Systematic Elimination of the Entropic Mind
It has been a long, long time coming that we learn the very nature of SPICE.
Some may call the process by which our greatest assets are created as torture, or even barbaric, but the process is designed to be as non-invasive and holistically safe as possible to the personnel it is committed to, a far cry from its original implementation.
In short, Personnel chose from veteran lists and those who have not been previously exposed to SPICE in its flawed form are moved into a sensory deprivation chamber and kept there for 72 hours before the treatment is given. this is done to prime the soldier for the first set of treatments, and afterward, they are immediately moved to a specialized Cryostat-Tank where their minds altered state is cemented with a mixture of metal recombinators and a modified version of SPICE, that would normally kill a person with violent seizures and brain-related trauma. This process takes around a week and a half to a month, depending on the subjects mind. Instead of murdering the soldier who has not gone through the sensory deprivation, the process opens their inner self to the realm, the Astral Realm.
We know very little of the Astral, besides the fact that humanity had at one point accessed it long before, and then stopped accessing it until now. All living things have a signature in this realm, but it is frighteningly empty, and it is plainly terrifying to an unaccustomed mind as they constantly feel the raw horror of an unknown vacuum like pull. Golden-Eyes unknowingly tap into this realm and use it by detecting the minds of others to augment their reaction speeds. Those who go under SEEM Treatment experience this realm in its full through an 8th sense, and in some cases can supposedly manipulate it.
Those who undergo SEEM Treatment experience can sense all living on this plane that is nearby and can act accordingly in combat. To an untrained eye, the soldier will act against the opposition before they even commit to the action, this is similar to the Golden-eyes most advantageous ability. In addition, some soldiers display abilities to commit warfare against other living beings through this realm and have supposedly murdered multiple test subjects through "lancing" their presence in the realm with their minds. More testing is needed to confirm and reproduce this, however, as those who are not exposed to the SEEM Treatment have no way of knowing what goes on in the realm that SPICE opens up.
This process does not leave the individual in question unaffected mentally, however, as most often experience dramatic shifts in personality due to the mentally harrowing effects of sensory deprivation followed by hyper-intensive brain activity that we are only beginning to decipher. To an average person, a soldier (Or one particularly inquisitive NecroPolitician if the process proves even somewhat safe) that has undergone SEEM will exude an aura of utter eldritch disposition, and often cause flight-or-fight responses to lesser willed beings like animals or cowards of the state.
As an unrelated note, the signature of living beings often betrays information on the subject itself, although this information is limited due to our personnel's limited understanding of the signatures themselves.
Design: Systematic Elimination of the Entropic Mind(Hard) (3+3)-1 = 5: Average
While our engineers and scientists over at the Refinery had a bit of difficulty getting the procedure to work in the first place, this design was actually significantly easier than expected.
Not for
free, however. The proposals our staff received outlined what we expected from the
Astral, which does indeed exist, but there's simply no way to force it to work in any specific way. If it was possible
at all to try to get specific results out of this extremely new field, SEEM would be much harder to accomplish.
But for now, we're settling with an easier method at the cost of venturing into the unknown.
The procedure was, again, difficult. Metal Recombinators are still very much an untested technology, but we had some experience from the failed Iron legion project in the past to work on. By modifying Recombinators enough to work with Spice, we can essentially modify a subject's brain to be much more receptive to Spice as well as to just be...
different.
The first few dozens of subjects unfortunately stopped reporting any neural activity once they reached a certain stage in the Recombination process. It's not a huge loss, as we made sure to test on Refinery subjects first, but still frustrating. But with sequential modification and copious use of modified CryoStat tanks, we eventually managed to get someone out of the process
alive.This first successful subject died. He started screaming illegibly and eventually just collapsed, dead, despite our best efforts. The researchers proposed that as Spice "opens up" the brain to different aspects of reality (supposedly - we still weren't sure if the researchers that "proved" Spice's more mystical properties weren't just extremely high on modified Spice), it can overwhelm lesser minds.
So the next successful subject was a soldier. Willard Breiner. Decorated man. Despite no Goldeneye treatment being performed on him, he still saved the lives of many Aratamite soldiers from Excavators and ICE missiles and more. We submersed him in a (mostly) inactive CryoStat tank for days - to clear his mind. Then we began the procedure.
Instead of immediately removing him from the tank, we left Breiner in - like before - as a form of sensory deprivation. If the theory of an overwhelmed mind was true, then he'd need time to acclimate to his new perspective.
After a week of sensory deprivation, we let him out. Breiner was calm, and collected, but different. Nearly silent. He requested a meal, and rest, which we provided. But unexpectedly, after he woke up, he wanted to return to the modified CryoStat for further sensory deprivation. But, this time, he specified that a microphone be embedded inside the walls of the container.
After about a day, the technicians were woken from sleep to hear Breiner talking to them. He started describing things. Things that we didn't know and still don't know about. Our researchers stayed up for days listening to Breiner and his monologue. To a layman, it may have seemed like the ramblings of a madman, but our researchers managed to put something together with the cooperation of Breiner.
In a way, we were right about the "Astral Realm". We think.
All we can deduce is that something exists beyond what we can normally see, feel, hear, or otherwise sense. Yet despite this, it's inherently connected with our world and could perhaps even influence it. We believe that Spice has somehow always caused a connection to this -- the cause of both Spice-induced insanity and the abilities of Goldeneyes. But we understand more about it now, and more about how to edge closer to it.
Breiner didn't see the Astral. He wasn't "in" it. He just felt it. Felt it close to him. He felt himself brushing up against it, and could tell us what that felt like. The majority of what we recorded is still largely nonsense, but now we know that
something else exists.
Breiner remains a permanent resident at the Refinery, and was deemed unfit to return to service or civilian life. He's been given the best accommodations we can spare at the Refinery, but will likely remain a glorified lab rat for the rest of his life. But he's okay with that, as he knows it's for the good of Aratam and the Necrostate.
Since then, we've made some improvements to the procedure. Toned down the Spice usage a bit. Tweaked how the Recombinators work. SEEM Subjects are no longer as aware of the Astral, and this lets them remain (relatively) fully functional. They're considered very strange (and scary, given their rank and abilities) by fellow soldiers, but their closer connection to the Astral and our greater understanding of how Spice works gives them much greater awareness of their surroundings.
SEEM Soldiers can't predict the future. But they're the next iteration of Goldeneyes. Whereas Goldeneyes' were just more instinctively aware of their peripherals, SEEMs are something else. They don't just instinctively "feel" that something's wrong, but they can know that a group of Merethans are hiding nearby lying for ambush. They can know that a missile will hit this exact spot. They can know that that particular Merethan is aiming their gun at this spot, and will shoot in two seconds. They can know that a Bear Trooper is going to position their shield at this spot, and they can know that a Bear Trooper is trying to hide a weak spot where their COMBAT plating melted.
Why
exactly they know this, we still don't really know. But we can now state that this is due to their greater connection to the Astral.
SEEM Soldiers -- the immediate and combat-ready result from this little project -- are expected to be
extremely effective wherever they're deployed.
But we can't easily deploy them.
While Breiner went through the procedure succesfully, not everyone can. Not even everyone that we carefully pick for traits that would indicate likely survival of the procedure. We're taking from the best Aratam has to offer, and only a very small portion survives. They cost
5 Rare Chemicals and the continued reliance on our very rare CryoStat tanks in addition to the low survival rate + recruitment requirements cause them to be
Very Complex, making SEEM a
National Effort. For now, we can deploy a single squadron of SEEM soldiers in a single theatre, but they should still be able to do some damage.
Transport Capacity: 2/3 (2/2 Oil Imported)
Resources: 3 Ore,
4 Oil,
2 Rare ChemicalsWeapons- "Pursuit" Rifle: An 20-round magazine automatic rifle with mediocre accuracy at Medium range (and useless accuracy further).
[Cheap] 1 Ore - "Machete" Pistol: A 6-round semiautomatic pistol semi-accurate up to Short range. Reliable.
[Cheap] 1 Ore - "Jumper" EMA Grenade Launcher: The Electromagnetically Assisted Grenade Launcher "Jumper" is roughly the shape of a very noticeably thicker bazooka-like assembly. It uses inefficient brick-sized SynthOil batteries that provide enough charge for one shot per battery. Once a battery is inserted, the Jumper has to "charge" for roughly thirty seconds before being able to fire, and can fire 1.5 inch specially-made grenades with "average" radii and okay accuracy, silently. It's fairly bulky. The manufacturing of the coilgun adds severe complexity.
[Expensive] 2 Ore, 1 Oil, Complex - HMKR-59 'Osprey': Hybrid Magnetic Kinetic Rifle; a variant of the Pursuit rifle that houses coilgun components to increase the velocity of bullets after conventional firing. Has a slot in the back for a single SynthOil battery, which has enough charge for 10 powered shots (soldiers carry 2 batteries total). Powered shots are accurate to Medium range (unpowered shots to Short range) and have increased lethality and armor piercing capabilities.
[Cheap] 1 Ore, 1 Oil - Tesla Rifle: A "rifle" that fires bolts of ARC lightning at Medium range. Using an inner "Lightning Rod" chamber, it gradually charges from a backpack SynthOil battery - it has four levels of charge, with Level 3 being the optimum Medium range + good lethality and Level 4 being overkill with a chance of explosive backfiring. It takes about a minute to charge to Level 3 (charging can be paused but the charge decays over time), and the battery has enough juice for 5 Lvl3 shots. Extremely lethal against anything conductive, and has a modest area-of-effect as the electricity arcs to other conductors in close proximity. Can be hooked up to external SynthOil batteries as well.
[Expensive] 2 Ore, 2 Oil, Complex - "Storm" GMRL-ECP-61S: A 250lb active radar homing missile with a 6km range and 5m effective blast radius. Fired from 4-rail trucks (with radar) and aircraft mounts. It has a poor resolution, greatly decreasing the reliability of locking onto non-huge aerial targets and making locking onto surface targets next-to-impossible, though large ships prove easy targets. Equipped with an HE or ARC warhead, with the ARC warhead using a chain SynthOil reaction to generate arcing electricity frying electronics and melting metal as it jumps from conductor to conductor.
[Cheap] 3 Ore, 4 Oil - "Red Skies" Multiple Missile Launcher: A 300 lb version of the Storm missile using Inertial guidance and adapted entirely for surface-to-surface use. Has a SynthOil-based incendiary payload that's capable of effectively burning through armor, but is less immediately destructive. Has a range of 15 km. Its guidance allows it to easily and effectively target any ground point, but it can't change course mid-flight and can't actively track any targets; its effectiveness in accuracy mostly is based on what intelligence the operator has when firing. Intended for use as surface-to-surface artillery.
[Cheap] 3 Ore, 4 Oil
Land Vehicles- M3T1A1 Raider: The Raider is a Diesel-Electric tracked APC designed to serve as a base platform for many roles. It has light RHA armor with a sloped front, plus slats. It holds ten passengers and three crew, making it look like a large metal box. It has an interchangeable turret, which is very wide and flat with medium armor. Default armament is a Can shredder, plus 6 external Thumper barrels for smoke grenades and an RPG, these can only be reloaded from the outside. It's also chemical warfare protected, and last but not least, amphibious, with a trim vane and two electric powered propellers. Exits are on large rear hatch and one small top hatch, only latter can be used while afloat.
[Cheap] 3 Ore 2 Oil - Privateer 1 1/2 Ton Truck: Cannala's first truck, it's a cabover on an antiquated 3-cylinder, the transmission only has a forward and reverse setting. It's still better than horses, though.
[Cheap] 2 Ore, 2 Oil, Provides 1 TC - "Halberd"-Electromagnetic Coil Cannon Battletank ECCB-60: A large silent tank armed with a 120mm coilgun and a coaxially-mounted unpowered auto-loading Osprey. Has a respectable speed for its size, and the Coilgun turret is powered but manually aimed. Powered by two SynthOil batteries - one provides enough power for six Coilgun shots, the other provides enough power for four hours of full throttle movement and ten hours of less-fast "travel" movement.
[Expensive] 5 Ore, 4 Oil - "Ettin" Electric-Motor Flak Tank EMFT-61-B: A "tank" where the turret is an unarmored cage on top of the squat chassis where the gunner sits; two self-loading automatic cannons fire automatically in consecutive fashion flak shells to shoot down aircraft and infantry. The turret can be angled downwards effectively to shoot at infantry; limited ammo supply means the gunner has to be somewhat conservative with his firing patterns and can't just fill the sky with flak. Electric computer & radar guidance overlays a digital crosshair on a small sheet of "glass" in front of the gunner that is overlaid on top of the physical crosshair to maximize accuracy, allowing for decent accuracy as long as the aircraft isn't too fast or evasive. The commander and driver reside in the cramped interior and exit/enter largely via a door to the side, with the front of the tank being heavily angled downward for firing angle reasons. The turret is armored, but has poor visibility. Can travel for 10 hours on a full SynthOil battery, and the gun doesn't require power to operate.
[Expensive] 5 Ore, 4 Oil
Air Vehicles- M1938 A-3 'Parrot': The Parrot is a low-cost air superiority fighter, designed to counter the Yellowjacket. It looks very similar to the Falcon, but without the complicated prop system and reduced to a 10-cyclinder, normally aspirated power plant. It too is fully aluminum, and contains most of the little features like retractable gear, an oxygen system, and a reflex sight. It is actually quite heavily armed with two Muerte heavy machine guns and two Can Perforators, though the perforators don't have a lot of ammo.
[Cheap] 3 Ore, 2 Oil
- Macaw Strike Craft: A variant of the Parrot with a turboprop engine hastily retrofitted in. Has a Short range and is faster+more agile than the Parrot but still significantly more sluggish than the Spearhead or any other jet aircraft. Equipped with five 100lb bomb/missile mounts but has no other weapons.
- M1942 A-5B 'Spearhead-B' Air Superiority Fighter: Following Forenia's Thunderbird design, the Spearhead is an aluminum-built fighter with two turbojet engines. It features a rounded canopy, swept wings, pointy nose, and the engines are under each wing, but hug the body closely; the inlets are flush with the fuselage. A heavy Can Shredder sits in the nose. Two Morei turbojets burn kerosene and take some advantage of experiences of the Bull tank's turboshaft, it includes a water-cooling system (the shared radiator creates a third intake under the body). Despite carrying more weight, it's very nearly as fast as the Thunderbird, but it does have trouble recovering from stalls. On the other hand, when it's keeping good speed it can make impressive turns thanks to its hydraulic control system; the pilot can pull the relatively large control surfaces with ease. The Can Shredder can do serious damage to bombers from a safe distance. A hardpoint for 500lb bombs or missiles has been added under each wing.
[Expensive] 4 Ore, 4 Oil
Navy- Corsair Destroyer: The Corsair is a moderate sized ship with light (for a ship) steel hull armor. It has a light cannon armament of two hydraulic-equipped Nightwind cannons and four Can Shredders. However, its main armament is its Shark Torpedo launchers (it has a couple on each side) and newly-invented Seahorse mines, which use the same warheads as Shark torpedoes but rest on the sea surface, detonating on cpntact with ships. It is powered by steam turbines and easily outpaces battleships like the Kalmar, Kraken and Kurokami.
[Expensive] 4 Ore, 3 Oil - Santos-Class Naval Aircraft Support Vessel: The Santos is a large aircraft carrier. It is about the size of the Khorne but not armored. It's powered by four oil-burning steam turbines, which are more powerful than coal ones. The hangar deck stores two dozen fighters, moved to the flight deck by a hydraulic lift. On deck is an Eagle Eye Radar system, con tower, a few Firecracker AA guns and a miscellaneous autocannons wherever there's spare room. It also has a decent sized flight deck, with an arrester cable for landing aircraft, and two overlapping runways with room for ready aircraft on deck. It also has a steam catapult, which allows it to launch some planes which could not normally take off from its short runway. [5 Ore, 4 Oil]
[Expensive] 5 Ore, 4 Oil - SLS-61 Magpie: The Shore-Landing Ship is a basic landing ship with a bow able to open up with a ramp to allow vehicles and troops onto the shore, and has extremely basic treads to de-beach itself. Has Thin armor and a few mounts for infantry rifles on the top to provide basic covering fire. Powered by Generation 1 SynthOil engines, which requires it to use the majority of its cargo space to hold enough SynthOil to make it across the sea without running out of fuel. Normally has a modest capacity for soldiers (and capable of holding a few moderate-sized vehicles), but the fuel requirement limits it to only a small amount of soldiers and/or perhaps one tank at best.
[Cheap] 3 Ore, 3 Oil - Atlas-class Cargo Ship: A Santos-class with the weaponry and aircraft equipment and just about everything else stripped off. Utilizes SynthOil batteries for general powering of ship, though oil-burning steam turbines from the Santos still power most of it. Uses a system derived from Cryostats to cryogenically freeze perishable cargo as well as people for maximum storage efficiency.
Provides 2 TC
Chemicals & Drugs- Spice: An extremely potent manufactured drug resulting in extreme schizophrenia, delusions of power, frequent seizures, and eventually death. Extremely addictive. Those who undergo the week-long "Goldeneye" treatment in a CryoStat tank become accustomed (and permanently addicted) to low dosages of Spice, enabling very high awareness of surroundings and mildly increased reaction and thinking speeds when under the influence of the drug.
[Very Expensive] 5 Rare Chemicals, Complex.
- SEEM: Systemic Elimination of the Entropic Mind. An extremely intensive and long procedure where top-ranked veterans are subjected to week-long bouts of sensory deprivation in CryoStat tanks, and have their mind essentially transformed into a new form via the combined use of modified Metal Recombinators and Spice. For now, this allows survivors of the treatment to exhibit extreme (much higher than Goldeneyes) awareness of surroundings, visible or not. This awareness manifests itself in many ways, from avoiding traps/bombardments to knowing where to shoot at to knowing when one's being shot at, and more.
[National Effort] 5 Rare Chemicals, Very Complex
- Combat Drug 'Fury': A Spice-based drug that massively decreases reaction time, and lasts for ~2 hours. Also incites rage, decreasing soldier effectiveness at range and chances of occasional friendly fire. Mild hallucinations are common, preventing users from being effective at recon/espionage/etc. roles. Makes veins much more apparent and red. Addictive, and takes effect >5 minutes after injection.
[Expensive] 3 Rare Chemicals - Metal Recombinators: A special mixture that separates pure metal from ore, obsoleting a large part of Aratam's refining industry. A variant can also be used to fuse metal with (likely) any other matter.
Provides 1 Ore.
Other- Standard Uniform: A plain red featureless uniform. The red's mild enough that it doesn't really stick out.
- CryoStat Tank: A large three-meter tall "coffin" with a small glass vertical slit inside showing a tank. Dozens of tubes connect it to the other machinery required for operation, taking up ~36 square meters of space total. Trained technicians monitor and operate it and prepare subjects for submerging. Subjects are put into "stasis" via a numbing solution they're submersed in, and medical drugs are constantly pumped into their body via dozens of injection sites prepared pre-submerging. Once taken out, subjects are put into a machine to recover from the effects of the tank. A day stabilizes minor life-threatening wounds, and a week stabilizes near all wounds. A month starts completely healing scars and generally brings up health status to pristine, and a year can restore lost limbs. Also used for life-extending "rejuvenation" processes by important people.
[Very Expensive] 4 Rare Chemicals, Complex - SynthOil: SMRO-58 "SynthOil" is an advanced form of oil - it's made using a combination of oil and other chemicals, making a much more stable and energy-dense solution. Has a peculiar property - with the right tools, it can directly produce electricity.
Provides 1 Oil - Gel-Matrix Bio-Paste Reactor: A 1m-radius spherical "nuclear-ish" reactor that uses gamma radiation to break down SynthOil into electrical energy. Rather efficient and good at making energy, especially compared with anything else in the world comparable in size/expense, but hard to miniaturize and has a notable radiation poisoning issue with anyone spending a notable amount of time in proximity.
Infrastructure- The Refinery: An extremely secretive facility hidden under the canopy in a remote part of the rainforest, identifiable only by its smoke. Contains large liquid storage tanks and refineries for the production of chemicals, well-equipped laboratories, cells for test subjects, a steady supply of test subjects from Aratam's prisoners, and more. Useful as a base for chemical research.
Provides 1 Rare Chemical - Division of Biological Manipulation: An abandoned set of rooms on top of the Refinery; originally intended for biological manipulation research but was never finished due to a sudden test subject escape.
- Embassy "The Brewery": An embassy for Cannalan diplomats that doubles as a highly advanced brewery of Aratam's signature drink, Arachaca. The Cannalans can see the brewing process below through their glass flooring and taps straight form the brewery are available for Arachaca straight from the source. Uses basic electronic systems for very limited automation in conjunction with its general advanced brewing systems.
Author
Topic: Mad Arms Race - Aratam Design Bureau (Fall 1965 - Final Design Phase) (Read 61621 times)