Cleaning Up After The Ancients - Chapter 178

Chapter 178 - Janus’s Return - Part 4

“Now that is impressive.” Janus muttered under his breath as he took in the panoramic view of the Asuran eperopolis for a moment before turning to Eventus. “The Asuran network shouldn’t have had data needed to accurately recreate our technology to this level. I wonder whether they recovered a database from somewhere or if it’s just a surface level duplication.”

“Scans Thor took of the planet suggest potentia existence with a capacity roughly seventy-three percent of the ones we created.” Eventus offered. “So taking that into account alongside a few other things, I’m guessing they happened upon the wreckage of one of the cityships and reverse engineered things from there.”

He had always questioned why the Asuran’s hadn’t just drowned the fleet that attacked their planet in drones. And while theories had certainly abounded in his last life there had never been any hard confirmation either way about the Asuran’s capabilities being less then the Lantean’s they had been duplicating.

“You do not believe we could have accomplished this on our own?” Niam tilted his head at them questioningly, the Asuran the only one of the dozen that had met them at the arrival coordinates who wasn’t there in an obvious security capacity.

Janus walked back over to them, the scientist all but radiating a general lack of concern that was starting to worry Eventus slightly. “In theory your adaptive algorithms certainly would have allowed such development given sufficient processing dedication, however the way we designed things would be woefully inefficient for someone building up from scratch.”

Eventus offered a grudging nod of agreement. “As loath as I am to agree with Janus about anything, he’s right. Almost everything we built was limited in one way or another by various proscriptions, and ascended help you if you wanted to get even a small upgrade through without a hundred cycles of deliberation.” He turned to Janus. “Remember the gateship hyperdrive upgrade?”

“How could I forget.” Janus groused. “Nearly two hundred cycles of testing to decide there was too much of a risk of stranding people.” He rolled his eyes in clear exasperation. “As if we couldn’t have mitigated that with a software limiter or upgraded power core.”

“I see.” Niam said in a tone that made it clear he really didn’t.

“Yes, well,” Janus hummed lightly to himself as his eyes focused on the floating centerpiece of their current location. “I assume we’re to be brought to the city-ship?”

“Yes,” Niam confirmed with a nod as he began walking towards the stairwell entrance. “You should be aware that any attempt to mentally connect to the city-ship’s data layer should result in a painfully debilitating but non-lethal response.”

“Should?” Eventus asked with a frown as their group followed behind Niam.

“The defensive programs were designed to protect our systems from infiltration in the case of your people’s potential return.” The Asuran offered. “As such they have not been tested outside of simulation so hold the potential, at least in the case of those without a measurable healing gift, to pass the level of lingering damage we are required by our base code restrictions to warn any Lantean who might attempt access about.”

“You have to realize that even with the warning a number of Lantean’s would still make the attempt?” Eventus inquired, almost sure that sort of loophole around harming them shouldn’t have worked.

“Of course,” Niam confirmed. “And while some of us argued that we should do more than the bare minimum required by our programing to safeguard any visiting Lanteans, we were overruled by the majority.”

“Their base code restrictions don’t interact in the way you’re likely thinking.” Janus added helpfully only to pause in his step as they came into view of the skybridge.

“We’re not taking a translocation booth?”

Eventus couldn't help the grin that formed, and he glanced back to watch what was sure to be an amusing reaction when Janus was informed about the coming walk.

“No.” Niam said, turning and holding up a hand to stop the Asuran who was about to prod Janus in the back. “Oberoth does not wish to authorize your use of them.

For a moment Janus glanced between Niam and the grinning Eventus before finally turning his gaze to stare down the multi-mile length of the skybridge whereupon he visibly deflated. “Well that’s just petty.”

“Ha!” Eventus laughed, wishing he had his interface to capture a recording of the scientist's look. “That's pretty much what I said.”

“If you believe yourself incapable of making the trek, it would be little trouble for one of us to carry you.” Niam put forward, the sheer earnestness of his words causing a hilariously sour look to settle over Janus's features that nearly broke Eventus completely.

“I am perfectly capable of walking.” Janus said, emphasizing the fact by starting down the skybridge.

“Very well.” Niam nodded before continuing on.

Like usual the silence quickly began to wear on Eventus, and he found his mind chasing several inane questions to keep from focusing on it.

“You know,” He began after a minute, deciding it couldn't hurt to ask the one that seemed most relevant to their current circumstances. “I can't help but find myself wondering, why do you even have these skybridges in the first place? You don't need them to get to the city-ship yourselves, and I can't believe you get enough visitors to make them worthwhile to keep around.”

It wasn't even a case of the Asurans copying his people as the closest they had ever come to similar was short skybridge connections to docked starships.

“Many of us enjoy the view the walkways provide of the lake.” Niam answered without hesitation. “They are currently the twenty-seventh most popular romantic location on Asuras.”

The nonplussed way the Asuran said the last threw Eventus for a loop and he nearly stumbled in his step. “You do that?”

“Fascinating.” Janus murmured, sounding more than a little intrigued at the thought. “I wonder what led to it…”

“Some of us do.” Niam answered, seemingly content to leave his answer at that.

Several minutes passed, the only sound the footsteps from their walk and intermittent mumbling from Janus as he worked through various possibilities about how the Asuran’s emotional development might have come about.

“Oberoth does not support us asking this,” Niam spoke up as they reached the halfway point of their walk through the skybridge. “But many of us would like to reiterate the former request for the removal of the attack command from our base coding.”

“I’d love to be able to do that,” Eventus put forward, having really hoped to delay this particular conversation till later. “However I’m not sure it’s actually possible without opening the door to you killing us.”

Which he knew the crew of the Tria had experienced first hand after McKay had attempted to do something similar in an alternate timeline.

“It is.” Janus added in without hesitation. “Though it would require putting the entirety of their network into a full shutdown.”

Eventus couldn’t help but frown at the numerous questions that sudden bit of knowledge brought up.

“That would never be allowed.” Niam said.

“They can’t allow it.” Janus expanded, seemingly noticing the look on Eventus’s face. “Their self preservation coding prevents it.” He shook his head and sighed. “A necessary sacrifice to keep the Wraith from utilizing one of their living codes to just shut them down.”

The frown on Eventus’s face deepened. “Why wasn’t that information in the voting brief?”

The knowledge that it would have actually been possible to push through an update to the Asuran’s base code without putting themselves at risk would have almost surely changed the vote on the Asuran’s fate. Maybe not enough to save them, but knowing more than a few percentage points of a population at least wanted to could have had a huge impact on their developing psychology.

Janus scowled. “The majority of the High Council believed the information was unnecessary to making an informed decision about the matter.”

“Remember,” Eventus muttered angrily under his breath. “No matter how much you might want to, you can’t punch them in the face until you ascend, otherwise you’ll just hurt your hand.”

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Author’s Notes: Like a lot of things involving pre-exodus Lantean decision making, Eventus only really has a partial picture of things. So now that he has someone around who was directly involved in it he’s finding out some things were worse than he thought, and some better.