//------------------------------// // Intermission: Over-engineered golems // Story: Land of Friendship and Magic // by Archmage Ansrit //------------------------------// Golems: A primer A golem is a creature made of mud or clay and brought to life with magic, given orders to follow. Nowadays, it extends to all materials so long as magic is the driving force behind its animation. A clockwork body using magic as 'fuel', or even just for its mind, counts. Consciousness makes things a little more complicated, as a being with a mind shaped by magic but a body operating solely on scientific principles (like the aforementioned clockwork) might think it insulting to be called a 'golem'. 'Construct' is often better received. This can also happen to entities more based on magic than science, like pure clay bodies; it's a matter of personal preference and/or culture, as hearing the word 'golem' might make people think of a mindless automaton instead of a person with feelings that might get hurt. Some of said 'advanced' golems can become little different from a regular flesh-and-blood being, with only a few key differences in mind and body: There is a world were Celestia attempted to create an advanced golem - one capable of housing a consciousness - in order to separate her sister's spirit from the Nightmare's and return her before the thousand-year exile was over and not having to worry about fighting her little sister... she succeeded in one thing; she made the golem, one made of an array so complex, it imparted unto her clay body the structure of a pony's body, with real blood pumping through her very real heart... but due to a small mistake she had made earlier, then corrected, made much of the original matter be wasted, leaving the end result no larger than a filly. And one with a life all her own. Celestia abandoned her plan, but gave the filly to a couple of ponies that would love her as she deserved. When the filly obtained her cutie mark, it only confirmed what Celestia thought then: She had a soul of her own, one that did not come from any 'program' written into the spell - because the creation of 'advanced' golems did not include one. Not that the 'basic' one did, anyways, as the 'basic' golem was supposed to understand given orders as to avoid crippling over-specialization. Some kinds of golems, such as those, have the spell shaping them so ingrained into their bodies that they can repair damage that doesn't kill them outright; after suffering damage, even severe one as the loss or near-loss of a limb, they can have the body stabilized within minutes, and functional within hours. Proper medical procedure helps advanced ones, as they possess tissues and organs as any pony's, and that makes self-repairing incredibly draining since they have to remake the damaged portions all the way back from the cellular scale. Imagine Twilight Sparkle's surprise when a nasty fall, one she clearly saw resulted in her hindleg dangling from a few muscle chords before blacking out, was told 'merely' broke her leg. Even the advanced versions do not deal well with mental stress and things outside of their parameters - although, for the advanced ones, replace 'parameters' with 'expectations', 'mental projections' and occasionally 'comfort zone'. We have studied those golems as well. For the sake of being informational, however, and avoid overwhelming the reader, this document will simply contain descriptions of the more common golems and animate objects, including simpler variants of the 'Come-to-life' spell. Unusual or complicated golems, like those made of liquids, spells, specifically-programmed bodily-functions or parts separate from the 'main' program, or even capable of modular bodily adapations, will appear in different documentation; if a common variant has one such exotic version, or is the base for others - as in a combination of techniques - then this primer will refer the reader to the relevant section of the appropriate documents. Example: One can make use of an ice golem technique to patch a rock golem's broken/missing appendage so long as the ice is not subjected to inadequate strain. Such combination, however, requires careful managing of the parts and their programming, and will be covered in a book about creating said golems. No information about Ironwing's body will be in any documents save the hospital's medical history database, though. Do not even bother to try. ***** Study of the Leylines and Empyrean Currents ... come to our attention that there is no difference save scale. The main difference between a clay golem and a being such as a pony or human (besides the artificiality of the former) is that the latter have flesh-and-blood and their 'programming' resides in the physical entity that is their brains and nerves - save for the cases that manage some exotic 'mind-backup', conscious or unconscious access to a level of 'Collective Unconscious' (such as some variants of hive-mind) or become spiritual entities that allow their minds to become actually separate from their brains. In a classic golem such as clay, the signals and orders that move their bodies are magical; the flow of magic inside them is what causes a part to move. Instructions can be imparted from programs written in runes, or careful arrangements of magical energy not unlike circuitry (which some kind of runes are); some cases use a connection to a Collective Unconscious, allowing the golem to understand words and concepts without having to actually map out said words in the form of commands, or without having to teach them as one would a toddler. Now, the world has no neurons, but it does possess water and air currents that move resources around akin to blood and Breath, and Leylines that are the flow of raw magical and life energies. The beings living in such worlds then are not unlike the various microscopical organisms that live withing the body, including the cells that make up said body. If you want to meet/become the greatest, most powerful magic user 'of/on/in the world', that is one thing. Just don't forget that the world itself technically holds more, including your own, and uses it constantly. Even Trascending the world isn't much help unless you either leave it, or push your own personal reality into it - but if you are capable of doing it, why would you desire to? You can become friends with the world itself! And remember - magic done with, and for, friends is the most powerful. An amoral person (or someone really desperate) may decide to attempt 'rewritting' the program of the world by redirecting the Leylines as they wish. Just remember; there are right, and there are wrong ways of doing things. I can, through careful study, cause forests and even housing to appear where there were only plains - days, weeks of study, but only an actual day of action, but note that it is not through brute force and sheer magic - even the higher-end variants of Twilight Sparkle would be hard-pressed to do something like that! True, there are ones that create their own worlds, but those go to the Void first, which has no rules, including lacking a rule about you having any limits beyond the ones to your thoughts. Careful understanding of natural energy, nature magic, and various separate means of spellcasting are required to create what is essentially a covenant with nature - you get a forest, and nature gets a new, easy flow for the Leylines - , and there will be parts keeping everything nice and stable. That is the right way of doing it. The wrong way, that which amoral and/or desperate people might attempt, would be like cutting open a golem and attach magically-conductive materials in order to hard-wire a new program, and that is the least-horrific means of doing so... and yet with one of the greatest potential for large-scale environmental magical disasters. Earth ponies (and just about any pony with a nature talent, like most variants of Fluttershy), can produce this covenant just by being there, being who they are and loving being who they are. The other ponies help, too, but the difference is like giving someone who is cold a warm chocolate and a blanket, and just some lukewarm water. If a pony can cast a spell to produce an effect upon the world, it could be said that this 'covenant' is the spell, in such a way that the ponies ARE the spell; they make the Leylines move and dance, and they do so in just the way needed for the region they are in, because they - being such a complex, self-aware 'spell' - receive feedback (be it consciously or unconsciously) about the state of the land. Ponies are like Doctors to the whole world, Planet Healers that increase both the flow and production of the Leylines beneath their hooves, and stabilize the flow of the Empyrean Currents. This actually happens with most Tellurian species, actually, but odds are that, either the variants you know do not have the effect to the extent of the ponies, or your frame of mind is still getting used to Tellus and its... peculiar way of doing things. I have studied that effect, and shrunk it back down to the scale of a golem. It also helps some with my familiar spirits, as - while their bodies are simpler - it allows them to stay in Tellus for much longer and be much more stable without the world rejecting them or transforming them into something they do not desire upon entry. (Compromises had to be made, though, as Undine having human features makes her spend more energy than simply having Tellurian-borne features; she likes the merpony look, so it's OK). ***** Golems: Pillars of Typhon style If the words "Oracle Cell", "God Eater", "Aragami", "Bias factor" and "God-Arc" mean anything to the reader, this is the part where they proceed to panic, curse science in an overly-dramatic shout to the heavens, and haul ass to the nearest Fenrir facilities - either for self-preservation, or to become one of the defenders of humanity. That is also the point where I roll my eyes and sigh at those antics. You can proceed to Section II: Imitation Oracle Cells and stop sweating in dread - it's unsightly. For those who do not have such knowledge, think of a less aggressive, more adaptable, self-sufficient 'Blacklight Virus' from outer space - only not a virus, of course. If that still doesn't tell you much, think of an organic "Grey Goo" scenario mixed with a bit of SCP 682, only that instead of leaving only grey goo, it leaves a bunch of entities composed of Oracle Cells as they eat everything else (and occasionally each other), adapt the form/materials they find useful to incorporate into their own anatomies, and are only truly vulnerable to each other and things that imitate the energy signatures and/or chemicals. Proceed to Section I: Homebrewed Nanotech and Microorganisms and how to prevent screwing up the world. If you still do not know about the terms, and Google either doesn't exist, stopped existing, or your Internet connection is down/incapable of establishing a connection to human databases, I will proceed to explain to the best of my ability. All baseline human beings start as a pair of cells, each containing half of the genetic information of a full human being. They join, and then they divide into two, each the same as the other, then they divide again, each new cell identical in composition to the others and containing the same information. After a certain stage in the development of this new human being, the genetic instructions contained within the cells start telling them to differentiate. Some cells become neurons, some of those neurons become brain cells, some cells become skin, some become a kidney or a lung. The Oracle Cells, those which I am basing the bodies we create for the golems, are different. Each cell can do the same as any other, and their purpose is to 'eat' things and gain information through the absorption of the material - even each other. But! The chemical and energetical signatures of some of these cells are similar to one another, and they abstain from eating things similar to themselves (in most cases, see Section IV: Learning oneself, part 2: Abnormal behavior of the study material). Think of it as a group of people, gathering through their similarities, and using their vast advantages against lesser organisms which they hunt. Instead of just stopping at nourishment, the cells analyze the structure and makeup of the organism, and copy it themselves. A group of cells become the 'core', which tells another group of cells to 'form bone', 'skin', or even 'take this iron and apply it to the outer skin cells'. It is thus incredibly difficult to damage the organism as a whole, as blades and bullets mostly become absorbed and any damage dealt is quickly repaired thanks to their amazing ability to change roles quickly according to the directions of the core, and if they separate, their special makeup allows them to simply glue themselves back together. Even the loss of the core to another one of these creatures is not that big of a deal, as, while the current body melts into goo, getting rid of those cells is nigh-impossible and they will very likely group back and form a new core, or be absorbed into other beings and give them their information to strengthen it! Some eat concrete, others abstain from it, some ate plants and gained the ability to photosynthesize, keeping the atmosphere at the same proportions it had always been. They have even incorporated machinery into themselves! Needless to say, if the word 'Tank' means something other than 'container' to you, you can see why this is both fascinating, and horrifying. The ones that attempted to eat lava, however, managed to self-destruct from the sheer overload of energy - because they never stop eating and trying to integrate the energy into themselves. The people fought against them using powerful explosive devices to blow small, dog-sized creatures to pieces and quickly retrieved their cores, analyzed them, found the chemicals that make the cells accept human cells as their 'similar', and essentially reprogrammed the core to accept and power weaponry. Thus bonded to a human, the cores responded to the wielder's mental commands, allowing humanity to fight back and down larger beasts, possessing larger cores, and thus allowing better, more powerful weaponry to be made. Essentially, we have made microscopic golems with a similar degree of adaptability. The first is not much different from the last, and it is the instructions which they use to form themselves that differ. I have made some with robotic appearances, yet those are more likely plaques of alternating layers of 'skin' cells and 'metal-covered' cells to give the illusion of a sheet of metal - illusion which is shattered once the scale-like composition makes the 'sheets' bend. The most powerful golems I have ever designed are the 'Valkyrie' and the 'Angel' class, however. The materials involved are the best, and the design of their abilities is, too, the best. There is nothing preventing an earlier golem from using Angel equipment, save that there would be a need to make sure the energy-generation isn't exceeded in such a way the golem harms him- or herself, and maybe get the appropriate information into the golem... but those two classes are the combat models. The others can fight, sure, in their own ways... but some of them are too peaceful, or their abilities make them more suited to other roles. Besides, both classes are made to work together - one is great, sure, but they work better in teams. It doesn't matter if it's two Valkyries, or one of one and one of the other, or all six of them together... actually, I can't even get the energy to summon all six of them at once. I think I have to Ascend before thinking of that. Not that that is happening anytime soon - we need them in the Void to protect interlopers from our mindscapes. That is not a typo, though; wandering either through the Astral Realm or the Void into our minds is... inadvisable. And the Nightmare Corps might trace the summoning back to our minds if one is called out during a Phantom incursion. As of this writing, there are plans to make another of each, a male 'Einherjar' for the Valkyrie class, and a lady Angel. Once I am on better terms with the sisters, though, as I'm likely to need their help with the supporting magics we plan to add.