- - -
POV: Arthur Sinclair.
I sat before Arriston and the other researchers, and began my explanation. "To summarize, the drones have developed a soul."
My declaration was met with a stunned silence; it was a moment before Arriston got a hold of himself. "What exactly does that mean?"
"First off, they can feel emotions. Anything with a soul — no, anything with any sort of psionic imprint — can feel some level of emotion. Theoretically, they should also be capable of learning psionic abilities — though the chances of that actually happening are tiny — that means they are also susceptible to psionic attacks. They'll also be more combat-capable. Other than that, the primary effects are a need for rest and recreation that are not present in most machines."
I took a moment to consider what else to say. "If you want to compare them to something, then you could probably compare them to dogs. All of their codebase is artificial, but I'm confident that parts of their minds were modeled on the decision-making of both dogs and crows."
One of the other engineers in the room — Lieutenant Sarti, the Chief Engineer for the Manassas — furrowed her brow. "Have they always had souls, or is this a recent phenomenon?"
I shrugged in response. My Bonesinger knowledge gave me some ideas, but not enough for a definitive answer. "If I had to guess, I'd say it was relatively new. I'm no expert on how a soul is developed, but souls rarely just burst into existence. Either they're split from another soul or they develop slowly from the coalescence of emotions."
Arriston let out a deep sigh. "Arthur, when was the last time you met Echo or the Deimos?"
I just blinked at him a few times before I finally understood what he was getting at. "It was before I got the Bonesinger perk, that is for sure."
Arriston turned to the aide standing directly behind him. "Can you please request that Echo join us? Tell her we may have a breakthrough in our ongoing discussion in the Senate."
He turned back to me as his aide quickly got to work on his flexi. "What do you suggest we do with these drones then?"
For the second time, I simply shrugged. "If this is a recent development, then you can expect them to be more capable platforms than they were during the Civil War. Other than that, I say we go ahead with our previous plans to reactivate them."
Arriston was quiet for a few moments. "Understood. Is there any way you could test the rest of them before we decide to fully reactivate them?"
"It wouldn't be difficult to put them all inside a virtual environment to see how they react."
Arriston nodded once more. "Then do that. I want a full report on any behavioral differences before we reactivate them."
Just a few minutes later, I met with Echo. When I shut out all the other noise and focused on Echo, I saw a person, different from most, clearly hurt by something, but a person nonetheless.
With that, I was pushed to get back to work on the voidseekers, though Arriston told me I'd likely need to talk about what I'd seen with the senate.
- - -
The same day, we removed the 24 voidseeker SASRCS systems and hooked them into a single unified flight simulator model. At the same time, we continued to rework the airframes. While I was looking at the drone, I realized it wouldn't take all that much work to remodel the voidseekers to be stargate compatible. It would just require another folded wing.
A day later, the new wing mounting was fully designed, and we had half a dozen prototypes printed and installed. Initial tests were promising, but we wouldn't be able to complete flight tests until the SASRCS were reinstalled.
Introducing multiple drone AIs in the same virtual space resulted in the AIs returning to standard procedure. It was only after we ordered them to "relax" that they began changing their behavior. They began testing the limits of what they could do. It was almost as if they weren't confident in what we were allowing them to do.
Nonetheless, as the hours passed, they began "playing" as groups. Watching it all happen was fascinating.
- - -
POV: Astronomer Aedan Galus. Novo Franklin.
For the third time, I looked over the most recent set of recordings. None of them made any sense. Just five days earlier, the monitoring satellites had picked up strange readings. One of my coworkers had stated that they were almost like emergence signatures, but they weren't nearly as obvious.
These signatures always appeared close to planetary bodies. Frequently, we could identify one opening near one planet and then another mere seconds later around another planet. Something was traveling within the system at faster-than-light speeds, but we never got any pictures.
In the background, my noteputor went off; another of the strange phenomena occurred, but it wasn't just a single one this time. Over twenty flew off at a single moment. I put down everything else and moved over. We had days of data on the expected emergence points by now. Immediately, I overrode the few astronomical satellites sitting in orbit and turned them planetward, waiting for something to happen.
Unfortunately, it was too late. Before the cameras were even reoriented, the emergence was detected. I let out a sigh and leaned back in my chair; we were so close. The phenomenon was entirely novel. All I wanted was a single image. How hard could it be?
As I was preparing to return control of the satellites, it happened. All at once, over 30 individual signatures blared off, and all of the kingdom's astronomical satellites were facing towards the source. For less than a full second, 30 disks of blue light opened up. For a fraction of a second, I saw something jump towards the blue disks.
As quickly as I could manage, I opened up the recording and watched on in fascination as for less than a fraction of a second, over thirty strange, triangular ships shimmered into existence before punching their way into the disks of glowing blue light.
I quickly sent the recording to some of my colleagues. It wasn't even 20 minutes later that I was summoned by Torin Harnfeld, one of the king's advisors; he had sent his private submarine to collect me. As the submarine entered the moonpool, I swiftly boarded it. The pilot pivoted the sub around, and as the journey began, I watched the depth gauge increase. From the 8,000 meters where my home was, all the way down to 12,000 meters where the Royal Palace was located.
The sub gently rose into another moonpool where I got out. It was a short walk from there to the advisor's chambers. I had made the walk before. He looked at me as I entered and simply nodded once. "Show me what you found."
- - -
POV: Arthur Sinclair. Three days later.
The past few days had been busy, to say the least. The Periphery Expedition had left Novo Franklin six days prior; they would arrive in the Tortuga Dominions tomorrow. That was interesting as well, but there were other things going on as well.
Several months prior, we had introduced the Curator Enclaves to the Asgard High Council. We had spent the time since then doing very little, but Arriston had finally opened negotiations with the Curators once more.
This time, we were hoping to get as much as possible. So, as I continued my work on the voidseekers, I finally got the message I had been waiting for.
Special Achievement: Mad Genius [Recruit a scientist from the Curators.]
1st Perk: (Previous Points: 200, Subtracted: 100, Current Points: 100)
- Domain: Toolkits: Magical
- Title: Carving kit
- Universe: Diablo 1&2
- Description:
The tools within this leather satchel are of exceptional quality and have been ritually prepared for work with delicate magical reagents. Having these will make Gemcutting and runecarving much easier. A sheaf of paper in a waterproof scroll case notes useful details on several basic runes and the most common semi-precious gems, but it lacks details on multi-rune sequences and the rarest stones. Still, the papers make a good reference, and they will automatically update themselves when you discover new information through experimentation or research. If lost or destroyed, the kit will reappear in your possession the next day.
- Points: 100
--- --- --- --- ---
Immediately, a very nice brown leather satchel appeared from midair. I blinked at it a few times before putting it down. Bonesinger had really been a magitech perk; this was my first true magic perk.
That didn't mean that there weren't some potential implications; could it be possible to integrate this rune language with Aeldari runes? Would carving Aeldari runes into gems have any power? What about imprinting runes on wraithbone as it's being formed? There were many possibilities.
I nodded and began turning everything off. If I was correct, then the negotiation team would be returning soon, and it would be good for me to meet them, and presumably the new curator scientist as well.
- - -
Two hours later.
From the stargate, the negotiation team stepped out. Following closely behind them were more people. As everyone stepped out of the way, more people continued to exit the gate. I watched on in fascination as at least 200 people from at least a dozen races all stepped out of the gate.
The negotiation team stepped forward, and with them was an avian creature, of the same species as Beak of White, wearing the robes of the Curator Order. He turned to President Arriston, who was standing just ahead of the rest of us, and nodded. "Greetings, I am Serai Sunplume. I am pleased to be working with your people."
Arriston reached out his hand, which Sunplume took. "It is a pleasure to meet you. I assume you've been told of all our requirements for secrecy?"
Serai nodded carefully. "I have. So have all the researchers who have come with me. All of our findings will be kept to ourselves until such a time as the Goa'uld are no longer a threat, or another agreement is made."
"And you are okay with that?" Arriston asked, carefully letting go of the curator's taloned hand.
"More than okay. The chance to work with the Astrocreator alone would have been more than enough, though I've been told that you have several fascinating novel technologies for my people to examine."
Arriston seemed to relax a bit as he listened; a smile graced his face. "Well, I'm happy to have you with us."
The next several hours were spent showing the Curator group around Kaelastrum, with the last location being the site of the under-construction university buildings. Once all that had been done, the next step was to introduce them to the other people they would work with.
From there, the exact nature of the coming cooperation was made clear. The curators would help us with everything they could. That started with getting our own scientific equipment up to the standards of the Curator Enclave.
My first perk activated when I touched the first of the curator computers. I wasted no time in touching a few more to get the complete blueprint.
First Perk Activated. Complete Blueprint Acquired: Curator Portable Computer.
The devices were fascinating. While they were based on the same general principle as the flexi, they included significantly more useful functions, including in-system communicators that used tachyon-based transmissions.
On the devices were the blueprints for several vital technologies, including a set of blueprints not only for these specialized computers but also for much larger and more powerful devices as well. However, more interesting was the blueprint for the tachyon-based sensor arrays and many pieces of scientific equipment that we now had access to.
The only slightly disappointing thing was their 3D molecular printers. They could print unique molecules, but they were slow, taking hours to print even a few kilograms of a complex shape/substance.
When we showed the curators our own designs for the constructors, he seemed almost taken aback by how efficient the devices were.
Then there was the really big reveal: the ringworld. When we had traveled through the stargate to Cybrex Alpha, Curator Serai had simply stared out the window at the horizon where a silver sliver of light rose all the way until it intersected with the sun.
I returned to my room at the end of the day rather exhausted, but excited for what was to come. That mood stuck with me until the next day when the initial reports arrived from the Tortuga Dominions. They were grim reads. The upper class lived in luxury while occasionally going out on raids against the Federated Suns Outback and Taurian Concordat.
Meanwhile, the lower class toiled away. Some would get lucky and get recruited by the pirate bands; the rest barely got enough food to live. Then there was the slavery; it was brutal and barbaric. Just reading some of the atrocities uncovered in the first few hours of the reconnaissance left me angry.
I decided to focus on my work to get my mind off the problem. I had some new research to do; the Tortuga Dominions would be a thing of the past soon enough.