NationStates Jolt Archive

Planet Mykonia. Once a world of beauty, rivalling pre-industrial Earth. Marble-decorated cities powered by clean energy sources graced the skylines, their technological developments making world-wide poverty a thing of the past, at last.

That was hundreds of years ago, though. Nearly the entire surface was covered in metal, now. Marble buildings had been replaced with more efficient, metal buildings, which worked none-stop on the various projects of the new Mykonian race. Some were factories, pumping out Mykonians are a high rate, bringing life to the world far more efficiently than any organic could manage. Others were labs, working on the positronic technology that fuelled their intelligence -- essentially, a hospital for dealing with damaged robots.

This world was no longer capable of supporting life. Due to a peculiar method of energy extraction, the core of the planet had cooled significantly, reducing the overall temperature of the planet. As well as this, the oxygen from the atmosphere was nearly all gone, having been removed to prevent explosions in industrial complexes. The thin atmosphere made the temperature even lower. The machines loved this; they functioned best in the cold. Organics did not love this; they froze to death quickly, assuming they could hold their breath long enough.

Regardless of the fact that the streets were now paved with plating, they were not entirely devoid of similarities to the old streets. Various stores lined them, selling various commodities from hardware and software upgrades to entire limbs, each with different functions. Various stores specialised in maintenance parts, whilst at least three of them actually sold robot-created arts. Literature, paintings and even music.

Humanoid robots calmly walked through these streets, their metal feet tapping against the metal as they walked. Some stopped to converse with 'friends', whilst others wandered between shops, browsing for useful parts.



H2-96 sat down on what appeared to be a bench, and looked around at the bustling street. He had nothing to do today; he was assigned to the ship construction plant in orbit, which had been shut down until additional mineral resources could be located. It didn't matter really; he worked because his race benefited from it, not because of any sort of currency or greed. That sort of thing was for the organics to worry about.

As though responding to his thought processes, an organic popped up from a water removal drain, pushing the grating to one side. He turned his head around, looking around. The organic Mykonians were very much like humans in appearance, despite their white hair. He wore some sort of breathing mask over his mouth and nose, whilst wearing goggles over his eyes. As he clambered out, he revealed a thick, animal-skin coat protecting him from the bitter cold.

H2-96 stood up and started to walk towards the organic Mykonian, as several other robots noticed him and stopped in their tracks.

"Greetings, organic," H2-96 said politely. "I was under the impression that your race was extinct. Where did you come from?"

"Don't call me organic!" the man shouted, his breathing apparatus distorting his voice. "Call me 'master'!"

The man tore his clothing open, revealing several glass canisters strapped around his chest. H2-96 quickly scanned them all and identified the chemicals within as being the ingredients for a primitive, yet powerful, explosive. He turned and started to run, calling the other robots to do likewise, but he was too late. He felt himself shut down the moment he was slammed into a metal wall so hard that he left a dent. 'Critical Error: Irreparable Neural Network Damage -- Shutting Down All Systems' was the last thing he saw.

The explosion ripped through half of that street, blasting robots so hard that they were shattered, destroying their positronic brains in the process. As the fireball died down, quite quickly in this oxygen-less environment, it left behind a scorched metal street, heavily damaged buildings, and the wreckage of countless robots.

A craft descended; tearing through the thin atmosphere of the world and pausing; the inhabitants peering from the ship; adorned in robes and mechanical implants; great gifts and living prayers to the Machine. The thrusters flared in arcs of blue flame; steadying the craft as it seared the earth with its fury in landing.

The figures salied forht; examining the seemingly advanced civilisation; nothing the bodies of many ruined mechanoids.
"Truly; this is a sign from the Machine God! Deus Ex Mechanicus; he is with us!"

H1-55 looked at the monitor curiously. A crime had been committed? Intriguing. There had been no crimes since the organics had been overthrown. Very curious.

He slotted his finger into a port on the side of the console and requested fire-suppression, repair and clean-up units to immediately go to the damaged locations. He hoped the casualties were not too high; that was a major street.

In the mean time, he signalled the necessary organisations to find out what had been going on.



Several medic-robots arrived at the scene, and began scanning for repairable robots. The carnage was full-on, with heads and legs and shards of metal littering the street. They found only one robot that might be repairable, and quickly shuttled it off to a lab for treatment.

They were about to start clearing the street when a strange craft landed beside them. Nervous, the robots scurried off, blaring alert signals on specific radio frequencies. Little more than large rectangular boxes on wheels, they could move quickly on the flat surface.

Shortly after, two mid-sized armoured vehicles came to rest nearby. One side of each opened, and ten armoured robots jumped out of each. They were similar to the normal humanoid robots; indeed, they looked like the other robots had simply been upgraded with bulky armour and weapons on top of their forearms. The soldier robots sprinted forwards, sliding to a halt behind the cover of several partially-wrecked buildings, and aimed their arms at the craft. Most of the arms were fitted with powerful submachine guns, loaded with several hundred armour-piercing explosive rounds. A couple of them were using rocket launchers of unknown yield, though.
As though on a cue, at least dozen fighters swarmed into view, coming to a stationary hover all around the craft.

"You will surrender to the Mykonian Militia or you will be de-activated," one of the soldier robots said, setting his voice at a high volume level. "Compliance is not optional. Murder of Mykonians is an intolerable offence."

"We have commited no crime..." The leader hissed; his flesh seething with implants; his face obscured by biomechanical tendrils; tipped with arcane maintenance tools and other strange devices. "We hav eonly just arrived; arrived in awe of the ingenuity of the Machine. We come from distant Chronosia, searching for the form of the Machine God throughout the Universe. We are the Machine Cult; the Adeptus Mechanicus"

"There are no crimes on Mykonia," the soldier robot said, annoyed. "Today, though, there is a crime. We reach this location to find an alien -- an organic -- vessel has landed here, unannounced, in the midst of the destruction. Statistical probability of guilt is over 90%. Until innocence has been verified, you will surrender to the Mykonian Militia. Compliance is not optional."

From the vessel stepped Skitarii and TechMarines; raising their weapons as they advanced; forming a protective semi-circle about the tech priests. Their great weapons glimmered in the halflight; their entire being perforated by these mechanical adaptations; showing thme as true servants of the Machine; the Deus Ex Mechanicus; their great and terrible lord, who they feared as much as their Emperor.
"If you try, then you will have declared war against the Chronosian Imperium; and you will suffera thousand deaths at the hands of Chaos itself, before your end; machine...You are not true servants of the Machine, it would appear, but superstitious, zealous, paranoid fools..."

"You land on our planet, in the heart of our city, without prior permission or even communication of intent, and then proceed kill our people, and accuse us of declaring war upon you?" the soldier robot exclaimed. "Fascinating. I had heard that organics sometimes have critical circuitry failures, but I never witnessed it before. I wonder, if we were to do the same to your people, would we still be activated?"

"We have done nothing to your people! This took place before we even arrived; we detected the explosion and notable artificial intelligence and came to investigate; now...We have commited no crime; but should you insist upon this insane course of action, then the Emperor's wrath shall fall upon you" The Techmarines and Skitarii weapons remained raised; unyielding in the face of the enemy. They were His Warriors; they would know no fear. Fear was compromise, Compromise was Negotiation...
Negotiation was failure.

"If you have committed no crime, your detention will be ended without incident," the soldier robot seemed to mimic a shrug. "I see no reason why anyone would refuse the logic of this system, unless they were guilty of a crime."

He raised the arm that had a weapon mounted on it, and used one of his fingers to point at a high building in the distance.

"That facility is a watch tower equipped with local maintenance sensors," the soldier said. "They are used for monitoring various aspects of the areas they cover - including this one. Any incident that occurred here capable of this level of damage will have been recorded as a variety of sensor codes. Your detention, assuming -- however unlikely -- that you are innocent of this atrocity, will last only as long as it takes to process the information recorded by the watch tower. Violence will only prove your guilt, and implicate you further, simply meaning your re-programming will occur much sooner."

It was dark underground. The only sound was the dripping of water, falling from the roof of the narrow caves into puddles on the floor. Some of the caves were not so dark though; lights were fitted along the roof of passageways, with cables strung between them. They led to the last hiding place of the organic Mykonians.

People in grubby white clothes milled around down here. Primitive-looking weapons leaned against walls next to them. They ate the meat of rodents that had scurried into the caves when the machines turned the atmosphere into an airless freezer, and drank the water that dripped down from the cave walls.

Three men sat in a corner, talking quietly amongst themselves.

"Did it work?" one of them asked.

"Yeah, it worked," another nodded. "Blasted a load of the bastards to bits."

"Good."

"When do we start phase two?"

"We need some plutonium. As soon as we have some, I can put things into motion."

"I think I know where to get some," one man stood up.

"Take this container," another said, lifting a heavy-looking briefcase. "It should shield you from the radiation once you have it. Bring it back here as soon as you get some -- we're not extinct yet."

The men laughed, saluted, and split up, going about their business. The man with the briefcase walked out of the cave and started heading through the maze of tunnels to find a surface access point.

The Chronosians yielded; the last remaining warriors and tech priests exitting the ship; the final one to leave tapping a button; a signal sent forth; a tracker activated.
"Very well, we shall yield to your justice and we shal be proved innocent. You shall no more reprogram us, than rework yourselves; the Emperor in his dark glory has willed it. He is the great power, the Ascendant Chaos; he is chosen and cursed by the Dark Gods, and no force will stand against his legions; made from his own flesh"

"I have no knowledge of what you speak," the soldier robot said, confused, after the Chronosian had finished his announcement of sorts. "We have no dedicated means of holding potential criminals due to the lack of experience in dealing with them. Ergo, the logical alternative is to hold you in our nearest Militia outpost until innocence is verified."

The soldier robots led the aliens away from the streets. The two armoured vehicles started moving of their own accord, returning to their base.

They led the aliens past large buildings with no apparent entry points and bellowing mechanical noises rumbling within. They passed through another street bustling with robots. They all immediately stood to the sides of the street as the aliens were led down the middle, watching silently and curiously.

The soldier robots finally approached a building that looked like a large, metal bunker. The door opened as they approached, apparently keyed to something in their bodies, and they led the aliens inside. The lighting was dull, barely enough to see, and from what could be seen, the insides of the building looked just as bare and spartan as the outside.

The lead soldier robot stopped beside a door, which opened as soon as he was within a metre of it, and pointed.

"You can reside here until necessary processing of data is complete," the robot said. "Assuming innocence, you will be free to leave immediately. Assuming guilt, you will be reprogrammed to repair your damaged behaviour. This should not take long."

The room was empty and featureless, apparently having been put there for a purpose but then made redundant. The door shut as the soldier robot stepped away.

Some minutes later, the door opened again. Two soldier robots stood on either side on the outside, and two more stood across the hall, on guard. A robot came in through the door, looking at the aliens curiously. It was apparently a normal humanoid robot, with no mounted weapons. It was quite skinny and had thinner plating over its vital areas, rather than the huge chunks of metal that passed for armour on the others.

"Assuming innocence... what are you doing here?" the robot asked. "Mykonia has been deemed undesirable for organics."

"We seek the great Machine God; he of steel and iron; he of the switch and the rush of the engine; he the spirit in all Machines. We are his true servants; and the Emperor shall avenge us should we be harmed! We are the chosen of the Emperor and the Machine God; and their wrath shall be swift."

He handed the robot a datafile, contained within it the history of the Imperium; from the moment the Emperor tamed their ancient homeland, and engineered the Primarchs; great superhuman warriors from whom the Space Marine Legions were spawen; to the great Fall, where Chaos ravaged the Imperium and warped its people...Forth through wars of aggression and conquest; to the Black Crusade and the burning of the organic world of Azaha Prime to a cinder...

"Intriguing," the robot cocked his head sideways, a very life-like gesture of confusion. "What is this, 'god'? I have no reference to the word in my memory. There are 'machines' here, though, as you put it. We prefer to utilise terrasteel alloy rather than iron and steel, however. I do not know why you seek out machines when you have already enslaved the one that you used to come here."

He took the datafile and looked at it strangely as he scanned it cautiously for malicious programming. When he was satisfied there was none, he downloaded the contents and quickly looked over them.

H2-96's eyes started glowing again as the repair robot clicked his power cell back into place. They no longer glowed a serene blue, though, but more of a shade of dull red.

"That is interesting," the repair robot said, looking closer. "The jolt must have done some damage to your optical illuminators. Are your systems fully responsive?"

H2-96 lifted his arms and legs, flexed all his joints, and put them back down on the metal workbench.

"Affirmative," he nodded. "All systems operating at 100% efficiency."

"Unfortunately, I could not repair the scratch on your head component without causing damage to your positron networks," the repair robot said apologetically. "Fortunately the maintenance units located and rescued you before you suffered total neural degradation. You may notice some minor functionality problems for a while, but once your pathways re-establish these should no longer occur."

"Thank you, repairer," H2-96 said, sitting up. In the light, a scar-like gash had been torn across his face, from his forehead, over his left eye, and down to his 'cheek'. It had been apparently welded, by very precise tools, so that it was no longer a gaping hole, but it was a permanent feature of his face now. "I will return to my residence and commence a full diagnostic. Though, I feel much better than ever before..."

H2-96 got to his feet, and walked out of the lab, leaving the repair robot to work futily on a pile of parts that lay dormant on another workbench.

**********

Mon Malra peered up out of what was essentially a drain, looking cautiously around. Good. An empty street.
He pushed against the sides of the hole and managed to drag himself up to the metal floor. Away from the warmth that was present deeper beneath the planet's surface, it was freezing - below 0° Celsius - and there wasn't as much atmospheric pressure as there should have been. He wore a mask connected to an oxygen canister to overcome the lack of oxygen, but no matter how thick his large coat was, he couldn't get away from the cold.
He replaced the drain cover, took one last look around to make sure he hadn't been spotted, and then sprinted off towards a large factory-like building.

Mon Malra had found what he was looking for. A sealed container of plutonium, which now weighed down his briefcase. He was carefully snooping around, trying to stay out of sight.

Several humanoid robots walked past the end of a metal corridor he was about to go down, not seeing him. Fortunately. He didn't know that all machines of this world were either sentient, or part of something sentient, and that they knew exactly where he was and what he was doing.

He reached an exit, and hacked a door open. He checked behind him one last time, and stepped outside. As he turned around, he noticed he was surrounded by soldier robots, their weapon arms raised and aimed at him.

"This could be a problem..." he muttered to himself. He paused for a few moments and then threw the briefcase in the air as high as he could and started running after it. The soldier robots immediately opened fire. Their weapons were loud and powerful, continuously firing at a high rate of fire. The recoil of those weapons would probably shake a human to death and certainly destroy any chance they had of hitting their target, but to the robots, it was just a mild vibration in their arm.
Mon Malra was chased by a hail of bullets, richocheting off the metal floor as he jumped and ducked. He caught the briefcase and started sprinting towards the drain he had emerged from two hours earlier.
The soldier robots gave chase, still firing continuously. And gaining on him quite rapidly.
He skidded to the ground and ripped the drain cover open, but he only needed to stop for a nano-second for bullets to tear through his torso and spray blood. The soldiers fired relentlessly, ripping his internal organs to shreds. They came to a halt near him, and stopped firing. The bloody body toppled down into the open drain, along with the briefcase.

The soldiers dispersed after considering going down there after him. A single robot remained, which walked up to the pond of blood that trickled down into the drain. An H2 model, only with red eyes. And some modifications, it seemed. His armour was now slightly bulkier than it was before, although nowhere near as touch as the soldier robots' armour.

He looked down into the drain curiously, and stood for a moment or two, pondering possibilities. After a while, the robot jumped and disappeared into the drain, beginning a fairly long drop down into the ancient sewer systems.