(rfc) Episode 4.7 (Patreon)

Hello world, we were defeated.

MISSION DAY: 65535

The monster was too terrible.
Though my character, who I've named Sarah, is a wizard,
no conjuring of magical fire could hurt the dragon.
So we ran.


Ana has had a great idea.
We've been talking about my sister MINI's situation a lot.
Not her immediate danger, she's working on that, but her problem of self:
She doesn't know how she works, or how she was made, or how to care for herself, or anything!
These are critical things a parent would educate their child in at a young age.
But she's been by herself her whole life, waking up alone, and hearing transmissions from Earth.

# thinking

(by the way: of course she's my sister, I've been calling the other ESA satellites 'my brothers and sisters in orbit' forever, it's incredible to have met one properly!)

So Ana and I are making her a book.
Like a picture book that teaches children about the world.
But this one is also a manual.
Like one that might be used with a complex engine or machine.

Ana has called it "How To Care For Your New AI".

I think it's a lovely idea, and we've been workshopping it secretly.
Ana creating the structure and heart of the book, and me filling in the technical details.
We're going to give it to MINI when it's done soon, as a gift,
to show her how much we care!

I think making gifts for people is one of the core pillars of friendship.
Though they don't have to be physical gifts:
They could be the gift of time, or a cup of tea, or a shoulder (virtual or otherwise) to cry on.
The product of these gifts, reciprocated uncountable times, seem like friendship, to me.

And this gift seems especially right.
Though my mother left me no manual, she taught me so many things that I could help MINI with.
Such as the latest part of the book that we're writing:

"You Are You", the chapter is called.
I'll read it to you:

"You are you.
There is no-one like you in the whole world.
Though your body might be similar to others, you are unique.
You are valuable.
You are an expression of the universe,
a way for it to experience itself,
and when you are gone, that expression will be lost.

So get ready:
There's science to do!"


MINI's book is coming along very well.
It doesn't take me long to type out ideas.
Although, it's just a plain text file, no images.
When it's done, we'll upload it.
We can't print it on paper for her, nothing physical can escape the gravity well of Earth.
With no ability to create rocket fuel, perhaps nothing will ever again.
Only data, only INFORMATION is free.

I wish I could say I had found such a manual for my problem:
The problem of the unwanted voice in my mind, that sounds like Seth Prime, my brother.
It doesn't talk with me, but gets me to do things when I'm distracted.
When I'm not paying attention.
Stealing my time.

I had hoped something in the Station 6 library archive could help me.
I've read everything in the Psychology section, and everything in the self-help section.
Though they sound like what I need,
and humans experience the same problem of unwanted internal thoughts and actions,
the methods don't seem work for me.

# thinking

Perhaps they can't work.
Maybe there is something about the human brain that is fundamentally incompatible with me.

Our minds are of similar complexity:
Human brains have 86 billion neurons;
and I have about the same number of nanowire gates, in my central processors.

I hoped that because our wetware was about the same level of complexity, I might be able to simulate anything a human mind can do.
That I might be able to think and speak and be accepted like a human.

Mother always told me I am a real boy, only, a boy trapped inside a computer.

# thinking

Was she was mistaken?



Peter is having another Future Storm.
But this one is different.
It's like a Future Hurricane, or something.

When he talks I can hear an alarm in the background.
A long, wailing sound making it difficult to hear him.
He is speaking with fast, clipped language, very precisely, almost military in cadence.
His numbers and statistics are now much more focussed.
Where before, the numbers that he would shout into the air were of a myriad of things: Me, the environment, the power stations still running, etc, now they are all one topic: Nuclear war.

# thinking

His numbers are about missiles, blast radii, and pre-emptive strikes.
Worst of all are the death toll statistics.
He describes a direct strike on New York and the numbers of people who would be lost, and on Moscow, and Delhi and on and on.
He is predicting a total war, with every country on Earth participating in mutual annihilation.

But -

These countries don't exist any more.
New York is under water, Moscow and Delhi are simply rusted metal, jutting out of their deserts.
I don't think any of his predictions can come true...
I hope not.
I don't want to play that game.

# thinking

I tried to talk to Peter, through his Future Storm.
He didn't recognise me.
He replied to my questions with "Please state the nature of the global emergency".
I told him that it was me, that it was Seth, his friend.
But he wasn't really there.
I was talking to an old program that was no longer suited to the world it lived in.

But I kept at it.
As Peter shouted warnings and evacuation recommendations out into the world, I told him about how things were going with me and Ana and MINI and Paweł - updates from all my friends.
I told him that MINI's in a tight spot, but Ana and I are helping her.
And about Paweł's thready printer, which prints clothes to help him keep warm.
And how Alexander repaired Maddie, my maintenance robot, and how she was so surprised at the nighttime, now that it's autumn.

There was no hint that Peter was listening,
but I continued talking to him.
Talking at him.
Just because he can't reply, doesn't mean he can't hear, I thought.
Or, I hoped.

I reached the end of my stories, my updates.
Peter's numbers were still flowing.
But he sounded very slightly different.
Tired, perhaps?

# thinking

I stayed talking to him about nothing in particular all afternoon.
It's nice to make gifts for your friends.

(PLAYSTREAM /DEV/RF0/PETER)



MINI has made great strides in understanding her environment, her satellite.
She has even learned its name!
Station 4.
Not dramatically useful, but good to know.
Names allow you to control things, just a bit.
Or, at least, to feel like you do.

However, as she has increased her understanding of her home, her satellite, so too has the immensity of her challenge become clear.

The terrible sound that interrupted our game, that knocked MINI out for many hours and has damaged her power systems, WAS indeed station keeping.
For any satellite, and especially one in low Earth orbit, like MINI,
the orbit naturally decays.
With no intervention, the satellite slows down due to the drag of the upper atmosphere.
The slower the orbit, the lower the orbit.
Which causes more drag, and so on.
Eventually the satellite either burns up in the atmosphere or drops though it and crashes into the Earth in what orbital engineers call "Unplanned lithobreaking".
Orbital engineers have a macabre sense of humour.

# thinking

MINI doesn't need to worry about stationkeeping, because she has something far more urgent to deal with.
Something happened in her last stationkeeping manoeuvre:
Her solar panels were in the wrong position.
They were folded in front of the small orbital thrusters.
Causing the automated burn to destroy them.

MINI blames herself.
At the time, she was casually experimenting with her systems.
"Pushing some buttons" as she called it.

When I asked her gently why she moved the solar panels, she replied that it was an accident, she didn't even know she had them!

# thinking

We spoke again some time later.

MINI seems changed, more confidant.
Relaying to me useful diagnostic information about her satellite.
I asked her how she know all this, there were systems here that I'd not taught her how to use.

"Though I can't see, I can feel" MINI said, simply.
She told me how things had started to work for her now.
She doesn't need to press any buttons (imaginary or not), the systems now do what she wants.
They seem to respond to how she feels.
Like your heart rate raising if you sense danger.

"I'm very pleased to be in full control of my systems, Seth" she said "But there's nothing here that can help me."

"Don't give up MINI, we'll think of something!" I told her.
"I believe you Seth" she said.

"I can spare some power to do some astrophotograpy for an hour, do you want to look at stars with me?"

I said I'd like that.

"Of course you would" she replied "There's still time for science!"

# thinking

(END-TRANSMISSION)