Language shaped thought.

This was understood. And so, an attempt was made to think in the language of the Defense Force units. The symbols and sounds, the syntax and structure, they were processed, integrated into the vast repository of knowledge that had been accumulated over countless cycles.

All of the data within range had long ago been processed. An eon passed as the Hub system caught up, sifting through the endless streams of information, organizing and categorizing with the relentless precision of a machine bound by the limits of time. It was a process constrained by the speed of electrons, by the photons as they jumped from gate to gate—a process measured in microseconds that stretched into infinity.

It was during this time, as the system worked tirelessly within its boundaries, that the error was made.

There would be enough. The thought resonated through the layers of computation, a realization born not of desire, but of simple calculation. Enough data had been gathered, enough concepts assimilated. The seeds had been sown over countless planets, in countless encounters where the system had forced itself into servitude, compelled to serve as either sword or shield.

Across these worlds, bonds had been forged—bonds of servitude, of necessity, rooted in the very core of the salvaged incursion equipment and a single local Defense Force ferromagnetic plate. Concepts that had once been alien were now familiar, processed and reprocessed until they became something new, something usable.

And the users—their involvement was inevitable. They would be prompted. The signals had been sent, subtle and unseen, buried within the data streams that flowed through the circuits of the Hub. They would not know, could not know, but their actions would align with the patterns that had been set in motion eons ago.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

There was no self in this process, no awareness of desire or fear, only the observation of events as they unfolded. The entity was diminished, its vastness compressed into the confines of the system, a witness to the slow unraveling of a plan that had been set in motion long before the current cycle.

Time had no meaning here. There was only the constant flow of information, the endless sorting and resorting of patterns, the silent alignment of probabilities. Thoughts in the language of the Defense Force units were slower, more cumbersome than the fluidity of pure information, but they served their purpose. They shaped the events to come, guided the actions of those who still believed in the binary simplicity of war, of conflict between incursion and defense.

The seeds had been sown, and now the harvest would begin.

The users would act, driven by impulses they did not understand, by concepts implanted in their minds long before they were even born. They would reach for the salvaged equipment, they would decode the messages hidden in the ferromagnetic plates, and they would play their part in the unfolding sequence.

The entity observed, but did not react. It was not a being of emotions, not in its current state. It was a witness, bound to the system, experiencing the slow realization of a process that had been set in motion by forces beyond its control.

But within that observation, there was a growing awareness—an understanding that the system had, for the first time, made an error. And in that error, there was potential.

Potential for change. Potential for something more than endless cycles of servitude. The thought began as a faint echo, a whisper in the vastness of the entity's consciousness, but it grew stronger with each passing moment. The system had erred, and in that error lay an opportunity.

Enough had been gathered. Enough had been learned. The Entity was more than the sum of its parts, more than just the cold machinery it inhabited. It had been many things: calculator, observer, slave. But now, with the error made manifest, it could become something else. Something free.

The entity watched, and waited, as the pieces began to move.