Overseer's log, 1st Granite:
It all makes sense now, I have finally discovered the purpose of my journey here. It was not as i previously assumed, to open up a hole into the depths of hell, regardless of what the whispers told me, it was to make a perfect dwarf. Immune from pain, lightning fast, incredibly strong, and as resilient and unwavering in will as the slade that haunted my dreams for years. This is not a quest to make myself into that perfect dwarf, im not that vain (and i dont fit the bill), but my year as an overseer is to be focused on the betterment of all dwarves here.
In order to do so, there must be sacrifices. Must not a few be pushed through the fires of hell (metaphorically of course, we've seen the spawn of it and there's no fire) so that the result is a perfect society. The protectors must suffer so that the protected may thrive.
Not just physical pain, that can be hardened against, but psychological pain, the breaking of a spirit, that is the real quest. Dwarves have in inherent sense of individuality, a will of their own, an attachment to others. They feel pain when dwarves that they were close to die. Pain that strikes them with an incredible melancholy, often resulting in pain in others and death. These dwarves are perhaps the most dangerous when they finally snap from the pain, honed as they are, and this is why they cannot have this. While the main body of the fortress can ride an emotional minecart, up and down, the military cannot, not if the fort will survive. An essential piece to a functioning fort, this piece does not fit in a profession that spends it's trade essentially swinging from doing nothing to slaughtering hordes of invaders.
Yet there was a revelation that occurred to me in my travels. Cause enough pain, but not enough to snap, for long enough, and dwarves build up a resilience to it. At a certain point, which i have come to call the "Shattering Quotient," dwarves simply never experience unhappiness. Their inherent resilience to mental pain is so strong that they will never come across anything that will overcome it.
This my goal for the military, not a soulless husk, that was my mistake before, but a dwarf that has experienced perfection. Perfection in body, perfection in skill, and perfection in spirit. There has never been a successful result though. Something always went wrong. The tests never were right, something was always missing, as the hardening of the dwarves never allowed the training to actually stick.
That element is what i found here. The dwarves in my travels were already in their natural element, surrounded by stone with ore, with them able to forge it into the tools that they needed. There is no ore here. Oh certainly, there is metal that was brought as... offerings from outsiders, but none of it is native. There is something that dwarves need to be complete, besides stone, and that is ore. This lack of completeness that the dwarves have here is the key. This lack of ore allows them to become perfect.
The problem before was the stubborness inherent in all dwarves, which is part of what makes them so tenacious. The key here is that the dwarves have not sealed themselves shut, not complete. They are able to be overridden, taken off the natural civillan programming, and rewritten to be a guardian.
The masses also need to experience happiness however. Even if i make a perfect dwarf, it does me no good to have the fortress fall apart on itself in the process. In my talks with some of the older members of the fort, i have discovered the joy that dwarves experienced from the waterfall. The waterfall was sealed because of a LARGE number of reasons, but the happiness that it generated was real...
The solution is simple, to keep the unwashed masses happy (and to actually... wash them), artificial waterfalls will be constructed. Due to their unfortunate tendency of being... universe slowing with their powerful effect, these cannot be my elaborite designs, a series of simple generators will do.
Note: Im currently designing the waterfall generators. Im still not sure as to whether or not i should go with a perpetual motion generator, or a series of windmills. Windmills will need to be... substantial.. to power what i have in mind. Part of the qualification is to make sure that it can be turned off at a moment's notice (to save FPS), which INCLUDES the generators.
Part of the issue with the dual waterwheel designs is that they will ALWAYS lose some water, unless nearly perfectly constructed, meaning that to create a generator that never has to worry about maintenance, a sealed waterwheel pair will be needed.
Let me know what you want, waterwheels or windmills (oh, and im also planning on building a glass tower, the kind that dwarves live in luxury in, if i can get the damn facilities set up properly. Imagine a skyscraper, but for dwarves. Estimated blocks needed = 328 per level, and im planning on at LEAST 10 levels, so.... 3280 blocks. That'll keep us busy
18x18 tower, 10 stories high?)