25 days until deadline. Smells like bacon down here.((Mechanics wise, would uploading myself to a quantum brain give a boost to research, due to being able to think faster and make multiple copies of myself?))
Meshanblov hummed thoughfully. Emotions could be added later, as a toggeable option maybe, but for now this was a success! Still he hesitated about committing his own irreplaceable mind to this process. Further refinement seemed wise, or perhaps a non-destructive method of uploading so that if problems were discovered he had not taken such a... final option.
Test the nuclear reactor, and if that works, the particle beam. Both from a safe distance
Have some assistants begin setting up Meshanite production, and test whether it actually lives up to the claims.
Begin working on the High-Density Capacitors
((Mechanics wise yes. I would like to say "but expect corrupted backups, sudden power failures and memory resets if you do it" but I won't. Sure, go for it. It may break the game, so keep that in mind before you start exclusive Meshanblov's club.))
Alright, the reactor and particle rifle is taken to location far away along with a bunch of assistants and armed guards. Can't have explosions and radioactive gas filling skies in case something goes wrong. They'll be ready for testing late at night and you will overseer testing procedures over secure VPN connection. Meanwhile you do more R&D work.
Capacitors... hmm, they are basically just two electric conductors separated by thin layer of dielectric. Smaller the gap between conductors, better the performance. Best conductors available that can be
thin is graphene. So with two layers of those you get quite impressive density in respect of thickness, which means major issue will be the dielectric inbetween. While pondering what could fill that requirement you build a graphene production line. It's good enough to produce sheets you probably require for the capacitor design.
Evening comes, and your prototypes have arrived into undisclosed testing location. Assistants cart parts around, set up communication lines for you and start up uranium heating process. Additional powerlines are dragged in for the reactor start up. Eventually uranium starts boiling in its case and gas is fed into magnetic fields of the reactor. It doesn't take long before the reactor begins producing enough power to keep up the process by itself, and then in excess. No explosions, no apparent leaks, every meter is nicely on green. A success! Time to test how it works with particle rifle!
Your mini reactor is connected to the rifle, hydrogen tank is connected, target placed, gun aimed, and measures read. Everything seems good for test fire, so you give them a green light to proceed. Rifle is remotely triggered and boom breaks mircrophones, topples cameras and generally makes a mess. Video records shows a nice streak of fusion going on as stream of hydrogen ions meets number of other atoms head on. Some of its power is unfortunately lost in this minor fusion reaction, but large majority apparently made it to the steel block pretending to be enemy armor.
Now I'm not certain how physics here go, but when a bunch of steel suddenly turns into superheated plasma it probably shreds hell out the surrounding block effectively producing an explosion. Your rifle is a sturdy thing so it takes it like a champ. Better tell your soldier to not use it in close quarters combat.
Only problem here is that your reactor doesn't have any way to shut it down without melting important stuff inside.
Research in progress:
High density capacitors
To be researched:
EMP hardening
Modular design
Research done:
Armored exoskeleton structure
Artificial muscles
Digital brain copy
Electricity driven cells
Particle beam
Meshanite
Myomers
High capacity fuel cell
Quantum brain
Miniature fission reactor
Test subjects expired: 19
zzz
Wakey wakey sleepyhead! It's new day full of science to do! You've experiments to run, research to do!
As for subject of the MMI, it is funny thing. It doesn't particularly feel anything until you configure a quadcopter drone for your specific MMI signal. Well, to be honest it doesn't feel anything even after that, but controlling the drone is nice way to spend time. You keep adding drones until you have eight of them rotating around you like an artificial halo. Having them send feedback about their orientation is where it gets really funny. Really weird sensation, but you learn quickly to distinguish between drones. In fact, you are learning this much faster than your soldier and test subjects are. What's so hard about this?
Anyway, that's how you spend your day. Playing like a child with new toy.
Research in progress:
To be researched:
Mind to machine interface - canine adaptation
Mind merging
Artificial muscles
Exoskeleton
Mind merging
Advanced medical procedures
Optical camouflage
Overclocked biology
Research done:
Stable weapon attachment point and remote aiming designator
Mind to machine interface
Dreamstream
Test subjects expired: 50 (100)
Other victims: 35
Aha! This ties back into critical periods. Orders from a recognized entity, which for the purposes of the experiment we'll call the Father-Thing, have satisfaction and happiness tied to their execution. Much like less sophisticated mammals imprint on mothers, so we can have our subjects imprint on the Father-Thing, which in this case will be myself. This imprinting should be possible to undo with a controlled influx of a certain cocktail of critical period reactivators, at which point they can be reimprinted on some other Father-Thing.
Continue observing the mice as well, just as a reminder.
Resettable imprinting feature adds a layer of complexity into this design, a very thin layer. In the end it doesn't really matter, because you finish the module quickly. With extra time you are left with you fiddle with the design little more to ensure recipient will feel restless and afraid if orders are not obeyed immediately. Kinda like the pressure you feel when you have to go toilet but decide to hold it. A constant unpleasant reminder.
The first mouse has stopped eating and squeal a lot more than usual, but no destructive tendecies or hallucinations yet.
Research in progress:
To be researched:
Terrible Glory - Analysis
Hivemind testing
Research done:
Improved coordination
Improved cooperative bonding
Improved learning ability
Improved reaction times II
Terrible Glory
Hive mind
Brain killswitch
Incentive module
Major Technologies:
NERVOUS SYSTEM DESIGN AND UNDERSTANDING
Test subjects expired: 33
Other victims: 7
Automated Research
Today is a day of work and it really shows. The exoskeleton structure is completed and most of motive system is put in place. Magnetic fields alone are difficult to make use for moving limbs so you use more standard approach of electromagnetic motors. It's not like you need to be careful with power usage, you got a plenty of extra. Pneumatic systems are a little wobbly when handling heavy loads like this will, so motors will stabilize it nicely.
It will be no doubt completed tomorrow, so what's next on the research line?
Research in progress:
Improved exoskeleton
To be researched:
Reverse chemical formulation
Improved training speeds
Intelligence increasing treatments
Research done:
Layered lighweight armor
Matter annihilation power plant
Dead man's switch
Rail-guns
Test subjects expired: 6
Keep working on the coilgun. Aim to make it the best long range sniper rifle/portable artillery. Improving capacitors is probably a good way to go about it.
Your batteries outperforms any capacitor you may find on the market. Very fast discharge and equally fast fuse blowing recharge speed.
Coils are placed on the frame after measuring location of each ten times. There's no room for mistakes. Staging system is in place with few additions, such as a switch to regulate power usage. Either basic launch power or eat-all-your-batteries-at-once. Latter will very effectively drain every single bit of power from loaded battery to accelerate bullet to frankly ridiculous speeds and very possibly damage coils. It's pretty much field ready (if untested), but magnetic field left over by coils will considerably reduce effective fire rate. Simple tweaks in the coils are necessary to erase the leftover field and recover small portion of spent energy.
Your soldier is going to need reinforced steel shoulder in order to be able to withstand recoil of this gun.
Research in progress:
Coilgun
To be researched:
Brain integrated chips - Improved reaction speed
Brain integrated chips - Imprinted knowledge
Killing emotions
Associate obedience with joy
Researched done:
Reaction time study
Optical camouflage
Mobile holoprojector
High density battery
Dazzleball
Extended camouflage
Test subjects expired: 15
Oooh hoo! focus on the kinetic manipulation. this has wider application than merely a railgun - it could affect armor, mobility, heat exchange, the works. Leave the problem of the brain communication for now - that should be easily resolved at a later date. For now, let the assistants tinker with it, and let the soldiers have plenty of private time (i.e. not in the shared body) to practice controlling the nanobot and robotic systems. let other teams of soldier volunteers work in vr together in shared bodies, so that they at least have an idea what to expect, and maybe can come up with some interesting shit on their own. (I don't expect that, but you know, at least they'll get some training in)
Put "Fix interbrain communication network" as top of the queue with a priority tag, so I don't forget once kinetic manipulation becomes a possibility.
Aww man. You tube is letting me down. For all the love the interwebs have for Dr. Who, they only really care about the new stuff, and seem unwilling to trawl the depths to dig up the old episodes and post videos.
My best friend actually has a collection on his terabytes strong hard drive of the old stuff, including audio from the very early seasons where the video was lost or overwritten.
I gotta say, once you've seen the first encounter with the Daleks, you lose all respect for them as ominous enemies - but then, that's not really what they are, anyway. they are what the Silver Surfer is to Galactus, what the Stranger is to The Living Tribunal, what Deadpool is to Spiderman. What Po Teletubby is to Pinky Winky.
Soldiers? Did I miss something? You have only one and he's still in his original fleshy meatbag body. And confined into his room until you turn him into something more.
The key to manipulating kinetic energy is new hypothetical elementary particle which meditates motion. The problem is to prove it exists, or no actually, you don't need to prove its existance. Only mathematical proof is enough and that will let you figure out how to use it to add or remove kinetic energy. A challenging task because you basically start from nothing, if not accounting the crazy idea born from insanity.
Research in progress:
Manipulation of kinetic energies
To be researched:
Railguns
Multibrain control systems - fixes
Lasers
Nanobot production: Extended raw materials
Armor
Distributed neural networks
Camouflage
Swarm bots
Hunter drones
Large scale modularity
Research done:
Nerve interface
Brain in a jar
Meshanite
Myomers
Highly volatile fuel
Robotic body
!!Multibrain control systems!!
Corrosion resistance
Major Technologies:
Nanomachines
Self construction
Self destruction
Electric manipulation
Kinetic shielding
Structural support
Gray Goo Limited EditionTM
Corrosion resistance
Test subjects expired: 19
Trading endurance for more speed seems acceptable. Right now I'm thinking something centaur-like, with powerful lower limbs designed for speed and more humanoid limbs on the upper body to hold weapons. Human legs and feet might not be ideal here, so I continue my designing but begin to look at other options for lower limbs, such as horses and large cats. I also put in a request with the Company for more animal parts, mainly the legs of fast-running species.
The possibilities are just staggering, aren't they? I could vary the number of legs, mix pairs of feline limbs with equine ones... and that's not even getting into the upper body. Opposable thumbs are a must here, so my options are more limited... maybe two pairs of human limbs, or one pair of gorilla? Maybe two chimpanzee. The soldier will have to depend on his weapons, so I want my soldier to be able to use larger and more powerful weapons than a regular human.
Once I get a few designs I have some confidence in, I get to work making them a reality using test subjects. Then I create tests to rate their physical abilities as they get used to their new bodies. I'll probably have to speed up the physical therapy process somehow, but I highly doubt I'll have time for that until at least tomorrow.
Actually you have to decide the form by yourself. I'll gladly roll for the science part to make it become true and happily write all about the fluff on how it works internally (like I did on previous turn), but you are the actual mad scientist here. Visualize your own monster. World is your oyster. Everything is possible. You can make your own special limbs, no strict necessity to borrow designs from animals unless you are going full Frankenstein route here.
You'll get your animal parts, but I'll save todays roll for next turn so no IC time is wasted.
Research in progress:
Multilimbed combat bodies
To be researched:
Research done:
Targeted hyper cancer
Inline DNA manipulation
Artificial Siamese Twins
Monster maker
Rapid healing
Extra bodypart attachments
Panacea - Immune system replacer
New nerve pathways
Major Technologies:
CELL MANIPULATION AND LARGE SYSTEMS DESIGN
Test subjects expired: 35
Be hard at work.
A few notes/specifications about the skeleton and body design. One, being based on large predators known for, among other things, their sharp claws, I assume the design incorporated them by default, made of the same superalloy. Two, aside from the empty cranial cavity as the lack of a brain would imply, the body design incorporates a second empty cavity, located just above and behind/on top of the primary coolant pump ("heart"), and inbetween the primary heat exchangers ("lungs"). This mysterious empty cavity is designed to be encased in a shell of superalloy not unlike a skull, and directly interface with the cooling and power systems for maximum efficiency - almost as if it were designed to house a compact and powerful brain-like supercomputer, protected by as many layers of material as feasible.
Nope, no focus today either. Except for MMI, you brute force your way for one extra step. You have down all spots in brain where you need to install reader chips, but designs for those are still lacking.
Have you considered concentrated caffeine pills? Maybe some relaxing music? Drugs?
All those things have been considered, and to be honest, none of them would probably help. Well, at least not without distorting my mental state to dangerous levels (and it's not like I'm the bastion of sanity as it is - I mean, look at who I'm working for!).
How about... a day off? Get away from these tangles of arcane electronics and sheets of labyrinthine code, and do something simpler. Something... physical. Just for a little while.
Descend into the workshop floor and find the biggest, meanest set of heavy metallurgic machinery we've brought in. We're going to have ourselves an experimentation session.Back when I was researching the superalloy, an offhand thought had dismissed the possibility of forging the material. The sheer volume and mass required for the skeletal structure did not allow much more than casting to be applied to it.
But what if the volume does not need to be large? Could superalloy be forged in smaller quantities? A thin sheet of armor, a blade edge, a sharp claw...
Recall everything I know on techniques of forging Damascus steel, specifically processes of multiple-folding and pattern-welding, and attempt to apply them to thin sheets of cast superalloy foil. Get a few assistants that aren't busy with the body assembly to help me with things like holding the superheated material in place and controlling the induction furnaces, while I alternate between blasting away with a plasma torch and bringing a hydraulic hammer down on whatever hapless object is chosen as the anvil. Attempt to produce thin, sharpenable sheets of material hopefully superior to cast superalloy. We'll return to our regular scheduled research tomorrow.((You know what they say. If your body gets tired, rest by exercising your mind. If your mind gets tired, rest by exercising your body. A little hands-on metallurgy has never hurt anyone, except whoever manages to fall into the induction furnace.))
Or hardly working?
Oh my god these rolls... What did you do to offend RNGeesus this badly?
Apparently resting your brain by working your body is not the key to happiness. This whole pet project is just a series of misfortune and accidents. Your induction furnace blows all fuses right off the bat which causes issues with prototype body assembly. Nothing unrecoverable, but it sets process back by few hours while they reproduce damaged myomer muscles. Attempt to heat superalloy sheets with plasma torch works finely, though one assistant is sent to hospital with fourth-degree burn wounds. She doesn't die, but you get the victim counter on going because of this.
Learning from this everybody gets most heat resistant suit as possible. Clunky makeshift pieces. Which is the reason for next accident, in which you are the victim. After getting single sheet hot enough to bend you employ hydraulic hammer to do what you can to bend it. It takes time, hardy bastard, and one time you stop to inspect how badly hammer head is damaged and thoughtlessly touch it. Your cluncky helmet hits something, you're not sure what and frankly don't care about it either anymore. The end result is that the hammer starts pounding again with your right hand in between hard and hot place. For you this means your hand is being flattened against very hot surface, suit melting, flesh and blood burning.
Tomorrow you'll wake up in private hospital. Your right arm doesn't exist below elbow. It smells like bacons.
As for the body, claws are naturally part of it. And the extra brain cavity. I can give you that at least. This suffering is painful to watch.
Research in progress:
Construct body prototype - outsourced, assistants
Superalloy weakness - outsourced, molecular simulation
Research to do:
Man Machine Interface
Customized personal supercomputer
Consciousness Simulation Engine
Bionic Brain Matter
Wetware AI
Research completed:
Structural skeleton
Myomers
Muscle layout
Cooling
Molecular simulation
High capacity fuel cell
Wear protection
Knowledge Database
Other victims: 1
Author
Topic: Roll to create a supersoldier! Bloody air resistance (Read 141408 times)