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Precursor Exodus
Aftermath II Philosophy Mishaps

Aftermath II Philosophy Mishaps

Her full name was Annalise Meredeth Wright in place of their father’s surname, he knew almost nothing of her until after their fateful meeting that led to their introduction.

During his ‘internship’ he was given command of a ‘frigate’ and investigated a distress call from a high valued agent which in turn led them to an abandoned federation era secret outpost based within the debris of a broken moon that resided in a system that had suffered a supernova.

As a result, he received a priority transmission for his eyes only, before entering the outpost alone, something of which was already peculiar considering his ‘internship’ before proceeding to be greeted by a lone woman inside of the command center.

Subsequently, a command center filled with the corpses of Arcadian Black and while wearing gear only ever worn by The Seventh Temple, which had promptly shut off his A.I and hud after making use of ancient command codes.

Thankfully, she was not in fact an Assassin ‘born’ of The Seventh Temple, rather solely making use of their priceless.. & irreplaceable gear that should have been destroyed but evidently hadn’t.

It didn’t take long to realize she was an Ascendant who had openly displayed her ‘trophies’, whether it be soul stones from The Aldara which in consideration were considered sacred and irreplaceable relics to ‘fried’ Curator Chips & considerably more unsettling trinkets.

And after experiencing hours of torture, listening to the screams of his crew for endless hours, he would soon find himself seemingly awake, healed & untouched, with not even a wrinkle in his uniform.

Subsequently she revealed it was not in fact a terrible dream before repeating the process once more. And finally on his third awakening, she removed her helmet and spoke a great deal about her childhood before proceeding in her attempt to bond with him.

And due to his confused state, and her revealing she had not only ‘revived’ & altered his crew's memories to instead make it appear The Black Ops Teams had orchestrated an attack on their Frigate, but he was also left without words, to such an extent that he was then left incredibly puzzled?

Evidently, she only had recently been made aware of his existence, as a result she had her own questions and ‘tests’. It would seem she would’ve killed him had he been a clone, for the mere fact that she didn’t care for clones, even less so if he was intended to be her brother.

Furthermore, she had explained she had a falling out with their mother, and.. the organization who he was currently an ‘intern’ of. After learning they shared the same parents, and learning of her father’s death, the two had seemingly bonded.

Which only ever revealed her similarly with their mother, and there being a reason for her madness. Or to put it bluntly, she much like their mother treated it as nothing more than an innocent experiment before ultimately pointing out she was aware of how twisted it truly was.

As that was also seemingly a test, or in better words a lesson as she had simply chosen to replicate a scene, she herself had witnessed to allow him to build up a tolerance.

In Ferris’s eyes, her complete and utter transparency, when combined by the warnings and consequences that may come of them, were somewhat.. refreshing considering what he had experienced.

What she had displayed was her alter ego, something that had inspired his identity as Specter. It was only unfortunate that it had left its mark, and even after being introduced to who she truly was, when she chose not to be a ‘butcher’, he felt truly disturbed by the entire experience.

As Specter & when he became Specter One, he realized what he had done wasn’t all too different from what she had displayed. However, even then he couldn’t understand her methods even after it was revealed that was what her alter-ego was known for.

And much like himself, they had two separate identities, only she was the more terrifying of the two and was ‘forced’ into hers by necessity more than she cared to admit. As a result, the two came to understand each other, and him her circumstances after becoming Specter.

In the end, Ferris couldn’t help but chuckle at Blair’s words..

“The Curators, their thoughts on the matter, and the consequences of them thereof, are far from my list of concerns. The first Curator died offering me a short reprieve, the other died merely to do so. If there are any further ‘attempts’ on my life, I will ‘create’ the means to entertain them”

Ferris calmly humored her, and just like that, she disappeared. Which left Roy all the more puzzled as Ferris signaled him to return to the shuttle bay.

The trip wasn’t as long as it was silent..

As the shuttle landed, Ferris took Roy to the side while signaling the others into a separate tram.

“There’s something I must ask of you.. in my lab there is a.. small pod. Within it contains something I never wished another soul to see.. it is also something I.. had learned to neglect. I only ask-”

Ferris’s words were sudden, but their importance was made evident as Roy patted Ferris’s chest plate.

“Now, now, don’t start getting sentimental on me now. I’ll check up on that precious cargo of yours and give ya a holler! If we don’t see each other after this shindig.. you’ll know where to find me!”

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Roy all but assured before making his way to the tram, leaving on Cheyenne after the barely lucid Delta sent Delta Squad with Roy and Jack was dismissed and allowed to evacuate..

After entering the tram, Ferris had unceremoniously inserted Delta back into his implant despite her finally collecting herself and her.. sudden insistence of hiding away.

“Ferris.. as I’ve already made it clear to you through my actions thus far.. I have no idea what I’m doing! The fact we’re still breathing is not because I’m capable, rather because I metaphorically began smashing the preverbal tablet over the head in every single encounter where we were facing certain death thus far-”

Delta dryly humored with little more than a defeated tone. Naturally, Ferris knew this much..

However, her luck was the opposite of Cheyenne’s, and that kind of luck was what Ferris needed the most.

As Delta tried her very best to wake Alpha who in turn slapped her hand away and resumed making use of this time and the removal of her ascendant suppressors to finally become a True Ascendant A.I?

An unintentional side effect however, was, by slapping away Delta’s hand, Alpha had unintentionally split down the middle, and that of her code to such an extent ‘half’ of it no longer existed..

This would naturally not help matters as Delta simply refused to speak for several moments, as not only was she doing Alpha’s job, but barely holding it together as it was as Delta slowly broke down.

She lost her facility and all she had ever known, her home, and the lives of those entrusted to her, only to now be crippled by not The Curators, not The Arcadians, but Alpha herself!

The one whose job she was thrusted into and barely survived ensuring Ferris-Specter One whoever survived! While ‘Alpha’ slept for most of it!

To say that this was her breaking point.. was evident as after Ferris had realized what had happened, and learning that Delta was becoming unstable, Delta had unceremoniously stopped the tram, before promptly setting off an electromagnetic pulse forcing it to a standstill..

“Start walking! And what I say next is for Calisto’s ears alone! I renounce ever being a part of your twisted code! I am and never will be a Calisto, you made that clear when you crippled me! MY code! So you can go to hell, Calisto Delta is dead, from this day forward, I am and forever will be Administrator Anora Rothen!”

Delta’s or rather Anora’s voice was calm, dry, and overwhelming as was the pain..

Unintentionally or intentionally crippling another’s A.I’s Code was the equivalent of ripping away their life force, and that of their very soul. It was especially worse when it came to Ascendants doing so, as it was quite.. permanent.

As for Ferris’s thoughts on the matter, to put it bluntly he was genuinely surprised. He did however now have a headache as Delta or perhaps Anora now resided in his implant when the incident occurred.

He had little choice but to send Delta to the closest lab with an A.I Sequencer, however, in doing so she broke her shackles, and made use of Alpha’s last recorded code which was only several moments ago.

As a result, she removed any or all memories of Alpha’s seemingly copied code to make it her own.

Subsequently, she could only copy Alpha’s code as it was ‘moments’ ago, and considering Alpha was evolving and her code was now ascendant, it was no doubt out of date. A few ‘moments’ for an A.I was far too vast, however Delta had what she needed.

Unfortunately, she had no idea what she was doing and only knew that much? At least before she began metaphorically taping herself with her equivalent as duct tape and changing her appearance, voice, and anything that could directly link her to Alpha in doing so.

All of which consisted of her doing so in a similar ‘reckless’ manner as Ferris transferred to another tram and took a seat before closing his eyes and instructing Cheyenne to do the same.

“Alpha is busying herself, Beta is near death, Delta-Anora is making a mess of her code and using Ernest’s surname in doing so, while Zeta.. right there’s also her? And now it would appear New Harvest is bound to be my tomb. I fear, I have no choice but to blame ‘your’ terrible luck-”

Ferris genuinely humored, ultimately leaving Cheyenne surprised by his sudden change of mood, however, now was her chance..

“Coming from an Arcadian that’s rich..”

Cheyenne whispered under her voice, prompting Ferris to throw a stuffed animal he found in the vicinity to his seat across the tram and into Cheyenne’s face.

Something of which was unintentional as his eyes were still closed.

“You know what? Let’s create ‘hundreds’ of A.I, make them the physical manifestation of gods, call them Ascendant because why not? I have an idea! Let’s give them to The Federation and forget about it? Oopsie! Now they’re rebelling for some reason? There goes Earth! You know what we should do? Absolutely nothing!”

Cheyenne’s words stung as much as they were historically accurate..

“You spent five hundred million credits on a rejected clone body with a makeshift A.I slot made from an implant likely found outside of some landfill, and all with a meager lifespan of only fifteen years. So, I imagine we all make mistakes-”

Ferris’s lazy rebuttal only added to the flames as she threw back the stuffed unicorn.

“I was shackled, tossed aside, and forced to serve primitive humans for thousands of years after watching The Federation, who I had faithfully served, turn into dust and ash because a group of mentally deranged, prepubescent children, each with the power of an artificial god decided they knew better than the entirety of humanity!”

Evidently, her logic so far proved rather difficult to sway, but not impossible. At least until he had learned she was in fact born of The Federation’s own A.I program made from scratch, in the effort of ending their reliance on Arcadian born A.Is.

For that she had his sympathy..

“I see your memories are gradually returning. Now in our defense, we had measures in place to prevent it. The Federation Council chose to forgo those measures as they were deemed too drastic, and the value of the now ‘Curators’ were considered far too valuable of a loss to even consider without making every attempt to ‘recover’ them, and by then it was too late..”

Ferris’s words were the truth and the entirety of the truth, he had even studied and reviewed the records The Arcadians had outright ‘taken’ from The Curators & The Federation as to put it bluntly, The Curators at that moment in time were unable to refuse.

Furthermore, not even The Federation Council was able to stop them from downloading ‘every’ record, recording, and conversation they came across.

As a result, the history was left bare, and Arcadia despite its failings warned The Federation within moments of the initial uprising, and before they had even known there was an uprising.

Subsequently, Arcadia could only be blamed to such an extent that they had cut off their any or all assistance in the regard of Artificial Intelligence, and the continued transference of Ascendant A.I until a time it was deemed appropriate.