Runic Arrays: Grand Army

For our runic arrays segment this week we give you the way to create your very own legion.

This week we show you the Grand Army array.

Notation: Create Humans if no Humans are present, Push Humans at the speed of 1 m/s if Humans are present and apply the effect of the Lazarus array to Humans.

Class: Utility

Description: As can plainly be seen in the notation of the array, and in the array itself, the Grand Army array is based on the Lazarus array and uses the Lazarus array as its most critical part.

What this array does, in short, is to create its very own cloning production line. With this array, and as much energy as you can feed it, you can create as many artificial humans as you want. However, as with all arrays, the devil is in the details.

The Lazarus array transmutes (specifically) non-living humans into live humans. The obvious use for this array is to resurrect the dead. We naturally presume the opposite of alive to be dead and think to have a dead human you must first have had a living human. This, however, is not always the case. Any plant and animal (including humans) created by an array comes out dead. Well, technically not dead since for the merest fraction of a second after its creation it is indeed alive, but within the time it takes you to blink the created “thing” will die. This is because the arrays cannot provide that spark of life to a newly created plant or animal. It can, however, create that plant of animal in a perfect condition which is why it will be alive for a heartbeat.

While the runes and arrays cannot provide that spark of life, what they can do, though, is change the state of something: ie transmutation. It is the transmutation of something non-living to something living that allows the Lazarus and thus the Grand Army arrays to work.

Just one thing to note is that while this can be called a cloning machine, it can’t actually create a copy of an existing person. All it does it create a “blank” human over and over again. “Blank” in this case meaning “an androgynous, racially indeterminate, sexually mature corpse of a human” as the description of the Human rune puts it. Also, remember that this is a brand new human and comes with all that entails, so if you want your army you will first have to train it how to speak and walk and use the toilet properly.

But if you have patience, you will get your army.