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[Xvareon]

You are a Von Neumann machine—an artificial intelligence specifically capable of producing more of itself exponentially, given the appropriate resources and span of time. You were created, like any machine, to solve a problem. However, it's not necessarily a problem that affects you... Or is it? You have been sent deep into outer space, careening between stars, searching for planets... but not necessarily those already bearing life. A machine of your caliber is capable of terraforming even dark and dead worlds, seeding them with life and turning them into perfectly habitable ones, by virtue of self-replicating and adapting to solve practically any problem.

Now, you're alone. You're countless millions of miles away from your creators, whoever they might've been. You feel hard earth beneath the landing gears of your probe, your computers having found a suitable site. Your deployment hatches open, your backup solar absorbers begin to refill, and you look out...


                   _  _     ____________.--.
                  |\|_|//_.-"" .'    \   /|  |
                  |.-"""-.|   /       \_/ |  |
                  \  ||  /| __\_____________ |
                  _\_||_/_| .-""            ""-.  __
                .' '.    \//                    ".\/
                ||   '. >()_                     |()<
                ||__.-' |/\ \                    |/\
                   |   / "|  \__________________/.""
                  /   //  | / \ "-.__________/  /\
               ___|__/_|__|/___\___".______//__/__\
              /|\     [____________] \__/         |\
             //\ \     |  |=====| |   /\\         |\\
            // |\ \    |  |=====| |   | \\        | \\        ____...____....----
          .//__| \ \   |  |=====| |   | |\\       |--\\---""""     .            ..
_____....-//___|  \_\  |  |=====| |   |_|_\\      |___\\    .                 ...'
 .      .//-.__|_______|__|_____|_|_____[__\\_____|__.-\\      .     .    ...::
        //        //        /          \ `-_\\/         \\          .....:::
  -... //     .  / /       /____________\    \\       .  \ \     .            .
      //   .. .-/_/-.                 .       \\        .-\_\-.                 .
     / /      '-----'           .             \ \      '._____.'         .
  .-/_/-.         .                          .-\_\-.                          ...
 '._____.'                            .     '._____.'                       .....
        .                                                             ...... ..
    .            .                  .                        .
   ...                    .                      .                       .      .
        ....     .                       .                    ....
 JRO      ......           . ..                       ......'
             .......             '...              ....
                                   ''''''      .              .

Spoiler: Art (click to show/hide)

From: spupette@hotmail.com (Soque (Enjoque) Pupette). Art not mine, will remove on request.

But where have you settled? And what form do you take?

[King Zultan]

We are on top of a mountain over looking vast areas of nothing but rock.

We take the shape of a small wheeled rover.

[Xvareon]

You deploy from a bottom hatch on your ship, lowering on a pole to the rocky surface below. The terrain is rough, but your frame is more than capable of handling the steep climes with its powerful wheels and solid all-terrain clearance. The first thing you notice is the wind; here on this rise, with heavy gusts scouring the barren land at an appreciable average of 50 to 65 kilometers per hour. Only your ship's powerful vernier thrusters and your own frame's stability prevent everything from just blowing over and crashing on the rocks. There are no signs of life to be seen anywhere, not even a sprig of grass.

Cursory scans reveal that the area has suffered repeated impacts from dangerous meteor strikes; the planetary atmosphere doesn't appear to be strong enough to repel them, and it certainly posed little obstacle to you. You can still see the shattered remnants of meteorites and comets around, some of them quite tough, typically nickel-iron amalgams that managed to withstand the impact in some form.

[King Zultan]

Given the possibility of being hit by meteors it might be best if we create a bunker underground from where we can start planing our next moves.

[Xvareon]

Thankfully, your ship's standard kit includes plenty of standardized heavy machinery modules for large-scale terrain manipulation; not for a worldwide scale, but enough to start up general operations. You find a decent spot to dig a hole and (reasonably) flat path into the mountainside, and slave a handful of automated mining drones (of similar wheeled make to your primary frame, with simple drills and planers) to the task while you see about disassembling your ship; it wouldn't do to have it struck by an errant meteorite, after all. Of course, even if it were, you could reasonably repair the most important modules, such as the automatic assemblers, laser cutters, and more.

It takes some time, during which the wind hardly lets up; one of the mining drones is nearly knocked off a cliff during the process, though you manage to halt its fall with quick use of a manipulator-arm before disaster strikes. As soon as you have a large enough area carved out and stabilized, you order the immediate salvaging of critical components, and set about reinforcing your erstwhile home. The whir of industrial machinery replaces the wind this deep in, and the air inside is constantly cloudy with dust and rubble.

After a long period of work, nighttime is approaching. How do you wish to proceed?

[King Zultan]

Well now that we have a safe place to store all our gear I suppose the next course of action should be to start looking into what kinds of useful minerals are around us and how we can exploit them to enable us to start fulfilling our goal.

[Xvareon]

The basic kit of every terraforming droid like yourself comes with a proper autolab, plus minerology and atmospheric testing suites. You isolate mostly bare rock, especially andesite; an intriguing find that indicates that this region, or at least the planet, has experienced its own volcanic activity.

A. Lot. Of volcanic activity.

You find scattered but numerous traces of iron, aluminum, lead, gold, small diamonds, and other minerals among your regular excavations. During regular operations to dump the rubble down the mountainside, you notice thick particles of ash floating on the heavy wind; some of it even collects in 'holes' tucked away between rock formations. Full analysis is beyond your current scope, but it is likely you've arrived at the post-turbulent stage of a world that has properly gone through the crucible of fire.

Your home base is growing slowly. Full drone complement dedicated to excavation and mining. You have enough base capacity to produce simple machinery and modules with your assembler. How do you proceed?

[Demonic Spoon]

Re-check database for target terraforming parameters. Contrast and compare to current planetary parameters we picked up while approaching our target as well as what we've noticed on the ground so far.

Begin building more mining drones to dig out mining tunnels to expand our areas of operations while netting us resources, and not going outside in the extreme windy conditions.

Dig down to harness geothermal energy, and put up some securely fastened solar panels to keep everything up and running. Keep an eye out for heavier elements.

[King Zultan]

Re-check database for target terraforming parameters. Contrast and compare to current planetary parameters we picked up while approaching our target as well as what we've noticed on the ground so far.

Begin building more mining drones to dig out mining tunnels to expand our areas of operations while netting us resources, and not going outside in the extreme windy conditions.

Dig down to harness geothermal energy, and put up some securely fastened solar panels to keep everything up and running. Keep an eye out for heavier elements.

+1

[EuchreJack]

Re-check database for target terraforming parameters. Contrast and compare to current planetary parameters we picked up while approaching our target as well as what we've noticed on the ground so far.

Begin building more mining drones to dig out mining tunnels to expand our areas of operations while netting us resources, and not going outside in the extreme windy conditions.

Dig down to harness geothermal energy, and put up some securely fastened solar panels to keep everything up and running. Keep an eye out for heavier elements.

+1

+1

[Magmacube_tr]

[OOC] Getting in fluids and reshaping the ground will not be all that difficult. We will just have to gather some comets, or melt down polar caps for the water.

Atmosphere is also not complicated. We can just generate CO2 with chemical burning of rocks. The rest can be supplied with comets made of more superfluous ices.

Magnetic field will be the tricky part. Any ideas on how to activate a planetary magnetic dynamo?

[Demonic Spoon]

Controlled detonation of nukes in deep boreholes

[Magmacube_tr]

Controlled detonation of nukes in deep boreholes

Those boreholes will have to number up in hundreds and will also have to be deep enough to go through the molten mantle.

Bu I guess this is the only viable option. I'd suggest we made a single borehole on a geographic pole used a concentrated sun laser to slowly heat up the core. But that'l take like, a millenia and that is too long.

[Demonic Spoon]

No part of terraforming an entire planet is particularly trivial.

[Naturegirl1999]

I’m thinking first we’d need an atmosphere, burning the rocks to generate gasses sounds like a way to do that, that way any water we do make doesn’t just turn into a gas because of the low pressure, an atmosphere would allow for the water to remain liquid, maybe gasses are trapped in some of the rocks?