The Path of Steam - Part VI
Posted: Sat Nov 30, 2024 11:28 pm
50th Ash, 124
Though Stefan was worried that the secrets might leak out, spill into the minds of those who would carry them to nations capable of coming to rip them from him, he did trust Eitan. Eitan trusted in his Sentinel of Information to spin and control anything that was revealed beyond their borders. Beyond that, Brenner wanted out, and it was increasingly difficult for Stefan to deny him. The Sky Islands and Windworks were as efficient as the amazing mechanical mind could make them and Brenner needed greater challenges. Not allowing him to access the outside work would be a waste of resources, a cardinal sin in Zaichaer at the best of times and these were still far from those.
So it was decided that Brenner would be allowed to be seen in public. The story they would tell was that the genius First Minister had invented a new mechanical soldier who would be carrying out missions for Zaichaer that were either too dangerous for regular soldiers or required specialized attention. A lot of propaganda was spread in the days and weeks preceding the revelation so that the military and its brave human soldiers wouldn't feel threatened or replaced. The ideas spread were of cooperation between the human might of flesh soldiers and human ingenuity in the form of the mechanical soldiers. Enough Zaichaeri citizens had been lost in the fight and everyone remaining was needed to regrow and repopulate.
The campaign went over well, with only a few instances of reported complaints or worries, of course, not everyone who was angry or worried would speak up. Holding your head high and soldiering on no matter what was a Zaichaeri trait stronger than any other. But, so long as there was time for the people to see that Brenner would be a help to them, it was enough.
They made almost a celebration out of it, the announcement being made on the main platform stage accompanied by several speeches on progress and human initiative, all the while, Brenner stood in the sunshine of the open sky, quite literally soaking it in. Stefan had added a network of tiny Illumite shards he had bargained with Starfall for so that Brenner could collect and renew his energy stores from the sun itself whenever he was outside. There had been additional improvements as well. He was now directly aetherically linked to the growing communication network which would allow him to communicate directly back to the Sky Islands, or any military installation also connected to the network from almost anywhere in Zaichaer. There was also a beacon that would allow him to be located should he be injured enough that he couldn't make it back to safety or should he run out of energy without the ability to renew it to the point that he could no longer run his armored exoskeleton and the metal muscles underneath.
The first few missions that Brenner (Stefan had declared the line of research to hold that name, which meant that he didn't have to worry about slipping when he spoke in public. If anyone noticed that the First Minister was unusually nostalgic or sentimental about his newest creation, everyone understood his loss and what this invention meant to him personally.), or BrennerOne, as he was being called publicly, as the first of his kind, had been assigned were fluff pieces, meant to endear him to the citizenry. People should feel hopeful and safe when they saw the sleek bronze form flying over the city, not fear. So he lifted heavy debris, flying building parts into place where it would have been dangerous for a human building crew to do so and otherwise supplemented the workforce. Later, when a mudslide buried a set of mines, with the miners still inside, BrennerOne had waded into the danger, pulled out alive those who had survived and returned the bodies of those who had not to their families. A quick portrait of a little girl with one arm wrapped around her father's leg and one around BrennerOne's leg, after he had pulled the man from the mine safe and sound, made its way into every broadsheet in the city.
After that, must to the lessened frustration of Brenner himself who had chaffed at being assigned 'kitten in tree jobs' as he called them on his more human days, the mechanical man began to be assigned to actual military missions. Bullets bounced off him so he was able to rush into nests of anarchists, scattering or killing them before other soldiers came in to clean up and make arrests. He was sent to outlying villages when there were reports of mistspawn and no soldiers could get there quickly enough. A single, shining streak through the sky and then the corpses of the 'spawn' were found piled neatly outside the village gate by morning. BrennerOne was a holy terror to enemies of the State in all forms, and so long as outside forces believed he was an Artificed mechanism, they could work on creating similar beings on their own without bothering Zaichaer.
Of course, for Stefan, there was the problem of recreating the situation himself. He had not engineered or Artificed Brenner, so he could not do it again. People began to ask when there would be more mechanical soldiers and Stefan could only remain mysterious and aloof in answer. Thankfully, he had a reputation for being somewhat mysterious and significantly aloof, so this seemed to be working for the time being. There was no chance of more Brenners, so Stefan could only hope that people eventually came to believe that BrennerOne was a fluke of genius that could not be recreated and accept him as a mascot for Zaichaer.
Except that, one day, one of the members of the Order of Ingenuity came to him with a discovery. They had not been idle with the tiny bits of Brenner they had sampled, running endless experiments until they had a reasonable understanding of the nature of both the metal and the magic that allowed for Brenner's continued existence. Stefan had a good grasp of magical theory, but much of what they were trying to explain was in terms that they had made up for the new information they had discovered so it took a while before he could understand the information he was given. In some way, the metal itself was alive, Stefan had known that much, but it wasn't alive in the same way that a mammal was, more in the way that some plants were. When properly activated, and given the correct type of host, the metal would attach and begin to change the biological components of the living creature into mechanical components that served the same functions. In this way, a living being would continue to live with few outward expressions of the fundamental changes going on within. The need to consume metal grew significantly, obviously, but something in the metal was exceptionally good at retaining life energy and thus the need to consume other nutrients significantly diminished.
The metal did not attach to every living thing it came into contact with, in fact, it seemed to be exceptionally rare. The most amazing aspect of the transformation was that, once it was complete, things that would normally kill the original organism failed to do so. More importantly, at least to Stefan in the answering of the many questions he still had, if something came along and killed the organism while it was still only partway through the transformation, so long as it was more than halfway through, it could be revived. In the case of minimal deadly force, it seemed to be revived as normal, its biological functions returning. In the case of catastrophic deadly force (such as Brenner's case), given the correct stimulation of life force aether and other energy, as well as a way to facilitate function such as movement, the organism would return to functioning and exhibit behaviors typical to those it had in life.
The experiments had been done on several types of plants and insects, and, most recently, in mice. Only one mouse had been found, out of hundreds tried, that had been compatible, but its revival had mimicked Brenner's. When Stefan got to this part of the report and was able to understand what he had read, he had hurried through the little that remained before going to find the researchers who had written it. He questioned them at length and in depth and his line of questioning left little to be wondered in terms of his motivation. The researchers had been thinking along the same lines, and who could blame them? If they were correct, and Brenner's transformation could be recreated after all, even in very limited numbers, it would be a boon to Zaichaer. Soldiers who never tired, who needed almost nothing in terms of supplies, who could fly into any situation where they were needed within Zaichaer in a matter of hours would save many lives. And, when war came again to the Brass City and its citizens, as it inevitably would, the flights of Avialae abominations would be met by Zaichaeri mechanical might that they would not be able to withstand.
Human ingenuity would triumph. No matter how many times outside forces rose to knock her down, Zaichaer would always rise again, stronger than ever.
Though Stefan was worried that the secrets might leak out, spill into the minds of those who would carry them to nations capable of coming to rip them from him, he did trust Eitan. Eitan trusted in his Sentinel of Information to spin and control anything that was revealed beyond their borders. Beyond that, Brenner wanted out, and it was increasingly difficult for Stefan to deny him. The Sky Islands and Windworks were as efficient as the amazing mechanical mind could make them and Brenner needed greater challenges. Not allowing him to access the outside work would be a waste of resources, a cardinal sin in Zaichaer at the best of times and these were still far from those.
So it was decided that Brenner would be allowed to be seen in public. The story they would tell was that the genius First Minister had invented a new mechanical soldier who would be carrying out missions for Zaichaer that were either too dangerous for regular soldiers or required specialized attention. A lot of propaganda was spread in the days and weeks preceding the revelation so that the military and its brave human soldiers wouldn't feel threatened or replaced. The ideas spread were of cooperation between the human might of flesh soldiers and human ingenuity in the form of the mechanical soldiers. Enough Zaichaeri citizens had been lost in the fight and everyone remaining was needed to regrow and repopulate.
The campaign went over well, with only a few instances of reported complaints or worries, of course, not everyone who was angry or worried would speak up. Holding your head high and soldiering on no matter what was a Zaichaeri trait stronger than any other. But, so long as there was time for the people to see that Brenner would be a help to them, it was enough.
They made almost a celebration out of it, the announcement being made on the main platform stage accompanied by several speeches on progress and human initiative, all the while, Brenner stood in the sunshine of the open sky, quite literally soaking it in. Stefan had added a network of tiny Illumite shards he had bargained with Starfall for so that Brenner could collect and renew his energy stores from the sun itself whenever he was outside. There had been additional improvements as well. He was now directly aetherically linked to the growing communication network which would allow him to communicate directly back to the Sky Islands, or any military installation also connected to the network from almost anywhere in Zaichaer. There was also a beacon that would allow him to be located should he be injured enough that he couldn't make it back to safety or should he run out of energy without the ability to renew it to the point that he could no longer run his armored exoskeleton and the metal muscles underneath.
The first few missions that Brenner (Stefan had declared the line of research to hold that name, which meant that he didn't have to worry about slipping when he spoke in public. If anyone noticed that the First Minister was unusually nostalgic or sentimental about his newest creation, everyone understood his loss and what this invention meant to him personally.), or BrennerOne, as he was being called publicly, as the first of his kind, had been assigned were fluff pieces, meant to endear him to the citizenry. People should feel hopeful and safe when they saw the sleek bronze form flying over the city, not fear. So he lifted heavy debris, flying building parts into place where it would have been dangerous for a human building crew to do so and otherwise supplemented the workforce. Later, when a mudslide buried a set of mines, with the miners still inside, BrennerOne had waded into the danger, pulled out alive those who had survived and returned the bodies of those who had not to their families. A quick portrait of a little girl with one arm wrapped around her father's leg and one around BrennerOne's leg, after he had pulled the man from the mine safe and sound, made its way into every broadsheet in the city.
After that, must to the lessened frustration of Brenner himself who had chaffed at being assigned 'kitten in tree jobs' as he called them on his more human days, the mechanical man began to be assigned to actual military missions. Bullets bounced off him so he was able to rush into nests of anarchists, scattering or killing them before other soldiers came in to clean up and make arrests. He was sent to outlying villages when there were reports of mistspawn and no soldiers could get there quickly enough. A single, shining streak through the sky and then the corpses of the 'spawn' were found piled neatly outside the village gate by morning. BrennerOne was a holy terror to enemies of the State in all forms, and so long as outside forces believed he was an Artificed mechanism, they could work on creating similar beings on their own without bothering Zaichaer.
Of course, for Stefan, there was the problem of recreating the situation himself. He had not engineered or Artificed Brenner, so he could not do it again. People began to ask when there would be more mechanical soldiers and Stefan could only remain mysterious and aloof in answer. Thankfully, he had a reputation for being somewhat mysterious and significantly aloof, so this seemed to be working for the time being. There was no chance of more Brenners, so Stefan could only hope that people eventually came to believe that BrennerOne was a fluke of genius that could not be recreated and accept him as a mascot for Zaichaer.
Except that, one day, one of the members of the Order of Ingenuity came to him with a discovery. They had not been idle with the tiny bits of Brenner they had sampled, running endless experiments until they had a reasonable understanding of the nature of both the metal and the magic that allowed for Brenner's continued existence. Stefan had a good grasp of magical theory, but much of what they were trying to explain was in terms that they had made up for the new information they had discovered so it took a while before he could understand the information he was given. In some way, the metal itself was alive, Stefan had known that much, but it wasn't alive in the same way that a mammal was, more in the way that some plants were. When properly activated, and given the correct type of host, the metal would attach and begin to change the biological components of the living creature into mechanical components that served the same functions. In this way, a living being would continue to live with few outward expressions of the fundamental changes going on within. The need to consume metal grew significantly, obviously, but something in the metal was exceptionally good at retaining life energy and thus the need to consume other nutrients significantly diminished.
The metal did not attach to every living thing it came into contact with, in fact, it seemed to be exceptionally rare. The most amazing aspect of the transformation was that, once it was complete, things that would normally kill the original organism failed to do so. More importantly, at least to Stefan in the answering of the many questions he still had, if something came along and killed the organism while it was still only partway through the transformation, so long as it was more than halfway through, it could be revived. In the case of minimal deadly force, it seemed to be revived as normal, its biological functions returning. In the case of catastrophic deadly force (such as Brenner's case), given the correct stimulation of life force aether and other energy, as well as a way to facilitate function such as movement, the organism would return to functioning and exhibit behaviors typical to those it had in life.
The experiments had been done on several types of plants and insects, and, most recently, in mice. Only one mouse had been found, out of hundreds tried, that had been compatible, but its revival had mimicked Brenner's. When Stefan got to this part of the report and was able to understand what he had read, he had hurried through the little that remained before going to find the researchers who had written it. He questioned them at length and in depth and his line of questioning left little to be wondered in terms of his motivation. The researchers had been thinking along the same lines, and who could blame them? If they were correct, and Brenner's transformation could be recreated after all, even in very limited numbers, it would be a boon to Zaichaer. Soldiers who never tired, who needed almost nothing in terms of supplies, who could fly into any situation where they were needed within Zaichaer in a matter of hours would save many lives. And, when war came again to the Brass City and its citizens, as it inevitably would, the flights of Avialae abominations would be met by Zaichaeri mechanical might that they would not be able to withstand.
Human ingenuity would triumph. No matter how many times outside forces rose to knock her down, Zaichaer would always rise again, stronger than ever.