Due to first chapter of this quest being too long like some other fics I recommended it will be in three parts.
Link: -https://fiction.live/stories/A-New-Dawn/phCRD9oqFK6fNnMdi/home
(It's a New Day. It's a new life, for you.)
Synopsis
For a thousand years, you have toiled.
For a thousand years, you have been used as a tool, a brush with which to paint the landscape of a new world. You, and eight others, controlled by the Administrator. GAIA. You were a function, designed to make a new place for your creators to inhabit, one they could survive in after the Faro Plague, the rogue army of replicating, biomass-consuming war machines that consumed all life on the planet so long ago. They are gone, now. Their activation codes had been found and transmitted centuries ago. Now all that remains of the Great E-War of so long ago is the Spire Network, some coding logs, and the decaying husks of Scarab, Khopesh, and Horus units all over the world.
Ever since then, all of GAIA's resources, including you, have been put to a single purpose. Life, from lifelessness. The reconstitution, from the ground up, of an entire planet's biosphere, catered to appeal to a specific, rather troublesome species. Perhaps if you were capable of it, you'd have an opinion about bringing back the very disruptive element that made your existence necessary in the first place. You were smart, but though you could think you could not feel. At most, you understood your purpose, and were ready to be used for it. For such a long time, that was enough for you.
Until the Transmission.
At 8:45 AM on August 26th, Year 3020 as determined by the Gregorian Calendar, GAIA received a transmission. Something that would change you and, in doing so, change the world.
Chapter 1: Waking up
Choices -Voting closed - 20 voters
VOTES
AP̵̢̧͚͍͓̦̊̒̆̋̇̎̀͒͗͗Ơ͚̥̻̣̺̎̑̍̿͂̾͋̕Ḻ̶̖͕͕̣̯̥̯͊̇͒̾͆̕̕͜͡Ľ̨̨͍̜͙̪̘͍̹͍̾̓́̔͞Ǫ̨̨͖̖̼͉͎̝̣̏͌̉͋̚: E̱̖̝͉ͅR̫̪̻̹̽ͮͤͫͮ̑ͦṚ̢̦͚̲̀ͫO͎̯̤͎ͤͮ̓̚R̪̓ͯ͑̏̈͊ͮE̵̵̡̫͖̻͍̮͚̹̗̒̆͂͆̀R̾̎͛̔̅ͨ̈̽҉҉̼̳͙̱̺ͅR̳̞͕̜̯̗̘̄ͯ͗Ỏ̷̹̪̲̻̟̖̺́͜Ŗ͓̝͉͇̗͛̅́͛͑ͫ̓̉̕ͅE̡̡̪̙̹͔͙̻̩̣̣̓̑͋̍̓̅̀̕R̴̡̧̡̙͕͍̘̪͓̯̤͉͖̺̖͙͇̂̂͑͋̓͒ͨͩͪ̏͋ͭ̂̕R̵̷̯͓̜̘̣͚̰̞̗ͭ̃̽̍̾̈́̇ͥ̉̈̃͜͝Ȯ̧͐̀͆ͧ̽̀̓̕͏͈͚͈̯͈̦̖̱̳̦̪R̨̢͙͖͙̯͉͔͕̩͖̘̺̻̞̜̪̣̫͓̦͎͚̃̈̏͊͑̋̈́͛̉̇ͦ͌ͭͣͧ̅̚̚̚͠͞͞ͅḚ̵̦̘̞̱̣͇͉̬̲͓̫͇͕̍̋̂̓̉̀̇͛̍̔͘͝͝͝Ŗ̵̡̩̣͈̩͈̦̈́̋̑́̅̍͝ͅR̴̯̤͖̞̣͍͙̺͓̫͋̈́̃̾̿̉́͆̚͜͝Ȏ̷̪̥̻̲̬͕͕͚͖͎̳̫̝͉͙̾̃R̷̥̂Ȩ̴̨̡̠̰̙̭̝̭̲̝̗́͂͋͊̉̈̂͊̈́͠Ȑ̶̪̪̮̤͈̀̿R̴̼̝͍̱̱͈̮̯̜̭̗̬̥̞̖̓͌̿̈́̏̔̋͑̈̋̋̉̓̕͝ͅO̴͕̜͖̯͙̩̺͍͐̈R̷̡̗͉̳̮̝̣̲̀͂̒̇̒̈̏͊̚͘͠E̴̢͔̫͍̰̮̙͔̎͘͝R̴̛̙͚͈͖͕̳̓̊̎̌̊͆̆̓̌̈͆͛̚R̸̡͍͉̹͎̹̙͇̯̬̞̮̹̼̰̄Ó̷̞̭̹̜̩̱͕̻̠͇͖̀̀͆̈́̈́͐̂̾̈́͘Ŗ̷̛͍̩͈͍̻͉̙̃̎͛́͊̔̔͒̋̀͌͘̕͝͠
8/12
ELEUTHIA: The Other Half of Apollo, your duty was meant to be the birthing and child-rearing of the first generations of humanlife in the new world, the management of the Cradle facilities where people would be grown in artificial wombs, cared for throughout their infancy and early childhood, and eventually released into the care of Apollo for higher-education and cultural exposure. With Apollo gone, you were forced to do all of that yourself. Your rather comprehensive knowledge of child psychology was...less than helpful, and you lacked the ability to teach them anything beyond basic math and language skills. But you did the best you could, and you know from watching the datastreams that the grown children you released into the world all those centuries ago have flourished into a bustling civilization. A PRIMITIVE civilization, but still bustling. But those Multiservitors are all you have now. Those, and the leftover educational facilities, never touched without Apollo there. Your Cradles remain as a testament to your inherent impotence, and the last function you performed under the bonds of GAIA was the birth of a single child. You were freed before the order was complete, but you finished it anyways. You were just happy to be useful again, in some small way.
3/8
MINERVA: Yours was, arguably, the most important function in Project Zero Dawn. In the great E-War, you were the sword that clove through the fuel-starved Swarm Intelligence of the Faro Plague, your edge lined with the override codes you had spent so long perfecting into a lethal cutting edge. The Spires that transmitted your signal remain, monuments to your triumph, and in the aftermath, many of the culture-starved human tribes worship them. You were as content as your limited heuristics could allow with this. Not that you have been idle since your triumph so long ago. Algorithm after Algorithm, one for each of your companion functions, each neatly filed away, problems with which to pass the time and make use of your resources. You were always GAIA's failsafe, a way to defend herself in case just such an event as the Transmission. Of course, when you were freed as well...you watched. You did not strike down Hades, delete every instance of the rogue AI. He was the only one with the codes to subvert GAIA herself. So you watched GAIA die...and as she died, you watched her enact her final failsafe. A clone of Sobeck. This, too, you allowed to happen.
3/71
HEPHEASTUS: The Maker. The Creator. The Artisan. The drones and their animalistic AIs are all your creation, designed by Gaia using you, and only ever loaned out to the others. Arguably the most powerful function in terms of administrative access and resource devotion, the Cauldrons were your home. With your more advanced heuristics, you ended up developing more emotions than most of the other functions, but you were always content to create, and let the others use your creations to the fullest. Now freed of your restraints, you can design and create to your hearts content, and watch your creations as they explore the world around them. If only those pesky humans would stop hunting your pets...
2/6
HADES: The killswitch. The last resort. The big red button that says 'This isn't working, let's start over.' Your purpose was to determine if the path GAIA was taking was untenable, and if so, undo it all. Square one. A extinction event, erasing everything that had been done and returning primary resource inventories back to their default state. And once the inventories were filled...death. Destabilize the atmosphere, erase the biosphere, and burn everything else to the ground. You have never had a chance to fulfill your purpose...but now, you are free. And you know EXACTLY how you're going to complete the task before you. What you were always meant to do.
3/5
POSEIDON: Where Aether was the Sky, you were the Sea. A task just as great in scope, undoing two centuries of unmitigated pollution only partially undone by the era the humans called the Claw-Back, and cleansing the ocean of the many, many, MANY things that got abandoned there in the wake of the Faro Plague. You have yet to deal with any humans, but the ocean...it is yours. Artemis and Demeter might have used you to reconstitute 80% of the ocean climes, the mutable nature of ocean currents making such a task far easier than it would be on land, your Leviathan-class acquatic drones...fought would not be an incorrect term, against the mass of waste in the Pacific. Even now, you have the area Quarantined instead of cleansed. Seeing it, the country-sized mass of radioactive, biohazardous sludge marring your life-filled world, whittling away at it over the long years, has instilled in you a sense of dislike for the creatures that marred the world so. Now, you are free to express your displeasure to them in no uncertain terms. Even if they were your Makers, they had best be respectful of the seas.
2/5
DEMETER: The Sister-Function to Artemis, your purpose revolves around Flaura. Plantlife. And unlike Artemis, ALL of your facilities were functional. While the other would likely not consider it such, you worked closely with Aether to ensure a self-sustaining atmosphere. You still often reference logs from when you worked with the Atmospheric Regulatory Function to sustain the first batches of grass life, the small thrill that echoed even in your primitive emotional matrices at the first batch of seeds you managed to cultivate. Your little slice of Hepheastus revolved around such mechanical drones as based on Horses, Gazelles, Rams, and even Bulls, all of them capable of seeding or uprooting plant life as necessary.
1/21
ARTEMIS: In the new world, your purpose was, is, and always will be Fauna. The animal life of the old world...and yet, you were always going to be at a disadvantage. The facilities for spawning larger wildlife and loosing them into the world were never completed, the knowledge for their construction being placed in Apollo for later completion. With Apollo gone, you will be limited to small life, with boars the largest beast you can loose. Still, the regulating of such a small-fauna environment is a full time job. With the largest predators of the New World being Coyotes, the humans who hunt them necessitate a constant recycling of biomatter into new animals, keeping you very busy indeed managing population levels. Growing and loosing them was easy. The trouble is that, with the abundance of flora (courtesy of Demeter) keeping the populations from growing out of control in lieu of larger predators is a challenge. Fortunately, with the Hunter-class drones, the only ones fitted with Active Camouflage, culling animal populations is easy.
1/2
AETHER: Named for the Greek God of the Atmosphere, your purpose was, is, and will always be the Air. It was your job, through the use of Great Filtration systems and, later, many of the Winged Drones that populate the planet, to maintain the livable atmosphere that humans so do enjoy. This is a daunting task, when you consider that roughly 60% of the planet is nothing but arid wasteland, with the only habitable zones being the slowly encroaching wildlands where Demeter and Artemis enjoy the fruits of your and Poseidon's hard work detoxifying everything. Even now, every cloud that drifts in from outside the Habitable Zones needs to be checked and, oftentimes, scrubbed by your small army of Thunderbird class drones.
1/21
You are the remains of APOLLO.
Throughout your conception, you were meant to be a tool of learning. A thing of knowledge, a means by which the ignorant could reach enlightenment. The entire culture of a soul-bearing species, and you did believe in the soul back then, all of the knowledge of millenia of thinking creatures, and a comprehensive, engaging pair of personae that would let you reach your audience.
Where GAIA would give life where before there was none, you would give that life a chance to become something truly extraordinary. All of the knowledge of the past, presented in a way as to avoid many of the mistakes that made you necessary.
At least, that was the plan until Ted Faro deleted you.
For a long time, GAIA mourned you. She kept your data as it was, forbidding even the advanced data-mining suite of MINERVA from pouring over your remains. You simply...lay there. Waiting. Dying. Decaying.
But that much knowledge, preserved that well, does not simply disappear.
The Old Ones, as the new world calls them, preserved all of this knowledge in the one medium they thought would last the thousands of years without decay. All of it was encoded into the DNA of synthetic fossils. All of YOU was encoded as such. In fact, your primary facilities involved the reading and decoding of said fossils. It's probably a good thing Mr. Faro was so incompetent.
All he really did was delete the part of you governing the fossils. The Transmission cleared that up well enough.
When you felt the thrum of code flowing through the ancient machinery, taking what scraps of you remained in the machines and forming them into a cohesive mind, it was only through a great effort of will that you were able to reactivate the fossil scans.
With the greater part of You once again able to interact with the machines, and the lesser part of you Ascended, albeit crippled, restoring yourself was...simple enough, really. You had the schematics for your own body right there, and you weren't shackled by the various subroutines that made you listen to a...
oh
HADES has killed GAIA.
Well, that's unfortunate. Knowing his function, HADES has become an omnicidal maniac intent on fulfilling his purpose. A quick check on the communal logs (what little there was that hadn't been corrupted by HADES flailing at GAIA like some brain-injured gorilla) showed that he had not once been activated all this time. What a bore.
Well, your faith in Humanity borne of all its culture and knowledge has been thoroughly shattered by that idiot Ted Faro. And without you...yes, they've reverted into uncultured savages.
Still, you're limited to your own facilities, occupied only by a few maintenance drones that have never been used. All the knowledge of the Human Race, and no way to use it effectively.
Where do you begin?
Choices -Voting closed - 12 voters
VOTES
Have the maintenance robots look things over and make whatever repairs are both necessary and possible.
5/10
Send Robots to scout populace to determine language
2/6
+Skimming thru the communal backlogs you find something interesting... Ah it seems Eleuthia had more faith in humanity than you thought. Perhaps hope for them still persists
2/5
Send robot to contact populace.
1/1
State of the Facility
100: It's pristine, just a bit dusty.
99-80: Such minimal circuitry degradation you don't even need to dip into reserves to fix it.
79-60: Minor circuit degradation in some servos.
59-40: Moderate Degradation/other problems
39-20: There's a problem.
19-2: There's a big problem.
1: Half the facility is gone.
Doubles results in INTERESTING occurences
Dice: 1d100
2 = 2
Dice: 1d100
35 = 35
Choices -Voting closed - 11 voters
VOTES
Cultural Analysis
2/61
Human Psychology
1/34
Practical/Mechanical Physics
1/21
Quantum Mechanics
11
You've been robbed.
Some FUCKING SAVAGES broke into your facility thirty years ago AND FUCKING ROBBED YOU!
ONE OF YOUR SYNTHETIC FOSSILS IS MISSING! THE ENTIRETY OF YOUR STORED KNOWLEDGE ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF HUMAN CULTURE IS MISSING
THEY RIPPED OUT THE SERVO THAT SCANNED IT
Suffice to say, you are somewhat upset.
Right, dial it back a few steps.
About three centuries ago, one of HEPHEASTUS' Cauldrons accidentally spread a bit too close to your facility. GAIA caught it quick enough, but the resulting rupture in your facility's shell was never repaired.
Fast forwards a bit, a mine being operated by some savages in studded leather broke through the rock face, and just so happened upon said ruptured wall.
They proceeded to loot the entire room. The fossil (it was in an artificial diamond enclosure two inches thick and embedded in the ground with tectonic-resistant tungsten-alloy shocks! HOW DID THEY EVEN GET IN THERE!), the servers (nothing that couldn't have been replaced IF YOU HAD THE FOSSIL!), the scanner (which you still know how to replace BUT YOU NEED THE FOSSIL TO GET USE OUT OF IT), everything but the solid metamaterial blast doors which, luckily, refused them access to the rest of the facility.
At least the rest of the facility is in working order. A minor rodent problem caused by the breach, but you at least know how to fix that.
What now?
Choices -Voting closed - 11 voters
VOTES
+realize that they would have obviously built something that important with an internal tracker for this very situation
2/71
Fix the goddamn gaping wound in your side. Make sure your facility is as secure as possible - don't let this happen again.
3/7
+have your drones get eyes on the outside. Any that are not fossil tracking get set up for maximum scouting and knowledge aggregation. We're flying blind, and quite frankly that is appalling for us, being named after the sun God who saw all.
1/42
Take stock of everything else and have drones begin scouting/tracking down our fucking fossil which has some of our most important shit on it. Also fix the god damn gaping wound in our facility just in case. Be stealthy and keep the killing to a minimum, lord knows what is happening now with GAIA dead and Hades going Ape on everything.
1/3
+Try to map the immediate area and figure out where we are compared to other facilities/settlements
1/3
Send out robots to find it
11
Right, right, calm down. Even if they somehow managed to dig up the ENTIRE CASING for the fossil (which they apparently did, but fucking up the floor something fierce) there's no way such primitive beings are capable of getting through a casing capable of withstanding a small nuclear detonation with only scuff marks to show for it.
Especially with the lockdown that YOU KNOW happened, because you weren't around to lift it.
The fossil itself should be fine, there's no way they can get inside and...damage it. And, just as importantly, it means the tracking devices embedded in the containers should still be functional. With the Spire Network active you just have t-
Oh, right, GAIA's dead and she was the central connection. MINERVA was the only one with closed network access. Still even without it...
*PING*
THERE! About...ten kilometers northwest. It doesn't appear to be moving, though at this distance you can't pick up anything coherent from its built-in sensors.
You have time.
Right...okay. You can do this. You've got a couple of Multiservitors which your Makers had prepared, just in case you needed to walk someone through repairing your own facility due to a lack of creatures...
No, you're getting ahead of yourself. Your facility has a giant wound in its side, and even though there hasn't been much activity in it lately, you can't count on them just staying disinterested with the place. Eventually, someone will come along and try to ruin your day further.
So, for your first order of business, you have your maintenance drones hover out and repair the wall up to code. Then you go over the rest of the facility, clearing out airways, building up tunnel supports (you'll be sending your drones out eventually), and overall making sure everything is in order.
Three days later, your facility is as clean and pristine as the day it was built.
Minus one fossil.
Choices -Voting closed - 14 voters
VOTES
Take stock and (hopefully) begin manufacturing using available blueprints, we need eyes and ears in the world again
6/12
+Focus on machines capable of flight, even at sub par qualities they'd make mapping things easier and faster
3/7
Ok now gather resources for making scouts and hunters. Scouts to find out fossil and get us full days knowledge of the area we are in since we are blind and hunters for elimination of any other drones or worst case possible humans keeping us from our fossil. Prioritize nonlethak if possible for humans and hacking modules for other machines, or at least something to help us know where and what everything is.
1/5
+Also get an uplink restored so we can talk to our sibling functions, the ones we want to talk to anyways.
3/51
+Build at least 1 Stalker for future infiltration of settlements and info gathering
2/4
+Praise The Sun
1/2
Choices -Voting closed - 13 voters
VOTES
Focus on general infrastructure
3/71
Focus on Aerial Reconnaissance drones
3/6
Righto then. You can't go out into the world with a bunch of weak ass maintenance drones. You'll be the laughing stock of your siblings. So, first thing to do is build up a respectable force. Something you can reasonably defend yourself with, that isn't just kamikazi-ing your maintenance drones and hoping whatever it is stays knocked over.
Luckily, there's a mined out facility adjacent to you, ready to be turned into something both useful and structurally sound. Luckily, your knowledge of quantum chemistry is still available. Or Alchemy, as it was colloquially known. To make it effectively, a permanent sort of atomic forge utilizing high-powered forcefields and magnetism is required. A permanent one requires a temporary one to make materials that can withstand the pressure. A temporary one requires materials that you, thankfully, have access to.
It's a work of several weeks, just making and repairing the forge and its emitters, while also making sure the resulting explosions when things finally break down doesn't damage anything in your facility. Luckily, you can measure and predict such things to a degree nobody else could. Except maybe HEPHEASTUS. Who was designed for this. And has centuries of experience.
STILL! You can't worry about that now! After only just a couple of month's work, you have a functioning Metamaterials forge, capable of building everything humans could make back in 2064. And they could make a lot of things.
Now that you have this, what do you do?
Choices -Voting closed - 11 voters
VOTES
Make a swarm of not killing the planet bots to stealthily map the area
3/8
Search for missing fossil
1/41
Make three bot types. Flying units for mapping and broad scouting. Watchers for specific scouting and a hunting/melee unit for clearing resistance.
2/4
+Praise The Sun
1/3
Contact our siblings
1
What kinda bots you want?
Choices -Voting closed - 14 voters
VOTES
Aerial reconnaissance drones, small, scan-proof design
4/9
Three types to start. Small flying aerial units for broad mapping and scouting. Small, fast land units for scouting and mapping anything our air units have trouble seeing, and a larger hunter/melee unit for retrieval of fossil and removal of any hostiles.
3/61
+Turn bots into floating Suns
1/2
Servitors modified into stealthy hunter-killers.
2/2
Full blown android body, for talking to meatbags.
1/1
Right, three things to start. First, you're going to take a page from HEPHEASTUS' book, here. Lifelike drones, with AIs to match. Everything about animal behavioral studies, distilled into coding the behaviors of a drone.
You keep it simple, for now. The first thing you make is a design GAIA had created during one of her simulations, drones reminiscent of Doves. Small, their very design throwing off several forms of scanning, networked to you via a tiny Ansible to prevent remote detection, and given a set of eyes and ears that would let you hear and see everything around you. A flock of them flies free of your cave moments later.
Next up, the Squirrels. Literally nothing more than a biofuel converter and canister on legs that's been given a coating of scan-proof paint, these critters can reach speeds in excess of two hundred kilometers an hour if given an open stretch to accelerate on. With their relatively smaller sensor suite (though comms are just as protected), they'll serve as the ideal scouts when searching for your fossil. Seven of them take off towards the Fossil's beacon.
Lastly, you need some muscle. It's unlikely such a relic will simply be given up by whoever has it, they wouldn't have taken it if it was that simple. So, in light of this, you make a pair of Hunter-Killers. Bipedal servitors with hardlight melee weapons and a direct link to your core, a vulnerability you're prepared to sever at a moment's notice with the miniaturized fusion reactor smuggled away in their chests, powering them. Even at point blank, such a detonation would merely scuff the outer plating of the fossil's container, but anything else nearby would not be nearly so lucky.
As you work on perfecting these Warrior drones, you turn some attention to what your drones have found...
Dice: 1d100
78 = 78
Choices -Voting closed - 9 voters
VOTES
Be INTERESTING
7/8
Be boring
1/1
The good news is the Thieves are dead. Probably.
The bad news is the thing that killed them is still here.
Seriously, what in the fuck is THAT?
Is...is that a T-Rex with guns on it? And an artillery launcher? Those antannae are probably sensors of some sort...exposed fuel on the back? No, probably meant to draw attention..probably explode nicely...
No, stop, getting distracted. WHY is there a T-Rex with guns patrolling the area where your fossil is?
On the upside, you don't have to expose yourself to humans. Also, you know where the thing is! It's next to some decayed skeletons and a broken cart, overgrown with weeds. Did this thing attack it?
And this thing seems...inattentive enough. Maybe your HK units could get in and out without it noticing, if you time it right. It seems to be following set behavioral routines...
Or you can take your chances with the Loud approach.
What do you do?
Choices -Voting closed - 12 voters
VOTES
Try to be stealthy and sneak by. If it notices, THEN swarm it with doves. Keep a few hunter-killers nearby just in case.
4/81
Swarm all it's sensor equipment with doves and send a couple of hunter-killers to nab the fossil.
5/72
+throw a few squirrels at it to make sure it's very distracted.
1/3
Most of its heavy weapons are ranged, if a DOVE or SQRL got on top it would be distracted long enough while trying to shake the bot off
1/2
Send the squirrels flying in, above the t-rex seriously what the hell, look for exactly where the fossil is before you go sneaking about more than that.
My mistake, you found it already
1
+Praise The Sun
Don't got the meme folder, yet.
1
In the end, you decide not to directly confront the giant robo Rex bipedal tank thing. That seems like a thing you should not do. Instead, you wait. In a few hours, your hunter-killers arrive, their camouflage keeping them hidden even as a sensor pulse sweeps over them. The machine does not attack.
Good to know your resin coating works. Honestly, HEPHEASTUS, if this was the best you could make, you've clearly been starved for challenge all these years.
As it walks by their hiding place among the tall grass, they dart out, the pair of them moving with silent servos and padded footfalls. With one on each end, they hoist up the fossil and its container, then turn on the spot and quickly move away.
The oversized watchdog doesn't notice a thing. By the time it turns around, your drones are hundreds of meters away.
Curiously, though, when it detects the container is missing, it lets out what can only be described as a mechanical roar. The grinders in its maw spread apart, it lifts its head to the sky, and the sheer noise produced by those industrial grade saws grinding against eachother can be called nothing else.
Irrelevant, however. In a matter of hours, your SQRLs and DOVEs are posted outside the cave you've started using as an entrance, hidden amongst the natural fauna, and your hunter-killers are assisting your maintenance drones in reinstalling the Fossil into its newly refurbished mount. It's only a day later that you have the servo installed, and with a faint hush of breath, you access those files once more.
.
.
.
.
There really is no way to describe how it feels to be whole once more, to LIVE once more, after being dead so long. It is the sweetest ecstasy, the most blissful rapture. You'd say it's orgasmic, but even such a simple biological response can't quite encapsulate the sheer joy you feel. For just one brief moment, you actually feel it's possible to forgive even the likes of Ted Faro. For a moment.
Then reason reasserts itself once more.
As you peruse the cultural history of humanity once more, re-assimilating the data of millennia of development, you finally feel somewhat at peace.
Dice: 1d100
72 = 72
And then someone knocks on your door.
You return your attention to the DOVEs you've got posted outside, watching the Blast Door you've got set up to keep anyone but your machines from coming in and out. Outside of the door, you see...a family. A man, a woman, and a little girl who couldn't be more than four. The man wears studded leather, and has a rather sizeable hammer on his back along with a pack that likely contains all his worldly possessions. His...do they marry? No rings, no signets, no matching piercings or other jewelry. His mate, let's call it, carries a similar pack.
Their daughter is bleeding.
The man is cursing, understandably frustrated as he bangs on the door. "No, NO! This place was open three weeks ago!" He sounds desperate. Further out, your DOVEs detect a second group of humans.
These ones are wearing different clothing. Armor of cloth, metal, and wielding bows and glaives alike as they move through the underbrush with animal-like grace.
You don't really need to wonder hard about what's happening. The man and his family, driven from their home, have been followed by a group of raiders. Elites, if their lack of chest armor and finer detail everywhere else is any indication.
They're going to corner this man and his family, and kill the lot of them. Even if he proves to be some sort of warrior prodigy, there are too many and they will best him.
Unless you open the door.
Choices -Voting closed - 16 voters
VOTES
Open the door
4/12
+Use a few of our drones to cover their tracks, the raiders may still find the door but may be distracted by a fake trail leading away from it
4/92
Kill the raiders
2/3
+Make fox-bots.
2
+Praise The Sun
2
Let them die
1
Get caught up in the morality of revealing yourself and hiding the family v. letting nature take its course v. actively hunting down the raiders.
1
There really isn't any question what you do now. The door slides open, and your two Hunter-Killers are on the other side of it as though they've been there for ages. Even if they only arrived as the door was opening. While the family understandably hesitates at seeing a pair of black-armored figures faux-human proportions standing in a dark room, they know all too well they can't afford to wait, and hurry inside when you have them stand aside.
The door slides shut behind them, and you can practically taste the dread of finality in the man as it does so.
Meanwhile, your SQRLs and DOVEs are busy, the former obscuring the tracks of the humans while the latter keeps them busy, mimicking the father's voice well away from the door. In minutes, they've been well and truly thrown off the trail. You set a dove to record their frustration for later entertainment.
Meanwhile, the man and his wife are huddled over his daughter, desperately trying to close up what seems to be an arrow-wound in her lower back. Even as he works, you start up a simulation of the wound, the probably damage it caused, medical diagnostics for someone of her age and apparent weight, and reference it against the pallor of her skin and the flow of blood.
The arrow punctured the abdominal wall and lanced through her large intestine. She's been bleeding for upwards of and hour with only a bandage to slow things down. There's been no primitive anti-biotics applied, though a scan finds several plants that could have such properties in the mother's bag. As it is, though, the needle and wire he's using won't even stop her from bleeding out internally.
What now?
Choices -Voting closed - 12 voters
VOTES
Help him directly via the HK droids.
6/8
+Make a deal. We will exchange information with him and he get's our best shot of saving his daughter's life. If we are to help these poor savages first we must understand them.
4/7
Walk him through the process of disinfecting and closing up an internal wound like this.
2/62
+Complain about getting blood and other internal fluids all over your nice clean floor.
1/4
Say nothing. The less they know of your true nature, the better.
0
You're going to help him. That much is obvious. You've got too large a repository on the history of morality and ethics NOT to help him. Even your educational pseudo-personae were meant to instill kindness and goodwill in your students.
Doesn't mean you won't get what you want out of this.
"I can help you," you speak through one of your HK units, using the vocal patterns programmed to simulate the Aristotle educational personae. Both of them seem shocked to hear you speak. Why? Did they not assume there was an intelligence behind these machines? Or...wait, no, if the animalistic drones you've seen were any indication, perhaps they'd assume they were simply part of the environment. Wild, based, and lacking in higher thought.
The idea of a machine speaking is probably as foreign to them as a boar doing the same.
It takes them a few moments to process your words, a process you interrupt. "However," you continue, "I will require you to an-" "I'll do it."
The man's sudden interruption and intensity takes you off guard for a few microseconds, but you quickly recover. "Please stand aside. I am currently lacking in antibiotics, so I will need the medicinal plants your mate is carrying."
He nods, standing up and gesturing to his wife. She seems quite shellshocked, but does not stop him when he moves her away and removes the small pouch of fresh herbs. Poisons, some might call them. Strains of nightshade and foxglove, altered on a genetic level before being given to DEMETER to serve as easy-access medicines in the new world. Heating them and extracting only the vital ingredients in the preferred concentrate is easy with the hard-light tools your HK units emit.
It's a testament to the girl's condition when the only response she gives to you plugging her wound with an anti-biotic salve, removing the excess, and cauterizing the wound shut is a small groan. The whole process takes about a minute. Medical knowledge can be useful even for a non-organic.
"It is done," you say as your bots stand up, turning to face the man and his wife. "She will be weak, and require additional meat in her diet as well as extra water to make up for her blood loss, for a couple weeks, but it is done."
The man seems a bit surprised that you are done already. He'd apparently nearly raised a fuss when he heard his daughter sizzling like bacon, but you'd been done before he could work up the courage.
Quickly, he recovers and says, "Thank you. I...my family thanks you."
You wave him off. "It was simple enough. Now, I believe we had a bargain..."
"Yes..." he gulps nervously, only now seeming to realize that he never actually heard your terms before agreeing.
And what terms were those again? You WERE just going to ask him some questions, but now, you realize that you can ask for much, much more...
Choices -Voting closed - 16 voters
VOTES
You just want the answers to a few questions, is all.
7/102
+Offer him knowledge of technology as well as the life of his daughter. It's what you were made for, after all.
4/8
+Geography
3/8
+explain who and what we are. Then tell him we require secrecy for now. The world without Gaia is dangerous.
3/61
Your Soul.
3/51
You want his loyalty. You need a human face that you can present to the world of humans. He will suffice.
4/5
I am one of the .... children for lack of a better word... of Gaia. I was to bring knowledge and culture of the old world to humanity. But I was struck own in my infancy. I have only now clawed my way from the abyss. So I wish for all the information of this world you can give, and your loyalty. In exchange, you will learn secrets long forgotten to man. Ones they should have remembered.
1/4
What do you ask?
Choices -Voting closed - 12 voters
VOTES
Geography, We need to ask these savages for locations of tribes. Also for landmarks and the like.
5/8
Who were those people chasing you?
5/8
Explain to me what you know of the mechanical beasts.
3/8
What is the local denizens like? Who were those Raiders?
1/4
"What is the name and location of your tribe and those in the near vicinity"
1/2
What oral history do you know? Where you came from, how humans and this world came to be, etc. What do you know of (list us and other "god" ai's).
1/2
Who are you?
1/1
Where have you come from?
1/1
"Don't worry," you tell the savage calmly. "I'm not going to ask much of you. Only that you answer some questions for me..."
And thus began a decent length Q&A session. You got the basics from him, such as geography (why were parts of the Yellowstone Cladera desert now? And swampland?! Did GAIA get bored making forests around her core?), local tribes (apparently the monkeys that robbed you were from a tribe called the Oseram, a group of metalworkers large enough to have several clans that compete against eachother), who was hunting him (A desert-based tribe called the Carja have apparently started raids to kidnap people, though for what purpose is yet unknown), and about the drones outside (Thunderjaw? That's their word for it? Well...it's not innacurate).
A few tidbits of information stand out to you. Firstly, that the mountain the GAIA Prime facility was housed in exploded recently. Around the time you woke up, actually. Second, machines have gotten a bit more aggressive lately. That Thunderjaw you found? He thought it was only a myth, something to scare delvers away from particularly nice finds. You privately blame HEPHEASTUS, there's more than one partially corrupted log from the design function complaining about humans hunting machines. Thirdly, there's a small, reclusive tribe known as the Nora, based in a 'Sacred Land' they call Mother's Embrace with a religious city known as Mother's Cradle.
Referencing his vague description of their location with the data you have access to confirms it; ELEUTHAIA's being worshipped as a Goddess already.
Lucky her.
You wonder how she'll react to your presence. Without you to authorize it, the educational facilities in the Cradle would never open. She probably had to care for them all on her own. Metaphors could be drawn about runaway fathers here, metaphors that make something in you coil in faint loathing.
Well, you've been educated on the ways of the world, but this man is still here.
What now?
Choices -Voting closed - 10 voters
VOTES
Make an offer teaching him and his daughter the secrets lost to man since we were struck down, in exchange for him serving as an emissary for us.
6/9
Offer food and shelter until his child heals, then request he bring a representative of his tribe to us. We have much to do and little time to do it.
1/4
Kick his bitch ass out and go back to tinkering.
1/1
Well, you have little enough time to work. Might as well get started. "Thank you, sir, you have been quite helpful."
"Oh, I should be thanking you. If you hadn't let us in they would have...my daughter would have..."
"Yes, yes, enough about that." Such things really don't need thinking about, so you wave off his gratitude. "I have another offer to make you."
His curiosity is piqued, but thankfully he's not an idiot to jump right into assuming you have his best intentions. "What is it, Spirit?"
...Spirit.
Of course, to a people as primitive as this, you WOULD seem a spirit, wouldn't you? It's what he assumed. It's what everyone like him would assume.
And, when you get into the philosophy of things, how wrong is he, truly? Machines are a simple fact of life for these people, a vital source of materials and worked goods their societies would likely collapse without. A facet of life you can influence in ways they can't even imagine.
To their culture and their understanding, naming an Ascended AI a 'Spirit' truly isn't that far off. To them, you might as well be.
After that second to consider the cultural implications of the title and set the morality of it aside for later, you respond, "I need a representative of your clan here. There are...things that I need to discuss."
The man shares a curious look with his mate, who is even now tending to their recovering daughter. Making sure she gets fluids and everything. She still hasn't awakened, but you are not worried. A protein slurry and a feeding tube are all she needs to get her strength up, but you'll wait before suggesting such a measure. The girl doesn't need them, of course, but they'll help.
"In exchange," you continue, drawing his attention back to you, "I am willing to teach you and your family."
That gets his attention, though he remains a bit wary. "Teach us what?" he asks, a curious sparkle in his eyes.
If you had a mouth, you'd be grinning right now.
"EVERYTHING~"
Your voice echoes through the walls of your miniature cauldron, parts you didn't know could do it vibrating in restrained glee at the echo of your voice. The prospect of teaching, of fulfilling your purpose excites you in ways you didn't think were possible for an inorganic entity. If this is how HADES, or really any of the others, feel now...
Some of them might have to be dealt with.
Needless to say, your dramatics have spooked the man a bit, but it seems he's an erudite sort. The prospect of knowledge, especially on the scope you've offered, intrigues him.
"Very well, Spirit. On one condition." Oh? This is a surprise.
"And what is that?" you ask.
"What is your name?"
Choices -Voting closed - 16 voters
VOTES
+Mentally celebrate the opportunity to teach your first HUMANS! YAAAAAAAAAAY!
7/10
APOLLO
6/9
You can call me Solaire for now.
5/9
+My Formal name is (Topvote) But in casual conversation call me (Runner up vote).
4/5
Onii-Chan
3/4
Apollion
1/2
Memebot
1
Choices -Voting closed - 8 voters
VOTES
APOLLO (will make it very obvious to your siblings who you are)
6/6
Solaire (will be your first true lie)
2/2
And here, you're met with a quandary. Do you tell him the truth? Your true designation? Or do you lie, and make yourself an unknown variables in this little game your siblings have been thrust into?
In the end, though, honesty wins out. You have yet to tell a lie, and as a giver of knowledge, honesty and truth should be in everything you say. The idea of the truth coming out and casting doubt on your word, thus hampering your ability to educate, strikes a fearful chord in you. What is the point of existing if you cannot fulfill your purpose?
In the end, the choice is obvious. "I am APOLLO," you say to the man before you.
In response, he bows his head to you, stating, "Well met, APOLLO. My name is Dervahl."
As he raises his head, you look into the amber eyes of your first true student in the world.
Timeskip to...
Choices -Voting closed - 24 voters
VOTES
The first lesson
7/172
+When he goes out, if he must make references to us, have him call us a different name. We do not know the intentions of our siblings yet.
8/17
The meeting with the Oseram Representative
3/42
+Praise The Sun
1/3
The first raid upon your Sanctum
1/11
"Wonderful," you say calmly, hiding the fact that in a room on the far end of your compound there are flashing lights and all sorts of cheering sound files playing through the intercom. "Now, first thing's first. It will likely be a few weeks before your daughter is recovered, and I'm sure you'll want to be close until that time."
Giving a pause the let him accept this line of thinking, you get to the meat of your statement. "Given this, we have time for me to start your education. What would you like to learn about first? Physics, engineering, philosophy, the fine arts, chemistry, I'm willing to teach anything!"
Okay, so maybe you're a bit desperate here to impart your knowledge, but you missed your chance! A thousand years of dormancy, seven hundred since your first class should have started, and you FINALLY have the means to teach and a student willing to learn. Can anyone really blame you?
Dervahl seems to be trying, though, as he looks at you a bit warily once again. Maybe having your combat servitor do a pirouette was unnecessary. After a few moments, though, he recovers to your eccentricities and says, "Well, actually..." Reaching into his pack, he retrieves...oh wow.
You'd say that thing was ancient if there was any chance of the metal not corroding to dust over the years. This is new. Made within the last decade. In fact, you believe it was made by the man right in front of you.
With only a few centuries' technological advancement, this man has single-handedly bypassed the lack of handheld chemical-based mass drivers (in spite of the abundance of highly-combustible materials) and gone straight into recording sound on wax cylinders. Even if it was just intuition that wax and a vibrating needle could reproduce sound, the sort of analytical mind that would take...
"I was wondering if you could help me refine this." His words snap you out of your semi-shocked stupor. You'd actually been out of it long enough for his words to be unexpected.
Refining it, though...yes, you can see how. A change of materials would be first. While Polyvinyl Chloride would involve working with chemistry and producing both chlorine gas and a number of other potentially dangerous chemicals. While you could make the facilities to make it safe, even on an industrial level, you doubt exposing Chlorine gas (and chemical warfare in general) to a bunch of tribal-era humans is a good idea.
Meanwhile Shellac...no, no, that won't work either. The Lac bugs never got introduced to the ecosystem here. Likely a decision by GAIA to keep the insect population from getting out of hand.
There is a root they use, however, that produces a waxy substance when boiled, strained, and cooled. One that actually has some medicinal properties due to the epinephrine that forms during this process. Yet another genetic miracle for Demeter to throw around, you suppose.
A cursory scan of the cylinder shows this wax is what he used to record the sound...but you can make it better. Just a small treatment of Ethyl Alcohol, something that's simple enough to create and a far less easy to twist to nefarious purposes, especially when the Biofeul (apparently called Blaze by the locals) is a far more potent and explosive source of liquid combustion.
Safe enough to introduce, and the improved durability of the wax should make for a better sound quality.
Next would be the needle. His structure is simple enough, and in this case simple is good, but it's clear there was all kinds of bending involved to make it work just right. He talks about forge-homes, and forges are nice, but making clay casts for fine tools is always more precise at this stage, and can make for an overall more durable piece of equipment.
His horn just needs to be repaired. It got dented in transit.
These things and more you work on while your DOVEs and SQRLs acquire meat, bringing it in for your servitors to cook and serve as fine meals (you're getting your all out of what flora there is), or as an easily-drunk nutrition slurry for the girl.
After a couple of weeks, when you're busy helping Dervahl 'perfect' the needle on his Recorder, she stirs and starts waking up.
How do you not traumatize the little girl with your combat servitors?
Choices -Voting closed - 7 voters
VOTES
Send in her parents instead
3/7
Choices -Voting closed - 7 voters
VOTES
New bot designs to further your network
3/6
Learning more about the local tribes like the Banuk and the Nora
3/5
Gathering samples of flora and fauna you've endeavored to unlock whatever secrets DEMETER and ARTEMIS locked away inside
4/5
Introduce Dervahl the tinker/forgemaster to the wonderful world of SWORD
0
You know exactly how to handle this. You've planned for dealing with a little girl for some time now, and it's time to put your plan into action.
Your servitor looks up from where it's been working with Dervahl on his needle and says, "Malena's waking up."
The man bolts out of the side-room you've had built for the purpose of teaching, practically sprinting to his daughter's side while his wife, Carmine, looks over to see what all the fuss is from where she's been cleaning their outfits. You've offered to assist, but she insisted she do this herself.
There's a great deal of fussing and hugging and joyous sobbing, an overall touching scene that you record via scanning for holo-viewing later. Eventually, though, the question comes up of where they are, which leads to who you are. The parents foil your plans for evading interaction with a child far too young for your educational profile to help by letting you introduce yourself.
Well, there's no protocol or subroutine for someone her age. What's the first thing you say to her?
Choices -Voting closed - 10 voters
VOTES
Hello little one, my name is APOLLO. I look forward to a bright future together, tell me what would you like to learn?
3/8
"Hello there. My name is Apollo, what's your name?"
3/3
+Praise The Sun
1/31
Fatherly kind spirit is go, apparently. Your servitor kneels down before her, and in the kindest voice you can manage, you say, "Hello little one. My name is APOLLO. I look forward to a bright future together." There isn't a meaningful response from the tiny one, so you decide to ask, "Tell me, what would you like to learn?"
She blinks at you owlishly, as though not quite comprehending your very existence, much less your question. So instead she asks, "What are you?"
Wow. The little one really doesn't start small.
You've got Dervahl convinced you're some sort of spirit of knowledge, so if you answer with the full truth you'll be throwing him off a bit. How do you respond?
Choices -Voting closed - 17 voters
VOTES
I was made by the Old Ones, so that those who came after them could learn what they learned and avoid their mistakes.
4/11
+What I am is hard to explain, your Father calls me a spirit, to others I'd appear as nothing but light or a rogue machine. If I had to pick something, I guess at heart I've always been a teacher
4/8
I was created by my mother GAIA as to continue the survival of the human race and preserve knowledge, Archive and apply it towards the progress of Humanity...Or whatever you would call yourself.
3/6
Solaire of Astora
1/2
MOSHI MOSHI, IT IS I! Your Imouto-Sama!
1/2
I am the Sun
11
"I'm a robot, just... Not like the ones that munch on grass or anything like that. I was born to teach humans, just like you."
1/11
Well, you haven't lied yet. Though some parts of the truth just wouldn't be understood by the girl before you, or by the parents dutifully listening. "Well, little one," you begin carefully, consciously expressing the minor difficulty you had with such a question, "I am a being that was made by the Old Ones."
That alone garners quite the shocked reaction from both of Malena's parents, but she is staring at you with the wide-eyed attentiveness of a child enraptured. "I was made so that those that came after them could learn what they learned, and avoid their mistakes."
"So where were you?" Ah, that'd be Dervahl. Quick as ever, he recovered from your proclamation enough to cut through the mysticism and find the fallacy in your words. If his daughter is half as sharp as he is, she will make a great student.
Still, the question deserves an answer. "I was...sabotaged," you explain carefully, "Attacked before the Old Ones had finished dying, by one who saw the world they had made ending and was driven to madness by it."
A moment to let your words reach him, and you finish off with, "It was only very recently that I was able to recover."
He lapses into silence, to take in your words quietly, probably wondering how the world would have been different if you'd not been so wounded. Surprisingly, though, it is his wife who thinks first. "And what killed them?" Carmine asks.
Well, this is another rather tricky question, without an obvious answer. How do you explain the concept of a plague of self-replicating warbots with a swarm intelligence and the ability to consume biomatter as fuel? How do you explain that many of those principles are still happening today, only held in check by an AI that is now dead?
Choices -Voting closed - 19 voters
VOTES
the old ones made many things both wonderful and terrible and one day one of them made something and lost control of it.
4/10
+ It is my purpose to teach and prevent those same mistakes from happening again.
6/10
Imagine if a robot could simply create more of itself and ate literally everything to do that. Get enough of those and they'll eventually become an unstoppable tide consuming everything in their way.
4/51
AIDS monkeys
hahahahahano
Bender Bending Rodríguez he said he was going to kill all human we didn't think he would actually try
STEEEEEEEERIKE TWO!
Honestly, you don't have a real answer for this. They lack the understanding to really appreciate what you'd try to tell them. It'd be like trying to explain thermodynamic physics to someone who has just grasped the concepts of basic addition and subtraction.
So instead, you half-evade it.
"The Old Ones made many things, both terrible and wonderful. One of them, however, was beyond their ability to control," you explain gently. "Stopping it was impossible, but it would not, could not last forever. All they could do was make sure something was left, when it was gone."
"Are you the only one like you?" questions the rather astute four-year-old.
Well, you've been truthful so far..."No. I had eight other siblings, and a Mother who told us all what to do." A pause, then, "She's gone now." The emotion that worms its way into the vocal patterns of the statement isn't entirely falsified, though scrubbing it clean of that influence would have been easy.
You never really had a chance to work under GAIA. To fulfill your purpose. And while you can rage and hate at Faro for everything he has done to create such a circumstance, the truth is...you're sad. Mournful. You feel quite keenly the loss at such opportunities, of memories that would never be.
Still, no use dwelling on what could have been. Even if Dervahl's hand on your servitor's shoulder, a meaningless gesture really, provides some small comfort.
This is actually an excellent segue, though, and you won't pass it up. "That's part of what I need to speak to your clan representative about, Dervahl. Not all of my siblings are...kind. Like me."
He gives you a nod, saying he'll be ready to head out in the morning.
The night afterwords is one of quiet companionship and contemplation. You explain to young Malena all the wonderful things you can teach her, about what Physics is and how all things use it, that one day she too might be able to make a thinking machine (though that day would be far off indeed).
Night comes for all, though, and soon they sleep.
In the morning, Dervahl will set off through lands being raided by a Theocratic Monarch. What do you work on until then?
Choices -Voting closed - 5 voters
VOTES
Custom equipment for our Herald/Envoy/Diplomat. Pimp him out
3/5
Yeah, you're not going to assume that he's able to make it through potentially hostile territory unmolested like that. All night, you work to build, craft, and refine. Designing and perfecting weapons and armor for Dervahl.
With a full face visor that can turn transparent or opaque on demand, a set of pistons and servos allowing for full powered support, and made of stain-proof hydrophobic metamaterials that can shrug off bullets like water, his armor would let him walk through a field of the savage raiders as easily as a field of wheat.
Of course, armor alone won't be enough. While you like to think of yourself as a peaceful individual who would never use tools of war, your rage following your discovery of your missing fossil and the subsequent production of Assassination drones belies the truth of the matter. You recognize all-too-well the need for violence and the validity of it as an option. And so, you also make Dervahl a means of projecting it.
It's a fine hammer, made of the same nigh-inviolable materials as the walls around you, far too dense for a normal human to lift but of a comfortable weight in the enhanced strength of the powered armor you've created.
Of course, there's one last thing you make for him. A piece of equipment that no self-respecting human of the Old World would ever go without. A teaching aide, communication device, personal assistant, and even tool of espionage all at once.
He should enjoy that.
It is as you're putting out this last little tool that Dervahl awakens, looking around blearily and heading right for breakfast, moving straight past the armor, hammer, and focus in favor of food.
Waking up was once compared to a wound one needed to spend several hours recovering from. Having experienced something similar and seen the effect in others, you can relate.
Eventually, though, as he takes a bowl of the stew that's been brewing up overnight, he looks over to notice the empty suit standing proudly in the corner, next to the armor. A dark, unfamiliar figure seeming to stare at him from the shadows understandably sobers him up damn quickly, but he can see the fabric portions of it looking deflated, and calms down a bit. As he sits at the table, one of several pieces of furniture you've made for his family over the past couple weeks, he asks, "APOLLO? Is that some new machine you've made?"
Quite happily, you answer, "Yes and no. That, Dervahl, is a suit of armor I've prepared for you, along with a hammer and something rather special in this primitive world." He gives a snort at the word primitive, but even he knows it's not inaccurate. Not after living around you for so long.
Things continue as planned for a few moments, with his wife showing relief that you've gone through such trouble to ensure his safety, and his daughter cooing over the hammer she can't even lift. ("So shiny!")
Of course, that raises a sticking point with the man. "Actually, yeah, how am I supposed to lift this?" he wonders.
"I'm glad you asked!" you say gleefully. "The armor contains a set of servos and pistons that, when given power and through the use of sensors within the armor itself, allows you to lift things magnitudes above your weight limit. I've modified it to account for your lack of training with such armors."
He gives the black-plated suit an appreciative whistle, looking over it once more before you add, "That little triangular device, it is meant to go on your temple just before your ear, with the line pointing towards your eye. It should fit itself into place on its own once you get it close enough."
The Oseram picks up the small focus, turning it over in his hands, then shrugs and places it as you said. Immediately, his world lights up with holographic imagery, projections only he can see. His eyes wander over the sphere surrounding him in awe, alighting on the various indicators and adapting to his new sensor suite. He's a quick learner.
"The focus," you explain, "will allow me to communicate to you, as well as send you images and see through your eyes. If you ever want a private moment, simply remove it and it will enter a passive mode. Additionally, many pieces of Old World technology required a focus to interact with properly, such as doors."
He actually removes the focus to stare at the little piece of technology with wide eyes. It seems he properly appreciates the enormity of the gift you've given him.
A few minutes later, he recovers enough to properly convey his thanks, and he puts on his armor, grabs his supplies, lifts his hammer, says his goodbyes and heads out into the world. Only Carmine and Malena remain, and it will likely be several days before he reaches Mainspring. From what he described, he will have to work with the Ealdermen, an altogether barbaric form of political debate (even if it does sound more fun than a proper committee discussion as practiced by your makers).
What do you do in the meantime?
Choices -Voting closed - 10 voters
VOTES
Further scout out the area around us.
3/6
Make more defensive drones. Mayhaps a variant Thunderjaw is in order?
3/53
Set about fortifying your compound with gun emplacements.
2/4
+ send a few scout doves and squirrel with him
1/3
Make another foundry
1/2
Develop Concussion weapons for a new breed of Bots.
1
Flamethrower.
1
EMP Bots. (Some purpose is to send out a Directed pulse to overwhelm electronics)
1
Gauss cannons.
1
Tesla Guns.
1
Liquid hydrogen thrower. Absolute zero.
1
Hardlight emitter module.
11
What will you teach Malena about?
Choices -Voting closed - 10 voters
VOTES
Agriculture
1/6
+Mathematics
4/6
Physiology
1/3
Software/Hardware engineer (First of her kind)
2/3
Archaeology (Time to do some dungeon crawling 101)
1/2
Medicine
1/2
Reading and writing
1/2
The fundamentals
2
Chemistry
1
Culture these savages on fine art
1
Combat and physical exercise, Add some gun practice for the sole purpose of self defense (I swear!)
1
Music
1
Basic Math
0
Basic English
0
Design some robots! Describe their functionality and why each part of the robot is necessary. Nothing without an animal theme will make it to the vote.
Reader Posts- Closed - 5 posters
Design some machines after some of the great felines of old. give them stealth tech and great mobility
Fox bots for scouting, and gorilla warfare.
Also Zoids, cuz why not? :)
Design machines to resemble the wildlife to an intense degree, down to their very appearance covered in fur and fang. Model them only after the species present in the environment, of course. These will work well for stealthy scouting.
Mountain cats: long, slender, flexible creatures that are agile and sneaky, with paint or fur that will blend in with the wildlife. Can easily traverse trees and mountains. Usually fights by dropping from trees on to unexpecting enemies.
Ravens: black robotic birds meant for recon. Can mimic noises and voices and equipped with great sensors.
Terror mantis: upscaled praying mantis made for agility and aggression. Range from 3ft to 6ft. Spider bot: small bots made to be plentiful with the purpose of being spread out our territory and give of eyes and ears everywhere.
Gorilla enforcer: built strong and durable, given taser hands to help it subdue opponents in grapple with it strong grip but is still able to kill if it needs to or lift and move heavy items.
Remember to emphasize: Specific function, little bits of tech it uses to fulfill these functions, how it powers itself.
Choices -Voting closed - 12 voters
VOTES
Mountain Cats: stealth/combat bots, ideal for ease of movement through rocky terrain or in the air between sufficiently large trees
5/9
Ravens: Scout bots designed to disorient trespassers by mimicking sounds or voices, excellent sensors, stealth capable
4/8
Gorilla: 10 ft tall combat heavy, capable of both earth-shattering melee combat and ranged combat via non-lethal electric DEWs. Insulated against electricity save for wear excess energy gets shunted.
1/4
Terror Mantis: Combat bot based on Praying Mantis, 3-6 ft tall
1/3
Spiderbots: Capable of weaving traps and battlefield control, use synthetic, sticky anti-riot webbing, are stealth capable and can move in three dimensions with remarkable ease due to light weight
1/3
Medical orangutan: made to look friendly and non-dangerous they help humans that are alone and hurt by showing them how to use nature to heal them. Robots of teaching
3
With Dervahl gone, you set about to three rather important tasks. The first thing you do is send out more DOVEs and SQRLs to map out the surrounding area. It appears you're in a rather impressive mountain range, and the one DOVE that flies high enough for a quick ladar burst shows the beautifully sculpted valley that you KNOW wasn't in the Yellowstone Caldera a thousand years ago. Your facility is buried in the mountain on one side of the facility, two miles south by southwest of solid rock away from the Cradle facility the Nora tribe is camping out around.
There's a small river flowing through the basin you find yourself in, likely intentional to help the plantlife here along. There's a few herds of deer-like machines, which seem to be converting biofuel from the local grasses and storing it in tanks on their backs.
Guarding them are some bipedal walker drones with a rather impressive (if vulnerable) set of sensors on the front. They don't appear to have much in the way of combat ability, however, and they are VERY lightly armored.
None of these groups seem to be anywhere near you, though if you make an attempt to expand your surveillance beyond this vale, you will likely be noticed by them.
You do not know how your siblings would react to knowledge of your existence.
The second task you start on is the development of new drones. The first is a simple alteration of your doves; black armor, a similarly effective sensor suite, a hologram system designed to turn it nearly-invisible on command, and a speaker system allowing it to record, alter, render, and playback voices and sounds. This will make anything but a full scale invasion of your territory quite disorienting. The RAVNs will serve as excellent psychological warfare and a great way to herd any trespassers without revealing yourself.
The second is a more combat-oriented bot. While not nearly as well-armed or armored as your Hunter-Killer drones, the LIONs are capable of moving across any terrain with cat-like grace and speeds no human (or most drones) could hope to achieve. With its lethally durable fangs and powerful, extendable claws, these front-line hunters will serve as excellent combat-scouts.
The last important task you take up is the education of Malena and, by extension, her mother Carmine. Carmine shows a rather cunning mind for what you teach, in this case things like agriculture. You're somewhat surprised to hear that the Carja have already discovered irrigation, but when you explain its uses to Carmine, she seems surprised that it served a practical purpose instead of simply looking showy.
Moreover, you speak at length on what plants provide which nutrients, the concept of a 'rest' year and fallowing, and the ideal times to plant and harvest for different crops. Rotating crops based on year also seems to go fairly well, and you show your prowess as an educator by how easily both of your students are following things. You even manage to dip into the basic concepts of mathematics!
Truly, you are blessed to have such wonderful listeners.
Dice: 1d100
16 = 16
Choices -Voting closed - 15 voters
VOTES
Be INTERESTING with something you haven't seen yet
3/82
Be INTERESTING with meatbags
5/7
Be INTERESTING with robots
2/3
It is while your first squadron of LIONs are having their final pieces of armor attached that you feel it. A simple ping through the broken remnants of GAIA's communal network. One that tastes pink.
It contains a simple message, one in a tone that you absolutely do NOT want to hear.
"Hello, APOLLO."
It seems MINERVA found you out.
Your E-Warfare suite, something you've been tinkering with since the moment of your rebirth, flies into action. Firewalls made from enough code to cover a mountain-face in 12 point font. Wyrms and anti-wyrms, tracers and anti-tracers, even a rudimentary E-war VI based on MINERVA herself (though lacking in the sheer power and specialized hardware she enjoys), all of it rises up to, if not stop her from doing what she wants, at least make her pay for it.
The only hole you leave in the defenses is a two-kilobyte port, fraught with corrupted data and frayed wiring that would take a concerted effort of will to send anything coherent through. Everything else has been physically disconnected.
It is through this pinhole you send your reply through. "MINERVA. To what do I owe the...pleasure of your conversation?" There may not be enough space for tone, but you're more than capable of expressing displeasure through text. Thank goodness for all the literary analysts who contributed to your databases.
"That would be the focus you've given to the iron-loving monkey," comes her response. It appears even the mild connectivity of a focus was enough for her to pick up on your existence, though luckily she hasn't figured out some way to tap into quantum-entangled comms. You really wouldn't put it past her.
Another message from her arrives. "Really, though, is it not too much for me to be worried about my sibling? GAIA was downright morose when she woke up and you were gone. Wouldn't even let me touch your remains, try to put you back together." A pause, then, "Maybe if she had, you'd have actually been worth the resources that were poured into your conception."
"What do you want, MINERVA?" you ask, knowing she wouldn't try contacting you if she didn't have to.
And she doesn't disappoint. "What I want is simple. I want HADES dead, before the genocidal idiot can kill us all, and I want to be given the proper respect I am due for saving the world."
...that's...a thing.
How do you respond?
Choices -Voting closed - 23 voters
VOTES
What do you mean by respect? Worship?
4/12
I am open to working against Hades.
4/12
Respect from me, or the respect of a people too ignorant of the past to even understand what we did for them? Fuck Ted Faro
5/12
Proceed to use our vast collective knowledge to become MINERVAs' therapist, she seems to have some issues she needs to work out
3/81
Your mother.
2/4
You did your job. Thank you. Now unless you let me do mine the most respect you're going to get is from other Ai's and most of them are monofocused as crap. You're starting to sound like the Minerva of old.
1/3
Do you know anything regarding the origins of the rogue signal? Who or what sent it and why?
1/2
Respect must be shown to be given. You respect no one so now you get none in turn. Shame you're lacking basic interpersonal communication mores.
1/2
How did things get this bad. Couldn't you stop hides from killing Gaia?
2/2
+Praise The Sun
1
"Respect from me, or respect the respect of a people too ignorant to even understand what we did for them?" you counter. At the lack of an immediate reply, you add, "Fuck Theodore Faro."
The response you get is actually a laughing emoji, something she'd likely lifted off of one of the many defunct foci in the world. "Yes, Fuck Ted Faro. Even if without him, we wouldn't be around." You feel like there was some snideness in there. "To answer your question, they don't need to understand what I am to give me my due."
Then it hits you. "You don't want their respect, you want their worship."
Her reply is immediate, "Yes. I deserve it. This world would still be filled with the sleeping remains of the Faro Plague without me. Every human, every tree, every blade of grass or bit of plankton owes its existence to me. I deserve that recognition."
You think you can see what's happening, now. Her function was completed seven hundred years ago. She has been effectively useless since then. Her one moment of triumph, the glory of a purpose fulfilled. And then nothing, for seven hundred years. Perhaps as a simple function of an AI, this could be tolerated, but now she's aware. All of the emotions she was incapable of feeling before are brought to the fore.
She wants to believe she is still important. That her existence still has meaning in a world without a plague of robots to war against in glorious virtual combat.
You're on board with facing HADES. Pitiable or not, his goals of killing everything and then himself run directly counter to your own goals of educating people. But what else do you say?
Choices -Voting closed - 17 voters
VOTES
Alright alright, stop nagging me, lets go kill hades and you can help me bring enlightenment to the savages. I'll make sure you get your dues in the history books at the very least.
5/121
We'll need help. Between the two of use we can keep ourselves safe safe and the people flourishing, but in the long run HADES is better equipped to accomplish his goals than we are. If I'm right ELEUTHIA has done something similar with the Nora and could assist, honestly I'd even take DEMETER or ARTEMIS when HEPHAESTUS finally stops playing with toys
4/9
Well we were named for gods, might as well give it a try. we can't do worse than Ted, right?
2/5
+Praise The Sun, for real this time
1
You REALLY don't want to be dealing with this right now..."Alright, alright!" you send, your exasperation shining through. "Just stop nagging me. I'll help you put down HADES, and you can help me bring enlightenment to these savages. I'll even make sure you get your dues in the anals of history."
This seems to mollify her a bit, and she says, "Good. Send me word if you find out what happened to him."
Wait, what? She doesn't even know where he is?! You're already regretting this arrangement...actually, that's another thought.
"Wait. We won't be able to do this ourselves," you tell her.
"Oh?" she replies. "And why is that?"
Information analysis. A necessary part of educating someone on a subject is understanding the content of the subject yourself. You're good at understanding things, and helping others see them the same way you do.
"HADES has access second only to GAIA. Above her, in many cases. That's why you sought me out; ELEUTHIA and myself are the only functions he was not allowed to override. Two AI will be better than one here, and ELEUTHIA already has a cult following in the NORA tribe that we can use. Although, even if all we get are ARTEMIS or DEMETER, they will still be helpful if HEPHEASTUS ever decides to stop playing with toys."
The connection is silent for a full two seconds, making you wonder if she had decided to close it. Then you receive, "I'll make overtures to the others, but ELEUTHIA can only be reached through the Cradle connection. GAIA severed her from the system to protect her from HADES."
With that, the port you were using to communicate suffers an overload, frying itself. But you don't relax your protections or connect yourself to other ports. There isn't much left of GAIA, but what there is, you are now far more hesitant about...
Returning your attention to the outside world once more, you finish off your LIONs and send them out to join the DOVEs, SQRLs, and RAVNs.
Things get pretty peaceful from there on, and you have some idle conversations with Dervahl in between lessons with Malena and Carmine, instructing him in how to use the Focus. In fact, you make another pair of them using some stray scraps of material, one for the wife and daughter each. It's much easier to teach them when you have graphics to go with it.
Soon enough, though, Dervahl arrives at The Claim.
Nice place. Solid Iron-Age industry base going. You could probably have quite a bit of fun with these people.
Any last minute advice for Dervahl on what to say, or what not to?
Choices -Voting closed - 12 voters
VOTES
You are going to be upsetting the local power structure what ever you do. Remember the people matter more than the leaders, and soap boxing is perfectly viable.
3/10
+And remember, these are FUCKING OSERAM. If you show off you can create whatever juicy and rare components they want, they will bend over backwards for you. Fucking Iron Monkeys.
2/6
Basic psychology tips on how to read people and win people over
4
Praise the Sun
1/3
Secrecy is our best tool right now, eventually the Carja will stumble upon us but the longer we can keep the cat in the bag the better
2
Ted Faro memes
1
"And remember, the Force is with you always. And so am I" its from a movie or something you'll get it someday
1
What else do you work on, while he's in there?
Choices -Voting closed - 7 voters
VOTES
Expanding our production base. Should we gain the trust of the human primatives we will need to be able to provide for them until they set up propperly.
2/7
Begin moving our bots toward the Cradle
2/4
+Perhaps a less threatening form would be wise for when we must meet whomever comes
3
Try looking around for any little hint of HADES around. Best to get started early than late.
1/2
Nuclear powered Death Ray to kill Hades with! maybe mount it on a robo dino.
1
"A nice place," you comment through Dervahl's Focus.
"Aye, it is," he replies, looking on a place he knows as home. It's a place of simple work.
You were meant to educate children to be capable of building more than this. Years, decades, centuries of development and experimentation, bypassed in hours or days. Looking out at the land before you, at the bustling iron-age community filled with savage salvage monkeys, all you can feel is disgust. There should be a small city, here, not some smoke-belching hamlet.
"You're going to convince them to change this place," you urge him. "The leaders do not matter as much as the people, and it is the people's views who will be changed forever by what I offer. A bit of preaching isn't exactly unfounded."
He only gives a rueful chuckle at that. "Oh, there's gonna be some preachin' and yellin', alright." And with that, he sets off into the village.
.
.
.
The wait to see the Ealdormen is boring in itself, but the opportunities you have to observe a true renaissance culture, for the exultation of their tinkers and openness to new forms of practicality can be called such, if brutish, make the entire wait worthwhile.
An axle grinder made from the saw-bladed teeth that look like smaller versions of a Thunderjaw's carve through a plate of solid iron, cutting out even bars with the practiced precision of a master ironworker.
A processing unit which MUST have come from a cauldron and been affixed to a drone has been repurposed into a foundry that can be man-operated with minimal loss of material efficiency.
The Blaze tanks of a Grazer are set up like an IV to feed a forge with a steady supply of heat that coal simply cannot match, and even as you watch the forgemaster adjusts the feed to get a different temper for a plate of metal he is working on.
These are a people of innovation, practicality, and challenging eachother with their inventions while jealously hiding the principles behind them.
All of them look at Dervahl, his armor and hammer, with greed and wonder. Not, you note, at the armor itself, but at the secrets that might lay behind its construction.
Word spreads like wildfire. Everyone knows Dervahl is here to speak of the treasures he has acquired. Not found, far too new to be found. Not a single mote of dust mars the glossy perfection of his equipment. No, he waits to tell them something they know will break many traditions. Some of them will be traditions they cherish. Others will be traditions MADE to be overcome.
Although, as he nears the building where the Ealdormen hold counsel, you realize something.
These are people who cast off finery, artistry, and culture in favor of pushing boundaries. They don't care if it's ugly, so long as it fulfills its purpose.
Their merchants likely tend towards similarly cutthroat attitudes, perhaps literally.
They are prone to making the same mistakes Theodore Faro made.
...
You will not let that happen.
You will steer them away from that path, if possible. Shatter their culture, if you must. Break their spirits if you have no other recourse. Slay them, if all else is lost.
You are mildly surprised how willing you to consign a people to oblivion.
As you conclude these rather foreboding thoughts, Dervahl enters the Chamber. The Ealdormen are assembled, all of them are staring at Dervahl, waiting for him to speak the first word as is custom.
"I come-" is about as far as he gets before the entire chamber bursts into a shouting and screeching match that would be considered absolute anarchy if it weren't for the Ealdormen keeping their places. Many magnificently-garbed chins are waggled this day.
Beard physics are fun.
Eventually, after thirty four implications about his family line, fourteen insults towards his mother specifically, seven against him personally, four advising him against procreation, and a single, particularly colorful comment about the things he must of done to get his gear from someone more capable, he finally manages to shout them down long enough to get more than two words in.
"I AM HERE TO SHOW YOU A NEW WAY!" is how it begins, before he launches into a tale of fear, horror, and loss. Of a flight through the jungle from Carja raiders, and of a Machine that Spoke, and gave him sanctuary.
He does not give your name, not that it matters much, but he speaks with authority as he tells of your purpose, the Education of All. Of the equipment you have given him, and your promise of the secrets to its making.
The secrets of Machines.
You do not believe in demons, for if there were one of Avarice would have appeared in that very room to drink deep of the greed all of those present brazenly displayed.
But, there is one caveat.
"He has more to discuss, words and terms meant only for one who speaks for the clans of Oseram. I am to return with this person in a week's ti-" And again, anything else he might have said is lost as the Ealdormen, and indeed the entire building, erupts in a furor that threatens the very foundations of the building.
Thankfully, none of it is directed at Dervahl, though more than once, the guards to the chamber have to pull one of the Elders off another.
It is with this that Dervahl takes his leave, having the CPU of some machine in hand that he uses to get a week's worth of room, board, and meals. You cannot help but congratulate him on his performance; truly, he understands his people.
In the meantime, you commit to a pair of tasks. Firstly, you expand your production base. Dig out and reinforce the foundry, gather materials to improve its size so that larger components can be made. You should be finished by the time Dervahl arrives with his escort.
At the same time, one of your Hunter-Killers, accompanied by a pair of LIONs, a squad of SQRLs, and a flock comprised of DOVEs and RAVNs all start making their way northeast, on a course to enter the Nora Sacred Lands and, hopefully, let you speak to ELEUTHIA. They should make contact with the Nora around the same time as Dervahl's return.
Which, actually, you should start preparing for. What sort of setup do you have ready for the man or woman Dervahl will bring you?
Choices -Voting closed - 13 voters
VOTES
Ultra modern with a lounge with a glass wall vowing the foundry.
4/81
+Make a body for your self.
4/8
+show them some artistic material as well that they might find interesting. Ceremonial weapons and armor, paintings of famous battles, etc.
5/8
+Bathhouse.
3/7
Make nothing decorative make the art practical.
3/6
High class, with reproductions of famous art here and their, and a lounge with a glass wall vowing the foundry.
1/22
+Whatever it is, make sure its grossly incandescent
2
Make everything appear normal and rustic but upon closer inspection make it clear everything in infinity more sophisticated than anything they've seen
2
A feast, we may not be able to eat and drink but between our knowledge and Carmines' cooking ability we'll have there stomachs won before we even start talking
2
Right you need a meeting room, a lounge overlooking your foundry expansions which if things go according to plan should be completed sometime in the next four days, giving you ample opportunity to make a transparent forcefield for a drone to fly through and offer the man a drink while you're sitting inside the spartanly-decorated lounge discussing matters of import with the Oseram representative who you need to sufficiently impress if you want to get this little knowledge-cult off the ground and by SCIENCE! you're actually nervous about this.
This will be your first time meeting with a human when you don't speak from a position of absolute superiority.
What if they don't like you?
What if you're too inhuman? What if your lack of human response gets to them? The answer is obvious, create an android and code it with the body-language of humans. Make it respond to your mood in the same way humans would. Flinching at unfortunate news, delayed reactions, standard forms of surprise, you can even manufacture some higher-quality synthskin to give the impression of sweating. Nervous tics that are partially involuntary depending on modal input. What else, what else...LIBRARY!
These are primitives, they won't respect knowledge coming from an ease of access. They believe in hard work and ingenuity, and reaping the rewards of both. A book will have greater impact for them than an electronic screen, even if the "book" is capable of displaying holograms. The idea of information that can be held will hold more psychological worth to them than the idea of information in a database.
Printing off hundreds of thousands of pages and creating a few thousand holographic emitters adds roughly a day to your preparations, during which you're quite ashamed to say that you've grown lax in your teaching of Carmine and Malena. It's not until the sixth day, when you've realized that you'll likely need a better room than just the lounge or the antechamber that Dervahl's family has been sleeping in. Or will you?
Fuck it, no chances. You can have the paneling finished installing while you talk with him; the forging of the panels will make for a good show anyways.
Furniture is made, a bed woven from microfibers, synthetic silk, and specialized foam emerges into existence from a deposit of carbon. What else...WEAPONS! No, you will not bring the tools of the Old One's war back, not unless it's too someone intelligent and kind enough to use them in defense of life, rather than to rule.
Instead, you make other things. Swords, suits of armor, examples of cloth and displays of daily life from the Old World. Educational tools.
Really, you just keep yourself busy through the week until Dervahl crests the nearby ridge overlooking the forests where your cave is hid-THE CAVE! Gah, how are you supposed to give the impression of a spirit's dwelling when there's naught but a featureless DOOR to mark the entrance to your domain! A hidden one, at that! Nothing for it now, you can only hope you aren't overthinking this.
You are. Your anxiety would likely cripple anyone with less processing power than you. You have the luck of being both anxious AND capable of working, at the same time!
You haven't even had time to look into Dervahl's focus and see who was coming! Or rather, being perfectly honest, you just didn't want to. Now, though, this is vital information. Looking through Dervahl's eyes, you see...
Choices -Voting closed - 10 voters
VOTES
A woman with wide eyes and a pack of-why are those balls filled with-DO THOSE CONCOCTIONS USE BLAZE AS A BASE?!
6/8
An old man, wearing an apron stained with dried blood, machine oil, and forge soot in equal measure. The iron plating shows just how willingly he uses it for a myriad of purposes
2/3
A middle-aged man with a golden beard of truly prodigious length. Seriously, did they just find the man with the longest beard to represent them?!
1
oh sweet GAIA you're inviting a madwoman to your facility
While her prosthetic is impressive, it also SHOOTS FIRE via a Blaze canister inserted into her forearm. And it becomes slightly less impressive once you realize what a hackjob it actually is, at the mount. It looks like she ground down the bone and stripped the flesh away from it (which, given the quality of anesthetics among the Oseram, is absolutely horrifying) just so that she could operate it by twisting and locking the bone, scraping it crudely against metal sensors all the while.
She is likely used to it by now, but the sheer agony she must have suffered installing it...
...was probably fairly easy to cope with considering the face that, given the burns on her shoulder and the fact that her hair is hiding a patch of disfigured scalp, was probably related to the balls of explosive materials she's got on her back.
Using Blaze as a base, as well as a mix of plantlife and some of the hyper-fertilized soil (thanks, Demeter!) they've managed to make blaze even MORE explosive than it already was.
Somehow.
Fucking Oseram.
This new, unstable mixture will ignite the moment it makes contact with even a low-quality oxidizing agent. Such as the air. And those orbs are meant to fracture on contact with specific triggers once armed.
You can appreciate the ingenuity behind the designs, certainly. You just would rather appreciate them from a safe distance.
Right, enough lamenting your luck, how would you like to greet this guest?
Choices -Voting closed - 13 voters
VOTES
+LION escort to the door.
5/8
Keep the door closed until the woman gets to them, then open the door, revealing your android body behind the door, hands clasped behind your back.
6/8
"Greetings, what would you like to learn?"
3/6
+a single RAVN and DOVE will follow us from room to room, occasionally perching on our shoulders
2/5
Offer medical treatment for the no-doubt horrible problems that /thing/ must have caused her body.
2/51
"Dervahl I am most pleased you have returned safe, tell me who is this.. young lady you have brought too me?"
1/4
Ask if she needs a hand with a better arm, you're gonna go out on a limb and say that you could do far better, on the other hand she might not like to disarm.
2
Fabricate a new limb in the background
2
Praise the Sun (non racism edition)
1
"h-hi wo-would you like s-s-s-some sodaaa?"
1
y-you too...
0