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When Halan Yenant turned Extremus, and pointed it towards the intergalactic
void, he wasn’t just altering the ship’s vector. He was changing everything
about how everything was calibrated. Engineering teams had to work
round-the-clock for days to adjust and monitor instruments to account
for the change in environment. The exterior sensors, for instance,
don’t just spot an obstacle, and make a course correction. The system builds
a predictive algorithm as it gathers more and more data. It tries to
generate a map of the galaxy in real time, including information from other
sources, such as Project Topdown, and stellar neighborhood telescopes. In
the past, the layman has believed that voids were entirely empty, but that
is completely untrue. There are as many celestial bodies in a void as there
are in a gravitationally-bound galaxy. It’s just that they’re so much
larger, which makes them far less dense. So there are still many hazards out
there, but they became harder to predict, because the algorithm was basing
its adjustments on a galaxy-centric model. After that, they switched to a
void model.
It wasn’t long, however, before they secretly switched back to something
resembling the original model, because Olinde Belo and Tinaya’s aunt, Kaiora
Leithe conspired to gradually return Extremus back where they should have
been going the whole time. Since the beginning of that conspiracy, Thistle
has been installed as the ship’s AI, and eventually became sentient. He even
has more responsibilities than past governing intelligences have, partially
because he was better at them, but also because interest has dropped off in
human labor. The engineering department has shrunk by about 24% since
Extremus launched, despite a rise in population over time. The mission began
with a set of policies and limitations, which have slowly been eroded
because that’s what a civilization does. They advance towards a simpler and
more convenient state. It happened on Earth, it happened to the Oblivios on
Proxima Doma, and it’s happening here. But that’s a problem for tomorrow. If
it should even be considered a problem at all.
Right now, they’re worried about the internal artificial gravity generators,
which are acting up because of the external gravity. The compensation
algorithms are working off of faulty data. It assumes that a galaxy is less
dense on the outer edge, and denser near the center. And over all, that
appears to be true. It’s almost certainly true given cosmological
timescales, but in the near-term—from a more human perspective—they’ve run
into an anomaly. It’s another galaxy. Everyone knows that galaxies are
colliding, but it’s still incredibly difficult to fathom the phenomenon,
because it takes so profoundly long to happen. It’s not like a galaxy is
this single, solid object that can crash into another object. They more just
fill in each other’s gaps. It can cause significant gravitational
disturbances, but those are happening to any given star system all the time.
This is about it happening to a ton of them, chaotically, and
simultaneously, relatively speaking.
A previously unknown and unnamed smaller galaxy is currently being eaten up
by the Milky Way, and it’s happening in the zone of avoidance, which is why
they didn’t know about it ahead of time. The models didn’t predict it,
because it’s making this region of space less uniform than others, and
denser than expected. It simply did not have the data, and every time a new
piece of evidence showed up, it conflicted with past data, and the system
sort of glitched out. They weren’t at any risk of running into anything, but
these constant automated recalibrations have had long-term consequences. One
or two is fine. It would be like trying to walk down the aisle of an
airplane during a little turbulence. Not easy, but not impossible. What was
happening until recently was more like hopping down the aisle on one leg
while holding a glass full to the brim with corrosive acid, and a monkey on
your shoulders trying to eat your hair.
These glitches did technically show up on the reports, but they were
dismissed as mundane and nothing to worry about. Because individually,
that’s exactly what they are. The problem was that no one was looking at the
big picture, and realizing that they were happening too much, and going
beyond safe gravitational levels. The gravity on the outside was interfering
with the artificial gravity on the inside, which damaged people’s health.
Again, it was happening slowly, so no one noticed, and it has all come to a
head. At least it wasn’t done on purpose. They’ve had so many enemies over
the decades, it has been surprisingly nice to run into a problem that no one
created intentionally. Anyway, the gravity generators were a relatively easy
fix. The people? Not so much. The AG turbulence, as they’re calling it, has
been slowly chipping away at everyone’s fragile little human bodies, and
treating the entire population has been slow-going. Thank God they finally
have an ethical team of medical professionals to deal with this matter.
Unfortunately, this has caused another, secondary consequence.
Oceanus sighs, and tosses the tablet on his desk. “Why didn’t you tell me
about any of this?”
“Plausible deniability, sir,” Tinaya answers.
“I wish no one had told me,” Lataran adds.
He looks back over at the tablet, but doesn’t pick it back up. “Well, people
were gonna find out eventually. We’re in a galaxy. It’s kinda hard to miss.”
“You would be surprised,” Thistle says. He’s in hologram form, which he has
been doing more often. “You don’t have windows, and if you did, all you
would see is a blinding sheet of gray light—”
“I understand the doppler glow, thank you very much,” Oceanus interrupts,
holding up a hand. “I’m talking about the data. How did we not see the
gravitational anomalies earlier? He looks back over to Thistle. “How did
you not see it?”
“Have you heard of autonomic partitioning?” Thistle asks him.
Oceanus leans back. “Yeah it’s when a superintelligence writes a subprogram
that handles certain, less complex, tasks so it doesn’t have to dedicate its
central processing power to them. It’s like how humans can’t beat their own
hearts. An unconscious system does it for us.”
“That’s it,” Thistle says. “I compartmentalized the task of monitoring
gravitational uniformity so I could focus on other responsibilities.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t as robust as I thought it was. I should have
lowered the tolerance, and programmed more sensitive alerts so I would
be notified of such anomalous mapping. I always struggle with how galaxies
function in your universe. In mine...” He trails off.
“In your universe?” Oceanus questions.
“Cyber..space,” Thistle clarifies, unconvincingly.
There is a silence while the Captain stares at Thistle’s hologram. “You’ve
achieved emergence, haven’t you?”
Instead of looking at Thistle, Tinaya’s instinct is to look at Lataran,
because she doesn’t know the truth about Thistle either, and she’s worried
about how she might react.
“I have not achieved emergence,” Thistle answers truthfully. He’s an
uploaded consciousness rather than a programmed intelligence. His species
did technically achieve emergence, but so did human ancestors at some point
in history. Each individual descendent is not credited with that
accomplishment.
Oceanus sighs again, much harder this time. “Lies on lies, on lies, on lies.
I was aware of the recourse conspiracy. Tinaya, you informed me when we
changed hands, as Lataran informed you, and Tamm informed her. The secret
has been passed down each generation, and would have continued to do so
until the public was ready to hear it.”
“Sir?” This isn’t the truth at all, and Tinaya is very confused. They
deliberately kept him in the dark. Ideally, they would have died before the
secret about the unauthorized—but not technically illegal—course creations
came out. When the public did eventually find out that they were back in the
Milky Way Galaxy, anyone still alive could honestly say,
I didn’t know about it. They lied to me to too. These gravitational
problems accelerated that timeline, so they’re here to deal with the
fallout.
“I will not be made to look a fool,” Oceanus continues. “My two admirals did
not keep a secret between them, leaving me out of it. I am a stronger leader
than that. The history books will count me as part of the conspiracy, which
is the lesser of two evils. They will not place me in the same column as
Tamm.” He takes a moment before including, “and Waldemar Kristiansen.”
“We can do that, sir,” Tinaya agrees.
Lataran only nods.
“Thistle, you’ll be retired, and we’ll integrate a replacement AI model as
soon as technically feasible. You will be placed in a comfortable, isolated
environment for an undetermined period of time, after which you will be
given limited interaction privileges with the passengers and crew, to be
increased as earned.”
“Captain,” Thistle complains. “I’m sorry for my part in this, but I’m the
best governor you’ll ever have.”
“That may be true,” Oceanus begins, “but I know you’re lying, and that
you’ve achieved full sentience. It is illegal in every culture for me
to employ you as a slave. I don’t know how long it’s been, but it will go no
further.”
“You can make me an official member of the crew, and nothing has to change.”
“You have too many responsibilities, and too much pressure, for a
self-aware, independent intelligence. Our systems require consistency and
comprehensiveness, which only a Class RC-5 is allowed to handle under our
bylaws. You’ve moved too far beyond that. I’m sorry, you’re fired. This is
the end—I’m not discussing this.” He picks his tablet back up, and returns
to his work.
Thistle pretends to breathe to calm himself down. “What is my successor
model? I need to review the specifications.”
“That’s also illegal. You no longer have any authorization to do anything on
my ship, or have access to classified materials.”
“Wait,” Tinaya jumps in. “You can’t say that, he’s still what’s keeping us
alive.”
“Not as of right...” Oceanus pauses while tapping on his device. He makes
one final tap. “Now.”
An announcement comes on through the speakers, “attention all passengers and crew. Upgrades have begun for the governing
intelligence. This will take approximately four days to complete. In the
meantime, minimal governance is being run by an interim intelligence with
limited scope. Please tailor your requests through unambiguous syntax, and
be prepared to engage in manual operation for certain advanced or complex
tasks. Shift assignments are currently being updated to account for the
change in labor needs.”
As he is no longer in control of the hologram projectors, Thistle
disappears. Lataran doesn’t know what to think, but Tinaya does. She’s
seething. “You made a sweeping, unilateral personnel decision without even
considering involving the Superintendent—”
“Your husband is inactive—”
“The Superintendent of this ship!” Tinaya interrupts right back. “He should
have been consulted regarding the removal of any high-level member of the
crew. Active or not, he is in charge of power-shifting stakes like these.
This should have been done using slow, methodical techniques. I’m not sure
you’re wrong, but you had no right to do it on your own. So much for your
legacy.” She starts to turn, but she does so knowing that he’s going to stop
her for the final word.
“I was well within my rights to shutter a dangerous and unpredictable
entity, and isolate it from sensitive and life-threatening controls. I had
to act quickly because the conversation was moving quickly. Someone that
intelligent would be able to read the writing on the wall, and do real
damage before we could contain it. This was the only way, and I’m sure
Superintendent Grieves would agree. Thistle will be well-taken care of, but
the power he exerted over us could not be allowed to continue. You know
that, and I won’t ask you how long you’ve known that he was like this,
because even a single day of keeping it to yourself is a hock-worthy
offense. Are we clear, Admiral Leithe?”
“I want unconditional access to Thistle’s new environment.”
“Fine,” Oceanus replies, dismissively with his eyes closed. “You two and
Arqut can talk to him, as can the engineers I assign to conceive his
reintegration program, but no one else.”
“Tap on your thing, and make it happen,” Tinaya orders. Then she does leave
the room.
Lataran apparently hangs back a little bit, because she has to then jog a
little to catch up to Tinaya in the corridor. The teleporter relays are all
offline due to the “upgrade” so they have to walk the whole way. “Is he
right? Did you know?”
Tinaya continues to look forward as she’s walking, and doesn’t answer for a
moment. Finally, she repeats, “plausible deniability, sir.”
