327 Far Future, Ch. 37 – The Tech Tree, Part II (1/2)

The key element to both products was not the end product, or even how they were made. It was the environment, the people, and how the entire area had been treated.

This was a universe with a highly restricted presence of Good, entirely by the designs of the Warp. Chaos rent and twisted at the laws of man and reality, so naturally the opposing forces went to Law and its uncompromising rigidity to oppose it, further factionalizing mortal life. But its Evil, corruptive side had no true counter.

Except for what I was making here.

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It took time, love, and tenderness, but that's what soulclaws as hard as adamant are for. The circuitry had to be in the patterns of Law, by Mekker fiat, which was fine. But I'd also overlaid in the patterns of Good, and furthermore, only Good people were allowed to work on the Gold boards, while the less protective Green boards employed the rest of them.

Good people, making Good-patterned items, in a Good Place on Good machinery. Without all four things together, they couldn't be made. Exploiting Alignment vulnerabilities for fun and profit... who said Good people can't make money?

Producing the base tech at TL 7 was way cheaper than doing it at TL 10, because I didn't require Energized materials. The planet was full of the required elements, so getting supplies wasn't hard at all.

I had been very careful when starting this branch of tech, and purchased the rights to it, not buying a license. The tech was old and worthless, and I got it for a veritable song. It also meant that any advances I made on it belonged to me... as long as I filed the appropriate paperwork.

The Mekkers would soon be getting news of the unexpected resilience of vakker tech against corruption, and of the Gold tech in particular. They would unleash their logic engines upon the problem, and find themselves able to get most of the same performance of the Green vakker tech... and they'd have to pay me a nice licensing fee to sell it. The basic supplies I needed were commodities, so they couldn't wrench me from that side, and the production tech needed was primitive, by their standards... I could make everything I needed off a moderate-sized TL 10 Printer, which I already possessed.

I had already insulated myself through the law, and if they tried something like health inspectors, I was going to put a camera on the guy and follow him wherever he went looking for stuff.

Now, my only exposure was them advancing the tech to higher levels on me, taking the tech tree away from me. It was the single major impetus that had forced me to use my sealed Mark Karma to advance Rantha to Ten, as I couldn't let them do that. If I did, I'd be at the mercy of the Mechanists, just like the rest of the Empire, and they'd strangle the tech tree to death to safeguard their monopoly on the semiconductor side of things.

Advancing up the Weird Science/Chaos Physics level of a tech tree is an endless loop of building diagnostic equipment to find out what laws you can fiddle with, getting the numbers, building the equipment to take advantage of the laws, building new diagnostic equipment to the next level, higher-tuned and more flexible, repeat and advance, repeat and advance.

Happily for me, the diagnostic and testing equipment already existed, I just had to use it in a completely new direction. Getting access to prior research wasn't actually that hard, since it was esoteric foundational knowledge akin to buying a physics textbook, albeit only for people of Seven to Ten in Level. Since it was only principles, numbers, and applications, without the tech behind it, and way, way lower than the TL 15+ stuff that almost nobody alive understood, it wasn't hoarded very closely. It almost restricted itself, since the people it was useful to were so minute. Most folk wanted the tech, not the info behind how and why it worked.

I'd already grabbed the Ranks in the technology, and knew how to make them, subject to aesthetics. I also had the Ranks in Math and Physics, so I knew how to get the numbers, and could understand the laws and principles behind them once I had them.

Buying those numbers saved me a lot of testing time, and let me start filing patents on vakker tech.

The advantage of working with a Visual File is how perfectly interactive it is with yourself. I could design with far greater speed and precision than working on any kind of actual computer, and simply download the results.

And just in case there were diagnostics on the computer, it wouldn't reveal that I was thinking with a 44+ Intellect, either.

Yeah, I was still a Melee Prime, and I didn't regret it. But like Mom-me, I was a double Primary Class in Expert, which was Int-based, and in a tech world, pure raw intellectual ability is valuable like nowhere else.

The Secondary Classes I had been lifting were Alchemist, Runesmith, Vizard, Null Wizard, Archer, and Scout, all Int or Dex-based, and reflecting that across the Sustained divide. Null Wizard also gave me Nog access, and I had slowly brought up my base Intellect and Dexterity to 18.

Skill points, Skill Ranks. This was a tech universe, not a magic universe. Science built from the floor to the ceiling for everyone, not just an individual. Sure, I had to fight, and there was no doubt I would be fighting on some catastrophic, horrific levels. It just hadn't started yet.

So I had to think fast, and I had to think powerfully.

My physical dexterity and mental dexterity were advancing in lockstep, keeping me able to keep up physically with how fast I could think.

I had twelve thoughtstreams going now. Eight of them were focused on managing resources, building up my technology base, or making money.