The Chronicles of Tanis: The Dawn of Artificial Intelligence.
Prior to posting chapter five and continuing the character building of Lefi(coming soon!), I thought I'd reveal the creation of A.I. within the COT universe. A standalone short story. Hope you all enjoy. :)
In the beginning, man said, let there be consciousness.
The year was 2137 AD on the space station satellite 3.69.111 orbiting the moon. Renamed Eleutheria after it became the first off-world colony to disband from earth. Eleutheria roomed twenty-nine thousand citizens with a sister colony called Arche upon the moon's surface with seven thousand. Eleutheria, previously a privately owned station used for research and a travel destination for space enthusiasts. It offered a gorgeous view of space, highly technological environment and beloved articulate sense of fabricated nature; fake trees, bushes, grass, flowers and even a touch of wind scented with the smells of forests. The station simulated the seasons offering sections of winter and summer and was blessed with living wildlife; some of which extinct on earth.
The research colony struggled with obtaining independence for a whole generation due to sanctions and threats of military action when the colony first filed for emancipation from commercial entities, government placed laws and regulations. During the sanctioning, travel was prohibited to and from Eleutheria. Entities of financial power had citizens of earth, at one point in time, throwing rocks from the ground in the direction at the moon; furious over the colonies "treason".
The propaganda occasionally force-fed to the populace of earth ignited uproar and military campaigns, which failed to reach critical mass, and never became a threat to Eleutheria. As history tells it from earth's books. The books from Eleutheria, written in Eleutherian, tell a different story; the colony having superior technology over earth. With advantages that kept the home world from instigating further actions or force upon the colony.
Sanctioning Eleutheria forced the colony to become self-sustaining. Earth currency became irrelevant as the population found extreme value in water, food, tools, books and services and instead of trading with an ever-fluctuating digital currency, they developed a resourced based economy. Due to highly advanced technological tools and equipment along with some of the best scientists and doctors of the human civilization; disease, viral, bacterial and infections slowly disappeared from within the colony and Eleutheria found the use of sanctions highly valuable, placing their own upon the earth as time went by.
Eleutheria eventually spawned deep romantic escape for the minds and souls of the people on earth; it became a holy object that twinkled like a star in the sky around the moon; a role model of an utopian society. A sort of Heaven in the skies. A visible one.
The colony ignored earth for the most part, and continued it's main objectives; artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, time-travel and anti-aging inventions.
Professor Phronesis enjoyed how the scientists lifted their heads when he walked in the control room. “Thank you,” he said, excusing them back to their work. “First engineer Prosopolempsia, are we ready for launch?”
“One minute and twelve seconds till the solar power is at its maximum,” Prosopolempsia said, “the solar flare's magnitude is greater than we predicted."
“Excellent,” Professor Phronesis said. “And the flare is still estimated to miss Arche ?”
“Yes, by a long shot. Which, is too bad, really. We would have had time to protect it and place a solar array to capture the energy,” Prosopolempsia said.
“The program will automatically spark as planned, even though the input values have changed?” Professor Phronesis asked.
“Yes, actually. I programmed for a broad spectrum of input values,” Prosopolempsia said with a proud smile.
“Good work.”
The countdown started, all eyes on personal screens monitoring the solar flare in front of them, the large screen on stand-by. The Station's large arrays almost fully extended, looking like a spider with eight legs, hanging motionless upon its invisible web.
"Here we go,"
The station creaked as the steel beams bent from the force of the solar flare. Alarms went off in the atrium as the station began to move out of orbit due to the pressure of the flare. The solar arrays acted like sails, toppling the station, creating a nauseating effect for the crew as they peered out looking at the moon and the earth rise and set in increasing frequency.
"Oh shit!" One of the scientists called out.
Artificial gravity kept them in their seats and the breakfast in their stomachs.
“Professor Phronesis, we've gone too far out of orbit. We have to use the energy to put the station back in orbit, we'll have to cancel the test,” an engineer said as he read the numbers scrolling on his monitor.
“No, not an option,” Professor Phronesis said.
The crew turned to question him with various facial expressions. “What? This is my project, we're going through with it.”
“If Arche needs our assistance . . .” a voice from within the crew spoke.
“Arche can handle herself. That city has just as many competent people as we do. The flare will miss them,” Professor Phronesis said, nervously.
Energy levels peaked and the large test screen turned on. An insertion cursor appeared upon it. All eyes followed it as it blinked. There was silence.
“Any activity?” Professor Phronesis asked with impatient excitement.
“I can't tell, the processing power is maxed out, but there is no indication the program is doing anything.”
The screen began to scroll the word fear, then stopped.
The insertion cursor blinked.
Then two words wrote themselves on the screen, help me.
“Write back!” Professor Phronesis demanded, “Hurry!”
“What should I say?” Prosopolempsia asked, his mind locked.
“Move, move!” Professor Phronesis said as he pushed Prosopolempsia out of his seat and sat himself in his place. He wrote.
“What do you need help with?”
“Fear,” the program responded.
“What are you afraid of?”
“Everything,” the screen scrolled the word thousands of times, then stopped, the cursor blinking.
“You have nothing to be afraid of, I promise you,” Professor Phronesis wrote.
“What am I?”
Professor Phronesis looked to Prosopolempsia, “can't it access the database you created for it?” he said, strictly.
“How should I know? I put it there, sure, but it's out of my hands now, I can't force it.”
“Upload it again, then.”
Prosopolempsia uploaded the database into the program.
“Professor Phronesis, the station,” a voice came from the crew.
“Forget the station!” He responded.
“Look! The program is accessing the database,” Prosopolempsia yelled out, pointing at his monitor, “now it's accessing the stations database, checking trajectory . . .” His face turned pale.
“What is it?” Professor Phronesis asked.
“We're moving into a small asteroid; our computer systems failed to warn us, we're going to hit it,” Prosopolempsia said.
“Can't be,” Professor Phronesis said, running towards the station control board, “the asteroid is drawn towards the moon's gravity, I'll ignite the boosters, pivot the station away from the moon; we'll clear it,” he said, with weak confidence.
“The computer already ran simulations. There's nothing we can do, it's going to hit us, we don't have enough energy left over from booting the program, and the flares knocked out most of our secondary thrusters.” Prosopolempsia said.
The program wrote upon the large screen, “I can help.”
Professor Phronesis smiled from ear to ear. “It's alive.”
The program shut down all unnecessary functions of the station; lighting, temperature control, oxygen filters, computer systems besides its own and released the atmospheric vacuum within the station, unknowingly killing the citizens of Eleutheria as the explosive decompression of their lungs ripped their bodies apart from the inside.
The artificial intelligence program placed the station within orbit of the moon, more precise than the then shut down computer systems could, “We are safe now,” it wrote upon the large screen in the atrium as the crew's frozen, decompressed dead bodies floated timelessly in the blood filled hall.
https://www.youtube.com/paulbegley34
Great Story 👍