Log #12

Year 1 day 23

I have relatively few regrets in my life, that first trip to the river bearing the main one. But it seems I have a new one to add to the list, ingesting that much conceptual fluid at once and then fighting the ocean. Odd how both those involve water, certainly not showing any trends whatsoever.

I hate the ocean.

Also odd that I genuinely have that few regrets, and all but the latest were because I didn’t know better. This time I was just willingly being an idiot because I thought the consequences were worth it. I mean they were, even if it was only Balistraia’s happiness with her new body it’d have been worth it, but it seems like I got even more than that. The materials and principles that went into her body can be replicated, though not to the same degree. Meaning I now have material capable of rudimentary shape shifting, capable of changing shape, size, and hardness. Though to a lesser degree than what Balistraia has currently. I’d need more of that fish meat to recreate it entirely and to ingest more conceptual fluids to do it with the same degree of skill.

And really if I can’t automate it I have little use for it. So sticking with the mass producible version. A layer of this stuff underneath armor plating drastically increases a machine's ability to withstand blunt force trauma, as well as an overall enhancement to durability against any attack and the ability to fill any damage that does occur within moments. Recent advancements to the durability of my units have already started reducing overall casualties meaning the growth of my army has sped up even more.

A fair portion of the actual weapons on her body were actually intended for space combat, but I seem to have somehow shrunk them to fit her frame, though she needs to be larger to use the larger weapons without difficulty aiming the things. Hard to hold a weapon larger than you are. Which seems to be the reason I gave her so many weapon variants, no matter what size she is there is an appropriately sized pistol, rifle, sniper, cannon, laser or anything else she could need. And in order to actually store all of that the greatest feature of her body was designed. I gave her a restricted version of my own inventory, I’d originally thought it was modified slime tech, but that wouldn’t allow her to produce ammunition on her own. I just don’t know why it’s limited only to weapon’s and ammo.

Everything about her body is something I can learn from, odd given I built it, but true nonetheless.

About the only issue with it is Balistraia’s fixation with touching, biting, and smelling everything she can find. From drones, uranium, molten steel, androids, my hair, nothing seems to be off the table. I’d imagine it’s something like how a baby feels the need to touch everything to learn what it feels like, given I can feel the curiosity and joy she feels at every new sensation. That and her taste buds are far more sensitive than mine, which is jarring to experience second hand and makes me fairly jealous.

I put some thought towards making bodies for the rest of the minds, but the only one slightly interested was Bulwark and even they decided not to go for it. Being content with being the walls and turrets rather than a bipedal frame. Though they did like the shield wielding sentinel design I’d offered and can just have that fabricated if they change their mind.

I also hadn’t predicted how the body would affect Balistraia’s mind, she’d always been more emotive than the other minds (and arguably me) but now that she actually has a body to properly emote with it’s spiraled to a nearly disturbing level. The average android and machine aren’t.. Happy, as much as it bothers me to say. They are hopeful, content, and occasionally joyful. But on average they are fairly grim, Balistraia is not.

It's a bit like a giant dog really, if the dog would rather pet than be pet.

That and how it’s somehow centralized all her instances into one cohesive whole without losing out on the multitasking ability the instances were made to provide. There aren’t hundreds of Balistraia’s that resync every hour, there's one Balistraia in a hundred spots somehow doing a hundred things. Before, if a Balistraia on one front wasn’t actively talking with another Balistraia on another front they could subtly diverge, necessitating the resync and pooling of experiences before they could become separate minds in truth. Now however, every Balistraia is just Balistraia. As long as they are within range of the factories network, so Balistraia’s on ships still operate separately.

Which is a minor problem with sendings minds away for too long, but not really a worry. Worse comes to worse I just average them out or keep the ship mind as a separate entity.

The minds are okay with any of the solutions, even just purging the ship one and keeping its memories for the next ship mind. They have an odd sense of self preservation, as long as one instance of a mind is left they don’t consider it ‘death’. Which I’m not exactly happy with.

Balistraia’s newfound physical presence has already started impacting moral of the androids, in a solely positive way. One might think androids would get annoyed with her, and you’d be right. If Balistraia didn’t know exactly when it’d stop being a positive interaction. Though I’d feel bad for her chosen victims if I wasn’t one more often than not. Can’t go around feeling bad for myself because of a monster I created.

On the warfront her new coordination has raised the army's effectiveness even further than it had been, though given how each front had already been perfectly coordinated with itself if not as coordinated with other fronts the difference has been minor on a smaller scale. It just means said fronts now coordinate seamlessly, not that the fronts themselves have changed much. Likely as Balistraia gets used to her newfound improvements this’ll increase more, as she can reliably merge fronts and conflict areas without needing to work with herself.

A single percent improvement really, but on a factory wide scale that’s not insignificant.

I will still be making the new director (or maybe ruler) tanks, even if they are not as urgent anymore. Even if they won’t be serving as Balistraia’s main processing hub they can still act as relays. And they have very large guns, essentially serving as an army's anchor.

I had been expecting to have the last of the surface nest’s eliminated within seven more days, but sadly my main base and a full half of my territory are underwater or severely flooded, with lesser flooding over the more inland territories. This, combined with the fact that the bugs have bunkered down means the bugs will be purged seven days after the flooding ends. Which really should have happened already for everywhere above sea level but I can’t really do anything about that yet.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

It also means my plans to build some more mega structures have slowed to a crawl. Only a few are continuing.

My very slow effort to reach the core of Nauvis without provoking whatever fish are probably sleeping on it. A source of concentrated metal like that is way too tempting to not mine.

My attempts to build a centralized teleportation nexus/control node allowing free teleportation throughout Nauvis and hopefully into orbit without the need for a teleportation pad. If worse comes to worse I’ll settle for anywhere my metalic grasp reaches. It’s actual main goal though will be countering any teleportation attempts that aren’t mine.

Some thought has gone towards adding the ability to open a portal to another reality to it, with more precision and control, than my current ad hoc method. With my current systems I could get to a random reality but the portal would be temporary without equipment on the other side and I wouldn’t be able to aim it at the same spot twice without absurd luck.

A full scale factory ship, with production and harvesting capabilities to match any of my stationary factories. This could serve as the center of a far range fleet if I ever desire to send a full force fleet outside of resupply reach. Ideally it would be a floating city with androids, machines, and even slimes. Making it so that anywhere it is my full capabilities are, without restriction on anything but throughput. With it being large enough to hold an interdimensional teleporter it would still be connected to the rest of the factory as long as nothing goes wrong. But if something did then it would be just fine.

Maybe allow the ship itself to warp to a new reality first, then with its relay I could open a permanent portal as long as the ship was intact. Risky without the ability to aim, hitting a reality before singularity would kill just about anything, but once I can? Very useful indeed.

I already developed the ability to turn planets and moons into metallic factories with just one missile and some time, even moving them once conversion is complete wouldn’t be hard. But that can be improved upon to increase the rate of growth and energy efficiency.

A self replicating dyson swarm could be a fun thing to design in an evening, energy to matter is really all you need. Actually already could but it’d take a few decades and that's far too slow.

Really it isn’t a question of what I can build, I have few limits if I’m willing to make the machine large enough. It's deciding what I need to invest in, I can't go around wasting resources or even picking a less efficient but still beneficial option. But then again not making a choice at all is worse, which makes the forced wait the storm has caused worthwhile in a way.

Any civilization can build anything if they put enough time and effort into it, it just so happens that I decide where all the time and effort go for mine.

Oh yeah, the whole Turian war thing. It's over. Pascal and the delegation succeeded and the Turians have received minor sanctions for ‘unchecked aggressive foreign policy’ which basically means the other two races are upset that the Turians didn’t ask first and fired without a warning, not to humanity that’d be sensible, but to the other council races. Not that they started a war in the first place. Sure they got verbally told off for it, but really? I’ve only reaffirmed my hatred of politics.

And in that vein I have decided on yet another new policy in regards to this new galaxy of problems. They aren’t mine. Why have a planet full of religiously devoted androids if not to have them carry out my vague will without my needing to lift a finger? Commander White, Chancellor Anemone, and Pascal can keep their more insane elements from causing problems, and if they need something they can ask Byzantine, or ask Balistraia to ask Byzantine. I made a bureaucratic mind, time to hide behind it.

Sure it technically means if one of the android’s or machine’s wants to they could request to glass a planet or get a solid gold house but the minds aren’t dumb and I have some vague trust in them. Even if the council now has someone claiming to be my bishop on it, who you will note was not listed as someone who could request stuff. Also the bishop is one of the maid droids, which…. Not dealing with it. Balistraia has it handled…. What’s Balistraias goal? Is she even trying to stop the cult or has she been working towards shaping it instead? You know what, I said I wasn’t dealing with it and I’m sticking to my guns. Could know but I don’t want to. Ignorance is bliss.

I'm going to stay in my well armored basement and design weapons of mass destruction or tools of mass creation. As it was intended.

Anyway all that can basically be summed up as “The androids are going to be dealing with foreign policy matters and if they need it Balistraia has a very large gun” They want to announce themselves to Humanity? Go for it. They want to pretend to be humans instead? Got Biosuits right there just put it on and go for it. Wash their hands of it and come join me in the basement? I have a second decoy basement for them to hangout in.

Also gold slimes, there's something more there. And I’m going to figure it out. Those plorts aren’t just solid gold. I just don’t have enough to effectively research it, and in order to get more I need to get their favorite food to make a gordo snare. Which may or may not even exist. If I can get my hands on a golden gordo who knows what I could do.

Relying on some humans saying it has no practical value seems the height of foolishness. We said the same thing about most ores before we knew how to smelt it, it is simply a matter of determining what it could be used for. Even if it’s just its high durability and ability to flee anyone trying to capture it. It can phase through any defense or containment field I can make. And there are still a few in my main base from when it rained slime’s earlier. They aren’t even going outside, just staying in the biospheres with a few other slimes. Which technically means I have them contained, but they could just leave whenever. I’d be having far more issues with this if they actually did though, I don’t need to wake up with a golden slime on my bed.

It isn’t dodging either, so much as it is being unstoppable. You can hit a golden slime or block its path, it’ll just ignore both the wall and the hit to keep fleeing.

So much to do, good thing there's more than one of me now.