18 17th Move | The Atomic Age
For goodwill, I preemptively placed the half-chewed-up form of the black ogre and the half-broken red ogre into the Intensive Care Unit. With how much both were bleeding, [Biology] estimates it'll take no more than a few minutes for both of them to bleed out.
The pink ogre watched from behind the glass as multiple machines got to work. Tubes of various textures and widths protruded out of both the black ogre and red ogre's mangled bodies like some kind of morbid art about how similar an organism's body was to factories. Large machine arms connected to the ceiling started laying out the delicate groundwork for another, more specialized surgeon unit to come later.
The first priority of the ICU was to stabilize the patient through whatever means possible, as such, it has the ability to replicate every organ within an animal's body save for the brain. With the technology within the ICU of the Metropolitan Hospital, anything short of death is recoverable.
The pink ogre flinched as multiple needles stabbed into various points on the black ogre's body while another robotic arm oozed out something resembling glue. The glue was a liquid form of a band-aid designed to stem bleeding from major sources like arteries. Strategic applications of these liquid band-aids can prolong a stab victim's life by hours.
"This is the same contract from before." the purple one said before looking at me with suspicion.
While the pink ogre was busy staring at the macabre sight of the black and red ogre undergoing intensive care to stabilize their bodies, the purple ogre took it upon herself to negotiate with me.
"I can forgive a bit of misbehaving," I said, leaning forward and placing my chin on a pair of intersected fingers. My face displayed only barely hidden mischievous excitement.
If ignoring the context, one could almost be mistaken that we're on a date.
"I was rebellious too, so I understand the feeling."
The purple ogre flipped through the contract again. Even without [Psychology], I knew she was afraid of asking for more time to consider.
A single droplet of sweat dripped down her forehead. The responsibility saddled on the purple ogre's shoulder is immense, as what she decides now will decide what happens to the other ogres. She's probably wondering what would happen if she does sign them, whether or not the other two will be made at her since they didn't make the decision themselves.
Pulling up my phone, I idly checked how close the Orc Lord was to the kill zone, "hmm, just a few more minutes until the Orc Lord threat is finally neutralized."
The purple ogre grew tenser and almost cracked the pen she was using to write at my mention of the time. She saw it as me placing a deadline, and if she passed the deadline, the healthcare bill I waived would disappear, and either they would have to pay an extraordinary amount of money, or I'd stop the treatment midway.
Tempest citizens are granted free healthcare whereas visitors and residents are not. Right now, the ogres count as visitors.
"Fine... I'll sign the contract." The purple ogre used the provided needle and jabbed into her thumb. Pressing the small blob of blood onto the paper, she waited a few moments before releasing the pressure on her thumb.
Contract magic is normally used to make contracts with spirits but is now modified to make contracts with anyone. Truthfully, contract magic is one of two that I can at least stand simply because of its usefulness in letting me know when the terms are broken.
"And with that..." I grabbed the paper, staring down at the bloodied fingerprint before my eyes trailed upward to focus on the purple ogre, "it is completed, Citrinitas."
"—Guh!"
Citrinitas or 'Yellowness' is one of the four major stages of alchemical magnum opus. It symbolizes the dawning of the 'solar light' inherent within a person. As a Perfect Homunculus, I thought it appropriate to name those whom I employ after that, and since the other three I already have in mind, only Citrinitas was left.
It was really fascinating watching the rapid cellular transformation take place over the span of seconds instead of the days it would take for the best of my current genetic manipulation technology.
To evolve or devolve an organism while making sure it's alive, I would infect it with a complex retrovirus containing the genetic data that it would then give to the cells. Since each organ sheds cells at a different speed, and since white blood cells attack anything too different, if the change I want to make is too drastic I would have to do it in stages.
But after a simple word and some magicule from my body, Citrinitas' species changed entirely.
"I evolved into... a Kijin?"
The... Kijin said with a tone of astonishment. She looked down at her hand. Citrinitas now possessed more human-like characteristics. Her purple skin was now replaced with fair, her body was smaller, and as is her horn.
While her color palette remained somewhat the same, Citrinitas' right eye was now yellow and there was a streak of the same color of yellow splitting her hair in two down her left side.
An interesting thought appeared to me. Perhaps the geas allowing me to reveal that I'm a Perfect Homunculus means that the ogres would've never used it against me? If that's true then there are some disturbing implications about how it's able to predict the future and thus, eliminate free will.
"Well, Citrinitas?" My posture never faltered. I raised an open hand towards her, an open invitation to a handshake, "Welcome to Research and Development."
Citrinitas looked at me weirdly. She wasn't moving as my hand awaited hers.
"..."
Citrinitas... doesn't know what this gesture means, does she?
The purple ogre continued to stare at me like a toddler waiting for the command of their parents.
Of all the feudal Japanese things, this is the custom that wasn't passed down?
"What I am proposing right now is what's known as a 'handshake'. It's a gesture of greeting."
"Oh!" Suddenly realizing this, Citrinitas slowly took the awaiting hand and we finally shook.
Oddly enough, the ogre's hand was rather smooth and cool compared to mine. It was as if she had hand lotion on.
After the handshake, I got up from the chair and gave Citrinitas her first order, "Get your coworkers situated. I'll name you all later. For now, though, I'm going to uphold my promise and deal with the Orc Lord."
My hand gestured in front of where I was heading, "Door me, to the temporary command center."
Walking through the portal, I appeared in the middle of the tent that houses the command center.
It was rather dark, with the only light present coming from the various graphene monitors that sat on desks organized in an orderly manner within the temporary command center.
Noticing my appearance, Ririna stood up— quickly followed by everyone— and saluted, "Commander."
"Ririna."
The hobgoblin made way for the primary command desk.
As I sat down, Ririna gave me the just of what happened while I was dealing with the ogres, "Commander Scientia, the Orc Lord is minutes away from reaching the kill zone. The weather is incredibly cloudy. All A.A.A. is in position and reporting no errors within their system and weapons. The only thing that isn't here... is Project Thrones."
I decided to not show Project Thrones if I'm not going to use it. It'll be a card I'll hold close to my chest, an Executive-level secret that only certain members of the military and the government staff are permitted to know just what exactly it is.
This is Tempest's Manhattan Project, and just like the real Manhattan Project, secrecy is required until I can make weapons that render Project Thrones obsolete.
The largest tab on the graphene monitor in front of me displayed a visual of a horde of lumbering heavily armored and armed pig-faced obese humanoids— orcs. However, the visual was specifically focusing on the largest orc among them, currently trudging along the mighty Ameld River.
The Orc Lord.
The Orc Lord was so much larger than those around it. If I had the capacity I think I'd like to capture the Orc Lord and study him.
I think even Mother Teresa wouldn't spare any mercy for a being that took mental control over 200,000 sapient organisms.
"Commander, the Orc Lord is now within the kill zone." Reported one of Ririna's direct subordinates.
I pressed the speak all button on the screen and spoke into the microphone on the table, "All units, fire upon the Orc Lord. Full arsenal, no mercy, I want absolute death guaranteed. Do not even think of letting up unless you're either empty or your armaments are overheating."
Instead of a verbal response, what I got was the notification that all units were firing.
_____________________________________________
Every other noise around where the Orc Lord treaded was choked out by the thunderous sound of thousands of sonic booms all releasing in a single moment. Thousands upon thousands of ferromagnetic rounds moving at Mach 6 burst out of the hundreds of electromagnetic autocannons while hundreds more of guided missiles and beams of lasers erupted from the 300 hovering A.A.A.
The lasers were the fastest. So numerous and so bright were the hundreds of beams that the whole night seemed to almost turn into day. The lasers that came from the A.A.A. were so strong that even with the refraction caused by thermal blooming were rendered completely null. Interestingly, the air around the actual laser beam became ionized and turned into plasma, making the laser look 'fuzzy' as if it was clad in clothing made out of wool.
The intense barrage of lasers was short— lasting a few milliseconds— but they set the Orc Lord on fire. Just as the giant orc was about to scream, the next wave came.
The autocannon rounds were the second fastest. They were so numerous they were like a wall, a converging wall of ferromagnetic metal that grew thicker and thicker as they approached their intended destination. With combat computers helping the A.A.A. pilot's aim, each autocannon had the accuracy of a trained elite operations sniper.
That wall of metal death slammed into the giant Orc Lord.
Normally, the ferromagnetic rounds individually even moving at Mach 6 should only be able to pierce the few outermost layers of an Orc Lord's skin, but due to the effect of hundreds of lasers burning away most of the protective outer skin, the ferromagnetic rounds were able to sink their deadly points into the flesh of the Orc Lord.
"AAAAAARRRGH!" The Orc Lord screamed out in pain at the sudden attack. He was forced to close his eyes because the first laser barrage had heated the air around him to such a degree it caused the water inside his eyes to become steam.
Four seconds after the barrage started, the missiles finally reached the Orc Lord.
The missiles exploded and a titanic fireball consumed the Orc Lord's form. The missiles shot out from the A.A.A. were miniature Hotdust missiles. When they explode, they simply have to release the magnetic field suspending particles of anti-iron within a vacuum emptier than intergalactic space, and let particle physics do the rest.
The barrage continued. It was unrelenting.
The battlefield was periodically devoid of any evidence of nighttime as the lasers rage once more.
The thunderous sound of sonic booms of rounds coming from electromagnetic autocannons was a constant companion whereas the sound of miniature Hotdust missiles became a tri-second-ly occurrence.
Destruction rained down like never before.
It was the first time that a mortal had used antimatter as a weapon.
The orcs around the Orc Lord tried to help him somehow, whether it was using their own body as a shield or giving up their flesh; none of it was useful. The seemingly endless expression of death simply indiscriminately killed the orcs who came too close.
Suddenly, from seemingly nowhere, blasts of purple magical energy were sent toward some of the hovering A.A.A.
The A.A.A. was definitely damaged but was still operational.
The attack caused the barrage to finally stop, and seconds later, the near-dead form of the Orc Lord was finally revealed to the world at large.
"God damn it! Who the hell are you guys!? Last time I checked there wasn't anyone within the Jura Forest that can create such magic-less flying automatons! At least, not enough to cause such damage to Geld!" Said a figure standing in front of the pile of barely alive flesh that was the Orc Lord.
The figure wore clothing that fit perfectly on a gentleman. In his left hand was a crane and on his head was a top hat. However, perhaps what would dissuade the idea that this is a gentleman was the plague doctor mask on the person's face.
"I mean seriously! What the fuck is this?! What kind of Diabolos Ex Machina is this that some strange automatons come out of nowhere and disrupt the plan of the greatest Majin?!?"
The Majin was throwing a tantrum like a child who just been denied what they wanted.
"Arrgh! Answer me! Answer me, you fuckers! ANSWER THE QUESTION THAT I, GELMUD, ASKED!"
What answered Gelmud was silence.
"Motherfucka! [Death-March Dance]!"
Just as Gelmud was about to release his most powerful magic; an advanced application of [Magic Bullet] where the user splits projectile apart into smaller, more concentrated ones, darkness covered Gelmud's head.
"Eh—?"
The hand of the regenerating Orc Lord crushed Gelmud's head as easily as a person would crush grapes.
Extending his other mangled arm, the Orc Lord brought the body of Gelmud closer. Dragging his body forward, Geld's entrails hung about as his two legs were missing.
In fact, a lot of Geld's body parts were missing. Half of the Orc Lord's face was gone, his brain was exposed to the air, and everything below the waist was missing— close to 70% of Geld's whole body was just gone, wiped away by that deadly barrage.
Opening his mouth wide, Geld found that he couldn't actually eat Gelmud's body since the muscle in his jaws hadn't regenerated yet. So instead, the Orc Lord used his weight to squish Gelmud's body into a red paste before stuffing it down his gullet, eating like an elderly who'd lost all their teeth wound.
The other orcs, seeing what was happening, ripped off their own arms and offered them up as a sacrifice for their Orc Lord. The smaller orcs surrounded the Orc Lord, all groveling and making it look as if they were part of a grand ritual.
_____________________________________________
[Silenced Emotion: 70%]
Everyone was deeply disturbed by what was happening.
I would be disturbed too, but with [Silenced Emotion] turned on so high, all I'm feeling is an annoyance. Annoyance at how the A.A.A. failed.
They ran out of munition. The missile pods were the first to run out, followed by the autocannons. The lasers couldn't run out of stored energy since the thing takes power from the miniature fusion reactor, but the waste heat made as a side effect of those lasers made the emitters unbearably hot, and any further operation would damage them beyond repair as their very internal circuits melted.
It'll take about half an hour to restock and another three hours of checking and maintenance to make sure each A.A.A. is safe to return to battle.
By that time, the Orc Lord would've already regenerated.
"It seems I was right: Project Thrones was required after all." I mused quietly
"Commander?"
"Nothing Ririna, I was just talking to myself."
I started scratching my hair, waiting for dandruff to fall only to encounter none.
Ah, yes, my new physiology. I used to watch my own dandruff fall as a way to reset my mind. The white particles reminded me of snowfalls. They reminded me of a much more nostalgic and innocent time when I could just play in the snow.
Winter was my favorite season, after all.
My mind returned to the present. With a simple swiping-down gesture in the air, a hologram materialized.
It was the display for the deployment of Project Thrones.
Pressing a button on the graphene screen, I started talking into the same microphone as before, "All A.A.A. units, this is Commander Scientia Tempest. I am issuing an executive order for the deployment of Project Thrones as per my authority as the Commander of the Grand Republic Military. All units are to pull back and retreat to the designated safe zone that I'll be sending over to your HUD. You all have ten minutes starting at the end of this general announcement."
As I finished, I felt a sense of surrealness. Perhaps it was because I'd be possibly firing the first nuclear device in this world.
On the map, I could see exactly how all 300 A.A.A. moved to the sides, creating an open aisle in the middle that directly passed over where the Orc Lord was situated.
Tapping and inputting the password, I was displayed a new screen asking me if I truly wanted to use Project Thrones.
>Deployment of Project Thrones, Confirmed? Y/N
Of course. I pressed the 'Y' the instant the ten minutes were up.
30 kilometers away from where the Orc Lord was licking his wounds, the largest portal ever made by Doormaker opened up.
What came out was... a set of concentric rings orbiting around a metallic sphere, with one ring inside the other. It looked almost like a gyroscope, or perhaps an angel.
To anyone else who doesn't know what it is, Project Thrones almost looked alien in a sense. It doesn't look like a human had built and designed it, for it was floating without any visible means of propulsion. It looked more like something one may find in their dreams.
Every military staff was staring at the weapon with curiosity.
"Commander... is that?"
"Yes," I confirmed Ririna's suspicion, "that is Project Thrones.
Named after the Thrones type of angel, Project Thrones was Tempest's Manhattan Project. The size of the outer ring has a diameter of 20 meters and the smaller internal ring is 10 meters across.
In truth, its real classification is that of a Polaris-class battlefield dominance-type weapon. Unlike a conventional nuclear warhead, Polaris is a reusable fuck-everything-in-that-general-direction weapon.
The two sets of grey orichalcum rings almost blended into the black abyss of Doormaker's portal. The occasional blinking of red lights helped give any observer a general outlook of the size of Polaris.
The portal closed behind it, and the rings started to spin.
The polished sphere in the middle of the rings was actually a container for deuterium. It started to glow as periodic lightning struck the surface of the sphere.
Very soon, the deuterium within the sphere was lit ablaze. The polished sphere was absorbed in a fiery light so bright everyone had to darken their screen.
A star.
(AN: Play: The Final Flash of Existence (SCP: Secret Laboratory Main Theme))
One of those burning gas balls in space was born within the confines of the ring. Flares of plasma slammed against the electromagnetic shielding like a toddler crying after they had just been born. It was the announcement to the world that they were alive.
The bright, hot star of nuclear fire, composed purely of plasma with a temperature easily in the tens of thousands of kelvin was climbing rapidly. More and more of the hydrogen was being fused into helium. It was a beautiful display of natural alchemy that didn't involve any of the rule-breaking magic.
We are truly all made out of stardust. During the Big Bang, there was only hydrogen, and it was thanks to the nuclear fusion found deep within stars and the fusion that occurs in the collision between two neutron stars that all the elements within the universe were formed.
Without any of the shielding I had in place, it's quite likely everything for miles around the newborn star would be set on fire, the ground directly underneath it being vaporized.
The star continued to grow and grow, it continued to get bigger, and hotter as well as the temperature finally crossed the seven-digit threshold.
Polaris shone like a second sun, extending the reach of the day well into the domain of when the darkness of night should've reigned supreme. It showered the forest and the edge of the marshland behind the rings in light that shouldn't exist now that the sun had fallen below the horizon.
As the miniature sun grew, so too did the speed at which the rings around it spun.
They spun around the star so fast that it was more of a blur. Staring at it reminded me of a person trying to desperately contain leaks on the wall to a large container but they only have two hands and more and more holes appeared so they decided to focus on the larger holes.
The very edge of the ball of plasma grew until it was inches away from touching the spinning inner ring. The electromagnetic shielding buckled against the strain the star was putting on it like a plastic bag straining to uphold the weight of the products inside...
Bright, flames, everywhere.
It failed partially. The electromagnetic shielding that should've kept the heat contained failed to fully contain the star, and so, everything that can burn within a 50-meter radius was set alight. The water of the marshland behind Polaris, the water within trees, the water within the grass, the water within the earth, and even the water within the air boiled away in explosions of steam.
There's a reason why in movies, a human slowly descending into lava is unrealistic. Not only is lava thick enough to almost uphold the weight of an adult, but the heat inside the lava would also instantly vaporize the water within the human's body.
Once a certain critical mass of iron has been reached within the man-made star... it is ready.
The light of the star touched the vanguard of the approaching orc army.
"Fire..." I whispered, and as if it heard the commander from its creator, Project Thrones unleashed what for many orcs will be their final flash of existence.
*BOOOOOOOO—
An unending onslaught of energy, of plasma and light, was released from the ring's core, from the star like a volcanic eruption. It was as if a canyon had suddenly opened up within the night, the darkness parted to give priority to the wave of utter nuclear devastation.
—OOOO—Kish*
The sound was deafening before the automatic defense went up and muted the live stream, yet the eerie silence does nothing to take away the giddiness I feel deep within me at the sight of such destruction.
Like a child seeing the world burn, or perhaps the joy one receives from watching a disaster film; I was in complete awe of the change in landscape.
The ground around where the wave of energy passed melted like butter in a hot pan as forest fires lit up for as far as the eye could see against the nuclear devastation.
The unending incursion of plasma, a state of matter that shouldn't exist on the planet in places other than a lightning bolt, split the burning forest in two.
It was a miniature supernova concentrated and directed at a specific angle. It can't be called a nuclear warhead since it's pointed in a direction instead of going everywhere.
If anything, Polaris should be the ultimate example of the Munroe Effect which uses plasma instead of metal.
In total, the annihilation wave lasted for less than 10 seconds. Yet in that short time frame, the weapon unleashed a devastation that is only comparable to many Hiroshimas.
Once the wave had subsided and the monitor's brightness adjustment kicked into gear, I heard gasps filling the room and my jaw fell to the floor in awe at the devastated environment.
As far as the eye can see, the ground around the wave was of bright orange lava as if freshly spilled from a volcano. The forest was gone, replaced by tall curtains of smoke from rampaging infernos.
It was as if someone had taken a slice of hell and placed it in the middle of the Jura Forest.
The landscape itself where the onslaught of nuclear fire had passed through looked as if a finger of God went through the entire thing, forming a valley of bright white molten rocks that if they were any hotter, they'll turn into a gas.
Is this what the scientists felt like after the Trinity test? This... awe and terror? Even with [Silenced Emotion] turned on so high, I still felt what can almost be described as fear.
"Well..." I honestly wasn't expecting that, god damn I was not expecting THAT much destruction.
The silence in the room continued after the gasps had been drowned out by terror. No one moved a muscle, all were too focused, too hypnotized by the destruction wrought by the weapon.
>80,000 orcs have been confirmed to be terminated. The Orc Lord is confirmed to have died.
With aid from Doormaker, the computer registered the death of at least 80,000 orcs and the termination of the Orc Lord.
80,000...
That number felt foreign. Is this feeling inside me what the builders of the atomic bomb felt after it was used on Hiroshima? A coldness blossomed deep within me, replacing all of the child-like giddiness I felt before.
I can see why so many nuclear physicists have become staunch anti-nuclear advocates now.
It was a sobering thought. My body count now surpassed any serial killers and is now at the lower end of mass murderers.
"Ririna..." Hearing my voice, the hobgoblin in question turned to face me. Professionalism replaced everything on her face as she returned to that strict military discipline.
"Am I a good person?"
"Commander, you did what you have to do, there was no loss on our side and the orcs still lived on as a race. Besides, I heard orcs have an extremely fast reproduction rate so they'll recover in no time should we accept them as Tempest Citizens," she reassured me. The soft glow from the burning forest radiated from the holographic tabs making the darkness easier to bear.
I leaned my forehead on my intersected fingers. Talking about murdering is different from actually doing it. Even when making an immoral, yet profitable decision in my old life, there were always several layers and in-betweens that separated me from those who would be harmed by my business decisions.
There were no in-betweens here.
How much blood will I spill to protect myself from the prejudices of this world once the fact that I'm a Perfect Homunculus comes out?
But... this isn't genocide. Just as how Allied leaders aren't charged with the genocide of Germans, these orcs are military targets.
Holding a finger to her ear, Ririna received something before turning to me, professionalism over clouding her fear, "Commander, we have reports from the A.A.A. of orcs laying down their weapons and armor to surrender to us. What do we do?"
Ah... they're freed from the mind control of the Orc Lord.
"... We'll probably need emergency camps to be set at least for the remaining 120,000 orcs if they choose to give up since the Orc Lord is probably dead." Looking at Ririna, "send out a contract to all factories and manufacturing corporations for an order of 40,000 refugee camps... and we should probably deal with the forest fire shouldn't we?"
I'll also need to build more arcologies to house these orcs.
"Yes Commander!" she saluted before going to execute my command. I looked at the destroyed landscape, knowing that the blood of close to a hundred thousand souls was on my hands.
They are military targets, I reaffirmed to myself. The fact that they are mind-controlled is semantics: irrelevant details that fall into acceptable casualties and collateral damage.
_____________________________________________
The Lizardmen tribe of over 10,000 individuals asked to join us after witnessing the battle. Of course, we agreed. Since they live in the mouth of the Ameld around Lake Shisu, it was decided that Tempest would build their second city there.
Unlike normal nuclear weapons, Project Thrones released next to no fallout, so I didn't have to go through the expensive and laborious process of removing contaminated soil and plants.
However, to at least somewhat appease the dryads since I destroyed a large portion of the forest, I diverted some of my resources into destroying the basalt surface and turning it into the dirt by raining down specialized chemicals using planes.
On the internet and on the news, the event has been dubbed 'The Lake Shisu Massacre'. The population was happy at the news of the Orc Lord's defeat. Surprisingly, no one thought that my act of killing 80,000 orcs was something 'bad'.
If this was in my old world, there'd definitely be a few voices here and there criticizing my actions and saying how I could've done better.
The Aftermath of the massacre can be described in two words: "Efficient Miracle". With the aid of [Planning] and [Disaster Response], I was able to coordinate with the corporations and some of the asteroid manufacturing bases to set up 40,000 refugee tents outside of Metropolis, all of them having proper water and food ready for the 120,000~ orcs that still remained. All of this was done within a mere 24 hours with no further casualties as Medical and Feeding Centers were set up around the edge of the camps.
The ogres, now Kijins after being named (including the red one who was apparently named by Gelmud but rejected it due to the betrayal and asked me for a new name), proved themselves great at administration as they helped coordinate everything.
The red one, now known as 'Rubedo' was Ririna's second in command after saying how he was the best at warfare and strategy, only to get trounced by me after a strategy simulation. Still, I could see how he had potential as a commander, so I granted him the rank of General after proving himself to Ririna, who was now the Field Marshal of the Grand Republic Army.
The pink one, now named "Albedo", worked as the head of the newly established Ministry of Magic, a department of the government designed to deal with magical and otherwise supernatural affairs and research.
Citrinitas worked chose to work as the President's personal secretary.
Finally, the black one, the one who got their arm cut off before repairing, Nigerdo, worked as the head of the Ministry of Public Works, responsible for infrastructure planning and building. However, Nigerdo is only part-head since he had to go through multiple vocational classes to get familiar with the infrastructure and how to develop it.
Apparently, Nigerdo was the ogre village's blacksmith, but since Tempest really doesn't need any blacksmithing with all the machines, it became Nigerdo's hobby.
As for the political ramifications of what I did, the Conservatives wanted regulations and more control over what I was allowed to build while some hardliners wanted to ship the orcs back to the Orbic kingdom as soon as possible. Congress's action was only to be expected. After all, I'm like the Post-War II United States except there is no Soviet Union, and I have a monopoly on WMDs. You don't give things like WMDs to private citizens, and since Research and Development aren't under the jurisdiction of anyone besides myself, it technically counts as a private enterprise.
President Rimuru rejected the desire of hardline Conservatives to ship orcs back to the Orbic kingdom and made a compromise with the regulations: a new department of the government will be established that will review everything I built and the amount of funding I request from the government will be severely limited.
Later, after learning the orcs wanted to stay, the President decided to allow them. I gave them a 1-year plan to fully integrate the orcs alongside four more blueprints for arcologies to house them.
Orcs would definitely face some discrimination because of what they've done, but it's a temporary thing. I honestly see it as the growing pains of a goblin-dominated monocultural society turning into a colorful multicultural one. However, unlike places in East Asia, the Tempest identity is based on liberty, equality, fraternity, and rationality, so it shouldn't be too difficult to spin this around into including other less fortunate.
The Tempest population count finally reached beyond 100,000, making it so that we were forced to transition from basing our currency on the Dwarven Coins into the Gold Standard.
I personally expect a full transition to fiat currency within the decade at the latest.
After the Citadel became fully operational and the Republic secure both politically, socially, economically, and militarily, I finally rest easy and turned my gaze up towards the stars above.
However, I realized that if I am truly going to reach for the stars, I'm going to need a monstrous amount of raw resources, even more than what's possible to get with just asteroids.
So the first I did afterward was to upgrade the Doormaker so that it could reach every corner of this star system. Then, I started what's known as Star-lifting on the local sun.
Star-lifting describes the process of removing mass from a star. By my best estimation, the sun of this world has approximately 333,000 times the mass of the planet I reside on. Assuming that the star has a metallicity, or how much metal there is within a star, of 0.012, this means I have next to 4,000 planets worth of sheer metal to play around with.
Obviously, that is extremely desirable.
So, using a week of non-stop tinkering, I build a Star Lifter that utilizes a process similar to 'Thermal-Driven Outflow'. Using lasers, the Star Lifter heats up a small area on the star's surface to a drastically higher temperature, loosening it similar to how a blowtorch could loosen a metal sheet. Then, by using magnetic fields, the Star Lifter then starts to suck up those loose star matter.
But, just as the Star Lifter was operational for a few hours, when I woke up after a nap it was suddenly destroyed.
Weird. [Stellar Engineering] then explained how it was possible that an extra strong solar flare could have an EMP effect on a Star Lifter if caught in the middle, and according to Doormaker, there just happens to be the strongest recorded solar flare around the time when the Star Lifter was destroyed.
Then, I spent all my focus of the week on extending Doormaker's with a Subspace Diver and it finally was able to reach the closest star system. Using this, I teleported a new Star Lifter three light years away into the orbit of a red dwarf and it was perfectly fine.
It was so fine in fact that I couldn't actually store all the collected mass coming from the Star Lifter even when I used nuclear fusion to turn the harvested hydrogen into Osmium, the densest element on the periodic table.
Just one Star Lifter collects more mass than I could build new pocket dimensions. Thus, the question of storage came up and I sought to use the ultimate storage device of the universe:
A black hole.
Despite what many people would believe, black holes aren't all that scary. Sure they have an event horizon where if you cross over you can never come back, but they, just like everything, are affected by entropy.
Stephen Hawking was the one who theorized that black holes can radiate their mass away because of the quantum effect known as 'Virtual Particles'.
These virtual particles are called 'virtual' because they are existentially limited by the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. A pair of positive and negative virtual particles pop into existence at the smallest scale thanks to uncertainty and then they annihilate each other. But if say a pair pops into existence on the edge of an event horizon, the particle that's outside of the event horizon gets to become a real particle while the other is stuck, hence, how black holes radiate away energy despite being something that shouldn't be possible.
The larger stellar black holes take orders of magnitude longer to radiate away than the current age of the Universe, but a quirk of Hawking Radiation is that the smaller the black hole, the hotter they are. In fact, a photon-sized black hole heats its surroundings to three trillion kelvins thanks to Hawking Radiation.
To build a black hole, it doesn't require as advanced of technology as one might imagine. All one needs is brute force.
Thus, using the most powerful laser array I've ever built and compressing an absurd amount of osmium to their Schwarzschild radius and creating atom-sized black holes that are coated with Hawking Radiation, I then put those pinpricks of light into a container where the interior is coated in a layer of metamaterial that is so close to 100% reflectivity the decimal can be overlooked as a rounding error.
I created what's possibly the closest thing in existence to a scientific Perpetual Motion Machine. As those black holes radiate away their mass in the form of Hawking Radiation and light, those photons will reach the nigh 100% reflectivity metamaterial and then get bounced back into the embrace of the atom-sized black hole. However, nigh-100% isn't perfect, so the coating tends to degrade after 3,000 years of constant use.
And so, any possible restrictions upon my material limit were removed.
I can finally fully explore the true power of science. Avenues that were previously closed off from me like [Dimensional Physics] and [Multiversal Physics] have finally opened up.
Resources... UNLIMITED RESOURCES!!!!
The whole universe is now my playground. My sandbox. Things are going to be fun...
Yes, very fun.
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AN: Velgrynd is not happy with the star lifting. Project Thrones was inspired by the Thrones type of angel. In canon, Rimuru and his gang killed 50,000 orcs and got away pretty much scot-free, that is not the case here in this more realistic AU.
-Solo Adventure: Scientia in Tensura without the companionship of Rimuru (dystopia, depressing)
-Letters that speak what the mouth cannot: Scientia summons Violet Evergarden after the bombing in Ep 12 (fluff, companionship, melting ice, romance)
-Genocidal Justification: Scientia got whipped into the world of Goblin Slayer when they tinkered with [Dimensional Physics] (wish-fulfillment)
-Child Adoption: Scientia, when out shopping late one night, found a young teen crouching on the sidewalk. (fluff, parent-kid interaction, melting ice, yes it's Higehiro)
-Demon Slain: Scientia in the body of Nezuko as she turns (dual personality Nezuko, demon side is Scientia)
-Conjuring Science: Scientia, after messing around with [Interdimensional Travel], ends up during the event in Conjuring 1. (crack-fic, the demon will learn to fear science, and the underworld will experience the might of the SCIENCE GUY)
-Rebellion Against the Divine: Scientia was banished into the world of Evenicle, the goddess will tremble in fear as Scientia shall lead an Army against her, right after she has omnicide every other being that's not human. (dystopian, serious, wish fulfillment, romance)
