Author's Note: There is no Planetary Annihilation category on this site. Which is understandable I suppose, considering the utter lack of an actual plot in the game, but still a shame. Anyways, this is a Planetary Annihilation multi crossover self insert. Essentially, what would I do if I woke up as an intelligent war machine? Lots of stuff apparently.


Chapter 0

There was precisely one good thing about waking up as a quadrupedal twelve meter tall brutally efficient self-replicating mechanism of war. The flu I'd been struggling with on and off for the last month or so was gone. Beyond that, I was not best pleased by my new form.

The location might have had something to do with that though. It took me a good three minutes to stop thinking I was drowning, freezing, being crushed, or otherwise dying horribly as a result of the super-cooled water I was currently immersed in.

Right, take stock of the situation. I was, according to my memory banks, Commander Kappa-20963027-A-6b, an Osiris model commander. Having four legs was a new experience, one I was not terribly enamored of. I liked bipedal locomotion, thank you! Beyond that, I was underwater and half buried in silt. The water temperature was well bellow 273 Kelvin, and the liquid only remained so because of the pressure it was under and some rather impressive tidal fluctuations. Above me, a giant ice sheet stretched... well, not as far as I could see exactly, but as far as a human could... actually, bad example, optical visibility was pretty awful down here...

Anyways, analysis of the situation. Low gravity, more likely a moon than an actual planet. The tidal fluctuations supported that hypothesis, likely caused by a sizable gas giant, roughly Jupiter sized. Right, first things first, get out of the damn water. Fortunately the water was fairly shallow. I just needed to punch my way up through the ice.

Heh.

My right arm swiveled upwards, bringing my main gun to bear. Then I fired. Water flash-boiled around me, ice shattered, and a plume of steam blew kilometers into the air. Well, that worked better than I was expecting. The pressure relieved, the water around me rapidly froze. Fortunately I was able to pry myself loose and climb the crater I'd just made in the surface of this ball of ice.

I stood upon the surface of the moon, free. Things were looking up! Then I looked up. Well, that's not just a gas giant the size of Jupiter, that IS Jupiter. I was on Europa. How?

Not important. First order of business, getting off this snowball. I checked my memory banks and got back... mixed results.

Bot schematics? Zilch. The factory was there, but no actual bots.

Vehicle schematics? Same. Nothing useful.

Aircraft? Same story.

Naval? The lack of data was deafening.

Turrets? Okay, now we were getting somewhere. I had the basic anti-air turrets, the basic laser turrets, and the Umbrella. No artillery for some reason though. Oh, and I had radar. That was something at least.

Orbital? Holy shit, I had EVERYTHING. Orbital launcher? Check. Astraeus? Check. Avenger? Check. Omega battleship? Hell yes.

Okay. I could get off this snow cone of a moon. I just needed resources. Which... well, yeah, I was once again shit out of luck. Fun fact about Europa, it's the smoothest object in the solar system. Because it's a ball of ice. So much for the old "a Commander builds a metal extracter". Right, no sense wasting time. I started building an orbital launcher.

Hmm. Europa. That meant I was in the solar system, or rather, the Sol-ar System. Yes, I went there. Something wasn't right. I was a giant robot from well after the age of humanity ended. Yeah, maybe just launching myself into space in an Astraeus wasn't the best idea. Instead, I queued up a Hermes. Information is power, and right now I was feeling pretty powerless.

The Hermes broke atmosphere in short order. Well, I now had a truly stunning view of Jupiter's great red spot. Not terribly useful, but definitely pretty. But not what I needed to know. I turned the Hermes towards the inner system.

Earth, here I come.


The first thing the Hermes noted once it passed Mars was that it was getting a signal from the planet. It took me a picosecond to identify it as the Curiosity rover. Huh.

The second thing it noted was that Earth was playing host to a space fleet. One that was very clearly not native. It only took me a moment to realize what I was looking at.

X-COM: Enemy Unknown. The Ethereal invasion fleet.

Well, that was a thing.


Right. Ethereal invasion. I really should do something about that. In theory, I could hit them with my orbital firepower. The issue with that was my complete and utter lack of anything even remotely resembling an economy. In theory I could build an orbital constructor and start working on some jigs over Jupiter or Saturn. The issue with that was that there was a hostile fleet in the neighborhood with control of space. Progenitor stealth is good, but building giant metal structures in orbit is going to be pretty noticeable no matter what stealth you've got going for you.

Also, I wasn't even remotely sure about my ability to take down the Temple ship, should it show. Not without an economy I didn't have. Right, first order of business, get an economy. To do that, I needed to get to somewhere I could build said economy. So now I needed to select my future base.

What did I need? No, scratch that, what did I want? I wanted to be close enough to the action to influence it in realistic time frames. I wanted to build an economy. And I wanted to not be noticed by the aliens.

Underground Lunar Base it is!

I queued up an Astraeus and a couple Avengers, then sat back to wait. Well, I tried. I wasn't quite clear on how I was supposed to sit with my new body. I settled for just lowering my central section to rest on the ground. I vaguely recalled reading an SI like my current situation where the protagonist bemoaned his lack of fingers. At the time I had thought it a rather silly thing to complain about, but now that I was the one in the metal shell, well, I understood a little better. At least he still had bipedal locomotion!

Right, Astraeus and Avenger escorts built. I loaded myself up into the Astraeus, then set for an entirely ballistic course to Luna. Time to go ruin the Ethereals' day.


Ballistic courses are stealthy, especially with Progenitor stealth systems. Unless someone takes a very close look, they're not going to realize you're anything more than another bit of space debris.

They're also really, really, really boring.

In an attempt to pass the time, I tried to rectify my lack of anything but orbital units. And I have a complaint I'd like to file. You know all those PA SIs where the protagonist can just whip up a new design in a matter of seconds? Well apparently my new brain didn't have that software. My best estimate for recreating the basic Ant tank? Upwards of a year of development time. I didn't have a year.

Fortunately it just seemed to be a lack of the basic principles, not a fundamentally slow system. Recreating the tank? I had to design everything from the gun to the AI core to the engine to the treads from scratch. Just frigging great. I literally had to reinvent the wheel to build a damn truck.

Right then. Add to the to-do list, acquire all the shiny technology I could. Actually, that was already on the list, it just got pushed up in my priorities. Getting all the shinies should be on everyone's list, really.


Landing on the moon was uneventful. Fortunately for me, the Ethereals weren't terribly interested in a few pieces of space debris. I set down on the far side of the moon, just north of the Gagarin crater. Then I started digging.

Commanders tend to avoid building underground structures, mostly because there's no point. With Progeniter tech, building down is always harder than building up, and if your enemy is close enough that visual observation is an issue, they're close enough that you're already trading weapons fire. However, against the Ethereals who had trouble tracking down satellites launched by 2015 humans, well, visual observation was the only way they were going to find my stuff. So going underground made sense.

And the fact that an Underground Lunar Base is an inherently awesome concept had nothing to do with my decision. No sir, the soul of practicality, that's me.

Anyways, digging down is pretty easy when you can just deconstruct the rock in front of you. In short order I had a number of metal extractors and reactors. I had an economy! Okay, not much of an economy, my lack of fabrication bots was making itself very much known, but an economy. Sweet, sweet metal. I immediately built an orbital launcher, with just the very top of the launch tower sticking out above the surface of the moon. I also started constructing a series of turrets, mostly umbrellas. I wasn't exactly worried about land or air units right now.

Now, technology. I needed it. But how to get it? I had a hunch that asking the Ethereals nicely was out. That left stealing it from them. Which I didn't have the tech to do yet. Right, I needed help. And I had a hunch I knew where I could get it.


"Incoming transmission!" one of the comm techs in the X-COM base announced.

"I'll let the Commander know," Central Officer Bradford said.


The Commander of X-COM was entirely too busy for this shit. She had a war to fight, one she was losing. UFOs flew unopposed over most of the planet, alien monsters rampaged through Earth's major cities, the council was barely giving her enough money to keep the lights on, and now this. A signal from an unidentified source, on a restricted channel, addressed directly to her.

"Right, put it through, let's get this over with," she said as she took her seat in the situation room. The screen lit up, a stylized insignia of a silver bird in flight gently pulsing in and out. What the hell.


So, this was X-COM's famous Commander. The Great Commandy One himself. Or rather, herself. Huh. Can't say I was expecting that one. Well, I suppose it balances out the gender ratio among the command staff, and X-COM's pretty egalitarian. Though for some unknowable reason, I've never had a single male sniper in any of my games who was even remotely competent. Anyways, the Commander.

She was, well, not terribly pretty exactly, but she had an aura of power and command that transcended physical appearances. Looking at her, I could very well believe that she was capable of leading Earth to victory over the Ethereals.

"Who are you, and what are you doing on a restricted radio channel?" she demanded, all business.

"Hello Commander," I said. "I am Commander Kappa, though you may call me Phoenix." Okay, fine, yes, I decided to name myself Phoenix. It was either that or spend the rest of my potentially immortal life going by a serial number. I've always liked phoenixes anyways. Not that I've ever met one, but you get the idea. "I am here to offer you a mutually beneficial arrangement."

"Right," she said. "Commander Kappa, Phoenix, whoever you are, I am fighting a war here. I do not have time for games. What do you want?"

"Well, in simplest terms, I want to help you provide the aliens invading Earth with a large number of structurally superfluous rectal orifices," I said. "I can offer war materials, primarily alloys equal to or better than those possessed by the invaders. In return, I would like access to your organization's data on the aliens and their technology."

"And you aren't going through the council because?" she asked.

"Because I don't feel like dealing with politics," I said. "I see you need some proof of my good will. As a gesture of good faith, I have sent an initial shipment of alloys and some other goodies. It should be landing approximately three kilometers south of your base in-" I checked my internal clock. "Three hundred and eighty six seconds. You are free to collect its contents and analyze them before committing to anything. I'll call back in two hours, unless you have any questions right now?"

She stared at, well, my chosen insignia, I suppose, since I wasn't sending her a video feed. "No questions. We'll be verifying your claim."

"I expected nothing less, Commander," I said, signing off.


"What are we looking at?" Bradford asked as the pod was hauled into the base on a flatbed truck. It was a cylinder a good four meters in diameter and twice that in length.

"It appears to be an atmospheric re-entry pod," Chief Engineer Raymond Shen said.

"So we're getting help from aliens now?" Bradford asked.

"What's inside the pod?" the Commander asked.

"Primarily an unknown alloy, in the form of small ingots," the engineer said. "There were also a number of pieces of some sort of machine, which were clearly far more delicate than the alloy, as they were encased in a shock-absorbent gel."

"Any idea what they're for?" the Commander asked.

"I am uncertain, but if I were to hazard a guess, I'd say they most closely resemble a reactor," Shen said.

"Commander Kappa should be calling back shortly, Commander," Bradford said.

"Right, let's see if he's willing to tell us what he's sent us," the Commander said.


Just about that time. I punched up my new contact. Time for some negotiation.

"Hello again, Commander," I said as soon as the connection was made. "I assume you've recovered my gift."

"What did you send us?" she demanded. Wow, she really doesn't beat around the bush. Better than the opposite problem I suppose.

"Precisely four hundred tons of high grade alloy, which you may use as you see fit," I stated. "I am currently sending information on the material properties of the alloy and how to utilize it."

"I see it," the Commander said.

"Good, good," I said cheerfully. "Additionally, I took the liberty of including the components for an electrical power generator in my shipment. I'm sure you'll be able to find a use for it. Forwarding assembly instructions to you now."

"I see," the Commander said, steepling her fingers in front of her. Oh, how I envied her the ability to do that. I wanted my humanoid body, dammit! "You say that you can continue to supply us with this alloy, and other technological items, and in return you want data."

"That sums it up rather nicely," I said. "The more data you send me, the more fun toys I can send you. So, do we have a deal?"

"I cannot simply open our research database to you," she said. "I'm sure you understand."

"Of course," I said.

"We will send you some of our less classified information," she said. "More will depend on your continued contributions to the war effort."

"Fair enough," I said. "The pod you recovered contains one final item, a communication device for directly contacting me. You can use it to send me the data you've acquired."

"Understood," she said. Her stern face finally relaxed just a tiny bit. "I am grateful for your assistance, Commander Kappa, but trust is in short supply at the moment."

"Not a problem," I said. "After all, you're in charge of defending your entire planet. I wish you luck. Farewell, Commander."


The data took a few hours to arrive. 2015 Earth bandwidths, ugh. When it did, well, good stuff was in it. Some very good stuff indeed.

The first file was autopsy data on the Sectoid. I set that aside for later. While figuring out psionics was on the agenda, it wasn't terribly high on my list of priorities. The autopsy data on the Thin Men was even lower on the priority list. Literally the only thing I cared about from that was the chemical makeup of their poison. Which turned out to be acid, not just poison. Well, shit.

I wasn't in X-COM: Enemy Unknown. I was in the goddamn Long War mod. Well, all the more reason for me to pitch in.

The Floater autopsy was the first high priority file I received. Ethereal anti-grav is good. Really good. Better than Progenitor anti-grav in fact. I very much wanted it. However, the Floater took second priority to the fourth and final file I received.

The Drone breakdown. Yessssss.

The Ethereals' drones were a rather impressive design, all things considered. Counter-grav propulsion with near perfect agility, an advanced repair function, and it still had room left over for a weapon, all in a ball less than a meter across. And now I had the schematics for the little sucker.

Capture complete, time to assimilate, refine, and transform it into part of my brutally efficient self-replicating mechanism of war.


I started by replacing the alloy with my own, superior alloy. Progenitor bullshit alloy, for the win! Elerium battery yanked out, replaced with a power tap connected to my network, keep the anti-grav as is for now, yank the repair function and the pea shooter it had for a gun, and I had just enough space to squeeze in a nanobot sprayer. Hello, air fabricator.

Except not quite. I ran into a problem. I couldn't quite cram in the computer it would need to actually construct things independently, rather than supporting an actual fabricator. Right, time for an alternative solution. I saved the design as a Drone Worker. Creative, I know.

Then I started on an alternate version. Simply yank the nanobot sprayer, and suddenly I had all the space I needed for a computer and a number of dedicated short-range transmitters. I saved this new design as Drone Foreman.

I do good work, if I do say so myself. The Workers would do the construction under the guidance of the Foremen. Each Foreman could control up to six Workers, forming a Drone Fabricator Swarm, and thanks to their size, they were dirt cheap. Time to get to work.

I cleared out a cavern large enough for an air factory to comfortably rest in, then started construction. Yes, I was building an air factory underground. I am aware of the irony. The moment it finished construction, I started queuing up Drone Fabricator Swarms.

Von Neuman, here I come!


My base now expanding under the surface of the moon without my direct personal involvement, it was time to figure out my next move. Theoretically, I was now a matter of hours from being able to chase the Ethereals from the solar system with an endless horde of Avengers. Well, assuming they could tackle the Temple Ship which I wasn't entirely sure about. Worse, if I remembered correctly, destroying the Temple Ship without a powerful psionic on the inside to take control of the situation would result in Bad Things happening. Right, so that's out. I'd rather not accidentally the Earth.

If I'm going to blow up a planet, it's going to be deliberate, dammit.

Right then. Supporting X-COM it is then. What should I send them in... eh, call it a month. I can stagger my deliveries with the council's calls. Should relieve some of the pressure at the end of the month. Anyways, I needed to figure out what to put in my next gift basket.

Hmm...

I started with an Avenger. Installing life support in the thing was a pain, as was ripping out most of the computer core and replacing it with a cockpit. You don't even want to know how many warning popups asking me if I was sure I wanted to do this I had to get rid of. Apparently my design program had fucking Clippy active. I'd have to figure out how to turn that off later.

Then I started actually improving the thing. The original Avenger can only really handle atmosphere in terms of takeoff, and theoretically landing. It's not that it's physically incapable of doing so, it's just really bad at it. Most of that is the engine though. Fortunately, I now had some nifty anti-gravity technology! Reverse engineering it was a bit tricky, but nothing beyond my capabilities. In only a matter of hours I had a working anti-grav engine for my modified Avenger. Nice. I stripped out the gun of the Avenger, replacing it with a scaled down version of the laser from the basic point defense turret. There we go. One air-and-space fighter, ready for deployment. Now all it needed was a name.

I was an Osiris Class Commander. Fuck it, calling it the Horus. After all, his full name was Horus the Avenger. Right, Horus class air-space fighter.

My only regret was that I wouldn't get to see the look on the Ethereals' faces.


A/N: For the unaware, this is more of an archive than the actual story. The actual story is over on SpaceBattles, and is, as of my posting this, about halfway through chapter twenty nine. You can also find this story on TvTropes, should you want to look it over there.

As this story is nearly complete, I intend to post these chapters on a regular schedule. One new chapter every Tuesday for you to enjoy. If you're feeling impatient, you can always visit SpaceBattles to read ahead. Otherwise, if you start crying out for more, I will mock you, and you will deserve every second of it.