the other half yer welcome
Faith and changes
Fifth year of the deamhan chitin
We started our glorious journey to a planet called Mercury one year ago. Our wise leader Jeff made us stop by the Acid hell known by the name Venus.
He said that we should use our resources otherwise they would be wasted. He argued that if we aren't using the resources we might as well don't mine them because if they are sporadically used, the demerits such as time outhweights merits of actually gaining the resource.
I'm not in favour of this kind of thinking, in my opinion we should have at any given time enough materials to build a copy of the ship. But the Overming nexus soon saw the wisdom in the leader's words. Apparently if there is another race such as ours we should be prepared for war and peace and both means more ships and more siblings.
Even with the lengthy explanation I was still worried we might make a mistake. My worries didn't go unnoticed, the Creator has upgraded my body and given me a role in questioning Hive's decisions to make sure we aren't making foolish mistakes.
My physical and mortal avatar has been changed extensively, firstly i've lost 50% of my combat ability and gained deeper connection to Overmind, additionally I had received the gift of additional organs, mainly three other brains that increased my ability to think critically and to easier see pros/cons of each decision. But that's not all Near my hearts a new organ appeared. It was called Coordination cortex, it was used to increase coordination between each of the brains making them more efficient working as a group.
My exterior armor got changed and I no longer possessed wings instead, the hue of my armour became orange and the colour of chitin got changed to light gray. Leader's armor also changed, his armour looked more as if it was made out of bones, also his pads got some crystal extrusions similar to horns, but the crystals shined brilliant light.
Excerpt from Judge's of Brilliant Evolution diary.
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[Congratulations user!
Due to your current position and faith your species has in you, you have unlocked a new type of energy!]
[Evolutionary Faith unlocked!:
User is able to create up 10 ten familiars that would strengthen genome and allow more powerful evolutions,
User is able to control and store evolutionary energy!
User lost ability (Creator of Flesh)!
User and his race gained the ability of both sentient species and monsters, that means the user is able to get jobs which strengthen and make doing specific tasks easier, and evolve to strengthen every single aspect of the body or specialize in doing specific tasks.]
[Due to unlock of faith energy user's appearance got changed, additional organs were created on armor's shoulder straps:
New organ unlocked!
Faith crystal,
This organ allows the user to purify his own faith energy to make it more potent and purer.
By accumulating more faith energy the crystals will get slightly bigger and will slowly spread to other parts of the body.
User is able to hide these crystals but rate of conversion will be slower by 60%]
-"Well shit…"
Appointments
We landed on the acidic hell planet. The first thing we did was to create 2 new species that will live in symbiosis with us.
First one was fern-like fungi that has limited sentience it feasts on minerals and sunshine when enough of the energy is absorbed the fefe (fern-fungi-sentient) will either create an infant overmind that will help with management of fefe colonies or inhale big amount of atmosphere through its skin and start disassembling the atmosphere into oxygen and carbon during the process the fefe is stationary and it's cap is bloated to it's limit.
The second new species looked like a balloon covered in glowing blood moss and lesser versions of fefe, additionally it had one strong arm that was used to excavate necessary minerals. this species is designed to disassemble acidic clouds of venus to their primary elements, the balloon is inflated by pure hydrogen it generates energy by combusting small amounts of oxygen and hydrogen by doing so water is made as byproduct which is either made to create saplings like creatures that after 3-4 months will turn into adult heba (hydrogen-oxygen-balloon), or is dropped to the ground for the fefe so that they can develop faster.
In short these new races exist to purify and terraform venus, after creation of about 1000 of each our glorious leader has chosen 1 of each of the new species and made them his familiars which in turn became larger and more intelligent also their species was able to evolve and mutate quickly which allowed them to live unimpeded by lack of carbon dioxide and sulphuric acid in the atmosphere on the new venus.
Then it was our turn for the first few months we were forced to explore and build the foundations in our exoskeletons with high pressure tanks with fluids and biomass used to sustain ourselves and make simple structures. Seeing our struggling Jeff appointed one of us that managed to get an evolution that allowed him to breathe venus atmosphere as an Evolutionary Bishop by doing so all of the workers on Venus evolved a lesser version of his own evolution. Yet we felt that we soon will get full evolution.
Also leader appointed as Hive marshal one of the exceptional soldier that excelled in strategy games. The soldier also got named as Joseph, by getting a name and a job and familiar he got bigger, leaner and smarter by a big margin his ability to move and control the army skyrocketed. Jeff stunned by this sudden Evolution named and granted jobs and familiars to others basically creating castes of workers:
Evolutionary Bishop of Evolutionary Faith, James:
This creature is able to coordinate and speed up evolutions of it's entire species, job allows James to manage faith and belief and allows for more effective conversion ratio for purifying evolutionary energy, also allows him to appoint three priests and 3 missionaries to create temples and get more faithful for more Evolutionary Faith energy generation.
Judge of Brilliant Evolution, Kenton:
This creature is designed to question every decision it thinks and argues by using logic and hard facts, Kenton is unable to feel emotions and thinks similarly to artificial intelligence. He is able to appoint up to 2 disciples which will help smaller settlements.
Grand Hive Marshal, Joseph:
This creature is stronger and smarter than other soldiers, it specializes in coordinating huge amounts of his species during battle, job allows Joseph to manage and communicate telepathically with other military officers he or his leader has appointed. He is able to appoint one [Hive Marshal] and 3 [Hive Generals] per transporter/colonization ship.
Agricultural High Lord, Denny:
This creature is deeply connected with knowledge matrix of the hive it instinctively knows how to cultivate any plant the hive discovered with 100% efficiency, job allows Denny to passively exert an aura of knowledge, life and evolution every plant that gets touched by the aura is scanned and its surrounding scanned the information gets transferred to the user this happens passively. User is able to boost growth and evolve the plant so it can adapt easily to its environment, this can only be done once per day as it requires nourishment and Evolutionary Faith energy that is passively generated and cannot be influenced.
Scouting Hive Spore, Vungi:
This creature is a member of fefe which are part of higher family of Hive, its basic attribute are highly boosted additionally this creature is able to coordinate placement of fefe colonies and terraform entire planets without losing efficiency, job allows Vungi to connect to Hive Overmind and through that connection analyze knowledge of other planets or scout unknown planets actively.
Air Hive Purifier, Ahab:
This creature is a member of heba which are part of the higher family of Hive, its basic attributes are highly boosted additionally this creature is able to reproduce faster and can easily purify most types of atmosphere, job allows Ahab to coordinate terraformation efforts with Scouting Hive Spore, Vungi.
Those 6 creatures were now regarded as a council that ponders together with Overmind and Leader the next best moves of our race. Currently there are free spots in council which will probably be handed during emergencies and further colonization. Leader also granted his ship a name and a familiar these were the results:
Pillar of the Hive, UHS Hope:
This creature was created as a sentient ship that houses hope and future of its species. Hope is able to traverse cosmos using energy radiated from the sun and by combusting excess gasses. Job allows Hope to be temporarily indestructible (once per lifespan), live without any sustenance for 3000 years and with it for 10 000 years, to shed its old exoskeleton and create a new one and grow with it this process resets all cooldowns yet it can only be used once per thousand years.
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Meanwhile on earth
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Our world is dying, it seems our combined efforts to ruin climate and our own lives finally paid off. First came the death zone signalling the end of times yet everyone collectively ignored it thinking it's just an accident during testing some weapon. Then the ship came repeating warnings that our destructive ways didn't go unnoticed and it's time for us to pay for what we've done. Oh how foolish we were soon the ship took off and everyone started preparing for war with interstellar species every single weapon was pointed upwards and downwards yet what destroyed us came from the surface where no one was looking.
Of course after a few days we managed to capture these curious creatures. Some people even thought that these were the weapons of the aliens and started openly ridiculing highly civilized people, yet me and my division stayed vigilant. That probably made us survive the biblical apocalypse that ensued in the next 10 days. The wails of heaven and trumpets didn't come from the sky, no, they came from the ground creating giant explosions of soil these cute creatures started flowing like a pressurised stream of water and overwhelmed our defences in hours, cities in days. I and my coworkers managed to somehow get unnoticed by the plague and kept following these demons in futile effort to understand them and maybe defeat them.
The few survivors used guerilla tactics to sabotage few demonic farms and mines. They thought that they'd repelled demons. The only thing they've done is guarantee themselves a painful death, soon after the mines got reinforced and devils started hunting us like we used to hunt our prey for recreational purposes. Humanity has fallen. If you are reading this, please either purge these creatures that destroyed us or destroy our planet.
John Swift, Short summary of the Fall of the Humanity.
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Lord Apheios somewhere between Proxima and Sol
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Situation was terrible after the death of Solar Admiral I became temporary Admiral. While this may seem like a good thing but it's not, I'm required to get upgraded by our tech priest. This isn't the only bad news along with chaos manifestation not only the captain but about half of the crew got possessed and killed by bombs in our chests.
Due to damage to the engines we are unable to travel quickly, our journey to that rich solar system will take us about 3 weeks more, everyone is learning from the tech priest so we are able to repair the ship even if he dies. I'm starting to feel that necrons are better than humans because they don't give in to chaos corruption as easily as us. Our ship lacks a psycher who would be able to at least try to contact Imperium most of the systems of the ship are either damaged or offline. We are barely alive… We might die during our journey…. Emperor protects.
Mercury colony
The venus hatcheries are coming along nicely soon the entire surface area will be covered by fefe's and heba's colonies and glowing blood variants in between. seeing the colony mostly managing itself Jeff ordered creation planet 6 overmind capitals and one relay overmind. The purpose of those 6 is simply to coordinate and stimulate growth in needed areas additionally they provide the colonies with a way to oversee huge territories as for placement there is 4 on the surface and 2 in the underground allowing the inhabitants to maximize use of space.
Which will be necessary considering that new inhabitants will grow in batches and their expected lifespan is around 1000 years if they are separated from the colony if they aren't they don't die from old age. Combining these two facts means that in about 5-6 years the population of the venus will reach 15-24 billion and that could be considered slow since the initial colonists aren't fully adapted to the environment, need to work on terraformation and simply there are too few of them.
Jeff made half of the species move to Venus and went with the rest of the fleet to Mercury where he ordered the descent of the ship. The descent means that the current pillar of hope will shed it's armor and drop it on the surface. While the armor in itself isn't that valuable but the gravity will make it accelerate and make quite a big hole in the ground making it a prime spot for the ship to land and to make a colony. Jeff's species aren't that durable yet meaning long exposure to constant thermonuclear explosion that is called Sun will kill them quickly.
The ship shuddered for a moment before the ejection of the armor now the ship was very vulnerable, even when there was 100% guarantee that nothing would happen Jeff still ordered soldiers to temporarily use their exoskeletons as new armor for the ship. Because of the lack of atmosphere on Mercury other than some explosion of small chunks of rocks and dust the armors impact wasn't anything special. Landing went without a hitch now the ship's tentacles connected to old armor and started remaking it into moveable building blocks.
The builders even before the ship managed to form the first block they've already made a rudimentary construction site with stairs and primitive cranes made from dirt and parts of the armor they've salvaged by themselves. The porters were running between ship and construction site with both blocks and long poles that will serve as building material for support structures and roof itself.
Soldiers that still had their exoskeletons weren't idle either along with some builders, porters and miners who started exploring both the surface and the underground. Jeff made new species 4 to be exact:
The Sulh (Sun-plant-shroom) - These creatures absorbed radiation from the sun and used it as energy to either create water and another copy of itself or to send that energy to other 2 species that will be explained on this list. The creature is semi rooted to the ground. They don't like moving that much and will only do so to maximize time when they are exposed to solar energy. They look like a mix between sunflower and a mushroom to maximize area impacted by radiation. Their bulb is entirely black while it's stalk and roots are white. Bulb contains organs that harness the raw energy of the sun and either capture stray hydrogen and oxygen to create water or convert the raw energy to it's more refined form (bioelectricity). Stalks and roots on the other hand contain channels for refined energy and organs necessary for the plantshroom to sustain itself.
The Magera (Magnetic-shield-generator) - These creatures cannot exist without Sulh and their sole purpose is to firstly create and maintain the magnetic shield which will allow the creation of atmosphere and secondly to release pure oxygen to the atmosphere. They are mostly buried underground except for the dish-like flower which is riddled with small magnets and other magnetizing materials. They like to create colonies on the poles and on the equator. Their exposed part is white while the underground part doesn't have any because organs needed to sustain it are exposed to the soil. For reproduction they move their seeds through roots of energy supplying Sulh so that the Sulh can choose if it can sustain another one or does it need to move the seed further away.
The Wonebi (Worms-miners-bioelectric) - These creatures exist solely underground and in appearance are similar to earth's worms of course if earth's worms had colonies and were partly mushrooms. This creature cannot exist without a connection to the colony; the connection itself usually looks like a tentacle extending from the nearest point from the egglike colony which is a shell filled with organs that extract and refine metals for Magera and Jeff's colony. The worm has innate knowledge how to recognize minerals and will devour said minerals without thinking. It's own organs will crush the ore into small chunks and move them through the connection. Worms have different colors because of their importance to the terraforming project they were granted higher intelligence in comparison with other terraforming species. By having higher intelligence they've developed semi sustainable cities underground each containing 9-10 colonies they are absolutely loyal to Jeff yet doesn't enjoy company from other subterranean cities. The colony and with it the worms can only sustain themselves if the Sulh exists or other creature send's them bioelectricity.
The Seger (Solar-egg-porter) - These creatures are highly independent and self-sustainable; they live around the sun and catch any stray atoms that were ejected from it and send them to any nearby colony. Appearance wise they look similar to an egg with bat-like wings that are unproportionally big these are used to catch radiation and move in a similar way as the Pillar of Hope does; they live off the radiation and If the nearby colony sends them a signal that they have enough of the water. Creatures stop sending elements from the star and start ejecting unnecessary elements and practically using gathered materials create copy of themselves. Color of these creatures vary, it depends highly on the type of star and if the creature moves a lot or sticks to one spot of the star.
With new species in place Jeff naturally elevated leaders among new species and granted them names and his familiars. Yet the changes weren't that spectacular like the other ones due to the specific environment and roles the leaders simply became better at what they were doing. Because of the lack of anything special during their change Jeff wasn't very creative with their names so they were named: Sully, Megan, Wanabe, Seth in order.
Timefall
13 Years later
It's a Glorious day Council and our glorious leader finally decided the name of our country: Evolutionary Empire. During our journey we struggled but persevered, we were antagonized by a hostile environment but at last we changed hostile planets to paradises. After colonizing everything, even gas giants, asteroid belts and the sun, Leader decided to create our first omega structure, something called the universe wonder.
This project will take us years but it will be worth the idea is to encase the sun in flesh and create the greatest Hive in existence. For technical details let's say everything along with Mercury, Wenus, Earth, Mars and inner asteroid belt will be turned into the first stage of said project. The sun will be encased in a perfect sphere which will collect heavier elements which will increase the lifespan of the star and allow us to expand easily. We also plan to send expeditions to scour our immediate surroundings and pull entire planets back to our home system which in turn will provide additional material for Omega Hive.
Jeff after purifying so much energy and storing it became a crystalline lifeform, well not really his exoskeleton is almost entirely made out of Evolutionary crystals which are so packed with pure energy that are stronger than his original armor. Each year Geoffrey expends every single bit of his energy to enhance his entire race. Aside from enhancing he doesn't do that much the council controls the Empire he is only a figurehead. He isn't dissatisfied by his current position. It suits him, it gives him more freedom and allows him to think about all of his crimes against his former species.
After 8 years of relative peace and almost no work his mental health deteriorated. Without any distractions he finally was able to think about what horrific crimes he made.
Year 16
After 3 years of mourning and blaming himself Jeff finally made a decision to remove memories of him being human and about everything that made him human. The procedure was absurdly easy for a species that uses neural links daily for exchanging information over vast distances.
The operation took about 5 universal minutes which are more or less the same as earth's 10 minutes. Some might question why universal minutes are longer than earth ones? Simple when you are near any big object with gravity as strong as let's say earth, time flows differently than when you are in space the same principle applies to black holes. In some extreme cases 10 minutes near the event horizon might take hundreds of years outside of the gravity field. This theory isn't exactly proven since humanity before extinction didn't manage to fly any object with appropriate instruments anywhere near any black hole to check the theory.
Universal time is counted by one of many races living near the surface of the sun hence the distortion.
Jeff appeared more robotic after the procedure, meaning he didn't understand emotions very well and even changed himself by removing glands and neurons that were responsible for feeling emotions. By doing so he got more space so he immediately filled it with more neurons that will make him retain and calculate quickly he also proposed the change to the council. Which was approved, extra space for modifications and less weaknesses were always nice.
Jeff joined the workforce to create the OMH (Omega-Hive) this also sped up the whole project greatly. Also he unlocked more familiars and got rewarded by the system for purifying evolutionary energy with refined crystals that were able to hold more and purify further. The current cap of familiars increased to 30 regular ones and 10 special ones which allows more control over energy and enhanced current users further. Those were spent immediately on 10 original members of council and 30 other members who got added to said council later.
But fate doesn't like peaceful expansion…
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Lord Apheios
After many hiccups we finally arrived at our destination and what we've seen upon our arrival shook us greatly.
-"By the Emperor is this the Tyranids Mother world? And what are those wretched creatures are building?!"-Current admiral was overtaken by fear and anger. He only wanted to collect resorces and go back to Imperium for proper reparis and rearmament, but of course he needed to find a fucking Hive world.
-"Admiral these Xenos are similar to Tyranids but they don't possess any psychic abilities because our sensor and psychics aren't picking up anything. So we might stand a chance.."- Current Exec reported tired with their struggle and seemingly endless suffering. Their crew was diminished by a big amount because of the possessions and faulty bombs. Currently their ship has only 49% combat capability (considering that all of the "crew" finished proper training for their positions) due to lack of crew which is only 20% of the number when they exited warp. By saying crew it meant both navy and ordinary soldiers.
Saying simply their situation was dire, thankfully weapons were fully operational and there were plenty of ammo.
-"What are those Xenos doing?! All crew go to battle stations!"- Admiral said exasperated. Not only aliens have seen them but also sent preemptive strike. But due to his surprise his Exec gave him raport that conflicted with his Imperial indoctrination.
-"Sir, we are receiving transmission from Xenos and our scan showed that their vanguard doesn't possess any visible weapons, only armor and thrusters. Only smaller ships have small weapons similar to railguns…. They've stopped on the edge of our effective range, meaning they've either dealt with Imperium or they scanned our ship using an unknown method."-Exec said dutifully and went back to his position incase of an attack.
Admiral looked at his fellow crew members and said:
-"Ahh, fuck it we might as well try. Send the Xenos message in every known language with an apology for intrusion on their space and ask for resources so we could leave them.." Exec looked at Admiral incredulously seemingly not believing the order. He felt a sudden urge to kill the Admiral, years of indoctrination led him to believe that the Admiral became possessed by the Xenos.
Universal collapse
Somewhere in space between dimensions~
-"Hmm? The dimension H-8a-9 is currently at its limit due to overpopulation and oversaturation with energy… Haah which idiot is it this time? This dimension should've enough lifespan for1013millennia…"- Some immaterial being said exasperated. This was a common occurrence at his workplace likely the result of sabotage of his colleagues.
The being became curious because after extensive scanning it found out it was due to a super rare event where an being awakens some power and it becomes an existence aquin to demigod/devil/both.
-"Welp, more paperwork great! hmm normally the universe is held hostage and the being is forced into slavery due to impossible trial/feat required for it to rise to higher power equal to [REDACTED]"- The being was interrupted by his boss that enslaved him due to its failure in trial.
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Year 20
The project is coming along nicely although there were some hiccups mainly the alien ship first sent us an apology and asked for materials so they could leave but when the miner with requested resources got near them they opened fire on us. That was the most foolish act they could've done, from the surface of every planet millions of ships awoke from their slumber their goal finally could be fulfilled. The swarm of ships the size of a tenth of an alien ship attacked and annihilated the resistance in a couple of hours.
Interestingly from the memories of aliens we found out that they were lost and suffered big losses and their admiral wanted to communicate peacefully but for some reason one of the lesser units lost their minds and attacked him.
This was very strange for the Hive since betrayal in any form means death of the brain of a traitor. There were some incidents where single units were born with strong minds and tried to destroy or leave the hive, yet they soon were assimilated and we became aware of process known as reincarnation and something called isekai which means transferring individuals or groups of them to different worlds sometimes into their own bodies but not all the time.
This information was concerning but ultimately easily fixable. Overmind asked Jeff to create a powerful psychic creature which will overpower any individual minds and detect them. Hive also started studying Lord Apheios as the alien ship was called. During extensive research it was found that they could possess cousins who are called the Tyranids. Alongside the Omega project Hive started researching and improving psychic abilities of itself which were assimilated from formidable humans called psychers.
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Jeff upon creation of a new species got an upgrade. Not only his crystals became even more efficient and were able to store more but also he got an increase in familiar cap which was quickly spent on the council and the third type of familiar these guys didn't give or enhanced a control of Evolutionary Energy. They've just enhanced their bodies slightly but there were no real cap for them so now every single species assimilated/made or not got those familiars.
This in turn triggered an intense reaction because those familiars didn't enhance the body they've gave a psychic abilities which in turn strengthened the body. The resulting psychic scream of massive awakening shattered the very fabric and supports which were keeping the universe together. One might think that this was the end of time and everything was dead and this one being couldn't be more wrong thanks to Omega project and awakening. Hive managed to create those supports themselves not only that they've got an ability to expand and modify those supports and boundaries.
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80 years later~
The Hive amazed everyone yet again!
The universe collapsing due to awakening never happened without an influence from outside. This event created ripples in the society living between dimensions and maintaining them. Many beings were actively watching that cemetery and were very surprised when the beings inside it collapsed their own universe in a peculiar way. Normally the collapse means that every boundary of said dimension is pierced or stops existing altogether making the dimension burst open with a violent bang only to collapse on itself due to lack of any laws of physics working.
But those ingenious creatures only busted one support effectively accelerating themselves by ejecting empty space into the void. This never happened due to very scrupulous research and maintenance on every dimension. The Hive's dimension sun crashed into another one and popped… But something peculiar happened when the dimension crashed and popped near another dimension which stopped the other one and seemingly absorbed remains of the Hive's dimension strengthening itself!
End of Prologue and Beginnings
No matter what I do, no matter how much I plan for the future reality will always put me in place. I've never been an overly religious man. But I'm starting to understand that while gods exist they couldn't care less about inhabitants of dimensions they govern. I saw them formless beings without color virtually indistinguishable from the surrounding void yet I still could see and differentiate between them.
Hive doesn't exist during the cataclysm when reality gave up, hive begun researching and patching up our weak dimension. Yet we knew that we are only postponing the inevitable, during said research we discovered how to manipulate reality to make planets and matter. Also we learned about the dimensional rule, each reality can support only so much intelligent life before collapsing, it seems that each intelligent species produce mental energy which empowers the dimension allowing it to spread further, that's where the problem arrives the dimension is like a very simple monkey that treats said energy as a very yummy food.
The monkey from analogy placed in enclosure with a button that will dispense said food every time it's pressed. Since the monkey is a simpleton it may overeat and kill itself. Throwing the analogy away, the dimension will spread (increase the surface without increasing the volume and mass) it may seem as good thing but since dimension only uses energy to spread further and further it means that at some point the forgotten supports of a reality will collapse and eject everything from within to the void which in turn will erase it. Beautiful cycle of life and death of a bunch of brain dead moronic dimensions.
The Hive seeing this conclusion bent the laws of this reality placing all of its knowledge and adaptations inside me effectively killing itself. I was given a mission from the remnants who will operate this monolithic and constantly degrading chemical rocket. Except the chemical fuel has been replaced with laws and matter of our small universe which upon ejection will work as propellant working for a split second outside the dimension.
My mission was to scour every universe, planet and even void itself and find/create a place where hive could peacefully exist. And my name is Geoffrey Thatcher, a loser, creator, murderer, giver of life and most importantly a pioneer to find a new world.
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End of Prologue
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Sun was high in the sky, it didn't change its position even for a millimeter since I landed here. If i were to speculate I'd say i'm in Proxima Centauri C, of course considering that i'm in a copy of my old reality, I certainly hope this dimension doesn't suffer from "Ferni Paradox". Since my unceremonious landing or crashing on the surface the dust and the remains of strange plants settled. The gravity was about the same as the Earth's but unlike earth this place was very devoid of any water and bacteria. My sensors located inside my skin were indicating that water content in the air was similar to that recorded in death valley. There were about one or two strands of bacteria in the air which was strange considering even the deserts have more of them.
I looked around, nothing interesting, just an endless desert and my lovely crater im standing in. After a short while of standing and waiting for my body to adapt to seemingly endless solar radiation and high amounts of heat and scarce water I started spinning for a good hour or so and abruptly stopped. I waited a little for my inner ear to calm down and then I just walked in the direction I was facing. There wasn't any good method for planet exploration when you are locked out of technology the best you can do is to roll a dice and go in that direction.
So here i am walking ever so slowly toward strong gravitational field, it seems that the star above was about as close as the moon is to earth, while it might seem this place wasn't a proxima it still could be because scientist were about 4 light years away so they might be wrong about distance between stars and planets. After about a month of walking I arrived at a village, sadly the dwellers weren't friendly to me, I don't know if that was due to my appearance of a humanoid covered in crystal and bone.
Their clothes and tools which were being used as weapons looked like they had no idea what either electricity or an engine was. Meaning that they were currently in the middle ages or in early renaissance from earth's timeline. Further research required, during me trying to convey to those morons that I'm friendly. Some armed and armored individuals arrived. Their armour was made out of low quality steel and leather yet the village dwellers looked at them like they were envious of their armour.
I decided to call these beings, who looked similar to humans if you disregard that they had horns, horned humans. Armed individuals were dubbed knights and the timeline was going nearing the middle ages. Inspection of the body and full study of language would confirm or deny this theory. Nonetheless the knights began shouting at myself and began swinging their swords made from pig iron at me while laughing like morons. After a minute of analyzing their moves and posture I simply grabbed their swords and yanked them out of their hands effectively disarming them.
Knights looked shocked beyond belief and began running away… I was at a loss for words. It seems that the horned human mindset was similar to that of a "Scaven" , a race of rat people from a quite popular game from my reality.
Chapter 1, Operation
The villagers soon followed suit leaving not only their homes but also old, weak and ill. For a moment I thought that there was an army coming from behind, but no, there wasn't anything remarkable around me except the left behind villagers and the village itself. Because of such a drastic outcome I made a mental note to change appearance before trying diplomacy again.
I went and quickly searched the village and it seemed that those beings living there didn't have a concept of hygiene and any sanitation meaning there were turds everywhere even near a well that was located in the middle. Houses were made out of dirt and wood, their floors were made out of paved dirt or stone. Houses din't have good foundations meaning the residents were stupid or the natural disasters happen sporadically or never. This revelation wasn't good stupid beings are harder to subdue than inteligent ones because morons will always fight they won't listen to reason, this scenario is best out of the two. Why?
Second scenario means that the planet isn't geologically active, why does it matter? Simple Earth's Moon has similar illness meaning that the electromagnetic field surrounding this planet won't slow or stop any radiation and the gravity will slowly but surely will diminish. This is very bad because how would I decide my next destination if the race living here dies? I know that they might not know the concept of habitable planets but they might have astronomers who could at the very least point me in a direction.
Nonetheless I decided that helping ill beings could make them less terrified of me and allow me to learn their language. Also if they have body injuries, I could study their anatomy without any unnecessary killing. My first patient was a child with internal injuries and many malpractices such as herbs and hides of animals stuffed into wounds and for some reason on top of the chest. The child's physique made me think it was a boy his size on the other side was about an average for a 14 year old human.
I put my hand on his chest and extended tendrils through the skin. Kid's organs were in almost fatal state ruptured and wrongly healed. I grabbed the nearest being for comparison. It struggled but in the end I managed to feel its insides. Its organs were in better shape but still didn't work with 100% efficiency i connected to his consciousness, surprisingly it was a he as well as my patient and the old grandpa wasn't scared of me.
The old guy was worried about his grandson, his memories showed he was injured in almost the same way as his inheritor. After his 'recovery' he couldn't work as long as before and was weaker. I disconnected myself from him and extended my tendrils to consume the herbs and animal skin which in turn would provide me with a biomass.
The operation itself wasn't that spectacular just some horrific looking tendrils seeping and impaling the kid and mending properly his organs due to excess biomass i fixed his genetic defects such as inability to grow to an average height and gave his hair some chemicals which would allow him to generate mundane vitamins when his diet didn't provide those.
Now the kid looked like your average middle schooler with horns, green hair and a body that looked like it was best buds with malnutrition and scurvy. I didn't have biomass to fix those…
The grandpa looked at his grandson and me with disbelief, yet before he could utter any word i connected myself to his mind again and said:
-"I'm not your enemy, please allow me to access your data bank so I could learn your language".
-"Uhh, okay?". I swiftly copied his vocabulary and voice strings and all of the ways the tongue moves for proper pronunciation. The feeling of knowledge flowing and filling gaps in my database was pleasant. Sadly grandpa looked like he was in pain. So I blocked his pain receptors and put him to sleep for the duration of transfer.
Chapter 2, Discoveries
Turns out that this 'village' is in fact a 100 years old capital, which is for context one of few oldest settlements on the surface.
For unexplainable reasons (at least from the perspective of the natives) all sentient creatures and their structures get destroyed when they pass threshold of 150 years. This 'village' is an experiment run by government to see if sentient monsters are exempt from this rule.
On question of what is a sentient monster the grandpa pointed to himself and all others that were left behind. On further inquiries I found out that:
Monsters have 2 or 3 horns,
People in this dimension have only 1 or none,
Monsters can't kill or fight any other creature than themselves,
On special circumstances they are allowed to kill sentient people,
People cannot kill other people but they can do whatever they want with them,
If some people kill others they get turned into monsters or they die,
People cannot kill monsters normally,
Monsters can only breed during special circumstances,
People cannot do that during said circumstances (their libido hits negative values during that time and even when forced there seems to be a barrier preventing any intercourse).
Asking about 'special circumstances' gave me incredulous looks and repeated message that I will soon see. Questions about fauna gave me an astonished look. These 'monsters' couldn't understand something like the cycle of life or a being that ate only plants.
After healing the critically injured and too ill to function I went for a quick sightseeing trip. I morphed myself into a semi fluid swarm of ants that instead of moving individually chosen to move as a big blob that constantly changed size and shape for moving around. I thought that this form will be alien enough that animals won't attack and will look harmless so that they won't mind me.
Humans plan and gods laugh apparently. Not only the animals turned even more aggressive but after consuming them whole every living creature in the forest evacuated in a hurry. This was very strange considering I absorbed that animal in a secluded spot.
This gave a foundation for a hypothesis that every animal is either linked telepathically like my hive or gives off a certain scent and when it dies it stops doing that hence alerting the entire local ecosystem. It didn't seem that far-fetched but still kinda absurd. Nonetheless i started researching the forest itself, this gave me a strange conclusion:
Carcasses of dead animals showed that they would die upon eating leaves or any part of greenery.
Plants are very toxic and even if the animal survived it would turn into a brain dead carcass.
Since plants make animals alert an ecosystem one way or another, Animals evolved into carnivores. This 'evolution' seems very artificial because natural evolution would probably evolve one animal to have an absurd level of immunity to that poison or would at least downgrade the scent alert.
This is very bad, because monkey see monkey do. If this way of things is very old that means the 'people' might be a nice word for a bunch of cannibals and savages. The whole government might be a "Might is Right" scaled to an absurd level.
I began wondering what sort of a failed experiment this is? There is no question about whether or not this is an experiment because this isn't how evolution should work. I suppose that either this planet is a playground of rich alien freaks or a very desperate civilization trying to see if doing things this sort of way is possible and sustainable.
I returned to the 'capital' , old 'monsters' were still gone and the old were working on the fields. But the plant they were cultivating gave me both goosebumps and hope. Plant was similar to my hive's hatchery but it looked more like a Lovecraft's wet dream about dandelions.
I went to a house where I last talked with the old guy. He showed up after about 3 hours and was greatly surprised that I cleaned and organised his home out of boredom.
-"If you were bored why didn't you help us on the fields?"- He asked with a small amount of irritation in his voice.
-"After quick hunt in the surrounding forrest I'm perfectly satiated, also i'm not sure if you wanted me to help since old inhabitants fled upon my arrival."- My voice was emotionless yet I managed to express my curiosity in it.
-"Ah you mean those old fools. They were the overseers that micromanaged our 'capital', pretty awful lot and before you ask no, they won't come with any army because you disarmed those royal brats and because we assumed you were a stray beast that will probably massacre the settlement. So the overseers will say that they fought valiantly and managed to injure the 'beast' before retreating and the brats will back up their words saying that they helped. Haa, I really pity the king, he was a great warrior before he became the king, once he managed to kill a vesemir that spawned on the end of a wave. Ever since he wanted his kids to be able to defend themselves from that horrific creature."- Grandpa really liked telling stories. His sentence could be shortened and the sense would be about the same. I guess I can't judge old mortals can and often will be grossly inefficient due to being 'content' with life. Not like I will ever get to know what that means not after seeing the sacrifice of my brethren.
-"What is a 'vesemir' and consider myself a someone who is either from a far away place or have an amnesia"- I said and automatically corrected him because I feared he might start huffing and puffing about me seeing it soon enough.
-"Have you seen the mounts of those brats? Those are called trakhas and are 10 times smaller than Vesemir, which also possesses feathered wings and scales covered body usually lives on top of very high mountains or inside the darkness in nature. A wave is a season when food doesn't grow and everyone gets very aggressive and the darkness spews forth hordes of amalgamations which slaughter everything in sight."- Grandpa had both anger and excitement in his voice, I quickly translated his story to usable and short version:
Vesemir is a mix between a dragon and gryphon from earth's fantasy (at least in a story alone)
Wave is a phenomenon when everything gets aggressive and the animals/people from the dark side of the planet fight for access to the sunshine.
So that's probably why evolution evolved in such a strange way but it still didn't explain the fucked up ecosystem. I have so much to research..
Living Armor
-"Hey old guy do you have any name or nickname? It's weird for me to call you like that."
-"Others back in my day called me 'Iron', because I loved mining and using it in everything. I was mining it even when the previous king Arleon bless his soul, banned doing so because of the alarming rate it was mined compared to resupply rate."- Iron said as his mood turned from answering strange questions to remembering his younger self.
-"Wait, by saying resupply rate you mean that if you for example mine out ore vein after set amount off time it will appear again in the same place and with same amount ore innit?"- This was major information if this phenomenon could be reproduced by spending energy then fusion will be very well possible.
I thought to myself, If by spending 100 units of energy i get 1kg of thorium I can then using appropriate equipment generate up to 10 times more energy assuming that this process is reproducible by using electricity and making stable elements takes less energy. Thorium is more stable and more energy efficient than uranium by some estimates 1kg of thorium can generate as much energy as 200kg of uranium or 3,5 million kg of coal, also it's less explosive and it generates negligible amounts of waste compared to uranium making the best fuel for fission reaction.
Fusion reactors and fusion are two separate terms reactors use superheated atoms to generate electricity, but fusion per se is a reaction which costs are lesser than the output and the output can be used to sustain the reaction effectively making free energy. Theoretically humans achieved partial fusion when they made their first fission reactor but they weren't able to purify waste and used inefficient uranium and plutonium.
-"You aren't wrong but you aren't right either. If the vein is mined out and the surrounding rock is more or less left alone then after 3-4 waves it will come back but sometimes it will be smaller and sometimes larger it's based on chance. If the vein isn't depleted completely meaning some chunks of ore are left then after one wave it will be renewed but it might change shape or location slightly."- Iron said with a smirk as if he knew what i was thinking.
-"By the way what's the kid's name? The one I saved after the overseers left."- Knowing names is useful because if i meet another being I might avoid scaring it and make another useful connection. Which in turn will allow me to gather information more efficiently.
-"Doesn't have any, we just call him 19blue because he is 19 years old and likes the color blue. But you can call him in anyway it just works that way even if you named him some strange name he wouldn't mind, instead he would have been grateful because when a monster is named by someone from people it can become one of the people. And when a monster is named by another monster it will get some power from that monster therefore making it stronger or able to break the 150 year ban."- Iron spoke another crucial information by naming someone that someone can get uplifted in status or power, I wonder what is naming exactly? Is it some sort of ceremony or just going to someone telling him/her from now on he/she is called "Mark" and boom that person gets stronger?
This system is so confusing it's like this whole planet is under control of something powerfull enough to fuck up entire ecosystem or the rules are natural here because of some strange abbrevation of Evolutionary Energy. Hmm how much of Energy I have anyway? Looks like I'm almost topped out on it.
I went outside and called "19blue" to come talk with me.
-"I'd like to thank you for healing me so quickly Mr. Crystal, what can I do for you?" - The boy was looking grateful and ready to attend me in anyway to pay off his debt.
-"I have a proposition for you, I can name you and become your armor and weapon in exchange you will go around this universe with me as guide and someone i can talk to during uneventfull days."- I proposed such a deal because no matter how many people I would ask I still could fuck someting by telling someone something that doesn't make any sense at least for them. Also with this deal I effectively gain a follower and someone with at least some critical thinking.
-"What do you mean by universe and becoming my armor and weapons?" - Boy was excited but also showed that I made a good decision since he noticed some irregularities in my proposal.
-"Universe is a collection of planets and stars and vast spaces filled with nothing. We are located on a giant ball made out of earth that orbits around a star in such a way that on one side we have perpetual day but this system isn't alone there are uncountable numbers of those systems each with at least one star. As for becoming an armor and weapons? I can turn my body into whatever I desire. I can become an exact copy of you or move crystals that cover me in such a way that they would be more centralized on your back while my body covers yours with a small sheet of bone armor that won't shatter no matter what." I said bragging a little, because there is nothing that is indestructible and eternall even my hive needs maintenance and minor repairs after hundreds of years of simply existing.
The boy's face was like a very fast power point presentation of every possible human-ish expression.
-"Wouldn't exploring all those places take an endless amount of time and be very boring? I don't see anyway for us to do it in the 131 years that I have left." - Boy said matter of factly, also our discussion was starting to attract curiosity of other villagers they to were looking stupefied after hearing about universe.
-"My lifespan is endless. As long as there is any nutrients nearby and my whole body isn't destroyed I will live. Since naming someone gives that someone a fraction of my power that means you too could become immortal like myself, because a fraction of infinity is still infinity." - There was small lie in my sentence my lifespan isn't endless it will end when this dimension gives up the moment when I'm not prepared for going to another one.
-"I never heard about any monster like yourself, b-but I'd like to trust you. Am I entitled to a vacation when I'm employed by you?"- The boy looked like he was too stunned to properly respond so I gave him a nod and began modifying myself. I hollowed out my body and made my organs smaller and able to work in sync with his organs. I also made some special tentacles that will attach me to his spine and limbs effectively merging ourselves into one being.
The tentacles would allow him to move more naturally and they would allow us to speak using our minds. I planned to enhance his insides so that he will also fuel my body effectively making our relationship symbiotic.
As I opened my body to show fleshy interior that is big enough for him I said:
-"Please enter without or one piece of clothing doing so will increase the surface of your skin touching my flesh and will make connecting nerves easier so you can feel the world around you using my senses."
The boy looked hesitant but after some wriggling he entered with only his pants on. After he was fully inside I closed off myself and him while attaching to his spine. After a minute or two I felt his thoughts.
Please calm yourself. Everything is fine. About two minutes have passed since you entered. I will send you an infopack that will show you what exactly I'm doing and will make our exchange easier. The infopack was filled with all of the knowledge you would get by simply attending school up to college in Eu in my old dimension. I gave a very small amount of history prioritizing math, biology and physics. I've done so in order for him to not discover my origin when he tries to escape or gets kidnapped on one of his vacations.
Soon his mind was filled with pain, the process of uploading about 15 years of school into your mind isn't the most pleasurable experience. Matter of fact it could be compared to the strongest migraine you had at times 10, it could be compared to being stung by irukandji jellyfish where the victims develop a deep sense of dread that the patient asks the doctor to end their suffering.
I made him blackout after making sure that the infopack isn't uploaded too fast and giving his brain enough nutrients and stimulation so it would create new synapses easier.