The search began, although it was predicated by Logic telling Taylor a little bit more about the exact capabilities detailing the stealth options they had. At first she hadn't thought they had a ground based stealth system; she knew of several ships that were capable, but none of the stationary structures did anything to 'hide' anything. Just shield it.
That was when Logic, in his decidedly slightly upset monotone, informed her if a frigate the size of a small cargo ship could stealth itself then they could hide a building, or just about anything, using their stealth systems. Abandoned warehouses were looked at but were dismissed. It's kind of hard to explain why the previously existing structure vanished, even if nobody really uses it. It was just slightly more suspicious than they really wanted to be.
"Look, Primary Operator, I've analyzed many movies and stories and have determined that an underground supervillain base with a secret ship/missile deployment bay is our best bet. We can build it ourselves out of the eye of our enemies, then hide any entrance with a stealth field and a covering."
Taylor sighed. Her AI wanted to be a hammy, cheesy, over the top supervillain. Why had things turned out this way? "Logic, while I agree with the underground base part, its not going to be because we're supervillains. We're going to be Heroes. Tell me how we would go about carving out our super secret underground base?"
While she might be wrong, the AI seemed to be speaking slightly faster, as though it were excited about their discussion. Which it adamantly refused to call anything but their supervillain base. "Engineers are capable of disintegrating matter as well, while normally not a useful feature because it's rather slow, they need it to help repair ships in the field. Damages frequently involve more than just 'putting back the stuff that got disintegrated'. I mean, when Tritium Sniper Frigate blasts a hole in one of your ships from across a gravity well you have to remove some of the floaties before you can put everything back together. It can also use the material it absorbs to construct other things, which is the path we will have to take at the beginning."
She rubbed her eyes and thought about the path they would need to take going forward. "What are we going to do about resource generation going forward? If we use the engineers at the beginning that should help, but I understand there are other methods of generating metal."
"Indeed. Metal harvesters are pinnacles of technology - While I would go into a discussion regarding their efficiency, and how it's so great it can work on a metal deposit for nearly eternity, I don't think your pea-brain could ever understand such a thing. Suffice to say, if we can launch a single engineer... actually, I have a better idea. We need to get an engineer into space for us to REALLY get started on any of this, at least in the numbers we'll need to make E.X.T.I.N.C.T.I.O.N. protocols as efficient as possible."
Taylor rubbed her temples but didn't say anything.
"Normal engineers wouldn't cut it if we tried to fly it past the dumb winged thing that floats around in space, but if we upgrade the thing enough it gains both stealth capabilities and teleportation, large enough to transport itself well outside her range. Supposedly she's a precognitive, but I bet you if we build a tachyon array first and flood her with tachyon particles, we should confuse her long enough to allow it to escape."
"From what I've understood tachyon particles are mostly used to find units using stealth technology, I thought?"
"Yes, but you're lacking important context. In particular, tachyons, as your people think of them as a 'theoretical particle' are misunderstood. They are capable of disrupting far more than just stealth technology. All of our ship's templates include a built in defense against the particles, otherwise none of them would ever fly. Without a defense, however... Tachyon particles travel 'faster than light at all times' and are thought to only have mass when travelling at that speed (hence why your people aren't sure if they exist or not) and while that's true, they behave on an almost quantum level."
Taylor just continued rubbing her temples while trying her best to understand.
"Normally a single tachyon particle will do absolutely nothing. A million would do nothing. But tachyon arrays are designed to harness and direct trillions of trillions of tachyon particles into a particular area, and when they do... Unprotected connections on ANY level are attacked and disrupted QUITE severely. I've analyzed the available tech of many tinkers and found no indicators of tachyon particle use - I don't believe where these powers come from they use such things, which means they have no defense against it. This even includes quantum connections, should such a thing exist. It's like... getting radio feedback. Although the quantum entangled particles are still 'communicating' they would both just be reflecting a constant buzz. Because of their nature, tachyon particles have to be blocked in particular, otherwise they use the concept of quantum tunneling to travel through ANY medium and affect everything in the area of affectation."
She felt her hopes actually coming up - realistically she knew finding the amount of metal to design the number of ships she felt she would need would be... difficult. But with a combination of a teleporting engineer drone, who could be fed material from their home base on earth (due to some REALLY weird technology she couldn't make heads or tails of) and these tachyon particles ruining the Simurghs day, they might stand a chance at building the hyper-advanced metal harvesters that WOULD allow them to slowly build up their numbers.
"Are you sure the Simurgh will be affected by these particles? I mean, its theorized that she just knows everything that's going on and chooses to mess with people who try to go into space. How will these affect her?"
"Primary Operator, I may not have existed for very long, but I have certain amounts of historical data and can extrapolate many things from the internal data I was born with. Magic does not exist. At least, not in this dimension. What I mean is - that creature, from scans I've also hijacked, I have safely determined is using powerful scanning and predictive tools, strong enough to be called 'precognition'. Some of our technology could technically be adapted to process such things, but from what I can tell from the blueprints, it was determined more firepower was a better use of energy. That should tell you just how draining such things are. With that in mind, there is no way the Simurgh is capable of being a self-contained process capable of the things it is - as such, it is logical to deduce she is connected to something else (much like our technology) providing it that power. As such, the tachyon particles are practically guaranteed to disrupt her plans."
Huh. She should have known, but Logic is quite a smart cookie. Disregarding his slight megalomaniacal tendencies, Taylor was quite happy she made him. He'd proven his worth... several times over in the single conversation they'd had so far.
"Ok. While I can't say I understand the theory... Let's go with your plan and I'll pray we don't get bombed into oblivion by a pissed off angel."
"No need to worry, Primary Operator. If she already knew what was going to happen, she would have stopped us already. The tachyon particles will completely shut her down for a time, but we'll disable the generator once the engineer is a safe distance away. If we ran it longer then it would become a priority to find and eliminate whatever was effecting her, but if its just a small blip... Then we will have plenty of time to prepare."
Well, Logic has already shown his smarts, so Taylor figured she might as well trust in the plan.
"Alright. Where do we start? What do I need? I'm not exactly right here, so finding materials might be challenging..."
Of all the times for Logic to abandon his monotone voice... it was when he decided to cackle.
Maniacally.
The swiftness with which he cut off his evil laugh and resumed his monotone speech almost made her believe she didn't hear it.
"Primary Operator, you have created the single most powerful AI ever known. I am borrowing the processing power of over five million powered devices with enough RAM to increase my processing speeds, far more than your world's strongest supercomputer. In the time I've been awake I have arranged for no more than 37 different shipments of various parts and pieces we will need to construct our first most important devices that will never exist in any shipping manifest or electronic record. We will have everything we need, never fear."
... Wow.
