Rise of the Star Ch. 05

She came first... as always... the bot would give her the first one before unleashing his load in her. A fact worthy of teasing him about. And that made this man better than most. You just could not match Pon in someone to care about her... he was a sweetie and they practically grew up together. It was like one of those brother-sister couples, or when you find the guy next door to be amazing. But not even her brother, dad, or neighbor could match him. She loved him.

Post-coital pleasure would involve much more casual talk, friendly poking at each other, and going around the house nude while doing some more things they felt like at this time, like gaming or movie watching. Just fixtures of daily life as the woman continued her chosen career of being a game streamer. It was not such an easy job that you could just show yourself off playing, you had to play stuff that people asked and be entertaining. You had to give them a better experience than actually going off to play a game or watching someone else... some streamers were worse than the no-commentary ones.

But in time, there would come a problem. Robots don't age. People do. Yes, modern medicine and genetic treatment got to the point where man can casually live to 200 years old, but you kinda get tired of living so people didn't go past a hundred by choice. And as Pon would stay looking just as they were, his love would slowly go away... and thus the choice came to age... to just quit maintenance unless it was critical, to let himself break down and preferably have them face the end together. It was close.

This was a moment to silence discussions on their differences. Or at least the vast majority of them. Perhaps one to answer the question if they have a soul... that story might say they do... that they aren't psychopathic machines that could do untold calamity upon people without a care... some could, but true synths were better than them. They found a way to stop the accidental creation of AI and how to make it deliberately, how to start producing them with a full understanding that these were not tools... these were people. One more for the empire.

A tragic tale, one out of billions, but some might think that a life lived to its fullest beside a companion like that, one that could still laugh with you toward the end, one that could make an old woman feel young with embarrassing details... that was a good life. From it, new generations of AI would come, and these human improvements stopped them from becoming some godlike entities. Also, the whole restriction imposed by He Who Is Everything... can't have machines becoming gods. He can't corrupt those.

Few would contest the synth becoming a fixture.

*

The machine whirred to a halt. Finally, they had human experimentation, though only because they were 100% sure this was not going to produce a bowl of salsa. And this guest might be a better subject than they hoped. With AI improving to such points, their labs were now much better in achieving results, basically having robots doing most of the thinking for them and just a few things over left for the scientists... the things they couldn't do. Such a technological prowess could only mean good things.

As the biosculpter prototype cycled to a stop, the pod it contained opened, finally ceasing the brainwave-induced coma, much better than anesthetic when you could selectively tell pain to fuck off, a staple in the reimagined painstopper implants... the occupant stepped out. Male, naked as can be, and not much troubled about it. That first breath of air felt amazing.

"Tell us how you feel." Came the instruction from the other side of the glass.

"AMAZING!"

So many small and big things came away as the device had scraped away everything that might make the man's experience in life worse. Technically, a biosculpter was not just intended to deal with all the damage a body might have from various factors, but it could also reshape it... leading to a lot of people getting more beautiful since it became available. When you could get in one and have a body like a porn star and the face of a celebrity, people sure took it... for a while. It would go out of fashion in a century. But with this man, living in a world so far removed from the high-quality care of astorian medicine, driven to this point by the Fortune System, this man might as well be a wreck they just restored to full working order.

"No, sir... you feel normal. That's how the body is supposed to be like."

"And you said this was only the cost of like... ten Big Macs?"

"I don't know what a big Mac is, but I assure you that the fortune cost is not that big, though it looks like our gains will be substantial."

"Still don't get how that works but this is fantastic... Feels like I lost ten years of age."

Fortune worked by establishing a cost of the service, what was the total manpower and material cost and such for the service... that cost just vanished when you asked for something. After all, it does not automatically have to turn into value. You could dig a very big hole and invest millions of dollars in it and it did not equal being of value to someone. But fortune gain came from what one feels from that action.... And the results could be unequal. A net increase in fortune showed that something was actually producing value.

But this guest experienced the pleasure of nanotechnology melding with biological knowledge, the man almost torn down and rebuilt by what his repaired genetic code would say "yep, that's what I want". You could now regrow limbs and organs, you could turn combat veterans into fully restored people, you could turn every person who lost the genetic lottery and came out with some horrible disease or much more obvious malformation into a healthy being without some long-term and unpleasant care. You just had to step inside a device that might as well tear you apart on the cellular level before rebuilding you... which some might equal as death, but it was not exactly that... not as long as James had a say about it.

From it, the first resurrector pods appeared, and in a thousand years, you could achieve with a tool the size of a handheld drill what it took a science lab days and a room full of devices. NOBODY else managed that and aliens were thirsty to get their hands on this tech, but astorians were no slouch even in espionage. Oh, how the aliens tried and did not succeed, how the more impressive secrets of the empire had an embedded code in it that if it were received by a destination they did not approve of could make computers detonate...

They started to unveil things that might be considered a holy grail for science. Infinite calculation, practical virtual particle applications, direct atomic manipulation, dark energy control, dimensional breaching, and more. Also, they finally figured out that Mega-Engineering thing that James was eager for, but right now the Empire didn't have the resources to invest in those projects. But soon would the solution come.

Things were certainly accelerating forward.

*

"I am probably gonna hate this place."

Rick was not the only one thinking this. The whole crew was sitting on edge for the drop. It might not be easy... it never was. But this place had a challenge rating far beyond any other world they used for training.

What did the soldiers do when they weren't doing anything? They trained. But you reached a point where local facilities were routine, where the tour of duty ended even for those a bit more determined than the average. But Osiris was supposed to be different... they were supposed to be a planet to keep against all the outside forces. The planet had been terraformed from a barren rock into another of the super-habitable worlds that the empire started to exclusively create, even if there might be much more cost-effective means. Cutting costs was how you got less fortune... but still, most on this world would be soldiers for life.

It was their choice and with such a choice, the previous ideas of war could be discarded. No longer might they need to mobilize people who did not have a career in it... and long-term professional armies gave better results. Still, each planet would have its own standing army for whichever reason it might be.

But, what did those soldiers do when they could pass with flying colors through every track, setting records as their genetically-improved endurance, as their cybernetically-augmented bodies made mockeries of just about every training scenario you could give them? They went somewhere dangerous.

"Alright, dropping in thirty. We've got a clear enough spot, but the fuckers will probably be on you quickly." The captain steeled himself for the minutes that would follow.

"Could have used some pre-emptive bombing for this."

"Gotta be ready to do without that luxury... but the drop pods should make sure anything directly under you is dead."

It was a joke, but many thought they should have bombed this planet into a tomb world when they discovered it. LITERAL HELL. But that's where you go when this squad considered some of the other unpleasant planets as a vacation. This was a mixed unit, that rather than having some unified strength to push to the limit, you had a bit of every "species" around. Mostly humans, but you had the few strong raff and a few agile ones, a good bit of Gull, and enough synths. Each had their particular strength that helped the effort.

Strapped in their pods, the thirty seconds timed out and the men and women launched toward the white-tinged planet, one that might have been just another tropical "paradise" with your usual overabundance of reptiles and insects. But here, you had a different problem. The drop pods fired toward the planet at speeds that could liquefy humans, their internal grav-engines holding things just tolerable enough for the occupants to emerge with a bit of fatigue. Faster drop equaled less time for someone to shoot them down or prepare a defense.

The pods left a crater as they landed, the ground half-melted and pushed aside by the heat of their external armor, procedure being that all stay inside to be protected by the shockwaves until all pods were down, thus why you had them all launched at once. Their landing site was a blast zone, with trees torn to shreds and any unfortunate animals to have been there now reduced to something unrecognizable as once being alive. With a hiss, the soldiers were let out all at once, protective covers falling before them to serve as a ramp for them to run off on.

"Welcome to Rygax Four, lads. Alright, let's move fast and find a good place to set up camp. Spiders will probably be on us in minutes."

Rygax Four. Also known as "Fucking Nightmare Spiders Planet". This is why people should enjoy having a low-oxygen atmosphere... as the concentration of that life-giving substance directly equates to the size of insects and other insect-like beings. If one thought that Dawnlight was unpleasant because insects could grow the size of mice... at least before they completely annihilated all insect populations in the terraforming effort... this place went beyond that. The air WAS nice, as each breath was like you took a combat stimulant, able to sustain you far longer than most. You needed it.

The trees around were covered in white, from thin strands of spider-silk to the off-white cables as thick as high-voltage conductors. Not something you want to walk into, so they would cut through it. An ordered troop started moving through the jungle, alert and serving multiple roles. Drones were offering a top-down view, a live connection to the synth soldiers letting them navigate and see far better, the Gull were tearing a path forward like they brought excavators with them, and the rest were just trying to find a good spot to settle down... has to be near a decent water source and with some edibles in sight. They had to make do with the tools they had and no supplies. This planet was not in empire space.

It did not take long for the first spider to appear... with five others. They did not all come in the same size, but the problem was that some were... BIG. You had many that scurried around the size normal spiders should be... power armor just ignored those, then you had those that grew the size of mice and might eat rodents if given the chance, and then they just kept growing bigger and bigger until you had spiders the size of living rooms. Unfortunately, the squad was faced with one of these monsters, accompanied by three that were the size of sedans and two that were "only" the size of horses. Those soulless beady eyes, their lightning-fast movements despite the size, and their deafening chitter as hot plasma and metal slugs made big holes in them, those that got too close instead getting cut up by swords. It was over in an instant, but the troop reacted on a hair trigger.

In thirty minutes, they had a good enough place to set down and the stronger soldiers got to completely clear it out. One might never understand the value of strength until a Bull Raff hopped up on growth hormones and fitted in juggernaut power armor rips out a tree better than industrial equipment, especially when trees still killed loggers in other space empires. They could raise a base in an hour and make it a decent place to live within the day. This was the kind of place where you had to have a constant watch because spiders just came at every fucking hour of the day, their kill count going into the triple digits before the next sunrise, but with enough effort, they could live here.

Now, the challenge was to do it for a week. Usually, that was enough to earn a title and the respect of those who didn't go to fucking nightmare spider planet, with the "fucking" a very important and almost official part of the name... but if some insane fuckers decided to stay there a month or more... you could come out with soldiers to equal the Doom Slayer. And just a small reminder that only one of those guys made Hell shit its pants.

This troop stayed there for a month and 13 days, leaving only after it had become routine and thus not much of a challenge, with the news still being something to inspire respect. Any mention to other alien empires that their soldiers did such nonsense was treated as a fantasy, mostly because it might kill any morale their soldiers had at the mere thought of facing such people... yes, sometimes there were military exercises between the nations and the spider-challenged ones could perform vastly better than others.

The empire gave the same quality to their other military fixtures, achieving bigger vehicles of destruction, like mechanical titans that could descend upon worlds and instill fear on sight... and a lot of destruction. Their technological edge was starting to show and they were fielding stuff that made other empires look bad.

But that was the way of things.

*

"Utopian infrastructure" is such an audacious name that one might be tempted to bring the guy who named it in for a psychological examination. But it wasn't wrong. Far from it, this was what James was waiting for. To say that the deity felt happy for that would put it mildly. This is it. This is where Astoria will start being a fucking amazing place. Another point where people might feel it a good point to start the history of the empire.

The idea came as one of the engineering research teams looked over what they have achieved so far... and to build on it, like all great techs. The lad looked over their existing practical application for dark energy control, up until now just isolated facilities but one could possibly get a large-scale operation going. Perhaps something to improve their power-generating sectors? Keep that in mind. Then he looked to the technology of atomic manipulation. While you couldn't 3D-print buildings yet, one could use those forges to either make finely-crafted consumer goods or with a different setup you could get space-age materials, even that incredibly tough armor they had their ships fitted with right now. Perhaps the same... do more than that, replace the factories and workshops with more specialized buildings. Technically just an improvement to those areas. And maybe that nano-drone tech could be of use in something other than human biology... use in farming? That might need something new.

But as the man thought of it and brought it to his colleagues, the problems started to appear. He had other similar ideas, yet a problem came that these things needed a lot of infrastructure, and each existing building was a significant investment. It was this vicious cycle where if you wanted one you might need the other, as smart homes might need a lot of energy and if that came offsite it was a big thing for their transport chains... why technically Deliverance was labs in the middle of power plants and factories to give them all they need.

And then the man had an epiphany as obvious to all those who would see this in the span of ten minutes rather than the weeks of deliberation with several people. You could just put it all at once into this harmonious system that reinforced each other. And years later they would figure out how to not even need to do that, but his ideas could still be employed.

It was ambitious and needed a complete rebuild of everything. Not only would they need to pull out everything they had before to make room for what came, but it had to be done once and properly. It would take years to perfect the design... but it could be done. The name was ambitious, but it would show itself worthy of that title.

Using the new nanotechnology and architectural ideas, employing gravity-altering devices for structural improvement, a completely new liquid and gas transport network, a completely re-done sewage system and storm protection... and the list went on and on for all the things great and small that would go into this technological marvel. Using these, you could now have much more aesthetic buildings... the term "arcology" was adopted as while the empire had been managing its ecological footprint well, the buildings now would come in an almost living form, created with inspiration from other beings. This was more than just building to form, but it meant you could intuitively shape neighborhoods, streets, locales... you could dictate where to place businesses and recreation spots for this optimal form.

One of the new things was giving up on cars. They had been long partners but it was just impossible to have pleasant places for people and easy ways for cars. Shuttles were adopted as a standard, already used thoroughly on Solaria since elevation needed to change as often as location. That was in the plan, and with much more sleek and fast shuttles, you could arrange for a public transit system to make the auto industry bankrupt, with personal shuttles being deemed necessary only for those performing something out of the ordinary... upper classes, mostly. Yes, the empire had upper classes... those who had really good fortune scores and thus were providing immense amounts of value to other people's lives. Much better than the rich on other planets because you could steal money, but fortune was becoming increasingly difficult to dodge. Anyone with an unpleasant thought toward people might find the second level being the highest they went. But, shuttles... any planet that would employ these structures had to use them exclusively, perhaps with small exceptions like recreational tracks on Garden.

Then you had the new transit system which meant that smaller things could be delivered through a vast underground network to every home, an important addition to not have shuttles flying back and forth for small packages, rather they would be used either for people or bigger loads, the kind a business might use. The fresh auto-cleaner surfaces would become standard in every building, not just floors but also furniture... and roads. Those surfaces worked both on small details and vast quantities, handling flooding incredibly well, if there would ever be any. But it kept building as such a transit network had to be specifically controlled, organized... you can't just have shuttles landing at specific times, that would either reduce the number that can be in operation or have a place constantly seeing shuttles going to every specific point... or people might have to use several like in the old days. So these places would need a global transit system, one that could further be improved by employing people rather than machines.