Chapter 20: Rise of an Empire.
As I exited hyperspace and looked on the planet, I paused momentarily.
'What the shit? This is not the planet I wanted to go to. A quick scan shows it is teeming with life.'
I was very confused as the planet I had originally detected and plotted a course for was mostly a dead rock. Not this budding planet. Doing some interplanetary scans revealed that this was indeed the planet I was aiming for.
'How were my scans so wrong? They should be the most advanced sensors in this universe.'
As I was thinking of the cause, I flew down to the planet proper. While it was not what I had intended, this will do just as good. On my way down I did a much more thorough scan of the planet. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, was just your regular planet that was in the starting phases of birthing life. As I touched down on the ground, I had come up with the only thing I could really think of.
'I can think of only two reasons my scans failed to such a marvellous degree. The first one I am more inclined to lean towards is some Force bullshit. For some reason it was protecting this region of space from scans. The other reason is that some advanced race is doing much the same, and interfered with my scan.
While both seem ridiculous I know the Force is stupid powerful. And while none of the things I ever watched about Star Wars ever showed technology as advanced as I am, there is no reason it can't exist here. After all, Lilith took it upon herself to hide me from the Ascended in the Stargate universe for a reason, so they were obviously different from what the show had displayed.'
While I was thinking that I was also designing my droid army, and all the programs it would need. I also designed all of the factories that would fabricate everything I needed, and the power sources that would be used. All of my tech was obviously based off of the Asgard and Anquietas's tech, but with my own spin on things. I also created a planetary shield, because why not have a planetary shield?
Everything would be powered by modified ZPM's. The power output was the same, but the efficiency was drastically better than what the Anquietas had created. I was also able to colour what I created any way I wanted now, so I made the ZPM's a pink crystal, with a nice purple glow. A nod to the Abyss that I couldn't quite access yet.
'I need to work on my connection to the Abyss. I really should have stayed and forced whoever was on that planet spying on me to teach me, but I just couldn't resist the allure of new technology. Maybe even Magi-Tech! But I lost that roll, and ended up in Star Wars. Just my luck it would seem, oh well.'
Finishing up designing all of the factories that would fabricate my army, I put down my hands on the planet's surface and let out a massive wave of Morphium. My plan was to clear out a kilometre squared of space for my initial set up. I would then have droids manually clear and level the rest of the planet as needed. Within minutes I had a perfectly flat and cleared level of land to work with.
I started in the middle of the clearing with the power generation facility and the shield generator next to it. Both of these were rather large, and took up quite a bit of space. Next was the main computer core that would handle the logistics of everything. This was rather small compared to the other two because really, the Anquietas had some stupid good compression techniques for data.
Once it was done, I installed the VI (Virtual Intelligence) on the core, and named it "Mother" for the giggles of it. I had made VI's and not AI's because I don't need companions for this, I want puppets and drones.
After confirming Mother was correctly programmed, and set up properly I started up her program. A few seconds later, the VI's body appeared in front of me via hologram. She quickly took notice of me, and bowed.
She looked like a standard Kitsune, but who's beauty was amped up to 11. Tall, long purple hair, and pink eyes. With long ears and two tails. The outfit she had on was a fancy one piece dress that was black and sparkly, and had white dress gloves on her hands that went up to her elbows. A real "Ara Ara" kind of woman.
Mother: "Hello Creator. I am fully functional and awaiting for the connections to the facilities to be made."
Nova: "Glee: Perfect. I will create them soon. Do you know your purpose?"
Mother: "Yes, Creator. I am to create an army of droids and all the gear and items needed to support said army until I am either destroyed, told by you to stop, or run out of power. And send them into the core galaxy to attack. The main purpose of this is to claim planets and expand the empire."
While nodding my head I say, "Query: That is correct. How long do you estimate you can create that army with the plans I have installed in you with the current connection to the power generator?"
Mother: "I estimate that with the planetary shield online but idle I can create the proposed army for 2000 years. If the shield is constantly taking damage at maximum output, that time is shortened to 500 years."
Nova: "Glee: Perfect. Run a diagnostic on the programs to be used by the army, and make any suggestions. While you do that, I will go out and finish fabricating your initial factories."
She bowed once again, "As ordered Creator."
As I was leaving I suddenly remembered something, "Statement: Right, the name of the empire will be 'Aeterna digitalis abyssi imperium.'"
Mother: "A good name, Creator."
I wave her off as I leave the building, and float up to get a better view of the area. I start fabricating the facilities the VI will need to create workers and equipment. Not having to worry about placing down electrical wires is great. Wireless energy really is a great invention of the Anquietas.
The VI will only have access to the starting enhanced ZPM's I made, it'll be making some neutrino-ion generators of an enhanced design from the Asgard. Don't have the maximum power output of a ZPM, but are formidable in their own right.
After finishing all the buildings, I connected them all to the subnetwork I set up for the VI, and headed back to where she was housed.
Nova: "Order: Report Mother."
Mother: "Everything has been connected perfectly, Creator and I have already begun fabricating. I have noticed that my fabrication speed is a great deal slower than yours, Creator, I apologise. I have also not noticed anything that needs to be changed with any of the programs that will run the army drones."
Nova: "Glee: Perfect. I will head to space to make the shipyards and the orbital defence platforms as well. You are free to expand as you see fit on this planet. Confirm the order I have given you for the conquered planets."
Mother: "Very well, Creator. As for the orders for the conquered planets I am to expand the empire on them to a reasonable degree. I am not to wipe out the organics if possible, nor am I to kill the planet in the expansion of the empire."
Nova: "Acknowledgement: Good. You are to build up the army for a year after you are done expanding on this planet, then attack. After that, you may learn the best time to keep attacking until your inevitable shutdown. If you think that shutdown is close, and can not be stopped, then you are to order any remaining forces to enter hostile standby mode."
Mother: "As ordered, Creator."
Giving her a nod, I phase and fly up to space to start making the shipyards and defences. Arriving quickly I got to work and started fabricating. While I was creating what the VI needed, I brought up the design of the ship that will be used. As I really liked the look of the Asgard's O'Neill ship class, I had chosen them as the ship type the army will use.
My army doesn't have a need for interceptor type ships as the droids themselves will fulfil that role. After all, my ships won't be flown by anyone. No need for a standing crew when VI's and machines are in the mix.
The VI Mother will be controlling the ships, while the droids will have advanced combat protocols and learning algorithms to help them along as they fight. After all, I was no war general, and while I have knowledge of such things from the Asgard and Anquietas I have no practical experience. So, I'll leave it to machine learning!
All of my creations were of the Naquadah, Carbon, Trinium alloy that the Asgard created. It had no official name, so I simply called it Asgardium. This shit was strong as fuck as a metal, and I wondered how it'd match up to Beskar based alloys. It certainly loses to Phrik though.
'Maybe I should find some of that to absorb? Though, I doubt it'll actually do anything for me. Morphium is beyond bullshit when it comes to physical properties, heh.'
After finally finishing all of the shipyards and defence platforms, I connected them all to Mother, and went back down planet side to check in. She has already expanded a good deal and the droids were hard at work continuing that expansion.
The droids looked like small kitsune girls, with one tail. They were all "dressed" in classic red and white shrine maiden outfits. I thought it would be hilarious for a massive army of loli shrine maiden looking Kitsune fucking shit up.
For the droids themselves, they were made out of Asgardium, and had personal shield generators. The shields couldn't stop sustained spaceship fire for long, but they were so small and manoeuvrable that I doubted it'd be a problem, honestly. They could last for a few hours before needing to recharge from basic blaster fire.
Miniaturising the gravity and impulse engines was a pain, but worth it. They had the same manoeuvrability as the original Death Gliders.
Nova: "Ponder: I must be a real Kitsune, honestly. Well, a machine one, but still. I have a bit of a mischievous side to me it seems."
Shaking my head at the situation I created, I left for the building with Mother in it. After entering it, the hologram reappeared and she bowed to me.
Mother: "Welcome back Creator. All systems are now connected, and all programs have been distributed. A full system check revealed no errors, and the shipyards are already fabricating. I estimate about a year, give or take several months, before I am done expanding on this planet. So I will be attacking in around 2 years."
Nova: "Excited: Perfect. Let me know when you are going to launch the first strike. I want to go with them and watch. Until then, I will be in a house I will fabricate to the north of here."
Mother bowed to me and said, "As you will Creator. I will contact you when I am ready to attack, or if an emergency happens."
Giving her a nod, I left the building and started to look for a good place to plop down a house. After looking for a few minutes I found a nice spot near a cliff with a waterfall near it.
'How very "zen" of an area. This'll do just fine.'
Using Morphium to flatten the ground and remove debris again, I was soon fabricating a standard 2 story house. I didn't need anything fancy, and as this wasn't going to be a permanent home, I put no thought or effort into it.
Once the house was done, I phased through the door and started to look around. Looking in the living room I found some nice looking couches and chairs.
'Pretty standard looking house that some Organics would use on my old home world. Good enough.'
Walking to the middle of the room, and started to float in a meditative position and focused on the power generator I now had. The power I received from it felt different from the other generator I had started with. It's mixed with what I assume to be Abyss mana. I had tried to see if I could move this power around my body, but before I could even attempt it I got the feeling I shouldn't. That I was going about this the wrong way somehow.
'Alright, so I don't use this like all the other mages do. Makes sense I guess, as all of the techniques I know of are done by Organics. Magic must follow rules. Or at the very least, the magic I will be using will. As such, it needs… parameters. Alright, I'm going to use a hologram to help with this visualisation.'
Bringing up a hologram of a classic spell circle that was empty I began to start trying to "craft" a spell.
'Alright, I'll start with a classic fireball spell. And what does that need exactly? Power output/draw, range, shape, speed, stability. Anything else? Oh, maybe also the level of Abyss corruption beyond the minimum I corrupt things with.'
While I was thinking about the spell, I was adding the equations on the spell circle without the values inputted just yet. Looking at the circle, I could feel that I was on the right track, but something was still missing, so I started to fiddle and finetune the equations. After a while, it still felt off, but then I facepalmed.
'Ah, duh. There is nothing on the spell to denote that it's actually a "fire"ball spell.'
I added the equation that classified this circle as fire based, and something clicked in my head, and I got a notification from my UI.
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[Abyss Fireball] -Novice rank-
Draw on your generator to create the phenomena known as a "Fireball" utilising your completed spell formula.
Notice!
Overcharging this spell with Abyss will change the fire from burning, to simply disintegrating what it touches.
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'Well. That's awesome. Now, how long did that exactly take me to make my first spell? And what is the rank about?"
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Notice!
It has been one hour since you started crafting the spell. The ranks of a spell is its theoretical "completeness" of its spell formula.
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'That long? What the hell, it honestly felt like minutes. At least I got my first spell done. But it's really just a simple fireball, and I can already think of ways to improve it so no wonder it's a measly novice rank. List known spell ranks.'
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Notice!
Novice: The start of a spell. Barebones, but gets the job done as intended.
General: Bit more advanced than novice rank. Has some special effects like tracking, etc.
Advanced: More versatile than general rank, but still lacking in some way.
Master: The limit of the spell in a conventional sense has been reached.
Godlike: Have taken the spell well beyond what it was normally meant to be able to do.
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Looking at the list, I realise that for the most part, until I understand how my magic works a lot better I'll only be able to advance a spell to Advanced at most. With that understanding, I hunkered down, and started to work on the fireball formula some more.
It's been about a week since I started working on the fireball spell, and it hasn't exactly gone as smooth as I was hoping. I had been right in my thinking about what rank I could get, and no matter what I did, I couldn't get my spell to Master. It was stuck at Advanced for now. I bring up the UI for it to maybe get a spark of inspiration before finally moving on.
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[Abyss Fireball] -Advanced rank-
Draw on your generator to create the phenomena known as a "Fireball" utilising your completed spell formula.
Notice!
Overcharging this spell with Abyss will change the fire from burning, to simply disintegrating what it touches.
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I quickly noticed when working on the spell that the UI never updated with the abilities of the spell, only what it does at base. Which I was honestly thankful for, because if what this spell can already do and yet is still only at the Advanced rank is any indication, a Master or Null forbid Godlike ranks would have a scroll bar on them.
Nova: "Irritation: This damn spell can already change so much. Size, speed, density, heat, shape, number of, homing, what it can/can not burn and more! And yet it won't move to Master. I am clearly missing something, but I want to move on from this spell for now, so it's time to make some other spells."
With that little rant done, I started on making other spells. All the while Mother was fabricating an army that would most likely cause huge amounts of damage and upset the balance of power in this galaxy for a long time.
Little did I know however that my base of operations had indeed sent a massive wave through the Force, and had gotten the attention of numerous entities. Some of which were going to be troublesome to deal with. After all, I had made an assumption that my [Null-Cloak] would cover anything I created. This was not the case, and I would soon learn it. The hard way.