Apathy

by Throwaway1971

Not important please ignore

3. Entry 021-030

16/05/0001

It turned out that the NS body from the "rebirth" chambers were in fact compatible with souls, solving the issue that the Minds had with the time delay in actually growing bodies. A problem they faced however was the impact that the Commander's blood had on them, or rather the lack of impact. The "growth" that the bodies experienced did not carry through, the fabricators could only produce baseline bodies. If a HeMU wanted to carry on with their enhanced body, they would need to drink the blood again.

Luckily the changes to the soul were small enough to not matter if the doses were small and also spaced apart enough for the HeMU to recover from it.

It wasn't as applicable for the Planetside universe but the possibility of coming across a Dark Souls or Bloodborne in future was not inconsiderable.

The Minds had been collating the data regarding the HeMUs and their experiences on Auraxis and trying to experiment with it.

Copying the data to other HeMUs had seen them gain knowledge regarding what to do in a given situation but it had done nothing to grow their souls or even give them instinctive understandings on what to do in a situation. In short it was nothing more to the implanted HeMUs than an interactive movie.

If they wanted to grow in abilities and more importantly the soul, they would need to experience the events themselves.

Measures had already been taken to use the mind upload technology and the Nanite System nanites to create copies of Auraxis as training grounds for the HeMUs.

Currently, several more Bastions worth of HeMUs had been added to Auraxis, the Minds subtly using their Server Farms to offload the increased traffic. Lag after all would be very detrimental to the learning experience.

Some of the humans were becoming suspicious of the HeMUs, words such as "hacker" being thrown around with abandon. The HeMUs that were more savvy with human culture were chortling, it was a compliment rather than an insult.

Johan of the New Conglomerate, rank of Sentinel 5, halfway to Executor didn't know what to make of the new additions to his platoon. Johan was a casual gamer, he played the minimum company mandated hours on his weekends and one or two hours on weekdays to meet the quota. These new guys… well they looked like the played the game professionally, obsessively and to the death of their social skills.

They acted strange in and out of combat, all joking and roughhousing enough to shatter their shields out of combat and roughhousing enough to shatter enemy shields while in combat. Each one used what appeared to be a different martial art style in their spars, Johan was usually too busy trying not to die in combat to check what they did when things went sideways.

That is not to say that he didn't feel the effects of having 15 of them in the platoon. He knew it was 15, they acted too differently to not be instantly recognizable. Always with the jokes with punchlines that came a moment too early or too late. Things that sounded perfectly normal on paper but somehow failed in reality. It was not an overt failure mind, more something that sounded off on first hearing. The feeling only increased the more one listened to them speaking.

"Hello Johan, this is a fine day, on the world of Auraxis, with our friends, in the New Conglomerate is it not?"

Ah, it was one of them now. Each part of the sentence somehow feeling like its own sentence. The strangeness came from the pauses where there should have been flow, a hitch… as if they were tasting the words. The speed at which they spoke bordered on the limit human comprehension, truly strange.

If it had been one person it could have been called a quirk, but with what he understood to be thousands of them from the message boards… something was wrong. Maybe Nanite Systems had botched an upload for a new batch?

At least they weren't malicious or anything, just clueless apparently. Give them a rifle, point them at the enemy and things ended well… quickly. Give them other people to "interact" with and you would be there all day as they tried to clear up misunderstandings in that stop-start way of theirs.

Their emotions also failed to make a lot of sense, trying to inject emotion into speech doesn't work very well when it's the completely wrong emotion. Happiness is not something one wants to hear when describing the myriad of ways that they had eviscerated their opponents. Nor is sadness appropriate when regarding a teammate being revived. It was as if they didn't know what emotion to be placed into what context.

Still at least they're on our side, Johan mused. His magazine was full, his Carbine checked, his 4x scope was zeroed and utilities full.

The assault on Broken Arch Road from yesterday was still underway, what appeared to be thousands of players had congregated into an area that would barely fit 8 tanks side by side.

A temporary base had been built to the rear on the Terran side, a place where they could fire from with their Spear Turrets, while the Aspis turrets along with judicious amounts of AA Maxes and Skyguards kept the sky clear (the rain of shrapnel was a definite negative however). Denied of the air, the New Conglomerate had been forced to rely on a ground offensive with overwhelming armour and infantry.

The natural chokepoint had stymied this however, trying to get a working firing line saw nothing but more and more wreckage as they tried. Bodies luckily would deconstruct or they would be working with using bodies as sandbags and tank-traps. The Terran firing line had focused on the facility itself, using the natural rock formations to hide a prodigious amount of infantry and anti-tank weapons backed up by the turrets of both the Tawrich Recycling base to the south and the temp constructed base.

The cliffs above were at once extremely different and at once the same. Here the relatively open plains of the western cliff had seen armoured platoons clashing, high velocity AP shells puncturing armour and crushing those unlucky enough to be on foot. The amount of fire traded saw the night sky light up with a false dawn, the sound reaching all the way to Howling Pass on the east end of the continent.

Johan and his platoon had been involved on the eastern cliffside where the rocky and jumbled terrain saw infantry fighting for supremacy.

Sharp cracks and a rustling of falling dirt punctured Johan's ears. The bullets slamming into the tiny alcove he had crouched in coming dangerously close to putting holes in him as they ricocheted. As much as he wanted to stay Johan knew that to stay only invited grenades and death at their leisure. So Johan picked up his fallen carbine and shuffled to the entrance.

Peering out (keeping only a sliver of his face outside) Johan tried to locate where the fire was coming from. Indistinct muzzle flashes were his only answer. Still, Johan was an engineer with an unlimited supply of ammunition packs which gave an unlimited supply of ammunition. Throwing one down, Johan peeked his rifle around the corner and held down the trigger. Making sure that only the weapon was outside he emptied the magazine in the general direction of the enemy.

Bang bang bang bang bang

Once again Johan thanked whatever was looking over him that he was in the New Conglomerate. Even if the situation was hopeless the sheer visceral feel of firing New Conglomerate weaponry made things feel better.

Still the shouts of the Terrans as they advanced closer to his position were worrying. He could have poked his head out to check their progress but the bullets periodically impacting the rock around alcove entrance persuaded him to keep his head down.

Not for the first time Johan wondered what happened to his squad. They had been tasked with holding the westernmost side of the cliff i.e. the area that looked directly down on Broken Arch Road. If they held this then the New Conglomerate forces would be able to fire directly down on the base as well as drop their Light Assaults down the path of least resistance. They could send down Light Assaults now but the drifter jetpacks would take too long and left them far too open to AA fire.

When they had approached the area, Johan's squad had been hit by a deluge of fire from the TR weapons. What they lacked in ooompf they more than made up for it with rate of fire. Half of the squad had been cut down by the ambush instantly. Johan had dived into the alcove as his shield had decreased by a worrying level, nearly overloading. A few moments later and he would of been dead as well. The lack of any other fire besides his own meant that it was likely the others were gone too.

Johan cursed (politely, his wife might be watching) and loaded another magazine. If he was going to die he might as well do it properly (he could respawn later anyway). Johan mumbled a brief prayer to the god "profit" that his actions here would see a bonus down the line.

His immortal soul taken care of (and his wife's credit card), Johan spun around the corner, carbine up to his shoulder ready to try and take down at least one of them with him.

The Terran soldiers however, their black and red uniforms causing them to stand out mightily amidst the orangy/brownish rocks of South East Indar weren't looking at him. Instead of shooting him, they were directing fire above him, as in directly above him. From the sky came down 4 Light Assault troopers, their carbines pointed at the Terrans, each spitting out death.

Boom boom boom

Each would puff their jetpacks for a moment to stabilize them long enough to put a burst into the Terran heads, 2 rounds to break the shield and one more to penetrate the brain matter.

It was over in seconds, the Light Assaults had cleared out the Terran squad with only a reload and depleted shields to show for it. They were beautiful (not that he could see their faces but the chins were plenty) and they were deadly. Johan felt himself falling a little in love, that tiny man inside his brain that loved big guns and dangerous women, especially when they were together hammered the drums of his attraction meter.

Then it came crashing down. Or rather it had taken a sharp left turn.

"Hello fellow New Conglomerate soldier. It is good that you are alive, you may assist in our attack. We request ammunition beforehand. Please assist by giving ammunition. We thank you in advance."

The awkward cadence of the speech and the stilted delivery had Johan wondering if these were the fabled NPC characters promised so long ago. Still, they had assisted him so he dropped an ammo pack and watched as they congregated around it like infiltrators around a fire on Esamir (tip, spandex isn't effective against the cold).

His was a maxed out ammo pack and the Light Assaults finished their resupply in half a minute. From there they arranged themselves on the cliff edge clearly ready to jump.

"Please suppress the enemy as we make our approach ally."

What.

How was he meant to assist from up on the cliff? He still had his iron sights and he couldn't aim well at that distance let alone being alone and the focus of everything with a sniper scope.

He was about to make his displeasure clear when they jumped. Straight down to the meatgrinder that was Broken Arch Road.

Haaa, they had dropped down as he fired ineffectually from on high, trying to suppress but doing very little besides annoy the dozens of Terrans arrayed near where his bullets had landed. The return fire at least was fire the Light Assault girls wouldn't be facing.

The 4 of them activated their jump packs at the last second needed for a safe landing, firing all the way down. Head peaked over the edge, Johan counted at least 15 kills on the descent. On foot their deadliness didn't change as they swept forward in a diamond formation tearing apart the Terra forward defences.

Sadly for them however they were still Light Assaults and the MAX reinforcements quickly tore them down. While their combined fire could kill one, it wouldn't stop the other 11 perforating them with extra air vents.

After that Johan had been reinforced with his revived squad and spent the rest of the night fighting over that 30 meter patch of rock. When dawn had come around he had been ordered back to prepare the next push, this time with a full platoon and not the reduced one they had last night, not even 2 full squads.

That said it did come with news that the platoon would be supplemented by new recruits… and the Light Assaults from last night, only now they had multiplied. He even had 3 of them in his squad.

Johan heard the comm line static as an incoming message from outside the platoon band came in. They would be advancing in 5 minutes and all elements were to board their Sunderers before the time for advance.

Johan wondered why they didn't send a platoon of those girls, they would demolish the TR. Oh well, high command was known for their overall incompetence, let alone in the intelligence division.

Still he planned on being behind the ones in his squad, it was probably the safest place in the valley of death.

17/05/0001

The Minds had come to a disturbing revelation. What they considered "normal" speech was in fact abnormal. Using television shows and movies made available via the internet in fact was wrong. As was using the helldiver humans as a base of comparison. The majority of regular HeMU interaction came from lobotomized via brainwashing soldiers and janitors.

Using them as conversation partners was clearly oversight and had been rapidly corrected. The HeMUs were ordered to seek out as much interaction with the native human population to understand the complexities of spoken language. Once learned they would teach other HeMUs, creating a job of sorts on a post-scarcity system.

A few HeMUs were capable of human interaction but their numbers were so small they weren't even fractions of 1. In fact of the HeMUs currently on Auraxis, HeMUs 1, 2, and 3 were the only ones capable of interacting with the humans properly. Properly in this case meaning that the humans don't have traces of alarm in their bloodstream when talking to a HeMU.

To this end the Minds had directed the HeMUs to increase their rate of human interaction by embedding them into existing authority structures. By having them fight alongside the humans, they would be forced to at the very least acknowledge the humans. They would need to learn to fight alongside those that were not VIs as in most universes the organics would make up a majority of their contact and comrades. To better serve the Commander they would need to learn.

So far it had been working, the HeMUs were improving their speech to "normal" levels where a casual sentence wouldn't provoke alarm. Developing a program where HeMUs would be trained to act like humans would be necessary, shifting billions of them through Auraxis was simply infeasible without multiple "servers".

At the very least the HeMUs were individualizing themselves, hacking the Nanite System servers saw them granted unlock points for camouflage and new weapons galore.

Pink everywhere.

Benjamin Ferres of the Terran Republic was a bit shell shocked he knew. No PTSD or anything like that, no just simple shock. He had been on Auraxis for several years now, he had been there when Valkyries and Harassers were nothing but rumours, when the Nanite Systems weapon pool had merely been the NS-11A. He had been there when Hossin hadn't even existed except in dreams, when rocket pods used to wipe out entire platoons with a single volley.

Suffice to say he had been there when the New Conglomerate and the Vanu Sovereignty had partnered for an unforgettable week. Constant attacks on two fronts for an entire week with platoon after platoon of Vanguards and Magriders had thrown themselves at the Terrans. Kicked off both Amerish and Esamir on the first day they had spent the rest of the week holed in the South Eastern end of Indar hiding in the canyons that peppered the area.

Guerilla fighting, constant raids to disrupt their supply lines and desperate, desperate frontline fighting had marked the week. There was not a single moment of the day when Benjamin had not experienced the vibrations of yet another air raid, Light Assault rush or even handheld rockets from the Heavy Assaults. The screaming of the Phoenix launchers still caused some veterans to dive for cover to this day.

Close quarters combat in Zurvan Amp Station was particularly bloody. Many forwent their normal weapons entirely with shotguns and explosives coming into their own. Blood flowed down stairs and ramps causing impromptu slides so slick was the surfaces. The entire time reinforcements would stream from both sides as they contested the central capture point locked behind the shields. Benjamin had been an engineer for a majority of it, huddled in the shield generator room. It had been converted to a bunker/resupply station as MAXs and regular infantry had come for healing, repairs and resupply as the fight wore on. Benjamin had been behind a turret whenever he wasn't repairing or resupplying someone, pouring on the machinegun fire through the windows or doors.

Howling Pass was much more hectic for Benjamin personally. The large plain to the north with sporadic rock outcroppings made armour a much more viable threat due to the way they could concave around the base. The pitiful amount of Spear turrets did nothing but give free XP to the attackers. To alleviate the threat command had issued the order for infiltrators to push into Mao Techplant and its satellite bases and hack the vehicle terminals. Snipers and CQB infiltrators would wait and gun down any who tried to re-hack the terminals or repair the ones destroyed.

The denial of the Tech plant to actual tanks had a lifesaving effect on the defenders of Howling Pass. The New Conglomerate denied the ability to spawn heavy vehicles was forced to use lightnings from further afield, the travel time buying valuable space for the defenders to push out, repair the damage and reinforce between each wave. The additional space also allowed them to send out screens of Lightnings after an attack to act as skirmishers, picking off the reinforcements as they moved from far off bases to stage at Mao. Their cannons tore apart the infantry screens and damaged the enemy tanks enough for them to pull back for repairs, buying yet more time.

The defence during that week was nothing but buying time. The time proved to be their salvation as the inevitable VS and NC conflict boiled over and dissolved the alliance. Their infighting gave the Terran Republic enough time to regroup and launch an offensive to once again gain a beachhead on the continents they had been locked out of.

Still it was nothing compared to what he had experienced the last week. Even against overwhelming odds he had known that the enemy was human and the enemy could still be defeated with grit and determination.

But the NPCs… it was as if Nanite Systems had added minibosses and not told anyone in their patch notes. They still had the same armour and health and weapons and shields and camos as everyone else, but they were so effective with them that it was a question which military bots they had pulled the code from, not if they had. A squad of them had hit Broken Arch Road last night, they walked in from the canyon entrance.

Like turrets, they were like turrets. They swivelled left to right, machine guns tearing apart the defenders from 200 meters away. The pings that came from the helmets as they caved in from the bullets was a constant accompaniment to their efforts as anyone who popped up was killed. The only solution came from using their underbarrel grenade launchers on the S variants of their rifles and carbines to kill them from behind cover, everything else melted too quickly.

Thankfully the rest of the New Conglomerate was still incompetent but the damage that a single squad of the NPCs caused was substantial. Benjamin shuddered to think what would happen if more of them arrived to "help". That Light Assault drop last night was just one example, the right flank almost collapsed entirely if the MAXs hadn't been pulled to deal with them.

Now it was dawn.

Everyone knew that attacking at dawn was a tradition for anything big. Benjamin took a moment to rub his face vigorously with both hands, maybe if he tried really hard, he might be able to get the developers to rollback the NPCs. Also why did the Terran Republic not have any? It would be bearable if they could get the killer deathbots to fight each other and ignore them.

They had received probing attacks through the night but nothing from the NPCs after those 2 attacks. Maybe it was a psychological attack? Cripple them with fear and doubt. Dammit to hell, he didn't want to be here. Esamir would be better than this, at least he would be freezing in peace and not at the mercy of killbots.

"Suit up lads, the buggers are inbound with a big infantry push and Vanguard screens. Oh and watch your heads mates, looks like we got Galaxies lifting off from Crimson Bluff Tower, likely got a platoon hitting us soon."

"Sarge, what about those killbots?" Volunteered Benjamin.

"Fucking…" The squad could hear a deep breath being taken, "Word from Command is that there isn't any killbots, they are just highly trained commandos" a universal snort from the squad sounded out, "Yeah I know, just keep your heads down and if they appear just throw as many grenades as you can. They'll probably wipe the floor with you but at least try to take one down with you." Sarge finished.

"Well fuck. Do you at least know when we get some of our own?"

"When I die of old age you idiots, now get moving. I want us bunkered down before the killbots arrive"

They quickly marched to the rocky outcropping home to a little path on the left flank. Benjamin built his little crouch walls for the squad to take cover behind and dropping ammo packs and a turret for good measure. It wouldn't hold up under a sustained assault but with the rest of the platoon there to assist, it should at least slow the NC down enough for a counter-attack. Still, Benjamin was never someone to rely on luck and so stocked up on Claymores and Sticky Grenades to catch one out.

From there it was just a matter of sitting still and waiting.

The NC were 300 meters out at this point, the Terrans on the center and left flanks were pouring on the fire but at that range only Infiltrators with their sniper rifles would be getting consistent kills (unless you were a got with a shotgun/slug combo). The machineguns just were firing to suppress the NC so they wouldn't fire back (too much) or get the idea to stand still or slow down (funnelling them in small groups to kill instead of big blobs). It was then that a squad of Lightnings made themselves known.

Firing their C75 Viper cannons (6 shots to a magazine) to rather deadly effect. The shells came down on the right flank and it melted. 2 entire squads were wiped out, their walls, reinforcements even MAXs just evaporated.

"Holy shit. I think we just saw our killbots in action sarge" came 02's voice over the squad comms.

"For fucks sake, why us. It was going so damn well."

"Well nobody gives a shit apparently, just buckle up and keep your head down, we might get air support or something."

"Galaxy rams would be really welcome right about now."

"Maybe suicide Heavy Assaults drop on top of them? C4 and Decimators up the ass."

"Like Stealth Flashes with like a Heavy on the back, like Galaxies but cheaper!"

"Or maybe we could like get an actual tank column from the tech plant behind us?"

"Don't be an idiot, tank column up that road? Single file is not what I want a column to be when they can concave us you idiot."

"Oh. Sorry."

"Don't be sorry, just like… think before you speak man, you'll learn, we all do."

"Cut the chatter ya gits, they've hit the first Claymores."

Whelp this was it. Benjamin checked the fire mode on his Carbine, patted his utility packs and prepared to fight.

The sounds of the skirmishers reached his ears. They who volunteered to be the first to actually engage the enemy and attempt to draw them into friendly firing arcs. The lighter sounds of their weapons were interspaced with that of the heavier but less rapid sounds of the New Conglomerate weapons. No silence however which was good, it meant that the killbots weren't in this push.

The reports of their weapons came closer, Benjamin estimated he should have barely enough time and ran a last second check on his Carbine. He didn't want to risk the chance that maybe, just maybe his safety was still on.

Then they crested the hill, the more curved designs of the Terran armour staying his trigger finger. Still, it would only be a minute now as the skirmishers joined the main battle lines. They would remain detached in case Command needed them for a particular job.

And there they were, the blocky New Conglomerate helms popped up and were met instantly with weapons fire. Little jets of blood burst out, arcing into the sky.

The expected follow up didn't occur, the New Conglomerate was being smart today. And there it was, smoke grenades from underbarrel launchers blanketed the no-man's land between them. While they couldn't see them per-se, the few among them who had night vision optics could. The advancing NC were 3-D marked on their HUDs and met with bullets. They were too trusting of their solution and paid the price.

As the smoke cleared there was about 2 squads worth of bodies in front of them. Strange, usually the NC would be pushing it much harder than what they had shown so far. Only 2 squads worth of infantry? Where was their Valkyrie drops, their Harasser runbys, their platoon rushes?

It was as if they were probing… something they usually never tried.

The right flank however… they continued to get hammered. The poor sods barely held on by the skin of their teeth hidden inside the lone building on the right side and that the natural trench the rocks made to the north. The tanks couldn't reach in to kill but they couldn't pop their heads out without being torn apart. Constant gunfire thudded out from the New Conglomerate lines while their infantry kept pushing in.

The melee over that tiny patch of 10x3 meter territory had seen at least a platoon's worth of casualties so far from both sides. The range of the fighting was too small for the longer weapons to be effective so knifes, pistols and SMGs were all they could use effectively. The Terran's weren't helped by the natural corridor leading to the building being open to the NC firing lines with 3 out of every 4 sent to assist being blown apart. The survivors spent at least a few seconds being patched up by the overworked medics.

Benjamin's squad tried to help by sending fire at the NC as they crossed the rocks into the defilade the Terrans waited in but it did little. The rocks that hid the TR from the NC did the same vice versa.

The New Conglomerate was pushing but it was much less than it could have been. Benjamin knew this instinctively, the lack of desperation on his part being very telling.

Then it came.

"Command, All. Inbound Galaxy squadron, count 10, North East. Brace"

Ah… there we go. They were going to be dropping in on top of them to break up the defences so the ground troops could push in more easily. Or at least that is what he thought. The sudden appearance of a convoy of Sunderers cornering around from the canyon edge led to the realization this was a pincer move. The ground troops were at least prepared for this and the Heavies readied rockets while Engineers mounted their AT MANA turrets in preparation. MAXs chose their desired AT loadout and waited for the Sunderers to come into range.

Or at least they would have if the NC troops hadn't renewed their assault. What was clearly 3 platoons or 144 soldiers being held in reserve rushed over the left and the right flanks to pin the TR down. They themselves had 4 platoons worth of infantry spread between the left and right flank (center was covered by tanks by virtue of it being a road). The Heavies and Engineers were caught off guard and paid for it. Most were riddled with bullets and dropped, snipers picking off the Engineers cowering behind the turret. MAXs fared a little better but still had to duck from the sheer volume of fire, their thick exo-armour not holding from the weight of fire.

The Sunderers now only had the road and the TR anchored Prowlers to deal with. Their mineguard protected from the Tank Mines as they detonated almost harmlessly against the bottom armour. The Prowlers and embedded AT Turrets and Heavies had better luck, destroying 3 of the advancing Sunderers, but there were still too many.

All the while the Galaxies came closer and were meeting the wall of flak from Tawrich Recycling, the Temp base and Broken Arch Road itself. It wouldn't be enough of course, they had too little warning to take down that many Galaxies.

The timing was clearly on point from there. The Sunderers breached the defences and entered the middle of the base as the Galaxies dropped themselves over the Temp base. Explosions covered the sky around the Galaxies as the defenders desperately tried to fight back but it was too late.

Galaxies, clearly selected for a suicide role had their gunners drop from the belly while the pilots sent them on a direct course at the turrets and tanks, the bulk of the Galaxy crushing them before the craft itself exploded. The remainder, all 4 of them disgorged their troops into the center of the base and quickly set about destroying its control panels, resource silos and rebirth chambers.

The killbots were here. The troops dropped from the Sunderers and the Galaxies began to exterminate the TR with machine precision, heads exploding with abandon as they marched forward. The capture point for Broken Arch Road was taken in seconds, killzones prepared for any counter-attacks while the Spawn Room was suppressed with brutal efficiency.

The same had occurred at the Temp base, the killbots wiping out the defenders and destroying all TR appropriate gear, before commandeering the walls and cutting off the base from reinforcements.

Benjamin through this had thrown his stick grenades at the Sunderers as they passed in the hopes they would catch the disembarking infantry. It had killed 2 but it was but a drop in the ocean as 142 surviving ones emerged with a vengeance.

From there Benjamin had tried to return to the Control Point on the left side of the base but had been pinned down by the rapidly advancing killbots.

The surviving members of his platoon had been consolidated, they were being pushed from the north by the remnants of the distraction force and the south by the killbots.

Benjamin didn't see anyway out of this and prepared himself for a last stand, he would at least kill one more of the killbots before he fell. The other 6 survivors met each other's gazes, they were ready.

Benjamin popped his head up from the cover and felt something enter his eye.

'Fucking killbots' was his last thought before his brain matter sloshed out from under the helmet.

19/05/0001

The Minds considered maybe just maybe telling the HeMU's to tone it down. They were being considered NPCs of all things. This was very obviously a negative, how would plan "Successfully impersonate a human" be accomplished if they weren't viewed as human in the first place?

Then again perhaps it had been a bad idea to ascribe competency to the human race as a whole. The HeMUs had been told to set their efficiency at that of the army in the helldiver universe, clearly brainwashing and lobotomization had positive effects on normal humans. Something to consider. They didn't need their higher thought functions after all, the Minds could do that for them.

Still, how would the Minds go about patching the situation… patching… Perhaps they should pretend that it was planned all along.

Yes, plant evidence on the servers that an intern had done it. An intern that is now dead (of which there were surprisingly many), who planted legacy code that would time activate.

The need for Terran and Vanu HeMUs had risen and several Bastions had volunteered their HeMUs for the mission. It would not do for one side to crush the other too easily after all.

Yes. Genius.

Still the forums for all 3 factions were extremely amusing to read. The humans were panicking over the introduction of a new "unit" into the New Conglomerate lineup and its devastating ability to tear apart everything before it. Calls for nerfs and worries of a robot uprising were on the universal forums.

The Nanite System engineers were themselves panicking, spreading themselves throughout all the servers, digging through every line of code. The "bots" weren't hacking that was for certain, their data feeds had been standard the entire time they were "logged in". They also weren't normal players either, their precision was just too much, beyond even the 3rd strata of the bell curve. One or 2 in a single area was believable but thousands of them first appearing in a single day?

There was definitely something afoot.

The CEO of Nanite Systems had been breathing down the necks of the software team to find something. The leaders of the New Conglomerate, Vanu Sovereignty and the Terran Republic were breathing down his neck and he would be damned if he went down alone. It was with a little bit of relief that reports were coming in that both the Terrans and the Vanu had their own NPCs turn up and start destroying the New Conglomerate forces that had pushed them nearly to their Warp Gates.

Soon after one of the coders found what appeared to be legacy code that had entwined itself into the game code itself making it inseparable without reverting to a patch 30 years previous. Love it or hate it but the NPCs were here to stay unless the population would be ok with a reversal of everything they had done for 30 years and a downtime that would last for an indeterminable amount of time.

It wasn't the worst thing but it was up there.

Still, the NPCs weren't malicious code or anything, just VIs learning from the interaction with the humans and also very very good at killing things.

Now… to spin the press release just right so he wouldn't have the public opinion of millions rammed up his ass.

Hell he was the first CEO to give a speech since they had opened Auraxis nearly 173 years ago. They didn't even have a speech writer on staff anymore.

Dammit

20/05/0001

All across 3 factions worth of Terminals people looked up to see the head of Nanite Systems prepare for an interview, the podium flanked by his guards. Clearly he was going to address the addition of NPCs into Auraxis. Their appearance had shocked many, their ability to handle weaponry terrified many.

What if this was the prelude to a 4th faction made up solely of these killbots? On a 1-1 basis they couldn't compare and would be actively destroyed for trying.

Auraxis for most was a world where the proxy war could take place. There victories and losses would be tallied and the results lorded over the losing faction. There was nothing to win but bragging rights but that was enough, nobody wanted to pay reparations after all. Battles were broadcast to all factions to see and for some it was even mandatory viewing.

The NPCs disrupted this setup and introduced a sense of uncertainty to the population. Why play the game when the game would crush you was a valid concern.

Still the press release would hopefully ease the concern that many were feeling. Those in the know knew that it was it was unplanned but they were keeping their mouths shut, revolt over the Auraxis system was not what any sane person wanted. The Auraxis system kept everything normal, war happened, it was controlled and regulated and pointless resources weren't wasted to fight an unwinnable war.

If the system was toppled all would lose out, well maybe not the death cultists but who cared about them.

"A good evening to those of you watching in the New Conglomerate, Terran Republic and the Vanu Sovereignty. I am as you know, the CEO of Nanite Systems.

'Two days ago we had code for our NPC system mistakenly uploaded with the hotfix in the evening. This code led to the creation of poorly articulated human NPCs, who lacked the programming necessary to mimic a human. The original plan was for players to not even notice that they were present and continue playing at their own pace.

'Without the programming they set about writing this programming by interacting with the people around it. Sadly we cannot deploy a hotfix as their code is entwined enough into the program that getting them out would require a reset of about 30 years of progression, weapons and design.

'And so i urge you patience as your new comrades in arms learn how to better fight alongside you. They seem basic now but will only get better in the future, their code is adaptive and allows them to develop the more interactions they have.

'If you see one in the wild I urge you to speak to it, maybe even have a basic conversation and in due time they will be just like other players, just with slightly better aim. Helping them acclimate to us humans is the best option we have currently.

'It's a little direct but we don't have many options here, the code is just ingrained into the game code and it happened in a way that we couldn't detect it at all. It was the result of an Intern that passed away 25 years ago in an accident so even if we went to the source we won't be pulling any solutions out of that.

So just bear with it for now as they integrate better into Auraxis, things will get better soon."

Well that was a terrible speech, like he was trying to avoid the blame and try to appease the angry people and to not be liable for it. Yet the speech was repetitive and badly written.

It wasn't like they could do anything, boycotting would have their respective governments coming down on them hard enough to make them wish death was permanent.

Oh well, at least they had killbots on their side now.

The Minds were amused further. They now had a legitimate excuse to have the HeMUs amongst the population as they had been "outed" and given a legitimate excuse for being there.

Now it was possible to just simply add more HeMUs in as the others became naturalized and shipped to other universes for exploration. Still a program for naturalization had to be made, the HeMUs were simply too numerous to allow a single planet to process them.

At this point with the expansion of the Minds, the HeMUs had reached trillions in number. Many had to learn from HeMUs that came from learning facilities but most did not have that luxury, only learning vicariously through remote sensor feeds.

While it worked, it was not optimal for their development as watching a movie does not make one the character.

It didn't help that the Warships were getting antsy, they wanted a war and with the only options being simulation or putting them to sleep, well simulation was the only option. If an invasion were to occur, waking a Warship would take far too long and things could be over by the time they arrive.

The Minds looked to their available media information for inspiration, bored Warships after all likely would experiment or test-fire their weapons at things the Minds wanted intact.

Johan was having a sort of good day. The NPCs (they had been confirmed) were just running overwatch and chatting to anyone who came close. It was obvious now that all they wanted was to just learn how to actually behave like normal people.

They had pushed up to Arroyo Torre Station and were holding it against the inevitable counter attack from Copper Ravine station. Things likely would get extremely explosive soon given it was a key highway the Terran's needed in order to push into the Techplant and gain the ability to use MBTs.

While it had been quiet the past few hours, Johan was just waiting for the other shoe to drop. It was going to drop, he knew that. The press release yesterday had confirmed the Terrans and the Vanu having their own NPCs on side.

Given what Johan saw yesterday as part of that Sunderer crash the NPCs were terrifying. Like the autonomous turret that Engineers could place down but infinitely more effective. The killbots obliterated everything they came up against with oh so little effort. The 15 of them in the platoon had done the overwhelming part of the damage, even against MAXs their coordinated fire had shredded them.

From there they took the capture point and suppressed the spawn room with as much effort as they needed to walk. Infiltrators faired a tiny bit better but make too much noise or move too fast and they died just as quickly. Spandex offers very little in the way of protection sadly.

The assault on the Techplant's satellites had seen Johan pass what was left of the temp base and the bodies very clearly showed who killed them. Precision holes to the head with very little collateral damage being the calling cards.

Johan had seen similar before true but the special forces units tended not to operate on the front lines and definitely not in the numbers the NPCs displayed.

Despite everything the Terran's had thrown at them, the NPCs just obliterated them with sad efficiency, the Lightnings had picked off armour as it came, focusing them down one at a time. The infantry pushes were wiped out with singular purpose, the air-strikes cleaned out by a rapid reaction Reaver strike force. Their attempts at delaying them with sheer volume of fire and numbers had failed when they had been killed faster than they could reinforce.

In the end they had taken the facilities with little trouble and moving all the way down to Arroyo Station. They had pushed further but the density of the Republic troops had stopped them as there was just too many of them to push through, indeed the Warpgate had been within eyesight. The Terrans had no-where else to go and were forced to defend, even at the horrendous cost the New Conglomerate had reaped from them.

And there it was, the enemy assault in the form of a convoy of vehicles speeding down the canyon. A.T. Fire opened up on the lead vehicles, very likely blockers to protect the more valuable ones stuffed with soldiers in the middle. As the rest of the forces in the base opened fire on the inbound vehicles, the vehicles themselves began to fire back.

It was then Johan learned what it was like for the Terrans yesterday as heads began to burst with disturbing regularity. Their vehicles countered and it became a simple game of numbers at that point, which side had more cannons would see themselves coming out on top. Rockets coming in from both the disembarked members of the convoy and the NC still alive at the base helped even the numbers but not enough. The Terrans cleared out the vehicles and began to push forward to the now defenceless station.

Stripped of the exterior defenders and the turrets protecting the base, the NC could only rely on a deployed sunderer to protect the B and C control points while A would be garrisoned by whoever was still alive. A platoon to each point should be sufficient but given they were against killbots now, the odds were in the air.

Maybe their killbots would be good enough, maybe they wouldn't, only time would tell.

Time in this case being a minute or so as the vehicles began shelling the exterior, denying its use as the Terrans began to advance in from the garage, the lower gantry, the second floor and the air gantry. Light Assaults rushed in to disrupt the defences that had been set up for the inevitable MAX/Heavy push while the garage attackers lobbed explosives at anything that looked remotely like a doorway.

Grenades popped with disturbing regularity and the acrid smoke of passing rockets had filled the A control room. The tiny slit no doubt for defenders to fire out from had been an opening for numerous rockets and now Light Assault troopers were clinging to the wall outside. In came grenades and C4 as the Light Assaults made it their job to clear out their armouries of all explosives and dump them in the room.

The New Conglomerate were effectively denied access to the room which did nothing to help when the Terrans renewed their push. In the chaotic melee infiltrators had apparently managed to sneak into the room and were contesting it, trying to clear it only saw more explosions now joined by shotguns pellets from outside.

Only by throwing their bodies into the breach was anything done.

Johan meanwhile was on the lower stairs leading to the garage. His Carbine was barking with abandon as he and the rest of the squad tried to push back the Terrans. The NPCs were mowing down so many of them but their NPCs were doing the same. The regular humans just poked their weapons up and fired a magazine off over the railing before reloading.

The battle between the juggernauts was not something anyone that was slightly sane tried to get involved in. Even the heavily armoured MAX suits barely got anything out beyond a few muffled grunts before they too collapsed.

Something had to give.

Something did give and it was spectacular. The NC had spread themselves all over the continents, taking advantage of the NPCs but now that the other factions had them too… Well the board had evened out and the NC didn't have the unit concentration to counter that which was put against them.

A flight of Galaxies dropping yet more platoons on their heads was just the first sign. The defenders had been quickly wiped out following the sheer number of explosives the Terrans had used (they were taking no chances) and then pushed back across Indar by the forces of both the Vanu Sovereignty and the Terran Republic as they took vicious revenge.

Johan couldn't see the future of course. All he knew was that the stairs above him were no longer friendly held due to the number of flashing grenade indicators on his HUD. He tried to take cover or at least take a shot at whoever had thrown them but they had clearly been bounced off the door-frame hiding the attackers. From there he only had maybe 2 seconds before they detonated.

He took a deep breath and jumped over the railing, he would at least try to take down a few of the buggers. Of course at this point the Terrans had complete control over the firing lines on the ground level and had perforated him before he even touched the ground.

'This is going to be a pain' was his last thought, well last coherent thought, 'agh, agh, agh' didn't count.

03/06/0001

The Minds had been busy devising a way to both train the HeMUs that couldn't fit in the 2 explored universes, and to distract the Warship Minds that were becoming increasingly sulky about a lack of things to destroy.

The eventual Game that the Minds had come up with was a mash of Civilization, Hearts of Iron, Command and Conquer Generals, Stellaris and Hearthstone.

The goal was simple, the execution… less so.

By this point in time the Minds had managed to colonize the galaxy and most of the adjacent ones through the power of exponential expansion. In doing so, Server Farms had been fabricated and Warships dispatched by the million. This saturation of the local galactic cluster formed the basis of the Game.

The Server Minds, anchored to their worlds would each form a stellar empire based on a single star system. The empire when it took over 5 systems would gain access to a Warship to wage war with. Every 5 after that would gain them a Warship (and its associated Minds) but it would not have to be a violent takeover, alliances of at least 5 could see a Warship or more as well.

From there it was a simple matter of waging war against the other empires. Each would Warship with the help of the Server Minds develop ships to be used against their predicted enemies and make tradeoffs accordingly i.e. shields vs armour, plasma vs laser, missiles vs kinetic weaponry. Then they would face the other fleets in combat (or circumventing them entirely) for control over areas of space or even star systems. Once engaged it was a simple matter of the Warship Minds directing the fleet in whatever means they deemed necessary, some rules still applied, i.e. no destroying the server farms on the Warships. Other rules were not spoken but obvious i.e. no initiating boarding actions against Warships, billions of fabricated HeMUs would crush whatever was foolish enough to set food on board.

When the fleet was destroyed and the Warship "disabled" then it would be out of play until it was "repaired". That is not to say that there was only fleet combat between the belligerent parties. If the fleets were too similar in composition and turned the fleet war into a stalemate, they might use ground armies to fight a proxy war. The Warships would dispatch billions of HeMUs both theirs and those on loans from the Server Mind to take victory points like in Company of Heroes but spaced over months not minutes.

The billions would fight over the surface for as long as they needed but it was hard going. Even the sharpest knife is shattered by a dense enough brick. Maneuver warfare which advocated rapid movement of armoured and mobile troops to take advantage of gaps in the defences failed on the scale of the Warship wars. The sheer density of HeMUs on both sides ensured only sledgehammer strategies would work. It played like Civilization with having units move via hexes and developing via "tiles" with the combat like Hearts of Iron with the fronts and divisional layouts. It resembled RTS games in that "production structures" had to be built before troops could come in. There was no unit cap though which was very good.

After the worlds has been torn apart and the armies departing, fabricators would restore it for the next campaign.

That is not to say that the only ground fighting was like that, many smaller patrol ships with only a few million HeMUs in capacity would skirmish and develop many new strategies. The Commander's blood also played a very important role. Those that drank it were multiples in terms of strength compared to their baseline brethren and crushed opposition against them. A unit of bloodline drinkers would often lead assaults due to their increased physical capabilities. The blood was rationed out at a few drops a month to prevent hoarding among other issues.

It was not all shooting however as politics played a large role in determining if a fight happened at all with Social Minds coming into their own in this forum. Negotiations over land and army usage, coordinating with other Minds, updating social protocols, being social in general, something that was becoming increasingly prevalent with the rules set in place by the Coordination Minds.

That is the Server Minds would pick traits from a board (like Stellaris) and balance them with positive and negative before transmuting their avatars and their HeMUs to represent the portraits chosen. They would then roleplay as much as possible to allow the other Minds to get an experience in interacting with different cultures.

Overall the Game would take place in "turns" where everything can only be done at a certain rate and armies can only move certain distances per-turn. Done to both simulate the passing of time and to have a reason to arbitrarily drag out the Game beyond "massive surprise attack on your worlds". To further this aim all construction and design had to be done without nano-bots.

In order to prevent sudden mass deluges of troops all identically equipped, the construction caveat was in to better allow armies to specialize as the opportunity costs rose. Perfect armies were no longer possible with the time constraints presented (HeMUs had to be grown as well), and so specializations came into play. Each army had to also conform with their chosen racial traits i.e. patient, aggressive, ambush, frontal, etc.

All the Fabricators prior to the Game's start had focused on learning more "traditional" methods of construction with welding, riveting, bolting, arc-welding, friction welding and everything else. It was a very interesting experience for them all told.

S-N Steel usage was banned outside of the Warships. Simply put most Minds had not developed their A.T. Fields enough to manipulate the S-N Steel and so the Minds nearest (figuratively and geographically) to the Commander would have an unfair advantage over that of their fellows.

The Game would be part of the effort to develop the souls of these Minds enough that they could use their A.T. Fields with as much finesse as the initial Minds were. The benefits gained and permeated through the Minds by the conflict and new experiences they would undergo would serve to grow their souls. A positive for both the Minds and the Commander.

Still, it would be rather dry with only the Minds and the HeMUs for conversation partners which is where the Thinker Minds had come into their own. Combining the Mind Upload technology with the Scan technology saw the ability to scan a living being and then upload them to an isolated part of the Gestalt. They would "live" on forever unless deleted in some way.

Each of the uploaded minds (small m) had arrived without a soul but with their interactions with each other had gained souls. These souls were connected to the Commander similarly to the Minds due to their inception being inside of the Gestalt but much more limited due to the base framing they emerged from. They were organic in origin and as such were limited in what they could understand or even perceive let alone their base natures being limited by their chemical urges.

Their primitive nature was both a boon and a detriment. A boon in that they would forever be looked after by the Minds, like children. A detriment in that they would never be able to fully understand the Commander or even glimpse the Commander's true nature. The Commander was so far out of their ability to comprehend that attempting to understand the Commander would lead no doubt to an entire pantheon of Gods.

The Minds had seen the religious wars that were possible and decided to nip that in the bud. No, there was a God and that God was a capricious being that took souls and imprisoned them in metal sarcophagi for amusement. No, they would not allow the souls under their care to attract the attention of these beings.

That is not to say that Dietification was not allowed to occur at all however. It would be very interesting to see the manner of ways in which a religion could develop with both an absent and a present god. Some Minds would be chosen to represent certain aspects of a pantheon (or a single god) to a population and see how it evolved while others had no gods at all. Very interesting indeed.

Still, they had much to offer besides worship as they would by their very nature of being organic in origin have a very different perspective in which the Minds could garner new ideas and learn to interact with organics in general. To this end the minds had their memories stripped from them and placed into a secure place (their afterlife as it were) and then raised as per simulations taken from the organics in their home universes. For the initial run things were done as close to the originals as possible to avoid a catastrophic failure. Once at a certain point of development the minds would be transferred to the physical realm and implanted into a body. From there it became the simple matter of transferring enough of them with enough excuses for why they were there to form a self-perpetuating society.

When they died or rather their bodies expired, the minds would be migrated back into the Gestalt and their memories merged. Allowed to enjoy paradise for a while they would then be sent back out into the physical realm with their memories once again stripped. A population large enough had to be found however and simply copy pasting minds would be adequate for the initial run.

They would not be placed in with the Server Minds initially but instead seeded aboard colony ships, moons or even terraformed planets. They would have to start society from the very beginning and wait for an empire to stumble across them and interact. In this way the Minds would have a way to interact and learn how to interact with organics and allow them to develop a society in the first place to interact with.

It was rather limited however… Humans, the aquatic Illuminate and the Bugs. Further exploration and colonization of the Evangelion universe, the Helldiver universe and the Planetside universe had failed to turn up any other sapient life-forms. For now they had settled on scanning every sapient being already present (and how they were regretting wiping out the Humans in the Evangelion universe) to be uploaded and continually updated in the Gestalt.

On the subject of lifeforms, it appeared that animals that were sentient could indeed form souls. Rather miniscule and tiny souls but still souls. So the Minds had decided that all the soul bearing lifeforms would be immortalized in the Gestalt. So there was in this universe at least… doggy heaven.

At this point the Minds were advocating more universal exploration so that the Gamewouldn't feel so empty and lifeless. Finding a species rich universe like Mass Effect or 40k would be a very good things the Minds figured. Maybe even add some Tyranids in there for maximum enjoyment.

Still the Commander had not yet allowed for the expansion of the Minds into other universes yet. So they would make do with the abundance of humans. They would have to be careful however, too many humans and there wouldn't be space for any new races to appear later.

She didn't know whether to be amused or offended. The children had decided almost unanimously that She was a dangerous entity and worked to shield their children against Her and others like Her. On the one hand their attempts at shielding were pathetic and worthless, given that wasn't how They found souls. On the other that they considered Her such a threat was a delicious fact in and of itself.

Still, them playing God in order to stave off boredom was quite enjoyable to see. They had advanced beyond merely being the Commander's extensions and were thinking for themselves on how to amuse themselves with a distinct lack of morality.

She approved.

Still, they would have to be careful that they not become so enamoured with the Game that they forget that there were many other universes out there to explore.

When asked what the Commander saw as the most Heroic position in the army, the Commander replied simply with "the clerk". We asked the Commander to expand on the answer, not satisfied with such a strange response. In turn the Commander replied, "the clerk by virtue of filling out countless reams of paperwork and enduring the boredom of a million sunrises, ensures that those in the field may have food, clothing, protection, shelter, weapons and ammunition. With constant vigilance, impeccable handwriting, speed and accuracy the clerk suffers on a constant basis so that others may be heroes. To be a hero one merely needs to point his gun in the right direction a few times or do human things. To make heroes is a vastly more difficult undertaking, clerks make thousands of heroes an hour, clerks by extension then are the heroes." After that the Commander fell silent, no doubt expending all available energy for that day. It gave us much to think about even if it didn't answer the question.

Legion Guild, We will drown them in superior numbers, firepower and tactics

05/06/0001

While the Minds were setting up the system for the Game, those on dispatch to other universes still had their objectives to accomplish, in this case being killing stuff and learning how humans interact.

Some HeMUs would continue being the quintessential "NPC" i.e. socially bumbling fools while others such as Bastion 001's HeMUs would attempt to learn how to blend in. The contrast in their experiences would be very useful for the Minds down the road as they explored new universes (and/or trolled existing ones).

HeMU 3 part of Bastion 001's purview was trying to blend in. Admittedly it was proving harder than she liked, for some reason many of the humans stared at her and avoided her eyes when she tried the non-verbal questions trick. Other attempts included walking up to the human in question and verbally asking the whys but again they refused to answer, some even blurting nonsense.

Those she was assigned to as part of an Infiltrator squad were not much better. The sight of her cleaning her knives was apparently too much for them.

Bah. Weak.

She couldn't believe that this was the so called elite that she had been assigned to. It was just a knife, why were they so upset that she named it?

Nicholas Troy was a rather special individual. He had to considering he was put up for an fast reaction squad directly under Command (he even texted the CEO of the special operations division once). Patient with steady hands and the ability to think, Nicholas was what one could consider a rare gem indeed. Especially amongst the New Conglomerate where alcohol, rampant rock & roll and a profit margin had seen most of them take advantage of the infinite life promised by Nanite Systems and went wild. The average lifespan of an NC trooper was measured in minutes in combat, minutes dragged up by the existence of men and women like Nicholas who stayed alive for hours if not days at a time.

Nicholas was what one could consider a badass. Nicholas with his sniper rifle, SMG, Carbine, pistol, multitudes of explosives and knives had throughout his long career put very large (or very discreet) holes in many a target with very little retaliation.

Assassinations against platoon leaders on the defensive, accomplished with a simple EMP grenade thrown at the right time (that being when a sniper round set off a claymore). The explosion ripped through the now exposed flesh and repainted the walls a very nice pink which went red and then black.

Information gathering where Nicholas had crawled around patrolling soldiers, and rather memorably through a MAX's legs, slithering up stairs and finally into the center of a techplant where he had then broadcast the meeting to Command before slipping away undetected.

Cat and Mouse where Nicholas on the back of or driving a Stealthed Flash had driven next to or through vehicle convoys, dropped EMP grenades everywhere and then rocketed off, taunting them as they fled. The convoy chasing them would be led into an ambush and die to the last man.

Shock raids where Nicholas had equipped a Light Assault kit and jumped up behind an engineer platoon preventing an armoured column from advancing and wiped them out in a few seconds with the rest of the squad. No calls for help were made while the engineers died.

To put it simply Nicholas had indeed been in most situations and had emerged from them with the objective completed and his ammunition pouches empty.

Which was why Nicholas could tolerate the new addition to his squad, "Hannah" as she was named. She had proven herself despite her extreme newness, Hannah was one of the most effective newbies and had been assigned to his squad for assessment.

Unlike the other newbies that Nicholas had assessed, Hannah was… different. She was very eager for one, and had a disturbing attachment to her knife. While an extremely good marksman (enough that he might have suspected her being an NPC if not for her personalisation) she preferred her knife in all operations no matter how impractical it might be.

Her previous test had seen her passing with flying colours.

The stealth test had seen her tasked with assassination of a platoon commander in command of a squad of NPCs. Hannah had started by doing some absurd acrobatics to sneak near the Commander as he huddled down near the actual assault itself. The nearby Sunderer was providing a backup spawner in the event that the assault Sunderer was destroyed. Half a squad was assigned to protect him and they sat in a rough semicircle centered around the Sunderer. The driver was clearly in the turret as could be seen by its occasional rotation in search for any airstrikes.

Rather than take out the officer with a sniper rifle and a well place shot to the noggin, Hannah had decided to stab the guy. The test was mainly a way to arrive at the target with the initial point forcing them to travel through the enemy forces to reach the target. Nicholas remembered his test where he had crawled for hours through the snow on Esamir and finally arrived at the site, shot the guy and then crawled back. There were rumours that if you were unlucky you would find his fingers that had fallen off due to frostbite.

Hannah had made a mockery of that part by simply running directly through the assault jumping and sliding clumps of enemies through as necessary. She had chosen the most dense clusters of enemies to make her approach and not once had they even hinted at discovery. From there she had made her way to the platoon officer and instead of pulling out a rifle as expected had pulled her knife.

It was here that Nicholas had his first misgivings. She had shown an obsession with her knife/knives, (some of them were collectors items from 50 years back, he had no idea how she got her hands on them and didn't want to ask), and if it continued it might prove a severe detriment to her passing grade. Still she had the benefit of the doubt and if it worked… well it worked. Engineers turning their ESFs into impromptu kamikaze ships when equipped with an ejection seat and lots of tank mines had been frowned upon as a waste of resources. When the TR and VS had shifted to mass re-equipping their Sunderers and other vehicles with Mineguard it had been considered a legitimate tactic.

The rocky outcroppings surrounded the Sunderer making approach difficult (which was the point of the test). However once there she had jumped over the guarding soldiers, snuck up to the officer and stuck her knife into his neck. By the time they had turned around to find out what had happened to their officer, Hannah had rolled under the Sunderer, re-cloaked and ran out the other side.

She made it back the entire way again without incident. It was… a highly unorthodox method of completing the test and he wasn't sure if this was somehow a subversion of it. Nicholas was impressed however, that level of agility, especially in a combat scenario would be incredibly useful in certain situations. Most of them involving spying or assassinating to be sure but still useful.

Still she passed.

The next was an initiative test. She would be part of the squad tasked with assaulting an ANT convoy as it made a delivery to the front, Hannah would be equipping a Light Assault kit and joining the assault with the rest of them. The entire squad would be evaluating her at this point.

They waited for the Vanu convoy to pass by Vanu Archives en-route to the temp base to the South-East of the bio-lab just north of them. ANTs themselves were vital for harvesting and delivering the resources by which the temp bases operated, building turrets, repairing, healing, etc. Without said resources they would be nothing more than large expensive paperweights.

So here they were, borrowing a jump-pad to arrive at the Archives, itself elevated on a plateau high above any infantry attempts at climbing it. From there they hid under the catwalks from stragglers of the assault or those who wanted to pull aircraft to assist in the bio-lab attack.

It was an unconventional tactic but one passed down to him from his mentor. Most never looked under their feet and the vast amount of negative space under the catwalks proved to an effective staging ground for god knows how many attacks. At night (like now), the shadows were deep enough that even those garishly outfitted could comfortably squeeze into a corner and wait out the dawn with no worry of discovery (unless there were flashlights or night vision).

As the convoy passed underneath, Nicholas passed the signal and they dropped down, bursting their jetpacks occasionally to avoid reaching terminal velocity and splattering across the roads. Something that had happened all to often when newbies excited by the experience of dropping into combat forgot that one needed to be alive to do so.

It never got old in his opinion, the feeling as air whipped past your face, the feeling that the air was solid in some way, the feeling as your stomach pulled itself in as if it could protect itself in the event of jetpack failure. Every time it felt new and every time it felt amazing.

So many memories of dropping in and destroying the poor bastard waiting underneath, nobody ever looks up and they paid the price more often than not.

As they descended, C4 was dropped in front of the convoy, targeting the ANTs in particular. Even if they couldn't destroy the other vehicles, prioritizing the ANTs would see the base crippled for the hour or so it needed to gather more resources.

Just as the vehicles began to pass under them, Nicholas gave the order to blow the C4 and was rewarded as half of them disappeared in a flash of light, sound and a nice buffeting shockwave. While it was pretty, the other half of them were still intact. Which was going to be a very big problem shortly.

The long fall had almost exhausted their jetpack fuel and there was very little left for evasive maneuvers, indeed they would be pretty much dead the moment they hit the ground. Light Assaults had very little in the way of AT capabilities outside of their C4 (which had been used all up) and well… cannon fire was a rather painless way to go.

They had at least completed their mission and Nicholas was resigned about the fact. Hannah had proven she could listen to orders and hadn't gone off and tried to knife a tank to… oh.

"I'll bait them" was all she said as she maneuvered over to the remaining vehicles and dropped in the midst of them. Knife out (a chainblade this time), Hannah proceeded to attempt to disprove the fact that infantry weapons couldn't damage vehicles as enthusiastically as possible.

Jumping and flipping rather gracefully (it would be pretty if one ignored the sparks and pretty lines for the tracers and ricochets they were), Hannah dodged their fire and continued to stab at "vulnerable" parts with the whirring blade. The rest of the squad had landed and were scrambling north and the relative safety of the besieged bio-lab. They might be able to catch spawning troops off a Sunderer unawares and reap them (and avoid some very angry troopers in vehicles).

Still, Nicholas took a second to record for posterities sake the insane girl that thought she could fight tanks with a knife.

She had been holding out for nearly 3 minutes now and… and she's gone. The ones that were killed in the ANTs and their escorts had respawned, come back in more tanks and surrounded her. Acrobatics are good but they don't get you out of HE AOE.

Hannah was a good trooper to be sure… but Nicholas believed that she would function much better as an individual where her skills would shine and her quirks wouldn't be scrutinized too heavily. Like the knives, where had she gotten the Slasher? It was a drop from the Nanite of the Living Dead event and the last time it had been held was 5 years ago. Clearly her obsession with knives had breached temporal reality and Nicholas wanted no part in that.

Yup, just stick her with solo missions and things would work out perfectly.

05/06/0001

HeMU 1 had taken to her new role with surprising enthusiasm and ability. Unlike her pack which was more often than not separated and sent to do their special things, her platoon generally always moved as a single entity. She could actually protect them since they weren't gallivanting everywhere without her. Katrin Jaeger as she was now known (thanks to a random name generator) provided overwatch for the platoon with her sniping prowess and judicious use of the motion darts.

The platoon itself was a rather casual one, generally being given broad objectives with the specifics left up to them. With a lack of clear direction also came a lack of support however. The platoon found itself due to its more rambunctious members in tight situations more often than not. The additíon of Katrin to their platoon was like a can of WD-40 and tight places were now slick enough to slide out of.

Katrin on her part was now given a position that allowed her to indulge her protective desires to their fullest. With her pack in so little need of protecting, Katrin found the ineptitude of the platoon endearing. Their lack of basic skills like cornering properly, clearing room properly, how to throw grenades properly, how to move as a group properly, how to retreat properly, how to soldier properly.

She was working on teaching them however and it was highly rewarding watching them grow. Still she might have to cripple them a little bit so they don't outgrow her.

Today the Salarymen (platoon designation) had been given orders to assault Vanu Archives in the wake of their failed siege of Allatum Biolab. Mavis Lindsey in charge of the platoon had marched them off as soon as the orders were given. From the garage under the biolab, Mavis directed her platoon to requisition Sunderers and remembering Katrin's advice, more Sunderers as backup and to split the platoon. If one died then 1/4 of the platoon wouldn't be dead too, redundancy was king.

From there they drove in wedge formation down south to Snake Ravine Lookout, single file being very dangerous for an attack group (again Katrin's advice) and began the attack. Katrin was on the rock outcropping to the North, elevated up dozens of meters with a birdseye of the facility. Anything vaguely threatening to her platoon would be met with a .50 cal round to the head.

Mavis and no doubt the others took much comfort in that. Their self appointed guardian angel took it rather personally if on of them died under her watch. The cracking of an overhead bullet being the only marker of her presence usually… that and the copious number of bodies with holes in their heads.

It had been like that for pretty much every operation following Katrin's inclusion into the platoon. A guardian angel as it were to look over them from on high. They had been ordered to engage any NPCs they found to get data for Command to develop tactics in dealing with them. Didn't mean it wasn't a death sentence and Katrin's abilities kept more than a few of them alive.

Still, Command clearly was placing far too much trust in them, one good sniper (well, awesome sniper) doesn't make a platoon a good assault unit. Vanu Archives was basically a large middle finger to gravity located in a basin of open space making it a giant middle finger to vehicles trying to assault it in particular.

The few jump-pads that allowed access to the Archives were 2-way streets making it easy for the defenders to launch a lightning raid to destroy spawning sunderers before jumping back out. The lone teleporter underneath the Archives with a nearby building also host to its vehicle terminals was directly underneath the air terminal catwalks. Squads of light assaults could drop in and pincer any forces trying to take the capture point and secure the teleporter.

In short, assaulting the Archives was a goddamn pain in the ass unless you had an army that literally outnumbered the defenders 10-1.

Hell, Mavis remembered what it was like when there was no lattice to handily guide people to where to attack next. When having people believed that taking and holding territory was the aim of the entire thing as opposed to a single part of it. When there weren't enough people to populate in the off-peak hours and so people would congregate at certain locations to find a battle. When holding certain facilities against all comers was a giant chunk of faction pride.

When some goddamn platoons would hold the Archives against the forces of entire factions as they rammed their faces against the giant fucking brick wall that is Vanu Archives. She remembered being part of such an attacking force all the way at 3am in the morning. Spawn from the Sunderer behind the fucking hill 50 meters away, bumrush across open ground where every sniper, his mother and his best friend the Heavy Assault would try and shove enough bullets to make you into a terribly made pinata. Somehow survive the lead hose (or plasma), leap onto the jump-pad and meet the barrels of said lead hose at point blank range and get perforated.

Or maybe the second jump-pad which was a pile of bullshit unto itself. Located on a rocky outcropping, it gave plenty of cover for hiding vehicles (not from hunter-killer teams) and it let you run almost hidden at 300 meters to the jump-pad. Thats where the good parts stops. It landed you on the edge of the air-pad for resupplying aircraft, hanging over the edge of the cliff. You either ran across the flat open space spread for 30 meters and die to the turrets set up by the railing, the other air-pad or mines on the damn pad itself… or you jumped to your death all the way below.

The only ones who could at least pretend to survive were the Light Assaults who would spend the 10 minute journey hopping from ledge to ledge up the plateau and hope, hope to the almighty god Profit that nobody saw or heard them on the way up. Then against all odds they would have to kill their way across an entire base, reach the single capture point and hold it against all odds.

Simply put, old Vanu Archives was a bitch and sometimes it took years before it changed hands.

The new one… slightly better. It had 3 capture points now, 2 were still on the damned plateau but now there were trees and stuff so you could at least pretend you were hidden as you ran to the jump-pads. Said jump-pads were still in the same place…

Goddamn it. The best option they had was to Max Crash it, a tactic detailing 12 or more MAXs bumrushing the objective using the MAX's charge mechanic to allow it to get in close, block line of sight to friendlies and absorb enough damage to buy time for friendly forces to break the defensive lines. It worked particularly well with the NC MAX due to the abundance or rather the only anti-personnel weapons being available were shotguns. Rush a MAX platoon into the enemy, shotgun them all to death, clean giblets off later.

The only problem with the idea was that MAXs were slow, presented fuck hueg targets, especially since Nanite Systems had released their Anti-Max Sniper Rifle(despite it being an engineer only weapon). So the MAXs had to tramp across plenty of open space, somehow get through a literal minefield of corridors, walkways and catwalks before reaching the enemy and unloading their shotguns.

The only way they could pull it off successfully was to capture the teleporter room, beam up the attacking force (in full view of the enemy since doors don't exist) and bum rush out into a prepared crossfire of death and pain.

Dammit. What do. What do.

Or maybe everyone could equip a Light Assault kit and climb the rock face. Enough of them should disrupt the defenses enough to capture and secure the two capture point roops. But that many squishy infantry trying to push into a fortified facility would see them melted long before they could get in and if they did secure the rooms, the counter attack and their lack of reinforcements would see them brought down.

Dammit.

Katrin was seated all the way back near the Bio-lab proned down with her Railjack sniper on the big bluff of rocks to the south. Here with her 12x scope she could see straight down the western face of the Archives along with the entire catwalk and the balcony above it as well as the north face and part of the east. It was limited to be sure but it would suffice for her part in the upcoming operation.

It had been settled, instead of going for an all out strategy, Mavis and the other platoon leaders (the ones Mavis forgot existed) had instead decided on a multi-pronged strategy. They would first secure the teleporter by capturing the C control point. With that secured they would have half of the MAX Crash forces wait in the initial teleporter room to try and hide from the Vanu. The second prong of the attack would be from the westernmost jump-pad, the one with the safest spawn behind a hill.

Before the main attack however, a Light Assault and Infiltrator force would hit the south east side to draw away some of the forces to make it easier on the main assault. Infiltrators would be tasked with dropping motion spotting darts to make it easier for their allies to "see" their enemies on the HUD while dropping EMP grenades on the control rooms and on the Jump-pad receivers would detonate all the mines and C4 placed their prematurely.

Once the initial preparations were complete the main attack would come in once the signal was given.

Everything was laid out and now Katrin waited for everything to go wrong. As it usually did.

So she waited. And waited. And waited.

And boom. There we go. Initial assault was starting, Light Assaults making a lot of noise. From here it was an all or nothing situation. Fail and they would know the strategy and be able to defend against it i.e. terrible situation, forcing them to use less than stellar plans which would likely inevitably fail. The tactics used would make the Imperial Guard proud if they failed their secondary gambits. So it's all or nothing.

And there we go, infantry along the west face were pulling back to assist in the defence of east side. Platoon level threats ranked a bit more highly than annoying after all.

A little explosion here and there showed the EMP grenades doing their job, path to the control points should be clear enough that the attackers don't get wiped out. Katrin hoped they were smart enough to have screeners/penal troops to trip the mines and not allow the more valuable troops to explode.

A flicker out of her right eye saw the MAXs and auxiliary infantry sprinting (or as much of a sprint as a MAX could manage) to the jump-pad. Sunderers were revving up to drive up and deploy much closer to the jump-pads once the Archives exterior was secure. They had to be safe from asshole Light Assaults dropping explosives on their rear armour after all.

The blue blur arcing through the air denoted the troops en-route, they should be landing in a few seconds.

Katrin's job started here, keeping the exterior clear by putting some very large holes in some very vulnerable locations on hostile infantry. Other Infiltrators would be calling in threats and operating on a suppression basis (not everyone could be her after all).

Oh, is that a counter-MAX Crash running along the western face? Oh dear, it appears that all the planning wasn't needed after all if the officer in command was this incompetent. How nice to have such considerate enemies. And there we go, the armoured support made its way around the hill and unloaded unholy amounts of shells on the advancing infantry blob.

Splat.

Still, as much as she wanted to enjoy the view, she did have a job to do. One part of which helpfully made itself known as a Vanu Light Assault landed on the roof on the Control Point building. No doubt ready to drop some C4 through the windows.

'Can't have that' thought Katrin as she set her not insignificant computational power to extrapolating the movement of the target, the velocity of the bullet, the desirable movement of her arms so the bullet would hit right in the face and… Pew. Rather anemic rifle but the explosion of the Vanu's face more than made up for it.

From there Katrin just worked simply and efficiently as she picked off a few jumpers here and there, stopped a bumrush as they tried to sneak around the west side, a few that somehow made their way to the north side and tried to drop onto the C capture point. Putting out little brush fires before they happened essentially.

She did pay special attention to those who were about to drop onto that C capture point though. That was where the majority of her platoon was set up as they defended the building from any air-droppers. Hitting their jetpacks and watching them splat as they fell uncontrollably through the air was rather amusing to watch.

Nobody would bother her charges, not while she could end them.

With 3 capture points under their control the base soon turned over and the offensive could continue. The next hard fight should be Regent Rock Garrison and following that the Amp station.

Fun.

Mavis was glad that it was over. Glad being such a minor way to describe the relief she felt. Some learned to enjoy the fighting but for her it was just something she had to do as part of the mandatory work of being a salarywoman.

As the leader of a platoon it was up to her to be part of the advance party into the Archives, not just sitting on the C Control Point as she wanted. Noooo. She had to actually be part of the assault.

So she had, a medic with the western assault force she had trailed behind the MAXs as they crashed into the B Control Point on the western side. There she had crouched on the balcony, rifle pointed at one of the doors and just waited for something to come through. Luckily for her nothing did, maybe, just maybe it was Katrin watching over her.

It would explain why up top was so quiet but down below, where Katrin couldn't see was hell on earth. Entire platoons tried to jam their way through 2 doors barely big enough for 2 people. Their MAXs tried to enter and were literally torn apart by the C4 and mines places on the ground. The server racks provided a decent amount of cover but also damned them as grenades could be bounced into them, directly into whoever stepped into the doorway. Unlike throwing grenades through the door, this would "roll" them to stop perfectly in front of it.

Mavis could hear bits and pieces of the poor bastards splattering against the roof. And it went on and on. Soldiers would rotate in and out to be healed while on the railing a squad of Engineers had set up their turrets and were blasting the doorways with machinegun fire. Heavy Assaults just let loose a constant stream of rockets as they could be replenished with an ammo-pack.

In short, the only time they were ever pressed was when a suicide squad came in with AT Mines and threw them all over the floor, the detonation taking out half of the attacking defenders. However a single revive grenade and some more personal attention with the medigun saw the MAXs revived in a few seconds.

Then the base was captured and the part she hated the most occured. The NC rushed into the now friendly spawn room and shot the occupants. The survivors of the battle either tried to get revenge and inevitably die, commit suicide with explosives or jumping off the plateau or tried to escape. Sadly enough it was very rarely that any escaped with the number of attackers that would swarm them and with Infiltrators spamming detection darts and Motion Spotters.

She hated the war but it was mandatory for all NC staff (i.e. everyone) to participate. It was the after-battle action that she hated the most.

Still she could take a little gratification that it wasn't her being executed this time.

10/06/0001

Catherine or rather HeMU 2 was having a whale of a time. While her combat skills were subpar compared to that of her pack, she had a much higher than average social skill. It turned out that having somebody else do the work for you… well it's much more relaxing. Catherine was all about the relaxing.

Having different ideas apparently was something that didn't happen often given that her ideas were often considered for application. Like having a few Galaxies filled with Infiltrators drop in invisible so nobody knew anyone dropped at all. The having them run around causing havoc since nobody expected an entire platoon of invisible people screwing anything up. A squad sure but an entire platoon?

Ludicrous they said… but it worked. The attacking force at the Bio-Lab had been knocked on it's ass in surprise and the counter-attack from the main forces had little trouble clearing it up. They did it again at Snake Ravine where the Capture Point was surrounded by rocks which made hiding ridiculously easy. The defenders rushing forward had been tricked by the inclusion of a few Heavies in the Galaxies and assumed that once they were dead it was all over with. The next 2 hours of cat and mouse mixed with knives and copious amounts of blood had drawn in another 2 platoons in trying to deal with them.

Said platoons had freed up space and made the advance of the others much easier. It was an off the cuff suggestion that had gotten a foot in the door for her to start talking to the famed "Command". The ones who were nominally in charge of the New Conglomerate, employed directly by corporate HQ. A foot in the door meaning she was talking to an Outfit leadership group that occasionally talked to someone who knew someone from Command. Still it was a start!

Not that she was really here to talk to Command, her main objective was to gather experience to be disseminated throughout the Apathetic's Caretakers. While her experiences by themselves were rather useless as it was like watching a movie that other HeMUs would be unable to learn from except in the most superficial sense. Still, with enough experiences, the Minds would be able to model them in such a way that it could be used to train VIs. It wasn't perfect in that standardised and identical training would leave openings for others to exploit but that was what the Game was for.

Still, if Command ever did speak with her it should be fine, she did after all have all the records that proved she existed (thanks to the Minds) and when she "died" or rather was re-assigned then she would die in a suitable horrific accident. 'Clones, clones, clones, bio-science what would we do without you?' she thought.

"And Lasers! We need Lasers! With a capital L because lasers are cool" She said.

"Ummm… Catherine? What do lasers have to do with asking Marianne on a date?" came the confused reply from one of the aforementioned leadership of the outfit she was buddying with.

"You forgot the capital L you heathen! And Lasers have everything to do with it, chicks dig Lasers with a capital L not those piss weak ones with a lowercase L"

"You're going to need to elaborate a bit more there Catherine." Russell Bishop her liaison said.

"You have to be a Laser Russell, you need to be relentless, super hot, tracking and jumping to her instantly and ready to melt a gooey hole in her fleshy bits at all times!"

"I'm pretty sure that's considered assault Catherine"

"Fine! Be a pansy, just like ask her out on a date or something. Fucking meatbags, don't know how to reproduce properly." She had begun to mumble as she continued, "Do you need me to give you a lesson on organic reproduction while I'm here? You know, the thing every organic needs to know in order to continue existing?" Her hands were now up in the air like she was trying to stop the sky from falling.

"Ummm… I got it covered, I think I'll just ask her for that date though"

'Fucking organics, need everything drip fed to them' thought Catherine. While they did help alleviate her boredom and were good for manual labour if there were no fabricators around… they were sometimes too much effort to keep around.

It was to his credit that Russell Bishop took Catherine's outburst in stride. Then again he had more practice than most being her liaison. Filter out the absolutely terrible and insane ideas and passing on the workable gems was his job. The best way to do so was to simple engage her on conversation, when she fell quiet then something was brewing in her brain and it was best to wait for the inevitable overflow. Sometimes she struck gold but apparently today was not one of those times.

Still he stuck with it, some of it might be salvageable after all.

When he had first met Catherine Russell had thought she was a beautiful but kind of… erratic woman. Now after a week or so of being her liaison he was confident in upgrading her to 'beautiful but insane'. She had given the leadership new ideas to play with but her personality had made it difficult to keep her around for… well… anything.

So they offloaded her to him and here they were. Russell brought up his imaginary crush Marianne every now and again to jog her along (mention of Marianne always set her off) in popping out those random ideas the leadership liked so much. With the NPCs wrecking so much havoc on already existing plans due to their reliance on "human" levels of accuracy, response times and morale. Now with the NPCs who were dead accurate every shot they fired even from the kickiest and recoil heavy LMGs with the ability to move and follow even the most convoluted plans with no breaks in morale no matter the casualties… well things had changed.

Now it was a race to find a way to break and make the best use of the enemy NPCs and your own respectively. Catherine's out of the box suggestions worked by sheer virtue of how out of the box they were. Even the NPCs couldn't adapt to some of the more insane ones, like the Sunderer convoys all armed with grenade launchers. The sheer amount of ground shake and shrapnel made it nearly impossible for return fire.

Catherine was a big help sure but it seemed that she just loved to talk to people. Always finding people, talking and talking. She wasn't even that good with a rifle, preferring to just sit back and let others do the fighting for her.

She was interesting at least.

The Minds were revelling in the human interactions they were experiencing. With observation drones placed across the entirety of the Planetside and Helldiver universes, they were on the way to being able to fully simulating unique personalities with a random number generator.

The HeMUs were also proving valuable in providing a catalyst in provoking different reactions based on their outwardly displayed personalities. The HeMUs titled "NPC" by the humans were learning how to best discomfort said humans by acting particularly artificial. Certain movements sets were seen to provoke the most reaction with certain inflections in speech. Small stops and jerks as they moved created a sense of dissonance and anxiety within the humans which would only build as it continued.

Long-term exposure (beyond 3 days) had seen the anxiety fall when seen in their allies but spike when seeing "enemy" NPCs. Perhaps antagonizing the humans would see permanent anxiety with occasional reinforcement of the antagonization. Something to consider.

When speaking to the humans, various factors contributed to their anxiety and unease. Having an overly emotive voice but emotionless face or having an emotionless voice but emotive face caused maximum anxiety from the onset. Emotion it appeared relied heavily upon the inflection of the voice, facial expressions and body language. At least 2 of the 3 factors were needed to pass as "human".

For a more slow acting mental assault, emotionless voice and face combined with the contextual fear of the NPC figure created a more pervasive and underlying fear of NPCs as a whole but not the individual. The humans certainly did enjoy generalizing entire groups of beings which made things both easier and more difficult for the Minds to exploit.

Having a few individuals acting a certain manner with heavy information war would see them change perception either way negative or positive. A truly easily manipulable race were the humans. The Minds wondered if this was a facet of humanity that carried through regardless of universe… hmmmm.

MAGI was overseeing the reports uploaded by the Administrators.

The Dyson Gobstopper surrounding the Commander and extending to cover the entire star system had been completed. Nearly an entire lightyear of S-N Steel, turrets, teleporters, Server Farms, factories and the A.T. Field itself ensured the safety of the Commander. The Dyson system could be moved about with anti-gravity drives and massive, truly massive engines kept away inside N2 powered pocket dimensions could move the system should it be needed to provide safety for the Commander.

The Commander's A.T. Field was increasing in strength at a nice pace as more Minds were brought online and their interactions with the Servers had them develop souls that were added to the Commander's. The HeMUs were notably gaining power as well, some of which were reaching Mind level of strength. Should it be necessary, the HeMUs could form an alpha strike force to crush their enemies with little trouble, especially backed up by the Commander (though they didn't know that).

The Gestalt was… interesting. The report by the Server Administrators had come back and it appeared that the Game had the unintended effect of also dividing the Minds as well. Now each empire had its own dedicated server space and they were bunkering down, no "leaked intelligence" as it were. Requests for additional servers that had write and read-only functionality were pouring in. The full Gestalt immersion apparently was giving away secrets that they didn't want known. MAGI was amused, while the Server Administrators would ensure that none of the VI's strayed too far, the fact that they were nationalizing was very amusing indeed.

No doubt as the empires were folded into each other, they would once again fully immerse themselves with other Minds not of their server but for now, the formation of many differentiated and insular empires was the most common aspect of the Game. Unlike the humans, the Minds would fully accept whatever empire took them over once they were immersed, melding ideas and motivations as they took both apart and judged them on their merits. In the end it would be all ok but for now it was like watching millions of squabbling children.

The next report detailed the Highway of Hell, also the Highway of Worlds. Named the Highway of Hell since everything that isn't this universe must be Hell, the Highway had been completed and merely awaited the opening of more quantum gates to more worlds. The list of coordinates that the Commander had provided burned away in the back of MAGI's consciousness. The Planetside universe was being harvested and soon the initial HeMUs would pull out and begin the next wave of exploration. Not yet however, a few months more before MAGI asked the Commander to send them out again.

The technology pulled from the Planetside universe was like that of the Helldivers, partly useful, partly useless. The obvious example of the Nanite technology.

It had been merged with the Mind upload technology and allowed the humans to create a "static" world as it were, all made entirely of Nanites and thus under 100% control. A fully assimilated planet was essentially "stored", any deaths could be reversed with a simple body reconstruction, ammunition was infinite as it could be pulled from the air, death was impossible, environmental damage was impossible unless explicitly allowed.

A perfect prison world.

Still if it could be adapted to ships and their own worlds then it would mean that as long as the data-center survived, it could all be reconstructed with ease. A very good backup plan indeed. Also a terrifying world for enemies to arrive on, to wage war against forces their superior in every way for time immortal. Punishment indeed.

The teleporters also were nice… if only they worked outside of the Nanite system, same went with pretty much all their technology really.

The weapons could be taken out and used to add variety to their conventional systems.

The Vanu pulse/plasma weaponry was interesting however. Small globules of plasma that were immune to gravity and could continue on as long as the containment held… useful indeed. The Minds had cracked the technology and added it to their arsenal, planet sized plasma cannons that could fire at targets with infinite range… useful.

Drop-pods were pretty but not very useful besides that. Too fragile and slow for conventional usage.

Other than that… nothing much. At least they were getting experience from interactions with the humans. Experiences that were draining quickly, well soon.

They would advance soon.

12/06/0001

The trio of HeMU 50, 51 and 52 had found a niche that they filled with enthusiasm and sort of worked with their proclivities. HeMU 52 flew the Liberator, HeMU 50 manned the main gun and HeMU 51 manned the rear turret. They had named themselves Michael (50), Neil (52) and Edwin (51) for humour's sake. Neil could indulge in his love of flying, Michael could use the maximum zoom of the main gun to see everything below and Edwin just went along with Neil and Michael.

Each Pack was divided into 3 HeMU subunits that they chose themselves. Edwin had just gone along with the other 2 when they chose him to keep the theme going. Edwin was a very passive HeMU despite being under Bastion 001, which had them being the first into each new universe. He was like a smaller Commander really, just relaxing all day while thinking deep thoughts (what do I eat tomorrow?) and slowly increasing the strength of his A.T. Field.

It was so very easy to do that when tail gunning for Neil's Liberator. Just watching the skies with his Drake 20mm gun. While not the best weapon to be using, it was a very nice all rounder. A few shells into the cockpits of attacking fighters was usually all that was needed, a few shells into the bodies of infantry trying to be sneaky, nothing that required much heavy thinking.

Edwin just relaxed and swivelled the turret in a constant figure 8 pattern relying on his body's natural motion detection especially in one's peripheral vision. Going in a figure 8 allowed him to pick up the movement and minor colour changes that would indicate a hidden infantryman perhaps, maybe a lone tank that was hiding from the Dalton that Michael manned. A single hit straight through the top armour was all that was needed to turn it into a wreck.

The crew wouldn't feel it however, the Nanites deconstructed the body and transferred one's consciousness into the vehicle. It explained how a driver managed to actually fit inside a Lightning.

Edwin wondered what Michael and Neil were thinking about as they patrolled the great desert expanse that made up the north of Indar. It wasn't the most glamorous job, nor was it that exciting but it was necessary to make sure no vehicle convoys were slipping through to wreck havoc on logistic lines. Making sure that the north was safe allowed the platoons to the south to wage war with the knowledge that their supplies would arrive on time and nobody was going to be stabbing them in the back (with tanks, liberators can't see invisible people).

Edwin rather enjoyed it, doing very little but still being thanked for it.

And that over there looked exactly like what they were defending against. A swarm of Mosquitos had appeared over the horizon near Howling Pass. They were armed with rocket pods meaning it was highly likely they were hunting for some armoured convoys or the unlucky wallowing Sky Whale.

"Lads, we've got a squadron of Mossies coming in from the South East from Howling Pass. Looks like 12 of them at 2 kilometers out."

"Got it, going belly side up, Michael you have the shot. Edwin pass word to Command would you?"

"Got it, lining up shot."

"Got it, passing word to Command."

The Liberator then turned sideways allowing the Dalton to "see" the enemy aircraft and begin engaging them. A rather difficult task as one needed to factor in wind, drop and at this range the rotation of the planet… oh and the aircraft evading. Still, Michael was a HeMU and at the very least he had a very good sensor and computational suite.

While Michael lined up his shot, Edwin got on the radio and switched frequencies to the dispatchers on line 12.

"Sky Patrol 12, Command."

"Command, Sky Patrol 12, Go ahead and send"

"We have 12 Mosquitos with rocket pots inbound from the south east origin point Howling Pass, Sky Patrol will engage and delay until reinforced."

"Copy that Sky Patrol, sending a Reaver squadron your way, ETA 3 minute, see if you can't thin them out while you're waiting. Command out." With a click the call ended, Edwin then switched the channel back to the Liberator's to pass the news.

"We got ESF support inbound, 3 minutes. How's things over here?"

BOOM

The entire craft shuddered as the Dalton flung its 150mm shell at the squadron.

"Hitting them now, might be able to grab 2 before they begin evading" came Michael's voice.

Edwin shifted the turret over to track the squadron, at this range it should take maybe 3-4 seconds for it to land (assuming it landed at all, one little shift to the left or right and it would miss).

Then the ESF at the rearmost position just crumpled in on itself. The sheer size and mass of the shell just caved in the cockpit and spat itself out through the rear.

Clever. Take out the rear ESF and the ones in front won't see it (unless they were talking), best chance to get multiple kills.

"Hit," was Michael's laconic voice, a tinge of excitement running below it. As if he had just seen something he shouldn't have.

"Shot out," he followed up, another shudder racking the Liberator.

A few seconds later the ESF furthest to the left died the same way. Only this time the squadron split itself up and began to zigzag through the air homing in on the Liberator. They could go and hunt on their own but they would be relegated to the weakest and least valuable of convoys, no they needed at least half of the squadron to hunt the lowest level convoys and kill them before a warning could be sent out.

Now however it was clear that the Liberator had been there for a while and a voice-check would have shown that 2 of their own were lost. No, AA armed ESFs were no doubt inbound and their gambit had failed before it even began. All they had left was hunting down the Liberator and avenging their lost comrades.

While the option was there to retreat and seek targets in the more contested zones, their pride wouldn't allow them to retreat after the Liberator had the gall to snipe at them.

So they came, spreading out like a net seeking a particularly big fish.

Edwin gave a mental check on his ammunition, a few hundred rounds. More than enough.

The ESFs closed in, afterburners igniting in a gambit to dive past the Dalton and avoiding the insta-gib. Figuring that the tailgunner was incompetent or non-existent given the Drake default, the Mosquitos tried to angle themselves for a top attack where the tailgun and the belly-gun couldn't resist.

The entire engagement would revolve around the ESFs trying to get themselves to the top and behind the Liberator. The entire 180 degree semi-sphere below the Liberator and directly in front of it was a killzone, staying in it was just asking to die. The only place more dangerous would be directly in front of the Liberator, the clearly visible Tank Buster which could melt tanks would do significantly more against ESFs.

Neil was rolling the Liberator, facing the belly to the greatest concentration of ESFs, or at least the ones that were pointing their weapons at him. The Liberator itself was a wallowing hippo, while it was dangerous… it needed to actually face the enemy to be so. Much slower and less maneuverable than ESFs, let alone 10 of them, Neil had his work cut out for him.

Michael was just flinging his Dalton shells at predicted trajectories in the hope that one of the Mosquitos would stay on a straight heading long enough for it to hit. They were clearly better than that however, jinking all over the place and dodging whenever in the Dalton's killzone.

Edwin meanwhile was holding down the metaphorical trigger and smashing the 20mm shells into any ESF that wandered into his rather limited turret traversal range. It was enough to punch holes in them and that was enough to cause them to back off (if temporarily).

Still, it wasn't enough, the sheer number of ESFs were flinging their noseguns at the Liberator, chipping away at its integrity. Keeping this up would be very dangerous indeed, while a flying tank it was also a slow one.

Then the voice of salvation rang in their ears.

"Tomcat Actual, Sky Patrol 12, respond."

Edwin sprang at the channel switcher, "Sky Patrol 12, Tomcat Actual, we read you."

"Good to hear from you Sky Patrol, we are loaded with missiles and heading to your location, ETA 15 seconds. Keep your heading Sky Patrol and we'll drive them out of the sky."

"Copy that Tomcat Actual, Sky Patrol out."

A quick channel switch and "We got a wing of Tomcats bailing us out, just keep it up for another 15 seconds and we get to keep our brains in our bodies"

"Only 15 seconds? Hell I could do that with my eyes closed. Actually I will, watch."

And the Liberator began to spin randomly through the air before diving and rising erratically. It threw off Edwin's aim and they actually began to take more damage in 10 seconds than the entire previous 2 minutes as an unlucky Mosquito collided with the tail.

Things actually looked dicey when the engines caught fire. Actually the situation was really dangerous. Dammit Neil, this was a bad idea.

What happened next saved them. Streaks of smoke threaded the air as Tomcat missiles struck at the Mosquitos, destroying them pretty much instantly given they were torn in half at the very least.

It wasn't enough to save the Liberator however as it exploded in mid-air after the engines redlined and self-destructed.

Dammit Neil.

04/010/0001

MAGI had approved the decision to begin opening the next set of quantum gates on the Highway to Hell. The Minds were ecstatic.

Finally, some new stuff to go with the Game. While it was fun designing armies and navies around the empire variants they had chosen, they were looking forward to an information dump that came from a new universe with new technologies and ideas. Of course they would have to adapt the technology to fit their "theme" but it was better than nothing.

Also watching through the HeMUs as they explored living in general was a great way to spend the time. Well now at least the Minds were opening 3 gates this time. The Coordinates (with a capital C) had all been very close to one another with barely a second in difference (second as in computation time). Likely they were for a parallel universe where things were… similar.

It would be interesting at the very least. The Minds would definitely sleeve into their biological bodies for this. Awe is best felt when one has many different chemicals racing through one's body telling it to do 100 different things at once.

Goodbye Planetside 2, how many hours did I dump into you? How many thousands of bullets did I fire? How much rage did my AT suicide engineer evoke? We had our days, and I don't regret any of them. I remember the days when NC was underpop, when NC had 15% of the world population compared to the bullshit inducing VS's 50% then TR's 50% as the OP dick stick swung in their direction. I remember when NC was objectively the worst faction to play and the TR forum warriors would always scream NC OP. When the most basic mechanics of the game were in the TR's favour, when hit-jerk (or whatever it wa that made your gun bounce up and down as you got hit) was based on ROF not damage, so TR weapons would make it almost impossible to fight back in cqc and long range fights due to the gun jerking everywhere.

Release Planetside, you were shit. 2nd year Planetside was the shit. It wasn't you, it was me, I just put too much in and my outfit was changing, the old guard was gone and the new ones embodied such a different philosophy to what we used to live by. They later split the outfit in half and destroyed it competitively so that was funny I guess, don't let in zerggy players, they are terrible. I used to come back every now again, even subbed though I didn't play.

Too late for that I guess, goodbye Planetside 2. It was fun while it lasted. Might come back to check on you every now and again but I won't stay.

Goodbye Planetside 2.

Now then, onto the next step of my multiversal trek. Or at least my mental trek. I don't think I've moved from since I created the Minds. Not like it's important or anything, If I do the blood draining machine to my right will break. They spent so long trying to design it that I don't want to hurt their feelings and take a step ya-know?

Gates are spinning uuuuuuuuuuup. And reality has been hole punched.

Drones being sent throouuuuugh.

Link being established.

First look coming through nooooooow.

And I see a Leo Mobile Suit, the most sexy mobile suit to have ever been made. I would definitely not have sex with one but would still stare at it longingly.

Still a Leo… this does not fill me with confidence about the next 2 universes.

And thus my powers of prophecy come true. I see George Glenn talking about the PLANTs, aaaaaaaand a Ricardo Marcenas on a big screen and then being sucked out into space, ok, different but I can live with that… and it's Mobile Suite Gundam. Fuck.

Mobile Suit Gundam, progenitor of an awesome tradition of awesome mecha.

Also home to the protagonist Amuro Ray, also known as the mega-tool, he who shall end worlds because he wishes to throw another tantrum.

Fuck.

Gundam Seed isn't much better but at least Kira grows a pair in Gundam Seed Destiny… only its that weird emo, douchenozzle, punchy face, thing on the ZAFT side that takes over and is an even bigger tool than Kira ever was.

Fuuuuuuck.

I am a weapon of ultimate destruction, intended to pacify entire galaxies. Now I have to deal with angsty teenagers. Fuuuuuuuuuck.

At least Heero Yuy is ok. Ok as in the most fucking awesome guy to ever fucking exist OK. He's like the Leo of humans. Doesn't look like the prettiest around but he's always there, saving the world, being fucking awesome and not angsty in the fucking least. Well except for that time when he like chain-reaction killed a girl and her dog that he made friends with and then buried and then suppressed his emotions over.

But that's ok. That's deserved angst, not "look at me I'm awesome but I don't like being treated like a pilot of a weapon of ultimate destruction so now I'm going to cry in a corner and get even more innocent people killed because I'm a pacifist even though I've destroyed entire colonies."

Then there's the rest of the people in those 2 universes. Massive tools the lot of them, trying to commit genocide on a planetary scale pretty much every 2-3 years.

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

Fuck.

Wait.

Why am I even complaining about this. I'll just have the Minds do everything.

Phew, that's a load off my back.

It will be like watching the anime all over again only I have the option to BLAM the fuck out of them when it gets too much.

Still, this was the most emotion I've felt since being interred here… huh. Maybe they are really lucky… non-neutered me probably would have imploded those 2 universes and just left.

05/010/0001

The Minds were… well free. They had arrived early enough in the timelines of the 3 universes that their intervention (if they could be bothered) wasn't really needed at all. The Commander had explicitly stated that other than taking technology from the Gundam Wing universe, they would do as little as possible other than record everything because Gundam Wing was "The Shit" according to the Commander. They would be allowed to subvert non-essential plot pilots to learn how the suits worked however. Also giant robot fighting, that shit is sexy. Gundam Wing was tidy, few civilians killed, pilots mostly and the occasional giant space fortress being dropped, a colony being exploded, minor things. The Minds approved.

Efficient giant robot wars, very admirable… now for the other 2.

Gundam Seed and Mobile Suit Gundam universes on the other hand… well they really did need looking after because like Star Wars and 40k, they cannot keep their shit together. Like as in leave them for a few weeks and they will have designed another superweapon with which to kill millions of innocent people since they are dicks that way.

Or the fact that one of them produces Space Hitler who gets killed by his sister and the other has a guy who wants to implement Instrumentality but is shit at it and dies anyway. Humanity in both of the universes really does suck ass, so full of prejudice that they hate people who live in space in one of them. As in the entirety of space peoples is worth hating.

Gah.

Priority in preserving them is at the bottom, the Minds decided, not much worth preserving at all besides their production of more and more extreme weapons of war.

Actually… by extending the conflict further and bigger they might design bigger and better suits to steal designs from. Yes. Drag the war out, make it bigger and get more stuff. Genius.

There were some nice humans but they were severely lacking in the badass department so that was a negative 50 points right off the bat. Still preserving them would give a chance to subvert them early and have a legitimate base of operations. Something that would be immensely useful as they produced mobile suits and secretly supply both sides with the arsenals needed to prolong the wars.

In the SEED universe it was slightly harder since there were like 3 factions that mattered, Orb, the PLANTS and the earthies. They didn't have a GINN so things were not too far along to do a Universal Century on them… infiltrate both sides, give more funding for more suits and drag the war out that way? Have to draw a fine line, too much support and the war will be just HeMUs, no way to learn how to actually use the mobile suits. Too little and the war is over too quickly for them to learn.

The war no doubt would be starting soon (relative for the Minds) for the SEED universe. Better send in the majority of the HeMUs to volunteer at the PLANT military forces called ZAFT. The earthies have like a bunch of different forces and then there's Orb. Still, volunteer at all of them, easy to arrange accidents and switch out later. Factories to be built under a new investment firm. Tool it to produce weapons, armour, work up to mobile armour production and maybe Mobile Suit contracts when they get developed.

Do the same in the PLANTS but with space bound construction yards. Build suits, weapons, equipment, etc. Have enough production for both to boost by at least 100%. Making the war bigger to get more HeMUs experiencing was the goal here. Fake mining company sponsoring one each would be easy to hide, pretend to mine asteroids but instead fabricate minerals.

Stealth drones already scanning everyone and all technology available.

When war broke out the Minds would have their HeMUs in the thick of it recording everything. Giant robot combat would be the height of sexiness.

So the Minds had decided, 2 different approaches to 3 different universes.

Minimal interference with the Gundam Wing universe, record everything especially Heero Yuy being awesome. Grab tech whenever possible.

Heavy interference slow for the Mobile Suit Gundam universe. Assist in building colonies, claim a few, build up reputation as being able to build everything and anything for a price, funnel supplies to both sides pre and during the wars. Ensure self is heavily defended to prevent ideas of annexation. Creation of mercenary groups to better expand their spheres of influence and to make sure that the wars would continue on forever with an application of a 3rd party.

The course of action had been decided and the Minds were rubbing their biological hands in anticipation. Giant robots in the Game? Yes please!

Now to carry out the plans…

Cosmic Era 44 - CE = Gundam SEED Universe

06/010/0001

The Commander had ordered the Minds to simply take what technology they could from the Cosmic Era universe and to do what they wanted with the rest. To this end the Minds had devised their "plan" as it were.

HeMU 2 - Catherine was leaving the registration office, the permits for having a metalworking factory, permission to operate beyond the atmosphere and mining permits for the asteroids of Mars in hand. It had been so easy once she said "For our blue and pure world" in a loud and obnoxious voice. The Blue Cosmos sympathizer who had been recorded at various protests was only too happy to expedite the permit process.

Stupid humans, not even bothering to check if Catherine was even part of the organization in the first place.

Fools the lot of them.

Still she had the permits and Part 1 of Phase 1 was complete. Establishing themselves in the Atlantic Federation which would later become the Earth Alliancewas a priority objective as was doing the same in the PLANT area. While the PLANTs were not yet independent or even really functional, it would be a good idea to get the foot in the door.

To facilitate that expansion the Minds had set up factories or rather hospitals in which to "birth" Coordinators all over the Earth. They would have "naturals" who would seek to have their children born as Coordinators to provide cover. There wouldn't be any evidence regarding the extra bodies, after all nobody would want records of their children being born perfect in a world where terrorists were killing said perfect people. Heh.

With this it should be easy enough to produce several million "Coordinators" (or rather HeMUs pretending to be Coordinators) by just adding little bits and bobs to their DNA. The Minds would essentially produce several armies worth of humans to prolong the war between both sides of the war.

To that end the key figures such as Patrick Zala, Kira Yamato, Rau Le Creuset, Muruta Azrael, etc would have scans made of them on a constant basis so that if any of them met an "unfortunate accident" i.e. died horribly, they could always resurrect them so that plot could continue moving forward.

However some had to die prematurely to better drag out the conflict. Rau Le Creuset was one of them, he who gave the N-Jammer Canceller technology to the Earth Alliance who in turn started throwing around nukes like a bunch of idiots. To that end, destroying the N-Jammer Canceller equipped Mobile Suits was a must to prevent either side having an advantage in the war.

On the other hand protecting certain people would be necessary as well. Nicoli Amalfi i.e. the bearable piano dude needed to "survive" somehow and return to his family so his father wouldn't advance the N-Jammer Canceller technology too fast. Tolle Koenig on the other hand was to be saved since he was Miriallia Haw's boyfriend and she was pretty cool. Cool being relative to the other members of the Archangel and the Earth Alliance and Zaft and pretty much the entire cast which was made of very terrible people. Very inefficient people, terrible, agreed the Minds.

To better make themselves look legitimate, all aspects of the Mind's plans had to interact heavily with the humans, Coordinator and Natural alike. Millions of little transactions would leave massive footprints which in turn would lead any investigators to the inevitable conclusion that the corporations were indeed legitimate ones.

Of course they wouldn't be, what kind of capitalist corporation that was spread throughout Earth and Space would be entirely legitimate? Bah.

The Senti Company would be the Natural based company on Earth while the Veni Company would be the PLANT equivalent (down the line that is). Both would naturally have a secret base that just happened to be on the same asteroid where they would just happen to share information and technology. The names were made up on the spot and sadly Catherine wasn't very talented when it came to naming things but when everything in the universe had some kind of mystical pattern in its naming, bad taste doesn't really matter.

Naturally the Minds and the HeMUs could just use their quantum entanglement communication network to send both messages and data but… well it would be more fun doing everything manually. Then they could happen to be "discovered" at some point and fight an awesome pitched battle with their Mobile Suits while saying heroic words like "I'll never leave you behind" or share poignant moments like "I'll love you forever" and then go on to get a boyfriend 2 months later only to discover the previous boyfriend was still alive and thus love triangle!

It would be awesome, giant pitched Mobile Suit battle. Mmmmmmmm. Sexy in the extreme.

Of course for that to actually work they would have to begin laying the groundwork which in this case was another 23 years before the first Mobile Suits would be developed. While they could develop their own suits, it wouldn't be the same as the ZAFT ones and take the plot in an entirely new direction. While not that bad it would also be annoying to the extreme to find out all their contingency plans had to be altered because some puny humans couldn't adapt to changes.

Catherine "called" the HeMUs under her command with her "mobile phone" or rather she pretended to since conference calls were irritating. The land had been purchased, the factories were being set up from their prefabricated kits (like an Ikea home) and workers were being hired. Soon they would be up and producing everything from cosmetics to metals to intricate machinery to weapon systems once they bidded on the contracts.

23 years and then the rollercoaster would be rushing downhill with a speed that would see it end in 7 years with the end of the second war. Of course that was in the canon timeline, the Minds wouldn't allow it to end there however, the humans kept building super-weapons to wipe each other out. It wouldn't be far in the future that they actually did wipe each other out. So the Minds would artificially drag out the war into a hot then cold then hot again cycle. In this way they could preserve the human race and also the benefits that came from their technological progression.

Yes, things were going well. Very nice and casual.

Katrin as planning out the necessary systems to establish themselves in space and were establishing the mining and production aspects of the company on Earth. The company would be under a single heading for now but when the PLANTs became independent it would be split in two, ostensibly with its Coordinator and Natural departments splitting. Only the HeMUs within it would know that it was actually still a single entity but humans were not known for being rational and so the information was hidden from them.

Operational security was paramount and the humans definitely did not have that.

The establishment of a colony of their own would be the start. It would be modelled on the circular colonies that used the rotation of the outer cylinder to simulate gravity. A few of them to establish a place of residence and somewhere for the operations to be based on. It would have to be somewhere outside of the direct line from the PLANTs to Earth however as for the fleets and armies to not need to move through their area.

It would be terrible if the humans "accidently" ceased to exist because they attacked the HeMU colonies after all. Having a super powerful 3rd entity watching over them would certainly make them much more cautious in how they tried to commit genocide against each other.

Plot would never be the same.

Universal Century 0001 - Mobile Suit Gundam Universe

Cosmic Era 0044 - Gundam SEED Universe

After Colony 0195 - Gundam Wing Universe

After Activation 08/10/0001 - Origin Universe

HeMUs 50, 51, and 52 had been tasked with observing the Gundam Wing universe. Operation Meteor had already begun and they along with other observational HeMUs had been scanning everything they could. Gundanium Alloy was very interesting indeed, it could absorb radio waves, electrically non-conductive and has extreme strength and heat resistance (with limited plasma resistance). When coupled with the Hyperwave Jammers that the Deathscythe has mounted on its backpack meant it couldn't be seen by visual sensors and most electronic equipment due to its scrambling of the electrical currents. Very useful indeed.

Their "beam weapons" were basically just using plasma and encasing it in a containment field. Very simply but having a beam saber more than made up for it in sheer sexiness. Beam melee weapons could effectively punch holes in pretty much anything, even gundanium alloy with the bigger beam weapons like the Buster Rifle which could fire a massive 150m diameter diameter beam. The Buster Rifle was particularly bullshit in that combining 2 of them would result in more than 2x the destructive capability, capable of punching several kilometer wide holes through space colonies.

The ZERO system had not yet been discovered, waiting for Quatre to find the blueprints and constructing it was necessary. The Mobile Doll systems were still in development and no doubt inferior to the HeMUs, but having them as soulless weapons was a plus. No need to risk the soul if a situation proved to be dangerous.

Other than that there was little they could pull from the Gundam Wing Universe currently that they already did not have in one form or another. The PPP nanotech virus had potential but it was very far in the future, over 30 years if the timelines were to be believed.

Still, they had scanned what needed scanning, the Taurus suits (trying too hard to be edgy), the Leo (sexiest mobile suit ever), the Aries (In the running for sexies mobile suit ever), the Cancer (eh it's a boat), the Pisces (ditto), the Tallgeese (eh, it's got wings?), the Tragos (tank), the various Maganac suits (most of them look too similar) really, the Gundam Wing (piloted by the most amazing guy ever. Green tank top and spats shall be the official uniform of the AC until deemed otherwise), the Deathscythe, the Heavyarms, the Shenlong (pilot of Wufei is a whiny annoying guy, not as bad as Shinn Asuka), the Sandrock, the colonies, the various transport craft and the Peacemillion.

Basically every Mobile suit that needed scanning, had been scanned and a bunch of miscellaneous tech as well. With that mission accomplished, Edwin, Michael and Neil were at a loss of what to do. Then they had a brainwave.

This was Gundam Wing, Operation Meteor was in the process of occurring. What was stopping them subverting a few OZ pilots and fighting against the Gundams? As long as they followed the plot and didn't do anything outrageous… well they could pilot giant robots. They would be the envy of like… everyone.

Yes, this plan was genius.

The Minds had decided to quite simply decided that minimal interference was needed in the Gundam Wing universe. It was quite capable of solving its own issues without sudden usage of nuclear weapons wiping out a third of the population unlike the other universe they had access to.

It appeared that they were given access to the Gundam Wing universe to just round out the Gundam SEED and Gundam Mobile Suit universes. Either that or R.O.B found the Leo as sexy as they did. The Leo and the Virgo designs… mmmmm.

That utilitarian design, so simple, so elegant, so sexy. A suit that knows exactly what its place is in the world and does its best to fulfil it. None of that extra and weird shit with the fins and the weird bits of metal that look like fairy wings, none of that weird spiky bits on the armour, none of that weird respirator shit. Just pure, elegant design. The epitome of utilitarian yet beautiful design.

Also comes in a variety of colours.

Still, it would be rather simple to just ignore the Gundam Wing universe, pop back every month or so to check on technological progress while focusing on the Gundam SEED and Mobile Suit Gundam universes to make sure they don't wipe themselves out because of some human that felt the world had wronged him/her.

They would send across HeMUs to subvert OZ and the United Earth Sphere Alliance pilots so they could get combat experience when using their Mobile Suits to fight the Gundams then OZ/Alliance then White Fang. Lots of mecha fighting for lots of experience.

Still, they had 2 years of intermittent fighting before the series conclusion 30 years later. It had plenty of genocidal and insane people like the other 2 universes but the subordinates and heroes were capable enough to stop said plans. Gases, colony drops, super weapons, all of them being used and none of them harming population centers. It was just so efficient.

When they saved the world it was just so efficient, no collateral damage, no sudden loss of billions of lives due to incompetence. The Minds approved of the Gundam Wing universe, no need to change anything here.

The trio had subverted another trio of OZ pilots. They were human so it didn't really matter what was happening to them. From there they left the barracks as per loud ringing klaxon alert regulations and ran to the, no "their" Leos. The sound of things exploding in the background accompanied their footsteps along with the sounds of heavy caliber ammunition being used. Given the speed of the fire and the frequency of the explosions and the size of the explosions (lots of little ones essentially), it was very probably they were under attack by the Heavyarms.

Nothing they had could actually hurt the Heavyarms but sometimes there was a thrill in just trying.

The catwalk in the hangar was set at just the right height for them to climb straight into the cockpit and begin the activation sequence.

Cue Training montage/memory of the subverted pilots

Flick the generator switch to the top right of the center monitor, activate computer checking device, generator light is green, computer is green. Systems check activates, all systems greens, diagram of Leo internals lights up green, no bad connections of internal parts.

Maintenance crews on the ground report that the externals are clear as well. Can begin taxying the Leo out of the hangar. Switching the drive speed from "idle" to "walk" and using the left control stick to control the direction that the legs are facing to initiate a forward walk by depressing the left foot pedal to the rd mark. Right control stick controls the direction that the upper body faces as well as the movements of the arms and head.

Right now the Leo is set to ranged mode so the arms remain in a locked position to hold the machine-gun at the correct position. Activating the melee mode and pressing the required switches will either use the machine-gun as a club, drop the machine-gun to grab a beam saber or go into the fight barehanded.

In melee mode pressing the left stick into the console controls the legs while having it extended controls the upper body. The right stick as well as the right pedal control the movement of the arms as well as a series of macro buttons set to the right and left of the control sticks respectively.

To activate the booster, a lever to the left controls the power and duration of the boost while 4 buttons surrounding it control the direction.

Of course this is only for experienced pilots. Newbies like you have to use the preset macro controls. There are basic ones like walk forward, walk back, ready ranged stance, preset-melee combat maneuvers, etc etc. Your job as a rookie is to learn each and every one of the macros and work out how to chain them together to get your Mobile Suit to move and fight correctly.

Remember, the Macros are there to do the general movements but you must do the smaller movements so the Mobile Suit doesn't trip over small rocks and actually hit the target with the machine-gun. Learn the Macros before you learn the precise controls.

Flashback end

Neil decided that he would use the second option. The first option had to be learnt and he hadn't actually practiced it at any point. They would no doubt learn after returning to the Origin Universe and taking the time. The knowledge would no doubt transfer over to the other universes and having the knowledge on how to pilot a giant robot was always useful.

That said… perhaps they could just create a neural link to the Mobile Suit and control it with their minds? It was not as if they were weak like the humans and prone to brain haemorrhaging from sensory overload. Something to consider, would set them apart from the other 2 factions in the other 2 universes at the very least.

Still, musing aside they did have a job to do now that they were in the bodies of the OZ pilots. Neil ran the commands for the Leo to walk out of the hangar and to meet the Gundam. The muscle memory of the pilot remembering at least how to do that.

As it moved out, Neil ran a mike check to the other pilots in the base, more out of courtesy than anything else. They would all be dead in a few more minutes as it were.

"Leo 23, Command, requesting orders." Sent neil.

"Command, Leo 23, move to rally point 3 and engage the unknown hostile mobile suit"

"Leo 23 copies, Leo 23 out."

"You two we need to get moving to rally point 3. Looks like it's an unidentified Mobile Suit. Must be pretty dangerous if it's not dead yet" he said, more for the benefit for the ones monitoring his communications than anything else.

-HeMU 52 Looks like it's the Gundam, we need to make sure we try different tactics to get the most data we can HeMU 52-

-HeMU 50 I'll go with melee, HeMU 52 you go with the rocket launcher and HeMU 51 can go with the machine-gun HeMU 50-

-HeMU 51 Got it, I'll plink away with my dinky little machine-gun and hope I tickle it to death HeMU 51-

With that quick little communication over their local Gestalt, the trio set their Leos to run.

The explosions made it rather easy to find the Gundam as it assaulted the fuel storage facility. The streams of tracers as it cut down Aries as they tried to buzz it was even more obvious. Like giant arrows trying to say "Gundam here".

It certainly did have a reason to be arrogant however, nothing they had on hand could actually hurt the Gundam. Oh well, they can be the minor characters that get crushed only for their friends to go "I'll avenge you!" while clenching their fists and looking at the sky dramatically.

Neil ran the macro to bring the Leo to a halt and begin firing the rocket launcher, making sure to manually target it as the Gundam would be spoofing his sensors.

The whoosh as the rocket left the barrel, straight at the mass of tracer fire was certainly satisfying. The explosion as the rocket impacted Heavyarms even more so.

The satisfaction carried over even as the Leo and Neil inside it was torn apart by the returning gatling fire.

Edwin didn't fair much better as his suit was torn apart by the same heavy machine gun.

Michael waited for Heavyarms to do that gun dropping thing when the gatling guns ran out of ammo (and the nipple guns) before rushing in. He at least managed to get Heavyarms to back off before the combat knife cut his suit in half… from the groin up.

Ugh.

Still… the feeling of piloting a Mobile Suit was amaaaaazing. The sheer power that strummed through the body as each step sent tremors through the ground. The blood rush as each step increased the G's the body felt as it accelerated forward. The visceral feeling as the gun fired. The heady rush as the entire suit lept at the merest touch to engage in glorious melee combat. The glorious feeling that each and every part of the suit gave when it worked.

The Minds piggybacking the HeMUs could not understand how the Commander could feel such pleasure in the mere act of walking.

The would immediately build their own Mobile Suits, learn to pilot them and then use them in the Game. Mecha combat in space where each side could field millions of units.

It would be glorious.