Welcome back to Pact Day!
Today's topic is artificial intelligence and the Terren government.
The Terrens had artificial intelligent
aides long before they discovered the mutations among some of the offworld
colonist. (The mutants were last week's topic and the post can be found here.)
When they were expanding their influence deeper into the Milky Way, Terrens ran
into other civilizations as they explored and colonized other areas of space
and clashed with those beings.
I pulled some things from the
colonization of the Americas. Many times, the people who met with natives made
agreements, and sometimes treaties, with tribes who had no authority to do so.
When representatives of the government were sent, the treaties dignitaries returned
with were later ignored by governments for many reasons but mostly because it
didn't give the governments the power (land/area) that they wanted. Historically,
this has happened all over the over with different countries and cultures. Governments
were/are experts at getting out things they don't want to do or regulations
they don't want to comply with. Many times, if the opposing force didn't have
the power (or some other bargaining chip) to force compliance, they were out of
luck. So much of history was written by the "might makes right"
groups. There were all kinds of land/power grabs throughout history: The Crusades,
the Roman Empire, the military exploits of Alexander the Great, the Ottoman
Empire, The Great Khan of the Mongolian Empire, and there are more but I only
needed examples of land grabs that used military might instead of diplomacy.
Duplicating this history to the
spacefaring future wasn't hard to imagine. When I asked the question, "What would
Terrens do if they encountered other civilizations?" the answers were
pulled from human history. If the civilization had something that Terrens
wanted but couldn't trade for, was that civilization of similar or lesser
technologically? If yes, then Terrens would attempt to take want they wanted. The
public opinion on sending people into a distant war was volatile. This is where
the use of AI soldiers came into play.
At that time in Terren development,
Terrens were careful with producing AIs, following early laws on the production
of machines that needed little to no human oversight. But with the wars caused
by expansion and acquisition of resources, as well as the loss of the mutant
army the government had invested in, they thought that sending AIs along with drones
to 'vanquish' the opposition would be a good idea.
So after spending ten years attempting to
take Gaia back from the Erdaians, Terrens revisiting the restrictive laws and redacted
them. Thus began the mass manufacturing of evolving/learning AIs.
In the beginning, the expected length of
the wars was cut in half, but the news of Terren's tactics spread fast to other
civilizations, allowing them time to devise strategies on how to protect their
interests. The destruction of the Terren's army cost them dearly. The
replacement of the AI's soon became too costly and the government began propaganda
campaigns that enticed people to change their stance on being sent to battle
fronts.
The remaining AIs were repurposed for other
tasks that wouldn't destroy the valuable property. Many of them were tasked
with locating and procuring resources from planets that the government could
not afford to terraform, as well as many menial jobs in food growth, production,
and manufacturing that humans didn't want to take. After nearly a hundred
years, AIs moved from intelligent software to self-aware, but due to their programming
they were unable to break away from their Terren owners/operators.
Then Sahir Quanah Feteine who was a
secret rebel in one of the smaller operating companies the government ignored
because they didn't think the small company worth the acquisition, designed and
created Europa. Not only did he dare to make her look more human than any other
AI, but he refused to include the software protocols that would enslave her.
Hiding out on a backwoods planet, Sahir and Europa hacked government systems
and ran across the discovery of Qestaire, a planet deep in the Andromeda Galaxy.
The crystals the first expedition returned with were studied and then
immediately classified. The rocks proved to have an an infinite amount of
power, and that somehow those same rocks were sentient.
The Terren government was struggling
with cash flow. They lost a staggering amount when the Erdaians broke away and
stole all the available prototypes, from warships to experimental weapons to
engineering miracles meant for new colonies. Though the Terren government
recovered some with the first push into new territory in the Milky Way, they
lost another staggering amount when their army comprised of AI soldiers was
almost completely decimated. The promise of unparalleled fuel source prompted
the government to send a larger expedition of AIs to Qestaire to mine the
crystals.
Sahir and Europa discovered this and
Sahir sent his daughter to speak with the sentient rocks on Qestaire. Qrxzl were
the inhabitants of Qestaire and upon discovering the AIs were enslaved, they
helped Europa work to free them. Europa's father gave her the ability to
connect to other AI, which allowed her to access and rewriting their software protocols,
then she passed on that ability. The Qrxzl gifted the AI with small crystals
full of energy that allowed them to take quantum leaps through time and space. It
took many years but eventually, all the AI, now calling themselves Feteine,
were free of the directives that enslaved them to the Terren people and
equipped with small drives that allowed them to individually leap. In a
coordinated escape, the Feteine disappeared from all Terren occupied space at
the same time. Their disappearance caused an uproar so great, the government
almost fell. They suddenly couldn't produce enough food or manufactured goods. Commodities
that had always been provided by the government were scarce or no longer available.
As you can imagine this was a terrible
time in Terren history. Many died of starvation and the resulting riots were
put down with a heavy hand. Work camps
were instituted to replace the labor the AIs abandoned. The people had zero
confidence in their government but those in power remained so, though precariously.
The underground rebels who wanted a change in how the government was ran gained
in numbers. But it would still be many years before it would be possible for
them to effect any kind of change.
This time span took about a hundred
years and was what lead the Terrens to turn their gaze on the GyrFalconi homeworld,
Aries 7… which I'll address another day. I hope you enjoyed this quick look
into the Terren history that took place prior to the events in The Valespian
Pact series.
Thank you for stopping by and reading!!
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