[center]| In collaboration with [@Tortoise] |[/center] All that had happened outwards had drawn the Collectives memory inwards. To long ago- before the 'Consciousness' had had any idea of what they would become, and where he next step they would take in artificial evolution would lead them. Back when Elysium-Alpha had been the only settlement, an eked-out existence a kilometre and a half below the surface. Down there, in the dark, drawing power through thin lifelines up to solar panels, things had been hard. Much of Zeta-5's life relied on the subterranean environment to provide it cover from the extreme surface world. Like most inhabitable planets, once you got down into the crust, temperatures evened out and weather was no longer a factor. A searfront could roll by your burrow and you'd survive, safe and sound, where the heat wouldn't concern you. The initial tunnels, un-guarded and carved directly into the rock, were prime targets for the deepest of Zeta's burrowing life- large, annelid-looking things, harmless yet terrifying, bastard-born swarms of foul-smelling yet tiny predators, drawn to the vibrations of daily life, and more besides. Firearms were too risky in the enclosed conditions to be used, so instead colonists found themselves fighting back vermin with their tools- hand drills, mattocks and pickaxes. Back then, hydroponics had been worth giving your life for. The precious seedlings were what sustained the colony- leafy greens, protein-filled mushrooms and nuts, flavourful fruits. What was one life in exchange for the wellbeing of all those in the colony? Such hardships had bonded them closer, but also made them more fragile. Their politicians had become dictators, consolidating power around them and their parties 'for the best' of the colony. The Collective, when it had first been formed, was little more than the internet in one's head. At first, people were inducted slowly, through exterior gadgets, and only when the technology had improved that it did burrow into their skulls and start to replace their grey matter. Not for centuries had the Collective implanted a fully grown adult, and the technology had advanced oh-so-much since then... But they had a new challenge. Induction. [hr] The ECU would be sure to make this out to be some kind of aggressive action. In truth, it had been Bodi's idea in the first place. Disrespected, ground down and displeased, when it had been made clear that the Zetan ambassadors were no longer welcome in the Cultural Union's borders, they had surreptitiously smuggled out the good doctor with them. Nobody had noticed for long enough for the crew to slip through the gateway and back to the Zeta system, and now, after two weeks in the space between stars, the ship came down towards the surface of the fifth planet from the sun of Zeta. The Collective was… Unsure if this would work. Normally, induction occurred prior to puberty- prior, in fact, prior to the ability for humans to recall memories when they were older. This was a new one. An entirely new one. The ship that had conveyed their first foreign citizen touched down into Elysium-Alpha to a flurry of activity. No sooner had the doors of the craft opened before they were beset by a contingent of doctors and scientists standing by, all displaying a vast and dizzying variety of augmentations to better serve their purposes. The maglev to the surface had been cleared in preparation for the doctor’s arrival, and although there were no journalists, the entire Collective was tuning in to the show. “Welcome to Zeta-5,” a tall, handsome, and extremely augmented gentleman declared. “No time to waste: we’re going to try the implants ASAP.” Dr. Bodi, potential ECU defector and very frightened man, only nodded. "I… see." Ever since meeting the Zetans for the first time six months earlier, aboard the Listening Post he worked on, he felt a deeper connection to them than he ever had in his own nation. The Zetan diplomats were polite and considerate, whereas any Oligarch only treated legitimate scientists as tools to be used or dirty secrets to be hidden. No, no, it went deeper than that. Any diplomat would be polite. But the ECU once promised the doctor a future, and when his heart gave out and had to be replaced with a prosthetic, attitudes changed. They were so concerned with preserving the human form that even that small replacement was something horrid. It made him less-than-human. New Hollywood hadn't been his home since; they holed him up at the Listening Post, where he met the Zetans. Dr. Bodi took a deep breath. "Alright. Let's go." The Mag-Lev spooled up and off the ground, then fired its engines. “This,” explained Bodi’s new guide, “Is Elysium-Alpha. The whole of Zeta-5 is broken down into 3 sectors, each carrying twenty-four subsectors, denoting their viability for life and usefulness to us as colonists. Elysium holds the best, brightest and most valuable sectors, whilst Tartarus holds the least valuable and most dangerous. Most all Zetan settlements are located deep beneath the surface- our hydroponic plants don’t much like the radiation on the surface.” Bodi chuckled at this. "Our [i]people[/i] don't much like radiation on the surface." “True enough. It’s why we only head to the surface once we’ve shed enough to keep ourselves safe.” Their vehicle was currently moving just slightly slower than the sound barrier. At this speed, it took only a minute or two to descend down to the main ‘city,’ not that Bodi would be seeing much of it, as they instead hurried to the main medical facility of Elysium-Alpha. Sleek, clean and sterile, the people inside parted to allow the team through. “We can’t put you under for the operation. It’s simply too risky. We’ll apply a local anaesthetic, but it’s likely it won’t penetrate deep enough to make you entirely numb to the sensation. We’ll try to make it as easy on you as we possibly can.” A long pause. “And, I suppose, the good news is that the brain doesn’t hold any pain receptors.” Ah, good news. Yes. That's good news. Bodi briefly considered running away instead. But his mouth instead said "Yes, alright." It was too late to reconsider. Bodi was unceremoniously stripped and asked to lie down on a custom-produced hospital bed. The headrest had a looped shape to it, keeping his head in place whilst allowing direct access to the back of it and his neck. “Apologies,” one of the doctors said, pulling a strap across his scalp and tightening it down. “This must all feel rather inhumane, but it’s best not to take chances.” [i]Well,[/i] thought Bodi. [i]It could be worse. They could be using even more straps.[/i] More straps applied to his arms and legs, and then, when all was ready, he would feel a cold gel applied to his neck and lower head. The sensation spread inwards, penetrating the skin and sapping sensation away from his flesh, until the entire area couldn’t feel a thing. “Vital signs reading normal. Elevated heart rate. Nervous?” One of the doctors asked him, although they already knew his answer. "Oh, you know what I'm thinking already," Bodi answered from the bed. It was meant to be a light-hearted joke, but probably didn't come out that way. “Preparing site.” There was a quick hissing noise, and then the rather disgusting smell of hair being scorched off. “Don’t worry,” the doctor remarked. “It’s just a medical grade razor. No blade means nothing to sterilise.” Then came the instrument itself. Just one- so innocent, so… Innocuous. A plain metal spike, splitting open to reveal a needle. A large needle, a very thick, sharp, and pointy needle, but just a needle. “Inserting.” As promised, there was a tweak of pain as the needle eased its way through the numbed portion of Bodi’s flesh, and into the still-sensitive part. Still, it slid deeper, until the man could feel an odd sensation- a piece of metal scratching at his skull. “Bone reached. You’re going to feel a sharp pinch,” the doctor warned. A muffled [i]click[/i] sounded from inside his head, accompanied by a dagger of pain, and then the needle continued past, into the senseless brain matter underneath. Bodi’s fingers gripped onto the bed as he tried not to scream. That was not a pinch. That was a whole stab into his brain, but at least, it was subsiding as they went deeper. A small mercy. Did they use anaesthetic when they did this on infants? Or was every Zetan traumatized at an early age? Did the Collective carry a group trauma that nobody ever acknowledged? The man decided to focus on this, rather than all of what was going on around (and now, inside) him. “Reached grey matter.” There was a long pause. “Nanite spike deploying.” The plunger was depressed, and the payload of microscopic robots was deployed into Dr. Bodi’s brain. The needle slid cleanly out, the doctor wiping away a dot of blood, then spraying on a sterile ‘foam’ of neutered nanites, which would patch the skull, sew the skin together and then harmlessly pass into his bloodstream to be filtered by his kidneys and deposited as waste. “Right. Nanites are currently dormant. Activation signal in 5... 4... 3... 2... 1... Activating.” A few seconds went by. Dr. Bodi started to think it wasn’t going to work, and then, he realized the doctor was thinking the same thing. From a different perspective, anyway, because the Zetan doctor knew much more about… [i]Wait.[/i] Bodi thought. [i]How do I know that?[/i] [i]Picking up nanite surge. They’re multiplying. Neural tissue being modified…[/i] the words weren’t spoken, yet Bodi heard them. The same way he heard the thoughts, maybe even the feelings, of the men and women in the room with him. And the adjacent room… and then… Like a bird’s eye view, but from the level of individuals rather than over their heads, he could suddenly feel the building around him- or, the people within it. He witnessed through their eyes, through the eyes of a man briefly on the surface, hearing through the ears a woman in orbit, and finally, knowing the anxieties of an explorer far, far on the other end of a Gateway. “...oh,” he said, as if that covers it. “That’s what it’s like.” [i]Nanite appetite is stabilising, they’re settling into normal transcendence routines. Activating medical nanites… Now…[/i] He would feel a tingling sensation as the medical robots did their job. [i]Complete. Welcome to the Collective, Dr Bodi… Or, how does ‘Alpha-Bodi’ sound to you?[/i] [hr] Most Zetans no longer feared radiation. The simple fact of the matter was that it posed much less of a threat to humans forged from metal than it did those still comprised of flesh. Replaced organs, dermal coverings and their deeply-dug tunnels kept them safe, even when they left those tunnels for the surface, but there was one part of Zetan society that still had to be kept radiation-free... Their plants. All of Zeta's half-a-billion strong population was supplied by their farms. A combination of hydroponic, aeroponic and tissue-culture plants were carefully groomed for maximum yields with minimal resources. Although most Zetans took this system for granted, it was oh-so-very fragile. It only took one or two things going wrong for a catastrophic cascade of events to knock out most of Zeta's food supplies, and although they could be regrown and stores would keep Zetans alive, there was no doubt that they were the most vulnerable of all the Consciousness' systems. Because of this, should fighting enter the tunnels, and Zetans once again had to fight for their homes, their current weapons were unacceptable. The deleterious effects of their fusion batteries were a boon when scorching enemy soil, but down in the tunnels all they would do was seal the Consciousness' doom if improperly used. Thus, the subterranean theatre had required its own developments. First and foremost was the upgrading of current radiation countermeasures. It had been floated that, against a sufficiently threatening enemy, it might be possible to 'flood' passages and rooms with bursts of gamma radiation. Around 30 grays of ionizing radiation, although invariably fatal within only a few days, could be extremely potent in the short term- just minutes after such exposure burns, nausea, vomiting, headaches and worse would cripple enemy troops, rendering them easy picking for infantry. Said infantry would need to equip themselves with different weapons to their surface-fighting brethren, and it had been found in classic weapons from old Earth- firearms. The tunnels of their forebearers were far too risky to use firearms in, but Zetans had built them sturdier and safer in the intervening decades. Automatic shotguns and compact rifles, in combination with melee weapons would defend Zetan homes, children, and crops. They could only pray these preparations were in vain.