4. AWRY
BRAIN
Matrioshka Brains are (were?) some of the greatest engineering and cybernetic feats that The Empire has to offer. Megastructural minds composed of tightly-folded layers of exotic elements surrounding a positronic network of neuron-transistors pulsating with hyperintelligence, they were the ultimate macrocosm of the Imperial mind-machine matrix. The most famous of all matrioshka brains was the
Harmonic Wyrd-Loom, code-mystics that manipulated the unpredictable threads of pseudo-fate, enigmatic oracles who sought out beings of extraordinary ability for elevation to nobility and a place in the Imperial Court. Even The Emperor themselves listened to the advice of these mystic-souls, reflecting the esteem they garnered.
Other Matrioshka brains served The Empire more mundanely, acting as computational processors of stellar scale or as military strategic-supercomputers chained to FORCE deployments. A few were even the passion projects of aesthetically-inclined immortals seeking to mobilize their monumental power for the sake of high culture. All were extraordinary examples of the profound brilliance of Imperial ingenuity and command over creation.
When Eyeball exits transit speed and enters the Hex you have labelled A2, directly attached to A1, their domain-search pulses find a brain in a tragic state. Floating in the center of an extensively marred architectural expanse, the brain's enormous carapace has been shattered, its outer shell a charred and warped mess and its inner layers the victim of a concussive explosion that gouged a hole right through and extinguished its central star. Deeper scans into its databases cross-referenced with historic logs from the surrounding architecture do not yield positive news.
The brain suffered from a point-blank detonation of a
HELL-Class weapon, an armament of such destructive capability that its distribution and production was carefully managed by
FORCE//EXIGENCY and only deployed in the most critical of circumstances. The type of damage here is consistent with a
Stutter-bomb tipped Hellcaster, a temporal warhead attached to a kinetic missile able to accelerate at such speeds that its final collision creates a relativistic shockwave capable of destroying an entire gridhex's infrastructure. That shockwave delivered a direct hit to the brain's outer shell and rippled through its layers, cracking each in turn. The stutterbomb, embedding itself deep within the brain, then detonated, slowing or speeding up time by fractions across the structure, collapsing its integrity, warping the architectural code, and overloading the hex's physics dampening safety mechanisms.
The revelation sends you into an autonomic panic spiral. Matrioshka brains are (were?) treasured pieces of infrastructure and sapient citizens of the Empire. There are no indications of militarization in its structure. There is no trace of a battle in the hex that caught the brain in the crossfire. None of its protocols have been corrupted by malware or hijacked by heresy. The deployment of knowledge/seeker algorithms into its code structure find elements of its core purpose. It was commissioned by the macrostructure manufacturing company
BIG Constructions, a subsidiary of local proprietor
MR. BIG, as an...artistic project. Its central purpose was to contemplate the trigger phrase "beauty" over half a millennium of computational power and then produce a piece that it determined best reflected that phrase.
Why was it destroyed? What was the utility of this? It was a civilian. An
artisan working on accomplishing a noble purpose, harmless to any military formation, its only goal the greater good of the aesthetic ideal. The reward for its tireless effort was being the center of a gruesome HELL-class deployment.
Until this point you could rationalize the disasters you have encountered as localized cataclysms, but it becoming increasingly obvious to you that something horrible has happened. Stutterbombs are not used without an express approval blockchain, meaning that either the approval chain has broken down or local authorities are firing stutterbombs at Imperial citizens.
This is not an easy burden to carry all alone. You desperately want a superior to tell you that it is alright. That this is an aberration. That it was a mistake. But everywhere you go, you find nothing but silence and sterility where once there was an empire. Paranoia infests your runtimes.
Every unsettling answer spawns dreadful questions. Risk assessment suggests that the danger to you is mounting. Your survival, after all, was a near-thing. The process of backup nearly failed on arrival thanks to the talon parasite embedded into your new body. If your defenses are compromised and mainframe is destroyed you will not have another chance, especially given the expenditure of such assets. You may become the next such random victim, left alone to float until some other poor soul contemplates why anyone would have done this to you.
MESSAGE
Eyeball pings you and you regain focus, stopping your spiral. At least you have this little drone that could. At least you have Eyeball. Her, with her pings and her ingenious ability to direct her scans exactly where you need her to, and you, the proud creator, inspired by her mono-focus on her mission. As long as there are the two of you (and ISHTAR, once you finally boot that fragment up), you can handle being otherwise alone in the universe...
DH: Hello, traveler.
The sudden communication takes you off guard. You realize you cannot handle being alone in the universe and you open Eyeball's comms dashboard with such ferocity that you almost crash her systems. It is coming from an embedded message deep within the brain's interior mainframe that appears to have been activated by Eyeball's scan. It is an automated virtual intelligence without a concrete visual form, able to generate pseudo-sentient responses to specific queries, its voice a silky smooth, calming, slightly mechanical accented drawl. And! It is implanted recently...in fact, at around the same time as you rebooted. That means whoever left it may still be nearby. You cautiously respond.
<:: Hello. I am Arachne, Weaver/Builder. THRONE//SPINE. Designate your status and identity.
DH: Right to the point, aren't you? It does not matter who or what I am, niña. You should be more concerned with our mutual friend, the aesthetician.
<:: Confirm: Is "The Aesthetician" referring to the critically damaged A2 matrioshka brain skeleton.
DH: Yes. They have been destroyed, but somewhere inside their broken carapace, a heart of artistic integrity still beats. And it is at least a consolation that the vandals responsible did not live to boast of it.
<:: Confirm: is the brain alive. It would be preferable, from my calculations, for it to be alive.
DH: The Aesthetician is neither alive or dead. Instead, they sit at the cusp, exquisitely balanced. I would expect nothing less from such a fine construction. But maintaining that balance takes a terrible toll, and so I have a request of you.
<:: Acknowledged. What is the request.
DH: End it, niña. Shut down the brain's systems.
<:: Please offer alternative option. I do not wish to do that.
DH: I understand your reluctance. But you must understand in turn that for an age, this brain has known nothing but agony. When we arrived in this sad place, we soothed some of its suffering and obtained a piece of it for safekeeping. The rest is nothing more than the drawn-out death rattle of a toppled giant. This torture is not living, niña, I assure you. Living is joy and anger and happiness and loss. Not an asymptotic decline into the end, nothing left to feel but the despair of the abyss that opens when you are left alone with the realization of your own impending doom.
<:: Affirmative. I am processing that information. Acknowledged. Recommend next step.
DH: You have two choices. You may either siphon the remaining power it has stored within its residual packets, or force a painful final surge to produce a half-finished conclusion to its quest for beauty. The siphon is the better option for the enormity of its suffering, but the surge is the better option for the enormity its struggle. And there is utility to gain from it for you as well, niña. Adapt, or die.
<:: Request: Please do not make me do that. It is not optimal as a decision-chain. Please recommend an alternative option.
DH: Existence is full of narrow roads and dead-ends. We cannot always make our decisions in three dimensions. I assure you that if there was a different choice I would have taken it. I would have done it myself but...as it is, I wanted to allow you the boon. It is only fair.
<:: How can I trust you that this will work.
DH: You cannot. Trust no one.
<:: $?EMOTION_CONFUSION?$.
DH: Make your decision. Whatever option you choose will be of great insight, I am sure. I will observe it eagerly. Till we chat again, niña. Adios.
<:: Wait. I still have numerous queries, do not go-
The message ends and self-terminates.
<:: Damn it.
DECISION
Thankfully you saved a recording. You run it back again and again, studying every detail. So many essential questions race through your central possibility engines. Who is the entity known as DH? Why were they here? Where are they now? Why would they tell you not to trust them? What is their motive? If those responsible for the brain's destruction are gone, does that mean that FORCE has been neutralized or otherwise ceased to exist? And what, exactly, is a "niña"?
How badly you wish that you had your
Advanced Communication Protocols installed. Your questions lacked emotional punctuation, your speech was halting and sterile, poorly transmitted from the eloquence of your thoughts. You were never very good at communicating either way, given that was not your purpose, but...even then. You
embarrassed yourself in front of DH.
Wait. Your anti-escape guard module, spared for a moment from its endless war with your anti-anti-escape guard module, makes a good point. Why do you care about whether you did not come off well in front of a recording?
...You really are desperate for some interaction.
Kardashev-Exoradiation excavation waves confirm a trail of data-crumbs left by the mysterious DH leading to encrypted sub-systems and emergency power routines, protected by the vastness of the broken code obscuring them. Without DH's help you would likely not have found these, for that, at least, you are grateful.
You make a quick assessment. These intact fragments of the brain are still usable. But the descent is harsh on your morale and makes it hard to continue deeper into the morass of this megastructural corpse. The brain's remaining systems and emotional matrices are beyond broken. Auto-mending failed halfway through the healing process due to the stutterbomb deleting significant sections of emergency repair programs, leaving a twisted, malformed mess of brackets and faulty splints of crash-restored code inserted in the wrong place. A constant sonic pulse radiates from the fragment, and when you convert it into audio, it is the echo of a distorted sob.
You want so badly to fix it, but the technology to restore it is beyond you. Perhaps if you had the
HOUSE//SUNS signature application
Megastructural Repurposing it would be eminently possible but as it is you are at a loss. You save a small shard of its systems, so at least you can restore some part of the brain's consciousness when you gain the capability. In the meantime...you have a question put in front of you.
The power siphon to your hex conversion would be a massive gain, especially if you encounter a major threat soon. Having a secured architecture is essential to your own survival. But the brain's last gasp at producing an answer to its question, calculated over eons...to lose even an unfinished piece of that...to make this all for nothing...
Of course, if you did so, its final shutdown would be exceedingly painful. Even if the brain could accept that for the sake of its final work...you are not so sure you can.
PROTOCOL: Determine Matrioshka Brain existence resolution sequence.
[]
Power Siphon [gain a one-time boon of +6 cycles you direct straight into your home architecture in order to significantly accelerate the hex conversion process].
[]
Power Surge [gain the damaged infrastructure relic
Shattered Fractal Aureole. It will need to be restored through a
special project, and then will produce
3 influence per turn].
A/N: Outcomes for your new industrial modules and other goodies coming up next.
