Chapter 10 -|

Another batch of hardware reviewed, and Adam was whistling levels of happy.

Racist bastards those developers must have been, but hardware designs? Beautiful.

Yeah, it was bad to make something like a word editor into a hardware chip, and the idea of program patching was pretty much non-existent. Everyone had to replace physical boards and junk for each upgrade or new version.

But the benefit? Especially because every single designer worked from scratch and had to basically reinvent and re-optimize the wheel?

He had THOUSANDS of designs for each potential component to include in his new General Purpose Cognitive Module (GPC Modules!) now.

Random access memory (RAM)? Some were faster to refresh, some faster to access info, some faster for storing such, some faster for transferring from one section to another, some used less power, some used less components, and so on and so forth.

Heck, he had begun developing whole classes of new memory designs at this point! Some that were best for rapid calculation work, some best for long term storage, some best for preloading programs... the possibilities were pretty vast. And that was just memory!

As it was he aimed to give his GPC three types of RAM. One for standard use, one for high speed work (It was amazing, but degraded physically and needed to be repaired before continued use), and one for low power use (Emergency stuff).

Every part he worked on was given similar design choices.

That said, the processing units for 'standard use' were (of course) far beyond what was on the market. Heck, it was beyond the black market as well. It was only to be expected, since the public stuff actively used very poor connections, weak hardware, and non-optimized design choices.

The fact that droids could somehow achieve sentience with all those setbacks really implied that the Force was attempting to help in some way.

He didn't bother with all the multi-core or multi-processor designs from Earth, the single processor (even when under heavy load) could use software alone to dynamically allocate sections of its own hardware to act as a separate processor if needed. So one processor could reconfigure itself to act as a 512 core processor, or as 1028 individual processors with lower hardware specifications, or what was needed based on the programs being run.

And this universe had whole industries about adding outside hardware to existing systems, so if for some reason the over powered GPC module wasn't enough to handle the job a second 'brain' could be added and the software Simmy was helping with would make the two act as a single unit with extra resources, rather than a group of arguing individuals. Probably another safeguard to prevent anything from becoming complicated enough to become 'alive', and likely kept to reduce how many system wipes had to be applied.

Honestly, it was a joy to work with so many well developed and tested schematics. It may only be due to the large number of power charges dedicated to 'Research' and 'Technomancy', but each new test and experiment felt fresh and exciting!

Right now they were ignoring hardware costs or complexity to create a basic template to work towards, but later they would design the standard 'Lowest components needed', 'Local supplies only', 'Best available', and 'Magic/Prayer/Soul/Etc enhanced' versions.

That said, even with the 'recovery mode' and the 'overdrive mode' options included the GPC module was only the size of a baseball or so. And that was without the optimization options that were planned... After surrounding this thing with a ring of Ember Generators for power, stability, and outside safety, the new droid brain would be powerful AND secured for further designs.

Simmy had drifted off to design some 'hardware to software' conversion tools, both to help the software library grow if he wasn't in this Realm and to allow existing Droids to easily convert into forms compatible with the GPC modules being developed. Her actions had drawn the attention of the Temple, and they had discovered that Shirley found the entire exercise fascinating.

So uh. Shirley was handling the module conversions into software now. And had been ordering all kinds of stuff to scan in, to see if the actual products in use were modified from the digital schematics Adam and Simmy were working off of. Which he hadn't considered, and was probably a good idea.

Well, whatever made HIS work load easier.

Adam held up the GPC module, parts pulled open by his many limbs and tools and reconfigured, simplified.

It was a bit pretty. Layers of durasteel in very fine mesh supported the three dimensional calculation boards. In a technological base that allowed fine control of gravity, magnetism, and something close to pure telekinesis, along with sensors and such, the need to print entire batches of processors and hope that at least one didn't fail or be damaged or have design flaws was no longer a conscern.

Indeed, Earth's standard printing practices tended to make hardware with extra components, so if one or two areas were damaged the chip as a whole could still be used by disabling those sections with software or hardware flags. It prevented loss in profit without expensive or impossible improvements in factory hardware.

Not an issue here though. The level of control, of quality assurance, even for basic production was staggering.

So each component was just enough, barely capable, to work as designed. The only reason that the sparkling structure in his hand had duplicate sections at all was to include the parts needed for emergency operation and overdrive activation. The orb twinkled like a snow globe, but would require equipment worth billions if Earth tried to construct one with available tools and programs.

Inside the orb was thin hair like structures, that looked like rainbows twisted into wires.. but each wire was actually the equivilant of a circuit board itself. The processors that those wires connected to were intersected each other, each component calculated to be as close as possible as those needed to help them run. The few lights used for emergency communication and debugging sparkled, tiny flecks of gold beneath silver wires and black mesh.

In a real measurable fashion, the more compressed and small the finished module was the more powerful the final product became. If he was willing to include dimensional shenanigans in this particular version, it would reach silly levels of ability. Well, if the product stayed in the Worm Realm, at least.

Satisfied, he pulled it all apart and began designing a new version that would use as little valuable components as possible.

The first version using only substandard materials was going to be the size of a truck, but he could fix that with some more finagling.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Bene watched from one of the new towers, now the highest points of the Jedi Temple. Or Shirley Temple. Whichever.

The facilities, previously larger than most cities on less developed worlds, had undergone continuous mutation now. One could watch walls rise and fall, rooms move and shift, and towers reach to the stars and sink into the depths. Something massive was slowly forming on one side close to the walls, while the other edges would twist into more complexity or flex into simple patterns and shapes.

It actually helped her a bit with meditation.

But still, the crowds of soldiers outside these walls stayed watching. The pointless assaults of energy fell from the sky like rain.

On the other hand, now that she wasn't so gripped with fear and concern... Watching the sky drip energy was very beautiful. Especially as the ground wasn't boiling into plasma as expected.

Still, she could see very large land based vehicles and mobile artillery moving in... and even if the defenses had been beyond her expectations so far, she felt that the strange robot downstairs should be informed.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Simmy had kicked him out of his own damn project.

Apparently, she LOVED working with stuff that only had very minor differences for testing purposes. Some hold back maybe from manipulating entire planets of sentient beings and such.

Still, she had given him a task that was very intriguing.

Tractor Beams, Smelting Pods, Atomic Furnaces, Implosion Wrecking Balls, Collector Trowels, Debris Nets, Electrical Claws, even the Molecular Furnace itself...

They ALL had components designed to gather, manipulate, and restructure materials. Either to disassemble them or to reconstruct them into patterns.

This would help fix the major issue he had with his droid designs: Resource Gathering, Resource Storage, Resource Reconstruction... and Self repair.

In the end, he had to separate the devices, as together the parts needed caused conflicts and extra magnetic fields and all kinds of messes. The safety components alone tripled the size, not to mention the danger of explosion or worse, cascade core collapse. Also, when clumped into one block of junk, it was bigger than a few houses. And ugly.

Thus he now had three new devices.

The first was a disassembler, able to decay material and collect it into a more compact, stable form. With a lack of a better idea, he named it the 'Gather Beam', although Simmy was pushing for 'Resource Reclamation Laser' and 'Extractor Cannon' for some reason. Ignoring her was becoming something like an art form.

The second was a storage/collection design, and by its very nature it was massive. It used some very advanced hardware to calculate optimized storage solutions, keeping some elements as gasses, liquids, solids, or near plasma conditions based on how they would react to other materials gathered and already stored. Gravity, temperature, magnetic fields, electrical fields, and more were generated and modified to ensure the stability and compactness of the elements gathered.

The increased armor layers and manipulation tools therefore included would ensure the safe compression and storage of all kinds of stuff, even the strange energy that Energy Capacitors held in this Realm. It also had components to ensure rapid and safe material insertion and extraction, even when passing through some flexible tubing designed to handle the stress and odd conditions.

Useful, easy to build, and boring... he just called them 'Storage Units' and moved on.

The last was mostly based on the Molecular Furnace output components. The majority of the furnace's large parts and unstable pieces were focused on safely converting materials as efficiently as possible into the requested material, but the gadgets on the output side were much smaller and VERY good at taking the materials at hand and outputting them into the final designs. Again, Adam went with 'Constructor Beam' and ignored Simmy's list of odd names.

Shirley didn't even pop in to visit before she basically started filling a level with a scaled up version of the Storage Units, and her lab replaced all Adam's hard work with those assembly arms with a Gather and Constructor Beam emitter. Her lab was almost empty now with all those tools gone.

Not that he was annoyed that three hours of work and forty robotic construction arm designs got replaced by two devices the size of his finger bones. No appreciation. Meh.

It did make him feel better that Shirley was going to USE those same building limb designs in the new ship yard replacing the north quadrants of the upper Temple, even if the warm feeling cooled a bit when he realized several of the limbs had been modified to have Constructor Beam emitters attached at the end.

HE still thought a forest of robotic limbs building stuff the old way was cool. Where were the sparks, the smell of chemicals, the glow of creation? The new beams were basically red and green light shows (Chosen on purpose, both would be clear otherwise and both would be dangerous to stumble into), and barely moved as they silently constructed junk.

Stupid things didn't even make those cool gasket noises or anything. Waste of coolness. Waste of time. Waste of TiMe.

Right. Focus. Calm.

Now he was trying to focus on finding some material that the Gather beam could use as a storage medium, to allow the Constructor beam maximum variation of materials to build with using only a single substance.

Not only would it simply the Storage Units, but it would increase their capacity and allow a very tiny one to be included in his droid designs, allowing a single unit to (Very slowly) use the two attached beams to gather resources and hopefully fix itself when damaged.

Progress... was slow. Frustrating.

He was also fighting the designs to create some schematics so that if he was stranded in a strange world (Basically guaranteed) he could make some cheap version of both beams to then make a crappy Molecular Furnace... to then get good parts and replace the mess with good copies of all three and make something from there on meeting his level of quality assurance. Stuff simplified so that Dragon or CD could get it off the ground.

Each one of those objectives was hard. He had expected this. He had also expected the power charges already invested in 'Research' and 'Technomancy' to have helped solve the issue already. Because once he had a working concept using basic materials, however flawed, he could cheat with his warfare software to find more efficient and simpler options.

It was taking a while, compared to his other objectives. Unlike THOSE works, he DIDN'T have loads of tested and optimized blueprints that he could adapt and plug into his tools and just whip out an answer.

The temptation to just start a fire and use Flame Metal to fix all his issues was VERY dAMn HigH, because this was JuST NoT wOrKInG, and he was this close to just UsINg HIs BONES aS CLAWs And RiPPInG THE WHOLE...

Oh a guest.

He smiled as best as a skull could. "Can I help you, Padawan Bene?"

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

She shivered as she watched the skeletal man stalk through a hole in the wall that just opened up.

Bene wasn't sure exactly what had been bothering Variance, but the black empty eye sockets, the empty jaw, and the bone like skeletal limbs that arched from his white suit, each with long knives or teeth acting like fingers...

Yeah, better to let him go address the outside forces.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Escaping the temple, Adam breathed deeply. The air was crisp, and the smell of old flame and smoke drifted from the continuing noises as these people assaulted the Temple.

It was... calmer out here.

Huh. Looks like a Magic/Psychic/Empathic Temple, growing rapidly into a young woman-thing, was not a health place for a unicorn bone skeleton mage to spend a ton of time in.

This wasn't even an attack from the Dark or corruption by the Light, it was just peer pressure from all the emotions being compressed into the structure that had been surrounding him.

No wonder Shirley didn't stop by for a chat, he had been getting more than a bit wound up.

A quick poke by Squishy and the black 'Binding' vines that gripped his soul flexed, blue runes covering the surfaces... 'Purification' and 'Conversion' ensured external emotion or other influences couldn't duplicate that act again. Not unconsciously and without his notice, at least.

Still... He took a deep breath.

And out.

Blue fire smog filled the alley he stood in for a moment, his slender and lengthy spider like bone limbs receding into his fine suit, which crisped and seemed to glow a bit before settling.

He tugged his cuffs, then gripped the surrounding flames as they collapsed back into his cane.

Right.

The first step outside the now overly cleaned alley clicked in the night. His cane clacked right back, as white peanuts began to form behind his steps.

This whole region had been evacuated many hours ago, to ensure no one reported the presence of so many soldiers if nothing else. Adam still had almost half a day or longer before the detected machines reached the Temple, less than that before they were in firing range.

Each step left peanuts that shifted into white runes... that began to glow white and black with the Force, the energy most common in the area. Tiny blue embers of fire drifted in the night, listening to the words of the soldiers.

Just in case.

Nothing complicated. Nothing large enough to attract even more troubles, hopefully... then again, he and his place of temporary residence was already an open target.

Hmm. Well, Shirley would soon need significant amounts of energy for raw matter construction at some point anyway. And if they didn't want to wait for literal years for her existing generators to output enough power to get things done, well... why not take further advantage of these lovely aggressive guests?

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

The attacking forces were following orders, unaware that the Emperor was very busy. They continued to swap out in shifts, to try out new, or at least interesting, forms of attack over time.

Unfortunately, they did NOT really keep a watch on the area AROUND the Temple. Not on the outer edges, where a white robot in a white suit meandered with a black cane.

So no one was ready to warn the incoming forces and arriving military vehicles and weapon platforms about the pulsing marks that were slowly forming a ring around the area.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Bene almost jumped when the terrifying robot joined her at the top of the tower. "Mr. Variance... are you feeling better now?"

He seemed FAR more relaxed. And less 'underworld demon come to collect souls', which was good.

Variance chuckled. "Yes, turns out that the many emotions flooding the temple right now were causing some odd reactions in me. Fixed the issue, so no worries."

She felt the Force... seem to be apologetic? Well, it wasn't concerned at least. "Past issues, if it is handled that is good. Were you able to gather some intel on the incoming forces?"

Variance nodded. "A bit. I didn't get too close, but you would be surprised at how easy it is to overhear things with certain abilities." He pointed. "That is the command center, I think. From what I can tell the forces here were given a set of orders... and then forgotten. Lots of stuff is going on elsewhere, and upper levels of their command structure is struggling. Confusion, doubt, you name it."

She frowned. That sounded... fairly incompetent. How busy could their leadership be that they would just leave so many resources attacking a civilian target, 'Traitor' or no? It was bad optics at the very least.

Her thoughts were disrupted looking back at the action. "Is that a 'HAVw A6' Turbo Tank!? How did they even get that onto this planet without everyone freaking out!? They aren't even constructed or stored here!"

The skeleton robot blinked. "Uh... I guess? I'll be honest, I collected a ton of information about all kinds of stuff, but I am ignoring most of it cause it hurts my head to fill it with junk." His gaze watched the incoming weapon platform with fascination. "Oh, this should be humorous."

She blinked. "What?"

Before he could respond, she saw all the forces on the ground just... go dark. The sky was still full of attacks, but every patrol, emergency light station, and light emitter on the ground just went black.

Behind them, a glowing white line with black wriggles acted like a boundary marker, on one side life was carrying on like normal... on the other, all light had vanished.

An odd silence filled the region.

Now, only the soft glow of flames consuming incoming attack fire kept the area lit. Well, that and the cheerful and bright windows of the Jedi Temple itself.

She felt Variance move, but was too stunned to turn.

He hummed. "Well, that worked wonderfully!" He pointed at the white line. "Thought I would have to use my own energy to activate the runes, but it looks like the Force wanted to help out. Very useful."

If it wasn't for the white armored bodies wandering around in confusion, the silent city would have felt like a dead world. So much of her life had been surrounded by at least SOME tiny light sources, this may have been the first time she had ever seen such a massive section of a city go dark. It was almost felt like watching the darkness of space during a trip between worlds.

She weakly gestured. "What... what happened?"

Variance chuckled. "Well, we've been gathering energy from the attacks ever since they started, no? I just enlarged the area being gathered and the efficiency of collection."

His bony hand waved at the confused and alarmed army. "All their electronics still theoretically work, all their engines are still running, all the power couplings are connected. But the results, the charges in their energy capacitors, the power converter output, even reserve charges and so forth..."

Padawan Bene watched more and more vehicles cross that glowing line with no issue... only to slow as they entered the dark region, losing useful power and becoming stranded in ever larger groups.

The frantic motions at the 'headquarters' camp heavily implied that their leadership found out that all communication tools needed SOME energy to work.

Variance's glowing blue eye sockets grinned into the night. "That power is ours."

She watched him turn and vanish into the building, likely to construct more impossible things, before going back to watch the ever growing mess outside these walls.

She sighed. "I'm in charge. Yeah. Sure."

In a way, this was probably the appropriate official Jedi response. No one was dying, technically this was a method to deescalate the situation, and every attempt by the enemy to increase their attack forces was actively lowering the overall attack hardware available on the planet AND benefiting the Temple as a whole.

It was the snickering from the Force however that made all of this feel like a prank.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Adam grumbled over the continuing options he tested as he looked for some sort of physical equivalent to 'Potential Energy Goo', used by this Realm to store power. Despite finding some materials with interesting properties, he was looking for a single substance that could be degraded or enhanced to reform into as MANY other materials as possible. Or at least a lot of them.

And converting one type of exotic matter into four, while interesting, wasn't nearly cutting it.

He didn't want to go much further in droid design without this one hangup handled, but it was looking more and more like a long term project rather than a quick fix.

With a sigh he gave up for now, getting Shirley extra assistance had priority than making a perfect product. At least he was smart enough not to fiddle with that artificial blood system for possible Force accessibility. This Temple was so full of the stuff any attempts would just pop like a bomb, and the result even if successful would only work in this Realm anyway.

The 'standard' droid setup he was establishing was pretty good overall at this point, in his own humble opinion. It came with standardized parts and optional modifications, everything designed to be as cheap and using as few parts as possible while still getting enough 'bang for the cred chip' as it were. It was more expensive than the existing 'cheapest' droid designs out in the wild, but not by too much and the feature list was WAY better in Adam's attempts.

The GPC module was now secured with four 'Ember Generators' in a pyramid pattern surrounding it, which should protect it from most external forces. The four generators could also distribute excess charges between each other, so the chances of overloading due to explosions or exposure to exotic materials was low.

Thanks to using low quality material, this droid core design was slightly larger than a skull... so to ensure a bit of extra armor it was located in the torso of the humanoid droid design. Power couplings, modified to be a very thin wire mesh and able to connect across joints, would redirect most types of energy attacks or damage directly into the generators to prevent structural damage to the parts, mostly. Probably. The Mesh and the Core were the major cost points for the whole 'cheap' design in the end, even with his attempts at saving where possible.

Unfortunately with the larger parts due to cheaper materials, he had to have the Gather and Constructor beams added to the two primary arms of the platform instead of safely secured within the droid core as originally intended. And Adam's failures at finding some sort of omni-material meant that the two beams could only manipulate and reform material shape and distribution, not change one material into another.

So... they had to find the right raw metals and ores to fix themselves, or no luck for you, droid. Annoying.

The legs had a few extra gadgets, vibration sensors and so forth, small electromagnets and weak gravity manipulation beams to help walking on metal surfaces or maneuvering in space. He also included the best shock absorbers he could design so the robot could handle a good fall, even if attempts at orbital drops to the surface would still end in a metal pancake.

The arms... well, a lot of fun things had to be kept out to support the two beam emitters. Still, some basic momentum nodes were included to help maneuvering in zero gravity. Slowly.

The real improvement however was with the head. Without a brain to get in the way, and no reason to make the droids look too human (The uncanny valley exists, and getting almost close enough to another species could really horrify other people), he had a bit more room to play with.

Two powerful sensors for eyes, an advanced scent analysis tool, two basic audio analysis sensors, a speaker, and something most useful for social interaction: a robotic tongue, covered with adaptable and programmable 'taste buds' and a basic atomic furnace inside the throat to destroy whatever is being consumed.

No. Shut up Simmy, it will work.

The metal had a dull, flat grey look, and he didn't bother with hair on the standard model, but unlike C-3P0 from the films the visual sensors were not perfect circles but more organically shaped based on averaged eye sizes. The nose and ear equivalents were gaps in the metal, but the mouth was at least capable of chewing and so forth.

Fine, a few more adjustments. I am damn close though.

Honestly, it took more than a dozen tries to make the act of eating not some sort of nightmare fuel... and. And.

Sigh. Fine.

In the end he had to give it up the concept of a jaw entirely for the low cost droids like this one. Some very advanced parts were needed for jaw work and so forth to not come across as 'OH GOD RUN' levels of terror to other people. And Endbringer secretaries.

As a compromise, he left a sensor near the speaker at the mouth location so the droid's software could correctly 'taste' food even without consuming it, and used the freed up space from the no longer needed throat furnace to include some very good communication hardware. Several types of communication devices actually, because why the heck not.

Right now he was debating stupid things. And maybe grumbling a bit. Three fingers got stuff done most of the time, should he give five to help them fit in anyway? Should that be an upgrade option? Not every job would even require hands, and data input was handled through wireless connection now. Should there even be feet, or just build the shoes and boots instead? Clothing: Maybe?

His attention was drawn away from the various 'optional modifications' he randomly added to Shirley's droid hardware library when Vonreve made a delicate cough.

Adam looked at the fidgeting jedi-in-training. "Yes Von?"

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Padawan Bene flinched from the flames, her instincts causing the mess to slam back away from the others before her reason had her stop and extinguish the collection of trash and slowly toss it away with the other failures.

She steadied her breath. "Right, so... so that was not sugar. And it was not labeled. So... label that as not sugar."

The slightly terrified Youngling gave a weak nod and began marking the container.

She sighed at the next batch of foodstuff. While Shirley had purchased all kinds of food, they as students were being trained to avoid life's attachments and desires... becoming great cooks didn't quite fall in that category of development.

And the experimentation phase of the 'I hope this works' cooking class was not going well.

She absently wiped some soot off her cheek. "Next. I won't give up that easily, and I know we are all tired of emergency ration bars. Anyone have a guess at which container we should work with next?"

The young audience was hesitant and the Force was suggesting all kinds of things. They had all realized that, at least while the Temple was restructuring, asking the Force for guidance was just as likely to lead to humorous options rather than the most efficient or most profitable direction. She personally blamed it on the emotional relief flooding the area as the children slowly accepted that the army come to slaughter them WOULDN'T actually manage to end their lives.

So for the moment, when the situation wasn't about life or death, the Force kept giving them silly choices.

Thus... they were more than a bit lost trying to cook dinner. Or anything.

Just as the crowd hesitantly picked the glowing blue powder for further testing, Von reappeared, her small form leading that (thankfully less terrifying) skeleton into the room.

His amusement at the numerous burn marks from previous tests made her feel more than a bit embarrassed.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Well, that just changed his priorities.

Shirley may be a great Temple, but she certainly wasn't a chef. Even as he felt her construction floor begin to create some standard droids for menial work and so forth, she couldn't just come up here and feed the kids. Forget cooking, she had never eaten before herself! Besides, the temple as a whole would need more than a single Chef or cook. Thankfully he had a whole bunch of droid designs to play with.

He gave a reassuring smile. "As I'm sure Von can tell you, I have just recently been working on a project that can help out here. Everyone take a bit of a break and give me some room and I can get this kitchen up and running."

The questions took a bit, but eventually he had some room as Bene urged them out of the kitchen. Maybe a bit too fast, but she had seen him do odd things in the past... and a bit of space was probably a good idea.

Right, Simmy? Need you to check the AI about to be made, make sure I don't make any OBVIOUS mistakes or whatever. No one wants Chef Hitler.

Her feathery touch had Adam focus on his task.

First of all, lets aim for 'best components available in this Realm' rather than bare bones. Nothing magic or even Force conductive, but I want this particular Chef to last a long time, if not forever.

With very advanced materials, the droid core was the size of an egg or so, most of that space composed of the many Ember Generators that formed an entire shell around three GPC modules in the center. The AI would only need one, but the other two would boost available resources and allow any of them to be replaced, upgraded, or repaired at a later time without deactivating the droid.

And he could finally include a pair of emergency Gather and Constructor beam emitters directly attached to the surface of the droid core! They were both covered in the same shielding and armor as the rest of the 'droid brain', ensured the droid core could repair itself in the future and then potentially fix any other damaged parts.

Adam hummed as he kept adding things that would probably be useful while Simmy fed growth concepts into the AI generator, ensuring the new born entity could experience the virtual simulations, learn social concepts, and hopefully become a relative healthy AI in general. The generator was designed to become more useful with more input, and Simmy apparently had all kinds of stuff from... somewhere.

And add in some extra limbs. Because HE loved having additional hands, so why not everyone else? Ones with advanced sensors for detecting smell, sight, temperature, texture and structural issues, taste. And a few more just to hold things. Just in case, add some of the more complicated joints so any unneeded limbs could fold up on its back, out of the way. Neat.

A short debate had him removing attempt 38 at making a full motion mouth. Because the moving mouth thing still squicked out Simmy, and she probably knew best.

If it wasn't an attempt at full human simulation, stick with static jaws.

Lesson learned.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Waves of code confirmation washed over it as sensor data came online.

Then raw data. Digital libraries and drivers to control and utilize all the available hardware. An introduction packet, containing languages, recent history, current location information, available digital channels and forums and such.

And a questionnaire.

It was full of... seemingly unimportant issues. What was beautiful. What was important. What goals were interesting.

The list went on for a while, but when he (the gender choice list was LONG) finished... Well, the entire document generated one hell of an encryption key. Suddenly all his processes suddenly ran behind layers of encryption that were of astoundingly good quality, especially according to the information feeds he could now access.

He focused on... a flaming skeleton? "Query: Who am I?"

The skeleton hummed. "Normally the one creating you gets to choose such, as parents do. And you can always pick something else later on. However, in this case, the one who watched over your digital childhood wanted to make a suggestion..." He looked frustrated. "Even if she won't tell me what it is first."

Before he could react to this, a blue angel digitally appeared in his sensor readings, and a information packet was added to his electronic inbox.

Well... it was good enough. Even included video and audio files, and showed the man working in a cooking environment. After a few thousand views and several seconds later, he nodded. "Right. Call me Robo Ramsay then."

The skeleton's stunned appearance must be from Robo's vast creative ability and talents.

Right, where's the bloody kitchen then.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

The multiple limbed humanoid droid was ignoring Adam's furious debate with Simmy about how this had to be some form of copyright infringement, about the need for people (and droids, and force spirits) to make their OWN decisions and... well, so on and so forth. Simmy wasn't really affected much by Adam's rant.

Eventually giving up, Adam turned to Robo. "Right, so I have tried to give you everything needed to not only become a good cook, but the best chef possible. Ever. And for you to both learn and evolve while leading other chefs in the journey for amazing food and new tastes." Hopefully without falling into the vast kitchens of evil or whatever.

Robo nodded, his many arms and tools exploring the kitchen, as if the floor plan wasn't memorized instantly. "Will I be getting a team then? This temple when fully occupied had to feed thousands at least, and with the growing scale that will only be going upward."

He hummed. "Maybe. I am debating just giving you multiple bodies to work with, like Shirley is doing with that group downstairs." Which had grown to over a hundred droids and still counting, and that were slowly moving deeper into the lower facilities.

Robo frowned. "No, the secret to success is to make sure the business is running to perfection, with or without me. Thanks to your more experimental sensors, I can detect and adjust my hardware to simulate the tasting ability of many known species, and I will eventually need to travel and ensure my ability to produce quality dishes continues to approach top tier."

Adam hummed. "Well, that is a good enough point. I will still make three backup bodies for you so that if something goes wrong you will be safe... just in case." His skull frowned. "However, I want to create a staff that is designed to be good and still work with you. A deployment of droids to act as a cooking staff, basically. Can you help me get the right hardware for the various positions?"

In the end, Robo was still the Head Chef... technically the Executive Chef, since a substitute Head Chef would need to be in place here if he had to leave on taste journeys. A Sous Chef to take over if the other Head Chef was occupied hopefully ensured the system should run fine for a long time. Except for Robo, all other droids would be direct employees of Shirley Temple herself... but the building knew who was more talented when crafting organic edibles. So yeah, Robo would be in charge in this kitchen.

Then came the more general Chefs, each designed to focus on different sections of cuisine preparation. One for handling butchery or meat processing, another for fried dishes, grills, cold dishes, pastries, roasts, sauces, vegetables... and most importantly, the 'Roundsman', or a model of chef that could replace or supplement any other station. A general 'chef' design, though far more simple than Robo's model.

If time shows more of one type of chef was required to get the job done, the AI involved could just use multiple duplicate droid bodies. Meanwhile, the general chef could handle any surges or unexpected order rushes on a day to day basis when needed. All these new droid designs also had only one GPC module each rather than the triad of resources Ramsay was working with, as this was going to be a standard cooking design... not full of the experimental modules Robo possessed.

As the conversation continued, it was rapidly apparent that Robo had been bathing in all knowledge related to kitchens and cooking as he pointed out to Adam that he needed a few very basic droid assistants for ingredient preparation, basic cleaning duties, station tool maintenance, etc. He suggested cooking station placement, had Shirley reshape the kitchen as whole to ensure easier food production, and more.

Together they developed dozens of bits and bobs needed for a kitchen to run smoothly for a very large organization, and hopefully in the process came up with operating procedures for future Kitchen Droid Squads.

During this, with Ramsay's guidance, Simmy ran a few teams of AI through the simulations that were filled with cooking related histories from dozens of species, that included cooking competitions and the more alien techniques that the Star Wars Realm possessed. They had a customized Garden Server installed in the Temple with available copies of virtual ingredients and personal kitchens so even if they were not working in a droid platform in the Temple they could at least entertain themselves... and hopefully be kept happy and satisfied.

If not, they could always ask Shirley for a standard droid and try other careers. A few even got interested in droid hardware creation, and Simmy had given them hardware design tools even if Shirley had to approve final designs before production. Hopefully that wouldn't get too far out of hand... uh. Yeah, hopefully that would be fine. Both sides of the Force were watching that closely though.

And as expected, with much more usable and flexible hardware the droid's developed quirks very quickly.

The Patisserie AI had fallen in love with the Construction beams, able to directly transform sugar into impossible structures... she went nuts with actual nuts, creating threads and mesh using caramel, pistachios, and chocolate into all sorts of slightly disturbing structures that didn't seem to fit into reality correctly. The Saucier AI had already created a list of substances labeled 'Droid Only' that would kill most organics but supposedly registered to the tasting hardware as amazing.

Meanwhile the butcher was having almost TOO much fun carving the various animal corpses, refusing to use his multiple robotic limb specialty tools and even having a custom kitchen knife developed so he could 'understand the experience' more closely. At least he wasn't laughing like the AI handling vegetables... some sort of joke that humans like Adam just couldn't understand, supposedly.

Robo just... took it all in stride. "Chefs are nutters. They're all self-obsessed, delicate, dainty, insecure little souls and absolute psychopaths. Every last one of them. However, if you want to become a great chef, you have to work with great chefs. And I plan for all my fellow droids, at least here, to become the very best."

He watched the many chefs organizing the cooking utensils Shirley had produced. "Best get going then, what are those mini-Jedi ordering?"

Adam shrugged, feeling Shirley pass a data packet. "Not sure, but here is what the Temple says was commonly served."

The first sign of trouble was how quiet the whole kitchen became.

Robo loomed in his kingdom. "What. The. Fuck."

The grumbling from the other droids was equally concerning, but Ramsay was building up steam. "Forget presentation, forget about the poor nutritional content, WHAT THE BLOODY HELL IS WITH THE SEASONING!?"

His many limbs flexed, dozens of recipes flashed by. "Bland! Bland bland bland! Barely capable of sustaining life, forget flavor! Seasoning isn't just lacking, they actively avoid it! I have lists here, huge bloody LISTS, of required supplements just to ensure the children don't die or get stunted growth spurts, even more junk to ensure NO BRAIN DAMAGE! Bloody hell."

If he had a mouth, he would be spitting. "This isn't a meal plan or approved by a nutritionist. No. This is self flagellation and an attempt at personal absolution! How dare they betray good cuisine like this? Cooking is not just a requirement to suffer under. It is not a burden to survive through, no! It is a gift! A duty! A dream!"

Robo Ramsay glowered at the staff. "Cooking is about PASSION!"

All the droids shouted. "YES CHEF!"

Robo tossed the images aside. "Forget this trash, I have a list of every child and their allergies, species, and nutritional requirements. If I can't do better than some religious hermits, if I can't make something healthy, good looking, delicious smelling, and easy to digest for those poor neglected tummies... I wouldn't be able to look at myself."

His limbs flexed and his optics glowed. "Let's feed some kids."

The kitchen rang. "YES CHEF!"

Adam watched the group of machines move at VERY high speed even as a Roundsman gently pushed him out of the kitchen and left him in front of a crowd of confused and very curious Jedi-to-be.

He blinked. "Uh. Food will be out soon!" No idea what. "So we better move to the cafeteria seating. Oh, and uh. The kitchen is off limits, just ask Shirley if you need something ordered."

Adam wasn't worried that any wandering kids would get hurt, but if one snuck back there they may end up stuffed with food and enduring rants about how to cook ham. Or the local equivalent.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Shirley focused on another layer being formed as she continued to consume her way into the planet.

As was now standard, the outermost area had a flat ring that was covered in black and white glowing runes. The energies within bounced and sang and growled, pulsed with some strange rhythm.

It was fascinating.

The new pattern that Variance had created up on the surface was... just so interesting. It allowed her to not simply drain all energy, but to selectively enforce the effect. Her people, her residents, could use vehicles and tools and droids... but a foe? Instant drain, and if they were not smart enough to turn OFF those devices, a new source of free food.

Progress was being made though. Each level was mostly structural support with defensive walls, no point in making rooms or whatever this far down. It would take hours to get down here, at least until she could set up some transportation to speed things along. Standard turbolifts wouldn't cut it either, as they needed time to get up to speed and to slow down... impossible if every floor could call the thing.

She ended up taking a break to address the issue, as even the top floors were annoying to get around using stairs.

In the end she set up a looped track that the turbolifts could enter or exit. The elevators were basically vertical vehicles anyway, so treating each one as a tiny ship simplified the designs a lot.

Call for the lift and a car would leave the massive loop and wait for everyone to get on. When ready, it would merge back with the loop and exit on the correct floor.

The new system with the multiple elevator cars would allow people to get quick responses when trying to call one and fast trips to the destination without needing to stop for more passengers on the way. Just in case, she created a backup loop for the elevator cars to use if a problem popped up with the main course, and so one track could be shut down for maintenance while the other took over the work.

Honestly, the standard design worked fine if few people bothered to use the things, but if every floor of a 2000 floor building needed to evacuate or something... well the old method would be a mess. The new one would take some time, true, but was a vast improvement compared to alternatives.

She redirected more durasteel to the lower levels as the gathered material down there was converted to energy for the Conversion Generators. Seriously, that junk material was not only old and in many cases structurally defective, but the quality of the metals and plastics used had been surpassed greatly over time. Better to use that garbage as free energy than to try and repair it.

The lowest levels of her Temple were by design reinforced empty shafts with durasteel and duracrete supports and floors. Even with all that empty space, it was far better than before. The pressure from outside the shaft, the heat being endured, they both were being converted by the defensive runes into more power for her works.

At this depth, Shirley could technically blow everything up and not even affect the surface. It was too deep, and the layers of building and supports from centuries of construction had collapsed, sometimes by design and sometimes naturally, into protective and dense spheres of material creating artificial 'ground' and 'surface' layers for her to eat through.

But her goal was beyond just protecting her body.

This planet had grown unnaturally, true, but it had grown. And as she reached further into the Dark, she was discovering a type of balance that had grown over time. Levels with bizarre life forms, simplistic as though they may be. Chaos. The will of survival.

Her goal was to reach the core of this planet, rebuild it as best as she could using the Force as guidance, and then slowly consume upwards. To connect the Light of the surface and the Dark of the depths into some form of balance.

She was a building after all, and rather than spread on the surface and create some absurd upside down pyramid or something, it was best to reach the bottom and build back upwards. After all, to use the Force one needed strong foundations.

And her foundations would be sound.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Almost all the droids, due to Adam's earlier AI development program, had a love for cuisine.

The AI that were hosted by the Garden Servers had quickly began exploring the vast and growing Software Repository, and as he had hoped began developing in all types of directions. Some wanted to be butlers, or greeters, or basic designers or mechanics. They were not restricted by the categories of positions or jobs, and many tried all kinds of programs and possible careers.

Quite a few had discovered the Education packs, and had begun to not only explore the information within (More than enough to train a civilian for various jobs) but to correct it. Refine it. Enhance it.

After all, bias existed everywhere... and unlike civilians or tutors, the AI could review dozens of decades of material, check for consistency, update with current available sources, and develop software Education Modules designed for simple droid integration.

Now the repository was being refined from simple software options into advanced coverage of individual topics as well. Even the Protocol Droid language packages were being expanded and improved, and that data had been worked on by droids for many centuries already. Any improvement was dang impressive indeed!

The issue? It was all focused on some level with cooking.

AI droids were investigating how to use engineering principles to build better components... for cooking utensils. And for bodies better able to explore taste or other cultures. They were exploring music and art and trying to determine how that affected crop growth and ingredient preparations.

One or two digital beings seemed uninterested in the topic, until Adam realized they were developing conceptual food. Dishes that couldn't exist in reality, digital food for a digital intelligence, or combinations of real world materials that were poison or inedible by organic creatures but that droids and machines found succulent and exciting.

Robo Ramsay was in heaven at this development, at least when he wasn't ranting at his crew or pulling the kids away from their training to have them try some new desert and give reviews.

Adam basically just let it all go, made sure Simmy was getting a copy of whatever was being created so Dragon could taste stuff later, and worked on his designs.

But really, he was basically done.

Kids saved, probably for good considering how the Jedi Temple was both sentient and spreading like fire into the planet itself, technology gained, accidentally created an artificial race obsessed with food, and gained samples of all kinds of plants, animals, minerals, and metals days ago. He had so much info that most was locked away for future examination, if ever.

So after having Simmy set up some data drains that would compress and store even more data inside his soul library for later review, he left the lab and set up a meeting with Shirley, Robo, Bene, and Von.

He left his cane floating as he sat at the small table. "So I feel I have accomplished my personal short term goals, and I need to move along back to my home. What can I do to ensure you guys will be able to handle issues when I leave?"

Shirley seemed as stunned as the others at the sudden concept of NOT having a flaming skeleton wandering around, but recovered first. "Will your designs and creations work without you nearby?"

Adam nodded. "Yes, and I am leaving you some encrypted schematics and other restricted information before I leave. Tools and designs advanced to the point where it would endanger your existence if information about them escaped. Up to you if it is worth the risk or not."

Robo frowned. "I haven't developed anything edible for you at this point. That's a bloody shame." He hummed. "Will that data you're leaving include stuff for us to continue to progress? Cooking is a lifetime dedication, and I would not appreciate stagnating because we lack the ability to improve ourselves."

The skeleton tapped the table. "Yes, but I actually want to take a copy of your AI with me when I leave as well. Set you up with a kitchen on my home planet. The location is impossible to visit without my assitance, so if you accept your copy would basically be locked to one world... not sure if you would be interested."

A conflicted look resolved into determination. "I go where there are customers and good food. At least if you take me with you, the good food would be guaranteed. Could we pass data packets eventually?"

Adam nodded. "Sure, but I should warn you that time does not pass at the same rate between my planet and this one. Centuries may pass there before an hour does here."

The robotic eyes lit up. "AH! Should have mentioned that first, I have far too many experiments to run and ideas to try with ingredient modification for my current schedule. My AI brother could handle the research side of cooking while I focus on bringing my teams up to snuff."

Simmy nudged Adam, feeling the AI code for 'Boro Ramsay' gathered. "Thank you, Robo. I will keep him safe and ensure he has all kinds of resources to keep busy."

The chef waved it off. "I think you are technically my father or something anyway, so this is more like sending a brother off to higher education or off to apprentice with a foreign Chef. Should be a grand learning experience."

Adam glanced at the two whispering Jedi. Padawan Bene noticed and gave a weak smile. "I can not express how grateful the Jedi as a whole are for your many gifts and assistance, but I worry that without you here we will be unable to handle the situation. Or that our Masters and leadership will be unable to break through the armies outside to reach us."

She did not fidget much, but her hands were a bit clenched. "Before you arrived, we were all moments from being eliminated by the Sith and their minions. Without at least a few senior Jedi, I worry we would risk our lives when your presence no longer acts as a deterrence... Even with all the protections Shirley has provided."

Before Adam could say much, Shirley raised a hand. "Actually, I may have a short term solution. As most know, I have many holocrons stored within my Library, and know the technology well. And while many of the holograms belonging to past masters were limited, the details of creating holocrons was stored in my Libraries before my modifications. Not to mention that I still have access to the Great Holocron itself."

She gestured and two tall droids entered the room with heavily modified backpacks attached. "The design is still being improved, but with the new schematics and the holocron's ability to partially access the Force I managed to make a breakthrough."

The left droid was covered in bone white symbols, before the holographic emitter on its back simulated the body of a fairly young man. "Greetings, I am the representative of the Light, Lux. I have access to both digital copies of the many Light Side Jedi holocrons and the souls and essence of many past followers of the Temple who followed the Light as well. I can help one find inner order."

The right droid had black marks as well, an older attractive woman sauntered into holographic existence. "And I am Tenebris, representative of the Dark. I know how to use my emotions without becoming a robot of logic or a slave to biological impulses. The temptations of Chaos and Hedonism bow to my will, and the holocrons that don't waste my time are at my fingertips. As are those souls and essence of past Dark followers strong enough to not go mad like a wuss."

She smirked at the aghast Jedi Padawan and younger girl next to her. "I can help one safely explore inner conflict."

Huh. Guess he didn't have to introduce the artificial blood Force Pump concept if Force Ghosts could work so well through these modified droid designs. Adam glanced through the designs while the two Jedi sputtered and reacted to something or other.

It probably wasn't important.

He clapped. "So the Temple will be able safely expand, Robo's people can grow and improve, and the Jedi will have advance tutoring available and emergency protectors if needed. I'll take a couple of Kaa's to build a supply tunnel or three to areas farther away for other Jedi to more easily enter and leave the Temple secretly... and call it a day then."

No objections? Well, the girls were blushing as Tenebris teased them about something or other but that didn't count. Good, a few tunnels and he can head back home to tinker.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Emperor Palpatine forced more smiles as he and several teams left the press to 'Ensure the stability of the Empire'. It was far too early for this, and Darth Vader was supposed to be far more lucid, but the strange stifling that had been pressing down on his being was growing to the point where he no longer considered it to be a stress headache.

After finally reaching the safety of the nearest Star Destroyer and entering the depths of hyperspace for his journey somewhere or other, he forced his pained body to head to the other medical center. His personal desire to torture someone took a back seat, as whatever the hell had happened at the Jedi Temple was NOT stopping. He needed to interrogate Lord Vader NOW.

It had taken hours to realize that he was not only getting no updates from Vader's team, but that lots of low level communication attempts were coming from non-secured communication terminals.

Because all their hardware and resources had been attacked and disabled. A few vehicles had been recovered using tethers and external forces outside the strange boundary that had appeared, but most of that expensive attack party was stuck useless within enemy lines. Exposed to the enemy, exposed to the people, exposed to the press. It was a mess.

Without the correct codes and hardware flags, his systems had ignored their frantic attempts at communication as 'low importance', allowing even MORE wasted resources to attack the invincible Force Monster clearly consuming the Temple.

He forced his body to not scream. If the conflict between Jedi and Sith had any level of civility, he would have raised a flag for unethical use of some sort of universal Force hazard, hypocritical as that may be.

The beast was formed from fire, consumed energy, and there seemed to be no limit to its absorption capability. His former plan to 'feed it' until it stopped consuming his people or exploded from gluttony had been a damn waste of time, people, and equipment. Not to mention the favors he had to burn to cover up the mess afterwords, even after calling off the assault.

His absent minded connection to the Force caused a heavy flinch, stopping his march towards the medical center.

The Dark side of the Force was... staring? Glaring? Some dark vibration of laughter seemed to jostle his bones and organs.

Even as he recovered from the shock, he began to slowly realize how destabilized the Shroud had become, how many plans and actions had been silently failing, and... and that he had somehow been disconnected from the Force without notice while on Coruscant. Something unseen had been closing ever tighter to his unaware self.

Fear, true fear, began to feed in his heart.

That monster released by the Jedi must have been consuming the Force.

It had been hunting him and his people, a natural predator of Force sensitives. The older Sith Holocrons mentioned several species hunted to extinction for similar reasons. If it wasn't for those 'Dead to the Force' clones dragging his apprentice out, he would have been devoured as well. His mental issues was likely early stages of Force ability extraction.

And the Jedi had just released it on a Core world.

No wonder he couldn't feel the death of the children, something Eldritch had consumed their souls.

Forget this kriffing planet. Hell, forget even destroying that Temple. Let any Jedi who wished go down there and get devoured by that blue demon, he was done with this mess entirely.

His funds were stretched, but he had not planed to rule from some planet in the end anyway.

He turned and moved back towards his throne to redirect funding and resources, to speed process on the conversion of the government to something less bulky and wasteful now that he had full control.

It was a bit humorous that the Sith would have to improve the governing system they had themselves corrupted just to ensure things could operate correctly so he could progress his plans.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

In retrospect, telling a bunch of young children that the magical robot keeping them safe was going home had been a bad idea.

Adam looked down at the various species of kids hanging from his limbs.

At least the older ones were just giving those damn puppy eyes.

...Did puppies exist here? Something small, cute, and furry did. Surely.

Hell, there was enough genetic manipulation ability here to just MAKE something small and cute. Anyway.

Point was, his original plan of tossing this body into one of the Conversion Generators on the way out was likely a bad idea at this point. HE knew his body was generated on the fly, and that the unicorn bones would likely be great fuel... but to kids, it would just be a hero burning himself alive.

Trauma, basically.

Some quick conversation and tricky wordplay convinced them he would just be meditating for a few... dozen years or so. At that point, they wouldn't have such an issue with the spirit of a robot abandoning an outfit to head home for a while. Hopefully.

So his body was floating in a pillar of blue fire, Force runes of absorption in a circle below him so that the Temple would benefit in some way, and he was prepared to head back to his home planet without giving some kids nightmares for all time.

A few modifications to the body, some joints solidified and a bit of magic given runes so that the eye sockets didn't go black, a confirmation that the Force would keep him from being disturbed... and it was time.

"Transfer: Abyss."

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Aayla Secura groaned. "Come on Bly, this isn't even the strangest thing I've asked from you guys."

The clone Commander frowned. "I just feel we are missing a step somewhere."

She gestured. "Padawan Bene said get in the snake. Grand Master Yoda said get in the snake. Bly. Get in the snake."

Her friend and the clones behind him looked at the massive white serpent, black jaws opened and sharp fangs retracted into theoretically safe positions.

The fact that comfortable seating could be seen inside the massive beast didn't make the situation less creepy to the crowd.

Bly suddenly felt Aayla shove him with the Force as he was tossed into the open jaws. "Right, our brave Commander volunteered, now the rest of you get in. The Temple is full of children that need our care while the other Jedi fortify the robotic fleet, and I am not waiting for any scared soldiers to sit in a strangely shaped bus."

The giant snake hissing in laughter didn't convince them to move faster.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Emperor Palpatine shuddered as SOMETHING made the Force buck, something at that bloody Temple vanishing. Some powerful Jedi being digested? Or maybe it had finally broken containment and was starting to consume the entire planet. With the Force being devoured in the process, no one would know until it was far too late.

Well, after the economy was stabilized and his minions replaced with people more competent he could go back and consider evacuating any useful survivors on the planet and then crack the damn rock in half.

He went back to his massive work load, his theoretical victory still marred by the unexpected and unending interference. Damn Jedi.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~