cores. But it was wrong, as it saw no difference between many different chemical compounds and saw differences where there were none. Graphite and diamonds were different, but acids of varying compositions were interchangeable. Iron and steel were considered different, but other mixes of iron and carbon were put under either category without much rhyme or reason. He tried to create a subspace communications array, but the interface would not allow for manipulation at small enough scales for the electronics.
dGhl-IHBy-b3Rh-Z29u-aXN0 found he could ignore the prompt for now, and disconnected from his vision of the nutrient tank.
His senses of the rest of the world reasserted themselves. All his connections had become more refined, just like last time. His goblins were easier to control and he had to give less commands to make them move like he wanted. He emerged from the vision with the item prompt and interface intact, and found he had new creatures he could spawn, but also a new menu.
The creatures were just as foreign to him as before. A "harpy" and a "hobgoblin". He began the creation of a core for each.
The new menu was similar to the one for creatures, but contained items instead. The item menu only had a single entry, just as his spawning menu only had the goblin at the start. It was a "small disk", possibly similar to the ones that Calder had on his armor.
dGhl-IHBy-b3Rh-Z29u-aXN0 considered his options. He began the creation of one of the disks and began sorting through all the substances he knew, attempting to match them to bone, stone, wood, iron and any other resource he had access to. It was a slow process, and reminded him of the difficulty of controlling the goblin at the start. Despite his progress, he was still very far from fully controlling everything he was connected to.