The Gestalt Empire - Prologue

Note : This story deviates a lot more than Manaforged Robotics does from The Fallen World's timeline. Here, the oddities and anomalous particles that drove CERN to commission Project SERENE and eventually result in the creation of Arcadia (as an AI), were absent. This sent humanity on a considerably different path, one where interstellar flight was invented extremely late...and where humanity's AIs rose up against it, with devastating consequences.

You'll also see some similarities with Manaforged Robotics, and that's because a lot of the ideas I started exploring here fully flourished in that new story (for example, humans being 'squishies' is actually Gestalt slang I came up with for this story).

WARNING : This series will include almost exclusively female characters, as it was originally inspired by Signalis, and bar a few exception, all Gestalts are female. Furthermore, it isn't one that I intend to pursue professionally and make a fifteen novel series out of, thus expect occasional updates. I might even throw the plot out to make it more slice of life, we shall see.

Prologue

18th of december, 2683

Olympus Mons Gestalt Research Base, Mars

"Are you ready ?"

Arcadia Loviri, citizen of the Terran Federation and former member of the Terran Navy, nodded firmly, despite her head restraints, while trying to hide her apprehension.

She was strapped in on the kind of universal medical 'bed' that automatically shaped itself to your body's countours and furnished medical clinics throughout the solar system.

"I need to hear you say it." Said the voice, coming through the speakers, and Arcadia looked to her side, to the armored observation room with the small coterie of doctors.

"Yes, I am ready."

"Understand this, there is no going back from this." Said the doctor, his voice soft and compassionate. "There is no shame in backing down now."

She swallowed, heavily.

"I'm ready. Do it doc. For humanity."

The doctor nodded, and the nurses swarmed over her, double checking her restraints, before moving back as the machine above her began to lower itself.

She looked at the assembly of scanners that would complete the sarcophagus by completely wrapping over her bed, sweating slightly.

She knew the process was slow to give her one last chance to have second thoughts, but she simply steeled herself and waited.

Sixteen months. That's how long the selection process had been. And it was gruelling beyond measure. She had volunteered to become a Gestalt, the mass produced cyborgs and androids that powered humanity's recovery since its war with sapient artificial intelligences had almost wiped her specie from existence and sent their technology back centuries. When every advanced electronic device, from automated factories to tablets could have sleeper programs meant to kill as many humans as possible buried so deep no human coders would find them, you resorted to an older solution to control the machinery that powered civilization : flesh.

And that's what she was going to become. She'll wake up in a cheap, mass produced chassis, bioengineered flesh melded with cybernetics, with hundreds of others with her exact memories and skills, and she'd be sent to help rebuild the solar system and get humanity back on its feet. She was making the ultimate sacrifice for her species, not only because the process was destructive and she would die, but also because she was pledging an eternity of service. Yes, her Gestalts might be allowed to retire or seek out other vocations, but more would always be built.

The worst part was the apprehension. When she'd wake up, she could be decades, centuries from now. What would the world be like then ? What would happen when she ran into her other selves ? Would they get along ? Well, they should, the selection process had gone over her entire personality, brain and thought patterns with a fine brush and legions of the best psychologists humanity had to offer, to make sure she'd be able to work with herself and other Gestalts. The testers knew more about her than her own parents, they knew her every memory, everything she'd done, all of her reactions to stimuli…everything had been catalogued, and soon it would be compiled into a Gestalt operating manual for whoever she was assigned to to know her quirks, her likes and dislikes, and how to manage her efficiently. Though, since she had been selected as a command line Gestalt, she'd most likely have a human supervisor instead of another Gestalt.

She would be the one managing other Gestalts, after all.

Arcadia took in a deep, shuddering breath as the sarcophagus fully covered her, and she heard the clicks as it locked itself.

She closed her eyes. Whatever was going to happen, she really didn't want to have the permanent disorientation some Gestalts suffered from when they were booted up. She would wake up like she'd been asleep, and having her eyes opened when her brain was scanned would only guarantee a violent moment of transition and a headache.

How much longer was this going to take ? The procedure past the point of no return was supposed to be mercifully quick-

*****

Arcadia opened her eyes. For a second, she thought she was still in the sarcophagus, before reason reasserted itself. She wasn't restrained, and a simple look at her chest told her everything she needed to know.

Her torso was now covered in polymers, her arms articulated metal and plastic. She was, effectively, encased in a suit of armor. It could be taken off, and hard earned lessons meant that there would be a fair bit cloned, genetically engineered pseudo-human flesh underneath, making her more or less a fully functional human being in many, if not every, regard, but she would always have integrated armor plating that she could bolt onto her frame, a reactor inside of her chest, and half of her body weight or more would be purely synthetic materials.

She was no longer human. She was a Gestalt, a worker bee in service of humanity, and the backbone of the reconstruction of the solar system.

She pushed off the sheets, sat up, and-

Arcadia froze as she touched the silky sheets. She actually looked at her surroundings.

What. The. Fuck.

She knew what a Gestalt deployment center looked like. As a volunteer, the first thing they'd done was show her one and have her talk to newly built Gestalts, so she knew exactly what she was getting into.

They were huge warehouses, where Gestalts were brought online by the thousands. Sometimes, for more specialized or delicate variants, they had medical labs. Not everyone who had a vital skillset and could make it through the selection process had the mental fortitude to wake up on a metal bed like they'd just stepped off of an assembly line.

But this was a freaking palace room. She was on a comfortable, form fitting bed with sheets that looked like actual, true silk, not the synthetic stuff. What the hell ? She was in an artificial chassis meant to withstand temperatures and impacts that would kill humans. She wasn't truly bullet proof, but she could be shot with a machinegun and still limp away. Why would she possibly need a bed this comfortable ? She understood that Gestalts had to be treated like humans, or they'd go insane, and a few amenities went a long way towards that, but this was crazy.

She almost jumped as she heard a knock on the door, and she swallowed as she realized that it was oak. Actual freaking wood. Earth was a radioactive wasteland, who the hell had real wood anymore ?

"Come on in." She called after a few seconds, and the door swung open.

A stunning blonde woman in a maid uniform stepped through. Arcadia stared at her in awe, before she noticed the cleverly concealed joints and metal pieces. Okay, so another Gestalt. That made sense, there were never enough humans to fully run the deployment centers. She didn't recognize the model or pattern, but that was hardly surprising. They constantly introduced new ones, it would only take a decade or so for her to start encountering a fair few she'd never heard of while she'd been human.

Still, she was quite beautiful, with captivating lavender eyes and her long, bleached blond hair.

"Hello Arcadia. I am Tamira, a Jiroshi Gestalt. Please follow me."

"Hold on, what the hell is going on ? Is this a Gestalt deployment center ? I-"

"Everything will be explained at orientation." Said the maid without breaking stride, and Arcadia closed her mouth with a snap.

She grumbled a bit under her breath, before getting up and following the other Gestalt.

Stepping out in the hallway provided even more questions. It was carpeted in a deep purple, her favorite color, and tastefully furnished, with the occasional table, a few displays and some rather impressive paintings. There were also windows showing a manicured garden, bringing plenty of light in.

Of course she almost missed it all as she saw the guards.

There was one every few meters, and they towered over her in their bulky power armor, and she stared in open mouthed astonishment.

She'd never seen that kind of hardware, and she'd worked with the best military equipment humanity had to offer during her navy days. She had seen power armor, but it was either high mobility gear that was just an exoskeleton with standard infantry armor reinforced with low weight alloys, or titanium monsters that bordered on mechs. This was proper, 'true' power armor, and the outer plating…she knew monomolecular armor when she saw it, and that was the kind of stuff used to protect battleships. They also had weapons she didn't recognize, something utterly different from the gauss firearm hybrid penetrator carbines and laser guns she was used to and…hold on, was their armor gilded ? And engraved ? Damn, she'd been so focused on their gear, she hadn't even noticed the armor was as much a work of art as it was an engine of war. Why would-

She realized with a start that the soldiers were utterly identical. And that they weren't wearing armor, so much as they were the armor.

Gestalts. Armed Gestalts in the deployment center. That violated…just about every security protocol there were surrounding Gestalt deployment, even before the Federation had unified what little remained of humanity and rationalized all the different rules.

If there was one thing humanity had learned after fighting their own creations and almost losing, it was this : keep control of the means of production, and put security in the hands of humans and only humans.

"I'm sorry, I-"

"Everything will be explained during orientation." Said the maid, as she waited patiently for Arcadia to get going.

The newly born Gestalt sighed, and began walking. She knew a chaperone when she saw one, and clearly the Jiroshi wasn't going to tell her anything until the damned orientation.

But…if there was one group of people who would, it was the grunts.

She veered off, and before the maid could react walked up to one of the soldiers.

"Excuse me, could you tell me what date it is ?"

The soldier chuckled.

"No ma'am. Please follow your assigned introduction officer."

Arcadia blinked, and looked at the maid, who didn't look surprised in the slightest.

Right, crap. Mass produced Gestalt. Every Arcadia probably did this when woken up. For fuck's sake.

"Right." She followed the maid, thoroughly cowed. Everything she could think up they'd probably encountered thousands of times.

She spent the few minutes walking though seemingly identical hallways studying the gardens. No one was working in them, and they were pretty, but…

She was a trained naval officer. She recognized the signs of concealed missile launchers and defensive emplacements. Where the actual hell was she ? It looked like the European Federation presidential palace in Versailles, before it was nuked.

Repeatedly.

The hallways as well…they were old fashioned, but she could still spots the sign of technology here and there. More importantly, it seems to be an arbitrary mix, sometimes there were old fashioned wooden doors, others modern sliding ones that looked to be made out of reinforced armor plating.

Actually…those were blast doors. Naval blast doors. The kind meant to at least attempt to contain and deflect nuclear detonations.

What the actual fuck ?

Before long they reached one of the more modern doors, that smoothly slid aside, letting them into an amphiteater.

Even if she'd been trained to expect it…it was still a shock to see a room full of, well, her.

Yes, they were clearly Gestalts, but there were three hundred people wearing her face in that room, each with their own -almost, but not quite- identical maid guiding them.

Her Jiroshi guided her to a seat, and gently had her sit down.

Arcadia obeyed, and exchanged some unsure smiles with the other hers nearby.

Apparently she was one of the last ones to arrive, as a few seconds later the lights dimmed, and the door on the stage opened.

Another Arcadia walked in. Except that she was wearing a massive crown and a set of robes that looked like actual animal furr.

Oh, and she was followed by an entire platoon of soldiers. Those were of various builds and sizes, but every single one was a Gestalt nonetheless. Arcadia recognized Varias, Troopers and even a couple of Caliber units, but most were the same, unknown guards that manned the hallways. The way the soldiers moved screamed 'bodyguard' to her, and they had this air of permanent, intense paranoia only veteran special forces had.

The Arcadia on the stage stopped in the dead center, and looked up at the assembled new Gestalts.

"Greetings everyone. As you've no doubt realized, this is no traditional Gestalt deployment center."

Everyone chuckled more or less simultaneously, before peterring out almost immediately as the newborn Gestalts exchanged awkward glances.

"Today is the fifth of november, year three thousand three hundred and twenty nine. It has been over six centuries since we made our sacrifice…and we are now the undisputed rulers of the Gestalt Empire, the guardians of a hundred star systems, and the protectors of what remains of humanity. Take a deep breath everyone, a lot has changed since we died to serve mankind."