Chapter 1: Nuclear Fire - 01
I had just graduated from university. No job prospects yet, but I had a dream: making a game. Specifically, I wanted to create an RTS (Real-Time Strategy) game, a genre that had been in its golden age decades ago, back when Westwood Studios reigned supreme, and EA was still a name associated with quality games, not whatever it is today.
It was 8:30 PM, and I was at my desk, brainstorming. My latest challenge was figuring out how to integrate a builder mode into an RTS game. The idea was to let players create their own units, piece by piece, similar to how you can build vehicles in Space Engineers or From the Depths, but tied to the traditional control schemes of classic RTS games like Red Alert 2 or StarCraft. The tricky part was balancing it—making sure the system was engaging but not broken.
As a self-proclaimed RTS and sci-fi nerd, I'd always dreamed of creating, testing, and deploying my designs in virtual warfare. Too bad real life didn't work that way. In the real world, even introducing a new weapon to an army involved years of bureaucracy, by which time the technology was already outdated.
My phone sat next to my monitor, auto-battling in Azur Lane while I grinding for materials in Operation Siren. Suddenly, everything in my room went dark. My PC, my phone, and the lights all shut off simultaneously. I grabbed my phone and pressed the power button. Nothing. No response.
"EMP?" I muttered, standing up to look outside. I pulled back the curtains and froze. In the distance, a mushroom cloud rose into the sky.
Panic hit me like a truck. The old rule of thumb about nuclear blasts producing an EMP only applied if you were close enough to the detonation.
"Shit."
Resignation set in almost immediately. There was no escaping a nuke, and if I was close enough to be affected by the EMP, the shockwave was coming. I'd rather be vaporized instantly than survive to suffer radiation poisoning. Closing my eyes, I sighed, wondering how my country in Southeast Asia had ended up a target.
Before I could dwell on it, the shockwave hit. It slammed me into the far wall. Pain shot through me as something pierced my body. Darkness followed, and I lost consciousness.
Void
I awoke to... nothing. No light, no sound, no sensation. It was as if I was floating in a black void, my thoughts the only thing keeping me company. I couldn't see or feel my body. Was this death? Some kind of afterlife? Or just a very lucid dream?
"Can I dream myself up something?" I wondered aloud, though there was no sound. I tried. Nothing happened. No vivid worlds or adventures sprang to life. It was just me and my imagination.
With nothing else to do, I decided to focus on something constructive. "Alright, let's start with basics," I thought, mentally sketching out a UI reminiscent of AutoCAD. My first attempt was rough, cluttered with unrealistic geometry and clipping errors. The second pass was better—I reminded myself this was my imagination and refined the designs for functionality. Hours, or maybe days, passed. Time had no meaning here.
I pretty sure I become crazy already but whatever.
Eventually, I began designing tanks, basing one off the Soviet Rhino Tank from Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2. But then, inspiration struck. "What if I made the units... humanoid? Shipgirls, like in Azur Lane, but adapted for combat?" The thought snowballed. The units would have the durability and firepower of an actual tank but with the lower profile, maneuverability, and agility of a humanoid form. After all, Tank girls could jump and climb; tanks couldn't do that.
"Well, let's start with the Kansen design and go from there. Let's see... Nuclear submarines." I didn't have access to nuclear reactor blueprints, and the knowledge I had from both From the Depths and Space Engineers wouldn't help with that either. Those games had reactors that were literal 1x1x1 or 3x3x3 cubes, but I didn't understand their inner workings well enough to replicate them.
"Well, let's start with the Kansen design and go from there. Let's see... Nuclear submarines." I didn't have access to nuclear reactor blueprints, and the knowledge I had from both From the Depths and Space Engineers wouldn't help with that either. Those games had reactors that were literal 1x1x1 or 3x3x3 cubes, but I didn't understand their inner workings well enough to replicate them.
'Body first, equipment and weaponry later' I thought as I think of my body as a base line change my gender to female as I hate those fanfic with male Kansen with passion. Anyway submarine design so petite, wait didn't breasts associate with armor or something and overall body size just size of the ship, then there rigging which for Submarine is actually quite easy to imagine compare to other type of ship as it just underwater booster with its own torpedo and whatever it in.
Now the reason I choose submarine is due to its advantage underwater, most world associate deep sea with space due to how vast and unexplored it is so it would be a nice choice when you create your base or faction deep underwater where sonar can be easily block with just large formation of rocks or sheet of metal that covered with sand or stuff that block the whole area without making it seem like some sort of a base or whatever.
Hmm I going with underwater theme huh might as well adapt the whole Navy, army and Air force to fit after I done with my own body? I mean one can dream right?
So back to my body, let design the actual submarine first then translate it in to ship girls form.
Quite some time later
Let's see... 95 meters long, 20 meters wide, 12 meters in height. I'd need a nuclear reactor to power the entire ship, though I didn't really need ICBMs. Torpedoes and missiles should be enough.
I wanted a cannon, but those would ruin the hydrodynamics underwater—unless I made the cannon retractable into the hull. That could work. Do railguns work underwater? I wasn't sure. I'd heard the U.S. tested railguns, but the rails melted after just 100 shots. Whatever. I'll recreate it based on the MAC cannon from Halo. That means I'll replace the submarine's bow with a fixed cannon emplacement, but nah, that's too big. I'll just create the new design from scratch. It'll be twin parallel rails, with a payload in the middle, and magnetic rails to propel it forward. I'll fix it on a turret at the front of the hull, leaving empty space below for it to retract. I'll add a few pumps to expel the water when it fully retracts, along with a pressurized seal door.
Now, for the systems—sonar, radar, hull design. The hull needs bulkheads and shock absorption since underwater currents could affect stability. I'll add a bow-mounted sonar array, flank arrays, and a towed sonar array. For communications, I'll just use standard Very Low-Frequency (VLF) for short-range communication.
As for who controls it... Arpeggio of Blue Steel popped into my head with its AI system. I'll create a Union Core, even though I'm not sure how it works. Still, it'll go in the bridge. For navigation, probably an Inertial Navigation System (INS). That should be the basics, right?
Wait—missile design! I'm feeling lazy, so let's just copy Arpeggio of Blue Steel's graviton missiles and nanotech. That should mean my submarine can heal itself using metal and materials.
Speaking of graviton tech, let's rework that retractable cannon and change it to twin 100mm (Type 98) Kai. I remember the design well enough since I farmed it for my Laffey II. I'll add graviton tech to this cannon, meaning it'll now shoot lasers, super fast. Wait—will the power generation be enough?
I look back at the nuclear reactor design and revamp the whole thing. I'm not concerned with reality anymore so Let's throw in four nuclear fusion reactors.
'Wow, that's a lot,' I thought to myself as I look at my submarine.
Now, let's figure out the rigging. First, an underwater booster... maybe something like an Iron Blood ship but shark-themed? I mean, I like sharks, but they're a bit too primal for my taste. You know what? Most submarines use their rigging like surfboards or rides anyway. I'll just go with a submarine rigging that has two handlebars at the sides. It'll look normal enough, with six torpedo tubes that can also fire missiles, thanks to Arpeggio's tech. I'll add a tiny retractable twin-barrel graviton cannon at the front. It'll look small when I'm riding it. Wow, that sounds weird.
As for the swimsuit, a normal one-piece swimsuit should work. Nanotech means I get glow lines. Nice. And lastly, goggles. I don't want anything damaging my eyes... sensors? Yeah, those are needed.
The end result still looks like a small woman. 95 meters still equals a small woman, wow?
'Now that should be done,' I thought to myself, when suddenly, I heard a voice in my head.
[Confirm character creation? Y/N]
'... Did I hallucinate too hard?' I thought, unsure of what was happening. Somehow, I pushed "Y," though I didn't even have a body to do so.
[Choose destination..]
"Err... let's see. If my guess is right, this is where I go after this... if this isn't just a hallucination," I thought, considering my situation. Given that I was a shipgirl AI now, it had to be sci-fi. And I'd been preparing for combat...
"Set destination: Red Alert 2 Mental Omega."
The reply was instant.
[Destination set... Please choose one power..]
"Eh, well, I want to build an army and a base. I'll base myself on shipgirls. I'm already half-crazy, might as well," I thought. After a moment of consideration, I answered, "Give me designer power that allows me to create my own tech and designs based on my knowledge, but adapted to...Shipgi- wait... to all War-girls."
[Power confirmed: 'Wargirls Research and Development' Y/N]
I thought, "Yes," and then lost consciousness.