Uninspired
Mass Effect, Inspired Inventor
09
Leon Reynolds. Experience: 0xp. Points: 12745.
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Tech Trees:
1. Akira. -100 points.
2. Firefly. -100 points.
3. Alien. -100 points.
4. Mass Effect X. -1000 points.
5. Stargate VIII. -1000 points.
6. Marvel (Cinematic Universe) VIII. -1000 points.
Upgrades:
1. Quality Assurance. -20 points.
– The best diagnosticians can all tell what's wrong just by stepping into the room. You can tell when a piece of equipment within the range of your senses—biological or otherwise—is in need of maintenance, is about to fail, what is failing, how, and why.
2. Tire Kicker. -20 points.
– You now have the ability to tell what's in a tech tree before you buy it.
3. Lifetime Warranty. -20 points.
– Any piece of tech installed in your body is good for the lifetime of your body, unless damaged by outside forces. Your cybernetic components will no longer degrade.
Tech Tree
1. Mass Effect IX.
2. Stargate VII.
3. Marvel (Cinematic Universe) VII.
4. Big Hero 6 (Movie Universe) Max.
5. Battle Angel Alita (Manga) Max.
6. Terminator Max.
7. Cyberpunk Max.
8. Horizon (Game) Max.
9. Arpeggio of Blue Steel Max.
Upgrades
1. Fast Learner.
2. Mechanical Savant.
3. MacGyver's Apprentice.
4. Nimble Fingers.
5. Crash Override.
6. Bishop Administrator.
7. Sell By.
8. Neural Mancer.
9. CAD Master.
10. Russian Roulette.
11. Delayed Gratification.
12. Gacha Whaler.
Two years of waiting and this is the bullshit it gives me? Those settings are all relatively low tech. And as much as I loved Firefly, it's not worth the investment. Maybe it would've been right at the beginning, if it came up before Stargate, but it didn't. Fuck it, I'll buy the upgrades and use Russian Roulette.
Sixty points worth of upgrades and three hundred points spent rolling a new set of options later, I sighed at three more low-tier options—especially now that I could just dig into them and actually see what they would bring to the table. Considering my options for a moment, I selected Gacha Whaler.
Thirty-six hundred points?! What the actual— Nng. Okay. Okay. Ten times the points I'd need to actually just buy the options outright to replenish them completely. This had sure as fuck better be worth it. Oh, wait, hang on. I can choose to do it by section. So, just the upgrades to see if it gives me something worth it.
Upgrades:
1. Preview Mode. -200 points.
– You can pay to see what's coming up next in the store.
2. Liminality. -1000 points.
– You stand at the border between physical and digital. Human consciousness and neural network. You no longer need to fear losing anything by crossing the threshold.
3. Toy Box I. -1000 points.
– You gain access to higher tech level options directly, instead of having to rely on random chance! Grants access to the 1000 point tech menu.
Well, that's… frightening, I mused, shaking my head at the second option. The first would be useful to have and was pretty much 'name on tin.' Nothing to get into detail about there. The second, Liminality, I was fairly certain was obliquely talking about losing the soul in going from biological to digital, and that it would prevent that from happening. It was vague, but I bought it just in case. It shouldn't even affect me given what the highest levels of the Alita tech tree had, but… better to be safe than sorry.
The third option was what really had me interested. That explains why everything has been kind of random in quality and how advanced it is, and why I got trash these last two times. Because it is random. It's not a level based system. But if this raises the pool from 100 point options to 1000 point options… then I guess everything should be better by default than MCU or Stargate? Those have good stuff at the higher tiers, and I'm pretty sure the 1000 point tiers for both get up into dealing with system-affecting tech. I guess they were in the low tier list because they require a bit of buildup to get to where they're useful on a large scale. With everything costing 1000 points minimum now though, I should reset Delayed Gratification. Set it to refresh once every ten years, then go from there.
I shrugged and bought it immediately, then paid to have my options for tech trees replaced again, using Russian Roulette.
Tech Trees:
1. Code Geass. -1000 points.
2. Star Wars. -1000 points.
3. Nier. -1000 points.
4. Mass Effect X. -1000 points.
5. Stargate VIII. -1000 points.
6. Marvel (Cinematic Universe) VIII. -1000 points.
Yes! I mentally cheered, before frowning. Wait. I remember Geass. How the fuck is that worth a thousand points? Or is this just a case of dumping everything in the tree into one level? Guess I'll see.
I was down to 9285 points, which should be good enough for now. I started with Nier and maxed it out at level IV for 4000 points. Considering my other two options, I bought the first two levels of both for another 4000. Code Geass had only one more level, so I went ahead and maxed it out, leaving me with just 285. As I had thought, nearly everything I was expecting was in the first two levels, while the last level was collective consciousness tech.
Sadly, the lower levels of Star Wars weren't spectacular, even at the 1000 point price point. They would have been, if I didn't already have better because I'd invested in Stargate and had been combining tech. Even its drive tech was subpar at the moment. I didn't really see a need to develop it when what I had was equal to what they had or better in some ways and the methods of travel seemed kind of mutually exclusive.
However, it did have some things of note. Namely, Star Wars came with its own variant on 'plasma' weapons. The crystals required to make their blasters, cannons, and even the iconic lightsaber were well within my ability to make, along with the tech to power and create those things. So, I added them all to the list of new weapons to field test against my own weapons.
Probably the best thing I got access to from the Star Wars tree was the molecular structure and treatment methods of beskar. I sent it on to Alpha for immediate material testing, where the Avalon would synthesize some and then test it against other metals, see how it held up to various forces and energies, and then see what we could alloy it with. I was looking forward to seeing how it stood up compared to NTC alloy and if maybe we could add it to the mix, or replace something.
Unfortunately, some things in Geass didn't really work, or had no purpose here. There was no code, no Geass, no collective unconsciousness to my knowledge, and no way to produce any of them. So the supernatural related stuff was worthless.
That was fine by me, however. They had Sakuradite, which immediately went the route of eezo and the other exotic metals/minerals into testing to see what it could do. I was pretty stoked to see if I could combine it with naquadah, trinium, eezo, and now beskar to further enhance my arc reactors. Especially if I could use eezo to refine it first.
The beam weapon tech wasn't really great compared to what I already had, but their Blaze Luminous shielding, Absolute Defense System, and Energy Wing System were all very much of interest. Another type of shielding tech based on different principles to the shields I had now, to stack or rotate with what I had already was always nice. The Energy Wing System allowed for cheaper VTOL and lingering than repulsors, and anything equipped with both repulsors and the EWS could use the EWS to maneuver or linger while using repulsors for energy weapons, before switching to repulsors for faster flight.
And then there was the fact that I could produce humanoid mecha, now. I had been holding off on designing a fighter before now, on the hopes of getting something like this. Something the locals, and thus the Reapers, had never seen before. I had actually been hoping for Gundam, but I'd take what I could get. I could incorporate my current tech into them, after I finished testing the new materials, and hopefully improve them significantly. I would just need some crack pilots to fly them…
Nier was actually the winner of the day. Human-level intelligence AI, absolutely devoted to humans by default. Engineered specifically for combat against hostile alien machines as perfect soldiers. Designed to be able to transfer their consciousness from one body to the next and easily back their consciousness up in the event they were destroyed.
We didn't have Maso energy in this universe, thank God, but I could easily make them work without it. There would only be a few issues, in that the systems that allowed them to summon/dismiss their weapons wouldn't work. I would go ahead and replace all the materials used in their construction with superior materials for better performance and make some changes to their basic equipment—such as replacing their clothes with the same smart matter derived stuff I used, and giving them better weapons.
Much more expensive to build than terminator units, but way smarter. Terminators are disposable, the Nier androids aren't. So, send them in units. I can cut way down on unit types as well, here. No reason to have Battler units when Executioners are superior, just don't tell them what they were originally created for, or use them for that, and it'll be fine. D units seem kind of superfluous, but… give them way better shields and power sources and we could have one tank gunship fire. Might as well give them a big fucking gun while we're at it. Heavy weapons. Make them the anchor for the unit.
Healers aren't really needed in the way they would have been, according to their design specs. However, having a unit on hand that can repair things in the field and heal biologicals? Fucking sold. I'll slap a micro-fabricator in them capable of fabricating multi-use nanites. Give them a piece of equipment, probably a backpack—yeah, backpack. Stick an enhanced arc reactor and a fabricator in it, and a teleporter. Give it some microbot tentacles equipped with the usual equipment so it can grab things from the environment to break down and convert into whatever it needs. Preload it with patterns for weapons, ammo, replacement parts, more arc reactors so they can stay charged in the field. Add medical programming to it, so it can fix wounds or replace limbs, organs, and parts in the field with cybernetic replacements to do the big work that medical nanites can't do in a timely manner. Add a few hundred shrunken Terminator units in the backpack for support…
A scanner would round out a four-man squad. Equip them with cloaking and noise canceling technology, better sensors, better hacking toolkits, and sniper rifles. Also, better comms gear. Just install a subspace communicator and some storage so they can better facilitate emergency backups and transfers. Maybe give them some small, cloaked drones for better scouting. Monowire for if they need to get in close and assassinate someone. Oh! Give them Pym tech, so they can shrink themselves and allies to hide and get into places they otherwise shouldn't.
…Actually, why not equip all of the field models with built in repulsor arrays on their hands and feet, for flight and combat? Use the same nanite system as the Iron Man armor, but since they aren't producing armor and just the repulsors, it can be stripped way down. It'd remove the need for flight units entirely. They could do HALO insertions from orbit, if they stick close to the Defender until they make it into atmo low enough that they won't burn up. Yeah, sounds good.
Finally, Operators and Commanders. Not much needed to do there other than give both a bit more processing power. Actually, hang on. I could make a new model. Model it off the Scout, but give it the processing power of an Operator. Call it a Pilot model. Use them as fighter pilots for the Knightmare Frames and anything that isn't being piloted by one of my mental model AI girls—so troop and cargo transports, gunships, that sort of thing.
As I made up improved designs, but held off on finalizing anything until after the results of the new materials tests were in, I considered just what I could use them for. What was I going to do with my own personal army?
Well, for one, put a four man group plus Operator with every single corvette I send out. Larger groups on larger ships—with the bigger ones fielding entire armies of androids. If terminator units are going to be the bulk of my ground troops, I could have them commanded directly by Operator units from orbit, or directed in the field by the other units. But just having them babysit the ground troops would be a waste. They're better used for special ops. So, give them their own dedicated fleets of frigates and corvettes with no human crew. Each corvette would have an operator and a squad of four. Frigates are big enough to store a couple of fighters or some other equipment, so let them pick what they want out of a list and swap it out as needed for each mission. Crew on those frigates would be one Commander, one Operator per team. They should be able to hold 2-300 human crew, so that's 300 androids and their gear. That's sixty five man teams if we count each operator as the fifth man to every four field operatives. Call it six pilots to be able to rotate them out if needed. I'll have the shipgirls flying their ships solo here, so we can convert a lot of space into room for Operators to work.
As for the Commanders, there has to be a command structure. Eh, do it by ship. Operators on corvettes report back either to their frigate or mothership for orders and to give reports. Commanders on frigates command the troops on those frigates and attached pack of ten corvettes. Groups of, call it five frigate groups report to cruisers, with the Commanders of the frigates reporting up to the ones on the cruisers. Those cruisers report up to a carrier or dreadnought mothership, depending on which they're attached to. Let's say twenty cruisers per carrier or dreadnought. Dreadnoughts and carriers report up to super dreadnoughts, report up to capital ships, report up to super capital ships, report to… someone who would then report to me. I can't throw all of that on Alpha.
So, system fleet structure, top down. One thousand mile super capital ship—which acts as a super carrier and shipyard. Ten one hundred mile capital ships under each. Attached to each capital ship are ten of the ten mile super dreadnoughts. Attached to each of those are five one mile dreadnoughts and five one mile carriers. Under those are twenty cruisers each, under which are five frigates each, under which are ten corvettes each. Not counting fighters, that makes for each fleet having 1,121,111 ships.
Every fleet. Which I intend to make for every system we inhabit.
The council is going to shit itself.
It's gonna be great.
That they were going to be staffed by androids, and separate from the small fleets I was giving each human colony (which would consist of that structure from a single dreadnought down, all to be crewed by humans with some supplemental androids) presented some interesting possibilities. And questions. Such as, should I allow for duplicates? Should I allow them all to network together, by type or all of them together regardless of type? I was leaning towards yes to allowing duplicates, if someone wanted to copy themselves, but a hard no to any sort of network. That seemed like a huge vulnerability just waiting to be exploited. Not to mention, it could lead to a loss of individuality—and I wanted every one of them to see themselves as individuals. Not disposable or replaceable, but each and every one of them valued individually for who they were.
Androids and gynoids with a human fetish. All of them technically sailors. Imagine how bad it's going to be when they take shore leave on a human colony.
My mental image was of a swarm of millions of boys and girls begging for headpats and praise from any human who would pay them attention.
Two years after making first contact with the quarians, eight years after the menu came into my life…
"You're sure it's safe?"
I took a deep breath in through my nose, even though the Remy I was in didn't need to breathe. "Admiral, for the very last time, I'm sure. Countless humans have gone through this process. We've spent the last year mapping quarian brains and doing dry runs just to make sure it would work. It. Will. Work. And if you ask me one more time… I am going to throw you into that chair and hold you down while I flip the switch myself, just so I don't have to hear any more waffling."
"Heh," admiral Haal'Raan vas Tonbay chuckled, before shaking his head. "Very well. Let's proceed, then."
Somehow, of all the quarians in the no longer migrating fleet, one of the first I'd spoken to and one of their ranking officers, had either volunteered or been voluntold to go first. It could have gone either way, and honestly, I didn't particularly care. All I cared about was proving for the admiralty that the body transfer process worked. Once they were convinced, then nearly their entire race would begin the process.
The admiral sat down in the chair provided and I tapped into my Focus and selected the appropriate commands. A moment later, his body went limp. A tube in the middle of the room opened, revealing the nude, purple form of a male quarian. A quarian with human hands and feet.
"God, put some clothes on. No one wants to see that thing," I held up a hand, covering my sight of alien dong.
Quarians actually looked shockingly similar to humans, naturally. Same facial structure, hair, eyebrows, bodies practically identical, with the only real differences being the hands, legs/knees, and feet. Well, those had been the only real differences. Now, those were no more.
Why opt to change that part of themselves?
That was my fault, actually. I'd given the admiralty each access to a Remy so they could speak with representatives from Earth 'in person,' so to speak. All but one of them had immediately loved the hands, because they were far more dexterous than their own hands. As for the feet… well, I was pretty sure more than one set of male and female admirals had taken some time to explore their Remy bodies together, and that was one of the things they had decided to change as a matter of cosmetic preference.
And now, there was a version of quarians with human hands and feet—completely genetically viable, heritable traits, but incompatible with other quarians.
Of course, that wasn't the only change that I'd helped them make. The benefits of a new body, even changing their bodies to suit their preferences, wouldn't have pushed over ninety percent of the species to opt for new bodies. No, that had to do with the fact that these bodies had a good immune system, and I had eliminated that dextro-levo diet bullshit and the root cause of it, allowing them to eat anything, just as humans could.
I might have also maybe made sure that they could breed with humans and produce viable hybrids, as all of the new bodies were about half human now anyway.
Haal'Raan stepped out of the tube, stumbling a bit as he took a moment to get his balance. Taking a deep breath, he held it a moment before letting it out, and taking another as he began testing the limits of his new body. "This is amazing!"
"I wasn't kidding about the clothes. Seriously. Tell your focus to make some," I grumbled.
The man chuckled and a moment later, he was covered in an outfit that looked nothing like the typical quarian suit. "To be able to wear normal clothes…" he shook his head as a smile crossed his lips. "To breathe the air and not have to worry about getting sick."
"I'll do you one better," I said, nodding towards the door. "Come on."
His grin widened as he followed eagerly, looking around everywhere. "To see without the need of a visor. No constant light filter. It's been years since the last time I took my helmet off."
We took a lift down to the bottom floor of the building and stepped out into the fresh, crisp air of northern Terra Nova. As we went, I tapped into my Focus and placed an order.
It was only a short walk before we were entering a restaurant—one of the few structures allowed that weren't one of the miles tall buildings that served as housing and offices, inside city limits. Outside city limits, people were free to build however they wanted, so long as it didn't screw up the environment or cause problems for anyone.
I held the door open for Haal'Raan as we stepped inside. 'Fast food' had survived as a concept, but it had been vastly improved and strictly regulated on the new colonies. They weren't allowed to serve the sort of slop I remembered from back on my original Earth. So when I picked up the two trays waiting for us and took them, and our drinks, outside to eat what was waiting for us was delicious—all the ingredients made locally and put together that morning.
"This is…?" Haal'Raan asked, looking down on it. "Keelah, that smells good!"
"It's a hamburger. A beef patty on a bun, with ketchup and mustard, lettuce, tomato, and onion. Those are fries," I pointed to the pack of french fries, before shifting to a bottle of ketchup on the table. "And that's ketchup, for dipping."
He watched for a moment as I picked mine up and began eating. "And it's safe—"
"I will hold you down…"
The admiral held up both hands in surrender, before carefully picking his burger up and taking a bite. "Ooh my," he groaned, and I chuckled.
"Beats the hell out of that crap you've been eating, right?"
"You have no idea," he answered around a mouthful as he began to sample everything on the plate.
"Well, make sure you tell your people. If they start tomorrow, we can have them done inside a year. Just in time for New Rannoch to finish the terraforming process. I understand that those of your people who don't want to take new bodies have opted for medical nanites to boost their immune system and decided to settle at the equator for now, and then move to New Rannoch upon its completion?"
"They have," the admiral nodded. "Thank you again—"
I waved him off. "Don't worry about it. If the situations were reversed, I'd hope someone would do the same for us." Picking up a couple of fries, I took a moment to swipe up some ketchup and eat them. Perfectly cut, cooked to just the right temperature, with just the right amount of salt. I made a mental note to grab some in person the next time I was in the neighborhood.
"So," I sent him a grin, "what do you think the Council is going to say about your people walking around without their suits?"
"Mm. Well, they won't. Not for a while. We already have plans in place. If this went well, and so far everything seems to be going very well," he grinned, waving a fry before popping it in his mouth. "We've given orders to a few of our fleet to spread out and find those of our people on Pilgrimage, and to stop by the Citadel to quietly collect them. Pilgrimage is canceled for now, while we settle in, and they deserve to know. They deserve a chance to breathe fresh air and everything else we've been missing. There has been some talk amongst the Conclave of withdrawing from Citadel space for a time. Severing ties for a few years, to build ourselves back up, while we have the chance. Do some much needed maintenance. Perhaps even arm our ships."
"You're thinking about trying for Rannoch."
Haal'Raan winced, then nodded. "Yes. After we take a few years to recover and rebuild here."
Humming, I finished off my burger and leaned back in my chair. I sent a ping to Alpha.
Leon: Alpha, what's the status of the First Fleet?
I only had to wait a moment for a response.
Alpha: Ah, I meant to make it a surprise when we came back to Eden Prime. …Surprise?
Alpha sent me a data packet and I quickly read over it, my mouth falling open slightly. The First Fleet had been completed, thanks to the wonders of geometric growth. They had even incorporated the very newest materials and technology I had submitted to Alpha for testing.
Over a million ships, ready to go.
Multiple zero point modules powering each ship, with redundant backup seventh generation arc reactors—a badassium ring around a spherical Sakuradite core, with an alloy of naquadah-trinium-beskar wire creating a super conductive magnet around that, encased in more NTB alloy; all of which had gone through the eezo/graviton enhancement process. Hypermatter NTB armor. Multiple shield systems. Enough firepower to destroy planets.
All of them, mental model AI shipgirls, waiting to meet me—though, there was a bit of a twist there. The shipgirls had done what I hadn't wanted the android girls to do. Every ship of a type had merged their consciousness across a network, syncing their experiences. So every corvette was Delta. Not some version of Delta—no, because they were completely synced, every single one of them was Delta. Likewise, every super capital ship would be Alpha. Which meant that thankfully, there were only five other mental models I hadn't met yet waiting to meet me.
Every one of those ships was crewed by Nier type android girls and boys, just as I'd been planning. Every last one of them built with every bit of new tech we had available to make them a fighting force second to none. And of those, apparently I had staff I needed to meet that represented both the various models and the command staff specifically.
According to Alpha, there were seven other super capital ships working on constructing their own fleets in various human systems—and more planned, for the systems not on the mass relay network. Systems that were in the process of being terraformed, or where terraforming had finished, and Alpha was planning to have humans grown and raised as soon as she could build and deploy a new type of caretaker android to look after them. She didn't plan to stop until she hit the trillions, in numbers of ships.
"Huh."
"Hm?" the quarian across from me hummed as he sucked on the last of his soda. "Ah, all gone."
"Refills are free," I pointed out, and his eyes lit up in excitement. He made to stand and I interrupted. "Why don't you let me take a crack at it?"
"At a refill?" he asked, confused.
"At Rannoch." His mouth opened as panic filled his face. "Don't worry, I'll be careful. I just want to go see if I can talk to them."
"You can't talk to the Geth! The machines will kill you! Even if you take that dreadnought, it won't be enough to give them pause. They'll just send more ships—their own dreadnoughts."
"Nah, it'll be fine," I waved him off. "Why would I take a colony ship? I'm just going to talk."
He rolled his eyes, and I was amused to see that we shared that gesture in common. "Still sticking to that line. 'It's just a colony ship,' you say, when that beast has more weapons on it than any Turian dreadnought by half. You're insane."
I grinned, before visibly, obviously looking around us. Finally, I locked eyes with him as he abruptly got the message. That all of this, everything he saw around us, was only possible because of me. It was almost entirely all my tech, or directly created by my tech. That he wouldn't even be sitting here if it weren't for me.
My Focus pinged with a message from Delta and I chuckled. "While we've been talking, the Lone Wolf has already started moving. Thanks to your maps of all the systems and relays you know, we don't need to explore those relays. I'll send drones just to verify, but you've made my job easier. Specifically, I don't have to hunt for Rannoch. I can just go straight there."
I could have gotten there faster, but I wanted to coordinate everything with the First Fleet and make sure I wasn't going in without backup. So it was more that we would begin the operation in twelve hours, but we'd be parked outside the system long before then.
"Keelah, this is madness," he muttered.
I shrugged. Standing up, I gathered my tray and trash and the admiral followed as I went to drop everything off. "I suppose this is as good a time to learn about human nature as any. We're all a little mad. The people that are here? They all volunteered to follow a 'billionaire playboy' and a 'boy genius' on a colony ship no one else had ever set foot on, using a method of FTL that none of them understand, to go to a planet that might just be worse than the one they were leaving, without bringing supplies with them because I told them it wasn't necessary, all for the chance to be pioneers. And then, when the first group reported back that it was all good, more joined them. People took a risk trading up their bodies for improved models, but they did it because the benefits outweighed the risks, and we already had people who had been through the process. All throughout human history, we've pushed ever forward. We've braved countless dangers. Even when we knew the place we were going was hostile, filled with people looking to kill us, we still went. Going to greater lengths, new heights, all in search of new horizons."
Dropping the tray off, I turned to the admiral and smiled. "If you think your little mistake is going to stop a determined human, you are sorely mistaken. I'll let you know how it goes."
With that, I had my Focus beam my Remy back to my locked apartment on Terra Nova. Opening my eyes on the Lone Wolf, I found Delta perched on the arm of my chair, staring into my eyes from an inch away. She pulled back slightly and I saw a wide, toothy grin on her lips as her tail swished back and forth.
"I love a good hunt~."