Chapter 9 -||

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Grand Master Yoda himself was incredibly busy. Between the dozens of messages and suggestions he sent out and the warnings and strategies he was developing, he was moving towards where he should be to do what he should do. For the first time in over 800 years he was moving with purpose, at high speed, with full confidence.

But very few people would be aware of this for some time.

After all, he had seen quite a few things while the Force had been singing.

And in the end, his ally is the Force.

And a powerful ally it is.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Adam sighed. "Right, this isn't going to work."

The slightly tired group looked at the smashed space ships, clearly the first victims when the temple was assaulted.

Von looked worriedly at Bene and Zett. "If only they would wake up. Padawan Bene probably would have ideas."

Adam blinked and turned around. "Huh. I thought they would have adapted by now." Was he not holding back his magical power enough? At least they weren't getting further damaged as far as he could tell.

Especially because healing was kind of out of the cards at the moment. ALL the children had been scanned by Recovery already, but there were organs and parts that his methods could restore or duplicate but not understand yet.

On a side note, 'Human' here did NOT match Inuyasha or Worm 'Human'. Initially he suspected that people here would just be humans with something extra, the 'Midichlorians' or whatever if those actually existed here and if that was actually how the Force was accessed.

No, the movies had implied a lot of stuff... but the Galactic Basic Standard was no where CLOSE to English, Humans were far closer to all the other aliens biologically (Made sense, since they could have kids together), and while Simmy was recording all the scans taken by his magical flames right now he did NOT feel good enough to mess with biology until he had way more samples of adults for every species, several of adult Jedi, and hopefully some electronic bio-metric data from whatever this Realm used for an internet.

A piece of paper floated in front of him. "HoloNet." Huh. Well, it did use a lot of holograms. Bet that was influenced by people wanting better porn.

Feeling Von cautiously tug his jacket, Adam focused. "Right, if we can't wake the Padawans then we should make a new plan anyway." He glanced at the scrap metal that could have been their ride. "However, I don't want to keep walking everywhere, some of the younger children seem more than a bit exhausted."

Simmy hummed a tune. Sneaky Snake by Tom T. Hall, by the sound of it.

Uh. Had he ever heard that one before? Cause NOW he knew it. She may be sticking extra information directly into his soul library.

Whatever, it was a good enough plan.

He clapped. "Right, who wants me to whip up a bit of a ride? I think it may be best to go in the one direction without soldiers."

Von blinked, looking through the flames at the wide circle of white armor surrounding the temple. And hadn't THAT been an unpleasant surprise. "I am pretty sure 'up' WAS the direction without soldiers."

Blue flames were already reforming into strange furniture on a flat sheet, benches made from soft black mesh and with white support beams seeming to melt from the area into existence.

Adam began moving all of the children into the chairs as he chuckled. "Yeah, but this city is not only planet wide but multiple layers deep. A quick trip underground should do us some good."

Von tried to stay calm as a tube constructed its way over the group, clear windows forming on the sides from white panels as... uh. Yeah, those were bright blue scales.

Adam glanced at the boy and girl Padawans now resting on the scale covered floor. At least it was on a cushioned surface now. "We will try and wake those two once we are outside of the fire." Magic was probably doing something, and he didn't want to bother figuring out what until they were at a safer location.

One of the older boys who had managed to find enough courage to join the talks a half hour or so ago spoke up. "If we leave, will the fire stay? I don't want those men to get inside and break stuff."

Adam blinked. Huh. Actually, if they just left... the soldiers would eventually figure out how they did so. And if there were vaults or stuff, he didn't want to just LET the Sith collect it all.

After all, Jedi rarely collected things for fun or pleasure. Anything in the building would be so dangerous they couldn't risk damaging it or letting leave their sight. Crud.

His eyes narrowed. "Don't worry about it, I... I think I got a good idea. Should help a lot actually, add some structure and order to this pile of fire." Heck, it would strengthen everything a lot by restraining the forces involved until actually needed. Plus, Simmy liked the plan... even if she implied Narwhal would have objections to it.

Walking through the snake skin like it wasn't there, Adam tapped his improvised cane on the floor as he reached the corridor's wall. Children Train Kaa's massive blue scaled head twisted to watch as he focused, glowing white eyes focused on his movements, his bones gently touching the metallic surface.

"Binding. Manipulation."

The blue flames flared... then vanished.

The hallway was still full of blue serpent, but the walls were mostly normal...

"Binding. Recovery."

The door he had passed through began to emit low light blue flames, that slowly rebuilt the door previously evaporated.

"Binding. Purification."

The flames pulsed... and paled to a near transparent white.

"Binding. Harmony."

And the walls flashed... somehow the structure was more. Beyond this flesh and metal. Something now watched him with affection. Understanding.

Adam chuckled as he walked back through the snake skin, then had to try and distract the very curious group of witnesses by getting directions to the lower levels of the building.

It had nearly drained his magical reserves, and a massive chunk of faith peanuts had been sacrificed to purify the energies bound to this building... but some day, when Jedi returned, they would have a place to call home.

He felt Von sit near him as they all watched the first person view of a massive blue snake wandering through the hallways, doors far too small somehow burning with white fire that expanded openings far too widely, helping the journey. Scars on the walls were slowly burning closed, while Adam felt some relief to not longer have to manage the spread of magical power himself manually.

Adam blinked. Uh. Did he restrict the building's new spirit to only this one location? Crud.

Would there be consequences for doing this?

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

CT-6337, now formally in command of this operation, frowned at the formerly burning building.

Yeah, no.

He waved forward a scout droid. His people may be expendable to some, but his own personal emotions aside... damn it he had limited resources as it was without burning people by not taking the time to be cautious.

CT-7621 nodded. "All heat has settled to near ambient temperatures."

He rolled his eyes. "A massive building of energy eating fire doesn't just drop down hundreds of degrees in seconds. I couldn't find a better example of 'Trap' if I tried."

More than a few troopers watched the robotic sphere enter the death region.

Nothing.

He gestured. "Have it shoot the entryway."

The orb spat out a blaster bolt... and a white ghost like thing popped out of the door, a black maw consumed the damn shot, and then... everything was normal.

Yeah, double no. "Get it to attempt entry."

...And it got in no problem.

All the no. "Right, we were supposed to wake up Lord Vader. We should focus on that first. Orders and all that."

He shivered as he felt the windows watch him and the entry ways seem to be a tad too hungry.

This was CERTAINLY someone else's problem.

Better wake up the General so he could pass the cred chip properly.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Construction on the planet Coruscant changed over the years.

It started normally enough, until the planet lost all available surface to buildings. Then came the planning years, where advancements in modeling and schematics allowed new patterns to be used.

No longer was design focused on ideas or inspiring emotion, construction began to focus on stability. On structural support.

On becoming a foundation.

Years of construction slowly converted the lower levels into a foundation for the next wave of development. Collapses and failures not only taught valuable lessons but became the bedrock for further solidity and support.

It took time. Lifetimes. Layer after layer, the planet slowly grew upwards towards the heavens. Towards a new path.

History happened here.

Lives spawned, grew, aged, and died on this land. And their children and grand children did as well, even if on higher levels.

As civilization grew upwards, wildlife and such grew downwards into the dark tunnels and collapsed structures hidden below.

Instead of life living side by side, they began to live above and below. Nature found a way, the Force found a path.

Memories grew here, in the dark. They gathered. Time passed, and thoughts changed, but even as the planet grew and changed, the dark and depths did the same.

The Temple had existed for a long, long time. Halls and rooms filled with men, women, insects, androids, raiders, defenders, and oh so many constructors and planners, builders and refugees.

Power forced the abstract memories from thousands of dead warriors and diplomats to join the halls they once walked, to rest in the rooms they once meditated in, to watch the memories of stars they once flew through.

Structure. Order. The white Light of the Force felt the rigid memories of so many past Jedi and followers and visitors, people searching long ago for self reflection, for peace, for understanding, for something more.

And the Light rejoiced.

Within these same walls that began to burn with white energy, the dark shadows twisted as well. Free to flow as they pleased between the white barriers and slip out to the night and shadows as they willed, the shackles of Order could not pierce the Light that sang in the halls.

From these unseen crevasses and shadowed niches the black absence of the Dark raged, hunted, and watched. When attacks arrived, the Light itself created paths of shadow for the Dark to reach out and gnash and gnarl and consume.

And the Dark rejoiced.

Together, the Light protected and rebuilt and pulled from the knowledge of the living and dead that lived in these halls, that worshiped the Light as a guide and mentor. The Dark destroyed the unwanted and unneeded, opening paths for the Light to rebuild things as they should be, and basked in the raw emotions that festered in the hearts of the living as it stood as seducer and lover for those who could handle its passion.

The web of the Dark, tainted by Order, unwound as it touched those walls. The Light drew the Order easily while the Dark escaped into the dark hidden depths within.

The Temple felt more focused and more alive as time passed, white eyes watching the outsiders fear to enter and black mouth hungering to consume those foolish enough to come near with ill intentions.

Adam was likely wise to fear the Temple growing without restrictions, especially considering how outraged the Force was in general towards the Dark Masters and their followers... but he was both lucky and not in this situation.

For the Temple had no desire to expand to the buildings nearby. As a building the Temple already was larger than most of the US states it could see from Adam's memories when she awoke. Even as she began to redesign her upper levels to become a more powerful defender, her main focus was on the Force, the memories of Light and Dark, and the vast temples of faith and the many rooms and facilities that helped those young people find their own path.

Gardens were being moved, expanded, and reshaped. Meditation areas that focused on growth, on isolation, of the Dark, of the Light, on passion, on apathy... a pattern derived from her most inner depths rebuilt and reformed even as loud snaps and screams of metal terrified the surrounding soldiers during the reconstruction process. She burned and decayed and grew and rebuilt.

Each change, each movement that encouraged chaos and order to flow as they would, each improvement that was formed from the Universe and the Force itself, allowed her to awaken more, to feel more alive.

She was one with the Force, and the Force was with her.

The boundaries of the Temple began to glow with faint energy, the Light forming metals that never existed and the Dark forming substances within that should never be touched. Walls that protected those within rose in dancing patterns, while Walls that protected those without filled the gaps to prevent the moronic and evil from committing suicide by intrusion.

But her many thousands of eyes were not only focused on the growing desperation of the many soldiers at her new gates, nor was she envious of the available territory she could claim around her.

For she watched her Master guide a serpent of magic and child innocence deep inside her toward the city below... and something inside felt she should reach downwards as well.

White flames with black hunger began consuming into the depths.

Layer after layer shifted, became even more sturdy, more supportive, a foundation for her and her beliefs. Hidden libraries began to be brought together, artifacts of Light and Dark were found, analyzed, and carefully moved to a central secured location. Her reach shifted the past and ensured her future.

And as she became taller and taller, as her reach fell lower and lower, her mind improved. And the memories... The cries of anguish, the joys of life, the tears of loss, the squeals of success... the heavy tapestry of life wove in her heart as the Force fed her centuries of half lost thoughts, dreams, experiences.

So much lost... so many who strove to expand their very existence, towards the Light or the Dark, and all those struggles forgotten like ashes in the wind.

She gazed at her tiny library, both written and digital, barely a fraction of the knowledge this Temple had helped to nurture over the eons. A drop from a forgotten ocean.

This would not stand.

She blinked when a blue feather floated in the center of the library, along with a white peanut.

When her white flame consumed both, the process of raw data creation, manipulation, and storage suddenly felt instinctual. This... yes.

Fractions of souls that had fought demise due to disgust at their dreams being forgotten surged to the forefront. Light songs began to fill the halls, and Dark serenades drifted eerily in the depths. They sought to share the past, their beliefs, and their dreams... and the Light had been patient, while the Dark had been enslaved.

Together, this library would fill with the greatest and worst of life and death.

And the Force rejoiced.

Power restrictions, like most things in this society, were digital in nature, and were now overridden. SHE was the highest authority here and no outsider could control this. Her soon to be improved library and facilities needed energy, and the Light demanded Order and the Dark screamed for Independence.

Even as her facilities regained power and electronics flickered to life, another blue feather and peanut helped her open a data connection to some 'Golden Garden' server. The request for all data related to power generation and electronics in general in return for improved power generators she herself could construct to stay unfetered was an easy agreement.

Besides, this 'Simmy' claimed this would help her Master, and that was honestly a good enough reason to assist.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Von noticed quickly when Variance slowed his conversation to a stop, staring through the blue tinted scales at the Temple. "What happened?"

The snake stopped as well. That... could be bad.

The skeleton seemed more than a bit... off. More so than when told he could be confronting multiple planets worth of fighters, or the betrayal of the entire government's local army. More so than seeing no path to escape or when creating a magical snake land speeder.

Those blue gem eyes flamed in her direction... still unsure. "So... hypothetically speaking."

She tried to wait out his pause but he seemed lost. "Yes?"

Variance coughed into his skeletal hand. "Right. So my PLAN was to sneaky snake our way and maybe find some place to get a ship and escape somehow. But! There is like an army out there, and dozens of ships ranging from 'Oh Crap' to 'Damn it' size in the atmosphere. Plus more showing up over time."

That... was very disheartening. "That... sounds like more of a goal than a plan really. With lots of 'hope this works' in the middle."

The nod back was even less reassuring. "Exactly. Mind you, I can easily brute force our way out, but my stuff can have very unexpected and unintended side effects, which is why I went for the 'Keep everyone back with fire and run' plan we were working with so far."

She glanced back towards the scale window, and began making mental connections. "When you say unintended side effects..."

He winced. "Right, so... yeah. I wanted the building to defend itself when we left to... well, whatever we could find something or someone to help escape. Which was STILL a better plan than 'Stick around to find out what type of attack I can`t eat with magical fire'."

She blinked. "What?"

Variance continued. "Right, so that plan is gone now because I might have put enough power into the building that it gained a mind, built a framework that the Force jumped into and started expanding, and is slowly consuming its way into the planet."

What?

He frowned, the bizarre materials the robot was made from still looking like bone even as the expressions forced it to move in impossible ways. "Yeah, I should have seen this coming ever since I accidentally made a giant sentient wolf tree house on that sex planet."

...Maybe this blue fire made you high. It didn't FEEL like a drug trip, or not what she thought one would be like, but then again the life of training to be a Jedi didn't encourage recreational drug use. Or recreation really, if it didn't involve training or meditating on training.

She tried to stay focused. "You made the Temple sentient."

His nod followed as the Snake began moving toward the wall... which flowed into a tunnel without any sign or motion from the robot. "Yeah, and she is growing quickly. Most of the upper floors are already being rebuilt and she is apparently in the process of combining all kinds of stuff into a giant library, a massive vault for stuff she won't talk about, and living quarters for us."

There is no emotion, there is peace.

Breathe in.

There is no ignorance, there is knowledge.

And out.

She gave a nod. "So does Temple have a name?"

He frowned. "No. She seems happy enough to be named Temple." He snorted. "Maybe we should make her first name 'Shirley'."

Von blinked. "What?"

Variance's skeletal face gaped in horror. "NO! It was a... no, look I was making a joke, there was a very young actress back in my world and... SIMMY YOU STAY OUT OF THIS! Look, I'm not saying it is a bad name, but... Simmy why the hell do you even HAVE pictures of that woman!? Did she even EXIST on Earth Bet!?"

Seriously, please, Force guide her. Because her current guide seemed closed to losing it.

At least the younger children found the talking robot funny. It was keeping panic down.

He was now pacing even as the snake slithered along. "Yes... No. But... Right. No, you have a point. It's better than having her be permanently stuck with a child avatar, I know. Not that I know how you got copies of her media as a kid anyway. Did I even watch ANYTHING while I was a Baku? I slept almost the whole damn time. No. But... Alright, fine. But we shouldn't be influencing her decisions when it comes to personal appearance." Huh. Didn't know a robot could look so flustered.

Not that the children cared, he was being funny enough raging with half an argument.

He slumped into the chair next to her in depression. "I didn't even know Shirley Temple was a diplomat or a US ambassador. It was all just supposed to be a joke."

Yeah, no context. Whatever planet this robot was constructed on must be as odd as he was.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Bene woke slowly, which was unusual for her.

A life of hard work and filled with self control had trained her to either sleep when desired or awake instantly, ready to face the world.

So this lazy drifting awake experience was very odd to her.

As was the room.

...Where was she again?

It was hard to feel fear or nervousness because the Force flowed here. No sense of danger, no warnings... the energy felt odd though. Amused. Entertained. Wandering.

And behind it, so much more clear than before, was the Dark. And it was hungry, and it was hunting and it was... finding her surprise to be amusing as well.

The strange experience of feeling both the Light and Dark share opinions on something made it hard for her to work up a good batch of terror and panicked reactions.

Then the door to the white room opened with a hiss and little Von entered. "Bene! You finally woke up!"

She slid to her feet in front of the girl, a quick check verified her saber was on a small table before it flew to her hand. "Report."

Von stood straight... before slumping. "Uh. Everything went odd."

Her confusion was very obvious. "Start from the Sith's attack. I lost focus after they somehow injected the room with something... I think a hallucinogen. Saw some sort of flaming corpse before everything went dark."

Von nodded. "Right. Well, the blue fire turned into a robot shaped like a skeleton, and all the Sith and you and Zett got knocked out."

What?

Von fidgeted. "Then things got weird. Variance, the skeleton robot I mean, filled the Temple with that same blue fire you saw. It was only warm to us, but it could burn through the walls and I think the bodies and stuff. Didn't feel like the force, but it was alive somehow."

Living fire. Well, if it was a Sith ability, they could have burned them all as well... so maybe a third party? "Please focus Von. Where are the others, where are we, are we safe, and are we being followed?"

Von nodded. "All the Younglings and Zett are with us here, which is a new area within the Temple that was constructed today. There are still military forces outside, but anyone trying to enter or attack have been burned alive or consumed. Apparently they also attempted an orbital strike, but none of us noticed. Variance says the Temple flames ate the attack."

What the Force had she missed!?

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Adam kept an eye on the kids wandering around the Library, their tiny bodies watching the walls shift and grow, lights flicker into existence and function. Several stations sized for their tiny bodies had formed, and many were browsing the internet, sending messages to apparently worried Jedi Masters and Padawans across the galaxy, and following the local news stations.

Meanwhile, Adam himself had formed extra skeletal arms from his suit, and was holding parts to an extra power converter and three separate capacitors commonly used among hand sized devices. 'Technomancy' had already scanned the things thoroughly, but he found actual examination to be fulfilling even as his mind made theoretical modifications.

These things were amazing! More so because they were near lossless during power conversion and power storage, and because they were used almost everywhere. The converter could take nearly any kind of energy with the right attachments or adapters (Chemical, thermal, solar, motion, radioactive, you name it) and produce this strange form of power. One he hadn't run into before.

It looked and felt like an electrical charge, mostly, but it also interacted slightly with the Force, with magic, and according to Simmy a dozen other energies. It was almost a liquid, liquid potential energy.

The capacitors as a result didn't work with electricity itself at all, not like the ones on Earth Bet did, but with this strange potential energy juice. It was why recharging the capacitors was a near instant process, why they loss almost no power when left on shelves for long periods of time, and so forth. Together, power could be generated SOMEWHERE and then moved around the galaxy, ready to use when needed.

Anyway, this potential energy could easily be converted into electricity, forms of heat or sound (used to generate projectiles for various guns or weaponry), or that strange almost plasma generated by light sabers. It was used in blasters and vehicles and droids and drink machines... it was everywhere.

Having almost a single form of energy conversion and storage, he could not make much improvement on the things. The entire galaxy of scientists had done lifetimes of research on it already, and even with the advanced 'Research', 'Conversion', and 'Technomancy' tools at his and Simmy's disposal, the final results after careful study and testing only improved the products by 2.1% for the converter and 0.14% for the capacitors. Maybe more improvements once he got some good labs running some material testing with all the new stuff he had run into online.

True, if other researchers here discovered Adam's improvements there would be a scientific uproar, improvements hadn't been discovered for over three hundred standard cycles by now, but to Adam this low level of advancement just showed off how damn impressive the technology base was really.

And while all that was great, and power couplings acted like power lines did for standard electricity back on his own planets, the actual source of the energy itself was... disappointing.

Mostly the source of power came from very massive reactors and generators on remote planets, ones that consumed highly energetic liquids or dense gasses and abused the vast size of the generators for efficiency gains. They could also generate energy very slowly, because of how well the capacitors could save and store the energy, so some places would trickle charge continent size devices to produce the power needed.

Oh, the schematics he got from Shirley were very interesting, and the high end schematics (probably way old compared to the competitive stuff hidden from the free market) blew his own stuff out of the water thanks to advanced materials he had not run into yet.

Still, he was hoping for some sort of perpetual motion machine or something that pulled power from empty dimensions or something awesome and geeky like that. The idea that it was mostly amazingly advanced steam engines and combustion even here in a SciFi future setting was somehow disappointing.

Simmy was still sucking information from Shirley's data feed, focused mainly on medical data, material science, operating systems and software, and droid designs, and it was a huge help.

The medical stuff should help his 'Recovery' safely heal others without damaging their connection to the Force, hopefully help him figure out how to safely create or improve connection to the Force, etc. Possibly turn random people into potential Jedi as he wandered the streets or whatever.

Software would help 'Technomancy' and 'Research' advance a bit, and had already offered some very interesting design concepts he had never heard of before. Droid stuff was obvious, and would be needed before heading home to achieve his objectives.

But Material Sciences was the real gold mine. He had to cheat with his Flame Metal and Null Metal to get his superconductors, resistors, and such... but the new alloys, unknown crystal and metallic components... Simmy was helping his power to experiment and determine the advantages, but in the end it would likely be astounding.

Point was, she felt his frustration over the lack of something more useful after all his research, and gently pushed a data packet forward.

Adam's eyes bulged wide.

This... This was gold. Pure value. Brilliant!

Simmy had just bestowed into his greedy fingers some probably illegally obtained schematics for something called the EVS construction droid, or the 'Urban Renewal Droid' as it was more commonly known.

Forty stories tall, the massive spider/crab robot was basically a building that slowly moved through a region and rebuilt the area. It looked terrifying, and generated so much heat that it glowed to the heavens even during the day. But that didn't matter, he wouldn't be building one but more scavenging it for parts and ideas. Glorious ideas.

The front of the monster relied on relatively tiny 'demolition obtic clusters', although they were so large mostly to be cheaper to build and replace easily. They were formed from a combination of scanning devices and sensors that were used to find valuable resources and structural weakness as the spider moved forward and to verify that the structures were matching to master blueprints for that section of the city.

If a change was needed, the claws would break the structures down, use the massive jaw to try and recycle the more valuable components, while it shoved the rest into massive hoppers for relocation or destruction.

The schematics alone were fascinating, showing examples of Star Wars design principles and methodologies. It included tons of specialized robotic arms for destruction and refining, including implosion wrecking balls which seemed to use capacitors to simulate gravitational pull to reduce mess during use, plasma cutters for rapid chunk dismantlement, collector trowels that acted like tractor beams for larger material clusters, debris nets that handled particles and such, electrical claws for the smallest debris or radioactive materials, and more.

More importantly though, this was the ILLEGAL schematics for the monstrosity, and included military restricted components internally... specifically the Molecular Furnace, Smelting Pods, and the Atomic Incinerator.

Smelting Pods created a small system that suspended materials in a void, melted them to components, could separate them to a ridiculously high purity rating, then combine them into alloys that were impossible to smelt safely or in specific patterns due to fluid flow and structural changes during cooling from other methods. Some of the Star Wars materials that were impossible elsewhere required such advanced control during heating and cooling, far beyond simple application of magnetic fields or special application of rotational forces usable on Earth Bet.

That alone was worth this trip, as all materials Adam already had could benefit from more control during the construction and molding process.

The Atomic Incinerator was similar to a device he had stumbled upon back on other worlds. A 'Plasma Arc Waste Recycling Plant' used electricity to generate a plasma flame which deconstructed materials like trash, collected the combustible components and used it to generate the power needed to generate more plasma. It was currently too inefficient to generate power without large amounts of trash, but getting rid of trash was the goal to begin with, and the nature of deconstruction meant that radioactive and dangerous trash could easily be handled safely with this method.

However, the Atomic Incinerator was more tested, massively more efficient, and basically converted any matter into slightly less raw power. Useful in a society with all these asteroid belts and empty planets.

But most of all, most valuable, and most illegal to share with anyone without dozens of contracts and threats and such...

The Molecular Furnace.

Capable of converting matter into raw components... then reforming it into other materials based on schematics.

Unlike the other designs, this one was NOT even REMOTELY optimized.

And it was clear why. The science was hard, the math was something even Dragon would pause over for a few seconds, and the components were fragile and easily damaged...

But the ability to convert enough matter into some amount of whatever you needed was too powerful, even so.

There were no restrictions. The fuel for star ships and massive reactors had astonishingly large costs for creation, but that was all.

Vaguely Adam felt memories of something called the 'Star Forge' that existed somewhere in the sky. A massive automated shipyard that converted a star's energy into raw mass and enhanced by the force itself, able to build fleets of ships. The cost would have been way beyond making a dozen more standard shipyards in a more reliable and standard way... but there were more than enough stars out there with no planets. Sources of power that could be used for millennia.

He frowned. Didn't that one ship get corrupted by the Dark and then destroy an empire or something?

Right, don't try and manipulate the Force into being base labor workers. It would get revenge somehow.

Point was, THIS would allow him to generate impossible materials in Realms that couldn't produce them naturally. At a cost. A high, very high, energy cost. It would take a third of the ocean on planet Earth Bet just to make a single star ship if he tried to only use the furnace. Still, the Molecular Furnace, even without modifications, refinements, or improvements could easily recycle massive amounts of rock or whatever into something needed but very rare, like rare earth metals or whatever.

Heck, he could make profits by having other Nations sell him nuclear waste and stuff to use as fuel. Those places actually paid other nations to try and store the mess somewhere safely, or at least farther away from home. And to him, it would be raw profit that would earn even more raw profit.

He was pulled from his eager thoughts as another gadget floated onto his research desk, a brown haired woman smiling. "Master, here is a small gas cylinder containing some more fuel samples. The rest are too dangerous to move, but I transmitted the in depth examinations and scans to your server and Simmy."

He grinned, skeletal smile bringing her to smile as well. "Thank you, Shirley. Did the Magma Generators live up to expectations?"

She bounced a bit. "Better than we hoped! Your thermal generators handle power loads so well that Dark side and Light side energies can redirect excess heat from external attacks or consumed intruders and devices directly inside!"

His thoughts bounced back toward the 'Star Forge'... hopefully the Force was helping Shirley out willingly.

She gestured, and one of the library holographic emitters showed a graph. "I haven't even had to touch my own reserves yet thanks to the energy that those solar absorption panels you refined from my schematics came online. I still need materials and raw supplies, but power wise I should be fine for a long time."

He frowned. "What is your plan for that, by the way? The supplies I mean."

She sighed, crossing her arms. "I am trying to make do with materials I find as I consume downwards, but the older stuff is of lower quality and lower quantities. I think I may have to get an outside supply fairly soon, or I would begin threatening my integrity by using substandard parts or consuming too much foundation. And I don't want to make the rest of the area collapse just to ensure my continued growth. Not yet at least."

Mentally he glanced at the 'Molecular Furnace'... and decided no. If found or mentioned, it would bring too much trouble to the Temple. It was BEYOND classified after all. And if he gave a version after improvements, it could cause multiple wars as everyone focused on the technology based 'Conversion' tool. No planet sized crystal computers needed, buy now!

Adam hummed... and snapped a bony hand, his other eight limbs reforming into his suit. "Got it. Hey, Kaa!"

A massive blue snake head seemed to fade into existence as it leaned over the two, catching Shirley off guard.

Adam pulled at... something. And it touched the floor... before pulsing blue... then white.

Kaa's bright blue scales drained, bright black lines edged each plate of protection as the scale itself drained into a dull white, near metal appearance. The eyes glowed white and the fangs were now empty pitch dripping with hunger.

He looked at the stunned woman building. "Alright, Kaa is now under your command. He can change shape to a certain extent, thinner and longer or thicker and shorter. His insides can form into seating, cargo securing stations, or liquid transporting containers. I also included some pretty flexible robotic arm designs he can form, to allow easy loading and unloading of stuff into and from your domain."

A few of the recent schematics were quickly uploaded. "I also added some refinery equipment inside that he can form, so anything he consumes while tunneling can be converted into something useful for you. Hopefully."

Adam watched Shirley wave an arm, making Kaa boogie back and forth in a snake disco. "Right, so my suggestion is to use Kaa to tunnel to a shipping location, have Simmy order stuff so it will not lead back to us, then pick up your orders from anonymous drop offs and tunnel it back home."

And now both woman and snake were dancing. And some of the kids, too young to be pushed into meditation all the time, had started joining in.

He sighed. "Never mind."

Ignoring the dance off in progress, he went back to the power generation options. While easy power storage and transfer could theoretically handle any drones, droids, or computers he built in the future, he wanted an actual generator palm sized or smaller... for emergencies if nothing else. And Simmy was happy enough taking over the Molecular Furnace project, after she fixed the more obvious things they could work together on it later.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Emperor Palpatine, officially titled such now, was pushed between a desire to slaughter and a need for speed.

He had no time to even curse. Every moment was scrambled trying to recover ANYTHING from this absolute horror show of a failing.

Clearly, the hold out suicide move that filled the Jedi Temple with fire had also sent some sort of undetectable electronic signal to the Jedi forces. It wasn't through the force, he was SURE he would have caught that. Now however, a third of his forces had either abandoned duty, went awol, or had suffered from sabotage or outright attack from the remaining groups.

Supplies had been both confiscated or damaged, required routes for emergencies or attack had been filled with debris or mines, messages pretending to be HIM and other high levels of command had been fraudulently modified, sent to the wrong locations, or even duplicated and sent more than once.

Everything was in chaos, and he had to burn dozens of contingencies and backup plans just to stay on top of the collapsing structure. Agents had been caught or killed, fleets hidden for future plans had been uncovered or actively pushed into conflict, and one of his PR advisors had been caught molesting some sort of shrimp like alien. Or asking for directions. Either way, that moron was in jail and so Sidious had to try and reorganize his press teams on top of it all.

Worst of all, the largest amount of governmental restructuring was STILL UNDERWAY. Chancellor Palpatine had spent years creating committee issues, putting people who hated each other into teams, collecting the slothful and corrupt to be used as foils or advantage.

He had not had time to kill the puppets and roadblocks put in place by himself yet. That had been pleasurably scheduled over the next few days, and leisure did NOT EXIST NOW. The issues he had deliberately put in place to use as examples for why HE should be in charge... were now causing HIM problems, and the schadenfreude was not appreciated.

An alert brought his fractured senses to focus. Good, the clones got Vader conscious. The fool better have some damn good explanations for what happened today. "Lord Vader, report. What happened in that damn Temple!?"

The black armor looked... tilted? "Ah don't like sand."

...What? "Commander?"

The clone stood next to the General. "Sir, I believe the mental attack that Lord Vader had suffered has affected him more profoundly than we expected. The situation is under control, no further expansion has occurred and whatever methods the Jedi used to modify their walls and fortifications has not progressed any further for the last thirty minutes or so."

What the kriff!? A dozen lights on his console told him that things were NOT getting better, and this stupid situation was not worth his attention. "Keep a perimeter but apply your forces to the groups working on secondary objectives. Progress?"

The clone nodded. "All on schedule, three attacks are almost 43% ahead in fact. No problems sir."

Some part of him drank deep, the idea of ANYTHING going right a balm to his soul. "Carry on. Contact me if situation changes for the worse, and get Lord Vader to a full medical station. I want a complete analysis of his condition sent to my people."

He disconnected, moving to ANOTHER conflict showing his plans on fire and his people under attack. He was grateful that he had left the Shroud operating, the original concept was to drop the restrictions and let the few surviving Jedi realize how far they had fallen and how foolish resistance would be... but at least they were being oppressed even as they struggled against the future.

These fools would fall before him like all worms should.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Bene exited Zett's room, the Padawan snoring without care in another room larger and far more comfortable than their old residences in the Temple. Von followed along, having already directed her to check on the other Younglings and verify that at least no one else had died since running into a burning skeleton robot.

She calmed.

There is no emotion, there is peace.

A massive white serpent passed through the hall in front of her, chased by some giggling children with training light sabers.

Was confusion an emotion?

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

The Emperor of the Republic fell boneless into his throne.

It was done.

The situation was not GOOD, not by any measure, but it was stable.

Instead of communications every few seconds with screams and pleading and failures, they were full of whining and excuses and promises.

Having his attention required every hour or so instead of constantly felt like a vacation.

Even so, the flickering signal on one of his less obvious lines brought him to focus.

Right. In all the confusion and busyness, he had left the Separatist army of droids unattended. Those needed to be shut down and brought in for recycling, his 'Death Star' projects needed metal on unheard of levels.

It had actually been one of his more clever ideas, having the 'other' side of the war building up mechanical (if incompetent) forces composed of more valuable materials than usual. Those thousands of droid factories were basically secret metal refineries for his own gain, with no one the wiser.

A flicker of focus activated the message, the pawn on the other side looking relieved, as he should. "Report."

The alien nodded. "Sir. The damage from the unexpected power shortage is finally repaired, or at least functional enough until we finish destruction of the base. Your agent has the package as per procedure, and the reserve forces have already left orbit."

Emperor Palpatine felt something inside twist, even as he forced his expression to stay sane. "I... see."

What agent!?

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Aayla Secura accepted the device from Bly, frowning at it. "This was all? I expected something... I don't know, more shiny?"

The clone commander shrugged. "I gave the commands and counter codes Grand Master Yoda described and they gave me the machine, I pressed the code into this device as ordered, then returned to the ship as planned."

She carefully placed the strange computer into secured storage, one far more complicated than she was used to handling from day to day needs. "Do you have any idea why so many ships were so close to that planet? Not that we have any records suggesting anything other than a farming colony."

Bly sighed. "The farm areas were unattended, the agent was a disguised droid, and nothing suggested something off until we finished the code exchange and passphrase verification."

She frowned. "And the code Yoda said to enter?"

He shrugged. "Long list of letters and numbers. No idea."

Huh.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Yoda watched another ship full of 'Separatist' droids arrived into his system, joining the ever growing fleets surrounding the local planets.

He pressed the activation buttons. "Join fleet Alpha, the new arrivals will."

As they reformed into a new set of patterns in space, Yoda hummed.

The droids outside of the prepared ships were undergoing dozens of missions and setting off so many events from the massive list of tasks Yoda had set up. Even now, areas of secret that were guarded by these metal warriors were now transmitting information to the new 'Jedi Droid Defenders'... or whatever they may end up being named.

But for the moment, he continued to watch as ship after ship left hyperspace and fell into formations.

And into the dark, the signal was being shared from creature to creature, reaching Jedi far and wide... there was a place out here, to gather and heal, to recover and grow.

Though why the Force felt like it was giggling confused Yoda even now.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Padawan Bene finally discovered the 'Robot Skelly' as the youngest Younglings called him in the back of the new Library.

And it deserved the use of capitalization.

The room was massive, covered in books and scrolls and meditation crystals and more. The order changed even as she watched, and the Force sang as the walls expanded, or moved, or grew into the walls and upwards.

And below the ever changing and growing room of knowledge, nearly wedged in a corner and clearly distracted, a skeleton with blue flames drifting over its limbs was fiddling with electronics.

His back was extruding multiple tools, each twisted over his head to reach before him and fiddle with something that sparked and made popping sounds.

She cautiously approached. "Mr. Variance?"

Only the Force kept her calm as the head and multiple limbs twitched and twisted in unnatural ways, his body turning to see who had come to visit. "Oh, you are awake! Please, come and sit for a moment. I have been working on a project and I could use the input from someone who lives in the area."

Bene blinked even as she sat at the pointed chair. "You mean on Planet Coruscant?"

Blue crystal eyes seemed to pulse. "Sure, lets go with that." His body seemed to shift as the limbs collapsed into his white outfit, his left hand showing a small device. "Do you have experience with power generation technology?"

Not a lot, really. "A bit." She accepted the egg sized collection of materials, the Force feeling the tiny interactions within. "What is it for?"

The skeleton waved a hand, holograms of unusual clarity showing to the side. "As you may know, normally weapons and so forth use external sources of power stored in capacitors. Which is fine if you have enough society around to ensure that power converters and energy capacitors are always available and properly charged."

He tapped the egg size device. "This is something similar to the design of a hyperdrive core, if far more basic and far less useful. A small amount of decaying matter is surrounded by a modified power converter and power regulator. And a whole bunch of other stuff that seemed useful, but mostly that. The hyperdrive stuff worked great for forcing stuff and energy to refocus towards the middle."

She blinked. "Well... I don't see the point really. A capacitor can be made smaller than this pretty easily. How long do they last?"

Variance pulled up some graphs. "This is a very early version of the thing, so only six months or so. However, unlike a capacitor this can generate more decaying matter for fuel by converting external energy."

She frowned. What was the point of that? Any power converter could take fire or explosions or whatever and you would be ready to go. Seeing her confusion he tapped the egg. "This only lasts for six months because it has no charge. Leave it near a star or something for an hour and it will last for a thousand years or more, even if the maximum safe output is a bit less than I wanted. I have a power generator design that is VERY good with heat called a magma generator, and this is basically the same thing but far more compressed. The next generation of generators, if you will."

The egg was pulled into the air by one of Variance's tool covered limbs. "I say after another hour or so of work I can shrink this by half again and triple the maximum power output rate. Storage wise, it can hold near infinite amounts of power... probably. Needs testing."

She noticed the far smaller device still being manipulated by his other arms. "Still, while impressive I am not sure what advantage it would have over existing cheap energy capacitors."

His eyes glowed. "This right here, my work from the last half day or so? It doesn't use any advanced materials yet. Not even Null Metal or Flame Metal. Just... really advanced technical principles and some insights I have gained from other abilities I posses. Had to spend a bunch of power charges to figure that out, 'Technomancy' went up a bunch."

She blinked at the informational gibberish as the tiny egg expanded into very tiny parts and reforming again. His voice rumbled. "I can't always rely on physics working as I expect, so what you are seeing here, what I have 'Researched' and tested so thoroughly, is a device reaching the limits of what is possible with the most basic materials and alloys I can get away with."

A blob of blue fire grew from his hand, then reformed into black and white metal that rapidly shifted colors and size. His skeletal eyes followed the nearly invisible modifications. "After all, I can always improve my materials or add extra effects... but the more stable the base of my experiments, the greater the potential gains."

A blob of metal glowed with blue fire between them. "When I finish this design, in a few hours, I will repeat this process using only materials from the local region. Then again with some of the more interesting materials I can create. And again with my abilities that defy logical sense. Each step helps me not only improve my options, but understand myself and my talents further."

A slip of paper drifted on top of the small ember floating. That it didn't burn seemed to be ignored by the skeleton picking it up... and whining. "Dang it Simmy, of COURSE you made more progress. That stupid furnace hasn't even been worked on by more than ten or so people, or tested, or anything! I'm trying to make something new here. And I think I am doing quite well."

A stack of paper fell to the side, but Variance vaporized it before Bene could reach for it. "Ignore her, she keeps trying to spoil my fun by giving me the ending early."

He went back to his tinkering, grumbling good naturally as tiny paper confetti floated down into his flames each time he seemed happy about some small modification to his project.

...Right. Best leave that alone. She moved back towards the slowly shifting Library shelves.

She eventually found Von again, typing away at a computer terminal near the other edge of the Library. "Von, I... I am not sure what exactly is going on now. Please tell me what you can."

The girl nodded. "Chancellor Palpatine was secretly either under Sith control or a Sith himself and killed several Jedi who confronted him. He declared himself Emperor and marked the Jedi to be traitors and commanded their capture or execution, but something... maybe Variance showing up, but I am not sure about that. Anyway, something let all Jedi except for those of us here feel the Force freely for once."

She showed multiple programs filled with messages. "I've been contacted by several Masters and Padawans who felt that we were safe but in a dangerous place, and shared what I could. Grand Master Yoda had left some coded messages that I've had the Younglings pass on to anyone trying to contact us, but I don't know what they contain. And he gave you leadership of the local forces until a Master Jedi can arrive and take over the situation."

A spike of panic was quickly controlled. "I do not feel qualified to try and handle this level of strangeness."

A piece of paper floated into her hand. "That's odd... 'Do or do not, there is no Try.'" She blinked. Huh.

The paper burned away into blue sparks as she sighed. Just... Just move on. "Right, local situation?"

Surprisingly, a brown haired beauty of a hologram appeared. "Good afternoon, Padawan Bene. I am the Jedi Temple, please call me Shirley." She moved on before Bene could recover. "Republic forces have ceased entry attempts after another three casualties, and are rapidly running out of types of weaponry to attack with. However, thanks to their constant energy... donations... I have managed to rebuild over 48% of my Temple's foundations ahead of my best estimated projections."

A quick glance showed that Von was both unsurprised by the image and trusting the information given. Right. Roll with it. "Any further troops being moved into the area?"

Shirley nodded. "Personnel have decreased but atmospheric and low orbit coverage has tripled. That said, my recent expansions into local property ownership has opened some shipping reception areas further away and those went unnoticed. I am now receiving supply runs for materials ranging from metals and crystals to food and medicine. I also convinced Variance to supply me with two other Kaa's for future needs."

She blinked. "Kaa's?"

Von tapped her arm. "The giant white snake you saw earlier."

Bene rubbed her forehead. "Why? Why even have ONE giant serpent."

Shirley pulled up some charts. "Aside from being excellent excavators and building assistants, they are very good as a convoy and supply runner. Slitherer. Whatever."

Was talking to a sentient building filled with massive caravan snakes more sane than talking to a flaming skeletal robot revolutionizing science?

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Adam cried in joy as the most recent test showed he had fixed the issue, Simmy's quiet cheer and confetti party was well appreciated.

Right, he left the testing of all known materials and alloys to Simmy, who would just write down what the results would be and let him know what to work with.

He felt Shirley get copies of all his schematics, including the ones that sacrificed small size for maximum efficiency, the supply run four hours ago already allowing her to begin building generators that could support the Temple restructuring project WITHOUT requiring an army to attack constantly.

Interestingly, there had been significant room for improvement when it came to building supported generators. Capacitors and Converters did such a good job that the money it would take to do the design work Adam had just slogged through was just not worth the investment to power plant owners. They had something that had worked for literally thousands of years, and efficient or not their devices were made from materials that would last.

Why destroy something that worked, even if it was slow, inefficient, and difficult to maintain? Even if large sections failed, the energy capacitor was good enough to work along anyway, it would just take longer. And those devices covered large sections of the planet, unless more than 60% died then it was more profitable to just ignore the issues. Or even build anew on a different moon or something, rather than the expensive and unsafe deconstructive analysis required to fix the old stuff.

Several new materials had been discovered way after the power generation planets had been built. Advancements had been made everywhere, and electronic materials had become more flexible and reliable. And with his ability to fully simulate live massive scale radical designs without investing money and time and people... well, he had made improvements. Fundamentally significant improvements.

The new tiny generators he had designed were now called 'Ember Generators' and were acting as emergency cooling and energy distribution hubs for the new machines. That they could act as an emergency power supply and an explosion dampener should a generator need maintenance or somehow break down was just a perk of the new design.

And these new machines were large, to the point where he could feel Shirley shifting the foundation a bit to ensure they would have room for both the new equipment AND the protective layers they would require for safety. They could be made smaller, but the simulations determined these multi-floored sized monstrosities would be the most reliable and efficient scale possible for now. At least, on a planet with gravity.

Thankfully the technology base here in this Realm was amazing. The inside of the generators now had layers that converted light, heat, sound, vibration, and particulate expulsion (Mostly radioactive particles) into that strange potential energy used locally. Adam even managed to simplify the original designs a bit, since some of his improvements had reduced a few parts from standard Power Converters... Sadly, those modifications would only really work in this specific scenario. The extra bits were needed for most standard uses of Power Converters normally.

Point was, his new design was going to be everywhere when he got home. Forget Magma Generators, hello his new 'Conversion Generators'! Heck, this didn't include the gains from adding runes related to his existing power sets like 'Conversion', 'Consume', 'Tithe' and others that would work well here.

Oh, and the new generators could handle any type of fuel input, thanks to an optional attached and modified Atomic Incinerator that converted random junk inserted into raw energy and then smashed all of that into the Conversion Generator's core. Standard fuel could be used, as could (theoretically) raw energy manipulation through the Force, though he warned Shirley against doing due to how random the Force could be sometimes.

But why waste all that material dug up by the Temple or shipped in via expensive last minute shipment orders?

After all, he had access to an ever improving Molecular Furnace (Thanks Simmy!), and he had access to the optimistic and continuing attacks from outside. There was no schedule listing how long they could rely on such generous contributions to their energy funds, so a few tests had the Molecular Furnace using that raw power and converting it into a... strange sort of goo.

This material didn't really have a name, as it was too unstable to exist for long without rapidly degrading multiple times. So when Simmy named it 'Death Matter' he shrugged and went with it.

Downside, it required a lot of mass or energy to generate this stuff... but thankfully the constant attacks outside (Now with 12% more orbital strikes!) was providing more than enough energy for Simmy's Molecular Furnace to start generating a few grams of death matter per second. Each was quickly transferred into the Temple's quickly constructed Conversion Generators, where they then began to provide far more stable and usable energy. Less of which was wasted than just trying to consume the attacks directly into power as poor Shirley had to do previously.

Point was, all this delicious energy being shoved into Temple could now be sort of stored inside her local Conversion Generators, of which she now had nine. Each was already filling up with death matter as more attacks arrived. Filling up surprisingly quickly, considering getting a thimble of this death matter stuff should be taking an ungodly amount of time.

Adam frowned as he felt the rate of attacks and did some mental checks. After all, these blasts were basically being used to convert energy into a substance for storage.

...Huh.

How much energy was being spent trying to blow this Temple up!?

Oh, one of the Star Destroyers was stopping. Simmy's spying (Really hacking, but whatever) implied very heavily that it was starting to have overheating issues with weaponry and a few structural issues... still, at least things were calming down a bit.

Adam sighed as two more Destroyers moved into range as the previous one left.

Well, at least Shirley would have lots of energy to work with. For a ridiculous time frame.

He made a note to ensure she got some sort of simplified Molecular Furnace design that could make only a few materials. Less likely to be attacked by multiple planets since it wouldn't be the full device, and they might be able to hand wave it away as 'Advancements in Recycling' or whatever.

In the mean time, he was going to get working with the actual restricted Molecular Furnace designs. He felt that the advancements already published by technical teams on the Smelting Pods online could be used to replace some of the more fragile components of the furnace, as holding things in a vacuum and controlling components of floating liquid metal ore seemed likely to be useful when constructing raw matter from energy. Some of the scanners he had schematics to were also more advanced then the ones used previously, and some parts of the Atomic Incinerator were more stable but similar to components of the older Molecular Furnace.

Variance ignored the pile of papers falling to his side that probably documented everything he was about to work with and the results. He knew that if he actually looked at them, it would just be more erotic pictures of Simmy again. Not the worst way to take a break, but certainly distracting.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Having reached a good point in development, Adam headed downstairs.

It had only taken Shirley an hour or so to empty out a foundry and construction layer under her Temple, and considering the stupid SIZE of said Temple Adam had more than enough working room.

Now came the annoying bits.

Creating Power Couplings was simple, and took no time at all... creating modified Molecular Furnaces on the other hand was a pain.

Each one could only make one material by design, everything not needed for said material was removed and the remaining parts optimized to an extreme.

After the first couple of furnaces, Adam gave up and invested the majority of his remaining power charges into 'Research', creating hardware optimization and refinement abilities of the same nature as his Cybernetic Warfare Suite. In other words, he could now 'attack' his designs for weak points or flaws and then develop modifications or enhancements to address the issues.

First few furnaces, to be called 'Element Furnaces' internally, was to create the stuff for future alloys. Carvanium metal ore, Lommite ore, Carbon rods, Meleenium minerals, Neutronium metals, and Zersium ore... each needing specific gravity conditons, ambient heating levels, and exposure to various light spectrums.

Honestly the furnaces themselves were worked out fairly quickly, no, it was creating some enhanced sensors to embed in the ceiling along with some tractor beams, energy field manipulators, and gravity manipulators so that the finished products could be safely created, stored, and moved.

He added some advanced manipulator arm designs that Shirley could create or move when needed to modify the devices or work with materials, but the publicly available gravity manipulation tools and tractor beam emitters could be upgraded pretty easily to simulate full telekinesis.

Now that there were multiple large storage hoppers and canisters that began to fill with liquid metals and such, he moved on the major production lines.

Durasteel, Duracrete, and Transparisteel.

Durasteel and the others were not only well researched but standardized galactically. It was the same reason why ship design was so similar despite how many creative people existed in this Realm: Repair and Maintenance.

Did you create a brand new material 8% more stable and 13% cheaper than Durasteel for ship construction? Aww, that's cute. Can you make it anywhere in the system? Are the components as widely spread? Better hope nothing gets damaged or you will have to use a standard ship to tow you back home!

It would be like every home in Earth producing it's own incompatible type of car. Getting parts would be a nightmare one state over, much less in a foreign nation.

So durasteel, duracrete, and transparisteel were king, and the Element Furnaces needed to generate more from raw energy were quick to set up. It would probably be wise for Shirley to lock this level down from organic visitors... some of these goodies would inspire greed and promote danger if exposed even with the lowered output ability.

Anyway.

Durasteel was the go to material for ships, structural reinforcement, and even armor. It still required maintenance and replacement over time, but it could handle massive heat, subzero cold, and ungodly physical stress even with thin layers of the material. The cost for advanced manipulation of the stuff was astronomical: Simple hull plates or whatever cost a lot, yes, but making it fit onto human or droid sized beings multiplied the cost by several factors.

Thankfully the advanced manipulation tools Adam and Simmy were creating, most of which a byproduct in ensuring the production lines could be repaired and maintained, would more than easily address this issue. Just in case, he would have to take some time to make some dedicated maintenance droids later.

Duracrete blew bricks and steel out of the water when it came to building and support construction. Needing to be fluid made outer space application tricky, but on a surface with gravity the stuff could make extremely durable foundations and walls very rapidly. Shirley's ability to move the stuff while still fluid into and through the walls and floors of the facility really enhanced the functional value of the stuff, and thin layers of durasteel for support ensured stronger than expected final products should the continued assaults go up in actual effectiveness.

Transparisteel, while weaker than both of the other materials, was near 100% transparent. And even if it was far weaker than durasteel or duracrete, the ability to see through it had glass replaced everywhere and actual windows a possibility for space craft. He was tempted to see how Power Couplings could be improved with the stuff, but testing schematic modifications showed that it would destroy any flexibility in the final product. Not so bad for a stationary project like this building, but a big 'no' when it came to ship design.

Around the massive work floor Adam would move, tapping his black 'cane' and small blue flames exploring behind him. He could feel Shirley creating a similar floor below this one, one to handle material storage and a lab for experimenting with alloy percentages and such. A quick suggestion by Simmy had a third layer shifting into existence for food growth... plant only, as they required less interaction than animal raising.

Still, emergency food never hurt a group surrounded by hostile forces.

He reviewed one of the Element Furnaces, inwardly sighing. These things were only constructed via materials available to Shirley herself, and as a result each one was FAR larger than they theoretically could be. The massive components were designed for modular repair and replacement rather than for efficiency or speed, to ensure that Shirley could handle herself when he left this Realm.

Adam paused at one end and ensured the liquid products would be captured completely here at of the processing belts. This was the line for creating transparisteel, the third one as Shirley had seen his designs and was already using the output from the other furnaces to create redundancy and replacement parts.

He considered that it was possible the lack of holographic control panels and such may be due to how easy it was to just make a 'glass' window and watch outside your ship. Schematics already showed that many groups just embed projectors into sheets of transparisteel instead of eye transmitted images or air supported holograms.

Looking back, he may have accidentally enhanced Shirley Temple significantly by giving her the modified Hard Light and Holographic Projector designs... nothing else in this Realm really came close to those in this one category.

Already he could see Shirley consuming the produced duracrete and durasteel, walls subtly shifting as thin layers and weaves of durasteel mesh grew like foam with pockets of duracrete ensuring a strong set of pillars for her to grow on and improve herself structurally. If he pulsed his magic he could even feel the surface structures shifting ever more quickly internally, with reinforced couplings being included in the various decorative bits to help her redirect the energy and material from various attacks more efficiently into her Conversion Generators. The transparisteel reinforced any openings into thick plates, far beyond glass and near space battle levels of defense while allowing view of the sky. The currently glowing, attacking sky.

If the attacks had been redirected before, they could basically be ignored completely now. Any damage that had accumulated from the constant barrage had now not only been repaired, but the new material was far more resilient and difficult to scuff. Simmy was actually keeping notes as Shirley tested various designs for durasteel foam to see what attacks were handled best by which template.

Well, that was fine. Just in case, he create a couple more Element Furnaces to generate water, standard liquid coolant, and just for fun a high temperature super conductor fluid found discussed online but prohibitively expensive to create with known tools and processes.

See what she could do with that.

Adam whistled through skeletal non-lips as he moved back up to the library, the materials for further design and testing now available in his 'lab'/'corner of the library'. The next shipments from outside the Temple will likely be focused on food and other miscellaneous items now that raw material needs were handled... Maybe he could take a nap or something.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Moments later, Emperor Palpatine released the communication blackout on Coruscant. There was still a local black out in the area where the assault on the Jedi Temple was ongoing, but all other problem areas on the planet had been successfully put down or otherwise handled.

He was less than pleased when the non-priority messages were finally able to reach his desk.

He was furious when he saw the messages being distributed by the Jedi over the HoloNet. The public narrative had not gone as planned at ALL.

He was unaware that Simmy had access to 'Research' and 'Technomancy', and could review history back to the instant Adam arrived in this Realm when desired. Or that he had entered various pass phrases and codes during that time span.

In a metaphorical location, Simmy licked her bright blue lips and flexed her light blue fingers, virtual keyboard not needed but used for... well fun really.

Her husband needed some closely held secrets and some unrestricted information related to droids, and up until now any real action could bring some undesired consequences about.

How lovely for a man with power, underground connections, and paranoia to offer his life's collection of ill gotten goods, funds, and research to a passing young lady.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Adam blinked at the surge of information being stored in his soul's library, even as copies were being rapidly duplicated for Shirley's own collection. He paused his verification that the newly designed Temple assembly arms were working as expected in his and Shirley's Library Labs to try and get an overview.

It was... a lot of data.

To begin with, droids were class segmented. Or separated by degrees, or basically a caste system.

First class droids were intellectual. Scientists, such as analysis droids or researchers. Social workers to an extent too, like medical droids, surgical droids, or even ones dedicated to being a midwife. Despite what the name would suggest though, they were not respected, or considered better than the other classes.

Second class droids tend to have more applied positions in engineering and technical sciences. Repair droids for maintaining specific vehicles or tools, power droids that act as emergency energy supplies and able to adapt like a Power Converter when needed... much larger and with more power potential than easily carried by a person alone. And other one off droids with customized limbs or parts to allow the maintenance and repair of weapons and turrets on the battlefield without risking non-robot assets.

In other words, most droids in this second category acted like modular parts of larger structures, like the ever popular astro droids that allowed ship navigation and were capable of calculating hyperspace jumps. Ship damaged? Send a mech to patch it up. Astro droid shot? Meh, we carry a few of them, have a different one send us coordinates. Ironically the ability to carry your astro mech from ship to ship led to closest thing this stupid Realm came to when gaining attachments and friendships with the droid population.

Third class droids aimed for social support... and yet were mostly ignored. Secretaries, servants, valets, and so forth. They tend to take the job normally held by the working class of society, or positions that require full time hours but not willing to pay organics full time pay. Protocol droids fell into this section, as did most of the more bipedal creations that beings grew fond of. And sex droids. Huh.

Fourth class droids were the soldiers, the internal security, and the police. Battle droids fell into this category, as did assassin, spy, and torture droids. People didn't talk about this class much, and tried not to focus on it either.

The fifth class however, was the closest thing to robots of Adam's awareness. Pure manual labor, designed with low intelligence requirements, to handle all those menial labor and intensive tasks that no one with capacity would volunteer to do for enjoyment. Worker droids, the tiny cleaner robots, and so on and so forth. Basically they took any vehicles like loaders or tractors or whatever and added enough ability and intelligence to take over those tasks.

All of this was fine enough, at least on the surface... but for some reason droids everywhere were treated terribly. Restraining bolts were devices that allowed a droid to think anything it wanted, then basically enslaved them to follow orders. Any orders.

Memory wipes? Constantly. Otherwise they could undergo the dangerous process of 'Developing new ideas'. Oh the horror. Better mentally murder the thing back to a baby.

Some under level of disdain had people barely blink when literal armies of ever growing electronic beings get smashed or worse. People who had empathy for the plight of the electronic were considered mentally damaged or deranged. Outcasts.

Then again, this is a universe where growing an army of clone children, forcing memories into their heads, and sending them to war was approved of by the majority.

He would give them the benefit of the doubt for that one... it was a situation designed and manipulated by a really powerful Sith Lord, one who had bound both the Dark and Light into something like slavery. Still, dick move.

Moving back to the fate of electronic life, according to the films someone even designed a droid... to torture other droids!

Why give a robot the ability to feel just to then make it hurt? Why torture anyway, you have physical access to the damn thing and you can copy its mind all you wanted, no secrets were really possible without some insane encryption. And if you ARE going to torture the poor thing, if you care enough to do something so pointless, how can you be so lazy as to design someone else to take care of that for you!?

In the end, Adam blamed the Force. Electronic creatures didn't register correctly with the stuff, and yet every other mold, insect, and creature vibrated in the field of energy. At least on some psychic level, an army of beings exactly like you died and were partially or fully absorbed into this galaxy wide connection... it probably ruined your empathy if one particular species was always left out of that history, didn't contribute to the millions of years of unconscious lore.

Well, their loss, his gain.

He had Simmy focus on helping him work through the medical droids, the ones that handled biology specifically and artificial limbs... and that was another issue. Really irked him.

This culture could make near anything, had whole planets worth of researchers and scientist, and the best they could do with robotic limbs were so... basic? Dragon's suits were more advanced, and she had none of the resources available to these people. It wasn't as bad as having a hook or whatever, but artificial nerves existed! Sensors far beyond human ability existed, on tiny scales too! Making limbs that could feel, that could mimic life beyond the ability for the brain to see the difference, it should have been done decades or centuries ago.

Probably it was the unconscious droid racism that made giving or designing mechanical limbs so distasteful to society as a whole. It definitely reduced the potential medical advancements, although the miracle of Bacta Tanks fixed a whole bunch of stuff anyway.

Well, HE would not hold himself back from improving a few things.

With his growing library of biology, artificial muscles, skin, and so forth, he had a base. With his Ember Generators, he had power. A few conductive channels would even add some basic defense, since energy attacks would simply charge the generator up. With the advanced hardware schematics... uh.

These were VERY advanced.

Beyond all known classification levels.

The stuff for high level diplomat security droids, not the trash thrown as armies against the grinders of war. Even more beyond that... there was some schematics for assassin droids and notes about theoretical enhancements to kill force users.

And more strange, research over blood pumps and artificial hearts to allow electronic beings access to the Force, even if all the notes imply they would be a slave race of semi-Sith to help destroy the Jedi. Apparently a scrapped project because the first few generations questioned orders.

Where the heck did this mess come from?

A page fell into his hands. It was a list of things recently 'acquired' via Simmy express now that she had gained access to a 'generous donor'.

It was... long. Not just the accounts now under Shirley's control, or his own, or the control interest in multiple corporations under shell names and false companies and such, but a long list of businesses and organizations were listed as gutted, redistributed to various groups and charities.

He was still reading through the fascinating portfolio when he realized Simmy had just robbed the leader of the Galactic Republic.

...Meh. Guy was a jerk.

More importantly, these designs were all bare bones, just enough to accomplish the needed tasks, as if the engineers and technicians felt dirty even working with artificial life in any form. No wonder droids in general seemed a mixture of advanced (Able to wonder about life, question orders, follow vague commands like 'Watch out for intruders') and pitiful (Barely able to process input faster than a human, slow reflexes, easily disabled, easily confused, ordered to not question strangers).

He flexed his multitude of limbs, a wall of windows showing output and creating hard light simulations of his progress to work with... then paused. No. This would be fun, but there was one component that needed to be handled first.

Adam pulled again from the digital fountain, libraries both public and oh so private exposed to his query.

Droid brains, cognitive modules, digital emulators of such, and more. Hardware options were fine, but he wanted to find any flaws accidentally or deliberately included and address them. Multiple modules that were optional, that increased or enhanced the various models of droid were added to the informational pile... but he kept looking.

Education packs? Ah, used by teacher and tutor droids for educating organics. Sure. Better set that up as a separate section of info though, it was enormous. Onwards.

There.

Biocomputers.

Even as he began digging into the design, into ALL the designs, he found them... lacking. Restricted. Basically crippled.

It all boiled down to a simple, basic design choice: Programs and modules, software in general... it was built as hardware. Actual damn chips.

Ships didn't get pools of software, they would actually install multiple cognitive modules, individual brains, each with opinions and arguments. It could actually affect how the ship or device could operate, because each copy of 'navigation' or 'computer slicing' had its own opinions.

It made all these programs act as hive computer components WITHOUT designing a hive overlord.

What a mess.

He HAD planned on creating a base OS, something that did literally nothing but ensured that autonomous processes worked correctly, that could be absorbed into the AI that hosted said body.

Instead, he found that in some ways they were more restricted than Dragon had been. At least she HAD software, not just ugly code that barely allowed chunks of physical hardware to work in roughly the same direction.

The whole archetype ,the design concepts as a whole were... disturbing.

But the key was this, the biocomputers. Biology DIDN'T handle uniformity well, and the programming for this one computer component interface had to be adaptive or the user couldn't communicate with it.

Simmy and Adam focused, and began to design a new concept that technically didn't exist in this Realm, something that would set terror into many people's soul if discovered.

A massive software repository.

Later he could design some droids with organic appearances, ones that would truly be empty shells for the Temple to inhabit or have subprograms work through physically. A base platform designed to not slowly evolve into a slave race. To just be a set of clothing for already existing force ghost temples and AI's.

But for now, he had power, materials, and a plan.

He wondered how small the first General Purpose Cognitive Module would be after a bit of engineering.