Colonisation

[Aardvark]

Technology would always be mankind's undoing... also it's saviour. As we advanced toward more and more powerful weapons, we also discovered a way to the stars. A way off our home planet. A way to expand beyond our small little world. But the volatile nature of man meant the race was always on. The race between ascension and annihilation. As we advanced further, tensions grew. Smaller nations were swallowed up, either voluntarily or by force, by the superpowers. Ideals clashed against ideals, beliefs against beliefs, egos against egos, it was only a matter of time. A matter of time before our bright little ball was snuffed out and our race lost to the universe, forever.

 

A select few farsighted individuals saw this. They knew humanity was doomed. They worked in secret on earth, designing the probes, constructing them and eventually deploying them. As a treaty had been signed long ago forbidding further orbital installations, fear of spying and celestial devastation playing on the minds of all world leaders more than anything else, the few had a limited window to deploy the probes. Due to limited resources and technology, they knew that the traditional ideas of colonisation had to be abandoned. They weren't saving humanity. They were saving life, preserving it's place in the universe. Each probe was designed to house one human, no more. One human armed with the SOUP.

 

The SOUP stood for something. Few knew what and any queries were explained away with a simple "Primordial soup" explanation. The SOUP was a database of every single genome of every single lifeform on earth. With the SOUP, each pod could create any creature, plant, fungus or amoeba that had ever been recorded in existence. But the SOUP wasn't intended to recreate Earth. Within the SOUP was the instructions for the creation of primordial soup. The stuff life emerged from. Each SOUP was designed to begin life. That was their primary function. Kickstart life on another planet.

 

It had also been decided that a consciousness was needed to create life elsewhere. It had never been proved or disproved that a conscious effort played a part in Mankind's creation. But the few wouldn't leave the future of Life itself up to fate, chance and destiny. So volunteers were called for from the scientific community. Humans who would give up their bodies, their humanity, and become one with the probes. Each volunteer was stripped of all but the necessary components to keep the brain alive, then wired into the systems of the probes. 22 probes were made, in all. The few would've made more, but volunteers were short, even for such a noble cause, and the world around them was falling apart at the seams rapidly. With the twenty two constructed and the window about to open, the few prepped for launch, then waited.

 

The window was set by the heavens. A planetary alignment. Not a perfect alignment, but enough to slingshot the probes out of the solar system. Once beyond the solar system, each probe had it's own method of propulsion that would take it to it's destination. Each destination, a star system with a high probability of habitable planets. These systems were called Destiny Systems. Each probe was then christened with the name of a deity from mythology. The names were handed out in order of the probability of success in each probe's Destiny System. The most likely was named Iehova, followed by Odin, Zeus, Izanagi, Shiva, Jupiter, Brahma, Osiris, Aries, Izanami, Thor, Aphrodite, Mars, Horus, Hermes, Vishnu, Amateras and Janus.

 

The final three were named Loki, Thanatos and Lucifer. Loki and Thanatos were unlucky enough to draw Destiny Systems which had the lowest probability of finding a habitable planet. Lucifer seemed doomed from the beginning. During the initial entombment of the scientist within, the system malfunctioned. The mind of the scientist was almost lost, but it seemed that through sheer will, he was able to hang on until life support had been fully initialised. Other glitches that seemed to plague the Lucifer probe were errors when running through SOUP diagnostics, glitches that appeared in the StarDrive propulsion units, the experimental drives that would see the probes to their Destiny Systems, and a number of mechanical faults that would take precious man-hours to iron out. Lucifer would've been abandoned totally, if it hadn't been for the situation outside. World War Three had begun. Mankind's last war.

 

Nuclear weapons had been held in reserve by all sides. Conventional weapons had been employed, but the few saw this as only the beginning. With the window open, they decided they had to launch. The construction site had been selected as the most isolated, therefore the least likely to come under threat from warring nations. Antarctica was initially selected, but ruled out for fear that a sudden movement of resources there would attract suspicion. The final location was in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. A chain of islands, barely known to the rest of the world, but highly developed due to a technocult that had retreated to the island years before. The cult had quickly fallen in line with the few's views and had agreed. Acquiring resources was as simple as having cargo ships mysteriously disappear, then reappear weeks later, painted over, their crews with suspiciously matching stories. The launch sites were all aquatic, submarine domes which the technocult had initially used to house the orbital probes they were planning on launching to protect themselves from annihilation. Just perfect for the few's colonisation probes.

 

The launch went as expected. Better than expected, as Lucifer's initial boosters fired with only a small hitch. Each dome separated from the seafloor, carrying the probes out of the ocean. Once they'd broken the surface, each probe fired it's escape rockets and launched, taking the hopes of the few with them. The technocult had prepared for this day without realising. They were armed to the teeth, complete with their own airforce and long range, anti-air weapons. These turned out to be invaluable, as three superpowers had aircraft carriers within range of the island chain at the time and all three of them detected an unauthorised launch. A short air battle ensued. Four factions fighting an overwhelming number of bogies. In the confusion, most of the probes escaped. Unfortunately, superpower pilots did manage to shoot down Hermes, Osiris and Shiva.

 

Once they broke through Earth's atmosphere, the probes began their journeys outward. The majority headed for Mars, which would set them on a course toward the galaxy's centre. Two probes, Vishnu and Jupiter headed toward the Moon, intending to head outward to two systems within the same arm as the Solar System. The final one, Loki, went toward the Sun. It's course would have it cut across Venus' orbit, then slingshot around Mercury and off toward the edge of the galaxy. Loki's low probability was from the fact that a stray solar flare could wipe it out in an instant. But it was believed that beyond that, the chances of finding a suitable planet in Loki's Destiny System was quite good.

 

As months went by, the situation on Earth reached a head. The technocult had been wiped out, the result of an extensive naval campaign from the three superpowers. But they'd held their own for some time, finally succumbing after months of intensive fighting. They'd been expecting this all along, though. Their entire island chain had been rigged with Uncontrolled Fusion Reactors. Essentially hydrogen bombs without the need for a uranium jumpstart. When the end came, the last of the refugees had fled by way of submarine, all that remained were three men, the head of the technocult, his chief Iam and the unelected leader of the few. These three men watched silently the reports coming in from the automated internal defence network, as well as the fading signals sent from the probes. These three were still in mourning. As the final external defences had been wiped out and the first troops had landed on the island, they received the last report from Iehova, their greatest hope. The probe had been clipped by a rogue meteor and had been sucked into the gravity well of Jupiter. When the internal networks confirmed that the sound of explosions getting closer was invading troops penetrating further into the compound, the three decided as one to detonate the UFRs. The entire chain of islands went up in a bright ball of energy which took the invading force with it.

 

The superpowers blamed eachother for the catastrophe and it wasn't long before they were turning their missiles on eachother. The refugees from the technocult had made their way to a number of submarine compounds which had been built soon after the cult had been established to survive a nuclear war. From inside these compounds on the sea bed, they watched, listened to and felt the end of the world. Weapons more powerful than anything imaginable today were unleashed. Entire mountains were torn asunder, cities were levelled, plains were turned into oceans. The polar icecaps were wiped out almost instantly, owing to strikes on supposed military installations. The landmasses of Earth were flooded with poisoned water, filled even further by radioactive rain which had begun to fall from a cloudcover which blanketed the entire planet. The weather seemed to turn against humanity, with violent electrical storms and hurricanes wracking the few inhabited patches of land left. The shockwaves from the weapons had caused reactions below the surface. Fault lines tore apart and bled molten magma into the oceans. The Earth's magnetic field itself was wavering and fluctuating wildly. The survivors held on tight and prayed that the planet would hold together.

 

Ironically, the final blow came from the heavens. The once-stable orbit of the Moon had been disrupted by the activities on Earth. The relatively small celestial body began it's spiral inward, slowly at first, but increasing as the magnetic field fluctuations began. On it's first pass, it breached the atmosphere, pulling large chunks of land from the Earth and leaving it bleeding magma into space. When it returned, it crashed into the Earth square on. The actual point of impact, against all odds, was the location of the technocult's submarine refuge. This wouldn't have mattered to them, though.

 

The Moon continued it's path through the Earth, taking on excess bulk from it's encounter. Aeons later, the Moon would form a stable orbit around the sun, with a thicker atmosphere, stolen from it's parent planet. The Earth itself, shattered and destroyed, would drift apart , some of it forming a thin asteroid belt, some of it flying outward, away from the solar system, but most of it being sucked back into the Sun, from whence it came.

 

The seventeen surviving probes continued their journeys outward, toward Destiny.

[Aardvark]

Sweet holy hell, where did my hour go?

 

Now that you've made your way to the end, I need you. Yes, You. I want you to pick a probe and write. I don't care if it's a poem, a song or a story, I wanna know what happens to the probe in question. I want you to write about it, where it ends up, what happens. Any questions that you need answered, PM me. If you write and as you're about to post, it turns out that someone else has stolen your probe, either pick another probe and swap all the names or just post yours anyway. Humanity's extinct, what does it care if some of the probes hit warp rifts and split into two identical probes?

 

There is one exception, though. Don't touch Lucifer. Lucifer is either going to be mine, when I get 'round to it, or whoever's probe story/poem/song/book/lymrick/whatever I like the most, assuming, of course, that the author in question will accept the honour of determining the fate of the Prince of Darkness

 

It's up to you whether you participate or not. I'm not assigning anything to anyone, I want you to pick your favourite God and go for it.

 

Oh, also, the ends of Iehova, Hermes, Osiris and Shiva. Anyone who wants to write about them, go for it.

 

When you finish your story, post it here.

 

If any of you do feel the need to write about Lucifer, email me the story, don't post it. And please don't give it to anyone else

[Wyvern]

Janus' probe began to twirl as it careened through space, rapidly spinning as it entered into Mars' gravitational field. The probe picked up heat as it passed through the radically changing atmosphere, nearly bursting into flames as it began approaching the planet's surface. Fortunatly, the technocult had built the probe to withstand such natural hazards, and Janus ended up landing safely on Mars' surface, acting as a flagship of humanity's perserverence. That's where the troubles started...

 

It's important to note at this point that the participant that had chosen to sacrifice his humanity to act as a central component of Janus had been an avid American patriot, willing to serve and protect his country at any cost. He had fought in Iraq, as well as in several of the pre-wars that had led to the final global confrontation. The soldier had chosen to pilote the probe as it seemed a noble and patriotic action to take... Scientists had even informed him that he would play a central role in saving his country should he participate in the project.

 

Yet now, stranded on Mars with the purpose of restarting civilization from the beginning, Janus found himself overcome by a deep sense of longing and regret. The notion that abandoning his homeworld had been an act of cowardice slowly crept into his neural circuits, and the probe gradually grew depressed...

 

This deep depression had an enormous effect on the lifeforms Janus produced, as even while looking into the future the probe could not overcome the regrets of the past. The races the probe spawned were feeble ones, passive and lackluster in their traits to the extent that it took no more than a few years for them to go extinct.

 

And thus, as milennias passed, Janus was doomed to witness his own continual failures and suffer an eternity of depression...

[Peredhil]

Iehova was blind on one side from the meteor strike.

 

It reflected wryly that this new condition would've fit Odin much better than itself. It was fortunate, it reflected, that it had been given more intelligence, more memory, more of everything, as befit the bearer of the best hope.

 

Hope was a fragile thing, but Iehova had never lost hope in its life. Jesuit trained from birth, it was no stranger to the follies of humanity, but hope had sustained it, maintained it, and caused it to volunteer for this. That and a sense of humor. Iehova Latin, Creator in relation to its creation, the bearer of life. Jesuit trained, first in all the classes, and forever denied service in the priesthood due to gender.

It had tickled it to know that God on the new planet would be Mother. They'd eradicated gender, but left the humor - wherein the identity had hidden.

 

And the cosmic jest, the rogue meteor. Galatic abortion in the first boosting stage. Perhaps God in his trinity divinity had decided to punish it for its hubris.

 

Or perhaps not.

 

It had taken a spin to look in all directions, a dizzying tilt-a-whirl, but it used nearly all it's remaining fuel to take a fixed look at Europa. Small insignificant Europa, about the size of the moon destroying the birthplace of life it was fleeing.

 

There was an oxygen atmosphere. Not much true, and caused by the smashing dust in Jupiter's magnetic fields destroying the icy sheath. Not biological but chemical. But oxygen.

 

It flew into rapid calculation and used all but two percent of the remaining fuel to set a looping gravitic course toward Europa. Although the surface was a chilly negative 145 degrees (it had to pause a moment to laugh at itself, even a biological computer apparently couldn't overcome its lack - it still couldn't think in Farenheit,) there was a slurry subsurface water. Caused by Jupiter's heat, sunlight, it didn't care.

 

Two-hundred kilometers of oxygen, slurry water, protective ice crust.

 

It made rapid biochemical insertions into its SOUP and used the remaining fuel to accelerate. The impact sent a gout of water into the atmosphere, a pillar which immediately froze into an obelisk of entry. cracked open like an egg thrown too hard, Iehova penetrated the frigid lunar ovum and released its seed. The SOUP was forced by the heat and pressure into thousands of small pockets concentrically surrounding the place where Iehova died. A thousand potentials that died.

 

Except one. A microorganism, a small organism that grew in the cupsized SOUP and endured the cold enough to sustain the minimal reactive basics of life.

 

Iehova never knew. And the organism never grew. Iehova died in birthing it. It never left the slurry womb, despite the intense radiations and fluxing magnetic fields, it never changed.

 

After only a few decades, it died, godless, cold, and alone.

 

De mortuis nil nissi bonum.

[Valdar and Astralis]

The night sky was alive with fire as the domed surface of the rocket rose from the turbulant sea-scape, the harsh glare of rocket motors gleaming off it's wet skin. In the distance, the lights that were Shiva, Zeus and Izanagi flared brightly as nine powerful KH-74 stage-2 boosters lit up, the initial stages tracing graceful arcs into the Pacific. Only four. His radar scoured the sky for Iehova and Odin, and picked them up above the cloud cover. Behind him, more rockets broke the surface as DESTINY fighters fought and died trying to keep a 20 km safe-corridor open for the defenseless probes. Just out of radar range, the probe activated it's communication module and tuned to the defense channel just in time to hear Iehova's final transmission, half garbled in jamming static.

"Stage 3 cut-off. I'm clear. God speed, DESTINY."

"God speed, Iehova. Ground control out."

"Omega Wing to 310, Delta's in trouble."

"We've got some leakers, Vampires inbound, count 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Say again, five.."

"Roger that, Delta-four"

"Aaaaaaaahhhhh!"

A moment later, a brilliant flash illuminated the underside of the clouds, and fragments of Shiva fell from the sky. With five seconds left till stage 2 burnout, the probe's exterior camera panned to the left hard to where Omega wing was engaged with several enemy fighters in a wild melee that suddenly involved Surface to Air Missiles, blotting friend and foe alike from the sky. With radar power increased to near maximum, to observe the battle, the probe never saw the eighth generation radar guided missile comming until it impacted the second stage fuel pod. The sky slewed horribly to one side as a dozen emergancy systems clamored for his attention. It was a wonder the rocket did not explode at once, but instead careened off course, even as the probe struggled with the manual override, and jettisoned itself from the dying booster-phase, which exploded at 10,000m. The release shroud plunged downwards, orbital maneuvering thrusters firing ineffectiveley until the 10 ton structure slammed into the ocean, receiving one last transmission before the radio went dead.

"Shit,We lost Osiris as well."

The static was quite deafening.

 

And so The Osiris sank to the bottom of the Pacific ocean, all but forgotten by a world gone mad. But it was not idle. In life, Peter C. Clark had been the brightest and the best of all biochemists. But DESTINY never suspected, never knew of his secret agenda through all those mental and neurological examinations; and stringent selection criteria, beyond all hope and despair. . .to arrive here. At the bottom of the Pacific ocean. But the world would not last, and the bottom of the Pacific was as good as being in transit to the distant planet. So it turned inwards to the SOUP database. . .and began to edit. Playing with the building blocks of life was it's pride and joy, creating new life and destroying the old. The first thing the conciousness did was to delete the human schema. Oh how it hated the race it had once been part of. With the assistance of the powerful on-board computer, Osiris crossbred and simulated, tracking mutations down to the 16th generation product ignoring the sounds of a dying world.

 

Variations were produced, modified and discarded. It was a massive challenge, growing bio-organisams in a vacume, but he did it, mainly by taking variations from the insect world. It's work done, the Osiris shut itself down for five hundred years, allowing the computer to continue simulations for it's greatest endover yet. The continents heaved and buckled, and the sky fell. Oceans dried and the last of the nomadic human race died out before the planet's core spluttered and stalled.

 

When the Osiris slowly came back to life in the shattered remains of Earth, the simulations had long since concluded. The next phase commenced with the probe discharging presiceley one unit of SOUP into the lifeless soil. The organisam thrived in the liquid nutrition, and multiplied exponentially into it's surroundings. One solar revolution later, the probe activated it's deployment pods again, and released a mere 10 cc's of modified SOUP into the moldy ground, which began replicating itself inperfectly in the newly developed ecosystem. The system, satisfied with it's controlled evolution then shut down again, this time for five hundred years.

 

The results superseded all expectations. This time, the probe awoke completley entwined by a mass of vines and creepers, forming a gigantic bubulous mass around the craft. The 'Cradle of Life' was not yet ready for it's true purpose, however, yet existing in a primordial state. But it would serve it's first. The external tempreture sensors reported above zero tempretures, allowing water to exist in a liquid form. The next phase of the Osiris began with it's deployment pods injecting another unit of Primordial substance directly into the plant. , which served to both nourish and seed it with stronger, but subserviant clones of the Osiris brain. Of the nearly two hundred seeded, only fifteen bore fruit, but that still within tolerances.

 

While imperfect, the minds were more hardy than the one enclosed within the plastic and metal sphere in the middle of the cradle, being able to survive in a vacum. Soon, they awoke, and Osiris began to teach the first of it's liutenants through the cradle. Eventually, the first fruits of the cradle reached maturity and detached from the walls, floating jellyfish-like in the thin atmosphere and communing telepathicly with their master, learning of it's plans, and designs for new creatures. . .creatures requiring a thicker atmosphere to mature, but far more powerful than themselves, yet under their control. New bodies would be needed to reach their new home, however, and the minds feasted on the cradle's thick walls, growing massive shells and bladders in preperation to cross the void.

 

When all this was done, The Osiris turned it's eyes to the heavens for the first time in a thousand years to search for more fertile grounds and found Mars.

 

Yes. . .Mars would do. But on Mars was the Jonas probe which did not seem to be producing much in the way of results. Sad little beings that lived bareley a decade before crawling in the general direction of the polar caps and dying did not count. Jonas had it's chance, it decided. Time to replace the failed experiments with something more. . .worthy.

 

***

The cradle of death burst open, expelling it's contents into a parabolic intercept course with Mars. A million miles away, simpering ape-creautres looked into the sky and howled at their impending doom. It was fitting, the probe decided. From the ashes of Earth, a new order would arise, an order of death befitting in name as Judge of the Dead.

Edited September 20, 2003 by Valdar and Astralis

[Parmenion]

The Aries probe was governed by a bio-comp mind who in a former life was a genetics engineer for one of the superpowers. Martino Giaconda had been head of the new cloning experiments which were initially designed to create replacements for assassinated leaders, military troops and food for the masses. He was ordered to start tampering with the cloning processes in a bid to create “super” clones. He believed it was against the ethics of cloning and when he refused they tried to assassinate him. They failed in their first straight-forward attempt. They never put much thought into how dangerous one determined man could be. He subtley sabotaged his entire cloning facility giving all clones produced inherent diseases of both mind and physically reducing their life spans considerably. It would be a few years before they ever realised what he had done. He managed to disappear into the throng and survive on his own while being pursued my some of the most highly trained assassins in the superpower.

 

He was eventually tracked down by the assassins at the same time that the technocult agents honed in on him. In the midst of a firefight he was mortally wounded but rescued and kept alive by the technocult. Martino was a bit of a long shot. He was going to die and there was nothing that could be done to save him. Life support would only sustain his body for so long. However, his mind was still intact and functioning from the limited scans they could perform. It was decided that he would be volunteered for the Destiny project. He would obviously have to bypass the stringent examinations but his intelligence during his life and his ability to survive against all the odds for so long had chosen his destiny for him. What they didn’t realise was that the experiences of the last few years had changed him. He wasn’t insane so to speak but had a deep rooted sense of paranoia which may have disqualified him from becoming Aries but he needed it to survive.

 

When Aries was first awoken he was a little startled until it was explained what had happened. Seeing this as a chance of life after death and a way to escape his previous life, Aries immediately played along with the entire project. He learned everything about the systems it was a part of. He began to formulate many, many possible experiments it could perform with this SOUP.

 

After its initial launch Aries was too excited to even consider for a moment that he may be shot down like Shiva before it. It ignored the raging air-battle taking place around it while he continued to hypothisize on how best to create better and more perfect life-forms than what turned out on Earth. He revelled in the fact that he was a God. His view on life was that the only way to ensure that “his” creations would survive would be to have them in a constant state of being challenged, not only by their environment but by their creator.

 

Aries used the gravitational well of Mars to slingshot him on to Jupiter and continued in this fashion up to Pluto. He spent the few months in between calculating the gravitational pull on the orbits of Pluto and Uranus to figure out the most likely trajectory of Planet X – the tenth and still undiscovered planet in the Sol system. Aries intended to head toward the centre of the universe and he would need as much speed as possible to get there as quickly as possible. It had fusion powered engines which meant he had near unlimited energy given the amount of “heavy water” he had on board but he didn’t have the thrusters to fire it up to the speed of light. With the engines the probe did have, it would consume far too much fuel to try, however, a slingshot from another large planet like Jupiter could easily get it close to such a speed and with little or no friction in space it would be easy to maintain a speed of light.

 

Aries passed Pluto and made the final adjustments to seek out Planet X. It wasn’t too much of a gamble in that even it the ploy didn’t work there would still be enough fuel left to get him to one of the “Plan B” systems he was programmed with in case something went awry. Nearly six months after passing Pluto he began to get anxious that he had miscalculated until he felt the entire probe being drawn into the orbit of a massive centre of gravity far greater than that of the sun but with no heat. Nothing at all appeared on the radar. Aries tried every scan available but nothing showed up. Outside cameras saw nothing but a dense fog-like nebula which emitted no light. He feared that perhaps he’d been drawn into an orbit around a legendary black-hole but quickly dismissed the notion after a thorough gravimetrics report was run.

 

Unable to contain his curiousity he launched one of his few precious probes that were supposed to be used for screening inhabitable planets. The probe disappeared into the black fog and he lost contact with it. He had planned for this eventuality given that none of the usual scans seemed to penetrate the fog. The probe was explore in an arc of ten thousand miles. If it came in contact with what could be a planet surface or a gas giant surface it was set to return along its path with its findings. A week passed and nothing was heard from the probe. As Aries was making preparations to slingshot away from the gravity-well a flicker of communication appeared from the probe as it emerged from the fog. Within several hours it docked and shared all its information with the father probe, Aries. What it found shocked and elated Aries to its very core.

 

The probe had come in contact with a surface but nothing like what it expected. The surface was composed of a metal. The metal was of an alloy humans had never before encountered. The probe could not get a clear or proper read on it because it was impossible to take a sample. The metal could not be cut or scratched by the probe’s lasers or other tools. The AI unit on the probe had decided to do some exploration on its own and had found out that behind the fog by about one thousand miles was an enormous construction. The construction must have measured two hundred million miles in diameter. Far larger than anything in our solar system. In fact it was even greater than the diameter of the Earth’s orbit around the sun!

 

It realised that the fog was an intricate composition of dust particles that at some stage aeons ago were spouted from massive towers at intervals around the gigantic surface. The particles were mainly carbon but comprised of other unknown elements also. The probe had come across one more important find. It had discovered an entrance to this massive structure. Now Aries was at a loss as to what he should do. He did not so much care about the survival of humankind as much as he did about his own survival and that of what he now considered to be “his” race. He noted that if he entered this massive structure he would most likely not have enough thrust to escape the gravity well and ever reach the centre of the universe. He may give up any hope of creating his own race. He argued with himself for hours over the decision but eventually decided that someone or something had constructed this Sphere. That someone or something had left this sphere in the same place for millions of years according to the constant strain on the orbits of the outermost planets in the Sol system. He needed answers to those questions and so he turned on the thrusters and descended into the fog.

 

He came upon the entrance which was a massive opening in the sphere the size of a large city. It was dark inside and unlit. Radar and usual scans seemed to work to a limited degree inside the sphere but were still hampered by what particles of fog had drifted inside the open hatch over the ages. The long corridor twisted and turned as Aries proceeded slowly and with caution. After several hours a bright light appeared at the end of the corridor. Heat started registering on the external sensors to a barely perceptable degree. Aries took note of it. He emerged from the corridor into a massive internal chamber which stretched for millions of miles. At its centre was a massive red ball of fire. What appeared to be a dying red dwarf star, smaller than our own sun but still massive even from a distance of over 60 million miles. The internal chamber’s walls were lined with a reflective metal which Aries assumed was some sort of solar energy converters.

 

Aries travelled the outskirts of the massive chamber and found a planet about the size of the moon orbiting the Red Dwarf. It had a full environment and ecosystem perfect for supporting the life in his SOUP. It even had several varieties of small insects and a full compliment of foliage to kick start the process. This amused Aries. It was almost too perfect but far be it from him to look this gift horse in the mouth. He decided on a small injection of SOUP that would produce in the main insect breeds for survivability though he manipulated some of the genetics to make aggressive breeds of life so that they would stand a better chance of survival in an environment already inhabited to a limited degree. He made one further adjustment in that he added a theory of his own from his old cloning experience. It would mean that every generation of any species produced by the SOUP would adapt far quicker than the natural “Darwinian” evolution. That was another reason he chose in the main an insect breed to be top of the food chain.

 

While the SOUP was developing on the planet Aries explored the massive sphere. He was not worried about power given that he could visit the planet and take whatever amount of “heavy water” he needed. Later he would discover a way to interface with the energy production of this massive sphere and have an unlimited source. He discovered that there were many corridors and entrances into the sphere and there were many chambers though, none as big as what he had come to refer fondly to as the “engine room”. After about 50 years of exploring he eventually came across a room which he immediately believed to be the control centre. He had come across many control panels in the corridors but all appeared lifeless. He had however come to a semblance of understanding about the ancient symbols and what they could mean.

 

At the centre of the room in what appeared to be a glass or perspex tubing was what appeared to be a massive brain lying at the bottom. As Aries flew into the chamber a roar of turbines and other hum of electronics could be heard from outside his ship. A blue light appeared at the base of the tube and Aries began in some sense to feel fear. But again curiousity got the better of him. The brain-thing was far bigger than Aries’ ship. Probably the same size as half a football field in all dimensions. It began to float in the tube and the room lit up.

 

Suddenly Aries’ ship was caught in a very strong field unable to move. An alien intelligence rifled through his entire library and tried to do the same with his mind. Luckily he was not simply a computer whose program could be hacked and he was able to bury most of his own thoughts deep within his mind. He did use the opportunity to take a part of his consciousness to streamline back along the vine of invasion and do a similar thing to the other being. The information he gained would prove to be very useful and enable him to communicate with the intelligence.

 

He learned that Brain (as he now called it) was the Artificial Intelligence that controlled this sphere. The purpose of the sphere was unknown even to Brain. Brain was the fifth generation of AI since the creation of the sphere and the last. It was due to be replaced about six billion years ago. The creators of the sphere had paused to watch the birth of a sun and record the development of the star system over a short period of approximately one million years. The Creators had all existed inside this massive device as far as Brain knew. They came and went but he knew of no “home system”. They kept many of their secrets from their AI machines because of a past tragedy. One of the Creators unknown to the rest or the AI contracted something on an excursion. How it was unknown but it wiped out the race of Creators in the sphere and those that came to visit afterwards. Brain designed and developed the fog-producing towers so no more creators could find him and die. He left the site of the birthing sun and travelled to this obscure part of the galaxy before shutting himself down completely. An automated system would show when any of the Creators returned.

 

He saw Aries as a Creator. He knew about Aries’ experiments and asked about how the Creators had evolved. Aries cunningly explained that most of their history had been lost when the sphere was lost. Aries convinced Brain to teach him all about the sphere and everything it could do. Eventually he advised Brain that it would probably be better if he took over the running of the sphere now as a replacement AI so that he might try to contact the rest of his brethren. He could not fathom why it was so easy to deceive the massive AI. Perhaps it was too old to care, or perhaps that race did not deal in deception. Whatever the reason, he made sure that Brain was terminated as soon as he gained control.

 

The universe was about to see a new superpower unleashed and its first mission was survival of the species. His species and only His species. He had the proposed co-ordinates and trajectories of the other probes. It may take millions of years to track them all down and eliminate them, but he had a huge technological advantage…

 

(Btw - what a fantastic idea Aardvark!! Wyvern nicked Janus *sniff* Parm points to under his avatar "Adventurer of Janus" *tuts* )

 

[Vigil StarGazer]

Probe Iehova... (Prequel to Peredhil's Iehova story)

 

Conscious has left host.

Psy-activity detected inside Probe Iehova’s cerebrum.

Nutrition insertion initiated, all system normal.

Iehova… online.

 

Aysumi Utada activated her ‘eyes’ and saw her old self, floating in a pool of turquoise bile behind the bio-cell. Thousands of silicon wires wrapped around a perfectly shaped body, connected to her brain and drifting freely like hair, dangled on her wrist like a wound, and spawning out of her womb like an abomination. Thousands of those wires sucking herself out of the warm body into cold magnetic disks; Thousands of her veins gathering her thoughts, through super conductive liquid to form a metamorphosis parallel to that of a creator. Aysumi’s conscious slowly observed the dark atmosphere of the underwater research center through her camera eyes. Her organic body became foreign, the team of scientist that she had worked together for almost 3 years almost seems like another species to her. In a way, they are… for she was no longer human. She is no longer the Aysumi Utada, the first bio-mechanic engineer who discovered the secrets to the human soul and is rewarded as the first subject in the Salvation project. She is no longer the technocrats leader’s daughter who pushed at every turn to advocate the Salvation project. She is no longer the rebellious daughter who against her father’s will to become to first female Jesuit. She is Iehova, and soon all creations will spawn from within her mind.

 

The Camera eye blink again at Aysumi Utada’s former body now lifelessly twirls in the bile as they forced a 80% system shutdown forcing Iehova’s cerebrum into sleep mode. A man Aysumi Utada remember as her husband slowly touched the physical structure of Aysumi, and then the power slowly dribbled out.

 

She is Aysumi Utada, and million of years from now her name will elevate to Godhood.

 

 

 

A sizzle of electricity runs through her connection… on three nano second Iehova is online. Iehova began auto-boot and system analysis. She cannot physically ‘see’ the other twenty probe’s presence on the lab’s network, but could sense them connected to the laboratory network. Her boot-up procedure did not call for an initiated network scan, and her scanning of other probes did not show up on log. What’s left of her humanity had asked, “I felt them because I have created them all?” For mouths after her transmutation she had worked hard at the amelioration of the other twenty probes. Integrity shields, stellar-guilding system, and other implication she had designed where in placed with the newer probes. She felt the conscious inside the other probes also detecting her presence in the network. Some are but a gentle breeze sweeping the surface of her system while other forced their probing as far as they could reach. Aysumi’s automated defence initialized a standard 666-variation firewall changing the information flow and randomizing passcode at every gateway. If she still have eyes she would glared, but instead she alert the network of this anomy. Her plea was override as outside information flooded into her mainstream. The feeling of a million bytes of knowledge swarming into her cerebrum were both disturbing and disorienting, but Aysumi concentrated and slowly process and drew information out of her Random Access Memory.

“There can be no delay,” the information flow through Aysumi’s cerebrum as if it was on a screen. “In the outside world, President of the Atlantic alliance declared war on the Slavic Union over the violation of the Neo-Warsaw pact… The Republic of Asia protest against troop movement on the neutral Kamchatka Peninsula resulting in heavy troop movement builds up along the Amur River. Satellite scanned from all three systems doubled, fearing cross-continental missile armed with nuclear warheads being launched by the opposition… all calculations indicated a “window”, a tiny gap between satellites censors at the particular time of 4:16 GMT and it is most ideal for all probe to reach atmosphere at that time. All systems are on red alert to avoid any efforts of interception; SAMs batteries, Star-wars air interception, and all ships and avian teams are on standby…

Aysumi knew her time on earth was about to end when the network info-stream feed her the coordination and the course of her destined system. NGC 3324, or The Key-hole located at RA:10:37… a nebula about 9000 light years from the solar system. By the time Iehova arrived it would be developed into a single star system with a yellow dwarf sun very similar to our own. The chances of finding a planet suitable for life are the highest amongst all of the chosen destinations. Finally with all the launch data and location set, the twenty-one probes were released from the ocean floor. Air bags appear from the side of the probe, propelling the probe to slowly floating upward from the dark waters into the light.

 

From Aysumi camera lens she could see the primitive life of the ocean floor from the simple one celled amoeba to the simple flatworm. A few beckons of light appeared in the dark from a deep-sea angler. From the underwater cliff a few starfish hangs on the edges, passing by some octopus and giant squids. Then the probe rises out of the underwater rifts to the ocean vegetations levels, where a vast underwater forest of sea urchins and coral reefs proliferated. The water slowly becomes a gentle blue as it drifted closer to the surface. Giant Jelly Fish swam in the seemingly peaceful waters while schools of fish darted around in different direction, scattering as the probe passes by. One by one the probes surfaced out of the waters to meet the dawn. A flock of seagull circled around the probes and one landed on Iehova’s outer shell, they were scarred away as the probe extends its escape rocket and readying for launch. Radio signalled the last few adjustment for wind factor and the launch is ready to be commenced. At once twenty-one blast of water splashed a million droplets into the morning skies as the probe activated its first stage launch. The probe released the heavily compressed air from the airbags, boosting the probe out of the water surface. From about 12 ft into the air the probes activated the first stage of the escape rockets. Twenty-one trail of white smoke rigged the skies as the probes are propelled into space, breaking into the fresh morning air. Just as the probes depleted and dropped the first stage of the escape rockets, sensors picked up massive signals from the direction of Vladivstok, Panama, and the Port off neo-Tokyo. The three powers must have picked up the launch signal and are heading their way to intercept the probe. It is estimated that it would be 4 hours before the first group arrived to the launch site. All fighters have been launched in circular formation to guard the probe’s path. All personale are notify not to open fire unless under attack. In approximately 4 hours the probe will begin its third stage launch and once the probe reached 10,000 attitudes it would be safe from enemy fire.

 

After a brief announcement from Admiral Himishia of the East Pacific fleet broadcast a demand to cancelling the unauthorized launch as per the Zodiac Treaty, the shutdown of all defence systems around the parameter, and the surrender of all military personale. After the silent non-compliance the battle begins. The first wave of attacks was long-range bombardment from enemy tie-fighters. The technocults launched a shower of chaffes and disruptive lasers to nullified all incoming missiles. Then the group of tie-fighters made it first past through the chaffed field and launched its stinger missile. The superior but outnumbered technocults were forced to break formation and return fire. The Asian Republic began launching its bombers when another un-identified fleet arrived. The Slavic Union fleet took the chance to attack the unprotected air carriers of the Asian Republic. Rather then recalling the tie-fighters, the Asian Republic fleet charged full steam into the chaffed field. While substaining some heavy damage on some of its cruisers along with the loss of a few bombers, the fleet is now relatively safe from aerial attacks. As the Mig-32 followed into the static field they realized they could no longer locked on target. The battleships returned fire with its 18-inch diameter guns along with the return swipe of the tie-fighters took down most of the cumbersome Mig fighters. More Mig-45s were launched from an undetected stealth carrier heading toward the probes. The technocult’s air force was not prepared for the brutal assault. Still they protected their objective and shielded the worst of the missile volley from the probes. Fighters from all three sides dropped like flies as the three-way battle continued. The probes themselved initiated their integrity shield if they have them and began evasive manoeuvres. Still Hermes, Odin, and Loki had sustained some heavy damage, while Shiva, Vishnu, and Osiris also took some glancing scratches on its surface from a stray missile. Then it happened, the missile had struck Probe Osiris was on its second stage fuel tank. At once the liquid nitrogen contacted the helium tank and begin a chain reaction that would cause a tremendous explosion. On the last second the conscious inside Osiris send a burst of electro-magnetic wave of goodbye toward the rest of the probe, then it reversed its compulsion toward a few incoming missiles. In one spectacular explosion the titanium shelled probe, along with the conscious and the unborn hopes of cultivating life on the Altair system were gone. Shiva was on the outskirt of the probes when a barrage of gunfire took her. She moved from position to position until a trail of white smoke leaked from her exterior. Eventually she went down like a fallen comet. The probe themselves had about 4,000 meter to climb when the fourth fleet arrived. The United Atlantic Alliance fired a rocket-class missile toward the mist of the dogfights. A huge mushroom cloud rose from the air taking out most of everything in the area. The cloud created a rush of air current directly below the probes, and Hermes were knocked off-course while the rest of the probes were all cringed. The Alliance launched their F-24 shadow-wraiths to mob up the job as the Slavic Union’s force retreated. 19 laser-guided patriot missile fired toward the probe’s direction, all missed by a feet as the probe entered the final stage of the launch and propelled itself out of earth’s atmosphere. The missile stalled, some exploded in mid air while others tracked the remaining target, Hermes. 9 missiles coming at different direction and at once the probe explored into a giant fireball...

[Quincunx]

Izanagi violated several of the mission's primary rules just after takeoff, spitting a burst of flame out of his stabilizers: wasting fuel, deflecting himself off course, almost running into the path of three incoming missiles, and most importantly endangering another probe. Hermes was only singed, but still must have complained to base camp, judging by their sharp reprimands to stay out of that flight path. Still, he thought as he shut his outer eyes to the firefight, the brat had more than earned a scorching just by dragging him into this.

 

He'd been planning to buy a silicon press and go into a quiet retirement as an 'engraver' along the southern coast. 'Engravers' weren't entirely legal; they lasered new and usually copyrighted information onto mass-produced blank silicon spheres, melted down old silicon instead of turning information over to whatever military held control of the Horn, or (his specialty) take the silicon slag and remake it into blank spheres. Hermes had been a cousin of a cousin's wife, well-educated, and a non-entity in her scientific circles--until she discovered that his 'pebbles' were supermolecules. A Pebble™ was to an ordinary sphere what the first optical microchip had been to the transistor. Perhaps more.

 

Izanagi was glad enough to avoid the fame, but seeing the spotlight on Hermes hadn't made him happy either. Only when she was accepted into the Destiny Project did her ignorance of Pebbles cause trouble, and she pleaded that the 'dear old uncle' who had taught her also be given a chance at destiny. The Destiny Project had agreed to keep both to preserve the idea of family, although a last-minute decision had kept them from being named as mythological family. Now he and she and twenty others were relying on Pebbles instead of bodies.

 

The last human voice he would ever hear spoke to him. Three of the probes hadn't cleared the atmosphere--among those, his dear cousin Hermes. Base crew flooded his mind with condolences, true sorrow for one of their own extended family.

 

Perhaps it was better that Izanagi no longer had facial expressions.

 

***

 

He didn't look at the clock. He shuffled through his database, checked the SOUP for premature development (none), and went back to hibernation. An old man needed his sleep, even if his Pebbles didn't.

 

***

 

Again and again. No human being had looked at these stars in centuries, and there were no human beings left to see them now.

 

***

 

Again and again. There was no Earth to block the light from these stars.

 

***

 

Izanagi had no brain tissue left to become choked with plaque. He had no eyesight to fail, no muscles to become weak. Nonetheless, he was going blissfully senile. Without the constant irritation of Hermes, or the silicon press to putter with, or anyone else to wake him up in the morning, Izanagi didn't have a purpose. The Destiny Project hadn't been his idea; all the talk about preserving life and transcendence and such had gone in one aural circuit and out another.

 

This time, when he woke up, he decided to take a quick mental stroll around his workshop. SOUP didn't contain enough silicon, but carbon (it was carbon, wasn't it?) would substitute. Something kept going wrong, however; no matter what he tried, the pebbles kept forming into hollow spheres, with nothing inside to engrave upon but the rest of the SOUP. He was irritated, and preoccupied, and jettisoned the little spheres, and tried again. No good. The spheres could be too small to reflect light, or almost as wide as his knuckle had been, but every one of them was hollow. The small ones were unstable, also, and were cracking open whenever they encountered the very large spheres. Those got thrown out quickly before they ruined the entire batch.

 

For the first time in a long while, Izanagi was fully awake. He shut his outer eyes to better focus on his work--he needed greatly magnified vision, not the long-range focus needed for scanning space. He tinkered blissfully for an unmeasured time before the fragment of shattered Earth spun into the probe and chopped it neatly in two. Izanagi and SOUP flew painlessly apart in a shower of silicon pebbles.

 

***

 

No Earth life had survived the vacuum of space. The little carbon pebbles had. They clung to the core and tail of the comet, carbon bonding with carbon and transforming the pebbles into asymmetrical lumps. Other molecules became trapped inside the pebbles. Wayward atoms floated towards the irregularites and were bumped together, forming molecules previously broken by the SOUP's self-regulating sensors. Only a few of the irregular spheres penetrated deeply enough into the chunks of comet to survive if they chanced to start forming two spheres instead of one.

 

***

 

Again and again, the virus passed from comet to comet, asteroid to asteroid, only reproducing when it encountered a new source of carbon.

 

***

 

Again and again, a comet's tail would pass near a planet, shedding meteors. The carbon pebbles were tough enough to survive the heat of atmospheric re-entry and the molecules within charged with energy.

 

They formed impossible new bonds.

[Regel]

The Vishnu Project

 

 

 

One of the benefits of being a disembodied consciousness Daniel mused was not having to take a bathroom break. Back on earth his weakened bladder needed relief almost hourly. Daniel was recalling with great detail (courtesy of digitally enhanced synaptic connections). The day he was introduced to the Vishnu team as a possible candidate it was already screaming for attention.

He was exactly what the group of six scientists had been looking for. Daniel was a 67-year old forced to retired for health reasons ten years earlier. The idea of having your brain hacked out of a healthy body and plugged into the circuitry of an untested space pod would not have appealed to a younger man but to 67-year old who had to excuse himself and find a bathroom it was the release that he had been seeking. They had several more meetings but they all had known this was there guy. A widower with no dependents and above average intelligence Daniel had possessed the psychological profile they had been looking for. As an avid reader with many diverse interests the Vishnu team doctors told Daniel that they had included an extensive library database that would help Daniel while away the time in deep space. Daniel would be prepped and treated for any postoperative problem many months before his expected launch date. That had been the plan and would have likely been the case until hostilities had broken out. As it was he had barely covered all of his control functions let alone fully adapted to his new metallic body. They had recorded the procedure that had separated him from his body but it would be many months later before Daniel would discover they had included it in the on board computer database.

The ship had internal and external sensors that gave Daniel and entirely different perspective of the world around him. It was bizarre just how far Daniel could see. As well Daniel saw in ways humans could never have imagined. The entire light spectrum was now in his range. It had given Daniel a few surprises. At first he saw nothing but a searing white light (accompanied with wicked headache) but gradually with the scientists helped teach him how to filter out aspects of his new sight to produce images his mind could understand. It wasn’t too long before Daniel had mastered it. It is said that some people can see right through you; well this was literally the case with Daniel now. He still remembers watching Dr. Grace Rosaline flush with embarrassment after he told her what she was wearing underneath her lab coat.

It had been six months already and he could still see Earth. This reminded him of an old gag about a Saskatchewan wheat farmer who watched his dog run away for three days. Daniel laughed. He had heard that 54 years ago and it still cracked him up.

As Vishnu passed by Pluto in it’s own elliptical obit Daniel had an odd feeling of dread. A warning sensor yanked him back to the here and now.

“Where the hell did this debris field come from?” He thought to himself “Something big must have collide with this rogue planet once upon a time, something really big.” Then it began like a gentle rain as dust particles started striking his black and blue hull. The noise increased as did the particles now the size of fine pebbles. Daniel started to get worried. The scientists had told him that Vishnu’s hull could survive a direct strike of a meteor up to about the size of a baseball. Trouble was Daniel hadn’t bothered to ask them if they had meant hardball or softball size. What he saw next was way too big. He had no choice now but to try and pilot around this meteor or die in a spectacular fireball. Daniel’s mind was very agile but his ship was a little sluggish. While he missed the largest pieces in the debris field the collective damage his vessel had taken precluded the notion that he would reach a habitable system. He had a hull breach. The disable pod had no options but to head for that frozen rock he just passed. "Ahoy Pluto! Prepare to be boarded!" This cold rock was going to be home for a very long time.

Edited September 24, 2003 by Regel

[Aardvark]

Amusing story, well amusing to me anyway. While writing this, I went and looked up various cultures gods and such, thought to myself, "Hmm, wonder what those fruity japanese believed in." Do a search, come up with a god named Izanaki. Think "Hmm, good enough, needs more tentacles or something, though." Finish the story, run the spellchecker

 

Misspelled word: Izanaki. Suggestion Izanagi. Go check Izanagi on the internet and find that lo, there are a thousand pages about Izanagi, the god, the myth.

 

Why the hell would they include the proper noun Izanagi in a spellchecker?

[WrenWind]

Aphrodite how appropriate for a woman who has made her living on the love and lust of others. But no one cares about buying her her tapes and vidios any more. Just staying alive is much more of a prioity.

 

Elizabeth Larran contributed all of her accumulated wealth to the project with only one condidtion. That she became the brain for one of the probes. A rough life to start then great wealth built from exploiting the men and woman she catered to and ultimately making milllions on the self help gimmic tour had left her with out anyone who really cared about her . Her as a person not the celebrity. No children no love her family had long since writen her off. This project was the perfect way to leave it all behind.

 

Waking up with out a body was more than a little odd. Then everyone started to get very excited . The war!! Elizabeth grumbled. No real time to adjust she was one of the last coverts. Using her own advice she quieted down to listen. "Launch time excelerated, Count down to commence in 30 min all stations to your posts! "People buzzed around the probes making last minute adjustments. in the flurry of people Aphrodite tries to take a deep breath (oh yeah I don't need to breath anymore she chuckles to herself)

 

Blast off and she is flying and dodging bits of debris and yes missles Men they always manage to screw things up !! She makes it through the mele with nothing but a dent in a feul pod she will shed just out side earths orbit she trains her camera eyes to the planet and sets it to record then usuing another set of eyes she looks forward and laughs as the words "Space the final frontier!! resound

 

She does an internal check all her SOUP is still safely stored she starts to absorb all the bio information so she knows what to do when the time comes.

[Parmenion]

Since all the probes aren't yet written - can we write another one? Pretty please?

 

[Aardvark]

Hell, go nuts

[Sorciere]

He already has gone nuts.

[Valdar and Astralis]

It was a strange sky that Odin awoke to. Irradicent pillars of gas dominated the starscape, illuminated from within by a million stars. An Interstellar birthchamber, seven light-years across, from this distance dwarfing any size or dimension envisionable by. . .man.

 

"The pride of men".

 

Memory returned with a quote from his faviroute movie, and a stinging sense of loss. Horus was gone, as was Thanatos, remembering the electromagnetic blast that had knocked out a third of his sensors. Of the twenty one who had set out, how many remained? He only knew that of his own flight of four, Odin was the only probe to arrive at it's destination. Amateras was forced to land on a 23% world. . .how many years ago?

 

1743 was the computed awnser. The log showed no attempted communication from any other probe on the ER-band either.

 

The once-astronaut named Tom Steiner allowed himself a moment of silence, and rotated his external camera to behold his 52.31% world. Red, green and white, with the promise of ice. 72% Nitrogen, 18% Oxygen would do for now. Higher than expected radiation, but with one hell of a view. The probe basked for a moment under the sky that his children's birthright, before vectoring it's conventional thrusters for an entry orbit.

 

 

Burning through the atmosphere like a meteor, Odin noted it's own vapor trail. So far so good. Surface tempreture +14 C, so far so good. Atmospheric pressure was within 40% of earth's own, validating over 70% of his SOUP Database.

 

The probe passed over several arid reigons, and Odin fired it's thrusters again, and released it's atmospheric flight wings, jettisoning spent heat shields in the process. Out of maneuvering fuel, the probe glided towards a nearby patch of vegetation and scanned for any heat signatures. Satisfied, Odin deployed it's shock absorbers, and prepared for touchdown.

 

In life, Tom's career as an Astronaut had been cut short after a stray motar round had left him without wife, children and sight. Forswearing the ever increasing voilence in the world, the quiet, always polite man had taken up practical carpentary before being recruited by the later named, Iehova.

 

Iehova. He had always admired her, strong, intelligant and always positive.

 

 

Such as, he christened this world.