The Only Winning Move Is Overwhelming Firepower

Chapter 1

Oh Hey Another One

I wake up with a gasp-

Except, not really, because I can't breathe.

I don't… need, to breathe?

...Wut.

Aaaand that is the ground. The ground I am not currently on. The discovered ground.

The ground I'm dropping towards waaaaaaay too fast shit shit shit SHIIIIIIIIIT!

Okay, this is not the time to panic, I can figure something out.

Firstly, how am I dropping towards the ground?

..That is an orbital drop pod.

Around me.

And it has four. thrusters.

Right. So.

I'm either something I've never heard of, or a Commander. From the glorious RTS that is Planetary Annihilation.

...Which probably means I'm actually an SI, come to think of it. I previously believed this to be downright impossible, at least given my universe's location on the waveform that is the layers of existence, but I'm currently experiencing a rather bumpy ride down to a planet from orbit inside a gigantic Brutally Efficient Self Replicating Machine of War.

So, hello to the people reading my thoughts! Also, me who's writing this, you are an ass.

I mean it's… technically possible ROBs actually exist and that one has picked me of all people to mess with, but it's far more likely I'm being trolled by myself.

Hmmm… I wonder whether Me and… Me, can setup a bidirectional memory link or something. Writer Me already has mine, he's creating them after all, but I don't have his.

...Nothing? You continue to be an ass, Me.

Ah well, unidirectional multi existence layer consciousness will have to do for now.

Right, landed, cool rainbow explosion ('cause rainbows are cool), drop pod disintegrates.

If I had knuckles, I would crack them.

Showtime, girls and boys.

Step 1: Build an aircraft factory. I am so happy I seem to have all my PA techs unlocked, from what I can tell anyways. I'll know for sure once I grab a T2 fabber.

Not every story has to start out with building a metal extractor.

Factory finished. Queue up a scout plane and five T1 fabbers. Use Commander chassis to build three mex and then assist the factory.

See, I can build the metal extractors afterwards. They don't have to be the first things a Commander plops down!

Scout plane finishes. Set it for planetwide patrol.

Looks like my Commander is going to finish building the mex just after my first fabber is done. That's okay.

First fabber finished. Set it to build on all close by metal spots via an area construction command.

Commander assisting factory now. Second fabber builds like, three times as fast. It's done. Set it to go to a further away cluster of metal spots and area construct.

Third fabber finished. Scout plane has located my enemy.

Scout plane has located my enemy.

...

NOT COOL, ME!

Oh, wait. Enemies.

There are three enemy commanders on this planet.

...You've graduated from ass to dickwaffle, Writer Me.

Right, they're still setting up their bases. No time for me to go to full T2 bullshit, I've gotta thin the herd immediately.

Fourth fabber finished. Send both off to more metal clusters, away from the enemy Commanders.

And finally, fifth fabber. I have this one finish constructing mex on the slightly further away mex spots near my landing location that my first one hasn't managed to get to and send the first one off to another metal cluster.

Okay. 3 minutes since landing.

I'm on track.

Have Commander queue up a 3x3 grid of basic power plants. While my slow-ass body is moving out de wae, queue up a return command for all my mex building fabbers.

Oof, there goes my scout plane. The enemy Osiris Commander shot it down.

Well, they know I'm on the planet now. Too bad in roughly two minutes it won't matter.

Now that at least a couple of the power plants are constructed and two of my outlying fabbers are on the way back, it's time to go full Von Neumann up in this bitch.

Queue up five T1 air factories for each of the returning fabbers.

Build five more fabbers from the original factory.

As our good old boy Brackman says: Oh yes.

I've got over 100 metal income now, thanks to the generous metal clusters I've been able to capture.

Just enough.

Three fabbers are on the way back, and my Commander has finished with the power plants.

I need another 3x3 grid. And so, I queue one up.

I also queue up five more factories for two of the incoming fabbers, and four for the final, fifth one.

That'll leave me with a solid 25 air factories in… roughly a couple of minutes. So at 6:23 mission time, they'll be done.

My original air factory has finished pumping out all five new fabbers. I have one each assist the factory building fabbers.

My energy income takes a decent hit, but it drops the completion time down to 5:42.

Much better.

I idly make the original factory patrol around my base in a circle and set it to infinity build T1 fighters.

Air wall. Just in case. It'll be fully developed by the time the factories are up.

Another 3x3 grid of power plants, Commander. Stat!

Okay. Whew. No more commands to give for a good full minute and forty seconds.

Time to think.

So, from my memories, I know I've been idly toying with the idea of writing a Multicross SI of the PA variety for a while. Ever since discovering the others on the various webforums, really.

Guess I… Writer Me, finally started it.

With me as the unfortunate lab rat.

...I blame you for this Drich. And Fusou. And… damn there's so many of my new peers out there in the multiverse, aren't there?

Phoenix, Faith… or wait, just Hope now, I guess, Tiki, Nova, and so many more.

Shit, if us Commanders weren't being protected by Author Fiat, it's likely we'd be bumper to bumper (or is that fabber to fabber?) across the multiverse!

There was even that one dude who deployed a package for us SV/SBer Commanders throughout the multiverse. Or, at least, his multiverse. The likelihood of my multiverse being any other Commander's multiverse… well, it's low, and not just because the beings that make Eldritch ones look like chew toys for those in my new layer of existence have to agree to collaborate before any linking can occur.

It gets a little scary when you contemplate just how much power Authors have.

...Speaking of, oh kind, wise, and powerful god of my story, could I have that shiny technology I was just talking about?

Suddenly a burst of light blips into existence above me. An object comes tumbling out at supersonic velocity… and clangs into my head.

I reach down to pick it up. Could Writer Me be answering my plea?

Yeah. Yeah, he did.

I'm holding a metal basketball with the words NOT YET engraved on it.

...I reiterate that you are a dickwaffle, Me.

Internally sighing, I drop the basketball into the dirt. Seems the thing is pretty heavy given it plants itself halfway inside. The taunting words are, of course, looking straight up at me.

Major Grade Dickwaffle.

He stuck me in a Commander's body, too. I know it wouldn't take that much to give me a more humanoid one, yet Writer Me declined.

Yet again, unless a ROB is aping my behavior rather fierce. It's not out of the question just yet.

All this would've pissed me off…

But.

But.

This also means that I get to experience becoming something beyond expectations. To seek out new tech and new life. To boldly go where, well, someone, and a lot of someones, have certainly gone before, but in my own way.

That way being held to my two fundamental writing tenets.

The Only Winning Move is Overwhelming Firepower, and Pseudo-Crack.

I'll provide the former, with Writer Me providing the latter. You'd think that I would clarify it with 'when he's not trolling me', but past experience has proven me capable of doing both at the same time with no problems.

Oh yeah. This is gonna be fun.

A few dozen more seconds is all I have left to think. Then my factories are finished.

And a couple of seconds later, so is my third power cube.

That's all the power I'll need. And I have all the metals I'll need.

So, I have all the fabbers assist my Commander, moving them away from the factories. The original factory I remove the queued plane from. This allows it to finish its current fighter.

Then it's done.

25 T1 air factories.

All ready to build.

Unassisted, yes, but raw quantity is a quality all its own.

A T1 Bomber, codename Bumblebee, has a 21 second construction time.

I can build 25 of the the fuckers every cycle.

It takes roughly thirty to detonate a Commander.

Heheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheh.

I love bomber sniping.

All factories on Continuous. Queue up a single Bumblebee for each.

Begin.

All the factory arm… circle… octagon fabber mechanisms begin to spin, and the nanoframes of my force that's going to be recreating the bombing campaign against Japan starts to take shape.

My Metal income almost drops to 0, but that's fine. I won't need it very soon.

22 seconds later, including 1 second for liftoff, I have a force of aircraft nearly sufficient to wipe one of my enemies from the face of the world.

Another 22 seconds and I have double that.

RIP my enemies.

Let's see, who shall die first?

Well, I don't really have a preference, so the uppity asswipe that decided to shoot down my cute little scout plane becomes Target Number 1. No killing Scout-chan. Bad Osiris Commander. I don't have a squirt bottle big enough for you, so you'll just have to settle for thermonuclear fire.

I select all 50 Bumblebees and send them the Osiris' way. They'll get within sensor range soon, where I'll be able to see the Osiris and manually target it.

Meanwhile, the factories continue to churn out 25 Bumblebees every 22 seconds.

MUAHAHAHAHAHA!

The Osiris is within sensor range now.

Side note: PA units actually have speaker systems.

Yeah, I know, right? I suppose that speakers aren't remotely expensive on the PA scale, so I shouldn't be surprised, but…

Ah well.

That just lets me pay proper tribute.

I target the Osiris commander directly. The Bumblebees reorient to dive through its base straight for the unfortunate enemy AI. The speakers on all the Bumblebees on the attack run switch on.

And music [yU6s5M3WnfQ], assembled from my surprisingly complete audio database (Thanks, Writer Me!) starts playing.

Buh ba ba bah baaaaah buh ba ba bah baaaaah buh ba ba bah baaaaah buh ba ba bah baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah

Because honestly, what else was I going to play?

The sound washes over the Osiris' base like a tide of oncoming awesome. The spiky Commander turns to look in the direction of the music, ceasing assisting its factory as it does so.

If Commanders had eyes, I'd like to imagine the Osiris' would be wide with shock and fear.

It hastily backpedals and starts to run away from its base. Well, away from the incoming storm, but I'll say the base because it sounds better. More like the Osiris is scared chicken.

The Bumblebees cross the entire base before reaching the fraidy cat Osiris. This winds up taking three of them out, as the base has some anti air capability, but not remotely enough.

The first wave zooms over the Osiris and lets loose a torrent of bomb missiles.

Yeah. Bomb. Missiles. Progenitor tech is that BS.

The Osiris has less than a fourth of their health left when the first bomber begins circling back around for another strike.

The Commander has been shooting its comparatively powerful AA gun this whole time but only managed to destroy 10 bombers.

Not enough to save it. Not even remotely.

The rest of my bombers close in for the kill-

And the Commander goes up in a thermonuclear fireball.

It wipes most of the planes out, but that's one enemy down.

Funny story; I have five more flights of 25 bombers each hovering over my base.

And the sixth just finished.

I separate them into two groups of 75 Bombers each and send them both to the remaining two Commanders' bases.

This will be over very, very soon.

More Ride of the Valkyries and two thermonuclear explosions that reach orbit later, I'm the only Commander left on the planet.

Huh. I'd say that was too easy, but I'd be tempting Murphy. Or Writer Me.

Knowing me, the latter might be worse.

So no commentary on the difficulty of my opponents enters the wider universe.

I stop my factories from producing Bumblebees and breathe a sigh of relief.

For now, I'm safe, and can tech up in peace.

No, shiver of fear running down my nonexistent spine, I am not acknowledging your existence.

The metal basketball beneath my feet spins around until the other side is facing upwards. Upon it is engraved an abstraction of the kid of a skeptical meme.

...Screw off, Writer Me! Or ROB. Whichever you are.