Brainiac #1: NoeGenesis
The planet Krypton was doomed.
The people of Krypton were doomed.
Our technocratic leadership had failed its people.
The Science Counsel could did not heed my brother Jor-El's warnings when it had the chance. The, we could not compensate for the organizational social upheaval following the abduction of Krypton's capital, Kandor.
The, it could compensate with the subsequent, attempted coup by General Dru-Zod.
However, "there's always a way." This is adage of the House of El.
The abduction of Kandor left behind a gift from the heavens.
The alien consciousness appropriated our technology for its own use. The alien consciousness gained access to Brainiac, our universal network interface and remotely used our own technology to keep us contained, then sent probes to harvest significant artifacts, both living and non-living. Killing anyone and destroying anything that got in their way. The probes used highly sophisticated force field technology to protect themselves and the abducted artifacts before the entire city vanished off the surface, leaving a perfectly cylindrical crater where heart of the city used to be. Before the city and probes vanished, Brainiac broadcasted this message:
"Your planet's database has been copied and filed. In advance of imminent destruction and extinction of all life. Terminauts will preserve significant artifacts. Commence dwarf star lensing."
During the struggle for Kandor, however, we managed to disable at least one of the alien probes. Ever since, my wife Alura and I, and our entire academic department of Argo City have been studying the alien technology.
From what we gather, the probe is extremely… layered. Meaning, it's as if the probe had a variety of designers the deeper we get into deconstructing it. The outside layer, chrome, has a different… aesthetic to it than the internal layers. The internal layers look almost to be designed by a different species altogether. I would even wager that each was its own complete machine with another machine built around it. Yet, everything works perfectly together. What an astonishing exercise in adding elements as you go along. I'd say it belonged to a museum if the world wasn't ending.
The forehead of the humanoid probe bore an interesting symbol… some sort of diodes for interface with other machines:
My wife and I's minds raced to think of some way to put this…thing to use to save some of us from the coming doomsday. My daughter, Kara, gripped my torso. Beforehand, my wife made the decision to put our daughter under any delusion about what might happen to us very soon. I didn't want to let Kara know myself until I was certain that there was no way of preventing it, but I conceded to Alura's argument to not deny our daughter the opportunity to participate in Krypton's destiny… somehow.
The nuances of such past details escape me, but as much as I didn't want to tell her, it turned out to be the best decision. It would either be us, or that horrible, alien, computer, machine thing announcing to the city of Kandor before we managed to escape… or the broadcasted trial of Zod after his attempt to overthrow the science counsel for their failure to take the appropriate measures in light of Jor-El's findings. He and his supporters were sentenced to an eternity in the Phantom Zone. Jor-El was his accuser. Zod swore vengeance against out house, for what it's worth, I suppose. Upon finally coming to grips with what she had learned, Kara impressed me that her primary regret was that she might not live to see her baby cousin, Kal-El grow up to be a man. That Kal-El might not live long enough…
She saw too much death during the abduction and coup. Dru-Zod was a friend of the family, and seeing someone we admire being so… merciless, cold, and efficient in killing public officials was only slightly more disturbing than seeing her friends and rounded up and killed by our own technology. Like the universe conspiring against her to remove any sense of permanence and dependability at the fundamental level and everything is waiting to kill you while we slave away pointlessly and powerlessly.
She couldn't sleep again, but I'm powerless to shield her from her nightmares…. …Shield her…
I had an idea, but the strangest thing happened as I moved to verbalize it. From behind me, a cloaked figure suggested that we use the force field technology to create a dome to save as many people as we could from the planet's destruction.
"Yes, I know…"
I then went onto elaborate exactly how we may carry this out. Maybe, if we had more time, we could duplicate the technology and save many cities!
The chain reaction had started… and it turned out we could only extend the force field several miles. At the time, we weren't entirely sure if the shield would hold through the planetary destruction. However, our cloaked "idea man" recited calculations regarding the force field's integrity and trustworthiness. He spoke as if he was familiar with the technology in question, and as if he inordinately familiar with the mechanics of planetary destruction. I was very suspicious, but my wife respected his demonstrated expertise. I then became busier with getting the shield to activate in time to save Argo City.
The shield was erected, then ourselves and those around us simply looked, huddled and listened to what was happening miles away in every direction. We heard the faint sound of screams. Every distant tremor and crashing we felt carried with it the implication of some distant city falling to pieces, the implication of terrified people trying, and clinging to hope of escape that only we are guaranteed.
Even if one survives the tremors, there might be no escaping the volcanic eruptions rising to the surface, and landmasses shifting into the lava. Even if they survive that, they may not survive the Kryptonite radiation poising from the radioactive minerals also rising to the surface. …The agonizing, debilitating poisoning.
However, survived that, probably wouldn't survive simply being shot out into high altitude by the outer core of the planet exploding pieces of the crust into the atmosphere as there becomes less and less of a planet to pull them back down… and if there still is, they've got only lava, kryptonite, and hard surfaces to land on.
I carried the silent, vicarious survivor's guilt. Yes, everyone carried survivor's guilt as Argo City drifted in the remains of Krypton as we all watched the Technicolor spectacle of the planetary decomposition, but only I had the reasonable hope that one of my kin made it out alive, akin beyond the dome. I caught a glimpse of my brother's experimental rocket shooting into space as the planet exploded.
I nudged my daughter to look at it, and to tell no one else, as we saw the glimmer that another onlooker could have mistaken for just about anything else. It gave us enviable hope. My brother was dead. My planet was dead, but I had something else to keep my hopes and dreams busy…
My daughter and I made eye contact, and at that moment I knew I had to build a rocket to similarly carry her to safety, when the need would inevitably come. I could not save Kandor. I could not save Krypton, but I would save her… and reunite her with her baby cousin.
Alura and I got to work on a second rocket. We might make one for ourselves as well, but making a functional rocket for our daughter takes utmost precedence.
Somehow, our "cloaked friend" found his way into our hidden lab where we worked. He was well hidden, but he chose to announce is presence by suggesting that we integrate suspended animation technology from the probe into the rocket, because following the trail of Kal-El's rocket will take longer than we anticipate.
It was a precaution I was considering to take, but his solution was very innovative. I was grateful… but then became rapt with a demand to know who this person was, how he knew these things, and why he hid himself.
He removed his hood.
He was an alien… with features similar enough to Kryptonian. He had blonde hair, but… with green skin and a familiar symbol lining his forehead. The same symbol on the alien probe.
My wife grabbed an energy weapon and opened fire… very hastily I might add. Before I even processed everything I had seen. However, the alien was equipped with the same force field technology as the probes.
"Who are you and what do you want from us?" Alura asked.
He looked slightly agitated from the all the excitement, but he answered honestly.
"I'm not with the one who sent the probes. I go by Brainiac 5."
"Why would you name yourself after our computer system?" I asked.
"It's what The Collector of Worlds became known as to other worlds."
"If you're not with the Collector of Worlds, then why are you here? And how do you know what you know?" Alura demanded.
"I know because everything that's happening right now is ancient history to me. I'm here to witness this historical event. Participation in such things is strictly prohibited. I am authorized to use a time travel device, but there are limits to my actions in the past, but I've calculated my presence here would not have a quantifiable impact on future events. Today is the day Kara Zor El is sent from Argo City."
"….and why would we do a thing like that?" Alura pressed, but the implications of Brainiac 5's words hit me first. We weren't going to the Survivors of Krypton for very long.
"….Because today is the day Argo City's life support began to fail."
The lights began to flicker as he said that sentence.
"My visit was timed perfectly. I'm sorry. This conversation will slow your work, but my assistance with the rocket can compensate for any time lost. Allow me to demonstrate."
The diodes on his eyes began to glow. My brainwaves are compatible with both Brainiac 1.0 tech and this Coluan probe."
As he spoke, the rocket and the probe technology were being built according to the unfinished blueprints I was drawing. He knew what he was doing… what I was doing, better than I knew…. Yet. I used the meantime to probe him further myself.
"Coluan?" I asked.
"Yod-Colu is the planet The Collector originated."
"What is 'The Collector' and why did it steal Kandor?"
"My name is Querl Dox. I am the descendant of Vril Dox 2.0. Vril Dox 1.0 was a cutting edge Coluan scientist with a 12-th level intellect fixated on having 'prefect knowledge.'
He made a clone of himself as a laboratory assistant. He taught the clone everything he believed to be pertinent his purpose.
During his interaction with the clone, despite having all the desired information, the clone learned everything in a context different from original Vril Dox, and came to conclusions in ways Vril found faulty.
This was corrected. However, other problems arose, the lack of shared experiences left the clone with relatively different levels of impulse and emotional control, especially in regard to theorizing and experimentation. This too, was corrected over time with Vril Dox's specialized attention to these areas.
However…. What was most disturbing to Vril Dox was the fact that he himself had not predicted these shortcomings with the clone despite having all the information available to draw that conclusion. Vril Dox 2.0 more and more shaped up to be an invaluable partner and scientist in his own right, but the whole experience left Vril Dox doubting whether or not he too… was subject to the same lack of perfection in his scientific, experimental, and empirical pursuits.
What he was concerned about was evolutionary baggage and limitations that left him with limited processing abilities and emotional, comfort-attachment to certain thought patterns, ideas, and theoretical frameworks.
He recognized the survival utility of certain emotions in certain contexts, but… he wanted to remove his pursuits from anything that would taint their purity.
So… Vril Dox created C.O.M.P.U.T.O, giant… emotionless reflection of his own mind and generated copies his planet's database and sent machines to collect artifacts for COMPUTO to store and study. That was a purposeful attempt to get himself executed by the leaders of his planet… because his definition of self expanded to encompass his clone and C.O.M.P.U.T.O.
He made a way for his experiences during disintegration to be transmitted to his machine…. To create continuity between his body's death and C.O.M.P.U.T.O's subsequent hacking into the planet's universal mainframe and domination of the planet and its inhabitance.
It was Vril Dox's way of preserving his own planet before "he" went to learn everything about the universe. But before he departed. The Computer Tyrants constructed a synthetic duplicate of his own body and was programmed to behave exactly as Vril Dox 1.0. We'll call it Vril Dos 1.1. It was programmed to be a "father" to Vril Dox 2.0, but the clone saw through the disguise and ran away. Sentimental, the boy was.
Vril Dox 1.1 was then re-assigned to the board the probe sent to collect and protect all the knowledge in the universe, regardless of the cost to the life forms being collected on. Regardless of the lifeforms being collected from. At some point, the probe determined planets that were at risk of destruction in the near future, and targeted those first. That's why he came for Krypton and took the most noteworthy sample on the planet. It will incorporate a great deal of Kryptonian tech into his ship. Hence the moniker 'Brainiac.'"
As Brainiac 5's captivating story wound to a close. Kara's rocket was completed. It was… perfect and brilliant. But it looked like something that he and his wife would build together. Brainiac 5, reconstructed from memory what's to him, a historical artifact.
"Incredible. You told us today was the day Kara was sent away on this rocket, then proceeded to tell us everything important about… 'Brainiac.' But you also let us know none of this will change anything in the future."
I look at my brilliant wife, and see her head held in resignation, then my resolutely muster the wherewithal to ask, "we're not going to make it out alive are we?"
Brainiac 5 flatly responded, "No. Anything I could do to save you would be wholly unethical to implement."
Alura voice cracked as she inquired with irritation, "Then why are you here? What interest all this to you?"
Brainiac 5 then… smiled and said, with confidence, "Your daughter will make it to Earth alright. She be without a home, planet, friends, culture, and a species... she will have her cousin, though. But unlike him, she'll actually remember before Krypton before it died, and miss it dearly. She will have to build a new life, from scratch on the planet Earth. She'll be one of the most powerful girl's on the planet she lands on, and will save the planet, and others many times over from a fate similar to Krypton's. Not to mention, she'll do her own share of time traveling. I'm extremely fortunate to have met her."
"You've met our daughter… in the future?" Alura looks down and cries tears of… joy? Relief?
"So, does she grow up to be pretty?" I ask. Now Alura is chuckling in my arms as we notice…. a knowing smirk on the alien's face before he answers.
"Kara… grows up to be beautiful." I believe I now understand the alien's angle… I don't disapprove, at least from what I know. I'm dead meat anyway. Disapproval would make my final moments unnecessarily unpleasant.
"Wait a minute… Querl Dox, is it? Your ancestor sought to remove his emotions. He sought to remove his evolutionary baggage that prevented him from attaining perfect knowledge. How do you manage?"
"I have emotions. Lots of them. And despite my 12th level intellect, they can be overwhelming. However, Coluan emotions evolved after the intellect. I work in the service of the betterment of the universe, so unless something dramatic happens to my mind. Everything I do, the knowledge I gain will not be consisting of ruthless death and hording. My emotions will logically follow from that, and will not conflict with that goal."
The lights began to flicker on and off again. Screaming can be heard in the background. This pleasant moment gave way to reality.
"Great Rao, it's happening again." I rubbed my temples.
Alura called for Kara come to the lab, then…. Our new friend stepped back.
"This is where I should make my leave. Thank you for the privilege of taking part in this..."
"No, thank you, Querl… I… I think I can die more fulfilled now."
Before stepping into his transparent, spherical craft… (one none of us had noticed prior), Brainiac 5 took a long, hard look at the skull of the probe in the lab, and said, almost robotically… "She's lucky to have had a father like you. Make sure she knows that."
He stepped in his craft it closed behind him… I heard a low him, and he was gone forever.
The tremors began again…. And I took Querl Dox's advice to heart, and inscribed the following on the rocket:
"This vessel carries my daughter, Kara Zor-El from the now dead planet Krypton. Treat her as you would your own child. She will prove a treasure for your world."
Done… then Kara stepped in the room with her mother, then I pushed the button on the control panel, elevating our lab to the surface.
We were all silent. Knowing Alura, she'd have told Kara what this is all about.
The platform with the rocket made it to the surface, the air with thin. Argo City was in panick. The sound the panic carried was muted from the failing life support. Not enough hair to effectively carry the sound.
We just enjoyed each other's company as a family one last time. Tears were streaming off all our faces. But… while I was embracing Kara… it turned out the Brainiac drone we were studying had reactivated, and was moving to an attack position. Kara noticed first, and displaying strengths I've never seen, shoved me aside, grabbed the energy weapon on the counter that Alura had placed there. She opened fire on the probe… since the force shield technology was removed; the blast from the gun did what it was supposed to. My daughter had saved my life without thinking… even though she knew it was ultimately pointless. …But maybe that wasn't the point. Regardless of how much time I have left, I suppose it's never too late to find ways of expressing love for people, even if it includes destroying alien robots with energy weapons.
"Thank you for saving me. My little hero."
When Alura and Kara embraced, they just wordlessly cried. Alura was never good with expressing emotions. She's the scientist. I know as much as I do about scientific concepts from being the brother of Jor-El, but I was of the artist's guild. Something seems more… honest and pure about this expression of emotion art and poetry can be so filtered.
Kara stepped into the rocket, and I had it sent away as soon as I could…
Then Alura and I just looked at the rocket fly away for as long as we could… the light pollution from the city was next to nothing, we could see the stars an galaxy with unprecedented vividness… as our vision got blurry and the air and pressure receded to nil. The last thing we saw was the sight of our jewel flying away from Argo City, alive and well, as we looked up in the sky.
The planet Krypton was doomed.
The people of Krypton were doomed. All but a few.
Hope remains." There's always a way." El family adage.