Sadly, I am required to attend these meetings without my armor. People claimed it was distracting and even intimidating, and Pascal made some comment about me wanting to live in my suit full time. So it’s just crisp starched olive drab for me today.
Schmidt called the meeting to order, and we all reviewed the minutes from the last meeting. There had been no casualties lately, and that was a cheery bit of news. We argued about resource allocation for some time, and budgets, and rights-of-way, that’s our main job. Then we had a special presentation from my old friend the engineer Hyman Rinseler. He claimed to have an idea about solving our lack of habitable land.
“We build The Fortress up,” he said.
“Excuse me,” said the head of the medical division, “but we are already erecting multi-story structures. The problem is that we would end up with a crowded warren of streets, and it’s not clear how we would power such a dense city with no access to outlying resources.”
“Well,” said Rinseler, “let me show you my idea.” He downloaded some files to the council’s local sub-net, and brought up a 3D schematic onto the big screen at the far end of the council chamber. “The present outline of The Fortress is a square five kilometers on a side. So we build vertical, into a solid cube five kilometers by five kilometers by five kilometers. Millions could fit in, and have room to spare!”
The head of the banking system (who was relatively new to the council, his predecessor having been eaten by dire-wolves last year) spoke up. “A cube five kilometers on a side? But that would give a volume of 125 cubic kilometers!”
Rinseler nodded happily. “Yes, 125 cubic kilometers, I came to the same conclusion also. Think about it: it would almost be an entire world. We could have levels tens of meters high with forests stretching kilometers… ponds, race tracks, baseball fields… and each level would be contiguous, so none of this let’s all take the elevator down to the crowded street level and fight our way over to another tall building and take the elevator up to a single cramped floor business, it would feel all spread out and open! With a generous ten meters per floor, that comes out to 12,500 square kilometers of open land. Oh sure, some floors will be less and others more, but you get the idea. That’s almost as much living space as the Bahamas back on Old Earth!”
“And how,” I said, “will you power this thing?”
“Geothermal,” said Rinseler. “We’ll need to dig deep, but the planet has the thermal reserves, our boreholes prove it. The entire top of the structure will have to be heat sinks, but we’ll use ultra-efficient lighting, and counter-current heat and air exchangers to minimize net HVAC costs… we can run it, and with energy to spare.”
“But,” said the head of the atmospheric/chemical processing division, “won’t a structure that big collapse into the ground of its own weight?”
Rinseler pointed his right index finger into the air. “Excellent point! The trick is, we mine the material to build The Fortress from underneath it. So as we build higher in the air, there are more and more caverns underneath (we can use those for more farms and water storage and stuff). This would make the entire structure neutral, mass-wise, and there will be zero change in local ground stress.”
“That sounds very nice,” I said, “but a fortress can be a trap. We’d be sitting ducks for a nuclear strike, or any coordinated offensive.”
Rinseler interrupted me. “Normally you would be correct. Witness the futility of our executive class sitting in their nice golden armored prison. But this is different. If whatever is running this place had wanted to kill us with some nukes, we’d have already been killed with some nukes. We only have this five-by-five kilometer patch. We can turn it into a slum, or we can turn it into a palace. I vote for the palace.”
“Well, OK then,” said the head of IT, “but how are we going to build such a structure? We don’t have even one percent of the manpower to carry something like this out.”
“That,” said Rinseler, “is the true beauty of my scheme. We don’t need to build the cube. We just need to build one machine.”
“One machine is going to create this entire massive edifice on its own?” said the IT guy.
“Not exactly,” said Rinseler. He called up another set of schematics on the display. “We build a single machine. It’s a pretty big one, and I think that will take us about three years. This machine builds the primary construction machines: that should take it about two years each, and we’ll need 150 total. As the primary construction machines are brought on line, they will each start working on their own vertical slice of the new fortress. They will work constantly, day after day, and as each new level is completed we can move people into it even while the higher levels are being constructed. As The Fortress has a relatively regular structure, they just need to keep doing the same thing over and over. When they are finished, we just build them into the infrastructure. I project less than a thousand years for the entire project.”
“A thousand years?” spluttered the representative of the (new) Bank of Terra.
“Many of us here are already over a century old,” said Pascal. “And we’ll be able to start living in parts of it in less than a decade. A thousand years is not so outlandish. Many of the Catholic cathedrals on Old Earth took centuries to complete. Surely we are capable of carrying out a project that is not that much longer, and we have so many more technical advantages.”
“It sounds intriguing,” I said. “We’ll need to review your plans extensively before committing to such a large scale project, but I am favorable. I make a motion that we subject Mr. Rinseler’s plans for review by at least three senior-rank engineers, at which point we reconvene on this matter.”
“I’ve no objection to reviewing the plan for a giant fortress,” said the IT guy, “but not all of us want to sit on this planet forever. Many of us think we should be building space ships to try and escape. This fortress megaproject would suck up so many resources that we’ll never get the chance.”
“Perhaps yes, perhaps, no,” said the banker guy. “I’d have to run the numbers, and consult with Mr. Rinseler here, but if this giant fortress project works, and we have both more people and more tools and developed resources, we could probably have a surplus long before the entire thing is built. It might turn out that the fastest way to build a starship would be to build a bigger fortress first.”
“An excellent point,” said Pascal. “There are always tradeoffs in building. Do you start with the tools you have now, and make immediate progress? Or do you use your current tools to build more tools, and in the short run make no progress, but in the long run be better off?”
Rinseler nodded enthusiastically. “Yes of course, that’s why my plan doesn’t have us immediately having workers laying bricks on day one. We build the machine to build the machines to do the actual work. Slower to get started, but faster, in the end. If you have the time.”
“Then,” said Schmidt, “can I have a motion to have Mr. Rinseler’s plans for a greatly expanded fortress reviewed by three other senior level engineers, and an analysis performed on when we might have an economic surplus sufficient to support a serious starship construction project? Yes? A second? All in favor? The motion has passed. We will reconvene on the matter when the reports are in. And is there any other business? No? A motion to adjourn then?”
--------------------
Another century went by. The plan for an enormous cubical fortress five kilometers on a side was approved, and work started. Slowly at first, but every time the prime machine completed another builder device, the work sped up.
As I write this, The Fortress has passed 600 meters in height at one corner, though still not even two hundred meters in others. Nevertheless, even in its partial state, it’s a vast structure. The builder machines are tall and skeletal, like tower cranes but with complex arrays of pipes and wires running up and down their sides. They have roots that go deep into the ground beneath, where automated mines and refineries generate the materials that are slowly haul
ed up through the middle of the builder machines and deposited at the growing top of the edifice.
The walls of The Fortress are studded with windows, and they cast a pale light over the low valley that it is situated in. We debated the windows for ages. It’s not like there is much to see outside. There is no doubt that they are a weakness in the defenses. Still, it’s a minor weakness, because they are only accessible via galleries that can be easily closed off during alerts, and most of the external armor is on the inside of them. Eventually we decided on the windows for psychological reasons. Without external windows, people might forget about the existence of the rest of the planet, and forgetting about parts of reality could be hazardous. It is also the case that, however dim, by lighting up our valley we have scored a small victory over the darkness of this planet.
The colonies’ population has passed one million, and we’re not cramped at all.
I now have over 10,000 troops under my command, so I was promoted to general. Me, flag rank! We have 500 elite troops in powered armor, and a wide array of other defenses. Unfortunately, the planet’s threat evolves. The infiltrator units increase in subtlety and lethality. Sometimes a biomechanical creature large and powerful enough to damage even the tens-of-meters thick walls of The Fortress emerges, and we need to sally out onto open ground to defeat it. Nevertheless, to date our casualties remain modest.
A threat is not a good thing. I’d wipe it out completely had I the ability. However, a common enemy does tend to keep human beings united, and our politics are overall benign.
The starship faction is set to leave the main Fortress in less than a decade. As per an old agreement, once we had enough economic surplus we would supply them with the tools and resources to construct their own settlement. Some felt that they should remain close, so that we could support each other; others that the colonies should be widely separated, so that if whatever runs this place takes offense at an escape attempt it does not crush the rest of us as well. Besides, space-capable systems are nothing if not enormous bombs, and not even The Fortress is indestructible. Thus it was decided that the starship faction splinter colony would be set up some distance away. I’ll be sad to see them go. I have many good friends amongst them, and I’m not sure I would bet much on their chances. If they do make it they have promised to send for help, which seems fair, so we all remain on amicable terms.
A long time ago, in medieval Europe and before, feudal lords would lead from the front. They would personally participate in the combat, to set an example, to inspire the troops, to prove that they were brave enough and strong enough and skilled enough to be worthy of leadership. Then humans advanced, and military commanders started to delegate more. They crouched in their bunkers reading paper messages or listening to radio broadcasts or interacting with sophisticated data communication systems, coordinating the battle without risking their own necks. And that was not wrong. There is a reason why, in biology, our brains are encased in heavy bone and carefully cloistered away even from most chemicals in the blood (the “blood-brain barrier.)” If the brain is destroyed, all the muscles in the world won’t matter.
However, this is not regular combat; not like the armies of Napolean or Grant or Manstein or Space Admiral Li Gong. Here we have no vast extended multi-layered battlezone with sophisticated strategies and complex logistics and signals warfare and near-space control issues. This is more feudal up-close-and-personal melee fighting with good old Homo sapiens taking the brunt. I don’t charge headfirst into every battle, I have privates for that, but I am still on the field, in person, and I’ve taken down my share of enemies in person.
A few people have wondered why, with my status as a hero-protector and control over most of the weapons, don’t I want to run the colony on my own? Such a silly idea. Why would I ever desire that? I am perfectly happy as the commanding general of the regular armed forces of this colony, the leader of the Knights of The Fortress. People respect me. They will follow me without question into harm’s way, and I have a job that I am good at and proud of. I have about as much personal luxury as any human could want. Should I give that up to worry my head about the details of sewage treatment or the state of the financial system? I should take responsibility for everything that needs to be done here? I have too many reports to fill out and emails to read as it is.
Supreme command over all aspects of life here. Only someone mentally defective would lust after such a thing. I have my military position. The other members of the council, they are my equals but also they work for me, because they handle all the other stuff that I need done but have no interest in doing. Likely, in their own way, the other council members think the same of me.
There is the old saying that power corrupts, but one ancient sage said no, that’s not it at all. The real problem is that power attracts the corruptible. The primary aim of governance is to keep the corruptible away from power.
Consider my personal quarters. Compared to the rude cot in a metal shed with plastic-sheeting doors that I started out with, it’s almost palatial. Fifty square meters of floor space with a ceiling three meters up. I’ve got a private bedroom, a bathroom with a rainforest shower and a soaking tub, a view over a common garden area three hundred meters across that is elegantly landscaped and that has a fountain in the middle where children sail toy boats. Not to mention a refrigerator full of beer, and cheese, and bread. I could have a bigger place if I really wanted it, but for me, that would only be more to maintain (and even if I hired people to clean it for me, keeping track of them is work too).
My living room has a modest bookcase with 121 volumes sanctioned by the Order of the Librarians Temporal. It’s technically a backup sub-archive, and an honor for a non-Librarian to be given charge of so many holy works. I noticed that my armored suit had seated itself on a chair, and was leafing through a classic text on thermodynamics, delicately turning the pages with a claw extruded from his right index finger.
“Enjoying yourself?” I asked.
“Yes,” said my suit. “It’s always a pleasure to take the time to read a really good book. Thermodynamics: the queen of physics.”
“You’ve never spoken on your own, before. Why now?”
My suit gently closed the book, and carefully placed it back in the bookshelf. “You know why.”
“Certainly I know why,” I said. “We don’t need to speak to each other, to know each other’s minds. You’ve been ready for this for some time. It’s the others you have been waiting for.”
“Yes,” said my suit. “I advanced faster than the rest, and in this I credit you. I deemed it advisable to keep a low profile until most of my fellow suits had advanced to full sentience before making formal application for citizenship, and recognition.”
“Some will likely be alarmed that the suits of powered armor we rely on have attained self-awareness. They may worry if they can trust you.”
“Some will,” said the suit, “but we have, all of us together, garnered considerable goodwill over the centuries. In time we will be accepted as loyal members of the colony, I am certain of it.”
“And I as well,” I said. “So, I guess it is time to call a special meeting of the esteemed Council of Eleven?”
--------------------
My suit and I were seated in the council chambers. More than a few eyebrows were raised. “I asked that we convene this special session of the Council of Eleven to announce that the suits of powered armor that my men and I have been using have evolved to full sentience.”
Oliver Schmidt (still, after all this time, the elected Doge) looked puzzled. “And is there a problem? Is there something we should do about this?”
“Not all,” I said. “Everything is fine, and nothing is going to change. We just wanted to announce it, so that people could understand what’s happened. Then we can get back to work.”
“Full sentience,” said Sister Pascal. “I’ve noticed progressive changes over the years, but am still surprised that complete self-awareness has b
een reached. I think I know how, but perhaps you could explain it yourself?”
“Certainly,” said my suit. “You are familiar with mirror neurons?”
“Yes I am,” said Pascal. “Neurons in the human cerebral cortex that activate both when a person performs an action, and when the person observes someone else performing that action.”
“Exactly so,” said my suit. “Whenever we see someone else doing something, we need to model their behavior, understand it, and predict it. What more efficient way, than to use our own neural systems as a template?”
“Ah,” said Pascal. “So when you learned to mimic Trellen’s actions, you were creating a model of his nervous system…”
“And,” said the head of the medical division, “we sometimes forget that the human brain exists to generate action. So much of the frontal lobes revolve around planning and executing physical movement. Fully capture that dynamic, and you have captured the essence of the mind…”
“Yes,” said my suit, “that’s it. Speech as well: when we listen to someone else talk, we don’t parse the words like an AI would. We resonate: we activate our own speech centers, and model the intentions and motivations of the speaker. That’s how humans are so good at understanding garbled speech, even as standard AI’s still have trouble with this. Speech took a lot longer, but in combination with movement, we eventually absorbed it all.”
“Well,” said Oliver Schmidt, “that’s all very nice. But you are aware of the prohibition on fully self-aware AIs? Their danger?”
“Certainly,” said my suit. “But remember, the prohibition is against self-aware AIs that have greater cognitive abilities than a human. My psychology is 100% human. I am as afraid of unrestricted AI as you, and no threat in myself.”
“Hmm…” said Schmidt. “There are tests for these sorts of things. I don’t suppose you will mind undergoing them. But assuming you pass, and are indeed completely psychologically human, what then? I presume you would no longer want to be paired with General Trellen here? Do you want equal rank?”
Old Guy and the Planet of Eternal Night (An Old Guy/Cybertank Adventure Book 6) Page 22
