Excerpt of History of the Eras abridged

***1rd ERA***

Gravity: for life and travel

When humanity discovered the ability to create and control gravitational forces, they earned the tool that allowed them to conquer the galaxy. The principle is easy as the technology is hard.

Originally a gravitic generator was a big sphere that created a constant attracting gravitational force that is why the first spaceships ever remembered with this technology where big spheres as to simulate a planet.

Eventually, the technology was refined and the gravitic generators shape could be customized up to a point which allowed many other designs to be created to use this effect.

The 1st refinement was to the generator itself allowing to make it the form of a tube and thus the second common shape for spaceships was a big cylinder. The generator brought still constant gravity to all the ship towards a central area.

The 2nd refinement was the polarization of the gravitational forces allowing to create a long thin rectangle constant directed attraction of both broad sides pulling towards the generator but no attraction force in the thin sides. This is how the double decker ships came to exists, they had a rectangular or box shape with two zones at the end with no gravity used to store cargo.

The 3rd refinement was the one that allowed to create smaller gravitic generators in the form of thin panels that emitted a constant and customizable mono-polarized attraction force allowing to create space cities that didn’t rely on rotation, they were cheaper, able to mass produce them and reliable enough to be placed everywhere.

The 4th refinement allowed to generate a specific and constant field which allowed to create the beautiful floating cities of old, creating a geosynchronous orbit that allowed the cities to fly within the atmosphere.

Until this point, they were a nice thing to have, it gave a sense of gravity that didn’t require as many materials as the wheel and spoke designs making it very popular in spaceships but not much more used than that, while it was theorized that could be used for transportation it was never proven.

However, that change came in the form of a gravitic generator that could create a gravitational anomaly outside of the generator allowing a ship to accelerate at a constant rate using only electricity.

It is unknown at what point in history this happened as detailed notes of the 1st era do not exist anymore however compiling certain old information allowed historians and sociologists to recreate this information. There is one unknown point however. Where did this knowledge came from?

Many sociologists and scientist pointed out that the technology is different of anything that we should be capable of developing on our own. Maybe it was a genius inventor who got forgotten in history, maybe it was a civilization that was destroyed for their technology, we many never known¹.

With this technology we can travel freely withing the galaxy however to this day we are restricted to this galaxy as no communication ever came from outside of it even when multiple ships have been sent so the answers may very well exist outside.

¹ Regardless of any conspirative theory that talk about non-human aliens no proof was ever found, nor proof of a previous human galactic empire.

The next 4 days was a combination of hard work, hard work, hitting your head against the wall and more ward hork.

The assembly procedure was not super-efficient, assembling the extendable legs by section and then doing the unions was quite complicated and required to have the mech locked in the crane due to the length of the legs, passing the piping and wiring was also time consuming and complicated.

The new armor plates could nullify almost completely any stab and blunt attack but they wore out faster and were harder to fabricate than a than standard armor plates. Titiana had to work a lot harder to get the chemical composition perfect and then Marcellinus to get the multi laminar design correctly printed or they would wear out faster.

Thankfully most of the materials were already in the workshop by the end of the first day, only 2 orders for metals got delayed and ended up being canceled so the final design ended up being different due to the different materials. Marcus had to append all changes to the schematic and show it as a partial reproduction due to time and material constrains which should still cover all bases, have at least 95% of similarities with the original design, and the capabilities in the simulation should never go below 90% of the estimated capabilities of the first design while having improved capabilities in other areas.

The original deadline of 4 standard solar days was a bit over 157 of our hours or the equivalent of 6.5 days, the mech was ready in 4 and was left in bay 4 for diagnostic. If everything went well the diagnostic will confirm basic functionality and would work as stated for the testing in Quintus 2. The transportation was already arranged and the testing facility would be waiting for the mech. The only thing missing was waiting for the day to come, the travel time should take 7 to 8 hours and that should leave us with 4 hours under the limit.

Marcus thought about departing the next day instead of waiting till the last day but the diagnostic would take a while and it was better to be thorough so he relaxed after the last day and went to sleep.

He was awakened a bit roughly due to a loud notification from his pad. "We are coming back. See you soon", a photo of two women smiling in bed and a time counter of 4 hours counting down sent by Mina. He saw the notification with both love and hate "you could have let me sleep a bit more" grumbled for a bit and fall asleep again.

By the time he woke up again the timer was indicating 56 minutes so he ordered some breakfast from Anne’s favorite chef who printed the food and cooked with it. He knew they would come home hungry. After that he went to take a bath and started to clean a bit the apartment.

"Hello Mark!" the noise and the shout surprised him while he was still tiding up a bit the place. Roxxanne rushed and hugged him fiercely while kissing the top of his head while he just dangled there.

"mom… air…" a soft grunt escaped from Marcus, he knew that Anne was overly demonstrative of her affection and did have some control of her strength, he was also dangling almost 30 cm from the floor due to height difference.

"That’s enough honey, you should let him breath" chided Mina while coming from the side "It’s so good to see you again Mark" she commented while hugging him after being released from Anne "thanks for keeping us appraised of the new, we are very happy for you".

"Yeah, super happy, and we are coming too with you to the testing area, they may not have a professional pilot to handle your mech so I can do that if they can’t" Anne had gone back to the door where 2 small suitcases where left and a bag of food.

"It’s not needed mom; they will have all the professional staff and..." Marcus knew it was useless to protest but still tried a pro-forma protest.

"We are going" the sweet but determined tone of Mina was the final note.

"OK" While he was a bit embarrassed, he was also happy and they would be a good reassurance that all would be above board. He had never seen anyone fool any of them regarding fighting, mechs or machines.

They had some happy family time eating breakfast and talking about their trip, about his time making the design, working at Val’s. Marcus was a bit anxious and wanted to ask about all the secrets but knew that Roxxanne was not going to say anything about any of that without Whilemina say so and Mina was not going to speak until after breakfast which eventually ended.

As they picked the disposable cutlery Mina activated the privacy protection and raised her hand while she analyzed it with her specialized data pad. She was paranoid however as the security advisor of a good mech mercenary group it was good prevention.

"So, I see that you opened our gift and you have used it well,” said finally Mina

"Yeah, answer time because I have way too many questions and not too much understanding" said Marcus a bit irritated "You 2 were always quite secretive about your past and a lot of things, I thought that I was adopted as I’m male so even with a genetic therapy to make a viable embryo it would always be a woman between 2 women. Now you tell me that we are related, not fully human, you left A FUCKING MANA STONE and a cryptic message. You say you can notice this but I don’t understand any of this so please explain" Marcus had to admit he was irritated and curious, he always had questions and now they had dropped a bomb when they WEREN’T there. Sure, he loved both but that didn’t help with this.

"You really had all bottled up and showed nothing until the last moment, you took that from Mina" commented Anne while smirking "Well I can tell you an easy one. Yes, you are our son, genetically speaking you are the combination of both of our genes with one notable difference, the Y gene of yours we don’t know where it came from"

"You don’t? How can you don’t know? Was this some sort of strange gene clinic?" asked Marcus while frowning.

Mina smiled softly "No, nothing of the sort. Let’s say that we were expecting you and some things happened, System things, and while the System doesn’t USUALLY do much except read information and show some, other times it does things like this. We don’t know the why or the how of this but we can tell you that it was related to"

Marcus eyes threatened to pop out, the System had done something to him? "Explain that please. What does the System had to do with me?"

"Let’s start in order. The System reads EVERYTHING in existence and certain people like Mina can read some of the things recorded by the System. Depending on the degree of connection, payment, and some other things they can access to bigger quantities of information with greater detail or access to nothing.

The System also catalogues all your knowledge and if someone asks, they may see you have ‘Mech Designing (3)’ for example. If you learn about the System, it will also catalogue it as ‘System Interaction knowledge’. Also, the Coalition will test you and, obviously, check for that knowledge base in your profile before you are given an official recognition of Mech Designer.

So, either I tell you everything and you can’t continue your development normally and get your title from the Coalition or I can give you some answer that won’t allow you to get that but you will still have many unanswered questions after that. Ok?"

Marcus mind was blank like after a bomb went off. The System was the ultimate peeper, the Coalition knew how to access and if he wanted to know more, he had to forgo the Coalition to develop his career OR wait until after to learn the secrets.

He was there just thinking and both women were waiting for him to respond while drinking some coffee.

"OK, I will wait for the information. What can you tell me?"

"Well then. First about the System. Anyone with more than a specific % of mana will be able to connect to the System. If you have an interface open you can even run some queries.

Second about mana. Mana is measured in % and it means how much of your matter is affected by mana. This universe has a standard of 20%.

The mana stone not only raised your mana % which generated a proto connection to the System but also kickstarted your passive mana generation. Mana will improve your full body, be smarter, faster, more resilient, and much more but in exchange you will burn small amounts of mana that you will regenerate passively.

Third, whenever you are close to dead animal or plant matter little after its death you can absorb that mana temporally and it will improve your internal reserves slightly. I can see that and that’s how I knew you had used our gift and how much it grew.

Also, this is a small secret that won’t be recorded by the System but you can’t tell anyone. I have a small semi prophetic ability of sorts. I can calculate possible quantum wave resolution points for X event and my calculations said that if we did the awakening then it would be for the best, that is why we did."

Marcus at this point was just staring in blankly at Mina. He knew that she was not someone who lied usually but the conversation had gone too fast like a bucket full of knowledge to his head that splashed and he could get little of it. His mind was exploding with all the information, he just groaned and laid down in the couch with the beginning of a headache.

"He is taking it quite well I think" commented Anne while smirking a bit and Mina rolled her eyes.

It took a while for Marcus to come back from all the information overload. He had that problem, he had to process everything, he had a need to understand and too much sudden information that applies to too much. Suddenly one idea came rushed to his head breaking the stupor.

"Your prophetic ability is passive or active?" a strangely muted tone came from Marcus

"Active and directed, I will save you the how and tell you that it is based on my personal knowledge and information. Once I have everything a scenario will be created and a multitude of possible resolutions will be made. If any of my information is wrong or missing the scenario may completely fail though." Mina spoke with confidence and a bit of surprise; she was expecting other questions but she could imagine why he was asking

"Did you know about Sarah?"

"No, I never met her nor I knew that you would end up as that, the model I made before leaving that time didn’t have the information about her so all the predictions where off"

"I have other questions, about mana absorption and usage, about the system. What can you tell me more about?"

"For now, no more, you need to process this and rest for now. Also, you need to show us your mech"

"Yeah, you made your first mech, you have to show it to us" Anne said with passion and shining eyes.

Marcus did understand why Mina told him that. Didn’t want to but he understood that he needed to concentrate in the mech business. He would have time to process all the information later. He forced himself to move his questions to the side. "OK then, if you want, we can go to Val’s to see the mech" he got up from the sofa and looking at Anne he quickly said "It is not a combat mech, is a harvester with an arachnid design"

"Cool, can it jump? Did you add fangs? Can it climb or make webs?" Anne imagination was filled with possibilities.

"It harvests bark from a tree and relies on mist to confuse the only expected aggressive animal in the area" He knew that she was like a little kid. She liked to play with the mechs, make them do strange things and as a merc pilot she always used combat mechs that were more durable.

"I… am sure I will love it Mark" while she quickly schooled her face the tone denoted certain disappointment.

Mina disabled the privacy protection and they left to the workshop while talking about the mech. By the time they reached there Marcus had already 2 changes for the mech thanks to Mina and Anne.

Val saw the trio enter the workshop and went to greet them "Hello ladies. So nice to see you planet side again. I’m sure that Marcus has told you how BUSY we are so please, PLEASE" Val look harshly at Anne and Mina "please be cautious and not make any trouble" her strained smile was clear for all to see.

"I’ll keep my eye on her.” said Mina.

"And who will keep an eye on you?" she still remembered the time Mina rewrote the ‘poorly optimized controls’ for the smelter, the cranes, and the printer, it took over 1 month for everybody to be working properly with them only for a 2% efficiency gain "No modifications to any software or hardware Mina" said as a warning while going back to her office.