Interlude VII

  Bakshee Developmental Observation Station T&$5*# - (TASSOH)

  (Six Months Later)

  The lead Bakshee station scientist sat at his planetary control helm. This was the control panel for the world itself. From here she could note the change of the world, how quickly the planet was adapting, and most importantly, from here she could help the world adapt to the new set of circumstances happening.

  While it was important that over time, all species fall into one of the three classes of Bakshee. Each then able to perceive and remember the past. There also came points in destiny. Moments when the regular unaltered population needed to be handled so that they didn’t burn the Bakshee at the stakes. Or worse, set back the evolution that had already taken root on the planet.

  After many trials and errors, this planet in particular seemed to need extra adjustments, thus the authorization for this one planetary control panel to be opened and operated, by a single trusting Ruler class Bakshee.

  Monitoring of and knowing when to judiciously use the planetary control panel was the sole reason why Ambassador Col’inte was called to this way station to begin with.

  While such a position might seem like a career setback for most, to her this was a minor stepping stone. See her family, or rather the dynasty of families that she was a part of already controlled most of this sector of space. Thus, her having a fundamentally important role for this planet was crucial for the future goals of her planet to incorporate the resources of this fledgling planet to help assist the dynasty move forward.

  While the Bakshee were united against common enemies, they were clearly setting their sights on what the universe would be like after the last true enemy was replace.

  Being that Col’inte only achieved the Tier IX category and only then managed to unlock the Immortality perk at the cost of most of her other magical effects, her growth had been stunted. While she appeared young, that youth came at a cost, one that needed time on her part to adapt to. Fortunately, her being Immortal meant that she now had as much time as necessary to fix her short comings, which was another reason why she chose this posting.

  In fact, her position and perks made it so she would easily outlive all of the other scientists who were now stationed with her. Scientists who many of which were third or fourth generation observers from different universal dynasties.

  On its interface, the observation station TASSOH was neutral, which was why Col’inte was the only representative from her dynasty who was allowed to attend and maintain the lead role in the development of the planet.

  The faster the planet was able to acclimate to the Bakshee system, the better her review. Given that she only started a little over six thousand years ago, Col’inte knew her developmental track for the planet was going exceptionally well.

  The terraforming of course began with converting the ocean life, which then eventually spread to the shorelines and from there every plant. Then finally the adaptation was made to go live with infecting and altering the mobile lifeforms.

  From there she watched the planet grow, populate, and spread the enhancements wide.

  Everything was going to plan.

  Or it had been, there were a few minor hiccups recently, the random discharge and solar flare that caused a worldwide disruption. Of electrical impulses to the mind. Followed by what had to be one of the craziest eruptions of power that Col’inte ever seen.

  Even reading past manuscripts of other station managers she never came across a violent eruption of Bakshee at that level before one.

  One that threatened to reveal the Bakshee threat before it had reached a critical 51% mass of the population.

  Fortunately, fail safes were installed for a reason.

  By slightly adjusting the amount of UV light that was able to filter through the planet on the near side, while increasing the density on the other side, the planet was able to create both a super summer for the southern hemisphere, while creating a super winter for the northern hemisphere. The result was that both sets of populations had a hard time getting proper energy. Most of the planet’s sentient population chose to remain indoors. While those that did go out, only did so sparingly and with specific goals in mind.

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  Also, a faint but noticeable increase in ambient electrical energies was provided, to help pacify the population.

  Col’inte always found it odd how most populations instinctively built rudimentary circuits to provide first tier conveniences. With the use of electrical energies to provide initial tier conveniences, the species inherently created a system of pacification. Just as newborn infants were drawn to a pacifier, so too were primitive societies drawn to using electricity to appease their mental systems. This made it so that the organo-tech devices that were trying to take root in the entire population had a steady baseline to both charge itself and assimilate to on the target host. Furthering the effectiveness of the transformation process as a whole.

  All of this was to say that Col’inte managed to placate the potential powder keg of Bakshee integration into this planet by doing two minor conditional changes.

  Now, monitoring the readouts from six months ago, when there was a spike in noted activity, to now, everything seemed to be kosher. This was also the time when the planets’ odd axis would shift once more. For a moment Col’inte debated whether she should switch the planetary anomalies, making the northern part of the planet excessively warm, while making the southern part colder than necessary.

  For a moment she evaluated this decision and ultimately decided against continuing. Instead, she plotted that the changes would gradually taper off until they were at their expected normal measurements.

  These adjustments would be catalogued and recorded, for both her own reference should anything similar occur in the future. Additionally, these records would prove as a testament to Col’inte’s strength and initiative into helping a planet assimilate at what is currently projected to be a 5.9% deviation from the typical timeframe.

  Her successes would likely be taken down due to favorability of initial sample provided, and other matters brought up by the opposing dynasties, but for now her everything was going beyond expectations, which was all she could really hope for at this time.

  The world had faced the true knowledge of Bakshee classes, and had seemingly dismissed the occurrence as just a blip in the non-converted species’ short attention span.

  In fact, if Col’inte had it her way, she would use this minor disturbance as a way to hopefully push integration methods further ahead.

  Debating for herself, she saw the markers.

  Those numbers were a little misleading, for all the first two noted was that the Bakshee organo-tech had managed to take root in every species, and then been adapted to enhance the sentient species as well.

  Now the last objective, and the final one keeping Col’inte on this planet was the last one, the complete and successful conversion of the dominant sentient species.

  Pausing for a moment, Col’inte debated if anything more was needed. At this rate she would easily make her intended quotas, but to obtain a rate that was truly undeniable she needed a faster explosion of final planetary conversion. This was where she decided to use a catalyst.

  But there was a problem with the catalyst in question.

  Seeing the message, Col’inte paused. Then she read, and reread the instructions. She was unable to apply the catalyst to the planet directly, which meant that there was a way to do so with indirect methods.

  At that thought, her mind recalled the transcripts of a prior leader of her dynasty, one who provided their complete and unbridled reports to Col’inte to help expedite the terraforming of the planet they were assigned to oversee, before they became head of a major family within the dynasty.

  “Computer, access secret archives for any references to apply indirect catalyst effects to a planet.”

  “Searching.”

  “Searching.”

  “Found.”

  “Family Head Tark’inte references the need to use a discontinued model of Bakshee to implement Catalysts to a planet. While the effects were chaotic, it did help ultimately achieve the goal of a 12.2% faster conversion ratio of the planet, but at cost.”

  Hearing that Col’inte’s ears began to burn as she heard the desired effect. Also, the goal of over 10% faster conversion ratio, something unheard of in recent terraforming endeavors and one she wished to replicate, so she too could make a name for herself. Then she

  “What was this discontinued model of Bakshee?” Col’inte pressed.

  “The secret archives state that it was a model of Bakshee called the Reaper model. One that had been discontinued due to future descent and crisis caused by overly protective links formed from the Reaper to other models connected to.”

  Hearing that, Col’inte immediately brought up her interface showing the exact breakdown of different Bakshee classes.

  Just as she expected, she did in fact have a Reaper contingency somehow. Seeing the breakdown a slight smirk came to Col’inte’s lips as she realized she had a chance to spark a massive change. For a further breakdown showed that she had not one, but two of the discontinued Reaper class members on her planet.

  Realizing this sudden change, Col’inte paused for only a moment. Remembering the warning given by the ancestor. Such remarks were not meant to be made lightly.

  Then looking deeper, Col’inte realized that the planet was still young. The odds of any model right now reaching a state of Immortality to pose a true problem would be minor. Especially with the effective training wheels being applied to the models available, as at most Tier VII models were available to the people of the planet currently, and only a few had reached that vaunted height. Each of those had multiple deficiencies that would make the path of obtaining Immortality impossible, for there was no way the Bakshee coding for Immortality would be made available to a defective model.

  With all these facts in place, Col’inte knew that correcting an overly taxing Reaper would be as simple as killing it and eliminating the problem at its source.

  Seeing that there were contingencies in place, and figuring that no long term issues could arise from this utilization of her Reapers, Col’inte felt her mind open up to new possibilities as she pressed on.

  “Tell me, how did Tark’inte utilize Reapers to act as planetary catalysts?”