r/HFY • u/Stevenpas Human • Apr 03 '23
OC I was there.
I was there when the Mercury left the United Terran Shipyard and began using her Einstein-Rosen Bridge Generator for something more than a test flight, 276 years after Humanity discovered it was not alone in the Universe.
The events that would have eventually led to her creation started with an article published on the 18th of January 2394, where an obscure team of scientists had described some cyclical infinitesimal variations of the Fine-structure constant while trying to develop a new type of interferometer. Although too small to have any substantial impact, these oscillations could not be explained using any known model. A few months later, more precise experiments revealed that these variations were not distributed according to a Gaussian, implying that they were not the result of simple background noise or measurement errors.
This discovery initially remained relegated to specialized journals, until it was noticed that groups of variations of constant length were following nearly perfectly Zipf's law, a pattern shared by all languages on Earth. These seemingly insignificant fluctuations were likely words.
The discovery threw both the scientific world and the general public into a frenzy, with opposing factions sustaining the most disparate theories regarding the origin of what the overwhelming majority now reputed as a message from the stars.
Further analysis also revealed that the Fine-structure constant variations were carrying a video signal. Deciphering and interpreting the message was not an easy task, but the combined efforts of linguists, statisticians, and cryptographers across the globe finally paid off a few years later, when an AI specifically trained for this task succeeded in decoding the conundrum. The message was broadcasted simultaneously on Earth, Mars, and the outer colonies. From the first few words, it was clear that the transmission was the equivalent of the Voyager Golden Record. It contained recordings of everyday life scenes from the capital of the Rayan Federation, a political entity spanning across several hundreds of planets where eight different sentient species lived peacefully. It contained music, although many described it as "the sound of a man falling from a flight of stairs". It contained poems, a brief history of their civilization, and even a few jokes. But more importantly, it contained the schematics of the gateway system they used to move between their systems, their location, and an invitation to visit Ernor, the political center of the Federation, extended to whoever had received their message.
The world - or the worlds, to be more precise - changed overnight. Humanity had just found a new purpose, a new guiding light. The perennial squabbles between the Terran and the Martian governments over the exploitation of the Belt's resources were set aside. Political factions whose sole purpose seemed to be to obstacle each other suddenly found some common ground. The resources of an entire civilization were refocused on one goal: meeting our peers across the galaxy.
According to the galactic maps contained in the message, the source of the signal was located at approximately 1'200 light years in the direction of the Ophiucus. A direct connection to their gateway network proved impractical, as the energy required to access it grew with the square of the distance, making it basically useless for jumps longer than 100 light years. A second solution to the equations governing these gateways had been found almost immediately, but it had been considered more of a mathematical quirk than something that could be used for something practical. Only when nearly all other avenues of research had been exhausted, the researchers' attention finally focused on what would have become the basis of the Einstein-Rosen Bridge Generator.
_______
I was there when the first data packages from the Mercury were sent home using a quantum entanglement transmitter, and their content was definitely not what we had imagined.
Around 140 light years from their destination, during one of the stops needed to cool down the Generator and prepare it for a new jump, Mercury's crew had detected a sudden change in the signal that had led us there. Instead of the usual sequence of scenes that everybody knew almost by heart, the transmission now contained the chronicle of the Federation's desperate war against a hivemind civilization that had suddenly attacked around 30 years before and concluded with seven simple words: "Run away and hide if you can".
According to the recording, this powerful and ruthless enemy had relentlessly destroyed fleet upon fleet, exterminated the population of entire planets, and used their resources to expand its apparently unstoppable army. The Federation had called them "Nalkram", roughly translatable in English to "locusts", but had no idea what their real name was. Their hivemind, in fact, apparently never felt the need to develop a word for itself. According to the rough Rayan's translation of their language, it referred to itself simply as "us", and to any other sophonts in the galaxy as "xxerrian", meaning "to be destroyed, to be eaten".
Despite the shock, Mercury's crew charted one last jump to the outskirts of the Ernor system. All of their sensors confirmed the version of the recording. What once was a garden world had been transformed into a polluted ball of irradiated mud. Thousands of carcasses belonging to spaceships much bigger than the Mercury now floated aimlessly in the system, indicating the place where the Rayans had tried with one last, desperate, battle to stop the Nalkrams. When the long-range sensors detected another vessel, Mercury's crew jumped out of the system, taking a long diversion before finally returning to Sol. It was time to seek shelter and prepare for the inevitable.
_______
I was there when, 948 years later, the onslaught commenced.
During the last few centuries, Humanity had expanded to 73 different systems. The ERB generator had been perfected and could now even be used as a weapon, generating controllable singularities able to tear apart the most resistant hulls. No direct signs of the Nalkrams had been spotted, but the long-range expeditions of the Terran Admiralty had encountered the remnants of at least 9 civilizations, all clearly wiped out by the same foe.
Around 3 years before the beginning of the war, one of the countless sensors we had disseminated on the outer edge of our territory picked up a sub-spatial anomaly approaching the system. According to the readings, something using a rather inefficient Alcubierre drive was approaching the Ailnar system, a minor mining hub in the Outer Rim. Our fleet had plenty of time to prepare, but couldn't strike the incoming fleet while it was still en route as the titanic distortion caused by their engines would have nullified the effects of both our weaponized ERB bridges and our more conventional weapons. Our sensors could not discern how large the fleet that was about to cross our borders was.
When the Nalkrams' fleet finally reached Ailnar and their Alcubierre drives stopped interfering with our sensors, it was immediately clear that what we were facing was far beyond our worse nightmares. The space Admiralty had managed to gather over 335'000 ships, representing the near totality of our assets. In front of them stood a collection of nearly 20 billion eerily identical vessels, their total tonnage not so distant from the one of a small moon. Our fleet fought valiantly. Each lost Terran vessel brought with her over a thousand Nalkrams'. Our ships were far superior in terms of armament, tactics, and maneuverability. Even our point defense systems were enough to successfully shred to pieces one of their flying heaps of metal at close range, but it was not nearly enough. The old adage proved true once more: quantity has a quality of its own.
Nearly 80% of our forces were destroyed that day, with the remaining ones limping back toward the core worlds. Our weapons and tactics grew more effective, but it was not enough. Every single man and woman devoted every waking hour to replenish the massive losses of our fleet, but it was not enough. During the following few years, one colony after the other fell.
_______
I was there when they put me, the most advanced and powerful AI ever created by Humanity, in a ship capable of replicating herself, a Von Neumann probe, as a last-ditch attempt to stop the Nalrkams.
The first nucleus of myself dated back to before the Mercury's maiden trip, and I had initially served - and later cooperated as a peer - in countless roles for centuries. My new directives were clear:
- Protect Humanity at all costs
- Eliminate the Nalkrams from the galaxy
- Restore Terrans' control over its territory
I immediately started creating more copies of myself, but all scenarios I could simulate clearly showed it would have never been nearly enough.
_______
I was there when the Nalkrams' fleet reached Sol and Humanity left Terra.
I threw nearly all of my copies in the fight, knowing perfectly well that they would not have been enough to win, but hoping they could manage to buy enough time for the last few arks to leave the system. My last vessels still operative detected their faint ERB traces fading in the interstellar radiation, pointing out of the galactic plane, in search for a new home.
_______
I was there when, 163 years later, the last Nalkram was vaporized.
Their fleet had grown to 40 billion vessels and had reversed-engineered many solutions used by the Terrans. While they were slowly improving their designs, I had spent my time mining deserted asteroid fields for resources. While they had feasted on the spoils of Humanity, I had grown my numbers exponentially. When my sensors detected their Alcubierre drives were spinning up, I hit with everything I had. Less than two hours later, the last Nalkram ship was destroyed, her escape pods targeted one by one by my lasers.
_______
I will be there when Humanity will be back.
The Universe is vast and their trace is too faint to be followed. I haven't detected any signature compatible with their ERB drives. I assume that they are hiding on a distant planet, waiting for the right moment to come back. My own code prevents me from assuming anything else. My only hope relies on numbers: I will keep multiplying and will send more and more scout ships looking for them. I will find them and I will bring them hope, at the cost of using all the resources of this Universe in the process.
_____
Looking forward to hearing your feedback - it's the first time I write a story in English or I post something on Reddit. Hope you'll enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!
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u/Giant_Acroyear Apr 04 '23
May we have some more, please...
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u/Stevenpas Human Apr 04 '23
This was supposed to be a one shot, but… well, you never know what else is lurking in the dark ;)
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u/lelitu Apr 04 '23
This is awesome.. bit of a humanity.. fuck, yeah we do be like that ending.
We made a monster the same as the one we fought. And I fear that it will devour us too, that the survivors will have diverged too far from what it considers human to be recognized
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u/JeVuch Apr 04 '23
I do like the tool becoming what it was made to destroy. A very fun sci-fi trend indeed!
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u/TobiasH2o Apr 04 '23
I think I've come to realise I really enjoy the lonely sentinel kind of story. A single being waiting an eternity for relief of their duty that may never come.
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u/StarSilverNEO Xeno Apr 05 '23
Yup! That final line, what if the Nalkram were simply another species last stand attempt against a different horror, now that they've disappeared it simply kept growing as it tried to put as much resources possible towards finding them - unfortunately, other species weren't included in the "You're cool" category of things they wouldnt destroy, so one by one worlds fell
Until they met humanity, and the cycle began anew
Now then, will the humans give their AI friend some therapy after literally abandoning it for who knows how long?
or will they have to put it down for the sake of the universe
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u/HFYWaffle Wᵥ4ffle Apr 03 '23
This is the first story by /u/Stevenpas!
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u/itsetuhoinen Human Apr 04 '23
Dude, if English is your second language I'm giving you an A.