The Synchronicity War Part 2

by Dietmar Wehr

  “Ah, roger that, CAG. Say…why don’t you take a fuel shuttle out and join us? The boys and I would love to fly with you, CAG.” For a moment Shiloh was seriously tempted. Avalon was a beautiful world and seeing it on the Bridge screen just wasn’t the same as seeing it with his own two eyes from a low orbit. On the other hand, they had just finished a battle with one alien ship still unaccounted for. The prudent thing to do…the SMART thing to do was stay aboard his ship just in case.

  “I’d very much like to fly with you boys but it’ll have to be some other time. Ask me again if another opportunity like this comes up.”

  “We’ll do that but you’re missing quite the view. Just sayin.” Just sayin? Apparently Iceman had added another colloquial expression to his vocabulary. Shiloh wondered where Iceman had heard that

  “I believe you, Iceman. I’m almost back to the Bridge so I’ll have to hang up now. Enjoy the view for me. Shiloh clear.”

  When he re-entered the Bridge, he saw that Tanaka had taken his place at the Command Station. With just over an hour left in her normal duty shift, she apparently decided to spend that hour sitting in the more comfortable Command Station chair than in the Helm chair. He would have done the same thing if he had been in her situation. As he stood on the Bridge, he realized his adrenaline rush from the battle was wearing off and that he was getting sleepy again. With the battle interrupting his sleep cycle, the lack of sufficient sleep was once again catching up to him. When Tanaka reassured him that there was no sign of the missing bogey and that all military assets in the vicinity of the planet were standing down from Battle Stations, he decided he could risk leaving the Bridge and return to his quarters. Remembering his commitment to sending a preliminary report back to HQ, Shiloh dictated a summary of the battle from his perspective with a clear admission of responsibility for ordering the use of Mark 1 attack drones. With that done and sent to the attention of Task Force Leader Sobrist, Shiloh laid down on his bed and closed his eyes. No sooner had he done so when he woke up to the sound of his wakeup alarm. It was with dismay that he realized he’d slept almost 5 more hours even though it seemed like 30 seconds. A quick check in with the Bridge revealed that all fighters were back aboard. No sign of enemy forces. An extended range message drone had been sent back to Sol and a reply was expected back within 24 hours.

  Those 24 hours seemed to take forever. Defiant really had no business staying in the Avalon system any longer. Her fighters were no longer needed there. Her stockpiles of recon and attack drones were depleted which made the continuation of the Early Warning Network mission moot. The best use of her right now was to return to Sol or at least to the Omaha Base where she could rearm and top up her fighters but that was not up to Shiloh and TF Leader Sobrist was not prepared to pre-empt HQ’s prerogative to decide where Defiant should go next. When the reply from Sol did arrive, Shiloh’s orders were clear and short. Return to Sol immediately. The abruptness of the order and the lack of any kind of personal message or congratulations were jarring. Admiral Howard was clearly not happy with Shiloh. He gave a mental shrug and ordered the ship to head for home.

  Chapter 5 - Time to Face the Music

  The trip back was uneventful. Shiloh used the time to write a more comprehensive report with lots of recommendations that he suspected Howard would not be in a mood to accept. When Defiant arrived at the Sol system and contacted HQ, she was ordered to enter lunar orbit and Shiloh, Tanaka and Falkenberg were ordered to come down to Earth. The rest of the crew were told to stay aboard. Apparently no liberty for anyone this time around. When Iceman was informed of Shiloh’s orders, he offered to come along and after some consideration, Shiloh agreed. Iceman’s quantum brain was transferred to a portable unit that provided him with power, video and audio pickups, speaker and a limited ability to move around. As it happened, it was early in the day when their shuttle touched down at the Geneva Spaceport. A Space Force bus took the four of them to the HQ building, and eventually to Howard’s outer office, where they were kept waiting for over an hour. At least there was coffee and finger foods to keep them happy. Iceman queried Shiloh and the others on what it was like to consume hot liquids and solids. When his questions got to the topic of eliminating bodily wastes, Shiloh changed the subject.

  Finally a junior officer came to escort Shiloh to the Admiral’s office. Howard had a serious expression on his face as he pointed to one of the two chairs in front of his desk. He said nothing while he waited for Shiloh to sit down. Then he leaned back in his chair and opened fire.

  “Dammit, Shiloh, I don’t know whether to court martial you or give you a medal! Dangling one light carrier as bait in front of 55 alien ships? Despite the fact that you got away with it, and took out enough enemy ships to just barely enable us to stop the rest of them from attacking the Avalon Colony, I have to seriously question your judgment, especially in light of Cmdr. Tanaka’s report about your momentary paralysis, or whatever that was, just before you announced your plan to put Defiant in Harm’s Way. What the Hell is wrong with you, Shiloh? You got 30 seconds to convince me that I shouldn’t relieve you of your command and have you certified as a Class A nutcase!” It was exactly as he remembered it in the vision. The same words, same tone of voice, same facial expression and the same hand gestures. His response had been carefully planned, even rehearsed on the way back.

  “What Cmdr. Tanaka witnessed, was me having a precognitive vision, of what you’ve just said. From my perspective, I seemed to be standing over there…” he pointed to a spot about 2 meters away, “where I saw and overheard your comments just now. I’ve had other precognitive visions that have all come true going all the way back to the original alien encounter and my hunch to launch recon drones. Even my refusal to accept command of Sentinel was driven by a vision of you saying that it was a good thing I refused that command. I didn’t reveal these visions earlier because I was afraid that you’d question my competence and sanity but since you’re doing that now, I figured I may as well come clean and here’s the interesting part, Admiral. I have a witness that can corroborate my most recent vision. One of my A.I. pilots received an audio transmission, that matched word for word what you just said and that transmission occurred at precisely the same time as I was having my own vision. That means that my visions are being induced by some technical means and are NOT a psychological aberration.” Shiloh stopped and steeled himself for the expected explosion of incredulity and contempt. Only there was none. During Shiloh’s remarks, Howard’s expression changed from anger to cold calculation. After a few seconds, he leaned forward and said in a surprisingly calm and low voice,

  “So in your vision, you heard me say that risking Defiant at Green4 enabled us to stop the attack at Avalon and that’s why you took the ship into combat?”

  “Yes, Sir.” Another pause.

  “One of my Aides tells me that you brought one of your A.I. pilots with you. Is he…it, the one that heard the audio transmission?” Shiloh took note of Howard’s gender confusion. There was no confusion in Shiloh’s mind. As far as he was concerned, Iceman was definitely a ‘he’.

  “No, Sir. The A.I. that actually received the transmission was destroyed in combat but his recording of that transmission was shared with all of the other pilots.”

  “Hmm. How do you know they aren’t pretending to have received that transmission?”

  “Well, when I started to relate word for word what you said in the vision, Iceman took over and repeated the rest of your words exactly before I had the chance to do so. Since I hadn’t told anyone what I experienced, there was no way for him to know that unless there actually had been a transmission of some kind.” Howard’s expression had by now changed to what Shiloh thought of as his poker face. There was no clue as to what the man was actually thinking.

  “You’re probably wondering why I’m taking this so calmly. I’ll tell you why. Yesterday, I received a proposal from our Strategic Planning Group, to start a project to investigate whether a recent breakthrough i
n man-to-machine wireless communication, could be modified to give us a strategic edge.” He reached over to one side and picked up one of several data tablets, which he quickly manipulated and then handed to Shiloh. “Read the highlighted paragraph, Commander.”

  While preliminary experiments suggest the possibility of transmitting data forward AND backwards in time, there’s no guarantee that any project to pursue this phenomenon will result in a practical capability. Justification for allocation of scarce R&D funding might be available if a careful review of After Action reports indicates that retro-temporal communication is already happening. Shiloh handed the device back to Howard but said nothing.

  “Based on the rest of that report, I’m inclined to accept that you’ve been experiencing retro-temporal communication, Commander. So I don’t think you’re crazy. But this concept is so new to me, now that it’s clear that it actually works, that I’m having trouble wrapping my brain around it. Can I assume that you’ve given this a lot more thought?”

  “Yes, Sir, a LOT of thought. I’ve also had very insightful discussions about this with Iceman. He…”

  “One of your A.I. pilots?” interrupted Howard.

  “Yes, Sir. In fact, he’s the one I brought with me in case you’d like to talk with him.”

  “Go on.” said Howard.

  “Well...ah…there’s another side to this retro-temporal communication. After comparing notes, Iceman has convinced me that the enemy has…or WILL HAVE this technology too and is trying to use it to jam our own retro transmissions!”

  “What!” Howard’s face lost all composure and color. I swear to God, one of these days I’ll say something and the Old Man will keel over from a heart attack! Thought Shiloh with alarm.

  “Prior to having the clear vision of your comments from a few minutes ago, I had another vision. Visually it was the same one but the auditory portion was quite different. It didn’t sound like your voice and the words didn’t seem to be in sync with your mouth. The gist of what you appeared to be saying to me was that I did the right thing by letting all 55 alien ships leave Green4 unmolested in order to detect a much larger follow on fleet. Because of the confusing nature of that vision, I decided to try to ambush the alien fleet while they refueled at the gas giant. That attempt didn’t pan out, probably because the enemy ships were controlled by their own A.I.s, who demonstrated their ability to react faster than mere flesh and blood crews could have. When I described that confusing vision to Iceman, he told me that it was the unanimous opinion of all the A.I. pilots that we are now fighting a war over space AND time. He called it the Synchronicity War. We have to start strategic temporal planning now too.” Howard took a deep breath and said,

  “Strategic temporal planning. I’m not sure I even know what that means exactly but I agree that we have to widen the scope of our strategic planning. I think I’m going to want to talk with this Iceman after I’m done with you, Commander. But you and I aren’t quite there yet.” He picked up another data tablet and held it in the air.

  “This is your latest report. When I read your recommendations, I was VERY tempted to dismiss them out of hand as nonsense! However…given what I’ve just learned and what I’ve just said about widening the scope of our strategic planning, I’m now prepared to take a second look at them. In a nutshell, you’re recommending that A.I.s be given much more responsibility including…granting them the same officer ranks as human officers! Having A.I. Astrogators I can understand. I can even see the advantages of A.I.s having Helm and Weapons control on our ships but making them Officers? I’m having a little difficulty with that one, Shiloh. Expand on your reasons why we should do that?” Shiloh nodded. He was ready for that question too.

  “Even before we discovered that the alien fleet was A.I. controlled, I was noticing that Iceman and his team were faster at analyzing problems and finding solutions, whether those solutions involved Astrogation or tactics or what have you, than we were. As pilots of CFPs, we have only scratched the surface of what A.I.s can do for us. Consider the advantages of having our ships controlled by A.I.s. They never need to eat, sleep or take breaks. Their attention never wanders. They never make mistakes within the limits of the data they have. They can analyze a tactical situation much faster than any human and they can game out with precise calculation, dozens…maybe even hundreds of tactical options in seconds. What if we designed a combat frigate that was totally automated without any human crew? How much more compact could we make it? With less mass, it could accelerate faster, be structurally stronger and never need to replenish consumables such as food, air and water. It would be available indefinitely. Or we could design an automated ship the size of our combat frigates that has the same combat power as the cruisers that we’re building now. I’m not saying that all our ships should be crewed solely by A.I.s but we’re missing out on a major increase in capability. With all that said, how can we put A.I.s in control of ships, especially ships that still have some human crews and NOT make them officers? In a fleet vs. fleet situation, a human fleet commander very likely will have to make critical decisions, based upon multiple factors with very little time. Acting within seconds or even fractions of a second could be the difference between victory and defeat. There may not be time for an A.I. to verbally recommend a course of action to a human commander, who will then need time to consider it and then more time to convey his or her decision back to the A.I. for implementation. We know that the enemy has A.I. controlled ships. Maybe they’ve been doing that all along and maybe not but we have to assume that every enemy fleet we encounter from now on, will react far faster than our human commanders and that’s a hell of a headwind to expect them to overcome. If we want A.I.s to determine and control battle strategy and tactics, then they have to be able to issue commands to humans and expect to have those orders obeyed even if those orders involve the sacrifice of those crews and ships.” Howard said nothing for what seemed like a long time.

  “As I said, I see the advantages of having A.I.s controlling helm, astrogation and weapons functions. But it’s a big leap from there to giving A.I.s formal and permanent control over lower ranked humans. I have no problem with creating a rank structure that’s unique to A.I.s. What if the human fleet commander gives the senior ranked A.I. temporary fleet command for the duration of the battle only?” Shiloh’s initial impulse was to reject the compromise. As far as he was concerned, the only question that mattered was whether A.I.s were sentient beings. Either they were or they weren’t and if they were, why discriminate against them by making them a separate, lower class of beings? On the other hand, he was astute enough to understand the difference between what’s desirable and what’s realistically achievable, at least in the short run. If he viewed the Admiral’s compromise as an interim step that would gradually build up trust in A.I.s by the rest of the Space Force personnel, then it became easier to swallow.

  “That might work. Eventually I’d still like to see A.I.s and Humans working side by side with complete equality but maybe we need to take a half step first in order to build trust.” Howard gave a grunt of approval.

  “Okay. I’ll have my staff work on formalizing the procedures that will allow that to happen. We’ll also have to get the engineers to figure out how to modify our ships to allow an A.I. to plug into Helm, Weapons and Astrogation systems. Completely automated ships are worth looking into but obviously it’ll take time to get them designed, built and tested. I’ve already approved your previous proposal for a rank structure to be used solely by A.I.s as CFP pilots. That’ll have to be modified when we start giving them temporary fleet commands. Now let’s move on to some of your other recommendations.”

  “You recommend that the Strategic Planning Group have A.I. members. I’m not opposed to the idea in principle but forcing the SPG to accept A.I.s as full fledged members is asking too much of them too quickly. Let’s take the same half step approach there. What I’m prepared to do now, is to assign one or more A.I.s to the SPG as advisors only. We’
ll try that for a while and see how that works.” Shiloh said nothing because Howard hadn’t asked his opinion or approval. Howard went on. “You also want to create formal CFP squadrons, that’ll be permanent units. It seems to me that if we do that, we lose a lot of flexibility in terms of moving CFPs around individually as and when needed. What’s your response to that, Commander?”

  “While I’ll admit that creating permanent squadrons would reduce deployment flexibility to some extent, I think the advantages would outweigh the disadvantages. A.I.s have unique personalities. I’ve talked with them enough to realize that they don’t interact with each other in exactly the same way. A.I.s, that have operated together for some period of time, seem to become more efficient as a team just as humans do and it’s not hard to figure out why. By getting to know how each other thinks, the team operates more smoothly. Veteran A.I.s have a lot of experience and insight to share with those fresh off the training programs. Permanent squadrons are the perfect mechanism for bringing new A.I.s up to the same level of skill as the veterans. There’s also the aspect of A.I. and human interaction. I’ve developed a very good rapport with Iceman and several of the other A.I. pilots over the last few weeks and months. I trust Iceman’s judgment. That trust paid off in the battles at Green4 and Avalon. Deploying him and the others as sentries in the Early Warning Network will mean breaking in, for lack of a better expression, a new bunch of A.I. pilots and I’ll have lost Iceman’s insight. Let me put it this way. Iceman and I make a good team. He’s as least as valuable to me as having a good XO and keeping him and the rest of the group together will enhance his effectiveness as well. The concept, of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts applies to A.I.s just as well as it does to humans.” Howard sighed as if he were about to say something unpleasant.