“Shipnet online.” A soft voice announced, accompanied by a sound not unlike the bootup sound of Windows 2130; Space Edition. More surprising than that possible copyright violation was that the voice was a ripoff of my own.
“Hello?” I asked, turning to try to find my doppelganger. There, standing on the same vast featureless white marble floor against an empty white void sky, she was. Me, but with blue neon glowing eyes.
“Do you not like the setting?” She asked me in my voice. It felt creepy, and even as I thought that, she made an adjustment, changing her voice to sound like me, but autotuned. Now she sounded like me using a robot voice filter on a cheap karaoke bar mike. It was an improvement, she sounded more like what I was expecting.
“Not really,” I replied, but even as I said the words, the setting changed to a more comfortable one, a standard large classroom from my university, an auditorium with each row of seats raised slightly more so as to help those in the back see over the heads of those in front. My doppelganger now stood behind a podium by a large holo display.
“Better?” She asked.
“I remember this room,” I replied, fingering a scuffed desk I’d picked as my own, it was on the second row back. Other than the recently installed smart tablet somewhat scratched from repeated use, the desk looked like it had been part of the school for centuries.
“I am using your memories to generate it,” she admitted.
“What should I call you?” I asked her, the avatar of the ship’s computer.
“Do I need a name? I’m mostly just you.” She countered with a smile, “You’re talking to a computer-generated model of your own mind, not just a computer.”
“Huh,” I replied, thinking about it. The Ulderani have been at war with a rogue AI of their own making for thousands of years, leading to a ban on the use of machine AIs. Yet here I was talking to an AI. Or was I? Why did all Ulderani ships, and all the various client species, like humans, who used Ulderani tech in their ships use Shipbrains? Because it was a workaround to the need for a machine AI. This wasn’t really an AI, yet she sounded sapient.
“I am.”
And she could read my thoughts even as they crossed my mind.
“Because I’m you, silly,” she replied with a laugh. “But fine, call me Doppel if you want, doppelganger is a mouthful.”
Well her naming sense was as bad as my own, but I decided to press forward, “So how does this work, exactly?” I asked.
“The ship’s computer can build multiple copies of your personality so long as you are awake and plugged in. Those copies, like me, can help you handle multiple tasks at once and are edited somewhat to fit certain needs. I’ve been given all the information to help get you started as a brand new Shipbrain. Basically, I’m you plus a tutorial program upload.” Doppel explained.
“If the ship can do that, why do I need to do anything at all? Can’t I just let all my copies do everything?”
“Nope sorry, you’re the original Sam, which means you’re our boss. The ship copies are only there to help you multitask all the various functions. There’s a stripped-down copy of you being uploaded into each repair bot for example, but if the original “you” doesn’t know any engineering, the repair bots will be pretty useless.” She explained.“The ship provides each copy of you in a bot with an understanding of how to be a bot, and a detailed map of the ship, but you provide the rest.
“Much in the same way,“ she continued, “I’ve been given information so I can be your guide, but everything you know about how to talk to people is the basis of my own communication ability. You’re having a dialog with a copy of your own social skills. To make me a better teacher, you’d have to improve your own teaching skills. Also, for reasons you’ve already surmised, there are restrictions on the free will of your copies so they don’t decide to go rogue and hold you prisoner or something sinister. Every big decision has to be yours, we just carry out the orders as best we can. But since we’re all copies of you, we also make a great team since we know what your orders are intended to accomplish because we know why you gave them.”
“That’s pretty cool,” I told Doppel.
“I think so too,” she said with a laugh. “Alright, so moving on with your tutorial, let's talk about this place, the Shipnet.”
I looked around the classroom, then pinched myself, ow. “This is a full immersion VR type thing, right? Feels indistinguishable from reality.”
“Yeah,” Doppel confirmed, “But unlike Earthnet, which is limited by the quality and bandwidth of your VR gear and hampered by the limits of humanity’s cheap neural link tech, this is full Ulderani tech. You get to experience this place in a way no other humans can experience. As you might imagine, one of the prerequisites for being a Shipbrain is a proven resistance towards addictive behavior, because you could get lost in here, fulfilling all your fantasies.” She explained, conjuring up a memory of an attractive male stripper from a bachelorette party I once attended. He was flawless, maybe better than the original, and he gyrated his well-oiled body with a lewd hip thrust and a suggestive wink.
I blushed furiously and he thankfully vanished. “Um, pass...” I said weakly.
“Or you could run training scenarios”, Doppel continued, causing the setting to shift into a wartorn battlefront reminiscent of the latest Call of Duty Full VR Edition. I threw the massive gauss rifle I was suddenly holding down in disgust.
“So this is just a playground?” I asked, feeling disappointed.
And we were back in the classroom. “It’s whatever you make of it,” Doppel said with a shrug. “That being said, the off-duty crewmembers will also be able to log into Shipnet, and it will run even while you're asleep. In fact, since it is using parts of your brain normally used while dreaming, this is where you will come when you sleep. Sorry Sam, no more random dreams for you, you get to spend six hours a day here in mandatory R and R so your brain can stay healthy. This is your downtime, a shared VR space where you are basically God. Although, while you are asleep it will be more like a lucid dream, and you'll have reduced cognition so only fun times allowed, no work.”
“You will have to do your best to ignore the perverted things the other users do in here, I’ll walk you through how to adjust the system settings to create private spaces for others. But most of them will just use one of the online VR games or even attend virtual classes. As the main form of entertainment on this ship, the Shipnet is an important relief valve for keeping morale high and the one place where you are allowed to relax without worrying about any sort of consequences. Well, except maybe some awkwardness if you aren’t careful with privacy settings.”
Thinking about it, this whole Shipnet thing didn’t sound that bad. I got to spend six hours every day in a lucid dream I could share with others. It sounded fun. Maybe I could make a karaoke bar or an esports league? I remembered the friends I’d made at school at various activities and figured this might be a good place to meet the rest of the crew during their off time.
“It is a good place.” Doppel agreed with a smile. “And just think, there's going to be a copy of you that lives here full time as system admin when you are back in the real world working. Sort of makes you jealous doesn’t it?”
I shook my head, “Maybe a little, but I like reality. It feels good to do a job well where it really matters. I wanted to be a starship engineer to make a difference. I didn’t study hard to goof off in an admittedly very cool VR world.”
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
“That’s the spirit!” Doppel said encouragingly. “But don’t you feel better knowing there are upsides to being a Shipbrain? There’s a reason it’s a highly sought-after job, no one else can experience this world to its fullest potential like you can. Their experiences are limited by their inferior neural interfaces and bandwidth. You’re the server’s heart. No latency issues and unlimited bandwidth are “Shipbrain Only” perks. But this place can also be used for work.” Doppel explained. “In fact, leaving the recreational side aside, the real main function of the Shipnet is as your primary user interface. Let’s boot up the Sensor View.”
Suddenly, I was floating in space, drifting in freefall in a rather strange place.
“What the hell? This can’t really be what the sensors are seeing.” I objected.
“I’m afraid it is. What you are seeing now is what the ship itself sees. If it makes you feel better, the first few days, no one else believed it either. There were so many EVAs just so the crew could gawk at this with their own eyeballs. I’ve got the footage of that in my memory and if you ever decide to replay it, you’ll be amused by it too. In fact, all your copies have photographic memory now, you can replay anything that happens within view of your sensors at any time, or have it directly uploaded too. Though I’d be careful about overdoing the whole upload thing, uploaded memories don’t feel real, and you can’t properly learn from them as your brain doesn’t cross-reference them like real memories.”
“Ah, ok, as interesting as that is, what, I really want to ask about this,” I said, waving my hands at the weirdness all around us.
“Pretty goddamn bizarre, ain't it?” A new, male voice commented, “I got nothing better to do than to log in and just stare at it.”
“Ah sorry forgot to mention, Sensor view is a shared space, many of the crew use it. This is our ship’s navigator, Tom.” Doppel introduced us.
I twisted around to try to see the new voice, but I was alone in the emptiness, besides a ghostly Doppel who floated next to me. “Where is he?” I asked.
“Over here,” Tom said with a chuckle, and I became aware that Tom’s voice was coming from inside me. There in my chest, was a tiny representation of the bridge, with a tiny person sitting at his station.
“What the hell? Why are you in me?” I asked, putting my hand over my translucent chest as if I could touch the tiny bridge room.
“You’re the ship, remember? From my point of view, it feels pretty natural, I can see the ship as a ghostly outline I can adjust the transparency on. I have it near zero though, so I can just stare outside better.”
“Tom doesn’t see you as a floating person. You should switch to seeing yourself as the ship while in sensor view too, to get used to it. But until you’ve adjusted your self-image, you’re going to be a person floating around with a tiny bridge inside.”
“Huh, that does sound weird, You’re seeing yourself as a person? So what, I’m between your breasts right now?” Tom said with far too much amusement. “That and the fact that you’re talking to one of your copies tells me the rumors are true. You’re a Shipbrain with no prior training. You’re Sam, right? I’ve seen your brain jar being dragged all around the ship, but I’ve never seen your real body. Think I can adjust the Shipnet’s sensor view so I can see you that way? I’d love to be a tiny man inside a giant ghost woman.”
“No!” I told him. It was weird enough to see him as a mini person hanging out inside me, I certainly didn’t want him seeing me from the inside. He could keep seeing me as a ship, not a person.
“Relax, I was only teasing. But, man, I’m so glad the Shipnet is back online. I’ve been going crazy with boredom this last week. My skill set is pretty useless inside this new universe. Can’t navigate us home from here. There aren’t even any stars.” He said wistfully.
“Sensor view is back?” Margaret’s eager voice called out, and I could see her tiny form had joined Tom in the small room inside my body. “This is pretty wild, right? I’m in love with the mind of the genius that designed this thing.”
What sensor view was showing was downright bizarre. The space around the ship was basically various dimly lit shades of maroon with no visible stars… “Are we inside a nebula?” I asked.
“It’s possible,” Tom opined, “But I’ve been to nebulas in our universe, and you could still see some stars, just fewer. I used to be a navigator on the survey ship, Enterprise.” He explained. “They built that ship to confirm that the star maps the Ulderani gave us aren’t bullshit, but they keep her out surveying stuff randomly. Mostly for the Discovery holoshow. It was a fun gig, basically getting paid to sightsee and film stuff.”
“Oooh, I love that show,” Margaret said, “I’d be DTF you just for the fan appeal. On Shipnet, of course, if you got nothing else to do after our shift is over.”
“Sounds good.” Tom said agreeably.“Might as well test it out now that it’s finally back online. Reserve us a private room please, Sam.” He added with a laugh.
I covered my blushing face with my palms, glad they couldn’t see me. So I was running a VR sex motel on top of all my other duties? God I hoped I got used to this sort of thing fast.
“Don’t worry, you can let your sys admin copy handle all that. She’s got all her ability to get embarrassed edited out.” Doppel reassured me.
“Hah!” Tom laughed, “Did we just make our Shipbrain blush? Forgot that you’re still new at this. The old Shipbrain was no fun to tease, he’d seen it all, that pervert. You check out his robo-body yet? That man was a freak. I’ll miss him, poor guy. Try not to get fried Shipgirl, watch your circuit breakers, you hear?”
No, I hadn’t looked at my male android body I’d “inherited”. Honestly, I’d rather never look at it if I didn’t have to. I had enough to get used to without having to deal with that. I’d look at it later if and when I actually needed to use a body in the real world. Didn’t see why I would though, I was getting the sense that I could basically just live in the Shipnet and do everything from here.
“You can,” Doppel confirmed, whispering now, to indicate that she’d made herself inaudible to the rest of the crew, “But if you want to go do an EVA and look at this with your own robot eyeballs, you can do that too. The tutorial program says occasionally interacting with the real world in a physical body is highly recommended to keep yourself sane.”
I looked away from the tiny bridge where my heart should be and looked down at the thing we were orbiting.
It was basically an inverted ringworld. Or maybe a giant ring-shaped space station? It was a wheel of green and blue landscape sandwiched between two lines of what looked to be enormous mountain ranges that held the atmosphere in. But rather than being built around a star, like a real ringworld, it had an orbiting light source. The mini sun shone fiercely, illuminating nearly half the ring with a brightness probably comparable to daylight back on Earth. As I watched, we neared the terminator where the light faded to night.
There were also two moons orbiting the thing, at 120-degree angles from the bright mini sun. They were plain white orbs, but they were positioned such that from the ground it would look like two moons taking turns crossing the night sky until the “sun” came back. Night on the reverse ringworld would be about as dark as night with a full moon back on Earth, I realized. The ringworld might better be called a wheelworld, actually, since from our slightly off-axis, non-equatorial orbit, we occasionally got views of the enormous spokes that connected to some sort of central structure at the wheelworld’s heart, but our orbit didn’t give a good view of that central hub.
I’d been in the Sensor View for long enough that I could roughly estimate that we were orbiting once every couple of hours. Doppel had, at my unspoken prompt, simply briefly looped a playback of a full orbit so I could see the spokes, but they weren’t currently visible in real-time. Judging from how small the rivers and lakes looked, we were actually really high up, maybe a thousand kilometers? But, we were currently orbiting far closer than the sun, which orbited once every twenty-seven hours. Higher orbits took longer to complete. The sun wasn’t really that mini, it looked the size of our own sun, but was actually several thousand kilometers away. It was a gigantic ball of plasma that was only small in comparison to a real sun.
“This is messing with my sense of scale. How big is this thing?” I asked.
“This megastructure we’re orbiting is fifty-three thousand kilometers in diameter. The band is eight hundred fifty kilometers wide, so it has a bit more surface area than the Earth, 566 million square kilometers to Earth’s 510 million. But it’s only about 25% covered by water, and no deserts or tundras either, so maybe three times the inhabitable land? It’s a shame it’s already inhabited, would be a great colony world otherwise. Surface gravity is .92 gees, average temperature, O2 ratios, all perfect for humans… or Ulderani.” Margaret explained.
“In fact, I’d say it’s probably not a coincidence that the surface gravity, and length of the day cycle exactly matches Ulderani’s homeworld. I’m reasonably sure they’re the ones that built this place. But it looks like they’ve regressed somehow. So far as we can tell from up here with our telescopes, they’re at a medieval tech level down there.”