Three weeks has passed since the incident and within the galaxy of The Nebula. The millions of player’s bodies were still unconscious. Most stations or ships that had a player had put them in the medical bay.
At this time, the game was once more released and at that time the rush of players started to log in once more.
One by one they opened their eyes finding themselves within the medical bay of the ships or stations or within their rooms as the medical bay is too full.
They were asked what happened and what was passed to all the players to say was that it was connected to the arrival of the Xetra and the strange energy wave that passed through a few months back. They were told by Ami and were told not to say more than this so after hundreds of people said the same thing the games residents also realized it was interlinked and the message was passed throughout all the places the players appeared.
Far from all this in the space graveyard, all eight AI had gained a body of some form and even undergone upgrades.
The two drone AI’s had the main body upgraded to humanoid and became similar to Tris’s. Lia, furthermore, developed a way to have a drone that connected to the psi container on their backs to make wings for them in space.
Havic’s AI was added to the security team with Ricky and both were upgraded full adult sized bodies instead of child sized. All the previous robot's built without Psi tech were later upgraded as well and thanks to the psi generator it wasn’t hard for them to keep working and the consumption wasn’t that large. Even Vivi didn’t use much since her wings used ion pulse and not psi.
After the month since Chuck was built, one week in real life, the carrier had around 80-90% of any half destroyed console and whatever other technology on it dismantled and all useful parts were gathered. There was no attempt to figure out how each thing was built so only dismantling for components was done.
The ship had also been moved inside for the time being while Magi and Tris searched the graveyard for a permanent base. Magi had told them she wanted to find a space station like the one they found on Venturi but only two days ago they were able to locate a space station near one part of the destroyed planet. The station wasn’t like either Venturi or Kelha II station. It was long with the top most part being round, looking like a mushroom cap, then on a lower part it was connected to a second semi circular area before reaching down and connected to a final round ball which had antennas sticking out. That said after the second semicircle the station was cracked in the middle and half of the upper “cap” was broken off and a massive city could be seen inside the station.
Even though they found it, the hangar and port area wasn’t found yet and it was unknown if there was any dangers inside. With such a massive station, that is over 20 times Kelha II’s size, many things could probably be found inside.
As such Vivi was the first going inside and map out the interior of the station and locate the hangars and the important locations like power generators and military district.
Besides that, another things have been greatly interesting and that is the psi lifeforms.
The plants, especially those that were previously seeds, most have been planted and began to grow greatly.
Tris and Olivia have taken to researching these things. Tris has taken to planting the seeds inside the husks of ships left by Chuck and normally the hangars or cargo are the best open breeding grounds for them and the fish.
The fish in question are also being bred with speed and efficiency in mind. As a result, in the last month since they reached the carrier, Tris and Olivia have been selectively unlocking the psi gates and experimenting to see the effects of different gate being opened.
The current mounts most used are now evolving from fish slowly to reptile. The long body is already at two meters and the wings are one and a half meters each, their temperament is still docile and are herbivores. The head turned very eel like and sharp spike like teeth have appeared in their mouths and now have special conditions for breeding which requires the nearby asteroid fields as a breeding ground for making the mineral shells.
It is already possible to sit with the legs in front of the wings but Tris tends to hug the body behind them instead.
If no one knew better you would think Tris was making some kind of dragon which isn’t a strange idea considering the path these things are going. The way to know is looking at the back wing. The shape has changed is no longer a thin fin but a fleshy leg with two a fin like leg similar to what is found on seals. It hasn’t gotten any use in space but if developed further it’s possibility for grasping things like a bird can appear.
As for the real crew inside the ship, the androids were laid down in two beds in the medical bay while six cryogenic pods were built inside the same room where the six remaining members were placed each with a similar full body armor. This was a new brand of Psi armor Lia and Magi developed.
Unlike the type dwarfs use to block psi and only open for inner psi manipulation, This one was made with possibility to control the opening on the outer side allowing the crew to use both inner and outer manipulation skills. Even Lisa, who previously wouldn’t get this chance as an elf, would get it.
As for why they need it even inside the cryogenic pod. They don’t stop release psi, it is like the fish, they don’t stop releasing it so as to not cause future problems for them it was plugged up. The avatars luckily didn’t react like the real thing and had no seizures mainly because they collapsed together and because the mind wasn’t ingame.
With this, not much else actually happened. With the constant expansion of the vegetation only today Olivia was able to put her true plan into act.
She is a serious person with a form of secretary. With this kind of personality she is serious with her planning and after looking through Nolands skill set and compiling the skills knowledge he had, she found that brewing was the most useful skill to use at this moment. Brewing was a something that is used to make drinks and ales, but this also counted for all forms of brewing.
Taking identification scanners and asking Lia to and Magi to research a machine to analyse effects of liquid medicines.
Having a rare opportunity to research new unique vegetation that can even survive in space won’t be wasted for sure.
While Olivia was gathering the samples, Tris was outside in the hangar of the carrier.
“Newest generation show stronger legs after hatching from infant shell form. Bone structure is strengthening and is about half as strong as earth marine iguana. Newest generation also possess complete lizard head and can effectively be categorized as a new species. Current name is undecided as future evolutions may vary greatly.” Tris said in her mind while recording this in a mental note.
Over her hand was the new hatchling she had examined. It was the size of the old flying fish from before the incident but it was much more vigorous than common flying fish and when released it tried to fly away but after receiving a pulse it looked back and floated around her a few times and left afterwards.
“Displays rapid growth in intelligence others previously lack. This indicates brain development, possibility of aggressive nature appearing due to this may rise and possibility of carnivorous tendencies as well. Fangs were shown to have gotten thicker which corresponds with the recent development of psi reef vegetation’s adaptation to getting harder to bite through.” She noted.
With the notes on the newest generation logged she opened a metal box which contained some seeds. She looked around and saw the spots of glowing bioluminescent vegetation and the fish like creatures around. Some were fatter and other longer showed the variety appearing within them. This was obviously on purpose and caused by the girls. The fish were all made of flesh and blood with only a stone like skin and when the crew returns they would need some form of food source so it was imperative to breed such food source.
She walks to a spot that is four to five meters away from the nearest outcropping of the plants.
Like before she lifts her fist and with her feet firmly held by the magnet boots she punch’s.
*Peng*
The sound resonated inside her body as a violent rebound vibration came up her arm.
The vibrating arm is pulled back and she noticed the slightly deformed knuckle joints on her hand and no dent on the wall.
"What?!” She thought looking at her fist.
She knocked on the walls and registered a weak vibration and moved closer to the outcrop and soon felt none. Moving out beyond five meters the vibration permeated the metal easier and when she punched it easily made a dent.
Blinking surprised, she turned and looked at the plants. She then began to make dents next to each other heading towards the plant. After 5 meters the metal became harder and at four and a half meters she couldn’t damage it anymore.
Her body did receive strength upgrades like the others so she could help move things around and it's why she can damage the walls at all yet this power is easily deflected.
“Guys, I found something strange.” She messaged those inside.
”Supervisor unit responding… what occurance was encountered… Medical unit?” Magi asked.
“I am not sure but something has caused the carrier ships metal to grow stronger, the closer I get the outcroppings I planted the harder the metal becomes.” Tris replied.
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“Occurrence registered… sending Mechanic Unit to cut a piece and examine… please proceed with your work.” Magi said and the connection was cut.
Seeing Magi wasn’t giving it much thought Tris just sighed and moved on and began to further spread the vegetation in the hangar where she still could. She was certain the metal was being reinforced. If she didn’t know better, the metal was becoming Psionic metal like the metal used for the dwarf fighter robot.
What she didn’t notice was that her common metal parts were also undergoing the same reinforcement. As were all the other AI’s.
***
Within the room that Noah and Sophia were in, a pair of nurse, both female, were doing basic duties such as cleaning the two of them.
After the two were finished and were cleaning up the things they brought, they heard a pair of groans sounding at the same time but with different voices.
The two looked at the only two other people in the room and saw the cramped face on the two patients and slowly watched their eyes flutter open and close and their heads moving to the left and right slowly and in sync.
“Quickly call Dr. Trace and tell him Noah and Sophia are awake.” One of the nurse told the others.
The one that was ordered put down the things in her hand and walked out quickly and went to the office of Wilson Trace, the doctor in charge of the crew, and told him what happened.
He quickly dropped what he was doing and walked over.
When he arrived he walked over in between their pods and looked at each of them. He moves to Sophia’s side first and begins messing with the computer on this side then looking at the one on Noah’s side before walking in between them again.
“Greetings you two, my name is Dr Wilson Trace. I am the doctor in charge of taking care of you and overseeing your recuperation.” He said.
The two slowly shifted and in a mirrored movement slowly turned their heads and eyes to look at him but had no strength to lift their head and talk. Both had half opened eyes and couldn’t move much.
“Can’t you talk?” He asked curious.
There was no reaction from the two and he began to think of something.
“Blink once for Yes, Twice for no, okay?” He said.
After a moment, the two did a slow blink.
“Good, do you know what happened to you?” He asked.
Two slow blinks followed the question. He explained the incident and the condition they found themselves in.
“I will probe your body, just pressing your feet and hands, legs arms and so on. When I ask if you feel anything blink once for yes and twice for no.” He said and moved to Noah and began.
After a single press on Noah’s foot suddenly caused him to spasm and to the shock of everyone Jessica also spasmed. Their brain activity spiked instantly before the two calmed down a moment later but lost consciousness.
Seeing this Dr. Trace looked at the nurses.
“Warn all those who physically take care of all eight patients to not touch them unless it’s for cleaning and to use very gentle pressure no more than barely making pressure on their body, to clean them. This is a direct order from me.” He said in a very serious manner.
This much of a serious matter wouldn’t be taken lightly since the patients were experiencing a serious adverse effect and with these two waking up it meant the others would soon wake up in the same condition.
All eight were put under heavy observation and as expected, the following day the remaining pairs awakened in similar paralyzed states and were explained the situation.
Afterwards it was shown they had high levels of mental exhaustion and couldn’t handle remaining awake from more than an hour max. Noah and Sophia, who woke up the previous day, handled the one hour limit before returning to sleep.
The eight were also seen to wake up in intervals of four to six hours normally always in a slightly better condition than previously showing that simply allowing them to rest was the current best option. Still, when news reached Malcolm, he came running and was able to come when Sophia was awake and the normally strong figure had broken down in tears and just didn’t grab his daughter's hand or do anything because Wilson had explicitly told him against it and going as far as cutting his visits should he do so for her own good.
As such a week passed with the crew recovering before their body was tested once more and did not have the destructive sensitivity again and scans of the brain showed the brain waves synchronization of each pair had stabilized at 80% and the overall groups had strangely risen to 35% and stabilized there with that stabilized their conditions improved at the end of the week that they were finally able to slightly move and sit up in bed and speak a few words but still required a lot of rest.
***
The last month within the Nebula has changed a lot, the galaxy has returned to a temporary state of peace not counting that within a 370 parsec range of Venturi the Xetra were waging war with any all factions meaning the Dominion and Liberation were fighting together to keep their territories safe from the Xetra. They aren’t politically united but instead they aren’t fighting each other in the border solar systems and depending on the system the two actually do work together as the system is galactic neutral grounds were both factions benefit due to material being far too rare to monopolize without going to war.
The Xetra themselves have pushed violently outward in search of the blink drive and any other technology.
Even now they are pushing to look further because they believe, “the vermin ran away” and so they created blockades all to way beyond 400 parsec but beyond 370 they no longer attacked without cause. This spared places like Kelha II and several hundred other planets. As for those that were already captured by the Xetra, with their bio technology, they possessed a terraforming method unique to their own kind. To maintain their ships they require unique materials which only their own race has and so in most planets that allowed it they terraformed them rapidly causing any terraformed planet to adapt to the new vegetation due to the biological bomb sent into the atmosphere by them causing rapid growth of Xetra genetically modified plants.
They don’t really care about leaving behind vegetation of their planet only their technology is a sensitive matter so once they reached a calmer state they allowed the other factions to return to the captured planets as long as all ships were searched and none of their technology found.
As for the crew in question that had drawn them to do this, the robot crew wasn’t completely at peace either.
The last month brought about a massive explosion of officially new races of psi animals.
From the original Psi Flying Fish the months Tris and Olivia bred them lead to many varying sizes and shapes and in the last two generations born finally bore carnivores.
Two of which was the ones Tris personally used as mounts, it was the lizard one which developed a raptor body and formed shoulder like structure connecting to the wings. The wings themselves changed from fin like wings to one moving towards a batwing or primitive dinosaur reptile. The previous fin like legs now are like reptile legs and the feet are eagle or bird like with two claw like fingers in the front and one in the back meant for grasping things. The long neck grew thicker and was stronger and the lizard like head became increasingly more vicious. The intelligence of the beast was equally as developed but probably due to the intensive care of the crew during the breeding process, they were also still docile towards humanoid figures since they never attacked any of the robot crew but released a growl, and transmitted said growl through Psi pulse so you could here by instincts, towards any drones passing by or any other animal. These were named Space Wyverns due to their shape and form. Their total length at this moment was already three meters long and were one of Tris’s favorite mounts.
The other was a mount was similar to the chinese dragon Ryu. The long 4 meter long snake like body losing all fins and forming lizard arms and legs. They were much more aggressive than the Wyvern ones and had a crocodile like head. Like their form, they were named Space Ryu.
Both creatures had their skeleton and muscle structure scanned below the rock scales they grew over their bodies and it was found that even though they are space beasts they would definitely have no trouble entering a planet's atmosphere.
The Ryu being more dangers was also released so as not to endanger anyone though. Their intelligence was above the wyverns and were increasingly aggressive towards the crew unlike the wyvern that protected them.
It really intrigued the AI crew how fast these animals were evolving but the fact that they progressively opened new psi gates every generation had a clear effect on them.
Besides them, now the fish developed in a multitude of different aquatic life such as sharks, tuna, crustaceans, and more. The plants themselves also began to undergo change. They recently began to breed on their own and the crew had removed the ship after finding the hangar at the massive space station and setting their ship inside. Unlike the previous ship, Magi prohibited Tris from planting things here.
Still with how things are going, a small spot of glowing space plants and a number of space creatures that looked like aquatic life was born here.
Not only that, some of the fish decreased in size and helped propagate the vegetation out.
Slowly but surely this planet and area will eventually be completely overrun by them and the call this a Space ocean by then wouldn’t be wrong.
One thing that must be noted was what Tris noticed before, what she had noticed with the metal of the husks getting harder wasn’t wrong. Lia had discovered that the metal all around the ‘reef’, which is what they called it now, had been hardened and saturated into Psionic metal.
It should be known that psidium is needed to make psi metal and psidium appears in areas with higher concentration of psi but not in large amounts. For metal to saturate into Psi metal meant that the amount of psi had to be several times higher than what is needed for the mineral to actually appear.
It was then that Magi realized something was off beyond just the mutation of the animals. She had logged off and actually looked up the common psi signature and got into an elf character outside of the game and felt what the psi was like outside what she knew. Then she changed it to the one she had been in contact. The difference was like comparing air to water. The mutant space creatures psi felt almost liquid in nature as compared to the gas like common psi. She then realized the six organic members in the cryogenic pods also had the same psi and that the psi releasing from the psi generator was equally the same.
After realizing this she searched up everything that happened since the incident and finally returned to said incident. It was when she saw the energy from the EMP pulse, Psi bomb and the wormhole mixing that she figured out more or less what happened.
In short, everything on the ship linked to psi mutated to adapt to the mixture of ionized energy mixed with psi forming this thicker concentration of psi.
After that she had Tris test out its potential for attack. She knew more or less the level of attack strength Lisa had and when Tris put simple telekinesis to try and crush a fighter ship, which Lisa is incapable of accomplishing by herself at her level, the ship was crushed after ten minutes being turned into a ball of scrap.
This showed the new psi actually was stronger than common gas ones. It then made Magi realize that more than 40% of the ship they were in was already comprised of Psi metal and the engine was only 20% covered.
After some hypothesizing she thought that is was possible that the engines weren’t able to go online due to the interference or dispersity in strength of each part. It was, in the simplest terms, a safety mechanism that automatically keeps the engine and thrusters from activating when there is risk of damage to those important parts.
After realizing this, Magi was finally able to remove a problem which pestered her since she arrived here, which was to make the ship operational.
With that problem finally resolved she didn’t need to keep trying to figure it out and could finally start the research she had wanted to for a while which was to reverse engineer the warp drive function off the blink drive.
The only one not making so much progress is Olivia due to the lack of people to test the drinks she has been concocting but in all cases, with materials found within the several sectors they isolated for themselves she found enough containers to store the drinks until Noland returns and finds them all for him to taste test.
Lia on the other hand is doing Noah’s job and slowly fixing up the station’s power grid which is leagues beyond her, and his, skill range.
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Space station
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