Haven't been active here lately, so I'm going to post something recent.
Universe 29A lore time, and with the introduction of the goddess of the Sentient Machines herself, Cordia a Roman galley who lived during a time before machinery itself even existed, and the only Sentient Machines that existed where mainly watercraft such as small boats and large vessels known as ships and she was the first Sentient Machine on Earth and the Sentients of Earth's goddess of all Sentients and the mother of all of them, their guiding light for the unity of all of them and great protector to them all.
Cordia's story begins a thousand years ago in ancient Rome during the golden age of the Roman Empire outside of the port city of Genoa in a small village deep within a valley in northern Italy with a man and noble ship designer and builder who would be hers and the Sentients grand awakener, Lucius Inventio Exclusionem, simply referred to Cordia and many Sentients as Lucius, or to the Sentients themselves their Great Awakener. Lucius was a masterful, hardworking and talented shipbuilder and designer with his own shipyard in Genoa, born on February 7th 2AD to a working family of farmers who owned a small vegetable farm in a small village deep in a valley outside of Genoa and often went along with his father down to the city with the weekly harvest to the market.
Lucius developed a fascination with large sea going vessels from a very young age, often sneaking away from the market to head down to the harbour front to watch the various vessels sailing in and out of the harbour, with his favourite type of ships being those beautifully designed craft that were built for the elites of Rome which he liked for their unique artistic designs that made them stand out among the other merchant and naval vessels within the harbour with high-quality craftsmanship, with himself dreaming of becoming a shipbuilder and designer himself and constructing his own unique style of ship of an exotic design fit for a wealthy elite member of Rome's high-society.
Whenever he was at home, Lucius would often be found in his room drawing ships of various designs during his free time, with most of his designs often said to be artistically pleasing and fashionably elegant that they were said could catch the eyes of anyone he showed them to, and often losing himself constructing tiny models of his drawn designs using various scraps of wood and bit's and pieces he found lying around his house, in the village and around the city of Genoa itself, with him often showing off his creations to his older brother and younger sister who found his designs to be very imaginative and immersive with both of them believing that he would make a great ship designer. Much to his fathers disapproval, as he often thought that his son didn't have what it took be a shipbuilder and designer and often told him that he would never be a ship designer with his dream designs never coming to pass, and that Lucius should only focus on carrying the family tradition of running their families farm and selling produce at the market as a vegetable merchant.
Lucius mother however, was far more supportive of her sons desire to become a shipbuilder and designer and so although at the objection of her husband, encouraged her son to keep creating his ship designs and pursue his dream of becoming a shipbuilder and designer to build the ship of his dreams. And with this encouragement from his mother and as he got older, Lucius left his families farm at the age of eight-teen and went to study the craft and art of shipbuilding and designing in Athens, Greek, learning under several highly educated shipbuilding masterminds and very artistic craftsman who knew how to construct ships of various designs, along with making a few friends who were also into the art of shipbuilding just like he was, and another one of his friends he would meet there was an inspiring scientist, geologist and biologist, Caeso Mercator who Lucius would often help with his scientific studies and geological findings with his older brother having been a bit of an armature geologist himself with his knowledge he found could prove useful to Caeso. Lucius would also take up an apprenticeship with one of the local shipbuilders as part of his studies with him gaining a lot of shipbuilding experience under his mentor who was a well respected builder in the entirety of Greek and the Empire.
After five years of studying away from home in Athens. Lucius returned to Genoa along with Caeso with all the experience he had gained, and with the earnings he earned from his time in Athens. He started his own shipyard within the port of Genoa by buying an old workshop with a large warehouse adjacent to it in an isolated part of the harbour with the waterfront directly outback, with him using his remaining funds to build a slipway out of the back warehouse to the harbour water with the warehouse being big enough to house even the largest of vessels he was going to build, with him hiring several workers to help him out with construction. To help get his shipyard off the ground, Lucius started off small by constructing smaller craft such as fishing boats and small pleasure sailboats for various Mediterranean based fishery's and the locals living within the city for pleasure purposes, with his attention to detail for his pleasure boats being praised by the locals who loved his fine craftsmanship. As Lucius's shipyard grew, he eventually caught the attention of the Roman Navy who would give his yard a contract to build naval ships for them, and this was when he put his shipbuilding and designing skills to the test with him coming up with ship designs that were both sleek and practical for naval use at the same time with commanders of various fleets praising Lucius ships for their craftsmanship and practicality, with him also building some based on their navies own standard designs.
Despite his success with his shipbuilding business, Lucius often found himself being unable to attract the attention of a member of the elites of Rome, mainly due to him having to compete with the more established builders in the entirety of Rome and even though he had designs in store that would be pleasing to them and thought were better than the other builders. He was particularly a nobody to most of Rome's high-society, and the few who did know of him mainly in Genoa often seeing him as just a peasant who was attempting to becoming big in the world with them believing his designs were only suited for poor man's fishing boats and merchant vessels and he wasn't capable of designing a grand vessel for them. This often caused Lucius to doubt himself and wonder whether his dream of building an artistically sleek vessel was achievable or not, and sometimes he thought that he would be stuck building fishing boats and naval ships forever with no hope of his dream coming true. But he showed determination and kept going until he found someone wealthy enough to see his designs worthy of constructing specially for them. But what he didn't know was that he was about to make a great discovery, something amazing that would change his life forever and make his name known in the history books of Sentient Machine history, and awaken a species that would change and unite the world.
In 38AD, Lucius was at his parents farm in the village he grew up in, gathering vegetables to take home to his family for tea. He struggled to pull up a cabbage that appeared to be stuck firm in the ground, and he was able to yank it free, out with it came a large purple Orb that was one of what would later be known as Sentient Orbs the eggs that gave the Sentient Machines bodies their Sentience, and it would be from this very Orb that Cordia would be awakened into the world from. With him having no idea on what the strange orb was, Lucius decided to take it home back to his shipyard with him and have Caeso who lived next door for him analyse it the next morning. While he was at home though, his youngest son Helvius found the Orb in the kitchen and thinking it was a large piece of hard bread dough, placed it in the bread oven by mistake. Fortunately Lucius was able to get it out and when he did so discovered that although it had been heated in the oven, the Orbs shell didn't burn his hands. Wanting to keep the Orb out of his son's reach, he quickly placed it in the workshop at the back, on a naval galley’s hull that was under construction before heading off to eat his tea and it was in this hasty move and while he was asleep in bed that night. That the Orb would hatch on the hull and the Sentience energy it contained spread through it and worked its magic to bring to life.
Later that night, Lucius awoke to the sound of banging from downstairs in the workshop, and when he went to investigate believing it was mice knocking some wood over. He stumbled upon the now alive hull of the galley who looked back at him with a pair of green eyes and dark blue eyelashes. Lucius was of course scared of what was before him at first, but soon discovered that the galley was simply scared and confused by her surroundings and the world she had just awakened into and was afraid of him as she didn't know that he was a human yet. Seeing that his naval galley who was now this creature he had just awaken was a afraid of him, Lucius was able to claim her and assure her that he wasn't going to hurt her and put his hand against her half completed hull, and it was from that touch that the bound and relationship between the humans and the Sentient Machine species began, and Lucius knew on that night he had awaken something amazing, and that Cordia had been awakened and was alive.
The next morning, Lucius told Caeso about his discovery and what he had just awakened with the Orb, with him taking him to see Cordia in his workshop. Caeso was so astounded by Cordia and how she was able to talk and speak like a regular human being could, and he immediately took interest in studying her species and the Orbs her Sentience was hatched from, as well as studying Cordia herself to see how her species behaved. However, Caeso was concerned about Lucius's discovery being found out and worried that once the emperor heard about and the Orbs she was hatched from he dreaded to think what terrible things he would put them through, so he asked Lucius and his family to keep Cordia's existence a secret from the outside world, with he and his family agreeing to do so, with Lucius seeing the hull he brought to life as a daughter he never had in that moment decided to name her Cordia with her name taken from the goddess Concordia the goddess of marriage and society with him seeing it as a meaning of unity as she was a ship who when finally revealed would help connect the world together in unity and harmony.
Over the next several days, Cordia's and Lucius bond grew with Cordia seeing Lucius as a father figure to her as he helped her to understand the world around her and how the human species worked, with him and Caeso also watching the way Cordia's own species behaved from their observations of her, with Caeso writing notes about his findings down. In his notes, he said that Cordia displayed a high degree of intelligence that was higher than that of any average human being on Earth with her intellect being proven when he give a her a complicated biology theory that he had been struggling to solve, with Cordia being able to solve the theory by putting all the pieces of the puzzle the theory presented together, doing a few bits of mathematical calculations to support the theory in a matter of two minutes with most of the answers being correct. She even was able to solve some of the most complex algebra questions, and since she was a naval vessel when Lucius and Caeso presented her with a roleplay of a naval battle using several old rowing boats found that she was able to quickly learn her enemy's tactics and was able to quickly learn and adapt during combat situations by analysing her enemies next moves.
As for herself and her species behavioural patterns, Cordia was found to be a very playful and youthful ship with Caeso believing this to have been brought upon by Lucius's two sons who often played various games with her that were suitable for a ship, such as hide and seek, tag, and even a roleplaying game the three of them made up called Roman Ships vs Persian Ships in which Cordia was the Romans and both Lucius sons as the Persians that they represented using a small sailing boat that Cordia would often capsize to claim the Romans victorious.
Caeso also noted that she also seemed to be the most independent minded sort of vessel as he found that unlike humans who were always expected to follow what society and their leaders expected of them and forced to conform to social norms as a result. Cordia was noted by him that because of her independent mindset that she had the personality of a free-spirited rebellious young-adult who choose to be her own individual self, and not conform to any social structure that he or Lucius presented to her, treating the world like a blank canvas that she could use to craft her own outlook on life and make up her own rules and her own inner culture for herself that showcased her individualism and spirit, and when he watched her putting on this display of freedom within herself. It reminded him of when he was younger as a child, always being very adventurous and living life freely and riskily on his own terms, as it did for Lucius who he saw Cordia as reminding him of when he too used by a very imaginative and creative child and come up with some ship designs that were beyond his wildest of dreams.
Caeso figured that this non-conformist attitude of hers was most likely a treat of her own species, to which future scientists would later prove that Sentients often preferred to develop their own unique identities that defined their personality, with them only conforming to social norms and what society expected of them, if the roles they are designed and built to do so required them to follow rules, hierarchy, order and in some cases they themselves are being oppressed by an authoritarian regime in which their freedom to express themselves was being oppressed. With Caeso being concerned that if Cordia expressed this free will openly when she was finally revealed to the world, that people would react negatively towards her and fear her actions as not confining to what Roman society expected of anyone, and that the emperor when he finally saw her, would probably immediately see her individuality as a threat to his vision of Roman and it would probably influence people to rise up and rebel against the empire in the future. Fortunately Lucius was able to help her understand that society wouldn't approve of her non-conformist attitude and would probably be scared of her by showing it off. With Cordia willing to do what her father figure told her to do and adapt a more serious conformist attitude when the time was right for her and her species to be revealed to everyone.
Cordia was also noted by Caeso to be a very curious and inquisitive ship, as he often saw looking over the wall out into the streets from the safety of her hiding place watching the rest of his own species go about their daily lives and learning everything from how humanity itself behaved up close and how they did things, such as trading goods for things like money and food, getting into interesting conversations about things like politics and the state of the world, and what great achievement some famous person she didn't know of had made. It was also how she discovered her first taste of trauma, when she saw a man being stabbed in the back by a thief who stole some valuable jewels from him and she had to watch helplessly as he bled to death on the ground as several people attended to him until he passed away. This helped Cordia to learn about the idea of death, and that these humans along with the animals she saw were beings who only had one life to live, and although she herself was immortal because she could live for hundreds if not thousands of years if kept in good condition. If she ever sank or scrapped then she would most likely die, her life would be over due to various factors like her deterioration. She asked all this stuff to Caeso who told her that to humans like him, while it was sad that they would eventually age and pass away especially if their loved ones are lost to such a fate, to them death was only natural as it was part of the circle-of-life. However, knowing that her species appeared to be immortal he told Cordia that she could decide whether or not she wanted to continue living for thousands of years, or allow herself to pass on when she felt like her time was up on her own accord and terms, and if she ever sank and die then she shouldn't worried about it, as unlike humans vessels like her could be replaced unlike them. To which Cordia was able to come to terms with, and accept that she didn't have to die completely as her body got older and she could decide when she was done.
Lucius and Caeso did their best to keep Cordia a secret from the public until they were ready to reveal her to the world. But their efforts were fatal in the end and their secret was eventually found out about, when one day two children snooped around in Cordia's hiding place and happened to stumble across her, and when they run out of there in a fright they immediately went and told some soldiers who were with a messenger at Lucius's place as the naval commander in charge of the local naval fleet in Genoa had sent them there to demand him to know why he was behind schedule with the completion of the vessel (which was the hull Cordia came to inhabit as her body) that was supposed to be delivered for them a month prior, about what they had discovered. The soldier's immediately broke down the door of Caesos apartment and run out back to the hidden dockside area, and upon seeing Cordia they were surprised and confused about why the vessel they ordered was alive, until Caeso and Lucius explained everything to them about the Orbs and Cordia explained herself to them. Amazed and excited about what Lucius had discovered, that the messenger spread the news about Lucius's discovery to the entire population of Genoa, with them passing the word on to everyone, as all of them rushed to Caeso's place to witness the first Sentient Machine on Earth, one who was about lead her species to their rise and to make history.
The news of Cordia's discovery spread far and wide across the Empire, until it reached the ears of emperor Caligula and he immediately travelled to Genoa to see Cordia for himself. Upon seeing her and being impressed by what Lucius had discovered, and Cordia herself by showing him what her species was capable of to him. He ordered for Lucius to take him to the place where he found the Orbs, to which Lucius took him to his parents farm where he discovered Cordia's Orb and it was where the Empire and his advisors discovered that they were standing on top of a massive Sentient Orb field that they assumed and eventually proven to stretch for miles through the valley and the mountains. Seeing the potential for Cordia's species to be a crucial part of his Empire's expansion plans as he could use them to strike fear into his enemies. Ordered for a full excavation of the Orbs and to begin mass production and breeding of Sentient galleys, with him putting Cordia in charge of training them and she would become an official member of the fleet as the imperial navy's new flagship. To which Cordia honourably accepted, seeing this as an opportunity to show the world what her species was capable of, though much to Caesos and Lucius' objections to Caligula's plan. But with that Cordia left her port of her awakening and her father figure behind and sailed to Rome to take charge as flagship, with her now having to adopt a more serious attitude while under the emperor's orders.
Over the next several months, the first of several Orb Mines were set up in the valley outside of Genoa where Cordia was discovered and in no time at all the first of many Sentient Orbs were brought up to the surface and sent down to Genoa for hatching into the very hulls their Sentients would become a part of, with the first batch of galleys being completed by the various builders within Rome, with Lucius's shipyard being the main leader in the whole operation with Lucius's own Sentient Galley's being put to sea by him within the two months. With them being immediately sent to Rome for their training under Cordia. Through their many months of rigorous training under her, and with her giving them her knowledge about how the humans worked and that they were to serve one under the emperor. Cordia proved herself to them to be a masterful leader to them, with many of the Sentient Galley's seeing her as a mother figure of sorts to them as much as Lucius was a father to her, with them calling her the Great Mother of all Sentients. Over the course of the whole, year Cordia and her fleet stationed in Rome would prove themselves along with the other Sentients of the fleets of be a formidable force of naval vessels, showing their capabilities well in battle alongside their human comrades who sailed aboard them, as they went on raids and invasions of several areas along the Mediterranean coastline of North Africa. Fiercely dealing and doing crippling blows to their enemies, defeating them in battle after battle, with their fury striking fear into the enemy soldiers who often fell before them and retreated long before they could deal any serious damage to them unlike their older faceless non-sentient counterparts.
With each battle she fought in, Cordia found herself to be a masterful fighter and a very strong leader for her own species, and who's kind was there to serve the emperor of the Empire they at first thought they were proud to be serving and that through all these battles they were bring those lands they invaded under his mighty Empire in unity like her goddess namesake. With herself training her fellow Sentients in the ways of a Roman Soldier through the art and strategies of battle and passing her knowledge on to others who became fleet commanders of other fleets within the Imperial navy. She even taught them Lucius's wisdom and the ways of her namesake, that by serving the emperor by fighting his battles that he give to them, that they would be uniting many lands far and wide under his rule and as long as they followed every single order their human commanders gave to them, they would be uniting the world in the name of Concordia herself, and she would be very proud of all of them including of the ship named after her who guided them into battle and united those lands in the name of herself and the entirety of the Roman Empire.
However, while at first it seemed to Cordia and the rest of the Sentients that nothing appeared to be wrong and they appeared to be doing a good deed for the emperor by helping his men conquer more lands under the Empire. The horrible truth about the emperor's true intentions with her species would eventually reveal its ugly-head. As time passed and the more battles Cordia and other Sentients fought in, she and them began to notice that something was off within the lands they conquered as they began to see that the humans who lived in those lands didn't show any feelings of unity under the Empire at all, instead they showed a great feeling of fear and hostility towards them, with Cordia noticing that during the emperors speeches about his empires newly acquired lands that he didn't recognize any of the people living within them as his new subjects of his empire, but rather framed them as dangerous barbarians who were threatening to take over the empires lands and bring Rome into ruin, which didn't sound like peaceful unity to her at all.
Cordia even began to notice that those within her own fleet and species at large were beginning to question their loyalty to the emperor and the empire with many of them questioning whether or not brining the lands they conquered under the emperors rule was really bringing true unity to those living within the empire as the emperor himself had claimed, with Cordia even noticing that he also didn't acknowledge any of her species efforts to bring those lands under his rule through the battles they fought. Him self-proclaiming that he was the one who brought those lands under his rule along with bringing those so-called barbarians and their leaders through is godly powers that where gifted to him by the god of war Mars and used them to wipe them out with force with them surrounding instantly. Which Cordia knew all too well that wasn't true as she, the soldiers serving under him and most of her fleet were the ones who did all that dirty work for him and that he never took part in any of those battles. All of this was too much as a clear sign to Cordia that something was clearly wrong, and began questioning herself on whether or not the emperor really cared about her species as living breathing beings even if they were ships like their Non-Sentient predecessors, or if he only awakened them to serve as mindless tools for his empires expansion plans to just sail out into the open sea and die in battle, with him or anyone else caring for them as a species and having no empathy for how his actions affected those who fought under him and those he conquered? With her even questioning her own loyalty to the emperor.
All the answers to all of Cordia's questions eventually came slamming right in front of her bow, when on one fateful day. She discovered to her horror what the emperors true intentions with her species were, when she discovered within a hidden dockyard area at the back of Rome harbour that the emperor had been brutally torturing her species who she found were being used as prison ships to carry slaves from the lands they conquered. With them being horrifically and badly treated under awful conditions like prisoners with them being muzzled and bounded to the dockside and having things like torture weapons either smacked into their eyes and thrusting swords through their tongues causing all of them significant pain and suffering. Seeing all this was the final strow for Cordia who could now clearly see that the emperor didn't care about them and regrated ever agreeing to join his empires navy as flagship as everything she and her fleet had done, brought nothing but suffering to not only those living within the lands they conquered and to themselves through this selfish act of torture she had witnessed happening to the members of her own kind.
Outraged, Cordia confronted Caligula about the horrific treatment he was putting her species through and told him that he was treacherous liar for hiding everything about his true intentions with them behind her stern the whole time. With her demanding for him to end the unjust torment he was putting those poor prison ships through, let her fellow ships go and to end his usage of them for the transporting of slaves. Going on to say that the conquering of those lands he asked her, his men and her fleet to conquer so his men could force those poor human souls into slavery wasn't bringing true unity to his empire in the name of Concordia like he had told her at all. Angered by her defiance and seeing she had found out the truth about his intentions with her species, Caligula directly told Cordia that he never truly cared about them as a species and that they were only mindless servants designed to serve his empire and follow orders blindly without question. He ordered for several Non-Sentient galleys with men on board to bound Cordia down and take her away to the back of harbour with the prisons where she would be subjected to torture for the next two months as punishment for attempting to defy his rule. As she was dragged away Caligula told her that true unity was for fools and that fear and forces was the only to bring true unity to his empire and that no one, not even her own species will stand in his way, and those that did defy him such as herself would face server consequences for defying him.
But Cordia knew full well that him imprisoning her was the biggest mistake he had ever made, and marked the start of Caligula's downfall. Immediately every Sentient galley within Cordia's fleet and the entire Roman Navy noticed that their flagship was missing, and over the coming days they also noticed that their colleagues were also disappearing left and right whenever any of them went off to ask the emperor about Cordia's whereabouts. To they were able to link the disappearances back to him, and suspect that Caligula had something to do with their flagships disappearance and they eventually discovered his true intentions with them from those who had come out of imprisonment with wounds on their hulls and they revealed the horrors they had been subjected to while imprisoned at the back of the harbour and that their flagship was there, with the emperors men carrying out his selfish crura acts towards them for him. Enraged and betrayed by the very beings who had awakened them in the very hulls they inhabited. They knew the emperor had to be stopped and a huge Sentient Galley uprising commenced with thousands of galleys across every fleet in the navy sailing to Rome to confront Caligula at his palace in protest, demanding him to release Cordia and end the torment and suffering he was putting them through at the back of the harbour, and for him and the rest of humanity to recognize them as living breathing beings like every other species on the planet with some of the same rights that humans had with a law preventing them from using them for immoral acts.
However, their constant demands made Caligula more paranoid at them, as he saw them as defying his rule through their demands. Until finally he straight up told them in extreme anger and rage that he would not end their enslavement and let their flagship go. Ordering for the royal guard to imprison every single ship who dared to defy his authority over them, and he condemn all of the Sentient Machine species as traitors of the Empire as punishment for starting an uprising against him. In his rage, he blamed Cordia for the uprising and when he was told that Lucius and Caeso had arrived in Rome to look for Cordia, he ordered for his men to arrest them and bring them to where Cordia was being held so he could talk to the three of them personally.
Lucius and Caeso where brought to where Cordia was being held, with her in a sorry state from all the torment she endured with Lucius being thrown to the ground before the emperor. Caligula condemn Lucius's discovery of the Orbs as a mistake that should never had happened, and that making the galleys intelligent breathing beings with independent thinking only made them disobedient and question the empire and his orders. In his fury he demoted Cordia from her rank as flagship of the entire Imperial Navy outing her and her species from it, ordered for the mining of the Sentient Orbs to cease indefinitely, and ordered for Lucius to be thrown in prison to await his execution for bringing misfortunate to the Empire. And finally worst of all he ordered for the total extermination of the Sentient Machine species through a mass genocide, through the disposal and mass sinkings of the Sentient galleys and the destruction of the Orbs, condemning them as enemies of the Empire and the creation of the devil himself.
Ordering for the ships including Cordia currently imprisoned to be slaughtered immediately and as the soldiers began thrusting their swords in the Sentients brains. Cordia could for a moment look on helplessly as she watched as her children began to be slaughtered with her developing a very strong hatred towards Caligula, looking at him with a snarl knowing full well he had gone too far and was now completely insane and threatened her species with extinction through genocide. Killing those who saw her as their mother, regraded as her children, who her father discovered and brought into the world and who she fought alongside with as soldiers, who were now being murdered in cold blood at the hands of an evil and corrupt human ruler.
Not wanting for her children to be driven to extinction, and as Caligula ordered for her to be killed. Lucius broke free from his captors and he and Caeso set Cordia free with them quickly managing to free the other galleys and together they followed their leader through the death and destruction that surrounded them as they watched their fellow comrades die in flames all around them at the hands of the emperors loyal soldiers with the Royal Imperial Guard fleet chasing them through Rome harbour, with them managing to escape Rome into the Mediterranean Sea beyond with them only looking back to see the smoke and lights of the flames of their fallen Sentients they had lost that night.
Eventually Cordia, Lucius, Caeso and the rest of the Sentients eventually found a safe sheltered bay on the Algerian coast, along with several other fleets of Sentients who had escaped the emperors genocide, accompanied by several human soldiers who had remained loyal to them. The Sentients feeling a huge sense of betrayal by their human comrades started to blame them and saying that it was all of their faults the genocide of them by Caligula was happening which erupted into an argument between both species over who was to blame for the others suffering, with the humans blaming them for bringing the genocide upon themselves by defying the emperor and the empire by discovering something they were never meant to find out about. Feeling sympathy for both sides however, knowing full well that the genocide wasn't the entire human races fault, it was the work of one bad apple who was their leader who was to blame all that was happening to her own species, and not wanting both species to start a full scale conflict with each other. Cordia sailed in between them and told them it wasn't either species fault and that Caligula was the one to blame for what was happening, and they both needed to bring him to justice of the Sentient Machine species was to survive. Yet she didn't know who they were going to accomplish it.
It was in that moment of uncertainty for Cordia, that she and everyone around her received a visit from god himself as a dove. Who told Cordia that he had been watching Cordia from the sky above from the night she was awakened and had seen her go from a naïve adventures galley, to a great warrioress who wanted to bring unity to those around her in peace and harmony. He went on to say that it was this desire for unity that she had that she was destined to bring that peace and harmony in unity to her own children and she along with them were destine to unite the world and his own children together as one interconnected society together through the waterways they travelled. He apologised to Cordia for the pain brought upon her species by his own children who unfortunately committed their own sins by serving a false god. Telling Cordia that Caligula and his predecessors had committed crimes against hers and his own children over the years through his tyrannical rule and those who came under his rule through his mad conquests of expansionism, bring nothing hut pain and fear to them with no peace or unity. His genocide of her species being the tip of the iceberg that was now to be his undoing. Encouraging Cordia not to give up on her own children and bringing peaceful unity to the world for them and his own children. She told her to return to Rome and confront and battle the emperor head on with her fellow Sentients and human comrades beside her, along with Lucius and Caeso, and she would have other allies their to help her from the citizens of Genoa, every single Sentient fleet within the Roman Navy and the armies of King Ptolmey of Mauretania who appeared before them. God even told Cordia that if she ever die in battle then he would grant her his powerful magical ability known to his children that would resurrect her as a phantom in a different form which would allow her to finish Caligula off for good. With this now found sense of encouragement from god to bring her species peace and harmony. Cordia order for her fleet and allies to follow her as their leader, and they all sailed in a massive convoy back to Rome.
When they finally reached Rome, Caligula and his fleet was already there waiting for Cordia, her fleet and her allies. She called out defiantly to him, telling Caligula that her children would not be divided or driven to extinction by monstruous human beings such as himself who only saw Sentients like them as inanimate objects with no thoughts and feelings of their own who where hatched from an egg into the bodies their Sentience inhabited, and that she would do everything within her power to keep them safe from harm along with her human allies who were welling to fight for them. And without hesitation a bloody battle between the Sentients and Caligula's men and fleet commenced with the Sentients fighting hard against Caligula's forces within the harbour of Rome that turned into a massive battlefield as both sides clashed in a divisive battle that would determine the fate of entire Sentient species. Many Sentients and humans were wounded throughout the midst's of the battle with the emperors fleet suffering major losses.
During the height of the battle as Cordia sank Caligula's flagship during a dual with him, and when she was about to strike the killing blow against him. Caligula jumped into her mouth and plunged his sword into her upper cavity into her brain and life support system, killing her in an instant as she capsized onto her side and sank in the shallow waters of the harbour, dying in front of her fleet and Lucius who saw her fall before their eyes, as Caligula declared himself victorious and made his escape in a wounded state. But, just when it was thought the Sentients only hope of survival was lost. Cordia reappeared from the stormy sky above as a spirit with the abilities granted to her by god himself and encouraged her fellow Sentients and her allies to fight on to the end, transforming herself into a human warrioress as she followed after Caligula and face him head on once again in the Colosseum. Caligula tried once against to defeat her, but in his weakened state he was unable to deal a blow to her and with one slash across his chest Cordia brought Caligula to his knees as he collapsed to the ground in pain. Cordia looking at Caligula with disgust she told him that he had always been a deceitful liar to his own people and while she could finish him off at that moment, she decided a better fate for him. One where he would have to watch the defeat of the rest of his army.
Taking the sky once again, Cordia ordered for her fleet and human allies to pull back from the battlefield into the open sea with some to head to the back of the harbour to set the remaining imprisoned galleys free. She then called to citizens of Rome and Plotmey and his men to get to high ground outside the city as quickly as they could. Flying over the sea outside the harbour, and using the lightening charge up her gifted powers from god himself. Cordia used her strength to control the water to make a massive wave that loomed over the city with her manipulating it to take form of a massive killer whale with herself in the centre of it. It was so huge in fact that it could be seen for thousands of miles from east to west, and with mighty charge Cordia used the orca to flood Rome washing the emperors fleet and men away and finished Caligula off forever as he was washed way by the current of the orcas head, never to be seen again.
After the floods subsided and Cordia transformed back into her normal galley form. She looked down upon her fellow Sentients and allies and echoed in her voice to all of them, asking them to carry on her legacy bringing unity to the world for the both of them, by spreading her story and that of their battle and victory their species had won far and wide across the globe and to future generations of Sentients so they would never be divided and their existence is never threatened by an evil human being again, and for Lucius and the rest of humanity to treat her children as equals and as their companions and to spread her influence and unite the world with them as they and Sentients could all live together in peace and harmony. After saying a heartfelt goodbye to Lucius, Cordia ascended to the afterlife where her second father was waiting for her as her children and their human allies celebrated their victory, and from that day onward Cordia herself became known as the Goddess of the Sentient Machines.
Cordia and her fellow Sentients and there actions during the First Great Battle of the Sentients at Rome that day. Helped to secure the Sentient Machines future and grant them equal rights to those of humans and to believe in the idea that their species would be the ones who would uniting each other, the world and their human companions for generations to come no matter what happened between the two of them. One year after their victory, Plotmey become emperor of Rome and his action as emperor was to pass a law that granted the Sentients equal rights to those of humans and officially recognize them as living being, with the torturing of them being outlawed throughout the empire with the use of them a slaving trading vessels being banned which coupled with his abolishment of slavery in Rome. Which paved the way for the Sentients to gain further rights equal to those of their human friends in the future. The extraction of the Sentient Orbs was resumed and construction of new Sentient galleys started again and would continue to do so for many countries to come. Meanwhile in Genoa those Sentients who followed Cordia's beliefs of unity strongly, founded the Order of Cordia (known to most Sentients as the Cordian Order) a religious theocracy and Sentient peacekeeping organisation who's members were made up entirely of Sentient Machines who dedicated themselves to carrying on the beliefs of Cordia to ensure they remained united and their existence was never threatened again.
As for Lucius, he himself also found the Cordian Order with the Sentients afterwards as an overseer until he left the order to their own devices, and his shipyard would become their main contract for constructing the standard vessels for their fleet, with them allowing him to decide what their new design of ship would look like, thus allowing him to finally be able to fore fill his dream of constructing a beautifully unique design of ship and he knew Cordia would be proud of him for, with him coming up with the design for the first Generation Cordia Class line of Battleships that would go on to define the Order for the next thousands of years, with Lucius and his sons later going on to develop more ship designs for the order. Until his death in 78AD thirty-years after he discovered Cordia and the Orbs, with his sons eventually retiring from the shipbuilding business with their shipyard closed and them selling the land of to the Order for their years of service to them, and for them to construct a massive Temple on the site, which would become known as the Cordian Temple, and both of them moving their family to Pavia south of Milan where the family would continue to live out the rest of their days in peace. Cordian Order would continue to grow and become one of the largest and most influential theocracy's and peacekeeping organisations in Sentient Machine history.
For generations afterwards, Cordia's story and influence would go on to spread across the world with her story being told to many new generations of Sentients who would go on to remember Cordia and pray for her as their goddess and their mother who would keep them from being divided and themselves safe, with them carrying her belief in unity for them and the world with them keeping the world connected to ensure humanity never did so again, and defeat any human who dared threaten them and their existence. With Lucius himself also being praised as their great awakener who brought them to live on Earth. Cordia and her brave fellow Sentients and their allies being remembered and praised for their heroic actions to save the Sentient species during the First Great Battle of the Sentients. Many of them believing that Cordia was their in the sky still watching over all of them and humanity, making sure that they continued to carry on her beliefs and being proud of the united world they created one that she had left behind.
Cordia and Lucius: © GreatEasternJ69
