The Universal Rectifier Zero moved gently through the solar wind, in the stellar orbit that was once occupied by the Earth.
Of course, in the eight years after Clu's rise to power, the solar system had undergone some changes: the planets had been demolished, the Kuiper Belt objects had been moved closer to the Sun and their matter had been reorganized into a spherical cloud of orbiting habitats that revolved around the Sun at a distance of one astronomical unit. It was the only way to accommodate the over nine quadrillion programs that were freed from all existing computer systems. Among the habitats, over sixteen million spaceships had been built, and that was the moment they were about to depart.
One of them, the Universal Rectifier Zero, was under the command of Clu, who was sitting in the command bridge. He activated the main screen. Immediately, the wall in front of him was replaced by a three-dimensional view of the external environment.
"Rinzler, select multicast packet receivers: Universal Rectifiers 1 to 16777215." he said.
"Yes sir" replied Rinzler, who was sitting at a console in the back of the command bridge.
Clu rose from his chair and approached the main screen.
"Greetings, programs!" he started.
"As you well know, our goal is to create the perfect system. This moment makes us closer in our strife for it. For each of the ships, I selected a different initial destination. Those will be the start of our search for cultures to rectify. In time, we will have the entire Milky Way galaxy. Then we will spread to all galaxies in the Virgo Supercluster. And the day we take control of all existing superclusters, the perfect system will finally be a reality! Set course to your destination. Start engines... NOW!"
The Universal Rectifier Zero was the first spaceship to leave orbit. As soon as the message reached another ship, that ship departed too. In 16 minutes and 38 seconds, they were all gone.