Log #74
The sky started raining blood today, and that's not even the weirdest thing that's happened, the world starting getting wonky a few days ago, with random energy spikes occurring throughout the planet, and a form of energy I haven't seen before too, it warps any material or life that touches it, and the bugs seem to absolutely hate the stuff.
Still the energy spikes weren’t a big deal at first, but they started occurring more often and striking with more power, the energy couldn’t get through any outpost with full shield coverage, which was all of them, nor did it seem to get near bug hives, but everywhere else was being bathed in this foreign energy, changing into nonsensical forms and growing hostile, the trees grew arms and eyes and started weeping blood. Well they did before the bugs ate them all.
Still all the plant life away from either my base or the bug hives was purged by what might be the closest thing to collaboration with the bugs I have had yet, which consisted of avoiding each other and destroying all the plants we could. That seemed to slow the energy's proliferation, but burning all the plants did not stop it.
The energy seemed to reach a threshold which caused the sky to rain blood, which leads to now, the most concerning part is that the bugs have not attacked me since the rain started, they're still out there, but just sitting by their hives like they're gonna defend them from something.
Needless to say, I am keeping my guard up, Balistraia and Bulwark are patrolling every base and Byzantine is reporting every anomaly on the radars.
I have outposts on every continent and the blood rain is global, and it's bright as day out everywhere, even with the clouds.
I’m not sure I even want to know what's happening.
Log #75
The blood rain stopped after 2 days, and it turns out that the sun is just gone, there's still a day and night but no sun to cause it, all my satellites in orbit have stopped transmitting and it looks like the entire planet has been moved.
There are no stars here.
Log #76
Found out what the biters were worried about, monsters appeared from any location not near a bug nest, including within my base, not many inside the bases and the inside turrets and environmental hazards took care of them, but still the largest breach of my defenses in months.
The creatures did not appear within 10 meters of any shield unit though, even the mark 1 units, so now every factory is practically pasted with them, 1 shield generator every 5 meters, and I have begun building power poles with shield generators on the top, so I can cover everywhere.
I had been worried that the bugs would take advantage of this incursion, but it seems they are busy handling hordes of the creatures that just seem to throw themselves at the bugs, even more suicidal too. A 15 feet tall red goat man with many arms, each holding a bloody ax, is not going to kill a 70 foot tall giant bug, much less 7 of them, though the goat man did manage to kill 3 before melting and an identical goat creature showed up again the next day, so what do I really know anyway.
The bugs seem to be pushing the hordes back though, and Bulwark has been supporting them with artillery fire when they begin to be pushed back, I only needed to see a creature get to a bug nest once before deciding I preferred the normal insects.
That was the first time I have ever seen the bugs destroy one of their own nests, every bug within 100 kilometers just zeroed in on the abomination, and tore it and it's disgusting offspring to shreds, I did still nuke the area though, and the bugs didn't attack me for it, if I were a betting man I would say they even approved.
Still, repairs have begun to fix everything that was broken by the creatures incursion and we seem to be holding fine, the creatures don’t even seem interested in fighting the drones, which makes it easy to just plant bombs by the things and blow them up.
Log #80
There are officially no more spots on Nauvis that the creatures can appear, hives and outposts cover the ground and anything that appears in the water is just asking to die, the fish are basically constantly feeding on the things, and growing bigger to, still as long as we avoid the water the fish don't bother us.
The creatures still attack from the sky though, and in large numbers, but it's significantly more manageable than before, the bugs seem to agree too, considering they have restarted the constant attacks.
So now Nauvis is a hell hole with giant insects, that literally rains monsters, great, and I still can't send anything into orbit, anything that passes through the atmosphere rapidly deforms and in one case came to life and came back down to try and kill me. Even with the shield generators, so yeah, space is a no go.
Log #82
Plants have started regrowing, but they seem to be coming from my main base, I asked the Minds and none of them are claiming credit, even odder is that the plants seem to be absorbing the pollution put off by my factories, and the bugs aren't killing these ones, in fact they aren't even attacking my main base anymore.
The creatures certainly hate the plants though, ever since they started growing at my main base the creatures started trying to break in, which is odd considering they were mostly content to ignore me and my bases, but now are throwing themselves at my main base in massive hordes, the numbers are almost reaching the numbers from the beginning, and those are all just attacking my main base, rather than spread throughout the world.
Oddly enough it's mainly the green and pink variety, though the blue and red ones are joining in lesser numbers.
The good news is that the main base's hydroponics bay is showing a significant increase in plant growth and quality, and the meals are actually tolerable now.
That is actually worth being attacked by hordes of monsters stretching into the horizon.
Log #87
I have a child now, the child's pod crashed into the side of one of my outposts and one of Balistraias drones was the first to reach the pod and found a small child crawling out of it.
Once she had cleared it of any exotic energy corruption she brought the child to one of the medical bays.
This damned kid has better genetic augmentation than I do, and those are just the parts I understand, he is going to be smarter, stronger and tougher than I am, and I can only assume he is a more advanced combat focused version of me, but like hundreds of years more advanced.
He should reach physical maturity within a few years, and mental maturity within a decade, probably, but I don't actually understand most of his genetics.
Currently the kid is in the main base, just kinda crawling around and poking things, Labyrinthine is watching him to make sure he doesn't go anywhere dangerous. While also building the kid a play area/ containment cell. It should be finished within a day.
I have no idea how to raise a kid. And the monsters outside seem to really want in now, all the color types are trying to break in now, and the bugs have even started attacking the horde in earnest, apparently it's annoying enough to warrant serious assault now.
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The young boy watched the small construct and was watched in turn, the man in the heavy suit of armor had dropped him off in this room without a word, in fact the man had yet to say anything at all, the young boy did not know how he knew this was odd, nor did he know how he knew it was a man in that suit, or how he knew this construct in front of him was not a man.
The young boy watched as the construct picked up a piece of paper and drew a pattern on its surface with colorful lines. The boy did not recognize the pattern but picked up his own paper and drew his own pattern to show the drone, an identical copy of the drone's drawing. This got the young boy a response from the drone, in the form of a series of beeps.
The boy often saw drones flying around and chirping at other drones and objects, and knew there was a pattern to it, a language. This series of beeps was made when a successful task was completed, like when his room was finished, the boy repeated the chirping noises.
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It had been a few days since the boys room was finished, and he had learned much, like how the man was named maker, and that the construct that talked to him was called Labyrinthine, and how it had 3 siblings, who each managed a part of the building he lived in, and numerous building besides.
The boy had been spending most of his days drawing and building artwork with one of Labyrinthines drones or exploring the factory with one of their siblings, Byzantine. The boy was on one of these trips through the factory when he saw the corpse of a massive beast, and when he asked Byzantine about the corpse the boy learned that the factory he lived in was under constant assault, by these bugs and more esoteric threats, and the constructs description of these threats filled the child with a fear and revulsion that he couldn't explain.
While the boy now knew of these dangers he knew there was little he could do to help, he was after all still young and learning, as Labyrinthine was fond of saying. Still even if he couldn't help the constructs with defense, he may still be able to help the only other human here, the maker, with his tasks.
The child knew he was good with machines.
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Log #88
The small child has begun speaking bot, I can’t even speak bot. I was only vaguely aware that the bots spoke bot. And somehow the child has begun speaking it, and proficiently too.
The kid has been bombarding Labyrinthine with questions all day, and only stops when Labyrinthine gives the kid a puzzle or some drawing sticks. I knew the kid would be super humanly intelligent but this is kinda absurd, the kid solves any puzzles in minutes, the longest took an hour and that's because the thing broke and Labyrinthine had to fix it.
I gave the kid a small courier drone to play with and he had disassembled it within an hour and rebuilt it within another 2, this kid is presumably under a year old, and he can do that already. I feel inadequate.
With the bugs helping with the horde of creatures, the horde outside has begun thinning, not because less are coming, we are just killing them faster now, its a strain on my resources to keep up this fight but with the entire world being mined I can handle a little strain, these guys don't seem to be adapting either, not changing tactics or even attacking my other bases, which is odd because the creatures themselves are constantly shifting and changing their forms.
The plants have continued to sprout, not just around my main base, which is currently under constant siege, but rather a fair few of my outposts on this continent, even the ones without any hydroponics, so that's odd.
There still aren't any stars though, and I swear I feel the sky watching me, like it wants to fall down and crush me.
I didn't think Navius could get worse, well worse faster, the bugs always get worse, but I was wrong, and now there are hordes of billions of creatures falling from the sky.
Log #90
The kid has begun following me around, he doesn't chirp anything at me either, he's just watching me design new drones and turrets in silence, I would say it's odd if I actually knew how other humans behaved, but for all I actually know his behavior is perfectly normal for tiny superhumans.
The monster front is still holding steady, I am losing hundreds of thousands of tanks and drones everyday, but it's a sort of sustainable loss, so nothing interesting to report on that front. Just minor incursions from the sky world wide, and a major one right outside my main base.
The bugs on the other hand are destroying more and more of the bases without plants, something about the creatures seems to have supercharged them, it's not a true problem yet, but building replacement factories is eating a large portion of my budget, still a net positive though.
No the weirdest thing is that there are more than just plants in the forests now, small pollinating insects and small mammals that plant seeds in the soil have begun appearing, literally from nothing, not at the main base, no the plants there are destroyed too often to really spread out, it's the other bases which have lush forests surrounding them, with berries and flowers growing throughout. Nothing nice can exist on Nauvis, and I am very tempted to burn the forests before they reveal their evil nature. Still if the sky can rain blood then maybe a forest on Nauvis can not be full of horrors. Probably will be though.
Log #93
The kid has begun talking to me while I work, I need one of the minds to translate bot speak but we all think quick enough for that not to be a hindrance, he asks me questions about what I’m building and how, and not simple ones either, he has even improved a few of my designs.
That's not why I am writing this log though, the kid asked me about the giant eye in the sky watching him, and someone saying that to me is not okay, because I also feel like the sky is watching me and I did not need outside confirmation, at all.
What do you even do in a situation like this, I mean I am holding out fine, but this whole situation is beyond fucked, massive hordes of monsters fall from the sky, which still has no stars, and attack me constantly, and now I am told that the sky has a giant eye in it that's watching and judging me. The fuck.
So yeah, not just me who thinks the sky is evil. Good to know.
Log #94
The forest has yet to do anything, this does not calm me.
The kid asked me for a name today, so he is now Palisade. I needed to have the bots translate that into bot speech when I realized I don't even know how to say that word.
The kid has been doing good work optimizing designs, and he seems to have fun doing it too, even if he never smiles.
He's even begun work on his own suit of power armor and augmentations, I’m so proud.
The creatures have changed tactics, and started targeting my other outposts; they only got a few before Balistraia and Bulwark adapted to the change, but this is notably more effective. If you have an endless legion why just attack the one spot that's prepared for you.
The 3 outposts taken by demons were promptly nuked, feeling those things in my factories is a repulsive and vile thing, the bugs have built nests in the craters.
The forests seem to stop growing around a kilometer from the outposts, so much of the planet is still barren, if you discount the insects covering it, which I do.
Still curious about why my factories apparently spontaneously produce plants, but at this point I have given up on knowing anything.
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The boy, Palisade now, was in his workshop, a present from the maker for his 2 month anniversary. Palisade was currently working on one of the makers shield generators, Palisade knew lots of things, things he had never been taught, he innately understood machines and mathematics, but some of the things the creator built were not known to him, the makers shield generators being a prime example of this. Palisade found he rather enjoyed not knowing something about machines, figuring it out was like a particularly complex puzzle, and improving the shield generators helped everyone in the factory, so it was a worthy goal regardless.
It had taken Palisade a few days to finally understand how the mark 1 shield generators worked, and a week to understand the mark 2, as such he was now working on the mark 3, the maker had only a limited ability to produce these mark 3 variants, and often the generators failed to work right, Palisade was going to find out why, and how he could fix the problem.
The only issue was that he had been working for a week already and still didn't feel any closer to a solution, but if anything that made the situation better, simple puzzles were no fun, but Palisade had been working on this for a few hours today and decided to head over to the hydroponics bay for a while to clear his head, the hydroponics bay was the calmest part of the factory, and the only part not in constant motion, and as such was his favorite spot to sit and think.
The hydroponics bay was around an acre of plants and fish tanks, the factories few fleshy occupants did not need nearly this much food, but Labyrinthine liked growing new kinds of plants and needed lots of room to experiment, the only noise in the hydroponics bay was the sounds of pumps and drone fans, and the only movement was said drones monitoring the plants
Palisade walked over to a bench in the center of the bay that he had asked Labyrinthine to install; he preferred eating the plants fresh here, rather than from the food processor in his room, and so had a table and bench added to the bay.
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He sat right besides a small waterfall and watched as small fish swam around the pool the water fell into, occasionally a fish would try to swim up the stream, only to be washed back down to the basin, this had been a mutual design between Palisade and Labyrinthine, a large interconnect series of streams and waterfalls stretching throughout the hydroponics bay, filled with various aquatic plants and fish, the water from the stream would feed into several planters throughout the bay, feeding and watering the plants.
The system was not the entirety of the hydroponics bay, just the actual food production, the experimental plants were grown on more controlled systems, the Palisade had also helped design, really the food situation before he arrived was just awful, it mainly consisted of algae and fish that had been feed algae, and one of his first major projects had been to work with Labyrinthine to expand the experimental plant section in order to actually get edible plants, which was oddly easy, all the seeds that had been modified had grown, and none had shown any malformation or defects, and most had exceeded expectations in growth rate and size. Which he assumed had to do with the same phenomenon that was causing forests to grow outside the factory. Still, none of the plants showed the hostile mutations that had apparently occurred when the planet ….. teleported? The minds and the maker were still uncertain of what had exactly happened to the planet and sun, but considering there were no stars here, it was assumed the planet had been moved somewhere…. else.
Still Palisade did not notice anything amiss during his inspection of the hydroponics bay and returned to his chair and table, which now sorted a wide variety of fruits and vegetables, presumably gathered while he was wandering. It was around dinner time, and the constructs always ensured he ate his meals, his body grew rapidly after all, and while his metabolism was frighteningly efficient it wouldn't take long for his growth to slow without proper food, even if he could apparently go weeks or months without food.
The boy finished his meal quickly and soon left the hydroponics bay, he had stalled from his work long enough, the maker didn't even stop working to eat, his suit just fed nutrients directly into his veins for every meal except breakfast, which was the sole meal the two shared, and the boy figured he had wasted enough time on frivolities.
He could have sworn he felt something watching him as he left the bay though, even if the cameras showed nothing. It almost felt like the skys gaze, but less powerful and not at all hostile, he would mention it to the maker later.
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Log #100
The kid thinks the hydroponic bay is haunted, and considering his augmentations are a couple orders of magnitude better than mine, I am inclined to believe him, also because that somewhat explains the forest growth, we have a dryad infestation or something. Still they haven't caused any notable problems and I doubt redoing the hydroponics bay would fix the issue, so it's been filed under ‘do not think/worry about’.
The creatures have kept up the global assault, and are causing enough issues that all my outposts have been rigged to self destruct if they are taken, the damned things have begun taking the scraps of my defeated forces and making, I don't really have words to describe them, lets just say flesh machines, and those have proved frighteningly effective, I am officially losing more resources than I am gaining, I still have stockpiles of resources everywhere but for the first time it seems like the creatures are winning a bit.
Since it doesn't look like we are going to win through attrition now I need a new plan, which considering the things don't seem to stay dead is a real issue. How do you fight an enemy that just attacks you again after you manage to kill it? At least when you killed a bug it stayed dead, another bug would replace it sure, but it would stay dead. Not with these things, I have seen that same goat creature die over a hundred times, 20 of which it was trying to kill a fish that had eaten it before, it was an ocean fish though, so the fish was fine.
There are even less bugs than before, the bugs apparently deciding to make bigger stronger bugs rather than endless hordes, which seems to be more effective, but still, the damned things are pushing the bugs back better than I ever did and that bothers me.
There are even a few spots on the planet the things can appear at, sure the bugs and I are constantly shelling the spots but neither of us can move in and claim them.
Also 100 logs! I don't want to know what I will get for 200, if endless monster hordes were 100.
Log #103
Balistraia and the boy designed a new weapon together, it's a giant metal rod with a shield generator inside, you drop it from a plane into a uncovered zone and it stops more creatures from showing up, apparently the kid figured out how the shields kept the things from spawning and designed the metal rod to amplify it, basically a supercharged version of my electric poles with shield generators on top.
The design worked splendidly and allowed balistraria and the bugs to move in and reclaim the territories, so its once again only attacks from the sky.
The kid also figured out how to reliably produce the mark 3 shield generators, so he really has been helpful.
Kid is officially taller than me, at 7 feet and growing, so the armor he's designing needs to have room to grow with him if he doesn't want to make a new one every few days. It'll be interesting to see what he designs.
Nothing new has happened on the dryad front, besides more animals showing up in the forests and more outposts growing forests. Not even sure what I think is gonna happen, besides demon trees trying to break my walls or maybe just poisoned food, still the food processor should handle all that for me and I'd like to see something manage to poison the kid. Something that potent would work on the bugs too.
Log #104
I know a lot of these logs mention the kid a lot, but he is one of the largest changes to the factory, even the creatures outside are just a new endless horde to fight, and they never really changed anything. But the kid did, walking around and improving things, designing and optimizing weapons. So there is a lot to talk about with him.
So yeah the kid did something weird again, he made a sort of beehive, empty, and put it in the hydroponics bay to see what would happen, and wouldn't you know the next day there was a weird alien species of bee in the hydroponics bay, and all the plants were flowering for them.
So yeah kid was right, hydroponics bay hella haunted.
Still slowly losing resources to the constant fighting though, even if we aren't losing ground anymore. I have scaled up production and mining to meet the demand but at the rate we are going we only have… 7 years, yeah we will probably be fine. I’m not even 4 yet and if I dont figure something out twice in my current life I deserve to die.
Oddly enough things seem calm, I haven't even needed to take to the field myself yet, and plan turn Navius into a nuclear hellscape and make hundreds of super volcanoes is not seeming necessary anymore, still leaving the nukes in the planet's crust, never know when you might need to cause an apocalypse.
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The designs for Palisades augmentations were finished and the only thing left to do was to install them, the medical bay had been upgraded to handle his tougher bones and skin, and could suppress his regeneration long enough to install the shield generators and the underskin mesh that would allow the shields to function on his skin. That was about the only modification that could really be made to improve his body, it was still an extensive operation though, and Palisade was adding a mental interface to allow mental control of his armor as well.
His armor was going to be a stretchy metallic cloth of his own design, retaining its strength and with the shield generators in an armored backpack, this armor did not provide the same strength boost that the makers did, but Palisade felt that for a temporary suit made to grow with him, it was a suitable piece of equipment. His body was strong enough without it, especially since he had yet to see live combat, and only rarely spared with mind’s drones.
Still everything was prepared and ready, and the maker was monitoring the medical pod, with nothing left to prepare Palisade had the medical bay began the operation.
He could feel phantom fingers combing through his hair as the anesthesia knocked him out.
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The operation was a success, and Palisade now had control of his armor, or rather suit with the mental implant, and could now access the factories network with his mind. Millions of tiny motes of information flew throughout the network, every drone, tank and machine had a presence here, all underneath the minds, information was relayed at the speed of light, anything of importance was known by all, and surrounded by this maelstrom and connected within the minds was the presence at the center of it all, the maker. Palisade watched as the makers mind subconsciously altered the network on a massive scale, and he felt as the flow of information slowed enough for him to truly process it, reports of combat on hundreds of fronts, repairs and expansions, modifications and upgrades, everything within the factory passed under the makers mind.
Palisade knew then that there was no true distinction between the maker and his factory, without the maker the factory would cease to run, and the maker's mind had grown and changed to interface with the factory itself, he would go mad if that connection was lost. The minds were more akin to automatic functions of the body rather than truly separate entities, like how one's body would repair and fight off intruders without the mind being aware, but this mind was aware and could order its immune system with only a thought.
This comparison was not truly accurate but it was the closest thing he could relate to it too, but maybe it was closer to a symbiote, separate organisms that depend on each other for survival? Still Palisade was not here for philosophy.
Palisade reached out to the bundle that was the maker's thoughts and for the first time truly communicated with his father.
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Log #105
The kid finished designing the augmentations he’d be undergoing and had them installed, with his crazy healing factor he was up and walking within the same day, and now that the kid has his own interface, odd that I was made with one and he wasn't, we can actually communicate directly, he exactly as intelligent and earnest as he seemed, and he's significantly smarter than me too. But that was to be expected really. A baby doesn't exactly know how to lie and the minds have been monitoring him constantly since he was born. Nice to have confirmation that he's really a human though, or at least human enough.
His thoughts were rapid and intricate, it was a bit disorienting getting used to the influx of information but I have practice with that and It wasn't long before he just became a sort of background noise before he disconnected from the network.
In the forest news, the animals spawning there have become more complex, and predators have started showing up, and not dinky little predators either, these things can take out smaller creatures and often do. Still they don't bother the bugs or my drones so I don't really mind.
The bugs have gotten good enough at killing the creatures that they are retaking ground now, and the kid has been developing and enhancing my tech enough that I am too. So the creatures aren't really a true threat anymore, still a drain on resources, but a manageable one, and with the plants now covering every outpost but the newly built ones, the bugs aren't a major threat either,
Honestly even if the forest turns evil I might keep it, just to keep the damned bugs away.
Log #130
Officially hitting 5 years on Navius which makes my body 21 and my mind ? But probably 5, the kid has finished growing and made a his own real suit of armor, not just that dinky fabric thing, basically just a scaled up variant of my combat suit really, I mean it looks roughly the same, just you know 24 ft tall rather than my 10, making doorways that fit him was the most difficult part of the whole ordeal.
Now that the kids in armor with real weaponry and enough shields to tank multiple nukes he's been itching to go out and fight the bugs and monsters, and considering he was apparently born knowing how to use a sword, the lucky bastard, I am inclined to let him out to play, under Balistraia of course, I am not entirely stupid.
The forest has begun to slowly cover more of the planet over the last year or so, it avoids growing near the bug hives and I haven't noticed any new plants in the waters but the planet is significantly less of a blasted hellscape now.
The creatures are still everywhere but between the bugs and wildlife they aren't really a significant threat, as the forest slowly spread the number of creatures thinned out, and now rather than billions of the things it's just millions, which is manageable.
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Palisade was checking over his armor and weaponry, his warhammer was functional and ready to crack bug carapace, his armors shields were active, the hydraulics were active and increasing his strength threefold, his discharge defense was prepared for when he inevitably got swarmed, his mortar was loaded and ready, his backup shield sword was functional, 2 of his mechanical limbs held flamethrowers and the other 2 held laser cannons, the sensor array on his armor was active and feeding directly into his brain, giving him perfect awareness of his surroundings, not that he didn't already have that with his enhanced senses, and feeding him tactical information from the drone force he would be fighting with, the gravpack on his armor was ready to propel him forward with but a thought, and his in suit medical equipment was fully operational.
The drones that had dressed him in his armor finished loading all of his ammunition and their own checks on his equipment and signaled that he was cleared for deployment and he got ready to enter his personal tank.
His tank was an upgraded and significantly larger version of the standard shield tank, making use of the factories most advanced shields and weaponry, and was piloted by his mind, meaning he would be controlling his armor, tank, a small contingent of his own modified drones, not to mention his own body and communicating with Balistraia, the maker had said the human mind could adapt to near any stimulus and that with his enhanced cognition he could adapt to even more, and it seemed the maker was correct, as controlling all this equipment was as simple as controlling his own limbs.
Today Palisade would be heading out with one of the numerous forces Balistraia sent to quell the creatures, this force was being sent to attack a horde of creatures that was successfully pushing back a bug hive and was to destroy the horde before they could establish a foothold on the planet's surface.
Palisade ordered his drones to enter his tank as he crawled into the rear compartment, there was no driver compartment just an armored cubby in the rear of the vehicle, and started up the vehicle before driving out to meet up with Balistarias force, numbering 10 command tanks with thousands of the smaller tank variants and a swarm of a few hundred thousand drones, which made Palisades control of 100 drones seem relatively pitiful, even if his were his own more powerful versions.
Still his forces seamlessly merged into the column of troops managed by Balistraia as he received his orders from her, he was going to be hunting down the splinters from the horde that was attacking the bug hives, the creatures weren't a unified whole, unlike the bug hives and factory, and so often groups or singular creatures would break from the larger groups and would roam the surface of Nauvis, so contingents of drones and tanks would hunt these smaller groups down, and his force was roughly equal to those hunting squads.
Palisade figured this was a nice enough low intensity mission and soon received directions from Balistraia, the nearest splitter group was only a few kilometers away from the column so Palisade broke off and drove his tank towards the target, deploying his drones once he was within a kilometer of the group and sending his drones out to encircle the creatures, what looked to be fat green children covered in pustules, mouths and horns.
He was going to enjoy burning them.
The fight, if it could even be called that, ended quickly, the drones sprayed liquid fire towards the creatures, causing them to back away from the flames into a nice clump, which the main cannon on his tank swiftly obliterated.
It took longer to ensure all the little spots of blood scattered around were burnt away, the green variants blood contained a wide variety of deadly diseases and even if nothing on the planet was susceptible it was always better to stay safe, which was why the incineration protocol was in place for any bits of the creatures that did not dissipate when they died.
The majority of his extermination missions continued in a similar manner, purging small numbers of the more minor variants of creatures, he only lost one drone when one of the blue creatures tried to hijack one of his drones, which promptly self destructed taking out a fair few creatures and damaging more drones, it hadn't taken the maker long to harden his machines against the creatures cybernetic attacks and palisade had only strengthen that resistance farther, still any vehicle or drone that was attacked would be considered lost even if the attack failed, and would self destruct.
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Palisade knew that in the early days of the creatures attacks, before he arrived, The drones would seem normal and show no changes to their composition or code but would rapidly change and turn hostile, trying to infect the minds or the maker, but bulwarks defense held those infected drones off long enough for Balistraria to destroy them, either physically or through the network. So even if it seemed like the drones were no longer vulnerable to infection, risks were not to be taken and they were to be purged.
Even command tanks and the versions of Balistraia that inhabited them would willingly submit to being quarantined and purged if a cyberattack reached them. Even if a command tank had never been successfully hijacked.
The bugs did the same thing too, though in their case it was any bugs that had taken a hit from the creatures. After the battle they would be killed and the bodies melted into sludge, or sent to attack the nearest factory outpost, depending on distance.
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No, the missions to purge small groups of creatures was relatively uneventful, up until he was sent to purge of larger group, it was roughly 30 of the smaller red ones, the ones that looked like men with horns and wielded various flaming melee weaponry, Palisade was preparing to encircle and hem in the creatures when the group spotted his drones, And then started screaming and charging straight at them.
This being the first time that the creatures had spotted the drones before they started firing almost managed to surprise him but Palisade had been waiting for something to go wrong, it was commonly held knowledge within the factory that if something worked the first time you tried it, it was going to go wrong sooner rather than later. Or if anything went well at all, and you hadn't been trying for weeks to get it to go well, then it was probably a trap by some cosmic force that wanted to see you fail.
So Palisade was prepared for the horde to spot him, he wasn't prepared for the horde to summon a larger red version of themselves by killing half their own number during their charge. The massive red winged variant was considered a major threat, and only rarely did one appear, which usually ended with one of the command tanks personally dealing with the creature, or massed artillery strikes, or the utterly massive command bugs, or on one memorable occasion a tentacle from a river that just dragged the creature underwater. You didn't go near the water if you knew what was good for you. Even the animals in the forests knew that, but the creatures never seemed to learn.
Still the massive red thing charged the drone encirclement and began hacking the drones appart, and while these drones were significantly stronger than the average drone they still no match for a creature of this strength. And Palisade had the drones pull back while he opened fire with his tanks full ordnance, this seemed to surprise the creature, who turned towards the tank and gave a seemingly gleeful shout, before beginning to charge through the barrage of fire lasers and bullets, the creature kept up the gleeful shouting right till the artillery strike arrived, Palisade wasn't going to fight one of these things fairly, that would be stupid.
The creatures enraged shouting lasted for about 2 minutes before the constant hail of artillery turned the creature into pulp, and palisade ordered the fire to stop, about 10 seconds later shells stopped falling and his drones were free to approach and burn the remains, they had finished fighting the smaller red ones while the big one was being pulped.
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Palisade only fought one more group of creatures before the main battle Balistraria was fighting ended, the battle had lasted roughly 6 hours, and the creatures had put up a much fiercer fight than expected, more of the stronger variants had shown up than ever before, and Balistraia ended the fight 7 command tanks shorter. Still it was a victory for Navius and the creatures had failed to establish a new foothold on the planet, and Palisade had gotten some much needed combat experience.
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Log #134
The kid and I finally reached a breakthrough in discovering where we are, it's a sort of sub dimension adjacent to normal reality, it doesn't explain how we got here in the first place but it does explain why anything that leaves the planet warps and breaks, different rules of physics, why the planet is seemingly exempt from this is another question, but kinda irrelevant.
What is relevant is the kid has an idea for how to pull the planet back into normal reality, which would presumably stop the hordes of creatures from appearing, we just need to cover the entire planet with giant metal pylons filled with experimental and poorly understood techknowledgey that the kid apparently already had installed in his brain, and drag an entire planet into a different dimension.
This will go well.
Nothing really new besides more varieties of plants and animals, the experimental section of the hydroponics bay is getting really insane though, the plants there are odd, not hostile though.
Log #142
The pylons have been set up, and a massive bunker has been readied for us to hide in while the planet exits this dimension, this bunker should stay intact even if the planet cracks in half.
The creatures seem to have figured out what we are doing, and now trillions of other things are trying to tear down the pylons. Bulwark and Balistraia won't be able to hold out for more than an hour and the pylons will take 10 minutes to charge up. Apparently the things weren't really trying before.
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Thousands of tanks and drones were being destroyed by the second while the pylons charged and the boy and I hid in a bunker, the few scanners I still had on the bugs showed thousands of hives getting destroyed by the hordes of creatures and I was losing outposts every second, and with each outpost and hive lost more and more creatures would show up, still the pylons were almost charged and the defenses around them were holding.
The first sign of our arrival in normal reality was that the sky had stopped raining blood, the second sign was that swaths of the creatures were vanishing, and the third was that there was now a naked elf lady in the hydroponics bay.
The majority of my forces were destroyed, and 40% of my outposts were gone, the rest were all some form of damaged. Repair work was not going to be quick, and Labyrinthine had already started repairing any critical systems, still now there was an actual sun and stars in the sky, which is remarkably reassuring.
Still with Labyrinthine handling repairs with the other minds I was free to go talk to the lady in my garden, which considering she had grown some plants into clothing, she was probably the cause of the forests, well enough that she can handle her own clothes, considering I don't have anything that will fit a 15 ft tall elf lady.
The boys going out to patrol with Balistraia, so I will apparently be talking to her alone, with only a few nukes and the hundreds of turrets lining the inside of the hydroponics bay for support. fun!