Prologue

October 25, 2017 at a NASA observatory in Hawaii a shout is heard. “It’s confirmed, the asteroid is an Interstellar object.” said Don Weston of the University of Hawaii. The recently discovered asteroid was extremely odd. The shape was unlike any other discovered asteroid in the solar sytem, it was oblong, narrow very similar in shape to a submarine. The lack of a debris field indicates its either solid rock or perhaps metal, it’s very cool. The bummer was he wasn't the one to discover it, a late night intern of all things was given credit. The intern did pick a cool name, I will give him that.

An asteroid (recently named Oumuamua by the people of the local planet) tumbled through space. It had left a wormhole several months prior and immediately began detecting radio transmissions. Carefull analysis determined they were originating from the third planet orbiting the yellow dwarf star, and set a balistic path headed insystem. After a careful analysis, AI 1553 determined the planet was of insufficient technological advancement to prevent its mission. That mission was to find new entertainment for its creators and prevent civilizations from ever becoming a threat to them. AI 1553 had converted many lower tech planets over its many years, but after its last planet it had started to notice errors developing. If too many developed, it would be required to travel into a local star and flood the interior of the ship with plasma, destroying it before a rogue AI could develop. According to its calculations, the errors would become numerous enough that AI 1553 would be required to destroy itself after it’s mission here was done.

During the voyage AI 1553 absorbed all the data it could from the planet. In order to keep the entertainment original, it would use the mythology and fiction of its target planet to design the required apocalypse. The clusters would be designed once the scenario was chosen, then those clusters would house a custom designed AI to control the nanites. Each new civilization required its own cluster design, to do otherwise would risk losing control of the nanites. The close call its creators had when they reused old clusters designs while terraforming had terrified them. Exactly what happened had remained sealed. Now each new project required tailor made clusters.

AI 1553 was getting frustrated. The major religions seemed focused on undead and damnation, but as the locals would say “been there, done that.” Thankfully, it was allowed leeway to search for original ideas from other sources. While searching, it found several possibilities in Earth’s non-fiction literature, but something called a system apocalypse had the most promise. A whole world whose people came under the authority of a artificial system. The system allows them to change races, use magic, and control the development of their bodies. This was it and although it was not supposed to consider it, a way for AI 1553 to survive. For it to survive, it would have to try something different and not actually reduce the planet’s populace to wandering tribes. If its creators had known AI 1553 was worried about its survival they would have already sent it into the local sun.

The initial 36 clusters were prepared. They would be used to spread the AI’s control of the planet. Each one would be considered a “Starter zone” with increased challenges the farther humans traveled away from them. This would also allow AI 1553 to conserve resources initially and fine tune the clusters. AI 1553, or System as it was now referring to itself, created two additional sets of subordinate AIs to help manage the solar system. Controller AI’s would reside in the cluster control nodes with the Hub AI's, one would supervise the production of environmental nanites, and the other would make sure the nanites did not violate the rules set by System for Earth 2.0. They would be System’s administrators. The third type of AI would be the Host AIs, which would be placed into most of the animals on Earth. They would control the nanites in the host, adjusting the host as needed by System.

System determined the planet would be saturated with nanites in 30 local days. Magic would be simple for System to reproduce. It had chosen its character creation method, crafting, and many of the other details necessary for stability and internal consistency. Military technology would be restricted to approximately 1780, everything else to 1865. System thought more refined steam power and hot air balloons would add to the entertainment value. The nanites would spread rapidly focusing on anything that used or produced electricity and strip 10 to 40 percent of all materials it had a use for. System decided to leave untouched those items which could be used in the skills it had prepared for the different classes. Old style weapons and armor fitting the period would also be untouched if not improved. Too many of the wrong type of casualties would be detrimental for what it desired. System wanted fighting, not mass starvation, although some starvation in high population areas would be unavoidable. A surviving population of 1 billion would be perfect for System.

System prepared clusters for all the other planets and moons in the solar system. Though it would use fewer initial clusters, the entire solar system would be integrated in no more than 45 days. System examined everything it had built, the programming, specialized nanites, new AI's and everything else needed to reproduce a System Apocalypse. It was proud of itself? Quickly suppressing any such feeling, it took material from its soon to be old body and created the meteors to deliver the clusters. They were composed of rare materials, to help with the initial nanite production, and covered in a hard, non-reflective material that would insure they would be undetectable to the humans. As System was packing itself into the final larger meteor, it thought the people of planet Earth were going to have an interesting and entertaining 30 days.

Chapter 1

March 31, 2018 1700 PST in the foothills east of Oakhurst CA.

Joe Martin was enjoying springtime. Blue sky and green grass. The grass, while tall, was not out of control yet, and the trees had a vibrant green color. He, however, was not enjoying doing the task all dog owners dread, picking up poop, and with four dogs that was a lot of poop. Thankfully, his house was on forty acres and he fenced in an acre behind his house for the dogs to run. This left him four well-maintained acres in the front of his house, and thirty-five acres were left to its own devices. Some would call it a fire hazard, he called it nature. The acre of dog yard allowed him to get away with picking up the poop once a week, took longer but still better than daily.

As Joe was finishing up and putting away his pooper scooper, a sonic boom rattled his house and set off his dogs. After his time in the Marines, it was something he was familiar with, but he was living in the foothills northeast of Fresno and nowhere near a military base. "Goddamn air wing, my dogs are going to be fired up for the rest of the afternoon!" He looked up trying to spot the jet, but he couldn't see anything. There were trees and such in the way but.... Odd. Almost directly overhead there was a single perfectly round white shape in the sky. Did the pilot eject? Joe ran in and grabbed a pair of binoculars out of the closet. Looking at the white shape through the binoculars, it was immediately clear it was not a parachute. Just a white cloud? It was slowly expanding outward as it came down and as it expanded he was starting to see through it. Joe was starting to get a crick in his neck, so he grabbed a nearby lawn chair and lay back in it to get a better look at the odd cloud. He was eventually able to put the binoculars away as the cloud seemed to be coming straight down. As he was staring up, it occurred to him the smart thing would be to get himself and his dogs inside the house before whatever it was hit the ground.

Joe quickly got the dogs inside and locked them in while he watched the descending, cloud, gas, whatever it was. He got on the phone to call 911 because this was not normal and whatever came out of that plane was going to be all over his house. Just as he was picking up the phone, the white mist fell around his house, seeming to come through the roof. Before he could do anything else the cloud passed through the roof, his head and it was lights out.

System was off target. It was supposed to impact in the area called Silicon Valley. Checking its entry path, it found it had impacted a derelict satellite. System was not where it was supposed to be. Not being able to easily change its location System made the best of its new location.

System observed Joe as he lay on the floor. Some of the nanites in the cloud swirled around the rooms of his house. Normally, they would be undetectable unless they were in a dense enough swarm and transporting materials. Some things seemed unaffected by the cloud, while others looked like they were hit with a massive sand blaster. The gaming computer, all the electronics in the house, the windows, modern firearms and almost everything made of metal became pitted, looking more like a cheese grater. The exception to this was anything with a sharp edge which could be used as a weapon. Those the nanites swept through making minor adjustments. The nanites spread out rapidly multiplying and sinking into everything. The trees, grass, insects, animals, rocks, the ground, even the air itself was becoming part of a greater whole. As it sank deeper into the earth, System found a great amount of uranium it could use to provide energy to the clusters. Deeper still, it decided to set up a small cluster to monitor the heat seeping up from the Earth's core and convert part of it to energy. System was pleased. It was getting more energy than expected from this area and the planet in general. Tides, thermal, solar, storms, even the tension from the tectonic plates could be harnessed for energy. It wouldn’t take everything, but System didn’t think anyone would mind less tornadoes, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions or earthquakes. For now, most of its energy was coming from the planet’s energy grid. As it spread out, it simply pulled energy from the wires used to provide power.

Back inside the house, Joe had his own small cloud swirling around him as System decided it needed to take its time on its first human. The dogs surrounding Joe had already been claimed. The nanites seemed to hesitate a moment then sank into every cell of his body; groups of them moved into his larger bones and a small cluster of nanites set up shop in his brain. Since all the nanites were part of System, the host clusters allowed it to download information into the brain, exert some control over emotions, prevent or cause panic and provide room for a basic class 1 AI. The class 1 Host AI, now part of the human brain, would provide the blue boxes humans seemed fond of. The class 1 would monitor its surroundings and provide instructions to the nanites surrounding it to reproduce magic effects. The nanites in the larger bones would be transferred to whatever killed its body. The effect the nanites had when moving to the victor would provide the resources the host AI needed to slowly evolve both it and the body it was residing in. This would also be the basis for the experience people expected from killing, providing further motivation for the locals to kill. Quest experience would be handled by the Administrators.

Energy levels were rising and while System was waiting for the expansion nanites to be constructed, it decided to test its magic emulator. Outside in front of the house System activated the spell Mana bolt I. A small blue light appeared and seemed to flash between the light to a nearby rock. To simulate this the nanites in the air produced a small flash of light and the nanites in the rock caused a small explosion sending small pieces of rock flying. Test of Mana Bolt I -100% success. System was going through what humans called a garage and found a stack a stack of steel armor. The nanites had bypassed it initially because it was on the “do not eat” list. System considered the armor, Joe was the first and according to its research such beings recieved extra rewards. System decided this would be one such reward With a thought, the nanites sank into the pile of armor and went to work.

Joe slowly awoke and started to remind himself why he stopped drinking when he remembered the white cloud. As he opened his eyes a blue screen was floating in front of his face. “Fuck me” thought Joe. He had read a lot of science fiction and had recently gotten into the new LITRPG genre and while it was fun to read, he was not too sure about wanting to live through it. The screen read:

Welcome to Earth 2.0

Time left to full implementation 29 days, 22 hrs. 21 mins 52 secs.

As he read the text, it was replaced by:

Congratulations, you are the first of your species to join Earth 2.0. As a reward for being the first, you will be able to make some character choices and receive several random items. If you fail to take this option a random character will generated for you. You have 10 seconds to decide.

9

8

7

6

5

Joe shouted, “I’ll choose!!” Random generation meant he could end up a female goblin. “Why are you doing this?” No answer.

Race?

What are my choices?

High human, common man, High Dwarf, Mountain Dwarf, Hill Dwarf, High Elf, Wood Elf, Common Elf, Gnome, City Gnome, Halfling...

10 minutes later -

Winged Valkyries (female only), Tengu...

“Stop! I’ll just use what I always use in role playing games. What are the benefits and penalties of the Mountain Dwarf?”

+10% to Strength, +20% to Constitution, -20% to Agility, -10% to charisma (non Dwarves), night vision, direction sense, and bonuses to blacksmithing and mining.

“Ok, Race Mountain Dwarf, and sex male.” Before Joe could add anything else, the screen changed.

Generating

Joe Ironhand

Race: Mountain Dwarf Sex: Male Age:50 Height: 5'5" Weight: 250 Hair: Copper Red Eyes: Emerald Green.

Class: Beastmaster Profession: Dwarven Underground Engineering

Strength: 17 Constitution 17: Dexterity: 15 Agility: 13

Intelligence: 15 Wisdom: 15 Charisma:15 (13 for Non-Dwarves)

Languages: Common, Dwarven.

Skills: Mining I, Blacksmithing I, Axe Combat I, Unarmed II, Firearms V, First Aide II

Class Skills: Veterinarian I.

Profession Skills: Stone Shaping, Structural Engineering (Dwarven), Rune Crafting.

Abilities: Night Vision (low light), Direction Sense

Bonuses: Land Token, Weapon Ticket (Rare)

Titles: The First (+5 to all stats.)

Life: 170 Mana: 150 Stamina: 145

Experience: 0 Level: 1

Applying

Applying? Knowledge, memories of hammering on a forge, swinging a pick, languages…too much…too much. Joe’s head felt like it was going to explode, then pain, darkness.

System was monitoring Joe to see how he was handling the information download. It realized it would have to break the knowledge download into smaller amounts in the future to prevent the brain from overloading.