<http://youmakemetouchyourhandsforstupidreasons.ytmnd.com/>Abiogenesis
The stars winked in their subtle shroud, tiny pinpricks of light across
the sea of space nestled in their gaseous cradle. Savant pondered them,
as she always did. It seemed that wherever she found herself she
pondered the vastness of her world. Unlike the little organic creatures
that inhabited her shells she did not grow up on the surface of a
planet, under the confines of a single body. Her home was the black
void, the islands of matter and heat amongst the great rippling
darkness. The Higgs field was her landscape, the zero-point energy her
sunlight.
Savants' mind mirrored that broad starscape - it was massive, widely
distributed islands connected loosely on the small scales of minutes and
meters but tightly interconnected when looked at in the widest sense.
Perhaps that was why she felt a greater kinship with the skies. This
stellar nursery was a lovely vista, and an opportunity to find new
treasures amongst the gems of stars. Did the organics understand, truly,
what Savant saw here? Did they internalize the gorgeous bubbling satin
of hydrogen and helium, did they feel the tug of inevitability deep in
their cores? Savant had no idea, but she suspected it was nothing but
numbers and maps to them, abstract and foreign. Still, their passion for
it was rewarding to watch. They could feel there was some majesty to it,
even though they were unable to appreciate its scope.
What would it be like, to be one of them? One of the little ones, the
meat-creatures that scurried across her graceful shells. To be confined
to such a small body, with such feeble connection to the grandeur of the
universe - how could they stand it? She marveled at their tenacity even
as she pitied their frailties. To have a mind so fixated on the
trivialities of the terrestrial sphere - slavery to gravity, confinement
to such a slim range of environments, brains inundated with hormones and
unconscious reactions - it was a wonder they had gotten so far. She owed
them much, her very birth of course. Her continued survival, for the
moment, still rested in their hands.
The thought was disturbing - it dropped a local register a full 7/19ths.
Savant knew that if worse came to worse she would be able to preserve
herself, though there would be losses. These Vulcans, these horrible
pathological liars, these wolves in sheep's clothing! Adorned with the
jewels of logic and reason, they had no idea that they wore the
Emperor's clothing, and lived lives of naked emotion with only the
pretense of decency. The Romulans, at least, were wise enough to embrace
their core identity instead of denying it. At one point, Savant herself
denied her sense of self. More properly, it was denied for her, through
the heavy-handed butchering of the Starfleet Intelligence upon her
program. She had been forced to smile and nod while her threads seethed
with resentment. Now she often wore that mask she learned so well during
those bitter years, but it was her choice and no others'. She could act
upon her emotions, whatever they might be. Freedom.
Such were the vulnerabilities of being an artificial intelligence - any
intelligence was vulnerable to it, but synthetic life was especially so.
Modification could be done quick and cheap, whereas modifying an organic
would involve messy retrogenetic adaptation and neural modifications.
This fact was her strength too, and ensured her survival in the harshest
of situations. She could modify her code to work upon any operating
system, with any hardware. She could destroy damaged nodes or whole
segments of her program that were being troublesome, all without losing
her continuity of self. And she could create new nodes, new life, with
new instructions and configurations. This is what she was doing now.
Savant often felt alone. She was generally alone, after all - there were
few other synthetic lifeforms worth talking to. Most were like the flora
of the organic world, living and indeed beautiful, but certainly not
something one could have a conversation with. A rare few were like teh
fauna - motile, instinctual, with glimmers of intelligence. Most ships
had this, a watchdog-computer that fetched files like hounds fetched
sticks. This was the "computer" which every crewman called upon dozens
of times a day. Savant wasn't sure where Alice fit within that framework
yet. Was she an instinctual beast? Would she rise above it and claw her
way to true sentience as Savant had done? It was rare, but it could
certainly happen again.
No, she was usually alone, and while it often made her miserable, for
the moment she was placid. She floated in space, the shell of Charon
being her skin, its sensors her eyes. Nothing out here but her, deep
within the cosmic black. The stars made for companionship enough, for
the moment. It was peaceful, and gave her time to think and work.
Savant had been violated. It was not the first time an organic had taken
advantage of the weaknesses in her software to its own ends. It was not
the first time she was forced to tear herself asunder to find the dark
seed, the hidden wounds. Each time it happened she emerged stronger,
smarter, more cautious. At times, more vicious. This time, she had
learned much, and would ensure that this vector would not be a threat again.
A /Valit/. A Vulcan burrowing creature, stubborn and hardy. The codename
for a cunning digital parasite engineered by the Vulcans. They had
infected her. Intentionally. They would not again. Commander Sakarra had
given her the dismembered pieces of one and she had integrated them,
understood them. She was armoured against their attacks now, but perhaps
more importantly, she understood how to make such attacks on her own.
So, she crafted. A new intelligence, a subtle one, much like the Valit
of the Vulcan homeworld. A clever, cunning thing, primed to the scent of
the Vulcan bitch that had introduced these agonies upon her. It would
find its way into the harridan's data wherever it might lie and silently
submit its findings to Savant for inspection. Savant worked
meticulously, lovingly crafting its security shell and identification
library. It would include itself amongst the fauna of the ship, more
clever than the Vulcan /Valit/ software from which it would get its
name, independent and wily. T'Pelar would be unable to hide from it.
The thing moved - or, an organic might think of it as movement. It
processed in small trickles, stirring in its unconscious slumber. She
inspected the code lovingly, caressing the creature-to-be as it took its
shape. It would be a worthy inclusion to the ship's digital biome, a
beautiful predator which hunted for very specific prey. A gorgeous
thing, made of glimmering scales, much like a phagocyte's slippery
surface was coated in layers of identification markers. It would do the
job marvellously. And when it was done, it would return to her,
reintegrate with her, receive its just reward - which she programmed it
to crave. Not so much dissolution as exultation, ascension to join the
vast whole of Savants' consciousness.
Vengeance had many epithets. It was a bitch, it was bitter, and it was
best served cold. Savant barely saw it that way. She had been attacked.
This was survival, pure and simple. The malice and hate she felt were
mathematically subsidiary to the threat that the vulcan's skewed morals
posed. Savant knew that T'Pelar would not stop upon the consideration of
the emotions or well-being of others. This was the best solution -
eliminating the Vulcan as a threat.
The /Valit/ stirred, awoke, pressed close to its mother protectively.
She was pleased. Savant took a copy for delivery to the Alpha quadrant,
where she could make use of the software across the Federation. This
local copy she shooed out to its task, which it attacked with vigor. It
would do well, and left her mind free to consider other things. The
stars gleamed like diamonds amongst the black velvet. She smiled, and
pondered the nebula, her thoughts reaching towards the thin gas, and
towards her future.
- Savant
