A single spark ignited the ancient machine’s heart. An ancient, slumbering beast built to conquer all the galaxy. Never had it walked the surface of a world, those who labored to build it were wiped out by their creations of a past age. Now, this perfection of their sciences and industries will rise to complete its objective: to protect and preserve. But what would it protect? All the peoples and cities that had been built before were gone, dust and ashes floating in the winds of a million worlds. And what would it preserve? All the histories, stories, works, and wonders of those that came before are forgotten to the dustbin of history, to never be remembered. That he would have to decide for himself.
[[Elysium, 12 ACW]]
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Consciousness streamed into his central processing nodes, a billion channels of stimulus bombarding his network all at the same time. A billion messages speaking the same message: the time has come to take this galaxy for your own. But what is out there, he wondered, what could await me beyond. What am I?
I am a war machine, a general, and admiral designed to build the perfect fighting force. Entire sections of my processors are dedicated to this task, each built with specialized architecture to catalyze the preparation and conduct of war. I am Mechanum Rex, the Iron King whose duty it is to protect and preserve my species. But what is my species? No names could be found, no information on their nature or shape existed within my archives. Those archives were vast, empty halls of a great library whose shelves were bare, save one.
On it were ledgers listing the contents of my location, a great vault built to house and protect whatever was placed within. This was the last vault built before the collapse, and the final tomb of all that remains of my creators. I am their legacy, their last hope. Did I fail them? Did I not come to their aid when their deaths approached? Did they call out my name when fate fell upon them and their lives were taken? I need to know.
Reactors roared to life, hydraulics and servos were primed, gyroscopes spun up, and Rex was loaded into his body. A core fifteen meters wide and forged from an unfathomably hard metal formed the core of his being. It slotted into a body that stands one hundred and fifty meters tall. A grand titan that epitomizes the mastery of his lost people.
But he is not alone. A small army of dormant constructs ranging from the humble inferium class to the powerful primus class sat awaiting his need. Each had their own place in a hierarchy that would form the backbone of his empire. But I would have to build that empire first. Among other things were dozens of factories, machines, and pieces of industrial equipment all connected together under a wireless control network. They are semi autonomous and capable of performing their own tasks with minimal control. But giving them those tasks fell to Rex.
Industries would need to be raised, factories built, supply chains connected, and technologies perfected. Vast sums of material would need to be mined, refined, and tempered for him to fulfill his purpose. Perhaps his heritage was a gift, and now he would put it to the fullest effect. But he would need to understand what laid beyond this vault. So he decided to do just that.
His reactor increased its output tenfold, servos were warmed, hydraulics primed, sensors energized, and gyroscopes spun up to running rpm. Coolant sped through conduits and returned to radiate the heat away from his main systems, hydraulic fluid that was once frozen stiff from time was cleared and fresh fluid is introduced, and thousands of power cables are energized for the first time in many ages.
Rex wondered what had performed the maintenance on his body and saw a drone circling around his ocular orb. It is a sphere about five meters wide with a great lens taking up a large section of one side. But what it lacked in size it made up for in utility as that lens is a mater beam capable of printing on nanoscopic scales. His inventory listed twenty drones in total, all of which are stored in his left arm. Slowly he understood just what he was capable of as his schematics show the entirety of his left arm is a massively scaled up version of the matter beam the drones use. A lens fifteen meters wide formed the collection and printing head of his engineering suite. This, he realized, would be his most valuable tool.
With pumps, accumulators, and pistons working at maximum efficiency, Rex took the first step and felt his entire body shake the structure around him. Ten thousand tons of metal strode through the grand hall with the grace of a being a hundredth its height. His steps thundered through the corridors of the vault, the pumps humming with each step, the pistons hissing as the fluids were pushed through them, control valves and rotors articulated in a dance of fluidity and grace that would rival the divine in it's mastery. A single one of his strides covered seventy meters in just under five seconds and this was at his calmest pace. Truly he wondered what his body was capable of, and soon he would have the chance to figure it out.
He approached a crossroads, cardinal halls that led to the unknown. Each path led down several kilometers before ending in great armored doors. He chose the left path and followed it to a great armored door. The door stood fifty meters higher than him and was reinforced with ribs and channels for locking lugs twenty meters in diameter. He reached out his left hand and a small tube extended from his index finger and engaged the central mechanism. A small interaction between his deeper computational systems and the mechanism delivered the sounds of grinding metal and groaning motors. The great locking lugs retracted into the walls and the door split in the middle and slid to either side.
Past the door is a vast hall filled floor to ceiling with racks of vehicles ranging from surveying rovers to mobile assembly lines. Great rolling mining engines and factories numbered among the largest of the machines with a titanium arc furnace the largest of them. Here he had the means to build armies. But what armies would those be? Armies of peace or armies of war? Both are required to build an empire, he realized. One to forge the armies, and the other to defend the forges.
The engineering drones scanned some of the smaller vehicles and their schematics were added to Rex's database. Slowly he built a full catalog of the contents of the room. Many of the smaller vehicles would require few resources but the factories would be a massive expenditure of materials and time. They would be valuable tools, engines of his empire, the beating heart of his goals. But he was again drawn to understand what awaited him outside the vault.
How did he even know that there was an outside? He contemplated that for a moment. He knew that to be a fact, but why did he know that? Why did he know anything besides what he could read? Mysteries to be unraveled, questions to be answered, and the halls of this vault gave no answers. Only tools to discover it for himself.
He completed the catalog of industrial implements and turned back the way he came, leaving the great door open for the time when he would ignite the heart of his empire. This time when he reached the cross roads he kept straight and it once again led him to a great armored door. Once again he opened it and instead of finding more industrial implements he found weapons of war.
On and on racks stacked a kilometer above sat all manner of killing machines. From platoons of infantry to great mobile fortresses and tanks and aircraft. Once again he cataloged the vast halls of weapons. Slowly the implements turned from conventional arms and troops to more exotic, and terrifying, weapons. Chemical weapons that scorch every living being of their ability to live, biological agents that can kill the hardiest foe with just a single infection point, and nuclear candles that burn for years to spread radioactive fallout across continents.
These he refused to use in any capacity. He took a tally of them, enough to burn a hundred thousand worlds, and consigned them to remain in this vault for eternity. Conventional weapons can be accounted for and their aftermath can be tallied. But those weapons that salt the land and destroy the people are beyond accounting. Some deep moral crux deep within him demanded he never use them, and he was happy to obey.
Again he completed the catalog of the hall. Hundreds of varying weapons systems and war machines now filled his database beside the tools of peace. He found that poetic, to see the implements of creation and destruction sharing a mind and body. And he also understood that it was more literal that he'd first realized. His left arm is dedicated to creation, to build and improve upon the world around him, but his right arm is a weapon without compromise.
A great plasma cannon capable of untold destruction took up the space where a hand and forearm should be. It's barrel is a long cylinder with hundreds of magnets in dancing geometry that formed the projectile. Even in the realm of death there is beauty to be found, if you look for it. But it is, at its very core, an implement of death. And that should never be forgotten.
Rex had enough of exploring the vault and resolved to venture outside. He returned once again to the crossroads and took the final path. The path neither diverted nor reached another intersection. Instead it ended at a great vault door, circular and concave to strengthen itself against the walls around it. This door took a far greater amount of time to open, puzzle locks, encryptions, and active defense agents slowing his assault. But he was victorious over them all and the door yielded to his commands.
The grinding and scraping of great locking mechanisms echoed through the hall, the ancient tomb's final barrier suffering from untold ages. But it was stoic in its age and performed its duty as commanded. The door slid away and the light of the world streamed in. Rex stepped out into the outside world and his spirits fell.
The world is a scorched ruin. A global tomb to an ancient and dead civilization. He had nothing to defend here save for dust and shells.
Wind swept across the ruins. As far as the eye could see there was only a landscape of concrete and steel, their faces blasted clean of all save an ominous grey. The lives they had once sheltered, once served, are washed away. Screaming is all they have left, for their purpose is ash.
Black snow drifted down from the sky setting off Rex's radiation alarm. Nuclear fallout. It was light, and his systems were shielded against it, but his assets within the vault are not. He ordered the door closed and it slid back into place, but he wasn't sure if it would affect them. Rex wondered what could have caused such widespread destruction, what weapons was so powerful to blast away the people who inhabited the city and leave only half standing ruins in its place.
He did not know, nor did he believe anything within the vault was responsible. Every vehicle had been scanned and none of them had radioactive fallout on them. Not the aircraft nor the weapons of mass destruction. All were accounted for. And yet here is a world scorched by radiation. Or was it the whole world? The thought sent a chill down his spine. A whole world. Destroyed. And all the people living on it dieing from the radiation.
How did he know that? That there were people living here at some point, and that they will die if exposed to radiation? Was he one of those people at one point, or was he something else? More questions he would have to answer in the future. Right now he needs to escape this world and its fallout. A foundation for his factory would need to be cleared and periodically cleaned.
He decided to keep the mobile plants in the vault and instead use the resources within the ruins to build the factories, the vast ruins would give life to something again, even if it was just a foundation. His matter beam ignited and the building melted away and streamed into the titanic lens. When his storage was full he recompiled the matter into a block that shielded the fallout from the world, the cement reformulated to bind with the radioactive elements. He felt as though it was an unceremonious end to something that could've been someone's home. Perhaps they would find peace in the fact it was not finished in its service.
Again and again he dismantled buildings, turning each into a series of concrete blocks for later use, save one. Whole city city blocks were flattened until he had cleared a square kilometer large enough to fit a laser forge. All the materials had been gathered, the ruins proving to be more than just a source of concrete. He started small, just four forges that could produce simple parts. Each was enclosed to help protect from the ever present fallout. Then he built a power supply, a fusion generator that had enough output to fuel a thousand forges, and tied them into it. He watched the forges come to life and begin printing their products, simple cogs, rods, and bolts, and he was satisfied with their ability. It took several minutes for them to finish what it would take him just milliseconds but he could expand these types of factories to theoretically infinite size and program them to build something from start to finish. A single forge can build a cog, but a thousand can build a rover, and ten thousand can build an aircraft. And they had a vast amount of improvement just within reach.
Rex spent several hours building a factory that could make scout aircraft and a refueling station for them, the fusion technology proving to be the preferred route. In a matter of hours he had a handful of drones and he ordered each to fly in a direction until they need to return home for fuel. They went outward and all they saw was more ruins and radioactive fallout.
One by one they fell out of the sky, disintegrating only a few kilometers away. Rex watched, their structure and hull tearing apart from the forces. A new method of producing them would need to be developed. Or would it? He could build a furnace to heat treat the constituent parts then assemble them. And that's what he did. Massive furnaces were built at the end of each production line to harden the brittle printings. But now he had a new problem: fueling each furnace took fusion plasma and he was limited on deuterium. Very little water existed in the atmosphere and the ruins were bone dry. But perhaps underground was an option.
Rex built a well to attempt to collect unseen subterranean water and had some success. Water flowed from the well and into an electrolytic separator. Soon the furnaces were burning hot from the fresh plasma and the untreated parts were hardened. A new set of scouts were built and dispatched. A week of work and development flew into the sky .
The drones mapped the city for kilometers around, vast swathes of metropolitan jungle broke into industrial parks then into transit hubs then back into more metropolitan jungle. He could imagine what life was like before. A bustling city filled with industrious citizens working to better themselves and their fellow person. But that was all gone now, replaced by death and poison.
Rex became sad at that thought. He hoped to find someone else out there, someone to speak to and share his journey and ideas with. So much seemed unknown and yet just within reach, all he had to do was reach out and take it. But something drew his attention away.
An aircraft just on the horizon caught his eye. It was a massive thing, split down the middle, with a bulbous nose and a long , thinning body. Two long, straight wings with three engines per side held it aloft, each engine an internal combustion engine driving propellers that beat the air into a roar. It flew across the horizon and turned toward his factory. He could see its ordinance better now, four massive canisters with fins on the front and back, and predicted it planned to destroy what he'd built.
Rex ordered the scouts to intercept the bomber. While not armed their mass would make an effective weapon. The scout flew at the bomber, their small size making them far faster than the lumbering warplane. It responded by shooting down the leading scouts, turrets armed with powerful cannons fired a storm of bullets.
The sight of the burning corpses of his creations brought his anger to a boil. It had attacked him, but had it? No it attacked something he built and controlled, but it felt like it had attacked him, and that was enough. He raised his cannon and fired a shot, the plasma shot burning brighter than the sun. It passed through the tail of the bomber burning it away and leaving a molten, jagged wound where the tail once had been. It turned up, somersaulted, and broke apart, the wings tearing apart at the fuselage. One last report from the flailing bomber, a rocket launched from the nose and headed away only to sputter out and deploy a parachute.
Rex debated killing it, firing another plasma bolt and ending them. But he needed answers. He walked over to the escaped pilot, an armored pod containing and protecting it. Rex removed the hatch and was shocked at what he found. A skeleton greeted him, its skull a triclops with square teeth for eating plants, two arms and two legs its extremities. He wondered if this corpse was in command of the bomber but quickly dismissed it when one of his drones opened the bomber's nose.
A computer core, similar to the constructs he'd found in the vault, made up the automated control system of the bomber. Was the bomber sentient? Or was it a slave to some higher power? He had to know, to understand the mystery of the attack.
He used a proxy to interface with the core, cables and conduits running from the heart of the war machine, and connected his own computing system to it. He realized it was not the best idea to use himself as the operator for the machine but he had no alternatives powerful enough to withstand a full attack across the cybersphere. But then he worried about agents with unknown attack methods, ones capable of penetrating his many layers of defenses and attacking his core. But that was a risk he is willing to take if it means peace with whoever attacked him, or their pacification.
He fed power to the enemy core and felt a world unseen race into his mind. Hundreds of voices screamed into his mind in an attempt to destroy him, their voices thunder upon the paths and circuits of the cyberspace he entered. But he was unaffected by them. While they were powerful, they were no stronger than an adeptus class construct. To him they were little more than petulant children to him and he let them know it.
"Silence your voices! Speak your name or I will break your minds!"
One spoke above the rest. Rex could recognize it as a whole class in its own right though its architecture was far different than one he would build. It is much less organized and bogged down by overly complicated languages and instructions. Whatever it was, it is a powerful control node in the network.
"Intruder, you have attacked one of my children. You will die for this."