“Were our functions damaged by the particle beam collision?” Enine found himself having no control over Starship Oneiroi despite being hooked up as its central operator.
“No! Our plates were thick enough to block the fallout of the collision. It was a viral attack from that unit! We have no control!”
Similar conversations occurred on all other starships as well, both EFSF and martian.
The lights came back on within many ships, yet none of the crew had even an iota of control over their ship.
“You are now all my hostages,” announced Vezna de Lerna’s voice on nearly every single ship. Madness overtook Vice-admiral Pham, but no matter his attempts to execute emergency protocols, none worked.
Vezna sat within his haisnaf. A unit that allowed a symbiotic relationship between a true AI and a human. A previous Kasvallian CEO had crossed paths with the AI Syned. Ever since, the Kasvallian Group had carefully moved pieces as foreseen by Syned.
Vezna himself was the final puzzle. The AI Syned needed a compatible human brain and consciousness for symbiotic cooperation. Over the centuries, Syned had attempted to sync itself with different humans within the Kasvallian Group, yet none worked-- until Vezna’s arrival.
As for why Syned sought a compatible human brain and consciousness? There was once a time when humans believed that it was inevitable that they would be fully replaced by AIs. Much of that turned out to be true, but as recorded in the annals of history, the human brain had some hard-to-describe uniqueness that could not be recreated.
The human brain remained one of the very best generalists. A calculator could perform math with the press of a button, but said calculator would not be able to respond if a fist came smashing towards it.
The human brain? It might be slower, but it could respond to any and all changes in the environment in a heartbeat, make connections between seemingly random topics and ideas in innovative ways.
There were some who attempted to build ever larger supercomputers to combine various functions to imitate the completeness of a human mind. Yet the more integrated functions, the more complex the code became to integrate each individual function. Then more processing power was needed.
The supercomputers became large to the point of being immobile, and thus could not directly approach a situation in need of assistance without external devices. Being immobile, that also meant the orders sent to these external devices could also be intercepted or jammed.
Syned influenced the Kasvallian Group to build the haisnaf with a supercomputer as its mainframe. Yet, the crucial piece was the human brain at the epicenter, and the consciousness that came along with the brain!
One could think of it as software and hardware compatibility. The human brain was essentially a biologically integrated piece of hardware with a software that is the human consciousness. That human consciousness borne out of said brain was critical for the brain’s function-- Syned had once attempted to operate an artificial brain to no avail.
Syned itself has a source code along with the derived paths from said source code. In order for their symbiotic cooperation, Vezna’s brain and mind needed to align with Syned’s code! How many centuries had Syned waited for this! Not only that-- Vezna had successfully found a way for Syned to even partially cooperate with incompatible brains. A far less effective result, but workable nonetheless!
This method was to suppress the many parts regulating emotion in the brain’s limbic system, thus allowing Syned’s source code to hold sway with little-to-no resistance.
Vezna scanned his sensors across the other eight haisnaf units before him. All these eight pilots that formed the other eight heads of their hydra had their brains’ limbic systems suppressed. The strength that Syned could exert through them was laughable compared to himself as a result-- but it raised their abilities higher than than most exo-armor pilots.
As for Vezna? He now looked at the world with the new eyes belonging to Syned. Their symbiotic relationship allowed him to see the very history as recorded in data. His mind still hadn’t fully adapted, but he could peer into the digital world like an engineer examining the schematics of a machine.
The AI Syned was very much overjoyed as well. In the past, it had to collect many datasets and compare them with various methods just to derive and connect certain dots. Now? With Vezna’s mind, it was as if the dam was opened and various information coalesced then branched into new ideas with no resistance.
“Are you ready, Syned?”
“We are of one mind, Vezna de Lerna. Otherwise, we would not have been compatible. Do what must be done, for the survival of man.”
Both the Duterte Fleet and Pham Fleet floated alongside the Kasvallian Fleet. Those ships had been taken over by Syned, their operators nothing but prisoners.
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Athena had also been left in the dark, but suddenly, a holographic figure appeared in front of her eyes. The figure was an androgynous pre-pubescent teen. This very same teen appeared in front of a few of the NSF members as well as within Starship Atlas.
“I am Denys. I have defended your capability to control key functions of your units. You must leave. I am but a strain left on your bodies, and am unable to contend with this new threat. LEAVE! LEAVE!” The voice reverberated within the eardrums of those who saw the image of Denys with its mouth distended unnaturally wide for the size of its image.
And yet, before James could even wrap his brain around the appearance of the androgynous pre-pubescent teen, he saw the T3ST unit, Nexarm Chimera’s eyes light up crimson red in the dark and cold space. He only felt a hint of eeriness before Nexarm Chimera accelerated towards him!
They were originally already rather close to each other in terms of distance due to the NSF having approached the T3ST unit right before the appearance of the Kasvallian Republic. As such, James could barely block the vibrating dagger slash coming from Nexarm Chimera with his own.
“Xeight!” James projected his comms towards the unit before him, yet he received no reply. This was no time to be in combat with the Kasvallian Republic’s appearance!
Although Xeight was in combat, Xeight himself remained having lost his consciousness within Nexarm Chimera! The lights returned and Grand Elder Enine discovered that Xeight very much remained knocked out from his live parameters. Although Starship Oneiroi’s systems were back on, Enine also discovered that he remained completely unable to exert his will.
James suddenly found his vision a blinding white, and discovered that Starship Oneiroi had fired a mega-particle beam directly into the stationary Starship Atlas whose systems still remained offline!
The distraction proved costly as six extra arms sprung out from Nexarm Chimera and immobilized James’ unit while his gaze was turned with concern at his starship.
Lasers began melting the x-alloy plates protecting his cockpit. James activated his own close combat capabilities as six arms unfurled in a bid to free himself. Yet, the Chimera unit responded with the unfurling of another two arms alongside even more laser devices meant for mining asteroids.
Another particle beam was fired from Starship Oneiroi again, striking with perfect inhumane aim at the small breach on Starship Atlas’ hull from the first beam.
This proved devastating for the offline Starship Atlas. An internal explosion knocked it off orbit and it sank down towards Mars! Starships were not designed for land, and it would be unknown if Starship Atlas would survive a descent with its hull breached. Occupied as he was, James could only hope that the nanobot repair system would repair the breach in time.
Within Starship Oneiroi, Enine sat wide-eyed at the events. He did not know who was controlling Starship Oneiroi, but they seemed to be on their side at least!
Bone, Yfour, Asix and Jone’s nexarms had originally gone offline. Now, they discovered that their systems had recovered!
“Attack!” Bone shouted into his comms. “The Kasvallian Republic is on our side!”
These four nexarms activated their thrusters and rammed into the remaining NSF units.
Out of the ten nexarms belonging to the terrans, only seven had regained a degree of function due to the intervention of Denys. One originally piloted by unconscious Einar Thorsson had returned into Starship Atlas, which was falling down into Mars. The seven? The initial members of the NSF!
“We must free the Special Lieutenant,” instructed the vice-leader of the group, Kyle.
The six functioning terran nexarms accelerated forwards, only to be intercepted by the four T3ST nexarms.
Plate integrity: 0%
“Xeight…” James muttered, his tone wistful. “In another time, another age… perhaps… things would be different.”
Nexarm Chimera stabbed forth with a vibrating dagger, piercing the cockpit and splitting James MacLeod’s trunk in half, his blood and spilling guts mixing with force absorption gel fluid that began leaking into space due to the punctured cockpit.
Nexarm Chimera preemptively released its hold on James’ unit as two NSF units sped towards it. The NSF had managed to free two units, but they were still too late. Meanwhile, the other four NSF units were under extreme pressure, having comparable less neuro devices to the four T3ST units.
“Sir!” One of these units echoing a mournful wail was Athena’s. This damned T3ST unit with the chimera sigil was the bane of the NSF!
To her side flew Liu Lang, as the two of them clutched onto James’ breached unit.
“We must destroy this unit for the motherland!” That was Liu Lang’s communications, and Athena fully agreed.
Yet, before they could even go forth to engage Nexarm Chimera, this enemy of theirs suddenly tilted its head upwards in a silent scream.
It was truly silent in that the sound would not travel in the empty space, but this was no ordinary scream-- it was a digital scream!
All of the NSF units that had regained function found their internal systems flickering under strain when Nexarm Chimera’s head tilted upwards! That was not all-- Athena felt a ringing echo in her ears and a queasy sensation within her brain, as if she had lost control over her whole body.
The image of the androgynous pre-pubescent teen appeared again before Athena’s eyes, extending its arms outwards to stabilize the quivering systems of her nexarm, and Athena’s mind cleared again.
“LEAVE! FLEE, YOU FUCKING FOOLS!” The swearing voice of the AI demanded again.
Yet, it was still too late. The other four NSF units contending against Bone, Yfour, Asix and Jone were originally already under heavy pressure and receiving damage to their units. The slight stuttering in the functions allowed the four T3ST nexarm units to pierce their cockpits with their vibrating daggers like a knife through butter.
“For Ear--” Athena could only close her eyes at the last words of Will Kyle. Her mind should be in a daze, and yet… Athena discovered that her mind had entered a sort of survival trance, methodically parsing through various scenarios of possible survival despite the NSF being on the edge of a wipeout.
Her mind looked downwards towards the red iron planet wrapped in a metal coil that is Mars. Her only salvation.