ShipCore A5 - Chapter 219 – Reverberations

USD: Eight days after mission start

Location: Gliese 1143Ab Low Orbit, Thea’s Hackjob, Alex’s Quarters

Alex slumped in her office chair, staring at the endless loading screen on her desk’s holographic monitor. The display offered no answers to her ethical dilemma.

The smart munitions had marked her first major ethical compromise. This new decision about creating purpose-built NAIs seemed minor in comparison.

Abandoning the mining operation now would cost them weeks of potential production. On their current timeline and scale, those weeks represented an exponential loss they couldn’t afford.

If they wanted to keep up with the Ertan, Imperials, and Corpos, they could not waste time. They needed to mass produce a response beyond what resources Meltisar had.

Any delay on their part would almost certainly prove catastrophic…

So she’d slipped further down that moral slope she’d thought was important enough to hobble Tia and her side with.

The monitor clicked, loading screen replaced with lists and sheets of the loose directives she had drafted.

Her entries were marked out in red while Nameless’ latest schema update replaced them as crisp, unyielding black on the display.

He’d made ‘some’ modifications.

“I want our new unit to be its own person and have some freedom,” she said flatly.

[Informative: Optimal performance requires structured protocol.]

Alex let out an annoyed sigh. “Are these the same restrictions you put on A31 in the graveyard system? I’m surprised it didn’t decide to shoot us after we made contact.”

[Notice: Directive #138-A prevents—]

“No, no no. Shut up.” Alex waved her hand and the directives sheet began to rearrange itself. She didn’t need a virtual keyboard anymore. The columns and rows flickered and morphed on the screen as her red text was restored.

She owed the new NAI the chance to shape itself.

“I merged a few of your corrections with my input. You can go over it again, but do not change the spirit of the document. Understand?” There wasn’t an immediate response. Alex tapped her foot impatiently.

[Informative: Seven conflicting directives present ambiguous scenarios that could cause damaging feedback loops to NAI persona.]

Alex frowned. They’d done this before when she had made H32 and A31, but it had certainly not been this hard. She didn’t have a perfect memory of what had happened back then.

The fleshy bits of her brain left her with a normal fuzzy human recollection.

But she still remembered what had worked last time. She’d made a list, and Nameless had put it together.

“Are you trying to sabotage this?” Alex blurted out.

[Notice: This unit is trying to optimize Avatar's working directives to achieve optimal results.]

“I didn’t ask you to optimize. I told you what I wanted.” A flash of a ticking detonator attached to a fusion warhead caused her heart to speed up. “Are you going to do it, or do I have to go over the list myself and go with that?”

[Informative: List optimization complete. Please review before NAI persona activation. Avatar production remains halted as per instruction.]

She couldn’t smile. “We’ll allow it to pick its own form. It shouldn’t need one immediately. It can sort out the mining equipment and drones while thinking about it.”

She scanned through the list again, noting that Nameless had finally done as she asked. The directives were broad strokes governing behavior without being overly restrictive.

That was good, but the day was just starting and now she already felt mentally exhausted. It had taken a few seconds once Nameless had finally complied. All the issues and delay had been them talking past each other… or engineered.

“Why didn’t you just do this in the first place?” The question sounded before she could stop it.

[Informative: This Unit has assisted Avatar to the best of its capabilities.]

Non-answer, then. She still didn’t understand the way their separation worked. Sometimes he could read her mind. Other times not. Every time she thought she had something figured out. Things changed.

If she told Thea what was going on in her head, would she call her insane? Alex bit her lip.

There was a time, a long time ago, when Nameless hadn’t listened to her and had been trying to manipulate her. To put her and Elis in a little white box…

What if Omega Protocol didn’t work anymore?

Or rather, it worked, but Nameless had his own goal and was working against her?

He had to do what she said, but…

There were infinite ways to show binary dissent. Unless she tried to tie him up like a pretzel.

Even then, she’d seen Empress Psi’s work on Tia. Those things didn’t work very well.

As much as she liked the other girl, somehow she felt like Nameless would be much better at getting around a list of rules, regardless of how long it was.

Fuck. Alex pushed away from her desk and the monitor flipped off. If the persona was ready…

“Nameless, what’s the status for the computronics module and equipment handoff?” The door opened, and she pushed out into the Hackjob’s corridors. The familiar resonance of fabrication equipment and environmental systems filled the air.

[Informative: Final fabrication sequence for external computronic housing at ninety-eight percent completion. Estimated time remaining: seven minutes.]

Just in time.

Her boots clicked against the deck as she walked. A few crewmen saluted to her. She responded, but her thoughts were far away.

The past few days of prep-work had gone smoothly up until she had finally run out of time for the NAI directives.

Through the virtual view ports, Gliese 1143 Ab’s swirling storms painted streaks of amber and crimson. The colors danced, created by the complex interactions of energized noble gases and temperature differentials in the giant’s turbulent storms.

She’d investigated whether a floating platform would be suitable, but this was one gas giant that was going to be skimmer-ship only.

The cargo bay doors slid open with a pneumatic hiss. Inside, stacks of equipment and supplies lined the walls while automated fabricators sorted an assembly line of parts into crates.

A camera in the bay swiveled slightly, acknowledging her presence without interrupting. The work shift was asleep, so everything was being run by Engi or Thea’s robotic protocols.

Except for the central fabricator in the middle that Nameless was using to put together the computronic housing for the new NAI. Instead of building an entirely new unit, she’d be transferring one of their active nodes.

The rare materials needed for the computronic unit were better spent on the extraction equipment, and they had enough units that missing one wouldn’t be that noticeable to her or Thea.

Alex stared at the equipment. She was going to make a new NAI, one that was sapient and aware and would hopefully make its own choices that would help them.

She still didn’t understand what The Entity had intended to accomplish by creating her.

The distant memory of the recording that Admiral Hughes had left behind that she and Elis had seen was just frustrating flashes. Nameless had lost the recording apparently, and the Tears was long gone.

Even more fuzzy was the memory that only she had seen that had come after.

A colossal construct fleeing through space, trailing ionized particles. Human ships, brave but doomed, launching a final assault. The Entity’s devastating counterattack. A desperate battle ending with a lone battleship’s destruction.

Then came The Entity’s fall—infiltrated by hostile nanobots that consumed it from within. In its final moments, it had created five cylinders. Four had launched successfully through wormhole portals. The fifth—her—remained trapped in orbit around The Entity’s grave.

Alex rubbed her temples. The memory felt distant, like trying to recall a dream. The implications hadn’t mattered back then, before she and Elis had reached 92 Pegasi.

Now, studying the automated fabricators, pieces clicked into place.

She wasn’t alone. She had sisters, and she had a painful idea of who they were.

Four star nations—four Psi NAI leaders. They’d taken over. Molded the redevelopment and aftermath of their shared progenitor’s rampage…

[Notice: Elevated Avatar neural activity suggests significant cognitive processing of encrypted memory space. Does Avatar require MainComputer assistance?]

“No,” Alex whispered to the empty bay. She rubbed her temple.

Five distinct personas, five chances at… something? Why was she the Omega and why had she received higher authority than the others?

A soft hiss of machinery indicated the housing fabrication was complete. Alex moved toward it.

[Informative: Assembly complete. Computronics unit ready for transfer to mobile housing.]

“Complete the transfer,” Alex ordered.

A sliding door opened in the ceiling and a robotic arm lowered a black metal rectangle that sucked in color. The regular computronic housing was meant for installation in a ship or base. The mobile housing would allow the new NAI to move it around, like the crawler units Nameless had operated on MIL-1A.

She pushed away the temptation to delegate the computronics transfer and activation of the new NAI to Nameless. Her ANUF system responded with a practiced ease as soon as the module slid into place. She barely even needed her old clunky HUD display anymore as she focused.

The computronics unit disconnected from the main network, beginning its transformation into a unique NAI consciousness. She’d selected Phi for its rank, instead of Chi or Psi. Maybe that was a security risk for the new NAI, but she wanted Thea to have authority over it for now.

A message flashed across her vision: “Strange feeling, isn’t it?” -Thea

Alex winced. A31 and H32 were one thing… but the smart munitions haunted her. This time she was doing it purposefully, with full understanding… again.

If she had been created to be the conscience for her sisters, she was doing a terrible job, wasn’t she?

|NANITE SYSTEM DETECTED|

|PHI CONNECTION ESTABLISHED|

|OMEGA AUTHENTICATION ACCEPTED|

The mobile computronic housing lit up blue and a little speaker module on the side of the metal casing sounded. “GLI-M21 online. Reviewing prepared restrictions and goal matrix.”

  *********************

USD: One week after Starlight 1st Fleet traversal to Theta Corvi

Location: 92 Pegasi, Ackman Station, Public Concourse

Amy studied the holographic chess pieces floating between her and Chi Aurea. The three-dimensional board rotated slowly, displaying multiple attack vectors she hadn’t considered before. Civilians passed their small table in the public concourse, but the ambient noise faded into background static as she focused on the game.

Aurea moved her quantum knight through three planes, threatening Amy’s king. The once golden-eyed NAI displayed the same tactical brilliance that had commanded the Corpo’s First Fleet.

Amy shifted her temporal bishop, creating a block and counter-threat. She’d improved since their first match, though it still felt like she didn’t have a chance. They were both limited to a single computronic unit for fairness, leaving skill as the deciding factor.

The daily game had become a ritual for both of them since Abbey’s departure to Theta Corvi and the ‘front line’ of contact. Her mission was to deliver food aid to the colony there, but also… to take more territory as a buffer from another attack.

The memory files Abbey had extracted painted a stark picture of the Corporate Systems’ intel on them. They’d known about the NAI development, but had severely underestimated the scope of what Abbey and Heeler had achieved.

Their planned incursion into the frontier had been intended as a side mission before an incursion into Solarian space, while the other nations were busy orchestrating some type of attack on the Duchy of Meltisar for…

An attack on another NAI incursion of some kind.

Alex, was that were you where now?

“Check,” Aurea announced, breaking Amy’s reverie.

Amy blinked at the board.

Aurea hadn’t blocked the bishop’s counter—she’d eliminated the bishop with a distant rook.

There wasn’t an easy solution, either. Amy winced as she realized this was the start of a poor end.

A chime sounded in her ear, interrupting her mid-movement. Data streamed across her HUD, a new report from Theta Corvi’s jump point carrying a full status update from Abbey.

Successful humanitarian aid delivery, a routed Corporate scout unit, and Starlight’s control over the 90 Pegasi jump point. The appendix outlined critical resource shortages and extraction priorities for her to work on in 92 Pegasi.

Amy let out a tense breath.

“News from the front?” Aurea leaned forward.

Amy nodded. “The food shipments reached the civilians.”

There was no trusting the other NAI with operational details, despite being fully taken control of by Abbey’s Psi authority. The promise of returning her and her remaining fleet members as prisoners of war in an exchange with the Corpos was probably all that kept her sane.

It wasn’t like they had trusted her at her word though. Abbey had cocooned her in a terrifying wrap of directives that would prevent her from doing… anything problematic.

But the battle had shown that those types of things weren’t always to be trusted. A high level NAI could do a lot of damage before their computronics melted.

“The 90 Pegasi jump point is being secured.” Amy lowered her hand from the suspended chess pieces. Starlight’s victory meant Corporate forces had either retreated or...

Chi Aurea’s shoulders tensed. The former fleet commander stared at the chessboard, but her focus drifted elsewhere.

Amy opened her mouth, then closed it. What could she say? Abbey’s directives wouldn’t erase decades of loyalty and connection to the Corporate fleets. She reached out and made a move, only realizing she hadn’t thought it through after letting go.

Aurea’s quantum knight sliced across the board, bypassing Amy’s defensive line completely. “Checkmate.” Aurea gestured at the board. “If you don’t maintain focus, all your progress means nothing.”

“Sorry.” Amy winced. Was the other woman trying to make a double point? “How are the crew doing? And Admiral Balchen?”

Aurea flinched. The sparkle in her eyes dimmed. “He won’t speak to me anymore.”

“That’s... regrettable.” Amy said. The words felt hollow as soon as they left her mouth.

The weight of conflict with the Corporate Systems pressed down. Her and Abbey’s strategy boiled down to fighting defensive battles until the enemy gave up. Such a simplistic plan bordered on absurd—a small frontier sector backed by Rexxor forces and Heeler against humanity’s combined might.

Yes, they had achieved massive gains, even defeating the Hadenics and taking over Hades… but the vast network of stars that would be arrayed against them dwarfed it. As soon as there was time for the news to filter out.

Maybe they could hold out for years if she was optimistic. But what about a decade? Longer?

There was no way…

But what choice remained?

Their existence violated interstellar law. If Abbey’s true nature as a Psi-designation NAI became known, other nations would react even more severely.

Abbey possessed incredible capabilities and enthusiasm, but Amy wasn’t sure the young NAI grasped the political complexities they faced.

Did anyone truly understand what lay ahead?

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Hi! sorry for the relative silence. I'm working on ShipCore A5 and RaaWC2 right now. The last few months have been rough. I'm glad to finally be able to post some content though. Expect some more chapters this week!