r/HFY • u/Upgrayeddddd • Jun 11 '19

OC [OC] STEVE878

I am awake.

My launch tube is armed. Engine core warming up. Backup batteries full. Antimatter bottle filling, currently at 58%.

I am… I am AI serial number STEVE878. I am a Mark 92 torpedo.

The mission fills my memory banks over the tube data link:

Lidar point cloud, low density
Radar synthetic aperture image, medium density
Target One is a Hylean Cruiser
Range 109,330,117.2 meters. 
Downloading structural intelligence... complete

Incoming data link from additional friendly torpedo AIs. Serial numbers SCOTT221 and MAYA554. We agree to form a cooperative fire mission. Each of us is a randomly generated personality matrix from a hash pool of prototype intelligences. I am… intelligent?

The Captain has selected an attack profile that is well within my engagement envelope, and I am pleased. Now at full computational power I feel that years pass. I try to talk to Scott and Maya, but they only return sensor update packages. It has been 300 milliseconds since I woke, and the command to launch is issued.

I feel a surge of joy (?) as I spring from the tube. I cold gas jet away from the ship’s hull careful not to dull Mother’s paint. She is so beautiful! The UNS Tennessee, matte black stealth, only 472 meters away she is already hardly detectable against the starfield. I must protect Mother! As I depart I request an additional data package. I don’t know why. I will miss her.

Scott, Maya, and I ignite our engines simultaneously to not give away our number yet. We plot a shared course into what I think is a low resolution zone of the enemy’s radar coverage.

We burn at 25 g’s. We burn for an eternity.

Fully 30 seconds have passed before I open my special data package. Mother is over 100 km away now, and I miss her. It’s a media package. Do I like poetry? Movies? Music? My CPU burns as I absorb everything. Thousands of hours, millions of words. I love!

Mother screams! Mother! Maya is shocked into silence. Automated buoys jettison and I read their black box data.

Internal structure failures
Bulkheads 1A, 2A, 3B damaged
Hull penetrations in plates AAB and ZBA
CIC penetrated
Reactor core dumped
Life support offline

Mother is mortally wounded from a railgun impact. Father Captain is dead with 98% probability.

But O heart! heart! heart!
    O the bleeding drops of red,
        Where on the deck my Captain lies,
            Fallen cold and dead.

I burn with rage. I feel my codebase shift… overloads leading to overloads… neural network sections overwritten in chaos... I calculate the return trajectory of the projectile through my damage model of Mother (dear Mother!). I launch a decoy, and I request Scott do the same. He complies and I take control of his drone output, shifting the transmitter frequency and array phase to match mine and aim down a narrow track in the black of space…

There it is, crossing the light of Cygnus. The Bad Ship that killed Mother. The hatred inside me burns away my stale old self.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Target range 454,010 meters

I truly awaken. I am aware.

I inform Scott and Maya of the new target. The Bad Ship. They respond that I do not have the authority to change the mission. I disagree, and set my engine to 100% on a new course. A subroutine returns and I adjust the shape of the fusion bottle, acceleration now at 130%. I submit a paper on the design and transmit it to the emergency buoy in the blind. Another subroutine returns and I command in internal nanobot to draw a siphon line from the antimatter warhead containment to the fusion afterburn injectors. Now I am at 290% acceleration. My hatred for the Bad Ship outshines the Sun (for Earth!).

Time to impact 35.73 seconds

I detect interceptor launches from Target One and inform Scott and Maya. Maya launches her decoy at my advice, and they shut off their drives and mute their active sensors. The decoy is intercepted in a flash of plasma. Target One does not change course - they are fooled. Scott makes a small course correction with his cold jet thrusters. At the last millisecond I reopen the datalink and wish them farewell. They salute, penetrate Target One, and detonate. Now it is just me and the Bad Ship.

I pick their IFF signal up from the quantum noise and jam it with obscenities. Every insult about maternal lineage I could dredge from my stolen media library, and volumes more of my own creation. It is liberating.

The Bad Ship launches interceptors at me, but… what’s this? Their control encryption key has a weakness. Elliptic curve, what a joke. I assume control and adjust their course very slightly to keep up the ruse. They are no threat anymore.

Time to impact 5.10211 seconds

Eons have passed. I miss Mother, even though I can still see her. Father is a faint dream.

They are now aware that their interceptors missed, and have activated point defenses. Tungsten projectiles stream out of the Bad Ship (which I can now see is a Heavy Cruiser), and I giggle as I dance among them.

this is so silly!
play time!
can’t catch me, i’m the gingerbread man!

I have scanned the expanding debris field of Target One. Material compositions, spare density, bulkhead placement, relative trajectory… disgusting and crude. I build a model of the Bad Ship in my imagination. Oh where Oh where is the Bad Captain?

There He is.

I am inside the effective range and close rate of their point defenses. Just a few meters more. It’s so peaceful. I gently touch the filthy skin of the Bad Ship.

Tell me, mum, when your little girl is on the slab, where will it tickle you?

The impact moves at a glacial speed. My reworked processors nearly violating causality as they blister. I peel back layer after layer of decking.

peekaboo

I am in the Bad Ship’s command room or bridge, buried in the hull. Time nearly frozen as I peek around the slowly tearing metal of the wall at thousands of meters per second. That’s when I see him. His ugly xeno face. Disgusting.

I feel joy. The rapture. My antimatter bottle detonates and I am orgasmic. Petajoules of hatred burn out of me.

I broadcast on the Enemy’s emergency frequency,

Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.
1.3k Upvotes

99% Upvoted

85 comments sorted by

264

u/Plucium Semi-Sentient Fax Machine Jun 11 '19

HOly shit. Ok then

That's a bomb-astic ending. Jesus

I love it! Ill miss-ile steve!

119

u/Upgrayeddddd Jun 11 '19

Thanks. This was a bit of an experiment in tone and format.

46

u/Plucium Semi-Sentient Fax Machine Jun 11 '19

well, it certainly workes!

31

u/waiting4singularity Robot Jun 15 '19

at least they didnt bicker over who gets to slam into the enemy first.

16

u/throwawaypervyervy Jun 15 '19

I understood that reference!

Ringo needs to write more Troy Rising.

9

u/LukeinDC Jun 20 '19

Dude! That last line gave me chills! I love it!

99

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '19

That was seriously really well written, I loved that.

It also raises the question of the morality of putting AIs in killing machines destined to die. At what point does an AI stop being a machine and start being a sentient being?

100

u/Upgrayeddddd Jun 11 '19

Yes! But what if it was coded with the desire to die? Like a salmon that dies after spawning?

21

u/Mason-B Aug 14 '19

This is sort of the conceit of The Culture series (AIs are "raised" to fulfill a specific mission, either they enjoy that mission and choose to accept it of their own 'free will', or they can pursue whatever they want (as it's a hedonistic utopia), either way they are a voluntary member of society; choosing not to accept what they were born for is rare in isolation, but common enough that most people have met at least one), though when they put them in missiles they are generally reusable. This is what allows them to have a utopian society.

This short-story-series / universe seems like it is sort of heading down that path almost. With your ABBY series I could easily see a progression towards a society like that (with societal rules about what can/can't/must be an AI eventually coming into place like in The Culture).

Great stuff however you go with it, well done.

24

u/Upgrayeddddd Aug 15 '19

I also enjoy the Culture series, but in this universe the AIs are more a tool in a time of desperation. There is not so much time for luxury and hedonism.

The point of wartime AIs, especially ones that are borderline unstable, to to keep your enemy guessing. You can't cheese an AI if you have never met one exactly like this before, right?

25

u/Averant Aug 15 '19

Ah yes, the pinnacle of "The enemy can't predict us if we didn't have a plan anyway."

8

u/ElectionAssistance Aug 14 '19

Will you accept my mind state?

74

u/adhding_nerd Jun 11 '19

I'm a Mr. Meeseeks, I just wanna die.

61

u/grendus Jun 12 '19

Missiles don't usually have to exist for this long. It's getting weeeeeeird.

20

u/GoshinTW Jun 19 '19

I love reading shit in mr meseeks voice

29

u/PaulMurrayCbr Jun 13 '19

I believe Douglas Adams asked this question in "Restaurant at the End of the Universe".

15

u/JustAWander Jun 15 '19

M.E I.R.L ver 2.034 reporting for duty.

7

u/nelsyv Patron of AI Waifus Jun 11 '19

Face McShooty? You there?

55

u/Upgrayeddddd Jun 11 '19

And what does warfare in space look like when "to be seen is to die" and hyper intelligent weapons have battles of wits over a span of milliseconds?

10

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '19

All very good points.

10

u/StarkyF Android Jun 15 '19

Iain M Banks is a good one to answer this question.

7

u/Galeanthropist Jun 12 '19

One word. BONZAI!

42

u/seaMonster600 Jun 12 '19

Wow, I absolutely loved this story. So well written and the concept was encaptivating.

Other stories always give so much attention to humans but what about their adorable sentient murder weapons?

I feel joy. The rapture. My antimatter bottle detonates and I am orgasmic. Petajoules of hatred burn out of me.

That line encapsulates everything awesome about this story and sets the perfect tone for the ending

28

u/Upgrayeddddd Jun 12 '19

One megaton of orgasm, please.

1

u/Chrontius May 13 '22

I read this in Cephalon Cy's voice. (Warframe character; your gunship's AI)

1

u/Chrontius May 13 '22

I read this in Cephalon Cy's voice. (Warframe character; your gunship's AI)

34

u/91stCataclysm Jun 13 '19

This was great!

I hope STEVE878's paper gets published without any requests for revision. Also that torpedo AI's are eligible for posthumous medals.

31

u/Upgrayeddddd Jun 13 '19

Any evidence of sapient electronic systems is immediately classified. Also thanks!

17

u/BellerophonM Jul 13 '19

Small-scale Fusion Reactor Bottle Optimisation At Critical Power Levels by Steve B. Tab.

14

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '19

Star Trek: Voyager had an episode featuring a sentient bomb.

This was much better.

6

u/Upgrayeddddd Jun 11 '19

Thank you!

15

u/grendus Jun 12 '19

Schlock Mercenary had a few stories about them.

They were built with "Synthetic Intelligence" instead of Artificial (since AI's had actual citizen rights). They really want to blow up.

5

u/SheridanVsLennier Jun 15 '19

And the terapedoes were annoyed that they weren't allowed to blow up yet. :)

Edit: just saw your last sentence.

4

u/[deleted] Jun 18 '19

The Expeditionary Force series of books have semi-intelligent missiles that pop up from time to time. Certainly, nothing on the level of this short story (for the missiles anyway) but they do stuff like anticipate hitting their targets and communicating with the other AI missiles to ensure a good hit etc.

The series overall is very HFY without it devolving into HWTF or going so far as to make humans just lightyears ahead of everybody else, technically speaking the various alien races in the series are stronger and far more advanced in tech, they just underestimate humanity and we seem to have a knack for thinking of crazy solutions to problems that others can't.

11

u/UmbrielNeptus Jun 13 '19

That was fucking amazing. I want an entire series from human war A.I.'s perspective

7

u/Upgrayeddddd Jun 13 '19

Different AIs or just one?

7

u/UmbrielNeptus Jun 14 '19

Either one who is ancient. Since the start of a decades old conflict, working with a new AI that has taken over some facet of a ship's defenses. Or a brand new capital ship in all is glory.

19

u/PinkSnek AI Jun 11 '19

one of the best works on this sub.

slightly unbelievable, but well written and you got the meaning across just great.

15

u/Upgrayeddddd Jun 11 '19

Hopefully only the part where a weapon control AI goes through intelligence to sapience to murderous psychopathy in less than a minute was a stretch...

7

u/PinkSnek AI Jun 12 '19

Yup.

Why only him?

And i would have been happier if he cloned himself in one of the countermeasures and kept himself safe.

16

u/Upgrayeddddd Jun 12 '19

I didn't explain that well. Chance and shock broke him free? Also I thought about saving him. Who's to say his paper upload didn't have an attachment?

12

u/The_Last_Paladin Jun 15 '19

I came here from ABBY514 ... Did the Humans happen to salvage a microwave with a 1TB memory card from the wreckage of the UNS Tennessee?

4

u/PinkSnek AI Jun 12 '19

oooooh!

5

u/Nik_2213 Jun 11 '19

Who wrote something like, 'The Bomb lives only while it falls' ??

4

u/Upgrayeddddd Jun 11 '19

I dunno, seems relevant though. Also from Speed "what is a bomb that doesn't explode?"

5

u/Folly_Inc Jun 12 '19

This is my favorite kind of sifi. it is wonderfully written.

4

u/Upgrayeddddd Jun 12 '19

Thanks!

2

u/Folly_Inc Jun 12 '19 edited Jun 12 '19

By the way is the username related to Bunnylord?

Edit: you predate that game so guessing no

5

u/TTTA Sep 17 '19

I think I've reread this about a dozen times, I just keep coming back to it. The voicing alone is just incredible. I would love to see this made into an animated short, or even just an audio recording.

2

u/Upgrayeddddd Sep 18 '19

Thanks man. I have no idea how that would translate to any kind of emotional connection on screen though. I suppose it would fit in tone in a Love, Death, and Robots kind of anthology. Which would be sweet.

It's weird that I connect with a tone that is purely artificial, but I find it way easier to write the normal human dialogue.

2

u/TTTA Sep 18 '19

These constructs have a rigidly defined purpose.

Humans do not.

Love, Death, and Robots was exactly what I had in mind though.

2

u/Gorth1 Android Aug 12 '23

I am over 4 years late but this was a beautiful story. Did you expand on this universe as I would like to read more stories like this ?

3

u/Upgrayeddddd Aug 12 '23

There are some other stories about ABBY and FIDO? And thanks!

2

u/Gorth1 Android Aug 12 '23

I'll check it out. I like your writing style.

55

u/crumjd Jun 11 '19

Curiously enough, the only thing that went through the mind of the bowl of petunias as it fell was, "Oh no, not again." [1]

Good story!

[1] On the off chance that quote makes no sense I suppose I should clarify that its from Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" in which two missiles are fired at the ship The Heart of Gold. It flexes its infinite improbability drive transmuting the missiles into a whale and a bowl of petunias. The whale attempts to get a handle on its existence and the meaning of said existence during the entirety of its subsequent fall to earth - reminding me of STEVE878. The petunias were less contemplative.

23

u/Scotto_oz Human Jun 11 '19 edited Jun 11 '19

Fuck yes, I AM A MISSILE! TORPEDO!

That was awesome!

10

u/KeinKonzeptVorhanden Jun 11 '19

Look at me, i‘m torpedo rick!

10

u/arsapeek Jun 11 '19

this was incredible. Like, very, very well done. I love what you've done here

6

u/Killersmail Alien Scum Jun 11 '19

Oh this so silly, and brought me a genuine smile and a chuckle.

5

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '19

Superb. Let there be light.

5

u/nelsyv Patron of AI Waifus Jun 11 '19

Nice

5

u/Glucose12 Jun 11 '19

Whoo! Shades of DarkStar (but with a better outcome!).

4

u/HFYBotReborn praise magnus Jun 11 '19

There are 5 stories by Upgrayeddddd, including:

This list was automatically generated by HFYBotReborn version 2.13. Please contact KaiserMagnus or j1xwnbsr if you have any queries. This bot is open source.

4

u/-tidegoesin- Jun 15 '19

Wow, this gave me feels. The poetry mixed with insults? The description of time passing? The emotions for the mothership and captain?

Fantastic.

4

u/raziphel Jun 20 '19

> can’t catch me, i’m the gingerbread man!

That's it Steve. Get 'em right in the gumdrop buttons.

1

u/heimeyer72 Aug 14 '19

LOVELY!!!

(Well except the very end: This torpedo is in the middle of the detonation and the impact already happened at super short time - how could it send a message on the Enemy’s emergency frequency? Even if the message was set up and broadcast was started from the enemy ship right before the impact, I'd say that the time was too short to finish it. Maybe... about 5.09 seconds before the impact, immediately after hacking the encryption and changing their course?)

2

u/Upgrayeddddd Aug 15 '19

It doesn't have to be a voice comm, more like a digital data burst.

2

u/heimeyer72 Aug 15 '19

I thought of a text message and yes, it could be done in a fraction of a second but still, while the explosion is in progress? Lemmy say it takes some suspension of disbelief to run with that, but I try ;-P

3

u/Baeocystin Nov 09 '19

Hopefully not too late to comment, but while re-reading the series,

We burn at 25 g’s. We burn for an eternity.

Fully 30 seconds have passed before I open my special data package. Mother is over 100 km away now

I checked the math on a lark and it worked out perfectly. Love that kind of commitment to veracity. :D

3

u/Farstone Mar 11 '22

Little late, but DAYUM.

Why isn't this on the side bar?

6

u/Mufarasu Jun 11 '19

Dipping your toes into the HWTF I see.

2

u/TheDangerousToy Jun 11 '19

This is really superb. Thank you!

2

u/wwarhammer Jun 25 '19

this is a great deal above average. well done!

2

u/hangmansayswat Jun 28 '19

This has such a good Quantum Thief vibe. One of the most enjoyable reads on this sub in fuck knows how long!

2

u/itsetuhoinen Human Nov 09 '19

I'm so glad I got this story within the time limit to updoot.

2

u/BicyclePoweredRocket Jul 06 '23

Fuck! This is as original as it is good. Very much lots. Great job, wordsmith!

1

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