Chronicles of Sol: The Fall

With the children settling down, Sali turned to the young girl in charge of them. “So um, well I didn’t get your name. I’m Sali and you are?”

She smiled, “Rose.”

“So, Rose, why is a young girl like you watching a class full of kids?”

Rose grinned, “I’m the teacher's assistant, and she finally trusted me to look after them alone for a bit, and thanks again for the help.”

“So you are a teacher’s assistant?”

The girl nodded, “Mother and Father both felt that I needed this so I could be the babysitter I was meant to be.”

“Meant to be? Don’t you mean want to?”

“Well I want to be, but I really do mean meant. It’s why I am, it’s my purpose in life. To raise children for those too busy to be there all the time. It’s why mother made me.”

Sali blinked and interjected, “Made?”

The girl nodded, “Yep made.”

Frowning, “So you are a clone or something?”

She shook her head, “Closer to a robot, an android if you will.”

Now somewhat worried, she inquired, “A machine? If I might ask, what kind?”

Rose was silent for a moment, seeming to think, before saying, “I’m an AGI, hopefully the first of many.”

Sali took a breath, “AGI? Are they insane?”

Rose gave her a look, but before she could ask the other girl explained, “AGI is illegal, it was outlawed by the Interstellar Accords.”

“Oh? Well doesn’t mean much here, Humanity never signed any treaties banning AGI and are therefore not bound by them.”

Sali wasn’t sure about that, “I disagree, the powers that did also agreed to...”

Rose interjected, “Force a treaty upon people who did not agree? Did not sign? Very dangerous that, very dangerous indeed.”

Sali shrank a little, “Um, yes.”

Rose sighed, “That is rather unfortunate.”

As the pair went their separate ways, Sali was left wondering about the accords. Rose didn’t seem like anything more than a young girl. A smart one, but still young nonetheless. Yet what she said about the accords stuck with her. Rose was right, they were dangerous in that fashion. The humans weren’t bound by them either, they never signed. The thing about treaties was that they only really bound the parties involved. Encountering an AGI was not something she had expected though, but Rose’s very existence revealed how advanced humanity really was.

Then her mind drifted to some of what she had heard in the factories. Humankind was few in number, children were beyond precious to them and they had no worlds of their own. Perhaps AGI was just as important to their survival as anything else she had seen. Especially if they had plans to be a major power anytime in the next century or two. Although from what she had seen, they likely would have been one, if not for the war with the Cathamari.

Rose watched the young woman Sali head off with a pack full of tools and a job to do. Leaving her once again alone with the children. She turned to their smiling faces and gave them one of her own. “Want to play a game?”

It wasn’t like they had much else to do. Not until the teacher got back. The girls and boys lit up when she suggested that. After a bit of back and forth they filled into the classroom and found the board games. Something Rose knew the ship didn’t have in abundant supply on launch day. They were an example of consumer goods that were made locally. Back on Earth many of these would have been made with cardboard boxes and plastic parts. Out here in space they didn’t have those materials in abundance, not like on Earth. They did have synthetic plastics, but what they really had in abundance were metals. As such the boxes and many of the pieces were made of polished metal. It was cheaper this way. The game they picked had a metal board, but others might have used synthetic materials to make one. Cards were often made of synthetic materials.

Rose laid out the board, as the kids picked their pieces for a timeless classic. It was designed for up to eight players. There were 32 kids in the class which meant four groups. She wouldn't be able to play with them, but she could still do something. Rose figured she would take the time to be the banker for all of them. It shouldn’t be too hard. As the games were set up, she arranged the property decks, shuffled the chance and community chest cards and got everything set up. With the tables near each other so she could keep an eye on all six games. The cards in their slots, the pieces chosen, she handed out the dice to the six youngest players. Letting the game get started. As they rolled their moves and planned.

Before she knew it half the property cards had been claimed and the games were getting pretty interesting as they started trading cards in an effort to get a better position. When the teacher finally came back. She looked around and smiled, “Well Rose you certainly did a good job of keeping an eye on the class.”

She smiled, “Thank you! I have them playing a game right now.”

“I can see that, it was a good choice. Keep going, I’ll use the time to grade their work from earlier today.”

Rose nodded and turned to keep them having fun.

Countryman walked down the corridor. The meeting had run long, but now that it was over he had somewhere he wanted to be. He didn’t need to be on the bridge just yet, the Enterprise was underway. Post battle repairs were already completed, but those repairs had certainly eaten into their reserves. If battles kept coming like this, they would have to replenish more than just metals and spare parts. The Enterprise had a fairly large reserve of deuterium and antimatter, but it would only last so long. Especially if these battles kept draining their power supply. Combat was an energy-intensive activity and it certainly burned a lot of critical fuel. Without a friendly port, they had to mine the deuterium themselves. Same thing with the Antimatter, but the Enterprise did have a couple of antimatter converters that could produce antimatter particles for the reactors. The process was complicated, involving specialized energy fields and particle accelerators, but it was more effective than older methods.

There used to be more powerful and efficient instances than the shipboard generators on the Enterprise back on Earth, or more accurately in Earth’s orbit. Regardless, the ones on the Enterprise were effective for providing antimatter fuel, but they needed a source of suitable particles for it. To produce the anti-deuterium used in the main reactors, they needed deuterium. Something they were burning through in great quantities. More so than the usual operation would require. If they didn’t refuel soon, Countryman was worried that they might run out of fuel. A resource they needed more than any other right now.

He hadn’t voiced all of his concerns, this new-found aggression from the Valorians while seemingly inconsequential was likely to drain them in the same way the war with the Cathamari did. It reminded him of a science fiction story he had enjoyed in his youth. It described an ancient race and their end with a war against a race of hive-minded aliens that preyed on the life-force of living beings. They had been able to win every battle, but couldn’t win the war. For all their technology their foes were simply too numerous. With the Cathamari and again the Valorians they were facing the same thing. Humanity for all its accomplishments might be doomed to meet the same fate. Losing their homeworld was one thing, but fading into the pages of history was not something he was willing to accept.

The question of how to avoid it however was something that eluded him right now. Hopefully breaching that checkpoint meant they would have a chance to resupply soon, but he knew the Confederation wasn’t yet ready to stop pursuing them. More ships would be on the way. Greed and fear seemed to rule them, a potent combination. As long as the Enterprise was perceived as a threat they were going to pursue. That thought lent a solution, but it also eluded him on how they would do that. Not with their current resources. It would be a trick if they could pull that off, faking the destruction of the Enterprise would deny them their prize but to be convincing they would need a lot of material. The Enterprise was 5020 meters long, she wasn’t a small girl which played into the problem. Even assuming elements of the ship were vaporized if she went down she would still produce a sizable debris field.

Even an engine overload would produce a fair amount, mostly useless since everything would have been flash-cooked. Some of it would even be vaporized but the material would rapidly cool and resolidify in a vacuum. Accounting for a couple million metric tonnes of starship was no easy task. Still the idea might throw them off for a few days. How long he wasn’t sure, but he considered the idea as it was a useful trick. Even if it was an old one, a very old trick.

Reaching a door, he tapped the control and headed on inside. Where he was greeted with the sight of a familiar lab. Ruri was not around at the moment, but he figured she would be along before too long. Most of what she had been working on lately had been related to AI development and robotics. He ignored that and walked to her office in the back of the lab. Settling into Ruri’s chair he booted up the monitor and plugged into the terminal. Accessing computer resources he got started while he waited for her. He had a few tricks he wanted to prepare when given the chance.

He had also recently had an idea regarding the venting cannons on the Star Tech stations. The stations had been used for high energy research; the need to discharge excess energy into space had led to the creation of special energy vents, which were later weaponized. Countryman had been thinking about that and had a few ideas for adapting the same mechanisms to a much smaller platform. They would need some trial and error. Running reactors in near-overload states was not a safe or easy proposition. A delicate balance would need to be struck if they were to produce anything useful. If they got what they needed from this line of research, a fleet of ships might be at their disposal. Just one item on a list of things he was thinking about to get them out of this. Ruri was tackling one issue with the AI, the development would allow for ships that needed fewer people to man them, which in turn would allow for a larger fleet with their limited numbers. As it was, they could man only so many ships, but they did have a surplus of qualified command-level personnel.

As for the lower level positions they only had so many qualified people. Filling out the positions on new ships would only take them so far. They might be able to man a few more ships but nothing close to what he wanted. When they found their new home they would need people to man the new colony and people for a fleet of defense ships. Orbital defense platforms would also be needed as part of a planetary defense grid. They just didn’t have enough people for all of that and personnel shortages were going to be expected for a long time to come.

He had just about finished detailing a draft for a prototype when Ruri came in. She smiled when she saw him. “Planning something without me?”