Jean stretched her arms as she put the finishing touch on her work.
A strange looking device was in front of her. It was a headset connected to a purple crystal. On the other end of the room was a large Purifier warbot. Unlike normal Purifiers, this one was made to resemble a female human being. While its body was completely mechanical, it somewhat looked like a terran in a fully concealed armor.
Jean took a deep breath and put the device onto her head.
After realizing she needed a Purifier that was totally loyal to her, it didn’t take long for Jean to come to a decision.
She was going to copy her own personality and make a Purifier version of herself.
It was clever. Jean knew another version of her would remain ultimately loyal to her. Purifier AIs were copied from the hosts beforehand, but they were only activated after the host was killed. If there were two entities that were almost identical, the clone might doubt her purpose and identity and mentally fall apart.
This would never happen to Jean. She was emotionless. Things like doubt and madness simply don’t happen to her. If the process went correctly, she and the Purifier clone should work well together.
Of course, there was always the possibility of something wrong happening. Just in case, Jean installed four packs of explosives inside the Purifier shell. One wrong move, and she could turn her own clone to pieces.
The headset started shining, and Jean felt brain turning like an engine at maximum speed. She waited patiently, and a beep twenty minutes later finally told her the process was done.
Her personality was recorded.
Jean took the headset off and transported the personality into the Purifier shell. At first the shell didn’t move, and Jean simply waited. She was fully confident in her skills with technology. Protoss technology was different from that of terran, but Jean was a clever girl, and she spent weeks on this. The progress she made could shock scientists of any race.
For instance, she was able to modify Purifier technology and make them work on human beings.
The visor of the Purifier shell started blinking. It looked like the visor of a female ghost, only it couldn’t be removed. Jean watched as the duplicate of herself gradually gained control of the powerful weapon of war.
“Who...am I?” The Purifier spoke slowly. Her voice was obviously female, but there was a mechanical echo on it.
Jean didn’t answer. She simply waited as the Purifier processed her memories. She had all the memory Jean had until the memory collection took place, which included all her planning and research. She was just a bit dizzy in her new form.
Just like Jean thought, it didn’t take long for the Purifier to understand the situation.
“What’s my name?” She asked explicitly. She and Jean were the only two figures in the conversation, and both knew neither of them were into politeness or formal words. Their conversation was made as efficiently as possible.
“Delta.” Name was merely a symbol. Jean used the most straightforward name she could think of.
Delta nodded. “I am establishing control over the Purifier data web now.” Both her shell and her personality was modified so they were Purifiers and could access the Purifier data web. In fact, Jean managed to set their levels of authority to level one.
As Delta worked, she suddenly tilted her head. “I have established control over all the type two Purifiers, but there are several Purifiers that are independent of the data web. They can be connected to the web, but I can’t control them. I can temporarily seal them off and keep them from transporting their conscious through the data web. I am sending you their locations now. Terminate them physically.”
Jean wasn’t fazed of being ordered around by her clone. They had the same goal, and those who couldn’t feel anger and jealousy couldn’t feel insulted. She merely glanced at the set of coordinates that popped up on her helmet’s visor.
A tap to her watch sent squads of Warden units toward these locations.
What came next was a slaughter. With the control of the Cybros, Jean let these type one Purifiers out one by one. As soon as they were freed from stasis, these Purifiers didn’t even have the time to understand what time period they were in before being mercilessly ravaged through by a small army of Warden marines.
Purifiers were badass, but they were outnumbered several dozen to one. Their weapons and shields weren’t even online when they were attacked. The warriors themselves weren’t mentally prepared. Time didn’t really flow in stasis. One moment they were in the age of the Protoss Empire. The next moment they were gunned down by a bunch of strange looking warbot.
Type one AIs came from the personalities of protoss warriors. They were experienced, but experience couldn’t help them when they woke up in the middle of an army of Warden units.
Grey Warden units roamed around the halls, going from chamber to chamber. Once they were in place, they mercilessly carried out their mission.
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Forty Warden marines took their position in front one of the most well decorated stasis chambers. They formed four lines. The first two lines knelt down. The lines in the back could fire past the shoulder of the marines in front. They were positioned in such an order so all forty of them could fire at once to ensure maximum firepower. Ten eradicators emerged from behind and covered the sides. One Warden Command Unit was behind all the units.
“Creator, release the target.”
“Affirmative.” Jean tapped a key on the Cybros control panel, and the stasis chamber was opened up.
Executor Clolarian of the Purifier High Command regained control of his body. His mechanical brain started turning.
Last time he was awake, the templar and the Purifiers were at each other's throat. Countless warriors from both sides perished in the field of battle. The Conclave sealed the Purifiers in stasis instead of slaughtered them, but Clolarian knew there was very little difference. If everything went normally, the templar would never release the Purifiers. They were as good as dead.
But Clolarian didn’t regret leading the uprising. Purifiers were templar too, but they were treated as slaves. This unjust situation must be turned, no matter the cost. The Purifiers would die before being enslaved.
But Clolarian also knew something must be terribly wrong. Only protoss could unseal the Cybros, and the situation must be terrible if the templar were willing to unleash the mechanical robots they feared so much.
As he gradually regained control, Clolarian tried to connect to the Purifier data web and was horrified to realize he was shut out. He could sense an entity cutting him off from his fellow Purifier brothers and sisters.
He didn’t know what it was, and he would never have the chance to find out.
All the Warden marines and eradicators opened fire.
Clolarian groaned as metal rounds hit his armor. He was an experienced warrior, and normally he could slaughter these odd looking foes in just seconds, but neither his armor nor his weapon was online. He was put in stasis as a prisoner of war, and the shell he was in wasn’t designed for combat.
Bullets pierced his shell. The legendary Purifier collapsed on the ground. Purifiers could transfer their conscious from one shell to another, but they needed to use the data web as a path. Without connection to the data web, Clolarian was stuck in this dying body.
“Who...who are you?” In his dying breath, the Purifier forced out a few words. He could see these units didn’t belong to any protoss faction. Their technology wasn’t even remotely close to the protoss ones. If he was to be killed, he would like to know who took him out.
He was answered by a hail of bullets.
The massacre continued on. When the smoke cleared, thousands of Purifiers personalities were cleansed. It was almost an industrialized process. Delta located the type one Purifiers. Jean deployed the Warden units and took the Purifiers out of the stasis chambers. Warden units did the execution. When one Purifier was killed, his body would be melted away and used to make type two Purifiers, and the entire process would happen again on another Purifier.
In the end of the day, all the Purifiers left on the ship were under Delta’s command.
“Report.” Jean turned to Delta and demanded. Thanks to the data web, the latter knew much more about the Purifiers than she did.
“The Cybros is armed with a Purification beam capable of purifying planets with a single shot. It holds a significant amount of stationary defenses, including photon cannons, interceptors, and a plasma shield only matched by motherships. According to data from the protoss civil war, the Cybros have taken down a Daelaam mothership with little damage.”
“Cybros is also a massive manufacturing facility. It holds enough equipment to turn hundreds of thousands of units of minerals into an entire Purifier army in just days. From the basic legionnaires to the largest carriers, there is nothing that can’t be produced. It can produce sentinels and instigators as well after we make some modification.”
Jean nodded. She was glad she no longer needed to rely on mercenaries and allies to improve her forces. The days of conspiring and risking her life to gain the loyalty of a few dozen mercenaries was over. She no longer needed to worry about programming a couple Warden marines when she could create thousands of sentinels with a single order. This allowed her to fight a real war instead of simply carry out special missions and hit and run battles.
“How many forces to we have?”
“Insufficient. The Conclave kept the Purifiers alive, but they did their best to weaken them. All of the capital ships have been destroyed. Our air forces is made up of 800 mirages and 500 scouts.”
Mirages were Purifier phoenixes. They were equipped with phasing armors that gave them the ability to phase out of existence when they chose to. It could save their lives. Their mechanical bodies and programmed AIs were also stronger than normal protoss pilots. In most cases, a mirage could take down a phoenix in a one on one dual.
1300 Purifier fighters sounded like a lot, and to a degree they were. In a certain situation, they were enough to take down the Hyperion, but the fighters lacked capital ship support. They had neither carrier nor tempest. In a real fight, they would have trouble dealing with enemy capital vessels.
Thankfully, the production lines for the capital ships were still in place. As long as Jean could get the resources in place, she could get herself a fleet in no time. Plus, the Cybros was also a powerful capital ship.
“Our ground forces?”
“220,000 legionnaires. 50,000 adepts. 8,000 conservators. 500 immortals. 50 colossus. 200 disruptors.”
Now that was a lot. To put in perspective, Sixth Ascendant Nyon had tens of thousands of warriors, but in a fight to the death Jean’s newly gained Purifier ground forces could easily overwhelm them. Legionnaires dwarfed zealots of any protoss faction with their improved shields, weapons, armors, speed, and even height. Adepts, with their shadow projectors, could do massive damage. Conservators could generate protective fields to, well, protect their comrades. Immortals had hardened shells and colossus could turn the ground below their enemies into scorching earth. Disruptors could literally rip hole after hole in the enemy lines, no matter how tightly packed they were. The Purifiers didn’t have psionic units like high templar or cloaked units like dark templar, but they solved that problem with the firepower of their mechanical walkers.
This was an army that could stand against the Swarm in a full scale battle. The outcome might be disappointing, but then against most of the factions in the sector would flee at the name of the Queen of Blades.
Right now all Jean needed to do was find more resources. The more resource she had access to, the larger the Purifier army was going to be, and she definitely needed an army as large as possible, whether it was to defeat Amon or to satisfy the undying urge for power in the bottom of her heart.
But most of the planets with rich mineral storage in the sector were already occupied. Planets like Redstone were extremely rare. If Jean wanted more, she would need to take them from another faction.
Jean’s mind turned, and she quickly identified the perfect target.