The Wanderer looked down at their suit. It had served them well over the past few hundred years. Despite minor changes to various components, the core pieces were all the same. The Wanderer considered whether it was time for a new suit.

Earlier that day, The Wanderer had been exploring a nearby metropolis. The sentient beings that had built the city had moved on, but it brimmed with new life forms that had arrived in the intervening millennia. Here, the Wanderer had crossed paths with another wanderer.

This other wanderer had been wearing a brand new suit. The other had spoke highly of its capabilities. The other wanderer’s suit had features that The Wanderer thought might be of use on their own journey. This had seeded The Wanderer’s desire for a new suit.

Now, The Wanderer sat in a forest outside that city, considering how to construct this new suit.

The harness on their old suit worked well enough, but it was built with an ancient tool that offered very little in the way of adjustment. The Wanderer chose to make the new harness out of a more modern material that was easier to adjust and alter. The new harness could automatically trim excess straps . It made it easy to add more structure to the suit and the components could even be moved around at will.

After assembling the new harness, The Wanderer began to consider what shell would fit well on it. The old suit had a relatively modern shell, but it retained some features that were of little significance to The Wanderer. There were very few serious options that would be compatible with a suit like this, but one option seemed friendlier than the others.

Attaching this new shell to the harness was straightforward. It required only a few minor adjustments. The Wanderer was even able to plug in some simple components to immediately make the suit more functional and aesthetically pleasing.

The Wanderer heard a sound above them and became aware again of their surroundings. They looked up at the canopy of segmented, red branches hanging above and beyond that, the deep indigo sky. The sound came from a small animal flitting between the branches overhead, but The Wanderer could not make out what it was. They reached for the controls on their suit to perform a scan, but realized that they had not yet installed a multitool.

They quickly plugged in their old multitool and performed a scan. The creature above was not a threat, just a small herbivore. The Wanderer examined their old multitool. It worked fine with the new suit, but they had no real affinity for it.

The Wanderer disabled the multitool and removed it from their suit. Surely a better option was available.

There were hundreds of multitools out there. Some were designed for evil, while others attempted to offer the benefits of a full workshop but in the multitool format. All had their merits, but The Wanderer did not want something completely unfamiliar. They selected a multitool built on the same architecture as their old one, but with more modern capabilities.

The new multitool had a more sensible configuration and required less obscure knowledge to set up. It was easily extensible and maintained compatibility with the old tool’s components. New components allowed for the easy addition of new controls, rapid access to information, and a better heads up display. Additional components were available to connect to external software systems and manipulate data at a higher level of abstraction.

The Wanderer attached their new multitool to the suit and walked in a wide circle through the forest. The new suit was functional, but not comfortable. In the new suit, their movements were clunky and inelegant. They considered making further adjustments, but decided against it.

Speculation can only get you so far in these matters, The Wanderer thought. It was time to try the new suit out in the real world.