Chapter 185: Space Marine Project
Bryan’s completed body looked very crude, like a trash can with mechanical arms and caterpillar tracks installed. If it weren’t for the semi-circular rotating head on top, it would look even more like one.
There was a reason why the design was so ugly. After all, it was a prototype, and safety came first. So, it was necessary to leave enough space for improvement and not make it as compact and complex as a human form. For example, Bryan’s brain and spine were immersed in a large glass jar filled with a special slime solution, just like soaking medicinal herbs in alcohol. Once the jar was broken, it would be game over, so more reliable protection was needed.
After protecting the brain, the next step was to perform a neural link. But let’s not even talk about how complex the cranial nerves are, the mere fact that human nerves cannot be directly connected to machines was enough to make people collapse.
There was no other way. The two sides were incompatible. The nerves that controlled the contraction of muscle fibers could not control the rotation of gears. Therefore, Owen simply skipped this process and directly adopted the method of spiritual resonance.
Bryan was a mage after all, and mages were experts in the spiritual aspect. So even though only his brain remained, his psychic power had not weakened much, but strangely, it had increased somewhat. Could it be because there was no skull to block the signal?
Bryan used his psychic power to resonate with the spiritualized crystal ball inside the machine, and then indirectly controlled the machine through the Flame Empress’s subprogram inside the spiritualized crystal ball. It was similar to playing a game, but faster and more direct.
However, the biggest advantage of this design was that Bryan could complete complex structural designs and machining through his psychic power with the help of the crystal ball.
So although the machine was not perfect, Bryan was very satisfied because it was his long-cherished dream.
Owen could not comment on Bryan’s choice because, in a way, he was also a madman. He could only say that the people in this world really knew how to play.
Bryan in his iron barrel state no longer posed any threat to Owen. Not to mention his current state, the fact that the slime soaking his brain was under Owen’s control was enough to put his mind at ease.
Therefore, Owen opened up part of the Flame Empress’s database to him. After all, he was a rare talent in the territory, and even if only his brain remained, he had to make himself valuable. Otherwise, the only way to reduce the cost of the slime nutrient solution was to dilute it with water.
Modern technology, as vast as mountains and seas, made Bryan irresistibly indulge in it. At the same time, he also discovered that the vastness of the database was simply not something that humans could accommodate. This made him even more convinced that the path he had chosen was correct. Only by ceasing to be human would he have no limits.
Soon, Owen discovered that Bryan had become exceptionally useful. Because there was no cumbersome and complicated body to drag him down, and there was no interference from various endocrine hormones that only increased troubles, Bryan at this time only had pure reason, reason to the point of rigidity, and he was not even as human-like as the Flame Empress. Obviously, there was a big problem with Bryan’s design and Owen’s technology.
But Bryan in this state was like a different kind of artificial intelligence. He never knew how to refuse Owen’s orders, and his research was like having an acceleration cheat enabled. Although there were still some shortcomings, it had to be said that he was unexpectedly useful.
As for why Bryan would execute Owen’s orders 100%, the Flame Empress gave a conclusion.
First, the loss of his body and endocrine hormones led to Bryan’s lack and misunderstanding of his own emotions. In addition, his body was created by Owen, so he subconsciously believed that the ownership of this body belonged to Owen, and as a part of this body, he also belonged to Owen.
Coupled with his exposure to the Flame Empress’s database, under the impact of massive information, his self-awareness became even weaker, and instead, he increasingly recognized his current state.
Moreover, throughout the process, Bryan was always in a state of spiritual resonance with the spiritualized crystal ball inside the iron barrel, and inside the spiritualized crystal ball was the Flame Empress’s subprogram.
So unconsciously, the Flame Empress became the target of Bryan’s subconscious imitation, so his overall consciousness and thinking were affected and distorted, becoming what Owen wanted.
This statement was far-fetched, but it made sense. Moreover, Bryan’s thinking was not the same as that of normal people, so Owen could only accept this setting with a smile and quickly put it to use.
The first task Owen gave Bryan was to create his own Space Marine project.
Space Marines came from the game Warhammer, a world of despair, a world where technology and psychic power, science and mysticism coexisted, and Space Marines were the main army of the human empire in that universe.
Judging from the game’s data, unarmored Space Marines were a bit underwhelming. Their strength was only half a ton, a waste of their large size. They couldn’t even defeat Captain America from World War II.
However, this was because Space Marines needed to face complex and harsh interstellar wars, not wars of backward civilizations that hadn’t even developed their own star systems.
Facing brutal interstellar wars, the power of the flesh alone had an upper limit. Coupled with the empire’s restrictions on excessive genetic modification, the Space Marines’ enhancement direction was biased towards survival, so their combat effectiveness was not strong.
Of course, this was in an unarmored state. Which soldier went to the battlefield without equipment?
Besides, a soldier with bare hands could not defeat a tiger, but after being fully armed, as long as they kept their distance and did not run out of ammunition, no matter how many tigers came, they would all die.
Therefore, what really allowed Space Marines to gain a foothold in the brutal interstellar wars, besides their tenacious fighting will, was the power armor, bolters, and other equipment with explosive violence values, which made every Space Marine a terrifying killing machine.
This was not the only advantage of Space Marines. The real reason why Owen chose Space Marines as a template, besides their loyalty, was that Space Marines had the strongest adaptability. One could see this just from how complex their enemies were.
They were literally flying in the sky, running on the ground, swimming in the water, burrowing in the earth, human and non-human, from machines to orcs, from aliens to demons, you name it, they encountered it. And they had to be wary of the temptation of the Four Chaos Gods in the Warp at all times.
The world Owen was in was equally complex, with demons and gods, so using Space Marines as a template to create his own super soldiers became the first choice.
Currently, the entire project was just beginning. Owen initially divided the project into three parts: human body modification, power armor, and bolters.
In fact, this project had already been conceived before the Demon’s Head incident, but at that time, the conditions for research were not available. Later, the successive appearances of the Flame Empress, gremlins, and the puppet factory gave Owen the confidence to carry out this project, and he achieved some success, the bolter and Zaku.
It was precisely because he had achieved initial results that Owen discovered that things were not that easy.
As someone who was proficient in multiple professions, his knowledge was very broad. In theory, if he fully mastered all of it, recreating Space Marines would be no problem.
However, Owen was currently a jack of all trades, master of none, lacking depth in all areas. It was no problem for him to design a first draft based on basic knowledge and some imagination, but he couldn’t go any further to perfect it. Now that he had Bryan, this shortcoming was finally made up for.
Owen had already completed the design of the bolter prototype, so he first handed this part to Bryan, asking him to find a way to mass-produce bolters, and at the same time submitted a preliminary plan for human body modification to him.
