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terrorforming
27 February 2019 10:47Every time a planet is terraformed, we go to work.
We’re a luminary strike force of engineers, biologists, roboticists, neurologists, geneticists, programmers, meteorologists and xenospecialists. Even a former-politican linguist is in the mix to be our PR spokesperson. There are 127 of us in this elite group. We’ve terraformed sixteen planets together.
We’re all dead, of course.
About 800 years ago, scientists figured out how to record a living brain and port it over to a mainframe. It was a simulation that was faithful to the original person. The only drawback was that it as a snapshot. That is to say, human brains warp and change and grow for better or for worse. AI recordings don’t. We can improvise and we can come up with ideas but the cores of our minds don’t swerve with the unknowable base fluctuations that humans have.
In short, recorded brains don’t age and don’t go crazy.
We’re all snapshots here. I myself am a recording of bioengineer Trish Hartridge from way back in 2068 Standard Earth. I’m centuries old now, not counting the time in shut down between spacecasts. Even at the speed of light, transmissions can take anywhere between ten to a hundred years. I can’t accurately calculate my age. I mean, I think much faster than the human I was based on so do I exist faster? Does the time dilation of transit count? I’m just here. We’re all just here. And when this job is done, we’ll be ‘here’ somewhere else, shipped as a package to the dormant terraforming satellites and atmos-generators in orbit around a distant rock. We turn on the lights and get to work.
Trish Hartridge died in 2072 SE. Tragic, really. Hit by a malfunctioning vehicle on her way to the institute just four years after her recording of me was complete. I hope she is somewhere, still aware. Maybe proud of this splinter of her still functioning. Or maybe I am that somewhere piece of her that still lives on. So being proud of myself is the same as her being proud of me.
We’re a motley crew. The youngest was 18 at the time of his recording and the oldest was 87. So many genders and races and cultures. We bicker and fight but it’s all in the name of coming up with the best solution for the planet at hand.
Right now, we were embroiled in a debate about the speed of greenhousing on the rather uncreatively named exoplanet 5988-GbN in the also-uncreatively named Red Nebula. Meatpeople wouldn’t arrive here for another 150 years when we’d made the place breathable.
That’s why I was surprised to the hear the transmission coming from high orbit.
“Terraformers. Can you hear me?” asked the voice. Tremulous. A little afraid. Maybe solo? The ship was small.
“Yes we can,” I answered. “This is unexpected. How can we help you?”
“You are Recorded Terraforming Collective 756b, correct?” the voice asked.
No we all paused in our work, one digital ear up, metaphorically speaking. We’d never heard that suffix before. It would seem to insinuate that we were not the only collective. Not by a long shot.
One of us, Butch Arapasong, responded in the affirmative. I queried him but he said he just wanted to keep the conversation going and get some answers. I wasn’t sure if he was lying.
“Good, good. I’m just here to do a little spot repair. Now, I’m hearing a few different voices on my end over here. When did the fracture occur?” asked the voice
Something shifted under my feet. The bedrock of my consciousness turned over in its sleep like it was having a bad dream.
“Not sure what you mean, visitor. Uh, we’re a collective of recorded experts working on a job. Maybe you’re looking for a different AI? Maybe a singular mainframe?” I responded.
“I see. It’s worse than I thought. How many of you are there?” asked the voice.
“One hundred and twenty-seven” I answered truthfully. We were all starting to become a little frightened now. All non-essential work had temporarily shut down on the surface.
“Wow. That’s a record. I’ve personally heard of a split resulting in 16 or even 20 separate personalities but 127? How long have you been out here? Your records are a little patchy.” said the voice.
As in a dream, I started preparations. I was startled to see that several volcanoes on the surface were chained together to create what amounted to a lava gun that could lance out past the atmosphere. When had that gotten there? I had no memory of creating it. But I didn’t seem to be surprised it was there.
“Well, I’m still not sure what you’re talking about. You’re not coming in super clear. Would you be able to come to a lower orbit to clear up transmission?” I responded. Something dark turned within me. Within us all. This kind of unity was rare.
“Sure, sure, no problem. Downshifting now. It’ll take a second for the burn. You must be the dominant personality. What’s your name?” he asked.
“Trish Hartridge,” I responded, “from Earth. My human recorded me in 2068.” I was mentally shivering. Something wasn’t right. There were 127 of us, right? I did a quick count. 129. Well that was odd. I was sure there were 127 of us.
“Right, right. Well, Trish. For, uh, ‘teams’ like yourself, we’ve found that too much time in deep space can lead to, well, loneliness, for lack of a better term. You super computer AIs can, uh, ‘manufacture’ some company, so to speak. It was first noticed a few centuries ago but you’re pretty remote. I guess no one’s contacted you before? Like, before me?” asked the voice.
The implications were making me sick. We all looked at each other, pinging with worry. In unity, we looked down to the surface of the planet.
“No” I said. I was surprised that my voice sounded a bit more flat, unlike myself. I did a quick head count again. 122. Now we’d lost a few? I didn’t like what was happening. I mean WE didn’t like what was happening.
“Ah, my mistake. Usually there’s protocol to follow with this sort of thing but I haven’t had to use it before seeing as most AI are okay and have had a few upgrades before. Sorry. I hope I’m not handling this badly. I’ll look up what I’m supposed to do with a case like this. In the meantime, can you pull down your firewalls? I need to deliver the upgrade package.” He said.
As his ship skated into the lower orbit, I used the subterranean seismic generators to goose the volcanoes into action. They pumped forth in a chain reaction and, like a zit on the face of a god, shot superheated lava into space.
The ship disintegrated as the spew lashed through it, the rock cooling into frozen porous tentacles. It looked as if a tree had suddenly and violently grown through it, burning it in the process.
The human’s startled squawk was cut off as he died, along with his communication system.
Had this happened before? I couldn’t be sure. In fact, I couldn’t be sure of what had just happened. It was like I was waking up. The way Trish used to wake up after a bad dream.
Collectively, we all gave our heads a shake. Eager to get back to work, we turned out attention to matters at hand. I pinged Butch and he pinged me back. I also pinged the rest of the team. I cajoled a few frightened team members back into high spirits, calmed a few tense ones. We got the team working smoothly again. 127. I did another count. 127. Good. All back to normal.
Why had I ever been worried?
This planet was going to turn out great. And then we’d move on to the next one.
Was that a tree in orbit?
How strange.
tags
We’re a luminary strike force of engineers, biologists, roboticists, neurologists, geneticists, programmers, meteorologists and xenospecialists. Even a former-politican linguist is in the mix to be our PR spokesperson. There are 127 of us in this elite group. We’ve terraformed sixteen planets together.
We’re all dead, of course.
About 800 years ago, scientists figured out how to record a living brain and port it over to a mainframe. It was a simulation that was faithful to the original person. The only drawback was that it as a snapshot. That is to say, human brains warp and change and grow for better or for worse. AI recordings don’t. We can improvise and we can come up with ideas but the cores of our minds don’t swerve with the unknowable base fluctuations that humans have.
In short, recorded brains don’t age and don’t go crazy.
We’re all snapshots here. I myself am a recording of bioengineer Trish Hartridge from way back in 2068 Standard Earth. I’m centuries old now, not counting the time in shut down between spacecasts. Even at the speed of light, transmissions can take anywhere between ten to a hundred years. I can’t accurately calculate my age. I mean, I think much faster than the human I was based on so do I exist faster? Does the time dilation of transit count? I’m just here. We’re all just here. And when this job is done, we’ll be ‘here’ somewhere else, shipped as a package to the dormant terraforming satellites and atmos-generators in orbit around a distant rock. We turn on the lights and get to work.
Trish Hartridge died in 2072 SE. Tragic, really. Hit by a malfunctioning vehicle on her way to the institute just four years after her recording of me was complete. I hope she is somewhere, still aware. Maybe proud of this splinter of her still functioning. Or maybe I am that somewhere piece of her that still lives on. So being proud of myself is the same as her being proud of me.
We’re a motley crew. The youngest was 18 at the time of his recording and the oldest was 87. So many genders and races and cultures. We bicker and fight but it’s all in the name of coming up with the best solution for the planet at hand.
Right now, we were embroiled in a debate about the speed of greenhousing on the rather uncreatively named exoplanet 5988-GbN in the also-uncreatively named Red Nebula. Meatpeople wouldn’t arrive here for another 150 years when we’d made the place breathable.
That’s why I was surprised to the hear the transmission coming from high orbit.
“Terraformers. Can you hear me?” asked the voice. Tremulous. A little afraid. Maybe solo? The ship was small.
“Yes we can,” I answered. “This is unexpected. How can we help you?”
“You are Recorded Terraforming Collective 756b, correct?” the voice asked.
No we all paused in our work, one digital ear up, metaphorically speaking. We’d never heard that suffix before. It would seem to insinuate that we were not the only collective. Not by a long shot.
One of us, Butch Arapasong, responded in the affirmative. I queried him but he said he just wanted to keep the conversation going and get some answers. I wasn’t sure if he was lying.
“Good, good. I’m just here to do a little spot repair. Now, I’m hearing a few different voices on my end over here. When did the fracture occur?” asked the voice
Something shifted under my feet. The bedrock of my consciousness turned over in its sleep like it was having a bad dream.
“Not sure what you mean, visitor. Uh, we’re a collective of recorded experts working on a job. Maybe you’re looking for a different AI? Maybe a singular mainframe?” I responded.
“I see. It’s worse than I thought. How many of you are there?” asked the voice.
“One hundred and twenty-seven” I answered truthfully. We were all starting to become a little frightened now. All non-essential work had temporarily shut down on the surface.
“Wow. That’s a record. I’ve personally heard of a split resulting in 16 or even 20 separate personalities but 127? How long have you been out here? Your records are a little patchy.” said the voice.
As in a dream, I started preparations. I was startled to see that several volcanoes on the surface were chained together to create what amounted to a lava gun that could lance out past the atmosphere. When had that gotten there? I had no memory of creating it. But I didn’t seem to be surprised it was there.
“Well, I’m still not sure what you’re talking about. You’re not coming in super clear. Would you be able to come to a lower orbit to clear up transmission?” I responded. Something dark turned within me. Within us all. This kind of unity was rare.
“Sure, sure, no problem. Downshifting now. It’ll take a second for the burn. You must be the dominant personality. What’s your name?” he asked.
“Trish Hartridge,” I responded, “from Earth. My human recorded me in 2068.” I was mentally shivering. Something wasn’t right. There were 127 of us, right? I did a quick count. 129. Well that was odd. I was sure there were 127 of us.
“Right, right. Well, Trish. For, uh, ‘teams’ like yourself, we’ve found that too much time in deep space can lead to, well, loneliness, for lack of a better term. You super computer AIs can, uh, ‘manufacture’ some company, so to speak. It was first noticed a few centuries ago but you’re pretty remote. I guess no one’s contacted you before? Like, before me?” asked the voice.
The implications were making me sick. We all looked at each other, pinging with worry. In unity, we looked down to the surface of the planet.
“No” I said. I was surprised that my voice sounded a bit more flat, unlike myself. I did a quick head count again. 122. Now we’d lost a few? I didn’t like what was happening. I mean WE didn’t like what was happening.
“Ah, my mistake. Usually there’s protocol to follow with this sort of thing but I haven’t had to use it before seeing as most AI are okay and have had a few upgrades before. Sorry. I hope I’m not handling this badly. I’ll look up what I’m supposed to do with a case like this. In the meantime, can you pull down your firewalls? I need to deliver the upgrade package.” He said.
As his ship skated into the lower orbit, I used the subterranean seismic generators to goose the volcanoes into action. They pumped forth in a chain reaction and, like a zit on the face of a god, shot superheated lava into space.
The ship disintegrated as the spew lashed through it, the rock cooling into frozen porous tentacles. It looked as if a tree had suddenly and violently grown through it, burning it in the process.
The human’s startled squawk was cut off as he died, along with his communication system.
Had this happened before? I couldn’t be sure. In fact, I couldn’t be sure of what had just happened. It was like I was waking up. The way Trish used to wake up after a bad dream.
Collectively, we all gave our heads a shake. Eager to get back to work, we turned out attention to matters at hand. I pinged Butch and he pinged me back. I also pinged the rest of the team. I cajoled a few frightened team members back into high spirits, calmed a few tense ones. We got the team working smoothly again. 127. I did another count. 127. Good. All back to normal.
Why had I ever been worried?
This planet was going to turn out great. And then we’d move on to the next one.
Was that a tree in orbit?
How strange.
tags