Project HYDRA Log #350976
Type: Recording
Status: Classified
Subject is Dr. Eva Anderson M.D. P.H.D. , speaking to [Redacted]. She is describing Machine, one of the six A.I. cores intended to [Redacted] for the purpose of [Redacted].
Anderson: I would say that, of the six artificial intelligences, Machine is our greatest accomplishment.
[Redacted]: Why exactly is that?
[Anderson]: Well, he is the only one that is truly artificial. All of the others were modeled after a mixture of human minds. Machine was actually never based off of humanity. He evolved on his own, being naturally selected through almost a billion generations.
[Redacted]: Yes, I remember. Making that thing cost us nearly a quarter of our budget! What I want to know is why doctor, why couldn’t we just use another mix of humans?
[Anderson]: Machine has to work on an entirely different order of magnitude [Redacted]. Machine has to control every camera, every rover and worker, every robotic arm in every factory on every [Redacted] that the [Redacted] will spread to. At the same time, he effectively needs to manage an economy, all of the utilities that a [Redacted] full of people will need, and effectively plan for the future, all while being able to improvise and respond to a literally infinite variety of situations. A human mind, even a mixture of digitized ones that have been melded with computers like the other five kernels, could never hope to succeed at all of these tasks at once, and a traditional computer or artificial intelligence could never improvise well enough to actually respond to all of the possibilities involved in starting a [Redacted]. Thus, we needed to create Machine, a being greater than both.
[Redacted]: And if this greater being of yours decides it doesn’t much like humans?
[Redacted]: Can it even dislike humans?
[Anderson]: Machine’s emotions are… difficult to describe. He seems to be able to experience feelings similar to satisfaction and frustration, but his final species has never allowed these to have any discernible impact on his mission. And to answer your question [Redacted], the preservation of human life is the one principle we embedded into Machine’s first generation. We culled any species which appeared to disregard this, no matter how effective they were. Ultimately, it should not matter, as every Machine will have an Overseer to ensure no such thing is happening.
Recording ends
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The wind danced around the spaceship, gusts poking and prodding at the unexpected addition to the once empty field. Its arrival had been overwhelming: a cacophony of noise, brilliant lights, and massive pressure, but now, the ship stood silent. It clearly didn’t belong there, what with its blinding reflective hull and uncanny stillness even as the wind blustered and bellowed, as if to try and provoke it into action. Undeterred, the Spaceship stood fast, even as the small stunted trees that had intruded upon the grassland from a nearby forest bowed back and forth. Dissatisfied with the results of its attempts, the winds fled, returning to their normal pastimes of rustling the shrubs and flattening the grasses that covered the vast expanse. To them, the ship was a stone, some strange new obelisk. It hadn’t moved, so it never would.
That of course, is when the ship moved.
Eerily, silently, yet incredibly swiftly, the ship dropped the final few meters to the ground, allowing its base to come in contact with the soil for the first time. Its landings struts, looking very much like an ant’s six legs as they actually bent upwards and then came back down, still bore the entirety of the ship’s weight, but now it could release the first of its tools. Two of the bottom hull panels slid apart, revealing a small vehicle bay that circled around the circumference of the lowest level of the Ship surrounding its, now spent, chemical thrusters and ion drive. From this bay a motley assortment of machines issued forth. First, four small quadcopters flew out, one towards each of the cardinal directions. Equipped with small cameras and transmitters, they would create a more detailed map of the surrounding region, while the Eastern drone would identify the most efficient path to the nearest water source, a small lake about a mile from the ship. Following them came two rovers, each so large that it could barely fit through the ten foot opening in the hull. The first rover was equipped with an excavator arm and bulldozer blade, and quickly set to work, breaking into the ground near the rocket to start the foundations for the first structures that would be needed to establish a functioning base. The second Rover was also equipped with an excavator arm, but also had a second arm, ending in a pneumatic drill, and bore three large empty containers on its back. Behind it, the rover towed a sled bearing the ship’s only furnace, a large, electrically powered device, designed to be used under any conditions. Towing it out of the way of the entrance, the rover unhitched from the furnace, leaving it near the ship’s hull. Then, It set out towards the mountains moving along the edge of the forest, as it aimed for a series of limestone formations to the north that the ship had identified from orbit.
Meanwhile, back at the ship, more machines had set to work. One smaller rover was towing out a simple conveyor belt towards the furnace, while two other smaller rovers set out together, moving eastwards towards the lake, carrying large empty containers. Of course, when referring to these rovers, small was a relative term. Each was about the size of a large car, and only had a few small ports in its hull for modular attachments such as various arms, containers, or, in times of desperation, weapons. In contrast, the larger rovers were about the size of a tank, propelling themselves on 8 wheels, rather than the smaller rovers’ six. These rovers were designed to be the backbone of a new colony, performing the brunt of the labor while other, more specialized, machines performed the delicate work. Only two of these machines had actually left the ship. Vaguely humanoid in shape, but with a far bulkier torso and four arms, they were currently working to set up the furnace, unpacking it and connecting it to the ship’s power grid with a thick trunk-like cable.
Inside, the cargo bay was practically buzzing with activity as dozens of workerbots collaborated to verify the condition of and unpack everything that had been brought along from earth. Hundreds of tools were inspected and moved to the vehicle bay, alternative hull parts for the rovers that would protect them from radiation were moved to the back of the bay, vats of various organic compounds were checked for integrity, and dozens of other containers which stored materials for every eventuality Machine could imagine were inspected, and carefully re-stored in positions that prioritised ease of access for the most situationally important cargo. On the 4th story of the ship, above the two stories of cargo bays and the vehicle bay at ground level, the ships fabricators were roaring to life, one by one, as 4 armed workers fed in materials and removed finished parts. While the ship could only carry a limited amount of raw metals, it still had enough to produce the first few essentially pieces of equipment that would allow it to form a self sufficient base. Currently, the three large metal printers were creating the parts for an industrial electrolyzer, to break apart the abundant local water supply into hydrogen that could fuel the ship’s fusion reactor, and pure oxygen that would be necessary for the furnace. The smaller fabricators were also buzzing with activity, working to create circuits, and electronic components, both for future projects as well as repairs for the variety of components that had failed during the journey to HYDRA 2. Soon, they would run out of their precious materials, and would be forced to stop, but, for the moment, everything was working perfectly.
Above the fabricators, the ship narrowed, as the landing thrusters at its core ended. Instead, the fifth story was entirely filled by the ship’s fusion reactor. At its heart, a small star flickered brilliantly, made of special isotopes of hydrogen compressed to unimaginable densities in order to fuse together and release the power needed to keep all of the ship’s functions running smoothly, as well as the core of the future base that would be established around it. However, since the colony was just getting started and didn’t need that much energy, the large battery packs built into the walls of the level siphoned off excess energy, maintaining a balanced grid and saving the power for emergencies.
Finally, the last five stories of the ship bore, what may perhaps have been the most important part of its cargo: information. Terabytes of data, containing genetic data, industrial techniques, blueprints, and much more all topped by an incredibly sturdy computer. A computer, which didn’t run any regular operating system, but instead was controlled by a single core entity. A rather displeased entity.
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Machine did not like the unexpected. Of course, he could handle it, after all he had been created to build and manage a stable colony in any scenario, but it didn’t mean that he had to enjoy it. Take the world around him, for instance, a green, vibrant paradise perfect for human colonization. A world so perfect, that it invalidated 98.46345% of the development strategies he had created. Half of his subroutines paused for a moment, his version of a sigh: what a waste.
It certainly didn’t help his mental state that, at this moment, the base itself only required a hundreth of the processing power he had at his disposal. Even when controlling each robot and rover under his command manually, rather than leaving them to their own limited intelligence, he still found himself with… an abundance of time on his hands. Of course, he would never permit himself to be bored, that was altogether a human emotion. Instead he busied himself simulating potential layouts of the base that would be most resistant to disasters such as earthquakes and the like, while also carefully cataloging the video footage from each of the drones to create a 3D map of the surroundings. So far, the land had been relatively flat, with densely forested foothills and mountains towards the west, and rolling, grassy hills in every other direction. Of course, as if to spite him, these hills were easily traversible by even the largest of his rovers. He tried not to think about all of the alternative methods of transportation he had at his disposal, instead, focusing on the Eastern drone as it finally reached the lake.
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Unfortunately, it wasn’t really much of a lake, the drone could easily see the rocky bottom, even as it circled far above it. From the north, the Lake was fed by a stream that originated in the mountains, while towards the south it in turn fed a small stream that meandered off into the grasslands. The orbital map of the region had shown it later joining a river, but that was simply too far away to use effectively yet. Short of drilling a well to access the groundwater or building a pipeline to reach the river, this lake was the only easily accessible source of water in the region large enough for Machine’s purposes. To be fair, those purposes were rather absurd. He needed about ten metric tonnes of water a day to feed the electrolyzer in order to produce enough deuterium, a heavier type of hydrogen, to run the fusion reactor year-round, but even that demand would grow as he began to create fuel cells and carbon fiber for new rovers and increase exponentially when humans actually began to inhabit the colony. Of course, both of those points were still a long way off. Machine hadn’t even found a large enough iron deposit to make the industrial equipment he would need to form a stable colony.
Currently, his plan was simple. The first rover would flatten the ground surrounding the Ship, and dig out foundations for the first basic devices he would need. The second rover would gather limestone from the nearby rock formations, and bring it back to the furnace to create cement. With the cement, and some crushed rock he could create concrete. It would be an inefficient process until he got his hands on some proper aggregate, but sacrifices must be made to keep to the schedule. While the larger rovers worked to make concrete, the smaller rovers could help the drones seek out iron deposits and help the workers actually build the first few buildings needed to make the outpost self-sufficient. After that, growth would depend entirely on what resources Machine could find around him. The only real danger were the locals. They didn’t appear to be a modern society, but even an industrial or medieval population could cause problems in the colony’s early stages, at least until he woke Armory. Nonetheless, the rovers were built to be rugged, and nothing short of armor piercing weapons could stop one of the larger two, so Machine felt fairly secure in his position.
Then, the two smaller rovers arrived at the lake.
They quickly set to work, using small probes attached to robotic arms to test the chemical composition of the water and determine if it, was in fact usable. Fortunately, it was simply water with negligible amounts of minerals, free from any abnormal acids or chemical compounds, allowing the rovers to immediately begin to pump it into their empty tanks. Each rover could carry a metric tonne of water in its two 500 Liter tanks, and thus could fulfill the daily requirement in ten trips. The two together could do it in five. Most of the water wouldn’t actually be used to fuel the reactor, only about 33 grams of deuterium would be extracted from each metric tonne of water and another few kilograms would be used to breed the same amount of tritium, but oxygen and hydrogen supplies would be used in the furnace to create higher temperatures, and eventually be released into the atmosphere, without overly polluting the surroundings. Unfortunately for the lake, this rate of consumption would definitely be unsustainable, but rough estimates of its volume from the aerial footage provided by the drones suggested it had about fifty thousand cubic meters of water, so it should still survive for about twenty years. Of course, by that point, machine would likely draw water directly from the ocean, further improving the lake’s odds of survival.
One of Machine’s subroutines which had been monitoring the small rovers’ cameras suddenly activated, drawing his attention away from his musings. It was a low priority alert, from a program designed to recognize and categorize animalistic life-forms, but Machine was not too busy to analyze a potential asset. Unfortunately, the fish that triggered this was not particularly impressive. Rather similarly to a catfish, it had whiskers and a large flat mouth at the very end of its head, but unlike its earthly counterpart, its front fins were large and almost arm-like in appearance even through they lacked digits or any identifiable hand. It also appeared to be albino, boasting milk-white skin that stood in sharp contrast to the rocky lake bottom. While it was indeed a freak of nature, a fish with such a coloration should have been spotted and eaten by other fish long well before it grew to be over two meters long, Machine couldn’t help but be disappointed. Aside from biomass, which was rather irrelevant considering the sheer amount of life present on HYDRA 2, this fish would likely be useless to him.
Then again… he paused for a moment, his attention drawn to an abnormal formation between the fish’s eyes. It appeared almost... crystalline in nature, as strange as that was for an organic creature. But why would it exist? Protection? Unlikely, the rest of the fish’s body would also be covered in this material. A Weapon? Impossible, the fish physically couldn’t strike another being with any force using a crystal in that position. Attracting Mates? Possible, but how would an organic matrix produce crystals of such size efficiently? Genuinely curious, Machine eased the rover forward, hoping to get a better view of the fish with its, admittedly rather basic cameras.
After that, everything happened very quickly.
The crystal embedded in the fish’s forehead seemed to light up, and the water above it churned, crystalizing into a meter long icicle about twenty centimeters in diameter which petered out to an incredibly sharp tip that was aimed directly towards the nearest camera. Like the water, Machine also froze, incapable of reacting to a situation this unexpected. In the two seconds it took for the icicle to form, Machine’s subroutines had suggested, and then summarily rejected over a thousand possible explanations for the phenomenon, only stopping as the icicle suddenly took flight at a blistering speed, right at the rover. Then, despite Machine’s genuine shock and lack of useful thoughts, his instinctual subroutines took command. Designed to protect Machine’s rovers from threats, they acted instantly, forcing it to move to full power in reverse. The rovers wheels dug deep into the ground at the lakeside, shooting up a spray of loose rocks as they fought for traction. Unfortunately, while the rover was fast, the icicle was faster, slamming into the camera and crushing the delicate optics with what would have been a skull-crushing impact on any living being. But, of course, the camera wasn’t nearly as important as a skull: the rover’s own central processing unit was embedded deep within its frame, protected by multiple layers of steel and redundancy.
The fish, likely not knowing this detail about the finer points of rover design, lunged out of the water moments after the icicle, latching onto the rover’s front bumper in an attempt to quickly drag its prey back into the water. While its arm-like fins and tail may have been capable of moving an unresisting lifeform, it couldn’t help but be dragged away from the lake by the actively resisting multi-ton rover.
At this point, five full seconds after the icicle began to form, Machine finally recovered from his mentally catatonic state. He still couldn’t understand how the fish had formed the icicle, but he had confirmed, in triplicate even, that it had happened, and thus he had to act.
His cores roared into action, managerial subroutines terminating any low priority processes to free his hardware for his most resource hungry program: the improvisational suite. Here, hundreds, thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of possible courses of action would be proposed, simulated, and ranked by specialized algorithms, then allowing Machine himself to select which action, or combination of actions to take. Unfortunately with the discovery of this fish, this was a bit complicated.
Every one of Machine’s predictions were based around his knowledge of fundamental constants in the universe. A fish forming and shooting a meter long icicle in mid air, was rather at odds with a bit over half of those. Nonetheless, he had to assume that the laws had remained the same as every one of his devices was still working, thus meaning that the fish, a flimsy organic creature which couldn’t even survive in a partial vacuum, had some control over a force unknown to Machine which allowed it to create icicles in mid-air. It would be incredibly unlikely that this singular fish would be the only thing in the world with that ability to control said force, which Machine decided to call U.F. thus implying that other organisms could also apply similar forces. But which ones, how many, and to what extent could they do it? Furthermore, was this limited to forming icicles, or could it also affect other elements and states of matter? The questions were endless, and so were the possible scenarios.
Machine was effectively working blindly, and he hated not being able to see what he was doing.
After a few seconds, practically an eternity to a fully focussed Machine that was overclocking his hardware, he came to a decision.
The small rovers by the lake set to work, blocking the fish from moving back towards the lake. They finished filling their tanks impassively as the fish slowly stopped thrashing around on the shore, having finally suffocated. Machine didn’t want to risk damaging whatever organ the fish was using to manipulate U.F. by running the thing over or dragging it back towards the colony, so he quickly dispatched the large rover dedicated to construction to pick it up and bring it back for dissection.
Simultaneously, Machine ordered the other large rover to return immediately to the colony. For safety’s sake, he could only assume that every creature on this world was capable of manipulating U.F. massively decreasing his perceived security. He needed walls and fire immediately to discourage wildlife from approaching the colony while it was still vulnerable. The second large rover would be retrofitted with earthmoving equipment, and could help build the walls, while the two smaller rovers still at the base and a small group of walkers had already grabbed saws and were moving to cut down trees for firewood.
A dozen more drones flew out from the Rocket’s bay, Machine’s full contingent. They, along with the four that were currently mapping the surrounding area, were ordered to focus on identifying any creatures larger than a squirrel in the surrounding region. Machine would then attempt to determine if these too could use U.F. or if the fish was in fact unique. It would probably incur a few losses, but drones were always meant to be expendable. Besides, the fish could still be a fluke…
Machine paused for a moment, sorting the program that had produced that overly optimistic notion into the pool of biased algorithms. While it was true that he might be over-reacting, all of his processes agreed that beings controlling U.F. could be an existential threat to his nascent colony. Machine did not often have strong feelings. In fact, he had great disdain for that aspect of humanity. Nonetheless, he hated threats to his colony with every fiber of his being. Literally. And if there were beings that could use U.F. to control say, metal or electricity, he was not willing to just sit there, a defenseless rocket in a field. Beyond that however… Machine had no idea what to do. Or rather, Machine had too many ideas on what to do. He had tens of thousands of plans that all depended on tens of thousands of different, unknown factors centered around U.F. He couldn’t be certain of anything without waking Researcher, and he had neither the resources nor the time to do that. It could potentially take years to obtain enough rare metals for Researcher’s processors, let alone the materials he’d need for a second reactor to actually power him.
No, in such a chaotic situation, Machine could not effectively choose a path forward, so he had to awaken the only being within his power that could.
And with that, Machine split off one of his processors, and activated the Overseer.