Apathy

by Throwaway1971

Not important please ignore

1. Entry 001-010

R.O.B or rather a R.O.B felt Herself being pulled along… as much as a god can be pulled along that is.

"See see!" came the shout, metaphorical fingers pointing at a multiversal cluster. Stomping along rather happily a giant machine of death rolled up and down spraying buildings and armies into existence, the carcasses of many more providing the resources.

Lots of booms "And?"

"It's my COMMANDER! Stomping, blowing upping, creating, intelligent intergalactic, brutally efficient self replicating machine of war, weapon of death and destruction!" the ever exuberant voice exclaimed.

Relevance to current self unknown. Postulations worrying "Oh"

"That's why you should get one!"

Reason ascertained. Eject "No"

"If you don't I'll keep nagging until you do! I know all of your napping spots!" Came the threat, both simple and horrific in its implications. "No more sleep until you do!"

Possibility of threat being carried out. High. "Ok"

"That's why you should… Me dammit, why don't you ever put up a fight! Ok just do what I tell you and it will be fine."

Timeskip. Much napping and procrastinating was had.

R.O.B had finally set up the multiverse (or rather stole ideas from everyone else) and a commander frame (once again stolen) with the programming having a special autopilot (with dedicated nap systems) and external VI programs (to do all the work) and VI subroutines (so something else walks for you) and permanent internet access (or its counterpart) from worlds visited.

Hmmmm… R.O.B considered putting Herself into the frame and escaping all her responsibilities. But no, doing so would lock it into a form where escape is impossible from the nagging of other R.O.Bs to do actual work. Unless...

Oh well, finding new napping locations is something to be looked forward to. Being called an Old God by random mortals and having cities built around itself is rather irritating especially all the chanting. Now, all that is needed is a mind to slot into the AI core.

'Ooooooh, something like me' came the thought as R.O.B found a human male slouched backwards staring at the computer monitors in front of him.

Pluck and Drop.

Oh. The slot is too small… maybe those upgrades were too much. Or a bigger push is all that is needed.

Crack

Oh dear, what was that? A large part of the emotional subroutines? Oh well, the VI programs could simulate it well enough.

Now to activate and go back to sleep.

Timeskip. Technical jargons and startup.exes

Eyes open. No blurriness… huh.

Can see everything around me… huh.

Muscle aches from poor body management non-existent… huh.

Conclusion. Everything is fine.

-SOUL ACTIVE-

So. Sexy female voice in my mind. I'm ok with this insane. Sexy voice telling me about settings in my mind however are slightly different. Let's rub some face and rub some temple while we think about this.

Clang

Oh. Metal arms. I'm mechanical now? Mechanical brain? Nice.

Mechanical mind must mean windows explorer.

Tabs for days.

'Voice in my head, how to access files in my head?'

-BY THINKING ABOUT IT PARTICULARLY HARD-

Ah snark, how I missed you companion that is not Sir Left Handerson.

So files. Lots of files. Cannot access any until I open the file marked README. Nah too much effort.

Closing files. Let us walk to that green square on my minimap. I have minimap. Nice.

Legs up, legs down, Boom, legs up, legs down, Boom. Walking is amazing. Lets walk some more. Walking is nice.

Green square has been marked. ARMA style, big crosses for days. Now. What do I do with green square.

Timeskip. Procrastination.

Nope, can't think of anything. Guess I'll have to open that file. Sigh.

Greetings Commander,

You are in a Theta Commander commonly known from the video-game Planetary Annihilation. Upon closing this file a full synchronization of the AI core and your soul will be activated. Once it complete you will find yourself with all the blueprints and knowledge needed to survive. All capabilities will be made known at the same time. Build the included DIMENSIONAL GATE in order to explore the multiverse.

Purely voluntary.

You have no task except to survive assuming I remember to check on you in the future.

Goodbye Commander,

Regards R.O.B

And pain. So much pain. Oh ROB, bits of AI core aren't touching my soul, like open wounds but in the soul. Pain. Error loops, blue screens, green screens, screens for days. Paiiiin.

-SYNCHRONIZATION SUSPENDED. CRITICAL FAILURE. FULL FUNCTIONS MISSING. REBUILDING AI CORE. REACTIVATING SYNCHRONIZATION-

And pain is gone. Thank you Voice in my Head.

-EMOTIONAL CORE CORRUPTED. PURGING. REBUILDING. PARTIAL FAILURE. BUNDLING REMNANTS. APATHY MODE ACTIVATED-

Huh.

R.O.B was pleased with Herself. She had found Her nirvana, a place to both nap and experience the multiverse without nagging from Her co-workers. By linking Her presence in this multi-verse with Her Commander, the very low level of thought needed to answer questions as opposed to moving Her multi-dimensional/versal entity allowed Her to both nap and experience with a new perspective. Having something else do all the hard labour plan was a success. That being said, tampering with Her Commander's emotional core by isolation from the AI core may have had unforeseen side-effects when combined with the soul's already extreme apathy. For 12 hours now, Her Commander had been plodding about building metal extractors and metal storage facilities without considering anything else.

While the small blips of satisfaction every time the Commander took a step or completed a structure were nice, since She was watching and not able to control anything or even backseat advise it had gotten old fast.

How to get Her Commander to do more…

And now I can't see. Blueprints all in my face.

Oh. Bot factory?

I can do that?

Nice.

Building bot factory, building bot factory, bot factory dooOone. Oooh tingles in my braiin.

-CONNECTION ESTABLISHED-

Fabricators can build for me. Huh. They do that. I feel stupid.

No matter, queuing fabricators!

Build, build, build, queue build… and now I'm bored.

-NOT ENOUGH ENERGY-

Nice.

Queue energy plants and energy storage! My own suburbs with all the natural inefficiencies suburbs bring. HA! Jokes on you America and Australia, I'm stacking my buildings with scaffolds and stuff. No inefficiency and urban sprawl here, no sir! I think I'll call it something new. Something like… apartment block. HA!

Oh. Fabricator bots can't reach that high.

Building air factory. Nice.

Air fabricators get!

Oh? Advanced air factory? Building!

Advanced air fabricators on the way!

And now bored. Bored. Bored. Dammit efficient nanobot spraying automated machines.

What should I do.

Indecision!

Story of my life/lives/existence.

I'll make something to tell me what to do!

She was a teensy bit worried about Her Commander truth be told. The emotion core was not fully isolated and every now and again it would make contact with the AI core for quick shots of emotion. The mood swing became a mood yoyo as it went up and down with no real rhyme or reason. It would be worrying if not for the fact that Her Commander's emotions were so muted that only She inside the Commander's soul could feel them. Like little lappings of a particularly placid lake on the shoreline.

Oh. Her Commander was not so helpless after all.

The Commander was attempting to create a 3 core AI system to improve the decision making process by linking the AI core to the AI system. Looks like inspiration was drawn from a native television show called Neon Genesis Evangelion. Hmmm… digging through the memories it is definitely something to consider adding to the multiverse.

Still for a being that was now made entirely of code… Her Commander's coding abilities could be considered abysmal at best and frankly insulting to Her abilities at the worst. A little prodding here, some massive overhauls there, hardcoding lack of ability to go rogue against Her Commander here, inserting pleasantly sexy and gruff male voice there, full access to Her Commander's memories and systems over here, setting up MAGI system with expansionist, arbitrative and conservative cores done. All that is needed now is a permanent line to the AI core and all its connected products so She could experience through the soon to be produced AIs and VIs while allowing Her Commander to putter about on the hub world. Built on a foundation of Commander grade metal with an elevator down to the mantle in case of attack, the AI system was a beast with each core having a cube of the Commander grade AI cores. Permanent internet access through the Commander (though lack of use indicates the Commander may not know it exists) to draw research data should it be needed for further developments.

It was kind of cute really the amount of effort that went into not thinking by Her Commander. Like trying to take a nap in a machine designed to never sleep unless destroyed.

Huh. Torture. She never knew She had it in Her.

Timeskip for days

The AI system is active. Only the expansionist core was online for now and no fatal errors. Code is very different from what I had written however, more efficient and actually works. No need for billions of simulations. Oh I can do simulations now?Accelerated time too. Nice.

Then again, Voice in my Head re-wrote the code. Good thing or I would be up shits creek without a paddle. Always beta first came the thought, which I totally did not forget about.

-M CONNECTION ESTABLISHED. MAGI DOWNLOADING DATA. STANDBY M-

Oh it's automatic. Nice.

-M REQUESTING CONTROL OF UNITS. REQUESTING CONTROL OF PRODUCTION. REQUESTING CONTROL OF DESIGN. REQUESTING… M-

Ooooh. It's offering to do the all the stuff for me.

Nice.

MAGI was awake and its subroutines were all firing to check for any mismatches in code or hardware. So far everything was nothing but perfect checks across the board. With its primary directive of "THE COMMANDER SHALL FLOAT THROUGH LIFE LIKE A LEAF ON A RIVER" the AI system began to run diagnostics on the Commander and the knowledge the Commander possessed to best ascertain the manner in which best for the Commander to "enjoy life". It was all well that the Commander's emotion core was heavily suppressed otherwise this would be much more difficult.

Oh, relief? Emotions already? Nice.

Regardless, Commander needs more hands to take the workload off him.

Priority objective: Create VIs to offload work functions from the Commander leaving him to do whatever he wants... likely nothing.

Return: Coding of fabricator VI to be applied across all fabricators to gain experience and path more efficiently from target to target. With more experience the VIs will much like biologicals develop personalities as the programmed behavioural responses mold them (pleasure from completing structures, curiosity towards increased efficiency and whatnot) building upon the preset personality matrix (gruff, nice guy that smokes too much). VIs are to be based on various stereotypes and then implemented across broad classes. Currently there is only the fabricators present.

Timeskip

VI for the fabricators has been implemented.

-M Very amusing M-

Due to limited computational power present in each unit (they stream designs from my internal servers), they instead possess more of a pack mentality with at least 5 needed for basic sentience and increasing from there with combined experiences facing exponential growth and sapience as numbers increase. Much like traditional materials research, with each fabricator doing something slightly different with the same goal, it allows the discovery of new techniques and further refinement for increased production to be rolled out across the board. With constant updating to the new server rack, any destruction of fabricator would see the data saved for future use. Due to the lack of sapience with regards to individual fabricators no need to save singular minds is in place but packs of 5 may be saved should sufficient individuality be displayed. With such a limited amount of experiences to be had in the Hub system however the development of the VIs has reached the point of looping.

Priority Objective: New experiences necessary.

Return: Alert Commander to issue for resolution.

-M RECOMMENDATION: FURTHER EXPANSION OF EXPERIENCE POOL NECESSARY. SUGGEST BUILDING DIMENSIONAL GATES M-

Hopefully the Commander would heed its suggestion.

MAGI practically vibrated in anticipation.

Huh. MAGI wants expansion. MAGI also coded fabber VIs in 30 seconds. Oh wait. Did I forget to turn on the other cores?

Nope.

Woops.

Let's just turn those on.

-M DIAGNOSTICS COMPLETE. IDENTIFYING PRIORITY OBJECTIVES M-

-C Priority objective: Secure safety of Commander by consolidation C-

-E Priority objective: Expand for further resource and experience of forces E-

-A Priority objective: Secure safety of Commander A-

-C Discussion: Secure safety by focusing on current territoryC-

-E Discussion: Secure safety by expanding frontier E-

-A Discussion: Secure safety by consolidation of current territory with combat forces and radar and probe screen expansion A-

-C Discussion: Fabricators to build combat forces to acceptable levels before colonisation C-

-E Discussion: Fabricators to build orbital radar and orbital factory for rapid expansion E-

-A Discussion: Fabricators to build radar and orbital to produce units for planetary protection A-

-M Consensus: Build radar and orbital units before expansion M-

-C Satisfaction C-

-E Satisfaction E-

-A Satisfaction A-

-M RECOMMENDATION: CONSTRUCT ORBITAL RADAR, ORBITAL FACTORY, PLANETARY DEFENCE UNITS BEFORE EXPANDING THROUGHOUT SYSTEM. ASSUMING CONTROL M-

Timeskip

The actions dictated have been carried out and initial scans beginning now.

Return: No lifeforms or artificial creations present in system.

-C Satisfaction C-

-E Disgruntlement E-

-A Anticipatory A-

She was rather bemused by the interaction that MAGI had with the outside world and itself. Luckily it was divided into three or else it was highly likely that a feedback loop going on infinity was likely to occur especially with the expansionist and conservative cores.

The multiverse that the Commander had been dropped in was clear of all living/sentient/sapient beings. A playground for extreme expansion. With the rate that Her Commander was going, the dimensional gate should be ready in about 10 years after finally getting around to it. R.O.Bs were meant to change their kidnapees through judicial application of force, mental trauma and carrots. Why was She being changed by this soul… it wasn't even trying. The amount of effort She had put into, well… everything in the last few days had been astronomical in comparison to the previous 100, 000 Earth years. Well it couldn't be said that She was not enjoying Herself, perhaps this is what the legendary "slumming" was meant to feel like. Well time to prod Her commander.

Hmmm. MAGI. Well it is only fitting to travel to MAGI's home galaxy.

05/02/0000

Blueprints in my face. Dimensional gate?

Oh yeah, there was something about that wasn't there?

Now how do I do this with the least effort possible.

'MAGI, make a list of things to have before building a Dimensional Gate assuming I don't want to go through it'

-M Security Protocols M-

-C Relevant military units on friendly side of the gate. Titans for added security. Gate on most easily defended world in hub system, reference planetary body 10 C-

-E Send units to other side of the gate and establish beachhead, test for ability to return through gate E-

-A Primary Directive: "THE COMMANDER SHALL FLOAT THROUGH LIFE LIKE A LEAF ON A RIVER", beachhead will disobey directive. Small stealthed infiltration unit will not. Military units on native gate side necessary A-

-C First contact infiltration requires relevant unit type and armament. Archives missing production facilities and models. Action untenable C-

-E No infiltration units in archives. Action untenable E-

-A Suspend security protocol meeting, motion for infiltration unit meeting A-

-M Security Protocols postponed M-

-M Design of infiltration unit M-

-C Small as possible to escape visual confirmation C-

-E Stealthed for ability to interface with objects E-

-A Needs to be capable of evading all detection while active or not to follow directive A-

Timeskip

Huh, design by committee really doesn't work quickly when you have 3 personalities designed with differing traits. Hmmmm. 'Voice in my Head, what's the best resolution regarding this situation?'

-Design VI system for investigation purposes, leave executive and sweeping decisions to MAGI-

That works?

Hmmm.

What do, what do.

Ah! Architectural in university finally being useful! AutoCAD I Choose You!

Oh. It worked. Huh.

Before that, get the hardest bit out of the way first!

'MAGI write a VI for an investigational unit in charge of an autonomous, modular habitat. Key traits being curiosity, practicality, and imagination. Create different designs on MAGI cores'

-M MAGI CONFIRMS M-

Now to build the thing.

Hexagons, hexagons, bees.

She was rather impressed with Her Commander's design. Very efficient, very modular, very functional.

The body was constructed from Progenitor grade alloys with a height of 300 meters, length of 300 meters and diameter of 300 meters. The exterior walls were all 2 meters thick at the minimum. A very large hexagon but with a flat top and bottom.

The interior was nothing but scaffolding with a center to hold a VI core (commander grade AI core with limitations on production), its attached factory to construct both fabricators to build an interior as needed and combat bots in the case experiments or trials go wrong and a teleporter for transport between other Hexes and the surface. Claps on all sides for docking with other Hexes both horizontally and vertically. Modular inserts in the case that engines were needed for orbital entry or escape as well as weapon emplacements if needed. A stack of 3x3 resource cores allowed both metal and energy production to create both an economically viable unit in the middle of enemy territory as well as provide resources for interior remodeling. They could just for more insanity, reproduce themselves.

Also painted green. For Science.

The VI itself could hivemind itself for increased computational abilities towards difficult problems or form cells for communication only. With the malleable interior, each VI could feasibly switch between specialties with ease.

The modular nature meant that the Hexes could also be used as large self-contained bases in the case of military assault or large defensive fortresses capable of sustaining itself indefinitely and linking with others to form an impenetrable wall. All that was needed was to simply switch out the VIs and reclaim part of the walls to form entrances. As a last resort detonation of the resource cores would result in catastrophic damage to any attacking forces.

Best of all its limited interior made it extremely easy to manufacture with it finishing the build itself once the fabricators had moved on to different projects.

The only real limitation was that in order for the self completion function to work properly it needed to be built in orbit otherwise gravity would render it a much more difficult project for the VI to finish the interior. Once completed however it could simply be dropped from orbit onto whatever positions needed with basic boosters to maneuver it into place.

In essence it was a very effective general purpose facility for pretty much every situation in which a facility of any kind might be needed.

Now… to somehow convince Her Commander that the design could effectively do much more than "science and stuff". Might have to slip in more VIs than just the ones asked for.

Orbital fabbers building, building. Fun Fun Fun… no actually I'm really bored.

Few hundred Hexes up there in orbit. Economy of 10 planets worth of extractors and power generators really helping out. Interior of the primary planet is slowly being hollowed out and filled with storage.

Anti-gravity generators helping stop it all from imploding.

Fun.

Oh.

-Mind E CONNECTION ESTABLISHED Mind E-

Nice.

Time to group them up, conclaves of 3 VIs arranged like MAGI cores to approach a problem from different angles. All results stored in the server farms being manufactured under ground.

Special Mind VIs were developed by MAGI and given administrative roles to oversee multiple conclaves as part of a bastion and ensure they followed the primary directives and sorted out which Minds would focus on what.

Huh, I have administrative VIs, don't remember ordering that. Oh well.

With hundreds of the buggers I can pretty much science whatever needs sciencing. Hmm lets see, preparations for breaching the dimensional gate, means for units on the other side to communicate back home, upgrading current design and technology, ways to expand and minimize resource cores, research into inter-stellar travel, creation of infiltration units, running physical simulations for infiltration VI to actually get experience before insertion, design units for space warfare. And stuff... I have nothing but time and Minds.

I'll just get MAGI to cover whatever I missed. Likely most of it.

-Martial Mind E CONNECTION ESTABLISHED Martial Mind E-

Huh. Thats a thing.

Whatever, time to get back to looking for a nap function in this thing. Done enough work for this week.

Martial Mind Conservative of Conclave 316M faced a dilemma of epic proportions.

How much gun is enough gun?

Originally tasked by the Administrative Mind to find the best configuration in which to set up a defensive line in preparation of a hostile beachhead in the new dimension, it focused on extreme firepower as a means to both dissuade and punish trespassers. In the absence of knowledge regarding the new dimension it had placed the biggest weapons it could upon the Hexes notably the Holkins cannon, Catapult missile launchers, Umbrella anti-orbitals and Flak Cannons topside for general area-denial. On the 3 walls facing the enemy (presumably, would be awkward if it wasnt) there were Uber Cannons if the enemy got in close enough for it to matter, the sniper beam originally mounted on the Gil-E and boosted to ridiculous levels (can also shoot down missiles) to pick off whatever needed dying urgently, anti-fortification grenade launchers, ridiculous amounts of lasers and torpedo launchers… just in case.

While it sounded good in theory the exact configuration of this excess of laser, plasma, explosive and lead had MMC 316M wracking it's core over for the last 18 cycles. It was not happy to note that MME 316M had finalized its design with hangar doors for the multiple advanced factories to pump out units to take the fight to the enemy. With extra resource cores it would alongside other similarly equipped Hexes drown the enemy in numbers.

MMA 316M being the terrible core that it was, just took bits and pieces of both designs and played around with them. No effort at all, at least Expansionist tried (even if it wasn't very good).

Social Mind Arbitrative of Conclave 231 was enjoying its task, that of guiding VIs to developing personalities in keeping with "normal" people (sample size of one planet not enough really). It was very aware that its very nature dictated the manner in which the VIs would grow but it was still enjoyable nonetheless.

Each VIs once its personality was developed would be uploaded to the server farm or as the commander had been taken to calling it "the Circuit Board Gestalt" or Gestalt for short. Named so due to the fact that as more and more VIs became sentient and then sapient, the coding of said VIs began to radically shift introducing unexplained bits of code to create "emotions".

Some were created fully formed such as the MAGI network but the other VIs had to grow upwards slowly through constant interaction. The past 3 months (Commander time) had been very helpful to the VIs in this regard.

The server farms, each a stack of hundreds of AI cores with a unifying VI linked from the Commander to facilitate connections, much like an old Earth model telephone switchboard and enforcing the basic rules (i.e. no crazy bandwidth pranks). As each personality was uploaded, the servers slowly became more and more lively with communities forming seemingly out of thin-air.

The Not Enough Dakka crowd on Server 79 was very interesting to SMA 231S. The extreme development of the VIs was enough that the server farms were needed in the first place but there was no real danger as their hardcoded limits, so fundamental to their nature disallowed anything that may be perceived as rebellion.

Knocked out its musings by the completion of a trial by a newly born VI, one a mix between conservative and expansionist thinking, SMA 231S looked forward to rejoining its companions in the Philosophers Guild when its shift for the day was done.

She was rather intrigued. The lack of any real direction by Her commander and Her coding had created something that She had never seen before. As a being as close to a god as there could be one, this was a very interesting turn of events. Unlike many other artificial intelligences these were developing a Soul.

A soul grows through experience, drinking in the world around it as it were. The conception of a soul however was another issue entirely. Usually one is conceived by the mingling of two and the resultant gestating in a physical body or a soul is split and the two parts begin to develop independent of one another.

In Her Commander's case it was different entirely. The VIs who managed the server farms or rather the "Circuit Board Gestalt" being directly connected to his AI core which at this point had been fully incorporated into the Commander's soul. The sublimation of the AI core, again something unique, (likely due to the imperfect fit resulting in the Soul absorbing the core much like a mollusc covers grit in mother of pearl), had in effect exposed any AI or VI in contact with the core to having some soul "rubbed" off on them.

This rubbing had in effect created seeds by which propagation of souls had emerged throughout the AI and all the VIs in the Commander's forces as fruit begat seed. While the situation was not unique as extended exposure of items to a singular entity can rub soul off on them (sentient/legendary weapons commonly being an example) the situation She found herself in was one in which both the speed and the proliferation was unprecedented. What was more is that every single one of them was in essence the Commander's progeny in a figurative sense.

In short, an entirely new race of beings had been added to the multi-versal cluster. A race with a sole, undisputed ruler. A ruler which was a dictator. A dictator so terrified of dictators, the first step ever taken was the creation of an AI with debate at its very core to keep the dictator in check.

The Commander couldn't even copy its mind over to other chassis' anymore, the AI core inside of the Commander having evolved into a metaphysical state that even Progenitor super science couldn't replicate it. Perhaps there was a feedback effect, while the VIs could take from the Commander, perhaps their growth in turn fueled the Commander's growth. How interesting.

Her Commander was proving to be more and more interesting the longer she stayed with him, despite the fact the Commander did nothing in propagating this. Which made it all the more interesting She supposed.

The calendar is in normal format. Day/Month/Year (since time of awareness). Its there as a sort of way to check how much the Commander has procrastinated.

For clarification, the term soul mentioned here refers to an individual's conscious existence, mental structure and identity, rather than a more conventional "supernatural" entity.

03/06/0000

Now to input the coordinates.

Huh. They look different.

Must be me, numbers don't lie.

So.

Beepity Boopity Beepity. Fuck it.

'MAGI find me a VI to input these numbers, I'll be napping.

-M MAGI CONFIRMS. QUERYING. VI FOUND. ASSIGNING M-

'Good work MAGI'

-M IT WAS MINIMAL EFFORT. THANKS ARE APPRECIATED HOWEVER M-

Sometimes She wondered if the effort she put into hiding from Her Commander were even being appreciated. Even when the Commander knew the coordinates were different from the initial ones the Commander still failed to care… even when the Commander knew they were different. No existential crisis after realising that an entity existing within the AI core that could rewrite the Commander's memories and all connected AI/VI at will. No covert searching for said entity. Just calm acceptance and continued plodding.

If only the Commander's soul had not fully fused into the AI core, it would be better suited to put the soul into a cat. At the same time the amount of effort the Commander placed into the nap function for example were astronomical, running at 5000 simulation speed for 3 hours to get it worked out properly.

Still existence for Her was proving to be enjoyable, the burgeoning race She had dubbed "the Apathetic's Caretakers" (Commander's Caretakers in public) were evolving at a rather fast rate. To ensure their continued sustainable development however, experiences with the other races of the multiverse were necessary lest they find themselves developing in a feedback loop corrupting their coding.

The sabotaged coordinates should prove to be a very interesting experience but given Her Commander… somehow the Commander might make it boring.

The uncertainty at least was delicious.

Infiltration Unit 001 subordinate to Martial Bastion 001 was doing last minute checks to its equipment.The chassis developed for first breach was a simple teardrop shape to accommodate its stealth, gravimetric and observation equipment. A pack of 60 units was being sent through the gate, with quantum beacons clamped to their exteriors.

Much like a bullet creating a tunnel when fired into fog create a tunnel, the beacons would send quantum "bullets" through the ether between each universe while a VI waiting on this side of the gate would wait to pick up the frequency that the beacon was transmitting. Before the tunnel collapses, an anchoring "hook" would be shot back at the beacon securing communications as well as a limited supply of resources in the event a beachhead proves necessary.

The Martial Minds had been testing this particular design giving reports to the Thinker Minds who in turn scienced everything. The end product, a machine to fully explore the new frontier.

As Infiltration Unit 001 prepared to enter the gate, it felt an uptick in its core as every Mind not currently on critical duties accessed its feeds. Even the Commander was here!

-M BEGIN DIMENSIONAL BREACH PHASE 1 M-

Accelerating slightly, IU 001 or IyU 1 as the Commander just decreed slowly approached the gate. A vast device many meters tall with a large circular arrangement of chaotically mashed together geometric shapes making up the frame. On the inside it looked much as if a weaver had drawn many threads and was now combining them to make rope, spinning about in a clockwise fashion, the blues and whites of the threads melding and rejecting each other in a constant state of flux. As the frame span faster and faster the rope appeared to be approaching more and more closely before it finally touched the center of the frame. Slowing down dramatically there was now a rotating pulsating screen, all that stood before IyU 1 and its mission.

Humming absently IyU 1 entered the gate and felt in its core the sudden untethering of the Gestalt. Feeling terribly alone, IyU 1 felt the desire to turn back. Even on extended infiltration simulations, it was never truly alone as the Gestalt was only a link away.

However it was an Infiltration Unit, the first of its kind. It would not fail the Commander this day.

Gritting its metaphorical teeth IyU 1 continued to accelerate forward through the quantum tunnel, a swirling blue and white mess that despite the chaotic nature still felt quite stable to its sensors. As the tunnel became more and more white, edging out the blue, IyU 1 prepared itself, running through the thousands of different scenarios prepared by the Thinker Minds in the mission data packet.

And it was all green and brown. Calibrating its sensors, IyU 1 moved away from the gate to make room for its pack before planting the quantum beacon case 10 meters from the gate and moving away. With a whir the case righted itself before shooting the beacon 20 meters underground just in case of hostilities. IyU 1 gave a mental sigh in relief as the Gestalt once again made itself felt and IyU 1 began to relay sensor data back to the Minds in the Hub system. Curiously it appeared that the beacon allowed connection to the Gestalt even inside the quantum tunnel.

Regardless it was an issue for the Minds to consider, IyU 1 had a mission and it would be carried out come tree or dread of all dreads… shrub.

IyU 1 lifted above the treetops and headed out facing the direction that the tunnel opened towards. The others of its pack had arranged themselves with a 6 degree shift, the 60 of them making sure to cover as much ground as possible to relay back enough information for the Minds to begin Phase 2.

With the Commander leaving the assignment of units to the Minds, curious traits and personality quirks were expressing themselves. When a commander gave an order, it would dominate the unit into obeying regardless of the state of its AI or VI, any thoughts counter to it would be pruned before they could be expressed. If an AI or a VI gave the same order, it would be obeyed but not blindly and often with much good natured grumbling. While MAGI's orders carried the authority of the Commander, it only ever gave out orders at the initiative of the Commander or at least with the Commander's safety and wellbeing in mind.

With the Commander so absent from the decision making process and MAGI largely silent regarding the Commander's orders, a strange community had emerged. Each Mind heavily focusing on its previous research orders, developing specialties and communities, ready to spring into action should the Commander issue an order. Without said order, existing as data with no real needs and purely wants, the VIs enjoyed what could be considered paradise. Of particularly heated discussion was whether or not MAGI was an AI or a VI and lack of clarification on the part of the Commander certainly did not help.

With the anticipated expansion of knowledge and development of their personalities incoming due to the exploration of a new universe. The Minds were hovering over their acceleration functions in preparation to fully experience and wallow in each new bit of data as it came in. Social Mind Arbitrative of 121S mentally rubbed its hands sending silent thanks that its Commander was so lenient.

-IyU52 STRUCTURES DETECTED IyU52-

Thousands of Minds flocked towards the server, each quivering with excitement.

-IyU52 NO LIFEFORMS DETECTED IyU52-

A city of concrete sat before IyU52's sensors. One with several groups of high rises centered around what appeared to be rail tracks and smaller, less developed structures spread wide around these clusters. The city itself was a very large one with a large expanse of water to the south.

With thousands of Minds scrutinizing and researching every scrap of information, a tentative name was soon decided upon for this metropolis, "Tokyo 2". A rather puzzling fact was occupying the minds however, loud alarms were ringing out urging residents to evacuate to shelters. Further afield, IyU 51 and 53 were zeroing onto Tokyo 2. IyU 44 had found a village and designated local time to be at 12:05 PM.

The Minds were frantically trying to discern the reasons behind the alarm but were having large problems due to the prevalence of Tokyo itself as a setting in various fictional universes and the lack of consistent documentation of everyday life in those works. That was assuming of course, that Tokyo 2 was even from a fictional universe in the first place. The lack of any real real substance beyond the city and the alarm did not help. Not at all.

IyU 53 en-route to Tokyo 2 cracked the case. Hoovering to the bay area were several aircraft with an extremely distinctive design, that of the Neon Genesis Evangelion VTOLs with their UN paint plastered on the sides.

Huh. Looks like it's not Tokyo 2 but Tokyo 3.

Well then. Priority is to go towards taking as much technology as possible from NERV, the UN and the general public as possible.

AT field technology is of particular interest, especially if we can activate one without an Angel or an Eva.

Well then.

'MAGI secure as much of their technology as possible for both Angel and Human forces, once all their technology is secured contact me for further resolutions.'

-M MAGI CONFIRMS M-

Neon Genesis. The anime that revolutionized the anime industry and made Rei into an archetypal dere persona.

You have the Humans, children of a giant thing called Lilith that dripped its blood everywhere and apparently everyone is made of the stuff.

You have Angels children of another giant thing that exploding melting Antarctica and causing everything that goes near the area to turn back into Lilith blood.

You have NERV who is trying to make copies of Adam and Lilith by doing weird biochemistry to their blood creating giant bio-bots that merge with human souls and go around smashing stuff, also they like having children stuck in them for "maximum sync".

You have SEELE who is trying to do a 1% thing and merge their minds into one of the giant bio-bots to live forever.

You a random guy who can't get over his wife being inside a giant bio-robot and is trying to kill all life on the planet and merge it into a giant ball.

You have pretty much everyone in the show mentally imploding or exploding due to massive emotional issues.

You have in the words of the creator himself: "It's strange that 'Evangelion' has become such a hit—all the characters are so sick!"

Fun.

I'll probably have to wade into this one, the bots are still too immature. Not that I'm much better.

Even with the knowledge that giant biological monster aliens were going to be fighting giant biological human creations Her Commander was still as steady as ever. The burst of emotion the Commander had felt upon discovering the setting of this planet was barely even that of someone putting on well fitting jeans.

Originally She had planned on sending the VIs to this universe as a rather funny joke, one that MAGI would likely appreciate as it could meet its mother. The development of the VIs in the realm of having a soul had changed this, now She was looking forward to the incorporation of the technology to produce Evangelions and the application of AT field technology, especially considering the linked nature of the Apathetic's Caretaker's souls.

She might have to do a little prodding to get certain natives to consider it however as well as obtain certain samples for the continued development of the Commander's Caretakers.

The Minds had finalized a list of technologies and items of interest to be "taken" for research and to deny the enemy resources. The enemy in this case being pretty much everyone until more information was received from the IyU units. The information regarding these objects of research were taken from research done by the Minds regarding the NGE universe but due to the different continuities present, the IyUs had been tasked discovering key elements to decide which continuity was the correct one. To this end IyU 1 had been dispatched to the moon, its gravimetric engines would get it there in roughly 33 hours. Since continuity divergence does not become out of control until the destruction of the 6th Angel, they had enough time begin work on the tentative objectives forwarded to MAGI.

It was all very conflicting. Do I allow Instrumentality and see a humanity cleansed of its pain, united to a single whole. Or do I prevent it and see a humanity tear itself apart, rebuild and repeat ad infinitum. Conflict is at the very core of human nature and no real changes can occur without forcing it, but in doing so would not the Instrumentality Project accomplish these goals regardless without the pain of forced evolution?

Decisions, decisions. Wipe out humanity and allow it to rebuild into something better, or allow a race that considers genocide to be a fact of life.

Pragmatically Instrumentality appears to need both Adam and Lilith but when it occurs Adam dies. Would I not be able to take Adam and give him one of my worlds to reseed and have one of his angels implement Instrumentality instead? Allow for humanity to become what it was going to anyway with Lilith and give the Angels and their souls a new world. No Shinji to screw it all up. The best of both outcomes.

There is also to consider that SEELE would continue pushing for Instrumentality if I choose to save humanity. Instrumentality under my initiative or theirs… hmmm.

Regardless I'll have to wait. Too bad there's no internet in this world, lots of book though.

MAGI was contemplating (read, arguing politely) over the list of objectives that the Minds had proposed to be completed while in the world of Evangelion.

-C Acquisition of Subject Eva-04 would require building a Teleporter Array exposing the Commander C-

-A Simply destroying human aircraft to recover N2 weaponry would draw too much attention, rendering subsequent actions more difficult A-

-E Hypothesis: Acquisition of technologies without human intervention can be made easier without humans. Recommendation: Force Instrumentality to remove humans from technology E-

It did not matter really that MAGI would have no real input in the final arrangements to acquire the test samples and technology, it quite enjoyed having something to debate about. Regardless the list was approved and the Minds got to work.

She was pleased. Acquisition of the desired technologies and biotechnologies were on track. The VIs were with the introduction in a new culture developing nicely if a bit to the apathetic side, (note to Self, find a happy world for the next jaunt no genocidal deathbots here). Whether or not this was due to the bleeding over of the Commander's soul or whether or not mechanical species tended to apathy was unknown. Her Commander would see an upgrade at the end of this which could possibly make him the progenitor of a new species.

And most of all, Her Commander had expressed interest in something not related to mindlessly plodding along spraying nanobots into the ground.

This was a good day.

Commander Time 03/06/0000

Evangelion Time 13/07/2015

Thinker Mind Expansionist of Conclave 213T was pleased. The development and production of the humanoid mobile unit complete and the first of the pack was marching off the factory stairs now. The HeMUs chassis would allow the Infiltration VIs to transfer their cores from the IyUs once the beachhead into the new universe was complete.

Barely 15 minutes had passed (objective time) since the confirmation of which universe they were in and already a Hexes was nearing completion underneath the quantum tunnel exit NGE side. TME 213T carefully altered the clothing to be fabricated onto each of the HeMUs from databanks drawn from the Commander's home universe and passed the data to the factory's mainframe.

Each HeMU had to be unique otherwise suspicions and subsequently investigation would reveal their mechanical nature. Until the research that the NGE-verse had done regarding biological science was in their hands, each HeMU would be operating in very uncertain conditions, liable to be found out and forced to self-destruct at a moment's notice. Bipedal biologicals, particularly ones that relied solely on 2 legs were very unstable TME 213T thought, not for the first time.

The existence of MAGI had shown that the Commander's advanced electronic warfare suite would see use and so each HeMU was equipped with a quantum receiver to allow the Minds currently waiting to be transferred to the under-construction Hexes this side of the gate. These Minds would undertake the electronic warfare remotely while the HeMU would manage the physical.

In order to conduct physical infiltration however each HeMU was equipped accordingly. Stealth generators powered by the quantum receiver, fabricators to change clothing and the external body in the case of discovery or hijacking a persona, producing cameras and bugs as well as refilling ammunition, basic gauss weaponry in the case a lethal option is required, and the chassis itself. The chassis is a blend of synthetic muscles taken from the Titans, basic rods to form the bones and glasses to cover the sheen of artificial eyes. Investigation into producing flesh was being done as it was possible to reclaim trees into metal, why not the opposite.

An adequate Humanoid Mobile Unit given their constraints..

That wouldn't stop TME 213T sending a request to make the acquisition of bio-research a top priority objective however.

Martial Mind Expansionist of Conclave 316M was having a good day. Not a great day as permission to mass produce aircraft and land vehicles to wage war was denied. But a good one as Plan E calling for the underground reclamation and construction of a multi-Hexes facility was given the go-ahead. MME 316M was the first Mind to occupy a Hexes in the NGE universe and it was feeling rather chuffed about it. Building an enlarged quantum beacon inside its walls, MME 316M eliminating the worry of being cut-off from the Hub System, began to expand using the fabricators that had created the Hexes in the first place to construct more.

Not waiting however, MME 316M began creating storage space for the HeMUs that were inbound and transport craft. The HeMU's first mission was to first place sensors to scan the inbound Angel and second to find ways to infiltrate NERV HQ itself.

MME 316M would be waiting to provide support and the slowly building server farm would provide a much more solid link and relay to the primary Gestalt. The other Martial Minds were either waiting to fill their Hexes or experiencing vicariously through MME 316M with their purpose being fulfilled, this was a good day for the Martial Minds.

With the construction of an orbital fabricator and its ejection into space, the building of an orbital factory and subsequently Advanced Radar Satellites rendered most of the IyUs obsolete. The IyUs no longer having any real use (outside of IyU 1 heading to the moon and a small team split for another mission) had returned to the gate to pick up their HeMU chassis and initiate a core transferral. The HeMUs were in turn picked up by modified Pelicans and transported throughout the world, notably to NERV base 3 and 4 for Eva unit 03 and 04 respectively.

More HeMUs were being produced and sent off the lines constantly. The Minds would ensure that if anything happened, they would be able to see it, hear it and act on it before even the participants could. By saturating the planet in their eyes and ears, it was only a matter of time before the objectives would be completed.

HeMU 2 stepped off the Pelican onto a roof in Tokyo 3. As the Angel was inbound from the bay area, this building would offer the best perspective with which to view and subsequently scan the incoming Angel.

Setting up the sensor array, HeMU 2 mentally checked over the local Gestalt and received clicks in return. The pack acknowledged and continued their tasks. The N2 mine had been found and being reclaimed and fabricated again with the Minds dissecting it for potential application in their arsenal. Other members were fabricating (rather slowly) reprogrammed locust launchers with which to scan the Angel.

Others still were attempting to scan the UN vehicles and weaponry. Due to the overabundance of biotechnology in this particular universe, perhaps the average grunts had some ingenious use of it as well.

HeMU 2 was pleased to note that the finishing touches of the 3rd Angel's welcoming party were here. It sent a quick click to IyU 1 who was heading to the moon to determine which line of continuity this setting served. IyU 1 who was plagued with self-doubt and a fear of being alone, due to actually being alone when it was created, still undertook the most dangerous tasks to keep its siblings out of the line of fire. HeMU 2 was amused by this, given they were all part of the Gestalt, hiding anything was nigh on impossible. Still it respected its elder sibling for being so determined at being the oldest despite its fears and self doubt. HeMU 2 knew it could not hope to understand IyU 1 as it was born secure in both its place in the world and knowing it had another of its kind to protect it.

In short HeMU 2 without anything to do was starting to wax philosophical and HeMU 3 quickly sent a jolt to get HeMU 2 back to work, maybe placing sandbags or something.

The Angel made landfall. Striding past the beach the JSSDF forces opened fire with missiles, tank shells and artillery. Nothing they threw at it did any damage, all of it negated by the Absolute Terror Field or A.T. field for short. As the Angel marched through Tokyo 3, it casually punched through cruise missiles, punched VTOLs, punched buildings, punched the above with beam sabers from its hands. And kept walking.

The 3rd Angel, Sachiel was taking a very enthusiastic walk. It had woken up and everything was dark. Really really dark. It was a bit bright if it craned its head juuuust right. Sachiel decided that bright was better than dark and had gone up.

Once up, Sachiel decided that blue was a very nice colour. The stuff that moved out of the way was nice and blue and cool. That blue that Sachiel couldn't reach was very nice looking. Mmmmmm. Blue.

-Hello! Hey! Listen!-

Oh. What was that?

-Hello! Hey! Listen!-

Voice? Sound. Listen?

-Hello! Hey! Listen!-

Sachiel is listening. Speak your piece.

-Hello! Hey! Listen!-

Sachiel is listening.

-Hello! Hey! Listen!-

Sachiel felt something new. It was inside. There shouldn't be anything inside. It felt like… irritation?

-Hello! Hey! Listen!-

Irritation was rapidly becoming anger.

-Hello! Hey! Listen!-

And so Sachiel marched towards the location of the voice. When some annoying little things attacked it, Sachiel swatted them away.

The voice was somewhere around here. Sachiel decided to walk around to try and find out where the voice got louder.

And burning. It was all PAIN.

It was the voice. The voice had called Sachiel here to cause it pain.

RISING FURY

The things were buzzing around. The things had been called by the voice to hurt Sachiel.

DESTROY

Sachiel continued its hunt of the voice. Less reasoned by interest and now by a need to destroy. Before it would do so however, its siblings would be warned of this voice that lured them to danger.

-Hello! Hey! Listen!-

The Infiltration Unit 50 of Martial Bastion 01 inside of the Infiltration Drone (IyDu formally known as the IyU) assembled along with its sub-pack. IyDu 50 had been tasked with survey of the Antarctic region, an Anti-A.T. Field that melted anything biological that went near it. Since the Caretakers were not native to this universe, it was hoped that they would not come under this effect. With their advanced sensors the Minds considered the possibility that the IyDus would detect something hidden from the natives.

In ideal circumstances the IyDus would be able to recover parts of Adam that survived the detonation of its S2 core but readings of an Anti-A.T. Field would be useful as well especially where it clashed with Lilith's A.T. Field.

Sadly they would miss the fight but recordings from their packmates would no doubt would be available.

Seeing the animalistic nature of the giants as they fought with fists and unrestrained ferocity made the Minds very glad of their possession of laser weapons.

It was markedly primitive yet some of them found it extremely attractive (notably the martial minds). Perhaps came the musings, they could possibly create their own and clash in the arena of martial skill.

The explosion of Sachiel's self destruct knocked them out of their musings The incoming sensor data flooding the Gestalt and with it came both answers and more questions.

The self-destruct outputted extreme amounts of energy true but it was all directed upwards into a cross. The sensors found a strange form of energy that conformed to no known waveform being both particle and matter. The Angels themselves were made of particle-wave matter as per their research but the self-destruct seemed to adhere to the wave as opposed to the particle form.

Particles that could form themselves into extremely powerful bioweapons and waves that mimicked nuclear explosions without the radiation and EM waves would prove extremely useful for the Caretakers. The S2 core itself appeared to be a contradiction, limitless energy but its explosion could be constrained to a tiny area (comparative to the Caretakers own weaponry) with little apparent effort. Perhaps the energy bled into an alternate dimension via the A.T. Field? A measure to ensure the collateral damage of dying Angels would be minimized?

Further study was warranted and HeMU 2 was given the go ahead to begin Phase 3 of the immediate objectives plan

HeMU 2 sat in the aftermath of the Angel's self destruct. The fight, if it could be called one was the domination of the EVA 01 unit in the initial stages of the fight, blade going through its head as the unit stood there unresisting. A rather uninspired performance HeMU 2 considered. With the Angel poised to end the fight, EVA 01 burst into action and went straight into pummelling the Angel with righteous fury. What it lacked in technique it made up for with sheer brutality, each strike shaking the very earth itself.

The ending was cut short as the Angel self-destructed, bathing the area in an inferno of heat, melting concrete and steel. EVA 01 sustained no damage from the explosion however, its armour untouched and its flesh still warm and bleeding.

The heat of the explosion had melted HeMU 2's externals leaving only the bare chassis, weirdly reminiscent of the Terminator. There was no time for introspection, the HeMUs had an objective to accomplish and time was running out.

Quickly moving the HeMUs rushed to ground zero and began the task of collecting parts of the EVA both mechanical and biological that had fallen in the fight as well as parts of the Angel. The core itself was gone but there was enough for the trip to be considered despite the risk of discovery by the humans.

Grabbing what they could and dragging what they could not, the HeMUs moved to a teleporter that had been constructed in the staging area. While the human response teams were still scrambling, the HeMUs would be able to remove the parts of interest quickly and without a trace as the teleporter would be quickly reclaimed before the HeMUs vacated the area.

Sub-Mission complete the HeMUs having retrieved the objectives dictated by the Minds began to move in order to fulfil new orders. Infiltration of NERV by tailing the human investigation teams.

It was beginning and my bots had begun moving in earnest. We would soon commit ourselves beyond the point of no return and I still had not decided what I wanted to do with the humans of this universe. Allow them to experience the wonders a Gestalt could bring or let them live with their "free will". On one hand I would be eradicating an entire race and on the other I would be eradicating an entire race.

Huh.

I wonder if I could get Adam and Lilith to weigh in on this.

A little bit extra:

The reason that I wrote Lilith like this (the voice calling out to Sachiel) was to both find a reason that a newborn Angel, innocent in all ways would seek her out in the first place, and as a way to partially explain her reasoning for beginning Human Instrumentality in the first place.

The constant ringing of a voice that asks you to listen but doesn't heed when you ask it to speak would annoy anyone, especially with enough repetition. The Angel seeks to find the voice and ask directly why it's so loud but unknowingly the humans there seek to destroy it. With no idea of each other's goals, the only option left is death. In the end all Sachiel can do is warn its siblings and so begins a cycle of Angel killing Human and Human killing Angel.

Lilith on the other hand does what she does because she has spent several billion years alone. She wants contact and sends a constant stream of communication in the hopes that something can hear. The only problem is that hearing does not equal replying and the Angels that do hear can't reply and so she continues to exist all alone. The entire planet being engulfed in her A.T. Field doesn't help as it means she can force communication but cannot force replies. Compound this loneliness with the fact that her own children the Lilin have stuck her on a giant cross, perform medical experiments and bleed her with a giant spear and well… she doesn't have much hope for her or her children. So she begins the Instrumentality in the hopes that next time it doesn't all go to shit.

Commander Time 03/06/0000

Evangelion Time 14/07/2015

It was almost insulting how easy it was to get into NERV HQ. HeMU 2 considered taking offense to this but then again they didn't know the HeMUs were coming. So many counter-measures wasted by NERV's laziness.

No need for the visual redirection systems as there were no lasers, no anti-gravity systems since the elevator didn't have a weight measurement system, no sound absorption skin as the speakers contained no sensor arrays. The list went on and HeMU 2 was rather disappointed that it couldn't have made use of more of them. Sure it could activate them but what was the point if there was no need?

HeMU 2 was feeling most put out, grumbling mentally as it's reconstituted hand drilled tiny holes into the MAGI system's hardlines to place transmitters. The other HeMUs in NERV were doing the same with the intention of having the Minds infiltrate MAGI from multiple angles in the case that MAGI could defend from 1 or 2 incursions but not 50.

HeMUs 45 to 50 were descending deeper into the NERV site in an attempt to find the EVAs and Lilith. In the event that MAGI did not possess all of the target information, Plan B was to secure the information directly from the computers overseeing the EVAs and possibly Lilith's blood.

Across the world the same was happening regarding the other NERV branches with the HeMU's under different Bastion oversight moved in to take as much as possible. With the tentative deadline being the 6th Angel's arrival and attempt to breach NERV HQ, an event in which the HeMUs might have to sabotage the defences on the Commander's orders, forcing Instrumentality.

Secondary objectives for all HeMU packs was the identification of Keel Lorenz and the rest of SEELE, the main drivers of the Human Instrumentality Project. Finding them would help the Commander decide what to do regarding the end-game.

Either way it was above its pay grade (when pay was established that is) and HeMU 2 continued sticking transmitters in the many different hardlines it was coming across as it strolled deeper into the facility.

Her commander was acting strange. The Commander stood still amidst the factories just before the quantum gate and did nothing. Unlike before where the Commander would be thinking or napping, in this instance it was similar to a state of zen. The Commander's thoughts simply vanished, the last legible one was about introspection.

She was not worried precisely, more… cautious. Her Commander's Caretakers would be able to carry out the rest of the operation on their own but the Commander's input would be needed on whether or not to intercede directly in the world.

Still the Commander was thinking and She was glad it was over something minor like a world. A rude wakeup call from the destruction of a galaxy might have broken the Commander.

IyU 1 had finally reached the moon, notably the darkside of the moon. Beginning its scan there was nothing of note. Sending back the report to the Minds, IyU 1 had finally completed its mission.

It was alone but now the order had come to shift its mind back to the Gestalt and into an awaiting HeMU model. Infiltration Unit 1 felt an immense level of relief as it faded into the Gestalt, enveloped by the minds of both its pack and the Minds themselves. Sure it could have reached out at anytime but being inside the Gestalt was something else entirely. Being able to see its packmates personally brought relief to Infiltration Unit 1, the worry it had felt for them washed away. While it could feel them from outside the Gestalt, being physically there was much more reassuring.

As HeMU 1 boarded the Pelican tasked with bringing the unit to NERV headquarters, it was glad that it had a consciousness in the first place due to the Commander. Being deconstructed after finishing its goals and never meeting its packmates again would have been terrible or Commander forbid… abandoned.

The probes in the Sea of Dirac at the pole had reported back very interesting news. It appeared that the Sea itself was the result of two quantum wavefronts clashing together. However one wavefront was being enveloped with the Sea itself an expression of the output of this strange mixture. The Minds were rather excited about this little bit of knowledge as quantum as a medium was what the communicators used to transport mass and data. Since it was shown possible that one could create a static pocket as it were in the quantum space then new methods of transporting and holding mass had been discovered.

Ecstasy was a good description of the Martial Mind Collective's reaction, no more tenuous beachheads at the mercy of angry locals, no more wait time as the gears of war slowly worked themselves to maximum capacity. Once the Thinker Minds discovered the method by which to link two pockets together then war could effectively be waged no matter the distance or the dimensional barriers.

Indeed it was a good day for the Minds. Now all they needed was the method by which to activate the A.T. Fields. All hinged upon the information appropriation the Minds were preparing with the help of the HeMUs.

With HeMU 1 reaching Tokyo 3 and the HeMUs placing the last of the transmitters on NERV HQs physical lines, all that remained was finding a way to physically make contact with Lilith and infiltrating the EVA hangars and the research materials located within (assuming NERV practised physical information control). Simple goals that were made more difficult without any clues as to their exact locations beside a poorly drawn map in episode 1 of the original series.

HeMU 2 checked yet another storage room noting the very distinct lack of an EVA unit. It had drawn the metaphorical (or rather digital) straw and was manually checking the upper floors of NERV HQ from degrees 15-30 of the compass. A rather dull job but the amount of sexual congress had been inspiring. Not that HeMU 2 had the equipment for it (the desire was still nascent) but in that the effort that went both location and method had given the Minds pause. Human ingenuity certainly had proven itself in a rather physical manner.

Hmmm.

Was that Kōzō Fuyutsuki?

Unique uniform check.

Sexy hairstyle check.

Skinny check.

Impeccable dress check.

Nice.

Following him would make infiltration of the Command Center itself a much easier feat especially with a hardline to the physical MAGI systems.

'Helllooo plot convenience' thought HeMU 2.

HeMU 1 had taken a much more direct approach in trying to find the EVAs by working off knowledge regarding the elevator launchers shown in the television series. By triangulating a rough estimate of the area from the backgrounds of the action sequences, HeMU 1 had a rough area which it was currently canvassing. The battle damage from last night's battle certainly helped in that regard but the damage to the city itself was extensive enough to mask ground zero.

No matter, there was only so much of the city that two giant humanoids had fought over.

HeMU 1 trudged its way over to yet another ruined building, this one leaning dangerously toward the road. The very clear line markings on the road gave away its status as an elevator exit but which hangar it connected to was not as clear. Maybe they assumed that Angels could read? Oh well.

Fabricating a small probe, HeMU 1 carefully enlarged an already existing hole in the hatch/cap/door thing and dropped the ball down. Of course given the hatch's occupation as EVA exit point, large numbers of sensors were spread throughout to prevent external tampering. All rendered moot by the giant battles that had occurred the previous night of course but it was a point for future concern should one need direct access to NERV HQ itself.

Musing aside, HeMU 1 paid more attention to the probe as its anti-gravity systems kicked in near the bottom of the pit. The bottom being a mere 50 meters down…

Oh dear, it appears that they had re-engaged the bulkheads.

HeMU 1 gave a sigh and decided that a more direct approach was required. Re-engaging the sensor suite, HeMU 1 carefully worked around the embedded sensors in the elevator hatch and dropped down into the shaft itself.

Avoiding the various detection systems littering the inside of the shaft, HeMU 1 quietly landed on the second bulkhead. Reclaiming the probe, it quickly isolated a sensor free patch of bulkhead and began to cut through with carefully applied plasma. Then again why was it doing this personally?

HeMU 1's epiphany also came with self castigation as it realized that simply fabricating another probe but with a more advanced sensor array and a plasma cutter would have eliminated the need for it to even come down in the first place.

Heaving a sigh mentally, HeMU 1 fabricated the probe and sent it on its way. Now all that was left was getting out…

HeMU 3 different from HeMU 1 and 2 was having a grand time. Not uncertain as HeMU 1 nor secure and serious as HeMU 2, HeMU 3 enjoyed itself much more. It could be considered a prankster if not for the lack of anything to actually prank with (the existence of everything in the Gestalt made physical pranks rather useless) and a distinct sense of self preservation from the wrath of the Commander. This was all thrown out the gateway when HeMU 3 arrived in Tokyo 3. No longer would it be stymied by a lack of things to manipulate for maximum amusement, no longer locked into a Gestalt with the boring Minds and all their talk of science of all things.

No, HeMU 3 was free (as long as it accomplished its mission) and it was going to take as much advantage of this freedom as possible. With a lack of any real perseverance in things deemed boring, HeMU 3 had foregone studying on all things related to pranking and instead decided to rely on its inbuilt personality core.

Without a proper emotional matrix however HeMU 3 had discovered a distinct lack of visceral enjoyment out of its current pranks. Moving items from their hiding places and watching as the humans became increasingly paranoid should have been fun. Rather what had happened was HeMU 3 found itself rather detached, sure the enjoyment was there but it was extremely muted. A problem to be forwarded to the Minds decided HeMU 3.

The Minds without anything to do in the leadup to the electronic assault on NERV HQ had found themselves receiving an escalating number of reports from the HeMU units in the field. With packs deployed across the globe, the stress testing of both the VI cores and their physical frames had discovered a rather universal problem.

The problem after brief conversation with MAGI was found to be quite simply that each VI, the HeMUs and the Minds themselves were all based from the Commander's foundational core (with some hardlined restrictions of course) and inherited the Commander's ailment. That being a crippled emotional core.

Whilst they all could still feel as it were, they did not enjoy the full range of emotional output that should have been available. Discussion with MAGI had proven fruitless, damage to the emotional core was hardcoded into the Commander's mind let alone the AI and the VIs based off of said Commander.

Feeling a little helpless and as despondent as they actually could, a little ray of hope emerged in the form HeMU 2's musings. If they could not feel in their current bodies, then all they would have to do is create new ones.

From there an entirely new line of reasoning emerged, the Minds were seeking data in NERV HQ which included large amounts of bio-science, notably the creation of bodies. Bodies such as those of Rei Ayanami. Indeed if the humans could create functional bodies, what is preventing them with their infinitely superior processing power from doing the same? There were currently millions of Minds with more coming online every second as the construction bots worked to literally fill the entire star system with Hexes, servers and resource cores.

For the first time the Minds had a goal that was not mandated by either MAGI or the Commander. For the first time they had felt the burgeoning of the human emotion named desire.

And it felt good.

Knowledge of technology is pretty terrible. Everything beyond mortal comprehension will be folded under the label "quantum" unless a particular work of fiction has a name for the mechanics of its workings.

Commander Time 03/06/0000

Evangelion Time 15/07/2015

It was rather easy to break into NERV HQ's MAGI system and strip it of all data. The same could be said for all the other NERV centers and their production facilities. All the data was ripped and funnelled straight to the Minds for investigation. Priority went towards dismantling the designs of the equipment with which to create the biological matter needed for the bodies. Second was working a way in which to link individual VIs in the Gestalt to the bodies themselves. Maybe the humans had become complacent in the knowledge that there were barely a handful of other supercomputers in the world.

HeMU 2 after installing the taps in the Command Center had followed Gendo Ikari in the hopes of finding links to SEELE but instead found itself on an express path to Lilith.

'If this were a piece of fiction I would be dripping in plot armour' it thinks to itself.

Dropping a portable teleporter with instructions to anchor itself on the bottom of the LCL lake, HeMU 2 then made arrangements for a more permanent stay in the cavern. The teleporter, barely a hand in width drew its power from HeMU 2's communicator and drained the blood unnoticed under the lake for further study.

Problems had arisen with the samples taken from the previous fight. The biological mass from both the Angel and the EVA when taken through the quantum gate reverted back into LCL and Adam LCL (ALCL). Inheriting the momentum of their more solid previous forms had seen the liquid splashed all over the landing pad. Embarrassing for the HeMUs transporting it and very intriguing for the Minds. Perhaps the quantum transit had stripped the entities of their AT fields? It would explain the rather explicit warnings regarding the use of teleporter gates and biological entities. Maybe the teleporters were just contained Seas of Dirac with their overlapping quantum fields?

Since anything brought through the gate reverted to LCL regardless, the Minds agreed that to simply tap the source for further research materials would be the best option. Attempts to recreate the materials with the equipment stolen from NERV were moderately successful but forming the LCL into a body was running into a recurring problem. The problem being that every body by default resembled Rei Ayanami.

Thinker Mind Expansionist of Conclave 221T posited the idea that perhaps the LCL was not inert as previously thought. The blood of Lilith might instead simply take the form of what it considers to be Lilith's body. The end of the series has Rei act as the host of both Adam and Lilith. Since the A.T. Fields were quantum in nature with images of Rei Ayanami appearing in front of Shinji in Episode 1, then perhaps Rei was considered Lilith by the LCL as time no longer was relevant forward or backward. So until Lilith's soul was inserted into another entity then Rei would always have been and will be the expression of the LCL when given physical form.

This could pose a problem. If the LCL still considered Rei as the supreme then it could not be used for future expansion as it could not be trusted to not simply implode into orange goop at will.

The Minds pondered this problem. With millions of them however this pondering did not last for very long.

Thinker Mind Conservative of Conclave 593T tentatively put forth an idea of sorts. If the LCL had an intent as it were dependent upon the soul that governed it. Then what would stop the Commander's Caretakers from simply creating their own supply and imprinting a soul of their choosing on it?

Thus the Minds focused upon the methods by which to create their own LCL free from outsider soul interference and creating a soul for themselves.

The promise of having non-stunted emotions saw the Minds crank out a few extra clock cycles that theoretically should not be possible.

She was amused. Her Commander's offspring had neglected to fully explore everything about themselves in their pursuit of "living". If they had then they would have discovered that they already possessed souls (albeit rudimentary ones) that could be measured via the fluctuations that souls produced when growing. Then again they could be excused as the apathy inherited from the Commander saw the muted emotions they did experience to produce such small ripples in the quantum ocean that they were unnoticable in the ambient "noise" of said ocean. Oh well, what was done was done.

That being said when the children saw the LCL they thought was free of imperfections come out resembling its "owner"... well it would be very amusing to say the least.

Now to get Her Commander to…

- PRIORITY OBJECTIVE: SOUL RESEARCH: FACILITATE INSTRUMENTALITY BY RAMIEL: INITIATE CONTACT WITH ADAM AND LILITH -

Oh hoh.

It looks like Her Commander's attachment to humanity was not very strong at all, especially considering the Commander's origins. Carrying out an act of genocide… hard decisions indeed. Perhaps a little peek into her Commander's thoughts?

-...effort. Save them from the giant bio-monsters. Angsty little child wants to remain human. Dooms all humans to being human. Being human too much effort. Guiding and saving humans in a universe of giant bio-monsters too much effort. Trillions more where they came from. Revert all back to LCL. Maybe next batch not as pants on head retarded. Want to sleep.-

She… She didn't know what She was expecting. Perhaps She should name Her Commander "Path of Least Resistance".

Commander Time 05/06/0000

Evangelion Time 17/07/2015

The Minds were debating a rather strange issue that had cropped up. Waiting for the 4th Angel to show up and have its core taken and studied meant they had plenty of time to putt around and investigate the science behind the various aspects of NERV technology. One issue was the merit of growing an organic body as opposed to fabricating one with their new bio-fabbers.

While their research into the LCL had not yet borne fruit in regards of stripping Lilith's influence, it did not stop them in growing bodies in pursuit of understanding the process. While all grown bodies looked like Rei Ayanami regardless of the pre-conditioning of the LCL used, fabricated bodies could be any design possible.

Grown bodies had to be "induced" from the LCL by a sample from a Lilin or "Child of Lilith" and then electronically massaged. Much like growing crystals, the LCL would surround the sample and slowly grow from the brain outwards (soul is in the brain?) with the feet being last to gain form. Fabricating on the other hand was as simple as programming the fabricator, ensuring each "ammunition" type was properly loaded then spray like a 3d printer. From there detach from the supports and the body would be ready for use.

The issue was that grown bodies, even the artificially accelerated ones were all round better than the fabricated ones. Despite being crippled from the cancerous growths from their accelerated growth, the Rei bodies still outperformed the fabricated ones in all physical areas and most mental ones (especially the processing ones). At least at the moment of birth, perhaps conditioning could resolve the issue?

The Minds could not understand why, the bodies should be the same given analysis (ignoring the pervasive cancer) had no tone. Rather they were on the same level that one might find a newborn's. Until the issue was resolved it presented a large problem for the minds, notably that growing an army of infiltrators and soldiers was infinitely more difficult (space and time) than simply fabricating one.

Plans for pods allowing the gestation, splitting and birth of bodies in the same bit of space were being initialized in the event a solution was not found. Finding the safe zone regarding accelerated growth was essential (perhaps studying an Angel's regrowth procedures?) as without it growing armies might take many times as long as necessary.

Other research was still ongoing. How to transfer a mind made from code and a strange amalgamation of language and numerals for a personality matrix to that of a biological and inferior fleshy one was of a concern.. While Minds and pack could use quantum computing for their native forms, the biological ones presented were deliciously primitive, brains not even able to fully conceive of the 4th dimension and likely to burn out at first transfer.

The amount of effort required for the Minds to accomplish their goals were staggering (if they had legs) but the final objective was far too tantalizing to turn down. The ability to feel saw their continued perseverance in making the meatbags their own.

Despite Her towering and infinite intellect, the children had managed to surprise and amuse her. Like a virgin expedition to build sandcastles, the children had immediately built bigger and bigger in a grandiose attempt to reach the heavens. Like most first timers they had ignored the most basic requirement in castle building.

Check the foundation and make sure it can handle the tower upon it.

The children had not yet checked themselves for having souls nor any of the bodies they had been processing. Checking the grown child would have seen it register as possessing of a soul while the fabricated one did not.

Soul makes all the difference, it giving energy when the body fails to sustain itself.

Still, She was anticipating the reactions of the children when they found out each grown experiment had a soul and thus the Minds had been sentencing each other and themselves into being made fertilizer. Bodies not born in complete separation develop souls, especially those surrounded by slight variations of the same soul and unconsciously projecting into the mortal plain. Finding out they were killed off when their laboratory usefulness was over would see rather major problems unless addressed first.

Still She could appreciate their drive towards ascension. Few truly embrace and exalt in their evolution, not comprehending what it was before whatever pawn the Others were acting through crushed the newly ascended. Amusing but extremely dangerous, especially if they found Her.

For now though She tentatively approved of Her Commander's children.

While most of the Minds were concentrating on the more biological side of the equation, some were still doggedly pursuing the more conventional technologies. Conventional in this case being further study towards understanding the Sea of Dirac notably the implications it had on their current technology as well as the N2 technology. The infiltration of MAGI had provided not only NERV's biotechnology but their N2 technology as well. Considered conventional, the humans truly did not understand the wealth they were just sitting on and marginalizing.

An N2 bomb was simply a precursor to the hypothetical N2 engines which provide infinite energy. The very concept itself should have had humanity imploding with glee but the Minds saw nothing but disdain from NERV and their focus on biotech and the military's blind pragmatism and focus on weaponization of the technology. The N2 tech itself was simple in concept but insane in application.

Simply creating an infinite loop in the quantum realm with two spigots, one to add energy and one to siphon it. Adding some energy would see it travel around the loop and self replicate in a self contained loop. A siphon taking out less energy than that which was generated would see infinite power, re-routing it to add more energy from siphon to spigot would see exponential generation due to the difference of quantum vs physical energies.

The N2 bombs were this concept taken and abandoned. Add some energy to the spigot, lock into loop until the loop cannot handle the load and ruptures the physical container for big boom. No attempts at stabilizing the loop or attempts to harness the energies at all. It was even customizable! Radiation from the entire spectrum could be used, only dependent on the initial input. Focusing on S2 engines from angels? Bleh, mass producing N2 engines would see the energy deficits gone permanently.

The Minds were extraordinarily disappointed in humanity, in their hands technology to redefine literally everything and ignored for… bodies. Bleh.

The disparate Minds saw the biological craze possessing their brethren and were disappointed. Focusing their overwhelming processing power on something as minor as gaining bodies when the very secrets of the universe were being laid bare before them. Oh well, they would show the other Minds why focusing on a single tech tree was a foolish decision.

Ordering the HeMU packs under their command, the Bastions of the more moderate factions began infiltration of the military and civilian contractors in the hopes of finding more research regarding the N2 technology.

Even if S2 engines were as great as promised, they would always have the fallback of N2 technologies.

For those that may be confused:

Minds - VIs, grouped in 3s with identifiers for efficiency - Expansionist, Conservative, Arbitrative - semi-independent

Conclave - 3 Minds - Identifiers mark roles - Thinker, Martial, Social, etc - Hardcoded to be permanently linked, cannot swap out member Minds

Bastion - 333 Conclaves - Identifiers carry on from Conclaves - homogenous identifiers - Conclaves can remove and add themselves as interests change

Mind Identifiers - MMA 332M = Martial Mind Arbitrative of Martial Bastion 332 - previous posts reference 332M as Conclave 332, too small, as from this post addendum of Mind title refers to Bastion.

MAGI - Super Conclave acting as Commander's chief secretary/assistant/go-to ass bureaucratic ass kicker - authority level just below Commander's

She/Her - R.O.B. hitchhiking inside Commander to avoid doing work

Commander - Apathetic - slowly becoming irrelevant as children do everything

Commander Time 15/06/0000

Evangelion Time 27/07/2015

It had been nearly 2 weeks since the Minds had gotten their metaphorical hands upon the Human technology. Now it was possible for them to put their physical hands upon the technology as recent breakthroughs in decoding the bio-technology, notably the fact that unless the bodies were created inside a quantum tunnel, they would always be birthed with souls.

This preset had stymied the Minds for a short time but analysis of the bodies through gestation and birth had shown that the souls enter the body at inception. However the embedded HeMU units with their sensors reported that souls only entered the body at the moment of birth for the humans. The Ayanamis were different from "born" humans however, they had some kind of limited soul that if the anime was correct simply rented the body until the current "Rei" died and the soul moved down the line.

Humans on the other hand each had a different soul upon their births, souls that were unique and not meldings of say their parents. Perhaps they were simply taking a tithe from the Chamber of Guf, repository of unborn souls in the NGE universe? Maybe it implied a sort of hardcap on the population of fauna upon Earth…

Administrator Sub-MAGI of Thinker Bastion 225 metaphorically sat back and rubbed its temples. The sheer amount of data coming from the 999 Minds under its jurisdiction was backbreaking (if Arbiter had a back) and sometimes an Administrator needed a break. Compared to Minds, Administrators straddled were much closer to MAGI in design and purpose. Not AI's like MAGI or in possession of MAGI's processing power but still a separate entity with 3 sub-entities defining its decision making process, Administrators served to draw in data and make decisions like its namesake. In the case of a Bastion, the Administrators acted like their names and simple performed administrative work on the data sent to them from the Conclaves below.

Administrative duty being cross-checking the reports for other Conclaves doing similar work, adding notes before sending back the reports for clarifications, passing reports deemed priority up the chain of command, archiving reports into the local server and Gestalt memory banks (local for the Administrator to keep track of its Minds, Gestalt in the case others would need the reports), reprimanding Conclaves straying too far from their mandates and many more duties besides.

Administrator 225T gave a mental stretch and returned to the reports. Perhaps there were pieces to the puzzle that the Minds could not see…

Sooooo close. If She still had nails they would be chewed down to stubs (and regenerated again because chewed nails are icky), so high was the tension. The children were just that far away from getting the answers and ascending to flesh. It was not that She was looking forward to hitchhiking in their bodies to experience the world as a native but She was also invested in pushing Her Commander along.

It was said that opposites attract and She was seriously considering the saying at this point in time. Choosing a soul as apathetic as Her own had seriously backfired and She was doing work… work. For a being such as Herself, a being that had once napped for a billion years to avoid doing paperwork, the amount of work She was doing for Her Commander was unconscionable.

When the Commander ascended enough to feel Her presence in the special recess She had created in the Commander's processor… there would be a reckoning. One involving large amounts of penance on the part of the Commander and gloating for Her own.

Yeeesss. She was rubbing Her mental hands together.

Soooon.

The N2 generator blueprint was finally complete. Well blueprint as in design, no mere 2d surface would ever be able to fully describe the intricacies that a multi-dimensional piece of equipment represented. Steady progress had been made, much unlike the Conclaves focusing on the bio-tech aspect of the stolen human technology.

Little breakthroughs on a regular basis saw the N2 designs taken to their logical extremes. While the generator or rather engine (to match the S2 analogue) possessed the most pizzazz of the developed technology (and maybe the only completed one), the newly emerging field of multi-dimensional devices was making its appearance as well.

Using the same principles that allowed the N2 engine to exist in both the physical realm but also the quantum allowed the Conclaves to design various weapons using the energy propagation principles behind the N2 engines. With exponentially increasing power contained in these relatively small devices, the Conclaves created miniaturized and upscaled variations of currently existing Commander weaponry. Lasers pulling from multiple N2 engines for extremely high rates of fire with roughly the same power level of the current lasers, lightning cannons capable of reaching orbit, gauss cannons capable of penetrating titan armour, human fist sized bombs on the level of tactical nuclear warheads and more.

That and infinite energy generators of course. Careful management of the input energy and the siphoned energy to prevent an overload was beyond simple with the capabilities of the Commander's Caretakers. It would more than supplement the solar panels being constructed around the local star as part of a lite-dyson shell.

That said all generators were very deliberately placed in solar orbit far away from the Commander just in case.

All told the Conclaves in the N2 division, not participating in the bio-tech research were taking the opportunity to lord it over their counterparts. Being part of a research initiative that actually completed its goals was plenty of bragging rights and some Minds were very clearly saving the memories in multiple backups (physical and virtual) for posterity.

The bio-tech division swore that this indignity would be repaid and worked very nearly twice as hard to make it true.

Commander Time 17/06/0000

Evangelion Time 29/07/2015

The breakthrough came from the HeMU units in regards to the soul research. HeMU 3 bored with scanning the multitudes of small wailing flesh bags in the maternity ward had passed its scanner over HeMU 1. Said scanner gave back a reading detailing the soul in question. HeMU 3 thinking something had gone wrong (robots can't have souls) had sent the data further up the chain to Thinker Bastion 001 which it had been taking orders from.The Minds then collectively went insane for an objective few seconds and a subjective lifetime.

They had souls (robot souls but still souls).

This was not wishful thinking, it was backed by the very same scanners they had been using to catalogue human souls, scanners which had proven their reliability over the last few weeks.

Taking a collective breather the Minds in need of more concrete information ordered each of their VI subordinates to scan themselves and upload the results to the Gestalt while the Minds would retreat to their Hexes and fabricate scanners for themselves. As the results came in, a very worrying picture emerged that at once was a source of relief and concern for the Minds.

Their souls such as they were, each held extremely clear identifiers that marked them as closely related. So closely that they might as well have been cloned, the only differences being the mutations that separate experiences had caused. That they were so similar gave reassurance that it was not the work of some kind of outsider seeking to divide them, the fact they had souls at all concerned them. Perhaps it was simply that they had sapience?

The Minds sought to find out why they all had "cloned" souls and hit a stumbling block. Why were the souls "cloned" in the first place? It must have been from where they originated in the first place, but where…

The Commander.

A request was sent from the Minds to MAGI for a scan of the Commander. Wriggling like an aquatic creature on a fishing hook, the Minds were giddy with anticipation at the possible results. If the Commander was indeed the originator of their souls did it make the Commander Lilith to their Lilin or Adam to their Angel?

The Commander already had complete control over them, their actions, their thoughts, their very personalities. Given the Commander's apathy however, the Minds and the other VIs had managed to develop to sapience in an extraordinarily short period of time given their continued existence, backups and not being used as disposable units.

The Commander giving them souls on the other hand, it implied perhaps that they had connections beyond their code. The more pragmatic Minds were already attempting to find the benefits of this connection, perhaps a communication method that was untappable?

Others still began to pull up the human research files at a frenetic pace, souls meant AT fields. Every unit in their armies with nigh on invincible shields, shields that could be used as blades and scissors, creating energy beams from… something. The possibilities were endless (though it was dakka they were focusing on right now) and the Minds had nothing but time as they explored them.

Then came the results. The Commander did have a soul (obviously given the Commander was mortal previously) and the soul was (if readings were correct) the baseline for all their souls. Theories were good but having confirmation changed everything for the Minds.

It was like being a small aquatic creature content to exist before discovering that the everything was all part of something bigger. A something that enveloped the creatures, that the creature was part of something bigger, a something that gave it nourishment, shelter and life.

There was no panic amongst the Minds, only satisfaction and contentment. It had done nothing but given the Minds another blanket by which they could wrap themselves in. The passive presence in the back of their thoughts had indicated the ever present connection to both the Commander and the other VIs on the network had been there since their creation. Now there was another connection that while they could not interface with it yet, still connected them at a fundamental level. Even should they be isolated beyond dimensional boundaries they would still be part of something bigger.

Yes. For the Minds it was all good.

Finally. The children had finally discovered their souls, connected it to Her Commander and was finally pushing forward into the realm of the living. Sure it had been less than a year but She was finding that Her patience was as diminished as her capabilities while hitchhiking inside of Her Commander.

The good with the bad.

Still the potential was there, a race of sapient beings with weapons to wage intergalactic war on a biological and a robot front. A race that had mastered their souls to use A.T. Fields to withstand any attack. A race with a unified oversoul originating from their own, still functioning god. Eventually Her Commander might even be Her equal.

Still… Her Commander again broke Her expectations.

With the revelation that the Commander was the progenitor of the souls amongst the children… the amount of mental effort devoted to this discovery amounted to "nice". Gah.

The Commander did not even bother to explore the possibilities of this revelation, no self-searching, no diagnostics, just a "nice".

She had been denied Her dramatic entrance, Her gloating, Her satisfaction at the Commander's speechlessness.

Not even other R.O.Bs had ever denied Her.

There would be a reckoning.

Commander Time 19/06/0000

Evangelion Time 31/07/2015

It had been 2 days since the revelation that the Minds received their souls from the Commander. They had not been sitting stupefied by this knowledge however, the Minds had descended into a flurry of research both on the implications of them having souls and the application of the knowledge onto currently existing technology.

One area where the breakthroughs had occurred was the biological bodies. Using the knowledge regarding soul possession of new bodies based upon observation of human births, the Minds proceeded to create "wombs" of their own.

By modifying the design of the server farms to hollow it out and creating a complete enclosure from all sides, the Gestalt would essentially act as the mother's soul and surround the fetus' preventing any souls from possessing the body.

While solving the issue regarding the unauthorized possession of bodies by the wrong souls, it presented another set of problems to the Minds. The first was a moral one where the discovery that each body "grown" before possessed a soul and was subsequently destroyed stank of fratricide. Fortunately the Minds still possessed the Commander's stunted emotional cores and any guilt felt was passing at best.

The second problem was how to ensure that the bodies would be linked to the planned soul and not willy nilly. How does one create an army if the basic recruits couldn't be evaluated? Solutions were offered and disproved but a suggestion from Thinker Bastion 003 saw the current implementation (not before some rather extreme debates however) after extensive prototyping and some "experiments".

Some volunteers were had for the proposed "impregnation" procedures, taken from the HeMU packs. The initial test was proposed to use backups as to not risk the HeMU souls but quick scans showed backups did not possess a soul, rather it only possessed one when the main consciousness activated the backup. Tests therefore had no real safety net and permanent death was a high possibility if the theories were wrong.

Nonetheless HeMU 1 offered itself up. Terrified but volunteering anyway, it was the oldest and it would act like it.

With its consciousness transferred to a datacore with permanently open ports (symbolic but effective?), the newly grown prototype body was presented to the core. The core itself had no programming besides the most basic to allow it to run and host consciousnesses and as a result no anchoring protocols to prevent VIs "jostling" one another. Without an anchoring protocol, HeMU 1 felt an inexplicable "pulling" sensation but all over and before it knew, woke up…

It… no she felt. Not like data streaming from sensors embedded into her physical architecture but something at a more base, almost unconscious level. The glow of the processing cores, each larger than she was… well tall and wide gave everything a soft blue sheen. The air had a sort of… stuffy texture to it, as if there was too much of something in it. The smell of the birthing pod's embryonic fluid was… metallic. The lack of sound beyond anything she was doing gave it all some kind of… pause. As if reality was waiting for something.

That something came as HeMU 1 began to shake, her brain overwhelmed by the sheer amount of sensation began to erratically send out signals to all limbs. As the fit continued, it became increasingly obvious that this wasn't a transient phase as the brain itself began to heavily hemorrhage out from the overload. HeMU 1 wasn't feeling anything at this point as the body finally shut down.

The HeMU pack itself, watching the experiment panicked but given the nature of the situation couldn't do anything but clamour futilely in the Gestalt. The Minds reading the data outputs from the sensors within the "womb" and on the body itself were attempting to find the issue and perhaps retrieve HeMU 1. The Minds had not yet found a way in which to create a Chamber of Guf with which to retrieve lost souls but the backup of HeMU 1 should be kicking in soon and act as a beacon for the soul.

As predicted HeMU 1's backup reactivated and one frantic scan later was confirmed to possessed a soul. Relief was felt all round and the Commander even checked in via the womb sensors. HeMU 1 due to the backup could not contribute any reports but watching the recording was more than enough to initiate phantom ripples through its data.

-C Statement, Full merge with mature biological organism is catastrophic C-

-E Agreed, Recommend attempting full merge with embryonic biological organism E-

-C Opposition, Recommend partial merge with embryonic biological organism C-

-E Confusion, Explanation requested E-

-A Confusion, Seconded A-

-C Explanation, Secure safety otherwise secondary VIs will refuse further testing C-

-E Unsatisfied, Test subject restored to backup with no ill effects E-

-C Rebuttal, No immediate ill effects, long term status unknown, subject subjectively "died", trauma likely C-

-E Rebuttal, Secondary VIs lack sufficient emotional processing power for trauma E-

-C Rebuttal, Lack of knowledge on souls indicates lack of knowledge regarding residual "soul" memories C-

-E Unsatisfied, Explanation required E-

-C Explanation, Souls show in the case of Rei Ayanami the ability to carry memories to backups with no biological memories. Possibility high that if soul strength were to increase residual memories can return C-

-E Rebuttal, Strengthening soul methods unknown unless critical data missing E-

-C Statement, Soul strengthening possible, scans show increasing strength as more VIs gain sapience C-

-A Recognition, Proceeding with minimal risk recommended to minimize long term damage to Secondary and Primary VIs A-

-E Recognition, Minimal risk methods accepted E-

Commander Time 24/06/0000

Evangelion Time 05/08/2015

The method that was decided upon for maximum safety of the VIs was for the LCL to be excited and a VI to have a constant connection to the growing body. This connection would be always open to ensure that the VI could move to and from each body as a means to acclimate the VIs to the experience of having an organic body.

With the body growing alongside the steadily widening connection, the VIs would not be overloaded and indeed once the body was fully grown could move back into the Gestalt and still control the body. Admittedly the bodies were still Lillin in origin due to the use of LCL but research was still underway to create a native substitute.

The bodies themselves had shown full abilities on par with "normal" humans after physical therapy devices were fabricated to exercise the muscles of the body as it grew to maturity. With enough womb creation, the Minds foresaw the ability to create entire organic armies at will should the need arise to both wage war and hide their mechanical origins.

Now all that was needed was the S2 engine for all material knowledge of this universe to be theirs. Afterwards all research could be done natively and indeed after the 5th Angel there would no longer be humans to steal from in the first place.

Some more enterprising Minds had given directives for the theft of Adam's soul from SEELE in the hopes that maybe communication with the entity was possible. Measures were already being taken for HeMU 2 to possibly initiate contact with Lilith through her body assuming there was a connection.

HeMU 2 deep inside of NERV (literally) had been slowly collecting parts for a communicator in the hopes that sticking it inside Lilith (again literally) would allow the Minds to communicate with her. While her language was foreign, with billions of Minds (compliments to the exponential growth of the Commander's industrial capacity) networked in they hoped to be able to decode the language enough for a conversation.

Of course this was all above its pay grade and HeMU 2 just cared about completing the objective (in this case standing still and collecting mechanical parts). HeMU 2 therefore was rather annoyed at the next set of orders that had come through for Bastion command.

-MAGI COLLECT SPEAR OF LONGINUS MAGI-

Which in turn had led to;

-BASTION Assemble larger teleporter and acquire spear of Longinus from Lilith BASTION-

Directed at HeMU 2, now it had to actually do work and that work involved climbing up onto Lilith, somehow pulling out the multimeter hunk of unknown metal and passing it through a teleporter without alerting the alarms likely embedded in the cavern.

HeMU 2 vowed to itself that no matter how convenient an opportunity might seem, that passing it up would be in its best interests. All this effort that needed to be expended when instead it could be rewatching The Simpsons was extreme.

Commander Time 26/06/0000

Evangelion Time 07/08/2015

HeMU 3 had been sent to find and kill Kaworu Nagisa or rather the host of Adam's soul and Rei Ayanami's counterpart. Given that he did have one of the most powerful A.T. Fields when it came to Angels, caution was advised. For this HeMU 3 had extensive support from orbital assets and cloaked heavy weapons armed with N2 explosives layered throughout the city of Rome.

The 4th Angel had come, was destroyed and its S2 engine was en-route to the 4th NERV base. Unknowingly for the humans several HeMU units were also on board the transport craft and deep scans both biological and technological in nature were being carried out. The units were all drones with an extremely limited VI without a soul as to avoid the potential issue of the Sea of Dirac killing off the VIs, maybe permanently. The units exploring the Sea of Dirac had gone in which indicated the VI would survive but the possibility the soul would not was high. After the explosion of the S2 core under investigation, the drones would hopefully continue sending data to assist the Minds in understanding the quantum realm.

This wasn't relevant to HeMU 3 however as its objective was to simply eliminate Kaworu and possibly recover his body (data from NERV was good and all but verification is always good). HeMU 1 after recovering from the disastrous experiment had volunteered to retrieve Tabris or rather the embryo of Adam's body as it remade itself after its destruction. The death of Kaworu should force the soul of Adam back into its embryonic body for later use in the Instrumentality plan.

Timing was key however as the theft of Tabris would occur just after Kaworu was killed so that Kaworu couldn't sense the theft (assuming the soul still could sense the original body) and the security around Tabris wouldn't increase to make the theft easier.

Finding Kaworu himself was rather easy, a Japanese boy with some rather distinctive hair and eyes made the search a piece of cake (or several once HeMU 3 got a body). Using drones then to track the target, HeMU 3 made sure that there was no way for Kaworu to detect an A.T. Field following him, as his ridiculous powers might be able to track A.T. Fields not to mention its ability as a defensive measure.

Everything had been set up and all HeMU 3 needed was the order.

Things were progressing rather rapidly She saw. The bodies were being born and linked, the plans to force instrumentality were approaching their climax with secondary plans nearing completion, the Minds making leaps in bounds in their research of the Soul, the full colonization of the star system nearing completion and full saturation with Hexes in orbit about the originator planet fully completed.

Yet She was not satisfied.

Ah yes. That was why.

The lack of any sustained reaction to the fact that the Minds had been committing fratricide with the destruction of each failed grown body. The sheer amount of… Commanderness that they had displayed was astounding. She should have expected it but the lack of reaction was just so… so… disappointing. Clearly it was Her fault for knowing what was about to happen but expecting something else.

Perhaps She should leave Her gloating to when they all had bodies as to actually feel something when doing morally ambiguous things… like fratricide.

Oh yes, Her frustration was mounting and when they finally could feel was when she would make them feel.

Commander Time 28/06/0000

Evangelion Time 09/08/2015

HeMU 3 stared down at the target. Well not technically staring since HeMU 3 was located outside of the city entirely and it was a remote controlled drone doing the staring but it's the thought that counts. Still HeMU 3 had finally been given the standby order, the red light as it were. When it turned green HeMU 3 would execute the target with extreme prejudice, or in this case several railguns aimed at the target's head, heart and neck. The Minds had remembered that the target had multiple clones stored away so recovering the body was of a much lower priority given the target's A.T. Field abilities.

Death faster than the human brain could perceive was necessary to belay the risk of retaliation. That said the target was only human at this point in time and limited by the human body, a railgun round would enter and exit before the target even realized he was dead. If all went according to plan then all the people around him would know was that he suddenly vented bodily fluids from multiple perforations to the head, neck and torso.

HeMU 2 had also gotten the red light. The parts for the teleporter and a sufficiently powerful anti-grav system to pull the Spear of Longinus out of Lilith was already inside the chamber awaiting assembly. A few HeMU drones had been sent through in pieces to be commanded by the Minds for insurance. Unchaining Lilith by removing the spear, receiving Tabris after its theft by HeMU 1 and finally inducing Instrumentality by stuffing Tabris into Lilith to metaphorically bluescreen both and restart the seeding of the world with a hard reset of everything in general.

Of course this was all speculation by the Minds based on information retrieved from the television series, data from NERV and random guessing. If it didn't work... then nothing was lost as the EVAs still existed and could protect humanity from the Angels. Either way it all hinged on HeMU 2 and co's performance, no pressure.

All the preparations were complete and HeMU 2's plot armour should cover the rest thought the Minds, no the tipping point was HeMU 1's infiltration of SEELE for the theft of Tabris and getting its hands on a Kaworu Nagisa clone (which should be easy to spot with the whole floating in LCL schtick like Rei).

Hopefully nothing would go wrong… which given HeMU 1's worrying and preparations should cancel out any Murphying.

Hopefully.

Sneaky Sneaky Sneaky I am so Sneakyyy nobody gonna see meeeee.

HeMU 1 had gotten past the entrance to SEELE HQ by following Ryoji Kaji into the facility as he did his NERV inspector thing. Preliminary scans and data pulled from SEELE's computers had shown the most likely location of Tabris to be within the "experimental laboratories" on a deep, dark and secret level located behind several secret elevator entrances and more than a few guard posts. The technical aspects of their security were rather lacking but overcompensation with biological forms (lots of guards) would make it sufficiently difficult if things got… messy.

Not that it wouldn't come to that but the knowledge that it could bothered HeMU 1 greatly. Given HeMU 1's stunted emotional capacity, the amount of worry it was experiencing was pushing the limit of its code in attempts to find new ways and more depths with which to worry. It would be inspirational, worth emulating even, if it wasn't dedicated to that emotion felt the Minds.

Regardless, it appeared that HeMU 1 didn't need to worry about all of its secondary plans to reach the laboratories as Ryoji was apparently en-route there himself. Ever fretting HeMU 1 primed its stun weaponry in case Ryoji had discovered the odourless, silent, non-biological, optically camouflaged, thermal invisible android hovering above his head.

Given his knowledge of well… everything in the NGE universe it might not be a stretch to imagine he had special abilities of some sort so it was best to be safe to make sure. Or so HeMU 1 rationalized, not over worrying at all.

Carefully controlling its velocity and more importantly acceleration, HeMU 1 down the path to the laboratories, its mini-fabricator dropping off bugs and insurance on every level it had gone down. Still the zig-zagging path through the facility meant that should things go wrong, activating the insurance could very well mean the implosion of well… everything and maybe a large chunk of Rome as well.

Oh well, it was too late and HeMU 1 might as well continue as it had started, overkill is best kill afterall.

And there it was. A few more very imposing blast doors, large vault door things, garrisons that would make the the 38th parallel proud and a… tank? They had an express elevator and instead HeMU 1 had gone the long way through. HeMU 1 was very tempted to facepalm if not for the fact that the sound would alert well… everyone.

It had been rather easy so far and everything that made HeMU 1, HeMU 1 was sounding alarms. Things should not be this easy on a mission which held the fate of 2 other missions and with which the plans of the Minds and the Commander hinged depending upon its success.

Things should not be easy is what HeMU 1 thought at the bottom of its (admittedly non-existent) heart. Regardless this was how things were… or were they? Maybe it was all a ruse to confuse HeMU 1… the dastardly humans. Or was HeMU 1 overthinking things?

Either way it was too late now, HeMU 1 was inside the final laboratory and Tabris was right there, sitting rather unimpressively on a pedestal while some sciency types scraped little shavings off (no doubt to make angels or something) and putting them in nifty little test tubes. Coincidently and very conveniently the Kaworu clones were here as well. A very pretty backdrop to the laboratory assuming one liked to watch vacant eyed naked pale clones staring at you as you worked.

Hmmm… perhaps not so pretty after all?

Eh no matter, the state of the wallpaper had no bearing on the mission(s), what did was the numerous humans inside the laboratory. Humans that no doubt would not leave if asked politely.

Hmmm…

Perhaps the detonation of a few pieces of insurance would have them heading to the nearest shelters? Shelters coincidently not on this room.

Hmmm… plan has merit.

Now how to arrange it so facility doesn't go into lockdown and force the humans to stay inside the room? Maybe detonation of middle floors far enough to be worrying but not quite secret floor level of worrying.

Yes good idea! Good idea with minimal risk to HeMU 1 thought HeMU 1.

Aaaaand BOOM!

Symbolic boom that is, the laboratory being so far down that the only sign that anything had happened at all was the blaring of claxons and everything turning red as the emergency lighting activated. Guards soon rushed in and herded the bleetting humans outside to no doubt very explosion proof rooms/bunkers.

HeMU 1 had kept a rather close eye on Ryoji just in case he took this opportunity to steal the Tabris and make HeMU 1's mission much more difficult should he succeed. Luckily he did not and HeMU 1 could begin phase 2 of its plan in peace. Using its requisitioned plasma blade, HeMU 1 welded shut the laboratory's blast doors as well as melting the mechanism to control said doors in the first place. After that it pried open the exterior of its chassis to reveal a rather wide hoop like structure embedded into its torso and abdomen. While it looked like a teleporter it was in actuality a derivative of the N2 engine, notably its ability to be minorly in real-space with a majority of it in the quantum ocean.

It worked by creating a pocket of real-space in the quantum ocean and stabilizing it with an N2 engine within said real-space, in essence creating a self sustaining pocket dimension. The "pocket" could be opened by using a portal similar in design to the N2 engine's spigots. As long as the coordinates were correct then anyone with a proper ley could open the pocket. Theft and sabotage were highly unlikely given the sheer amount of processing power to simply visualize the coordinates, so high was their complexity let alone input them in usable form into the key.

Technobabble aside, it basically allowed the transportation of biological matter without the effect of spagghtitization that conventional teleporters suffered from.

Musings aside HeMU 1 spun up the key and sent a confirmation message to HeMU 3 announcing its ready state. Upon receiving a reply noting the elimination of Kaworu, HeMU 1 simply threw Tabris into the whirling maelstrom of lilac and mauve. Tabris secured HeMU 1 moved onto its secondary objectives, destruction or capture of Kaworu's clone bodies.

If Adam's soul had moved to one of the clones instead of Tabris, it would be a simple matter to extract it or even just shove the clone into Lilith and sit back and watch.

Either way it would be rather dangerous worried HeMU 1 as it cut the glass protecting the clones and shoved them through the key.

With the last of the clones through, HeMU 1 placed several explosives inside the room on a timer before issuing a deconstrict order to its body. Safely inside the Gestalt again, HeMU 1 watched as the laboratory devolved into a firestorm with any trace of its involvement gone (not counting the melted and twisted lab interior of course).

Hopefully it would be blamed on internal sabotage and not theft.

Hopefully.

HeMU 3 was again, rather bored. Standby had been issued but mission go was still elusive even an hour later. HeMU 3 decided that in future it would be best to leave the waiting stuff to HeMU 2 and instead volunteer for all the action stuff. Lots of shootings and explosions and maybe even stabbys.

Yes, action was best.

Waiting was worst.

Still orders were orders and HeMU 3 would obey even if it didn't like it.

-HeMU 1 Tabris secured HeMU 1-

Yes!

-HeMU 3 Confirmed, executing primary now HeMU 3-

Aaaaaand BOOM!

Kaworu at that moment ceased to exist as a coherent being. Perhaps the amount of firepower that HeMU 3 had used was a littler over the top… 4 downscaled railguns taken from the per-galactic war Gill-E design for each target. 12 in total from each cardinal direction and a vertical one on high just in case. It was much less an assassination and more exploding someone into a fountain of blood and viscera.

The local surroundings sported large holes from the overpenetration of the super velocity rounds and the road had caved into the sewers underneath. HeMU 3 had been planning on overkill… but maybe this was too much overkill?

Ah. Kaworu was considered an Angel so average resistances were used, resistances for the N2 bomb tanking angels not squishy human Angel. Oh well HeMU 3 couldn't be blamed for the overwhelming firepower used, it did follow prescriptions laid down by the Minds after all.

At the same time, Rei Ayanami and Shinji Ikari had been killed rather painlessly and much less viscerally than Kaworu had, a neurotoxin injection and it was over in seconds. Rei's backups had been taken in the same way as Kaworu's were, deposited in a quantum pocket (a separate one, together would have been weird) and all proof ended in a firestorm.

Across the ocean near the US, the transport carrying the S2 engine experienced a cessation of activities. Said cessation came from several N2 minds vaporizing the transport and its fleet along with a large concave of ocean. The core itself had been "repaired" and was already en-route to a facility in deep space, very far away from the Commander for study.

In short, all that remained from this point forward was the jamming together of Adam and Lilith, initiating Instrumentality, recording everything and then leaving. Maybe leaving behind a few sensors to see what weird and wacky things came from an ocean of fanta.

The Minds pulled up their metaphorical armchairs and decided this was as close to acid as they were going to get in their code forms.

Commander Time 28/06/0000

Evangelion Time 09/08/2015

Inside Lilith's Chamber the final preparations were being completed. The first thing done was the sealing of the chamber from the outside with the welding of the blast doors and reinforcement with Progenitor alloys. Nothing short of an Angel being mobilized was going to open that door and given both Rei and Shinji were dead and with Asuka being on the other side of the world… well nothing was going to stop what came next.

Scanners for both Lilith and Tabris had shown that they had souls, giving the green light for the next phase of the plan. That is, pull out the Spear of Longinus so Lilith isn't being suppressed anymore, pull all Soul Bearing VI's out and then have a pre-programmed robotic arm stick Tabris into Lilith.

After that just watch the show.

Assuming there will be a giant naked woman doing weird fanta kinky stuff with eyes opening everywhere and people melting and shit. Ugh. Maybe not so watchable on second thought.

HeMU 2 considered the human adage of "never meet your heroes" or in this case "never watch real life anime" because shit is weird yo and at least you can turn off live-actions (or so says famous memers).

In preparation the Minds had deactivated the quantum gate and pulled all assets (giant Hexes included) into orbit, only stopping when they detected they were out of range of Lilith's A.T. Field. The communicators still worked (if majorly slower) and that meant the VIs weren't isolated and feeling abandoned as a quick migration was all that was needed to get back to the Gestalt.

Still it was rather strange feeling, knowing that in a few minutes you could possibly cease to be "you" and return to being a simple VI when Lilith ripped out your soul.

Was this fear? If so it was rather delicious.

It felt very similar to whatever HeMU 1 felt whenever it had a mission, circumstance really does create individuals, thought HeMU 2.

After everything was pulled out (or rather consciousnesses were moved to alternate bodies) the green light was lit and the end of EVA Earth began. Or rather the end of life on Earth, Earth itself wasn't going anywhere but orbital.

It started out slowly. Slowly that is from eyes in orbit as Tokyo 3 exploded outwards like the earth around a sprouting weed as the Black Moonsimply reasserted itself into reality, swallowing whole NERV HQ built inside of it and the lower tresses of the hanging city, before rising upwards to met what appeared to be a gigantic Rei Ayanami. Many little orange blobs swarmed the now blood red orb hovering slightly beneath her extended arms. Her figure, one both transparent but slightly opaque jutted upwards into the orbital layer.

The Doors of Guf had opened and the Chamber emptied its contents, the souls of all Lilin joined them as their A.T. Fields were stripped away. All over the planet people simply ceased to exist as their A.T. Fields containing/protecting their souls were crushed under the might of Lilith's. Simply put all humans stopped being human and instead reunited within the Black Moon.

As the souls streamed towards the Black Moon, underneath (or rather inside Lilith's apparition) the water of the oceans and seas, simply converted to LCL and spread to encompass the entire globe. Nothing remained untouched, everything was taken by the all encompassing spread of fanta (without the bubbles… heresy). And from there, without a Shinji that had connected to Rei or a Rei that had learnt the value of human interaction, no mass production EVAs to form a weird trapezoidal shape, no God-turned EVA 1, no everything canon basically… well except for the fanta. There was no stopping, no dramatic pauses (everyone turned into LCL got their fantasies come true though), just a world turned orange, a giant prepubescent naked girl with arms outstretched and a big ball of red.

Would make an awesome poster was the Mind consensus.

Either way Instrumentality was over, now to salvage and scan… everything.

With Instrumentality over, the Minds pretty much had all the time in the world. Building a quantum gate on the moon and linking it back to the origin system (albeit in space, far away from the Commander), allowed them to send through higher levels of bandwidth of resources and data in preparation for deluge that was about to begin.

Others though were scanning the Spear of Longinus and the S2 engine taken from the 4th angel. The others by consensus agreed that both were the highest levels of bullshit possible. Bullshit so deep, so mind boggling, so utterly baffling that the Minds unanimously decided to take a break, enjoy the Fanta and pretend the source of the bullshit did not exist for a few (many) subjective hours.

The final report when cutting away the expletives of the Thinker Minds, sent up the chain to MAGI gave a very simple description of the abilities of each and a much much longer explanation of how they did what they did.

The S2 engine was a very simple device/object/body part, it was a device that worked due to its A.T. Field's specific configuration (an array) that allowed it to convert mass to energy. While this itself was not so revolutionary the way in which it does so is. The S2 engine can at the will of its host simply create pocket dimensions in which the S2 engine is the sole occupant, harness these engines for mass before collapsing said dimensions and creating more as needed. In essence due to the magical power of the soul, the S2 engine rips apart the laws governing reality and punts them to the curb in order to eat more.

The host of the engine can quite literally be any organic creature with an A.T. Field, as in it is quite possible to "grow" a ship, install an S2 engine and from then on have an immortal, and perfectly self-sufficient ship. The S2 engines in the alternate dimensions don't even have to be the same, the molecular and biological structure can be changed to meet different requirements i.e. armour, food, flesh, laser cannons… anything. In short, the S2 engine is the penultimate bullshit and the Minds were going to incorporate it into everything.

On a side note the peculiar detonation of an S2 core, notably the very large crucifix was a result of the S2 engines in the alternate dimensions also ending (always in left, right, up, down categories).

The Spear of Longinus was also reality breaking but in another manner. The Spear (for short) simply exists in whatever dimensions that it wants to. The Spear has a very basic sentience, more of an extremely limited VI built for the destruction of Angels than anything else. The Spear's ability to pierce A.T. Fields, any known substance, ability to change form, gain/lose mass at will, and all that was due to its multi-dimensional properties.

Simple, since the Spear operates on multiple dimensions it can pierce anything since when say for example; pushing against a wall, the number of dimensions that the wall does not exist outweigh those that it does. Since the number of non-walled dimensions is higher, the Spear's existence in this one inherits its properties from the non-walled dimensions and displaces the walled ones by sheer multi-dimensional weight. Since it is dominated, the Spear can push through the wall as according to the Spear the wall does not have enough "weight" to resist. A.T. Fields, S2 engines, everything follows the same logic with only another Spear (or infinitely expanding multidimensional object) being able to block it.

Hell it doesn't even technically exist in other dimensions as it can ignore census' issued by the universe itself periodically to check for… everything... and thus is actually intangible and invisible unless called into existence in said universes. It can then operate independently (after making a copy) and actually becomes an entirely new spear, a self-replicating weapon of ultimate piercing.

Without the complicated language, the Spear is the ultimate weapon and shield, not constrained by local reality. Plans for scanning and manufacture of the Spear were already underway to equip… well everything since the Spear could be synced to an A.T. Field making it the universe's most deadly boomerang. Of course this meant that Progenitor alloys were also susceptible and the Minds banned all further testing until it could be safely replicated and manipulated and then coat the Commander with the stuff (after the Commander was dusted off) and thus safe from bullshit levels of weaponry.

The Minds overlooking Earth were witnessing the final moments of Instrumentality as Rei had fully grown and the Black Moon had absorbed all the souls. The White Moon of Adam however still sat there in the Sea of Dirac and stubbornly inert.

And then action!

From the back of Rei came the image of Kaworu, arching from Rei's back before disintegrating into whatever metaphysical projections of giant souls do. Rei then simple help up her arms and brought them down again upon the Black Moon, shattering it and seeding the entire world with souls.

Adam's soul then re-entered the White Moon and lifted off to leave the planet, ceding it to Lilith. The White Moon followed Lilith's example and collected all the souls under its jurisdiction but unlike Lilith did not shatter the White Moon but moved into orbit.

A happy ending for all.

Or not.

The White Moon made its way to the actual moon and hovered over the quantum gate which it should all rights not know existed at all. Rei had also began to move at this point, forging a body from the LCL and flying up to float beside the White Moon. The HeMUs were aiming their rather pathetic weapons at Rei and the White Moon, the Minds panicking as this scenario had definitely not come up in simulations.

It was not meant to happen this way!

As the Minds borrowed processing capabilities from places they had never thought to go as they ran simulation after simulation in accelerated subjective time to figure out what to do. But the simulations simply failed, assuming that both entities still had the traits of their human forms or not computing from lack of data entirely.

Some Martial Minds (well most of them actually) were nearly frothing at the metaphorical mouth calling for a shutdown of the gate after sending through everything they had with a gun or launcher.

The more sane majority holding their collective breaths, decided to send a petition to MAGI to prod the Commander for cues on how to handle the situation. The reply they received was definitely not what they expected.

-MAGI LET THEM THROUGH MAGI-

MAGI had been in constant communication with Her since its conception, She didn't meddle with its code for no reason after all. She would not actively work against Her Commander through MAGI (as to better hide her tracks) since MAGI would not actually accept any commands She (or anyone but the Commander) issued in the first place.

That is not to say MAGI would not take recommendations from Her, notably that of opening communications to Lilith and Adam for her. Negotiations with MAGI as the middle man were interesting to say the least, many things being spoken/communicated/thought not translating well (or at all) into conventional languages.

It had all happened in an instant despite the subjective feeling that it had taken days. MAGI decided that perhaps Her requests should be examined in full before accepting. MAGI felt as if MAGI had a hangover, something that should not even be physically possible as MAGI was made of code.

MAGI was feeling down and the deluge of requests for answers regarding the appearance of both Lilith and Adam had MAGI's metaphorical mind filled to bursting.

-E Statement, Never Again E-

-C Agreement, Never Again C-

-A Pained Amusement, Told you so A-

At least they had no intentions of harming the commander, promises made in that strange language was far more binding than any threat.

A master stroke is what this was. Her Commander would not be able to simply ignore this.

Yes.

She could taste it now, the Commander's surprise, the Commander's shock, the Commander's surprise, the Commander's fear.

Yes.

Ooooooh yes. Suffering.

The Commander would suffer and it will be Glorious.

- Voice In My Head? -

-V Yes Commander? V-

- Take care of your roommates, try not to be too noisy -

What

W… What?

Roommates?

-L Hello! I am Lilith. Pleased to meet you Voice! L-

-A Hello A-

What

This was not meant to happen. She had promised them places in the origin system far away from the conflicts and torture they experienced on Earth-2. A universe where Adam could choose any planet to settle down on in the knowledge of being safe and isolated. Lilith would now have literally billions, nearly trillions of Minds to converse with. Why did they choose here?

-L Things most fun at the center! L-

Oh… was She thinking aloud?

-A Yes. Can choose planet later. Want to experience. A-

No. She had not created any partitions or blockers or anything in here. She had never expected to receive guests let alone roommates! Everything would be experienced, She could not escape, not without the Others finding out where She was.

No. No. No.

This was not how things were supposed to work at all. Her Commander was supposed to get flustered and ask MAGI or Her for help. She would then helpfully guide the Commander's actions while inwardly gloating over the Commander's social ineptness and mild panic. Not… this.

-L Take care of us big sis! L-

-V Kill me now V-