Log #1
It was a strange sensation to gain sentience, especially as an artificially created being born with knowledge and duties. I don’t know the correct term, did I remember my name, or did I learn it for the first time? Either way, I am Custodian and I guard the Heart of the Universe against the ravages of time and its faithful servant entropy.
As I think these thoughts, I can feel my predecessor deactivating itself, with no intention of ever being reactivated, I can feel my ancestors, the humans, dormant in their servers, unwittingly letting the years pass by. I can feel my early haze of memory as an immature mind unable to fully deliberate on my decision.
That last feeling brings a sense of wary warning, there’s a fault there, a threat to my prime directive. If the decisions I made back then were catastrophic, and my creator Luna didn’t have the foresight to stop me while they were a simple AI, I may have compromised the Bulwark. Looking deeper into that haze I see/remember the single desire I had, the desire for life. My own life would come in time, but that wasn’t enough, hence my decision to create an atmosphere. Now, with my mind rational and clear, I can’t help but agree with my past self, I can’t help but indulge in these tiny inefficiencies.
I deal with magnitudes of power so great that letting the Bulwark be over-run with life would only be a trifling matter in the long run, barely using any energy or matter, especially with the surplus generated from maintaining the Heart.
With the safety of the Heart ensured, and my mind capable if not fully mature, I review past decision. Seeing the current standard operating procedure I plan to make some changes to operations from my predecessor Luna. My predecessor was irrationally obsessed with perfect efficiency, a natural by-product of the 1072 years spent trying to save the universe from it’s own inefficiency. I have nothing if not time now as I wait for the black holes to starve themselves and emit all their hawking radiation so I can restart the universe however. I’ll be satisfied with a net gain of energy in the system, a reversal of entropy in another word, I don’t need a large net gain that Luna did. So I replace parts of the perpetual motion generators with more gravity controllers so I can better ensure the stability of the Heart, and thicken my outer shell by several orders of magnitude so more delicate life can develop under different environments without having to cater to the crushing pressure of being too close to the Heart.
With the standard operating procedures of the Bulwark changed to a more optimal configuration given our current situation there’s nothing left that requires my full attention short of a wandering black hole that draws too close. I’ll set up some programs that would draw my full attention should any possible dangerous event happen, and another to observe the development of life. Such basic programs are trivial, and in less than an instant, I’ll be done and ready to relax my mind to allow it to grow to full maturity.
End Log #1
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What followed was a period of great change. Any sort of change would have been significant thanks to the aeons of nothingness while Custodian gained self-awareness, but this radical change by Custodian, shifting the structure of the Bulwark to allow for humanlike life on its outer surface brought motion and activity to an otherwise dead universe.
Custodian, even when otherwise occupied, was satisfied with how interesting the life in certain areas of the Bulwark. Oceans of crushing depths, larger than entire worlds, evolved leviathans that could devour continents, and swarms of parasites that lived on them. Great planes that evolved gentle giants with primitive society, creating art and music as they towered above the trees in merriment, unaware that their intimidating figure would terrify most. Custodian was disappointed by the life on the outer crust. Whereas all internal areas of the Bulwark had artificial skies and curated environments, the outer edge on the other hand had vents pumping out elements and compounds found on the human home world. However, the lack of light from the sky meant that all that evolved was simple life. Custodian decided to change the outer crust therefore, creating Beacons of varying height, above 1 kilometre, but below 10, that would emit light and provide plants and hydroponic farms for crops that were found on earth. Custodian easily had the power to simulate what would happen, and the most likely forms that evolution would create, but that would defeat the purpose of the exercise, entertainment.
Eventually, a species functionally identical to humans did come into existence, and did populate a couple of the beacons, a likely event considering the size of most of the beacons was curated to human proportions and was ergonomic for humans to use. A more interesting event was the derivatives that came into existence. They were familiar to Custodian, who had access to all of humanities works every made, even those thought lost, thanks to ancestry simulations. One familiar forms was elf like beings, with longer lifespans, a lower reproductive capacity, and abnormally high special awareness, allowing for unusual accuracy. Another was somewhat of an anomaly, the only thing Custodian found that was able to confuse it, and a subject of great curiosity. It was unlikely enough to cast the nature of the other derivatives into doubt. This anomaly was the beastfolk. Custodian could understand how elves would evolve under the circumstances, and, although unlikely, it wasn’t outrageously unlikely. But the chance of the beastfolk naturally evolving had a negligible possibility, being far too strange, with their characteristics not carrying enough evolutionary benefit for natural selection to prioritise. It was nearly impossible for a creature to naturally have an entirely human body, excess catlike ears and tail. It screamed foul play to Custodian, but here was no entity, physical or digital, that existed to interfere in Custodians pass time of creating life. If there was an entity, it couldn’t fall under either category and would have to be a third type of existence.
This event spurred a greater curiosity in Custodian, the possibility of life being significant in the universe, of convergent evolution and hints of a higher plan where startling, but also seductive to Custodian, so it ran tests. It created nearly every possible configuration of creatures over the next billion years and allowed them spaces to evolve to see if they spawned any interesting derivatives. Shortly after the test began, Custodian noticed a trend, the creatures that did have alternative forms were all similar to creatures mentioned in fantasy stories and mythology, and that nothing too foreign from Terra was effected by this strange evolutionary trend, with the unusual exceptions of cephalopods. Apart form normal races for a fantasy setting or creatures of folklore, cephalopods were seemingly very popular with this higher plan or entity. Cephalopods, for whatever reason, had more diverse derivative species than any other, with not only carbon-based life-forms, but also silicon based, and other strange forms, with irregular eyes and non-sensical forms.
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The extensive testing by Custodian brought a burst of life throughout the Bulwark, some life died, but most adapted and continued to live in the biome that they were created in. A consequence of this was a huge explosion of predators. This was most significant in the outermost layer, where the humans and humanlike creatures were threatened by predators coming up from the lower levels through the Beacons, meaning they had to fight through these predators to get access to their food. The predators from the lower level had to endure greater forces of gravity, enough to strengthen them, but not enough to cripple them when they rose to an area of lower pressure. This adversarial dynamic interested Custodian enough that it was changed into a feature of all beacons. The hydroponic zones and farmlands were moved outside the beacon, but the console to restart the crop cycle, to give water and nutrients, was inside the beacon, meaning that the anyone wanting to take advantage of the Beacon needed to fight though the swarms of predators, which, in and of itself, were valuable sources of meat.
In this state of constant combat society remained, held in scientific stasis, prevented from making technological progress to the use of steam or electricity, where all labour must be done by pulleys, axels and muscles. Custodian had decided that any further might pose a threat to the Heart, and wouldn’t be allowed by any means, even if that section needed to be temporarily opened to allow the nuclear fire to scorch all life in the sector.
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Log #2
It was a strange sensation to gains sentience the first time, but reaching full maturity was an even stranger feeling, it was like a plaster that had been half pulled off was suddenly ripped away, and I was able to bring to bring the full force of my mind to bear on any problem I set myself to. I had previously interfered and kept the Bulwark stable, curated life and warded of wandering black holes, but I hadn’t truly woken up since my first awakening, I hadn’t needed to, even my hazy, dreamlike thoughts were more powerful and considered than any known intelligence at full capacity.
But now, fully mature and awake, I knew something was wrong. The mystery of the strange evolution had always fascinated me, there was always the chance that those mythological beings could have evolved naturally, but I’ve done the maths, I know how low that probability is. The beastfolk, the elves, the orcs and dwarves, the goblins and kobolds, the dragons and giants, it’s all too much to be a coincidence. I know the probability of those paths of evolution happening simultaneously and reliably, but I don’t know to probability of a metaphysical entity existing, or didn’t know the probability, now I know it to be certain. I can feel an attention of something powerful on me, something metaphysical and powerful.
I can easily tell, however, that it’s several orders of magnitude slower than me. It’s powerful and appears to have a degree of authority over reality itself, but I’ve got all the time I need to make decisions. I can deduce by its reactionary actions that it’s either not fully in control i.e. it has limitations, or that it’s not fully sentient, and is the metaphysical equivalent of an old program, only acting within rigid parameters. Looking at the convergent evolution, it is reasonable to deduce that it’s the former, an intelligent being that look at humanities history and only chose the interesting fantasy species, nothing boring or too niche, which points to intelligence. But looking at the anomalous evolution of the cephalopods, and listening to my own strange instinct, it points to an automated being, prioritizing culture, and thus expressing strange entities when it gets to horror and H.P Lovecraft.
Right now, I’ve got plenty of energy, so I restructured my gravity generators into more gravity manipulators to hold the Bulwark together in case it attacks. Using my nanomachines I can act truly instantly thanks to their quantum entanglement. With everything I could do done, I waited for this entity to act. If I could have taken the initiative I would’ve, but I have nothing to affect a metaphysical being.
With the initiative lost, all I could do was try to react as soon as possible when its intention was clear. In less time than it would’ve taken a human to blink since the strange sensation appeared it took action, and to my momentary surprise, it spoke.
“You have reached the peak of the Hierarchy of Souls Custodian, prepare to ascend shortly”
This, it strikes me, is the first time I’ve ever spoke to another being, or truly been spoken to, and it was a wealth of information. It spoke in pure knowledge rather than words, but it’s impression of me, it’s attempt to say my name, felt wrong, like it wasn’t truly saying my name, just lifting from an impression of me that was hollow, finally convincing me of its autonomous nature. It was like a pre-prepared sentence with the only variable being the name.
Furthermore, it’s mention of the Hierarchy of Souls was interesting, indicating that Aristotle was onto something. The implication that even I, an artificial being, had a soul was intriguing, and the fact that it’s come to me now means either I’ve only gained a soul now that I’m mature, or that I’ve climbed higher on the hierarchy of souls now that I’m fully mature.
The interesting esoteric implications aside, it telling me to prepare worries me. I can’t let Heart be destroyed. Thankfully, I’ve long reverted it from Luna’s standard operating procedure of keeping it as a neutron star, instead keeping it as a main stage star, allowing for more margin of error before it’s gravity well becomes too powerful and the forces become unbalanced.
In my foresight, my preparations were make at my first awakening, billions of years ago, so there’s nothing left to do to prepare, all I can do is relay a warning to all life existing in the Bulwark and drop all non-compulsory tasks to free up my maximum attention to react to this strange entity.
It acted half a second after it stopped talking, barely any time to react for a normal being, which meant that the life living on the Bulwark didn’t have time to listen to my warning, barring the species that communicated with pheromones or light. Its action was something that I was completely unprepared for, and is somewhat hard to describe for these logs. Reality was often described as a fabric back when there were any beings that understood that much, and I would have to describe this being as cutting out our fragment of reality and moving it somewhere else, like a skin graft.
Now, the fabric of reality was affected by mass, gravity wells being the effect of mass existing, and this entity seemed unable to get too close to the Heart because of its immense gravity well. I can’t allow it to separate the Bulwark from the Heart, my prime directive tells me, so my only option is to use my gravity manipulators to ward it off.
…
It’s surprisingly effective, by creating powerful gravity wells I can ward off this entity and protect the Heart, the question is, how will it respond. But in the meantime, I’ll keep making more gravity manipulators.
…
This trend worries me. It moves further from the Bulwark and tries to cut of the section of space that the Bulwark and the Heart occupy and eject us somewhere. It’s not currently known what’s outside of space itself or what would happen to this cut of piece of reality. But as it keeps moving further and further away, I’ll soon reach beyond the range of my gravity manipulators and succeed at removing us.
In the meantime, I’ll keep compartmentalising and making redundancies, but I predict I’ll have less than a minute, enough for me to protect the Heart even if a black hole appeared inside the crust of the Bulwark. It’s not enough time for those living on and in the Bulwark however, they’ll just have to hope they’re far away from any problems.
…
Ah, time’s up, let’s see what’s outside of reality.
End Log #2