”Bii... Initiating start up program... Error... Rebooting…”
The screen dies once more and the startup sequences are canceled only to start again a few seconds later. The screen flickers off and on again as the startup program once more hits and error and reboots the system. It is an eternal circle of futility and the limits of a machine. Maybe it is the very reason we can differentiate between that which is alive and that which is not. The fact that if the computer had been alive then it would have tried something else. Instead it is simply doing as it had been made to do, to restart and try again.
How long has it been? Hours, days, months? Who can say? And to a computer, does it matter? The only difference is the amount of dust that is gathered, the ware on the copper wires and the plastic fan that is forced to simply turn off and on again.
The fact is that no matter what, the program will continue to shut down and reboot until the situation changes. Until the problem is fixed or until something breaks. If the situation never changes then it will keep going forever.
And right now the only thing that can change the situation is influence from the outside. Why is that you might wonder. The answer lies in the nature of the computer in question as well as where it is located. The location is in a sterile compartment onboard an empty ship, which in turn is simply floating in space. By floating I mean to an outsiders view the ship is completely still, without any rotation or obvious momentum. That said, in space there is no such thing as being still. Movement is the very nature of space just like change is the very nature of time. This ‘Law’ of the universe is the only reason the computer ever got out of its never ending loop of starting and rebooting.
At some point in time and space, the ship housing the aforementioned computer had an event that changed the situation. That event was a rock. Although I say a rock, it was more of a pebble. Floating, but not being still, in the middle of nowhere was this pebble. Were it sentient and had it been able to sense its surroundings in any way then perhaps it would have been frightened by the massive ship that it was about to hit. And perhaps that fear would have been abandoned and be replaced by speculation as to why such a ship was without any real momentum. Maybe the pebble would wonder about the four colored flag that was proudly covering the entire bow of the ship. It might have thought, if it were able of conscious thoughts, that perhaps this massive ship was damaged somehow and that is why it’s engines were not active. Perhaps the ship was hiding and that is why it had shut down everything but the outer lights.
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Of course the tiny pebble would have plenty of time to think and wonder before it came in to actual contact with the ship, they were after all heading in the same direction. Only the pebble was somehow traveling even slower then the seemingly standstill ship.
…Time and space passed and finally so did the event where a tiny pebble came in to contact with the massive ship which housed a sterile chamber within which was a computer that encountered an error and decided to reboot. As the pebble came within ten meters of the ship there was a reaction in the ships core system.
“Debris detected… Scanning… Scanning failed… Rebooting… System reboot initiated… all systems down… Booting up core systems… Life support systems down… Engine inoperable… Power supply online… Booting AI… Error… Booting Shield systems… Critical error… Shield systems malfunctioning… Booting Scanning systems… Scanning systems malfunctioning… No life signs detected onboard… Warning… Collision imminent… Activating evasion maneuvers… Error… Diverting all excess power to forward shields…”
Had the pebble been able to I am sure at this moment it would have let out some profanity and probably even cursed its fateful end as the ships suddenly somewhat sprang to life.
Lights flicked off and on throughout the massive ship and then a shimmer was seen surrounding the ship in a flicker, only to then gather at the bow of the ship in an increasingly bright light. Had the pebble been able to I am sure it would have screamed in horror as it was, had it been able to feel at all, painfully reduced to nothing at all by a series of malfunctioning programs onboard the ship.
Back in the sterile room the mentioned change had already happened. The rebooting of the ships power supply did what the computer itself was unable to do. It gave the computer those precious few seconds it needed to properly preform it rebooting and it finally was able to start up as its creators intended it.
The screen showed a bunch of information flickering passed far too fast for any sentient being to read. A welcome was show under a four colored flag… the words “Windows” was for a moment shown proudly on the screen…
And then the screen finally did a final flicker and in all its glory it showed… a blue screen with white text stating:
“An error has occurred. To continue:
Press Enter to return to Windows, or
Press CTRL+ALT+DEL to restart your computer, If you do this you will lose any unsaved information in all open applications.
Press any key to continue.”
The End.