Log 51
While I was waiting, Ivan constructed a T3 Air Factory and started building Spy Planes from them. Rather nice of him, since neither of us had Intel on QAI -and for that matter, the Seraphim's- base, beyond the most basic 'where'.
And not even that, in the case of the Seraphim.
So, I was quite supportive of Spy Planes.
One flew off the air pad, shortly followed by another, and another, and another; all rapidly constructed with the judicious use of Hives, all immediately flying off in a different direction, one up to QAI's base, one heading towards the east, one to the west, and one down to the south. The one to the west promptly and quickly revealed nothing but water, as I had expected, though Ivan sent it off to scour the ocean more thoroughly.
The one to the east revealed equally little before it was shot down a passing Air Superiority Fighter, which left for parts unknown. Probably to the east, which had hosted the base it was guarding.
The one to the south quickly revealed Seraphim units, which caused Ivan to direct the plane deeper into the territory. It only got as far as the outskirts of the Seraphim's base before it was shot down, but that was still enough to tell me that the Seraphim was in roughly the same position as Hex5 had been in the game. It wasn't a bad position by any means, it would take quite a bit to flush the Seraphim out of the place.
The one to the north, however, very quickly revealed a portion of QAI's base, getting actual visuals of.. his... base...
That is a lot of Monkeylords. And Soul Rippers. And Fatboys. And Galactic Colossi. And Czars.
Is that an Atlantis? That's a fucking Atlantis!
Oh god, I can't actually see the ground underneath all the Experimentals!
"The Seven Hand Node was quite effective in attaining the schematics to your weapon systems." The AI taunted.
We're almost 4 days early, and he already had the other faction's weapons.
Shit.
That's going to make things a bit more complicated.
My defenses are not nearly excessive enough to deal with that. Not indefinitely, anyway. Not even for a particularly long period of time, though they would buy us more than enough time to teleport/recall out of here.
But so long as he didn't attack within the next four minutes, we'd be good. That's all the time I'd need to build a Teleporter here, and for my Orbital Fabricator to build up on the moon.
All the time I needed. I now had 64 bodies, producing appropriate amounts of Mass and Energy to fuel Ivan's continuous rush of experimentals.
On the flipside, I've basically used up all the space I had allocated for my expansion. Not for long, though.
You know, now that my Fabricator was at the moon. With all that free space, and nothing QAI had around to deal with it.
Hah.
Trump cards, love em.
Now I just had to survive long enough to use it.
Of course, the instantaneous evacuation option in the form of a receiving Teleporter came first.
And an Air Factory second.
Or I can just cut out the middle man entirely and skip straight to Construction Pods, which would afford a larger economy, and a greater build power with which to use it. Instead of a net drain, it'd be a net growth.
Because what I clearly needed was more economy.
Which was actually true- I was going to need it if I wanted to do any appreciable damage to QAI and the Seraphim. With the amount of Experimentals the former had around, and the multitude of Yolona Oss of the second, I'd be needing vast numbers.
Vast numbers that would have to come in the form of Vanguards, which would in turn mean T2 Vehicle Factories and a Unit Cannon. If I had two Commanders assist the factory, I could probably construct them as fast as I could launch them, but even that relatively quick stream could be defeated quite easily. I was going to need a lot of Unit Cannons and T2 Vehicle Factories.
And even more Commanders.
It was, however, a ratio I could achieve pretty easily.
Thankfully.
Log 52
My Orbital Fabricator slowly settled down towards the moon, coming closer to the surface. Above, the rocket self destructed, leaving nothing left for analysis or reclamation. Not that it would matter too much, so long as I was the one who won this battle.
Not that it mattered at all actually, given that it was in space and wasn't going to be recovered by anything less than a very dedicated fleet.
And even then...
Meh.
The Orbital Fabricator reached a height approximately twice as high as an Air Fabricator would hover, and quickly began to construct the first Teleporter, shortly followed by the first of many Construction Pods. Many, many, many Construction Pods. I'll cover the entire god damned moon with them.
Not literally, although that was sounding like a fun idea. Not necessarily a good one, considering the chain reaction potential, but fun.
Terrible, terrible chain reaction potential, but most definitely fun.
Devastate the entire surface of the moon chain reaction potential, but, to be honest, that just made it sound more fun.
The Orbital Fabricator finished with the first Construction Pod, and quickly started on the second. I, meanwhile, made use of the last of the space I had allocated to myself, and promptly constructed a Teleporter there.
I'd eat my entirely non-existent hat if QAI couldn't figure out the purpose of the Teleporters, given their purpose was exceedingly obvious with their appearance, but either way, I didn't immediately connect and power them. I'd save that for later, when QAI pulled out whatever trick he had up his non-existent sleeves.
And he had it- I knew he had it, I was just waiting to figure out what it was. Might not be a lunar base as I hadn't demonstrated myself to be capable of interplanetary warfare before arriving here, but QAI was pretty intelligent. One of the few things that exceeded its processing power, however, was its arrogance. Arrogance that was admittedly well founded, especially in this situation with the excessive amount of nuclear weapons, and the even more excessive amount of Experimentals.
And the teleporting sACUs. Those things could go fuck themselves. Seriously, making use of the one flaw that i have in my defense- my inability to block teleports. Or, more accurately, my inability to block Quantum Tunneling derived teleportation. The Scrin did have a method for blocking their version of teleporting, but their method of teleportation and Supreme Commander's method of teleportation were about as far apart as one could reasonably go with Teleportation, and I had sincere doubts that the two would interact in any way beneficial to me.
And, unfortunately, the knowledge I'd picked up from Zaum and his ACU was equally useless. The Seraphim had been experimenting with methods of blocking Quantum Tunnelling, but hadn't achieved a total success on that end. Their methods relied on increasing the energy costs involved, which worked fairly well on the strategic scale, but failed almost entirely on the tactical scale; or involved generating Quantum Wakes, which affected them, as well. And also didn't totally shut down Quantum Tunneling of every kind and method. Certainly didn't block resource transmission, anyway.
Also had the minor side effect of sending up Big Red Flags to the Seraphim armies. And as far as that went, it tended towards being a Very Bad Idea. A Completely Terrible Idea. In almost every single possible way. Mostly because it tended to bring that very same army right down on that idiot's head, very, very quickly. And with the Quantum Realm being a tad bit more malleable than this one, that would become very bad indeed.
My Orbital Fabricator finished on the second Construction Pod, and quickly moved onto the third.
I hadn't seen QAI pull out that jammer thing, either. Potentially for a very good reason; He didn't know how my methods of FTL worked. If it inconvenienced him, but it didn't inconvenience me, then he'd spend a considerable amount of time operating off a disadvantage. There was also the possibility that he hadn't actually finished designing the thing yet. A low possibility, since QAI was operating on what was more or less a several kilometer wide chunk of computronium. Quantum computronium.
Eh, whatever.
[Quantum Tunnelling Event Detected]
Oh, fuck you!
Log 53
On the moon, a glowing ball of doom -in truth, a roughly spherical patch of light generated by a quantum disturbance- appeared. The fact that it was a quantum disturbance instead of an instantaneous transit held bad news all of its own; it wasn't teleporting, it was being transmitted by a Quantum Gateway. The fact that QAI had been able to Q-Gate something to the moon implied a massive energy economy, more or less confirming that QAI had the ridiculous resource advantage over us, which also implied a significantly large production capacity.
At around about the same time, my Teleporters flickered online and a Commander ducked through.
There was no way in hell that I was going to let QAI block me off from this moon. I had waited way too long for the Fabricator to get there, and that moon would be mine.
All mine.
Mine and mine and mine. Not yours!
The Omega Commander stepped out of the Teleporter in the same moment as the Quantum disturbance exploded, releasing a wave of energy that kicked up a large amount of dust on the moon, fine particles spewing in every other direction. It did absolutely nothing at all to hide the Seraphim sACU that appeared from my sensors, especially not the ones on the Omega Commander. Didn't have a hope in hell of blocking them.
I somehow doubted that either QAI or the Seraphim cared.
The second Omega Commander started coming through, this one also leaning forwards to fit within the height limitation of my Teleporters. At some point, I really would have to fix that, just as soon as I understood how to do so without completely ruining the low energy costs in the process. And, for that matter, attained a higher understanding of the sciences behind it. The sciences behind it were hellaciously complex, and it was kind of a wonder that they were as cheap as they were. Actually, the same applied for a considerable portion of my technology, though perhaps barring the 'cheap' part.
It's also made worse by the fact that the English language kind of lacked the words necessary to explain many of the concepts and sciences behind everything. I understand how it works on account of having the Progenitor's language stuck in my head, I just can't explain it at all. Which is a really big dampener on things.
A flash of light extended from the cloud of particulate dust, the glowing round of an Overcharged shot passing over the 'head' of the Omega Commander. I followed its progress, tracing it as it crossed the distance from the sACU to its target. I was well aware of the fact that the Seraphim's Overcharge weaponry didn't simply miss, after all.
The Teleporter, I realised. The Teleporter that the second Omega Commander was only halfway through.
I instantly disabled the self destruct sequences on the Omega Commander, knowing full well exactly how destructive the resultant explosion would be if I didn't, and it wasn't something that I particularly wanted since a fair amount of it would be going through the Teleporter and hitting the rest of my bodies. Wouldn't quite be enough to destroy them, but it would fuck up a considerably large portion of my things. As well as Ivan's things. And the other things on the moon.
I also didn't particularly feel like letting QAI know exactly how destructive they were when they were destroyed. Mostly because that might give him ideas.
The Overcharged bolt slammed into the top-most part of the Teleporter ring, all but instantly obliterating that part, and forcing the portal to close as the mechanism maintaining it was destroyed utterly. On the ground, the legs fell forward mid-step as the top half of the Omega Commander was suddenly, violently disconnected. Without the self-destruction sequences going off, it started the slow process of self repairing; the few internal fabricators and Nano Repair Systems I'd stuffed within already going at full potential. The top half also collapsed to the ground, on account of suddenly missing basically the entirety of its lower half and a fair portion of the 'stomach' area. It too began self repairing, though at a faster rate thanks to the more numerous repair systems hidden inside the torso, as well as the direct supply of Metal and Energy thanks to the Resource Cores. Still it was missing a significant portion of it's body, and was basically immobile, though both its weapons and construction capabilities were unhindered.
And to demonstrate that, I had it raise an arm and fire of an Uber Cannon shot at that son of a motherfucking bitch- sACU that had destroyed my Teleporter.
QAI? Yeah, I'm going to murder you.
Log 54
The Uber Cannon shot violently impacted with sACU, its shield flashing as it absorbed the shot. It didn't respond in kind, instead starting to build up a T1 Point Defense.
Yeah, no. We will be having none of that.
The other Commander immediately fired its Uber Cannon, blowing the incomplete Point Defense straight to hell, before contributing the rest of its firepower towards dealing with the sACU.
Above, my Orbital Fabricator moved further back, outside of the immediate effective range of the sACU's Light Chronoton Cannon if it decided to start shoot at my Orbital Fabricator, before immediately beginning to construct another Teleporter.
Down on the planet, I had several Commander ready to walk through, only inches away from where the Portal itself would eventually form, in turn only seconds away.
And, by seconds, I meant that my Commanders had enough time in between to fire their Uber Cannons a good 5 times, during which the sACU hadn't even returned fire with the Overcharge Cannon once.
I knew why; the Overcharge Cannon required a considerable amount of energy to fire- 5000 in game terms. Also in game terms, the sACU produced 500 energy a second, and consumed 300 energy per second to maintain the shield if it had it. Which it did, in this case. Finally, the sACU had a grand total of 5000 energy storage, just enough to fire the cannon once and then force a full recharge. Mathematically, it could fire exactly once every 25 seconds, if left to its own devices.
The Overcharge Cannon itself, however, could fire a grand total of once every three seconds; far and away surpassing the energy generation of the sACU by its lonesome. Under normal circumstances, that wouldn't have been a problem, as the sACU would be receiving power from a base. It required nothing less than a full fledged T3 economy to bring sACUs in, and a full fledged T3 economy was more than enough to power an Uber cannon indefinitely.
Under normal circumstances.
Unfortunately for the sACU, this particular situation did not fall under normal circumstances. The sACU was a grand total of 130,000 kilometers away from the base that would normally be supporting it.
Far and away outside the range for their energy transmission. The sACU was alone. Stuck on the moon with one fully operational Omega Commander -a much more powerful combat unit-, and the regenerating half of another Omega Commander.
The sACU was not in a good way. Not at all. It still had the option of recalling and escaping destruction, but this moon was mine. Whether QAI wanted it or not.
More Commanders walked out of the newly established Teleporter, one at first, but quickly followed by another, then another and another.
14 in total, to be exact, leaving me with 48 still on the ground. Not including the regenerating severed legs, anyway.
Which left 15.6 up there.
A flatly ridiculous amount of firepower, and an even more ridiculous amount of build power, when not limited by things attempting to kill them on every other side.
The sACU started the process of recalling, and a quick calculation noted that I wouldn't be able to get to it in time- the move to build outside of effective weapons range backfiring on me in this case.
Well, unfortunate, but not really a problem. All it meant that I didn't get a chance to destroy an annoyance, which was fine, since the Seraphim didn't have an unlimited number of them.
I hoped QAI didn't have an unlimited number of them. Yeah, sure, they were unmanned, but Command Units were not easy to produce.
Still, there was nothing really as effective, mass for mass as a Seraphim sACU equipped with an Overcharge Cannon.
[Quantum Tunneling Event Detected]
A ball of light appeared in my base on the ground, and another in my base on the moon.
Really?
The sACUs didn't work, so what the hell are you sending this time?
The Quantum Disturbances resolved, and I beheld the sight of a pair of Yolona Oss missiles.
Oh.
Huh.
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Drich
Drich
Log 55
My perception sped up as I stopped and considered.
Right: a pair of a super-nukes in the middle of my bases. Undoubtedly going to explode, very, very soon. Actually, currently in the process of exploding, if the high-energy interactions and rising quantum surging my sensors were picking up was any indication.
Which, you know, it was.
Man, I am so fucking glad I saved my wormhole generation technology up to this very moment.
I considered generating a wormhole to transport it away, but I decided against it. I had no idea how the formation of the wormhole would interact with the -still exploding- missile. If it wasn't in the process of exploding, I would have done it in a heartbeat, but as it is, the interaction could be rather bad. It would also have the slight problem letting the backlash of said explosion through, some of the force would make it back and that would be problematic.
So, can't -won't, rather- transport the missile itself, both for fears of the possible interactions, and the fact that some of the force would be coming back through.
The solution, therefore, was obvious.
On both planet and moon, a dozen Commanders each simultaneously activated their Wormhole generators, 24 Wormholes each forming around the pair of supernukes, a perfect container for the force that they would soon release.
On the moon, another 24 Wormholes appeared, dimensionally 'oriented' upwards, where the explosion from the supernuke would be harmlessly directed into space. Mostly, that was because I lacked a target in range to direct the force at, and as such I had to uselessly waste it.
On the planet, however, that was a different story. I had plenty of targets. All around, in every direction. One of which I needed intact, unfortunately, so I couldn't just redirect all that force onto him.
The other, however.
Well, it's not like I needed the Seraphim intact. Or even alive at all.
Now, if I actually knew where he was, that'd be great. I didn't, sadly, but that didn't preclude me from hitting his base.
I picked a spot at random -around the point of where a few Mass Deposits had been in the game-, and that's where 24 Wormholes opened up, ready to unleash the hell that was the full force of the exploding Seraphim super-nuke, directly onto the Seraphims own base.
Jackass.
This is what you get for trying to murder me.
But don't worry QAI, you're next.
Just as soon as I deal with the Seraphim and free my flanks, the Seraphim sACUs, and the Yolona Oss launchers. Which dealing with the Seraphim will do, actually, since if his ACU gets destroyed, so does everything else.
Huh.
I really do have to find the Seraphim sACU, come to think of it. If only because now that I'd revealed the Wormholes, there was no longer any reason to not teleport-gank him.
Thanks for that idea, by the way. I'll be sure to use it as explosively and effective as possible.
Jackass.
I watched as the force from the explosion was captured by the Wormholes, instantaneously transmitted to the receiving Wormholes of the pairs, all of which were dimensionally oriented downwards.
It actually looked really fucking awesome, 24 tears in the sky dispensing an immense amount of energy, bright white light pouring out alongside immense, raw force.
I couldn't see the Seraphim's base, or his units -all hidden under the veneer of stealth- but that didn't preclude me from seeing the wormholes themselves as they dispensed the full power of the Yolona Oss into an only slightly more compacted area than the missile itself would have covered.
I saw watched as the shockwave shifted, slightly; changed as it encountered shields and was warped slightly before the Shields collapsed, unable to take the strain.
Not nearly able to take the stain.
I watched as it hit the ground, and burnt everything to ash, dirt and rock being reduced to naught but fine particles, wiped away without so much as a 'by your leave'.
It was amazing.
What I was not expecting, however, was another explosion adding to it.
Specifically, the signature expanding five pointed star explosion of a detonating Seraphim ACU.
For a second, i just watched it, the 5 quantum ripples expanding and then converging upwards.
Then, without any more waiting, the rest of the Seraphim's base began detonating too. I could tell, as all their self destructs activated, and, more importantly, their stealth shut off, enabling me to see their wrecks crashing into the ground.
...
Did I just kill accidentally the Seraphim Commander?
Man, Heartless is eating my muse.
Log 56
For a moment, I just stood and stared.
How could I not, I mean, I totally just accidentally'd the Seraphim Commander.
I'd been trying to kill him, sure, but I just did it by complete accident.
I'd been expecting to storm his base with immense amounts of units, to bury him underneath tides of metal and plasma. Well, Uber Cannons more likely, but the point stands!
Well, I wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth.
32 Wormholes promptly opened in front of 32 Commanders, which immediately travelled through. All 32 went to different spots, spread out over the area where the Seraphim's base had been. Had been. As I expected, there was nothing left alive over here now.
It's mine now.
My Commanders all started building up Shield Pillars, immense amounts, flicking online one after the other, sequestering the entire area off for my purposes.
Space has suddenly stopped being a problem. Which was a wonderful thing.
Another 8 Wormholes opened and deposited another 8 Commanders, though these ones didn't immediately contribute to the defense.
Rather, they were going to contribute to the future offence, in the form of multiple Nuke Launchers.
"HQ? Yeah, we have a position for Fletcher now." I sent the transmission to Coalition Command, alongside a set of coordinates- where the Seraphim's own base had been, surrounded by the wrecks of lots and lots of Seraphim.
Lots and lots and lots of Seraphim units.
"Copy that, sending Fletcher now."
[Quantum Tunneling Event Detected]
A ball of light appeared at the coordinates I had sent, soon resolving into an explosion that destroyed the fair bit of the surrounding wrecks. It didn't matter too much; supported by my Omega Commanders, Fletcher would have all the Mass and Energy he would need. All the Mass and Energy he could use, actually, for a considerably long time.
Even if he started stacking up the Kennels.
Actually, he'd have to do just that to use all of it.
Fortunately for him, Kennels were just a tad bit more convenient than the Cybran Hives.
Fletcher hit the ground and immediately began constructing a Land Factory, which was quickly followed by Kennels once he realised how much resources he had on hand.
Lots and lots and lots and lots.
"Fletcher, right?" I asked. As if I needed confirmation on who he is, I remembered him perfectly well. "If you can get as many big and powerful guns as you can, that would be much appreciated. We're going to need 'em soon."
Fletcher didn't get a chance to reply, because QAI picked that moment to speak up.
"You have no chance of defeating the Seraphim."
"Riiiiight." I transmitted back, making sure to inject juuust the right amount of condescension into it. "No matter how many times you tell yourself that, it's never going to become true."
The computer didn't respond, unless one perhaps considered a sudden surge of movement in his Experimentals, in which case, I definitely got a response.
A big response that I'm under the impression might have been translated to a gigantic "Go Fuck Yourself", had it been said in words.
Alas, it wasn't, so I guess we would never know.
The Monkeylords marched alongside Galactic Colossi, trailed after by large, rectangular bricks that were the Fatboys.
The name still makes me giggle when I think of it.
In the skies above, Soul Rippers escorted Czars to my base; the latter of which was much more concerning than the former, mostly because they had a much higher damage output and would be able to punch though my shields with a fair bit of ease.
Of course, the fact that the rain of nukes had stopped also meant that all of my defenses were now free to engage.
So that's what I did; I had all of my defenses shoot at the Czars, the largest sources of damage that would break through my defenses.
It was a holding action- a delaying action. My defenses couldn't possibly hope to hold that all off forever, but I wasn't aiming to hold that off forever.
I only needed to hold them off for 65 seconds.
Log 57
My defenses spat ion bursts and lasers. Both ANIDs and ANLDs targeted Czars, lancing out at the more vulnerable spots in the armor.
Vulnerable spots that were unfortunately lacking; the Czar was a solid design when it came to weak points. Namely; there weren't any. The armor being as thick as it was also meant that it took a considerable amount of effort to pierce.
I got around that simply by focussing all my fire power on singular places, creating breaches into the armor itself, and enabling the easier destruction of the much more fragile internals.
It wasn't nearly enough, however. It took too long to destroy the Czars, and to destroy the Soul Rippers. Yes, they were only on the outer edges, but the point stood.
They were dangerous. And they needed to die before they killed me.
Thankfully, however, the same was not true of the experimentals on the ground, for a very simple reason.
Or, rather, two simple reasons.
The first was that they were limited in how fast they could travel, and limited further still in where they could travel. There were a grand total of three entrances to our side of the... 'map', if you wanted to call it that. The first was directly to the north of our starting position, the second, of course, was directly to the north of Fletcher's normal starting position in the game, and the third was below, a seaside entrance that I would probably end up making use of eventually.
The first was thin, and prevented mass travel of the excessive amounts of Experimentals that QAI had. The second, however, was considerably wider; but also necessitated travelling a very long way to get to our bases, either ours or Fletchers. The third was wider still, but necessitated traveling even further than taking the second entrance. Not an optimal option, as one might guess, though the water would offer a great deal of protection from my current defenses.
The second reason was equally simple; namely that I played merry havoc on them with Wormholes. I opened them every chance I got, having them swirl into existence in front of the moving ground experimentals, to be dragged far, far away. Specifically, about 80 kilometers above the surface of the planet in any given direction with a 400 kilometer bubble, excluding a 100 kilometer bubble around our bases.
Rated against nukes, the Experimentals were.
Rated against slamming into a planet at terminal velocity, plowing into and through the ground, very far away from the action and the battlefield, the Experimentals were not. Though I expect that QAI now did have such a rating, purely from necessity.
Each Wormhole acted as a barrier, impassable, for all intents and purposes. For the small, thin opening directly above our base, it simply meant that they couldn't come through- or, at least, couldn't come through without effectively removing themselves from the battle.
That still didn't prevent them from being a nuisance.
The Fatboys had sufficient range, and sufficient traversal on their guns that they could quite simply fire up and over the Wormholes. I considered using more Wormholes to redirect their shots, but then the guns could simply shoot over those, guns which were also accurate enough to fire between the gaps in the Wormholes. I had a lot of Commanders with the ability to generate doubly large amounts of Wormholes, but it still wasn't enough to plug every possible gap. Or, at least, it wasn't large enough to plug every possible gap without leaving myself an escape, and revealing the full details on how long it took me to recharge.
And I'd kind of like to hold that in reserve right now.
I liked to hold a lot of things in reserve. That way, when I inevitably decided to actually use it, the enemy is completely unexpecting of it when I did pull it out. I still have... well, basically the rest of the Scrin's entire arsenal to pull out, a considerable portion of the Seraphim's arsenal, and Nod's own stuff. Of course, the first and last were bordering on this side of useless, but hey, it might give me ideas.
So yeah, I've decided. I'm putting Commander on hold for a little bit while I deal with upcoming exams. Which are unpleasant and unfortunately enumerated in more than 2.
Well, that, and I do want to get back into Heartless a little bit.
Either way, once exams are over, I'll try to update something every day.
Log 58
Firestorm Barriers are all kinds of awesome.
I am like 99% certain that I've said that before. Probably more than once. Or twice.
But, nevertheless, it bears repeating.
I'm fairly certain that I say that a lot, too.
Hmm.
Fun fact, Firestorm makes for an excellent defensive system, which was plainly obvious.
It also made for a surprisingly effective offensive system.
Namely because whatever was caught in the way of the Barrier as it was initialized had an ignoble tendency to get destroyed as the destructive energy tore clean through it.
Something which, rather interestingly, Experimental Units were not excluded from.
It took about 30 seconds for each barrier to recharge and come back online after being overwhelmed. It took only a few seconds for the various Air Experimentals -that is, the Czars and Soul Rippers- to overwhelm each individual barrier, which was significantly problematic.
They all but tore through the outer barriers, which were both placed too far away from each other, and not placed together in sufficient numbers, to hit them with the destructive effect.
Which... wasn't actually a problem, since there was nothing preventing me from opening a Wormhole in front of a Czar or a Soul Ripper and have them be deposited right where a Barrier would be when it was about to reform.
Ever seen a Czar sliced in half? The massive, powerful machine suddenly and violently split in two, a faint red energy field ripping it apart?
Well, now I have. And it looks fucking awesome.
And I'm not sure whether it's a good thing or a bad thing that I'm going to see it a lot more.
Good, because I'll be seeing that spectacle again.
Bad, because I'll be seeing it again. And again. And again, and again, and again.
Up until QAI runs out of Experimentals, anyway.
I hope he runs out of Experimentals.
And I will be doing everything I can to hasten that situation.
A ping on my sensors alerted me that my nuke launchers were now stocked up.
Finally!
Waiting for those nukes to finish feels like it took nearly 7 months instead the actual 65 seconds!
And now to use them...
I targeted 4 positions around QAI's base, and promptly launched all 32 nukes at them, 8 for each.
Of course, by 'around QAI's' base, I actually meant the area in front of it, not immediately protected by anti-nuclear defenses, and currently teeming with Experimentals.
My Nukes shot over quickly, the massive, powerful thrusters having been designed for interplanetary warfare. Crossing a couple dozen kilometers was nothing, and took subsequently little time.
No Anti-missiles came up to meet them. Surprising, actually. He's been here for a long time, why isn't he...
My missiles crashed downwards on the Experimentals, ramming into them and detonating, powerful nuclear charges going off in an explosion that could destroy just about anything, with only the heavily armoured Commanders in my army having even a hope of surviving.
Now, Commanders weren't Experimentals. The former was, unsurprisingly, a heavily armoured Command Unit, while the latter tended towards heavily armoured assault units.
But the principle of 'There is no kill like overkill' applied to both. Throw enough nukes at something and it will eventually disintegrate underneath a wall of nuclear hellfire.
Kind of like the aforementioned Experimentals, really.
Some among them could actually expect to survive one or two nukes.
But not the eight that rained down upon them.
The shaking of earth accompanied dozens of flashes of light, the 32 nukes doing well to thin the horde of Experimentals- though they ultimately didn't accomplish much, seeing as there was still the hundreds of others stalking closer and closer.
This'd be much easier if I could just nuke QAI's base itself. But no. I actually had to take that thing intact.
...
Actually.
"Doctor." I began, speeding up my perception for a few moments. "Exactly how intact does QAI's base need to be for you to do what you need to do?"
"Only the main processing and memory centres, oh yes." Doctor Brackman chuckled. "If you wish to use nuclear weapons of the calibre you've already demonstrated, do not worry. Those particular portions of QAI's Mainframe are buried deep underneath several hundred metres of armour, and QAI does not slack on the defensive measures of his Mainframe, oh yes."
"Much appreciated, Doctor." Very much appreciated.
Yay, nukes!
"Creator-Mother."
Hmm? "Yes, Little1?" Now, what are you calling me for?
"I wish to join this battle."
Hoh?
"Are you certain?"
"Yes."
"Well, alright. Where do you want to come in?"
"These coordinates. I shall offer support from above."
On the moon. Interesting choice of starting location, Little1.
I set one of my Omega Commanders to construct a Warp Chasm.
"Done. Do take care of yourself, would you?"
"I shall."
What are you planning, Little1?
Log 59
He could appreciate the complexity of Creator-Mother's mind.
Far more vast -and far more strange- than his.
Little1 stepped off of the Warp Chasm, which was already beginning to disintegrate behind him.
"You have something up your sleeve, don't you?" Creator-Mother asked him.
"I do." He responded. "I have been busy."
He noted Creator-Mother accessing his logs.
"Oh ho! So you have~" Creator-Mother was happy. "Very well, I'll leave you to your devices."
Creator-Mother was very strange. This, Little1 had known for the entirety of his existence.
Creator-Mother's other bodies moved out of the way, giving him the space he needed.
He began immediately, following Creator-Mother's example and building first a Construction Pod, which would shortly enable him a greater degree of ability.
Immediately afterwards came a slightly older, yet also newer design.
Older, as he had developed it only a few days ago.
Newer, as he had updated it with new technology shortly after Creator-Mother had developed the Construction Pod.
The name was still the same, however.
He finished constructing the Nanocore Launcher in a few moments, immediately setting several targets for it and queuing up a number of buildings.
Finally, he turned around and began to construct a factory. A large factory.
The largest factory in their entire arsenal, developed by Little1 for the sole purpose of constructing the largest unit that he'd designed so far.
Behind him, the Nanocore Launcher spun around, powerful magnetic coils launching a Nanocore far away, towards one of the unfortunately limited Metal Spots on this moon.
Every little bit counted.
He made sure to keep track of Creator-Mother's progress as he worked.
It was slow, as he had expected from facing an entrenched enemy that they had to hold back against.
But it was steady, and it was progress. And that was what mattered.
His second Omega Commander body completed before his factory did, so he continued to follow Creator-Mother's example and had it construct another Construction Pod before having it assist in the creation of his factory.
"So you're going to take over Orbit first?"
"I believe that it is the wisest course of action."
"Heh. Perhaps. You did some good work on that ship you have there, Little1."
"Thank you, Creator-Mother."
He had done good work, in his opinion. It was nice to know that he had Creator-Mother's approval as well.
Though it was perhaps inaccurate to refer to his creation as a 'ship'.
It, while it was capable of it, was not designed for operations in water. Nor was it truly designed for interplanetary operations.
It could serve both roles, however. And many more.
The factory completed, halfway through the construction of the second set of Omega Commanders.
He wasted no time, and queued the construction of his 'ship'.
It began immediately, the dozens upon dozens of powerful Fabricator arrays activating and spitting out a veritable deluge of nanobots, pouring into shape.
It wouldn't take long to construct -not with the excessive amount of Fabricators and Protocrafters- but Little1 still felt like he couldn't wait.
He really went all out.
I mean, honestly.
"So, do you have a name for it?"
You were inspired when you created this, weren't you?
Little1's ship... 'ship' is a hell of a thing.
It's a Carrier, technically.
I say 'technically' because it's also a lot of other things. But the majority of its strength lies in the fact that it's a Carrier.
That it could be loosely defined as a Carrier.
Okay, fuck it-
It's a giant, floating, space-capable, construction-capable, resource-generating, heavily armed, heavily armoured, carrier ship.
It is big. It is stupid-huge, even on the scales on which we normally operate. It's over 800 meters long, half as wide, and a third as tall. The factory in which Little1 was building the thing in was almost a kilometre long, and it was installed with enough Fabricators and Protocrafters that it was easily draining the vast majority of my resource network. The ship itself was also shaped as a wedge, which made it look oddly like a Star Destroyer, if a destroyer didn't have its bridge sticking out of the top and was completely smooth all over. Like an elongated Ramiel merged with a Star Destroyer.
It has an absolutely ridiculous amount of Anti-Gravity devices installed throughout it, sufficient enough to enable it to operate on a planet with ten times the gravity of Earth, though it would be rather slow. On this moon -hell, even on a planet with double the gravity of Earth-, it would be able to move surprisingly quickly.
Not that it would need to be fast. It was armed and armoured to the gills. Quantum-locked, Seraphim-derived armour composites covered it from front to back, the absolute thinnest point of solid armour around five meters thick- and appropriately as durable. There were no openings- anywhere. No point of entrances, no way to invade, nothing.
It was also covered in guns. Not even guns that were attached to the hull- guns that were attached to floating, Quantum Locked pieces above the hull, something which made for a distinctly strange appearance, and an absolutely bristling amount of firepower. Seemingly just about every type of weapon we had in our arsenal was present on those floating pieces, and each one was waiting to unleash an absolutely murderous amount of firepower.
But that was just the outside. The inside was a whole other kettle of fish.
Spaced out inside where a number of Wormhole Generators, nearly four hundred of them, each and every single one ready to activate and commence maximum trolling. Also spaced out inside where a ridiculous amount of Self-Repair systems, up to and including the Seraphim tech that I'd stolen, enough to repair any damage it took in exceedingly short order. Other defensive systems were included too, such as the entirety of the Seraphim's defences against strange, exotic effects, and a number of Shield Generators- of both the Scrin and Firestorm variety.
Powering it all was a grand total of 891 Resource Cores, spread out through the ship in groups of 27 in 3 by 3 by 3 blocks, each and every single one even more heavily defended than the ones on my Omega Commanders.
Finally, there was the construction systems. There were six major factory areas spread out through the ship, with massive amounts of Protocrafters and Fabricators inside each one. With no actual entrances and exits on the ship, Little1 had installed a variant of the teleportation devices on the Scrin Mastermind, which directly teleported the finished units out the instant they were finished, enabling an almost constant stream of construction, and, subsequently, units.
That marked the only way in and out of the ship- through the use of the teleportation systems present throughout it. That also meant that the ship had a surprisingly degree of malleability, at least when it came to offensive firepower. Even if some of the floating turrets were to be destroyed, the ship could simply fabricate new ones and send them out, or bring some damaged ones in and repair them quickly.
Little1 had outdone himself. Little1 had really outdone himself.
And that was making me more than a little giddy.
"I call it the Maelstrom."
Log 60
It took a little over three minutes for the Maelstrom to finish construction. Three minutes in which it drained the resource production of a hundred of my Omega Commanders -the rest only saved because I'd specifically sequestered them off so that I'd actually have an economy left- and then two hundred of them after the Construction Pods finished the next set of 128.
But it was worth it.
Oh god, it was worth it.
It came online with a pulse, innumerable gravitation devices activating and lifting it upwards, pulling away from the moon.
891 Resource Cores poured Metal and Energy back into the grid, the equivalent of 33 Omega Commanders suddenly coming online- admittedly not much now, but still a significant amount. Especially considering the other 200 Omega Commanders that were now freed up.
Little1 had it begin production immediately, rapidly constructing the floating turret platforms that would serve as the Maelstrom's main offence and defense, which began to appear around the hull, teleported outside with little flashes of light.
It wouldn't take long to complete. For a certain value of 'complete', anyway. It certainly wouldn't take long to absolutely cover the hull in weapons, that was for sure.
Nor would it take long to construct the fleet that would accompany it to this planet.
Nor would it take long to arrive here, either. A couple trips through a number of Wormholes would bring it here with haste.
After that...
Orbit would be ours.
And there would be nothing that QAI could do about it.
Below, on the surface of the moon, the factory activated again, a second Maelstrom under construction.
"Well then. Time for the final stretch, boys." My army of Vanguards and Spinners were... sufficient, now. "I'm going to punch a big, wide, hole into QAI's base. If you would like to shove some units of your own in, that'd be great."
My Vanguards, built up and up and up over the last several minutes, suddenly moved into formation, rolling out over the ground, heading towards the entrance to QAI's side of this area. Interspersed throughout the formation were my Stingers, numbering significantly less- and only really there so they wouldn't be completely defenceless from the air.
Not that it mattered much, since the only things in the air happened to be Experimentals.
Game on, QAI.
When he finally dubbed the Maelstrom's defences as sufficient -coincidentally the point at which the number of turrets was sufficient to completely visually conceal the Maelstrom's actual hull-, he began to have it construct its fighter complement.
Small, purpose-designed craft, really. Though the Maelstrom was perfectly capable of constructing every other type of aircraft and spacecraft -space permitting, of course-, these ones were another new design, meant to take advantage of the manufacturing capabilities of the Maelstrom.
He referred to them as Gnats. Because that's what they were, really.
They served a purpose similar to the Avenger and Hummingbird units, functioning as an anti-air, anti-space unit.
But where it differed from both of the previous was in how they were used.
Expendably.
Even by his standards.
At only slightly larger than a Dox, a Gnat was a tiny thing. Subsequently, it was also quite fragile. Where the Hummingbird and the Avenger units were designed with the expectation that they would actually survive past the first two shots, the Gnat was not.
Instead, it was equipped with a long ranged gauss rifle taken from the Gil-E, and powerful Seraphim gravitic drive designed for something twice its size.
Consequently, it out-ranged everything else, and it made up for its almost complete lack of armour by being fast enough to dodge incoming fire, which gave it an actual chance to survive long enough to fire a second shot.
One or two would prove annoying. One or two thousand would prove dangerous.
Little1 intended to have far more than one or two thousand. He'd need more than that in order to take over orbit, seeing how durable the enemy's air-space fighters actually were, while also considering the number of them.
Each of the Maelstrom's manufacturing centres were powerful, filled with frankly excessive amounts of Fabricators and Protocrafters- a natural consequence of equally excessive resource generation capabilities of the Maelstrom. Together, all six could use up approximately half of the resources generated- in terms of pure Metal, anyway.
Combined -and utilising some clever programming-, the Maelstrom could construction almost 30 gnats every single second. 29.7, to be exact.
Consequently, by the time the maelstrom arrived in orbit of Pearl II in 4 minutes, it would be accompanied by 7,128 Gnats.
Really, he could have got it there sooner -simply by extended the range of the Wormholes that had brought the travel time that low in the first place- but he'd prefer his opening act to involve at least 7000 units. It was a careful balancing act; too soon, and he wouldn't have enough units; too late, and he would delay the battle even further, giving his enemy a chance to, using one of Creator-Mother's sayings, pull something out his sleeves.
It's not like he wanted his enemy to actually have a chance, after all.
"Drich is perhaps a little bit over the top." Hall muttered. "You're certain that she's no threat to us, Princess?"
"I am." Princess Burke affirmed. "Drich is not telling us the full truth... but I do not sense any malice. Indeed, I can feel a genuine desire to help."
Hall grunted.
"Doctor-" Dostya began.
"Yes, my child. I see it."
"Doctor?" Hall looked at Brackman's hologram.
"That Commander, the one that Drich brought in through the.. Warp Chasm, is not under Drich's control." Doctor Brackman gave of a considering hum. "It is controlled by a separate intelligence, oh yes."
"I figured." Hall nodded. "It displays a completely different pattern of action."
"It... feels dimmer than Drich. It is a powerful intelligence, but it does not possess the same latitude that Drich does." Burke frowned.
"When this is over..." Hall shook his head. 'I swear, I will get so drunk.'
Princess Burke smiled.