What are the ethiaking anic drohat think for themselves? Some would say creating any living thing ‘unnaturally’ — i.e. not through natural procreation — was uhical. That would rule out ing, artificial wombs and just about everything else I was capable of doing.

  I wasn’t sid though, but even I had to admit the creation of my autonomous drones was dang on my owhical lihey were alive, were more human than Space Marines were, and they had emotions.

  I’d love to say that I’d put much thought into their creation, but that would have been a lie. I hem to help me, and so I made them. Giving them some autonomy while stripping them of the power to cause me any damage had been the safest and most effit solution to my problem. Those damned portals had done a number on my soul energy stores and every mihey remained open e even more, even with me carefully siphoning some energy from the to take the edge off of it.

  I should have put more thought into it. I really should have.

  “Mother?” one of the drones, a girl that ractically a miniature copy of me with a different hairstyle asked. Her green eyes wide open and radiating innoce as she stared up at me.

  Did I just stumble my way into the same mistake the Emperor made? I thought to myself, staring into the distance. I had made living, breathing and feeling beings that I only sidered to be tools. Hells, at first I even sidered just reabs them all into myself to recover the biomass I’d spent on them. I could still do that. Stomp a possible future problem to death, stra in the cradle.

  I looked down into those big green eyes, staring up at me with absolute trust and an i frown of … worry? Fuck me.

  ‘Yht this upon yourself.’ Sele, not unkindly, but clearly showing that she had no iion of helpio get out of this moral quagmire I’d thrown myself face-first into.

  “Why are you callihat?” I asked gingerly, frowning down at the nameless drone.

  “You made me,” she said in apparent fusion, but I felt a hint of oh-so-human hurt underh. “Acc to my mental database, a female creator of a living being is usually referred to as ‘mother’. Should I ge my definition?”

  A part of me wao say yes. I just knew allowing her — them — to call me that would make it challenging to keep my emotional distance from them. They were cute too, which made tinuing to think of them as temporary tools much harder and ‘disposing’ of them almost impossible.

  What would I have them do though oheir current roles became redundant? Did I eveo have a role for them? Should I just … release them into the wild, so to say?

  Or keep them around to help me manage my citizens. If they want to after getting some experience. I khat for now the ey of their wants and aspirations started and e serving me.

  That was my one and old telepathiand to ead every one of them that I ingrained into them. For a mature and well-developed mind, I’d have had to break it down and forcefully shackle it with that and to have even half of the effect. These minds grew around that order, it was the foundation of their being.

  The order was the seed, the fertile earth I p in was their expansive mental database filled with all the knowledge I thought they would need and the water that would nourish their minds will be the experiehey gathered iure.

  Not that I wholly trusted that telepathic order. Chaos has corrupted fug AI before, they could certainly twist my autonomous drones into obedient sves if they had the opportunity.

  “So I did,” I muttered finally, hundreds of thoughts and worries still swirling around in my head. I made them, I gave them life. I’ll take care of them until they betray me. “o ge your definition. But refer to me only as My Lady when there is aher than me or your … sisters around. Uood?”

  “Yes, M-“ the girl started, nodding eagerly until her gaze slid over Selene draped over a sofa behind me. “My Lady.”

  “She doesn’t t,” I said, gesturing at my lover who only now looked up from the book she was reading to give me a mild gre. “Did I assign you a job yet?”

  “No … mother,” she said, shaking her head. “I was only born ten minutes ago. I don’t even have a designatio.”

  “I see,” I hummed, tapping my in thought. “What do you think about helping me mahe rest of your sisters?”

  “I’d be happy to help you in whichever way you need me to Mother,” she said, smiling and practically boung on her feet.

  I sighed, but reached out and patted her fluffy white hair, uo help myself. She beamed up at me like.

  “I think I’ll call you Alpha,” I said, knowing for sure there was no going baow. I named her. You didn’t ools, not ones you used and discarded. “How does that sound?”

  “Great!” The newly named Alpha said, boung on her feet like an overly eic child. She slowed, a fused look ing over her features. “Alpha means ‘first’, but I think I was far from the first of my kind to be born … ?”

  “You’ll be the first in your hierarchy,” I said. “The rest will ao you and follow your orders, because they’ll be ing from me. It will be your responsibility to keep them anised and tell me when they enter problems they, or you, ’t solve. Think you do that?”

  “I’ll do my best!” Alpha said, nodding seriously and putting on a resolute expression.

  “Let me give you some help with that,” I said, patting her head again. A bit of my soul energy invaded her mind and inscribed some additional knowledge into her brain. After a sed of hesitation, I also modified her brain a bit, not by much, but enough that she could now operate three streams of sciousness at peak human efficy. “Tell me if you’re having trouble with anything.”

  Alpha looked dazed, blinking rapidly and shaking her head like a soaked kitten trying to shake the water out of its fur.

  “I will!” She said finally. “But … what exactly should I do now? My sisters are spread out across the arcologies, how am I to unicate with them?”

  I took something that anyone from Earth would have reised as a smartpho of my back pocket. I’d made this one for myself, ected as it was to every other simir device I’d handed over to every previous drone.

  Alpha’s eyes lit up in reition, the knowledge of what I was holding popping into her mind as she id eyes on it.

  “How many of your sisters do you o help you mahe rest?” I asked, holding the smartpho for her, which she gingerly took like it was some fragile gem. “I was thinking of an overseer per arcology and about twenty to help them mahe ones uhem.”

  “That should be enough,” Alpha said after a moment, her eyes gzing over as her mental wheels spun, calg at superhuman speeds and sulting her database. “I’m sure. Especially if we be quick about enlisting the help of the new citizens for the more menial tasks that require little education or skill.”

  “Perfect,” I said, smiling. “Your helpers will be ready in ten minutes. You have two hours to talk to them in-person, then I’ll be sending all of them on their way.”

  “What about me?” Alpha asked.

  “You’ll be staying here in the Capital,” I said, gesturing out the grand panoramidows. From this high up in the fortress, we could see far and wide, past the t city walls and into the wilderness beyond. “Will that be a problem?”

  “It … will make maintaining tact a bit challenging,” she said hesitantly, a part of her Water Caste coded sub-brain probably frothing at the mouth. I knew from experiehat personal tad face-to-face meetings were their preferred way of doing diplomad politibsp;

  “I am pnning on making some transport system between the arcologies and the Capital,” I said. “So you won’t be cut off entirely, and if you really o visit someone, I teleport you over and batil it’s done.”

  “Transport system?” She asked, curiosity shining in her eyes.

  “I’m not sure yet,” I fessed. “Either overnd trains with automatic turrets on top of them or underground railways in protected tubes. Airpnes would be too dangerous and I haven’t gotten a clue how to replicate teleportation with teology yet.”

  It’s been a shock just how easy replig the basialities of a smartphone had been. I’ve had to go extrae rarer metals and minerals from Vallia myself, but my uanding of teology has been enough to hahe rest.

  There had been a misuanding in the Warhammer fandom about the Adeptus Meicus being idiots who didn’t uand how their teology worked. Sure, their uanding of teology was twisted and bloated by their zealous beliefs, but there was a mountain of real knowledge there.

  It wasn’t their ck of uanding of teology that stopped them from iing and furthering their uanding of it, but their faith. The existence of Belisarius Cawl and his few like-minded fellow Magos roof of that.

  I o go pluhe minds of a few more Magos ah Caste stists. I decided. My anic tools and ‘tech’ were useful for sure, but they would never be replicable by aher thaeology oher hand, that I could spread and make avaible to all.

  “It’s gene locked to you,” I added absently. “It’ll also explode violently if anyone besides you and your sisters touch it, so keep it safe. It’ll also explode if you haven’t touched it in a week.”

  Alpha almost dropped the phone, but recovered quiough to avoid doing so. She looked at the piece of teology with a suspicious eye, wary and vigint.

  “Actually,” I said, narrowing my eyes. “Let’s give you somethier. e, follow me.”

  The fortress was still rgely empty, as one would expect. It was a truly gargantuan structure with enough spaside to fit a rger town. For now, only the topmost few floors were furnished and prepared for use, the few floors I expected myself and my inner circle to live in when on the p.

  Minus Zedev of course, because he requested to get a tle research tre far below the surface. He had fes heated with magma right from the molten mantle of the p, because that was important to him … for some reason.

  I led Alpha into one of the rger rooms a floor down, one about 20 x 30 metres across with a rge desk slid up against one wall which was filled with ft monitors.

  “I’d been pnning to make this room be from where news and such would be broadcast and managed,” I said, turning to Alpha. “I think it’ll suit you better. You set up call-meetings and the like in here or a broadcast if you want. Think it’ll help?”

  “Yes!” She excimed happily, her curious gaze roaming over the dark monitors. “Not optimal, but it will do. Thank you, Mother!”

  I winced slightly, not sure if I’d ever get used to being called ‘mother’. I made them, sure, but I didn’t raise them. Did I deserve to be called that?

  Well, it seems to make Alpha happy. I thought, feeling a tiny hint of her emotions. Joy, pure and i. That’s reason enough to let her. It doesn’t e anything.

  With Alpha being an artificial being, practically a e, her soul was near-ent. I’d seen mosquitoes with stronger souls, but that worked in her favour sihat made it much harder for Daemons to use. I wouldn’t have to worry about any Daemon taking note of her and her sisters until their souls grew rger than an average Tau’s.

  It also made sensing her emotions with my empathy much harder, but that was a tradeoff I was not too bothered by.

  “Before you take over here though, head down to the fifth floor to talk with your newborn sisters,” I said. “Two hours. Afterwards, I’ll be making a broadcast for our new citizens and then this room is yours, along with the personal living quarters attached to it. Do you think you’ll need helpers to ma?”

  “I … I think it’d help,” she said, sounding afraid of admitting she couldn’t hahe task by herself. “I could focus more on your primary task if I could delegate the w of the teology here to others.”

  “Alright,” I said, nodding easily. “How many would you need for that?”

  “Fiv- No! Ten should be better,” she said. “ … If that isn’t too much? I could probably mah five at a slightly reduced efficy.”

  “You’ll have ten.” I waved her off, sending a mental and to the germination pods ohird floor to start growing aen es. “You’ll find me up where we met if you need me. If I’m away and you have something urgent, really urgent, squash this.”

  I handed her the same stress ball I’d given to Guilliman, or one very simir to it at least. It was a ball of squishy gel with a pair of googly eyes rolling around in their sockets stantly.

  “It’s one use and I’ll assume you are dying or worse if you squish it,” I said. “Or that the moon got attacked. Something of that calibre, alright? If something wait a few weeks for me to get back from whatever I’m doing away, then you just wait it out.”

  “Uood!” Alpha nodded seriously. “I’ll not fail you Mother!”

  “I know you won’t,” I said with a smile, ruffling her hair much to her joy. “Get to work now, I have a speech to prepare for and dozens of blueprints to optimise.”

  “Yes!” Alpha said, straightening up and puffing her chest out. “I’ll get going! By Mother!”

  “Bye Alpha.” I waved her away, only letting my smile fade once she was far away. I didn’t knoell Alpha and her ‘sisters’ would work, but I’d not be doubting them openly or treating them like tools.

  The choice to treat them either as a tool or as people was one I’d already made. I was not going to go halfway. That was the mistake that shattered the Emperor’s dream and brought about the betrayal that ended his golden age.

  Nine man-children with daddy issues who thought the literal Gods of hell would be better people to serve than their own asshole of a Father.

  I’m going to try to avoid giving my owions Mommy issues.

  P3t1