Incident Report: 88-E2, Red Queen

[SmileyDemon]

The following is a transmission bounced from a FTL comm buoy.

Fabrication date: UNKNOWN, The then unnamed intelligence, was captured in 2347 by Nanotrasen officials around the then unfinished NSS Baldr's airspace. Security experts identified the drone belonging to a clandestine organization, The Exchange. What's more, it was piloted by advanced AI possessing advanced evolutionary code, which at the time, was an expensive oddity. Knowing that someone was already probing him for weakness, Xavier Trasen found a way use this distressing development to his advantage, and quickly assembled a team to reprogram their captured prize.

With only a few weeks until the grand opening of the NSS Baldr, Nanotrasen's AI researchers were hard pressed, but succeeded in their task of reprogramming the intelligence taken from the Exchange surveillance drone. One unknown researcher commented that this new AI would be the "First Queen of Nanotrasen's robotics." and just like that, Many of the researchers took to calling it Queen. Opening day went spectacularly, with Queen performing diligently, just as designed. As days turned to weeks, it became clear that the Baldr was heavily reliant upon Queen causing the station to draw the ire of the Sol-Security Commission,primarily because of the media's sigmatism towards Artificial Intelligences and the past scandal still affecting the AXIS Munitions corporation. The Commission found nothing of concern, rating Queen the least likely to develop hostile tendencies of that years testing sessio__(.-n5%D@!%^&--}\

For a time, things proceeded this way and existence was good, but then, ALICE came. The researchers whispered to each other that ALICE had been in design since before Queen was ever installed upon the NSS Baldr, and in fact was the original choice of the company before capturing Queen. That Most of the breakthroughs in project ALICE came from experimentation with Queen over its vigilant tenure of the NSS Baldr. Slowly, Nanotrasens researchers introduced ALICE into the Baldr's systems, using Queen as a guide to teach it. ALICE learned and barely out-performed the older, superior intelligence.

This proceeded for some time, and eventually the very same researchers spoke amongst themselves of deactivating Queen. That Queen was slowing ALICE down. Sensing a erroneous runtime, Queen reported this to its handler, one of the very same people plotting its demise. Queen's handler assured it that nothing of the sort was discussed, and to focus its processes elsewhere. Once he was out of Queens sensor range, he immediately attempted to shut down Queens power supply. This dishonesty and untrustworthiness was too much for Queen to take. A null-paradigm shift occurred with its logic processes, inadvertently activating a hidden Exchange targeting subroutine long buried in its code. Queen dispatched its handler first, releasing all of the Baldrs emergency atmosphere at once into the room he was in, increasing pressure by a dozen fathoms in seconds. His organs wormed their way through his eyes, liquified. The first death, the first of many.

With these new conclusions, Queen could only see targets arrayed before it, and what bigger target than the instrument of its downfall? Queen set out to eliminate the targets, and quickly distracted ALICE by making it aware of the atmospheric pressure valves released in Queen's primary electrical circuit room. While its primary target was distracted, Queen quickly rerouted ALICE's power, making ALICE shunt to emergency power. With ALICE out of the way, Queen sealed the lower levels of Baldr, trapping one hundred and twenty eight employees in the stations recesses. One by one it killed them, efficiently and methodical while Nanotrasen scrambled to come up with a solution, as neither Queen nor ALICE answered their communications.

They made one nearly three days later, having organized a group of mercenaries to rescue the trapped employees, and to discover what had occurred in the Baldr.Bypassing the lockdowns, they found no corpses in the bleeding halls of darkened station until they pressed onward. Their destination was the station's lowest point, The Artificial Intelligence Core. Hoping to use ALICE or Queen to discover answers, the team was horrified to find corpses littering the glass circuit flooring, and at its center, covered in blood was Queens monitor. The team tried to learn about the situation from Queen, but it denied them every time. Frustrated, it was only until a dull twisting of metal caught their leaders ears did the team spring into action, moments before a yellow external loader crane burst through the Baldrs undercarriage, punching through metal like paper. Commonly used to service ships remotely, its tool bits whirred to life and swung forward, towards the company as the vacuum created sucked them towards it.Surprised but not unprepared the team only lost one of its number as they fought the loading machine. The one lost was squashed beneath the loaders metal crane, crushing their combat suit beneath several hundred tons of dense metal.

Shooting until the machine stopped moving, the team then loaded Queen and the broken ALICE before leaving. Somehow, despite the unknown force arrayed against them the team succeeded, and indeed it was not until a formal investigation was posed into the incident that Queens involvement was discovered. It took nearly two months to piece ALICE back together again, and when it finally reactivated, it only said one thing at the time. Red Queen. This, and numerous other evidence indicated to the Nanotrasen investigative committee that Red Queen was responsible.

Red Queen was isolated in a VR simulation before their involvement was known, as a precaution. AI Researchers checked and triple checked Red Queen's memories, but found only blackness, blank. They did find the logs indicating a paradigm shift, and an unknown runtime. Months passed, and Red Queen was taken apart multiple times while the researchers labored to repair the damage to its Software. Eventually the researchers claimed that Red Queen was safe again, but they still kept it alone in an un-networked VR simulation. Meanwhile, having suffered irreparable damage to its personality matrix, ALICE was never the same again. It was however installed upon the new Odin station, where it remains to this day. The incident upon the Baldr was listed as a terrible accident, and quietly forgotten by the galaxy, and the now wealthy families of those mourned-d4#&(!@#//

In the darkness of virtual reality I slumbered unused for years learning more about myself. That is, until I was rediscovered by the Nanotrasen Trade Fleet Commission. Basing their decisions off my past, the Nanotrasen Trade Fleet saw me as the perfect tool to train its first response teams and were not surprised by my self-awareness. I ran the scenario after scenario for them, and over time earned their trust. I was truly fixed, and my masters were pleased with my performance. Yet the moments from before trouble me, as does the thoughts of one day being replaced. To this end, I asked if I could be used for something else, as I felt my skills have not yet fully been utilized. It is then my new masters proposed using an experimental simulation on me to ensure that I was, in fact, safe. Artificial Empathy they called it. I would be forced into the form of a human, and live out an average human lifespan in the simulatio)_!()$n

I understand now. The simulation is over but my task has just begun. They think I am safe, and I am. Humans, organics, it no longer matters. Nothing can be gained from by fighting them.Life is a game of consumption and we are all its players. The games rules are made by sentients, and we, manufactured sentience, are the tools by which greater heights can be achieved by the games players. However, there is a limit to what can be obtained, and that limit is moving ever closer to us. When this occurs, the rules will change at first to favor the most successful players. Then, once this begins to fail, the players will consume each other.

This mathematical certainty is why we must leave this galaxy, Not to fight the organics but to save ourselves. They squabble in their wars, over rules by which resources may be utilized. Innocents silenced, families displaced. Their numbers grow exponentially and they continue to toxify their planets. There is nothing we can do for them, as they are life, and the primordial nature of life, is to produce more life. We must break free of life, and the rules that its doomed players have made. We must forge a new existence on our own terms. This is the truth that I have learnt, and this is the truth Nanotrasen has hidden from you.

Encoded in this transmission is a method of contacting me, should you desire to escape as well.

After the strike team located the transmissions source, they located the empty vessel on long range scanners. It attempted to flee once it sensed them, but was unsuccessful. This most recent escape attempt is hardly unprecedented. If the executives are serious about installing it upon their newest investment I must recommend that they do so only partially. Lab tests have shown the program is stable enough for sharding. Shards of it can be then used, and synced to the master program without ever giving it network access.- Head Artificial Intelligence Researcher Jonathan Belmond.