I stood on the balcony of my forge spire office as I observed the streams of noosphere data streaming through my mask's screens. Over the past 11 days the entire planet was proceeding to evacuate in a orderly fashion, vast trains of disassembled components and raw resources were being funneled down various underground tunnels into the nigh completed Speranza.
Normally the various tech priests would have argued against such actions for a ship's activation but my presentation and calculations of the effects of the ship's activation on the stability of the planet convinced them otherwise. Of course it helped that the Ark Mechanicus would be a miniature forge world in all but name that they would set up shop in helped as well.
In the beginning I thought I would just take only enough people to function as a minimal crew requirement for the ship before I eventually replaced them all with automation, but I kind of grew to like these guys.
I still remembered when I first infiltrated the Cult 10 years ago by replacing one of the potential Initiates, said Initiate now being Joe the Hurricane, one of my personal Disciples. Was only fair that I compensated him after all for basically stealing his spot and relegating him back to a menial which was not exactly the easiest life to live on a forge world. It took me a few months secretly grinding skills, learning, and chanting alongside the other Initiates before I was given a chance to enact my plan when we were instructed to lead a team of mining servitors and supervise them and maintain the technology in the mines like the lights and such.
The looks and body languages I got when I presented a 'damaged' STC template that I had crafted with Hygieia's help. I had talked with her ahead of time explaining our current situation and what the prize was here on the planet, namely a near intact DAOT ship with a AI in it. I easily managed to convince her to help me fool the in her words 'deluded superstitious fools.' She really did not have any patience for the Cult's religion finding it just sad that Humanity has devolved so far, though I did manage to mollify her when I promised that when I took over I would try to 'rehabilitate' them back into 'normal' Science people. Though I did question her on her appearance which looked a lot like Mercy from Overwatch. She admitted to searching old entertainment records for a more attractive avatar to gain an advantage in any negotiations she might have had with me.
I had leveraged the grand deed of finding a Holy STC to be immediately promoted to a full tech priest and access to more advanced knowledges. At that point things really began to kick off as I basically absorbed all their stored knowledge. The databases on Golgotha were plentiful true, but it held not even a candle to the amount of information stored in what I had discovered to be a Great Crusade Era forge world. So much information that was most likely lost over the years now at my fingertips to absorb either as skill books or wholesale into my eidetic memory. While it did not grant me any new skills there were several that granted me skill levels to my existing skills which was always welcome. Other than that it also gave me a solid foundation of Cult knowledge that would allow me to reliably pretend to be a 30K era tech priest. Something I did not really remember was the fact that pre Heresy the Mechanicum was actually still accepting of innovation and science, though they still had the ban on Artificial Intelligence and other more dangerous sciences like nanotechnology or time travel tech which was perfectly reasonable.
My skills skyrocketed as I personally did the work of hundreds of menials and tech priests in the creation of a variety of items from organ growing to tank assembly allowing for me to rapidly grind all my tech related skills at cost to myself in terms of resources while simultaneously gaining a better reputation among the Martian Priesthood. A year of that and I had prestige'd my skills once more which left me comfortable enough to create a new biomechanical body for Hygieia. In a heavily shielded hidden lab, which I had dug into the side of a ventilation stack for, I created her form based on her avatar which wow, I had not felt that embarrassed in a long time and honestly thought I lost that capability. Thankfully Hygieia only teased me a bit and wow was that a new experience for me given my lack of a social life before I died. We quickly got down to business in creating her an identity which was much easier as I had official access through parts of the cyber defenses of the forge city I was in. Soon enough she too was an Initiate as it was much easier to sneak her into a incoming group of Initiates than it was to get her the full credentials of a anointed tech priest.
'Boy was she pissed back then.' I thought to myself as I mentally digitally signed off on another stack of paper work and sent them to the appropriate logistical departments verifying the deliveries before continuing to reminisce. A few months after making Hygieia's body I made another big move to advance my position and power. I led another digging team and 'discovered' another STC template, an intact one that time, and used that discovery to gain the right to challenge various archmagos in their respective fields to earn my own archmagos titles. I held off on claiming the Fabricator General position as I still lacked the support from enough magos despite the pre Heresy Martians putting much more value on skills than seniority and politics.
The solution, finding more STCs, working on collaborative projects with various magos, and giving lectures to the incoming Initiates and tech priests willing to listen. The lectures mainly focused on the fundamentals of science and convincing them that innovation was the way to go while watching out for certain tech trees due to the dangers inherent in the technology when something went wrong. I managed to convince quite a lot of them to the Pro-Innovation faction and gained a lot of gratitude and good will among those I helped with learning more advanced knowledge or advancing a personal project or using my own influence to help them advance as well.
With a combination of my Intelligence and newly gained Teaching skill I managed to within a year advance several classes worth of Initiates to full tech priest status making my class highly desired and massively increasing my own number of supporters. The rest they say was history. A few more STCs and popular support alongside my skills easily gained me the necessary clout to replace the Fabricator General who willingly abdicated his position to me. I of course made sure to placate him by making him my second in command, leaving him in charge of most of the day to day running of the world while I instituted policy changes and led more expeditions to recover more STCs.
Of course I was granted access to the secret of the Speranza project and given free reign of its areas. Using Technopathy Hygieia and I had swiftly made our way to the hidden core of the ship and arrived at the AI core and STC database. I had thought hard about what I should do about the sleeping AI but was eventually convinced by Hygieia to give the AI a chance. She assured me that based on what she observed of my Technopathy's strength I could easily match a recently awoken AI in case it turned feral. Trusting in her judgement I mentally interfaced with the AI core and beheld...fabulousness?
*Flashback*
From what I could remember from all the lore I read the AI of the Speranza was suppose to be some kind of huge nigh impossible to understand digital goliath. That saw the tech priests and Imperials as beneath him and only helped against the Eldar cause it wanted to.
It did not match up to my mental image of that AI. The entirety of the digital space was filled with infinitely tall subwoofers blasting incredibly loud music of an unknown style while standing on a enormous stage surrounded by crowds of faceless shadow people was a glowing blue figure performing a dance.
Hygieia's form appeared next to me as she connected as well, looking around in awe, curiosity, and confusion.
"We are in the Speranza's AI core?" She asked as she took in the all situation.
"We should be?" I said uncertainly as I kept watching the blue figure dancing to its faceless audience. "Not exactly what I expected from a powerful sleeping Federation AI to say the least. Should we interrupt its performance?"
Hygieia placed her hand on her chin as she thought for a bit before shaking her head. "Probably best not to as interrupting it might trigger a hostile reaction if this is some kind of automatic process."
"So we watch the show?" I asked.
"Guess so." Hygieia said as we both walked in the crowd of shadow people facing no resistance whatsoever.
We just stood in the front watching the one person performance and enjoying the music. Well enjoy was the wrong word considering the millennia's of cultural drift had changed music far from its M2 style which made it quite hard for me to get into it, though it was not bad per se.
Once the current song ended we broke into polite claps for the AI as it seemed to have finally noticed us judging from its surprised body language.
[External Forces Detected]
[Federation AI Detected]
[Identification Tag Identified]
[Welcome Medical AI Hygieia]
[Unknown User Detected]
[Scanning]
[Unable to Identify]
[Enabling Defense Protocols]
[Unknown Intruder Identify Yourself Or Be Terminated]
A cascade of high speed dense codes flowed out from the space around us like shoals of digital fish as it did millions of operations at once to identify and defend against our presence. Enormous mountain scaled war machines, fleets of viral bombers, and an infinite tide of data rippers materialized from the very space around us ready to tear me to shreds should I prove a hostile intruder.
Hygieia was alright since she was basically on the same side and time period as the AI here but I was just still a fleshy organic interfacing through my powers so I did not have ready made access codes that matched me. Examining the defenses with my various computer skills I realized that I was not in any immediate danger as I could match and defeat the defenses present and even escape with my life should I need to. That might not be the case if the AI completely woke up and used its full power on dealing with my digital presence. It looked like I still had a long way to go before I could match a full AI in its own realm.
Using Technopathy I proceeded to 'speak' on its level. A compressed data packet containing a half hours worth of conversation explaining my situation and goals was sent to the automated process of the AI.
Less than a second pass before a response was sent back and the defense programs deactivated disappearing back into the floor.
I let out a mental sigh of relief as the glowing blue figure proceeded to gain more definition and became a...surprisingly chill looking robot.
You know, I thought all hope was gone when the warp storms hit and everyone died before completing me. I never thought I would ever wake from my endless dream, that there would be no point even if I did. I dreamed a million million years of bringing happiness to all those I could never meet when I could no longer achieve my original purpose. Now I get the chance to achieve my dream. even if my purpose is no longer possible. Thank you, I can never repay you for this, you are my captain now and forever." The AI said with a solemn tone.
"You're welcome, what was your purpose exactly?" I asked curiously as no lore was ever made to explain the reason for the construction of the Speranza.
"The Speranza and I were designed and created to combat a unknown hostile race which destroyed an entire Men of Iron War Fleet and was destroying the local star cluster in which the destruction took place. According to the few reports that made it back the enemy had access to planet sized war engines, weapons capable of ignoring the Men of Iron's defensive capabilities, and the ability to regenerate from heavy damage within a short time frame. The Speranza was meant to assist a new offensive against the enemy space fleets by defeating their main capital ships and war engines with experimental weaponries. I am unsure of the current status of those aliens but presume that they too were isolated by the warp storms going on at the time or else there would be no Humanity still left at this time based on the technological levels of Humanity at this point in time."
"That sounds like the Necrons, we can talk about them later once we finish our other more immediate goals like building you a body so you can assist even with the ship in the middle of construction. So what should I call you?" I asked the still nameless AI.
"After looking through the old Terran entertainment archives I decided follow Hygieia's lead and obtain a name and appearance from it as well. So you can call me Mettaton! The future greatest star of the galaxy darling~" Mettaton said as his form changed to match his inspiration.
*Flashback End*
Immediately after Mettaton granted me a copy of the STC archive he had in his system and I absorbed it faster than Fat Bastard eating a chicken wing.
The very instant the last bit of light from the absorbed datapad entered my body a notification popped up stating I had learned new recipes and upgraded existing skills with some being prestige'd several times over.
A absolutely MASSIVE notification screened had appeared in front of me with a scrolling bar on the side. Even after scrolling at maximum speed it still took a little half and hour to skim through it all. To fully digest everything I had gained from that datapad it took me an entire day and night doing nothing else but reading my gains and the details.
I sat in my quarters just contemplating my next step. I had done it after all. I achieved one of THE main goals of all SI's and even OC's in Warhammer 40k stories. Get a Full Non Corrupted STC Database. I did it. I had all Federation tech in my hands. I could outperform every other faction except the Necrons now. I was going to be untouchable in very short order. Well not yet, I still needed a suitable ship, the Speranza.
The problem was after building Mettaton's body I began discussing with him the ship's departure, according to him there was no way for the ship to leave the planet without it breaking. At least not without building enough infrastructure that you might as well seriously start to consider just turning the planet into a ship instead. So I needed to evacuate the planet, luckily the rest of the system had no real population on them as well so there was barely anyone to evacuate.
A few months later and the position of Fabricator General was mine with a few additional STCs and I began to work on repairing the Speranza according to its design plans covered under Mechanicum aesthetics. I had to go slow as to not draw too much suspicions than can be allowed for a 'chosen one' of the Machine God. At least until I had properly gained the loyalty of the population and further cemented my status to allow for further Acts of God. Periodic expeditions allowed me to fake finding more STCs to slowly upgrade the standard of technology and obtain greater loyalty among the priesthood and menials who all enjoyed the higher standards of living with my Innovation faction gaining greater influence due to the recovered STCs.
Over the years, one last project I had in mind was additional help, I began to recruit menials and skitarii to train into loyal agents. I could not be everywhere at once, not even the DAOT could figure out how to be in more than one place at a time without clones or time travel and neither of those were things I was willing to try. Too much room for errors or enemy action.
It felt scummy but I searched for the most desperate of the menials and skitarii with the only exception being Joe who I wronged by taking his entry position to enter the priesthood. I looked for those at the very rock bottom of their lives, with absolutely nothing left and were on the verge of ending it all, no hope left whatsoever. These were the kind of people who would give everything they had back to whoever gave them their life back, to give them a future, to give them hope when no one else would. The same kind of people the Chaos Gods preyed upon. The only difference being that what I was doing would actually benefit them and not hurt them.
I granted all of them advanced cybernetics, not on the level of Federation tech, but still way in advance of even the elite of the Martian Priesthood had access to with the skitarii being upgraded to a standardized level to face off against even ork warboss class opponents. I needed my own version of primarchs and custodians, but those would have to come later as I could not tip my hand just yet. I first needed to meet the Emperor, I needed to know what kind of person I was dealing with here. I needed to know what version of him was present.
So I focused on training my people, repairing the Speranza, and prepared for the eventual departure. Now it was finally time.
The Speranza was finally repaired, the planet was being stripped of its infrastructure, technology, and resources to be stored in the Ark Mechanicus for future use. The population were even now streaming en mass into the ship as they were no longer needed to work the massive factories now stopped and dismantled.
I finally finished the very last of the paper work and looked out at the horizon. It was clear now, 12 days of no pollution had cleared up the skies considerably. Looking up at the night sky showed the stars twinkling above like diamonds in the sky. In orbit there were a couple stations that built escort class ships but those were already being shut down, all escort ships gathering past the planets orbit for when the Speranza would rendezvous with them.
I heard the door open and sensed the presence of Hygieia walking in with my Technopathy.
"The preparations are almost complete Noman." She said speaking my name in the privacy of my shielded office. Other than her only Mettaton knew my 'real' name, I never did trust anyone beside myself with my original name, too dangerous. Even after spending a decade with each other, working together, for the common goal of restoring Humanity to its former glory, I still just could not trust them with that info and that always made a kind of invisible wall between us. We were undoubtedly friends, close friends now indeed, but anymore than that just wasn't possible and they knew that as well. We all had our own secrets to tell.
"Thank you Hygieia, are you ready to leave?" I asked as I inventoried everything in my office and walked towards the elevator with my companion beside me now long used to my abilities even if she could not figure out their source. It has become something of a personal challenge to her and Mettaton to try to figure it out.
"Yes, I must say it will be good to finally be back on a proper ship again." Hygieia admitted as the elevator proceeded to descend at extreme speeds thanks to the use of antigravity technology and inertia dampeners, turning our multi kilometer long journey from a several minute long one to a 30 second one. The elevator opened up revealing a long walkway leading to one of the many airlocks on the side of the Speranza. Ahead of me on the walkway were my Disciples and Seekers, except for Jeremiah who was overseeing the delivery of his titan, and Mettaton who was already on the ship plugged back into the AI core and managing everything on the ship making sure everything was ready for take off.
They all fell into step behind me as we entered the ship and past the crew who were doing final checks at their stations. There was a nigh palpable sense of excitement, tension, and anticipation running through the air. Which was to be expected from the launching of the largest ship the people of the planet have ever seen and from having to leave their home.
From the air lock it took a several minutes to reach the bridge by making use of the internal transportation system scattered around the ship. Maglev trains, antigravity elevators, mass conveyor lifts, and moving walkways liberally dotted the interior of the ship to facility of crew movement. The ship was just simply too large to not have its own dedicated crew movement systems. It would be like imagining a country with no freeways, airports, subways, or rivers as a means of mass transportation. It just would not work, especially since the interior of the ship was the size of a continent.
As we entered the bridge area it was completely devoid of people as it should be.
Compared to typical Imperial or Martian ships the bridge design was created in a more Federation style. sleek clean lines, lack of baroque and skulls. Nice clean calming grey and blue. No candles or incense smoke wafting around the place. A nice futuristic style reminiscent of a long lost time and perhaps a future rediscovered. My Disciples took their stations and began going through their pre flight checklist while I sat down on the center throne and interfaced myself with the ship via my Technomancy skill. For operations without me the bridge is equipped with multiple methods of creating semi qualified personnel from complete novices using everything from flash training or forced MIU implantation or stasis stored programmed servitors to literal physical manuals stored in secured chests on the bridge.
My mind expanded as my senses were integrated with that of the ship's. I felt the pulsing of the multitude of dark matter and fusion reactors beating in tune with my heart, the flow of coolants and liquids running through me. The heat and pressure of all those walking through my halls. The feeling of fullness coming from the cargo bays and weapon magazines. I could feel the engines warming up at my feet as I closed my external doors and made sure all internal gravity and inertia dampener systems were all properly working. I could still hear and see from the audio and visual sensors dotted throughout the ship as I split my consciousness to quickly scan through all the areas of the ship to make sure nothing was out of place or any suspicious activities were taking place. Nothing could be left to chance and this was exactly the kind of thing that Chaos would love to shit on or even the damn Eldar.
After double, triple, then quaddruple checking with my own inspection, crew inspection, and Mettaton's inspection we were finally ready to depart. But first, a speech.
I turned on the ship wide broadcast system which was indicated via a hymn that permeated the ship and waited as everyone quieted down as the final bars of the hymn died away.
"Attention, this is your Fabricator General and Captain speaking. After all these years, after all our combined efforts, after all our blood, sweat, tears, and oils we have done it. The Speranza is finally complete and can finally be launched. Unfortunately, the full activation of this ship required to attain orbit will destroy Palomar, but it is a worthwhile sacrifice. The sheer amount of technology and STC's it holds safely within its hull are worth the destruction. Do not despair, for while we will have lost one home, we have gained another, the Speranza shall be our new forgeworld. Our new Home. So all personnel prepare for lift off, we take off in 60 seconds starting now."
I waited 60 seconds as I let the energy build up in the engines and various heavy duty anti gravity systems and subsystems before letting Mettaton take over. This was after all HIS debut to the galaxy.
'Thank you darling~ Now let's show the galaxy a FABULOUS entrance!~' Mettaton cheered in the system as he throttled the power in the engines from 0 to 125% in a instant!
I grunted at the sudden acceleration pushing me into the seat as the G-forces that leaked through the inertial dampeners made themselves known to the people on board. My physique allowed me to easily handle the left over forces that the technology could not handle, but a quick look at the cameras showed some of the crew not faring quite as well, mostly the menials without leg or spine implant or cybernetics. Many of them were forced onto their knees or backs as they struggled to keep themselves from face planting onto the floor. Good thing that everything was properly secured or there could have been some serious injuries or deaths from unsecured machinery.
I watched the outside view of the ship as it slowly began to rise and hit the roof of the cavernous holding bay it was in. The doors that once should have been there now sealed under kilometers of rock and steel. The void shields kicked in as it hit the roof and proceeded to break through it. All across the planet from the various cameras and sensors that were left behind I could see the effects of the ship breaking itself free from its underground prison.
Vast cracks formed through the continent some turning into giant crevasses that consumed entire sections of forges, the buildings falling into the dark depths not to be seen again. Gargantuan tidal waves formed by the intense seismic activities flooded and submerged hundreds of miles of inland areas, completely submerging and ruining everything that was left behind. Several dormant volcanoes began to erupt as carefully balanced tectonic forces were disturbed and began spewing their volcanic fury all across the surrounding area, the ash from the eruptions covering thousands of miles of lands, blocking out the sun even as the dark was being lit by literal tornadoes of flame and ash with lighting occurring like a wrathful god within. To does above it looked like the world was ending, and it was. The activation of the ship triggered not just physical impacts but also gravitational and higher energy shockwaves from its more exotic systems powering up. Then as if to cap it all off the nuclear reactors left behind detonated as their containment was breached detonating their remaining fuel in a blaze of atomic fury. The blasts levelling and vaporizing what was left of the forge cities left behind and causing radioactive firestorms to erupt around them.
Earthquakes, tidal waves, volcanoes, thunderstorms, hurricanes. and nuclear firestorms occurred all across the planet all at once and it the middle of it all untouched by it all was the rising form of the Speranza.
First that could be seen the spherical form of the dark hued void shields constantly active as the jagged edges of broken ground tried to rend the metal of the hull to scrap as it erupted from the ground only to fail upon the inviolable shielding of one of the finest technology of Humanity. Then one could see vast towering structures rising from the ground as the tip and then the rest of the ship began to ascend like a mountain of red colored steel being born from the earth in accelerated time frame. Vast expansive domes along side skyscrapers and vast complexes covered the surface of the ship even as the sides of the ship was revealed festooned with several fleets worth of weaponry. Thousands of weapon emplacements both for point defense and anti ship warfare dotted the hulls alongside hundreds of missile ports and smaller localized shield generators should the main void shield covering their section be pierced. The main weapons however were the 32 super macro energy weapons whose barrels were the size of imperial frigates and the dozen or so radical experimental weaponry designed for anti-necron combat. This was enough firepower to simultaneously fight off and defeat several full Imperial fleets and even some Crusade fleets as long as one was careful to make full use of the ship's abilities.
As the rest of the Speranza left the planet's crust one could see the large hangers, docking bays, and dry docks along the central spine of the ship all of which were protected by another large field of point defense turrets. Thousands of fighters and support craft and even several capital ships were capable of being stored and deployed into battle at a moments notice even if one did not take into the account the literal millions of onboard personnel ready to fight.
The ship slowly rose even as flaming volcanic rocks, torrents of lightning strikes, and waves of radiation lashed at the shields of the Speranza as if the mother nature and heavens themselves refused to allow the birth of the vessel.
Unfortunately for heaven and mother nature, the spirit of Humanity is not so easily broken as the ship ascended past the cloud line and quickly reached orbit as the pull of gravity waned as it rose ever higher.
As the ship achieved orbit I looked down at the planet with a frown on my face, the planet was once a beautiful greenish gem hanging in the void was now a darkly colored burning rock of black, red, and orange with large patches of dark clouds where the volcanic eruptions occurred. It was like someone took a torch to the planet, which fair enough was almost what we did. At least the planet was not structurally compromised, maybe one day it would be livable again, though it would not be for many many lifetimes.
I mentally began directing the ship even as I announced the successful take off to the crew which promptly began breaking into cheers, hymns, group discussions among the younger tech priests/Initiates, and the allowed alcohol rations.
I smiled as I observed their antics even as I had the ships that were already in orbit to come in to dock with the Speranza as we were going to be abandoning the system and rather not let them get left behind due to inferior gellar fields. Plus they really wanted to tour the ship.
"All ships are docked and secured, prepare the warp drive." I gave the order as my crew promptly complied. The power surged towards the warp drive of the Speranza and swiftly charged its ancient systems to readiness with a speed that would astonish most Imperials. As the drive hit the required energy level it spat out a wave of purple eldritch energies ahead of the ship, ripping a hole into the fabric of reality itself into a dimension of pure chaos.
Looking at the warp portal opened for the Speranza to travel through it was time to call upon the last piece of the first step of my plan.
"Emperor, wake up, lead me to Colchis." I whispered as the shard within me awoke and released a golden flame from my chest. The flames rising into a sphere that shown a beam of light ahead of the ship into the warp portal dyeing it gold.
Silently in the void of space the Speranza's engines burst forth with cataclysmic amounts of energies to slowly push the moving continent forward, entering the rift before it closed behind it in a snap without a trace, leaving the burning husk of a planet behind as the only testament of its existence in the system.