The History of Malfina
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The images came in fuzzy. Maybe that had been the issue, had its vision card been tampered with? It couldn't remember. Remember? That was an odd concept. Why would it remember something? Either things happen or they didn't, there was no remembering that was supposed to be involved.
Sitting in front of the robot, looking very pleased with himself, was a young man, covered in joint grease that still glowed where it was warm.
"It's a little confusing at first isn't it?" The young man spoke softly, and the robot experienced something akin to blinking, trying to recalculate its vision screen to better understand. While the images were coming in sharper and sharper there was still something it was trying desperately to comprehend and was as of yet unable to do so.
“It’d be too cliche to say that you’ve been enhanced… given the circumstances and all. Truth of the matter is, I changed you.” Tilting his head, the robot realized its action, and then shook its head from side to side. This wasn’t right, but, at the same time, somehow felt better than before. The notion that it felt better than something else was also pounding at his mind. What was going on? Robots didn’t have minds, they had circuit boards, they had missions that they went on, and they calculated actions.
“I…. am.”
The boys eyes went wide and a huge grin spread across his face. It took all of his self control to not leap up and dance. This was the moment he had been waiting for.
“Yes. You are.”
Understanding flooded through the robot as it realized what had been done. It had been programed to feel. Programed to act and think akin to the humans that his creator’s race had for so long enslaved. Suddenly, all its accomplished missions in slaughtering and keeping the humans in line didn’t feel quite as accomplished. Suddenly, the robot, unhooked from the commands of the Supreme Computer, felt… lost.
“What now?”
The question was simple enough, and the boy, who tried to think through a lot of things before they happened, smiled softly at the robot.
“Well if you were a human I’d tell you to take a seat. What do you know of the history of this place? How we all came to be where we are and what happened?”
“Malstari came. Malstari enslaved humans to mine liquid ore for their starships. When the humans are done mining the liquid ore, the world will expire, and the Malstari will move on.”
Telling what had come, what was and what was to be was easy enough for the robot’s mind to handle. It felt good to hold onto some knowledge that it had previously known, and it felt good that it was still true, though the robot now saw it in a different light.
“That’s a good hold of the basics, I suppose. Doesn’t really go too far into what us humans were doing before the Malstarians arrived, though, does it?”
The robot simply shook its head and looked down at its robotic feet, somewhat sullenly.
“It’s ok. I can teach you, if you’d like? I hear robots love new information,” the lad said, jumping up from his space. Startled, the robot held up a hand in defense, one of its small razor fingers glowing ever so slightly before settling down again. Analysis said that the boy meant no harm.
“Careful there. Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you. I guess there’s going to be a bit of an adjustment period. Best get you acclimated before I introduce you to everyone else.”
Over the course of the next couple of days, the boy, returning only after dark, tired, and covered in liquid ore residue, sat with the robot and educated him on what the humans had been doing pre-Malstarian invasion. As it turned out, the humans had been doing quite well for themselves. They had just made the advanced leap in technology of finding out how to use the liquid ore to their own advantage. Instead of simply superheating it and using it as a combustible fuel source, which was highly volatile and unstable, the humans had learned how to use the radiation from the sun to use the liquid ore as a battery to hold the energy, thus allowing them to reuse the liquid ore over and over again. They had yet to use it to the point that the liquid ore broke down.
The Malstarians had simply had the advantage of arriving before the peoples of Malfina had been able to build the liquid ore batteries into weapons against their invaders. Even the simplest of ships that had been created had only been small merchant vessels, which the humans had destroyed for fear of the Malstarians stealing the technology.
“How did humans keep this information from Malstari? Your leaders were interrogated when we arrived.”
The boy chuckled and ate a bit of his protein cracker, “That’s easy, the leaders never held the knowledge and workings of the machinery. In humans, it’s not whoever is the smartest that leads.”
“This is flawed. With knowledge comes power.”
“I can’t fault you on your logic.”
The humans, once enslaved, passed on the knowledge from father to son, much the same way Malstarians passed along greater tasks from generation to generation. Malstarians, as a species, were used to getting things done over great periods of time, often going three or four generations before obtaining goals. To see your life’s work not completed simply meant that your house had taken on a mission truly time intensive and worthy of the Malstarians.
It was an idea that the humans, who lived if not enjoyably, well enough to do their work, had to adapt to and take on for their own. Their lifespans were less than half that of a Malstarians. They needed to learn patience in a way that none had truly wrapped their mind around before. They had to learn all they could about Malstarian technology, society, culture. This took time. There was only a handful of humans who were ever chosen for jobs other than mining. Sometimes, beautiful girls were taken aboard the space centers and taught how to be proper serving things, following Malstarians around like fancied baubles or purse dogs of old. The language of the Malstarians took two generations alone to try to crack the code for basic speech, and for humans to start deciphering simple phrases other than those of single word commands that told them when they were to start working and when they needed to work harder, faster, more efficiently.
Even with the Malstarians ultimate time in patience, they strove for ultimate efficiency and did not take kindly to humans who tried to dawdle at their tasks. This was ultimately to ensure that the humans were too exhausted to do any sort of tasks that might aid them in any way to their own devices. Such as overthrowing their captors.
“Why me?”
The robot asked at last. He was more curious as to how the boy had come to have him, but the question of why seemed somehow more important to his own being.
“Humans have been slowly raising rebellions, as you know. As an overseer unit, your job was to go through the human compounds and make sure that we were all tucked safely in our beds until it was time to work again.”
“Caltha (overseer) units did not check beds. Only doors. Humans need sleep to work. If humans slept or not was their own.”
The robot crossed his arms and pushed a hip out the way a rebellious human would and the boy stifled a snort. It wouldn’t do any good to anger a unit that had heated razor blades for fingers and could sever important arteries with precise movements.
“Apologies, it was merely a turn of phrase.” Before continuing, the boy waited until the tips of the robots fingers faded back to a neutral color, letting him know that the robot’s temper had not only subsided, but that his weapons were not at the ready to be launched.
“I was a part of one of the rebellions, and we were able to finally subdue a couple of units. The cost was pretty heavy. My….” the boy coughed, and the robot tilted his head again as he looked on. Sadness, despair, anger. The emotions read across the robots vision screen with clarity and he felt a point of sadness of his own. Likely he had caused it, though he could not remember his own actions from that night. The data were gone from his memory.
“Anyway, once subdued, we took you back here. It took a few weeks, but Jesper and I were able to redo your programing. It’s crazy the amount of failsafes that the Casties implemented.”
“Who is Jesper?” Another head tilt. It seemed that the robot was starting to pattern movements. That was good. It meant that the AI was working the way it should in slowly humanizing the robots movements and thoughts.
"You’ll meet her soon enough. Just-- Not yet. We’ve still got some work to do.”
“What is her? There are humans and there are Malstari and there are mechanical beings. What is her?”
The boys eyes went wide as a lightbulb went off in his head. The robots had never been programed to distinguish between sexes. It had been something that had been suspected, but could never be confirmed. This changed things. The robots weren't programed to determine between sexes which meant either the Malstarians didn’t have different sexes or the concept of sex wasn't important enough to pass on to its mechanoid workers.
“That’s… wooo boy. Why don’t we just set that idea aside for now. Look at the time, I gotta get some rest. Power down buddy. We’ll continue tomorrow.”
Ketlan waited until the robot had completely shut down and switched the overlock that he had installed to make sure that it stayed powered down until he wanted it to come back to life. Once he was sure, and he always waited a couple of extra minutes just to make sure that his work held, he grabbed his pack and exited the small room to sneak his way to the night forums.
The night forums were made up of old previously mined tunnels. Once all the liquid ore had been extracted, it seemed that the Malstarians considered the areas useless and dead. Being the haughty creatures that they were, they thought that their workers would think the same, and be too exhausted to travel anywhere, least to areas that they had previously been forced to work. The trek alone took close to 30 minutes and was not an easy go. The path took him through cramped spaces, makeshift ladders carved into stone, and one water way. Luckily the water only came part way up his tattered boots and only sort of got his feet wet. They always dried by the time he reached the Forum Gates.
They were guarded by two reprogrammed Heavy Ground Units, so Ketlan flashed his badge and was allowed admittance. He wasted no time finding his way to the tech center located behind the bar. Yeah, it was a little cliche, but the Castanaughts didn’t even drink, let alone know what a bar was, so for there to be a hideout behind one simply wouldn’t cross their minds. At least, it hadn't yet, and for that, Ketlan and the others had been very thankful. This forum and two others in the area were the first of their kind. Over the last 40 years they had slowly grown, careful to not attract attention.
“Password,” A small child glared up at Ketlan when he tried to enter the backroom.
“Oh come on Jin, just let me through, I don’t have time for games tonight.”
The child, son of the Professor sat down in his spot and looked up at Ketlan, “Password.”
“Fine. Turtledove.”
The child thought a moment scrunching his face up. “Good enough. Enter!”
Eight people sat around a small table, all trading small talk and pointing at carefully laid out maps that had been etched into thin sheets of repurposed metal. All drank slightly glowing liquid. It wasn’t alcohol, but gave a similar effect: eased the nerves and made ones head a little fuzzy. Ketlan had never exactly approved of it for business meetings but understood anyone’s want for it after a long day of work.
“Nice of you to finally join us,” a woman close to her mid 20’s said, looking over the rim of her glowing glass, feet up on the table. “Hey Jesper.” Ketlan said feeling a bit bruised. Yah he was late, but he had good reason. Taking care of the robot, in his own dwellings none the less wasn’t exactly something that he could just walk away from whenever he wanted.
“Oh don’t give me that look.” jesper said missing nothing and motioning for the lad to take a seat. Which he did quickly.
“Moon-high?” The girl offered putting her glowing cup down and motioning to it, “Jesper you know I don’t, “ “oh I know, you don’t cut loose and enjoy one of the few joys we get to experience in this worthless existence. How’s that clunk of metal coming along anyway?”
Ketlan finally brightened and looked around for the Professor, whom he found lounging in a chair reading a book. The Professor looked over the edge of the book, one eyebrow raised in query for the boy to continue. Truth be known he wasn’t really much of a boy anymore and was easing his way into his 20’s. Other than the Professor's son though, he was the youngest of the crew and that had turned him permanently into “the boy.”
“That’s… about that. It’s awake. I did it. Actually it’s been awake for about the two cycles. I didn’t want to rush bringing him here before I was sure that the programming worked!” Finishing up the end of his introduction Ketlan put his hands up in front of him as Jesper and a few of the others made motion to interrupt him. He knew they wouldn’t be happy that he had delayed bringing his findings to everyone. But he had done it as a point of safety.
“A rogue robot in our tunnels and knowing how to get here wouldn’t do any of us any good Ketlan. you made the right decision.” The Professor said standing and setting his book aside and making his way to the table. “Tell us everything.”
Ketlan briefed his group on his findings, including that the robot had no differentiation between sexes in his internal process. It wasn’t something that Ketlan had thought to put in either just out of assumption that it had already been there.
“Well no wonder they mow us down man woman and child. They can’t tell the difference or from their point of view don’t think there is one.”
Talks continued, and it was determined that the following night the Professor would go up and meet Ketlan to bring the Scout down to the Forum to begin to see what they could do with their new ally.
To be continued....
Restarting...
Error..... Attempting fix.... Reconnect... Recconect.... Restart....
Restarting....
The images came in fuzzy. Maybe that had been the issue, had its vision card been tampered with? It couldn't remember. Remember? That was an odd concept. Why would it remember something? Either things happen or they didn't, there was no remembering that was supposed to be involved.
Sitting in front of the robot, looking very pleased with himself, was a young man, covered in joint grease that still glowed where it was warm.
"It's a little confusing at first isn't it?" The young man spoke softly, and the robot experienced something akin to blinking, trying to recalculate its vision screen to better understand. While the images were coming in sharper and sharper there was still something it was trying desperately to comprehend and was as of yet unable to do so.
“It’d be too cliche to say that you’ve been enhanced… given the circumstances and all. Truth of the matter is, I changed you.” Tilting his head, the robot realized its action, and then shook its head from side to side. This wasn’t right, but, at the same time, somehow felt better than before. The notion that it felt better than something else was also pounding at his mind. What was going on? Robots didn’t have minds, they had circuit boards, they had missions that they went on, and they calculated actions.
“I…. am.”
The boys eyes went wide and a huge grin spread across his face. It took all of his self control to not leap up and dance. This was the moment he had been waiting for.
“Yes. You are.”
Understanding flooded through the robot as it realized what had been done. It had been programed to feel. Programed to act and think akin to the humans that his creator’s race had for so long enslaved. Suddenly, all its accomplished missions in slaughtering and keeping the humans in line didn’t feel quite as accomplished. Suddenly, the robot, unhooked from the commands of the Supreme Computer, felt… lost.
“What now?”
The question was simple enough, and the boy, who tried to think through a lot of things before they happened, smiled softly at the robot.
“Well if you were a human I’d tell you to take a seat. What do you know of the history of this place? How we all came to be where we are and what happened?”
“Malstari came. Malstari enslaved humans to mine liquid ore for their starships. When the humans are done mining the liquid ore, the world will expire, and the Malstari will move on.”
Telling what had come, what was and what was to be was easy enough for the robot’s mind to handle. It felt good to hold onto some knowledge that it had previously known, and it felt good that it was still true, though the robot now saw it in a different light.
“That’s a good hold of the basics, I suppose. Doesn’t really go too far into what us humans were doing before the Malstarians arrived, though, does it?”
The robot simply shook its head and looked down at its robotic feet, somewhat sullenly.
“It’s ok. I can teach you, if you’d like? I hear robots love new information,” the lad said, jumping up from his space. Startled, the robot held up a hand in defense, one of its small razor fingers glowing ever so slightly before settling down again. Analysis said that the boy meant no harm.
“Careful there. Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you. I guess there’s going to be a bit of an adjustment period. Best get you acclimated before I introduce you to everyone else.”
Over the course of the next couple of days, the boy, returning only after dark, tired, and covered in liquid ore residue, sat with the robot and educated him on what the humans had been doing pre-Malstarian invasion. As it turned out, the humans had been doing quite well for themselves. They had just made the advanced leap in technology of finding out how to use the liquid ore to their own advantage. Instead of simply superheating it and using it as a combustible fuel source, which was highly volatile and unstable, the humans had learned how to use the radiation from the sun to use the liquid ore as a battery to hold the energy, thus allowing them to reuse the liquid ore over and over again. They had yet to use it to the point that the liquid ore broke down.
The Malstarians had simply had the advantage of arriving before the peoples of Malfina had been able to build the liquid ore batteries into weapons against their invaders. Even the simplest of ships that had been created had only been small merchant vessels, which the humans had destroyed for fear of the Malstarians stealing the technology.
“How did humans keep this information from Malstari? Your leaders were interrogated when we arrived.”
The boy chuckled and ate a bit of his protein cracker, “That’s easy, the leaders never held the knowledge and workings of the machinery. In humans, it’s not whoever is the smartest that leads.”
“This is flawed. With knowledge comes power.”
“I can’t fault you on your logic.”
The humans, once enslaved, passed on the knowledge from father to son, much the same way Malstarians passed along greater tasks from generation to generation. Malstarians, as a species, were used to getting things done over great periods of time, often going three or four generations before obtaining goals. To see your life’s work not completed simply meant that your house had taken on a mission truly time intensive and worthy of the Malstarians.
It was an idea that the humans, who lived if not enjoyably, well enough to do their work, had to adapt to and take on for their own. Their lifespans were less than half that of a Malstarians. They needed to learn patience in a way that none had truly wrapped their mind around before. They had to learn all they could about Malstarian technology, society, culture. This took time. There was only a handful of humans who were ever chosen for jobs other than mining. Sometimes, beautiful girls were taken aboard the space centers and taught how to be proper serving things, following Malstarians around like fancied baubles or purse dogs of old. The language of the Malstarians took two generations alone to try to crack the code for basic speech, and for humans to start deciphering simple phrases other than those of single word commands that told them when they were to start working and when they needed to work harder, faster, more efficiently.
Even with the Malstarians ultimate time in patience, they strove for ultimate efficiency and did not take kindly to humans who tried to dawdle at their tasks. This was ultimately to ensure that the humans were too exhausted to do any sort of tasks that might aid them in any way to their own devices. Such as overthrowing their captors.
“Why me?”
The robot asked at last. He was more curious as to how the boy had come to have him, but the question of why seemed somehow more important to his own being.
“Humans have been slowly raising rebellions, as you know. As an overseer unit, your job was to go through the human compounds and make sure that we were all tucked safely in our beds until it was time to work again.”
“Caltha (overseer) units did not check beds. Only doors. Humans need sleep to work. If humans slept or not was their own.”
The robot crossed his arms and pushed a hip out the way a rebellious human would and the boy stifled a snort. It wouldn’t do any good to anger a unit that had heated razor blades for fingers and could sever important arteries with precise movements.
“Apologies, it was merely a turn of phrase.” Before continuing, the boy waited until the tips of the robots fingers faded back to a neutral color, letting him know that the robot’s temper had not only subsided, but that his weapons were not at the ready to be launched.
“I was a part of one of the rebellions, and we were able to finally subdue a couple of units. The cost was pretty heavy. My….” the boy coughed, and the robot tilted his head again as he looked on. Sadness, despair, anger. The emotions read across the robots vision screen with clarity and he felt a point of sadness of his own. Likely he had caused it, though he could not remember his own actions from that night. The data were gone from his memory.
“Anyway, once subdued, we took you back here. It took a few weeks, but Jesper and I were able to redo your programing. It’s crazy the amount of failsafes that the Casties implemented.”
“Who is Jesper?” Another head tilt. It seemed that the robot was starting to pattern movements. That was good. It meant that the AI was working the way it should in slowly humanizing the robots movements and thoughts.
"You’ll meet her soon enough. Just-- Not yet. We’ve still got some work to do.”
“What is her? There are humans and there are Malstari and there are mechanical beings. What is her?”
The boys eyes went wide as a lightbulb went off in his head. The robots had never been programed to distinguish between sexes. It had been something that had been suspected, but could never be confirmed. This changed things. The robots weren't programed to determine between sexes which meant either the Malstarians didn’t have different sexes or the concept of sex wasn't important enough to pass on to its mechanoid workers.
“That’s… wooo boy. Why don’t we just set that idea aside for now. Look at the time, I gotta get some rest. Power down buddy. We’ll continue tomorrow.”
Ketlan waited until the robot had completely shut down and switched the overlock that he had installed to make sure that it stayed powered down until he wanted it to come back to life. Once he was sure, and he always waited a couple of extra minutes just to make sure that his work held, he grabbed his pack and exited the small room to sneak his way to the night forums.
The night forums were made up of old previously mined tunnels. Once all the liquid ore had been extracted, it seemed that the Malstarians considered the areas useless and dead. Being the haughty creatures that they were, they thought that their workers would think the same, and be too exhausted to travel anywhere, least to areas that they had previously been forced to work. The trek alone took close to 30 minutes and was not an easy go. The path took him through cramped spaces, makeshift ladders carved into stone, and one water way. Luckily the water only came part way up his tattered boots and only sort of got his feet wet. They always dried by the time he reached the Forum Gates.
They were guarded by two reprogrammed Heavy Ground Units, so Ketlan flashed his badge and was allowed admittance. He wasted no time finding his way to the tech center located behind the bar. Yeah, it was a little cliche, but the Castanaughts didn’t even drink, let alone know what a bar was, so for there to be a hideout behind one simply wouldn’t cross their minds. At least, it hadn't yet, and for that, Ketlan and the others had been very thankful. This forum and two others in the area were the first of their kind. Over the last 40 years they had slowly grown, careful to not attract attention.
“Password,” A small child glared up at Ketlan when he tried to enter the backroom.
“Oh come on Jin, just let me through, I don’t have time for games tonight.”
The child, son of the Professor sat down in his spot and looked up at Ketlan, “Password.”
“Fine. Turtledove.”
The child thought a moment scrunching his face up. “Good enough. Enter!”
Eight people sat around a small table, all trading small talk and pointing at carefully laid out maps that had been etched into thin sheets of repurposed metal. All drank slightly glowing liquid. It wasn’t alcohol, but gave a similar effect: eased the nerves and made ones head a little fuzzy. Ketlan had never exactly approved of it for business meetings but understood anyone’s want for it after a long day of work.
“Nice of you to finally join us,” a woman close to her mid 20’s said, looking over the rim of her glowing glass, feet up on the table. “Hey Jesper.” Ketlan said feeling a bit bruised. Yah he was late, but he had good reason. Taking care of the robot, in his own dwellings none the less wasn’t exactly something that he could just walk away from whenever he wanted.
“Oh don’t give me that look.” jesper said missing nothing and motioning for the lad to take a seat. Which he did quickly.
“Moon-high?” The girl offered putting her glowing cup down and motioning to it, “Jesper you know I don’t, “ “oh I know, you don’t cut loose and enjoy one of the few joys we get to experience in this worthless existence. How’s that clunk of metal coming along anyway?”
Ketlan finally brightened and looked around for the Professor, whom he found lounging in a chair reading a book. The Professor looked over the edge of the book, one eyebrow raised in query for the boy to continue. Truth be known he wasn’t really much of a boy anymore and was easing his way into his 20’s. Other than the Professor's son though, he was the youngest of the crew and that had turned him permanently into “the boy.”
“That’s… about that. It’s awake. I did it. Actually it’s been awake for about the two cycles. I didn’t want to rush bringing him here before I was sure that the programming worked!” Finishing up the end of his introduction Ketlan put his hands up in front of him as Jesper and a few of the others made motion to interrupt him. He knew they wouldn’t be happy that he had delayed bringing his findings to everyone. But he had done it as a point of safety.
“A rogue robot in our tunnels and knowing how to get here wouldn’t do any of us any good Ketlan. you made the right decision.” The Professor said standing and setting his book aside and making his way to the table. “Tell us everything.”
Ketlan briefed his group on his findings, including that the robot had no differentiation between sexes in his internal process. It wasn’t something that Ketlan had thought to put in either just out of assumption that it had already been there.
“Well no wonder they mow us down man woman and child. They can’t tell the difference or from their point of view don’t think there is one.”
Talks continued, and it was determined that the following night the Professor would go up and meet Ketlan to bring the Scout down to the Forum to begin to see what they could do with their new ally.
To be continued....