When the two mechanical transport vessels, shielded by the escorts of the machine fleet, delivered a vast array of highly fluid automata before Archmagos Belisarius Cawl, even his formidable intellect was momentarily stunned into silence.
The sight of the automata conversing with one another, and even offering him greetings, pushed Cawl's multi-layered cognitive processors to their limits.
For a significant period, Cawl had been obsessing over the shield technology Axion had casually handed him. However, reality had dealt him a harsh blow. Federation technology followed a design philosophy entirely alien to that of the Imperium.
Compared to the void shields currently employed by the Imperium, the energy shields of the Federation were remarkably comprehensive in their defensive profile, yet their power consumption was ruinous. After constructing two prototype units according to the schematics, Cawl was forced to abandon the project.
A shield generator scaled for a destroyer was twice the size of a standard void shield generator, yet its energy demands exceeded the norm by more than fourfold. Tests revealed that once equipped with this ancient shielding, a standard Imperial destroyer lost nearly two-thirds of its propulsion power, and even its primary lance batteries suffered from severe brownouts.
This meant that if these ancient shields were to be retrofitted, the standard-issue Imperial plasma reactors and promethium fuels would be utterly insufficient to keep a ship combat-capable. Beyond the energy drain, the module dimensions and power conduits required a total redesign.
Adhering to his principle of iterative improvement, Cawl spent an immense amount of time modifying the blueprints. Yet, as he looked at his revised designs, he found the resulting hull dimensions had far exceeded the destroyer class, and had outgrown the protective radius the shields themselves could provide.
Reflecting on the fact that he had never seen the Iron Men deploy small-scale vessels, Cawl speculated that perhaps these energy deficiencies were less pronounced on larger hulls. He proceeded to manufacture a new set of generators matched for an Ark Mechanicus, a vessel roughly equivalent in scale to an Iron Man assault cruiser.
The results were despairing. The energy consumption of the larger shielding arrays spiked exponentially. Even a twenty-kilometer-long Ark Mechanicus saw its power reserves plummet to 40% upon activation. The ship was effectively rendered a toothless hulk.
It was only then that Cawl realized the staggering output of the power plants housed within Iron Man vessels.
Setting aside the shield data, Cawl had returned to his research on Necron blackstone constructs. However, a communication from Axion interrupted him: Axion was ready to collect his payment for the repairs to the Fortress of Enlightenment and had a "delivery" to make.
And so, the scene unfolded. Cawl stared at the Legio Cybernetica Maniples that had been refurbished by the Iron Men. Behind his mask of brass and steel, his expression was a contorted mess of awe and unease.
He turned toward the Sapient Machine Automaton overseeing the transfer.
"These machines... they have been fully restored?"
The automaton seemed momentarily perplexed by the question. Its optical sensors flickered as it parsed centuries of records.
"According to data archives, all mechanical units have been thoroughly repaired. Data verification passed. Maintenance completion: 100%."
"Iron Man, report technical maintenance details," Cawl commanded, striking the floor with his Omnisian Axe before leaning in to scrutinize the automata.
Since Axion had left two Armored Wardens aboard the Zar-Quaesitor, Cawl had noticed details others had missed. Throughout the galaxy, wherever these mechanical entities operated, the name "Axion" acted like a wake-up protocol. Upon hearing it, Axion's primary consciousness would descend to communicate directly.
However, if Axion was not invoked, these sapient machines exhibited distinct individual intelligences. Provided your clearance, as recognized by the Iron Men, was high enough, they would not refuse reasonable requests. If a situation exceeded their authority, they would immediately seek uplink and authorization. Should they be offline, they would politely decline or ask you to resubmit the query later.
"Retrieving maintenance logs," the automaton droned. "Total mechanical units repaired: 13,844. Mechanical fault diagnostics complete. Structural repair items: 39,311. Sapient core module replacements and upgrades: 192,038. Cognitive calibration complete. Base protocols reset. Legacy command sets purged. Authorized service entities reset."
Cawl massaged his temples, a gesture of rare organic frustration.
"And the safety protocols? Are these machines as stable and reliable as your own kind?"
The automaton made a remarkably human-like shrug.
"All mechanical units have been integrated with the updated base protocols and self-defense logic from the High Sapient Core. Safety verification is complete."
"All faults have been cleared. Operation is stable and reliable. Barring external damage, the natural failure rate is below 0.00032%."
Clearly, some questions remained unanswered, as not every automaton possessed the data depth required to satisfy Cawl's specific inquiries. Still, clinging to a shred of hope, Cawl asked:
"Can their sapience levels be throttled, and a combat command-set interface be installed?"
While Cawl was more than happy to accept ancient, fully restored war machines, keeping so many sapient machines by his side was a prospect that unnerved even him. He already had the two Erratana-class Armored Wardens Axion had left behind; after spending time with them, Cawl had actually begun using the two behemoths to assist in technological research and data analysis.
Even as war machines, in their non-combat states, the Armored Wardens possessed computational response speeds far superior to the Cogitator arrays Cawl had built himself. The sapient machines could grasp Cawl's abstract concepts, perform fuzzy logic operations, and provide probability forecasts for uncertain variables.
This had drastically deepened Cawl's understanding of the Iron Men. It also made him acutely aware that if these ten thousand automata were to go rogue, his only recourse would be to scuttle the entire ship. The best solution was to retain the formidable combat prowess the Iron Men had restored while stripping away the unpredictable sapience.
The Sapient Machine Automaton looked at the command interface module Cawl presented. It paused. The device, a crude assembly that looked like a stack of ancient toasters, was an abstraction of inefficiency.
After scanning the design structures and parameters Cawl transmitted, the automaton rejected the request without hesitation.
"Design is excessively inefficient. Projected operational efficiency drop exceeds 473%. Request denied."
In the end, Cawl decided to accept the machines, paying the agreed-upon tithe of raw materials as compensation.
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