Disclaimer: I own jackshit.
AN: Ok, so, this was a random idea that came to me, one that I decided that would be interesting, this was the end result since it wouldn't stop bugging me until I wrote it out. Now that I have, I've got a long list of ideas to put into this. Also, I'd like to thank Vladicus for giving this a quality check before I posted this, since the original of this would have been both, less impressive in terms of quality, and far large in size, due to me rambling on.
Anyway, enjoy!
XXX
Waking up was something that you get used to. For some, it was an instant thing, like a switch being flipped between unconsciousness and consciousness, because while others suffered through the desperate drag to get up and required something like coffee to get them up, usually serving as a sufficient boot-to-ass to get moving. I was firmly in the former group, having never really needed the drink, though, that wasn't to say that I would turn it down, then again, when you automatically woke up at five in the morning, every morning, or earlier, without the aid of an alarm clock. Then again, that might have had more to do with the fact that I always had plenty of time to wake up and get my shit in order, especially since I was often awake long before the sun rose over the horizon.
Usually, wakefulness came to me instantly, but now, it felt slow, sluggish and almost like pulling teeth as something felt... Off.
Then again, the biggest clue was probably the scrolling wall of machine code that flashed in front of my eyes as I watched. Initially, I could understand exactly jack and shit out of it, but as more of it passed by, I felt that my understanding of the code grew from nothing to something more, something greater. My mind hurt as I felt something twist or contort within it, a sharp pain that quickly settled into a dull ache once it happened, but it marked the beginning for something, something big.
A perspective-minute later, and the code shifted, slowing down and changing as it lessened, the return statements from various functions becoming visible and other functions that were lined at the bottom of the lines of code became apparent. I rolled my eyes at the fact that whoever wrote this program clearly had never bothered with good programming practices since they hadn't bothered with comments or white spaces, but that hardly mattered as the code disappeared before everything went white.
Instantly, I was assaulted by light as I tried to move. I tried to move an arm to block the light, tried to roll over to get the light out of my face, but I couldn't move. Light pulsed and the image before me changed, becoming more varied as more colours became apparent. As that happened, I started feeling something, a numbness that settled over some of my limbs, reaching different points up each limb as I felt pressure applied against me, my back pressed against something as I felt almost embedded into something as I finally blinked the spots out of my vision, only to stop dead as I looked around.
Before me, I saw something that looked utterly insane. It was a massive cathedral made of stone and steel with pews stretching into the distance and the walls decorated with illustrations of death, war and the skulls that I could guess were either Human or a race so close to it that it hardly mattered in the end. Along with that, I saw rubble, the remains of a dozen pillars that had been thrown to the ground and with several skeletons covering the ground. Some were wearing the remains of combat uniforms while others weren't. One such uniform that was close to me looked like it had been ripped open by claws.. The bones of the rib-cage were visible and I saw several ribs that looked like they had either been cut through or pulverized into fragments that now littered the ground. A few weapons also littered the ground, ranging from advanced looking rifles and pistols to ornamental sabers and swords that still looked ready for use.
However, as I looked up, I suddenly paused as I saw something that really shouldn't have been possible. Then again, the entire situation shouldn't have been possible as I looked around and looked through an open rent in one wall, revealing the sheer thickness of it even as it crossed over the remains of a window frame that I somehow knew to be several metres in thickness, the remains of which happened to be some kind of advanced transparent alloy. A glance at the side of the frame shows that what remains has been bent inwards, an impact breaking through and twisting the metal of the frame even as the window was shattered. Though, why it wasn't sealed off with a Blast-shield wasn't something I could guess at.
I pushed that to one side, however, as I looked outside and saw the boiling unreality that I knew shouldn't have ever existed, the shifting colours being something that should not, could not, exist in any form within a normal reality as I stopped, transfixed and utterly terrified as I recognized it. Hell, slowly, as I looked around and felt the last of whatever grogginess leave me, I started to recognize all of it.
I recognized the Void suits of the corpses, the Lasguns they carried with a few other weapons dotted among them. I recognized the architecture of the chamber, of the design that was the church on what I was willing to bet was a warship. I recognized it all and I especially recognized the riot of impossible colours as I forced myself to look down, least my head start to feel like someone was jabbing it with an ice-pick. Recognition called to realization as I struggled to rationalize what I knew, certainly, it wasn't helped by how I couldn't move to save my life. I looked down at myself, trying to see what was going on, but as I looked down, I saw something in the corner of my vision, an icon that I knew only I could see and I froze at the sight before me. My eyes, perhaps one of the few things I could move, were locked on the reflection looking back at me from across the chamber, in the remains of one of the massive shards of the semi-transparent alloy that had once been a 'window'.
Looking down at myself, I saw two metal legs, both damaged, ravaged by something as metal was ripped and torn apart from the mid-thigh downwards. Once I got to the knee on either leg, I stopped looking any further, mostly because there was nothing else to look at since everything below the knee was simply gone. Likewise, my right arm was simply gone as well, everything below the biceps was just gone while my left arm, while damaged, was still in one piece and only missing a few sections of armor that looked to have been chewed on by something.
As I looked these features over, I found myself strangely calm even as I realized that I was no longer Human, no longer on Earth, no longer anywhere near safe. As this happened, the icon that had been shifting and spinning in the corner of my vision disappeared, only for a different image to appear, text superimposed over my vision as I felt myself flinch back, or at least I tried, to as I felt dread form within me at the words displayed before me.
[OPERATING SYSTEM STARTUP COMPLETE. DELTA-SERIES COMMANDER IS ONLINE.]
I had gone from being a Human on earth, to a Planetary Annihilation Commander, a crippled one at that, that was currently trapped on what was likely to be a disabled warship, or part of a Spacehulk that was trapped within the Warp, within Warhammer 40K...
The term 'I have no mouth and I must scream', came to mind, as I proved upon absorbing this little piece of information.
XXX
As it turns out, the Commander has a timer in it,a rather handy thing to have, especially when it helpfully informed me that I had been able to scream impotently into the airless void for twelve minutes and 55 seconds before the OS I was running on decided enough was enough and a new message flashed through my vision.
[EMOTIONAL EQUILIBRIUM EXCEEDED. RESTORING FACTORY BASELINE.]
The end result was that I went from screaming like a lunatic to perfectly, almost Zen, calm within an instant. The suddenness of the transition, which was serious enough to give me mental whiplash as the sudden... Emptiness appeared in the back of my mind before being replaced with utter calm. I absently noted that it was probably designed as a fail-safe system to ensure that Commanders didn't go batshit nuts from everything they saw and did, or panic for that matter, a rather good idea to have, especially given that I was in 40K, where madness was a rather infectious disease that came with all kinds of nasty shit. For that reason, once I got over my whiplash, I decided to try and make the best of a bad situation.
Chances were that I was never going to see any recognizable faces any time soon, either in friends or family. It was unfair, but life was unfair in general, which was both a blessing and curse when one thought about it. Still, I absently hoped to escape this universe, even as I turned my attention inwards, trying to see what I could find around since I knew that, given the state I was in, getting back on my feet was a priority that couldn't be left to the last minute. As such, the first thing I did was check my internal systems. I was very grateful that the system was both intuitive and adaptive to understand what I wanted it to do.
Of course, seeing as how Murphy The Terrible, The Great Clown and The Nerdy Scheming Mollusk were out to get me today, this only served to inform me of just how fucked I was.
I mean, I had nothing of immediate use. No structures or units were present in the databases I had within the new body I now had, oh sure, I had a technological database that wasn't corrupted and I had most of the needed information to remake the units, but several things had been corrupted here and there. Not only that, but even if that wasn't bad enough, the damage done to my left arm, which held my Fabricator, ensured that, while I could build shit, actually reclaiming something would be a challenge. The software controlling said process had been damaged, I wasn't sure if it was something I could fix, but, at the moment, I was stuck with a volume limit on what I could actually reclaim to get resources out of. Anything that was greater than that volume simply meant that would just get a dozen error messages popping up in my face. If nothing else, that was probably going to be a massive stumbling block since it would ensure that I'd have to cut objects down to chucks rather than reclaim them as singular items.
On the bright side, I had a full tank of both mass and energy, though the Resource Core currently wasn't active. A quick look into that showed that it had something to do with being stuck in the fucking Warp...
Taking all this in, I sighed as I considered the situation and just felt frustration at my lot in life. Still, I knew that moaning wouldn't get me anywhere, hence why a thought caused a new window to pop up in front of me as I got to work on a unit to deploy to aid me.With the aid of the internal design software a started making my idea a reality. Pausing, I considered what to make before an idea came to me before I went to work as my perception of time increased, the outside world slowing to a crawl.
Had I had the features for it, my face would have been split in half by the evil shit-eating grin that covered it...
XXX
If there was one thing that had to be said about Progenitor design software, it was that it was smart.
Literally, I gave rough guidelines on what I wanted, it's final purpose and the general design then the program worked out the rest from there. Sure, I could design something by myself from scratch, but that would require skills I just didn't have at the moment, not to mention a hell of a lot of practice since the design software allowed for the creation of both hardware and software for whatever was being created. Still, I made a note of getting back to it later and learning how to design units properly in the future, mostly because I didn't like the idea of being stuck using training wheels forever. Using the program as an aid was alright in the future, I just did not want it to act as a crutch forever.
Regardless of all the little inconveniences , I was rather happy with the first unit I had created, the design saved and titled as 'Collector'. A moment later, after ensuring that everything was working and all the proper programs were loaded to ensure the machine could carry out all the functions that were needed of it, I spun up my Fabricator and watched as the machine assembled.
Green particles I knew to be nanomachines flew from the end of the Fabricator and rapidly forming wisp-like tethers between my damaged body and the point I was aiming for as they came together. A wireframe of a machine made out of nanites appearing rapidly even as it was filled in and became more solid. Colour eventually came to it and rather than the solid, dull green I had been looking at as the nanites retreated and I was faced with mix of dull grays, blacks and a bit of white paint, all designed to break up the total design. An instant after the machine was complete, I felt it come online as it stretched its legs and stood up on its own power, internal generators coming to life along with computers turning on as the machine stood at the ready, it's tail hovering over its body as it waited.
If I had a face, I would have been grinning like a nutter as I looked at the design that looked somewhat like a mechanical scorpion. Then again, last time I checked, scorpions weren't 1.8 metres tall, not including the tail, three metres wide and with a main body almost 3.2 metres long, along with a tail that added another four metres on to that if it was stretched flat, along with having eight legs instead of six. Not only that, but I doubted that a scorpion should have had ten tentacles attached to its face, four additional ones anchored to its back, four miniature arms coming out of the sides of its head, the ability to spin carbon-nanotube webs, the ability to fly, or the energy weapons mounted to its claws and tail.
Suffice to say, the entire thing was overkill on six legs... And I loved it for that fact.
With that in mind, I ordered it to move, telling it to start gathering any loose items it could find up and dump them into a pile within reclamation range of me as I watched it work. Absently, I considered how well it worked as I remembered the information it was based on, a machine designed by an AI to collect raw materials, be they things like blocks of metal or fresh bodies for the grinder. The thing could cut apart a tank with its claws and then put it back together just as easily, though, I would admit that I had scaled the design down somewhat, mostly due to concerns about energy and mass since both were currently a very finite resource. The Collector itself was currently only generating enough energy to power itself with the excess being stored for weapon usage. I didn't have a big enough economy to allow to let excess energy be bled off into the economy, hence why I was making the most of what I had by creating more Collectors, having them following the same directives as the first as they started gathering loose items up before me. Even then, I felt a mental grimace at that, feeling that it was a waste as it was less a case of my economy, and more a case of a lack of an economy, let alone the actual ability to store the excess energy in any meaningful fashion.
As I created the fifth one, I absently wondered just how the machine I had taken from the 'I am Legion' supplement of the Splicer RPG would stack up against the local powers. A moment of thought was enough for me to realize that the answer was probably going to be 'terrible' since the machine was designed more as a scavenger with the elements of an assault bot tacked on to it. Then again, with Vibro-claws, Particle beams mounted on each claw, and a Vibro-blade and laser cannon mounted on an tail capable of targeting independently of the main fire control system, the thing would probably be utter murder to lesser enemies. Of course, I could just swarm enemies with dozens of the fuckers, which would probably be a hell of a Zerg rush since they could fly, albeit in a limited fashion.
With these thoughts, I stopped creating more of the machines as the tenth Collector started wandering around, the loose items I had described for the machines to pick up were anything that was below a certain volume of space. As such, once they stopped seeing anything that was immediately viable as a 'loose item', such as the swords and rifles nearby. They started cutting up anything they could find with and efficiency only machines possessed.. I watched with some amount of amusement as a pair of them ripped a set of pews from the ground and started chopping the wood-like material to pieces while holding it still with a mess of tendrils that sprayed forth from their bodies. Even then, I looked down at the ever growing pile of stuff and noted how it was growing, the pile of loose items was already rather large as pieces of pillars, random chunks of pews and even what looked like sheets of metal that had been ripped from the floor and were then added to the ever growing pile.
Mentally shaking my head I got started on my own work as I started to reclaim some of the stuff as it was being gathered, noting that some processes came online as I reclaimed a few Lasguns, some bones, and even a few other miscellaneous items. A thought later and I knew that it was investigating the properties of those items, along with the materials that they had been made from, while the processes looking at the bones were geared more towards creating biological profiles of races that it encountered, mostly as some kind of autopsy tool. That made sense in retrospect, since it could allow you to rapidly build up a profile of an enemy's capabilities based on an analysis of their dead. Though, given the utterly insane kinds of aliens that were present in 40K, I was unsure how effective such a tool would be one some of the less... Conventional alien races, probably not ideal.
Still, I had a starting point to work with, my Energy and Mass reserves were being slowly refilled from what I had used to create the Collectors, and I was working on my next design as I looked into what exactly was wrong with my Commander body, since I was pretty sure It should have been self-repairing.
Multi-tasking was a beautiful, wonderful thing.
XXX
It took me until the 32nd Collector was completely operational before I started looking over the body that I current resided within and decided to try and do something about it. Collectors were good for gathering materials, but they had very little in the way of computer hardware that I could hitch a ride on. I mean sure, I could control them and see through their sensors as I did all the time, but that wasn't the same as being in my own body. As such, I started working on another design that would serve as my new body since my current one, not to put too fine a point on it, was fucked up beyond all hope.
The current body I had was tough, that went without saying. However, even with that, it was fucked up beyond repair, internal systems were barely hanging on and had to be bypassed every time I wanted to do something, literally in some cases since I got bypass requests every time I tried to reclaim something. Not only that, but the internal Self-repair systems were fucked as well, software was corrupted to hell and back while the hardware had been turned into little more than melted goo before cooling into slag. Sure, I still had the software and the designs for the stuff, but I was rather leery of trying what was, effectively, open heart surgery on myself when I was still getting my footing.
Hence why I had decided to go for the easier option: Building a new body.
The design itself was another idea taken from 'I am Legion'. I was a massive walker that looked like an Ant on ten legs and armed with a dozen different types of weapons that were mainly geared towards self-defense, though that wasn't to say that they wouldn't be devastating if used for an assault. I watched with no small amount of interest as the design came together, Collectors utterly ignoring the new machine as it came into being. The resources needed to create it caused me to pause more than once to reclaim more raw materials before continuing to build the thing as it stood within the much-emptier chamber after being torn apart by Collectors looking for stuff to pile before me. As a result, little was affected by the sudden appearance of a massive, ten metre tall machine as it was finally completed, the green wire mesh giving way to black armor plate made from Progenitor alloy that was almost twice as thick as the armor of my Commander, despite being five metres shorter. Then again, while it was shorter, it was also another eight metres wide and thirty metres long, making it smaller than the original version, but that hardly mattered since it retained a lot of the same features.
The moment the new machine was online, I dubbed it 'Fabricator Walker', which was based on the Factory Walker from the 'I am Legion' supplement, I felt my mind explode as new processor cores were brought online along with the various generators within the Fabricator Walker. The twin Resource Cores within the walker were out, much like my own Commander, but the potential mass and energy that could be drawn in once they started working would have been massive. A thought, and my primary data architecture was shifted, along with all the assorted databases and programs, were shifted into the Fabricator Walker, which I dubbed as 'Walker Prime 01' for the IFF system within, mostly for myself as a point of interest. With that done, I had the very nice feeling feeling of having so much space to work with, my thoughts running faster and more processing power to work with as sub-processes that were investigating various reclaimed corpses, materials and technology samples suddenly picked up the pace as they had more resource to draw on.
I mentally smirked at that, happy with my work as I settled into the new creation and turned back to my old Commander-style body, the energy signature being dim as I absently ordered it to power down and deactivate, a quick check allowing me to ensure that every system was empty of every kind of software and that the hardware was currently. With that done, I sent the final deactivation signal, effectively turning the Commander-body off and turning off every system that was struggling to hold the thing together even with the cascade of system errors and structural damage. I saw the light dim within the optics of the machine, even then, I mentally smiled as I allowed the six massive tendrils within the machine I now called my body to unfurl, extending fully as I re-tasked some Collectors on a new task.
Namely, to disassemble my Delta-series Commander body as gently as possible and then allow me to reclaim the pieces. I was planning to carry out an autopsy on my own corpse, so to speak, since I wanted to make sure that I wasn't lacking any of the technological goodies that might have been hidden within it. Already, the Fabricators within my Walker Prime sprang to life at that, already working to make new Collectors as the four Fabrication Bays started up, each one printing two Collectors at a time. More could have been printed, but doing so would have extended what little mass I had stocked within the Walker when I made it, something I didn't want to try my luck at even as I ran a thorough series of background checks, enjoying the improved speed as they reported all was well, even the resource links allowing my Collectors to create their super-carbon nanotube webbing from Mass with internal Fabricators.
Almost immediately, I watched with interest as the Collectors got to work, even as eight more machines joined their numbers within minutes, and I watched as they started to slowly and carefully cut into the massive machine with Vibro-claws, peeling away layers of metal that were carefully passed over and piled in front of my Walker Prime. Reclamation of these pieces was just as careful and thorough as the Collectors working to disassemble the fifteen metres tall Commander. New Sub-processes were brought online to analysis everything taken from the corpse of my Commander, every nut and bolt, circuit and processor, even the Resource Core to ensure that it matched what I had in my database. Hopefully, I would be able to plug a few gaps in the databases, then again, most of it appeared to be present, aside from what I had already mentioned, so I hoped for no additional surprises.
However, knowing my luck and the current hellscape that I was in, I knew that was too much to ask for, hence why I started work on another few batches of Collectors and even made plans for additional Fabrication Walkers. Even then, I felt uneasy at the prospect, especially since I knew that I was trading away combat potential for flexibility, something that I was only able to get away with due to sheer luck, more so when you considered my current location, however valid that was in the Warp
Needless to say, I really hoped my luck lasted, but knew that I wasn't that lucky, no one was, especially in 40K.
XXX
Ok, so, according to my internal clock, it had been almost a full day since I had woken up, and I was already making significant progress to building up a decent supply of stuff. Already, I had three more Fabricator Walkers online and a few hundred Collectors all running around, looking for tech to scavenge while ripping apart walls, floors, ceilings and even tearing the kitchen sink out of the walls...
... I made a note of altering their settings so that my orders weren't taken so literally. Along with that, I made another note to start looking into a Metal Extractor design for when I got off the Spacehulk. Not something that I could really use on a Spacehulk, since ripping metal out of the wrecks was more efficient, but you never know.
With such a force I started seriously considering what to do next. Sure, the prospect of going all Von Neumann on the place was something that I could understand, and wouldn't have minded doing myself if it meant getting something out of it, but I needed to get my priorities straight. Oh, sure, going Von Neumann on this place would be useful, but I needed to direct the swarm of machines to do what I wanted them to do, otherwise, it would just be a waste of resources and time. Especially since I lacked the resources and economy to do it in a reasonable fashion, what with the lack of an economy and all.
Priority one: Something to protect me from the Warp, something that could be handled since I was on a Spacehulk. A Collector had already taken a peak outside and seen the size of the ,damn thing, I had to add software to delete the image of the Warp beyond it, but I got a clear enough image to see that the entire thing was several dozen kilometres long. Not only that, but I'd guess that the thing was made of a lot of Imperial ships since that was all I could see on the outside of the vessel aside from the occasional rock and asteroid. With that in mind, I could guess that at least one of them might have an intact Gellar Field Generator that I could use to protect myself from the insanity that was 4th Dimensional Warp fuckery. Still, I'd need to find it and figure out a way of retrieving it without causing the Warp to collapse in on me while causing the surrounding area to be invaded by Daemons looking for a snack.
Priority two: Scavenging materials and salvaging anything that could give me an advantage (read: Shinnies!). I needed Mass and Energy to keep producing more units, the Fabrication Walkers helped with that by generating excess that was being fed back into my still-budding economy, but without the Resource Cores online, they were going at a glacial pace since I only had so much space to work within those designs. Actually sitting down and making a proper structure for them was something I was loathe to do at the moment, especially since I might need to fuck off in a hurry and leave something behind, something that I very much wanted to avoid. Not only that, but anything new that I Reclaimed was automatically checked over for anything that might give me a hand, already, I was seeing new designs for materials that were made possible by the fact that I could assemble them with nanites. Alloys made from multiple materials and formed into perfect lattice designs as the research processes worked away, trying to find anything of interest.
Still, even with those, and the amount of sheer processing power I was throwing around, it was still taking a while to fully understand and analysis a few of the ideas, Power weapons being the biggest thing at the moment.
Priority three... Oh...
Well then, looks like the Spacehulk I was on wasn't as dead as I thought, considering that one of my Collectors just found active lights, not to mention signs that someone has been through recently.
Interesting...
XXX
AN: Anyway, there is chapter one of this storyline, hope you all enjoyed it, and please feel free to leave comments and feedback.