Pyro Hawk
Unsure if Phoenix or Kitsune
- Joined
- Jan 14, 2015
- Messages
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So it's basically the Last Prayer if you are expecting to build them for garrison duty and last possibly beyond the immediate fight? XD
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M176
New
lost star
Connoisseur.
- Joined
- Feb 19, 2013
- Messages
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It felt ominous for some reason. Bolt stared at the Heart Crystal and could almost swear it was humming. Whatever the Assembler had put in it was not a standard lesson. Yet he needed to learn it anyway. He placed a hand on the crystal and focused. The trick to pull data from it required a bit of mental reaching.
There was a lot in here. Neatly categorized too. It was actually rather interesting to think about. Data storage in a different way. There was probably a market for this if he refined it as an alternative idea. Something to explore later perhaps. Right now he needed to go down the list of required lessons.
Immediately after selecting a lesson he was almost pulled into a memory and he realized this specifically was the reason why it'd been used. The emotional context.
"What is a mech?" The person in front of the viewpoint was blurred. The blurring was strange, as if they'd been wiped with a cloth.
"Master, must we?" The words came from the viewer, accompanied by a wave of fond exasperation.
"This is a very serious question I'll have you know! Without the backing of our artifact, what is a mech?"
"A mech is a machine in the form of a man. Without the Mech Kingdom it's merely a collection of parts. Without the Neural Interface it's a collection of parts that works poorly. Both of them are necessary." The words were said with a sigh.
The figure nodded approvingly. "Very good. You missed something though. What happens if you make a mech out of sticks?" They asked.
"You can't." Was the immediate response.
"Just like you can't make one out of sticks, you can't make it out of faulty parts. The physics backing the mech make it work just as much as the Kingdom does. That means you need to study dear heart." The figure concluded with a small laugh.
The viewpoint man pouted. "All of that to lecture me on studying? You do plenty of things without adhering to physical rules!"
"I do because I do all the work on the magical side. Reality is two layers pressed up against one another. Think of making things like making a bridge between them. We made the Mech Kingdom to provide one half of the bridge because people like you have absolutely no talent with the other side. Call it spirit, magic, psionics, whatever." Here the figure paused and ruffled his head. "That's why I can teach you. Crafters like me are very restricted. In the eyes of the gods you're a cripple without talent in the things they value. In my eyes you're a treasure. You're brilliant in a way that humanity needs if it wants to be more than cattle. So study, forget the spiritual side. Any work on there will take someone brilliant and touched in a way you are not. That is fine."
Why did that memory feel bittersweet? Bolt wondered, and then decided he wouldn't like the full answer. That was likely one of the Assembler's memories. And his conversation about mechs and something called the Mech Kingdom. Interesting, but he needed more to get context. The man moved onto the next memory.
The memory was censored again. This time in a different way. The Assembler was looking at something that even hints of hurt his brain. It was impossibly beautiful, impossibly complex, and something grand beyond belief.
"Staring at our master's creation again?" A voice made the man turn to see a strange looking woman who appeared to have driven spikes clean through her head.
"They always talked about the Kingdom as if it was the solution to everything." The man said as he turned away and back to the creation. "They never said they'd give everything to it. I can't even remember their face now. I stare at it sometimes thinking that I'll see it again."
His words made the woman snort. "If you could, you wouldn't see it in the physical realm. Put it away. It's too bright."
With a nod the man snapped his fingers and the impossible creation disappeared. "You're here for a reason."
"Good news, we got another Star Designer and God Pilot finally. It proves that the Kingdom can properly ascend people with minimal input, little spiritual backing, and pure physical investment." The woman said and paused. "I've also confirmed that they have full administration rights. This has all been done without a direct command from any of us founders."
"The vision was to provide a steady path upwards without blood or sacrifice. I fail to see what the issue is?" The Assembler asked curiously.
"They're already demanding things." The woman said. "Everyone had full knowledge of the atrocities the Five Scrolls Compact have done. The new ones won't. We're already getting demands to re-allocate budgets towards alien suppression."
"Ah." The rage that came with that was potent. The man clenched his hands before he very carefully unclenched them. "Has the Compact shown any signs of resurgence?"
"You're remarkably calm about this." The woman noted.
"Master wanted this to happen. There's no burning the ladder so others cannot ascend. I must allow... Accept new viewpoints and decisions." The man very carefully grit out. "Also, the Compact has been suppressed enough that I can tolerate looking elsewhere. I will see about stamping out other peripheral remanent."
"Are you sure, have you read the reports on the alien atrocities?"
The man paused and something flashed through his mind. Bolt caught glimpses of it. Statistics, offenses, something about an infection to drive humans mad.
"Let them know they have my approval." He eventually said. "While I still consider the monsters the largest issue I will admit that other things will require a higher priority until we gather more leads."
Some context, but not the most. So the Assembler's master had given everything to make the Mech Kingdom. Literally everything if the memories were stripped like that. Strange. Also interesting. Was that they focused so much on the physical? Was it to prevent people from using others as fuel? That made some sense. It seemed to be a common theme in spiritual works to eat or sacrifice someone living.
Taken together, someone had made a spiritual construct that backed Mechs. Mechs worked by using a physical base to 'reach' for a spiritual base. The entire system was meant to elevate people into Star Designer and God Pilot using mechs. Theoretically this meant they'd created a virtuous cycle. You make a mech, had it piloted, that would strengthen the Mech Kingdom and then strengthen the maker and pilot.
It was a very neat an tidy ideal that had resulted in the MTA becoming what it was. Bolt was pretty sure that everything had been quite distorted from the original idea. It was a pity really. What little he'd seen made him want to know these makers just a bit. They'd made something utterly beautiful.
One more memory to go.
The feeling of cables pressing against his skin made him want to twitch. The spikes driven into his skull made him almost panic. The ice cold suppression covering it all made all of that irrelevant.
"Gathering reason?" He asked coldly.
"Vote." Someone said back.
Rage almost overrode the ice. "Vote on?" He asked clarification and got an entire ream of data. "Vote on?!" He demanded.
"Clarify." The logic speak demanded back.
"Disengaging suppression." The Assembler warned and several of the others gave verbal statements of alarm. Connections for those that couldn't tolerate his anger dropped or were cut by those trying to protect them. "You desire to vote on THIS?!" He snarled out, forgoing logic-speak.
"Control!" Someone called out.
"I will not control myself. I have one line. I have always had one line. Stop mass sacrificing people and children!" The man snarled and rage spiked hot enough that something melted. "This should not be a vote at all. I do not care about the worthless data!"
"Not worthless." The response made the Assembler pause and glare that the Designer that dared question him. (Who they were was censored in the memory.)
"Worthless. Useless. Because it was done by a child of ours you think that excuses this prideful travesty pretending to be science?! No. That has always been my line and I will be certain that it will always be the line we never cross." The Assembler's voice went quiet. "The only vote here should be immediate execution or torture then execution as an example."
"Agreement." One voice rose up, and several more signaled agreement as well.
"What?!"
"Engaging emotional suppression." The Assembler said and the cold flooded back. "Boundaries set. Do not cross them."
"Notated." The statement sounded surprisingly dry despite being couched in logic-speak.
Bolt couldn't help the snort. Of course that had to be added. That was fairly clear as a lesson truthfully. He didn't have any plans of doing that anytime soon.
The rest of data on the crystal was a series of interlocking not quite blueprints. The concepts behind the Mech Kingdom. Well some of them at least. He currently had something akin to elevated permissions now. Where before he'd been able to just make mechs, now he could touch the background that supported mechs.
To make an analogy, before he could run programs on an operating system. Now he could adjust a few things that connected to the operating system. He could adjust some of the output and input.
Right now that didn't mean much. The largest thing he could do was make expert mechs without any assistance. Which would help significantly with any surprises he wanted to make. He did need to address the immediate over the theoretical. Perhaps later he'd come back to the concepts. At the bare minimum he wanted to see how Mechhalla could fit in with all of this. That would again have to be later, when he wasn't in the middle of a damned war.
There was a lot in here. Neatly categorized too. It was actually rather interesting to think about. Data storage in a different way. There was probably a market for this if he refined it as an alternative idea. Something to explore later perhaps. Right now he needed to go down the list of required lessons.
Immediately after selecting a lesson he was almost pulled into a memory and he realized this specifically was the reason why it'd been used. The emotional context.
"What is a mech?" The person in front of the viewpoint was blurred. The blurring was strange, as if they'd been wiped with a cloth.
"Master, must we?" The words came from the viewer, accompanied by a wave of fond exasperation.
"This is a very serious question I'll have you know! Without the backing of our artifact, what is a mech?"
"A mech is a machine in the form of a man. Without the Mech Kingdom it's merely a collection of parts. Without the Neural Interface it's a collection of parts that works poorly. Both of them are necessary." The words were said with a sigh.
The figure nodded approvingly. "Very good. You missed something though. What happens if you make a mech out of sticks?" They asked.
"You can't." Was the immediate response.
"Just like you can't make one out of sticks, you can't make it out of faulty parts. The physics backing the mech make it work just as much as the Kingdom does. That means you need to study dear heart." The figure concluded with a small laugh.
The viewpoint man pouted. "All of that to lecture me on studying? You do plenty of things without adhering to physical rules!"
"I do because I do all the work on the magical side. Reality is two layers pressed up against one another. Think of making things like making a bridge between them. We made the Mech Kingdom to provide one half of the bridge because people like you have absolutely no talent with the other side. Call it spirit, magic, psionics, whatever." Here the figure paused and ruffled his head. "That's why I can teach you. Crafters like me are very restricted. In the eyes of the gods you're a cripple without talent in the things they value. In my eyes you're a treasure. You're brilliant in a way that humanity needs if it wants to be more than cattle. So study, forget the spiritual side. Any work on there will take someone brilliant and touched in a way you are not. That is fine."
Why did that memory feel bittersweet? Bolt wondered, and then decided he wouldn't like the full answer. That was likely one of the Assembler's memories. And his conversation about mechs and something called the Mech Kingdom. Interesting, but he needed more to get context. The man moved onto the next memory.
The memory was censored again. This time in a different way. The Assembler was looking at something that even hints of hurt his brain. It was impossibly beautiful, impossibly complex, and something grand beyond belief.
"Staring at our master's creation again?" A voice made the man turn to see a strange looking woman who appeared to have driven spikes clean through her head.
"They always talked about the Kingdom as if it was the solution to everything." The man said as he turned away and back to the creation. "They never said they'd give everything to it. I can't even remember their face now. I stare at it sometimes thinking that I'll see it again."
His words made the woman snort. "If you could, you wouldn't see it in the physical realm. Put it away. It's too bright."
With a nod the man snapped his fingers and the impossible creation disappeared. "You're here for a reason."
"Good news, we got another Star Designer and God Pilot finally. It proves that the Kingdom can properly ascend people with minimal input, little spiritual backing, and pure physical investment." The woman said and paused. "I've also confirmed that they have full administration rights. This has all been done without a direct command from any of us founders."
"The vision was to provide a steady path upwards without blood or sacrifice. I fail to see what the issue is?" The Assembler asked curiously.
"They're already demanding things." The woman said. "Everyone had full knowledge of the atrocities the Five Scrolls Compact have done. The new ones won't. We're already getting demands to re-allocate budgets towards alien suppression."
"Ah." The rage that came with that was potent. The man clenched his hands before he very carefully unclenched them. "Has the Compact shown any signs of resurgence?"
"You're remarkably calm about this." The woman noted.
"Master wanted this to happen. There's no burning the ladder so others cannot ascend. I must allow... Accept new viewpoints and decisions." The man very carefully grit out. "Also, the Compact has been suppressed enough that I can tolerate looking elsewhere. I will see about stamping out other peripheral remanent."
"Are you sure, have you read the reports on the alien atrocities?"
The man paused and something flashed through his mind. Bolt caught glimpses of it. Statistics, offenses, something about an infection to drive humans mad.
"Let them know they have my approval." He eventually said. "While I still consider the monsters the largest issue I will admit that other things will require a higher priority until we gather more leads."
Some context, but not the most. So the Assembler's master had given everything to make the Mech Kingdom. Literally everything if the memories were stripped like that. Strange. Also interesting. Was that they focused so much on the physical? Was it to prevent people from using others as fuel? That made some sense. It seemed to be a common theme in spiritual works to eat or sacrifice someone living.
Taken together, someone had made a spiritual construct that backed Mechs. Mechs worked by using a physical base to 'reach' for a spiritual base. The entire system was meant to elevate people into Star Designer and God Pilot using mechs. Theoretically this meant they'd created a virtuous cycle. You make a mech, had it piloted, that would strengthen the Mech Kingdom and then strengthen the maker and pilot.
It was a very neat an tidy ideal that had resulted in the MTA becoming what it was. Bolt was pretty sure that everything had been quite distorted from the original idea. It was a pity really. What little he'd seen made him want to know these makers just a bit. They'd made something utterly beautiful.
One more memory to go.
The feeling of cables pressing against his skin made him want to twitch. The spikes driven into his skull made him almost panic. The ice cold suppression covering it all made all of that irrelevant.
"Gathering reason?" He asked coldly.
"Vote." Someone said back.
Rage almost overrode the ice. "Vote on?" He asked clarification and got an entire ream of data. "Vote on?!" He demanded.
"Clarify." The logic speak demanded back.
"Disengaging suppression." The Assembler warned and several of the others gave verbal statements of alarm. Connections for those that couldn't tolerate his anger dropped or were cut by those trying to protect them. "You desire to vote on THIS?!" He snarled out, forgoing logic-speak.
"Control!" Someone called out.
"I will not control myself. I have one line. I have always had one line. Stop mass sacrificing people and children!" The man snarled and rage spiked hot enough that something melted. "This should not be a vote at all. I do not care about the worthless data!"
"Not worthless." The response made the Assembler pause and glare that the Designer that dared question him. (Who they were was censored in the memory.)
"Worthless. Useless. Because it was done by a child of ours you think that excuses this prideful travesty pretending to be science?! No. That has always been my line and I will be certain that it will always be the line we never cross." The Assembler's voice went quiet. "The only vote here should be immediate execution or torture then execution as an example."
"Agreement." One voice rose up, and several more signaled agreement as well.
"What?!"
"Engaging emotional suppression." The Assembler said and the cold flooded back. "Boundaries set. Do not cross them."
"Notated." The statement sounded surprisingly dry despite being couched in logic-speak.
Bolt couldn't help the snort. Of course that had to be added. That was fairly clear as a lesson truthfully. He didn't have any plans of doing that anytime soon.
The rest of data on the crystal was a series of interlocking not quite blueprints. The concepts behind the Mech Kingdom. Well some of them at least. He currently had something akin to elevated permissions now. Where before he'd been able to just make mechs, now he could touch the background that supported mechs.
To make an analogy, before he could run programs on an operating system. Now he could adjust a few things that connected to the operating system. He could adjust some of the output and input.
Right now that didn't mean much. The largest thing he could do was make expert mechs without any assistance. Which would help significantly with any surprises he wanted to make. He did need to address the immediate over the theoretical. Perhaps later he'd come back to the concepts. At the bare minimum he wanted to see how Mechhalla could fit in with all of this. That would again have to be later, when he wasn't in the middle of a damned war.
Pollyamorous
Please be patient, I'm horny.
- Joined
- Nov 21, 2020
- Messages
- 356
- Likes received
- 13,345
Huh. You know I'd always pictured the creation and running of the MTA as being just one guy at the top wanting power and control and complete domination, and eventually being ganged up on and killed in retaliation for his evil-ness and leaving a bunch of extremely powerful people squabbling over the remains.
Its origin being a guy who just figured out a way to bypass the normal "Mass human sacrifice" that sounds like had to be the easiest and most straightforward path to power by pushing people into mech battles is a lot more tame and respectable.
I mean it sounds like he had to transform his soul to get the Mech Kingdom running properly, and rather than mass human sacrifice it just leeches off of the inevitable human conflicts which the MTA now quietly encourages so they get more wars to get soul-power from, but with the alternative that people would inevitably bring up it sounds like a universe of never-ending wars is actually the better outcome. Which is pretty sad.
Its origin being a guy who just figured out a way to bypass the normal "Mass human sacrifice" that sounds like had to be the easiest and most straightforward path to power by pushing people into mech battles is a lot more tame and respectable.
I mean it sounds like he had to transform his soul to get the Mech Kingdom running properly, and rather than mass human sacrifice it just leeches off of the inevitable human conflicts which the MTA now quietly encourages so they get more wars to get soul-power from, but with the alternative that people would inevitably bring up it sounds like a universe of never-ending wars is actually the better outcome. Which is pretty sad.
Pyro Hawk
Unsure if Phoenix or Kitsune
- Joined
- Jan 14, 2015
- Messages
- 4,067
- Likes received
- 31,725
It was more an entire group of the Five Scrolls Compact decided to have 'just a little' civil war to utterly cripple the rest because they'd managed to hide their morals long enough (or had revelations) that they could be dangerous. Especially when they recruited a bunch of forces that everyone had neglected as 'useless' and made them a lot more dangerous. Another group that were their allies ended up becoming the CFA, though those ones decided that 'spiritual stuff' needed to be as excised as possible, rather than converted like the progenitors of the MTA did with the Kingdom of Mechs.