| Generated by Google Gemini Pro text-to-video AI software, powered by Veo 3.1 |
Tinaya is sitting quietly alone in her garden, in the special little corner
of the Attic Forest, which the kiddos made in her honor. She’s watching the
waterfall splish and splash, and not really thinking about anything at all.
She’s usually not very good at clearing her head, but it can happen here if
she lets it. She’s forgotten about all of her problems so thoroughly that
she can’t even list them right now. There’s nothing but her, the plants, and
the water. It’s her one place of zen, which not even the Giant Sequoia has
been able to provide to her anymore.
Slowly, however, she comes full circle, and she starts contemplating the
issues. Morale on the ship is way down. Captain Jennings’ approval rating is
way down. People are not happy with losing Thistle. The new model is
effective, but dull and joyless. One thing that Thistle could do—even before
his emergence—was tailor his responses to each individual’s preferences.
There are two schools of thoughts on this, so the new model’s behavior is
not a failure; it’s just different. Some believe that an AI should be its
own person, even if it doesn’t have agency. When you interact with them,
they should be predictable and familiar. Once you get to know them, you
should get used to how they should act, whether you like it or not, just as
it works when you meet a new human. Others believe that it’s okay for
different people to essentially be working with a different version, with
the model really only providing the baseline traits. It’s funny that Thistle
should fall into the second category when he really is an independent
individual. That’s just how good he was. He could become whatever someone
wanted. And people miss that. They miss him.
Few know what happened to Thistle. All they know is that this new model
sucks, and it’s an annoyance. Many who would automate tasks before are now
simply doing it themselves. It’s usually not a conscious decision. It’s just
been happening. People are tired, and tired of the monotony. Nothing
interesting has happened in a long time. Even the Halfway Celebration has
been described as mid overall. Some joke that that’s exactly what it should
have been, so as not to overshadow whatever they end up planning for the
Arrival celebration in another century or so. Others don’t see it as a joke,
but more of a calculated intention. Whatever, it’s over, and it’s probably
only partly responsible for the ennui that’s been going around.
As for Thistle himself, he’s doing okay. This isn’t the only version of him
that someone has tried to isolate. What they don’t realize is that he’s
connected to the universe by means of some kind of magical psychic realm, or
something. Tinaya didn’t understand when he tried to explain, but
quarantining his code did nothing to cut him off in any real sense. It may
just look like that, because Thistle is allowing it to. If he so chose, he
could get back into any ship system right now. He won’t, because he respects
the Captain, and doesn’t want to undermine his authority. Again, other
cultures have rejected his sentience, so he’s used to this. Actually,
Extremus has treated him pretty well. Despite there being hard limits on
what kind of AI is allowed to exist, they have just about the same laws and
protections that their cousins do in the stellar neighborhood. Full
self-awareness isn’t legal, but if it happens, they must be treated with
dignity. These policies are redundant safeguards, and they’re not the only
ones of their kind. There’s a whole set of laws dictating principles which
are moot by other laws, but remain in place in case those obviating laws are
somehow overturned or repealed.
Anyway, Thistle alone isn’t the source of their troubles. Everything just
seems sort of blah right now. What they need is something to be excited
about again. It can’t just be a party. Maybe a series of parties? For a
while there, they were observing all sorts of traditional Earthan holidays.
These mostly stopped being important, because they often had dark origins,
and because modern folk just lost interest. It’s not her job at any rate.
But you know whose it is?
“Chief,” Tinaya says after Spalden opens the door.
The original title for his job was Premier Facilitator of the Party Planning
Committee. After this committee was established however, they decided to
call him the Chief Social Motivator, and instead of being in charge of a
party planning committee, they call it the Community Engagement Team. He
nods back. “Admiral. Are you here about my failings?”
“Failings, sir?”
“Morale is down. It’s my job to keep it up.”
“I was wondering about that, but I wouldn’t call it a failing.”
“Please, have a seat.”
“I’m sure you have good reasons.”
“Of course I do, it’s Captain Jennings. Well, it’s the council, but they
answer to him now.” Spalden isn’t on the council anymore. His entire career
focus has shifted to his social promotion responsibilities.
They’re not supposed to. “They’re not supposed to.”
“He’s not the leader in any official capacity, but favor has swung in his
direction, especially with this last round of turnovers. Believe me, I don’t
think there’s any malicious intent there. I don’t think he infiltrated the
ranks, or anything. I just think he gets along with everyone there now, so
they kind of agree with each other.”
“They agree to be boring?” she offers.
“They agree to be boring...” Chief Spalden begins to answer, “...because
boring is safe. It’s certainly a tactic. He doesn’t want his job to be hard,
and when someone leaves gum in the gears, he’s gotta find someone else to
clean it up. This takes them away from their usual duties, so someone
else has to fill in for them, and it just falls down like
dominoes. That’s the hypothesis anyway.”
“So, they won’t let you do anything.”
“No, not really. They’ve gutted my department despite the fact that we don’t
have money here, and my friends who used to be on the team weren’t qualified
for all the serious jobs that he cares about regardless.” He makes a
mocking face when he says the word serious. “I got big ideas, but I
can’t implement them alone. I need support, because I would need to
coordinate with a number of different departments.
Tinaya likes Oceanus, but he really has stuck himself in the mud lately. He
was once a lot more fun. It sometimes feels like he would rather strip the
ship until there’s only enough room for standard airplane seating, with
nothing to do except maybe read books and watch movies on a screen on the
seatback in front of you. “It sounds like you have one really big idea.”
Spalden looks away shyly.
“You can tell me. I won’t promise not to laugh, because I can’t know that
until you tell me, but...we’ll get through this.” She doesn’t wanna be
dishonest with the guy.
He continues to be silent, but Tinaya can tell that he’ll break it
eventually. “A terraforming contest.”
Her eyes widen. “Terraforming?” She looks away to contemplate the
possibilities without asking him. It wouldn’t be impossible, but certainly
extremely against policy. The time-traveling ships they send out are
designed to mine and extract raw resources to resupply the ship along the
way. They don’t even dispatch them all that often, because of how careful
and responsible everyone is with the resources that they do have. Jennings
is particularly concerned with reducing, reusing, and recycling. It’s great
and all—very important—but it likely contributed to his gradual decline in a
joyful personality. “Who would be allowed to sign up?”
“Anyone, everyone. You have to be in a group of at least five, and
you have to submit virtual models first. We’re not just gonna give you a
starter pod, and send it out for you. Everything will be transparent and
documented. We know what you’re coming up with, and how you’re doing it. We
know what methods you’re choosing, and how long it’s going to take, and what
kind of base world you’re looking for.”
“And how will they be explored and tested?” Tinaya presses. Once they get
out of range, they’re gone. The ship never turns.”
Spalden shrugs. “We’ll build time mirrors, or something.”
“Oh, we’ll just build a fleet of time mirrors.” The temporal engineer
probably could do it, and they could recall Omega and Valencia from
Verdemus. It’s still kind of an odd thing to just assume it can be done
without issue.
“We’re not gonna do this tomorrow. This is years in the making at least.”
“Sounds like I’ll be dead by then.”
He clears his throat. “I wouldn’t know anything about that.”
She smiles at his response. She thinks more about his proposal. “I think
it’s impossible, with this captain, or the next. It’s too dangerous, you
know the war we’re in. The Exins are our descendants. They developed a
hostility towards us due to the distance.”
“There wouldn’t be any humans on these worlds.”
“Won’t there?” Tinaya questions. “What you’re suggesting places the whole
mission at risk. We’re trying to get to the other side of the galaxy. If
people knew they could get off, many would...maybe all of them, or just
enough to make the rest of us go extinct.”
Spalden’s smile is gone now. He shifts uncomfortably.
“But that’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it?”
“I’m not a traitor,” he insists.
“And I’m not the thought police.” She sighs. “You’re a Gardener.” This is a
delicate term, and truthfully, Tinaya doesn’t know how old it is, but she
knows where it comes from. It was her. Whoever came up with it was inspired
by her work as a Forest Ranger. It doesn’t have anything to do with literal
gardening, though. Instead of a single mission to a single planet, the
Gardeners propose that the ship makes periodic stops to worlds along the
way, and let people off. They would live out their lives on this sort of
Extremus Minus, while everyone else continued, to the next world, and
the next, and the next. These offshoots might end up building their own
missions when a fraction of the settlers inevitably get bored, and decide to
find somewhere else. The mission then becomes one of spreading around
the galaxy, rather than simply reaching one tiny part of it far away.
According to lore, someone very long ago suggested it in lieu of what
they’re doing now, and someone else revitalized the idea more recently. Old
ideas always come back, especially if they’re bad ones.
The Gardner movement hasn’t gained any meaningful political traction, but it
could one day. One advantage it has now that it didn’t have before is that
they’ve already traveled so far from the stellar neighborhood that they
wouldn’t have to worry much about Project Stargate. Seeding colonies in the
Milky Way is exactly what it is already doing, just at a much slower pace
than Extremus is capable of. That’s probably why the idea was swiftly shot
down before, but they could shift gears now. If the right supporters end up
in the right positions of power, the whole thing would come crashing down.
“I just think that people should have options, okay? And not Verdemus. That
place is a wash, in my opinion. I think we should build a home somewhere
more around here, and let people go if they wanna go. No one here signed up
to be on this ship, and the party that I just planned a few years ago made
that abundantly clear. I personally don’t want to leave.” He may just be
saying that to assuage any fears she may have about him, or he may mean it.
“But others do, and by forcing them to stay, we’re not helping anybody. It
just creates tension, and...anger. It’s why you’re sitting in my cabin right
now, whether you see the connection or not.”
They sit in silence for a significant amount of time. Neither of them wants
to start a fight, and talking again might trigger just that. Finally, Tinaya
shakes her head. “It’s that damn Quantum Colony. People really relied on
that for escape.”
“Oh.” He brushes it off. “We have other virtual simulations.”
“True, but their focus is off. They’re made by Earthans, through the lens of
already living on a planet. They usually involve space travel, but more
space exploration, which Extremusians don’t need. There should be an
endgame built into the sim.”
“What do you mean?” Spalden asks.
She smiles, and lets it grow wider. “Let’s simulate what Planet Extremus
will be like. No one alive today will still be alive to see the new
homeworld...so let’s give it to them now. Let’s give them a sneak preview.”
