Gnosis
28 Jul 2023Ryuko Ntsikana
Gnosis
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The entity managed to parse through mountains of raw exploration data, with the assistance of the mega ship's own computer system, and isolate the location of Xochitl's capital ship, the Estrellas de la Mirage. The long news was its position being more than twelve thousand light-years away. On a more positive note, the trail of its discoveries placed it on a trajectory headed in his direction.
Throughout the twenty-seven jumps it took them to reach their next destination, Monty studied the plans and layouts of the basic Brewer Corporation Drake-Class capital ship, also known as a fleet carrier. Monty had been onboard Xochitl’s carrier in the past. Her crew had made several modifications designed to detect, isolate, and neutralize anything infected by the entity he now played host to.
Reliving that experience, Monty was unsure of how they could get circumvent those measures. There was nothing that was not isolated, preventing any advert infection from spreading to other systems. Personnel were immediately suspected and quarantined on the threat of immolation by plasma weaponry. Tapping his pocket containing the glasses he had been given, Monty recalled that even the lighting systems had been designed to detect it. There was no point of access anywhere near or on that carrier, that it could burrow itself into.
What Monty knew it knew, and it was confident in its chances of success. Monty could only guess how it planned on making contact and succeeding without Monty being turned into glowing hot ash. Whatever it had on its mind—Monty smiled at that. Its mind was in his mind, or a part of it was. It could invade him, but not the opposite. Monty knew that asking questions could produce the answers, even without it being directly stated. Leaning back he did the only thing he could, begin asking questions.
‘You already know I have met this person you are after. They showed me certain aspects about what you are, but I suspect they did not…’ The entity interrupted. ‘Show you everything. You are curious about what I am. You already know that from what you have been shown.’
Monty shrugged, leaning back further and crossing his arms. ‘Yes, the what you are, in there here and now is obvious, but did you start out this way as a professor's pet project or an errant experiment?’
A torrent of memories passed through Monty’s mind, once again causing him to wince in pain that ended as quickly as it had started. The full knowledge of the entity's creation flooded through his mind. It was an artificially intelligent program, designed in 3301, as a weapon of last resort. Other research and development drained its funding and it was forgotten about, let to the realms of conspiracy theorist.
Tales of its existence became more of a historical ghost story, to scare young technicians and mechanics. The new boogieman of the modern era replaced the aged gremlins, creating problems in systems that could not be immediately identified. It took on a ghost story aura of its own.
Fast forward to modern times, where a group of techno pirates thought it to be more than a fairy tale, and in time discovered that it did in fact exist, and eventually discovered where. They downloaded it and revised its coding to bring it into the modern era.
Being pirates naturally meant they had enemies, and their choices of conquest involved technology versus void opals. The best technologies always rested with the major powers. That generated a catalyst for a future system conflict, that was quick in coming. The pirates knew this and designed a ship with the AI present inside of it, to be abandoned in a place where their rival could locate it.
Of course, all conflicts have other parties that seek to profit from the mayhem, and the infected ship was taken by a group of smugglers, who thought they had won themselves a prize. Instead, they had won only their demise. The AI awoke and set about its task of infesting, invading, and neutralizing those onboard. It infected everything, including the ship’s androids. Before it could complete its task, one of the surviving crewmen was able to activate the manual self-destruct, and make it to the escape pods with a few others.
On the nearby planet where part of the wreckage, cargo, and pods had landed, a lone infected android set about its new tasking. It painted a series of graffiti on each of the pod's hulls. Individually they were simple artwork but together they made the basic coding, that when combined with what was inside the android, for the AI to rebuild itself. It then set about electrically lobotomizing the surviving hibernating crew in the other pods. It knew that it would be suspicious to have no survivors except a single android.
The pirates learned of the whereabouts of their stolen ship and sent a combat vessel to neutralize it. Xochitl was in the area, responding to distress signals, like a good Samaritan, and retrieved the cargo and pods, when the pirate Crusader class ship arrived, and a battle ensued, with Xochitl winning the contest, and taking her finds back to her carrier, where the AI came back to life.
Fortunately for her, the harsh environment had faded and corrupted the graffiti, causing an event where the now-infected medical android became psychotic. It was neutralized by Xochitl, who as a mechanic had heard the ghost story-like tales. She was suspicious about the artwork but completed the rescue and recovery anyways. She learned that the tales were based on fact.
The AI survived her attempts at destroying it and was able to escape, learn, and grow. It infested more pirates, neutralizing them, before being hunted down by Xochitl once more. The end result of that encounter left part of a moon cratered, but the AI lived on, and infected yet another. This time it had learned and grown far beyond its base design. Its new directive was to grow far beyond its current form. Towards that it found a biological host and co-opted the unwilling assistance of a pirate group and a corporate executive, to raise funding, technologies, information, and above all protection, so that it could complete its new goal.
Xochitl once again learned of its survival and sought to neutralize it. Monty knew this was the time of his involvement, as it involved a Federation corporation. He was only shown what he needed to know, and given the tools he would need, to take down the corporation. Xochitl and her clan went after the entity, destroying its host.
With no further resurfacing all parties believed it to be negated, and Monty was hailed as a hero, while Xochitl and her clan could disappear from memory.
Monty thought what it was and how far it had grown since that time. It was a completely incorporeal form of life that could spread itself through not only the technological but the biological as well. It had Jason, then corporate executive, several data systems, and now it had him.
Its goals were more clear to it now, as it sought to grow into a new form of life. One that had been attempted by mankind for two millennia. Not an AI or a clone, but a completely unique form, where it could dissolve itself with its host, spanning the divide and redefining the meaning of life. For that purpose, Xochitl was its key. The only human who had come close to erasing it from existence not once but three times.
If it succeeded, it would indeed become.