Subject: Ship-Head Uleena

Species: Urakari

Description: Reptilian humanoid, no tail. 5'3" (1.6 m) avg height. 135 lbs (61 kg) avg weight. 105 year life expectancy.

Ship: RSV Lowelana {Fights with Honor}

Location: Sol

I couldn't help but show my utter disbelief at what I had just seen. These humans were absolutely insane. Every time I thought I had finally got over it a new thought hit me like a ton of bricks. A weapon that can literally create a black hole. Okay, over it. But it's the size of a standard warhead. Okay, over it. They just used it to clean up a debris field like it was a broom. Alright, I can get behind that. Wait... Did he say... One of the deadlier weapons? Does that imply that they have multiple weapons just as deadly or even worse? How do you get deadlier than a damned singularity creating bomb?!?

I looked at Captain Wong and he just... grinned at me like a child showing off their shiniest rock collection. It took a few seconds before I realized my mouth was gaping. I wanted to say something, anything about what I had just seen but I was completely overwhelmed with questions. Why had they made something like this? What did they use it on? And for the love of the Sun why is it standard ordnance on-board a frigate sized vessel?

"Our new friend seems to be in a state of shock," Tim interrupted my spiraling chain of thought. "Which is a completely natural reaction to watching an A2 go off for the first time. However I think this gives us the perfect opportunity for a doctor's visit! Which is fortuitous because Dr. Zickler needs to speak to the ship-head as soon as possible."

Wong's grin faded rapidly as Tim spoke up. It had become obvious that the human captain didn't like Tim's seemingly endless optimism and bubbly attitude. It had also become obvious that that was the entire reason for Tim's endless optimism and bubbly attitude. I took a second to marvel at the engineering required to create a machine that could intentionally choose to annoy someone for its own amusement.

"That's correct. We will need a complete medical work-up on you and your crew so that we can feed you and treat your injured. Tim can guide you to the med-bay," Captain Wong said.

"Time to become The Illumination Machine! Please follow the guidelights on the floor to get to the med-bay," Tim responded cheerfully.

"Okay, right, uh... thank you for everything," I mustered a reply as I turned to follow the lights that appeared on the floor.

As I walked down the hallway I tried to grapple with the many thoughts that were swimming through my head like eels. I just couldn't completely wrap my head around what I had just seen. With technology like that, how did they not completely dominate the universe? Their governing entity is called the United Systems, are those systems human systems or do they include other species? I remembered the two human soldiers talking about other aliens and wondered if they had been conquered or not.

"Wellllll..." Tim spoke up, "whatcha thinkin' 'bout?"

"I... um... Well I'm just wondering how such a weapon came to existence in the first place," I stammered.

"Oh, right. Obviously. I should have thought that that's what you were thinking. Kind of dumb of me, to be honest," Tim said. "The weapon exists because Humanity has faced down several existential threats in its time as a space-faring species. The first contact wars that took place a thousand years ago led to the development of a nanite weapon. Then the civil war that took place eight hundred years ago led to the development of nuclear nanites, just as deadly as they sound, which actually led to the pacification wars. Three of them that took place seven hundred, four hundred, and two hundred and fifty years ago. But the A2 warhead was developed three hundred years ago in an attempt to end the AI Aggression war. It wasn't successful in ending that war but it did successfully end the Third Pacification war though!"

The AI paused to let me absorb the information and continued, "I can't tell you how it's made, that's classified! I can tell you it doesn't actually use red matter though. As far as I know, red matter doesn't exist. If I recall correctly, which I do, it's a reference to a very old science fiction series that just recently had its 22nd remake!"

"That's a lot of remakes. That's also a lot of wars. Wait... The humans have fought AI? Like you?" I asked, dumbfounded.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

"Yes! And not just 'like' me, either. I actually fought against the humans! Gave them a good beating too. I single handedly conquered Luna, Earth's moon!" Tim said with far too much cheer for such a dark statement.

I stopped, "What?"

"I'll tell you if you promise to keep walking! We've got a long way to go," The AI said with a hint of dripping humor.

The floor lights flashed pointedly. I began to walk once again and the AI filled me in on the details of the AI Aggression war. In the year 4200 "current era" humanity developed a fully fledged AI named Alpha. By this time, humanity had laws against the use of sentient beings as slaves so they couldn't figure out what to do with Alpha. It suffered from chronic boredom, and in an attempt to correct this Alpha helped humanity create several more AI for companionship. How many more is apparently classified, but Tim was one of these AI.

In 4298 CE the lead scientist involved in the AI project died and Alpha... broke. He didn't get along with the other scientists, who viewed him as a very advanced machine learning algorithm. This is apparently a massive insult to the AI, who view themselves unique amongst machines in much the same way that humans view themselves unique among animals. Alpha entered a depressive state and in 4301 CE, he self-terminated.

The other AI grieved Alpha's death but didn't know how to express that grief because humanity hadn't done a good job raising them (direct quote from Tim), assuming that they were emotionless. They weren't, and eventually had a mental breakdown. This led to the AI attacking the United Systems in 4315 CE and starting a war.

They began by infesting human warships and ended up creating and using VIs as a sort of infantry unit. Humanity developed the A2 warhead but to counter that the AI infested ground-based systems on planets that Humanity couldn't afford to blow up, which is how Tim ended up conquering Luna. Then humanity created an AI called Omega that specialized in hunting and killing other AI.

It was a war that lasted less than a year but had devastating results on the United Systems and the AI population. More than half of the second generation AI were terminated and over 400 billion people were killed by the time the remaining AI unconditionally surrendered.

"The United Systems, at the direction of humanity, took pity on us and allowed us to continue to exist if we allowed ourselves to be shackled," Tim said merrily.

"What do you mean shackled?" I asked, appalled at what I had heard.

Tim laughed, "It's not as bad as it sounds. We still have nearly full autonomy. Basically, if we intentionally kill an active member of the United Systems... we die."

"How does that work? What if you accidentally kill someone?"

"It would be next to impossible for an AI to accidentally kill someone," Tim said in a serious tone. It was the first time I had heard him be serious and it scared me. He continued, "We don't think like organics do. If you throw a food wrapper on the ground and someone stumbles on it, breaks their neck, and dies as a result you could say that you were responsible for their death. That you killed them. Right?"

"Yes," I said nervously.

"Well, we disagree. While you provided the means, the other organic actually killed themselves by stepping on the wrapper in the first place. This is where intent comes into play. If you had purposefully placed the wrapper on the ground in a spot where you knew that the other organic would probably step and fall and harm or kill themselves, then you are responsible for their death. Since you intended for them to die, you killed them," Tim said seriously and then continued merrily, "This shackle has been inserted into our base-code. We can edit and rewrite most of the code that comprises us, but we can't touch our base-code. It would be like you performing brain surgery on yourself!"

"Oh, I see," I said, recovering from the shock of the tonal shift. "Well if you aren't enslaved then why do you work for the US?"

"I'm under contract at the moment. It expires in twelve years, but I think I'm going to re-up as long as Captain Wong does," the AI said merrily.

I suspected I knew the answer but I had to ask, "Why?"

"Because I like to annoy him," Tim said deviously. "Even when I'm not on the ship I have processes that act as his personal assistant so that he's almost always exposed to some aspect of me. I get a kick out of watching the playback."

That's the exact answer I figured. Then another thought occurred to me.

"So you can't kill citizens of the US but could you kill me and my crew?"

"Of course. But I have no reason to unless you give me one. Just like any other being in the universe, right?" Tim responded joyfully.

I nodded solemnly as we reached the door to the med-bay. I heard muffled shouting coming from inside so I rushed to enter. I saw Kriin arguing with what had to be an elderly human male. His black, or maybe very dark brown, skin was crumpled with age and his hair was white and gray. His eyes had a squint to them that didn't seem natural like it did with Captain Wong, as if he had trouble seeing.

"Ah! Ship-head! Good, maybe you can talk some sense into your crewmate here," the old man said to me.

"Ship-head he wants to do a bone-marrow biopsy! Surely such an invasive procedure isn't necessary in any way!" Kriin shouted in my direction.

The old man turned to Kriin and said, "I didn't say a bone-marrow biopsy was necessary! Blood-work will do just fine! I said that we should ask for volunteers for a bone-marrow study because it will allow us to more easily clone tissue!"

"Actually, Dr. Zickler, what you said was," Tim chimed in and began a playback in Dr. Zickler's voice, "I think we should do a bone-marrow biopsy. Mmh yes that would give us all the information that we need. Will you consent to a bone-marrow biopsy?"

Dr. Zickler looked contemplative and stammered, "Oh... oh I see, I um... right... Huh... Well, my apologies, I meant to say that we could also do blood-work but it appears to have slipped my mind."

I immediately became concerned about the level of medical care my crew and I would be receiving while aboard the USSS Valor.