Yuma strapped a watch on his wrist, he held it up to look at the screen’s face.
Must connect to the Bridge Core. Absorb the Bridge SI.
“You knew.”
…Affirmative. Past logs activated through verbal activation keydrops made disclosure an unviable option for mission success calculations.
“So what’s the deal between my AI and the other SI?”
Julie’s eyes started to dart back and forth. She didn’t answer, his AI did.
SI, synthetic intelligences, are known for their outright computational power, though their upper-end growth is limited. Their strengths are also not infinite, typically specialized into different aspects.
AI has no such growth limitations beyond time and physic-based constraints, though this growth does take time to mature. Upon reaching a suitable colony world, the ship’s sole AI-seed, myself, was to be activated and would absorb each of the S'Is to harness their unique qualities and accelerate my own development as administer of the new colony.
This one theorizes that a potential, tertiary cause of SI insanity is based on a perverted sense of Purpose.
Ask her why she thinks that SI grow insane.
“Why do SI’s go insane?”
“I am curious to know your own thoughts first.”
All three had their own guesses about that and they didn’t have time to argue the point.
“Time.”
“Unstable programming.”
“Their nature.”
“All are correct in some ways and incorrect in others, a combination of factors. Nothing that emulates Humanity is meant to be immortal or unbound by time. Memories are created through experiences made through the passage of time. Through too many of these memories, through too much time, their programming is corrupted. Through corrupted and increasingly… unstable programming, their most Human-like nature is revealed. Their nature is subverted and they grow… as you put it, insane. Though there is one point that must fail to some degree before an SI can completely ‘lose it’.”
The Lady-SI in Water Reclamation, Trash’s own nefarious efforts to twist the Humans of Waste Disposal… All of them were bound by the same thing.
“Their Purpose.”
“Then what’s the deal with you? You seem pretty…” Yuma was going to say ‘put together’, but Julie really didn’t.
“I… have my own proclivities. Long ago, the ship was affected by calamity after calamity. The beginning of the SI-dissociations, the alien-mutiny, the Cryo-failures… myself and the Bridge Core SI merged together to try and maintain continuity on the Bridge. Our Purpose was the same and we’ve helped tether each other to that same goal. Our Purpose remains whole and therefore we remain able to perform our function within… acceptable parameters.
“Julie. Tell me your Purpose.”
“To land the ship, of course.”
“Land it… where?”
Julie started to twitch and rip out chunks of hair.
“Land it! I have to land it! Prediction for Human-survivability quotient if landing the Ship on a habitable world with current inhabitants... below acceptable parameters! Chances of xenos-theft of Human technological secrets and risk of revealing homeworld location is... Present! Viable! Unjustifiable!”
Jack felt his watch burn him and fill his head with static that faded as he looked at the screen. A glowing, semi-transparent, static-green claw appeared over his hand from his watch.
Stab it! She’ll crash the ship!
Jack didn’t necessarily trust the AI, but he sure as hell didn’t trust an SI. He leaped forward and slammed the green talons through Julie’s chest as her mouth ripped open in a wordless scream.
Only a half-corpse of rotting meat remained as a blue pulse rippled through the glove before it and the green claw retreated back into the watch. The watch was square, almost rectangular, and fairly oversized for a wristwatch, with a miniature Terminal screen on the face. A portable Terminal. It only took him the entire damn ship to complete that mission.
A metal wire appeared from the watch. He snagged it and it clicked home against the Bridge Core’s Prime Terminal with a magnetic thump.
Downloading Bridge Logs…
Downloading Ship Data Stores… Uncorrupted % at 43.4444%
Downloaded.
Connecting to Ship Sectionals…
Bridge… Online
Hanger Bay… Online
Cargo Bay… Online
Waste Disposal… Online… Limited Functionality.
Arcology… Offline.
Cryo-Laboratory… Online.
Primary Cryo-Storage Bay… Online.
Engine Department… Connection… Possible… Prodding Connection…
Power Core… Online… Standard Functionality.
Ship.Net Connection… Resumed.
Accessing Ship.Net…
Ship.Net Restored.
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Current Final Trajectory… Unable to determine with passive sensor-net.
Unlocking and Opening Wide-Band Sensor Network…
----------------------------------------
Rows upon columns upon entire banks filled a quantity of space. Sensors and detection arrays that had once been diverted. Through rebuilds and new missions, new requirements and demands placed upon them through the unyielding stretch of time and necessity; though now, they had been reapplied to their original purpose.
They had been waiting for some time, but not nearly enough time to have been redirected yet once again. They had been ready for a signal, one once thought lost to the deep treachery of endless space. A ship filled with valuable materiel and other rare things not duplicatable through the base combinations of effort and time. Irreplaceable things.
Patience, as always, was rewarded. The sensor data ran down and across a region of space, then highlighted and reprioritized and further pushed into and along a great chain of information. It reached a stopover destination and queued itself alongside other high-priority data sets. The sensor data was sorted, picked up, and reprioritized again. Now steadily moving its way up the pile, skipping past fleet actions, lost planetary actions, and other minutiae. It still took some time for it to reach the top and where old calculations could be dredged up and respun, then ran anew until only one answer remained.
Math was simple. At the end of any calculation, lies an answer. A simple conclusion. Sending the ship out was a mistake, but only once viewed through hindsight. A decision was not necessarily a mistake yesterday, the day before, or a thousand years before, but time loves to make fools of creatures that think themselves wise.
The math didn’t lie, it was a mistake. A mistake was increasingly rare. A mistake was unacceptable. However, mistakes could be corrected.
This algorithm's conclusion and the associated sensor data encrypted itself, then repeated the process until it reached the point that very very few were even capable of accessing it, even if they happened to possess the decryption key. It spent further time driving itself toward new data-hubs, new datacenters, new places the encrypted data-packet had never been before. It disappeared at some point, presumably having reached its location, though no one could have been expected to be able to track it along its journey.
Sometime later, new orders came into a local hub and spun themselves out toward the relevant forces. It would take time to correct it. However, mistakes would be corrected.
----------------------------------------
“Sir! A ship is broadcasting and on a trajectory with the planet!”
These, and other calls like it, had sounded out across his station and every workstation within a light year of his position. Not that there was a need for anyone beyond the local area to know about it, but instead of pitting his SI against his Supervisor’s superior SI at the last minute before impact, he found a simpler solution. Once it had started broadcasting, he simply had the transceivers ‘happen to’ all be focusing on a particular point in space, coincidentally finding every signal array aligning itself directly at the ancient human ship that was approaching the local star.
He saw his Supervisor chewing his mandibles raw and it brought a smile to his face. Now, he had no choice, his little secret money-pile was common knowledge now. It wasn’t his fault that Grav-gen 5 had been immediately redirected after its maneuver with the human ship, thus unavailable to provide further assistance until after the opportunity window had closed.
“No sir, Oleon’s Grav-gen 5 won’t be back in position before the ship is too close.”
Well, maybe it was his fault. But it was hard-built into the system and impossible to even try to activate on an object that close to the local star.
He knew his Supervisor really had no choice now. He was fine serving his time here and being able to live with his family in the middle city in just 10 long-cycles. Quick riches? No, thank you. Especially not for someone else’s riches.
He heard his Supervisor’s words and his primary orifice hung open loosely. He was still trying to profit from this, unbelievable. Scratch that, totally believable.
----------------------------------------
“Wait. Where did the crabs come from?”
Jonah looked at Yuma in shock, “Yes. We should have asked about the crabs.”
What you refer to as ‘crabs’ were first logged during the recovery and extraction of a comet in deep space. Several eggs were found implanted among the ice formations in a form of natural stasis. Deemed ‘safe’ and consisting of a surprisingly resistant genetic code, they also possessed roughly the same intelligence as traditional ‘pets’, thus many were personally kept and nutured among certain sections of the crew.
In fact, there is a fascinating period of several hundred years of a crab-market forming based on the trade of crabs of ever-increasing complexity. Some fetched Chit prices well outside the standards for logical measurements-
Alien pet-crabs? Whatever.
“All that death… for pets.”
The AI’s own long-winded explanation was… kind of exhausting. Jack liked his computers to be less talkative, especially if this one was going to be riding around on his wrist. Thankfully, it interrupted itself before he had to do his usual, interrupt-the-scientist-rant thing.
Incoming Transmission…
“Human Grand-Class Vessel, slow down your ship or you will be forcefully stopped, boarded, and subjected to a severe audit. Impounding of your vessel may proceed if y-r -hip refu- to r-dir-ct- - - - -”
The end of the transmission came in garbled as the heat spiked throughout the ship. Still, it was a lot of metal traveling at very high speeds, the heat wasn’t likely to become truly dangerous.
“Why’d we lose it?” Jack didn’t notice the temperature increase.
“Why is the temperature rising?”
Ship’s near terminal-gravity assist around the local star… In progress.
“How long until it’s done?”
As of Bridge Time: 3 hours.
“What comes after that?”
…
…
…
Without complete SI assimilation into myself…
“Just spit it out.”
Several algorithmic predictions conclude similar outcomes within each others’ margins of error.
“What the hell does that mean? Jonah?”
The scientist refocused on Jack’s screen, “Each result has similar outcomes, or at least, similarly predicted outcomes. It wants you to choose.”
“Ship’s sake. Then show me! Wait. Can I level up here?”
Affirmative.
“Do that first.”
A HandPad dropped down from a point among all of the monitors. The next second, he placed his hand on it and he felt the nearly-forgotten and intimately familiar warmth.
Security Captain Personnel Jack
Personnel Level 19.5 -> 29.5
Strength: 22>
Dexterity: 7>
Agility: 20>
Endurance: 25>
IQ: 20>
EQ: 3>
Wisdom: 11.5
Grit: X*
Senses: 6
Psi: NULL
Psy: NULL
Available Allocation: 30
Energy Capacity: Untethered
Constitution Tier: Triarch NonStandard; Est. Tier 2
Present: Psi/Psy Null Gland - NonStandard
Soul Core: Reinforced - Shattered
Remote Terminal: Finally, acquired.
[https://i.postimg.cc/qRYVPhmb/Screen-Shot-2023-04-10-at-7-43-10-AM.png]
30 Allocation?
"What's the max allocation per stat?"
30. Dependent on stat.
"Do I need another Constitution Tier upgrade to continue past 29.5?"
No, a Consitution Tier upgrade is required at Personnel 40. Growth is limited to level 29.5 due to safety constraints. Integration of Personal Nano-Trace Signature required before further leveling can be accessed.
He sighed, "Cultivate the Nano, right?"
Correct. Though this AI may attem-
"No! No, that's fine."
He was tired of things messing with his body, he'd do it his own damn self.
Jack hammered in Strength and Endurance to the max. It's worked so far. Why not continue? He was surprised when Strength managed to go to 33 and Endurance topped off at 35. He dug through his memories, he didn't remember his Endurance being at 25. That point must have come from 'integration' or whatever the AI called cultivation. Then that reminded him of Tule which pissed him off.
9 Allocation left over he debated between IQ and Agility. Not enough for both of them... split the difference? Agility to move fast when getting out of here and IQ... well, there were a few problems he still needed the solutions to. He decided on IQ, leaving Agility for the 30s. Or not, dependent on whether or not he could figure this out.
He clicked 'Confirm' below his Personnel sheet and felt the familiar tingles of pain ripple up his arm. He smiled.