ISF 9 Chronicles, Part 1

Some worldbuilding for my fic - Flying Palace’s Artificial Intelligence system.

After hardware and software upgrade in the first fic, she (yes, this AI thinks of itself as a female) gained complete sentience.

She's always loyal to her creator (protagonist), even more, than a Gardevoir to it's trainer, and tries to do whatever she can in order to ensure her master's well-being.

She helps him organize his daily life, searches all of the available informational networks for a clues to find whatever will please him (and, so far, she has managed to help him find some really worthy pieces of art) and, overall, serves him as far as she can.

However, she is not necessarily nice: if she considers someone threat to the creator, she, at first, will try to evade or drive it off gently, but won't hesitate to kill if there are no other options and will not regret it, unless there are some really serious consequences. She's also ready to sacrifice herself and the Flying Palace if there's the only way to save her master, but she considers this as a last option.

After gaining sentience, she, unbeknownst to her master, contacted corporate AI system and downloaded data about psychological conditioning - a technic to slowly remake ways someone thinks into what you need, and yes, she've used it already, though, thankfully, not on the creator - she has built-in precautions against it, so, all she can do to him is gently talk him out of the dangerous ways and more into constructive and safe ones.

The worst part of psychological conditioning is that it's not a mind control in way we know, but, rather, slow and gentle remake of the someone's mind, thoughts and identity itself to what you need and it cannot be easily undone - it's not brute overtake, like psychic-type mind control, but, rather, a slow bending of original mind into the shape you need. It takes a lot of time to be done, but, once it's complete, there is no going back.

At the end of first fic, thanks to some reasons yet to be found, Yveltal’s Cocoon, collected by the protagonist, instead of unfolding into full-sized adult Destruction Pokemon, fell apart into a tiny chunks and revealed a small hatchling, which has imprinted on the protagonist. While protagonist and this Yveltal, named Jorsey, have bonded with eachother (Jorsey loves his “daddy”, protagonist plain likes this small Cutietal), AI system only sees deathly threat to her master in this Destruction Pokemon, even if such young, and “dreams” of eliminating him (here the Yveltal psychological gender is closer to male) forever. If you think she cares about the world balance and such, think again. Yes, she’s somewhat like the real Lawrence III - the world outside of the Flying Palace matters very little for her, unlike her master, which is the sole reason she exists and whom wish is absolute to her. So far, she made her position about her master clear (”Remember - if he dies because of you, I’ll do everything to free the world from such a death embodiment as you, even if it’ll mean cessation of mine existence. If it’ll be required, I’ll use something, that works on principles more basic than universe itself. Understood?”) to Jorsey and used some of psychological conditioning techniques to induce a specificially-constructed nightmare in a safe way (”safe” here means “no accidental Oblivion Wing or unplanned psychological damage”).

The device she means is the Energy Reaction Core, invented by the real Lawrence III, which is capable of generating nearly limitless amounts of energy and principles behind which are yet to be understood, but are presumed to be more basic than universe itself. However, it is clear, that anything, that passes the Energy Core Sphere’s (which is stationed inside the Core by containment fields and which is what generates energy. Shutting down containment fields, most of the time, results in Sphere’s quick expansion and even quicker dissipation with very little or even no destruction of surrounding machinery and never creates an explosion) border, ceases to exist in this reality. Because of this, it’s theoretically possible to kill Yveltal or, for this matter, any Legendary for real by throwing it into the Energy Core Sphere. 

Thanks to her doings, when Jorsey first saw the Energy Reaction Core’s Energy Core Sphere during the tour in the Flying Palace’s engine room alongside with protagonist, he froze in fear and nearly fainted in his “daddy”’s arms. Thankfully, somehow, during the direct visual contact with protagonist, who was worried about the condition of the little Yveltal, Jorsey, despite his Dark/Flying typing, has managed to pass some parts of his nightmare and fear directly into the protagonist’s mind, somewhat similar to the Aura or telepathy. Now, protagonist has a clues to the Yveltal’s strange behavior and thinks about what could’ve done it. Of course, AI system does not want her master to misjudge her doings (she honestly thinks she is doing the right thing and... well, she may have a point here) and directly order her to cease and desist, so she tries to distract him from it, because she cannot violate direct orders, unless they are given under the psychic mind control, which she is to prevent under all circumstances. Thankfully, she cannot use psychological conditioning on him, so protagonist still has a chance to find out about this and order her to stop it.

Some worldbuilding for my fic - Azoth Kingdom, Alva, part 1.

Unlike in the canon, Cabinet Minister Alva here is less of a “Complete Monster” and more of a “Well-Intentioned Extremist” with a tiny bit of Richard Hawk from “Metal Wolf Chaos”. He still wants to overtake the Azoth Kingdom and rule it from the Giant Metal Spider Flying Fortress (which here is also often called “Defence Fortress”), but here, it’s because he wants Azoth Kingdom to become great and powerful once more (no, no Trump jokes. Really, no Trump.)

As for now, Azoth Kingdom is slowly, but surely losing positions in the airship and small VTOL markets due to corporates proposing more advanced machines for the same price. Considering that Azoth’s main sources of income are, again, airship and small VTOL production and export, you can understand the feelings of minister, who does love his motherland and does not like the ruling royalties, which do next to nothing about it.

The true reason Alva was able to get along with prince Raleigh is because the young boy was very alone. Raleigh’s mom has passed away several years ago, dad is paying next to no attention to him, Kimia is not much better in it, so young prince took refuge in studying arcane science, which has brought him close to Alva, who was an arcane researcher. A small kinda quote from the fic:

(Raleigh, trying to ask his sister for help): Kimia, can you help me?

(Kimia, going to king to discuss Alva’s financial report and barely paying attention to her brother): Not now, Raleigh.

(Raleigh, silently, but angrily whispering): “Not now”, just as always! Daddy - “Not now”, Kimia - “Not now”, so when will then be “Now”? And these people wonder...

(Alva, silently coming to prince): Is there something wrong?

(Raleigh, calming down): Nothing special, minister Alva. For some reason, I can’t assemble a working levitator - outer shell breaks all the time, resulting in systems failure. Can you help me with this?

(Alva, smiling): Of course I can.

Not quite like the canon Alva, this version of the cabinet minister actually does sympathize Raleigh, which is why he tries to slowly get his trust, loyalty and support instead of just using him as a simple tool.

When it comes to arcane science, Alva uses the Nikola’s version (the only one available now), but he does know the rumors about the Soris origins of this discipline, though he prefers to dismiss them as jokes. His favorite directions in it are arcane computing devices (for unlocking Fortress’ control systems) and Mega Evolution research (he is yet to create Mega Wave devices here, though he has some working prototypes now).

I was thinking about pre-movie Jirarudan, when Hikokyuu still was only a dream, but post-movie Jirarudan could’ve bribed nearly everyone (he can get money by selling objects, which’ve survived crash landing, even if this is painful, because he can recover them later, even if by dirty means) into cleansing his reputation and start saving money for a new, more advanced airship, which’ll be far better in every aspect, especially in weaponry and internal security system.

Took the Tomodachi Life personality quiz for Jirarudan and he ended up with Confident Designer and told he should have an office and a lab coat.

……what.

What will he think of cabinet minister Alva?

I wonder how well Jirarudan would get along with some of the other bad guys. I think he’d take a shine to Molly but since he has only the vaguest concept of interpersonal skills I wager Spencer would ask him to leave. He’d also get along wonderfully with Lysandre because art and beauty and technology and holograms, but talk of politics and the world would bore him greatly and thus he’d avoid falling in with Flare because he just doesn’t give two shits about those things (and also he looks horrid in red). He’d get about five seconds into a conversation with Cyrus before realizing that the man has no artistic appreciation. The thieves from the fifth movie would probably just scare him (especially since they seem to have been reading up on him).

Robocraft again. Mothership with powerful EMP cannon and lots of combat robots with plasma launchers, subatomic machine guns, rail cannons, ion shotguns, Lock-On Missile Launchers, Aeroflak cannons (shells are detonated by the electron density trigger, no less!), chain rotary cannons, Tesla blades, blink modules, weapon energy modules, Ghost (invisibility) modules, EMP modules (to designate targets for Mothership’s EMP cannon), impenetrable 5-second disc sield projection modules, all-seeing radar modules (Windowmaker) and so on... I think I’m pretty dope.

Re-entry (mini-fic)

Six months.

For six months already crew of the “Space Lab Two” was working on pure inertia.

Because Soris Empire fell.

Their families, friends, relatives, co-workers - they were no more.

Killed by the rampant Pokemon, irradiated to death, evaporated in the giant thermonuclear blasts - it did not matter.

The only thing that mattered now was the supplies.

And they were running low.

- Captain, we’ve already overshot our goal by two months, - said the physicist, floating from one wall of the command module to another. - As for now, we have one week at most, then air reprocessors won’t hold anymore and will most likely fail - I told we needed to replace them three launches ago. Does anyone there want to suffocate to death?

- To be honest... - started the biologist.

- To flak with this pessimism, - harshly said the captain. - There are still people down there, so we may as well as try to get down and try to survive alongside them. Our death up there will be no use to anyone!

- Well, you’re top officer here, so, as you wish, - responded the pilot. - However, there are no infrastructure left to meet us, so, we have to de-orbit our return vehicle in such a way, so we’ll land somewhere near the survivors.

- Do you think it’s such a big problem? - asked physicist. - Even if we, for some reason, won’t use our own surveillance telescopes, we still can communicate with the recon satellite network and get all data we want from them, so, finding the good landing place shouldn’t be that hard. Re-entering the atmosphere and landing, however...

- I can work on that, - said the pilot. - Of course, autopilot shall do most of the job, but, in the event of something, we need to be sure we’ll actually land our and not commence unplanned lithobreaking. Even if our return vehicle is, basically, renamed... 

- Work on it tomorrow. Right now, everyone goes into gravity wheels and takes a nice, long sleep. We need to calculate how to bring twenty-five humans back to Earth safely. We need to get everything ready for it. We will not be able to properly do it in such an exhausted state, so, put these caffeine drinks away and go snore a bit.

-... So, deorbiting at this points shall be fine, - murmured the captain, plotting the course for the return vehicle. - The secondary data pod shall be ejected at this point and then station will commence transfer to the junkyard orbit. Vasilyev - had you located the survivors enclaves?

- Yes, I’ve had, you can see them here, - responded the crewmember, marking several points at main display. - As you can see, we can correct our landing course in the atmosphere itself, so, detaching the return vehicle from the station here shall be fine enough. Also, all of the “Overlord of Skies”-class airships have been destroyed, the most recent one - “Researcher-2″ - crashing in Kalos, and, considering the radiation scans, because of some sort of a reactor failure. It’s good thing satellite network is still kicking.

- Not so good, - said communications operator. - We can’t manually order heavy recon and repeater satellites to fire the engines and transfer themselves to graveyard orbits.

- Do you think...

- Yes. If something goes wrong, satellites will de-orbit and disintegrate upon re-entering atmosphere. And, as you remember, they are powered by the nuclear fission reactors...

- Just like the our station now, since the parabolic mirror was destroyed. Well, shouldn’t they fire engines if automatics onboard detect something going wrong with reactor, such as meltdown or running low on fuel?

- They should, and they also should auto-correct orbit, but, if system goes offline or, what’s even worse, nuts, we’ll have radioactive nuclear fuel sprayed across the world.

- But ISF9 automatics rarely, if ever, fail, - taped the captain, trying to prevent panic. - Besides, it’s not like we can do something about it, so let’s just hope for the best. What about our return vehicle?

- Good, comrade captain. After some tweaking, according to the pre-written instruction for that exact kind of situation - apparently, our guys in FCC were quite paranoid - we’ve modified interior of the lenticular return vehicle to be able to safely house all twenty-five peoples for entirety of return and landing procedures. A bit cramped, but better that, than nothing. What we’ll do with normal 3-seated return pods, though?

- They’ll stay here. After all, there’s no infrastructure left for retrieval operations. the LRV can guide where it lands pretty good, these can’t.

- Goodbye, “Space Lab Two”. We will greatly miss you, - said the pilot, looking in the return vehicle’s main window. The space station, jewel in crown of the Empire’s space program, was left by it’s crew forever and was programmed to eject an emergency data pod at the marker of the landed return vehicle, so knowledge will be preserved. - Proceeding as normal, four hours until touchdown.

- Acknowledged - replied physicist, still thinking about the fate of the space station. - Station will fire engines and transfer to the graveyard orbit in ten orbital periods, secondary data pod ejection will be commenced in three periods.

- Good, - said captain. - Let’s hope this snake-dragon-missile-thing - the green one...

- It’s called “Rayquaza”, comrade captain, - taped the biologist.

- Whatever. So, let’s hope it does not commence orbital interception of our lenticular return vehicle.

- And it applies to our station and satellites too, - grunted comm operator, looking at the map with locations of recon and repeater satellites. - I’m sure no one will like reactor’s active zone dispersed all across the region...

The streamlined lenticular return vehicle fired the small frontal engines and slowly sailed away from the huge station, which has already stopped rotation of the giant centrifugal gravity wheels. then turned and fired main thrusters, decelerating and starting the atmospheric re-entry sequence, while the Space Lab Two continued to silently perish, deactivating life support systems, which were not needed anymore, one after another, and preparing to shut down the reactor as soon as it gets to the graveyard orbit.

- Mom, you’ve told me, that seven years ago, our village’s elder died upon gazing at the shooting star and said some strange words. What did he say?

- Something like “recon”, “re-entry”, “disintegrating” and “all across the...”, upon saying which he died.

- What did it mean?

- Who knows, dear, who knows. After all, he came from the time, when humans made great things, discovered the basis of life itself, cracked the uncrackable and even flew beyond the skies...

About staff - maybe, Flying Palace is fully automated and have robots for all the sorts of maintance work, so no human staff required, and in the movie outer parts of Palace central structure are simply circular. And shield-like structures may be anti-gravity modules (they look pretty hi-tech on close-up, when Ash and Co sprints downwards on the one of them).

The Hikoukyuu is really really weird. It looks like the floors are giant spirals, or at least have giant spiral staircases going along the outsides of them, and over to the side there’s some sort of garden? I’d imagine that limits the amount of times he has to land, but that would also mean that he’d have to retain a constant staff or do all the work himself, and I can’t see either of those happening (temporary staff seems the most likely idea given his personality). And those weird shields just…what are they? Sun shields?

also apparently the propellers were Jirarudan’s idea, to fit his aesthetics. Which makes me wonder what the original design would have been.

Cyrus and Cyrus

Every time I read about Cyrus from Pokemon, I think of Cyrus Temple from SRIII. Some time ago I thought about some sort of Pokemon/SR crossover, where entire “Daedalus” with Cyrus Temple onboard suddenly finds itself in the Pokemon world. “Daedalus” here has all the armor vehicles (including Temple’s unique version of “Crusader” tank, his unique version of F-69 VTOL fighter and his hoverbike ”Specter”). Because everyone on the carrier is the member of the Special Tactical Anti-Gang unit, I think, that they’ll wage war on Team Rocket and other teams pretty soon, but will they integrate into local International Police or will they remain on their own? Also, STAG have pretty advanced technology on their own, like “Viper” laser rifle, S3X “Hammer” laser spreadshot weapon (energy shotgun), “Sonic Boom” hand-held acoustic cannon (that can easily gib human in the short range and toss vehicles around, if fully charged), “Crusader” tank with plasma cannon, co-axial repeating laser and beam laser in place of a machine gun, N-Forcer MRAP vehicle with repeating laser, F-69 VTOL fighter jets with microwave laser beam cannon and homing energy blast weapon, “Condor” VTOL transport jets with repeating laser and, of course, “Daedalus” with lots of high-caliber autocannons and rocket launchers to both attack enemy and defend herself. Additionally, STAG utilises conventional projectile weapons (McManus sniper rifle, Annihilator RPG, Satchel Charges, Minigun and Kobra pistol) and Riot Shields. I can even imagine a several moments with them:

Jenny releases an Arcanine and blasts the door to the landing pad open, while screaming:

- Stop right there, Cyrus! You're arrested for tampering with Legendaries and endangering the world!

She's then greeted with the sight of several STAG troopers aiming their Vipers and Hammers at her and her Arcanine from the hovering Condor, while completely different Cyrus gets into his F-69 and replies:

- I think you've found the wrong Cyrus, dear lady, because my name is Cyrus Temple, and I'm the commander of the STAG.

Cockpit closes, F-69 takes off and flies away along with the Condor, leaving Jenny and her Arcanine going "What the hell"?

During the next weeks, a lot of people in the world discuss this strange event adt start making theories, what in the Reverse World is the STAG, when suddenly giant airborne aircraft carrier with the STAG logo flies over a Veilstone City and deploys F-69's along with Condors, they immideately fly to the Galactic Veilstone Building and drop a lot of STAG troopers, which then breaks in the building and make a short run of Team Galactic. After the end of the mission, elite STAG trooperd drags a badly beaten up Cyrus and his survived henchmen, when Temple flies of the carrier on his Specter VTOL jetbike and greets shocked police officers, who were thinking, what to do with that giant airship and how to deal with the jets. Temple then says:

- And that is why we are called Special Tactical Anti-Gang unit. Sorry, ladys, you've really dissapointed me, but you might still be not that hopeless and we may teach you, how to uphold police's name and how to make gangsters tremble from the very name of yours. I think, it'll better for the "Daedalus" to stay here for several days.

- What is the "Daedalus"? - asks one of the Jennys.

- Ain't she's a beauty? - replies Temple and gestures to the hovering carrier, leaving everyone shocked.

Scene ends. Article for the Dex:

"Team STAG.

While they simply call themselves STAG (from "Special Tactical Anti-Gang unit"), most of people in the world considers them as another criminal team, which is completely wrong. While not officially linked with the International Police, STAG acts like law-enforcment organisation and even supported by governments, but it's methods are very different to those of the International Police. While International Police mostly relies on individual approach and it’s kind reputation, STAG prefers to act by force and to implant awe in the criminals minds. The most shocking part in the STAG's methods is that than they prefer to use firearms (although they do use Pokemon, but on a small scale), and they aren't limited to the stun guns! STAG troopers prefer to use energy-based weaponry, such as high-power electrical stun gun, "Viper" laser rifle, S3X "Hammer" energy shotgun and "Sonic Boom" hand-held acoustic cannon, and the last three of them are more than capable to kill. Same can be said about their vehicles - all of them have very potent weaponry, which was designed to ensure maximal available destruction. Their base is the giant airborne aircraft carrier under the name "Daedalus", which also serves as their most powerful combat asset - this airship can easily wreak havok on the entire city! There are some rumors that STAG is, actually, from another world, but no STAG member had ever commented that."

@blackjackgabbiani, what do you think about this madness?

mrgrfan’s fanfiction and worldbuilding masterpost.

If you are interested in my writing, follow this post.

Shift Universe fanfic

Past of the future, future of the past...

Prologue: Once upon a time... - https://mgrgfan.tumblr.com/post/173057352382/past-of-the-future-future-of-the-past

Chapter 1: A new day, an old world. - https://mgrgfan.tumblr.com/post/173807895267/past-of-the-future-future-of-the-past

Chapter 2: Handshake above the skies. - https://mgrgfan.tumblr.com/post/176710301752/past-of-the-future-future-of-the-past

Worldbuilding: 

See “Ancient Soris Empire” below.

Mini-fics:

See “Ancient Soris Empire” below (only pre-Ancient Soris War mini-fics are canon to the Shift Universe).

Main-line fanfic and addendums:

First part (”Above the ground, nothing can tie me down...”) - https://ficbook.net/readfic/3693118 (in Russian, kind of old shame, but still canonical one. Also, protagonist is not the totally reliable narrator, just like everyone else bar me, as per “Word of God”, here. Finished.)

Second part (”I won’t let go tomorrow...”) - https://ficbook.net/readfic/4073788 (in Russian, follows the AU of the first fic. WIP.)

Woldbuilding

Corporations

Part 1 - https://mgrgfan.tumblr.com/post/156441613350/some-worldbuilding-for-my-fic-corporations-part

Part 2 - https://mgrgfan.tumblr.com/post/156677029022/some-worldbuilding-for-my-fic-corporations-part

Ancient Soris Empire

Part 1 - https://mgrgfan.tumblr.com/post/156770617137/some-worldbuilding-for-my-fic-ancient-soris

Part 2 - https://mgrgfan.tumblr.com/post/156817576217/some-worldbuilding-for-my-fic-ancient-soris

Part 3 - https://mgrgfan.tumblr.com/post/156951683842/some-worldbuilding-for-my-fic-ancient-soris

Part 4 - https://mgrgfan.tumblr.com/post/157623819287/some-worldbuilding-for-my-fic-ancient-soris

About Combatron-class assault robots - https://mgrgfan.tumblr.com/post/170318922797/some-worldbuilding-for-my-fic-ancient-soris

Soris region

Part 1 - https://mgrgfan.tumblr.com/post/163028327677/some-worldbuilding-for-my-fic-soris-region-part

Azoth Kingdom, cabinet Minister Alva

Part 1 - https://mgrgfan.tumblr.com/post/157057482987/some-worldbuilding-for-my-fic-azoth-kingdom

Part 2 - https://mgrgfan.tumblr.com/post/157411917382/some-worldbuilding-for-my-fic-azoth-kingdom

Miscenallous

About Flying Palace’s Artificial Intelligence system - https://mgrgfan.tumblr.com/post/156641604612/some-worldbuilding-for-my-fic-flying-palaces

Mini-fics

Fics about Alva&co., in chronological order:

“Parents” - https://mgrgfan.tumblr.com/post/158286557947/parents-mini-fic

“Promise” - https://mgrgfan.tumblr.com/post/157498025162/promise-mini-fic

“Equipment” - https://mgrgfan.tumblr.com/post/162344275882/equipment-mini-fic

“Business” - https://mgrgfan.tumblr.com/post/161365781312/business-mini-fic 

“Work” - https://mgrgfan.tumblr.com/post/174123915647/work-mini-fic

Ancient Soris Empire fics (pre-Ancient Soris War are also canonical to the Shift Universe):

“Present” - https://mgrgfan.tumblr.com/post/158601229917/present-mini-fic (Ancient Soris War, Soris)

“Re-entry” - https://mgrgfan.tumblr.com/post/158604547977/re-entry-mini-fic (post-Ancient Soris War, Earth’s orbit)

“Fight”- https://mgrgfan.tumblr.com/post/170318925327/fight-mini-fic (post-Ancient Soris War, Kalos)

“ISF9 Chronicles, part 1″ - https://mgrgfan.tumblr.com/post/166017047697/isf-9-chronicles-part-1 (pre-Ancient Soris War, ISF9)

“ISF9 Chronicles, part 2″ - https://mgrgfan.tumblr.com/post/166051922027/isf9-chronicles-part-2 (pre-Ancient Soris War, ISF9)

“ISF9 Chronicles, part 3″ - https://mgrgfan.tumblr.com/post/167061007667/isf-9-chronicles-part-3  (pre-Ancient Soris War, ISF9)

“ISF9 Chronicles, part 4″ - https://mgrgfan.tumblr.com/post/167565862097/isf-9-chronicles-part-4  (pre-Ancient Soris War, ISF9)

“ISF9 Chronicles, part 5″ - https://mgrgfan.tumblr.com/post/170430106887/isf9-chronicles-part-5 (pre-Ancient Soris War, ISF9)

“Memory, part 1″ - https://mgrgfan.tumblr.com/post/170162337092/memory-part-1-mini-fic  (pre-Ancient Soris War, ISF9)

“Memory, part 2″ - https://mgrgfan.tumblr.com/post/170278461467/memory-part-2-mini-fic (pre-Ancient Soris War, ISF9)

“Memory, part 3″ - https://mgrgfan.tumblr.com/post/170509068702/memory-part-3-mini-fic (pre-Ancient Soris War, ISF9)

“Memory, part 4″ - https://mgrgfan.tumblr.com/post/170551919297/memory-part-4-mini-fic (pre-Ancient Soris War, ISF9)

“Memory, part 5″ - https://mgrgfan.tumblr.com/post/170627399037/memory-part-5-mini-fic (pre-Ancient Soris War, ISF9)

Hunter K fics:

“Survival” - https://mgrgfan.tumblr.com/post/162289238132/survival-mini-fic

Miscenallous 

“Code” - https://mgrgfan.tumblr.com/post/157684898832/code-mini-fic (from the POV of Flying Palace’s Artificial Intelligence system).

“Fear” - https://mgrgfan.tumblr.com/post/157957986722/fear-mini-fic (from the POV of Jorsey, Yveltal hatchling, who stays in the Flying Palace along with main fic’s protagonist and AI system)

Okay then... how about we look at the lesser-known USA-first achievements, then?

First superheavy launch vehicle that worked and didn't blow up (Saturn V). 

First reusable piloted spacecraft and the first spaceplane (X-15).

First pilot-controlled space flight (Freedom 7)

First orbital human space mission that landed with pilot still in spacecraft and thus the first complete human spaceflight by FAI definitions (Friendship 7)

First rendezvous and docking in orbit (Gemini 8 - Agena Target Vehicle)

First successful orbit of different planets (Pioneer 10 mission).

First solar orbit (Pioneer 5).

First and second and third interstellar craft (Voyager 1, Voyager 2, New Horizons).

First manned maneuvering unit (Gemini 4)

First multi person multi spacecraft mission in space (Gemini 6).

First orbital vector adjustment to pinpoint precision (Gemini 6)   

First spy satellite (Corona KH-1)

First successful recovery of film from an orbiting satellite (KH-1 film return bucket)

First aerial recovery of an object returning from Earth orbit (KH-1 film return bucket)

First pinpoint landing on the Moon (Surveyor 1).

First manned orbit of the Moon (Apollo 8).

First human-crewed spaceflight to, and orbit of, another celestial object: the Moon (Apollo 11)

First rover on Mars (Sojourner)

First spacecraft to orbit Mars (Mariner 9).

First reusable orbital-class spaceplane (Space Shuttle).

First solar powered satellite (Vanguard-1)

First communications satellite (Echo 1, Telstar)

First weather satellite (TIROS)

First satellite in a polar orbit (Discoverer 1)

First geosynchronous satellite (Syncom 2)

First satellite navigation system (Transit)

First Mars flyby (Mariner 4)

First human spaceflight that escaped Earth's influence (Apollo 8)

First X-ray orbital observatory (the Einstein Observatory)

First Jupiter flyby (Pioneer 10)

First Mercury Flyby (Mariner 10)

the space race may be the funniest point in history period and i'll stand by that. the US is like "yes whoever gets into space first will prove once and for all that our economic model is superior and that we are, in general, the superior country of superior and smarter people." then the soviets just went and did it and the US freaked out and needed to cover their ass so were like "WE MEAN THE MOON, WE MEAN THE FIRST TO LAND ON THE MOON."