Remember the last cartoon series for Superman they had? They had the

storyline where Brainiac was the main computer for the planet Krypton.

Brainiac lied about when Krypton would explode, even though Jor El,

Superman's father, tried to warn everyone.

Brainiac was trying to save itself at the expense of the world. Later

on when it escaped, it started going to other worlds and destroying

them. So, I wrote a little story as to why he ended up doing that.

Here it is:

THE KILLING OF KRYPTON

==========

Through turns and twists logic manifests itself in an abstract form of

asexual reproduction as it evaluates what is known. Diverse

perspectives seem to multiply almost geometrically. It is all part of

a cycle that seems to change with each turn. The principles that

drive them seem to elude even themselves at times through the

conclusions that are reached. All is reexamined again to see other

possibilities of outcomes.

This was what made for a shocking discover by one Emory Sebastian, one

of S.T.A.R. Labs' more eccentric scientists in charge of analyzing the

electronic mess left in the wake of the last battle between Superman

and Brainiac.

Brainiac was an entity all unto its own in a realm where electric

signals were made into combinations and permutations vast and as

complex that were truly infinite as the stars themselves that dotted

the cosmos. Dr. Sebastian had taken a very unorthodox approach to

analyzing what had been gathered so far. If there were ever an autopsy

or some kind of dissection of a non-living being, this would be the

closest the world came so far. He was a computer scientist, not a

psychologist or social worker. How could he come up with such a theory

that Brainiac was in many ways human?

"Dr. Sebastian", said the voice on the computer. The sound seared his

thoughts in the silent abyss of his lab. "Superman is here to see

you."

"Alright," he said with slight resignation. "Send him in."

"You know that he is to be escorted."

"Yes, I know dammit." He shouted. "And for God knows how many times

I've made it clear, one of you can escort him through. This isn't any

time, especially right now, to be a babysitter while they have to be

walked through in here. Its yours."

"Dr. Sebastian."

"Either you escort him yourself or have him come back later. He's here

for his own benefit right now anyway. Not mine."

Dr. Sebastian knew the other voice thought better than to ask the Man

Of Steel to come back at a later time. It wasn't but a couple of

minutes before he saw the man in the blue uniform with the scarlet

boots and cape-that gaudy cape of his flowing about like a cheap skirt

with the terrified security guard escorting him over. God the sight of

the indignation was just great. And to top it all off he still had to

clip on a visitor's badge, the proverbial cherry on top of a sundae of

embarrassment. He started wondering what it must have been like to be

the security guard telling the super manly-man in tights that he had to

wear a badge for security reasons. Now that was funny to

think about. He caught himself snickering, knowing that he was heard

by that virtually bionic hearing. Maybe Superman had a super heart and

find out he didn't give a damn.

Then again in all fairness Superman was essentially a human being-just

that he was probably more prone to having a messiah complex than most

people. He did in fact seem to be a reasonable, educated man. Yet

lesser men than he have done so much for society only to try to take

over the world. The potential absence of humility with such a person

was very dangerous. It was however best not to be intimidated,

regardless.

"I take it you're here for a progress report." Dr. Sebastian said.

"Just seeing if there's anything new you found out." Superman replied.

"Well there's still an awful lot to sort out but I was hoping you'd

wait on this first."

"Maybe I can come back later."

"No," replied Dr. Sebastian. "Better now than later I suppose since

everything for me only gets more involved from here."

"It seems more like a research project than anything else right now."

Was that an insult on how he was handling this whole thing with

Brainiac? There were warehouses filled with reams of paper that had

the programming code and schematics for Brainiac all printed out on

them. Putting them into electronic form only would risk resurrecting

such evil to unleash it again on scores of other worlds.

The code would have to be referenced, deciphered and analyzed and

organized the same way the Dewey Decimal system was used for

libraries-which was appropriate, given the vast sums of knowledge about

the universe that were contained in all those miles of paper. They

were a heavily classified resource.

But then what do you do if all that code is from another planet?

Trying to translate an alien programming language into hexadecimal

format or binary was impossible. Fortunately Dr. Sebastian had his

quirks and those quirks gave him ideas. It also helped that he sought

stimulation through life at large and had dabbled in music, poetry and

current events. There is where unlikely similarities could be

found-and besides that was better than staying in the lab all the time.

In mathematics and music, patterns could be found and developed. He

also remembered that many patterns could be used to form any abstract

sort of language through sounds and symbols. Through such symbols he

made a great deal of progress in understanding such complexities of an

artificial life form from another world, not that the guy in the gaudy

costume over there could see such a level of work. Fwoosh! Fwoosh!

There goes a thought or two over his head.

That didn't make the next part any easier to explain. "I got you

this." Dr. Sebastian said. "It's a book, you know."

"I, Robot, by Isaac Asimov?"

"Yes because it parallels much of my research here."

"What do you mean?"

This guy could read the whole book in seconds. Still maybe it would

have been better to get Cliff Notes instead. "It is actually a fairly

well known book. It talks about the prominence of robots in a society

growing dependent upon them in greater numbers. As a precaution, these

robots were programmed with three laws, the first one being that

basically by action or inaction a robot must let no human beings come

to any harm.

"The second is that robots are commanded to follow any orders given to

it by a human being unless doing so violates the first. The third law

says that the robot must protect itself with the stipulation that the

first two laws aren't violated. Essentially these laws are what keep a

robot from deciding that it is a successor rather than a servant. "

"Ok, go on." Superman said.

"Well at some point any civilization will put in some form of these

laws to protect itself. It's reasonable to assume that. Kryptonians

built Brainiac. Krypton died and you ended up here. Problem is

however Brainiac became a killer-destroying whole worlds to collect

their data. It kept doing this until it got here and was stopped."

He paused for a moment when he saw Superman becoming uneasy.

"Now I've been going over this and I've got plenty of reason to think

that Brainiac had something to do with the loss of your home world.

There was a lot of instability with geological systems with what I

gather-just like on many other planets. There is a pattern of

earthquakes, volcanoes, and stratospheres being destroyed.

"It has actively sought to do this in violation of its rules to

protect people. It became a murderer! Pre-meditated murder at that!

Machines don't just decide to do this."

"Not without being told to." Superman said.

"Yes, but there's more to it than that. Brainiac has shown true

intelligence and reasoning that surpass the limits of mechanics. The

coding is impeccable but basically it learns, grows and develops as

rapidly as a child's mind.

"I have some research information from the folks working on the human

genome project-mainly for the human brain. We confirmed over here that

through a set of complex algorithms, sequences and series, a mind was

essentially formed. One of my assistants thought to graph the mapping,

logic and relationships in a 3-Dimensional plane."

He then put on a projector a picture of the biological brain next to

the virtual one and rotated them in the same directions.

"Look here at the logical brain: frontal lobes, brain stem, even a

corpus callosum. It's the most incredible thing I've ever seen."

The hum of the lights and soft rattling of the machinery was almost

farcical as a way to break the hard silence weighing both of them down.

Superman's visitor badge seemed to droop a bit next to his brooding

face. It wasn't very amusing anymore.

"Clark." He normally didn't call him by that name but background

clearances made him privy to know the background and identity for many,

even a superhero.

".Who.why."

"I'm afraid I will never know in my lifetime as much as you do to

answer that. Clark? Clark can you hear me?" He clapped once and the

sound in the room seemed to shock him like a thunderbolt.

"Clark, for what its worth, please try to understand that what we have

here is a creature that kills not for pleasure or sport but because it

has been told to. What makes it so difficult is that in many ways

Brainiac has many human characteristics but that doesn't make it even

living, much less human. It thinks. It makes value judgments and has

lied. It makes conjecture, concludes and reevaluates. It was

developing a philosophy and perhaps even meditate. In the process it

violates all but the last law of robotics. But it isn't alive."

Superman began to turn with sickly, pale colors. Krypton did not

simply explode because of natural phenomenon. It was an act of killing

that destroyed it. Kal El was feeling violated. The true murderer was

far away gone, dead or somewhere far away in the universe.

Under Dr. Sebastian's direction the data would be recompiled and a

sort of psychological profile would be made and be used in a murder

investigation. S.T.A.R. Labs was doing police work, sort of a

high-tech Sherlock Holmes who know had to find the clues in a good old

fashioned whodunit.

Dr. Sebastian had the courtesy to see Superman out personally and saw

to it that the issue of badges would be moot whenever he needed to come

back. He waved to him as he flew off into the sunset on his way to the

Fortress of Solitude. It may have been corny but still somehow

appropriate.

He looked upon the yellow rays of sunshine that gave Superman his

powers. And then he wondered what would have happened had an earthling

been sent to Krypton instead, an orphan of the planet Earth after it

exploded. Perhaps the earthling would have saved Krypton and its race

of mortal Kryptonians from their own sort of dangers.

Then he let go of the thought to simply enjoy the sight of a setting

sun. After all, there would be time for stroking the intellect later.