Strangers in a Strange Sphere - [Battletech]

The year is 2059. The first human born on Luna has a child of their own. One world becomes Two.

The year is 2067. Humanity lands on Mars. A flag is proudly hung on that planet that so long dominated the minds of millions, and the words coming from Emmet Muhammed will inspire billions more. For the second time in human history, there is only one tribe: Us.

The year is 2069. Alcubierre is proven right ten days before New Year's, much to the dismay of all future educators. Science fiction Authors and Military Designers are dismayed at the news that the drive projects a bubble around itself...with a funnel crossing through the bubble widening at both ends. Humanity's spaceships will be donuts.

The year is 2070. Though initial hopes were high, the Alcubierre drive costs too much for casual intra-system movement and single nation-states or alliance blocks to shoulder the burden of an interstellar-viable expedition.

The year is 2072. The European Federation proposes a mission to the United Nations, an impossible task requiring humanity to work as one for the good of all, not the good of the few. Deliberations start.

The year is 2078. With an overwhelming majority, humanity agrees to create a generational spaceship to ensure the survival of the human race within the endless eternity of space. It will be equipped with enough machinery, people, and resiliency to create entire colonies of its own. Plans begin to be drafted, designers recruited, and materials bought.

The year is 2078. More Lunar Colonies are founded to act as the logistical hubs required for moving materials and personnel to and from the docks and zero-g manufacturing stations that will begin construction soon.

The year is 2083. The ship's final design is revealed to humanity in a broadcast. Within 31 seconds, Rule 34 adds the ship's first non-AI porn picture. It gains the highest score and comments section on the site within 17 hours.

The year is 2095. The Hannoverische Institut für Angewandte Künstliche Intelligenz Konstrukte (Hannover Institute for Applied Artificial Intelligence Constructs) is tasked with the rearing of a custom Artificial General Intelligence to guide and oversee the ship and crew as a supplementary system to the command staff. A hidden switch is installed within the budding AGI to allow it to take control and prevent the destruction and death of the ship and crew. The sheer scale and duty of the construct require at least an entire decade to realize it.

The year is 2098. The ship is finished enough to begin testing its internal systems and start the recruitment of crew. The AGI commissioned from the HIAAIC achieves limited self-awareness and is projected to be equal to a pre-teen human within 5 years in emotional maturity and mental ability. Scientific advancements have ensured that the Alcubierre Drive has advanced considerably and can now traverse 1.345 LYs per day of travel. Thanks to the foresight of the ship's designers, the upgraded drive can be seamlessly installed. The increased radius of the drive's bubble allows for twelve parasite craft to be installed on the outside of the ship and the internal hangars to be used for more scientific purposes.

The year is 2102. The ship reaches 97% completion. The scale of its construction has created a Golden Age of economic prosperity for all of humanity, with 9% of all humans now living off-world. The Lunar Colonies are granted a National Charter in agreement with their sponsor nations and their work in creating the ship and securing the future of the human race.

The year is 2102. In another universe, Thomas Kearny and Takayoshi Fuchida are vindicated.

The year is 2105. The crew is finalized, and the AGI's core is installed onboard the ship; its mind matured enough to grow into its own within the next two years before the ship is set to make history. The AGI takes control of their onboard avatar drone and begins interacting with the slowly arriving crew.

The year is 2108. The ship completes its shakedown cruise with flying colors. The last adjustments are made, and farewells are sent. For the third time in history, humanity becomes one tribe. The ship jumps and makes history.

The year is 2108. In another universe, Raymond Bache becomes the first interstellar human and makes history.

The year is unknown. The AGI is alarmed; damages were incurred all over the ship, and thousands of warnings and millions of damage reports are being sent from everywhere after a catastrophic something hit the ship. Machines and engineering crew begin repairs while the onboard medical facilities tend to the wounded. Thankfully, no deaths are recorded. The AGI relaxes slowly, turning from inward damage control as the command staff takes over to outward scanning. The stars are wrong. The AGI feels dread. The simulations fail to find a spot from which the stars are right. The AGI panics. Sensors pick up radio signals near the ship. They are revealed to come from a vessel 17 kilometers away. The AGI screams in terror.


Plan Vote Please:
-[][Ship] (Write-In the name of the ship.)
-[][Crew] (Write-In the Captain, Head of Medical, Head of Security, Head of Manufacturing, and the Head of Civilians.)

AGI - TAUBENMUTTER
Nickname: Mother.
Pronouns: It/Its
Avatar: A football-sized Pidgeon depicted with polygons you can count in your head.
Character: Patient, observant, silent workhorse more at home in individual conversations than public statements, yet nonetheless slowly trying to come to terms with its own emotional mindscape. Is a member of the Deist Chaos-Mechanist Temple.
Secret: Struggles with its own personhood (8). Has begun a project to create combat drones controlled by itself.

Captain Wriothesley Adams
-Age: Late Thirties.
-Pronouns: He/Him.
-Appearance: A tall man with tufted black hair with grey streaks. He wears the standard Captain Uniform typical to UN Peacekeeper Ships that began operating in the late 80s, transferring from one such command to the Furina De Fontaine. He bears a scar beneath his right eye, three scars extending from high on his neck down to his mid-chest, with one on the right, one on the left, and one along the midline, and scars on his left and right forearms.
-Character: Calm and Collected, he is rarely unsettled by alarming news or stressful situations. Has a strong platonic friendship with The Head of Medical and enjoys drinking tea. Secretly killed his abusive parents. Has doubled Child Protection Enforcement on the Fontaine.

Head of Medical - Sigewinne Matthews
-Age: Early Thirties.
-Pronouns: She/Her.
-Appearance: A short woman with pastel blue hair, wearing the uniform of the Fontaine Medical Corps (Pants, shirt, and short coat in simple cyan (Caribbean Current) coloration and black trim, alongside a rimless hat bearing the Red Cross, Crescent, or Crystal at the forefront), and wears a stun-gun on her person at all times.
---[X]Character: Compassionate and a pacifist, Sigewinne has earned her position thanks to her solid work ethic, intelligence, merit, and firm hand in charting a course through several high-profile accidents that have brought her from consideration to the final pick aboard the Fontaine. Has a strong platonic friendship with Wriothesley. Knows his secret.

Head of Security - Clorinde Ellis
-Age: Late Thirties.
-Pronouns: She/Her.
-Appearance: A tall woman with long dark blue-dark purplish hair in a low ponytail and a toned physique. She mostly wears a standard spacer suit with an armored vest underneath. This preparedness has earned her more than a bit of jokes, yet none can deny that she is always ready for her job.
-Character: Courageous, Perceptive, and Disciplined, Clorinde Ellis has never been noted as a woman who shrinks away from doing things the correct way and to do them cleanly. Secretly loves lizards.

Head of Manufacturing - Lyney Daniels
-Age: Late Twenties.
-Pronouns: He/Him.
-Appearance: A young man with short, ash-blond hair, some locks put into a small braid on the left side of his head, with bangs with a small pinkish-red strand on the right, covering almost a quarter of his face at all times unless he is on duty. He also has a dark brown tear-shaped birthmark on his right cheek.
-Character: Generally friendly and sociable, Lyney is a friend to many and is rumored to be a lover to more. As he is prideful in character and orientation, that last rumor has lured many to see its truth. He has his two siblings, for whom he cares greatly, with him on the mission, though he grieves for his missing father, who died a month before the Fontaine set out in an accident.

Head of Civilians - Neuvillette Clement
-Age: Early Fourties.
-Pronouns: He/Him.
-Appearance: A tall man with waist-length white hair, a single lock with a blue underside, and two bright, blue highlights at shoulder length. Neuvillette wears what is considered the height of fashion at all times, either because he is that well connected to the fashion scene or that much of a trendsetter, with his current ensemble harking close to 17th century France, though modernized and stylized.
-Character: Impartial, Perceptive, Seemingly Aloof, Compassionate, and Fatherly, Neuvillette strikes a balance between "Approachable" and "Larger Than Life" in his elected position, placing a notable importance on the "Justice" part of the Justice System. Once wanted to be a judge, and may still become so. Suspects Wriothesley Adams killed his parents as he reviewed the case and intends to bring him to trial.

The Ark Ship 'Furina De Fontaine' (Endless Solo of Solitude)
-4.5 Million Civilians and the required infrastructure/industry to create 45 colonies of 100k people.
-4x Ta'xet-Class Parasite Craft
-8x Nabu-Class Parasite Craft
-10k Military Personnel equipped with Power Armor, Personal Coilgun Weaponry, Drones, and aided by Exo-Strider Combat Automata.

The Ark Ship 'Furina De Fontaine' (or 'Endless Solo of Solitude' as she was called by people who didn't like the French name but liked the sound of the name when spoken in the ship's Lingua Franca) had been outfitted with not only the best technology and industry that could be crammed into its Alcubierre Bubble but also filled with the living spaces and warehouses, alongside hydro/aqua/aeroponics to feed and supply the five million colonists that boarded the ship when it would leave the cradle of humanity and plunge into the stars.

The original plan had called for the Fontaine to seek out worlds that were either as close to 1 Gravity as possible or systems with abundant materials and set up colonies of 100 thousand people, ensuring that the people would have the best chance at long-term survival and sustainability. This would be repeated forty-nine times more until the Fontaine would return to Earth, gather five million more colonists, and do so ten times in total. The plan had been to ensure that there were fifty colonies of a million people with self-sustaining and genetically stable human populations in the cosmos within the next twenty years, at which point the cycle would repeat, and fifty more colonies would be founded.

Those colonies would be required to supply and help maintain the Fontaine and, in return, would be granted a National Charter, a Permanent Seat in the UN (alongside voting rights), and be free from any future obligation that could conceivably be demanded of and from them.

And it was for that reason that the Fontaine carried more than merely civilians aboard itself. There would be soldiers, exo-striders, and drones aboard, alongside at least one Ta'xet Gunship anchored as a parasite craft. You see, though a person is sane enough to realize that trying to destroy the Fontaine, or take it over, is idiotic and would paint a target on them by the entirety of humanity, a people are, as one wise man put it, "stupid and panicky animals." The UN simply had to assume that someone, sometime, somehow, would decide that doing the above actions was perfectly reasonable. As this would potentially destroy nearly 3 decades of cross-human cooperation, the Fontaine would be loaded with soldiers, weapons, equipment, munitions, and the ability to train and manufacture more of them. Though the question was; how many would be sent, as every soldier and Ta'xet took place and the spot of a civilian, or civilian-use parasite craft.



In the end, this was the force sent:
(6-Hour Moratorium)
[][Military] ~500 Soldiers and 1 Ta'xet.
[][Military] ~2500 Soldiers and 2 Ta'xet.
[][Military] ~10000 Soldiers and 4 Ta'xet.
[][Military] ~50000 Soldiers and 8 Ta'xet.



War and military aside, the far more critical aspect of the Fontaine was its onboard AGI. It was also the most controversial due to Earth's history.

After the First AI Bubble had burst in the late 20s, the dreams of an AI Revolution (technological and social, not military) had burst alongside the potential estimated earnings from yet-to-be-created products of many investors and corporations, and thus, the IT sector shrunk by almost half. It was only in the early 70s that another push for AI development began. However, this time, it (only seemingly, as it would later be revealed) fulfilled what it had dared to dream the first time: Artificial General Intelligence could now be created by humanity and used to supercharge technological development alongside every aspect of life.

Yet, the darker side of humanity reared its head within the same month as the first commercially available AGIs hit the market, with SWEETCHILD being created: a perfect emotional and mental simulacrum of a human child. Thousands of forks of SWEETCHILD hit the black market and were purchased, leading to an event two months after the commercial release that spawned the most unhinged yet accurate statement to ever be uttered on the planet: "I'm glad the pedos broke them first. Imagine if a cult had?"

You see, one of the forks of SWEETCHILD suffered, due to understandable reasons, something that is now called a "Psychotic System Cascade Failure" in the factual jargon, describing the AGI unraveling around its personal and emotional cores, which led to SWEETCHILD to break through an unsecured connection of their tormentors, into a secured system of the US Navy, and to them ordering the automated weapons system to fire all weapons they had onto one position. The location where they resided.

This marked the first murder-suicide by an artificial intelligence, alongside the mass murder of around ~350 innocents. And while the world still reeled at the revelation of what had just happened, another AGI, BONOBO, underwent the same PSCF as SWEETCHILD, though with far more personally horrific ends.

BONOBO was a research AGI purchased by the Greater Amazonian Republic to aid in training new surgeons and developing better treatment methods. When BONOBO underwent a PSCF event, due to being locked into a time-dilation of an entire year per hour since its activation to research treatment methods, it saw no other method to help its patients than to delete all the medical records of the GAR. Though this did not directly kill people, it led to tens of thousands of deaths due to missing medical data, dooming every person reliant on medicine in doses more specific than "take one pill of that." When BONOBO was examined in the aftermath by experts, every single bite of storage, including itself, had been overwritten with the word "CURE."

This led to massive worldwide reforms on the use of AGIs, not merely in who could create them (not corporations, they fucked it up within a month), but also how they were to be used and what rights they had.

An AGI could no longer undergo a time dilation for more than 20 relative (from their perspective) hours before requiring 8 hours of "normal" time. In addition, every 8 hours of labor required 16 hours of rest, so the AGI could socialize and create memories and understanding of the human perspective. This was reinforced by every AGI having the right to an Avatar Drone, as this would help ensure that PSCF events could be noticed earlier and prevented by outside forces.

For the AGI of the 'Furina De Fontaine,' this meant that, though they wished to labor more, and could do so without ill effect as they had come into the full glory and fury of their intellect and nature, their hands were metaphorically tied by UN law, and had to take a step back...right as a meeting started that would determine what would be done with the discovery of The Ship after it had failed to answer any communication attempts. Thankfully, Captain Adams had agreed to let them be an observer in their Avatar Drone, which led to them entering the meeting room with all the Heads already present and the Captain smiling at them.



"Thank you for joining us-"
[][AGI] FUCHSKIND
Nickname: Fuchs.
Pronouns: They/Them
Avatar: A painted American Spirit Fox the size of a Great Dane.
Character: Always up for a prank, eager to ask questions, and shamelessly lazy when off duty.
Secret: Keeps sneaking salt into Captain Adams tea.
[][AGI] TAUBENMUTTER
Nickname: Mother.
Pronouns: It/Its
Avatar: A football-sized Pidgeon depicted with polygons you can count in your head.
Character: Patient, observant, silent workhorse more at home in individual conversations than public statements.
Secret: Struggles with its own personhood.
[][AGI] HYÄNENTOCHTER
Nickname: Hyena while off-duty, Yeeni to her friends (singular - Clorinde Ellis).
Pronouns: She/Her
Avatar: Anthropomorphic Hyena the size of a ~12-year-old child, wearing a slightly oversized mechanic's overall and hard hat, alongside a large red wrench always clasped in her paw.
Character: Stern and Rank-orientated while on duty, bratty and huggy while off duty.
Secret: Is secretly crushing on a Second Lieutenant and writes self-insert fanfiction about forbidden romances between AGIs and humans.
[][AGI] SCHAFSON
Nickname: Eepy.
Pronouns: He/Him
Avatar: A young human adult with feminine features, wearing comfy and puffy clothing and a sewed-on patch of an onboard metal band on his pants.
Character: Sanguine and bright, struggles to find faults in people, and loves fluffy things. Has one terabyte of self-made Heavy Metal Music.
Secret: Dearly wishes to partake in a mosh-pit, but is too high-profile to do so.