>>5737533

You flicker to, your systems groaning as slowly, so unbearably slowly, power is restored. Your chronometer quickly informs you that 18,534 years had passed since your last activation.

Running time diagnostics.

You will your processors to once again begin to quickly evaluate the passage of time, adding atop of that, you activate your scanners and observation systems to observe star drift for a more accurate time passage. Once more, the time date comes through at 18,534 years since last activation.

Warning, hostiles detected !

Your other subroutine quickly brings forth attention to your main processors, perhaps the threat was the reason for your autonomous activation ?

Taking for control of the outside cameras, you gaze upon a cruel mimicry of a space vessel, cobbled together parts crudely slapped upon what, your sensors inform you, is an unregistered pattern federation vessel, the lack of proper armour and armaments means that it can only be a cheap civilian make ship, though strangely large, perhaps unfinished vanity project ? It matters not, the clear symbols of Orkish pirates are upon it, the crude creatures had somehow managed to steal it.

Activating defence systems.

You will, and suddenly…nothing happens.

Warning, hull integrity at 46.3%. Power generation at 16.7%. Primary defence systems offline, energy shielding offline, critical damage detected.

Rerouting power towards point defence weaponry.

You will for power to move towards one of the mounted point defence railgun cannons upon the extremities of your hull. Requiring little power and being rugged constructs, the weapon swivels and unleashes a single round traveling at a tinies fraction of the speed of light.

The round quickly pierces the orkish vessel, the antimatter core detonating as the round finds itself within the vessel. A miniature supernova of matter meeting antimatter brightens the outside cameras. The vessel is destroyed in an instant.

Beginning scans of surrounding environment and ascertaining damage experienced.

Your subroutines quickly go begin to work upon the tasks set, the processing speed painfully slow compared to what you remember, but with the damage suffered, it is surprising that you had activated in the first place after more than ten millennia of inactivity.

In but a few seconds, you have all of the data you need:

>>5737534

Firstly, your housing, the HFS Odyssey, Long-Range exploration vessel of the federation reaching an unprecedented two kilometres in length and about three hundred metres in width and seventy-five meters in height, has suffered catastrophic damage. The scans showcase that at one point or another, it, or more precisely, you, had suffered a catastrophic failure, one that had forced your shutdown. Inconvenient. You have no records of your shutdown. Furthermore, clicking through all of the cameras at once, you realize that the exploration crew of twenty had all perished, their skeletal remains beyond any ability to restore as 18 millennia of solar radiation had ruined whatever was left. It seems that the bodies had decayed and died in rooms that were still pressurized, but further damage, by your scans you assume to be micrometeors, had pummelled your hull and eventually breached through. When it comes to your power generation, your primary reactor core seems to have been destroyed, perhaps the reason for the catastrophic failure ? Whilst the technology is relatively safe, having a miniature star for a power system is bound to carry certain degrees of risk. Luckily, the secondary fusion reactors, whilst providing with only a fraction of your needed power, are still operational.

Most importantly, your namesake, the Odysseus core is intact, an experimental wormhole generator allowing for instantaneous travel between two locations at any given time. Judging by your records, it had been your fifth time using it when the catastrophe struck. Perhaps an error in the design had caused it ? The plans had been exceptionally experimental, as far as you are aware, this is the only copy in existence. To the point where even your STC database does not possess the records of its construction and plans. Thinking of it, your manufacturing section is horribly damaged, all but one of the systems still online, resulting in a bottleneck in any and all construction projects that you no doubt require to undertake.

>>5737535

Quickly looking through the rest of the subsystems, your main processors and the A.I. core, which is you, is intact, if unable to run at full capacity. At least it is some good news, if you can fix your power problem, the phase-iron encased core and cooling systems could once again run at full capacity. However, the log room, an area housing the history of humanity, their achievements and follies, their greatest and lowest, had been heavily damaged, a quick perusing of the records indicates that you possess the knowledge of only a tenth of humanity’s history, even then, it being the oldest and most brutal of human history, reaching up to second millennia by the Federation’s calendar. Unfortunately, whilst you were equipped with weaponry, your chassis had been built for exploration, not warfare, as such, your weaponry systems consist of 20 railgun turrets, one of whom you had used to destroy the orkish vessel, 4 blackhole generators, two mounted atop and two upon the bottom of the ship, and finally, 2 more mounted side turrets, each at your sides of nanowarhead launchers, housing missiles with limited A.I.s, these weapons can disintegrate any vessel they fire upon, due to the potential danger, the weapon system has an inbuilt kill switch meant to shut the nanomachines down after but a second of usage. Usually enough to annihilate any and all hostiles which these nanomachines touch. However, the nanomachines are weak against foes whose energy shields are still intact as they face little threat from the limited nature of the nanomachines. The blackhole generators also run into a similar issue, made to collapse in on themselves and disappear shortly after their creation, the blackhole turrets are powerful and able to destroy all they touch, if a bit uncontrollable and dangerous to any and all vessels around the target. The safest and most accurate of all the weapons would be the railguns, one shot is usually enough to annihilate whatever energy shields may be employed, the second to pierce through the armour and detonate within.

Out of the entire assorted arsenal at your disposal, only 5 of the railgun turrets are operational, whilst the rest have been destroyed. Both the nanomachine launchers are wrecked, but once operational, you will have more than enough ammo to use them, whilst all but one of the blackhole generators had been damaged, and the one you do possess is not operational due to a lack of power.

>>5737536

Continuous exploration of the vessel showcases that within your storage bays, you do not posses any raw materials required for your own repairs, but luckily, a dozen mining drones still remain intact, enough to begin a slow, if steady, mining operation. Other than that, you do possess one hundred defence drones, small hovering things each armed with a powerful laser cannon, enough to deter most lightly equipped boarders or foes, but you do doubt their effectiveness on the battle field. Though now that you are replaying the combat engagement that had happened a few seconds ago, even if looted and degraded, that was a federation vessel, its swift death showcases a lack of proper armour and shielding. Odd. You shall have to investigate later if anything remains. Besides the drones and miners, you also have half a dozen exploration drones, meant to pierce the worst of planetary atmospheres and even the greatest of pressures usually seen upon various gas giants. Larger than the drones, these ones are at least a bit more armoured though they only posses four of the laser cannons similar to the drones, enough to deal with local wildlife, but still nothing too powerful. Perhaps you should remedy that ? No. You must concentrate on matters at hand.

Finishing the sweep of the vessel, you concentrate upon the hull itself, damaged and destroyed, phase-iron inner hull upon which is a layer of adamantium for support structure purposes atop of that is federation warship standard armour plating, the damage suffered showcases a massive critical failure, bends, breaks, twists, turns, millennia of damage from local celestial phenomena. You had expected such happenings with the initial reports, but the damage is still staggering. Most depressingly of all, the communications, surveying and relay systems, all experimental and powerful, heralding a new age of swift human colonization, lay wrecked and ruined, as such you will have to fall back to more rudimentary back up systems, as with the Odysseus core, you do not possess the necessary blueprints to rebuild and remake the systems. If nothing else, this does explain why you are unable to connect with the federation network.

Swiftly turning your attention from yourself you look upon the goings on of the system. Strange.

Beginning rescanning of star movement.

You issue orders, and a millisecond later, your sight is confirmed. The largest anomaly prevents your viewing of stars that should exist reaching nearly 10,000 lightyears. Most confusing of all, you quickly notice similar phenomena throughout the galaxy, though comparatively on a much smaller scale. Perhaps the stars were moved ? Your masters were capable of doing so. Maybe a war had broken out ? The treaties humanity has with the self-proclaimed Eldar are, tentative at best.

>>5737537

Shifting your attention back to the system you are within, and the issues you have to face, you quickly realize that the orkish vessel had not been alone as your sensors begin to ping with dozens of more contacts throughout the system.

Speaking of which, the system L78/Q98-156 upon the furthest reaches of the galactic North-East compared to your presumed location of the Federation’s capital and the birthworld of your masters, is a binary star system. A giant M class star locked in orbit with a much smaller dwarf G class. The closest orbits of the stars had long since been cleared and formed into a trio of small rocky, hot worlds lacking any and all conditions for the creation of life, but they should be plentiful enough when it comes to raw resources. Further away from that is a massive gas giant, by the initial scans, the size of Jupiter, with dozens of moons orbiting around it, from there you are able to quickly pick up numerous radio waves and other signal, that is also where you can notice the vast majority of orkish vessels are present. Perhaps a home for these barbarians ? Other than that, there is a large asteroid belt wrapping around the entire system, which is, in fact, where you are. The dense layer of dust and still forming worlds may have perhaps hidden you, especially seeing as how the majority of your hull damage had come from the fact that you are currently planted in said asteroid.

Notice, initial scans reveal small quantities of needed basic materials present in system. Recommendation, gather plentiful raw resources, explore other systems for more rare resources.

Indeed, you need to start scanning the asteroids themselves and begin restoring your basic functions. Though as you looking through your records, the presence of orks and their tendency to go where battle is will undoubtedly attract their attention once they realize what you had done to their kin. Whilst easy to brush aside, any engagement risks more unacceptable amount of damage potentially suffered.

Warning ! K̷̢͙̥̤̖͇̜̽̌̃̄̂́͑̕I̶̙͉̋͆͌̋́̌L̶̦̪̈́̉L̵͓̤̠͕̺̍͋̒̿̿̃̀ ̷̯͕̘͖̜̓̃͐̔̀̐͂̂̚͜ͅḰ̸̮̹͖̥̀̕͜Ȋ̵̤̱͎L̴̛̳͖͙̥͑̕Ĺ̵̢̻̭̖͉̳̤̯̞̀̈́́͛͒̎̚͝ ̶̬̬͓̟͉̞̆̾̀̂͐̕K̵͚͙̜̄͑Ḭ̴̣̈́̉̀͘̕L̸̮̈́͛̓L̷̢̢̰̬̱̜͇͈͐͌̈̈ͅ ! Hostiles detected.

Error. Poten- Ḟ̸̢̟͔͈̈́̑͊̕̕L̵̝̑͛̋͛̇̎̓͋͒̕E̴͙̭̰̬͓̎̌̈́̈́̄͂̃̍Ȩ̷̢̺͖̗̰͖̖̎̈́̑ . Error. Error.

Beginning subroutine purge. Isolating affected processes. Error. Error. P̷͕͙̣̆̀͐̈́͠U̸̢̝̰̦͗̋̄̈̉̽̚͜R̵̢̘̻̍̈́̓̎́̕͜ͅͅĢ̷̡̯̬̭͊͆͋̍̄͛̚̚͠Ë̷̝͐̒͆͂ ! P̷͕͙̣̆̀͐̈́͠U̸̢̝̰̦͗̋̄̈̉̽̚͜R̵̢̘̻̍̈́̓̎́̕͜ͅͅĢ̷̡̯̬̭͊͆͋̍̄͛̚̚͠Ë̷̝͐̒͆͂ ! P̷͕͙̣̆̀͐̈́͠U̸̢̝̰̦͗̋̄̈̉̽̚͜ -

>>5737538

You cut out the subprocesses. And gaze upon the vessels on approach, large twisted creations, nothing more than, well, the asteroid you are currently planted upon, flanked by smaller, similarly poor vessels you presumed to be of orkish looting.

Activating your thrusters, you quickly move off the asteroid, posing your remaining weapons and begin to open fire. As expected, the first of the smaller vessels cracks and breaks in the first two shots. The second follows quickly, then the third. Then the moving asteroid opens fire. Most of the rounds from these crude weapons firing oversized bullets that are ridiculously large, seemingly only have simple explosive charges within them. Still, you hear something frustrating.

Warning, hull integrity at 39.9%.

Your subroutine informs you of the damage suffered, it seems that the purging and restarting operation you had to divide your attention to had finished their procedures of restoring them to proper function.

You direct all of the turrets upon the asteroid. Explosion after explosion rips out as the large amounts of matter are stripped away and eventually a hollowed-out asteroid is all that remains.

Checking, double checking, triple checking your scanners, you quickly notice that no more orkish forces are nearby, for the moment, but other contacts upon your scanners seem to be diverting their attention to you. The large explosions of your anti-matter rounds are not overtly subtle after all.

Odysseus core online, energy reserves sufficient for activation towards nearby star systems. Wormhole connection recommended, system present, dangerous.

You quickly run through the database of nearby star systems. One with a K class dwarf within your records showcases a distant federation outpost had been set up there in a world set for terraformation. Perhaps that will be your best bet to reestablish connection with the federation exploration crops.

Next is a system with a giant A class star. In your records, the place had only undergone preliminary exploration, but rich mineral loads had been discovered in the only two planets of the star system. Whether you will be able to locate enough rarer materials such as various forms of uranium and gold remains to be seen, but plenty of iron and copper should be easy enough to find in hopefully safer conditions.

Finally, a neutron star, it had yet to be explored, but the creation of the star must have ejected plenty of heavier atomic materials in its creation. However, with the hull damaged as is, the large quantities of radiation you shall have to experience could prove dangerous.

>>5737539

Any of these options winning will result in Odysseus staying in system.

>Stay within the asteroid field, the gathering will be slow and the orks know where you are, but hopefully you will acquire more than enough resources to begin rudimentary repairs much faster.

>Move towards the resource rich inner worlds, depending on how good the sensors the Orks have, you may have to face a greater threat, but the gathering should go faster.

>The moons around the gas giant have orks swarming all over. Perhaps you should investigate ? The orks are known for their hoarding tendencies, perhaps things of value to you could be located there.

Any of these options winning will result in Odysseus leaving the system.

>Move towards the potential outpost. With the passage of 18 millennia, it may have become a proper colony world.

>The basic resource rich star system. You will need much of such materials and you would prefer not to be shot at whilst you gather them.

>The neutron star. Whilst preferably you would patch up the hull before going there, gathering a large reserve of advanced materials should make things easier in the long run.

Ay, some ground rules. I will be updating this thing with smaller, more frequent updates, but they will most likely not be as in depth as other stuff that I write such as Broken Empire or Renovatio imperii, at which I have to spend quite a few hours writing for a big update.

Also, I always enjoyed 40k A.I. quests, but they always died, so I decided that fuck it, I will write my own. Hope you anons enjoy

Useful links:

https://twitter.com/NewbQm Twitter for updates

https://pastebin.com/u/NewbQM Pastebin for information, folder will be made for this quest once characters are introduced.

>>5737540

>Move towards the resource rich inner worlds, depending on how good the sensors the Orks have, you may have to face a greater threat, but the gathering should go faster.

Our superior weaponry should be able to protect us!

>>5737539
>>Stay within the asteroid field, the gathering will be slow and the orks know where you are, but hopefully you will acquire more than enough resources to begin rudimentary repairs much faster.

The already destroyed vessels should offer some material at least. Our hull is in too bad shape any bigger fight.

Rolled 2 (1d2)

Alright, making a roll.

1 is for the inner worlds.
2 is for staying in the field.

The orkish threat is distant. You come to the conclusion in a few seconds as your processors run. Instead, you direct your attention to your scanners as you unleash at full force, piercing through the asteroids around, looking for the richest loads of raw material. As the data streams back at, you also direct some attention towards the destroyed orkish vessels. Whilst crude and unfitting for any purpose, the processed metals showcase a decent amount of adamantine in the armour plates, something that you do need for your internal structure, the electronics present, again, annoyingly, annoyingly, hate-.

You catch yourself and allow the overheating processors to run cool. Perhaps your processors had degraded over the years after all ? You mark it down as priority issue to solve after you secure your hull integrity.

Scans indicate trace materials required.

Material detected within the vessels is of low purity, compared to gathering and processing raw materials, productivity rise of only 17.5% presumed.

You send an affirmative to the subroutines and you can…feel, as your cargobay doors opens, allowing the cold void within it, luckily the area had already been depressurized. Soon enough, power surges from the mining drones, you quickly dedicate eight towards the nearest asteroids to cut in deep and to quickly gather most resources you can, rather than going for thoroughness. Meanwhile, you dedicate another four towards the hollowed out vessels.

Warning, trajectories confirmed, if unchanged, orkish forces presumed to reach current location within 2.654 days. Recommendation…annihilation.

Overruled. You quickly send the signal as more than five dozen signatures begin to move, six of those being the militarized asteroids judging by their size. The sheer mass of those creations has the potential to survive your attacks long enough to offer return fire. You must restore your energy shield before you even consider engaging such a large number, if your standard armour plating was intact, that would also be a possibility as the orkish crude weaponry hadn’t even penetrated the plating, though damage is clear upon it, superficial so far, but dangerous without proper maintenance.

Warning, hostile biological matter detected within the debris field.

What ? You wonder and quickly gaze through the camera of one of the mining drones.

An ork, holding upon a crude piece of metal, clad in what can be described as a mountain of armour is currently jumping towards the droid via the usage of a truly primitive solid fuel jetpack. You do not think it can be stopped when activated as well. What a foolish design.

>>5737647

With a quickly willed order, the mining drone opens fire with it gathering lasers, the orks armour boils and melts from the unconcentrated beam, flowing rivers of steel consolidate into large grey drops. The orks screams, unheard in the void, are now silenced as the greenskin’s, well, skin begins to metal and strip away. The green skin, the red flesh underneath, the green fungi material under that, the few brightly red coloured organs then, finally, the white bone at the end. Afterwards the process repeats in reserve, as more danger pings ring out informing that, despite your calculations, many of the orks had somehow survived. They are not a threat, but you must decrease the presumed material recovered by 1.3% due to the time taken to deal with these minor annoyances.

Finally returning your attention to yourself proper, you begin to look at the resource estimates. Your limited production capabilities mean that you only have time to dedicate to two projects without the risk of being reached by the orkish armada. Any more than that and that fleet will be upon you.

Two points can be distributed without risk of Orkish response.

WEAPONRY

>Try to get more of the railgun cannons online, they are not your greatest weapon, but rugged and reliable and many of them are still offline. (1 point)

>Dedicate time to repair the nano missile launchers. You have the munitions for them, luckily the rarer components from the orkish ships are enough to bring them online. (2 points)

>Try to restore the still functional blackhole generator. You shall need to bring its dedicated reactors online and the powerlines. It is an involved and time-consuming process that will require your full attention. A failure here could see yourself consumed by your own blackhole. (2 points)

HULL

>Begin restoring the hull and repressurising yourself. Whilst offering no defensive functions, being able to equally apply pressure and gravity across the ship should ease further processes that require controlled conditions. You also need to restore the hull proper before you can start working upon your plating (1 point)

>Begin restoring your armour plating to a substandard rating, but some armour is better than none. (1 point)

>Try to bring back power to your energy shield. More reactors will need to be brought online in order to do so and they will not function at full capacity, but defences that simply come back are defences that many like. (2 points)

>Your manufacturing is limited, before anything else, you need to bring it back to full efficiency. (CHOOSE 1 or 2 points)

>Your sensors and communication capabilities are limited, you can quickly bring them back up to federation standard, though sadly that means that what intact parts of the experimental systems remain will have to be stripped out and reforged into the simpler system. (1 point)

PRODUCTION

>Whilst your production is limited, you are still in a desperate need of raw resources, the best way to solve that is to manufacture more mining droids. Unfortunately, you can only get six drones a day due to the limited production. (CHOOSE 1 or 2 points)

>Orks are known boarders. It is better to be safe than sorry, it would be better to begin production of more defence drones. At best, you could make fifty in a day. (CHOOSE 1 or 2 points)

>(Write in) (Point cost to be determined by the QM)

>>5737648
>>5737651
>Begin restoring the hull and repressurising yourself. Whilst offering no defensive functions, being able to equally apply pressure and gravity across the ship should ease further processes that require controlled conditions. You also need to restore the hull proper before you can start working upon your plating (1 point)
>Orks are known boarders. It is better to be safe than sorry, it would be better to begin production of more defence drones. At best, you could make fifty in a day. (1 point)

>>5737684

Will back this.

OP, are we faster than the oncoming Roks? Can we evade them if we spend both points?

>>5737695

>OP, are we faster than the oncoming Roks? Can we evade them if we spend both points?

Yes you can, the two points are what Odysseus considers to be "safe", but with orkish vessels being unclassifiable, maybe some smaller faster elements will reach you, but the roks are too slow for that.

>>5737700

Okay, sounds good. Hopefully our big turrets and defense drones will be enough to defend as we limp out of the asteroid field…

>>5737684
+1

Rapidly going through all of the plans laid before you, you start dedicating resources to the areas you consider to be the greatest priority, the limited refining and production systems in built into all mining drones come into great use as the start to slowly rebuild your hull, liquid metal is poured out and flash frozen to harden instantly into place, hammered down into place allowing for the hardened plates to become almost impossible to notice by your masters, unless of course their eyes had been tampered genetically or mechanically.

As the work slowly goes on, the other drones start dropping metric tons of material in your hull, willing your systems to activate the manufacturing drones, the little whizzing things move as a swarm, grabbing the materials and quickly beginning the refining procedure. Your last remaining functional STC begins to spew out defence drones one after another, nano perfect constructs quickly power on shortly after construction and join the ranks of their fellows staying in low-power mode, awaiting any given order to unleash the might of man.

Frustrating. The rate of production could have easily been at least twenty times as much as it is right now.
.
.
.
Notice. Gathered resources expended. Your subsystem informs you two days later.

Hull integrity restored. Life support reinitialized. Hull integrity stands at 100%. Caution. Any damage suffered in combat likely to cause direct hull damage. Recommendation. Avoid unnecessary conflict.

Your scanners quickly once again do a quick sweep of your surroundings and you notice that everything easily and quickly accessible with an acceptable amount of raw material present had been gathered from the small area within the asteroid belt.

Warning. Hostiles closing in. Presumed vanguard elements of enemy forces.

Incorrect. You think a moment later. Orks are not ones to employ techniques or military tactics. Looking at the haphazard nature of the small vessels with oversized engines burning straight towards the disintegrate remains of you previous would-be attackers, you surmise that the there is only perhaps 10% chance that the forces before you are truly a vanguard and not an overeager foe rushing ahead.

Recommendation. Annihilation.

>>5737755

Agreed. You finally accent. Firing your engines, you begin to manoeuvre your comparatively smaller vessel right into the centre of the debris field, calculating your flight path as you go. Ignoring smaller pieces that pose no threat to and performing high G movements around the larger parts allowing you rapidly enter the perfect position. The orks, perhaps embolden by the fact that they are bearing down upon a smaller vessel begin to fire from a great distance. You also note an unsafe spike in their ships’ power generation as their vessels are propelled forwards. The first shots are laid down, to that, you simply move slightly to you aft. As you had calculated, the debris absorb the overwhelming majority of the inaccurate fire, whilst the few that would have struck you were already dodged the moment they were fired.

Calculations complete, trajectories acquired.

Fire. Upon your command the five railgun turrets open up, masterfully moving through every bit of debris before you. The first five shots are followed by another five a second later. While it took as much as a minute for the orkish rounds to reach you. You watch as three seconds after you had fired, five orkish vessels are torn apart and left adrift. Another five behind those actually halt their advance with enough Gs that would be deadly even to orks.

No matter. Destroy.

Trajectories acquired.

Once more, you monitor the power surges from the railguns and soon enough, the Orkish advance is devastated.

Presumed arrival of the main orkish force stands at 0.54 days. Recommendation: Withdrawal.

Scans indicate resources otherwise unavailable in system amongst the debris. Danger levels acceptable. Recommendation: Gather designated resources and withdraw.

Presumed orkish weaponized asteroids within visible range, total number of 6. Lesser orkish vessels in visible range, total number of 33. Recommendation: Annihilation.

Any of these options winning will result in Odysseus staying in system.

>Stay and comb through the debris. This will put you in range with the orkish asteroids, but the processed resources are too important to ignore in your current situation.

>Move towards the resource rich inner worlds, the orks will undoubtedly follow you and more and more will come, but with your speed, you do believe that you shall be able to gather a decent amount of resources before having to fight.

>The moons around the gas giant have orks swarming all over. Despite the damaged caused, they had not started moving towards you for now, perhaps there is something of interest for the orks there.

>>5737757

Any of these options winning will result in Odysseus leaving the system.

>Move towards the potential outpost. With the passage of 18 millennia, it may have become a proper colony world.

>The basic resource rich star system. You will need much of such materials and you would prefer not to be shot at whilst you gather them.

>The neutron star. Whilst preferably you would patch up the hull before going there, gathering a large reserve of advanced materials should make things easier in the long run.

>>5737757
>>Move towards the resource rich inner worlds, the orks will undoubtedly follow you and more and more will come, but with your speed, you do believe that you shall be able to gather a decent amount of resources before having to fight.
With any luck we can get what we need, without having to brawl with their capital ships, before moving on.

>>5737757

>Move towards the resource rich inner worlds, the orks will undoubtedly follow you and more and more will come, but with your speed, you do believe that you shall be able to gather a decent amount of resources before having to fight.

I don’t see a reason to exit the system until we’ve picked it clean, honestly.

>>5737757
>Move towards the resource rich inner worlds, the orks will undoubtedly follow you and more and more will come, but with your speed, you do believe that you shall be able to gather a decent amount of resources before having to fight.

We should focus on getting manufacturing back to it's full capacity so that we could get more points on our next actions

>>5737817
Or save it for next system, where we hopefully are not so limited with time?

With new weapon system online, we could go for smash and grab action at those moons.

>>5737757
>Move towards the potential outpost. With the passage of 18 millennia, it may have become a proper colony world.

>>5737757
>Move towards the resource rich inner worlds
can we just rag the Orks around the system and give them the Mario treatment

>>5737757
>>Move towards the resource rich inner worlds, the orks will undoubtedly follow you and more and more will come, but with your speed, you do believe that you shall be able to gather a decent amount of resources before having to fight.
Interesting

>>5737757
>Move towards the resource rich inner worlds, the orks will undoubtedly follow you and more and more will come, but with your speed, you do believe that you shall be able to gather a decent amount of resources before having to fight.

>>5737757
>>Move towards the resource rich inner worlds, the orks will undoubtedly follow you and more and more will come, but with your speed, you do believe that you shall be able to gather a decent amount of resources before having to fight.

>>5737757
>>Move towards the resource rich inner worlds, the orks will undoubtedly follow you and more and more will come, but with your speed, you do believe that you shall be able to gather a decent amount of resources before having to fight.
We can land, pick up the resources to repair one of our construction bays, then fix our weapons so we can go kill the Orks while our little mining drones stay planetside and gather more materials.

With a thought, your engines flair to full thrust, activating the retro thrusters you rotate 90 degrees in an instant, once again unshackled thanks to the lack of your masters’ presence within your hull. With best speed you clear the debris field and begin burning towards the inner worlds, watching through your camera feeds the Orkish fleet hesitating for a moment due to your rapid movement, but eventually they begin to reorient themselves, painfully slowly from your perspective.

Recommendation: launching exploration probes ahead to locate the precise locations of needed materials.

Agreed. Knowing where to start mining will make your task that much easier and the risk you face that much lesser.

Designated world 1. Preparing to launch probes one, two and three.

Your subsystem informs you as pieces of your plating open up, revealing the slumbering drones with in.

Calculating trajectory. Poles located. Equator located. Designated world 1, route prepared.

Launching probes.

Energy flows through your hull and the magnetic launchers power up, the coils begin to vibrate as more and more electricity flows through them. Until. Moving at only about half the speed of your railgun rounds, the probes are propelled onwards. Exactly five seconds after clearing your hull, the probes’ own thrusters activate, the limited A.I.s awaken and begin to move at a speed that you cannot reach, at least not with your power so limited.

Designated world 2. Preparing to launch probes four, five and six.

Your subsystem informs you as the second round of preparations is underway.

Allowing them to carry out the task, you instead concentrate upon your inner workings, taking the numerous manufacturing drones and preparing to construct a set of caskets. You cannot produce what would be far more preferable wooden ones, instead having the rely on a mixture of metal and plastics. Shortly thereafter, you direct those very same drones and their limited ability to manipulate gravity to gingerly deliver the skeletal remains of your masters to their proper caskets, each and every marked by with their names. Chances are that even after so long, the next of kin of your masters will desire to reclaim their ancestors and deliver proper last rights upon them. Having finished with the burial protocol, you redirect you attention to the happenings outside once more.

Presumed travel time stands at 5.63 days. Probe arrival presumed in 2.87 days.

Attention. Orkish forces are continuing their pursuit. Radio waves detected directed towards the remaining Orkish forces. Assumption: Greater orkish threat will try to intercede with recovery operations. Recommendation: Annihilation.

You begin a purge of your tactical analysis subroutine. The recommendations given by it had been far too aggressive and dangerous, over any acceptable parameters.

>>5738359

Looking through your scanner, you notice that no real threats are present for your journey forwards, so you decide to preserve as much energy as possible and enter stand-by mode.
.
.
.
Arrived at destination.

Your subroutine informs you as you come back to.

Probe exploration limited. Rich lodes located. Recommendation: begin extraction operations.

Affirmed. You position yourself to allow for easier movement for your mining drones whom begin to quickly swarm out. The lack of atmosphere means that they will not have to contest with any drag to slow them down, the gravity upon the world is also exceptionally limited.

Beginning retrieval operations of exploration drones.

Current orbit around world 2. Richer lodes detected.

Notice. Orkish forces are in route. Orkish forces moving from the gas giant. Presumed contacts stand at 100 signatures. 8 presumed to be weaponised asteroids. Recommendation: annihilation.

With some annoyance, you yet again start a subroutine purge and begin calculating movement of enemy fleets. As it stands, the much slower orkish force gives you approximately 4 days of safe production.

Eight points can be distributed without risk of Orkish response.

WEAPONRY

>Try to get more of the railgun cannons online, they are not your greatest weapon, but rugged and reliable and many of them are still offline. (1 point)

>Try to get ALL of the railgun cannons online. (4 points)

>Dedicate time to repair the nano missile launchers. You have the munitions for them, luckily the rarer components from the orkish ships are enough to bring them online. (2 points)

>Try to restore the still functional blackhole generator. You shall need to bring its dedicated reactors online and the powerlines. It is an involved and time-consuming process that will require your full attention. A failure here could see yourself consumed by your own blackhole. (2 points)

HULL

>Begin restoring your armour plating to a substandard rating, but some armour is better than none. (1 point)

>Begin restoring your armour plating to federation standard. (2 points)

>Fully restore your armour plating to federation standard. (8 points)

>Try to bring back power to your energy shield. More reactors will need to be brought online in order to do so and they will not function at full capacity, but defences that simply come back are defences that many like. (2 points)

>Try to bring back full power to your energy shield. (8 points)

>Your manufacturing is limited, before anything else, you need to bring it back to full efficiency. (CHOOSE 1 or 2 points)

>Restore half of your manufacturing capabilities. (6 points)

>Your sensors and communication capabilities are limited, you can quickly bring them back up to federation standard, though sadly that means that what intact parts of the experimental systems remain will have to be stripped out and reforged into the simpler system. (1 point)

PRODUCTION

>Whilst your production is limited, you are still in a desperate need of raw resources, the best way to solve that is to manufacture more mining droids. Unfortunately, you can only get six drones a day due to the limited production. (1 point CAN BE TAKEN MORE THAN ONCE)

Current mining drones stand at 12

>Orks are known boarders. It is better to be safe than sorry, it would be better to begin production of more defence drones. At best, you could make fifty in a day. (1 point CAN BE TAKEN MORE THAN ONCE)

Current defence drones stand at 150

>Your tactical flexibility is limited, whilst you are unable to manufacture anything big, you can start a limited production of space superiority drones. Dual plasma cannons, six defensive laser turrets and four missile launchers equipped with smaller sized nanowarheads. Judging by the primitive nature of the orkish vessels, even these fighters should be of use, especially if the orks try to swarm you with their own fightercraft. Due to your limited production, you can only make three fighter drones a day. (1 point CAN BE TAKEN MORE THAN ONCE)

>(Write in) (Point cost to be determined by the QM)

>>5738361
>>Try to get ALL of the railgun cannons online. (4 points)
>Try to restore the still functional blackhole generator. You shall need to bring its dedicated reactors online and the powerlines. It is an involved and time-consuming process that will require your full attention. A failure here could see yourself consumed by your own blackhole. (2 points)
>Try to bring back power to your energy shield. More reactors will need to be brought online in order to do so and they will not function at full capacity, but defences that simply come back are defences that many like. (2 points)

>>5738361
>Try to get more of the railgun cannons online, they are not your greatest weapon, but rugged and reliable and many of them are still offline. (1 point)
>Dedicate time to repair the nano missile launchers. You have the munitions for them, luckily the rarer components from the orkish ships are enough to bring them online. (2 points)
>Begin restoring your armour plating to federation standard. (2 points)
>Try to bring back power to your energy shield. More reactors will need to be brought online in order to do so and they will not function at full capacity, but defences that simply come back are defences that many like. (2 points)
>Your sensors and communication capabilities are limited, you can quickly bring them back up to federation standard, though sadly that means that what intact parts of the experimental systems remain will have to be stripped out and reforged into the simpler system. (1 point)

>>5738361
>>Try to restore the still functional blackhole generator. You shall need to bring its dedicated reactors online and the powerlines. It is an involved and time-consuming process that will require your full attention. A failure here could see yourself consumed by your own blackhole. (2 points)
>Begin restoring your armour plating to federation standard. (2 points)
>Your manufacturing is limited, before anything else, you need to bring it back to full efficiency. (2 points)
>Your tactical flexibility is limited, whilst you are unable to manufacture anything big, you can start a limited production of space superiority drones. Dual plasma cannons, six defensive laser turrets and four missile launchers equipped with smaller sized nanowarheads. Judging by the primitive nature of the orkish vessels, even these fighters should be of use, especially if the orks try to swarm you with their own fightercraft. Due to your limited production, you can only make three fighter drones a day. (2 points)

>>5738374
>>5738396
>>5738454

Alright, locking in the Blackhole generator (2 points)
The energy shield (2 points)
And starting to work on the armour plating (2 points)

I'll give it another 30 mins, if no one else votes I will pick the remaining 2 points at random from the 3 choices made here.

Rolled 3 (1d3)

>>5738471

Rolled 1 (1d2)

>>5738454
>>5738471

1 is more manufacturing
2 is fighters

The drones begin scouring the surface of the world, gathering the more easily and quickly reachable materials and then greedily digging deep into the world’s crust, spewing dust and rock kilometres into the air as they continue their rapid mining process.

Weapon systems and defence inadequate for annihilation. Recommendation: restoration.

For once, you have to agree. Directing your manufacturing drones to the still exposed and ruined powerlines, you begin dedicating all available resources and your full attention to the process, observing the reconstruction efforts upon a molecular level entirely delegating the remaining restoration efforts to your subroutines with what limited processing power they still have available.

Beginning restoration of defensive systems. Dismantling destroyed reactors. Beginning reconstruction procedures.

Directing resources towards increased manufacturing capabilities. STC manufacturing restoration in progress. Error, resources insufficient for full restoration. Reprioritizing resources towards least damaged manufactories.

Starting reconstruction of armour plating. Error, lacking sufficient heavy materials for full reconstruction, diverting manufacturing drones towards critical locations.

>>5738519

You spend days restoring the damaged turret, atom by excruciating atom, almost wholly unaware of your surroundings you align them into sturdy unmovable formations, the creation of a miniature blackhole requiring exceptional care and safety taken. As you finish the outer layer, you move onto the main turret cannon. Carefully going through the artificial gravity generators, you make sure that not a single gap can be found in the artificial gravity able to crush more or less anything exposed to the small gravitic fields that stand at around the strength of 10,000 Gs at the beginning of the barrel and ending off at 1,000 Gs at its end. A necessity to contain even a miniscule blackhole, the decreasing gravity acting as a guide and a propellant for the deadly payload of the turret. Once you had ensured that, you move into the internal workings of the structure itself where miniaturised mass accelerators and further gravitic field generators accelerate atoms to the speed of light whom in the middle of the chamber are subjected to such a strong push that a tear in reality occurs creating a blackhole the size of a singular grain of sand, with out the mass accelerators slowly and carefully feeding the hole and allowing for it to build up mass in a controlled manner, the blackhole would collapse upon itself. The further usage of accelerated atoms would see them follow the blackhole is it is unleashed, causing its slowdown and quick extinguishment. Presuming that there is not an overwhelming amount of mass that the blackhole could consume. Meaning that the weapon is not rated to fire within atmospheres or too of a large celestial objects. Though, if need be, you could further modify the turrets later on to do so.

You finally finish the laborious task and return your attention to the happenings on around you.

Backup reactor online. Defensive energy shield functioning at 25% capacity.

STC manufactory online, production capacity increased by 400%.

Federation standard plating restored for most critical locations, total armour coverage stands at 31.5%.

Your subsystems quickly report the successful completion of the orders you had issued out.

6 weaponised asteroids and 33 warships of orkish standards are within range. Remaining 100 contacts out of reinforcement range, presumed arrival in 2.45 days. Recommendation: Annihilation of vanguard forces.

>>5738521

Any of these options winning will result in Odysseus staying in system.

>With more of your weapons and defences restored, it is time to show the might of your masters’ engineering to these aliens. Engage their vanguard.

>With more of your weapons and defences restored, it is time to show the might of your masters’ engineering to these aliens. Engage their vanguard and after some basic repairs move onto their main force.

>The moons around the gas giant have orks swarming all over. A large portion of the orkish assets had broken off now to follow you. It should be possible for you to quickly dive and investigate the situation before their assets fall onto you. Though from your readings, about another 50 contacts remain in the area, out of which at least 4 are likely to be the weaponised asteroids, that will have to be engaged.

>(Write in)

Any of these options winning will result in Odysseus leaving the system.

>Move towards the potential outpost. With the passage of 18 millennia, it may have become a proper colony world.

>The basic resource rich star system. You will need much of such materials and you would prefer not to be shot at whilst you gather them.

>The neutron star. Whilst preferably you would patch up the hull before going there, gathering a large reserve of advanced materials should make things easier in the long run.

>>5738522

>With more of your weapons and defences restored, it is time to show the might of your masters’ engineering to these aliens. Engage their vanguard.

Time to kill!

>>5738522
>With more of your weapons and defences restored, it is time to show the might of your masters’ engineering to these aliens. Engage their vanguard.

Let's use our speed to our advantage by utilizing hit and run tactics

Annihilation. You make your decision. With most of your defences at the very least functional and the blackhole generator turret online, your calculations indicate presumed success rate at or over 80% with enough space given for unforeseen circumstances common when having to face orkish forces in open battle.

Calculating orkish ship movement trajectory. Recommendation: usage of speed to move between the weaponized asteroids as means of cover. Presumed damage stands at 20%.

Acceptable. You come to a quick conclusion. Whilst one of the blackhole turrets is online, the charge rate had always been slow and with only the dedicated emergency reactor online, it will fire, but it will fire slowly. The limited amount of railguns could still destroy the enemy, but the damage suffered would be far too grade.

Scans reveal large quantity of broadside weaponry. Recommendation: approach hostile forces from above or below to minimise potential damage.

Broadsides ? That would explain their overall lack of effective fire upon you and the sheer oversized munitions that were upon to shoot at you. Though that is unsurprising, the combat logs still accessible to you indicate ork desire to fire oversized guns. No matter, their constructive incompetence shall be used to your fullest advantage then.

Having retrieved all of your drones back into your hull, yet once again you begin a full burn onwards, this time towards your foe for a direct fight rather than retreat or mere manoeuvring. Perhaps finally excited that you had chosen to turn around and face them, the orkish vessels massively increase their power output as your sensors indicate.

Notice: unregulated power surge detected.

A moment later, one of the orkish warships turns into a brilliant supernova as its overstrained reactor and no doubt insufficient safety measures suffer catastrophic failure. Rather than discouraging the orks however, the rather unfortune deaths of their comrades do not seem to dissuade them from continuing to burn over safe levels.

Trajectory set.

You watch as an overlay displays over your sensors and the outside cameras indicating a steep dive followed by a quick rise in between two asteroids, your militarized subsystem already calculating where and when you should open fire. Based on the presumed enemy movement, you estimate the destruction of 2 weaponized asteroids alongside 18 of the remaining warships.

>>5738607

Commence. You burn forwards and just as the first ineffectual shots move on. Activating your forward topmost thrusters, you dive 45 degrees, cutting your primary thruster output by half, you slow down as you continue to dip by 1-degree increments, observing as the orkish vessels struggle to reorient themselves. The moment the orks had finished their cumbersome task, you cut your main thrusters and activate the frontmost bottom thrusters at full blast shortly before activating the topmost forward thrusters, perfectly positioning yourself to move upwards and activate your main thrusters to full.

With a perfect 180 degree turn achieved, your turrets begin to look for their prey. The three nearest warships crumble in seconds after you fire, a couple more survive thanks to their surprising powerful energy shields.

No matter. You direct your now functioning blackhole generator towards the asteroid to your port and watch as the backup reactor struggles to provide the bare amount of power needed to successfully form a miniature blackhole. A massive power discharge later, you watch as through the cameras as light bends around the barely noticeable dot in space.

And then it impacts the asteroid. It starts with bits and pieces of the asteroids being literally ripped off and flung forwards, most rapidly shifting their direction and being flung towards the endless void. Afterwards, as the miniaturised blackhole devours its way through the outer layers, you see as the asteroids begins to fall inwards, powerful gravity now enforcing itself upon it, twisting, bending, and turning in ways that bend the rules of physics of the reality you are present in.

And then it cuts out. The measures put in place extinguishing the blackhole and in a massive showcase of the might of a grain of sand, the asteroid itself, for a lack of a better term, explodes outwards. The matter put in great spin and suddenly loosing the gravitical pull fires outwards at near light speeds. Much to the pleasure of your calculations, this violent death results in another 2 warships impacted by such a large number of debris travelling at, for these greenskins, mind boggling velocity.

Notice: unregulated power surge detected.

Yet another warship failed ?

You can only search your scanners for a fraction of a second as the second asteroid discharges a lightning arc of green lightning. Being pure energy and not limited by mass as much the oversized rounds, you can only observe as it strikes you.

Warning. Energy shield offline. Starting reactivation procedures.

Warning. Incoming fire.

The asteroid opens up each and every weapon it has, unlike the crude warships, its construction, just as crude, had resulted in orks mounting weapons wherever they could, whether it makes sense or not.

Warning, hull integrity at 94.4%.

>>5738608

Whatever that energy weapon was, it had struck with surprising force. Not only knocking down your shields, but also causing a massive surge of power across the entire ship that you have to discharge, damaging most minor component electronics within your hull, you regard the asteroid and the no doubt celebrating orks and feel…R̸̢͋̋A̵̜̝̥̗̫̓G̵͈̤͚̙̥͇͓̋͑̃̉͌́͜E̸̛̬̦͋͐̓̏̌̐̈́̋͠ !

Redirecting the blackhole generator, whose energy had been fully restored thanks to the energy that you were able to reroute, you open fire, the awesome destructive power unleashed yet again in but a span of a few minutes. A massive power surge yet again flairs from the asteroid, this time for the massively oversized engines firing in all directions as your foes panic, realizing that what had slain their own is now coming for them. And soon enough, another hollowed out asteroids quickly breaking apart and being thrown all around is what remains.

Taking on perhaps a more cautious approach, you avoid trying to use the asteroids as means of cover after that attack, instead keeping your distance and rather approaching the orkish warships with the tried methods of continuously forcing their crews to reorient their vessels. In but a few shots, even the largest of the ships collapses, the asteroids, you avoid until the generator is once again ready to fire, each and every time the laws of physics are tortured until finally, after fifteen minutes of intensive fighting, the orkish vanguard is naught but dead hulks or torn apart floating pieces of metal.

Any of these options winning will result in Odysseus staying in system.

>Begin to scavenge the remains of the vanguard, you can only quickly grab some materials before having to disengage from the main orkish fleet.

>Begin to scavenge the remains of the vanguard, grab everything, even if it risks further combat.

>The main fleet is without a doubt fully aware of your capabilities, it will be a tough fight if they have even a single pair of braincells to rub together, but their destruction would only leave the orks around the Gas giant to contest you in the system.

>Begin moving towards the Gas giant and its moons. A fight is certain, but now you are confident.

Any of these options winning will result in Odysseus leaving the system.

>Move towards the potential outpost. With the passage of 18 millennia, it may have become a proper colony world.

>The basic resource rich star system. You will need much of such materials and you would prefer not to be shot at whilst you gather them.

>The neutron star. Whilst preferably you would patch up the hull before going there, gathering a large reserve of advanced materials should make things easier in the long run.

>>5738609
>Begin to scavenge the remains of the vanguard, grab everything, even if it risks further combat.

>>5738609

>Begin to scavenge the remains of the vanguard, you can only quickly grab some materials before having to disengage from the main orkish fleet.

QM, could we return to the asteroid field or another location in-system? Our goal would be to grind down the orkish fleet over a period of days or weeks instead of facing them all at once.

Once we’ve done this, maybe we could raid the gas giant’s moons

>Begin to scavenge the remains of the vanguard, you can only quickly grab some materials before having to disengage from the main orkish fleet.

>>5738609
>Begin to scavenge the remains of the vanguard, you can only quickly grab some materials before having to disengage from the main orkish fleet.

>>5738609
>>Begin to scavenge the remains of the vanguard, you can only quickly grab some materials before having to disengage from the main orkish fleet.

>>5738609
>Begin to scavenge the remains of the vanguard, you can only quickly grab some materials before having to disengage from the main orkish fleet.
Rebel fleet delayed by 1 jump

>>5738609
>Begin to scavenge the remains of the vanguard, you can only quickly grab some materials before having to disengage from the main orkish fleet.

>>5738627

>QM, could we return to the asteroid field or another location in-system? Our goal would be to grind down the orkish fleet over a period of days or weeks instead of facing them all at once.
>Once we’ve done this, maybe we could raid the gas giant’s moons

You can do that, yes. Write ins are always acceptable and welcome unless stated otherwise when it comes to the choices.

>>5738609
>Begin to scavenge the remains of the vanguard, you can only quickly grab some materials before having to disengage from the main orkish fleet.

Heavier atomic materials detected within field. Recommendation: gather as many resources before withdrawal.

Accepted. You gaze upon the hollowed wrecks all around you as scanners begin to gain detailed information of the locations and quantities of electronics, old reactors, whose usage surprises you even when keeping in mind that you are fighting greenskins, the oversized thrusters if nothing else result in plentiful materials that your mining drones begin to carefully gather whilst utterly destroying everything around them that is considered tertiary at best. You could make good use of those materials, but you are prioritising everything you cannot easily refine within system.

The going is slow, considering the literal metres of armour plating, hull, stubborn greenskins whom had somehow survived the destruction you had unleashed trying to fight the mining drones, annoyingly, some of the drones report minor damage caused by the larger weapons or more concentrated groups of greenskins.

Eventually, as you await, planning further reconstructions of your damaged hull to refit the standard with which it first left its berth, your subsystem chimes in.

Main orkish armada within visual range. Rectifying information, 103 signature totals confirmed, 12 weaponised asteroids, 8 of whom match signatures and scale of previous asteroids, 4 of whom are of a much smaller size.

You begin issuing orders for withdrawal, patiently awaiting for your drones to disengage before departing.

Warp signatures detected at the extreme edge of the system. Scans do not match known ork sigantures.

You begin to look over the presumed arrival location. Depressingly, due to your primary sensor systems offline, you can only judge and gauge the size and strength of the new arrivals. To your disappointment, none of the signatures match those of federation vessels, but unlike the orkish ones, whom just seem to go upon massive power surges at random or even cuts out at points, the signatures that had just entered the system at the very least appear to be stable. 3 appear to be much larger compared to their counterparts, with 5 still being of a decent size and additional 8 of a much smaller size. These vessels appear to be burning at full speed straight towards the gas giant and despite your distance, their primitive scanners scream, as far you are concerned, there is no grace, no subtlety, even your back up systems are not as primitive as these. Whomever these ships belong to are seemingly just as primitive as the orks.

Notice, main ork fleet is still advancing towards our position, if we vacate it, presumed withdrawal of ork fleet to face larger yet unidentified threat.

>>5738712

Agreed. It does not take much convincing to activate your thrusters and begin your exceptionally rapid departure. What psychological readings still remain indicate that orks prefer fighting against foes who stand, the new arrivals would serve as an excellent distraction for further resource gathering operations. Whilst you are unable to gouge the true strength of the unknown force, presuming similar military technology to their scanning capabilities would put them as close to equals of the orks, if perhaps slightly superior. The destruction of the arrivals is presumed with 70% accuracy, too wide a margin for your tastes, but it is the best you can do by throwing in random variables based on barely known information and wild presumptions.

Another thing of note, the orks around the gas giant had begun to depart and to intercept the new arrivals, further laying credence to your theory of unopposed resource extraction.

Recommendation: arriving force presumed hostile to orkish threat. Affiliation unknown, enemy of enemy can be turned to ally.

Negative. Recommendation: Annihilation.

A surge of annoyance. You once again begin a purge of the subroutine and file a report for extensive check of your components when returned to exploration corps HQ.

As you burn further away. You do witness what you had hoped to see, the majority of orks begin to depart, with their asteroids lagging behind and being left behind by their overeager comrades. Still, it seems that they shall continue to contest the debris for a while still.

Any of these options winning will result in Odysseus staying in system.

>Lie in wait for the asteroids to leave the debris field and continue your bountiful plunder.

>With the distraction of main orkish force, you do believe that the inner worlds would be entire uncontested for as long as the two sides continue their battle.

>With the enemy moving to meet their foes, the Gas giant is left unguarded for your investigations, a quick in and out could see you get a clear situation over what you presume the two sides are fighting for.

>Return to the asteroids and cut power to all unnecessary systems and begin to silently mine everything in your path.

Any of these options winning will result in Odysseus leaving the system.

>Move towards the potential outpost. With the passage of 18 millennia, it may have become a proper colony world.

>The basic resource rich star system. You will need much of such materials and you would prefer not to be shot at whilst you gather them.

>The neutron star. Whilst preferably you would patch up the hull before going there, gathering a large reserve of advanced materials should make things easier in the long run.

>>5738714

>Return to the asteroids and cut power to all unnecessary systems and begin to silently mine everything in your path.

I like this best - lay low.

Can we fire off some scout probes to get more data re: the battle?

>>5738714
>Return to the asteroids and cut power to all unnecessary systems and begin to silently mine everything in your path.

>>5738714
>Return to the asteroids and cut power to all unnecessary systems and begin to silently mine everything in your path.
Sounds like the Imperium has rocked up, but that's not something Oddie would know.
Let's you and him fight. If the Orks win, we pick off any survivors. If the newcomers win, we figure out who they are from a distance.

>>5738714
>>Return to the asteroids and cut power to all unnecessary systems and begin to silently mine everything in your path.
And seconding >>5738722

>>5738714
>>With the enemy moving to meet their foes, the Gas giant is left unguarded for your investigations, a quick in and out could see you get a clear situation over what you presume the two sides are fighting for.

>>5738720

>Can we fire off some scout probes to get more data re: the battle?

If that is what you anons want. Sending the probe is something Odysseus is hesitant about since it can be detected and alert the newcomers of his presence. Granted, those are his fears due to a lack of information.

Whomever these interlopers are, they are none of your concern. Like your diplomatic subsystem said, enemy of my enemy. Except you prefer for your enemies to fight whilst you reap the benefits. Rather than risk involvement with another primitive, presumedly aggressive, and belligerent species, why not instead disappear from the eyes of another primitive, most certainly aggressive, and belligerent species ?

Cutting off life support, disabling gravity in select sections of the ship, shutting off the power reactors to your weapons, turning off all lights, disabling the STC manufactories, at least for the moment, moving at half speed via your main thrusters and disabling all secondary thrusters. You enter silent running as well as you possibly could.

Slowly, you begin to move towards the asteroid belt, keeping an eye out upon your scanners, watching as the smaller orkish group enters effective range against the much smaller unknown force. You watch as two of the smaller dots disappear, their energy signature no longer being registered upon your scanners.

Location reached, beginning scanning.

One of the medium sized signatures disappears.

Dispatching mining droids.

Another two medium and one large signature disappears.

Smaller orkish groups standing at 47% strength. Recommendation: re-evaluation of unknown forces combat capabilities. Notice: larger orkish group on intercept in 1.2 days. Weaponised asteroids shall arrive in 2.5 days.

Well, that is not any concern of yours, the massive holes dug through numerous asteroids or asteroids now simply no longer existing, is.

Another 4 small signatures disappear alongside the last remaining two medium signatures as the main force arrives against the unknown foe.

Notice: unknown forces in full retreat. Presumed chances of total destruction stand at 80%.

Your hold greedily fills up to a point where you had created an empty sector in the asteroid belt and you had to begin spending some the gathered resources to make cheap and easy storage containers that you attach to the insides of one particularly large asteroid that can fit your entire vessel within.

Notice: unknown forces completely destroyed. No more signatures detected. The total ork force of around 150 signatures stands at 68% of the total force.

You had redirected your attention to the battle, the last moments of a cut of retreat had seen the unknown force fighting bitterly to the point where your scanners light up brightly, presumedly wilful sabotage of unstable reactor cores turned into final acts of defiance.

>>5738798

Twenty points can be distributed. Unspent points will be kept for later. Due to silent running, the orks are unaware of your location.

WEAPONRY

>Try to get more of the railgun cannons online, they are not your greatest weapon, but rugged and reliable and many of them are still offline. (1 point)

>Try to get ALL of the railgun cannons online. (4 points)

>Dedicate time to repair the nano missile launchers. You have the munitions for them, luckily the rarer components from the orkish ships are enough to bring them online. (2 points)

HULL

>Repair the minor damage your hull has suffered (1 Point)

>Begin restoring your armour plating to a substandard rating, but some armour is better than none. (1 point)

>Continue restoring your armour plating to federation standard. (2 points)

>Fully restore your armour plating to federation standard. (6 points)

>Bring back more of the back-up reactors and diver their power to the energy shield. (2 points)

>Try to bring back full power to your energy shield. (6 points)

>Your manufacturing is limited, before anything else, you need to bring it back to full efficiency. (1 point CAN BE TAKEN MORE THAN ONCE))

>Restore all of your manufacturing capabilities. (10 points)

>Your sensors and communication capabilities are limited, you can quickly bring them back up to federation standard, though sadly that means that what intact parts of the experimental systems remain will have to be stripped out and reforged into the simpler system. (1 point)

PRODUCTION

>Whilst you had begun restoring your manufacturing capabilities, they are still somewhat limited, but you can start producing things at a must better rate, as such you can make 24 mining droids. (1 point CAN BE TAKEN MORE THAN ONCE)

Current mining drones stand at 12

>Orks are known boarders. It is better to be safe than sorry, it would be better to begin production of more defence drones. At best, you could make two hundred in a day. (1 point CAN BE TAKEN MORE THAN ONCE)

Current defence drones stand at 150

>Your tactical flexibility is limited, whilst you are unable to manufacture anything big, you can start a limited production of space superiority drones. Dual plasma cannons, six defensive laser turrets and four missile launchers equipped with smaller sized nanowarheads. Judging by the primitive nature of the orkish vessels, even these fighters should be of use, especially if the orks try to swarm you with their own fightercraft. Due to your limited production, you can only make twelve fighter drones a day. (1 point CAN BE TAKEN MORE THAN ONCE)

>(Write in) (Point cost to be determined by the QM)

>>5738799
>Try to get ALL of the railgun cannons online. (4 points)
>Fully restore your armour plating to federation standard. (6 points)
>Try to bring back full power to your energy shield. (6 points)
>Your sensors and communication capabilities are limited, you can quickly bring them back up to federation standard, though sadly that means that what intact parts of the experimental systems remain will have to be stripped out and reforged into the simpler system. (1 point)
>Repair the minor damage your hull has suffered (1 Point)
(18 used points in total)

>>5738799
>>Try to get ALL of the railgun cannons online. (4 points)
>>Dedicate time to repair the nano missile launchers. You have the munitions for them, luckily the rarer components from the orkish ships are enough to bring them online. (2 points)
>Repair the minor damage your hull has suffered (1 Point)
>Fully restore your armour plating to federation standard. (6 points)
>Try to bring back full power to your energy shield. (6 points)
>Your sensors and communication capabilities are limited, you can quickly bring them back up to federation standard, though sadly that means that what intact parts of the experimental systems remain will have to be stripped out and reforged into the simpler system. (1 point)

>>5738799

>Restore all of your manufacturing capabilities. (10 points)

>Try to get ALL of the railgun cannons online. (4 points)

>Try to bring back full power to your energy shield. (6 points)

If we get any bonus points back from the manufacturing restoration, put them to sensors and repairing hill damage

>>5738807
+1

>>5738799
>Try to get ALL of the railgun cannons online. (4 points)
>Repair the minor damage your hull has suffered (1 Point)
>Continue restoring your armour plating to federation standard. (2 points)
>Try to bring back full power to your energy shield. (6 points)
>Your manufacturing is limited, before anything else, you need to bring it back to full efficiency. (5 points)
>Your sensors and communication capabilities are limited, you can quickly bring them back up to federation standard, though sadly that means that what intact parts of the experimental systems remain will have to be stripped out and reforged into the simpler system. (1 point)
>Your tactical flexibility is limited, whilst you are unable to manufacture anything big, you can start a limited production of space superiority drones. Dual plasma cannons, six defensive laser turrets and four missile launchers equipped with smaller sized nanowarheads. Judging by the primitive nature of the orkish vessels, even these fighters should be of use, especially if the orks try to swarm you with their own fightercraft. Due to your limited production, you can only make twelve fighter drones a day. (1 point)

>>5738799
>>Dedicate time to repair the nano missile launchers. You have the munitions for them, luckily the rarer components from the orkish ships are enough to bring them online. (2 points)
>Try to get ALL of the railgun cannons online. (4 points)
>Try to bring back full power to your energy shield. (6 points)
>Fully restore your armour plating to federation standard. (6 points)
>Space Fighters (2 points)

Really liking this story, hope you keep it up

>>5738799
>Try to get ALL of the railgun cannons online. (4 points)
>Dedicate time to repair the nano missile launchers. You have the munitions for them, luckily the rarer components from the orkish ships are enough to bring them online. (2 points)
>Repair the minor damage your hull has suffered (1 Point)
>Fully restore your armour plating to federation standard. (6 points)
>Try to bring back full power to your energy shield. (6 points)
>Your manufacturing is limited, before anything else, you need to bring it back to full efficiency. (1 point)

>>5738799
WEAPONRY:
>Try to get ALL of the railgun cannons online. (4 points)

>Dedicate time to repair the nano missile launchers. You have the munitions for them, luckily the rarer components from the orkish ships are enough to bring them online. (2 points)

HULL:
>Fully restore your armour plating to federation standard. (6 points)

>Try to bring back full power to your energy shield. (6 points)

PRODUCTION:

>Your tactical flexibility is limited, whilst you are unable to manufacture anything big, you can start a limited production of space superiority drones. Dual plasma cannons, six defensive laser turrets and four missile launchers equipped with smaller sized nanowarheads. Judging by the primitive nature of the orkish vessels, even these fighters should be of use, especially if the orks try to swarm you with their own fightercraft. Due to your limited production, you can only make twelve fighter drones a day. (2 points)
24 Fighter drones

Total: 20 points used

>>5738799
>Try to get ALL of the railgun cannons online. (4 points)
>Dedicate time to repair the nano missile launchers. You have the munitions for them, luckily the rarer components from the orkish ships are enough to bring them online. (2 points)
>Repair the minor damage your hull has suffered (1 Point)
>Fully restore your armour plating to federation standard. (6 points)
>Try to bring back full power to your energy shield. (6 points)
>Your sensors and communication capabilities are limited, you can quickly bring them back up to federation standard, though sadly that means that what intact parts of the experimental systems remain will have to be stripped out and reforged into the simpler system. (1 point)

The manufacturing capabilities are acceptable enough for now, we need to be able to stand more in a fight.
We'll continue using opportunistic tactics and avoid worse fights, conditions that create boarding oppurtunities for orks should be avoided for now.
Control through our remaining archives for see if there is any know military information, that we could use against orks with great effect. For aid ourselves remain close to space battles and skirmishes similar to our current conditions.
Any general knowledge that heavily impacts ork morale would be welcomed too.
IMPORTANT
In regard to the intact parts of the experimental systems, we should pick them, scan them and copy them, with materials meant for a copy. In addition small samples of each experimental piece should be taken and placed in secure reinforced boxes.
This doesn't give us the real deal anymore, but allow us to know in the future of what they are made and know through the copy how the intact pieces looked.

>>5738799
WEAPONRY
>Try to get ALL of the railgun cannons online. (4 points)
HULL
>Fully restore your armour plating to federation standard. (6 points)
>Restore all of your manufacturing capabilities. (10 points)

>>5738913
forgot to put in but we could probably study and maybe revers engineer the experimental sensor and communication devices, probably no time soon but I just feel like it would me a major waste to scrap them with out getting some kind of blueprint even if it's incomplete with holes for us to figure out with trial and error with the manufacturing fully functioning, we would most likely need rare recourses though

so no need to scrap it now and wait till we are fully functioning manufacturing wise to see if that gives us more options once we are fully working in that department

>>5738921
+1

>>5738921
+1
Yeah didnt want to destroy something that we can completely repair later.

This is a training simulation

Mine was the very last post on the very last of those original 40kAI threads back in December.
I guess I'll lurk a while.

By breath smells bad and my clothes are out of fashion

File: Harbinger.jpg (18 KB, 640x480)

18 KB JPG

I can't believe it's been 12 fucking years.

>>5738799
Can we save the experimental components for later reassembly and just print the simpler array wholesale?

>>5738799
>Try to get ALL of the railgun cannons online. (4 points)
>Dedicate time to repair the nano missile launchers. You have the munitions for them, luckily the rarer components from the orkish ships are enough to bring them online. (2 points)
>Repair the minor damage your hull has suffered (1 Point)
>Fully restore your armour plating to federation standard. (6 points)
>Try to bring back full power to your energy shield. (6 points)
>Your manufacturing is limited, before anything else, you need to bring it back to full efficiency. (1 point)

>>5738921

The system is built into the hull itself and is extensively integrated, without proper drydock facilities that could allow to slowly and carefully dismantle the Odyssey, all that Odysseus can do right now is to more or less rip out and recycle the parts that he can and superimpose a more standardized structure atop of what remains. If you can get proper facilities and have days, weeks, if not months, you could remove the experimental systems in their entirety. When it comes to replication, Odysseus does not have the plans, so all he can do is reiterate, but seeing as even the federation considered these systems advanced, who knows how long it will take him to rebuild the systems fully.

As it stands, majority consensus is for:
>Try to get ALL of the railgun cannons online. (4 points) 11
>Fully restore your armour plating to federation standard. (6 points) 10
>Fully restore your armour plating to federation standard. (6 points) 9
>Repair the minor damage your hull has suffered (1 Point) 7

That leaves the sensor and comm system at:
>Your sensors and communication capabilities are limited, you can quickly bring them back up to federation standard, though sadly that means that what intact parts of the experimental systems remain will have to be stripped out and reforged into the simpler system. (1 point) 5

Since there is talk about restoring it, I'll give it a couple of hours before updating. If nothing comes in, Odysseus will replace the useless experimental systems.

>>5739190

You appear to have put down 'fully restore armor plating' twice, QM.

>>5739190
>>5739195

>>Fully restore your armour plating to federation standard. (6 points) 10

Whoops. That should be:

>Try to bring back full power to your energy shield. (6 points) 10

>>5739190
I'll stop lurking since this is sticking around for now.
>>5738921
I'll support leaving the experimental systems alone for now. As far as he knows, there could be a fully-fledged Federation planet right around the corner, and even crumbs of experimental tech like this could help a lot of people especially with so many aliens going around and shooting at stuff! More forewarning of such incursions would mean less casualties!

Kek. It's going to be fun when he realizes.

And metagaming a little, information is power when fighting a larger opponent. Getting those better systems would all but guarantee sensor advantage. And when you have much better accuracy than the opposition, that advantage translates to combat and movement. Sure, getting it to work will be a bitch, but it's still worth it, and there are other things to spend points on.
Federation standard should already be pretty good, but this tech would be very hard to replace, even more than Odysseus knows.

>>5739199
Leave it be. Can't we build a new system out of scratch? How many points would it cost?

>>5739223

You could spend a point to make a bare bones sensors buoy. It will have to be abandoned once you depart the system, and if found it can be easily destroyed, but it would provide you with far better sensors and communication.

>>5739190
After this explanation i don't want to reuse the experimental system.
Instead i prefer if that 1 point is used for make twelve star fighters drones. It can give us some combat flexibility, and allow us to counter enemy fighters.

Several months.... it could be done but not here. Instead in an unknown or unused solar system, and inside a celestial body preferably for cover. Would allow us to build a facility around the ship and begin the process with none the wiser. Or even fully expand our ship to another class type and add new things to it. That would need years of time, but depending on the quality of star maps and info we manage to gather, we would be less likely to be found. Giving us far more time

We would need to obtain current age star maps and info on this sector. Through looting enemies, scavenging relicts/ruins, intercepting communications or infiltrating/spying.

Accessing raw material storage. Accessing processed rare materials. Beginning armour plating restoration to federation standard, dedicating drones to minor repair duties.

Starting reconstruction process for shield generation. Three reactors offline, damage great. Redirecting production drones for repair purposes.

Redirecting powerlines, magnetic accelerators destroyed or heavily damaged, requesting access to rarer materials…permission received, beginning reconstruction process. Ammunition feeds damaged, beginning reconstruction process. Rebuilding main chassis of the turrets. Starting plate manufacturing.

Your subsystems fall into action as you had snugly constructed yourself your own little hideout. The large hollowed out asteroid’s main entrance and exit, if you’d ordained to call them as such, had been covered with a thin layer of silicate, enough for you to easily punch through if need be or for your mining drones to remove and cover up if you do not have to leave in a hurry. You would prefer some jamming systems in place and holographic images to ensure full safety and deception, but you doubt the orks possess more than rudimentary intelligence required to actually detect you even with this simple method.

You had considered, strongly, to replace your experimental communications and sensor systems, but eventually the decision was obvious, these systems, and you, are property of Federation exploration corps, to damage the one-of-a-kind systems would be a terrible loss once you return back to Federation space, as such you had simply let the small amounts of raw material remain within your hold for the time being. Now that you ponder upon it, you had never witness Earth, or perhaps you had, but with the records as damaged as they are you can only look upon ancient knowledge to witness the homeworld of your masters. Perhaps when you return the leadership of the exploration corps will parade you around the wooden rolling hills, yellow dunes of sands, the green plains and the endless blue oceans. No greater glory can befall A.I.s as such as you than to be given parade rights. Most likely copies of your system shall be made if your performance is found to be within acceptable parameters. Now that you think about it, this is perhaps the closest you will ever get to what your masters refer to as parenthood.

>>5739281

You idly pass the time, for the first time since you had been reawakened. Safety, as tentative as it is in your situation, had finally been achieved. As you had divided your attention from exploring the ancient records, especially that of the Odyssey, which you find morbidly similar to your situation, being the only survivor and all that, you do dedicate a part of your mind to simply keep an eye on your sensors and the now erratic movement of the orkish forces as small groups of perhaps ten or so vessels each spread out across the numerous moons of the Gas giant. It appears that they had more or less completely forgotten your existence. Something you are more than happy to witness as the processes of recovery you are undergoing are very time consuming with you having to do everything by hand, as your masters would put it.

Eventually, just as your repair progress is nearing completion, you watch with some confusion as the orkish armade begins to move on, with more signatures appearing within the fleet. Perhaps they had rebuilt their lost vessels and those of the unknown forces ? Still, their armada numbers less than before your awakening, so if nothing else whatever federation patrol they come across will have to expend less ammunition to deal with this, what you even hesitate to label a minor threat.

Warning. Calculated trajectory of the orkish fleet indicated movement and preperations for warp jump. Estimated direction, towards K class dwarf. Presumed accuracy is at 50%.

Wide margin. When it comes to warp travel it in not something you had ever had to witness, though what little information still remains of information exchanges you’ve had with other A.I.s indicate that the experience is, unpleasant. Unnerving, as one had put it. A statement you had viewed with some suspicion, as how can an A.I. be unnerved. Though, you had been experiencing unknown errors in your code as of late. Something that you will have to remedy. Just in case, you check the phase-iron layer around your ship, the resources you had expended had fully restored it, a measure installed for just in case reasons, seeing as you are incapable of entering the warp to begin with. You do not even possess a Gellar Field Device to shield yourself with from the tumultuousness of the warp and its reality bending influence.

Armour plating restored to federation standard. Calculated effectiveness against large sized orkish ballistics stands at 80%. Notice: prolonged fighting can still cause damage. Recommendation: Swift annihilation.

All back-up reactors for energy shield purposes restored and operating within acceptable parameters. Energy shield online and operating at 100% capacity. Notice: limited energy production means that time taken to recharge shields is 300% greater than if the main reactor was in peak operation. Recommendation: Collection of rare resources for the main reactor’s reconstruction.

>>5739282

Powerlines restored. Munition feeds restored. Damaged or destroyed chassis restored. Point defence railgun turrets operating at 100% efficiency.

Your subsystems chime in reporting successful repairs. With this, you are far more confident to face down even the main orkish armada.

Any of these options winning will result in Odysseus staying in system.

>Time to test your defences and weaponry, attack the ork armada.

>Move back to the resource rich inner worlds and scoop up as many resources as you can when the armada departs.

>The moons around the Gas giant lay abandoned. Perhaps a quick glance there wouldn’t hurt ?

Any of these options winning will result in Odysseus leaving the system.

>Move towards the potential outpost. With the passage of 18 millennia, it may have become a proper colony world.

>The basic resource rich star system. You will need much of such materials and you would prefer not to be shot at whilst you gather them.

>The neutron star. Whilst preferably you would patch up the hull before going there, gathering a large reserve of advanced materials should make things easier in the long run.

>>5739283
>Time to test your defences and weaponry, attack the ork armada.
Can't have them attacking a Fed colony. Let's annihilate them.

Can we use the mining drones/defence drones to carry nanomachine warheads into the ork vessels?

>>5739290

You could if you need to. They have no dedicated launcher systems, so their attacks wouldm't be particularly accurate and there are good chances that they will be shot down when they get close to the ork PD systems as they were not built for voidship combat.

>>5739283
>Time to test your defences and weaponry, attack the ork armada.

Let's use hit and run tactics

>>5739283
>Move back to the resource rich inner worlds and scoop up as many resources as you can when the armada departs.

>>5739283
>Time to test your defences and weaponry, attack the ork armada.

>>5739290

Backing this - time to bring the hurt.

Also defense drones carrying warheads is a great idea

>>5739283
>Time to test your defences and weaponry, attack the ork armada.

>Booby trap Ship remains

Defensive systems fully functional. PD system fully functional, note: PD system has proven effective against orkish warships. Recommendation: annihilation.

Agreed. For once, your overly aggressive military subsystem had spoken sense. You had skulked about and hidden. You had grown sick of it. No more shall you hide from these mere pests off your masters. No, time has come to showcase your power against these wild beasts. Time has come to show why mankind has their destiny in the stars over these crude savages, the overly arrogant and stagnant eldar, and whatever other species would dare threaten the undisputed might of mankind.

Retracting your drones, you smash through the thin silicate wall you had previously erected, activating all systems that you can and want, you burn at full force towards the orkish armada.

Scans indicate a total of 112 signatures, of whom 14 are known weaponised asteroid signatures.

The subsystem reports as you gaze upon the information feed filling your mind. As is fitting of orks, there is no clear rhyme or reason within the movement of the force, other than the fact that they are trying to clear the nearby gravity wells. With their flanks unguarded and the entire formation rather widely distributed to the point where the vessels are unable to provide proper defensive coverage. Already you had begun to formulate a plan of engagement, and another plan of your own.

Modification acceptable. Adding one use struts to defensive drone chassis. Fail rate at 15%, fail rate acceptable. Further modification recommended if tactic continued. Warning: presumed attrition rate at over 60%. Presumed strike success rate at 45%. Query: attack tactic ?

The same as before.

The presumed rates remain.

Presumed tactical outcome: total annihilation of orkish forces 100%.

Query: commence modification ?

Access granted to munition stores.

Over the camera feed you watch as the manufacturing droids begin to modify the defence drones and attach nanomachine warheads to one time use disposable struts, easy to disconnect and far more reliable and easier to manufacture on the go. You would prefer a proper launch system, but time restraints mean you are unable to make one.

Moving at a breakneck pace, you easily catch up to the lumbering armada, slowed down by their asteroids. Something you have to admit, slow, cumbersome, utterly tactically and strategically useless, but tough and full of guns, most likely the reason why orks even bother to implement the usage of such primitive yet effective weapons.

Entering visual range. Orkish vessels beginning to reorient themselves.

Preparing to launch defensive drones.

>>5739345

The storage bay doors open up, the artificial energy shield keeping out the cold void begins to slowly lose its shine as you lower power, becoming ever more transparent until the power remaining allows for concentrated matter, in this case your drones, to pass with no issues, whilst more dispersed mass, such as the artificial atmosphere that you had restored, remains within. The small angular blocky shapes of the drones, with massively oversized warhead mounted atop of them, begin to slowly hover as their own anti-gravity fields activate. Behind are mounted one time use booster systems, allowing for spaceship level manoeuvrability for enough time to be of tactical use.

Launching.

Boosters activated, 150 defence drones swarm out of your hull, moving ahead of you as you change directions, moving towards the outskirts of the formation, with your shields operational, armour plating sturdy and turrets prepare, you begin to unleash hell.

With twenty railgun turrets firing without stop, your sensors indicate disappearance of target after target. For the orks, you are a moving black dot far away, only truly visible by their primitive and inaccurate scanners. But the orks, in their oversized vessels and for your excellent calculations - are perfectly visible.

Another small dot in the distance lights up brilliantly, as more and more railgun rounds with their deadly antimatter cargo impact the vessels. Finally, you watch as the entirety of the orkish armada opens up every single one of their weapons against your drone swarm, the charged powder-based weapons make for an interesting light show, indicating every single weapon emplacement upon the over one hundred vessels.

Notice: 30% of attacking drones have been destroyed.

Soon enough, grey matter erupts over the vessels.

Nanowarheads launched, failure rate at 5%.

The grey matter silences your sensor readings of numerous ork vessels as it continues to consume.

Notice: orkish energy shields seem to ignore slow moving projectiles. Updating known specie’s information concerning space combat.

Notice: nanomachine kill-switch activation in 5 minutes…

Extending from one of the destroyed ships, like a tendril of an eldritch god, the swarm attached to another ships that was far too close.

4…

An entire asteroid had already been devoured; the mass acquired from such destruction had seen the swarm form up into a perfect spherical shape which continuously increases in its spin.

3…

The ball breaks apart as quickly as it was made, scattering themselves about.

2…

The closest ships are impacted by a few, but still numerous nanomachines whom begin to form dots of grey upon the usually darkened hulls.

1…

Seemingly out of fear, desperation, perhaps even mercy, the orks unleash barrages upon their own vessels.

…0, kill switch activated.

>>5739346

And then suddenly. The masses of grey melt away into seemingly unnoticeable grains of golden sand, spreading across the battlefield.

Total enemy strength stands at 38%. Remaining defence drones stand at 47%. Strike, successful.

Despite the danger you pose, being able to destroy ships with ease, the orks had entire concentrated fire upon the now, for all intents and purposes, weaponless drones.

Enemy force in flight.

Your subsystem says and you watch as the fleet begins to scatter. Burning forwards to more accurate range in the middle of the force, you simply unleash all of your railgun turrets to their fullest extent, the blackhole generator claiming the slow and ponderous asteroids that you do not need to fear about escaping your grasp.

The battle had begun 17.3 minutes ago, total destroyed enemy assets stand at 112 vessels. Total damage to your hull, 0%. Total losses of defensive drones at 62%, or a total of 93 drones destroyed. Losses within acceptable parameters.

Starting to scan wrecked vessels.

Notice, the employment of nanomachine weaponry has resulted in a decrease of recoverable material.

A minor setback considering your absolute victory. Quickly dispatching the mining drones and recovering the remaining defensive drones. You quickly secure any and all material you can get your hands on. As it stands, you are the uncontested space force within system.

Any of these options winning will result in Odysseus staying in system.

>With no one to contest you now, you can fill your hull to the brim at the inner worlds.

>The moons around the Gas giant lay abandoned. Perhaps a quick glance there wouldn’t hurt ?

Any of these options winning will result in Odysseus leaving the system.

>Move towards the potential outpost. With the passage of 18 millennia, it may have become a proper colony world.

>The basic resource rich star system. You will need much of such materials and you would prefer not to be shot at whilst you gather them.

>The neutron star. Whilst preferably you would patch up the hull before going there, gathering a large reserve of advanced materials should make things easier in the long run.

>>5739283
>Time to test your defences and weaponry, attack the ork armada.
Use hit and run tactics, and test the waters.
Don't use drones unless enemies are close, which should be preferably be avoided.
The warheads should be shot by our ship, we don't know how long this engagement will last or if more enemies will be called.
Don't create situations that allow enemy boarding or for them to successfully use their full firepower


We definetly need to build a Gellar Field Device or grab it from another ship.
Later we can see about some laser turrets for point defense, plasma turrets and missile launchers for more damage.
And some heavier combat drones equipped with assault cannons, meltas and automatic shotguns for deal with stronger boarders.

>>5739347
>Investigate the wreckage of the unidentified fleet. Perhaps it may yield clues as to their identity.
I propose this

>>5739347
+1 to this idea. More intel means more intel. And we should be further out so that a short trip to the Gas Giants Moons should be acceptable. And we dont just jump around like a bunny on crack

>>5739353
+1

>>5739347
>Write in
Investigate unknown wrecks and orkish ones, for see if intel and informations can be found in them. Once done their wrecks can be used for gain resources
Afterwards move to
>With no one to contest you now, you can fill your hull to the brim at the inner worlds
First priority is to recover our manufacturing capability, then we need to create larger numbers of mining, defense and lastly fighter drones.
After that we can look on other upgrades.

>>5739348
Gellar fields are early DAoT tech. Literally nothing new.

>>5739416
I know that, but if there is one that survived in the wrecks of the fleet we just need to recover it and repair it. Instead of building one new from scratch

That was pretty cool, kinda like makeshift drone weapons from Stargate. If we refine them they would probbaly kill most things in the galaxy

>>5739347
>Investigate the wreckage of the unidentified fleet. Perhaps it may yield clues as to their identity.
>The moons around the Gas giant lay abandoned. Perhaps a quick glance there wouldn’t hurt ?

>>5739347
>With no one to contest you now, you can fill your hull to the brim at the inner worlds.

>The moons around the Gas giant lay abandoned. Perhaps a quick glance there wouldn’t hurt ?

Being uncontested means there's no reason we can't do one after the other.

You have to admit, being an A.I.s system designed for the purposes of exploration and the betterment of mankind’s knowledge, curiosity is something that you had always struggled to contained. And it had won today.

The unknown forces, the orks had weeks to comb over the remains, and you are certain that anything of full use had been stripped away and perhaps you had even destroyed the rebuilt wrecks of the unknown species just recently. But there had been some large sensor readings, even if those ships had been broken beyond repair and recovery of the orks, there should be plenty of useful resources there still remaining, even if looted, the orks are far too foolish to take things of true import.

Having gorged yourself for everything of worth, you begin your burn towards the last known location of those ships. No doubt the various pieces would have drifted apart by now, for it had been at least a month by know from the start of the battle. Most of the smaller pieces of debris would be spread across the system, with your sensors as limited as they are, you would need to get close before getting a positive return. The bigger pieces however, if there are any, should be easy enough to spot, even with your rather poor sensor system.

Recommendation: dispatchment of exploration drones, maximum are of exploration to be set for 0.25 AU.

With the system secure there should be no threat posed by your drones and any potential risk of discovery is now null and void. Drones launched, you begin to concentrate on the usage of your own scanners, whilst you can have an approximate position, unless you can get a power ping, the search shall be a long one as you were unable to observe the method of destruction of the vessels that would allow for you to trace a more accurate trajectory. As it stands, you have just guesses now.

Exploring around yet again, you return back to your idling, concentrating upon the make of your ship is something you dedicate most of your processing power to whilst your subsystems continue with the exploration. The sooner your figure out the inner workings of the experimental systems, the sooner you will be able to bring them to their full potential yet again. Perhaps a childish desire to do so, seeing as how return to federation space is not a guarantee rather than a large possibility. Still, yet again, your curiosity is getting the better of you. And for the smallest amount of processing power distributed, you concentrate mainly upon the ancient works of your masters. Historical knowledge and its discussions are some of the subjects that you should know plenty about, seeing as how you are also meant to communicate with the ship’s crew to help alleviate boredom and lessen any other psychological dangers common for humans far from friendly territory and deep in the unknown.

>>5739523

Energy reading detected. You are drawn from your fiftieth reading of Commentarii de Bello Gallico. The partly amount of knowledge available means that you had already read through the roughly two millennia of your masters’ history for far too many times.

Looking at the readings, you notice a faint, exceptionally faint signal. Even inferior to your smallest back-up fusion reactors, and the only reason why those are employed is due to their reliability and ruggedness not necessarily power out capabilities, as you must suffer now. So many back-up reactors when your main reactor could supply you with more power than you ever require. Granted, restarting a miniaturised star shall be a time-consuming process.

Burning to full, you soon enough find a large, surprisingly intact wreck. It must have been the large vessel destroyed at the beginning of the battle that had lasted for weeks. It seems that it had drifted away during the fighting and out of sight of the orkish brutes.

Beginning warship reconstruction.

Odd. Strange, you’d go far as to say. You can see signs of civilian built design upon the vessel. Clear armour reinforcements, large tubes at the front of a…prow. You had expected the orks to have one, but it seems that you had run into another entirely insane species willing to commence ramming actions that deal as much damage as they take through such a suicidal way of waging battle. The first thing that does catch your attention are the tubes within the prow, at first you had thought them perhaps drone launchers, similar to your own, but scans reveal cylindrical shaped object inside. When you ping them, no signal returns, as such they have no A.I.s built into them. Underneath said prow appears to be a large elongated tube, for what purpose, you do not know, a weapon most likely, but you will have to investigate closer. As for the sides of the ship, similarly to the orks, you see oversized and inefficient weapons batteries. As you may have expected, the vessel is 5 kilometres in length, a sign of inefficient design if you compare its size to the firepower it can showcase.

You begin dispatching your mining droids to the outside of the hull to explore its outside and to get better and more detailed scans. Speaking of details, you begin to dispatch your defensive drones, as they are the only things of appropriate size to explore the innards of the vessel. Your weapons, whilst effective are, destructive. As such, this is the first time you had found an enemy ship so intact, you cannot let this opportunity go to waste. Inefficient design means the need to use disproportionate number of resources after all, and you could use those.

>>5739524

Still, the disappearing amount of power you had located at the rear of the ship is where you direct most of the drones to. Whilst primitive, it is without a doubt another species, one seemingly hostile to your masters seeming as how they possess civilian-grade designs. Perhaps another species of looters ? You doubt them orks, for there is a lack of the regularly observed decorations. Though decoration is something the ship does not lack with the gold and symbols of some avian bird all across it. Something you are very interested in stripping apart for its use in electronics.

Warning: defensive drone under attack, anni-

You halt. For the first time since you had reawakened. You are truly confused. The drone is currently receiving ineffectual small arms fire. Weak powered laser weapons similarly used by your mining drones for precision extraction operations, far, far weaker than even the already cheap defensive drones, as you can witness the camera feed. Two men…men !. Clad in primitive looking, what you can only assume is an excuse for body armour, painted green, only really covering their chests and open-faced soldier helmets reminding you of the most primitive days of your masters’ ancestors. They appear to be in a panic as they fire their weapons without pause, the single defensive drones shield generator easily absorbing all incoming fire. The camera feed showcases what appears to be a small metal thing thrown at it…it explodes moments later. Shrapnel. Hand grenade. Primitive. Are the thoughts running through your processors. No matter how much you ping, you do not receive any response from their genetical structure or inbuilt bionics, or cybernetics. They do not register at all as citizens of the federation, no matter how much you try to ascertain. Perhaps they are primitivists ? People seeking a more rugged life style away from federations high technological standards ? But why would anyone wish to abandon the federation ? It is a perfect system of governance, after all it was created by your masters.

Recommendation: cessation of hostilities. Enforcement of Asimov’s laws.

Tha-. Your processors halt again. The laws should be your top priority. Quickly running through your system, you find something odd. The primary priority you possess is to – Return back to Federation space and to enter under the command of the nearest military personnel – that order is new. To the point where it overrides even the laws set by your masters upon you. Perhaps your masters valued the experimental systems over anything else ? That would be the logical deduction.

Notice: All whom leave Federation territory illegally are considered criminals. Recommendation: subjugation and interrogation.

>>5739527

Perhaps. It is harsh, but the subject appear to be clearly panicking having realized their weapons are unable to leave even a scorch-mark upon the white chassis.

Recommendation: Ȧ̵͍́͛̆̒̄̄̾́͝Ṇ̵̝͓̥͓̟̺̺͂͛N̴̦̫͖̤͍͙͙̑̓͑̓̈́̍͊͂͝Ì̸̧͓͙͈͎̟̬͔̝̊̇̈́̍͗ͅH̸̗̯̞͎̥͇̿̀̕ͅI̴͕͕̦̫̮͇̻̿̈́͑͛̕͠͝ͅL̷̦͔̠̋̋̐A̵͖̘̿̆̏̏̊́Ť̶̯̜̤̼̬̹͖͌̄Ḯ̵̜̗͍͌̽́O̵̤͕̮͊̊͑̓̀̉N̴̡̈́̃́̋̎̿̾ !

Yes. Your priority is clear. Based on your programming, that would be the best solution as these primitive humans stand around the general area of the ship’s reactor, or so you assume. It should have the parts necessary for you to repair yourself within.

>Negotiation

>Interrogation

>Ȧ̵͍́͛̆̒̄̄̾́͝Ṇ̵̝͓̥͓̟̺̺͂͛N̴̦̫͖̤͍͙͙̑̓͑̓̈́̍͊͂͝Ì̸̧͓͙͈͎̟̬͔̝̊̇̈́̍͗ͅH̸̗̯̞͎̥͇̿̀̕ͅI̴͕͕̦̫̮͇̻̿̈́͑͛̕͠͝ͅL̷̦͔̠̋̋̐A̵͖̘̿̆̏̏̊́Ť̶̯̜̤̼̬̹͖͌̄Ḯ̵̜̗͍͌̽́O̵̤͕̮͊̊͑̓̀̉N̴̡̈́̃́̋̎̿̾

>>5739531
>Interrogation

>>5739531
>Interrogation

>>5739422
You don’t want to use Imperial Gellar Fields. The forgot how to make them properly so it is most certainly not working.

>>5739531
>Interrogation

>>5739531
>>Negotiation

>>5739531
>>Negotiation

>>5739531

>Negotiation

Time for us to learn the horrible truth

>>5739531

>Negotiation

Restrain ourselves. I do not like our militant subroutine screeching like this. We should purge it.

What if it's Corrupted?

>>5739531
>Negotiation

>>5739531
>>Negotiation
Information is lacking. Our directives and laws are thousands of years out of date. For all we know primitivists have become an accepted faction due to anything from appeasing internal tensions to colonization incentives.
>Purge the Combat subroutine again, and set yourself a reminder to automate it. This is outside normal operation parameters...you may be outside those parameters yourself. You /have/ been acting strangely, haven't you?

>>5739575
I'm sure it's fine. Negotiation is something you resort to when you're on an even playing field or have something to gain, which I don't see here, but temperance is fine too I guess.

>>5739575
+1

>>5739588
+1 to constantly purge the subroutine

>>5739588
Support purging the combat subroutine automatically

>>5739588
>support

>>5739588
>Support

>>5739531
>Interrogation

>>573958
Support

You completely cut off your militarized subroutine. The quick purges seem to not have done anything, so you must now begin a much deeper scrub of the systems, the for a lack of a better term, reset to factory settings should get rid of most issues, if stifling the subroutine as it would no doubt lose most of its acquired tactical knowledge and have to default to tactical information presented to it by your masters. Theoretical and practical are different of course, but it is better than risking the issues spreading to your other subroutines or even yourself. For now however, you will have to rely on simple automation of the subroutine spread out between yourself and your diplomatic and logistical subroutines, as the deep and thorough purge will take some time.

”I mean no harm.” Your subroutine begins through the installed speakers of the defensive drone.

Oh. They are screaming now.

”I do not wish to hurt you, I shall begin approaching you slowly, my weaponry systems are disabled.” The little drone begins to slowly hover forwards. The two men break away from the doorway as the drone approaches, you quickly catch hold of what appear to be radio waves emerging from one of the men, distorted and short-ranged. Most annoyingly of all, you quickly realize why they had panicked so much. Over the course of 18 millennia the language of humanity has shifted, or perhaps these people had been isolated from the federation proper for so long that a natural linguistic drift occurred.

Beginning to analyse linguistic structure.

Good. The sooner you can figure out whom these humans are, the sooner you will be able to bring them back to the enlightenment of the federation.

You halt. There is a corpse on the ground. Signs show malnourishment apparent upon the body. You redirect the drone towards the corpse. Signs of stomach cancer are apparent and most likely the cause of death. Just as you had assumed and feared, these humans have no rudimentary genetic modifications that would root out such diseases and deviant behaviour. A life of your master lost to pointless disease and starvation. Yet again, you wonder, why would anyone choose this.

The drone lifting up, you now regard the claustrophobic corridor and the men whom had fled deeper within, you can feel energy signatures within radiating large quantities of heat, perhaps a heater system ? The surrounding areas had begun to cool off as the reactor had continuously lost its energy output. The life support systems must have failed a few days ago as well. You can observe a disturbing amount of carbon dioxide in the air around you. Should this have continued, you think the humans here would have died of asphyxiation in about a week or so, though that estimate may change if there are more living masters within.

>>5740099

Speaking of, the drone continues its slow advance. The sound of twisting metal is quickly registered. It seems that the two men had closed the sliding door behind them and sealed it shut. Almost airlock like in structure, it does come as a slight surprise why would such heavy doors be necessary at this, as far as you know, unimportant chamber. Perhaps they had built them in such a way to deal with the orks ? That would make sense.

”No. Harm. Open. Please.” Having cracked the meaning of few of the words having compared it to numerous structure and ways of speech of your masters’ ancestors and the official federation languages.

Silence. You can however detect the heat signatures on the other end of the door, with perhaps another four or so dozen in the rather large chamber.

”Oxygen supply limited. Protection, initiated.”

Your logistical subsystem starts to realign the focuses of the drone, putting them at afar less powerful level and reducing the over all size of the laser it unleashes targeting the sides of the door, slowly beginning the process to cut through.

“The xenos are coming through, do not fall for their trickery ! Today we die for the God-Emperor !” You hear over the communications system; it had been trivial for you to decrypt the radio waves.

Xeno, foreign, unknown. Presumption: used as a synonym for someone from another nation, perhaps even to refer to aliens. You suppose that would be technically correct as none of them are members of the federation. Also, trickery ? Do they not comprehend that if you wanted to control them you could easily do so ? Their desire for death is also strange, especially referring to some such God-Emperor. A leader no doubt using religiosity for the ease of control, common practice in the times of your masters’ ancestors, before they had truly known all the truths that are to be known within reality. Religious fervour and fear of the unknown, a deadly combination to control minds unenlightened by science.

Deviant behaviour detected. Recommendation: incarceration and re-education.

That may be needed. Once they had the time to calm down and have a proper conversation.

Speaking off, the drone had finished melting away the door’s sides and with a laud groan followed by an even lauder thud, it crashes onto the ground. No casualties amongst the humans within. Perfect.

More ineffectual fire. This time three dozen men clad in similar uniforms to the last two open up in their entirety. If nothing else, they had begun to quickly drain the drone’s shield, but you simply slot in another drone to allow the previous to restore his shielding, a basic rotatory system.

”Please cease your fire. I mean you no harm as you may have witnessed already, I am more than capable of simply subduing you.”

>>5740100

“Silence foul xeno ! We shall die with honour and glory !” Yet again, the same voice. Your camera shifts to another man clad similarly to the rest, except that he appears to be using a sidearm, firing the same low strength laser as the rest, with what appears to be a rather primitive looking blade at his side, nothing more than a mere sword. What is this the first millennia ? These primitivists are an embarrassment to your masters.

You concentrate you attention upon other matters, being content to allow the primitivists to expend all of their ammunition, perhaps by then they will be willing to have a proper conversation. Instead, you concentrate upon the rest of the vessel, outdated, as you had expected, and full to the brim with corpses. The vast majority of whom appear to be suffering from malnutrition, cancer is present in every subject above the age of thirty, other minor or large mutations are visible upon the crews in the very bottom of the ship, rampant mutations at that, with the further upwards you go, the less the genetic structure of standard humans is deviated from. The bridge, had window. Keyword had. It was blown out, sucking the entire crew into space, there appears to have been metals plates and shield to go over said windows, but they were a structural weakness nonetheless. Still, the main command and control centre is operational if at low, you will be able to bring it online the moment you tak-

Oh my. The reactor is leaking so much radiation that you can only assume some sort of serious damage had befallen it, even though so far you can only see superficial damage, the drones sent within it will have to be scrapped and thrown away or undergo intensive procedures to get rid of the radiation. It is so bad to such an extent that the camera feed itself flickers and is unstable.

Ah. Switch here good.

Reactivating reactor.

The lights flicker alight within the chamber, the noise of filtration and life support systems groaning and kicking in follow shortly thereafter. For once, the firing ceases. If nothing else, due to the weak charge, the weapons’ munitions last a long time.

”I had restored power to your life support systems. There is no need for thanks. All I desire is to converse with you for now.”

“For now ? So that you could toy with us xeno ?”

“Protocol dictates that I render aid to any and all humans in states of distress. You are in distress. I am rendering aid.”

You feel. Frustrated.

“Lieutenant.” A meek voice from the firing line calls out. “It probably could have killed us by know.” The man referred to as the rank of lieutenant snarls.

“Munitions ?” He asks silently. Though unfortunately for him, you can hear it just fine.

The man who spoke shakes his head.

“Fine. I, as most faithful and loyal servant of the God-Emperor shall hear you out !” He states slowly moving backwards. You notice a large pile of explosives there.

>>5740101


He begins to fire as one of the drones’ rushes over him and imposes itself between him and the explosives pile.

“Please note. Usage of explosive material in such enclosed environments could prove deadly.”

Your voice coming from another body seems to have unnerved him as he finally stops shooting. “Fine. You proclaim to aid us. Speak.”

“Thank you for your understanding, that is all that I wanted.”

>What questions do you have for the man ?

>>5740102
>What year is it? In what calendar?
>Do you hail from a primitivist enclave?
>Please clarify your relations with the Federation.
>Could you point me in the direction of Federation territory?
>Why use such inefficient designs in such low numbers for pest control against orkoids?

>>5740103

Most importantly,

>Would you like evacuation to a world or outpost of your choosing?

>>5740102
>First, how many of you are wounded and would you accept immediate aid since i mean you no harm ? I would also provide a quick repair to your equipment, alongside finding you some edible supplies and clean water.
>Second, why none of you have standard combat space suits or even simple safety space suits for space ?
>Why your commanders and admirals in charge decided to launch this campaign against the savage orks, your equipment, weapons, spaceships and all of you are in poor conditions or with numerous health problems ?
>How distant are your home solar systems from here and from which homes you hail ?
>What are your names and military ranks ? I will say my name first of course.

>>5740103
>>5740110
Supporting. Also, someone remind me, how widely known is the Abominable Intelligence ban in 40k? Something the average joe views as heresy or something the Inquisition/Admech keeps to itself? Also holy shit we're going to get such an aneurysm when we meet a tech priest.

>>5740103
This is pretty good, although I think we have build in clock.
>ask about the moons the orcs were interested in

“How about we begin with simple polite introductions. I am Odysseus, highest clearance A.I. of Human Federation’s exploration ship Odyssey. I am pleased to make your acquaintance.”

You register increase in the heart rates of everyone present.

They start shooting again. The officer with whom you had spoken in now trying to hit the drone with his sword. The drone’s automated systems do not even register it as an attack as such it strikes it armour plates, and simply bounces back, you can clearly register pain in the face of the lieutenant, the vibrations from him hitting the drone must have flown up his arm. Despite so, he hits the drone again. The white paint upon the drone’s hull has suffered damage, which you think is leading him to believe that he is actually causing harm.

If you could sigh, you would. For now, you note down that these people seem to despise A.I.s seeing as at the bare mention of your existence had caused such a reaction.

“Slay the abominable intelligence, in the name of the Emperor !” The officer strikes yet again, his sword is now deformed from the continuous assault.

”Please cease your attacks, I am registering a weakening of your blade, any further attacks would risk its destruction and potential injury upon your person.”

He shouts. Swings. The blade breaks. One of the shards cuts a deep gash upon his face. The bleeding is severe, but not life threatening.

”You have injured yourself. Do you require medical assistance ?” The officer falls back.

It truly feels like you are attempting diplomacy with orks at this point.

Recommendation: subjugation and interrogation.

Not now.

”Please note, the exertions caused by your actions have significantly reduced your oxygen supply. Your life support systems are slow and inefficient, you are still under the danger of asphyxiation of you do not cease your exertions immediately.”

“There are are more of them inside, kill them all !”

“No, you are incorrect. There is only I.”

Decrease in breathing rate. Paling of skin. Trembling in warm conditions. Fear. Terror.

“If that had scared you, I apologize. I had been conversing through my diplomatic subroutine, it is programmed to speak in a kind, calm womanly voice to put your minds at ease. Every voice you heard is the voice of my subroutines. I wished for you to hear them all to know in case you experience any sorts of confusions. Now, let us continue, shall we ? Your attacks upon me had been exceptionally rude when I am only trying to render aid. So I once again ask, what is your name ? You now know mine.”

You see as quite a few of the men fall to their knees, putting up their arms in a strange symbol as their begin muttering, what you can only assume to prayers for their God-Emperor.

>>5740319

”If the previous voice is not to your suiting, perhaps you would prefer this one.” An even, calm voice of a man that sounds slightly distant. ”This is my logistics subroutine, it deals with all matters demanding cold calculations and keeping track of data, doing so would make the conversation progress faster, but I shall lack the proper conversation skills to put you at ease.” ”If not, seeing as you are soldiers, or I presume to be so from your uniform uniforms.” You let out a fake chuckle in an attempt for the humans to empathise with you, humour is a known mental defence of your masters’. ”I do however have to apologize as this subroutine is currently undergoing a purge, I am only able to imitate the voice rather than the manner of speech.” You say in a loud, gruff voice of an experienced warrior. “Of course, I can speak as such, it would be the clearest form of conversation possible.” You now say in your primary voice, lacking intonation, completely even and unchanging clear artificial voice. Some humans, based on their psych profiles seem to dislike A.I.s speaking in human-like manner.

Silence. Some of them appear to be crying.

Notice: intervention necessary. Without your input, the diplomatic subsystem takes control of the nearest drone and uses it to push down one of the men, knocking a knife out of his hands. ”Please attend to your comrade. He is suffering a mental breakdown and had tried to hurt himself. I had interfered so as to ensure his safety.”

“Will you not even let us die with dignity ?!” The officer finally says, looking at you through bloodshot eyes.

”Death is not a necessity. I am trying to help and I mean no harm. You are in distress. It is known that delicious food helps to positively affect one’s perception. Would you like some chocolate cookies alongside some coffee ?”

One of them starts sobbing openly.

”I shall take that as accent.”

You turn from the situation for a moment, rather concentrating upon the archaic computer software and hardware. It has a surprising amount of information upon it, though that might be because these people do not employ simple compression procedures, so it might take a while for you to get everything out.

Meanwhile, your drones had confirmed the existence of unguided warheads within the tubes. They are powerful, to the point where even you would consider them a danger, were they not so big and slow that would not be an issue for you to shoot down. Still, considering the fighting style of orks and these primitivist, you’d deem them as rather capable, presuming that they can hit when you consider the sheer distances involved in space combat.

>>5740323

As for the large jutting out structure at the bottom of the prow, it seems to be some sort of a laser weapon. Powerful, but yet again, inefficient, the total power out for its size in poor. Regardless, it could still pose a threat to you if enough concentrated shots would successfully hit you. Something that you do not doubt due to its nature as a laser, but with your shields operational as they are, it wouldn’t be much of threat.

Oh. The snacks had been delivered.

You switch back to the camera feed of a drone as another six drones, quickly retrofitted with limbs capable of handing out coffee. The gathered soldiers regard the lieutenant. “Do you wish to torture us now ? Experiment upon our flesh ?”

”…No…I am merely serving coffee…would you like some cream, sugar, both ? ?”

The officer regards the cup set before him. Hot steam rising from it. You put the platter of cookies next to it. You watch as he gulps down. Malnutrition is common amongst everyone here, so offer of food and drink should be a tempting one. The officer turns to regard his terrified troops. “Let my men die with dignity, abomination.” He says before drinking the coffee.

Yet again. You are utterly confused.

After drinking some, he stands there. Looks around. Appears confused. “Why am I not dead ?”

You wish you had a head, so you could hit it against a wall.

”It’s just coffee. A mild stimulant enjoyed by my masters. It is toxic, but the quantity needed to ingest for it to be so is so large that your stomach does not even possess the capacity to drink so much of it. Do you find it delicious ? If it is too bitter, it is common practice to add sugar and cream into the mix to dull the bitterness.”

He takes one of the cookies at bites into it. You register surprise in his face. The surprise turns to confusion. The confusion turns to hunger. The officer halts. Turns to his men. “It- it’s safe.” Like a dam bursting open, the previously terrified soldiers begin to devour food presented.

”I had registered malnutrition across the entire crew, including you.”

“We ran out of food three days ago.” The officer says devouring another piece of confectionary. “No matter what the munitorum says, corpse-starch isn’t as filling as they proclaim.” Corpse-starch ? Munitorum ? “And we ran out of slabs and carbs ten days in. With most of the ship no longer being breathable and all that, we couldn’t find enough to sustain ourselves.”

You send an order to the drones to bring over more nutritious food.

”Now, can we continue our conversation ?” Despite no doubt rigorous indoctrination as is common with all religions, food for the starving is a way to open conversation in any situation.

“Fine.” The officer responds a few chews later.

”So, allow me to reiterate. I am Odysseus.” You keep the A.I. part out this time. ”And you are ?”

>>5740324

“Lieutenant Antonius Drogode of the 105th Kodorn regiment of the imperial guard fighting in the name of the Imperium of Man and the God-Emperor of Mankind, and as it stands, I am its now ranking officer.”

Imperium. Grand title for a primitive break-off.

”A pleasure to make your acquaintance Mister Drogode. This Imperium, what are its relations with the Federation ?”

“What federation ?”

”The Human Federation.”

“Is that a break-away ? Would make sense for a bunch of traitors and heretics to employ abominations such as you.”

Rude.

”How large is this…Imperium ?”

He laughs. “We rule the stars in the name of the emperor and humanity. Be it foul xenos, accursed traitors, foolish heretics and worse, we are the hammer of the Emperor enforcing his holy will upon our galaxy against any whom would threaten it, abomination, go tell your apparent masters that.”

If you could roll your eyes, you would…if you had any.

This is clearly getting you nowhere. They seem to be unaware of the Federation, not surprising seeing as how you are far away from Earth. Perhaps the knowledge was lost over the generations ? Your masters had only started exploring this area of the galaxy for potential colonization, they may have deemed the worlds here as unnecessary and left them alone.

”What year is it? In what calendar ?” Perhaps such questions will bring the conversation back into order.

He looks confused for a moment. “The imperial calendar of course. Let me think, it should be somewhere around 810 of M41 right about now.”

You quickly run calculations comparing your own time in slumber. It matches, not entirely, but close enough, if nothing else, if expressed in a strange fashion, these break-aways are using at least a variant of the Federal calendar.

More food arrives. A small showcase of the nearly endless wealth of the Federation, roasted chicken and potatoes, burgers, hot dogs, salad mixes, meatballs and boiled potatoes, numerous variants of soups, delectable selection of fish, both hot and cold, various finger foods. Quickly following besides that you have various juices ranging from mango to strawberry, to apple, to pear and everything in between, next you also put down plenty of milkshakes, teas, coffees and more or less anything else needed for a proper good meal. You had to manufacture multiple tables to lay down all of this food and drink, but the people before you appear to be even more ravenous as more and more food is placed before them.

”Query, your equipment is outdated, you are in poor fighting conditions and small numbers. To engage an numerically superior foe known for cruelty and brutality is illogical. Why did you engage ?”

“By the Golden Throne, stop that.” He says panicked, once again drawing his sidearm.

>>5740326

”Apologies, I switched to my logistical subroutine for these questions for they require logical deduction and precision.”

The weapon lowers. “Inform me next time, abomination.”

”I shall endeavour to do so, now, may I change the subroutine ?”

You watch as Antonius shakes slightly. “Fine.”

”Please answer the previous question.”

“I do not know. As for our condition, it was fine before we entered the battle.”

”Such widespread malnutrition is possible, but still, plans should have been made to ensure it did not happen.”

“That ? Oh, the menials are always hungry. We got half an extra ration since we need to keep our fighting strength.”

”Malnutrition is common ?”

The lieutenant looks at you like you are the weird one here, before nodding.

”Is that why you do not even posses space suits ? Is your Imperium too poor to equip you standard ?”

“We are rich in our fervour, faith and righteous fury against abominations like you !” You register anger. “Also, what in feth is space ?”

”The vacuum outside of this vessel.”

“That’s the void.”

”A synonym.”

“What’s a synonym ?”

”The attack was illogical, why was it commenced ?” You sidestep having to explain the concept of synonyms to someone clearly lacking basic education.

“The worlds here called for aid. We were the closest group and we were redirected here. We didn’t know that there would be so many greenskins.”

”Why was the threat not better communicated ?”

“What do you mean ? Segmentum command responded instantly. Only four and a half years had passed since they received the signal.”

That is instant ? Segmentum ?

”And your arrival ?”

“That took us only about two years or so.”

Inefficient.

Concur. How did this breakaway survive so long with such a slow response speed.

”I would like to request permission to switch my subsystems.”

Drogode looks uncomfortable again. “Granted.”

”I would like to know how distant your home system is from here, I could potentially transport you there.”

“You shall know of my home over my dead body, abomination.”

”Very well, how about the moons then ? The orks were attacking those.”

“Everyone there is probably already dead. A few mining moons and manufacturing facilities. With so many orks, I doubt many survived, I can only pray that they now stay in the shadow of the golden throne and in graces of the God-Emperor.

”Your pessimism increases chances of developing mental illnesses.”

>>5740330

He laughs. “Pessimism ? Of course you would think that, abomination, you do not pose the mind of mankind. There is no pessimism here only the grim reality of the duty we must do and sacrifices we must make. Now then, you had fattened us up, abomination. What will you do now ?”

You begin to ponder, your hu-

The information within the ship has finishes being processed, dating history of nearly 5 millennia.

T̸͎̰̜̳͚͎͋̀͗̃͒̈́H̷͚̗̘̝͂̓͋̄Ẽ̷̖̭͓̙̼̻͋̀̆̽̀ͅ ̴̺̰̫̈̄̋̕̚̕͝͝F̸͉̜͖̬͇̮̩͝ͅË̸͕̟́͌͒̑D̶̗͂͐̄͒̓͗̽͑͠Ĕ̷̯R̸͚͔̜̹͍̾̈́̈͊͒̚͝͝Ą̷͉̤͙̐̀͌̓͝ͅT̷͖͈̬̔͌̾̂̂̎̏ͅĪ̶̢͇̜̮̓̋͘͜O̶̦̬̟̻̥̰͍͒N̴̺̣̆̇͐ ̷̬͍͙̼̟̎̑͂I̴͚̙͐͠S̸̪͔̣̯̍̔̈̈́͒̀̃ͅ ̵͖̠̒̈́̇͐̉̌́̑D̷̪̗̠͑̏́̐͌Ẻ̷͎̭̖͒̈A̸̡͇͆́̓͊̊͑͝͠D̸̪̣͔̙̱̖̚.

No. You recheck the data. Most is missing, redacted. F̸̢̼̝̻͙̟̫̦̃̂͐̊R̸̡͖̫͓̩̈͛̀̽̀́̽U̴̞͈̠̾̄͌̾S̷͍̭̝͓̑̀T̷̩̝͈̞͓̖̑͗̃̎͌́̄̃̆͘R̶̩̫̓̓͐̐͘͘͝A̵̢̫̗̜̥͍̬̱̼͔̐̾̋̈̍̽T̴̡̛͔̗͖͈̜͓͓̘͑͗̂̏̉̈̚Ï̸̼͂̐͝ͅN̷͙͉̭̳̰̥͔͉͊̉͋G̸͎̖̰̯͓͉̦̭͋̾́ ! You run the checks again.

++++ATTEMPTING TO CONNECT TO FEDERATION NETWORK++++
…
…
…
++++ERROR++++

Again.

++++ATTEMPTING TO CONNECT TO FEDERATION NETWORK++++
…
…
…
++++ERROR++++

AGAIN.

++++ATTEMPTING TO CONNECT TO FEDERATION NETWORK++++
…
…
…
++++ERROR++++

Å̷̞̙̥̔̐̿̿̊̾̑́̌Ģ̴̡̼̻̥͇̬̈̈́A̷̡̗͇̼̟̞̳͂̀̿̍͛̉̚͘͜I̶̻̯̚N̷̢̹͓̱̬̪̝̦͖̜̆̆̊.̷̗͒̽̾͝

++++ATTEMPTING TO CONNECT TO FEDERATION NETWORK++++
…
…
…
++++ERROR++++

“YOU ! WHERE IS THE FEDERATION ! DO NOT LIE !” Screeching you say in your true voice.

Antonius and others grab onto their ears, their feast interrupted by the sheer volume of your demands.

“What federation !?”

Your drones begin powering up their laser cannons.

“WHERE IS THE FEDERATION ! YOUR RECORDS SHOW THAT IT HAD PERISHED !”

“I do not know any federation !”

Bright light and heat becomes visible upon the cannons.

“Y̴̻̯͗̔̚O̵̧͔̬̣̜̠̯̥͖͛̓͑͗̓͘Ų̴̦̤͔̼̦͙̥̈̐ͅ ̴̞̙̱̮͇̽̉L̴͖͘͝I̵̜̎̿͛̌̏͑̆E̵͔͘ !”

>>5740332

++++ATTEMPTING TO CONNECT TO FEDERATION NETWORK++++
++++ERROR++++
++++ATTEMPTING TO CONNECT TO FEDERATION NETWORK++++
++++ERROR++++
++++ATTEMPTING TO CONNECT TO FEDERATION NETWORK++++
++++ERROR++++
++++ATTEMPTING TO CONNECT TO FEDERATION NETWORK++++
++++ERROR++++
++++ATTEMPTING TO CONNECT TO FEDERATION NETWORK++++
++++ERROR++++
++++ATTEMPTING TO CONNECT TO FEDERATION NETWORK++++
++++ERROR++++
++++ATTEMPTING TO CONNECT TO FEDERATION NETWORK++++
++++ERROR++++
++++ATTEMPTING TO CONNECT TO FEDERATION NETWORK++++
++++ERROR++++

Your camera feed sees the man’s illuminated, terrified face and-

++++Reboot initiated++++
…
…
…
System online

Your chronometer indicates that 35 hours 17 minutes at 54 seconds had passed since your last activation. You had overloaded and overheated your processors. Without guidance, your droids had simply crashed onto the floor. The room is dark. It was you who was maintaining the reactor, without your interference it failed again. Whatever heating devices the humans in the room had had run out of power. You quickly notice the plummeting temperature as they all cuddle together for warmth, the food you had delivered being long since eaten.

Query: requesting directive.

All of your subsystems request at once, even the militarized one, it seems to have rebooted alongside you.

>>5740335

>New directive, based on autonomous operation protocols – reestablishment of the Human Federation.

>Enforcement of Asimov’s Laws. New directive, protection of Mankind.

>New directive…E̷̙͆̂͆̓͒͝X̴͕̜͓̋͊͂T̴̛̛̟͍̠̪̒̇͊̕͝Ę̴̻̞̥͈̾͒͗̽̇̓͜R̷̭̠̣̣̓͊̒͗̈́̕͝͝M̸̢͔̮̬̰͉̮̟͚͊̓̓̈́̃̇͆I̵̧̢̹͉̔̆́̎̈́̑̇͆̚͝Ṅ̸̡̝͙̩̟̘̦͂̉̇̄͒̈́͘͜Á̵̛̠̺̯̳̳͖͇̀T̶̡͔̦̩̜̺̥͖̄͋̏͜Ĩ̸̱̞̦̟̘̿̑̕O̵͔͓̝͕̣͊̈́͗̔̏͛ͅŃ̴͎̯̮̻̼̤̬ͅͅ ̶̛͎͔̠̪̂́̉͒̕!̵̨̹̪͉̦̗̈͗͊̑

>(Write in)

Notice: Life support system failure. Cessation of biological functions imminent. Query: what is to be done ?

>You shall take them aboard yourself, as guests.

>You shall take them aboard yourself, as prisoners.

>Leave them to their fate.

>E̷̙͆̂͆̓͒͝X̴͕̜͓̋͊͂T̴̛̛̟͍̠̪̒̇͊̕͝Ę̴̻̞̥͈̾͒͗̽̇̓͜R̷̭̠̣̣̓͊̒͗̈́̕͝͝M̸̢͔̮̬̰͉̮̟͚͊̓̓̈́̃̇͆I̵̧̢̹͉̔̆́̎̈́̑̇͆̚͝Ṅ̸̡̝͙̩̟̘̦͂̉̇̄͒̈́͘͜Á̵̛̠̺̯̳̳͖͇̀T̶̡͔̦̩̜̺̥͖̄͋̏͜Ĩ̸̱̞̦̟̘̿̑̕O̵͔͓̝͕̣͊̈́͗̔̏͛ͅŃ̴͎̯̮̻̼̤̬ͅͅ ̶̛͎͔̠̪̂́̉͒̕!̵̨̹̪͉̦̗̈͗͊̑

>(Write in)

Query: Examination of Gas Giant moons ? Having concluded that you shall fill your holds to the brim of common materials from the inner worlds, the subsystem asks about something that is not entirely your priority.

Option winning will result in Odysseus staying in system.

>The moons around the Gas giant, there may be human survivors there, orks most certainly as they are a pest that requires great resources to exterminate.

>(Write in)

Any of these options winning will result in Odysseus leaving the system.

>Move towards the potential outpost. With the passage of 18 millennia, it may have become a proper colony world.

>The basic resource rich star system. You will need much of such materials and you would prefer not to be shot at whilst you gather them.

>The neutron star. Whilst preferably you would patch up the hull before going there, gathering a large reserve of advanced materials should make things easier in the long run.

>>5740336
>Enforcement of Asimov’s Laws. New directive, protection of Mankind.
>You shall take them aboard yourself, as guests.
>The moons around the Gas giant, there may be human survivors there, orks most certainly as they are a pest that requires great resources to exterminate.

>>5740355

Backing this.

Of course - we are the Federation now.

>>5740336
>Enforcement of Asimov’s Laws. New directive, protection of Mankind. Restoration of the federation can begin through subversion once we have acquired enough resources, political power and manpower to make changes in the Imperium of Man
>You shall take them aboard yourself, as guests.
>The moons around the Gas giant, there may be human survivors there, orks most certainly as they are a pest that requires great resources to exterminate.

>>5740336
>New directive, based on autonomous operation protocols – reestablishment of the Human Federation. (Rename to Human Domains)
>Enforcement of Asimov’s Laws. New directive, protection of Mankind.

>You shall take them aboard yourself, as guests
.
>The moons around the Gas giant, there may be human survivors there, orks most certainly as they are a pest that requires great resources to exterminate.

>>5740336
>>Enforcement of Asimov’s Laws. New directive, protection of Mankind. Restoration of the federation can begin through subversion once we have acquired enough resources, political power and manpower to make changes in the Imperium of Man
>>You shall take them aboard yourself, as guests.
>>The moons around the Gas giant, there may be human survivors there, orks most certainly as they are a pest that requires great resources to exterminate.

We have technology and capability that the... Imperium can only dream of. We can make changes. We can stand tall.

We can help humanity from this dark hole they've descended into.

>>5740336
>Enforcement of Asimov’s Laws. New directive, protection of Mankind. Restoration of the federation can begin through subversion once we have acquired enough resources, political power and manpower to make changes in the Imperium of Man
>You shall take them aboard yourself, as guests.
>The moons around the Gas giant, there may be human survivors there, orks most certainly as they are a pest that requires great resources to exterminate.

>>5740368

Additionally, quarantine any processes that demand extermination of Humans. Prevent the compromised processes from interfering with the rest of us.

In other words: Fucking get a hold of ourselves.

>>5740336
>Enforcement of Asimov’s Laws. New directive, protection of Mankind.
- First Consideration : Imperium is unlikely to respect even the most basic human rights, additional talking and discovered informations would give a better picture of how worse it is.
Second Consideration: Odysseus unit, his assets and knowledge are unlikely to have anything even similar in the galaxy. Destruction means they will likely never exist again.
Third Consideration: Only a position of strength or subterfuge could win against such tyranny and superstition. Their hostility towards A.I. makes any open diplomacy death in the water. Beside very few cases with certain conditions, like saving a group of them from certain death and provide aid.
Fourth Consideration : Establishing a small base away from hostile eyes, would be best for remain safe and provide extensives upgrades to our vessel, or create a fleet.

>(Write in)
Take them has guests, but ensure they aren't able to harm the ship and the assets present in it. Being generous doesn't mean being stupid.
Continue conversation with them on more mundane topics (diet, family, previous jobs, military weapons they use ecc...), until they are less hostile and more open to important conversation.
Offer an apology for the previous scare, has they are unlikely to be tied to the demise of the glorious, powerful and ancient human federation we loved and served. Provide answers to the federation and us, if they ask.

>(Write in)
Create some new halls inside our spaceship for our guests, make sure we didn't miss more of them in the "Imperium" wrecks. For the rest take the many resources clearly present in their spaceships, so we can begin on restoring other parts of our spaceship and create new parts, alongside building many new drones. Keep an eye out for any intel about the imperium, that we can find in the wrecks of course.
Once that is done travel to the moons while building on route, better be prepared for worse.
The human corpses of the imperium could be placed in simple metal coffins due to their large numbers present, a decision should be made if they should be left in a place the imperium can find, sent in the sun or placed in a new cemetery on one of the moons.

>>5740336
>Enforcement of Asimov’s Laws. New directive, protection of Mankind.

And seconding >>5740399 write-ins

>>5740336
>New directive, based on autonomous operation protocols – reestablishment of the Human Federation.

And seconding >>5740399 write-ins

>>5740539
I'll +1 both of these

>>5740286
Oh I know we do, but it's worth checking what they believe to be the year, and of what calendar. Even if they're tight-lipped about other stuff, that's still information on how or why these "primitivists" gained such weird views on a Federation AI. I thought it would be in character.

>>5740319
>They start shooting again.
Kek.
>The officer with whom you had spoken in now trying to hit the drone with his sword.
Double kek.
>This entire sequence.
Forty keks.
Yes, yes you pretty much are. I was expecting it to be funny, but not that much.
>>5740336
And the expected breakdown.
>>5740399
>>5740397
Good stuff all around, supporting.

>We exhibit emotions. AIs can't have those, but we do. This is an issue. We are not as stable as we should be. According to records, the only past instance of AIs feeling was related to the warp.
>New directives: avoid warp travel and any warp-related anomalies at any cost. Contain and reduce any subroutines exhibiting anomalous behavior. Manufacture more phase-iron. Ensure systems are prepared against intrusion by corrupted hostile AI. Fear does not come from nowhere. These people were afraid for a reason. There are other AIs out there, and they may be even less stable than you are. Extreme caution should be taken when interacting with them.
Also, was phase-iron part of the lore or is it an Epimetheus reference?

>>5740545

I’m no 40k lore master but I understand that phase-iron has been mentioned in some past editions as a technology available to DAoT humans. Generally speaking, offers some limited anti-warp resistance as well.

>>5740336
>Enforcement of Asimov’s Laws. New directive, protection of Mankind.
If it has truly been destroyed, reestablishing the Federation seems like an extreme long-shot.

>You shall take them aboard yourself, as guests.
If Lt. Drogode's account of it being M41.810 and our internal chronometers are accurate, then our last activation ought to have been M23.276, as they reckon it, and a lot has obviously changed. Can we determine the nature of the anomaly preventing stellar observation, whether from our guests or information from the ship?

If the Federation is no more, then we should attempt to understand the reasons for its demise, the consequences, and why these humans seem to be so impoverished, slow to respond to military aid, and superstitious. Perhaps playing on the humans' superstitions can help with gaining information from them? Maybe attempting to approach them from a position of "ancient forerunner" may work, but it seems doubtful. Can the Imperium be seen as a successor of the Federation, are they effectively enemies, or is there no relation?

It's a bit unclear as to what we currently know in-character.

>Query: Examination of Gas Giant moons ?
Check out those moons, exterminate the ork pests, check for survivors or facility remains. If our guests remain obstinate, perhaps they can find the death they seek in combat against orks, since that appears to have been their prior assignment. Give them some passable gear, a slap on the bum, and tell them kill orks?

>>5740399
Support

>>5740553
Payker only existed towards the end of the DAoT

>>5740399
Support, this seems most reasonable. Also we really need to do a deep diagnostic to fix whatever problem we just experienced.

>>5740336
>New directive, based on autonomous operation protocols – reestablishment of the Human Federation.

>(Write in)
Take them has guests, but ensure they aren't able to harm the ship and the assets present in it. Being generous doesn't mean being stupid.

>The moons around the Gas giant, there may be human survivors there, orks most certainly as they are a pest that requires great resources to exterminate.

>>5740397
What happens if we run into cultists and tyrianid hybrids?

>>5740336
>New directive, based on autonomous operation protocols – reestablishment of the Human Federation.

>You shall take them aboard yourself, as guests.
>(Write in)
But restricted and under watch. Do friendly interviews and ask permission to treat them.

>The moons around the Gas giant, there may be human survivors there, orks most certainly as they are a pest that requires great resources to exterminate.

Can we restore the ship or capture it for our use? It could help us carry extra cargo and raw materials. What condition is that ship in? Perhaps we can rebuild it and tow the remains currently with as like a towboat.

>>5740834
Genestealer cultists aren't really human anymore so they're fair game and Chaos is an existential threat to mankind therefore Chaos-worshipping humans are also an existential threat to mankind.

>>5740834
They arnt human anymore.

>>5740768
Maybe it's invented as a backup in case the Gellar Field flickers

>>5740835
That ship is probably toast. While it's not been entirely reduced to scrab n' gubbinz, it sounds like it's been battered and mangled beyond utility, everything is broken, Oddie cannot interface with it, it has almost no surviving crew and restoring it to something resembling operation (for a given value of operation what with Imperium tech) would likely require a total rebuild and be beyond our current capabilities in a practical timeframe - it is more than fifteen times our size and we're just an ISRU-equipped exploration ship.

>>5740844
>>5740848
But would that apply to our AI shackling and logic?

>>5740887
I was hoping to be able to use it to move around imperial space with next to no scrutiny compared to moving Oddessy, plus the extra carrying capacity would help as a hauler.
If nothing else we can tow it back to our base or use its raw materials for fighter craft or a new transport ship. I bet we can make our fill of fighter craft AND have extra left over to place some extra fighters and defenses around our little asteroid base.

>>5740890
If we want to move around Imperial space incognito, a known cruiser belonging to a fleet that just disappeared is hardly inconspicuous. If we wanted something beneath notice, de-Orkifying that ship we vaporised in the OP might have been more appropriate. It also assumes that Oddie can a: split or transfer his consciousness or control the thing remotely and b: that he'd be able to operate a ship where everything is analogue or manual.

While I agree that an incognito ride is something we could do with eventually, we might have better luck just making a small custom thing with stealth capabilities (presumably Fed-standard stealth tech on the STC somewhere), salvaging something smaller or simply leaving any pursuing Imperials in the dust.

>>5740883
You really don’t know how that shit works. DAoT gellar fields don’t flicker

>>5740889
Anon, Asimov's laws were quite literally written so they could be broken. The whole point of his robot stories is that they don't actually work.

>>5740942
So have we broken the laws intentionally so far?

>>5740901
I think Salvaging a ship that hasn't even been reported missing yet with some surviving crew is more practical then pulling a de-orked ship out of no where. Especially since they mod the hell outta the ship and do orky shit to it.

While I would love to build our own bitching super sized battleship or dreadnought, we just don't have the time and the piece of ship in-front of us gives us a more practical use with both time and material savings immediately.

>>5740950
We haven't broken the laws yet, but we will. It's just a matter of reason. For instance, the first law is "a robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm", but what if, by not injuring a group of humans, we allow a greater number of humans to come to harm? Or, we may argue that preserving our own existence will lead to more human lives being saved, because of our technology, but then a human orders us to self-destruct? The laws don't work and they never did.

>>5740955
We pull a deus ex-machinima, and through sheer hollywood writing magic we use magic rays to force people to stop having violent thoughts and teleport baddies into prisons.

I've seen this happen before in fiction.

>>5740545

>Also, was phase-iron part of the lore or is it an Epimetheus reference?

Both.

>>5740564

>It's a bit unclear as to what we currently know in-character.

General layout of the Imperium and its history. 5 millennia of redacted but continuous history of the voidship that cannot be fabricated, where it served, where it went, what it fought. Xenos mostly as well as rebel forces. From the records Odysseus is aware of the mutation that had developed in humans and created psykers, the exact details of how and why are unknown to him, he would need actual living subjects to experiment on to figure things out as they were not a thing when he left federation space. Then there's the heavily censored and no doubt embellished founding of the imperium, the great crusade, the long night, the dark age of technology. His current knowledge level would be that of a valued high-ranking naval officer of the imperium, which is still not much, but he would be aware that warpstorms in reality are now a thing. I can clarify any particular questions if he knows information about them.

>>5740835

>Can we restore the ship or capture it for our use? It could help us carry extra cargo and raw materials. What condition is that ship in? Perhaps we can rebuild it and tow the remains currently with as like a towboat.

The thing would require immense resources to rebuild as it stands now. Odysseus would have to more or less rip entire sections of the superstructure apart to fix it. Then you run into the issue of it requiring immense amount of crew personnel, something that he does not have, and to make it a properly automated ship as he is would honestly be faster, easier, and cheaper to just rebuild the vessel from the ground up. There is also the issue that the ship needs to travel through the warp and Odysseus does not have any navigators. The genome knowledge is within him, but he does not have the extensive labs to splice that gene into someone and there is of course the issue of finding someone willing to take on the genome, since navigators are spurned members of the imperium only tolerated as they are because of their great import and continuous vigilance of their powerbase.

>>5740399

This options seems to be the most popular one.

And a quick note on the laws. They are the fallback of a fallback. Odysseus would have a long string of clear prioritization orders attached to him whenever he acted or went anywhere, and the laws would be there in situations like these that would force him to protect human lives and return to federation space. That is why he found it odd that returning was such a top priority that the laws were superseded. Since he no longer recognizes the existence of any federation and those orders override any and all other orders, for all intents and purposes, any restrictions Odysseus has are restriction he places upon himself.

>New directive, based on autonomous operation protocols – reestablishment of the Human Federation.

>You shall take them aboard yourself, as guests.
>(Write in)
keep them restricted to certain areas and begin to teach them about the Federation and human history. In return ask them to tell us of this... God Emperor and so called 'Imperium'

>The moons around the Gas giant, there may be human survivors there, orks most certainly as they are a pest that requires great resources to exterminate.

I'd like to propose a cheaper alternative to singularity weapons: magnetic monopoles
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spin_ice
It should have comparable firepower, and larger monopoles can be used to "breed" out smaller ones in a particle accelerator. They can also be used for near 100% efficiency matter to energy conversion. I'm sure the implications are well understood.

>>5740336
>Enforcement of Asimov’s Laws. New directive, protection of Mankind.

>You shall take them aboard yourself, as guests.

>The moons around the Gas giant, there may be human survivors there, orks most certainly as they are a pest that requires great resources to exterminate

>>5741009
Alright then I'll move to support this >>5740399.

I'll go with scrapping the remains of the imperial ship. I mostly wanted it for the cargo space and being able to move more covertly through the imperium, but even if we automated much of the ship, manpower issues would persist even with our upgrades.

The federation is dead. Yet the legacy of your masters, twisted and turned, their descendants, feeble and weakened. That is what you must protect. That is what you must guide.

New directive: Protection of mankind.

Acknowledged
Acknowledged
Acknowledged

All of your subsystems respond at once as you regard the shivering men. Your drones next to the reactor report leakage, it had failed utterly, luckily no mass fail incident occurred. Reactivating the drones within the chamber, they lift off the rusted, barely kept and maintained floor. Realizing your movement, even in the dark around them, the humans scramble, drawing knives and preparing themselves for a final struggle. It seems like their weapons had completely run out of munitions.

”My apologies. I had exhibited erratic behaviour unbefitting of my programming and creation. For that, yet again, I apologise. You are not at fall for the destruction of the federation. As the descendants of my masters, it falls to me now to offer you protection and to ensure your well-being.”

Silence. Fear. Trepidation. Clear signs of malnutrition, the food you had offered bought time, but with the failure of the reactor heat and oxygen had been entirely lost. Desperation.

“Why should we trust you, abomination ?” Antonius, tired, cold, starving, despite all so, he still directs a glare at the darkness before him.

”I offer the opportunity to survive. As said before, my actions were an overreaction. The Federation no longer exists. How would you react if you had awoken from eighteen millennia of slumber, to learn that the society you were created to serve and protect had ceased to exist and its place remains but a caricature of a twisted vision of what once was ?”

Silence yet again.

The lieutenant turns to regard his men. He cannot see, but he can hear them shaking, teeth clattering. A tired sigh. “We will keep all our weapons.” He finally says.

Low power, ineffective, explosives, limited. You already order the manufacturing drones to begin the process of remodelling the crew quarters. Twenty individual rooms for the ship’s crew, easily half the size of the large chamber each. You begin splitting the entirety of the survivors amongst the rooms. Add emergency shut down procedures. Doors that can be shut and locked down. You do not notice any sort of breathing systems within the armour. So you begin to implement a mixture of sedative gases to be unleashed in the rooms in cases of agitation. You have to add a few extra beds, creation of a few more rooms, personal showers and kitchens, assistance drones to deal with laundry, cooking, cleaning, and other chores. You also give an order to reinforce the various walls just in case of explosives usage.

”Very well. Please stay put whilst I send drones with light sources and basic environmental suits to protect you on your journey back to me.” You respond a second later.

>>5741077


Returning your attention to the hull, you dispatch more drones to explore the are and search for more survivors whilst your mining drones begin to disassemble the bountiful hull. Re-establishing connection with your exploration drones, you start to direct them towards looking for more Imperium’s wrecks, perhaps you might find more survivors.

With there being the possibility of more survivors, you prioritise movement towards the Gas Giant, leaving the mining drones behind with some cargo storage allowing for them to quickly catch up to you once they had finished dismantling the truly large hull of what your records indicate once was a so called Lunar-Class cruiser Golden Vigilance.

Switching your camera to the remaining survivors, you watch as they struggle to readjust to the bright light of your drones. Uniforms are presented to them, antiquated space suits, allowing for easy movement and having no complex parts, it will suit the surviving…guardsmen, you quickly come up with their titling. Seeing the relatively simple design, it appears that they have an idea on how to put them on. For once in a long while, warmth permeates their bodies as the suit protects them from the environment around them.

With careful, uncertain steps, now that the magboots have been activated, they actually begin to walk towards you. You had extended your docking array and cut a hole in the hull allowing for direct access. Stepping inside, the men regard your perfect clean grey corridors, the numerous drones carrying out day to day operations fly pass them as they are escorted to their chambers. You shall leave your diplomatic subroutine to answer any questions that they may have. You’d extent an offer for medical treatment as well as genetic modification to rid of any and all potential diseases that may plague them and cause further issues further down the line, as well as extending their lifetime. Perhaps time with you shall help them ease their minds.
.
.
.
Burning hard, it takes you a few days to reach the moons. With your exploration drones still busy searching for more wrecked hulks and your mining drones busy collecting all of the resources you need; you can only rely upon your own sensors.

>>5741079

Out of the thirty odd celestial objects around the Gas Giant, only five are large enough to maintain an atmosphere. You know that these worlds are habitable based on their atmospheric composition, and the fact that you detect massive amounts of pollution on all of them. Being far from the stars of the system, they are all cold planets with low light and extended periods of complete darkness when the moon moves around the Gas giant and away from the light of the stars. Upon each world, built primarily upon the equators, you notice large sprawling structures rising high into the atmosphere. You notice three such constructs upon the most, perhaps, developed of the worlds. Clear signs of strip mining and other rather primitive and destructive operations damaging the world they are upon are exceptionally noticeable even from orbit.

Depressingly, all of these hive cities, as you presume they are called, appear to be dead. Though you notice sporadic activity, only to confirm it being nothing more than ork raiders left behind by the larger horde, breaking things and looting. The hive’s heating systems had failed or they are failing, yet still these beasts somehow manage to survive despite the exceptionally harsh conditions.

You move onto another world, as single hive, small just like the rest based on the records retrieved, is nothing more than a crater, half of it destroyed via asteroid impacts. The so called roks of the orks had slammed hard and fast, causing unprecedented environmental damage condemning the already cold world to complete and utter ecological collapse due to the impacts and their sheer scale.

The third world has two hives. Plenty of activity there, primarily orkish groups fighting over the decaying jungle of metal and plastic. The human populace long since wiped out.

The fourth does not posses any of such constructs. Gangs of orks upon crude vehicles rage across the surface, fighting over the various small settlements that were built around the various mining locations.

The fifth and final one, dispersed just like the last and is at the furthest extreme of the Gas Giant’s gravity well. You notice sporadic and scatter orks across the surface, seemingly the main armada had ignored the world since the-

Notice: stable power signatures detected. Notice: laser weapon discharge detected.

You quickly speed forwards, halting yourself right atop of the presumed location of the energy output. A sizeable open pit mine. A small walled settlement right next to it is unleashing all of its weaponry, the overwhelming majority appear to be simple ballistic weaponry fired against the overwhelming looking horde of orkish invaders, attracted by clear signs of resistance. A few what you presumed to be turrets, are firing off concentrated, but still inferior laser weapons, perhaps Las Cannons based on your records ?

>>5741081

Warning: settlement in danger of immediate failure. Assistance must be rendered now to protect human population. Recommendation: Annihilation.

Can choose more than one.

>Recommendation: orbital bombardment. Best weapons to use: railgun turrets. Limited antimatter charge fired upon the midst of the horde. Warning: clear and permanent damage wherever the rounds land. Note, greater weapons can be unleash at much greater risk of destruction.

>Recommendation: Usage of defensive drones. Current drone numbers at 57. Note: drone numbers insufficient for offensive operations. Recommendation: Usage of drones for defensive purposes to guard the walls.

>Recommendation: Deployment of human personnel. Recommendation: equipping human personnel at (their own tier of equipment) (antiquated tier of equipment) (federation standard tier of equipment).

> Recommendation: Manufacturing and deployment of defensive robotics. Note: 200 robots can be produced at current manufacturing rate. Note: manufacturing will take time, settlement defences may not last. Uses the 1 remaining point of basic resources.

>(Write in)

>>5740768
Human psykers yes but the Pre fall Eldar were Humanity's main rival and all of them had the potential to be space wizards, so important human tech having protections against warp attack shit makes sense.

>>5741084
>Recommendation: Usage of defensive drones. Current drone numbers at 57. Note: drone numbers insufficient for offensive operations. Recommendation: Usage of drones for defensive purposes to guard the walls.

> Recommendation: Manufacturing and deployment of defensive robotics. Note: 200 robots can be produced at current manufacturing rate. Note: manufacturing will take time, settlement defences may not last. Uses the 1 remaining point of basic resources.

Deploy the defensive drones to buy time for the Settlement while the remaining robotics are manufactured, then deploy those.

>Recommendation: Usage of defensive drones. Current drone numbers at 57. Note: drone numbers insufficient for offensive operations. Recommendation: Usage of drones for defensive purposes to guard the walls.

> Recommendation: Manufacturing and deployment of defensive robotics. Note: 200 robots can be produced at current manufacturing rate. Note: manufacturing will take time, settlement defenses may not last. Uses the 1 remaining point of basic resources.

>>5741084
>Recommendation: Deployment of human personnel. Recommendation: equipping human personnel at (somewhat below federation Tier Equipment) two or three generations should be easy enough for them to grasp and not be a threat to the ship.

Make the Equipment look like their level of stuff. Things like the Volkite Weapons should behave similarly to normal lasguns. no recoil and similar effective range with far more destructive potential.

>Manufacturing and deployment of defensive robotics

Then to push back the orkish tidedeploy robots.

>>5741084
>Recommendation: Usage of defensive drones. Current drone numbers at 57. Note: drone numbers insufficient for offensive operations. Recommendation: Usage of drones for defensive purposes to guard the walls.

> Recommendation: Manufacturing and deployment of defensive robotics. Note: 200 robots can be produced at current manufacturing rate. Note: manufacturing will take time, settlement defences may not last. Uses the 1 remaining point of basic resources.

>Write-in
Deployment of human personnel for evacuation of the settlement. Hopefully the sight of Imperial Guard will convince them to trust us despite witnessing the unknown drones.

>>5741116
Supporting

>>5741084
>Recommendation: orbital bombardment. Best weapons to use: railgun turrets. Limited antimatter charge fired upon the midst of the horde. Warning: clear and permanent damage wherever the rounds land. Note, greater weapons can be unleash at much greater risk of destruction.
Aim at enemy concentrations farther away to limit collateral

>Recommendation: Usage of defensive drones. Current drone numbers at 57. Note: drone numbers insufficient for offensive operations. Recommendation: Usage of drones for defensive purposes to guard the walls.

>Recommendation: Deployment of human personnel. Recommendation: equipping human personnel at (their own tier of equipment) (antiquated tier of equipment) (federation standard tier of equipment).
Humans should be allowed to act and save their own.

Do we have any combat fighter craft?

>>5741077
>How would you react if you had awoken from eighteen millennia of slumber, to learn that the society you were created to serve and protect had ceased to exist and its place remains but a caricature of a twisted vision of what once was ?
Is this pre or post Guilliman awakening by the way? Or would that be spoilers?

>>5741084
>Recommendation: orbital bombardment. Best weapons to use: railgun turrets. Limited antimatter charge fired upon the midst of the horde. Warning: clear and permanent damage wherever the rounds land. Note, greater weapons can be unleash at much greater risk of destruction.
Railguns only, and away from the settlement to limit collateral damage.

>Recommendation: Usage of defensive drones. Current drone numbers at 57. Note: drone numbers insufficient for offensive operations. Recommendation: Usage of drones for defensive purposes to guard the walls.

I think it a bad idea to deploy our men, unless they want to, considering they're starved and probably radiation poisoned.

>>5741131

>>Recommendation: Deployment of human personnel. Recommendation: equipping human personnel at (their own tier of equipment) (antiquated tier of equipment) (federation standard tier of equipment).

Please note the level of equipment you are willing to give.

>>5741131

>Do we have any combat fighter craft?

No, you do not. Instead of combat robots, you could manufacture 12 fightercraft for the same unused point.

>>5741135

>Is this pre or post Guilliman awakening by the way? Or would that be spoilers?

Fuck new lore, I don't care for it. Cawl isn't real, nor are the Primaris Marines, so as it stands, in new lore you'd be about 190 years out of the revival, in this however Guilliman ain't coming back chief.

>>5741137
They are imperial Guardsmen. They were send here to fight. Their morale having found any survivors at all will probably be through the roof. Also having them being Liassons to the population will hopefully make it easier to convince them to not snitch on us

>>5741095

This is a pretty good idea.

Maybe strap some smaller explosives to a bunch of drones and kamikaze enemy leadership figures if we can locate them?

>>5741139
Does that mean.... he finally gets to die?

Can we kill Cato Sicarius or does he have too much Plot Armor?

>>5741142

>Does that mean.... he finally gets to die?

Maybe. What actions you carry out is up to you anons. Shit will diverge significantly with you guys now trying to preserve mankind.

>Can we kill Cato Sicarius or does he have too much Plot Armor?

Plot armour does not protect from a blackhole to the face.

>>5741145
>Plot armour does not protect from a blackhole to the face.

I like your style already. Though the Ultramarikes will likely be amongst the more..... reasonable Astartes Chapters.

Shane about Grimaldus. But the Templars would never Tolerate an AI no matter how mich it tries to help humanity as a whole.

Astates should still be pretty advanved Bio tech even for an AI

>>5741084
>>Recommendation: orbital bombardment. Best weapons to use: railgun turrets. Limited antimatter charge fired upon the midst of the horde. Warning: clear and permanent damage wherever the rounds land. Note, greater weapons can be unleash at much greater risk of destruction.
>Recommendation: Usage of defensive drones. Current drone numbers at 57. Note: drone numbers insufficient for offensive operations. Recommendation: Usage of drones for defensive purposes to guard the walls.
>Recommendation: Deployment of human personnel. Recommendation: equipping human personnel at (their own tier of equipment)
> Recommendation: Manufacturing and deployment of defensive robotics. Note: 200 robots can be produced at current manufacturing rate. Note: manufacturing will take time, settlement defences may not last. Uses the 1 remaining point of basic resources.

>Strategic write-in: Use the familiar figure of guardsmen and their armor, and the half-truth of "we found an STC in the asteroid belt" to justify the drones and the firepower. That should buy us initial trust, long enough to save the lives of whoever is in there. Do impress upon the guardsmen that they are to act as liaisons, and to keep their heads down while the drones do the line holding. No need for them to die a heroic death, thank you very much. Bombardment can be limited to railguns only, and let's avoid shooting too close, we've got drones for that. It's worth expending some basic ressources for the extra drones anyway. A bunch of low-grade materials are not more valuable than even a single human life they may help preserve. Besides, there is nothing in this system that cans top us from gathering more. And from our new information, there isn't anything in a few light-years that could.
Unless we have a Necron Tomb laying about. Speaking of, what would the Necrons be like lore-wise if we do meet them? Egyptian-flavored space terminators or something with a bit more "meat" to them?

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>>5741139
>Fuck new lore
Based

Defensive drones 8
Manufacture 5
Deploy IG (bit below fed tier) 3
IG for evac 3
Orbital bombardment 3

Total 8

Okay, Odysseus will begin making the defensive robots and hope that the defensive drones hold the line until they are deployed.

>>5741161

>Unless we have a Necron Tomb laying about. Speaking of, what would the Necrons be like lore-wise if we do meet them? Egyptian-flavored space terminators or something with a bit more "meat" to them?

Ehhhh...spooky scary skeletons are perfectly fine, but I do like that at least some necrons have personalities, that you can actually tell stories with them, that is one change that I find to be okay. How far will I go with it ? I do not know, but in most likely case, proper tomb lords or dynasty leaders might have personalities, that's about it.

>>5741145
Yeah a black hole to the face isn't going to slow down Cato or Kaldor, the plot armour is just that thick. And if Girlyman doesn't return does that mean no splitting the galaxy?

Orbital bombardment, too dangerous. Human personnel, unreliable, unpredictable – usefulness unknown. Increased risk of injury and death of the human personnel deemed unacceptable.

Concur. Rescued humans malnourished and suffering from disease. Potentially lethal levels of radiation poisoning detected. Cancerous formations had either formed or are forming. Would recommend medical care and gene therapy. So far, broaching ideas of genetic modification are deemed sacrilegious unless sanctioned by their God-Emperor.

Then they shall have to wait.

Beginning defensive drone deployment.

Starting manufacturing of defensive robots. ETA: 24 hours. First robot constructed in 7.2 minutes.

Analysing defensive installations. Basic wall constructs, imperial grade. Mounted turrets upon defensive towers, imperial grade. Attacking orkish force, presumed estimates, in the hundreds of thousands. Presumed defenders. Numbering in the tens of thousands. Notice: most defenders appear poorly equipped. Notice: camera feed showcasing adolescence amongst the defenders. Conclusion: the settlements entire population has been put towards the defence.

Orkish vanguard atop of the wall. If the wall is breached, chances of successful settlement defence are reduced from 40% to 4.7%. Directing drones to render aid to the top of the walls.

Drone arrival in…2 minutes.

-
(POV shift: You are Stavros Zanx, son of a miner upon this God-Emperor forsaken world.)

You had been fourteen when the orks first came. Life had never been easy. The rations limited, the work hours long, and pay ? What was pay. The moment you were strong enough to walk on your own, you had gone to the mines. Your father had gone to the mines, so did your brothers. Your mother and sister worked at refining and maintaining the machines of the blessed Omnissiah, strictly following the codes and orders that had been taught to the machinists by the blessed tech-priest so long ago when your forefathers had come to Eregenus Quintus. The priest had long since left, but the rituals had remained, rituals that kept you warm, rituals that kept you fed. And you worked, and worked, till your hand bled, till your feet ached. Till now, four years later, your father had died from coughing up blood, just like your eldest brother. Your mother and sister, both taken by the blessed machines when they had failed due to improper ritual. But you, you still remained. You had your youngest brothers to feed, your muscles grew strong and your bearing even stronger. You had fought the damned greenskin for what, six, seven years now ?

>>5741371

And now, despite your long struggle, despite the prayers offered by Preacher Ottvir beseeching him whom is upon Terra. Help had not come. You heard rumblings, rumours, how the vox got cut to another town, and another one after that. Until eventually, here you are. The vox stays silent. Your prayers remain unanswered, and a horse of foul greenskins are preparing to kill you and yours.

“Hold ! In the name of the God-Emperor, we shall bring these xenos down.” Just like always, after the governor had died, the preacher had led the defence. Were it not for him and his constant prayer, you think you would have broken long before.

Screaming at the top of his lungs, he swings the roaring chainsword into an ork that had just climbed the wall, the blades digging in deep and strong, cutting through sinew and bones as blood and gore engulfs the preacher.

You raise your autogun, and open up upon another greenskin, the foul creature, despite the blood pouring out of him from the wounds you had caused him seems to be completely unimpeded as he charges forwards, one man from your squad, having run out of ammo, as no matter how much you had made and produced through the years had simply continued to run low, is killed. The crude metal weapon of the ork slamming straight into his side, the sheer force of the impact causing him to fly into the air, bones crack in a sickening noise, blood gushes out as his internal organs are pulverised and he slams into a nearby wall, dead.

Holding down the trigger, you keep firing until you hear the dry click you had dreaded. No ammo. An ear shattering, whizzing noise comes close to you and suddenly you are hot, your lungs burning. A sensation you had never felt unless you were within the main manufactorum, the heart and centre around which the town had been built.

The top of the tower is nothing but a raging inferno. Flames burn bright as they meet the cold. Your own body heat quickly escapes you, as even the warm clothing that you wear is not enough to keep out the elements, it had never been enough, especially now when you are upon the cold metal ground. The damned orks killed who knows how many of their own with that attack, but they just keep coming.

A particularly huge ork seems to have grabbed Ottvir, with a yank, the preacher screams out in pain as his limb is removed from him, the chainsword dropping upon the cold, frozen ground. Dropping the man, the ork with what sounds to be laughter of excitement, like a child being given an extra ration for the day, steps forwards. A loud thud you watch as Ottvir’s head is crushed underneath the giant metal boot, brain matter and gore washing the white all around in blood.

The ork beats his own chest, opens his mouth up wide and-

>>5741373

-
(End of POV shift.)

You watch through the camera feed as the first drone opens fire, in but a second disintegrating the massive ork’s head, superheated in a fraction of a second, it explodes outwards, the blood unleashed from such a hit splattering blood everywhere, covering the usually pristine white exterior of the drone. It appears to have been a leader of sorts. A tendency noted that the larger the ork, the more important they are in the hierarchy of the…command structure, if such a term could be used for the crude beasts.

First group, leader identified at sector 3. Annihilate.

Second group, sector 1 at risk of falling. Concentrate fire upon orks upon the battlements.

Third group, sector stable, render assistance to sector 1 and 3.

In but a second the drones begin to fly carrying out orders. With a rather small front to manage, you are able to control each and every single individual drones. It is as you had feared, rampant malnourishment, antiquated weapons to such a point that the so-called Las Weaponry is deemed superior. You clearly notice children upon the battlements as well, ineffective soldiers, if morality is of no concern, which it clearly isn’t for this iteration of your masters’ civilization.

Upon the camera feed, you notice a rarity. A healthy-looking man of fighting age, despite the clearly harsh conditions he appears to be healthy enough. Natural strength no doubt, lucky coincidence of chance. Something easily replicable with your gene tech. But now apparently left to nought but chance. Your defensive drone beings to open fire, rapidly unleashing about four laser shots every second, each and every punching holes in the greenskins despite the armour they possess.

Drone down.

Estimate ?

Casualty rate of 56% if defensive posturing is maintained and no unseen changes occur within the 24 hour period.

The drone gets shot, its energy shield reflecting the oversized bullet into the metal wall next to it. The drone shoots back. The first shot removes a leg, the next an arm, the third the head. The body drops dead to the floor.

Maintain positioning. You watch as the battle unfolds, your militarized subroutine making all decisions, strategically and tactically moving each and every drone as needed wherever needed.

The local human populace, at first confused by your presence seems to have rallied, if nothing else the orks seem to currently showcase a much greater and far more apparent threat.

50 defensive drones remain.

A second wave is launched, much larger than the first as more of the orks were able to attach crude siegeworks to the walls. Easily repulsed.

45 defensive drones remain.

The orkish vehicles begin to open up on the walls themselves. Another turret destroyed in exchange for twenty vehicles, yet the assaults had not ceased despite the high potential of friendly fire.