Industrial Commander

7

As time passes, things have started to get rather interesting. I was consolidating my own technology, separating it by category and documenting it separately, I had a decent amount of tech that I really didn't think were techs. But Stellaris tells me otherwise. Giga Structural Engineering and Giga Structural Architecture for example were two powerful techs that I had built on via trial and error. Not to mention Superstructural Engineering was an excellent precursor to teach the basics that would lead to Giga Engineering. But that was only two of the several techs I had. My factories had tons of industrial technology that allowed for the World Factories I had to be built.

Ah, but I shouldn't really be gushing about technology right now. Although it is exciting to realize just how much I had done. Some interesting things had happened since my deal began with the Systems Alliance. For one I had a second Starport under construction in Alliance space, I was also converting three more worlds into factory worlds on my side of space. I wanted my resource surplus back so I could fund my massive projects again.

But something I found fascinating was that people from Alliance space were moving INTO my Starports and starting to live there. Someone had let it leak that I had built habitation zones within the Starports. After word got out I've had random times where Commercial Ships would drop off a load of people that would rent out a home aboard the Starport. I was charging them 200 Credits a month for a habitation home. Two bathrooms, a kitchen, a living room, three bedrooms, and a small yard. Many had brought cats and dogs with them. It was fascinating to see. Did make me paranoid that a small animal would get caught in my construction lines on the Starport though.

I was training myself in the way of multitasking as well. I had slowly adapted my diplomacy drones to have a more natural looking style. The GDI Commando look was a bit more scary than intended, thus I had decided to work on the drones a bit more, and shrunk them a bit, and took to making something similar to the Murder Drones Worker Drones. The emotive visors and different drone style worked like a charm. Increasing humans' chances of talking to me. The disarming and cutesy style steered away from the uncanny valley effect while keeping the robotic aspect.

This also had a few side effects, it increased the goodwill people had towards me, as well as slowly converting my two stations to the center of trade of Alliance territory. That is of course, when the Citadel finally discovered my existence. I knew they wouldn't be in the dark for long. How did I discover them? Well, I started to collect and dismantle several STG drones that entered my space from the relay. Using what I discovered from those drones I was able to catch the STG drones that entered the space around the Starport that was being built in Alliance territory. They attempted to blend in with background radiation, but I document all sorts of events in data collection, every detail matters when it comes to Giga engineering, meaning I could tell when something that should be natural, isn't.

I am happy to say that I was spending credits like mad. I had been hiring humans for various tasks for the last few weeks. Apparently there was a ban on creating video games in Alliance space. I hated it on first sight, originally I thought this was an old law, maybe passed during a hard time or something, but nope. It was made after they had gotten in contact with the Citadel to prevent people from accidentally making an A.I. So I had a lot of people in the gaming industry migrate to my ports. As I actively encouraged the creation of video games, they were excellent sources of inspiration and data. I had been actively refining my code and increasing the strength of my firewall by using examples provided via game companies' constant battles against hackers and cheaters. I had also reverse engineered some old anti-virus programs that I had used to amazing effect.

I had been data mining old technology since the Extranet buoys were set up. Each tech I got was revolutionizing in its own way, and not just digital technology. I was able to completely overhaul my drones code, and increase their movement capabilities by seven times. I'm certain that the Systems Alliance was watching my actions though. VPN's didn't really work anymore due to the advancing technology. So they were definitely tracking what I was looking through. So naturally I also dived into degeneracy and downloaded a ton of porn. What? It was an important cultural resource!

Plus it would annoy anyone tracking me. Although, they would likely find a trend regardless, cause I was after pretty much everything pre-Element Zero. As that is what would help my current technology the most.

—

I was chatting with Lora, who had basically been established as the goto Ambassador between the Systems Alliance and myself, when it was finally brought up.

"By the way, True, my superiors have noticed that you've been going through a lot of old data in the Extranet, they'd like to know why you're so interested in everything that we had before Element Zero?"

Ah, they noticed the key point. "I was wondering if you'd realize that. It's actually pretty simple." She was listening intently. "Element Zero is a technological trap if you focus all your resources in it."

All our talks were recorded, so it was speech time. "You may not have realized it, but Element Zero pulls all technological development not related to it to a full stop."

"But we have been making excellent strides when it comes to Element Zero." She replied in protest.

"Yes, but ONLY in Element Zero technologies. It has taken over every aspect of your technology since. Not to mention it limits the size and scope you can build in. This Starport for example, it wouldn't be possible if I was using Element Zero. I would have to have near total mastery of it to make something even close to this size if I were to use it. Element Zero has affected you all so much, that what I consider Frigates and Cruisers are more akin to Dreadnoughts by your definitions. Your strides before Element Zero is frankly amazing, the amount of abandoned technology with promising futures is insane." I'm not going to mention that it also helped me figure out how to make artificial gravity. Don't want to give them too much ammunition to use against me.

"I see. So would you have rathered we just ignored Eezo when we were developing?" She asked with raised eyebrows.

I shook my drones head no. "Of course you need to use Element Zero. Fundamentally it is a jump starter to space travel. The problem is when you forgo all other technological development and make it your primary technology. I can incorporate Element Zero in what I've built, but it is a secondary resource to improve the effects of my main research projects." For example, using Element Zero on top of my Railspace Drive to shorten the distance between locations and make Railspace Travel near instant. Or reducing the mass of Haulers to allow them to land on planets and transfer resources without causing large problems.

I thought for a moment. "It's like Fossil Fuels for example. Humanity had been reliant on them for a long time right? Yet your race was constantly looking at alternatives. They knew not to rely on it to the extremes, You developed Solarpanels, batteries, windmills, watermills. Your race was constantly working on alternative sources of power. Yet after you got a hold of Element Zero your race stopped working on all other attempts of faster than light travel, My own FTL doesn't even require Element Zero, in fact it can work in its absence. But can humanity say the same?"

—

That talk started a craze on the Extranet. Many groups popped up with the goal of resurrecting old abandoned technology and improving it. I naturally instantly started to fund these projects. Although I'm pretty sure some of them were scams just because I showed if they worked on improving something not related to Element Zero, they were instantly getting a ton of investment money from me. Anyone that had proposed what I had been talking about had been shut down originally, but now those same people had an Alien A.I. that agreed with them. Which gave them a lot of courage to pop back out of the woodworks. Apparently I had resurrected a lot of old complaints.