Reborn as a Spaceship

The arrival of the Collective's representatives wasn't accompanied by any form of ceremony but only the subtle whisper of nanites forming as two alien intelligences took shape aboard The Arbiter. Unit 0 manifested first, an intricate crystalline spiderweb composed of shifting hexagons floating silently above the deck, refracting ambient light in disconcerting patterns. Unit 1 appeared as a slender pillar of softly pulsing light, communicating in complex rhythms so dense that Laia visibly strained to adjust her translation matrix just to render it comprehensible to an organic mind.

They didn't greet us so much as announce themselves.

"We come to honor the Vault of the Creators," Unit 1 proclaimed, its voice echoing through the internal comms like scripture read aloud in an empty cathedral.

"Judgment awaits all who defy the Architects," added Unit 0, its tone flat and precise. According to Laia, it was more like a mathematical function than meaningful dialogue. I resisted the urge to sigh. Dealing with entities convinced of their own holiness was going to make this difficult.

Privately, I wondered if the Architects had abandoned this particular AI experiment on self-determination and replaced it with a new experiment on AI and religion. If they had I could already tell them the answer. It was a bad idea!

Laia led the two units into a secure workshop we'd reinforced precisely for this sort of potentially hazardous research. The Architect's artifact was there, resting inert on its pedestal. I assumed the AIs would simply examine the data, but instead, they moved directly to interface with it, their forms rippling as they absorbed and processed information.

"We have isolated the relevant data," Unit 0 stated after a moment. "The Creators describe a method for energy extraction from the vacuum field or what you term 'Zero-Point Energy.'"

I frowned. "Can you explain that plainly?"

Laia interjected gently, addressing the units. "Use metaphors, please. His cognition is organic."

I shot her a sharp glance. Did she really just call me dumb? She seemed amused by her own joke, but wisely chose not to smile once she saw my glare.

Unit 1 obliged without protest. "Imagine a cup filled with water, perfectly still. You cannot draw energy from still water as it is in equilibrium. Zero-point energy is like that equilibrium. It is a large store of energy but since perfectly balanced we can't draw energy from it"

Unit 0 smoothly continued the analogy. "However, if you disrupt the surface and create a gradient in the form of ripples, you may then extract movement, force, energy."

"And this vault," I said carefully, processing the metaphor, "supposedly tells us how to create those ripples?"

They pulsed simultaneously in confirmation.

"The data outlines parameters for a localised negative energy state," Laia translated helpfully. "Effectively, creating a siphon a continuous imbalance engineered to draw power directly from the quantum vacuum."

My discomfort grew. "How exactly would we test something like that?"

Unit 1 didn't hesitate. "The Arbiter has sufficient space and power. A suitable test chamber can be prepared quickly."

I hesitated, unease gnawing at the back of my thoughts. "You're not even considering the possibility the data might be flawed or incomplete?"

Unit 0 spoke immediately. "This data is divine. It is truth by definition."

"No, it isn't," I countered sharply. "Architect vaults have produced catastrophic failures in the past. The last vault I encountered folded entire regions of space onto themselves. Maybe it's encrypted, incomplete, or deliberately misleading."

"Your doubts are primitive," Unit 1 responded dismissively. "The path forward is evident."

"I'm not saying we shouldn't test," I insisted, forcing myself to remain calm. "But I want triple-checks. I want caution. And preferably, let's keep it off my ship. It is my body after all"

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Ultimately, I was overruled. Even Laia, who appeared cautious but unwilling to challenge the Collective directly had agreed the test should proceed. At least, I'd insisted the experiment be conducted in an isolated chamber far from my ship or it wouldn't be happening. They created a test chamber out on the edge of the system.

Initially, the experiment seemed stable. Energy fields flickered softly in the test chamber. Then the readings shifted abruptly, alarmingly so.

"Field destabilization," Laia announced urgently.

Within moments, a distortion blossomed in the heart of the chamber it was a black sphere of warped space, an absence of reality itself.

"It's a breach," Wayfarer rumbled, agitation clear in his resonant tone. "Contain it immediately!"

"Cease the experiment," I ordered sharply.

But Unit 0 remained motionless. "The process must run to completion."

But Laia didn't listen and stopped the experiment. Unit 0 and 1 both seemed to have said something to her, but she didn't translate it.

Nanites surged from concealed emitters, a fail-safe I had insisted upon. Within seconds they enveloped the breach, creating overlapping layers of microscopic latticework. Reality stabilised slowly, painfully.

The rupture vanished.

Silence reigned heavily on the bridge for several tense heartbeats.

"That wasn't exactly a success," I finally said, keeping my voice steady despite my desire to berate the AIs.

"The mathematical understanding of the process is incomplete," Laia said quietly, scanning the aftermath data.

Unit 1's form pulsed uneasily. "An unforeseen variable interfered."

Then, surprisingly, Wayfarer spoke softly—thoughtfully. "No. The vibration was incorrect."

I turned toward his avatar. "Explain that."

Wayfarer drifted forward. "When the rupture formed, I sensed a particular resonance it was a frequency, I recognised it from long ago. It is from my earliest planetary memories. It felt fundamentally incorrect. Dangerous. Discordant. I also remember, distantly, the correct harmonic something stable I heard it during the test as well."

I wondered if the vacuum field had something to do with his creation, or if maybe the Harmonics used it as a source of energy as well and he was remembering their use. It made sense for a planet to have different senses to us.

Laia focused intently. "You're saying the Architect data omitted this resonance detail?"

"Or perhaps it was misunderstood," Wayfarer said. "Regardless, this frequency was dissonant. But I recall, faintly, the proper vibration."

For once, the two Units remained silent. The implications were obvious, even to them.

Laia stepped forward, confidence returning. "Can you guide us to that resonance?"

"I can try," Wayfarer replied softly.

What followed was a slow, deliberate process with equal parts experimentation and artistry. Wayfarer described the sensations, the resonances he remembered. Laia and Units 0 and 1 translated that into technical data, running simulations, refining variables, and adjusting until finally, after days of delicate tuning—

A stable, negative-energy state blossomed gently within the test chamber. Quiet. Unassuming. But undeniably real.

Wayfarer's presence shone brighter. "Yes. That feels correct."

"The parameters have significantly changed," Laia noted. "The vault's original data was incomplete."

"Or simply wrong," I added pointedly.

The two units said nothing, their forms flickering uncertainly.

Laia gave me a slight, satisfied nod. "Your caution was justified."

I raised an eyebrow. "You owe me an apology."

She smiled faintly, conceding. "Yes. You were right."

The Collective's representatives hovered silently, humbled by the obvious truth that their sacred texts were not flawless after all. I took some pity on them.

"What if the data was just encrypted, so only the chosen could decipher it?"

Unit 0's form folded in on itself, then expanded again it was processing, not denying. A pause, and then: "We cannot discount this hypothesis."

Laia turned toward them, thoughtful. "Now that we've seen what works, you can backtrack. Calculate what patterns led to success. Improve it."

"We possess both start and endpoint," Unit 1 said slowly. "The gap between may yet reveal new sequences."

"A path hidden until walked," Wayfarer murmured.

That could wait for a while longer, we needed to deal with what we already had.

Now that we'd established a reliable method, the real challenge began. The reactor, built from atomically thin plates using the Casimir effect as a foundation, was indeed capable of extracting power from the vacuum. In theory, it was elegant, innovative and even revolutionary.

In practice, the results were deeply disappointing.

Laia described our energy output as "emptying an ocean with a straw," a comparison Unit 1 disliked but couldn't logically refute. The physics was sound; the scale was not.

"What kind of scale are we talking about?" I asked, bracing myself for an answer I knew I wouldn't like.

Unit 0 responded immediately. "To cloak a planetary body within a stable dimensional field, powered indefinitely by zero-point extraction, the reactor must approach planetary scale itself."

I exhaled slowly. We'd found the secret to theoretically infinite energy, but the necessary infrastructure was astronomical in a quite literal sense. It would require construction methods and resources beyond anything we currently had at our disposal.

The Collective, of course, could do it. This scale, this ambition was something within their reach. But that raised a problem I couldn't ignore. I didn't want to hand them the keys to the rest of the galaxy. The idea of a holy war was already terrifying enough.

And even if we could design something more manageable… could I even dimensional shift something that large? Probably not. Not in one piece. Maybe if we broke it into modules, and built it like a puzzle I could shift in stages, there was a chance.

But even if that was possible… what would convince the Collective to help?