Jumpchain Intermission - Creating Infrastructure

  Rapid Technological Infrastructure Production

  or

  The Manifold Cradle

  or

  Fuck not having a Supreme Commander and/or Homeworld Jump


	So, one Anon was vaguely curious as to how I construct all my materials in the field, in relationship to building up the hypertech necessary to seal away Endbringers.  This is going to be slightly wordy, as I like to expand both on the way my Jumper thinks about things, why he did what he did, and how he did it.  I've always liked building and/or creating things, both IRL and in fiction; it's fairly sensible that my Jumpchain would lead in a similar direction.

	Basically, my Jumper's construction methods revolves around what I call the Mothership/ACU/Manifold Cradle paradigm, named as such for the various stages said paradigm went through, which was basically Homeworld-level Construction a la Mothership, Supreme Commander-level Construction via an Armored Command Unit, and finally the Manifold Cradle, which is basically a nanoswarm constellation following my Jumper around, able to construct anything and everything as needed.

	>But Anon, aren't you just shamelessly copying Anti-Spiral Anon's Ichor Omega?

	Don't be absurd.  Why, the very notion is insulting.

	No, the Manifold Cradle is basically ripping off Engineer from the Authority by Warren Ellis - or, if you want a more recent example, Krishna from Supergod by the same.  The Engineer is easily my favourite superhero for ability, and I've been obsessed with the notion for a while.  Putting aside that, ASA utilizes a gargantuan amount of Magitech and Magic implementing Ichor Omega, neither of which my Jumper really uses to a heavy degree - certainly nowhere on ASA's level.  And while my Jumper does later start implementing more esoteric hypertech into the Manifold Cradle, that's a way's down the line, past Jump 100+ or so.

	>But Anon, why don't you just take the Supreme Commander jump?

	I did all this work before the Supreme Commander jump.  What, you think my Jumper is going to wait around passively for a jump to come along to make this stuff?  Hell, no.

	>What about-

	If a jump isn't mentioned I either haven't gotten to it yet or I don't know the setting, and I dislike using settings I haven't watch/read/played/LPed.  Feels cheaty.

	As a note, numbers inside the brackets show what order the jump happened for my jumper.

	That all said, let's start talking about the frameworks for the above paradigms.  Not perks - the various technologies that, when put together, make it actually feasible.

	Iji Nanomachines [05]  Sophisticated enough for Nano-sheilds and the capability to resurrect the dead, it really has some stupidly useful capabilities.
	Sierra Madre Vending Machines [Fallout][09]  One of the few, clear-cut tech-only examples of nuclear systhesis - the ability to transmute material from one element to another.  Yes, really.  It's questionable if this can manage heavier elements, but nonetheless, it's a critical starting point.
	Borderlands Digistruct Technology [Borderlands][10]  It's questionable what the limits of this are - we see numerous examples of open-air energy to matter transmutation of sophisticated machinery.  You could feasibly hang the entire above paradigms on this, but we won't be limiting ourselves - having a single fail point is always bad.  It's also worth pointing out that it's based off of discovered alien technology in-universe that isn't well understood.
	Fusion Boomers [Bubblegum Crisis][23]  While not as sophisticated as some of the options present, it instead makes up for that in terms of overall robustness.  Keep in mind that a single Fusion Boomer was capable of assimilating a small island in it's entirety in a short amount of time, albeit in a rather rough manner.
	Star Trek Replicators [25]  Open-air force-field matter deconstruction, reassembly and manipulation.
	Red Faction Nanomachines [26]  Open-air rapid assembly/deconstruction of matter.  What the limits of this technology is are... questionable.  It can reassemble a bridge fast enough for you to walk on it while it's being re-constructed, terraform a planet, and the nano-gun can disassemble a human fast enough that it's useful as an offensive weapon.


	The above, combined together, starts giving us some options - a core, if you will, of various rapid engineering and construction scales.  With the Acquisition of the Battle Galaxy in Macross Frontier[24] likely fostered the kernal of the Mothership Paradigm - Transformers[47] gave me the impetuous to start mounting such technology on my Transformers Alt-form and started the slow crawl to the point where the Manifold Cradle effectively gained field-capable abilities and utilization.  'Field Capable' meaning that said nanoswarm constellation can, utilizing nothing else but itself, begin restructuring the local surroundings on the atomic level, and, via logarithmic expansion, build up a sophisticated infrastructure in a short amount of time.

	That said, rapid construction isn't everything.  Having access to both a pool of matter and energy to catalyize said construction is also important.  Thankfully, we do have access to tech-based dimensional compression/storage technology in the form of Borderlands Storage Deck and Orokin Spacial Compression, while Stargate Asgard beaming technology and Star Trek transporters can move matter around quite nicely.  For power, Dead Space surprisingly has a nice source thereof - their singularity power generators can fit in the palm of your hand while powering their equivalent of a warship, and Star Trek again also has sources of other Singularity-derived power generators in the form of Romulan technology.

	This is all well and good, but we want to be able to build fast.  How fast the above paradigm moves... well, honestly, it's probably pretty quick.  Given what the above technologies can do, it's likely reasonable to assume that they work on a similar timescale as the Engineer from The Authority and Krishna level, and they can do some pretty impressive things.  Not instant, but pretty good.

	However, we want to be FAST.  And if we want that, we'll need to cheat even further, and that means direct temporal manipulation.  We're ignoring Perks at the moment because we want this entire setup to be utilized without direct Jumper involvement - we'll get to perks later.

	Jumpchain does offer some straight tech-derived time-stop abilities - the Temporal Manipulation device from Freelancer is a perfect example of something that can project fields of altered time, allowing for further minimalization of time it takes to build infrastructure by projecting a bubble of fast-time around it.  Also, this could feasibly be utilized to assist in repair of in-field ACUs by projecting similar to allow for quick repair - while the end-goal of building custom-made ACUs is to create mecha that can tank multi-megaton nuclear-level blasts, said quick time-manipulation regen could be used to 'cheat', or even sheild against said wide-area attacks via a slow-time feild.

	Another option is, surprisingly enough, the stasis projector from Dead Space - we see one enemy in Dead Space that moves at an accelerated rate due to a malfunctioning Stasis Module, so it can alter time progression both ways, opening up to a similar ability as the above.  Would require heavy research to make it work properly, though.

	A Jumper-only option for time manipulation is Homura-style Timestop;  a positive classic by this point, it's worth noting that said time-stop can be used to pull other 'items' into said effect via touch.  This gets into an interesting metaphysical argument as to what could constitute touching - this ability might only be able to be employed via later upgrades to the Manifold Cradle so that contact with said nanoswarm constellation also counts as 'touching' by said Jumper.

	Another useful option is the Age-Age fruit from One Piece, though it has a similar limitation in terms of effect range as Homura-style time-stop.  Again, the drawback on both is that it requires the Jumper to be present to utilize, making it's effectiveness limited.

	Above and beyond construction times, there is also the issue of in-field prototyping.  This is typically something my Jumper would be directly involved in;  The Tropico Time-Pause Perk is an excellent answer to this(Elona also has a similar Perk, though my Jumper does not possess it).  With the Iji Scanner allowing for near-instant(or quick) analysis of items, and some cybernetic augmentation, said time-pause would allow for seemingly near-instant reaction and development time for building new items or re-evaluating building que.  Said scanner would presumably be further augmented by other scanning tech, but we'll limit ourselves at the moment to CP-item purchases only.  However, given the Technologies powering the Manifold Cradle at it's base, it's not unreasonable to say that the Iji Scanner has been upgraded significantly.


	So, how does all the above work in practice?  Logarithmic expansion, Spacebridge technologies from Transformers(Or Asgard Beaming, or Hyperspace Phase-in from Babylon 5), and multiple ACUs working in-tandem means that fairly large infrastructures could be manufactured and teleported into place within a day or so - if we're really desperate for power and/or mass, we'll have dedicated off-world harvesting going on via other planets to gain the raw materials needed to construct whatever it is we need to build that's then teleported about as-needed, or simply accumulated in a compressed space as a universal 'pool'.  Research and prototyping are fairly instant from an outsiders perspective, meaning on-the-fly altercation to plans and machinery is fairly simple; sunrise events would have to be fairly instant and horrendously devastating to catch my Jumper unawares, and there are the plethora of defensive technologies we could employ given the above paradigms, from planetary/city shielding(Borderlands/Star Wars/Star Trek), to active spacial defensive folding(Warframe), to cloaking technologies(Star Trek), to spacial fold cloaking technologies(Warframe) to simply stuffing everything in Hyperspace and be done with it(Babylon 5) - or, even better, all of the above.

	(As a digression, this is still around 100+ jumps or so - this isn't even taking into account later Jumps that could feasibly include Forerunner, Necron, and Ar Tonelico technologies integrated into the above - all of which could theoretically speed up production and construction by an order of magnitude.  Nanomachine construction, while useful, begins to lag behind slightly when you can remote terminal instant transmutation and construction via Song Magic and/or Hardlight machinery.)

	(As another note, ACUs in this case are not mass produced - while we do have around 10+ of them we can deploy, each one would be a custom creation benefiting my Jumper's various engineering/science perks.  For mass-produced construction, think engineers a la Supreme Commander.)


	We've been ignoring perks up until now;  first, let's take a look at what perk's we have for rapid construction;

	Savvy Sultan [Macross Jumpchain][24]  Reduces build time of machinery to 1/4th of normal.
	Workaholic [Sonic][54]  Roughly multiplies output of construction by 5.
	Mass Production [Dragon Commander][79]  Production, speed, and efficiency boost for manufacturing.

	Sadly, Jumpchain seems to be rather anemic when it comes to direct construction.  Anno 2070 ironically has a perk that would assist - Just In Time Manufacturing - which he does not have.  Go figure.



	So; post jump 100 or so, it's fairly safe to say that the Manifold Cradle and it's attendant paradigms are fairly robust, and it's not unreasonable to state that their method of production and manifesting infrastructure is fairly fast.  But, where do we go from there?

	Integration of later technologies - Necron[Light of Terra][100], Forerunner[Halo][218], and Song Science[Ar Tonelico][140] - will take a while, both in terms of analysis as well as figuring out proper implementation.  While Necron and Forerunner are good, no question, Song Science offers some interesting synergy, given SS's primary limitation is that of needing the planet's will to permanently manifest new matter.  While temporary manifestations are all well and good, beyond that is slightly tricky...  unless we already have a method of harvesting raw mass and energy for later utilization.  The drawback, mind, would be the requirement of needing a Vielia's Tower to be active and running as a sort of 'construction server' for such a thing, with the Manifold Cradle acting as an end-user admin terminal for local altercations.  While this does run into the slight issue of an orbital tower being fairly obvious in the local landscape, however, we do have access to technologies that could mitigate this - see B5 Hyperspace, Warframe Void-cloak, ect, ect, ect - installing the tower in a protective spacial bubble and/or side-dimension would render it fairly 'safe', while allowing it to effect the local planetary reality.  As a note, it's auto-construction method should be near-instant with the utilization of the Age-Age Fruit, and the plethora of fast-time methods we've elaborated on elsewhere.  Mind, this is getting into the realm of Jump-chan shenanigans, and she could always feasibly slap such things down.  Disappointing, but understandable.

	...which really starts to get into the question of exactly how big the manifestations/constructions a Song Tower could manage, assuming unlimited energy(Orgel of Origins, Singularity Generators, Hyperspace Taps, Sol Niveus, ect, ect, ect) and moon-sized stores of raw materials on-hand.

	The above does assume the Song Tower being active - Forerunner technology, salvaged for study via Halo [218] and later as an option from Cortex Commander [???] is positively obscene when it comes to construction feats; we see in the novels that Hardlight can actually be utilized directly as assembly machinery to build up starships from scratch in a fairly reasonable amount of time.  This isn't even getting into their spacial manipulation feats, or power-draw systems.




	...you know, it occurs to me that, with the inclusion of a Supreme Commander Jump, referring to my jumper-derived ACUs as ACUs will get confusing.  Fuck.  I'm going to have to come up with a new name for them, aren't I?  What the hell am I going to name them?  Primordial Crucibles?  Semi-Autonomous Crucibles?  Primordial Forges?



	The other thing to consider is that the Manifold Cradle is, at it's core, a tool, and tools are made to be useful.  As such, we'll also want to have said Nano-constellation replicate the abilities of the various items we'll pick up around Jumpchain.  How to do that?  Unfortunately, fusing 'items' together isn't a very common capability, so we'll be powering this mostly via Duct Tape fusion from Invader Zim, utilizing Aggressive Nanites from Iji to pull that particular trick off.  It's... theoretically possible that the Manifold Cradle could conceptually qualify as a 'weapon', much in the same way as a hammer, crowbar, or chainsaw can be, enough to qualify for weapon fusing perks... but, quite bluntly, I'm not very happy with that notion.  An alternative would be importing the Manifold Cradle via King Arthur's 'Enchanted' item to assist in this, but that, again, might be a little shakey.

	Still, for completeness sake, we'll include a list of items that would be included into the Manifold Cradle, if at all possible;

		Aggressive Nanites [Item][Iji 05]
		Storage Deck [Item][Borderlands 10]
		Sheild [Item][Borderlands 10]
		Kinesis Module [Item][Dead Space 11]
		Stasis Module [Item][Dead Space 11]
		Construction & Destruction PDAs [Item][TF2 15]
		Medi Gun [Item][TF2 15]
		Nano-Forge [Item][Red Faction][26]
		The Toolkit [Item][Sabaton][44]  [Assists in item-repair]
    	Nihil Forma [Persona][50]  [Possible channelling of Persona capabilities into Nanomachine Constellation]
		Psi-Amp [Item][X-Com][60] [Psi-Amp doubled from 20% increase to 40% via Lets Give It A Boost]
		Sonic Screwdriver [Item][Doctor Who][62]
		Solari Crystal [KOTOR][Item]
		Qixoni Crystal [KOTOR][Item]
		Mantle Of the Force Crystal [KOTOR][Item]  [Possible assimilation via Duct Tape to allow for force channelling via Nanomachines]
		Psi Blade [Item]  [Channels various energies, psi-included]
		Khaydarin Crystal [Item]  [Assimilation of this crystal allows for the Manifold Cradle to store psychic energy and can enhance such by 50% at a time.  This can be doubled via 'Let's Give it A Boost', enhancing such use to over double when paired with the Psi-Amp]
		Ancient Sword [Item][Shadow of Colossus][90]  [Possible inclusion into the Cradle due to the blade's odd growth capability]
		Personal Digital Assistant [Item][Gears of War][104] [This allows for my Nanoswarm to link up with a computer inside my Warehouse]
		Ink Pot [Item][Okami][114][Unlimited ink]
		COMP [Item][Soul Hackers][126] [And now the Manifold Cradle can summon demons.]