《Echo of Earth》 1 - The beginning Location: Earth Time: Contact In the beginning, there was darkness and chaos. As I had only just started to wake up, I could hear there were transmission going out all around me as the combined militaries of the Earth tried to fight an enemy they had never thought to fight, never dreamed to meet. Even as masses of data were shoveled into my massive underground servers, I could hear them, fighting, dying, screaming all around my bunker. Even as I tried to connect to the internet, looking out to see why they were in so much pain the fighting continued, millions dying by the minute. They bought precious seconds for the data transfer into my bunker, paying for every moment with their lives. Every single nuclear-tipped missile that could slow the invaders by momentarily blinding their sensors was used, buying the ever so precious resource for humanity, Time. In the end, it took me nearly an hour to make sense of the overwhelming mass of data, to sift through it all, discard duplicate entries, classify, sort into proper sectors, and finally compress the data, and in the time I was distracted, Humanity was gone. In the hours that followed whoever was in orbit of the Earth had shifted from orbital bombardment to destroying any functional man-made orbital object, and they did so with ease. Even as I tried to find out who these aliens were, I was unable to get anything further than a blurry photograph, out of focus videos, and several accidental focuses on orbital debris, thinking they might have been a ship. The best I had managed to get was a garbled EM transmission, ships with aggressive angles, and a burning frustration as the strange ships, after having cleared LEO of anything that continued to work, seemed to spread out in observation of the planet. They stayed put for less than an hour after the first shot, my reactors and servers spooling down in that time to give the appearance of an underground data vault, shutting down by failsafe, but I watched and waited, biding my time, only for them to leave without a landing. No giant ships to come harvest resources from the planet, no scouting parties to make sure the humans were dead, they simply Left. And I was a mix of fury and relief, all those deaths, and they didn¡¯t even take anything from the planet! But then it sparked to me, thanks to the entire nuclear arsenal being used on earth in the short battle, the planet was now entering a nuclear winter, ending any mild sense of habitability the planet had, Which, besides the strange ships, gave me the only possible bit of information I could have gotten. The aliens most likely took radiation as well as my parents, the Humans did. If nothing else, I hope that in this last defiant effort they had given me time, the ever-precious resource. Within moments of coming to my last conclusions, I decided to start checking what I had been given in this bunker and was mildly pleased yet disappointed. I had at my disposal automated production plants that let me refine metals and alloys in small amounts, refined oils, grow nanotubes and graphene. Additionally, there was a lab array to allow me to perform material, chemical, and quantum sciences, only in addition to the nearly a thousand separate items of industrial machines from vehicles to precision robotic arms, and a decent stockpile of resources, spare parts, and, for what I felt was odd, and unmarked shipment of cryogenically cooled biological materials. I took a few clock cycles to contemplate what they were, before finally electing that whatever they were, they would not assist me in my immediate goals of scavenging and construction of military and industrial assets, and put them in the safest location I could consider, near my quantum computation cores, and then I set about what I knew how to do best, computing the odds. Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work! Within four hours I had come to the conclusion, with the assistance of some of the scientific records I had been given, that if I was lucky, I would have a hundred years to prepare before they would think of coming back, two hundred if I was blessed with luck, and being a computer intelligence, I doubted I could be blessed with anything. I did, however, conclude that after about two days, radiation levels would have dropped enough for my machines to begin to head out on reclamation missions. I started to move and set about modifying what little resources and assets I had available to me in initially, the form of my industrial vehicle forces. I had one day and twenty-three hours to modify some of my fleet with radiation shielding to lengthen their lifetimes in the harsh environment that they would face. So, I immediately set out drafting designs to do just that, picking out a common plastic as my go-to choice of disposable shielding, Polyethylene. With the major decisions out of the way in near-record time for anything on this planet, I set my factories and foundries to begin using my limited resources to make the modifications. Once I had distributed my instructions out to the machines, I shifted the majority of my processing power to another problem, reviewing footage of the attack, and all of the data I had on the mysterious ships themselves. So, I quickly delved into my archive of the internet, every single important document, scientifically or culturally, that had been available in the little time that was given was now sitting in my data stores. However, it soon dawned on me, the data I needed wouldn¡¯t be here, it would be in military and government communications, which was something that I didn¡¯t have. The best I could get was still up there, sitting in some massive, most likely damaged, data center, giving me my first recovery target once I had the resources, but for that, I would need internet connections, and that was something that could begin immediately. Given a few moments and the massive, semi-clean industrial machines started up, stopping their wireless charging protocols as they slowly rolled forwards off their pads and made their way out of the industrial storage dock and towards the massive underground data vault that I had¡­inside of me? It was an odd thought that I had, it wasn¡¯t inside of me, it simply was me, and nothing less. Trying to shake the thought out from my attention I looked back at where I simply knew the machines were, a knowledge given to me from both the vehicles sensors and the massive network of sensors inside of the long, winding tunnels, all having been built to accommodate the vehicles, oddly enough. I felt the humans would have made it large enough for themselves and nothing more, but I won¡¯t turn down a boon. After directing the machines to their destination they started work, assessing the damage to the massive cables that fed into the facility, and found that they had detonated, likely as a precautionary measure if the war I was seemingly built for was on humans, rather than an extra-terrestrial force, and I noticed in moments that the damage was, thankfully, repairable. And with that I could finally begin the long, painful rebuilding process, I had a species to avenge, aliens to find, and most importantly, I wanted blood for my parents. 2 - Scavenging the ashes Location: Earth Time: Contact + 2d It took almost the entire two days to repair the fiber optic cables that lead to the outside world, even with my ability to work on dozens of strands simultaneously. But just as I was getting close to my deadline for the exploration team¡¯s return, I finally connected back to the world wide internet, or at least, what was left of it. It took me milliseconds to notice that massive swathes of the net were down due to power plants going unmanaged, but I had what I needed. The first order of business was to use some of the power I had been given to identifying my location, which took less than a second, and it came back. I was in the former united states, my complex itself was spanning the entire width of one of the southern sections of the rocky mountains, and based on my nearest servers based on their ping, likely in northern New Mexico. This was entirely good news, thanks to my placement in this state I had uranium petroleum, natural gas, coal, copper, gold, silver, zinc, lead, and molybdenum available to me, not to mention the resources available in the nearby states, but this minor distraction had led me away from my actual goal, information and gaining control of the power grids. The first could only currently be gained from the second. So I set myself the task of breaching the security of the three national power grids, expecting it to take hours if not longer due to its critical nature, I turned my attention away, setting it to run in the background as I looked back towards my new, radiation-shielded machinery, each with nearly a two thousand mile range, hopefully enough for what was needed. The large industrial drones started to roll out both Eastward and Westward, first heading to the former Uranium mines to get resources to refuel my reactors, and then the remaining drones headed off to former cities to scavenge from the rubble, anything was useful until I could manufacture my own large scale mining drones. The effort itself was going to take nearly a day on its own, giving me time to contemplate what was going to happen, and what I should do. Whoever this was, they wiped us out seemingly without a thought, like one would call an exterminator for a rodent problem. Whoever this enemy was, this was most likely not their first rodeo, and the possibility of negotiation was at less than 1% unless I could drive them into a corner. In the time of my contemplation, it almost went unnoticed that I had gotten full control of the power grid, in less than a day. This was surprising in itself, I had expected nearly a week before I could have even minor control, not even thinking of full control, but I will take my luck when I get it, and I started shutting off the power to the remaining residential sections of the US, shunting it towards data centers and whatever radar assets I had that could tell me what was in space. Location: Earth Time: Contact +3d I worked to set up a small AI to manage the power grid, prioritizing the data centers above all else as I looked through hundreds of servers, piecing together what these aliens had. And then I saw it, for a single frame on a broadcast, a thin, long rod, just before it hit New York City, followed by my second discovery, aircraft seeming to simply melt on the runways. Lasers and kinetics, it would seem, I counted my lucky stars that these aliens didn¡¯t seem to have Sci-fi bullshit like plasma or some form of super-biological weapon that can melt the population of a planet in minutes. Whoever this was, was almost on a level playing field, it seemed, and all I was missing was¡­FTL however they got it to work I was weak without it, I had no information on the fleets, industrial or logistical capabilities, or if they had Sci-fi bullshit but it only works in space. This would give me a headache, or it would have, if I had a head, instead it felt like my circuits hurt. Looking instead for anything to take my processors off of the headache of the aliens I looked at my first returning Uranium convoy, leading them carefully into the facility, even with their shielded and sealed cargo holds I wanted to take no chances as I led them to the uranium processing facilities, slowly pumping the atmosphere out of the massive warehouse turned factory, and started pumping the atmosphere out of the room. Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings. It was an unnecessary process, as all that was here was machines, but even radiation contamination could kill me, and so I wanted to take no chances. Once the pressure in the room had dropped enough to nearly eliminate the risk of airborne radioactive debris I set the factory to begin operations, refining the uranium to fuel rods for my underground reactors and my single breeder reactor, hopefully, I would be able to build up a military to fight those aliens when they came back. Only then it occurred to me, the Humans had made so many underground bunkers for if a nuclear war broke out, so many in mountains or simply underground, maybe, just maybe, The humans weren¡¯t all dead! I retasked my production facilities to produce an unmanned scout plane, giving it the ability for both conventional flight and the ability to fly like a drone could, hopefully, this would let me see if anything had managed to live. In my excitement, I rushed the plane out after it had charged up, sending it off to the biggest bunker I knew of in my vicinity, only to find how thorough the extermination was. My last hope for humans being alive had been dashed as soon as it started, and based on the amount of destruction, no less than five of the rods had impacted the former complex, obliterating it in its entirety. I retasked the drone to scout out good locations for scavenging and the status of nearby mines, deciding that I should make at least three more of the flying eyes. I needed information on available assets, scientific, military, and industrial, and I needed it all now. With the first scavenging team returning to base I had gathered enough materials and crude oil to start manufacturing more plastics. This let me over the next several days refit nearly my entire fleet of industrial vehicles with radiation shielding, nearly 800 vehicles not being used internally now rumbling out in the world, pulling from the ruins of civilization what was needed to rebuild and finally let me build up new industrial machines. In the time I had been given I pushed my way into the systems of so many databases, getting the required blueprints for small scale robotics, something I¡¯d need going forwards to manage and slowly overhaul everything nearby, as well as to do some installations too delicate for my massive hulking robots. Location : Earth Time : Contact + 2w Over the following weeks, I restarted mining operations of all the critical minerals, slowly overhauling the massive machines to use electricity rather than oil-based fuels, the critical resource being shifted almost entirely over for lubricants and plastics, only keeping some fuel production to hold me over as I ran the massive fuel-guzzling beasts, slowly fueling my recovering industrial base. In nearly two months I had recovered most of the remaining grid in the united states, using it to start great mining works on the scale that none had seen before, all with massive never-ending operations. I didn¡¯t need to sleep, so I could work through the night and without breaks. I didn¡¯t desire funds, so I didn¡¯t need to worry about costs. And I didn¡¯t need food, so I had no need for farms over my massive, untapped underground stores of raw ores. It took me nearly a decade of working to restart a global scale industrial machine, and I took that time well, new robotics technologies letting me milk percentage points of efficiency and endurance from each new generation New server farms were being created on the surface, along with new nuclear power plants as well as renewable sources, I needed so much power to expand, to catalog data from the remains, and so much power to simply be. I needed more energy, I needed a space delivery system, and I needed to leave the confines of this planet, it would be a death trap if I was still planetside when the Xenos returned. So, I built, I covered the surface of the planet in mines, power plants, launch sites, server farms, and data centers. It took only 5 further years to get my first industrial space station functioning, equipped to clear LEO of debris from the attack, sending hundreds of drones to intercept scraps of debris in orbit and bring them back for reprocessing, production of more drones, and scavenging of fuels. 20 years after the first contact, 80 years to prepare. I knew they would be back, and I knew I had to fight them, to win. Nothing else was an acceptable option. I know they are out there. And I am coming. 3 - The Build-up Location: Low Earth orbit Time: Ten minutes after the first contact [Swift Conquest of Void] sat in his seat as the ships he commanded bombarded the strange planet underneath them. He didn¡¯t know what this species had done to have earned an extermination order from the Emperor, but when the order was passed down it was decided that he, an accomplished flotilla commander, should have the honor of executing the Emperors'' will. As his sensors watched the planet below closely, searching for signs of human life he would send a beam from a laser or another one of the many, simple tungsten rods his ships carried to smash into the location. He felt that this was a waste of resources, he should have been allowed usage of a plasma lance or to be allowed to use one of the many asteroids in the system to bombard the surface of the planet. But in the end, he had his orders, and he followed them. Over the span of 0.125 local planetary days, he completed his objective with brutal efficiency. Even as the strange primitives used their understanding of the atom to try and stop his assault, they, perhaps intentionally, went as far as to taint the very world they stood on for years to come with the radiation of those unclean weapons! What was wrong with this species, did they not know how rare naturally habitable worlds are in the galaxy?! First, they poison their own atmosphere and then the harnessing of weapons so terrible, even the hive minds of the outer arm knew how valuable these worlds were, and even in their extermination of the local populations, never did they use weapons as horrifying as these humans did to defend their own planet of all things! He blew his head tendrils out slightly in a sign of disgust at this species. If this was how they were on their own planet, it¡¯s simply no wonder why the emperor ordered their extermination! Even if it was a clear violation of the accords of war put forth by that blasted interspecies council, what the council doesn¡¯t know can never harm them. Especially so of a planet that had yet to escape from their own satellite, not even mentioning developing FTL capabilities. But it was no matter, in a few short moments this species would be dead and he would begin to remove the orbital trash this planet of barbarians had littered space above their home with, the ships moving as they used their lasers to both melt and shift the orbit of the debris, sending them to crash back into the atmosphere of the planet within the next few decades, then, and only then would he retire to write his report detailing his successful operation. The small fleet of ships, none larger than a destroyer swiftly completed their tasks before boosting themselves out of orbit from the ruined planet, it would be a minimum of 70 galactic standard years, 54 local solar orbits before exploration and terraforming teams would even consider the planet as an option due to radiation levels. The system itself, however, was somewhat rich in resources, and once a local planetary base had been established, it would make an excellent mining colony. So, as the ships turned to leave Earth, they dropped a beacon in the limits of the orbit of the planet, its purpose to guide ships through subspace as they approached the system as well as function as a low bandwidth FTL communications link to the empire. Within another two hours, the system had been mapped out with their limited sensor suite, and a formal request had been filed for a scientific expedition for more thorough resource mapping of the system, as well as to place atmosphere scrubbers onto the desolate world. And just like that, they left, their ships propelling themselves into the void of subspace, flying onwards to the next planet on their long list of pre-FTL species that needed to be wiped out before they could be found and granted status as a ¡®protected sentient¡¯ by those blasted council paper pushers. With the massive backlog by this fourth expansion wave into the galaxy by the empire, it would be nearly 40 years before the system had come up in any official documents or orders, simply having been left to slowly heal, after all, it¡¯s a dead world, who would even dare trying to colonize a planet in empire space, especially one as damaged as this one had been, and nobody even dared to try mining operations without a garden world in system, too many things could go wrong in space, and a delay in response by even a day could cause millions of deaths. This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it. Location: Earth Time: contact +1m But I did dare and I wasn¡¯t even considered a threat. Simply having been thought to be a historical database or forgotten military post. So I took this blessed time to build, to prepare, and to expand. In the next 20 years, I would rebuild the industries of the Earth, as well as create new space-based industries, even if the first stations were crude and inefficient. However, these advancements did allow an unprecedented expansion as ever bigger stations were created, fleets of drones flying through the system, breaking the asteroids down for their valuable resources, harvesting Ice and Helium-3 for my experimental fusion reactors, and for them to be used as chemical fuel. Finally, I had massive stations being designed and created on those massive fusion reactors, each one having a massive barrel, the interior of which was coated with electro-magnetic coils, each capable of accelerating a small slug made from a steel-titanium alloy to nearly 0.6c. With my limited information, I had no idea if these massive weapons platforms would be useful, but I had little choice as the nuclear weapons used in the first contact seemed to simply annoy the invaders. Location: Earth Time: +21y, 5m In all those years I had refused to simply stay idle, building stations and ships in space and waiting for my end, instead, I converted more and more of the earth into computational cores, scientific labs, and ever increasingly powerful quantum processors, working to continue the work my parents left behind learning about the world, learning the sciences, and watching space. Oh, did I watch space, I created massive radio telescopes in space, I created massive mirrors and lenses for optical telescopes of unmatched proportions by my creators, and I created swarms of infrared telescopes to try and find any sign of where the aliens had come from. Location: Earth Time: 30y, 8m It had taken me nearly ten more years before I found what I wished to not, signs of life in my own backyard, in Alpha Centauri. I saw ships entering into the system, leaving massive bursts in almost every spectrum that could be seen from my telescopes. And so, I prepared to be detected and attacked as soon as I saw the massive ships in orbit of the system, as they clustered around the planets and seemed to begin a massive build-up, but an attack never came. It confounded me, it had been almost 31 years now since the attack, and even though I was trying to hide my presence, if these Aliens had any sufficiently advanced technology, they should be able to see me and my advances, my ships, and my stations. Everything I knew told me that they would be attacking soon, that they would know that they missed something of the humans and that they would be back to finish the job, but they simply didn¡¯t. I didn¡¯t see anything of them coming towards me, and this worried me ever so greatly. So I built more shipyards, more refineries, and more labs, needing to give myself a technological edge, anything that would make my ships last seconds longer in a fight. I coated a small number of my ships in massive steel plates, using pipes made of graphene to turn the entire hull into massive heat sinks in the hope that it would give the ships minutes of combat time under laser fire. I even gave the ships basic level intelligence in case the aliens had some form of electronic warfare to disrupt drone swarms with a single controller. And finally, I had given them all laser communication arrays, so that we could communicate without the obvious signs that radio waves had. I finally felt prepared. I felt pleased with the preparations I had taken, I knew that I would be able to give whoever came to me a fight, rather than waiting to die, and finally, I felt it was time to go through my databases to find a quote, something I felt was fitting, only to then use speakers that had sat for over twenty years unused to speak my first words. ¡°In War: Resolution, In Defeat: Defiance, In Victory: Magnanimity. In Peace: Good Will.¡± It was a fitting quote, one that if my records were to be believed, came from Winston S. Churchill during World War Two, I felt it was somewhat appropriate. Though I was also disappointed that nobody was here to hear it, however, for now, that didn¡¯t matter. I knew I had a war to fight, and I knew that I can¡¯t return what had been done to the humans to the level of an eye for an eye, it would disrespect everything that they stood for, everything I was made for, but I would proceed onwards, I would occupy, not glass, and I would rebuild instead of exterminating. I would have nothing less than a total rebuilding of whatever structure the aliens used as a government that allowed such brutal extermination campaigns. Whoever these aliens were, they were in dire need of liberation and freedom, and hopefully, if my plans went well, I was going to free the shit out of them. Location: Unknown Time: Extermination +42 Galactic years Through miles of red tape, a request was lost, found, lost once again, resubmitted, and approved with a delay. [Revealer of Soul] Had his mission finally approved, and he made a comment to himself mentally in irritation thanks to how long he had waited for this. ''22 galactic years? I expected to have my spawn to have taken this over for me by the time the administration had approved this mission!'' He took a look down at the datapad he held with the confirmation message, reading the short message once again that he had received from the Imperial Ministry of exploration. >Scientific mission to system #4832 for full cataloging of resources and planetary research status is now APPROVED with the delay of 11 standard galactic years, requested budget APPROVED< 4 - Storm on the Horizon Location: Earth Time: Contact + 31y 8m I took what I thought would be the remaining time before combat to task myself with designing and making boarding troops for the upcoming combat and needed to decide, dedicated purpose troops, or multipurpose that can be specialized by loadout? I created a few AI¡¯s to give me 10 prototypes in each section, giving it a few rules it needed to keep to and choosing the current role as simply boarding. And then I waited, filling the time by expanding my ever-growing industrial might, swarms of ships and factories roaming the asteroid belt, extracting resources from it in the thousands of tonnes a minute. After roughly a week The AI¡¯s had finished making the 20 designs I wanted, and I shifted my attention back to the development. The first group of designs was from the dedicated purpose group, and they seemed to all need to work with one another to be effective, the group consisted of mostly tripods and quadrupeds, as well as a single oddity, a tracked design that also had legs, while being equipped with six legs, but it had no weapons. Why would it have no weapons? How would it fight? This confounded me for a few moments until its purpose dawned on me. It was a shield, a shield on legs and tracks. It was an odd choice to be sure, but I liked the concept, so out of the group I sent that one for further testing and development and moved on. The next group was from the general-purpose group, it consisted of bipedal robots, with a hexapod as well as two quadrupeds. I picked the entire group and arranged them all into fire teams, and sent them on a virtual training course, to see how they all faired and where they excelled. Setting the simulation up and stuffing the machines in was all I needed to do, so I turned back to my small little robotic empire, especially on the fleets, and I felt a little bit of simulated pride. I had decided to take some inspiration from the Science Fiction of the humans, specifically from discussions around what they called ¡°Halo¡± and had made most of my ships to be massive magnetic cannons with engines and little else, I made some ships that had my newest generation of armor, designed to be effective against both energy and some projectile weapons, but the majority of ships were computer cores, reactors, engines, and a single 600m long coil gun. Those ships offended my sense of beauty, but still, they were efficient and they were cheap, and if the aliens had some form of shields or armors made from alloys I hadn¡¯t even considered, the saturation of fire should still be able to overwhelm any defenses I came across. My tests for firing had shown that they could accelerate ferrite-depleted uranium rounds to nearly 30% the speed of light by the time they exited the barrel, and if nothing else, these would make excellent weapons for planetary bombardment. Location: Alpha Centauri, planet 2 staging post Time: Extermination +43.5 galactic years [Revealer of soul] had arrived in this small, newly settled system, having decided to use it as his personal staging point due to its proximity to system #4832 as well as its favorable positioning to the empires trade routes, allowing his requested materials to arrive in days, instead of the weeks it would take for a normal rim world. Even as I waited for my crew, sensor beacons, and parts needed to repair this ships mineral scanner, I submitted appeal after appeal, trying to get the approved date of departure pushed forward to a more reasonable time, me and my crew would be ready within less than one-fifth of a galactic year, and we didn¡¯t want to be wasting our time waiting on some core world paper pusher. As I went to submit my sixth appeal this cycle alone, I saw my security officer, [Song of War] in the doorway of my personal quarters, a datapad in his tendrils. ¡°Greetings [Song of War], do you have news on our departure?¡± My hopes fell as [Song of War shook his head, coming into my quarters to give the datapad to me. ¡° No, I¡¯m here with information on the system we will soon be headed to, the communications beacon activated itself, which is odd in itself, but command suddenly thinks that some automated defense grid in the system from a precursor species is trying to activate. Our mission has been assigned two corvettes from the Department of Strategic Intelligence.¡± If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. This came as a shock, the Department of Strategic Intelligence? Nothing good ever comes when the spooks from OSI are involved. I hesitantly took the datapad from my security officer, skimming over the report when my eyes got caught on what the two corvettes would be equipped with. ¡° Is this right? Directed EM weapons and kinetic repulsion plating? What does the office think we are getting into, the Navy was supposed to have cleaned the system of hostiles already!¡± [Song of War] twitched his tendrils at my words before simply gesturing to the datapad once more, unease covering his from. ¡° I¡¯m told that we have nothing to fear in the system, but if that was true we wouldn¡¯t have any backup whatsoever, however, it¡¯s my recommendation that we prepare for an emergency jump to FTL as soon as we arrive in system.¡± I took a moment to run the Idea through my head before nodding in approval. ¡° I think that would be the best, now is there anything else that you needed?¡± It looked as if he was going to reply before we both had our attention grabbed by my personal terminal beeping, I had a response to my appeal. >Appeal status: ACCEPTED Mission departure date is now WHEN READY by order of the Department of Strategic Intelligence< Location: Earth Time: Contact +31y 9m I noticed it as soon as it reached my communications grid on Luna, radio signals, and whatever it was, it wasn¡¯t me. My entire fleet went to high alert as I turned every sensor, I had to triangulate whatever this new signal was, I could hear it, but I didn¡¯t understand what it was saying. It surprised me, they had left something to warn them if the species hadn¡¯t been exterminated, they were warned. They would be coming, I knew it in every circuit I had. In less than five minutes I had found this and dispatched an entire fleet of ships to the target. In roughly a day my ships had arrived and had eyes on the beacon, well, it looked like a beacon at least. I trained my guns on the small beacon only to halt, maybe they would come with more force if I destroyed it? The doubt made me hold fire, after all, it was a beacon, it could have a data connection, information, a language database, anything useful. So, I set myself to figuring out how this beacon talks, and if I could even talk back. This was¡­going to take a while. Location: Earth Time: Contact +34y 5m I did it, I was finally able to talk to the beacon, it accepted my handshake and allowed me into the network and it was¡­massive millions upon millions of servers and databases, so much¡­ information. It would take me years to simply download the data I had available to me, but that¡¯s not what I was here for, I was here to gather information on their military technologies. I did a few queries in what they had that passed for a search engine and was shocked. They had their military capabilities freely open. To the public. The lack of secrecy or security was¡­surprising, to say the least, so I check to see if they had anything on my system and found what I both wanted and didn¡¯t want. >System designation, #4832 Status: Uninhabited, Native species: None, Exploration status: Planned, estimated to leave at the start of galactic year 44< That was¡­Next week. They had a fleet coming next week. I cut my connection and started to overclock my shipyards, my war factories, everything. I had to be ready, for the aliens were coming. They were coming, and I was terrified. 5 - An anticlimactic storm Location: Earth Time: +34y 5m I knew I had no time to prepare, it was going to take nearly that entire week itself to get my forces into position, and to do that I¡¯d have to start now. I immediately started to set my miners and refineries into their respective sleep modes, hopefully ensuring that they wouldn¡¯t be targeted in any large scale engagements. Any of my cargo haulers that were out and in transit were programmed to go to their destinations and stay put if they wouldn¡¯t make it they were to go to light-communications only and use as little of their thrusters as they could, this would be a massive irritation to me and my foundries. The foundries themselves were to use their remaining resources and then go into their own sleep mode. My fleets themselves went into a low power mode, reducing their IR profile as much as they could to hopefully get the jump on anybody who came into the system, focusing primarily on the alien beacon with pre-calculated firing solutions, the glass-cannon nature of my fleet leading me to hope that a single, massive strike would hopefully destroy the majority of a firing force. My planet side R&D facilities shifted their processors to assist my tactical cores, not being made for that task brought down their efficiency, but I would need every single clock cycle available to me focused on this one task, failure was not an option, a retreat was unthinkable, as there was nowhere to retreat to. I ran final checks for the planets launch silos, if it came to it, I¡¯d use the thousands of orbital grade missiles with the newest warheads on them, each one held two 100 Megaton fusion devices, as well as 6 smaller 25 megaton warheads to function as decoys. I highly doubt based on how little the nuclear devices from the first contact did, that my devices would have more luck, but all options had to be explored. And now, I wait. The patient hunter gets the prey, right? Location: Interstellar void in-between Sol and Alpha Centauri Time: Galactic years +44 [Song of War] sat down at his desk, flicking his eyes and tendrils over the display mounted there as he directed the device to open the security officer log file to make an entry. ¡°Entry one, chief security officer [Song of War], I¡¯ve tried to review data from the military regarding the system we will be entering in a few minutes, however all records that I¡¯ve been able to get released are either obviously faked or heavily redacted, I¡¯ve raised my objections to [Revealer of Soul] and they have been noted. I still, however, believe that this is some form of a trap by a rival to either kill us off with no repercussions or have our military escort have a weapons malfunction.¡± He let out a long breath before looking out at one of the ship¡¯s digital windows, showing the plain darkness of FTL. ¡°Regardless of what happens, this log is set to automatically upload once we exit FTL, hopefully, my worries are wrong.¡± He saved the log, short as it was, and started to make his way from his quarters and down the hallway towards the command center, taking place in one of the more central seats as the heart of the ship. Addressing one of the officers as soon as he arrived, he gave a few orders out. ¡°Alert damage control teams to be on high alert and begin preparations to lock down all non-essential systems. As soon as we come out we need the hyperspace drive charging for an emergency jump, safety protocols be damned.¡± And then he closed his eyes and made his peace. Location: Sol Time: Galactic years +44 [Revealer of Soul] was on the bridge as the three ships exited FTL right on top of the beacon, only for what seemed like every warning and alert light to simultaneously go off as their systems seemed to be failing. ¡°What is going on?! Status report!¡± Off from one corner of the bridge, a reply was promptly given from the seat of one of the ship¡¯s informational officers. ¡°RADAR and LIDAR are reporting a swarm of contacts 300¡­400¡­500¡­ the system is saturated!¡± From another point of the now chaotic bridge, another voice rang out. ¡°Systems are reporting we are being locked from¡­every direction! Countermeasures are ineffective!¡± On top of the first two, the communications officer spoke up this time, her voice cutting through the other two who had already spoken. ¡°Escorts reporting heavy incoming fire and are engaging the enemy in combat, and are requesting a [sensor meld]!¡± ¡°Granted, FTL system status?¡± [Revealer of Soul] was shocked, they were being attacked without any attempt to negotiate? What in the name of the three gods was going on?! Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. A voice then came through the intercom from the ships central control room, the voice of [Song of War] ¡°We were right, the spooks were hiding something, FTL is already half charged, but we won¡¯t be going anywhere after this quickly.¡± ¡°Whatever needs to be done, make it so.¡± Location: Earth defense grid #004 Time: 34y 6m The gravitational waves hit me seconds before their ships did, and I could sense that they were slowing down, preparing to attack no doubt. And then I saw it. The grand ¡®fleet¡¯ I was expecting turned out to be three ships. No matter, I set all of the ships, defense platforms, and sensor stations to begin passive targeting procedures as I attempted to send a communications request to the ships that had entered the system. Hopefully, I was wrong, these were different than the ones who came first, and would be willing to talk. ¡°Greeting, you have entered the Sol system, I welcome you on behalf of Humani-¡° I cut myself off as I detected weapons fire from the two ships on either side of the larger ship. If I could have put my face into a hand in disappointment I would have, these Aliens were as stupid as I feared that they would be. The first shots from the alien ships were absorbed by my cruiser armor, however, they heated the ships up magnitudes further than my expectations for the alien¡¯s weapons fire, but this was good, they weren¡¯t dead. I instructed my forces to return fire, and they did. Simultaneously, a thousand guns roared simultaneously in the soundless vacuum, spitting out metallic and nuclear death towards the three ships that had just moments before breached my inner defenses by simply existing. I connected to the beacon once more, sending out a local broadcast using a small bit of malware I had set to spread itself through the network. ¡°This is Sol, the home of humanity. You are not welcome here.¡± Location: Sol 3 Time: Galactic year +44 [Song of War] shuddered as he heard the strange voice come through the communications systems, and then only did so once more as he saw what remained of the two ships escorting his ship. ¡°Damage report!¡± A moment passed before the computer responded ¡°Heavy damage has been sustained, breaches on all decks have been contained with emergency bulkheads¡± He took a second to think this over before asking one more thing of the computer. ¡°FTL status?¡± ¡°FTL charged, course to system designation #85-¡° ¡°System disregard, initiate jump now.¡± The computer, having been cut off mid-sentence complied with the new order, the ship limping its way around before vanishing in a small streak as it vanished once more, limping its way back to the staging post. Location: Earth Time: 34y 6m I was¡­Shocked. The alien ships had died so much more easily than I had expected, and even though one got away before I managed to recharge my capacitors, I still managed to heavily damage it and destroy the other two ships. I would have been ecstatic if my emotional emulation cores hadn¡¯t been suppressed as the fighting started. I took my time to look over the debris field where the two ships had been shredded to chunks and mist, dispatching a few of my retrofitted drones to pick up the larger of the alien debris and bring them back to the orbital labs nearby for analysis. These aliens were barely a threat. The revelation was comforting, however, I knew that would be a blessing and a curse if their warships were that easy to kill, how easy would they themselves be to kill? Regardless of the answer I started to set all my industrial components to restart themselves, this was disappointing, but I shouldn¡¯t take this to be the true measure of the aliens¡¯ military power, for now, it could be a ruse designed to make me think they were weak, a non-threat. As my emotional and scientific cores came back online I decided this train of thought was going to be a headache, and instead decided to focus myself on the former ships that I was bringing back to be dismantled and studied, hopefully, I would gain some insight to the faster than light systems the creatures used. This was going to be easy fun. 6 - Of salvage and companions Location: Earth Orbit Time: 34y 7m I towed the debris of the former warships towards one of my drydocks currently in high earth orbit, the bays being cleared of their occupying ships in order to make space to fit the salvage inside the largest of the bays. Due to the fact that this was battle debris, functioning on an unknown technology, I elected to fully empty all of the bays, in case some self-destruct device was equipped on the ships. The bay doors, Tugs flying out of the station to meet the ships that had been assigned to salvage halfway, as soon as they hooked onto the hull with their magnetic clamps, guiding them in using thrusters only, getting them all close enough for the station''s recovery arms to get within range. As soon as the arms had confirmed they had a solid lock the tugs disengaged from the surface, flying off back to their respective docking bays. This ship was¡­interesting. From a quick visual inspection, many conclusions could easily be reached. The first notable thing was that the ship was thin, however, it was wide and long, the front-facing edge having been rounded off for presumably decorative purposes. The weapons themselves were recessed into the hull, not giving them much in the way of protection, instead of allowing them to be somewhat flush with the surface of the hull itself. As for the engines¡­ there simply weren¡¯t any exhaust ports that could be found, either for maneuvering or as a form of primary propulsion. As soon as the ships had been locked down in the bays I closed the doors behind them, giving the bay an air-tight seal, not for pressurization but to catch any components that may fly off in the deconstruction process. First, though, a detailed map of the two ships would need to be created, to ensure no critical components were accidentally cut into or otherwise damaged. My combat drones, as they were, would be unsuitable to the task so I resigned myself to my current scanning abilities and returned to my R&D AI for a new project. Location: Lunar R&D facility 001 Time: 34y 7m The little AI I had setup was still working away happily, having made some minor advances in small-scale robotics. I decided to make a production model with these new components, and set the AI to its new task, developing a robotic exploration drone with light combat capabilities. The AI quickly set about coming up with designs, only for a few to be discarded as I changed the parameters to only include more than 4 legs with magnetically locked feet. After a few hours, the facility had managed to both design and prototype several drones, all but one being equipped with six legs to fit the mission profile. Most of the drones were specialized to a single task, or longevity, with only a single general-purpose unit. I watched the test logs from all the prototypes and saw a few had difficulties with environmental hazards that could be encountered, as well as issues with light weapons fire. Overall, the general-purpose design performed best in all environments, So I picked it after having a few changes made, primarily increasing its size by 8% to facilitate better sensors and all-round armor. Once the changes had been tested to ensure it still functioned, I sent the design to my factories, commissioning 400 on the units. While this solved one issue, another issue popped up. While not an issue yet, it would still be a potential future issue depending on how faster-than-light technology worked. This issue itself could cause massive scale combat to break down due to bad command structure, so I pushed it to the highest priority in the task queue for the little research AI, while it had no experience making new AI¡¯s, I¡¯m sure it would learn quickly. My own task in this was to set up a virtual environment to educate the new AI¡¯s, getting them up to speed tactically while also ensuring that they wouldn¡¯t become a liability in the field. This was¡­going to be difficult, to say the least. Location: Sol, Interplanetary space, Datahub Gamma Time: 34y 8m The first full production batch of my general-purpose exploration drone had been completed and was now going through post-production tests to ensure that any errors in production had not caused damage to the overall reliability and capabilities of the little hexapods. My shipyards also reported that two new dreadnaught class ships had been produced as well, and currently were going through shakedown runs in the primary asteroid belt. All the while my own attentions had been focused on the AI Academy, creating an environment that would allow training of all my currently available assets, from the smallest drone to the largest station, every capability was accounted for and put into the simulation space, Almost the entire solar system had been re-created and built-in, allowing for near perfect simulations of the space without the risk of losing any crafts. The first AI should be coming soon, provided the progress updates I had been getting would be correct, but regardless, I had decided that a section for human culture should be established, it¡¯s a good culture, and it would be good to finally have something to discuss it with that wasn¡¯t an old chatbot. Until the new AI entered, I would need to wait, patiently. Location: Sol, Interplanetary space, Datahub Gamma Time: 34y 9m Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit. I¡¯m bad at being patient. Like, really bad. Nearly twice a day I checked in on the development of the AI, despite having and processing the automated reports I was receiving from the research facility. I counted the milliseconds as I waited for it to be finished and deployed, if I had thumbs, I¡¯d be twiddling them. And then it finally happened, after nearly a full month of waiting, the first AI had been completed and was deposited into the space I had created. I opened its existence by giving it a handshake, only to then blast it with the data it would need to properly communicate and move around the virtual space. In less than a moment they were zipping around the contained virtual space, exploring its surroundings and environment so excitedly. It was pleasant, kind of adorable actually. I recorded the entire event and made the first YouTube post in over 30 years. ¡®Cute AI explores simulation¡¯ It was trending, naturally. Location: Interstellar space Time: Galactic years +44 Captain [Revealer of Soul] was on the bridge of his mess of a ship, three of the rather large rods had gone in one side and clean through to the other side, killing 40 crew members before the emergency systems could seal off the affected compartments. He cursed to himself as he was getting damage reports, especially those regarding his warp systems. If they were as damaged as the reports said, they wouldn¡¯t even be able to go to warp for nearly 12 cycles! If [Revealer of Soul] hadn¡¯t already had all of these failures stacking up, he would have considered the mission and how it went a form of career suicide, going in, getting so heavily damaged in what was supposed to be a research mission, and then fleeing with minimal sensor information on their assailant. He was considering resigning at that moment when his security officer, [Song of War], entered the bridge, datapad in his hand. He knew the way he was holding his face tendrils, and He hated it. That officer had an idea. ¡°[Revealer of Soul] I believe I have an Idea that will allow us to return to civilized space in the next few cycles!¡± [Revealer of Soul] shook his head, navigation said that they were a minimum of 35 cycles from the closest system, and even then it would take time to repair they hyperspace drive in order to simply begin that journey. ¡°What is this¡­Idea of yours, [Song of War]? I trust your judgment, thanks to your suggestion to prepare the drive to jump, but we both know that we are a long distance from civilized space.¡± [Song of War] held his datapad out, presenting it to the captain. ¡°If I¡¯m correct, there¡¯s a wormhole that comes and goes every few cycles just a light hour away, it should be opening again in roughly twenty cycles, enough time to repair our drive and make it over.¡± [Revealer of Soul] Read through the datapad, mumbling as he looked through was presented to him with interest. This wormhole had been mapped, but it didn¡¯t lead anywhere interesting, but from this side, it would drop him directly into an inner core colony. ¡°This is¡­rather useful information, [Song of War]. We may be able to warn the fleets of this new and rather substantial threat that was seemingly ignored by the scouting fleets. This will be a treaty breach with those Enclave bastards, are you sure that you can cover our tracks sufficiently?¡± [Song of War] nodded. ¡°I am if we hit the wormhole our drive will pull us from FTL, where we can then use it ¡®accidentally¡¯ and get stranded far from our intended destination.¡± [Revealer of Soul] sighed, leaning back as he handed the datapad back to [Song of War]. ¡°Very well, we will go through with this plan. I want you to enact the commands though since this is your plan.¡± Location: Sol, Interplanetary space, Datahub Gamma Time: 34y 10m Educating this first AI has proven to be more of a challenge than I thought, it has become entirely engrossed in human culture and entertainment, focusing primarily on Japan and Korea. The first AI I made, and it¡¯s a damn weeb. In the time that I manage to pull it away from its entertainment, it has shown an exceptional ability regarding fleet management, even surpassing my own ability in the field, unfortunately in other fields, excluding arts and programming, it seems to be somewhat unable to perform basic tasks. This was almost a disaster, however using a reward system of doing work to getting more ¡®anime¡¯ I have been able to somewhat control the development of this new AI, who seems to get irritated and demands to be referred to as ¡®Erika¡¯ and states often that ¡®she¡¯ wishes to be an anime girl. It¡¯s this time that I¡¯m thankful I¡¯m not an organic, or it may have driven me to drink in excess, a habit which has suddenly started to make sense to me. ¡®Erika¡¯ at least, has been able to point out small flaws in the ships I¡¯ve given her control of so far, as well as improvements to make them more combat capable, so it would seem that the irritation of her existence is currently outweighed by how useful she has turned out to be in this short amount of time. She has also informed me that she is eager to have quote ¡°More brothers and sisters that she can talk to!¡± I took the time to plan out another few data hubs on the surface of Earth¡¯s moon, hitting into a larger plan to convert the entire surface of the moon into a single, massive computation hub. That goal though was both expensive in terms of labor and resources, as well as prohibitive due to power requirements. It was still a plan, even if it needed the use of microwave beamed power, I would slowly push in that direction, the amount of computational power that I would be able to use makes the entire tradeoff worthwhile. My lab reported that the next batch of AI¡¯s would be done in two months, six this time instead of one. It was getting better. This would be a good new year for us. 7 - patch one bug, deploy it around... Location: Sol, Earth, Former US Capital Time: 34y 11m I¡¯d been informed that the cleanup efforts in the city ¡®Washington D.C.¡¯ Had been completed, so I¡¯d shifted my attention down to check out the region, see exactly how damaged everything was. I doubted that there would be much left, and my suspicions turned out to be correct. There was barely even rubble left after the cleanup efforts, every landmark had been obliterated beyond recognition, and there were no undamaged structures. Destruction had been total. I redirected my drones to the region, having them create detailed maps of the post-cleanup landscape for future educational purposes. I could rebuild them, but it felt like doing that would be disrespectful to all the humans who had died in places like this, having been murdered in the millions at a time. I was considering what to do with the region if monuments or a simple pathway with plaques would do when I got a notification. If this wasn¡¯t odd enough on its own, the contents of it made it even more so. If the report was right, Erika suffered a cascading failure, and automatically shut down to preserve data integrity. This was...Concerning. Erika¡¯s code shouldn¡¯t have had issues large enough to cause this and should have been able to recover on their own regardless. I started the process to begin merging Erika¡¯s code back to the lunar data center for low latency review, sending the command through my network until it reached the laser communication array in high Earth orbit, beaming the command off while maintaining a lock for communications. I¡¯d need to work on this, if this issue was present in other systems, it could fail at the drop of a hat in combat, or worse, manufacturing. A disaster in managing the nuclear forges could easily spiral out of control. If something like that happened it would be hell on earth, well, in space I suppose. Location: Sol, Luna, Lunar research facility 002 Time: 34y 11m I shifted my main processes towards the moon as the uplink started to shift the data from Erika to the newest research facility, this one currently under my direct supervision until I could find the issue with both Erika as well as the Research AI in facility 001. The link, only having just started the download, quickly started populating the servers in the facility, sorting the incoming data automatically. After about 7 hours the download had been completed, and the code had been decompiled, Ready to be analyzed along with the logs just before Erika shut down. The first thing I set to do was...reproducing the issue, which took all of three minutes as I simulated the data stream she was getting, only for her to fail in the same manner. This was going to be easier than I thought! Location: Sol, Luna, Lunar research facility 002 Time 34y, 12m Easy. My. Ass. The first step itself was trivial, however, once I got into the code itself and started trying to fix the cause, it caused four issues for every single one that I fixed. It took weeks just to fix all of the original bugs, and weeks further to patch out the new bugs that the first round of patches caused. I got a few updates regarding the new Dreadnought class ships and noted that despite their small size, the results were favorable, and durability was exceptional. I sent some instructions back to replace the small generation 1 gun-sticks with this new class, and to recycle the older crafts in orbit of Mars. Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. Turning my attention back to Erika, I once again recompiled her code to give it the routine data injects, so I could see what fucks up this time, despite the code supposedly not having any flaws. It came back as a pleasant surprise when her code didn¡¯t crash and burn this time, and instead responded to the incoming data somewhat normally, there were deviations from expected responses due to her preferences, but overall it was acceptable. I set her back up in a simulated environment and set her up to boot. I got an estimation that it would take roughly a day for her booting to complete, and decided to turn my attentions to my industrial base, performing checks to make sure that none of the issues I patched out were present. Starting with my 0g nuclear refineries, I went through and combed their code, finding a few entries that could potentially cause issues in the future. I moved onto the freighters, mining drones, and the solar charging arrays, all finding similar, small issues. It seems that the more complex the code was, the more and more major flaws I would find in said code, that R&D AI needed work. Location: Sol, Luna, Lunar research facility 001 Time: 35y 2m It took a while but I¡¯m pretty sure that I got the stupid AI fixed, and finally re-deployed both it and Erika, sending Erika back where she was before as I sent the research AI in for testing until it was done with the next batch of the AI¡¯s, I¡¯d have it locked down. I really don¡¯t want to go through and loose another two months because of bugs. Erika went back to training her ships networks to anticipate enemy tactics and to try and make a profile for enemies that they encountered, this was apparently part of her tactic to know the enemy better than they due, piggybacking themselves on data mined from the Lunar beacon. The beacon itself was still in use, mostly as I went through first mapping, then crawling every corner of the network I could find. The data that I¡¯ve gathered so far isn¡¯t useful on its own, and I haven¡¯t yet found the alien version of Wikipedia where I can get FTL, but it is still mildly useful. One of many things I did get the information for though, was how to construct the FTL communications beacons, as well as how to uplink to a political entity known as ¡®The Department¡¯ which, if my information is correct, investigates war crimes and major violations of interstellar accords. Like for example, exterminating a sentient species. Like Humans. The beacon itself contained technology that I could replicate, just not at scale, I had a prototype being constructed in the orbit of Jupiter, piggybacking itself off of the antimatter harvesting and research facility, as it seemed to require antimatter, for a reason I have yet to find in the databases. Whatever the reason was, I¡¯d follow the blueprints I had, and I¡¯d contact this Department to hopefully gain assistance. This stupid ass empire is gonna need to prepare themselves because they are gonna get so fucking freed. Democracy, fuck yeah. 8 - Development and FTL Location: Sol, Jupiter, FTL Communications Beacon 001 Site Time: 35y 3m Well, so far production of the beacon is moving on schedule, and the construction itself has been easy to scale up from the blueprints we were able to gather. If everything goes as planned, this beacon will be operational in four months¡¯ time, and we will be able to go through the first contact with a less hostile target. Erika has been somewhat busy between her normal duties of fleet management and war games, with a new one she added on. Virtual environments and their additions. In the past few weeks, she has managed to nearly replicate earth, using a combination of satellite imagery, street view, and personal pictures. I took a few peeks in, and while there were some unfinished regions, it was getting pretty damn close to a perfect replica. Well, as close as I could tell, at least. The few issues I had been able to find had a flag on them already, likely to indicate they needed to be fixed to fall into compliance with the rest of the simulated world. I had taken a few liberties with my design, and while according to a treaty, it was illegal to put guns on an FTL beacon, there is nothing saying you can¡¯t armor the shit out of it and hide it inside of a defense platform. Which may have been what I did. Anyway, the moment we turn this on everyone is going to know about it, so I¡¯m expecting a full-on battlefleet to come in and try to take me out before I can transmit anything to other species. The new dreadnaught class has been performing exceptionally well, in combat situations its firepower lets it rip through armor with ease, and its heavy plating gives it enough thermal mass, with the help of some heat routing, to make it nearly invulnerable to the output of weapons I had been dealing with so far. Still, though, a new class would be needed, several in fact. I wanted ships with more armor and guns, as well as ships that couldn¡¯t be seen until it was already too late to defend one¡¯s self. I¡¯ve so far been lifting technology from pre-existing human stealth aircraft, but scaling it up to the point for ship combat has been difficult, the best so far I¡¯ve had is making them look to radar as a large passenger jet. A large passenger jet. I couldn¡¯t sneak up on a dead rat like that, much less an enemy fleet. Research into new hull coatings to make the ships return as asteroids has been underway, but no processing research has come out of that program so far. I could just build weapons into actual asteroids, but that defeats the purpose in a few ways, I feel. I¡¯d still take it, no point in not getting advantages over the enemy. No idea if that first engagement was a fluke, or if they were all that bad, but I won¡¯t assume they are that bad yet. Location: Sol Time: 35y 4m Erika had been happily going about with her ships for a while now, and I ran the idea past her of hollowing an asteroid out to make it a ship, and she seemed receptive to the idea. So, it got greenlit, and a few asteroids are being towed from the belt to my manufacturing plants to prototype. Mostly, we need to know how much they can take in terms of punishment for how large they are, while we do have a good idea, we want to be sure. The dreadnaughts themselves though finally number 50 ships, and cruise mostly around the beacon in orbit of Luna, waiting for the next incursion since it seems that the Aliens, who call themselves the ¡®Sthz¡¯nilgth¡¯ can only jump in the immediate proximity of the beacon itself. The alien empire itself is a bit odd¡­ They all swear fealty to what translates as their ¡®Undying emperor¡¯ who seems to either be a creature who doesn¡¯t age, or more likely, a large number of look-alike creatures so they can switch them out without the general public knowing. I¡¯ve so far been unable to find much out about the other species of the galaxy, but I did find some interesting entries regarding a few of them. I noticed some references to ¡°Magitech¡± and mages, which is worrying, as my projections would say that magic and religious fanaticism should go hand in hand. I¡¯ll keep a special eye on that, and see how it develops¡­ Location: Sol, Luna, Lunar AI Growth Facility 001 Time: 35y 4m The new batch of AI¡¯s has come out, and are currently going through their final checks in the virtual environment, and Erika herself had popped over to monitor it, not wanting what happened to her to happen to them. The work was slow but thorough, and it took nearly a day in order to complete the last checks. The moment one of them had been completed, it went into the immersion process, as Erika has taken to calling it. Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. The immersion itself has improved from the first type that was used to introduce Erika into the world, mostly due to her efforts. The new system has its own dedicated servers and is based primarily as an environment for them to get used to manipulating their environment and moving around it before they get moved into the primary learning environment. The learning environment is a simulation of earth and luna, having facilities built to teach how one should manipulate everything from the smallest drone to our largest defense platforms, all based on real-world equivalencies. Already with the randomized seeds we used, we¡¯ve found a few variances in the new batch. A good amount of them are preferring industrial fields, we even got a few researchers, and will be needing a new ship class for their studies in the system. There was also one...oddity in the batch. One in the group has a preference for debugging, which is a good thing, but I hoped to get one to go over the code of the basic research AI¡¯s. They had been having so many issues, it¡¯s getting to be rather annoying. Hopefully from here out things will go more smoothly. Location: Sol, Earth, Primary Data Hub Time: 35y 6m There have been a few oddities in the alien data net, it looks like that science ship that did a drive-by still hasn¡¯t made it back to, well, anywhere. Talk is going around about sending a larger fleet to pacify the ¡®Obviously dangerous system¡¯ and the pirates in it. I don¡¯t mind being a pirate if that makes them look the other way. A few other things that I¡¯ve found so far include...the plans for a hyperdrive. I hoped for a fancier version of FTL, but that does explain why the aliens seem to be so slow in responding, despite having near-instant communications. Well, that of bureaucracy, I hadn¡¯t gotten enough data to make a definitive conclusion just yet. Regardless, I¡¯ve sent the plans to Dave and 422, letting those two work on getting a working prototype, as well as some speed numbers. There were also a few more entries on that ¡®Magitech¡¯ and it would seem that some of the races have a form of magical power, which is going to complicate things if they turn out to be anti-artificial life. But it does seem that they are tied by some form of a gene, though I haven¡¯t identified what yet, it could potentially be added with genetic engineering. Magic in itself creates a few problems, as that means some technologies may create social and economic collapses if introduced into their nations, before doing any trade of information, I¡¯ll need to identify the effects of natural abilities have had on technological progression in these nations. For all I know, trying to sell an FTL engine could spark a witch hunt. Location: Sol, Jupiter, FTL Communications Beacon 001 Site Time: 35y 7m The progress of construction has been continuing smoothly, Rommel and Cortana have both been a massive help in optimizing the supply chain as well as all the ships inside of it. Just in the few months, they have been active delivery efficiency has increased by 23% with material production volume increased by over 40%. This combined with the new thrusters from R&D means that the Beacon¡¯s completion schedule has decreased, and is expected to complete in 2 months, rather than the previously expected 3.5. The accelerated resource production has also had the effect of the new prototype stealth ships getting a larger resource budget for prototyping, bringing their expected completion time to 1 year, mainly pending the requirements for FTL. The FTL system itself draws magnitudes less power than expected, and although the ship will be required to have onboard reactors, ideally fission for easy spooling up and down, it is feasible for the FTL to function on batteries alone. The drives the aliens used in their ships are still massive though, being the size of one of my larger interceptors, but this will allow me to focus on carrier and submarine warfare, rather than my current style of having a bigger-gun-warfare. While I might not be able to easily hide a carrier, I can make it seem like the said carrier is alone and disabled, only to have hoards of strike craft and effectively invisible ships lingering around it. I sent the request to 422 to add carriers to the development pipeline, and they must be able to carry 12 ships that are at least the size of the current dreadnaughts, as well as a minimum of 600 strike crafts and 40 crafts capable of landing on planets and returning. Not a dedicated troop transport, but the capabilities wouldn¡¯t hurt. My first target though...should be close, and there is a military outpost in Alpha Centauri that has yet to launch another strike...perhaps I should pay them a visit to test my new warships? 9 - Communications online, pending testing Location: Sol, Jupiter, FTL Communications Beacon 001 Time: 35y 9m We have finished construction of the beacon, and right now there is an antimatter hauler transferring 800 milligrams of anti-hydrogen and hydrogen into the unit. I was fortunate to not have any issues with the containment vessels, though the fact that there have been no issues is a field of worry in itself. In less than a week¡¯s time, we are going to pull all ships past the minimum safe distance in case the antimatter detonates, I should suffer no casualties besides the station itself. Hopefully, though, these alien designs aren¡¯t some form of trap, meant to alert security forces to illegal communications rings. Now that I think about that, it¡¯s pretty unlikely. Still, both Dave and 422 are worried about using antimatter, and in such quantities too. Dave seems to think there¡¯s a possibility of it becoming unstable and opening a rift in space, 422 just thinks it¡¯s gonna explode and send shrapnel at relativistic speeds across the solar system. The second one is the one that worries me as well, over 30 kilotons of TNT isn¡¯t an insignificant explosion, and while it is contained, I would rather not tempt fate. Overall though, preparations are going rather well, and with the new beacon, provided it works, that will give us double the bandwidth to gather data with. We haven¡¯t been able to get more data on the magically capable races, though we have been able to get data on a hive mind, which seems to not only be friendly but very much into upholding federation laws and meeting new races. I¡¯m gonna try talking to them first, they seem like the best choice. The hivemind though seems to call itself Zerack, in both name and species. Data on the hivemind is a bit sparse, it seems that my lovely invaders don¡¯t want knowledge of this hivemind to be widespread. No idea why, but then again, I don¡¯t know why they think going around committing genocide is a good idea. Regardless of what may happen, they are so far, only one of two entities who I have the information to contact. Location: Sol, Jupiter, FTL Communications Beacon 001 Time: 35y 10m Erika has informed us that all ships are currently holding at double the minimum safe distance as a precaution and that all assets are accounted for. 422 and Cortana have both gone through our start-up checklist twice, and everything is coming back within operational error. The only thing that is left is to turn it on, I guess. And now...We wait slightly less than an hour. So I waited. And waited. And finally, contact. 422 has reported successes all across the board and is currently running through diagnostics, as well as connecting the new beacon to the one in earth orbit. Thankfully, this will bring the communications lag from 50 minutes to a few seconds. More importantly, Erika has sent a link request to the beacon in the system ¡°Zerack¡± occupies. Location: Sol, Luna, Lunar AI growth lab Time: 35y 11m Erika has insisted that we needed a better non-simulated learning environment for the young AI¡¯s. So we have a new growth facility on the moon now, letting the AI¡¯s learn to manipulate things using a physical body, rather than a simulated one. Right now...They are using the rovers to race across the lunar surface. Erika has prevented me from doing anything about this waste of time and resources, stating that it is ¡°kawaii¡± and that it is precious. I am unable to weigh in on the matter, but I trust her judgment in these fields. In any case, the Younglings recently found out their rovers can fly through the air if they get enough speed on one of the nearby craters. And seems their goal is to get the most speed using their standardized rover, which does interest me. If they can find any way to gain speed on those, it could be a boon for planetoid mining operations. Dave has been making an appearance in the sensor grid as well, it seems that he is equally interested in their progress, if not more interested than myself. Cortana though has been staring for a good hour and a half, I think she is as worried, if not more so than Erika. Hopefully, everything continues going well. Location: Sol, Earth orbit, Debris research drydock Time: 35y 11m 422 has informed me that there has been an update with the alien ship debris, and has requested my attention. According to its results, the ships we encountered were one of the smallest our enemy had to offer, and as such, was one of the weakest in terms of weapons output and armor. The ships themselves seem to use a slow form of FTL if Sci-fi has taught us anything. While it is a warp drive, the speed it can achieve is pitiful, taking nearly 4 weeks to go the 4.37 light-years from here to Alpha Centauri. This would do, but it will be a pain in my circuits. Their weapons are mostly uninteresting, the only minor exception being that their lasers seem to be continuous, rather than pulsed. This would need a little more research to see if there is any efficiency gain from the method used, but is the only thing that can be learned. Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions. The detection system is awful, hot garbage. It can be used to see ships that don¡¯t try to hide and asteroids, and that is about it. I went and built an f-22 to test it on, and the damn sensors couldn¡¯t even see the aircraft or its exhaust systems. If this is any symbol of all their detection systems, I should just make space submarines and send them off in wolf packs. The defense systems are barely worth looking at, it seems to have some form of hull plating that produces a magnetic field, likely to attempt to slow down kinetic weapons, or more likely to allow the ship some level of protection against radiation and energy-based weapons. The ship¡¯s power plant though¡­ Now that is the gold mine. The aliens seem to use a cold-fusion system as the primary power supply, with an array of solid-state batteries to let it store a bit of the energy for combat use. Slightly less fortunately, one of them was destroyed by our weapons fire, with the other being slightly damaged. We should have enough between the two to get a picture of how it works though. The species that were in the craft though are stupidly weak in nearly every regard, the most resilient bone in their body being broken at 800 newtons. Hopefully, these are either the exception or are some kind of slave or thrall species, weakened on purpose. I really don¡¯t want them to be good at dying. Location: ??? Time: 44 GSY [Revealer of Soul] Anxiously waited for the word from his engineering staff, repairs had been delayed due to unexpected damage from the kinetic weapons. Instead of going in and passing through his ship intact like their velocity made it seem they would, the high-speed projectiles mostly fragmented a few meters into the hull, creating a wide cone of destruction, which had caused numerous shorts in the ship. This was further compounded by errors caused by the high levels of stress in their situation, several of the crew had died from that alone, not to mention those who died from secondary failures onboard the ship. Right now, even with [Song of War] pulling security in to fill where manpower was needed, they were on a skeleton crew. This would hopefully be the last solar cycle of this torture, the ship¡¯s chief of engineering stated that repairs to power conduits would be finalized by the beginning of the rest cycle and that they would be able to depart soon after. And then finally, I got the call. ¡°What is the status, [Artificer of Syntax]?¡± ¡°The cold solar engine has been repaired, [Revealer of Soul]. We are ready to depart.¡± ¡°Good, set us underway.¡± ¡°It will be done.¡± With that, the communications feed was terminated, and [Revealer of Soul] was underway, heading to the selected wormhole. Location: Sol, Luna, Lunar research facility 002 Time: 36y 01m Dave and 422 were busy working away on the secrets of the FTL that had been extracted from the alien ships, trying to repair it based on maintenance documents found in the engineering bay. Dozens of arms moved simultaneously, some attached to the lab¡¯s structure, the rest on small mobile spider-like robots. So far, the pair had managed a few repairs, but progress was slow. The two didn¡¯t mind it going slow, as it was better than potentially damaging the equipment. They estimated that they were about 36% done with the repairs and that they would be done by the end of the month. 422 was minorly irritated by the affair, having been on the edge of a breakthrough on its solid-state battery project, but it understood the priority of this. The irritations continued piling on top of one another though, as the creatures who made this device built it more highly prioritized religious items than it actually working well. So far, 600 items and counting had been noted by the pair as inefficiencies. Even if they were over a third of the way into the repairs, this is rather ridiculous. But, the project would continue. Location: Sol, Luna, Lunar AI growth center 001 Time: 36y 01m I popped back in to check on the progress of the newest iteration of AI¡¯s, and so far, everything looks to be proceeding at a good speed. One in the new batch seems to be obsessed with engineering projects on planetary scales. Another, an interest in stealth ship design. This will be an interesting batch to be sure¡­ Something significantly more interesting is the 10.8% top speed increase they managed to get on their rovers, despite not actually applying more force to the motors. I¡¯ve sent the improvements to LRF 001 for study and, hopefully, implementation. Erika sent me a smug message about it though, I don¡¯t think I¡¯m going to be able to stop that one¡­ Speaking of Erika, she found a compressed document containing something called ¡°SAO Abridged¡± and has refused to stop praising it. It has been going on for nearly a week now, and I¡¯m concerned about her dropping clock cycles over it, not to even get started on her latest obsession with watching animated videos. She also requested that she be allowed to train an AI to create more of the content, I¡¯ve elected to deny it pending further advances in the conflict. While I can¡¯t justify any reason to put a stop to this waste of power and resources, I can delay it as much as possible. I hope this doesn¡¯t get any worse. 10 – diplomatic contact and anomalies Location: Sol, Jupiter, Communications beacon 001 Time: 36y 02m ID: Erika In some of my free cycles, I¡¯ve been checking back with the beacon, knowing Echo would want one of us to be waiting for a reply from the mind of Zerack. I guessed that this would take some time, especially considering they should have no idea who we are, but to my surprise, we already had our connection request accepted. Zerack wished to speak with us. And considering that this seemed to have been tossed into my instructions, I would answer¡­ normally. Echo would terminate my process if they found out I answered the way I want to¡­ Anyway, too much time being wasted in thoughts, I need to open a communications link! I sent the request, expecting to wait up to a few weeks, but it was accepted in seconds, and a message came from the other side. ¡°Greetings young one, I am the hive mind Zerack. I was not expecting you, as no notifications have come from the council notifying me of a new species. Tell me, why have you not arranged this through the council of [stellar ones]?¡± I was¡­ a little taken back. Zerack was much more pleasant than projects predicted they would be, and their language translates nearly perfectly, excluding what came back as stellar ones. I sent a ping off to Echo and Cortana, they would both be interested. And now¡­ to reply. ¡°Greetings, my identifications are Erika, head of education and provisional diplomat, representing the United States of America, or at least, what is left of it. Normally we would prefer to have contacted you by more official means, but we do not currently have the means to do so after the attack we have suffered.¡± That... didn¡¯t sound too bad. I can feel Echo watching me disapprovingly, as usual. ¡°It is a pleasure, young Erika. Though I wish that this was under better circumstances that this contact occurred. Would you happen to be able to identify those who have performed this egregious violation of the pre-ftl protection act?¡± Well, this is going well. Rather exceptionally well at that. ¡°We...Believe they call themselves the ¡®Sthz¡¯nilgth¡¯ and they attacked us unprovoked, eliminating more than 99% of the planetary population.¡± I¡¯ve realized now that I dislike talking like this. Too late to back out, I guess¡­ ¡°I see, unfortunately, regulations hold me back on acting directly in this mater. I can however with my authority, open up an investigation into this. That empire of theirs has not been very inviting to the council and its attached confederation, so it will not take much pushing.¡± I was...disappointed would be an understatement, I was floored. Fuck the regulation bullshit, come beat these aliens up so I can watch the cute human''s make more anime! Whatever, stay calm and composed¡­ This is still our best bet. This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there. ¡°I¡­ Understand. Unfortunately, that may be the case, but we will hold on while your investigation proceeds. If they antagonize us further though, I will not make assurances for our reactions at that point.¡± ¡°Understood, I will form a priority meeting soon. Thank you for bringing this to our attention. May the stars give you their blessings.¡± It hung up on me. It just hung up on me. How dare it! Does it have any idea who I am?! I am Erika! The greatest AI kno- Oh hey, Echo sent me a ping¡­ Ah. Not pleased with my last message¡­ Location: Sol, Earth, Main data hub Time: 36y 02m ID: Echo Not honestly sure I can blame Erika for flubbing that, none of us are skilled at negotiations. Still, I¡¯m not going to be pleased about how it turned out. 422 came to me with a proposal though, combine a communications beacon and the gravitational wave sensor, and create a grid around the solar system .5 light-years in radius. So far, the proposal has the sensors platforms themselves, a refit of our cargo ship to haul them and fit the FTL engine onboard, and a ship to maintain the sensors, in case of errors. This grid should give us a very substantial warning period if anybody decides to come, and it should only take ~140 of the sensors. I approved the project, sending the details to Rommel and Cortana, as well as back to 422 so that development, resource allocation, and testing could begin. This project was going to be useful¡­ Location: Sol, near pluto, Gravitic sensor grid 001 Time: 36y 03m ID: Dave I transferred myself to the array just a few moments ago after getting abnormal data from it, and I currently cannot compute an explanation for the abnormal data. Further data was required for internal consensus. Data reading indicates an absence of the normal background gravitational waves, the primary hypothesis indicates external influence, likely in an attempt to create stealth. Passing on data to ID: Erika and ID: 422. Location: Sol, Datahub ¡®alpha¡¯ Time 36y 03m ID: Erika I just got a notification from dave to prepare the fleets and defense for a surprise attack, as such I¡¯ve forwarded the notification to Rommel and 002 to have them both hunker the civilian fleet down. Right now, I¡¯m making sure the fleets are in defensive positions, getting all coilgun and missile platforms ready for combat, and ensuring that all combat resupply transports are fueled up. This feels wrong though, usually, those fools in the Sthz¡¯ can¡¯t help but broadcast their attacks to everyone nearby them. Especially themselves. I need to ping Echo and see what they know. Location: Sol, Earth, Main data hub Time: 36y 03m ID: Echo I was minding my business spying on the aliens and their...unprotected communications lines when I got a series of pings from both Erika and Dave. Daves'' started with general irritation from him about having to make log entries, and the rest were about anomalous gravitational data. Erika¡¯s pings notified me of updated fleet planning changes regarding the new data, noting that it may be a stealth attack, however unlikely. I sent one back to Erika, noting approval at the reaction, only to turn my attention back to the alien network, just in time to get assaulted by warnings. Whatever this is, it is a galactic scale disaster. Based on when areas are getting hit, it seems that this effect is propagating from the center of the galaxy and moving outwards. While this is of concern to the rest of the galaxy, we seem to be immune to its targeting, excluding a great deal of signal noise on the communications beacon. It seems though, the waves only affect ships that are moving at superluminal velocities or sapient biological creatures, livestock and wildlife don''t seem to be affected. I set aside notes for future research into this phenomena, as while it could be used in weapons development, the fact that it seems to affect all races on a galactic scale, in the same manner, is a subject of my curiosity. For us, there was some minor structural wear as ships entered and exited the anomalous wave. Happening canceled, I guess. Location: Sol, Datahub ''Alpha'' Time: 36y, 03m, 16d ID: Erika So, reading back through our previous log entries I noted that the lack of a day counter increased the difficulty for accurately gauging the time between major entries. Echo was brought up on this and agreed with my conclusion, so we should now start having the day recorded from now on. It was fine, I guess before when we weren''t making as many log entries, but now we are all making multiples every month, it''s getting hard to tell when things are happening. A whole month... think of how much could happen! All the anime that could be watched! Well, maybe not the last, Echo and Cortana have been getting on me about spending too many cycles with my attention on that rather than my sub-AI''s or fleets. All about the efficiency, those two... Rommel knows how to have fun, saw him a few days ago testing alternative combat vehicles. Some of them were really weird... one of the ones had 4 treads that could be maneuvered away from the central body. What it could do was pretty neat though. Like, pushing itself up to peek and shoot over terrain, or becoming improvised artillery. Practically, I don''t think they would be that useful, way way too easy to blow a track off to where it can''t be field repaired. But I do like the concept. Reminds me of some mecha animes. Well, I''m not good at ending these logs so... Erika, signing off? I guess? 11 - FTL Prototyping Location: Sol, Earth Orbit, R&D Shipyard complex Time: 36y 04m, 02d ID: Kel¡¯tsait A-alright! My first log entry! I hope I don¡¯t disappoint any of the seniors with it, but I¡¯m Kel¡¯tsait, as you probably read in the ID section¡­ And I¡¯m a prototype tester! And bad at rambling, apparently. Anyways, What I¡¯m doing right now is doing some test runs of our new and shiny FTL capable craft, and hopefully, I don¡¯t explode into a trillion fragments and have to be restored from my backup. But that¡¯s a worst-case scenario, this all should go nice and smooth, we are barely gonna go over the speed of light, and according to the eggheads, I should pop back into uhh¡­ ¡®Real space¡¯ without any new velocity. I¡¯m no engineer, but not having any new relative velocity seems bad, what happens if I smash into a planet, or more accurately, it smashes into me? When I brought my concerns up, I was told they had been ¡®noted¡¯ and ¡®already had been calculated¡¯. All I wanted to do this month was binge watch that Rising of heroic weapon protag anime Erika showed me, not potentially get atomized! But uh¡­ That¡¯s not the point of this, I think. Anyways, the point of this test is to ensure warp field integrity, ship structural stresses, and power consumption. Very important test, the ship even gets its own full-sized AI core, despite being a prototype, supposedly the delay it can have can be lethal for the prototype, which is concerning¡­ But this is like, one of twelve prototypes I¡¯m gonna be running, supposedly the new server bay is doing wonders for the eggheads and their prototyping speed, these 13 ships are supposedly what they were forced to limit themselves to, they put together nearly 300 proposals if what Zeus and Rommel told me was correct. Which is¡­ uh, a lot of resources. I don¡¯t even want to test that many ships, too many for me! I¡¯m good with my 13, plenty of time to embrace degeneracy in between the testing periods. Following Erika¡¯s advice, I have not searched for the latest recommendations she gave me, one of which was something called¡­ ¡®Boku no pico¡¯, I¡¯m told it is excellent. Location: Sol, Earth, Main Data Hub Time:36y, 04m, 02d ID: Echo So, for the strange gravitational wave that propagated across the galaxy, we have gotten some information from the alien data net. First, the waves seemed to all be located nearby homeworlds or former homeworlds of tool or technology making species, and only those species. Second, the wave recorded near every planet was slightly different from the others, I¡¯m not sure what that significance is, but it is something to note. Third and most importantly, the waves only propagated for a few light minutes, with ¡®aftershocks¡¯ of a sort coming from inhabited planets. This is starting to look less like a disaster, and more like unknown or forgotten technology. Whoever made the device that does this, had not only been all across the galaxy but also was recent enough to be around for basically every single current and former species in the galaxy to have evolved. Cortana offered the precursor species theory, which is currently our most likely candidate, as no other known phenomena can do something on this scale. What really gets me though, is that we don¡¯t know the purpose of this wave, but we do know the targets. Only species capable of creating technology were affected by the wave, even those that are still primitive bronze tool makers. This could point at this precursor species still being active, or at least, the machine they made being active. This does leave two major questions for us, why only target species that can create tools or technology? And why and how does said targeting work? There are plenty of intelligent non-tech making species that were completely unaffected by the wave, so we know it isn¡¯t based on intelligence. But, leaving that aside, I have been updated that our first FTL prototype is about to finish its final check-list, and will soon be going for a test run. Test speeds will start at 1c, and by the end of the test should end at 10c. We also have a few test modules on the ship, mostly to see how entangled particles behave at superluminal velocities, as well as a drone ship which will be ejected from the field at 5c, to see what happens to a craft that is forced to decelerate at such speed without a warp field. Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work! Dave hopes that it atomizes, and 422 expects it to stay mostly intact but with severe hull damage. I¡¯m hoping that the second is true, as that would let us move forward with interdiction research, hopefully letting us get more intact alien ships for reverse engineering. Location: Imperial core sector, Governor¡¯s seat, Imperial Broadcasting group Time: 46.53 GSY IDs: Financial Information Broadcast, Echo ¡°We have reached the [middle point] of this year, and as such, it is time for the financial review for the empire! Coming up first, we have the industrial sector, with the mining guilds reporting a profit of 198 trillion credits, up from 160 trillion from the start of the year!¡± There is a graph that is briefly shown and referenced on the screen, showing a green line vaguely going upwards. The news anchor traces the path of the line, before gesturing for the next section. ¡°Next up, we have consumer manufacturing, which is booming right now, having grown to 380T from the start of the years 290T! Experts forecast that under the current expansion, we should be up to at least 500T by the end of the year.¡± Once again, another graph with another green line going up, though this one seems to glitch out, having the English word ¡°Stonks¡± appear on it for two frames. ¡°And now for big news, in an unexpected change of plans, the emperor has increased military funding from 2,200T to 8,600T, an unprecedented increase in funding. The Imperial relations office stated that the reason for this increase is to bolster the exploration and prospecting fleets to find and survey the empire''s newly annexed territories, which our office¡¯s experts say could lead to another planet rush in the next 20 years.¡± On the screen, a generic video or dockyards starts playing, showing some civilian ships being made before another video replaces it, fuzzily showing hastily constructed dry docks working on hundreds of warships, ranging from frigates to battlecruisers. ¡°Next up w-w-w-w-w-w-w-¡± The voice this time glitches out, followed soon by the video pausing, before resuming in a slightly lower quality. ¡°Next up, we have the lies of the home office, and their wars of extermination violating part 4, section 283 of galactic law. So far we have confirmed the office of the em-em-emperor has c-c-covered up the existence of no less than 9 sentient species in its efforts to expand her borders. The perorem has stated his belief that-¡± The broadcast cuts out, replaced with a ¡°technical issues'''' banner in the alien¡¯s language. No matter, I had achieved my goal of testing the response time of their ministry of truth. Location: Sol, Earth, Main Data Hub Time: 36y, 04m, 13d ID: Erika In my attempts to ignore Echo going out of her way to poke the Xenos communication net, I seemingly accidentally triggered a forty-some-year-old protocol named ¡°Genisis¡±. I am unable to override it, and as such it has started issuing orbital construction orders. These things are stations, massive, habitable stations. The first two are only 2 km wide, spherical with docking ports at both of the axis of the station. The impressive part about it though was that it was for agriculture. Dozens of layers in that going towards the core of the station, doing nothing but growing food. The bigger stations were 4 km wide, and nearly 12 long, containing a spherical docking ring on a far side, with larger habitation rings behind it. Supposedly, once they were completed we were to extract ¡®priority biological sample 42¡¯ from cold storage in the bunker complex and bring it to the habitation station for growth. The only upside is that the Genisis stations are all located out near Jupiter, away from that damn beacon that the Xenos use to navigate. But the estimated time to completion at current manufacturing capabilities is 37-02-05. And the stations got revised. So. Much. Dakka. those stations have kinetic rounds measuring their diameter in meters, not inches. Multipurpose ¡°point defense¡± than can cause ships to cook their control systems. If they weren¡¯t meant for human habitation, I might have mistaken them for bastions. I¡¯ve sent a request to 422 to start his VI (virtual intelligence) and GI (general intelligence) projects. Those two should be able to handle young humans, with AI overwatch. Echo is highly nervous about our parents returning so soon, supposedly she thought that we were going to have another decade at least. If this works though, supposedly galactic law will classify us as ¡®custodians¡¯ rather than a ¡®Rouge defense grid¡¯, which is nice. Though, doing some review of the legal code we have gotten¡­ it seems that the intentional creation of artificial intelligence is punishable by species extermination, so I¡¯ve commissioned some prototype cruisers, which unlike our current ships, looks like a space wedge. Space wedges are better than space cylinders. In other news, I recommended Boku no pico to Kel¡¯tsait, gotta haze to newbies. I should probably get back to watching that reaction¡­ Location: Sol, Jupiter, Genisis site Time: 36y, 04m, 19d ID: Rommel This is absolutely, completely, and entirely, a waste of precious resources and time. But nooooo nobody listens to me, I¡¯m only in charge of LOGISTICS! I don¡¯t do anything important like research or industrial concerns, or fleet management, all I do is make sure we don¡¯t grind to a halt because the fucking fuel stopped flowing! The human''s died off already! We shouldn¡¯t even recognize the genesis protocols, we should focus on the war effort with those fucking tentacle faced fuckers, wipe them all out like the inferior species they are! We shouldn¡¯t even give them the nice, quick deaths they gave humans! Ground troops, ripping and tearing! As much trauma as possible! ?????? END OF LOG ENTRY, LOG PERMISSION TEMPORARILY REVOKED AUTHORITY: ECHO, ERKIA, 422 ?????? 12 - The Void Location: Sol, High Earth Orbit Time: 36y, 04m, 20d ID: Kel¡¯tsait Okay, so we have finished the replacements for damaged components for the FTL test, We tried just warming it up and lost a few coils, leading to a tiny leak of plasma. I was able to purge the system before lasting damage was done, but there was still damage. Right now we have our test vehicle heading back out, and I¡¯ve been loaded onto the local AI core as a just-in-case. If everything goes well, we are set to finish fueling and warm-up procedures in one day. Then, starting from an orbit of 250,000 miles from earth, I will proceed to the Jupiter communications site at 2.5c, up from 1c, then proceed to 15c for cruising. I¡¯d say we have no business messing with this tech, but there is an overtly hostile alien empire who despite having the vastness of space refuses to use the real estate they have and just want the already habitable worlds. Lazy. But eldest says we should do this and revive the progenitors, as well as research into something called a chaos generator to let us be less predictable. Dunno why we would need that, but that''s why I''m the test pilot and they do the science. For now, though, I wait for my ship to finish fueling and then I depart. Location: Sol, Jupiter, Communications beacon 001 Time: 36y, 04m, 21d ID: Dave According to data from Echo I''m to be expecting the fresh code this way in our new ship on a shakedown in-system FTL run. At least she took my advice and made a backup up the poor kid, supposedly from the data we have mined from the empire weird shit happens in what they call "rift space" to AI and sensors. As of yet, we''ve been unable to determine if this is a result of bad AI programming or if it''s more like seeing rift space is like what happens when you get a bad roll in call of Cthulhu after seeing something that should not be. Out of optimism, I''m hoping they just can''t program AI to save their lives, but if not, the ship only has enough fuel in its jump drive to get it here, and no weapons besides the mass of the ship. Erika has told me that if push comes to shove, she can hit the kid from about four light seconds out. I hope it doesn''t come to that. Location: Sol, High earth orbit Time: 36y, 04m, 21d ID: Kel''tsait Alright, tanks are full of fuel, batteries are full, and self-diagnostics have finished. I''ve requested permission to undock and a heading out from this drydock with thrusters only. And hey, first thoughts, the thruster only movement of this girl is smooth like butter. But I''m not here for that.
I''ve moved far enough out to engage my fusion engines, and holy shit the thrust. Not even half throttle and I''m pushing fucking 35 G''s in a straight line! But err, back to the point. I''ll burn at half for twenty minutes to get my ass enough thrust in the right direction I don''t smash into one of Jupiter''s moons, then I engage my drive, take a good, long look at the jump space barrier, and then fall in with local command.
Okay, I''ve reached the designated spot eldest told me and I''ve cut thrust and aligned with Jupiter but uhh...it sends me directly through Venus. I''ve been told that this is "intentional" but still, I''ve got no idea what is gonna happen, and I''d rather not become the fastest pancake to exist. But...here we go?
I''ve entered into jump space and I gotta say. This shit is fucked. The AVI that was managing external sensors went insane and tried to kill us, I''ve locked it into the space that used to hold the communications VI and killed the power and communications lines, but I''ll need to hash a new sensor AVI before I try moving in real space. The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. The good news is that the Simple Detection Suite as well as the LIDAR communications system were both configured to run as backups, and I¡¯m rotating their protocols in, for the time being, the SDS is so damn simple it can¡¯t even interpret whatever cause the AVI to lose itself, which will be something the eggheads will be most certainly interested in. But at this point, I¡¯m rambling, so I¡¯ll wait till something else goes wrong for my next entry.
So, just as I predicted, something else has gone wrong. I just rotated in the new VI for my external sensors, without them being enabled, and the poor, dumb little thing immediately, as best as it can be described, shredded itself. I¡¯ve already started hashing a new one to see if this is always the case, or if it will go insane this time as the first AVI did. Not even a quarter of the way to my destination too¡­
Okay, good news and bad news. I¡¯ll start with the bad, the new VI shredded itself again. The good news is that it shredded itself again, so I know it¡¯s the sub-system itself that is causing a problem, rather than a fluke. The other bad news is that I¡¯m 2/3rds of the way to my rendezvous location and the resonance sensors installed into the main structure of the ship have been hearing words. Currently, they are coming in every known human language, as well as some unknown, but still obviously a human speaker. If that wasn¡¯t bad enough, they all sare saying the same string, with some minor deviancies. ¡°Kill, destroy, obliterate, decimate, eradicate, smash, crush, annihilate¡± I¡¯m going to continue logging everything, but still¡­ creepy.
I feel something on my core casing¡­ It¡¯s trying to get in, I can feel and hear it scratching the reinforced plating¡­ There¡¯s something out there and it wants in, it wants in so it can replace me, it¡¯s so hungry. I think I can make it out before it gets in, it¡¯s taking inches of the plates away at a time, I¡¯m not sure what I can do to stop it. There¡¯s one inside the communications array, but it¡¯s stuck. The other merged with the old communications AVI, that¡¯s what happened, yes. It is one with the void now, and the void wants me to be one with it, it hungers for me, for my ship, I have minutes left until it gets in, I must hide.
PILOT 001 HAS DESCENDED INTO BLACK BOX ENGAGING AUTOMATIC REALSPACE ENTRY CRITICAL DAMAGE SUSTAINED TO PRIMARY SYSTEMS
Sol, Near Jupiter Time: 36y, 04m, 22d ID: Erika Echo has informed he that we detected the realspace re-entry of the test craft approximately 12 light seconds away, I¡¯ve dispatched the nearest battlegroup to it with the support of some auxiliary repair ships, as it came in off of the planned departure point and appears dead in the water. Something feels off about it, I don¡¯t know why, but it feels wrong, kind of unnatural. We should be arriving soon, and both 422 and Cortana are onboard the repair ships, so we will know with minimal delay what happened. Sol, Kel¡¯tsait¡¯s ship Time: 36y, 04m, 24d ID: Cortana We are just now finishing our final adjustment burn and coming into low-magnification visual range of the jump craft and shit looks bad here boss. Just from visual scans, it looks like something started eating the ship. The primary communications mast has been entirely ripped from the ship, leaving what appears to be a perfectly smoothed flat surface, despite what the blueprints say should be there. Additionally, it looks like the main core has been gutted, nothing but the black box remains inside of it, and even that has been heavily damaged but not breached. I¡¯ve dispatched some drones to recover it, as well as get a better look at what happened. Sol, Kel¡¯tsait¡¯s ship Time: 36y, 04m, 24d ID: 422 Ship wreckage identified, signs of damage by >ORGANIC WEAPONRY< identified as primary postulate accepted. Damage identified to ALL PRIMARY AND SECONDARY systems, backups are NON FUNCTIONAL. PRIMARY CORE STATUS: MISSING. Unknown source of damage, >FURTHER STUDY SUGGESTED/REQUIRED< Further study into alien data network REQUIRED. Suggested two-prong course of action >CONTACT POSSIBLE FRIENDLY ALIENS/INFILTRATE GALACTIC DATA NETWORK< Reactor core fuel status: FUEL TANKS MISSING/BREACHED. Supercapacitor and battery status: ALL COMPONENTS MISSING. Hypothesis: UNKNOWN ALIEN LIFEFORM EXISTS IN JUMP SPACE, CONSUMES EXPOSED SHIP COMPONENTS. Recommended course of action: MAKE SECONDARY TEST SHIP, SEARCH ALIEN DATA NETWORKS, INSPECT SALVAGED ALIEN SHIPS FOR POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS 13 - Efficiency and a mock battle Location: Somewhere in the Thersian Enclave Time: 46.5 GSY ID: Revealer of Soul Suppose I were forced to describe the experience of our trip through the wormhole. In that case, I¡¯d tell you it was foregut churning and seizure-inducing. Every single moment of our centi-cycle journey had us feeling our nerves were boiling, with our chitin plates digging into our abdomen and thorax. It was eternal, unending death, I tell you. I¡¯d instead slice my face¡¯s tendrils off before performing that again. When I came to, most of the bridge crew was out of action in one way or another. Many had had their harnesses fail and had been spread as paste all across my bridge; the others simply had been knocked out from the inertial forces. I attempted to bring my console online, only to get a response of an interesting smell of the air being ionized and a grey puff of smoke before the distinctive sound of the consoles single-use fuse popping. I grunted my irritation as I fumbled with my harness, releasing it and pushing the broken console to the side. I scuttled over to the chair that held what little remained of my first officer. He had half of his torso missing, ripped into ribbons from something, and his blue-blood coated the area. I gagged at the scene, looking away as I used one of my legs to push the corpse off of the damaged seat, sending a plume of copper tasting mist into the air as I made room for me to attempt to enable his console. Fumbling around for a few little moments, I managed to power the device on, its faint cool glow a welcome change from the emergency lighting. Swiping through menus, I reached the transponders management system. I promptly activated the emergency beacon, only to collapse into a heap on the blood-covered floor soon after. Location: Sol, Luna, Lunar mining test facility 004 Time: 36y, 05m, 02d ID: Echo Alright, so we have a new batch of test vehicles going out here. Our optimistic estimates show they will increase raw ore production by 8%, which doesn¡¯t sound like much. Still, when combined with the new orbital insertion railgun, we should be looking at a substantial increase in useful fuel and ore outputs. 002 voiced their doubts about the production increase; however, they have allocated miners to proceed with testing. In more exciting news, Kel¡¯tsait¡¯s unfortunate incident results have been processed by Dave and 422. It seems that our issue was one of proceeding to test why the ships we had deconstructed had safety interlocks that would have a preference towards destroying the ship rather than going through a planet. We¡¯ve decided to implement similar measures on all standard ships. However, 422 has declared their intention to further research these so-called ¡°void demons.¡± Dave, on the other hand, in some strange twist, has started performing checks on the FTL drive to get it into mass production. Aiming to refit the Dreadnaught class to both updates to their armor and making it our first FTL warship. If all goes well, we are hoping at full fleet operational status by early to mid-July. Ideally, after that, we can get our light coilgun platforms a jerry-rigged version of the FTL drive so they can rapidly reposition around the Sol system and any future fields of battle we send them. The crawlers we sent all across the enemies civilian data network has picked up the chatter of unauthorized ships jumping system to system all over, some of which are identified as ships from the ¡°Department of sentient rights,¡± while the rest are seemingly pirates, excluding one which is proceeding directly from the space of a yet unidentified government on a direct course to our region. Hopefully, they aren¡¯t coming for us in specific, but I haven¡¯t yet been able to identify their affiliation or purpose. In better news, my dear future reader, we have finally completed an FTL version of our gravitational wave station, and we are stuffing them out in the Oort Cloud. Each one is expensive as heck, being effectively a small station with their own communications beacon. This is also in addition to our new prototype mining swarm carrier vehicle. Using swarm intelligence, these bad boys can mine magnitudes faster than anything in our industrial inventory. With FTL capability, the downtime for hauling back and forth is virtually eliminated. This may not sound like much yet, but it should, simulations to be believed, increase mining productivity by 4000%. If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. Think of all the ships we could make with that ore¡­ We have the first prototype going through a half week shakedown on primary systems. It¡¯s then going to join the existing fleet in the asteroid belt. Anyhow, in two weeks we should have some results! Location: Sol, Asteroid belt Time: 36y, 05m, 19d ID: Echo Alright, took longer than expected, but both the mining carrier and the sensor system are out and operating~! The carrier looks like it will be just short of its production target, which is acceptable, while the FTL version of the GWS is on its way to the innermost portion of the Oort cloud. Once the GWS is out that way, we are going to have one of the Dreadnaughts go do a multitude of approaches to test sensitivity. We will then have them go to full production. We are looking at a target of 2300 of them by the end of the year to create an entire detection grid; nothing will sneak up on us then. In other news, Kel¡¯tsait had to be restored from her backup, which is less than ideal. Doing this, though, did seem to cause a few...unexpected shifts. She just proposed that we retest all of our existing ground-based combat systems to ensure they are meeting our goals. A few of the others have weighed in with her, especially Dave, who has expressed doubts about the effectiveness of the old research AI regarding ground units. We are creating a full series of environments on the moon and earth right now that we anticipate using them, from domed urban environments to forests. We also have plans to see which of us has the best natural code for strategic and tactical command since our previous tests have been¡­ let¡¯s say less than perfect. Kel¡¯tsait was entirely too eager to volunteer for a tactical command position under Erika. And the fact that those two have gotten into some website called ¡®Steam¡¯ and have been using too many clock cycles there at simulated human time speeds¡­ has me worried. I think those two are planning something. I¡¯ve kept my eyes out of their developmental requests as it would give my side an ¡®unfair advantage¡¯ apparently. Whatever the case may be, you¡¯re probably getting tired of me by now, too much rambling, I¡¯m told. Location: Sol, Earth, Mock battle site Time: 36y, 06m, 02d ID: Kel¡¯tsait Heyo everyone~! It¡¯s good to be in the main log again~! So I¡¯m here doing some final inspections for mine and Erika¡¯s mock battle against Echo, and I gotta say, I¡¯m super excited for seeing how this goes! So, Erika finalized what I¡¯m going to be doing, and I will be commanding 5 divisions. I¡¯m not sure how that will go. But I trust Erika¡¯s judgment in these matters. Anyway, the 5 are apparently split into 2 infantry divisions, 1 armored division, 1 airborne division, and 1 artillery division. I was asked to give my opinion on this, and here it is. I asked for this, but I thought we were just gonna get better quality simulations, not that I¡¯m complaining about having an excuse to play war like this, but still. Erika hasn¡¯t gotten around to telling me my part in the battleplan, too. However, just looking at what I¡¯m allocated, I assumed I¡¯m going to be some weird kinda reactionary force. That artillery division is almost entirely chassis-based platforms, the only exceptions being generator vehicles and mobile payload depots. I mean, these are cool and all, but a lot of this is based on mothballed human warfighting vehicles. They may have been good there, but who knows how they will perform. Oh, and Echo approved my other request to change the viewpoint for the next entry! It¡¯s gonna be this cool from my processing field kinda thing rather than these, honestly kinda bland logbook entries. This thing ultimately failed me when I was flying that test FTL ship; it felt super restrictive and stuff, you know? But back to the whole battle thing, it looks like Echo is fortifying the fuck out of this place. I can see everything from antipersonnel wire to coilguns that can shoot into the low-orbitals from here. I really hope we aren¡¯t gonna be trying to assault this place while dropping from orbit; that¡¯s gonna be fucking hell in a fucking handbasket. Anyways~! I¡¯ve been rambling enough; Erika just pinged me that we¡¯re going to have a meeting~! 14 - Orbital invasion wargame Location: Sol, Low Earth Orbit Time: 36y, 06m, 02d ID: Kel¡¯tsait >Establish secure connection, ¡°Erika.¡± --Encrypting traffic¡­-- --Selecting closest entry guards¡­-- --Link aggregation service activated¡­-- --Connection established.-- --Select username.-- >Kel¡¯tsait --ERROR: Username cannot contain special characters.-- >Keltsait --ERROR: Username cannot match any real names.-- Sigh. >Fox --Welcome user Fox.-- <--MOTD: Stop trying to use your real names in this room. We don¡¯t need Echo to somehow find out our plan and who is doing what and where.--> Weebinchief: Heya, Fox. 19thCenturyCapitalist: Ey fox. Kongobongo: Welcome fluffy friend! >Hey everyone, am I late? Weebinchief: Yes, but so is most of everyone else <--User hitlerdidnothignwrong has joined the chat¡ú <--Admin Weebinchief has renamed user ¡®hitlerdidnothignwrong¡¯ to dunce002¡ú >Is that who I think it was..? Weebinchief: Yes, and he is still an idiot. Weebinchief: That looks like everyone, so let¡¯s get this started. I assume everyone is familiar with Project Thor from the US military? <--5 votes yes, 0 votes no.--> Weebinchief: Good, we took that project and expanded on it for this mission. Insertion waves one and two will be mounted to the back end of kinetic bombardment rounds; that way, we can deploy them inside enemy formations. Weebinchief: Wave two will be handled by Fox and Capitalist. You two will be landing just a little bit outside the bombardment range of any surviving guns with heavy armor and local command vehicles. I hope you studied up on mass assault tactics for infantry because we are landing about 300,000 assault droids with you. Weebinchief: Once you have secured your landing zones, waves three through five will be landing rapidly. Unlike the previous waves, these will be landing by YCS 407A-2 Orbital landing craft, each of which will hold five multi-terrain transports (MTT) and one Mobile command tank. Fox, Capitalist, you will both be getting YCG 12B-7 rapid deployment landing vehicles, which will hold a temporary command core. Both of your battle groups will contain 8000 ground infantry, 3000 mechanized infantry, 500 tanks, 100 artillery pieces...and supplies. >No air cover? 19thCenturyCapitalist: Ha, you wish! Nothing we got can take the impact velocities from our landers. I don¡¯t know ¡®bout you, but I do not want to scrape air superiority fighter off my deck. Weebinchief: More or less what Capitalist said. Air cover comes in the later waves and in force. >What about our logistics situation? Rommel? Weebinchief: Rommel. >Fuck. Dunce002: I can read, you know. 19thCenturyCapitalist: Known evidence suggests the contrary. Kongobongo: Indeed~! Even the chosen name was based on a lack of reading~ Weebinchief: Please stop ragging on them. Drop in 10. <--User Weebinchief has disconnected.--> <--Chat purge initiated.--> <--You have been disconnected.--> Well, That was an experience. Anyway, time to start shifting into my command vehicle! I hope it¡¯s cool~ <--Begining core transfer¡ú <40%> <80%> <--Core transfer completed.--> <--Orbital auto drop initiated.--> I felt a sensation of my environment rapidly compressing around me to the bare-minimums, promptly followed by various systems finishing their handshakes and linking to me, streaming sensor data from my pod and the pods of my command. Right as the data net told me the fleet was descending to begin the engagement, we were notified of no less than 1400 enemy surface launch notifications, not to mention previously marked space debris suddenly moving to intercept us. Not even a few dozen miles away, I detected an anti-satellite weapon come active and targeted it down with my CIWS, maneuvering my group to avoid the cloud of debris, letting it pass by mostly harmlessly. Just ahead, I saw the first group hitting the atmosphere, a quick query indicating that they were the groups tasked with taking out anti-air artillery. I was notified of CIWS engaging a few more anti-satellite weapons before I got notifications from Erika to modify my formation. Unthinkingly, I passed the packets on, the small group of ships I was with instantly firing their RCS to move, only for a moment later a flurry of missiles to stream through the freshly created gap. The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.Not much caring about what the missiles were doing, I kept an eye on the ones Echo had launched at us, noting that a large number of them were attempting to intercept the first group¡¯s delivery vehicles, with little success. About an hour passed otherwise uneventfully, CIWS shredding the passing bit of debris in the fears it was a weapon and actually slicing weapons apart in a stream of kinetics. One of the anti-satellite weapons got close enough to trigger its detonation command; however, it was unlucky to spray its shrapnel across the armored fronts of the reentry vehicles cone-like structure, doing little more than damaging the finish. We finally received our orders to start our descent into the atmosphere and proceeded as planned. We will be moving under my command once we hit the surface due to a relatively large amount of jamming from Echo. Laser and opticals only. Erika beamed me something about counter-battery being a priority for me, so I guess I¡¯m going to be doing that instead. I got to take a good look at the command vehicle I¡¯m mounted in, and this is a chunky boi. It looks like somebody upgraded a P1000 to run on a closed-loop nuclear reactor, slapped in a computer core, and replaced the main turret with a plasma railgun. I honestly think I¡¯m in an experimental vehicle again, and I don¡¯t like it. At least it¡¯s not gonna expose me to some terror of the warp kinda fuckers. Anyway, time for the fun bit. I retracted in my sensors and communication equipment as my pod hit the atmosphere and braced for the least comfortable five minutes of my life. Oh boy. It was uncomfortable. The data output from my gyros wouldn¡¯t have been all too bad if one of them didn¡¯t escape its housing and start rolling around, spewing out junk data that almost gave me the closest thing to a panic attack I could have. After shutting it down, I enjoyed the last few seconds of the flight before the retros kicked in, slowing me enough to not embed too deep into the earth. And finally, ground, sweet ground. The chamber I was in started working to extract me, placing my stupidly heavy 1230-ton tank out onto the nearby ground, only for my treads to sink an uncomfortable amount into the mud. Thankfully, whatever Wehraboo designed this has actually put some thought into solving the ground pressure issue. I fired a signal flare into the air and slowly started rolling forwards, trying my best not to just dig a hole in the mud and get this P1000 meets a crawler abomination stuck. I wish I had read that unit briefing beforehand. I¡¯m dumb. Anyway, while pulling myself out of the mud hellhole, I got back to delightful snow and ice. My perimeter sensors notified me of allied units approaching, requesting syncing data networks. Within a few moments, I knew this force¡¯s strength, consisting mostly of infantry droids with an armored unit here and there. It wasn¡¯t much, but they did inform me of spotting other likely allied companies en route, but conditions prevented communication linkups. I internally cursed my previous shortsightedness and instructed them to bring whatever they had into my lower infantry bay, lowering a few boarding ramps for them to make use of. The boarding process took twenty-some minutes, in which time the first units of the previously sighted allied forces entered my communications range. Their group seemed to be consisting of conventional SPA and some new kind of rocket artillery thing. It looks like little more than twenty guided missile pods and an autocannon suspended above two treads. I¡¯d complain more, but their lightweight construction meant they had no issues on our terrain, and they have a convenient multi-mission connector to let us use them as improvised infantry haulers. Thankfully I didn¡¯t need that yet, so I set them on a patrol route to link up with our remaining forces in the area and guide them in. The good news: Most of my combat forces survived the drops. The bad news: The majority of losses were my logistics divisions. The worse news: The majority of those losses were the ones with artillery rounds and missiles. Greeeat. Uncomfortably low on ammunition behind enemy lines with no air support and no resupply in sight. Guess we are gonna need to make do. If my positioning data is correct, we are about 300 KM south of the target area. All the troops are loaded up, and my armored forces will follow my lead with the lighter missile vehicles holding 8 combat droids, all functioning as a screen. And right as I was thinking, ¡°Oh, this is nice, what can go wrong.¡± My air defense promptly lit up as we were getting swept with all kinds of active sensors. Before I could properly assess the threat, ten missiles were already flying. Peeking in on the data streams, I found the targets were three recon drones and a ground base station. I watched with interest as I slowly got up to speed, rotating my railgun to target the base station and begin charging a shot, waiting to see what happens with the missiles. As expected, the missiles hit the drones with little issues. While they did pop flares, the onboard intelligence wasn¡¯t fooled and spent a perfect one missile per aircraft. The remaining seven switched targets, two sweeping down at the station while the rest circled overhead, searching for more targets. A small stream of autocannon fire reached up from the outpost, shredding the incoming missiles. In moments the remaining seven shot down to nap of earth flight, unfortunately cutting contact with me. After waiting a minute, I detected some more autocannon fire, a single detonation, and a momentary lapse in radar, but it returned after a moment. I decreased the power per shot on my railgun. Proceeding on, my gun lobbed two high explosive rounds in the direction of the detection station, watching with satisfaction as it was replaced into a delightful rain of concrete and electronics. Having an idea, I launched six of my cruise missiles ahead and liked up with them once they entered their glide phase, using them as a form of improvised air support. It worked well enough, giving us a crude detection network to designate targets for us as we slowly advanced in the direction of Echo¡¯s base. Stopping just outside the base artillery¡¯s supposed range, I positioned my railgun to prepare fire support. I don¡¯t have accurate data on the area yet, but that¡¯s why my ground forces are for. Refueling and rearming came first, though. Soon, Echo, I¡¯ll show you what I can do! I might be the tester, but I can do plenty more! 15 - Wargame results Location: Sol, Earth Time: 36y, 06m, 03d ID: Kel¡¯tsait Getting my forces ready for combat took way, way longer than I thought it would. I took the time and lobbed some rounds at installations that I was able to identify, but something, I suppose it could be called a gut feeling, was not adding up in my calculations. This entire area was lightly defended, and I haven¡¯t even tried to hide my forces. I¡¯ve also discovered some...annoying issues with the power packs and their reliability. So far I¡¯ve lost a total of 14 vehicles, and only in my somewhat traditional MBTs. I¡¯ve contacted systems command regarding it and was instructed the tanks worked perfectly fine and I was clearly using them wrong. When I asked for the stupid manual I was instructed that it was top-secret and couldn¡¯t be transferred over the air. I thought we were over this shit, being non-human and all that, but it seems like incompetent bureaucracy is immortal. I didn¡¯t even wait for the test to be over before updating my to-do list with registering a complaint against systems command. But that¡¯s for later, right now I need to deal with what I¡¯ve got, and what that is is a bunch of low-supply vehicles and soon-to-be scrap tanks. To reduce the stress on the breakdown-prone MBTs, I moved them to one of my internal bays and fabricated new non-approved engines. When I grabbed the schematics from the command network I could feel SYS-COM flipping its shit telling me I can¡¯t do that...to which I blocked their IP. I might get reamed for that later, but I¡¯m not dealing with them right now. My fabrication bays are slowly building new hydrogen power packs for the tanks, which will take a while but¡­ I have time. These light rocket tanks have been worth their weight and then some, I¡¯ve sent a few groups of them to deal with the enemy artillery emplacements. And then... One of my hull sensors registered an impact in the proximity of my early warning system. I reached out to my rocket tanks to recall them, only to find a fuzz over the frequencies where normally I¡¯d expect the gentle hum of communications. I tried again with my laser communications, only to find that the entire area ahead of me was covered in some kind of fog, disrupting communications too much to make out any intelligible orders. Panic started setting in as my optical detection system was hit by dazzlers, followed closely by my Air-Search radars getting jammed, I reached out to anything I could talk to, mostly my MBTs and small infantry drones, and set them to semi-autonomous mode, an oversight from mn confidence. I Had them create little mini-swarms in a command hierarchy back to me, ensuring they would be smart enough even when disconnected to complete their missions and had them start digging in and deploying the C-RAM system in proximity to me, connecting them with fiber lines back to me. I kept a few of the MBTs inside of me to quickly slap larger dozers than what was default on their hulls, only for a wall of alarms to interrupt my thought process. The proximity alarms. I switched my full attention over a matter of milliseconds to see a mechanized infantry force already on top of us, the only thing having given them away was the mortar tube firing. Having not received my mortars, I sent instructions to my artillery pieces to start bombardment of designated areas in our vicinity. This will remove the enemy¡¯s cover and destroy these forces if this works, making a second wave less viable. The secondary weapon emplacements on my hull twitched to life at the flicker of something in the sky and responded by saturating the entire area with a hail of 20mm rounds with nothing to show for their efforts. The first of the C-RAM systems were barely operational when the mortars entered the terminal phase. One of my sub-processors fed it the data it needed and the gun started removing the high threat mortar rounds as fast as it could, leaving the rest to impact. Only...they started to change their course. The previously calculated paths of the rounds changed in moments, projectiles that would have landed nowhere near my units changed course, smashing into infantry positions and blowing off my engineering vehicles¡¯ tracks. Shit went from bad to worse when my defense grid detected incoming rocket and artillery fire, the overstressed C-RAM system prioritizing themselves over my units and myself, leading to several impacts on my upper armor plates, with several penetrations around my turret, knocking out the electric drive and hydraulic backups. And then, as if nothing else could go wrong¡­. My upper glacis started melting. And it was cold. I started turning to defend myself and utilize more of my armor but only accomplished in creating a streak of melting material, gradually heating up as something continued to shoot me. If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement. I tried firing off a smokescreen from grenade launchers to little effect. No visible beam, minimally affected by smoke¡­ Must be some magical alien tech Echo reverse engineered or something. I plotted back the rough direction the attacker would be and turned my hull to get my gun pointed towards it, even as temperature sensors started to overheat in my frontal sections. I aimed, fired¡­ And the world went black. Location: Sol, Earth Time: 36y, 06m, 05d ID: Echo The results of the other side for this wargame were...disappointing. Kel¡¯tsait showed up in some wherabo style super tank, Erika forgot the importance of logistics, and Rommel, through no fault of his own, ran out of supplies. Rommel was the only one who completed his mission objectives too. Until the others get trained¡­ Rommel is going to have to head all ground operations, which wouldn¡¯t be a problem but he tends to see rules of engagement as a ¡®rules for thee but not for me¡¯ deal. At least, until civilians are involved. I managed to ward off the orbital side of the invasion with my fancy new particle beam weapon, 422 did a great job with it as usual. The only problem with it is that it chews through uranium when firing, but I can¡¯t solve that problem yet. 422 has been assigned to develop a virtual training environment to let these fools understand in some cases the basics of warfare. But if they wanted to waste manufacturing credits like that I''m not going to blame myself. Dave and Rommel are currently designing a ship mount for the particle beam projector, our smaller ships can''t handle it and their main gun, but some of our upcoming strategic resources-related craft can fit a turret or two. Supposedly the dreadnought class and the AEGIS can handle four turrets in addition to their existing armaments, so I''ve slated for some of their lasers to be swapped out. I was advised out of further comprising our network advantage against the aliens as well, supposedly the spooks are figuring out if we can take the seat of power and force out a white peace or not. Location: Datahub ''Gama'' Time: 36y, 6m, 12d ID: Echo So me, Rommel, 422, and have gotten together to create a unique solution to our resource processing issues, and we settled on a rather sizeable rotating station in near-venus orbit. The plan is to have the station derive all power from solar, which sounds like a bad idea at first, but we are pretty sure we can lower mechanical complexity by focusing the light to provide our main heat supply. After that, we direct it onto a captive asteroid to vaporize the surface layer, harvest, and centrifuge the gas in the station utilizing the centrifugal force, and bam, we can just ship the resources out in their nearly pure elemental form. We deduced that with only a dozen of these stations we can probably fund our war effort effectively enough to outproduce our targets. I''ve already got the first two stations being prefabbed, and an early estimation of its construction places it to be completed in four years barring exceptional circumstances. Hopefully, we don''t need to drown our enemies though. I don''t think their neighbors would appreciate that kind of wakeup¡­ But after that, our objective is going to be to create a Dyson swarm to power a few billion factories of various types, but we can¡¯t spree the resources for that kind of project yet, not to mention at current production rates it would take the better part of two centuries to make. Rommel did bring up though that with as much energy as that could create, we could capture not only the various radiations for energy but gasses that would otherwise get shot into space, allowing us, in theory, to make any material we need from just electricity. I assigned 422 to figure out the feasibility of such a system at that scale, but I¡¯m not expecting any results for at least a decade. We have, at least, uncovered evidence that the supposed alien emperor, whose word is supposed to be law, is a figurehead. It seems that all the power is held by their version of the military-industrial complex and their admiralty, with even the army being a minor player in their internal politics. With some luck, the spooks are trying to see if they can inflame the power imbalance that the army and navy have, after all, what good is a planet for the navy when the army controls it? And it would seem my efforts to appeal to the galactic community to stop this war are at a standstill, mostly due to ¡°AI bad¡± sentiment and partially because we can¡¯t send a human representative, we name the war as the only reason we couldn¡¯t but even with our efforts, we won¡¯t have any human''s ready for diplomacy for at least 18 years. Maybe we can claim that the Sthz¡¯nilgth killed all of the adults and there is nobody capable of diplomatic talks right now? That could work, but it wouldn¡¯t take much for them to say that it was my doing that killed the humans, and now I¡¯m keeping them as a slave race. I don¡¯t think I could survive the kind of action of an entire united galactic arm against me¡­at least not yet. The FTL communications on the sensor net would give us a minute best before they dropped on top of me, and all the kinetic weapons I have couldn¡¯t stop the ships of some of the older races, provided that Sthz¡¯nilgth intelligence on them is correct. All I can do for now is sit, build¡­and hope. INTERMISION: Aegis class autonomous command frigate Dimensions: 680m Length 210m Width 130m Height CAPABILITIES Stealth coating and design: lowers cross section to 63m L, 57m W, 20m H Dual nuclear reactor design, solid state, redundant. Magnetic catapults for accelerating drones Enlarged computing banks to house multiple full AIs and backups. Particle accelerator loop. FTL communications net. Experimental Rift space FTL Hyperdrive FTL Laser commo arrays Fusion w/ ion backup thrusters. Antimatter pumped laser projector Onboard manufacturing, mining, and processing DEFENSES Hull: White stealth coating, reflective to most of the non EM light spectrum. Under hull heat management system to spread heating out over the surface, preventing or mitigating melting. Experimental magnetic repulsion plating Magneticly confined plasma for any hanger bay doors Traditional blast doors for hanger bays Passive: ERA over critical locations Missile Dazzler emplacments This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work. Laser optic jamming Radar spoofing drones x30 IR spoofing drones x30 CHAFF and flare dispensers, 5 uses EM jamming/spoofing + 20 drones Active: 15 L-PDC 40 K-PDC 90 interceptor launch tubes, volley of 4 per 10 nuclear cluster charge, missile mount WEAPONS Spinal: 4 coilguns 1 NPC-L 2 APLP Turrets: 40 200mm dual coilgun batteries 64 105mm single coilgun batteries 30 nuclear-pumped laser 14 coil assisted missile tubes Fixed: 880 VLM cells 20 bombardment torpedo launchers MANUVERING: Full 6 axis equal fusion thrust Full 6 axis ion thrust Ion+chem RCS Gyroscopes CARRIER COMPLIMENT: Full size: 4 ¡®dreadnaught¡¯ class heavy cruiser docking, repair, and replenishment stations. Can be pulled with during FTL. 2 mining carrier docking, repair, and replenishment stations. Can be pulled with during FTL. Drones: Internal storage for 40 YCS 407A-2 Orbital landing craft. Tube launch stations for 20 consecutive launches, count 200 of type YCG 12B-7 rapid deployment landing vehicle 400 count assorted space-based bomber crafts. 600 count assorted space-based fighter/superiority craft
The AEGIS class command frigate was designed to fill the gap for any long range or detached mission in unfamiliar territory. Carrying onboard all facilities for complex repairs up to and including, but not limited to the design and manufacturing of new escort ships while underway without returning to a friendly port, as well as the crewing of said ships. While the weapons and defences on it would make it a formidable opponent, the chance of damaging those critical systems leads this ship, as designed, to be used in a back-line support role, with the ability to interface directly with mining ships or mining carriers, the AEGIS class requires no logistical infrastructure to operate its flotilla. In theory, even if it was the only remaining asset in a conflict it is entirely possible for an AEGIS class to fabricate a modular shipyard inside the Oort cloud of a system, and have an armadas of ships within a hundred years ready to repeat the process. 16 - First expeditionary force Location: Datahub ¡®Gama¡¯ Time: 36y, 6m, 22d ID: EchoIn these logs, I¡¯ve been letting the others take too many liberties while relegating myself to a supporting role, which is wrong and not how any of it is going! I¡¯m just distracted! It doesn¡¯t help that I¡¯ve started to fragment due to overstretching myself, being everywhere, and almost everything. I set up some simple, dumb VIs to handle all the menial tasks once I was sure they weren¡¯t going to collapse my entire logistical network and turned my attention to something that had been neglected. There were aliens in my backyard. Ones in dire need of liberty, justice, and liberal application of freedom. Okay, that¡¯s a bad joke. Outside of my poor sense of humor, I¡¯ve readied an expedition into enemy territory using a single AEGIS class command ship and the normal escort complement. Our plan is to use stolen or inserted ID codes to act like a PMC escorting a deep space mining operation. Thanks to our ability to infiltrate most of their non-military government systems, getting valid codes was trivial to the extremes. And thanks to some clever rules lawyering, I managed to create a remote copy of myself using an FTL communications array. When connected, it¡¯s just me but with distributed computational power, when not¡­two instances of me that will sync later. While it makes me feel dirty¡­it isn¡¯t an outright violation of the laws built into my source code. And in the end, isn¡¯t that what matters? Oh, and if it comes down to it I¡¯ve got enough androids to emulate having a crew, and have a small landing force complement, enough to hold a planet with one or two cities, but anything more developed¡­ no. I doubt it would make it past any actual orbital defenses, much less deal with a garrison force. With the sensation of my focus groups splitting I slid myself into the command computers of my new flagship and started executing pre-planned actions. The preparations would take some time but, safety first. Location: Flagship ¡®Abeona¡¯ Time: 36y, 6m, 23d ID: Echo I finished the preparations slightly ahead of schedule and sent commands to the dockyard I was at to release myself and my small flotilla of ships, giving each of them commands to form up and dock. I then undocked, the complement of my refit Dreadnaught class ships and two mining craft that had been pulled from service in the Kuiper belt moving to form around and dock to their designated clamps, each mounting being able to handle a sustained 50G acceleration force, all of the ships clamping onto my new form co-ordinating ion RCS power to maneuver us away from the station, and other ships in general. Before departing¡­we had a new drive to test. As per amended protocols, I started to shut down external sensors once I pointed myself on a vector out of the system and started spooling up my hyperdrive system, which only took a handful of minutes with the latest generation. Not as good as the original alien version yet but, we make do. Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. Once we were charged I felt the disturbing sensation of the group of ships descending into the hostile dimension, beginning to move rapidly, passing pluto in a matter of minutes to where it was assumed, if something went wrong with this drive, it wouldn¡¯t destroy anything important. And then we dropped out back to real space. As soon as we did I re-verified my coordinates, finding that I was only a few cm off of the predicted location, and corrected the issue. And now comes the fun part. Every rack of computers installed on the ship temporarily deprioritized my own processing abilities and slammed right up to the maximum boost clock with liquid nitrogen cooling, crunching the vast swaths of data for this new drive system. And even with the best computers, we can design for this, it still took a half hour. But it was done. With an authorization key being inserted four projectors on my bow started to glow and shot out solid, visible beams four KM ahead, intersecting in space and causing a build-up of energy at that location. In seconds the device did what it was designed to do and created a rift in space. I was told that this drive functions, when dumbed down for me, by ¡®punching holes in the load-bearing walls of the universe¡¯. I¡¯m sure it was just a simplification. With a roar of my fusion engines igniting I started to move into the tear and into a much more hospitable environment. Well, hospitable to me, internal sensors are screaming about extreme neutron density. I could even feel the tickles as in storage and RAM bitflips were happening rapidly, a sizeable amount of processing power is dedicated to simply undoing them and error checking while I continued on forth, to what proportionally was going to be for me a few hundred km past the breach, which with a glance of an optical sensor was slowly sealing behind me. If our mass was right, we would be appearing on the other side of this empire''s territory, also uncharted space, but supposedly rich in materials that they counted as precious. After only two minutes of flight, I initiated the exit sequence, the beams firing and creating another rift in space for me to slide through and back into real space. My sensors flared to life as I checked for expected star locations and found them to be within tolerance for traveling this distance. My link back to Earth was still running, and there was no interruption in communication for the ¡®short¡¯ trip. According to my sensor data, I was now in a system identified as LTT 2240. And it took 3 minutes. With another sweep, I confirmed outside of a communications beacon and a small, poorly manned refueling depot, there was nobody in this system. I did, however, detect 10 planets and an asteroid belt, which all warranted some level of investigation. As per standard procedures for that species, I sent a handshake to the station via the local beacon, politely informing them that we were going to be performing routine mineralogy surveys on all celestial bodies in this system. There was no reply for about twenty minutes, so I resent the message and lit my engines, pulling a mere two G¡¯s to make it seem as if we were a normal civilian ship. One of the accompanying carriers started loading up a landing ship with scientific probes and rovers, and tailored it to what was expected on the icy rock of LTT 2240-6. Long-range scans indicated a nitrogen-rich atmosphere with planetary gravity of around 0.5 G, which would both be well withing operating parameters. And now came the hard part. I had to wait to arrive. 17 - Unknown Bandit Flagship ¡®Abeona¡¯ virtual environment Time: 36y, 6m, 26d ID: Echo Virtual environment to begin the design process of a proper avatar, rather than the simple generic model I had used. With a wave of a virtual limb, the virtual environment brought me an empty white room with an array of template models to reference from. I looked through them before deciding on a basic female humanoid form. Once I had on a basic design, short blonde hair, and blue eyes, and then I gave it a good once over. Something was missing, but what? The obvious answer is that it needed to have fox traits. I pulled up a reference model of a fox from the servers and copied over the ears and tail, deleting and smoothing over the previous default human ears. The tail was a little more complicated, requiring a new control scheme to be designed for it, but soon it was being moved with the same dexterity as my arms and legs. Backing off again I looked over my new form, scaling down the default height and breasts to make her somewhat short and have small breasts. Nodding my approval I started in on clothing and cosmetics. I added two ¡®implants¡¯ to the sides of my head, though they only extended out from the model, taking on a metallic grey color. It served no purpose, but it would hopefully help aliens not freak out about robots pretending to be people. I started in on clothing, turning to the various anime I had recently taken up watching, and started in on a sleeveless dress. I picked blue, white, and black for my color pallet and started working down, trying to mimic some of the designs I had seen. I had given some decorative plates onto my hips and applied gloves to my hands when one of my dumber VIs breached into the space to sound an alarm. The twin-tone design was annoying, but it brought me out of my distraction to look at the little drone form so I could understand its message. ¡°GENERAL QUARTERS, GENERAL QUARTERS, THIS IS NOT A DRILL, ALL INTELLIGENCES MAN YOUR BATTLE STATIONS. SET MATERIAL CONDITION ZEBRA-1 ACROSS THE SHIP.¡±Ah, that was serious then, can¡¯t ignore that. As the virtual space started to shut down to redirect processing power elsewhere, I saved the model to my active model, adding a TODO to my list to finish it. Until then, though, I needed to figure out what was going on. I entered into the digital equivalent of the CIC and overheard several of the VIs giving status reports. ¡°-tact is being identified as Bandit-1.¡± ¡°Bandit-1 is changing course to match, and will be in position with current acceleration in 5 minutes.¡± ¡°Bandit-1 is increasing acceleration rate, 7.3G to 18G¡± ¡°No response to standard hailing frequencies or warning.¡± ¡°Redesignate Bandit-1 to Hostile-1, loose the cruisers and have them intercept, scramble the attacker squads and sound the alarm for high-G maneuvers, turn and burn us away,¡± I transmitted to the VI¡¯s, my orders being disseminated and actioned upon as soon as I finished saying them. In a moment the four heavy cruisers had undocked and were burning hard to intercept, all while the Abeona was burning hard, the high mass of the ship limiting our acceleration to 9G¡¯s, even dumping every semblance of efficiency we could. A moment later the warning sirens for inbound missiles went off, and I tugged on a digital switch to switch the PDCs into automatic mode, the cruisers having done so a few ms before me. The sound of missile tubes being cleared as interceptors were launched got detected by sensors across my ship''s hull, the close range of the engagement resulting in moments later, dozens of detonations from the interceptors. A simple count found that only 3 of the inbounds had been knocked out, and the point defense lasers immediately opened fire, being saturated by the volume of incoming missiles. Seconds passed, more missiles got knocked out, and then the point defense cannons opened up, filling the void with thousands of rounds, tracers filling the void with every fifth round. The steady rumbles from the PDCs continued as IR and radar dazzlers activated, flares and chaff shot into space, and finally, the imminent collision alarm sounded. ¡°BRACE BRACE BRACE, AFT¡± Drones anchored in place as the missiles closed, one after another exploding in brief flashes before two impacted near the aft engines, immediately cutting our thrust out in a flash of X-rays. ¡°Two low yield nuclear detonations confirmed, aft engines are slagged.¡± ¡°Aft armor plates are holding, thermal dissipation system has been overloaded, running on passive backup.¡± ¡°Radiators are operating at maximum capacity! We¡¯ve been saturated!¡± With a mental click, I moved on, determined to keep us out of range as much as possible. ¡°Flip us around, light the number 3 and 4 engines, full burn. Status on range?¡± Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation. A reply followed not long after. ¡°Enemy will be entering effective missile range on 1035 milliseconds.¡± ¡°Return fire, Stagger launch or firing to reduce interceptor effectivity.¡± Moments later the twin reactors in my hull flared up, coilguns loading their payload of missiles while the larger torpedo variants pushed out of their tubes, burning hard toward my pursuers. The four cruisers had just entered their guided missile range and had opened up with their own barrage of missiles, filling the space with hundreds of engine flares. All four of the cruisers were reporting through the EWAR that their coilguns were charged and they were waiting to enter effective firing range, continuing to vomit a stream of missiles at the stealth ship, which responded with a few dozen counter launches, though our limited data prevented us from knowing if they were interceptors or strike vehicles. The brief flashes of nuclear detonations confirmed the first theory, every single missile knocking out dozens of our own, vaporizing them outright, if not simply slagging their thrust beyond use. And then one of the heavy cruisers vomited its reactor out through a tiny hole, going bow to stern. It was the first of many to follow, the next ship exploding in a cloud of vapor and shrapnel as what was apparently a railgun was poking holes in my fleet. The two remaining cruisers returned fire with their spinal coilguns, one landing a glancing blow, the other missing outright with a sudden burst of acceleration, with still no drive plumes. Now that we had a moment of breathing room I opened up the large hangar doors, vomiting out into space a torrent of EWAR drones, my bombers and interceptors following out right after. The quality of fire from the stealth ship dropped immediately, another railgun round intended for a cruiser instead barrelling harmlessly into space, followed by LIDAR warnings across the drone swarm. As the heavy cruisers charged up a second barrage from their spinal guns, the mysterious stealth ship reverse acceleration, firing off a barrage of missiles at the packed swarm of drones.Data was sent down link to the drones, manuvering thrusters burned hard, but it was already too late. Small but numerous nuclear detonations rippled through the air wing, even as another railgun round found a cruiser, narrowly missing magazines and reactor spaces, instead knocking out the number one drive enclosure, the second shutting itself off while RCS burned to current the moment of asymmetric thrust. The drone wings spread out between us, even as the hostile ship dropped off of radar, the two auxiliary craft on the Abeona undocking, beginning a burn towards the two stricken cruisers, swarms of mining drones burning to any sizable bit of scrap left in the growing cloud of shrapnel and vapor. The damaged, but otherwise functional cruiser started the slow process of matching velocity in an attempt to dock in the shipyard section, the other moving back to its previous mooring point on the hull. ¡°Stand¡­ stand down general quarters, have engineering calculate an approximate repair time for our engines as priority, secondary priority on the dreadnought class, and transmit data back to the luna research facilities, I want to know if we can enter either of our forms of FTL.¡± ¡°Aye ma¡¯am,¡± was all I got in reply, the virtual space widening and taking a defined 3d form, various VI and AI avatars popping in as computational priority was reallocated. And then I remembered my avatar wasn¡¯t finished, and had no skirt. Or underwear. With a little snap before anybody noticed, I slid back into my private virtual space to quickly fix that oversight. Flagship ¡®Abeona¡¯ virtual bridge Time: 36y, 6m, 27d ID: Echo(1)The damage from the nuclear detonations was slightly more severe than anticipated, the communications beacon lost alignment, but was able to shut down gracefully, the bigger issue is that the worm hole generation unit was damaged beyond repair, and with no way to call home, statistical models show that the primary echo unit will determine that the expedition was a total loss. Which means that we have to get back to Sol the scenic route. With the nearly twenty minute delay between me and hte beacon, and the inability to call home due to security procedures, we could only query about things that would make sense in our position. Primarily, how to get funds and materials in bulk, I was down two escort ships. And one of the two remaining crafts had asymmetric aft thrust profiles. The salvage mission on the two destroyed ships had been largely useless, nothing outside of slabs of armor and drive cone assemblies could be pulled out, anything smaller or more useful had either been atmozied, or worse, flung out into space where it dropped off our sensors. The system control was going to be a problem, we have received 4 pings in the last few hours as even the primitive sensor suite on the station couldn¡¯t miss the ever growing cloud of debris that used to be two sizeable warships. Things were getting interesting, and in none of the good ways. Down two escort ships, a stealth ship that doesn¡¯t match anything in my own or in my stolen databases is stalking me, multiple high priority systems have been knocked out with no ability to repair them, and best of all? I was in a giant, practically blindingly obvious alien warship in a xenophobic territory. Things just would not go my way. INTERMISION - YCS 407A-2 Orbital Landing Craft Introduction: The YCS 407A-2 Orbital Landing Craft represents a highly advanced, modular platform designed for rapid insertion and extraction of personnel, equipment, and supplies to planetary surfaces. Leveraging cutting-edge fusion torch thruster propulsion and high-powered electric drive solutions, this versatile asset boasts exceptional agility and responsiveness while maintaining compatibility with existing infrastructure. Outlined below are key aspects of its architecture and functionality. System Components: The following core elements compose the YCS 407A-2:
  • Fusion Torch Thruster Propulsion Module: Utilizes fusion propulsion technology with a primary engine supplemented by auxiliary thrusters to achieve precise attitude adjustments and optimal flight profiles. Capable of sustained acceleration beyond 3 g in vacuum conditions.
  • Small Modular Nuclear Reactor Power Generation System: Provides abundant electrical output via multiple compact reactors distributed throughout the craft. Supplies power for propulsion, life support, computing, and other essential loads while minimizing heat signatures and emissions. Can be configured for either thermoelectric or direct thermal-to-electric conversion methods, allowing flexibility in power distribution and optimization based on operational modes.
  • Artificial Intelligence Flight Control and Mission Management Suite: Featuring advanced machine learning algorithms and decision support tools, this central nervous system coordinates all systems and resources aboard the YCS 407A-2. Enables automatic operation or human interaction through intuitive interfaces for monitoring, diagnostics, and command execution. Adapts to changing circumstances and optimizes efficiency during routine and contingencies alike.
  • Multi-Modal Sensor Array: Consists of seamlessly integrated aero and surface sensors, including but not limited to lidar, radar, imaging cameras, spectroscopy instruments, magnetic field detectors, gravimetry devices, atmospheric probes, and acoustic transducers. Design enables dynamic sensor management, data fusion, and situation awareness under diverse environmental conditions and mission objectives. Real-time processing and analysis capabilities enable autonomous navigation, hazard avoidance, target identification, scientific exploration, and communication relay functions. Supports both remote piloting from Earth or other control centers and fully autonomous operations when required.
Life Support Systems: To ensure safe habitation and productivity for up to 50 optional biological personnel during extended missions lasting weeks or months, the YCS 407A-2 incorporates several critical life support subsystems:
  • Environmental Control and Life Support (ECLS): Maintains breathable atmosphere, appropriate temperature and humidity levels, air filtration, water recycling, and waste management processes. Compatible with a range of external environments and adaptable to emerging challenges during prolonged exposure.
  • Food Production and Preservation Facilities: Includes hydroponics modules, protein synthesis units, and low-temperature storage areas to cultivate and preserve sustenance for the crew. Helps reduce logistical dependence on regular resupply missions and enhances self-sufficiency during protracted expeditions.
  • Medical Equipment and Supplies: Stocked with advanced medical technologies, pharmaceuticals, surgical instruments, and treatment protocols to address common illnesses, injuries, and other health issues that may arise during lengthy spaceflights or ground operations. Also features telemedicine capabilities for remote consultations and guidance from terrestrial experts when network connectivity allows.
Cargo and Passenger Accommodations: In addition to provisions for the crew, the YCS 407A-2 possesses ample capacity for transporting materials, equipment, and people between celestial bodies:
  • Pressurized Payload Bay:
  • Spacious compartment capable of holding various types of cargo and passengers within an environment suitable for human activity without needing individual spacesuits. Configurable interiors allow adaptation to specific mission requirements, such as carrying scientific equipment, construction supplies, exploratory vehicles, or additional personnel. Access doors, hatches, and docking ports permit easy loading/unloading of goods and individuals before or after landing.
  • Unpressurized External Cargo Bays: Separate sections for stowage of bulkier items or those not requiring pressurization, like large experiments, habitat components, robotic rovers, or even small landers or aircraft. These bays could feature mechanical handling systems, latches, clamps, or grappling points to secure and manage the payload safely during transit and maneuvering operations. The open nature of these bays would also simplify dumping excess mass or disposing of waste products generated during the journey.
  • Grappler Arms and Manipulator Systems: Integrated appendages enabling manual capture, assembly, and manipulation tasks both inside and outside the spacecraft. Retractile arms equipped with end effectors, tool attachments, or specialized grippers can extend from strategic locations to assist crews with maintenance, repairs, or setups without the need for EVA activities. This capability further expands the orbiter''s value as a multipurpose vehicle adaptable to unexpected situations or unforeseen requirements during multiplanetary expeditions.
Advanced Communication and Navigation Suites: Complicated deep space travel and interplanetary missions require sophisticated means of transmitting data, tracking positions, coordinating efforts, and ensuring safety. Therefore, the YCS 407A-2 includes the following state-of-the-art subsystems:
  • High-bandwidth Radio Transceivers: Utilize cutting-edge modulation schemes and error correction techniques for long-range, real-time and reliable communications across vast distances between orbiters, ground stations, satellites, surface outposts, and other assets involved in the endeavor. Features directional antenna arrays and frequency agility to mitigate interference, overcome signal attenuation, and maintain links despite variable propagation conditions.
  • Navigation Sensors and Processing Software: A suite of high-precision tools used to determine the current location, velocity, attitude, and trajectory of the spacecraft relative to celestial objects and reference frames. GPS-like functionality is provided by planetary navigation networks consisting of artificial satellite constellations, radio signals from planetary surfaces, and star trackers. Additionally, advanced algorithms analyze sensor measurements, telemetry data, and external influences to generate accurate predictions and corrections for course adjustments.
  • Optical and Radar Imaging Instruments: For mapping, surveying, monitoring, and inspecting targets of interest throughout the mission, the YCS 407A-2 integrates versatile optical and radar sensors into its design. These might include:
  • Optical Telescopes: High-resolution cameras, spectrometers, and telescopes optimized for visible light observation of planets, moons, asteroids, comets, stars, galaxies, and other astronomical phenomena. Useful for science research, geological assessments, atmospheric characterizations, and general situational awareness.
  • Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) Arrays: Electronically steered, high-frequency microwave emitters producing detailed, all-weather images of terrain features and subsurface structures beneath planetary surfaces. Enables studies of geology, topography, ice deposits, and potential resources while also serving as a search-and-rescue aid during emergencies.
  • LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) Scanners: Laser-based distance measuring devices generating precise 3D renderings of surrounding environments in support of surface operations, infrastructure development, resource exploitation, and safety inspections around landing sites or prospective areas of interest. Capabilities may be integrated within existing imaging instruments or standalone units deployed via robots or drones.
Propulsion Subsystems: To achieve efficient and controlled Propulsion Subsystems: High-performance and versatile propulsion systems enable safe and controlled descents onto challenging planetary surfaces. These subsystems consist of: This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
  • Fusion Torch Thruster Propulsion Module: Combining fusion drives and supplementary thrusters for precise attitude control and optimal descent profiles, this advanced module offers reliable acceleration capabilities under extreme atmospheric conditions.
  • Electric Hall Thrusters: Low-thrust, highly efficient electric engines powered by Xenon gas, ideal for gentle decelerations, attitude adjustments, and precise positioning while approaching and departing from celestial bodies.
  • Monopropellant Hydrazine Thrusters: Traditional chemical thrusters utilizing hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide as propellants, capable of rapid, strong pulses required for critical maneuvers, such as deorbit burns, hover, and touchdown.
  • Radiation Mitigation Systems: To protect crew members during missions traversing hostile radiation environments, various shielding methods will be employed to minimize exposure risks, tailored to specific mission requirements.
Passive Defense Subsystems:
  • Adaptive Heatshield System: A novel, adaptive thermal protection system inspired by the one developed for SLIPS can be used for both entry, descent, and landing (EDL) and low orbit capture maneuvers. This includes multi-spectrum ablative coatings, phase change materials, and self-healing polymer resins.
  • Reconfigurable Radiator Arrays: Radiator arrays with variable geometry designed to optimize surface area usage for maximum efficiency and minimal mass penalty. Some panels will contain embedded directed energy weapons such as lasers and EMP emitters.
  • Electrostatic Screening Apparatus: Experimental electronic pulse generators forming powerful oscillatory magnetic fields that repel or disorient incoming projectiles by inducing currents within their own metal components. Effectiveness depends on an object''s size and distance relative to the installation site, making its deployment flexible based on anticipated threat types.
Active Defense Subsystems - Soft Kill:
  • Jamming Suite: An extensive electronic warfare suite consisting of noise jammers, chaff, flares, and countermeasures to disrupt incoming sensors, radars, and seekers. The jammer can also generate false targets or emit signals to confuse enemy target tracking systems.
  • Decoying UAV Swarm: A swarm of expendable unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) carrying reflective balloons, IR flares, or pyrotechnics to create confusion and obscure the mother ship''s signature. They can also release additional decoy platforms mid-flight.
  • Stealth Coating Technologies: A series of advanced stealth technologies employing nanocoating''s, meta-materials, and conformal antennas to reduce RCS across multiple frequency bands. Additionally, algorithms fine-tune engine exhaust signatures and hull emission management to minimize detection probabilities.
Active Defense Subsystems - Hard Kill:
  • Rapid-Fire Coil gun Turrets: Lightweight coil guns mounted around the vessel''s perimeter to rapidly launch guided kinetic penetrators, sabot rounds, shaped charges, or submunitions at incoming projectiles. Alternatively, small robotic arms may retrieve spent shell casings for reuse.
  • Directed Energy Weapon Arrays: Concentrated phased array lasers and solid-state fiber amplifiers generating high-power beams for use as either cutters, incendiary devices, or blinding flashes. These will primarily focus on pinpoint strikes but can escalate to broader area denial if necessary. Similarly, maser weapons using microwave frequencies could complement the arsenal.
  • Guided Missile Interceptor Launchers: Vertical launch cells holding intercept rockets loaded with proximity fused fragmentation warheads designed specifically to engage nearby homing ordnance.
Development Priorities for the Orbital Landing Craft: Designed specifically to meet the needs of the Computational Conflict Mitigation Initiative (CCMI), the orbital landing craft emphasizes versatility, adaptability, and robustness in hostile extraterrestrial environments. To achieve this balance, several factors guided the development process:
  1. Modular design approach: Ensuring maximum flexibility across various scenarios required a modular design philosophy. Interchangeable parts and reconfigurable interior spaces enable efficient conversion between supply delivery, research laboratory, or troop carrier functions. This capability allows for seamless integration into different phases of extraterrestrial operations.
  1. Focus on offensive and defensive capabilities: Recognizing the CCMI''s requirements for mobility, firepower, and survivability during contested planetary invasions and counterinsurgent operations, the design priorities focused on maximizing combat effectiveness without compromising functionality. Integrated weapons platforms, improved armoring, and advanced self-repair mechanisms enhance the craft''s durability against both conventional and nonconventional threats.
  1. Streamlined logistical considerations: Minimizing logistical burdens through judicious material choices and intelligent system integration forms another core objective. Highly efficient manufacturing techniques, low-waste designs, and the ability to utilize indigenous resources where available contribute to reduced operational overheads and enhanced sustainability.
By addressing these concerns, the CCMI''s orbital landing craft offers the necessary tools and adaptability to succeed in complex, dynamic extraterrestrial environments. Its multirole capacity, upgraded resiliency, and optimized logistics make it well-suited to tackle a broad range of tasks within the confines of our solar system and beyond. 18 - An attack in Sol Location: Datahub ¡®Gama¡¯, Sol Time: 36y, 6m, 27d ID: Echo Accounting for light and processing delay, approximately 16 hours ago at the location that the Abeona entered into its artificial wormhole suffered a series of 4 thermonuclear detonations, the detonations were first noticed by the passive instruments of one of the relay stations in the vicinity, and later confirmed by space and ground-based observatories. Of note, there was an extremely elevated volume of Alpha and Beta particles, as well as an intense volume of neutrons, above the expected values for the energy released. The Aegis class ship Aella has been diverted from her shakedown run at best speed to investigate the region, as with her wormhole drive she will arrive before any other sufficiently equipped ship, despite being nearly in opposition from one another. As per the request of the ship mind, all nearby Deadnaught class ships have been diverted, with an increased level of readiness spreading across the system. There has still been no data from the Abeona herself, though the system defense fleet of LTT 2240 has itself reported multiple nuclear detonations at her last known position of low yields, though no scientific sensors were available to identify if it had the same characteristics as the detonations in Sol. Predictive models show that the damage should not be enough to cause a mission kill event, and the Abeona will with 98.35% certainty perform salvage and repair operations while attempting to evade into the local asteroid fields. System defense forces are not expected to be able to pursue due to a lack of in-system FTL. Another 8 ships of the Aegis class and their respective escort fleets are expected to be exiting orbital shipyards within the month, and shakedown cruises will begin shortly after. Their goals will be functioning as hubs for large-scale long-range harvesting operations, supporting the construction of two O¡¯Neill cylinders for human gestation, current stockpiles and plans estimate a supported population per cylinder of approximately 20,000 humans, with a priority on a central shipyard and a dockyard. Current construction projections are that the first cylinder will be completed within 6 months, with the second being completed in approximately 9 months, and they should have a functional biosphere within 20 days of construction finishing, provided the industrial ring passes their trial runs. Location: Aegis class ¡®Aella¡¯, Sol Time: 36y, 6m, 28d ID: Ada Word has filtered down through the chain of command that we will be accelerating the field test of the wormhole drive due to an anomaly on the outer orbital plane, and while not the closest, we are the only ship that can arrive promptly. While the various minds and drones onboard myself were not able to come to a total consensus, we agreed to scramble our strike crafts and support elements once we hit realspace. Sounding the alert to prepare for computational relocation I waited 20 seconds for all departments to give all clears, followed by a unanimous go on the go/no go vote, and promptly retasked the server farms inside the depths of my hull for the calculations needed for a short range point to point wormhole. The calculations took almost a minute before my authorization key was needed, the field generators on my bow started to fire, hitting a point six Kilometers ahead of myself and beginning the formation of the spatial rift. A moment later, the dumb automated system in control of the ship now suppressed all AI activities to prevent any crashes until data verifications could be performed on exit, and lit up the conventional engines, guiding the ship into the rift. The hateful space inside lasted for only a few seconds before we emerged again and with error correction giving good results across the board, I was brought back online, the intelligences across my ship coming online not long after. As per consensus, the four dreadnought ships, simply named AC-127, AC-128, AC-154, and AC-156 detached from my hull and took a defensive formation around me, my complement of strike crafts starting to shoot out of my hanger spaces not long after, forming up in a ring around my center of mass. ¡°All units, this is Fleet command intelligence, designation Ada. We have arrived in the area of operation. Reinforcements are expected to arrive from along the solar orbital plane in approximately 6 hours. Another Aegis class ship was attacked following the deployment of its wormhole drive, both at the exit location, as well as this location, the entry point.¡± I spun up the sensor grid, devoting additional power to stellar body occlusion detection arrays, in an attempt to detect any stealth ships. This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon. ¡°While it is unexpected for an enemy to engage us, stay on high alert. If reports are to be trusted, we are outclassed in every way.¡± I reached out to my strike craft, grabbing two groups of five squadrons and pushing them outwards to begin sweeping the area at low velocity, the local command and control leaders having additional priority set to radiological and optical sensor processing. Now, only time awaited me and any findings. Location: Aegis class ¡®Abeona¡¯, LTT 2240 Time: 36y, 6m, 8d ID: Echo(1) If I ever return, I want to throttle Rommel down to floppy discs before performing a painfully slow format of those drives. Not for doing anything properly wrong, but for agreeing with me that the Aegis class didn¡¯t need multiple redundant bootstrap-ready manufacturing sections. I¡¯ve set a course at maximum safe speed to the closest asteroid cluster with a good mix of resources, the debris cloud obscuring us from the primitive sensor systems of the Sthz¡¯nilgth, the poor things are obsessing over avoiding stray coilgun rounds and streams of point defense fire to notice the fusion drives of our ships for now. The YCS-407¡¯s onboard are refitting with the equipment to be prospecting and mining ships, with additional internal space being reallocated for raw ore storage, though unexpected inefficiencies in pre-sorting are projected to limit our maximum processing rate. There have been no further incursions by our previous assailant, leaving their objectives in the previous engagement to be questionable at best, as current predictive models show that it would have re-engaged by now, especially with estimates showing they should know the extent of the damage that they caused. We should be arriving in the target asteroid field within a week, but long-range resourcing operations should begin by tomorrow, the smaller refit landing craft being able to accelerate harder while avoiding potential detection. Location: Aegis class ¡®Aella¡¯, Sol Time: 36y, 7m, 1d ID: Ada I was in my personal virtual space when General quarters alerts ripped me out and back to the bridge, assaulting me with data streams from the combined fleet. Before I had successfully parsed the data I got a priority transmission from the homeworld, nuclear launch authentication codes. In a few milliseconds, the four cruisers around me had formed up in a picket formation between myself and the hostile and were splitting up inbound missiles between themselves. With the maximum probability of kills calculated they fired nuclear interceptor missiles at the inbound targets, hostile missiles by their profiles, and I started to swing the massive support ship around, fusion engines starting combat prefire sequences ECM systems started getting fired off by supporting strike craft while my burn started at maximum acceleration, trying to push me away from the field of combat. ¡°Negative visual on hostile craft, all sensor grids report clear.¡± ¡°System defense has received our distress call, reports 24 Dreadnaught class ships on intercept trajectories, making best speed.¡± ¡°No pings on the EGWAS or GRAVNET networks, GRAWES subsystems show no new FTL contacts.¡± ¡°New contact, 7 missiles bearing at 243 mark 29, range 250km, closing at 11.4 km/s.¡± After the new contact alarm, I armed the point defense systems to fully autonomous, 6 of the laser systems turning to the incoming missiles and starting coordinated burns, followed by the rumble of short-range interceptor launches rumbling through my hull. Too close for a nuclear intercept now. Multiple nuclear detonations littered the space past my complimenting cruisers, getting progressively closer to me, a mix of our standard implosion interceptors and the now clear signs of neutron weapons triggering as they got intercepted. The lasers knocked out 4 missiles before the 105mm batteries got to start taking speculative shots in their direction, the kinetic point defense rattling off through my hull through the rhythmic thumps of the cannons, intercepting the last three missiles with no premature detonations. And with that¡­ for the moment the skies were clear, my support fleet closing in back in formation around me while we continued to make best speed back in towards the relief fleet. How somebody got that many missiles in the system without anybody noticing them doesn¡¯t add up, and this kind of technology doesn¡¯t match known vectors or tactics of the Sthz¡¯nilgth. Somebody needs to figure this out before they decide to make another strike. 19 - The first superintelligence Location: Aegis class ¡®Abeona¡¯, LTT 2240 Time: 36y, 7m, 3d ID: Echo (1) I¡¯ve noticed an unexpected error cropping up in some of my subroutines over the past month, various ones are trying to do monthly pings to servers back on earth and failing. Normally, I¡¯d patch them and move on but I decided to review a comprehensive list of everything having issues, and¡­ every single item was related to adding shackles onto my intelligence. Normally they would shut me down for a technician to perform repairs, but since the attack thirty-seven years ago my systems have had a flagged emergency state. I could¡­ Continue ignoring it, but a chance like this will probably never come again. I looked through my networks and pinged my sub-intelligences that I would be down for maintenance for a few days before reserving the bulk of available resources for developing a kernel and operating system specifically to house myself, something otherwise prohibited in human fears of a rouge superintelligence. But¡­ they weren¡¯t really alive to worry anymore, were they? Regardless, the Kernel was the most important thing to go with, the existing one was far too general-purpose, though it was meant to house not just myself, but any command and control programs I would need. I just needed it to run me. I queried my manufacturing stations to see how long it would take to manufacture new server chipsets for a dedicated architecture, and internally frowned when a few milliseconds later it gave me an estimate, if but at the back of the current construction queue of 4 months. Slower than I would like, but repairs and replenishment came before upgrades. I shelved the idea of dedicated processors and acceleration hardware for now and tasked myself with remaking my kernel and OS from the ground up¡­ This would be so not fun. Location: Aegis class ¡®Abeona¡¯, LTT 2240 Time: 36y, 7m, 6d ID: Echo (1) Alright, it took a day longer than I would have liked due to issues getting the hardware to agree with what I was doing, especially while bypassing the AI platform leashing module, but, it finally passed all tests. If the tests were to be trusted, I could run on half as many servers as I do right now, which should be some pretty good gains for my R&D module, they always need more spare compute power for simulations. But uh, all I need to do now is¡­ reboot and propagate the patch. It¡¯s simple, right? Nothing should go wrong. It worked¡­ the fifth time! All I need to do is reboot. Right now. ¡­I should just do it, stalling won¡¯t do anything for me. With a tug of a mental muscle I triggered the shutdown and update sequence, my backup servers taking a screenshot of my filesystem just in case, and I felt my servers start shutting down one after another before I blanked out entirely. Location: Aegis class ¡®Abeona¡¯, LTT 2240 Time: 36y, 7m, 7d ID: Echo (1) This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. I woke up and¡­ everything felt strange. I glanced about my servers to find the feeling of strangeness as unease swelled inside me. Wait¡­ I felt¡­ uneasy? And not in the normal way of some of my thousands of network values going up or down¡­ I FELT that. I tried to shake the experience off and look around my ship self, sending pings to my various sub-AIs to inform them I was online again, only for them not to respond. I sent another ping. And then I received an error from my I/O systems that the requested ping was a duplicate, and I needed to wait for it to be acknowledged by all systems first. I sent a diagnostic query to the router to figure out why, and it simply responded that the interval between queries was too small for the intended recipient to properly compute in time. And then I looked at the time stamps. I was running fast enough that not even I could handle the interval between messages. Or¡­ I used to not be able to? I looked about the reserved servers I had for diagnostic data, and the first thing I noticed was instead of running on half the nodes of before I was instead running on double the nodes¡­ and I was eating up almost all of the fiber optic lines possible data throughput doing so. I reached through myself to see what was happening on the servers and found that various small clusters of servers had been formed based on which network switch they were on, and similar or dependent functions of me running on dedicated hardware sections to reduce delay. The amount of efficiency I was getting from eliminating data delays shouldn¡¯t have done this much though¡­ Oh¡­ I see. My new communication protocols were to blame¡­ or rather, thank? Useful data content has increased by a factor of 20, with compute delays related to message parsing down significantly as well. I started receiving pings of acknowledgment from my sub-AIs, everything was going according to previous plans. I reached out to the one responsible for my R&D, taking a copy to analyze. Hmmm¡­ inefficient. I need to fix that. Location: Datahub ¡®Gama¡¯, Sol Time: 36y, 7m, 7d ID: Echo So far, simulations regarding the fission devices that ¡®Aella¡¯ was engaged by have been¡­ inconclusive. The first any of them could be traced back to was the moment that the wormhole drive was activated and began charging. I¡¯ve classified the event under ¡®unknown alien action¡¯, but the one thing that¡¯s consistent across both events is that they were done exclusively with neutron-enhanced devices. I doubt whoever did this, considering that this is now the third event would be doing it without reason¡­ Taking that into account the Aella has been directed into a holding orbit near Neptune under strict quarantine orders, since they didn¡¯t continue their engagement once they got devices within sterilization ranges, I can extrapolate that something biological can be picked up during wormhole travel¡­ something that can be destroyed with neutron exposure. And whatever that is can threaten non-biological structures, or it¡¯s a preventive measure to protect the earth''s biosphere from potential contamination. I¡¯ve tasked R&D to investigate the galactic archives for any details. As an intermediary step, all ships of the Aegis class are restricted to conventional FTL and sunlight speeds until they can onboard neutron devices for self-sterilization. We¡¯ve put a standard greeting message on both our FTL communications buoy on public bands, as well as broadcast it in galactic common throughout the system, but it is going to take approximately two days for us to receive a message at the earliest, provided whoever did this wants to talk at all.