I totally forgot but apparently September has only 30 days. So 30th day is the deadline for completed super soldier. Stupid me.
Day 4Continue working on Artificial Muscles and Cyberbrain
Meshanblov mutters to himself that once his brain has been made into a superior machine he will no longer need to worry about forgetting things. But later. Test subjects first
Was the idea perhaps carbon nanofibres?
"Alternative biology!" You yell when you wake up, a brilliant idea clearly in your mind. Others might call it impossible, but your dreaming brain dreamed a solution. Entirely electricity driven biology. You boot up your laptop and write entire thing, down to last equation. The idea for muscles is highly conductive 3d printed cells made from new materials, amount of contraction decided by voltage passing through. Those cells can't multiply or really do anything besides contracting and relaxing, so calling it biology is a bit stretching terminology. It hardly matters though. Carefully designed cell membranes ensure they attach to each other tightly. If you math is correct - and it is - it beats human muscle strength by two orders of magnitude. So you can make a skeleton that's stronger than than professional weightlifter. You draw designs for required machinery and start fashioning larger parts, before recalling you had another matter to do today.
Human brain simulated by quantum computer has three major steps. First you need to identify with certainty what parts of brain you actually need to copy. There are some reduntants parts and materials, like veins and other liquids. Secondly you must develope technology for copying brain structure into digital form, and a file format to contain the digitalized data. Most likely freezing a brain is required so you have solid, unchanging state. Thirdly you must invent quantum computing, progrmming language, operating system and progam to simulate the brain function. No problem. You can do it.
You start with the most reachable goal which is identifying important bits. Only few billion nerve cells to identify, roughly hundred trillion synapses to map, all individually different. Easy. You get it halfway done, ruining four brains in process.
Research in progress:
Artificial muscles
Quantum brain
To be researched:
Miniature nuclear reactor
High density capacitors
EMP hardening
Modular design
Research done:
Armored exoskeleton structure
Major Technologies:
Electricity driven cells
Test subjects expired: 4
But that's the whole point of using plasticity - no vectors are needed, only external stimuli. It's an unlocking of various potentials that are then put to use.
As for appropriate drugs, should be simple enough to design. Get to it!
Once drugs are done, use them in the appropriate (cooperative) groups. Test the groups on acquiring martial arts skills, performance in sparring, team bonding exercises and various psychological criteria.
Relying only on external stimuli makes changes much slower and less reliable. It can be done, naturally, if you accept costs.
You are on fire today. Figuratively. Your brain is bursting with many amazingly brilliant ideas! Like this improved coordination thing? Injecting subjects with a mix of specific hormones and conscious extending drugs, and designing a training program for them you see rapid increase their abilities. Same with improved reaction times. By end of day you have professional rope walkers and pitchers who could participate in major league any day without shame. Improving people's learning ability likewise proceeds with leaps. Basically only thing left is fine tuning drug mixture.
The bonding experiment results a mixture of pheromones and injected drugs cocktail before closing subjects into closed enviroment. All 20 people there start soon talking with each other, sharing life stories, sobbing and laughing at appropriate moments, and generally having good time. Forced group gymnastics practice on evening is fantastic to watch. The group of ten who participated in improved coordination and reaction time experiments take lead of the practice, supporting others and by look of it, literally share their superior senses. Late night testing proves that. The group of ten people who did not have improved coordination and reaction time treatment have improved theirs by notable margin. Not nearly as much as those what did participate, but difference clear as day. They are effectively equalizing their differences to highest standard!
They make you proud of yourself.
You didn't have time for martial arts study today.
Research in progress:
Improved learning ability
10 + 10 subjects
To be researched:
Forced friendship
Research done:
Improved coordination
Improved reaction times
Improved cooperative bonding
Martial arts training
10 test subjects - 2 days trained
Major Technologies:
NERVOUS SYSTEM DESIGN AND UNDERSTANDING
Test subjects expired: 11
This day is quite unproductive. Mostly considering different materials on connecting the layers into singe solid object. The inspiration is kinda lacking there. Hmm, maybe it returns tomorrow.
Research in progress:
Layered lighweight armor
To be researched:
Improved training speeds
Improved exoskeleton
Advanced energy generation
Rail-guns
Intelligence increasing treatments
50 test subjects + 15 + 1
Test subjects expired: 6
Can I become a test subject?
Whoever claims me gets to know what is in this spoiler:
Submit an augmented cockroach that hosts nearly every disease known to man. Since your opponents will be unable to find you before they succumb to disease (or run out of power if they're a robot), you'll win.
I definitely see the appeal of evading and outlasting opponents. But the biological warfare part can't be the only attack, Because someone else might be immune to diseases or have a way to recharge their batteries.
Good, emotions just get in the way.
Now split my research and begin working on some optical camouflage to sneak really good.
You almost reach breakthrough today for pinning down sections responsible for reaction time and what is needed to offload procession for external components. Almost. Not quite, but almost. It's so tantalisingly close.
Optical camouflage? Hmm, sneaky is good, but what if your opponents include non-optical detection systems? It is dangerous to limit yourself. However usege of optical systems is pretty much quaranteed. Humans simply cannot ditch their most important sense like that, so every little bits help. Hmm... Well, color changing is must. Counter illumination shoud be considered. Reduction of shadows can be important; a flattened body close to ground practically removes shadows, combining that with irregular outline. Really, unusual and irregular body is a great help when it comes to hiding in enviroment.
First you decide to study color changing in animals. Especially cephalopod molluscs and flatfish. Those are particularly known for their active camouflage effects. And when I say you study I mean you bring yourself up to speed what others have studied. No need to invent the wheel again.
Research in progress:
Reaction time study
40 test subjects
Optical camouflage
To be researched:
Brain integrated chips
Killing emotions
Associate obedience with joy
Researched done:
Test subjects expired: 13
((I'm going to have to opt out of this game, I'm quickly realising I don't really have the creative chops to keep up, so feel free to kill me and let other waitlisted people get on. Definitely will still be watching to see the mad results)).
We'll say Egan manages to assassinate you. He's been up in that business from day one.
((I think that is a wise plan of action for you Ao, and it suits your gamestyle that I have seen in the games i have joined.))
I'm thinking big here, like human controlling a tank sized automaton, so compactness might not be necessary immediately. Is that within the scope of the game, and my timetable? if not, compactness studies are fine for the following day's tests. On the to do list: program a vr environment where the person sees the world in a total immersion style, but the outputs are translated into whatever system is necessary. They can throw a ball in vr, and, if they are controlling a ballistic missile, it launches via the trajectory of the ball. If they are controlling a laser, they might simply point a flashlight or some such at the target. To move, tey run, but htis activates the treads, wheels, rockets, or what have you ...
to do - research robotic chassis, limbs, motor functions, armor, shielding.
To do: materials research - high end metal or polycarbon or nanotube or what have you that is durable, light, and mutlifunctional.
I'm not sure what tech levels we have available for everything, so feel free to educate me if any of my to do list is either impractical or unnecessary.
to do: research nerve regrowth and reattachment. Also - I thought I was using a system that used existing nerves rather than removing the nerves - boil away the meat around the nerve, graft the nerve itself into the new arm or the computer thingum or what have you. How many days would that tech require?
Well the compaction study is basically almost done, and with a 5, so it doesn't cost you really anything. Smaller the vital target, better. Heavy tank is entirely doable, I think, as long as you don't start working with planetary Alcubierre drives or something.
Our current tech level is same as we have on this very same day, but super geniuses like you are pushing boundaries into improbable or impossible like Harry Baldman has potential to do.
Nerve interface system is appropriately minimized to form connection from base of the brain instead of from length of the entire spinal cord. Last part of the research is life support system for disembodied brain. What it needs is a blood substitute, CO2 filters, oxygenation, waste filters, nutrition injections, cerebrospinal fluid substitute, hormone balancer, kinetic trauma protection, and preferrably separate power system to support it all. Large number of many little things. You get the blood substitute done.
For your VR plan it might be better to use spear instead of ball for guiding ballistic missiles. And pistol or laser pointer for laser cannons. It probably makes more sense for the soldier. Or actually spear is pretty bad idea too. Perhaps a RPG launcher coupled with projected trajectory.
Research in progress:
Brain in a jar
40 test subjects
To be researched:
Cryogenic preservation
Multibrain control systems
Interprative total immersion VR
Robotic body
Armor
Research done:
Nerve interface
Test subjects expired: 17
Today I put the bulk of my effort into continuing my artificial siamese twin research.
I also put a bit of time into finding potential buyers for my bio-weapon. If it's worth killing me to get your hands on this invention, I should probably make that unnecessary.
Agent promises that The Company will gladly purchase exlusive rights for any and all technologies you develope intentionally or accidentally during your employment.
Primary issue with merging too bodies together is supressing immune response and making connected tissues accept all others as part of their own. For first issue you develope an injection that completely destroys natural immune system on permanent manner and contains hyper aggressive pathogens that targets all other pathogens not part of the first system they come in contact with. So basically you created a panacea. With some work you manage to create additional injection that will tune the pathogens to accept other organic systems, be it from another human or from gorilla.
That serves as a major stepping stone for making two lumps of meat accept each other.
Research in progress:
Artificial Siamese Twins
To be researched:
Rapid bio growth / healing
Forced growth activation
Research done:
Targeted hyper cancer
Inline DNA manipulation
Major Technologies:
PANACEA
Test subjects expired: 1
((You have bad luck with rolls. Steady line of two's.))
((With the luck this project's been having in ER? I'd be surprised if it were anything else! 
))
Working in one direction at a time doesn't seem to be working out. Time to scatter the attention a bit, there's plenty of assistants to boss around and have run tests for you.
The project's first phase is the body. This body is going to need structural and motive elements, those will in turn need basic wear protection (lubricant?), power, and cooling. Let's split attention to cover each of those directions, see if maybe a shotgun approach works out better.
((I've found a way to succinctly describe what this version of Artee is going to be, and it's... well, sort of as if you took a sleek big cat, like a puma, and bodily fused it with a velociraptor. Big cat body, with reptilian head and tail, and two elongated four-fingered arms above the forelegs. Claws everywhere, lots of sharp teeth in the mouth, but sort of smoothed externally to look sort of non-terror-inducing unless in attack mode. Something that'd make an onlooker's first reaction be "oh, cool!" rather than incoherent screams of terror. It'd be intended primarily as a super-infiltrator, or super-specops, than super-'soldier', specifically, with stealth, speed, and close combat power rather than, say, built-in artillery or enough armor to tank a battleship's main gun fire.))
Structural: Determine the best off-the-shelf alloy or metalloceramic composite that can be used to form the "skeleton" of the unit. Must have excellent strength-to-mass ratio. Build a skeleton concept, going by the design notes, out of that material - it should be as if it were copied from an actual living (if fictional) creature. Nothing fancy yet, just something to put the muscles on later.
Motive: Continue working on myomers. Consider using composite solutions here as well, like micro-scale 'cable' out of several types of twisted together fibers that each provide a different function to the whole.
Wear protection: Look into regenerating ablative materials. Something that has low friction and decent strength (so that it can be used in joints) in a solid state, and will readily crystallize from a liquid state under particular conditions (as an example: hot ice). The idea being that the body holds a supply of liquid-state material, which gets distributed via some kind of circulation system to areas of high wear, and applied to the solid-state material there as it gradually wears out, keeping the body from wearing itself out in a manner that would need actual repair.
Power: Many options to choose from, but given that the body will need some sort of liquid-refill maintenance anyway, why not use a fuel cell? Start looking into ways to make the most efficient fuel-cell per unit volume (so preferably using very dense fuel), as mass will be less of a factor than the storage limits inside the body.
Cooling: The most interesting one, as the body will in many ways resemble an organic one, just built with artificial materials. The most natural thing to do would be to replicate organic circulation and breathing systems, one to distribute coolant throughout the body, the other to exchange heat with the surrounding air in an efficient manner (as the "lungs" could be filled with an enormous amount of radiator surfaces). Begin planning out the best design solution for both parts of the system, also looking up materials best suited for pumping coolant around, maybe designing a supplementary water-evaporating cooling system as backup, etc. The more that can be done the better.
Basic design is doable. Remind me about the body structure and appearance once we get that point.
Huh, working with five projects at once. Time to test your limits.
It seems you burn most of your mental processing capacity with the structure project. After researching existing alloys, a way too long list by the way, you have interesting idea about reinventing steel with completely different base materials. I don't really know anything about material science, so let's say it is about trapping specific molecule forms inside larger lattice. Or something. Anyway, you spend until lunch trying to get the process right before you have something that approximately right. This new alloy is about half the weight of avarage steel type, has very high yield strength and its fracture point is quite far beyond that. Downsides are very high working temperatures and questionable mass production capacity. You are not sure if the process scales up nicely. Either way, this seems like your material of choice.
Working with myomers is just staring papers about possible material and form combinations with blank eyes. You are slowly starting to hate them.
For wear protection you scetch up ideas about circulatory system closely resembling blood veins. Large arteries transferring bulk of material to key areas where from it is distributed closer larger surface areas via smaller veins. Or alternatively entire subdermal layer of low pressure liquid? Then it would be less of problem to detect where it is needed, though large lacerations will become a problem.
Next target of attention is fuel cells. There's little to say with these rolls other than "some work is done". When it is time to work with cooling system you have already fallen asleep on your seat.
Research in progress:
Structural skeleton
Myomers
Wear protection
High capacity fuel cell
Cooling
Research to do:
((I'm kind of excited to see Sean's Artee actually come to fruition. Actually, if killerhellhound ends up not liking it, I'd happily step in as Sean's supersoldier. Otherwise, Put me in as a potential supersoldier))
Welcome. For now you'll be subject to whatever horrors Dr. Ivana Rosecrans aka. penguingofhonor decides to inflict upon you.
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Topic: Roll to create a supersoldier! Bloody air resistance (Read 139132 times)