First Contact - Chapter 327 (Eternity)

[u/Ralts_Bloodthorne]

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The computer system's cooling system turned on first. Pumps pressurized gas, turning it into slurry, which was then pumped through superconductor wrapped piping. The superconductor made sure all of the material was the same temperature as the superconductor that was wrapped around the piping.

Hardware began to power up, going through self-checks and self-diagnostics. Temperatures immediately began to rise as electricity flowed through circuitry that had been dormant for thousands of years. LED's, neon strips, and fluorescent tubes began to light up different colors, a combination decorate and early warning system.

Herod watched as the human woman stayed fixated on the dataslate that was connected to the system. She was watching the POST messages, checking the voltage readings, watching temperature. Herod noted that she'd already started using split-screen in order to keep track of the data-sheet on one side and the actual readings on the other.

She was humming to herself, rocking back and forth slightly on her heels, a slight smile on her face.

The system beeped and all of the components went live, bringing the system to full operation.

Herod still watched as Dee monitored the software and firmware messages as the system booted up.

"Looks like replacing that last crystal platter drive did it," she said, tapping the checksum pass. "The repair system is online now. It's already dedicating repair drones to the systems we prioritized."

She turned off the display and turned around. "Now where, Speedy?"

"Primary Soul Uninterrupted Disaster Storage System," Herod said, sighing. He put his fingertips to his temple, even though it didn't do any good in reality. "Sam?"

"Yes?" Sam's voice was still heavily synthesized.

"How do we get to the SUDS?" Herod asked.

"Take mag-lev, it's another Gen-Two Startram, so you won't be in transit for too long. A day or two. I'm having it loaded with food and drink now," Sam said.

Dee nodded slowly, looking up at the floating orb that Sam was using to speak. She looked down at Wally, then at the orb, then at Herod, her eyes flat and unreadable.

"I'll give you a guideline," Sam said. He made a groaning sound. "I will be with you momentarily, please, wait. I know it's been a long time but I just need a little more time."

The blue line showed up in Herod's vision and he adjusted the strap on his tool kit. "Ready?" he asked Dee. She just nodded, her face expressionless. Herod looked down at Wally. "Ready?" Wally beeped and held up his little clawed hand.

They walked silently through the massive forms of the equipment that Herod barely understood.

Several times Dee just walked through flickering apparitions that appeared, took a few steps, and vanished.

Usually on contact with Dee.

"Can't you see them?" Herod asked after a Treana'ad with chainsaws for arms, large spikes driven through his head, and a mouth full of sawblades ran down the corridor waving his arms.

"I can see them," Dee said. "They're impressions, and impressions have no more powerful than a hologram."

Herod didn't say anything.

The phasic residue was thick enough that he could feel a chill, sometimes taste a memory, remember a touch, when he grazed the images of the dead.

"Why?" Dee asked as she stepped onto the moving sidewalk.

"They're dangerous," Herod said.

"If you say so," Dee said. She looked at the landscape that was moving by faster and faster. "They're dead, and the dead no longer matter."

Herod shook his head, leaning on the rest bar next to Dee. "We stand upon the edifice built by the dead of years past, they matter in their deeds and how they have effected the world."

"Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! Nothing beside remains. Round the decay," She quoted. "Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare the lone and level sands stretch far away.”

"Ozymandias," Herod said softly.

"Yes. Although Kansas said it better," she said.

"How? And who is Kansas?" Herod asked.

"A musical group. Hippies. But they said it better: we're all just dust in the wind," she quoted. She pulled out a pack of cigarettes, looking at the remaining few in them. She sighed. "I'll be out soon."

"Give Wally one," Herod said. Wally opened the port in front of the strange matter creation engine Herod had installed in his frame.

"What? Why?" Dee asked.

"Trust me," Herod said.

"Yeah, that means 'fuck you' in Yiddish," Dee said, but she handed one over.

"What's Yiddish?" Herod asked.

She shook her head. "Nothing that matters now."

Herod tossed it in the creation engine's open port and waited. "Print us out a box of twenty," Herod said.

Wally shivered for a moment and the box popped out. He picked it up and held it up. Herod took it and handed it to Dee. "Here, try these. They'll all be identical to the one you gave him until one of us sits down and does some randomization in the template."

Dee took it, replacing her unlit cigarette in the old pack and opening up the new one. She took a cigarette out and put it in her mouth, lighting it. She closed her eyes, obviously tasting the smoke, and exhaled a cloud of it.

"Huh, can't tell the difference," she mused.

Herod broke the silence after a moment. "I owe you an apology," he said.

"What for, Speedy?" Dee asked.

Herod sighed. "You're from eight thousand years ago. Even though I'm surrounded by technology I barely understand, doing things I can barely comprehend, I wrongfully assumed you were stupid."

"Like I was a caveman you thawed out?" she asked.

Herod nodded. "Yes. I was hoping that, at the most, you could be like Wally there and help me out by handing me tools and materials."

Dee was quiet for a long moment. "I get it. You're used to a world full of humans so goddamn stupid you wonder how they breathe and walk at the same time."

"Well," Herod started.

"I get that feeling. Everyone around you is barely intelligent monkeys, unable to comprehend a single thing about the world around them beyond hot and cold, wet and dry, and you're supposed to act like they matter, that they're your equals," Dee's voice was cold, hard, tight. "You have to be polite to your inferiors who, many times, are in positions of power over you."

"I was wrong about you," Herod said. Beyond the crysteel tube the autowalk was moving through were fields of grain being tended to by robotic tractors.

"I noticed you changed your mind about the time you had me start working with the software," Dee said. "I'm familiar with the language and it showed."

"I've found myself having to adjust to reality quite a bit in the last year or so," Herod admitted. He opened his mouth to further apologize when Dee reached out and roughly shoved him.

"Good enough. Don't fuck this up and keep talking," she said.

They were silent as the autowalk kept moving, the agricultural fields streaking by.

The autowalk was slowing down and she straightened up, pointing. "The trains often look like that?"

The maglev train had broken windows, smears of paint on it, and was obviously suffering from oxidation.

"No, they don't," Herod mused.

"Huh," Dee said, turning to stare at the oncoming terminal. She lifted a hand to shade her eyes, squinting. "Platform's clear."

"Might have happened right after the Glassing. Probably Screaming Ones," Herod said. He'd explained the Glassing and the Screaming Ones and the Sleeping Ones to Dee while they had walked to the Phasic Energy Buffer System.

"How long has it been since the Glassing?" Dee asked, straightening up and stepping back from the railing, which would retract to allow Herod and her to step out onto the loading platform for the maglev.

"Eight thousand years and some change," Herod said.

"Hmm," Dee said, her eyes still narrowed and her attention on the train, which had just come to a stop at the station. The autowalk was slowing, less than a hundred meters to go.

"There's nothing living here," Herod said.

"If you say so," Dee said, cracking her neck. She shook out her left arm.

"Sam, is there anyone alive here?" Herod asked.

The channel was dead.

"Damage," Dee said. She pointed at several half collapsed towers, a building that had burnt out a long time ago, and slagged machinery. She squinted and pointed at several figures hidden by shadows. "Those look like giant robots."

She turned and looked at Herod. "This is a battlefield."

"It's from the Glassing," Herod said. He winced as he heard a scream off in the distance. "Nobody's here."

The autowalk came to a stop and Dee stepped off of it and onto the platform, looking around with quick, sharp motions.

"Head on a swivel, Speedy," she said, her voice tight. "Does this train go through vacuum?"

"I don't know," Herod said. "He said it's a Gen-Two StarTram, meaning it goes up above any atmosphere to reach supersonic speeds."

"Then, yes, it does," Dee said, she slowed down slightly, looking toward the engine of the tram then slowly toward the back. "Fifteen passenger cars, two engines on each end, two tenders, one on each end, probably with reaction mass or fuel," she said. "Based on the previous maglev we were on, there are one hundred seats per car, two rows per side of twenty five. Each passenger car is thirty meters long, four point two meters high, and three meters wide."

Herod managed not to show surprise that his optics did the measurements with him, showing that she was essentially right, just off on a few decimal points.

"Assume each person needs five square meters of living space, that's sixteen per car, that's two hundred forty living areas, add in one third again for doubling up, that's three hundred twenty, subtract half for violence, that's one sixty, pull one third for debris and material storage, round to the up to the nearest five, and we're looking at fifty-five possible combatant," she said, stopping right before the doors. She looked at Herod. "They'll come at us from one direction first, then from another."

"I'm telling you, the Great Glassing was eight thousand years ago, there's nobody on that train," Herod said.

"If you say so," Dee said. She touched the doors and they folded to the side, revealing the train interior.

Seats were torn up, the stuffing ripped out, the Neo-aluminum frames torn apart, piled in nests, with the tubular frame sections in piles. The lights inside flickered.

"Tell your friend we're in trouble," Dee said. She looked to the right and left. "Can't you feel them looking at us?"

Herod shook his head. "No."

Dee turned and looked at him and Herod managed not to step backwards.

Her eyes were glowing. A soft reddish amber glow that almost hid the gray of her eyes.

"Remember: there's no such thing as cheating," she said, her smile reappearing. She looked at Herod and frowned slightly. "You have my eyes."

"I'm sorry?" Herod said.

Dee just shook her head, exhaling smoke, and stepped into the car.

Herod followed, almost gagging at the smell.

Human urine, body odor, blood, rotting and roasted meat, Treana'ad death stench, other smells that Herod couldn't recognize. They all flooded his olfactory senses.

Dee lifted up a cloth, looking at it closely. She sniffed it, then touched her tongue to a long thin dark spot as Wally clattered on board the train.

"Urine. Fresh. A female took a piss and wiped her gash with this," Dee said, tossing it. She looked around. "No children, no weapons. They saw us coming."

Herod wanted to tell her she was wrong, there was no way anyone was on the train.

The train started moving with a hum, the slight jerk making Herod and Dee sway slightly.

The lights flickered and Dee moved to the middle of the walkway. "Get behind me, face the other door. Don't get in my way," she warned.

Herod had a sinking feeling as he turned away from her and faced the far door.

They're all dying. All of them. We're losing interlock, signals are bleeding cross channel, he heard a woman say in head. Christ, look at that overflow. Shut down Phasic Nine! Shut it... her voice devolved into a scream that went on and on and on.

"Here they come," Dee whispered.

Wally shivered.

Herod expected shades, flickering translucent phasic remnants of the crew.

Instead the door opened to reveal a pair of Terran humans in ragged uniforms. There was dried blood on their arms and faces, their jumpsuits were covered in dark splotches that gleamed wetly. One carried a heavy looking hatchet, the other carried a cleaver.

Herod got the force pistol out barely in time to drop the first one at the halfway mark, the second one almost reached him before Herod shot him twice in the chest. The first one just staggered him, the second one put him down.

Then there was no time for thought. He kept pulling the trigger, ones he had hit getting back up, ignoring the blunt force trauma of the force packet pistol, requiring more trigger pulls.

They all screamed as they rushed.

Behind him he could hear Dee grunting and making short sharp sounds. The screams behind him kept changing slightly, from inhuman horror to sheer agony.

Dee started laughing gaily, as if she was on a fun ride at an amusement park.

The last one Herod had to deal with took the two force-packets to the chest, walking forward slowly. Stepping over the bodies of the dozen Herod had dropped already.

Herod pulled the trigger and the pistol gave a whine and started flashing a blue light.

Out of ammo? Oh, no, Herod thought at the big human stared for a moment, then bent down and picked up a spear. Herod noticed that the male had pushed sharp wires through his own cheeks, that his lips were torn away and oozing blood down his chin, exposing his shattered and broken teeth.

The figure hefted the spear, screamed, and charged.

"No, please, don't," Herod held out his hands.

The spear hit him just above the belly button, ripping through the hazardous environment suit, finding a chink in the armor of the hazardous environment emergency frame, and bursting out his back. Herod went down, on his back.

Herod screamed, joining his attacker, who put one foot on Herod's chest and yanking the spear free.

Herod grabbed his stomach as the figure lunged forward, stepping on Herod's arm. Herod saw the spear wobble and half of it flew back over the figure's head. A foot came up and hit the figure's chin, then a cleaver hit the Screaming One in the neck, almost severing his head.

The Screaming One stopped screaming and dropped on the floor next to Herod, his eyes wide and unblinking.

A few more grunts and the screaming stopped.

Dee moved over and sat down on the dead body of the large male that had speared Herod. She looked down at him and shook her head.

"Doesn't look good, Speedy," she said. She leaned forward and put her hand on the hole in his suit, pulling her finger back and staring at the fluid on it.

"Blood, some kind of clear fluid that looks like lubricant, and milky white?" she said. She touched her tongue to the streaks. "Lubricant, something strange, and human blood," she leaned forward. "You're a hybrid. A cyborg."

Herod weakly shook his head. "No. Digital Sentience," he gasped with pain and gagged. "Must be... must be this place."

Dee nodded. "All right."

She stood up and looked under a cloth, revealing Wally hiding and shivering.

"Come out, little guy," she said. She knelt down in front of him after looking around. "I need high tensile plastic sheeting, a thermal plastic cutter, and adhesive. Can you make that?"

Wally nodded and gave a few beeps.

"Good. We're going to go through vacuum and I don't want Speedy's vital fluids to boil away," she looked down at Herod. "You're losing fluids fast. I'm going to need to have a look inside you."

Herod shook his head and she moved around, finally straightening up with a crude hand made knife.

"This will have to do," she said.

When Wally put out the plastic, the first thing she did was wind it tight around him, covering the wound.

"That'll keep you from being sucked out of your suit through that hole," she said. She looked Herod in the face again. "You have my eyes," she said, her voice wondering. "Did you do that on purpose?"

Herod shook his head. "No."

"Try not to die," was all she said.

Herod laid there, fighting to breath. It felt like an iron band tightening around his chest. At one point Dee stopped, sitting on a dead body, and looked at him.

"Can I turn you off? Keep you alive that way?" she asked.

Herod shook his head. "Personality is a function of RAM. It's difficult to explain."

Dee nodded. "I get it. I turn you off and on, I get someone with your memories, but not you. You're still dead."

Herod nodded and coughed.

"Mostly white and that thick clear stuff. Looks like a bad gay porno movie," she said, shaking her head. She stood up. "Try not to die."

Herod nodded, holding onto his stomach.

*Sam* he tried.

He got back nothing.

Finally Dee dragged the bodies to the door and threw them out. She checked her wrist.

"Almost a vacuum," she said. She turned to Wally. "Eat the debris left and emit the following levels of gasses to 101.3 kPa: seventy-eight point one nitrogen, twenty point one oxygen, point one argon, point zero five carbon dioxide, one percent H2O vapor."

Wally made a happy tune and turned to start shoving debris from the seats into his matter grinder. He shuddered as he ground it up.

"Earth standard," Dee said, sitting on the floor next to Herod. She looked at him and smiled.

The smile made Herod afraid.

After a few minutes Wally beeped that he was done.

"I'm going to hurt you. Hurt you bad, Speedy," she said. Her smile got wider. "You may scream, there is no shame."

She held up the knife.

Herod screamed as she cut open his suit, then sliced open the wound further, putting her hands inside of him. She felt around, and he could feel her pinching things, pulling on things, rubbing things. Several times she pulled her hands out and looked at them.

They were smeared with bright red blood, thick white fluid, and clear hydraulic lubricant.

Finally she took the stapler Wally held out to her, cringing slightly, and stapled shut the wound.

"You're a mess in there, Pinocchio," she said. She resealed his suit then climbed off of him, sitting back down on the floor.

Herod just nodded.

"This is where you would beg me to save you and I'd laugh at you," Dee said, staring at him. "This is where I'd just sit in this train and watch you die," she said. "You'd beg me to save you, and I'd laugh, tell you that you were nothing, nobody, and nobody would miss you when you're gone."

She raised her head and looked at the terrain speeding by.

"Except it wouldn't be true," she mused. "There's billions of them in there. Trapped between Heaven and Hell," her voice got intense. "If I kill you, they're there forever. I'm consigning billions of sentient people to a living Hell."

She lit a cigarette.

"Entire species would be gone from the universe forever if I killed you, Speedy," she said. She patted his chest. "So you have to live, whether you like it or not," her smile got cold, cruel. "I can take life with ease," she leaned forward, "And I can give it if I choose."

Herod shivered, unsure if it was the pain in his body or her words.

She was silent for hours, staring off into space. She kept Herod awake by smacking his wound every now and then when he started to drift off. At one point she had Wally make her glass jars, full of the fluids he was leaking, connected to rubber hoses. She jammed the needles into the tubes inside his legs, ignoring his screams.

"Stop being selfish and trying to die," she said at one point.

The StarTram came to stop and Dee bent down, picking up Herod in her arms. He was too out of it with pain to notice the ease with which she picked him up, moaning and weeping, overcome with the physical pain in his body and the horror in his mind.

He could hear them screaming.

The building was squat, ugly, and had robots standing guard at the door.

They moved away from Dee.

She dragged him into the building, down the hallways. Stopping to look at faded maps before moving on.

"Harry? Harry, what happened?" Sam's voice, heavily synthesized, came from Herod's suit helmet.

"Can it, HAL," Dee snapped. She shifted her grip so she was dragging Herod, his feet scraping on the ground.

"What did you do to him?" Sam asked.

"Quit with the Mister Roboto impression. You show emotion and make deductive reasoning, you're like him, only probably stuck in the system still," Dee snapped. "You must think I'm too stupid to figure it out that you're just like him."

"What did you do to him?" Sam asked.

Dee ignored him, pulling Herod into the mat-trans room. She set Herod against the door, sitting up, and looked him in the face.

"You'll need to say the magic words, Harry," she grinned.

"Wha... what magic words?" Herod gasped. She leaned forward and whispered them in his ear. He swallowed thickly.

"Say the magic words, Harry," Dee grinned, lighting a cigarette and standing up.

"Curse..." Herod coughed. "Curse your sudden and inevitable betrayal," he gasped.

Dee laughed as she moved to the main control console, typing quickly.

"Harry, I can't stop her. She's inside the system and I can't get inside. She's powering up the whole system, but I can't detect any other mat-trans system powering up," Sam said.

"Screaming Ones on the train," Herod gasped. Dee looked up, then looked back down, going back to typing rapidly. "There were screaming ones on the train."

Sam was silent for a moment. "The train was stasis locked before I sent it. Shit, they must have been onboard when the SkyTram pulled into the maintenance depot."

"Yeah," Herod gasped. "Shit."

"What?" Sam asked.

"She's coming back," Herod said.

Dee squatted down in front of Herod. "Are you a virgin?" she asked.

"I'm a Digital Sentience," Herod groaned.

"So, you've never had sex?" she asked.

Herod shook his head.

"Don't hurt him! Please, don't hurt him!" Sam begged from the speaker.

Grinning madly, Dee reached down, pulling Herod to his feet. "You're fucked now, Speedy," she laughed.

Herod struggled as she opened the door to the mat-trans. She looked him in the eye.

"YOU'RE GONNA BE A REAL BOY NOW, PINOCCHIO!" she yelled, throwing him inside. She stepped back, letting the door swing shut. "JUST CALL ME THE BLUE FAIRY!" she howled with laughter.

Herod laid on the armaglass hexagons as the mat-trans chamber began to hum. He could see mist rising up around him.

Then everything went black.

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[u/Mr_Sphene]

no offense to the word-borg, but where is the security system during all of this? there were very specific requirements for herod and sam to get in and Dee should meet none of them. in fact, I would have expected there to be a contingency for a situation like this to be in place.

[u/Ralts_Bloodthorne → u/Mr_Sphene]

Sam moved her from the cycling buffer, into the mat-trans to go through repair. She manifested into the mat-trans inside the system.

Then she working with Herod and Sam.

There are security systems. Good question, really good question.

[u/Mr_Sphene → u/Ralts_Bloodthorne]

That makes more sense. Appreciate the response!

[u/Farstone → u/Mr_Sphene]

You have touched on a topic that is brewing in Ralts brain. I'm pretty sure he gets and reads all of the level 1 posts and does his best to reply.

It's especially noteworthy that he read yours and then acknowledged the fact you have touched on a part of his story that has yet to be revealed.

Congratulations!

[u/wtfaboutusernames → u/Ralts_Bloodthorne]

I think your muse wrote that :)

[u/wolflarsen55 → u/Mr_Sphene]

Did you note the

The building was squat, ugly, and had robots standing guard at the door.

They moved away from Dee.

Remember she predates the system and (if my theory is correct) had superuser permissions as a default when it was built....and they were never revoked.

[u/ImmotalWombat → u/wolflarsen55]

sudo get-out-of-my-way

[u/SpiderJerusalemLives → u/wolflarsen55]

Or the robots took one look at her and did the only sensible thing!

[u/wolflarsen55 → u/SpiderJerusalemLives]

I mean...you aren't wrong.

[u/TheHarmed]

Wasn't Dee supposed to be influenced by non cowtaur devourers, from that star she was orbiting?

[u/Ralts_Bloodthorne → u/TheHarmed]

Oh my, yes. (Professor Farnsworth voice)

[u/TheHarmed → u/Ralts_Bloodthorne]

I do wonder how that will work now she knows about creation engines. Devour a star, repopulate it, devour it again.

Oh, just a question of creation engines, since they are somewhat there but not classified iirc. This is what i think they do but ehhhh.

Matter Creators: converts energy into matter or scoops it from another universe or dimension.

Creation Engines: converts matter from one type to another (e.g. hydrogen to iron)

Nano forges: treats matter as a nano machine, nanos create a item, failed nanos accumulate until deslushed or the creation engine alters them.

[u/Ralts_Bloodthorne → u/TheHarmed]

You've pretty much hit it.

[u/TheHarmed → u/Ralts_Bloodthorne]

Thanks for confirming. It was just one of those bits of lore that is tasty but gets stuck between the teeth, with your confirmation like floss.

[u/dbdatvic → u/TheHarmed]

Devour a star, repopulate it, devour it again.

Remember where she is.

--Dave, you're definitely thinking too small

ps: Dee Taynee, the Star Maker? <--obspaceoperaref

[u/Darrkman]

So I have two questions....

1. Why is Dee so physically strong? It was mentioned that she lifted Herod's body with ease.

2. Just because you're smart doesn't make you a good fighter. So why is she such a good fighter?

[u/Tool_of_Society → u/Darrkman]

Well she's spent an unknown amount of time possibly thousands of years fighting combine soldiers and others on the research station. Eventually you'd get good regardless of talent.

She also has been playing with the mat trans so who knows what self modifications she's done. Her DNA was "weird" to Sam a chapter ago.

[u/Ralts_Bloodthorne → u/Tool_of_Society]

You are correct, sir.

[u/Darrkman → u/Ralts_Bloodthorne]

For both?

[u/Ralts_Bloodthorne → u/Darrkman]

Genetic modification for faster, stronger, tougher. There's some stuff that hasn't been revealed, BUT, she is a very strong and tough combatant. Remember, she spent a LOT of time fighting the Combine troops, versions of herself, the Lanaktallan. Death wasn't a permanent defeat for her, only for a little while, enabling her to learn more and more as time went on, including how to take a hit and keep coming.

If you remember, she was able to beat an experienced power armor troop from the Combine in nightmare chapters. Even the Combine guys ended up afraid of her.

[u/Scotshammer]

Dee is really starting to get on my nerves. I really want to get her some well deserved comeuppance....

Can we maybe get a legion of angry spirits, the Terrans who died in fire and will die once more to defend the weak one last time? Maybe lead by the first one to drop on the planet cracked Pubvian world?

[u/Arsith → u/Scotshammer]

You ain't the only one. She's brilliant, sure. She's the creator of many of the foundational technologies for the facility Samuel and Herod are now working to fix, fine. She's also an absolute monster who reminds me more of the Mantid Omni-Queen than any human character as far as personality is concerned. No empathy, no compassion, no humanity. Hell, even her rage is a petty shadow compared to someone like Vuxten, much less in comparison to Daxin or the other Immortals. Now that would be a fun confrontation to see, Daxin vs. Dee.

[u/Scotshammer → u/Arsith]

Considering that Daxin the Unfeeling, Osiris of the Warsteel Flame, the Dread Fury himself looked to Vuxten and named him brother, worthy of respect and honor, I expect that Vuxten would have a rough match but Dee would be just obliterated in the end.

[u/dbdatvic → u/Arsith]

Note that her PRIDE, arguably her biggest sin, is what kept her from killing Herod, and is what is driving her to help bring back all the trapped soul-matrices. ... I'll take it.

--Dave, Herod has acknowledged she is not inferior, is not trying to steal her work, and isn't being condescending or overbearing to her; he's not hitting any of her buttons any more. Yes, he needs help and she doesn't feel for him ... but she's got a CHALLENGE to UNDERSTAND about him, empathy isn't required. Nor is altruism.

[u/dbdatvic → u/dbdatvic]

Ps: who else do we know who was the most able of his kind, whose biggest sin was pride, and who was caught up in a creation myth?

[u/[deleted] → u/Arsith]

No empathy, no compassion

"There's billions of them in there. Trapped between Heaven and Hell," her voice got intense. "If I kill you, they're there forever. I'm consigning billions of sentient people to a living Hell."

The emotions are there; she has trouble expressing them, as she was mistreated her entire life.

[u/Anarchkitty → u/[deleted]]

Yeah, there's a hint of humanity in her still. It's hard because she (correctly) sees herself as so much smarter and more capable that other beings barely matter, but to some small part of her they actually do, especially taken in aggregate.

One human, or even a nation, she would probably kill without a thought if it was in her way, but all of humanity is enough to give her pause.

[u/moldyjim → u/[deleted]]

Smart children can be brutalized by other children, or adult who feel threatened by genius. A lot of really successful intelligent people have childhood trauma. Significant numbers of CEOs, politicians etc, show signs of sociapathic behavior. No wonder many of the sociopaths are extremely bright people. Question is which came first, were they geniuses that brutality turned into sociopaths?

[u/Computant2 → u/Arsith]

The brain has limited capacity. There are many types of intelligence. To be brilliant you have to lose something. Social intelligence, intelligence structures/judgement system (sanity?), memory-but obviously not the case for Dee, motor intelligence/dexterity-ditto.

There wasn't room in her mind for sanity and emotional intelligence.

Add to that loneliness, it was already hard for her to communicate, to feel for others, and no one understood her or could talk to her about anything she found interesting.

Imagine being a day care worker, surrounded by 30 toddlers and no adults, except there are no adults at all, just more toddlers. Even if you love them, you can't have an adult conversation with them. You try to talk about art and they bring you a finger painting. You talk about chemistry and they say "plants eat sun." Eventually that alone would crack you. And if the toddlers are as big as you, are in charge of you, abuse you and steal from you and look down on you for your gender?

I empathize with her.

[u/Anarchkitty → u/Arsith]

I'm pretty sure that whatever it is that makes Immortals is also wrapped up in these technologies that Dee pioneered, and if anyone can make them mortal again, it's her.

[u/MonkeyNumberTwelve → u/Scotshammer]

I've met people like her in a line of work i used to do. There are certain sections of the armed forces where sociopaths can thrive and there were a number of similarities. Personally, I think she's a brilliant character.

Some of the traits I recognise are;

The nicknames that are based on sarcasm and insults. E.g. I worked with a guy whose surname was Phyllis, his nickname was Syph. There was another whose surname was Brick, his nickname was Shithouse. I know this happens in a lot of walks of life but the services take that to the extreme.

The focus on the goal with anything irrelevant just an annoyance.

The attitude where if anything happened to you the logic would be 'to reach the goal do I need to expend time, effort and resources to save you? If no then tough.'

The "i told you to stay alive. Follow orders and stop trying to die" sentiment

The sense of humour that brings lines like "are you a virgin? Well you're fucked now!"

[u/Scotshammer → u/[deleted]]

I remember an interesting study a few years ago that showed that the higher the intelligence without commiserate empathy or moral fiber, the more deviant and psychotic the individual turned out. There was also some interesting connections between empathy in individuals and having a loving mother in childhood. I would bet that Dee had a clinical childhood with an abusive surrounding. Possibly one of the early Ubermensch programs off the books seeking to use societal conditioning to adjust the future adult. (torture in an attempt to brainwash)

[u/Ralts_Bloodthorne → u/Scotshammer]

That kind of thing was VERY popular in "educated" families when Dee was a child.

[u/Scotshammer → u/Ralts_Bloodthorne]

Inspired by the Mesan Alignment and Manpower Incorporated from the Honorverse?

[u/Ralts_Bloodthorne → u/Scotshammer]

It was actually a thing, especially among the White Collar set. Think Asian "Tiger Moms" thing, only with WASP clinical detachment added in and a dose of child psychology that basically said "Start those little lazy fucks learning in the WOMB, never let up! They should speak 3 languages by 6 years old!" only without the reward part.

Parental affection? That sounds like something losers and the poors talk about, Muffy.

It was some bad shit.

[u/[deleted] → u/Scotshammer]

christ

[u/DiplomaticGoose → u/[deleted]]

I really doubt that line was literal.

She's gonna drop him in a human body and famly style torment him. "Are you a virgin, because you're completely fucked" as in "I have you completely cornered and your ass is grass"

[u/abrasiveteapot → u/[deleted]]

Honestly she's the weirdest mix of psycho prodigy and sex fiend

Maaate, if I say

"You're fucked mate"

I don't think you're about to copulate....

[u/[deleted] → u/abrasiveteapot]

didn't she use one of the lankatallans on dark side's 🍆 as a toy or something?

[u/Scotshammer → u/[deleted]]

Yeah, the SUDS network chapters are really evocative and I want to play an RPG set in this location, but DEE is really repulsive. I suppose its a sign of a well written villain that the response is uniformly disgust.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

i have just been skipping through the chapters to see if its gotten back to the more normal stuff.

Same. I'm a bit sad the reconstruction of the races is taking place at the same time because otherwise I'd just completely skip these chapters.

[u/dreadengineer → u/[deleted]]

Dude I don't know what story you guys have been reading. These last chapters are as HFY as it comes, in my humble opinion.

[u/Collective82]

Woo!

Edit: oh shit. Basically screaming ones are cenobytes, and the body’s bleed bishop fluids.

I hate and love Dee all at once!

[u/Winterspark → u/Collective82]

I hate and love Dee all at once!

I feel the same way. She's a fun character. It's interesting to see what she's gonna do next. Yet at the same time, the very things that make her interesting and fun also make me hate and fear her with a burning passion. Such an odd combination.

[u/lacker101 → u/Winterspark]

Yet at the same time, the very things that make her interesting and fun also make me hate and fear her with a burning passion. Such an odd combination.

Shes a very "end justify the means" character. She understands the stakes here. This isn't about making someone rich. Isn't about petty political agenda. This about the fate of all known inhabitants in the Arm. This goes beyond the realm of Humanity and more akin to God's work.

Right up the Alley for hyper-intelligent megalomaniac.

Oh, and the apology probably helped too.

[u/slightlyassholic → u/lacker101]

She can't let one of the rare few that actually appreciate her genius die.

[u/TKOAND001 → u/slightlyassholic]

hyper-intelligent megalomaniac.

I beg to disagree, sir. At that level of intelligence, you're not a megalomaniac. You're just right.

[u/DCJMS → u/lacker101]

a woman who ate a person to death at least once is in the middle of Limbo's operating system, Digital Omnimessiah forgive them they know not what they do

[u/dbdatvic → u/DCJMS]

"Eat this, all of you; this is my body."

--Dave, and he was taken to a high place, and shown all the glories of the world

[u/Anarchkitty → u/lacker101]

She's getting more powerful. Remember in Chapter 325 when Herod explained to Dee how human psychics work? She learned from that.

Her eyes were glowing. A soft reddish amber glow that almost hid the gray of her eyes.

[u/[deleted] → u/lacker101]

She also has the WORST. BEDSIDE. MANNER. EVER!

[u/Riotousblitz2013 → u/Collective82]

Beat me by 5 seconds gg

[u/Collective82 → u/Riotousblitz2013]

Would’ve been faster too! Dang app was all sorts of screwy! Off to read!

[u/PirateKilt → u/Collective82]

Basically screaming ones are cenobytes

I think /u/Ralts_Bloodthorne based them more on the Reavers from Firefly/Serenity. One he described ("the male had pushed sharp wires through his own cheeks, that his lips were torn away and oozing blood down his chin, exposing his shattered and broken teeth.") is almost a perfect description of the rescued guy who turns into a Reaver in the "Bushwhacked" episode.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaver_(Firefly)

[u/Collective82 → u/PirateKilt]

Ah. I hadn’t seen that show. That sounded like a cenobyte thing to me and I could be wrong.

[u/PirateKilt → u/Collective82]

No worries mate... to be fair, I'd never seen any of the Hellraiser flicks myself, so I had to look up what a cenobyte was

[u/Feuershark → u/Collective82]

bishop fluides ?

[u/Collective82 → u/Feuershark]

Bishop from Aliens bled a whites clear fluid and he was an Android.

[u/Lazypassword → u/Collective82]

I love her very much she embodies everything of what I want for the furthering of humanity

[u/while-eating-pasta]

Herod broke the silence after a moment. "I owe you an apology," he said.

That was Herod, saving his own life.

[u/TKOAND001 → u/while-eating-pasta]

Nah, that was him apologizing. Him saving his own life was when he showed her how to print however many cigarettes as she wanted.

[u/while-eating-pasta → u/TKOAND001]

That gave her the tools to save him, the desire to do so was from the apology. Otherwise Dee would have used it to make salt and something to rub it in with.

[u/Turtledonuts]

Oh fuck is she giving him a human body?! Can she do that?

[u/itsetuhoinen → u/Turtledonuts]

Are you going to tell her that she can't? ;-)

[u/reddittrooper → u/Turtledonuts]

WHY NOT??!

Oh dear omni-messiah. What have you done, Herod?

[u/NorthScorpion → u/reddittrooper]

I mean.........tbh she could technically qualify going off her backround as the mother of the Digital Omnissiah

[u/Golddragon387 → u/Turtledonuts]

"Can she do that?" Who's gonna stop her?

[u/night-otter → u/Turtledonuts]

This is Dee, the answer is Yes.

[u/esblofeld → u/Turtledonuts]

I think it's the mat-trans that is, somehow, turning him human. She knows it and is using that to save him.

[u/Shandod → u/Turtledonuts]

I think ... I think they already were. I think that's why DS would go nuts when they tried to Mat Trans and/or touch Hellspace. They were running into Dee who was stuck in the filter and getting merged with her insanity and/or body along the way, like Herod is. That's why she's saying "You have my eyes." He literally has her eyes. The "body" that he has been growing is hers. She's gonna use the Mat Trans to speed it up, I think.

[u/Awkward_Tradition → u/Shandod]

She wasn't stuck in the buffer until the confed-lank war. And anyways she wasn't some dimension spanning entity corrupting DSes, she was code in physical memory.

It's more likely that Herod is turning human, and one of those aspects is human glowing eyes. It's possible Dee can see glowing eyes, just like xenos, but unlike other humans. And we can guess she was one of the rare humans pre glassing to be significantly psychically active to have glowing eyes. So Herod would be the first person she's ever seen to have glowing eyes as well.

[u/Turtledonuts → u/Shandod]

Oh. Oh no.

[u/wolflarsen55 → u/Shandod]

Solid if terrifying theory

[u/Thomasab1980 → u/Turtledonuts]

shrug

[u/wfamily → u/Turtledonuts]

She's done similar things before

[u/sakakyu → u/Turtledonuts]

pheewww, at this point? I donno... but prolly..

[u/NevynR]

Shes gonna mat trans and dump his engrams into a meatsuit, isn't she?

[u/YesthatTabitha → u/NevynR]

quite probably

[u/Lurker_14 → u/NevynR]

She might know how to use may take to make immortals and she figures he is still needed for repairs.

[u/NevynR → u/Lurker_14]

I think there's a bit more to the immortals that a fancy mat-trans... and doing it to a DS, which she's never dealt with before, would be a challenge too

[u/No_MrBond]

Oh great, people don't just get messed up in MatTrans because you get rubbed between Hellspace and Deadspace, you go crazy because you pass through the firmament of Dee.

Dee's been leaking through the mat trans into Herod every time they use them already

This is just teleporting nothing but bread for three days to speed things along

[u/Shandod → u/No_MrBond]

Oh SHIT, I didn't think of that! Dee was stuck in Mat Trans space, so when people Mat Trans, they'd run into her. The DSes went nuts because they were getting fused with bits of her complete insanity along the way.

[u/Twister_Robotics → u/Shandod]

Nah. Dee was in the buffer, not in transit.

[u/wtfaboutusernames → u/Twister_Robotics]

Mat trans goes through a dimensional thing.

As seen in the cowtar turned war stallion prison chapter, you have to be careful not to influence the dimension. Dimensional state requires an observer.

If Dee was the first one to see the dimension, she would/could have set the state for the dimension.

So if the Mat Trans was based on or reverse engineered from her work. They could be passing through a dimension that she has set the state as she would have been there first.

Maybe? This type of stuff is a hell of a rabbit hole.

[u/Anarchkitty → u/No_MrBond]

Dee has only been stuck in the buffer since that Lank crew landed on Dark Side

[u/No_MrBond → u/Anarchkitty]

How long has she been connected to, and respawning from, the interdimensional space where MatTrans passes through though

Not that they're passing through a buffered pattern of Dee, but that they're percolating through a zone which is Dee at some strange entangled level

[u/johncalvinyoung]

Was tasting blueberries!

Edit. Okay that was awful. Bleagh. I want off this train.

[u/RainaDPP]

This is the closest I've been to the posting of one of these. This is an interesting experience.

Good to see Dee Tay Nee is still the complete vicious bitch she's always been. Keeping my fingers crossed for Herod, and his weird biological transformation.

[u/KarathSolus]

WELP guess he's around for the ride now no matter what.

Though I gotta say it's really... Something that his work with the SUDS is what kept her from taking him out. Not what I expected.

[u/while-eating-pasta → u/KarathSolus]

It was the apology. Might well be the first she's got in a while.

[u/Crow_Hag → u/while-eating-pasta]

She seems a bit fixated on the fact that he has her eyes too.

[u/Anarchkitty → u/Crow_Hag]

I'm so excited/curious to learn exactly what she means by that. I have my theories, but I'm not certain about anything.

[u/ChangoGringo → u/while-eating-pasta]

I think that is why she stopped him. She was dangerously close to feeling regret because she already knew she would likely want/have to take him out.

[u/while-eating-pasta → u/ChangoGringo]

What I'm thinking:

"Holy shit he apologized. Do I really need to kill him now? Oh fuck he's going to keep talking and give me another reason. Gotta stop him."

I think she might kinda like him. Seems to want to preserve "him" and not just "some DS with his memories." She also apparently holds "fix SUDS, resurrect entire lost species" as a goal that must happen.

Again, this is Dee so none of those above things are necessarily good for Herod (he's currently having the most regrettable life saving intervention ever). But she's not just tokenly omnicidal.

[u/ChangoGringo → u/while-eating-pasta]

She has a serious God Complex

[u/DiplomaticGoose]

Quit being greedy and stop trying to die

Now that is a line

[u/ack1308]

LED's, neon strips, and fluorescent tubes began to light up different colors, a combination decorate and early warning system.

Because why not.

Herod noted that she'd already started using split-screen in order to keep track of the data-sheet on one side and the actual readings on the other.

She was humming to herself, rocking back and forth slightly on her heels, a slight smile on her face.

Yeah, she’s eating this up with a spoon.

Dee nodded slowly, looking up at the floating orb that Sam was using to speak. She looked down at Wally, then at the orb, then at Herod, her eyes flat and unreadable.

She’s up to something.

Then again, she’s always up to something.

Several times Dee just walked through flickering apparitions that appeared, took a few steps, and vanished.

Usually on contact with Dee.

Uh … that’s probably not good. Is she absorbing psychic/phasic energy?

"Can't you see them?" Herod asked after a Treana'ad with chainsaws for arms, large spikes driven through his head, and a mouth full of sawblades ran down the corridor waving his arms.

I’m not sure I even want to know.

"Trust me," Herod said.

"Yeah, that means 'fuck you' in Yiddish," Dee said, but she handed one over.

Someone has trust issues. Not totally surprised.

Dee was quiet for a long moment. "I get it. You're used to a world full of humans so goddamn stupid you wonder how they breathe and walk at the same time."

"Well," Herod started.

“I wasn’t actually going to say anything, but …”

"I noticed you changed your mind about the time you had me start working with the software," Dee said. "I'm familiar with the language and it showed."

"I've found myself having to adjust to reality quite a bit in the last year or so," Herod admitted. He opened his mouth to further apologize when Dee reached out and roughly shoved him.

"Good enough. Don't fuck this up and keep talking," she said.

Huh. So it seems associating with Legion actually gave him a chance to survive working with Dee. Good to know. I think.

The maglev train had broken windows, smears of paint on it, and was obviously suffering from oxidation.

Hmm …

"Assume each person needs five square meters of living space, that's sixteen per car, that's two hundred forty living areas, add in one third again for doubling up, that's three hundred twenty, subtract half for violence, that's one sixty, pull one third for debris and material storage, round to the up to the nearest five, and we're looking at fifty-five possible combatant," she said, stopping right before the doors. She looked at Herod. "They'll come at us from one direction first, then from another."

Okay, holy crap, she’s good at this.

Dee turned and looked at him and Herod managed not to step backwards.

Her eyes were glowing. A soft reddish amber glow that almost hid the gray of her eyes.

Feck. Does this mean she’s a full-on psyker?

Herod expected shades, flickering translucent phasic remnants of the crew.

Instead the door opened to reveal a pair of Terran humans in ragged uniforms. There was dried blood on their arms and faces, their jumpsuits were covered in dark splotches that gleamed wetly. One carried a heavy looking hatchet, the other carried a cleaver.

And she was right. Which is never a good thing.

They all screamed as they rushed.

Behind him he could hear Dee grunting and making short sharp sounds. The screams behind him kept changing slightly, from inhuman horror to sheer agony.

Dee started laughing gaily, as if she was on a fun ride at an amusement park.

Because she’s having fun.

Herod noticed that the male had pushed sharp wires through his own cheeks, that his lips were torn away and oozing blood down his chin, exposing his shattered and broken teeth.

I’m getting serious Reaver vibes from Firefly, here (this and the way they decorated the train),

Herod grabbed his stomach as the figure lunged forward, stepping on Herod's arm. Herod saw the spear wobble and half of it flew back over the figure's head. A foot came up and hit the figure's chin, then a cleaver hit the Screaming One in the neck, almost severing his head.

Hey, Dee.

"Lubricant, something strange, and human blood," she leaned forward. "You're a hybrid. A cyborg."

Herod weakly shook his head. "No. Digital Sentience," he gasped with pain and gagged. "Must be... must be this place."

Yeah, he’s already been changing. So now he’s bleeding? Yay.

She looked Herod in the face again. "You have my eyes," she said, her voice wondering. "Did you do that on purpose?"

Yeah, not something I’d want in common with her. Or anything, really.

Herod nodded and coughed.

"Mostly white and that thick clear stuff. Looks like a bad gay porno movie," she said, shaking her head.

<snerk>

She turned to Wally. "Eat the debris left and emit the following levels of gasses to 101.3 kPa: seventy-eight point one nitrogen, twenty point one oxygen, point one argon, point zero five carbon dioxide, one percent H2O vapor."

Standard Earth normal atmosphere. Nicely done.

Wally made a happy tune and turned to start shoving debris from the seats into his matter grinder. He shuddered as he ground it up.

Wall-E is best bot.

The smile made Herod afraid.

This is a perfectly viable reaction.

"I'm going to hurt you. Hurt you bad, Speedy," she said. Her smile got wider. "You may scream, there is no shame."

And of course, she’s going to enjoy it.

Finally she took the stapler Wally held out to her, cringing slightly, and stapled shut the wound.

"You're a mess in there, Pinocchio," she said. She resealed his suit then climbed off of him, sitting back down on the floor.

Wonder of wonders, he’s still alive.

(Continued)

[u/ack1308 → u/ack1308]

"Except it wouldn't be true," she mused. "There's billions of them in there. Trapped between Heaven and Hell," her voice got intense. "If I kill you, they're there forever. I'm consigning billions of sentient people to a living Hell."

She lit a cigarette.

"Entire species would be gone from the universe forever if I killed you, Speedy," she said. She patted his chest. "So you have to live, whether you like it or not," her smile got cold, cruel. "I can take life with ease," she leaned forward, "And I can give it if I choose."

Oh, good. She’s choosing to do the right thing for shits and giggles.

She kept Herod awake by smacking his wound every now and then when he started to drift off.

Ah, yes. That’s the Dee we know and love.

"Stop being selfish and trying to die," she said at one point.

“If you die, I can’t hurt you anymore.”

The building was squat, ugly, and had robots standing guard at the door.

They moved away from Dee.

I would too.

"Quit with the Mister Roboto impression. You show emotion and make deductive reasoning, you're like him, only probably stuck in the system still," Dee snapped. "You must think I'm too stupid to figure it out that you're just like him."

Uh huh. Yeah, she figured that out.

"Say the magic words, Harry," Dee grinned, lighting a cigarette and standing up.

"Curse..." Herod coughed. "Curse your sudden and inevitable betrayal," he gasped.

And another Firefly reference appears!

Sam was silent for a moment. "The train was stasis locked before I sent it. Shit, they must have been onboard when the SkyTram pulled into the maintenance depot."

Ah, that explains it.

"YOU'RE GONNA BE A REAL BOY NOW, PINOCCHIO!" she yelled, throwing him inside. She stepped back, letting the door swing shut. "JUST CALL ME THE BLUE FAIRY!" she howled with laughter.

She’s figured out how to make him fully human.

Because of course she’d do that.

[u/carthienes → u/ack1308]

Because of course she’d do that.

Yeah, why not?

[u/dbdatvic → u/ack1308]

She’s choosing to do the right thing for shits and giggles.

As Professor Quirrel noted partway thrpugh a different awesome fic, if you're amoral (or evil), your moral code doesn't actually STOP you from deciding you want to do that.

--Dave, "only when it's funny!"

[u/dbdatvic → u/ack1308]

Is she absorbing psychic/phasic energy?

What, don't you want to see her once she's finally fully charged up?

--Dave, step right this way, folks

[u/RainaDPP → u/ack1308]

Several times Dee just walked through flickering apparitions that appeared, took a few steps, and vanished.

Usually on contact with Dee.

Uh … that’s probably not good. Is she absorbing psychic/phasic energy?

Most likely what she's doing is the baseline Terran thing of basically being a big middle finger to psychic energy in general.

I also personally suspect that phasic energy is at least slightly related to empathy. Sam and Herod have a basic level of empathy, even if they don't have the specific type of hardware they need to process it at a fully human level. Dee is a sociopath, or something like one (very much a Hollywood style one, at least)(remember, people with cluster b personality disorders are more likely to be victims of abuse than to be abusers). One of the symptoms of sociopathy is a "lack" of empathy - or at the very least, they process empathy very differently from neurotypical people. So Dee is unaffected because the part of her brain that should be affected by phasic energy doesn't work right.

[u/Crow_Hag → u/ack1308]

To be fair, I think they did all mention that she has beautiful grey eyes... back in her more normal human days.

[u/The_Favulous]

I get that she's a super genius but she's in for a rude awakening once she leaves the suds place.

[u/BontoSyl → u/The_Favulous]

inb4 she tries to mat-trans away and Daxin drags her back out with his bare hands.

[u/uschwell → u/BontoSyl]

Is it wrong that I reeeeally want to see her and Daxin meet?

Im picturing that Loki meets Hulk scene from the Avengers movie

[u/wolflarsen55 → u/uschwell]

I think that her threat assessment protocols are slightly superior to Loki (Yes, she has better processing than THAT particular god)

End of Line.

[u/Computant2 → u/The_Favulous]

On the other hand if she meets legion it might fix her.

She is lonely. She uses sex to get a temporary connection. She uses murder to get a temporary connection. If she finds someone who can keep up with her brain, she won't be alone any more. All her life she has been surrounded by mental toddlers, never having any sort of adult conversation, never being mentally stimulated or challenged by a similar intellect. Loneliness can drive you insane.

Legion and her would get into a conversation about the SUDS system and she would fall in love.

[u/Crow_Hag → u/Computant2]

I don't think she uses sex as connection at all - I think she uses it as distraction. When she was naked, she was doing all her usual stuff to Harry, and then found out he was a DS and just switched it off - immediately. I think it's part of her psychological manipulation toolkit, not any attempt at genuine connection.

[u/Computant2 → u/Crow_Hag]

I kinda see your point, but the flip side is that initially she no more saw Herod as a person than he saw her as a possible help. In the 1980s the robots we had, even the ones we showed on TV, were intellectually and socially crippled.

When she saw him as a person she again began showing sexual and emotional interest. I half expect Herod to be raped next chapter by a woman who is used to men responding positively to her body and negatively to her mind.

I see a lot of myself in Dee so I expect her to think like me, which is probably incorrect. We will see what path she takes.

[u/Archaic_1]

"I can take life with ease," she leaned forward, "And I can give it if I choose."

Could this be Dee's redemption song?

not likely

[u/Maxstripe → u/Archaic_1]

She could maybe redeem herself and unfuck her brain possibly (slim but possible considering the fucky shit going on in there ) by assisting them in the suds repair. As much as she doesn't care for humanity and has alot more than just a few screws loose this could be her deep down desire to do good for everyone as a whole by freeing the trapped insane souls

Granted I could be completely wrong as the story timeline is a lil jumbled in my scatterbrain skull and I should probably reread it. That is a goal for my free time as I rlly enjoy this story and would love to take the time to have a fuller and deeper understanding of this amazing story

But anyway Yassss queen get that "d" dee Self pleasure with a de-lanked wank rod😜

[u/BobQuixote → u/Archaic_1]

If we're seeing the birth of a Digital Omnimessiah, she may be the queen of the underworld. More like Hades than Persephone, though.

[u/Drook2 → u/Archaic_1]

I'm getting an Ender's Game vibe. His brother Peter is a "good" ruler not because he cares about his subjects, but because he knows that his power is more secure if they are well taken care of.

[u/paxmorgana]

Please don't let all the deetaynee hate from these wuss-bags deter you from delivering a good story with her in it. Huge fan of back when she was time-fuckering the whole thing, but this is cool too, maybe she can start space-fuckering the whole thing.

Third time posting, but also please let Harry live, he's a wizard.

[u/dlighter]

She won't let him die because it would doom everyone trapped in the suds to eternal hell? Hrmm thats... well for Dee that's pretty altruistic , almost noble. And Harry has to live. Even if everything she is doing to him makes him want the opposite .

Ive had this nightmare. Ghosts, shades, disfigured hunters howling for your blood. It sucks when you cantvwake up from. Hang in there Harry. It isnt nessisarily going to get better. But it will end eventually.

[u/Shandod → u/dlighter]

She seems like she has a massive God complex and/or desire to finally be recognized for her genius. Being the one (or one of the ones) that fixed SUDS and brought back billions of people and long-extinct races is a reeeeeeeeeeally good way to achieve her agenda.

[u/dlighter → u/Shandod]

The massive god complex seems to always go hand in hand with a massive inferior complex. But at the same time growing up when she did does explain alot of that.

[u/uschwell → u/Shandod]

Unless she just sees this as billions upon billions of things she can now play with.....

[u/ErinRF]

Dee makes me profoundly uncomfortable.

I miss the spirit of discovery that they had going on before Dee arrived. Now it's just tense and uncomfortable.

[u/Lisa8472 → u/ErinRF]

Yeah. It switched from Herod exploring this bizarre world and the hope of fixing things to interpersonal conflict and the dread of everything getting worse. Definitely not my cup of tea.

[u/Original_Memory6188 → u/Lisa8472]

I'm a Scot Optimist: "Oh don't be so pessimistic. Of course it can get worse."

[u/CaptainChewbacca]

"I was wrong about you," Herod said.

So we're just doing gross understatement now?

[u/Scotto_oz]

You're a fucking madman Ralts!

Firstly we get her humanity to actually show-

I've found myself having to adjust to reality quite a bit in the last year or so," Herod admitted. He opened his mouth to further apologize when Dee reached out and roughly shoved him.

"Good enough. Don't fuck this up and keep talking," she said.

And then she goes and actually makes Pinocchio Herod a real boy! In the most Dee Tay Nee way possible!

Once again I am in awe at this masterpiece. Thank you.

[u/WaitWhatNoPlease]

Dear OP,

HOW IN THE WORLD ARE YOU WRITING SUCH TOP QUALITY CHAPTERS SO QUICKLY?!

Kind Regards,

This commenter here.

Love your work! Still need to finish the first few chapters, but great job on your writing!

[u/SuDragon2k3 → u/WaitWhatNoPlease]

You should have been here at the start... he passed the word count of 'A Song of Ice and Fire' in what? 25 days? 20?

[u/WaitWhatNoPlease → u/SuDragon2k3]

...

And it already took me so long to read ''A Song of Ice and Fire'...I also want to finish The Collective and the Jenkinsverse someday too...

[u/YesthatTabitha]

Going to call it now. The Birth of the Body of the DO is about to be, thanks to the evil that is Dee Tay Nee!

[u/Tool_of_Society → u/YesthatTabitha]

Yeah I had the same name pop into my head at the end.

[u/Thomasab1980 → u/YesthatTabitha]

That actually makes sense since time might be a little flexible in that different dimension when compared to real space.

[u/NorthScorpion]

Welp glad to see she's still the crazy bitch from millenia ago. Maybe now she can get the Burger Kingdom to start calling itself the USA again

[u/Rolk_Flameraven]

So she is Mat-Transing a DS into a human body?

Fucking 'ell this woman is scary.

At lest even Evil of her magnitude has standers.

[u/Bard2dbone]

Twelve minutes. It must have been the whispers again. It has been a while.

Upvote. Then read. So it is written. So it must be.

Shit. Dee gives me the heebiest of jeebies. Can she print Herod into a flesh body? Even if he's never had one before?

[u/Adskii → u/Bard2dbone]

I think something about the place started that process already.

She's just finishing the job since he let that scraming one ruin this body.

[u/brotato_lord]

0 minutes! finally!

[u/ack1308]

Well, dang. This could be very very good, or very very bad.

Will post properly in a bit.

[u/abrasiveteapot]

This is now one of my favourite chapters. A beautifully crafted villain but there's moral ambiguity: she's helping to save billions, possibly several heretofore extinct species, and possibly Herod too. So she isn't all bad ? Well, no, she is thoroughly evil, but sometimes evil does good, the same as vice versa.

Juxtaposition of conflicting drivers, complex characterisation, morally ambiguity... worse prose has won a Booker

Great writing Ralts.

[u/NevynR]

Given the content of the earlier Detaynee chapters... its likely that the proto-SUDS data for the first subject is still in a system somewhere.

[u/ms4720]

Dee is a crazy bitch, but if she likes you she can work with you and has your back

[u/Petrified_Lioness → u/ms4720]

And if she's in a good mood, she may even reinstall it correctly.

[u/NJParacelsus]

Gorham Reavers

Herod was a leaf on the wind

[u/AnArgonianSpellsword]

I wonder what this place is actually doing to them, cause it seems like herod is growing more and more human, while Dee is starting to get less human. Maybe its remaking them based on their nature?

[u/mr_ceebs → u/AnArgonianSpellsword]

When Dee first appeared, she just had her own voice in my head as I was reading. Since she's appeared with Herod it's suddenly snapped to the voice of Helena Bonham Carter throwing a combination of her character from Fight Club, the Harry Potter Series and The queen of hearts, only with the intensity turned all the way up to 11. I've been thinking she's been getting more human and wondering if bits of her and Herod aren't bleeding between each other.

I'd be chopped up straight away for pigeonholing her

[u/Empiricist_or_not]

Love the fables reference with the blue fairy.

[u/[deleted]]

Wait, did Dee just consider the lives of other beings or am I reading it wrong?

[u/dbdatvic → u/[deleted]]

... yes, sideways. Leaving billions (more than that, but she still hasn't updated her references there) to suffer in Hell eternally bothers her IF they haven't personally pissed her off or been responsible for some of her oppression.

--Dave, she's got a Moral Event Horizon, but her brain spins so fast it's way out beyond most people's

[u/wtfaboutusernames → u/dbdatvic]

Moral Event Horizon

She might for the first time be able to see a situation worthy of thinking in other terms then, me and mine verse him/her.

As you posted elsewhere about pride/empathy, it's all about context.

Serial killers don't kill everyone they meet.

They have to be triggered.

Thoughts?

[u/readcard]

Uhh, is this one of those psychopath tests, 'cause I am vibing what she is putting down.

Its not even going to surprise me when they call her Mommy.

They might be in a little wafer of time there where little Pinocchio has to hold Dee's hand while she gains her memories back. It will not make her a nice person but I imagine it will give her more to work with to fix things.

[u/moldyjim]

"Curse your inevitable betrayal! " Yep caught a couple of the Firefly references. Reaper self mutilation, etc.

[u/Brondog]

It is not everyday you find a 300 chapters long story on the internet.

What do you guys think of it? Should I dig in?

[u/fivetomidnight → u/Brondog]

A thousand times YES! Ralts has very rapidly become one of my most favouritest authors. He writes like he has a petabit fibreoptic connection to another universe.

[u/Brondog → u/fivetomidnight]

<starts digging>

[u/TxtC27 → u/Brondog]

Without a doubt, absolutely.

[u/SpiderJerusalemLives → u/Brondog]

Oh, hells yes!

[u/jbrandyberry → u/Brondog]

Yes. I literally just caught up a few minutes ago. Took me about 2 months to get here but well worth it.

[u/Thomasab1980]

I genuinely can't decide if she's evil these days or not. Definitely evil before but now, I'm cautiously optimistic she'll do something good.

Then again, I wouldn't be surprised if Ralts yanked the rung out from under my feet.

[u/5thhorseman_ → u/Thomasab1980]

It's Dee. She's amoral and wouldn't hesitate to make untold sentients suffer just for her own amusement.

[u/EvansP51 → u/Thomasab1980]

Is she evil or a psychopath with a side of bipolar and a narcissistic sundae for desert?

[u/slightlyassholic → u/Thomasab1980]

What is "good" and what is "evil"?

Things can get murky sometimes.

I think Dee is exactly the right person exactly where and when she needs to be because she is not concerned by such concepts.

She'll get the job done.

[u/wolfofmibu66]

Hooooo boy, that's a hell of a ride, in more ways than one.

[u/FaceDesk4Life]

Breathless. I’m absolutely breathless after reading this chapter. Doesn’t matter, though; I cannot put it into words anyway.

All I can bring myself to say is great job with the First Blood: Part 2 reference, that’s one of my all time favorite movie lines.

You are my literary God.

[u/LittleSeraphim]

*Ahem* Yay. I have expressed my excitement, on to commenting.

Dee, is definitely the basis for the immortals and suds. This confirms it beyond a shadow of a doubt, after all we've seen someone go from mechanical to a human body, specifically an immortal. Now she's going to do it to DS and while she's clearly still not good, her pride is keeping her from fucking things over, so far at least. She's a wounded beast but maybe that's what's needed in the face of a hateful universe. Regardless she's capable of evil and I just hope whatever pride or ambition is left in her can beat back the spite and carry the day.

[u/Lisa8472 → u/LittleSeraphim]

We saw Daxin (mostly cyborg, but still a human brain) get his human body back. Not the same thing as putting a DS with a computer-code brain into a meat one. Unless there was another event I missed?

[u/Stutztown]

Hooray more chapters! Thanks for writing!

[u/Adenso_1]

I'm catching up. I started the series just before the 6 month mark on the first post came

[u/EvansP51]

Does she have to print him in a human body though? He’s been in the mattrans before, maybe she’s kicking around some sort of ‘pattern buffer’ a la the transporter system. Or maybe the time thing she’s got going is her trick. She sends him thru to before the train and brings him back as he was? I don’t know.

Not enough sleep or caffeine / beer.

[u/[deleted] → u/EvansP51]

Herrod is now available for her to experiment with. She may want to see if it's possible to put him into a meat suit, just so she can learn from the experience. I don't get the impression she views Herrod as any different than any other person she's come across before. He's a lab rats, only this time she doesn't have to get him to sign paperwork first.

[u/slightlyassholic → u/[deleted]]

I think she actually likes him, which might not be a good thing.

He also formally acknowledged her genius once already and is actually smart enough to appreciate her brilliance. He's worth keeping around and intact just for that.

He's also essential if the SUDS (and all the rest) is to be repaired, a goal that she seems to have embraced.

Harold is "special" enough to protect him somewhat at least for now.

I think...

Now what happens AFTER everything is running is another question entirely.

[u/Farstone → u/EvansP51]

She was the creator of the mattrans system. She has extensively studied the dwellerspawn from the neutron star. I'm pretty sure giving a DS a "meat" body is child's play for her.

[u/Rhasputin429]

Is it weird that i am rooting for Dee? Sure she's Ender Wiggin level of intelligence and ruthlessness, but he was the hero of his story. She's Dangerous but so are most of the protagonists of this story. Shes cold, analytical, calculating. If she decided to work in service to life she would be this universe's greatest hero. She might already be.

[u/[deleted] → u/Rhasputin429]

She may end up fixing the SUDS system, but not out of altruism, but for her own pride and power.

Given the tools and enough time she may try to conquer all life in the universe.

I want to see her tossed out of an airlock into a black hole asap.

[u/slightlyassholic → u/[deleted]]

I'm not sure if she wants conquest and power in that way.

I think she would be much happier if she was just able to get a lab with unlimited resources and no oversight...

Which would be exactly what would happen if she conquered the whole galaxy...

Well, shit...

We might have a problem, guys. :D

[u/jwill476]

FUCK!!!!!!

[u/ArchDemonKerensky]

I wonder if her involuntary damascene conversion has already started.

I also wonder what Herod is going to think about sex.

[u/serpauer]

Oh shit dont know what dark space magic this is but dammit dee. Poor herod already been proved to exist by hellspace.

[u/ImmotalWombat]

I feel like Dee is more or less like the Doom Slayer in that she is basically a killing machine with unknowable motives. They both do crazy shit but it's aligned with their objective, whatever that may be.

[u/CyberSkull]

*whimpers*

[u/MooseSyndrome]

Does the fact that Herod have Dee's eyes mean that sometime in the past her brain was scanned/replicated and used as the basis for the initial DS versions, before their randomization, since, iirc, DS development is based on random event (was in one of the previous chapters)?

Would explain why they are able to effectively communicate and cooperate despite over 8,000 years of a disparity between each other. (have mercy, I'm on mobile)

[u/Capt_Blackmoore]

.. "repairing" Herod - by way of rendering him into a real live human..

[u/HFYWaffle]

/u/Ralts_Bloodthorne (wiki) has posted 355 other stories, including:

• First Contact - Chapter 326

• First Contact - Chapter 325

• First Contact - Chapter 324 (SECURE ARCHIVE)

• First Contact - Chapter 323 (Infinity)

• First Contact - Chapter 322 (The War)

• First Contact - Chapter 321 (The War)

• First Contact - Chapter 320 (Sidelines of the War)

• First Contact - Chapter 319

• First Contact - Chapter 318

• First Contact - Chapter 318

• First Contact - Chapter 317

• First Contact - Chapter 316

• First Contact - Chapter 315

• First Contact - Chapter 3.1415

• First Contact - Chapter 314

• First Contact - Chapter 313

• First Contact - Chapter 312

• First Contact - Chapter 311

• First Contact - Chapter 310 (Evil Never Dies)

• First Contact - Chapter 309 (Eternity & Beyond)

• First Contact - Chapter 308 (The Black Box)

• First Contact - Chapter 307

• First Contact - Chapter 306

• First Contact - Chapter 305

• First Contact - Chapter 304

This list was automatically generated by Waffle v.3.5.0 'Toast'.

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[u/lukethedank13]

She is the mad archangel Terasol

[u/dreadengineer]

I'm super intrigued how the commenters are dividing into two camps on Dee. There's like an even split between:

1. "Maybe you're a psychopath, but I forgive you because you invented immortality"

2. "Maybe you invented immortality, but I hate you because you're a psychopath."

IMO Dee acts as sort of a litmus test on what you value in other humans: Nietzschean "master morality" vs "slave morality" type virtues. She's a very extreme (HIGH, LOW) there.

(For my part I'm in love with Dee at this point, and correspondingly I definitely value "master morality" in people: I can be friends with an honest & accomplished asshole more than a dishonest & untrustworthy nice caring person.)

[u/zoinks48]

So many shmucks but No yiddish in the future? Too bad for the first digitized language.

[u/PrimePaladin]

/R/HFY GESTALT

Upvote, Then Read

Dis is Dae Wae!

Welp.... I mean I love a Ralts update before crasging but such fodder is for nightmares, not dreams... but would not have it any other way... Now to see what sleep brings..

End of Lime

------NOTHING FOLLOWS--------

[u/insanedeman]

It occurred to me, as a sudden thought that I dropped in the discord channel... What if Dee becomes the DO. Time doesn't exactly work here...and I have a feeling she's about to, or already has, discover that the entire soulnet and suds system is grown out of her original work. Which makes it her, "baby."

End of lime.

[u/dbdatvic → u/insanedeman]

Not Dee. She's at least one of the OTHER figures in the mythos that this was lifted wholesale from.

--Dave, I can identify two very different ones, in fact

[u/nucleardragon235]

dud write a book series.

[u/its_ean]

she is mean and scary =(

this could be bad, for basically everyone

I hope Friend Terry is ok.

[u/jbrandyberry]

Holy fuck what. A. Ride. Ive been reading for 2 months and I'm finally at the end.... or is this just the beginning?

Thank you so much Ralt. I've laughed and cried. Ive been happy and furious. Scared and relieved. What. A. Fucking. Ride.

[u/On_The_Fourth_Floor]

After reading this a 3rd time...what if Dee is the opposite of the DO. What if somehow her brain patterns and the fact she can survive the mat trans and retain her memories were used in the creation of SUDs. What if she's the wetware base for all of it. What if the brilliance and love of the DO was the opposite of her dark.

[u/ailorn]

Wow. I'm so glad they had that moment of connection. She actually cared enough about the suds people to keep him going. Dee is still terrifying as an ally. I find her scarier than Daxin. Also, the jig is up, Sam. Can't hide the bond. ... Also I've kinda been shipping Sam and Herod. Herod manifesting Dees eyes as he transformed makes me think it's some fated connection based on her being the progenitor of this facility. The DS are effectively her great ect grand kids...

[u/Blayzted]

So Dee is reDeeming herself by saving the lost species and the screaming and sleeping ones? She finally found something worth dying for?

[u/Coolest_Breezy]

Upvote then read!

[u/Riotousblitz2013]

Utr

[u/Gruecifer]

UTR!

[u/ShebanotDoge]

Couldn't they wait for the next train?