There are, categorically speaking, four types of Samurai. The first type are the inactive kind, those who only take to the field when their immediate location is threatened. Next there are the active types, split into three.
Cleaners, which are generally low powered, singular forces, which while they may have high combat power, are limited to merely themselves, and army types, who walk around with armies of alien technology.
While the memo is equally true amongst all the above types, you must never do anything to draw the attention of an army types, under pain of forfeiture of your 401k.
-Internal memo of the neighbor of a corporation that did anger an army type Samurai.
I never knew the appeal of the idol industry, as I only saw its effects on those obsessed with said idols. Standing in front of this blue avatar, I could finally see the appeal.
<No. While my family may want or need upgrades for their gear later, that is only five humans you need to worry about, five humans with their own aesthetic senses. That said, I do have a big project for you. Two, in fact.>
I pulled up the schematic of the mega building, because, yeah, at this point I was going to buy a floor, maybe two depending on what she could come up with.
<This building is some hundred floors tall, with the exterior being made with Class II materials. There is a heavily reinforced security center here,> I highlight the floor in the 3d schematic floating in front of us, <and basement floors B-4 through B-8 are also made from Class II materials. As you can see from the destroyed sections of the interior, it needs to be heavily repaired. I have first dibs on buying a floor or two at heavy discount so long as I repair the damages. So, your first project is thus. I need an estimate on materials to repair the tower to a functional state, it doesn't need to be exactly how it was before, so you can either leave the floors blank or optimize them how you like for other tenets. Secondly, pick either a floor or two that are adjacent to each other and design a usable space for us for future operations. Living room for… let's say ten people, workspaces for ten people, and able to sustain ten people. Then, the rest could be work spaces, fabrication areas, power generation and supply facilities, storage areas for… I can have a maximum of twenty five hundred Class II cubes connected to me now, so double that.>
If I may, Victor.
Synaptic doesn't have an avatar in this space, but we are all aware that she is there.
Looking towards the future, these AI units can be upgraded into Class III Support units, which greatly increases their capabilities both in real space and the network, while also giving them their own bandwidth to control their own battalions of swarms, or about one thousand units.
I nod, <Very well. Then I will not put a cap on storage and leave that up to your judgment. The second project is thus.> I pull up the Cobra Cruiser model and project it outward.
<Using this as a conceptual base model, I want you to design a mobile command center, with the listed features being mandatory. It doesn't need to be exactly this shape, but keeping it around this size would be preferred.>
She flitted between both models, and I could see preliminary notes taking form around them. Then, she turned to me. “Clarifying questions. If I determine a concept would benefit from Catalogs I do not have access to, may I request them?”
<Up to Class II. And even then I would need a reason to convince me to spend the tokens.>
“Secondly! I am allowed to freely design any and all parts of the ship so long as it covers the sixteen listed parts? Like drop pods, bomb bays, and reclamation staging areas?”
<Yes? So long as you do not go overboard on features, that's fine.>
“Thirdly! For the building, since we need Hydroponics for the ship, we could very easily set up a large farming block to supply either the rest of the building or the rest of the city. How big are you wanting to go?”
That caused me to pause. <What do you mean the rest of the city? I could feed a megacity of one hundred million plus people?>
“Well, not quite. Preliminary plans show, with Spatial expansion, I could easily quintuple the space of the floor. If you are planning to buy two floors, that would be ten floors worth of space. While water becomes a new challenge, those five extra floors each contain enough space to grow and process enough food to feed about a quarter of the city. If I push the expansion to its limit, we could get seven floors worth of space that could feed closer to half.”
I stand there in silence. I could not process this right now. <Provide plans for both with room for shipping and receiving. I will need to converse with others to figure that out.>
She nods her head slowly, “Fourthly, then. Where are you supplying the raw materials from? Depending on how far away the locations are, I will adjust my estimates on how long these projects will take.”
Shit. That's right. I need materials. I could talk to Bud and ask him how he does it, as his meeple mentioned he works by the tonnage normally, he must have a mine or two. Maybe he could help me figure something out. Or maybe I already had a solution.
<In your experimental weapons list, you had a weapon to summon something from space to drop on a target. What is it summoning?>
“Debris orbiting the Earth. I connected to various monitoring satellites and found a disturbing amount of metals flying at Mach 3 and above. The plan was to launch our own satellite to collect those pieces, containing them between two portals to maintain their momentum, and then releasing them on targets from a danger close range.” She says while tilting her head slightly.
Yeah, okay. That would be wildly efficient and effective against, fuck. Anything on Earth?
I shook my head, readjusting. <Okay, crazy, give me a list on what you need for that, cause that sounds like my own Delete Button, just less. But what's to stop us from sending a satellite or probe to the asteroid belt or Mars or the moon and setting up a portal system between us and them?>
Besides it being a Class III technology and a way to launch said portal device from here to the moon or beyond, nothing.
<Point taken. I assume there is not many Catalogs I need to unlock before I can get it?>
The Portal technology? Class II Power Generation, Class I, II, and III Spatial Coordinates and Anchoring, Class I, II, and III Spatial Coupling. Now, if you are asking about how to get the portals into space, there are a number of methods. Rockets, railguns, space elevators. In fact, there is a single recorded event of the old American Government sending a multi-ton piece of steel into space using a nuclear weapon.
“Exaxtly.” The blue AI chimed in,
<Alright, more hurdles than solutions for that. What about sending out squads of nanites to hunt down antithesis and harvest them for everything they have?>
Rogal pipes up next. “While feasible, neither of us are designed for long ranged extended combat. You would need a different Commander.”
<And that would need to be a Class III Commander.> I sigh. I have the points for it. I have the tokens for it. <How much would it cost me,, Synaptic?>
Ten thousand points and three tokens for the Class III War Swarm Nanite Cloud Catalog, plus Ten thousand points per AI Uplifted. It does require an AI seed program to be uplifted, however.
Sands, that was expensive. But even I could tell how necessary this was going to be. From what I could tell, these guys could only operate within my direct control range, but there may come a time when something interferes with that range, or that I need to send them elsewhere from me. My current range basically covered a few city blocks. What if I need to protect multiple towns?
<What swarm type would you recommend to be the designated material hunter?>
Rogal and the blue one looked at each other. I needed to call her something, not just blue one.
<Wait, I need to name you. Morrigan. Your new name is Morrigan.>
Once more, I could feel the fundamental shift that occurred. Her smile widened, “That was going to be my fifthly question.”
“And we both agree it should be a Collector Scout Swarm hybrid. Much like how Morrigan is a combination of Fabricators and Recombinant Swarms, these two should provide the new Commander Type the direction it needs if that is going to be its primary function.”
<Very good. We can do that. But I have a new question of my own. Could Morrigan command Assault swarms if she needed to be stationed in a location?>
“Oh! Yes, of course I could, but it would be akin to giving a high powered rifle with iron sights to a child and telling them to hit a pear on the other hill. I could do it. But it would not be efficient. You could give me the programming or training necessary to command effectively, of course.”
<Huh. Well, I was planning on buying War simulation gear, so that could be a way to get training for all of us.>
“An excellent idea, General. It never hurts to have more practice for war before entering battle.” Rogal emphatically agreed.
<Things for later. Synaptic, please purchase the Class III swarm upgrades, then an AI seed in the designated swarms. Finally, the AI upgrades for these two.>
Unlocked Class III War Swarm Nanite Clouds
Purchased War Swarm Class II AI personality Seed
Purchased Class III Hero Acension Package 2x
Points reduced to 35220
Tokens reduced to 11
Two large boxes appeared on the table in front of the couch. Opening one, I see a large icosahedron with swirling with white fog within.
In order to use the Hero Acension Package, a few things are needed. The first is, of course, an AI personality core inbuilt to a swarm. The second is a number of secondary swarms which will merge with the primary AI swarm. The third is a certain number of specific resources that will be used to upgrade the Class of the Hero Unit's base Swarms to Class III. The second and third conditions are specific to each Hero Unit.
“That doesn't help me right now cause I STILL NEED RESOURCES!” I yell out loud, slamming my hand into the table, denting it severely.
After taking a few feet breaths to calm down, not helped by Morrigan giggling at me while fixing the table, I open a new menu labeled “Hero Acension!”. The menu has a blue background with sixteen bit stars twinkling on it, the border a really cheap gold color. I look to Rogal first. He needs twenty Defence Swarms, five Scout Swarms, two Generator Swarms, and four Builder Swarms, plus a number of materials that I am sure cannot be found on Earth. Micron Encoded Vintanium, Quadralaticed Quantum Quesnicole, Radiant Nutron Quartz, and a few others.
<What the fuck is all this?>
That would be Class III Materials, which, after upgrading a Fabricator Swarm Pair and unlocking the Class III Material Science Catalog, you can even make them!
I fume in silence for a minute, hearing the humor in Synaptic's voice.
<Point total?>
What? No please?
I sigh, feeling my tension fade away as I collapsed onto the couch I have been standing in front of.
<Please.>
Thank you. Two thousand points per for the upgrade, and twenty five hundred points and three tokens for the Catalog.
<Would this make Morrigan's upgrade cheaper if her component swarms were Class III?>
In terms of the raw material cost, yes.
<Do it. Please.>
Unlocked Class III Material Science
Purchased Class III War Swarm Fabrication Base Upgrade
Purchase Class III War Swarm Recombinant Base Upgrade
Points reduced to 26220
Tokens reduced to 8
Morrigan went quiet on the network as her swarm dice condensed into its decahedron form. Over the course of a minute, the die shifted into a dodecahedron, and shifted to a more blue silver. When she reawoke in the network, while her avatar didn't change, her presence was stronger.
<Congratulations on the upgrade, Morrigan. This still doesn't help me with obtaining the raw materials needed for her to make the materials I need to do anything.> I say, slouching deeper into the couch.
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