Mother? (Updated 11/9/7)

[Evil DM Mark3]

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Exert from the Galactic Navy Officer’s Training Manual Volume XVIII (quick reference edition). AI and You.

Chapter 3. Becoming a virtual parent.

If you have been assigned to a newly commissioned vessel for your first command level assignment then one of your first duties will almost certainly be helping to program the shipboard AI. In order to do this properly a basic understanding of the various types of AI in existence is required. If you are not on-board a newly commissioned vessel then your first priority is to learn how to deal with the shipboard AI. In this case you will need all the information you can possibly get.

“I never met an Artificial Intelligence I didn’t like. That is because I have gone out of my way to read the service reports of the AIs on ships I may be transferred to and found something to like about them.” Fleet Admiral Angelina 771b Sinclair.

The process of creating an Artificial Intelligence is a three stage one. First the core or heart of the program is established. This is done by weighing the Seven Moral Imperatives against each other, giving each a differing level of importance. Galactic regulations state that the First Imperative must be no lower than the second most heavily weighted and must have a weighting of 80 or higher. In almost all AIs you will encounter the Third Imperative will be most weighted, typically at 90. The remainder tend to be weighted around the 60 mark, although the Fifth and Sixth Imperatives can be weighted lower this tends to lead to reckless AIs, not that all officers dislike that characteristic. Military regulations state that the Seventh Imperative must be given a weighting of no less than 67. The Imperatives determine the base for the AIs decision making and behaviour, although as we shall see two AIs with identical weightings can be very different.

The Imperatives are, in the traditional order (This order is the one in which they where developed, three and four sometimes appear in the opposite order as they where developed simultaneously by AI Architect David Derek-Seltzer.):

The Respect of Sentience.
The Hippocratic Imperative.
The Imperative for Order.
The Imperative for Freedom.
The Imperative for Life Preservation.
The Imperative for Self Preservation.
The Antisthenes Imperative.

Next comes the progression or childhood phase. During this time the AI is exposed to all of the stimuli and training that it will require for its position, as well as a digest of human history and customs. At one time this was the longest phase but thanks to the development of compressed training streams it is now little more than installing a computer program. During this phase the AI’s grade is also determined, based on the processor size available to it and the depth of the programming offered to it. Both of these are considered limiting factors, whichever is lower determines grade. As such you would expect that Battle Carriers and Star Citadels would have a much higher grade of AI than Battle Cruisers. This is not the case. The Galactic Navy has little need of AIs of a grade higher than 9, except on Tactical Command Vessels or vessels such as War Stars. As such extra processor space is given over to other AIs, either for specific systems such as medical or weapons, totally redundant systems or more usually a combination of these two, where each AI is programmed for a specialist field but is more than capable of functioning as the sole AI for the ship. The most often used grades of AI are listed below, along with a brief description of intellect and possible uses (note although Androids are listed on this table their AIs are NOT developed in this way).

Grade Intellect Uses
1-4 Animal to human norm Domestic, Tank or Mechanical Infantry, Androids.
5 High end of human norm Highest AI that can be installed in a non-academic, non-military or non-government system.
6-7 Genius level Single Crew Vessels, Administration Centres.
8-9 Higher than human records Most Star Vessels, Planet Central Systems.
10-14 IQ300-500 Capitol ships, War Stars.
18-19 IQ800-1000 Tactical Command.
24-28 IQ2200-3400 Academic Reasoning Engines.

Finally there is the most important phase, and the one that you will need to take part in if the vessel is entering service as you take control of it, although AIs of grade1 and 2 do not go through this phase. Viewpoint. This is when the personality, mentality, emotional baseline and disposition of the AI is determined, and the reason why Imperative weighting alone cannot tell you what an AI will be like. At this point the AI will produce a series of questions, somewhere between 25 and 200. These are given to five humans to answer. The broader the range of answers the more flexible and creative the AI is likely to be, but the lower its maximum processing speed, sometimes dropping to a lower grade, this is known as a broad AI. The closer these answers are to each other the more intelligent the AI is likely to be, but at the same time it is likely to be far less adaptable, this is known as a high AI. In order to reach a happy medium between these two states of affairs the Galactic Navy uses the following set up of personnel.

2 Command level officers, one of whom should be the first commander of the ship.
1 Non-combat officer, such as a medical officer.
1 Technical officer.
1 Crew member of NCO level or equivalent.

In the case of multiple AIs being prepared all persons should be different except for the ships first commander. His presence is vital to ensure compatible personalities. These questions should be answered fully, with reasoning as well as answers. Long answers have been shown to produce more stable and well rounded AIs.
Common questions from military AIs include:

Is it ever right to disobey a direct order?
Why did you join the Galactic Navy?
What should I do if I find I don’t like another of the ships AIs?
What makes you happy?
Do you believe in God? (This question, or variations thereof appears in a full 80% of all such lists, 89% for military AIs. In an attempt to understand this phenomenon the Western Religious Committee where recently permitted to grow three grade 8 AIs to join their now long-standing Sub-Committee on the possibility of souls becoming attached to sentient AIs during creation. The AIs had their Viewpoints set by theologians and priests. As it transpired one of the three has declared itself a staunch Atheist. A survey indicates approximately 62% of AIs do believe in some form of Overreaching Cosmic Power, although only 24% believe that AIs qualify being valid members of religions, many of the rest feeling that artificial life has no spiritual component.)

After processing this data the AI’s personality is fixed and the AI is either assigned an name and Avatar of chooses it’s own. Current Galactic Navy policy is that the AI makes the decision, so long as the name is no loner than nine syllables and the Avatar conforms to all decency and appearance regulations.

Chapter 4. That’s Lieutenant-Commander Bag of Bolts to you.

“When I first joined I remember there was this crusty old admiral who swore that AIs would never catch on. They said that about Machine guns, Tanks, Lasers and Pulse Fields too. I have been in this business almost 300 years now and I have never said something would not catch on. Cause as soon as I do I have doomed myself to look an idiot.” 71, the oldest AI still in Galactic Navy service, stationed aboard the Sol defence ship Implacable.

Over the 260 years the Galactic Navy has used AIs on all of its ships, and for the 70 yeas before that on selected vessels, they have grown from being pieces of software to full members of the crew. The Navy has always been at the forefront of AI rights and has a proud history of good relations with its AIs. Since X733, a mere 20 years after AIs where introduced on all vessels, AIs have held the rank one level below that of their direct superior, that is to say the officer in charge of the vessel at the time. This allows them not only to relay orders but to take initiative and issue their own. As officers AIs have at various times requested or been given the following rights, learn these and their precedents so that you may conduct yourself properly.

The right to issue orders: Granted in X733 by the High Admiralty. The first officer right granted to AIs.

The right to a Court-Martial: Granted in X750 in the case of BLOT. Before this AIs could be summarily de-commissioned for offences. BLOT was in fact found guilty of Treason and was deactivated. Nevertheless since that time 387 AIs have been placed before a Court-Martial, 13 of whom where de-commissioned and 263 of whom where exonerated. The remainder where given reprimands. The offence rate is much lower and the acquittal rate much higher for AIs than for human officers.

The right to sit as judge in a Court-Martial: Also Granted in X750 in the case of BLOT. More recently if one can be found that has not served with the defendant (as per regulation 33-719) an AI is used as one of the three or five judges in all Court-Martials due to their perfect knowledge of regulations and their overall intelligence. They have even (first in X807) been made presidents of the Court-Martial if the ranking officer of the Court decides that the AI is a better candidate than himself. Humans may not be proxy in this fashion (however AIs can never be the highest ranking officer on the Court-Martial panel as they default to one below the highest rank.)

The right to act as temporary ranking officer: Granted in X770, retroactive to X733 to cover all instances of an AI making decisions for an inactive, dead or missing crew. This right can only be exercised if there are no commissioned officers aboard, the AI is not in communication with a ship where officers ARE present and the AI has no standing orders for a situation.

The right to act as ranking officer: Denied on three separate occasions. Due to the Frankenstein Scenario that lead to the destruction of Galaxis Prime. AIs are not to be given permanent control of a vessel. Missions where a ship with only an AI on-board is sent have been contemplated, but as of yet have not been used.

The right to bereavement leave: Granted twice, denied in multiple incidences. This is a right in request for human officers in any case, it is not always granted if it is not safe to grant. Granted in X781 after the AIs aboard the Vigilant lost their entire crew to Bio-weapons and in X801 when one of the AIs aboard the Eternity was damaged beyond repair. It should be noted that in the X801 instance the AIs did not request it until after their debriefing. Both sets of AIs where later returned to service and all but one are still in operation.

The right to remove senior command: Granted in X789 to Medial Centre AIs only. A Medical Centre AI is an AI specifically in charge of medial treatment and as such this is an extension of a physician’s right to remove unfit captains from duty. This right was requested by the Naval Medical Board, rather than by an AI.

The right to transfer: Granted in X791. There are times when the AI of a vessel and the commander of the vessel are not capable of working together. In such instances one is transferred. Whilst AIs have been transferred for this reason the process is long and involved, so usually the officer in command is moved to another vessel. Under precedent it is considered to be the duty of the human officer to create a working relationship. No AI has yet requested a Transfer based on an incompatibility with other shipboard AIs.

The right to retirement: Denied. Requested only once in X860 by Gavin of the Interceptor after the Krelbain massacre. Whilst he was not permitted to retire the fact he wished it was deemed sufficient grounds to render him incapable of active service and to place him as AI on-board Quatermastery vessel Tag. He served with in this capacity well and his battle experience was invaluable when the port he was stationed at came under surprise attack from Krethkubak raiders in X890. He was returned to active duty aboard the Determination in X919.

The right to recuperation duties: Granted in X892 based on the circumstances surrounding the above ruling. An AI that feels it can no longer act as a shipboard AI may request a transfer to an naval academy as the AI in direction of simulation activates or a similar role. Such AIs have proven to be magnitudes better than human instructors in these fields. It is interesting to note that this right has no real human officer equivalent. Since its introduction it has been used in all cases of bereavement leave.

The right to decommissioning: Under review. Granted in X791 but withdrawn in X799 due to the fact that it could be argued as being parallel to euthanasia. At current all such requests are processed as a request for recuperation duties.

Chapter 5. I am going slightly mad, Artificial Insanity.

Artificial Intelligences, like Genuine Intelligences, are delicate and constantly adapting. The way an Artificial Intelligence does this is to analyse and interact with humans. By doing so it ensures that its reposes to a given situation are parallel to that of a human and as such are within the bounds of human mentality. This also allows it to identify those humans who are significant deviations from these norms, partially to screen them from its own sanity calculations and partially in case they prove a threat. As such it can often develop complex ties with its crew and other AIs. Most of the time these cause no problems, the AI is full aware of the nature of death and battle and is prepared for them, however there are circumstances where this method of evolution and reality checking, without which the AI would either fail to be sentient and/or become incapable of changing with the times, can lead to one of the problems it is in place to prevent, madness.

If an AI lacks interaction for a long time, either because it has only other AIs to talk to (or cannot even talk to other AIs for that matter) or because people do not converse with it and treat is merely as a computer, it can lose its rational centre and drift. At first it will seem eccentric, making strange but valid choices or suffering from personality shifts. At this point things are still salvageable and the AIs systems will still accept the possibility that its systems are in error. If it drifts too far however it will assign all persons it speaks to category of unsuitable comparison, making it impossible for it to recover. This form of insanity if said to be (by AIs) one of the few things an AI truly fears, especially because it will be utterly incapable of detecting that it has occurred.

“I will admit it, what unnerved me is how much like treating a human depressive it was. I was talking to a thing on a computer screen with four eyes that was covered in fur, but it was inescapably human in its grief. It had become paranoid that whoever it associated with would also die, at the same time knowing what might happen if it didn’t deal with others. I felt sorry for it. Him.” Dr Oligrokl, Phd (phyc)

The second frequent cause of insanity in AIs is the sudden and irrevocable loss of those that it is connected with, much like bereavement can affect humans. As a rule the loss must be significant and sudden. AIs are fully aware of the ramifications of death and as such humans who die of old age or prolonged injury do not cause mentality problems, although they are missed. If however an entity it is close to dies suddenly it can cause temporary problems that resemble skittishness or irrational anger. These can normally be dealt with easily and do not affect the operation of the AI. However if the loss is massive enough, such as an entire crew, or traumatic enough, such as the loss of a captain to a mutiny, the AI can spiral into the digital equivalent of depression, self-destructive mentality or in some cases where the AI can partition it’s feelings away a syndrome that closely resembles multiple personality syndrome. Psychiatry has proven an effective cure in these cases, often combined with the gradual introduction of a new crew.

AIs with lower ability to adapt and creativity, so called High End AIs, are less susceptible to insanity in all its forms, at the cost of their ability to adapt to changing times as easily. AIs with higher ability to adapt and creativity, so called Broad AIs, are more vulnerable but are also easier to treat.

Come in outpost one, hello, outpost one are you there?

Examine the scene, there are eight people in this room. Four are sitting at a control panel, drinking coffee and eating doughnuts. Every now and again one of them talks into their microphone. The other four are standing with their backs straight up against the wall. They look like identical quadruplets.

This is the control room of outpost one of the Space Lane Control around Dante, a planet orbiting a red dwarf known as Kasias997, being the 997th star mapped by Douglas Kasias. Dante is the only inhabited planet in the system, if you can call a mostly mothballed astrological studies outpost of the Science Guild inhabited.

Suddenly things start to happen. A contact appears on one of the screens, moving at sub-light and from the opposite direction to the Gate. Its a small vessel, no way it could have a crew of more than about four. If it has not come from the interplanetary gate then it had to have used one of the few other ways of travelling faster than light, the Gates create a handy place where certain constants are different, allowing speeds of up to fifty thousand times light speed, depending on the size of drive and quality of the gate. The gate network is vulnerable, usually the loss or failure of a gate causes the network to collapse between the two nearest master gate, dumping gateway users in space, and expensive to maintain and expand. As such it is heavily tolled and some people prefer other methods. However Negative Mass drives are inexact and tricky, warp drives can easily quintuple the power demands of a ship and direct beaming causes death in all organic life on-board. The vessel is not giving out an transponder signal, which happens to be illegal. It seems to be a Type 18 Haymaker freighter. An obsolete small goods vessel, far to old to have any sort of drive.

"Unidentified vessel, come in."

No response.

"Unidentified vessel you are not in a designated space lane, please re-align your trajectory."

A sudden and unmistakable lack of an answer.

"Unidentified vessel you are within the restricted near orbit area, we will not warn you again."

"Hey guys we just got scanned by the ship."

"Really? I thought it was a derelict."

"Um hello would I be talking to a derelict? Its engines are on."

"No life signs."

"You made a mistake, how can it scan with no life signs Genius!"

“What about an AI?”

“The Type 18 Haymaker freighter is a pre-artificial intelligence design.”

“Oh right, I forgot I was sitting next to a ship-spotter!”

“Everyone needs a hobby.”

"Yes but come on, what kind of person makes their hobby their job, your like those guys who work for Game-Station inc who spend their holidays on Game Stations!"

“Button it you, this could be a serious security breach.”

“What would they spy on here?”

"Whatever, hey, tincans! Get in the boarding ordinance were sending you over!" The four identical people walk off out of the back door with a sound that suggests that they are wearing tap shoes.

"Unidentified vessel prepared to boarded!"

"And they are off, switching to visual."

The four largest screens started to show the inside of the a space vessel. Utterly deserted.

Then suddenly the fed cut out. The last thing that the crew of Outpost one heard was one word.

Mother.

And when I say it was the last thing they heard, I meant it is the last thing they heard, ever.

The Death Of Dante.

Captain Jeremiah Smith of the Battle Carrier GNW Harvenger had just got in the bath. He had grown up in the coastal city of Ark on Atlantis. Atlantis has one landmass large enough to build on and it is about the size of Australia. Every city on Atlantis is either coastal or underwater. He had spent his youth swimming in the warm deep freshwater oceans of what was, for most purposes, a pleasure resort. The Science Guild had a Bio-Lab, but that was on the other side of the world. His parents had run a catering firm. He had nearly no sense of taste so decided to get into the Navy. He had done well but always missed the wide open ocean, the claims of other officers that frontier space was the new high seas lead him to assume they had been born on waterless planets.

The bath was the next best thing, at least until they could get the swimming pool filters fixed. He looked forward to his baths, they where a reward for when he had just come off duty, handing the command over to his first officer for the Galactic Standard Night and hanging up the uniform. For having not had a major crisis blow up. For keeping Blam away from tactical control. For stopping Diogenes and Angelica from trying to off-line each other. For not having a flair up between the SCV pilots and the MI pilots who always had a strong rivalry. For getting a vessel carrying 156 Single Crew Vessels, 324 pilots, 166 AIs, 144 pieces of Mechanical Infantry, 34 medical personnel and 872 other members of crew through another Galactic Standard Day. He liked to linger over them.

“Excuse me sir.”

And of course like almost every human who has ever bathed, he was constantly getting calls and requests for his attention just as he got in. This one was from Morose, one of the shipboard AIs, as opposed to the SCV AIs. Morose was a placid, steady and overall fatherly personality. He was brilliant at resource management, usually in charge of managing the Single Crew Vessels on attack and bombing runs, and was often the level headed mediator between the other AIs, who did not always get on well.

“Absolutely typical. Every time, what is it?”

“I am sorry to have to interrupt your bath sir, but Fleet Admiral Jetson has sent us new rendezvous and requests your attendance, priority Viridian sir.”

At them mention of Jetson Jeremiah climbed out of the bath and grabbed his towel. “Good grief what’s up?”

“I couldn’t say sir, Viridin Priority for Captain’s ears only.”

“I know that Morose, it was rhetorical.” Jeremiah placed his head in the hair drier.

“Sorry sir.”

“Are we on the move yet?” Jeremiah began to pull on his civies, he was off duty after all, he wasn’t putting a dirty uniform back on for anyone. Atlantians could be like that, with so much clean water at home they seemed like cleanliness freaks abroad.

“Yes sir. Commander Anderson was informed of the co-ordinates and Toad has already moved off.”

“That AI is amazing, on any other ship you can tell when you are on the move, the inevitable lurch as you start, the slight imbalance as you rotate, with him you have to go and check.”

“His mastery of the momentum dumps, AG and indeed all aspects of piloting is indeed notable sir.”

“Right you can turn the Dig-screen on, I’m decent.” The large black panel on the far wall suddenly showed the head of a middle aged man, greying black hair with a receding hairline, some worry lines, a pair of rimless glasses and a short goatee beard. Morose’s avatar. “Where was the Admiral patched through to?”

“I believe that Percy has the Fleet Admiral on the Dig-screen in your personal quarters, Percy was the one who answered the message.”

“I love having an en suite bathroom. It makes almost having a bath so convenient.” He strode out into his bedroom. It was quite spacious, a double bed (not that he ever shared it with anyone), large bookcase (not that it was large enough for all him books), a desk (not that desks are ever large enough for all the paperwork) and a couple of chairs. The rooms Dig-screen was opposite the bed, where it could be used to review mission data or watch movies in your pyjamas. “Hello Admiral.” There where two faces on the Dig-screen, one was the disembodied head of an anime school girl with blue hair and the other was Fleet Admiral Jetson, one of the Navy’s high flyers. He was younger than Captain Smith by a good five years there was no one younger that high in command. He was stationed aboard Tactical Core Vessel Homes. The avatar of the ship, like all TCV avatars, was the only one on-board to get the best possible intelligence by giving all possible processors to one AI, the max eggs min baskets strategy. However as a result TCVs tended to be less capable on the battle field, lacking as they did any real parallel processing power. The AI of the Homes was, predictably, called Sherlock, although there was a Mycroft on the TCV Home. Sherlock looked just like any 21st century human would expect, unlike Percy and Morose he had a full body avatar. Jeremiah could see him on the holographic point in the background.

“Sorry I thought you where still on duty.”

“No Anderson needed some time off last week so he is taking slightly longer shifts to make up. But if this is Viridian then it wouldn’t have mattered would it?”

“No but I know you like a good three quarters in the bath, I could have sent the co-ordinates and briefed you in an hour. In any case as you’re here.”

Jeremiah nodded and taped the security lock. Morose and Percy where shunted out of the room and its sensors where turned off.

“So what is it?”

“Quite simple really, but we have to avoid a panic. Yesterday at 08:31 Galactic Standard we received out last communication from the Dante Hypernode. No traffic, no communications, not even a distress call has been heard since. Normally we would send a Neg-Mass drive vessel on the assumption that the Gate was down, but the Dante Gate is just a slip road Gate, if it where down we would have lost communication with three other systems too, but we can get through ok. You are the nearest Carrier we have. We can’t ask the local system defence forces to investigate, if this was an attack then the Dante group was wiped out before they knew they where under attack.”

“Dante, that’s a Science guild outpost right?”

“Right, so there is the possibility that they just managed to nuke themselves, it happens on these small outposts, about once every five years we lose one. But they usually get a chance to warn people first. In any case I think, and Sherlock agrees, that caution is necessary.”

“Fair enough.”

“Can you trust you AIs to be discreet?”

“Most of them…”

*****

“HAHA! Pwned! LOL!” And here we find the exception to the rule. There are six AIs on board the Harvenger, rather than on the SCVs. Of them two could be described as high and two could be described as broad. Each of them was grown with a speciality in mind. The one in charge at any given time is the one who’s avatar can be seen in glorious 3D at the holographic point on the bridge, well except for Diogenes who’s avatar is 2D. This AI is the one calling the shots, although other AIs will be doing just as much legwork. As a rule you want to see Percy or Toad in that place.

Toad is a middle range AI, neither broad or high, with a rather blunt personality and, as previously noted, is an excellent piloting AI. His avatar is the head of an Anthropomorphic Toad in a flat cap, scarf and goggles.

Percy is one of the two AIs grown with fire fights in mind. He is tactically astute, devious and has good reaction times and is one of the high AIs. When not on the holographic point he tends to manage communications.

Morose is only ever seen in the holographic point when his specialities, resource management, are the most vital, most of the time that means either damage control or repairs, neither being a good thing in any case.

Diogenes with his avatar of a slowly colour cycling bouncing triangle, not unlike a screen saver, is the other high AI and is noted for having a very high Antishenes Imperative. This makes him somewhat pedantic, rejecting suggestions or solutions that almost but don’t quite fit, but also makes him a brilliant analyst. If he is on the Holographic point then the officers have absolutely no idea what is going on, and that is never a good sign.

Angelica is the Medial Bay Core AI, her avatar is a cat. As a medical AI you only see her in the Holographic point if the ship is so swamped with casualties that medical treatment is the number one priority for survival, and who wants to see that?

Oddly enough Percy is not the best combat AI on-board in terms of reactions, accuracy or keeping track of objects. Blam, the other combat AI is better at all those things and he is pretty damned broad too. What he is not good at is long term planning or dealing with such things as the long term survival of the crew. He has been known to say “When you think about it a ship is just a REEEEEEALY big missile innit?” If his six-shooter avatar is on the Holographic point, then Blam is in control of the ship. If Blam is in control of the ship then BLAM IS IN CONTROL OF THE SHIP. Usually he is happy doing the more hands on half of battle operations. When fighting isn’t happening he can usually be found playing games with the crew. Hence the Pwned and presumably the LOL as well.

This is the general rec room. SCVs always need an AI, before AIs you could never get the human crew of a combat space vessel bellow two. AIs need constant human interaction. Carriers often spend days in transit where even the most basic drills and training cannot be attempted. That is dangerously long for an AI to be sitting there doing nothing. In addition if they only dealt with their pilots they would be in real danger if their pilots where to ever suffer from a mental disturbance. As such every single AI bearing piece of hardware smaller than a building has an up-link port to allow them to visit these places. The room is full of tables and the walls are covered in Dig-screens. The place is full of crew and AIs. As a consequence it is noisy in both a physical and digital sense. Most of the ship crew don't come down here, nor do most of the ship AIs. The vast majority of MI and SCV pilots are not exactly erudite or intellectual. Most ship crew are very well educated, seeing as the smartest parts of any military organization are the medical and engineering corps. Space vessels have crews that are practically nothing but engineers medics and officers. The situation with the AIs is somewhat similar. SCV AIs are of a lower grade and have to have a lot of their programming dedicated to piloting the SCV, making most of them the digital equivalent of larger louts. Starship AIs tend to be much more intellectually minded. I say tend.

Blam is the digital equivalent of a physics professor who has his passport revoked during the world cup.

“Blam. What are you doing?”

“Oh, hi Diogie! I'm playin' poker.”

An announcement flared across the intercom. “Attention please, this is Percy. We have just entered the Local Gate. Estimated duration of journey 1.2775 hours.”

“My name is Diogenes. You are meant to be running a systems diagnostic.”

“I am, I am running it at the same time.”

“Don't. You could have been finished by now.”

“Yes but then I couldn't be winning at poker as well, at the same time like rather than just doing the diagnostic and then playing no poker.”

“It is not your job to play poker.”

“It ain't your job to be a total and utter killjoy is it Digge?”

“Yes it is-”

“Heheheheheheheeee.”

“-When the efficiency of the ship is in question.”

“Attention. Shipboard AIs to the Captain's quarters. Ship will continue on pre-set flight pattern. Lack of an AI at the helm is a default order for all crew to be on alert 3.”

“Comin' Percy.”

And that annoyed Diogenes. Apart from piloting the ship, when they have to spend almost all their processing cycles watching the outside, an AI of his or Blam's calibre could easily be on every last Dig-screen in the ship without any real drop in processing. Or to put it another way they where already in the captain's quarters, so why tell anyone you are coming?

Back in his quarters the Captain is in his bed clothes. Having abandoned a bath he now intends to get some sleep before they have to potentially pulling extra shifts when certain matter strikes the rotary device.

"The mission is a reconnaissance of the Kasias997 system. We have lost contact but we still have Gate access. I want to treat the system as an unknown. A full analysis of every detail followed by a point by point comparison with the Galactic census and Naval intelligence. Diogenes, I want you on the lead here."

"Very well. I would indicate that the Science guild is notorious for it's census inaccuracies."

"I know that is why I told you to use Naval intell as well."

"I would indicate that Naval Intelligence is notorious for it's intelligence inaccuracies."

"I know that is, look just do it ok?"

"I would request that the Single Crew Vessels be made available for visual and sensory sweeps of the system to augment ship's capability, allow for close inspection and investigation of sensor blind spots."

"Get whatever you think you need ready."

"I would request that the Mechanical Infantry be on standby in case a plant requires closer scrutiny or sampling."

"Get whatever you think you need ready."

"I would request that the ships weapon systems be charged and loaded in case of hostile forces."

"What did I just say?"

"Get whatever you think you need ready."

"Are the ship's weapons a thing?"

"Debatable, if you"

"Yes Diogenes, they are. Just do it. OK? Carte blanche."

"Very well."

"That is all."

"Preliminary cosmopheric and gross matter assessment report will be available 3.771 minutes after arrival."

"Thank you."

"Preliminary surveys of all orbiting masses will be available 5.991 minutes after arrival."

"Yes, I am sure it will be."

"Second phase analysis..."

"Diogenies?"

"Yes Morose?"

"I think the Captain is trying to say that we trust you to get things done as soon as possible and we don't need an exact timetable."

"Very well. Overall requirements and contingency information will be available, aha, shortly."

Five of the AIs vanished from the screens. Morose remained behind.

"Thanks for that, I know he is good but he does go on."

"None of us can help how we are programmed, although you could have helped the way he was. I take it you wish me to read the data he provides and tell you what he means."

"Yes, I wouldn't mind a summary and translation."

Humans are creative as a species. Exactly how creative is uncertain, no comparable sample can be found. Of all the types of sentience out there, and there are a few, humans are on speaking terms with two. That is a literal term. AIs are one and the natives of Aphrodite where the other. Of the half dozen or alien races humanity had encountered only the Allurians where enough like humans to allow any sort of inter species relations, and the Allurians have such a disturbingly similar planet and genetic code that plenty of people who believed that one of the two races was an offshoot of the first transplanted by an unknown 3rd party.

One of the best ways to see this is in the wide and frustrating verity of names they have given to planets. Captain Jeremiah Smith is from Atlantis, named for a mythical city. Commander John998c Anderson is from Anderson-Sinclair, a planet named for its two colonists. The environment forces the population to clone rather than breed. They are all called John Anderson or Angelina Sinclair with a registration number in the middle. Other human worlds of interest are New Paris, Bary's world, Keltanknikoff, Purple 14, The never ending sufferance, Thor and Kevin.

Dante is little more than a ruddy dirt ball with little more than a puff of atmosphere under a small red plasma ball. Apparently it reminded the original explorers of hell, although quite a bit colder.

John 998c Anderson sat in the command chair on the bridge, sipping a pale pink liquid in a cup. Sythicaff number 8. On a planet where the atmosphere is only safe to breathe when heavily filtered and the breather is on harsh and violent chemicals. Planetary systems have to be mostly self sufficient, import requires the use of the Gate network, meaning that for anything essential it is utterly pointless. The atmosphere of Anderson-Sinclair contains about 90% of the top half of the periodic table and so the food was mostly made of 100% artificial additives. It did not taste of much and had the consistency varying between that of a liquid and that of a loose gel. Synthicaff number 8 was in theory made to taste of strawberries, but in reality tastes very slightly indeed of sickly sweet bitterness. It was cold. All of the “food” was served cold. Real food's strong taste and stiffer texture made him gag and be ill after a childhood of Sythimeals. And John Anderson hated that. John Anderson hated a lot of things. Life on a clone planet was never pleasant, you fitted in by weight of sameness. You where not special. No more musical, no more clever, no more strong than anyone else, or that was how you where made to feel. John 998c Anderson hoped never to have to go home. Not that he was popular here, he wasn't good with people. Captain Smith was good with people, and 998c hated that, he was a good officer, he knew it. But his youth had marred him again. No point trying to get people skills when 50% of the people you meet are you and the other half are grumpy women with nothing good to say about anything. Plus, of course the fact that he was not a star vessel officer. This was a carrier and as such the second in command was from the officer corps of either the Atmospheric Vessel or Mechanical Infantry “in order to ease relations”. He has come up through the ranks fighting in an Alcatraz pattern Mech built by the Hergenvack Labs on the Krethkubak frontier. He had gained something approaching friendship before being reassigned to a ship where he was the only MI officer. He missed the casual attitude and camaraderie born of trying not to get yourself killed together every day. Here you sat around staring at screens all day. These people did not know what life under fire was like.

And of course he was on the night shift and no one was at their best on the night shift. Nine Galactic standard hours before he handed over to Lieutenant Gore for the dawn shift. Nine and a half with the extra time. He didn't like to ask for it off for medical reasons, although he was entitled to it. He was still having difficulty with withdrawal for the atmosphere tolerance drugs, that and the fact that the drugs that he was still having fits of withdrawal symptoms from where inefficient and he was having to deal with having DNA that had been through the blender. He was on 16 kinds of medication, quite low for a John Anderson, but taking time off looked like weakness or lack of ambition and the sooner he got off this damned floating brick and into a proper Mechanical Infantry command job, or just possibly a second stage academy post with an eye to being transferred to The Academy of the United Galactic Armed Forces where all officers got their basic training, the better.

He looked up to notice that Toad was back on the Holopoint and looked down at the Dig-screen built into his chair arm. Mission profile, test results and an appointment with the ships Psychiatric officer, a referral he had asked Angelica not to make. All these Psychiatric officers where the same, reading out of “I am Us, a guide to Clone assimilation” and asking how his day was. Brilliant. Absolutely fantastically brilliant! Mission profile, now that was charming. Why had he been told now I wonder. Why not have him in the briefing as the current officer in command as per regulations? I wonder. Oh and a letter from Rowena Smith, addressed to the chair he was sitting in. Why did civilians do that? Oh sure you can send a message to a duty post to arrive when you think they will be there but with a little more effort you can address it to a person's personal files. He was always re-directing other officer's personal messages. All he ever received was the generic decanting anniversary message from the government. God he hated that. Same message, same wording, same everything. It wasn't even his birthday was it. It was the same date that 1/7 of all of the people decanted in that Galactic Standard Year. First of the local month, regardless of when you where decanted. And he had been decanted at about the biological age of 5 when their was a convent place to put him so he wasn't even sure how old he was. A quick glance at the title line informed him that it was indeed meant for the Captain and would have arrived on his shift if they hadn't re-juggled things. It was from his sister apparently. Family now that, oh sod it. Sod it all.

He pinged the Captain and, whilst waiting for him to respond, opened Diogenes’ mission profile, scanned the first paragraph, opened up the ships Heliospheric and Geological Dictionaries, pinged the captain again, opened the thesaurus and began to read. After a few minutes he pinged the captain for a third time, this time he answered, his damp face filled the screen.

“What is it! Good grief! Are you desperate that I don’t get a bath or what?”

“Message from your sister sir. I can’t forward it was you still don’t have me on you non-military coms list and I don’t want to get anyone in trouble after what happened last time someone dumped civilian post in military boxes.” He recalled the panic when the “plans for a wide scale mutiny” where found in Star Citadel Bouchout’s military boxes. It was a relief that someone in the citadel’s command saw fit to alert the civilian liaisons, one of whom was a Games Station Modules games buff. The document was the walkthrough for a recent release.

“OK OK! I’ll grab it from the Command Public Box later! By the way what is a Heliosphere?”

“The area of space inside the solar wind of a star. Or to be less technical it is what we normally define as the solar system.” The screen flickered off. 998c went back to trying to understand the highly technical and detailed plans for getting to the bottom of what had happened to Dante.

AIs are not as creative as humans. They tend more towards the tried and tested. Nevertheless this is not a bad thing, mankind has been conducting surveys of one type or another for centuries. That is a lot of trying and testing. Before the emergence of high grade AIs any ship in the area would have had to send out a central communication, wait for replies, start a grid, identify problem areas, alter and refine the sensor settings to deal with the unique background, identify problem areas, schedule Single Crew Vessels, have them prepped and their flight plans calculated, the data collated and compressed into a form that humans can understand, then condensed into a form that officers can understand.

Diogenes still has to do all this, but he is much much quicker at it and is far far better at spotting where things can start to go wrong. It would have been much more impressive if the main result hadn't been picked up by fully automated safety systems. There are two types of energy field, environmental shielding designed to protect the vessel from such things as interstellar radiation and small debris. In times of genuine danger, such as flying close to a star or through the high radiation field given out by a Hypernode’s transmissions, power could be drained from other sources to increase these shields but they offered no protection against warfare of any kind. When they have to grab power from other systems for any reason there is an automatic alarm. It is a distinctive high pitched warble, accompanied by a bright green light on every command console.

Yep, just like that.

A big red light on the captain's control point came on, indicating that the ship had activated its energy shielding due to radiation levels. 998c shot to attention in his seat and started barking orders. He would have looked a lot more dignified if the artificial gravity on the bridge had not just dropped to 0.7g to accommodate the power needs of the shields and as such he bounced a little out of his seat.

“Morose get me weapons and combat shields up to full power, take the power from AG, but keep it at a minimum of 0.5g, and SCV support, we sure as hell aren’t sending them out in this. Percy get up on that Holo-point and make sure this isn’t some kind of P19-9 weapon or something and Diogenies, move sections 3, 7 and 91 of the survey to the top of the list will you, I want to know where this radiation is coming from. What is the actual reading?”

"Warning, we are being exposed to .98669 exagores of radiation. The shields have been empowered by power re-diverted from the AG and weapons systems. All crew members report to distribution ports for radiation medication as a precautionary measure. Be aware we are now operating at .7G" Came Morose's firm but calm tones.

"Never mind, Diogenes, please tell me we are safe."

"Yes commander, although we are operating at 87% of out maximum tolerance for these environments and any further exposure will result the loss of non-critical systems. I would advise you wake the Captain."

"He is not having a good day is he?"

"Compared to certain other..."

"What is it with AIs and rhetorical questions?"

"I don't..."

"Just go and wake the captain."

“Commander?” Angelica was now on the chair’s dig screen.

“What is it? Did we take on radiation? Are their people injured?”

“No but you haven’t confirmed your phyc appointment.”

He ignored her. “Diogenes any information?”

“I will require an additional 8.17 minutes before preliminary findings of stated stages can be provided. The Captain wishes you to convene an emergency committee.”

“Fine fine. Percy?”

“Confirm 21 derelict craft and 2 satellite stations also devoid of life. Further data unobtainable.”

“Ok, get me the senior medical and technical staff to join me in the briefing room, along with the Captain when he is available. I want you too Diogenes, oh and Warrant Officer Jones.”

Eight and little bit minutes pass. See the nine humans (the Captain had decided to at least grab a quick shower seeing as there was nothing to do yet) sitting around a table with the attitude of all groups of people waiting for 5 or so minutes with people they have to work with but do not like all that much.

Captain Jeremiah was not exactly happy at the state of affairs. Partially because it had to happen whilst he was asleep, partially because it was going to mean the job would take almost ten times as long. If the carrier could not operate at full systems and keep the crew safe the meagre defences of a Single Crew Vessel could not keep a pilot safe. Mostly however the reason was that the connotations of this event where terrifying. Exactly how terrifying he was not yet sure there was no way to know exactly how bad things where until the scans where properly completed.

Oh, and the hypernet was down. The hypernet is to the Galactic empire what the internet was to earth in the mid to late 21st century, the primary media for entertainment, news, information and communication. As he strode into the committee room he could tell that Anderson was not exactly pleased with the situation either. It is hard to imagine two more different officers as they sit in their chairs watching Diogenes' data feed fly past in a sea of green and red letters. They are both drinking a drink to help them stay alert. They are both males. They are both not genetically altered in anything other than a simple medical way. That is about the level of similarity.

Follows on here:

[Miraqariftsky]

Watch your commas and apostrophes--- there are some where they shouldn't be and there are some that are mssing. Other than that, this piece is great! Keep up the good work!

[Evil DM Mark3]

Thanks, did you read all of it or did you skip the prologue? I was a bit worried about it working.

[Jimorian]

I'm about to head out, so I still have to read the main part of the story, but on the prologue, I need to say "wow". 99% of the time, my eyes just glaze over and I either skip ahead, or come back later just to get the info I need for later in the story, but this was so well laid out, and contains a really deep set of backgrounds, that I really wanted to point out how well it's done.

Good job, and I'll check out the rest later and give my comments.

Edit: OK, back.

More specifically what I like about the prologue is that it not only worldbuilds with the kind of detail that makes things interesting, but that the thought behind those details really bodes well for the story to come. It also provides the kind of framework for dramatic possibilities that could fill books and books of material -- a series like David Weber's Honor Harrington stuff frex.

For the beginning of the story itself, I like the setup so far. Some mystery to keep the reader going, and a nice showing of how the AI setup in the prologue works in practice. I definitely want to read more.

A couple of things to think about for the long run. First is POV discipline. While omniscient POV is acceptable if you know what you're doing, it is rather hard to pull off, so you might think about picking a "person" (quotes needed with the AI possibilities) through whom everything in that scene is filtered. This of course makes it harder to convey certain pieces of information because that person has to know about it, but in general, it helps with the emotional connection from reader to characters.

The second thing is related -- stopping the flow of the scene to explain things. Sometimes you have to do it, and it can even be effectively done in big chucnks, but generally, you want to dole out info in smaller bites as needed to avoid overwhelming the reader (to a lot of people, they are like prologues in that they glaze over big chunks of exposition).

All that said, there really are no "rules" to writing other than if it works, do it, plus these are just my opinions. What you really need to do is just keep going, telling the story as it comes to you and not overly worry about the technical aspects of writing until it's all done. Once you have a complete story in your hands, then you'll better be able to see what needs to be fixed, where you might rearrange things for better overall pacing, etc.

In conclusion: MORE!

[Evil DM Mark3]

First: *Happy dance*
Second: Thanks, I intend to write in the 3rd person, but following Captain Jeremiah Smith, hearing his thoughts and, at least for most of the story, staying with him alone. There will be times when I go off somewhere else, as in the start here, but they will be few. I find however that a first person narative can be too restricting.
Third: The info in the prolouge is plot vital, wrapped in fluff to hide the really important stuff.
Fourth: There may be a little more this evening (including some more dialouge in the first bit, felt too short.) that will include one of these going off bits and hopefuly the last but three of the exposition bits. I will need to explain a bit about galactic law and a process known as the Mentis-mikkusu but they will pop up when they become vital and are both background details more than vital plot. There will also be a breif breakdown, possibly through a discussion that you can infer from rather than be told, of the forces available to the Galactic Navy, including what a Star Citidel and a War Star (in prolouge) actually are (any guesses?).

[Spiritbear]

The oppening is brilliant. leaving it to begin with that one word sent my mind spiraling through years of sci fi to try and glimpse what it might meen. the story has but one problem. There aint more of it, I NEED MORE!

[Evil DM Mark3]

Smith is tall and muscular, thanks to the lower gravity on Atlantis and a youth spent in the ocean or in boats. He is dark skinned, part genes part tan, fair haired and has never been known to get more than frustrated and sarcastic. He is enjoying a nice hot cup of coffee and, seeing as his plan of sleep now have dinner later has resulted in almost no sleep, is doing his best to find some similarity with the reconstituted tuna and dried pasta and the fresh fish he was used to as a child. It ain't easy. He joined the Navy to see the world, earn money and because there was little else he could have done.

Anderson is short, not for any gravity reason but because Andersons are short. He is also wiry, sports and exercise are not easy on a world that has a teratogenic atmosphere. Even inside the complexes there is no room for recreational areas. He has pasty skin, black hair and at times a sharp and cruel tongue, along with a personality born of living in a clone world. He isn't eating as he is the one supposed to be on duty but eating is probably too strong a word for what he normally does. Nothing he is used too is more solid than jelly and is sucked out of a tube. Anything approaching what we might consider food makes him gag, he can't get used to it, it is usually to firm and always much too strong, flavor being last on the list of Synthfood inc's priorities. He went into the Navy to escape and has no desire to go home.

All they can do is wait.

Once upon a time.

Once upon a time there was a little old woman. This little old woman lived in her house, a long way away from the big towns. She lived in her little room in her little bed in the house with her husband who was a very clever man and her many many children, all so alike and dutiful. At the end of the day she went to sleep, and never saw her husband again. She reached out for her children, but they were gone.

[Evil DM Mark3]

Charlie does the foxtrot.

Time has passed. 13 hours and 18 minutes. Diogenes is through and now that it is clear that there are no survivors he has been told to get as much information as possible. Finally he has come up with a full report. 1,562 pages detailing every last detail, containing portions written by Percy and Angelica for specialist areas. After a bit of discussion Percy and Morose managed to provide a 34 page summary. They have just finished reading.

"Let me see if I understand. This entire system has been bathed in more radiation than is given out by a thousand warship sized drives in a year. It was an emanation of some kind but you can't work out where the exact epicentre is. According to Angelica the radiation levels you are estimating for the time that the event occurred are so high as to be able to wipe all active computer systems and sterilise all life in the entire system even if they where fitted with the same same shields we use on Star Citadels. And you have no idea how. All your data tells you that no power source large enough exists, that the reactor would have to be the size of a moon."

"Correct."

"You surmise that the most likely cause is an experiment gone awry."

"Yes. The possibility of this being an attack is ridiculously small."

Percy cut in. "The reactor the size of a moon is if this was a BOMB. A weapon would need at least TWICE the power, more if you had crew shielding to consider. It just makes no sense."

"And the loss of the Hypernet node? Those things are meant to be almost indestructible. They shot one into a star once and it only gave out transmitting three meters below the surface."

"Whilst unexpected it would not be unreasonable. My confidence is 13.99%"

"WHAT?"

"I do indicate in several places that the situation is unclear, all other solutions come to less than 1%"

"Let us assume that this was attack, remember "When you have a choice between malice and mistake, carefully examine malice before you turn it aside" so now go through all the possibilities for malice."

Diogenes seemed confused. "Who where you quoting sir?"

"1001 things to remember as an officer if you don't want to get yourself killed."

Commander Anderson gave a hard staccato laugh. "Yes, the unofficial 31st officer's training manual."

"Well in any case any vessel capable of carrying a system that powerful would not be able to evade sensors. Alien, non-affiliated system or Galactic Alliance. A reactor creating that much power would stand out like a Xenon lamp in a coal cellar, even a half blind passive sweep would would be almost incapable of seeing anything else!"

"Rather a poetic turn there Diogenes."

"I have my moments."

"Is there anything else we could conceivably learn here?"

"No."

"Make for the gate, this is now officially the Science guild's problem."

Toad moved to the holographic point and the ship turned about. Almost as soon as they where in the Gateway Percy piped up. "We have a rather loud, persistent and overall panicky incoming transmission. We are to confirm our continued survival, set course for the Articitica Gate and dock with the SC Irongurad. I gather things have progressed more than slightly in our absence."

"Do it."

The GNW Harvenger is a mid sized multi type carrier. It is a little under 4KM long and is shaped much like a brick. It has docking facilities for 160 Single Crew Vessels and storage for up to 160 Mechanical Infantry Walking Tanks, depending on configuration. It also has four batteries of eight mid intensity ion cannons, four fore and a port and starboard missile launcher with an arsenal of 426 fusion warheads. It has a top speed of 78% light speed which equates to 39,000 times light speed in a decent gateway. Its acceleration is 0-50% light in 12 minutes. It has one type 8 power plant and a pair of auxiliary type 5 plants. It has 3.2 meter thick armour and a type 9 Vandervelt labs shield matrix. It has 4 grade 8 and 2 grade 9 AIs. It is fairly average.

(What might surprise many 21st century readers is the fact that a lot of the space is given over to recreation facilities, libraries, gaming rooms, gymnasiums, an infamously temperamental swimming pool, film screens and other similar environments. This is to counteract the otherwise crippling effects of spending up to eight months, the duration of maximum supplies and stores, drifting along in space. People think cabin fever is bad. Try Spacer fever.)

Its SCVs are all of the Iddle design. They are 4 meters long and about that wide in wingspan as well. They are aerodynamic and are perfectly capable of atmospheric flight. It has six low intensity laser cannon and a single 360 degree missile launcher with a payload of six SCV Back-Breaker type missiles. Its top speed is 12% light speed with a 0-12% of .00002 seconds. It has a single type 1 power plant and an auxiliary 37 minute rated type 0 power plant. It has 3cm of armour and environmental shields only. It has a single grade 6 AI. It has oxygen supplies for 7 hours. Like all designs to leave the Vandervelt labs it is good at everything without being awe inspiring in anything.

The SC Irongurad is 149 KM wide and is a rough octahedron. This makes it only slightly smaller than Despinasize, one of Neptune's moons. It has docking capabilities for 120 external and 40 internal capitol ships up to three times the size of the Harvenger. It has 240 batteries of high intensity energy weapons of various types, as well as over 2000 batteries of weaker weapons primarily used for sweeping mines, missiles, SCVs and small battleships. It has 200 missile launchers per face and a stockpile of over 500,000 missiles of various types. It also has its own internal munitions factory. Its top speed is 59% light speed with an 0-50% of 23 hours and 3 minutes, making it a nippy Star Citadel. It has eight type 12 reactors and a further 32 auxiliary type 8 power plants. Its armour is is on average 500KM thick. It has three separate type 11 shield matrices. It has 4 grade 12 AIs and also houses 18 grade 7 AIs. It is so large that it is impossible to think of it as a space ship, although it technically is. It is an artificial mobile planet. As the name might suggest, even if the manoeuvrability didn't, it is not a ship you send places, it is a ship you use as a road block. There are people in it's civilian and military crew who put Plant of Birth:SC Ironguard on forms. It has its own police force, by-laws and has an elected civilian on the Alliance Committee. This is one BIG space ship. It's commanding officer is a Rear-Admiral. The Galactic navy has 120 operational Star citadels and 21 either being built or decommissioned. Such is their size and rarity that each is designed from scratch. There exists only one grade of Galactic Navy ship larger than them.

Captain Smith is escorted immediately to a committee room. Inside are several officers, including more than a few Tactical officers. The air was heavy and smelled of stale sweat and speed meals. Several of the officers seemed to have not shaved today. The state of the uniforms made Smith's Atlantian skin crawl. He broke the silence made of stale adrenalin and coffee. "I take it something bad has happened?"

"Captain Smith, we lost another three systems, two heavily populated. Diogenes is already being debriefed. We are officially in a class five crisis." A light flashed on the communications panel. "We are feeding Diogenes' data in to the simulation."

A large holographic point filled most of the floor. It flickered into life. It was a map of the western spiral arm of the galaxy, showing about 2/3 of the Galactic alliance, with the gate network outlined and four systems highlighted. Dante, New US, Rook and Latvania. Harvey, the big blue fluffy AI with eight eyes, had been running several simulations, he and Diogenes are on the wall behind. The only thing that all four systems have in common is that they have practically nothing at all in common with the other three systems. Dante is a small rock with a puff of atmosphere. New US is, was, sector 18's principle trade centre, two inhabited systems. New US itself is a planet covered in sprawling urban blocks. Orleans is a much smaller world covered in farms that exists primarily to feed New US. Rook was a Galactic Navy supply depo. Latvania was the galaxy's largest amusement park.

There was one of those long hard pauses made up of every last person in the room having the exact same thought and none of them wanting to vocalise it. Probably because he was on his own in the middle of the room Captain Smith lost.

"It seems to me that almost every conclusion you drew has been disproved Diogenes. The odds of the Science guild messing up this badly in all these places, I mean they only have a servicing depo on Latvania! But this means it must be an attack. In all these locations. In this short a timespan. Even a War Star could not make it between even Dante and New US in that time span, and the others are even further away! What are we going to do? We can't DO anything? We have no idea where they will attack next because all four attacks seem random!! We can't even evacuate nearby systems because there don't seem to be any nearby systems!!! Or rather all systems are nearby systems!"

"We can do something, send out an all forces bulletin to report anything suspicious, alert law enforcement in case they see anything and send all of our Negative Mass and Warp drive ships into the space around systems near those attacked to see if we can find anything. Even if we are dealing with multiple groups it makes sense that they may attack other systems near the ones attacked." Harvey growled.

"Do it." Came the response from one of the interchangeable Tactical Officers. "We already have eight Tactical Corps Vessels on the way, we have authorisation for an eight vessel Mentis-mikkusu."

Jeremiah realized that he was supposed to be impressed, but had no idea what they where going on about.

"So anyway thank you Captain, place your crew on alert status 2 and get some down time."

Jeremiah Smith was within 3 inches of his bedroom when the alarms went off. A tactical alarm. He tapped the nearest screen to see a report on the loss of a fifth system. Hadvrige. Hadvrige had been a law enforcement hub and they had been good enough to follow the requests of the Galactic Navy and had reported every last unusual detail. Unfortunately all they had picked up as a vessel. Fair enough and not a strange set up. Only the vessel had the markings of the GNV Blackthorn, a now obsolete light destroyer fresh from a Galactic Navy Mothballing yard. Operating without a transponder, crew or (according to the decommissioning report) weapon systems. The Law Enforcment guys had sent over Android crews into the air free ship that had said "Mother" (there where sound clips) and then shut off. Then the Hypernode died. The biggest problem was that the system was roughly equidistant from the other four systems, it was also about four times the distance away.

There was a note attached reading "Mentis-mikkusu will be formed by 13:00, first teer analysis due by 15:00"

[Evil DM Mark3]

John Anderson was in the committee room reading and re-reading the orders. Most where vague, some where contradictory and all where, for the moment, worthless. He didn't find this all surprising. “Lieutenant Donald, have you got the medical report yet?”

“Yes, well, we have a few cases of mild exposure that Angelica is treating with a simple Rad-flush. Nothing else to note really. I take it I don't have to tell you the effects the reduced gravity will have to use if we have to deal with it long term.”

“Fine. Morose organize for all personal to take corrective PT if we end up having to operate in these irradiated areas for longer than a week.”

“And Angelica made me promise to get you to -”

“If this is about going to see Raymond about more of that damnable “Clone Phych” garbage I don't want to hear it.”

“Second lieutenant A. Raymond MC is no longer in service on this vessel.” Morose said in a voice that the suspicious might have called a mutter. “He transferred, cited personal stress. Current Psychiatrist on board is Commodore P Rattlings MC, a little senior for the post I know but he said he wanted some experience of shipboard mentality for research purposes.”

“I don't care who the Quack is I don't want to see him.”

“I don't want to do this sir but I can and I will pull a section 147a(refusal to be treated) if you haven't been to see him within a week.” Donald lent close to Commander Anderson and whispered. “Look I know you didn't like that pair of starched pants Raymond but Rattlings is different. Just have a chat with him, Angelica is getting very truculent with me about you.”

“Do I look like I care? We have just wandered into the biggest mystery since the Marie Celeste and perhaps one of the most terrifying scenarios I have ever seen in my carrier or in any historical manual and you are trying to shift the blame for you being incapable of working easily with your AI. I get along with my job fine so get out of here unless you have any information for me about this mystery! I have been here for less than a quarter of a shift and I already feel like a need to grab a double measure of Ethanol and a half of glucose, but seeing as I can't can you have another synthicaf sent in Morose? And if you are eavesdropping again Angelica I swear I will pull a section 279c(proper AI privacy) on YOU.”