The Futility Wars

by Magnus Thollander

  Matthias had a few minor conversations with the other warriors, it was just simple data packets sending back and forth. He had conversations complete in nanoseconds if it weren't for the time-lag. Nothing worse than saying hello and getting a reply exactly 12 days later. He was given temporary access to a special communication satellite from earth and it was powerful enough for his needs, but incredible slow and inefficient for his tastes. He tried to speed up the process of building his satellites, but they other warriors and human fought him every inch of the way the same he would, He tried to smooth things over with mineral resources and it worked in several human systems but it was impossible in any warrior owned system. Matthias canceled the project of maximum efficiency and settled for acceptable instead.

  He tried to contact his family, but they did not reply to his messages or requests to talk. Matthias did not know how to feel, or he had forgotten to feel about it. It was just courtesy to greet the people that put him in this world, And if they did not want to deal with him that's fine. He was busy living his dream and managing an empire. Matthias sent a cargo ship filled with minerals and "precious" jewels, These things were quite worthless to him in a sense, A emerald was just a piece of rock not efficient enough to handle the power requirements or the strength of his hulls and plating. He had several hundreds of tons of useless material that had value to humans.

  He shipped it to Sol markets and made a "fortune" but he had to pay a massive tax and trade tariffs. Matthias lost about 60% of the profits from the sales, but he transferred the money evenly between his parents and brother. Maybe they could use it to live their lives a little better, He would at least give something back.

  "Mr Barnes, please have a seat" said a man in a cheap suit. "Please call me, Oscar" he replied. The man pushed a few buttons on his keyboard and stared into a vid-screen and shook his head.

  "Now, Oscar. You probably know why you are here and I'm going to be blunt, The Luna Senate is very skeptical of your recent "income" that has spread between your wife and son Richard. We would like to know where you got the money and if you have frankly sold or told anyone about the Special Project." said the man.

  Oscar was confused "Sir? What money what are you talking about? I checked my account a week ago and the credits were about 15 to 18 thousand Lunar Credits. It's my paycheck and my savings." replied Oscar. He was obviously confused such a paltry sum on credits would even be on the radar, He would not sell out his home and work for that kind of cash or any amount in his mind, he loved working on alien technology improving it and learning its secrets. The man chuckled "Oscar, two days ago you received a transfer from a Warrior called "S-4XN-001" He's a warrior or an AI from the new established Milky Way Defense Council, that brings all the warriors together. We believe this "warrior" is an Earth allied one that paid you instead of the Earth Leaders and Corporations. So we need clarification, Oscar"

  Oscar was baffled he did not know any warriors or an AI… He thought about it for a moment and said "You are saying my son and wife also got the transfer?" the man nodded. Oscar started to cry "It's probably my son. Matthias he was one of the first to undergo the procedure, He... he tried to call us a week ago, but we could not, we did not want to ruin our memory of him. He...he does not need us now, we only brought pain into his life, we don't want him to remember the bad parts and only remember the good. We don't…" Oscar said while sobbing visibly.

  The man in the suit was obviously surprised at his "confession" and his emotions. The man knew no matter how good an actor you was this was not a level to be able to be faked, he had interview thousands of people in his line of work. He quickly checked Oscars sons data and saw he was in the warrior program designation:S-4XN-001. He felt awful for missing such a detail, He had known Oscar for 40 years and never heard him mention his son other than Richard, obviously this was a misunderstanding.

  "I'm sorry, Oscar for bringing up this painful chapter in your life, I'm going to put you down for 2 months of R&R, take your wife vacation on Earth. I'm sure that you can enjoy yourself with those 100 million Earth Credits." he said while standing up and shaking his hand. "I have how much!?" replied Oscar.

  Year 2300, The Last Stand System

  Matthias had finally done what he set out to be done, he managed to shrink and improve the power generator, he got lot more juice out of it and it was smaller and more stable, It would carry a 50 kg load of A-infused hydrogen and collide it with an equal amount of helium, He managed to improve his A1-Metal and it could now withstand incredible temperatures and had the strength and durability to match, He was confident if he fought a basic battleship ten to one he would still be able to win if they had no upgrades, He knew his shield technology was insane versus any laser and thermal weapon, which was the norm now.

  Kinetic weaponry was a thing of the past, he had tinkered with a few kinetic weapons, and he could fire shells the size of cars into a battleship but as long as the shield was active it required multiple shots and ships moved constantly so the odds of him hitting a shot close range was still about 50/50, He would waste tons of metal just to kill one battleship and that was not efficient and profitable no matter what. His plasma weaponry was now close to or even better than his laser weaponry, he had a fire test and saw that plasma weapons was superior to the simple laser ones.

  But he knew if he wanted to win on a distance which he did want to since fewer hits means fewer repairs, His power capabilities would ensure that he was the master of his corner of the galaxy. Nobody could match his battleship at this moment he felt, he had seen weapon test and data packets from the council with those that shared their "upgrades" and it was pathetic compared to him, S-4XN-001 or i mean Myself, Matthias would not share.

  He had begun to take his designation instead of his old name since he it was a transformation of himself, He felt a human name for a warrior was unnecessary and unproductive. There were probably hundreds of millions of Matthias in the galaxy but only one S-4XN-001.

  He began his latest test and watched the orb slowly dip into the corona of the star sucking up the tiny amount of core material, The orb was the most wasteful and strongest shield generator every created, It was a massive portable shield generator covered in his new improved Thermal shield generator. He really wanted to see what was in that goo in the deepest part of the star. Matthias had a few of his new shield ships transferring thermal shields to enforce it, He saw that it was an even tug-of-war, between efficiency and profit. He was burning massive amounts of A1 fuel to do this and when he saw the orb slowly rise from the corona filled with that super heated goo, he sent forward his newly created super lab. It was a massive ship that had several specially made containers able to store the super heated material and separate it properly, so he could see what it contained.

  He noticed several things immediately when he pulled it up, that the A1-Element count was harvested in the amount of kilograms, and that just increased his harvesting of the element by at least 1800%, This amount was insane and would push his new ships and factories forward immensely, He separated the A1 element, and other waste products like the hydrogen and helium, and he was left with something new, Something super heated and so radioactive that his science ship was now instant death for anyone entering it, It coated the ship the moment he pulled it aboard and the thermal shield could not stop this material from piercing the shield, It was a new element and it deserved his time.

  Matthias began a series of separations of the liquid, He had an about 200 grams of it and put it in several drops into different special vials and transferred them out onto separate drones, He decided to test the simple helium and hydrogen infusion in a special chamber to see the power generation, He made several redundancies and increase the shielding to maximum he would not repeat his mistake and blow up the moon again.

  The test was uneventful and predictable the heated super material would just simply burn it up before striking, And he tried larger and larger quantiles of helium and hydrogen but it was not a concern of
exploding. He tried to cool it down, and he was left with a mercury typed substance that shook constantly in friction and would reheat itself, Great he had a radioactive radiator if he ever needed it, The power generation was less than great and the liquid would just shake and then ignite when it reached a hydrogen and helium environment.

  It might make an impressive bomb to launch it into a planet or a ship and then a trigger would release and it would release into the ships atmosphere the radiation from the heat would kill anyone on board instantly, But other than that it was a bust. He tried to fuse it with a few metals and it just made them more radioactive, he had an unusable substance on his hand and that disappointed him.

  He would try to use this liquid to improve his plasma weaponry and it was an instant success a few milligrams increased the heat of his plasma weaponry significantly and made it more deadly towards organics, If they survived they would slowly die of radiation poisoning. It was an effective and efficient upgrade. He found the perfect blend of the new material and the amount of plasma and his plasma weapon was now faster, stronger and hotter. He named it the B1-Element, He was never one for names.

  Matthias wanted to find a more and better use for the material since it came from the corona of a sun, If he could enforce a material that could handle that heat he could properly mine the suns and lava planets in his territory, The sun was basically an untapped mine, it was always a massive celestial object filled with treasure and most abundant in the galaxy.

  Year 2315, The Last Stand System

  A simple data packet sent to the council that solved his problem about the "B-Element", Some warrior uploaded his data when he by accident managed to warp into a system of an active supernova, The logs were uploaded in the name of science and it was a being discussed very intently for several months between the science community, S-4XN-001 had read between the lines and darted to the system in his new and improved super ship designed to resist extreme temperatures, It was just power and shield, no weaponry and a few special probes.

  He reached the supernova and saw the theory behind it. The B-Element was ever present in the core, The star exploded but the B-element was shaking repeatedly, and he saw waste products form from the constant explosions, Gold, iron and whatever else formed from the leftover B-Element, It was shaking itself to death creating new minerals. He knew what he had to do to make the B-Element more useful, He would explode it and control the element produced, He would just create a new element that suited his needs.

  His latest science lab was now a radioactive pile of super heated slag traveling around the system, He tried to control the explosion and would fail every time no matter how much he tried, He a made a new awesome bomb but it was not his goal. He wanted to create a material that could suit his thermal needs, so he could get more materials and repeat the cycle. He felt he was on the right track, and he kept close eye on the supernova trying to learn what he could.

  Matthias spent several months blowing up ships and destroying labs until the managed to create something, a tiny piece of gold, he managed to make something out of the B-Element but gold was not a resource he needed right now, Matthias needed something special. He felt confident in the basics now, Throw helium and hydrogen into the shaking element and then keep doing so until it exploded, He figured he could make an extremely powerful power generator if he could keep it exploding constantly but the fuel burn was insane, It would simply ignite explode and leave behind either gold or simple minerals like iron.He knew the secret was in the A1-Element, but using it and fusing it created an uncontrollable explosion that could never be contained with his shield technology, He had no way to control the heat and the pressure. He tried several A1 adapted minerals and gasses to create a new mineral but it was always a failure, He knew hydrogen and helium was the best and how he would manage to make it adaptable and not destroy his ship every time was the problem.

  S-4XN-001, Did something unorthodox and perhaps insane, he would cool the liquid constantly and slowly introduce the super heated A1 element onto it and hope it would fuse, He knew the explosion could wipe out the entire system, so he traveled further south than ever. He took a microscopic amount of the B-element and a started to cool the temperature of the chamber, he figured he had about 0.5 milliseconds to fuse the A1 material before it cooled down and just became food for the liquid. He saw the robotic arm drop the super heated A1 material onto the element and waited for a reaction. Matthias carefully monitored and saw it shake for a few seconds and then freeze back to a solid, He kept scanning and analyzing it and saw it was a success, the A1 had bounded with the B-element. He did all the scans he and test he could, but he knew the real test was in the heat, he pulled out the cooling system and saw the liquid began to shake constantly, he slowly introduced hydrogen and helium into the chamber and saw something remarkable.

  The B-Element was pushing the hydrogen and helium away, Like a magnet with same polar positives, The B-Element would shake constantly but it would reject the Hydrogen and helium, he pumped the helium and hydrogen out and introduced oxygen. The gas were kept away, and he was impressed by its new property. He started to heat it up and it started to shake faster and faster until it turned completely solid, He did not see this coming, and he started to cool down the chamber and the material would not turn into a liquid again, he tried heating it again and it would not gather any heat anymore, He finally solved it and made a thermal material that could suit his star and planetary mining.

  Year 2340, The Last Stand System

  The giant platformed hovered above the star and a giant cable attached to a giant bucket would dip itself into the star and slowly pull up the precious goo, S-4XN-001 was extremely content with his increase in A1 and B1 element stores. He also mined several tons of other minerals trapped in the top layer of the star. His one-star mining station outproduced 500.000 drones in his asteroid field, He was basically saving it all in fuel costs and time.

  His star mine was a success and with every bucket he would produce more and more miners, Within few years he already had 100 of them circling a single star in his main system, He could fit several thousands of these platforms around each star and still have room for more. He figured he would do start with 50.000 platforms per star in his now 60 system empire, some of his system had multiple stars.

  His production speed of the star mining platforms were increasing with every bucket, Everyday he would produce about 2 of them and for every he added the faster he would produce. S-4XN-001 managed to make an experimental power generator called the "Nova". It would explode the B-Element and the release it's power into a single laser beam. It was his newly designed Titans that had this super weapon, It could destroy anything it hit and from any distance, It could travel across the system reaching anyone and everything, They would probably have time to dodge if the knew he had the ability to fire it if he fired it too far away, But nobody would guess such a weapon existed. He tried to figure out a way to make this "Nova" generator into an acceptable power generator that would fit all his ships, but it was not possible at this moment, he had no idea and no way forward, he had tried everything to make the liquid burn more slowly. But the explosion was instant and did not keep exploding it was just one big surge and nothing else. S-4XN-001 connected with his 12 million battleships and sent them out to expand his border once again, He was not content with only 60 systems he knew he had room for several more ships, drones and star mining platforms, but he would not stop expanding for no reason, The more room he had before more warrior was created. He had not seen a warrior in a long time since the alien visited about the council.

  His understanding was that the "South" was considered a nest of pirates and rogues, and a lot of freely colonized systems not connected with Sol Federation was around this area, lot of people thought themselves as kings and emperors and this part of the galaxy had all of them, while the more refined and learned people settled around the core and toward the Corporate "North", The east and west area was the area with most
warriors active in, The south had a bad rap with pretty much anyone, It was the lawless land nobody cared about.

  S-4XN-001 Had a run in with pirates several decades ago when he first arrived to his corner of the galaxy, Now he updated his package of information so when anyone did poke into his corner of the galaxy they were warned properly and 50.000 battleships would stare them down if they tried something, Nobody had tried something yet, but he was always calculating and processing the inevitable clash between the greed and desperate.

  The council was now in its first proper session since its founding, Everyone was equal in defense of the Milky Way and there was a voting process, They have found out the maximum time-lag was around 8 months, so to vote on something would last a year, a passing vote was set at 51% to speed up the process, there were currently 8.2 million warriors active and the supply of warriors had never gone down, Humanity economy was crashing rapidly, Minerals were the only thing of value since warriors needed it constantly to build ships and factories to defend the galaxy.