System log: The Bunker, Site 3
Solar Calendar: Unknown, 2???
Current status: Active
Log 12
The rest of the third day executed equally to the events of the morning. The team of ten construction drones continued to gather and deposit the raw materials taken from the matriarch tremor worm, while humans assisted. While the group had attempted to enter the giant metal worm to search for the holding cells themselves, the scout drone recorded them being foiled by the largely inhospitable atmosphere within the alien machine. The terrible scent wafting around was not only unpleasant the smell, apparently, but also rather toxic without protective gear, which no one on the team possessed. The group of Roadrunners had resigned themselves to taking from the gathered pile and transport them to the fabrication room’s chute.
While they did this, Gamma was hard at work putting the finishing touches on its blueprint design. It wasn’t so much that the blueprints were imperfect, but rather the addition of unexpected or lack of material was impacting the design process. For example, as Sloan had noted earlier, the metal muscle of the stalkers had been added to the blueprints once Gamma had been made aware of their existence. The way that the program was effortlessly able to add unknown tech to its designs was odd, odd enough even to suggest that this wasn’t the first time Gamma had known of the technology’s existence. However, because of the facility’s damage (-error- data not found) Gamma was forced to fill the gaps in its knowledge one instance at a time.
To that end, on the main screen in the core room, the blueprints slowly rotated a three-dimensional image back and forth upon them. The image animated through time as well, with every significant alteration causing the image to restart back at the beginning, and only just now as the sun set was the human eye able to track the changes visibly.
It began with the exo-suit worn by the runner. The suit was simple, inelegant, and effective in its design. It consisted basically of a wireframe that roughly matched the size of the human body, with clasps around each joint, the torso, forearm, biceps, quads, waist, feet, collarbone, and finally around the shoes and feet. Retractable hand covers could be used to control certain parts of the suit or equip brass knuckles, while an emergency inflatable air cushion was hidden around the neck area. Each frame of the exo-suit consisted of two flat metal pieces for strength, and a hollow piece containing high tension metal wires and/or hydraulics. Special servos and springs at each joint connection allowed for the flexibility of human motion, though with notable limitation that prevented both hyperextension and hyper relaxation. Gamma noted that sleeping in the harness likely took some getting used to, though it seemed it was possible to ‘lock’ the suit into position.
By the program’s standards, the exo-suit was just a simple and efficient way to enhance the average human to their limits. If a top athlete used to intense training used an exo-suit, Gamma estimated a high chance the athlete’s ability would actually decrease as a result of the suit’s limits. Other weaknesses included the time required to put on and take off the suit, inefficient protection from attacks, lack of fail safes in case of failure, uncomfortableness from lack of padding, and the power source. According to Gamma’s scans, the exo-suits operated with the help of a solar-powered battery and a high-tension windable spring located on the back.
The spring had actually been a great surprise to the program upon its discovery. Every wire inside the suit was connected to it, and every usage of the suit’s extra strength caused the spring to lose tension. This didn’t include everyday usage such a walking, but with the use of the extendable hand cover, the user could connect the high-tension steel wires to the spring and release part of the stored potential energy to maximize the suit’s abilities. Such examples included the boss punching through stalker bodies, the humans leaping away from the matriarch tremor worm, and so on. Typically, the springs had to be recoiled by a machine of some kind, but they could also regain potential energy manually as well from compression forces on the exo-suit.
It was this revelation that finally revealed to Gamma the reason why the group of runners had stayed behind due to injury. It hadn’t made much sense in Hank’s memory for why the group had stayed with him and his broken leg, but as it turned out each of the six runners besides Hank had damaged their coils upon landing during their escape from the matriarch tremor worm. Hank’s broken leg was even connected to this, as it was because the wire in his leg had broken off the spring, resulting in more stress from the fall off the building.
Again, it was a simple and efficient use of available resources that demonstrated the resourcefulness of humanity. Now, it was Gamma’s turn to change that into something better in every way.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
The first set of blueprints was simple: the exo-suit’s wireframe-like design was placed in a T-pose that rotated around. Each three-piece frame was then replaced with a metal grid frame per section, changing the general look of the image from wire frame to ‘fitted medieval body cage’. Instead of straps and clasps, each non-jointed section would seal around the body of the user like a cocoon, while the joint sections were solid strips one had to slip into.
The next part focused on the joints themselves. Throughout human history, whether it came to armor and clothes, joint flexibility had always been the most critical point in design. Too tight, and flexibility was lost. Too loose, and the purpose of protection/fit look was lost. Gamma overcame this using a modern take on an ancient technique.
European knight armor during its usage heyday was well known for its surprising flexibility, thanks in large part to the soft, flexible material on the inside and the hard, multisegmented overlapping armor on the outside of the joints. Gamma brought this technology to the modern age by designing a flexible carbon fiber fabric for the joint sections, designed to loosely hug the skin or fabric, covered by a complicated segmented and overlapping rounded triangle design on top, and an overlapping air hydraulic metal on the bottom conformed to general human anatomy.
Taking the elbow as an example, when the human was straight, the rounded triangles would sit flush with each other while the metal piece underneath would be compressed into itself. When the elbow was bent, the rounded triangles would ride atop each other while the metal underneath would be fully extended. Of course, each joint was designed uniquely for the range of motion the human body was capable of.
With the base design complete, the third set of blueprints overlayed the bulk of the new design atop the frame; the armor. Gamma had, in fact, two sets of armor for the design: an inner armor, and an outer armor. The inner armor consisted of the padding that separated the metal frame from human body, the circuitry the ran alongside the frame, and the connection points on the frame for the outer layer. Most of the circuitry ran down the back of the design, a result of the helmet and torso needing to flip up to allow the occupant to enter before sealing.
The torso did hold the core though, a miniature nuclear fusion reactor a high voltage rechargeable battery that could run for 48 hours before needing a recharge. Taking a page from the exo-suit, Gamma included small motion-powered generators in the feet that would passively restore battery power, as well as deployable solar cells when out of combat.
The most complex part of the design came in the helmet, which the exo-suit notable lacked. As Gamma had calculated a greater chance of survival from having a fully covered head, the majority of the design’s tech was devoted to giving the wearer completely visual and audio awareness of their surroundings. This included a fully digitized screen on the inside that displayed the surroundings thanks to external cameras and audio feedback that matched direction and volume of the source. As a failsafe, these features could also be disabled, or be rendered disabled, and the wearer would be able to use standard lens and ear sections to see and hear normally.
On that note, Gamma had many failsafes included in the design, most of which were digitally controlled by the design’s internal CPU. The manual failsafes were less in number, but equally important in the event of EMP exposure, loss of battery, bodily damage, etc. Replenishable medical and repair nanites were included in internal tanks within the design as well, to ensure that the wearer would be able to take hits and keep fighting without stopping. All in all, Gamma was quite satisfied. The final image rotated slowly on screen, with no more changes able to be made without further advances in material science.
The last thing to do was aesthetics, something Creativity.exe. and Design.exe had been conflicted over during the entire process. However, given the inherent design choices, Gamma had the perfect idea for looks. The knight look was clearly required and, conveniently, the knight plume often found on helmets made for the perfect excuse to attach a certain cartoon desert bird’s head feather look to the helm. Some smoothing of the armor, a couple of fittings to allow the attachment and carrying of standard crate sizes, and it was done. The breakdown of the design appeared on the screen a moment later.
P.M.S: Runner Type- KnightR
Functions: Scout, Combat, Logistics
Design: Humanoid
Creator: Gamma
Strengths:
Stealth, Speed, Strength
Combat Rating: Small
Weaknesses:
Medium armor penetration round , Human pilot
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Description:
Personal Mech Suit designed for runner use in the field.
Fully suited pilot wears and controls mech suit like a second body layer. Designed to assist all runner tasks including long distance treks, defensive combat, tracking, etc.
-Not designed as a strictly combat unit.
With the design completed and simulation tested, Gamma put the fabricator room to work. As the humans slept peacefully, above them behind closed doors and sealed machinery, metal was pounded into shape. The prototype was on its way.