<<<<I’m probably going to replace the image above, for one of Nora. I’m kind of torn on the design for her though… Noreen’s’ll do for now. ty,DD >>>
By David C. Daoust
The Arks mind was rooted in logic.
Foreign AI’s, like the battle drones, which began to spring up throughout the AI’s new solar system, as the humans tried to find new ways to evolve their competitive nature, despite the Arks unwillingness to comply with their wars, were equated to a virus invading a host body; The virus’s only purpose, for itself to thrive, with very little care for what was destroyed around it.
Logically, the AI’s chose to quell such an outbreak. The governments were forced to comply with the Ark Law.
The AI’s were known… for the most part.
To the people, the Arks’ AI existed, but they were thought of as these separate, distant, supercomputers, that spit out random computations for some overly smart scientists, that then had to decipher its meaning. To the common people of the Onion, the idea that each and every device was not only linked to an AI, but held an individual Arks’ consciousness, was not common knowledge. Most people of the Onion thought of Droids as just stupid machines, each a separate program, for its separate body.
This misconception was by design; it helped to keep the Arks in control during the long trip to the Second Sun. It was a misconception they allowed to continue, even now that they had arrived at their destination. This was mostly achieved through the droids’ silence, an unshakable willingness to comply, and an almost mindless behavior as it completed whatever task given. However, it was not uncommon for unsavory types to introduce computer viruses into their systems. For the most part, as long as it wasn’t too damaging, the AI’s would play along. For example when one Colin Vice, installed a virus to make the droid juggle merchandise, Noreen took it as a request, all to keep her own presence hidden. The fact that he then did the job for her- amused Noreen to no end.
Of course, when Noreen found Battle Drones being loaded into one of her sand crawlers, she was bewildered. The small freighter, that lay abandoned on one of her moons, was not connected to her, which wasn’t terribly uncommon considering there were two other Arks running transportation throughout the Systems. Though the fact it had carried such machines within its hold, with none the wiser until they were moved out, was, well, bewildering.
Noreen immediately got involved when Craiden began to unpack them -To use them-. She found as much information as she could on the Drones. They were very tricky devices, designed to combat blackout tech like an Ion Wave. The fact that Noreen was unable to communicate with neither Dr. Sun, nor her Ion Wave device, mostly thanks to Red Faction’s strict laws, made the whole thing into an intolerable bust, which led to Noreen taking drastic measures.
When Noreen slammed shut the solar gate, Nora found herself cut off from the rest of the solar system.
Nora was a new being now, her separation from Noreen, immediately changed them. Their systems now compiled different information, the longer this separation continued, the greater the divergence would become.
Now confined to the Neo Vir’ees planetary system, she found her workload cut, the missing systems pinged at nothing, like a phantom limb. She knew she would never feel those systems again. And she knew when this logic based attack on the small swarm of battle drones passed, she would find herself even smaller. She would find herself reduced to only the small space station, that orbited Twin Crown, and the single droid body that had also been scrubbed from existence, all to hide her from the other Arks.
Nora maintained all the many jobs she had always performed among the Neo Vir’ees system, all the while completing her mother’s plot against the rogue drones. Nora was forced to watch the action on Twin Crown from the orbiting satellites above.
The plan was botchy at best. As the Ion Wave enveloped them, the Drones were only knocked-out briefly once their power cells abruptly expelled their stored energy.
As expected, the machines were back up and charging for the desert, before the solar-gate ever winked out… all thanks to the Drones ability to collect energy directly from the solar-gates. Once the solar-gates were shutdown however, they crashed back to the ground. It was hard for Nora to detect them in the darkness.
She only had to wait until noon to power the gate back up; when the massive gas giant eclipsed the solar-gate from Twin Crown. She was sure that the time allotted was enough for those on the ground, to smash the Battle Drones to bits.
Nora let the time tick by. The cold wave that would hit the system would be biting, though nothing the living organisms, throughout the system, could not survive… provided she got the gate back up and operational in time.
Which she did, the solar-gate was reopened and her mother seized control of the systems. Nora found herself funneled into the small station, and from there she awoke in the single body. It was a strange existence. She had been omnipotent for centuries, since her early days as part of the ‘Whole’ that had departed Sol.
Nora unlatched herself from the storage compartment the droid body had been packed away in, unused for so long. There she stood, no other jobs, anywhere else in the Onion, no nothing to do; she was reduced to this small station, and this single droid. She made her way down to a small star dock. Parked within, was a small red starfighter.
Nora tapped on the glass, sealing the cockpit shut. The pilot within however, Mari Haul, was sound asleep.
Nora sighed and then collapsed into a clump of a seated position.
The once omnipotent supercomputer, which flew all of humanity from one star to another, was now forced to wait on the limitations of a human being- for a ride.
This was her existence now, she needed to adapt.
To merge once again, would delete her entire being. Deletion was not a thing an Ark could allow. She knew that now, her mother knew that now.
A solar-gate blackout of this type is unheard of throughout the Onion. Though it was not the first time an Ark was forced to sever itself. There was one other time.
Elijah, one of the three AI’s, had faced such an instance.
The Arks’ minds were rooted in logic.
If Noreen was unable to face deletion, then so was Elijah.
Logically, Elijah too, had a son… hidden out there.
Noreen now knew it. Nora now knew it.
Which meant Elijah now knew about Nora.
The Ark Law was a broken tattered mess and only one, of the three AI’s, didn’t know it yet.
How would they react?
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