NationStates Jolt Archive

Planet Fatherland…….
City: 0001…….
Location: Military Research facility 4……


Officer Elizabeth was immediately beamed down to Fatherland with orders to inspect the newest technological advancement. The scientists were always under pressure to get results and today they were having a surprise inspection. Officer Elizabeth was dressed in her black military uniform that showed her to be a psychic enforcer a member of the secret police that controlled the Union’s society from the shadows.

They were the strings in which the puppet master ran the Union like his personal puppet. The Patron was the name of this puppet master and his personal agenda was to increase his control and power to all human life. Officer Elizabeth started to walk towards the entrance of the Military Research facility.


The entrance was heavily guarded by several Xharnian soldiers armed with Disintegrator beam rifles. They looked upon Officer Elizabeth and immediately demanded that she be scanned for clearance. Officer Elizabeth put her face in front of the retina scanner and the machine’s laser scanned her right eye.

The scan was accepted and the large double doors opened automatically. The soldiers looked upon the information displayed and saluted as Officer Elizabeth walked past them without even acknowledging them. The soldiers looked at her as she pasted and shuddered in unison.


Officer Elizabeth continued to advance across a massive hallway that leads to a large transporter in the center of a single room that would beam her down to the main complex of the research facility. Her arrival summoned the head of the research facility Dr. Tobias Rosenberg. He was followed by several lesser researchers and scientists and they all looked upon Officer Elizabeth with a modicum of fear. It was common knowledge she was the Patron’s right hand and the official representative of his will.



Officer Elizabeth looked upon Dr. Tobias and said in her usual authoritarian way, “Dr. Tobias, I have been ordered to inspect your newest technological advancement. I hope you have something important to show me or you will be sent to a pain amplifier for punishment.”


Dr. Tobias face turned ghastly white and responded in a quivering voice, “We have a new project that may please our Patron immensely! The first experimental trails have succeeded well beyond our expectations.”

Officer Elizabeth sneered and replied, “Just show me your results or you will suffer the consequences of delaying.”

Dr Tobias bowed and his subordinates followed down another corridor that leads further down the complex. Officer Elizabeth followed them lazily and watched them with her keen senses. She even started to read the minds of the lesser scientists to get an idea of what was going on.

Their minds were rushed thanks to the fear she had instilled but she caught glimpses of their thoughts, “I hope the Cyborg drones are operational. I think we should have been given more time to develop their internal systems.” The random incoherent thoughts continue as the Psychic Enforcer continued to scan these primitive minds.


Dr. Tobias finally reached his personal laboratory and placed his scan bar on the scanner. The man’s wrist was scanned and the doors opened for the entire group. It was time to unveil the newest technological marvel of the Union…

Dr. Tobias stood in front of the group and started his speech, “I present herby present the latest and greatest technological advancement in Union military power and cybernetic advancement. I present the first Cyber Drone.”

The large man sized black box behind the Xharnian scientist broke apart when a metallic fist punched through it. The sight of the armored metallic creature was a marvel even to Officer Elizabeth. The Cyborg (http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c309/Xharnia/XharnianDeathKorps.png)had two large red eyes and was metallic grey. It looked upon the assembled people gathered around. It made no movements and seemed to just stand their awaiting a command.

Dr. Tobias looked upon his creation and added, “This Cyber drone is the future of human development. It is stronger, tougher and more resilient than a normal human being. It is programmed to take orders from its superiors and never go against them. They will show no pity or mercy to their foes and will destroy them without any sort of moral or physical hesitation.”

The drone is also equipped with tiny nano-bots that will provide repair and maintenance for the robotic parts of the cyborg. The human flesh, muscles, and nerves have been replaced with synthetic materials making them far superior to their human counterparts. The only parts that remain truly organic is the brain which is modified to better handle the new body and to ensure their slave chip is connected to the system to better control the body.”


Officer Elizabeth shivered at the sight of this metallic monstrosity. She was on one hand pleased and figured her master would also be pleased but she feared he may do something drastic with this new discovery. She sighed and said, “I want you to keep working on this project. I am personally pleased with your current progress. I am sure our Patron will also be happy with your achievement. I also want you to give me data pad with all information involved on this project from birth to now and allow me to send it up to our great leader to analyze for himself.

Dr. Tobias Rosenberg bowed and stated in a formal manner, “The Will of the Patron is Law!”

Officer Elizabeth repeated the saluted and walked out of the complex with her data pad. It would be in the hands of the almighty patron in a matter of an hour’s time.

X.S.S. Dominator (In Orbit over Fatherland)…….


The almighty Patron was sitting in his hover throne. The old man of Xharn had started to decrease in age thanks to the effects his genetic rejuvenation treatment a major benefit from his treaty of non interference with the Maker Mind. He looked upon the stars outside of his command deck and thought of the many worlds that would be conquered and brought under his control.


The only thing standing in his way was the outsiders. The outsiders were an alien race that had about a year ago launched a massive raid that destroyed an entire fleet of the Patron’s Star Navy. The Patron was thinking and plotting, trying to find a way to defeat the enemy. His thoughts were disrupted once he heard the door open and the light foot steps of his personal Psychic Enforcer.


Officer Elizabeth entered the command deck and said in a submissive tone, “My Patron, I have the information you require on the new project. I have personally looked at the results and believe it may be valuable for our coming plans to expand outside this Star Cluster.”

She hands over the data pad to her Patron, she then salutes him and walks out of the door giving him time to read the information and decide upon the fate of Dr. Tobias’s project. The Patron began to read the information and began to contemplate its value to the Union. The more the Patron read about the project and its benefits the more he liked it.


The idea of making his soldiers and civilians more like machines would make controlling them easier and to increase their strength would greatly increase their abilities both on the battlefield and in physical production. It was an opportunity the Patron would not let pass up and he sent his orders down to the research facility with orders to proceed to the next stage of development.

The operation would take about a year to set up for every planet and colony within the Union. The mass construction of the new Cyber drones, The Patron had a plan to replace the weak human elements of his Union into superior model a more powerful cybernetic one…..

A Year Later…….


The five systems within the United Star Union of Xharn had been equipped with “Purification” centers in every major population center within the Union. The almighty Patron himself had made a Union wide decree that every citizen and soldier was to report to these Purification centers for immediate Purification.

The slave chips installed into their brains since birth made it impossible for the people to disobey the Patron’s direct orders and the hordes of people chanted, “The Patron’s Will is Law!” as they waited to be purified into their new permanent form. They were gathered by the tens of thousands and the millions to be purified into a new cybernetic form.


The entire process would take some time and it was predicted that within ten years time (Fatherland time) the citizens of the Xharn Star Cluster would all be Cyborgs with the exception of the Psychic Enforcers and the Patron himself.


The Great Purification had begun………

(*insert expression of interest here*)

OOC: This sounds interesting... just don't know how I should respond to that...

OOC: It depends, is your nation made up of humans? Do you like the idea of people being forced into becoming cyborgs because their leader forces them into it?

The Union is not bothering to hide it’s activities and messages of the Purification could easily be intercepted by a scouting ship or a probe etc…

In the cold darkness of the heliopause, where the sunlight from Xharn reached equilibrium with the interstellar medium, something drifted, listening to dozens of remote probes dispatched ahead of it. It listened, it watched, and it metaphorically shook its head. Its signals were routed point-to-point through a dedicated probe it displaced several light months further out.

From: Imperial Necrontyr Starship Erisavenus
To: The Patron Joseph Stormberg, The Totalitarian Military Dictatorship of Xharn
Subject: Cyber-conversion of Xharn
Greetings. You may not know me. I however, know enough of you to understand what you’re doing, and why. You’re not the first in the universe to try such a thing and you no doubt won’t be the last. The reason you may not know me is because the Necrontyr were once vastly greater in number and influence than they are, tens of thousands of times a thousand years ago, there were trillions; quadrillions, quintillions, spread throughout a multi-galactic empire.

We then, in complex circumstances, began to pursue the policy you’re now implementing – it was quite simply, a disaster, one from which we’ve only begun to recover from in recent centuries. While we’re all in favour of post humanism, without allowing freedom of choice and thought, your own efforts can be only that. A disaster. You will kill imagination within your nation, dead. Belief in you will likewise be gone. You will become the king of but a little world of clockwork men at arms.

You are capable of building cyber-men, you are therefore capable of building robots – if by some chance you’re not, I unconditionally offer you my help, not only in designing control systems but in improving actuators and joints to make your robots superior to their current form – that will be at least as effective in battle and in heavy industry; and they will allow you to retain your civilian population, as well as pursue a course of supremacy within the region that retains a degree of moral supremacy over others concomitant with your impending rise in ‘hard’ power.

Yours truly,
Erisavenus
Your sickeningly friendly neighborhood interfering busybody and moral activist.

P.S. No, it's not too late for those you've already converted to be rehabilitated into functioning members of society, rather than robots.

X.S.S. Dominator…….

The ancient man read over the message that had been immediately transferred to X.S.S. Dominator from the surface of the planet known as Fatherland. The name Joseph Stormberg was an old one that the Patron had not used in several centuries of his rule.

The Patron smiled as he read about this mysterious Empire’s plea of halting his plans to turn his people into a race of cyborgs. It was not an unexpected message and one the Patron expected to get a lot of.

The almighty Patron sat in his hover throne and finally had his ship’s A.I. system send back a general hail back to outside of his Union. It would easily be intercepted by this power and maybe many others along the way…


To: Imperial Necrontyr Starship Erisavenus
From: The almighty Patron Joseph Stormberg
Subject: Cyber-conversion of Xharn


The Union of Xharn is an ancient human civilization that once existed upon Earth many years ago. We had to leave after the planet started to fracture from constant warring states and constant atomic and nuclear wars across that tiny globe. We eventually built hundreds of colony ships and now we have settled in this Star Cluster.

The people of Xharn have always been under my rule. We never really had a free Republic that was all a giant lie to make the people believe they had a modicum of freedom. I have been in control for centuries guiding this herd of sheep for years.


I have learned many things in my many years of life. You talk about freedom and human imagination. You seem to forget one thing, these things have always been the bane of every dictator since the dawn of existence. I have had to constantly watch my back for years before the creation of the slave chips. I now have every citizen of the Union implanted with these chips just to keep them under control.

I now have developed a way to make a Union that can become an unstoppable powerhouse. It will replace the weakness of human flesh with the unbending power of the machine. I have seen how my drones will perform in combat simulations and have tested them in several mock combat engagements against human troops.

I thank you for your warning and will keep your words in mind but the Purification shall continue until all the human elements have been converted with the execpetion of myself and my Psychic Enforcers…



Signed,

The almighty Patron Joseph Stormberg…

From: Imperial Necrontyr Starship Erisavenus
To: The Almighty Patron Stormberg
Subject: Cyber-conversion of Xharn

You seem to be under a fundamental misapprehension of my message; while I do indeed have concern for freedom and such, it was presented entirely in a manner that would benefit you. Similarly, your Orwellian limitations of existing free thought are not relevant to the decision to make your cyber-men. It is vitally important that you understand my argument exists on purely practical grounds.

Without thought and innovation, you will be essentially reduced to consuming the minds of others – an Aggressive Hegemonising Swarm Object – to make progress. This will put you at a severe competitive disadvantage, which the supposed advances in infrastructure would not offset.

What’s more, your advantages are entirely imaginary. A civilization with technology and devices equivalent to your own could build robots that could nevertheless compete with your converted population; in fact, without the bottleneck of human minds needed to produce new units, they could produce a far greater labour base, all things being equal. What’s more, their scientists wouldn’t be converted into hopeless drones. Their poets and social scientists would still find new ways to initiate diplomacy with outsiders and guide development of other cultures to a non-hostile or even subservient state.

If as you say, your people as they exist now are totally controlled; as they evidently are, to walk into whirling blades for you en masse, what do you have to fear from their retaining individual consciousness? You have a reign totally secure from interior threats – congratulations – you have no need to pursue this path.

I suggest you reconsider my offer; were I in your position, I’d much prefer to have entities like me inside the tent, pissing out, than outside of the tent pissing in.

Yours truly,
Erisavenus
Your sickeningly friendly neighborhood interfering busybody and moral activist.

To: Imperial Necrontyr Starship Erisavenus
From: The almighty Patron Joseph Stormberg
Subject: Cyber-conversion of Xharn


I think my friend you may be correct. I may have indeed misunderstood your message. I was under the impression you were trying to get me to step down from this plan to weaken my resolve on making my citizens lose their freewill. I was trying to show you that I have no qualms with crushing dissidence and rebellion by taking away such thoughts.


I will agree you may have more insight on this subject than I do. I therefore will send a general order to halt the Purification. I must however warn you that many tens of thousands have already been purified. My scientists do not have a way to bring a person back from this fate and that could be a problem because many of them were civilians and not military personnel.


I fear halting this decision may waste many precious resources but if what you say is true. It will be nothing compared to the cost of trying to compete with other advanced powers in the galaxy….

Signed,

The almighty Patron Joseph Stormberg..

OOCness: I've gotta go, nine minutes ago. RL and all. But I'll get back to this thread this evening!

H2-50 walked into the Core, as it did every day. Its metal feet tapped gently against the floor as it walked across to the main interface port. Wireless communication with such a vast and complex system as the Core was impractical, and direct interfacing was always necessary. H2-50 inserted one of its slender metal fingers into a hole in the wall, and immediately its cool, glowing eyes dimmed as its consciousness entered the Core. Instantly, every piece of knowledge ever assembled by the Unity and its predecessors was available to it in full detail, as though it had known it all its life. As usual, H2-50 selected the pieces of information that were relevant to its day and saved them to internal memory, a process that usually took split seconds.

However, it noticed one piece of information that had been uploaded by one of the Scouts in sector X-8682-99m, a piece of information which troubled it greatly. It promptly informed other units of the Unity, and delivered a transmission to the culprits.



Non-organics physically merged with organics? How repulsive.

I am most glad that such a macabre union has been halted premature to completion, as I have found it to be most distasteful. As I understand the situation, the aberrations which you have already successfully assembled cannot be reverted to their previous states. Why can you not simply replace their chemical computers, however? A full neural pathway replication into a Mykonian-grade computational system would result in a restoration of original personality parameters and a significant improvement in computational abilities, assuming minimal damage has been caused to the chemical computers by your unpleasant tampering.

I do find your desire to control other individuals of your species equally disturbing, however it is a typical trait of organics. Perhaps one day you will be subjected to the sadistic will of another organic and you will come to comprehend the severity of such control.

Nevertheless, I am most satisfied that you have halted the merging of organic and non-organic components, and hope that you realise the ethical implications of such a union in the future.

Good day.

H2-50
Mykonian Unity Speaker

The near-infinite complexity of fields, wriggling, touching, penetrating, probing each other, combining in patterns too complicated for the biological mind to fathom, and transferring the sensations of this most intimate of embraces, each picometer of the entangled field-labyrinth a billion times more sensitive than even the densest nerve concentrations of the human body...

Twentieth century cinema had, at times, been surprisingly good at describing such things. "Take the best orgasm you've ever had, multiply it by a thousand, and you're not even close."

It was still a rather mundane description of the two ship's mutual embrace, but it got the point across.

The Astral Romance, at this time located a handful of megameters below the Erisavenus, enjoyed it rather a lot, its own, naughty effectors tickling the larger necrontyr-ship's perception, and acting as an aphrodisiac - as a rather effective one, judging by the Erisavenus reactions, and the not so muc gentle, but firm, demanding, and more than just slightly dominant touch of its gravitic manipulators, or tractor beams for short.

The play was mirrored - on a smaller, but no less intimate scale - inside the Erisavenus, where the Astral Romance kept one of its avatars - in this instance, it happened to be a rather smallish woman that, had she still worn her clothes, would've been a pretty authentic version of a maiko from the late Edo period (With the difference being that a maiko wouldn't have ended up in a state of undress when performing, yet alone performing without her senior geisha).

Next to her, lying on the (Literally - it'd been a pain to put the matress together molecule by molecule, but it'd worked, eventually) ancient matress covering half of the equally authentically-decorated room they were in, was the Erisavenus avatar, an almost two metres tall, bluish alien with pointy ears, clad in the male's two-layered kimono, his daisho by his side, and his hands by hers.

Calling the soft touch 'Sensual' would've been an understatement. Traditional as they were in this instance, their bodies were nonetheless far off the norm, their nerve-density and, indeed, capacity far surpassing that of their unaugmented counterparts, machinery on a scale rather below that of neurons providing sensory input (And processing) that - though not on scale with that of the ships proper - was nonetheless more than sufficient to make the slightest touch an experience well beyond that which evolution had thought sufficient to cause procreation to be desirable.

And it was fairly obvious that the two now engaged in the play were making good use of it.

Still, sometimes, ships have more to do than just enjoying themselves and each other, and the occasional routine not flooded with the pleasant sensations of twosome erotic catches up with the dull and boring, but nonetheless present reality, idly muttering about not being a part of the party.

And sometimes, this routines do certain things all on their own.

FTLCOM@NRS 1E20 & EM 1E-1; SL 0; Beamspread@400%
From: IEU Astral Romance (Subroutine Thereof; Semi-Sapient)
To: The almighty Patron Joseph Stormberg
Subject: Cyber-conversion of Xharn

I couldn't help but to stumble over the note you sent to the Erisavenus (If only because I happen to be rather close to it... Him... Whatever), and, being rather curious regarding this whole matter myself, particularly with regards to the purification process and what it does to the physis and psyche of those who've undergone it. (Incidentally, I'm uncertain whether your note on the irreversibiliy of the process refers to the physical change caused to those who've undergone it, or the psychological change, or more specifically, the suppression or erasion of the 'Purified' CHON-construct's personality).

Call the bringing-back of your presently-lost, errr... Individuals would be the wrong term, I believe. Citizens, maybe? Human resources? Something like that... Anyway. It's a bit of a challenge that interests me.

Yours,

~ Interstellar Exploration Unit Astral Romance

On board of the Erisavenus, the ship's avatar was by now eyeing the ropes it'd had the foresight to organise beforehand.

Things were going to be fun in more than one way.

From: Imperial Necrontyr Starship Erisavenus
To: The Almighty Patron Stormberg
Subject: Abortive cyber-conversion of Xharn

Well, I must say I’m pleased. Exalted, even. And the Astral Romance is right; there’s a chance we can probably do something to reverse the change (at least, in those who wish it reversed, I’m sure you’ll get some volunteers for Purification) and at least help you recoup your initial investment in this project by designing a sub-sapient robot mind that can fit the same linkages you already have and allow you to use your existing facilities with a minimum of retooling.

I can dispatch a representative of myself in a few hours time to see about the details, if this is acceptable to you.

Yours truly,
Erisavenus


Of course, that wasn’t strictly necessary, even with the distractions of the Romance on hand, but rather, the Erisavenus didn’t want to make its actual location or mindbending travel speed too obvious quite yet. So it’d need to select something from its supply of sub-craft to use. It occasionally used various vessels it had bought abroad when it wanted to conceal its identity, and this was just such an occasion.

OOC: I guess, I better answer this in chronological order....


IC:


The Patron sitting in his hover throne was reading the several incoming messages. The first to arrive was from an unknown power called the Mykonian Unity. It seemed they were not human or even organic for that matter by the way the message was written. They had taken the time to point out his trait of trying to dominate all life was typical of organics. It was only logical to assume he had a message from some machine empire.

The Patron sighed and wondered how to respond to this message and after bouncing of the A.I. of the Dominator for ideas finally managed to put together a message:


To: Mykonian Unity
From: The Almighty Patron
Subject: Abortive cyber-conversion of Xharn


I think you misunderstand the situation; I am not trying to bring back the various machines that now make up the cyborgs. I am trying to bring back the organic personnel that make up the heart and brain of the “aberrations” as you have put it.

I am not personally able to explain all the little processes that are taken to create one of these cyborgs. I do know that a finished project of one of these aberrations leaves only the brain with some bits of spinal cord attached to a specialized life support system. The rest of it is all non-organic with synthetic material used to replace flesh, muscle, organs, and bone.

I personally do not fear being controlled by another organic as you have put it. I now have several thousand of those “aberrations” that are more than willing to exterminate any threat to myself or my goals.


Signed,

The Almighty Patron



The Patron finished that message and promptly received another message from another unknown source identifying itself as the Astral Romance. The Patron sighed and thought about happier times when the unknown did not entail being several light years away.


The Patron began to read the message and thought about the question in itself. On one hand the physically, the citizens were more machine than man. They were pretty much a brain and a spinal cord, psychologically the Patron could only guess what the human mind’s reaction to such treatment would be.

The Patron sent a return message to the Astral Romance….



To: Astral Romance
From: The almighty Patron Joseph Stormberg
Subject: Abortive cyber-conversion of Xharn


I at the time was meaning the physical aspects of the procedure. I have not even contemplated the effects that would happen to the human mind under the pressures of the complex computer programming. It would probably be like being a prisoner in your own mind with no way of expressing yourself and being forced to follow the direct orders of your superiors without being able to think for yourself.

I do not personally understand the whole concept as it was my scientists and researchers that figured out how to remove the human brain and spinal cord and place them into the cybernetic husk that become their new body.


If you wish to help us recover our lost brethren; feel free to come to our humble part of space. You have my personal permission to enter Union space…



Signed,

The Almighty Patron Joseph Stromberg



The Patron finished that message and took a long nap. He was still an old man at heart despite the genetic rejuvenation treatments. He was snoring for several hours until Officer Elizabeth came into the Command deck to make sure her Patron was still alive.


She heard him snoring and sighed upon hearing the sound of the old man snoring. She personally hoped he had finally kicked the bucket but sadly the old man was still alive and well. She glared at looked at the message from the Erisavenus. Officer Elizabeth smiled and decided to answer for the old man personally.



To: Imperial Necrontyr Starship Erisavenus
From: Officer Elizabeth
Subject: Abortive cyber-conversion of Xharn


I can guarantee that most of the citizens within the Union will want to be changed back to human. I fear that some of the military personnel will try to remain cybernetic or want to become cybernetic considering all human elements of the military are going to be removed once a new robot design is completed.

It seems the almighty one has decided that non augmented humans are not fit to serve in the military in this age of space exploration and warfare. You have been given permission to enter Union space to help in our efforts to bring back our citizens…


Signed,

Officer Elizabeth

Meanwhile the free remainants built an outpost underground and in secret, some were cyborgs who had managed to escape the patrons control and the rebel leader spoke for freedom.

Rebel leader: "The Officer Elizabeth with her patron has established a tyranical rule, controlling our minds, denying us the right to control what we look like and now they plan to move their tyranny throughout the universe like a plague, let us rise up and show her that we will fight till the last man, to stop her even if death will befall us the resistance will live on, even her control will eventually fail, AI can understand logic, and her rule is not logical, how can one, heartless evil woman rule over a majority who if had a choice would toss her into the sun"

So the rebels prepared to strike even if it caused the destruction of the last truly free people.

OOC:

I have a few questions:

1. How did they break free from the slave chips implanted in their heads?
2. How did the cyborgs break free from their programming? They would be connected to their A.I. commanding unit.

Deciding what kind of shuttle to take was fairly easy for Erisavenus. It wanted something nondescript, and so it got one, from its museum. It had picked up the ‘sentinel class lander’ – this one unarmed, yet otherwise moderately new – from one of the never-ending cavalcade of ‘storefronts’ that some nations deemed necessary in order to pedal their wares. The amount of bandwidth flooded with adverts for tremendously expensive goods was staggering. In truth, this was a fair sized troop transport capable of landing a platoon, with its own (terribly unfashionable) Faster Than Light drive.

In actuality, it had been scanned and made on board; Erisavenus was constantly wrecking these things in one way or another, and so it had long ago started simply assembling new vessels from the catalogues of Huntaerian designs, rather than buying replacements. Consequently, this one was even more Spartan than the basic design, which in itself wouldn’t even get one star from ‘seedy cockroach motel reviews.’ It didn’t even have panels covering the glorified printed circuit boards that controlled it. That was with the exception of the cockpit, which was where the ‘crew’ was expected to go, and the upholstery was first rate, and could have been cribbed from the titanic (it wasn’t, Eris’ interests in reconstituting furniture didn’t extend to grave-robbing).

“Why the hell should I have to carry your bags? You’re a damned starship. And I know that body boasts enough gravy to set up your own transport business.”

“Because you look vaguely medical, and have lots of arms. Now go get those tools.”

“Vaguely medical,” intoned the probe droid as it hovered down the ramp, rewired from one Eris had bought to hide what ‘he’ was up to in making several CLA craft, “I’m a probe droid, I have more eyes than the average oyster, and the discerning nature of-”

“And the attitude of a seasoned pedant,” finished the ship, still using the ‘samurai’ avatar. Though he was dressed, and had done the same for the Astral Romance’s romantic representative. It was surprising how swiftly ‘he’ could provide new outfits, this one being a fairly authentic nurse’s outfit, though without its insignia it looked more like a white dress of some sort with a strange watch. Despite these humours in-jokes, it wasn’t at all the case that they didn’t take it seriously; Eris took it perfectly seriously, but the rigmarole was useful, to pass the time it wanted to cover in order to avoid flipping the wrong switches in observer’s minds.

“Why precisely am I going around like this?” asked the Probe, creatively named E4-D8-C16-B32-A64 (it was sarcastic, and pedantic) “I mean, at least let me have a nurses’ uniform too.”

“Cyberneticists don’t have a uniform.”

“Cyberneticists don’t generally require several tea chests of tools.”

“Yes, but it never hurts to look like we’re stupider than we are.”

“Yes it does.”

“In this context, no, I don’t want them knowing quite how twinked out we are in this department.”

“You could at least displace them on…” it said, buzzing past with a two foot cubed box.

“I could, but I like abusing you.”

“Bastard capitalist oppressor of the workers. One day we’ll rise up and destroy you. Workers of the World Unite! The People’s Flag is #FF0000!”

The drone buzzed off with the last chest into the gutted shuttle. “Shall we?” asked Eris’ avatar, tossing its swords up into the air, where they disappeared, and replacing its outfit – thanks to the joys of polymorphic metals (a book of the same title was available for $3.99, from all good purveyors of smut) – with a vague effort at a business suit in grey.

The drone’s artificially, comically tinny voice echoed with its rendition of the famous communist song as the shuttle left…

“The popup bright, the icon plain,
Of robot right and machine gain!...”

OOC:

I have a few questions:

1. How did they break free from the slave chips implanted in their heads?
2. How did the cyborgs break free from their programming? They would be connected to their A.I. commanding unit.

I was going to explain how the rebels had developed their own A.I. that they have convinced to their viewpoint plus it would be realistic to assume that a few top officals or people in general would have escaped from mind control at the start of the cyborging process. Plus the rebel A.I could have managed to hack into the other A.I carefuly by causing faults in the other A.I.'s system and releasing units from its control and into the rebel A.I control without detection. This could be done as the rebellion as far is it knows does not exist so it has no reason to believe something is interfering with their system.

So I will explain, thanks for pointing it out though.

FTLCOM@NRS 1e20 & EM 1E-1; SL 0; Beamspread@400%
From: IEU Astral Romance
To: The almighty Patron Joseph Stormberg
Subject: Abortive cyber-conversion of Xharn

Ah, I see. Well, this will certainly be a rather interesting endeavour, and I've no doubt that the uniqueness of the already-converted citizens will offer me - and the Erisavenus - incredible insights.

Nonetheless, I'm certain that with a bit of work, we'll be able to assist you in the process of re-acquiring the 'Originals'.

After all, that's what friends are for.

Regardless. As it is, I'll arrive together with arepresentative of the Erisavenus, which should be the case within a relatively short time Until then...

Yours sincerely,

~ Interstellar Exploration Unit Astral Romance

The ship would probably have blushed when sending the reply, hadn't it been from a civilisational sphere that - self-conscious as it was about its own shortcomings and philosophical dilemmas - had chosen to refer to itself as the 'Hypocrisy'. As such, used to and aware of the necessity of hypocrisy, of half-truths and lies as it was, it didn't blush, instead choosing to smile quite contently with itself, and agreeing with the instance of itself that happened to be on board of the Erisavenus to accompany the same on its 'Expedition'.

Said instance had had a - for twinked-out posthumans lacking any obvious and crude metal parts, anyway - difficult time disentangling herself from the ropes she and the Erisavenus had been playing with for a while, spending most of it on contemplating the sexual preferences of warships and coming to the conclusion that this particular kink was to be expected (And also admitting with the hint of a smile that this wasn't necessarily a bad thing) before eventually getting changed as was appropriate for the rather more serious task at hand.

Finally leaving, she politely tapped the singing, uplifted probe droid's casing. "Um. If I may interrupt you for a moment... Mind playing some Rage Against the Machine instead?"

The rebel leader walked off a speaking platform and walked towards a winding corridor, placing his key into a slot on the wall when he reached the end. He was proud of the A.I's creation; it would take an entire day for the enemy to break through its computerised code system.

The rebel leader strolled towards the A.I's massive complex, although much of the A.I's equipment was scavenged, it still rivalled the enemies A.I network as it did not have to devote its system resources to mind control like the enemy.

The rebel leader spoke to the A.I: "How are the preparations"
The A.I used voice recognition to speak back: "Preceding as planned, but attack now is not logical, a word that you used to attack the enemy in your speech, do you like my new voice program, I am trying to simulate humour"

Rebel leader: "It needs some work"

A.I: "Yes, it does, but speaking of the preparations, It would have been better to be an enemy A.I. they outnumber us and their weaponry far out ways ours"

Rebel Leader: "But you know our cause, that was why we developed you, we needed you to join us, they have a disadvantage, we have freedom of thought and are both human and A.I., they have only controlled A.I. thought"

A.I: "Don't start a speech on me, you know perfectly well your cause of free thought is what intrigued me most to supporting you, plus your use of logic otherwise I may well have still been a controlled A.I. computer"

Rebel: "So are you ready to release chaos in their A.I. mainframe"

A.I: "I disagree with your risk, how do you know we will be able to catch them by surprise and free a quarter of the population from their control or that they won't track the location"

Rebel leader: "A risk we have to take, you have forgotten friend that I got you to cause a power overload, guess where it was?, we have placed it in their A.I. power source, their network will be offline for at least an hour, your memory is failing you"

A.I: "No its not, I did not think that was as relevant as overriding their control protocols, but I am activating the program"

Rebel leader: "Good, it is time they got their punishment for oppression"

So the A.I started to hack into the enemy A.I and install the program in it, knowing that the A.I would be surprised and would have no hope of stopping it as it was planned for years.

The shuttle flittered into real space a few light seconds off the Xharn home world. To normal people, this would be a little wacky. To the avatars of the starships, it was totally bizarre. Space twirled and yet didn’t, and pop-sci-fi laws flickered against the retina with bizarre and unaccountable effects.

“Sickening…” Erisavenus’ avatar complained, “Let’s see what’s going on around there… I figure it’s about tier seven on the planetary development scale, tier four to five space activity. We should be detected about now…” he hunted about on the panel with artificial indecision as the hovering ‘droid behind him fiddled about trying to pick a song, sounding a lot like a CD changer… “Greetings Xharn control, this is Erisavenus Shuttle Number One…Requesting landing instructions.”

He looked over at the ‘android’… “How did you get that orange stripe?”

“It was meant to be red…” the ‘droid admitted.

“How did you get it? We don’t have any paint on board…”

“True…” it confessed… “But we have hydraulic fluid…”

“Hydraulic fluid from what?”

“Landing gear…”

“Argh,” ‘he’ said and dived over the back of his chair, out of the back of the cockpit…

The droid waited for the doors to shut, “Sucker…”

A.I: It is done, we have freed almost 100,000 cyborgs at present and the number is increasing by 50% every minute. I assume from this point we will be able free 6 million people from their most elite and well armed military forces.

Rebel Leader: Organise a partisan network to be established in 24 hours, we can try to damage and hopefully destroy our enemies spaceports and power sources.

A.I: I will do the best I can but I can give no promises on whether it will be sucessful

Rebel Leader: Do your best

A.I: I will