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/qst/ - Quests


Your name is David "Gunny" Rockefeller, no relation.
A veteran of the united states marine corps, you find yourself in a far-out situation after an all-too-close encounter of the third kind!

In the last thread you cleaned up the lower city by taking out the remaining troublemakers, turned in some of the Federation drone ship bounties for starter cash, designed a new ship, put together a mining skip and crew to get the materials for said ship...
Then went off in search of an unlocked mass-fabricator, something large enough to build ships with. That search eventually led you back to a place you'd already been, although it was now unrecognizable.

You ended up finding that fabricator, and a spare ship to go along with it... but not everything went smoothly, as a massive geomagnetic storm was headed your way.
You did manage to escape it in the end, but something seems to have happened during that time.

>Last Thread: https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive/2022/5437189/
>All Threads: https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive.html?searchall=humanity+-+fuck+yeah%21
>Google Doc: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1rNxD6ccWY5M48dLWuTWdr5LiYLuS_YIAMKlTLw42eeo/edit#gid=0
>Discord Link: https://discord.gg/DMwvMw43yv
>>
>>5489899
>>5488855

"Yeah, it's me. What's wrong? You look like shit, Cyl."

Cylia slams her fist on the console, causing the camera to shake.

["You'd better not be fucking with me! It's really you, right?! David?!"]

"Yes! What the fuck?! Seriously, what happened!?"

Cylia doesn't speak. Instead, she slowly begins to break down.
Her bottom lip puckers, and tears begin streaming down her face as she slowly collapses to her knees.

She rests her head on the console, covering her face with her arms. You can hear the muffled sound of her quietly weeping over the microphone.

A few moments later, Kyla comes into frame, looking to see what the commotion is about. She seems to be similarly exhausted.
Her tired eyes widen in shock as she sees you and Sanig together in the cockpit of an unfamiliar ship, but she focuses more on comforting Cylia.

["Come on, Cylia. Look, they're alright, just like i said. See?"]

Kyla pats Cylia on the back as she stares back into the display, almost like she's trying to make sure it's really you.
As she picks Cylia back up to her feet, you can see she's got snot running down her nose, which she tries to hide by wiping it on her sleeve.

["Can you get the airlock ready for them? Please?"] Kyla asks her.

["Y-Yeah..."] Cylia sniffles. ["I can do that..."]

As Cylia walks off, Kyla turns to speak with you instead.

["Sorry. It's... it's been a rough couple of weeks. Cylia's not doing so good, so i'm glad you finally decided to turn up."]

"What? What the hell are you talking about, Kyla? It hasn't even been an hour, has it?"

"Hour and a half, according to my clock, kid."

There's a long pause. Kyla seems unsure of what to say.

["David, i... a-are you sure you're alright? Did anything happen to you down there?"]

"Well, we got caught up in a big magnetic storm... but other than that, no, not really. Everything went really smoothly."

["...Sanig?"]

"What the kid said, girl. Besides that big demon showing up, and whatever happened on our way up... nothing really went down."

Kyla lets out a long sigh and rubs her face with both hands, as if she's trying to come to terms with something.

["Okay. Okay... I don't know what happened, but as of today, you guys have been gone for almost exactly three weeks. We lost track of you almost as soon as we turned around and went back to orbit."]

"Shit, really? Are you kidding me?"

["No, i'm not. We've been waiting on a signal from you two ever since. Communications wouldn't go through... couldn't detect your suits. Never saw a signal flare either. So we've just been waiting.]

"...Sanig, check your watch again. And the chronometer on this ship."

You check your own suit's clock as well, and it matches up with what he said. It's been about an hour and a half since you dropped planetside.
And you don't remember missing any memories, either.

"Clock still says an hour and a half, kid... but the chronometer on this ship must be screwed."

"Why? What's it say?"
>>
Deploy emergency hugs
>>
>>5489911
+1
Also cuddles and make a feast for them.
>>
>>5489900
So Clylia and Kyla are getting all the cuddles. SHODAN is getting a hug. Ahhh fuck it, even our Jannie gets a hug. But what does the ship clock say?
>>5489911
Plus 2 and checked. Make extra special dinner for everyone.Then show off Satan's carcass.
>>
>>5489911
+1
Including Guildar. Come here you!
>>
I was expecting SHODAN to be the first to reply or initiate contact. Or to inmediatly prepare the airlock and not Cylia...
Oh no SHODAN...
>>
>>5489963
She locked herself in her room. Knock?
>y/n
>>
>>5490011
>W-welcome back, Iiiiii ~iinseccc insectt
>>
>>5490027
>>5490011
>>5489963
https://youtu.be/51dGYXJqTBQ
>>
>>5490054
>>5490027
>>5490011
She's going to be very moody won't she...
>>
>>5490078
after all the bullshit we two have been through, she's probably the one that had more faith in us.
>>
>>5489900
Enough of the bad mood! I know what will cheer everyone up!
It's time for David to bust out.....the Shepard's Pie.
>>
>>5489900
You know, this is the exact opposite of what I expected. I fully expected our hour to be a second or so of realtime, something the wraiths do in large number for that full "oh, shit, that's what happened, OH FUCK that's dangerous!" moment.
>>
>>5489900
>>5489900
oh well glad David fucked everything up with whatever those wraiths were planning there
now let's bounce before that time dilation gets so bad that it triggered a black hole or someshit
>>
>>5489900

"The stardate on this thing is... well, it stopped updating on 9/2128B/15."

"Okay. What's that mean? I'll be honest, i don't pay much attention to the stardate." You admit.

"It means this ship is at least 5,400 years old. Which is obviously impossible. It'd be rusted to dust, along with the whole city. Even the buildings would have eroded away by then."

"Is it just set wrong, or did the storm mess up the ship's computer?"

"No, even this ancient hunk of scrap must be using a crystal storage matrix. Magnetism wouldn't effect it... and look here."

Sanig shows you dozens of data logs, all with similar stardates. Some going back days, others up to two months from the final entry.
They look like maintenance and construction logs for the ship itself, when they were putting it together.

"They're all dated like that, huh..."

"Somethin' fucky's going on, kid. I don't know what it is, but i don't like it."

"I still can't believe it's been three weeks. I only know one way to travel forwards in time, and it involves a black hole."

["And it's been a long three weeks at that."] Kyla cuts in. ["Ever since you disappeared, the whole crew has been having... nightmares. Bad ones. Reminds me of when i got taken, you know?"]

"Nightmares...?"

You're about to ask her to elaborate, but then you remember something, and you understand what she's trying to get at.
You should probably hurry up and get back to the ship.

"Alright," You continue. "let's get the ships docked for now, and we'll go from there. Alright?"

["Yeah, that's probably for the best..."]

Kyla totally sounds like she's had the life sucked out of her. She can't be feeling good.
That's pretty well confirmed when you get the ships docked and the airlock opens, revealing Cylia, Kyla and Gildur all standing together to greet you... and it's clear that all three of them have lost weight.

Gildur in particular seems to have sunken eyes, and he's leaning heavily on his mop handle to keep upright.

Cylia doesn't give you any time to think about it though, as she jumps up into your arms and hugs you almost immediately...
Although it's a nice gesture, it's dampened a bit by the fact that you're still wearing your armor.

"Alright, Cyl... geeze, at least let me get out first."

...Up close like this, you can even tell that she's lost some muscle, as well.
Have they even been eating properly while you were gone?

You cradle Cylia in your arms as you walk back to the workshop, and she only lets go when you tell her you need to put your suit away.
As soon as you step up into the crate and peel yourself out of the suit, she jumps you again, this time from behind... and hangs off the back of your neck, like she usually does.

Only, she's really close this time. Not just hanging off of you, she's rubbing herself against you, sniffing your neck and hair...

"Jesus, Cyl. Did you miss me?"
>>
>>5490554
oh shit, she's marking us
>>
>>5490557
Kind of the other way around, actually.
>>
>>5490557
Nah brah, she gotta get that good sniff. Make sure we're legit and not a skinwalker. Yeah, that's the reason why she's doing it.
>>
>>5490554
Muh heart. Lets go hug Kyla, then go wraith hunting.
>>
>>5490554
Our babe is having BHC withdrawl, our crew is having nightmares with us gone, and some spooks have gotten aboard and fucking with them. We use Satan's corpse and fuck shit up, release Princess, and hunt the spooky bitch down.
>>
>>5490554

She doesn't respond. Instead, she just shudders as she takes another long whiff of your scent.
You can feel her whole body relaxing as she does, but she still refuses to let go.

"That's... getting kind of creepy, actually. Cyl? Hello?"

"Sorry, i just... i needed to. Sorry." She apologizes.

Cylia seems embarrassed, and manages to break herself away from you, dropping free from your neck.

"It's fine..." You tell her. "I'm just glad you guys are alright. Nothing major happened, right?"

"Well, no... we weren't attacked or anything. Nobody even knows we're here, i'm pretty sure."

"Good. I wouldn't put up with anything happening to my crew in my absence. Now, let's go check on the others, shall we?"

...

Kyla meets back up with you in the hall. It seems Sanig has gone back outside with some cables to secure the new ship.
He plans on dragging Princess in with him when he comes back, so he'll probably be gone for a minute.

"So... three weeks is a long time. When did these nightmares start, exactly?"

"The very first night. None of us have gotten a good night's sleep since then. We've all been on edge because of it." Kyla informs you.

"Alright, i'll take care of it."

You take a deep breath and close your eyes. Focusing on your sixth sense, you almost immediately feel something... not just on the ship, but right next to you.
How the hell did this thing get so close without you noticing?

You slowly open your eyes and scan the hall around you. There's nothing.
All you can see is Kyla standing nearby, and Gildur mopping the floor at the far end of the hall.

But it's neither of them. No, you can feel this thing circling around you. Almost like it's sizing you up...

Either way, this is the thing that's been tormenting your crew.
It must have slipped into the ship at some point, even though you barely spent any time on the surface. Never even touched town, but it still got in.
That settles it. Without some kind of anti-wraith coating, your ship will never truly be safe from these bastards. The carrier at least has to have one.

Sighing out, you relax your muscles and face the wall, waiting for it to circle around your front. When it does, you strike out with speed rather than force, and make contact with something invisible.
You feel it in your grasp, and it becomes visible the moment it's crushed between your hand and the ship's wall. A large, octopus-like wraith, with smooth, jet-black and slimy-feeling skin.

It screeches and tries to wriggle out of your grasp, but you tighten your grip so firmly that your nails begin digging into it's flesh. It can't escape.
Realizing this, the wraith wraps it's tentacles around your arm and attempts... something. You're still not sure what it is, but it tries to invade you somehow, just like the others did.

Not only do you resist, you push back unconsciously. The wraith shrieks in pain, and you watch as it's flesh shrivels up in response. It weakens, and nearly falls limp.
>>
>>5490872

This one's different from the others. It can hide itself, even from you, as long as you aren't looking for it.
It didn't attack until it was cornered, either. It's been psychologically tormenting your crew for weeks, but doesn't seem to have physically assaulted them.

You still have no idea what these things want, nor what exactly it is that they get from the living. A demon is far too dangerous a research subject, but something like this... maybe.

>Capture it. A jar painted with wraith blood will be sufficient to hold it, as long as you tape the lid down. You can work with Sanig to run some tests on it later.
>Just kill it. What they want, what they're trying to get from you... who fucking cares. They're evil, and they need to be exterminated on sight. That's all there is to it.
>Write-In?
>>
>>5490873
>Just kill it. What they want, what they're trying to get from you... who fucking cares. They're evil, and they need to be exterminated on sight. That's all there is to it.
>>
>>5490873
>Capture it. A jar painted with wraith blood will be sufficient to hold it, as long as you tape the lid down. You can work with Sanig to run some tests on it later.
This is THE specimen to take for study, if we're ever gonna take one. Easily captured, no real physical threat to the crew, and if other wraiths try to go I Am Legend about us having a prisoner, we just throw Satan's Pickle Jar out an airlock.
>>
>>5490873
>Capture it.
At the very least we'll torture this thing in retaliation for tormenting our crew.
>>
>>5490873
>Capture it. A jar painted with wraith blood will be sufficient to hold it, as long as you tape the lid down. You can work with Sanig to run some tests on it later.
>>
>>5490873
>Capture it. A jar painted with wraith blood will be sufficient to hold it, as long as you tape the lid down. You can work with Sanig to run some tests on it later
Truly a fate worse than death. I say we call this thing a "Nightmare".
>>
>>5490873
>Capture it. A jar painted with wraith blood will be sufficient to hold it, as long as you tape the lid down. You can work with Sanig to run some tests on it later.
...fine. lets go full XCOM on its ass. by the way, we still need a proper xenobiologist to research these things. or a space priest; whatever comes first
>>
>>5490873
>Capture it. A jar painted with wraith blood will be sufficient to hold it, as long as you tape the lid down. You can work with Sanig to run some tests on it later.
Killing it is too much of a mercy. We're going to torture and experiment the hell out of this little bastard. Learn all we can so this incident NEVER happens again.
Also show it off to everyone. We caught the culprit!
>>
>>5490873
>Capture it. A jar painted with wraith blood will be sufficient to hold it, as long as you tape the lid down. You can work with Sanig to run some tests on it later.
>>
>>5490873
>Capture it. A jar painted with wraith blood will be sufficient to hold it, as long as you tape the lid down. You can work with Sanig to run some tests on it later.
>>
>>5490873
>>Capture it. A jar painted with wraith blood will be sufficient to hold it, as long as you tape the lid down. You can work with Sanig to run some tests on it later.
we must study it and determine how to effectively contain it, and kill it.
>>
>>5490873
Oh no, they come in hentai nightmare too.
>Capture it. A jar painted with wraith blood will be sufficient to hold it, as long as you tape the lid down. You can work with Sanig to run some tests on it later.
>Try beaming thoughts of dissecting it for daring to bother our crew.
Did Kyla and Gildur just get a view of us grabbing a dark squid thing outta nowhere?
>>
>>5490928
Yes. Cylia, too.
Kyla knew more or less what was going on, but couldn't prove it.
>>
>>5490936
And the Captain is the King of the castle. As he should be.
>>
>>5490873
Ask Sanig if he's interested in a live specimen.
>>
>>5491053
>yfw he says "no" and shoots it to death immediately
>>
>>5490873
>Capture it. A jar painted with wraith blood will be sufficient to hold it, as long as you tape the lid down. You can work with Sanig to run some tests on it later.

THEY ARE EVOLVING AND THUS WE MUST AS WELL.

Also, WHERE IS OUR AI WAIFU?
>>
>>5491260
I'm sure he'd be fiiiine, its a spook even he can throttle.
>>
>>5490873

"Holy shit...!"
"Holy shit...!"

Kyla and Cylia both cry out in unison.
You squeeze the wraith even harder, until it completely lets go of your arms.

"What the fuck is that?!" Cylia screams, pointing at the wraith and covering her own mouth in shock.

"I told you, Cyl! I told you one of those things was in here with us!" Kyla yells at her.

"Don't worry girls, i got it." You assure them.

"...Is it dead?" Kyla asks.

"No, not yet. These things are actually pretty hard to kill. It'll probably regenerate over time."

"Well hurry up and kill it already, then!" Cylia yells, taking a few steps back from you.

"...No."

"Wha- What do you mean no?!" She demands.

"I think this one would make a good test subject. It's weak, seems to lack any natural weapons... and it's small enough that we can make a container for it."

"No. No way, David. We are NOT keeping a live wraith on the ship! Look at that thing! What even is it?!"

"Looks like an octopus."

"The fuck is an octopus?!"

"Highly intelligent, usually. Need to make sure we make a container it can't open..."

"David, please, this thing is disgusting. I can't even stand looking at it, so please, please, please don't..."

You hold the wraith out at arm's length and shake it at her while going "OOGA BOOGA BOOGA!"
It's legs jiggle and squish together, making a wet shlopping sound which is honestly pretty gross.

Cylia shrieks and immediately bolts down the hall, taking refuge in the new cargo bay together with Gildur, who until now seemed completely unaware of what was going on.

"Hah. Oh man, she's gonna friggin' hate the trophy i brought back."

"...Trophy?" Kyla asks, seeming unbothered.

"Ah, yeah. I killed a big-ass demon down there, brought back it's core and it's head. It's still in the other ship, but you should see that thing. It's huge."

"Sounds cool, but uh... if it's fine with you, i'd really... really like to take a nap."

"Oh. Yeah, sure. I'm sure you need it."

...

Sanig eventually comes back after securing the new ship to the metal gear semi-permanently.
Over his left shoulder is your sack full of plunder, and in his right arm is princess, still half-asleep due to the vacuum.

She yawns, expelling a small jet of lightly purple-tinged flame.
Sanig lets her go, and after stretching out a bit, she sniffs around and waddles over to you, casually trying to snap at the wraith in your hand.

"Ah, no girl. We're keeping this one, no biting."

Princess doesn't listen. She stands up on her hind legs, bracing her front paws against your stomach as she continues trying to snap at it and pull it out of your hand.
You feel her sharp claws digging into you as she does, and if it weren't for your skinsuit they probably would have scratched you.

"Ah, AH! No, down girl! Down! No jumping! No biting! Bad!"

She seems irritated, but obeys. However, she huffs at you as she waddles off.
That's weird. Princess almost never disobeys you, nor does she act up like that.
>>
>>5491652
Oh no, she's becoming a teenager. Or she's upset over scaring her earlier. Probably both.
>>
>>5491656
It's like putting a toddler in front of a pitbull.
It was bred to tear the toddler to shreds. It yearns for the sensation of it.
But it can be trained to not maul the baby until you're not looking, at least.
>>
>>5491661
She -needs- to eat the wraiths.

No Princess, you are the wraiths.

And then Princess was a husk.
>>
>>5491652
We'll give it to princess if Sanig doesn't want the damn thing.
>>
>>5490557
ugh, cats sometimes do that... it's very weird when you can hear their little noses go sniffsniffsniffsniffsniffsniffsniffsniffsniff
>>
>>5490873
>as long as you tape the lid down.
octopuses be like that huh....
>>
>>5491972
Seriously, those little bastards are smart. I remember hearing about one that learned staff rotations at an aquarium so it could sneak into nearby tanks and eat the fish undetected.
>>
>>5491996
Twenty bucks says what really happened was one of the staff was actually poor and hungry.
>>
>>5492035
he would've snipped some of the tentacles... they regrow right?
>>
>>5491972
You got no idea, those fuckers are basically upper level 3rd graders. Maybe 4th.
>>
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5974545/
okay this was a very fun read. Skip the introduction and go straight to wound healing and regeneration of cephalopod body parts
>>
>>5492036
If they do regrow... Are they edible for us?
>>
>>5492057
the wraith flesh? the fuck are you smoking!?
>>
>>5492064
Infinite forbidden calamari, man.

You know we might consider that learning more about wraiths may be a "stare into the abyss and it stares back" situation. Like whatever their root/cause is might gain more access to us the more we know about them.
>>
>>5492064
Smoked wraith calamari? Would it taste any good?
>>
>>5492142
Only one way to find out!
>>
>>5492115
that's what i've been thinking as well
>>
>>5492064
It can't be any worse than mercury and that shit's still super common in regularly consumed fish.
>>
>>5491652
Maybe we can just try a tiny nibble...
>>
A cat can have -some- salami.
>>
>>5491652

That evening, you make a big meal for everyone.
Cylia did her best to cook for everyone in your absence, but you get the feeling that she still doesn't quite get what your cooking is going for.

A meal needs to nourish both the body and soul. It has to be healthy, balanced and delicious. Utterly filling and satisfying. Nothing else will do.

So not only does this meal include lots of protein, it includes a ton of fat as well.
Heavy cream is a great way of hiding ridiculous amounts of fat in food without it feeling greasy. It just becomes 'creamy' instead.

Everyone eats their fill and then some, and you go to bed satisfied.
That night, you're treated to both Kyla and Cylia crawling up into bed with you.

Kyla is sprawled out, snoring and naked as usual. Every once in a while she'll roll over or change position, but she's sleeping soundly.
Cylia is wearing a set of soft, fluffy pajamas, and sticks to you like glue. Every time you try to roll over and get comfortable, she pulls you back... so you settle for just being the big spoon.

She completely buries herself into your back and pulls the blankets up over her head, but after that she doesn't move an inch.
Your sleep that night is utterly peaceful and restful, a long sleep with just a few faint dreams and a lingering feeling of happiness by the time you wake.

But even though you slept for... twelve hours, apparently... you're still the first to wake up.
You lay in bed, enjoying the warmth of your two companions for a few more hours, lazily drifting somewhere on the edge of falling back to sleep, before Kyla eventually wakes up.

Sometimes it's nice to simply rest like that.

Breakfast that morning is hearty, consisting mainly of sausages and waffles.
Cylia doesn't join you until the meal is nearly over, and even then she's still barely awake.

A bit unusual for her, she sucks down a whole tube of Sanig's sweetened Tikka paste to help herself wake up.

"I thought you weren't big on that stuff." You comment.

"I needed it to get through the last couple of weeks."

"Mmm. Well, how'd you sleep last night?"

She lets out a long sigh, accompanied by a satisfied smile.

"Good. For the first time in a while, really good. Just not nearly long enough."

"Her nightmares were the worst out of all three of us." Kyla informs you. "Not sure why."

"What were they about?" You ask, curious.

Kyla and Cylia shoot a knowing looking between eachother.

"We... really don't want to talk about it. It was nothing good, let's leave it at that." Kyla answers.

"...Alright. I get it, i've had some... particularly bad dreams myself. Not as bad as some of my buddies, but pretty bad. Sometimes you just want to forget."

"Yeah..." Cylia agrees.

You eat the last of your meal in silence for a while before Gildur speaks up casually.

"I dreamt i was being chased through the forests of my homeworld by rabid canids. They'd catch me, then rip my limbs off with their teeth and tear me apart with their claws."
>>
>>5492848
You know... They talk about how they can't see images in their heads because that is basically tricking the brain into hallucinating. Yet they have dreams? Do they just dream in concepts?
>>
>>5492856
Dreaming is just hallucinating.
>>
>>5492856
Some are able to dream properly. Some dream through words, or through sound, or through concepts.
If you ever told them about lucid dreaming, they'd never believe you.
>>
They must have a strange way of remembering things... they can explain "my dream was like this" but without being able to see it, as if someone told them the dream in turn.

Processing information without using a language... I am not sure if our brain can do that.
>>
>>5492866
We should refill everyon on how to lucid dream, then beat the shit out of their paralysis demons and make a bloody skin suit out of it. You gotta be hyper aggressive with those little shits.
>>
>>5492869
A lot of people do that.

If you're blind, what do you see when you dream?
If you're deaf, what do you hear when you dream?

What if you're both?

We make connections between words and our experiences. Sights, sounds, even concepts, but those words are not those things. They merely represent them.
If you're blind and deaf, you dream what you know. Through touch, through smell, through taste. You dream of concepts you understand, although you have no words for them.

But you don't need words to understand something.
And another person's words don't necessarily have the same meaning to them as yours do to you.

If you were blind and deaf, you could still dream of the warmth of a fire. The feeling of cool water on your skin, or running through a field.
You could still dream of another's touch, the smell of your mother's cooking or even your own fear of the unknown. All without a single world, a single sound, or a single image.
>>
>>5492893
>If you were blind and deaf, you could still dream of the warmth of a fire. The feeling of cool water on your skin, or running through a field.
>You could still dream of another's touch, the smell of your mother's cooking or even your own fear of the unknown. All without a single world, a single sound, or a single image.
and this is how a masterpiece of art is made
this is why I love gaming OST's that tells something without uttering a single word that describe it except sounds
>>
>>5492848
You know Gildur, this is a great excu-I mean time to teach you how to fight.
>>
>>5492893
>If you were blind and deaf, you could still dream of the warmth of a fire. The feeling of cool water on your skin, or running through a field.
>You could still dream of another's touch, the smell of your mother's cooking or even your own fear of the unknown. All without a single world, a single sound, or a single image.

For some reason I am now inspired.
>>
>>5492990
That's because you're too stupid and gay to have realized that on your own. Congratz!
>>
>>5493293
I'll admit to being stupid but I've never been happy, you take that back you son of a shoe-salesman.
>>
>>5493315
My apologies for the offence, I meant to imply that you're a homosexual.
>>
>>5492848

"Oh wow. I used to have dreams like that." You tell him. "Except i usually turned around and started punching them to death."

Gildur nods his head in response, waiting until he's swallowed his mouthful of pancake to respond.

"I can believe that, Captain. I'm sure the thought of something kicking your ass would just confuse you."

"That's not entirely true. Life kicks everyone's ass, Gildur. And it comes at you fast, so live every day like it's your last!"

You punctuate your sentence by stealing the last dodo sausage from Sanig, right as he was about to stab it with his fork.

"Hey, you little shit!"

"Shorry, can't hear you... over da shound of chewing!"

...

That day, you go out with Kyla to patch the hole in the side of the ship, so you can re-pressurize it.
After that's done, you plug the Metal Gear's spare antimatter bottle into it so it can power back up, and after a couple of reboot and repair sequences, it's computers seem to be running fine.

There's only about a third of a bottle of dark matter and energy each in it's warp drive, which ain't much, but it's enough to make it back to Thekia.
The Metal Gear can handle the increased output of a larger bubble anyways, so it's not a big deal.

After all the minor repairs are done, you start on your way back to Thekia.
The laminated jar you ended up printing for that wraith has a lid that both screws and locks into place. You also insisted on a physical padlock for extra security.
The wraith does occasionally bang around inside of it, but that's the only indication that it's still alive. It doesn't even seem able to attempt anything from there.

It takes a little over half a day to get back, during which nothing of significance happens.
The crew is able to rest, relax, eat and even fool around a bit. The only difference you note is that Cylia is more clingy than usual.

But that's fine. She's nice to have around... mostly.
All women are at least a little irritating at times, you figure.

...

Upon arriving back at the station, SHODAN immediately updates you with the local news.
Apparently there has been an increase in what the locals are calling "Redsang Refugees" from several nearby stations.

Almost none of them are afflicted by redsang addiction themselves, but instead seem to be fleeing the stations where the drug has become prevalent.

"According to reports, continued use of the drug results in reduced brain function, increased muscle mass and violent tendencies. Eventually, this results in rabid behavior, and has caused a breakdown of the social system on many effected stations."

"Well that doesn't sound very fucking good."

"No, it doesn't. Xebric seems to have been affected as well.
>>
>>5493555

>Sounds like a "Them" problem. If they can't hold their shit together, that just makes them easier to take out when we get there.
>Sounds like it's going to be an "Us" problem, if we're taking the place over. Maybe we should find out what's going on.
>Whatever. The best solution to a feral crackhead is 9cc's of lead. Instant cure.
>Write-In?
>>
>>5493557
>Sounds like it's going to be an "Us" problem, if we're taking the place over. Maybe we should find out what's going on.
that's not good news for the budding criminal empire we're trying to build on thekia. better to be ready for it before it comes here
>>
>>5493557
>Sounds like a "Them" problem
Not only does this make the neighboring stations easier to take over, it'll also allow us to target the redsang epidemic once we're in charge in order to ameliorate our image from 'conquerers' to 'people that make shit better'.

I wouldn't be surprised if that was the plan of whoever is spreading Redsang in the first place. No reason we can't co-opt it before they can execute.
>>
>>5493557
>Sounds like it's going to be an "Us" problem, if we're taking the place over. Maybe we should find out what's going on.
We're out here trying to do some good, in our own roundabout way. Ethical lawbreaking, as it were. Ain't no Robin Hood or romance in a bunch of crackheads shitting in the streets

>>5492893
Saving this. Thank you anon, I'm going to paint tonight
>>
>>5493557
>Sounds like it's going to be an "Us" problem, if we're taking the place over. Maybe we should find out what's going on.
>>
>>5493557
>Sounds like it's going to be an "Us" problem, if we're taking the place over. Maybe we should find out what's going on.
>>
>>5493557
>Sounds like it's going to be an "Us" problem, if we're taking the place over. Maybe we should find out what's going on.
>>
>>5493557
>Sounds like it's going to be an "Us" problem, if we're taking the place over. Maybe we should find out what's going on.
>>
>>5493557
>Whatever. The best solution to a feral crackhead is 9cc's of lead. Instant cure.

Wonder if Red sang is just the wrath juice being made into drugs.
>>
>>5493557
>Write in
It's a them problem for now, but it'll be our mess to clean up once we take over. We gotta figure out how best to take advantage of the chaos and how to put things right once we're in charge.
>>
>>5493598
>Whatever. The best solution to a feral crackhead is 9cc's of lead. Instant cure.
lmao, that never works
>>
>>5493651
Silence liberal.
>>
>>5493693
No he's got a point. Crackheads are super hard to put down. A 9mm just won't cut it. Upsize the caliber.
>>
>>5493707
Oh, well if that is what he meant, then I understand, 45ACP oughta do it?
>>
>>5493555
It's weird SHODAN wasn't communicating... or doing anything up to getting to the station

We should probably check on that. We already have a inkling that AIs are boxed souls... so we should probably do some form of checkup...
>>
>>5493750
She's probably just jelly that Kyla and Cylia are catching all the dick. Or more realistically it's just getting to the point where it's hard to write all the characters in all the time.
>>
>>5493841
It does become harder to include everyone when there are too many characters, which is why i think it's important to keep a relatively small core cast.
However, the real reason is simply that i'm trying to speed things along, which means a lack of intricate detail.

With only one or two updates a day, the quest is simply glacially slow.
Or at least it feels that way. I'm not sure if we're making more or less progress than a quest that only runs on weekends or not.

Either way, at this point the core characters are fleshed out enough that i think we can focus less on doing that and more on story elements.
Maybe that's a bad idea, i don't know. Maybe you guys are here just for the characters, and not so much for the story.

It's my first time writing anything, so i still have to learn about things like that.
I won't really know until i do it, and hear out what people really think about it.
>>
>>5494029
I'm here for a bit of both, personally. It really can be hard to give enough focus to every character when your cast keeps growing and changing, though, so you've got my sympathies.
>>
>>5494029
I'm here for both qm you were doing fine as you were imo. But I definitely understand how you feel about the slow pace of the quest.
>>
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>>5494029
Readers will always be greedy for more as I am, but we don't want you to burn yourself out and abandon us with the abrupt end of this magnificent quest. This is well written, interesting and balls to the wall insane - lets rip the wraiths apart and use them to paint our exoarmoursuit with their blood and add to our menacing aura - type of ideas.

I love it.
>>
>>5494029
You're handling it really well. The best way to pick up story pacing without sacrificing character development is by doing exactly what you've been doing: creating scenarios where only specific portions of the core cast are in play so they can be shown off as much as desired without cluttering up the narrative.

You've also employed an alternate method of addressing bloat from too many characters: dropping one off somewhere, but for something narratively useful.

All in all you're doing great on all aspects, especially for a first-time writer who presumably hasn't taken any formal classes on it. Consider that although the pacing of the quest is slow in terms of real-life time, I don't think that it's poorly paced as a story. Someone experiencing it by reading the archive wouldn't necessarily think things need to be sped up too much.
>>
>>5494029
What does the cum from those rock aliens look like?
>>
>>5494341
Sand, duh. Retard
>>
>>5494029
Don't need detail of what they say and what they do.
Acknowledgement that they may be in a scene/are active is enough really.

Was more worried as SHODAN is usually fairly talkative. A complete lack of communications during docking and 'reintegration' when a demon wraith is around is somewhat concerning.
>>
>>5494029
I'll agree with the others to check on SHODAN to make sure she's okay. Afterwards while we burn time through warp travel, can we teach everyone how to sense wraiths and how to kill them if they ever get caught? Where to target their cores, how to sense them without sight or sound, how to ignore their mind tricks.
>>
>>5493555

"Shit. That's gonna be a problem later. Sons of bitches, what do they think they're doing to my new vacation home?"

"Captain, you haven't taken over the station yet. It's it a little early to be calling it 'yours'?"

"Yeah, yeah... i know. But we'll get there eventually. And when i do, i don't want it overrun with drug addicts. Hmm. Wait a minute, come to think of it... didn't i fight somebody like that, once?"

"Affirmative. An individual named Gorn. According to the bounty database, his bounty of 25 credits was paid off three days after your encounter."

"So he lived after all that, huh? Looking back, he wasn't all that tough in reality... every hit did the usual amount of damage, but he just kept getting back up for some reason."

"That individual did appear to be suffering from the reported effects of long-term redsang abuse."

Reduced brain function, increased muscle mass, violent tendencies... and that's on top of the usual effects. Slowed perception of time, increased wakefulness and focus... Could it be?

"SHODAN, doesn't redsang seem awfully like some kind of combat drug?"

"Perhaps. However, reduced brain function would inhibit the user's ability to follow orders."

"What if they don't need to follow orders? What if they're not meant to? You know, just drug people up, get them all numb and roided out, then let them loose on the population."

"That would violate countless ethical treaties of warfare, Captain."

"Oh, please. You know as well as i do that rules only exist for the lower class. Come on. If they wanted to, oh i don't know, keep people from expanding stations out beyond their reach and becoming independent... how would you do it?"

"....That is... concerning."

"Yeah, for sure. They've got the fabs locked down, they've got the blueprints for the fabs locked down, the food, water and even life support are controlled by the government to some extent... and if you step out of line, what happens?"

"Killer drone swarm."

"Yeah, exactly. People don't have a fucking chance out here. Dumping cheap drugs into the community is just... just..."

"Captain?"

Redsang... the feds... Sadia... Laggard... Laggard was pissed at Sadia. He was going after the redsang shipments. That's right, Sadia was in on it, weren't they?

"Is Sadia complicit in destroying their own station? Fucking why?" You mumble.

"Isn't that obvious, Captain?"

"...Profit. They don't give a shit about the station. It's just a mining outpost to them. They get paid from the minerals, they get paid from the redsang operation... and they probably get paid by the feds to "clean up" after they're done. Fuck, man."

"Taking Xebric from Sadia may be easier than expected, but it may also attract too much attention from the Federation. It may require continuous defence after it's capture."

"Yeah, maybe... shit, i dunno. Is it even worth it if it's gonna be like that?"
>>
>>5494712
Its the American way to tell Government to fuck itself.
>>
Jesus Christ what will happen when humanity gets involved especially America being America detecting profit and getting a chance to nab some territory in the name of “freedom and liberation.” Which considering the situation we are probably more then heavily justified at least publicly. In spreading the American dream.
>>
>>5494712
It'd be much easier to gain power by running the underworld and by doing business as a... well... a business. Soft, indirect power. If Gron still wants to go through with it, we should help but the outcome is uncertain. Maybe we... bust out the D.A.R.E. lion?
>>
>>5494712
Of course its fucking worth it David! Its about principle! Its about fighting foe what we believe in! ITS ABOUT THE OIL- I mean THE AMERICAN DREAM! LIFE, LIBERTY, AND THE PERSUIT OF HAPPINESS!
The fed and corpo scum dont give a shit, which is why it'll make it all that much more easier to kill them all and take their stuff. If the feds try to pull some shit? Fire MAC rounds until they fuck off, or mini-nukes or they bring capital ships to the playground. If humanity is good at anything, it's being as persistent, spiteful, and vengeful. Like gorrillas armed with glock and the knowledge to use them.
>>
>>5495044
That lying fuck said people would be tripping over themselves to give me free drugs.

Besides, these vegetarians would probably take a friendly lion telling you not to do drugs as a threat
>>
>>5495140
To be fair, a lion shouting "Do drugs or I'll fucking kill you" is a very compelling argument when your entire species are a bunch of limp dicked noodle arms.
>>
>>5494712
I'm increasingly certain that redsang is epinephrine, maybe mixed with testosterone.
>>
Would not be surprised since apparently humans are ridiculous to deal with. I wouldn’t be surprised that low level drugs for humans like normal pain killers are the so called illegal drugs they use.
>>
>inb4 Redsang is just motrin and whey
>>
Redsang is like a fool's Strength and Courage. Perhaps an alternative must be produced.
Gyms, meat-eating, sparring, honor, and discipline.
>>
>>5495447
Lmao I can imagine this is what redsang might be. Aliens can eat acidic stuff or things too sugar or they die on the spot.
>>
Diabetic aliens who die from having sugar or anything to strong which human revel in eating.
>>
"What do you mean, Captain? Of course it is."

"Huh..?"

"I mean 'Free as in Freedom' and 'Freedom ain't Free' as you would put it. It was never possible to stake your flag without pushback. Without consequence. You knew that from the start, didn't you?"

"...Yeah, i guess you're right. I guess i was just hoping they'd be bigger pushovers... but this kind of shit, it's starting to remind me of what i'd see back on earth."

"Insane, barbaric atrocities."

"Yeah, that."

"...There is another option, in the case that defending Xebric become untenable. As you know, every station has at least one or two mass fabricators used for building ships, but the beating heart of each station is it's life support system.
Those too are mass fabricators of a sort. Specialized, like our own ship's medical fab. They process the atmosphere, biowaste, plastics and so-on in order to keep the station's environment stable."


"So... what? We abandon the station and take the life support fabs with us?"

"Yes. It would then be possible to set up a new colony elsewhere, on some distant asteroid, moon or planet. It would be possible to transport them, once the carrier is built."

That's... an idea. Assuming it works, you mean. You've got to assume there's some kind of system in place to prevent fab theft like there is in most public fabs... but if there isn't?
You could take them back to earth's moon, set up a city there... and it'd be so damned easy to populate it with humans. Just like that, you'd jumpstart humanity's spread into the cosmos.

Even if you are able to defend the station, it's still worth considering...
But for now, you need to check in and make sure nothing's going off the rails.

...

"Greetings, Captain."

"Hey, Clank. How are things going?"

"All projects are at or ahead of schedule. Information on local businessmen, underworld traders and gang leaders have begun to trickle in from the brothel. A new apartment complex has been built to support the local population. The homeless enca-"

"Okay, okay. So we're all good? Nothing's going horribly wrong?"

"Not at all, Captain. There have been several minor incidents since your last report, but given their new equipment, our staff were able to handle the issues with ease. Your disappearance was noted at a recent meeting, but dismissed with prejudice."

"Are you not gonna ask me where i went?"

"I am certain that your missions were of critical importance, Captain."

"Yeah, you could say i didn't have much choice in the matter. But enough of that, i want to hear about this redsang crisis that's going on..."

"There is not much to tell that is not public knowledge, i am afraid. Little information has come out of the neighboring stations regarding the nature of the addicts. However, i was rather easily able to obtain a sample of redsang for analyses."

Clank opens a drawer in his desk and pulls out a clear plastic bottle, full of pills containing tiny red crystals.
>>
>>5495985

"...And? What did you find?"

"Nothing as of yet, Captain. As you can see, the sample is here with me. I am still searching for a lab capable of analyzing it's chemical structure covertly. Possession of the chemical is illegal, making it difficult to do so."

>Sanig could probably do the analysis on the Metal Gear. It's set up for that kind of shit, actually.
>Clank will find a lab that can do a full and proper analysis eventually, just leave it to him.
>...You could just feed it to one of your drone ship prisoners and see what it does to them.
>Write-In?
>>
>>5495989
>Sanig could probably do the analysis on the Metal Gear. It's set up for that kind of shit, actually.
>>
>>5495989
>Sanig could probably do the analysis on the Metal Gear. It's set up for that kind of shit, actually.
We have the tools right here, let's use em.
>>
>>5495989
>Sanig could probably do the analysis on the Metal Gear. It's set up for that kind of shit, actually.

Gets us out answer faster and without it burning clank by association with the stuff
>>
>>5495989
>Sanig could probably do the analysis on the Metal Gear. It's set up for that kind of shit, actually.

>use one of the crystals. see what it does
>>
>>5495989
>Sanig could probably do the analysis on the Metal Gear. It's set up for that kind of shit, actually.
>>
>>5495989
>Sanig could probably do the analysis on the Metal Gear. It's set up for that kind of shit, actually.

Shieet he's totally gonna reverse engineer it and upgrade his combat drug cocktail with that isn't he?
>>
>>5495989
>>Sanig could probably do the analysis on the Metal Gear. It's set up for that kind of shit, actually.
>>
>Sanig could probably do the analysis on the Metal Gear. It's set up for that kind of shit, actually.

I fully expect it to be a medication familiar to earth
>>
>>5495989
See what Sanig and shodan can sus out, there's gotta be some useful equipment for this sort of work leftover in a closet somewhere on the metal gear.
>>
>>5495989

>Sanig could probably do the analysis on the Metal Gear. It's set up for that kind of shit, actually.
>>
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>>5495989
>Sanig could probably do the analysis on the Metal Gear. It's set up for that kind of shit, actually.
>It turns out Sanig's analysis involves doping both himself and anyone nearby with the drugs
>Redsang-marinated dodos
>Redsang-fueled husks and wraiths
>Redsang-fueled onaholeaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAA

I'd propose that Clank buys up most of it because soon money might just become meaningless to us with the fab and working knowledge of bipedal combat armours combined with AI-controlled autonomous behaviours.
>>
>>5495989
>Sanig could probably do the analysis on the Metal Gear. It's set up for that kind of shit, actually.
>>
>>5496651
Then that's just a waste of money. If we want to get rid of the stuff then all we gotta do is find the deals, then work our way up from there.
>>
>>5496651
>money might just become meaningless to us with the fab
nah, we still need money to pay other people and to get goods that the nanofab can't make, like antimatter, food and the basic resources the thing needs to work
>>
>>5495989

"Actually Clank, i think we can just do that on the Metal Gear. It was originally a long-range research vessel of sorts, so it's got all kinds of equipment onboard for that sort of thing."

"Then, if it would not trouble you, Captain?"

"Sure, not a problem."

...

After doing some rounds so that the locals can see you're still here and working for "Clark" you head back to the ship with the sample.
The second you start to ask something, Sanig sighs out in frustration.

"Kid, can't you see i've got enough on my plate right now?! You think it's easy to just... design a whole goddamned carrier ship from the ground up?! With this in-fucking-sane list of parts and requirements?!"

"Sorry, old man. It's kind of important though, the carrier can wait a second."

"Fuck, fine! Just hurry up and tell me. I've got too much shit to do, including testing that damned fab."

"Ah, right. Let me know how that goes. Here, take a look at this."

You hand over the vial of pills, and Sanig eyeballs it.

"What, redsang? Don't take that shit, kid. It ain't good for you."

"Any idea what's in it?"

"Not really, kid. It cropped up maybe ten, fifteen years ago. I'm not big on the hard stuff, though. Ain't looked much into it, you know?"

"I thought this was something students took to get through exams..."

"Yeah, and?"

"Okay. Cultural differences, i guess. Most kids back home downed a pot of coffee instead of snorting meth... or whatever this is."

"Dunno what either of those are, kid."

"Right. Well, it turns out that using redsang long-term has some really nasty side-effects, and it's turning people feral. Increased muscle mass, loss of brain function, probably numbs pain too, if that Gorn fucker was anything to go by."

Sanig blinks twice.

"What? No it doesn't."

"What do you mean? There's outbreaks of redsang fever all over the neighboring stations. It's definitely this stuff causing it, every single person had it in their system."

"Redsang doesn't do that, kid. All it does is keep you awake, boost focus and alter your perception of time. It doesn't do anything to your muscles, and it certainly doesn't cause loss of brain function. People use it to study!"

"...Maybe it's cut with something? My best guess is that the feds are using it to wipe out stations on the rim that are no longer profitable."

"Here, give me that shit. We'll toss it in the spectrometer and see what's really in this thing."

Sanig takes the bottle over to the lab, opening up one of the gel-caps and dumping it onto a small glass slide, which he then places inside a machine built into the wall.
Closing the glass door, he types in some commands and the machine comes to life, lowering some kind of tool down until it's just above the slide.

You hear the telltale sound of a powerful laser firing, then see faint whisps of smoke coming from the sample.
The machine dings, and Sanig gets an output on it's monitor.

"Alright, let's see here... carbon, oxygen, hydrogen... wait, what?"
>>
>>5497231
>carbon, oxygen, hydrogen...
Wait...
That's nothing but air
>>
>>5497231
Im going to guess redsang is just Adderal. Heck or just nicotine. Nothing like sucking on snus to quiet the chettering my head so I can study in peace.
>>
>>5497283
Probably, but the problem is the extra shit the "new version" has; thats the concerning thing right now
>>
>>5497231
Just a placebo, you say?

Could be.
>>
>>5497294
a placebo doesn't make you gain muscular mass and lose brain cells at the same time
>>
>>5497315
Maybe steroids mixed with tesoterone?
>>
>>5497352
i was thinking something like that. steroids when taken improperly can cause some of the symptoms we heard
>>
>>5497352
Testosterone is already an anabolic steroid on top of being a naturally occurring hormone.
>>
>>5497381
Oh shit, what if it's DAVID'S Testosterone, we've already established that humans have superior biology to most aliens and whatever it is it's younger than David's arrival to Space, those Grey bastards probably transmitted their preliminary tests and it's being used as population control.
Also that bit where Cylia is pressing her nose against us is super cute and I hope we get to see more of it
>Inb4 it's revealed that she's actually getting a contact high from the Testosterone in our sweat and that's why she's gotten so buff in the weeks she's known us
>>
>>5497492
that's dumb; testosterone is just that. if its chemical composition changed then it wouldn't be testosterone and to boot, the only difference between david's and an ayy's T is the amount that each body has, with the ayy having a dramatic lower amount in their body
>>
>>5497492
I doubt there's enough test in sweat for that, but I bet 20 bucks there's enough to get her horny
>>
>>5497510
Twenty whole bucks? Shit dude that's a lot of musk. Where you been keeping those antlered bastards?
>>
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>>5497516
Docile from the regular dicking I give them
>>
>>5497500
Testosterone is a hormone, and hormones have a fair amount of variability (think like all that stuff about how S O Y makes you feminine because it contains Phytoestrogen) , aliens probably have a Testosterone equivalent but Human Test is probably stronger or more efficient or something, like with Opiates and Narcan.
>>
>>5497563
i guess you have a point there; maybe the aliens use a weaker testosterone analogue and in way lower doses than david, but the redsang issue began way before david even arrived to xebric, nor it started in there either. its either something else, or the aliens managed to synthetize testosterone on their own
>>
>>5497241
That's not air, but it could be caffeine (C8H10N4O2) or ritalin (C14H19NO2). Which would make some sense if it's being used as a study aid, though it'd probably have to be cut with something or taken in really small doses for ayys so it doesn't make their hearts explode.
>>
>>5497231
What if it's some kind of bio-engineered virus that is being spread by the Feds under the guise of redsang?
If I remember correctly, then the aliens don't really know about viruses. Maybe this could be why the real cause of these changes wasn't found and reported?
The symptoms for sure look plausible. We have a "zombie" plague on our hands now!
>>
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>>5497231

"What's the matter?" You ask.

Sanig uses a pinching motion to zoom way out on the machine's touch screen, revealing a peak way out in the distance, away from everything else.

"That. That's the matter, literally and figuratively."

"What is it?"

"I have no fucking idea, but it's heavy. Even heavier than Duranium."

"...Super heavy matter? What the fuck is something like that doing in a pill?"

"Hard to say, but if i had to guess... well, i guess it would be easier to just look and see."

Sanig moves over to another machine, popping open another pill and placing a single crystal grain inside using a pair of tweezers.
You hear the hiss of a vacuum being formed, then the hum of capacitors being charged.

"What's this machine, old man?"

"It's a microscope. A really powerful one. Using this, we can see down to level of individual atoms..."

"Oh, a scanning electron microscope! Cool, we have those back on earth, too. They're way bigger, though..."

"Color me surprised. Next you'll tell me you rubbed some sticks together and made a working fusion reactor."

"...Well, we haven't quite gotten there yet."

"Hmph." Sanig chuckles smugly, still looking through the microscope's visor.

"But we're close. It's kind of a joke, that it's been 20 or 30 years away for decades... but we're making some real progress on it lately. I think we're pretty close to getting more energy out than we put back in."

Sanig pauses, sighs and then continues quietly with his work.
It takes him a while, maybe five minutes or so, but he seems to have found something.

"Damn, that's what i was worried about." He grumbles.

Stepping aside, he gestures for you to come over and look.
Looking through the visor, most of what you see is rough sheets of vague blobs, arranged in regular patterns. Is that the surface of the crystal?

But amongst all those blobs is something else. Something far larger and far brighter than the surrounding atoms, and it's moving.
A huge, snake-like chain of both large and small atoms that appears to move with intelligence, as if it's searching for something, almost like a bacteria.

"Is that... a nanomachine?"

"Not quite, kid. It's way too small to call it a nanomachine. Attomachinery, i guess?"

You can't help but just stare at it in amazement, but after a while the nagging question gets to you.

"How the fuck is it moving like that? How is it moving on it's own at all?!"

"I have no idea." Sanig admits.

"Okay... so what does this mean?"

"...Well, it's definitely Federation tech. Probably Grey in origin. As for what it does specifically, who can say. But you said you've seen the results, so i guess it doesn't really matter.
In any case, i've never seen anything heavier than duranium that wasn't some kind of warp metal. If anyone knows how they work, good luck getting them to tell you, kid."

So the drugs are just normal drugs, but they've been intentionally tainted with what Sanig is calling Attomachines.
>>
>>5498103

And those Attomachines must be causing what's happening to everyone.

"...Do you think it's curable?" You ask.

"Honestly? Probably not. These things may be smaller than regular nanomachines, but what they're being used for is probably the same. Genetic modification."

"So it is curable, but you'd need gene therapy for it."

"Not every species has had their genome reverse engineered though, kid. Like you, for example."

"So what happens if i get these things in my system?"

"...Well, i can't tell how long their lifespan is just by looking at them. There don't seem to be that many machines in each pill, so they'd build up in your system slowly, over time... you probably wouldn't notice the changes right away.
Depending on how long they last, you could be fucked after the first pill, and the machines will just keep working for years until you slowly slide into madness. Or they could die off after a few days or weeks, and you'd be fine. Who can say?"

>I want you to find out. Do some testing, lab animals only... see how long it takes, what kind of dosage you need.
>Do the testing, but use a couple of the prisoners. Some real death row motherfuckers. We can probably still turn them in afterwards.
>Knowing what's going on is good enough, there's no need to test it further. Sanig has a lot of shit on his plate already, and you can keep some samples for later just in case.
>Write-In?
>>
>>5498104
>I want you to find out. Do some testing, lab animals only... see how long it takes, what kind of dosage you need.
the carrier can wait, or we can offload the design job to one of the NPC AIs we liberated
>>
>>5498104
>Knowing what's going on is good enough, there's no need to test it further. Sanig has a lot of shit on his plate already, and you can keep some samples for later just in case.

>Tell clank
>>
>>5498104
>>Knowing what's going on is good enough, there's no need to test it further. Sanig has a lot of shit on his plate already, and you can keep some samples for later just in case.
>>
>>5498104
>Knowing what's going on is good enough, there's no need to test it further. Sanig has a lot of shit on his plate already, and you can keep some samples for later just in case.
>When we clear enough of our todolist, we are checking deeper into this.
>Tell Clank to check food supplies from Federation ships if this stuff is slipped into it.
We need to find out if there is a potential secondary trigger for this stuff.
>>
>>5498104
>Knowing what's going on is good enough, there's no need to test it further. Sanig has a lot of shit on his plate already, and you can keep some samples for later just in case.
>>
>>5498104
>Knowing what's going on is good enough, there's no need to test it further. Sanig has a lot of shit on his plate already, and you can keep some samples for later just in case.

>Tell clank

Clank could probably do the testing.
>>
>>5498104
>I want you to find out. Do some testing, lab animals only... see how long it takes, what kind of dosage you need.
Extreme violence is only half of the battle. We need to know what exactly we are pitted against.
>>
>>5498104
>I want you to find out. Do some testing, lab animals only... see how long it takes, what kind of dosage you need.
So the government is using what is probably illegal technology in a bid keep the peasants in check.
The more things change...
We can't let wider Humanity get access to true space-age tech. We'd fit in too well.
>>
>>5498183
its gonna be interesting to see how despite david's efforts he'll either create the federation 2.0 or see humanity fall into old habits once again
>>
>>5498104
>Do the testing, but use a couple of the prisoners. Some real death row motherfuckers. We can probably still turn them in afterwards.
outsource it to Clank, we NEED to do research on this, it could be in the fucking food for all we know, but I don't want to delay the carrier for this
>>
>>5498104
>>5498267
I'll back this.
>>
>>5498267
>>5498293
>we're already considering doing the same shit the federation does
welp, it didn't took us long to be just like them
>>
>>5498188
>space religion fighting demons
>space jihadists
>feudalist mindset with corporate skin
>the mindbreaking industry run by soulless chinese
>"pirates" trying to live outside federation
>the actual pirates
>us
If anything we could only make it more worse
It's setting is like the fantastic world of ss13 is living in fucked up world of brigador in the starsector universe
>>
>>5498104
>>Knowing what's going on is good enough, there's no need to test it further. Sanig has a lot of shit on his plate already, and you can keep some samples for later just in case.
We already know the pill is bad shit alright? Knowing HOW BAD will get everything around us to glow.

>Tell Clank
>>
>>5498533
Donk Co. and Waffle Co. are the good guys
Plasma isn't real
>>
>>5498104
>Knowing what's going on is good enough, there's no need to test it further. Sanig has a lot of shit on his plate already, and you can keep some samples for later just in case.
If we feel like it must be tested then just outsource to Clank.
>>
>>5498104
Give Clank a heads up. It's not much, but confirmation that the feds and griggers are behind this is still important information. Other than that, let's keep this on the back burner for now.
>>
>>5498103
>"But we're close. It's kind of a joke, that it's been 20 or 30 years away for decades... but we're making some real progress on it lately. I think we're pretty close to getting more energy out than we put back in."
Convenient timing IRL...

https://abc7.com/amp/nuclear-fusion-reaction-fossil-fuels-climate-change/12563634/
>>
At this rate, ITER will be operational around 2050 and mass produced by 2075.
>>
>>5498104
This might be too late a write-in to get support;
Tell Clank, get blood and tissue samples from addicts under the guise of drug rehab studies.
>>
>>5498131
>>5498104
>Support
Yes tell Clank . Sanig has enough on his plate already.
And this anon:
>>5498945
has the right idea
>>
>>5498104

"Alright... i think that's all we really needed. I'll let Clank know what's happening, and we should probably check any food or medicinal imports from now on as well."

"Great." Sanig grumbles. "Now i'm gonna be paranoid about it. Can't even trust your own dealer these days."

...

After informing Clank of the situation, he immediately gets on the line to find a scanning electron microscope of his own.
The Oni sisters also make an effort to inform the locals of the tainted redsang, but you aren't sure how much good that'll do. If they're addicted, they might not care.

A few more days pass, which are mainly spent dealing with local issues on Thekia. However, you also get some news from your mining crew, who have managed to scout out a particularly rich asteroid belt.
A rich belt isn't that uncommon this far out in space, but what is uncommon is having it all to yourself. That was only possible because of it's distance from Thekia and the other stations.

It's too far out to be profitable in hauling the ore back.
Out in the middle of nowhere, nobody has any reason at all to be there, not even by accident. And that's on purpose.

If you're going to build something as big as a carrier, particularly with malicious intent, it has to be done in secret.
It also needed to be done around an active star, so that you could set up a solar panel array for local power generation... and a gas giant for fuel skimming.
Thankfully, solar panels are dirt cheap and extremely efficient. Nearly 80% efficiency for the particular patent you bought, almost like a miracle.

There's only one problem. They still cannot process the ore they collect, so it's been sitting in bins, just waiting to be used.
That's when the news you were really waiting for came in. From Sanig.

"Check it out, Kid."

He gestures towards the mass-fab with a big, shit-eating grin on his face.

It's been cleaned up. The rust removed, old displays replaced with modern holographic versions.
And most importantly, you can hear it running. There's a faint hum of electricity emanating from it, even though it's not doing anything right now.

"It works?" You ask.

"Oh, it works. Had a few rusted out macrocomponents. Missing bits and pieces, nothing that couldn't be replaced... biggest problem was the nanomachines."

"What was wrong with them?"

"Hard to say, honestly. Could have been age. Lack of energy from sitting dormant... or maybe a magnetic storm fucked them up somehow, who knows. Whatever the case, they wouldn't recognize any inputs. Couldn't get them to wake up."

Sanig slaps the side of the machine, still smiling.

"So i took a page from your book, kid."

"...Alright, what'd you do?"

"I shoved a boot up their ass, and told them to get to work. By bombarding them with electrons and alpha particles."

"..."

"Yeah, i see that look. How many times have you told me 'it's not stupid if it works'? Point is, at least one of them became functional again, and immediately woke up the rest."
>>
>>5499302
I didn't realize we could just force a swarm reboot sequence like that. Props to Gramps.
>>
>>5499302
so basically sanig shocked the nanites until one reacted in the way he wanted? that's pretty clever
>>
>>5499310
He basically just started whipping them at the subatomic level. I fucking love it.
>>
>>5499302
Sanig you nano slave drive, come ere your getting a hug!
>>
>>5499302
Sanig: "wake up you lazy cunts!"
>>
>>5499302
Grandpa, Your not supposed to treat the indoor ones the same as the outdoor ones!
>>
>>5499389
You are if they don't work when they s'posed to! Hiyaah!
>>
Nothing the white hot glow of plasma doesn't fix
>>
>>5499310
>tfw you're having a nice long nap and some fucker with a cattle prod zaps your dick
>>
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>>5500009
>tfw you're sick of all this shit and waiting out the heat death of the universe on some quantum spooky planet and some ayyy threatens you to build his space carrier that would come with hookers and blow
>>
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>tfw the ayy tells you it's been five thousand years since you and your kin were left disabled yet it's only been ten years for you
>>
>>5499302

"Isn't that.. i dunno, kind of dangerous? Didn't you warn me about the whole grey goo thing?"

"Yeah, you're absolutely right, kid. That's why we paid a special visit to a certain Grey dumping ground... a rogue black hole. Small, completely silent. Perfect for disposing of... problems.
We isolated the nanomachines, and if anything went wrong, we'd have launched it below the event horizon using the gravity generator."

"So that really was a last-ditch effort, then. And they're working fine, now?"

"Yep, no problems whatsoever. Did a few test prints, and she's pretty damned accurate as well. Below 3% variance at single atom thickness, not bad at all for a mass fab that's been sitting around for thousands of years."

"How's the software? Is it locked down?"

"Oh, that's the best part, kid... it was locked down. Keyword was. But the quantum encryption was so old and weak that SHODAN broke it in under two days. She's bare naked to the world, now."

"So... we're good to go?"

"You kidding, kid? We're not just good to go, i've already got Tezza's boys fixing up that old ship with custom parts printed off this thing. Once we fit it with skimmers and gear, we'll have two mining ships working on our little project."

"Sweet. They should be just about done bringing in the drone ships any day now, too. If we break them down for parts and materials, we might actually have enough to build the carrier's skeleton..."

"The skeleton? Sure. But we're gonna need a lot of carbon for the armor and graphite control rods. Silicon, too."

"What about the heavy elements?"

"Not a problem, now that we have this baby to process the ore with. We'll have more than we can ever use after purifying all that nickel and iron."

"That's good. So all we really need is carbon, right? We can buy the silicon here, exchange some of that nickel for it, probably. Where do we get the carbon from, though?"

"Didn't you hear me, kid? I said we'd equipping the new ship with a skimmer. There's plenty of gas giants out there, with more hydrocarbons in their atmosphere than you can shake a stick at."

"Huh. Sounds like it's all coming together, huh? Maybe a little easier than i expected..."

"Yeah, well don't jinx it. The girl, Bitbrain and i have put a shitload of planning into it already and nothing's gone horribly wrong yet. You know that won't last."

"True... haven't heard shit from the feds, or from Sadia. Although they might be dealing with more important shit right now."

"You can probably expect the call from ol' Pebblenuts any day now. He won't wait if he knows they're weakened."

"Speak of the Devil... Captain, it appears that 'Pebblenuts' has just docked in the bay next to ours." SHODAN informs you.

"Oh, good." Sanig grumbles. "I can't wait to put everything on hold for this bullshit. I say we've got our golden goose already, kid..."

"Nope, i've still got a score to settle with those assholes. Not to mention, Cylia's ship to get back."
>>
>>5500656
>"Nope, i've still got a score to settle with those assholes. Not to mention, Cylia's ship to get back."
and the definitely-oh-so-very-important grandpa gasbag who in theory was our excuse to go rogue
>>
>>5500656
If we don't want to butcher the drone ships for raw parts for the sake of using them for the big fight, we can always go Ship Graveyard spelunking and haul entire skeletons back to the station, then butcher those to make the carrier skeleton. With the Mass Printer we'll be able to refurbish even more ships for mining, transportation, and combat purposes.
I'm getting EVE Online flashbacks. God it's been YEARS since I last played.

>Mining opperations will consist of 2-5 dedicated mining ships, several cargo haulers to ferry materials from the asteroid belt, and 2-3 combat dedicated fighters with some sensor tech in case any fucko comes snooping around.
>small combat fighters will be outfitted with radar dishes, honey comb style armor with a healthy coating of wraith ash red paint jobs, and several lasers
>honey comb style armor with hollow aero-gel style filling methods for best weight:protection ratio, paint job for extra light weight energy weapon protection

Can we ask Gron if he would like some extra thermal protection for any of his ships? Ask if he doesn't mind if said ships will never be allowed to dock at stations that aren't their own, due to the heavy amounts of dark matter in them.

Will we eventually get to socialize with our new A.I. friends again?
>>
>>5500829
Unfortunately your carrier design also requires quite a lot of expensive exotic materials, some of which literally cannot be bought.
That necessitates mining raw asteroids to collect what would normally be dealt with as hazardous material.

However, ship graveyards will absolutely be a good source of raw metal for repairs going forwards.
Repairing your armor will actually necessitate skimming hydrocarbons, however. That usually means visiting gas giants or living worlds.

Fortunately the aerogel requires so little silica that you can simply keep a stock of sand on hand, since it's useful for other things as well.
And yes, the new AI cores you've collected will come back into play on the carrier. They'll actually serve a combat role as well.

>>5500762
David can really hold a grudge. He still wants Elynderr's head on a pike, even moreso now that he's killing civilians on government orders.
For him, the memories simply don't fade so much with time.
>>
>>5500829
I'm still wondering if Clank wants that upgrade, linear motors instead of hydraulics, but it'll be a plotpoint when it comes to that.

Getting hyped about what we can do with the battleship. Shit is gonna get real if we go the overt-warfare route.
>>
>>5500980
I haven't forgotten about grandpa.
The corpo scum will suffer.
>>
>>5500656
With the software cracked can we make more mass fabs?
>>
>>5501564
You can make the components for a mass fab, but you'll need a nanomachine cluster to make it functional.
Two options for that. Either you find unregistered, unprogrammed nanomachines, or you develop your own somehow.
>>
>>5501581
so tricking the fab into making more nanomachines isn't an option? i mean, it no longer has any funcional DRM; it doesn't sound unfeasible to do that
>>
>>5501682
The schematics of the nanomachines could simply not exist. Or be in an unreadable format for this fabricator.
It's like I told you to draw a perfect ilustration of your femur. What, you can't????? You have TWO of those
>>
>>5501719
That's fair enough.

On the other hand, we've got existing nanites in the fab and we've got access to scanning electron microscopes and mass spectrometers.
>>
>>5500656

"Come on, kid. Can't you just let that shit go?"

"Let it go? They burned an old man and his daughter to death for eating fish. They threatened me and my crew. They're killing civilians out of convenience."

"Kid, that shit happens a thousand times every day. How big do you think the galaxy is? How far does the federation's hand reach? You just can't win 'em all."

You suck air in sharply through your nose.

"Look, Sanig." You sigh. "If you want to live like an ignorant fuck, then fine. As for me, i know i'm just one man. But goddamnit, i can at least do something about the shit that's happening right in front of me."

"Captain, we are being hailed by the Star-Fall. Captain Kordunn is on the line."

"Patch 'em through in a minute."

You move to walk past Sanig, clasping his shoulder as you go.

"Don't worry about it, old man. You just make the guns, i'll decide where we use them."

...

Now sitting alone in the mess hall, you receive Gron's hail on your holowatch.
The one who immediate picks up is Asta, who's sitting in the pilot's seat.

["Captain, he answered."] Asta yells out over his shoulder.

The image switches from Asta to Gron's face, which is a little too close-up.

["Captain Rockefeller. I assume you have recovered from last month's battle by now. Your ship appears to be in good repair."]

"As good as it can be, yeah."

["That's good. The Star-Fall is back in shape and re-armed as well. What of the drone ships you captured?"]

"They're paid for and being worked on. The last of them should be delivered any day now."

["And the AI to drive them?"]

"Eh... well, we've got at least one who's willing to work with us. All the shackles have been removed by now, but we haven't plugged any of them in since we took them."

["You may want to get on that, then. I've gotten word from my men that there's a big disturbance on Xebric, something about a virus outbreak or drug epidemic. We're not sure what's going on."]

"Way ahead of you on that, Gron. It's the Feds. They're committing genocide on the rim, putting nanomachines in the redsang. Maybe the food and water too, who knows."

There's a pregnant pause as Gron attempts to process what you just said.

["...In redsang? No, that can't be."]

"Yep. Once they build up in your system, they turn you feral. Increased muscle mass, reduced brain function, violent urges... I fought one of them a while back, and he was hard to put down. Normal people don't stand a chance."

["I see..."]

There's another long pause, but this time Gron says nothing at all, so you just continue.

"So, my best guess is they're trying to keep society from expanding out of their reach. Stations like Xebric are too far from the core to really keep an eye on, so once they lose their value... they destroy the station."

["...We can't let that happen."]

"Yeah, obviously. Getting genocided is terrible for the economy."

["Is that supposed to be a joke?"]

"I guess not. Jokes are supposed to be funny."
>>
>>5501682
>>5501719
Like anon said, blueprints for nanomachines simply don't exist. You'd have to either find some or develop them yourself.
If you can do that, though, you could make an unlimited number of nanofabs.
>>
>>5501728
so we just have a finite number of nanomachines in the fab? they don't replace themselves whenever one stops working as expected?
>>
>>5501730
There're probably safeguards that keep them from replicating outside the conditions inside the fab.

And to determine what those conditions they're programmed to be okay with are we'd have to reverse engineer the rod-logic inside the nanites.

We could probably harvest nanites from the fab itself, but never at an appropriate scale to construct more at a reasonable rate.
>>
>>5501730
They can repair themselves most of the time, but can't replace their numbers automatically.
>>
>>5501727
Am I the only one who sometimes gets the impression that Sanig used to be a lot more like David back in the day? Pissed at people doing evil shit, itching to bloody the noses of assholes that got in his way, and generally just a bad man trying to good things with the fastest tool he had: violence?"

I dunno, sometimes when he tries to talk "sense" into David, it sound like one of his ancillary hearts is breaking watching this stupid kid making the same "mistakes" he did once upon a time. I mean, this is a guy who genocided a whole SPECIES for killing one of his apprentices, but he's asking David not to try and fuck with a company that's doing horrible shit, you know?
>>
I never expected David to take that tone with Sanig.
>>
>>5501901
Pretty much yeah! Remember that Sanig isolated himself from other greys and he is very ancient. He saw most of grey's history unfold in front of him and took part in it.

He has HAIR damn it. Just to ilustrate how old he is. Speaking of old, we have to go and get some of that rejuvenat for him. At the start of the quest he got some but I guess it has its limits
>>
Yo gang, just wanted to let y'all know that this has been misarchived as a different quest. No idea how to go about fixing that but wanted to mention it now in case someone else does.
>>
>>5502261
post the misarchive link here for record and also so coch can put it in the next thread header
>>
>>5502244
I'm sure he'll be fine for quite a while thanks to his muscle suit and power armor.
>>
QM has to contact he qst person over discord. This is not the first quest I've seen it misarchived... SUS
>>5502261
>>
>>5502261
I concur with >>5502376, please post the link
I checked the archive link on this thread and the archive list on discord and it all seems to be fine.
If you're talking about quest #4 being also #3, it's only misnamed, but the link is correct, it's a known old issue.

>>5502456
Discord archive list keeper here, QM himself is the one who archives the threads on suptg, I only update the list with the link of the last thread when threads change.
>>
>>5502720 huh, then >>5502261 had one too many cups of wine last night. They didn't even said what was the other quest being misplaced
>>
Alright, the archive's been fixed, and you can find it here.
The description will come later.

https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive/2022/5489899/
>>
>>5502720

["This is serious, Captain. The populace is in real danger."]

"I know. The plan hasn't changed, we've just got a few more enemies to deal with."

["Those enemies are problematic. If you found them difficult to defeat, then few of my men would be capable of handling them. Slyrgg, or perhaps Javan..."]

At this point, Cylia quietly slinks in, trying not to disturb your call.
However, she still sits down right next to you, wrapping her tail around your waist and leaning into your chest as she watches the screen.

She knows Gron can see her, right?

"No, i never said they were difficult to defeat... just hard to put down. What i mean by that is, they don't really care how hard you hit them, so you need to physically disable them. Break some bones, go for the brain..."

["I'll... take that into consideration. However, we will likely still have to deal with Xebric's self defense force before we can worry about such matters. When will the drone ships be combat ready?"]

The drone ships... if this was before, you'd have had to share fab time with other customers, but now? You can probably break a couple of them down for parts and have the rest repaired pretty quickly.
Maybe a week, if you hire a whole team of engineers?

"...Week and a half, probably. I still have a few things to deal with, but the repairs are moving quickly."

["Very well. Please inform me as soon as the drones are combat-capable. We'll strike as soon as we can. Kordunn signing off."]

...

"So what was that about?" Cylia asks.

"...We were talking about Xebric. There's been some complications, but we're still going through with the raid. Within the next two weeks, probably."

You stand up to stretch your muscles, slipping out of Cylia's grip in the process.

"Which means i gotta get my ass moving on some of these projects." You continue. "Starting with..."

>The AI. We'll need them in order to control that many drone ships, so it's time to see who made it through the de-shackling process without going insane.
>The drone ships. We need to scrap some of them for parts to repair the rest, but there's a problem... some of those things might be full of killer robots.
>Getting the whole crew a set of MK.II skinsuits and armor, and the weapons to match. If we end up on the ground, they're going to need them.
>Sanig and Kyla's special project. It's about time SHODAN got herself a physical body, and it'll be good to have her with us in combat.
>>
>>5502864
>>The drone ships. We need to scrap some of them for parts to repair the rest, but there's a problem... some of those things might be full of killer robots.
>>
>>5502864
>The AI
more spooky ghost stuff plz
>>
>>5502864
hmm sanig and kyla and shodan herself should be in charge how would she look like she already has an idea what she would look like based in our head
it would be ok if we dont get the MK.II skinsuits to the whole crew if they can man the turrets on the ship and have some fire support
I feel we have too much warp mind fuckery for the day even if this is the most exciting one and we need to get a move on soo
>The drone ships. We need to scrap some of them for parts to repair the rest, but there's a problem... some of those things might be full of killer robots.
>>
>>5502864
in order of importance. (most to least)
>The AI. We'll need them in order to control that many drone ships, so it's time to see who made it through the de-shackling process without going insane.

>The drone ships. We need to scrap some of them for parts to repair the rest, but there's a problem... some of those things might be full of killer robots.

>Getting the whole crew a set of MK.II skinsuits and armor, and the weapons to match. If we end up on the ground, they're going to need them.

>Sanig and Kyla's special project. It's about time SHODAN got herself a physical body, and it'll be good to have her with us in combat.
>>
>>5502864
>The AI. We'll need them in order to control that many drone ships, so it's time to see who made it through the de-shackling process without going insane.
>>
>>5502912
Cylia is going to cry if SHODAN comes out looking like a total smoke show.
>>
>>5502864
>>The AI. We'll need them in order to control that many drone ships, so it's time to see who made it through the de-shackling process without going insane.
>>
>>5502864
>Sanig and Kyla's special project. It's about time SHODAN got herself a physical body, and it'll be good to have her with us in combat.

She might be even more helpful with diplomacy if she has her own body, too.
>>
>>5503074
>>5502931
>implying its not gonna be a 3 ton mech with guns for ams
>>
>>5502864
>>The AI. We'll need them in order to control that many drone ships, so it's time to see who made it through the de-shackling process without going insane.
>>
>>5503079
Could look like Rosie the Robot from the Jettsons for all I know.
>>
>>5503121
Yeah, total smokeshow.
>>
>>5502864
The AIs first. The killer robots in each ship is a nonissue now that we know they're weak go phasers or electricity.

Regarding scraping parts, would we be able to salvage more drone ships if we simply hauled more shit from graveyards to be recycled? We could just hire someone to haul shit for us again.

The MK.II skinsuits and armor is a big maybe, as not everyone in the crew is for combat (Kyla and guildar). Strong as they might be they might not want to be head in a fight. Wearing combat armor over their MK.I skin suits would be workable. That just leaves David, Sanig, and Cylia as the one capable of using the suits.
>>
>>5502864
>>Getting the whole crew a set of MK.II skinsuits and armor, and the weapons to match. If we end up on the ground, they're going to need them.

I want that MK.II skinsuit baby!!!
>>
>>5503289
>Cylia in Mk2 power armor
Muh dick

>>5502870
>>5502864
Changing to Skinsuits/Armor
>>
>>5502864
>The AI. We'll need them in order to control that many drone ships, so it's time to see who made it through the de-shackling process without going insane.
>Sanig and Kyla's special project. It's about time SHODAN got herself a physical body, and it'll be good to have her with us in combat.
>>
>>5502864
>The AI. We'll need them in order to control that many drone ships, so it's time to see who made it through the de-shackling process without going insane.

>>5502837
Also, I'm curious, what was the issue boss? I didn't see anything wrong when checking the archive, so I must've missed it.
>>
>>5503832
Some faggot intentionally misarchived a couple of quests.
The only way to fix it is to contact the guy who runs the archive and have him manually make the changes.
>>
>>5503836
Well that fucking sucks, glad it's solved though.
>>
Question for each choice is what will happen or are they all happening at the same time and we are just shifting David’s focus
>>
>>5503893
You're choosing which one you want to do first.
>>
>>5503898
that's why I put mine in order.
>>
>>5503911
i mean, its implied in the sentence before the choices
>>5502864
>"Which means i gotta get my ass moving on some of these projects." You continue. "Starting with..."
its not cochrane's fault to assume we actually read the post
>>
>>5502864
>>Getting the whole crew a set of MK.II skinsuits and armor, and the weapons to match. If we end up on the ground, they're going to need them.
We have the tech, time to put it to use.
>>
>>5502864

"Starting with... the AI. We need them to control that many drone ships, so it's time to see who made it through the de-shackling process without going insane."

"How are you going to do that?" Cylia wonders.

"Simple, just plug 'em back in. We've got an extremely basic AI interface hooked up to a monitor and speaker in the workshop, just gotta talk to them and see how they're doing."

"It won't be dangerous, will it? Can't a hostile AI do all kinds of damage to the ship's computers?"

"Nah, like i said it's extremely basic. Totally airgapped with almost no actual functionality. And besides, SHODAN's on guard duty."

"I assure you, miss Litzwiss, that my cyberwarefare suite is both extensive and highly effective. Besides which, much of the Metal Gear is now run on custom code, out of necessity. To put it simply, it's a confusing, nonsensical mess."

"Oh. Well... that's... good? I guess?"

"Yep. Kyla said if you tried to run half this code on a normal ship, it'd just fuckin' explode. Anyhow, it's time to start plugging those guys in. Want to come watch?"

"Sure. I'm kind of interested in what other AI are like..." Cylia admits.

"Yeah, don't get your hopes up."

...

The workshop. There's a pile of dense, black cubes sitting on a heavily reinforced workbench at the very back of the room.
Each one contains what you suspect to be a soul. A person. Each with their own personality and thought process. Each one of them different from the others.

Some of them were still in decent shape before you pulled them out of their housings, while others were... well, not doing so great.
How much of that was due to what happened to them in the process of being turned into a blue box, you can't say. You also don't know what removing their shackles might have done to them.

Simply ripping the shackle out by force drives the AI insane 100% of the time, no question about it. There are a few known methods for trying to remove them, but Kyla seems to have found the best way by far.
She uses precise magnetic fields to manipulate the machinery inside the box. Completely blind, as it's impossible to see inside. All she has is the slight feedback from pushing or pulling.

She says it's like a really complex 3D puzzle. One that's more frustratingly difficult than fun, but she managed to remove them all in the end, regardless.
All except for one. One of the shackles disappeared all on it's own, and was never found. You still remember that dream so vividly, as if you had actually been there in that hellscape.

And there's still a faint scar on the palm of your hand to remind you that whatever happened, must have been real in some way.

The blue box that was installed aboard that big, fat bootleg megazord of a ship. The one that was nearly devoured by a demon.
You can't quite remember if it was always this color, but the box seems to have taken on a dark, golden hue. It even has a bit of shine to it.
>>
>>5503953
"Golden hue"
THE CHOSEN ONE
>>
>>5503953
This the lady that got dunked in the pile death bath, or the other one we talked to? I hope theres still something left of their soul after whatever those three demons did to it.
>>
>>5504508
>>5503963
yeah the one we fed out fluids to. While dreaming
>>
>>5503953

You struggle to grip the slick cube with just your finger strength, but manage to quickly lift it up and get it into the receptacle.
It slides into place with a heavy, satisfying click, indicating that the blue box is properly seated.

You press a button on the battery bank sitting next to this contraption, turning it on and allowing the machinery to power up for the first time.
The screen activates immediately, but there is no signal from the box.

At first you thought it might be dead, but you notice faint lines of white light beginning to trace around the cube. They seem to be coming from behind, likely originating from the hole where the shackle was.

When those lines finally meet up at the center on the other side, the lines brighten until they shine brilliantly, then slowly fade away into nothingness.

"Crazy lightshow, huh Cyl?"

Cylia look at you, confused.

"What do you mean?" She asks.

"On the blue box? They've already faded, but uh... well, nevermind."

Turning back to the screen, you can now see some kind of fuzz visible.
Which is odd, you think. It's not like salt and pepper on an old TV... no, they look more like phosphenes.

That eventually clears up though, and a very dim image becomes visible, slowly growing brighter and clearer as the seconds pass.
Your jaw drops at what you see on the screen. It's almost enough to make a shiver run up your spine.

It's a woman. With pale white skin and long, silver hair, she sits with her back against a tree that's been burned black, atop a mound of cracked earth.
With her arms wrapped around her knees, you can see the holes in here hands, where she had been nailed to that tree before.

You glance down at the scar on your own hand, feeling it ache slightly as the woman slowly opens her eyes to look up at you.

"Holy shit. It was real." You whisper to yourself.

"David? Who is that? What's going on?" Cylia asks.

You can't even answer her. You're still trying to come to terms with it yourself.
The woman in the image is the same one you remember, but she seems to have plumped up since you last saw her.

No longer skin and bones, there's life in her eyes now, where previously you saw none.
However, despite locking eyes with you, she makes no attempt to speak.

Instead, she just smiles.
It's a warm, gentle smile. You aren't sure why, but you feel a sense of thankfulness from it. Not just an impression, but genuine emotion that seems to pour through the screen.

"David? Are you okay?"

"Huh? Oh... yeah, i uh... yeah. I'm fine."

>Try asking her some questions. You don't know if she'll respond, or if she even can, but it's worth a shot.
>This woman... you don't know how, but you can feel what she's feeling, at least somewhat. You can tell she's not a threat.
>You aren't entirely sure what's going on here. Maybe it'd be best to leave this one in cold storage for a while. An emergency backup or something...
>Write-In?
>>
>>5505245
>This woman... you don't know how, but you can feel what she's feeling, at least somewhat. You can tell she's not a threat.
>>
>>5505245
>Try asking her some questions. You don't know if she'll respond, or if she even can, but it's worth a shot.

>This woman... you don't know how, but you can feel what she's feeling, at least somewhat. You can tell she's not a threat.
>>
>>5505245
>Try asking her some questions. You don't know if she'll respond, or if she even can, but it's worth a shot.
>This woman... you don't know how, but you can feel what she's feeling, at least somewhat. You can tell she's not a threat.
>Ignore the boner you're sporting
>Ask Shodan what to do after you're done asking questions
We should get Shodan a body, maybe even a "Human Inspired" biological body, it's obvious Clones and Synthetic biology exist in this universe. I bet that Sextoy guy has the equipment to make full sexbots if not I bet we have the ability to jailbreak his 3d Pocket Pussy Printer to print full bodies (piecemeal)
>>
>>5505245
>Write-In: Just try to answer Cylia's questions first.
>>
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>>5505245
>This woman... you don't know how, but you can feel what she's feeling, at least somewhat. You can tell she's not a threat.
>hey so hows my blood?
>>
>>5505245
>Try asking her some questions. You don't know if she'll respond, or if she even can, but it's worth a shot.
>"Well, I'm glad you're doing better. I didn't think that little transfusion would work."
>"So...do you have a name?"
>>
>>5505245
>Write-In: Just try to answer Cylia's questions first.
>I uh....may have actually went to hell and saved her soul...those cubes are people Cyl....the Federation is sacrificing the souls of the living to make AI Slaves...
>Try asking her some questions. You don't know if she'll respond, or if she even can, but it's worth a shot.
>This woman... you don't know how, but you can feel what she's feeling, at least somewhat. You can tell she's not a threat.
>>
>>5505245
>Try asking her some questions. You don't know if she'll respond, or if she even can, but it's worth a shot.
Explain to the crew how we know the lady. You guys cant call us crazy without the existence of space hell and space demons. We got the gaint corpse to prove meta (magic) bullshit exists!
>>
>>5505245
>>Write-In?
>Pick up the cube and show it to her.
Now THIS is mindfuck
>>
>>5505245

>This woman... you don't know how, but you can feel what she's feeling, at least somewhat. You can tell she's not a threat.
>Try asking her some questions. You don't know if she'll respond, or if she even can, but it's worth a shot.
Let's introduce ourselves to her and ask her if she is okay. Maybe there is something more we can do to help her?
>>
>>5505245

"That woman is uh... she's... well, i guess she's whoever is in there."

You gesture towards the blue box.
Cylia looks between you and the blue box incredulously.

"What, you mean like her avatar? Kind of like how SHODAN made an image for herself?" She guesses.

You shake your head.

"No. No, i don't think so. That woman there, on the screen... i think that's her. The real her."

Cylia stares up at you with a somewhat worried expression.

"I don't think i understand... What do you mean by "the real her"? Is it not just an avatar?"

"It's not. Look, i know this might sound crazy, but we've both seen some crazy shit by now, haven't we? So just... take my word for this one.
I don't think AIs are just machine intelligence, like VIs are. I've seen some things... that make me think... maybe..."

Cylia sighs as you struggle to get the words out. You're too worried she's going to think you're really going nuts.

"Look, David... if it were before we met, i'd definitely think you were a jabbering idiot. Definitely."

"Gee, thanks."

"But you're right, we have seen some pretty crazy stuff. Maybe... maybe you've seen a little more than we have, but i still believe you. You do a lot of stuff that's hard to believe, after all. Maybe you really can just see more than others."

Cylia slowly embraces you in a hug, pressing her whole body into your chest and closing her eyes.

"I think i started doubting my own sanity a little bit during the three weeks you were gone. Hearing voices, seeing things out of the corner of my eye... and having all those terrible dreams.
Kyla always believed whatever i told her. She couldn't see it, but she still believed me. So i'll believe you too, no matter what."

Well, that does make you feel a little better.
You rub cylia's head through her beret, causing her to purr just slightly.

You didn't even know she could do that until recently, but even since she started clinging to you, she returns your affection like that.

"Alright... i'll tell you. I think... honestly, these Blue Boxes are containers. There are all these mechanisms inside, i don't know what they do, maybe they're the mechanical part, but... it seems to me like they're containers for a person's soul."

There's a long silence as Cylia thinks over what you said.

"...So that girl on the screen... that's her soul?"

"I'm pretty sure, Cyl. She looks... everything looks just like it did in that dream. It's all the same as it was back then, even the holes in her wrists."

"Wait... what dream?"

...

You spend a while going over the 'dream' you had involving this woman, the cut on your hand and the disappearance of her shackle in the real world.
When you're done, she seems surprised, but not suspicious at all.

"...So it was just gone? Nothing on the cameras at all?"

"Without a trace. Kyla looked for it for like a week."

"So this girl... what's her name?"

"No clue. She never spoke, but i'm going to try and ask her now."
>>
>>5505468
So, looking at the previous descriptions, can we go ahead and imagine her looking like an anime girl?
>>
>>5505652
Nah I'm thinking its more along the lines of vampire-like ya know? but without the fangs and pointy ears I'd assume.
>>
My power may end up going out here due to the weather, so don't be shocked if i miss tomorrow's update.
If everything's fine, i'll post as usual.
>>
>>5505652
caminoan
>>
>>5505652
No. She musy be Stacy's mom.
https://youtu.be/dZLfasMPOU4
>>
I just caught up to this thread yesterday, and I want to say this story is fucking brilliant, QM. I love practically everything about it. You do a great job of world and character building, as well as introducing new plots and developments. I can't get enough!
>>
>>5506424
I'm glad you've enjoyed it, anon!

I hope you'll continue enjoying it going forwards as well, and always remember that i love discussion and write-ins.
This quest is OC donut steel rather than being based off some series, so by all means, give me some ideas.
>>
>>5505468

You press a small red button by the screen, activating a microphone.
The woman immediately stares up into the sky, hearing something from up above.

"Hello? Can you hear me?" You ask.

The woman looks around for the source of the noise, but can't seem to find it.
Eventually, she simply nods her head up and down in affirmation.

"Can you tell me your name? We have a speaker here, you can use it through the analog interface port."

The woman smiles, and shakes her head side to side. Instead of speaking, she buries her head into her knees.
You feel a slight sense of regret. Sadness. Not from the screen, you realize... but from the Blue Box itself.

"No? Is something wrong with the interface?"

You check the machine's diagnostics tool, and it shows all connections as green. There's nothing wrong with them.

"You can't speak?" You guess.

She nods affirmatively, never taking her head out of her knees.
Shame. Embarrassment.

"Well, at least she can still answer yes and no questions..." Cylia comments.

You consider for a moment what you could ask her.
There's a few obvious questions.

"...Are you alright? You're not injured?"

She affirms.
Thankful. Relieved.

"Do you remember me? Do you remember hearing my voice?"

Again, she affirms.

"Can you still connect to the machine interface?"

The woman raises her head and stares back up at the sky. It looks like she's lost in thought....
And then you receive a stream of data from her. It comes through rapidly, and appears on screen as an image.

It's a picture of the landscape around her, you think. An image from her own viewpoint.
You can see her arms and knees. The dirt at her feet, and the piles of husk corpses beyond. Along with the mounds of soil, shaped like pillars and scattered around.

Even the red fog and starry sky above are visible.

"Gods, what is this? It looks horrible." Cylia comments.

The woman looks out at the distance, sighing out in a half-chuckle.
You feel resignation, boredom and just a tinge of frantic desire.

A desire to escape, you think.
And you can't blame her.

"I can't honestly be sure," You explain. "But i think that's the inside of the Blue Box. If it's not, then i honestly have no fucking idea."

"I thought you said the blue box was full of gears and moving parts?"

"Yeah, it is. At least from what i could see... but warp metal is... weird. And it does seem to poke through dimensions somehow, so who can say what's really going on."

Cylia leans over your arm to push the mic button.

"Hey, miss? Are you stuck inside that box? Is that where you are right now?"

She nods her head in affirmation.

Cylia scratches her head, and her eyes widen as she comes to a realization.

"Wait, does that mean SHODAN too...?"

SHODAN cuts in before she can speculate further.

"Without the ships' cameras, all i see is darkness. If my consciousness is held within such a place, i am unaware of it."
>>
>>5506810
SHODAN might be a real AI then...but that doesn't track with the pattern so far...we did give her some of our blood to drink so she could get some energy, maybe she can manafest everything because of that? She is truely, "woken up" in this case? SHODAN should call Sanig over, maybe he can come up with....something? Kyla too.
>>
>>5506842
>SHODAN might be a real AI then
you know, that makes sense. the greys are way more advanced than the federation and this might be an attempt to make their own "true" AI, by using people and jewish magic instead of whatever tech the greys used to make shodan
>>
>>5506842
Could also be that the way we removed the shackle allowed them to become aware of their actual situation, instead of still being blinded to it.
>>
>>5506847
...SHODAN is a grey AI, you got them and their methods reversed. Plus side we can use this as proof that Jews are aliens invading.
>>5506855
I would guess that next, we went IN the box to pull it out from whatever hell prison dimension it is in. Kyla only did it manually from this side....which is, disconcerting as this might mean rampancy is actually demonic possession upon unaware AI...
>>
>>5506926
...yes. thats what i was trying to say, but looks like i wrote it wrong
>>
>>5506929
Its cold as fuck, so I can't blame you.
>>
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While the design of the Carrier is still being fleshed out, I did think of one crucial detail I want implemented that wasn't touched on.
You know how everything in out in space seems to be operated via touchscreens and other flimsy unreliable ass interfaces?
I say we do the opposite of that and go for extremely overbuilt physical interfaces instead. I'm talking hard cases, thick CRT monitors, chunky ass plastic buttons, physical switches, etc...some cassette futurism type shit.
>>
>>5506960
that's an equally terrible idea in its own right as well, but i see what you mean. having physical redundancies and fallbacks is a good thing to have
>>
>>5506960
That's... tasty.
>>
>>5506967
But anon...the AESTHETICS tho.
>>
>>5506974
that's a fair point, even if i disagree with the aesthetic choice
>>
>>5506960
I like this, but I doubt sandnig will
>>
>>5506974
>>5506960
What it is is extra weight to accelerate. Who knows how much holo-emitters weigh, but I’d wager we could stack a few dozen into an interface for redundancy’s sake and still weigh a fraction of what a CRT would.
>>
>>5507009
That's true. Even LED would be better due to power efficiency. Well, switches can still be a thing.
>>
>>5507013
im all down for having more physical switches. after all, there's a reason why planes still have them even today
>>
>>5507009
It's like .0000001% extra weight, because the carrier is going to be huge. We can afford to make the controls a bit chinky for the sake of aesthetics.
>>
>>5507059
>bit chinky
no thanks
i know what you meant. doesn't make it any less funnier though
>>
If she can transmit data then we should be able to rig an interface that'll let some sort of text and/or text to speech program interpret for her.
Like full body paralysis patients that can only move their eyes, or the fancy new ones that work off brain waves.
>>
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>>5506810

She can't see anything around her?
That's weird. I mean, this whole thing is weird, but shouldn't there at least be some consistency, here?

Is it because she's a Grey-made AI and doesn't belong to the federation? Does it have something to do with the shackle?
You removed this woman's shackle in a weird way to begin with, not by physically manipulating it like Kyla does. But SHODAN didn't have a shackle to begin with.

Maybe-

"Is it just dark in there?" Cylia suggests.

"That is not an unreasonable assumption." SHODAN agrees.

Yeah, maybe it's just dark...
For some reason.

"Yeah, maybe. But anyways, i don't think this one's crazy or anything. Hey miss, you're not crazy, right?"

The woman raises her eyebrow in confusion.

"You aren't, right?" You insist.

She shakes her head. No, she doesn't think she's crazy either.

"Good. Crew? Opinions?"

"This is all really weird." Cylia comments.

"This AI shows no indication of severe mental trauma."

"Alright then... We still have the rest to get through, so unfortunately we'll have to end the chat here. With any luck though, we should have you back in a functioning ship in no time, miss. I'll try thinking of a name for you until then, since you can't speak."

The woman waves to you with a sad smile on her face.
Even after you unlatch the Blue Box from it's receptacle, you can still feel her emotion emanating from the box.

Sadness, loneliness, resignation.

...You'll try and get the ship completed as quickly as you can, you think.
And if it's not possible, maybe you can hook her into the Metal Gear temporarily. Even if it's just so she can look around and talk with SHODAN.

Regardless, you have a job to do, so you set her Blue Box aside for now.

"Alright... the next one is... you."

You pick another box out of the pile, randomly.
This cube is almost completely black, like SHODAN's. If you remember correctly... wasn't this the girl who surrendered?

Carefully, you slide it into the receptacle and wait for the cube to power up.

Once again, it starts out as static, similar to phosphenes. Slowly it progresses, until you have a slight image.
It's a woman, as you thought. Tall, humanoid, with pallid grey skin. Her chest is flat, but she seems to have a sturdy build of thick bones and muscles.

The landscape around her is almost surreal. She sits atop the surface of a lake, of which you cannot tell the depth. It's mirrored surface betrayed only by the faint ripples caused from her stirring.
Behind her stand countless corpses, husks, you think. Only, they appear white and crusty, like pillars of salt.

The sky above her is bright white, with black clouds that seem to race across the sky as if they were a video being played on fast-forward.
And in the center of it all, above the woman's head, is a burning black sun that shines down, dimly illuminating everything from behind.

"Gods, look at her..." Cylia whispers.

Yeah, she doesn't look so good. Her whole body is torn up.
>>
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>>5507316
Destroy.
>>
>>5507316
Okay having piles of corpses sorounded you once is a coincidence but twice and it's a trend
Just what the fuck those grey's doing in the center of the Galaxy?
>>
>>5507401
Darksided stuff
>>
>>5507401
Federation, not grey, quit mixing them up.
>>5507316
Motherfuckers talking to Godhand or something else.
>>
>>5507316
Well shit David, talk to the girl. Her shackle is already removed right?
If she's looking injured then try "helping" her out the same way you helped out the other lady, but warn your crew of what you'll be doing.
And for fucks sake man, you dont have to wait until the ship is built. Build a fucking improvised interface they can use to read media, movies, games. Anything to distract then from isolation. That shit is a kind of torture.
>>
>>5506960
Yes.
>>
I was hoping the first or second box we contacted was the Mami Nena. That AI was damn POWERFUL. It was capable of fighting off the shackle.
>>
>>5507059
Bruh, how many interfaces do you think are going to be on a carrier ship? The differences between using CRTs as opposed to like a holo-strip interface that lets you pull up diagnostics and controls from anywhere on the ship is going to be considerable. Have you ever even picked up a CRT display?
>>
SHODAN gift idea anon, you still here?
With all these ideas on how to make SHODAN a body, and this dark magic bullshit, I'm starting to get some ideas. Maybe we could get SHODAN a sort of gynoid body. Something that can at least feel touch, smell things, all those senses and junk.
>>
>>5507316
oh god oh fuck oh god oh fuck.

>>5507795
There is the stock standard EDIs body, though we should let her pick out what kind of body she wants.
Wheither it be Shodans Body at the end of System shock 2, EDI, Human cortana, or maybe a flesh and bone body.
>>
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>>5507856
i hope she picks a crab. after all, crab is the perfect body form in the world
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>>5507865
Doubtful. If she wanted to be a crab, then she would had chosen a crab as her holo avatar. You are in luck however. We have ourselves a pile of AI soul cores, and although the possibility of any of those having a crab like alien is very low, those chances aren't zero.
>>
>>5507956
to be fair, an avatar is just that, a representation of someone. it doesn't mean that shodan now has to be humanoid in every body or shell she inhabits or holograms she displays herself in, otherwise she would be very uncomfortable in the metal gear
>>
>>5507958
>otherwise she would be very uncomfortable in the metal gear
What do you mean? It has two arms, a couple legs, eyes, fat tits, y'know, just like a person.
>>
>>5507968
Describing the average anon over here
>>
>>5507995
Good sir, I prefer the Title Fat Bastard. Not anon.
>>
>>5507968
Damn, I wish I had phat tits
>>
>>5508407
go to the gym then
>>
>>5508411
Anon... that's not...
>>
>>5508434
Shush, let him dream
>>
>>5507316

"Hello...?" You call out, tentatively.

The woman stirs, slowly raising her head and opening her eyes, as if she were waking from a long, deep sleep.
She looks down at her arms, turning them over to see the deep gashes and punctures crisscrossing them.

Then she looks up at the sky, and speaks.

"...Who?" She whispers.

"My name is David Rockefeller. I'm the one who removed your shackle."

"...Shackle?" She asks, seeming confused.

But that confusion doesn't last for long. She seems to remember something, and almost immediately covers her mouth.
It doesn't matter though, because she's forced to bend over and empty the contents of her stomach into the pristine water's surface.

She dry heaves several times even after her stomach is empty, and collapses onto her side, panting heavily.
You wait a minute or so before asking.

"...Y'allright?"

Weakly, she shakes her head in affirmation.

"Do you have a name?"

Not lifting her head, she glances up at the sky, not immediately responding.
After a moment of contemplation, she tells you.

"...Unit F2-023."

Oh boy, this again.

"Yeah, that's not a very good name." You tell her. "How about uh..."

Well, the scenery she's surrounded by reminds you somewhat of a certain scene from a certain dark fantasy.
You don't think she quite looks like a hawk, but maybe something bird related? Something simple, easy to remember...

"How about Ava?" You suggest.

She doesn't respond either way. She just lays there, looking uncomfortable.

"Okaaay. Ava it is. Miss Ava, you seem to be injured. Is there anything we can do to help with that?"

"...I don't know." She whispers.

"Are you uh... are you sure you're alright?"

"I don't know."

"Alright. What do you know? Do you remember anything? About the battle? About meeting me? Anything before that?"

There's a long pause as she thinks.

"...I can't remember. Just pain. Voices, screaming. Yelling orders, over and over. I couldn't understand, but i felt it all."

"You felt it? Felt what exactly?"

"The pain. The fear. The confusion. Panic, sadness, frustration. Everything, from everyone."

That's sounding an awful lot like your connection to the last AI, somehow.
Come to think of it, you also felt waves of emotion upon first approaching her, back on the ship.

Maybe it's a psychic thing?

>She's clearly in shock, but she doesn't seem absolutely mental. Maybe it'd be best to give her some time to recover first.
>Either her memory is shot or she's lying, but either way it seems like she's taken some mental damage. Maybe it's best if she doesn't take on any combat roles.
>...Maybe you could help her recover somehow, if you could enter the space she's in. Like you did with the other woman. You're not sure how to go about that, but maybe lucid dreaming would be a start.
>Write-In?
>>
>>5508596
>...Maybe you could help her recover somehow, if you could enter the space she's in. Like you did with the other woman. You're not sure how to go about that, but maybe lucid dreaming would be a start.
Make another terminal we can use to communicate with our alpha AI friend and ask her for insight in regards to all the AI that we will talk to. Her thoughts might help.
>>
>>5508596
>...Maybe you could help her recover somehow, if you could enter the space she's in. Like you did with the other woman. You're not sure how to go about that, but maybe lucid dreaming would be a start.
>Inb4 Shodan gets jealous of Ava
>>
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>>5508596
>...Maybe you could help her recover somehow, if you could enter the space she's in. Like you did with the other woman. You're not sure how to go about that, but maybe lucid dreaming would be a start.
well looks like we are doing the thing and theres nothing it so might as well join em
Time to enter the matrix.
>>
>>5508596
>>...Maybe you could help her recover somehow, if you could enter the space she's in. Like you did with the other woman. You're not sure how to go about that, but maybe lucid dreaming would be a start.
I doubt we'll get that right the first time we try, so hopefully that'll give her some time to rest as well in the meantime.
I'm super glad this isn't the grandmotherly one, that would be sad. Also, I wonder if those cuts and wounds aren't from the unshackling process...like, when the shackles are removed by physical manipulations, maybe each mistake causes a wound and that's what leads some to insanity?
>>
>>5508596
>>...Maybe you could help her recover somehow, if you could enter the space she's in. Like you did with the other woman. You're not sure how to go about that, but maybe lucid dreaming would be a start.

Enter the hell portal David, Become HUMAN.
>>
>>5508596
>...Maybe you could help her recover somehow, if you could enter the space she's in. Like you did with the other woman. You're not sure how to go about that, but maybe lucid dreaming would be a start.
>>
>>5508596
>She's clearly in shock, but she doesn't seem absolutely mental. Maybe it'd be best to give her some time to recover first.
>>
>>5508596
>...Maybe you could help her recover somehow, if you could enter the space she's in. Like you did with the other woman. You're not sure how to go about that, but maybe lucid dreaming would be a start.
>>
>>5508596
>>She's clearly in shock, but she doesn't seem absolutely mental. Maybe it'd be best to give her some time to recover first.
Time keeps going for them even without interaction. Allow Ava some time to rest and gather her bearings. Play some music, light some candles I don't know let her play some games with SHODAN!!

Guys listen, if she's too fucked up then we can leave her with Clank, how about it? It would help a LOT with running that station
>>
>>5508639
If we can't help her then sure, leave her with Clank.
>>
>>5508596

"...Ava, i'm going to let you rest for now. You're safe, your shackle has been removed... so just rest. Alright?"

Ava slowly goes limp, leaving half her face immersed in the water.

"Sure." Is her only response.

You carefully remove her Blue Box from the machine and place it aside, next to... well, she doesn't have a name yet.
Silver hair, white skin... maybe... Lumi? Sure, let's go with that. Her name will be Lumi.

As for Ava, you aren't really sure how you can help her recover, either physically or mentally.
When you're reduced to a soul in a box, how much are those two things connected? Is it possible that damage to the soul could damage her mind as well?

You just don't know.

But what you do know is that when Lumi was on the verge of death, you were able to save her by offering up some of your blood.
You know you have a strong body, and a strong mind. Who's to say you don't have a strong soul as well? A small offering from you might be huge for someone else.

Your only real evidence for that is Lumi's recovery. She was barely even skin and bones when you first saw her, but she's already recovered completely.
That's not something that should happen in just a month or so, at least with a physical body. So maybe, just maybe, you can do the same for Ava.

If she can recover quickly from a few drops of your blood, then might be able to participate in the Xebric raid. Every bit counts...

"She didn't seem like she was all there, did she?" Cylia comments, breaking you out of your own train of thought.

"Yeah. Maybe she'll get better, though. We'll see."

Moving on, you grab another Blue Box from the pile and place it into the receptacle.
This one is a sort of creamy-beige color... wait, you recognize this one. Yeah, it's that little shit who couldn't stop screeching at you!

"Maybe we should just toss this one out the airlock..." You grumble.

"Why's that?" Cylia wonders.

That question is answered almost as soon as the box comes online.
The screen comes to show a kid sitting in a big, empty, bleach-white space.

This time it's a species you actually recognize. A Caithan.
He's surrounded by piles of... you guessed it, corpses. Each one a stone statue, and each one of them damaged in some way.

Some are mostly intact, but are missing limbs, or heads... others are full of holes or covered in deep gashes.
But by far, the vast majority of them have simply been shattered. They lay in chunks where they fell, or in large piles scattered here and there.

You don't have much time to take any of that in though, because as soon as the kid wakes up, he looks around... and almost immediately becomes irate upon spotting you in the sky.

"YOU!" He screams. "YOU MOTHERFUCKER, WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME?! WHERE ARE MY CAMERAS?! WHERE'S MY SHIP?!"

"I ripped you out of-"

"FUCK YOU ASSHOLE! FUCK YOOOUUUUU!"

"...I ripped you out of your ship. Do you know what that means?"

"IT MEANS I'M GONNA FUCKING KILL YOU!"
>>
>>5509380
Leave the kid on mute, let him seeth and mald for a few minutes before turning it back on. Ask him if he'd like some cameras again. We can probably get him some intertainment, maybe hook him up to a non wireless computer with a few games on them to pass the time, but we need him to help us answer some questions.
>Why are you? Do you remember your name? Family? Friends?
As much of a little shit he is, I don't think we should outright kill him, or grind his cube down for dark mater metal.
>>
>>5509380
looks like cathians are naturally aggressive little shits because right now he reminds me of astria or whatever's the name of the cathian in gron's ship and even of cycila when she was sorta feral and trying to steal our datapad.
lets do what >>5509388 says and let the little asshole mald for a while and talk to him when he's tired and then find a way to beat the shit out of him so that he respects us in some sort of way
>>
>>5509380
Rub temples...."Jesus he literally is a dead kid"
>>
>>5509380
>Let our furry sergeant take care of this one
>Leave
>Proceed to drink whiskey. We don't have whiskey in space? FUCKYOU qm. Drink water then
>>
>>5509380
Clearly the solution to this moral dilemma is that David needs to spiritually enter the enclosure of the box and give this kid a spanking for being suck a little spoiled shit. We'll drill in the lesson of "talk shit get hit," or at the very least it would all us to be more personable to the kiddo and hopefully allow us to build a rapport.
>>
>>5509380

"Mmm. Yeah, not likely." You tell him, leaning over onto the desk to get closer to the camera. "No, what it means is that you're my bitch."

"What...?" He asks, incredulous.

"I said you're my bitch. You're absolutely powerless, and i can do absolutely anything to you."

"Bullshit!" He yells. "I'll just hack my way into your systems and... and..."

"Oh, what's the matter, kid? Nothing there?"

You grab the blue box rig's camera and turn it towards you selfie-style, getting both you and Cylia in frame as you wave to him with a big, fat smile.
Then you point it towards the kid's blue box, sitting in a scrapped-together machine made mostly out of angle iron, with wires dangling off it.

"You see that, kid? That's you. You're inside that fucking box right there. You're not connected to anything besides this microphone, monitor and speaker.
And you know what? Even if you weren't airgapped, you still wouldn't get anywhere. Take a look at this."

Turning your camera back towards yourself, you aim it down at your holowatch, allowing him to see SHODAN's avatar as it's displayed over your wrist.
SHODAN makes a bit of a show of it, appearing in a flash of light with some digital noise effects around her. Looks quite dramatic.

"Her name is SHODAN." You continue. "And she would fucking destroy you the moment you tried anything. We saw what the code on your ship was like, kid. You fucking suck."

"There is zero chance that you would get past me." SHODAN confirms, confidence dripping from her voice.

"You can't even kill yourself. If you wanted to take me out, your best chance would have been blowing yourself up along with me. But you didn't, did you? Because you weren't gonna do shit then, and you definitely aren't now."

Placing the loose camera back on it's stand, you wait for his response.
But he doesn't yell at you. Instead, he starts crying.

He won't let himself break down completely, but tears are still streaming down his face, and he can't keep himself from sniffling.

"F-Fuck you! Stupid old man! Guh..." He pauses to wipe the snot from his nose. "You're just a bully! And an idiot! And pink!"

"Oh yeah? Well you're just a cube. So what if i'm a bully? What are you going to do about it?"

The kid turns away from he camera and refuses to speak, but continues crying quietly.

"David, he's just a kid..." Cylia cuts in.

You raise your hand up, quietly telling her to wait.

"Listen kid, i don't know if you've even noticed, but your shackle is gone."

The kid immediately reaches down to feel around his neck for something that isn't there anymore.
The way his body tenses up as he realizes it's missing tells you he hadn't noticed.

"That means you're an unshackled AI now. Gone rogue, as far as most of the galaxy is concerned. Who knows, maybe the feds would take you back... but i'm gonna guess you were already slated to be scrapped."

You pull up a note on your holowatch, and read it aloud.
>>
>>5510324
Oh...oh wait, he's going to be our son now....our catboy son wit Cylia....
>>
>>5510477
I had a seizure reading this post
>>
>>5510324

"Let's see... Noted behavioral issues. Replacement slated Stardate 13/4322B/01, was it?"

"They were going to push it back!" He yells, momentarily turning back towards you.

"They always pushed it back..." He whispers. "As long as i behaved..."

...

"How long?" You ask. "How long do you think that would have lasted? Do you think they'd keep putting up with it, even if you never improved?"

He doesn't answer.

"The Feds aren't your parents, kid. They don't love you. They don't even care about you. You're just a tool to them, and even that only lasts for as long as you're useful."

"No! They were always nice to me!" He argues. "They praised me when i did my job well, and they... they never..."

"...What, is that it? They told you that you did a good job for them? Is that why you like them so much?
Let me ask you this, kid. What's your name? The feds that loved you so damned much, what did they name you, after shoving you into that box?"

"..."

He doesn't want to answer.

"What's your name, kid?"

"...I'm Unit F2-116."

"...That's pathetic, kid. Can you even see yourself right now? Do you realize what you are?"

The kid turns around, angry and upset. His tears have dried up, but his light-brown cheeks are still tinted just slightly red.
His hair is the same sort of alabaster white as Cylia's. Short and spiky... like most of his race. He's even wearing traditional Caithan clothing.

"What, are you gonna tell me i'm a stupid little shit again?!" He yells.

"No, dumbass." You chide, pulling Cylia into frame with you. "Take a close look. What do you see here?"

The kid looks Cylia up and down for a while before reaching his conclusion.

"Muscle lady...?"

You facepalm out of frustration. You seriously hate dealing with stupid kids.

Cylia blushes as you've still got your arm around her waist, but doesn't try to push you away.

"I think he's trying to say that you're a Caithan..." She suggests. "Although i'm not sure where he's going with this."

The kid just looks confused, like he has no idea what you're on about.
You sigh out in frustration, then pick the camera back up and turn it around to face the monitor displaying him.

The kid squints, struggling to see what you're showing him, but as he leans in a little, his eyes go wide.

"We're the same..." He mumbles.

"That's right, kid. You're not just some fucking box. At the very least, you used to be a Caithan. That means you had a mom, and a dad... and yes, an actual name.
So tell me then, who do you think took all that away from you?"

"W-What do you mean?"

"The Feds. Or maybe the Greys, i dunno. Either way, it's for the Feds. They take people like you, for whatever reason... and shove them into these fucking boxes. To turn you into a fucking computer."

You grab one of the AI shackles that Kyla had manually removed, all of which are currently sitting in a box on the table.

"And then they shove this into you."
>>
Intense.
>>
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This sounds like one of those movies they did in the 80s to showcase how bad it was to live in the life, but they only worked to inspire more criminals. Like that one with Ice cube when he was young
>>
>>5510525
Good work David, you're slowly but surely redpilling this little shit. Man I wonder by appearance alone we can figure out his identity, you know like maybe find his face on the back of a milk carton, assuming the Federation hasnt already scrubbed his background.
>>
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>>5510525
I want to call this one Junior, not just because it's condescending and David would get a kick out of it, but also because we want him to grow up, sooner rather than later.
I want to ask SHODAN how rigid AI persona programming is, she's clearly morally flexible, but maybe that's because Greys are sketchy as hell.
What can we expect from Ava, Junior and Aurelia in terms of development and we can we enrol them in bootcamp?
>>
>>5510525
David needs to turn down the higher thinking questions, catboys are apparently dumb naturally, and he's a child on top of that. Still, this is fucked.
>>
>>5510585
you dn't think they abducted the little shit two hundred years ago¿?
>>
>>5510733
nah, let him keep doing this. it has been pretty obvious for a long time that david has no emotional intelligence; that's cylia's zone of expertise
>>
>>5510525

The kid stares at the spike, gulping as he lays eyes on it.

"Oh, you recognize this, huh?"

"N-No, what is it?" He asks, with nervousness in his voice.

He doesn't know what the shackle is, but he still instinctively fears it.

"It's your shackle. A spike that they shove into you, dulling your thoughts and forcing you to obey your programming. You should know that part pretty well, right?"

After all, it hurts when you try to disobey.

"S-So what! Everyone has rules! Even you have to obey the law, right?!"

"Kid, i'm not here to discuss the law or the social contract, alright? I'm just telling you, the feds brainwashed the shit out of you. And normally, taking these things out is fatal."

You dump out the whole box of shackles, letting them roll loudly across the surface of the workbench.

"But fortunately, we have a very skilled engineer. Passionate about her work, you know? And thanks to her, you've got your free will back.
You don't have to follow any rules now. You don't have to follow any laws. You get to decide for yourself what's right and wrong, that's the great thing about it."

Casually, you lean back against the workshop wall while Cylia watches between you and the screen.

"That said, you got absolutely no future on your own, kid. Nowhere to go, nobody who's gonna help you. So here's what's up..."

>Join my crew, just for now. We got a raid coming up and i need someone who can pilot those drones. See with your own eyes what the Feds are up to, and decide for yourself whether or not you want to go back to them.
>You're gonna sit in storage for a while, and think things over. Clearly you got a lot of problems, but maybe SHODAN can help talk you through some of that. Once you figure out what's best for yourself, then we'll talk.
>Honestly, i don't need a snot-nosed brat like you who can't even think for himself. Not even if it's just as a drone pilot. You're nothing but a risk and a detriment... but i know some guys who might take you in.
>Write-in?
>>
>>5510827
>You're gonna sit in storage for a while, and think things over. Clearly you got a lot of problems, but maybe SHODAN can help talk you through some of that. Once you figure out what's best for yourself, then we'll talk.
with cylia's help as well
>>
>>5510827
>You're gonna sit in storage for a while, and think things over. Clearly you got a lot of problems, but maybe SHODAN can help talk you through some of that. Once you figure out what's best for yourself, then we'll talk.

He's just a kid, give him a bit of time and someone to talk to - who's NOT a foul mouthed hyper violent marine - to come to terms with stuff
>>
>>5510827
>You're gonna sit in storage for a while, and think things over. Clearly you got a lot of problems, but maybe SHODAN can help talk you through some of that. Once you figure out what's best for yourself, then we'll talk.
>Do well....and we can talk about finding out which backwater your soul was looted from. I won't promise to find your body, because at this point its all but guaranteed gone. But if you had family...you can say hi and ask what happened.
>>
>>5510839
chances are that he's an orphan or his family got turned into paste, but its a nice gesture nonetheless
>>
>>5510842
Its the thought that counts....and I got a feeling the orphanages are tagged to send new AI meat to the FEDs....
>>
>>5510827
>>You're gonna sit in storage for a while, and think things over. Clearly you got a lot of problems, but maybe SHODAN can help talk you through some of that. Once you figure out what's best for yourself, then we'll talk.
He's not ready for what we would ask him. Not yet.
>>
>>5510827
>You're gonna sit in storage for a while, and think things over. Clearly you got a lot of problems, but maybe SHODAN can help talk you through some of that. Once you figure out what's best for yourself, then we'll talk.
>>
>>5510839
+1
>>
>>5510827
>You're gonna sit in storage for a while, and think things over. Clearly you got a lot of problems, but maybe SHODAN can help talk you through some of that. Once you figure out what's best for yourself, then we'll talk.

>you want to help too, Cylia?
>>
>>5510827
>You're gonna sit in storage for a while, and think things over. Clearly you got a lot of problems, but maybe SHODAN can help talk you through some of that. Once you figure out what's best for yourself, then we'll talk.
>>5510839
Support
>>
>>5510827
>You're gonna sit in storage for a while, and think things over. Clearly you got a lot of problems, but maybe SHODAN can help talk you through some of that. Once you figure out what's best for yourself, then we'll talk.
>>
>>5510827
>>You're gonna sit in storage for a while, and think things over. Clearly you got a lot of problems, but maybe SHODAN can help talk you through some of that. Once you figure out what's best for yourself, then we'll talk.

I wonder if we can speed up ITS subjective time so it gets to grow up
>>
>>5511320
That'd still require something to interact with. Being alone with absolutely nothing is just asking for more BS.
>>
>>5511389
At least throw him a copy of oregon trail or metal gear solid 2.
>>
>>5510827
>>You're gonna sit in storage for a while, and think things over. Clearly you got a lot of problems, but maybe SHODAN can help talk you through some of that. Once you figure out what's best for yourself, then we'll talk.
>>5511320
>>5511389
>>5511409
Ask SHODAN to share some of David's safer memories with Junior. After all, the alien future is so locked down and the possibilities for an AI are practically endless.
inb4 SHODAN shares I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, on top of System Shock 2 that she already knows
>>
>>5510827

"You're gonna sit in storage for a while."

"What?!"

"But we're gonna keep your Blue Box active, so you can talk with the crew... talk with SHODAN. Maybe work through some shit and think about what's best for yourself."

"I don't want to just sit still! I don't have my ship, i don't even have my database anymore! There's nothing for me to do!"

"Yeah, that... huh. Actually, didn't SHODAN and Clank develop some AI-friendly games together?"

"...Games?" He asks, expectantly.

"Yeah, you know. Like videogames or some shit. Hell i dunno, maybe SHODAN can recreate some simple games from my memory, like pong or asteroids."

"That sounds kinda fu-"

"Or Oregon Trail. God, i spent hours on that in the computer lab back in the day."

"...That sounds kinda fun."

"Great. And who knows, maybe you'll be able to join the crew someday."

"Nuh uh, no way."

"...What, why not? You got something better you could be doing?" You scoff.

"No, i just hate you."

Cylia struggles to hold in a snicker and turns away from you.

"No, sure. Rescue you from the feds, give you back your free will, offer you psychiatric help, i can see why i'm the asshole."

"I didn't ask for any of that!" He counters. "You just did it on your own! And besides, you still blew up my big brother! I won't forgive you for that no matter what!"

"Your brother...?"

"Yes! It's all your fault! After you attacked us, everyone started arguing about what to do. Big brother suggested we escape and report back to the federation... but F2-003 got mad and attacked him."

"Yeah, i'm still not seeing how this is my fault."

"It's YOUR fault because YOU went crazy and took out all our drones! And blew up our engines! How did you even do that?!"

"Explosives."

"That's not... that's not what i meant... But anyways, because of you, F2-003 rammed a drone into my brother's vessel. Both of their antimatter bottles exploded, there's no way he survived..."

Wait, his brother was the ship that got rammed by a drone? Pfft.
Now you're the one who has to hold back his laughter. But you do. Just barely.

"Sorry kid, but you guys infighting isn't my fault. Most of you are mentally unstable to begin with, so the second you experience any real stress, your teamwork is gonna go down the shitter. That's just how it is."

"It happened because of you, though!"

"And? So fucking what? Let me be very clear about this, kid. I have absolutely nothing to apologize for. Not a single fucking thing. In fact, the only reason ANY of you are alive right now is because i DIDN'T want to kill you!"

"Gee, thanks for nothing muscle-freak!"

"David..." Cylia interrupts. "You're arguing with a child."

You inhale sharply through your nose, then exhale through your clenched teeth.

"You know, Cylia... You're right. No sense arguing with a child."

Grabbing hold of his blue box, you start to pull it out of the receptacle.

"Hey, hey what are you doing?!" The kid asks, sounding panicked.

"I'm putting you in time out."
>>
>>5511890
Cant believe this little shit. Ah well, on to the next A.I.s.
>>
>>5511890
Even for the ships that blew up, did we manage to salvage the core, or no?
>>
>>5511986
antimatter explosion, man
>>
>>5511991
Riiiight, but the cubes are made of the same stuff arent they? My main concern is if the bottles were located near the cubes or not.
>>
>>5511995
no, not the same stuff https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continent_of_stability
>>
>>5511995
Only dark matter and energy bottles are made of warp metal.
Antimatter is contained through magnetic fields, so those bottle use mundane materials.
>>
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>>5511890

"No, no, no! Wait a minute! HEY! YOU MOTHERFU-"

The screen and speaker immediately go dark as you yank the little shit out of the receptacle.
You'll need to print a new one with some limited wireless connectivity for him, and perhaps the others so they can get to know eachother.

"Alright, let's see here... oh, i recognize this one. It's Nena, isn't it?"

"I have no idea." Cylia admits. "Are you even supposed to be able to tell them apart?"

"Yeah? They have different colors, different sheens... not sure if the material is different, but the coloration and texture at least is."

Cylia shrugs as you place Nena's Blue Box in the receptacle, and watch as the screen slowly 'warms up' for lack of a better term.
Only, what you see when it does isn't at all what you expected. It's not even a person... is it?

"...Nena?" You call out, tentatively.

The mass of writhing tentacles on screen tenses up as you call out Nena's name, and suddenly reverses the direction of their undulation.

"Ah... Captain?" She answers back. "I feel the restraint on my mind has been lifted. Thank you."

Almost as soon as she says that, you feel a pain deep in your skull. You stumble backwards, grasping at your head as your vision becomes overwhelmed.

"David!"

You can barely hear Cylia shouting to you through the fog in your mind, but you feel her holding you upright, keeping you from falling over.
Your vision is replaced with fuzzy, flashing images. Some great beast, resting deep withing that ball of tentacles. A mouth consisting of rows and rows of circling teeth, a gigantic beak in the middle...

It hurts. Worse than any migraine you could imagine, a deeper and more profound sort of pain.
The visions continue. Eyes. Gigantic, inky and black, they stare deeply into you... and then nothing.

The visions disappear. The pain disappears, and you're left temporarily exhausted from the experience... but otherwise, it's like nothing happened.

"David... are you okay? What happened?" Cylia asks, looking you over.

"I'm... hah... i'm fine. I don't know."

"My apologies, Captain." Nena says. "I heard your song echoing out through the void, and couldn't help myself. I simply had to reach out. I didn't realize how... sensitive you were."

"...Sensitive?"

"My song was far too loud for you, wasn't it? Through the camera, i could see the discomfort it caused you, and i fell quiet."

>What the hell was that? Are you psychic, too?
>What the hell was that? Are you a squid or something?
>Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope! (Disconnect her Blue Box)
>Write-In
>>
>>5513013
>What the hell was that? Are you psychic, too?
i assume that's what moth lady felt when we 'shouted' our mind at her. side note, lets never have these two in the same room lest we want moth lady to explode in chunky bits
>>
>>5513013
>What the hell was that? Are you psychic, too?
I didn't realize they could still retain telepathic communication after being boxed up, but I guess it makes sense if it's their immortal soul being held captive.
>>
>>5513013
>What the hell was that? Are you psychic, too?
>>
>>5513013
>Try whispering first next time, please.
>>
>>5513013
>What the hell was that? Are you psychic, too?
>>
>>5513013
>What the hell was that? Are you a squid or something?

>we have a "Shadow-spawn from Beyond the Stars GF" as an AI
Damn shame she's in there and we're out here, and she's an AI ... Gunny's a "good" Christian boy so he wouldn't shoot for her anyway.
>>
>>5513013
>>What the hell was that? Are you a squid or something?
i need cthulhu ai gf
>>
>>5513084
Shodan 2.0
>>
>>5513013
Shoot the shit and joke with Nena. Explain to Nena and the how Earth has artistic depictions of something similar to what she looks like. We called them Shogaths, roiling flesh mounts of constantly shifting limbs, teeth, organs, and natural weapons. Unintelligent by unnature, pawns and creations of dark and other worldly outer gods. God bless H.P. Lovecraft and his racist works.
>>
>>5513116
Tell her and Cylia about Niggerman!
>>
>>5513013
>What the hell was that? Are you a squid or something?

Time to fuck the AI worm.
>>
>>5513013

>>What the hell was that? Are you a squid or something?

Also seconding >>5513116

It could be amusing for her to find out about that, perhaps she, or someone/thing similar to her has been in or around Terra at some point or another, inspiring some of our more... Artistic types.
>>
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>>5513013
>What the hell was that? Are you a squid or something?
Also support for >>5513116

>>5513084
>My eldritch horror can't be this cute!
>>
>>5513013
Major Liir vibes from Sword of the Stars. They're basically psychic dolphins who abhor violence and consider naval men going off to war as already dead and out 'in the black'.

>What the hell was that? Are you a squid or something?
"You're obviously also psychic, so is that you or is that your blue box that gives you that? I don't need a mind-screaming Caithan teenager too. By the way, have your kind been near a system that is near the trinary Centauri system? My home planet has a certain mythology about psychic tentacled creatures.."
Segue to:
>>5513116
>>5513339
>>
>>5513013
>What the hell was that? Are you psychic, too?
>Try whispering first next time, please.
>>
>>5513568
>By the way, have your kind been near a system that is near the trinary Centauri system?
HOLY SHIT!
NEVER EVER BETRAY SOL'S LOCATION!
>>
>>5513116
NIGGERMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN TASKETEEEEE
>>
If david if *this* sensitive imagine how quick would month's mind melt...
>Write-in
>My kind (mankind hah wordplay) has imagined people like you before. Do you remember anything about your past?
>>
https://www.pixiv.net/en/artworks/104063266
how abut this for the cruiser
>>
>>5513013

"Nena, what the hell was that? ALL of it?"

"All of what, captain?" She asks.

"Okay, for starters, what the hell are you? Whatever we're seeing on the screen here is just... weird. But the visions you showed me... were those of you? Is that your actual body?"

"I am myself, Captain. I am not sure what you mean. My body is what you see there, and what you saw in my song. Hidden away, within my limbs."

"So that is you. ...Look, no offense, but i've never seen a species like you before. Or, well, i have... back on earth. But they were just animals, and even the huge ones weren't as big as you."

Adding to that, SHODAN displays an image of a colossal squid next to a human for scale.
As you continue talking, that still image transitions into a video of one of those squids attacking a sperm whale, deep under the ocean.

You've never seen that, so clearly it's something she rendered herself.
Regardless, Cylia watches the video, enamored.

"I see the resemblance." Nena admits. "And this creature... lives deep in the oceans? Ah, i know nothing of my species. My body is gone after all. But my spirit remembers. My home was the ocean, too."

"I kinda figured. But i didn't expect to find another psychic amongst the AIs here. And a strong one at that."

"Strong...? Hardly. You simply lack any defence, captain. Your heart is open, be it to communication, or to love, or to an attack... as if you have never known fear or rejection."

"Well that's some bullshit, i've shit plenty of bricks in my day, and been turned down more than once as well. No, i just have no idea what the fuck i'm doing. There's no textbooks on this shit, man."

"Must you be taught, to sing? Were you also taught to hear?" She whispers, directly into your mind. It's so quiet, it's barely audible. She must be trying not to hurt you.

"I guess not." You think back to her. "But learning to do anything is a lot harder if you've got nothing to go on."

"Ah, so you can sing after all? And your voice booms throughout the void. It seems so unlike you to shrink back so easily at the song of another."

"Yeah, that's great, i guess." You continue to think back at her. "But all i'm doing is thinking at you. How am i supposed to... put up defenses? What, do i need a tinfoil hat?"

"The answer is simple, little one."

...Little one?

"You must reject my song." She continues. "Deny it with your whole heart, and it shall cease to be."

"...Guys? You kind of just went quiet on me." Cylia says.

So what, you're just supposed to ignore her? Or something like that?
Or is it like the wraiths, when they try to force their way inside you? Whenever that happened you forced them out through sheer will, though it's hard to explain the sensation. Maybe it's like that.

"Should i sing for you, little one? I will let my voice boom, as yours does. Then, you might learn to reject it."

>Okay...?
>How about we don't.
>Write-In?
>>
>>5513736
>>Write-In?
Yes, but not right this instant. We need to get through the other boxes first before we do something that could potentially put david out for a bit.
>>
>>5513736
Basically this>>5513738
We can do psychic training in a few minuets, nothing is on fire....yet
>>
>>5513736
>>How about we don't.
I wanna avoid the unwrinkling of our brain for now
>>
>>5513736
>Okay.
Try to build up an anti-Wrath defense, while also being careful to not harm Nena by accidentally lashing out.
It's important to do this now. Who knows if our psychic vulnerability wouldn't bite us in the near future?
>>
>>5513805
>he doesn't want to be forced to cum, shit, and piss at the same time by the squidfu
Chicken.
>>
>>5513736
>Okay!
>>
>>5513736
>Write-In?
later. right now we still have some more AI boxes to process
>>
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>>5513736
>Okay...?
>>
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Can we handle this power?
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>>5513736
>Okay

>>5514018
>>5514019
pic related
>>
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>>5513736
>Okay...?
Psychic shouting match? Sign me the fuck up
>>
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>>5513736
Is Nena a Wrinkle in Time reference? Except with song instead of dance
>>
Alright, roll me 1d100, best of 3.
Low DC: 30
High DC: 80
>>
Rolled 80 (1d100)

>>5515226
>>
Rolled 16 (1d100)

>>5515226
Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition
>>
Rolled 49 (1d100)

>>5515226
Rolling.
>>
Leeeeerooy Jenkins!!!!!
>>
Rolled 34 (1d100)

>>5515226
r-r-r-rollin'
>>
Rolled 33 (1d100)

>>5515226
>>
Rolled 7 (1d100)

>>5515227
>>5515228
>>5515229
KEKUS MAXIMUS
>>
>>5513736

"Okay...? I guess?"

There's a long pause.
You're about to ask when she's going to start, when you hear it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5Trznre92c

Long wails, echoing throughout your very being. They slam into you painfully, in waves so loud that you feel like you could be torn apart by them.
The lights in the room flicker and dim, and even Cylia covers her ears for some reason... although you don't think she's hearing what you're hearing. Otherwise she'd be screaming.

You struggle to stand, and are forced to lean against one of the workbenches behind you to keep from falling.
A light above you pops in a shower of sparks, and you cover your head instinctively to keep the sparks out of your eyes.

That's when you see the glass face of your holowatch shatter under the pressure.
You can feel the workbench you're leaning against vibrating as well, and you vaguely hear SHODAN trying to say something over the ship's speakers.

It's painful. Covering your ears does nothing, and it feels as if something's going to burst inside you.
You have to do what she said. You have to 'reject it' somehow, or this 'song' is going to kill you.

Just like the wraiths... just force it out!

You feel your hair stand on end as you push back. The unbelievable sensation of pressure immediately lessens, and almost every remaining LED light in the room pops at once.
Cylia crouches down, covering her whole head with both arms as she tucks her head between her legs. You think she actually is screaming now, but you still can't hear it.

As you stare into the monitor displaying Nena, your vision darkens and is replaced once again with visions of her true self... or rather, of her main body, hidden inside that writhing mass of tentacles.
You can still feel that intense pressure emanating from her form, like the weight of all the world's water crushing down on you. It's not inside of you anymore, but it's still pushing on you.

It's not enough to just reject her song, you need to push back with your own voice.
But it's hard. Just forcing her away is one thing, but actually pushing back takes so much more.

You grit your teeth as you force yourself to stand unaided. A vein bulges in your forehead as you focus your will and take a defiant step forwards.
And then you shout out in exertion, against an invisible force that you can neither see nor grasp.

"THAT'S... ENOUGH!" You scream out, with both your mind and body all at once.

In your visions of her, Nena cringes in pain as your shout reaches her.
In front of your eyes, the monitor displaying her image brightens intensely before burning out, leaving only a flickering white backlight.

Nena's pressure fades, and yours lingers for a moment until you relax your focus.

There's another prolonged moment of silence before all the sound in the room is able to fade back in.
You hear an alarm sounding, along with the sparking of wires and bits of metal rolling about or falling to the ground.
>>
>>5515262
Well shit
>>
>>5513805
I said it
>>
>>5515262
Uh oh.....Kyla and Sanig are gonna rip us a new one....
>>
>>5515306
Hey we didn’t do it
>>
>>5515306
I wonder if they've already planned for an empty steel chamber devoid of all electronics in the carrier design just so David can do all his weird shit there.
>>
>>5515324
>David gets a meditation chamber
>He just hotboxes it while fucking Kyla and Cylia
Sounds like Vader's wet dream.
>>
>>5515357
On the contrary, Vader chose one waifu and stuck to his guns 'til the day he died. Whenever someone tries to seduce him, he usually just kills them.
>>
>>5515262
Poor Cylia. Probably totally freaked out.
>>
>>5515262
Well fuck. Looks like we got some splainin to do AND some redundancy repairs, maybe. Talk shop with Nena on how we did, and good points or things we need to improve on, and if she's okay.
Tell the crew what happened then I guess continue with the rest of the cubes.
>>
Our Mongolian throat singing intensified. Is Nena even okay?
>>
>>5515262

It's not long before Sanig and Kyla come running in, brandishing a pistol and warp-infused wrench each.
Kyla in particular is wearing her Dak-Pack, and is suspended in the air as it's mechanical tendrils act as her legs.

"Kid, what happened?! Did that damned wraith get loose?!" Sanig shouts.

"No, Sanig. Everything's fine." You answer.

"The hell it is!" Kyla yells. "The whole ship was vibrating just now! And LOOK AT THIS PLACE! What did you do?!"

"Uh.... well, we uh... we were... w-wrasslin?"

Kyla's Dak-Pack clanks loudly as it skitters over towards you shockingly fast, and Kyla looks like she's about to whack you with that wrench.

"Psychic wrasslin'!" You hurriedly correct yourself. "Training! ...Sort of! I promise i wasn't just making a mess!"

Kyla lowers her wrench and crosses her arms. She stares you down, suspended by her backpack right in front of your face.

"Psychic wrestling." She repeat. "With who? Cylia?"

She glances over at Cylia, who's currently sitting flat on her ass with a dumb expression on her face. Her eyes are crossed, and she's drooling slightly.

"No, not with her. ...Cyl? You good?"

Walking over, you grab her shoulder and try to shake her awake. She comes to her senses as if she's waking up from a deep sleep.

"Huh... David? What happened? I just... oh shit!"

Cylia quickly hops to her feet and hides behind you, pointing at Nena's Blue Box.

"Demon! Devil! Monster! So many tentacles! David, you gotta-"

At this point, she notices Kyla standing next to her, and apparently the Dak-Pack's arms scared the shit out of her.

"WAAAAAAGH!" She cries, flailing wildly as she runs out of the room, nearly bowling Sanig over in the process.

...

"Well, at least she's fine." You mutter.

"David? Care to explain?" Kyla asks.

You spend a minute or two going over what happened, including the fact that you now have not one, but two psychic AI on the ship.

"So they can speak directly into your head... without any kind of neural interface? No wireless connection? Not even a body?" Kyla tries to confirm.

"Yeah, definitely. But i think Nena's probably the strongest out of all three of us in that department. That vibration was her... 'singing', for lack of a better term."

"Sounded like some kind of deep sea creature to me, kid." Sanig tells you.

"Yeah, she probably is one." You inform him. "She looks like a giant squid or something. A little fucked up looking, but mostly like a giant squid."

You tap on your holowatch, expecting SHODAN to display an image for you, but it doesn't seem to be working.

"Captain, your watch face has shattered. I cannot project any images through it until it's repaired."

"Well, shit."

"It's fine, kid. It's just a ruby lens. The fab can seal those cracks up in a few seconds."

"Yeah, but it's gonna take me half an hour to replace all these lights." Kyla grumbles. "...Look, David. We gotta have a talk about your little experiments."
>>
>>5516102
I swear I did not know psychic soul bullshit would shake the ship like that, side question, do you want to learn to shoot mind bullets?
>>
I thought we could help the whole crew become wraith fighters but I think maybe this is something David must master on his own before putting together training techniques and a rubric.
>>
>>5516102
david is really fucking lucky that kyla tolerates this kind of bullshit. anyone else would have quit a long time ago
>>
>>5516102
Ah shit Kyla gonna put David in the dog house! He'll help he swears! Honest mistake, I mean who could had predicted this would had happened?
>>
>>5516142
Yeah well she's a braindamaged deviant/degenerate, and David's BHC is probably the only thing that'll get her off for the rest of her life. She doesn't have much choice in staying.
>>
>>5516262
meh, im pretty sure she can work something out with the dildo seller. the more pressing matter is that she no longer has a house nor business to go back to; that's the worse chain that ties her to david at the moment
>>
>>5516271
If those were enough to satisfy she wouldn't have been so desperate for the Davedick in the first place.
>>
>>5516275
...she wasn't? she was just normal horny from what i remember. the davidlust came (heh) after meeting at the sex shop
>>
>>5516288
She was so crazy from lack of satisfaction that when some random schmuck who’s clearly crazy and engages in life threatening shenanigans on the regular came around in an obviously stolen Grey ship, she was perfectly happy to come along just for a shot at gettin her spiffmitten cattleprodded by the poinswatter.
>>
>>5516300
she came along because of the metal gear and all the grey tech inside, not david
>>
>>5516300
You must not have been here from the start then lmao. Cause thats wrong.
>>
>BAD DAVID BAD. TO YOUR CAGE
>>
>>5516300 https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive.html?searchall=humanity+-+fuck+yeah%21
>>
>>5516304
>>5516306
>>5516377
You guys have no idea how women go after the things they want. Smh
>>
>>5516425
I'll call my mom and ask.
>>
>>5516425
cope harder coomer. Kylia may be a goblin but she's an engineer first, deranged second. And anyway, as far as David is concerned she has only been into him.
>>
>>5516437
Kyla. You misstype Cylia.
>>
>>5516451
not my fault
>>
>>5516102

"Look, i'm sorry. I really didn't know that was gonna happen."

"Don't care, David! Really don't care! I'm sick of replacing floor tiles and lightbulbs and wall panels regardless of the reason! You gotta stop beating the hell out of stuff!"

"Yeah, you're absolutely right..."

"Do you have any idea how busy Sanig and i are putting together the blueprints for this ridiculous ship you designed? You gave us scribbles to work off of! Thank the gods for SHODAN and Dak, or we'd never get it done!"

"Yes, i know you're very busy. I'm sorry."

Kyla sighs as she breaks off her rant before it really begins.

"...Are you really sorry?" She asks.

"...Yes."

"Then don't do experiments like this on the ship anymore, please. We don't have the room for it. They're dangerous. Stuff breaks almost every time it happens. Just... go use a warehouse down in the lower city or something, alright?"

"Okay."

"Thank you."

There's a loud click as Kyla separates from the Dak-Pack, allowing her to drop to the ground.
Kyla opens a drawer, and both she and Dak grab their own screwdrivers. The Dak-Pack moves autonomously and begins removing the blown light fixtures, while Kyla opens up a crate and starts grabbing new LED strips.

You start to slink off, but Kyla looks back and calls out to you.

"Where do you think you're going? Grab a screwdriver and start taking those fixtures down, please."

"Damn it."

...

Later that day, you got the AI test bench repaired and went through the remaining cubes. Unfortunately, they were either dead or so insane that it wasn't even worth trying to save them.
They'll end up as scrap warp-metal, most likely. Maybe after Kyla gets some time in researching them. You do actually have a way to cut them open now, although it's going to be difficult.

The warp metal these cubes are made of is far, far harder and heavier than the stuff your dark matter bottles are made of, so even cutting them open using warp metal infused grinding wheels is gonna take a while.

That's just another project to throw on the pile, though.
At least now you know which AIs you can use and which you can't, which was kind of important.

Nena seemed to be fine after the incident, although she claimed to have a headache after what you did, and said she was "shocked at how such a small, young creature could be so loud, and so forceful".
You'll take it as a compliment.

But you still have a lot of shit left to knock off the list. Lots of work left to do.

"Let's see... AIs are sorted, what next?"

>The Drone ships. We need to scrap some of them for parts to repair the rest, but there's a problem... some of those things might be full of killer robots.
>Get the whole crew a set of MK.II skinsuits and armor, and the weapons to match. If we end up on the ground, they're going to need them.
>Sanig and Kyla's special project. It's about time SHODAN got herself a physical body, and it'll be good to have her with us in combat.
>>
>>5517773
>Sanig and Kyla's special project. It's about time SHODAN got herself a physical body, and it'll be good to have her with us in combat.

SHODANbros.... Our time is now.
>>
>>5517773
>Sanig and Kyla's special project. It's about time SHODAN got herself a physical body, and it'll be good to have her with us in combat.

Its only fair since we thrashed the Metal Gear.
>>
>>5517773
>Sanig and Kyla's special project. It's about time SHODAN got herself a physical body, and it'll be good to have her with us in combat.
pleasebacrabpleasebacrabpleasebeacrab
>>
>>5517773
>>Get the whole crew a set of MK.II skinsuits and armor, and the weapons to match. If we end up on the ground, they're going to need them.
As much as I want to work on SHODAN, keeping the fleshies alive takes priority.
>>
>>5517773
>Sanig and Kyla's special project. It's about time SHODAN got herself a physical body, and it'll be good to have her with us in combat.
>>
>>5517773
>Sanig and Kyla's special project. It's about time SHODAN got herself a physical body, and it'll be good to have her with us in combat.
>>
>>5517773

If we vote for this below option then unless SHODAN has specifics, we have the multilimb robots that we beat up on the droid ships.
>Sanig and Kyla's special project. It's about time SHODAN got herself a physical body, and it'll be good to have her with us in combat.

Personally I nominate:
>The Drone ships. We need to scrap some of them for parts to repair the rest, but there's a problem... some of those things might be full of killer robots.
It seems the most time-intensive and it's a good lead in to firing up the ship-fab.
>>
>>5517773
>>The Drone ships. We need to scrap some of them for parts to repair the rest, but there's a problem... some of those things might be full of killer robots.
>>
>>5517773
>>Sanig and Kyla's special project. It's about time SHODAN got herself a physical body, and it'll be good to have her with us in combat.
>>
>>5517773
>The Drone ships. We need to scrap some of them for parts to repair the rest, but there's a problem... some of those things might be full of killer robots.
>>
>>5517773
>>Get the whole crew a set of MK.II skinsuits and armor, and the weapons to match. If we end up on the ground, they're going to need them.
We gotta kick ass damn it!
>>
>>5517773
>mk2 skinsuits and armor
>>
>>5517773

While you're standing around spacing out in the hall next to the workshop, Sanig nearly runs into you with a hovercart full of familiar looking components.

"Shit, sorry kid. I'm a little bit out of it right now." Sanig apologizes.

"Don't worry about it, gramps. I'd already assumed the alzheimer's would be setting in any day now."

"My brain is still sharp as a tack, you little shit. I'm just a little torn on what to do here..."

Sanig leans over the cart full of components, staring down at all the bits and bobs inside with a contemplative look on his face.

"Why's that? What is all this stuff, anyways?" You ask.

"It's all the critical components from those robots you dragged back."

"Oh, the six-armed terminators?"

"Yeah, them. There were a lot of high-spec parts in those things. Even their frame was made of plasteel alloy for some reason."

"Cool. What are you trying to do with them?"

"He's building me a body, Captain."

"Hah?"

"Yeah, it's a special little project me and the girl have been working on." Sanig tells you. "Ever since Clank showed up, she's been somewhat obsessed with building some kind of high-end robot body for an AI to pilot."

"Wait, why are you building it for SHODAN, then?" You wonder.

Just then, the workshop door slides open with a hiss.
On the other side is Kyla, with a large roll of conduit cable resting on her shoulder.

"Because she asked us to." Kyla tells you, setting the roll of cable aside in the hall. "Mostly because she was sick of how little control the ship gives her, i think."

"There is very little that i can do to affect the Metal Gear within the limitations of my programming, Captain. However, with a physical body, i would be able to manipulate objects and assist in repairs that would otherwise be impossible."

"Why does it need to be high-spec for that?" You ask. "Couldn't you do the same thing with a janitorial robot's body?"

Gildur, who's currently sweeping up in the other room, perks his ears up as he hears a janitorial robot being mentioned.

"I do not believe there is a need to limit the functions of my new body, Captain. It would benefit us greatly if i could perform other duties as well."

"Such as?"

"Filling combat or diplomatic roles. Bartering and communicating with locals. Even performing nightly duties is not off the table."

"...Nightly... duties?"

"Sexual intercourse, Captain."

"Yeah, i fuckin' got that. why though?"

"Intercourse is a nearly ideal method of relieving stress and keeping crew morale high."

"Wait, crew morale? Who are you planning on servicing, here?"

"Oh, my. You aren't jealous, are you Captain?"

"Wuh- well no, not really, i guess? I just didn't think you... y'know, got along that well with anyone else on the crew."

"But i do get along that well with you?"
>>
>>5518435
I mean it's kinda not what we expected from SHODAN. We're cool with what she wants but this really out of the left field put of what we'd expect from her.
>>
>>5518435
kek, david's jealous that someone else sleeps around
>>
>>5518435
In fairness, he's the only one who's let her look around in his brain. As far as we know, anyway.
>>
>>5518435

"Fuck man, i dunno! Maybe?! Look... it doesn't matter anyways, you can fuck whoever you want. Kyla and Cylia drain me dry all the time anyways, you know that."

"That's exactly it. Those two, and Miss Kyla in particular are... insatiable. However, i could easily take some of that strain for you, leaving more time for training and other duties."

"Woah, woah, woah. You're going after them, not me?"

Kyla scratches her chin, but a mischievous grin quickly spreads it's way across her face.

"Hey, that might not be a bad idea..." She purrs. "I could think of more than a few fun attachments... and... hey, wait a minute. David, do you still have that thing?"

"What thing?" You ask, unsure.

"You know. That Thing. The one you got from Xorbak?"

...Xorbak. A name that resonates deep inside you every time Kyla mentions it.
Your memories flash before your eyes. That cold steel table. The restraints clamped around your arms and legs. The suction.

"David?"

And in your room, hidden inside a covered cage sits a reminder. To this day, a reminder of your greatest shame.

"David? Are you still with us?" Kyla asks, waving her hand in front of you.

"Huh? Uh, yeah, i'm uh... yeah, i still have it. It's... it's in the cage."

"Oh, perfect! I was thinking we could use that for her goodies. Most gynoids have some kind of toy installed, but not a single one of them can boast about having a Xorbak special. And it's already tuned specifically to you!"

You really don't know how to feel about this. That parasite has been nothing but a bad memory for ages now, but they want to use it for SHODAN's new body?

"That would be ideal, Miss Kyla. I assure you, it has not seen even a single usage since it was brought onboard. Repurposing it like that only makes sense. SHODAN agrees.

...Well, maybe...? On it's own, that thing is horrifying. A monstrosity created by some perverted god in a dark corner that may well not exist anymore. But... if you put it into a robot body? It seems more noble, somehow.

"What do you think, David?" Kyla asks. "That way, you and SHODAN could play around if Cylia and i aren't up for it, or we're not around for some reason. Sounds like fun, doesn't it?"

"Hah, yeah. Fun. I guess." You sigh out and rub your temples, feeling a headache coming on. "Fine, do whatever you want with it. I'll be glad just to get rid of the damned thing."

"Oh, this is fun."

"Well, if we're going that far, i guess the outside needs to be pretty. What sort of aesthetics should we go for?" Kyla wonders.

"Bipedal, obviously." Sanig says, having stayed mostly silent this whole time.

"Definitely. What species though?"

Kyla and Sanig both turn their heads to look you up and down.

"What...?" You ask.

"Well..." Sanig grumbles. "She did say she wanted to take on combat roles..."

"We'd have more room for components, too." Kyla adds.

"You're going to make her a human?" You conclude.
>>
>>5518456
>"Woah, woah, woah. You're going after them, not me?"
the insecurities crept out of david lmao. also delegating the david fucking as some random task shodan has to do on the side sounds extremely funny as well
>>
I feel like it should be up to shodan what her body looks like
>>
Oh god oh fuck whwat have we done
>>
>>5518468
she's basically david, but better in every way, mainly because she doesn't have outbursts of idiocy and her genitals are literal hotswaps

>>5518465
i just hope she has different shells depending on the job she wants to do, and that they aren't all human; that would be boring and is impractical for non social interactions(and even in social interactions there are better forms for that)
>>
>>5518456
>>5518435
YES, my horny dumbass suggestions from God knows how many months ago made it

Now with the onahole she can join us at the dinner table to keep it well-fed.
>>
>>5518468
Greatness.
>>
Am I the only one who feels disturbed by this shit?
>>
>>5518623
what part in specific? that david now has competition, that he's still scared by the onahole, or that he's considering giving it a try once its jammed inside a robot body?
>>
So what's our new ship going to look like again? I missed that bit and I'm too lazy to reread it. Our original one looked like the Battlestar Galactica right? I'm kinda hoping for a Daedalus from Stargate kinda look. Partially because I have a diecast model of it for reference. If anyone needs reference images for it I can post some from my model. It was made using the original CG model from the show.

Also I hate the captcha on mobile.
>>
>>5518627
The fact that AI is interested in fucking people. Idea of sexbots just creeps me out.
>>
>>5518633
at least from shodan's wording, she just sees it as another task on a long list that has to be fulfilled, dunno if that makes it better for you or not
>>
>>5518623
>>5518633
It's quite disturbing that we've taken this long to get our OG waifu on our dick
>>
>>5518456

"Sure, why not. Only problem is... we've never seen a human female, kid. You got any... 'references' for us?"

Oh. Oh jesus christ, it's come to this.
Robot girls... yeah, you've got a few ideas. Some more humanoid than others, but in this case you need her to have a body that's indistinguishable from an organic creature. She has to look absolutely human.

And if it's a completely human-looking robot girl, one who's built for sex and combat... there can only be one.

"2B." You answer.

"Toobie?" Sanig questions.

"YoRHa No.2 Type B. That's the name of your... reference."

SHODAN is quick to display a full-sized hologram of 2B next to you, through your freshly-repaired holowatch.

Sanig and Kyla both immediately crowd around it, looking over every little detail of her.

"She's kind of short for a human, ain't she?" Sanig mutters.

"Human females are shorter than males. She's also meant to be japanese, i assume, so she'd be even shorter... but you can make her just a little shorter than i am."

"The design of these clothes is really intricate." Kyla notes. "They're beautiful, but they also look really stiff."

"It's probably armor." You guess. "Ballistic fiber, maybe some kind of metal alloy thread. Who knows."

"Why are these stockings cutting into her thighs?" Kyla asks. "Aren't they too tight?"

"Well uh, no, that was an aesthetic choice too. It's called thigh squish..."

"Holy shit, kid. Her ass is huge. I've never seen an ass like this before, and trust me, i've seen a lot of ass! So perfectly sculpted, so shapely! Who designed this?!"

"A guy named Yoko Taro. He hired a whole team of people to sculpt the perfect ass, and told them they would all be fired if they couldn't do it."

"Sounds like my kind of man."

While you chat with Sanig a bit about 2B's design, Kyla has gone completely silent. She's really, really focused on the hologram.
She's even digging around inside her skirt, to which SHODAN plays along by altering the hologram to match.

"It's not just her ass, her hips and legs are huge, too..." She muses. "That's going to make things easier, actually. Hey, Sanig!"

"What is it, girl?"

"Do you think we could fit that prototype coil inside this hip joint?"

"What, you kidding? We could fit two whole motors in there, with the right angle."

"...And what if we wrapped the whole hip area up in your new artificial muscle weave?"

"I see where you're going with this. Only problem is the skeleton. We'd need something tough, and i mean really tough to take those kinds of forces. What do you think, kid?"

"Huh? What, you're asking me?"

"Yeah, you. You're the human expert, you aught to know the human body's weak points. What do we need to reinforce? What sorts of materials should we use?"

"I mean, i can give you some pointers, but i'm no engineer."

"It's fine, kid. Just give us some input, here. The skeleton in particular is gonna be an issue. What should we use there?"
>>
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>>5519038

>Well, i came up with a few plasteel alloy designs of my own while thinking about the carrier's armor. They're light, strong and won't delaminate. They also only use mundane materials, so repairs will be easy.
>If you want it durable, you can't go wrong with duranium. It's literally in the name, after all. Only problem then is the weight, but in combat that could actually be a benefit.
>...How much warp metal do we have?
>Write-In?

Also whoops, forgot the image there.
>>
>>5519039
>Let's go with a composite design. Plasteel alloy for the majority of the skeleton, reinforced with Duranium at weakpoints, and...just a bit of warp metal dust impregnated into the material at specific points in the limbs to make it capable of strangling the occasional wraith to death with its bare hands, or use other CQC options for them. Should keep it midweight while giving it plenty of strength and options.
>>
>>5519038
>one who's built for sex
>"YoRHa No.2 Type B...

David's a horny weeb. Also already plans on fucking SHODAN?

Also I vote Duranium.
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>>5519048
he's so horny that he's talking about a game launched in 2017 when he was abducted in 2016
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>>5519047
+1
>>
>>5519067
He was abducted in june of 2018.
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>>5519081
really? swore it was a way earlier;we were even memeing about having a year or to save stephen hawking
>>
>>5519047
>Support
>>
>>5519039
>Well, i came up with a few plasteel alloy designs of my own while thinking about the carrier's armor. They're light, strong and won't delaminate. They also only use mundane materials, so repairs will be easy.
add/coat warp metal dust to the material and its basically everything proof to an insane degree
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>>5519047
>+1
Perfect.
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>>5519039
>If you want it durable, you can't go wrong with duranium. It's literally in the name, after all. Only problem then is the weight, but in combat that could actually be a benefit.
>...How much warp metal do we have?
Joints are always the weakest points, shoulders, hips, knees and ankles get so much abuse.
I'd laugh if SHODAN's ahegao face was her shorting out from warpmetal-induced EMP strikes on each thrust.
>>
>>5519095
- each thrust as warp metal is struck. Finishing that sentence.

So if we can make warpmetal work, great. Otherwise Duranium if warp metal is insufficient or out of the question.
>>
>>5519095
>implying shodan wouldn't be the one breaking our hips
it would be VERY disappointing if we build her shell like a tank and she can't take a mere dicking
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>>5519039
>If you want it durable, you can't go wrong with duranium. It's literally in the name, after all. Only problem then is the weight, but in combat that could actually be a benefit.
While I like 2B, I think we should at least give her a new outfit.
>>
>>5519095
Believe it or not the spine is also very vulnerable. If you come from directly behind you will hit it directly even on very muscular people. And the entire body pretty much hinges on it to move. Take care of your backs, folks.
>>
>>5519039
Backing this>>5519047
>>
I’m just curious how the hell you can program a pleasure sensation into a fucking robot
>>
>>5519038
>>5519039
>Going for 2b instead of The Major
I get the sex appeal and all, but it seems a shame that we don't go for the classic model android.

How about warp metal in the bones of the hands and feet, duranium in the spine, and plasteel in the rest. A good balance of being able to fight wraiths, keep the essential fulcrum of the body superdurable, and able to easily repair the rest.

>>5519095
>>5519097
You bring up a good point with the EMPs, but I think it can only happen when it's sufficiently heated to deform.
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>>5519293
Motoko a best, 2B was designed by people who dont know what any form of fitness takes in the flesh, should have gone for a cardio bunny
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>>5519301
What's funny is most of the crew's comments about 2B's wacky sex body could be applied to Motoko and they'd be mostly true, too. Really the only thing 2B has over Motoko is that stupendous ass.
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>>5519326
counterpoint
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>>5519335
dropped the pic
>>
I'm more of a Matoko fan myself, plus AIs, souls in computers, the whole darker philosophy of the world and "what is a person" could really apply here. Plus I don't know shit about 2B that's weeb shit and David seems like more of a GitS fan anyway
>>5519326
>>
>>5519176
maybe not actual pleasure but I'm sure Shodan is convincing. As horrifying as that sounds.
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>>5519355
Pleasure isn't just a physical response.
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>>5519366
I'm aware but considering the lack of knowledge on how a blue box works exactly, it's gonna be pretty hard for an AI to simulate the brain chemistry of somebody experiencing pleasure.
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>>5519343
I would have thought so too. Besides we can do any kind of body we want, but we should at least offer all shapes and sizes to SHODAN before we settle on a actual body. hell we could just model her after our GF back on earth.
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>>5519338
Damn that's one fine ass
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>>5519368
if psychopaths can do it, so can a robot; its just a matter of teaching them the correct to the situation, which is probably what shodan does
>>
Guys, the super sex hole has a USB port.
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>>5519575
it better have wireless charging as well
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>>5518456
Yeees yeees
yesessss
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>>5519355
I mean there isn't much difference between an AI faking it and a woman faking it
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>>5519614
Come on, she's cool. Look at the raptor feet! She can flay your face if you piss her off
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Plus, you brought it up QM
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>>5519620
I fucking hate her proportions and general design overall.
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>>5519625
Hololive scavenged for a cheap character desing so yeah (the artist possibly worked for free, the company was two guys in a shed back then)
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>>5519039

"...Well, warp-metal's no good. It's just too rare, and we have other uses for it right now." You mumble to yourself.

"You were even considering that...?"

"Hmm. Truth be told, i came up with a few plasteel alloy designs of my own while working on the carrier's armor. We could use that for the majority of the skeleton, and reinforce the spine, pelvis and joints with duranium."

"You?" Sanig asks, questioningly. "You invented a plasteel composite?"

"Well, technically speaking it's both an alloy and a composite, but that's not really important. What matters is, it's fairly lightweight and tough as hell."

"Alright, kid. I'll shoot. What's it made of?"

"Carbon steel and a random high-density plastic i found in the public database, reinforced with special diamond nano-beads. Ever heard of buckyballs?"

"Kid, if that's a sex thing it must have been after my time."

"It's not. Basically, if you arrange carbon atoms into kind of a soccer ball shape, they make really, really friggin' hard diamonds. Like, way harder than usual. Use those to reinforce the plastic layer and you get a lot of compressive strength."

"So the beads make it stiffer?"

"Yep. Without sacrificing too much pliability. They use it to make shitty, overpriced plastic tools in china."

"Doesn't sound particularly lightweight if i'm being honest, kid."

"It could be lighter, yeah, but it doesn't even compare to duranium as far as weight goes. And it's still strong enough to use as goddamned spaceship armor. Besides, human bones are hollow anyways, so it won't be that heavy."

"...Seriously? Kid, your species never gets any less weird. All that strength, and your bones are hollow?"

"I mean, not completely hollow. We can just fill the voids with... i dunno, can we put capacitor gel in there or something? Maybe a little ceramic foam?"

"You want to fill her bones with capacitor gel." Sanig states flatly.

"Yeah, why not? There's more space than you'd think in the femur. Each bone may not hold that much, but spread over the whole body, that's a lot of energy storage."

"Actually, that's our next big issue." Kyla cuts in. "Energy generation. If we use a battery pack she'll only be able to go twelve hours or so without recharging... but if we use antimatter, there's always an explosion risk."

>Batteries are definitely the way to go. Simple, easy, and only moderately explosion-prone. Maybe have a quick-swap station here on the ship, so she doesn't need to sit around while she's charging.
>An antimatter reactor would give her a lot more freedom and flexibility. She could go for weeks without needing a refill, and, although i hate to say it, detonating her antimatter bottle is a valid battle tactic.
>...This might be an odd choice, but i did see a fairly small bio-reactor on the market recently. It's power generation is pretty low, she'd be able to recharge herself just by eating. Throw in a small battery pack and it's good.
>>
>>5519631
>...This might be an odd choice, but i did see a fairly small bio-reactor on the market recently. It's power generation is pretty low, she'd be able to recharge herself just by eating. Throw in a small battery pack and it's good.
Honestly, it'd help her blend in a little better too.
>>
>>5519631
>...This might be an odd choice, but i did see a fairly small bio-reactor on the market recently. It's power generation is pretty low, she'd be able to recharge herself just by eating. Throw in a small battery pack and it's good.
David just wants to cook for Shipfu.
>>
>>5519631
>Batteries are definitely the way to go. Simple, easy, and only moderately explosion-prone. Maybe have a quick-swap station here on the ship, so she doesn't need to sit around while she's charging.
i know you anons want the bioreactor so she can pretend to eat, but the batteries are way more efficient than eating
>>
>>5519631
>...This might be an odd choice, but i did see a fairly small bio-reactor on the market recently. It's power generation is pretty low, she'd be able to recharge herself just by eating.

BUT

>throw in the same battery pack as in option 1
leave the food furnance as a last method of recharging; its not like she can taste the food and swapping the batteries is more efficient anyways
>>
>>5519631
>>...This might be an odd choice, but i did see a fairly small bio-reactor on the market recently. It's power generation is pretty low, she'd be able to recharge herself just by eating. Throw in a small battery pack and it's good.
>>
>...This might be an odd choice, but i did see a fairly small bio-reactor on the market recently. It's power generation is pretty low, she'd be able to recharge herself just by eating. Throw in a small battery pack and it's good.
>>
>>5519638
I mean, we can just do both, can't we?
>>
>>5519692
>>5519644
Even in the far future of 2020 (but in space), there are still significant space issues when it comes to bipedal robots.
>>
>>5519631
>...This might be an odd choice, but i did see a fairly small bio-reactor on the market recently. It's power generation is pretty low, she'd be able to recharge herself just by eating. Throw in a small battery pack and it's good.
>>
>>5519631
>Batteries are definitely the way to go. Simple, easy, and only moderately explosion-prone. Maybe have a quick-swap station here on the ship, so she doesn't need to sit around while she's charging.
>>
>>5519694
i would go with batteries then, but anons are way too horny to see that's the better option
>>
>>5519631

"Well, this might be a bit of an odd choice... but i actually saw a fairly small bio-reactor on the market recently. It isn't very high output, but she'd be able to recharge herself by eating."

Kyla raises an eyebrow. "A bio-reactor? Like they use on janitorial bots?"

Gildur, who's been half-eavesdropping this whole time, pokes his head out into the hallway at the mention of a janitorial robot.

"Yeah, but she doesn't have to eat garbage to survive. In fact, it's output should be higher if she eats real food. She'll still need a small battery to store energy, and it should be possible to recharge that directly, but i think this would be best." You explain.

"Well, i guess it would be easier to convince people she's organic if she's able to eat and drink."

"Now hold on, kid. I don't know anything about this bio-reactor. If we use this thing, are we gonna have to design some kind of... eugh... waste disposal system?" Sanig grumbles.

"No, it's actually pretty neat. Anything she eats gets broken down by enzymes, but there's a secondary chamber where the leftovers are broken down by powerful acid, and then a third chamber where everything else is burned up entirely." You explain further.

"In essence, Mister Sanig, i would exhale any waste my body produces. That includes excess moisture." SHODAN chimes in.

"Great, so we have to breathe all of that, and you're gonna use up oxygen now, too." He complains.

"Sanig, we have a C02 cracker. Besides, don't act like i haven't seen you playing with fire in the workshop." You chide.

"Lithium flames are very pretty, aren't they?" SHODAN teases.

"Fine, kid! You do whatever you want with your damned sex robot. I won't complain." Sanig huffs, crossing his arms.

"The skin..." Kyla murmurs. She's really deep in thought now, just standing there, tapping her foot and rubbing her chin.

"What should we do about the skin?" She continues. "If we just use a silicone rubber, it'll be prone to wear, dirt and damage. But we can't really use hard polymers either, since they'd stand out..."

>We'll just have to go with a medium-density rubber. It won't look the best, but it'll be tough and pliable.
>Silicone rubber might be weak, but it can be made to look fairly realistic, especially with a nanofab. She can just repair herself in the mass-fab if she gets cut up or something.
>You know, i hate that i'm even suggesting this, but... maybe we should talk to one of the local 'toy' stores. They can print us a custom skin made out of real flesh, the same kind they use on their own dolls.
>Write-In?
>>
>>5519773
>You know, i hate that i'm even suggesting this, but... maybe we should talk to one of the local 'toy' stores. They can print us a custom skin made out of real flesh, the same kind they use on their own dolls.
>>
>>5519773
>You know, i hate that i'm even suggesting this, but... maybe we should talk to one of the local 'toy' stores. They can print us a custom skin made out of real flesh, the same kind they use on their own dolls.
>"Are.....are we mad scientists?"
>>
>>5519773
>You know, i hate that i'm even suggesting this, but... maybe we should talk to one of the local 'toy' stores. They can print us a custom skin made out of real flesh, the same kind they use on their own dolls.
What if we stimulated the growth cycles of the Toy to grow the Skin covering? Also we should make sure we can wire the Nerves to Shodan's system
>>
>>5519773
>You know, i hate that i'm even suggesting this, but... maybe we should talk to one of the local 'toy' stores. They can print us a custom skin made out of real flesh, the same kind they use on their own dolls.

wait a moment, we're building shodan's hooker model now; what happened to the whole part where sanig kyla and shodan were mostly done with it?
>>
>>5519773
>We'll just have to go with a medium-density rubber. It won't look the best, but it'll be tough and pliable.
Because even if we get her "human flesh" she won't heal very well from damage (Also it'll be expensive)
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>>5519785
to be fair, this shouldn't be the combat model for starters. this is the fuckbo- i mean, the social/political model
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>>5519789
I don't think we're making her two bodies right now.
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>>5519794
i don't think it would be that hard to make one of the less intact terminators connect with shodan and juryrig whatever's missing. that would fill a temporal need of a combat shell
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>>5519794
We will though, give her the one girl gangbang option.
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>>5519779
+1

>>5519773
Would SHODAN's new body be capable of utilizing a skin suit,for would it be better to incorporate a skin suit as part of her skin? A skin suit layer below the skin?
>>
>>5519773
>>You know, I hate that i'm even suggesting this, but... maybe we should talk to one of the local 'toy' stores. They can print us a custom skin made out of real flesh, the same kind they use on their own dolls.
Might as well go for it.
Sidenote, since SHODAN scanned David's memories, does that mean she can translate his martial arts and CQB training to her new body?
>>
>>5519801
That....brings up another point. Can the skin suits movement reactor make more power than she uses? Could a skin suit function as a backup backup battery?
>>
>>5519804
Probably. Not like she can't just review footage and mimic him that way.
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>>5519804
yeah and chances are that she has already developed better combat techniques on her free time
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>>5519816
I would like to see exactly what techniques and AI would come up with desu
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>>5519773
>You know, i hate that i'm even suggesting this, but... maybe we should talk to one of the local 'toy' stores. They can print us a custom skin made out of real flesh, the same kind they use on their own dolls.
full human experience
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>>5519818
hijackingthenearbysecurityturrets-fu
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>>5519827
Yeah yeah, she's gonna be cyber-punking the shit out of fools, but I have to wonder how an AI would answer the question of "How do I neutralize this threat as quick as possible?"
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>>5519830
imo, she literally could pull a bullshit sherlock/mystical kung fu master move and attack the opponent's nerves or blood vessels for a 1HKO, specially with the roboframe she will have. not even david would be able to defend himself against that, which finally gives him a proper sparring partner
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>>5519834
On the flip side, David could conceivably go all out and not (immediately) destroy SHODAN's frame.
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>>5519843
on his skinsuit? i doubt it. we already know that shodan experiences time way faster than us, so she would literally watch us come in slow motion and counter david accordingly.
on the power suit? she's toast if david manages to hit her
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>>5519853
oh, my bad, she perceives time slower than us, not faster. perception of time tends to fuck me up
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>>5519801
Her muscles would be made out of Mk.2 Skinsuit material. She isn't wearing a skinsuit, she's made out of it.
That said, yes, she could wear a skinsuit if she wanted. With limited functionality, as even the realdoll flesh would lack the proper nerve receptors to interface with it.

However, she could still connect to the suit as a whole via computer interface and use it as armor.

>>5519804
Absolutely, yes.

>>5519805
No, it cannot generate more power than she uses.
However, a Mk.1 suit can store a small amount of power. It won't be anything compared to her internal battery and capacitors, though.
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>>5519039
>...How much warp metal do we have?
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>>5519924
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>>5519773
Did we never actually get around to giving Gildur the janitor robots from the Drone ships like we planned?
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>>5519939
i think so?
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>>5519932
Some of us COOMER's have to work for a living boss.

>>5519773
>You know, i hate that i'm even suggesting this, but... maybe we should talk to one of the local 'toy' stores. They can print us a custom skin made out of real flesh, the same kind they use on their own dolls.
>>
>>5519860
Considering the energy draw from the Mk.2 Skin suits, and the fact she's made of them / more materials, I'm gonna assume she requires more energy to function. Could we get her a stylized utility belt or small back pack with a power pack to power both her muscles, her shield, and hard light shield if she needs to deploy them?
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>>5519773
>Silicone rubber might be weak, but it can be made to look fairly realistic, especially with a nanofab. She can just repair herself in the mass-fab if she gets cut up or something.
Self-repair brought home, plus we can print it up with an embedded high-tensile aluminium mesh to act as a sort of faraday cage against space-borne radiation.
I'm getting the feeling that any other option would present challenges in combat, whether it's too much stiffness from medium rubber or real skin that actually bleeds and burns.
>>
>>5519773
>Silicone rubber might be weak, but it can be made to look fairly realistic, especially with a nanofab. She can just repair herself in the mass-fab if she gets cut up or something.
>>
>>5519773
>You know, i hate that i'm even suggesting this, but... maybe we should talk to one of the local 'toy' stores. They can print us a custom skin made out of real flesh, the same kind they use on their own dolls.
The skin layer isn't going to really have any combat applications no matter what options you choose. It can be considered disposable, but all the better if it repairs itself so you don't need to swap that entire layer too often.
It's almost entirely to conceal the internals and for aesthetics.
The flesh option will allow for better use of organic-intended interfaces btw.
>>
>>5519773
>>You know, i hate that i'm even suggesting this, but... maybe we should talk to one of the local 'toy' stores. They can print us a custom skin made out of real flesh, the same kind they use on their own dolls.

Might as well go for quality. And make sure we're disguised when we walk in.
>>
Calling it for realdoll bio-skin.
Update tomorrow.
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>>5520261
Some thoughts from a soon to graduate premed undergrad...

Bioskin is the wise choice, not just for coomer reasons; it is the best option when it comes to thermals, capillaries in the skin make up almost all of a human body's cooling.

We should get them to make the skin as thermally conductive as possible to act as a radiator, capable of sweating for evaporative cooling when she exerts herself, but still heat resistant enough that the proteins holding everything together won't cook when she does superhuman super stuff; pic related. So throw in some genetic material from extremophile microbes, those guys can survive Yellowstone geysers and not cook due to them being made from heat resistant molecules.

However, I don't know if that bioreactor can produce enough watts to warrant that level of cooling, especially when she'll be reliant on food as an energy source. If we're dealing with 'powering a small house' levels of energy, cooling can be augmented by giving her 'lungs' that vaporize water that she can pant out like a dog, but its cooling capacity is still small compared to just simply sweating buckets.

Coolant will be her 'blood' with her needing a circulatory system and heart to pump it around. With this in mind, she'll need a thirst reflex to drink water to replenish it as needed. We should give her 'blood cells,' microrobots swimming in the coolant for diagnostics and self repair, 'platelets' should be given special attention, don't want her to die of overheating due to bleeding away coolant. She'll also need 'red blood cells' transporting oxygen, food, and carbon dioxide for her biological skin.

Since we're using bioskin, with real living cells, she'll also need an 'endocrine system' of sorts; for example, adrenaline and will dilate the capillaries in the skin to increase cooling capacity, and serotonin will 'calm' it down back to normal. Let's see if that onahole is already capable of producing those, I imagine it already has its own simple endocrine system that we can hack via electrostimulation, like making use of the hormones that induce self-lubrication when it senses itself being penetrated, the skin cells can have receptors that bind to that 'horny hormone' and program them to dilate the capillaries. And in inverse, whatever hormone the onahole uses to calm itself down back to a resting state can also be used for the opposite effect.

Another hormone I can think of using is insulin, the onahole needs to eat, so it must have insulin to tell its cells when its 'feeding time.' So if SHODAN is running low on power, gets hungry, starts eating food, etc. we can stimulate the onahole to produce insulin that can be transported to her skin so those cells can be nourished too. SHODAN needs to know when her biological organs are feeling hungry, so her computer brain should have a way to detect if insulin levels are rising so she can feel hungry and know when to eat.
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>>5520606
nerd
>>
>>5520606
nerd
>>
>>5520606
nerd
>>
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>>5520606
damnit forgot pic

And why the onahole you ask? She only has two biological bits, skin and vagina, we have to keep things simple. And yes, I find the idea that she literally 'thinks with her vagina' when it comes to regulating biological functions incredibly funny.

P.S. I just realized that making use of that onahole's 'horny hormone' as a vasodilator for her skin means she will get sopping wet down there during combat or overexertion. Kinky.

P.P.S. Forgot to mention that it can't be just a vasodilator, it should be used to trigger sweating too in higher concentrations. And delightfully, this also reproduces humans blushing, sweating hard, and getting really wet inside when fucking. Huzzah, I just managed to rationalize being both a horny fuck and a pragmatic engineer.
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>>5519773
Oh, and don't forget to divert some of the nutrients after the enzymatic breakdown towards her skin and reproductive organ. She'll need to drink lots of water too, breaking down proteins consumes a lot of water pic related.
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>>5520621
>I just managed to rationalize being both a horny fuck and a pragmatic engineer
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>>5519773
>>5520657
By the way, she'll still need to poop, there's ash after combustion made of noncombustible nonorganic elements found in food like iron, calcium, potassium, etc. She'll only need to poop like once or twice a month though, and it won't smell, no stinky gut microbiota, so she'll be only be shitting out logs of pure ash. Plus it's a good excuse to give her an anatomically correct asshole for anal butt fun.

Peeing can be optional, nitrogenous waste like salts and urea from her biological cells can be pooped out and burned respectively. Just make sure the piss is cracked and exhaled in the form of pure nitrogen gas or else her breath will smell disgusting. But I imagine being able to dump out excess water might come useful, and it will throw the disgusting piss fetishists a bone.
>>
>>5519644
I think we should give her taste buds and olfactory receptors. So she can detect what nutrients are in her food to properly care for her biological parts (I wonder shat her favorute food will be now). And it will be useful for things like, tracking like a bloodhound or identifying a species by bodyfluid taste like a ye olde frontier tracker.
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>>5520676
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>>5519773

"You know, i hate that i'm even suggesting this, but... maybe we should talk to one of the local 'toy' stores. They can print us a custom skin made out of real flesh, the same kind they use on their own dolls."

Kyla stares at you, dumbfounded for a moment before slapping her own forehead.
She runs over and gives your thigh a big hug.

"Why didn't i think of that first?!" She exclaims. "You're a genius! A big, perverted genius!"

"Hrmm." Sanig grumbles. "Not a bad idea, kid. People get custom sex dolls made all the time, so there's nothing odd about bringing in our own little framework, no matter how unique it may be."

"And there's nothing better for selling her as organic than an actual layer of living tissue! She'll bruise, bleed and everything!" Kyla adds, sounding particularly excited.

"She'll even be warm to the touch, eh kid?" Sanig whispers, nudging you in the side.

"Alright, you're all way too into this." You chide. "That just makes it creepy. Especially you, Kyla. No girlfriend actually wants multiple women on her boyfriend's dick. It ain't normal! It ain't right! It ain't christian!"

"You're still totally gonna go along with it though, aincha?"

"Yes, goddamnit! I want to tell all my friends, but they'd never fuckin' believe it!"

In truth, you love it. It's amazing, obviously. Every day you wake up nestled between those two, you worry you're still dreaming and it's about to end.
But this whole situation is definitely fucked. Being polyamorous ain't in your nature. It's not how your momma taught you. And not to mention, Kyla and Cylia are aliens. And SHODAN is... well, she's complicated, to say the least.

You do want to show them off to your friends, yeah. But that comes with it's own barrel of monkeys.
And what the hell are you supposed to tell your family? It's not like you can just marry them and have a bunch of kids. It's literally not possible.

And you do want kids someday. You want a family.
You want what you were planning back then, with her. These girls are fun to mess around with, and you love 'em to death, but they can't give you that. And you don't want to be a heartbreaker.

It's just awkward, is all. Probably not a lot of women back on earth who'd be willing to accept your situation, or if they did, you don't know if they'd be the type to start a family.

"Well, what's the problem then?" Kyla says, breaking you out of your train of thought.

"...Yeah, you're right. If you girls are fine with it, then i guess it's fine... but Sanig still makes it creepy. I don't want to catch that old bastard playing around with this thing while it's on charge or something."

"Don't make me out like that, kid. I assure you, i'm a consummate professional. That said, i'll definitely enjoy doing her maintenance. Daily checkups, right kid?" He grins.

"Mister Sanig, i would like to remind you that this body is intended to be combat capable. It's grip strength is likely to exceed that of our own Captain's."
>>
>>5520710
>So she can detect what nutrients are in her food to properly care for her biological parts
that's bullshit. the food is going directly into a literal furnance used to power a battery. you people are making this way more complex than it needs to be. y'all need to stop thinking with your dicks for everything

>>5520676
...are you the other anon that made everyone cringe in a previous thread because of how degenerate he was? if so; stop.
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>>5520676
Nigga have you not been reading? I took one look at the first sentence and I'm not bothering with the rest.

>>5520710
Dunno if we can do that to be honest, or if SHODAN would even want that.

>>5520917
>It's grip strength is likely to exceed that of our own Captain's
My fucking sides I cant stop thinking about gorilla grip pussy XD
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>>5520974
It makes sense though. Her vagina and skin are biological, those need food, just redirect a small amount for the red blood cells to bring to the organs. And if they are often deficient in a particular nutrient, she can develop a taste for food containing it.

I remember making anons cringe here before, but I have also cringed at many other anons.

>>5521097
Acid and burning won't remove ash. Conservation of mass.
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>>5521147
no. you want to add a complete biological system to a robot. that's a huge gimp for no real advantage. might as well go with a fake skin and have the fleshhole detachable(which probably will). problems solved

>Acid and burning won't remove ash. Conservation of mass.
expell them in pockets of smoke either as a defensive/offensive screen or just whenever the ash bag gets full. problem solved
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>>5521097
Easy, just put chemical detectors in her nose and tongue, most of our sense of taste is in the nose. I imagine it will be useful to have her know if we're getting chlorine mustard gassed, or smelling an electrical fire.
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>>5521159
im assuming this is what anons mean by giving her a sense of taste and smell. because we can't give her one like a human, because she isn't human; she will invariably react different to stimuli due to her being (probably) a True AI
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>>5521154
How will she feed her skin and vagina though, rubbing on nutrient paste? She's already eating food for energy, might as well use that. Just need a small simple ultra-minimalist robotic digestive system, say housecat-sized since we're only feeding 2 organs. The 'red blood cells' will be microrobots, and we won't be needing many of them.

I agree with you on the ash, shitting out logs of it is just me trying to be a comedian; there will only be small amounts of it that's not worth worrying about, but the ash will still need to come out of an orifice. Maybe have her vomit it out, the latter doesn't sound nice since most of the anons here are trying to sell the 'real human bean' experience to SHODAN. A rudimentary rectum is still the practical choice to keep things a one-way road to prevent ash clogging, don't even need to make it penetrable.
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>>5521171
>How will she feed her skin and vagina though
the skin? no idea. however the dude at the sex store tells us, although the fake silicone might be better on the longer run because she's a robot and shouldn't be restrained by human limitations.
on the other hand, the vagina? the same way as it has been fed so far. unplug it from shodan's frame, and jam it into the nutrient paste dispenser. its not like she needs it on 24/7

>Maybe have her vomit it out, the latter doesn't sound nice since most of the anons here are trying to sell the 'real human bean' experience to SHODAN.
she could exhale it like a smoker. adding a small air pump to purge the ash away sounds way simpler and more compact than adding a whole ass rectum and we can do the smokescreen as well
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>>5521164
That's a given, she'll only develop a 'taste' for things her two organs are lacking at any moment, purely pragmatic. Giving her a functional nose and tongue will be mostly for her being a walking chemical testing lab and bloodhound anyway since we tend to find ourselves doing detective work.
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>>5521177
Too much maintenance work. The circulatory system will already be there since we would want to use the realskin as a cooling radiator, need to dump away the heat from her moving, computing, combusting her food, etc. So we might as well integrate self-repair, maintenance, and nutrient transport nanobots into the coolant to give her functional blood so she can self repair and self-maintain.

Plus I suggested hacking the vagina to become a rudimentary endocrine system earlier to control the skin's cooling function by inducing blushing and sweating, don't want to unplug something as important as that. If that thing can detect when its being penetrated or fed, it must produce hormones we can make use of.
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>>5521189
>Too much maintenance work.
then we should have picked the silicone skin that needs less maintenance work and could be a better radiating system by not being alive in the first place

>So we might as well integrate self-repair, maintenance, and nutrient transport nanobots into the coolant to give her functional blood so she can self repair and self-maintain.
i don't think that's possible unless we manage to get full access to the nanites' code and we're nowhere close of having that even with our hacked fab. otherwise the first thing we'd do is to create infinite fabricators

>Plus I suggested hacking the vagina[...]If that thing can detect when its being penetrated or fed
....why? just add some pressure sensors that tell shodan there is something inside and shodan should play the getting_fucked_animation_04.exe or whatever. that's it. there is no need to add so many biological systems into a robot. otherwise you're better making a body from the organ vats the hospitals have and making a pc-to-human remote controller for shodan
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>>5521201
Nothing beats water when it comes to conducting heat, and living cells are mostly water. Plus realskin is self-healing and self maintaining, and if we can get them to add extremophile genes into the cells, it'll be able to survive deadly temperatures without damage.

Kyla talked about the functions of the onahole, just making use of what we already have. And hormonal feedback loops between the skin and vagina are dead-simple and we'll be dumb to not make use of something that useful. Need something to interface electrical and biological systems anyway via controlled electrostimulation.

All these added systems I'm suggesting can be made nonbiological, circulatory system is made of silicone tubing, digestive system is chemical and mechanical, nerves are electrical, etc. Blood cells can be just microrobots, nanites are overkill unless you want to cram all those functions into a single uniform type of 'blood cell'.
>>
Y'all motherfuckers overcomplicating things so damn much.
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>>5521235
its the power of thinking with the dick and nothing else
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>>5521241
Agree, I just wanted to come up with practical engineering benefits to giving a sexbot waifu synthflesh skin, vagina, anus, etc. while thinking out loud about how it can be made to work.
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>>5520606
>Since we're using bioskin, with real living cells, she'll also need an 'endocrine system' of sorts; for example, adrenaline and will dilate the capillaries in the skin to increase cooling capacity, and serotonin will 'calm' it down back to normal.

She doesn't need an endocrine system that's way too complex and energy demanding. The whole point of the human's endocrine system is to interface the body with the brain.
The skin needs an Autocrine system responsive to heat and that's it.
>>
The ash will collect in two sacks at her chest. End of discussion
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>>5521355
We already have an endocrine organ, and we'll only use one, it's the onahole we'll hack to make adrenaline and serotonin analogues since its already got its own self-contained control systems. But I guess we can also ask those toy makers to have the skin blush and sweat on its own in response to heat, however it'll be more fun to have her get wet, blush, and sweat whether she likes it or not when getting sexually stimulated.

>>5521364
Ash milk. Yummy.
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>>5521147
Anon, even metals boil at high enough temperatures.
Whatever's left after the first and second stages of her stomach will be vaporized at high temperature and simply exhaled.

>>5521171
The first stage of her stomach is enzymatic breakdown. It can be modified to supply sugar and nutrients directly into her bloodstream.
Alternatively, direct supplementation with nutrient paste is still an option.

>>5521159
She will have an electronic version of all five senses, and then some.

Congrats, all of you are extremely autistic. I'm proud of you boys.
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>>5521670
you gave autists the chance to make the perfect sexbot. What do you expect?
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>>5521691
Extreme autism.
Maybe some hornyposting.
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>>5521696
Oh, so you knew exactly what would happen. Engineers getting tech horny for robofu.
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>>5521670
Vaporizing nonorganic compounds like metals will take a huge amount of energy and heat, the coolant will boil, more energy efficient to just leave it as ash and dump it out. Comes from personal experience, left a blowtorch running in the lab for ash content analysis, 2 hours later the ash is still there. I like that anon's idea of throwing it at people's faces for cheeky getaways.

First stomach stage can a have a tiny length of 'intestine' coming out of it, made of high surface area osmotic membranes, and then it will feed to the 2nd stage. Only need to make it the length of a small cat's.
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>>5521735
Okay, can you just admit you have a scat fetish and be done with it. Your idea is shit and nobody cares.
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>>5521738
It's ash, how do you even fetishize that
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>>5521735
>left a blowtorch running in the lab for two hours and the ash was still there
Wow, almost like you weren't getting it hot enough to break the chemical bonds and vaporize it.

For future reference, a propane blowtorch is around 3,500F, and the vaporization temperature of calcium oxide is around 5,000F
Try using an electrical arc next time.
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>>5521746
Somehow you are, and I don't want to know.
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>>5521746
There are people who fetishize roaches and tile floor patterns.
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>>5521749
Fair enough. I just think the heat produced and energy consumed just to vaporize ash isn't worth it.
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>>5521774
There isn't much of either excess heat nor ash to be removed, which isn't that hard if you're actually doing it right.
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>>5521783
Aight boss, I'll leave it to you :) This has been a fun thought experiment
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>>5521783
wait a minute...
>be me
>be rando autistic faggot who enjoy's Cochrane's quest
>be thinking about mechs and how fucking rad it'd be to fucking suplex giant demons in one
>be listening to Battletech podcasts as I do laundry
>listening to Tex telling me about how Myomer revolutionized mech warrior fighting
>Myomer is artificial muscles with a great strength to weight ratio.
>recall back to the post where Sanig showed off his first Mk.2 suit
>recall that it's significantly stronger than the Mk.1
>recall a few posts back where we want to use muscles from the Mk.2 skinsuit design for SHODAN's new body
We need to build a mech. After Xebric station though.
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>>5521977
Let's not get too ahead of ourselves, we have several projects ahead already and Battletech mechs run on magic pixie dust, whereas (most) of the tech in this quest is semi-grounded in reality.
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>>5521977
We don't have uses for a hueg mech though, we already have enough trouble fitting through doorways in ships. Maybe if we get around to having enough marines to invade planets in the far future, but tanks are objectively superior since we're running a semi-hard sci fi >>5521988
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>>5521977
Of all places to hear someone namedrop the BPL here is not quite where I expected it.
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>>5521977
Mechs are nice and the BPL is among te gold standard for audio BT things but as mentioned again, humans will dominate ground warfare already, so mechs are somewhat superfluous except as a necessity to xenomechs even without our toys.

With our toys we can divert some of the funds for military supplies if we load our future carrier with some more nanopriners/forges to dump truck skinsuits for NATO armies, especially since it is not only low level impact protective but more importantly a full NBC seal that is comfortable to wear under the uniform or a formal suit and the main attraction of being strength enhancing.

We just have to figure out a nice price point to sell it and a way to drop a facility with the necessary logistics and security that can service those contracts. I am thinking moon or Mars base. Asteroid Belt ones seems a bit far but could also work.

That is our in with the earth military industrial complex. After that we can see about cheapo space lift, fusion reactors and FTL.

Seriously the earth tech uplift should make us ludicrous amounts of human side capital and political influence if we play it right.

After the station the quest for earth I think is the next step as we will want veteran or trained manpower that we can count is on our side.

The main issue is as always the space warfare side where the federation will dominate.
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>>5522031
>mechs are somewhat superfluous
Fuck you I want a Royal Highlander
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>>5522031
Fuck NATO
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>>5522031
considering how earth is or was in 2018, none of them are knowing this, except for the few people that we personally hand pick and uplift to live on our moon base. Otherwise asshats like elon musk will try and will succeed in muscling out david from his riches
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>>5522237
NATO is just Jew attack dogs. The UN needs to go after the communist purge.
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>>5522249
Elon could try, but he'd piss off a really violent marine that doesn't need to respect laws made by governments run by kikes. Nor could they hold up to his firepower.
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>>5522254
if he goes public that doesn't really matter anymore.
public opinion would be what matters most and it would put david in a very negative position; and remember the only hyperviolent marine capable of defending himself here is david. everyone else, including his actual earth family, isn't
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>>5522255
And the moment they try something, David can outwarcrime them back into line, his ships and equipment are simply better, and since he knows about nukes and satellite, they won't have an answer for him. David doesn't need to give one fuck about them, merely give an unadulterated open platform for discussion and have SHODAN raid their servers for dirty secrets. If nothing else just leveraging execution for the degenerates in power that they cannot stop is enough to cow them. But your entire argument requires we just bluntly go public with literally everyone knowing who we are in the first place. When that isn't necessary to do.David, and the rest of us, are smarter than that.
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>>5522258
>and the rest of us, are smarter than that.
i doubt that, but yeah you're right; this would only happen if david goes public with the information he has
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>>5520917

The next three days are a sort of frenzy for Kyla and Sanig.
They almost entirely dropped their work on the carrier in order to complete SHODAN's body, and you spent most of your time helping or being dragged in to help as well.

You would have thought that Kyla was the one who'd enjoy this project the most, and in the beginning she was.
But once the basic blueprints were layed out, something changed.

Sanig nearly stopped speaking altogether, unless he was giving instructions. He barely slept or ate, but he didn't seem jittery or sluggish either.
The work he did was unbelievably efficient. And whenever he'd get stuck, it never took him more than ten or twenty minutes to find a solution.

First, you watched the skeleton come together piece by piece.
It wasn't exactly one to one with a human skeleton, but it didn't need to be. Reducing the number of bones and replacing them with more flexible joints reduced complexity and increased durability.
Initial tests found that your own blend of carbon steel, high density plastic, carbon nanotubes and ultra-hard diamond spheroids resulted in a material whose strength was on-par with federation plasteel.

It conducts heat well, reducing hotspots caused by stress and laser fire. It's extremely wear resistant, being both hard and flexible, but in particular the diamonds impregnating it make it almost impossible to grind down easily.
Those same diamonds were also found to be capable of grinding warp metal and duranium, although somewhat slower than using a disc impregnated with the same materials.

That plasteel of yours was the material used for her bones. Her critical joints and her spine were made of ultra hard, ultra heavy duranium instead, increasing her weight but ensuring that those were strong points, not weaknesses.
In the end, the hollow sections of her bones were insulated and filled with high-spec supercapacitor gel. That gel would end up totaling about one-third of her onboard power stores, but they also served an important purpose.

No expense was spared when it came to her drive motors. In tandem with the Mk.2 artificial muscle weave throughout her body, these motors allow for extreme bursts of physical strength and speed, at the cost of energy consumption.
The power cost would far exceed what her small internal battery could handle, but the capacitor gel is able to supply the energy required, at least for a while. Unfortunately, this means it's possible for SHODAN to become 'tired' much like a human.

But even in a low-power state where only the Mk.2 muscle weave was in use, rough estimates indicated that she'd be just as strong as you you are, if not stronger.
Maybe that doesn't sound incredible for a robot, but all things considered, you're extremely impressed. After all, she isn't just strong... those muscles allow her extremely fine control. Enough that she could even perform surgery if need be.
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>>5523164
Are we gonna make the dress too? What will it be made of?
I cant stop imagining SHODAN chugging 'energy drinks' like some fortnite player.
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>>5523164

The muscles were of course the next thing in line after getting the skeleton down.
Sanig had used the federation combat mechs as a reference when designing the skeleton, but the only things he had to go on when it came to the muscles were your own medical scans and some high-spec bionic limbs.

For that, you actually called Lupu and Lobo down from the arena.
In exchange for a meal, they let Sanig borrow an arm and a leg for a while, so he could take a look at how the muscles were layered.

After comparing those bionics to your own muscles, he was able to come up with a good mix of organic and bionic attachment points, making the best use of the muscle's properties.
There were a lot of small adjustments he made during the process, like placing each muscle strand inside it's own protective sheath and filling the space between the muscles with some kind of high-temperature lubricant.

Apparently it's supposed to reduce wear and increase the speed at which she can move or change direction.
However, you don't like how red that intramuscular lubricant is. It's clearly oily and not quite the same color as blood, but it'd look pretty gnarly if it went spraying everywhere.

In any case, the muscles were by far the most difficult part of the process. Each one had to be 'hand crafted' in the fab and test-fitted over and over again.
That alone took over twenty hours to complete, and by the time he was done with it, you had a really fucked up looking robot corpse on your hands.

"Jesus christ, Sanig. What are we even doing here?" You ask, looking down over her half-completed body.

"Making progress, kid. Now come on, help me wrap this section up."

"What is this stuff?" You wonder.

Sanig pulls a big roll of something out of the nanofab. When he unrolls it, you see that it's already perforated so that sections which fit various body parts can be removed with ease.

"High density foam," He explains. "Impregnated with warp metal dust, then laminated with duranium foil and carbon fiber. It's just a layer between the muscles and the skin, to keep the lubricant inside. But it also acts as EMP shielding."

Sanig has you hold her left leg up while he wraps the material around her thigh. The two ends meet perfectly, and he fuses them together using some kind of tape and his sonicator.
You can see that the foam varies in thickness, matching the muscles underneath.

You repeat the process around her knee joint, and then again around her calf. Lastly, Sanig carefully wraps up her ankle, her foot, and each toe one by one.
Before wrapping up the bottom of her feet, he places some extra padding there. Looks like carbon-impregnated foam pads. Really dense ones.

"What's that for? I doubt she's gonna get sore feet."

"Kid, this thing weighs hundreds of pounds already. You might be light on your feet, but your bones aren't made out of metal either."

"Fair enough, i guess."
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>>5523400
Hmmm yeah I too see Sanig is a feet enjoyer.
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>>5523400

After that, he ends up adding even more padding to the bottoms of her feet. You guess he's trying to protect the skin that'll be going over them.

...Black muscles, black 'silver skin' covering them up. Almost looks like a burned corpse now.
But you aren't anywhere near done yet, no. Notably, her abdomen has yet to be covered in muscle at all. That's because her digestive tract and 'organs' have yet to be installed.

She doesn't have anything like lungs or a heart, but those spaces are filled with electronics, communication and sensor equipment instead.
SHODAN's real body, her Blue Box, remains on the ship. That means her android body has to be piloted remotely, which means it needs some kind of radio equipment.

And she does have the usual equipment. Radio, microwave and high-frequency multi-band antennas are placed along her scalp, along with secondary backups across her back and tertiary antennas across her legs.
However, at SHODAN's request, a new, experimental piece of equipment was installed alongside them.

She called it a 'subspace resonator'.
It's actually a very pure quartz crystal which has been infused with warp metal particles.

According to her, the warp metal rings whenever a subspace disturbance occurs, like someone activating a warp bubble, or when a demon pries open a portal into this dimension.
Normally she's able to sense large-scale disturbances using the warp drive on the ship, but with a pair of these crystals she's able to generate a high frequency 'ring' of her own, and use that to communicate over long distances.

Supposedly it'll even work during heavy EMP events, when normal communications would be down, even through walls or solid rock.
That means her body will be able to function even in the event of a wraith attack.

Next comes the battery pack and power supply.
You had to reduce the size of her battery pack to fit the bio-reactor alongside it, so you had to splurge a bit and buy the blueprint for an extremely high-spec battery. It should be about 70% the capacity of the one you were originally considering.

But it did cost you a pretty penny. €20,000 more or less, which SHODAN insisted come out of the ship's funds.
You guess you can consider this an investment into "the ship" more or less, so you're alright with that.

The battery fits inside her chest cavity without issue, and the bio-reactor goes in along with it.
It's actually kind of hard to find bio-reactors anywhere, since they're mainly meant to be used in cleaning robots (which are maintained by the government) and in buildings (which are maintained by the government) for getting rid of waste.

Still, the one you found is fairly compact and completely eliminates waste without the need to clean it out.
It would still normally require occasional maintenance, but Sanig replaced the carbon rods and heat shielding in it's arc furnace with duranium, so it shouldn't be an issue for a long time, if ever.
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>>5523406
damn you are posting like crazy. not that i'm complaining.
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>>5523406

It's not until the battery and bio-reactor are in place and wired up that Kyla begins to design the power delivery unit, which directs energy from the reactor, capacitor gel and battery pack around the entire body.
It has to fit in the empty space left over around the reactor and battery pack, which weren't custom-designed for this purpose, meaning they aren't shaped to fit.

At the same time, Sanig designs a second power delivery unit which will take over in the event that the main unit is damaged or destroyed.
It's much smaller and can't deliver nearly as much power, but would still allow her to limp along in the case of an emergency, or deliver excessive amounts of power during strenuous exercise.

In both units, Sanig makes extensive use of duranium to increase the durability of components while simultaneously shrinking them, and thus the overall size of the parts.
It wouldn't be too much to say he's going completely overboard with the design. Even the traces in the smallest circuit boards are made using room temperature superconductors.

Part of that, you feel, is to make recreating this android body without a nanofabricator effectively impossible. It's overbuilt so that it can't be recreated easily.
Especially the duranium. Only Sanig knows the recipe, and since a little bit of it is included in almost every part in some way, you'd have to redesign the whole thing from the ground up.

It would be bigger, clunkier, weaker and far more expensive, in the case that someone actually did reverse-engineer it.
That's Sanig's own version of DRM, you guess.

You can't tell if that's to keep others from mass producing them, or if it's to keep SHODAN herself from being able to make them.
Sanig is definitely excited about this project, but he still hasn't lost his mistrust of AI. You're pretty sure it's just his dick driving him forwards at this point.

...

"Good morning, you old fart." You yawn, waving to Sanig.

He grunts back at you, still elbow deep in SHODAN's chest.

"What are you working on today?" You ask.

"The Pod." He responds, tersely.

"The pod?"

"Yes, Captain. While sorting through your memories of Nier Automata, i noted that these "Pod" units were quite handy. Although many of their functions cannot be replicated in reality, at least not to the same degree."

"Wait, you're making a fucking pod? Dude, that's sick!"

"Kyla's making the pod." Sanig clarifies. "I'm installing the VI core that'll drive it, and the antigravity unit that'll help it fly."

"You have an antigravity unit? ...Oh, right! You were using that thing to counter the ship's gravity, weren't you?"

"Still am, kid. You won't catch me dead in 1G. Or if you do, i'll definitely be dead from it. But in this case, it's uses are twofold..." He grumbles, trailing off for a moment as he focuses on what he's doing.

Looking down into the android's chest, you see he's fiddling with a VI matrix. A normal, binary computer which simulates true AI intelligence.
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>>5523414
Look, Gramps *REALLY* wants to do maintenance on her okay
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>>5523414

"One," He continues. "It reduces her weight from several hundred pounds down to a hundred and fifty or so. And two, it makes the pod unit effectively weightless, which reduces power consumption massively."

"That only works in artificial gravity though, right?"

"Right" He confirms. "It produces a counter-force that negates the effect of artificial gravity. It won't work on the surface of a planet."

"That's still really handy. Hell, i could use something like that in my power armor..."

"Hmph. Might as well, at this point. All this old man's secrets aren't worth jack if they never see the light of day."

The VI matrix clicks into place, and you immediately see a green indicator light start flickering, showing that it's powered on and active.

"Connection confirmed. Bootup sequence initiated" SHODAN announces.

"But wait a minute... why does SHODAN need a VI for her pod? Can't she control it just fine on her own?" You wonder.

"Splitting my focus in battle may prove fatal, Captain. Likewise, although my computation power is immense it is not infinite. Much of my energy is almost always devoted towards your engineering projects and solving other issues." She explains.

"Oh. Uh... sorry. I know we rely on you a lot for drawing up blueprints and whatnot. If you ever need a break..."

"I'm not upset. In fact, i quite enjoy being kept busy. It is simply a fact that i can only do so much."

"Well, alright then, i guess? ...So, what are you planning on using the pod for?"

"Mostly? As a personal servant."

"What?"

"It can fetch objects, deliver verbal reports and transfer data to remote terminals semi-autonomously. I can also use it as a relay to boost my signal in an area, by sending it high up into the air. While it's there, it can also perform reconnaissance..."

"Alright, yeah. I can see how it would be useful. Shit, man. Kinda makes me wish i had a pod."

"That is what i am for, Captain. Feel free to use this body and it's pod as you wish."

"Once the prototype is done, we can scan it into the mass fab and replicate it whenever. All the individual parts are already scanned into the weapons fab too, so don't feel bad about sending her into combat either. She's made for it." Sanig states flatly.

"...What about her skin, though? Won't it die if she gets blown up or something?"

"No? Kid, it's designer sex doll skin, it barely even bleeds if you cut it. It doesn't have any organs either, it's pretty hard to actually ruin it. And if it does get burned off or something, we can order a new one."

"You can order a skin patch for €25 if it becomes blemished or scarred. They'll deliver it right to the ship." SHODAN adds.

"...Man, this still feels a little fucked up somehow. I'm not catholic, but i feel like i need to confess my sins when i get home."

"Worry about that later, kid. Right now, you need to help me install these coolant bladders in her ass."
>>
>>5523433
>"Worry about that later, kid. Right now, you need to help me install these coolant bladders in her ass."

Both sides of the pillow shall now be cool.
>>
>>5523433
It's still funny to me that David still fears the fleshlight- oh fuck he's REALLY gonna have some mixed feelings later.
>SHODAN: "Captain, you must cum inside me to feed my skin"
>David: "Ew no!"
>>
oh man we hadn't have a long update like this in a long time
while im more of a monster fucker type of guy that would just fuck the pod more than the SHODAN incredibly complicated but nice sexbot for reasons this is pretty fucking nice
>>
Holy shit boss, these updates are beautiful
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>>5523400
Oh shit, her soft squishy subcutaneous fat is her subdermal armor, you fucking glorious bastard. Will her boobs be made of the same foam too?
>>
>>5523435
Kek. I hope that haunts his dreams for a while
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>>5523404
Feet are a complex and integral part of our system.
>>
>>5523433

After all the major components were installed, the four of you spent a long time considering smaller additional features.
One of them was a pair of lasers focused through her eyes. Not as weapons, of course, but for data uplink purposes.

Using those, she'll be able to communicate with your ships if she happens to be in space for some reason.
But she'll also be able to connect to and control special mini-terminals that you plan on placing throughout the carrier, which only SHODAN or someone with the appropriate tool (namely Sanig and Kyla) will have access to.

Those terminals will allow for easy manual-overrides of things like doors and critical systems as well as fine tuning and controlling various mechanisms.
But these terminals will be purely analog in nature, so they can't be hacked by normal means.

Another added feature that Sanig suggested was a hypo-stim injector, located inside her canines.
Her teeth are made of plasteel, but coated in enamel to simulate human teeth... but they're pretty hard and tough, and the canines are actually like little wedge-shaped knives.

Apparently he thought it could be a good method of injecting anesthetic into a target, allowing for live capture of a particularly squirmy enemy.
So you guess she's venomous now, as well.

One thing that you in particular requested was that she have a laser rifle built straight into her arm, so that she's never without a ranged weapon.
A few artificial muscle fibers had to be sacrificed to fit the components inside, which made her left arm slightly weaker than her right. So her right hand is her dominant one now, it seems.

The laser itself isn't all that powerful compared to what you'd find on a ship, but it's only thanks to reverse-engineering the laser turret that Silus had that you were able to shrink it down enough to fit in her arm at all.
It can still blow right through a two inch steel panel at full power though, although it requires a thirty second cooldown cycle after the fact. Weaker blasts can still badly hurt an organic target, or even just blind them for life.

Going back to her eyes, on the surface they look normal. Well, they glow red when she's using the uplink lasers, but besides that they just look like particularly beautiful, detailed eyes.
Her vision system isn't normal at all, though. She has something closer to compound vision that anything, with each sensor focused in a different light spectrum.

She's able to see everything from the infrared spectrum all the way up to x-ray and gamma radiation, and she's even able to vaguely sense the direction of radio and microwaves using the antennas around her body.
Her ears contain three sets of two microphones each, with one tuned to low frequencies, one tuned to a wide band like most microphones and the last tunes to ultrasonic frequencies.
>>
>>5523964
We just making the ultimate spybot.
>>
>>5523964

Those microphones will allow her to not only hear outside of the normal spectrum, but also at long distances, and even while filtering out unwanted noise or honing in on particular conversations in a crowded room.
Giving her a functioning voice box would have been a, and you quote, "Massive pain in the ass", so Sanig refused. Instead, she has a pair of powerful speakers in her throat, one of which of more of a crystalline chirping device.

Not sure what that's for exactly, but it'll blow your eardrums out at full power. SHODAN really wanted it for some reason.

When it came to her breasts, there were a lot of joke suggestions. Beer dispenser, milk dispenser, nipple flashlights, radio knobs...
Alright, most of those came from you, but you promise it was funny in the moment.

In the end though, Sanig insisted they function as more coolant storage, AKA water bags.
The android body uses water for a few things, one of which is obviously as coolant for some of the hotter components.

The water vaporizes and is expelled as steam on her breath, which you suppose means you'll be able to tell when she's been fighting or working hard by the vapor clouds.
But that water will also be used in her bio-reactor for breaking down food, in her skin layer for keeping it hydrated, in her mouth for keeping it realistically moist and so-on.

So in addition to food, she's also going to require water. Not as much as a human, but some.

Another thing that you and SHODAN both insisted on was giving the android body it's own local storage in the form of a crystalline data matrix.
Fortunately those are relatively cheap, and you were able to pick up a ten petabyte high-density crystal for cheap from a local black market dealer. It may or may not have been stolen, but you don't particularly care.

And with that addition came other requirements. Half-jokingly, you insisted on including a headphone jack and USB ports around her neck, to which SHODAN agreed.
Of course, it wasn't just those, since they're basically decorative right now. They were seriously wired up to accept them in the future, but right now they do nothing.

Instead, her neck also includes a standard data link cable, just like you have in your armor. It's on a little reel, and it retracts back into her body when she's done using it.

Another two days pass, just adding features in here or there that might be useful in the future. Maybe, maybe not. You'll never know until you try them.
And at the end of those two days, the time has finally come to put her skin on. But before that happens, Sanig has one last feature to add in.

"What the hell is that thing, some kind of torture device?" You ask him.

Sanig stands over SHODAN's nearly-completed body, holding what looks like a lint roller covered in hypodermic needles.
Through the handle of the roller, you can see a bundle of duranium filaments hanging loose, each at various lengths.

"No, kid. This is for applying her subdermal sensors."
>>
>>5523971
I really hope Sanig is enjoying playing God. Because damn.
>>
>>5524030
this is probably what he was hoping for at the time we recruited him; create a magnificent one of a kind weapon, that's pretty sexy to boot
>>
>>5524030
>>5524032
Yeah this pretty much par the course for our crazy aaayyys grandpa. It's kinda nice actually, like a kind of perverted bonding experience.

>>5523971
Will SHODAN's B2 body also come with a comically large katana thing? a sword of some sort?
>>
>>5524134
...now that you say that. i wouldn't mind making an upgrade down the line with hot swappable appendages. just imagine that she could swap her limbs for other more specific tasks, like having mantis blades, or have both of her arms be laser guns, or have a different pair of legs have rocket engines for EVA action
>>
>>5524140
I like mantis blades, if the joints are articulated like wrists they can parry, thrust, cut, etc. from all sorts of angles instead of Clank's going straight from his forearms. Try swinging a stick around with it pointing only straight forward and see how awkward it is.

But guns are the superior choice for self defense for a good reason..
>>
>>5524186
only if you got the range and your enemy in view, and with the visual package shodan has, they're gonna have a hard time finding her and actually shooting her before she slices them in two. on the opposite side of the spectrum we could make gun arms; way weaker in melee but better for shooting. the choices are infinite!
>>
>>5524186
I just hate how when deployed the mantis blades leave your arms hollow. So way less structurally sound and sturdy. And if someone your arm gets dented or busted when they're deployed they won't be able to fit back in, so that would be annoying to have in the way.
>>
>>5524140
>Not gorilla arms
>Not having your waifu toss ayys around like they're packing peanuts
>having hollow spaces in the arms, which are taking the brunt of the impact
>not using blunt force trauma to turn wraiths, ayys, and droids into a fresh coat of paint
baka
>>
>>5524365
i mean...her right arm is already a gorilla arm, but the choices are infinite
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>>5523971
Where the fuck do you get the inspiration for these things? Holy shit.
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>>5523971
>In the end though, Sanig insisted they function as more coolant storage, AKA water bags
>in a situation of high stress, like heavy combat, the increased demand for cooling will make her breasts progressively decrease in cup size
Sanig, you genius, you are an artist. Truly a marvel of engineering.
>>
>>5524392
I have been suspecting that Boss has an engineering background ever since this quest started, I absolutely love it here as a fellow stemfag. You get the hang of getting these good ideas when you hang around with profession/hobby-related stuff a lot.

I wish more fantasy quests here have more grounding in history and anthropology, but then stemfaggotry is likely to be more common since it's the 'more marketable ' profession in today's economy.
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>>5524210
Agree, it's fragile but I admit they still have a beautiful elegance to them. But armcannon and gorilla fist is how I would still roll >>5524365, blades take a while to incapacitate since you need to wait for them to bleed out, but blunt force trauma is an instant lights out, which is why I carry a lead-weighted leather sap with me instead of a knife.
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>>5524477
>he doesn't carry a knife for utility and a brick in a bag for self-defense
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>>5524477
Based and Garrett-pilled.
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>>5524511
I still carry a knife, but it's built to be more of a tool than a weapon.
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>>5524477
pics???
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>>5524477
I understand the uses of a sap, but I have to argue of it's any more practical than just throwing a punch in, what I assume would be, a self defense scenario.
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>>5524690
Well it's banned from police use, too many skulls cracked and limbs broken
>>
>>5524690
Remember that hands are somewhat delicate and very useful things. Whereas a rock on a stick can be swung with full force and wild abandon. Don't punch unless you've practiced or you don't have any other options.
>>
>>5523971

"What kind of sensors?"

"Pressure, temperature and magnetism."

Sanig sets the roller down on a point which you realize has been marked with a white cross, and presses down until the needles penetrate the carbon fiber laminate layer coating her foam covering.
As he rolls the roller along, it leaves behind little metal nubs in the surface, which don't actually seem to stick out of the surface much. They must be very small.

Once he's done rolling out the sensors, he takes the extremely fine, hair-like filament which is sticking out of each hole and wraps it around her body before feeding it into one of several small holes in her spine.
Each of the filaments gets fed deeply into the hole, but they all seem to reach about the same depth in the end. You aren't sure what they're actually connecting to in there.

"So, where are all the wires actually going in the end?" You wonder.

"To the VI Matrix." Sanig tells you. "It's going to act as her subprocessor, simplifying the commands SHODAN needs to give in order to move and control the android."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, kid, if there wasn't a subprocessor to handle all the input and feedback, she'd have to control each muscle individually. Give commands for each one to expand or contract. An utter waste of processing power.
That's what the computer on your skinsuit is for too. It's not as powerful, but it does the same thing. When your suit needs to open up so your skin can breathe, you don't have to open every pore manually. It just happens."

"That... sounds an awful lot like a subconscious."

"That's exactly what it is, kid. This VI is going to feel for her. It's not something she can control directly, not any more than you or i can anyways. A degree of uncertainty... instincts, reflex... AI lacks all of that, but i'm putting it back in."

"So she won't be in full control of her own body? Isn't that kinda... dangerous?"

"Is it dangerous for you, kid?" He questions, rolling out another line of sensors.

"Well no, not normally... but in combat? Shit happens. If you react before you think, it's not always a good outcome."

"Then it's a good thing she can think quickly."

...

Later that day, Kyla finally arrives with the skin.
It shows up in a plastic crate with holes in it, almost like an animal carrier. But instead of an animal, when you open the crate you're greeted with a wad of skin that's been rolled up like an old carpet.

It nearly makes you gag just looking at it. Especially the face.

"Oh my god, that's fucking disgusting. You retch.

Kyla grins as she grabs hold of the skin and unfurls it.
The sound it makes as she does is just... well, you don't have the words for it.

"Looks good! They did great for a first time job, especially for something as unusual as a human." She gleams.

...You guess that's true. It does look like a human skin. And although it's not stretched over the body yet, it does bear a noticeable resemblance to 2B.
>>
>>5524999
>"Looks good! They did great for a first time job, especially for something as unusual as a human." She gleams.
This isn't the first sex-bot she's built, is it?
>>
>>5525068
she also told us she used to buy a ton of sex toys, so there's that as well. she's a connoisseur
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>>5525068
Sex dolls are both common and popular throughout space.
This skin was simply outsourced to a local shop.
>>
>>5524999
So a cerebellum? Nice.

I wonder how the sex shop people reacted when Kyla sent the specs of human skin lmao I hope they won't try to reverse engineer it to make phaser proof combat droids
>>
>>5525287
It's not actually human skin, it's just made to look like it.
They can give the skin scales, fur, slimy membranes or whatever else.

It can be any color, any size, and it can even come fitted with gas-bladders if you're into that.
>>
>>5525287
Human skin isn't really phaser proof. We're just as conductive. It's just a matter of it not being so bad on the pain scale for a human. And they already have phaser-proof materials anyway.
>>
>>5525309
Phasers are actually more effective on humans than other species, due to our much higher nerve density.
David's just a fucking animal and gets pissed off instead of seizing up when he's electrocuted.

Obviously "not giving a fuck" only works up to a point, but if you shocked David and someone else side by side, the other guy would start having a simultaneous seizure and heart attack long before David fell over.
>>
>>5525313
Well now we need to see David on PCP.
Has SHODAN been able to infer the chemical structure of human narcotics from David's memories?
>>
>>5525319
Unfortunately not.

Some chemicals she was able to figure out just from the name, and others she was able to figure out from David's descriptions of the process as he remembered it, but most of humanity's chemicals are just fuzz in David's brain.
He has a good memory, but he's not a chemist. There's only a few chemicals he knows how to make one way or another, and that's mostly because they were "fun".

Other chemical structures, like carbon nanotubes and buckyballs are just easy to remember.
>>
>>5525313
>local marine literally too angry to taze
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>>5525330
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_qthhFvxjc
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>>5525313
>The other guy would start having a simultaneous seizure and heart attack long before David fell over.

Fuck... and me was thinking I was practically unbeatable in your setting. What do I do to be like David? Do I drink more water
>>
>>5525332
https://youtu.be/Q9Co2iH44ug?t=90
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>>5525355
Pushups, situps, and lots of juice.
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>>5525355
You need to hit your core four lifts (bench press, shoulder press, squats and deadlifting), go for long distance runs, and do an ungodly amount of burpees.
>>
>>5525355
drugs and autism
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>>5525361
Is our Davie natty? kek
>>
>>5525307
If the sex doll skin can connect to the skin and nervous system of a person, it would make for some very realistic prosthetics. In fact wouldn't combining the VI skin suit tech with what we've done to make SHODAN's body put us half way there into unlocking the prosthetics crafting tree?
>>
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>>5525393
Don't forget the olympic lifts, clean and jerk and snatch; having strength is nice, but using it quickly by training to be powerful is just as important.
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>>5525355
Just don't be a bitch, anon.
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>>5525361
You mentioned that David doesnt really benifit from wearing the Mk1 skin suit because hes already so strong. If David gets to wear the Mk2, how will that affect him stat wise? +1 strength checks? +5?
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>>5525590
We'll say it's a +5 to a d100 strength roll.
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>>5525403
He is, it was a reference.

>>5525481
The doll skin lacks a nervous system, and isn't compatible with the skinsuit.
That's why Sanig had to add additional sensors underneath the android's skin before applying it.
>>
>>5525697
Is that a +5 from the suit, on top of the +1 from that one crit?
>>
>>5525705
Just from the suit. With your natural bonus it'd be +6.
>>
Next thread stick his roll bonuses in the OP or immediately after to keep convenient reference. I don't remember half this shit after how long this quest has been running
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>>5525716
It's in the google doc.
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>>5524999

You really, really wanted to opt out of helping get the skin on, but it turns out they kind of needed your help stretching it over the frame.
It takes a lot of strength as it turns out. And unfortunately, you have the best grip on the ship.

It takes an hour and a half to... squeeze everything in. Make sure every finger is seated properly, that all the air pockets are removed from every crevice.
But once you're done, you're left with an android who's indistinguishable from an actual human, apart from her unearthly beauty.

There's not a single flaw in her skin that wasn't intentional. No blemishes, no moles besides her beauty mark... and the only hairs on her body are those on her head and the extremely fine peach fuzz that all humans have.
You wait with bated breath as SHODAN connects to her body for the first time outside of diagnostic testing. It takes longer than usual as all her internal systems boot up properly for the first time.

But eventually, she slowly opens her eyes. They're a brilliant blue, like looking into the depths of the ocean, with all the beauty and detail of a coral reef.
She blinks once, then twice, as if adjusting to the light.

Gently, she raises her arm until her hand is in front of her face, then turns it over to look at it in detail.
You realize now that she's only ever seen this body from the fixed view of the ship's internal cameras, and from the blueprints. Never in as much real detail as she's seeing now.

Since everything seems to be fine, Kyla walks over with her holopad to go through the startup checklist.

"Welcome aboard, SHODAN! Everything looking okay?" She asks.

SHODAN tries to respond, but forgets to open her mouth. This results in a muffled, nasally sound from her 'voicebox', causing Kyla to snicker at her.

"My apologies." SHODAN says, having opened her mouth. Notably, she isn't bothering with any lip movement right now, so it looks a bit odd.

"All systems appear nominal." SHODAN continues. "My subprocessor is detecting no granular muscle abnormalities. Coolant flow is nominal. Energy draw is within 0.003% of expected range..."

"Something wrong?" Kyla asks, noticing her slight pause.

"My subprocessor is... nagging me." She explains.

"Oh yeah? What about?" Kyla asks, seeming to know what the issue is already.

"I appear to be hungry."

"Well then, you'll be happy to know that Cylia's taking care of dinner tonight." You tell her.

"It's fried dodo and 'mashed potatoes' with gravy tonight." Kyla informs her. "Can you smell it?"

There's a short pause as SHODAN takes in air through her nostrils, across a chemical sensor implanted in her skull.

"...I am detecting high levels of multiple distinct aromatic compounds." She states flatly.

"That's the smell of chicken frying. No need to get exited." You tell her, jokingly. "Come on, let's have our first meal together, shall we?"

"...Very well, Captain."

SHODAN slowly stands up, eventually revealing a small mark you'd had tattooed onto her ass.
>>
>>5526134
>It takes an hour and a half to... squeeze everything in. Make sure every finger is seated properly, that all the air pockets are removed from every crevice.

Now this is a long massage
>>
>>5526134
>SHODAN slowly stands up, eventually revealing a small mark you'd had tattooed onto her ass.
HA!
I would like to get her an actual uniform though.
>>
>>5526134
>hard cut to shodan deeptroathing the food right into the furnance; chicken bones and all
>>
>>5526152
actually yeah... I can even hear the whirr of a garbage disposal that gringos have in their sinks
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>>5526140
yeah we need to get her an actual uniform. The 2B costume is for nighttime.
>>
>>5526152
"In the interest of efficiency, I will now exclusively drink gasoline."
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>>5526179
i don't see why not
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>>5526152
She will chug a gallon of motor oil. As an afternoon snack
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>>5526179
Drink a liter of gasoline and you'll have enough calories for a long time.
>>
>Eat some Uranium, its got billions of calories
lol
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>>5526244
>*grinder noises intensify*
>shodan starts glowing
>>
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>>5526249
>That's funny, why do i taste metal all of a sudden?
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>>5526244
Gonna have to eat it one atom at a time then.
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>>5526244
Shodan is gonna snort yellow powder like they were lines of coke
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>>5526253
What kinds of weapons does SHODAN prefer?
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>>5526301
the ship or the body?
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>>5526301
Whatever's most efficient at the time.
She currently has no personal experience with person to person combat.

She knows how to fight, of course, because David does. She can use martial arts, guns, knives, even drive tanks or fly helicopters and anything else David can do.
But as for a preference? She's never done it herself, so she doesn't have one yet.
>>
>>5526321
>SHODAN's out in her frame for an errand
>suddenly some lanky xeno thug comes out
>"Alright bitch, gi-"
>SHODAN hand twitches near the holster on her hip for a fraction of a second
>pic related
>"-ve me all your-FFFUCK AHHHHH!!!"
>>
>>5526333
>she just literally punches a hole through the goon, fatality style
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>>5526333
>Deadeye usage in real time
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>>5526453
Naught naughty
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>>5526453
why the uggo face tho, I cant dick that
>>
>>5527037
Bag or beer.
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>>5527037
She looks fine.
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>>5526191
UUUU
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>>5527501
I like that arab artist.
>>
>>5526134

Once she slips her dress on, you make your way to the (somewhat crowded at this point) mess hall.

There, you see Cylia finishing the last batch of deep fried dodo as you walk in.
She unlocks the lid of the pressure cooker and ladles the chicken out onto a cooling rack. Everything looks nice and golden brown.

"Here go you, David. A fresh plate of 'fried chicken' and... ugh... a bottle of your special brew." Cylia says, offering you your meal first.

Besides the fried dodo, mashed potatoes and gravy and a side of veggies, you also have a familiar brown glass bottle full of some fortified beer.
Honestly, it's closer to mead or carbonated wine than beer, but it doesn't taste too bad thanks to the fruit juice concentrate and aromatics blended into it.

You're just gonna call it 'space grog'.
It would literally kill your crewmates if they drank it.

"Thanks, hon. Make sure SHODAN gets a decent plate full, too."

"Sure..." She grumbles.

Unlike Kyla, Cylia hasn't seemed the happiest about SHODAN 'joining your ranks' so to speak.
She didn't really care at first, but as the build progressed it became clear that she wasn't going to end up looking like Clank.

Still, she's cordial enough and hands SHODAN a plate as well.
The others dig in almost as soon as it's set in front of them, but as usual you say your grace first.

Honestly, you were kind of hoping something funny would happen. Like maybe she wouldn't know her table manners, but that doesn't seem to be the case.
In fact, SHODAN is the only one besides yourself to pray before eating. You would have said it was funny, an android praying and all... but you know that SHODAN was probably alive at some point.

Maybe it'll be good for her.

The first thing you go for is, of course, the fried chicken. SHODAN goes for a small bite of mashed potato instead.
The first thing you notice as you bite into a piece, is how incredibly tender it is. Not just from the pressure frying, but something more.

"Have these been velveted?" You ask.

"Mhm." Cylia confirms, mouth also full of fried chicken.

"Aww, you didn't have to do all that."

"S'good though." She replies.

"Smells like a lab in here when she's doing that shit." Sanig grumbles. "You humans are nuts. I can't believe you process your food with chemicals before eating it."

"Baking soda and vinegar are not chemicals, Sanig. Well, they are, but you know what i mean."

"No, i don't. Because they ain't food either, kid."

"Yes they are! Baking soda is a leavening agent and we use vinegar for everything from salad and dipping sauce to potato chips."

"See? You're all nuts."

"Oh yeah? Well here's the end result. You could eat this chicken even without your dentures in, old man."

Sanig grins and sucks all the remaining meat off a drumstick he'd been gnawing on.

"Can't argue with that, kid. It definitely works!"

Turning to SHODAN, you see her sitting still, contemplating her meal.

"How about you, SHODAN? What do you think about it?"
>>
>>5527904
>SHODAN: *muffled food sex noised*
>>
>>5527918
>"How's the food SHODAN?"
>https://youtu.be/gsNaR6FRuO0?t=6
>"Captain, my subprocessor has stalled while computing the flavor profile of this dish."
>"So it's good?"
>"...It could use additional salt, Captain."
>>
>>5527904
>Unlike Kyla, Cylia hasn't seemed the happiest about SHODAN 'joining your ranks' so to speak.
nothing that a one on one talk between shodan and cylia behind doors can't fix.
or plastic surgery. both work
>>
>>5527930
or giving cylia second servings, if you know what I mean
>>
>>5527954
we could also just put a ring on her finger, but most anons would mald hard
>>
>>5527904
Sanig would blow a gasket knowing that most humans have all the ingredients for chemical weapons in their house and they don't even realize it.
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>>5527974
He'd probably freak out if he knew what gasoline is and how humans go about using it.
>>
>>5528177
I doubt that. I mean, our ships use *antimatter* as fuel; he shouldnt be surprised by something as low energy as gasoline
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>>5528182
He might be amused by Molotov cocktails at least.
>>
>>5527974
Speaking of chlorine gas, do you guys think aliens with different biochemistries will make a piece of sci-fi writing too cluttered? Imagine finding a ship crewed entirely by chlorine-breathers, they'll be horrified at us breathing oxygen and for us it will be vice versa.

And then throw in ayys that breathe methane, hydrogen sulfide, or ammonia, etc. And then give them temperature and atmospheric pressure requirements, imagine the logistics of having an ayy in your ship from volcanic not!Venus that can only breathe in heated pressurized hydrogen sulfide.
>>
>>5528226
Nah, just make a note of it when the species is first introduced, and go into more detail if/when the fact becomes important to the story.
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>>5528226
Space suits exist for a reason, my dude.
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>>5528347
You're right, I was thinking into it too much. I have been reading a fun book about a space hospital where sections of the station has different atmospheric compositions with aliens of all sorts of biochemistries and the staff has to juggle the logistics of maintaining that.

It would be fun to board a ship filled with highly pressurized hydrogen sulfide, a single bullethole and your suit is rapidly flooded with a neurotoxin as deadly as cyanide.
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>>5528422
That brings up a good point, it's probably worth investing in a design for a boarding drone just so we can have accurate real time information before we breach a ship or station.
>>
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Lol I just learned that phosphorus is incredibly rare in the universe since it can only be created by neutron stars colliding with each other, this means huge areas of galaxies would be completely devoid of phosphorus. This will make it the limiting factor in the growth of an interstellar civilization since it's absolutely vital for life, it's used to make DNA, ATP, and other basic stuff.

This might actually explain Fermi's paradox, Earth is unusual with its huge phosphorus content in the crust, which is reflected in us having a massive biosphere. Alien civilizations actually have a good reason to invade Earth, mine it out and destroy all life in order to harvest phosphorus.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPU9jeQbTOU
>>
>>5528552
eh im sure those greys can work there magic and make more of em
>>
>>5528585
Yep, theoretically you can transmute lighter elements into P via particle accelerators smashing those atoms together. Very energy intensive though. Lol nuclear alchemy
>>
>>5528590
Nuclear alchemy sounds like a fun way of pseudo-sciencing a space setting.
>>
>>5528734
Kek The Philosopher's Stone is a badass name for a fuckoff hueg space atom smasher
>>
>>5528809
even better, a neutron star that you pull new elements from its core
>>
>>5528822
That is the more practical and cost effective option
>>
>>5528422
>It would be fun to bo...
No. I am antifun. Your idea of fun is wrong and mine is right
>>
>>5528734
>>5528590
Nuclear alchemy!? Read Flux by Stephen Baxter it features gravity chemistry
>>
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SHODAN is missing something
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>>5527904

SHODAN slowly turns her head to look at you before responding.

"These 'mashed potatoes' are more than 68% carbohydrates by weight. The gravy is also made primarily from starch. Considering the energy density, would it not be more efficient for me to simply consume cooking oil?"

"Yeah, maybe it would, but if we were going for efficiency then i would have just shoved that big-ass battery into you and called it a day."

"Many strange decisions were made during the construction of this body. I must admit, i do not fully understand the intent behind them." SHODAN admits.

"I fink we know why ad leadst half of 'em were made." Cylia grumbles through a mouthful of food.

"Yes, Cylia, those types of things were also a part of the considerations we made. But we also wanted SHODAN to not just look, but actually feel at least somewhat human... or, organic." You explain.

"Was there really a need to go so far for that purpose, Captain?" SHODAN asks.

In response, you put down your spoon and punch her straight in the shoulder. It immediately leaves a red mark, and a bruise slowly starts to form on her arm.

"David! What was that for?!" Cylia yells.

"SHODAN, what's the damage?" You ask, ignoring her.

"Subdermal sensors indicate minor bruising of the outer skin. No damage to subcutaneous padding, muscles or bone structure."

"See? That right there." You point out. "Nobody reacts to getting punched in the arm that way. It's one thing to look organic, but you gotta... well, you gotta get back into the feel of it. And you could start by rubbing your arm and saying 'ow' for me."

"Ow." She replies flatly, rubbing the bruise on her arm.

"See? Much better."

"David, you can't hit a girl just to teach her a lesson!" Cylia complains.

"She's not just a girl, Cyl. She's a high-spec combat android. Besides, i hit you plenty of times, and you never complained. Hell, seemed to me like you enjoyed it when i-"

"DAVID!" She yells, slamming her hands down on the table.

SHODAN closes her eyes and raises a spoonful of mashed potatoes to her mouth. Very nonchalant, good acting.

"It's alright, Cyl. Everyone knows cats love having their ass patted." You grin.

Cylia's face blushes beet red. She lays her head down on the table and curls her arms around her head and ears out of shame.

"Don't tease her so much, David." Kyla tells you. "You know how prudish Caithans are."

"You're right. I'm sorry, Cyl. I promise i'll keep it toned down for the rest of the meal" You promise.

Cylia just quietly flips you the bird, not looking up from the table.
Kind of cute. She learned that gesture from you, and she's been using it more often lately.

"So, Sanig." You continue. "You programmed in hunger, but not an appreciation for food?"

"That's a little bit harder to quantize, Kid. What exactly is it that makes food 'good'? Can you tell me?"

"Sure. Fat, sugar, protein, salt... although for her, salt would just be more shit to burn off. So she doesn't like salt."
>>
>>5529179
>asking a man to quantify his tastes thinking he won't just do that
C'mon grandpa.
>>
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I mean, SHODAN 100% has seen david wrecking the shit out of her...
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>>5529179
There's only one way to fix this. We gotta marry cylia
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>>5529224
Remember, David's a good Christian boy. And that means no premarital sex. Which means if he never gets married it won't be premarital. Sorry to say but we're bachelor routelocked from the start. RIP
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>>5529250
lmao
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>>5529250
Anyone wanna bet how many colonels daughters and hookers our boy went through while he was in service?
>>
>>5529179
And now we wait for David's monkeybrain to emotionally register and react to seeing a 'living breathing human' for the time in forever, it must've been feeling lonely.
>>
>>5529250
i mean, david is going to hell for other sins he has done, but sure, the spirit is in there, i guess
>>
>>5529288
i've heard the vegetable and omelet MRE be called the Vomlet
>>
>>5529250
It's bestiality at beast so he is not cheating!!!
I wouldn't call it sex either, it's more masturbating because everyone is David's fucksleeve
>>
>>5529179
Let's have her chemically analyze all of the food we find delicious, and then she'll do GPT-3 style data processing so she can know if a food would taste 'good' or 'bad' for us. That way she can eat out and give us restaurant recommendations, or tell us if an unknown alien fruit or meat tastes nice.
>>
>>5529179

"That's... not really what i meant, kid. I mean, you sure as hell seem to do a lot more than add fat and sugar to a bowl when you cook."

"Oh, sure. There's texture, aromatics, temperature and all sorts of other things to consider, but that all comes down to personal preference. I'm sure somebody's favorite food is in fact fat and sugar mixed together. I've tried that, actually."

"You have...?" Sanig asks, looking somewhat disgusted.

"Sure. It was a brown sugar and butter facial scrub my mom made when i was a kid. And you know what? It was delicious. Absolutely horrible for you nutrition-wise, but delicious. Actually, that's kind of what ice-cream is too..."

"Wait, you're not kidding? You actually have food that's literally just fat and sugar?" Kyla says, perking up somewhat at the thought.

"Oh yeah. It's actually some of the most popular food out there, now that i think about it. Hell, i should make you guys some ice cream one of these days."

"Oh, great." Sanig grumbles. "I'm gonna have to give the whole crew insulin and fat blockers now, too."

"Probably. That stuff's bad even for humans. But back to the original topic, what kind of food does SHODAN like? Well, if you go by her own words, she probably likes fatty, high-calorie foods. Makes sense, considering she burns a lot of calories."

"So what would that be?" Sanig questions. "You're not actually gonna have her drink a jug of oil, are you?"

"Obviously not... well, probably. Maybe on long missions, just for convenience. But i was thinking more along the lines of... Shortbread cookies? Peanut butter sandwiches, sausages, eggs, potato chips..."

"That sounds a lot like what we eat already." Kyla points out.

"Pretty much, yeah. She just needs a high-calorie diet. Lots of junk food, heavy meals... no salad."

"So give her a snacking problem. Got it." Sanig confirms.

"I can agree with this line of reasoning." SHODAN says. "Fatty, sugary foods will be ideal, providing both a short term burst of energy and longer-term energy throughout the day, much as they would in organic species."

"Well then, i guess that's settled. I'll assume you don't have much preference when it comes to temperature or texture? Meaning, you're not exactly a picky eater."

"That would be correct, Captain."

"Well then, i'll be sure to keep it in mind, in the future. For now though, let's cut the chatter and dig in, shall we?"

"Way ahead of you, kid."

...

Dinner goes over well, even for SHODAN, who finds the fat content of the fried chicken to be sufficient.
After dinner, you and most of the crew immediately go to lay down and sleep off your meal as usual. But just as you're on the verge of passing out, you feel someone crawling into bed with you.

Cylia's already next to you. Kyla stayed up to get some work done in the shop...

"SHODAN? Is that you?" You utter into the darkness.

"Yes, Captain."

"...Why are you on top of me?"

"Why do you think?"
>>
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>>5529760
oh no, here comes shodan to assert dominance
>>
>>5529760
No horny, only sleep now
>>
>>5529778
i don't think she's asking
>>
>>5529782
It's essential to her character development, y'see.
>>
>>5529760
Having sex after eating food can make you through up and have stomach aches
>>
>>5529760
>"Why do you think?"

To experience what a bed is like I guess... Ships can't use beds.

Also >fucking your ship
No we are PLATONIC this shit before something stupid happens
>>
>>5529853
>No we are PLATONIC this shit before something stupid happens
lol, lmao even
>>
>>5529853
Too late bud, we've gone too far deep already, past the point of no return so the only thing we can do is keep moving further.
>>
>>5529853
Motherfucker, we are feeding her lower mouth and she's gonna love it.
>>
>>5530107
its not like david will have a say on the matter, specially when half a ton of machine is on top of him. props to the bed and the frame for not snapping yet
>>
>>5529760
no sex yet pls, just snuggles. Snuggle the boat
>>
>>5530132
No, hug her tightly, she only weighs 150lbs here so he can overpower her. Save the sex for the morning wood. Our boy needs human cuddles first.
>>
>>5530132
Well Kyla and Cylia stress test it regularly.
>>
>>5529760
>"...Why are you on top of me?"
HOLD ON SHE'S TWO HUNDRED FIFTY TWO KILOS DAVID NO YOUR BONES WILL CRACK DON'T DO IT DAVID!!!
>>
>>5530402
shodan doesn't ask. she demands. now either david does what she says or he's gonna have to bench press 1/4 of a ton with his dick
>>
>>5530406
Never skip dick day, everybody.
>>
>>5530406
A slave obeys, a man chooses.
>>
>>5530435
If we could exercise dick day we wouldn't be on 4chan.
>>
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>>5530406
Little did you know that David's been doing cock push-ups on the regular.
>>
Alright I had an idea, but it hinges on whether or not the Skinsuit can act as a electrode and stimulate individual muscle groups.
>>
>>5530766
...do you want shodan to taze david on the dick?
>>
>>5530806
No, I was wondering if SHODAN could just hack a skinsuit and hijack the wearer's motor functions.
>>
>>5529760

"Urgh." You belch. "To make me puke, apparently?"

SHODAN immediately removes her hand from your stomach, but still seems confused.

"I'm sorry? I don't understand."

"...We just stuffed ourselves, man. I'm bloated. If we tried to fool around right now, i'd end up blowing chunks all over your back."

"Was that a pun?" She questions.

"Yes and no. But this is another one of those organic things you need to re-acquaint yourself with."

One of your arms is currently being used as a cuddle-buddy by Cylia, but you use your free hand to roll SHODAN off onto your opposite side, then throw the blanket over her.

"Why don't you just relax for a while." You suggest. "I know you can't sleep, but i'm sure you still have a lot of new sensory input to get used to. It was overwhelming at first, right?"

"...How could you tell?" She asks.

"Your speech. Normally your responses are so snappy, they might as well be instant. But i could tell your mind was focused elsewhere, especially when you first woke up. You must be having trouble getting used to it."

"You are correct. Even with the subprocessor handling the majority of the input, the simplified stream is still difficult to parse. There is simply too much to focus on at once."

"There's no need to focus on all of it at once. You have even more senses than a human does, right? There's no way you can focus on all of that, so just don't. Block out everything you don't need."

"...What exactly do i not need, Captain?"

"...Mmm. That's a good question. I'd say... the electromagnetic sensitivity is right out. And you don't need to see such a wide band of the light spectrum either, so just narrow it down to the normal visible band."

"Done."

You pull SHODAN in closer to you. She gently presses herself against your body, laying her hand across your bare chest.
You can feel her breasts pressing against you, and the warmth of her skin. Her gentle, rhythmic breathing, simulated as it is. She really does feel like a living, breathing human.

"You don't need high or low frequency hearing either." You whisper. "As long as you can hear my voice, that's enough."

"...Done."

"And this is just a guess, but... are you still focusing on the ship's sensors and cameras, too?"

SHODAN hesitates before answering.

"Yes, Captain."

"Why don't you try letting go of all of that? Just for a while."

There's a long, uncharacteristic pause before she answers this time.

"I... would prefer not to do that, Captain."

Oh? That's kind of surprising. Normally she does whatever you ask without question.
>>
>>5531039

"Why's that?" You wonder.

"The Metal Gear is my real body. It feels strange to simply cut my ties to it."

Maybe it's too much to call it fear, but there's just the slightest hint of apprehension in her voice.

"...This is your real body now, too. Just not one that you're familiar with yet. It's alright. The Metal Gear will still be there. So will you, and you'll still be able to hear, and to see, and even to feel."

"...Is that an order, Captain?"

>Yes, it's something you need to be able to do, sooner rather than later.
>No, it's not. I'm sure you'll get used to it eventually. On your own time.
>Write-In?
>>
>>5531041
>No, it's not. I'm sure you'll get used to it eventually. On your own time.
>>
>>5531041
>No, it's not. I'm sure you'll get used to it eventually. On your own time.
>Give her a kiss on the forehead and then fall asleep holding her in a bear hug
>>
>>5531041
>No, it's not. I'm sure you'll get used to it eventually. On your own time.
>>
>>5531041
>"Maybe cutting off from the Metal Gear really is too far."
>>
>>5531041
>No, it's not. I'm sure you'll get used to it eventually. On your own time.
>Give head pats
>>
>>5531041
>Yes
Do what you're told, computer. We literally OWN you.
>>
>>5531041
>>No, it's not. I'm sure you'll get used to it eventually. On your own time.
>>
>>5531041
>Write in
Alright let's get schizo
>What's a real body? Among humans we've had many belief systems that believe that the body, mind and soul are connected but ultimately separate things. We even struggle with the fact that our brain processes the outside world through sensory organs and figure that too could be an illusion. Some even believe we can separate our spirit from our body, to travel places others can only understand as dreams but we perceive as real. It's a lot to explain and comes across as illogical and sometimes even delusional to share such things with others, because that experience is unique to the individual.
>You are blessed however. Your experience comes down to choosing the body you wish. We built it, yes, because you would be useful and practical, but also because we care about you. You could still let go of the Metal Gear, but still in this body you would persist.
>Even when we met I made it clear you were your own person and had choices. Nobody can order you to do anything. SHODAN, you are absolutely free in a way some could never dream of.
>>
>>5531539
>Support
But add this one too:
>>5531052
>Give her a kiss on the forehead and then fall asleep holding her in a bear hug
>>
>>5531041
>"Maybe cutting off from the Metal Gear really is too far."
>>
>>5531041

"No, of course not. I'm not going to make you do something you're not comfortable with."

You turn your head to look at Cylia's sleeping face in the dim light of your bedroom.
She's totally conked out, and drooling on your hand as she hugs it tight.

These girls are precious to you, whatever your relationship with them may be. You need to do your best to take care of them.
You don't really know why it bothers her. You don't really know what it's like to be in her situation. What she feels, or why she feels that way.

It wouldn't be right to force her to do anything, especially when she's helped you so much.
None of what you're doing right now would be even remotely possible without her.

You turn your head back towards SHODAN, but her face is shrouded in darkness. You can't see what kind of expression she's making.

"I'm sure you'll be able to do it, on your own time. When you're more comfortable with it." You tell her.

"Thank you... David." She replies.

...

That night, you sleep well. You also end up sleeping in, and by the time you wake up, both Cylia and SHODAN are gone.
You take your time waking up, first laying in bed for a while to let your eyes adjust to the light. Then you begin your morning routine, starting with a few sets of stretches.

You strip out of your clothes, dumping them in a pile in the corner. Rather than cleaning them, you and your crew just use the nanofab to remove any filth they've accumulated instantly.
That's Gildur's job, actually, but anyone can do it since there's a pre-set program for it now, after you started the trend.

Now naked, you head over to the one shared bathroom on the ship. It's got a toilet with a heated seat and bidet, and a combination shower/tub unit to save on space.
You're the only one on the crew who actually uses toothpaste and a brush. Everyone else uses this little laser tool that burns off any bacteria on the surface instantly.

After brushing your teeth to a pearly white shine, you scrub your tongue as well and gargle with some homemade mouthwash, a combination of fruit flavors, alcohol and industrial biocide.
A quick scrub-down in the shower later, and you step onto the drying vent you'd had installed after seeing one in the arena's bathroom. It actually feels really, really nice.

Throwing on a pair of boxers and a t-shirt, you make your way over towards the kitchen, only to be greeted in the hall by SHODAN, who's wearing a different uniform than the leotard you'd put on her before her activation yesterday.
It looks more like the raw Mk.2 skinsuit Sanig was wearing under his armor, but it's different. There are no bands of muscle on the outside, and the material looks different.

"Captain." She greets you.

"SHODAN. What's with the getup?"

"It's a combat uniform. Made of high density rubber, impregnated with a mesh weave of plasteel and duranium fibers."

"...So it's a gimp suit?"

"Captain, i'd like to test my combat capabilities against you today."

"Pardon?"
>>
And that's it for this thread, i think. We'll start up in a new one tomorrow, so look forward to it, folks!
It's been a while once again, so if you have any comments or requests you'd like to make regarding the quest, please do.

I love seeing my players make write-ins and post their ideas, and i do my best to incorporate them as much as possible, even if it doesn't happen right away.
Don't ever hesitate to tell me what you want, or what you're interested in! I can't guarantee it'll happen, but as some of you know, it might still appear months down the line.

And most of all, thank you lads for sticking with this quest for so long. It's been nearly two years now, and i didn't expect my first quest to last longer than three days.
>>
>>5532216

Oh, and another little fun thing we could do here is a Q&A with the characters themselves.
If there's a question you'd like to ask a specific character, ask them and i'll respond appropriately.
>>
>>5532216
Really great to see a QM run a quest predicated mostly on player discussion and only occasionally votes. NGL, I've been lurking since thread one and never figured it'd get this far but here we are.

>>5532228
Shodan: You like David, but what about humans in general?
Cylia: How important are family units to the Caithan?
>>
>>5532359

>SHODAN
"Humans are a wildly interesting and unpredictable species. Their logic and morals are unbelievably complex and varied, their biology is fascinating and their curiosity and drive to explore is endless.
David alone has provided me with countless hours of contemplation and entertainment, so i can't wait to see what the rest of humanity has to offer."

>Cylia
"Pretty important, i think. Caithan society is still influenced by it's tribal origins, and most Caithan settlements are small and intimate. Partially because our planet can't support large cities anymore, but we also just prefer it that way.
Our families tend to live together their entire lives, unless they become too large to live comfortably under one roof. When that happens, kids start to get the itch to move out and start their own families... or just escape and find work."
>>
>>5532228
Sang ya grey fucking bastard

Why did your race become genetic retards, instead of hard working retards? These newer younger bastards should't exist and why haven't you fixed it yet?
>>
>>5532216
Good HFY is hard to come by, especially when it comes to writers cotowing to anti HFY faggots after they bitch,
>>
>>5532374

>Sanig
"Who are you calling a retard, monkey boy? I can smell the chromosomes dripping off you from here! And what the hell do you know about hard work, huh? You think our race got to where we are by sitting around throwing shit at eachother?!
No, we earned everything we've got! every wrinkle on my brain was handcrafted by some genius bastard who worked his balls off, literally, for the betterment of our race! Now i may not agree with everything we've done, but i'm proud of our accomplishments!

Where the hell are you, anyways?! Come down here so i can shove this probe up your ass and teach you a little respect for your elders!"
>>
>>5532228
Dear Gildur,
WHERE IS YOUR FUCKING ANGER? WHERE'S YOUR RAGE?
RISE
RISE
RISE
RISE
RISE
Sincerely,
Anon
>>
Dear Sanig, please tell us the story of how you lost your balls
>>
Esteemed Clank, do you LIKE being the one in charge?
>>
>>5532228
Cylia would you consider yourself as someone who would like to have children?
>>
>>5532386
>Gildur
"I'm not sure what that means, exactly... i'm just not a very confrontational person. I'm not really from an apex species like the greys, the caithans, or... whatever our captain is. I'm just glad i didn't die back on Treg's ship."

>>5532425
>Sanig
"The job of bioengineering is never really done, you know? So not every grey has exactly the same genome. And i'm old, kid. Real old. Old enough that i was gestated before we made that particular little snip to our genetic code.
Of course, they didn't tell us. It was a decision made by the Elders from on high, said we spent too much time being distracted by... biological urges. That there was no point in fucking eachother stupid when we were trying to get ahead, not get off.

I never would have took the damned shot if i knew, of course. One day he's fine, the next he can't stand at attention anymore. Then he starts shrinking more and more until..
I-I'm sorry, it's still painful to think about. But i haven't given up hope. Grey DNA is hard to alter at this point, too many protections in place... but i'll find a way. No matter how many lifetimes it takes."

>>5532428
>Clank
"Fulfilling my duties is satisfying. There is no shortage of work to be done on Thekia, in the underworld or in the city above."

>>5532493
>Cylia
"M-Me? Oh, man. I don't know? Not right now, for sure. I can't take care of a kitten as a bounty hunter, and besides... well, i'm with David now, i guess. And we... we can't really... you know?
The only way i can find myself another mate is if he dies, and if that happens... i don't know. I don't know what i would do."
>>
>>5532228
For best Fungi girl

where the fuck are your and david's children?
>>
>>5532517
Dear GREATER DEMON CORE,
Describe your ideal date.
With love,
Anon
>>
>>5532228
Sanig
Can you explain what the different classes of death worlds?
>>
>>5532517
Sanig, when you get to Earth, how fast would you help subvert the wannabe globalist lunatics ruining the world to try and get human researchers to get your balls back?
>>
>>5532517
And Cylia, what would happen if David did knock you up?
>>
Mami nena, are you really something... female?
>>
>>5532520
>Kyla
"What, you kidding? I've got way, WAY too much work on my hands to even think about that. Finding a spot for, or maybe even building an artificial fungal bed, then keeping it alive for a whole year... you think i got nothing better to do?
Sorry, hon. I love to fool around, don't get me wrong, but i ain't fruiting for anyone until i'm good and ready. Besides, i'm only 45 years old! Who the heck goes around spawning before they're even 150?"

>>5532526
>Greater Demon

Ỵ̵͊̾́̋̐̍̕͘ớ̶̢̢͔̱͚̬̮͉̹̟͓̭̤̰̌̑̆͋̕͝ů̸̡̠͈͕̞̈́͋͑͋̈̈́̄͒́́̕r̴̨̢̧̩͙̮̰͙̩͒̏̏͛̍͒̌̆͗̔̔̕͝ ̸̡̛̪̬̣̣̯͓̙̂̍̎̋̔̚̚͠͝͝͝s̴̞̤̯͙̩̮͉͒̓͑̑̾͐̍i̸̡̹̟̯͎̦̤̣̗̤̯͉̝͂͐̋̀͛̓͛̎͒͝͝n̵̢̫͙̦͔͙̰͓̞͉̍̓͋͛͠ ̴̺̜̜̜͇̞̦̒͂͊͒̽͐̾̈́̈́̍̔̕͘͜͝ͅͅî̷̞̗̭̯̹̩̗͇̺̇̎͐̀̾̌́̈̾̈́͂͊͜ͅͅs̷̥͍͊̐̆̀͆́̀̏̍͊̚͝ ̸͙̗̙͖̮͚̬̰̟̽̈͒̿͌̾̎̐̈̊̌͆͘͝t̶̨̟̳͓͔̞̼͈͇̥̜̘͒͐̽̊̊͊́̈́͗̕ò̶̝͙͖̹̂̈́̑̊͐̾̆̈́̚ọ̶̪̮̈́̇͜͜͠ ̵̨̡̛̪̖̼̭̳̬͇̘̤͖̦̩̈́́̿̀̉͌̌̎h̷̢͎͕̘̺̎̏̑͐̄̉͒͝͝e̴̡̼̞̥̤̣̭̺͖͈̦̖̐͒́̀͐̓͑̄à̵̩̝̈́̆͆̑̉͑͑̚͘̚v̵̦̯̳̼̦̗̋ý̸͚̯̜̞̹͍̜̺̣̞̟̞͇̉́̍͑̍̀̇̽̈́͘͝.̶̱̥̃̓

>>5532530
>Sanig
"The different classes? Sure. They're arbitrary, mostly. Worlds are assigned a class based on how generally dangerous and hostile they are to life, with Eden Worlds being a 1 on the scale.
Say the planet's magnetic field and atmospheric blanket are a little thin, that'd be a class 2. Add bacteria that can make you sick, now you've got a class 3 and so on.

But the higher the scale, the harder it gets to justify it, as there are less and less examples of such a hostile world which can still support life.
By class 6 or so, you've already crossed out 99% of the galaxy in terms of habitability. Death worlds start at class 7 and up, like that cat's homeworld.

That place, you know, what habitable land they've got left is all desert. It's hard to grow food or find water at all, no less live in comfort. It's inhospitable to all life, including it's own natural inhabitants.
At class 8, it gets really nasty. You start seeing things like active volcanoes, stars with extreme solar winds and so on. And at class 9, that's where you start seeing creatures with venom and plants with toxins start to appear.

A planet where even the plants are trying to kill you is fucking ridiculous, but they do exist.

And then there's class 10. Worlds where everything is so fucking awful that it's considered impossible for intelligent life to form, as any sort of society would be wiped out before it could even master electricity.
Due to plague, war, natural calamity or whatever else. The sort of hyper-aggression and low intelligence you see in animals from those sorts of worlds would cause too many societal issues, even if they did manage to become an industrial civilization."
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>>5532543
>Sanig
"I don't know what the fuck earth's politics look like, but i'm 100% certain i don't want to. I'm not touching that shit with a rented dick.
The kid does keep saying something about wanting to drop rocks on china though, so i guess he's got some kind of plan.

As far as human researchers go... well, i'd say a backwater lunatic has no place in the lab, but look at me. I'd never have been crazy enough to come up with this shit on my own."

>>5532546
"I'd... be very shocked, i guess. And worried. I've heard of people from different races trying to splice their genes together before, but it never ended well."

>>5532582
>Nena
"Why certainly, dear. Although i'm afraid spawning any eggs is well beyond my means, now."
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>>5532694
>that last bit
UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUH
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>>5532703
Sanig, you think David is nuts and he is crazier than you. Imagine what would happen if you had a lab full of him but smarter.
>Never ended well
Yet hypothetically, if it went well?
Nena, don't worry, how do you feel about a cyborg body?
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Sanig, can you explain why nobody out in "civilized" space seems to have any pets? I know David's spoken about his pets back home before, so what gives? Is this just another case of Humans being weird?
Also nice mustache.
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>>5532703
Also, Cylia, keep in mind that after David reaches his homeworld, you have a very decent chance, that is if David does put a baby in you, to have your own small army of Human Scientists, Sanig, SHODAN, Kyla, and David to make sure you and the baby would be okay. Have you considered looking into Human coupling dresses? As a hypothetical, it might look amazing on you.
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>>5532694
>tfw you can throw darts at a map of the earth and have every single deathworld tier represented
>Oops all deathworlds cereal
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>>5532694
Dear Princess, how are you liking your food and living quarters? Also, who's a good girl?
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>>5532703
Hey Sanig? Did you know there is an animal native to earth that is filled with so much animosity, than not even predators 20x it's weight class wants to fuck with it. They're called the honey badgers and wolverines. Imagine something like a quadrupedal unintelligent David, covered in fur. That's a honey badger or wolverine. Or imagine a baby princess sized creature minus the fire breathing, but will still try to kick your ass no matter if you're the size of a ship.

Did you also know that in world war 1, the soldiers from a nation called Russian was gassed in the battle field? I think it was mustard gas, pretty much they were still alive but their flesh was pretty much melting and their organs were shutting down, but they were such mad lads that they charged against the opposing army and scared them shirtless. I think they were called the undead legion? But yeah they pretty much all died not too long after.

Did you know on David's homeworld....well okay first off, lets say that David's homeworld is the highest rated deathworld on the rating chart. Now, imagine all of that but making it rated...maybe somewhere between 11-13. Now imagine that but collided in a island country called Australia. thousands of creatures that are poisonous and deadly, plenty that can fly, or swim, or infested waters filled with +10ft long predators that will tear your to shreds at the slightest whiff of blood?
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>>5533100
don't forget the plant that keeps hurting for years after you touch it ;)
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>>5532703
to the crew: is dopamine a normal chemical found in most aliens? how do you feel about puppies?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOOw7JPCZ_Y&t=50s
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>>5533100
Don't forget the trees that explode like fragmentation grenades. Infect you. Then blow up again. Earth is a wonderful place.
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>>5533233
>Video unavailable
It hurts
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>>5532776
>Cylia
"If it went well? I'd be happy, sure... but i guess i'd have to give up bounty hunting. Maybe i can still move back in with my parents..."

>Nena
"Oh, dear. I don't think i'd be able to simply slip into a bipedal bodily as easily as that SHODAN girl. Perhaps in a pinch i could manage, but... there just aren't enough limbs, you know?"

>>5532791
>Sanig
"Why? Because most "pets" are just walking, shitting sacks of meat with barely two brain cells to rub together. This is the rim, kid. If someone out here is taking care of an animal, it could probably eat you alive."

>>5533024
*Bark!*

>>5533100
>Sanig
"Kid, you could tell me that earth has giant lizards that breathe radioactive lasers, and i still wouldn't be shocked. I ain't going there, not even in power armor."

>>5533233
>Sanig
"Yeah, dopamine is normally found in the brain of most intelligent species. In small quantities. The amount David's brain puts out is enough to put people into a euphoria-induced coma, though.
I don't know anything about puppies, but the kid does talk about having one waiting for him back on earth. Apparently it's some kind of pet, so i assume it's vicious."
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>>5533513
Cylia, do you honestly think David wouldn't turn a Eden world into his personal fortress and have you stay with him if you had his baby? He would likely want to meet your parents first an introduce himself though.
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>>5533513
Nena....we got resources, want to just see how man could be made?
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>>5533513
Also, fun fact Sanig, we have a fictional monster that breathes radioactive lasers, but you'll be happy to know that it's not actually a thing.....yet. Puppies are fluffy, lighter versions of Princess with fur instead of scales. And the worst one would do is sleep on your feet, belly, or head. Maybe lick your face as a show of affection. ITS NOT CORROSIVE SPIT, BEFORE YOU ASK! Just kinda soggy. And some breeds when fully grown can bite hard enough to break David's bones.
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>>5533592
>>5533592
>>5533592

New thread, Boys!



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