Framandi Alliance- Galaxy Accretion Conflicts

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Framandi Alliance- Galaxy Accretion Conflicts Page 24

by Rashid Ahmed


  Gylfi and Katrín nodded to each other as they agreed on the AI’s course of action. They were both amazed at Shun’s independent initiatives. The AI’s ability to think ahead, keeping objectives in view, was improving.

  Katrín complimented the AI, “That’s quick thinking and good work.”

  Shun replied, “Kei and I have had an upgrade. We now have quantum computing cores modelled after the framandi processing units. Alongside, our programming has evolved, following an intelligence merger between Kei and a kilig spacecraft’s AI. But, Kei and I, retain separate personalities and data.”

  Max interrupted the couple. He spoke through their earpieces, “Have you two arrived safely at Sólríka? The processing bandwidth you require has become available. When do you need it?”

  Katrín replied, “Hello Max. Good to hear your voice. We’ve just arrived at Sólríka.” Gylfi continued, “We’re going to be a bit behind the clock I’m afraid. The results from the initial test shows a design and modelling defect, which requires container modifications, and another test. We should have results in a day since we’re close to Venus right now. We’re going to rest a while, then oversee the loading of test containers onto Nál.”

  Max thanked them for the update and signed off. He had his hands full. The prototypes for defensive systems to be located within the solar system, were now being tested as well. He was scheduled for a face-to-face conference with Rafael. Max settled himself into his preferred grav-chair in his wardroom. The conference table at which he sat was occupied by Maji, and his deputy. They’d just come in after having trained a group of Álfhól platform’s scientists in defence tactics.

  The volumetric projection turned on just as Max settled into his grav-chair.

  Rafael didn’t waste any time with pleasantries. He said, “I’ve got the prototypes for the initial set of solar light focussing and reflecting satellites prepared. There’ll be more of these close to the Sun. Estimates project that the most distant satellites would have a continuous output of about ten quadrillion joules, and a beam diameter of a meter.”

  Max nodded and asked, “Would that be enough to take out a gigil or kilig vessel?”

  Rafael answered, “Can’t say. We’re looking at the equivalent of nearly two and a half megatons of TNT delivered continuously. To give perspective, we receive the energy equivalent of forty point six three megatons of TNT every second, on the face of the Earth, from the Sun. I’m not entirely sure what our focussed beams will do to a space vessel, but I dare say damage will be significant, assuming we’re able to hit one.”

  “I suggest mapping out zones of fire for each satellite,” Maji interjected. He explained, “We do this while planning combat actions. Depending on the size and armour of the vessels you’re targeting, two or more beams could be simultaneously directed at individual opposing targets.”

  “But, if an inner-system or near-Sun satellite performs offensive actions, wouldn’t that divert concentrated solar beams away from outer satellites?” Max asked.

  Rafael replied, “There’s a separate network of distribution satellites, which channel light and radiation from the Sun. An independent, parallel network of targeting satellites, then utilises the energy, to aim at and hit marked vessels. The second set of targeting satellites maintain positions close to the distribution satellites. It sounds complicated, but conceptually, it’s fairly simple.”

  Maji asked, “What happens to energy that’s arrived at the outermost satellites? Do they continuously fire off beams into deep space?”

  “I’m glad you asked,” Rafael said. He elaborated, “I’ve worked out a system to bounce the energy out to our space-based manufacturing platforms, after the weaponized beams have been slightly weakened. Presently our manufacturing platforms, are using solar energy captured at the deep-space positions they hold. While weak, it’s been adequate so far. However, if we’re going to scale our operations exponentially, we’re going to require the additional energy.”

  Max said, “A multi-purpose system. I like it. If you’ve successfully completed simulated evaluations and prototype testing, I’d suggest we begin rolling out your solar system defence satellite network.”

  “Lýsi leadership has signed off as well,” Rafael stated. He added, “They’ve been bouncing off hypothetical scenarios, with contacts at various governments and with defence think tanks. Inputs have been taken from far and wide to aid this project.”

  “Please give me a daily update Rafael,” Max requested. They signed off after discussing manufacturing resource allocations.

  “What’s the status with our hijackers?” Max asked.

  Maji replied, “Four of them want to return to Earth. They have families. The rest are eager to stay on. The space exploration bug has bitten them. We’ve made limited amounts of information available, and they’ve been soaking it all in.”

  “How do we maintain secrecy?” Max asked. He added, “Once some of the hijackers are back home, they’re bound to be debriefed. Word’s surely going to get out.”

  “Ah!” Maji exclaimed. He said, “There’s been a development. You may not have caught up on your memos. Lýsi, through its various holdings has been able to buy out Univers Aerospace. The CEO and a few close executives, received offers to join a space technology research organization, also owned by a consortium of Lýsi firms. The pay is lucrative, and we’ll be able to keep an eye on them. They’ve had conversations about their corporate espionage activities, while handing over responsibilities to the replacement management.”

  “Still, that doesn’t take care of our four hijackers who’ve elected to return to Earth. We’re not in the people detention business, so how’re they going to be managed?” Max asked.

  “Rakkniv, the Swedish company they work for, has also been taken over. There’s been a private capital infusion, allowing for management control of the company. Essentially, all employees of Rakkniv now work for us. They just don’t know it. Security related activities will now be introduced, to protect Lýsi interests,” Maji explained.

  “I think I know how to utilize the hijackers who’ve elected to remain with us,” Max stated.

  Maji said, “I’ve been pondering about that too. With Rafael driving the production and deployment of the solar system defence network, we should begin war-game simulations. I suggest we get our erstwhile hijackers to drum up invasion and defence scenarios. That way, by the time the defence satellites are brought online, we’d be ready to use it.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Max replied, mentally discarding his own thoughts about the hijackers. He added, “Let’s see if we can ramp it a bit. We need space defence simulations to run at scale, so that our AIs have enough scenarios to enable effective action, when the time comes. Our hijackers can form a core team of scenario builders. Even with AI assisted scenario generation, we’ll come up short. Intelligent sentient life forms have an innate ability to do the unexpected. Our team could conjure up unexpected scenarios, which our AI might not.”

  Maji said, “You’re right. What else do you have?”

  Max added, “Here’s what I think we should do about our conflict scenario scaling problem. During the mid-nineteen eighties, I’d consulted with a large software development company, on battle scenarios. It was for one of the earliest ‘massively multiplayer online games’ or MMOGs. A decade ago, several battle and strategy games were launched. I’d been called to consult on quite a few of those, including most recently a set of space conflict multiplayer games. I know for a fact, that many of these games attract and have tens of thousands of advanced players simultaneously online. You see what I’m getting at?”

  Maji replied, “Yes. You’re eyeing to rope in players from these online games to participate in our simulations. For those ‘unexpected’ responses.”

  Max said, “Something like that. What I’d want to do, is either create a new online multiplayer game for the masses or introduce an add-on for any of the more popular space conflict games. Something developed by
us, for our purposes. We could add complexity as needed. It’ll give us scale.”

  “I’ll speak with Gogh and get this off the ground,” Maji said.

  “Get our hijackers onboard and briefed,” Maji instructed his deputy. “And let them know about their new role,” he added. The deputy stood and made his way out of the wardroom.

  Shun interrupted them turning on the volumetric projection, “I’ve got an urgent update on the task initiated by Sven.” Max and Maji turned their attention to the projection. The solar system situational awareness feed expanded into view. The AI said, “I’ve reviewed a decade’s worth of asteroid analysis. Shortlisting them according to the parameters we received from the disguised kilig vessel, recently acquired by the crew of the Átt, I shortlisted a few hundred potentials. After comparing them to each other, I’ve put in a few parameters of my own based on size, estimated mass and proximity to each other. While I’ll keep the entire shortlist of potentials open for further investigation by AMCARs, I’ve highlighted six for immediate attention.”

  “Let’s see them,” Max requested.

  Shun brought up the asteroids while speaking about them, “The first two are similar. They’re classified as metallic. Both are just under five hundred meters in diameter. They were rejected for mining because of their size. We tend to focus on asteroids over five kilometres in diameter which have a density of over two grams per centimetre cube.”

  “Why’re they interesting?” Maji asked.

  “They’re nearly identical in shape to Síast, the kilig vessel discovered in the lofi system,” Shun explained.

  Shun went on, “The next one is much larger. It is similar in dimensions to the one recovered by the framandi. I’m referring to the command-vessel containing nine kiligs, which they recovered a while ago. This one is smack in the middle of the solar system’s main asteroid belt. The remaining three orbit it.”

  Maji looked at Max and asked, “How should we proceed?”

  “Carefully of course,” Max answered, grinning. His mind was already grinding away. He asked Shun, “Do we have AMCARs nearby?”

  “Relatively close,” Shun replied. “We’d want to better equip them though. They’ll need task specific tools, upgraded processing capabilities for mission AIs, and gaupas for real-time communication. Also, with detailed information from the salvaged kilig vessel, I’d recommend hardening our AMCAR systems, against EM subversion. They’ll each require a pair of assistant drones. Most importantly, I would recommend a high-yield self-destruct device, embedded into each AMCAR, that’s tasked to salvage any confirmed kilig vessels.”

  Shun had been presenting the modifications while explaining them. The AI had come up with the approach to tackling the task at hand by itself, coming up with actionable recommendations. Max and Maji sat in silence pondering the operation they’d need to initiate. Space-based defensive activities were now completely under Max’s purview. He only needed to notify and brief specific Lýsi leadership members including Gogh.

  “Let’s get started. Have AMCARS modified. Alert us when we’re prepared to initiate the first salvage operation; assuming the asteroids are disguised spacecraft,” Max instructed Shun. The volumetric projection turned off as the AI took its instructions and relayed them to a version of itself, on the space platform at the Sun-Mars L2 Lagrange point.

  Maji’s deputy returned to let them know the four hijackers who’d chosen to return to Earth, were on their way aboard an S3 'Nesting Doll', modified for personnel transport. Once inserted into Earth orbit, the hijackers would don the suits they’d been provided and secure themselves into a re-entry capsule. The capsule would land at a relatively flat area on the north of Marion Island. While Lýsi operated a few stealth shuttles with vertical landing capabilities, these were reserved for large crew transfers. Delivering a small crew or individuals via re-entry capsules, was common practice.

  Half a hectic day later, just as he was about to go grab his time at Álfhól’s large and well-equipped gym, Max’s mission pad beeped indicating a high-priority message.

  He opened the message. It read, ‘We’re ready to begin calculating trajectories and insertion points for each virus suspension delivery container. The containers have been redesigned and tested. They’re more compact now. Also, virtually undetectable - Gylfi.’

  Since Shun had indicated that the analysis of previously charted asteroids was completed. Max wrote back to Gylfi authorising the use of high capacity processing resources. He called out to Shun, “Gylfi will be initiating the computation, of suspension delivery containers into Earth atmosphere. Please assign the necessary resources.”

  On Sólríka, Gylfi was surprised with the prompt response. He’d never had to take permission from anyone in Lýsi to access and utilise computing resources, but then, their requirements were limited before, compared to what they were attempting to accomplish now.

  “We’ve got a go-ahead to proceed with the suspension container insertion calculations,” Gylfi announced to Katrín. She was focussed on the container production schedule and operations. When she was engrossed, she rarely let herself become distracted.

  Gylfi realised he wasn’t going to engage his wife in conversation, so he brought up a program execution interface on his mission pad, tapped out a few instructions and began monitoring the calculations on a chart. He’d modified the barrage rate so that the virus suspension containers, only enter the atmosphere on the daylight face of the planet. He’d made this change to ensure their activity wasn’t noticed at night. A series of continuous bright sparks, however tiny were bound to be noticed by a keen night-time observer. A graph tracked the progress.

  Gylfi turned his attention to his children. He had an observer’s feed open ever since Jón, Ásta and the framandi Áox had commandeered the kilig spacecraft. The feed showed video from a camera positioned above the main hatchway, overlooking the command cabin. His wife and he had spent tense moments while their children grappled for control over the kilig AI. Gylfi was even more agitated now. Both his children were in harm’s way, on route to surreptitiously inserting themselves into the gigil fleet.

  The situational awareness feed from the lofi system, showed that Síast had already passed the planet being used as a gravity sling, and was approaching the targeted gigil command-ship. Katrín turned to him and said, “I can feel your tension all the way here. We’ve raised capable children. Turn off that feed for now. Come here and help me plan resources.”

  Taking a quick look at the feed from inside Síast, Gylfi tore himself away from his mission pad.

  “There are a lot of resource intensive activities ongoing parallelly; including development and deployment of a solar system defence satellite network, which uses solar light and radiation,” Katrín began explaining.

  “I’m up to speed on that,” Gylfi smiled and said. “What are our current problems?” he asked.

  “Our delivery containers are relatively easy to produce. In fact, they’re down-right rudimentary, using abundantly available materials,” Katrín said. She elaborated, “Given that we’re repurposing container outer casings from mineral supplies, sent our way from platforms in the main belt, our task should be easy.”

  “I take it we’re coming up short?” Gylfi enquired.

  “Material deliveries to Sólríka have shrunk. The defence network satellite manufacturing has begun on all platforms, especially on those which are deeper in the system. Most materials are being used up locally,” Katrín said to her husband.

  “That’s going to put a dampener on our project. How many outer containers do we have right now?” Gylfi asked.

  “A little more than half a million,” Katrín answered. Pre-empting her husband’s next question, she added, “We’ll require ten times that, to ensure adequate dispersal on Earth.”

  Gylfi was good at ensuring projects got off the ground and implemented. Besides being a terrific bio-technician and geneticist, he was a superb administrator. He was instrumental in setting up the hi
ghly organic adhocracy, that Lýsi was based on. With mission-AIs dedicated to the group’s administration, there shouldn’t have been any gaps between disparate activities.

  He said, “Something’s amiss. Most likely a conflict of priorities between local administration AIs. But normally, issues would have been rapidly escalated to either Kei or Shun. If they couldn’t resolve an administrative function, the issue was normally brought to specialists monitoring the AIs.”

  “Kei connect me to Max please,” Gylfi requested. After a moment he called out, “Kei?” He didn’t receive a response.

  Katrín called out to the AI she was working with on virus suspension manufacturing, “Shun. You there? There may be a problem with Kei. Will you check please.”

  Shun answered immediately, “Kei’s unavailable. I’ve been struggling to negotiate regular data exchanges without success. Kei’s quantum processing and storage cores are showing high utilization. All lower order and local mission AIs have been allocated depreciated priorities. Kei’s gaupas too appear to be in continuous use, so there’s active cross communication between its cores. Energy usage indicates Kei is operating at capacity.”

 

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