With the Drengin pirates dealt with, I decided to go back to working on expanding my forces before I geared up to battle the Dread Lords. The Dread Lords, in-game, were an absolute nightmare to fight - their civilian ships could take out medium sized warships easily. I wasn't sure how that would translate here, but since the majority of the technologies I'd acquired in my travels were designed for usage on the surface of planets, barring what I'd managed to acquire from hacking into the Terran Databases, I had a feeling things were going to be rough at first. Though I didn't think I'd take colossal casualties, I had the feeling I'd lose more machines in this universe than in any I'd ever fought in before. Therefore, it would probably be a good idea to make sure I could easily replace those losses before I started seriously engaging the Dread Lords in battle.

So, onwards to colonization!

XXXXXXXXXXXX

Once my initial fleets arrived at their target star systems, I immediately set them to work turning those systems into Forward Operating Bases. Orbital fabbers began building orbital factories and defenses, with a few assisting my ground fabbers in building surface infrastructure - factories, umbrellas, metal extractors, resource generators, power plants, storage, and so on. As the number of systems I controlled steadily went up from one to a dozen in roughly a matter of minutes, I noticed one problem I was suffering - while my ability to expand to other star systems was understandably slow, my expansion across the surface of other planets was even slower. This wasn't because my machines were building things slowly, oh no, but rather that my expansion fleets only included so many fabbers in them, which meant that it would take some time to begin large scale expansion. Granted, that time difference was more a case of minutes going to hours, which was still leagues beyond what anyone else would be able to do, especially in this universe, but time mattered.

Since my build times were dependent on how many fabbers I had in the area, the logical solution was to build a transport that could hold more fabbers. The problem with that was that those fabbers were easy targets, as they were exposed while in transit from one planet to the next, since Planetary Annihilation transports (or, for that matter, any transport from a game made by the developers of Total Annihilation) didn't store their units inside the transport, with the notable exception of Supreme Commander Two. Fortunately, I had just come across the technology to build a larger scale transport, one that could hold way more than twelve units in it. I quickly pulled up the list of parts I had available from my tech stealing from the Terrans and their allies and got to work designing.

Approximately ten minutes later, the first Pilgrim Class Colonization ship exited one of my orbital factories and was beginning to be stocked with units. The addition of the coloization module to my arsenal, along with the invasion module, meant I could now store much larger forces for invasions, reven considering what I could deploy as is. I mean, in-game, a colonization module could store 500 units of people, which translated to roughly half a million people. Needless to say, I really didn't need to worry about the size of my expansion forces anymore.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

It'd take a few minutes to finish building the forces that I'd put onboard the Pilgrim, which included several sub-commanders, so I decided to take a moment and return my attention back to my hub world. So far, nothing big was happening - Rory and his adoptive siblings were busy playing hide and seek (which was going to take some time, given that Rory was it and the others were using their psychic powers to tell each other where he was), the new arrivals from the Beyond Earth were settling in nicely, though some of those with Puritanical leadings were still filled with unease regarding their new surroundings, and the genetic heroes were busy doing their own things. In other words, things were mostly normal at the moment.

Oh, and Tylos had decided to come over and see me.

"Greetings Great One, how may I help you?"

"Hello, Tylos. I apologize, but I need no assistance at the moment."

"I see. How goes your journey to retrieve your full powers?"

"Good so far. It has taken me across many worlds, and shown me many wonders."

"I would be surprised if it did not," responded my reptavian companion. To my surprise, he sounded somewhat sad when he said that.

"That would be rather surprising. Now my journey has taken me to a universe home to living machines, and a race of ancients whose own conflicts have caused no small amount of grief for those that would succeed them."

"That is...quite amazing," was my companion's reply. Once again, he sounded sad.

Okay, let's address this before things get out of hand.

"Tylos, are you unhappy?"

"W-what do you mean?"

"Your tone of voice betrays that you are experiencing discomfort, specifically either sadness or melancholia, and I would like to know why. Please, do not argue with me - I just want to help you."

"...I'm sorry, it's just...I want to do more to help you."

"...what?"

"It's just that, ever since you arrived, while you have treated us well, you have mostly ignored us to focus on your mission. I understand your reasons for doing so, but, well, we've waited a long time for your arrival, and we want to help you. Even if it is in the most miniscule of ways, we all want to provide you assistance on your journey. I may be the only one to say as much, but I am not the only one."

I pondered what Tylos had said for a couple of seconds. Now that I thought about it, for all of the care I had offered to my creations, I had essentially just moved a few of them to my hubworld and called it a day. My creations, who were my children in spirit, if not in fact, were beings I had neglected since I had left their home universe. If I continued to neglect them, well, I probably wouldn't be any better than most ROBs. I'd definitely be worse than Melissa, given how cordial she had been with her creations. Maybe I should let them assist more in helping me with my plans for the multiverse.

"I see. Well, I guess I'll have to change that."

"Thank you, Great One..."

Now Tylos was fidgeting around, clearly uneasy.

"Anything else?"

"I suppose there is one more thing I have to say."

"Then say it."

"Well, in your journeys, you have expanded the realm you control to include territories across creation, correct?"

"Yes, I have."

"Then may we be able to see those territories for ourselves? Perhaps carve out a home in these new frontiers?"

"...Are you saying some of my followers want to live on the worlds I have claimed as mine?"

"Precisely. We wish to see how far your power goes, to see the distant stars that are within your reach. We hear so much of what you have achieved, and now we want to see it with our own eyes."

...Could I deny them that? I mean, they had stood beside me since the first day I had met them. Technology that made life better was a good reward for this, but space was still going to be an issue. Plus, living people were more approachable than machines. For the most part, anyway.

"...I believe that can be arranged. Round up anyone who wishes to seek a new home in one of the universes I have visited. I want to know who wants to go and settle these frontiers before I begin marking planets for colonization."

"Of course, my lord."

XXXXXXXXX

So, I guess that was the day I decided to stop just travelling across creation, fighting guys, stealing their tech, nudging the good guys toward making themselves into stronger civilizations, and then leaving. From here on out, I would be taking up the tools to build something that would stand the test of time. An empire to span creation.

True, this wasn't the day I branded my forces as a state, as far as others were concerned. That would be a few weeks later, after taking some time to see if I could keep my colonists from getting screwed over by my own issues. This WAS the day, though, that laid the foundation for all of that. So I guess this could be described as the day the Infernum Federation was truly born.