2.2.2 Literary adventure - Training days 3

<div id="i4c-draggable-container" style="position: fixed; z-index: 1499; width: 0px; height: 0px;"><div data-reactroot="" class="resolved" style="all: initial;"></div></div>I'm sitting at the lunch table when a short, fuzzy old man places a cup of what most certainly is not coffee in front of me.

"Thanks Ryan." I mutter as I take the ceramic mug in both hands and gingerly take a sip of the piping hot liquid.

"Uhhgh. thanks." I groan as the warmth floods my body.

There's a clomp as Ryan puts a second mug down on the table. I reach to the drink bottle at my waist and pour some fatigue potion into the space freed up at the top before passing it on to Chanim who takes it wordlessly.

The two of us take a sip in unison and groan happily as we sag into our chairs.

"So... How was it?" The old cat's voice rasps.

I look up from my cup and take another small sip.

The room is empty save the three of us and the door is locked to the outside.

"Sound can't pass the physical barrier, and the ventilation fan is making too much noise for people outside to hear." I say quietly under my breath, Chanim nods and the pair of us focus for a moment. The fundament of controlling sound is knowing sound. The old mages of Tamriel thought they knew sound and to tell the truth they do, in their own way, how to stop sound, nullify sound, distort sound. But what use is sound without someone to hear it, what is the use of speaking in the roar of a rocket launch or listening for a pin drop in a hurricane.

It takes a surprisingly small amount of energy to get lost in the background noise of life the universe and everything.

Chanim and I open our eyes, as long as we don't act against the spell it should last a while. Disbelief is ill advised.

"They were kind of normal. Kind of scary but as I got to know them they seemed." Chanim says.

"Just like kids." I say.

"They weren't kids, they were people Kinda Sorta good people." She says.

The old cat grumbles.

"I... They were Nazis, Spess Nazis. Baby Spess Nazis. Fucking hell... Just kids really but.. Fucking hell." I hang my head in both hands.

"I understand what you mean Alex." The old cat says.

I look Ryan in the eyes and nod slightly. "Thought you might."

"Yeah I'm confused?" Chanim says.

"Young people are stupid, no offence, it's just a Thing. Like, when I was your age I was fairly self absorbed, my life was school, parents, girls, hormones and looking back on the me then from now I was such a fucking moron. Not subjectively, for a fifteen year old I was fairly clued in on things but... y'know... I was fifteen. I knew facts like where food comes from, what to buy at the markets but only at the most basic level and I didn't really understand what anything really even meant, Why I was doing what I was doing or even what I really wanted. That's what the troopers, even Terra remind me of, teenagers who know the facts that they're told and aren't really looking past it to the hows, whys and wherefores. They are who they are and do what they do because that's who they believe society wants them to be. That's what the current society makes them believe they want to be, then they get to boot camp and the real fun starts." I sigh.

"I suppose they have more choice than the clone troopers or battle droids ever did but less than you'd expect. Children, crafted to be part of a war machine. Yeah... Shit's fucked." I mutter and take another swig at my hot, warm drink.

"You've seen this before?" The old cat asks.

"Yeah, Earth wasn't exactly a united planet. Poor bloody teenagers willingly throwing themselves into the meat grinder for a wrinkly old farts greed is pretty fucking common. Does it happen much around here?" I ask. I'm not exactly up to date on recent history, the empire hasn't been actively suppressing expressions of local culture and history as such but they have had historians be awfully revisionist on the history of the Empire and republic. The historians who don't feel so creative tend to end up in the gulag and those who are creative don't have much time for comparative societal analysis. Except of course as an opportunity to explain the inherent superiority of the Empire.

"I have seen it once or twice." The old cat admits. "This is the first time it has happened to me." The old cat smiles ruefully.

"Okey, I'm not sure if I should be offended or what. But what are you talking about?" Chanim asks. Presumably because she's fifteen.

"How stormies can actually be fairly nice people but be totally down with feeding millions of humans into ovens because their grandparent didn't worship their "God" the right way." I say dryly.

"You can't honestly believe that's actually happened." The girl says.

"Ha haaa. Kiddo I've been to Cambodia, seen a room bout the same size as this one packed waist high with eyeglasses, Errai's waist, not mine, not yours."

"What? Eye glasses, why would you fill a room with glasses?" Chanim asks.

"Because the dead don't need to see and you've got to put the glasses somewhere. Duh." I say taking a swig.

"You don't mean."

"Human history is a wonderful and horrifying thing, Three different nations in the past century that I can remember were precisely that bad." I breathe in and out slowly for a moment while Chanim toys with her hands in her lap. "Alright enough of this sad shit. I need to prepare for the expedition for a few days and I know you need to work on your restoration kiddo. However I've got an exercise I want you to do in the meantime, help you gain a bit of perspective."

"Imagine you are The Minister of Culture for a government. You hate people with scales, hate em. You want them all dead, all of them. I want you to put together two thousand words, not necessarily well edited words, about how you would get the population to go along with getting the scalies dead. How to make them want the scalies as dead as much as you do. You can censor media, books, broadcasts, hypernet and so on, you can write the curriculum of schools, you have a substantial budget for propaganda and your government has passed laws which let you arrest people for 'sedition'. If your plan is too harsh you will cause civil unrest, proliferation of rebels, rebellion, etcetera. If it's too gentle then it can backfire causing sympathy against your targets. Ideally your plan should be good enough that someone can shoot a scaly in the middle of the street for and I quote, 'looking at them funny like' and not get punished. You have three days to come up with a workable plan, talk to old people you trust and read up on history. Try to avoid using the hypernet too much."

The old cat regards me carefully and Chanim just looks confused.

"Okey, I thought your are meant to be teaching me magic. Why this?" She asks with confusion.

"That's easy, to fight an enemy you have to understand your enemy. The empire would kill the both of us if they knew we existed and they do mountains of other unspeakably horrible shit. This makes them our enemy, understanding the how and why of the Empire is the first step of fighting them effectively. If we do it wrong all we do is strengthen their hold, god knows that's happened enough. The Empire relies an enormous amount on the mechanics of hate to fuel cultural unity which is fundamental to maintaining their type of power. You need to understand how it works to best counter evil is to go through the thoughts and motions of how and why a reigeme does things from the perspective of the reigeme itself."

"I'm not sure I understand." She admits reluctantly.

"That's fine, it's why I'm asking you to do this. History books will have what you're looking for, it's practically certain, use Divination to track down the ones you need."

"I... Okey." She says before taking another long draw.

"So what are your plans for the next few days Alex?" Ryan asks.

"Well First things first....."

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"DQ-739, Welcome to your new workspace." I say, levering down the oversized administrative droid from the back of my Speeder bike onto the solid ground in the alley outside of my apartment. as usual there's nothing here aside from a few dumpsters at each end of the lane and the occasional buzz of a aircar as it passes overhead.

"Beedleboop Whiiir Chirple." The droid responds it's thin manipulators whirring with enthusiasm.

The DQ series droids are old trade federation models, built along a similar processing and technical backbone but predating the tactical droids mass manufactured by Baktoid Automation during the clone wars by a good dozen years. Compared to their successors their manipulators are weaker yet longer and more precise, their locomotion is five unwieldy wheeled limbs which can provide impeccable positioning accuracy and speed but are somewhat lacking in agility or strength, able to support the machines bulbous body but little else. The body of the machine puts me in mind of a Mister Handy from fallout save cylindrical instead of spherical with a single dome head not unlike an astromech droid at human head height it's two long slender arms sit on a rotating section just beneath the head.

It isn't an attractive machine by any means.

It's five wheeled legs make contact with the ground and the machine chirples happily as it rolls after me and I push my apartment door open.

This model of droid didn't sell well, As a class one droid it was more than capable for it's designed tasks but due to an incredible economic miscalculation it was designed around the concepts of modularity and upgradability, an unpopular concept at the time of manufacture as a stock droid on it's own was overpriced and under powered.

The 739 model in particular suffered this problem particularly badly due to a lack of external manipulator hard points for additional manipulators and locomotion options and a generally underpowered business administration base suite which didn't come with protocol or multi-language functionality out of the box.

This is somewhat less of a problem for me than it would be for other people.

"DQ, find a clear space and pop your casing. Let's see if we can't tune you up a bit."

"Wheedle boop." The machine carefully steps over the detritus littering my floor and takes a position over the pile of trashy tamrielic fiction I'm using as a coffee table before raising it's chassis to working level and popping open it's external cover.

The best thing with these droids is that their hardware architecture is pretty well identical to the stuff used by the Trade Fed during the clone wars, what that means is lots of parts are lying around. Millspec parts in their original housing and sometimes even in their original packaging.

"I was hoping that your previous employer was lying to me DQ. It appears that you don't have any upgrades." I say curiously.

"Bwirrrrrr" The machine trills sadly.

"Well not to worry. We'll have that sorted out shortly. Do you Hot Swap?"

"Neep Noop." It beeps in the negative.

"Well that's a pain in the arse. I'm going to have to ask you to shut down for a bit."

I watch as the lights blink out one by one.

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"DQ How are you feeling?" I ask, notebook and manual at the ready to mark off the diagnostic tests.

"All systems are Registering as online Sir." The droid reports politely, Personal interface module clearly functioning.

"Hardware Anomalies?" I ask.

"Several components are performing outside of specified parameters, power consumption for models increased by one hundred percent or more, no other issues."

"List Modules?"

"Modules A One, A Two, A Three, B one, M One and M Two." I may have enchanted a few bits before I installed them, six bits to be precise. It would have been eight but Destruction based enchantments explosively disagree with microelectronics.

"Good, That checks out, Modifications have been made to the hardware of those modules, unusual behaviour within acceptable bounds is expected. DQ, what are your opinions on the force and force like phenomena?"

"This unit does not possess opinions."

"That unit has a G series tactical appraisal module, two extra data processing modules and a KB series sensor analysis module. Assign forming opinions and general analysis as a primary idle task. Confirm."

"Primary idle task assignment confirmed." The machine complies without hesitation.

"Referencing unit memory, rumours, hearsay and similar to form an opinion on the existence, prevalence and mechanics of the phenomena known as the 'force'. Confirm."

"Task assignment confirmed."

"Provide initial analysis."

The machines head blinks for a few moments as it processes and rifles through it's drives for information.

"Current rumour and official government policy denies existence of the phenomena known as the 'Force' however historical accounts of Jedi during the clone wars and the existence of the imperial inquisition, both organisations founded around force history suggests official line is suppression of information."

"That's good enough for me." I tick off the next test on my list.

"Provide opinion on magic and non force supernatural phenomena."

"Non force magical phenomena not theorised to exist." The machine spits out immediately.

"Acceptable." I reply, ticking off the subject from my list.

I hold up my hand and a ball of light rises from my fingers, bright in the dim atmosphere of the room it casts harsh shadows as it floats listlessly through the air. I raise my hand a second time and a small ball or roiling flame sits in my palm.

"This is magic, it is a non force supernatural phenomena with a strange and sometimes counterintuitive set of rules and aspects. The books in this room are from a location where it is a well studied and practised discipline. You are to record each and every one of these books to a digital format, title it the Magical Database. In addition you are to search the Hypernet using your Hypernet module for any number of Dead drop services capable of storing and widely distributing the database in the event it becomes necessary. Be discreet, this information is highly confidential. Consider this as your primary active task. Confirm."

"Primary active task confirmed. Add to primary idle task?" The droid says coldly.

"Update primary idle task. Reference previous sources form opinion on mechanics, prevalence, existence and interaction between all known or projected supernatural phenomena and all known natural phenomena. Particular focus is to be taken on defence and protection against supernatural effects, disruption of weaponry using supernatural effects and expanding repertoire of supernatural effects at a given skill level. Confirm."

"Primary idle task updated."

"Good DQ. Now in the light of the physical limitations of your frame I have enchanted several of the components I have integrated into your frame, the ones drawing excess power. You may find details on general enchanting on the kitchen bench. The activation phrase for the telekinesis enchanted modules are Reach One, Reach Two and Reach three, They will have a range of five meters and a duration of ten seconds. Recharge time between uses is unknown. the levitation enchantments have activation phrases Lift One, Lift Two and Lift Three. They are designed to allow flight at a speed of forty centimetres per second for a period of fifteen seconds. None of these enchantments have been through more than cursory testing, the enchantment process was recorded on my helmet camera, analyse the recording, the effectiveness of your personal enchantments and form an opinion on optimal enchantment techniques and limitations of the enchantments. Set as secondary active task. Confirm."

"Secondary active task updated." The robot confirms.

"Good, perform full system...." I start yawning, it's long, loud and completely involuntary.

"DQ, State local time?"

"Local time: three fifteen AM sir." The machine states clearly.

"Fuck me it's late. I'm going to get some sleep. Wake me at seven AM tomorrow morning. Confirm."

"Alarm Confirmed. Good night master."

"Good night DQ, I'll be using sound dampening don't worry about disturbing my sleep. Perform full system diagnostics, disable Maintenance mode, conduct primary tasks. I'll see you in the morning."

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