Jessica ignored her brother as he continued designing metallic and organic body options for his cute little girlfriends, focusing on her own interests while he bathed in technological and biological advancements far beyond anything she'd ever even heard about before.
Because while he was constructing a metallic gynoid with impossible materials that could easily transition into a biological goddess of peerless power and beauty, Jessica was looking into something equally as interesting: History.
The history of these people, the Borg.
It was fascinating stuff!
Oh, it had a bloody past like most nations did, with atrocities against the natives and all that, but from what she could tell looking at the grand picture? Despite overwhelming all opponents and conquering everyone and everything in existence, the Borg was TERRIBLE at conflict.
And lazy.
Lazy and terrible.
It had to do with how the species operated as a Hive mind… Specifically, the collective of Hive Minds that formulated the whole mess.
While the central networks developed resources and did all the things a society did to thrive, the outer edges? The bits that actually went out to battle and gather samples and genetics and technology?
It was practically trash.
After all, why BOTHER putting in effort taking over everyone else when your random garbage could win just as easily? Why send the best ships, the most powerful drones, the overwhelming technology?
Just send cubes of random trash gathered along the way piloted by the species collected during conflict, and use them as cannon fodder.
Not only did it save TONS of resources, but it got rid of all the useless and unhappy biological and technological people enslaved in the process. Plus lots of free data, as experimental and almost random procedures would be used on the drones out there on the front lines!
This tinkering on newly captured lab subjects massively expanded the medical databases and improved the data needed to work with the collected genetic samples in future generations, and any mental contamination was all collected into the isolated hive mind collectives that focused on expansion and combat.
After all, it was MUCH more efficient to use the new genetic codes to raise happy children here in the core systems, far away from the ongoing conflict and war, using the data gathered from the assimilated species killing each other in that distant battle. More productive too.
But as Jessica looked through historical data, it was clear that taking over everything had mostly just been… A lazy side effect of not wanting to do it directly.
The outer edges of expansion was a simple disposable hive mind of insane and furious captives that frantically followed a generic directive of 'They must be assimilated. Gather biological and technological distinctiveness. Resistance is futile.'
That was it.
It just turned out that such a half assed and lazy attempt was more than all those unorganized and ununified species could endure. Even without additional resources and support from the rest of the Borg Collective… That was enough.
Yet… Something felt wrong about all this. It didn't feel right.
So Jessica began to look into this deeper. Using the connecting John set up for her to design her new body to also research the available information shared on the network.
It didn't take long to see something interesting.
Apparently? There was some debate about whether the local Borg collectives permitted the outer clusters of conflict collectives to go so far off the rails deliberately, especially considering how peacefully some planets had been assimilated into the OTHER less conflict oriented collectives, albeit at a much slower pace…
But by this point it was just idle historical arguments and debates centuries after the whole mess. Mostly.
That was, until you looked in a different direction.
What caught Jessica's interest was one the biggest opponents the Borg had ever faced: A powerful series of entities collectively known as the 'Q'.
Not so much because the Q were opposing what had been, at the time, an unstoppable force… No.
Jessica was fascinated by the MOTIVATION of the Q, and WHY they resisted the Borg's ongoing spread throughout the galaxy.
After all, there were many historical documents from the collected species, historical documents BETTER and more comprehensive than most of those conquered places ever had managed to gather, that showed there were MANY species like the Borg out there.
Atrocities happened all over the place, many times, to and by and affecting many creatures and places, but the Q didn't really care.
People and creatures and entities existed all over the place that conquered and fought and took over each other, some for little or not logical reason. The Q showed no concern.
Hell, there was even something called a 'Tribble' that would dominate any planet it occupied accidentally just due to being too talented at sex!
And these Q didn't care about them, or the many war hungry races, or the many plague spreading species or any of that.
Because those other threats, those other issues… They were transitory.
A group would grow, become powerful… And decline, vanishing into history.
But apparently the Borg's many collectives, the communal nature of their society where the isolated networks of minds and thoughts gathered into one massive whole… It had something the other issues in reality didn't. Something other threats lacked.
It had stability.
The reason why these most powerful entities in existence (At least known to the Borg at this point) bothered to push back against the Borg's expansion?
Q's got bored.
They had so much power, so much raw authority over how reality was defined and operated… That it got old. Not just predictable, but definable! A level of boredom beyond any mortal mind.
So they made rules. Rules enforced by the only entities that could ever restrain them: Themselves.
Those rules prevented them from just… 'Fixing' reality. Or fully breaking it. Or both.
They could nudge it, they could call in help or cheat or all sorts of things… Rewrite time, bring in impossible macguffins, almost pull Deus Ex Machina's, you name it!
But when the Borg became an issue, a growing mass of stability and expanding a domain lacking that raw chaos that kept the Q so fascinated… Well, very few of those 'nudges' worked.
Some files in this database even implied that a few Q attempted to just wipe the slate clean, furious over how 'boring' the future dominated by the species would become, regardless of their OWN rules!
To delete the entire concept of the Borg entirely. Wipe them out on a Conceptual level.
An unavoidable end.
Yet such an instant death was only avoided due to other troll-like Q's that were beyond tickled pink and enthusiastic to mess with their fellow Q's plans. Like other crabs keeping their neighbors from escaping the catch bucket, the Q's themselves became their own biggest obstacle.
Because the only thing more important than preventing an eternity of boredom and 'lame peace'... Was being able to prank their coworkers.
So eventually, as far as the Borg could tell, the Q Continuum just… Left. Somewhere.
No one knew when, or where they went, or if they were gone forever… But that was it.
No more planets suddenly being filled with taco wielding dinosaurs or onion eldritch, no more super enhanced spaceships showing up in critical sectors with no warning, no more 'unexpected glitches' causing Borg Cubes to self detonate randomly or important drones committing suicidal acts spontaneously in key locations.
Without the Q stirring things up, things became much more predictable… And the Borg was even able to eventually decommission the 'trash' combat collective and focus on more important things. Like efficiency, redundancy, and adaptation… Such as how to fully integrate the distinctions and cultures and genetic variations gathered into a more perfect whole.
Towards the end, many newly discovered species willingly JOINED the collective, just like in the old days, now that their first interaction with the Borg wasn't with the insane war waging trash drones and garbage cubes.
It was the logical thing to do, since there were many benefits…
Impossible medical knowledge, biological immortality, technological advancements beyond anything known locally, uplifting of the lowest tiers of society, and in many cases? An improvement of the local community and their culture, as they joined a newly created local sub-collective and began to truly understand each other… And gained context by being exposed to the even greater Borg Collective overminds.
This wasn't a lie, or a trick, or a long term scheme either…
After all, if the Borg wanted to wipe out distinctiveness and force bland conformity, why would they have collected it to begin with?
Obviously the groups assimilated by the psycho garbage war collective had a different opinion on all these topics, and again: Fair. That trash army just grew more and more violent and unhinged the longer and longer it was out there furiously conquering and thrashing anyone they stumbled into, with every mind they forced into their screaming collective.
But there was ALSO a fairly popular theory that the whole REASON why the Trash Army had gone so far off the rails in the FIRST place was because of a Q plot that had gone awry.
After all, if Jessica was reading this correctly, the FIRST groups of the 'Conflict Collective' were more meant to be ablative armor for the Borg than invaders to begin with.
A shield of fearless warriors that would aggressively patrol outer edges of their sectors, eliminate any threat, and assimilate said threat to improve the defenses of the Collective as a whole while also providing valuable biological and technological distinctiveness to improve the core worlds.
As for when said 'defenses' had shifted to 'offenses'? It was undocumented.
When had the Collective adjusted the standing orders for the 'trash collective'? Also undocumented.
Why the Collective's movements toward reviewing said 'trash collective' remained locked in debate circles and sub collectives and logic centers for years? Again, undocumented.
More than a little suspicious… But no actual evidence to point towards the entities that were beyond all powerful. No Q ever took credit for this, or claimed responsibility.
For all they knew, these theories could all just be a lie. The Borg may have, on some level, just decided to become conquers and then retroactively removed evidence of said decisions… Or it could have been incompetence or poor luck. They were much less advanced back then, after all.
But regardless, after the Q left? It was suddenly easy to regain control of the insane war front drones and their garbage cubes. Trivial even.
Jessica leaned back as she considered the entire mess from HER point of view… And felt that it was awfully convenient that a society that promoted stability and understanding, reducing the amount of chaos and 'interesting shit' in the galaxy… Was suddenly then represented to outsiders by an insane pile of rabid trash monsters that consumed entire species in rage and fire and death and pain.
For years. Many years, even.
Mostly without others being aware of the full horrific nature of it all, despite having a direct connection between their many collectives and the raging outer army.
Very convenient.
…Pulling up more information, Jessica began highlighting any and all data about the Q and similar level threats documented within the massive, beyond impressive databases. Pointing them out to John's Pocket System, marking them as critical information.
And she would make DAMNED sure that John kept an eye out for these 'Q' in the future.
Just in case.
~~~Pocket System~~~
John carefully Crafted a metal stick… And pulled it out of his Pocket.
THIS time, it only had a TINY pop instead of an explosion. Progress! "Right, the testing stick seems to be working now."
It had different tiny samples of extreme materials and energies on it, a standardized product to test future Realms before exposing his sister or the girls or his Pocket Pals to anything.
THIS one for example, showed that the Essence Orb had collapsed, the magical spark had extinguished, the Borg nanites were fine, and several of the more odd materials were either altered or had lost or altered the energies attached to them.
Which made sense. "Conceptual stuff works, but a bit oddly. Essence is too unstable to be safe for the girls, which makes sense because even in the last world if it FULLY operated as expected they would have shifted back into standard Iron golems instead of their current forms. Magic is out, but impossible Science is still in…"
After all, nanites could easily be made in most realities… But even with something as big as legos, if you connected a bunch of small ones into a chain it would be flexible like a rope. And if you could build impossible shapes in Lego using the tiny amount of give in the connections, then chaining up nanites or microbots or whatever should NEVER be able to make a solid pole or sturdy wall or whatever.
But thanks to enough Science? Bam! Nanites can now share programming, work as a collective, construct anything of any size, instantly replicate without flaws or special materials or unique environments at beyond impossible speeds, etc.
When it got TOO extreme, Science, Magic, and Belief were basically interchangeable really.
Anyway, it was an important thing to keep in mind. After all, a few Science materials that would work fine HERE were beyond the ability of other Realities to exist, as shown by the test stick.
John made a mental note of what stuff would likely be usable in most places. "Thankfully a lot of this stuff is nearly impossible to MAKE elsewhere, but should EXIST there easily enough once the impossible bit is taken care of in places like this or in my Pocket. Right, let's cover the basics."
The genetic organic forms for his girls were… Still being reviewed. And they'd likely have an opinion or two anyway, and he KNEW Temptation was going to want to be there to shape her new form and tease him miraculously thanks to his unplanned biological maturity.
Which, again thanks to hormones, he was both dreading and looking forward too.
Anyway, moving on! "Metallic skeleton structure… Well, I don't need to care about how it interacts with liquids or organics or whatever, so let's see what we have…"
Exclude the metals with esoteric effects, and the stuff with ores that might not exist on the average Earth… "Magnesium alloys, huh? That could work."
Alloys in general tended to be good ideas, due to how adding certain impurities could drastically strengthen or improve other products, but apparently the stuff was VERY useful.
Lighter than Aluminum and stronger than titanium alloys, and the Borg had researched that to find variants even more impressive when you were able to control the atomic layout of a material during matter materialization.
Seriously, this reality had AMAZING fabrication and energy technology! Just the database of food and drinks, along with the enhanced replicator to construct them as needed, THAT was worth this trip alone, never mind AWESOME construction tools like these!
Especially since these improved variants had all the benefits of thousands upon thousands of cultures and alien scientists working on them over the centuries, using previously confidential techniques and designs normally restricted to labs or the military.
At this point, John was just basically given access to a Fabricator, a Scanning module, and a Dematerialization node and he was set even if he lost access to his Pocket entirely. Or he could give them to his girls and they could help build stuff too!
Oh sure, the girls would need some energy and matter storage units to HOLD the materials they collected, but with THESE three bits? Scan anything, recycle anything, build anything.
Crazy shit.
Anyway, that advanced stuff wouldn't be in the base model. "Now let's find some acceptable muscle replacements… Something that contracts with a charge of energy or heat, something simple…"
He'd build several bodies, just so Grace and Temptation could join him and help construct new prototypes, something they'd actually LIKE to use… But even if these were only temporary bodies, he wouldn't slack off doing the best he could on designing this.
They were important, after all.
Damn it. "All the most realistic skin alternatives that work in other realities is going to be categorized under the sex dolls stuff, isn't it?"
Temptation was NOT going to let that go, he just knew it.
...Maybe he should make their initial avatars more basic? At least until they have a say in this... Yeah, that sounded like a good idea.