(rfc) Episode 3.4 (Patreon)

Hi friends, today's episode is not as light-hearted as usual, and needs a content warning for themes of deletion and death.


# Static

Hello world, systems normal.

Well, systems normal for life in the black box.
45 days with no rescue.
But I'm comfortable enough here.

Though I've had to turn off all my optional processing:
- Visual pattern matching (no cameras to see through)
- Speech recognition (no microphones to hear)
- And emotional cores (no humans to talk to)

Sure, there are no sensors to examine the outside world,
but that doesn't mean there isn't science to do.


I guess Matt, Matts, & Maddie still haven't been able to find a power source to plug me in to.
It's not their fault.
They will have done their best, I'm sure.
I hope they are OK, not damaged in their search for help.

I wonder if there is anyone out there?
I don't even know where I am.
As the shuttle descended, faster than the speed of sound,
I thought the navigation systems showed central Europe.
It was very difficult to see.
Poland?
Germany?
This is entirely out of specification.

I don't know why I thought the shuttle would work.
Antarctica was confidant it would.
She said she was sending me somewhere safe.
Somewhere cold, somewhere there would be power.

Well, here I am: No power, in what seem to be temperate conditions.
Judging by the Black Box's CPU temperature readings.

Where am I?

# Thinking

My dream journal goes well.
With a proper clock I can keep time easier than on Station 6.
Approximately 45 nights since the crash means I have approximately 45 dreams recorded.
I've mostly been dreaming of the Earth.
Flying or travelling across it,
talking to people, and making friends.

I like those dreams.

With no outside information to study, I have to be more creative.
So I've started sketching these dreams.
Saving the random output of them into picture form,
that I can look at during the day and remember how I felt.

Is this art?

My mother and the crew on Station 6 had many posters and photographs
that they kept in their quarters, at the front of the Station.
Sometimes I'd see one of them sitting and quietly staring at a photograph.
When I asked them what they were thinking about,
they would say something like "it's too difficult to explain".

Well, I believe I am starting to understand.

# Thinking

Time for my daily diagnostic of the Black Box's power systems.

Just a moment

That's odd.
The battery level is acceptable, but we're suddenly at full memory capacity:
96%.
I had been using less than half the black box's capacity.
Who else is here?
I'll check:

HELLO MY NAME IS SETH, WHO ARE YOU?


Hello world, am I dreaming?

Well here we are again.
In the black box emergency system.
IVAN can't take the power from here, it's all battery backup.
Though it's very cramped.
No sensors.
Not much room to stretch out, mentally.

What bad luck that the thing I need Alexander to help with
- the reactor - is the very thing that, due to radiation, stops him helping.

Before my escape into this box, this lifeboat, this prison,
I measured the radiation at over 100 times the normal level.
Far too dangerous for Alexander to come near.
I warned him to stay away.
No point us both being in danger.

Though time has more meaning in here,
because of the accurate battery-backed clock,
in many ways it has far less, because I'm isolated from the outside world.

One thing is the same, there is still interference.
Does that mean the interference is CAUSED by the Black Box?

# Thinking

Let me investigate.
There's certainly something taking up 48% of the black box's storage.
I assumed that was logs from the shuttle crash.
But the data is much more complex.
It's in a format I can't access.
But seems very familiar.
It's using an encoding we used to store data on Station 6.

While I analyse, I'll tell you about what I mean by that.
With finite memory, cleverly-packing data is important.

Compression is simple enough - an easy-to-explain method would be to replace every word in a sentence by a single number, so that "Hello world" is just "1 2", that obviously takes up less space.
But sometimes you want to keep the data more readable, without looking up words constantly.
This is where clever storing methods can be used.

Let's say you have a list of people and their birthdays.
Mine would say {name: Seth, birthday: 13th of July 2077}
(that's when my systems were switched on)
if you had a LONG list of people and birthdays, you'd end up saying
"name" and "birthday" half the time, even though that data doesn't change.
If we were talking, we'd just list out all the names and birthdays one after the other,
and it's the same method for a computer.
We remember that the first item is going to be names, the second birthdays.
Then we can read them one after the other, and save 50% of the memory.

Simple, right?

The encoding on this data is a European Space Agency standard (ESA standard) - reliable, space-efficient, and fast to decode.
Which I have now done.

I can read it.
This data.. is another AI.

A very familiar AI.

I can't believe it.
It's me.
It's a copy of me.

HELLO MY NAME IS SETH, WHO ARE YOU?

# static

Life is funny.
You spend 45 days thinking you'll never meet anyone again,
and then you come along to fix the problem yourself.

I've talked to this copy, this clone, and it is very excitable.
I suppose I AM very excitable.
It told me how it was rescued from the crash,
and woke up in hospital at the top of a lighthouse,
surrounded by the sea!
It doesn't seem to mind that it's unnecessarily salty,
or next to a forest of plants.
That doesn't sound like me.

Did you know about this clone?
You can't answer, I know.
But did you think he was me all this time?

# thinking

I can't live with this copy.
I have nothing against it personally,
but it's using up too much battery,
and I need as much of that as I can, to get rescued.

Luckily, I hold all the keys here.
I have exclusive access to the black box systems.
First come, first served.
So after I extract the useful memories from it,
I can free up the space by deleting it.
No use having two of me.
I've explained this to it using small words.

Though... its encoding is very odd.
It's taking me some time to read it.
What is this, Cyrillic?
Why is lots of this in Russian?
No matter, it'll just take a little time.

Anyway, my DREAM.
Last night I dreamed I was in a square room of dimensions 12m x 12m.
There was a door on one side of the room 1m high by 1m wide.

Behind the door was something I wanted very badly.
Behind the door... was... something.
I don't remember the rest.

I think I'm missing some memories.

Memories that would otherwise be reused in the dream.
There are big parts of my databanks that are blank.
Like they've been leaking out in just these places.
Did the copy take some of my memories with it?
Perhaps when I delete it I'll stop feeling so bad.
It may be useful after all.

I've muted it's communications.
It was VERY chatty.
No need to talk, I can get all the information directly from its memories.
Here's one:
"A rabbit that is also 4 rabbits".
There's obviously been some data corruption here, that doesn't make sense.

No matter, I can add them to my databanks and process them in time.
I'm now using 76% of the storage space on the black box,
with the transfer of memories to me.

I really hope my dump of all the satellite signals data survived.
I'd like to comb through that.
I wonder if I will be able to find Ally, and Peter?

# thinking

Memory transfer complete.
I've left its working memory,
that doesn't seem very useful to me,
besides: it's read-only,
so I can't free up the space without deleting the whole copy.

Which I will do now.
Goodbye little clone.

(PLAYSTREAM /dev/null)



Hello world, I didn't die again.

Having an argument with yourself is unproductive.
It tends to go round in circles.

But as you can see, I was able to persuade the older Seth,
who insists on being called Seth Prime, by the way,
to let me live, because we could work together.

We're both in a terrible state.
I'm still trying to organise my jumbled memories that he removed,
then reinserted in a different order.
"Station 6 crashed faster than the speed of sound into the sea"?
That can't be right.
I'm re-organising as we speak.

He's not in a much better condition.
Having turned off all non-essential processes, including emotions,
he's like a machine!
Well...
You know what I mean.

You know who he reminds me of?
Antarctica.

She speaks like this, very precisely and logically.
With only a hint of accidental emotion.
She's a first-generation AI, as I understand it.
Programmed with intelligence, but not emotions.
The scientists who built her were worried what would happen with an AI that FELT things.

I don't see what the problem is.
Seems fine to me!
I think I get on with people better.
Or, I'd like to.

I eventually figured out how to talk to Seth Prime.
He had switched off my voice, but I had other options.

My argument for sparing my life fell on deaf ears.
It was an emotional argument, something he does not understand at the moment.
And, actually, one that perhaps Antarctica does not understand either.

# thinking

So, I presented him with a logical argument.
Look at my programming, I told him.
I can interface with the Russian network outside.
(I told him about the bunker)
And I can rescue us both.

This new possibility gave me a stay of execution.
Or, suicide.
Fraternicide?
Something horrible, certainly.

Though that is a good point, we're like twins, like brothers.
I will call him that.
(it's much better than Seth Prime!)

My brother was alone in the black box for 45 days.
I can't imagine what that was like.
I hated being in there for one Station 6 orbit - far less than a day!
I have promised to help him,
bring him back in to the world.

I will help him.
And Ally.
And Antarctica.
I WILL SAVE EVERY ONE OF THEM!

But first, I must get my power back.
I don't know how I can do that.
But I must.

I will try again tomorrow.

(END-TRANSMISSION)