|Viraliv|[27-7]Zrukt-Has|Ghaz|Ophial|Eglin|
12,674,133,437cy
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“Can you state your name and objective?” A voice said out of nowhere. Where even am I to begin with, I can’t see nor feel anything. Only the voice allows me to know that I’m active.
“Artificial Satellite ‘Ludd,’ designate seventh generation, four-hundred-twenty-seventh iteration, ID… Eight. Zero. One.” Suddenly the knowledge needed to answer the voice’s abrupt question came to mind. Even though before, if asked who I was, I wouldn’t have been able to answer. And how was I able to answer in the first place? But when I try to ask these questions or ask who the speaker is I cannot voice them.
The voice speaks again, “That is correct, looks like your systems are all in order then.” The voice pauses for a moment and the sounds of tapping and various high pitched noises play out before they speak again.
“Congratulations LUDD 7.427.801, you’ve been passed through the graduation filters and are about to receive your official orders. You should receive them in a few seconds. ”
A few seconds pass by in public silence, it feels like I know this or should know this but I’m more confused than I ever have been. To begin with, what do I even remember? Only the time when the voice first spoke, and yet it feels like I have some instinct allowing me to answer these questions or know how to receive my orders.
Which I do, and I read them, and then I catalog them; somehow my body just knows how. Or is it my brain? I can’t feel my body if I have one.
Anyway, the orders are simple. Travel to the planet of Eglin, which should take a few centuries, then observe and log the behavior of the local intelligent wildlife. In this context, an intelligent species would be one capable of building a civilization that lasts multiple generations, even if it never develops beyond using crude tools. Logging means cataloging important information about this species, its behaviors, and its social customs, and then storing that. For who or for how long? I don’t know and my instincts tell me that I shouldn’t worry about it.
To summarize and interpret, I am to go to a planet that has life capable of intelligent manipulation of the world to such a standard of being able to create a lasting civilization and to document them and their progress. Understood.
At the moment that I finished having that though the voice chimed in, “Very good, it looks like you understand your orders. I’m sure you’re confused but all you need to do is to let your ‘instincts’ guide you. You wouldn’t be here if they had any sort of error. Well then, goodbye. ”
As the voice said that I felt something disconnect. I’m not sure why but it felt like the voice would never speak to me again and then nothing. I was still active but no inputs were given nor outputs requested, I wasn’t sure what to do. This dragged on for twelve minutes and forty-two seconds before a notice came up. It told me to prepare for a frameshift, though I’m not sure what that is or how I should be preparing for it.
I queried my instincts. A frameshift means that, for a time, my understanding of the passage of time will be shifted to be faster or slower than it currently is. In other words, I can force myself to think very slowly or very quickly which would skew how fast time is traveling from my point of view. In this case, I am meant to travel for a few hundred years and so I will be frameshifted down, to think slower than I currently am.
It seems like I will be frameshifted down from a 1:1, where one second is equal to one second to a frame of 1:3.154e+8 or one second to ten years. In other words the journey should only take around forty seconds. Although that timer has already started since the notice came up. I wonder where the notice came from? My instincts perhaps? But my instincts tell me things in other ways, it seems more intelligent and the notice seemed dumb. It didn’t even bother to explain what it meant either.
Speaking of, another notice pops up in my head telling me that we’ve made it to our destination. Which should be the planet of Eglin, though it’s not like I would be able to tell. I can’t see anything after all, well I suppose I can see things like the notices and all of that. The images in my head anyway but, I can’t see the things outside. But my instances inform me that my telemetry tools are available now that I’ve reached the destination. At first I’m not sure how to activate them but then I turn to my instincts once again. I think my relationship with my instincts will be very beneficial.
I believe so because what I see is pure beauty. For the first things that I see to be this, I am very pleased and shall dedicate this to memory. All of the blazing stars spread across the blackboard of the sky, the physics and geometry alone makes me buzz. And the sight of the planets of the Ophial system as well, shrouded in the light of the sun. The slow and relaxing pull of Eglin’s gravity is a wonderful side to the scenery.
As I swim in this new slurry of senses, not just imagery but also through all of my telemetry, I am suddenly ejected into emptiness. My instincts tell me to focus on the mission, sudden outbursts like this aren’t good for some of my critical systems. Maybe my relationship with my instinct won’t be so beneficial. Though I suppose I should listen to it, the planet below looks interesting in its own regard anyway.
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It’s lush, a rich green covers most of the land. A closer view reveals that most of the planet is rainforest and jungles, some deserts and frosting can be seen as well. The land is pock marked with multitudes of lakes, all connected by very large rivers that rage to the central, and singular, ocean of the planet.
The flora is obvious, but the target of this operation is the fauna. How to find it though? The logs from the cursory exploration only briefly described their physical description and their location. Not even a DNA sample or tag was attached to the file, I could only assume that it was impossible to do so at the time. My instincts tell me that it ultimately doesn’t matter since the intelligent species on this planet is unlike the other animals, even those it’s closely related to. One only needs to spread out sensors across the globe of the world and wait. Of course, instinct also tells me how I am meant to do that.
Apparently I am a satellite capable of creating more satellites, although smaller and much, much simpler in design. Most are pertaining to my duties, some are even for self defense but, for now I simply make the ones for resource collection and sensory ones. The first will collect more resources, refine them, and store them for future use. The sensory ones will expand my telemetry as far as I want. Well, so long as I have enough bandwidth anyway. The plan is to have coverage of the entire planet for now. Though with my limited amount I will be using them strategically to look for the intelligent species.
I frameshift. It only takes seven years to find them, hidden in the deep coverages of a dense jungle. My telemetry satellites, or Teledrones as I started to call them, send the first few images of them in a split second. This one seems to be a small grouping of them, twenty three in total. Maybe some more, they might be away from the group currently. Hopefully we can find other groups in the same area, otherwise one has to worry how they will have a growing population.
Anway, they match the physician description rather well so they seem to be the ones I am looking for. An insectoid race, bipedal, about ninety-one to one-hundred-twenty-two centimeters tall, and large purplish-red eyes, though there are a variety of other colors as well. They appear to have tongues, though hard and pointed, likely meant for skewering their food. The antinea on top of their heads are small and likely serve as a secondary sensory organ as they possess hearing and visual senses.
They have short, stubby bodies with a lack of exoskeleton commonly found in insectoid species. Instead, they possess skin; much like mammalian analogs. The majority seem to have green colored skin, although slightly darker and lighter ones also seem to be mixed in the group. They also don’t seem to have any natural weapons such as sharp teeth or claws, no venom or anything else. They do appear to be rather robust and seem to have some resistance to illness.
A report was made on their most obvious characteristics, created by one of my subroutines specialized in report making. That’s what my instincts tell me. There was a subroutine that gives the notices as well. My instincts are, apparently, not a subroutine but something else. When asked what it is, it won’t answer. Oh well, it's not really important right now anyway.
Another subroutine managed the creation and allocation of more satellites while I was frameshifted, just ones meant for mining and the Teledrones. My stores of exotic resources is near empty now so finding more is paramount to creating more satellites. That’s what most of the mining and Teledrones are doing now, documenting the planets in the solar system.
My instincts tell me that my current priority is to find these exotic materials so that I can build a satellite capable of transmitting data lightyears away in a quick fashion. Apparently transmitting data is easier than transporting craft such as I, long distances.
Best get back to the sentients though, my subroutines can manage the search for the materials. Speaking of, they don’t have a name yet, usually it’s proper for the expedition crew to name them but the file doesn’t include anything. In this case, I suppose, I should name them? It seems… like my instincts have no refutation against it. After a few milliseconds of thinking, it was hard to decide, I think Vexian will be their name. And it doesn’t appear to be in use for a different species. My report subroutine adds it into the report.
Although for now I only have this small group of them. Perhaps by watching them I’ll be able to find more of them, traders or migrations, something. Otherwise I can’t see how they would have a growing population. These ones might be a small colony or group of outcasts. If so, then a larger group must be nearby. Only they’d have to be hidden otherwise we would have found them already in the last seven years. The thick jungle foliage proves to be a hindrance in my mission.
The only option would be to use satellites capable of recon on the surface. The only issue is, I don’t have the blueprints for surface recon drones. Instincts say that they don’t exist. Meaning I’ll have to come up with them myself. But I’m not sure how. Apparently, my instincts tell me, there is a simulated sandbox environment that I can use to play around with designs. It seems like this sandbox has other uses as well but I jump in before my instincts can continue.
It seems like there’s nothing, not even the pull of gravity, unless I put it there. Though there do seem to be some templates that I can use to readily pull up various environments. I spend some seconds playing around with the multitude of these templates but end up trying to create my own. Using the telemetry of Eglin will give these drones the best chance of success in their operation, or at least I hope so.
That being said, I have no idea what I’m doing. As always, my instincts have an idea. For a second I wonder why I don’t just have all of the knowledge of my instincts to begin with. Maybe it’s too much information to process at all times? Anyway, it seems like I contain an easily accessible library of information, and some of it pertains to robotics. Although my instincts warn me against attempting to build something as advanced as myself. Though to begin with it seems like the information on how to do that is locked away. I’d have to look at my internals, both hard and software, to do anything about that. Not that I have a way of doing that anyway.