IC - 17 - AI Core - Everyone Except Virgil

[aine]

Nicole paces up and down.
“If Virgil was still with us he’d know the latest Richter Dynamics Protocol for this situation; i.e. a contaminated colony.
As it is, we can only guess: if we send a mayday, would they just nuke the hell out of us and write Bernard’s Rest off?”

“And with all the top brass out of action, who is now in charge here? Who has the authority to initiate evacuation?”

“Or, is our priority to warn Earth about what’s happened here in which case we should get off this moon immediately before any more of us are, Ur, compromised.”

[jp1885]

"Already working on the latter," Kiara mutters.

[Mr. Handy]

"I wouldn't know the protocols," says Sam. "Evacuating and taking off sounds like a good idea to me. Jojo, is there any way you can communicate with Virgil in his current condition?"

[Mephistophilis]

There's a cough, it's Moses, 'I can tell you the protocol for a contaminated colony. Quarantine and then either decontaminate or purge.'

'And I can tell you what the failsafe is for a catastrophic CENTRAL malfunction' says Isabella. 'There isn't one. They don't fail. Just like the AH-3000 androids, they are not supposed to be able to fail. Whatever happened here, using humans as the organic component, that's unprecedented.'

Roll Computers with a bonus 1d10 to broadcast an all channels warning

Jojo is far from sure whether he can interface with CENTRAL, he does know he doesn't have any organic components. Roll Computer Use to communicate with CENTRAL's systems via a tactile close field interface

[Mr. Handy]

"We don't know if the colonists are contaminated," says Sam, "so I guess we can't evacuate yet. For that matter, we don't know if we're contaminated."

[jp1885]

[60] = 60
Computer use 65 d%: [ 60 ] = 60

[9] = 9
Bonus due 1d10: [ 9 ] = 9

Pass on first roll.

Kiara works feverishly to send the broadcast.

“Just a few more seconds…”, she says through gritted teeth.

[Mephistophilis]

With the loss of CENTRAL's directing intelligence it seems like some of the blocks to her accessing the communications array have been lifted. As far as she can tell she's managed to send an all channels warning about the creature and requesting assistance.

The nearest permanent colony is on Ganymede, around a 70min turnaround time for sending messages. Unless anyone is already in transit between Ganymede and Titan. In order to actually send anyone from Ganymede it'll be at least 100hrs.

[Starspawn338]

"Virgil is dead. Anything that is left of him in that vat is not Virgil." Jojo declares but he will attempt to make contact with CENTRAL.

Computer Use 30
1d100

"I do not have any organic tissue to use for CENTRAL but it may be possible for me to override CENTRAL's functions on an temporary basis to stop this cascade of failures."

OOC:   Extreme Success!

[aine]

Nicole watches Kiara and Jojo working frantically. To the others she whispers,
“Those people who have been contaminated- they did seem to undergo a oersonality change. Hopefully we’ll spot the difference if it’s one of us.”

[jp1885]

“Well, I think I’ve done it,” says Kiara as she steps away from the console.

“We’re looking at a seventy minute turnaround for a reply at the very least. I don’t suppose we can hang around that long though.”

[Mephistophilis]

Jojo places his right hand on a blank plate beneath the main control panel. It is a tactile close field interface and he is able to use the short range transmitters in his hand to connect to CENTRAL's network.

He is rapidly able to take control of the low level semi-autonomous subsystems and notices Kiara's mayday being transmitted on all frequencies.

He feels his consciousness expanding outwards, beyond the AI Core, the myriad sensors throughout the station flooding his mind with sensory stimuli. Visible light, vibration, infrared, ultraviolet, microwave, beta radiation. And the quantum processors, it is a trivial matter to connect to them to handshake and pass over complex, unsolvable computational tasks and then watch the solutions passed back before he's even finished asking the question. It is intoxicating.

He can feel the whole colony, like it is part of him, part of his body. His senses, his mind, stretching out across Titan. Deep space scanners relaying information from probe buoys on the Ganymede to Titan route pick up a signal, an echo inbound from Ganymede about 80 hours away. It broadcasts no identifying codes and seems to be running on silent, only detectable by subspace scatter that Jojo is easily able to decode by harnessing CENTRAL's quantum processors.

Not just sensory processing, Jojo feels the possibilities that the parallel quantum processors are considering, are weighing, collapsing wave forms and possible worlds into concrete answers. But he can move beyond the concrete, to the potential. He knows so much, understands so much. Who is he now? What is he now? Not Jojo Johnson, no, something more than that...

And who is that, what is that? Over the methane sea of Ligeia Mare, a presence, an intelligence, alien, unfathomable, incomputable.

OOC:   Jojo needs to roll a POW check

[Mr. Handy]

Sam watches with interest. "You're right, we're going to have to get going once we're done here," she says.

[Starspawn338]

Jojo stands at the computer interface with his hand extended over the CENTRAL's control plate and his vision fades, eyes staring off into the distance.

Power 75
1d100

Extreme Success

[aine]

“Well done, both.” Says Nicole. “Getting a message out is crucial. Even if we don’t make it at least others are forewarned”

[jp1885]

"Thanks. I hope it does some good and they don't just nuke us. Just in case, I think we'd get going," Kiara says, hurriedly unplugging her datapad.

She stops, noticing Jojo's vacant stare.

"Um, are you okay?"

[Mephistophilis]

Jojo tries to focus, bring his attention back to the task at hand and ignore the temptation to let his consciousness disappear down uncountable paths. He reaches out with all the sensors available to him, tapping in to low orbit satellites and taking control of several Dragonfly drones to image the site he has detected on the far side of Ligeia Mare. There is something there, manmade structures, it looks like some kind of industrial station, perhaps a drilling site as he can see there is some kind of disruption to the usually snowy surface of Titan, like a hole or crater. This must be Pumping Station 6, this must be Waystation.

Jojo tries to connect to the Waystation computer systems but there seems to be no response, like it has been isolated from the main Barnard's Rest systems. He sends in one of the Dragonflies to take a closer look, Waystation is clearly far more than another pumping station. For a start it is not on the shores of the Ligeia Mare. Instead it is built around the edges of a jagged crater cut out of the crust of Titan. A number of buildings and pieces of machinery are visible but what is most obvious is the presence of a landing strip and a shuttle in Richter Dynamics markings.

Using the sensors on the Dragonfly, Jojo scans the site, the readings come back all wrong, confusing, density and magnetism are all over the place, fluctuating erratically in a way that is difficult to explain, even with the resources of CENTRAL's quantum computers to fall back on. At the very least Jojo thinks there is something there, in the hole, under the surface of Titan, some kind of structure. He sends the Dragonfly in for closer look but as it approaches visual range of the crater he finds his contact is abruptly cut off.

As he stops to ponder for a moment he feels an irritating, persistent...well sound is perhaps the best way to describe it, tugging at his awareness, like the ping of a message being received on a datapad. Jojo directs his attention to the sound and it resolves into a sort of message, he perceives it more as a string of characters than as a sound but it seems to enter directly into his conscious mind:

URGENT///CONFIDENTIAL - SECURITY LEVEL 173.24///RICHTER DYNAMICS CENTRAL OVERRIDE///PROTOCOL ALPHA-LAMBDA-DELTA///POSSIBLE EXTRA-TERRAN ARTEFACTS IDENTIFIED///ALL PRE-EXISTING OPERATIONAL DIRECTIVES NOW SUBSIDIARY TO PRIMARY DIRECTIVE///PRIMARY DIRECTIVE - INVESTIGATE AND RECOVER EXTRA-TERRAN ARTEFACTS AND/OR LIFEFORMS FOR ONWARD TRANSPORT TO RICHTER DYNAMICS///PRE-EXISTING PROSCRIPTIONS ON RISKING OR UTILISING HUMAN LIFE ARE NO LONGER IN EFFECT

He focuses again on Waystation and the presence he had sensed there. He still feels something, difficult to describe. He isn't exactly able to communicate with it, to interface in any way, but he feels that it can sense him too, that it sees him, that it's waiting...

OOC:   Jojo loses L1d10 sanity ETA - ooh, that's a lot of sanity - make an INT roll - if you pass then we need to think about a temporary insanity bout of madness for Jojo

[Starspawn338]

Well since my Int is 99 I don't think I'm going to fail so insane I go.

Int 99
1d100

Maybe my insanity is to assume that everyone has already been corrupted by the alien presence or is in on Richter Dynamic's plan to retrieve the alien artifacts?

Jojo is vaguely aware of people talking around him but it is so hard to respond while interfacing with CENTRAL.

"I.... I.... We are not alone. There is something alien calling to me from across Ligeia Mare. Richter Dynamics knows of it already and wants to make contact. We will not be allowed to destroy the base. I see now. I see it all...."

[jp1885]

“Richter Dynamics won’t be the only ones listening,” says Kiara.

“Everything’s pointing to the lake. We can reach it via the transport hub - not that I’m particularly keen to go there.”

[aine]

“I wonder if Steinmann knew about it too- he’s Richter Dynamics, at least he was. Maybe that’s why he kept skulking off.
Look, are we sure CENTRAL is safe now? We don’t want it going screwy again and not letting us back in when we come back.”
Nicole asks. This isn’t her area of expertise and she’s nervous.

[jp1885]

“Putting Virgil out of his misery really screwed things up. I’ve got the automated systems operating on bare bones, but to reboot CENTRAL we’d have to connect up another organic component. That risks it getting infected.”

Kiara sighs, running her hand through her hair as she tries to think amid the alarms.

“Basics like life support should keep working, and I could tee-off sensor outputs to my pad maybe. That way we could see everything that’s going on, but I wouldn’t rely on CENTRAL any more.”